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The
Church in Maria’s House
There
are several points in our narrative where this history would be appropriate. It
appears here because it illustrates the nature of fledgling congregations and
the path taken by some of those newly interested. We are without a real start
to this account and do not have a satisfying grasp on some details. It is
brought to us through an article in The New York Sun. The article,
written without a byline, alternates between simple reporting and snide, nearly
vulgar, insulting comments. The article focuses on Maria Jourdan Washington –
better known to history as Maria Elizabeth Jourdan Westmoreland – describing
religious meetings held in her home.
Maria
Jourdan was born in Georgia, October 10, 1838, to Warren Jourdan and Mary Johnson-Thornton.
The Thorntons and Jourdans were prominent politically, espousing ‘states
rights’ in the pre-war years, and they were wealthy. Both Maria and her sister Madeline
were educated at the Baptist-sponsored Southern Female College at La Grange, Georgia,
and both were accomplished writers. Maria was an expert musician as well. In
1856 she married Willis Furman Westmoreland [June 1, 1828 – June 26, 1890], a
surgeon of note. He was ten years her senior, not uncommon in this era. A
biography says:
Loveliness of person and precocity of mind were her
gifts from nature. It was a rare thing for one to pass the thoughtful little
beauty without prophesying a brilliant future for her. Even in tender childhood
she gave unmistakable evidences of that genius which has given to the literati
those essays which have appeared from time to time in the columns of “Scott’s
Monthly,” and the “Ladies’ Home Gazette,” both periodicals published in the City
of Atlanta, the home of Mrs. Westmoreland.
With Maria Jourdan, music was a passion. Having been
so fortunate as to have always enjoyed the tuition of skilful masters, she
early became a proficient in the art, and, unlike most married ladies, she has
never thrown aside her favorite amusement, but devotes much time to familiarizing
herself with 'the various operas, etc., her rendition of some of which is
worthy a Strakosch or a Verdi. Her touch is exquisite and thrilling, her
manipulation wonderful. Nor should we fail to speak of her beautiful
improvisations, which so often charm and delight the home circle. Hour after
hour have we seen her under the inspiration, as it were, of Orpheus, while strain
after strain of the most witching music would be borne upon the air, ravishing
the ear, melting the heart, and causing the eye to grow liquid, and the lip to
quiver with emotion. On such occasions Mrs. Westmoreland is transcendently
charming. The rapt look she wears; the deeply sad expression of her large,
dark, and lustrous eyes; the heightening color, the classic brow, where “thought
sits enthroned” – all, all combine to form a picture over which artists would
delight to linger. Her manners are fascinating – not indeed free from that
hauteur peculiar to high-bred Southern women; but she commands without
repulsing. She is a brilliant colloquist, her conversations abounding in wit,
repartee, and pleasantry.
Mrs. Westmoreland is endowed with a high order of
intellect, excelling, when at college, in mathematics and the languages. She
also early evinced a preference for the study of the classics, and her mind is
richly stored with stories and legends – of those real and mythical personages
whose marvelous deeds and glorious achievements have been sung from time
immemorial.
Maria’s
married life was as lively as it was in her youth. She fostered a “literary
club.” The biography quoted above says:
She was also the founder of a “literary club,” whose
members convened once a week at her residence on Marietta Street. On these
occasions, private theatricals were performed, and poems read or delivered,
each member being compelled to contribute something for the amusement and
edification of the “club.” These weekly reunions were replete with interest and
information, and happy they, indeed, who formed one of this charmed circle.
This
seems effusive, but given her known history, it appears accurate. We can trace
some of her travels and know something of her subsequent history. The American
Civil War interrupted her home life. She gave birth to her first child, a
daughter, on December 20, 1860, the day South Carolina seceded, and in honor of
that they named her Carolina. Her husband joined the Confederate medical corps,
eventually being promoted to the rank of general by Jefferson Davis.
Maria
“was devoted to the cause of the South, and toiled unremittingly, through heat
and cold, rain and sunshine, during those terrible years of blood and carnage
from which we have but emerged,” wrote a biographer. She wrote two plays, A
Soldier’s Wife and The Soldier’s Trials, both performed in the
Atlanta Athenaeum. “The proceeds, which were munificent, were donated to the
destitute wives and children of those brave Atlantians who were battling so
manfully for our cause on the historic soil of the ‘Old Dominion.’” [The Old
Dominion is Virginia.] Her biographer wrote that:
The first evening the play of ‘The Soldier’s Wife’ was
presented, the Athenaeum was crowded almost to suffocation: the order and
decorum observed on that occasion was wonderful, and bespoke at once the high
regard and appreciation which the Atlanta public felt for the dramatic
neophyte. The emotion evinced by that vast audience was deep and unfeigned; and
every eye shed a tear and every bosom heaved a sigh over the stricken wife who
had abandoned herself to sorrow, in the hourly expectation of the news of the
condemnation of her husband, who had deserted the army, and fled to his home
and little ones to preserve them from starvation. The play was a decided success,
and the youthful follower of Aeschylus left the Athenaeum amid the congratulations
of many sincere and loving friends.
The
war challenged, as it did for many women, Maria’s view of women’s rights and
responsibilities. In Southern culture as in most of the United States,
“respectable women” did not become actresses. The Civil War changed that, and
Maria with other ‘respectable’ women acted in her plays. Writing plays to fund
relief work was not her only act in support of the Southern cause. She and a
Madeline V. Bryan, crafted “the first public symbol of Confederate authority in
Atlanta,” a flag for the Customs House. Maria
called together prominent women, her social peers, on April 17, 1861, five days
after the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter. They organized into a
soldiers’ aid society, their first task being to scrape lint for bandages.
Since the Confederate government did not furnish uniforms, they turned to
making shirts, pants and socks for soldiers. Naming themselves The Ladies’
Soldier’s Relief Society, the attracted “many young women of high social
standing” including Mary Clayton whom some of our American readers will
remember form their history reading.
