Kings, Queens, Presidents and First Ladies

807. Anna Kendrick-[18164] (Benjamin Kendrick⁷⁴⁶, Abigail Bowen⁵⁶⁶, John Bowen⁴²⁸, Henry Bowen³⁵⁴, Griffith Bowen³²⁵, Francis Bowen²⁹⁸, Philip Bowen²⁷⁵, Gruffydd ap Owain²⁵⁸, Owain ap Jenkin²⁴¹, Jenkin ap Euan Gwyn²²⁴, Ieuan Gwyn ap Hywel Gam²⁰⁷, Hywel Melyn ap Gwilym Gam¹⁸⁹, Gwilym Gam ap Hywel Fychan¹⁶⁶, Hywel Fychan ap Hywel¹⁴⁹, Ann verch Gwilym¹²⁶, Gwilym ap Jenkin¹⁰¹, Jenkins ap Gwrgi⁸⁷, Ann Maelog⁷⁴, Joan verch Rhys⁷⁰, Rhys ap Gruffudd⁶⁷, Mabel FitzRobert⁵⁷, William (Earl)⁵⁰, Robert de Caen (Earl)⁴¹, Henry I (King)²¹, William I "the Conqueror" (King)¹¹, Robert I "The Magnificent" (Duke)⁶, Richard "the Good" II (Duke)³, Richard I "The Fearless" (Duke)², William I "Longsword" (Duke)¹) was born on 10-30-1768 and died on 12-7-1838 at age 70.

Anna married General Benjamin Pierce-[18165] [MRIN:6145] on 2-1-1790. Benjamin was born on 12-25-1757 and died on 10-8-1839 at age 81.

837 M i. 14th President Franklin Pierce-[18166] was born on 11-23-1804 in Hillsboro, New Hampshire and died on 10-8-1869 in Concord, New Hampshire at age 64.

General Notes: Young Hickory, as he was sometimes called, was the 14th President of the United States (1853-57). He failed to deal effectively with the corroding sectional controversy over slavery in the decade preceding the American Civil War (1861-65).

The son of a governor of New Hampshire, Benjamin Pierce and the former Anna Kendrick, Franklin Pierce attended Bowdoin College in Maine, studied law in Northampton, Massachusetts, and was admitted to the bar in 1827. He married Jane Means Appelton, whose father was president of Bowdoin, in 1834.

Pierce entered political life in New Hampshire as a Democrat, serving in the state legislature (1829-33), the U. S. House of Representatives (1833-37) and the Senate (1837-42). Handsome, affable, charming and possessed of a certain superficial brilliance, Pierce made many friends in Congress, but his career there was otherwise undistinguished. He was a devoted supported of President Andrew Jackson but was continually overshadowed by older and more prominent men on the national scene. Resigning from the Senate for personal reasons, he returned to Concord, where he resumed his law practice and also served as federal district attorney.

Except for a brief stint as an officer in the Mexican War (1846-48), Pierce remained out of the public eye until the nominating convention of the Democratic Party in 1852. After a deadlock developed among supporters of the leading presidential contenders - Lewis Cass, Stephen A. Douglas, and James Buchanan - a coalition of New England and Southern delegates proposed "Young Hickory" and Pierce was nominated on the 49th ballot. The ensuing presidential campaign was dominated by the controversy over slavery and the finality of the Compromise of 1850. Although both Democrats and the Whigs declared themselves in favor of the compromise, the Democrats were more thoroughly united in their support. As a result, Pierce, who was almost unknown nationally, unexpectedly won the November election, defeating the Whig candidate Winfield Scott by 254 votes to 42 in the electoral college, but only by about 44,000 votes in the popular election. Pierce's triumph was quickly marred by tragedy, however, when a few weeks before his inauguration, he and his wife witnessed the death of their only surviving child, 11 year old Bennie, in a railroad accident. Jane Pierce, who had always opposed her husbands candidacy, never fully recovered from the shock.

At the time of his election, Pierce, age 47, was the youngest man to have been elected to the presidency. Representing the Eastern element of the Democratic Party, which was inclined for the sake of harmony and business prosperity to oppose antislavery agitation and generally to placate Southern opinion, Pierce tried to promote sectional unity by filling his cabinet with extremists from both sides of the slavery debate. He also attempted to sidestep the fierce sectional antagonisms of the domestic scene by ambitiously and aggressively promoting the extension of U. S. territorial and commercial interests abroad. In an effort to buy the island of Cuba from Spain, he ordered the U. S. Minister to Spain, Pierre Soule', to try to secure influence of European financiers on the Spanish government. The resulting diplomatic statement, the Ostend Manifesto (October 1854) was interpreted by the American public as a call to wrest Cuba from Spain by force, if necessary. The ensuing controversy forced the administration to disclaim responsibility for the document and to recall Soule'. In 1855 an American, William Walker, conducted a notorious expedition into Central America with the hope of establishing a proslavery government under the control of the United States. In Nicaragua he established himself as military dictator and then as president, and his dubious regime was recognized by the Pierce administration. A more lasting diplomatic achievement came form the expedition that President Millard Fillmore had sent to Japan in 1853 under Commodore Matthew C. Perry. In 1854 Pierce received Perry's report that his expedition had been successful and that U. S. ships would have limited access to Japanese ports. The Pierce administration also reorganized the diplomatic and consular service, and created the United States Court of Claims.

