Biography

"The daughter of a prominent New York family, and sister of the noted writer Edward S. Martin, Cornelia "Nellie" Martin was the second of eleven children born to Enos T. Martin, a successful attorney and journalist, and the former Cornelia Williams, a mercantile heiress. She grew up in the stimulating atmosphere of "Willowbrook", the Throop-Martin estate on Auburn's Lake Owasco, where her parents and grand-uncle, former New York governor Enos Thompson Throop, regularly hosted celebrated visitors. Although somewhat overshadowed by her siblings, Nellie was a steady, resourceful young woman who proved to be a pillar of strength for her loved ones throughout her long life. In 1869-70 she tenderly nursed her tubercular younger sister, Emily Martin Upton, initially in Key West, Florida, and later, alone and far from home in the Bahamas, where she was the sole family member able to attend Emily on her deathbed. By the mid-1880's she also came to bear most of the responsibility for managing the Willowbrook estate. When the Martins' fortune began its decline in the post-Civil War recession, she and her elder sister Mary supervised a busy canning business which bolstered the family finances, an activity that she continued for many years after Mary's death in 1884. Although Nellie never married, her name has been romantically linked in the popular imagination with that of Capt. Myles Keogh, a family friend who lies buried in the Throop-Martin plot. For half a century after his death at the Little Big Horn in 1876, Nellie faithfully put flowers on the dashing Irishman's grave, giving rise to local rumors that she had been in love with him. These floral tributes, marking the occasions of his birth, death, and interment in Auburn, continued until her own death from a severe cold in her 87th year. Despite speculation that she would have married Keogh had such a union not been thwarted by his death, religious differences, or even unrequited love, most historians believe that their relationship was platonic. During the 1930's, in his correspondence with early Keogh biographer E.S. Luce, Nellie's brother, the writer Edward Martin, denied there had been any romance, and persuaded Luce not to mention his sister's name in his book. Although author Luce wrote that a lady who was devoted to Keogh's memory lies buried "beside him", Nellie is actually interred nearby. Her survivors at the time of her death included her remaining siblings, brothers George and the aforementioned Edward, and several nieces and nephews."