Laura E. Richards (1850-1943), one of Gardiner's two Pulitzer Prize-winning authors (the other was Edwin Arlington Robinson--see the cache called Tilbury Town), was born in Boston to eminent parents, Dr. Samuel Howe, founder of the Perkins School for the Blind; and Julia Ward Howe, social reformer and lyricist of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." In 1871, she married Henry Richards (1848-1949), architect and industrialist, who returned to Gardiner, Maine in 1876 to manage the family paper mills.
In Gardiner she wrote more than 90 works, mostly in the fields of children's literature and biography, at the family's celebrated residence known by locals as "the yellow house." Following the example of her parents, Mrs. Richards brought about social reforms and civic improvements in Gardiner including the introduction of safe drinking water, the hospital, a new high school, and numerous service organizations, including the Gardiner Public Library.
Her permanent contribution to world literature was that of nonsense verses, including perennial favorites such as "Little John Bottlejohn," "Eletelephony," and "The Poor Unfortunate Hottentot" - verses which "seemed to bubble up from some spring of nonsense" in her own words. One of her best sellers was Captain January (1890), and it was twice made into movies, the second time starring Shirley Temple.
(History adapted from www.gpl.lib.me.us)