See also
1 Maria Denny FAY1 (1820- ) [9930]. Born 6 Jun 1820.1 Died "15 FEB", 1890.1
From The Romance of Old England Rooftrees, 1902 by Mary Cardine Crawford. The excerpted sections come from a chapter concerning Fay House. The last paragraph also makes reference to Mrs. Greenough (who we know to have been Harriet Fay), Lily (actually Anna Lillie) and Suzanne (actually Lillie Suzanne).
"NO single house in all Massachusetts has survived so many of the vicissitudes of fickle fortune and carried the traditions of a glorious past up into the realities of a prosperous and useful present more successfully than has Fay House, the present home of Radcliffe College, Cambridge, The central, portion of the Fay House of to-day dates back nearly a hundred years, and was built by Nathaniel Ireland, a prosperous merchant of Boston. It was indeed a mansion to make farmer-folk stare when, with its tower-like bays, running from ground to roof, it was, in 1806, erected on the highroad to watertown, the first brick house in the vicinity.
For fifty years after June, 1835, the house was in the possession of Judge P. P. Fay's
family. The surroundings were still country-like. Cambridge Common was as yet only a
treeless pasture, and the house had not materially changed from its original shape
and plan. Judge Fay was a jolly gentleman of the old school. A judge of probate for a
dozen years, an overseer of Harvard College, and a pillar of Christ Church, he was withal fond of a well-twined story and a lover of good hunting, as well as much given to
hospitality. Miss Maria Denny Fay, whose memory is now perpetuated in a Radcliffe
scholarship, was the sixth of Judge Fay's seven children, and the one who finally became both mistress and owner of the estate. A. girl of fourteen when her father bought the house, she was at the time receiving her young-lady education at the Convent of St. Ursula, where, in the vine-covered, red-brick, convent on the summit of Charlestown, she learned, under the guidance of the nuns, to sing, play the piano, the harp, and the guitar, to speak French, and read Spanish and Italian, But her life on Mt. Benedict was suddenly terminated when the convent was burned. So she entered earlier than would otherwise have been the ease upon the varied interests of her new and beautiful home. Here, in the course of a few years, we find her presiding, a gracious and lovely maiden, of whom the venerable Colonel Higginson has said: "I have never, in looking back, felt more, grateful to anyone than to this charming girl of twenty, who consented to be a neighbour to me, an awkward boy of seventeen, to attract me in a manner from myself and make me available to other people,"
During the latter part, of Miss Fay's long tenancy of this house, she had with her her
elder sister, the handsome Mm. Greenough, a woman who had been so famous a beauty in her youth that, on the occasion of her wedding, Harvard studentsthronged the aisles and climbed the pews of old Christ Church to see her, The wedding receptions of Mrs. Greenough's daughter and granddaughter were held, too., in Fay House, This latter girl was the fascinating and talented Lily Greenough, who was later a favourite at the court of Napoleon and Eugenie, and who, after the death of her first husband, Mr, Charles Moulton, was married in this house to Monsieur De Hegermann Lindencrone, at that time Danish Minister to the United States, and minister at Paris. Her daughter, Suzanne Moulton, who left left her name scratched with a diamond, on one of the Fay House windows, is now the Countess Suzanne Raben-Levetzan of Nystel, Denmark.".
2 Samuel Phillips Prescott FAY1,2,3,4,5 (1778-1856) [4360]. Born 10 Jan 1778, Concord, MA.1,2,3,4 Marr Harriet HOWARD 1801.1 Died 18 May 1856, Cambridge, MA.1,4,6
From the History of Middlesex Co., Massachusetts compiled by D. Hamilton Hurd, 1890.
"Samuel Phillips Prescott Fay, son of Jonathan Fay, of Concord, was born in that own January 10, 1778, and graduated at Harvard in 1803, in the class with John Farrar, James Savage and Samuel Willard. He was admitted to the Middlesex bar in 1803 and first settled at Cambridgeport. He was a councilor in 1818-19, member of the Constitutional Convention of 1820, and an overseer of Harvard College from 1825 to 1852. On the 12th of May, 1821, he was appointed judge of Probate and afterwards lived in old Cambridge until his death, May 18, 1856."
