190. Marion Galloway

There's a student named Marion Galloway in the list of Mordecai school students I compiled in the 1990s. She may have been from Halifax County, North Carolina, attended the school from the beginning of 1817 to the end of 1818, and a Robert Galloway is the adult name attached to her account. Not much to go on, but let's see how much more we can learn about her now...

One thought: Marion is not a very common name for the students at the Mordecai school. Mary, Mary Ann, sure, but I don't see other Marions in the list. So I'll definitely check other spellings.

Here's one potential match: Marion Galloway, daughter of Robert Galloway and Mary Spraggins Galloway; her father was a Scottish immigrant and died in 1832. He lived in Rockingham County NC, owned a tavern at Wentworth, and in the 1820 census there are 77 enslaved people recorded at his plantation. In his will, her name is clearly written "Marion" (see snippet from Ancestry).  And she is listed as the wife of James E. Galloway--so she may have married a cousin, or otherwise landed with a matching maiden name and married name. She and her husband were given land in Tennessee, and a dozen enslaved people, in her father's will.

Her husband died in 1833, in Maury, Tennessee, leaving her a young widow with a young daughter, Cornelia, and son, James A. Galloway. James E. Galloway's will is also on Ancestry; here's where she's named ("my dearly beloved wife Marion Galloway"), along with her two children. Her brothers-in-law, Samuel W. Gentry and Reuben A. Gentry, were the will's executors.

The timing, name, class, and locations match up fine; this very well could be a Mordecai student. But I don't have quite enough to feel like this is a definite match.

156. Martha Whitmel Falconer Faulcon (1799-?)

There's a student in the Mordecai school rolls named Martha W. Falconer, who attended for both sessions in 1813. (That surname may also appear as Faulkner, Falkener, Falkner, and other variations.) "Alxr. Falconer" appears in the school ledger in July 1813.

Alexander Falconer Jr. (c.1765-1818), born in St. Andrews, Scotland, had about 1000 acres of land in Franklin County, North Carolina, but also had legal training. He attended the Mordecai school's examinations in 1811 and 1812, and was a trustee of the Franklin Academy from at least 1805 to 1815; Moses Mordecai is listed as a witness on Mr. Falconer's will.  In addition to daughter Martha Whitmel Falconer (1799-), he had sons John, Robert, and Alexander, and a daughter Mary Pugh Falconer (c1800-1836).Their mother seems to have been the former Mary (Polly) Harriet Wynne, who also died in the 1810s.

Martha Whitmel Falconer would have turned 14 the year she attended the Mordecai school.  Ten years later, on October 6, 1823, she married Isaac N. Faulcon in Warren County.  They had sons James (1825) Robert (1827), and Jesse (1829). She must have died by 1841, because Isaac married a second time, to a Mrs. Fannie Clanton, that year.  The Faulcons were related by marriage to Alstons, Eatons, Fittses, and other Mordecai families.


A Lucy Faulcon was one of Caroline Mordecai Plunkett's five boarding students in Warrenton in 1828 (Caroline to Ellen, 20 January 1828, Mordecai Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection)--she was no doubt part of the same family as Martha's husband.

Anyone have a deathdate or gravesite for our Martha Falconer Faulcon?

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.