191, 192. Clara and Rosa Garnier

There are two Mordecai students named Garnier in the appendix of my dissertation. Clara and Rosa Garnier may have been from Wilmington, North Carolina; they both seem to have attended from early 1811 to late 1813, and John Garnier is the adult name attached to their account.

Well here's a first: I think Clara Garnier might be the first Mordecai student (that I know of) who was born outside of the United States.  Clara Louise Garnier (c1800-1867) was born in Bordeaux, France (according to her tombstone), and emigrated with her father John Garnier and mother Ann Rosalia Boutet to the United States, settling in Wilmington by 1805. Her mother died in 1810 (which might explain why both girls arrived at the Mordecai school in the beginning of 1811). She married in 1822, to businessman George W. Barkley. They lived in Pensacola, Florida, and had nine children born between 1823 and 1838. Here's a photo of her daughter and namesake, Clara Garnier Barkley Dorr (1825-1899). Clara's granddaughter, Martha Sawyer Gielow, was a writer and public speaker, founder and director of the Southern Industrial Association.

Rosa B. Garnier (c1804-1842) was Clara's younger sister. She married Dr. John O. Smith, and died in 1842, at age 38.

The Barkley House, where Clara Garnier Barkley lived, still stands in Pensacola.

130., 131., 132. The Donaldsons (Eliza, Isabella, and Joanna)

Three Donaldson sisters attended the Mordecai school from Fayetteville, all three the daughters of Robert Donaldson, but John McMillan is listed as paying their tuition:

Eliza Donaldson (1803-1825) was at the school for seven sessions total--1812-1813, and again 1816-1817; the first time with her older sister Isabella, the second time with her sister Joanna.  She was ill with tuberculosis when she married Thomas Hooper in 1825, and died a few months later, age 22.  Eliza's sister-in-law, briefly, was another Mordecai alumna, Margaret Broadfoot Hooper.

Isabella Donaldson (1797-1887) was at the school for two sessions in 1812.

Joanna Donaldson (1806-1876) was at the school for three sessions, 1816-1817.

As the details already given suggest, even in 1996 I had found a lot of information about these girls.  Eliza Donaldson Hooper stayed with her former teacher Rachel Mordecai Lazarus in Wilmington during her final illness.  Isabella Donaldson (the eldest sister to attend the school) was a lifelong friend to the Mordecais, especially to Julia Judith Mordecai. Caroline mentions Isabella Donaldson in an 1842 letter to the writer Maria Edgeworth, and Isabella wrote to inquire if Ellen was interested in a governess job with a neighboring family that same year.  Joanna Donaldson enjoyed a visit from the Mordecai women in 1842, when her husband Oliver Bronson was unwell.  It's clear that the Mordecais considered the Donaldsons admirable, unlike a lot of their students' families:

[Julia] is happy to be with me, but she cannot find anything in the society of Wilmington to compensate for the delightfully rational hours spent with the Donaldson family.  I wish they resided here, such intercourse is enviable, & preferring it as we do, how seldom has it been our lot to taste the enjoyment. (Rachel to Ellen, 18 January 1824, in the Mordecai Family Papers, SHC)

I may say with truth whenever I have visited Mr. Donaldson's family I have left it with the most delightful sensation of calm tranquility I ever experienced in any society.  I believe you know Mr & Mrs. D were from home but Isabella & James were there... (Ellen to Caroline, 18 July 1832, Jacob Mordecai Papers, Duke)

So there were letters and visits, long after the school years.   Their brother Robert Jr. was a prominent banker and arts patron in New York, which offers another window into their later lives.

Isabella Donaldson's gravesite
in Duchess County, New York
via FindaGrave

Robert Donaldson Sr. was a wealthy Scottish merchant, part of a community of prosperous Scots in Fayetteville.  He died in July 1808, and his wife Sarah Henderson soon followed. 

Joanna Donaldson Bronson was only two when her father died; she was ten when she went to the Mordecai school with her older sister Eliza (who was thirteen at the time).  Joanna moved to New York with her brother Robert.  In 1833 she married Dr. Oliver Bronson, from a wealthy family in banking and insurance.  They had a sons Isaac (1835-1872) (who was with the Union Army during the Civil War), Oliver Jr. (1837-1918), Willett, and Robert.  A niece described Joanna as "a beauty in her youth---Black waving hair, beautiful grey eyes and much color of complexion --- very gay and very entertaining. She became very deaf (in her old age) but was so agreeable that everyone sought her society."  Dr. Bronson stopped practicing medicine and became superintendent of schools, eventually moving to Reconstruction-era St. Augustine, Florida as a school administrator.  The Bronsons were benefactors of a missionary society, a girls' school, the American Tract Society, and an "Asylum for Respectable Aged Indigent Females."  Their house in the Hudson Valley is now a national historic landmark.  Joanna was widowed in summer 1875 and died in early 1876, age 69.

44, 45, 46: The Botts (Catharine, Lucy J., and Martha)

I have three girls with the surname "Bott" in the rolls of the Mordecai school:

Catharine Bott attended the school during 1816 (both sessions), with Miles Bott as the adult name attached to her account.

Lucy J. Bott of Mansfield, Amelia Co., VA also attended the school during 1816 (both sessions, with James Bott as the adult name on the account.

Martha Bott attended the school for three sessions (from mid-1815 to the end of 1816), with Miles Bott as the name attached to the account.

So all three Bott girls were at the school together for the two sessions of 1816. Probably not a coincidence--it was common to send sisters and cousins to school together. And there were a lot of Botts in Virginia, including several generations of Miles Botts. A Miles Bott served on the Virginia jury for the inquest into the treason charges against Aaron Burr in 1807. The Botts are much entangled with the Branch family, and we'll get to them soon in the alphabetical order.

Best I can tell, Martha Ann Bott was the daughter of Miles Bott Jr. (1762-1835) and his wife, whose surname was maybe Beverley or Broadie. She was born in 1799, and married for the first time to Samuel Parkhill in 1817, not long after attending school in Warrenton; she moved to Florida about ten years later, and married two more times, to judge Hiram Manley (1802-1853) of Tallahassee (a Harvard alum who was originally from Massachusetts), and John Johns. She may have ended up back in Virginia by the time of the third marriage. "Martha Ann Manley, late Parkhill" appears in the case notes for a Florida Supreme Court judgment in 1844, as the administratrix of her dead first husband's estate.

Lucy J. Bott was probably the daughter of James Bott and Lucy F. Branch. James Bott died in 1813, so maybe it was his estate or a son also named James who paid Lucy's school bills.

Catharine Bott doesn't turn up anywhere--except as the living British soprano of the same name--but she was likely a sister to Martha Ann?