18th-century American Women

George Washington delivers 1st State of the Union Address

2012-01-24T11:50:00.001-05:00

1783 George Washington by William Dunlap

On January 8, 1790, President George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address to the assembled Congress in New York City.

1772 George Washington by Charles Willson Peale detail

Washington began by congratulating the gathered representatives on the present favourable prospects of our public affairs, most notable of which was North Carolina's recent decision to join the federal republic. North Carolina had rejected the Constitution in July 1788, because it lacked a bill of rights. Under the terms of the Constitution, the new government acceded to power after only 11 of the 13 states accepted the document. By the time North Carolina ratified in November 1789, the first Congress had met, written the Bill of Rights and dispatched them for review by the states. When Washington spoke in January, it seemed likely the people of the United States would stand behind Washington's government and enjoy the concord, peace, and plenty he saw as symbols of the nation's good fortune.

Washington's address gave a brief, but excellent, outline of his administration's policies as designed by Alexander Hamilton. The former commander in chief of the Continental Army argued in favor of securing the common defence [sic], as he believed preparedness for war to be one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. Washington's guarded language allowed him to hint at his support for the controversial idea of creating a standing army without making an overt request.

Charles Wilson Peale George Washinton At Princeton 1779

Washington's First State of the Union Address

Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution requires the President of the United States to ...

"...from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient;..."

While the Constitution specifies no time, date, place, or frequency for the Address, President's have typically delivered the State of the Union in late January, soon after Congress has re-convened. This timing allows the President to spell out the Administration's agenda for the coming year and to "... recommend to their consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient;..." before Congress has taken up any major legislation.

Adolph Ulrich Wertmuller (Swedish-born later American artist, 1751–1811) George Washington 1796

On January 8, 1790, President George Washington complied with Article II, Section 3. (Spellings appear as in the original draft.)

State of the Union
George Washington
January 8, 1790
Federal Hall, New York City

Fellow Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

I embrace with great satisfaction the opportunity which now presents itself of congratulating you on the present favorable prospects of our public affairs. The recent accession of the important state of north Carolina to the Constitution of the United States (of which official information has been received), the rising credit and respectability of our country, the general and increasing good will toward the government of the Union, and the concord, peace, and plenty with which we are blessed are circumstances auspicious in an eminent degree to our national prosperity.

In resuming your consultations for the general good you can not but derive encouragement from the reflection that the measures of the last session have been as satisfactory to your constituents as the novelty and difficulty of the work allowed you to hope. Still further to realize their expectations and to secure the blessings which a gracious Providence has placed within our reach will in the course of the present important session call for the cool and deliberate exertion of your patriotism, firmness, and wisdom.

Among the many interesting objects which will engage your attention that of providing for the common defense will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is on e of the most effectual means of preserving peace.

A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.

The proper establishment of the troops which may be deemed indispensable will be entitled to mature consideration. In the arrangements which may be made respecting it it will be of importance to conciliate the comfortable support of the officers and soldiers with a due regard to economy.

There was reason to hope that the pacific measures adopted with regard to certain hostile tribes of Indians would have relieved the inhabitants of our southern and western frontiers from their depredations, but you will perceive from the information contained in the papers which I shall direct to be laid before you (comprehending a communication from the Commonwealth of Virginia) that we ought to be prepared to afford protection to those parts of the Union, and, if necessary, to punish aggressors.

The interests of the United States require that our intercourse with other nations should be facilitated by such provisions as will enable me to fulfill my duty in that respect in the manner which circumstances may render most conducive to the public good, and to this end that the compensation to be made to the persons who may be employed should, according to the nature of their appointments, be defined by law, and a competent fund designated for defraying the expenses incident to the conduct of foreign affairs.

Various considerations also render it expedient that the terms on which foreigners may be admitted to the rights of citizens should be speedily ascertained by a uniform rule of naturalization.

Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly attended to.

The advancement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures by all proper means will not, I trust, need recommendation; but I can not forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad as to the exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home, and of facilitating the intercourse between the distant parts of our country by a due attention to the post-office and post-roads.

Nor am I less persuaded that you will agree with me in opinion that there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of government receive their impressions so immediately from the sense of the community as in ours it is proportionably essential.

To the security of a free constitution it contributes in various ways - by convincing those who are intrusted with the public administration that every valuable end of government is best answered by the enlightened confidence of the people, and by teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority; between burthens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness - cherishing the first, avoiding the last - and uniting a speedy but temperate vigilance against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the laws.

Whether this desirable object will be best promoted by affording aids to seminaries of learning already established, by the institution of a national university, or by any other expedients will be well worthy of a place in the deliberations of the legislature.

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:

I saw with peculiar pleasure at the close of the last session the resolution entered into by you expressive of your opinion that an adequate provision for the support of the public credit is a matter of high importance to the national honor and prosperity. In this sentiment I entirely concur; and to a perfect confidence in your best endeavors to devise such a provision as will be truly with the end I add an equal reliance on the cheerful cooperation of the other branch of the legislature.

It would be superfluous to specify inducements to a measure in which the character and interests of the United States are so obviously so deeply concerned, and which has received so explicit a sanction from your declaration.

Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives:

I have directed the proper officers to lay before you, respectively, such papers and estimates as regard the affairs particularly recommended to your consideration, and necessary to convey to you that information of the state of the Union which it is my duty to afford.

The welfare of our country is the great object to which our cares and efforts ought to be directed, and I shall derive great satisfaction from a cooperation with you in the pleasing though arduous task of insuring to our fellow citizens the blessings which they have a right to expect from a free, efficient, and equal government.

1793 Charles Peale Polk (American artist, 1765-1822) George Washington
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Coffee Houses & The Revolution

2012-01-21T09:53:00.002-05:00

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The gentle "ladies" of Boston, staged a "Coffee Party" in 1777, reminiscent of the earlier Boston Tea Party of 1773. The town's women confronted a profiteering hoarder of foodstuffs confiscating some of his stock of coffee, according to a letter from Abigail Adams to her husband, who would become the 2nd president of the United States.

Abigail Adams by Benjamin Blythe, 1766.

Writing from Boston, on July 31, 1777, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John, away attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia,

"There is a great scarcity of sugar and coffee, articles which the female part of the state is very loath to give up, especially whilst they consider the great scarcity occasioned by the merchants having secreted a large quantity. It is rumored that an eminent stingy merchant, who is a bachelor, had a hogshead of coffee in his store, which he refused to sell under 6 shillings per pound.

"A number of females—some say a hundred, some say more—assembled with a cart and trunk, marched down to the warehouse, and demanded the keys.

"Upon his finding no quarter, he delivered the keys, and they then opened the warehouse, hoisted out the coffee themselves, put it into a trunk, and drove off. A large concourse of men stood amazed, silent spectators of the whole transaction."

Coffee had been popular in Boston for over a century, when the Revolutionary women of the town became patriotically incensed. Dorothy Jones had been issued a license to sell coffee in Boston in 1670. “Mrs. Dorothy Jones, the wife of Mr. Morgan Jones, is approved of to keepe a house of publique Entertainment for the selling of Coffee & Chochaletto.” The last renewal of Mrs. Jones's license was in April 1674, at which time she was accorded the additional privilege of selling ''cider & wine." Morgan Jones was a minister & schoolmaster who moved from colony to colony frequently, leaving Dorothy Jones to make her own way financially.

17th-century London Coffee House

One of the earliest references to coffee in the American colonies was in 1668, when a beverage made from the roasted beans flavored with sugar or honey, and cinnamon, was being drunk in New York, usually at breakfast. Soon after the introduction of the coffee drink into the New England, New York, Maryland, & Pennsylvania colonies, trading began in the raw product. William Penn noted buying his green coffee supplies in the New York market in 1683, paying for them at the rate of 18 shillings & nine pence per pound.

1674 London Coffee House

Soon coffee houses patterned after English & Continental prototypes were established in the colonies, quickly becoming centers of social, political & business interactions. Among the earlist were London Coffee House in Boston, in 1689; the King's Arms in New York in 1696; and Ye Coffee House in Philadelphia in 1700.

After the Welsh gentlewoman Dorothy Jones opened her 1670 Boston coffee & chocolate establishment, the next colonial coffee house may have been in Maryland. In St. Mary's City, Maryland, the 1698 will of Garrett Van Sweringen, bequeaths to his son, Joseph, "ye Council Rooms and Coffee House and land thereto belonging," which Van Sweringen had opened in 1677.

Coffee Houses in Early Boston

The name coffee house did not come into use in New England, until late in the 17th century. The London Coffee House and the Gutteridge Coffee House were among the first opened in Boston. The latter stood on the north side of State Street, between Exchange and Washington Streets, and was named after Robert Gutteridge, who took out an innkeeper's license in 1691. Twenty-seven years later, his widow, Mary Gutteridge, petitioned the town for a renewal of her late husband's permit to keep a public coffee house.

Boston's British Coffee House, whose named changed to the American Coffee House during the pre-Revolutionary period, also appeared about the time Gutteridge took out his license. It stood on the site that is now 66 State Street, and became one of the most widely known coffee houses in colonial New England.

The Crown Coffee House opened in 1711 and burned down in 1780. There were inns and taverns in existence in Boston long before coffee & coffee houses. Many of these taverns added coffee for patrons who did not care for the stronger spirits.

In the last quarter of the 17th century, quite a number of taverns and inns sprang up in Boston. Among the most notable were the King's Head (1691), at the corner of Fleet and North Streets; the Indian Queen (1673), on a passageway leading from Washington Street to Hawley Street; the Sun (1690-1902), in Faneuil Hall Square; and the Green Dragon, which became one of the most celebrated coffee house & taverns, serving ale, beer, coffee, tea, and more ardent spirits. In the colonies, there was not always a clear distinction between a coffee house and a tavern.

Boston's Green Dragon

The Green Dragon, stood on Union Street, in the heart of the town's business center, for 135 years, from 1697 to 1832, and figured in practically all important local and national events during its long career. In the words of Daniel Webster (1782-1852), this famous coffee-house tavern was the "headquarters of the Revolution." John Adams, James Otis, and Paul Revere met there to discuss securing freedom for the American colonies. The old tavern was a two-storied brick structure with a sharply pitched roof. Over its entrance hung a sign bearing the figure of a green dragon.

The Bunch of Grapes, that Francis Holmes presided over as early as 1712, was another hot-bed of politicians. This coffee house became the center of a rowsing celebration in 1776, when a delegate from Philadelphia read the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the inn to the crowd assembled below. In the excitement that followed, the inn was nearly destroyed, when one celebrant built a bonfire too close to its walls.

By the beginning of the 18th century, the title of coffee house was applied to a number of new establishments in Boston. One of these was the Crown, which was opened in the "first house on Long Wharf" in 1711 by Jonathan Belcher, who later became governor of Massachusetts, and then New Jersey. The first landlord of the Crown was Thomas Selby, who also used it as an auction room. The Crown stood until 1780, when it was destroyed in a fire that swept the Long Wharf.

Another early Boston coffee house on State Street was the Royal Exchange. It occupied a two-story building, and was kept in 1711, by Benjamin Johns. This coffee house became the starting place for stage coaches running between Boston and New York, in 1772. In the Columbian Centinel of January 1, 1800, appeared an advertisement in which it was said: "New York and Providence Mail Stage leaves Major Hatches' Royal Exchange Coffee House in State Street every morning at 8 o'clock."

In the latter half of the 18th century, the North-End coffee house in a 3 storey 1740 brick mansion, stood on the west side of North Street, between Sun Court and Fleet Street. One contemporary noted that it had forty-five windows and was valued at $4,500. During the Revolution, it featured "dinners and suppers—small and retired rooms for small company—oyster suppers in the nicest manner."

Boston coffee-houses reached the height of popularity in 1808, when the doors of the Exchange Coffee House were thrown open after 3 years of building. It was the most ambitious coffee-house project the new nation would know. Built of stone, marble, and brick, it stood seven stories high, and cost a half-million dollars. Charles Bulfinch, one of America's most noted architects of that period, was the designer.

Boston's Exchange Coffee House from History of Boston published in 1828

It was patterned after Lloyd's of London, and was the center of marine intelligence in Boston, and its public rooms were thronged all day and evening with mariners, naval officers, ship and insurance brokers, who had come to talk shop or to consult the records of ship arrivals and departures, manifests, charters, and other marine papers.

The first floor of the Exchange was devoted to trading. On the next floor was the large dining room, where many banquets were given, notably one honoring President Monroe in July, 1817, which was attended by former President John Adams, and many generals, commodores, governors, and judges. The other floors offered sleeping rooms, of which there were more than 200.

The Exchange Coffee House was destroyed by fire in 1818; and on its site was erected another, bearing the same name but having slight resemblance to its predecessor.

The War of 1812 put a temporary damper on the popularity of coffee. When the cost of the War of 1812 made necessary more revenue, imports of coffee were taxed ten cents a pound. A war-time fever of speculation in tea and coffee followed, and by 1814 prices to the consumer had advanced to such an extent (coffee was 45 cents a pound) that the citizens of Philadelphia formed a non-consumption association, each member pledging himself "not to pay more than 25 cents a pound for coffee and not to consume tea that wasn't already in the country."

The war was just a temporary blip in the popularity of coffee in America. Per-capita consumption grew to 3 pounds a year in 1830, 5 1/2 pounds by 1850, and 8 pounds by 1859. By the 1870s, coffee had become an indispensable beverage for Americans, who consumed 6 times as much as most Europeans.
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Coffee Tales - The sexual revolution in 18th-century England & her colonies

2012-01-21T08:19:00.003-05:00

Queen Anne Silver Octagonal Coffee Pot made in London c 1711 by Thomas Folkingham

I woke up this morning, to find a fine artilcle in yesterday's newspaper The Guardian about a little known sexual revolution in 18th-century England. It was written by Faramerz Dabhoiwala in anticipation of the publication of his forthcoming book, The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution.

Here are a few snippets. "Since the dawn of history, every civilisation had punished sexual immorality. The law codes of the Anglo-Saxon kings of England treated women as chattels, but they also forbade married men to fornicate with their slaves, and ordered that adulteresses be publicly disgraced, lose their goods and have their ears and noses cut off. Such severity reflected the Christian church's view of sex as a dangerously polluting force, as well as the patriarchal commonplace that women were more lustful than men and liable to lead them astray...

" When the Massachusetts settler James Britton fell ill in the winter of 1644, he became gripped by a "fearful horror of conscience" that this was God's punishment on him for his past sins. So he publicly confessed that once, after a night of heavy drinking, he had tried (but failed) to have sex with a young bride, Mary Latham. Though she now lived far away, in Plymouth colony, the magistrates there were alerted. She was found, arrested and brought back, across the icy landscape, to stand trial in Boston. When, despite her denial that they had actually had sex, she was convicted of adultery, she broke down, confessed it was true, "proved very penitent, and had deep apprehension of the foulness of her sin … and was willing to die in satisfaction to justice". On 21 March, a fortnight after her sentence, she was taken to the public scaffold. Britton was executed alongside her; he, too, "died very penitently". In the shadow of the gallows, Latham addressed the assembled crowds, exhorting other young women to be warned by her example, and again proclaiming her abhorrence and penitence for her terrible crime against God and society. Then she was hanged. She was 18 years old.

"That is the world we have left behind. Over the following century and a half it was transformed by a great revolution that laid the ground for the sexual culture of the 19th and 20th centuries, and of our own day. The most obvious change was a surge in pre- and extramarital sex. We can measure this, crudely but unmistakably, in the numbers of children conceived out of wedlock. During the 17th century this figure had been extremely low: in 1650 only about 1% of all births in England were illegitimate. But by 1800, almost 40% of brides came to the altar pregnant, and about a quarter of all first-born children were illegitimate. It was to be a permanent change in behaviour."

The article, actually a review of Dabhoiwala's book, then goes on to explore the reasons for this sexual revolution. You can find the article here.

Detail from The Bed, etching, engraving and drypoint by Rembrandt (1646). at the British Museum
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Mercy Otis Warren 1728-1814 - Writer questions Ben Franklin's affairs with French ladies of the court & John Adams' ambitions

2012-01-20T09:01:00.006-05:00

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Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814), poet, patriot, & chronicler of the Revolution, was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts, the 1st daughter & 3rd of the 13 children of James & Mary (Allyne) Otis. Her mother was a great-granddaughter of Edward Dotey, who had come to the colonies as a servant on board the Mayflower. A great-great-grandfather, John Otis, had settled in Hingham, Mass., early in the 17th century. By the 18th century, the Otis family had become established in Barnstable, on Cape Cod.

1763 Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814) by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815)

Mercy’s father prospered as a farmer, merchant, & lawyer & served as judge of the county court of common pleas & as colonel of the local militia. The Otises made sure that their sons were prepared for college, but the daughters were given no formal education. Mercy was allowed to sit in on her brothers’ lessons, while they were being tutored by their uncle, a local minister; & she had free access to her uncle’s library.

On Nov, 14, 1754, at 26, she married to James Warren of Plymouth, a merchant & farmer & a Harvard graduate. They had 5 sons, James (1757), Winslow (1759), Charles (1762), Henry (1764), & George (1766). As the American colonies came into increasing conflict with England, her relatives’ activities drew Mercy Warren close to public affairs. Her father was a justice of the peace. Her husband was a member of the Massachusetts legislature. Her brother James initially served as a king’s advocate & then, after resigning his royal appointment, he became a leading spokesman against writs of assistance. Mrs. Warren found that her home in Plymouth, had become a meeting place of leading opponents of royal policy within Massachusetts, including, John & Samuel Adams. Her own contribution was to write in support of the revolutionary cause. She had composed poems as early as 1759, & she now turned to political satire.

Warren couched her satiric thrusts in dramatic form, written to be read, not performed. Her first play, The Adulateur, appeared anonymously in 2 installments in the Boston newspaper the Massachusetts Spy during 1772; &, with additions apparently written by someone else, was reprinted separately the following year. In it Thomas Hutchinson, royal governor of Massachusetts, was depicted in the guise of Rapatio, the ruler of the mythical country of Servia, who hoped to crush “the ardent love of liberty in Servia’s free-born sons.”

Soon afterward, she wrote The Defeat, again with “Rapatio” as villain. In her next play, The Group, published in Boston in 1755, Massachusetts Tories, as evil as ever, were disguised under such names as Judge Meagre, Brigadier Hateall, Sir Spendall, & Hum Humbug. The Blockheads (1776) & The Motley Assembly (1779) were probably also written by Warren, though the evidence of authorship is not definite.

In 1790, she published Poems, Dramatic & Miscellaneous, a collection that included 2 verse dramas, The Sack of Rome & The Ladies of Castle-each a tract on behalf of human liberty, in which the characters are handled with more subtlety & warmth than in her political satires. On the whole, Warren’s plays possess no particularly remarkable literary merit, but they are testimony to the imagination of a woman who never traveled out of Massachusetts, & who probably never saw a play performed on the stage.

During & after the Revolution, the Warrens suffered something of a political & social decline, James Warren lost his seat in the legislature in 1780, & their sons failed to obtain political preferment despite Mrs. Warren’s active intercession with their old friend John Adams & other persons in power.

Late in that decade both James & Mercy Warren were accused by local political conservatives of having been sympathetic to Shays’ Rebellion, the uprising of western Massachusetts farmers, & even of having supported it. Nowhere in her surviving letters does Warren voice any support for the rebellion. Her son Henry served with the government troops sent to suppress it; & she later, in the final volume of her history of the American Revolution, sharply criticized the Shay’s insurgents.

The accusations against Mrs. Warren may have been an attempt to discredit her because of her spirited opposition to the ratification of the federal Constitution during the winter of 1787-88, in her Observations on the New Constitution (1788). Federalist Boston was still further antagonized by her defense of the French Revolution, in the preface which she wrote in 1791, for the American edition of her friend Mrs. Catharine Macaulay Graham’s attack upon Edmund Burke.

Her letters to John Adams often contained a little gossip of the day. In a letter to him, dated October, 1778, she mentions Benjamin Franklin: "Are you, sir, as much in the good graces of the Parisian ladies, as your venerable colleague, Dr. F-? We often hear he is not more an adept in politics than a favorite of the ladies. He has too many compliments of gratulation and esteem from each quarter of the globe, to make it of any consequence whether I offer my little tribute of respect or not. Yet I would tell him as a friend to mankind, as a daughter of America, and a lover of every exalted character, that no one more sincerely wishes the continuance of his health and usefulness; and so disinterested is my regard, that I do not wish him to leave the soft caresses of the court of France; for his unpolished countrywomen will be more apt to gaze at and admire the virtues of the philosopher, than to embrace the patriotic sage."

During these years after the Revolution, Warren continued the writing of her major literary work, the 3-volume History of the Rise, Progress & Termination of the American Revolution (1805), which she had begun in the late 1770’s. Although no less reliable than other histories from the same period, her work is now useful chiefly for its vigorous personal opinions of people & events she had known firsthand.

Publication of her history brought into the open the rupture in the friendship between herself & John Adams, which had begun with the divergence of their political views & her anger at his failure to assist the Warrens’ political fortunes. Her accusations in her History that Adams had “forgotten the principles of the American revolution” & that he was guilty of “pride of talents & much ambition” piqued the ex-president, & several heated letters were exchanged between them. Eventually, in 1812, Elbridge Gerry succeeded in effecting a reconciliation of sorts. Adams still somewhat regretted, however, that he & his wife, Abigail, had been among the first to encourage Mrs. Warren to write her account. “History,” he complained to Gerry, “is not the Province of the Ladies.”

Warren would certainly have disagreed. She was something of a feminist by the standards of her time. Political or legal rights for women were not an important issue in her day, but she deplored the fact that women were not generally given formal education & felt that they could well participate in many activities customarily restricted to men. On one occasion, she advised a friend that women should accept “the Appointed Subordination,” not because of any inherent inferiority, but “perhaps for the sake of Order in Families.”

Rochefoucault, in his Travels in the United States, speaks of Mrs. Warren's extensive & varied reading. She was then 70; and he says, " truly interesting; for, lively in conversation, she has lost neither the activity of her mind, nor the graces of her person."

For many years before her death, Mrs. Warren was afflicted with the failure of her sight; but she submitted to the trial with pious resignation, continuing to receive with cheerfulness the company that frequented her house, and to correspond with her friends by means of a secretary. A passage from a letter to one of her sons, written in 1799, amidst the convulsions in Europe, shows that she still occasionally indulged in the elaborate style so much in vogue: "The ices of the Poles seem to be dissolved to swell the tide of popularity on which swim the idols of the day; but when they have had their day, the tide will retire to its level, and perhaps leave the floating lumber on the strand with other perishable articles, not thought worth the hazard of attempting their recovery."

In relatively good health to the end of her long life. Mrs. Warren continued to correspond with her political & literary friends, & visitors reported that the fashionable woman’s conversation was still vigorous, her mind active. A lady who visited Mrs. Warren in 1807, described her as erect in person, & in conversation, full of intelligence and eloquence. Her dress was a steel-colored silk gown, with short sleeves and very long waist; the black silk skirt being covered in front with a white lawn apron. She wore a lawn mob-cap, & gloves covering the arm to the elbows, cut off at the fingers. Warren died in Plymouth, Mass., where she had spent most of her married life, at the age of 86, having survived her husband by 6 years. Her remains lie at Burial Hill, Plymouth.

David Lewis Sculpture of Mercy Otis Warren dedicated July 4th, 2001, in front of the Barnstable County Superior Courthouse.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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A little morning coffee tale - Benjamin Franklin in England, trying to repeal the Stamp Act...

2012-01-20T08:10:00.003-05:00

A classic English engine-turned redware coffee pot, circa 1770

"Among the numerous luxuries of the table...coffee may be considered as one of the most valuable. It excites cheerfulness without intoxication; and the pleasing flow of spirits which it occasions...is never followed by sadness, languor or debility." American printer & politician Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) portrait by David Martin (1737-1797) c 1766-67

In 1766, Franklin was in London, lobbying & attempting to testify before the House of Commons for the repeal of the Stamp Act. Even though he was well-known in the English Parliament, he was not successful in convincing them to change their minds. At that time, Franklin's reputation rested on his scientific achievements. His Experiments and Observations on Electricity (1751) had been reprinted, and he had received numerous honorary degrees & awards for that work. While in London, Franklin's portrait was commissioned by his friend, Edinburgh wine merchant Robert Alexander. Alexander paid fellow Scot David Martin to paint the portrait. Franklin liked his wine, & evidently he also liked the portrait, which was exhibited to London audiences in the spring of 1767, for he commissioned this slightly modified replica & shipped it back home to Philadelphia. Here the artist portrays Franklin in a blue suit with elaborate gold braid & buttons, a far cry from the simple frontier dress he affected at the French court in later years. He also wears a popular wig of the era called "physical," usually worn by physicians & other men of learning. Martin portrayed Franklin as a studious, prosperous man of science, seated amongst books & papers. The impressive beribboned document held by Franklin in the portrait is not a treaty or an Act of Parliament, but one of wine merchant Alexander's property deeds! The other books & pamphlets & the bust of Isaac Newton invoke Enlightenment ideals. Here Franklin supports his head with his right hand, in a pose traditionally associated with deep thought; but in this case only the thumb actually supports his head, giving far more alertness to the pose than that of an aging 67-year-old. Some refer to this as the "thumb portrait."
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American Artist Henry Benbridge 1743-1812

2012-01-16T22:26:00.000-05:00

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812). Margaret Cantey (Mrs. John Peyre).

Henry Benbridge (1744–1812), early American portrait painter, was born in Philadelphia, the only child of James & Mary (Clark) Benbridge. When he was 7 years old, his widowed mother married Thomas Gordon, a wealthy Scot. The boy's artistic talent was encouraged, as he made decorative designs for his stepfather's drawing-room.

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812) Gordon Family (his stepfather & mother Mary Clark Benbridge Gordon) 1763-65

When he was 21, Benbridge was sent to Italy, where he studied with Pompeo Batoni & Anton Raphael Mengs. From there he journeyed to London before returning to Philadelphia. Like other young Americans he was encouraged by Benjamin West. He wrote, on December 7, 1769, to his stepfather: "Upon my arrival I waited upon Mr. West who received me with a sort of brotherly affection, as did my cousin, Mrs. West." He left England in 1770, bearing from West the following note of recommendation to Francis Hopkinson: "By Mr. Benbridge you will receive these few lines. You will find him an Ingenous artist and an agreeable Companion. His merit in the art must procure him great incouragement and much esteem. I deare say it will give you great pleasure to have an ingenous artist resident amongst you."

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812) Mrs Charles Coteworth Pinckney Sarah Middleton Benbridge 1773

In Philadelphia, Benbridge married & was admitted to membership in the American Philosophical Society in 1771. Suffering from asthma & the cold of Philadelphia, he moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where he succeeded Jeremiah Theus as the region's popular portrait painter. Around 1800 Benbridge relocated to Norfolk, Virginia, & made frequent visits to his native Philadelphia. At Norfolk he gave Thomas Sully his first lessons in oil painting. Earlier in Charleston, he had instructed Thomas Coram. Sully described his master as "a portly man of good address–gentlemanly in his deportment."

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812) Archibald Bulloch Family 1775

Benbridge, who had certainly seen the lastest opulent fashion trends, as he studied in Italy with Pompeo Batoni & in England with expatriate Benjamin West, had a distrust of the trendy fashionable. In 1770, when his sisters were nearing marrying age, Benbridge wrote his mother from London, that his sisters "should not refuse a good plain honest Country farmer if such a one should offer himself with tolerable good estate, for one of the town who perhaps may have a better taste for dress, but not more merit, if perhaps as much."

