Weaving Flax from the Fields - Not Women's Work in the British American Colonies

Detail 1749 English Engraving Colonial Williamsburg

Kathy King tells us in her 2006 article in the Quarterly Archives of theTredyffrin Easttown (Pennsylvania) Historical Society that the colonists who sailed from England to "America left a sophisticated manufacturing economy where men, not women, did the weaving. This wasn't always the case. Through the early Middle Ages, women did all phases of textile manufacture. In fact, the word “wife” seems to be etymologically related to the word “weave.” But with the commercial expansion of the late 14C & early 15C, weaving became solely a male occupation. It had a lot to do with the rising strength of guilds. The guilds had strict requirements about who could join & who could weave. Guild regulations & municipal statutes forbade weavers from employing females. Also, the conditions under which an apprentice lived & worked weren't suitable for women, & an apprenticeship was required.

Craft guilds guarded the long-standing craft traditions & carefully governed the entry of workers into their organizations in an effort to sustain reasonable wages & a good standard of work. The women had always participated in spinning & continued to do all the spinning. The formal exclusion of females from the cloth-making & finishing sectors of textile manufacture was an important stricture, with the only exception being that the widow of a weaver could officially take over her husband's work & tools as long as she did not remarry. Laws restricting women from weaving persisted until about 1825.

"There was quite an organized division of labor. Subdividing the work increased productivity by reducing “every man's business to one simple operation.” So, if you purchased a piece of broadcloth 12 yards x 1¾ yards, 15 people probably had a hand in making it, with 5 or 6 people spinning & carding to produce enough to supply the weaver...

"Tradition held in the colonies. Men did the weaving & women did the spinning, with one big difference. There was no organized industry here. Typically, there was a single weaver, with maybe an apprentice or son, working in a small workshop or shed by his house. People in the area would spin their yarn & take it to him to have it woven according to their needs. It was called “bespoke” weaving. Likewise with shoemakers; you brought them your own leather. Unlike urban weavers who might specialize, rural weavers made a variety of linen & woolen goods. Some of the household goods they wove were sheets, towels, blankets, grain bags, & wagon covers."

See: Quarterly Archives : Volume 43 of the Tredyffrin Easttown (Pennsylvania) Historical Society Real Colonial Women Don't Weave Cloth by Kathy King Source: Spring 2006 Volume 43 Number 2, Pages 62–70     

1746 Princeton University - Women Students?

Early Princeton College

In 1746, Princeton was founded as the College of New Jersey. In 1756, the college was moved to Princeton, New Jersey, which is when the name was changed. Like many other colonial era colleges, it was first opened to train ministers.

Princeton enrolled its first female graduate student, Sabra Follett Meservey, as a PhD candidate in Turkish history in 1961. A handful of undergraduate women had studied at Princeton from 1963 on, spending their junior year there to study "critical languages" in which Princeton's offerings surpassed those of their home institutions. They were considered regular students for their year on campus, but were not candidates for a Princeton degree.

In 1967 Princeton University president Robert F. Goheen announced in The Daily Princetonian that "It is inevitable that, at some point in the future, Princeton is going to move into the education of women." Women were first accepted in 1969: 40 members of the class of 1973 and 90 transfer students.

Tea & Gossip - Satire

 

John Bowles, a British publisher & printer, produced this satire on gossiping women at the Tea Table in the early 18C.  Here five fashionable ladies drink tea at a table placed on a carpet in an affluent interior. On the table, as well as the tea service, are a closed fan, a muff and an open book lettered, "Chit Chat." A devil lurks beneath the table and Envy drives Justice and Truth out of a door at upper left; two gentlemen eavesdrop at an open window on the right. On the back wall, left to right: an alcove with shelves displaying porcelain, a fireplace above which is a painting showing a monk carrying a woman on his back towards a church or monastery, and a mirror in an elaborate frame. Three columns of etched verse describe the slanderous conversation taking place.
Etching and engraving

The inscription below the title with 69 lines of verse in 3 columns tells the tale...
"How see we Scandal (for our Sex too base) 
Seat its dread Empire in the Female Race, 
'Mong Beaus & Women, Fans & Mechlin Lace. 
Chief Seat of Slander! Ever there we see, 
Thick Scandal circulate with right Bohea. 
There Source of blakning Falshoods Mint of Lies 
Each Dame th' Improvment of her Talent tries, 
And at each Sip a Lady's Honour Dies 
Truth rare as Silence; or a Negro Swan, 
Appears among those Daughters of the Fan. 
Coumnta has the Chair, and deals the Tea, 
In Scandal none more eloquent than she. 
Great President! how just Precedence claim, 
Thy great Demerits, and thy greater Fame! 
In Female War the Dame's profoundly Skill'd; 
Her Tongue [The Magazine of Lies] is Steel'd 
With Rancour; & her Eyes, tho' form'd for none 
But the Destruction of our Sex alone, 
Can at Superior Worth take artfull Aim, 
And blast the Growth of Virtuous Cffilia's Fame, 
Destructive Malice Triumphs in her Smiles, 

Stabs home as Death and Sure as Would kills
Livia—for Sly Invention next to none,
By blaming other's Fictions rents her own:
By feigning to oppose she forms a Lie,
And hides her Malice in Hypocrisy.
Late at a Ball, where Livia constant is,
Her Charms Successfull, young Amanda tries;
Fairer than Blossoms of the Month of May,
Less fresh the Rose, nor Phillis self so Gay.
Steps so engaging, moves with Such a Grace;
Such cheerfull Sweetness Smiling in her Face,
With Wonder & Delight she fills the Plaee.
Each Youth with warm Desire, devours her Charms,
And thinks her clasp'd already in his Arms,
Each Eye with Greediness the Fair Surveys,
Nor ought is heard but in Amanda's Praise.

