Peggy Shippen Arnold and her daughter
Famous Wives

Peggy Shippen Arnold

• Maggie

Wife of American Traitor General Benedict Arnold Peggy (Margaret) Shippen was born on July 11, 1760, to one of the most prominent families in Philadelphia, which included two Philadelphia mayors and the founder of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Her mother Margaret was the daughter of prominent lawyer Tench Francis and her father Edward Shippen IV was a judge, who tried to remain neutral during the American Revolution, but the family was well-known for their loyalist tendencies, meaning loyal to the British. With the creation of the state of Pennsylvania in 1776, Shippen lost his judgeship and other political offices he had held under the royal government.
Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Daniella Wheeler

• Maggie

Wife of Confederate General Joseph Wheeler After the Battle of Chickamauga (September 1863) CSA General Joseph Wheeler and his troopers were sent into central Tennessee, where they destroyed railroads and at least 500 Union supply wagons. By October 9 Wheeler had safely crossed the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Daniella Jones Sherrod met Wheeler at her parents’ home, Caledonia Plantation, at nearby Courtland, and they began a courtship. Image: The Wheeler Family in 1896 Joseph and Daniella, front center With their four daughters and two sons Daniella Ellen Jones was born on August 20, 1841, daughter of Richard Jones and Lucy Early Jones, who was the daughter of Georgia Governor Peter Early. The Jones family moved from Georgia to…

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Authors, Civil War Women, Feminists

Elizabeth Oakes Smith

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Feminist Author and Women’s Rights Activist Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1806-1893) was a poet, novelist, editor, lecturer and women’s rights activist whose career spanned six decades. Today Smith is best known for her feminist writings, including “Woman and Her Needs,” a series of essays published in the New York Tribune between 1850 and 1851 that argued for women’s equal rights to political and economic opportunities, including the right to vote and access to higher education. Early Years Elizabeth Oakes Prince was born August 12, 1806, near North Yarmouth, Maine, to David and Sophia Blanchard Prince. After her father died at sea in 1808, her family lived with her maternal and paternal grandparents until her mother remarried and moved with her stepfather…

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Famous Wives

Ann Morris

• Maggie

Wife of Founding Father Gouverneur Morris Ann Cary Randolph Morris was one of the loveliest and most sought after young women in Virginia, but she was accused of incest and infanticide, and was exiled from Virginia plantation society. Early Years Ann Cary Randolph was born on September 12, 1774, at Tuckahoe Plantation near Richmond, Virginia. Known to friends and family as Nancy, she was the eighth child of Ann Cary and Thomas Mann Randolph Sr. Following her mother’s death in March 1789 and her father’s subsequent remarriage in September 1790, Nancy went to live with her sister Judith and her husband Richard Randolph at Bizarre, their plantation near Farmville, Virginia, apparently because of differences with her new stepmother who was…

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Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Clara Stone Hay

• Maggie

Wife of John Hay: President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary On the shores of Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, John and Clara Stone Hay sought refuge from public life, and in 1888 they began acquiring abandoned farms that would eventually total nearly 1000 acres. In 1889 John and Clara hired architect George F. Hammond who designed a summerhouse in the style of the time with gambrel roof and a long open porch. They named it The Fells, a British term for a rocky upland pasture, due to his Scottish ancestry. Image: The Fells Estate and Gardens Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire 84 acres and a 22-room Colonial Revival home Construction was completed in 1891, followed by a renovation in 1897. Clara Stone Hay had…

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African Americans, Slavery in America

Sally Hemings

• Maggie

Thomas Jefferson’s Slave and Mistress Sally Hemings was the daughter of Elizabeth Hemings and, allegedly, John Wayles, Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law – Elizabeth Hemings and her children did live at John Wayles’ plantation during his lifetime. In 18th-century Virginia, children born to slave mothers inherited their legal status, therefore Elizabeth and Sally Hemings and all their children, were legally slaves, even when the fathers were their white masters. If Sally Hemings’ father was John Wayles, she would have been the half-sister of Thomas Jefferson’s wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson. After Wayles died in 1773, Martha inherited the Hemings family; when Martha died in 1782, she left the Hemings family to Thomas Jefferson.
Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Feminists

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

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One of the First Feminists in the United States Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) was a social reformer, editor, writer and leading figure in the early women’s rights movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, calling for a full spectrum of rights for women, was presented at the first Women’s Rights Convention in 1848. For many years thereafter Stanton was the architect and author of the movement’s most important strategies and documents. Image: Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1856, with daughter Harriot Elizabeth Cady was born on November 12, 1815, in Johnstown, New York. The daughter of a lawyer who made no secret of his preference for another son, she showed at an early age her desire to excel in intellectual and other ‘male’…

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Famous Wives, First Ladies

Elizabeth Monroe

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First Lady: Wife of Fifth U.S. President James Monroe Elizabeth Kortright was born June 30, 1768, and was raised in New York City. Her mother died when Elizabeth was nine, and Hester Kortright, her paternal grandmother, raised the young girl. Hester had a reputation of being a strong and independent woman, who owned and managed her own vast real estate holdings in old Harlem. Elizabeth was considered one of the most beautiful women of her generation. James Monroe was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on April 28, 1758, on his parents’ small plantation. He lost both parents by age 16 and inherited his father’s estate. He enrolled in William and Mary College in 1774 but when the American Revolution began…

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Civil War Spies, Civil War Women

Kate Warne

• Maggie

Union Spy and First Female Private Investigator Not much is known about Kate Warne prior to the day she walked into the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1856. Answering an ad in a local newspaper, Warne went to Pinkerton’s Chicago office and asked to see Allan Pinkerton about a job. There is still debate whether or not she intended to become a detective or a secretary. There were no women detectives until well after the Civil War. Pinkerton himself claimed that she demanded to become a detective. According to Pinkerton’s records, he was surprised to learn Kate was not looking for clerical work, but was actually answering an advertisement for detectives he had placed in a Chicago newspaper. Pinkerton said,…

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Famous Wives

Mary Marshall

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Wife of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall Image: Mary Willis Ambler Marshall Portrait circa 1790 Mary Willis Ambler was born March 18, 1766, in Yorktown, Virginia. She was the second of five girls born to Rebecca Burwell and Jacquelin Ambler, a prominent Yorktown family, and was part of the bustling life of the port city and the nearby colonial capital of Williamsburg. Mary Marshall grew up learning many of the traditional lessons of girls at the time. John Marshall was born on September 24, 1755, at Germantown in Fauquier County, on the Virginia frontier. He was the son of Colonel Thomas Marshall and Mary Randolph Keith Marshall, and the oldest of 15 children.