1784 Henry Benbridge (1743-1812). Rachel Moore (Mrs. William Allston II).

When Benbridge had returned from Europe settling in Charlestown, South Carolina, to make a living painting portraits, he wrote to his sister Betsy in 1773, "Every kind of news here is very dull, the only thing attended to is dress and dissipation, & if I come in for a share of their superfluous Cash, I have no right to find fault with them, as it turns out to my advantage."

1790 Henry Benbridge (743-1812). Mary Boyer (Mrs. Robert Shewell).

In 1785, Benbridge, who loved the simple pleasures of gardening, was still worried about the too fancy dress of his son, Harry, whom Benbridge lovingly called "my little fellow." He wrote to his sister that he felt that his wife was dressing him in "too good things for a boy like him to wair, & likewise too many of them at once; he can't take care of them when he is at play & more common & Strong stuff in my Opinion would answer much better, & not fill his head with foolish notions of dress, which perhaps may be his bane."

1780s Henry Benbridge (1743-1812). Elizabeth Allston (Mrs. William H. Gibbes).

It is not surprising that Benbridge painted many of his female clients in dignified classical gowns looking serious, thoughtful, & restrained.

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812). Lady of the Middleton Family. 1780s

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812) Enoch Edwards Family 1779

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812) Mrs Benjamin Simons 1771-76

Henry Bendridge (1743-1812). The Hartley Family. 1787

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812). Sarah White (Mrs. Isaac Chanler). 1770s

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812 The Tannant Family 1770s

Attributed to Henry Benbridge (1743-1812). Rebecca Lloyd (Mrs Edward Davies) 1770s

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812) Mary Bryan Morel and Her Children c 17773

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812) Allegorical Portrait of Sarah Flagg c 1774

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812). Mrs. Mumford Milner (Elizabeth Brewton) b 1786

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812) Rebecca Gordon (his half sister) 1770s

Henry Benbridge (1743-1812) Elizabeth Ann Timothy Mrs William Williamson c 1775-85

1770s Henry Benbridge (1743-1812). Charlotte Pepper (Mrs. James Gignilliat).
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On this day in 1789 - America's 1st presidential election

2012-01-07T09:03:00.001-05:00

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On this day in 1789, America's first presidential election is held. Just as today, eligible voters cast ballots to choose electors in each state. BUT, only white men who owned property were allowed to vote. Women were not allowed to vote for president of the United States until 1920!

As expected, George Washington won the 1st election and was sworn into office on April 30, 1789.

1790s Christian Gullager 1759-1826 George Washington. Massachusetts Historical Society

As it did in 1789, the United States still uses the Electoral College system, established by the U.S. Constitution, which today gives all American citizens over the age of 18 the right to vote for electors, who in turn vote for the president. The president and vice president are the only elected federal officials chosen by the Electoral College instead of by direct popular vote.

In the 1780s, the Electoral College was considered by many to be an innovative tool of American democracy. At the Constitution Convention in 1787, the smaller states such as Delaware & Rhode Island sought to protect their states’ power without being overpowered by larger states such as Virginia & New York due to differences in population numbers. Also these states did not want the Congress to have extra power by picking a president & vice-president without any popular vote, so this power was switched to the voters by establishing the Electoral College.

At the time, some politicians believed a purely popular election was too risky what with all those emotional & uneducated new voters. Others objected to giving Congress the power to select the president. The compromise was to set up an Electoral College system that allowed all voters to vote for electors, who would then cast their votes for candidates, a system described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution. Many delegates to the Constitutional convention believed the Electoral college itself reflected the U.S. Constitution itself which was based on a compromise between population-based & state-based governances.

Today these electors are chosen by their politcal parties, which were not universally accepted in the 1780s.

Today political parties usually nominate their slate of electors at their state conventions or by a vote of the party's central state committee, with party loyalists often being picked for the job.

An elector cannot hold office in the United States Congress, cannot be a high-ranking U.S. official in a position of "trust or profit," & cannot be someone who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the U.S.

Each state is allowed to choose as many electors as it has senators and representatives in Congress. The District of Columbia has 3 electors. During a presidential election year, on Election Day (the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November), the electors from the party that gets the most popular votes are elected in a winner-take-all-system, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, which allocate electors proportionally. In order to win the presidency, a candidate needs a majority of 270 electoral votes out of a possible 538.

On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December of a presidential election year, each state's electors meet, usually in their state capitol, and simultaneously cast their ballots nationwide. This is largely ceremonial: Because electors nearly always vote with their party, presidential elections are essentially decided on Election Day. Although electors aren't constitutionally mandated to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state, it is demanded by tradition and required by law in 26 states and the District of Columbia (in some states, violating this rule is punishable by $1,000 fine). Historically, over 99 percent of all electors have cast their ballots in line with the voters. On January 6, as a formality, the electoral votes are counted before Congress and on January 20, the commander in chief is sworn into office.

Supporters of the Electoral College system contend that if the Electoral College were done away with, heavily populated states such as California and Texas might decide every election and issues important to voters in smaller states would be ignored.

Critics of the Electoral College argue that the winner-take-all system makes it possible for a candidate to be elected president even if he gets fewer popular votes than his opponent. This has occured 4 times in our history.

•1824: John Quincy Adams, the son of former President John Adams, received more than 38,000 fewer votes than Andrew Jackson, but neither candidate won a majority of the Electoral College. Adams was awarded the presidency when the election was thrown to the House of Representatives.

•1876: Nearly unanimous support from small states gave Rutherford B. Hayes a one-vote margin in the Electoral College, despite the fact that he lost the popular vote to Samuel J. Tilden by 264,000 votes. Hayes carried five out of the six smallest states (excluding Delaware). These five states plus Colorado gave Hayes 22 electoral votes with only 109,000 popular votes. At the time, Colorado had been just been admitted to the Union and decided to appoint electors instead of holding elections. So, Hayes won Colorado's three electoral votes with zero popular votes. It was the only time in U.S. history that small state support has decided an election.

•1888: Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote by 95,713 votes to Grover Cleveland, but won the electoral vote by 65. In this instance, some say the Electoral College worked the way it is designed to work by preventing a candidate from winning an election based on support from one region of the country. The South overwhelmingly supported Cleveland, and he won by more than 425,000 votes in six southern states. However, in the rest of the country he lost by more than 300,000 votes.

•In 2000, Al Gore received 50,992,335 votes nationwide and George W. Bush received 50,455,156 votes. After Bush was awarded the state of Florida by the Supreme Court, he had a total of 271 electoral votes, which beat Gore's 266 electoral votes.
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Reading Indoors - Women & Books in 18th-Century America

2011-10-14T12:58:00.004-04:00

1730 John Smibert (American colonial era artist, 1688-1751) Sarah Middlecroft (Mrs Louis Boucher)

Another rainy day here in Maryland. Been spending the last few wet, wet days leafing through my books. Not reading exactly, but playing with the books & thinking about women & books in early America. Here are a few portraits of those gentlewomen with books. I wonder if only women who could read were portrayed with books.

1731 John Smibert (American colonial era artist, 1688-1751) Margaret Mitchell 1664-1736 Mrs Stephen Sewall

1737 Gansevoort Limner Possibly Pieter Vanderlyn (Colonial era American artist, 1687-1778) Young Lady With a Fan

1747 John Greenwood (Amerian colonial era artist, 1727-1792) The Greenwood-Lee Family

1748 Robert Feke (American colonial era artist, 1707-1751) Grizzell Eastwick (Mrs. Charles Apthorp)

1750 Joseph Badger (American colonial era artist, 1708-1765) Faith Savage Waldo

1750 Joseph Badger (American colonial era artist, 1708-1765) Mrs. William Foye Elizabeth Campbell

1752 John Wollaston (American colonial era artist, 1733-1767) Mrs Philip Livingston

1753 Joseph Blackburn (fl in the colonies 1754-1763 Mary Lea (Mrs. John Harvey)

1757 John Singleton Copley (American colonial era artist, 1738-1815) Elizabeth Allen (Mrs William Stevens)

1758 John Singleton Copley (American colonial era artist, 1738-1815) Mary Alleyne Mrs James Otis

1758 Joseph Blackburn (American colonial era artist, fl 1753-1763) Mrs. Jonathan Simpson (Margaret Lechmere)

1764 John Singleton Copley (American colonial era artist, 1738-1815) Mrs. Samuel Hill, nee Miriam Kilby

1764 John Singleton Copley (American colonial era artist, 1738-1815) Mrs Anna Dummer Powell

1765 Jeremiah Theus (American colonial era artist, 1716-1774) Mary Cuthbert Mrs James Cuthbert

1765-67 John Wollaston (American colonial era artist, 1733-1767) Rebecca Bee Holmes Mrs Isaac Holmes

1766 John Singleton Copley (American colonial era artist, 1738-1815) Mrs. Nathaniel Ellery Ann Sargent

1770 Cosmo Alexander (American colonial era artist, 1724-1772) Margaret Stiles Manning

1770 Cosmo Alexander (American colonial era artist, 1724-1772) Martha Lathrop (Mrs. Ebenezer Devotion)

1770 John Singleton Copley (American colonial era artist, 1738-1815) Mrs James Russell (Katherine Graves)

1770 John Singleton Copley (American colonial era artist, 1738-1815) Relief Dowse (Mrs Michael Gill)

1770-75 Henry Benbridge (American colonial era artist, 1743-1812) Mrs Mary Cuthbert 1716-1794 Mary Hazzard wife of Dr James Cuthbert

1772 Cosmo Alexander (American colonial era artist, 1724-1772) Mary Jemima Balfour (Mrs James Balfour)

1773 Henry Benbridge (American colonial era artist, 1743-1812) Mrs Charles Coteworth Pinckney (Sarah Middleton)

1775 Charles Willson Peale (American artist, 1741-1827) Mrs James Smith with her grandson

1776 Charles Willson Peale (American artist, 1741-1827) Mrs James Latimer

1777-80 Charles Willson Peale (American artist, 1741-1827) Mrs Samuel Mifflin & granddau Rebecca Mifflin Francis

1779 Ralph Earl (American artist, 1751-1801) Mary Ann Carpenter Mrs Thompson Foster

1783 Charles Willson Peale (American artist, 1741-1827) The Artist's Mother, Mrs. Charles Peale, and Her Grandchildren

1784 Ralph Earl (American artist, 1751-1801) Anne Whiteside Earl the artist's wife

1785-90 Beardsley Limner possibly Sarah Bushnell Perkins (American artist, 1771-1831) Mrs Hezekiah Beardsley

1787 Charles Willson Peale (American artist, 1741-1827) Mary Chew (Mrs Thomas Elliott Chrysler)

1788 Charles Willson Peale (American artist, 1741-1827) Mrs Robert Gilmore with Jane and Elizabeth

1789 Christian Gullager (American artist, 1759-1826) Elizabeth Sewall Mrs Samuel Salisbury

1789 Christian Gullager (American artist, 1759-1826) Martha Saunders (Mrs Nicholas Salisbury)

1789 Christian Gullager (American artist, 1759-1826) Rebecca Salisbury Waldo (Mrs Daniel Waldo)

1790 Denison Limner probably Joseph Steward (American artist, 1753-1822) Elizabeth Denison

1790 Denison Limner probably Joseph Steward (American artist, 1753-1822) Mrs Elizabeth Noyes

1790s John Brewster (American artist, 1766-1854) Dr and Mrs Brewster

1791 Charles Willson Peale (American artist, 1741-1827) Mrs Francis Baily

1791 John Mackay or M'Kay (American artist, 1767-1807) Hannah Ackley Bush

1791 Ralph Earl (American artist, 1751-1801) Mrs John Watson

1792 Ralph Earl (American artist, 1751-1801) Mrs Joseph Wright

1794 James Earl (American artist, 1761-1796) Mrs. John Rogers (Elizabeth Rodman)

1794-96 James Earl (American artist, 1761-1796) Rebecca Pritchard and her daughter Eliza

1795 Joseph Steward (American artist, 1753-1822) Pamela Sedgwick 1753-1807

1796 Jonathan Budington 1766-1854 George Eliot and Family

1796 Ralph Earl (American artist, 1751-1801) Mrs Sherman Boardman (Sarah Bostwick)

1797 Christian Gullager (American artist, 1759-1826) Dorothy Lynde (Mrs Elijah Dix)

1797 Gilbert Stuart (American painter, 1755-1828) Ann Willing Bingham

1797 Gilbert Stuart (American painter, 1755-1828) Mary Willing Clymer

1799 Charles Peale Polk (American artist, 1767-1822) Margaret Baker Briscoe (Mrs. Gerard Briscoe)

1799 Charles Peale Polk (American artist, 1767-1822) Eleanor Conway Hite & James Madison Hite

1799 Joshua Johnson (American artist, 1763-1826) Mrs John Moale (Ellen North) & Ellin

1800 Charles Peale Polk (American artist, 1767-1822) Martha Selden Jones (Mrs. Churchill Jones) of Chatham, near Fredericksburg
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1790s Portraits by Mexican-born Louisiana artist Josè Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza 1750–1802

2011-09-28T09:45:00.001-04:00

1790s Josè Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican-born Louisiana artist, 1750–1802) Clara de la Motte

Josè Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (1750–1802) was a native of Merida in the Yucatan Peninsula. In 1782, he arrived in New Orleans with his family, his wife Maria Antonia Magena, his infant son Jose, & his daughter Francisca, whom he taught to paint as she assisted him.

1790s Josè Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican-born Louisiana artist, 1750–1802) Family of Don Antonio Mendez (1750-1829)

1790s Josè Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican-born Louisiana artist, 1750–1802) Louise Duralde

1790s Josè Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican-born Louisiana artist, 1750–1802) Family of Dr. Joseph Montegut

1790s Josè Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican-born Louisiana artist, 1750–1802) Marianne Celeste Dragon

Thanks to Suzay Lamb for exploring historic New Orleans & Louisiana this week. See American Gallery.
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Thomas Jefferson's Wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson 1748-1782 & Her Half-Sister Sally Hemings 1773-1835

2011-09-26T01:18:00.058-04:00

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It gets a little complicated...

Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson (1748-1782), was Thomas Jefferson's (1743-1826) wife. She was born in Virginia at The Forest, the Charles City County plantation of her father John Wayles (1715-1773) & his 1st wife, Martha Eppes (1721-1748), who died just a week after giving her birth. John Wayles was an attorney, slave trader, business agent for the Bristol-based tobacco exporting firm of Tarell & Jones, & wealthy plantation owner. In 1734, her father John Wayles, born in Lancaster, England, had sailed for the colonies alone at the age of 19, leaving his family in England. Her mother Martha Eppes was a daughter of Francis Eppes of Bermuda Hundred. She had already been widowed once, when John Wayles married her.

As part of her dowry when she married John Wayles, Martha Jefferson’s mother Martha Eppes brought with her a personal slave, Susanna, an African woman who had an 11-year-old mixed-race daughter, Elizabeth Betty Hemings. John Wayles & Martha Eppes' marriage contract provided that Susanna & Betty were to remain the property of Martha Eppes & her heirs forever. The slave Betty Hemings & her children would eventually be inherited by Martha's daughter, Martha Wayles, by then married to Thomas Jefferson.

Martha Jefferson’s father John Wayles married a 2nd time, to Mary Cocke, who had 4 children. After Mary Cocke died, John Wayles married a 3rd time to Elizabeth Lomax Skelton, who died within 11 months & had no children from their union.

After his 3rd wife died in 1761, he took the mulatto slave Elizabeth Betty Hemings (1735-1807) as his concubine & had 6 children with her. Born into slavery, these children were 3/4 European in ancestry, & they were half-siblings to Martha Wayles Jefferson. And those surviving eventually came to live at Monticello as slaves.

Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson had siblings:

From her father & stepmother Mary or Tabitha Cocke Wayles d 1759 - ,

Sarah Wayles (d. infancy),

Elizabeth Wayles-Mrs Richard Eppes (1752-1810),

Tabitha Wayles-Mrs Robert Skipworth (1754-1851),

Anne Wayles-Mrs Henry Skipworth (1756-1852).

From her father & his slave Elizabeth Betty Hemings -

Nance or Nancy Hemings sold from T Jefferson's estate 1827 to Thomas Jefferson Randloph (slave, 1/2-brother 1761-a 1827),

Robert Hemings freed by T Jefferson in 1794 (slave, 1/2-brother 1760-1819 in Richmond, VA),

James Hemings freed by T Jefferson 1776 (slave, 1/2-brother 1765-1801 in Philadelphia, PA),

Thenia Hemings sold to James Monroe 1794 (slave, 1/2-sister 1767-a 1794),

Critta Hemings - Mrs Zachariah Bowles (slave, 1/2-sister 1769-a 1827 perhaps 1850),

Peter Hemings freed in T Jefferson's will (slave, 1/2-brother 1770-1834 in Albemarle, VA),

Sally Hemings (slave, 1/2-sister 1773-1835).

Betty Hemings also had several children born before those from her union with John Wayles. At Wayles death, the Jeffersons inherited her father’s slaves which had come into John Wayles' household with his marriage with her mother Martha Epps, including the Hemings family. The Hemings family members who came to Monticello had privileged positions, They were trained & worked as domestic servants, gardeners, chefs, & highly skilled artisans.

Just like her mother, Martha Wayley Jefferson had been widowed once, when Thomas Jefferson married her. She was married 1st to Bathurst Skelton on 20 November 1766. Their son, John, was born the following year, on 7 November 1767. Bathurst died on 30 September 1768. Although Thomas Jefferson may have begun courting the young widow in December 1770, while she was living again at The Forest with her young son, they did not marry until 1 January 1772, six months after the death of her young son John Skelton on 10 June 1771.

Following their January 1, 1772 wedding, the Jeffersons honeymooned for about 2 weeks at her father's plantation The Forest, before setting out in a two-horse carriage for Monticello. They made the 100-mile trip in a horrible snowstorm. Just 8 miles from their destination, their carriage bogged down in 2–3 feet of snow. The newlyweds had to continue their journey on horseback. The 2 horses which had been pulling the carriage, now carried them. Arriving at Monticello late at night to find no fire, no food, & the slaves asleep, they toasted their new home with a leftover half-bottle of wine & "song and merriment and laughter." The couple settled into a freezing one-room, 20-foot-square brick building, they nicknamed "Honeymoon Cottage." Later known as the South Pavilion, it was to be their home, until Jefferson had completed the main house at Monticello.

Silhouette of Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson

There are no known portraits of Martha Wayles Jefferson, & descriptions of her appearance are scant. The above silhouette is posted on the National First Ladies Library website. I certainly have my doubts that this was done during her lifetime or even shortly thereafter. It is difficult to know what Martha Jefferson looked like, when she was alive.

In his Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, Isaac described Mrs. Jefferson as small & said the younger daughter, Mary, was pretty "like her mother." Unfortunately, no contemporary portrait of Mary Jefferson Epps exists either.

Slave Isaac Jefferson wrote that Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson was small & pretty.

As to her disposition, the Marquis de Chastellux described her as, "A gentle & amiable wife. . ." & her sister's husband, Robert Skipwith, assured Jefferson that she possessed, ". . .the greatest fund of good nature. . .that sprightliness & sensibility which promises to ensure you the greatest happiness mortals are capable of enjoying."

As a young girl Martha probably was educated at home by tutors. As a young woman, she was considered accomplished in music, painting & other refined arts. Hessian officer Jacob Rubsamen who visited Jefferson at Monticello in 1780, noted, "You will find in his house an elegant harpsichord piano forte & some violins. The latter he performs well upon himself, the former his lady touches very skillfully & who, is in all respects a very agreeable sensible & accomplished lady." During their courtship Jefferson had ordered a German clavichord for Martha, then changed his order to a pianoforte, "worthy the acceptance of a lady for whom I intend it."

Thomas Jefferson, Martha Jefferson, Anne Cary Randolph. Memorandum Book, 1768-1769, 1772-1782, 1805-1808. This book had first been used by Jefferson for legal notes & then by his wife, Martha (1748-1782), for her household records & recipes.

During her lifetime Martha Jefferson bore 7 children. Her son John, born during her first marriage, died at the age of 3, in the summer before she married Jefferson. Of the 6 children born during her 10 year marriage with Jefferson, only 2 daughters, Martha & Mary, would live to adulthood. Two daughters (Jane Randolph & Lucy Elizabeth) & an unnamed son died as infants. Her last child, also named Lucy Elizabeth, would die at the age of 2 of whooping cough. Martha herself lived only 4 months after the birth of this last child.

Martha "Patsy" Washington Jefferson Randolph (1772–1836)
Jane Randolph Jefferson (1774–1775)
Unnamed Son Jefferson (b./d. 1777)
Mary "Polly" Jefferson Eppes (1778–1804)
Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1780–1781)
Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1782–1785)

Before her death in September of 1782, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson copied the following lines from Laurence Sterne's Tristam Shandy: "Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days & hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of windy day never to return--more. Every thing presses on..."

One of just 4 documents in Martha's hand known to survive, this incomplete quotation was completed by Jefferson, transforming the passage into a poignant dialogue between husband & wife: "And every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make!"

The exact cause of Martha's death is not known; however, a letter from Jefferson to the Marquis de Chastellux would indicate that she never recovered from the birth of her last child. Lucy Elizabeth was born May 8, & Martha died the following September.

Thomas Jefferson to Marquis de Chastellux, November 26, 1782.

Jefferson noted in his account book for September 6, 1782, "My dear wife died this day at 11:45 A.M." In his letter to the Marquis de Chastellux, Jefferson refered to "...the state of dreadful suspense in which I had been kept all the summer & the catastrophe which closed it." He goes on to say, "A single event wiped away all my plans & left me a blank which I had not the spirits to fill up."

Edmund Randolph reported to James Madison in September 1782, that "Mrs Jefferson has at last shaken off her tormenting pains by yielding to them, & has left our friend inconsolable. I ever thought him to rank domestic happiness in the first class of the chief good; but I scarcely supposed, that his grief would be so violent, as to justify the circulating report, of his swooning away, whenever he sees his children."

Jefferson buried his wife in the graveyard at Monticello, & as a part of her epitaph added lines in Greek from Homer's The Iliad. "Εί δέ φανόντων περ καταλήφοντ ειν Αίδαο, Αύτάρ έγω κάκείθι φίλσ μεμνήσομ' έταίρσ." A modern translation reads: Even if I am in Hell, where the dead forget their dead, yet will I even there be mindful of my dear companion. Below the Greek inscription, the tombstone reads: "To the memory of Martha Jefferson, Daughter of John Wayles; Born October 19th, 1748, O.S. Intermarried with Thomas Jefferson January 1st, 1772; Torn from him by death September 6th, 1782: This monument of his love is inscribed."

His wife's death left Jefferson distraught. After the funeral, he withdrew to his room for 3 weeks. Afterward he spent hours riding horseback through the woods on the hill surrounding Monticello. His daughter Martha wrote, "In those melancholy rambles I was his constant companion, a solitary witness to many a violent burst of grief." Half a century later his daughter Martha remembered his sorrow: "the violence of his emotion...to this day I not describe to myself."

Detail of Portrait of Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph (1772-1836) by Thomas Sully (American artist, 1783-1872) c 1836

Not until mid-October, did Jefferson begin to resume a normal life, when he wrote, "emerging from that stupor of mind which had rendered me as dead to the world as was she whose loss occasioned it." In November of 1783, he agreed to serve as commissioner to France, eventually taking his older daughter Martha "Patsy" with him in 1784, and sending for Mary "Polly" later. Accompanying them in France was the family slave Sally Hemings.

Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph (1772-1836) by James Westhall Ford (American artist, (1794-1866)

Sally Hemings was lady’s maid to Jefferson’s daughters, & also worked as a chambermaid & seamstress. She spent 2 years in Paris, after accompanying 9-year-old Mary "Polly" Jefferson across the ocean. According to her son Madison, Sally Hemings began a relationship with Jefferson in Paris, & bore him a number of children. Although she was not freed by the terms of Jefferson's will, she was not among the slaves sold at the 1827 estate auction at Monticello. Jefferson's daughter Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph presumably gave Sally "her time," that is, freed her unofficially, so that she would not be subject to the 1806 Virginia law requiring freed slaves to leave the state within 1 year. Madison Hemings recalled that after Jefferson's death in 1826, he & his brother Eston took their mother to live with them in a rented house down in Charlottesville. Sally Heming would have been about 54 at that time, & she would live nearly a decade more.

The claim that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings burst into the public arena during Jefferson's 1st term as president, & it is still the subject of discussion & debate. In September 1802, political journalist James T. Callender, a failed office-seeker & former ally of Jefferson, wrote in a Richmond newspaper that Jefferson had for many years "kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves." "Her name is Sally," Callender claimed that Jefferson had "several children" by her. Public knowledge of even the rumors that Jefferson had parented several slave children became a scandal during his Administration.

In 1873, the Pike County (Ohio) Republican, ran a series entitled, "Life Among the Lowly," Which included a memoir by Madison Hemings, a resident of Ross County, Ohio. Hemings stated that his mother Sally, who was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson & a slave of Thomas Jefferson, gave birth to 5 children "and Jefferson was the father of them all." Madison Hemings said in 1873, that his mother had been pregnant with Jefferson's child (who, he said, lived "but a short time"), when she returned from France in 1789.

Sally Hemings' children listed in Monticello records are -

Harriet (1795-1797),
Beverly (born 1798),
an unnamed daughter (born 1799; died in infancy),
Harriet (born 1801),
Madison (1805-1877),
Eston (1808-1856).

All 4 of Sally Hemings’s surviving known children became free close to their 21st birthdays. The oldest surviving son Beverly Hemings & his sister Harriet Hemings were allowed to leave Monticello without pursuit & apparently passed into white society. Their descendants have not been located. Their brothers Madison Hemings & Eston Hemings remained at Monticello until after Jefferson's 1826 death; both were freed in his will.

As one DNA study indicates, the widower Jefferson & Martha Wayley Jefferson's half sister Sally Hemings parented at least one, possibly several illegitimate children, after the death of Martha Jefferson. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation states on the Monticello webiste, "TJF and most historians now believe that, years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson was the father of the six children of Sally Hemings mentioned in Jefferson's records, including Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings."

This article is based on information from the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia produced by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, based on Gaye Wilson, Monticello Research Report, October 10, 1998. Also see John Kukla, Mr. Jefferson's Women, (New York: Knopf Books, 2007)
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Today in History - Supreme Court

2011-09-24T09:37:00.005-04:00

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September 24, 1789 -- The First Supreme Court

First meeting US Supreme Court in 1790. From left, William Cushing, Chief Justice John Jay, John Blair, & James Wilson. They did not hear a case until 1792.

The Judiciary Act of 1789 is passed by Congress and signed by President George Washington, establishing the Supreme Court of the United States as a tribunal made up of six justices who were to serve on the court until death or retirement. That day, President Washington nominated John Jay to preside as chief justice, & John Rutledge, William Cushing, John Blair, Robert Harrison, & James Wilson to be associate justices. On September 26, all six appointments were confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The First Meeting of the US Supreme Court took place on February 2, 1790, in New York City's Royal Exchange Building. Also called the Merchant Exchange, the Court's first home was located at Broad & Water streets. The Exchange was "a very curious structure, for its ground floor was open on all sides, & in tempestuous weather the merchants, who gathered there for business, found it extremely uncomfortable. It had a 2nd story which was enclosed & consisted of a single room." By 1791, the court had moved to Philadelphia, where the government had taken residence.