This Livia saw, and heard with Envy Straight, 
She, turning speaks her well disembl'd Spite, 
Yes (Livia cries) the Damsel Dances well, 
Her Mein is gracefull, and her Air Genteel: 
And is (I dare say) Chast; tho' comon Fame 
(Which seldom utters Truth delights in Blame) 

Censures her Intimacy with my Lord
Yon vicious powder'd Beau, with Ribbond Sword 
Enough, she gains her Point; thro' all the Throng 
The Scandal Spreads, improves on ev'ry Tongue, 
Who is the charming Fair, if any ask, 
'Tis answer'd Straight, a Sister of the Mask. 
Such are the Rest, and thus the Dames agree 
To load each absent Fair with Lifamy. 
Each Virtuous She, that dares these Belles outshine 
Falls a Sure Victim to their Goddess Spleen. 
Nor Hope, Thomasia, Justice from the Fair 
One Word in Virtue's Praise, is Treason there, 
'Tis so like Truth; nor blame, dear injur'd Maid, 
Of Spite or Calumny, the needfull Trade. 

The ninth Comand [were Moses Law in force] 
Would Stop their Breaths, or Murder their Discourse, 
Wits' Stocks would fall, Spoil many a pretty Tale, 
And hated Dumbness on the Sex entail, 
And wer't not pity Maura should be mute? 
Or Amia's pretty prating Mouth be shut? 
What nothing but the Truth? What then's become 
Of Gratia? she must Lie or else be Dumb. 

Be Dumb! she'll ne'er consent, she'll sooner Die, 
Or wear her Painted Callicoe awry, 
Than with that ninth Old-Fashiond Law comply, 
And loose her dear lov'd Volubility." 

A Brief Tea Timeline From China to Boston 12/16/1773 & 1776

 Tea Time Line

 Beatrice Hohenegger tells us about tea in her 2007 book Liquid Jade, The Story of Tea from East To West

BC 2732  Shen Nung, the second of China’s mythical emperors is said to have encountered the tea plant and to have discovered the use of tea. 

AD 520 Bodhidarma, a Buddhist priest from India, is said to have visited the Emperor of China.  Credited as China’s patriarch of Buddhism, Bodhidarma’s life is clad with legend, particularly related to long periods of meditation.  Portrayed without eyelids, he is said to have cut them out and cast them to the ground, at which point a tea bush appeared.  The story commemorates the importance of tea in wakefulness, and images of an unblinking Bodhidarma tie tea and zen together.  

780 Lu Yu, the Tea Sage, authored Ch’a-ching (The Classic of Tea), thought to be the first significant treatment on tea.  Born in 733, Hupeh Province, China, Lu Yu is said to have grown up in the Dragon Cloud Monastery.  

1502 Death of Murata Shuko (c 1422-1502), who shaped the Japanese tea ceremony as essentially Buddhist, as the way of tea (chado).  With this evolution, Japanese tea moved to simple surroundings and the use of more rustic objects. 

1559 Perhaps the first mention of tea in western literature, by Italian geographer & author Giambattista Ramusio (1485-1557), in Navigazioni et viaggi.  

1582 Rikyu (1522 -1591) consolidated the way of tea with construction of the Taian hut for Japan’s ruler, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598).  

 1587 In early October, Rikyu hosted the great Kitano tea meeting (Kitano dai chakai) through patronage of Hideyoshi.   Followers of tea converged in the Kitano pine grove, where they constructed hundreds of tea huts for temporary use.  In succeeding years, Rikyu’s heirs would come to establish three main schools of tea (Urasenke, Omotesenke, and Mushanokojisenke), each based on principles of wa (harmony), kei (reverence), sei (purity), and jaku (tranquility). 

1610 First apparent importation of tea to Europe.  

1648 French doctor Guy Patin (1601-1672) was critical of a thesis on tea, stating: “One of our doctors who is more celebrated than able, named Morissot, wanting to bestow favor upon that impertinent novelty of the century… has had presented here a thesis on tea.  Everyone disapproved, some of our doctors burned it….”  

1660 Diarist Samuel Pepys (1633-1673) records on 25 September his first taste of tea, ordered at one of the many coffeehouses of London where tea was first served to the English.  Coffeehouses were still new, the first one having just opened ten years prior, and served coffee, tea, and chocolate.  

 1660 Under Charles II, (1630-1685) England established an excise tax of 8 pence on each gallon of tea that was sold.  The tax would eventually be levied on tea leaf, as it was too easy for merchants to manipulate the numbers.  

 1665 Simon Paulli (1603-1680), a German physician, claimed: “As to the virtues they attribute to it (tea), it may be admitted that it does possess them in the Orient, but it loses them in our climate, where it becomes, on the contrary, very dangerous to use.  It hastens the death of those who use it…” 

1667 The English East India Company, having begun importing tea in 1664, gained a monopoly when the English government declared Dutch imports illegal.  

1670 Thomas Garaway (1632-1704). opened a shop where tea was served until its closing two hundred years later.  Garaway had actively advertised and promoted tea for a decade, stating “that the Vertues and Excellencies of this Leaf and Drink are many and great is evident and manifest by the high esteem and use of it … among the Physitians and knowing men in France, Italy, Holland and other parts of Christendom.”  

