The Mallory Legacy Fades
Annie and Jessie Mallory continued to live much as they always had at the Ilion following Smith’s death on March 26, 1903.
Not long after, they commissioned a magnificent and towering Celtic cross as his monument and it was placed between Smith’s grave and that of his son-in-law, Deming J. Thayer, in the northwest corner of the Chariton Cemetery, backed by a view into the Chariton River valley. Here, they expected to rest as well.
The 1907 bank crash, however, drove the Mallory women from Chariton. Both the people of Lucas County and federal banking officials expected Annie and Jessie to use their fortune to cover bank losses. They were, after all, the bank’s major shareholders and, in name at least, its principal officers. The Mallory women were unwilling to do this, and the result was a court battle and an unbridgable gulf of anger.
Faced by monumental lawsuits, the Mallory women agreed during 1909 to a $125,000 settlement that included all family assets in Lucas County, including the Ilion and Brook Farm.
They had most of the Ilion’s contents packed and shipped to a new home in Orlando, Florida, where they built new lives.
During 1920, Jessie returned to Chariton, had her father’s body exhumed and cremated and the magnificent monument dismantled and shipped to Florida. Smith Mallory’s ashes were interred alongside his cross in Orlando’s Greenwood Cemetery, and both Annie and Jessie joined him there during 1923.
Smith’s nieces and nephews were the principal heirs of Mallory belongings that had been moved from Chariton to Florida, and his possessions were scattered after Jessie’s death.
In Chariton, his business buildings, his mansion, his church (St. Andrew’s Episcopal) and most other physical reminders of him fell.
Today, the courthouse clock he donated to the people of Lucas County during 1894, a greatly altered business block on the east side of the square and the graves of his son-in-law and stillborn granddaughter in Chariton Cemetery are the principal physical reminders of him.
Still, Lucas County has not forgotten the Mallorys and their golden days. They remain the stuff of dreams and oft-told stories.
Note: This is the text of the fifth and final Mallory interpretive panel created by Frank D. Myers for display in The Freight House at Chariton, a building restored by the Lucas County Arts Council as both a public venue and interpretive center devoted to Chariton's railroading heritage.
Not long after, they commissioned a magnificent and towering Celtic cross as his monument and it was placed between Smith’s grave and that of his son-in-law, Deming J. Thayer, in the northwest corner of the Chariton Cemetery, backed by a view into the Chariton River valley. Here, they expected to rest as well.
The 1907 bank crash, however, drove the Mallory women from Chariton. Both the people of Lucas County and federal banking officials expected Annie and Jessie to use their fortune to cover bank losses. They were, after all, the bank’s major shareholders and, in name at least, its principal officers. The Mallory women were unwilling to do this, and the result was a court battle and an unbridgable gulf of anger.
Faced by monumental lawsuits, the Mallory women agreed during 1909 to a $125,000 settlement that included all family assets in Lucas County, including the Ilion and Brook Farm.
They had most of the Ilion’s contents packed and shipped to a new home in Orlando, Florida, where they built new lives.
During 1920, Jessie returned to Chariton, had her father’s body exhumed and cremated and the magnificent monument dismantled and shipped to Florida. Smith Mallory’s ashes were interred alongside his cross in Orlando’s Greenwood Cemetery, and both Annie and Jessie joined him there during 1923.
Smith’s nieces and nephews were the principal heirs of Mallory belongings that had been moved from Chariton to Florida, and his possessions were scattered after Jessie’s death.
In Chariton, his business buildings, his mansion, his church (St. Andrew’s Episcopal) and most other physical reminders of him fell.
Today, the courthouse clock he donated to the people of Lucas County during 1894, a greatly altered business block on the east side of the square and the graves of his son-in-law and stillborn granddaughter in Chariton Cemetery are the principal physical reminders of him.
Still, Lucas County has not forgotten the Mallorys and their golden days. They remain the stuff of dreams and oft-told stories.
Note: This is the text of the fifth and final Mallory interpretive panel created by Frank D. Myers for display in The Freight House at Chariton, a building restored by the Lucas County Arts Council as both a public venue and interpretive center devoted to Chariton's railroading heritage.
posted by Frank D. Myers at 9:55 AM
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