Brooke, Abraham (1806–08 March 1867), physician and radical reformer, was born at Sandy Spring, Maryland, the son of Samuel Brooke and Sarah Garrigues, farmers. The Brooke family had been leading Quakers in Maryland for several generations, and Abraham attended Quaker schools at Sandy Spring before entering medical college in Baltimore. In 1829 he married Elizabeth Lukens, a fellow Quaker from Sandy Spring; they had three children. When the Hicksite-Orthodox schism took place among Quakers, the Brookes, like most Maryland Friends, sided with the Hicksite group....
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Article
Brooke, Abraham (1806-1867), physician and radical reformer
Thomas D. Hamm
Article
Burr, Theodosia (1783-1813), society belle and political heroine
James M. Clifton
Burr, Theodosia (21 June 1783– January 1813), society belle and political heroine, was born in Albany, New York, the daughter of Aaron Burr, a lawyer, politician, and later vice president of the United States, and Theodosia Prevost. Steeped in the educational philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau, author of ...
Article
Clay-Clopton, Virginia Tunstall (1825-1915), society leader, author, and suffragist
Libra Hilde
Clay-Clopton, Virginia Tunstall (16 January 1825–23 June 1915), society leader, author, and suffragist, was born Virginia Caroline Tunstall in Nash County, North Carolina, the daughter of Peyton Randolph Tunstall, a physician, and Ann Arrington. She lost her mother before the age of three, and her father left her upbringing to her maternal relatives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Initially she lived with her aunt, the wife of ...
Article
Corbin, Margaret Cochran (12 November 1752–1800), revolutionary war heroine
John K. Alexander
Corbin, Margaret Cochran (12 November 1752–1800), revolutionary war heroine, was a . The details of her early life are based on an undocumented source that indicates she was born in Pennsylvania in what is now Franklin County, the daughter of Robert Cochran. Her mother’s name is not known. In 1756, Native Americans killed her father and abducted her mother. Margaret and her brother John, who might have been visiting their mother’s brother, escaped capture and were subsequently raised by their uncle. She was probably still living in Pennsylvania when she married John Corbin, a Virginian by birth, in about 1772. Although a 1782 source referred to a son being killed in the Revolution, the couple apparently had no children. When John went to war, Margaret, who at about five feet eight inches was tall for the era, accompanied him....
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Crockett, Davy (1786-1836)
Maker: John Gadsby Chapman
In
David Crockett. Engraving after a portrait by John Gadsby Chapman. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-93521).
Article
Crockett, Davy (1786-1836), frontiersman, Tennessee and U.S. congressman, and folk hero
Michael A. Lofaro
Crockett, Davy (17 August 1786–06 March 1836), frontiersman, Tennessee and U.S. congressman, and folk hero, was born David Crockett in Greene County, East Tennessee, the son of John Crockett, a magistrate, unsuccessful land speculator, and tavern owner, and Rebecca Hawkins. John Crockett hired his son out to Jacob Siler in 1798 to help on a cattle drive to Rockbridge County, Virginia, and Siler tried forcibly to detain young Crockett after the completion of the job. The boy ran away at night, however, and arrived home in late 1798 or early 1799. Preferring to play hooky rather than attend school, he ran away from home to escape his father’s wrath. His “strategic withdrawal,” as he called it, lasted about thirty months while he worked at odd jobs and as a laborer and a wagon driver. When he returned home in 1802, he had grown so much that his family at first did not recognize him. He soon found that all was forgiven and reciprocated their generosity by working for a year to settle the debts that his father had incurred....
