Samuel L. Gouverneur

Samuel Laurence Gouverneur (1799–1865) was a lawyer and civil servant who was both nephew and son-in-law to James Monroe, the fifth President of the United States.

Gouverneur was born in 1799 in New York City. His father was Nicholas Gouverneur and mother was Hester Kortright, sister of the First Lady Elizabeth Kortright Monroe. He graduated from Columbia University (then known as Columbia College) in 1817. Gouverneur served as private secretary to President James Monroe, who was married to his mother's sister Elizabeth Kortright Monroe.

Gouverneur married Monroe's daughter (his first cousin), Maria Hester Monroe, on March 9, 1820. The wedding was officiated by the Rev. William Dickinson Hawley. It was the first wedding held in the White House for a child of a president. However, the first documented wedding ceremony held in the White House was when Dolley Madison, wife of President James Madison, arranged the wedding of her youngest sister, Lucy Payne Washington, to Supreme Court Justice Thomas Todd in 1812. There might have also been a private wedding of Abigail Adams' maid Betsy Howard in 1801.

General Thomas Jesup was groomsman at the Gouverneur-Monroe wedding. There were only 42 guests; not even the cabinet was invited. After the couple returned from a week's honeymoon, Commodore and Mrs. Stephen Decatur gave them a reception at the Decatur House on May 20, 1820. Another ball had to be cancelled because Decatur died two days later in a duel.

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