Because this blog is about 18th-century women, I feel obliged to report, that Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930, just 10 years after women were allowed to vote in US elections) was the 1st female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. She served as an Associate Justice from 1981, until her retirement from the Court in 2006. O'Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

Sandra Day O'Conner

The U.S. Supreme Court was established by Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution granted the Supreme Court ultimate jurisdiction over all laws, especially those in which their constitutionality was at issue. The high court was also designated to oversee cases concerning treaties of the United States, foreign diplomats, admiralty practice, & maritime jurisdiction. On February 1, 1790, the first session of the U.S. Supreme Court was held in New York City's Royal Exchange Building.

The U.S. Supreme Court is a crucial governmental body because of its central place in the American political order. According to the Constitution, the size of the court is set by Congress, & the number of justices varied during the 19th century before stabilizing in 1869, at nine. In times of constitutional crisis, the nation's highest court has always played a definitive role in resolving, for better or worse, the great issues of the moment.
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Biography - Clementina Rind 1740-1774, Printer for Thomas Jefferson & Editor of the Virginia Gazette

2011-09-22T11:51:00.003-04:00

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Clementina Rind (1740-1774), printer & newspaper editor, wife of William Rind, public printer in Maryland & Virginia, is said to have been a native of Maryland. She may have been the daughter of William Elder (1707-1775) & his wife Jacoba Clementina Livers (1717-1807) of Prince George’s County, Maryland. The name Clementina often referred to James, the Old Pretender to the English throne, & his wife Jacoba Clementina.

Her husband, born in Annapolis in 1733, was reared there as apprentice to the public printer, Jonas Green. During the 7-year period of his partnership with Green (1758-65) young Rind acquired town property, a home, & his wife, Clementina. In 1758, that the firm of "Green & Rind" was formed for the purpose of carrying on the newspaper. The junior partner, it seems, did not enter into the ordinary business of the establishment; his name appeared on none of its imprints except that of the Maryland Gazette. To protest the Stamp Act the partners suspended publication of the Maryland Gazette in October 1765, & shortly thereafter Rind accepted the invitation of a group of Virginians to publish a “free paper” in Williamsburg.

"Until the beginning of our revolutionary disputes," wrote Thomas Jefferson to Isaiah Thomas 43 years later, "we had but one press, & that having the whole business of the government, & no competitor for public favor, nothing disagreeable to the governor could be got into it. We procured Rind to come from Maryland to publish a free paper."

The first issue of Rind’s Virginia Gazette appeared May 16, 1766, under the motto: “Open to ALL PARTIES, but Influenced by NONE.” The press, the paper & the printer quickly established a good reputation. The fall assembly chose Rind as public printer, & in spite of rising costs of paper & other supplies the business prospered. When the editor died in August 1773, his family was living on the Main street in the present Ludwell-Paradise House & the printing shop was operated in the same handsome brick building.

His widow Clementina immediately took over the editorship & business management of the press for her “dear infants”- William, John, Charles, James, & Maria. The household included also a kinsman, John Pinkney; an apprentice, Isaac Collins; & a Negro slave, Dick who probably worked as a semiskilled artisan.

As editor Mrs. Rind was careful to preserve the integrity of the newspaper’s motto & purpose. Reports of foreign & domestic occurrences, shipping news, & advertisements were supplemented by essays, articles, & poems accepted from contributors or selected from her “general correspondence” & from London magazines & newspapers. During her short tenure as publisher, Rind's periodical highlighted new scientific research, debates on education, & philanthropic causes, as well as plans for improving educational opportunities-especially those relating to the College of William & Mary.

Clementina Rind Rind was not hesitant to express her own voice in the Virginia Gazette. She wrote articles that expressed her patriotic ideals, which supported rights of the American colonies & denounced British authority.

Apparently women were valued readers of her paper, for it carried an unusual number of poetic tributes to ladies in acrostic or rebus form, literary conceits, & news reports with a feminine slant. As conventional fillers she used sprightly vignettes of life in European high society, in rural England, & in other colonies.

Mrs. Rind was peculiarly sensitive to the good will of contributors & usually explained why specific offerings were not being published promptly. Sometimes, however, contributions were summarily rejected. Scarcely three months after Rind’s death her competitor, Alexander Purdie, published an anonymous open letter criticizing her refusal to print an article exposing the misconduct of some of “the guilty Great.” Her dignified reply, published in her own paper the next week, demonstrated independence, good sense, & literary skill.

She had rejected the article, she wrote, because it was an anonymous attack on the character of private persons & should be heard in a court of law, not in a newspaper; yet she promised: “When the author gives up his name, it shall, however repugnant to my inclination, have a place in this paper, as the principles upon which I set out will then, I flatter myself, plead my excuse with every party.” In later issues of her gazette contributors often expressed healthy respect for her standards & literary judgment.

Her bid for public favor was so well received, that she expanded her printing program & in April 1774, after 6 months as editor, announced the purchase of “an elegant set of types from London.” A month later the House of Burgesses appointed her public printer in her own right, & they continued to give her press all the public business in sprite of competing petitions from Purdie & Dixon, publishers of a rival Virginia Gazette.

In early 1774, she printed Thomas Jefferson's A Summary View of the Rights of British America just after Peyton Randolph read it aloud in his home to a gathering of Virginia patriots. George Washington was among the first to purchase a copy, writing in his diary that it cost him 3 shillings and ninepence. The pamphlet was reprinted in Philadelphia and London, and its importance has been described as "second only to the Declaration of Independence." It was a document Jefferson had drafted at Monticello for the guidance of Virginia's delegates to the Continental Congress. The colony's House of Burgesses considered the composition too radical for official endorsement, but a group of Jefferson's friends persuaded the Widow Rind to issue it as a pamphlet. Thus A Summary View of the Rights of British America appeared in August 1774. The future author of the Declaration of Independence later wrote: "If it had any merit, it was that of first taking our true ground, and that which was afterwards assumed and maintained."

At the end of August, however, she became ill & found it difficult to collect payments due her; yet her pride in her work & her optimistic plans for the future were undiminished. She died in Williamsburg a only a month later & was probably buried beside her husband at Bruton Parish Church.

Her readers prepared a number of poetic eulogies & a formal elegy of 150 lines. Although Clementina Rind lived only about 34 years, her brief obituary read, "a Lady of singular Merit, and universally esteemed." Beneath extravagant metaphors one can see her reader’s sincere affection & admiration for a woman who combined wide interests, literary talent, & sound professional judgment.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Biography - Philadelphia-born Quaker Minister Rebecca Jones 1739-1818

2011-09-21T09:43:00.003-04:00

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Rebecca Jones (1739-1818), Quaker minister, was born in Philadelphia, the only daughter of William & Mary Jones. Her father, a sailor, died at sea when she was too young to remember him, leaving 2 children, Rebecca & an older brother. Her mother, a loyal member of the Church of England, conducted a school for little girls in her home. Eager for Rebecca to become a teacher, her mother made sure that her daughter obtained a good education.

As a girl “romping Becky Jones” often attended Friends meetings with her playmates. The Quakers (or Religious Society of Friends) had formed in England in 1652, around a charismatic leader, George Fox (1624-1691). Many saw Quakers as radical Puritans, because the Quakers carried to extremes many Puritan convictions. They stretched the sober deportment of the Puritans into a glorification of "plainness." They expanded the Puritan concept of a church of individuals regenerated by the Holy Spirit to the idea of the indwelling of the Spirit or the "Light of Christ" in every person. Such teaching struck many of the Quakers' contemporaries as dangerous heresy.

Early Quaker Meeting

Quakers were severely persecuted in England for daring to deviate so far from orthodox Christianity. By 1680, 10,000 Quakers had been imprisoned in England; & 243 had died of torture & mistreatment in the King's jails. This reign of terror impelled Friends to seek refuge in New Jersey, in the 1670s, where they soon became well entrenched.

In 1681, when Quaker leader William Penn (1644-1718) parlayed a debt owed by Charles II to his father into a charter for the province of Pennsylvania, many more Quakers were prepared to grasp the opportunity to live in a land where they might worship freely. By 1685, as many as 8,000 Quakers had come to Pennsylvania. Although the Quakers may have resembled the Puritans in some religious beliefs & practices, they differed with them over the necessity of compelling religious uniformity in society.

Quaker Synod Meeting

When little Rebecca Jones began to refrain from such “ornamental branches” of her studies as music & dancing, her mother realized the that Quaker influence was striking deeper than she liked & sought to thwart it. The conflict wore heavily on Rebecca, who was also undergoing an intense inner struggle to surrender her own will to God’s. This she eventually achieved, aided by encouragements in 1755, from a visiting English Friend, Catherine Peyton.

After long hesitation Rebecca Jones in 1758, at 19, began to speak in the Friends meetings for worship, an open indication of her adoption of the Quaker faith. Two years later her gift in the ministry was “acknowledged” by her meeting, her mother thereupon becoming reconciled to the daughter’s decision.

Rebecca Jones thus became one of the laymen & women by whom the Quaker ministry has traditionally been performed. For over 20 years, she combined this ministry with teaching her mother’s school, which she too over upon her mother’s illness & death in 1761, though her inclination had been to find some other means of livelihood. She proved an able & respected schoolmistress.

Early Quakers

She was a devoted friend of the famous Quaker minister John Woolman, who once penned mottoes for her pupils’ writing lessons. She retained, in her unassuming way, a certain “queenly dignity,” as well as an easy & gracious manner. These qualities enhanced the effectiveness of her speaking. Among women of her time she stood out for her intellectual capacity, quick wit, strength of character, & “sanctified common sense.”

In 1784, while at the height of her power as a preacher, Rebecca Jones gave up her school & laid before her monthly meeting her wish to visit Friends in England, a concern she had long cherished. Credentials were granted, & she sailed with 6 other Friends from Philadelphia. So impressed was the captain, Thomas Truxtun, later a naval here of the war with France, that he declared in London he had brought over an American Quaker lady who possesses more sense than both Houses of Parliament.

On arriving, the Friends sent straight to the Yearly Meeting, where a petition, long endorsed by American Friends, to establish a woman’s meeting for discipline, with more powers that the women’s meeting had had previously, was about to be presented to the men’s meeting. Rebecca Jones was instrumental in securing its approval.

Silhouette of Rebecca Jones. Early Quakers objected to having their portraits drawn or painted, but likenesses drawn from tracing a shadow casting and trimming out the resulting shape were considered acceptable by the church.

During the next 4 years, with a succession of the ablest women Friends as companions, she traversed the length & breadth of England & also visited Scotland ,Wales, & Ireland. She impressed her hearers with the need for a revival of zeal & simplicity. Her memorandum of her tour enumerated 1,578 meetings for worship & discipline & 1,120 meetings with Friends in the station of servants, apprentices, & laborers (for whom she had a special concern), besides innumerable religious family visits. Her message particularly reached the young. Under a sense of “fresh & sure direction,” she returned home in the summer of 1788.

Having given up teaching, she now earned her living by keeping a little ship which her English friends kept supplied with “lawns & cambrics & find cap muslins.” She continued he preaching, frequently attending yearly & quarterly meetings in various parts of the Northeastern states, especially in New Jersey & New England.

She fell ill in the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, in which 4,000 Philadelphians died, but lived to resume herm ministry & the wide correspondence which was a major activity of her later years. In the mid-1790s, she contributed her knowledge of Friends education in England to the founding of Westtown (Pa.) School, a boarding school which opened in the spring of 1799, patterned after the Ackworth Friends School in Yorkshire.

Silhouette of Rebecca Jones.

For more than 50 years Rebecca Jones was a trusted counselor & informal almoner, “eminent for leading the cause of the poor.” Her home was always open to those in trouble or wishing her advice; possessing “singular penetration on discovering cases of distress, and delicacy in affording relief” (Allinson, p. 256), she was also a frequent visitor at Friends almshouses.

In 1813, she suffered an attack of typhus fever; & for the last 5 years of her life, she was confined almost entirely to her home, where she was devotedly card for by Bernice Chattin Allinson, a young widow whom she had taken in as a daughter. Rebecca Jones died in Philadelphia in 1818, in her 79th year. She was buried in the Friends ground on Mulberry (now Arch) Street on the morning of the yearly meeting of ministers & elders.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Biography - Cherokee Leader Nancy Ward 1738-1822 of Tennessee

2011-09-21T08:38:00.002-04:00

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Nancy Ward (c 1738-1822), Cherokee leader, was probably born at Chota, a Cherokee village on the Little Tennessee River near Fort Loudoun in Monroe County, Tennessee. Her father is said to have been a Delaware Indian who, following the custom in the matriarchal Cherokee society, had become a member of the Wolf clan, when he married Tame Doe, the sister of Atta-kulla-kulla (Little Carpenter), civil chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Nancy (an anglicized version of her Indian name, Nanye’hi), was married at an early age to Kingfisher of the Deer clan, by whom she had a son, Fivekiller, & a daughter, Catharine.

She first won notice in 1755, when her husband was killed during the battle of Taliwa (near present-day Canton, Ga.), a skirmish in the long rivalry between the Cherokees & the Creeks. At once taking his place in the battle line, she helped secure a decisive Cherokee victory. In recognition of her valor, she was chosen Agi-ga-u-e, or “Beloved Woman” of her tribe. In this capacity, she headed the influential Women’s Council, made up of a representative from each Cherokee clan, & sat as a member of the Council of Chiefs.

Her 2nd husband was Bryant (or Brian) Ward. Ward, an English trader who had fought in the French and Indian War, took up residence with the Cherokees & married Nancy in the late 1750s. Ward had a wife, but since Cherokees did not consider marriage a life-long institution, the arrangement apparently presented few problems. Ward & her English husband lived in Chota for a time & became the parents of a daughter, Elizabeth (Betsy).

Ward left the Cherokee Nation sometime prior to 1760, when the suddenly hostile Cherokees destroyed Fort Loudoun & massacred its British garrison. Ward moved back to South Carolina, where he lived the remainder of his life with his white wife & family. Nancy Ward and Betsy visited his home on many occasions, where they were welcomed and treated with respect.

Influenced perhaps by these associations, as well as by her uncle, Atta-kulla-kulla, usually a friend of the English, Nancy Ward seems to have maintained a steady friendship for the white settlers who were gradually establishing themselves along the Holston & Watauga river valleys of eastern Tennessee.

This friendship had important results during the American Revolution. In 1775 or 1776, Nancy Ward is credited with having sent a secret warning to John Sevier, a leader of the Tennessee settlers, of a planned pro-British Cherokee attack. When one settler, Mrs. William Bean, was captured by Cherokee warriors, Nancy Ward personally intervened to save her from death at the stake. Such was Nancy Ward’s repute among the settlers that in October 1776, when the Cherokee villages were devastated by colonial troops, Chota was spared.

Four years later, when another Cherokee uprising was imminent, she again sent a timely warning to the settlers, using an intermediary Isaac Thomas, a local trader. A countering raid was at once organized; as the expedition approached the Cherokee territory-according to the report later sent to Thomas Jefferson, governor of Virginia, noted, “the famous Indian Woman Nancy Ward came to Camp,…gave us various intelligence, & made an overture in behalf of some of the Cheifs [sic] for Peace”

Despite her efforts the Cherokee villages were pillaged, but again Nancy Ward & her family were given preferential treatment. At the subsequent peace negotiations conducted by John Sevier, Nancy Ward spoke for the new defeated Cherokees, again urging friendship rather than war. In 1785, at the talks preceding the Treaty of Hopewell, she again pleaded eloquently for a “chain of friendship” linking the 2 cultures.

Nancy Ward was described by one settler in 1772, as “queenly & commanding” & her residence as outfitted in “barbaric splendor” (Hale & Merritt, I, 59). While sheltering Mrs. Bean after her rescue in 1776, she had learned from her how to make butter & cheese, & soon afterward she introduced dairying among the Cherokees, herself buying the first cattle. In postwar years, she sought further to strengthen the economy of her people by cattle raising & more intensive farming.

Ward exerted considerable influence over the affairs of both the Cherokees & the white settlers & participated actively in treaty negotiations. In July 1781, she spoke powerfully at the negotiations held on the Long Island of the Holston River following settler attacks on Cherokee towns. Leader Oconastota designated Kaiyah-tahee (Old Tassel) to represent the Council of Chiefs in the meeting with John Sevier & the other treaty commissioners. After Old Tassel finished his persuasive talk, Ward called for a lasting peace on behalf of both white and Indian women. This unparalleled act of permitting a woman to speak in the negotiating council took the commissioners aback.

In their response, Colonel William Christian acknowledged the emotional effect her plea had on the men & praised her humanity, promising to respect the peace if the Cherokees likewise remained peaceful. Ward's speech may have influenced the negotiators in a more fundamental way, because the resulting treaty was one of the few where settlers made no demand for Cherokee land. Before the meeting, the commissioners had intended to seek all land north of the Little Tennessee River. Nevertheless, the earlier destruction of Cherokee towns & the tribe's winter food supply left many Indians facing hunger. As a result of the desperate circumstances, Ward & the very old Oconastota spent that winter in the home of Joseph Martin, Indian Agent to the Cherokees & husband of Ward's daughter Betsy.

Again, at the Treaty of Hopewell in 1785, Ward made a dramatic plea for continued peace. At the close of the ceremonies, she invited the commissioners to smoke her pipe of peace & friendship. Wistfully hoping to bear more children to people the Cherokee nation, Ward looked to the protection of Congress to prevent future disturbances and expressed the hope that the "chain of friendship will never more be broken." Although the commissioners promised that all settlers would leave Cherokee lands within six months and even gave the Indians the right to punish recalcitrant homesteaders, whites ignored the treaty, forcing the Cherokees to make addional land cessions.

Though too ill to be present, she sent a vigorous message to the Cherokee Council of May 1817, urging the tribe not to part with any more of its land. But other forces were stronger than her aged voice. At this time, the Cherokee moved from a matriarchal, clan-type of government to a republic much like our own. The new republican order supplanted the old hierarchy among the Cherokees, & by the Hiwassee Purchase on 1819, they gave up all the land north of the Hiwassee River.

Thus forced to leave Chota, Nancy Ward opened a small inn overlooking the Ocoee River in the southeastern corner of Tennessee, near the present town of Benton. She died there in 1822, & was buried on a nearby hill, in a grave later marked by a Tennessee D.A.R. chapter bearing her name. Her grave is beside the graves of her son Five Killer and her brother Long Fellow (The Raven). Thirteen years after her death the Cherokees surrendered all claim to their historic homeland & were transported to new territories in the Southwest.

Nancy Ward's Grave, once unmarked, near Benton, Tennessee

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Place - A Shaker Community Restored in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

2011-09-20T11:08:00.003-04:00

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During the 1990s, I attended a conference at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, which was a Shaker religious community from 1805 through 1910. Shakertown, as it is known by the locals, is about 25 miles southwest of Lexington, in the state's bluegrass region.

By 1800, Mother Ann Lee's (1736-1784) religious movement had already established 11 Shaker communities in New York state & throughout New England. About this time, the community sent 3 Shaker missionaries across the Cumberland Gap & through Ohio to find converts in the west. Shakers practiced celibacy & their numbers would die out without new converts.

The Pleasant Hill community was begun by 44 converts who signed a covenant of mutual support & common property ownership of the 140 acres on which they were living. It did not take long for the community to expand & the property to grow to 4,369 acres.

The Shakers chose a peaceful way of life. They were celibate and believed in equality of race & sex and in freedom from prejudice. A quest for simplicity & perfection is reflected in their fine craftsmanship.

The Shakers were skilled farmers, and over the years they expanded land holdings by acquiring adjacent farms for orchards & fields. The Shakers at Pleasant Hill became known for their excellent livestock & engineering accomplishments. Their location near the Ohio River was ideal for agricultural & economic commerce.

By 1816, they regularly traveled to larger communities to sell their wares: brooms, shoes, preserves, garden seeds, & herbs. The Shakers sold their wares in cities and towns up & down the Ohio & the Mississippi rivers, some at great distances, such as New Orleans.

The Shakers, known for their beautifully simple furniture & architecture, also invented many labor-saving processes to serve their large community. In the early 1830s, they constructed a water tower on a high plot of ground. A horse-drawn pump lifted water into the tower, and from there a system of pipes carried it downhill to kitchens, cellars, & wash houses.

In the wash houses, horse-powered washing machines were built to reduce the enormous chore of laundering the community's clothes & linens.

Music was also an important part of Shaker life, with songs, hymns, & anthems written by both men & women. Their dancing or shaking was the origin of the name Shaker.

The community began to decline with the advent of the Civil War & controversies over slave ownership. The last resident on the property died in 1923. The 14 original buildings of the religious community were restored in the 1960s, & it is now the largest restored Shaker community in America, a National Historic Landmark visited by thousands of tourists annually.
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Biography - American Shaker Founder "Mother" Ann Lee 1736-1784

2011-09-20T10:59:00.005-04:00

Shaker Village, Canterbury, New Hampshire

Ann Lee (1736-1784), founder of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, commonly called Shakers in the United States, was born in Manchester, England, one of 8 children of John Lees, a blacksmith living on Toad Lane, & his wife. Ann later shortened her surname to Lee. She had no schooling. Early in her teens she went to work in a textile mill, preparing cotton for the looms & cutting velvet & hatter’s fur. There she was distinguished for her “faithfulness, neatness, prudence & economy.” She was a serious girl, “not addicted to play;” she brooded often about sin & the world’s wrongs.

In her twenties 2 events occurred which changed the courser of Ann Lee’s life. In 1758, she joined a society led by James Wardley, a tailor, & his wife Jane, former Quakers, who upon coming under the influence of the French Prophets, or Camisards, had separated from the Friends. From their manner of worship, which consisted of singing, dancing, shouting, shaking, & speaking in new tongues, they became known as “Shakers.” They prophesied that the 2nd coming of Christ was at hand, but otherwise had no definite creed.

The 2nd turning point in Ann’s life was her marriage. At the urging of relatives, she reluctantly consented to wed Abraham Standerin (Stadley or Stanly), a blacksmith employed in her father’s shop. She was still a member of the Church of England, for the banns were published in the Cathedral, Ann & Abraham signing by mark only. After the marriage (Jan. 5, 1762) the couple made their home with her parents, where in the course of the next few years 4 children were born to them, all of whom died in infancy. The deliveries were difficult, & Ann was near death after the birth of the last child.

This unwanted marriage which ended in tragedy, took its toll of the young wife. Worn by hears of toil in the mills, subject to the wretched conditions of an overcrowded slum, she broke down completely. Obsessed by the fears that the deaths of her children were a punishment for her concupiscence, her “violation of God’s laws,” she mortified herself, foregoing sleep & all but the meanest food, until, weak & wasted, she felt “as helpless as an infant.”

While Ann Lee was wasting away in jail, in the summer of 1770, she claimed that "by a special manifestation of divine light the present testimony of salvation and eternal life was fully revealed to her," and by her to the society, "by whom she from that time was acknowledged as mother in Christ, and by them was called Mother Ann."

"She saw the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory, who revealed to her the great object of her prayers, and fully satisfied all the desires of her soul. The most astonishing visions and divine manifestations were presented to her view in so clear and striking a manner that the whole spiritual world seemed displayed before her. In these extraordinary manifestations she had a full and clear view of the mystery of iniquity, of the root and foundation of human depravity, and of the very act of transgression committed by the first man and woman in the garden of Eden. Here she saw whence and wherein all mankind were lost from God, and clearly realized the only possible way of recovery."

"By the immediate revelation of Christ, she henceforth bore an open testimony against the lustful gratifications of the flesh as the source and foundation of human corruption; and testified, in the most plain and pointed manner, that no soul could follow Christ in the regeneration while living in the works of natural generation, or in any of the gratifications of lust."

Returning to the Wardleys, she once again found protection from the buffetings of fate. Now she had a mission, one that elevated her, about 1770, to leadership in the society. Two years later, when the Shakers began to carry their crusade into the streets & churches, they experienced their first “persecution.” Twice, in 1772 & 1773, Ann & her companions were arrested & imprisoned for breach of the Sabbath. She was confined to the “Dungeons” & from there transferred to Bedlam, the Manchester Infirmary. In these prisons she had her “grand vision” of the transgression of the first man & woman in the garden of Eden. Here she received her divine commission to complete Christ’s work. “It is not I that speak,” she told her followers, "it is Christ who dwells in me.” This intimate presence (“I converse with Christ; I feel him present with me, as sensible as I feel my hands together”) was later interpreted by her followers as constituting the second coming of Christ.

After her release from confinement, the Shakers received a “revelation” that the opening of the gospel would occur not in old England but in America. Accordingly Ann - now called Mother, of Mother of the New Creation - sailed for America on May 19, 1774, accompanied by her brother William, her chief disciple James Whittaker, & 6 others, including, strangely enough, her husband. They landed in New York on Aug. 6 & for a time went their separate ways in search of employment. Her husband Abraham found solice in drinking & left his wife. Whittaker, William Lee, & John Hocknell, the only “wealthy” members of the sect, eventually acquired a tract of land in Niskayuna (later Watervliet), near Albany, N.Y., where the Shakers settled in the spring of 1776.

A Shaker Dwelling in Mount Lebanon, New York

Here, after 4 years of isolation, came their first opportunity to preach the gospel, as an aftermath of a New Light Baptist revival in & around New Lebanon, N.Y. Hearing of a people who proclaimed that the millennium had already begun, disillusioned subjects of the revival flocked to Niskeyuna to see “the woman clothed with the sun.” Conversions rapidly increased. The prophetess was imprisoned for several months in 1780 on false charges of aiding the British, her pacifist principles having roused suspicion among her patriot neighbors. But after her release she continued her work, carry out, in 1781-83, an arduous but successful proselyting mission into parts of eastern New York & New England. When she died, in the fall of 1784, soon after her return to Nisheyuna, the foundation had been laid for eleven communities. She was buried in the Shaker cemetery at Niskeyuna. Her immediate successor, James Whittaker, lived only three more years, but her work was carried forward & systematized by the next heads of the society, Joseph Meacham & Lucy Wright.

Shakers Dancing

Mother Ann Lee must have had a magnetic personality, for during her career she attracted individuals from every walk of life, & after her death her spirit persisted as an ever-present mother image in the order. Physically she was of medium height, with a fair complexion, blue eyes, & chestnut brown hair. Her teaching was simple: confession was the doorway to salvation, celibacy its rule & cross. She envisaged a fellowship like that of the primitive Christian church, where “all that believed were together & had all things in common.” Like the Quakers, she took a firm stand against slavery, the taking of oaths, the bearing of arms. Repeatedly she counseled neatness, economy, charity to the poor.

While she strictly enjoined celibacy on her followers & for a time seems to have condemned marriage in the outside world as well, she later modified her views, holding that marriage was permissible on the “Adamic plane,” but that there was a higher plane, one nearer perfection, a “resurrection order” that was free of all carnal lust. In this order all should have equal privileges regardless of sex, race, or temporal possessions.

Mother Ann Lee was obsessed about “lust” & her messianic pretensions, but she did inspire a movement deeply religious in aspiration & essentially democratic in practice. Her advocacy of equal rights & responsibilities for women in the Shaker society anticipated the feminist movement in America. Her belief in an equalitarian order, in the dignity of labor, & in the rights of conscience accorded with American idealism. Hers was probaby the most successful experiment in religious communitarianism in American history.

