Tabor Academy - Fore n Aft Yearbook (Marion, MA)

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ELIZABETH SPRAGUE TABER N August 22nd, 1791 in Rochester, Massachusetts, which then included Sippican, later Marion, Elizabeth Sprague Pitcher was born. - Her par- ents were extremely poor: and tasks began early for this only daughter of the house although she had live brothers, two of whom later became famous sea captains and another, a large plantation owner of the South. At the tender age of fourteen she began teaching in a small school which was built' at the lower end of Main Street. She was a woman of high principles and morals: and, although her teachings were very strict and stern, her pupils have often remarked in their after-lives that they were valued very highly. Later in life she married Stephen Taber who afterwards became one of New Bedford's leading whaling ship owners. By this marriage she had three children, but all of them died under Hve years of age. In 1862 her husband died at the age of eighty-five years. Now she was both childless and husbandless, so she turned again to her old work of education. She erected the Library some ten years after her husband's death, and some time later she conceived the idea of an academy and founded Tabor in 1876. It was her request that the word be given the Biblical spelling, Tabor. After the main building of the Academy was built, she had Tabor Hall erected for the principal and his family, and a suite for her own use. She gave Union Hall and the Congregational Chapel to the town of Marion, and in 1888 she died at the good old age of ninety-seven years. She also left money with which the Town Hall, in 1890, and the Music Hall, in 1891, were erected. In her will she left to Marion a village improvement fund and endowments for all of the buildings which she had had built, to keep them going indefinitely. V Since Mrs. Taber outlived all of her brothers and as not one of them, peculiar as it may seem, had a child who lived to be more than five years of age, all the wealth of the whole family came to her. Her husband was very wealthy: and a brother, Theophilus, a plantation owner, who was killed by one of his slaves left her his property. In addition to this she inherited the fortunes of her two sea-captain brothers, James Scott and John. We, who have attended Tabor or lived in Marion, owe a great deal to this stately old lady. She did not seem to care so much for luxury as for the welfare and education of humanity. May we always remember her with respect.

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MRS. ELIZABETH SPRAGUE TABER

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M The EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE jf' fha BOARD OF TRUSTEES TAEBOR ACADEMY fwwmum