Mary Estelle Elizabeth Cutts was an American socialite, amateur historian, and memoirist.
21 Facts About Mary Cutts
1.
2.
Mary Cutts exchanged letters frequently with Dolley Madison and, after Madison's death in 1849, spent the last seven years of her life writing and attempting to publish two memoirs.
3.
Mary Estelle Elizabeth Cutts was born in Washington, DC, on September 16,1814, to Anna Payne Cutts and Richard Cutts, a congressman from Massachusetts living in what is Maine.
4.
Mary Cutts was the sixth of seven children and would grow closest to her younger brother, Richard, and sister Dolley.
5.
Cutts's aunt was Dolley Madison, the wife of James Madison, and Mary was her "favored niece".
6.
Mary Cutts spent that decade living with her father in a new home on Lafayette Square in Washington.
7.
Mary Cutts assisted Mary Cutts in acquiring signatures in an autograph book and advised them on the proper conduct in social situations and general life.
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Dolley Madison Richard Cutts James Madison John Quincy Adams Louisa Adams Jared Sparks 8.
The Mary Cutts girls wrote Madison numerous letters and sent her gifts and news.
9.
Mary Cutts was homeschooled and was an amateur artist, drawing figures including her aunt.
10.
Two years later Mary Cutts was involved in Margaret Bayard Smith's effort to produce a biographical sketch of Dolley.
11.
Mary Cutts assisted James Madison in dealing with his papers before his death in 1836.
12.
Mary Cutts was further devastated when her sister Dolley died in 1838.
13.
Mary Cutts accompanied Madison on a trip to New York City in early 1842.
14.
Mary Cutts visited John Quincy Adams and his wife Louisa Adams often and was with Louisa upon her husband's death in 1848.
15.
Mary Cutts visited the Adams in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1852 and relatives in Virginia in July 1856.
16.
Mary Cutts transcribed and saved many of her letters with Dolley Madison.
17.
Madison had instructed upon her death that her private papers be burned, a request that Mary Cutts carried out, though how much she actually desired be destroyed is unclear.
18.
Mary Cutts wrote two memoirs about Dolley Madison after Madison's death.
19.
Mary Cutts's first was written in the early 1850s and was 32 or 57 pages long.
20.
Mary Cutts found an interested publisher, Jared Sparks, who demanded inclusion of "important men and masculine subjects", according to Allgor, that he thought would ensure the memoir was taken seriously.
21.
However, Mary Cutts died in 1856 before she could finish her work.