#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 42 Proud: My Cousin the First Lady, Julia Dent Grant

After watching Grant on the History Channel this week, I was reminded that Grant’s wife Julia Boggs Dent, was a cousin of mine through my grandmother Elizabeth Dent,  so I would like to share something about her. 

Frederick Dent Sr.

Julia was the oldest daughter of Col. Frederick Fayette Dent and Ellen Bray Wrenshall, born in St. Louis MO 26 January 1826. Her grandfather, George Dent, fought in the Revolutionary War with the 3rd Maryland Battalion of the Flying Camp and was the Surveyor General of Maryland, who laid out the city of Cumberland MD, where he died in 1812.  

Like his father and grandfather, Frederick Dent was a surveyor.  In the early 1800's, Frederick left Cumberland where he was born and moved to Pittsburgh PA where he went into the mercantile business. There he married Ellen, the English-born daughter of Methodist preacher John Wrenshall.  

Dent, along with his brother-in-law, George Boggs, moved to St. Louis MO about 1815.  Frederick became the Surveyor General of Missouri and acquired Whitehaven plantation outside St. Louis, which stayed in the Dent family for three generations afterward. It was here that Julia Boggs Dent was born and grew up, enjoying a very comfortable lifestyle in the highly social environment of her father's plantation. Frederick Dent, active in politics and rabidly anti-abolitionist, counted explorer William Clark and Missouri Governor Alexander McNair among his close friends. 

From 1836 to 1844, Julia attended Miss Moreau's boarding school in St. Louis, where she enjoyed studying literature, but was not so keen on mathematics.  Here she developed a lifelong passion as a voracious reader of novels.  She was an accomplished pianist and enjoyed singing along to her own accompaniment.  She was also an avid horsewoman and loved riding and attending horse races throughout her life

Lt. Grant

Her brother Frederick, meanwhile was a cadet at West Point where he was a classmate of Ulysses Grant and his roommate during their last year.  He wrote to his sister how impressed he was with Grant: "I want you to know him; he is pure gold." When Grant was later stationed at Jefferson Barracks outside St. Louis, he naturally paid a call on his friend and as he noted in his Memoirs, "found the family congenial, so my visits became frequent."  Certainly 17-year-old Julia was a big part of the attraction.  Col. Dent disapproved of the match, believing that his daughter would not be able to endure the hardships that being married to a career Army officer might require. Nevertheless, they became informally engaged, and eventually Col. Dent gave his reluctant blessing to the marriage.  Grant's service in the Mexican War delayed the wedding until 1848 when they married at the Dent's town home in St. Louis. 

Grant's parents, Jesse Root Grant and Hannah Simpson, extremely religious and vehement abolitionists, did not approve of their son marrying into a slave-holding family, and refused to attend the wedding. 

Captain Grant and his wife spent the first several years of their marriage in Army camps, stationed in Detroit MI and Sackett Harbor NY.  When Grant was sent to the Pacific Coast in 1852, Julia returned to stay with her family in St. Louis along with their two sons, Frederick and Ulysses. In 1854, depressed and drinking heavily, Grant resigned from the Army, and the family struggled financially as Grant tried farming and finally moved to Galena IL where Grant took a position in his father's tannery shop.  

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant determined to return to active military service.  President Lincoln commissioned him as a Brigadier General. Whenever possible, Julia joined Ulysses in camp, often volunteered as a nurse, and took over responsibility for managing the family finances.  Julia's father tried to induce Grant to join the Confederate Army, but Grant was committed to preserving the Union and most of Julia's family denounced her.  "If you are one of the accursed Lincolnites," one of her aunts wrote, "the ties of consanguinity shall be forever severed." Julia did manage to avoid an outright breach with her father, while maintaining her absolute loyalty to her husband. 

