Breese Family Monograph

Part 8 - pages 527 to 532

Collegiate Female Institute." They had eight children: Sarah Mitchell, now Mrs. John H. Taaffe; Susan Breese, now Mrs. John H. Fessenden of Boston, Mass.; Walter Mitchele (d. 1879); Mary Elizabeth, who, as Mrs. Hiram B. Washburne, became a fine portrait-painter (d. 1883); Cornelia Post ;  Carrie Bliss, now Mrs. Arthur E. Wilcox of Chicago, I11.; Sidney Huntington ; Roland Greene ;

 (10.) Elizabeth Andcrson, born in 1817; who married George Redfield of Sackett's Harbor, N. Y., in 1837, and died in 1858. "She was a woman of rare grace and social culture; of brilliant conversational powers, with a manner both winning and spirited." Her children were: 1. George Snowden, who was a Paymaster in the U. S. Navy with the rank of Major. He resigned in 1864; married his cousin Mary Elizabeth Manstield in 1866, and has four children; and is now President of the Lake Shore Tube Works Co., residing at Cleveland, Ohio; 2. Elisabeth Breese;  3. John, Bayard, a Paymaster in the U. S. Navy, with the rank of Lieut -Colonel. He served with distinction during the late war. He married Martha Abercrombie, and has two children; 4.  Robert Henry, Who died in in­fancy; 5. Susan Bayard, who married Charles Alden Knight of Chicago in 1871;   6. Mary Emma, who died in childhood.

 (Children of Samuel and Elizabeth (Anderson) Breese continuned.)

 5.  Abby born Sept. 22, 1776; who died in November of the same year;

 6. Samuel Bayard, born Feb. 4, 1779; who, having early become insane, was an inmate of the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia from about his twentieth year until his death, Which took place there, when he had numbered more than fourscore years;

 7. Abby, born in Shrewsbury, N. J., Oct. 22, 1780; who married Josiah Salisbury of Boston, Mass. (see Salisbury), Aug. 30, 1810; and died his widow, in New Haven, Conn., Sept. 26, 1866. In her early life

 (7.) John Bayard, born Aug. 4, 1808; who married Aspasia Seraphina Imogene daughter of General Robert Bogardus of New York, in 1835, by whom he had seven children, two sons and five daughters; and died in Nashville, Tenn., in 1863, leaving a widow who has recently (1885) died in New York.

 He "came out to Nashville in 1824, and was prominent as the leading dry-goods merchant of that city until his death . . . having branch houses in St. Louis, Pulaski, Tenn., and at other points. He accumulated a considerable fortune, and was re­spected as an enterprising and public spirited citizen."

 One of his sons, Robert Bogardus (b. 1836),

 "was a merchant in Nashville for several years before the war between the States. He served with distinction, during the war, on the Confederate side, first as Adjutant of the 1st Tenn. Regiment, then as Adjutant-General on the staff of Gen. Johnson, and finally as Colonel of the 25th Tenn. Regiment, commanding Johnson's Tennessee Brigade in the Army of Virginia at the close of the war. He was afterwards engaged in merchandizing in New York.... In 1868 he was married to Annie Overton Brinkley of Memphis, Tenn., where he now resides, with five children."

 A daughter of John Bayard Snowden, Eleanora Kirkman (b. 1844), was married to William W. Tracy of New York in 1869, and has five chil­dren. Another daughter, Mary Jay (b. 1846), was married to Frederick A. Cairns, Professor in Columbia College (School of Mines), in 1874, by whom she had three children; and is now living as his widow;

 (8.) Robert Ralston, born in 1810; who moved to Nashville, Tenn., in 1828, married, in Memphis, Mrs. Fannie Livingston, rose Fannie Dora Cook, and had by her three children, of whom only one is now living, Fannie Dora, married to Richard N. Abbey of Mississippi, with three children -- all daughters;

