DUMONT, JULIA LOUISA CORY (MRS. JOHN L.): 1794-1857.
Julia Louisa Cory (also "Corey" and sometimes "Carey"), daughter of Ebenezer and Martha D. Cory [?] was born in Marietta, O. , in October, 1794, a few months after her father's death, presumably at the hands of Indians. Her parents had come to Ohio from New York , and after her husband's death Mrs. Cory returned with her infant daughter to New York the following spring. She supported herself and baby by doing tailoring, then married R. Manville (or Man & ville), a widower with six children. After his death she again became a tailoress.
Julia Cory grew up in New York , attended Milton Academy, and taught school for two years. In August, 1812, she married John L. Dumont and accompanied him to Cincinnati, O. , where he became a land agent for William Henry Harrison. In 1814 they came to Vevay, Ind., where they reared their family (eleven children were born to them, several of whom died in childhood) and where Mrs. Dumont, about 1820, began her teaching career. John Dumont was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1818, filled various local offices in Vevay , and was Switzerland County's representative in the first Indiana Legislature. He also ran for governor of the state in 1837 but was defeated.
Mrs. Dumont is probably best known for having taught the Eggleston brothers–Edward and George Carey–both having praised her highly in their writings. Her literary reputation is principally based on the fact that she was Indiana 's first short story writer and the first widely known woman writer of the Middle West. She wrote during the era of the first successful American literary magazines, and her contributions did much to encourage new and struggling ones. Among the publications in which her stories appeared were THE CINCINNATI LITERARY GAZETTE, THE CINCINNATI MIRROR, THE WESTERN GEM AND CABINET OF LITERATURE, THE LADIES' REPOSITORY, and THE SOUTHWESTERN JOURNAL AND MONTHLY REVIEW. One of the earliest of her writings to be published in the West was "Theodore Harland," which won a contest sponsored by the CINCINNATI CHRONICLE in 1827 and was republished in other papers. Although she attempted to write realistically of the western scene, she could not divorce herself entirely from the romantic style of her day. In 1856 her stories were collected and published in one volume, Life Sketches from Common Paths.
Mrs. Dumont died at Vevay on Jan. 2, 1857.
Information from Briscoe–unpublished ms. The Hoosier School of Fiction and the INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, Vol. 34.
- Life Sketches from Common Paths: a Series of American
Tales. New York, 1856.
