Mary Cyrene Burch Breckinridge

Mary Cyrene Burch Breckinridge ( born August 16, 1826 in Georgetown, † October 8, 1907 in Buffalo ) was the wife of John C. Breckinridge, the U.S. vice president under James Buchanan and thereby Second Lady of the United States.

Mary Cyrene Burch was the daughter of Clifton Rhodes Burch and Alethia Viley Burch. On December 12, 1843 she married John C. Breckinridge, the lawyer partner of her cousin Thomas Bullock. The couple settled in Georgetown and had five children. John C. Breckinridge opened a law office in Lexington. After a few years he was represented in the House of Representatives, the couple moved because of failing health Marys and financial reasons back to Kentucky, where the financial situation improved again by land speculation. 1857 John C. Breckinridge was Vice President. During the Civil War he fought on the side of the Confederacy, so the family after the end went into exile in Canada. The summer of 1866 they spent in Niagara on the Lake Ontario, the family moved to Toronto. According to their daughter Mary this exile was very hard for her father, while it was liberating for her mother. 1868 John and Mary Breckinridge returned after a General Amnesty by President Andrew Johnson back to the U.S. and settled back down in Kentucky.

After Mary Breckinridge was a widow since 1875, she herself died at the age of 81 years in Buffalo.

Her son Clifton R. Breckinridge sat from 1883 and 1894 for the state of Arkansas in the U.S. House of Representatives.