All posts by Scott C. Steward

About Scott C. Steward

Scott C. Steward was the founding editor at Vita Brevis; he served as NEHGS Editor-in-Chief 2013-2022. He is the author, co-author, or editor of genealogies of the Ayer, Le Roy, Lowell, Saltonstall, Thorndike, and Winthrop families. His articles have appeared in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, NEXUS, New England Ancestors, American Ancestors, and The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, and he has written book reviews for the Register, The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, and the National Genealogical Society Quarterly.

Torch-light processions

American History, Collections, Family Stories, NEHGS Collections, , , ,
Hedwiga Gray diary1
Hedwiga Regina Shober Gray diary, entries for 5-7 February 1864. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections

History is full of portentous moments – in retrospect. America, 1860: To us, today, it is axiomatic to say that, with the election of Abraham Lincoln, the nation teetered on the verge of civil war. Yet for one diarist, writing late in the year, the potential outcome of the presidential election was of very limited interest. Regina Shober Gray’s[1] near-daily diary entries take no notice of the rival candidates’ campaigns until early October. Her earliest mention is so vague that it would be easy to miss: Continue reading Torch-light processions →

Checking family stories

American History, Family Stories, , , ,

It’s funny how family stories take shape. The story of my great-great-grandfather’s business failure during the Crash of 1873, for instance: I had assumed (based on what information?) that the family at once retrenched, leaving their house on Fifth Avenue in a genteel retreat to my great-great-great-grandmother’s household around the corner, at 13 West Twenty-first Street, and that it was here my great-grandfather grew up. Yet a glance at my notes on the 1880 Census indicates that, on 2 June 1880, John Steward was the head of a large household at 152 Fifth Avenue which included his sons, mother- and sisters-in-law, son-in-law, grandchildren, and several servants.[1] Continue reading Checking family stories →

“No friend at court”

American History, Collections, Family Stories, NEHGS Collections, , , ,
Hedwiga Gray diary1
Hedwiga Regina Shober Gray diary, entries for 5-7 February 1864. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections

Just as Morris Gray seems to have been a model child, so Regina Shober Gray’s only daughter, Mary (1848–1923), appears to advantage in her mother’s diary. Inclined to be timid – a tendency the robust Mrs. Gray tried to counter[1] – Mary Clay Gray[2] never married, although she did not lack for suitors, as seen in her mother’s diary entry for 16 February 1873. Continue reading “No friend at court” →

A wedding at a glance

American History, Collections, Family Stories, , , ,

Beeckman Steward wedding invitationMy grandfather once told me that his parents had to wait for several years to marry. When they did, in January 1885, my great-grandfather was 32 and his bride 23 – hardly old by our standards, perhaps! My grandfather’s box of family papers yields a copy of the wedding invitation; even better, another envelope contains the tiny (2 5/8” by 4”) notebook in which my great-grandmother listed her wedding presents. Continue reading A wedding at a glance →

Family plots: Part Two

American History, Collections, Family Stories, Research Methods, , , , , ,

Coolidge plot HamiltonRiffing on something Chris Child wrote about collecting photos of family members in July, I thought I might do something similar with information about family burial plots. Such an exercise leans heavily on Findagrave.com (where some of the images may be found), although in my case I also have the notes compiled by my great-aunt Margaret Steward in 1966 as a resource for my research.

My grandparents are easy: my father’s parents (and stepmother) are buried at Hamilton Cemetery in Massachusetts, while my mother’s parents (and stepmother) are buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. I was present for my paternal grandfather’s memorial service in 1991, my maternal grandfather’s burial in 1994, and for my paternal step-grandmother’s memorial service in 1996. Continue reading Family plots: Part Two →

A research exercise updated

American History, Collections, Research Methods, , ,
Monroe Salisbury by DeGaston Studio.

Nine Vita Brevis readers took the plunge and sent in a set of complete answers to Monday’s research challenge. Thank you all for participating!

The winner had ten answers correct out of eleven; not a single person identified Monroe Salisbury (1876–1935), who played the second-billed Earl of Kerhill in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1914 western The Squaw Man.[1] Only one person correctly identified Milton Sills (1882–1930) as Gloria Swanson’s co-star in The Great Moment (1921); the general feeling among respondents was that Wallace Reid (1891–1923), who acted with Swanson in DeMille’s The Affairs of Anatol and Sam Wood’s Don’t Tell Everything (both 1921), was the man in the picture. Continue reading A research exercise updated →

Mrs. Gray on marriage

American History, Family Stories, , , ,
Hedwiga Gray diary1
Hedwiga Regina Shober Gray diary, entries for 5-7 February 1864. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections

Regina Shober Gray’s diary abounds in telling details and contemporary gossip; in some ways, her views on the marriages (and marriage prospects) of her friends call out some of her choicest phrasing:

Boston, ca. Sunday, 5 January 1873: Our cousin John C. Gray, jr.[1]’s engagement to Nina Mason (daughter of the late Rev. Charles M.[2]) was announced yesterday. She is 19 – he 33 or 34, a great difference at her age. On dit[3] he fell very desperately in love with her when travelling in Europe – and that her mother would not consent to any engagement till the child had seen at least one year of home society, thinking very naturally Nina was too young & inexperienced to know her own mind.

Sunday, 19 January 1873: Poor young Nellie U[4]’s miserable entanglement with Charles Walker has come to a crisis at last, after having been town talk for more than two years; and in all that time, no whisper or suspicion has reached her parents’ ears. Continue reading Mrs. Gray on marriage →

A research exercise

American History, Collections, Research Methods, Technology, , , ,
Click on the images to expand them

I tried this for July 4, and thought it might be fun to try it again: I have several photos of Hollywood actors and actresses associated with a director and a film, and I wonder if some Vita Brevis readers can square the circle and identify the photos’ subjects. Continue reading A research exercise →

“Free access”

American History, Collections, Family Stories, , , ,

122 Pearl Street abstract coverIt was a matter of some pride to my grandfather that his great-grandfather John Steward (1777–1854) bought the (downtown) Gracie Mansion[1] when he moved to New York more than two hundred years ago. Perhaps so, as John Steward lived at 1 Pearl Street until he moved far uptown to a new house at Fifth Avenue and Twenty-first Street, shortly before his death in 1854. The title abstracts in my grandfather’s box of family papers concerning John’s Pearl Street real estate are for some other properties – one was his store, at 80 Pearl Street,[2] while another (122 Pearl Street) was purchased from Mr. and Mrs. Charles McEvers. Continue reading “Free access” →

“The bitter end”

American History, Family Stories, NEHGS Collections, , , ,
Hedwiga Gray diary1
Hedwiga Regina Shober Gray diary, entries for 5-7 February 1864. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections

One of the most remarkable entries in the Regina Shober Gray diary – a document not short on remarkable entries – is the one where the diarist recounts a vivid dream in which she is a murderess. In the dream, as she says, she felt no “remorse or horror (for I did not deny the murder), but only a dull, stolid amazement that I should find myself in this disastrous, mortifying position.”[1]

The cool appraisal with which the diarist considers her feelings and motivations, the lack of self-consciousness about her professed guilt, and the ease with which she insists that she is a “lady” suggest that the diary was never meant to be read by others. Continue reading “The bitter end” →