After his victories in the Western Theater at Vicksburg, Chattanooga and elsewhere,  followed by a hard-fought campaign in Virginia, Grant accepted Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House in April 1865 and emerged from the Civil War as a great public hero.   Grant himself seemed somewhat embarrassed at his post-war honors, but Julia reveled in seeing him made a hero. When the Grant family arrived back home in Galena IL, the city presented them with a fine brick house that was their residence for many years. 

Julia was extremely protective of her husband's reputation and vehemently denied that her husband ever consumed excessive alcohol, whether because she believed that or was unaware of the extent of Grant's drinking.  She was also concerned about her own presentation to the public and being very sensitive about her crossed eyes, always had her picture taken in a sideways view. 

Five days after his victory at Appomattox, Grant attended a cabinet meeting in Washington, and was invited to join the Lincolns at Ford's Theatre.  At Julia's urging, Grant declined and boarded the train with Julia for their home in Philadelphia, thus avoiding a potential assassination along with Lincoln.

Following the impeachment of President Johnson, the Republican Party nominated Grant for president in 1868 and he was sworn in as the 18th President on March 4, 1869 and was elected to a second term in 1872. 

Julia Dent Grant exulted in her position as First Lady. (In fact, she was the very first to be called the First Lady.)  She cherished the adulation she received and happily embraced her public role. She ordered the Capital building open to the public once a week and encouraged working-class government clerks to feel comfortable attending her public receptions.  She put a great deal of effort into planning elaborate state dinners, hiring an Italian chef to create lavish 25-course feasts for her guests.  She helped expand the popularity of Victorian Christmas celebrations and was among the first to send out the newly popular Christmas cards. She encouraged the press to write about her and her events.  

One of her more ambitious projects was the refurbishment of the shabby public rooms of the White House.  With a $100,000 appropriation from Congress, she brought the rooms to the epitome of  Gilded Age style: heavily scrolled and crested furniture, elaborate chandeliers with multiple globes for gaslight. She even had the Army Corps of Engineers add Grecian columns to the façade of the building. The Grants' only daughter, Ellen Wrenshall Grant, was married in the newly redesigned East Room in 1874, making national headlines with images of the ceremony, the decorations and the clothing. 

Julia Grant enthusiastically encouraged her husband to seek an unprecedented third term in office and was devastated when he declined to do so. She cried as she left the White House.

Grants at Chinese Emperor's Palace

Within weeks, however, Julia and Lyss set off on an unprecedented and legendary two-and-a-half year world tour. They were feted through England, Scotland, Belgium, France, Italy, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Poland, Austria, Spain, Portugal, India, Singapore, Thailand, China, and Japan.  Julia wanted to experience every new thing on her trip. In India she rode an elephant; her appearance at the Paris Exposition of 1878 caused a sensation; in China she gamely tried eating with chopsticks; she rode donkeys up the Italian hillsides. 

The New York Tribune covered the trip providing a running chronicle of Julia's adventures that contributed to the public affection for her during the rest of her life. 

The Grants finished up their tour with a trip across the United States, finally arriving at their home in Galena in November 1879.

The Grants lived in New York after their return where Julia greatly enjoyed being at the center of the Gilded Age social life, appearing at theater premieres and subscribing to the Metropolitan opera. Julia held receptions for visiting celebrities in rooms decorated with relics of her husband's military  career and the lavish gifts presented to the Grants during their world tour. When the Grants lost most of their money in a ponzi scheme, they were rescued by financier Cornelius Vanderbilt.  Julia attempted to repay him by giving him their world tour gifts.  But Vanderbilt insisted that they should be left to the American people instead and so Julia donated Grant's Civil War memorabilia and state gifts to the Smithsonian. 

Grant hoped to restore the family fortune by writing and publishing his memoirs but was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer.  At Julia's urging, he retreated to a cabin in the Adirondacks donated by a friend to work on his writing. Julia and their married children and grandchildren all took up residence. Mark Twain was among the visitors to the Grants. 