Contributions in money and “in kind” came to “the Ladies,” and Maria duly
reported them in detail.
When General Sherman approached Atlanta, Maria, in late term pregnancy, fled.
Post-War: 1866-1879
Maria
wrote a series of articles for The Atlanta Constitution using the
fictional persona of Aunt Tabitha, “dispensing advice to a younger female
relative.” She condemned fornication, rampant in post-war Georgia. She
advocated educating women. She advocated the admission of women to the
University of Georgia, though to no avail. Women were not admitted until 1918.
Maria said that “women’s economic advancement would occur when they gained
access to education.” Later, the Southern press saw her as a radical ‘women’s
rights’ advocate, but she was not. She suggested that “women were not yet ready
to become voters,” but she saw the day when suffrage would come as near. In
July 1872 she addressed the graduating class of the Southern Female College at
LaGrange, her alma mater. The Christian Index, a religious paper
published in Atlanta, reported: “Mrs. Maria J. Westmoreland ... read a splendid
essay. Subject, ‘What shall our Women
do?’ It was filled with good sense,
sound reasoning, and practical advice.”
Maria
turned to novel writing, producing Heart-Hungry, published by G. W.
Carleton and Co. of New York. Maria traveled to New York to consult with her
publishers. Wendy Venet, in her stellar book, says she was accompanied by her
husband. Her stay was short, but she returned to New
York in the fall of 1873, planning to stay the winter. She brought her two
children with her, but her husband remained in Atlanta.
Her
original intention, a bow to Southern prejudice, was to publish anonymously. Heart-Hungry
tells us much about her views of religious practice. The heroin is Maud
Livingstone, an oppressed orphan. Her foster parents mistreat her out of guilt.
Her foster mother, wrote Maria, “was a living representative of a certain
class, who are saints in public, and vipers in private life, and with much
external religion, her woman’s unwomanly heart entertained no spark of sympathy
for this motherless girl.” Oppressed Maud dealt with dark thoughts, vanquishing
them “by the consciousness of the sin of indulging them, and taking up her
cross again.” Toward the novel’s conclusion Maria wrote: “Religion is the
foundation of virtue and the strongest support of society; the friend of the
helpless; the sacred guardian of the marriage rite; the faithful sentinel upon
the light-house, that, descrying danger, gives the alarm, and then throws its
protecting arms around the weary and the doubtful”. In time, Maria would
question the efficacy of religion as usually practiced, but in 1872, this was
her firm belief.
A
second novel followed in short order, and the first was dramatized. Clifford
Troup: A Georgia Story was published the next year. As did her first novel,
this one contained a religious message. She introduced her story with Bible
quotations that focused on respecting parents and giving exclusive worship to
God. She felt compelled to include a moral lesson. We see this in a letter she
wrote to Mary Washington, her brother-in-law’s wife:
Undoubtedly genius, talent, or by whatever name you
call it thrives best in attics and in poverty. And those who think they can
coquette with the muses in slippered luxury and at such time as suits their
self-indulgence and sweet fancy, will never reach the dizzy heights where Homer
soared, or write their names on fame’s eternal scroll. George Eliot said:
“Genius meant daily labor.” ... For my part – from childhood up I have led such
a busy life, that I am wretched when idle. Indeed “doing nothing” is the task
as difficult for me, as rolling the stone up the hill, then down again was to
Sisphus [sic]. And looking at it from another point of view, I think it wicked
to lead a life of idleness and believe, as firmly as I believe in my God, that
we must render an account of talents given and not used. Indeed the parable of
the talents is one of the most forcible in all the teachings of the sweet, but
lowly Nazarene. My Rector used to say that I was born with as distinctive a
mission as any one he had ever known – and that mission was to teach though my
writings, the right and the wrong, the follies and weaknesses of human nature –
He also said I possess a rare combination, which at the same time as
recognizing all the light and shadow of right and wrong, felt a broad sympathy
for all the foibles of humanity – I once hoped all this was true, prayerfully, and
in the sight and fear of God, accepted, through numerous trials, sufferings and
tribulations, the awful responsibility. After accepting the rôle, I went forth
as the knights of old, with spear drawn and helmet down, confident in my own
ability – not only to battle for my brothers and sisters, but hopeful of my own
capacity to win the fight. – That they wounded me to the core, is also, true,
for like all persons of fervid imaginations, I am morbidly sensitive. But alas!
L’hommes propose – mais Dieu dispose!
When
in New York City, Maria lectured at the Union League Club. The New York Home
Journal reported: “Mrs. Maria Jourdan Westmoreland, the Southern authoress,
made a successful debut as a lecturer before a cultivated and
fashionable audience.” Her subject was “Shots at Social Myths.” She was,
reported the Home Journal, “equally severe upon both sexes, firing whole
broadsides of satire and sarcasm at the ‘morals’ of men and the insincerity and
gossiping tendencies of women.” Her lecture was “well received ... its keen
hits and brilliant points being warmly applauded.” The Home Journal
described Maria as a woman of culture and extensive reading, adding: “In
presence, manner and personal appearance she possesses all the elements of
popularity. When so many plain-looking lecturers appear in public, it is
refreshing to see one who is endowed with beauty and wit.”
The
lecture was also reported in The
New York Post which described her audience as “eminently intellectual” and
in obvious sympathy with Maria. It reported that she made pointed comments on
the Cuban situation: “The lecture included several sharp and timely hits ... at
indisputable realities ... especially to Burriel and the problem of the ever-faithful
isle.”
The “isle” was Cuba and Burriel a devious, rather stupid Spanish General. On
October 31, 1873, the United States flagged Virginius was captured by
the Spanish warship Tornado and brought to Santiago de Cuba. Included
among its crew were Cuban revolutionaries, but there were also Americans,
Europeans, Africans and British citizens. Some of the prisoners were only
thirteen. The crew were tried before a Spanish naval court and sentenced to
death as “pirate prisoners.” On November 4th, General Juan N.
