#mary floyd

[ollieoliveoboelo22]

Learning that Ben called Mary, Polly

[seventwooneandamericasfirst]

Mary Floyd 🥰🥰💙🫶

[musicboxmemories]

For @viola-ophelia‘s Valen-TURN’s Day Bingo (see her pinned post)! Prompt I chose: Eyes meeting across the room for Ben and Mary Floyd

[stardust-pond]

“So, I have my Annie, and you, Benny boy, have your Mary.”

[maryfloydtallmadge]

Aesthetic: Mary Floyd & Major Benjamin Tallmadge  ~ A Blue & Gold Wedding 

[mercurygray]

Fandom Fic Rec Days: TURN

Not everything she writes is necessarily my cup of tea, but @grumblebee-trilogy deserves some love on Fic Rec Day. She is practically the fandom mother for the Benwash shippers and always seems to have a kind word, a helping shoulder, and a willingness to listen to everyone's ideas and turn them into something  - to the eternal delight of the requestor. She's also very good at sharing her toys - a rariety in fandom - and frequently collaborates and shares ideas and universes with her friends. (She’s even remarkably patient with people like me who outright steal her toys.)

A little something for my side-slip into her Spoils of War universe.

It'd be easier, Ben thinks, if they lived in a less connected time. But as it is there are rules to follow, forms to obey, hearings to attend and human rights committees to interview with. Such questions! Was it lawful? Was it legal? Endless meetings and observers and psychologists, asking him, over and over, if the thing was done humanely, if there was suffering involved.

When one’s country is taken over, apparently it is a cause for grave international concern, even if formalities like marriage are involved. Apparently that is antiquated. Apparently that is not how things are done.

Which is why he’s here in the United Nations headquarters in front of yet another board of inquiry, testifying of behalf of his countrymen and women. No, the rumors of widespread bloodshed aren’t true. No, there’s been no suppression of the press and yes, elections are continuing unimpeded for Parliament next term.

It’s exhausting, facing down a panel of well-meaning diplomats all intent on trying to give him an opportunity to admit to something that isn’t happening. But finally there’s a break in the proceedings - an adjournment to another day. The committee members repair to hallways and offices to catch up on emails, confer with staff. Ben lingers at his podium, unsure of whether he’s allowed to leave.

There's a woman across the room, looking at him like she expects him to notice her. Caught in his gaze, she gives a little wave, a smile. Should he know her? Her face is familiar, in a way that...certain pieces of art in the state museum are familiar; seeing a corner he could tell you that he's seen it before, but not the artist's name. Is her name one he should know.

He takes too long -- her smile fades and her hand retreats, and she looks back down at her notes.

A voice over the loudspeaker announces the next session is beginning, and Ben retreats with the crowd out to the hallway, his attaches and secretary fluttering behind him. There was someone he needed to see today - one of the committee members on child labor...

"You...you really don't know me." Ben turns - it's the woman from before. From up close he knows now he's seen her somewhere before...but where?

One of her entourage taps her on the shoulder, whispering in her ear. "Duchess, we should be leaving. Your next appointment is at two."

It's only a title, but it serves its purpose well enough. Mary. This is Mary.

It's no wonder he didn't recognize her - the last picture he saw of her was...when he was ten? God, that was a long time ago - a lifetime, practically. Still, it wasn’t hard to forget what you’d never known, and he’d never met her, except in a few photographs and a formal painting. That’s the girl you’re going to marry, his mother had said once. Doesn’t she look nice? True to a child of ten, he’d wrinkled his nose and said her nose had spots on it. 

No spots now, though. “I’m sorry -- it’s been a long time, Your Grace. A boy forgets.” He can see the painting now that he’s thought of it. “Pink wasn’t your color when you were ten.”

That brings a smile. “I hated that dress,” she confirms. “I thought it made me look like a marshmallow.”

“My mother liked it,” Ben said with a smile. It was an arrangement that his father had been in the middle of revisiting, before George...he hadn’t thought of her in years, though, truly. Had she thought often of him?  “We should...arrange lunch some time. Catch up.”