On July 23, 1885, just a few days after finishing his memoir, Grant died.  Julia was too devastated to attend what was the largest public funeral ever held in New York.  Julia insisted that the plans for Grant's Tomb include space for her as well. She was a central figure in the groundbreaking in 1891 and at the dedication in 1897.

Grant's memoirs were very profitable; Julia received the largest royalty check in history ($200,000) just a year after their publication. She invested well and was able to have a comfortable lifestyle in her widowhood.

As a presidential widow, Julia continued to maintain a high public profile and had close relationships with other first ladies. She was even captured in an Edison moving picture, the first instance of a First Lady being recorded in this manner. In her later years, she often made herself available to reporters and others seeking the likely viewpoint of the late president on various matters and began to write short articles for popular national magazines. She also wrote her own memoirs, but they were not published until 1973.

She traveled to California, to Europe and to Canada before finally settling in Washington DC with her daughter. She died there on December 14, 1902 at the age of 74 and was buried beside her husband a few days later. 

A Literary Digest reporter granted an 1896 interview by Mrs. Grant recorded that, “No married couple ever lived closer to each other than did the General and Mrs. Grant. She was, perhaps, his only real confidant. The two were one in almost everything, and their life was a most beautiful one.” Julia Grant claimed that any recognition she received was not due to her own accomplishments but a reflection of respect for her late husband, that “the light of his glorious fame still reaches out to me, falls upon me, and warms me."  

For more detail on Julia, see the wonderful First Ladies site:

http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=19

#52 Ancestors Week 35 Unforgettable: Effie Gwynn Bowie, The Chronicler of Prince George's County

My great-aunt, Effie Gwynn Bowie, like her sister, my great-grandmother, Louise Gwynn Scrivener, loved family history and she made that love very concrete in her landmark work,  Across the Years in Prince George's County.

Effie Augusta Gwynn, the oldest child of Andrew Jackson Gwynn and Marie Louise Keene, was born in Baltimore MD 20 February 1869 and baptized in Baltimore's Cathedral of the Assumption where her parents had been married a year earlier. At the age of 8, although her family was living in Spartanburg SC, Effie was sent to Mount St. Agnes In Baltimore MD  to study with the Sisters of Mercy, where her aunt, Sr. Mary Augustine, was the mother superior.  Since her family was so far away, Effie often spent the school vacations with her aunt and godmother, Harriett Clotilda Gwynn Bowie (Aunt Clocy) in Prince George's County where her father had grown up.  Effie graduated from Mount St. Agnes in 1886, taking home the school's medal for music in which she excelled.

Aunt Clocy

After graduation, Effie divided her time between her parents' home in Spartanburg and her godmother's home in Maryland. Spartanburg in 1886, as Effie describes it, was a college town, and Effie's life there was a round of  parties, operettas, horseback rides, vacation trips to the mountains of North Carolina and college dances as well as the St. Cecelia Balls in Charleston.

However, it was not a Carolina boy who won her heart.  Instead she was courted and married by Richmond Irving Bowie, the widowed younger brother of Aunt Clocy's husband, Benjamin Hall Clark Bowie. Effie was married at her parents' home in Spartanburg in July 1894, wearing her mother's wedding dress and veil. Effie's sister, Loulie, acted as her maid of honor, dressed in pink silk.  The couple spent their honeymoon in Asheville, Charleston, Boston and New York. They returned to Irving's Bowie's home, Norbourne, where Effie took over the management of the household and Bowie's three sons from his first marriage.

The Bowies had seven children together: Marie Clotilde (1895), Andrew Gwynn (1896), Louise Keene (1898), Benjamin Hall Clark (1900), Andrew Keene (1902), Richmond Irving Jr. (1904), Effie Augusta (1907), and Harriett Clotilda (1912).  Richmond Irving Bowie, a graduate of Charlotte Hall Military Academy, served as Chief Judge of the Orphan's Court of Prince George's County.  He died  suddenly at his home in 1923 at the age of 65. After his death, Effie returned to Beechwood to assist her widowed  Aunt Clocy who died in 1928 at the age of 97.