Burriel ordered the execution of the four insurgent generals captured on board
the Virginius. Three days later, thirty-seven more members of the crew,
including Joseph Fry, the American captain were killed. General Burriel stopped
the executions when the H. M. S. Niobe arrived, sent to stop the
execution of British citizens.
Late in 1873, Maria addressed a
Women’s Conference held in New York City. The Southern press reproduced an
extract from the New York Herald:
Mrs.
Maria Jourdan Westmoreland came to the platform, and looking like Titian’s
high-born dames, said, in a sweet and low, but distinct voice, that there was a
great necessity for close union between the women of the North and the South.
She hoped that lecturers would be sent through the South in order to awaken the
ladies of that section to immediate action. Mrs. Westmoreland further stated
that she would gladly give any lecturers letters of introduction to the first
people of the South in order to further the common object. Mrs. Westmoreland spoke
on the condition of the Southern women; she said she knew them well enough to
know that if the papers of this Congress had been read in the South, it would
so rouse them that they would not be quiet until they had the ballot
Reaction
from the Southern press was immediate and negative. The Nashville,
Tennessee, Union and American said in response that “Southern people will
readily encourage ladies in their efforts to achieve fame in the genial walks
of literature, but they have no patience with ‘crowing hens.’” The Union and
American writer – the report lacks a byline – quoted The Augusta
Chronicle and Sentinel as saying:
It need hardly be said that Mrs. Westmoreland, in
expressing the views with which she is credited above, does not represent the
women of the South. In one section of the Union, at least, women are contented
to be women – they have no desire to drag their dainty skirts through the
filthy mire of politics; no ambition to figure among roughs and rowdies at the
polls. They have a higher and more noble mission to perform. They run not after
strange gods, but worship at the altars of the fireside and the family circle.
We would advise the Women’s Rights women to stay at home and not undertake
missionary work in the South. Even Mrs. Westmoreland’s letters will not open to
them the doors of Southern people – and their lectures will not pay the gas
bills and hall rent.
The Lynchburg, Virginia,
Republican commented:
In assuming the breeches, [the writer means men’s
pants] we are sure Mrs. Westmoreland speaks only for herself, for we think she
greatly mistakes the sentiment of the Southern woman if she supposes that they
are “heart hungry” as herself for the ballot, and that they are ready to rush
into a revolution to secure it in order that they may exhibit their prowess in
a scuffles at the polls on election day with their dusky fellow citizens, Mrs.
Dinah Johnson and Mrs. Phillis Brown.
This was reprinted with
approval in The Alexandria, Virginia, Gazette and Virginia Advertiser of
October 29, 1873, under the heading Petty Coat on the Rostrum. The Savannah
Advertiser said: “Mrs. Westmoreland, a Southern woman herself, ought to
have a better knowledge of the sentiments of her own sex in the South. If Mrs.
Westmoreland herself should undertake a canvass of the South under the banner
of Mesdames Stanton and Livermore, she would fail to win over to her cause a
sufficient number of women to start even a first class sewing society.”
There is strong indication that
Maria’s speech was misrepresented by a hostile press. An April 1874 press
report said: “Mrs. Maria J. Westmoreland has finished a lecture which she calls
the ‘Daughters of Eve,’ in which she very properly takes the ground that
woman’s widest field lies within the sacred precincts of home.”
It is possible that she held both viewpoints. There is some indication she did.
But we think the northern newspapers quoted in the south exaggerated Maria’s
speech. The best indication that the press misrepresented her speech is found
in The New York Daily Graphic: “Mrs. Westmoreland is ‘defended’ by an
enthusiastic Savannahan, who declares she said nothing about the rights of the
ballot in the recent Convention.”
Maria responded through an open
letter to the Southern press. Unfortunately it survives, as far as our research
shows, in a brief quotation:
I
did not say I hoped lecturers would be sent through the South. I said that I
hoped they would go, and with letters of introduction which I would gladly give
them. I knew they would have a happy and perhaps a lucrative time, and I knew
that a few women at least would be delighted to know that women were
accomplishing so much ... Why are these attacks constantly made upon me, and by
my own people? Is it because they hate me personally? It cannot be for anything
I ever did to them, for my house, heart and well-wishes have ever belonged to
my people, and an unkind word from them is always answered by my tears. Is it
kind, is it liberal or charitable for them to try to draw down a woman who is
trying honestly and by hard labor to support herself and two children?
The newspaper that quoted this
suggested that she should have sought better association than the Women’s
Conference and was paying just consequences for failing to do so. The
criticisms are all from men, many of whom resented Reconstruction and sought to
preserve pre-war culture.
In
mid-December 1872 she was engaged to lecture by the Fraternals, a newly-formed
society whose goal was help for indigent women, of whom there were many in New
York City. The New York Sun described them as “chivalrous order of
gentlemen,” saying: “It had been found by investigation that there is not in
New York a place where a moneyless woman who preserves the respect of the
world, can go for lodging except to the free but uncomfortable shelter of a
police station; although there are numerous benevolent houses of refuge, to
enter which would stamp her with infamy. Mr. Dooly mentioned the case of a
woman who had walked the streets all night as the best thing to be done.”
Their goal was to found comfortable housing throughout the city. Maria was
drawn to this type of work, and agreed to lecture to help raise funds. The
Kingston, New York, Daily Freeman noticed her impending lecture. It would
be accompanied by illustrations, and “she allows any gentleman in the audience
to come up on stage and learn how the thing is done.” The writer snidely
observed that Maria was “rather ancient” (she was thirty-eight) “and not a very
comely piece of anatomy – indeed rather angular – she don’t illustrate much.”