From the Boston Evening Transcript (Boston, MA).
May 20, 1856 - "DEATH OF JUDGE FAY. The venerable Hon. Samuel Phillips Prescott Fay, of Cambridge, died in that city on Sunday last. The deceased was Judge of Probate for Middlesex County for a long term of years, and was a man universally respected and esteemed. He was the disciple of Dr. William E. Channing, Judge Story, Rev. Dr. Tuckerman, and other noted men, having graduated at Harvard in 1798. His age was 78.".
4 Jonathan FAY , Jr.1,2,7 (aft1752-1811) [4358]. Born btw 21 Jan 1752 and 1754, Westboro, MA.1,2 Marr Lucy PRESCOTT 6 Dec 1776.7 Died 1 Jun 1811, Concord, MA.1,3,8
From History of the Town of Concord by Lemuel Shattuck, 1835.
"Jonathan Fay, son of Captain Johnathan Fay of Westborough, who was graduated at Harvard College in 1778, settled in Concord soon after, married Lucy Prescott, and died June 1, 1811, aged 59."
"Lucy Prescott b. April 24, 1757, dau. of Dr. Abel Prescott & his wife, Abigail Brigham of Concord, Mass. Lucy Prescott m. Dec. 6, 1776, Jonathan Fay, Esq., & settled in Concord, where he became distinguished in the profession of the law. He was Representative for Concord in the General Court from 1792 to 1796 inclusive. He was a student of Harvard College at the time it was removed to Concord to avoid the dangers incident to the war. He was the son of Captain Jonathan Fay of Westbrook, Mass., and born on Jan. 21, 1752; grad Harvard Coll. in 1778; read law and settled in Concord, Mass. (ancestors of the two Presidents of the United States, Bush.)"
Researchers note: Based on the Orlin P. Fay data, Jonathan was born January 21, 1754. Shattuck says January 21, 1752.
8 Jonathan FAY1,2 (1724-1800) [4356]. Born 21 Nov 1724, Westboro, MA.1,2 Marr Joanna PHILLIPS 25 Jun 1746.1 Marr Mary GODDARD 8 Aug 1789.1 Marr Lucretia HAMILTON 30 Mar 1798.1 Died 3 Mar 1800.1
9 Joanna PHILLIPS2 (1729-1788) [4357]. Born 1729.2 Died 10 Jun 1788.1
5 Lucy PRESCOTT1,2,7 (1757-1792) [4359]. Born 24 Apr 1757.1,2 Died 10 Oct 1792.9
10 Abel PRESCOTT1,7 ( - ) [9885].
11 Abigail BRIGHAM7 ( - ) [11734].
3 Harriet HOWARD1,2,5 (1782-1847) [4361]. Born 1782.2 Died 28 Jul 1847, Cambridge, MA.10
| 1 | "Fay Genealogy: John Fay of Marlborough and his Descendants by Orlin P. Fay, 1898". |
| 2 | "Information provided by Jeffery H. Lloyd". |
| 3 | "History of the Town of Concord by Lemuel Shattuck, 1835". |
| 4 | "History of Middlesex Co., Massachusetts compiled by D. Hamilton Hurd, 1890". |
| 5 | "Ancestors of George W. Bush *1946 (explanations) by William Addams Reitwiesner". |
| 6 | "Obituary of Judge Fay in the Boston Evening Transcript (Boston, MA), May 20, 1856". |
| 7 | "History of Concord, Massachusetts by Lemuel Shattuck, 1835". |
| 8 | "Massachusetts Town Death Records". |
| 9 | "1920 NY, Steuben, Corning census". |
| 10 | "Death notice of Mrs. Harriet Fay in the Daily Atlas (Boston, MA), August 5, 1847". |