A Group of Shakers

A little more about Mother Ann's theory of lust & salvation -- from a volume of "Hymns and Poems for the Use of Believers" (Watervliet, Ohio, 1833), Adam is made to confess the nature of his transgression and the cause of his fall, in a dialogue with his children:

"First Adam being dead, yet speaketh, in a dialogue with his children.

"Children. First Father Adam, where art thou?
With all thy num'rous fallen race;
We must demand an answer now,
For time hath stript our hiding-place.
Wast thou in nature made upright—
Fashion'd and plac'd in open light?

"Adam. Yea truly I was made upright:
This truth I never have deni'd,
And while I liv'd I lov'd the light,
But I transgress'd and then I died.
Ye've heard that I transgress'd and fell—
This ye have heard your fathers tell.

"Ch. Pray tell us how this sin took place—
This myst'ry we could never scan,
That sin has sunk the human race,
And all brought in by the first man.
'Tis said this is our heavy curse—
Thy sin imputed unto us.

"Ad. When I was plac'd on Eden's soil,
I liv'd by keeping God's commands—
To keep the garden all the while,
And labor, working with my hands.
I need not toil beyond my pow'r,
Yet never waste one precious hour.

"But in a careless, idle frame,
I gazed about on what was made:
And idle hands will gather shame,
And wand'ring eyes confuse the head:
I dropp'd my hoe and pruning-knife,
To view the beauties of my wife.

"An idle beast of highest rank
Came creeping up just at that time,
And show'd to Eve a curious prank,
Affirming that it was no crime:—
'Ye shall not die as God hath said—
'Tis all a sham, be not afraid.'

"All this was pleasant to the eye,
And Eve affirm'd the fruit was good;
So I gave up to gratify
The meanest passion in my blood.
O horrid guilt! I was afraid:
I was condemn'd, yea I was dead.

"Here ends the life of the first man,
Your father and his spotless bride;
God will be true, his word must stand—
The day I sinn'd that day I died:
This was my sin, this was my fall!—
This your condition, one and all.

"Ch. How can these fearful things agree
With what we read in sacred writ—
That sons and daughters sprung from thee,
Endu'd with wisdom, power, and wit;
And all the nations fondly claim
Their first existence in thy name?

"Ad. Had you the wisdom of that beast
That took my headship by deceit,
I could unfold enough at least
To prove your lineage all a cheat.
Your pedigree you do not know,
The SECOND ADAM told you so.
"When I with guile was overcome,
And fell a victim to the beast,
My station first he did assume,
Then on the spoil did richly feast.
Soon as the life had left my soul,
He took possession of the whole.

"He plunder'd all my mental pow'rs,
My visage, stature, speech, and gait;
And, in a word, in a few hours,
He was first Adam placed in state:
He took my wife, he took my name;
All but his nature was the same.

"Now see him hide, and skulk about,
Just like a beast, and even worse,
Till God in anger drove him out,
And doom'd him to an endless curse.
O hear the whole creation groan!
The Man of Sin has took the throne!

"Now in my name this beast can plead,
How God commanded him at first
To multiply his wretched seed,
Through the base medium of his lust.
O horrid cheat! O subtle plan!
A hellish beast assumes the man!

"This is your father in my name:
Your pedigree ye now may know:
He early from perdition came,
And to perdition he must go.
And all his race with him shall share
Eternal darkness and despair."

The same theory of the fall is stated in another hymn:
p. 123

"We read, when God created man,
He made him able then to stand
United to his Lord's command
That he might be protected;
But when, through Eve, he was deceiv'd,
And to his wife in lust had cleav'd,
And of forbidden fruit receiv'd,
He found himself rejected.

"And thus, we see, death did begin,
When Adam first fell into sin,
And judgment on himself did bring,
Which he could not dissemble:
Old Adam then began to plead,
And tell the cause as you may read;
But from his sin he was not freed,
Then he did fear and tremble.

"Compell'd from Eden now to go,
Bound in his sins, with shame and woe,
And there to feed on things below—
His former situation:
For he was taken from the earth,
And blest with a superior birth,
But, dead in sin, he's driven forth
From his blest habitation.

"Now his lost state continues still,
In all who do their fleshly will,
And of their lust do take their fill,
And say they are commanded:
Thus they go forth and multiply,
And so they plead to justify
Their basest crimes, and so they try
To ruin souls more candid."

The "way of regeneration" is opened in another hymn in the same collection:
p. 124

"Victory over the Man of Sin.

"Souls that hunger for salvation,
And have put their sins away,
Now may find a just relation,
If they cheerfully obey;
They may find the new creation,
And may boldly enter in
By the door of free salvation,
And subdue the Man of Sin.

"Thus made free from that relation,
Which the serpent did begin,
Trav'ling in regeneration,
Having pow'r to cease from sin;
Dead unto a carnal nature,
From that tyrant ever free,
Singing praise to our Creator,
For this blessed jubilee.

"Sav'd from passions, too inferior
To command the human soul;
Led by motives most superior,
Faith assumes entire control:
Joined in the new creation,
Living souls in union run,
Till they find a just relation
To the First-born two in one.

"But this prize cannot be gained.
Neither is salvation found,
Till the Man of Sin is chained,
And the old deceiver bound.
All mankind he has deceived,
And still binds them one and all,
Save a few who have believed,
And obey'd the Gospel call.

"By a life of self-denial,
True obedience and the cross,
We may pass the fiery trial,
Which does separate the dross. p. 125
If we bear our crosses boldly,
Watch and ev'ry evil shun,
We shall find a body holy,
And the tempter overcome.

"By a pois'nous fleshly nature,
This dark world has long been led;
There can be no passion greater—
This must be the serpent's head:
On our coast he would be cruising,
If by truth he were not bound:
But his head has had a bruising,
And he's got a deadly wound.

"And his wounds cannot be healed,
Light and truth do now forbid,
Since the Gospel has revealed
Where his filthy head was hid:
With a fig-leaf it was cover'd,
Till we brought his deeds to light;
By his works he is discover'd,
And his head is plain in sight."

Following the doctrines were put forth by Ann Lee, & elaborated by her successors:

I. That God is a dual person, male and female; that Adam was a dual person, being created in God's image; and that "the distinction of sex is eternal, inheres in the soul itself; and that no angels or spirits exist who are not male and female."

II. That Christ is a Spirit, and one of the highest, who appeared first in the person of Jesus, representing the male, and later in the person of Ann Lee, representing the female element in God.

III. That the religious history of mankind is divided into four cycles, which are represented also in the spirit world, each having its appropriate heaven and hell. The first cycle included the antediluvians—Noah and the faithful going to the first heaven, and the wicked of that age to the first hell. The second cycle included the Jews up to the appearance of Jesus; and the second heaven is called Paradise. The third cycle included all who lived until the appearance of Ann Lee; Paul being "caught up into the third heaven." The heaven of the fourth and last dispensation "is now in process of formation," and is to supersede in time all previous heavens. Jesus, they say, after his death, descended into the first hell to preach to the souls there confined; and on his way passed through the second heaven, or Paradise, where he met the thief crucified with him.

IV. They hold themselves to be the "Church of the Last Dispensation," the true Church of this age; and they believe that the day of judgment, or "beginning of Christ's kingdom on earth," dates from the establishment of their Church, and will be completed by its development.

V. They hold that the Pentecostal Church was established on right principles; that the Christian churches rapidly and fatally fell away from it; and that the Shakers have returned to this original and perfect doctrine and practice. They say: "The five most prominent practical principles of the Pentecost Church were, first, common property; second, a life of celibacy; third, non-resistance; fourth, a separate and distinct government; and, fifth, power over physical disease." To all these but the last they have attained; and the last they confidently look for, and even now urge that disease is an offense to God, and that it is in the power of men to be healthful, if they will.

VI. They reject the doctrine of the Trinity, of the bodily resurrection, and of an atonement for sins. They do not worship either Jesus or Ann Lee, holding both to be simply elders in the Church, to be respected and loved.

VII. They are Spiritualists. "We are thoroughly convinced of spirit communication and interpositions, spirit guidance and obsession. Our spiritualism has permitted us to converse, face to face, with individuals once mortals, some of whom we well knew, and with others born before the flood." * They assert that the spirits at first labored among them; but that in later times they have labored among the spirits; and that in the lower heavens there have been formed numerous Shaker churches. Moreover, "it should be distinctly understood that special inspired gifts have not ceased, but still continue among this people." It follows from what is stated above, that they believe in a "probationary state in the world of spirits."

VIII. They hold that he only is a true servant of God who lives a perfectly stainless and sinless life; and they add that to this perfection of life all their members ought to attain.

IX. Finally, they hold that their Church, the Inner or Gospel Order, as they call it, is supported by and has for its complement the world, or, as they say, the Outer Order. They do not regard marriage and property as crimes or disorders, but as the emblems of a lower order of society. And they hold that the world in general, or the Outer Order, will have the opportunity of purification in the next world as well as here.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Biography - Ann Donavan Timothy 1727-1792 - 2nd Female Publisher of the South Carolina Gazette

2011-09-18T16:32:00.004-04:00

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Ann Timothy (c1727-1792), printer & newspaper publisher, was born Ann Donavan, probably in Charleston, S.C. At St. Phillip’s Church in Charleston, on Dec. 8, 1745, she married Peter Timothy (1725-1782), who about this time became publisher of the South Carolina Gazette, the colony’s first permanent newspaper, earlier published by his father, Lewis Timothy, & his mother, Elizabeth.

The Gazette had been founded in 1731, by Thomas Whitmarsh, a protege of Benjamin Franklin. He was replaced in 1734, by another Franklin protege, Lewis Timothee (Timothy), a Huguenot. When Lewis died in 1738, his widow Elizabeth, with the help of her son Peter, continued the paper as the 1st woman editor & publisher in America. Read more about Elizabeth Timothy here.

Later Peter Timothy, aided by his wife, the former Ann Donovan, made the South Carolina Gazette a major Patriot organ. For that reason, its publication was suspended during the British occupation, 1780-83.

Displaced by the British occupation of Charleston, the patriot Peter Timothy & his family went to Philadelphia in 1781. In the following year, Timothy & two of his daughters embarked for Santo Domingo & were lost at sea.

Ann Timothy returned in 1782, to Charleston, where on July 16, 1783, like her widowed mother-in-law 43 years before, she resumed publication of the Gazette of the State of South Carolina (Peter Timothy had renamed the paper in 1777). With the assistance of one E. Walsh, she published the newspaper (renamed again in 1785, the State Gazette of South Carolina) until her death in 1792.

The South Carolina Gazette was published in this house at 106 Broad Street in Charleston.

Ann Timothy was the 2nd woman in South Carolina & the 2nd in her family to become the publisher of a newspaper. In addition to publishing the Gazette, she obtained the post of “Printer to the State,” which she held, apparently, from 1785 until her death. At least 15 imprints were issued under her name from 1783 to 1792.

One of the first seals of South Carolina appeared on March 28, 1785, in the nameplate of the State Gazette of South Carolina, a Charleston newspaper. The paper was published by Ann Timothy, the official state's printer.

Ann Timothy died in Charleston in 1792, at the age of 65. At the time of her death, her living children were Sarah (unmarried), Robert, Elizabeth Anne (Mrs. Peter Valton), Frances Claudia (Mrs. Benjamin Lewis Merchant), & Benjamin Franklin Timothy. Benjamin Timothy inherited the Gazette & published it, until his retirement from the printing business in 1802, at which time the 69-year-old South Carolina printing & newspaper family dynasty came to an end.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Biography - 1738 South Carolina Newspaper Publisher - Immigrant & Widow Elizabeth Timothy

2011-09-18T16:19:00.004-04:00

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Elizabeth Timothy (d. 1757), printer & newspaper publisher, was born in Holland. She left Holland in 1731, with her husband Lewis & their 4 young children, all under the age of 6, sailing from Rotterdam in 1731, with other French Huguenots fleeing the Edict of Nantz, arriving in Philadelphia that September.

The family settled in Philadelphia, where Timothée, fluent in French, advertised in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette that he would like to tutor French. The ever-practical Franklin saw a potential opportunity with the multi-lingual Timothee & persuaded him to become the editor of the 1st German newspaper in the colony Philadelphische Zeitung, but the operation lasted only for 2 months.

Although the German paper failed, Franklin must have been impressed with Timothée, for he next became librarian of Franklin’s Philadelphia Library Company, & a journeyman printer at Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin was teaching Timothee the printing business.

Franklin had contracted with Thomas Whitmarsh, to Charles Town to establish the South-Carolina Gazette. Not long after the paper began publication, Whitmarsh died of yellow fever & Timothée was persuaded to take his place.

Franklin & Timothée signed a 6-year contract with Franklin furnishing the press & other equipment, paying 1/3 of the expenses, & receiving 1/3 of the profits from the joint venture. The contract included a clause declaring that if Timothee died, his son Peter would take over the operation.

In 1733, Timothée did revive the South-Carolina Gazette, the colony’s first permanent newspaper. The early issues of the Gazette listed Louis Timothée as the publisher, but he soon anglicized his name to "Lewis Timothy."

The following year, his wife & children joined him in Charles Town, where they became members of St. Philip's Anglican Church. Timothée also helped organize a subscription postal system originating at his printing office &, in 1736, obtained a land grant of 600 acres & a town lot in Charles Town.

But 2 years later, Lewis Timothy died in an accident in December 1738. Without missing an issue, his widow continued publication of the Gazette in the name of her eldest son, Peter, who was then about 13 years old. A year remained on the contract with Franklin.

Because of her son's youth, Elizabeth Timothy assumed control of the printing operation. The publisher, however, was listed as Peter Timothy to comply with the contract. She asked the paper’s readers "to continue their Favors and good Offices to this poor afflicted Widow and six small children and another hourly expected."

As official printer for the province, Elizabeth Timothy printed acts & other proceedings for the Assembly. In addition to the Gazette, she printed books, pamphlets, tracts, & other publications. The colophon "Peter Timothy" appeared after each. However, she made most of the decisions in the operation of the business.

In addition to the newspaper, at least 20 imprints were issued during the years (1739-45) of Elizabeth Timothy’s connection with the printing business. According to Benjamin Franklin, the widow was far superior to her husband in the operation of the business.

In his autobiography, Franklin described Timothy as "a man of learning, & honest but ignorant in matters of account; & tho' he sometimes made me remittances, I could get no account from him, nor any satisfactory state of our partnership while he lived."

On the other hand, Franklin found that Elizabeth Timothy “continu’d to account with the greatest Regularity & Exactitude every Quarter afterwards; & manag’d the Business with such Success that she not only brought up reputably a Family of Children, but at the Expiration of the Term was able to purchase of me the Printing House & establish her Son in it.”

When Peter Timothy turned 21 in 1746, he assumed operation of the Gazette, & his mother opened a book & stationery store next door to the printing office on King Street.

In a Gazette ad published in October 1746, she announced the availability of books such as pocket Bibles, spellers, primers, & books titled Reflections on Courtship & Marriage, Armstrong's Poem on Health, The Westminster Confession of Faith, & Watts' Psalms & Hymns. She also offered bills of lading, mortgages, bills of sale, writs, ink powder, & quills to local Charlestonians.

She operated her shop for about a year, but during that time she advertised in the Gazette that she planned to leave the province & asked that anyone who owed money to her or to her husband's estate settle their debts within 3 months.

It is unclear when she left Charles Town or where she made her new home. But by 1756, she had returned to Charles Town: & on April 2, 1757, she wrote her will & died within a month. Her property included 3 houses, a tract of land, & 8 slaves.

Lewis & Elizabeth Timothy had 6 children: Peter, Louisa (Mrs. James Richards), Charles (d. September 1739), Mary Elizabeth (Mrs. Abraham Bourquin), Joseph (d. October 1739), & Catherine (Mrs. Theodore Trezevant). Their son Peter Timothy (c.1725-1782) continued to publish the South-Carolina Gazette, gained distinction as one of the leading American printers of his generation, & was prominent in South Carolina’s Revolutionary movement.
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Place - Charleston, South Carolina - Before the Revolution

2011-09-18T16:15:00.003-04:00

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1773 Charleston, South Carolina. Library of Congress

Early views of Charleston do not portray the genteel town of our imaginations.

Charles-town 1769.
Black and white all mix’d together,
Inconstant, strange, unhealthful weather
Burning heat and chilling cold
Dangerous both to young and old
Boisterous winds and heavy rains
Fevers and rheumatic pains
Agues plenty without doubt
Sores, boils, the prickling heat and gout
Musquitos on the skin make blotches
Centipedes and large cock-roaches
Frightful creatures in the waters
Porpoises, sharks and alligators
Houses built on barren land
No lamps or lights, but streets of sand
Pleasant walks, if you can find ’em
Scandalous tongues, if any mind ’em
The markets dear and little money
Large potatoes, sweet as honey
Water bad, past all drinking
Men and women without thinking
Every thing at a high price
But rum, hominy and rice
Many a widow not unwilling
Many a beau not worth a shilling
Many a bargain, if you strike it,
This is Charles-town, how do you like it.

This poem was written by a Captain Martin, captain of a British warship, a Man of War.

It is certainly true that several other pre-Revolution chroniclers wrote of Charleston's trendy and affluent high society and of her pesky crawling critters.

English plant hunter and naturalist John Lawson (1674-1711) wrote in 1709, "The Town has very regular and fair Streets, in which are good Buildings of Brick and Wood...This Colony was at first planted by a genteel Sort of People that were well acquainted with Trade, and had either Money or Parts to make good Use of the Advantages that offer’d, as most of them have done by raising themselves to great Estates...and...considerable Fortunes...They have a considerable Trade both to Europe and the West Indies, whereby they become rich and are supply’d with all Things necessary for Trade and genteel Living."

John Lawson was an explorer, plant collector, surveyor, and author of A New Voyage to Carolina (London, 1709). A London botanist and apothecary, James Petiver (1658-1718), was seeking someone to collect American specimens for him, and Lawson volunteered to do this without charge. Thirty of the South Carolina plant specimens that he sent still survive in the Sloane collection at the British Museum. Hans Sloane (1660-1753) was a friend of Petiver. Sloane amassed a huge collection of plants, animals, and objects which became the founding core of the British Museum and Natural History Museum in London.

Agriculturalist & gardener Eliza Lucus Pinckney (1722-1793) wrote to her brother Thomas in England in 1742, "The people in general hospitable and honest, and the better sort add to these a polite gentile behaviour...4 months in the year is extremely disagreeable, excessive hot, much thunder and lightning, and muskatoes and sand flies in abundance. Charles Town, the Metropolis, is a neat pretty place. The inhabitants polite and live in a very gentile manner; the streets and houses regularly built; the ladies and gentlemen gay in their dress."

Rev. Johann Martin Bolzius (1703-1765), leader of the German Lutheran settlement of Ebenezer, Georgia, wrote of Charleston in 1750, "It is expensive and costly to live in Charlestown...The splendor, lust, and opulence there has grown almost to the limit...Its European clothes it would have to change according to the often changing Charlestown fashion. Otherwise there would be much humiliation and mockery."

In Georgia, Bolzius was also intensely interested in gardening & agriculture. He urged the adoption of new agricultural technology and helped the struggling community to construct a gristmill, a rice mill, and a sawmill to supplement their funds. He encouraged his wife to experiment with the cultivation of black and white mulberry trees to help the women of Ebenezer develop a small-scale silk production.

Philadelphia merchant, Pelatiah Webster (1725-1795), wrote of his business trip to the city in 1765, "The laborious business is here chiefly done by black slaves of which there are great multitudes...Dined with Mr. Liston, passed the afternoon agreeably at his summer house till 5 o’clock P. M. then went up into the steeple of St. Michael’s, the highest in town & which commands a fine prospect of the town, harbour, river, forts, sea, &c...The heats are much too severe, the water bad, the soil sandy, the timber too much evergreen; but with all these disadvantages, ’tis a flourishing place, capable of vast improvement."

Pelatiah Webster was the author of a number of thoughtful and accurate pamphlets on the potential finances and government of the United States, most of which he reprinted in his “Political Essays” in Philadelphia in 1791. He was such an ardent supporter of the patriot cause, that the British imprisoned him for 4 months in Philadelphia; before they were dispatched back to the beautiful emerald isle.
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Biography - 1780 Revolutionary Women's Relief Effort of Esther De Berdt (1746-1780) (Mrs. Joseph Reed)

2011-09-18T09:24:00.014-04:00

Esther De Berdt (1746-1780) (Mrs. Joseph Reed) depicted in classical republican dress by Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827).

Ester De Berdt Reed (1746-1780), leader of women’s relief work during the American Revolution, was born in London, England, one of 2 children & the only daughter of Dennys De Berdt, a devout Congregationalist descended from Flemish religious refugees, & Martha (Symons) De Berdt. Her father, a merchant in the colonial trade, later served as agent for the colonies of Massachusetts & Delaware & in that capacity helped secure repeal of the Stamp Act.

He was host to many American at his London home & his country house at Enfield. Several of these visitors courted his daughter, a studious, pious young woman, delicate in appearance yet animated in speech & manner. The one who won her love was Joseph reed, a young lawyer from New Jersey, whom she first met in 1763. But their marriage was delayed, first by the opposition of her father & then by Reed’s absence in America for 5 years. Reed returned to England in 1770, & the wedding took place in London on May 31. The couple had planned to remain in England, but De Berdt’s death 7 weeks before the wedding left his family financially distressed; & the Reeds, accompanied by Mrs. De Berdt, sailed to American & settled in Philadelphia.

Joseph Reed quickly became a leader of the patriot movement in the growing controversy with England, & his wife also identified herself fully with the American cause. During the meeting of the First Continental Congress in 1774, she was hostess to Washington, John & Samuel Adams, & other delegates. She was glowingly referred to by a Connecticut member as “a Daughter of Liberty, zealously affected in a good Cause.” Amid growing tension in early 1775, Mrs. Reed wrote to her brother, Dennis, in England that “if these great affairs must be brought to a crisis & decided, it had better be in our time than our childrens.” Her own children were then 3 in number: Martha, Joseph, & Esther. Three others were born during the Revolution: Theodosia, Dennis De Berdt, & George Washington; Theodosia died in infancy of smallpox in 1778.

During the first 3 years of the war, Esther Reed’s husband was often away with the army as Washington’s aide. The family itself was forced to flee Philadelphia on three different occasions, as the city became a military focal point. After the British left Philadelphia, & with the subsequent election of Joseph Reed as president (governor) of Pennsylvania, the Reeds settled again in that city.

At the height of the American Revolution in May 1780, General George Washington reported to the Congress in Philadelphia, that his troops were at the point of exhaustion. Without adequate food, clothing, & pay, they needed immediate relief.

Hearing the desperation of the plea & hoping “to render themselves more really useful,” the women of Philadelphia accepted the challenge. In May & June of 1780, Mrs. Reed, only recently recovered from an attack of smallpox, served with vigor as chairman of a campaign among the women of Philadelphia & Germantown to raise funds for Washington’s soldiers. Organizing a committee of 39 women, she was able to report to Washington on July 4, that the equivalent of $7,500 in specie had been contributed. When the General asked that the money be used for linen shirts for his men, the women’s committee purchased the linen & cut & sewed the shirts themselves. Over 2,000 shirts were delivered to the army at the year’s end. Mrs. Reed also tried with some success to spread the work elsewhere, but though her letters brought into being local committees of women in other Philadelphia towns, in Trenton, N.J., & in Maryland, the initial Philadelphia endeavor was nowhere equaled in extent & results. By Independence Day, July 4, 1780, Esther Reed wrote to Washington that the women had raised more than $300,000. The women's agressive, patriotic campaign received repeated praise in the local newspaper, the Pennsylvania Packet.

Esther Reed organized & led this women's relief effort in the weeks immediately following the birth in May of George Washington Reed, her 6th baby in 10 years of marriage. She died suddenly in Philadelphia in September 1780, at the age of 33, the victim of an acute dysentery. The relief committee was carried forward under the direction of Sarah Franklin Bache, daughter of Benjamin Franklin. Mrs. Reed was buried at Philadelphia’s Second Presbyterian Church. In 1868, her remains, together with those of her husband, were moved to Laurel Hill Cemetery. Her husband would die 5 years later.

Just before she died in the late summer of 1780, Philadelphia printer John Dunlap published an anonymous broadside called the Sentiments of an American Woman, which was probably written by Esther Reed.

"THE SENTIMENTS of an AMERICAN WOMAN.

"ON the commencement of actual war, the Women of America manifested a firm resolution to contribute as much as could depend on them, to the deliverance of their country.

"Animated by the purest patriotism, they are sensible of sorrow at this day, in not offering more than barren wishes for the success of so glorious a Revolution. They aspire to render themselves more really useful; and this sentiment is universal from the north to the south of the Thirteen United States.

"Our ambition is kindled by the same of those heroines of antiquity, who have rendered their sex illustrious, and have proved to the universe, that, if the weakness of our Constitution, if opinion and manners did not forbid us to march to glory by the same paths as the Men, we should at least equal, and sometimes surpass them in our love for the public good. I glory in all that which my sex has done great and commendable. I call to mind with enthusiasm and with admiration, all those acts of courage, of constancy and patriotism, which history has transmitted to us: The people favoured by Heaven, preserved from destruction by the virtues, the zeal and the resolution of Deborah, of Judith, of Esther! The fortitude of the mother of the Massachabees, in giving up her sons to die before her eyes: Rome saved from the fury of a victorious enemy by the efforts of Volumnia, and other Roman Ladies: So many famous sieges where the Women have been seen forgeting the weakness of their sex, building new walls, digging trenches with their feeble hands, furnishing arms to their defenders, they themselves darting the missile weapons on the enemy, resigning the ornaments of their apparel, and their fortune, to fill the public treasury, and to hasten the deliverance of their country; burying themselves under its ruins, throwing themselves into the flames rather than submit to the disgrace of humiliation before a proud enemy.

"Born for liberty, disdaining to bear the irons of a tyrannic Government, we associate ourselves to the grandeur of those Sovereigns, cherished and revered, who have held with so much splendour the scepter of the greatest States, The Batildas, the Elizabeths, the Maries, the Catharines, who have extended the empire of liberty, and contented to reign by sweetness and justice, have broken the chains of slavery, forged by tryants in the times of ignorance and barbarity. The Spanish Women, do they not make, at this moment, the most patriotic sacrifices, to encrease the means of victory in the hands of their Sovereign. He is a friend to the French Nation. They are our allies. We call to mind, doubly interested, that it was a French Maid who kindled up amongst her fellow-citizens, the flame of patriotism buried under long misfortunes: It was the Maid of Orleans who drove from the kingdom of France the ancestors of those same British, whose odious yoke we have just shaken off; and whom it is necessary that we drive from this Continent.

"But I must limit myself to the recollection of this small number of achievements. Who knows if persons disposed to censure, and sometimes too severely with regard to us, may not disapprove our appearing acquainted even with the actions of which our sex boasts? We are at least certain, that he cannot be a good citizen who will not applaud our efforts for the relief of the armies which defend our lives, our possessions, our liberty? The situation of our soldiery has been represented to me; the evils inseparable from war, and the firm and generous spirit which has enabled them to support these.

"But it has been said, that they may apprehend, that, in the course of a long war, the view of their distresses may be lost, and their services be forgottten. Forgotten! never; I can answer in the name of all my sex. Brave Americans, your disinterestedness, your courage, and your constancy will always be dear to America, as long as she shall preserve her virtue.