Article
Eaton, Peggy (03 December 1799?–08 November 1879), central figure in a series of political scandals
Willard Carl Klunder
Eaton, Peggy (03 December 1799?–08 November 1879), central figure in a series of political scandals, was born Margaret O’Neale in the city of Washington (now in the District of Columbia), the daughter of William O’Neale and Rhoda Howell, innkeepers. Her father, a native of Trenton, New Jersey, served as a major during the revolutionary war and was a tavern owner at the time of her birth (which some sources cite as 1796). Peggy was the eldest of six children and received an extensive education at Mrs. Hayward’s fashionable private school. As her parents prospered, the pretty and vivacious girl was surrounded by male admirers, including numerous members of Congress who resided at the O’Neales’ Franklin House. She claimed in her autobiography to have driven one spurned suitor to suicide and to have precipitated an abortive duel between two smitten army officers. In 1815 her parents sent her to finishing school in New York after a botched elopement....
Article
Fitzgerald, John Francis (1863-1950), mayor of Boston and maternal grandfather of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and U.S. senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy
Constance K. Burns
Fitzgerald, John Francis (11 February 1863–02 October 1950), mayor of Boston and maternal grandfather of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and U.S. senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, mayor of Boston and maternal grandfather of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and U.S. senators ...
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Fitzgerald, John Francis (1863-1950)
In
John F. Fitzgerald Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-96662).
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Flora, William (fl. 1775–1818), war hero and businessman
Charles W. Carey Jr.
Flora, William (fl. 1775–1818), war hero and businessman, was born probably in the vicinity of Portsmouth, Virginia, the son of free black parents, whose names are unknown. On the eve of the American Revolution fewer than 2,000 free blacks lived in Virginia. The colony’s statutes forbade the manumission of slaves except those who exposed an incipient slave uprising. Consequently, Flora, who was known as “Billy,” was probably descended from Africans who arrived in Virginia before 1640, when blacks were treated like indentured servants rather than slaves....
Article
Grace, Charles Emmanuel "Daddy" (25 January 1881–12 January 1960), religious personality
Richard Newman
Grace, Charles Emmanuel (25 January 1881–12 January 1960), African American religious personality, was born, probably as Marcelino Manuel da Graca, in Brava, Cape Verde Islands, of mixed Portuguese and African ancestry, the son of Manuel de Graca and Gertrude Lomba. In the charismatic church that he founded and headed, however, he managed to transcend race by declaring, “I am a colorless man. I am a colorless bishop. Sometimes I am black, sometimes white. I preach to all races.” Like many other Cape Verdeans, Grace immigrated to New Bedford, Massachusetts, around the turn of the century and worked there and on Cape Cod as a short-order cook, a salesman of sewing machines and patent medicines, and a cranberry picker....
Article
Hale, Nathan (1755-1776), martyr of the American Revolution
Paul David Nelson
Hale, Nathan (06 June 1755–22 September 1776), martyr of the American Revolution, was born in Coventry, Connecticut, the son of Richard Hale and Elizabeth Strong, successful farmers. A sickly infant, he barely survived his first year, but as he grew he became an outdoorsman and a powerful athlete. He enjoyed reading, and his father decided to prepare him for the ministry, first by hiring Rev. Joseph Huntington to tutor him and then by sending him in 1769 to Yale College. At Yale he was widely admired by his teachers and fellow students. Dr. ...
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Hart, Nancy (1735-1830), revolutionary war heroine
Lee Ann Caldwell
Hart, Nancy (1735–1830), revolutionary war heroine, was born Ann Morgan, in Pennsylvania or North Carolina, the daughter of Thomas Morgan and Rebecca Alexander. Nothing is known of her childhood except that she grew up in North Carolina. Portrayed as “unlearned” in most accounts, she probably received little education. She married Benjamin Hart, a Virginia-born North Carolinian, with whom she had eight children. In the early 1770s the Harts migrated to Georgia and settled in the upcountry area that became Elbert County. There her revolutionary exploits took place. Like many uneducated eighteenth-century women who left no personal writings, the real Nancy Hart is an elusive figure, making it difficult to separate fact from myth. The early information of her deeds was oral tradition, with the earliest extant written accounts dating to the 1840s. She does not appear in the earliest Georgia histories, and even modern Georgia scholars have dealt with her in qualified terms....
