@delanopaperproject / delanopaperproject.tumblr.com
Hello Shannon,
My name is Cathy Delano and I live in Fairhaven. I am very impressed with all the work and images you present re The Delano family and would love to chat with you beyond this site.. I would love to hear from you!
Best regards,
Cathy
Thanks for the kind comments. Please email me so we can talk more. Historian@hydeparkny.us
How often do we think about our own graves? As one gets older one might take perhaps a little more time to contemplate where to be buried and what sort of design to have for a tombstone. Perhaps all you wish to have is a simple coffin to lie in and a cross for all to see in a quiet and meticulously landscaped cemetery. Or maybe your family would rather keep a piece of you around and your ashes could be stored in a jar atop of the mantle in the living room. You could even send your ashes into space on a rocket if you really wish to get fancy. However, for the majority of the Delano family there was really only one final destination, at least for the body, and that was the Riverside Cemetery in Fairhaven MA. Not only is this the final resting place of over 20 members of the family but they were also the ones who started it.
By the 1830s the population around Fairhaven and New Bedford had doubled since its humble beginnings. The port was overflowing with ships from the booming whaling trade that would make the area famous and the small burial ground that had served Fairhaven well, was no longer adequate to accommodate the dead. By the winter of 1846, the Delano family had made their way home to Fairhaven after being in China for over a decade. They brought with them the remains of their daughter Susan who had died in China. It became clear to Warren Delano Jr. that a proper cemetery would be needed. He purchased land in the northern part of town from a farmer named Jonathon Nye and established the Riverside Cemetery Corporation with his father Warren Sr. as president in 1850.
During this time the idea of the Rural Style also known as the Garden Style cemetery was becoming quite popular throughout the nation. Cemeteries were being developed as places not only for the dead but also for the living. Parks with decretive memorials, paths, ponds, and benches for recreational use. Riverside would be laid out in this popular style and the first person to be buried here was of course, a Delano. In August of 1850 a cousin of Warren’s, Mary Delano was laid to rest. But it still wasn’t good enough for the man who had made a very handsome fortune in China. Warren Jr. hired Richard Morris Hunt, one of the leading architects of the 19th century to design a crypt suitable for his family. The tomb has space for 24 coffins (20 of which are filled) and there are other graves on the hillside just above the crypt where various other family members are laid to rest. Hunt would go on to create some of the grandest buildings in the country including the Biltmore estate in North Carolina and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Almost every member of the Delano family is laid to rest at Riverside with the exception of Sara Delano Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, both buried in Hyde Park. Sara wished to be laid to rest next to her husband at St. James Church. FDR had planned out his burial site in his mother’s rose garden near the home where he was born. He also designed a simple headstone made of Vermont marble and cut to the size and shape of his Presidential desk. Today if you visit the Riverside Cemetery, which is not far from the Delano homestead, you can easily walk to the Delano crypt standing strong over a century later in peace and serenity as was the wish of Warren Delano.
Shannon--I had done some research on Algonac a number of years ago, but was never able to find a floor plan for the house. Have you, by any chance, come across such, or even a description of the layout of the house, in your research? ( From old photographs in the FDR Library, I have been able to identify some drawings of some details of Algonac in the works of Downing and Vaux). Thanks for anything you can tell me! Bruce Knox
Hi there, the archives at the FDR library have some drawings of the house, but I don't think there was much of a floor plan. There may be one at the historical society in Newburgh NY. I don't recall.
Sara Delano Roosevelt has been called many things and not all of them kind. She was a loving and tender mother and grandmother but an overbearing mother-in-law. She represented a generation of intelligent and strong women who were limited to the domestic atmosphere of the home to exhibit their capabilities. Her exuberant display of noblesse oblige both close to home and on an international scale can still be felt to this day. She was a product of her time with good breeding and morals that defined her character but she was not without permissiveness.
Sara was part of a large and affectionate family. Number seven of eleven children, she was born September 21st 1854 in Newburgh New York. The Delano family went to church regularly and rented pews at the Washington Street Christian Church (now the Unitarian Memorial Church) in Fairhaven MA. She was raised a Unitarian but became a proud Episcopal when she married James Roosevelt in 1880 (James had switched from Dutch Reformed to Episcopal when he married his first wife Rebecca Howland). As with many Protestant families, there are few signs of religion on display in any of the homes the Delanos or Roosevelts owned. The old bible box can be seen in the dining room, but even that can be mistaken as just a large elaborate chest with no signs of religious origin. However as you walk from room to room and take a closer look throughout the Roosevelt home in Hyde Park, one will find many prints of an image not typically seen in homes of Protestant families, the Madonna and Child.