The accuracy of this report is uncertain. What is certain is that the editor of
the Freeman was as illiterate as he was rude. The Daily Graphic held
a differing opinion: “Mrs. Westmoreland
is a very handsome woman, and – is it impertinent to say? – probably has a
large acquaintance with her theme.”
Her
audience was “fashionable and appreciative ... [and] seemed to keenly enjoy the
racy and piquant witticism of the lecturer.” The New York, Daily Graphic,
just quoted, added that “her selection of a subject last evening was a ‘happy
thought.’ All men appreciate ‘kisses’ from rosy lips, whether given or talked
about, especially when the theme is handled with a rare blending of delicacy,
wit and sentiment.
Favorable
impressions of Maria’s lecture resulted in invitations to repeat it in Boston
and Washington, D.C. In February 1874, Maria took her “Kisses” lecture to
Willard Hall in Washington, D.C. The Washington, D.C., Star declared
that Maria’s lecture would be the “literary event of the week.” It came at an
appropriate time, St. Valentine’s Day. “Judging from the number of tickets
disposed of, the fair authoress will be greeted by a brilliant and fashionable
audience. A newspaper article
described her as “a beautiful representative of the ‘Sunny South.’” It said
that the “attractive character” of her subject resulted in a “large and
cultivated audience.” After a short concert, she was introduced by Henry Stuart
Foote, former governor of Mississippi, “who read a letter from the Hon. Alex.
H. Stephens regretting his inability to attend on account of sickness.”
Maria returned to her Georgia home
sometime near August 1874, the New York Daily Graphic announcing that
“Mrs. Maria J. Westmoreland is occupied at her home in Georgia writing a
psychological novel, which is likely to excite a profound sensation.”
She delivered her “Kisses” lecture to an Atlanta audience the press described
as “large and distinguished.” One report tells us that she planned a summer
tour of resort areas.
In 1880 her publisher reissued her second novel, Clifford Troup¸ with a
new title, Drifted Together, and issued anonymously.
illustration
Maria
Westmoreland in 1873.
The Eighties
Maria
fades from newspaper notice in the 1880s. Venet’s take on this was:
She largely faded from view by the end of the 1870s.
Although the two novels went through several editions, critics panned them, and
speaking engagements appear to have dried up. Her marriage may have collapsed,
for Maria did not attend her daughter’s Atlanta wedding in 1882, and she is not
buried next to Willis, who died a much-respected member of Atlanta’s medical
community in 1890.
Maria’s
marriage deteriorated. If we re-read her open letter to the Southern press, we
find her asking: “Is it kind, is it liberal or charitable for them to try to
draw down a woman who is trying honestly and by hard labor to support herself
and two children?”
When her husband, Willis Westmoreland, returned to Georgia after their joint
visit to New York City, he stopped supporting her and their children. Willis,
though respected as a physician, was volatile, ready to threaten a duel, and
just as ready to run off to Arkansas to avoid it. He deteriorated mentally to the point of
commitment to the State Insane Asylum at Milledgeville, Georgia, where he died
June 26, 1890. At some point the children returned to their father’s care.
Maria and Willis lived separately, and then divorced. We do not have details of
the divorce, and they’re probably not relevant. Maria vividly described her
reaction to this family tragedy:
Then came troubles thick and fast – heart-aches –
oceans of tears – poutings – the tearing asunder of all home ties – the
uprooting of all I had done. Then attacked by foes within and foes without –
with no strong but loving hand to guide me, much as a father might have done –
I fell like a tree blasted by the lightning – obliterated – paralyzed amidst
the ruins of all the beautiful home and dreams that I myself had created. Then
my courage forsook me, for griefs do make cowards of us all, and I lost all
hope of every doing ought again – lost all confidence in my own capacity to
accomplish any-thing. Thus does the inhumanity of man make cruel ship-wreck of
so many lives.
In
1882 she married William Lewis Washington [1844-1902], a man of some wealth and
a colonel in the Confederate Army. Maria
presented her love affair with William Lewis as torrid, “I am happy still and
still in love, but not at the same tempestes furioso temperature – or
else I should be dead.”
Maria’s health tumbled
William
and Maria purchased a farm in West Virginia, calling it Washington Manor.
Problems followed. A letter from Maria to her father-in-law, George Augustine
Washington [1815-1892], tells us that William had debilitating headaches: “William
is still suffering so much with his head that he is unable to write you at
length as he would wish to do.” The farm was an unwise purchase, and there were
other financial problems. Maria described at length the deficiencies: When
William “purchased the farm it was so totally and utterly and almost hopelessly
out of repair as to be unsuitable for any civilized human being.” The walls
were filthy, “compelling him to paper, paint and whitewash.” The doors would
not close “sufficiently to keep out either rain or snow,” and none had locks.
The chimneys, hearths and grates were in ruins. Two-thirds of the windows were
broken; there were problems with erosion. To raise funds, William tried to sell
some property in Nashville, but believed his agent was trying to cheat him, so
he sold off bonds instead. Her letter was meant to assure her father-in-law
that they were not spending profligate spenders.
She
was in New York City by 1887, and a letter from her to Richard Watson Gilder,
the publisher of Century Magazine, seeking an appointment exists; it was
meant to further her literary career. A follow-up letter dated June 18, 1887,
shows that she had an appointment with Robert Underwood Johnson at Century
Magazine. We do not know the result.
Maria
expressed herself as deeply in love with William, writing: “I am happy still as
still in love, but not at the same tempestes furioso temperature – or
else I should be dead.” Maria’s
health tumbled and she was a patient in New York City’ Women’s Hospital in the
State of New York. An entry in a hospital directory noted that it was: “For the treatment of
diseases peculiar to women.” Other cases were not accepted.
A common cure, as we will note further, was opium based medicine.
William
tired of Maria. A letter from his lawyer, dated August 5, 1890, tells us that
he ran off to California. Not in the letter is any statement of his conduct
there, but a classified advertisement found in several issues of The Los
Angeles, California, Herald suggest that he had taken as a mistress a Louise
Henley, and passed her off as his wife.
