In 1996, some communications by Mary Lincoln were published for the first time in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. One was described as an ANS (autograph note signed) located at the Illinois Historical Society.
Washington City
______________ 18
Hon H. Crosby
Dear Sir
Have you heard from Mr. Allen or learned of his whereabouts, as the first draws near, and rent day approaching I am very anxious, if it is not asking too much of you please drop me a line at 607, 13th St.
Most Respectfully
Yours
Mrs A. Lincoln
Wednesday
Oct 22nd, 1873
You can view an image of it here. It was written out by someone else on War Department stationary. It is not signed by her, and is now part of the Taper Collection.
The note indicates she was in D.C. at this time, though until now it has been believed she never returned to D.C. after 1868, when she attended her son Robert’s wedding. While newspaper references to her 1873 activities are confusing, and this period of her life has not been closely studied, she seems to have been in Canada until sometime in September. On September 9, the Watertown (NY) Daily Times reported, “Mrs. Abraham Lincoln will be at Prescott in a few days.” Prescott is in Ontario, near Quebec, across from Watertown, New York. She may well have descended along the east coast over the next few weeks, stopping in D.C. for some period, and then returning to her home base in Chicago. Evidently the visit was not publicized. While there’s a slim possibility the note was from another Mrs. A. Lincoln, it sounds very much like her.
“Hon. H. Crosby” was almost certainly Henry T. Crosby, appointed chief clerk of the War Department in 1872, after years of service in that department. (New York Sun, July 17, 1906). Crosby was a Pennsylvania native, and attended college there, but he lived in D.C. for decades. In early September 1873, he returned from an “extensive” European tour. (Evening Star, September 10, 1873). She probably stopped by the department to follow up with him about Mr. Allen, dictating a note in his absence. Crosby had served in the Union Army and probably knew Mary Lincoln during the war, when he served for a period as a War Department guard. (The (Washington) National Tribune, September 14, 1893).
As for Mr. Allen, the best I can come up with is that he was renting her Chicago house, which she’d purchased in 1866 and moved out of in 1867. She found keeping house as a widow overwhelming, and decided to sell her furniture and rent it out to cover taxes and other costs of upkeep. After that, she decided hold her life together by focusing on her love of travel, living in hotels and spending much of the time in Europe. Tad had been with her until his unexpected death two years before she wrote this note to Crosby. Since then, she’d continued to travel, in a rather aimless way.
She’d probably been trying to telegraph Allen in Chicago, or wherever he might have been, from the War Department. She’d been gone since at least May, and probably had to direct him where to send the monthly rent due her.
The address she lists was then a small but exclusive D.C. boardinghouse, which also supports the idea that she was stopping in the city. (A member of Congress from Wisconsin, C. A. Eldredge, was listed as living there shortly afterwards. (Evening Star, January 17, 1874). In 1875, rooms at the address were listed for rent by “gentlemen,” and described as new and elegantly furnished, so it may have been under new management. References were required. (Evening Star, October 9, 1875).)
It was widely reported by D.C. gossip columnists in the 1870s-1890s Mary Lincoln had never visited D.C. after the 1868 wedding. They were probably just repeating common knowledge in D.C., though one made a point of citing Robert Lincoln’s wife as her source in 1882, after Mary’s death.
The eventually troubled relationship between Mary Lincoln and her daughter-in-law, nee Mary Harlan, has never been well-understood. While they started out on wonderful terms, Mary spent the first few years of their marriage in Europe. Tad died shortly after their return, and Robert Lincoln laater indicated that after Tad’s death, his wife left him rather than live with his mother. While it is not hard to believe anyone found coexistence with Mary Lincoln difficult, there was more going on,
Mary Harlan Lincoln (I’ll refer to her as “MHL”), Robert’s wife, was already spending a lot of time with her parents in other states by the time Mary and Tad returned from Europe. She continued to do so for as long as they lived. She and Robert were physically separated much of the time, at least after the birth of their first child in 1869, though they never seem to have “split up” in any meaningful way. (In the 1890s, some newspapers did note periodic informal separations, attributed largely to MHL’s devotion to Christian Science after the death of her son). In 1871, it may just have been that MHL was simply overwhelmed by everything, having married young and quickly become a mother, in a city without extended family support and a husband who was always working. Her mother was often ill and needed her care, and she herself became an invalid not many years into the marriage, for unexplained reasons. Both MHL and Robert Lincoln ended up the sole surviving child of their parents, and there was a lot of emotional trauma on both sides of the family.
MHL and Robert always stayed close with her parents, Iowa Senator James Harlan and his wife, who were prominent in Washington for decades, but apparently never said a word about whatever went on with the family. Likewise, Mary Lincoln wrote very little that indicated there was trouble with any of the Harlans—references to them just disappeared. No one in the press hinted much at any tension until after Mary Lincoln’s death.
