Isabel Otis Bigelow has been duly elected a member of the Massachusetts [Chapter].
signed first edition
by [TIFFANY ENGRAVING]. Society of the Colonial Dames of America.
Washington: The Society, 1907. . Single sheet of parchment, 15 1/2 x 20 inches, engraved on one side only. with manuscript additions; the shields of the original thirteen states are engraved along the top and right-hand side (plus a decorative printed ribon, representing the District of Columbia) and with the blue and yellow ribbon and red wax seal of the Society attached at the lower left. Signed at lower right Tiffany & Co. Signed in ink at the foot of the document by the President and Secretary of the Massachusetts chapter and also by the President and Secretary of the National Society.Mrs. Samuel Cutler Bigelow was accepted into the Colonial Dames by virtue of her ancestor John Thaxter. It is interesting to note that she was accepted into the Daughters of the American Revolution by virtue of another ancestor, Lt. William Munroe of Massachusetts.Samuel Cutler Bigelow was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduated from Williams and Harvard Law School. He moved to California in 1853 to oversee his father's investments. He was elected to the State legislature in 1862. In 1866 he started on a long series of travels "visiting nearly all parts of the world accessible to white men, except South Africa and Australia; was the first American to go over the route of the Suez Canal before its completion." Upon his return he married Miss Otis, his second wife, in 1875. (Inventory #: 3508)