(SECOND PRESIDENT)

Maria Hyde was born in Oxford, Chenango County, New York, and was educated at the Oxford Academy, now the oldest incorporated academy in this state, having in June last celebrated its centennial. Born and reared in an eminently high spiritual and intellectual atmosphere, she was well qualified for the positions which she filled so acceptably. She was preceptress in the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, at Lima, New York, associate principal of the Seneca Collegiate Institute, also of the Binghamton Academy, and was afterward preceptress of Oxford Academy until her marriage with Rev. F.G. Hibbard, D.D., of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Mrs. Hibbard was elected president of the State Woman's Christian Temperance Union at Poughkeepsie in 1879, which office she filled for three years, serving most faithfully and laying down the work only because of the press of home duties. These years were years of peace and harmony, and in giving of self to the cause she was also receiving a blessedness in return. It was during these busy years that she organized temperance work among the Indians on the reservation in Western New York. She has many gifts and graces, and has kept even pace with her husband (who is the author of several theological works of standing authority) in both literary and spiritual attainments, and "her gifts make room for her." She has been obliged to lay aside all public work and devote herself to caring for her husband, whose ill health demands most of her time, but she still gives her sympathies and her prayers to and for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union—the workers and the work.