180. Nancy Franklin (1795-1874?)

There is a student named Nancy Franklin in the roster of Mordecai school students in my 1996 dissertation. It says she was at the school in 1814.

I suspect she might be this Nancy Franklin: Ann P. Franklin (1795-1874), daughter of Jesse Franklin and Maria Perkins Franklin. Jesse Franklin was governor of North Carolina from 1820 to 1821. When Nancy was at school, Jesse Franklin had just finished a term in the United States Senate. She married William Slade in Surry County, NC, in 1821? That's a perfect year for an 1814 student to be marrying, in North Carolina. She was later known as Nancy P. Slade, lived in Rockingham till at least 1870, and had at least five children. Her husband William Slade died in 1865. (1850, 1860, 1870 censuses, via Ancestry) 

Besides the good timing, there was also a student named Helen B. Slade at the Mordecai school, also in 1814, and also from Rockingham. So if Mrs. Slade is, indeed, the Mordecai student Nancy Franklin, she married into a classmate's family, which is pretty typical. 

If we have the right Nancy Franklin, one of her sons, Jesse Franklin Slade, died at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War.  Her two daughters died before that, both in their 20s. And two of her sons survived her, Thomas Howard Slade and William B. Slade.

And if this is the right Nancy Franklin, here's her grave in Caswell County, North Carolina.

176, 177, 178. Charlotte Fort (Gorman), Mary Ann Fort (Mason), and Martha Fort (Andrews)

 There are three girls named Fort in the rolls of the Mordecai school that I assembled in the early 1990s:

Charlotte Fort attended the school in both sessions of 1811.

Mary Ann Fort attended the school for three years, from early 1816 until the end of 1818. She was from Hicksford (now Emporia), Virginia, with Lewis Fort as the adult name on her account. She married in 1821.

Martha (or Patsy) Fort attended the school for two years, from early 1810 to the end of 1811.

Mary Ann Fort Mason (1803-1870) I was able to learn about in the early 1990s, because she married someone fairly prominent, and because she was at the school long enough to be mentioned in the Mordecai letters. Rachel Mordecai called her parents (Lewis Fort and Eliza Harris Coleman Fort)  "quite diverting people" and noted that her mother wrote "droll letters". Her planter family held slaves. At age 18, in 1821, she married John Young Mason, whose sister was a Mordecai student. They had at least eight children together, and her husband became a congressman, and an ambassador, and Secretary of the Navy, and Attorney General of the United States--so she was a busy political wife, until he died in 1859, in Paris. At least one of her sons (Simon Blount Mason) served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. She died in 1870, in Virginia.

Now what can some online searching reveal about the other two Fort girls?  Charlotte Ann Fort married John S. Gorman in Wake County, North Carolina in 1818--the age/timing is exactly right for that to be the Mordecai student. AND she had a sister Martha Fort. Aha! So we have them.

Charlotte Ann Fort Gorman (1802-1883), daughter of James Fort and Chloe Powell Fort, married John Spear Gorman in Wake County in 1818. They had at least one child, Annie, in 1832. Charlotte was widowed when J. S. Gorman died in 1836. She died in 1883, aged 81 years.

Martha W. Fort Andrews (1797-1876) was Charlotte's older sister. She married Cullen Andrews Jr. in Wake County in 1816, and they had ten children born between 1817 and 1837. The Andrews family lived in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. Her husband died in Texas in 1857. Martha Fort Andrews died in 1876, aged 79, in Columbus, Mississippi.

All three Fort girls were Southern widows in their 60s when they lived through the American Civil War.

134. Sarah Eppes Doswell Cabell (1802-1874)

I have a student called Sarah Doswell in the appendix if my dissertation.  It says she was at the Mordecai school for four sessions, 1813 and 1814, and that a Mrs. Doswell was the adult on her account.  Indeed Mrs. Doswell appears in the August 1813 ledger page, paying board, tuition and "musick."  And again on January 1814, paying for "Sally" (aka Sarah).  She's mentioned as "S Doswell" once in a Mordecai letter, on 2 January 1814, Rachel mentions to Ellen that "I will go & see A Young & S Doswell, who have just arrived."  So our Sally Doswell may travel with an A. Young (Ann Young was a student at the school in the same sessions as Sally Doswell, precisely). 

Sarah Epes Doswell Cabell (1802-1874)
(portrait of white woman, dark hair curled over ears, white pleated collar)

Not a lot to go on, but Doswell isn't a super-common name (though there is a town named Doswell, Virginia).  And we know she'll be born around 1800.

