Olive Risley Seward

[Linda Anderson]

I think that Olive seems to have been a substitute for not only Seward's wife, Frances, but also for his daughter Fanny who was about the same age as Olive. I can only imagine the tremendous physical and emotional pain Seward was in after Powell's attack and the subsequent deaths of Frances on June 21, 1865 and Fanny on October, 29, 1866.

"Olive Risley was the daughter of Anson Risley, a prominent civil servant who later worked for the Secretary of the Treasury. After the death of his wife Frances in 1865 and his daughter Fanny in 1866, Olive became William Seward's close companion during the last four years of his life, beginning in 1868. She was forty years his junior.

"In order to curtail gossip and family concerns about their relationship, Seward adopted Olive in 1870. She and her sister Harriet Risley traveled extensively with Seward through Asia, the Middle East and Europe in 1870-1871, an experience recorded in the book William H. Seward's Travels Around the World, published in 1873, a best-selling work of its day for which Olive Risley Seward was credited as editor. She and Seward's three surviving sons were named joint heirs of the Seward estate."

civilwarwomenblog.com http://www.civilwarwomenblog.com/2010/10...eward.html

In October 1868, Gideon Welles recorded in his diary that "There is much speculation in relation to a projected marriage between Secretary Seward and a Miss Risley. He is in his sixty-eighth year and and she is in her twenty-eighth. I give the rumor no credit. Yet his conduct is calculated to make gossip. For the last six weeks he has passed my house daily to visit her." William Henry Seward: Lincoln's Right Hand. John Taylor.

Seward stopped writing his autobiography to work on the travel book with Olive. After he finished the book, he was too weak to continue with his autobiography so his son Fred Seward completed it after Seward's death in 1872.

Seward and Olive were in China when Seward made his will on November 5, 1870, after he adopted Olive. (Her father was still alive.) Seward left "the home and real estate in Auburn to his three sons in equal shares, and the remaining estate, real and personal, also in equal shares, to his sons and adopted daughter. William Henry, Jr., and Olive were named executor and executrix." Seward biographer Glyndon G. Van Deusen writes that, "I have it on the best authority that letters revealing the attitude of the Sewards towards Olive and her father were destroyed by relatives before the Seward Papers were given to the University of Rochester." William Henry Seward. Glyndon G. Van Deusen.

You might expect a statue of William Henry Seward to be in Seward Square in Washington, D.C. Instead the statue is of Olive Risley Seward.

"In 1971, sculptor John Cavanaugh chose to create a statue honoring her rather than her accomplished father. A picture of her was not found at the time, so Cavanaugh sculpted his idea of an idealized Victorian lady instead. The statue stands in front of a private residence on North Carolina Avenue and Sixth Street, SE in Washington, D.C.. The subject's head is turned to the left as if gazing toward the nearby Seward Square, named for her adoptive father. Olive died in Washington, D.C., and is buried in Fredonia, NY with her parents."



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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Risley_Seward