1683 Dutchman, Cornelius Decker (aka Dr. Bontekoe) ((1648-1685) commented: “It must be a considerable and obstinate fever that cannot be cured by drinking every day forty to fifty cups of tea..”  

1717 Having opened Tom’s Coffee house in 1706, Thomas Twining (1675-1741) followed that success in opening the Golden Lyon, the first real English tea shop.  Women were welcome at Golden Lyon, and by 1725 Quaker Mary Tuke became the first woman licensed to merchandise tea.  

1773 On the evening of 16 December, American colonists boarded the ships Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver, which were docked at the harbor in Boston, and threw 120,000 lbs of tea into the bay.  

January 1774 London learns of the destruction of the tea, and of other American protests

March 1774 Parliament passes the first of the so-called Coerciver Acts, the Boston Port Act, which closes the port of Boston until the town makes restitution for the tea

May 1774 Parliament passes two more laws for restoring order in Massachusetts. These laws limit town meetings, put the provincial council under royal appointments, and allow British civil officers accused of capital crimes to move their trials to other jurisdictions

1 June 1774 The Boston Port Act takes effect, and Governor Thomas Hutchinson departs for England, never to return. His replacement is General Thomas Gage, a military commander

Summer 1774 Massachusetts protesters resist the Coercive Acts by disrupting local courts and forcing councillors to resign their seats

September to October 1774 The First Continental Congress meets, declares opposition to the Coercive Acts, and calls for boycotts of British goods and an embargo on exports to Great Britain

February 1775 Parliament declares Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. Governor Gage will later receive orders to enforce the Coercive Acts and suppress the uprising

19 April 1775 British regular troops and Massachusetts militiamen exchange fire at Lexington and Concord. In response, armed New Englanders surround the British fortifications at Boston

March 1776 American forces take Dorchester Heights and the British evacuate Boston

July 1776 The Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence of the United States

American Botanist Frances Montresor Buchanan Allen Penniman (1760-1834)

 

Frances “Fanny” Montresor Allen 

Frances “Fanny” Montresor Allen (1760-1834) is believed to be the illegitimate daughter of British officer John Montresor & Anna Schoolcraft, Fanny was born in 1760. Fanny’s mother died while she was still young, & was then adopted by Anna’s sister, Margaret Schoolcraft Brush. In 1784, at the age of 24, Fanny married Ethan Allen, who was then almost twice her age. Fanny Allen went on to become a notable botanist in the state of Vermont, many specimens of which are preserved at the University of Vermont.

Penniman was famous for her skill in gardening & her garden was stocked with a rare variety of plants & shrubs. And it was here that two herbaria were made by Mrs. Penniman & her youngest daughter Adelia, who was born in 1800. The region around the High Bridge was discovered by a Massachusetts botanist, who botanized the west side of the state in 1829, to be "a remarkable region, rich in rare & interesting plants." 

A part of this "remarkable region" was comprised in the Penniman farm, & here, in 1814, the mother/daughter botanists found & preserved their specimens. They doubtless followed the windings of the river in both directions & are known to have gone often through the woods then on the site of the Fort in their search for wild flowers. Not satisfied with the pressed flowers in the herbarium, they carried home the plants from their native haunts & cultivated & improved them in the home garden. Botany was said to be Mrs. Penniman's "favorite amusement." 

It may be that the specimens in these small herbaria were the oldest in the state, for the oldest in the herbaria of the University of Vermont are dated 1819. There were 80 or 90 specimens in each herbarium, although quite a number of cultivated plants are included. Many of the botanical names have long since been changed, & one at least, the ground or moss pink, had not been listed in the Vermont Flora, though reported as a recent "find" from Wallingford & also from Colchester.

These two women were studying the natural sciences at an early period in the young nation. One can appreciate it by considering the state of "female education" at that time. Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1782, had voted "Not to be at any expense for schooling girls," & as late as 1790, in Gloucester, the town decided that "Females are a tender & interesting branch of the community but have been much neglected in the public schools of this town."

Lucy Meriwether Lewis Marks(1752-1837) Virginia Planter & Herbal Doctor

 

Lucy Meriwether Lewis Marks(1752-1837) Virginia Planter & Herbal Doctor 1752 - 1837 Collection of the University of Virginia Art Museum.  Painted by John Toole, 1815-1860.

While she’s often overlooked, Lucy Meriwether Lewis Marks made an indirect but important contribution to the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s outcome. Meriwether Lewis’s mother was a talented and resourceful woman who effectively shaped her son to become an outstanding man capable of leading a group of soldiers across the continent. According to family history, “Lucy was a devoted Christian and full of sympathy for all sickness and trouble.” Her extensive knowledge of herbs, wild plants and their medicinal properties led her to be renowned for her herbal doctoring. And she passed what she knew along to her son. She encouraged young Meriwether’s interest in plants and wildlife and she insisted the young man return to Virginia to receive a more formal education.

Lucy Thornton Meriwether was born in Albemarle County on February 4, 1752.  She was the daughter of Col. Thomas and Elizabeth Thornton Meriwether. Thomas Meriwether's (1714-1756)  home was at “Clover Fields." Thomas continued to purchase land to add to the land gifted to him by his grandfather, until his total land holdings were 9,000 acres spread over several estates.  He married Elizabeth Thornton in 1735 and that same year, “he had 11 slaves, 2 horses, a plow and farm implements, 18 head of cattle and over 100 hogs, sows and pigs on his Totier Creek property. His wife, Elizabeth Thornton (1717-1794). Together, they had 11 children. Following her husband’s death, Elizabeth married Robert Lewis of “Belvoir” who later became Lucy’s father-in-law as well as her step-father.

