Born Mary Mathews on 23rd October 1840 in Brooklyn, she was educated at the Packer Institute. She married Alfred S Barnes a noted publisher. Following his death she met and married a widower, Charles Kendall Adams who was an educator and President of Cornell University and later of Wisconsin University.
Her main body of work, The Choir Visibile was published in 1897. Adams died in Redlands, CA, in 1902 her husband died earlier the same year.