Catherine Devereux Edmondston

Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston (October 10, 1823 – January 3, 1875) was an American diarist, planter, and slave owner. She and her husband owned Looking Glass Plantation and Hascosea Plantation in Halifax County, North Carolina, which were given from her father as part of her dowry. They enslaved eighty-eight people on their plantations. Edmondston wrote extensively in her diary about her life during the American Civil War and on her plantation. She authored short essays supporting the Lost Cause of the Confederacy and penned Confederate patriotic poems.

Early life and family Edmondston was born Catherine Ann Devereux on October 10, 1823 in Halifax County, North Carolina. A member of the planter aristocracy, she was the daughter of Thomas Pollock Devereux and Catherine Ann Bayard Johnson Devereux. She was a sister of the writer Mary Bayard Devereux Clarke. She was a great-granddaughter of the theologian Jonathan Edwards and a great-great-great-granddaughter of Governor Thomas Pollock. Through her mother, she was a descendent of the minister and philosopher Samuel Johnson. She provided detailed accounts about life during the war and on her plantation.

Death Edmondston died on January 3, 1875. A devout Episcopalian, she was buried in the cemetery at Trinity Episcopal Church in Scotland Neck, North Carolina.