In 1768 or 1769, when Lucy was either 16 or 17, she married her step-brother and first cousin-once-removed 35 year old William Lewis. William Lewis (1735 - 1779) had grown up in great prosperity as his father owned 21,600 acres in the Albemarle County area as well as an interest in 100,000 acres in Greenbrier County (now West Virginia. Upon his father’s death in 1765, William Lewis inherited “Locust Hill” and 1,896 acres on Ivy Creek (600 of which he later sold) and the slaves to work it. He probably built the house during the 3 years between his inheritance and his marriage.William Lewis was a lieutenant in the Virginia militia and served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.* Thus, like many of the men in Lucy’s family, he was away from home for long periods, leaving Lucy to manage his plantation of over 1,600 acres. William Lewis died in the autumn of 1779. On his way home from army duty, he crossed the Rivanna River when it was in flood and his horse was swept away and drowned. He swam ashore and managed to get to “Clover Fields”, the Meriwether family home, but as a result of the ordeal, he came down with a bad chill and died of pneumonia. He was buried at “Clover Fields.”

Within six months after her husband’s death, Lucy Meriwether Lewis married Capt. John Marks (1740 – 1791) on May 13, 1780. A number of planters from Albemarle County, including John Marks, Francis Meriwether, Benjamin Taliaferro and Thomas Gilmer immigrated to land along the Broad River in Wilkes County, Georgia in 1784. In 1791, John Marks died of causes unknown, and Lucy became a widow for the 2nd time. She was 39 years old decided to return to “Locust Hill.”

Lucy was locally famous as a “yarb” or herb doctor. Lucy’s type of doctoring was called “Empiric” and based on practical experience. She was folk practitioner – a job often filled by women.  She traveled throughout Albemarle County by horseback caring for the sick well into her early eighties. Perhaps she learned medicine from her father, also known as a healer, and her brother Francis, who was a “Regular” or formally-trained doctor. Lucy may have grown medicinal plants in her garden at “Locust Hill” and collected them in the wild as well. 

Her famous son, Meriwether Lewis, relied on the skills he had learned from his mother when he treated himself and others on the Lewis and Clark expedition. Her son John attended medical school. Some accounts also refer to her son Reuben as a doctor, though it is likely that he was “yarb” doctor like Lucy rather than a “regular” doctor like his brother John. Lucy remained active in her doctoring into her eighties, according to family accounts, even in old age, she continued to ride on horseback around the countryside visiting the sick, both slave and free.

South Carolina's Martha Laurens Ramsay (1759-1811) - Early exemplar for Republican Motherhood who loved Botany & The Bible

Martha Laurens (daughter of Henry and Eleanor Laurens). John Wollaston c 1767

Martha Laurens Ramsay (1759-1811), South Carolina gentry wife & mother & exemplar of dutiful womanhood, was born in Charleston.  Her posthumous memoir, edited & expanded by her husband, was published in 1812, as a model for American women, especially mothers, in the 19C.  A perfect guide for Republican Motherhood.

Her father, Henry Laurens, was of French Huguenot descent, the grandson of Andre’ Laurens, a saddler, who had arrived in Carolina during the 1690’s.  Her mother was Eleanor Ball, daughter of Elias Ball, a planter, who had come from Devonshire, England.  Active in the rice & slave trades after 1747, Henry Laurens had accumulated one of the largest Carolina fortunes by 1762, when he turned planter, buying plantations totaling some 20,000 acres & preparing to live off his wealth invested in land & slaves. Martha was the 5th daughter & the 8th of his 13 children.  As a child Martha Laurens demonstrated great eagerness for learning. She could read easily at age 3 & soon learned French, English grammar, geography, arithmetic, & some geometry.  Her father approved of her studious habits but cautioned her that a knowledge of housewifery was the 1st requisite in female education.  In her 12th year she “began to be the subject of serious religious impressions.”

By the time of their mother’s death in 1770, however, only 5 children survived.  Martha herself, it is said, was thought to have succumbed to smallpox as a baby & had been laid out for burial when an ocean breeze revived her. After her mother’s death, her upbringing fell largely to her aunt & uncle, Mary & James Laurens.  Left in their care in 1771, along with a younger sister, when her father took her brothers abroad for schooling, she lived with them for 11 years, at first in Charleston, & then abroad, where James Laurens had gone for his health.  They spent several years in England, from 1775 to 1778, & then went to live at Vigan in the south of France.  Much of this time Martha served as nurse for her ailing uncle.

She continued an earnest course of reading. She studied botany. She studied religion as she dipped into the Archbishop of Cambray’s Dissertation on Pure Love; committed most of Edward Young’s Night Thoughts to memory; & learned to sing Dr. Isaac Watts’ “divine songs” by heart. First came the Bible & then the old divines of the 17C & 18C, especially Philip Doddridge; in divinity, her husband later wrote approvingly, she read “much of what was practical, but rarely looked into any thing that was controversial.”  Of historians she knew Plutarch, Charles Rollin, & William Robertson; of philosophy, not more that Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding.  She read the modern English & French works of genius, taste, & imagination.  Education & religion remained her twin concerns, for when her uncle willed her 500 guineas, she provided for the distribution of Bibles to the people of Vigan & then set up a school for the young there, which she endowed with a teacher.

