Mary Elizabeth Johnson Lord was a prominent Buffalo matron well into her 50s who liked to drive around town in a tiny cart drawn by two very small Shetland ponies, when, one day, she dug her heels in on behalf of all the animals in the region. “Kind to all animals herself, it pained her to see them abused,” as one local newspaper put it. Now, more than a century and a half later, if they could, they’d still be thanking her.
Johnson Lord founded the Buffalo Organization for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1867—the second animal welfare organization in North America, today known as the Erie County SPCA. The daughter of Dr. Ebenezer Johnson, the first mayor of Buffalo, and wife of Dr. John C. Lord, a lawyer turned minister, Johnson Lord was well known for her love of children (she helped found the Buffalo Orphans Asylum) and of animals. At one point, she had 14 dogs, all strays taken in from the street. With such a prominent pedigree, she also had clout... and plenty of backbone.
That latter quality was very much in evidence one day in 1866, as she drove down to the Buffalo waterfront---an extremely busy district in those days, with the constant loading, unloading, and transport of goods among lake freighters, canal boats, railroad cars, and horse-drawn drays. Horses, often thought of as mere beasts of burden, were frequently driven hard with little concern for their welfare. According to a contemporary newspaper account, Johnson Lord encountered such a situation at the wharfside; specifically, a teamster driving his horse so inhumanely that it caused her to intervene on its behalf... the scene we’ve dramatized here.
The standoff lasted two hours, but in the end, Johnson Lord prevailed: the teamster relented and got another horse. Soon after, Johnson Lord, working with Henry Bergh, founder of the first SPCA in North America, just set up in New York City, helped get the former US president, Millard Fillmore, to serve on the board of a Buffalo chapter. By 1867, it was up and running, and soon more chapters were springing up across the country.
She went on to serve as a vice-president of the American Humane Society and as an honorary member of humane societies overseas. She continued to “remonstrate” with drivers who were abusing their horses and mules… so much so, according to her May 27, 1885, obituary in the Buffalo Express, that “time and again was Mrs. Lord threatened with personal violence and with the destruction of her home by the angry teamsters with whom she interfered.” Yet she persisted.
Elsewhere in her obituary, the Express noted that “Mrs. Lord always exhibited a peculiar fondness for pets, and her house has always been a perfect paradise for children and her dogs, rabbits, and Shetland ponies.”
A perfect paradise… who would not want to leave behind such a legacy?
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Cast (in order of appearance):
Mary Elizabeth Johnson Lord: Darleen Pickering-Hummert
Teamster: Mike Dugan
Narrator: Susan Banks
Sound recording: Brandon Nightingale
Sound editing: Micheal Peters
Piano theme: Excerpt from “Buffalo City Guards Parade March,” by Francis Johnson (1839)
Performed by Aaron Dai
Produced by the Niagara Frontier Heritage Project
Associate producer: Karl-Eric Reif
Webpage written by Jeff Z. Klein (Niagara Frontier Heritage Project)
Special thanks to:
Kathryn Larsen, vice president, content distribution, Buffalo Toronto Public Media
S.J. Velasquez, director of audio strategy, Buffalo Toronto Public Media
Jerry Urban, senior radio broadcast engineer
Councilmember Mitch Nowakowski and the Buffalo Common Council for their generous support