A Girl’s Life Eighty Years Ago: Selections from the Letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne is a delightful collection of letters Eliza Southgate Bowne (1783-1809) wrote to family and friends during her lifetime. The daughter of a well-to-do physician and and his wife Mary King, whose brother Rufus King was a lawyer, politician and diplomat, Eliza received an excellent education, having attended Susannah Rowson’s Young Ladies Academy in Medford. See other posts on Eliza Southgate Bowne here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Eliza’s letters to her cousin Moses Porter, the son of one of her mother’s sisters, are among the most thoughtful and interesting. While her letters illustrate the domestic life of the country, their chief value, as Clarence Cook, who has written the introduction to the book, says “lies in the picture they give of the writer”—a young woman who defends a woman’s right to think for herself, reflecting the beginnings of a change in attitude about the abilities of women and their right to engage in activities hitherto thought to be within the sphere of men. Referring to this miniature, which is the frontispiece of the book by a noted painter of the day Edward Greene Malbone (1777-1807), Cook penned this verse.
“A hair-brained, sentimental trace
Was strongly marked in her face;
A wildly witty, rustic grace
Shone full upon her;
Her eye, even turned on empty space.
Beamed keen with honour.”

Scarborough, June 1st, 1801As to the qualities of mind peculiar to each sex, I agree with you that sprightliness is in favor of females and profundity of males. Their education, their pursuits would create such a quality even tho’ nature had not implanted it. The business and pursuits of men require deep thinking, judgment, and moderation, while, on the other hand, females are under no necessity of dipping deep, but merely “skim the surface,” and we too commonly spare ourselves the exertion which deep researches require, unless they are absolutely necessary to our pursuits in life. We rarely find one giving themselves up to profound investigation for amusement merely. Necessity is the nurse of all the great qualities of the mind; it explores all the hidden treasures and by its stimulating power they are “polished into brightness.” Women who have no such incentives to action suffer all the strong energetic qualities of the mind to sleep in obscurity; sometimes a ray of genius gleams through the thick clouds with which it is enveloped, and irradiates for a moment the darkness of the mental night; yet, like a comet that shoots wildly from its sphere, it excites our wonder, and we place it among the phenomenons of nature, without searching for a natural cause. Thus it is the qualities with which nature has endowed us, as a support amid the misfortunes of life and a shield from the allurements of vice, are left to moulder in ruin. In this dormant state they become enervated and impaired, and at last die for want of exercise. The little airy qualities which produce sprightliness are left to flutter about like feathers in the wind, the sport of every breeze.

More of Eliza’s letter in the next post.

A Girl’s Life Eighty Years Ago: Selections from the Letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne With an Introduction by Clarence Cook (New York: Scribner’s sons, 1887), pages 58-61. The miniature is by Edward Greene Malone (1777-1809).

Anne Hooper was the wife of William Hooper—one of the three delegates from North Carolina who signed the Declaration of Independence. Hooper, the son of a minister, had been born in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Educated at Harvard, he studied law with the radical James Otis but decided to move to Wilmington, North Carolina, to practice as he thought that Boston had too many lawyers. He married Anne Clark, daughter of a well-to-do merchant and plantation owner, built a plantation house called Finian, and continued his political activities. When the British took Wilmington in 1781, they took revenge on Hooper by burning a house he had in town and shelling Finian. Mrs. Hooper was forced to flee to her brother for shelter. Her husband wrote to his friend James Iredell that

she . . . and others had been expelled from Wilmington, and suffered to carry with them nothing but their wearing apparel; that some of the ladies had sought shelter near Wilmington, but that Mrs. Hooper and Mrs. Allen had been seen with their families in wagons . . . moving towards Hillsboro. . . . I then resolved to . . . to secure, if possible, some of my negroes, and to collect what I could from the wreck of my property. I found that Mrs. Hooper had managed . . . to carry off all our household linen, blankets, and all the wearing apparel of herself and children [leaving] behind all her furniture . . . . The British had borne off every article of house and kitchen furniture, knives, forks, plates, and spoons an almost general sweep; nor had they the spared the beds . . . My library, except as to law books, is shamefully injured, and above 100 valuable volumes taken away . . . You know my partiality to my books.

