The only daughter of Portsmouth, NH, lobster boat owner, Harold Sampson, and Edna Wilkinson Sampson, was born Eleanor Christine in February of 1852. Just one year later, her mother Edna drowned at the tragic age of 28, somewhere between a shore near the Sampson home and an island 200 yards off the coast which her husband purchased for her as a wedding present. Mr. Sampson closed the island immediately following, having blamed it for the death of his wife, who enjoyed swimming to and from both shores each morning. Eleanor herself was known for her sometimes extreme secrecy and, by some accounts, had never even left the Sampson mansion until she was of the age of 15. If there were any truth to such a claim, however, all causes would be attributed to her father who was known to protect his daughter with utmost paranoia after his wife’s death; having been known to lock her away as she waited at home for him until the evening when the day’s catches had been counted. Whether the accounts of her reclusion are founded or not, it is a fact she never received education in a school room. To reconcile never enrolling his daughter in school, Mr. Sampson encouraged her to read with vigor and gifted to her a library, which became one of the most renowned private libraries in all of New England. Upon Eleanor’s death, the accumulated volumes, totaling over 12,000, were donated by Eleanor’s children to the newly founded Bryn Mawr College. The institution subsequently named a small corridor in the west wing of the Canaday Library the Eleanor Sampson Reading Room.