In any event, the timeline indicates that in the 14 years between Robert’s marriage and Mary Lincoln’s death, the total amount of time that Mary Lincoln and her daughter-in-law were even in the same city probably didn’t amount to two years.
After 3.5 years in Europe, Mary and Tad returned home in mid-May 1871, arriving in New York and going to Robert and MHL’s house in Chicago. There, Mary Lincoln met her granddaughter for the first time, and must have spent at least a few days with MHL. (The baby was also names Mary Lincoln, but called Mamie.)
On May 21, Mary wrote her friend Rhoda E. White, whom she had visited with on her arrival in New York, that all was going wonderfully. But Mary wanted to live independently, and she and Tad quickly moved from Robert’s home to a hotel. By the first week of June, Tad was very ill. By then, MHL had left Chicago. On June 9, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a Washington report that Senator Harlan had left that night for Iowa. “Mrs. Harlan is detained by the illness of her daughter, Mrs. R. T. Lincoln, and will remain here with her for some time.”
It seems that a falling out resulted between the two around the time of Tad’s death, although it isn’t clear they see each other in person anytime in this period. MHL does not appear to have returned to care for Tad or for the funeral. Possibly Mary Lincoln was upset about this and scolded her via letter. It’s unclear if MHL returned to Chicago at all in 1871 or even 1872—a few weeks after Tad’s death, Mary wrote a friend that MHL was caring for her sick mother, which may have been an excuse. After a few more disasters, such as Robert Lincoln’s mental breakdown and the Great Chicago Fire, which destroyed his office, and Mary’s departure to wander among spiritualist communities, Robert and MHL rented out their house and departed on a 6-month tour of Europe in June 1872. They then stayed in D.C. for a while with MHL’s parents, and returned in 1873 to Chicago.
It appears Robert may have returned alone in January, and his wife, then pregnant with their second child, returned home at a later date. It had probably been a very long time since the women had seen each other. Robert indicated that there was another dispute at this point, and that Mary refused to visit his home or interact with MHL, but stayed on good terms with him. It’s therefore entirely possible that MHL believed and told people Mary had never been to D.C, after 1868, not knowing of this 1873 trip.
But there’s yet another possible trip to D.C. in 1873. Mary spent January 1873 living in hotels, socializing with Isaac N. Arnold, Myra Bradwell, and Jane Swisshelm, and consulting doctors, but then she became the subject of press reports. The two “Mrs. Lincolns” were sometimes confused in press reports, and this may be why it is hard to track their whereabouts. I suspect some of the following related to MHL’s return, not Mary’s:
On February 25, the Chicago Tribune, usually well-informed about the Lincolns’ whereabouts, reported that “Mrs. Abraham Lincoln has lately visited Washington, the guest of Senator and Mrs. Harlan, whose daughter married Robert Lincoln.” On March 3, the Boston Globe echoed the report that “Mrs. Abraham Lincoln has lately visited Washington as the guest of Mrs. Harlan,” which soon appeared everywhere. Is it possible they called her to Washington to try and smooth things over? There’s nothing to disprove it, and it was never denied, but there’s no record of it either. It’s also weird that these reports indicated nothing more than that she had been there, but was presumably not anymore. On March 25, the New York Herald reported “Mrs. Lincoln, accompanied by her son Robert T., has arrived in Chicago from New York.” I think this is more likely Robert bringing MHL back from D.C. On March 30, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mary Lincoln was living in a Chicago hotel, and did nothing to correct earlier reports.
Mary Lincoln then became ill, and by the end of May, had gone to a Canadian spa for treatment. By June, it was announced she probably planned to stay there all summer.* On June 28, she wrote from St. Catharines, Ontario, to longtime Lincoln family friend Sarah Ellen Hardin Walworth. This is an unpublished letter I recently discovered.**
For context, I have to explain Sarah Hardin Walworth’s background. Sarah Hardin was probably around Mary’s age, and had been married to Lincoln’s close friend John J. Hardin (who was, I believe, a cousin of Mary), who was killed in the Mexican War. Sarah remarried Reuben Hyde Walworth, the last chancellor of New York State, and the family moved from Illinois to Saratoga Springs, but were close with the Lincolns during the war. Her son, Martin D. Hardin, was in Chicago at the time of Tad’s death, and helped care for him.
Sarah’s daughter, Ellen Hardin, almost immediately married one of her new stepbrothers, Mansfield Tracy Walworth. Walworth was an accomplished writer, but also got in trouble for being an alleged Confederate spy in 1862, and the couple was often separated. (Despite this, they had eight children in a short period of time). As he aged, he became increasingly violent towards family members, especially Ellen. Chancellor Reuben Walworth had died in 1867.
On June 3, 1873, . . .Mansfield went to a rooming house where his son was staying in New York City.
Frank, who was 19, had traveled to New York from Saratoga Springs after Mansfield continued to write abusive and threatening letters, claiming he would kill both Ellen and Frank. He left a note at his father’s apartment, saying he wanted to talk to him about the nasty letters.
