Olive Risley Seward (July 15, 1844 – November 27, 1908) was a writer and the adopted daughter of
William Henry Seward
William Henry Seward (May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872) was an American politician who served as United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, and earlier served as governor of New York and as a United States Senate, United States Senat ...
,
United States Secretary of State
The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...
under
Presidents
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
and
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...
.
Early life
Olive F. Risley, was born in
Fredonia, New York
Fredonia is a village in Chautauqua County, New York, United States. The population was 9,871 as of the 2020 census. Fredonia is in the town of Pomfret south of Lake Erie. The village is the home of the State University of New York at Fredonia ( ...
. She was the daughter of the former Harriet C. Crosby and Hanson A. Risley, a prominent civil servant who later worked for the Secretary of the Treasury and resided in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
She was the fourth of five children, though her three elder siblings died young. She attended local schools and grew up in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the capital.
Relationship with Seward
Former Secretary of State
William Henry Seward
William Henry Seward (May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872) was an American politician who served as United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, and earlier served as governor of New York and as a United States Senate, United States Senat ...
, widowed in 1865, took such an interest in Olive Risley beginning in 1868 that
Gideon Welles
Gideon Welles (July 1, 1802 – February 11, 1878), nicknamed "Father Neptune", was the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1869, a cabinet post he was awarded after supporting Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election. Although opposed ...
wrote in his diary: "There is much gossip in relation to a projected marriage between Secretary Seward and a Miss Risley. He is in his sixty-eighth year and she in her twenty-eighth. I give the rumor no credit. Yet his conduct is calculated to make gossip. For the last six week he had passed my house daily to visit her." Hanson Risley and his family had known the Sewards for years. Seward had also lost his daughter
Fanny in 1866, a close friend and contemporary of Olive, whose mother died the same year.
Olive, her younger sister Harriet Risley and their father, traveled together to California in the summer of 1870 with Seward, where Hanson left the group. His daughters continued with Seward and two other married couples to Japan and China. In Shanghai, when one couple left the group to return home and
George Seward, accompanied by his wife, took up his post as the new U.S. consul general in Shanghai, Seward and the two young women faced the prospect of continuing as a gossip-provoking trio. Hanson Risley expressed his concerns by letter to Seward. In order to curtail gossip and family worries that they might marry, Seward formally adopted Olive as his daughter in 1870, though her father was still alive. Seward altered his will to recognize his and Olive's new relationship. Seward's sons wrote letters of support to their father, one saying that they all thanked Olive for "her kind care and affection" for their father, adding: "I see no better or delicate way than this of rewarding its continuance". Seward wrote of Olive to her father: "it seems almost indelicate for me to speak her just praise even to you. She had ripened into a noble, impressive, intellectual and attractive womanhood. All women we meet must give her their love and seek her confidence. All the intelligent and distinguished men converse with her as their equal or superior."
[
The trio proceeded to visit the Middle East and Europe in 1870-1871. When they returned to New York, Risley and Seward began work on a travel book about their experiences, drawing largely on her journal from the trip.][ Seward died before the book was finished. Published by D. Appleton & Co. in 1873, ''William H. Seward's Travels Around the World'' became a best seller. Risley received credit as the volume's editor and was identified as Seward's executrix. The Seward estate made $50,000 from the sales.
]
Inheritance and later life
Seward named Risley and his son William as his executors. His sons shared the principal family homestead, while the remainder of the estate was shared equally by Risley and Seward's three sons. Risley's portion was valued at $50,000. She moved back to Fredonia to be with her birth father. By 1874, she had moved to Washington D.C., where she and her lifelong companion Sara Carr Upton co-founded the Literary Society of Washington
The Literary Society of Washington was formed in 1874 by a group of friends and associates who wished to meet regularly for "literary and artistic improvement and entertainment". - page 3 For more than 140 years, this literary society has convene ...
. She was also a member of the Washington Club
The Patterson Mansion (also known as the Patterson House or the Washington Club) is a historic Neoclassical-style mansion located at 15 Dupont Circle NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was built by Robert Wilson Patterson, edito ...
and the Daughters of the American Revolution
The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' efforts towards independence.
A non-profit group, they promote ...
. In 1889, she wrote a book of stories for children based on her travels with Seward called ''Around the World Stories'' that was published by D. Lothrop Company.
About 1888 she became a Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
and spent several years in Rome.[ She led the fundraising to found a Catholic women's college, Trinity College, now ]Trinity Washington University
Trinity Washington University is a private Catholic university in Washington, D.C. Trinity is a comprehensive university with five schools; the undergraduate College of Arts & Sciences maintains its original mission as a liberal arts women's ...
, as the first president of its Auxiliary Board.
She died in 1908 at her home on Nineteenth Street, NW, in Washington. She was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in Fredonia, N.Y., the town where she was born.
Memorial
In 1971, sculptor John Cavanaugh created a statue honoring her. Lacking a photograph, Cavanaugh sculpted his idea of an idealized Victorian lady instead. The statue stands in front of a private residence on North Carolina Avenue and Sixth Street, SE, in Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
Risley's head is turned to the left as if gazing toward nearby Seward Square
Seward Square is a square and park maintained by the National Park Service located at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and North Carolina Avenue in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Southeast Washington, D.C. The square is bounded by 4th St ...
, named for her adoptive father.
References
Further reading
* James M. Goode, ''The Outdoor Sculpture of Washington, D.C. A comprehensive historical guide'' st ed.(Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press istributed by G. Braziller1974).
* John M. Taylor, ''William Henry Seward, Lincoln's Right Hand'' (New York: Harper Collins, 1991).
* Olive Risley Seward, ed.
''William H. Seward's travels around the world, with two hundred illustrations''
(New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1873).
* Olive Risley Seward
''Around the World Stories''
(Boston: D. Lothrop Company, 1889).
External links
Wife Of Secretary Of State William Seward
Olive Risley Seward
at Find A Grave
Find a Grave is a website that allows the public to search and add to an online database of cemetery records. It is owned by Ancestry.com. Its stated mission is "to help people from all over the world work together to find, record and present fin ...
Olive Risley Seward statue
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seward, Olive Risley
1844 births
1908 deaths
American adoptees
People from Fredonia, New York
Seward family