Harriet Francoeur Nevins was an American philanthropist and animal welfare advocate born in Roxbury, Massachusetts.
14 Facts About Harriet Nevins
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Harriet Nevins died November 14,1929, at her home in Methuen, Massachusetts.
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Harriet Nevins' father, George Blackburn, was born in Bradford, England, there he learned the trade of mill machining.
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Harriet Nevins worked at the mills in Webster, Massachusetts, and in the Fitchburg Duck Mills.
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Harriet Nevins married Nancy Hill Bugbee of Wrentham and they had three children: George, William Henry, and Harriet.
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Shortly afterward Harriet Nevins moved to the family farm in Methuen, which sister-in-law, Julia Du Gay, had left after her husband Henry Nevin's death in 1892.
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Mrs Harriet Nevins spent the next thirty years socially active and involved with many organizations, donating to worthy causes such as the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Boston Children's Mission and the International Association of Rebekah Assemblies.
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On November 14,1929, at 88 Harriet Nevins died quietly at her home in Methuen, Massachusetts, after a lengthy illness, the last twelve months almost entirely at her estate.
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Harriet Nevins left $2,500 to both towns of Methuen and Walpole to fund the construction of fountains for horses and dogs; the bowl of the Methuen fountain remains in the Methuen Square and is used as a planter and the Walpole fountain is dry but still stands on School Street opposite the old Stone School.
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Long active with the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in 1916 Mrs Harriet Nevins commissioned and donated a specially designed motorized horse ambulance.
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In 1917, Harriet Nevins donated the rolling pastures of her farm to the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals so that it could be used as a rest home for horses and other unwanted or abandoned animals.
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For many years Mrs Harriet Nevins was the chairman of the Library's Board of Trustees, repeatedly giving gifts of funds to expand the collection.
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The public spirit and generosity of the Harriet Nevins family seems to have no bounds in the town in which they made their home.
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In 1917 Mrs Harriet Nevins purchased the house next to the library at 299 Broadway which had been assessed at $500; she transferred the house and land to the Harriet Nevins Memorial Library the following year.