Cantatore and Brophy connection?

[loetar44]

When Mary Surratt was reburied at Mt. Olivet in 1869 a Mrs. Cantatori (Cantatore) rode in the carriage. She was a niece of President Tyler. Why was she invited? What is her connection with the Surratts? Is there a connection with John P. Brophy, family friend of the Surratts? Also Brophy married a niece of President Tyler (Elizabeth Warren/Watts Tyler in Sept. 1866). I think Mrs. Cantatore was Sarah, who married John Cantatore, an Italian. At

http://scdb.swem.wm.edu/index.php?p=coll...2221&q=dog

a Jan. 23, 1868 letter of John Tyler, Jr. to Andrew Johnson is summarized: “The movement is going in the right direction and the adversary should be overthrown; nothing can stop him [JT] when he is doing what he thinks it right; has consistently supported him [AJ]; if he [JT] cannot do what he needs to be done, then appoint John Cantatore or John P. Brophy”.

[Susan Higginbotham]

I have an article about the correspondence between John Tyler, Jr. and Brophy in a forthcoming issue of the Surratt Courier. Mrs. Cantatore was Sarah Waggaman, a niece of President Tyler who had married John Baptiste Cantatore. (After being widowed, she became a nun.)

Brophy was on intimate enough terms with the Cantatores to refer to them as ""Cousin Sallie" and "Mr. C." in a letter to John Tyler, Jr. In the same letter, written in 1868, he refers to Anna Surratt and her future husband on a first-name basis, which suggests that John Tyler, Jr., was friends with the couple as well. Indeed, John Tyler, Jr., also corresponded with William Tonry, Anna Surratt's husband.

None of this answers your question about a tie between Sarah Cantatore and the Surratts, but I would guess either that she had become friendly with the family through Brophy or was at the funeral as a stand-in for Brophy's wife.

[loetar44]

Thank you Susan !

Eminent and Representative Men of Virginia and the District of Columbia in the Nineteenth Century. With a Concise Historical Sketch of Virginia by Ainsworth R. Spofford c.s., Madison, Wis., Brant & Fuller, 1893 has more information re. the Waggaman family.

1) Henry Waggaman, third son of Henry and Mary Elliott Waggaman, was born in 1758. He married Sarah, daughter of Col. Thomas Ennalls of Dorchester county, province of Maryland.
2) Thomas Ennalls Waggaman, the eldest son of Henry and Mary Elliott Waggaman, was born in 1770, and married, in 1805, Martha Jefferson Tyler, the sister of President Tyler; he died in 1832 and was buried at Greenway, the homestead of Governor Tyler of Virginia. He left a widow and seven children, viz: John H., George Granville, Mary Agnes, Ann Countess, Mary Stephenson, Floyd and Sarah.
3) Sarah Waggaman, the youngest daughter of Thomas E. Waggaman, married John Baptist Cantatore, of Italy — a gentleman of rare attainments. During the administration of her uncle, Mr. Tyler, she assisted in the hospitalities of the White house. After her husband's death she entered the convent of the Visitation, Georgetown, where she still lives.

I did some research.

Elizabeth Warren Tyler, wife of John Patrick Brophy was a daughter of William Wyatt Tyler and Frances Annett Stephenson.
William Wyatt Tyler was a son of Wat Henry Tyler and his first wife Elizabeth Warren Walker. Wat Henry Tyler was a brother of President Tyler.

My conclusion: Sarah Waggaman Cantatore was a first cousin of President Tyler and Elizabeth Warren Tyler was a first cousin once removed of President Tyler.

I agree that they all knew each other and corresponded frequently and may be befriended with each other. John Tyler Jr. (eldest son of President Tyler) died in 1896, Sarah Waggaman in 1901, Anna Surratt in 1904, her husband William Tonry in 1905, John Brophy in 1914 and Elizabeth Warren Tyler in 1924.

[L Verge]

Michael Kauffman used to comment on the "six degrees of separation" in relation to the Lincoln assassination. Mention one name, and you can link it to some other person or event in American history. Here, Kees shows us how an Italian "gentleman of rare attainments" is linked to John Brophy, the supporter of Mary Surratt as well as to a President of the United States. This is what makes history fun as well as educational.