Introduction

Biography

Lucy was the wife of Cap­tain Will­iam D. Dough­er­ty.

From a child [Lu­cy] was thought­ful and con­sci­en­tious, obe­di­ent to her par­ents, kind-heart­ed, truth­ful and stu­dious.

In 1839, hav­ing been led to ac­cept Christ as her Sav­ior, she was bap­tized by Rev. Bar­on Stow, and unit­ed with the Bald­win Place Bap­tist Church in Bos­ton. In her ­re­li­gious life she re­ceived coun­sel and as­sist­ance from her mo­ther and el­der sis­ter, Ab­by S.

Another sis­ter, Har­ri­et E., who was two years young­er, should al­so be men­tioned, for a sketch of one could hard­ly be writ­ten with­out a re­fer­ence to the oth­er. Both were de­tained from en­ter­ing the gram­mar school till be­yond the us­ual age for ad­mis­sion. But these years of home ser­vice were not passed un­im­proved, the eld­er sis­ter, a di­li­gent scho­lar, di­rect­ing their stu­dies, though with mea­ger fa­ci­li­ties in the way of books.

The two sis­ters at length entered the Bow­doin school, and from it they were gra­du­at­ed at the same age as their more fa­vored class­mates, Har­ri­et hav­ing the va­le­dic­to­ry.

After leav­ing school, Lu­cy added to her ac­quire­ments a know­ledge of La­tin and French, pur­su­ing these stu­dies at home with­out a tu­tor. She al­so took les­sons in vo­cal and in­stru­ment­al mu­sic, and con­tin­ued the stu­dy of Eng­lish com­po­si­tion and ma­the­ma­tics, with the pur­pose of be­com­ing a teach­er of these branch­es…

Near the close of 1842, by the ad­vice of friends, she ac­cept­ed a po­si­tion as teach­er in a pri­vate fa­mi­ly on a plan­ta­tion in Mis­sis­sip­pi, and reached her des­ti­na­tion Feb­ru­ary 12, 1845.

Ac­cept­ably she filled this po­si­tion for a while, but fi­nal­ly, with the ap­prov­al of her fa­mi­ly and friends, she was mar­ried to Cap­tain Wil­liam D. Doug­her­ty, of St. Lou­is.

The un­ion was a hap­py one, but was soon ter­mi­na­ted by the death of Mrs. Doug­her­ty, which oc­curred May 21, 1847. Her hus­band died about two years lat­er.

Mrs. Doug­her­ty wrote nu­mer­ous…hymns and po­ems, ma­ny of which were pub­lished in the news­pa­pers and ma­ga­zines of the day.

Baptist Hymn Writ­ers and Their Hymns
Henry Sweet­ser Bur­rage, 1888, pp. 410–12