Miriam Squier Leslie's Civil War

Library of Congress

"Mrs. E.G. Squier" pictured in a fashionable wasp-waisted dress at

Lincoln's Inaugural Ball,

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, March 23, 1861

https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3c19241/

Miriam Folline [Follin]Squier Leslie (1836–1914)

Many but not all her names: Miriam Florence Follin Peacock Squier Leslie Wilde as well as Frank Leslie. (Where is Lucy Stone when you need her?*) 

Frank Leslie (the man) was the Rupert Murdock, the William Randolph Hearst of his day, successful publisher of an information empire that included the innovative Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, featuring more pictures than other publishers could produce.

A second ball illustration

To be included on the Inauguration edition's cover with other society women was a coup for Miriam Squier, whose slippery hold on social position was based on her marriage to E.G. Squier, an anthropologist who wrote for Leslie's.

I recognize that dress front and center. Isn't that Mrs. E.G. Squier again

with her husband? And one can imagine readers around the country asking

just who Mrs. E. G. Squier was, particularly the bon-ton in New York City where

the Squiers lived.

Ephraim George Squier (1821-1888)

Squier was an editor at Leslie's publishing office when the Civil War began.

He'd been married to Miriam Peacock Squier for about two years.

Frank Leslie (1821-1880)

Born Henry Carter in England, the young artist and wood

engraver became superintendent of engraving for the  

 Illustrated London News. He brought his technological skills,

wife Sarah Ann and three children under five when 

he emigrated to the U.S. 

New York City's 1860 census shows the Leslies with sons 

Henry, Alfred and Scipio.

Just who was Miriam Squier?

Read Betsy Prioleau's Diamonds & Deadlines.

By the spring of 1861 Publisher Leslie was so besotted with the wife of Editor Squier that he featured her in both illustrations of the Inaugural Ball and described her as the Belle of the Ball. 

After divorces from their antebellum spouses Frank Leslie and Miriam married in 1874. Like William Randolph Hearst who ignored his wife to create and publicize the acting career of mistress Marion Davies, Leslie created high-profile jobs for his paramour.

Miriam was named editor of Frank Leslie's Lady's Magazine and Gazette of Fashion in 1862.

She later was editor of all the Leslie's women's magazines.

When she got time to edit anything is a mystery, traveling to Peru with Squier during the war on a diplomatic mission and when back in New York living in the same house with two husbands for years. The magazines, however, do seem to reflect her personal interest in high fashion. 

Intrigued by the name Frank Leslie's Ladies' Gazette of Fashion and Fancy Needlework, I was sure I might find some undiscovered patchwork and quilt patterns but needlework features not devoted to sewing luxurious clothing are rather sparse.

Most of the fancy work patterns are accessories for dress.

Searches for "quilt" pull up references to clothing details,

not patchwork.

Using up scraps was not something that interested Miriam or her readers.

See a preview of Betsy Prioleau's Diamonds & Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit & a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age:

https://www.amazon.com/Diamonds-Deadlines-Deceit-Gilded-Female-ebook/dp/B09FNYRDZ7?asin=B09FNYRDZ7&revisionId=a548ac32&format=1&depth=1

*Lucy Stone refused to take her husband's name, inspiring generations of independent women.

American Stars #7: Gramercy Park for the Fields

 

American Stars #7 Gramercy Park by Jeanne Arnieri

Gramercy Park remembers the Field family who built houses in the New York neighborhood in the 19th century. The first Field in America was Zachariah who came to the new New England in the 1630s. One recipe for a distinguished family is to come early, claim the territory, be white and English and reproduce prodigiously.

Four generations later Timothy Field (1744-1818) of Madison served in Connecticut's Continental Militia during the Revolution. With Anna Dudley Field he had six children who lived into the 19th century.

Anna's family's land farmed by the Dudleys for 300 years

 is now the Dudley Farm Museum with an 1844 house 

on the ten acres in Guilford, Connecticut.

Bright and privileged Connecticut boys went to Yale to be trained for the Congregational ministry as Timothy and Anna's two sons did. Timothy II graduated in 1797 and went west to a church in Canandaigua, New York, establishing a Fields family branch there before he moved on to Vermont. 

Reverend Timothy Field's home in Canandaigua

We spent a year with the Fields/Beals/Richards branch

of the family in our BOM Yankee Diary. See the link below.

Younger brother David Dudley Field graduated in 1802 and remained in Connecticut. 

Submit Dickinson Field (1782-1861)

From her FindaGrave site

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/37812547/submit-field

He married Submit Dickinson soon after graduation (Gotta love those Puritan names.) He and Submit raised nine children. Their seven sons became distinguished and a few achieved fame.

Daughter Emilia Field Brewer married a minister

and went to Turkey as a missionary for a time.

Cyrus West Field (1819-1892)

Brady Studios

You may be familiar with the name Cyrus Field, the youngest boy, skilled in sales and business. Unlike his brothers he had no interest in college or the ministry and went off to New York to work for department store innovator A.T. Stewart. Cyrus then bought a paper mill and made a fortune, retiring in his 30s with millions in today's dollars. 