In the fall of 1782, to her great joy, her father joined them in France, after his service as president of the Continental Congress, diplomat, & prisoner of war.  Though reluctant to leave her dying uncle, she considered at this point marrying a French suitor (a M. de Vernes), but her father thought him an aged fortune hunter, & in obedience she gave up the match.  She spent most of 1783 & 1784 with her father, who hoped to cure his gout at Bath.  Laurens sailed home in the summer of 1784; Martha & her sister followed early in 1785.

Her father’s ill health brought Martha in touch with the Charleston physician David Rumsay (1749-1815), a former member of the Continental Congress; & on Jan. 23, 1787, she became his 3rd wife.  Her father would have approved. With her husband in the state legislature, her sister married to another public figure, Charles Pinckney, & her brother Henry to a daughter of John Rutledge, Martha Ramsay lived in the center of public affairs.  It was, however, in the private sphere that she excelled.  She believed that a woman’s proper role was to provide strength for the man in her life to perform on that public stage.

In 16 years, she bore her husband 11 children, Eleanor Henry Laurens (1787), Martha H.L. (1789), Frances H.L. (1790), Katharine H.L. (1792), Sabine Elliot (1794, who became the 2nd wife of her 1st cousin Henry Laurens Pinckney), David (1795), Jane Montgomery (1796), James (1797), a 2nd Jane Montgomery (1802).  A letter of 1797 to his wife gives David Ramsay’s view of childbearing assuring her that one couple in his neighborhood had 23 children all alive.  “This I fear is beyond our mark.  May God bless these he has given us & as many more as he in his kind providence pleases & also give you strength & health to bring them up which if done by you I am sure will be well done.” Eight of her 11 children survived childhood.

Martha Ramsay had read Rousseau of the care of the young, but she preferred the teachings of Locke & the Presbyterian divine Dr. John Witherspoon, combined with “the prudent use of the rod.”  She taught herself Latin & Greek, so that she could educate her sons, whom she prepared for college.  She home-schooled her female children & “carried her daughters at home through the several studies taught in boarding schools.”  Her children learned to read their Bibles in conjunction with Mrs. Sarah Trimmer’s prints of scripture history; Watts’ short view of the whole scripture history; & later Newton on the prophecies.

Mrs. Ramsay had grown up in the Church of England, of which her father was an active communicant.  Her private “covenant with God,” 1st made at the age of 14, she renewed many times.  All of her children, with one exception, received baptism publicly.  Her deep commitment to religion was important, but it was not a commitment to any one denomination.  A quotation appended to her memoirs by David Ramsay reflects the views of husband & wife:  “The experimental part of religion has generally a greater influence than its theory.”  Through persons such as the countess of Huntingdon, whom she knew, & other figures in England’s evangelical revival, she adopted evangelical views; & through the influence of the Charleston ministers William Hollinshead & Isaac Stockton Keith, she became & remained a member of the Congregation Church.  But her religion was always “the warm, vital, active, unaffected religion of the Bible.”  She died in Charleston in 1811, at the age of 51, & was buried in the Congregational churchyard there.

Her historical importance rests primarily upon her husband’s publishing her brief memoirs as the Memories of the Life of Martha Laurens Ramsay.  They were published the year after her death, sold widely, & portrayed her as a model of proper womanhood in a new & growing nation.  She had read Mary Wollstonecraft’s fiery Vindication of the Rights of Woman, but “in conformity to the positive declarations of holy writ” she “yielded all pretensions” to equality with men.  Her highest ambition was to embody Christianity's ideals through all crises, including death, a conviction that characterized her entire approach to life, domestic & political.

Memoirs of the life of Martha Laurens Ramsay, who died in Charleston, S. C., on the 10th of June, 1811... With an appendix, containing extracts from her diary, letters, and other private papers. And also from letters written to her, by her father, Henry Laurens, 1771-1776

by Ramsay, Martha Laurens, 1759-1811; Ramsay, David, 1749-1815; Laurens, Henry, 1724-1792

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

Also see:
Gillespie, Joanna Bowen. The Life and Times of Martha Laurens Ramsay, 1759-1811. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001.

Gillespie, Joanna Bowen. "1795: Martha Laurens Ramsay's "Dark Night of the Soul" The William and Mary Quarterly Third Series, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Jan., 1991), pp. 68-92 Published by: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture

Gillespie, Joanna Bowen. "Many Gracious Providences: The Religious Cosmos of Martha Laurens Ramsay".(1759-1811). Colby Library Quarterly XXV (Sp. Issue: Women & Religion #3, September 1989, 199-212.

Middleton, Margaret Simons . "David and Martha Laurens Ramsay" Carlton Press, 1971.

Lucy Sheldon Beach 1788-1889 & taught Botany & Landscape Art at Litchfield Academy

Lucy Sheldon Beach 1788-1889  by Anson Dickinson (1779-1852) 1831

Lucy Sheldon Beach, daughter of Daniel & Huldah Stone Sheldon of Litchfield, Connecticut, was born June 27, 1788. From 1801 until 1803, Lucy was educated at the Litchfield Female Academy. In 1832 she married Theron Beach (1785-1864), a physician, as his second wife. None of their children survived. At some point in the mid-1800s, Elizbeth Prince Child, Lucy's first cousin once removed (Elizabeth was the granddaughter of Lucy's aunt Dothe Stone Cutler (1756-1805), moved in with her. She inherited her father's house on North Street (now called the Sheldon House) living there for her entire adult life. Lucy passed away on April 7, 1889 at the age of 100 years.

