Category: Eliza Jane Maddox (1813-1903)

Lafayette Blessed Her

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Eliza Jane (Maddox) Scott had a talent for inserting herself into a broader historical narrative.  Three unusual stories were passed down through her family concerning her brushes with history.

The first (totally unproven and very questionable) assertion is that she is a great-granddaughter of General David Wooster of Revolutionary War fame.  The second is that she sometimes strolled the neighborhood with Johns Hopkins and he discussed his plans for a hospital with her.  This is slightly more believable in that both Eliza’s homes were within two miles of Hopkins’ Clifton estate (now Clifton Park).  Also, Hopkins was a Quaker and rumor has it Eliza Jane dabbled in the Society of Friends for a time (also unproven to date).

Her most enduring story however, and the one mentioned in her obituary and that of her daughter Georgianna, goes like this:

Eliza Jane and her sister met General Lafayette on his visit to Baltimore.  The nobleman “as she was fond of relating” placed his hand on her head and said “Bless you my child.”

Marquis De LafayetteThe Marquis de Lafayette was a celebrity.  Beloved by all Americans for his role in the American Revolution, he returned to the U.S. in August of 1824, as the honored guest of President James Monroe.  He went on a multi-city tour, visiting people who had been close to him during the war.

Baltimore went all out for their turn with the General.  According to Thomas Scharf’s Chronicles of Baltimore, the General was conducted through the decorated streets of Baltimore and “was greeted everywhere with the huzzas of the citizens and the waving of handkerchiefs, from every position which afforded the least prospect of beholding him.”

He then attended several large reunion events, while lodging at the Fountain Inn (then on Light and Redwood Streets).  He greeted Revolutionary Veterans and prominent citizens at dinners and balls…and one night he spent an evening at the Inn shaking hands with ordinary citizens.

I think Eliza would like us to believe that she met Lafayette when presented as an honored guest– with the families of Revolutionary Patriots–and maybe she did.  But her story, that “with her sister” she met him (not with her parents), invites us to imagine two little girls slipping through the twilight streets to the Fountain Inn, pushing their way to the front of the crowd to get a glimpse of their hero, and then meeting him face to face.

In Eliza’s story, it is she who is blessed–not her sister– letting us imagine that 10- year-old Eliza conceived of this adventure on her own (either convincing an older sister to accompany her, or a younger sister to some along), and Eliza who captured the momentary attention of a national hero.

We Are No One and Everyone: More Frustration with DNA

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We received the results of my father’s 44 marker DNA test from Ancestry.com.  I am sorry to say, we remain unenlightened about the origins of our “Scott” family.  Probably the right person hasn’t done a DNA test yet, so here is where we stand:

  • Our “close matches” on Ancestry are more than 15 generations ago, and only 1 (22 generations divided from us) bears the Scott Surname.
  • Though things start out looking right on the Scott Family Tree DNA Project, nothing is yet to pan out because we differ on at least 4 markers from everyone, sometimes more.
  • No luck on Ysearch either.

To sum up, there’s a lot more to understand about DNA than I think some services lead you to believe.  This error in thinking/presentation caused a frenzy of excitement for one week after the results came in.  Ancestry determined our “closest match” within 150 years to be a family named Saunders.  I contacted the Saunders who live in England and found out their line were mariners from Dover.  Hooray!  We decided Joseph must be an illegitimacy from their line, or perhaps lived under an assumed name.  We spent a week mouthing “Saunders” and thinking how much we liked the last name “Scott” better.

Once we calmed down (on both sides of the Atlantic) we realized that Mr. Saunders had taken a 33 marker test AND a 44 marker test…and Ancestry had connected my father’s 44 marker test to Mr. Saunder’s 33 marker test.  At 44 markers we don’t match at all.  What a waste of time!

But we remain “Scotts” until proven otherwise.  That’s something.

Caught in a Bad Romance? Eliza Jane Maddox of Baltimore and Joseph Scott of ?

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History and Science are coming together this week, so I need to skip ahead a bit, to the namesake of my blog, my great-great-great grandmother, Eliza Jane Maddox (1813-1903).

There is something striking and unusual about Eliza Jane Maddox’s place in the historic record. Though supposedly a married woman, in each census she is enumerated as the head of the household (with no husband listed).  For that matter, I have never found a marriage record for Eliza Jane, though I have found marriage documentation for 5 of her 9 siblings.  Yet, according to her 1903 obituary, Eliza Jane was the widow of Joseph Scott and she had 6 children with him.

I had a sense early on that Joseph’s absence on the census might be the result of his being a mariner, and that would be why he was not home….ever… when the census was taken (though I found it strange he is not listed anyway, as the census includes anyone living within the household in the previous 12 months).   That feeling intensified when I visited Eliza Jane’s grave at Mt. Olivet Cemetery.  Though 24 people are buried in the Maddox plot, Joseph Scott isn’t one of them.  Eliza’s tombstone stands near that of two of her children, and her inscription reads “faithful unto death.”

In 2002 I met two wonderful researchers of the Scott/Maddox family:  Harriet S. and Margaret N., who were descended from Eliza and Joseph Scott through their daughter Georgianna (I descend from their son Charles).   They provided me with an image of Eliza Jane.  They thought that “faithful unto death” was probably not as romantically intentioned as I chose to believe, but they confirmed that Joseph Scott was a mariner.  Their family lore said that Joseph “died at sea” on his way to Scotland.  I have wondered often since then if “died at sea” was a euphemism for “got drunk and fell out of a rowboat,” or “actually had a wife and whole other family somewhere else” but I have nothing to back that up…yet.  It’s just a byproduct of my frustration with my ggg-grandfather, who seems to have lived a life entirely in the margins of history.

