Program

NYS Historic

Subject

House, People

Location

9 Cumberland Ave, Plattsburgh, NY 12901, USA

Lat/Long

44.70048, -73.44876

Grant Recipient

Clinton County Historical Association

Lucretia Davidson was the second daughter of a family of nine children, seven of whom died young. According to sources, she began writing poetry at the age of four. Lucretia attended the Troy Female Seminary and Miss Gilbert’s School in Albany, but ill health frequently interrupted her attendance. She died of tuberculosis before her seventeenth birthday. After her death in 1825, her mother gathered her works and published a number of them in 1829, as well as a larger collection in 1841. Her poetry drew admiration from authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, Samuel Morse and Catharine Sedgwick. (American Poetry Lecture, 1843. Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. Accessed 11 April 2025)

Younger sister Margaret also experienced periods of invalidism. Educated and raised under her mother’s protective watch, Margaret wrote poems in the style of her older sister Lucretia. Her mother took Margaret to Saratoga in 1833 in hopes it would improve her health. However, she, too, died of tuberculosis as a teenager. Author Washington Irving (of Sleepy Hollow fame) wrote Margaret’s biography and a publication of her poems in 1841. (Portraits of American Women Writers, The Library Company of Philadelphia. Accessed 11 April 2025)

The two poets who were born and raised in this home were honored nationwide and in 2025 will be recognized by a mural in downtown Plattsburgh at 63 Bridge Street. The “Poets’ Mural” is a collaboration of the Clinton County Historical Association and Museum and The City of Plattsburgh.