Female

April 15, 1793

1826

New London, CT

Litchfield, CT
Philadelphia, PA

Louisa Wait of New London, Connecticut was born April 15, 1793 to Thomas Griswold Wait and Hannah Calkins Wait. In 1805 she attended Sarah Pierce's Female Academy. While attending the Litchfield Female Academy she boarded at the Lyman Beecher house. She returned to the Beecher house around 1816 to teach music at the LFA. She shared a room with Catherine Beecher and they became close personal friends. Louisa taught music at the LFA from 1816 to 1821. She also taught in Philadelphia. At some point prior to 1818, Louisa became secretly engaged to Uriel Holmes, Jr. the son of Judge Holmes of Litchfield. After graduating from Yale in 1816 and beginning the study of theology at the Andover Seminary, Holmes returned to Litchfield and died of consumption in 1818.

By 1819, Louisa was known ...to be romantically involved with William Tracy Gould, the son of James Gould, a teacher at the Law School. William had just graduated from Yale and was a current student at the Law School in Litchfield. He was several years younger than Louisa. Fanny Lyman, a student at the Female Academy wrote to William Greene in June of 1820, "William Gould is supposed to be engaged to Louisa Wait... he has treated her with marked attention for a year past and has been told of the disadvantage resulting from such attention but he still persists in his visits to and it is now believed by everyone to be a match." In 1821, William left Litchfield and went to Clinton, GA to establish a legal practice. The engagement continued until 1824 when Louisa was at that time living in Philadelphia and William was in Augusta, GA. However, by October of that year, William was married to his first wife Anna McKinne.

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote about Gould and Louisa's failed relationship in her personal correspondence.
(LTB thesis, VI, p.517 ff.)


Louisa became consumptive soon afterwards and died at her sister's home in Burlington, VT in 1826. John Pierce Brace said of Louisa, "Louisa Wait was a little younger than myself & had been at Litchfield school for some time. She was the daughter of Capt. Thomas Wait of New London, who died not far from this time and left his family poor. Louisa was a slight figure, pretty features, pleasent blue eyes and with an uncommon fresh blooming complexion. She was called very pretty. She left school soon after. On August 10, 1816 she makes her apperance once more in my private journal, she then came on to be Music mistress at our School. She continued in that station until some time in 1821. She became engaged to Wm. T. Gould, who was much younger than she. After leaving Litchfield, she taught school in Philadelphia. Upon Gould's desertion of her, she fell into a consumption and died. She passed through Litchfield when sick, in 1824 and died at her sister's in Burlington in 1826. She was talented, amiable & a beautiful girl, a very great friend of mine and of Lucy's." (John Pierce Brace, History of My Poetry, Vol 1 Helga J. Ingraham Memorial, Litchfield Historical Society.)
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On January 22, 1811, Catharine Beecher wrote to Louisa and commented on the broken engagement of Litchfield Female Academy student Sarah Gilbert saying that her family lost it's fortune "by her Uncle's failure" and that "as soon as Alexander heard of it he left her...There was a kind & generous heart that would not have forsaken the afflicted & the orphan in her utmost need.”

Schlesinger Library - Beecher-Stowe Collection

1805

Boarded witih the Lyman Beecher family

Educator

Letter, Catherine Beecher to Louisa Wait, January 1822 (Beecher-Stowe Collection, Schlesinger Library).