Born 5 July 1839 in Cornwall-on-Hudson, Orange County, New York.[1] Daughter of David Johnston and Letitia Clark.[2] Attended boarding school and public schools near her home in Plattekill, Ulster County, New York.[3] Taught school, 1858–1867.[4] Toured New England asylums, prisons, and Sunday schools with Quaker minister Hannah Fry, 1867.[5] Married Moses Bailey, 13 October 1868, in Plattekill; one child.[6] Settled in Winthrop, Kennebec County, Maine.[7] Active participant in the Society of Friends (Quaker organization).[8] Husband died, 1882; wrote a biography of his life, Reminiscences of a Christian Life.[9] After her husband’s death, worked as pacifist, temperance leader, and suffragist, acting as superintendent of the department of peace and arbitration for the national Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 1887–1916; president of the Maine Woman Suffrage Association, 1891–1897; member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association; and treasurer of the National Council of Women of the United States, 1895–1899.[10] Met and corresponded with Emmeline B. Wells regarding paying dues and writing pamphlets on peace.[11] Died 23 October 1923 in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine.[12]
[1] Frank L. Byrne, “Bailey, Hannah Clark Johnston,” in Edward T. James, ed., Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), 1:83–84; U.S. Passport Applications, 1795–1925, microfilm 1513966, volume 918, 1–6 June 1900, 26 May 1900, no. 26555, FamilySearch Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.
[2] Byrne, “Bailey, Hannah Clark Johnston,” in James, Notable American Women, 1:84; “Leading Worker of W. C. T. U. Dies,” Boston Herald, 25 Oct. 1923, 11.
[3] Byrne, “Bailey, Hannah Clark Johnston,” in James, Notable American Women, 1:84; “Bailey, Hannah J.,” in The National Cyclopædia of American Biography [. . .], vol. 10 (James T. White, 1900), 421; H. H. J., “Hannah J. Bailey,” in Julia Ward Howe, ed., New England Library of Popular Biographies: This Volume Contains Sketches of Representative Women of New England [. . .] (New England Historical Publishing, 1904), 365.
[4] “Bailey, Mrs. Hannah J.,” in Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore, eds., A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-Seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Charles Wells Moulton, 1893), 44.
[5] John M. Craig, “Hannah Johnston Bailey: Publicist for Peace,” Quaker History 84, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 5–6; Byrne, “Bailey, Hannah Clark Johnston,” in James, Notable American Women, 1:84.
[6] Byrne, “Bailey, Hannah Clark Johnston,” in James, Notable American Women, 1:84; “Moses Melvin Bailey,” in Biographical Review: This Volume Contains Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens of Cumberland County Maine (Biographical Review Publishing, 1896), 500.
[7] 1870 U.S. Census, Winthrop, Kennebec Co., ME, p. 7; 1910 U.S. Census, Winthrop, Kennebec Co., ME, enumeration dist. 132, p. 6B.
[8] “Bailey, Mrs. Hannah J.,” in Willard and Livermore, Woman of the Century, 44; Minutes of the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England, 1905 (Southworth Brothers, 1905), 44, 48, 64–65, 84, 86–89, 91, 95.
[9] “Moses Melvin Bailey,” in Biographical Review, 500; H. J. Bailey, Reminiscences of a Christian Life (Hoyt, Fogg & Donham, 1884), 341.
[10] Byrne, “Bailey, Hannah Clark Johnston,” in James, Notable American Women, 1:84; Shannon M. Risk, “‘In Order to Establish Justice’: The Nineteenth-Century Woman Suffrage Movements of Maine and New Brunswick” (PhD diss., University of Maine, 2009), 93, 149–150, 153; Craig, “Hannah Johnston Bailey,” 7–14; Harriet Taylor Upton, ed., Proceedings of the Forty-First Annual Convention of the Nation-American Woman Suffrage Association, Held at Seattle, Wash., July 1st to 6th 1909 (National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1909), 140.
[11] Emmeline B. Wells, Diary, 4 Mar. 1895; 24 Nov. 1897; 7 Dec. 1897; 29 Oct. 1899; 29 Jan. 1900; 2 Mar. 1900, Diaries of Emmeline B. Wells, Church Historian’s Press, churchhistorianspress.org/emmeline-b-wells.
[12] “Hannah Clark Johnston Bailey,” Lakeview Cemetery, Winthrop, Kennebec Co., ME, Memorial ID 83040479, Find a Grave Index, accessed 4 Jan. 2025, http://findagrave.com; “Leading Worker of W. C. T. U. Dies,” 11; Byrne, “Bailey, Hannah Clark Johnston,” in James, Notable American Women, 1:84.