Writer and Editor

New York to the Frontier.

Caroline Matilda Stansbury, who would become a pioneering literary realist, was born on 11 January 1801 in New York City. Her literary career had its roots in her family upbringing. Her parents nurtured a love of reading, and she was also influenced by the satiric verses of her grandfather Joseph Stansbury, an ardent Loyalist during the American Revolution. In 1828 Caroline married William Kirkland, a bright young tutor at Hamilton College. In 1835 the couple moved west to Detroit, and then, in 1837, as Michigan boomed and the Western frontier expanded, William purchased land in the new settlement of Pinckney, Michigan. Here, as Caroline later recalled, the Kirklands believed hard work and perseverance would be rewarded with "boundless treasures," but life in Pinckney turned out to be less rewarding than the Kirklands hoped. William, like many of his neighbors, was swindled by...