Litchfield Student Rebecca Couch Mrs James C. Denison 1788-1863 View of Litchfield 1805

At the Litchfield Academy, Sarah Pierce experimented with innovative ways to unite the academic & ornamental subjects. Students drew & painted maps & made charts of historical events to reinforce geography & history lessons.  Students also illustrated poetry, literature, & mythological & biblical readings with elaborate embroideries & detailed watercolor paintings. Botany & natural history lessons often were illustrated with watercolor drawings.

Although primarily interested in a strong academic curriculum, Sarah Pierce knew that teaching the ornamental subjects was critical to the success of her school. In the 18th century, most wealthy parents were willing to invest in a son’s education because it increased his chances of pursuing a profitable career. For young women the ability of their families to pay the high cost of an education became a symbol of wealth. The decorative paintings & needleworks made by the girls at female academies were hung in formal parlors as proof of family prosperity. Learning dancing, music, foreign languages, art & other ornamental subjects was also important for those students who wanted to become teachers or start their own academies, as no school for young women would be successful without them.

Hop Picking by Litchfield Student Lucy Sheldon Beach

The Sailor Boy by Litchfield Student Lucy Sheldon Beach

Litchfield Student Rebecca Couch Mrs James C. Denison 1788-1863 Connecticut House

Litchfield Student Rebecca Couch Mrs James C. Denison 1788-1863  Flora 1803

Litchfield Student Orra Sophronia Sears Mrs. Edwin Cooke (1798-1872) View of Earl of Burlington's House at Chiswick 1816

Lucy Sheldon Beach 1875

John Warner Barber (1798-1885) Litchfield South East View from Chestnut Hill from Connecticut Historical Collections. 1837

See:

"Beach, Lucy Sheldon (Mrs. Theron) 1802-1803 Journal" (Archives, Litchfield Historical Society).

1802 Litchfield Female Academy Catalog (Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes. Chronicles of A Pioneer School From 1792 To 1833. Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1903).

South Carolina Gardener, Botanist, & Agriculturalist Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793)

South Carolina's Eliza Lucas Pinckney's (1722-1793) observations of & contributions to botany & gardening & agriculture in South Carolina were immense. And the insights from her letters & memoranda into the life of an educated colonial woman in 18CAmerica are revealing.

Eliza Lucas Pinckney (c 1722-1793) was born into privilege on the Caribbean island of Antigua, where her British military officer father was stationed. Her parents sent her back to England for a proper education, before they sailed to their new home in South Carolina. Ironically, as a teen-ager she would manage her father's plantation, while he was away in the military; and, years later, she would manage her husband's plantation after his death.

When Eliza was 16, her father, seeking a healthier climate for his ailing wife, brought the mother & their two daughters to a plantation, which he had inherited on Wappoo Creek in South Carolina, near Charleston, in 1738.

When the growing conflict between England & Spain, called the War of Jenkins’ Ear, forced him to return to his military post in Antigua in 1739, the management of Wappoo, and of her father's 2 other plantations in the Carolina low country, fell to Eliza.

When Europeans colonized North America, they immediately started trying to grow crops of economic importance. Indigo is one of the 1st plants the British attempted to grow when they got to North America. They tried growing it in Jamestown, the Dutch tried it in New Amsterdam( New York City). The French had some success in Louisiana, but nobody had much luck until Eliza Lucas came along.

In the 1730s, 16-year-old Eliza Lucas, whose father was lieutenant governor of Antigua & who had an interest in botany, was put in charge of 3 of her father's South Carolina plantations. Her father sent her seeds from Antigua, & indigo seemed to Eliza to have the most promise. 

At age 16, Eliza Lucas Pinckney became manager of her father’s 3 plantations, took care of her younger sister, & her dying mother. We have many details of Eliza's life & hopes; because when she was 18, Eliza began keeping her letters & memoranda from 1740 until 1762. Her letterbook is one of the largest surviving collections of letters of a colonial woman. Her rich letters reveal her quick-witted perseverance & grit, as she forged an unique life for herself & plotted a new path for agriculture in South Carolina.

When she was 18, Eliza wrote of her new situation to a friend in England, on May 2, 1740. "I like this part of the world, as my lott has fallen here... I prefer England to it, ’tis true, but think Carolina greatly preferable to the West Indias, and was my Papa here I should be very happy...

Charles Town, the principal one in this province, is a polite, agreeable place. The people live very Gentile and very much in the English taste. The Country is in General fertile and abounds with Venison and wild fowl...

My Papa and Mama’s great indulgence to me leaves it to me to chose our place of residence either in town or Country, but I think it more prudent as well as most agreeable to my Mama and self to be in the Country during my Father’s absence. We are 17 mile by land and 6 by water from Charles Town where we have about 6 agreeable families around us with whom we live in great harmony.

I have a little library well furnished (for my papa has left me most of his books) in which I spend part of my time. My Musick and the Garden, which I am very fond of, take up the rest of my time that is not imployed in business, of which my father has left me a pretty good share and indeed, ’twas inavoidable as my Mama’s bad state of health prevents her going through any fatigue.