"We know that at a distance from the theatre of war,if we enjoy any tranquility, it is the fruit of your watchings, your labours, your dangers. If I live happy in the midst of my family; if my husband cultivates his field, and reaps his harvest in peace; if, surrounded with my children, I myself nourish the youngest, and press it to my bosom, without being affraid of feeing myself separated from it, by a ferocious enemy; if the house in which we dwell; if our barns, our orchards are safe at the present time from the hands of those incendiaries, it is to you that we owe it. And shall we hesitate to evidence to you our gratitude? Shall we hesitate to wear a cloathing more simple; hair dressed less elegant, while at the price of this small privation, we shall deserve your benedictions.

"Who, amongst us, will not renounce with the highest pleasure, those vain ornaments, when-she shall consider that the valiant defenders of America will be able to draw some advantage from the money which she may have laid out in these; that they will be better defended from the rigours of the seasons, that after their painful toils, they will receive some extraordinary and unexpected relief; that these presents will perhaps be valued by them at a greater price, when they will have it in their power to say: "This is the offering of the Ladies. The time is arrived to display the same sentiments which animated us at the beginning of the Revolution, when we renounced the use of teas, however agreeable to our taste, rather than receive them from our persecutors; when we made it appear to them that we placed former necessaries in the rank of superfluities, when our liberty was interested; when our republican and laborious hands spun the flax, prepared the linen intended for the use of our soldiers; when exiles and fugitives we supported with courage all the evils which are the concomitants of war.

"Let us not lose a moment; let us be engaged to offer the homage of our gratitude at the altar of military valour, and you, our brave deliverers, while mercenary slaves combat to cause you to share with them, the irons with which they are loaded, receive with a free hand our offering, the purest which can be presented to your virtue,

By An AMERICAN WOMAN."

See: Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, 26 vols. (Washington, Library of Congress, 1976-2000), 15:284, 287, 315-16, 329, 355; William B. Reed, Life and Correspondence of Joseph Reed, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1847), 2:260-71, 429-49; and Pennsylvania Packet (Philadelphia, John Dunlap), June 13, 17, 27; July 8; and November 4, 1780. This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971

Biography - Leading Ladies in Early American Theater Troupes

2011-09-17T19:52:00.007-04:00

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Actresses in the 18th-century were generally not regarded with the same respect that male actors were. The stage was not a woman's world, as it was said to be better suited for men. On one hand, women were looked down upon if they acted, as it was not seen as genteel or ladylike. On the other hand, English women actresses often were viewed as celebrities, because they kept the aristocracy & royalty entertained & occasionally socialized with them.

Much was expected from actors during this time, not just mental preperation & memorization but physical work was required from the entire troupe. Women were expected to keep the pace & work just as hard as men. Usually, rehearsals were held every morning for several hours & performed every afternoon or evening. A successful leading lady might have to learn 30 different parts in one season. Acting in the American colonies was even more difficult, often requiring building & assembling a stage with its sets.

1733 The Laughing Audience by Edward Matthew Ward (1816-1879) from an etching by William Hogarth (1697-1764) made in 1733

Here William Hogarth depicted The Laughing Audience in 1733, showing a typical 18th-century English theater scene. The wealthier patrons are seated in the boxes, while those theatergoers with less money to spare sat in the pit. A spiked barricade separates the audience from the acting company.

Mrs. Lewis Hallam (d. 1774), leading lady of the principal theatrical company in colonial America, was born in England. Little is known of her background or personal life, although her maiden name may have been Rich. Her daughter Isabella Hallam Mattocks, in answering a query for biographical information in 1800, stated that, “Mr (John) Rich the late Patentee of Covent Garden and his family are my relatives.” John Rich was the father of pantomime in the English theater.

The Hallams were a large theatrical family, but she was in all likelihood the “Mrs. Hallam” who appeared with Lewis Hallam, when he made his stage debut in “Mr. [William] Hallam’s Company of Comedians” at York Buildings, London, on July 17, 1735. William Hallam, the older brother of Lewis, was a restless entrepreneur who, after meeting some success with less ambitious theatrical ventures, in 1744, assembled a company to present stock plays “between the two parts of a concert.” In the next year Lewis Hallam & his wife became regular members of the company, Mrs. Hallam appearing as Lady Anne in Richard III, Hypolita in She Would & She Would Not, Almeria in The Mourning Bride, Miranda in Dryden’s version of The Tempest, & Lady Percy in Henry IV.

1730 William Hogarth, The Beggar's Opera, London, England

As this painting depicts, at this time it was still common for members of the audience to pay a little extra to sit on the stage itself. This ensured that everyone in the house could see their fine clothes, hear their witty comments, & the young gallants could get close to the actresses. When an actor had a benefit performance, they would squeeze as many seats as they could on to the stage in order to maximise their profit. The actors barely had enough room to perform & were subject to interference from the spectators.

In December 1751, William Hallam went into bankruptcy. Despairing of success in England, he organized a troupe to invade the New World under his brother’s direction. Lewis & his wife were to play the principal roles; their sons, Lewis , Jr. (1740-1808), and Adam, & their daughter Helen (Sarah?) would go along to learn the profession. The company reached Virginia in June 1752, & gave their first performance, a version of The Merchant of Venice, at a refurbished theatre in Williamsburg on Sept. 15, Mrs. Hallam playing Portia.

Shakespeare's plays became increasingly popular during the 18th century but were reworked to suit the tastes of the day. His style was still felt to be too erratic, & poets such as Alexander Pope carefully tidied up any uneven verse lines. Shakespeare's ending to King Lear was felt to be too distressing and Nahum Tate's revised version (where Cordelia and the King survive) was preferred to the original.

Constrained by the limited population centers in rural colonial life, the Hallam company were necessarily itinerant, playing short seasons in Williamsburg, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, & other provincial capitals. In each new locale they would prepare or build a playhouse, having overcome the inevitable resistance of those who felt the stage to be a corrupting influence, & then work their way through a set round of stock plays.

1738 Hogarth, Actresses in a Barn, One of a series of prints called "Four Times of the Day," shows a group of actresses gathered in a barn getting ready for their final performance.

Mrs. Hallam appeared repeatedly as Indian in Richard Steele’s The Conscious Lovers, as Angelica in William Congreve’s Love for Love, as Milwood in George Lillo’s The London Merchant, as Andromache in Ambrose Philips’ The Distrest Mother, as Calisto in Nicholas Rowe’s The Fair Penitent, as Cordelia in Nahum Tate’s version of King Lear, as Columbine in the pantomimes.

The Hallams’ professional experience followed a common colonial pattern: failure at home, but they won an honorable place in the history of their profession by pioneering in America. An English visitor recorded his pleasure & surprise “on finding performers in this country equal at least to those who sustain the best of the first characters in [England’s] most celebrated provincial theatres.”

Of her style & ability there are few records. Long after she had given up Columbine and the gay heroines for character roles, the diarist Alexander Graydon described her as “a respectable, matron-like dame, stately or querulous as occasion required, a very good Gertrude [Hamlet], a truly appropriate Lady Randolph [John Home’s Douglas] with her white handkerchief & her weeds; but then, to applaud, it was absolutely necessary to forget, that to touch the heart of the spectator had any relation to her function” (Memoirs, p. 76).

In 1754 the Hallam company was in Charleston (then Charles Town), & Lewis decided to extend their territory by making an expedition to Jamaica. Here they joined forces with the remnants of an earlier company established under the leadership of John Moody.

Among the actors was David Douglass, & when Lewis Hallam died in 1756, his widow married Douglass & the company came under his control. Douglass brought his itinerant players back to the mainland in the summer of 1758 & in 1763, with a manager’s shrewd sensitivity to the public pulse, renamed them “The American Company of Comedians.”

By now Mrs. Hallam-Douglass had given up the more demanding roles to younger talents, but she had still to confront the primitive theatres, the haphazard conditions of production, & the perils of 18th-century transportation. Her death occurred sometime after the spring of 1774, but circumstantial evidence supports the traditional story, reported in a New York paper, that she died in Philadelphia, in a house near the Southwark Theatre, & was buried in a Presbyterian cemetery, since destroyed, at Third & Arch streets. David Douglass, turning to other pursuits in Jamaica, remarried in 1778, & died in 1786.

Of the other actresses prominent to the Hallam company during Mrs. Hallam’s lifetime, the one who first succeeded to her leading roles was Margaret Cheer. Miss Cheer seems to have come from London late in 1763, & joined the company in Charleston.

A letter of February 1764, from that city declares that “Her fine person, her youth, her voice, & Appearance &c conspire to make her appear with propriety-Such a one they much wanted as Mrs Douglass was their chief actress before &…on that account had always too many Characters to appear in.” (Rankin, p. 102).

Margaret Cheer rose quickly in the ranks, & by the winter of 1766, when the company was in Philadelphia , had taken over Cordelia, Juliet, Lady Macbeth, & Indiana. She was Imogen in the first American production of Cymbeline & played the leading female role in Thomas Godfrey’s The Prince of Parthia (1767), the first play by a native American to be performed professionally. A Philadelphia newspaper called her “one of the best players in the Empire,” suggesting that she had some reputation before joining the company.

On Aug. 28, 1768, the Pennsylvania Chronicle reported her marriage to a young Scottish nobleman, Lord Rosehill, then visiting America. The marriage, if it did in fact take place, did not last; that November she appeared again with the company under her maiden name, but retired the next year. During her brief career she played more than fifty roles, including Cleopatra in All for Love, Portia, Ophelia, Marcia in Cato, Mrs. Beverly in The Gamester, Mrs. Sullen in The Beaux’ Stratagem, & the Lady in Comus.

Of longer prominence in the company was a niece of Mrs. Hallam-Douglass whom David Douglass brought back from England after a recruiting trip in 1765. Though she is recorded only as “Miss Hallam,” it has been suggested that she was the Nancy (Ann) Hallam who had appeared with the company in children’s roles in Philadelphia in 1759, & soon afterward dropped from view, perhaps having been sent to London for musical training. Whatever her identity, Miss Hallam made an immediate success in ingenue parts & the singing roles of afterpieces, & between 1766 & 1774 she steadily advanced in the female ranks of the troupe.

In 1769, after playing her first Juliet in New York on May 8, she succeeded Margaret Cheer as leading lady. In the next five years, she was applauded as Polly in The Beggar’s Opera, as Ophelia & Imogen, as Angelica in Love for Love, as Maria in George Barnwell, as Almeria in The Mourning Bride, Lucinda in The Conscious Lovers, Miss Sterling in The Clandestine Marriage, Charlotte Rusport in The West Indian.

1771 Charles Willson Peale Actress Nancy Hallam dressed in her costume as the boy Fidele in Shakespeare's Cymbeline.

Some notion of her acting is preserved in Charles Wilson Peale’s portrait of her as Imogen, now at Colonial Williamsburg. Several effusions appearing in the Maryland Gazette in 1770 & 1771 (“The Musick of her tongue! The vox liquida, how melting!…How true & thorough her Knowledge of the Character she personated!”) suggest that she was at least capable of exciting a warm response in impressionable young men. When the Hallam company ended its season in Charleston in 1774, Miss Hallam went to Falmouth, England, where she vanishes from the records of the stage. She has been identified as the “Miss Hallam” who married John Raymond, organist of Kingston, Jamaica, in 1775, but without supporting evidence.

1785 Thomas Rowlandson An Audience Watching a Play

Of Mrs. Lewis Hallam’s own children, her daughter Helen (Sarah?) appeared wit the company for 2 years, making her debut as Jessica in the troupe’s first Williamsburg performance of The Merchant of Venice, in 1752. Her portrayals were mainly chambermaids & ingénues, & she seems to have left the stage in 1754. Lewis Hallam, Jr., remained with the traveling theatrical company throughout, becoming leading man after his father’s death. As principal of a reorganized Hallam company, he added fresh laurels to the family’s acting reputation in America in the years following the Revolution. Another daughter, Isabella (1746-1826), remained in England, under the care of a relative, when the rest of the family first went to America. Later, as Mrs. George Mattocks, she achieved fame in England as a comedienne & singer.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Biography - 1708 Husband Rules Children & Wife - Virginia - Ann Walker

2011-09-17T09:43:00.009-04:00

Ann Walker's Fight To Attend Church

In 1708, Ann Keith Walker (1637- a 1708) appeared before the all male Royal Governor and Council in Williamsburg, Virginia, in a continuing dispute between her and George Walker (c1640-1732), her husband, over their religious beliefs and practices.

Ann, a member of the Church of England who tried to attend services regularly, faced opposition from her husband. He tried to prevent her from attending the church of her choice, and he was also adamant in his determination to direct the religious education of their children.

Ann Keith & George Walker, both born in Virginia, had married in 1691. George was a boat pilot on the James River, a gunner, and a shopkeeper at Fort Point Comfort. Ann had produced twins Elizabeth & Margaret in 1692; Jacob in 1694; Helen in 1696; George in 1698; Sarah in 1700; and Frances in 1702.

Unable to resove their differences, husband and wife both complained to the governor and Council. She asked for full liberty to attend church, to pursue her religious beliefs, and to raise her children as members of the Church of England. He asked for confirmation of his authority as a father to direct the religious education of their children.

The governor and Council granted both requests in part. Ann Walker was allowed freedom to attend church as she wished; and George Walker, "as Long as he proffesses to Be a Christian and Continues in the Exercise of it," was allowed to direct the religious education of their children, retaining "that authority over his Children that properly Belongs to Every Christian man."

The Church of England was the established church in colonial Virginia; but by 1708, many Virginians were Presbyterians or Quakers, as some earlier Virginians had been Puritans and later many Virginians became Baptists or Methodists.

The case of Ann Walker demonstrates the importance of religious beliefs among early Virginians; how differences of religious opinion could divide members of a family; how such important differences affected the religious education of children; how family members might call on the government to settle such controversies; and how men ruled in 18th-century Virginia.

In this instance, the authority of the husband prevailed over the wishes of the mother, even though the mother was a confirmed & committed member of the Church of England, the official church of the British American colonies, and the father was not.
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Biography - Baltimore Postmistress & Publisher Mary Katherine Goddard 1738-1816 & Her Rude Dismissal by George Washington

2011-09-17T07:28:00.010-04:00

Mary Katherine Goddard (1738-1816) was the only daughter of Sarah Updike (1700-1770) & Dr. Giles Goddard (1703-1757), postmaster & physician in Groton & New London, Connecticut. Sarah taught her daughter & her younger son William (1740-1817) to write and read Shakespeare, Pope, & Swift among others. For more on Mary Katherine's outstanding mother, go here.

After serving as a printer’s apprentice in Connecticut, William Goddard decided to try his hand at publishing a newspaper with the help of his sister & mother. Their father had died in 1757, leaving an estate of 780 pounds sterling. In 1762, William began his publishing career in Rhode Island, creating the Providence Gazette and Country Journal by using 300 pounds given him by his mother to set up a printing press in Providence. Expecting to print lots of newspapers, in 1764, Goddard entered a partnership with 3 other gentlemen and used more of his father's estate to help establish & operate the 1st paper mill in Rhode Island on the Woonasquatucket River.

A year later, William Goddard became frustrated at his lack of financial success & gave up editorship of the Rhode Island newspaper. He claimed that 2 New York gentlemen "who wished to see me employed on a more extensive theatre" enticed him to leave Rhode Island. His practical mother & sister Mary Katherine kept publishing the Providence newspaper from 1765 through 1768; after all, they owned the printing press.

Before the Revolution, Goddard, who now had moved from New York to Philadelphia "to find a more adventageous situation," had to use private carriers to get news past the prying eyes of the English Crown post. After joining others to publish the Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser —a paper sympathetic to the revolutionary cause, the local Crown postmaster kept out-of-town newspapers from the press, depriving the publisher of critical news & information.

His mother, who had stayed in Providence operating the business she had paid for; finally sold the Providence press & followed him to Philadelphia with Mary Katherine. In Philadelphia, Sarah Goddard ran a bookstore until 1768, she died in 1770.

Mary Katherine published the Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser alone under her brother's name for the last year of its existence. Her erratic brother was too busy with politics to help in the everyday production. William was frequently jailed for public outbursts and rabble-rousing articles in the paper.

The Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser was driven out of business, when the Crown post refused to accept it for distribution in the mails. William Goddard retaliated politically by designing an American postal system founded upon the principles of open communication, no governmental interference, and free exchange of ideas.

Goddard presented his plan to the Continental Congress on October 5, 1774. The representatives were intrigued but tabled Goddard's plan; until the startling battles of Lexington & Concord in 1775. Soon after, on July 16, 1775, the new "Constitutional Post" was implemented by the Congress, ensuring communication between patriots & keeping the readers informed of events during the American Revolution. The new revolutionary post system forced the Crown post out of business in America on Christmas day, 1775, becoming the foundation of the United States' postal system.

Once again pulling up roots, Willliam Goddard decided to attempt a new printing venture in Baltimore. By early 1774, Mary Katherine, who had been helping her brother & mother with their bookstore, newspaper, almanac, and printing ventures, moved south to help her brother; as he began to publish a newspaper in Baltimore.

The Maryland Journal was established by William Goddard August 20, 1773, the first newspaper to be printed in Baltimore. Goddard published the paper with the help of his sister until May 10, 1775, when Mary Katherine Goddard, became the editor & publisher. Until 1784, the newspaper appeared solely under her name.

Because of the new postal system, newpapers could now flow between the colonies without censorship; but new problems arose, as the Revolutionary War created a paper shortage for publishers. The war also sparked inflation leaving subscribers with little cash. To keep her newspaper publishing regularly, Mary Katherine accepted barter in beef, pork, animal food, butter, hog’s lard, tallow, beeswax, flour, wheat, rye, Indian corn, beans and other goods she could either use or sell in her shop.

In 1775, Mary Katherine took an additional job at the Baltimore Post Office. She became the first woman postmistress in the colonies.

The First Post Office in Baltimore. Photo from the Maryland Historical Society, also located in Baltimore, Maryland.
Under Mary Katherine Goddard, the Maryland Journal openly expressed the colonials' thirst for freedom from the crown, although she was willing to take a risk and publish a variety of political perspectives. Mary Katherine published reports of Massachusetts of April 19, 1775, triggering the Battles of Concord and Lexington. Her editorial of June 14, 1775, proclaimed, "The ever memorable 19th of April gave a conclusive answer to the questions of American freedom. What think ye of Congress now? That day. . . evidenced that Americans would rather die than live slaves!"
During the lean years of the Revolution, Postmistress Mary Katherine Goddard opened a book & stationary store in Baltimore, and kept her printing press busy publishing books & almanacs as well as her newspaper.

In January 1777, she printed the first copy of the Declaration of Independence to include the signers' names, before any other newspaper in the United States. In the summer of 1776, the signers were aware that they were committing treason and submitting to an overabundance of caution, omitted their names from the original publication of the document. Six months later, finally garnering the courage to publicly stand by their professed ideals, the Continental Congress authorized Goddard’s Maryland Journal to publish the Declaration with its signers’ names.

Mary Katherine Goddard's almanacs were also popular in the Chesapeake. In her 1782 Maryland and Virginia Almanack, Mary Katherine wrote, "From the extensive sale of this Almanack last year, the publisher would presume to think that her endeavors, in some measure, met with the approbation of the Public. Nothing can be more flattering than this idea, which cannot fail to excite in her the highest sense of gratitude, attended with future diligence and perseverance."

After he married, her mercurial brother decided that he wanted to return to the Baltimore publishing business and to run the newspaper and the press himself in 1784. He had never been successful at any occupation and was jealous of his sister's success. Wrenching control of the press was not without turmoil. Mary Katherine Goddard filed 5 lawsuits against her brother before severing her interest in the printing enterprise, which she had successfully managed for 10 years. After all, she still had her position as Baltimore's postmistress to rely on for income.

However, in September 1789, Samuel Osgood, the newly appointed national Postmaster General, decided that inexperienced political appointee John White of Baltimore should replace Goddard. The Assistant Postmaster General Jonathan Burrall was dispatched to Baltimore to give Mary Katherine Goddard the news; but unable to face her in person, he sent a note to her office. She was ordered to turn over her office to White, and told, "a younger person able to ride a horse" was needed.

Over 200 merchants & residents in Baltimore sent a petition and letters objecting to her removal to the Postmaster General. They received no reply. Believing she was still capable at age 51; just before Christmas, she wrote to President George Washington to have the order reversed. She wrote the letter in the 3rd person.

Baltimore, Decemr 23d 1789.
Dear Sir,

The Representation of Mary Katherine Goddard, Humbly sheweth--That She hath kept the Post Office at Baltimore for upwards of fourteen years; but with what degree of Satisfaction to all those concerned, She begs leave to refer to the number & respectability of the Persons who have publickly addressed the Post Master General & his Assistant, on the Subject of her late removal from Office; And as Mr Osgood has not yet favoured between two and three hundred of the principal Merchants & Inhabitants of Baltimore with an answer to their last application, transmitted to him by Post on the last Day of November ultimo, nor with any Answer to sundry private Letters, accompanying the transcript of a like application, made to Mr Burrell when at Baltimore: She therefore, at the instance of the Gentlemen thus pleased to interest themselves on her behalf, lays before your Excellency, Superintendant of that department, as briefly as possible, the nature & circumstances, of what is conceived to be an extraordinary Act of oppression towards her.

That upon the dissolution of the old Government, when from the non importation Agreement and other causes incident to the Revolution, the Revenue of the Post-Office was inadequate to its disbursements, She accepted of the same, and at her own risque, advanced hard money to defray the Charges of Post Riders for many years, when they were not to be procured on any other terms; and that during this period, the whole of her Labour & Industry in establishing the Office was necessarily unrewarded; the Emoluments of which being by no means equal to the then high Rent of an Office, or to the Attention required both to receive & forward the Mails, as will evidently appear by the Schedule, here unto annexed, and therefore, whoever thus established & continued the Office, at the gloomy period when it was worth no Person's Acceptance, ought surely to be thought worthy of it, when it became more valuable. And as it had been universally understood, that no Person would be removed from Office, under the present Government, unless manifest misconduct appeared, and as no such Charge could possibly be made against her, with the least colour of Justice, She was happy in the Idea of being secured both in her Office, and the Protection of all those who wished well to the prosperity of the Post Office, & the new Government in general.

That She has sustained many heavy losses, well known to the Gentlemen of Baltimore, which swallowed up the Fruits of her Industry, without even extricating her from embarrassment to this day, although her Accounts with the Post Office were always considered, as amongst the most punctual & regular of any upon the Continent; notwithstanding which She has been discharged from her Office, without any imputation of the least fault, and without any previous official notice: The first intimation on that head being an Order from Mr Burrell, whilst at Baltimore, to deliver up the Office to the Bearer of his Note; and altho' he had been there several days, yet he did not think proper to indulge her with a personal Interview, thus far treating her in the Stile of an unfriendly delinquent, unworthy of common Civility, as well as common Justice. And although Mr White, who succeeded her, might doubtless have been meritorious in the different Offices he sustained, yet, She humbly conceives, he was not more deserving of public notice & protection in his Station, than She has uniformly been in hers: It must therefore become a matter of serious Importance & of peculiar distress to her, if Government can find no means of rewarding this Gentleman's Services, but at the Expence of all that She had to rely on, for her future dependence & subsistence.

That it has been alledged as a Plea for her removal, that the Deputy Post Master of Baltimore will hereafter be obliged to ride & regulate the Offices to the Southward but that She conceives, with great deference to the Post Master General, this is impracticable, & morally impossible; because the business of the Baltimore Office will require his constant Attendance, & he alone could give satisfaction to the people, if therefore the duties of the Assistant, Mr Burrells' Office are to be performed by any other than himself, surely it cannot well be attempted by those who are fully occupied with their own; and as two Persons must be employed, according to this new Plan, She apprehends, that She is more adequate to give Instructions to the Riding Post Master, how to act than any other Person possibly could, heretofore unexperienced in such business.She, therefore, most humbly hopes from your Excellency's Philanthropy and wonted Humanity, You will take her Situation into Consideration; and as the Grievance complained of, has happened whilst the Post Office Department was put under your auspicious Protection, by a Resolve of Congress, that Your Excellency will be graciously pleased to order, that She may be restored to her former Office, and as in duty bound, She will ever pray &c.
Mary K: Goddard

George Washington promply responded.

New York January 6th.1790
Madam,

In reply to your memorial of the 10th of December, which has been received, I can only observe, that I have uniformly avoided interfering with any appointments which do not require my official agency: and the Resolutions and Ordinances establishing the Post Office under the former Congress, and which have been recognized by the present Government, giving power to the Post-Master General to appoint his own Deputies, and making him accountable for their conduct, is an insuperable objection to my taking any part in this matter.

I have directed your Memorial to be laid before the Post-Master General who will take such measures thereon as his Judgment may direct.

I am, Madam. Your Most Obedt. Servt. Go: Washington

Puffing himself up, Postmaster Samuel Osgood responded the next day giving no reason for the appointment of White except the following: "From mature Consideration, I am fully convinced that I shall be more benefitted from the Services of Mr White than I could be from those of Mrs Goddard."

After receiving Washington's dismissive letter, she pressed her appeal for reinstatement & for payment of a claim against the United States in both the Senate and House of Representatives. She was unsuccessful in obtaining either compensation or reinstatment.

The 1790 Maryland Census reported she owned four slaves and had one other free person living in her household. From 1790 to 1802, she operated a bookstore in Baltimore.

By the canvass of the 1810 Maryland Census, Mary Katherine Goddard was living with just one female slave in her household. Mary Katherine died in Baltimore in August of 1816, at the age of 78, leaving all her personal possessions & real property to her African American servant Belinda Starling & releasing her from slavery.
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Newspaper - 1736 Runaway Woman - Maryland Indentured Servant

2011-09-17T07:15:00.001-04:00

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RAN away, on the 30th of September last, from the City of Annapolis, ...a Servant Woman, named Sarah Miers, a Dutch Woman, and talks broken English, pretty Tall, Round Shoulder'd. Likely in the Face, and had a Flat Nose: They took with them some Wearing Apparel, viz. a dark Grey Coat trimm'd with Black, a Woman's Blue Cloak, fac'd with White Silk; a Seesucker Gown, one White Linen Ditto; one strip'd Calimanco Ditto, a brown Camblet Petticoat, a Woman's Bermuda hat, lin'd with Blue Silk, and several other Things, viz. Bedding, Linnen, and in particular a Red Rugg. They went in an old carvil Work Long-Boat, with one Mast, and a Square Sail.

Virginia Gazette (Parks), Williamsburg, From Friday, October 8, to Friday, October 15, 1736.
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Biography - Anne Catharine Hoof Green (c 1720-1775), “Printer to the Province” of Maryland

2011-09-16T21:13:00.021-04:00

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Anne Catharine Hoof Green (c. 1720-1775), “printer to the Province” of Maryland from 1767, until her death, was apparently born in Holland, & brought to Pennsylvania as a small child.

On April 25th, 1738, she married in Christ Church, Philadelphia, to Jonas Green, a journeyman printer from Boston, whose family had been prominent in the trade since the mid-17th century. Green, who had found employment in Philadelphia with Benjamin Franklin & Andrew Bradford, moved by the following October to Annapolis, Md., where he soon became printer for the Province of Maryland. Beginning in 1745, Green became publisher of the weekly Maryland Gazette, one of the earliest colonial newspapers. He was also register of St. Anne’s Church (Anglican), an alderman of the city of Annapolis, & postmaster. He made his political mark in his fight against the Stamp Act.