Effie was then free to pursue her longtime dream of writing about Prince George's County and its families.  As she noted in the preface to her book, "To find the spirit of an individual or a locality requires sympathetic acquaintance."  And that she had in abundance. She had set out to write a short account of happy memories of her time with her Aunt Clocy at Beechwood.  Instead, Across the Years grew to over 900 pages and included not only her personal reminiscences but also a comprehensive genealogical history of dozens of Prince George's families, covering almost 12,000 individuals.  And so in 1946 was born the genealogical Bible of Prince George's County: Across the Years in Prince George's County.

Besides her writing, Effie was also active in many genealogical and historical societies including the DAR, the Colonial Dames, and the Pilgrims of St. Mary's, to name but a few. In the picture below, she is with her sister Louise and brother-in-law Frank Scrivener at the graves of their grandparents, John Hilleary Gwynn and Ann Eliza Dyer. She was also one of the first women to serve on the PG County Democratic State Central Committee. She travelled to Europe in 1937 with her sister Louise for the coronation of George VI, returning from Bremen Germany aboard the City of Newport News.

The two sisters were always close and the photo below shows the two families about 1931.

Effie is standing in the center next to her sister Louise (in the hat).  At the far left is Effie's son Dr.  Keene Bowie and his wife Ethel with their son, Andrew Keene Bowie Jr. My grandmother Elizabeth Dent Scrivener is standing next to Ethel in the cloche hat.  My grandfather Frank Scrivener Jr. is stooping down with his son Jack.  The girls seated in front are Marie Gwynn, my aunt Louise (Reds) Scrivener, and Mary Hammond, niece of Effie and Louise. Effie's daughter Effie Bowie Mahoney (later Melchior) is standing next to her with her daughter Effie Mahoney in front of her. My great-grandfather, Frank Scrivener Sr. is standing in the back row with just his head poking up over Effie's shoulder.  On the far right are Louise Bowie Hall and her husband Frank Magruder Hall and their son Frank Hall Jr. My father Frank Scrivener III is the little boy seated at the far right, looking very put out about the whole proceeding. Next to him is Bowie Hall, the son of Frank and Louise. My mother thought that the woman next to Louise Hall was Dr. Emily Hammond, a niece of Effie and Louise. The baby that Effie is holding might be Charles Carter Hall, the youngest son of Frank and Louise. (Unfortunately, neither my mother nor I were able to identify the handsome young man on the far right or the couple standing behind Effie.)


Effie Gwynn Bowie died at Beechwood, her home in Upper Marlboro, 22 June 1950 at the age of 81. She is buried beside her husband at Trinity Church Cemetery in Upper Marlboro.

My well-worn copy of Across the Years remains one of my prized possessions, a copy passed down from my grandmother to my mother to me. Effie Gwynn Bowie's work assures that her family (and mine) in Prince George's County will not be forgotten.

#52 Ancestors Week 30 The Old Country: Francis Hall and the American Revolution

My 7X-great grandfather, Francis Hall, was born about 1696 in Prince George's County MD. His sister Elinor having died at age 5, Francis was also the sole heir of his parents, Benjamin Hall and Mary Brooke.

Benjamin Hall built his home at Pleasant Hill, on land near the Patuxent River, during Francis's lifetime and had his son's initials inset in colored brick into the wall of the house. The house was described as:
'The great front doorway and arched hall within are typically Colonial; the rooms are large and well lighted, with huge fireplaces and plenty of closets; the stairway fine and easy of ascent. "

St. Omer

Although Benjamin was born in the Quaker faith, he converted to Catholicism.  Like many Maryland Catholics, Benjamin sent his son to France for his education at St. Omer's College, founded in 1593 as the English Jesuit College (in Flanders) in order to escape England's harsh legislation against Catholic education.  Since affiliation with the Church of England was required to attend Oxford and  Cambridge, Catholic families sent their sons to St. Omer's.

