Mary Todd Lincoln

 Around this date in 1875 the insanity trial of Mary Todd Lincoln was held in Chicago. In the ten years since her husband's death, Mary suffered through the slow, agonizing death of her son Tad at age 18. She and Tad had traveled extensively throughout Europe in search of healing hot springs and curative waters. Upon their return to the States, Mary and Tad roamed between boarding houses, essentially homeless. Upon returning to Chicago, Tad quickly grew ill, probably TB, and after a horribly long illness died early one morning. Repeating her pattern, Mary did not attend the funeral. During one of her short stays with her son Robert, Mary was in Chicago and fled for her life during the Great Chicago Fire, spending the night standing in the lake. So if Mary was crazy, she certainly had been challenged with more tragedies in that decade than any poor woman deserved. Among the offenses that Mary was charged with during her trial was were purchasing $600.00 worth of curtains during a time she was homeless, telling her doctor that an Indian came to her hotel room at night and lifted her skull up and clipped the wires to her eyes. Her only living son, Robert, arranged for his legal partner to pick Mary up and take her to her hearing. At the time of her being taken into custody she had $56,000.00 sewn into the petticoat of her dress.

In 1871 there was a famous adventurer, George Francis Train. It is widely assumed that Jules Verne's novel "Around The World In 80 Days" was based on Train's life. In the days before the Great Chicago Fire, Train was speaking at an event in Chicago. He said, "This is the last public address that will be delivered within these walls! A terrible calamity is impending over the City of Chicago! More I cannot say, more I dare not utter!" In less that 24 hours flame were seen shooting out of a barn owned by the O'Leary family. At this time Mary was living with Robert on Wabash Avenue, and they watched showers of "red snow" rain down on the city, floating into open windows igniting mattresses and curtains as people slept. Flaming shingles were blown off roofs and hoisted across the Chicago River by high winds. The last headline of the Chicago Times, before the building went up in flames was, "The entire business portion of the city is burning up, and the TIMES building is doomed." Robert, feeling that his house is safe, leaves to help his law partner save the law library. He tells Mary to stay put. She does not. It is believed that she spent the night along the shores of Lake Michigan. Thousands of terrified citizens, rich and poor, gather at the lake, thinking that the water would be a natural protection against the flames. Young girls covered their heads with shawls to stop the embers from torching their hair. Holes were dug in the sand, women and children crawled in them for shelter, leaving just an air hole to breathe. Mary Lincoln stood in the waters for an unknown period of time. Her experiences in this year of 1871 would in themselves be enough to drive anyone mad. Tad had died in April, and she had survived this conflagration in October. Now, 4 years later, Mary's mental state was one of permanent agitation and sorrow.Mary's son Robert was a person of contrast. History tells us that he felt his father and mother were bumpkins and an embarrassment, he was not happy when he father won the Presidency. He often stayed away from his parents, embarrassed by his father, especially the very attributes that made him so mesmerizing to the American public. He claimed fatigue the night of the assassination, thus did not attend the theatre. He hated his father's looks and appearances and disliked Abe's high pitched voice. But his mother, now that was a different problem all together. His mother was a hoarder and liked to show a little skin. Mary always wore her dresses low, showing her ample bust as much as possible, an embarrassment to Robert as a teenager. Mary was opinionated and domineering. So here he is, his father has been assassinated, and has become a martyr. His mother has become crazy. Robert then realized that he was the last living Lincoln, the last heir of President Abraham Lincoln. His poor mother is spiraling out of control, visiting psychics and giving away what little money she has. Mary believes that if she purchases something for a loved one, then they cannot possibly die. After all, if they have a new watch, then fate must dictate that they be here to wear it! And if she has $600 bucks worth of lace curtains, then that surely means that she will be given a home to live in by the people of the United States. So she shops, in one day alone she buys Robert 3 new watches. She wanders the streets of Chicago each day, visiting shops dressed in somber black and in a heavy black veil, charging goods to the estate of Abraham Lincoln. She visits drug stores, requesting Laudanum, a tincture of opium used in that day for just about everything from a baby with colic to female hysteria. Mary