Dr. Smith's Grave

Dr. Susan Smith was born in England but was trained for her medical career at Philadelphia. It was here in 1868 that she became aware of the case of Hester Vaughan, a poor young woman, also from England, who had been sentenced to die for infanticide. After visiting Vaughan in prison, Dr. Smith wrote to the Governor of Pennsylvania with this statement:

"[Vaughan] rented a third story room... from a family who understood very little English. She furnished this room, found herself in food and fuel for three months on twenty dollars. She was taken sick in this room at midnight on the sixth of February and lingered until Saturday morning, the eighth, when her child was born, she told me she was nearly frozen and fainted or went to sleep for a long time. You will please remember, sir, throughout this period of agony she was alone, without nourishment or fire, with her door unfastened. My professional opinion in Hester Vaughan's case is that cold and want of attention produced painful and protracted labor --that the mother, in endeavoring to assist herself, injured the head of her child in its birth --that she either fainted or had a convulsion, and was insensible for a long time."

Having no success with the Governor, Smith brought the matter to Nationally known feminists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and by way of their campaigning, Hester Vaughan was pardoned and returned to England.

I found this grave a few years ago and the inscription made me curious. There is little information as yet about the doctor herself before and after the Vaughan case, and her grave was unknown to anyone on the planet before I spotted it. THIS makes me smile!