At his father's death in 1721, Francis inherited Pleasant Hill and a large estate which he expanded considerably during his lifetime.

Francis Hall married about 1718 to Dorothy Lowe, the daughter of Col. Henry Lowe and Susanna Maria Bennett.  Francis and Dorothy had three sons and three daughters: Benjamin 1719, Richard Bennett 1726, Eleanor 1730, Francis Jr. 1732 (my 6X-great grandfather), Susanna, and Henrietta.

Now, when the American colonies sought independence from Great Britain, Francis was an ardent supporter of the cause.  According to a fictionalized account in St. Nicholas Magazine, written by a great-granddaughter in 1889,  Francis was a Jacobite (a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie) and did not think he owed any allegiance to the current occupant of the throne. At the very beginning of the Revolution, he joined an association of patriots who pledged themselves neither to purchase nor use any goods from England. Francis sent cart loads of home spun cloth to support the American soldiers and he himself could certainly have worn that as many other patriots did.

However, family tradition says that he had another, more symbolic, action in mind. On hearing of the Battle of Lexington that began the war,  Francis put on a fine coat of blue English cloth with gilt buttons and made a vow that he would wear the same coat until the war was ended. As the years went by, the coat got worse and worse "faded and patched and mean-looking" according to the story, much to the embarrassment of his granddaughters. Although he was a man of great wealth, Francis wore the same patched and ragged coat until he received news of  Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown in 1781.

Cornwallis Surrender

Another family story has it that one day some elegantly dressed French officers came to call on Francis. They did not recognize the master of the house in the shabbily dressed old man that they saw in the garden.  But his fluent French allowed them to recognize the scholarly Francis Hall.

Francis died at his  home in 1785, at the age of 89, leaving a will that named his children.

Francis's wife Dorothy lived to be almost 100 years old and was a formidable woman in her own right.  At the age of 90, she was (according to family legend), still able to swat a servant on the head when she felt she wasn't shown the proper respect. She died at the family home in 1803 at the age of 99.

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 45 Bearded: Our Hirsute Heritage

I'd have to look back several generations on my side of the family to find someone who sported a beard.

JK Summers

Rev Sasscer

My Dad--no.  My grandfathers--no.  Grandmothers either.  Great-grandfathers--OK, Rev Sasscer does have a nice mustache and John Kostka Summers has a very distinguished pointy beard going.










In the 2X greats, Francis Wallis has the scraggly beard and William Boswell Scrivener a nice neat beard. Captain Andrew Jackson Gwynn had a beard, at least when he was in the Army.  The rest of the time, he went clean-shaven.

Great, great grandfather John Marshall Dent had a look similar to GG Wallis, while his father Col. John Francis Dent had a look more like GG Scrivener.

And of course, there is my 3X-great grandfather, the world traveler, Francis Ludolph Wallis, the subject of the famous portrait, with a dainty little chin covering.

But, if my sons really want to explore their hairy heritage, they will have to look to their father's side of the family.  Now there were men who knew how to do a beard! Compared to the men in their paternal ancestry, their maternal grandfathers were pikers.

Take 2X Great Grandfather, George Washington Yoxtheimer, a farmer from Northumberland PA, for example:

However, I think the real champions of beard couture are the ancestors from West Virginia. Those men knew how to rock their facial hair.

Take a look at  2X Great Grandfather, John Wise Counsel Walker:

Or how about Great Uncles Ned and Owen Sizemore (with the sporty split beard):

Or 3X-Great Grandfather Numa Walker:

But, I think the prize-winning beard in the whole family is Elijah Preston Meadows:

Now, there is a beard you can brag about!

I only wish I had more pictures so I could further explore the family's bearded ancestry. 

