Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1893-05-19
IN LOVE WITH HIS SLAVE,
Romantic History of a Famous Old
Mansion in Eastern Connecticut

NeW-London Correspondence Boston
Herald: The true story of the beauti.
1ui Stafford mansion on Groton
HelShts, to be dedicated by the Con-
necucut Odd Fellows as Fairview ON
wednesday, read like a dream.
How the Stafford House came to be
built; how it was whispered that Mr..
Stafford, a southern planter. was n
Croesus and had married one of his
slaves; how the magnificent villa be-
came peopled with large family of
beautiful and talented Young quad
rooms; and how Il few years later tho
dread malady of consumption (said to
have resulted from the inter-marrase
of the t1aXen-haircd millionaire PLANTER
With his slave) swept away the six
children almost i'll their youth, and tho
name of Stafford died out as quickly
as 1t came here, are matters Eastern
Connecticut people never tire of talk
ing about.
Col. Robert Stafford was one of the
snartest of the southern planters who
visited NeWYork i'll the 4O's and SOS.
lie was born South, educated North
and at his majority Inherited Il small
fortune from his father. With this
money he planted larger cotton fields,
bought more slaves, and finally began
to purchase of estates on Cumberland
Island in the Savannah River and began
to raise the famous Sea Island cotton,
the finest tiberd cotton ever put upon
the market In this way he rapidly
acquired Il princely fortune and finally
became the owner of nearly all of Cum
berland Island.
He was Il man of fine presence,
courtly manners and unnagging in
duStly. He became infa tuated with
one OF his slaves, Mary, Il mulatto,
whose beauty was of the Persian type,
it is said, SO light was she, and subse-
quenty took her to be his common-law
wife. They We're never married. This
woman was Il person Of superb figure
and of very many talents and graceS.
While i'll New York on business
trip Col. Stafford made the acquaint-
anee of Mr.. Cops father, who was n
| lawyer, and by this means he came to
Groton Heights, Il locality with which
he fell deeply in love, and where he
determined to locate Il home for his
growing family and establish them.
The Stafford villa with all its barns,
stables, greenhouses and wharves, was
completed in 1854, and there Col.
Stafford located his family, consisting
of two boys and four girls. The child
rem were all us handsome rs the
| nf
beauty. Every expense was lavished
upon them. Money was placed at their
command, they were educated at the
most expensive schools, the best Of the
most cultured society was sought for
them, and in every way Robert
Stafford, it appears, sought to atone
for any misdeed of his in the past by
sending them out in the world under
the most favorable circumstances.
But he was foiled. Death and mis-
fortune seemed to haunt the possessor
of millions, although for few years
the halls of his beautiful Northern
home rang with mirth and music, and
were filled with the gaycs Of young
people
At the first his two young sons, Ro-
bert and Armand, fell victims to con-
sumption, and then slowly, one by one,
the girls, all women Of surprising love
illness, talented and sprightly enter
tainers, sickened and died of the same
disease. Now, it is said, all are dead,
and it is also said that Col. Stafford,
who died in 1887 on Cumberland Is
land, aged so years, not only outlived
the woman who bore his children, but
his entire family as well.
All of the girls married, but the
marriages, in more than one instance
were unhappy, and many Of the child
rem resulting from these marriages
have since been swept away by the
same disease which haunted Robert
| Staffords children.
| Now they lie in burying grounds IN
other parts of the world.