Julia Pleasants Creswell

[3] Her parents were Col. James Jay, a commission merchant, and a native of Hanover County, Virginia, and Emily Julia (Bibb) Pleasants.

He left two sons: the younger inherited the estate called Pickernockie, later owned by Boyd and Edmond, on the Chickahominy River.

His means were limited, and Julia's father left his home in Hanover county at the age of sixteen to seek his own fortunes.

His manners won him popularity, and he was elected to the office of secretary of state (1822-1824),[4] Thomas Bibb being at that time the second Governor of Alabama.

Thomas and Pamelia (Thompson) Bibb lived at Belle Mina homestead, near Huntsville, the former of whom having succeeded his brother, William, who was the first governor of the state.

He was especially eager to secure to his children all the advantages of which, in some measure, his own youth had been deprived; and Julia was indeed fortunate in having for eight years the instruction of a very knowledgeable teacher, Miss Swift from Middleton, Vermont.

[4] Julia was orphaned by the simultaneous death of her parents, after which she resided several years with her grandmother, Pamelia Thompson Bibb.

Julia (using the pseudonym "Amelia"), then in her teens, and residing in Huntsville, was a leading favorite of his, and she contributed the poem, "The Youthful Pilot", written on the death of Robert A. Whyte.

[2] Creswell's cousin, Thomas Bibb Bradley (1829-1855),[8] a poet of promise, who died soon afterward, induced her to publish a selection of her poems with some of his own.

[4] The only daughter, Adrienne, (the nom de plume under which Creswell first published) inherited her mother's poetic temperament, dabbling in rhymes from the age of ten.