Cornelia Jane (Matthews) Jordan (1830 - 1898)

Born 11 Jan 1830 in Lynchburg, Campbell, Virginia, United States

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Biography

…born in Lynchburg, Va, in 1830 Her parents were Edwin Matthews and Emily Goggin Matthews She was born to wealth, and received all the advantages of liberal education and polished society. Her mother died in 1834, and Cornelia and two younger sisters were sent to the home of their grandmother in Bedford county. In 1842 she was placed in the school of the Sisters of the Visitation, in Georgetown, D.C. In school she led her mates in all literary exercises Her poetical productions were numerous and excellent. In 1851 she became the wife of Francis Hubert Jordan, a lawyer of Luray, Va., where she made her home. During the first years of her married life she wrote a great deal. A collection of her poems was published in Richmond, Va, in 1860, with the title, “Flowers of Hope and Memory.” During the Civil War she wrote many stirring lyrics A volume of these, entitled “Corinth, and Other Poems,” was published after the surrender. The little volume was seized by the military commander in Richmond and suppressed as seditious. In 1867 she published “Richmond: Her Glory and Her Graves, a volume with some shorter lyrics. She has contributed many poems to magazines and newspapers Her best-known was poems are “The Battle of Manassas,” “The Death of Jackson” and “An Appeal for Jefferson Davis.”

From American Women, Vol 1 (1897)

Works include: Flowers of Hope and Memory, 1860

"Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven" : the blighted bud, a mother's record of a little life soon ended., 1861

Corinth, and other poems of the war, 1865

Richmond: Her Glory and Her Graves, 1867

Echoes from the Cannon, 1899

Sources

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/48268323/
• Christian, William Asbury, Lynchburg and Its People [J. P. Bell Company, Lynchburg, Va. 1900].

2020-10-23 Cornelia Jane Matthews Jordan 1830–1898 Lynchburg VA Poet.jpg

Cabell, Margaret Couch, Sketches and recollections of Lynchburg, (Richmond, C. H. Wynne : 1858), page 112. NOT IN COPYRIGHT.

• https://archive.org/details/sketchesrecollec00cabel/page/112/mode/2up

2020-10-23 Cornelia Jane Matthews Jordan 1830–1898 Lynchburg VA Poet 2.jpg

• Citation: John Fiske (Editor), James Grant Wilson (Editor), Appletons' Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1600-1889, 1886. NOT IN COPYRIGHT.