1769 Anne Catharine Hoof Green 1720–1775) Printer & Publisher by Charles Willson Peale, (1741-1827) The words "ANNAPOLIS Printer to . . . ," which appear on the paper held by Green, are a reference to the fact that the Maryland legislature had chosen her to succeed her husband as the colony's official printer.

In her husband's newspaper, Mrs. Green occasionally advertised the sale of "Choice good Coffee” & “very good Chocolate” at the post office, which was evidently their home. In Annapolis, the Green's rented a house on Charles Street. At the time it was a small 2 story house with a kitchen & 2 bedrooms. During the early 1740s, the owner of the house expanded the property to contain a print shop, post office, & room enough for the growing family.

The printing house was probably in a detached building. The following excerpt from Riley's Ancient City, p. 119, seems to give support to this supposition. Riley has been discussing the smallpox ravages in Annapolis in 1756 and 1757. "The family of Jonas Green," he writes, "was afflicted to such an extent that many of his customers were afraid to take the Gazette, lest they would catch the disease. Mr. Green, whilst he expressed a doubt as to paper carrying the disease, subsequently stated that people 'need not fear to catch the small-pox from the paper, as it was kept all the time a good distance from the house, and beside the disease was now eradicated from his premises.'"

The rearing of a large family probably occupied much of Mrs Green's time, since she bore 14 children. The parish register of St Anne's Church in Annapolis, lists 6 sons & 8 daughters: John b. 18 October 1738, died infancy; Rebecca b. September 1740, married 2 December 1757 to Mr. John Clapham; Jonas b. 12 February 1741, died in infancy; Catherine b. 4 November 1743, died in infancy (her godfather was Samuel Soumaien, the silversmith); Marie b. 7 January 1744/5 died in infancy; Mary b, 9 January 1745/6; William b. 21 December 1746, "being named Willian after the Duke of Cumberland only;" Anne Catharine b. 19 January 1748, died October 5; Frederick b. 20 January 1750, "just as the Guns were Firing on account of the Birth of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales" (one of his sponsors was the celebrated Dr. Alexander Hamilton of Annapolis, author of Hamilton's Itinerarium); Deborah b. 19 January 1752, died October 9 (her godmother was Mrs. Susanna Soumaien); Elizabeth b. 10 November 1755, died October 2; Jonas b. 29 August 1755, died of smallpox 26 December 1756; Samuel b. 27 April 1757; and Augusta, b. 4 April 1760.

She was probably taking an active part in the family printing business some time before 1767, for upon her husband’s death in that year her press produced the Acts & Votes & Proceedings of the assembly of 1767 on schedule, & the Maryland Gazette continued without a break.

On April 16, 1767, the following notice appeared in the Maryland Gazette: On Saturday Evening last died, at his late Dwelling-House, Mr. Jonas Green, for 28 years Printer to this Province, and 21 years Printer and Publisher of the Maryland Gazette: He was one of the Aldermen of this City. It would be the highest In-discretion in us, to attempt giving the character he justly deserved, only we have Reason to regret the Loss of him, in the various Stations of Husband, Parent, Master and Companion.

Immediately after the announcement of the death of her husband, Mrs Green wrote: "I Presume to address You," she wrote in an appeal to the public,"for your Countenance to Myself and numerous Family, left, without your Favour, almost destitute of Support, by the Decease of my Husband, who long, and, I have the Satisfaction to say, faithfully served You in the Business of Provincial Printer; and, I flatter myself, that, with your kind Indulgence and Encouragement, Myself, and Son, will be enabled to continue it on the same Footing...I am willing to hope, that the Pains taken by my late Husband, to oblige his very extensive Acquaintance, and the Character he deservedly bore, of an honest, benevolent Man, will recommend to your Regard, Your grateful and faithful humble Servant, A. C. GREEN.

On Jan. 7, 1768, shortly after his 21st birthday, the Maryland Gazette appeared under the name of Anne Catherine Green & William Green. With the death of William in August 1770, Frederick replaced him; on Jan. 2, 1772, when he was not quite 22, his services were recognized in the colophon as Anne Catherine Green & Son.

Mrs Green did not shy away from her new leadership role. Throughout the spring & summer of 1768, week after week the columns of her newspaper were filled with letters written by two angry Marylanders. The heated controversy was between "C. D." (Walter Dulany) and "The Bystander" (the learned but unscrupulous Bennet Allen, rector of St. Anne's Parish.) Finally, Mrs. Green & her son William refused to publish more letters of "The Bystander," unless the rector would indemnify them against suit & openly declare his identity. Allen declared that the Greens, as Jonas Green had been, were under the thumb of the Dulany family & complained strenuously of his exclusion from their newspaper, while his enemies were permitted still to use its columns.

Mrs. Green's son-in-law, John Clapham, came to the support of his wife's family in a long letter in the Maryland Gazette of September 22, 1768: "Mr. Allen's Treatment to Mrs. Green, left a widow, with large Family, he never can justify. On the 27th of May, he called at the Printing-Office, and endeavoured to intimidate her, by threatening to knock up her press, if ever she published any more pieces against him: Accordingly, next Morning, a Manuscript...was privately stuck up at the Door of the Stadt-House, the General Assembly then sitting, and the Office of Provincial Printer vacant, by which (tho' not intended) he did her real Service; for she was so happy, soon after, as to be unanimously chosen (printer for the province). It is generally supposed, had he acted a contrary Part, and given her a Recommendation to the Public, she wou'd not, for that very Reason, have received so general a Mark of Friendship and Approbation."

Jonas Green’s pay allowance as Maryland's public printer had terminated with his death. Finally, the Assembly voted that Mrs Green should be appointed to the position. She would be allowed the sum of "Nine hundred and forty-eight dollars and one half a dollar;" and further, that for her future services as public printer she receive 48,000 pounds of tobacco annually for those years in which there was a session of the Assembly, and 36,109 pounds of the current medium (tobacco) for the years in which no session was held. These were the same terms of payment as had been accorded to Jonas Green in the year 1765. Throughout her 8 years of service to the Province as public printer, Mrs. Green's allowance remained unchanged. In addition, the Assembly gave her the task of supplying “book Notes & Manifest” for the tobacco-inspection warehouses; & in 1770, she was paid for printing the bills of credit authorized by the Assembly of 1769.

She also published a yearly almanac & printed a few political pamphlets & some satirical works. Her most ambitious undertaking, apart from the newspaper & public business, was Elie Vallett’s Deputy Commissary’s Guide (1774), a book of 133 leaves detailing the procedures & forms to be used in probating wills & settling estates. Her issue of The Charter & Bye-Laws of the City of Annapolis has been described as “a beautifully printed little volume of fifty-two pages, which for typographical nicety could hardly have been surpassed by the best of her contemporaries in the colonies” (Wroth).

Until Aug. 20, 1773, when William Goddard began publishing in Baltimore of the Maryland Journal & Baltimore Advertiser, the Maryland Gazette was the only Maryland newspaper, & its role in reporting the political events leading to the Revolution was an important one.

Mrs. Green printed communications from the Northern colonies showing the increasing protest against the Townshend Acts & the establishment & success of no importation agreements. Through her columns John Dickinson’s Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer reached the Maryland public. Accounts of the Boston Tea Party & the Boston Port Act of 1774 aroused great excitement. Green covered issues regarding independence, drawing upon local controversies. She covered was the famous, local Antilon/First citizen debate between Daniel Delaney & Charles Carroll. Carroll had argued for independent legislation & citizenship privileges.

By informing the people of plans & protests elsewhere as well as at home, the Maryland Gazette no doubt unconsciously helped to push the revolutionary cause. During such turbulent times a printing firm that depended heavily upon public business for its support might have made enemies it could ill afford. But Mrs. Green opened her columns to both sides to fan argument; & she was generally careful not to print libelous attacks on individuals, even when the authors were men of influence.

After her death (presumably in Annapolis) her son Frederick took over the business & continued to observe her rules, even though his comments & selection of materials reflected more & more radical views. During the Revolutionary War, from December 25, 1777, to April 30, 1779, the Maryland Gazette suspended publication. After its resumption, it continued to be published by sons & grandsons without interruption, until its final cessation 60 years later in 1839.

Little is known of Anne Catharine Green as a person. The Maryland Gazette’s obituary couched in the language of conventional praise, credits her with “a mild & benevolent Disposition” & exemplary “conjugal Affection” & “parental Tenderness.” As a printer & patriot, she excelled. Anne Green was an avid supporter of the Revolution & the Maryland Gazette consistently contained attacks on British Rule. The Maryland Gazette was the provinces only source of news during this period, and its pages were debated heavily. Under Anne's direction the paper became a force in the community, helping push the nation towards liberty and revolution. She made the Maryland Gazette a forum for discussion & a valuable, if not always impartial, source of information during a critical period in American history.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Newspaper - 1751 Runaway Love Triangle in Virginia

2011-09-16T21:08:00.001-04:00

Stafford County, October 13th, 1751. RAN away from the Subscriber, this Day, a Servant Man, anmed William Frye...had on when he went away a bluish grey Kersey Coat, with yellow Buttons...The said Runaway went off with the Wife of the Subscriber, named Mary, a short, thick Woman of a dark Complexion, with black hair, black Eyes, aged about 30 Years, and has lost one of her front Teeth: She is a neat Woman in Sewing, Spinning, and knitting Stockngs, and can do almost any Manner of Taylors Work, but is oblig'd to use Spectacles when at Work. She took with her a striped Silk Stuff Gown...And, as the above-mentioned Mary has eloped from her said Husband, I hereby foreward all Persons from trusting her on my Account, for I will not pay any Debts she shall contract after the Publication hereof.

Virginia Gazette (Hunter), Williamsburg, October 31, 1751.
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Biography - Georgia's Indian Leader Mary Musgrove c 1700-1763 & Her Unfortunate Choice of Husbands

2011-09-16T08:50:00.009-04:00

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Mary Musgrove (c 1700-1763), Indian leader in colonial Georgia, was the child of a Creek mother & an English trader. Originally named Coosaponakeesa, she was born at Coweta town, then on the Ocmulgee River but later moved to the Chattahoochee River. Her father, whose name is unknown, was an English trader; her mother is said to have been the sister of Old Brim, the so-called “Emperor of the Creeks.” When she was about seven, Mary was taken to Ponpon, South Carolina, by her father about 1710. In her own words, she was "there baptized, educated, and bred up in the principles of Christianity." Mary returned to Coweta in 1715, after the Yamasees revolt was put down. At the end of the Yamassee War in 1716, she returned to the Indian country west of the Savannah River.

Shortly, John Musgrove, a prominent South Carolinian, was sent by his government to deal with the Creeks. His son John Musgrove II, who accompanied him, met the young Indian girl & married her. She now assumed the name Mary Musgrove; & although she was married twice afterward, she is best known throughout history under that name.

John Musgrove & his wife Mary were among several traders who lived to the south & west of the Savannah River before 1733

The couple returned to South Carolina about 1722; but by 1732, they were back among the Creeks, running a trading station near a Yamacraw village on the western bluffs of the Savannah River. Mary & John established their trading post at Yamacraw Bluff in 1732, and Savannah was founded on this site a year later. Here they distributed merchandise primarily secured through the imported goods of Charleston merchants & received from the Indians some 1200 pounds of deerskins annually. They also had “a very good cow-pen & plantation,” where they raised their food crops.

When James Oglethorpe landed in 1733, to found the colony of Georgia, Mary Musgrove was among the first to greet him. Her personality, her facility in English, & her key position as a trader all recommended her to Oglethorpe as an aid in his Indian diplomacy. The Yamacraws were less than pleased with the founding of Savannah much less Georgia. The ink was not yet dry on the treaty establishing the Savannah River as the limit of white expansion to the south and west.

Oglethorpe made Mary his interpreter & emissary to the Creeks, treating her with “great Esteem.” It was largely owing to Mary Musgrove’s influence that the Creeks remained friendly to the English, serving throughout the imperial wars of the 18th-century as a buffer between the Southern English colonies & the Spanish in Florida. She became one of the most important figures in Georgia’s colonial history.

James Oglethorpe depicted with Yamacraw Chief Tomochichi. Mary appears between them.

Her husband John Musgrove served as interpreter for John Wesley and Tomo-Chichi. John Wesley was a frequent visitor to Mary's plantation on the Savannah. Mary owned the fairest and broadest acres in Georgia and supplied the struggling colonists with meat, bread & liquor.

At Oglethorpe’s request, the Musgroves set up Mount Venture, a trading station at the forks of the Altamaha River, to serve a a listening post for threats from Spanish Florida. Unfortunately Mary's beloved husband John Musgrove died there in 1739, & his widow promptly married one Jacob Matthews, captain of the 20 rangers stationed at the post, a “lusty fellow,” quarrelsome, & given to drink, who had formerly been her indentured servant.

Public opinion of Matthews was mixed. William Stephens migrated from England to Savannah in 1737, to serve as secretary of Trustee Georgia. Stephens wrote of Jacob Matthews: "On his Master's Death he found Means to get into the Saddle in his Stead, fitly qualified to verify the old Proverb of a Beggar on Horseback; soon learning to dress in gay Cloaths, which intitled him to be a Companion with other fine Folks of those Days, . . . . He was flattered to believe himself a Man of great Significance, and told, that he would be to blame not to exert himself, and let the World know what his Power was with the Indians; wherefore he might expect the Trust would have a singular Regard to that, and be careful to oblige him in all he should expect. Thus prepared, what may we not expect from him? To pass over many of his late Exploits a few of which I have touch'd on in some of my preceding Notes; he seems now to be grown ripe for exemplifying to what Uses he means to employ that Influence he thinks he has over those neighboring Indians, who by half Dozens or more at a Time, have daily of late been flocking about his House in Town, where they continually get drunk with Rum, and go roaring and yelling about the Streets, as well at Nights as Days, to the Terror of some, but the Disturbance and common Annoyance of everybody."

However, a neighbor, Robert Williams later testified: "I was an Inhabitant in this Province and lived at the next Plantation to Mr. Jacob Mathews on the River Savannah . . . he had cleared and planted a large Tract of Land with English Wheat, Indian Corn, Pease, and Potatoes; and very believe he had a larger Crop than any Planter raised by the Labour of White Hands within the said County And I further declare that I have often heard the said Mathews say, that he never received from the Trustees, or Persons in Power at Savannah on their Behalf, Any Bounty or Reward for the said produce. . . ."

From Mount Venture, Mary rallied the Creeks to aid the Georgians in their was with Spain-the War of Jenkins’ Ear 1739-44. Bands of Creek warriors accompanied Oglethorpe in his unsuccessful attack on St. Augustine in 1740, & her brother was killed in that attempt. She returned to Savannah in 1742, because of her husband’s ill health. Upon her departure, Spanish Indians destroyed Mount Venture & the settlement that had grown up around it.

Apparently Jacob worked hard but he also set himself up as the leader of the malcontents in Georgia and chief critic of the authorities to the annoyance of William Stephens. Stephens declared in his Journal for 1740 that it was useless "to foul more Paper in tracing Jacob Matthews through his notorious Debauches; and after his spending whole Nights in that Way, reeling home by the Light of the Morning, with his Banditti about him." Jacob Matthews died on May 8, 1742

Oglethorpe left the colony of Georgia in 1743, upon his departure giving Mary 200 pounds & a diamond ring from his finger. She continued her services to the colony, working successfully during the War of the Austrian Succession to counter French influence among the Creeks. Mrs Musgrove also persuaded her native relatives to retain their English allegiance, after their brief flirtation with Spain during the Creek-Cherokee war in 1747-48.

About 3 years after the death of her 2nd husband, Mary remarried. Her new husband would come to foment a scheme which took advantage both of the Creeks & of the colony government. Her new husband was an opportunistic fortune seeker named Thomas Bosomworth.

Bosomworth had an "Ambition of being an Author" of essays on religion. According to Stephens, "his sprightly Temper, added to a little Share of classical Learning, makes him soar" high. Bosomworth wrote a long essay on the "Glory & Lustre" of charity, to the Georgia Trustees in 1742, attempting to show that the Bethesda Orphans Asylum was being perverted. Bosomworth also wrote poems & lyrics but took offense at the accusation of having "Ambitions to be an Author." He wrote the Trustees, "I am sorry to find that my good intentions are so far perverted as to be imputed to an Ambition of appearing as an Author."

Failing as a religious essayist, Bosomworth next felt a call to preach sailing to England for Holy Orders in March 1743. He was appointed minister to Georgia for a term of 3 years on July 4th, and returned to Georgia on December 2nd. However, Bosomworth soon tired of preaching & apparently of Mary. He sailed back to England in 1745, without notice or providing for the church in Savannah declaring that he would not return. The Georgia Trustees ignored the complaints he attempted to bring to their attention, but Bosomworth decided to return to Georgia the following year.

He was, however, no longer the minister. One report was that he cast "aside his Sacredotals;" but another had it that the Trustees had torn them from him. His successor, the Reverend Mr. Zouberbuhler, discovered that Bosomworth had stripped the parsonage of all furniture, & he was forced to live in an unfurnished house for some time.

Dissatisfied with past unsuccessful financial ventures, Bosomworth laid plans for an ambitious venture into the cattle business. Mary first secured from the Creeks a grant of the 3 coastal islands of St. Catherines, Ossabaw, & Sapelo, together with a tract of land near Savannah which had been reserved to the Creeks, by treaty with the English, for hunting grounds. Chief Malatchee entered into this agreement on the "4th day of ye Windy Moon called ye month of January by ye English" in 1747, in return for promises of cloth, ammunition, & cattle.

After Bosomworth had stocked St. Catherines with cattle bought on credit in South Carolina, Mary made large claims to the colonial & English government for her past services. Mary & her husband came to Savannah on July 24, 1749, accompanied by Malatchee & 2 other chiefs. Malatchee announced that he was "the present and only reigning Emperor" & that all Creeks were his loyal followers. Malatchee also announced that 200 more chiefs & their warriors would be in Savannah within 8 days. And so Mary produced a large body of Indian warriors into Savannah in the summer of 1749, terrorizing the town for nearly a month. In 1754, she & her husband sailed for England to press her claims.

Not until 1759, was a settlement reached, the English government finally agreeing to give her St. Catherines Island & 1,200 pounds for her services to Georgia. Back on St. Catherines, she & her husband built a manor house & developed a cattle ranch, but Mary died not live long to enjoy it. Sometime in the early 1760s, she died & was buried on the island. Her only children, by her 1st husband, had all died in infancy.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Newspaper - 1777 Army Deserter from the Revolution Runs Away with his Pregnant Wife

2011-09-16T08:25:00.002-04:00

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DESERTED from the 2d Virginia Regiment in New Jersey, the following ...Serjeant, 30 Years of Age...his Wife, who was heavy with Child, went off with him...the Serjeant...enlisted into Captain Alexander's Company, and may be taken in Frederick County, Virginia. ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD, Col. 2d Virg. Reg.

Virginia Gazette(Dixon & Hunter), Williamsburg , September 5, 1777
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Biography - Inventor Sybilla Righton Masters (died in 1720) & Patents for Women

2011-09-15T09:35:00.009-04:00

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We meet many 18th-century women on this blog, but few are inventors with their own patents. Sybilla Masters (d. Aug. 23, 1720), inventor, sometimes called Sybella, was the 2nd daughter & 2nd of 7 children of William & Sara Murrell Righton, Quakers, of Burlington in the colony of West New Jersey. William, the son of William Righton & Sybella Strike, married Sarah Murrell, the daughter of Thomas Murrell, in Bermuda. The date & place of their daughter Sybilla's birth are unknown. She may have been born in Bermuda, before her parents sailed to the banks of the Delaware River. Her name first appeared in court records as a witness on behalf of her father, a mariner & merchant. Of her early life nothing is known; probably she spent it on her father’s plantation called Bermuda in Burlington Township on the banks of the Delaware.

At some time between 1693 & 1696, she was married to Thomas Masters (d. 1723), a prosperous Quaker merchant who had come to Philadelphia in 1685, or earlier from Bermuda. In 1702, Masters built a “stately” house on the Philadelphia riverfront, described by James Logan as “the most substantial fabric in the town.” He invested the profits of his overseas trade in lands in the Northern Liberties of Philadelphia & had a “plantation,” or country house, there called Green Spring. A prominent figure in political as well as economic life, he was successively alderman of Philadelphia, mayor (1707-08), & provincial councilor (1720-23). Meanwhile Sybilla reared 4 children, Sarah, Mary (Mercy?), Thomas & William, & exercised her special talent for mechanical invention.

On June 24, 1712, she notified her Quaker meeting, that she intended to go to London & obtained a certificate of good standing to carry with her. Her object was to secure patents for two of her inventions. At that time, the process for grinding corn employed two large stones, called millstones. But Masters had seen American Indian women pounding corn with wooden mallets. So she invented a mill that used hammers to make cornmeal. That was much easier than finding, and hauling, and using huge millstones.

Masters wanted a patent for her invention, so that she alone would have the sole authority to make or sell her invention. But patents were not issued in Pennsylvania. So, in 1712, Masters set sail for Great Britain to obtain a patent. In London, Masters discovered that the British government did not have a regular governmental process for giving patents. So Masters applied for a patent from King George I.

King George took his own good time responding to her request. In the meantime, the practical Masters worked on another idea. She used straw & palmetto leaves to weave into hats, bonnets, & chair covers. She opened a shop in London to sell the goods. She then applied for a patent for her weaving method.

After 3 years, King George finally awarded a patent for milling corn. But he didn’t give the patent to Sybilla. Patents were not given to women. Instead, the king gave it to her husband, Thomas, for “a new invention found out by Sybilla, his wife.” Later, King George gave Thomas a patent for Sybilla’s weaving method.

On Nov. 25, 1715, letters patent (No. 401) were granted under the Privy Seal to Thomas Masters for “the sole use & benefit of ‘a new invention found out by Sybilla, his wife, for cleaning & curing the Indian Corn growing in the several colonies in America.’” As illustrated in the patent, this was a device for pulverizing maize by a stamping, rather than the usual grinding, process. It consisted of a long wooden cylinder with projections designed to trip two series of stamps or heavy pestles, which dropped into two continuous rows of mortars, whereby kernel corn was reduced to meal. Power could be supplied either by a water wheel or by horses. There was also a series of inclined trays, or shallow bins, presumably for curing, or drying, the meal.

Under the name of “Tuscarora Rice,” the corn meal so produced & prepared was offered for sale in Philadelphia as a cure for consumption. It has been called “the first American patent medicine,” but actually it was simply a food product, not unlike hominy. It was presumably for the purpose of producing this meal on a large scale by Sybilla’s patented method that Tomas Masters in 1714 acquired “the Governor’s mill,” a hitherto unprofitable mill built for William Penn in 1701 on Cohocksink Creek, not far from Green Spring. Sales, however, proved disappointing, & the mill was later converted to other purposes.

The Masters had hoped to export their newly processed cornmeal to England. But it didn’t sell. The British did not like the taste. However, folks in the colonies did like the taste. In fact, to this day, many people still like that cornmeal. They call it grits.

While in England, on Feb. 18, 1716, Sybilla Masters secured -again in her husband’s name- a second patent (No. 403), this one for “a new way of working & staining in straw, & the plat & leaf of the palmetto tree, & covering & adorning hats & bonnets in such a manner as was never before done or practiced in England or any of our plantations.” Unfortunately, neither drawing nor explanation accompanied this patent. Having been granted a monopoly on the importation of the palmetto leaf from the West Indies, she opened a shop in London at the sign of “the West India Hat & Bonnet, against Catherine-Street in the Strand.” Here, according to the London Gazette for Mar. 18, 1716, she sold hats & bonnets at prices from one shilling upwards, as well as “dressing & child-bed baskets, & matting made of the same West India for chairs, stools, & other beautiful furniture for the apartments of persons of quality, etc.”

By May 25, 1716, the determined inventor was back in Philadelphia. On July 15, 1717, the provincial council, on Thomas Masters’ petition, granted permission for the recording & publishing of her patents in Pennsylvania. She died, presumably in Philadelphia, in 1720. Whether or not she was , as she may have been, the first female American inventor, the bare facts of her ingenuity & enterprise in devising & patenting her two inventions & marketing their products entitle her to a place in American industrial & economic history & warrant Deborah Logan's accolade, inscribed on Sybilla Masters’ sole surviving letter: “A notable American woman.”

Sybilla Masters was a woman out of her time and far from typical. She was the first person from the American colonies to receive a patent from the King of England. She was not only the first American woman to receive a patent; she was also the last until 1793 -- until America had its own patent office. In 1793 a Mrs. Samuel Slater patented a new way of spinning cotton thread. Her husband built the famous Slater's Mill in Rhode Island. We still remember the mill, but we've largely forgotten the inventor and her patent, which served the mill so well.

If female ingenuity was anonymous in 18th-century America, it did only a little better in the 19th century. Mary Kies earned a patent--in her own name--in 1809 for a way of weaving straw that was put to use in the New England hat manufacturing trade. Martha Coston perfected her husband's idea for colored signal flares after his early death. Coston not only patented the flare system, used by the navy in the Civil War, but also sold the rights to the government for $20,000 & earned a contract to manufacture the flares. Margaret Knight's many inventions included a machine for making square-bottomed paper bags; her original patent is dated November 15, 1870. Still, by 1910, inventions by women accounted for less than 1% of all patents issued in the United States.

In 1888, the patent office listed every woman's patent it'd issued. The list showed only 52 before 1860. From then until the report was issued, that number grew to nearly 3000. That was a sure sign women were seeing themselves in new terms, but it was still a small fraction of the total patents.

Extracts From:
Scientific American, v 65 (ns), no 5, p 71-2, 1 August 1891
Fossil Patents By T. Graham Gribble

A much later but very quaint patent is that of Dame Sybilla Masters, of Philadelphia, for corn shelling and preserving. She writes in German text, hard to decipher and very antiquated for that period. It is granted by King George the 1st, and the official entry in Roman text is as follows: "Letters patent to Thomas Masters, of Pennsylvania, Planter, his Execrs., Amrs. and Assignees, of the sole Vse and Benefit of 'A new Invention found out by Sybilla, his wife, for cleaning and curing the Indian Corn, growing in the several Colonies of America, within England, Wales, and Town of Berwick upon Tweed, and the Colonies of America.'"
The two upper illustrations [refers to patent drawing] show the cleaning and the lower the curing. The top view represents the sheller, worked by animal power, probably a donkey (Asinus vulgaris). The gearing and shaft are of wood, and a reciprocating motion is produced by a series of detents upon a revolving cylinder something after the manner of a musical box.
It is to be feared that Dame Sybilla's invention did not attain to as wide a field of application as was covered by the letters patent. It is more than probable that the obtuse agriculturist continued to shell corn sitting on a pine plank with a spade edge to scrape them off by, in spite of the "paines and industrie" of the dame.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Newspaper - Virginia Runaway Slave Seamstresses

2011-09-15T09:22:00.002-04:00

An unusual number of the slave seamstresses and house slaves appearing in Virginia runaway notices, were mulatto. The seamstresses had a variety of skills; while all were seamstresses, some were also described as being able to spin, weave, wash, and iron. Slaves, who were children of the master or his male relatives, were often raised to work in the house, closer to the family. Perhaps they were more likely to run away, because there was at least a chance that they could pass as white.

Below are slave notices for runaway seamstresses from a survey of most 18th century Virginia newspapers.

Virginia Gazette (Hunter), Williamsburg, October 27, 1752.
RAN away...a fair Mulatto Woman Slave, named Moll, about 22 Years of Age, and 5 Feet high, with brown Hair, grey Eyes, very large Breasts and Limbs two of her upper fore Teeth are rotten and broken off...she is a very sly subtle Wench and a great Lyar; she is very handy about waiting and tending in a House, and can wash, iron and sew coarse Work. It's likely she may change her Name, pass for a free Woman and hire herself...

Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), Williamsburg, September 8, 1768.
RUN away...a bright mulatto wench called LUCY... She sews and irons well, is about 35 years old, has two moles on one side of her nose, three of her fingers on one hand contracted by a burn when young, and a large scar on one of her elbows...

Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), Williamsburg, October 20, 1768.
RUN away...a bright mulatto wench named JUDE, about 30 years old, is very remarkable, has lost one eye, but which I have forgot, has long black hair, a large scar on one of her elbows, and several other scars in her face...I have great reason to think she will pass for a free woman, and endeavour to make into South Carolina. She is very knowing about house business, can spin, weave, sew, and iron, well...

Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), Williamsburg, May 6, 1773.
RUN away...a Country born Negro Woman named SARAH, a very lusty stout made Wench, about two and twenty Years of age, very artful, and, though not a Mulatto, may attempt to pass for a free Woman...She has been chiefly a House Servant, is a fine Sempstress, Knitter, Washer, and Ironer...

Virginia Gazette (Purdie), Williamsburg, February 21, 1777

...reward for taking up and delivering PATTY, a lightish coloured negro woman, pitted with the small pox, about 30 years of age, walks well, and generally fast, is rather above the middle size, well shaped, a good sempstress...

Virginia Gazette (Purdie), Williamsburg, August 8, 1777.
RUN away...a mulatto girl named KATE, or Catharine, about 5 feet high, has been brought up in the house from her infancy, and can work well with a needle. She is 19 or 20 years of age, has a smiling countenance when spoke to, and at some times is rather impertinent...

Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser (Richards), Alexandria, October 21, 1784.
RAN away...CATE, a light Mulatto, about 22 years of age, about 5 feet high, full faced, expressive eyes, of a pleasant countenance, an high forehead, fine teeth, bushy long hair, is well set, and broad shouldered...She is very handy, spins well, and has been used to both house and plantation work. SINAH, about 20 years of age, rather of a darker complexion than Cate, has a sunken bumpy face, a very unbidding look, has a decay and holes in two of her upper foreteeth, a sulky illnatured countenance, well shaped, of the middle size, low forehead, and very bushy long hair...She has been brought up in the house, is a good seamstress, and spins well...

Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser (Richards), Alexandria, September 29, 1785.
RAN AWAY...a MULATTO WOMAN, named MOLLY; of a middle size...As she can read, and is handy at her needle, it is probable she will endeavour to pass for a free woman. She is very artful, and capable of inventing a falsehood...

Virginia Independent Chronicle (Davis), Richmond, July 9, 1788.
RUN-AWAY ...a likely MULATTO WOMAN, called RACHEL; about 25 years of age, 5 feet 2 or 3 inches high, thin visage, long black hair, stoops in the shoulders, and has a scar (not very visible) on her chin, occasioned by the kick of a horse when a child. She is an excellent sempstress, and it is probable will pass (from being uncommonly white) for a free woman, unless closely observed...

Virginia Independent Chronicle (Davis), Richmond, March 13, 1790
.... a low, black, well set wench for a wife, the property of a Mr. James Toolers of Charles City, the wench is a decent house servant, can sew and wash very well

Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser (Davis), Richmond, January 26, 1791
....She is about 40 years of age, and rather above the common stature, has a scar upon the back of her neck, and is a pretty good sempstress...

Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser (Davis), Richmond, January 18, 1792.
Committed to the jail of this county...a runaway negro wench who calls herself JAMIMAH, and says she belongs to a Mr. Robert Thompson of Louisa county. She appears to be about twenty years of age, very likely in person, above the middle size, strong, straight, of a very healthy and vigorous carriage, and remarkably handy in a family. She can sew plain work very well, is of a kind, obliging, obedient, soft disposition, with many marks on her back of having been severely and cruelly whipped indeed.

Norfolk Herald (Willett and O'Connor), Norfolk, May 13, 1797
....SLAVES left my residence...JAMES, A Mullato Man, about 30 years of age, ...The other slave is a dark mulatto woman called KESIAH, Wife to the above described man. She is a thin delicately formed woman, rather small, has short hair, with several grey bunches just appearing from under her cap on the from part of her head---her teeth before are decayed---She is much addicted to smoking tobacco, and is a great drunkard---She is between 30 and 40 years of age...Both these people have been bred to domestic capacities; the man is a house servant and to wait on a gentleman when travelling; the woman a lady's maid, and an excellent sempstress...

Alexandria Advertiser and Commercial Intelligencer (S. Snowden & Co.), Alexandria, May 7, 1802
....Ran Away...Patty, a likely Negro wench, about twenty years of age: she has been brought up in the house, is a good seamstress, & very capable...

Norfolk Herald (Willett and O'Connor), Norfolk, June 28, 1803
...eloped from me in August last. LUCY is about 40 years of age; rather spare made, has large eyes, and of a dark tawney complexion; I am told she can read, and perhaps write a little. She is an excellent seamstress, nurse &c...
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Biography - Madame Montour c 1684-c 1752 Interpreter & Indian Agent for New York & Pennsylvania

2011-09-14T10:48:00.003-04:00

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Madame Montour (c. 1684-c. 1752), interpreter & Indian agent for the colonies of New York & Pennsylvania, spent most of her life among the Indians & was presumably of French & Indian descent. She had an air of distinction that led contemporaries to credit her with a genteel background. One observer (Witham Marshe) described her in 1844 as “a handsome woman, genteel, & of polite address” & reported that she had been well received by Philadelphia gentlewomen while on a treaty mission to that city. Conrad Weiser, the Pennsylvania Indian agent, referred to her in 1737 as “a French woman by birth, of a good family” (Journal, Mar. 22), & Cadwallader Colden of New York asserted that she had had “a good education in Canada before she went among the Indians” (New York Historical Society, Collections, I, 1868, p. 200).

She herself said in 1744, according to Marshe, “that she was born in Canada, whereof her father (who was a French gentleman) had been Governor”; & tradition would have her the daughter of Count Frontenac by an Indian woman. Forntenac, however, was recalled from Canada in 1682 & did not return until 1689, whereas Madame Montour must have been born about 1684, for she said in 1744 that it was then “nearly fifty years” since, at about the age of ten, she had been taken prisoner & carried away by Iroquois warriors. There is, moreover, some evidence that she was brought up from earliest childhood (before her presumed Iroquois captivity) in the family of half-breed “Louise Couc surnomme Montour,” son of Pierre Couc of Cognac, France, & his wife, an Algonquin named Mitewamagwakwe. Louis was a coureur de bois, a trapper & hunter, who lived at Three Rivers, Quebec, with his Indian wife of the Sokoki tribe, listed in local records as Madeline Sakokie. Madam Montour’s first husband, to further complicate the story, was reportedly a Seneca named Roland Montour (Hewitt, p. 937). But his surname may have been merely a coincidence, or he may possibly have taken the Montour name from her, rather than she from him; the evidence on this, as on her relationship with Lois Couc Montour, in inconclusive. Her husband Roland is thought to have been the Montour who was killed by French agents in April 1709. Though her first name is sometimes given as Catherine or Madeleine, in contemporary records she is simply Mrs. Or Madame Montour.

Whatever her background, she was a woman of great force of character. She first entered the service of the English colonies on Aug. 25, 1711, when she acted as interpreter at a conference in Albany between Gov. Robert Hunter & chiefs of the Iroquois, or Five Nations. She was at this time married to Carandowana, or Big Tree, an Oneida chief who, in compliment to the governor, subsequently took the name Robert Hunter. In 1712 Madame Montour & her husband accompanied Col. Peter Schuyler of Albany on a mission to Onondaga (Syracuse, N.Y.), capital of the Iroquois Confederacy, seeking to dissuade the Five Nations from joining the Tuscaroras in the war against North Carolina. For her services it was arranged that she should thereafter receive a man’s pay from each of “the four independt. Companies posted in this Province [New York].” So important did the French regard Madame Montour’s influence in preserving the entente between the English colonies & the Iroquois that the governor of Canada repeatedly sought to draw her over to the French side, offering her higher compensation; in 1719 he reportedly sent her sister as a special emissary.

In 1727 & again in 1728 Madame Montour was “Interpretress” at a conference in Philadelphia between the Iroquois & Gov. Patrick Gordon of Pennsylvania, she & her husband being paid 5 pounds. She attended a similar conference at Philadelphia in 1734 & was present unofficially at another in Lancaster in 1744. Meanwhile her husband had been killed in the Catawba War in 1729. After 1727 she made her home in Pennsylvania, on the West Branch of t he Susquehanna River at Otstonwakin (later Montoursville). She subsequently (about 1743) moved to an island in the Susquehanna at Shamokin (Sunbury) & thence to western Pennsylvania. Although late in life she became blind, she retained enough vigor to make the sixty-mile journey from Logs town (near present-day Pittsburgh) to Venango (Franklin) -her son Andrew on foot leading her horse- in two days. She died about 1752.

There has been confusion about her children, partly because Indian & European kinship terms do not agree, the Indians, for example, calling the children of an Indian woman’s sister, as well as her own, her sons & daughters. It is certain, however, that Madame Montour bore at least two sons, Andrew (sometimes called Henry) & Louis, & one or two daughters. “French Margaret,” sometimes called her daughter, was probably so only in the Indian sense; but the latter’s children (by her Mohawk husband, Katerionecha, commonly known as Peter Quebec) preserved the French traits of the Montour connection. Margaret’s daughter Catharine, “Queen” of Catharine’s Town at the head of Seneca Lake, & her presumed daughter “Queen Esther” (identified, on uncertain evidence. As the Indian woman who killed prisoners taken in the Battle of Wyoming in 1778) have been called granddaughters of Madame Montour.

Andrew Montour (Sattelihu), her son, for a time lived with his mother, but after serving the Pennsylvania authorities for some years as an interpreter, often in company with Conrad Weiser, he requested permission to settle near the whites & was granted a large tract of land near Carlisle. During the French & Indian War he commanded a company of Indians in the English service, rising to the rank of major. Pennsylvania has honored Madame Montour & her son by naming a county after them, & a town & a mountain also bear their name.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Newspaper - Runaway Slaves Who Could Read & Write

2011-09-14T10:00:00.001-04:00

Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser (Richards), Alexandria, September 29, 1785.
RAN AWAY...a MULATTO WOMAN, named MOLLY; of a middle size. She took with her two Virginia cloth jackets and petticoats, one brown and one green baize ditto, with sundry other things.---As she can read, and is handy at her needle, it is probable she will endeavour to pass for a free woman.

Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser (Davis), Richmond, August 24, 1791.
The following NEGROES...A MULATTO WOMAN went off with the above, who has since been been taken up at Norfolk, and as she can write, she probably has furnished the others with passes, changing thier name.

The Herald and Norfolk and Portsmouth Advertiser (Willett and O'Connor), Norfolk, November 9, 1795.
RUN AWAY...A likely mulatto woman named SILLAR, about the common stature, 25 years of age, and walks generally very brisk; she has been brought up a House Servant and can read a Letter...it is expected as she carried off her bed, bedding, and a number of good clothes, that she as been coaxed away by some free Negro or other, who has conveyed her off by water and intends to pass her as a free woman

Norfolk Herald (Willett and O'Connor), Norfolk, September 14, 1797.
Run away Negroes...JACK, a Carpenter by trade, about 40 years of age, 5 feet 9 or 10 inches high, of a dark complexion. PHEBE, his wife, and his daughter BETSEY, about 16 years of age, a very likely wench; also Two of the said Phebe's Children, one of which is 5 or 6 years and the other 6 months old. It is suspected Jack's wife will forge passes as she is very artful and can write...A Negro Fellow named Joe, son to the above Jack, about 20 years of age, plays on the Violin.

Norfolk Herald (Willett and O'Connor), Norfolk, October 2, 1800.
Negro Girl named NANCY, about 19 years of age, about 4 feet 4 inches, good stout looking girl; her complexion paler than general; had on when she went away a black new fashioned paste-board bonnet, trimmed with black ribbon, a blue handkerchief on her neck, dark callico short gown, purple worsted petticoat, she had a sifter in which she had cakes to sell about town...She has changed her name to BETSEY. Speaks very good Dutch, can read and write, and may forge herself a passport.

Norfolk Herald (Willett and O'Connor),Norfolk, October 29, 1801.
Forty Dollars Reward. RAN-AWAY from the subscriber, living in Petersburg, Virginia, in the afternoon of Thursday, the 22d inst. a likely spare made Negro Woman, named LUCINDA, (but sometimes she is called Lucinda Walker, and at other times Lucinda Brown) about 24 years of age, she is of the common height, and rather black: she has a remarkable pleasant countenance, smooth insinuating manners, and speaks very correct and distinct--she had previously sent off the most of her clothes in a trunk, (supposed marked at the bottom W.D. or W.I.D.) of which she has a variety of good materials and well made. I am informed she had made up just before her elopemont, a habit and coat of dark blue cloth in the fashion; and it is likely she will travel in that dress--she can both read and write a little: I am pretty certain that she has been enticed off by some bad designing man, probably white, and that she has through them procured free papers, or a pass of some kind which she will make use of. She was born and brought up in the family indulgently...expressing a desire to go to Europe.
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Biography - Boston Slave Poet Phillis Wheatley d. 12/5/1784

2011-09-13T10:19:00.002-04:00

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I think that the first time I learned much about Phillis Wheatley was in an American Literature class at the University of North Carolina in the mid 1960s. Her story and her poems were fairly amazing. I understood why those educated, self-absorbed "gentlemen" in the 18th century doubted that a young slave girl could produce those classical poems, or that any woman could write like that.

American poet Phillis Wheatley probably was born in Senegal, Africa in the early 1750s. Her only written memory of Africa was of her mother performing a ritual of pouring water before the sun as it rose. When she was about 7, she became a commodity. She was kidnapped from her family, marched to the coast, sold to Peter Gwinn as slave cargo, and stowed on a ship called The Phillis for an unimaginable trip through the middle passage. When the dark ship finally reached its destination in Boston, the frightened little girl was sold at John Avery's slave auction to tailor John and his wife Susanna Wheatley on July 11, 1761. The prosperous Boston family named their new acquisition after the ship she arrived in; taught her English, Latin, and Greek; and treated her as a family member. The Wheatleys and their daughter, Mary, introduced Phillis to the Bible; and to 3 English poets – Milton, Pope and Gray. Phillis used her new language skills to write her own poetry.

She published her first poem at the age of 14. Her poem "On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin" appeared in the Newport Mercury in 1767. She was especially fond of writing in Pope's elegiac poetry style, perhaps because it also mirrored an oral tradition of her African tribal group. Both Europeans and Africans used poem and song as a lament for a deceased person. That she also was well-versed in Latin, which allowed her to write in the epyllion (short epic) style, became apparent with the publication of "Niobe in Distress."

She became a sensation in Boston in the early 1770s, when her poem elegy on the death of the extremely popular English-born evangelist George Whitefield gained wide circulation in colonial newspapers. Whitefield died September 30, 1770, in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Wheatley's elegy reached Selina Hastings of England, Countess of Huntingdon, who was a great admirer of Whitefield. The countess, in turn, sent Wheatley's poem to London papers, which reprinted it many times.

Because many found it hard to believe that a slave or a woman could write such poetry, in 1772, Wheatley received an attestation of authenticity from a group of Boston luminaries including John Hancock and Thomas Hutchinson, the governor of Massachusetts, which was printed in the preface to her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral released in London in 1773. The book was issued from London, because publishers in Boston refused to publish it. Wheatley and her master's son, Nathanial Wheatley, had traveled to London, where the Countess of Huntingdon and the Earl of Dartmouth helped finance the publication.

Phillis' fame and the aging of her owners ultimately brought her freedom from slavery on October 18, 1773, just as the British American colonies were contemplating a freedom of their own. She received a letter from General Washington, after she had written a poem to Washington, lauding his appointment as commander of the Continental Army. On February 28, 1776, Washington wrote to Wheatley, "I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me, in the elegant Lines you enclosed; and however undeserving I may be...the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your great poetical Talents."

Though Benjamin Franklin received her, and Washington personally met with her as well, Thomas Jefferson refused to acknowledge her intelligence and skill. In Notes on the State of Virginia, he declared, "Religion, indeed, has produced a Phillis Wheatley, but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism."

Adopting classical styles, topics, neoclassical images, and scriptural allusions, allowed Wheatley to express a subtle critique of America's slaveholding colonies and emerging new republic. While she was a strong supporter of independence during the Revolutionary War, she felt slavery was the issue which kept Ameican whites, such as Jefferson, from true heroism. Wheatley wrote that whites could not "hope to find/Divine acceptance with th' Almighty mind" when "they disgrace/And hold in bondage Afric's blameless race."

In a letter which appeared on March 11, 1774, in the Connecticut Gazette, Wheatley wrote of the hipocrisy of freedom-loving slaveholders, "God grant Deliberance...upon all those whose Avarice impels them to countenance and help forward the Calamities of their fellow Creatures. This I desire not for their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and Actions are so diametrically opposite, How well the Cry for Liberty, and the reverse Disposition for the exercise of oppressive power over others agree I humbly think it does not require the penetration of a Philosopher to determine."

On April 1, 1778, she married a free black Bostonian named John Peters. Initially this marriage produced 2 babies who died in childhood. Despite tragedy and poverty, Phillis continued to write poetry. In 1779, she advertised in the Boston Evening Post and General Advertiser, in hopes of finding a publisher for a volume of 33 poems and 13 letters. In the struggling post-revolutionary economy, this volume was never published. In September 1784, The Boston Magazine published under her married name, Phillis Peters, a poem "To Mr. and Mrs.----, on the Death of Their Infant Son;" and in December, 1784, it published "Liberty and Peace" celebrating the outcome of the Revolutionary War, once again using her married name. She may never have seen the poems published in December.

By this time, her husband had deserted her, forcing Wheatley to earn a living as a scullery maid in a Boston boarding house for destitute blacks. On December 5, 1784, she died there in poverty at the age of 31, probably from an infection or blood clot contracted while giving birth. Her third baby died only a few hours later. They were buried together in an unmarked grave. The Boston Independent Chronicle reported, "Last Lord's Day, died Mrs. Phillis Peters (formerly Phillis Wheatley), aged thirty-one, known to the world by her celebrated miscellaneous poems. Her funeral is to be this afternoon, at four o'clock, from the house lately improved by Mr. Todd...where her friends and acquaintances are desired to attend."

Before her death, she had addressed several other poems to George Washington. She sent them to him, but he never responded again. Her last known poem was written for Washington. After Phillis' death, her estranged husband, John Peters, went to the woman who had provided temporary shelter for Phillis and demanded that she hand over the manuscripts of the proposed second volume. After Peters received Phillis' manuscripts, the second volume was never seen again.
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Newspaper - Runaway House Slaves

2011-09-12T09:27:00.002-04:00

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Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser (Goddard), Baltimore, June 27, 1780.

NEGROES, who ran away...Lucy, Hannah, and Nan...They are most of them very artful, and expect to pass as free people...Lucy's business has been to wash and iron. Young Hannah and Nan are exceeding good flax spinners. They are all mostly cloathed in Virginia cloth...They have stole some guns, and many different sorts of clothes, and I expect they will change their names.

Virginia Gazette (Clarkson & Davis), Richmond, August 19, 1780.

RUN away...a young mulatto wench named Sukey. Her dress when she went away was white Virginia cloth, a linen bonnet made in the fashion; she has a large bushy head of hair, her upper fore teeth much decayed, and some of them out, which causes her to lisp, shows her teeth when laughing, and is very brazen and impertinent. She can wash, iron, and cook.

Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser (Davis), Richmond, January 26, 1791.

RAN-AWAY...a large fat likely negro woman, known by the name of SARAH, but looks young to her age, which is between 40 or 50, of a bold insinuating countenance, artful and cunning to the highest degree...She is an excellent house servant, as to spinning cotton of flax, sewing, knitting, cooking, washing, or any thing else a wench can do, and can work very well in the crop--She is fond of making and selling ginger bread, &c. ...Her clothing when she went away was a large scarlet frize cloak, a hat dress with white ribbon and buckle, one callico jackcoat, one suit of green durants, sundry suits of strip'd and white Virginia cloth, and wore two silver rings on her fingers.

Virginia Herald and Fredericksburg Advertiser (Green), Fredericksburg, November 14, 1793.
RAN AWAY...in Orange county, the last of September, NEGRO MOLLY, a lusty likely woman, about 41 or 42 years of age, rather dark complexion; she is a healthy, neat, industrious wench, a good cook, washer and ironer, and is well acquainted with house business

American Gazette and Norfolk and Portsmouth Public Advertiser (Davis), Norfolk, September 15, 1795.
RUN AWAY this morning, a negro Woman named MOLLY, But has of late gone by the name of BETTY...She is very black, has a bushy head, and remarkable white teeth, is about 5 feet 9 or 10 inches high, and supposed to be about 36 years of age; is a very good washer and ironer, and am informed a good cook, and is well acquainted with all kind of house business.

Norfolk Herald (Willett and O'Connor), Norfolk, August 2, 1800.
Negro Woman named PATTY...about 28 years of age, thick, well set, and about 5 feet 5 inches high. She has short curled hair, and prominent features, particularly eyes, noes, and mouth. Her teeth are bad and yellow, and the whites of her eyes are much affected by smoke. On her shoulders are two scars visible when she does not wear a handkerchief; and her right arm shews the marks of very frequent bleeding. Her voice is rather shrill; she is very talkative and disposed to be impertinent; but when it suits her purpose can assume every appearance of perfect humility. I expect she is in Norfolk, in company with a sister who bears a very striking resemblance...Patty is a good cook and washer, and probably will practice one or the other for a livelihood.

Norfolk Herald (Willett and O'Connor), Norfolk, March 12, 1801.
Run-a-way...Negro SAREY...well known in Norfolk as a negro hiring herself out to day's work at washing

Norfolk Herald (Willett and O'Connor), Norfolk, July 6, 1802
Ran Away...a tall, spare black woman named POLLY, about 20 years old, formerly the property of Major Roger West: she has been brought up to house-work, is a good cook, washer and nurse.

Biography - Writer, Preacher, & Mantua Maker Bethsheba Bowers 1672-1718

2011-09-11T21:08:00.001-04:00

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Quaker author and preacher Bathsheba Bowers was born in 1672, in Massachusettes, and died at age 46 in 1718, in South Carolina. She was one of 12 children born to Benanuel Bowers and his wife Elizabeth Dunster.

Her mother Elizabeth was a young orphan sent from England to live with her uncle Henry Dunster, who was the president of Harvard College between 1640 and 1654, and spent the last few years of his life as a pastor in Scituate, Massachusettes.

Her father, Benanuel Bowers, was a determined Quaker who fled England to settle in Charlestown, near Boston, Massachusettes, only to find a flurry of Puritan persecution. Seven of their children grew to adulthood amid the threats and violence which surrounded their family.

Benanuel Bowers was a militant Quaker defender and suffered much for his religion by fine, whip, and prison. Like his daughter Bathsheba, he enjoyed writing. Some of his letters are preserved in the Middlesex County Courthouse. One addressed to Thomas Danforth the magistrate, is dated March 3, 1677, when little Bathsheba was only five.

Bathsheba's father owned 20 acres in Charlestown. He suffered fines repeatedly and imprisonment for various offences, such as absenting himself from meeting, and giving a cup of milk to a poor Quaker woman who had been whipped and imprisoned two days and nights without food or water.

As personal animosities and community hatred of Quakers began to increase, the Bowers decided to send 4 of their daughters to Philadelphia, which had a large and welcoming Quaker community.

Much of what we know about Bathsheba Bowers comes from the letter journal of her niece, Ann Curtis Clay Bolton, the daughter of Bathsheba's sister Elizabeth Anna who married Wenlock Curtis of Philadelphia. This diary is in the form of letters addressed to her physician, Dr. Anderson, of Maryland, the first of which was written in 1739.

Ann Bolton, wrote of her aunt's description of her immigrant grandfather, "My Grandfather, Benanuel Bowers was born in England of honest Parents, but his father, being a man of stern temper, and a rigid Oliverian, obliged my Grandfather (who out of a pious zeal, turned to the religion of the Quakers) to flee for succour into New England...

"He purchased a farm near Boston and then married. Both were Quakers. The Zealots of the Presbyterian party ousted them. They escaped with their lives, though not without whippings, and imprisonments, and the loss of a great part of their worldly substance...

"When my Grandfather was grown old, he sent, with his wife's consent, four of his eldest daughters to Philadelphia, hearing a great character of Friends in this city. Their eldest daughter married Timothy Hanson and settled on a plantation near Frankford. Their youngest daughter was married to George Lownes of Springfield, Chester Co."

But Bathsheba Bowers remained single. Anna wrote that she was of "middle stature" and "beautiful when young," but singularly stern and morose. "She was crossed in love when she was about eighteen...

"She seemed to have little regard for riches, but her thirst for knowledge being boundless after she had finished her house and Garden, and they were as beautiful as her hands cou'd make them, or heart could wish, she retired herself in them free from Society as if she had lived in a Cave under Ground or on the top of a high mountain, but as nothing ever satisfied her so about half a mile distant under Society Hill She built a Small (country) house close by the best Spring of Water perhaps as was in our City.

"This house she furnished with books a Table a Cup in which she or any that visited her (but they were few, and seldom drank of that Spring). What name she gave her new house I know not but some People gave it the name of Bathsheba's Bower (for you must know her Name was Bathsheba Bowers) but some a little ill Natured called it Bathsheba's folly.

"As for the place it has ever since bore the name of Bathsheba's Spring or Well—for like Absalom I suppose she was willing to have something to bear up her Name, and being too Strict a virtuoso could not expect fame and favour here by any methods than such of her own raising and spreading.

"Those motives I suppose led her about the same time to write the History of her Life (in which she freely declared her failings) with her own hand which was no sooner finished than Printed and distributed about the world Gratis."

Ann described her aunt as a hard taskmaster, with whom she lived as a young girl until she was 13. Aunt Bathsheba was a gardener and a vegetarian for the last 20 years of her life. She was also a fine seamstress and made her living in Philadelphia making mantuas. A mantua (from the French Manteuil ) is an article of women's clothing worn in the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century. Originally it was a loose gown, the later mantua was an overgown or robe typically worn over an underdress or stomacher and petticoat.

Although Bathsheba Bowers was a Quaker by profession, Ann reported that she was, "so Wild in her Notions it was hard to find out of what religion she really was of. She read her Bible much but I think sometimes to no better purpose than to afford matter for dispute in w[hich] she was always positive."

In New York in 1709, Philadelphia Quaker William Bradford published a 23 page booklet by Bathsheba Bowers entitled "An Alarm Sounded to Prepare the Inhabitants of the World to Meet the Lord in the Way of His Judgment" along with a history of her life and other writings. In the same year, Bathsheba Bowers became a Quaker preacher, taking her ministry to South Carolina, where she would live for nearly 10 years. Because she made her living as a mantua maker, she could pick up that trade in her new homeplace.

