Draper Marriages to Kentucky Mates
Eben Sumner Draper and Nannie Bristow – November 21, 1883.
General William F. Draper and Susan Christie Preston – May 22, 1890.
George Albert Draper and Jessie Fremont Preston – November 6, 1890.
George Otis Draper and Lily Duncan – April 28, 1892.
Edith Draper and Montgomery Blair, II* – February 26, 1895.
Arthur Joy Draper and Lily Duncan Voorhies – September 7, 1899.
Clare Hill Draper and Matilda Grace Engman – February 5, 1902.
George Otis Draper II and Maud Taylor McClintock – March 23, 1922.
Grace Draper and Harry Charlot – March 1923.
*The Blair connection to Kentucky for Montgomery is not as direct as it is for the rest of the people on this list. Earlier generations of the family lived there, but by the time of MB,II, they were in Maryland, and he was born in Washington, D.C.
Seven Draper men from Hopedale married women from Kentucky, and two Draper women married Kentucky men. Here is a Milford Daily News article, reprinted from a Lexington, Kentucky newspaper, about one of the marriages and it mentions four of the others.
G.O. Draper, 2d, Weds Miss Maud M’Clintock
Lexington, Ky. March 24 – George Otis Draper, 2d, son of George Otis Draper of Milford, Mass. has followed the example of various other men of his family in marrying a Lexington society girl.
The elopement and marriage of young Draper to Miss Maude Taylor McClintock of this city was announced yesterday. They had been sweethearts for some time following a friendship which began when Draper was in the Army.
He came here Monday from Los Angeles where his mother, Mrs. Lily Duncan Draper, now lives. Last night he and Miss McClintock had dinner at a hotel, and later went to Versailles, Ky., where they were married. They returned here at midnight and informed Mr. and Mrs. John McClintock, parents of the bride.
The new Mrs. Draper is a college graduate and took special courses in New York in kindergarten work.
Draper is the nephew of Gen. George R. Duncan and is related to many leading families of Kentucky, as is his bride.
The following Drapers of Massachusetts have married Lexington women:
Gen. W.F. Draper married Miss Susie, daughter of Gen. W.H. Preston, ex-ambassador to Spain. Both are now dead. (General Draper’s account of courtship and wedding.)
Her sister, Miss Jessie Preston, became the wife of Geo. A. Draper, and she is dead.
Arthur Joy Draper married Miss Lily Duncan Voorhies and Clare H. Draper married Miss Matilda Grace Engman.
The bridegroom of today was discharged last week from the Regular Army in which he had served in occupation service overseas. The bride is 19 years old. Milford Daily News, March 24, 1922.
It seems a bit strange, but the article hints at, but doesn’t actually mention, that the groom’s father, George Otis Draper, was another of the Draper men who married a woman from the Lexington, Kentucky area. The first Kentuckian to marry a Hopedale Draper was Nancy “Nannie” Bristow. She married Eben S. Draper. The Bristows were on the Union side during the Civil War, while the Prestons were Confederates. Susan and Jessie Preston’s mother took the children to Canada and remained there during the war.
There was one case of a Draper woman marrying a man from Kentucky. That was Edith
Draper, daughter of General Draper and his first wife, Lilla, who married Montgomery Blair II in 1895. He was of the family who had originally owned Blair House in Washington, D.C. They were related to the Prestons, and Preston was the middle name of several of the Blair men. Montgomery and Edith lived at Blair House for a while. Her diary, kept while she was a student at Miss Porter’s School, is online. Click here to read the shorter version, that is largely restricted to family and Hopedale matters, and here for the full version. (You’ll have to scroll down the page a bit to get to the diary.
Well after I had written the above paragraphs, I ran across another Draper marriage to a Kentucky man in the Bancroft Library files. In 1923, Grace Draper, daughter of Clare and Matilda Draper, eloped with her first cousin, Harry Charlot. For more on this, see the clippings below.
During the first quarter of the twentieth century there were at least five elopements among the young folks from wealthy families on Adin Street. The Drapers who wed that way included, B.H.Bristow Draper, George Otis Draper, II, and Grace Draper. There were also two Lapworths who eloped; William and Clarence.
Helene Draper may be the tenth Draper who married a Kentucky mate, but I’m not sure of that. While she and her husband were in Louisville at the time of her father’s death, as you can see in his obituary above, I don’t know if he was originally from Kentucky. At the time of her marriage, his parents were living in Warrington, Florida. His father had been a Navy officer, so he had probably grown up in a number of places.