In 1782, with the preliminary articles of peace drawn up in Paris, Americans regained control of Wilmington and determined to retaliate for the treatment of patriots and their property under the British by doing the same to Loyalist families and possessions. Anne Hooper did not think this was proper as it affected women and children who had little to do with the political positions and activities of their husbands. She and several other women took it upon themselves to petition the governor urging that this punitive policy not be carried out.

Anne Hooper, Sarah Nash, Mary Nash, and others, to His excellency Gov. Alex Martin and the
Members of the Honorable Council
We, the subscribers, inhabitants of the town of Wilmington, warmly attached to the State of North Carolina, and strenuously devoted to our best wishes and endeavours to the achievements of its independence, feeling for the honor of, and desirous that our Enemies should not have the smallest pretext to brand them as cruel or precipitate, that the dignity of our public characters may not be degraded to the imitation of examples of inhumanity of
our Enemies,
Humbly shew to His Excellency, the Governor, and the honorable the council, that we have been informed that orders have issued from your honorable board that the wives and children of Absentees should depart the State with a small part of their property in forty eight hours after notice given them
It is not the province of our sex to reason deeply upon the policy of the order, but as it must affect the helpless and innocent, it wounds us with the most sincere distress and prompts our earnest supplication that the order may be arrested, and officers forbid to carry it into execution. If it is intended as retaliation for the expulsion of some of us, the subscribers, by the British from the Town of Wilmington, and to gratify a resentment which such inhumanity to us may be supposed to have excited, its object is greatly mistaken.
Those whom your proclamation holds forth as marks of public vengeance, neither prompted the British nor aided the execution of it. On the contrary, they expressed the greatest indignation at it, and with all their power strove to mitigate our sufferings. Still some instances attended which made the execution of it less distressing to us than yours must be to those upon whom it is intended to operate. We were ordered without the British Lines and then our friends were ready to receive us. They received us with a cordial welcome, and ministered to our wants with generosity and politeness. With pleasure we bear this public testimony. But our Town women now ordered out must be exposed to the extreme of human wretchedness. Their friends are in Charles Town; they have neither carriages nor horses to remove them by land, nor vessels to transport them by water, and the small pittance allotted them of their property, could they be procured, would be scarce equal to the purchase of them. It is beneath the character of the independent State of North Carolina to war with women and children. The authors of our ill treatment are the proper subjects of our own and the resentment of the public. Does their barbarity strike us with abhorrence? Let us blush to imitate it; not justify by our own practice what we so justly condemn in others. To Major Craig, and him alone, is to be imputed the inhuman edicts, for even the British Soldiers were shocked at it.
If we may be allowed to claim any merit with the public for our steady adherence to the Whig principles of America; if our sufferings induced by the attachment have given us favor and esteem with your honorable body, we beg leave to assure you that we shall hold it as a very signal mark of your respect for us if you will condescend to suffer to remain amongst us our old friends and acquaintances whose husbands, though estranged from us in political opinions, have left wives and children much endeared to us, and who may live to honor the State and to Society if permitted to continue here. The safety of this State, we trust in God, is now secured beyond the most powerful exertions of our Enemies, and it would be a system of abject weakness to fear the feeble efforts of women and children.
And as in Duty bound we shall ever pray.
Anne Hooper, Ann Towkes, Mary Allen, M. Hand, Sarah Nash, S. Wilkings, Mary Nash, M. Lord, Mary Moore, Isabella Read, E. Nash, Sally Read, Sarah Moore, Mary Granger, M. Loyd, Jane Ward, Catharine Young, Hannah Ward, J.M. Drayton, Kitty Ward, E. Wilkings,

Information about William Hooper and his letter to James Iredell can be found HERE. The Women’s Petition is in the Executive Letter Book, Colonial & State Records, vol. 16, pp. 467–69.