I have the business of 3 plantations to transact, which requires much writing and more business and fatigue of other sorts than you can imagine. But least you should imagine it too burthensom to a girl at my early time of life, give me leave to answer you: I assure you I think myself happy that I can be useful to so good a father, and by rising very early I find I can go through much business."

The teenager brought her infectuous love of learning with her to Wappoo. She reveled in music & could “tumble over one little tune” on the flute. She quoted Milton, read Richardson’s Pamela, & spoke French. She enjoyed reading John Locke, Virgil's Plutarch, & Thomas Wood. But, her favorite subject was botany.

She tutored her sister Polly & “two black girls,” whom she envisioned making “school mistress’s for the rest of the Negroe children,” if her father approved. In 1741, she recorded sighting a comet whose appearance Sir Isaac Newton had predicted. Eliza enjoyed brief social visits in Charleston, but devoted most of her energy to her family & to plotting the success of the plantation.

In July of 1740, she wrote a memorandum, "Wrote my Father a very long letter on his plantation affairs and... On the pains I had taken to bring the Indigo, Ginger, Cotton and Lucerne and Casada to perfection, and had greater hopes from the Indigo (if I could have the seed earlier next year from the West India’s) than any of the rest of the things I had tryd."

Eliza recognized that the growing textile manufacturing industry was creating a worldwide market for good dyes. In 1739, she began cultivating & creating new strains of the indigo plant from which blue dye could be made. She introduced the successful cultivation of the plant indigo used in making dye to the American colonies.

While she was forging ahead in her agricultural experiments, she worried about her father as she wrote in 1740, to him in Antigua, where he remained on military duty, "I want of words to Express the concern we are under at not hearing from you. The dangerous situation you are in terrifies us beyond expression and is increased by the fearful apprehensions of [your] being ordered to some place of immediate danger. . . I know how ready you are to fight in a just cause as well as the love you bear your Country in preference to every other regard..."

She continued to look for ways to make a profit from the family's plantations. On April 23, 1741, she wrote a memorandum, "Wrote to my Father informing him of the loss of a Negroe man also the boat being overset in Santilina Sound and 20 barrels of Rice lost. Told him of our making a new garden and all conveniences we can to receive him when we are so happy to see him. Also about Starrat and pitch and Tarr."

In June of 1741, she finally heard from her father after 6 months without any letters, and she wrote him in return, "Never were letters more welcome than yours...We expect the boat dayly from Garden Hill [plantation] when I shall be able to give you an account of affairs there. The Cotton, Guiney corn, and most of the Ginger planted here was cutt off by a frost.

"I wrote you in a former letter we had a fine Crop of Indigo Seed upon the ground, and since informed you the frost took it before it was dry. I picked out the best of it and had it planted but there is not more than a hundred bushes of is come up - which proves the more unluckey as you have sent a man to make it. I make no doubt Indigo will prove a very valuable Commodity in time if we could have the seed from the west Indias in time enough to plant the latter end of March, that the seed might be dry enough to gather before our frost. I am sorry we lost this season. We can do nothing towards it now but make the works ready for next year."

"Eliza hoped a fine grade of blue indigo grown in Carolina could be prepared into dye cakes for cloth manufacturers in England. The market for South Carolina rice had dwindled with the war, and indigo could be bought from South Carolina instead of the French Carribean islands, if she was successful at introducing a 2nd staple crop to the colony."

“I was ignorant both at the proper season for sowing it [indigo] and the soil best adapted to it”, Eliza wrote. Yet it was her perseverance which brought to success experiments in growing this crop which had been tried & discarded near Charleston some 70 years earlier.

Knowing how complex was the process of producing the dye from the fresh-cut plants, Colonel Lucas sent an experienced indigo maker from the French island on Montserrat in the summer of 1741. Optimistically, Eliza wrote her father that October “informing him we made 20 weight of Indigo….’Tis not quite dry or I should have sent him some. Now desire he will send us a hundred weight of seed to plant in the spring.”

At the age of 19, in September of 1741, Eliza noted that she, "Wrote to my father on plantation business and concerning a planter’s importing Negroes for his own use. Colo. Pinckney thinks not, but thinks it was proposed in the Assembly and rejected. He promised to look over the Act and let me know. Also informed my father of the alteration ’tis soposed there will be in the value of our money- occasioned by a late Act of Parliament that Extends to all America - which is to dissolve all private banks, I think by the 30th of last month, or be liable to lose their Estates, and put themselves out of the King’s protection. Informed him of the Tyranical Government at Georgia."

A month later, she recorded, October 14, 1741, "Wrote to my father informing him we made 20 w[eight] of Indigo and expected 10 more. ’Tis not quite dry or I should have sent him some. Now desire he will send us a hundred weight of seed to plant in the spring."

In April of the next year, she wrote to her friend in England, about her daily routine, "In general then I rise at five o’Clock in the morning, read till Seven, then take a walk in the garden or field, see that the Servants [slaves] are at their respective business, then to breakfast. The first hour after breakfast is spent at my musick, the next is constantly employed in recolecting something I have learned least for want of practise it should be quite lost, such as French and short hand. After that I devote the rest of the time till I dress for dinner to our little Polly and two black girls who I teach to read...

