How a Victorian Immigrant Almost Became the First Lady of the United States

Abstract

How a Victorian Immigrant Almost Became the First Lady of the United States Janelle Molony (bio) Sarah Jane Daglish, born in 1815 in England at the height of the Industrial Revolution, may have dreamed of one day marrying a prince but likely never imagined herself becoming the queen of America fifty years later. But, through six degrees of separation, or one big mistake, it was almost true! In 1837, Miss Daglish, then a music teacher living in Saginaw, Michigan, met her would-be Kentuckian husband and Republican presidential ticket hopeful, only to be caught in a case of mistaken identity. Discovering the Source of the Story To preserve her family's remarkable past (I am a descendant and a historian), I have been telling stories of my great-great-great-grandmother Sarah Jane Rousseau (née Daglish) for nearly five years. In studying my ancestral roots, I have landed on a gemstone: a private diary that exquisitely details the family's westward wagon train adventure from near Pella, Iowa, to San Bernardino, California, in 1864.1 From this discovery, I am novelizing the journey in a forthcoming work of fiction based on the people of the Pella Company featured in Sarah's diary. Though the original diary is in the possession of another family member, I have a copy of a typed transcription from the 1900s created by one of the wagon train member descendants.2 The entries begin on Friday, May 13, 1864, and end on Saturday, December 17—spanning the critical election season that might have launched Sarah into the political spotlight, if only her Michigan meeting with the male caller had gone another way. In the diary, she catalogs mileage, weather, and major landmarks, as well as her personal opinions on important matters such as people's manners, physical appearances, and her adoration for four regal gray horses that pulled her "carriage" through the plains until they met tragic endings.3 [End Page 131] San Bernardino historian Nicholas Cataldo examined the original diary while in the possession of its prior owner. He photographed several pages and described the lightly penciled-in sketches of nightly camp corrals and dainty wildflowers that were pressed tightly between the aging sheets.4 The nearly always perfect, tightly looped cursive and proper grammar reflect Sarah's elite upbringing as a daughter of a well-off tailor from Newcastle Upon Tyne in England. From England to America With help from Stephen Daglish—a surname expert and representative of the Guild of One-Name Studies—I have traced the lineage of the Daglish name (a derivative of the Dalgleish Scottish spelling).5 They first crossed the Scottish border near Selkirk into England in the 1500s. There, several generations of lowly medieval coal miners rose in social rank from the English village of Wickham, County Durham, south of the River Tyne, and later in Tanfield and Eighton Banks (alternatively spelled "Ayton"). In County Durham, the family may have dabbled in the booming of "waggonways,"6 which became the model for more modern railway systems in the late 1700s. From there, the Daglish name appears across the Tyne, in Shiremoor, Northumberland, until the family line eventually traces to neighboring villages in Great Usworth and a much more affluent situation.7 Here, Sarah's grandfather John Daglish Sr. (1750-1797) married the daughter of a bootmaker and they had seven children together, including brothers William and John Jr.8 In 1812, William Daglish (1780-1849) married Mary Anne Eliott (1787-1824), whose brother, Thomas, ran a large boot and shoe establishment in Newcastle Upon Tyne.9 The couple moved there to raise their only two children: Mary Ann Daglish (1813-1904) and Sarah Jane Daglish (1815-1872). Per granddaughter Evelyn Anderson-Straight's recollection, the girls were provided a private education by in-home tutors, with an emphasis on fine needlework and music.10 This included receiving instruction from a distinguished piano master and student of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Though the instructor's name is undocumented in family records, I can narrow the possibilities to Ferdinand Ries, who interned with Beethoven for four years, produced a few concertos, and then settled in London from 1813...