Among Pierce's domestic policies were preparations for a transcontinental railroad and the opening of the Northwest for settlement. In 1853, in order to create a southerly route to California, the U. S. minister to Mexico, James Gadsen, negotiated the purchase of almost 30,000 square miles of Mexican Territory for $10 million. Mainly to stimulate migration to the Northwest and to facilitate the construction of a central route to the Pacific, Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. This measure, which opened two new territories for settlement, included repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and provided that the status of territories as "free" or "slave" would be decided by popular sovereignty. The indignation aroused by the act and the resulting period of violent conflict in Kansas Territory were the main causes of the rise of the Republican Party in the mid-1850's. Owing to his ineptness in handling the situation in Kansas, Pierce was denied renomination by the Democrats and he remains the only president to be so repudiated by his party. After an extended tour of Eurpoe he retired to Concord. Always a heavy drinker, Pierce descended further into apparent alcoholism and he died in obscurity.

Franklin married Jane Means Appleton-[18167] [MRIN:6146] on 11-10-1834 in Amherst, New Hampshire. Jane was born on 3-12-1806 in Hampton, New Hampshire and died on 12-2-1863 in Andover, Massachusetts at age 57.

808. Betsey Comstock-[18310] (Elizabeth Jewett⁷⁴⁹, Nathan Jewett⁵⁷⁰, Mary Hibbert⁴³², Hannah Gibbons³⁶⁷, Judith Lewis³³⁰, Elizabeth Marshall³⁰², Katherine Mitton²⁷⁹, Edward Harpersfield²⁶², Joyce Mitton²⁴⁵, Constance de Beaumont²²⁸, Eleanor Sutton²¹¹, John de Sutton VI¹⁹³, John de Sutton V¹⁷⁰, Sir John de Sutton IV¹⁵³, Katherine de Stafford¹³⁰, Baroness Margaret de Audley¹⁰⁵, Margaret de Clare⁹⁰, Joan of Acre⁷⁸, King Edward I Plantagenet "Longshanks"⁷², King Henry III Plantagenet⁶⁹, King John Plantagenet "Lackland"⁶⁶, King Henry II Plantagenet "Curtmantle"⁵², Queen Matilda Adelaide of England⁴⁵, Henry I (King)²¹, William I "the Conqueror" (King)¹¹, Robert I "The Magnificent" (Duke)⁶, Richard "the Good" II (Duke)³, Richard I "The Fearless" (Duke)², William I "Longsword" (Duke)¹).

809. Rev. Richard Falley Cleveland-[18396] (William Cleveland⁷⁵⁶, Abiah Hyde⁵⁸⁰, James Hyde⁴³⁵, Experience Abell³⁷⁰, Caleb Abell³³³, Robert Abell III³⁰⁵, Frances Cotton²⁸¹, Mary Mainwaring²⁶⁴, Arthur Mainwaring²⁴⁷, Dorothy Corbet²³⁰, Elizabeth Vernon²¹³, Anne Talbot¹⁹⁵, Elizabeth Butler¹⁷², Joan de Beauchamp¹⁵⁵, Joan FitzAlan¹³², Elizabeth de Bohun¹⁰⁶, Earl William de Bohun⁹², Princess Elizabeth Plantagenet⁸¹, King Edward I Plantagenet "Longshanks"⁷², King Henry III Plantagenet⁶⁹, King John Plantagenet "Lackland"⁶⁶, King Henry II Plantagenet "Curtmantle"⁵², Queen Matilda Adelaide of England⁴⁵, Henry I (King)²¹, William I "the Conqueror" (King)¹¹, Robert I "The Magnificent" (Duke)⁶, Richard "the Good" II (Duke)³, Richard I "The Fearless" (Duke)², William I "Longsword" (Duke)¹) was born in 1804 in Norwich, CT and died on 10-1-1853 in Holland Patent, New York at age 49.

Richard married Anne Neal-[18397] [MRIN:6270] on 9-10-1829 in Baltimore, Maryland. Anne was born on 2-4-1806 in Baltimore, Maryland and died on 7-19-1882 in Holland Patent, New York at age 76.

839 M i. 22nd & 24th President Grover (Stephen) Cleveland-[18398] was born on 3-18-1837 in Caldwell, New Jersey and died on 6-24-1908 in Princeton, New Jersey at age 71.

General Notes: born March 18, 1837, Caldwell, N.J., U.S.
died June 24, 1908, Princeton, N.J.

Stephen Grover Cleveland 22nd and 24th president of the United States (1885–89 and 1893–97) and the only president ever to serve two discontinuous terms. Cleveland distinguished himself as one of the few truly honest and principled politicians of the Gilded Age. His view of the president's function as primarily that of blocking legislative excesses made him quite popular during his first term, but that view cost him public support during his second term when he steadfastly denied a positive role for government in dealing with the worst economic collapse the nation had yet faced.

Cleveland was the son of Richard Falley Cleveland, an itinerant Presbyterian minister, and Ann Neal. The death of Grover Cleveland's father in 1853 forced him to abandon school in order to support his mother and sisters. After clerking in a law firm in Buffalo, New York, he was admitted to the bar in 1859 and soon entered politics as a member of the Democratic Party. During the Civil War he was drafted but hired a substitute so that he could care for his mother—an altogether legal procedure but one that would make him vulnerable to political attack in the future. In 1863 he became assistant district attorney of Erie county, New York, and in 1870–73 he served as county sheriff. With this slight political background and only modest success as a lawyer, the apparently unambitious Buffalo attorney launched perhaps the most meteoric rise in American politics.

