Whereas there is no information regarding the number of “servants,” i.e. slaves, Elizabeth Foote Washington had to manage (see previous post), Eliza Pinckney, a wealthy plantation owner, made a list of her domestic help. This is after the marriage of her children when she was living in a modest house in Charleston, South Carolina.

I shall keep young Ebba to do the drudgery part, fetch wood, and water, and scour, and learn as much as she is capable of Cooking and Washing. Mary-Ann Cooks, makes my bed, and makes my punch. Daphne works and makes the bread, old Ebba boils the cow’s victuals, raises and fattens the poultry, Moses is imployed from breakfast until 12 o’clock without doors, after that in the house. Pegg washes and milks.

One wonders what Eliza did with her time with all of these servants relieving her of various household tasks. Wives of farmers in the back country had little or no help and worked very hard. One visitor noted that they “. . . take care of Cows, Hogs, and other small Cattle, make Butter and Cheese, spin Cotton and Flax, help sow and reap Corn, wind Silk from the Worms, gather Fruit, and look after the House.”

For Pinckney’s list and the labor of Carolina women see Life in the Southern Colonies Part 1 by David Lee Russell. His source is Julia Cherry Spruill, Women’s Life and Work in the Southern Colonies, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1972), p. 77-83.

Elizabeth Foote Washington married her cousin Lund Washington (a distant relative of George Washington), who lived at Mount Vernon and managed the estate from 1765 to 1785. Elizabeth kept a journal she hoped would be a guide for her daughters in conducting a household—”shou’d I have children, & especially Daughters—it can be no disadvantage to them for to know something of my general conduct in my family.” The following excerpt from the spring of 1789 showed that she had difficulty in managing her “servants,” a euphemism for slaves. Try reading it yourself beginning at the paragraph indent. If that’s too frustrating, read the transcription that follows. Do you find the content as distressing as I do? Elizabeth was a religious woman and stated that she tried “to perswaid [her] servants to do their business through a principal of religion.”

If our visiters knew how little my Servants did they would not think them good—nay there is few would put up with their Servants doing so little as mine—& that little I am oblig’d to follow them to get done—but I can not get them to do more without scolding & whipping—& I cannot do either—therefore am often oblig’d to exercise my patience & try to be contented—I think there is Servants that was they to meet with the Same treatment from their Superiors that mine does from me—they would be better Servants than any I have—for to consider how mine has ever been treated they are not Such Servants as a person would expect—for Surely they ought to be the best of Servants—which is not the case—but I believe they might be made much worse by being frequently scolded at,—which certainly is the ruin of Servants,—

Elizabeth’s daughters never read their mother’s instructions as they died in infancy. Managing a household that included slaves was a “skill” that upperclass southern women were expected to learn. Many found it daunting as did Elizabeth Foote Washington. It is important to remember that the institution of slavery affected not only the slaves but also the masters and mistresses whose personalities and behaviors were shaped and coarsened by the role they were expected to perform.

The reference for the entry can be found HERE. For an analysis of Washington, among other southern women, see Catherine Kerrison, Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), pages 92-93.

Another woman who found herself in a position similar to Grace Growden Galloway’s (see previous post) was Phebe Fowler Ward. Whereas Grace and her family were numbered among Philadelphia’s elite, Phebe was just a farm wife in Eastchester, New York (Westchester County). Both women, however, suffered because they were the wives of Loyalists. Phoebe’s husband Edmund had been imprisoned in August 1776 by a group of Americans (including his own brother Stephen). Transferred to Massachusetts, Edmund was able to make his way to New York City by March 1777: “His Family he left to shift for themselves on the farm.” Being in possession was of no use, as Phebe found out.