Frank shot his father four times, the newspaper story says, with a handgun, and then immediately turned himself into the police.
“I have shot and killed father,” Frank told police. The case was reported in detail by many of the newspapers of the day.
Frank Walworth was sentenced to life in prison for murder, but was pardoned a few years later by Gov. Lucius Robinson. Ellen was educated as a lawyer, and was active in various causes. She ran a boarding school in her widowhood, and was one of the founders of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
These were the events Mary Lincoln was responding to when she wrote from the Springbank Hotel and Spa:
My Dear Mrs. Walworth,
Only those who have passed through deep affliction can fully understand others who are similarly tried, thus I approach you with my warmest sympathies, entering into all your feelings and those of your deeply afflicted daughter.
‘Whom the good Lord Loveth, he chasteneth.’ Surely we who have suffer so much in this life, will receive receive full compensation in that blessed world, where sorrow is unknown.
My own griefs have so greatly affected my health previous idols, one by one, have been torn from me and in place of their devotion, I have been left to battle with a cold an oftentimes cruel world. But my frequent and severe illnesses warn me that my time here is short and that ere long I will be reunited to my beloved ones, who are watching and waiting for me.
A few weeks after you kindly visited me, I was enabled to leave my bed and, accompanied by my faithful middle-aged colored nurse, have found a healthful resort here. The baths are benefit me much, but who but the Great Physician can cure a broken heart.
My prayers often ascend for your lovely daughter, and the son, who loves her just a my worshiped one did me, yet in Heaven True Love burns the brighter.
Most Affectionately,
Your friend,
Mary Lincoln.
On July 20, the Detroit Free Press, not a paper friendly to the Lincolns, carried the vague blurb that Mary was “morose and moody, and seems to care but little for the society of her children.” In fact, “Some think her crazy.” Soon, Robert was reported to be in New York with his wife, which is probably where their son was born in August.
That month, his mother made one of her few headlines of that year, on her way to the popular spa at the Stephenson House in Port Dalhousie. This is correspondence of the New York Herald, August 22, 1873. Editor James Gordon Bennet had died the year before, and though his son now had charge and would eventually revitalize it, it already appeared a shadow of its former self. (Sorry for the awkward clip arrangement—I can’t get them to align.)
Credit: Genealogybank.com
Mary evidently retained some of her personality, and the press generally cheered her on. “One for Mrs. Lincoln” was the title one newspaper gave the story. (Colorado Miner, October 9, 1873.)
By September, she was in Montreal, and then went down to D.C. Perhaps she visited Charles Sumner in Boston on the way. He’d been on the verge of death from heart disease for some time, though he would rally and not die until the following year. (Sadly, she also lost her friend Sarah Hardin Walworth in 1874). What her intentions were in visiting D.C., I have no idea, and no one has ever mentioned the visit. Little of her correspondence from 1873 survives. Perhaps she even met up secretly with Elizabeth Keckley, who seems to have lived nearby.
She was back in Chicago by late November, living in a hotel. She’d been gone for about six months. The question is, did she make zero, one, or two trips to D.C. in 1873?
Back to the note. I think it is pretty good evidence of her making the October trip. The handwriting looks familiar to me, but I can’t place it. It looks very similar to the handwriting on telegrams written out for her in the final months of Lincoln’s presidency, leading to me to think it is the handwriting of a longtime War Department of telegraph office employee. Whether Crosby responded or located Mr. Allen remains unknown.
Crosby seems to have been very popular and respected, but his later life was troubled. There was some controversy when he was removed in 1882, shortly after Robert Lincoln’s appointment as Secretary of War. This was probably done because Robert preferred one of his own associates hold that position, which was common practice, but it seems Crosby’s friends blamed this decision for Crosby’s subsequent downward spiral. He took up private law practice for some years, but attempted suicide due to financial issues in 1893.*** (The (Washington) National Tribune, September 14, 1893). His many friends in government responded by finding positions for him in war department offices around the country. (In the interim, Civil Service reform had probably made placing him in a local position more difficult).
He died at age sixty-four in 1906, which was attributed to health problems that resurfaced as a result of the earthquake that year in San Francisco, where he was stationed at the time. (New York Sun, July 17, 1906). His wife died around the same time, and he was moved to Atlanta, where he became fatally ill. He was moved to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, where he died. (The Washington Times, July 22, 1906).
*The timeline gets weirder because a copy of a will survives, signed by Mary Lincoln in July 1873, presumably in Chicago. I don’t think she returned to Chicago in July, so not sure what’s up with that. It was also erroneously reported at that time that Robert was in Paris.
**More Walworth papers are believed to exist somewhere, including letters from Mary, but I can’t seem to track down what happened to the The Walworth Memorial Museum collection at the Saratoga Springs History Museum/Canfield Casino. The website’s links are broken and they don’t respond to emails.
***I wish I could offer more happy endings in these posts!