Lucy Say's Early Life & Marriage
Lucy Way Sistare was born in 1801 in New London, Connecticut, one of ten children of Quakers Joseph and Nancy Way Sistare. Around 1823 she went to Philadelphia to become a teaching apprentice at an experimental school for girls. There she was taught to draw by prominent artists Charles Alexandre Lesueur (1778-1846) and John James Audubon (1785-1851).
While in Philadelphia Lucy became acquainted with many naturalists, including some of the men who founded the Academy of Natural Sciences in 1812. She eventually became involved in the plans of several Academy members, including Lesueur and Thomas Say (1787-1834), to establish a utopian socialist community called New Harmony along the Wabash River in Indiana. Lucy joined them during the cold winter of 1825-1826 as they made their way down the Ohio River from Pittsburg toward New Harmony on a keelboat known as the “Boatload of Knowledge.”
During the voyage she came to know Thomas Say and they married in 1827. Like Lucy, Thomas Say was an avid naturalist. He was one of the founders of the Academy of Natural Sciences, curator of the American Philosophical Society, and professor of natural history at the University of Pennsylvania. The couple lived in New Harmony until 1834.
