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In her 16 years of marriage, America Peter was pregnant 15 times. Only five of those children, three girls and two boys made it to adulthood. Her last child, a boy named Toby, only lived a few months before dying at Mackinac Island, Mich. in 1841. America died only a few months after that. A family friend wrote, ” Mrs. Williams is again, for the fifteenth time, as they say ‘women wish to be.’ She is said to have been very beautiful and fascinating and figured conspicuously in gay life at Washington, but her beauty is near wreck and she looks prematurely old. She is not more than thirty-five.” Actually America was 37 at the time. From what I’ve read, America Peter Williams was never a very strong person health-wise so certainly 15 pregnancies in so short a time would have taken its toll, no? Perhaps I would have been more correct to say she likely died of exhaustion?

Regards,

Teej Smith

so still no connection to America dying from a postpartum complication unless she had another undocumented baby after William Orton in 1839, ….right?

Debbie
Northern Virginia

I am curious as to why Orton’s mother’s death is suspected to be to due to complications following childbirth? I recently visited Tudor Place in Georgetown where a portaint of America hangs, painted by her husband and depicts America breastfeeding her youngest son Laurence Abert Williams (born in 1833) the baby was at least several months old in the painting, …the education director at Tudor Place said the baby was “probably about 12 mo. in age in the painting”

Regards, Debbie
Northern Virginia

WOW…it is so cool to meet someone who apparently has as much interest in the Orton Williams story as I do. I have read your book and look forward to finding out what my errors appear to be. Rather than tie up Eric’s blog perhaps you could contact me privately at teej@nc.rr.com?

Regards,
Teej Smith