Mary Pleasants Gordon Thom

Description

Three-quarter portrait painting of Mary Pleasants Gordon Thom (1862-1892) with low collar and jewelry featured prominently. Mary was born in Virginia to Douglas Hamilton Gordon, Sr. (1817-1883) and Anne Eliza Pleasants Gordon (1836-1901) and had five siblings. Her father was a Virginia Assemblymen and lived at the Gordon family home known as "Wakefield Manor." Douglas was a supporter of the southern cause, and was offered a position as Treasurer of the Confederate States of America, but declined. During the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, his family fled their home and found it ransacked and looted after the fighting ceased. After the Civil War, and the birth of Mary, the family moved to Baltimore. In 1885, she married William Henry DeCourcy Wright Thom (1858-1932) in her mother's home at 27 Franklin Street and the couple later had two children. Mary likely died due to complications in childbirth, tragically passing away just eighteen days after the birth of her second child.