"But to proceed, the first hour after dinner as the first after breakfast at musick, the rest of the afternoon in Needle work till candle light, and from that time to bed time read or write. . . . Mondays my musick Master is here. Tuesdays my friend Mrs. Chardon (about 3 miles distant) and I are constantly engaged to each other, she at our house one Tuesday⎯ I at hers the next and this is one of the happiest days I spend at Woppoe. Thursday the whole day except what the necessary affairs of the family take up is spent in writing, either on the business of the plantations, or letters to my friends. Every other Fryday, if no company, we go a vizeting so that I go abroad once a week and no oftener..."

She wrote to her friend again in May of 1742, "Wont you laugh at me if I tell you I am so busey in providing for Posterity I hardly allow my self time to Eat or sleep and can but just snatch a minnet to write you and a friend or two now. I am making a large plantation of Oaks which I look upon as my own property, whether my father gives me the land or not; and therefore I design many years hence when oaks are more valueable than they are now -- which you know they will be when we come to build fleets. I intend, I say 2 thirds of the produce of my oaks for a charity (I'll let you know my scheme another time) and the other 3rd for those that shall have the trouble of putting my design in Execution. I sopose according to custom you will show this to your Uncle and Aunt. 'She is [a] good girl,' says Mrs. Pinckney. 'She is never Idle and always means well.' 'Tell the little Visionary,' says your Uncle, 'come to town and partake of some of the amusements suitable to her time of life.' Pray tell him I think these so, and what he may now think whims and projects may turn out well by and by. Out of many surely one may hitt..."

The 1744 indigo crop did, indeed, "hitt" & was a success. Six pounds from Wappoo were sent to England and “found better than the French Indigo.” Seed from this crop was distributed to many Carolina planters, who soon were profiting from Carolina's new staple export product.

Inidgo Production in South Carolina. William DeBrahm, A Map of South Carolina and a Part of Georgia. . . London, published by Thomas Jeffreys, 1757.

On May 27, 1744, Eliza Lucas married attorney Charles Pinckney, a childless widower more than 20 years her senior. Pinckney built a house on Charleston’s waterfront for his bride. And at his plantation on the Cooper River, Eliza initialized the culture of silkworms to establish a “silk manufacture.”

She married Charles Pinkney who wrote down the instructions for how to grow & process indigo, & after a while they made enough seed to hand out to the neighbors, which started an indigo bonanza in the Southern colonies. By 1746, Carolina planters shipped almost 40,000 pounds of indigo to England; the next year the total exported was almost 100,000 pounds. Indigo sales sustained the Carolina economy for 3 decades, until the Revolution cut off trade with England.

Eliza & Charles Pinckney had 4 children within 5 years. Eliza wanted “to be a good Mother to my children…to instill piety, Virtue and true religion into them; to correct their Errors whatever uneasiness it may give myself….”

Charles Pinckney's appointment as commissioner for the colony in London took the family in April of 1753, to England, where they had intended to live, until their sons finished their education. When war with France broke out, Eliza & her husband returned in May of 1758, to Carolina, leaving the boys at school.

Pinckney contracted malaria & died in July of that year. Again Eliza turned to plantation business as she directed her husband’s 7 separate land holdings in the Carolina low country.  

Eliza wrote this letter to the headmaster of her son's school in England, "This informs you of the greatest misfortune that could have happened to me and my dear children on this side Eternity! I am to tell you, hard as the task is, that my dear, dear Mr. Pinckney, the best of men, of husbands and of fathers, is no more!

"Comfort, good Sir, Comfort the tender hearts of my dear children. God Almighty bless them, and if he has any more blessings for me in this world may He give it me in them and their sister.

"The inclosed letter for the dear boys be so good to give them when you think it a proper time. What anguish do I and shall I feel for my poor Infants when they hear the most afflicting sound that could ever reach them!"

By 1760, Eliza was once again fully engaged in managing a plantation, "I find it requires great care, attention and activity to attend properly to a Carolina Estate, tho’ but a moderate one, to do ones duty and make it turn to account, that I find I have as much business as I can go through of one sort or other. Perhaps ’tis better for me, and I believe it is. Had there not been a necessity for it, I might have sunk to the grave by this time in that Lethargy of stupidity which had seized me after my mind had been violently agitated by the greatest shock it ever felt. But a variety of imployment gives my thoughts a relief from melloncholy subjects, tho’ ’tis but a temporary one, and gives me air and exercise, which I believe I should not have had resolution enough to take if I had not been roused to it by motives of duty and parental affection."

Eliza recorded her last letter in her letterbook in 1762. She wrote, "I love a Garden and a book; and they are all my amusement except I include one of the greatest Businesses of my life (my attention to my dear little girl) under that article. For a pleasure it certainly is &c. especially to a mind so tractable and a temper so sweet as hers. For, I thank God, I have an excellent soil to work upon, and by the Divine Grace hope the fruit will be answerable to my indeavours in the cultivation."

The American colonies winning their independence ended many indigo exports to the British market, as England turned its attention to India for its indigo needs. Pinckney spent 30 years, after her husband's death, overseeing their plantations & helping her family. She invested monies she earned from exporting indigo into her children’s education. 

Both of her sons became involved with the new nation. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746-1852) signed the United States Constitution, and Thomas Pinckney (1750-1828) served as South Carolina Governor & as Minister to Spain & Great Britain.

In her later years, Eliza lived with her widowed daughter Harriet at Daniel Huger Horry's estate, Hampton Plantation near Georgetown (which is one of my favorite towns in all of South Carolina). Eliza died of cancer on May 26, 1793, in Philadelphia, where she had gone for treatment. At her funeral, President George Washington, then presiding over the United States government in Philadelphia, served as one of her pallbearers.