PASSES AWAY IN ENGLAND

Death of Mrs Harriet Ruth Brisbane Tracy

There passed away at Isleworth County, Middlesex, in England on May 30 last, in her eighty-fourth year, a member of a very old and distinguished American family, Harriet Ruth Brisbane Tracy.   She was the daughter of William Brisbane Esq., and Julia Hall Lowndes, both members of families eminent in the history of the South.   Mrs Tracy's great-grandfather, the Hon. Rawlins Lowndes, was president of the province of South Carolina in 1778 and later member of the South Carolina Assembly.   William James Lowndes, his son, and Mrs Tracy's great uncle, was educated in England as a boy, and when visiting that country later in life, as a distinguished statesman, it was said of him by William Roscoe to the then Duke of Argyle (sic)   "I have been spending a most agreeable hour with a young American gentleman who is the tallest, wisest and best bred young man I have ever met."   "It must have been Mr. Lowndes of South Carolina," replied the Duke.   "He is such a man.   I know him, and know no other like him, return and make his acquaintance."

Mrs. Tracy was an exceptionally gifted woman herself, having evinced from early youth a decided inventive genius, and between 1889 and 1893 no less than eleven patents for mechanical inventions were granted to her, by the United States patent office.   The most remarkable of these was a very important departure in the improvement of sewing machines, and she was congratulated for the success she had "achieved in the practical solution of a problem which" had "been attempted by many of the ablest sewing machine experts in the world, only to be abandoned as unsolvable"*.  Amongst others [were] safety devices for preventing the falling of elevators and the closing up of the shafts, also a folding bed.  Some of [her inventions] were exhibited at the World's Fair  in Chicago in 1893, for which she was presented with several silver and bronze medals, and a diploma from the World's Columbian Commission for her models of passenger elevators.   Mrs. Tracy was also gifted as a writer of verse and prose, and often contributed to magazines and other periodicals.

In 1860 she married at Litchfield, Conn., Cadwallader Colden Tracy, Esq., of New York who survives her at the age of eighty-nine, grandson of the Hon. Uriah Tracy, Senator from Connecticut, during Washington's administration and a personal friend of the President.   Mr. Tracy is also a descendant of Cadwallader Colden, Lieutenant Governor of the Province of New York from 1761 until his death in 1774.

Mrs. Tracy was indirectly a victim of the war, her house in London having been damaged in the March raid and despite a wonderful fortitude and self-control, the shock and exposure to cold hastened her end.   She was an intensely loyal American and at the memorial service held at Isleworth on June 1 her body was surrounded by her beloved soldiers and sailors of the United States army and navy to whom her house was ever open, and her coffin was covered by them with the American flag, so dear to her heart.

Although, since her marriage, Mrs. Tracy had lived away from the home of her youth, first in the North and late in Europe, she never lost her interest for her beloved South.   Towards the end her mind seemed filled with sweet memories of her youth and almost her last words were of Charleston and its people.   Mrs. Tracy leaves four daughters, Mrs. E. Haviland Hillman, Miss Julia Lowndes and Miss Adele Brisbane Tracy who reside in England, and Mrs Frederic W. Corse of New York.

* The quotation comes from a letter signed by:
John E Sweet, Engineer and Inventor
Lewis E Grover, Man. Colt's Firearms Co.
John Thomason, Inventor
W F Durfee, Sewing Machine Expert
P R Hutton, Professor of the Columbia School of Mines