~ The Old Sachem ~ The DAR

By Bill Stewart

This week I was honored with an award from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) for my many write-ups of colonial America, some of which included the American Revolution, at The MEG Building in Cliftondale. The organization has its meetings in the MEG Building and often invites honored guests. I expect my wife, Polly, to become a member as her family’s history goes back to 1609 in Plymouth.

The DAR is like many other organizations that have a fervor for early American history. On May 18 in 1876, America celebrated its birthday with a grand birthday party known as the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where some 10 million people turned out to celebrate America’s first international exposition. This inspired numerous patriotic and preservation societies, but none for women. This led to creation of the DAR.

The DAR is a very vibrant organization whose passionate activity is to preserve the memory of the original fathers of America. It’s a women’s service organization whose members must be able to prove they are direct descendants of those patriots who aided the American Revolution and the war for independence against the British. The first DAR chapter was organized on October 11, 1890, at the Strathmore Arms, the home of Mary Lockwood – one the group’s four cofounders. The other founders were Eugenia Washington, who was a great-grandniece of George Washington; Ellen Harden Walworth; and Mary Desha. First Lady Caroline Lavina Scott Harrison, wife of President Benjamin Harrison, joined with the originators and became the first President General of the DAR.

Lockwood was the first historian of the DAR. She served as the editor of the Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine from 1894 to 1900. She inspired the DAR with a resolve to “provide a place for the collection of Historical relics which will accumulate … and for historical portraits, pictures, etc. This may be in rooms, and later in the erection of a fire-proof building.”

Lockward was also involved in women’s rights with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and wrote newspaper columns advocating women’s rights. She wrote many books, including “Historic Homes of Washington” and “Handbook of Ceramic Art.” She was a promoter of women’s clubs and founder of “Travel Club.” She became the president of the Women’s National Press Association and the Lady Manager At Large at the “World’s Columbian Exposition” in Chicago in 1893. Lockwood died in 1922 as the last remaining member of the originators of the DAR and is buried in Washington, D.C.

In 1940 a memorial was dedicated to Lockwood at the four corners in Smith Mills, New York, a large native boulder with a bronze tablet insert that states “Birthplace of Mary Smith Lockwood 1831-1922, Pen Founder of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution”. Lockwood was actually born in Hanover, New York. The Mary Smith Lockwood Medal for Education is awarded by the DAR.

You can obtain the book “Mary Smith Lockwood: Famous Woman of Hanover” by Marion Thomas – published May 28, 1964.

If your family goes back to the 1700s or 1800s in America, you might want to join this historic organization. The DAR website notes: “Any woman 18 years or older who can prove lineal, bloodline descent from an ancestor who aided in achieving American independence is eligible to join the DAR. She must provide documentation for each statement of birth, marriage and death, as well as of the Revolutionary War service of her Patriot ancestor.”

  (Editor’s Note: Bill Stewart, who is better known to Saugus Advocate readers as “The Old Sachem,” writes a weekly column – sometimes about sports. He also opines on current or historical events or famous people.)