Page 250
“…to England for their honeymoon…”
William Lewis Maury and Anne Fontaine married in April of 1856, and his cousin would note him having traveled to England a short time later. I am assuming this was their honeymoon.
Letter from Matthew Fontaine Maury to Matthew Maury, June 6, 1856. This letter, and its transcription, are in the possession of Russell Hooper, who was hugely general with his private collection, and who was an inexhaustible trough of information about the Maury family. I am deeply indebted to him.
The document indicating the date and location of the wedding is in the possession of Steve Nicklin, a former owner of Old Mansion in Bowling Green, Virginia.
“…had work to do.”
See “…the ‘plucking board,’” above.
“Anarcha would go to New York…”
See “Buy the girl…,” above.
What all of these documents suggest is that William L. Maury purchased Anarcha to become a nursemaid for his future wife. They married in April 1856, Nan became pregnant a few months later, and then Anarcha was brought to New York to care for her during her “troubles.” When the full nature of Anarcha’s debility is discovered, they arrange for her to be sent to Sims’s Woman’s Hospital to be “cured” in time to help with Nan’s infant child.
This document, indicating the birthdate of Anne Fontaine Maury’s first child, is in the possession of Steve Nicklin, a former owner of Old Mansion in Bowling Green, Virginia.
“…four days before Christmas 1856…”
Anarcha was checked into Woman’s Hospital from December 21, 1856 to January 22, 1857.
Anarcha’s case record, in the first of three surviving case record books, is held at the Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. Medical Archives and Mount Sinai Records office at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, New York.
“Several of the creatures…”
From the publication produced for the 1868 Woman’s Hospital annual gala. I am assuming that if ferrets were required at the hospital’s new location, they would certainly have been required at the old location, which was far less well-equipped.
Pamphlets recording a number of Woman’s Hospital annual galas, including the first anniversary, are held at the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes for Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
“…the Irishwomen in the other bunks…”
There is no detailed account of Anarcha’s time in Woman’s Hospital, so I am speculating about how Anarcha might have been received by the staff and by the patients, who were mostly Irish women. African Americans and Irish immigrants lived alongside one another in Seneca Village, in what is now part of Central Park, but soon the Irish would lash out at the free black population during the Draft Riots of 1863. I have chosen to render these tensions by having Anarcha rejected at first, but ultimately embraced, by the Irishwomen at Woman’s Hospital.
“Woman’s Hospital.”
The image of Woman’s Hospital reprinted in The Anarcha Quest likely first appeared in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, February 23, 1856, p. 176.