She nods, gestures over her secretary, who hands over a calling card with the address of a very posh hotel, a usual haunt of the royals when they’re in town. He accepts it, slips it in his pocket, hands her one of his own cards. She holds out her hand and they shake. (She has a firm grip - the handshake of a woman who gets things done.)

That night, in his hotel room, after his evening Skype call home to George, he opens up a web browser and searches for her name. In ten minutes he is deep in news articles and magazine pieces, “Top Twenty Most Eligible Royals.” 

She’s still not married. Not seeing anyone, either, apart from the occasional mention of a soccer star or an actor. 

His weren’t the only hopes George put on hold, it seems.

[ollieoliveoboelo22]

Mary Floyd, Part 3

It's been a while but I figured I should finish up this post about her.

An additional detail that I neglected to mention in the last post was that Ben and Mary were close with her sister and Dr. Clarkson. Kitty and her husband lived in Philadelphia (a city Ben has strong opinions about). On a trip to Philadelphia in 1793, Ben received some sort of religious book tied to the Second Great Awakening. (The Clarksons were heavily involved with this in Philadelphia.) In a letter in June, we see the beginning of Ben's heavy turn towards religion that was introduced through the Clarksons. I'll make a seperate post about that because it is fascinating.

We unfortunately don't know much else about Mary's life. Mary died from childbirth on June 3, 1805 at the age of 41. 

Before her death, Ben wrote to Oliver Wolcott on May 28, 1805, concluding the letter with:

“Mrs. T reciprocates your obliging regards for her. I hope She soon may be released from her present Burden.”

At the time, burden was a term for pregnancy.

In a letter from Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Phelps Huntington, a resident of Litchfield, to her mother (Elizabeth Porter Phelps) she speaks of Mary’s death. (Letter dated June 8, 1805)

“I must tell you, how gloomy I feel a great part of the time - my prospects for furturity are as dark as midnight … the death of Mrs. Tallmadge makes me dread a certain event more than usual.”

The certain event Betsy dreaded was childbirth. It was not long before the birth of her (Betsy's) own child that Mary died.

Here is a clipping from a newspaper announcing her death

Not much else is written about it, but the baby died along with Mary. There are no letters from Ben in the Litchfield historical society archives. Either he requested that they be burned, or they simply have not been found. 

Mary was buried in Litchfield’s east cemetery. Here is her headstone. Ben wrote a few lines for her after her death, I have not accessed them (those are next on my list of things to get from the historical society).

I can only imagine what it was like for the Tallmadge family after her death. The eldest, William, was 19/20 and the youngest, George, was only 4.

Looking at Ben's letters, be begins to mention a lot more religion afterwards. My best interpretation would be that with dealing with war PTSD and then the loss of his wife, Ben got a lot more involved in religion. Ben remarried in 1807 to Maria Hallett. I might make a seperate post on her, but my interpretation of this marriage was far more for companionship and for the Tallmadge children to have a mother figure. Especially since Ben was serving in Congress and was gone for months at a time. Maria had security (and Ben willed her quite a bit when he died) and Ben had a friend. In his final letter to her, he even states that he valued her much more as a Christian and partner.

Sources:

Tallmadge memoirs 

Tallmadge biography by Charles Swain Hall

https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2009/10/hannah-jones-floyd.html  (which references this. The Pioneer Mothers of America: A Record of the More Notable Women of the Early Days of the Country, and Particularly of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periodsby Harry Clinton Green and Mary Wolcott Green, A.B. Third Volume, Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.)

https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/C0243_c037?onlineToggle=false

[ollieoliveoboelo22]

Mary Floyd, Part 2

Picking up where we left off, now it is time for the relationship between Ben and Mary.

It was over autumn and winter of 1783-84, according to Ben’s memoirs, that he visited areas of Long Island, including Mastic. Not much about their courtship, but it is clear that they absolutely loved each other. 

