She wrote for the Louisville Journal, The Ladies' Repository, The Genius of the West, Arthur's Home Gazette, the Odd-Fellow's Ark, and other papers and magazines.
[3] Mary Louisa Chitwood was born on October 29, 1832, on a farm near the village of Mount Carmel, Franklin County, Indiana.
[citation needed] Both her prose and poetry carry a strain of sadness that conveys the idea that there was something she longed for but never received.
She had strong convictions on slavery and it has been said that the poem written just before her death in 1855, “Ode to the New Year,” found its way into every abolition paper in England and America.
Her poems were reprinted widely throughout the US in the papers, some appeared in various school readers, some were set to music, and hundreds were recited from the platform and pulpit.