Margaret Mackall Taylor ( Smith; September 21, 1788 – August 14, 1852) was the first lady of the United States from 1849 to 1850 as the wife of President Zachary Taylor. She married Zachary in 1810 and lived as an army wife, accompanying her husband to his postings in the American frontier. She had six children, two of whom died in childhood while the remaining four were sent to boarding schools in the eastern United States. After a brief period of stable domestic life in the 1840s, her husband was elected President of the United States to her dismay in 1848. She managed the White House from the upstairs residence while she delegated her responsibilities as White House hostess to her daughter. She was highly reclusive throughout her tenure as first lady, which ended abruptly with her husband's death in 1850. She lived in obscurity until her death two years later.

Early life and education

Margaret Mackall Smith was born on September 21, 1788, in Calvert County, Maryland. Her father was Walter Smith, a prosperous Maryland planter from a prominent family and a veteran officer of the American Revolution. Her mother was Ann Mackall Smith. Smith was homeschooled, learning skills that would allow her to fulfill a domestic role. These included reading and writing, arithmetic, music, embroidery, dancing, and riding. When Smith was ten years old, her mother died. She would thereafter live with her mother's parents. As an adult, Smith was educated at a finishing school in New York City. in her sister's log house.

Frontier life

The Taylors lived on the American frontier, regularly moving to different camps and barracks. Margaret was one of the few military wives that accompanied their husbands into the frontier, though there were also long periods of separation when Margaret was unable to travel with Zachary. While in the frontier, they had six children: Ann Mackall in 1811, Sarah Knox in 1814, Octavia Pannill in 1816, Margaret Smith in 1819, Mary Elizabeth in 1824, and their only son Richard in 1826. She was forced to raise them in the sub-optimal conditions of military camps. Margaret and Zachary wished to give their children educational opportunities that they themselves never had. Their children spent many years in boarding schools, sometimes going years without seeing their parents. While they were in Bayou Sara, Louisiana, in 1820, the Taylors were afflicted by what was then diagnosed as bilious fever. Their children Octavia and Margaret died that year.

First Lady of the United States

thumb|upright=1.25|alt=Drawing depicting the death of Zachary Taylor|A depiction of Zachary Taylor's death. The artist did not know what Margaret Taylor looked like, so her face is obscured by a handkerchief.

Like many first ladies of her generation, Taylor rejected the position's traditional duties. Her experience in high society had long since been overshadowed by frontier life, and she had no desire to fulfill the role of White House hostess.

Legacy

Taylor is described as "mysterious" due to her relative obscurity. Many contemporary reports erroneously described her as a heavy pipe smoker, though she detested tobacco. None of her letters are known to have survived, and she is regarded as having played no role in her husband's administration. In 2010 a tinted ambrotype portrait of Taylor surfaced. This particular image seems to have been the model for most depictions of her. For many years, the only known image of Taylor was an engraving issued by the U.S. Government in 1902. Heritage Auctions offered a ninth plate daguerreotype of the First Lady, a Taylor family heirloom, in November 2010, identifying it then as one of only two known photographs. This is the one loaned by her daughter, White House Hostess Betty Taylor Bliss Dandridge, to be used as the model for the engraving.

References

  • Margaret Taylor at the National First Ladies Library Note: Photograph on this web page has not been authenticated by historians at the White House, Smithsonian or the Library of Congress as being an image of Margaret Taylor.
  • Margaret Taylor at C-SPAN's First Ladies: Influence & Image