A City Honors Its Esteemed Daughter

It was a special privilege for me on Tuesday to join New York State Regent Patrice Birner and New York State District IV Director Heather Mabee to cut the ceremonial ribbon on a new exhibit at the Saratoga Springs History Museum that honors the life of Ellen Hardin Walworth, one of our National Society’s Four Founders. She was an extraordinary woman whose enduring legacy is an inspiring example of courage, resilience and patriotism in every age.

Though born in Illinois, she arrived in Saratoga when her mother re-married the last Chancellor of New York State; Ellen married his son (her stepbrother) and operated a school on Broadway here for 15 years. Mrs. Walworth was a prolific author who wrote on patriotic and historic subjects. She was an authority on the battlefields of Saratoga, published an account of the Burgoyne campaign and devoted much of her energy and attention to the completion of the Battle of Saratoga Monument – raising most of the funds for it and serving as the only female on the State-appointed commission that built the 155-foot obelisk near the site of General Burgoyne’s surrender to General Horatio Gates.

As the Smithsonian Report of 1890–1897 states, “The first step taken was to declare the basis of the society a national one, and the name of Mrs. Benjamin Harrison was proposed for President General.” The following day a membership Application and a request to accept our highest office were sent to First Lady Harrison at the White House. She, of course, accepted. (Incidentally, it would be at Ellen’s later suggestion that the Society commission a portrait of Caroline Scott Harrison as a gift to The White House; and that a copy of it be made for DAR – it hangs today in the President General’s Reception Room at Constitution Hall.)

The three women (Walworth, Washington and Desha) next began writing letters and invitations to other influential women to begin discussions.  Mrs. Lockwood agreed to offer her residence as the site of an October 11, 1890, meeting where the formal organization of the DAR would occur. These four women are considered the Four Founders of our National Society.

Though she was involved in many other organizations and causes over the years (for example, in a speech at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, she became the first to urge the establishment of a National Archives), Ellen Hardin Walworth was actively involved in our organization during its first 25 years of existence.  For example, she suggested our original motto “Amor Patriae,” or “Love of Country.” It was at first accepted -- but changed a few meetings later to “Home and Country.”

As director general of the Woman’s National War Relief Association in 1898 during the Spanish-American War, Mrs. Walworth was surely involved in our National Society’s decision to create what would become the Army Nurse Corps of today. DAR Member Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee founded the corps and recruited our members to be its first nurses.

While it saddens me to think that there is no permanent public marker noting her involvement in our formation, I invite you to visit our National Headquarters, where you will not only see her portrait hanging above our DAR Library but also her original DAR Application framed and hung with pride along a first floor hallway. In addition, of course, the beautiful Founders Memorial stands on our grounds and is honored each year with a wreath in memory of the Four Founders. We also distribute Founders Medals – including the Ellen Hardin Walworth Medal for Patriotism, which honors an adult who has displayed outstanding patriotism in the promotion of our American ideals of “God, Home and Country” through faithful and meritorious service to community, state or nation.

On behalf of the nearly 190,000 members of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, I expressed sincere gratitude for this wonderful exhibit that honors one of our Society’s Four Founders in order that future generations will know of her inspiring story.

Postscript: If you are not aware, Mrs. Walworth’s life beyond our Society is one that that would truly merit a Hollywood movie – and if you have not read any of the accounts, I encourage you to do so. The unvarnished “Fall of the House of Walworth – A Tale of Madness and Murder in Gilded Age America” by Geoffrey O’Brien is one that I often recommend. Her story is a study in overcoming adversity – of triumphing over tragedy to live a purpose-driven life no matter how difficult the obstacles placed before you.