Place of Origin

United States ➔ Alabama ➔ Florence
United States ➔ Tennessee ➔ Cedar Hill

Date of Composition

1829-1860s or later

Description

This recipe book is part of the library's Washington Family Genealogical Collection, 1833-2016. Begun by Mary Jackson Hannah Smith (1801-1843) and then continued by her daughter, Jane Smith Washington (1830-1894), the book is part of an extraordinary story told in the 435-page finding aid to the collection.

Born in Ireland in 1801, Mary Jackson Hannah became a orphan in 1808, whereupon she and her sister Anne became the wards of her uncle, James Jackson, a planter in Florence, Alabama. Mary and her sister continued to live in Ireland until around 1818, when they joined their uncle in Florence, where Mary Hannah met Joseph Laurence Darwin Smith (1797-1837), who was also a Florence planter. The couple married in 1823 and had a daughter, Jane, in 1830. After her first husband died, Mary Hannah Smith married Reverend Samuel Hurd, in 1842, and moved with him to a another plantation owned by her late first husband, in Granada, Mississippi. Mary Hannah died in Granada a year later.

Mary Hannah's recipe book was presumably in the possession of her daughter Jane when Jane became the second wife of George Augustine Washington (1815-1892) in 1849. George A. Washington was the owner of Wessyngton Plantation, in Cedar Hill, Tennessee, which by the time of the Civil War spanned close to 15,000 acres, held 274 slaves, and was the largest producer of tobacco in America. The couple had eight children, all but one of whom lived to adulthood. The estate remained within the family until 1983. It is now a privately owned farm. The property has a large African American cemetery and a restored slave cabin which can be toured.

The recipe book is housed in Box 7, Folder 6 of the collection. Digital page 75 of the finding aid shows the book opened to pages 26-27, with a recipe for "Tomato Catsup," dated November 2, 1862, on page 27. Digital page 352 shows two pages from the book's index and two pages of recipes.