A chance discovery in a college archive has reshaped one of American history's oldest family stories and brought a president's daughter home after nearly two centuries abroad. Retired teacher Barbara VornDick was digging through old letters at the College of William & Mary in Virginia when she found a desperate plea written in 1839 by Eliza Monroe Hay, eldest daughter of fifth president James Monroe, the Washington Post reports. Hay, who moved in elite circles in Europe as a young woman and functioned much as first lady during her mother's long illness, was near destitute in Paris. She claimed to be the victim of a swindle by her brother-in-law, Samuel Gouverneur, who was deep in debt from high-stakes gambling.
"I am now in distress, in ill health, & in a forreign [sic] country," read the unsent letter. Hay was desperate for aid to "save me from utter ruin." She died in early 1840 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Paris' Pere LeChaise cemetery. She was largely dismissed by history as haughty and estranged from her family. VornDick, moved what she had found, spent the next six years tracking down descendants, piecing together evidence of Hay's financial ruin, and challenging decades of rumor. Her research revealed that Hay spent much of her life caring for sick relatives and raising grandchildren after her daughter, Hortensia, died.
Denied her share of her inheritance by Gouverneur's scheming, Hay sailed for France in late 1838, hoping old friends could help, VornDick's research found. VornDick's quest, dubbed the Bringing Eliza Home Project, rallied local historians and volunteers, and required navigation of both French and American bureaucracy. She also connected with Kathryn Willis, who had in 2018 found Hay's overgrown tomb in the Paris cemetery, cleaned it up, and paid for a ceramic marker, the Post reports.
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After securing family approvals and diplomatic support, VornDick arranged for Hay's remains to be brought from Paris to Virginia. She will finally join her family at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond after a reinterment ceremony on Thursday, Cville Right Now reports. "If this could happen to the daughter of a president, that she could end up with her inheritance just flat-out denied her and end up as a pauper dying far from home—we know that happened to other women during that era," VornDick says. "That's an important aspect of women's history in America."
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