Lucy Virginia Smith French was a poet and author born in 1825 in Accomac County, Virginia. She moved to Memphis about 1845, where she taught school and published poetry under the pseudonym “L’Inconnue.” She edited several Southern literary magazines, married John French in 1853, and moved to his McMinnville residence, “Forest Home.” She published several volumes of prose and poetry, including Wind Whispers in 1856, Legends of the South in 1867, and Darlingtonia in 1879. She died in 1881 and was buried in Riverside Cemetery.