Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1877-02-16
seletted Mlistellauv,
TWICE DEAD.
The Story of Naval Officers Widow, once
Belle in New York soclety--A Sane Woman
Twenty Five Years ina Lunatic Asylum

The other day there was driven from
the door of a lodging house in East
Twenty-eighth street an elderly lady, for
whom her relatives have twice put on
mourning, and who has twice risen from
the dead who, sounder in BODY and
brain than the majority at her age, has
passed twenty-five Of her fifty years in
lunatic asylums 1t was nearly dark,
and she comparative stranger in the
city, alone, dazed by the recent rawlings
of a virago landlady, and nearly penni-
less. Fortunately, while she was wan
dering vaguely down Fourth avenue. she
met a lady acquaintance, who heard
her story and interested herself in pro-
curing for her, in respectable house, a
modest hall bedroom suited to her slender
means--a pension amounting to three
dollars a week, the income of a small
property to an equal amount, and earn
ings from occasional scraps of embroidrey
A legacy of few hundred dollars, Just
paid over to her solicitor, has, for the
present, placed her in position of COM
parative afiluence.
Having heard something in the gossip
of general society of the incredible vcis-
STUDIES through which the heroine of the
previous incident and of the narrative
has passed. the representative of the
Herald called upon Mrs Keith, at her
present residence in East Twenty fourth
street, with view to hear her story
from her own lips, and to verify it by
documents if such evidences existed
An introduction by the young lady who
had befriended her at the termination of
her last disastrous experiment with a
lodging house landlady, acted as an
open sesame to the secret history of one
of the most. singular and adventurous
careers that ever befel woman.
Life was fairy land until the Cap
tain died, >" said the quiet, elderly lady,
rocking herself to and fro in the cosy
freight in manner that appears to
become habitual with persons who are
familiar with trouble "But since then
! have passed so many weary years in
insane asylums that it seems to me some
times as if had lived two lives, with a
long blank between thcm--one of youth
and wealth and tenderness, passed long
ago, and another of age and poverty and
neglect. Between them lies a time
when for years ! was as one stunned and
lived on in a kind Of nightmare"
HER STORY COMMENCES.
Mrs. Elizabeth Mary Keith, nee
Sanxay, is a native of New York city,
and passed her girlhood, from 1927 to
1871, in the ancestral residence of the
Sanxay family, in Mulberry street
Her father, r. d Sanxay, married the
daughter of Lewis Morris, one Of the
signers Of the Declaration Of Indepen-
dcnce. and thus she is lnealIy descended
from that Lady Catharine Gorden, who
is the special ancestral vanity of the
Morris family. Her father was the son
of john Sanxay, one Of the last patrons,
who was the grandson Of the famous
Anneke Jams, the royal ward of the
King of Holland Anneke JAMS mar
ried Jansen.
ROMANTIC EDEN ON THE HUDSON.
In 1841 Miss Sanxay was married to
her cousin, Capt Louis Gordon Keith,
a naval officer in the service Of the
United States, direct descendent Of
the Stuarts. Their residence was Bel
vdere, on the Hudson, the ancestral seat
of the Keith family. The ceren ony was
performed at Belvidere. In the fashion
Of that day the bride was in white
cambria, orange blossoms and pearls
drops of frozen moonlight studding
fabric of woven snow The ancient
structure is now dismantled the grand
old trees, through the vistas of which it
was visible from the river, have been
cut down, and all that remains is
picturesque ruin with the reputation of
being haunted.
This romantic paradise was the home
Of Captain and Mrs. Keith for four
years, during the brief intervals Of rest
that the exigencies Of the service per-
mtted to a naval officer. On his way
to take command of the navy yard at
Portsmouth, N. H., Captain Keith
was suddenly stricken down with an
attack Of Hong Kong fever, contracted
during service in Asatic waters. II
should be remarked, par parenthese,
that, although educated as Protestants.
Captain and Mrs Keith had both been
converted to the Catholic faith. When
the Captain died, leaving an infant
daughter three years Of age to the care
Of girl widow Of nineteen, bis last