1939-03-5
Portrait of Lucretia Deming - ca. 1825
Anson Dickinson (1779-1852)

Lucretia Deming

Gender:
Female
Born:
August 13, 1804
Died:
April 29, 1887
Home Town:
Litchfield, CT
Biographical Notes:
Lucretia Deming was born on August 13, 1804, the youngest child of Julius and Dorothy Champion Deming. Lucretia attended the Litchfield Female Academy in 1816, 1818, and 1819. Following her education, she devoted time to caring for her invalid sister Mary, who died in 1847, and her brother Charles, who died in 1862. In 1836 and 1837, Lucretia accompanied Charles on a voyage to St. Croix, Jamaica, and Cuba. Lucretia spent her life in the Litchfield home built for her father by architect William Sprats. During her lifetime, the house became known as “The Lindens” resulting from the rows of trees she planted in front. She had a lifelong interest in botany, literature, and English politics. In later life she suffered from deafness. She devoted a sizable amount of her personal wealth to charitable ...
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Additional Notes:
Primary Sources for Lucretia Deming include her diploma, located in the Litchfield Female Academy collection, Series 2: Student Papers, Records and Documents, Folder 42.
Education
Years at LFA:
1816,1818-1819
Other Education:
In 1817 Lucretia attended school in Norwich, Connecticut.
Profession / Service
Profession:
Social Activist
Benevolent and Charitable Organizations:
Female Bible Society; Box for Home Missions; Society for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor; Colored Clergyman; Female Tract Society; Charity for Southern Sufferers; Charity for City Misses; Southern Relief; Church at Appomattox, Virginia; Colored Orphans Asylum; Soldiers Orphans Asylum; Foreign Missions; Colonization Society; Sunday School Library; Freedman's Society; Five Points House of Industry; Home for Aged Women; Avenue D Mission
Immediate Family (Why only immediate family?)
Related Objects and Documents
In the Ledger:
Other:
Litchfield area family papers, 1794-1860
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:
1816 receipt for tuition (Connecticut Historical Society - Litchfield area family papers, 1794-1860).

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

1818 receipt for tuition (Connecticut Historical Society - Litchfield area family papers, 1794-1860).

"Catalogue of the Ladies Academy in Litchfield" 1818 by J.A. Shepard (Litchfield Historical Society - Litchfield Female Academy collection).

1819 Litchfield Female Academy Summer Session Catalogue (Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes. More Chronicles of A Pioneer School From 1792 to 1833. Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1927).
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