Essie B. Cheesborough (pen names, Motte Hall, Elma South, Ide Delmar, and E. B. C.; 1826 – December 29, 1905) was an American writer who contributed to several popular periodicals during South Carolina's antebellum period.[1] Cheesborough's style was characterized as fluent and easy. She did not pander to the sensational, but was natural, truthful, and earnest, never egotistical, or guilty of "fine writing". She never published a book, although her writings on various subjects, political, literary, and religious, would fill several volumes.[2]
Biography
Esther (nickname, "Essie") Blythe Cheesborough was born in Charleston, South Carolina, 1826.[3] Her father was John W. Cheesborough, a prominent shipping merchant of Charleston. Her mother, Elera, was a native of Liverpool, England.[2] She had two brothers and two sisters.[3]
Cheesborough was educated by private tutors in Philadelphia and in her native city, Charleston.[2][3]
She started writing at an early age under the pen names of "Motte Hall", "Elma South", "Ide Delmar", and the initials, "E. B. C."[2][4]
She was a regular contributor to the Southern Literary Gazette, published in Charleston, and edited by the Rev. William C. Richards; and when Paul Hayne assumed the editorship, she continued her contributions. She was also a contributor to Russell's Magazine, and to various other Southern literary journals, including Land we Love.[2]
After the civil war, she was a regular contributor to the Watchman, a weekly journal, edited and published in New York City by the Rev. Dr. Charles Deems, of North Carolina, with which journal she was connected until its discontinuance.[2] She also contributed to Family Journal, Wood's Household Magazine, and Demorest's.[5] She was the last co-worker of the poets, Paul Hamilton Hayne and Henry Timrod.[6]
Essie Cheesborough died at her home in Charleston, December 29, 1905.[6]
