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Hannah Tatum Whitall

Hannah Tatum Whitall

Female 1832 - 1911  (79 years)    Has 12 ancestors and 3 descendants in this family tree.

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  • Name Hannah Tatum Whitall 
    Birth 07 Feb 1832 
    Gender Female 
    Death 01 May 1911 
    Person ID I679487  Geneagraphie
    Last Modified 24 Jul 2010 

    Father John Mickle Whitall,   b. 1800, Woodbury, Gloucester, New Jersey, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 1877 (Age 77 years) 
    Mother Mary Tatum 
    Marriage 11 May 1830  Woodbury Friends Meeting Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F299449  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Robert Pearsall Smith,   b. 1827   d. 1899 (Age 72 years) 
    Marriage 11 May 1851 
    Children 
     1. Alys Pearsall Smith,   b. 1867, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 22 Jan 1951 (Age 84 years)
     2. Logan Pearsall Smith
     3. Mary Smith
    Family ID F299445  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 24 Jul 2010 

  • Notes 
    • Born in Philadelphia, Smith was from a long line of prominent and influential Quakers in New Jersey. Hannah Tatum Whitall was the daughter of John Mickle Whitall and Mary Tatum Whitall. Her most famous ancestor was Ann Cooper Whitall.

      On November 5, 1851 Hannah married Robert Pearsall Smith, a man who also descended from a long line of prominent Quakers in the region. The Smiths settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania. They left the Quakers in 1858 after undergoing a Christian conversion [1].The Smiths were highly influenced firstly by the Plymouth Brethren, and then by the Methodist revivalists. They adopted the Wesleyan doctrine of sanctification. They were also influenced by William E. Boardman, who wrote The Higher Christian Life (1858).

      From 1864 to 1868 Robert and Hannah Smith lived in Millville, New Jersey. Robert managed Hannah?s father?s business, the Whitall, Tatum & Company glass factories.

      William Boardman apparently groomed Robert and Hannah Smith to join the Holiness movement as speakers. From 1873?1874 they spoke at various places in England, including Oxford, teaching on the subjects of the "higher life" and "holiness." In 1874 Hannah helped found the Women?s Christian Temperance Union. That same year the Smiths traveled to the German Empire and Switzerland, where they preached in several major cities. In 1875, they returned to England and conducted meetings in Brighton. Due to a sexual scandal involving Robert, their visit to England came to an abrupt halt, with Hannah never becoming totally reconciled with her husband thereafter.

      In 1888, the Smith family moved to England because their daughter Mary married an English barrister, Frank Costelloe. They eventually divorced, and Mary then married the critic Bernard Berenson. It was in England that Alys Pearsall Smith met and married the philosopher Bertrand Russell. Logan Pearsall Smith became an essayist and critic.

      Hannah Whitall Smith had seven children in all, but only three?Mary, Alys Pearsall, and Logan Pearsall?survived to adulthood. Her niece, Martha Carey Thomas was the first female dean of any college in America and an active Suffragist.

      Hannah Whitall Smith died in England in 1911.
      [edit] Writings and legacy

      Hannah Whitall Smith?s book The Christian?s Secret of a Happy Life (1875) is an extremely popular book of Christian principles and practical Holiness theology. It is still widely read today. She wrote her spiritual autobiography, The Unselfishness of God And How I Discovered It, in 1903. Many publications of that book omit the three chapters which explain how she became a Christian universalist



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