Nancy Amelia Woodbury Priest Wakefield

She was born at Royalston, Massachusetts, in 1836. She worked in a mill in New Hampshire for several years.^[2] Her fame rests upon the popular poem, "Over the River", published in the Springfield Republican in 1857. According to some accounts, she wrote the first draft of the poem while at work in the mill.^[2][3]

In 1865, she was married to Lieut. Arlington C. Wakefield. She died at Winchendon, Massachusetts, in 1870,^[4] leaving behind her husband and three children, one only an infant.

Her poems were published 13 years after her death by her mother, Mrs. Francis D. Priest, with a memoir by the Rev. Abijah Perkins Marvin (Boston, 1883).

• 1883, Over the River: And Other Poems^[5]

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John (1889). Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography (Public domain ed.). D. Appleton. p. 318.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Puy, William Harrison De (1896). The university of literature ...: a cyclopædia of universal literature, presenting in alphabetical arrangement the biography, together with critical reviews and extracts, of eminent writers of all lands and all ages (Public domain ed.). J.S. Barcus.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Wakefield, Nancy Amelia Woodbury Priest (1883). Over the River: And Other Poems (Public domain ed.). Lee and Shepard. p. 1.