Mary Ann Cuthbert

Mary Ann Cuthbert likely emigrated from England in the early nineteenth century, but little about her early life is known.¹ She seems to have been hired in New York by First Lady Mary Lincoln in June 1861 as a “dressing maid and seamstress.”² For a time, Cuthbert worked at the Soldiers’ Home, an early presidential retreat in the northwestern suburbs of Washington, D.C. 

In November 1862, President Lincoln wrote to his wife, “Mrs. Cuthbert & Aunt Mary want to move to the White House, because it has grown so cold at Soldiers Home. Shall they?”³ At some point, this wish was granted, and Cuthbert moved to the White House. In August of 1863, President Lincoln wrote to Mrs. Lincoln, “Tell dear Tad, poor `Nanny Goat,' is lost; and Mrs. Cuthbert & I are in distress about it,” which suggests she helped care for the Lincoln’s pets including their goat.⁴ Correspondence between Mrs. Lincoln and Cuthbert indicate that Cuthbert ran confidential errands for the first lady, traveling from Washington to New York and Philadelphia to undertake tasks and deliver letters which may have been related to Mrs. Lincoln’s debts.⁵ She was also given responsibility over the White House when the Lincolns were away, indicating a promotion from personal maid to housekeeper. In March 1865, Mrs. Lincoln wrote to Cuthbert, “Send a telegram…& say, if all is right at the house – Everything is left in your charge – ”⁶ Mrs. Lincoln followed up the next day with a telegram to White House doorkeeper Alphonso Dunn asking why Cuthbert had not yet responded.⁷ 

Cuthbert’s relationship with Mrs. Lincoln following President Lincoln’s assassination was marked with contention, despite the fact that Cuthbert remained in Washington after Mrs. Lincoln returned to Illinois and was no longer employed by the former first lady. Letters in summer 1865 from Mrs. Lincoln to former White House tutor Alexander Williamson indicate that Cuthbert was either intentionally or accidentally withholding private documents that Mrs. Lincoln had entrusted to Cuthbert for safekeeping and wished to have returned.⁸ 

In December 1865, Mrs. Lincoln was upset at the idea that Cuthbert had once given one of the late president’s hats to White House steward Edward Burke. “If Cuthbert – dared, give Burke the hat – give her a solemn talk–,” she wrote Williamson.⁹ While Mrs. Lincoln’s frustrations seem to have stemmed primarily from financial troubles following her husband’s death, Cuthbert was likely in an even more precarious financial position. In April 1866, President Lincoln’s longtime friend, U.S. Senator Orville Hickman Browning, wrote in his journal, “Met Mrs. Cuthbert, housekeeper at the White House in Mr. Lincoln’s time… on the steps of the Capitol. She stopped me to ask me to aid in getting her some employment. She said she was very destitute and in distress. That Congress allowed $600 per annum for stewardess at the White House, but that she never got it – it was all taken and appropriated by Mrs. Lincoln, and she was left pennyless.”¹⁰ Little else about Cuthbert’s life is known.¹¹