Many Troy Female Seminary graduates from the first half of the nineteenth century married West Point graduates, and Emma Willard visited the Point several times, among other things to compare notes on mathematics instruction with professors there.  Two T.F.S. students in the 1830s had ties to other branches of the military.  Agnes Powell ‘32 married Ambrose Spencer, son of John Canfield Spencer, Secretary of War and Treasury under John Tyler.  Agnes’ brother-in-law, the nineteen-year-old Philip Spencer, was hanged for mutiny.  His tragic case led the government to establish a naval academy at Annapolis to train young sailors more appropriately.  Later in the decade, Martha Reed ‘38 married Alexander Mitchell of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Their grandson, Billy Mitchell, a WWI ace, is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force Academy.  (The dining hall at the academy is named for him as is the airport in Milwaukee.)  Just another strain of U.S. history touched by the lives of women who studied under Emma Willard.

On December 31, 1830, Emma Willard was in Paris.  Before retiring, she confided to her diary, “The last day of the year.  This evening a party of Mrs. B—–’s [her Parisian landlady] friends were here….They staid [sic] for the new year.  The clock was watched, and the moment it struck twelve, commenced a racket, which took me by surprise.  The gentlemen immediately set to kissing the ladies, and the ladies to kissing each other after the French manner, first on one cheek, and then on the other, and there was such a shouting–and wishing of happy new-year–and in short, such a din of mingled voices, and half screamings, that in our country there would have been a chance for a cry of fire from those out-of-doors, if not a ringing of the [fire] bells.”  Conclusion:  New Year’s Eve in Paris was more exciting than New Year’s Eve in Troy, at least in 1830.

In the early 1820s, students stayed at school for the holidays, although Emma Willard left Troy to visit her family in Connecticut in 1824, according to a student letter.  For the students she left behind, Christmas, which fell on a Thursday, meant church services.  However, classes were suspended, and on Saturday, the Seminary girls hired “three elegant sleighs” and went riding “three miles beyond Lansingburgh.”

New Year’s found Mrs. Willard back at the Seminary, serving goose for New Year’s Day dinner.  According to one student, “Dr. Willard thought the goose was wasted…[on] us.”  In retaliation she poked fun at the doctor:  “…his head was so full of goose that when he went to ask the blessing he said, ‘Lord, give us goose to be thankful’ instead of grace which excited our risibility not a little.”  On December 1, 1825, the object of student amusement had only five months to live.

Internet abbrieviations (e.g., lol) are not new, and in fact, have a connection with the Troy Female Seminary.  Sarah Shaw TFS ‘29 had a brother, Henry Wheeler Shaw.  He was a popular humorist who wrote under the name Josh Billings.  After coining the term “just joshing” to indicate that he was kidding, he abbreviated it to “JJ,” shorthand that became common usage in telegrams (where, as in text messaging, brevity was a virtue).

Urania Sheldon TFS ‘28 became the third wife of Union College president Eliphalet Nott in 1842 when she was 35 and he was 69.  (Whiff of desperation there?) At any rate, as Nott’s health failed, Urania took over more and more of the duties of the college presidency, so much so that the treasurer confided to his diary in 1860, “[He] is completely under Urania’s thumb now and has to do everything she says.”  Urania lived on in the president’s house after her husband died.  Not surprisingly, neither of the next two presidents lasted more than two years.  Then Nott’s grandson, Eliphalet Nott Potter (and his wife Helen Fuller, TFS ‘66), assumed the presidency of the college.  Recently, Union has restored a portrait of Urania Nott and has hung it in the president’s office.  Where?  Right behind a desk formerly owned by a Union College graduate and president of the United States, Chester A. Arthur.  Arthur’s sister, Mary, TFS ‘56, served as his hostess in the White House (because he was a widower).  Her portrait hangs there!

In 1852, according to Nettie Fowler (later Mrs. Cyrus McCormick), the students at the Seminary stayed there for the Thanksgiving holiday.  (It was not officially a holiday until Lincoln made it one in 1863, and it was not officially the fourth Thursday in November until Congress set the date in 1941.  Interestingly, Sarah Josepha Hale, a good friend of Emma Willard, mother of two Seminary girls, and the editor of Godey’s Ladies Book, is credited with pushing Lincoln to announce the holiday.)  Nevertheless, for many years prior to the official establishment of Thanksgiving, folks in the Northeast celebrated Thanksgiving with, as Nettie’s cousin Ermina G. Merrick, TFS ‘54, wrote, “turkey as usual.”  On November 22, 1852, Nettie wrote to her aunt, Ermina’s mother, that it was Ermina’s turn to be a baker.  “Three young ladies bake at a time,” said Nettie, and Mina’s turn coincided with the baking for Thanksgiving.  Two days after Thanksgiving, Nettie wrote to her brother describing the festivities at the Sem.  “We went to church and returned to a sumptious dinner.  In the evening we met Mrs. [Sarah Lucretia] Willard in the parlor.  She gives these parties twice a term.  They are as tedious as possible–[we] stand up for two hours after having undergone the ordeal of a ceremonial reception from both old Mrs. Emma Willard and the present Preceptress.”  She confided the reason for the tedium in her diary entry on Thanksgiving night:  “Not a gent present except Mr. Willard and the music teachers.”  Apparently, healthy coeducational opportunities have been a challenge for a long, long time.