Catherine Stratton Ladd

Catherine Stratton Ladd (October 28, 1808 – January 31, 1899) was an American educator and school founder and principal. She was also a writer and poet. Before the war, she had two careers, teaching, and writing. She founded two schools, one of which was a boarding school in Winnsboro, South Carolina. She was a correspondent for a newspaper.

During the Civil War, she led the Soldiers' Aid Association and cared for ill and injured soldiers. Her house and her collection of literary works perished during a fire set by the Union Army that spread through Winnsboro.

Personal life Catherine Stratton, born October 28, 1808, in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of Nancy (Collins) and James Stratton. Ladd attended schools in Richmond. She married George Williamson Ladd in South Carolina in 1827. She is also said to have married George W. L. Ladd on November 19, 1828, in Richmond, Virginia. George was a teacher and a painter

After their marriage, the couple first lived in Charleston, South Carolina. By 1830, the Ladds lived in Fayetteville. Two domestic servants, Lucy (40) and Harriet Hopkins (55), and a five-year-old boy Edward Hopkins lived with the Ladd family in 1870.

The Ladds settled in Winnsboro and they were both able to establish businesses in the town. George painted portraits, obtaining new patients based upon word-of-mouth. Ladd began teaching in 1828 in South Carolina. George taught art, and likely most of his income as a teacher. It was a boarding school that she operated from 1841 (Veasey states that she ran the school starting in 1843.) She contributed to periodicals under the pseudonym Alida, Arcturus, Minnie Mayflower, and Morna.

Her work was published in American publications, including Southern Literary Messenger, Floral Wreath, and other Southern journals and magazines. Her work was also published in Canadian journals, like The Week and Canadian Magazine. The publisher of the Floral Wreath, Edwin Heriott, said that her poetry was "sweet, smooth, and flowing, particularly so, but like Scotch music, their gayest notes are sad."

She stopped teaching to care for injured and ill soldiers and provided them with clothing. Throughout the war, she was the president of the Soldiers' Aid Association.

Ladd's husband, George W. L. Ladd, died of infirmity at home in Winnsboro on July 14, 1864. Her house and her 30-year collection of literary works were destroyed on February 21, 1865, by the Union Army under General William Tecumseh Sherman.

After the war and death Ladd resumed teaching after the war. She moved in 1880 to Buckhead, South Carolina, near Winnsboro, where she lived on a farm. Ladd went blind in 1891. She transcribed poetry to people who would write it down for her. She died on January 31, 1899, at Buena Vista, Fairfield County, South Carolina.