Lydia Huntley Sigourney was America’s first best-selling poet and the first woman in American history to make a living by her pen. Born in Norwich in 1791, she lived here until leaving for Hartford in 1814, where she published her poems, thus earning the title “The Sweet Singer of Hartford.” Until her death in 1865, she held great affection for her birthplace, contributing a poem to be read at Norwich’s 200th anniversary celebration in 1859.
Lydia Huntley was the daughter of the gardener for the Lathrop estate; Madame Lathrop, the widow of Dr. Daniel Lathrop, took great interest in this brilliant young girl and saw to it that she was educated as well as any boy, first at the East District School on Upper Washington Street across from her home, and then at the brick schoolhouse on the Green endowed by Dr. Lathrop, now the Norwich Heritage and Regional Visitors’ Center. Lydia also educated herself by reading in the Lathrops’s library, finding textbooks there with the name of an earlier pupil in that home, Benedict Arnold.