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 47 Good Deeds: Sr. Mary Augustine Gwynn, Mercy Hospital Pioneer

Ann Eliza Gwynn, my 3X-great aunt and older sister of my 2X-great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Gwynn, was born in the Piscataway District of Prince George's County MD in 1826. (You can see two of the Gwynn family properties on the attached 1861 map of the district, as well as St. Mary's Catholic Church which they would have attended.)

Ann Eliza Gwynn

Ann was the daughter of John Hilleary Gwynn and Ann Eliza Dyer. Besides running his own farm, John H. Gwynn was a tobacco inspector at the Piscataway Warehouse. His home, Pleasant Springs, was described as "a large two-story and attic house with piazzas latticed at the ends and covered with running roses." (Effie Gwynn Bowie) John H. Gwynn died in 1857 and left his home plantation to his youngest son, Andrew Jackson Gwynn, with the stipulation that his unmarried/widowed daughters, including Ann, would always have a home there. However, they had little chance to enjoy that home as it was burned to the ground, allegedly by Union soldiers, during the Civil War.  With little left of their home, John's sons, including AJ, moved out of the county after the War. His widowed daughter Susan Heiskell lived in a small house on the property for the remainder of her life.  His widowed daughter Margaret Edelen moved to Baltimore.

This loss of home also proved to be a turning point for Ann. At the age of 38 and unmarried, she decided to enter the religious order of the Sisters of Mercy, located at Poppleton Street in Baltimore early in 1864. On the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, 29 June 1866, she was professed as Sr. Mary Augustine R.S.M in the chapel of St. Peter's Convent. In 1867, even though she was still a novice at the time, Sr. M. Augustine was sent to Cumberland with a group of six other sisters to start a school there. Because of her age and experience, she was appointed the first superior at the new convent.

Meanwhile, back in Baltimore, the Washington University School of Medicine had opened a

dispensary at Calvert and Saratoga Streets to care for poor patients in the city. Young doctors would receive clinical experience there to supplement their classroom education.  By 1874, however, the doctors realized that their dispensary needed effective nursing care and so they invited the Sisters of Mercy to take over the facility. So, on a chilly November day in 1874, Sr. Mary Augustine arrived with six sisters to take charge of the clinic.  In 1909, the hospital's name changed from Baltimore City Hospital to Mercy Hospital and since then 16 Sisters of Mercy have served as president of what is now Mercy Medical Center (where, incidentally, my siblings and I were born, lo these many years ago). .But Sr. Mary Augustine Gwynn was the pioneer.


In 1877, Sr. M. Augustine was elected as Mother Superior of the Maryland Province of the Sisters of Mercy.  When the Sisters assumed charge of the Lombard Street Infirmary in 1880, Sr. Augustine was again in charge of the task. In her role as superior, she "gave satisfaction to the medical faculty.  The patients loved her, the physicians respected her and the sisters had great confidence in her wisdom and prudence. " (The Sisters of Mercy in Maryland)

From 1892 to 1895, Sr. Augustine served as bursar of the community and in the early days of Mount St. Agnes, she was mistress of Novices, housed in the iconic Octagon Building on the campus.

After thirty-six years of generous service to God, Sister M. Augustine Gwynn was called to her reward on December 1, 1900.  She was buried in the Cemetery at Mount St. Agnes Convent in Mt. Washington.

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 29 Newsworthy: Woodruff Marbury Somervell, Architect Extraordinaire

My cousin, Woodruff Marbury Somervell may not have been as famous or quite as flamboyant as his contemporary, Frank Lloyd Wright, (although he did have a Hupmobile and I think that counts toward flamboyance) but he did leave his mark on American architecture. He has been described as "the supreme talent of Vancouver." Somervell was the architect that provided a booming Seattle with architectural symbols of its new civic institutions.