Ann wrote of one of her aunt's experiences in South Carolina. "She had a belief she could never die. She removed to South Carolina where the Indians Early one morning surprised the place—killed and took Prisoners several in the house adjoining to her. Yet she moved not out of her Bed, but when two Men offered their assistance to carry her away, she said Providence would protect her, and indeed so it proved at that time, for those two men no doubt by the Direction of providence took her in her Bed for she could not rise, conveyed her into their Boat and carried her away in Safety tho' the Indians pursued and shot after them."

Bathsheba Bowers lives on through her autobiography. She used the conventions of the established New England spiritual autobiography to trace her journey through life as a series of fears to be overcome and to set an example that others might follow. She compared herself to Job outlining a progression of divinely predestined tests which eventually placed her in a personal relationship with God. Bathsheba Bowers overcame fears of nudity, death, hell, pride, and even preaching, writing, and publishing to attain her spiritual self-control.

She claimed that her most difficult struggle was with her own ambition. While she saw publication of her spiritual autobiography as a triumph over her personal fears, she worried about the potential scorn it might bring on her, "...tis best known to my self how long I labored under a reluctancy, and how very unwilling I was to appear in print at all; for it was, indeed, a secret terror to...hear my Reputation called in question, without being stung to the heart." Perhaps this is why she moved from Philadelphia to South Carolina just as her autobiography was published.

Although Bathsheba Bowers's work joined the spiritual autobiographies written by women in New England as a means of joining a congregation, Bathsheba's booklet added a Quaker perspective to the intensely personal genre. Her writings also included poetry just as American Anne Bradstreet had published before her. English Quakers, men and women, published their spiritual struggles in journals, but early 18th century American Quaker women rarely published their writings.

Bethsheba's diary is in the form of letters addressed to her physician, Dr. Anderson, of Maryland, the first of which was written in 1739. It begins:

"For some reason perhaps Dr. not unknown to you I step out of the common Road and first Mention my family on my Mother's side.

"My Grandffather Benanuel Bowers was Born in England of honest Parents but his father being a Man of a Stern temper, and a rigid Oliverian Obliged my Grandfather (who out of a Pious zeal turned to the religion of the Quakers) to flee for succor into New England.

"My Grandmother's name was Elizabeth Dunster; She was Born in Lancashire in Old England, but her Parents dying when she was young her Unkle Dunster, who was himself at that time President of the College in New England, sent for her thither and discharged his Duty to her not only in that of a kind Unkle but a good Christian and tender father. By all reports he was a man of great Wisdom, exemplary Piety, and peculiar sweetness of temper.

"My Grandfather not long after his coming to New England purchased a farm near Boston, and then married my Grandmother, tho they had but a small beginning yet God So blest them that they increased in substance, were both Devout Quakers and famous for their Christian Charity and Liberality to people of all perswasions on religion who to Escape the Stormy Wind and tempest that raged horribly in England flocked thither."

The writer also speaking of her grandparents..."the outrage and violence of fiery zealots of the Presbyterian Party who then had the ruling power in their own hands, however they slept with their lives tho' not without Cruel whippings and imprisonment and the loss of part of their worldly substance."

See: The Life of Mrs. Robert Clay, afterwards Mrs. Robert Bolton Author: Ann Bolton and the Rev. Jehu Curtis Bolton Publication: Philadelphia, 1928. Copy at the Universtiy of Maryland.
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Newspaper - Runaway Slaves - Carders, Spinners, Weavers, & Knitters

2011-09-10T22:02:00.001-04:00

Virginia Gazette (Hunter), Williamsburg, November 7, 1754.
RAN away...a Mulatto Wench, named Molly, about 26 Years of Age, of a middle Stature, long Visage, and freckled, has a drawling Speech, a down Look, and has been chiefly brought up to Carding and Spinning.

Virginia Gazette (Dixon & Hunter),Williamsburg, March 11, 1775.
RUN away... a very bright Mulatto Man named STEPHEN, 5 Feet 6 or 7 Inches high, about 22 Years of Age...His Wife PHEBE went away with him, a remarkable white Indian Woman, about the same Age, and was with Child; she has long black Hair, which is generally clubbed, and carried off with her a blue Negro Cotton Waistcoat and Petticoat, a Virginia Cloth Waistcoat and Petticoat, and a Virginia Cloth Bonnet. She can spin well...

Virginia Gazette or American Advertiser (Hayes), Richmond, February 2, 1782.
A black fellow by the name of PETER, frequently called PETER WOOD, about 37 or 38 years of age, 5 feet 8 or 9 inches high, has a smiling countenance...Also a very likely black girl, wife to the above fellow and taken off by him, about 18 or 19 years old, middle size, by the name of AMIA...She is a fine spinner and Weaver, has never had a child, and I am informed has holes in her ears for rings.Virginia Gazette or Weekly Advertiser (Nicolson & Prentis), Richmond, May 11, 1782.
VIOLET, went off about eight weeks ago, and is now harboured in Williamsburg, about twenty two years old, very likely, genteel made, and knits very well.

Virginia Gazette and Weekly Advertiser (Nicolson & Prentis), Richmond, November 22, 1783.
RUN away...a negro girl named PHILLIS, but for some time passed by the name BETTY. She is about sixteen years of age, an excellent spinner, and very likely...She has for some time been harboured about Rocket's, and is very intimate and supposed lives with one Free Harry.

Virginia Gazette or American Advertiser (Hayes), Richmond, October 16, 1784.
RAN AWAY...a likely Mulatto woman named CHARITY, who carried with her three children, two boys and a girl...She is a likely wench, has an uncommon good voice, is a good house servant, and can spin and knit very well.

Virginia Gazette or American Advertiser (Hayes), Richmond, December 31, 1785
....my negro woman TABB. She is of a middle stature, rather of a yellowish cast, and thin visage, straight made, walks and talks quick...When she went off, she was clothed as Negroes generally are, which she will certainly change, being very fond of dress, and looks tolerable genteel. She is remarkable handy and industrious, can card and spin cotton and wool, equal in quantity and quality with any woman in the State; a tolerable good weaver, which she followed when she runaway before, and changed her name to Nancy Jones.

Virginia Gazette and Weekly Advertiser (Nicolson), Richmond, April 17, 1788.
RUN away...a stout well made Virginia born negro woman, named DINAH, but has changed her name to NANCY, her complexion is rather of the tawny kind, she has a scar on her forehead, and keeps her eyes rather closed when speaking, she chews tobacco, and smoaks...She last hired herself to Mrs. Jones, at Spring Garden, in Hanover, for a spinner and weaver, and had one of the house servants for her husband...

Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser (Davis), Richmond, January 18, 1792.
Run away...a likely negro woman, named URSULA, of a yellowish complexion, with some black moles on her face, 30 years of age, 5 feet three or 4 inches high, had on, when she went away, such cloathing as negroes generally wear in the summer, and carried with her a white linen coat and jacket. She is a vile creature, and for her many crimes I punsihed her with an iron collar, but supposed she soon got that off. She is very artful, has a smooth tongue, and is a good weaver, and as she has for some time imposed on the Baptist church by her pretensions to religion, she may probably attempt to pass for a free woman, and do the same again.
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Biography - Sarah Updike Goddard (c. 1701-1770) Printer & Mother of a Rather Spoiled Son & a Fine Daughter

2011-09-08T21:50:00.005-04:00

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Sarah Updike Goddard (c. 1701-Jan. 5, 1770), printer, was born at Cocumscussuc, one mile north of the village of Wickford, R.I., to Lodowick & Abigail (Newton) Updike. Her grandfather, Gysbert op Dyck, had emigrated from Wesel, Germany, to Lloyd’s Neck, Long Island, in 1635. In 1643 he was married to Katherine Smith, daughter of an early Rhode Island settler, Richard Smith. Their son, Lodowick (1646-1737), moved in 1664 from New Amsterdam to Kingston, R.I., where he anglicized his surname to Updike, became a substantial landowner, & held several public offices. He had one son & five daughters, Sarah among them; the son, Daniel, served for several years as attorney general of the colony of Rhode Island.

Sarah’s education included not only the subjects usual to the day but also French & Latin from a French tutor in the Updike household. On Dec. 11, 1735, she was married to Dr. Giles Goddard of Groton, Conn., like herself a member of the Church of England, & he practiced medicine & was for many years postmaster. Of their four children, only two, Mary Katherine & William, lived to adulthood. Presumably Mrs. Goddard taught the two children herself, though William later mentioned having in a school as a child. On Jan. 31, 1757, Giles Goddard died, leaving an estate valued at 780 pounds. When William Goddard in 1762 started Providence’s first printing shop & newspaper, the Providence Gazette, the money (300 pounds) too set up the business came from his mother, who in the same year moved from New London to Providence. Both Mrs. Goddard & her daughter doubtless worked in the shop, since both became accomplished printers.

Lacking enough subscribers, William Goddard temporarily ceased publication of the Providence Gazette on May 11, 1765, & moved to New York, but the Providence printing office continued to function under the supervision of his mother. During the rest of 1765 the shop issued the annual West’s Almanack & various pamphlets under the imprint “S. & W. Goddard.” When, on Aug. 9, 1766, the Providence Gazette was revived, it was under the auspices of “Sarah Goddard & Company,” Sarah thereby becoming Providence’s second printer. She continued to print the weekly newspaper & run a bookstore & bookbindery until Nov. 5, 1768, when the business was sold to a partner, John Carter, for $550. Her bluestocking inclinations are revealed by her printing in 1766 the first American edition of the Letters of the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

After the sale of her Providence business Sarah Goddard joined her son in Philadelphia, where he was printing the Pennsylvania Chronicle; her financial assistance aided him in his struggle with his silent partners, Joseph Galloway & Thomas Wharton. In Philadelphia, Sarah Goddard remained mostly in the background, though she occasionally supervised the shop during William’s frequent trips to New England in 1769.

She died in Philadelphia & was buried in the Christ Church burial ground. An obituary in New-York Gazette of Jan. 22, 1770, eulogized “her uncommon attainments in literature,” “sincere piety,” “unaffected humility,” “easy agreeable chearfulness & affability,” & “sensible & edifying conversation.” In spite of her restless & selfish son, her daughter, Mary Katherine Goddard, carried on the family tradition. For more on both Sarah's good daughter & her spoiled son, go here.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971.

Biography - Sophia Wigington Hume (1702-1774) South Carolina Quaker Minister & Religious Writer

2011-09-07T22:11:00.003-04:00

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Sophia Wigington Hume (1702-1774), Quaker minister & religious writer, was born in Charleston, SC., one of the children of Henry Wigington (Wiginton), a prosperous landowner & colony official, & Susanna (Bayley) Wigington. Henry Wigington was an Anglican; his wife had been brought up as a Quaker by her mother, Mary Fisher, who had been a minister in England before settling with her second husband in Charleston. Sophia Wigington was reared an Anglican & given an education fit for a young lady of fashion. She was married in 1721, to Robert Hume, a lawyer, landowner, & public official. Two of their children lived to adulthood: Susanna Wigington, born in 1722, & Alexander Wigington, 1729.

Though her mother returned to Quakerism before 1719, & tried to lead her children in that direction, Sophia Wigington Hume for a time remained a faithful Anglican. By her own account she practiced “the art of japanning with Prints,” lived books & music, delighted in plays & balls, passionately enjoyed fine clothes & jewelry, & walked aristocratically “with mincing Steps & outstretched Neck.” During two illnesses, however, she came to believe that these frivolities endangered her soul. The second crisis, which took place about 1740, three years after her husband’s death, led to a conversion that preoccupied her mind for the rest of her life. Believing that God would spare her only if she would forsake vanity for Quaker simplicity, she burned “the most vile” of her finery, but being a widow in reduced circumstances could not resist the temptation to sell her “Watch & Equipage chased with Heathenish Devices, as also Diamond ornament etc.” Shortly after her recovery she moved to England, where she lived in London near her daughter & finally joined the Society of Friends.

Sophia Hume became a public figure reluctantly in 1747, when she felt a divine call to return to Charleston to reprove the self-indulgences of the inhabitants & call them to repentance. She obeyed the call, even though it meant humiliating herself on the scene of her former elegance. Arriving near the end of the year, she carried out he mission at public meetings in spite of some rude interruptions. She also inspired the city’s small Quaker group to reviver regular worship. To spread her message farther, she wrote An Exhortation to the Inhabitants of the Province of South-Carolina &, to get it printed quickly, took the manuscript to Philadelphia. She spent several happy months in that city & in travel to attend nearby religious meetings & was entertained by leading Friends, who also raised money to publish her book. It was printed before the end of 1748 (& in five later editions in England & America); the author arrived home in London in December or January.

Though she preached publicly in South Carolina & Pennsylvania, Sophia Hume did not receive recognition as a minister from her monthly meeting in London until later, possibly not until 1763. As early as 1752, though, her utterances settled on two topics: decrying luxury & warning its devotees of their dangers; & exhorting Friends to renew sectarian strictness, a theme which probably explains the increasing respect for her ministry as zeal for this goal spread during the 1760’s. Her writings, while always frankly advocating Quaker principles, for the most part developed the first of these topics & were addressed to Christians at large. The Exhortation, with its parade of long quotations from the learned & its extensive examinations of Scripture, actually conveyed a fairly simple appeal for repentance & reformation, its strength derived from Sophia Hume’s lifelong gift for strong phrases & intense, incantation prose.

A Caution to Such as Observe Days & Times (published in its final form c. 1763) was briefer & better organized; though first written to denounce religious festivals, in the later editions it proceeded to offer incisive remarks on a number of theological & social topics. The social ethics were largely traditional, but she expounded a Quaker view of conversion with an unusual emphasis on the "rational pleasure & divine delight” produced by the irradiation of the believer by Christ’s light & the benevolence to all mankind that resulted from true love of God.

Among Quaker women of her day, Sophia Hume had an extraordinary knowledge of the arts, literature, & theology-to some extent the product of her years as an Anglican. Although conversion curbed & guided her intellectual pursuits within limits approved by Quakers, she yet found it hard to justify erudition in a woman-& harder to justify her public life-by her own principles. The result was a paradoxical career: as minister & write she upheld the traditional view that woman should lead a secluded life devoted to home & church; as a Quaker bluestocking she expounded Scripture & culled quotations from ancient & modern Christian writers to defend her sect & its tenet that the indwelling spirit of Christ is the most reliable source of religious truth.

She felt a divine call to service in Charleston again in 1767. The situation was dire: the fellowship of Friends there had dwindled to one, the old wooden meetinghouse was dilapidated, & a backslider claimed to own the land on which it stood. Though often compelled to rest her slight & ailing body, Sophia Hume managed to revive interest in Quakerism by preaching to large public meetings, & tried to persuade London & Philadelphia Friends to replace the old structure with a brick meetinghouse that would stand until God might gather a church to use it. Unable to win support for this plan, she embarked for England in April 1768. She died in 1774, presumably in London, of a seizure described as apoplexy. Her body was interred in Friends’ Burial Ground near Bunhill Fields.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Biography - Henrietta Benigna Justine Zinzendorf von Watteville (1725-1789) Moravian Educator

2011-09-06T22:31:00.029-04:00

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Henrietta Benigna Justine Zinzendorf von Watteville (1725-1789) Moravian educator, a key figure in the beginnings of Moravian Seminary & College for Women, Bethlehem, Pa., was born in Berthelsdorf, Saxony. She was the 1st daughter & 2nd of 12 children, of whom only 4 reached maturity, of Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf by his wife, Countess Erdmuthe Dorothea von Reuss. Her father, founder of the Renewed Moravian Church, was of an old family of the Austrian nobility that had migrated to Germany. Her mother was of the nobility of Thuringia. Reared in the 18th-century Moravian Church, Benigna lived & achieved as a devout Pietist.

Her father’s banishment from Saxony, when she was 11, marked the beginning for her of a much-traveled life. With him she came to America for the first time in December 1741, for a stay of 14 months, chiefly in the newly established Moravian communities of Pennsylvania.

On May 4, 1742, at her father’s suggestion, the 16-year-old countess, with 2 assistants, opened a girls’ school in the Ashmead house in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Here 25 pupils were instructed in reading, writing, religion, & the household arts in what was probably the first boarding school for girls in the 13 British American colonies. Seven weeks later the school moved to Bethlehem; & in 1745, to nearby Nazareth, returning permanently in 1749, to Bethlehem, the center of the Moravian Church in America.

Moravian Young Ladie's Seminary and Church, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

On July 27, 1742, Count von Zinzendorf and his fellowship crossed the Blue Mountain into Cherry Valley, and on July 28 they finally emerged from the endless forests at Meniolágoméka -- "The Fat Land Among the Barren" -- present-day Kunkletown. Von Zinzendorf's 16-year-old daughter, Benigna, upon meeting the Indian children at the settlement, decided that the girls should have the opportunity to go to school just like white boys.

The same year she founded Moravian Seminary in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Shortly thereafter it was moved to Bell House in Bethlehem, and Lady Benigna invited all the Indian girls to come. Moravian Seminary was the first boarding school for girls in the New World, and over time it gained a superb reputation -- so much so that 50 years later, while he was President, George Washington personally petitioned for admission of his great-nieces. Eventually the school's charter was expanded, and it became Moravian College and Moravian Academy, both of which remain to this day.

In the summer of 1742, Benigna Zinzendorf interrupted her teaching to accompany her father on 2 of his 3 trips among the Indians of Pennsylvania & New York, preparatory to establishing missions among them. The Zinzendorfs returned to Europe the following winter.

In 1746 Benigna was married to Baron Johann von Waterville (de Watteville), a Moravian clergyman & her father’s secretary, in a ceremony performed by Zinzendorf at the new Moravian settlement in Zeist, Holland. Consecrated a bishop the following year, Watteville, aided by his capable wife, became out outstanding leader of his church.

The couple came to America on church business in September 1748 & remained a year. On this visit Benigna de Watteville had a hand in the return of the girls’ school to Bethlehem, its consideration with schools in the outlying Moravian congregations, & the enlargement of its curriculum.

Thirty-five years later, en route to America a 3rd time, she was shipwrecked with her husband on the rocks off the Leeward Islands in February 1784. Reaching Bethlehem in June, they remained for 3 years. Again Countess Benigna was on hand to help direct a reorganization of the girls’ seminary, which in 1785, now opened to pupils from outside the Moravian Church, became a largely new institution, known for many years as the Bethlehem Female Seminary.

The Moravian philosophy of education was the rearing of children in a controlled Christian environment under consecrated teachers. Because of the worldwide mission commitments of the Church, many parents were abroad, with their children left behind in the care of the home community. Moravian teachers, therefore, tried as nearly as possible to serve as substitute parents. Both as a parent & as a devout church member, Benigna de Watteville kept this ideal in mind.

She had four children of her own: Johann Ludwig (born 1752), Anna Dorothea Elizabeth (1754), Maria Justine (1762), & Johann Christian Frederick (1766). The older son died while a missionary in Tranquebar, India, in 1780, & the younger son died at nineteen as a student at Herrnhut, the church headquarters on his grandfather’s Berthelsdorf estate. The younger daughter, who never married, served as a worker in the church. The older daughter married Hans Christian Alexander von Schweinitz (later changed to de Schweinitz) in Bethlehem, Pa., in 1779. One of their children was the distinguished American botanist Louis David de Schweinitz, & de Schweinitz descendants have for four generations been prominent in American educational & professional life.

Benigna de Watteville died in the place of her birth at the age of sixty-three, a year after her husband. The Bethlehem seminary, incorporated in 1863 as the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, became in 1913, Moravian Seminary & College for Women & in 1953, a part of the coeducational Moravian College at Bethlehem.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Biography - Marylander Ann Teresa Mathews 1732-1800 Founder of the 1st US Roman Catholic Convent

2011-09-05T19:58:00.002-04:00

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Marylander Ann Teresa Mathews (1732-1800), founder with Frances Dickinson (1755-1830), of the 1st Roman Catholic convent for women in the United States, was born in Charles County, one of 3 children of Joseph & Susannah (Craycroft) Mathews. Her father, who was descended from a Catholic family prominent in 17th-century Maryland, died when she was 2, leaving the family a 345-acre farm, a sparsely furnished house, & 2 slaves. Her widowed mother kept a deeply religious household, for her daughter, Ann, her son Ignatius, & 3 of her son William’s children entered religious life.

Although Maryland was originally settled as a refuge for Roman Catholics, since the 18th-century in Maryland, Roman Catholics were not permitted to hold public mass, & those who wished to train for a life in the church necessarily went abroad. Thus in 1754, Ann Mathews sailed to Hoogstraeten, Belgium, to enter the English monastery of the Discalced Carmelites, a contemplative order springing from the works & influence of the mystic St. Teresa of Spain. Its severe rules included a ban on shoes, hence the name Discalced. On Sept. 30 of that year she took the habit of the order & the name Bernardina Teresa Xavier of St. Joseph, & on Nov. 24, 1755, at age 23, she made her profession. Staying on at the convent, she served as mistress of novices before being elected prioress in 1774.

The Original Residence at Carmel Monestary & Chapel in Charles County, Maryland

Mother Bernardina began to think of founding an American carmel, as the Revolution had removed the disabilities of Roman Catholics in Maryland. Encouraged by some of the prominent Catholics in her state, as well as by her brother Ignatius, a Jesuit priest, she made plans for such a move with a former Charles County neighbor, Mary Brent, who as Mother Mary Margaret of the Angels had become prioress of the English carmel at Antwerp. Unfortunately Mother Margaret died in 1784, but Mother Bernardina’s nieces, Ann Teresa & Susanna Mathews, arrived that year at Hoogstraeten to make their professions & to join in the venture. Indispensable support came from the Rev. Charles Neale, a relative of Mother Bernardina & confessor to the Antwerp carmel. It was 1790, however, before sufficient money & the necessary authorizations were gathered for the founding of an American carmel. On April 19, 1790, 4 nuns, accompanied by Father Neale, left Hoogstraeten for the Maryland. They included Mother Bernardina, now 58, her two nieces, & Frances Dickinson.

Frances Dickinson, born in London, had assumed the Carmelite habit at Antwerp on May 1, 1772, when only 16, & with it the name Clare Joseph of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Her letters & a diary show that she possessed self-awareness & a sense of humor. By July 20, 1790, the nuns were at Chandler’s Hope, Father Neale’s childhood home in Charles County, on a hill overlooking the Port Tobacco River. Here, resuming their religious habit & practices, they established the first convent within the United States. As Chandler’s Hope quickly proved too small for their purposes, Baker Brooke, a Maryland Catholic offered them 886 acres & a newly built house a little farther up the Port Tobacco Valley. On Oct. 15, 1790, the 4 nuns moved to their new quarters, which they dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Mary, & Joseph.

At the outset the nuns faced a critical decision, Maryland’s Bishop John Carroll had hoped that they would be willing to modify the rules of their order enough to allow them to teach. He gained a dispensation from Rome in 1793, but they asked not to make use of it & set themselves instead to the task of training newcomers to a life of prayer & contemplation. By 1794, a 2nd building was ready & four novices were admitted; by 1800 there were 14 nuns; & by 1818 the number had jumped to 23. The new arrivals brought family slaves & other property which, becoming part of the convent’s resources, made it nearly self-sufficient. In the Maryland countryside, there was less time for contemplation than in Belgium, but the nuns kept the Psalter before them, as they spun yarn from the wool of their own sheep to weave into cloth for their habits.

When Mother Bernardina died 1800, Bishop Carroll made Clare Joseph temporary prioress until her death 30 years later. For many years the little community flourished. In a letter to England in 1807, Mother Clare Joseph spoke of plentiful crops, of the pleasant & healthy situation, & of the advantages of its isolation “suitable to our eremitical Order.” In 1818, Archbishop Ambrose Marechal wrote with pride to Rome of the piety of the nuns.

A long & expensive lawsuit over their land (1818-29), however, brought financial difficulties; & the death in 1823, of Father Neale, was more than a spiritual loss, for the plantation began to be insufficient for the support of the convent. Mother Clare Joseph died there in 1830; & in 1831, the carmel moved to Baltimore.

Most of the later carmels in the United States have sprung from this convent or its branches, so that Ann Mathews & Frances Dickinson established the Carmelite order in the United States. Although in Baltimore the nuns were finally obliged for a time to teach in order to maintain themselves, Carmelite traditions & training in the contemplative life had been well established during previous 4 decades.

As they left in 1831, according to an almanac published by the nuns, there was a tradition in southern Maryland, that the faithful would pray for the return of the nuns. In 1933, the people of Charles County began to restore the original monastery residence, and the nuns did return in 1976. The monastery in Charles County, Maryland, is still the active home of the discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Carmel of Port Tobacco, who do not teach or have contact with the public.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Fashion - Layers of Clothing for the 18th-Century Woman

2011-08-09T02:07:00.009-04:00

1703 English Female Author Publishes Poem on Marriage

2011-07-31T10:21:00.007-04:00

Lady Mary Chudleigh

Lady Mary Chudleigh (1656-1710) was a woman ahead of her time, churning out feminist rhetoric even as she lived her life within the rigid confines of 17th-century England.

To The Ladies

Wife and servant are the same,
But only differ in the name:
For when that fatal knot is ty’d,
Which nothing, nothing can divide:
When she the word obey has said,
And man by law supreme has made,
Then all that’s kind is laid aside,
And nothing left but state and pride:
Fierce as an eastern prince he grows
And all his innate rigor shows:
Then but to look, to laugh, or speak,
Will the nuptual contract break.
Like mutes, she signs alone must make,
And never any freedom take:
But still be govern’d by a nod,
And fear her husband as a God:
Him still must serve, him still obey,
And nothing act, and nothing say,
But what her haughty lord thinks fit,
Who with the power, has all the wit.
Then shun, oh! shun that wretched state,
And all the fawning flatt’rers hate:
Value yourselves, and Men despise:
You must be proud, if you’ll be wise.

-Lady Mary Chudleigh

Mary Chudleigh was part of an intellectual circle that included Mary Astell, Elizabeth Thomas, Judith Drake, Elizabeth Elstob, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, & John Norris. In her later years, she published a book of poetry (1703) & 2 books of essays, all dealing with feminist themes; 2 of her books went through 4 editions during the last 10 years of her life. Her poetry about human relationships has been anthologized & reprinted ever since.

Mary, the daughter of Richard Lee, was born in August of 1656, at Winslade in Devon, England. While she, like most women of her time, received little in the way of formal education, she read widely & educated herself in theology, science, & philosophy. She married Sir George Chudleigh of Ashton in Devon. They had at least three children: Eliza Maria, George (the next Sir George), Thomas, & possibly others. Little else is known about her life except for the fact that her daughter must have died young, as her grief is mentioned in her letters & some poetry. Mary Chudleigh died in 1710.
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Slavery - Notes on President John Adams & Slavery

2011-07-24T21:39:00.003-04:00

President John Adams

John Adams did not own slaves.

1776: John Adams discussed trade resolutions before the continental congress: "There is one Resolution I will not omit. Resolved that no Slaves be imported into any of the thirteen colonies." (Peabody, p 197)

1776: John Adams was delighted with Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence and its “flights of oratory... especially that concerning Negro slavery, which, though I knew his Southern brethren would never suffer to pass in Congress, I certainly would never oppose.” (Peabody, p 201)

1819: “Negro Slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude.” (Ellis, p 140)

1820: “I shudder when I think of the calamities which slavery is likely to produce in this country. You would think me mad if I were to describe my anticipations…If the gangrene is not stopped I can see nothing but insurrection of the blacks against the whites.”(Smith, p 138)

1821: “Slavery in this Country I have seen hanging over it like a black cloud for half a century…”(Ellis, p 138)

This research is done by librarian Rob Lopresti and may be found on his website here.
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