Mr. Washington did not date any of these letters. Probably both were written in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
36 Kiwassa Road
Saranac Lake, N. Y.
Dear Mr. Dye,
Mrs. W. K. Sagendorph tells me
your once gave her some information about the Dye family. I am trying to
learn the parentage & further ancestry of Mary Dye (1 Dec 1802 - 7 Oct 1840)
who married Col. Stark Fielder (6 Apr 1798 - 29 Feb 1864) of Louisville,
Kentucky. They were married in Mason Co., Kentucky 11 or 12 July 1827. The
dates are from a Bible printed in 1846, The Family Bible record of their
daughter.
If, as Mrs. Sagendorph says, you have a good deal of information on the Dye
family, I wonder if you could tell me any thing about the family this Mary Dye,
or suggest how I might learn this information. I would be grateful for any
help.
Sincerely yours,
John A. Washington
36 Kiwassa Road
Saranac Lake, N. Y.
Dear Mr. Dye,
Thank you very much for your
letter & the enclosed data.
( I do not know what data John sent him.)
I fear it could hardly relate to the family I am seeking, could it?
My Mary Dye was born 1 Dec
1802, place unknown, but probably in Mason Co., Kentucky, where Dyes had lived
since an early date. She was married there at any rate, on 11 or 12 July 1827
to Stark Fielder, and she died in St Louis 7 Oct 1840. They lived on Locust
St., between 5th & 6th according to a "funeral notice" which is preserved. I
do not know Stark Fielder's business, but he carried the title of Col. and
seems to have been fairly prosperous. He married a second time after Mary
Dye's death and had three daughters who are thought to have had no issue.
Mary Dye had only three
children who survived, it would appear, to judge by the family Bible started by
her daughter in 1848. These three children were Elizabeth Fielder, who died in
youth, John A. Fielder, who died unmarried about the age of 35, and Margaret
Dye Fielder, my great-grandmother, whose descendants are also her mother's only
surviving descendants.
Margaret Dye Fielder (19 Apr
1828 - 1 Sept 1882) was brought up in a convent after her Mother's death,
although the family was Protestant.
There was a quarrel between her and her young stepmother, which partly accounts
for our lack of knowledge of any of Margaret Dye Fielder's ancestors or family.
She married 21 Dec 1846 Edward
Tyler Sturgeon (1817 - 1884) of Louisville & St. Louis. He was captain of
steamboats on the Ohio & Mississippi Rivers, including the
Eclipse
, which he built; it is said to have been well-known in its day. When the War
1861-5 interrupted with traffic he engaged in banking & wholesale grain
enterprises. He lived in Louisville most of his life, but died in St. Louis.
The Sturgeons had five
children, Mary Dye's only grandchildren. Three of these died in infancy. A
son, Edward Sturgeon (1856 - 1912) lived in Chicago, married, had only one son,
Edward Tyler Sturgeon, who is in the lumber business in Oregon & has three
daughters.
The fifth and last grandchild of Mary Dye is my grandmother, Nannie Sturgeon,
born 1859 & now living in Germantown, Pennsylvania. In 1804 she married my
grandfather, Richard Blackburn Washington, jr., (1856 - 1922). He was the son
of Richard Scott Blackburn Washington of Harewood
(?? hard to read)
& Blakeley, Jefferson Co., West Virginia, the younger brother of the last
family owner of Mount Vernon, and a great-grandnephew of the President.
My grandfather R. B. W.,jr.,
was born at Blakeley, mentioned above, & as a young man settled in New Mexico,
where he owned a silver mine. On one of his periodic trips between Virginia &
New Mexico, he met my grandmother in Louisville or St. Louis, where she divided
her time, and they were married in 1885. After a few more years in New Mexico,
they came East permanently and settled eventually in Woodbury, New Jersey,
where my grandfather was associated with the Wellsbach Company, which made -
and still makes - gas mantles, of all unlikely things.
They had four children & nine
grandchildren, who are listed in R. B. Henry's
Genealogies of the Families of Presidents
(1935), (page 82), and there are, so far, ten greatgrandchildren, all born
since 1935. My father managed a dynamite factory and owned a cold-storage
plant in Le Roy, New York and died at an early age. I am still young, have
completed one year of medical school, am ill at present, & hope to complete my
education when my health permits.
I hope this sufficiently
answers your request that I tell you about my family, where they lived, etc. &
hope I have not gone too far & bored you. The Washington genealogy is so
extensive and well known that it would take volumes to cover it. My knowledge
of it is chiefly restricted to the descendants of the old general's father, of
there are several thousand, & my only original (i.e. unpirated) records are of
modern families of these descendants. I do not recognize the "Seldon, Wells,
Stone, Ball line" of which you speak, & would be grateful if you would
elucidate that for me. I know of Seldon & Ball brides in the family, but do
not recognize the Stone & Wells names, or connect Seldon & Ball with them.
I shall be grateful for names
of Dyes to whom I might write about the Mason Co., Kentucky branch. - The names
you say you may send me. I hope in time to get the names of my Mary Dye's
parents. Then perhaps you may be able to help me.
With thanks for yor letter and
good wishes.
Sincerely yours,
John A. Washington
22 March