Category: Famous Wives

Wife of General Francis Marion: The Swamp Fox Image: Francis Marion: the Swamp Fox By Bryant White Mary Esther Videau was born September 17, 1737. She was described as a maiden lady of Huguenot descent, of considerable wealth, and most estimable character. She met General Francis Marion after the Revolutionary War. Francis Marion was born February 26, 1732, at Gayfield Plantation, St. James Parish, South Carolina. Marion’s family was also of Huguenot ancestry. His parents were Gabriel Marion and Esther Cordes Marion, both first-generation Carolinians. He was the last born of six children, and was a puny child. When he was five or six, his family moved to a plantation in St. George, a parish on Winyah Bay. Apparently, they…

Wife of Revolutionary War Patriot Henry Knox Lucy Flucker, born in 1756, was the daughter of Thomas Flucker, the Royal Secretary of the Province of Massachusetts and a loyalist in Boston, Massachusetts. Henry Knox was born into poverty in Boston in 1750, an ordinary man who rose to face extraordinary circumstances. He left Boston Latin Grammar School at a young age to apprentice to a bookbinder, helping to support his widowed mother and younger brother. Henry Knox eventually worked his way to opening his own bookshop in Boston at the age of 21. The young gentlemen of privilege congregated there, and Henry observed their manners and soon could be mistaken for one of them. His keen interest in military strategy…

Wife of Revolutionary War General Richard Montgomery Janet Livingston was born on August 27, 1743, into the famous Livingston family of New York, and was a sister of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, a prominent New Yorker who was later on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. She spent her girlhood at Clermont, the family home on the banks of the Hudson River. In late 1772 or early 1773, Richard Montgomery, an Irish-born British army officer, moved from England to America. By the time he arrived, the difficulties between England and the Colonies were brewing; Montgomery quickly adopted the colonists’ cause. He bought a farm at King’s Bridge, 13 miles north of New York City. While adjusting to his…

Wife of First United States Chief Justice John Jay Sarah Van Brugh Livingston was born in 1756 to Susannah French Livingston and William Livingston, patriot and first governor of the State of New Jersey. She was educated at home in penmanship, English grammar, the Bible, and classic literature. Sarah grew into a graceful and capable young woman. At a time when women were usually relegated to the kitchen, she was brought up to be politically aware, even serving at times as her father’s secretary. William Livingston moved his family to a new home, Liberty Hall, in Elizabeth Town, New Jersey, in 1772. Sarah’s beauty, gaiety, and intelligence attracted many suitors.

Wife of Patriot Robert R. Livingston Jr. Image: The Livingston Clermont Estate Clermont was the Hudson River home of the prominent Livingston family of New York for more than 230 years. Because of the family’s prominent role in support of independence, Clermont was burned by British troops during a foray up the Hudson River in 1777. Mary Stevens was the daughter of John Stevens and Elizabeth Alexander Stevens, and the granddaughter of New York lawyer and statesman, James Alexander. Mary’s father was a large landowner in the New Jersey counties of Hunterdon, Union, and Somerset, and he owned a copper mine at Rocky Hill. He was a prominent politician from New Jersey, who served as a delegate to the Continental…

Wife of Vice-President George Clinton Sarah Cornelia Tappen was born in 1744, the only daughter of Tjaatje (Charity) Wynkoop and Petrus Tappen of Kingston, New York. Her father was a substantial landholder whose family had settled in New Netherland in the seventeenth century. George Clinton was born July 26, 1739 in Ulster County, New York. His parents were Presbyterian immigrants who left Longford County, Ireland, in 1729 to escape an intolerant Anglican regime that imposed severe disabilities on religious dissenters.

Wife of Founding Father: Oliver Ellsworth Oliver and Abigail Ellsworth Abigail Wolcott was born February 8, 1755, in East Windsor, Connecticut, the fifth of seven children born to William and Abigail Abbott Wolcott. Oliver Ellsworth, the second son of Captain David and Jemima Leavitt Ellsworth, was born in Windsor April 29, 1745. At 17 Oliver went to Yale to study the ministry, but was expelled for playing pranks. Ellsworth graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1766 and began the study of law. Returning to his home in Windsor, Connecticut, Oliver studied theology and then law, and was admitted to the bar in 1771. At first his law practice was so poor that he had to support himself by…

Wife of Patriot: William Livingston Image: William Livingston Delegate to the Continental Congress William Livingston was born in 1723 at Albany, NY, son of Philip and Catharine (Van Brugh) Livingston. His mother was the daughter of the Dutch mayor of Albany Pieter Van Brugh. His paternal grandfather, Robert Livingston, had emigrated to American in 1673, and received grants to Livingston Manor – a large tract of land on the Hudson River. William spent his childhood there under the indulgent care of his maternal grandmother Sarah Van Brugh. At the age of fourteen, William lived for a year with a missionary among the Mohawk Indians in the wilds of New York’s Mohawk Valley, an experience which his family felt would be…

First Lady of Maryland Mary Digges was born in Maryland in 1745, on her family’s estate, Mellwood Park, the daughter of Ignatius and Elizabeth Parnham Craycroft Digges, prominent landowners in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The family home received such distinguished guests as George Washington. The future President would visit Mary’s father, Ignatius Digges, for a brief rest from his travels around the colonies. Image: Mary Digges Lee Portrait by John Wollaston The Digges were Roman Catholic, and Ignatius consented to the marriage only after Thomas, an Anglican, wrote a series of heartfelt letters during the summer of 1771 giving his assurance that he would convert and that all their children would be raised Catholic.