If we go back in history, the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century provoked the denouncement and in many cases the destruction of Roman Catholic art. Sculptures and large paintings were destroyed throughout Europe. When Separatists groups made their way to Plymouth colony they established a new world with new churches that contained no images of any kind save for simple crucifixes. Catholicism in the new world was not as prominent as it was in the old and would not be fully established until the late 18th century. But this country would harbor feelings of anti-Catholicism right from its beginnings.
With all of this history in mind we must ask a question not usually asked about Sara. Why does the ardent Protestant have so many pieces of art in her home depicting one of Catholicism’s most important symbols? There may be several possible answers to this question. Perhaps when she was traveling as a young teenager through France she may have been inspired by seeing some of the old masters works during her days spent admiring the Louvre. Or better still, she had heard what her husband’s cousin Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt Sr., had said, that when she held baby Franklin in her arms she “looks so very lovely with him, like a Murillo Madonna and infant.” Sara must have taken that image to heart. Rumor has it that she was moved enough to donate a massive copy of Murillo’s Madonna and Child to the Catholic Church down the road from her home at Hyde Park. The painting originally was installed in the old Church of Regina Coeli that Sara would have driven past from time to time and today sits above the organ in a newer church.
One thing is certain when it comes to Sara and her feelings on religion, she was never afraid to speak her mind or support other people’s various beliefs. In her book of charities in the 1920s we see her leaving money to various churches in town including her own St. James Church and the Methodist Church. She clearly had friends from both Catholic and Jewish backgrounds including some of the Hudson Valley Livingstons who converted to Catholicism and the Morgenthau family who were Jewish and close friends with the Roosevelts. She wrote home to Franklin in 1925 while exploring Italy and told him of her own religious experience, “Tell Missy that although I am an ardent Protestant, I can say my prayers in a Catholic Church, and a few days ago I burnt a candle for your health in a lovely old church before a beautiful ‘Pieta’ (the dead Christ held in his Mother’s arms) This would be considered by some, very sentimental and silly, but it won’t do you any harm and it helped me!” She even went so far as to express her appreciation for the Catholic Priests way of life when a new married minister was appointed to her St. James Church whom she disapproved of. “The Catholic priests do good work in the village and they are not married, and I have yet to see the advantage of a parson’s wife!”
There were those in Sara’s social circles who were not only anti-catholic but antisemitic as well. However, there are no such expressions of hatred in any of Sara’s diaries or correspondence. Her support for those of Jewish heritage came later in life when she read of the terrors occurring in Europe in the late 1930s. She supported Jewish war refugees and pressed her son in many letters to do a better job of taking care of German Jews, particularly young children.
History has referred to Sara as many things and in many contexts but she was nothing if not confident in her faith in God and mankind.
"We don't know where the times are taking us, but if we all did the sensible thing and have brave hearts, a better world is bound to come" - Sara Delano Roosevelt
The Delanos come from a long line that stretches back to the lands around what is now modern France. When the family gathered at Leiden in the Netherlands at the turn of the 17th century, they happened to be in the right place at the right time for better opportunities. The family was Protestant and they wished to abandon the trials of war torn Europe for the free and open possibilities of the new world. As I have shown in an earlier article, the records of the Walloon church of Leiden reveal the first mention of the earliest American Delano. The Vrouwekerk Church was where the son of Jean de Lannoy and Marie Mahieu was baptized on November 6th 1603.[1] They called him Philippe de Lannoij and he would be the first of the Delano family to make his way to the new land.
There appears to have been much confusion with the ancestry of Philippe’s mother. The confusion can be seen in Daniel Delano’s book where we find a photo of a portrait of Marie de Lannoy. There have been many confused American tourists who believe they have a connection to her and make pilgrimages to a building in The Netherlands known as The Jean Pesynhof which is where Marie de Lannoy lived. However, this woman is not the mother of the Delano family, in fact she never even had a son. There are no known images of the parents of Philippe and it must be said that Marie Mahieu and Marie de Lannoy are two different women. Philippe’s mother Marie Mahieu married Jean de Lannoy in 1596, but the woman in the painting, the other Marie de Lannoy was married to Jean Pesyn and together they lived in house mentioned above.[2]
Even Eleanor Roosevelt was not aware of the error when she asked for a photograph of Marie de Lannoy’s portrait on her husband’s behalf. This photograph that Mrs. Roosevelt sent for is on display in the Home of FDR in Hyde Park, in a little frame hanging on the wall of the entrance hall. Unfortunately there seems to be no ancestral connection between this Marie de Lannoy and the Delanos of FDR.
