Category: Famous Wives
Famous Wives, Poets and Writers

Annis Boudinot Stockton

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Poet and Wife of Declaration Signer Richard Stockton Annis Boudinot was born July 1, 1736, in Darby, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Williams and Elias Boudinot, merchant and silversmith, who later moved his family to Princeton, New Jersey. She was their eldest daughter and the second of ten children, though the first to be born in North America (her parents had just returned from Antigua where her father had run a plantation). The Boudinot family settled in Princeton, New Jersey. There Annis was exposed to the intellectual and social circles of the area, and her parents gave her a good education. She became particularly interested in poetry, an unusual pastime for a woman of that time, and published her first poem at…

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Famous Wives, First Ladies

Martha Jefferson

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Wife of President Thomas Jefferson Martha Wayles was born at The Forest in Charles City County – near Williamsburg, Virginia – on October 30, 1748. Her parents were John Wayles and his first wife Martha (Patsy) Eppes, wealthy plantation owners. Martha’s mother was the daughter of Francis Eppes of Bermuda Hundred, a huge Virginia plantation. Patsy died when her daughter Martha was only three weeks old. No record of her early years exist but in light of her father’s wealth and prominence, Martha Wayles was likely educated at home by traveling tutors in literature, poetry, French, and Bible study; she likely received considerable training in music. Certainly a young woman of her region, era, and wealth would also be trained…

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Famous Mothers, Famous Wives, Feminists, First Ladies

Abigail Adams

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First Lady and Wife of Founding Father John Adams Abigail Adams (1744-1818) was the wife of President John Adams, the mother of President John Quincy Adams, and the second First Lady of the United States. As the Second Continental Congress drafted and debated the Declaration of Independence, Abigail began to urge John in her letters that the creation of a new form of government was an opportunity to make the legal status of women equal to that of men. The text of those letters became some of the earliest known writings advocating women’s rights. Young Abigail Adams Abigail Smith was born on November 11, 1744, at Weymouth, Massachusetts to the Reverend William and Elizabeth Smith. On her mother’s side, she…

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Famous Wives

Rebecca Sherman

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Wife of Declaration of Independence Signer Roger Sherman Roger Sherman Portrait by Ralph Earle Sherman did not pose for Earle – he was incapable of “posing” for anyone – he quite literally “sat” for him, and the result is one of the most striking portraits of the age. Rebecca Minot Prescott (1742 – 1813) was born in 1742. She was the daughter of Benjamin and Rebecca Minot Prescott from Salem, Massachusetts, and the niece of Roger Sherman’s brother, Reverend Josiah Sherman. Roger Sherman was born at Newton, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1721, to a poor farming family. In 1723, he moved with his parents to what was then a frontier town, Stoughton, which was seventeen miles south of Boston. Roger’s…

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Famous Wives

Mary Morris

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Wife of Declaration of Independence Signer Lewis Morris Lewis and Mary Walton Morris Mary Walton came from a notable family of New York merchants. Her father was Jacob Walton who had married Maria Beekman, daughter of Dr. Gerardus Beekman. With his brother William, Jacob carried on the business that had been founded by their father. Lewis Morris, the third Morris to be named Lewis, was born in New York in 1726, the eldest son of Lewis and Catherine (Staats) Morris. His father was the second lord of the vast manor of Morrisania. His great grandfather, Richard Morris, had purchased the first tract of land in southwest Bronx that became the basis for the Morrisania manor. Upon graduating from Yale College…

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Famous Wives

Sarah Clark

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Wife of Declaration of Independence Signer Abraham Clark Abraham Clark and his signature on the Declaration of Independence Sarah Hatfield was born in 1728, the eldest daughter of Isaac and Sarah Price Hatfield, a farming family in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Abraham Clark was born February 15, 1725, and in his boyhood, he was too frail for farm work. His father, Thomas Clark, realized that Abraham had a natural gift for mathematics, so he hired a tutor to teach Abraham the profession of surveying. Clark’s love of study, and the generosity of his character, naturally made him popular – his opinion was valued, and often sought. He was called to fill various offices, the duties of which rendered himself highly useful…

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Famous Wives

Eleanor Armor Smith

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Wife of Declaration of Independence Signer James Smith Eleanor Armor of Newcastle, Delaware, was born in 1729. She was described as “a young woman of many accomplishments and good family connection.” James Smith was born in Ireland, the second son in a large family, most likely in 1719, and came to Pennsylvania as a boy of ten or twelve years of age. His family settled in York County, Pennsylvania, on acreage west of the Susquehanna River. His father was a successful farmer, and James received a good education at Reverend Francis Alison’s academy in New London, PA, where he learned Greek, Latin, and mathematics, including land surveying. He later studied law at the office of his older brother George, in…

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Famous Wives

Anne Morton

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John Morton Wife of Signer of the Declaration of Independence John Morton Anne Justis was born in 1730 in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, a neighborhood in the southwestern section of Philadelphia. She was the daughter of Morton Justis and Brita Walraven Justis, Swedish immigrants. John Morton was born in 1724 in Chester County, Pennsylvania, on a farm in Ridley Township. They were neighbors in the farmland of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, both of Swedish extraction, whose ancestors immigrated to the lower counties of Pennsylvania at the opening of the eighteenth century. John’s father died a few months before his birth. When John was about seven years old, his mother his mother married an Englishman, John Sketchley. His stepfather was an intelligent and gifted…

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Famous Wives

Elizabeth Montgomery Witherspoon

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Wife of Signer John Witherspoon Image: John Witherspoon John Witherspoon was born on February 5, 1722, at the village of Gifford, near Edinburgh, Scotland. The males in his family were all clergymen, and he was trained to become a Presbyterian minister. At the age of four, he could read the Bible. He attended grammar school at the neighboring town of Haddington. At age 13, he entered college, and earned Master of Arts (1739) and Doctorate of Divinity (1743) degrees from the University of Edinburgh. In 1743, the Haddington Presbytery licensed him to preach, and he was ordained two years later at Beith, Ayrshire, as a Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) minister. He occupied that pulpit until 1757, and there he met…

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Famous Wives

Deborah Hart

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John Hart Wife of Declaration of Independence Signer John Hart Deborah Scudder was the only child of Richard Scudder from Scudder Falls, and she had a distinguished family history, going back almost to the Mayflower. Deborah’s great-grandfather, John Scudder, came to Salem, Massachusetts, on the James in 1635. With his brothers Thomas and Henry, John Scudder moved from there to Southold, Long Island, in 1651, to Huntington in 1657, and to Newtown in 1660, where he was prominent in town affairs. John Hart was born, probably in 1711, in Hopewell Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Edward Hart, John’s father, was a Justice of the Peace, a Public Assessor, and a farmer. He arrived in Hopewell about 1710, at the age…

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