Mahoney (Mary Eliza) is born in Dorchester.

The daughter of Charles and Mary Jane (Stewart) Mahoney, Mary Eliza Mahoney graduates from the New England Hospital for Women and Children Nursing School and becomes the first African-American professional nurse in the U.S. in 1879.* She becomes a member of the American Nurses Association, helps found the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, and ends her career as director of an orphanage on Long Island. Mahoney lives at 31 Westminster Street by 1900, becomes a strong supporter of woman suffrage, and is one of the first women in Boston to register to vote in 1920. She dies in Boston on January 4, 1926, and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett.