Theodore Roosevelt
Washington, DC, April 26, 1897
Theodore Roosevelt Writes to Grandniece of Commodore Stephen Decatur
TLS

"all I can I gladly will do to keep the name of Decatur in the Navy."

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Typed Letter Signed, to Lila Decatur Mayo, April 26, 1897, Washington, D.C. On Navy Department stationery. 1 p., 8" x 10.5". Expected folds; some ink transfer; small paper loss to lower left corner; very good.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt sent this letter to Mrs. Lila Decatur Mayo in response to a letter she had sent to Captain William S. Cowles (1846-1923), a U.S. Navy officer and Roosevelt's brother-in-law. She was the grandniece of Commodore Stephen Decatur III, famous for his naval exploits in the Barbary Wars and War of 1812. She may have written the letter about her son or her brother.

Complete Transcript
Navy Department / Office Assistant Secretary. / Washington.
April 26, 1897.
My dear Madam:
Captain Cowles has sent me your letter. I don't know that I will be able to do anything, but all I can I gladly will do to keep the name of Decatur in the Navy. I will bring your letter immediately to the attention of the Secretary.
Very sincerely yours,
Theodore Roosevelt
Mrs. Lila Decatur Mayo,
130 Freemason Street,
Norfolk, Virginia.

Historical Background
Commodore Stephen Decatur II (1752-1808) was a naval captain during the Revolutionary War and the Quasi-War with France of the 1790s. In 1800, he commissioned the USS Philadelphia, to which his son later set fire to prevent its use by the Barbary pirates. Commodore Stephen Decatur III (1779-1820), at age 25, was the youngest man to reach the rank of captain in American naval history. He gained fame during the Quasi-War with France, the Barbary Wars, and the War of 1812. His many naval victories helped establish the United States Navy as a rising naval power. Although he married in 1806, they had no children before he was killed in a duel with a fellow naval officer in 1820.

His namesake nephew, Stephen Decatur (1814-1876), married Anna Philbrick, and they had six children, though only two lived to adulthood. Their daughter Maria Susanna Decatur (1853-1897) married Captain Wyndham Robertson Mayo, a veteran of the Confederate Navy, and they had three children. This letter may have referred to her son Stephen Decatur Mayo (1875-1935), or to her brother William Beverley Decatur (1855-1934) who had his name changed by an act of the Maine legislature to "Stephen Decatur" in 1871. He had been appointed a midshipman in the U.S. Navy in 1870 and resigned in 1872. In May 1898, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Navy during the Spanish-American War and served until honorably discharged in January 1899. His son Stephen Decatur Jr. (1886-1964) attended the U.S. Naval Academy from 1902 to 1906 and served in the U.S. Navy during World War I.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was born in New York City, graduated from Harvard University in 1880, and attended Columbia Law School. In 1880, he married Alice Hathaway Lee (1861-1884), with whom he had one daughter. Two days after their daughter's birth, Alice Roosevelt died, plunging Roosevelt into grief. He served in the New York State Assembly from 1882 to 1884, as president of the New York City Police Commissioners in 1895 and 1896, then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1897 to 1898. After service in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, he won election as Governor of New York and served from 1899 to 1900. He ran as Vice President to William McKinley in 1900 and became President in September 1901, when McKinley was assassinated. Reelected in 1904, Roosevelt was President until 1909. A prolific author and naturalist, Roosevelt was instrumental in the Progressive movement of the early twentieth century, helped preserve the nation's natural resources, and extended American power throughout the world with a focus on a modern navy. In 1912, he again sought the Republican nomination for President, but when the convention chose incumbent William Howard Taft, Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party and outpolled Taft in the general election. The Republican division allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency.

Maria Susanna Decatur Mayo (1853-1897) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, as the grandniece of the famous Commodore Stephen Decatur, being the daughter of his nephew and namesake. In 1874, she married Captain Wyndham Robertson Mayo, who was a midshipman in the Naval Academy in 1860 and served in the Confederate States Navy throughout the Civil War. They had three children between 1875 and 1882. Captain Mayo served as mayor of Norfolk, Virginia, from 1896 to 1898 and again from 1912 to 1918. In the summer of 1896, she developed appendicitis. After an appendectomy in May 1897, she seemed to be recovering, but she died on May 17, less than a month after Roosevelt sent this letter.

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8" x 10.5"