Wikipedia

Mary Owens (Abraham Lincoln fiancée)

Mary S. Owens (September 29, 1808, Green County, Kentucky – July 4, 1877,[1] Weston, Missouri) was Abraham Lincoln's fiancée for a time after the 1835 death of Ann Rutledge. To his surprise and mortification, she rejected his reluctant proposal.

Life

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Mary Owens

She was the daughter of Nathaniel Owens, a prosperous planter who owned a plantation in Green County, Kentucky.[2]

Her sister Elizabeth "Betsey" Abell was a friend of Lincoln's in New Salem, Illinois.[2] She introduced Lincoln to Mary Owens when she came to visit in 1833,[2] with an eye to playing matchmaker.[3] After Owens went home, Lincoln said he "would marry Miss Owens if she came a second time to Illinois."[2]

Whether he was in earnest or merely joking, Owens did return in the fall of 1836, putting Lincoln in an awkward situation.[2] Her appearance had, in his eyes, deteriorated significantly in the intervening years; in an August 16, 1837, letter to Eliza Browning, he described Owens unflatteringly:

I knew she was over-size, but she now appeared a fair match for Falstaff; I knew she was called an 'old maid,' and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least half of the appelation [sic]; but now, when I beheld her, I could not for my life avoid thinking of my mother; and this, not from withered features, for her skin was too full of fat to permit its contracting in to wrinkles; but from her want of teeth, weather-beaten appearance in general, and from a kind of notion that ran in my head, that nothing could have commenced at the size of infancy, and reached her present bulk in less than thirtyfive or forty years; and, in short, I was not all pleased with her.[4]

In an attempt to get out of his predicament, he wrote letters to Owens in which he presented himself and Springfield (having moved there in April 1837) in as unfavorable a light as he could.[3]

Finally, doing the honorable thing, he proposed to her.[5] To his surprise, she rejected him, again and again, as he tried several times.[5] Lincoln had an odd reaction:

I finally was forced to give it up; at which I very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost beyond endurance. I was mortified, it seemed to me, in a hundred different ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection that I had been too stupid to discover her intentions, and at the same time never doubting that I understood them perfectly, and also that she, whom I had taught myself to believe nobody else would have, had actually rejected me with all my fancied greatness.[5]

In early 1838, Owens returned to Kentucky.[1] She married Jesse Vineyard (1808–1862) in 1841.[1] The couple eventually settled in Weston, Missouri. Jesse Vineyard and his brothers John and Bryce were members of the congregation of the Pleasant Ridge United Baptist Church in Weston, and the trio founded Pleasant Ridge College about a half a mile south of the church.[6] (She herself is interred in the church's cemetery.[6]) Mary and Jesse's sons fought in the American Civil War on the Confederate side.[1]

William Herndon, Lincoln's former law partner and biographer, tracked Owens down.[7] She informed him that "Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links which make up the great chain of woman's happiness".[1]

Painting

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Reynolds Jones was commissioned by the Chicago & Illinois Midland Railway Company to create an oil painting;[8] it depicts Lincoln sitting on the ground observing Owens arriving in New Salem and walking past him.[9] A print was used for the company's 1951 calendar.[8] The painting was acquired by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in 2013.[9]

Film and television depictions

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She was played by Catherine Burns in the miniseries Lincoln in the 1975 episode "Prairie Lawyer".[10][11] A much distorted Mary Owens is a character in the 2012 comedy-horror film Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "Owens, Mary S." Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved July 9, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Mary Owens". Kentucky Historical Society. Retrieved July 9, 2024.
  3. ^ a b Trenholm, Sandra. "Abraham Lincoln, Mary Owens, and the accidental engagement". Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Retrieved July 9, 2024.
  4. ^ "Letter, Abraham Lincoln to Mary S. Owens reflecting the frustration of courtship, 16 August 1837". Library of Congress. Retrieved July 9, 2024.
  5. ^ a b c Coates, Ta-Nehisi (May 14, 2011). "Lincoln in Love". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 9, 2024.
  6. ^ a b "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for Pleasant Ridge United Baptist Church" (PDF). Retrieved July 11, 2024.
  7. ^ Donald, David (March 5, 2013). Lincoln's Herndon. Read Books, Ltd. p. 213. ISBN 9781447487890. Retrieved July 9, 2024.
  8. ^ a b "Lincoln and Mary Owens". Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  9. ^ a b "Lincoln and Mary Owens". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  10. ^ Rothera, Evan C. (June 18, 2024). "Wetta & Novelli: Abraham Lincoln and Women in Film (2024)". The Civil War Monitor. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  11. ^ Catherine Burns at IMDb
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