Well-respected in her own time but now often overlooked, Mary Prudence Wells Smith was a children's author, feminist, and local historian. Her two most famous series, Jolly Good Times and Young Puritans, drew on her family's background and on regional history; her life and other writings demonstrated her engagement with women's rights and women's history.
Mary Prudence Wells was born in Attica, New York, on July 23, 1840, to physician Noah S. Wells (1812-1888) and Esther Nims Coleman (1816-1891). Both traced their ancestry to Puritans who emigrated in the 1630s, and both parents were originally from the Shelburne-Deerfield-Greenfield area in Massachusetts. 
Mary's brother, Thaddeus Coleman Wells, was born February 9, 1843; five years later, the family moved to Greenfield, near historic Deerfield. Both events would influence her writing. In later years, Mary recalled her father telling stories about his childhood in the region and relaying tales he had heard from Deerfield resident Asa Childs (1738-1832); Childs remembered when "Deerfield was a fort . . . enclosed by a high palisade," and boys over the age of sixteen were expected to do evening guard duty. One story that stayed with Mary for more than thirty years was of Asa "notic[ing] something over against the palisade. . . . He fired at it, and an Indian leaped up and jumped over the palisade."  Such memories, along with stories of residents captured by Indians, later provided material for her historical fiction.
Mary came from a family that valued education for boys and girls. Her mother had attended Catherine Fiske's Female Seminary in Keene, New Hampshire, an early educational institution for girls. Years later, Mary recalled the neighboring farmers' disapproval of her maternal grandfather's "extravagance in sending his daughters to boarding school." Mary and her brother also received solid educations though, predictably, their schooling differed because of gender. Mary graduated from Greenfield High School in 1858 and then spent a year at Miss Draper's Female Academy in Hartford; about 1870 or 1872, she engaged in additional study at the Philadelphia School of Design. Thaddeus attended Powers Institute, then went on to Amherst College. (He died March 14, 1865 -- perhaps of tuberculosis or consumption -- before graduating.) 
Almost a half-century later, Mary also reminisced about the "intellectual atmosphere" of the town during her youth, describing it as one that "somehow tended to make ambitious young people feel that the thing to do was to know, to read the best books, keep up . . . with the highest thought of the times." She spoke of "young folks . . . attend[ing] lectures by Emerson, Starr King, . . . Beecher, and other noted speakers" including Thackeray, and of "Dr. and Mrs. John F. Moors [her future in-laws] . . . showing pictures brought from Europe" and hosting Shakespeare readings.  All of these experiences helped enhance her education.
After matriculating from the Female Academy, Mary spent several years teaching in Greenfield and, briefly, in Wilmington, Delaware, before accepting employment at Franklin Savings Institution in either 1861 or 1864.  Biographical accounts note that she was the first woman employed by a Massachusetts bank -- and that she left the position after eight years, when the bank refused to pay her wages equal to those of her male counterparts.
It was during her time at the bank that Mary began publishing articles in local newspapers under the pseudonym P. Thorne. Although several sources state that Wells Smith's first published article was "Trials of a Tall Young Lady" in an 1858 issue of the Springfield Republican, "Trials" actually appeared on October 10, 1863. There is also some question whether "Trials" is her first piece, for in an 1875 letter, Mary indicated her earliest publication appeared in 1862. (She also explained her choice of pseudonym as "a wholly original inspiration, adopted in a spirit of reaction against the sickly sentimentalism then characterizing the nom-de-plumes of lady writers.") 
Several more short pieces