Cordelia A. Collamore (1837-1905) was born in Appleton, Maine. She married Jesse Wentworth Payson, one of the Twenty Associates who founded Hyde Park. In 1859, she started the Fairmount and Hyde Park Lyceum and hosted literary evenings in her house; in 1884 the Lyceum became the Wentworth Club.
Mrs. Payson started a school in the Fairmount neighborhood in 1860. Her husband and she were among the staff of the school. She also wrote a pamphlet entitled “Bygones of Fairmont and Hyde Park, Revive the Pleasant Past,” which she read at an 1886 gathering of early settlers of Fairmount. She died on December 29, 1905 and is buried in Milton Cemetery in Milton.
