COL. TOBIAS LEAR. 61
zette, of October 22, 1816, the following:
"At Washington City, suddenly. Col. Tobias Lear, Accountant of the War Department.
Mr. Lear was a native of this town, and had received a liberal education. His inclination at first led him to a maritime life, but circumstances introduced him to other and important situations, which he sustained with deserved reputation."
The "Oracle of the Day," printed in Portsmouth, in announcing the death of Mary (Long) Lear, the first wife of Col. Lear, copied the following from a Philadelphia paper:
"On Sunday. October 4. 1793, in Philadelphia, after a short but severe illness, universally lamented, Mrs. Mary Lear, the amiable and accomplished wife of Tobias Lear. Esquire. Secretary to the President of the United States; and on Monthly her funeral was attended by a train of unaffected mourners, to Christ burying-ground (North 5th, corner of Arch), where her remains were interred.
Youth, beauty, virtue, loveliness and grace, in vain would soothe the dull, cold ear of death."
Mrs. Lear died of yellow fever, which at that time was prevailing and very malignant; not less than five thousand persons, including ten valuable physicians, having fallen victims to the disease.
We also find in the Oracle a notice of the second marriage of Col. Lear. Miss Frances Bassett, a niece of Martha Washington, married Col. George Augustine Washington, a nephew of the General. He died in 1793, and his widow became the wife of Col. Lear:
"Tobias Lear. Esquire, married to Mrs. Fannie Washington, of Mount Vernon. Aug. 22, 1795."
We also read in the Portsmouth Journal of December 2, 1856:
"Mrs. Frances Dandridge Lear, the widow of the late Col. Tobias Lear, and the niece of Mrs. Martha Washington, aged 75."
Col. Lear married two nieces of Mrs. Washington.
In the sketch published in the October number of this magazine, we gave a description of several choice relics and mementos, which were once in the Lear mansion at Portsmouth, and now preserved in the family. We will here notice a few of the many valuable articles which belonged to the Lears, and are also in the possession of the widow of Col. Albert L. Jones, née, Mary Washington Storer, the only daughter of the late Admiral Storer. Her lamented husband was a highly respected and influential citizen of great promise, whose untimely death the city mourns. At Mrs. Jones's beautiful and spacious home, on the corner of Richards avenue and Middle street, the many very precious and interesting relics of the Lear family are carefully preserved. Among these are portraits of Col. Lear, not full size, one taken just after his graduation, the other during his service as Military Secretary of Washington; a portrait of his wife, Frances Dandridge Lear, in pastel, cabinet-size, framed and glazed; a fine painting in oil, on panel, cabinet size, of Benjamin Lincoln Lear, believed to have been painted by Gilbert Stuart; a miniature of Col. Lear, in a gold case, painted while he was a student at Harvard; also photographs of two portraits in oil, full size, one of Col. Lear, the other of his wife, both painted at Malta, on their way to or from Algiers, and once in the possession of the Storer family, but now with Wilson Eyre, Esq., of Newport, R.I.
Capt. Tobias Lear, the father of Col. Lear, brought from Europe, among other valuables, a silver cream-pitcher, two silver salt-cellars, and two silver pepper-boxes, on which is engraved the crest of the Lears. These are now preserved as heir-looms. Mrs. Jones has also a silver cup bearing the family arms of the Custises.
Among a very large and valuable correspondence are to be found letters from many illustrious men, including Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Knox, Timothy Pickering, Rob-
