For the next two months, Auburn will celebrate the life and legacy of a “A Very Dangerous Woman” in the area's history.

Martha Coffin Wright, one of the five women to organize the historic Seneca Falls Convention in July 1848, will be inducted into the village's National Women's Hall of Fame on Sunday, Oct. 7.

Before she joins fellow women's rights pioneers Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the hall, Wright will be the focus of a three-day presentation by historians and authors at the Auburn Public Theater beginning Friday, Aug. 17.

Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Rep. Louise M. Slaughter have introduced the National Women's Rights History Project Act, which will link together sites significant to the women's rights movement in New York state, to form an auto route that tourists can travel in order to learn more about the movement.

Each event honors Wright for a lifetime of work toward women's rights and abolition. At the Seneca Falls Convention, she joined her older sister, Lucretia Coffin Mott, Stanton and other women to discuss women's rights and draft the Declaration of Sentiments. The document was derived from the Declaration of Independence, but adapted to suit their struggle for equality.

“She's probably the least well-known of the five,” said the Rev. Ken Mochel, who is co-organizing the Auburn Public Theater event.

Wright is also the last of the convention's five organizers to be inducted into the hall.

“I think that, as is often the case with important figures, she got lost in the retelling of history,” said Christine Moulton, executive director of the National Women's Hall of Fame. “I think it's important that all people interested in her are bringing her story back to the forefront and using it as inspiration.”

While Wright was working to advance the place of women in American society, she was also harboring fugitive slaves in her home as a stop on the Underground Railroad. In 1833, Wright attended the founding meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society. She also befriended fellow abolitionists in the area, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and William Seward.

“Martha Wright: 'A Very Dangerous Woman'” will gather speakers from in and far outside Auburn to cover Wright's work with the women's rights movement and the Underground Railroad. The occasion will also serve as a belated observance of Wright's 200th birthday last Dec. 25.

The title of the event is taken from a book written by James Livingston and Sherry Penny. That title, in turn, is taken from a remark about Wright made by her conservative neighbors.

“(Wright) also had a very sharp tongue,” said Audrey Mochel, who is co-organizing the event with her husband, Ken.

James Livingston, a descendant of Wright, will also deliver a talk on Sunday, Aug. 19, at the Unitarian Universalist Society about Wright's less-than-warm attitude toward religion. As she worked for human rights, Wright faced opposition from Auburn's religious establishment. But she often attended the Unitarian Universalist Society of Auburn with her daughter, Eliza.

The Saturday schedule of speakers will also include Judith Wellman, principal investigator for Historical New York Research Associates. Wellman is working to build support for the National Women's Rights History Project Act, and she will acquaint the Auburn Public Theater audience with the act's purpose.

“It's important to the region and to the nation,” Wellman said. “So much energy for the national women's rights movement came from central New York, and many of the sights are still standing.”

Along with the Susan B. Anthony House in Rochester and the Women's Rights National Historic Park in Seneca Falls, the trail could include the Harriet Tubman and William Seward homes in Auburn. The act will accumulate sponsors before it can be approved by congressional committees.

The Mochels feel the recognition for Wright and her work with the women's rights and abolitionist movements is long overdue, and Moulton suggests that the delay is due to the slow unfolding of history.

“I think there's more awareness of what she's done, especially with the publication of 'A Very Dangerous Woman' and, I think, an increased interest in women's history,” she said. “And I think it's terrific.”

Staff writer David Wilcox can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net