Esther Harding (1790-1875) kept house for Consider Dickinson of Deerfield, Massachusetts, before she married him in 1840. Consider, a Revolutionary War veteran, was thirty years older than Esther. They had no children and they agreed that his estate should be used to forward the education and intellectual enlightenment of the residents of Deerfield. Esther died in 1875, and followed her deceased husband’s wishes by bequeathing a sizable sum in her will for the establishment of a public high school and library for the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts.