In 1869, a vacationing doctor named William Gaskins Pool was called to help an ill old woman named Polly Mann, who lived in a shack near Nags Head, Carolina. When he and his daughter, Anna, gingerly entered the dark, cobweb-covered home, they were drawn to a picture on the wall, Anna remembered, “of a beautiful young woman about twenty-five years of age.” After extensively questioning Polly about the painting, Dr. Pool believed his initial hunch was correct. He was staring at a portrait of the long vanished Theodosia Burr Alston,…
