| Caroline Chesebro' | |
| Birth Name: | Caroline Chesebrough |
| Birth Date: | March 30, 1825 |
| Birth Place: | Canandaigua, New York, U.S. |
| Death Date: | February 16, 1873 (aged 47) |
| Death Place: | Piermont, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation: | writer |
| Language: | English |
| Nationality: | American |
Caroline Chesebro' (March 30, 1825 – February 16, 1873) was a 19th-century American writer of fiction, including short stories, juvenile literature, and novels. Born "Caroline Chesebrough", but known by her preferred spelling of "Caroline Chesebro'", she was the founder of The Packard Quarterly.
Chesebro first became known as a writer in 1848, when she was engaged as a contributor to Graham's American Monthly Magazine. Subsequently, she was connected as a sketch writer with many prominent monthly magazines and other periodicals. In 1851, she published a volume of short stories under the collective head of Dreamland by Daylight, a Panorama of Romance, and a year later, she wrote her debut novel, Isa, a Pilgrimage, followed by another novel, Victoria, or the World Overcome, in 1856. Chesebro' also wrote The Beautiful Gate, and Other Tales, and was an occasional contributor to some of the daily newspapers. In later years, her short stories were attractive to the readers of Harper's Magazine and The Atlantic monthlies and Appletons' Journal. Writing for two decades, her publications steadily gaining favor with the public, improvement being perceptible in the later volumes.
Caroline Chesebrough was born at Canandaigua, New York, March 30, 1825. Her parents were Betsey Kimball and Nicoholas Goddard Chesebrough, hatter and postmaster. She had four older siblings and three that were younger. Her ancestors, Anne Stevenson and William Chesebrough, removed from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630), and were associated with the establishment of Braintree, Massachusetts, Rehoboth, Massachusetts, and Stonington, Connecticut.
Chesebro was educated at a female seminary in her local town.
Chesebro remained in Canandaigua until 1835, when she was invited to a position in the Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn. She had the charge of Composition in the higher departments of the institute, but lived with her brothers and sister at Piermont, New York on the Hudson River.
For many years, Chesebro' contributed prose and verse to periodicals. Between 1848 and 1851, her stories appeared in Graham's American Monthly Magazine, Holden's Dollar Magazine, The Knickerbocker, Sartain's, Peterson's Magazine, and Godey's Lady's Book. Twenty-four of her stories appeared in Dream-Land by Daylight, A Panorama of Romance (1851, J.S. Redfield). From 1851, her stories were published in Harper's Magazine, as well as Appleton's, Beadle's, Continental, Galaxy, Lippincott's, and Putnam's, as well as, beginning in 1857, The Atlantic Monthly.
Chesebro' wrote several books, among which are: Dream of Land by Day Light; Peter Carvadine; Isa, a Pilgrimage; The Children of Light; Getting Along; Victoria; and The Foe in the Household. Puy (1896) described them as, "evincing descriptive and analytical powers of a high order".
After 1865, Chesebro' returned to teaching at Packer Collegiate Institute. She died at her home near Piermont, 16 February 1873.[1] Her funeral took place at Canandaigus.[2]
On March 11, 1852, Alice Cary, wrote to the Cincinnati Gazette regarding Chesebro's Isa:—[3]
Chesebro responded two months later in the Richmond Weekly Palladium:—
Ripley's New-York Tribune review of Chesebro's The Foe in the Household is included in Hart's A Manual of American Literature: A Text-book for Schools and Colleges (1873):—