Murat

1867 · 397735 — Tallahassee Florida: no publisher 1867. Unbound. Near Fine. First edition. Large folio broadside. Measuring 13½" x 21½". Text in four columns with a black border. Old folds perhaps as mailed tiny tears very faint dampstain at the edges of the center horizontal fold but still a beautiful near fine example of this previously unknown broadside. The text is signed in print as being by "Ln- Tallahassee Florida." Note on the verso in the hand of the recipient: "Obituary notice of my cousin Princess Achille Murat By Mrs. Long of Tallahassee Florida." Inscribed in the top margin by the author: "Mrs. Randall - Baltimore - With the compliments of the writer. E.C.L." and also with several corrections in her hand.<br /> <br /> Memorial address for Princess Murat the great-grandniece of George Washington who started life as Catherine Daingerfield Willis Gray born in Virginia in 1803. She was the first American woman to become a European princess having married Napoleon's nephew Prince Achille Murat in 1826. Prince Achille sought asylum in the U.S. and settled in Florida where he became the owner of a large plantation and eventually became Mayor of Tallahassee. He also served in Florida's militia in the Second Seminole War. He met his future wife while he was traveling with Lafayette on his Grand Tour of the United States in 1824. They later married and she settled with him in Tallahassee. When her husband died in 1847 she inherited his large estate and later acquired an additional cotton plantation.<br /> <br /> During the Civil War she nursed wounded Confederate soldiers. Upon her death in 1867 her friend Ellen Call Long 1825-1905 wrote this obituary the first half of which deals with Catherine and her life and marriage to the Prince. The second half is devoted to her life after his death mentioning her solicitude towards her slaves before during and after the War and her other humanitarian and charitable activities. She was also instrumental in spearheading the raising of funds in Florida for the purchase of Mount Vernon by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. <br /> <br /> The author of the obituary Ellen Call Long was reportedly ".the first white child born in Tallahassee" and like her father who was a two-time territorial governor a staunch Unionist until Florida seceded. She was the author of Florida Breezes: or Florida New and Old Jacksonville 1883 wherein she used a portion of this text in her account of the Prince and Princess Murat. According to Margaret Louise Chapman in her introduction to the 1962 University of Florida reprint of Florida Breezes: "Ellen Call Long would have been a remarkable woman in any age. In her own era she was truly exceptional."<br /> <br /> This text was later reprinted in the magazine Galaxy June 1875 and subsequently in 1909 by the Florida Historical Quarterly and also as a 12-page pamphlet in 1931. However this 1867 first printing is entirely unknown and not otherwise recorded. Not in OCLC or Servies. A Bibliography of Florida 1993. [no publisher unknown