Caroline Lee Hentz

Caroline Hentz was born June 1, 1800, as Caroline Lee Whiting, to Colonel John and Orpah Whiting in Lancaster, Massachusetts. The youngest of eight children, Caroline was raised in a very patriotic family. Her father was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and three of her brothers fought in the War of 1812. As a child, she attended a private school run by Jared Sparks. By the time she was twelve, she had already composed a fantasy about the Far East, as well as a play. At seventeen she was teaching at a local Lancaster school. On September 30, 1824, Caroline married Nicholas Marcellus Hentz. Shortly after, the couple moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina with their first child. She is described as being “a northerner who traveled and worked throughout the South for nearly thirty years.”[1] She lived in seven different states in her lifetime, bore her husband five children, and managed to support her family financially with her writing.

Being the youngest of eight, Caroline watched as “three of her brothers became officers and served in the War of 1812.”[2] Their letters home and “tales of patriotic adventure”[2] were great inspiration to Caroline. As a young girl, Caroline was “popular with her companions, playing games, taking woodland walks, and studying nature.”[2]

On September 30, 1824, Caroline married Nicholas Marcellus Hentz, “a political refugee from Metz [and] son of a member of the French National Convention.”[2] The couple originally lived near Round Hill School in Northampton, Massachusetts, where Nicholas was an instructor.[2] In 1826, the couple moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where Nicholas became the chair of modern languages.[2] During this period, Mrs. Hentz helped George Moses Horton, an enslaved illiterate poet, by writing down his poems and sending them to local newspapers; this was the start of the poetic career of Horton, later called "Black bard of North Carolina".[3] The couple left shortly after for Covington, Kentucky, where Nicholas later founded a girls’ school, in 1830.[2] From their new home in Covington, Caroline wrote the prize-winning tragedy De Lara; or, The Moorish Bride for William Pelby. Although he offered her a $500 prize, he was unable to pay and gave Hentz back the copyright.[4] In 1832, the couple opened a girls’ school in Cincinnati.[4] While there, Caroline joined the Semi-Colon Club! which is probably where her acquaintance with Harriet Beecher Stowe began.[4]

During their time in Cincinnati, Nicholas displayed an irrational jealousy that later fueled Caroline's Byronic heroes. “According to their son, Dr. Charles A. Hentz, Colonel King of the Semi-Colon Club, sent an improper note to the dignified and accomplished Mrs. Hentz.”[4] When she attempted to respond to the note, her suspicious husband discovered the correspondence. After threatening to duel Colonel King, Nicholas swiftly closed down the school and the couple moved to Florence, Alabama, where they opened another school.[4]

The couple had a total of five children, though their oldest son died when he was only two years old.[5] While in Florence, Caroline spent most of her time caring for the couples’ four children. Her writing began to diminish over this period of time, though she managed to write some poetry and kept a diary that inspired the “letters, deathbed confession, and other lamentations that are hallmarks of her novels.”[4] After living in Florence for nine years (where they rented two slaves, one of them a woman who helped her with her chores[6]), the family began another school in Tuscaloosa in 1843.[4] In 1845, the family opened yet another school in Tuskegee, which was then nothing more than a village.[4] This began a lapse in her publishing career as she prepared her children for the adult world and married off one of her daughters (Perry and Weaks 83). In 1848, the couple opened a school in Columbus, Georgia.[4] One year later, in 1849, Nicholas became an invalid and Caroline was left to support her family, despite the fact that she herself was not well.[4] Two of the Hentz's children settled down in Marianna, Florida, and the couple moved there to join them in 1852.[7] During her husband's illness, Caroline wrote at his bedside, dividing her attention among his care, the demands of the literary public, and the occasional visitors who would disturb her routine.[7] In 1853, she returned to New England for a brief visit before making her way back to Florida.[7]

After nearly five years of supporting her family financially and nursing her husband, Caroline Lee Whiting Hentz died of pneumonia on February 11, 1856.[7] Nicholas Hentz died a few months later.[7] The couple is buried under one stone in the Episcopal Cemetery in Marianna.[7]

Although she was primarily a teacher from the beginning, Hentz still managed to write and produce several small pieces and distribute them to local publications. In 1831, Hentz wrote De Lara; or, The Moorish Bride for Boston actor William Pelby. The tragedy won Hentz recognition in 1842 when it was performed at the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia and the Tremont in Boston.[8] Hentz's career advanced greatly between the years 1832 and 1856. In March 1832, she published her first work, a short story, "The Sacrifice," in Godey's Lady's Book. While living in Covington, Kentucky, Caroline also wrote Constance of Werdenberg, a play performed at the Park Theatre in New York in 1832.[4] That same year, another one of her plays, Lamorah; or, the Western Wild, played in Cincinnati in 1832 and in New Orleans at Calwell's on January 1, 1833.[4] In 1850, Hentz published her most profitable novel, Linda.[5] One of her most famous novels, The Planter’s Northern Bride, was published in 1854 in response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom’s Cabin.[9]

Her earlier works spoke to young men and women, mimicking religious parables and instructing them in moral goodness. Hentz was known for "engaging in some of the most prominent public debates on the ethics and social relations of the slave system."[1] After retiring from her career as an educator, she began to write vigorously and her literary career blossomed as a result. From 1850 to 1856, "Hentz produced several collections of stories as well as seven more novels."[10] Her last novel, Ernest Linwood, was published on February 11, 1856.[11] She is "frequently remembered as the author of The Planter's Northern Bride, her polemical and distinctively Southern response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin."[1]

While at Covington, Kentucky, Hentz, who had written a poem, a novel, and a tragedy before she was 12 years old, competed for a prize of $500 that had been offered for a play by the directors of the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia. The prize was awarded to her for her tragedy of De Lara, or the Moorish Bride, which was produced on the stage, and afterward published in book-form. Lamorah, or the Western Wild, another tragedy, was acted at Cincinnati and published in a newspaper at Columbus, Georgia. Constance of Werdenberg, a third tragedy, remained unpublished.

She was the author of numerous short poems, and a voluminous writer of tales and novelettes that were published in periodicals and newspapers, many of them collected into volumes.

• Knight, Denise D. Writers of the American Renaissance: An A-To-Z Guide. West Port: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003.
• Perry, Caroline, and Mary Louise Weaks. The History of Southern Women's Literature. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2002. 82–84.
• Stanesa, Jamie. "Caroline Lee Whiting Hentz (1800–1856)."Legacy. 2. 13. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University, 1996.

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1892). "Hentz, Nicholas Marcellus" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

• Text of The Planter's Northern Bride
• Works by Caroline Lee Hentz at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Caroline Lee Hentz at Internet Archive
• Rindo, Ron (2011). "Caroline Lee Hentz". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Auburn University.