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Cotopaxi by Frederic Edwin Church, 1855

Cyrus became patron and traveling companion to artist Frederic Edwin Church. They spent half of 1853 in Latin America with Church painting landscapes based on the trip.

Another retirement project: Cyrus decided to engineer and sponsor a cable across the Atlantic to connect telegraphy between Europe and America. It took 12 years and cost enormous sums. The cable broke; was re-laid twice. By 1866 Morse code carried instantaneous news across the ocean. 

Sheet Music

1866 Public Relations 

His skills in publicity and sales were put to good use in gathering support for the cable project, one reason his name resonates today.

The Field Brothers 

(Missing brother Timothy, a midshipman, was lost at sea when

he was in his 20s.)

David Dudley Field (1805-1894)

Cyrus's older brothers also achieved success in various areas. David Dudley Field II was a successful attorney who left New York an improved penal code. He became influential enough in New York society to merit his own brand of cigars.

David and Cyrus commissioned twin houses (now destroyed)

in New York's exclusive Gramercy Park neighborhood.

Brother Matthew Dickinson Field was an engineer specializing in bridges. Jonathan Edwards Field was also a lawyer, working with David. 

Stephen Johnson Field (1816-1899)

Stephen Johnson Field, the most combative of the brothers, left the family law firm during the Gold Rush where he became a California judge and politician. During the Civil War Abraham Lincoln appointed the Californian to the U.S. Supreme Court where he had a long if checkered career.

Henry Martyn Field (1822-1907)

Reverend Henry Martyn Field, a minister with a Yale degree, may appear to be the most conventional brother. He preached in St. Louis in the 1840s and then went to France, where the Field story takes an unconventional turn. There the Presbyterian minister must have heard of (or actually encountered) an older, mysterious woman involved in an enormous Parisian scandal.

Henriette Deluzy-Deportes (1813–1875)

Henriette, born out of wedlock with few prospects, was governess for the Duc and Duchesse de Choiseul-Praslin. Duchesse Francoise, a quarrelsome, jealous woman, was suspicious of the governess's relationship with her husband Charles and fired Henriette. One night in 1847 Charles killed his wife in a fit of rage. The former governess was accused of complicity. When Charles committed suicide after a week in jail Henriette was freed but a cloud of suspicion hung over her head.

Gramercy Park remains a private, locked park for the residents.

Friends facilitated a new life in New York where she obtained a position as a French teacher at the exclusive Miss Haine's' School for Girls in Gramercy Park. Two years later she married Reverend Henry Field. The minister's wife with a French accent and a shady past died in 1875 leaving no children.

The Block

American Stars #7 Gramercy Park by Becky Brown

My notes on the pattern tell us the Nancy Cabot column called this version of a Kaleidoscope design "Riviera," but I cannot find a clipping. I wonder if I copied a name wrong or copied an unreliable reference. Riviera isn't a good name for a quilt about American Stars anyway so we're calling it Gramercy Park for the twin houses in New York City.

Print the pattern on an 8-1/2 x11" sheet of paper. Note the inch square block for scale.

American Stars #7 Gramercy Park by Denniele Bohannon

Denniele & Jeanne's blocks are so compatible one could make

a lively quilt by alternating the color schemes.

Later Generations

We'd probably know nothing about Mrs. Henry Field's scandalous past if a later Field did not turn Henriette Deluzy-Deportes Field's tale into a best-selling novel. 

Rachel Lyman Field (1894-1942) and Spriggen in 1929

Rachel Field, granddaughter of the bridge-building Matthew and wife Clarissa, wrote several popular books including All This and Heaven Too, Henriette Field's story. Rachel's novel was made into a 1940 movie starring Bette Davis as Henriette and Charles Boyer as the murderous Duc.

Rachel, Spriggen and Bette Davis

Barbara O'Neill won an Academy Award for her role as the

unfortunate Duchesse.

Rachel Field used quilt imagery in her books. Read an AQSG paper "Quilting Imagery in the Writings of Rachel Field" by Tracy W. Barron in Uncoverings 1996. Read the paper without the pictures here:

https://quiltindex.org/view/?type=page&kid=35-90-204

Pearl Mary Teresa Richards Craigie (1867-1906)

Writing was a family gift. Like diarist Carrie Richards "John Oliver Hobbes" was descended from the first Timothy Field through the Canandaigua branch. Hobbes was a penname used by best-selling novelist Pearl Richards Craigie.

Further Reading and Watching

See all the Yankee Diary posts inspired by Carrie Richards Canandaigua journal.

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2018/01/yankee-diary-links-to-free-patterns.html

Charles Boyer as the Duc....

Bette Davis as the governess.

Ooooh, la, la!

Becky Brown's model blocks are finished with hand-dyed

setting fabrics from Vicki Welsh who also machine quilted it.

Those Country Schoolhouse Quilters are an industrious lot

who make quilts for veterans.

The Blackburn's Civil War & Wartime Memory

Winterthur Museum has this framed collection of cloth woven at a North Carolina plantation during the Civil War. Saving pieces of the "Homespun Dress" was a relatively common way of recalling the hardships of the Civil War.

