Elizabeth Blair Lee was the daughter of Francis P. Blair, a 19th century kingmaker. Her husband was a Naval Officer who was away from home for most of the Civil War. She wrote him daily updates, never intending for them to be published. A selection was published in the 1980s, however, and that book is one of the best guides to elite circles in Civil War-era D.C.
Women in high places left behind a lot of useful letters and diaries that deserve further scrutiny. Lee was perfectly positioned to report on the intrigues of the time, and to comment on everyone of note.
One quote that stood out to me comes from one of her accounts of sitting with a hysterical Mary Lincoln after the assassination. On April 30, 1865, she wrote her husband that Mary seemed to be starting to calm down. “She reminds me constantly of Mary Boswell of whose warmth of heart I always thought better than most person because I know her history better.”
When writing to her husband, Lee wrote in a stream-of-consciousness manner, and sometimes her sentences kind of fell apart. That’s the case here. It seems to me, though, that she was saying most people found Mary Boswell rather insensitive. Lee disagreed with this, because she had more context for Boswell’s behavior, being familiar with her personal history.
I was immediately interested in who this Mary Boswell was, given that Lee perceived such a similarity, one that she expected her husband to understand without further explanation. (I’ve seen the full letter, and she immediately moves on to another topic.)
This may be the same Mary Boswell mentioned in this 2006 dissertation (link goes to a .pdf file). It is called “Making Middle-Class Marriage Modern in Kentucky, 1830 to 1900,” and was written by Kathleen Leonard Bayes.
In it, Mary Boswell is to illustrate a dilemma facing marriageable young women from the Kentucky elite at that time. Downward mobility was now the norm for men in sophisticated cities like Lexington. There were many reasons for this, a major one being the lack of “unclaimed”* land their settler ancestors had used as the basis of their wealth. Finding a “suitable” husband—one who could meet his wife’s expected lifestyle—increasingly required looking elsewhere.
This situation is detailed at length in Stephen Berry’s excellent book on the Todd family, House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, a Family Divided by War. The contrast between Mary’s background and Lincoln’s humble beginnings tends to obscure the fact that her father was struggling to stay afloat, forcing his daughters to jump ship for reasons other than their stepmother.
In fact, in early 1866, when Mary Lincoln was trying to secure the full salary for Lincoln’s second term, “R.S.I.” wrote into a newspaper with his thoughts. He said he supported the full salary payment as matter of national generosity, but that Congress had no legal right to do it. The man had allegedly boarded with the family when Mary was “quite a child, probably ten or twelve.” His comments suggest it may have been a bit earlier, as he doesn’t seem to remember much about Mary’s stepmother. While the memory is no doubt hazy, it seems telling that his impression of Mary’s father is so dominated by perceived financial hardship.
“As an American citizen, I would be glad to see Mr. Lincoln’s family well provided for, but when we come to down to the plain matter of fact, [they are entitled to nothing beyond pay for services rendered through April 15, 1865] …If the law, as it now stands, is wrong, let it be altered; and let it be understood that hereafter, [the heirs of any President who dies in the public service] … shall receive fifty or one hundred thousand dollars … Mrs. Lincoln, at the time of her marriage, conveyed to her husband nothing but her good name and person. She was a poor girl, a daughter of Mr. Robert S. Todd . . . A most worthy man, who was for several years clerk of the Kentucky Legislature, and at one period an expensive grocer. He was a most amiable and intelligent man; good natured, cordial and companiable, and was afflicted with ubiquity in one of his eyes. He married Miss Mary Parker [Her name was actually Elizabeth] ... And through her was blessed with a family so numerous that he found it somewhat difficult to provide for it . . . She was by no means an attractive girl, but was possed of a singular vivacity, and was consequently popular. The writer of this note was familiar with Robert S. Todd and his relatives; at one period assisted him in his clerical duties . . . and for a year and upwards boarded in his family.
Updated with source: “R.S.I.,” New York Correspondence, Manufacturers’ and Farmers’ Journal, January 18, 1866.
He clearly doesn’t mean the Todds were poverty-stricken, just that the daughters weren’t going to be bringing money with them into their marriages. Robert Todd regretted this, and sent his daughters gifts when he could. And, certainly, Lincoln did marry up—Mary also brought strong family connections, status, and complementary skills to the marriage. But the benefits were not of the monetary kind.
So, Elizabeth Edwards did well for herself and for her sisters in “catching” the son of the governor of Illinois, Ninian Edwards, then studying at Transylvania University’s law school in Lexington. Illinois had a brighter future and few marriageble women of high standing.
In “Making Middle-Class Marriage Modern in Kentucky,” we don’t learn much about Mary Boswell other than that she turned down a proposal from another Transylvania law student, John Bullitt, around 1845. His letters indicate that his inability to guarantee a secure economic future was a major point of concern. A description of his situation:
John Bullitt was the first generation in his socially prominent, land-owning, slaveholding family expected to earn his living as a professional in an urban setting. John’s education and family background placed him amongst the upper echelons of a developing, urban middle class in Kentucky but, when he came of marriageable age, John owned no land, had no access to enslaved labor, and had little prospect of inheriting either while he was still a young man.