Here's a very likely candidate:  Sarah Eppes Doswell (1802-1874) of Danville, Virginia, daughter of Major John Doswell (1744-1820) and Mary Poythress Eppes (1767-1823; the Eppes is also spelled Epps and Epes).  That puts her at the Mordecai school when she was ages 10-12.  She married Benjamin William Sheridan Cabell (1793-1862) in 1816, at age 14.  (Benjamin's sister, Mary Pocahontas Rebecca Cabell, married a lawyer named Peyton Doswell, presumably a relation of Sarah's).  They had eleven children together, and lived in Danville.  Benjamin was in the US Army, and served in the Virginia state assembly.  Six of their sons fought in the Civil War, on the Confederate side, and two died in the war.   She died in 1874, age 72.  Here's her gravesite.

The descendants of Sallie Doswell included some prominent folks.  Her son William Lewis Cabell (1827-1911) was a West Point graduate, a Confederate general, and after the war was mayor of Dallas, Texas, and a railroad executive.  His son was also mayor of Dallas.  His grandson was also mayor of Dallas.  Another of Sally's sons, George Craighead Cabell (1836-1906) was a six-term Congressman from Virginia. (She died at his house.)  Her great-grandson Charles Pearre Cabell (1903-1971) was Deputy Director of the CIA at the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion.

No solid mention of this woman attending the Mordecai school, but I haven't run across any other Sarah Doswells that would fit the profile for a Mordecai student, and this one does, perfectly.

128. Catherine Gabrielle DeRosset Kennedy (1800-1889)

There was a student named Catherine DeRosset at the Mordecai school, enrolled for two sessions, in 1811; Dr. A. J. DeRosset was the adult on her account.  As it happens, Catherine DeRosset was from a prominent Wilmington family, and became a friend to Rachel Mordecai after the school years.  Rachel Mordecai even named one of her daughters partly for Catherine (her daughter Mary Catherine Lazarus, born 1828; naming story from a letter, from Mary Orme to Ellen Mordecai, 26 September 1828, Mordecai Family Papers, SHC).  So we know a good deal about her family and how her life turned out. 

(Note:  For a very long time, I remember that she was listed as Catherine Prosser in my draft versions of the school rolls, even while the name DeRosset was familiar in other Mordecai-related contexts.  So there's a reminder that handwriting can be a major cause of error.)

Armand John DeRosset (1767-1859) was a doctor of Huguenot ancestry, like his father and grandfather before him.  Catherine Gabrielle DeRosset was the eldest child of her father's second marriage, to Catherine Fullerton (1773-1737).  Catherine had three younger sisters, and a younger brother Armand Jr., as well as an older half-brother (who was also her cousin--their mothers were sisters), named Moses.  Catherine was ten years old when she went to the Mordecai school (turned 11 there).  She may well have attended school with cousins; her paternal aunt was Mrs. Henry Toomer, her maternal grandmother's maiden name was Toomer, and there was a Sarah Toomer at the school during the same sessions as Catherine was there.

Catherine married a Methodist pastor, Rev. William Magee Kennedy (1783-1840) in 1835, becoming stepmother to his children; they moved to Columbia, South Carolina.  Catherine was forty the year she was widowed, after just five years wed; she and her ten-year-old stepdaughter Cattie moved back to Wilmington at that juncture.  Catherine and Cattie were close; here's one of Cattie's letters to Catherine, from during the Civil War.  (Many years later, Cattie would marry Catherine's younger brother, Armand Jr.)  In Wilmington as a youngish widow, Catherine was a co-founder and first president of the Ladies' Benevolent Society, and founder of a home for elderly women, opened as Old Ladies' Rest.   She also worked briefly as a nurse at a wartime hospital in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1861 (letter, Cate Kennedy to her sister Liz, 1 November 1861, DeRosset Family Papers, SHC).


Catherine DeRosset Kennedy died on Christmas Eve, 1889, age 89.  Old Ladies' Rest was renamed the Catherine Kennedy Home in her memory, and retained that name until it closed in 2000, considered at the time the oldest "home for the aged" in the US.  The Catherine Kennedy Home Foundation remains a granting entity, supporting causes that help senior citizens.

(Image:  State historical marker for the Catherine Kennedy Home in Wilmington.  Reads:  "Catherine Kennedy Home / For the elderly.  Grew from Ladies Benevolent Society. founded 1845.  First home, 1879, stood four blocks east.")

