Sallie (Ward) Downs (1827-1896)
Mrs Sallie (Ward) Lawrence, Hunt, Armstrong, Downs
She was born at her maternal grandfather's house, Walnut Hall, Kentucky. She grew up in a mansion in Louisville and was educated at a French finishing school in Philadelphia. On coming of age, she was widely regarded as one the most beautiful southern belles and was presented to the Courts of both England and France. Following in the French traditions set by Nancy Bingham at the Bingham Mansion, she relished in wearing daring outfits and organized one of the first fancy dress balls in Kentucky. She often marvelled her guests by changing dresses several times throughout the night. However, this zest for life and fashion was not appreciated up in Boston where she moved with her first husband in 1849. She shocked her in-laws (Abbott Lawrence and Katherine Bigelow) and the more puritanical among its society by wearing make-up, and for a joke, satin bloomers. They divorced within the year, stating "cultural differences".
Her second husband was the "elegant" Dr. Robert P. Hunt, son of John Wesley Hunt, of Lexington, "the first millionaire west of the Allegheny mountains". Robert and Sallie lived on Rampart Street at the corner of Canal Street in New Orleans: "The new home... was on a scale of magnificence that fully gratified her luxurious tastes and love of the beautiful. Its rich adornment of tapestries, statuary, and Parisian furnishings, its marble court, with its glistening fountains and wealth of tropical bloom, formed an exquisite background for her artistic individuality and prodigal temperament. Its hospitalities were munificent and the legend of the magnificence of its dinner-parties, during which the orchestra from the French opera filled the court-yard and dining-room with its melodies".
She and Robert separated when he sided with the Confederates and she with Lincoln. He was killed in action in 1867. Her next husband was a wealthy merchant at Louisville, but died the year after they were married. Lastly, she married Major George F. Downs and they lived at the Galt Hotel in Louisville. She was survived by one son, John W. Hunt.
Her second husband was the "elegant" Dr. Robert P. Hunt, son of John Wesley Hunt, of Lexington, "the first millionaire west of the Allegheny mountains". Robert and Sallie lived on Rampart Street at the corner of Canal Street in New Orleans: "The new home... was on a scale of magnificence that fully gratified her luxurious tastes and love of the beautiful. Its rich adornment of tapestries, statuary, and Parisian furnishings, its marble court, with its glistening fountains and wealth of tropical bloom, formed an exquisite background for her artistic individuality and prodigal temperament. Its hospitalities were munificent and the legend of the magnificence of its dinner-parties, during which the orchestra from the French opera filled the court-yard and dining-room with its melodies".
She and Robert separated when he sided with the Confederates and she with Lincoln. He was killed in action in 1867. Her next husband was a wealthy merchant at Louisville, but died the year after they were married. Lastly, she married Major George F. Downs and they lived at the Galt Hotel in Louisville. She was survived by one son, John W. Hunt.
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Contributed by Mark Meredith on 24/05/2020 and last updated on 07/12/2023.
Image Courtesy of the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky; Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century (1901), by Virginia Tatnall Peacock