 (9.) Sidney, born in 1812; who married Eliza daughter of Jethro Mitchell of Cincinnati, ohiO, in 1837; and died in 1854. He "was a successful educator, being, at the time of his death, the Principal of a my mother manifested the same energy, fortitude and vivacity which distinguished her to the end. Her sprightliness of mind, which was accompanied with a certain natural pantomimic animation of manner, was doubtless inherited from her maternal Huguenot ancestry (see Chebalic Aderson). The homestead at Shrewsbury was, on one occasion, by her prompt and vigorous efforts, saved from being burnt up--she, with her own hand, lifting buckets of water to the roof, which a servant brought from below, and emptying them on the flames. She would sometimes lie side by side with her deranged brother Samuel, while he held a pistol in his hand, in a paroxysm of excitement, in order to soothe and quiet him, as she alone had the power to do. Her school-education was in Philadelphia, where she made her home with her half-aunt Hazard; and she appears to have broken loose,, from the necessary limitations of country-life by visits to her sisters, already established in homes of their own. A desire to improve her naturally strong mind and a thirst for knowledge were among her earliest developed characteristics; and there is evidence that her sprightliness of temperament and vivacity of manner made her, even in her youth, a more than usually welcome guest, as they helped to make her, in her mature years, and down to old age, a most agreeable hostess. At one time, when she was visiting her sister hit's. Morse in Charlestown, Mass., she joined a coterie of young people who frequently met there for social intercourse, some of whom afterward became greatly distinguished; of this number were the late Hon. Samuel Hoar of Massachusetts, William Gotham, an eminent lawyer of the same State, Ebenezer Rockwood, also of the legal profession, who died young, and from whom the .present Judge E. Rockwood Hoar takes his name, and Miss Lydia Gorham, afterwards Mrs. Col. John Phillips, grandmother of Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks. Here in Charlestown, too, or in the Boston society into which she was introduced from here. she first met her future husband. As a wife, she was devotedly affectionate, without, however, losing her independence, or that power which her nature gave her to strengthen, and to guide, by good counsels, the companion of her life; and her feelings, in the marriage-relatiling years; while Christian hope, though not unfrequently smothered by a too great self-distrust, shed light, continually brightening upon the whole, on her downward path.

I have a photographic likeness of my mother, of about the year 1853. from a negative by Whipple of Boston, Mass., finished with Indian ink: also a cut profile of 1804, copied for me through the kindness of Mrs. Veitch, a daughter of the late Samuel Hazard, my mother's cousin, from an old album in her possession. This album contains, besides, similar likenesses of my grandmother Breese and of my aunt Susan Bayard (Breese) Snowden and her husband. I am likewise indebted to Mrs. Veitch for the original of the follow­ing sprightly letter, written by my mother in her nineteenth rear:

 "Shrewsbury, August 22d, 1799."

"My eagerness to improve the earliest opportunity of answering your last favor. which the return of Mr. Snowden to Princeton offers, will convince you how agree­able to me is the correspondence which you so unexpectedly and so pleasantly commenced.

"I was going to regret that you should ever be confined to the bed of sickness. but check myself when I reflect it is the lot of humanity, and we estimate the bless­ings of good health more highly from feeling the reverse. I see you cannot restrain your poetic genius--do not, dear cousin, indulge it too often, it is a dangerous tho pleasing talent. I argue against myself, as you kindly devote your last to me. Accept my thanks, offered in simple prose, for your wish that I should attend Com­mencement, a wish I can not gratify: I would not for both the Indies so soon leave the peaceful dwelling of my parents, my beloved retirement I so anxiously sighed after, unless for some much more powerful inducement than Princeton can offer. You know I am not very partial to that place -- its situation I admire, the distant but delightfully variegated prospects which present themselves must naturally strike the attention of the most careless observer; and to me the purity and healthiness of the air is a never failing antidote for every disease except that of the mind, which is greatly hightened by only a short visit to so unfriendly, so unkind, a place to the feelings of your cousin.

"Our journey was marked by no particular incidents any way interesting: the first setting off was, as you heard, not very propitious; the next day the ride was pleasant, as we met with no more accidents. Since our return we have had an easterly storm which lasted four days--it obliged us to seek sources of amusement within  ourselves, as we were confined to the house, and we were not wholly without entertainment. Our circle, tho' small, was select, and every one contributed their part towards the pleasures of the day-; we do not consider books, with many, as our last resource--on the contrary, they are our highest gratification. Little Mary is sitting on my lap while I write, and twists about so much that I can hardly hold my pen.

"I had a long epistle from brother Sidney the day I got home; with extreme pain I add he is in very ill health. O Sammy, should I lose this attentive, affectionate brother, it would almost break the heart of his tenderly attached sister – the thought is too painful to be long dwelt on, pity my distress, and soften it, if possible, by your friendly letter. You are ignorant of his virtues, or you would love and respect him as I do.

"This morning we had a charming ride to the sea, I have not time to give you  the particulars--suffice it to say, the company there wished us to join them, and spend a week at the shore. You may believe the beauty of my friend passed not unnoticed: that first attracts, but afterwards the beauties of her mind leave a more lasting impression; the effects of both have been felt and acknowledged in Princeton as well as in many other places. Don't you think I may rank ---- among the number? or has absence obliterated her from his remembrance ?

”Mary desires her love with that of the rest of our good family, who are all well and I hope happy.

"Make my love to your Papa and Mama, Betsey and Sally, when you write.

May happiness be your portion in this life, and may you be crowned with immortal bliss in that which is,. is to come, is the prayer of  "Your affectionate Emily (as I shall in future style myself)."

"Mr. Sam Hazard."

8. Jane Chevalier,  born Nov. 18, 1782; who died in September 1783.