Ann Phillips, wife of Wendell Phillips, died at her residence, No. 37 Common Street, Boston, on the evening of Saturday, April 24, 1886, after an invalidism which had kept her closely confined to her house for the greater part of fifty years.
She was born in Boston on the 19th of November, 1813, and was a daughter of the late Benjamin Greene, of this city, and Mary Grew (from Birmingham, England), his wife. They both died in middle life, leaving a large family of young children, of whom Mrs. Phillips was the last survivor.
Soon after the death of her parents she was received as a daughter into the family of her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Chapman, then living in Chauncy Place, near Summer Street; and when, in the year 1834, the entire Chapman family espoused the despised and unpopular cause of the slave, and allied themselves with Mr. Garrison and his little band of adherents, this beautiful and interesting young girl ardently sympathized with them, and threw herself heart and soul into the movement. Her zeal and enthusiasm were unflagging, and if her uncertain health prevented her taking so conspicuous a part as some others, she was nevertheless a most valuable and valued ally, clear-sighted, wise in counsel, brave and hopeful in the darkest hours. In social circles her brightness, vivacity, and ready conversational powers made her a general favorite, and she improved every opportunity to present and urge the arguments of the Abolitionists, and to convert the hostile and the timid who would consent to listen to them. It was not surprising, therefore, that when Wendell Phillips, whose interest in the anti-slavery movement had been awakened by Mrs. Child's "Appeal," and strengthened by the sight of the Garrison Mob, met Miss Greene, he was soon convinced by her fervid appeals that the cause demanded not merely sympathy and occasional help from him, but a life-long consecration, to the exclusion of all worldly considerations; and it was equally natural that he found the personal charms of a young lady inspired and fairly aglow with such high moral themes, irresistible. The same year (1836) that witnessed his engagement to Ann Greene was marked by his first speech on an antislavery platform, at Lynn, Mass., and it was shortly after their marriage in the following year that he made that brilliant speech at the Lovejoy meeting in Faneuil Hall, which placed him at once in the first rank of orators, and from which his public career properly dates..........
Source: Ann Phillips, Wife of Wendell Phillips, A Memorial Sketch, by Francis Jackson Garrison, printed for private circulation, Boston, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1886; 24 pages; Pgs. 3-4