In 1881, eight years after stepping down as sheriff, Cleveland was nominated for mayor by Buffalo Democrats who remembered his honest and efficient service in that office. He won the election easily. As Buffalo's chief executive he became known as the “veto mayor” for his rejection of spending measures he considered to be wasteful and corrupt. In 1882, without the support of the Tammany Hall Democratic machine in New York City, Cleveland received his party's nomination for governor, and he went on to crush his Republican opponent by more than 200,000 votes.

As governor of New York, Cleveland again used the veto frequently, even to turn down measures that enjoyed wide public support. His devotion to principle and his unstinting opposition to Tammany Hall soon earned him a national reputation—particularly among Americans disgusted with the frequent scandals of Gilded Age politics.

In 1884 the Democrats sought a presidential candidate who would contrast sharply with Republican nominee James G. Blaine, a longtime Washington insider whose reputation for dishonesty and financial impropriety prompted the Republican Mugwump faction to bolt their party. Cleveland's image was the opposite of Blaine's, and he seemed likely to draw Mugwump votes to the Democratic ticket. As a result, Cleveland won the Democratic nomination with ease.

During the campaign, Cleveland's image as the clean alternative to the supposedly sullied Blaine suffered serious damage when Republicans charged that the Democratic candidate had fathered a child out of wedlock some 10 years earlier. As Republicans joyously chortled, “Ma, ma, where's my pa?,” Cleveland remained undaunted, and he instructed Democratic leaders to “Tell the truth.” The truth, as Cleveland admitted, was that he had had an affair with the child's mother, Maria Halpin, and had agreed to provide financial support when she named him as the father, though he was uncertain whether the child was really his. Meanwhile, Democrats, trying to contrast Cleveland's reputation with Blaine's, chanted “Blaine Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine!” Late in the campaign, Blaine experienced an embarrassment of his own, when a supporter at a rally in New York City described the Democrats as the party of “rum, Romanism, and rebellion”—a swipe at the city's Irish Catholics, many of whom Blaine hoped to lure into his camp. Although Blaine was present when the fateful words were spoken, he did nothing to dissociate himself from the remark. The general election was determined by electoral votes from New York state, which Blaine lost to Cleveland by fewer than 1,200 votes.

As president, Cleveland continued to act in the same negative capacity that had marked his tenures as mayor and governor. He nullified fraudulent grants to some 80,000,000 acres (30,000,000 hectares) of Western public lands and vetoed hundreds of pension bills that would have sent federal funds to undeserving Civil War veterans. Once again, Cleveland's rejection of wasteful and corrupt measures endeared the president to citizens who admired his honesty and courage. He also received credit for two of the more significant measures enacted by the federal government in the 1880s: the Interstate Commerce Act (1887), which established the Interstate Commerce Commission, the first regulatory agency in the United States, and the Dawes General Allotment Act (1887), which redistributed Indian reservation land to individual tribe members.

In 1886 Cleveland, a lifelong bachelor, married Frances Folsom, the daughter of his former law partner. Frances Cleveland, 27 years younger than her husband, proved to be a very popular first lady. To all appearances the marriage was a happy one, though during the 1888 presidential campaign she was forced to publicly refute Republican-spread rumors that Cleveland had beaten her during drunken rages.

The major issue of the 1888 presidential campaign was the protective tariff. Cleveland, running for reelection, opposed the high tariff, calling it unnecessary taxation imposed upon American consumers, while Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison defended protectionism. On election day, Cleveland won about 100,000 more popular votes than Harrison, evidence of the esteem in which the president was held and to the widespread desire for a lower tariff. Yet Harrison won the election by capturing a majority of votes in the electoral college (233 to 168), largely as a result of lavish campaign contributions from pro-tariff business interests in the crucial states of New York and Indiana.

Cleveland spent the four years of the Harrison presidency in New York City, working for a prominent law firm. When the Republican-dominated Congress and the Harrison administration enacted the very high McKinley Tariff in 1890 and made the surplus in the treasury vanish in a massive spending spree, the path to a Democratic victory in 1892 seemed clear. Cleveland won his party's nomination for the third consecutive time and then soundly defeated Harrison and Populist Party candidate James B. Weaver by 257 electoral votes to Harrison's 145, making Cleveland the only president ever elected to discontinuous terms.

Early in Cleveland's second term the United States sank into the most severe economic depression the country had yet experienced. Cleveland believed that the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890—which required the secretary of the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver each month—had eroded confidence in the stability of the currency and was thus at the root of the nation's economic troubles. He called Congress into special session and, over considerable opposition from Southern and Western members of his own party, forced the repeal of the act. Yet the depression only worsened, and Cleveland's negative view of government began to diminish his popularity. Apart from assuring a sound—i.e., gold-backed—currency, he insisted the government could do nothing to alleviate the suffering of the many thousands of people who had lost jobs, homes, and farms. His popularity sank even lower when—distraught over the diminishing quantity of gold in the treasury—he negotiated with a syndicate of bankers headed by John Pierpont Morgan to sell government bonds abroad for gold. The deal succeeded in replenishing the government's gold supply, but the alliance between the president and one of the era's leading “robber barons” intensified the feeling that Cleveland had lost touch with ordinary Americans.

