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Frances Kirby Smith

Other Name:
Frances Marvin Kirby
Gender:
Female
Born:
April 6, 1785
Died:
August 3, 1875
Home Town:
Litchfield, CT
Marriage(s):
Joseph Lee Smith (August 25, 1804)
Biographical Notes:
Frances Kirby Smith of Litchfield, Connecticut was born April 6, 1785. As a young woman in 1797 Frances attended the Bethlehem Female Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and it is believed that around the year 1802 she may have studied at Sarah Pierce's Female Academy in her hometown. Frances wed Joseph Lee Smith, a lawyer and politician from New Britain, Connecticut. Sources conflict about their marriage year, but the Hale Collection of Vital Records cites an American Mercury September 13, 1804 marriage notice stating that the couple wed on August 25, 1804.
In 1821, Joseph Lee Smith removed to St. Augustine, Florida. He returned for his family the following year. His wife made frequent trips back to Connecticut. During the couple's marriage they had four children. The slave schedule ...
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Additional Notes:
Her son, General Edmund Kirby-Smith, was the last Confederate General to surrender after the Civil War ended and was the last surviving general on either side of the Civil War.
Education
Years at LFA:
1802
Immediate Family (Why only immediate family?)
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:
[We are currently working to update and confirm citations of attendance.]
Secondary Sources:
Dwight, Melatiah Everett, "The Kirbys of New England : a history of the descendants of John Kirby of Middletown, Conn. and of Joseph Kirby of Hartford, Conn., and of Richard Kirby of Sandwich, Mass. together with genealogies of the Burgis, White and Maclaren families, and the ancestry of John Drake, of Windsor, Conn," 1898. Accessed at https://archive.org/details/kirbysofnewengla00dwig/page/n381/mode/2up?q=%22ephraim+kirby%22 April 16, 2024.

Hale Collection, Surname index of marriages SMITH - SQUIRE, Film # 007593361, Accessed via Family Search at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9F1-7W21?i=1584 ...
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