Born in Ludlow in 1828 and educated at Black River Academy, Abby Maria Hemenway edited the Vermont Historical Gazetteer, a five volume compilation of local history published between 1860 and 1891. For thirty years she managed her own publishing empire, collecting, editing, and printing the history of every town in Vermont, an achievement matched by no one else in the United States. Floods, fires, and chronic indebtedness delayed the work, but in the end the town histories of every Vermont county but Windsor were published. She never married, joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1864, and died in poverty in Chicago in 1890 after continuing to work to the very end.