Margaret Frances (Overbaugh) Winant (1861 - 1948)

Born 7 Feb 1861 in NYC, NY

Ancestors

Wife of William Alfred Winant — married 8 Jun 1880 in Patterson, New Jersey

Descendants

Died 12 Jul 1948 at age 87 in NYC, NY

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Biography

MARGARET FRANCES OVERBAUGH (ELIZABETH W.3 ADAMS, WILLIAM2, WILLIAM1) was born February 07, 1861 in New York City, and died July 12, 1948 in New York City. She married WILLIAM ALFRED WINANT, son of JAMES ALFRED WINANT, on June 08, 1880 in Patterson, New Jersey. He was born August 1859 in New York and died November 23, 1953 in New York City.

We have little information on Margaret (known as Maggie). In a newspaper article from 1948, celebrating her 68th wedding anniversary, Margaret relates the story of her engagement to William Winant:

When she was 16 her uncle told her that any girl who swallowed a whole chicken heart would marry the first man she shook hands with. Maggie Overbaugh put this to a test. At the first opportunity, she gulped down a heart and grabbed the hand of William Winant. Two years later they were married.

After their marriage in 1880, they lived with James and Elizabeth Adams Overbaugh; likely while she finished school. We know that Margaret was a graduate of Rutgers University. WE have a record of a baby girl being born In NJ from : Winant, "New Jersey Births and Christenings, 1660-1980" Winant, "New Jersey, Births, 1670-1980"

Birth 2 Jun 1880-1881 Paterson, Passaic, New Jersey

No further record is found. The baby may have died at birth.

Of her husband William, we know a great deal more from his obituary in the New York Times :

William A. Winant, Fish Merchant, 93 Founder of Winant & Co in '80 Dies - Operated Stall at the Fulton Market for 69 Years

William Alfred Winant of 30 Sutton Place, a merchant in the Fulton Market since 1884 and honorary president of the Fulton Fish Market Association, died yesterday at his home after an illness of four weeks. His age was 93.

Actively in charge of Stall 4 in the market until four weeks ago, Mr. Winant carried out a vow that he would never retire. He chose fish mongering over law at the age of 20, when the choice was put to him by his father.

Mr. Winant put the same choice to his own son and in turn to his grandsons. All agreed to carry on the trade, although the younger Winants confine their operations to Winant & Co, which caters to hotels and restaurants from its office at 203 Front Street.

Because he loved to talk about the New York "that was New York” Mr. Winant often reminisced about his first stall, which he set up in 1880 in Old Center Market - present site of Police Headquarters. Four years later he moved Winant & Co to the Fulton market.

His father James Alfred Winant also had been a fishmonger and was said to have been the first dealer to handle soft-shell crabs. That was in 1850. The family home then was in Rossville, S.I.

The Winants moved to Manhattan when William Winant was 1 years old. He attended the Hunter Preparatory School and New York University Law School. Mr. Winant married Miss Maggie Frances Overbaugh the same year he went into the fish business. The couple celebrated their sixty-eight-wedding anniversary in June 1948. Mrs. Winant died one month later at the age of 87.

Their son, William A. Winant, and a grandson, William A. Winant, 3rd are partners in Winant & Co. The elder Winant also founded, in 1917, the firm of Lockwood & Winant, which was sold earlier this year.

He was president for many years of the Fish Market Fishmongers Association, which was started in 1832. Later, he became president of the Fulton Fish Market Association. Mr. Winant was the industry representative to the National Recovery Administration and belonged to the Commerce and Industry Association. He was one of the first members of the Crescent Club of Brooklyn Heights, which he joined when he was a resident of that borough.

Besides his son and grandson, Mr. Winant is survived by a daughter, Miss Marguerite D. Winant; another grandson and three great-grandchildren.

Margaret is Burial 1948 Rossville, Richmond (Staten Island), New York, United States of America

Children of MARGARET OVERBAUGH and WILLIAM WINANT are: i. MARGUERITE DAWSON5 WINANT, b. June 05, 1889, New York; d. July 1974, 30 Sutton Place, New York, New York, 10022.

Marguerite was an avid genealogist most of her life. She worked closely with her cousin Helene Sowaal Redford and Ted Overbaugh. Ted is a nationally recognized Overbaugh family historian. We have copies of her letters, which address her family’s life in Old Greenwich Village from the Civil War period to the building of the Holland Tunnel. She lived her whole life in New York City, and is listed in Who’s Who of American Women (1961-1962). She was a very caring person, as evidenced by the attention she devoted to her uncle, James Overbaugh, who contracted tuberculosis. According to Helene, Marguerite supported him while he was a patient at the Tupper Lake Sanitarium. Her obituary in the New York Times reads:

Marguerite Dawson Winant, who was president of the Alter Guild of Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, died Sunday at her home, 30 Sutton Place. She was 85 years old. Miss Winant was a past president of Sorosis (Marguerite is the author of “A Century of Sorosis 1868-1968), and the Pap Hellenic House Association. She was a former Regent of the Mary Washington Colonial Chapter, the Daughters of the American Revolution and a member of the Society of Colonial Dames, and the New England Women of Holland Dames .

Marguerite was also well known for her work with Delta Gamma, a fraternity founded in 1873 in Oxford, Mississippi, at the Lewis School for Girls near the University of Mississippi. In 1891, Delta Gamma was one of the seven charter members of the National Pan-Hellenic Conference, when the first inter-sorority meeting was held in Boston. Marguerite was initiated on May 1, 1908 in Omicron Chapter at Adelphi University, Garden City, New York. She graduated in 1911. During her lifetime she held many important positions, culminating in her serving as the National Fraternity President from 1932 to 1940. As such, her formal portrait hangs at the Executive Offices in Columbus, Ohio along with all former National Presidents. The honorary plaque in the Fraternity’s Headquarters’ proclaims:

THE DELTA GAMMA FOUNDATION by the establishment of THE MARGURERITE DAWSON WINANT FELLOWSHIP for 1965-1966 declares recognition of Marguerite Dawson Winant’s personal devotion to the high ideals of her fraternity – rendering service to others. President of Delta Gamma from 1932 to 1940, her wisdom and vision have remained a permanent influence on the growth of her fraternity. Her close association with the conception, development, and operation of the Pan-Hellenic Hotel (now the Beekman Tower) attests to her outstanding capacity to guide and her tireless spirit to serve. In granting the Marguerite Dawson Winant Fellowship, we honor a loyal and devoted Delta Gamma and a distinguished fraternity woman who has displayed the highest ideals of womanhood through a lifetime of service to others.

After her death, she was honored as a Senior Scholarship Honoree (1975-1976) and as a Memorial Fellowship Honoree on January 1, 1976.

ii. WILLIAM A. WINANT, b. April 28, 1896, New York; d. March 1971, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Sources

• New York Times July 30th, 1974