How did Stephen meet
Miss Lum who was to become his wife?
Although details differ on how Stephen met the attractive
servant-girl, we know for sure that the meeting took place on Water Street in
front of Stephen’s shop. The water pump would attract many people who would
stop for a drink. Whether it was fate or
just by chance that a beautiful brunette in her teens arrived, skipping along
in bare feet. Biographer Patton tells us she was sixteen and flirtatious as are
most young girls, sure of their own beauty. Stephen was captivated. She had
what Stephen could never claim for himself—physical attractiveness. He had what
she could never attain—a brilliant mind. Something clicked between them and
they began seeing each other, despite the difference in their ages.
“One might
ask what thoughts might Mary Lum have had after receiving a proposal of
marriage. The temptation of an offer of
marriage to a young servant girl by a
captain and merchant who even then was supposed
to be a favored votary of fortune was certainly too great to permit her to question or scrutinize the emotions of her
heart. What might have been the destiny of Stephen Girard had his marriage been
crowned with offspring?”1
When did Stephen marry?
The marriage took place on June 6th 1777. Mary Lum, a native of Philadelphia. also called “Polly” was almost a decade younger than Stephen.
What was Girard’s
main disappointment in his marriage?
Girard lamented most of all that his wife did not become
pregnant. For some reason she was unable to have children with her Stephen. He
was all the more upset because he came from a family of many children. The men
in the family were virile and the women were fertile.
How could a young
attractive girl be drawn to a man ten years older than she who was not
physically appealing with an eye deformity?
Mary’s desire was to marry a man of wealth and have
children. Girard had everything she did not have: drive, intelligence and
money. Polly had youth and beauty. He was perhaps flattered that she would want
him. A year before meeting Mary Lum,
Girard had met a beautiful woman in New Orleans by the name of Bébé Duplessis.
She was French which pleased Girard but he found her to be too light and nimble
a wit. In conversation, he was unable to match her repartee.2
Where did the
newlyweds stay immediately after they were married?
They immediately stayed in a little room above the store.
Did they have a
honeymoon?
The only honeymoon they had was to stay on board his boat
while it was still anchored in the harbor—only a couple of days.
What attributes did
Mary bring to the marriage?
Not many at all. She had no education; she couldn’t cook,
was not good with figures, and could not be counted on to tend to the store.
Were any of Stephen
Girard’s biographers negative about Stephen and Mary getting married?
Biographer Parton wrote:“Of all miserable marriages this was one of
the most miserable. Here was a young, beautiful, and ignorant girl united to a
close, ungracious, eager man of business, devoid of sentiment, with a violent
temper and an unyielding will. She was an American, he a Frenchman; and that
alone was an immense incompatibility. She was seventeen, he twenty-seven. She
was a woman; he was a man without imagination, intolerant of foibles. She was a
beauty, with the natural vanities of a beauty; he not merely had no taste for
decoration, he disapproved it on principle. These points of difference would
alone have sufficed to endanger their domestic peace; but time developed something
that was fatal to it." William Wagner described the union of Stephen and Mary
differently. “She (Mary) possessed a quick intelligence …and a ready
appreciation of knowledge in others that went far to render her a most
agreeable companion."
Chapter 4 Notes
1. Wildes, Lonely
Midas, 22-24.
2. Ibid., 25.
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