[1] Bangs, Jeremy Dupertius. The Mayflower Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 2, 2007, 150-162. And The Mayflower Quarterly, vol. 78, no. 2, June 2012.
[2] http://www.tamurajones.net/MarieDeLannoyAndMarieLeMahieu.xhtml
Franklin Delano Roosevelt had many cousins. Some were more distant than others. Even his own wife was his fifth cousin once removed. His dear friend and confidant Daisy Suckley was an even more distant cousin. But one of his first cousins amused him more than any other and not because he was attracted to her, but because she amused him with her antics and spontaneity. Her name was Laura Franklin Delano and she could be considered the troublemaker of the Delano clan. Laura was the daughter of Warren Delano the III and Jennie Walters Delano who had inherited the Delano/Astor estate Steen Valetji on the Hudson. She had earned the nickname of Polly when as a child she refused to drink anything other than Apollinaire Water and she would always refuse to do the things that were expected of her.
While the rest of the family dressed fairly normally, Polly insisted on experimenting with new things and fashions. She was the first in the family to wear red nail polish to which her sister Sara asked “Polly, dear, have you been disemboweling a rabbit?” To match the bright red on her nails every one of her fingers would be covered in Brazilian rings which glimmered as she waved them around in conversation. She began dying her hair the moment she saw greys, by the 1940s, her hair was a lovely dark purple and she painted a widow’s peak in the center of her forehead for a more profound effect. She wore strands of pearls and decorative bracelets. She loved the work of famous artist and costume designer Erté and collected his work long before it became popular.
Rumor spread around the family that Polly had been having a long time affair with her chauffeur who traveled with her everywhere. But when she was young she had fallen in love with a son of a Japanese nobleman named Otohiko Matsukata. She never felt any attachment to American men after meeting this intriguing foreigner. In the end, she would never marry and lived alone in a Tudor styled cottage in Rhinebeck. There she entertained FDR and some of his visitors on her back porch where she loved to make cocktails. Prime Minister Winston Churchill made the mistake of turning down one of her concoctions and asked for Scotch instead. Polly never liked to be turned down. She decided to make him one of her own drinks that he managed to sip on briefly before spitting her drink out across the patio. He looked at her with an angry glare and she returned the look. She would say in later years that she never did like him.
Most of the family, like Eleanor for example, found her to be a loose cannon but FDR could relax and laugh around her and so he took her along on many trips. Both Polly and Daisy would look after his dog Fala. Both cousins could be seen standing beside him at train stops while touring the country. And it was the both of these cousins who knew about his restored relationship with his former friend Lucy Mercer Rutherford. But it was Polly’s love of troublemaking that made her, and not the quiet and well-mannered Daisy, the one to inform Eleanor Roosevelt that his relationship with Lucy in his later years was happening behind her back. When Eleanor arrived at Warm Springs just before midnight on April 12th 1945 to collect her husband’s body, Polly told her of the affair and the painting that sat unfinished which Lucy had commissioned. Eleanor might have known that Polly wanted to see some sort of emotion but she would not give her the satisfaction.
Geoffrey Ward said that she was nothing like anyone else in the Roosevelt circle or even the entire Delano family. The only one with an ego as big as hers he said, was FDR.
History can sometimes manipulate and sculpt what is remembered about us in ways we would not imagine for ourselves. We tend to collect stories and narratives which we then blend into facts and evidence in order to interpret the past. Such things are inevitably altered over time which leads to the distortion of truth. Historians and novices alike are both guilty of selecting narratives or indeed cutting things out all together in order to better understand a part of history. Narratives can be taken out of context to be debated, dissected, and then left disheveled perhaps for decades before being reinterpreted and placed back where they were found.
I believe that something similar has happened to the way in which we remember Sara Delano Roosevelt. The world is well aware of Eleanor Roosevelt’s fight for civil rights but very little attention has been paid to Sara Delano Roosevelt and her quiet support behind the scenes. The sad fact is that SDR does not have many admirers these days partially due to our more modern focus on her daughter-in-law’s narrative. Over the years we have taken the negative things that ER has said about her mother-in-law and forgotten all of her good traits and work. History has chosen instead to not only overlook SDR’s qualities (the same qualities she passed on to her son) but thanks in part to ER’s words she has earned a reputation that is equivalent to that of Cinderella’s evil stepmother. So we should consider how it is that when Sara Delano Roosevelt was alive she was respected and admired for her charm, wisdom, and kindness but within 20 years of her passing she became a villain fit for the Broadway stage and the Hollywood screen? Could it be that a choice of narrative and stories has altered our perspective of an otherwise deserving woman? Much of the facts and evidence would say yes.
Just one example of evidence that has been ignored is the fact that Sara was just as interested in the Civil Rights movement as ER was. We can see proof of this starting in 1927 when ER hosted a dinner at her mother-in-law’s townhouse on East 65th street in NYC. The National Council of Women met for dinner and all were white except for one, Mary McLeod Bethune. Bethune was an educator and the president of the National Association of Colored Women. Bethune admitted later how nervous she was to be surrounded by all white women, some of which were from the south where Jim Crow laws were still strongly in place. SDR noticed how uncomfortable she was and quickly acted to comfort her. “The grand old lady took my arm and seated me to the right of Eleanor Roosevelt in the seat of honor!” She wrote in an issue of Ebony magazine years later in 1949. “From that moment my heart went out to Mrs. James Roosevelt – As a result of my affection for her mother-in-law, my friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt soon ripened into a close and understanding mutual feeling.”
Later during FDR’s presidency, he was bombarded by requests from civil rights leaders to take steps for new legislation during the New Deal for black Americans. Many would think that since Eleanor Roosevelt has always said or written how disapproving her mother-in-law was of anything she did that SDR would not most likely not stand beside her on issues that involved her son’s political work. This is a great case of how ER’s narrative has cast the wrong image of SDR. Walter White, the head of the NAACP recalled a meeting in the white house where he had the support of both Roosevelt women against the president. SDR, ER and White met on May 7th 1934 and discussed the Wagner-Costigan Bill which promised an end to lynching. When FDR arrived for the meeting ER and Walter White battled against him for some time. He of course was concerned about losing the southern members of his party. Walter White was clearly more eloquent in his debating on the subject than FDR was and so he shouted, “Somebody’s been priming you. Was it my wife?” Perhaps she helped but the president then turned to his mother who he could always rely on for support, “Well, at least I know you’ll be on my side.” His mother shook her head, no. She was on the side of equality and justice.
We need to take a more detailed look at the life of Sara Delano Roosevelt. She never demanded or even expected any recognition for her achievements, nor did she flaunt any of her work accomplished behind the scenes. She took great pride in her son and family which she also provided for and defended with great vigor. In a world that wishes to celebrate the power of women and our changing role in society, it is most peculiar how we have all but forgotten one of the most influential women and mothers of the 20th century.
While working as a National Park Ranger you meet all sorts of interesting people. The other day a woman appeared with a piece of paper she had printed from Ancestry.com. She was excited to discover that she was related to the Delanos. I must admit that I had a bit of genealogy envy as I too have been playing around with my family’s history to try and discover more (sadly not related to anyone terribly famous) about where I come from. I looked on her list of names and there was Ephraim who I had recently learned much more about.
Thomas Delano is the first of the Delanos to appear on the Federal census as an old man in 1790. He would have been with his wife Jean who he had married in 1727. The census shows that six people were living with them in New Bedford and while they did have six children together, it is possible that they would have moved on, at least most of them, by the time the census was compiled. It was their son Ephraim, born in 1733 from which the signs of the family moving from land dwelling settlers with the occasional Indian problems, to sailing merchants, tied to their ships and their cargo comes from.
Ephraim Delano was 25 years old when he was able to purchase one sixth part of “the little sloop called Hannah” for £18 from Elnathan Eldredge in 1758.[1] He must have had the help of his father in this early endeavor but wherever the money came from, it paid off and Ephraim would find himself a part owner of another sloop in 1763, the Defiance, which carried naval stores and other merchandise between North Carolina and Boston. In 1760 he was shipping bushels of wheat and corn on the sloop Penelope, a small tattered book with a delicate fabric binding and an odd figure painted in black on the cover reads “Ephraim Delano His Book hand” and on the torn pages on the inside we can see that the young captain was keeping detailed records about the amounts of goods he was shipping as well as what he was keeping for himself. He also wrote briefly about each morning’s sail, “This morning a small wind at NNW”.[2] We can see some of the early endeavors into the business of whaling as early as 1768, a whale was caught by his crew during a regular sail transporting goods.
Ephraim is mentioned in several documents held by the New Bedford whaling museum’s archives as a respectable “mariner” who was asked on many occasions to serve as a “lawful attorney” and was trusted by many people to be the executor of their estates.[3] There is not much mentioned on the full details of his world but from what few documents exist we see that he married Elizabeth Cushman in 1760 and fathered twelve children. His business would continue to prosper: his sloop Mermaid was shipping rum, nails, sugar, buckles and other household goods in 1766 and would also get into whaling like so many other ships in the New Bedford area by the time of the American Revolution. With the wealth he built up, Ephraim decided to pay for the construction of a brig in 1776. The small receipt shows that he paid “one hundred and ninety pounds lawful money in full for building a brigantine” so it is clear that he was doing well even during the War for Independence.[4]
By 1798 he and his relatives around him in the village of Fairhaven were all doing quite well based on the list of properties seen below. He died on July 14th 1815 at the age of 82.
[1] Ephraim Delano accounts, Series A of Delano Family Papers, New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library, New Bedford, Massachusetts. Folder 2.
[2] Papers of Franklin Hughes Delano, Delano Family Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.
[3] Ephraim Delano accounts, Series A of Delano Family Papers, New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library, New Bedford, Massachusetts.
[4]Ephraim Delano accounts, Series A of Delano Family Papers, New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library, New Bedford, Massachusetts. (MSS 134 folder 3)
Of the many children that Ephraim and Elizabeth Delano had, it is their youngest son Warren the 1st who later generations would refer to as Captain Warren and who would seriously begin to take the family business overseas. The Captain would happily take to sailing by the age of 19. He first sailed on the Herald from Fairhaven to South Carolina and on to England and back and forth until finally coming home a year later. He studied navigation under his cousin Joshua Delano for a year or so and by 1802 was in command of the Augusta which was taking cotton from New Orleans to Bordeaux (RFP, FDRL). It seemed natural to Warren to take over his father’s way of life and he received words of wisdom from Ephraim in a letter that year, “I understand you are bound to the sea, disagreeable to me as you are bound to a sickly port. Be careful and not expose yourself more than necessary. (MSS 134, series A, folder 10)
Nothing much has been said about Captain Warren or his sailing endeavors. The only account left behind of his work is a brief life story which was written out by his son Edward in 1849. Edward listened to his father’s stories about his times as sea and copied down the tales for the family records. This work was never published but there is a good deal of information as to the ships he sailed, cargo he carried and the places he traveled to. Perhaps what is most revealing about these stories is the fact that he developed a fear of trans-Atlantic voyages which caused him to lose part of his wealth during a series of incidents during the War of 1812. At the time there were issues with the work he was doing involving the trade with England. An embargo act was in effect so he could not sell his goods directly at Liverpool when he arrived there in 1811. “He concluded to sell his cargo to an agent of the British government and proceeded around the Thames River, delivering it at Deptford Dock Yard.” (RFP, FDRL)
In the process of bringing goods back to the U.S., war was declared and he along with his sloop, crew and passengers were taken as a prize by Captain Johnson on the British sloop of war Avenger. Warren along with some other prisoners were placed on an old sloop near St. Johns, Newfoundland until an exchange of prisoners was made a couple of weeks later. He lost a good deal of money when his ship and cargo had been taken by the British. He took command of another ship soon after his return home the Mary Ann and sailed goods from Georgetown South Carolina to New York but he was once again captured by a British frigate the Severn in 1815. He and his crew ended up spending two weeks on a prisoner’s ship near Bermuda. He lost heavily on that venture and by the end of 1815, even with peace declared he had decided that he would focus what money he had in whaling and not make any more trans-Atlantic voyages.
Captain Warren expanded his wealth elsewhere and bought shares in the New-Bedford Bridge project for the rebuilding of that bridge in 1819. He rented homes along with his wife Deborah Perry Church who he had married in 1808 and the receipts show that he hadn’t quite found the home that he wanted until he could build his own. He officially retired from sea service at the age of thirty six and took to the business of shared ownership in whaling and merchant ships with his sons, Warren Jr., Frederick, Franklin, and Edward (RFP, FDRL).
I note that you cite Amasa Delano re attitudes towards the Chinese. An interesting parallel would be merchants' attitudes towards slavery. Are you aware that Amasa Delano is the protagonist in Herman Melville's novella "Benito Cereno", and the story is drawn almost unaltered from "Delano's Voyages"?
Yes I have read his narrative and I also understand that many of the merchants who dealt with the opium trade later on would take strong stands against slavery.
It is clear through the documents available at the NewBedford Whaling museum that the Delano family prospered through shipping in the Atlantic world since the 1760s. Ephraim Delano first purchased one sixth part of “The little sloop call’d Hannah” for 18 pounds from Elnathan Eldredge in 1758. By 1763 he is also part owner of a sloop named The Defiance which was carrying naval stores and other merchandise from North Carolina to Boston. There appears to be some early whaling going on by 1768. The Sloop named Mermaid was shipping goods such as rum, sugar, nails and buckles and Ephraim owned a good deal of this business which likewise expanded into whaling. He was a respected individual in society, with receipts showing him paying for the schooling of his children, and doctor visits throughout the latter half of the 18th century. He was also asked to serve as a “lawfull attorney” in a few records which shows his connections within the Dartmouth community. We can see that he even commissioned the building of a Brigantine in 1776 at the sum of “One hundred and ninety pounds lawfull money in full” and by this one can tell that he had money to invest in larger vessels. He and his wife Elizabeth would have 11 children altogether and his youngest son Warren would continue on in his father’s work.
It was Warren Delano the first, also known as Captain Warren to later generations, who would build the Delano Homestead in Fairhaven in 1832, where I am currently writing this. The young Captain continued where his father had left off, shipping goods throughout the New England area. He received words of wisdom from his aging father in a letter dated 1802, “I understand you are bound to sea Disagreeable to me as you are bound to a sickley port Bee Careful and Not expose yourself more than Nessary.” He would expand his wealth elsewhere and bought shares in the New-Bedford Bridge project for the rebuilding of that bridge in 1819. He rented homes throughout the area and the receipts show that he hadn’t quite found the home that he wanted until he was able to build his own. The house that Warren the first built in the 1830s is more or less the way it is now. A 10-room 3,800 square foot house. It was Warren the II who turned it into a 30-room mansion by the late 1800s. The estate by then also included stables and gardens. Franklin Delano Roosevelt traveled with his mother Sara for many visits to his grandfather’s home in his young years. The house was trimmed back down to its original footprint after the Delano family left it in the late 1940s. It is currently used as a lovely bed and breakfast.
(MSS 134 - Series A - folders 2,9,10 - Series B folder 1)
A Young FDR with his Grandfather Warren II and cousins at the Delano home at Fairhaven. 1897.
FDR's cousins on the front porch of the Delano Home Fairhaven. 1890
http://www.delanohomestead.com/ I highly recommend you stay here should you ever visit!
There have been many conflicting ideas in recent years on just how exactly American traders viewed their Chinese counterparts both before and after the First Opium War. It is hard to get a sense of how Americans really saw China at all since the Chinese would not allow most diplomats to stay for any great deal of time. The reports which claim that Americans had a profound respect for the Chinese seem to be few and far between and in fact there tends to be more proof to the contrary.
Americans did not always think highly of the Chinese government in particular, for one, which lead them to believe that the people in general were conditioned under an oppressive system. In fact we can see in the records left behind by the traders from the early 1800’s the general consensus was that the Chinese society was corrupt and backwards. Words such as ‘cowardice’ and ‘dishonest’ come up frequently in published travel books written by American traders. Even those who did have a great deal of respect for China were left with feelings of doubt. Amasa Delano wrote about his sea travels in great detail in 1817 and he is one of the few traders who did have good things to say in regards to the Chinese. “China in modern times has been found to be foremost in the arts and sciences and in agriculture. It is one of the best regulated governments in the world” (Delano pg. 531).
Not everyone felt as Delano did and in most cases they were very harsh in their remarks on China. W.W. Wood wrote in 1830 in his book Sketches of China that the government is more “barbarous” then other nations in its cruelty and punishment (Wood pg. 232). Silas Holbrook wrote what he thought of the Chinese in his work Sketches, by a traveler also published in 1830, “An honest man soon becomes suspicious in China, where he finds enough to excite sarcasm and misanthropy. The Chinese have no sincerity, and therefore no confidence” (Holbrook pg. 253). The overall opinion did not alter much after the sound defeat of the Chinese by the British in 1840. Many Americans had already stated that the Chinese military could be easily taken long before the outbreak of the First Opium War.
No matter how the Americans may have felt about the Chinese government or its people, the average trader was not there to make change, only money. There was never much said against such vices as prostitution and opium smoking by the majority of the traders, particularly since they were responsible for the opium habit. Traders like Edward Delano, were not interested in the Chinese way of doing things and he certainly had no plans to affect great change no matter what he saw. Edward wrote in his diary about a visit to several opium dens in 1844, “I found smokers in all of them” he wrote. “One man was prostrate under its effects – pale, cadaverous, death-like. When I took his pipe from his hand he offered no resistance, though his eyes tried to follow me” (Edward Delano papers FDRPL). Seeing this ravaged human being did not inspire Delano to change his course of action. He picked up the scheduled supply of the drug and carried on with his business.
(A personal note - With the sudden interests in both the Delanos and the Roosevelts, I have been inspired to get back into my research on the Delano family. This research originally started out as an undergraduate project but I think I should keep going with it. However, it is not easy with so many projects already on my plate. I will try to keep up this blog while working in the National Park Service and studying towards my graduate work.)
When Sara Delano met the much older and distinguished James Roosevelt in 1880, she was 26 and he was 52. It seemed like love at first sight. Many who watched at the dinner party where they met for the first time could see the odd yet evident attraction. “He talked to her the whole time” Theodore Roosevelt’s mother Martha Bulloch recalled, “He never took his eyes off her.” James had been a widower for four years when he fell for Sara Delano and he was already well acquainted with her father, Warren. Mr. Delano was quite surprised when James asked for his daughters hand in marriage and told her that he would agree to the marriage only if she was “earnestly, seriously, entirely in love”.
Six months after meeting, the couple married on October 7th 1880 at a modest ceremony at Algonac in Newburgh. A witness recalled the fact that “several women wept at the thought that such a lovely girl should marry an old man.” The couple went from Newburgh to James’ home at Hyde Park, Springwood where they settled in before setting off on a ten month honeymoon in Europe. They traveled back and forth through Europe ordering new furnishings for their home at Hyde Park along the way. A Dutch sideboard for the dining room, a grandfather clock from The Hague, both pieces still located in the home today. And an English dogcart made at Norwich. Only the best of the best would do. By the end of their trip, Sara could tell that she was pregnant and wished to return home to Hyde Park to give birth.
By September of 1882, the Roosevelts were back to New York. Sara began to take over the general management of the home which she would continue to do for nearly 60 years. On January 29th 1882, after the nurse Mrs. Lee dealt with the beginning stages of labor, Dr. Edward H. Parker was called in while Sara remained in labor for over 24 hours. On January 30th, James wrote down in his beloved wife’s diary “My Sallie bore a splendid large boy. Baby weighed 10 pounds without clothes.” Both Sara and the baby had nearly died during the course of the day and James left it up to his brave young wife to name the child.
Sara’s first thought had been to name the baby after her father, Warren Delano Roosevelt. Earlier that year, her brother, also named Warren Delano has lost his son by the same name. She wrote to him and asked “would object to our naming our new baby Warren Delano Roosevelt?” However, her brother replied that he and his wife “could not bear it.” James and Sara finally agreed that they could name him for Sara’s favorite uncle, Franklin Hughes Delano who lived seventeen miles north of Hyde Park at Steen Valetje. A month after his birth, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was baptized at St. James in Hyde Park.
Hidden in a folder in a random box of Delano papers is an interesting little journal which has clearly seen better days. The folded paper is sewn into a fabric binding and an odd figure is painted in black ink on the cover. Most of the pages on the inside are torn or missing entirely but what is there is a small record of Ephraim Delano’s early shipping endeavors. Here we can see that the first of the Delano sea merchants is shipping several bushels of wheat and corn on the sloop “Penelope”. The book dates to 1760 and mentions the amounts of goods sent and the amounts he kept for himself. He also writes briefly about each morning’s sail, “this morning a small wind at NNW” and how he spent time with another sailing Delano, “Capt Calvin Delano”. The document itself does not reveal anything earth shattering, and even though it is not terribly old (considering some of the other documents within this collection) the fact that it has even survived this long based on what is left to it is quite amazing. It is easy to picture a young Captain Delano in his early 30’s sitting in the cabin of his sloop, scribbling down these little notes and then putting it aside to go tend to his crew. How it managed to go from a captain’s cabin and end up in an acid free folder in an archive in New York is anyone’s guess. But it may be that mystery that adds to the evocative nature of the document.
The first recorded land sale in Plymouth was made by none other than our first Delano, Philippe in 1627. It is the first record that appears in the Plymouth Colony records book on Deeds 1620-1651. Philippe sold “One acre of land lying on the North side of towne between the first and second brook in the upper fall of the said field and bounded with the grounds of Moses Simonson”. It appears that he received a couple of payments of 20 shillings over the course of the next few years. He sold this acre to Stephen Deane, a fellow passenger who came over on The Fortune. Philippe had also received lands in what would be known as Dartmouth, an area purchased from the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit and his son Wamsutta back in 1652. Philippe was one of 36 original proprietors of that land. This, of course, was after Philippe had volunteered to serve in the Pequot War in 1637. The war had already been going on for some time when he volunteered and he joined in after the famous Mystic Massacre. Historian Alfred Cave who wrote The Pequot War claims that Philippe may have seen action in July of 1637 in the last battle of the war, what became known as the Fairfield Swamp Fight.
Philippe’s son Jonathan Delano, whose line would continue down to FDR and the Hudson Valley Delanos, would likewise interact with the natives in friendly and not-so-friendly manners. In 1674, Jonathan witnessed the signing of a land record which claimed land in the area east of Dartmouth in the name of three natives from the Wampanoag tribe, Papamo, Machacam, and Achawanamett. These natives referred to this land, “our tract of land is called by the name of Mattapoisett.” This meant ‘a place of resting’ in Wampanoag. Even though this all seemed very peaceful, the following year King Philip’s War began and Jonathan served as an officer under Captain Benjamin Church’s militia. Jonathan had a good understanding of the territory around Dartmouth, thanks to his father’s earlier endeavors there in 1652. So Captain Church used him to track the Indians who were moving throughout the swamps in the area as mentioned in Church’s diaries and correspondence. Jonathon was clearly involved in the capturing of Indian prisoners during this campaign.
There is no headstone for Philippe, but pictured above is Jonathan's headstone where he is buried in Acushnet, Bristol County.
During the beginning of the Chinese opium wars, Edward Delano had much to say both in his journals (as mentioned in a previous entry) and in letters back home. He watched with great concern the actions made by the British towards the Chinese and their anger over the opium trade. He writes a lot about the plans that the British have to destroy forts, and cause trouble. One thing is clear in his writing however, the Americans and the British do not get along! However, Edward does seem to feel sympathy for one Brit who seemed more sensible than the rest, Captain Charles Elliot. Elliot was a British naval officer and a true diplomat who unfortunately, could not make his countrymen see the error of their ways. He had written to his superiors his true feelings on the opium trade which be believed to be a “disgrace and sin…I have steadily discountenanced it by all of the lawful means in my power.” But this statement along with his work in trying to negotiate with the Chinese was not approved by his superiors and would only earn him a dismissal from his work in China in 1841. But before that, Edward Delano would send his thoughts on these matters back home to his brother Franklin Hughes Delano in the states.
“A thousand rumors are afloat reflecting the movements of Capt. Elliott. The report now is that the Bogue Forts are to be destroyed on the 19th or 20th instant yet no reliance can be placed on it. It is impossible to tell what will be the effect of the destruction of the great “strengthold” on Canton River for my own part, I think it will have the effect of exasperating the Chinese against all foreigners so that the few remaining in Canton at the time of the crisis will fall victims to the vengeance of the Chinese – this however is not the opinion generally - else the foreigners would leave instantly.”
In this part we can see that Edward was certainly concerned that there would be harsh retaliation if the British continued to do damage and he went on to add his thoughts on the British and Captain Elliot.
“Letters received this morning from Macao state that Mr. Elliot had been there he notified the foreigners that negotiating was still pending with the Chinese Government – Poor Elliott is most shamefully abused by the English merchants at Macao – The English have made themselves very unpopular with the Americans – the most bitter feeling prevails – it was never half as bad even since the first establishment of the Americans here – the English are awfully envious of the success of their rivals + their at them Every abuse you can think of – quietly the Americans pursue a straight forward course, without underscoring to notice them or refute their misstatements.”
His thoughts on the British merchants would remain like this throughout the hostilities in the 1840s.
You can’t always read history books and believe all that lies within them. Especially if the book is lacking in footnotes or credible sources. But then when I first looked into a book about the Delano family that I found in the archives at FDR, I should have realized when I came across some book titles listed in the footnotes that are actually fiction that this book should be taken with a grain of salt. In my last article I mentioned the story of Thomas Delano and his little sexual escapade, which indeed happened and the evidence is located in the Plymouth Colony Records. However I also included that after the incident, Thomas and his new wife moved away from the Plymouth area to possibly New York, as it stated in this book. But further research into the Plymouth Colony records shows us otherwise and that maybe the people didn’t make as much of a fuss as it seems. They certainly didn’t run him out of town like the Delano book suggests.
Thomas appears in the registry of deeds of Plymouth and is mentioned as “Dr” and “Tailor”. He surveyed public highways in 1676 and was also elected Constable of Duxbury in 1691. The fruit of his escapade, Benoni Delano likewise turned out to be a Doctor in Duxbury and the family seems to have prospered in Duxbury well into the 18th century. It seems odd that the writer of this strange Delano book, Daniel W. Delano, which mostly praises the lives of all the Delanos, would put so much emphasis on this little mishap and make it sound more devastating to the family than it actually was. But the important lesson here is to check the sources!
