A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Wood, Jean
WOOD, JEAN,
Was the daughter of the Rev. John Moncure, a Scotch clergyman of the Episcopal Church, who emigrated to America, and was the first progenitor of the numerous Virginia families bearing his name. He possessed considerable talents, which his third daughter, Jean, inherited. She was very intellectual, and highly gifted with poetical and musical genius. Of poetry, she has left some beautiful specimens, which it is in contemplation to publish, as they are sufficiently numerous to constitute a small volume, and well worth being put into such a form.
Though entirely self-taught, she played with taste and skill on the guitar, the piano, and the spinet, an instrument much in vogue in her day; indeed, so thoroughly did she make herself acquainted with it, that she has been known to employ her ingenuity very successfully in restoring an injured one to complete order and harmony; and such was her energy of character and perseverance in whatever she undertook, that when she had the misfortune to be overset in a carriage, and break her right wrist, she quickly learned to use her left hand in working, and even to write with it, not only legibly but neatly, and this when she was past sixty!
The early part of Mrs. Wood's life was tinged with romance. At seventeen, she reciprocated the ardent attachment of a young gentleman from Maryland, and they became engaged; but their union was prevented by her relations, because he was a Roman Catholic. When they separated, they exchanged vows never to wed others; so that years afterwards, when addressed by General James Wood (once Governor of Virginia,) she declined his proposals, and bidding her, as he thought, "a long and last adieu," he proceeded to the west, intending to join in the war against the Indians. Before his departure, he made a will, bequeathing her, in case of his death, all his property. Fate, however, alotted him a brighter destiny; for Miss Moncure having been informed that her first lover had broken his pledge and wedded another, yielded to the advice of a cousin, with whom, since the death of her parents, she frequently resided, and consented to marry Mr. Wood; and not until after their union, did she discover that she had been deceived!
In the meanwhile. Mr. hearing of her marriage, considered himself absolved from his promise, and also entered the bands of matrimony; and here it is worth while to mention a remarkable coincidence In their subsequent history.
Mrs. Wood had an only child—a daughter—who was extremely intelligent until four years old, but was then seized with convulsions, and owing to their frequent occurrence, grew up an idiot; and Mrs. Wood's first lover, Mr. , of Maryland, had a son in a similar state.
Mrs. Wood devoted herself to this ill-fated daughter with all of a mother's tenderness and zeal, and many of her poetical effusions allude most touchingly to the deep affection she bore her, and her anxiety she suffered on her account. She lost her at the age of eighteen, and bewailed her death as if she had been of those whom God endows with the blessings of intellect and beauty. After this event, and the decease of General Wood, she removed from the pleasant shades of Chelsea to Richmond, and there spent the remainder of her days in works of usefulness and charity. There, aided by her friend Mrs. Chapman, the Lady of a British officer, she founded a society for assisting indigent widows and children. It was termed, the "Female Humane Association of the City of Richmond," and under that title was incorporated by the Legislature of Virginia, in 1811. Some years afterwards it changed its purpose, and exclusively appropriated its efforts and finances to the care and maintenance of female orphan children. Mrs. Wood, was elected president, and continued untiringly and faithfully to discharge the arduous duties of that station until her death, in the sixty-eighth year of her age.
After the decease of Mrs. Wood, her pastor and friend, the Rev. Dr. John H. Rice, formed a society of ladies to work for the benefit of poor students of divinity In Hampden-Sydney College, and gave it the appellation of the "Jean Wood Association."