A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Kirkland, Caroline M.
KIRKLAND, CAROLINE M.,
Whose maiden name was Stansbury, was born in New York. At an early age she was married to Mr. William Kirkland, a scholar of great acquirements, and also highly esteemed as a man of much moral excellence of character. At the time of their marriage he resigned a professorship in Hamilton College, and established a seminary in the town of Goshen, on Lake Seneca. A few years afterwards he removed with his family to the then new State of Michigan, and made that experiment of "Forest Life," which gave opportunity for the development of Mrs. Kirkland's lively and observant genius, and also furnished material for her racy and entertaining works on Western manners and habits.
In 1839, her first book, "A New Home—Who'll Follow? or, Glimpses of Western Life.—By Mrs. Mary Clavers, an Actual Settler," was published in Boston. The freshness of feeling and piquancy of style displayed in the work, won the public voice at once, and its author gained a celebrity very flattering to a literary débutant. This may be considered, on the whole, Mrs. Kirkland's best production, without disparaging its successors.
In 1842, Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland returned to New York, where Mr. Kirkland became proprietor of a journal of a religious and literary character, the editing of which was in accordance with his views and tastes. Mrs. Kirkland now engaged in that profession which we think more deserving of honour than mere literary pursuits; she became teacher and guide of a select school for young ladies, whom she received into her own family. She did not, however, abandon her pen, and in 1845 appeared "Western Clearings," a series of stories founded on her reminiscences of life in the West. These had before appeared in "Annuals," written for the occasion and without connection, and can only be judged separately, as clever of their kind; some are very charming, and some highly humorous; we would instance "The Schoolmaster's Progress" as among the latter, and "Half-Lengths from Life" as an excellent specimen of Mrs. Kirkland's sensible and just mode of thinking, and her happy manner of describing character.
The sudden death of her husband devolving on Mrs. Kirkland the whole care of her children, called forth her energies as an author in a new manner. She became editor of a monthly periodical, published in New York, called "The Union Magazine." in 1848, this was transferred to Philadelphia, and is now known as "Sartain's;" she still continues one of its editors.
In 1848, Mrs. Kirkland visited the Old World; she has recorded her impressions in a work entitled "Holidays Abroad," a pleasant volume. Beside her natural gifts, Mrs. Kirkland is a woman of highly cultivated mind; and from her extensive opportunities for reading and observation, we may reasonably hope for some work from her pen superior to any she has yet given the public.