Martha Swink Alvord and Henry Elijah Alvord

Martha Swink, who grew up in a household that included enslaved people (including, in 1843-44, Sam, hired from the estate of Mottrom Ball), was active in the Lewinsville Presbyterian Church congregation in the 1850s.  She would have been around 18 when she signed the 1852 friendship quilt.  She was a participant in a postwar North/South romance: in 1866, she married Henry Elijah Alvord, who served in the Second Massachusetts Cavalry (which spent time in Virginia).  They lived in a number of places while he pursued a career in Agricultural Science, but maintained a home, Spring Hill Farm, in Fairfax County.  Henry is buried in Massachusetts; it appears that Martha is buried (or at least memorialized) here, along with her sister and parents.