Treat, Mary Lydia, -1831

Elisha Treat, of Middletown, Conn., was married to Lydia Hart (died 1809), a sister of Emma (Hart) Willard. Mary Lydia Treat, daughter of Elisha and Lydia (Hart) Treat, made her home in the 1820s at Troy Female Seminary (later Emma Willard School), her aunt's school in Troy, N.Y. Another aunt, Almira (Hart) Lincoln and her daughters were also there. Mary studied Italian and music in New York City from March through May, 1829. She died in 1831. Emma (Hart) Willard was born in 1787 in Berlin, Conn. In 1807 she was invited to Middlebury, Vt., to head the female seminary there and in 1809 married Middlebury physician and businessman John Willard and retired from teaching. In 1814 following financial reverses for the family, she opened a school for young ladies in her home in Middlebury. In 1819, with encouragement of Gov. DeWitt Clinton of New York, she moved her school first to Waterford and then to Troy, N.Y. She and the school played important roles in the education of women in the U.S. John Hart Willard, son of Emma and John Willard was born in 1810, attended West Point and became a lawyer in Troy, N.Y. In 1837 he and his wife Sarah (Hudson) Willard, formerly a pupil at Emma Willard's school, took over the running of the school from his mother.