Hannah Lawrence, whose Quaker family had remained in New York City during the British occupation, favored the patriots over the “unwelcome invaders.” (See previous post.) She especially deplored the conduct of British soldiers who frequented an area near Trinity Church where prostitutes offered their services. She penned this poem, anonymously, had it printed on broadsheets and dropped them on the streets in the neighborhood. This was a treasonous act and had she been identified as the author she might have hanged for it.

On the Purpose to which the Avenue Adjoining Trinity Church has of late been dedicated, 1779

This is the scene of gay resort,
Here Vice and Folly hold their court,
Here all the Martial band parade,
To vanquish—some unguarded Maid.
Here ambles many a dauntless chief
Who can—oh great ! beyond belief,
Who can—as sage Historians say,
Defeat—whole bottles in array!

Heavens! shall a mean, inglorious train,
The mansions of our dead profane?
A herd of undistinguish’d things.
That shrink beneath the power of Kings!

Sons of the brave immortal band
Who led fair Freedom to this land,
Say—shall a lawless race presume
To violate the sacred Tomb?
And calmly, you, the insult bear—
Even wildest rage were virtue here.

Shades of our Sires, indignant rise,
Oh arm! to vengeance, arm the skies.
Oh rise! for no degenerate son

Bids impious blood the guilt atone,
By thunder from the ethereal plains.
Avenge your own dishonored Manes,
And guardian lightnings flash around,
And vindicate the hallow’d ground!

Ironically, a British soldier by the name of Jacob Schieffelin was billeted at the Lawrence house. Hannah fell in love with him; they married and departed for Canada. Even though her father disapproved, relations between Hannah and her family were not severed. The Schieffelins returned to New York City after the Revolution and Jacob went into the drug business with Hannah’s brother. Schieffelin’s real estate interests extended to northern Manhattan where he, with his brothers-in-law, laid out a village, in the vicinity of what is today West 125th Street and Broadway, called Manhattanville. Streets were named for family members and St. Mary’s Episcopal Church was constructed there. Near the front door of the present church is the vault wherein lie Jacob and Hannah Schieffelin.

The poem and portraits can be found HERE. The portraits were up for auction in 2013; the buyer is unknown. For information about Jacob Schieffelin’s business activities consult this LINK. Also see Manhattanville.

Since April is poetry month, it is only right that a poem or two appear on this blog. Hannah Lawrence (1758-1838) was the high-spirited, independent-minded daughter of John Lawrence, a New York City Quaker and merchant. In spite of the fact that her sympathies were with the Americans during the Revolution, she married Jacob Shieffelin, a Philadelphia-born loyalist serving in the British army during the occupation of New York City. Against her father’s wishes and the members of the Quaker meeting, it should be said. (See another post about Hannah Lawrence Schieffelin here). Hannah was a poet. Under the name of Mathilda, she wrote in 1774:

Address’d to a Canary Bird.

Pensive warbler cease thy fear
Charmer there’s no danger near
Rest contented, quite secure
From the Ills thy race endure.
If you wing the open air
Ah! what woes await you there!
All the agonizing pains
That the Parents heart sustains
When some Cruel Bird of prey
Bears your new-fledged young away.
Though the skies are now serene
Soon a cloud may change the scene,
Sudden furious winds arise,
Vapours sadden all the Skies
Fiery pointed lights display
Through the gloom a dismal day.
Tremendous thunders roar aloud
From the dark and threatning cloud:
Where, dear trembler, wouldst thou fly
From the inclement raging Sky?
With the object of thy love
Wouldst thou seek the shady grove,
If it, haply kind, will grant
The needful shelter that you want.
Lovly warbler, rest content,
All those cruel Ills prevent.

The poem is from Notebook of Poems by Matilda New York 1774, number I, in the Schieffelin Papers, Box 7, New York Public Library, Manuscripts.