The winter of 1804-5 was unusually severe:  the river Hudson was shut by frost as early as November; fuel was consequently scarce and dear, and the poor suffered greatly.  Mrs. Graham visited those parts of the city where the poorer class of sufferers dwelt;* in upwards of two hundred families she either found a Bible their property, or gave them one; praying with them in their affliction.  She requested a friend to write, first one religious tract and then another, suited to the peculiar situation of those afflicted people.  One was called, “A Donation to Poor Widows with Small Children;” the other, “A Second Visit to Poor Widows with Small Children.”  And lest it might be said it was cheap to give advice, she usually gave a small sum of money along with the tracts she distributed.  There was at this time neither a Bible nor Tract Society in New York.  Mrs. Hoffman accompanied her in many of her excursions.  In the course of their visits, they discovered a French family from St. Domingo in such extremity of distress as made them judge it necessary to report their case to the Honorable Dewitt Clinton, then mayor of the city.  The situation of this family being made public, three hundred dollars were voluntarily contributed for their relief.  Roused by this incident, a public meeting was called at the Tontine Coffee-house, and committees from the different wards were appointed to aid the corporation in ascertaining and supplying the immediate wants of the suffering poor.  The zeal of Mrs. Graham and Mrs. Hoffman paved the way for this public-spirited exertion, which probably was the means of saving the lives of some of the destitute and friendless.

The following notice of these scenes appeared in one of the periodical publications of the day: 

   “When sorrow shrunk before the piercing wind,

And famine, shelterless, in suffering pined;
When sickness drooped in solitary pain,
Mid varying misery’s relentless reign;
Oh, then tumultuous rose the plaints of grief,
And loud and strong the clamors for relief! 
Then active charity, with boundless care,
From gloomy faces chased the fiend Despair,
Dispelled the horrors of the wintry day,
And none that asked went unrelieved away. 

      “Yet there are some who sorrow’s vigils keep,

Unknown that languish, undistinguished weep;
Behold yon ruined building’s shattered walls,
Where drifting snow through many a crevice falls;
Whose smokeless vent no blazing fuel knows,
But drear and cold the widow’s mansion shows;
Her fragile form, by sickness deeply riven,
Too weak to face the driving blasts of heaven,
Her voice too faint to reach some pitying ear,
Her shivering babes command her anguished tear: 
Their feeble cries in vain assistance crave,
And expectation ‘points but to the grave.’ 

      “But lo, with hasty step a female form

Glides through the wind and braves the