Gilded Age Love Stories: Chauncey Depew's Second Chance at Love

There were many sensational love stories and romances during the Gilded Age, and there is no need to look further than the Mills family and Staatsburgh’s guests to find some of the people who were part of them. As we research all of the approximately 150 individuals who signed Staatsburgh’s guestbook between 1899 and 1908, many interesting personalities and stories have emerged.  One of them involves Hudson Valley native and US Senator Chauncey Depew who found love in both his first and second marriages.  Many of Staatsburgh’s guests were involved in politics, but it is noteworthy to mention that Depew was the only sitting US Senator to sign Staatsburgh's guestbook when he visited in September 1900. Chauncey Depew was elected as a Senator from New York in 1899 and then re-elected in 1905.

Chauncey Depew (1834-1928), circa 1901
Image: Library of Congress

The Red Fox at Staatsburgh: Martin Van Buren & Morgan Lewis’s Letters

Have you ever read someone’s handwriting that’s just un-readable...looked over a note from a friend or loved one and said, “how do you expect me to read this?!”

We found ourselves in this exact situation while examining three handwritten letters in Staatsburgh’s archives. Unfortunately, we could not ask the sender what they had written, because the sender was the 8^th President of the United States, Martin van Buren (who has been dead for 162 years!). However, the researchers at the Papers of Martin Van Buren Project at Cumberland University were kind enough to stand-in for the President and transcribe his difficult handwriting for us. These three letters reveal a complicated political relationship, but a close personal friendship, between Van Buren and Staatsburgh’s founder, Morgan Lewis. 

Martin Van Buren and Morgan Lewis silhouette portraits by Auguste Edouart, c. 1841.
Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

Uncle Ogden: Ogden Livingston Mills & the Sands Children

Ogden Livingston Mills (1884-1937) was many things including a lawyer, politician, husband, and guardian. At Staatsburgh, we often mention that Ogden Livingston Mills did not have biological children in order to explain why his sister inherited the house after his death. However, we don’t usually get a chance to talk about the ways that Ogden Livingston (O.L.) Mills was a father figure to several individuals in his life. In 1914, he was named one of two guardians for two young siblings, Anne Barbara Sands and George Winthrop Sands, along with their grandmother, Anne Harriman Sands Rutherfurd Vanderbilt. The children were the orphaned niece and nephew of his wife Margaret Rutherfurd. Ten years later, O.L. also became a stepfather,[1] and the children all affectionately referred to him as “Uncle Ogden.” In order to understand this aspect of O.L.’s life, let us take a look at O.L.’s history as a guardian for the Sands children and the connection between the Mills family and the Sands family.

 

Ogden Livingston Mills, 1915

Groundbreaking Gilded Age Women in Politics

The passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 gave some women the right to vote on a federal level, but certainly not all.  As two examples: Native Americans were not allowed to be citizens in 1920, so indigenous women did not gain suffrage as a result. Despite their very active role in fighting for women's suffrage, Black women's right to vote was less clearly secured by the passage of the Amendment, but that did not deter them from advocating consistently for their right and engaging in electoral politics. In some parts of the country, some women had been allowed to vote in local elections long before 1920, and many women ran for office!  Exactly 100 years after the 19th Amendment was ratified, the United States elected the first female vice-president.  Because of this groundbreaking election, and amidst the backdrop of much controversy regarding voting rights in our current day, we want to highlight other women who also achieved political firsts.

Women's Political Union Votes for Women Sash
Photo Credit: Smithsonian Institution

This essay will explore the groundbreaking political campaigns of five different women during this era.  We will explore the first female to legitimately run for president as well as first woman elected to various offices including administrator of a statewide office, mayor, state senator, and US representative.

Ogden Livingston Mills: The Early Years

Ruth and Ogden's youngest child Ogden Livingston decided to go into public service and not merely coast along on his family's wealth and position.  What influenced his decision to enter the political sphere and pave his own path in life?  He most assuredly could have entered the family business and had a very successful career working alongside his father.  Yet he chose a different path and had an active political career until his life was cut short in 1937 when he died of heart failure at age 53.

This Chicago Daily News photo shows Ogden Livingston Mills in June 1920 when he was a delegate at the Republican National Convention.  (DN-0072066, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum)