Caroline Kirkland

Caroline Mathilda Stansbury Kirkland (January 11, 1801 – April 6, 1864) was an American writer. Biography She was born into a middle-class family in New York City, the oldest of eleven children. Her mother was a writer of fiction and poetry. Her father died when she was 21 and the family followed her to upstate New York, where she taught and had met her future husband, William Kirkland. The death of her father had made her mainly responsible for the rest of the family. She married William in 1828 and they settled in Geneva, New York, where they founded the Domestic school. They had five children (one of whom died) before they left Geneva. In 1835 the Kirklands moved to the then frontier town of Detroit, Michigan, and in 1837 they founded the village of Pinckney on land that William had purchased. It was there that Caroline had success with her first book, A New Home; Who'll Follow. She wrote another book about life in the settlements, Forest Life, while still in Michigan. The Kirklands left Michigan in 1843 because their venture to establish the town of Pinckney was not a financial success, and because they felt shut out by the reactions of their neighbors to Kirkland's frank revelations of frontier life. A third book based on frontier life, Western Clearings, came out in 1845, after she had returned with her family to New York City. In New York William Kirkland entered the newspaper business as editor of the New York Evening Mirror, and of his own paper, the Christian Inquirer. In 1846 an accident resulted in his death. Mrs. Kirkland continued her literary activities until her own death in 1864. Their son Joseph Kirkland, who was born in Geneva, also became a recognized writer.