One website calls Catherine DeRosset Kennedy a "driving force"; compared to most of her Mordecai classmates, she certainly took a more public role in pursuing her interests.  She's even the subject of a recent master's thesis, "Catherine Kennedy DeRosset's Independence:  A Modern Historian's Analysis of a Nineteenth-Century Southern Woman" (MA, Georgia State University 2003) by Angela H. Gilleland. 

114-115. Margaret and Martha Crittenden Brownlow

Two girls named Crittenden are on my list of Mordecai students:

Margaret B. Crittenden of Halifax County, NC, attended the school for both 1811 sessions.
Martha Maria Crittenden, also of Halifax County NC, attended the school for the first 1811 session.

The word "Crittendens" appears in the school ledger in September 1813, but I don't know the context of that.  There don't seem to be any mentions of them in the family correspondence.

********
Martha Crittenden (1799-1881) had a long association with Warrenton.  From a local history written in the 1920s:

"Mrs. Brownlow was Miss Martha Crittenden of Halifax County.  She was a lady of means and had received the best educational advantages of her day.  She was a boarder at the Mordecai School in Warrenton when the building burned.  At her beautiful home, La Vallee, in Halifax County, she had teachers to conduct the education of her four daughters... Mrs. Brownlow was one of the most remarkable women I ever knew.  Her courage, her indefatigable industry, her capacity along all lines, her cheerful amiability, her patient resignation when adversity came, were subjects of the comment and admiration of all her knew her..."

It goes on like that for a while.  Not sure how one session at the Mordecai school counts as "the best educational advantages of her day," but that's a pretty typical tone of local histories.   Anyway, we learn that in 1817 Martha married the most wonderfully-named Dr. Tippoo Sahib Brownlow of Wilmington (c1794-1879).*  The couple lived in Halifax County, where Tippoo was a trustee of a female seminary located on their La Vallee estate.  In 1849 or 1850, they moved into Warrenton and bought the corner hotel, "perhaps the best known and best kept hotel in the State," according to the same local history (so take that as likely hyperbole).  This is one of their grandsons, James Brownlow Yellowley (1848-1914).

*Sidenote:  There seems to have been a fashion for "exotic" names among some wealthy white North Carolinians of this generation.  Tippoo Sahib Brownlow was obviously named for Tipu Sultan (1749-99), the sultan of Mysore.  Another man from a different family, Hyder Ali Davie (son of the governor of North Carolina) was named for Tipu's father, Hyder Ali, also a sultan of Mysore. 

**********

I can find much less about Margaret Crittenden of Halifax County.  There's a marriage record that finds her matched with Anthony A. Wyche of Virginia in November 1818.  This family chart has his name as Augustus Wyche, and shows them with three daughters (Margaret, Laura, and Augusta). (There's a grave for Laura Wyche Henarie (1827-1915) in a Catholic cemetery in Texas.  The bio with her listing says she was born in North Carolina, the daughter of Margaret Crittenden and "Emmett" Wyche.  So Mr. Wyche's first name is a bit slippery.)

Margaret may have married twice; Margaret Crittenden Carnal (1800-1871) turns up in a cemetery in Louisiana, with a daughter Augusta Wyche Canfield (1830-1898); if that's the same woman, some sad stories are in that plot.  Augusta Wyche Canfield looks to have had three little daughters on the eve of the Civil War; her husband died in battle, and all three girls were gone by 1867 (the youngest lived to be six years old; the other two, even shorter).  So, did Margaret go to comfort her youngest daughter, widowed and thrice bereaved, in her last years? 

 **********

Note that I still have no parents' names for Margaret and Martha, nor indeed do I know for certain that they were sisters.

UPDATE 5/15/13:  I have heard from a local historian with an interest in the Crittendens.  Margaret and Martha were, indeed, sisters, the daughters of Henry Crittendon of Northhampton County; he died in 1803.  Their mother may have died before that date, when the girls were very little.  My correspondent also confirms that Margaret married a second time, to a Mr. Carnal (whose first name isn't agreed upon in the various records).    Martha Crittenden and Tippoo Sahib Brownlow had four daughters, it seems:  Margaret (Mrs. James B. Yellowly); Elizabeth (Mrs. Benjamin W. Edwards); Rebecca (Mrs. Nathaniel Edwards), and Ellen Brownlow (unmarried), who was a teacher in Warren County, and who (many years after the Civil War) was in possession of a breastpin containing a lock of Robert E. Lee's hair.

