Mary Bonney

[1] She is considered to be the most important woman in the Native American movement to protect their tribal lands.

In collaboration with Amelia Stone Quinton, Bonney founded the Women's National Indian Association, which worked initially to defend Native American land rights against settler encroachment.

She was the granddaughter of Benjamin Bonney and of Abel Wilder, both of Chesterfield, Massachusetts, and both soldiers in the American Revolutionary War.

[4] After her parents started her education at Ladies Academy in Hamilton, New York, she transferred to the Emma Willard School in Troy.

After two years at Emma Willard School, Bonney graduated in 1835 and began her teaching career.

Next she moved to New York City, where she became the principal of academy in De Ruyter, before she took a temporary teaching spot at her alma mater.

To accommodate the growth, in 1883 Bonney leased the Ogontz Estate, former home of banker Jay Cooke, in suburban Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania, for $15,000 annually.

Ownership changed hands and, in 1916 owner and president, Abby A. Sutherland, purchased a 54-acre plot for the school in Rydal, Pennsylvania, in Abington Township about eight miles from Philadelphia.

In 1878 Congress proposed to take away land reserved under treaties to tribes that had been removed to Indian Territory.

In 1888, she married Reverend Thomas Rambaut, whom she had met 40 years before while teaching in Robertville, South Carolina.