East Chester [New York] June 6th 1783Kind Husband
I am sorry to aquant you that our farme is sold also that Land and salt medow in East chester town and that ajoyning to Stephen wards [her brother-in-law] Land is all sold. Major Dilevan bought it he told me that one [David] williams that took major andrew [Major André] is to have five hundred pounds woort out of it and he the Remainder. I told them thay had no Right to servey It nor sell it. He said he was ordered to do it and shood sell it. Thay accordingly survaed it and there was foure men to vallue it—there high sheruv, one of there Judges of there cort and two more men to say what it was acre for at [and] what it was to be sold for & dilevan told me they said £7.10.0 an acre for the whool the number of acres bing not cast [added] up.
thay said if I did not quitt posesion that they had aright to take any thing on the farme or in the house to pay the Cost of a law sute and imprisen me. I have sufered all most Every thing but death it self to keep posesion all most sevin years in your long absens. Pray Grant me spedy Releaf or God only knows what will be com of me and my frends les Children.
thay said my posession was nothing. youre husband has forfeted his astate by Joining the British Enemy with a free and vollentery will and thereby was for feted to the Stat and sold.
all at present from your cind and Loveing Wife phebe Ward
pray send me spedeay anser

Upon receiving his wife’s letter, Edmund submitted a petition to Sir Guy Carleton in New York City in which he described his situation and asked for relief. What happened to his family is unclear. Four months later, Edmund sailed for Nova Scotia, having been appointed by Carleton to head troops evacuating New York City and bound for that destination.

Phebe’s letter can be found on page 290 of In the Words of Women.

During the Revolution, property belonging to Loyalists was subject to seizure. Very often some part of that property had belonged to their wives. But under English law, any property a woman owned at the time of her marriage became her husband’s, unless there had been a premarital agreement. As a result, many Loyalist wives had no legal claim to their inheritance; they found themselves in dire circumstances, evicted from their homes and forced to seek refuge with relatives or friends.

Grace Growden was one such woman. The daughter of a wealthy Quaker businessman, she had married Joseph Galloway who was active in Pennsylvania politics. Though initially uncommitted, he ultimately sided with the British becoming the civil administrator in Philadelphia when the British occupied that city. He left with the British when they evacuated in 1778, taking his daughter Betsy with him.

These lines from a poem Grace wrote show that she was not exactly happy in her marriage. “Never get tyed to a man/for when once you are yoked/’Tis all a mere joke/of seeing your freedom again.” Grace stayed behind in the hope that she could retain her inherited property. She was not successful. The day after the British departed Charles Willson Peale (yes, the painter) appeared at her door with an eviction notice. The contents of the Galloway house on Market Street were sold at auction (see illustration). Peale received a five percent commission. Embittered and impoverished, her diary entry in April 1779 showed Grace nevertheless still defiant.

Tusday the 20th [While visiting a neighbor, I] got My spirits at command & Laughed at the whole wig party. I told them I was the happyest woman in twown for I had been striped & Turn’d out of Doors yet I was still the same & must be Joseph Galloways Wife & Lawrence Growdons daughter & that it was Not in their power to humble Me for I shou’d be Grace Growdon Galloway to the last & as I had now suffer’d all that they can inflict Upon Me I shou’d now act as on a rock to look on the wrack of others & see them tost by the Tempestuous billows while I was safe ashore; that if My little fortune wou’d be of service to them, they May keep it for I had exchanged it for content: that a Wooden waiter was as Useful tho not so sightly as a silver one; & that wou’d Never let these people pull Me down for, While I had the splindid shilling left, I wou’d be happy in spight of them; I cou’d Not do as Diogenes (Drink out of the first brook therefore threw his cup away as Useless) but I wou’d keep My Wooden cup if I cou’d get No other; & be happy to the last if I cou’d not get a silk gown I cou’d get a Linsay one & so it kept Me warm I owed Not. My borrowed bed I told them was down & I cou’d Lay Me down & sleep composely on it without feeling one thorn which was More than the Creatures cou’d Do who had rob’d Me: but all that vext Me was that I shou’d be so far humbled as to be ranked as a fellow creature with such brutes for I cou’d not think they cou’d be call’d Men, so I ran on & was happy. . . . am not sorry at anything I said for I now defye the Villans.

It was ruled that Grace’s inheritance could not revert to her until her husband died. He outlived her, but their daughter Betsy claimed the property in 1802 after her father’s death.

The diary entry appears on page 126 of In the Words of Women. The inventory can be found HERE.