“The Autumn and Winter of 1783 were devoted very much to these most pleasing and delightful visitations. Among others (not the least pleasant and interesting) were those which secured to me a companion and friend, the most desirable, in my view had I been privileged with a choice from her whole sex. After visiting Connecticut, and arranging and settling my plans for mercantile life, in the place where I now reside, on the 18th of March 1784 I led Miss Floyd to the hymeneal altar, and commenced the life and duties of a married man... The nuptials of Miss Floyd and myself were solemnized on the 18th of March, 1784, my honored father officiating, when Gen. Floyd gave a most sumptuous entertainment to a great number of invited guests” (Tallmadge memoirs, 66)

I am by no means an expert when it comes to 18th and early 19th century language use, but I do have a fair amount of exposure. Many marriages of the time period were not immediate love matches, but Ben’s emphasis that she was his companion and friend, tell us quite a bit. 

He continues basically saying if he could pick ANY woman to marry, it would have been her. She is most desirable in his eyes because of that companionship and friendship.

Before their marriage, Ben returned to Litchfield to make sure everything was in order before getting married. He had bought the house in 1782, I believe in the summer but I can’t find my source to verify that.

Afterwards they journeyed to New York and stayed at the home of Joseph Hallett…. Yes Hallett. I have not yet been able to determine if this was the father of Maria Hallett.

Ben and Mary returned to Mastic to say some final goodbyes before departing for Litchfield. It should be said that it was on May 16, 1784 that William Floyd married Joanna. A possible (additional) reason for the return to Mastic before leaving.

"We were treated with great hospitality by the family of Mr. Joseph Hallett, at whose hospitable abode we were invited to take up our lodgings. After this visit was ended, we returned back to Mastic, calling on our friends on the North side of Long Island and on Shelter Island, whom we wished to see before we departed to our abode at Litchfield, Connecticut. We took a jaunt down the island which was considered rather as a parting visit." (Memoirs, pg. 66)

Not much is known about Ben and Mary's relationship. Almost no letters between Ben and Mary survive. There are no letters between them in the Litchfield Historical Society archive.  However, I have come across two instances of letters in a random book… but the source is not well cited (if at all). Still I will include it. Unfortunately I do not have a date for when it was written.

The first I will guess to be either after Maria’s birth or Harriet’s. So December 24, 1790 or December 24, 1797.

“O My Tallmadge” It is Christmas Eve, O My Love will we ever live to spend one together. Good night, my dear, our darling babe is a-crying and wants her supper. I continue to have plenty of milk. I thought she would take so much of my time that I should not be as lonesome as in your former absences but I find I miss you more than ever. A Christmas Kiss."

The second letter is said to have been written a month later, putting it in January of 1791 or 1798.

“When nine o’clock comes and the children are gone to bed it is then my best friend is missed. I look often at the bed and dread to undress. And think I could sleep only this night with you or know that you were well I could go to my widow-bed contented.”

In both instances, Mary clearly misses him. She thought their daughter would occupy her time and distract her and instead admits it only makes her miss him more. I do find the letter strange as it seems to imply Ben was never able to spend Christmas, or at least Christmas Eve with Mary and the rest of his family. Regardless, Mary calls him her "best friend" reciprocating what Ben wrote in his memoirs.

Something else to note that I find completely adorable. If you look at the collections in the Litchfield Historical Society, you’ll find that in the Tallmadge collection, there are various silver utensils engraved with BMT (Ben and Mary Tallmadge). My personal favorite is the monogram with an engraving of their Litchfield home.

Additionally, Mary was trained in music. As but the letter sent to Patsy Jefferson, she had composed little songs for her. Here is a harpsichord that is in the Benjamin Tallmadge collection that may have (likely) belonged to Mary.

Ben and Mary had seven surviving children together. Let it be said, that at least in portrait, all the kids look very similar Ben in some capacity. Specially William Smith, that boy looked so much like his father.

Their children were:

William Smith: October 20, 1785 - August 18, 1822

Henry Floyd: June 11, 1787 - July 8, 1854

Maria Jones: March 25, 1790 - March 19, 1878

Frederick Augustus: August 29, 1792 - September 17, 1869

Benjamin Jr. (more like III) September 10, 1794 - June 20, 1831

Harriet Wadsworth: April 3, 1797 - July 9, 1856

George Washington: September 13, 1803 - August 24, 1839

This master post is WAY longer than I intended. So there will be a part three, and a seperate post that goes a bit into detail on the children.