# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Shindler, Mary B.

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SHINDLER, MARY B.,
Was born on the 16th. of February, 1810, in Beaufort, South Carolina, where her father, the Rev. B. M. Palmer, was pastor of an Independent, or Congregational church. When she was about three years old, her father removed to Charleston, South Carolina, his native place, where he remained for the succeeding twenty-five years. Here Miss Palmer enjoyed the best advantages of education, being placed at an early age under the care of the Misses Ramsay, daughters of the historian; and sent, when she became old enough, to some of the best northern schools. Her poetical talents were very early developed, her first piece of poetry having been written at the age often; soon after her final return from school, some of her productions fell into the hands of a friend, who showed them to Mrs. Gilman, at that time editress of the juvenile periodical called the "Rose-Bud;" she inserted these poems, and encouraged Miss Palmer to write; but it was not till years after, when she had drunk deeply of the bitter waters of affliction, that her heart poured out its sorrows through her pen.
In June, 1836, Miss Palmer was married to Mr. Charles E. Dana, and in 1837, he, with his family, consisting of his wife and child, a boy of about two years of age, removed to Bloomington, Iowa. Here the husband and child died' within two days of each other, and Mrs. Dana was left alone in a land of strangers. ]n October of the same year she returned to her parents; and it was during her residence with them that the greater part of her works was written. These were composed, not with any view to publication, hut as she herself says in one of her letters, "Burning thoughts were struggling within my breast, and I must give them utterance. My friends encouraged me to write, because they thought that the expression of my grief would relieve me, and so, in truth, it did. But when I had accumulated a mass of manuscripts, they urged ​me to their publication, giving as a reason, that what had comforted me in my sore extremity, might comfort other afflicted ones, and it was with this hope and this idea that I first appeared before the public."
In 1840, Mrs. Dana's first work, "The Southern Harp," was published by Parker and Ditson, of Boston, and met with the greatest success; in 1841, she published a volume called "The Parted Family, and other poems;" and also "The Northern Harp." All of the works passed through several editions. In 1843. she published "Charles Morton, or the Young Patriot, a tale of the American Revolution;" and during the next two or three years, two prose ]] tales written for seamen, one called "[[The Young Sailor," and the other "Forecastle Tom." In 1845, her largest prose work, entitled "Letters to Relatives and Friends" etc., was published in Boston.
Soon after her return home, Mrs. Dana removed with her parents to Orangeburg, a village about eighty miles from Charleston. Here her parents both died, in the summer of 1847, while she was absent on a tour to the North, undertaken on account of her health. Mrs. Dana, however, still continued to reside there, and in May, 1848, she was married to the Rev. Robert D. Shindler, a clergyman of the Episcopal Church, to which church she was united some months after her marriage. In 1850, Mr. and Mrs. Shindler removed to Marlborough, Maryland, where they are at present residing.