Martha Ann Fish was born on March 13, 1841, in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, to John B. Fish and Mary H. Barrett. Her father was an iron founder. The family lived in Lowell, Massachusetts, until the 1850s, when they moved to Manchester, New Hampshire. They moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the 1860s, and by 1870, she was working in a rubber factory. Her father died on October 25, 1875, and she remained in her mother’s household until at least 1880. By 1880, she was working as a seamstress. She died of heart disease in Arlington, Massachusetts, on April 5, 1893.