That the president cared more about the interests of big business than those of ordinary Americans seemed manifest in Cleveland's handling of the Pullman Strike in 1894. Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago to quell violence at Pullman's railroad car facility, despite the objections of Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld. The strike was broken within a week, and the president received the plaudits of the business community. However, he had severed whatever support he still had in the ranks of labor.

In foreign policy Cleveland displayed the same courageous righteousness that characterized much of his domestic policy. He withdrew from the Senate, a treaty for the annexation of Hawaii when he learned how the Hawaiian leader, Queen Liliuokalani, had been overthrown in an American-led coup. He also refused to be swept along with popular sentiment for intervention on behalf of Cuban insurgents fighting for independence from Spain. Yet he was not totally immune to the new spirit of American assertiveness on the international stage. By invoking the Monroe Doctrine, for example, he forced Britain to accept arbitration of a boundary dispute between its colony of British Guiana (now Guyana) and neighboring Venezuela.

At the tumultuous Democratic convention in 1896, the party was divided between supporters of Cleveland and the gold standard and those who wanted a bimetallic standard of gold and silver designed to expand the nation's money supply. When William Jennings Bryan delivered his impassioned Cross of Gold speech, the delegates not only nominated the little-known Bryan for president but also repudiated Cleveland.

Cleveland retired to Princeton, New Jersey, where he became active in the affairs of Princeton University as a lecturer in public affairs and as a trustee (1901–08). As the rancor over the gold standard subsided with the return of prosperity, Cleveland regained much of the public admiration he had earlier enjoyed. Never again, however, would the Democratic Party adhere to the pro-business, limited-government views that so dominated his presidency, and Cleveland remains the most conservative Democrat to have occupied the White House since the Civil War.

Grover married Frances Folsom-[18399] [MRIN:6271] on 6-2-1886 in White House, Washington D. C. Frances was born on 7-21-1864 in Buffalo, New York and died on 10-29-1947 in Baltimore, Maryland at age 83.

General Notes: born July 21, 1864, Buffalo, New York, U.S.
died October 29, 1947, Baltimore, Maryland

Frances Folsom, also called (1913–47) Frances Cleveland Preston American first lady (1886–89; 1893–97), the wife of Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th president of the United States, and the youngest first lady in American history.

Frances Folsom was the only daughter of Emma Harmon Folsom and Oscar Folsom, a lawyer. She lived comfortably and was educated at private schools, but her life changed dramatically after her father died in a carriage accident in 1874. Although financially secure, “Frank,” as she was called, and her mother moved frequently, living briefly with various relatives in Minnesota and Michigan before returning to Buffalo, New York.

After her graduation from Wells College in Aurora, New York, in 1885, Frances and her mother toured Europe for a year. During this time Frances continued her long-standing correspondence with Grover Cleveland, the newly inaugurated president, who had been Oscar Folsom's law partner and executor and a close family friend from before the time of Frances's birth. (Cleveland had purchased Frances's first baby carriage.) After Frances and her mother visited the White House in the spring of 1885, rumors circulated that the bachelor president might marry Mrs. Folsom, but he proposed to Frances (by letter) just before she left for Europe. Although word spread about the impending marriage, Frances declined comment and went ahead with her travel plans. Soon after her return, they were married in the Blue Room of the White House on June 2, 1886, the first time an incumbent president wed in the mansion.

At 21 years of age, Frances was the youngest first lady in the nation's history, a distinction that attracted enormous attention. Advertisers began using her image in illustrations and sought her endorsements for their products, and many parents named their infant daughters after her. Her popularity partly explains the importance of a false rumor that circulated during the 1888 election, in which Grover ran unsuccessfully for a second term. After word spread that he had physically abused his young wife, she wrote a public letter which said that she wished that all the women of America could have husbands “as kind, attentive and considerate, and affectionate as mine.”

Like many presidential families, the Clevelands found the White House an uncomfortable place to live. In order to have more space and privacy, they rented a house outside Washington, D.C., and returned to the executive mansion for official functions, thus becoming the first incumbent president and his wife to live outside the White House since it was first occupied in 1800. By the time Grover won a second term in 1892, they had a young daughter, and Frances was pregnant with a second child. During his second term, when the family needed even more space, they lived in another rented house in Georgetown. During her husband's secret surgery for mouth cancer in July 1893, she successfully deflected reporters who were trying to locate him, thus helping keep from the public information that could have adversely affected the financial markets. On September 9, 1893, Frances gave birth to a daughter, who was the first child born to a sitting president.

She had another daughter in 1895 and two sons after leaving the White House in 1897. Frances and Grover Cleveland retired to Princeton, New Jersey, where Grover died on June 24, 1908. Frances married a Princeton archaeologist, Thomas Jex Preston, in 1913, becoming the first presidential widow to remarry. She died in 1947 and was buried beside Grover Cleveland in Princeton.

814. Mary Rebecca Aspinwall-[18443] (John Aspinwall⁷⁶², Rebecca Smith⁵⁸⁵, William Henry Smith⁴³⁷, Anna Shepard³⁷², Thomas Shepard³³⁵, Anna Tyng³⁰⁶, Elizabeth Coytmore²⁸², Capt. Rowland Coytmore²⁶⁵, Jane Williams²⁴⁸, Dorothy Griffith²³¹, Jane Stradling²¹⁴, Thomas Stradling¹⁹⁶, Sir Henry Stradling¹⁷³, Jane Beaufort¹⁵⁶, Alice FitzAlan¹³³, Elizabeth de Bohun¹⁰⁶, Earl William de Bohun⁹², Princess Elizabeth Plantagenet⁸¹, King Edward I Plantagenet "Longshanks"⁷², King Henry III Plantagenet⁶⁹, King John Plantagenet "Lackland"⁶⁶, King Henry II Plantagenet "Curtmantle"⁵², Queen Matilda Adelaide of England⁴⁵, Henry I (King)²¹, William I "the Conqueror" (King)¹¹, Robert I "The Magnificent" (Duke)⁶, Richard "the Good" II (Duke)³, Richard I "The Fearless" (Duke)², William I "Longsword" (Duke)¹) was born on 12-20-1809 and died on 2-24-1886 at age 76.

