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Hold'er Newt

~ Old Northern Dutchess Life

Hold'er Newt

Tag Archives: education

Poughkeepsie Female Academy – 2

03 Saturday Jun 2017

Posted by SKH in 19th Century, Education

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19th Century, education, Losee, poughkeepsie, tivoli

Back in 2015 I published letters to my 2nd great-grandmother Mary Elizabeth Knickerbocker of Madalin (Tivoli), Dutchess County, NY from her classmates at the Poughkeepsie Female Academy sent between 1853 and 1855.

The first article about the school is here.

Recently, I found a brochure and a sort of program tucked in with things belonging to her (then future) husband Dr. John E Losee of Upper Red Hook.  Below are the pages from the “program”, and below that are three pages from the “brochure” which is undated, but is definitely of the same period.

Poughkeepsie Female Academy program 1853
Poughkeepsie Female Academy program 1853
There is no page “2” and “3”, the page count starts at the title page and is followed by two blank pages






Poughkeepsie Female Academy "brochure" c.1853
Poughkeepsie Female Academy “brochure” c.1853

Poughkeepsie Female Academy

29 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by SKH in 19th Century Photos, 20th Century, Education, Genealogy, Urban Renewal

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education, Knickerbocker, Losee, poughkeepsie, poughkeepsie female academy, tivoli

My great-great grandmother Mary Elizabeth Knickerbocker of Madelin (Tivoli) NY (later Mrs. Dr. John E Losee of Upper Red Hook) attended the Poughkeepsie Female Academy, graduating probably in 1855 at 18. At the time, most children received an “8th grade education” which was not something to look down upon. Those who cared to and could afford to would send their children on to academies and colleges which were often also boarding schools.

I have a half-dozen letters sent to her from her academy friends Mahala Clarke, Emma Robinson, Almira Culver, Kate Roosa, and Mollie Harris that I have transcribed and will begin a series of posts for each in February and March, but thought a little context and background might be handy, first.

Poughkeepsie Female Academy

Poughkeepsie Female Academy (New York Public Library)

When Mary Elizabeth Knickerbocker attended the Poughkeepsie Female Academy, the principal was Jacob C. Tooker. He was born c. 1800 and when he died in 1856 his widow Caroline Warring ran the Academy in his stead until 1859. They may have had two daughters, Sarah b. c. 1836 who appears in the 1850 census with them, and Ada b. c. 1851 who married John Warnick (they are buried in the same plot with her parents). Caroline died in 1891.

Jacob got a Masters from Union College in 1826. He was from Goshen and resided Montgomery, Orange Co in 1830 and 1840. In the early 1840’s he was a superintendent of Orange County public schools. From 1846-48 he was principal of Brockport Collegiate Institute, an academy west of Rochester (today, SUNY Brockport) where he…

“…was the outsider who was hired as the permanent principal. …There are contradictory remarks about the type of man he was, ranging from “fussy and difficult” to “jovial and well liked.” Principal Tooker and Mrs. Bates, who still ran the boarding establishment after her husband’s death, did not get along. The Trustee Board had to step in on several occasions to settle their battles. Principal Tooker also clashed with the students and was a strong disciplinarian. By the end of the school term in 1848, the board of Trustees had tired of Principal Tooker’s demands and complaints and terminated his relationship with the Institution.” – College at Brockport website

In the 1850 census he was the principal of the Female Academy in Poughkeepsie.  He, along with 60 men like Vassar, Hooker, and Adriance, loaned $300 each in 1853 to the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery Association and “were given the option of either being paid back once the cemetery began to sell plots, or using the investment to pay for a family plot.” “A Brief History of The Cemetery”

The Female Academy building was a “fine brick structure on Cannon street, near Market” with “heavy Doric columns” built when the school opened in 1837 per The History of Duchess Co NY, J. H. Smith. It does not exist today, not having survived urban renewal (search this blog/use the tags for posts regarding this topic).

Illustrated Poughkeepsie p.37

Building used as “Women’s Christian Temperance Union” in 1906

Miss Cordelia A. Jackson

22 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by SKH in 19th Century Photos, Education, Genealogy

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Curtis, education, Fraleigh, indian territory, Jackson, methodist cemetery, red hook

Born April 1825 in NY, she might have been a daughter of Eldad Jackson of Ithaca, NY called “Delia” when younger, but there is nothing to prove this.

Cordelia Jackson

On the porch at Rose Hill, the Fraleigh farm house in Red Hook.

1860 Red Hook Journal article mentions a “private school” kept by “Miss Jackson” and in 1877 her “virtues as teacher of the Primary School are above comments.” In 1879 she taught at the public school and in the early 1880’s she taught “Sabbath” school at the Red Hook Methodist church. While she was a teacher, she resided with the John and Jane Curtis family in Red Hook in 1860 and 1870. In 1880 she boarded with Misses Mary, Gertrude, and Charlotte Benedict in Red Hook.

On 7 Oct, 1884, she left Red Hook for Indian Territory “having accepted a position as teacher in Spencer Academy, and Indian Mission School of Choctaw Tribe.” She spent two years out there and returned in the fall of 1886. The Spencer Academy was in what would be Choctaw Co, OK. It had reopened in 1882 but shut again in 1886, which, presumably is why Cordelia came home.

The Choctaw, one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the southeastern United States, wanted to have their children educated. In fact, they placed a high priority on education before and after their removal to the Indian Territory (present Oklahoma) from 1831 to 1834. They saw education as necessary to survive in the white world that was encroaching upon them. Choctaw principal chief Isaac Garvin (1878-80) declared, “I say educate! Educate! Or we perish!”

– Oklahoma Historical Society’s Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

 In the Red Hook Journal of 2 May 1890 thobitere is a mention that she was from New York, formerly from and visiting friends in Red Hook. She’s a “visitor” in the home of John and Susan Van Home in Manhattan in 1900. How they knew each other is a mystery, but she was 65 years old and was probably retired from teaching at that point. She died 10 Mar 1905 at the home of Herbert Jackson Curtis (the author’s g-grandmother’s brother) and is buried at the Methodist Cemetery in Red Hook with the Fraleigh and Curtis families.

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