Category: Famous Wives
Famous Wives

Abigail Morgan

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Wife of Revolutionary War General Daniel Morgan Daniel Morgan was born in 1736 in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Lloyd) Morgan. After quarreling with his father, Daniel left home at the age of 16. After working at odd jobs in Pennsylvania, he moved to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, where he worked as a farm laborer and teamster – a driver of a team of horses doing hauling. General Daniel Morgan Morgan was a large man and poorly educated, but also strong and not afraid of hard work. He saved enough money to buy his own wagon and team at the age of 19, and transported supplies to the frontier posts of Virginia. A legendary brawler…

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Famous Wives

Mary Sumter

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Wife of Patriot Militia General Thomas Sumter General Thomas Sumter Charles Willson Peale, Artist Mary Cantey was born in 1723. Thomas Sumter was born August 14, 1734, in Louisa County, Virginia, the son of William and Patience Sumter. Educated in common schools, Thomas worked in his father’s gristmill, and after his father’s early death, cared for his mother’s sheep and plowed his neighbor’s fields. It has been said that Thomas Sumter was a wild boy. He gambled, went to cockfights, and horse races. When the Indians started causing problems, he joined the Virginia militia and served as a sargeant during the Cherokee War of 1760-1761. He accompanied Lieutenant Henry Timberlake on an arduous peace mission to the Overhill Cherokee towns…

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Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Frances Seward

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Wife of Secretary of State William Seward Frances Adeline Miller was born in 1805, the daughter of Judge Elijah Miller and Hannah Foote Miller, and lived most of her life in Auburn, New York. Raised as a Quaker, her father taught her slavery was wrong. This belief became stronger as she grew up. Frances studied at the Troy Female Seminary, which was founded by Emma Willard in 1814 in Vermont in an attempt to further the education of women. She later relocated the school to Troy, New York. Prior to its founding women were generally excluded from attending college. William Henry Seward was born in Florida, New York, May 16, 1801. He was the son of Samuel Sweezy Seward and…

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Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Natalie Benjamin

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Wife of Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin Judah Benjamin took a job teaching English to Natalie St. Martin, daughter of a prominent Creole family, so that he could learn French from her. And a love affair developed between the two. They were married in 1833 and lived on a sugar plantation and an elegant townhouse on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Judah Philip Benjamin was born a British subject on St. Thomas, British West Indies, Aug. 11, 1811. His parents, Philip Benjamin and Rebecca de Mendes Benjamin, were Sephardic Jews who had immigrated to the West Indies from Spain. In 1813 in response to a letter written by Rebecca’s uncle, Jacob Levy, who lived there and spoke of…

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Famous Wives

Deborah Putnam

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General Israel Putnam Wife of Revolutionary War General Israel Putnam Israel Putnam was born on January 7, 1718 in Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts, to Joseph Putnam and Elizabeth Porter Putnam. He was not interested in education but loved being physically active and adventurous, and had a reputation for courage and competitiveness as a young man. At age 20, Putnam married Hannah Pope, and shortly thereafter the couple moved to Connecticut, where he and his brother-in-law together bought 514 acres. Within two years he was able to buy out his partner and thus became sole owner in what was called the Putnam Farm, on the top of the high hill between the villages of Pomfret and Brooklyn. Although Massachusetts born, the…

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Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Mary Stanton

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Wife of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton Edwin McMasters Stanton was born December 19, 1814, in Steubenville, Ohio, the eldest of the four children of David and Lucy Norman Stanton. He had six brothers and sisters. Beginning in childhood, Edwin suffered from asthma throughout his life. His father was a Quaker physician, and after he died in 1827, Edwin worked in a book store for five years thereafter to help support his family. Image: Union Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton After leaving Kenyon College in 1833, Stanton studied law under a judge. He was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1835, but had to wait several months until his 21st birthday before he could begin to practice. He developed…

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Famous Wives

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton

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Wife of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton Elizabeth Schuyler (Eliza Hamilton, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton) was born on August 9, 1757, in Albany, New York. She was the second daughter of Revoluntionary War General Philip Schuyler and Catherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler, one of the richest and most political families in the state of New York. Schooled at home, Elizabeth grew up mostly at her father’s grand new mansion in Albany and at their summer home at Old Saratoga. Alexander Hamilton was born a British subject on the island of Nevis, West Indies, on January 11, 1755. His mother, Rachel Fawcett Levine, was jailed in 1745 for “adultery and whoring with everyone.” Her husband’s divorce petition in 1759 declared she was the mother…

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Famous Wives

Elizabeth Nicholas Randolph

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Wife of Edmund Randolph: First U.S. Attorney General Edmund Jenings Randolph was born August 10, 1753, to the influential Randolph family at Tazewell Hall in Williamsburg, Virginia. His parents were Ariana Jenings and John Randolph. They owned tobacco plantations worked by slaves. Edmund and Elizabeth were born less than 24 hours apart. Edmund was educated at the College of William and Mary. After graduation he began studying law with his father and his uncle, Peyton Randolph. When the American Revolution began, father and son followed very different paths. John Randolph, a Loyalist, who continued to support the British, followed royal governor Lord Dunmore to England in 1775, taking his wife and daughters, but leaving his son. Edmund was very much…

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Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Adele Douglas

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Wife of Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas Adele Cutts was a famous Washington beauty who became the loyal and valuable second wife of senator Stephen A. Douglas. She was at his side during the debates with Abraham Lincoln in Illinois and through the presidential campaign that followed in 1860. Rose Adele Cutts was born in Washington, DC, in December 1835. Her father, James Madison Cutts, was a nephew of First Lady Dolley Madison. Her mother, Eleanora Elizabeth O’Neale, came from a prominent Catholic family in Maryland, and was the sister of Rose O’Neal Greenhow, who was later convicted of spying for the Confederacy. Dolley Madison was very fond of James and Eleanora and was often seen in Washington, DC, proudly…

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Famous Wives

Varina Davis

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First Lady of the Confederate States of America Varina Davis was the wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis during the Civil War, and she lived at the Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia during his term. After the war she became a writer, completing her husband’s memoir, and writing articles and eventually a regular column for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper, the New York World. Image: Varina Davis in 1849 By John Wood Dodge Varina Howell was born on May 7, 1826, at The Briars near Natchez, Mississippi, where her parents, William Burr Howell and Margaret L. Kempe, were visiting relatives. Her father, who fought in the War of 1812, settled in Natchez and married Kempe, a Virginia native whose father was…

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