Woodruff Marbury Somervell started life as Woodruff Marbury McCafferty, born in Washington DC in 1872 to Augustus McCafferty (about whom I have previously written) and Mary Eliza "Lalla" Somervell. He legally changed his name to Somervell in 1904.  One of his biographers claimed that this had to do with an inheritance from his paternal grandfather.  Now, I happen to know that his paternal grandfather, John Howe Somervell, husband of Sarah Jane Scrivener, died without a penny to his name.  So I doubt that inheritance was the reason.  But in any case, he did change his name as did his younger brother, Bruce.

Marbury McCafferty grew up in Tompkinsville NY where his father worked for the Lighthouse Department. He attended the Staten Island Academy and Latin School before studying architecture at Cornell, graduating in 1892.  After he won the American Architect Travelling Scholarship, he enrolled at the School of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy and studied at various ateliers in Paris in 1893.

When he returned to the States, he worked for James Renwick in New York and had a hand in putting the finishing details on the construction of St. Patrick's Cathedral.  From 1901 to 1904, he worked for Heins and LaFarge who sent him to Seattle in 1904 to supervise the construction of St. James Cathedral.  It was a life-changing move. He liked Seattle and decided to stay.  He opened his own architectural firm and spent the next two decades designing and building in Seattle, Vancouver and Los Angeles. (I think this move may have been the impetus for the name change.)

One of Somervell's (as he was known thence forward) first big commissions was the building of free libraries in Seattle, funded by a generous donation from steel tycoon and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.  Somervell and his partner built a half dozen of these. The Tudor-Revival style Queen Anne Branch built in 1914 was typical of his work, featuring reading rooms, a children's story room and an auditorium in the basement.  Both the Queen Anne Branch and the University Branch (1910) are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Seattle Library University Branch 1910

Here is a description of another of his libraries:

Douglass-Truth Library, Seattle The original library is an unlikely cross between Italianate architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright that works thanks to the design's balanced composition, stately proportions and glazed terra cotta ornament. Designed by W. Marbury Somervell and Harlan Thomas, Douglass-Truth has a broad hip roof covered with Spanish tile, light-colored brick and tall windows ganged together to underscore the library's Prairie Style horizontal composition. A fecund mix of fruit, cherubs and open books adorns a terra cotta frieze at the cornice line and surrounds the main entry. 

Yesler Branch (Now Douglass-Truth)

Somervell went on to design banks, hospitals, schools, and office buildings throughout Seattle and Vancouver, where he had opened an office in 1910. He even worked with his partner Harlan Thomas to design the iconic Corner Market at the entrance to Pike's Place in Seattle.

One of his more spectacular designs was the Manufactures Building for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibition in Seattle in 1908.

He designed many residences, one for his in-laws, Ellwood Hughes and Emma Jane De Hart, in the exclusive Highlands suburb of Seattle, his own summer residence outside Los Angeles, and a Mediterranean-style villa called Taynayan for Louis Dreyfus in Santa Barbara.

.

Taynayan 1924

Marbury Somervell married Helen Mary Hughes at St. Mark's Church in Seattle in 1907.  They had one daughter, Jane DeHart Somervell, in 1908.

Marbury enlisted in 1917 and served under General Pershing in the American Expeditionary Force in France and later in Italy with the Engineering Corps during WWI. He stayed in France after the war to help with the restoration of damaged monuments.

When he returned to the States, he and his family moved to Los Angeles.  His work seemingly kept him busy driving the highways of the West Coast in his Hupmobile Century 125, as the story below indicates.

In addition to his skill in architecture, Marbury was also a talented artist and some of his landscapes were exhibited at the Paris Salon in the 1920's.

Marbury and Helen Somervell were divorced about 1930 and he married Hortense Koepfli and retired to Europe.  He died in Cannes, France in 1939.   As these examples from his work amply illustrate, he was a man of varied talents, able to design in a wide range of architectural styles from Victorian to Mediterranean to Italianate to Prairie.