Ca1910-01-1
Portrait of Elizabeth Canfield Tallmadge
Anson Dickinson (1779-1852)

Elizabeth Canfield Tallmadge

Other Name:
Elizabeth Hannah Canfield
Gender:
Female
Born:
1792 or 1793
Died:
1878
Home Town:
Sharon, CT
Later Residences:
New York, NY
Marriage(s):
Frederick Augustus Tallmadge (May 22, 1815)
Biographical Notes:
Elizabeth Canfield Tallmadge was born in 1792 or 1793 to Yale graduate Judson Canfield, a lawyer and politician, and Mabel Ruggles Canfield. Elizabeth's hometown was Sharon, Connecticut and she likely attended the Ltichfield Female Academy in 1809 and in 1814. Elziabeth married Litchfield Law School school Frederick Augustus Tallmadge one May 22, 1815. They later lived in New York, New York. Elizabeth and Frederick had five children and one of their children, Elizabeth Tallmadge White, attended the Litchfield Female Academy as well. Elizabeth Canfield died in 1878.
Additional Notes:
Elizabeth was called "The Rose of Sharon."

Litchfield Law Students and brothers Thomas and Josiah Telfair both fell deeply in love with Elizabeth. Their father Edward of was a signer of the Articles of Confederation, the first Governor of Georgia under its new constitution of 1789, and a prominent plantation owner.

One of the Telfair brothers "offered himself and was refused" and "afterwards walked the twenty miles from Litchfield to Sharon only to gaze at the light in her window and walk back again."

Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, Chronicles of a Pioneer School from 1792 to 1833: Being the History of Miss Sarah Pierce and her Litchfield School (1903) p.128.
Education
Years at LFA:
1809,1814
Related Objects and Documents
In the Ledger:
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:
"List of Pupils Gathered From Letters and Other Sources" (Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes. Chronicles of A Pioneer School From 1792 to 1833. Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1903).
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