Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century Collections

Theodosia Burr, Mrs. Joseph Alston

Theodosia Burr was, as has been said of the daughter of another eminent statesman with whom Aaron Burr was closely identified, “the soul of her father’s soul.” If we would know the better part of a man who was one of the most remarkable characters of his age, we must know Theodosia, through whom, perhaps, his name, which all the subtlety of his soul was bent on immortalizing, may live to a better fame in the centuries to come than has attended it through the years of that in which he lived. Under the inspiration of her presence both her … Read more

Sallie Ward, Mrs. George F. Downs

One of those extraordinary women which the world from time to time produces, who rise to eminence solely through the force of their own personality, was born in America as the nineteenth century was rounding out its first quarter. Known all her life throughout the entire country, she was one of the most conspicuous figures in the life of the South and Southwest, and was the object of a sentiment that fell but little short of worship among the people of the state of Kentucky, to which she belonged. James Lane Allen who has studied his people from every stand-point, … Read more

Octavia Walton, Madame Le Vert

Into a world in which so many are born strangers, some later to know it in part and others destined to remain forever out of touch with life, and lonely-spectators rather than a part of it, Octavia Walton came as unto her own. Every atom of her being was in absolute accord with the universe. No bristling antipathies hedged in her genial personality nor raised barriers between herself and the beauties of life. She perceived them always and with an enthusiasm that raised not only her own existence, but that of many others, above the level of the commonplace. She … Read more

New York as a Social Center

The women who, both at home and abroad, are regarded as the leaders of American society in these last days of the century are or have been, almost without exception, at some time in their career identified with New York. Though there is no city in the United States that fills the central position which Paris holds in reference to all France, and which London occupies, at least socially, in England, the geographical position of New York, to a nation whose progressive spirit inspires it with a keen interest in the doings of the entire world, has given it a … Read more

Nellie Hazeltine, Mrs. Frederick W. Paramore

Among the members of the graduating class at Mary Institute, St. Louis, in the year 1873, was a young girl who, in addition to the bright mind and intellectual ambition she had already manifested, was endowed with so extraordinary a physical beauty and so lovable a character that much of the brilliancy of her life might even then have been foretold. She was not yet seventeen years old, and was as absolutely unconscious of the unusual loveliness of her person as she ever seemed to be even after ten years of adulation. Her figure had already attained a faultless contour, … Read more

Mattie Ould, Mrs. Oliver Schoolcraft

In the vicinity of one of Richmond’s fashionable schools there was often seen on winter afternoons, in the late sixties, a group of young girls, who possessed far more than the usual attractiveness that belongs ever to health and youth. Two, at least, Lizzie Cabell and Mary Triplett, were singularly beautiful. The third, a tall, slender girl, with a trim figure, dark skin and hair, and eyes perhaps downcast as she stepped lightly along listening to her companions, a stranger would scarcely have observed. If, perchance, however, as they paused on a street corner for a last word before separating, … Read more

Mary Victoria Leiter, Baroness Curzon of Kedleston

For the second time within the century an American woman has risen to viceregal honors. Mary Caton, the granddaughter of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and the widow of Robert Patterson, of Baltimore, through her marriage, in 1825, to the Marquis of Wellesley, who was at the time Viceroy of Ireland, went to reign a queen in the country whence her ancestors, more than a century before, had emigrated to America. In Mary Victoria Leiter, whose life, to the people of a future generation, will read much like romance, we again behold an American woman, who, like the Marchioness of Wellesley … Read more

Margaret O’Neill, Mrs. John H. Eaton

To the student of social history few careers surpass in interest that of Margaret O’Neill. Born of humble parentage, she ran the gamut of social possibilities, exercising more influence over the political destinies of her country than any other American woman has ever done. Unlike other great belles who owe their fame to the universal admiration they evoke, Margaret O’Neill owed hers quite as much to the animosity she roused. Her cause hotly espoused by the President of the United States, her conduct made the subject of cabinet debates, she rose to fame as broad as the land of her … Read more

Marcia Burns, Mrs. John Peter Van Ness

Marcia Burns! What memories the quaint Scotch lassie’s name calls up! The city of Washington disappears and its site spreads before us in flourishing farm lands and orchards. Scattered farm houses raise their chimneys amid primeval oaks and elms, and from the low doorway of the humblest emerges the winsome form of Marcia Burns. Six hundred acres, representing the thrift of generations of Scotch ancestors, surround her. The Potomac, one of the great water-ways of the South, carrying the produce of the fertile lands above into Alexandria for consumption or reshipment, almost kisses her feet. This is her patrimony, over … Read more

Kate Chase, Mrs. William Sprague

There was a name in America a little more than a generation ago that possessed a power amounting almost to enchantment, the name of Kate Chase, a woman who holds a unique place in both the political and social history of this century. The story of her life, between the high lights of its early days and the shadows in which it closed, presents a peculiar succession of superlatives. There stands forth, however, through all its changes, one unvarying dominant feature which must strike us at once, whether we approach it in the spirit of a student or actuated merely … Read more