also begins to imagine that strangers are following her and plotting to murder her. Robert makes a bold decision: charge his mother with insanity. In order for things to go smoothly, Robert stacks the deck quite nicely. He builds a witness list of various doctor friends, doctors who have never even examined Mary. He consults with a Dr. Patterson who owns Bellevue Place, a private asylum for women, located about 40 miles from Chicago. Dr. Patterson agrees to accept his mother as a patient and charges Robert ten dollars for the consult. Curiously, of the six doctors who agree to testify against Mary, three of them were present when her son Tad passed away. Mary is being led like a lamb to slaughter. She has no idea… Quickly, Mary was deemed quite insane by a jury of her "peers". After the trial, she was asked to disrobe so they could check her bloomers for hidden money. Pinkerton detectives and a matron delivered her back to The Grand Pacific Hotel to relieve her of her hidden treasures: $56,000.00 sewn in to her petticoat. Naturally she was upset saying, "Is it not enough to lock me up in an insane asylum, but now you are going to rob me of all I have on earth!" But Mary is a tricky old broad. She manages to sneak past her guards and heads directly to Squair & Co. and orders enough laudanum to kill herself. Ole Doc Squair, sensing her despair, substitutes her order with burned sugar, which she drinks immediately. She goes to two other drug stores, followed secretly by Doc Squair who uses hand signals to prevent the other pharmacists from filling her order. Finally the Pinkerton guards realize her escape and return her to her room to await the train that will take her to Bellevue. Her admitting report is as follows: "Mary Lincoln admitted today. Age 56 - Widow of Ex-President Lincoln - declared insane by Cook County County Court, May 19, 1875. Case is one of mental impairment which probably dates to the murder of President Lincoln - More pronounced since the death of her son, but especially aggravated during the last two months." Mary, finally resigned to the fact that she was being committed, willingly boarded the train bound for Bellevue Place. It was an exclusive sanitarium for the insane of the private class. All the patients were ladies of position and culture. One patient refused to eat, some were epileptics, some heard voices and music in their heads. One woman's head was shaved because she couldn't stop pulling her hair out. Screams of these tortured souls resounded throughout the building. Treatment was simple: rest, quiet, peace, good food. Physical exertion was severely restricted, limited to piano playing, croquet, and carriage rides. The fee for treatment here: fifteen dollars a month, forty five dollars for the best room with a private bath and unlimited carriage rides. Mary resided in the best room there. But naturally Mary was not happy. She spent her time writing letters to well connected friends, sneaking the letters out in letters to her sister. One Mary's contacts was a woman attorney, Myra Bradwell. A "so-called attorney".that is. Myra was a brilliant woman, read the law for 3 years in the days following her marriage to another attorney, and passed the bar examination with the highest honors. But her formal application for a law license was denied twice by the Illinois Supreme Court first,"by reason of the disability imposed by your marriage condition" then secondly, simply because she was a woman. So Myra, had an ax to grind with the government of the day. Myra went to various newspaper editors and told of Mary's plight. This along with Mary's sister's willingness to have her move in with her gave Robert no choice. Robert Lincoln stepped out of the way of his mother's release. She was committed for almost 4 months. Mary felt a tremendous amount of hatred toward her son and his wife as she blamed them for all of her troubles. She was convinced that Robert only wanted her money. Upon her release she immediately wrote Robert demanding all of her possessions saying in part, "Two prominent clergy men have written me since I saw you and mention in their letters that they think it advisable to offer up prayers for you in Church on account of your wickedness against me. Send me all that I have written for, you have tried your game of robbery long enough. You have injured yourself, not me, by your wicked conduct." She signed it. Mrs. A. Lincoln Robert Lincoln was shattered by his mom's letter. And shattered that his mom was obviously going to continue down her dark path. Robert had established himself as a great attorney and businessman. He found success as chief counsel of The George Pullman Company, the makers of rail cars. He allowed his mother to slip away from his life and they were estranged for many, many years. They never fully reconciled. President Garfield was the 20th President of the United States, 4 presidents after President Lincoln. In 1881 Garfield was speaking at his Alma Mater, Williams College, when he