Maria filed for divorce in California, New York City and in West Virginia,
receiving judgments against him in California and West Virginia. Letters
passing between him and his mother show William trying to hide assets.
By the time of the divorce, William was nearly impoverished. Despite Maria’s
1882 letter to his father, he seems to have spent foolishly through most of his
life.
William’s
attorney described Maria as being in poor health and as having “suspicious and distrustful
state of mind,” certainly understandable given William’s behavior. They
were already separated by 1886. We learn this from a letter from William to Joseph
Washington. Maria wrote to Joseph, outlining her complaints against William, and
apparently seeking some sort of help. [The letter has been lost.] Joseph
replied, forwarding a copy of his reply to William. What we have in William’s
August 1886 letter to Joseph is a series of excuses. “I do not know,” he wrote,
“what Maria wrote you, only through what she says, and through your reply to
her; I know enough however, to make it necessary for me to write you a
letter of explanation.”
He
told Joseph that Maria was an “opium eater,” adding that it was “well-known” by
the medical community “as well as the intelligent world at large, that no opium
eater can tell the truth.” It is unwise to take William at his word. He was
less than honest both inside and outside his marriage. Maria was chronically
ill. She may have sought relief through one of the opium based patent
medicines. We do not know. But William used her condition to discredit her with
his family:
By experience in her case, I only know too well that
she does not know when truth ends or when fiction begins. These are admissions
that I dislike to make even to you or myself. I have kept my lips sealed both
to my own family and to hers, hoping all along that she would reform – promise
after promise has been made – by the bed-side of her dead mother, at Norfolk,
she promised me most sincerely to reform and in less than 6 weeks she was at it
again – physician after physician to whom I have talked have all told me that
she was not responsible and that you could not rely upon what she would do,
and could not even say what she might or might not do.
Again,
the truthfulness of this is open to question. He wrote that her son, Willis
Westmoreland, Jr., was present and cooperating with him to have her committed
to an asylum for the insane. If this is true, their efforts failed. No court
committed her. It is worth noting, however, that William had been committed for
mental issues in 1882, shortly after their marriage. A West Virginia newspaper
reported: “William Washington was confined in jail of this county last week
upon a charge of lunacy. He is a resident of this county and is a lineal
descendant of a brother of George Washington, the first great name in our
country’s history. What sad changes time often produces in the affairs of man.”
In the 1880s, especially in rural areas, jail was a common fate for those
deemed insane.
William
said Maria was violent:
I have never left her a day at the time that I have
felt safe, not knowing what she might do – It was with great difficulty that I
prevented her being indicted before the Preston Co. Grand Jury last fall for
assault with intent to kill – she shot at an old mountaineer and had he not
turned aside his face she would have killed him. Only by bribing and actually
compounding a felony with the County Atty [Attorney] did I save her.
He
presented this to Joseph to mitigate the real problem between himself and
Maria. After admitting to Joseph that he had tried to conceal his part in their
difficulties he said:
She did find me in delictus flagrante, [He
meant: in flagrante delicto.] I do not deny it, as to my
abandoning her it is not true; I made arrangements for her to be looked after
and by the advice of her own physicians and Dr Hammond kept out of the way,
until her physician deemed it advisable – I finally got a nurse – shut down on
any money except prescription of medical attendant - and only yesterday was she
entirely herself – I will not write more on this subject; this letter is for
Mary and yourself, no one else.
William’s
sexual transgression is a very minor part of this lengthy letter. William kept
two, probably three mistresses whom he passed off as his wife. We know the
names of two of them, and there is apparently a third unnamed but mentioned in a
short newspaper notice. There may have been and probably were more. If Maria
was chronically upset, we can lay it to this and to an unnamed illness that
plagued her from before her marriage. In an undated letter written early in
their marriage, probably in 1882 or 83, Maria wrote: “Ill-health has kept me so
long on enforced idleness that now I must be up and doing things, if possible.” Maria’s
issues, aside from discovering her husband had a touch of madness and
chronically fornicated, seem to have been ‘women’s issues,’ reproductive issues
including menstruation and menopause.
It is
a mistake to judge 19th Century accusations of female insanity by
today’s standards. Even in the last quarter of that century, the female
reproductive system was not understood, and what progress there was, was
resisted by physicians. Some continued to believe that the fetus was formed
from menstrual blood, that the cramps and emotional swings associated with
menstruation were a form of madness as were the emotions that came with
menopause. The treatment of choice was opium or an opium derivative such as
Laudanum. If Maria truly was addicted to opium it was because of her physicians’
treatment. There is no sign of any addition later in her life, and it is worth
remembering that J. C. Sunderlin’s physicians had addicted him to morphine
trying to cure his pain.
In the
late 19th Century medical opinion was often uninformed, even moronic
and stood as a bulwark against developing science. Vern Bullough and Martha
Vogt observed:
Since medical practitioners were almost all men, and
many of them were hostile to any change in the status quo in male-female
relationships, they inevitably entered the struggle with what today appears not
only as ludicrous arguments, but which even in the period they were writing
were not based upon any scientific findings and in fact went contrary to those
findings. This is particularly true in their understanding of the consequences
of menstruation.
Edward
Clark, a Harvard professor, provides us with an example of medical abuse in the
period, recounting several cases where he misdiagnosed female issues. The one
pertinent here is that of a young woman whose menstrual flow had diminished.
[He called it ‘catamenial function.’] With that were headaches, “vagaries,
forebodings and despondent feelings.” She developed acne and rough skin. When
he couldn’t cure her, he blamed it all on the exertions of higher education for
which women were not, in his opinion, fit and had her committed to an asylum
for the insane.