101, 102, 103, 104, 105. The Cohens

There were five students named Cohen in the Mordecai rolls:

Cornelia Cohen (1805-1886) was a student at the school for five years, from early 1814 to the end of 1818.  Her parent was Mordecai Cohen, in Charleston SC.

David Cohen (1802-1860) was a student at the school for three sessions, mid-1815 to the end of 1816.  He was also from Charleston, also one of Mordecai Cohen's children.

Eleanor Cohen (c1803-1871) was a student at the school for three years, early 1814 to the end of 1816.  She was from Georgetown SC, daughter of Solomon Cohen.

Lucretia Cohen (1807-1888) was a student at the school for two years, 1817-1818.  She was from Charleston SC, another child of Mordecai Cohen.

Henrietta Cohen (1799-1886) was a student at the school for on year, 1814 (both sessions).  She was from Georgetown SC, daughter of Solomon Cohen.

A few things jump out from that list.  First, I already have the birth and death dates for all these students--unlike most students covered so far here at the blog.  Southern Jewish family history is quite well documented, and the Mordecais would have known more about the lives of these students (through their mutual networks) than about most of their farflung alumnae.    Second, we have two families represented--the children of Mordecai Cohen of Charleston, and the children of Solomon Cohen of Georgetown.

The Cohens appear throughout the Mordecai's ledger from 1814 to 1818; there's a mention of a Mr. Gregg being paid for Henrietta's travel expenses in 1814; David Cohen apparently boarded with Dr. Gloster in town.  They're also featured in family correspondence:  Rachel reports to Samuel that "Today Mr. Myers leaves George Town with his daughter & two of Mr. Cohen's, who in a letter yesterday morning informed papa that the indisposition of one of the children had prevented their being with us earlier.  I hope your next will tell us that the other two have changed their mind." (15 May 1814, in the Mordecai Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection)  A somewhat longer report came the next week: 

 Last night Mr. Cohen, who left his little girl here, as he passed through to carry his son to Mr. Girardins paid us a late & unexpected visit.  Today he dined here, he is one of the witty Familikin sort.  The other two Miss C's are not his daughters, the eldest is as I told you before handsome enough and a very charming girl -- she is only to remain 6 months at school and then, take my advice, and turn thy face to the south, wifeless brother of Rachel, look on those eyes of blue, that smile of ingenuous sweetness, and resign thy heart a willing captive. (same correspondents, 29 May 1814, Mordecai Family Papers)

Note that in 1814, Henrietta Cohen turned 15 years old.  Further speculation on Henrietta's marriage plans followed a couple years later:  "I believe that Mr. Cohen is going on a fruitless expedition," confided Julia in a letter to Samuel, "for it is said that Henrietta is engaged to a cousin of hers, Mr. Mordecai Myers."  (30 October 1816, Mordecai Family Papers) 

The Mordecais certainly had ongoing connections with these students, past school days.  In 1825, Ellen mentions that "Cornelia Cohen ...is to spend the winter here," with here being Warrenton (Ellen Mordecai to Solomon Mordecai, 7 December 1825, Jacob Mordecai Papers, Duke).  Julia Mordecai had a "commonplace book" (now in the Virginia Historical Society) with various details of family history, including the tidbit that Lucretia Cohen had eighteen babies born, with nine of them dying in infancy (p. 27).  David Cohen's engagement to a Miss Hart, and his marriage in 1830, are also subjects of discussion among the Mordecai siblings.


Because of all this discussion, I have married names and spouse names for all five Cohens, which makes tracking them down in the online genealogical resources pretty easy.

1.  The children of Mordecai Cohen and Leah Lazarus of Charleston:

David Daniel Cohen (1802-1860) married Mary Hart in 1830.  They had six children together.

Cornelia Cohen Lazarus (1805-1886) married her uncle Benjamin Dores Lazarus (1800-1875), brother-in-law of Rachel Mordecai's, in 1840, and had six children (five sons and a daughter, who all lived into adulthood) all born after her 35th birthday.  She was widowed in 1875, lost her son Albert to suicide in 1879, and died in 1886. 

Lucretia Cohen Mordecai (1807-1888) married Thomas Whitlock Mordecai, a nephew of Jacob Mordecai's.  They had eighteen children born, and half died in infancy.  Her youngest child, Thomas Moultrie Mordecai, was born when Lucretia was 48 years old.  (Her oldest son, also named Thomas, died in 1861, age 22, at Sullivan Island, a member of the Confederate army.) When Lucretia was 58, she was widowed.  Her surviving son Thomas was a successful Charleston attorney who remained close to his mother until her death at 81.   Here's a photo of her daughter Lucretia (1837-1922).