Mary married Isaac Roosevelt-[18444] [MRIN:6292] on 4-26-1827. Isaac was born on 4-21-1790 and died on 10-23-1863 at age 73.

815. Anna Lillie-[18356] (John Lillie⁷⁶³, Hannah Ruck⁵⁸⁶, Hannah Hutchinson⁴³⁸, Elijah Hutchinson³⁷³, Edward Hutchinson³³⁶, Anne Marbury³⁰⁷, Bridget Dryden²⁸³, Elizabeth Cope²⁶⁶, Bridget Raleigh²⁴⁹, Edward Raleigh²³², Sir Edward Raleigh²¹⁵, Elizabeth Greene¹⁹⁷, Sir Thomas Greene IV¹⁷⁴, Mary Talbot¹⁵⁷, Lord Richard de Talbot VII¹³⁴, Pernel Butler¹⁰⁷, Alionore de Bohun⁹³, Princess Elizabeth Plantagenet⁸¹, King Edward I Plantagenet "Longshanks"⁷², King Henry III Plantagenet⁶⁹, King John Plantagenet "Lackland"⁶⁶, King Henry II Plantagenet "Curtmantle"⁵², Queen Matilda Adelaide of England⁴⁵, Henry I (King)²¹, William I "the Conqueror" (King)¹¹, Robert I "The Magnificent" (Duke)⁶, Richard "the Good" II (Duke)³, Richard I "The Fearless" (Duke)², William I "Longsword" (Duke)¹) was born about 1760 in Boston, Massachusetts and died in 12-1804 in Andover, Massachusetts about age 44.

Anna married Samuel Howard-[18357] [MRIN:6247] on 4-3-1777 in Boston, Massachusetts. Samuel was born about 1752 in Boston, Massachusetts and died in 1-1797 in Boston, Massachusetts about age 45.

+ 841 F i. Harriet Howard-[18358] was born on 5-27-1782 in Boston, Massachusetts and died on 7-27-1847 in Cambridge, Massachusetts at age 65.

816. Spence Monroe-[18492] (Andrew Monroe⁷⁶⁴, William Monroe⁵⁸⁷, Andrew Monroe⁴³⁹, Agnes Munro³⁷⁴, Janet Cumming³³⁷, Margaret Fraser³⁰⁸, Lady Elizabeth Stewart²⁸⁴, Lady Elizabeth Gordon²⁶⁷, Earl George Gordon²⁵⁰, Margaret Stewart²³³, King James Stuart IV "Iron Belt"²¹⁶, King James Stuart III¹⁹⁸, James Stuart II¹⁷⁶, Joan de Beaufort¹⁶⁰, Earl of Somerset John Beaufort¹³⁸, Duke John of Lancaster "of Gaunt"¹¹⁴, King Edward Plantagenet III⁹⁵, King Edward Plantagenet II⁸², King Edward I Plantagenet "Longshanks"⁷², King Henry III Plantagenet⁶⁹, King John Plantagenet "Lackland"⁶⁶, King Henry II Plantagenet "Curtmantle"⁵², Queen Matilda Adelaide of England⁴⁵, Henry I (King)²¹, William I "the Conqueror" (King)¹¹, Robert I "The Magnificent" (Duke)⁶, Richard "the Good" II (Duke)³, Richard I "The Fearless" (Duke)², William I "Longsword" (Duke)¹) died in 1774.

842 M i. 5th President James Monroe-[18494] was born on 4-28-1758 in Monroe's Creek, Westmoreland County, Virginia and died on 7-4-1831 in New York at age 73.

General Notes: born April 28, 1758, Westmoreland county, Va. [U.S.]
died July 4, 1831, New York, N.Y., U.S.

Fifth president of the United States (1817–25), who issued an important contribution to U.S. foreign policy in the Monroe Doctrine, a warning to European nations against intervening in the Western Hemisphere. The period of his administration has been called the Era of Good Feeling.

Monroe's father, Spence Monroe, was of Scottish descent, and his mother, Elizabeth Jones Monroe, of Welsh descent. The family were owners of a modest 600 acres in Virginia. At age 16 Monroe entered the College of William and Mary but in 1776 left to fight in the United States War of Independence. As a lieutenant he crossed the Delaware with General George Washington for what became the Battle of Trenton. Suffering a near fatal wound in the shoulder, Monroe was carried from the field. Upon recovering, he was promoted to captain for heroism, and he took part in the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown. Advanced to major, he became aide-de-camp to General William Alexander (Lord Stirling) and with him shared the suffering of the troops at Valley Forge in the cruel winter of 1777–78. Monroe was a scout for Washington at the Battle of Monmouth andserved as Lord Stirling's adjutant general.

In 1780, having resigned his commission in the army, he began the study of law under Thomas Jefferson, then governor of Virginia, and between the two men there developed an intimacy and a sympathy that had a powerful influence upon Monroe's later career. Jefferson also fostered a friendship between Monroe and James Madison.