We
think that William’s characterization of her as violent is colored by his desire
to appear the aggrieved party. If a record exists of the shooting incident, we
could not find it. But a rational soul can find alternative explanations for
it. Maria was alone; William was off pursuing his gambling, dog racing, women
or who knows what. A ‘mountain man’ appears on her property. She feels
threatened, maybe was threatened and fires at him. Those of our readers
enamored of first-hand accounts of frontier and mountain life will know of
similar circumstances. William wanted her to appear insane. But ultimately the
one with a history of mental illness was William.
By
1888 Maria was trying to sell or rent the West Virginia property. William saw
the need to defend himself to relatives, writing to Joseph Washington in
November 1888 that “she is certainly crazy, as she offers the place for sale or
rent. – No one will be so foolish as to either purchase or rent, and I have
written to ... notify any one renting the place that they will certainly have
trouble.” He continued the insanity theme, writing: “The Lady Maria might
really to be placed in a lunatic asylum, for she is dangerous, as I well know.”
He believed they would be divorced by that December. That was optimistic.
Divorce was, as we have seen, two years away.
It is
to this troubled period we should assign her exploration of alternative
religions. She wrote a biography, printed in very limited numbers and which we
could not locate.
What remains of this story is found in the December 13, 1891, New York, New
York, Sun, which reported that she “has been a member of almost every
religious denomination and a disciple of all manner of strange vagaries
including spiritualism, theosophy and Christian science [sic].” This is typical
Sun innuendo and insult, a type of insult the Sun directed at
anyone religiously out of the ordinary. Maria told the Sun reporter that
she had sought the “truth of religion” for forty years which takes us back to
1851, her twelfth or thirteenth year. Serious questing usually takes place in
more mature years, though it can begin quite early.
Photo W. L. Washington
The Nineties
After
separating from William, she moved from the Park Avenue Hotel to a rented,
older Greek Revival house at 179 McDougal Street, in the Washington Square
area. She
became interested in the near return of Christ, reading Charles A. L. Totten’s
prophetic speculations. Totten was a retired army officer, a British Israelite
proponent, and believed Christ would return in 1899. And
she read Russell’s Plan of the Ages. We do not know the circumstances. A
group of wealthy, somewhat prominent widows and matrons resident in New York
City promoted the book; principal among these was Viola Gilbert whom we profile
in volume three of Separate Identity. She and Maria were social peers.
It is possible that Maria was introduced to Russell’s writings through one of
these women. We simply do not know.
However,
Maria was impressed and traveled to Allegheny to meet Russell, returning with his
photo and a determination to preach. The insinuating, insulting, rather vulgar Sun
reporter wrote:
She has been searching for the truth for forty years,
and, as she says, only succeeded in gathering a flock of hungry parasites, who
fattened off her substance and pretended to have all manner of faith in her.
Not until a year ago did the truth come to her, and since that time she has
been preparing to open a campaign for the saving of the world, which will end
before many years.
The truth came to her with the aid of a certain
Charles Russell – a big-eyed, unctuous-looking man, if his picture does not
flatter him. Mr. Russell lives in Allegheny, Pa., and is responsible for a good
deal more than this church in the house of Maria.
illustration
Maria’s Calling Card – New
York Public Library Collection.
Mr. Russell has written some of the largest and
dullest books in the world to prove that the millennium is at hand. He preceded
Totten; is more voluminous and more wearisome, if possible. He is spending all
his time at the propagation of his ideas about the millennium, and runs a
publishing house in its interests.
Maria thinks exceeding well of Russell and is inclined
to adopt his plan of the end of the world, although she is still flirting with
Totten and may yet go over to him. Russell says the first trumpet sounded in
1878 or thereabouts, and that the millennium will come in 1914. He is a good
deal agitated about this, but not so much agitated as is Maria.
She
told the reporter that for weeks after “the truth was revealed to her she ...
ran about the streets telling everybody, policemen, beggars, street walkers.”
She went to the “big churches,” asking “embarrassing questions of the ministers
as they descended from their handsome pulpits.” Failing to receive satisfactory
answers she traveled to Allegheny, “and there got the powerful call to start a
church.” She invited previous acquaintances to her meetings. The reporter
described them as “the best people of New York – the worldly, be-diamond,
décolleté people.”
The Sun’s
reporter was a modernist who, as did most of his ilk, responded to fervent
belief with ridicule. Despite this, much detail penetrates the fog. At the time
of this report, Maria was teaching what she found in The Plan of the Ages.
If she was persuaded by Totten’s Anglo-Israelitism, she was not the only Watch
Tower adherent to be so. Russell saw the issue as irrelevant to the times. The
Sun suggested that she had “an entire [sic] new system of theology, and
talks about the Presbyterians and Methodists and the rest in a most startling
way – She thinks the wicked are to be instantly killed off, instead of burned
or tortured with remorse. She thinks – but if you care to know all that she
thinks go see her.” The public was invited to come on Fridays to discuss and
debate. Maria used what she saw as a New Testament pattern, calling the group
who met with her The Church in Maria’s House, and alternately, according to the
reporter, The School of Christ. Probably
the reporter misunderstood the phrase “school of Christ.” The phrase was in
common use in the 19th Century, and Russell used it frequently, not as
the name of a church but to illustrate a Christian’s relationship to Jesus.
From The
Sun’s article we pull this:
Maria is endeavoring to return to the Apostolic Church
in every way. Her method of expounding the Scriptures is novel and, to one
unfamiliar with any but the orthodox standards most startling. She is well
educated and is by no means absurd in her talk. She can reason with adroitness
and subtlety, and she has an amazing flow of language. She is quick tempered
too, and, as she regards it as inspired do not hesitate to show it when her
view are called into question.
As we
observed in the previous chapter, meetings could be contentious. Those held in
Maria’s house were. The Thursday meetings for ‘the church’ were described this
way:
If you should happen to strike the church in Maria’s
house of a Thursday afternoon you will hear in all probability voices raised
high in argument. There will be swinging word-blows exchanging in the shrillest
tones and the most vigorous language a well-strained Anglo-Saxon vocabulary
affords. This will be Maria driving home the truth as it is revealed to her.
