BOONSBORO- “Thoughts of Female Suffrage: and in true vindication of woman’s true rights”, “Democracy, an American novel”, “South Mountain Magic”, and “The Woodley Land Ghost, and other stories” are just a few of the book titles that came from the brilliant mind of writer and anti-suffragist, Madeleine Dahlgren.
Sarah Madeleine Vinton was born on July 13, 1825, in Gallipolis, Ohio. She was the daughter of Whig Congressman Samuel Finley Vinton (1792-1862) and his wife, Romaine Madeleine Bureau (1802-1831). When she was just six years old her mother and her brother both died leaving her to be raised by her father from which she gained the strong will which would later define her adult life.
Madeleine was well educated having attended a boarding school in Philadelphia and then attended the Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School for Girls located in Washington D.C. She spent most of her formative years as hostess in the Vinton home entertaining politicians, military men, and other guests of her well-known father.
In 1846, she met Daniel Convers Goddard, who was the first assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior. They married and had two children, a son, Vinton Augustine and a daughter, Romaine. Goddard died in 1849 leaving Madeleine a widow and a mother who had to raise her two young children alone. By all accounts she took on the challenge and raised her children well. Another arrow in the quiver of strength that Madeleine wore proudly.
When her children reached their teenage years and were building their futures, Madeleine met Admiral John A. Dahlgren, a legendary naval officer who has been credited with revisioning the ordnance structure of the U.S. Military. They were married in the summer of 1865, and Madeleine would bear three more children, John Vinton (1868-1899), Eric Bernard (1866-1922), and Utica Mary Madeleine (1866-1925).
By the time Madeleine had met her second husband, her writing career had already begun. In 1859, under the pen name “Corinne” she began writing for a local news column where she would get her prose and poetry published. Later that year, her first complete work was published called, “Idealities.”
Her writing captured not just the attention of the people of Washington D.C., but from many around the world including Pope Pius IX who sent her a letter, the Queen of Spain, and President James Garfield. She would also pen the biography of her husband John called “Biography of Admiral Dahlgren.”
Quite possibly her most popular work was the book, “South Mountain Magic” published in 1882. By this time, Madeleine had moved to South Mountain in Boonsboro. The book was about the strange and unusual history on South Mountain, particularly of a paranormal nature. Her husband had passed away in July of 1870, and her children had built lives of their own. The strong and steady Madeleine was living on her own, a woman and her writing.
Her published works offered up many other opportunities to Madeleine. She was co-founder and vice president of the Literary Society of Washington which was formed in 1874. She also took the opportunity her success brought and spoke out against woman suffrage, a cause that meant a great deal to Madeleine. As a woman who faced many hardships in her life; raised in a political home without her birth mother, losing both of her husband’s early in their marriages and facing the challenges of raising her children alone, and becoming a self-made businesswoman and having a successful writing career. She was living proof that there wasn’t anything an independent woman could not do, why shouldn’t she have the right to vote.
In 1869, she started the Anti-Sixteenth Amendment Society to stand up for women’s rights. Sadly, Madeleine wouldn’t live long enough to see her hard work come to fruition. The right to vote did not come to women until 1920, by that time, Madeleine had been gone for over twenty years, she passed away in her home on South Mountain on May 28, 1898. Madeleine Dahlgren was a woman ahead of her time. She was a wonderful mother, a great writer, and a visionary all at a time when strong willed women were not held in high regard. If you travel to Boonsboro you can still feel the spirit of Madeleine everywhere you turn. You can see her beautiful home on the mountain and visit her grave in nearby Poplar Springs. A legacy captured in time and voice that is still heard to this day.
