Women in History by Christine DeGraff - I recently attended a Women's Leadership Symposium at the Salem Community College presented by the Salem County Chamber of Commerce. Hon. Gilda Gill, Salem County Clerk, was the keynote speaker at the breakfast and gave a very interesting account of several women that are a part of Salem County's history. The following is a synopsize of two of the women she told about:

Ester "Hetty" Saunders, 1793-1862

Hetty was the daughter of an escaped slave from Delaware. Together, they managed to travel across the Delaware River to Elsinboro where he sought shelter for his young daughter among the Hall family, a Quaker family. Although they refused at first, Hetty's father would not take no for an answer - he asked them to just take her for a few days and he would come back for her. They finally relented; however, Hetty's father never returned. No one knows what happened to him, although it is likely that he was captured and returned to his slave master.

Hetty was raised by the Hall family, working as a servent; Hetty eventually worked for many other Salem County households and was very well respected in the community. 

The Hall family taught Hetty how to read and write. She began to write poetry and it is suggested that she was able to say things in her poems that she would not have be able to say directly to the white families for whom she worked.

Hetty lived in Mannington for many years on "Hetty's Lane" and when she died, she was buried under the old Salem oak. Hetty was one of the first black poets in American and her poetry is exhibited at The Smithsonian.

Cornelia Hancock, 1839 - 1926

Cornelia Hancock, a Quaker, was born in Salem County and was the great-grandaugther of Judge William Hancock who was massacred on the attack of the Hancock House on March 21, 1778. During the American Civil War, Cornelia applied to volunteer as a nurse to help the wounded. She was turned down as she was judged to be too young at the age of only 23.

Cornelia decided not to take no for an answer and she went on her own accord. She arrived at the Gettysburg Battlefield and was witness to the largest number of casualties in the Civil War, with over 51,000 in only 3 days.

Cornelia nursed the injured and infirmed of the Union Army. Although she did not believe in drinking and smoking, she concocted shots of whisky and milk and rolled cigarettes to give the men to help the pain. She held them while they died, listened to their prayers and took messages to deliver to their families. Legs were amputated right on the battlefield - with a saw - and Cornelia was there to hold the men down. A letter written by Cornelia on the battlefield to her sister recounts that it took 300 surgeons roughly 5 days to perform all of the amputations that occurred at that battle site.

President Lincoln invited Cornelia as a special guest while he delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863.

In 1864, Cornelia traveled to Virginia to help aid injured Federal soldiers. After the war, she opened a school for African Americans in South Carolina. She eventually returned to the north and founded several charity organizations in Philadelphia.

Cornelia's collection of wartime letters is still in print: Letters of a Civil War Nurse: Cornelia Hancock, 1863-1865