- Eliza Howland
Eliza Newton Woolsey Howland (1835 – 1917) was an American
author and the wife of Union Army officerJoseph Howland .Howland was born in 1835 to a prominent
New York City family active inphilanthropy and social reform, especiallyabolitionism and the decent care of thementally ill . Her parents were Charles William Woolsey, a descendant of an early English settler in what was then the Dutch colony ofNew Amsterdam , and Jane Eliza Newton ofAlexandria ,Virginia .She married Joseph in 1855. The couple honeymooned in
Europe and theHoly Land . During the Italian leg of their trip, the couple commissioned marble busts of themselves from the neoclassical sculptor,Giovanni Maria Benzoni . After their honeymoon, Howland and Joseph moved to Tioronda, an estate Joseph bought along the banks of theFishkill Creek inMatteawan, New York , present dayBeacon, New York .During the
Civil War , Joseph joined the Sixteenth New York Volunteers and served until he was seriously wounded during theSeven Days Battles of thePeninsular Campaign . During his absence, Howland and her sisters wrote constantly to each other, their correspondence being eventually published in 1899 as "Letters of a family during the Civil War, 1861-1865". This book was republished in 2001 as "Letters from the heart: letters of a family during the Civil War." Howland also wrote and privately printed "Family records: being some account of the ancestry of my mother and father Charles William Woolsey and Jane Eliza Newton" in 1900.In 1885, Joseph died while on a trip to Menton,
France . Howland left their estate at Tioronda and never returned to it, claiming that the memories of her husband made staying in the house too difficult.She died in
Newport, Rhode Island , in 1917 at the age of 82. After her death, the family's estate at Tioronda became Craig House, ahospital for thementally ill .
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