The walnut picture frame looks to be end-of-the-19th century with samples saved and framed by someone after Mrs. Sarah S. Blackburn's death in 1873.

Sarah Salina Young Blackburn (1808-1873)

A hard-to-read tombstone in Sarah's Young family graveyard.

During the Civil War Sarah ran a large farm. Her husband Absalom Bostick Blackburn (1797-1860)  had died in the month Abraham Lincoln was elected president. 

Shortly before her husband's death the census taker recorded him and Sarah (at 52) living with two of their three sons and a daughter (also Sarah S. Blackburn.) A.B. was listed as a farmer as was son William. Not living at home was Augustus W. who was living in Yadkin County to the north.

They lived in Iredell County in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, up by Houstonville and Hunting Creek in the northern part of the county. The census did not record A.B. as a rich farmer, our idea of a plantation owner. He is listed with real estate worth $1,200 and other assets of $1,800. Generally these other assets in Southern accounting would have been the worth of the people the family enslaved.

The census ten years earlier shows him as less successful than his farming 

neighbors, wife Sarah's family the Youngs. Another 

wealthier neighbor was Robert Carson with $2,000.

The 1860 census counted 4,177 enslaved people in a county of 15,000, making up 27.2% of the population. I could not find any Blackburns listed as slave owners in that census but that is not to say the listing is not there. The Youngs of Iredell County (perhaps related to Sarah) are listed with many bondspeople.

However, we do see clues to slave ownership in the Blackburn family in the next county with son Augustus W. Blackburn. Did he have a liaison with the enslaved Fannie Blackburn, described as of African and Cherokee heritage, who was held at the Hampton/Cowles farms in Hamptonville, Yadkin County. Fannie and Augustus are reported to have had at least two sons who've been well documented. 

Iredell County Public Library Collection

Alfred Blackburn (?-1951) and grandchildren photographed in 1949.

He is probably about 90 here.

1935, Statesville Record

More confusion: Mr. Blackburn (Augustus) did not die in

Illinois but in Missouri.

The freed Blackburn men were remembered well in Iredell's largest town Statesville for many years. Wiley sold newspapers in Statesville and married Carolyn Carson, who may have once been enslaved by Robert Carson, a neighbor shown in the 1850 census. 

In his youth Wiley received local press for his nighttime brawls and in his old age for his story-telling. 

Alfred was a mail carrier. He married Carolyn Carson's sister Lucy in 1880. He was also a raconteur who gained fame for his great age and war stories. He is reported to have died at 108 or 113 but his true age is in doubt. Both Alfred & Wiley were awarded military pensions for their Civil War records as servants, an unusual development.

Alfred's pension application in 1929. At that time he was living

in Hamptonville.

Adam H. Domby in his 2020 book The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication & White Supremacy in Confederate Memory makes a good argument that Wiley and Alfred lied about their service to obtain the pensions. Domby points to Alfred as 10 and Wiley as 14 in the 1870 census, meaning that the boys were about 3 and 7 years old in 1863.

The 1870 census shows us a lot about Blackburns white and Black. Five years after the war the widowed Sarah at 62 is managing the farm. She has assets of $600 and a rather large household in numbered dwelling 50 here. Son James at 31 is an invalid, perhaps a casualty of the war. Daughter Sarah who never married still lives on the farm at 28. Seven African-Americans are listed at her house with the cook Fannie and Tempy a house maid, and the older ones working on the farm. All those Blackburns from 26 to 6 may be Fannie's children, including Wiley and Alfred. 

Next door in dwelling #51 are more Blackburns (?) a family headed by Milton and Edith. The Carsons are still neighbors. These are not the wealthy white farmers from before the war but probably freedpeople. Milton and Edith may not be named Blackburn but rather Carson as they have two daughters Lucy & Caroline, the Carson sisters who eventually married Alfred and Wiley.

Houstonia is north of Sedalia, Missouri

Augustus, Sarah Blackburn's son, is not living in North Carolina. He set out for Missouri, where he was quite successful in the town of Houstonia.

His 1906 Statesville Record obituary tells us he was

a banker worth $100,000 when he died.

Sister Sallie joined him in Missouri, where she died in 1900

How many other pensioners received a monthly check by lying about their age and their Civil War service? Certainly, as the Blackburn brothers knew, old war stories were an entertaining topic, even if one had to make them up. The idea that one might profit from the tales is intriguing.

See another post about a veteran exaggerating his age here:

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2021/05/oldest-living-civil-war-veteran.html

Read more:

http://collectingforthefuture.winterthur.org/portfolio/3807/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10217370/sarah-s-blackburn

Family papers are in Chicago's Newberry Library:

"Papers of the Blackburn family of Iredell County, North Carolina dated between 1803 and 1907. Includes papers from Confederate Captain Augustus W. Blackburn, A. B. Blackburn, W. H. Blackburn, and other family members of the Blackburn and Young families. Consists of correspondence, a journal account book, financial documents, deeds, wills, Civil War documents, estate inventories (several listing slaves), newspaper clippings, and other miscellaneous items. Also includes deeds and other documents relating to land in Pettis County, Missouri."

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/daniel-blackburn-free-after-77-years-germanton-stokes-county-nc.161436/