are not the responsibility
of the NSDAR, the state
organizations, or individual
DAR chapters.
She was the first “Real Daughter” to join the National Society Daughters of
the American Revolution when it was organized in
October 1890, and was among the Society's first 100 members.
In September 1891, she was appointed the “Organizing
Regent” at Macon, but on account of her ill health, the organization was
delayed until October 30, 1893. She served the Chapter eleven years as
Regent, until her death in 1901. A handsome bust of Mrs. Washington was
placed by the National Society in Continental Hall in Washington, D.C.
The minutes of the first organizing meeting of the Macon chapter, then
named the Mary Ann Washington Chapter, were written by Hugh Vernon
Washington and are now in a vault along with minutes of the first sixteen
years. Later it was learned that the National Society forbade naming
chapters after living persons, so after Mrs. Washington’s death in 1901,
the name was changed to Mary Hammond Washington Chapter.
Ellen Washington, daughter of Mary Hammond Washington, was a charter member of
her mother’s chapter. She married Major Burton W. Bellamy, a member of the
General Assembly and wealthy planter. On December 29, 1916, Ellen
Washington Bellamy gave the City of Macon a tract of land and $50,000 for
the construction of a library in memory of her older brother, Hugh Vernon
Washington, a lawyer who had died at her home at the age of 50. The
library, which we know today as the Washington Memorial Library, stands on
the tract of land which was the site of the Washington family
home.
|
