American poetess, born at Plattsburg, NY, on the 27th of September 1808. Her parents were well educated, her father being a physician and her mother a poetess. From infancy Lucretia was subject to frequent attacks of sickness. When four years of age she learned to read, and soon took delight in making little books containing rude pictures and explanations in rhyme. These the child carefully concealed, and finally destroyed when they attracted attention in the family. The earliest of her compositions that has been preserved was written at the age of nine. In 1824, at the suggestion and expense of a friend of the family, she was sent to Mrs. Emma Willard’s famous academy at Troy to complete her education. Here, however, her severe study, especially in preparing for a public examination, undermined her health, and being injudiciously allowed to continue her studies, she fell a victim to consumption, dying at Plattsburg on the 27th of August 1825. Her poetical writings which have been preserved amount to 278 pieces, some of them of great length. Prof. S. F. B. Morse edited part of them in 1829 under the title Amir Khan, and Other Poems, adding a memoir of the author. The work was very favorably reviewed by Southey in the Quarterly Review. Another edition was published, with a Life, by Miss C. M. Sedgwick in 1843, and an illustrated edition in 1871. See also “On Crossing Lake Champlain in the Steamboat Phœnix”; Literary Criticism.