Note:  Mordecai Cohen was born in Poland.

2.  The children of Solomon Cohen and Belle Moses of Georgetown:

(Sarah) Henrietta Cohen Myers (1799-1886) married Mordecai Myers (1794-1865) in 1820, though they were rumored to be engaged as early as 1816.  They had twelve children born, most of whom lived into adulthood.  Henrietta was widowed in 1865, and died in 1886, age 87.  She is buried with her husband in Savannah GA.

Eleanor Cohen Lopez (c1803-1871) married Dr. Aaron Lopez (1800-1873) in 1818, and they had eleven children born.  She died in 1871, in Memphis TN, survived by her husband and at least one daughter.  

 
 

55. and 56. Ann Elizabeth and Maria Brander

Two students named Brander attended the Mordecai school. Ann Elizabeth Brander was at the school from mid-1815 to the end of 1816 (so, three sessions); Maria Brander was there for both 1816 sessions. Both girls have James (or J.) Brander listed as the adult on their account. The Branders might have been from the Richmond area, according to this sentence in a Mordecai family letter:

"This will go to Richmond by a Mr. Brander, who with a Mr. Bott of Manchester is to be out in a few days, each with un petite fille."--Rachel Mordecai to her brother Samuel, 12 June 1815 (Mordecai Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill NC)

James Brander appears in the school ledger for June 1815 (paying for "Ann Eliza"), and again in November 1815, January 1816 (paying for Ann Eliza and Maria, "board & musick"), June 1816, and November 1816.

Genealogical websites pretty quickly show Ann Elizabeth Brander (1800-1826), daughter of James Brander (1760-1829), a Scotsman by birth, and Elizabeth T. Harrison, born at Manchester, Chesterfield County, Virginia.* She was the fifth of twelve children born to her parents, and was apparently sent to the Mordecai school shortly after the birth of the twelfth child, her sister Mary Catherine. She only lived to be 26; no indication that she married or had any children. (Her older brother Alexander named his daughter Ann Elizabeth Brander in 1842, probably in her memory.) But here's the surprise: Ann Elizabeth didn't have any siblings named Maria. So... Maria Brander might have been a cousin?

Yes. Found references to a Maria Brander Moore Robertson (1803-1873), daughter of John Brander (also of Scotland) and Martha Field Robertson. She married John Thomson Robertson Sr. (1801-1882, maybe her cousin?) in 1823, at Petersburg VA, and they had six children together, between 1823 and 1841. (She may have had a brief marriage before this one, to account for the Moore in her name.) During the Civil War, one of her daughters, Lelia, died in childbirth (in 1863), her son Stanhope was in the 12th Virginia Infantry, CSA; her son Archibald was a young physician who died from typhoid in 1864. (Another son, James, had died in 1847, age 24; and an newborn infant, Maria, died in 1841.)

So it looks like two Scottish brothers, John and James Brander, both lived in the Richmond/Petersburg neighborhood; James brought his 15-year-old daughter Ann Eliza to the Mordecai school in 1815, then after one session she was joined by her 13-year-old cousin Maria.

*Today in Chesterfield County, Virginia, you can find streets named Branders Creek and Branders Bridge.

42. Martha Bond (1796-1845)

There was a student named Martha Bond in the rolls of the Mordecai school. She was there for three terms, starting summer 1810 and staying through the end of 1811. I don't have a hometown or adult's name attached to her name.

Seems like that should be a pretty dead end for further exploration, but just to be sure, searched out a "Martha Bond" in NC around the right age. And I found one! Martha Bond, daughter of James Bond (1760-1812) and Mary Hoskins (1767-1831), married David Small in 1822. Her parents married in 1787, and she was the third of their six children, which likely lands her birth year in the mid-1790s--very plausible for a Mordecai student in 1811. What makes this Martha Bond Small a very likely candidate is her family connections... Mary Hoskins, born in Chowan County NC, was kin to the Blount/Blunt family (see previous entry). Three of Mary's siblings married people named Blount.

The North Carolina Historical Register has Martha Bond Small as mother of six: Jane E. Small (1829-1873), William B. Small (1831-1854), Mary Frances Small (1831-1835), David Small (1833-1866), Edmund Small (1835-1862), Thomas M. Small (1837-1909). She died a widow in 1845. Three of her sons were in the CSA; one died in the war; one died afterwards from an illness contracted in the army; and the youngest survived as a disabled veteran ("His lameness is very perceptible in walking").

