A March 8, 1831, letter from Ezra Cornell to his father informs the elder Cornell "I am about to form a matrimonial connection with Miss Mary Ann Wood." The letter is a recent gift to the university's Rare and Manuscript Collections. Robert Barker/University Photography
The landmark statue of Ezra Cornell glowers across the Arts Quad with a stern expression on its bronze face. Other familiar images portray an unsmiling Victorian whose piercing eyes seem to tell students that no complaints about walking uphill, surviving snowstorms or dealing with course overload will be tolerated.
Ezra in love? That's an image that can be conjured only by a university archivist who has pored over hundreds of letters to search for the essence of the man. For a long time now, Elaine Engst has been eager to learn more about the love story between Ezra Cornell and Mary Ann Wood. A recent gift to the university's Rare and Manuscript Collections (RMC) has sparked new insights into their relationship.
"I presume you will expect to hear that I have made a wife of Miss Byington but that ant the case and I never intended it should be but I am happy to inform you that I am about to form a matrimonial connection with Miss Mary Ann Wood ..." reads a letter from Ezra to his father that is dated March 8, 1831. The letter, an antique coverlet and a medal from the New York State Agricultural Society were given to the university by Margaret Cushman Ledbetter of St. Louis, Mo.
"I've always regarded the story of Ezra and Mary Ann as a real love story," Engst said in an interview. Her excitement was evident as she held up the newly acquired letter, yellowed and torn, which has been framed between two plates of glass for at least 50 years.
Ezra Cornell's marriage to Mary Ann Wood was an act of rebellion for a young man at the time, Engst pointed out. He was a Quaker and her family was Episcopalian. When the Quakers read him out of the congregation for marrying outside of it, he wrote back unapologetically: "I have always considered that choosing a companion for life was a very important affair and that my happyness or misery in this life depended on the choice and for that reason I never felt myself bound to be dictated in the affair by any higher authority than my own feelings."
Engst doesn't know whether Mary Ann was as rebellious as her betrothed. "It's really quite hard to get a sense of who she is," she said. While there are hundreds of letters written by Ezra in the collection, Mary Ann's preserved correspondence is small.
Morris Bishop, in his A History of Cornell, presents unappealing descriptions of both Ezra and Mary Ann. He quotes Jeremiah S. Beebe calling Ezra "close, selfish, Pharisaical, destitute of gratitude and the kindlier feelings of poor human nature," and includes harsh opinions from other Ithacans. He describes Mary Ann's letters as "filled with doleful complaints of hardship, of abandonment."
Though she agrees Ezra might not be "the son-in-law you would have necessarily chosen," Engst disagrees with Morris' assessment.
"I think he's somebody with principles, and he is uncompromising about them. He's a self-made man and doesn't forget it. In working on his papers, he becomes somebody that you really like," she said.
"He's opinionated but his opinions are always interesting. In most cases you find yourself agreeing with him. There's something modern about him. He's someone who cares so much. He always had a dream that things would get better. He believes in technology, scientific agriculture and education," Engst said.
And while there is little information about Mary Ann, Engst pointed out, "she's clearly keeping things going. She runs the farm, deals with creditors. She believes in him."
Engst pulled another letter from the collection, written from Ezra to Mary Ann in 1844: "... our love, our affections, for each other has undergonn no change, or if any have increased in strength, it has been tride and become fixed and abiding. It is as intense as pure and as reciprocal this day after more than 13 years trial as it was on the happy day of your union."
Engst points out that Ezra was always writing home while on his travels. In fact, the early years of the Cornell marriage were like an 18th-century version of "You've Got Mail."
After their marriage in 1831, the Cornells lived in a small wood house he affectionately called the Nook, "our dear Cornelia." For the next eight years, he worked for Beebe, for whom he had supervised excavation of a plaster mill tunnel on Fall Creek. He left Beebe's employ on bad terms and tried his hand at farming. The family was desperately poor. Two of their first three children died during this time and were buried in the Nook's back yard, now the site of the Cornell mausoleum.
In 1842, Ezra hit the road as a traveling salesman, trying to make his fortune by selling patent rights, county by county, in Maine and Georgia for the Barnaby and Mooers side hill plow. Two more children, including their teen-age daughter, Elizabeth, died during this time, while Mary Ann, alone, struggled to make ends meet. Five children survived to adulthood.
After 25 years of poverty, the Cornells became rich in 1856, when Ezra's shares in various enterprises were combined in the creation of the Western Union Telegraph Co. The family moved to a larger home on a farm that later became the site of his university.
Mary Ann kept a low profile during the next 16 years, while Ezra gained prominence as a politician, civic philanthropist and university founder. She gave her support to the first privately funded preservation project in the country -- the purchase and restoration of Mt. Vernon -- and hosted many unannounced visitors brought home by her husband.
In 1869, Ezra began construction of the mansion now known as Llenroc, which houses the Delta Phi fraternity, but never lived there. He died on Dec. 9, 1874, after becoming ill at a university meeting. He and Mary Ann had been married for 43 years.
She spent the next 17 years living at Llenroc with her daughter Mary Emily, who never married. Carol Sisler, in her book Enterprising Families, writes that Mary Ann was "respected by the Cornell community." She held many open houses for visitors, especially the children of faculty members, and looked after her grandchildren. She died in 1891 at age 80. At her funeral, she was eulogized: "...when prosperity came [she] was not spoilt by it but lived on the same grand simplicity of heart and soul doing her duty as she saw it and loved it...."
Mary Ann and Ezra now lie together in the crypt of Sage Chapel.
Is it fair to say that, once wealth and prominence came, Ezra and Mary Ann lived happily ever after?
"I think she probably does," Engst commented. "But Ezra? I don't know that he's ever at a state when he's not looking for something else."
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