Elizabeth James Hamersley

Elizabeth James Hamersley was born on October 31, 1830, the eldest daughter of William James and Laura Sophia (Cooke) Hamersley. She was a Sunday school teacher for the Young Men's City Missionary Society, at its Morgan Street Mission School, and was well acquainted with David Hawley, Hartford's City Missionary, and Henry Clay Trumbull, the Congregationalist minister. The Missionary Society, and the various Sunday schools associated with it, ministered to the poor and recent immigrants to Hartford.

In 1860, Hamersley, along with Alice and Mary Goodwin and Louisa Bushnell, formed the Dashaway Club* in Hartford, which operated out of the building at Front and Morgan Streets that housed the Morgan Street Mission. The Dashaway Club's purpose was to keep boys off the street and provide them with productive activities. The Club's attendance dwindled considerably with the start of the Civil War, and eventually disbanded.

Hamersley continued serving charitable organizations throughout her life. Upon her death in 1898, she was a member of the executive committee of the Union for Home Work, the childcare organization founded by Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, and had been for twenty-five years.

* The Dashaway Club's mission was renewed in 1867 with the creation of the Sixth Ward Temperance Society, and later the Good Will Club (started by Mary Hall in 1880). The Good Will Club's model proved so popular that it was adopted by other cities, and in 1906 these disparate organizations became the Federated Boys Club and eventually, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.