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Hathorne, William (1607-1681), developer of Salem, Massachusetts, and progenitor of the Ha(w)thorne family in America
Jacob Judd
Hathorne, William (1607– April 1681), developer of Salem, Massachusetts, and progenitor of the Ha(w)thorne family in America, developer of Salem, Massachusetts, and progenitor of the Ha(w)thorne family in America, was born in Bray, Berkshire, England, the son of William Hathorne, a yeoman, and Sarah (full name unknown). Little is known of his early years except that he received more education than was usual for one of his family’s standing and grew up in relatively comfortable surroundings. As a young man of eighteen or nineteen, he was converted to Puritanism and, soon after, announced that he intended to migrate to New England. His close friend Richard Davenport, betrothed to Hathorne’s sister Elizabeth Hathorne, left for America in 1628 with the understanding that William and his sister would soon follow. When the Hathornes reached New England is unclear. Probably they arrived after 1630 and no later than the fall of 1633....
Article
Keckley, Elizabeth Hobbs (1820?–26 May 1907), White House dressmaker during the Lincoln administration and author
Gertrude Woodruff Marlowe
Keckley, Elizabeth Hobbs (1820?–26 May 1907), White House dressmaker during the Lincoln administration and author, was born in Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia, the daughter of George Pleasant and Agnes Hobbs, slaves. Her birth date is variously given from 1818 to 1824 based on different documents that report her age. The identity of her father is also uncertain; in later life Keckley reportedly claimed that her father was her master, Colonel A. Burwell. George Pleasant, who was owned by a different master, was allowed to visit only twice a year and was eventually taken west....
Article
Lafayette, James (1748-1830), patriot spy
Patrick G. Williams
Lafayette, James (1748–09 August 1830), patriot spy, also known to history as James Armistead, was born in slavery; little is recorded of his parentage or early life except that he belonged to William Armistead of New Kent County, Virginia. In the summer of 1781 James was attending his master while Armistead worked as a commissary in Richmond, supplying patriot forces under the command of the ...
Article
Mesta, Perle (12 Oct. 1889 or 1891–16 March 1975), political activist, businesswoman, diplomat, and hostess
Richard O. Davies
Mesta, Perle (12 Oct. 1889 or 1891–16 March 1975), political activist, businesswoman, diplomat, and hostess, was born Pearl Skirvin in Sturgis, Michigan, the daughter of William Balser Skirvin, a salesman, and Harriet Reid. The actual year of her birth was one of her best-kept secrets. Early in the twentieth century her father left Michigan for the oil fields of South Texas, where he made a fortune in the famed Spindletop field. The feisty “Billy” Skirvin moved to Oklahoma City, where he founded the American Oil and Refinery Company and built the luxurious fourteen-floor Skirvin Hotel. Pearl was educated in private schools in Galveston and studied voice and piano at the Sherwood School of Music in Chicago. In 1917 she married 54-year-old George Mesta, founder and president of the Mesta Machine Company located in Pittsburgh. During her years living in the nation’s steel capital she changed her name to the distinctive “Perle.”...
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Mesta, Perle (12 Oct. 1889 or 1891–16 March 1975)
In
Perle Mesta Right, with U. S. Senate candidate Marjorie Bell Hinrichs at the Democratic party jubilee in Chicago. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-92423).
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Palmer, Bertha Honoré (1849-1918), Chicago society leader and reformer
Marilyn Elizabeth Perry
Palmer, Bertha Honoré (22 May 1849–05 May 1918), Chicago society leader and reformer, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the daughter of Henry Hamilton Honoré, a hardware and cutlery importer, and Eliza Jane Carr. Following Bertha’s sixth birthday the family arrived in Chicago, where her father became a real estate developer and helped to expand the town on Lake Michigan into a bustling city. Religiously affiliated with the Disciples of Christ church in her early years, she later became an Episcopalian....
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Palmer, Bertha Honoré (1849-1918)
In
Bertha Palmer. Photographic print, late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-107005).
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