was shot by an assassin. The first person to reach him as he fell was his Secretary of War. His Secretary of War and the witness to his assassination: Robert Lincoln! Robert actually had associations with 3 Presidential assassinations, his father's, Garfield's and he was present at William McKinley's assassination in 1901. For obvious reasons, Robert Lincoln never ran for office. Robert and his wife, Mary Harlan Lincoln, had 3 children: Mary "Mamie" Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln II, and Jessie Harlan Lincoln. Mary Lincoln, her final years After Mary's return to "sanity" she decided that it was time again to travel. She hired her nephew, Lewis, and traveled from Chicago to New York City. She stopped on the way in her home state of Kentucky. She visited her old house in Lexington on Short Street and visited her parents' graves at The Lexington Cemetery. She took her nephew to Mammoth Caves and took the same tour that is given today. After a few days in the Bluegrass State, they continued on to NYC. From there she boarded a steamship bound for France. Even though she was still estranged from her son, she followed his career as Secretary of War. She often allowed herself to daydream that one day Robert would be President and she could once again reside in The White House. She spent her days as she had since the assassination: crying and shopping. After several years in exile, the anger slowly ebbed out of Mary's soul and she longed to be home. She wired her sister Elizabeth and informed her that she would be returning. And return she did! When she landed in NYC she brought along with her 65 trunks of goods that weighed an estimated 4 tons! The trunks actually caused the floor in Elizabeth's house to buckle. Mary retreated to Elizabeth's house, staying in her room bathed in darkness. She was nearly blind, a condition made worse by years of constant crying. In 1956 Elizabeth's granddaughter, Mary Brown, was interviewed by Life Magazine. She was a spry 90 year old with vivid memories of Mary Lincoln living in her grandmother's house. Mrs. Brown said, "To put in bluntly, Mary Lincoln was a lot of trouble. In the room next to Mary, she had 65 trunks. Grandmother's maid left because she was afraid to sleep under that room, with all that weight. The trunks were filled with bolts of curtain materials & dress goods. Mary had a lot of dresses in her trunk made out of elegant foreign material. She had about 100 shawls. Every day she would go through those trunks for hours. Grandmother said it was funny that if she was so sick, then how was she able to be up all day bending over her trunks." Near the end, Robert and his daughter Mamie made a pilgrimage back home, to Springfield Illinois. He met with his mother and apologized, even though he didn't feel that he did anything wrong. He felt he had made proper peace with his mother and left to return to Chicago. Mary made one last trip in her life, to New York City to seek healing waters again. A new German doctor was offering a new remedy for pain. The treatment was called a sitz bath, taken from the German word sitzen, meaning to sit. One of Mary's personal physicians, Dr. Lewis Sayre, paid her a visit there. He was from Lexington Kentucky and his textbooks were the standard reference of medical professionals. I know that name from "The Sayre School" in Lexington. Dr. Sayre rallied support for Mrs. Lincoln and was quoted, "She cannot move without assistance. She is, in fact, deserted and friendless." After a few months in NYC, she had no choice but to move back to Springfield to her sister's house. She had one more tribulation to face before death. She was stricken with boils. Her death was imminent. Robert was summoned home. Mary told her loved ones that she knew she was dying. Those were her last words. Her family requested an open casket at the funeral. They were able to place her wedding ring on her finger, she had been unable to wear it for many years because of edema. On the day of her funeral, the ring, worn with age, was where Abraham Lincoln had placed it on her wedding day. It was of Etruscan gold, inscribed, "A.L. to Mary, November 4, 1842. Love is eternal." The Reverend Reed's sermon was touching. When Abraham had been killed in 1865, Reed said, Mary had died with him. "The lightning that struck down the strong man unnerved the woman. The sharp iron of this pungent grief went to her soul." The marriage of Mary and Abraham brought to the minister's mind two tall and stately pine trees he had observed in the mountains. The trees stood on a rocky ledge and had grown so close to each other that they were united at the base, with interlocking roots penetrating the soil. But the taller of the trees had been struck by lightning years ago, leaving it scarred & dead, while the small tree lingered in fellowship until it died too in solidarity. Both trees had suffered from the same calamity. They had virtually been killed at the same time." And so it was with Mary Lincoln