Remembering that some Marthas were called "Patsy" or "Patsey" in her place and time, I also searched Pats(e)y Bond Halls... sure enough, there's mention of her marriage to David Small as "Patsey Bond," married by an Obadiah Small in Chowan County. These sources have her marrying in 1826 or 1828, which might match better with her children's birth dates. Someone in Edenton owns (or at least owned) the family bible of David and Martha Small, which shows her as born 8-14-1796. (And David Small as slightly younger, born 11-13-1796.)

So to sum it all up: Martha "Patsey" Bond was born 1796, the third child of her parents. She went to the Mordecai school just before she turned 14, and stayed until she was 15. Soon after she left school, her father died, in February 1812. Martha married when she was about 30, and had six children before she was widowed; one of her daughters, Mary Frances (possibly a twin?), died at age 4. Martha Bond Small died in 1845, age 49. When she died, her youngest sons were 10 and 8.

23. and 24. Mary Jane Bacon and Petronella Bacon

There are two girls surnamed Bacon in the Mordecai rolls, and they appear to be sisters:

Mary Jane Bacon and P. Nelly C. Bacon, both from Hendersonville, Virginia, both attended the Mordecai school for the same two years, from the beginning of 1816 to the end of 1817. The adult's name on both their accounts is Major Tyree G. Bacon.

Now, the name "Tyree Bacon" may seem unusual enough to make a search easy. Not so! The first name Tyree is used often through generations of Bacons in Virginia. (There's even a present-day Tyree Bacon with a MySpace page.) But Col. Tyree Glenn Bacon (1772-1830), a War of 1812 veteran, lived at Bacon's Hall in Crewe, Nottoway County. His wife was Mary Lamkin (1774-1846).

So, here are the students' stories based on what we can find about them online:

Mary Jane Catherine Bacon (b. 1804) married a Jesse H. Leath (d. 1846) in 1832, when she was 28. Mary Bacon Heath had eight children: James, Branch, Tyree, Joseph, George William (d. 1922), Virginia, Harriett, and Sarah. Mary lost her husband and her mother the same year. She inherited Bacon's Hall as specified in her father's will. All her sons were wounded as Confederate soldiers in the Civil War.

Mary's sister Petronella Ann Graghead Bacon (whose name might have been written "P. Nelly C." by the Mordecais--especially if she was called "Nelly"; Graghead is sometimes written as "Craghead" even in family records) was born 1802, according to this transcript of a family bible. She was apparently named for her mother's sister Petronella Lamkin Graghead. She married a Col. John Marshall in June 1821, when she was 19.

Oh, and "the community of Hendersonville no longer exists."

20. and 21. Eliza and Martha Armistead

Two students named Armistead are in the rolls of the Mordecai school:

Eliza Armistead of Norfolk VA was at the school from the beginning of 1815 to the school's closing in 1818. She may have been an orphan: her tuition was apparently paid by a grandmother, Mrs. Newton, before Mrs. Newton's death in 1816; an uncle took over payments, but he too died in 1818. Eliza Armistead appears frequently in the Mordecai family's correspondence about the school: she was considered quite pretty. She studied astronomy and history in her later years at the school, and won a special medal at the last public examinations. She returned to Norfolk after 1818.

Martha Armistead of Norfolk VA was at the school for one year, 1818. Her account was possibly paid by a George Newton.

Turning to the online family histories, we quickly find confirmation that Eliza Tucker Armistead and Martha Juliana Armistead were sisters, the daughters of Theodorick Armistead (1774?-1812) and Martha Tucker Newton (1780-1810). Theodorick Armistead was commander of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, 1808-1810.

Eliza Armistead married a Navy man, Alexander Porter Darragh (1789-1831), in 1823. They had two children, Margaret Porter Darragh, and Martha Julian Darragh; Martha died as a newborn. Then Eliza died in late 1826, certainly not more than 25 years old. Her widower Alexander Darragh died in 1831 and was buried on Gibraltar. Their orphaned daughter Margaret married at 18, to a cousin, Thomas Newton.

Martha Armistead married a John Williams of Fairfax and had at least four children: Elizabeth Darragh Williams Sharp (named for her late aunt), Rev. Walter Wheeler Williams (d. 1892), Theodorick Armistead Williams (d. 1890, a bank president), and John Newton Williams (b. 1842). Like many Mordecai alumnae, Martha Armistead had at least one of her sons fight in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy.