"Lady in Gray" Martha Watson Porter Still Roaming at Riverwood
by Grace Benedict Paine
From RootsWeb.com
The Historic Register
For the Appreciation and Preservation of Nashville's Past Sponsored by Historic Nashville, Inc.
Vol. 5, Spring 1984
Suddenly, without warning, the bridge cards flew into the air from Miss Sadie's hands. "Pshaw, it's just the 'gray lady,' " she reassured her startled guests in the grand antebellum mansion, Riverwood.
" She has been our family ghost since my relative, Judge Cooper, bought the house over a hundred years ago." Miss Sadie and her husband, Dr. Lucius E. Burch, had grown quite used to the sudden appearances and activities of the apparition during the years they had lived in Riverwood.
The phantom was thought to have been Martha Watson Porter, the last Porter mistress of the home, though little seems to have been known about the real Martha Porter.
The real Martha was born on January 29, 1830, to Dr. Thomas TN Watson and Martha Saunders. One week later, the 18-year old mother, Martha Saunders Watson, died and was buried in Hendersonville, TN, in a graveyard on the homeplace of her parents, James Saunders and Mary Smith. Mary Smith was the daughter of General Daniel Smith, of Rock Castle in Sumner County, a Revolutionary soldier and U .S. Senator from TN. Mary Smith Saunders' first husband was Samuel Donelson, the brother Rachel Donelson, wife of President Andrew Jackson.
Her father, Dr. Watson, was born in 1805 in VA. He was one of the two doctors from Montgomery County among the organizers of the TN Medical Society at its first meeting in Nashville in May, 1830. It is not known if he was a practicing physician. His main energies were directed toward the iron industry. He purchased thousands of acres of land abundant in iron ore and timber. In 1843 he built the Empire Iron Works in Trigg County, KY, just over the TN line. Nearby, two years later, in partnership with Daniel Hillman he built Fulton Furnace, and in the same year in the same vicinity Dr. Watson and Daniel Hillman built the TN Rolling Mill, well-known for its high quality plate used for steamboat boilers.
Dr. Watson died at his residence at the Empire Iron Works in the area now known as the Land Between the Lakes, so called because the TN Valley Authority damned up the Cumberland River on the east to form Lake Barkley and the TN River on the west to form Kentuckv Lake. Before the TVA flooded the area, they moved Dr. Watson 's tall burial monument at Empire Iron Works on the edge of the Cumberland River to TVA's Center Station a little west of its original site. Beside the monument is a large marker, which commemorates him as a pioneer in the iron industry.
Martha, 16 years old at the time of her father's death in 1846, was the main beneficiary of his $160,000 estate. He also left $500 to his unmarried sister, Polly Ann Watson, in VA. Dr. Watson did not forget his faithful retainers. He specified that his old servant, Hannibal, be set free and furnished with a comfortable cabin, 20 acres of good land and twenty dollars annually. He also set free 13 other servants, including, a woman named Minerva and her two children, all three of whom had belonged to Martha previously.
The following year Martha married Alexander James Porter, the son of James Armstrong Porter and the grandson of Alexander James Porter. The grandfather had come from the North of Ireland in 1798 to the small settlement of Nashville, and opened a linen business. As Nashville grew, his business prospered, and he became one of the most prominent merchants of the town. He purchased 2,500 acres across the Cumberland River from his business establishment on the Public Square, and built a large and substantial brick home for his east TN bride, Susan Massengill. He named his home Tammany Wood for his old place near Londonderry, Ireland. Their son, James Armstrong Porter, eventually took over Tammany Wood. He became a banker in the town. His wife was Sally Ann Murphy of Franklin, Louisiana, whose father had come from the North of Ireland, as a dealer in linens. Alexander James was born to them on June 14, 1822. The mother , Sally Ann, lived only two years after Alexander James was born and in 1827 James Armstrong married again, Amanda McNairy of Nashville.
It is said by a member of the Porter family that after his second marriage, 5-year old Alexander James was sent to Boston to a boarding school. From there he went to Harvard College, and on to Paris to the Sorbonne, with no trips home all those years. When at last he returned to Nashville, he went to a hotel to spend the night, and had to ask where his father was living at that time.
He met Martha and after a courtship they were married on June 1, 1847. She was 17 years old and he was 25. A portrait of him by a Parisian artist, now in the possession of Gloria Watson (Mrs. David) Graves, the great granddaughter of Alexander James, shows him to be a handsome young man. The first of their three children was named Sally Ann for her paternal grandmother, but she only lived a year. James Alexander, their first and only son, was born in 1849, and Mary Amanda in 1851. Martha and Alexander James were the third Porter generation to occupy Tammany Wood when his father, James Armstrong Porter, died in 1853.
Martha and Alexander James ordered elaborate changes at Tammany Wood. New rooms were added to the front of the house, and a grand two-story portico built across the entire facade. This was supported by fluted columns and lotus blossom capitals - one column at either end of the facade and double columns framing the front entrance. Ornamental iron rails embellished the downstairs and upstairs galleries. Two more fluted lotus blossom columns graced the entrance hall. This Egyptian motif was a fad in the early 1850s, and very popular with William Strickland, the Philadelphia architect of the TN State Capitol. Some have thought that he directed the renovations at Tammany Wood.
Alexander James and his family occupied the spacious and grand domicile for six years. In 1859 he sold the place to Judge William F. Cooper, including all the personal property on the farm. The deed of sale listed 3,400 head of horses, mares and mules; a stallion and a jack; all the crops; all the household and kitchen furniture. Also included were about 25 slaves and children, 8 of which were "old", and one blind.
The death of Martha only six months after her husband's disposal of his possessions may indicate that she was seriously ill at the time of the sale of Tammany Wood. She died while in Philadelphia, on June 7 I 1860, at age 33, leaving a bereaved husband with a 10-year old son and a 9-year old daughter. Alexander James suffered another tragic loss in 1866 when his son, James Alexander, drowned at age 16 while swimming in the Cumberland River.
The sad husband, Alexander James, was consoled by a new romance in his life when he found Rebecca Greer Allison. They were married in 1867. On their honeymoon to Europe, they were accompanied by Alexander James' 16-year-old daughter, Mary Amanda. A courtship evolved between Mary Amanda and the new wife's brother, Joseph Webster Allison, and they were married in 1871, though they were never to have children. For a while they lived in Jackson, TN, then moved to Memphis. According to a member of the Porter family, Joseph Webster Allison became a cotton broker, and he and Mary Amanda later moved to the Mississippi delta to care for his cotton interests. Mary Amanda's death marked the end of the lineage of Martha Watson Porter and of her iron industrialist father, Dr. Thomas TN Watson.
Meanwhile, back at the mansion strange things were going on. Judge Cooper, a bachelor who bought the house as a gathering place for his large family, changing the name to Riverwood. Nothing unusual about that, but according to Louise Davis in the August 15, 1954 Tennessean, a "tall lady in gray" was seen flitting "up and down the stairs," joining "guests in the parlor or bedrooms" and making "herself an amiable sort of apparition to people. ..." The lady was presumed to be Martha Watson Porter, former mistress of Tammany Wood. She was a household ghost to the succession of Coopers who lived at Riverwood for over a hundred years. Perhaps she mingled with the guests of all ages at the lavish Christmas morning parties given annually by Sadie Polk Cooper and her husband, Dr. Lucius E. Burch (then head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Vanderbilt University), throughout the many years they lived at Riverwood. Their invitation was to all of a family, and once invited, it was for life.
Although Martha Watson Porter's living line ended, she herself continued as the Regal "Lady in Gray" in the fine old mansion. Lucia Burch, the last of the Cooper descendants to live in the house, and her husband, Henry Doggrell, sold the home in 1978. Dr. Charles Michael Currie, a radiologist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, is the present owner, succeeding two other owners since the Coopers presided over it. He is endeavoring to restore it to its former beauty and to perpetuate its rich tradition. Will the "lady in gray" live on at Riverwood?
Irene Griffey, Certified Genealogist, obtained the following notes from the TN State Archives
There is written across the top:
{Dau of Thos. TN Watson (Cousin of Ann Watson [Mrs. John H.] Marable)
Martha Watson Porter (Lady in Gray of Riverwood)-looks like Riverwood. Written very faint.
Chart for Martha Watson (Lady in Gray) and Alexander James Porter of Tammany Wood
General Daniel Smith (1748-1818) m. Sarah Michie - b. in Sumner County
Mary Ann Michie Smith ((1781-1857) m. (1) Samuel Donelson d 1802 m. (2) James Saunders (1764-1836)
Martha Sanders (1811-1830) m. DR. THOMAS T. WATSON (1795-1846
Martha Watson (1830-1860) m. Alexander James Porter (1822-1888) he m. (2) Rebecca Greer Allison (1838-1922)
Irene Griffey notes: "This was prepared sometime ago by Mrs. Thos. F. Paine, 3 Redbud Dr., Nashville, TN 37215."
Source for Date of Birth: Acklen, Jeannette Tillotson, Tennessee Records, Nashville: Cullom and Ghertner, 1933.
Porter, Martha Watson, January 29, 1830-June 7, 1860; wife of Alexander Porter.
|