Jessie Benton, Mrs. John C. Fremont

In the year 1868 the city of St. Louis erected a monument to the memory of one of her most distinguished citizens, Thomas Hart Benton. Of the forty thousand people who thronged the park on that May afternoon set aside for its unveiling, but one was of the great man’s blood, the daughter most closely associated with the accomplishment of his loftiest conception, that dream of Western empire for his country. Accompanied by her husband, General John C. Fremont, she had accepted the invitation to unveil the statue. As she pulled the cord that loosened its wrap-pings, and the school … Read more

Illustrations, Famous American Belles

Emily Marshall (Mrs. William Foster Otis). From portrait painted by Chester Harding in 1830; owned by her daughter, Mrs. Samuel Eliot, of Boston, by whose permission it is here reproduced for the first time in colors. Marcia Burns (Mrs. John Peter Van Ness). From miniature by James Peale, painted in 1797; owned by the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D. C 12 Theodosia Burr (Mrs. Joseph Alston). From the original engraving by Charles B. J. F. Saint Memin; owned by Hampton L. Carson, Esq., of Philadelphia, by whose permission it is here reproduced. Elizabeth Patterson (Madame Jerome Bonaparte). From portrait painted … Read more

Harriet Lane, Mrs. Henry Elliott Johnston

Of the men who have filled the Presidential chair of the United States, about none as about James Buchanan has romance hung that halo which in his case tends but to throw into bolder relief the substantial side of his character. Men of more dash, of more picturesque individuality have filled that high office than was he who rose to it through the gradations of a long legislative career. When he entered Congress, though he was but twenty-nine years old, the chapter of sentiment had already closed for him, and it was never reopened during a long life, the greater … Read more

Fanny Taylor, Mrs. Thomas Harding Ellis

The loveliness of Virginia women has been a theme of song and verse. Among the Richmond belles of sixty years ago none were more justly celebrated than that trio known as the Richmond Graces, Sally Chevalier, Fanny Taylor, and Sally Watson. Close companions from early childhood, their unusual beauty as they grew to womanhood brought them fame individually and collectively. Sally Chevalier became the wife of Abram Warwick, Sally Watson, of Alexander Rives, and Fanny Taylor, of whom this sketch is designed to treat at greater length, was twice married. She was educated at the excellent school of Miss Jane … Read more

Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century

Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century provides 19 biographies of some of the leading ladies in the 18th and 19th century who resided in the US. These 19 biographies portray ladies who were considered by the author to be women of preeminent beauty, dazzling wit, and powerful magnetism.

Emily Marshall, Mrs. William Foster Otis

Boston claims as her own the greatest American man of the nineteenth century, and even with more justice, the most beautiful woman born in America within the same period. “Emily Marshall as completely filled the ideal of the lovely and feminine, as did Webster the ideal of the intellectual and the masculine,” Quincy, a native of the same State, has written of her, adding that though superlatives were intended only for the use of the very young, not even the cooling influences of half a century enabled him to avoid them in speaking of her. He never forgot the first … Read more

Emilie Schaumburg, Mrs. Hughes-Hallett

Every Philadelphia girl who has hoped to be a belle during this last quarter of the century, and even many who have been without social aspirations, have been brought up on traditions of Emilie Schaumburg. Yet so eminent was the place she held in the old city whose standard of belleship had been fixed far back in the colonial days of America, that no one has ever succeeded her. Accustomed through long generations to women of wit, beauty, and a certain unapproachable taste in matters of personal adornment, Philadelphia has developed a critical instinct which is not easily satisfied “The … Read more

Elizabeth Patterson, Madame Jerome Bonaparte

The city into which Baltimore Town was legislated on the last day of the year 1796 already fostered within its limits the germ of the dual life, social and commercial, to which it has owed its subsequent eminence. Not infrequently, in the days of its inception, the same roof sheltered drawing-room and warehouse, the earlier merchants deeming it necessary to keep their growing interests constantly beneath their personal vigilance. Later, the commercial life crowded out the domestic life, and merchants built their dwellings stately bricks or frames, painted blue, yellow, or white, facing on avenues of locust-trees in another part … Read more

Cora Livingston, Mrs. Thomas Pennant Barton

Cora Livingston was born in New Orleans, “the little Paris of America,” on the 16th of June, 1806, the year of the great eclipse. Her father, writing to announce her advent to his sister in New York, said God had given him so fair a daughter that the sun had hidden its face. Though she was a great belle with a national reputation during the decade from 1820 to 1830, those who attempted an analysis of her charm declared that she lacked that attribute which many would esteem the first requisite to belleship, beauty. Yet she was a notable example … Read more

Caton Sisters of Baltimore

Among the belles of the early century loom the forms of those gracious women whose names are interwoven with those of the most historic figures of their age, the Caton sisters of Baltimore. Granddaughters of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, one of the most illustrious Americans of the period, they became through marriage identified with the most distinguished families in England. In 1787 Richard Caton, an Englishman who had settled in Baltimore two years before, and engaged in the manufacture of cotton goods, succeeded in winning the fair hand of Mary Carroll. Rumor said that it had been already partially plighted … Read more