Louisa (Gillingham) Terry
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Louisa (Gillingham) Terry (1810 - 1903)

Louisa Terry formerly Gillingham
Born in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USAmap
Ancestors ancestors
Daughter of and
Wife of — married 25 Jul 1836 in New York, New York, New York, USAmap
Descendants descendants
Died at age 93 in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan, USAmap
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Profile last modified | Created 2 Apr 2014
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Biography

Louisa Gillingham was born in Philadelphia in 1810.[1] She married Adrian Terry in 1836 and died in 1903, outliving her husband by nearly 40 years. While her father George Gillingham is listed in Gillingham[2] as having only two daughters: Emma and Julia, I believe that Louisa was a third daughter. This is based on the fact that George Gillingham was known to be a music professor and on an article in Connecticut Magazine[3] that states that:

"The name of Miss Louisa Gillingham occurs frequently, and enough to exite curiosity, for she appears to have been educated in a good school, and far in advance of any other singer in Hartford at the time. There were three sisters, all taught by their father, who had been well trained in the pure Italian school of singing and in the English school of oratorio. The sisters were living in New York in 1826, and with Mr. Paddon, gave a concert at the Representative Chamber in Hartford on the evening of August 9th of that year."

Gillingham[4] also states that Emma Gillingham was "a great singer, even until she was seventy-seven years of age."

The memoirs of Mary Lydia Barrette [5] contain an interesting paragraph:

Was that the time, or later, that she [the headmistress] read to the school a brief letter I had written to the St. Nicholas Magazine edited by Mary Maples Dodge? I had written very tersely that my grandmother had come from Stamford, Connecticut and her guardian or something, was Clement Moore. One December evening as all the young sat by the fire he read them a poem he had just written. He began, "Twas the night before Christmas..." My letter was printed in the letter section of the magazine and as Miss Fitchett read it to the school I squirmed.

The actual letter can be found in Saint Nicholas Magazine, Dec., 1907, page 184.[6]

MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS STORY
BY MARY LYDIA BARRETTE (AGE 9)
(Silver Badge)

When my great-grandmother was a girl her father and mother died, so Mr. Moore became her guardian. I mean Mr. Clement C. Moore.

On Christmas Eve, as my great-grandmother and Mr. Moore's daughters and sons were gathered around the fire, Mr. Moore came down and read "The Night Before Christmas" which he had just composed.

This is my favorite Christmas story.

We have a little book of his poems with his autograph in it, which he presented to my great-grandmother.

Mary Lydia Barrette had four great-grandmothers. Two of them lived in Ireland and can be reasonably ruled out as the one in this story. The other two were Elizabeth Bradish Biddle and Louisa Gillingham Terry. Elizabeth Bradish seems unlikely because "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was published in 1823 and she was born in 1795 and married in 1819. The most likely great-grandmother seems to be Louisa Gillingham, who was born in 1810 and wasn't married until 1836.

The big question is: Why was Louisa Gillingham living with Clement Moore in the 1820s? The reading that is described is said to have taken place on Christmas Eve 1822.[7] Both of her parents seem to have died in 1827, when she was 16 years old, so the story about Clement Moore being her guardian is possible and the reading she describes may have been a later one, not in 1822.

A possible answer to the question of the relationship between Clement Moore and Louisa is provided in the address given on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of St. Luke's Church, on Hudson Street in New York City in which the speaker gives great credit to Clement Moore for his early support of the church, both financial and personal (he was a Church Warden) and also states:

At this time [1828?], Miss Louisa Gillingham entered on her brilliant career as vocalist in this city, and her services were secured in this Church at a salary of $250 per annum.[8]

Louisa married Adrian Russell Terry on July 25, 1836, in New York City. He became a professor at Bristol College in Croydon, PA, northeast of Philadelphia, but he died in 1864. Louisa survived until 1903. Her daughter Margaret Terry married James Biddle and lived in Detroit and that is where Louisa died and was buried.



Sources

  1. Ancestry.com, Web: Michigan, Find A Grave Index, 1805-2011 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012), www.ancestry.com, Database online. Record for Louisa Gillingham Terry.
  2. The Gillingham family, descendants of Yeamans Gillingham, Compiled by Harrold Edgar Gillingham, Publisher: Patterson & White company, printers, 1901; Original from the University of Wisconsin - Madison; available on http://books.google.com
  3. "Old Time Music and Musicians" The Connecticut Magazine, Volumes 3-4, pp 319-328, Published 1897 Original from the University of California, available at http:/books.google.com
  4. Gillingham, op. cit.
  5. Memoirs, Mary Lydia Barrette Sinclair (1897-1991), unpublished, in possession of Henry Chadwick
  6. Dodge, Mary Mapes, 1830-1905. St. Nicholas. New York: Scribner, 18731943.
  7. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/clement-clarke-moore
  8. Semi-Centennial Discourse, Commemorative of Laying the Corner Stone of St. Luke's Church, Hudson Street, New York, June 4, 1871, by the Rector Rev. Isaac H. Tuttle, D.D., Printed by Request, Franklin Printing Office: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor. 1871, http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/ihtuttle/discourse1871.html
  • I own a stitched sampler signed by Julia Gillingham on July 22, 1819 Henry Chadwick




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DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships with Louisa by comparing test results with other carriers of her mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial DNA test-takers in the direct maternal line: It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with Louisa:

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