Miriam Davis Colt
(1815–1900)

The twelfth of 17 children, Miriam Davis Colt was born in Essex County, New York. She survived a premature birth and was too frail and small to attend school as a young child. Poor health prevented her from attending school on a long-term basis throughout her childhood, but she learned to read from her older siblings.

Despite her inconsistent schooling as a child, Colt dreamed of being a teacher. When she was 16, she went back to school, and two years later she was offered a teaching position in one of the districts in her town. When she was 21, she and her family moved to St. Lawrence County, New York, where she continued to go to school and teach for several years. She then married William H. Colt and moved to Montreal, where her husband taught at an academy. She gave birth to her daughter, Miriam, in Montreal. Eventually, they moved back to St. Lawrence county, where they had their second child, William, Jr.

In 1856, Colt set off on a journey with her husband and children across the United States to become part of a newly organized community in Kansas. The community was called a "Vegetarian City" because the people in this settlement agreed to abstain from eating meat. Colt and her husband expected that the money they sent in advance of the trip would be used to start building the settlement. However, by the time they arrived in the new community in Kansas after their long journey, they found no proper lodging and no mills built. Throughout her journey and upon arrival, she kept diary entries of her experiences and feelings.

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