Monroe was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1782 and was chosen a member of the governor's council. From 1783 to 1786 he served in the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the new nation. During his term he vigorously insisted on the right of the United States to navigate the Mississippi River, then controlled by the Spanish, and attempted, in 1785, to secure for the weak Congress the power to regulate commerce, thereby removing one of the great defects in the existing central government. In 1786 Monroe, 27 years old, and Elizabeth Kortright of New York, 17 years old, were married. They had two daughters, Eliza Kortright and Maria Hester, and a son who died in infancy. Eliza often was at her father's side as official hostess when he was president, substituting for her ailing mother. Maria's marriage to a cousin, Samuel L. Gouverneur, in 1820 was the first wedding performed in the President's House, as the White House was then called.

Retiring from Congress in 1786, Monroe began practicing law at Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was chosen a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1787 and in 1788 a member of the state convention at which Virginia ratified the new federal Constitution. In 1790 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he vigorously opposed President George Washington's administration; nevertheless, in 1794 Washington nominated him as minister to France.

It was the hope of the administration that Monroe's well-known French sympathies would secure for him a favorable reception and that his appointment would also conciliate France's friends in the United States. His warm welcome in France and his enthusiasm for the French Revolution, which he regarded as a natural successor to the American Revolution, displeased the Federalists (the party of Alexander Hamilton, which encouraged close ties not to France but to England) at home. Monroe did nothing, moreover, to reconcile the French to the Jay Treaty, which regulated commerce and navigation between the United States and Great Britain during the French Revolutionary wars.

Without real justification, the French regarded the treaty as a violation of the French-American treaty of commerce and amity of 1778 and as a possible cause for war. Monroe led the French government to believe that the Jay Treaty would never be ratified by the United States, that the administration of George Washington would be overthrown as a result of the obnoxious treaty, and that better things might be expected after the election in 1796 of a new president, perhaps Thomas Jefferson. Washington, though he did not know of this intrigue, sensed that Monroe was unable to represent his government properly and, late in 1796, recalled him.

Monroe returned to America in the spring of 1797 and in the following December published a defense of his course in a pamphlet of 500 pages entitled A View of the Conduct of the Executive, in the Foreign Affairs of the United States. Washington seems never to have forgiven Monroe for this stratagem, though Monroe's opinion of Washington and Jay underwent a change in his later years. In 1799 Monroe was chosen governor of Virginia and was twice reelected, serving until 1802.

There was much uneasiness in the United States when Spain restored Louisiana to France by the Treaty of San Ildefonso in October 1800 (confirmed March 1801). The Spanish district administrator's subsequent withdrawal of the United States' “right of deposit” at New Orleans—the privilege of storing goods there for later reshipment—greatly increased this feeling and led to much talk of war. Resolved to settle the matter by peaceful measures, President Jefferson in January 1803 appointed Monroe envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to France to aid Robert R. Livingston, the resident minister, in purchasing the territory at the mouth of the Mississippi—including the island of New Orleans—authorizing him at the same time to cooperate with Charles Pinckney, the minister at Madrid, in securing from Spain the cession of East and West Florida. On April 18 Monroe was further commissioned as the regular minister to Great Britain.

Monroe joined Livingston in Paris on April 12, after the latter's negotiations were well under way, and the two ministers, on finding Napoleon willing to dispose of the entire province of Louisiana, decided to exceed their instructions and effect its purchase. Accordingly, on May 2, 1803, they signed a treaty and two conventions (antedated to April 30) whereby France sold Louisiana to the United States. The fact that Monroe signed the treaty along with Livingston did not hurt his political career at home, but he is not entitled to much credit for the diplomatic achievement.

In July 1803 Monroe left Paris and entered upon his duties in London, and in the autumn of 1804 he proceeded to Madrid to assist Pinckney in his efforts to define the Louisiana boundaries and acquire the Floridas. After negotiating until May 1805 without success, Monroe returned to London and resumed his negotiations concerning the impressment of American seamen and the seizure of American vessels. As the British ministry was reluctant to discuss these vexing questions, little progress was made, and in May 1806 Jefferson ordered William Pinkney of Maryland to assist Monroe.

The result of the deliberations was a treaty signed on December 31, 1806, which contained no provision against impressments and provided no indemnity for the seizure of goods and vessels. Accompanying its signature was a British reservation maintaining freedom of action to retaliate against imminent French maritime decrees. In passing over these matters Monroe and Pinkney had disregarded their instructions, and Jefferson was so displeased with the treaty that he returned it to England for revision.

Monroe returned to the United States in December 1807. He was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in the spring of 1810. In the following winter he was again chosen governor, serving from January to November 1811, when he resigned to become secretary of state under James Madison, a position he held until March 1817. The direction of foreign affairs in the troubled period immediately preceding and during the War of 1812, with Great Britain, thus fell upon him. On September 27, 1814, after the capture of Washington, D.C., by the British, he was appointed secretary of war and discharged the duties of this office, in addition to those of the Department of State, until March 1815.