Further research reveals that, like the Todd daughters, Boswell decided to try her luck elsewhere, visiting relatives in the east, like the Blair family. Lee’s maternal aunt had married Benjamin Gratz of Lexington, Kentucky (originally from Philadelphia). On two occasions in 1864, Lee’s letters mention Mary Lincoln’s affinity for Gratz, who must have been visiting. At one point, Mary sent word that she “really coveted the pleasure of a visit from Mr. Gratz.” On February 16, Lee wrote that “Mr & Mrs Lincoln have not let a day pass scarcely without extending some civility to Uncle Ben.” This may have been because, like many other loyal border-state men, and Americans more generally, he had a hard time in the Civil War. He lost family on both sides, including a beloved son. (A bit of more cheery trivia: Gratz’s sister Rebecca may have been the “inspiration for the character of Rebecca in Scott's novel Ivanhoe.” Allegedly, Scott’s attention was called to her by Washington Irving, who I recently learned based one of his characters on Henry Wikoff!)
Anyway, Boswell was Gratz’s “ward,” somehow related to his second wife. Lee’s aunt had died, and he remarried in 1843, so there was no biological relation between Blair and Boswell, but “both families were clannish by nature and looked upon each other as relatives for at least two generations.” (Remember, there were lots of non-W.E.I.R.D. people in politics then!)
Wait, scratch that—I think. Apparently Gratz’s second wife was his first wife’s niece! Anna Boswell Shelby was “a widow with a son around the same age as Ben's youngest.” This made them “stepbrother-cousins.”
Maybe this will help: Lee’s mother’s maiden name was Gist. The five Gist sisters became Mrs. Benjamin Gratz (wife #1), Mrs. Francis P. Blair (Lee’s mother), Mrs. Jesse Bledsoe, Mrs. Nathaniel G. S. Hart, and Mrs. Joseph Boswell. Wife #2 was the daughter of Mrs. Joseph Boswell.
This Riggs Family History pdf seems to clear up Mary Boswell’s background. It says that “Mary Keene Boswell” was born in Lexington in 1829, making her roughly a decade younger than Mary Lincoln. She was the daughter of George and Mary (Keene) Boswell. It appears Boswell’s mother died the year she was born, quite possibly in childbirth. George was dead only a few years later.
The fascinating letters of Rebecca Gratz, sister of Benjamin, indicate that Gratz had custody of Boswell by 1839, and she attended a New Jersey boarding school, where she seemed to do well. The school was run by a nephew of Napoleon, Lucien Murat, and his wife. While Boswell was a student, Murat repeatedly traveled to France—where he was only allowed to stay five weeks at a time—seeking to reclaim “his family's right to the throne, which his elder brother had abandoned.” This sounds similar enough to Mary Lincoln’s experience with the Mentelles. Also, both Marys were very close with the family of Henry Clay in Lexington.
Boswell must have been attractive: after rejecting proposals by two of Lee’s brothers, in 1849 she accepted one from D.C. banker Elisha Riggs, Jr., which took care of the economic security issue. (Born in 1826, he was less famous than his father, Elisha Riggs, Sr., and his nephew, Elisha Francis Riggs. Banking was the Riggs family business.) For whatever reason, Henry Clay gave her away.
Jessie Benton Fremont was a close friend of Elizabeth Blair Lee, though the families fell out rather spectacularly during the Civil War. Her letters contain some references to Boswell (“Mrs. Riggs”), and are also a good read for understanding life in political circles in the years prior to and during the war, especially for women.
No one says much about Mary Boswell Riggs’ personality, and what exists is neutral or positive, so it’s hard to figure out what Lee meant by the comparison. I definitely get the sense that Boswell liked society and having a good time—she enjoyed music, cities, and European travel, just like Mary Lincoln. Men found her very attractive, and she seems to have spent much of her later life in high European social circles.
An excerpt from the memoir of the late 19th century socialite Countess Sarah Maris Aloisa Britton Spottiswood Mackin (yes, that’s her actual name) makes this clear:
At the Metropolitan Opera House the operas of the immortal Wagner were splendidly presented during several seasons. The American Duke Loubat, whose princely donations to the Church has made him quite prominent in Catholic circles, and who has had executed five busts of Pope Leo XIII., was in the habit of generously lending his box to his friends. Once a week it was at the disposal of Mrs. Elisha Riggs, who frequently invited me to accompany her. Mrs. Riggs, as the wife of the prominent American banker, resided in Paris during the Second Empire. The fetes given at her charming hotel, her vocal talent, her appearance on the box seat of her husbands four-in-hand, are all recounted by the old members of the American colony. She had the reputation of being a beauty at the Court balls of Napoleon III. and the beautiful Eugenie; and she told me that her sons were playmates of the Prince Imperial, whose sad fate among the Zulus was more a sorrow to his royal mother than the loss of the Empire and her prestige as Empress of France.
