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Isabella Jones Beecher


Other Name:
Isabella Porter Jones; Isabella P. Beecher
Gender:
Female
Born:
July 10, 1807
Died:
November 17, 1895
Home Town:
Biddeford, ME
Later Residences:
Jacksonville, IL
Wicasset, ME
Marriage(s):
Edward Beecher (October 27, 1829)
Biographical Notes:
Isabella Jones Beecher, daughter of Enoch and Paulina Porter Jones of Wicasset, Maine, attended the Litchfield Female Academy from 1821 until 1822. On October 27, 1829 she married Edward Beecher, son of Lyman Beecher and relocated to Jacksonville, Illinois.

During their marriage, the couple had eleven children. Of those eleven, four died in childhood and two at the age of twenty.

Isabella was the founder of the Ladies Association for Educating Females in Jacksonville in 1833, with the purpose of educating poor girls to become teachers. She also taught at a school for small children in Jacksonville. Isabella passed away in 1895.

Education
Years at LFA:
1821-1822

Profession / Service
Profession:
Educator; Social Activist


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:
1820 Litchfield Female Academy Catalog Winter Session (Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes. Chronicles of A Pioneer School From 1792 To 1833. Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1903).

1821 Litchfield Female Academy Catalog Summer Session (Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes. Chronicles of A Pioneer School From 1792 To 1833. Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1903).

1822 Litchfield Female Academy Catalogue published in The Litchfield Eagle on November 25, 1822 (Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes. Chronicles of A Pioneer School From 1792 To 1833. Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1903).

1822 Litchfield Female Academy Winter Session Catalogue (Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes. More Chronicles of A Pioneer School From 1792 To 1833. Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1927).
Secondary Sources:
Dickerman, George Sherwood . Families of Dickerman Ancestry: Descendants of Thomas Dickerman, an Early Settler of Dorchester, Massachusetts, Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Press, 1897.

Record of the Meetings of the Class of 1822 Yale College, Hoggson & Robinson, 1869.

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