#52 Ancestors 2022 Week 44 Shadows: Multi-Generational Shadows on the Charles Scrivener Family

 From the first time I came across this branch of the Scrivener family, I felt sorry for them.  So much sorrow touched this family over several generations. 

Charles Scrivener was born about 1817 in King George County VA, the son of James Scrivener and Ann Smallwood.  By the 1840's, both Charles and his brother James had moved to the District of Columbia, where Charles married Mary Ann Williams Hoban, the widow of Edward Hoban and daughter-in-law of James Hoban, the architect of the White House. Mary Ann brought her three-year-old daughter, Susanna Hoban, into the marriage. It seemed like a promising outlook for Charles. 

James Hoban's plan for the President's House, later The White House

 

Charles and Mary Ann had four daughters and two sons together:

*Ambrosia 1839

*Virginia/Jennie 1841

*Adelaide 1843 (d. young)

*Charles Jr. 1845 (d. young)

*Theodore 1848

*Ella Rose 1855

By 1853, however, it appeared that there were many shadows in the Scrivener family.  A report in the Evening Star recounted that Charles was charged with two counts of assaulting his wife. 

 It appeared that Scrivener was in the habit of drinking excessively, abusing his family, disturbing and alarming the neighbors, and on one occasion was stopped in pursuit of his wife with an axe in his hands. This was a common thing with him, and in the two cases under trial his conduct was of the same outrageous character. When sober he was always peaceable. but very seldom was he sober. 

Charles, in his turn, blamed his bad conduct on his wife's treatment of him, which some witnesses backed up.  Ultimately, the court forced Charles to secure a deed of trust, turning over his property for the care of his children. 

Charles died in April 1858 and was buried in Congressional Cemetery. 

In the 1860 Census, 42-year-old Mary A. Scrivener lived in the District with her unmarried daughters, Ambrosia, Virginia, Adelaide and Ella as well as her daughter Susanna Hoban and Susanna's husband, Robert Johnson and her 75-year-old mother, Mary A. Williams. 

Mary Ann Scrivener died in Washington DC in 1868 and was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery with her first husband, Edward Hoban.

Ambrosia and Ella Rose Scrivener married in Washington DC and died there.  Jennie Scrivener married patent medicine salesman Truman A. Cook and went through a rather scandalous divorce in the 1880's. Apparently, the Balm of Life was not enough to insure a happy marriage. 

But it was their brother Theodore who lived in the deepest shadow.  

In 1877, he married Kate Catis in Washington DC and worked as a laborer and various short-term jobs in the District throughout the 1880's and 1890's. Theodore and Kate had one son, Richard Henry (Dick) Scrivener, in 1878. 

By 1901, Theodore had a reputation similar to his father's as a "Police Fighter." The Washington Times reported that "Theodore Scrivener, fifty years old, a well-known character in police circles, [never a good thing!] . . . is again in the toils of Second precinct officials." After "liberal use of his club," a policeman managed to subdue "the obstreperous prisoner." He was charged on this occasion with vagrancy and assault and battery. 

In the 1910 Census, 62-year-old Theodore Scrivener was living in DC, with his wife Kate and son Richard. He had no occupation.  Kate worked as a laundress and Richard as a wagon driver. 

Theodore died in 1911 in the Tuberculosis Hospital in Washington.  

His wife and son suffered the greatest shadow of all. On 10 February 1915, The Evening Star reported that 70-year-old Kate Scrivener, "whose married life was a succession of troubles," was found murdered in her home, shot in the head by her son Dick, whose body was found in the next room, also shot in the head with a pistol lying next to him. The son, according the paper, was known to police as "a dope fiend" who sold flowers in the red-light district of the city. 

The newspaper went on to say that it was Kate who had kept the family together, appearing so frequently at the police station and the Police Court that she was a well-known figure in both places. "On many occasions her pleading resulted in taking the personal bond of her erring husband."

 Funeral services for the mother and son were held at the Catholic Church of the Holy Name.  Kate and Dick were buried next to Theodore Scrivener at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington DC. 

A sorrowful end to that family of Scriveners whose lives had been shadowed for several generations.