Perhaps what Lee meant was that Mary Boswell Riggs was perceived as too “fast” or “frivolous” for D.C. society at the time, when she was just being her adventurous self. Especially if she grew up without a strong sense of domestic security—she seems to have felt loved by her relatives, but it’s easy to understand why she may not have identified fully with the “domestic circle,” especially given her exciting boarding school experiences. Benjamin Gratz had a large family, and there was the whole marrying his wife’s niece thing, in addition to the trauma of his first wife’s death. There was a lot going on, just like with Mary Lincoln’s childhood situation.
It’s not clear why this would have been an issue in antebellum DC, though—it was dominated by women like this. Lee and Fremont’s discussions of Rose Greenhow and others are are quite interesting. The Washington elites hostile to the Lincolns portrayed them as rubes, not as being too flashy. Complaints about Mary’s associations with the likes of Mrs. James Gordon Bennett, who had been a regular visitor in Buchanan’s time, were the product of the new elite class, which was much less southern.
Lee was a very “proper” woman for her time and place, but the Blair family had a strong appreciation for big personalities (her father was, after all, a member of Andrew Jackson’s “Kitchen Cabinet”). She never indicated anything was terribly off about Mary Lincoln—she described her loud personality with some amusement at times, but Mary comes across as entirely uncontroversial, certainly less so than Varina Davis or Jessie Benton Fremont, both longtime friends of Lee. That’s always seemed telling to me.
I’d like to go through more of her correspondence at some point, especially post-war correspondence, to see what else she says about the Lincolns. Her published letters have some really interesting takes on people and events.
Initially, I thought Lee might have been saying Boswell had been traumatized by growing up in Lexington during this period. I now doubt that was her main point, but I still think it is an issue worth exploring further. House of Abraham details some pretty horrible dysfunction and feuding among Lexington elites, and further examples aren’t hard to find. Mary considered her childhood unhappy, and told others she had witnessed disturbing scenes related to slavery. Her cousin Cassius Clay was always on the verge of being killed or killing someone else. The Todd-Wickliffe-Breckenridge drama was pretty ugly, especially with Wickliffe’s daughter being her best friend. The Mentelles were pretty bizarre people to have as role models, and there was the disturbing case of Alfred Francis Russell. All this on top of the conflict with her stepmother and whatever else was going on in the family. It doesn’t seem like a healthy place for even the most privileged women to have grown up.
Some closing remarks on Mary Bosworth Riggs. The Riggs Family History linked above indicates that Elisha, Jr. was a product of his father’s second marriage and was educated in Germany while his older half-brother put the Riggs-Corcoran Bank together. After years of traveling and education, he took over the family half of the bank. Interestingly, the Riggs were relatives of Mercy Levering Conkling, Mary Lincoln’s best friend in Springfield before he marriage.
Both Elisha Riggs and his wife were popular in Washington social circles, and Mary Riggs was the reigning belle there for a number of years. She was famed for her beauty and charm both in this country and in France.
So it seems she found her crowd eventually. Not sure who the critics were.
In June, 1857, Elisha Riggs and his family moved to Europe. They lived in Germany for a brief period, later moving to Paris. In 1862, he returned to New York, where he again entered the banking business, in the firm of Jerome, Riggs, and Company. The firm was dissolved in 1865, and he moved abroad for the second time. This time he established himself in Paris and built a large hotel on the Avenue Kleber, which was considered the finest residence owned by any American there at the time. He and his family were among the popular members of the American Colony in Paris during this period.
He was a founder of the American Jockey Club and one of the oldest members of the Union Club. During his residence in New York, he served on numerous committees and in various organizations for the city.
Elisha Riggs was also interested in the marble quarries of Vermont. He was vice-president of the company that worked the large quarries in that state, and finally, through his efforts, the various interests of the business were consolidated. ·
In banking, his financial policies were considered very good. It is said that he was the first American to influence Dutch capitalists to invest in United States securities. He was also interested in the rail- roads of this country, and was vice-president, for many years, of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad Company.
Elisha Riggs, Jr. died July 8, 1881, at No. 34 West Twenty-first Street, New York. Mary (Boswell) Riggs died October 16, 1891, at No. 15, East Forty-ninth Street, New York. Both were buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, D. C., where their four children were also buried.
Reading this, I was afraid they had, like so many others, lost all their children. It turns out that they all made it to adulthood, but none married. Two died as young adults in the 1870s, but two survived their parents, living until the 1920s. Their children were named Boswell Riggs, Mary Gratz Riggs, Francis Blair Riggs, and William Corcoran Riggs.
*The Todds did not deny the claims of Native Americans to the land; instead, they took great pride in having relatives who died in “the bloodiest battle between the whites and Indians ever fought on Kentucky soil,” as “The true story of Mary, wife of Lincoln,” written by her niece, puts it.