This window was fabricated and installed by Wilbur H. Burnham Boston, Massachusetts and dedicated on Sunday, May 30, 1943, by the Reverend J. Sullivan Bond, Jr., rector.
The Nativity window was a $5,000 bequest of Mrs. William Russell Hoyt nee Louise Lallande, in memory of her mother, Sue Young Lallande, John James Lallande, herself; and Lindley Murray Ferris. The Vestry accepted the gift on March 6, 1939.
The Young family was honored with this window. John J. Young (1814-1901) served on the St. George’s Vestry in 1847 and is noted to have served in 1864, 1865, 1875 (junior warden), 1877 and 1890 (replacing Thomas Knox). The obituary in 1901 said he served as warden for 40 years. He died in 1901 while still serving the Vestry and was replaced by R.H.L. Chichester. He was noted as living an “exemplary life as a Christian”. His father was also a merchant in Fredericksburg and a hotel keeper.
Young was the oldest male in Fredericksburg when he died in 1901 in his 87th year. Above all, he was a businessman held in high regard, described as a man of “high character.”
He was a merchant in dry goods, hardware, general merchandise as well as involved the insurance business in his later years. He was first in the china business with J. H. Maddox. He was in partnership with “Galleher, Young, and Company” and then “John J. Young and Hay B. Hoomes” specializing in dry goods. After the Civil War, he moved to the insurance business with A.B. Botts.
He served in public life on the Fredericksburg City Council. He was elected to the council first in 1853. He was top vote-getter in 1870 and by custom took on the role as a recorder (secretary), much to his dismay. He served in the 1880s in the role of Collector of City Taxes.
He also was a member of the Masonic Lodge for 65 years and served as a director of the Fredericksburg Gas Company in the 1850’s and 1860’s.
Young had 9 children. One of his children, Sue Young (1842 or 1843-1905) married Charles Lallande lived in Washington D. C. and died in Spartanburg, SC. She had 3 children. Her son, John James Lallande, named after her father, was born in 1865-1866 and was remembered in the dedication of the window. Caroline Lallande was born in 1870.
Susan Young’s daughter Louise Clarke Lallande, born in 1869, married Timothy Murray Ferris at St. George’s in 1893.
Ferris father Lindley Murray Ferris was part of the dedication of the 1943 windows. Lindley Ferris was a prominent sugar planter and sugar refiner of the time but he would be murdered in 1895. His murderer, Henry Payne, had been impoverished by the failure of one of Ferris’s businesses.
Timothy Ferris did not live long as Louise Lallande would marry again in 1914 to William Russell Hoyt in 1914. Louise Clarke Hoyt gave the bequest for the window.
One of Louise Clarke Hoyt’s great-granddaughters Louise (Lou) Hoyt Minor was found in Marietta Georgia in 2018. She and her sister Margo Truslow have preserved the family history. She (Lou) explained the motive of her great grandmother in giving the windows.
“My mother (Louise Lallande Hoyt) was named after your Louise Lallande, her grandmother. Mother was Louise Lallande Hoyt (Minor). She was eleven when her grandmother died and her mother immediately took her to pick up China and whatever was left to her is the story she told me. Anyway, she is not the one who dedicated the window, her grandmother did as you will see in the will.
“The main story that we all grew up hearing is that my great grandmother Louise Lallande Hoyt was the 3rd wife of William Russell Hoyt Sr. She had announced to everyone ( and I heard this from all of my mother’s cousins also as well as my mom and aunt) that she was NOT going to be buried with her husband and his 1st 2 wives at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. ( that is the same plot we still use).She was going to be buried with her family Young in the Confederate Cemetery in Fredericksburg. And since her husband had made such a big deal over the window he gave to First Presbyterian in Atlanta, she was going to give one of her own to her family church in Fredericksburg. I just love that. She was an independent woman before her time. She also lived in a large house but declared that they did not need so much room and divided it in half and rented that part out. I also know she had an automobile early on. Sounds like a very modern woman. Margo has pictures. Mother’s cousin Alice is still living here and we should be able to learn a lot from her.”
A family tree of the Young/Hoyt families is below: