Margaret Smith, wife of General Zachary Taylor, was the daughter of a Maryland planter. Domestic in taste and devoted to her husband, she lived much in garrisons and afield, making a home anywhere. She was without social ambition, and therefore had no desire to preside at the White House, preferring her quiet home at Baton Rouge, where she and her youngest daughter, “Miss Betty,” were widely known and liked, and where she permanently established an Episcopal church. When her husband was elected President, she relinquished the duties of hostess to Mrs. Bliss (Miss Betty), then but twenty-two years of age, whose grace of manner and youthful charms relieved the formality of Mrs. Polk’s previous reign. Their residence at the White House was suddenly terminated by the President’s death, sixteen months after his inauguration. Mrs. Taylor died two years later, at the home of her only son in Louisiana.