“Sometimes,” she will explain, “the Lord gives it to me to speak the truth with
wonderful power. I do not spare words. I tear my adversaries in pieces. The woman
who came to combat me had to her bed, and many do not get over a visit for
days. Oh, the truth is mighty.
Despite
the controversies, Maria’s mission reached some. Two students attending The
Union Theological Seminary testified that “Maria has taught them more in a few
lessons than all the professors at Union have ... in the time they have been
going there.” The Sun article was designed to discourage contact with
Mrs. Washington, to ridicule her, but it did not succeed. Maria turned to a
forum with which she was very familiar, a salon. Using as a pattern her
youthful literary salons, she promoted Millennial Dawn teachings among her
social peers, holding two meetings a week, one for visitors and one for those
who saw themselves as part of the “little flock,” the 144,000, heaven-bound
congregation.
Russell,
accompanied by his wife, was in New York City in November 1892 “in response to
the urgent solicitations of the friends in and adjacent to” the City. He
‘preached’ in the morning at Cooper Union on the subject “In Our Days.” In the
evening he spoke at Hardman Hall on “The Restitution of All Things” and again
that night on “The Millennium and Its Day of Preparation.” An announcement in Zion’s
Watch Tower said: “Notice is given
thus publicly and in season, that readers from surrounding places may attend,
if they can make it convenient.” Russell said, “Private meetings will be held
elsewhere on Monday.” Russell used the phrase “in response to urgent
solicitation” as a code word for the need to address troublesome issues among
the brethren. We do not know what the issues was or where the private meetings
were held, or how they affected Maria Washington.
We
believe, based solely on circumstantial evidence, that Maria attended the Watch
Tower convention held in Chicago in 1893. Late in life Maria was described as
having an angular face. A comparison of her known portrait with the large
format group photo taken at the convention leads us to tentatively identify her
in that group. In any event, she was in Chicago in October 1893 with a small
but organized group of evangelizers. The Chicago, Illinois, Inter-Ocean
reported on her work:
Mrs. Maria J. Washington and her associates in
evangelistic work are meeting with great success in the neighborhood of the
World’s Fair.
The meetings are largely attended and numerous
conversations are reported. Services will be held at four centers in the
vicinity of the exposition today, Mrs. Washington having the assistance of an
energetic volunteer band of workers numbering over twenty. ....
Mrs. Washington is a lady of means who devotes all her
time and energy to religious work, devoting particular attention to the rescue
of the fallen and abandoned. Not many years since she occupies a very prominent
place in society at the National capital. She is the widow of a gentleman who
belonged to the family of the illustrious Washington. She surrendered her
fashionable environments and associations to give herself up to the labors of
charity among the poor and lowly. Her efforts have been most fruitful, a rare
and peculiar magnetism of manner enabling her to win friends with ease. She has
labored in New York and in some of the southern cities, but will make Chicago
her home for some time to come.
In
Chicago, as in all of America’s larger cities, women faced the problem of
earning a living wage “under conditions which would make it possible for her to
escape illness and prostitution.” Chicago was at the center of labor reform,
and a complex multinational mix. H. B. Thompson, a Chicago resident, saw it as
a foreign mission field. Germans predominated with – in 1890 – 384,958;
Americans came next with 292,463. Other nationalities and ethnicities included
in order the Irish; Bohemians; Poles; Swedes; Norwegians; English; French; Scots;
Russians; Danes; Italians; ‘Hollanders’; Hungarians, Romanians; Canadians,
Swiss, Welsh; Mongolians; Greeks; Belgians; Spanish, West Indians; Portuguese;
Hawaiians; East Indians. Out of a total population of 1,218,679, there were
924,916 foreign born.
Prostitution
was public, as it was in all large cities and in many small towns. It was “one
of the distinguishing traits of nineteenth-century urban culture, because of
its widespread nature as well as the obviousness with which it flaunted itself,
a source of considerable alarm among contemporaries.”
Often public objection was to its public nature rather than the act itself, and
there was considerable reluctance to call the trade by its name. Instead of
“prostitutes” practitioners were called “fallen women,” “common women,” or
something similar. But Maria was concerned with the women themselves, not their
trade. She wasn’t alone. Building and furnishing houses of refuge for
prostitutes was a growing phenomenon.
The
Inter-Ocean and other papers described her as a widow. In fact she was not,
but was twice divorced. We do not know if the papers were being polite to a
well-doing woman or if Maria misrepresented herself. Care for poor, abandoned,
under-class women was Maria’s interest since the Civil War years. Despite
Russell’s suggestion that the work of God’s people lay elsewhere, she
persisted. While this was contrary to advice as found in Zion’s Watch Tower,
Russell observed that others followed this path, and it did not break
fellowship. His view was that because Christ was present, social issues
would soon be solved by his kingdom.
Maria
returned to Atlanta early in 1894, leaving no discernable impression on Chicago.
Her message remained a socially conscious one. The
Atlanta Constitution of April 26, 1894, reported that she established a “rescue
mission for the redemption and saving of fallen women.” She gave a series of
public lectures on religious topics that were well attended, and, though the
events were free. Her November 25th lecture was entitled “Go Sin No
More,” and a special invitation was extended to “old friends specially and the
public generally.” Though her lecture was free, afterward she asked for an
“offering” to support her rescue mission.
Maria
may have abandoned portions of Russellite belief. The Atlanta Constitution
reported her as giving a series of lectures in DeGive’s Opera House. According
to the December 2, 1894, Constitution¸ she attracted large and
appreciative crowds. Her lecture for that night was “The Lord’s Second,
Personal and Imminent Coming.” If
Christ’s return was imminent, it had not yet occurred. While noting this, we
should draw conclusions cautiously. Advertisements from Russell’s own lectures
and those of Watch Tower missionaries used similar language.
A
letter from her to the editor of The Atlanta, Georgia, Constitution,
though it does not mention Russell or Zion’s Watch Tower, suggests that
she retained much of what she learned from them. She wrote in response to an
article about her work that she believed misrepresented her and which raised
controversy among her friends. She blamed that on the reporter’s inexperience –
he was young – and on his infatuation of with Theosophy. She used her complaint
and her considerable reservoir of respect to explain her beliefs: “As the
spirit of what I said was not altogether entered into and diffused through the
article entitled ‘A New Mission,’ ... and some misunderstanding has arisen in
the minds of friends, permit me to say a few words in regard to my discipleship
and service for the blessed master.”
Maria explained her “call” to mission work:
I wish to say that I was mercifully and graciously
called by the lord of the harvest and sent forth by his holy spirit into His
vineyard to labor. My commission was to ‘go out into the highways ands [sic,
probably a type setter’s error] hedges and byways of the city and constrain man
to come in that the Father’s house might be filled.’ My work is among the poor,
the prisoners, the convicts and social outcasts or wherever and whenever a broken
heart is to be comforted or a helping hand is needed to raise up the fallen. I
care not what sinners have done. If the need of a savior is felt in their
broken hearts, I will put my arms of love around them and bring them to Christ.
“For the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sins.”
Some
Watch Tower evangelists were unwilling to address the spiritual and physical
needs of the poor, and this Maria’s approach may seem uncharacteristic to some
modern readers. However, while Russell discouraged participating in social
uplift programs, this is within Watch Tower theology. Russell pointed to the
Parable of the Wedding feast found in Matthew twenty-two. There we find this: “Then
he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did
not deserve to come. God to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone
you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the
people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with
guests.” Within this volume of Separate Identity you will find examples
reported by Russell with approval, where the poor, criminal and despised were
aided. Maria followed this path, though in her own way.
Maria
made other points that Watch Tower readers would see as echoes of Russell’s
statements. The original article quoted her as saying, “All preachers talk for
money, and are yet to be converted.” She wrote that she was “quite sure that I
was misunderstood,” following that with a series of criticisms. Some ministers
had not been baptized of the holy spirit. “We know it,” she wrote, “because
they sadly confess it.” They were unable to ‘bear fruit’ because “no man can
... unless endued with power from on high, and baptized in a flame of
Pentacoastal [sic] fire.”
Modern
readers may mistake this for Pentecostalism, but that movement was nearly
twenty years future. In the 19th Century the phrase meant being
anointed with holy spirit. The emphasis was on God’s choosing of his ‘sons’.
Russell saw the Pentecostal event as the first anointing and choosing of the
Little Flock, the heaven-bound congregation. Maria appears to have seen it in
the same way. One could not bear holy fruit without that anointing. She
believed, as Russell suggested, that most clergy lacked it.
Maria
turned to other criticism, complaints that any reader of Zion’s Watch Tower
would recognize, even down to the phrasing:
I deplore the methods in vogue for raising money to
carry on the Lord’s work. I believe it to be a lack of faith in God to give
festivals and to beg and take money of sinners, as if the church of God was an
object of charity and the children of God were orphans. I am just child enough
to ask my Father in heaven for what I need to glorify Him, and he always gives
it to me, and in one instance performed almost a miracle in bestowing a gift
that I craved.
She
wrote that “there are many godly men and women who differ with me.” Each should
be fully persuaded in their own mind, she said. The majority “of the men who
stand in the pulpits to warn, exhort, and entreat are doing the very best they
know how, and doing it conscientiously.” This mirrored Russell’s continuing
optimism that clergy would listen to the message, and some did. Maria asked for
clergy cooperation in her “feeble efforts to tear down the strongholds of
Satan.” Though there is much here that parallels Russell’s message, we do not
know to what extent Maria Washington continued to adhere to Watch Tower belief.
In
1897, Maria wrote to E. F, Cheatham, one of the extended Washington family,
asking him to escort her daughter, Carolina, and a friend to the theater.
Proper ladies did not go alone, even in 1897. She wrote that she was happy in
new life as a missionary but barely able to pay bills. She asked for a loan.
The loan was granted, and her son, W. F. Westmoreland, Jr., sent a letter of
thanks for Cheatham’s kindness. Maria died in 1900 and is buried in Atlanta.
Maria’s
path was barely within what The Watch Tower advised. In 1881 Russell
suggested that true Christians preach Christ, but that they also visit the
sick, finance the Lord’s work, are willing to “sacrifice reputation” and suffer
“the reproach of the world and a degenerate nominal church.” In this volume of Separate Identity we
meet a number who continued to belong to fraternal lodges, the Grand Army of
the Republic (a Union army veterans’ organization), and who continued to
participate in community affairs. Maria’s journey is similar. She sought
immediate remediation of the poor, as far as she was able, expending her
fortune in this work. She sought to rescue prostitutes, many of whom were mere
children. We think Maria’s story is representative and important because of that.
Maria
represents several of whom we know and probably many of whom we know nothing,
who accepted all or parts of Watch Tower belief, but rejected Russell’s call to
focus on Kingdom work. An example is J. B. Keim who sought immediate remedies
for human ills through “Christian Socialism” yet remained on the fringes of
Watch Tower congregations. B. W. Keith remained active in the Prohibition Party
and in a Union Army veteran’s organization. John Sunderlin maintained his
membership in the G.A.R.
illustration
DeGive’s Opera House Later
in its Life.
Totten
receives unfavorable mention in a more recent Watchtower publication. See: Do
You Believe Everything You Read, Awake! November 22, 1970, page 5. In
1890 Totten started publishing Our Race: Its Origin and Destiny, a
quarterly, to promote his Anglo-Israelite theories. N. Goodrick-Clarke [Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics
of Identity, New York University Press,
2002, page 235] suggests that Anglo-Israelitism came to America through Totten.
This is, of course, false.
