No question abut it, Mary Lincoln liked nice stuff!

The Well-Born Miss Todd

Miss Mary Todd (1818-1882) was born into what might be called Lexington, Kentucky aristocracy. At birth, she was already 3rd generation Lexingtonian.

The Todds had done well in Kentucky. Her father, Robert Smith Todd, had followed the three traditional professions of a gentleman: planter, lawyer/businessman and legislator. He had a fine plantation a few miles outside the city limits, next door to Kentucky’s favorite son, Henry Clay. They also had a house in town.

When Mary was six, her mother died in childbirth, leaving six little Todds under twelve. Within eighteen months, Robert Todd remarried. His new bride, Betsey Humphreys, came from a family even more pedigreed than the Todds.

While the “first family Todd” was unhappy with their new stepmother, all the niceties of prominence were amply provided, including manners, graces, a taste for lovely things, and in Mary’s case, a good education.

Doing Without

When Mary Todd married lawyer Abraham Lincoln of Springfield IL, she was just shy of 24. He was 33, late come to his profession. His background was as meager as hers was prominent. He had very little money, old debts still owing, and his prospects were not sterling. He was also absent for large swaths of time, riding the court circuit in central Illinois.

Within a year of their marriage, the Lincolns had purchased their one-and-only home, and were proud parents of a baby, Robert Todd Lincoln – named for her father. The niceties she had known before… lovely clothes, fancy bonnets, jewelry, etc., were no longer in her immediate picture.

They made do.

Lincoln was no fool and no doubt realized that to achieve any success as an attorney and/or public figure, he needed polish. Mary Todd was well equipped to do the sprucing.  She was a Kentucky belle. She knew what to do.

She made a nice middle-class home where Lincoln could be proud to bring his associates.  She made sure his suits were better tailored. She taught him to dance a little and make a deep courtly bow. Thus when he was elected President, Abraham Lincoln was parlor-ready, and undoubtedly knew that he owed much to his society-minded wife of eighteen years.

Repayment

Some time in February, 1861, when the train bringing the President-Elect to Washington stopped in New York, Lincoln quietly visited Tiffany & Company, then as now, the premier jeweler in the country. As a gift for her (one of the few actually recorded as his gift), he purchased a stunning set of seed pearl jewelry, to include a necklace and two cuff bracelets. 

The price tag was a whopping $530, an enormous sum in the mid-nineteenth century, especially for someone whose income in 1860 was around $6000, a substantial, but hardly opulent sum.

The Pearl Jewelry

The necklace itself was a “choker” style, defined as a length of 14-16″.  It consisted of nineteen oval shaped rosettes, six large and thirteen smaller. One of the six is extra large, used in the center of the necklace to dangle a somewhat smaller rosette as a pendant.  The smaller rosettes feature a bar of three pearls surrounded by a circle of seed pearls. The larger ovals feature a bar of three pearls surrounded by two seed pearl circles. The extra large central rosette has three circles of pearls.

The two identical cuff bracelets display the same style as the necklace, but the central oval rosette is the largest one in the entire set: three large pearls surrounded by four rows of seed pearls. Two smaller (three rows of surrounding pearls) rosettes flank the central piece. The strap and clasp are silver plate.

Some historical accounts claim Lincoln purchased earrings and a brooch along with the aforementioned items. A similar set, also made by TIffany’s did include the additional pieces, and sold for $1000. Lincoln was more thrifty, and opted for a less expensive set.

Curiously enough, TIffany records indicate that Lincoln purchased the items on April 28, 1862 – more than a year after his inauguration, when it is documented that Mary actually wore them. A Matthew Brady photograph taken of the new First Lady wearing her inaugural gown, showed the necklace and one of the bracelets. The earrings may have been on loan. Tiffany may have had “the slows” in its billing department, but Lincoln paid the bill.

It is also interesting that in April, 1862, the date of Tiffany’s accounts, the Lincolns were in deep mourning for their son WIllie, who had died a few weeks earlier. Mary would not have been purchasing or wearing elaborate jewelry. 

While there is no record of Mrs. L’s reaction to the surprise gift one can assume she was delighted. She wore it at both Lincoln inaugural balls.

The Aftermath of the Seed Pearl Jewelry

Mary Lincoln made a simple will in 1873 leaving everything to her son Robert and his progeny. This included her jewelry.

The unfortunate set of circumstances that caused Robert to declare his mother tried for insanity (later reversed) understandably created a major rift between them, and they were more or less permanently estranged for the rest of Mary’s life. 

When Mary made her will, she had only seen one grandchild: Robert’s daughter Mary, nicknamed Mamie. Robert’s two other children, Abraham II (nicknamed Jack) and Jessie had not yet been born, and there is no indication that Mary ever saw them.

Despite the estrangement and the fact that Mary lived for nearly another ten years, she never changed her will. Her property went to Robert, including the seed pearl necklace and bracelets.

The set of jewelry is now in the Library of Congress collection. It was donated in 1937 by Mary’s granddaughter, Mary (Mamie) Lincoln Isham, shortly before her death. 

Sources:

Baker, Jean – Mary Todd Lincoln – W.W. Norton, 1987

Clinton, Catherine – Mrs. Lincoln: A Life – HarperCollins, 2009

Foster, Feather Schwartz – Mary Lincoln;s Flannel Pajamas and Other Stories From the First Ladies Closet – Koehler Publishing, 2014

Helm, Katherine – Mary, Wife of Lincoln – Harper & Row, 1928

http://www.thejewelleryeditor.com/jewellery/article/the-history-of-tiffany-tiffanys/

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