Born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, poet Hannah Flagg Gould moved with her family to Newburyport in 1808. Her mother died while Gould was a child, and Gould took over caring for her father, Benjamin Gould, a veteran who had led Union soldiers in the Battle of Lexington.

Gould began composing poems in her 30s, and her first book, Poems (1832), was published by friends without her knowledge. Gould published another 10 volumes of poetry during her career, and one volume of short prose, Gathered Leaves (1846). Her poetry ranges from children’s verse to religious and political poems memorializing war, and often engages domesticity.