Rosa (or Rose) Frances Peckham Danielson made her mark in Providence as a landscape and portrait artist. She was an original founder of the Providence Art Club, as well as the first female board member. In 1881, she married the editor of the Providence Journal, George Whitman Danielson. Her reputation as a fierce and successful female figure in Providence leaves us without wonder why she befriended the fierce female Providence resident, Sarah Helen Whitman. The two ladies made a mutual friend in the early Poe biographer from England, John Henry Ingram.

Ingram first made his acquaintance with Sarah Helen Whitman through letter correspondence in late 1873 during his quest to write THE biography on Edgar Allan Poe. Whitman and Ingram never met in person (there were prospects to do so, but Whitman passed away before it could happen). However, Ingram did meet Rosa Peckham during her visit to Europe to study art in 1874. Ingram said of Peckham to Whitman in a letter dated September 13, 1874: “Miss P[eckham] is very nice. I never met a girl I liked better & am grateful for your introduction—her opinion of me you will doubtless receive earlier than this.”

It was Rose who wrote to Ingram with “neither time nor heart” on July 3, 1878, to tell him the sad news “of the death of our dear friend, Mrs. Whitman.”

Rose requested that all her artwork be burned after her death, so only a few pieces of hers exist. She’s buried in Swan Point Cemetery with her husband and two children.