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Zilpha Wakeman DeForest


Other Name:
Zilpha Carolina Wakeman
Gender:
Female
Born:
1802
Died:
July 11, 1843
Home Town:
Ballston Spa, NY
Marriage(s):
William C. DeForest (1820)
Biographical Notes:
Zilpha Wakeman DeForest, daughter of Lloys and Sarah Redfield Wakeman of Ballston Spa, New York, was born in 1802. At the age of fourteen, Zilpha traveled to Litchfield, Connecticut where she studied at Sarah Pierce's Academy for a year in 1816. While studying in Litchfield she boarded with the Lyman Beecher family. Four years later, in 1820, she wed William C. DeForest of Ballston Spa, and the couple had five children.

Education
Years at LFA:
1816
Room and Board:
Boarded with the Lyman Beecher family

Related Objects and Documents
Other:
help The Citation of Attendance provides primary source documentation of the student’s attendance at the Litchfield Female Academy and/or the Litchfield Law School. If a citation is absent, the student is thought to have attended but currently lacks primary source confirmation.

Records for the schools were sporadic, especially in the formative years of both institutions. If instructors kept comprehensive records for the Litchfield Female Academy or the Litchfield Law School, they do not survive. Researchers and staff have identified students through letters, diaries, family histories and genealogies, and town histories as well as catalogues of students printed in various years. Art and needlework have provided further identification of Female Academy Students, and Litchfield County Bar records document a number of Law School students. The history of both schools and the identification of the students who attended them owe credit to the early 20th century research and documentation efforts of Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and Samuel Fisher, and the late 20th century research and documentation efforts of Lynne Templeton Brickley and the Litchfield Historical Society staff.
CITATION OF ATTENDANCE:
Mentioned in Catherine Cebra Webb's 1815-1816 Diary (Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes. Chronicles of A Pioneer School From 1792 to 1833. Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1903).

1816 Litchfield Female Academy Catalog (Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes. Chronicles of A Pioneer School From 1792 to 1833. Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1903).

A "Miss Wakeman" is mentioned in Charlotte Smith's 1816 diary. This entry may refer to Zilpha or her sister Nancy (Connecticut Historical Society).

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