When I drove up to DC to visit Mary Pinckney last Thursday, the first thing we did was take a tour of the Larz Anderson House in Northwest Washington, DC. This ornate Gilded-Age mansion was the home of the Larz and Isabel Andersons for decades. After Larz Anderson died in 1937, his wife Isabel oversaw the gift of the house and its contents to the Society of the Cincinnati. The house is inextricably linked to the Society, which is why I went there to learn about the Pinckney family of South Carolina.
As a reminder – Mary Pinckney is a relative of Bob, one of the members of my recent Osher class, Interpreting the Past. Bob gave me Mary’s contact information a few weeks ago in hopes that I might be able to learn about the Pinckney family from her in preparation for my upcoming Osher class on this important family.
Like most of you, I knew about the Society of the Cincinnati, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it. Here’s a refresher.
The society was formed in 1783 to commemorate the military officers who served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. According to Wikipedia, the Society is named after Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who left his farm to accept a term as Roman Consul and served as Magister Populi (with temporary powers similar to that of a modern-era dictator). He assumed lawful dictatorial control of Rome to meet a war emergency. When the battle was won, he returned power to the Senate and went back to plowing his fields. The Society's motto reflects that ethic of selfless service: Omnia reliquit servare rempublicam ("He relinquished everything to save the Republic"). The Society has had three goals: "To preserve the rights so dearly won; to promote the continuing union of the states; and to assist members in need, their widows, and their orphans."
Major General Henry Knox came up with the idea for the society. Membership was limited at the time to officers who had served at least three years in the Continental Army or Navy, or who had served until the end of the war. It included French officers above a certain rank, and was also open to officers who died during the war. Membership would be passed on to their oldest male heir.
Wikipedia goes on to say that the Society's current rules recognize a system of primogeniture, wherein membership was passed down to the eldest son after the death of the original member. Present-day hereditary members generally must be descended from an original member, an officer who died in service, or an officer who qualified for membership at the Society's founding but did not join. Each officer may be represented by only one descendant at any given time, following the rules of primogeniture. (The rules of eligibility and admission are controlled by each of the 14 Constituent Societies to which members are admitted. They differ slightly in each society, and some allow more than one descendant of an eligible officer.) The requirement for primogeniture made the society controversial in its early years, as the new states quickly did away with laws supporting primogeniture as remnants of the English feudal system.
This is when the Pinckneys come into this story. Thomas Pinckney was a charter member of the society from South Carolina, and his brother Charles Cotesworth Pinckney became a member soon after. The first president-general of the society was George Washington. The second was Alexander Hamilton. The third and fourth presidents-general were Pinckneys; Charles was president from 1805 until his death in 1826, and Thomas succeeded him and held the office until his death in 1828.
According to the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati, housed in the Anderson House,
The most important piece of historic American jewelry is the Diamond Eagle, the badge of the president general of the Society of the Cincinnati. Made in Paris in 1784, the Diamond Eagle was presented by French naval officers to George Washington, the Society’s first president general. It has been worn by Washington and each of his successors as president general, including Alexander Hamilton and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, up to the present day. The spectacular bejeweled Eagle—adorned with 198 diamonds, emeralds and rubies—symbolizes the creation of the American republic, the importance of French contributions to the cause, and the commitment of the patriots’ descendants to preserving the memory of our Revolution.
Let me tell you a little about Larz Anderson. He was the great-grandson of Robert Clough Anderson, a Virginian who served in the American Revolution. He crossed the Delaware River with Washington and was aid-de-camp to Lafayette at Yorktown. He was married twice: to Elizabeth Clark, sister of George Rogers Clark and William Clark, and to Sarah Marshall, cousin of Chief Justice John Marshall. Robert Clough Anderson was a founding member of the Society of the Cincinnati, which helps explain why Larz left his property to the society.
Larz was also the grandnephew of Brigadier General Robert Anderson, who surrendered to Confederate forces at Ft. Sumter in 1861. This Robert Anderson is also my 3rd cousin 6x removed, if I have my information correct. Our common ancestor was my 8th great-grandfather, also named Robert Anderson, who spent most of his life near me in York County and New Kent County in Virginia. This makes Larz my 8th cousin 1x removed I think.
Larz spent some of his adult life as a somewhat undistinguished diplomat. He began his career in 1891, serving as second secretary to the American ambassador to the Court of St. James in London (the ambassador was his Harvard classmate Robert Todd Lincoln). In 1894 he was reassigned to Rome, where he served for another three years before resigning to go back home to marry Isabel Weld Perkins. He returned to the diplomatic corps in 1911, serving as US Minister to Belgium for one year before being named Ambassador to Japan. He served one year in this position before resigning in 1913. He never returned to the diplomatic corps, and he and Isabel spent the next 25 years traveling, collecting memorabilia, and decorating (and redecorating) their homes in Boston and Washington.
Larz and Isabel Anderson are interred in this chapel. They donated six 16th-century Flemish tapestries to hang on the walls of this chapel. One of the tapestries can be seen on the left in this photo, which I took from the National Cathedral website.
So interesting. That's quite the Society bauble, too. I'm growing increasingly curious about how and why people enjoy segregating themselves from others. So strange. And un-American. But there it is.