Joseph and Eliza’s off the grid love affair lasted at least from 1835 until at least 1856—maybe a bit longer.  Joseph appears only a handful of times in one record (at least in the one record that I am certain it’s him) and that is the Baltimore City Directory in the 1850s at Eliza’s house on 23 May Street.  Otherwise his presence is peripheral. Like the mention in his wife’s obituary, he is first mentioned when his daughter Mary Scott Jones died in 1861.  She is listed as the daughter of Eliza Jane and “the late Joseph Scott”.  Sometime between 1856 (when his last son was conceived) and Mary’s death in 1861, Joseph faded out of the picture—without even an obituary.

Who was Joseph Scott and where did he come from?  Did he actually die in the time period the Scott family claims, or was Eliza Jane’s widowhood something like another of my great-grandmother’s post-marital experience:  her “dead husband” was actually living down the street with their married daughter, but (sick of his drinking) he was “dead” to her!  When the census taker asked where Joseph was born (in the box by the child’s name) over the years we get mixed answers.  Eliza always said Maryland when answering for her children.  Her children (as adults) mentioned Virginia a handful of times.  My grandfather, John G. Scott, always told me that the Scotts came from Southwest Virginia and were somehow divided over the Dred Scott decision (with the Baltimore Scotts being outraged by it).  Is that a clue?  It’s such a specific event in history to pass down, might there be some truth to it?

One night in August of 2003 I dreamed that I was on a ship with Joseph Scott and his son Benjamin Franklin Scott (who was briefly a sail-maker) and we were fighting our way through a gale.  The next day I received my first email from Benjamin Franklin Scott’s great-great-great grandson (insert chills here).  Jim’s family was also on a quest to find Eliza Jane and Joseph.  We shared information and Jim mentioned that he had just found a researcher online with a Scott/Maddox family tree —and it included our family.  We emailed this researcher who was a descendant of James Scott and Elizabeth Maddox of Campbell County, Virginia.  She told us that she had seen a Bible years before that listed James Scott and Elizabeth Maddox and their children, along with Joseph Scott and Eliza Jane Maddox and some of their children.  The Bible seemed to indicate that James Scott and Joseph Scott were brothers, the sons of a John D. Scott (she had no dates of birth or death listed for Joseph or John D.).  It also appeared to indicate that Eliza Jane Maddox and Elizabeth Maddox were sisters.  The latter supposition is definitely not true (Eliza is the daughter of Edward and Rachel Maddox of Baltimore, Maryland.  Elizabeth is the daughter of Sherard Maddox and Catherine Simpson of Campbell County, Virginia and she had a sister named Eliza Jane too—more than 20 years younger than mine).  But could James and Joseph be brothers?  We are certainly an obscure family.  No one has written anything on us—in my opinion there is no reason we would be in another family’s Bible, unless we were related.

Genealogy requires a high standard of proof.  Since the researcher has never furnished a photocopy of this Bible page, nor have I found any records tying the Scotts together, I have filed this away under “probably true” but have despaired of ever finding out for certain.  As the years have gone on, I have investigated other possible angles.  When I discovered that a photo of my great-great grandfather Charles Scott (Eliza and Joseph’s son) was taken at a studio on Market Street in Wilmington, DE in 1853 (a city where we have no relatives to my knowledge) I went looking for Joseph Scott there.

I found one—also on Market Street, and he was a patent medicine dealer turned book seller who traveled frequently to Baltimore during the course of his career.  He was born in 1796 and died in 1856—the year Eliza and Joseph’s last child was born.  He was single until the last few years of his life, when he married a wealthy woman from New York.   I went to the Archives in Delaware to read his will (hoping it would mention a consort and illegitimate children!) but all he had went to the only wife I can prove he was his—not Eliza Jane.  Here and there I have tried to contact other researchers of the Campbell County Scott-Maddox family, with little luck.

But recently the stars aligned and I found the right person to marry up my history with a little definitive science.   I met a researcher with a private tree on Ancestry.com whose father is a direct male descendant of James Scott of Campbell County through his son William Peerman Scott.  Not only this, but when I mentioned the possibility of a DNA test, the family was quite willing.  So this week, my father (a direct male descendant of Joseph Scott) and the researcher’s father are swabbing the inside of their cheeks and sending the results to a lab in New Mexico that will then conduct a Y-DNA test.  What will that accomplish?

All males carry a Y-chromosome that are generally identical down the paternal line.  In other words, a snapshot of my father’s DNA will show the same chromosome carried by his father, and his grandfather, etc. and thus of Joseph Scott and of Joseph Scott’s father.  If the James Scott descendant in Virginia carries the same markers, then we know we share a common ancestor in the recent past (probably Joseph and James’ father).  If not, I will know Campbell County, Virginia is a dead end.

Though Joseph Scott did seem to have done his best to remain out of the public record—at least as far as his Baltimore family was concerned—soon I’ll have a very different, highly definitive identity for him.  Maybe I will never know where he truly spent his time (or how lost at sea he was), but with my father’s DNA (Campbell County positive or not) I can plug into any number of Scott family DNA projects and hopefully connect us to the rest of the family he omitted from his record.