In 1816 Monroe was elected president of the United States as the Republican candidate, defeating Rufus King, the Federalist candidate; Monroe received 183 electoral votes and King, 34. By 1820, when he was reelected, receiving all the electoral votes but one, the Federalists had ceased to function as a party. The chief events of his calm and prosperous administration, which has been called the Era of Good Feeling, were the First Seminole War (1817–18); the acquisition of the Floridas from Spain (1819–21); the Missouri Compromise (1820), by which the first conflict over slavery under the Constitution was peacefully settled; recognition of the new Latin American states, former Spanish colonies, in Central and South America (1822); and—most intimately connected with Monroe's name—the enunciation, in the presidential message of December 2, 1823, of the Monroe Doctrine, which has profoundly influenced the foreign policy of the United States.

Not until 1848 when James K. Polk was president did the first reference to Monroe's statement as a "Doctrine" appear. The phrase Monroe Doctrine came into common use in the 1850s. The “principles of President Monroe,” as the message was referred to in Congress, consisted of three openly proclaimed dicta: no further European colonization in the New World, abstention of the United States from the political affairs of Europe, and nonintervention of Europe in the governments of the American hemisphere. In the diplomatic correspondence preceding the proclamation of these principles in the president's message was a fourth dictum not publicly associated with the doctrine until 1869: the United States opposed the transfer of any existing European colonies from one European sovereign to another.

It is generally concluded that Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was the sole author of the noncolonization principle of the doctrine; the principle of abstention from European wars and politics was common to all the fathers of American independence, inherited and expressed by the younger Adams all his professional life; in cabinet meetings, Adams also urged the dictum of nonintervention in the affairs of the nations of the Western Hemisphere. But Adams had no idea of proclaiming these dicta to the world. Monroe took responsibility for embodying them in a presidential message that he drafted himself. Modern historical judgment considers the Monroe Doctrine to be appropriately named.

President Monroe and his wife remained smitten by France after their sojourn there and with their daughters often spoke French together when they were in the White House. Elizabeth Monroe clothed herself in Paris creations and insisted on French etiquette and French cuisine at her table. Given the opportunity to refurnish the executive mansion when it was rebuilt after its destruction in 1814, the Monroes spent lavishly on gilded furniture, silverware, and various objets d'art imported from France. Some items that the president had purchased from impoverished French noble families while he was minister he now lent or sold to the government for use in the President's House at prices some considered suspiciously high, although Monroe was later cleared of impropriety.

The first lady, who was always in fragile health, suffered from an unidentified malady. She was often away from Washington for months at a time visiting her married daughters. To the considerable irritation of Washington society, she discontinued Dolley Madison's practice of paying courtesy calls on Washington hostesses. Still, Elizabeth Monroe was not without ardor; shortly after her arrival in France, during the Reign of Terror, she had helped to rescue Madame Lafayette, wife of the marquis de Lafayette, from prison and perhaps save her from the guillotine.

On the expiration of his second term Monroe retired to his home at Oak Hill, Virginia. In 1826 he became a regent of the University of Virginia and in 1829 was a member of the convention called to amend the state constitution. Having neglected his private affairs and incurred large expenditures during his missions to Europe and his presidency, he was deeply in debt and felt compelled to ask Congress to reimburse him. In 1826 Congress finally authorized the payment to him of $30,000. Almost immediately, adding additional claims, he went back to Congress seeking more money. Congress paid him another $30,000 in 1831, but he still did not feel satisfied. After his death Congress appropriated a small amount for the purchase of his papers from his heirs. Monroe died in 1831—like Jefferson and Adams before him on the Fourth of July—in New York City at the home of his daughter, Maria, with whom he was living after the death of his wife the year before. In 1858, the centennial year of his birth, his remains were reinterred with impressive ceremonies at Richmond, Virginia. After Liberia was created in 1821 as a haven for freed slaves, its capital city was named Monrovia in honour of the American president, who had supported the repatriation of blacks to Africa.

Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, and many other prominent statesmen of Monroe's time all spoke loudly in his praise, but he suffers by comparison with the greater men of his time. Possessing none of their brilliance, he had, nevertheless, to use the words of John Quincy Adams, “a mind sound in its ultimate judgments, and firm in its final conclusions.” Some of Monroe's popularity undoubtedly stemmed from the fact that he was the last of the Revolutionary War generation, and he reminded people of those heady times when the struggle for independence was in the balance. Tall and stately in appearance, he still wore the knee britches, silk stockings, and cocked hat of those days, and many of his admirers said that he resembled George Washington.

James married Elizabeth Kortright-[18495] [MRIN:6320] on 2-16-1786 in Trinity E Church, New York. Elizabeth was born on 6-30-1768 in New York and died on 9-23-1830 in Oak Hill, Loudon County, Virginia at age 62.

822. William Henry Rooney Fitzhugh Lee-[12917] (Robert Edward Lee⁷⁷³, Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee⁵⁹¹, Henry Lee⁴⁵⁰, Mary Bland³⁷⁷, Elizabeth Randolph³⁴¹, Col. William Randolph³¹⁵, Sir Richard Randolph²⁸⁹, Dorothy Lane²⁷¹, Elizabeth Vincent²⁵⁴, Anne Tanfield²³⁷, Francis Tanfield Esq.²²⁰, William Tanfield²⁰², Katherine Neville¹⁸⁶, Baron Edward de Neville¹⁶³, Joan de Beaufort¹⁴¹, Duke John of Lancaster "of Gaunt"¹¹⁴, King Edward Plantagenet III⁹⁵, King Edward Plantagenet II⁸², King Edward I Plantagenet "Longshanks"⁷², King Henry III Plantagenet⁶⁹, King John Plantagenet "Lackland"⁶⁶, King Henry II Plantagenet "Curtmantle"⁵², Queen Matilda Adelaide of England⁴⁵, Henry I (King)²¹, William I "the Conqueror" (King)¹¹, Robert I "The Magnificent" (Duke)⁶, Richard "the Good" II (Duke)³, Richard I "The Fearless" (Duke)², William I "Longsword" (Duke)¹) was born on 5-31-1837 and died on 10-15-1891 at age 54.

826. Robert Edward Lee-[12914] (Robert Edward Lee⁷⁷³, Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee⁵⁹¹, Henry Lee⁴⁵⁰, Mary Bland³⁷⁷, Elizabeth Randolph³⁴¹, Col. William Randolph³¹⁵, Sir Richard Randolph²⁸⁹, Dorothy Lane²⁷¹, Elizabeth Vincent²⁵⁴, Anne Tanfield²³⁷, Francis Tanfield Esq.²²⁰, William Tanfield²⁰², Katherine Neville¹⁸⁶, Baron Edward de Neville¹⁶³, Joan de Beaufort¹⁴¹, Duke John of Lancaster "of Gaunt"¹¹⁴, King Edward Plantagenet III⁹⁵, King Edward Plantagenet II⁸², King Edward I Plantagenet "Longshanks"⁷², King Henry III Plantagenet⁶⁹, King John Plantagenet "Lackland"⁶⁶, King Henry II Plantagenet "Curtmantle"⁵², Queen Matilda Adelaide of England⁴⁵, Henry I (King)²¹, William I "the Conqueror" (King)¹¹, Robert I "The Magnificent" (Duke)⁶, Richard "the Good" II (Duke)³, Richard I "The Fearless" (Duke)², William I "Longsword" (Duke)¹) was born on 10-27-1843 in Arlington Plantation, Virginia, died in 1914 at age 71, and was buried in Washington And Lee University Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia.

835. Elizabeth Price Griffith-[19007] (Amos Griffith⁸⁰⁵, Lydia Hussey⁷⁴⁴, Miriam Harry⁵⁶⁴, John Harry⁴²⁶, Hugh Harry³⁵², Harry Thomas Owen³²³, Thomas Owen²⁹⁶, Elizabeth Pugh²⁷³, Gaynor Thomas²⁵⁶, Jane Puleston²³⁹, Sir John Puleston²²², Eleanor Whitney²⁰⁴, Constance Tuchet¹⁸⁷, Eleanor of Holland¹⁶⁴, Earl Edmund of Holland III¹⁴⁶, Thomas de Holand II¹²², Countess Joan of Kent "The Fair Maid"⁹⁹, Earl Edmund of Woodstock⁸³, King Edward I Plantagenet "Longshanks"⁷², King Henry III Plantagenet⁶⁹, King John Plantagenet "Lackland"⁶⁶, King Henry II Plantagenet "Curtmantle"⁵², Queen Matilda Adelaide of England⁴⁵, Henry I (King)²¹, William I "the Conqueror" (King)¹¹, Robert I "The Magnificent" (Duke)⁶, Richard "the Good" II (Duke)³, Richard I "The Fearless" (Duke)², William I "Longsword" (Duke)¹) was born on 4-28-1827 in West Pike Run, Washington County, Pennsylvania and died on 5-3-1923 in Whittier, California at age 96.

Elizabeth married Joshua Vickers Milhous-[19008] [MRIN:6523] on 12-23-1847 in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Joshua was born on 12-31-1820 in Colerain, Belmont County, Ohio and died on 4-15-1893 in Bigger Township, Indiana at age 72.

+ 847 M i. Franklin Milhous-[19009] was born on 11-4-1848 in Colerain, Belmont County, Ohio and died on 2-2-1919 in Whittier, California at age 70.

836. Capt. Noah Grant III-[18619] (Capt Noah Grant Jr⁸⁰⁶, Noah Grant⁷⁴⁵, Samuel Grant Jr⁵⁶⁵, Mary Porter⁴²⁷, Anna Rosanna White³⁵³, Robert White V³²⁴, Robert White IV²⁹⁷, Richard White²⁷⁴, Thomas White²⁵⁷, Robert White III²⁴⁰, Sir Robert White II²²³, Alice Hungerford²⁰⁶, Baronesse Margaret de Botreaux¹⁸⁸, Elizabeth de Beaumont¹⁶⁵, John de Beaumont¹⁴⁸, Henry de Beaumont¹²⁵, Eleanor of Lancaster¹⁰⁰, Earl Henry Plantagenet⁸⁶, Earl Edmund Plantagenet "Crouchback"⁷³, King Henry III Plantagenet⁶⁹, King John Plantagenet "Lackland"⁶⁶, King Henry II Plantagenet "Curtmantle"⁵², Queen Matilda Adelaide of England⁴⁵, Henry I (King)²¹, William I "the Conqueror" (King)¹¹, Robert I "The Magnificent" (Duke)⁶, Richard "the Good" II (Duke)³, Richard I "The Fearless" (Duke)², William I "Longsword" (Duke)¹) was born on 6-20-1748 in Tolland, Connecticut and died on 2-14-1819 in Marysville, Kentucky at age 70.

Noah married Rachel Kelly-[18620] [MRIN:6385] on 3-4-1792 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Rachel was born in Deerfield, Ohio.

+ 848 M i. Jesse Root Grant-[18621] was born on 1-23-1794 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania and died on 6-29-1873 in Covington, Kentucky at age 79.

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