Elizabeth Roger (Mason) Cabot, 1834-1920

Elizabeth Rogers (Mason) Cabot was born in Boston on May 25, 1834, the daughter of William Powell and Hannah (Rogers) Mason. The Masons were members of prominent Boston families. William Powell Mason had followed his father (Johnathan Mason) into a career of law and politics; her mother was a descendant of John Rogers (1630-1684), president of Harvard College, and of Governor Thomas Dudley.

In 1859, ERMC became engaged to Walter Channing Cabot (1829-1904), son of Samuel and Eliza (Perkins) Cabot; they were married on June 5, 1860. During the next twelve years, ERMC gave birth to five children, all of whom survived to adulthood. Her health was poor (she took six months to a year to recover after each pregnancy) and, as a result, she was often advised to travel. She had travelled extensively in Europe prior to her marriage and spent eighteen months there after the birth of her second child, her third child being born in Paris. When not travelling abroad, she and Walter Cabot took annual trips to New York or Washington, D.C.

Throughout her life, ERMC was concerned primarily with the well-being of her own family and secondarily with that of the Cabot and Mason families in general. She was in touch with all her husband's siblings and was particularly close to her sister-in-law "Lizzie," Elizabeth (Dwight) Cabot. (See also EDC's papers in the Schlesinger Library). ERMC died at her home in Brookline on December 12, 1920.

From the guide to the Diaries, 1859-1906, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)