Mary M. Hurlbut (maiden name: Miller) was born on February 10, 1832, in Steuben County, New York, to Henry and Rosetta Miller. She married a man named Hurlbut, and her daughter Della was born around 1852. Her husband probably died in the 1850s, and by 1860, she was living in her parents’ household in Groton, New York. Her father died in 1861.
By August 1862, she supported emancipation. She “pray[ed] the time will soon come when peace shall be proclaimed and when the question which has so long agitated the public mind will be settled for all time. I think it can only be accomplished by an entire abolition of slavery.” She added that “it does’nt seem right not to allow the colored people to assist our soldiers in doing such labor as seems necessary.”
By 1865, she was working as a dressmaker. She married Patterson Francis in the 1870s, and they lived in McLean, New York. Her husband died on February 28, 1882. She moved to Cortland, New York, in the late 1800s, and she died there on June 18, 1902.