Douglas, Adele

Born: 1835-12-27 Washington, DC

Died: 1899-01-26 Washington, DC

Alternate name: Cutts

Born into a political family (James Madison was her great uncle), Adele Cutts grew up in Washington, DC. A Catholic, she received her education at a Catholic academy in Georgetown, DC. She became Stephen A. Douglas's second wife in 1856 and the two formed a close partnership, although her Catholicism was occasionally a source of controversy. Together they had three children. After Stephen's death in 1861, she remained in DC.

Robert Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 541, 605, 675-76, 706, 713, 767, 785; Collections and Proceedings of the Maine Historical Society (Portland, ME: Maine Historical Society, 1897), 8:27; Virginia Tatnall Peacock, Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1901), 175, 186; Gravestone, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA.