{"id":1940,"date":"2014-11-09T22:07:24","date_gmt":"2014-11-09T22:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/?page_id=1940"},"modified":"2014-12-06T07:17:33","modified_gmt":"2014-12-06T07:17:33","slug":"eliza-fisk-harwood","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/?page_id=1940","title":{"rendered":"Eliza Fisk Harwood"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Eliza<\/a>

Eliza Fisk Harwood (1827-1888). Courtesy Rev. H. Warren Blakeman.<\/p><\/div>\n

A younger daughter of the eleven children of John and Susan Harwood, Eliza Fisk Harwood (1827-1888) did not grow up with the rest of her family in the naval port of Norfolk, Virginia.[1]<\/a> Her mother had \u201cgiven\u201d Eliza as a baby to her niece, Mary Ann Galt, as part of a southern tradition in which a childless aunt, sister, or other female relative would raise girls, lavishing them with their full attention and affection.[2]<\/a> Eliza called her cousin \u201cGodma;\u201d Mary Ann Galt gave Eliza her maiden name, so Eliza often went simply by the name Eliza Fisk.[3]<\/a> Although she visited her Harwood family in Norfolk occasionally, Eliza considered herself very much a Williamsburg girl. She attended school in town \u2013 until the schoolhouse burned down in 1842 \u2013 took part in services at Bruton Parish Church, and participated fully in all aspects of Williamsburg\u2019s elite society, including summering with the town\u2019s best families at Fauquier Springs.<\/p>\n

\"1846<\/a>

Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, also known as Warrenton Springs, in the mid 1850s. Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.<\/p><\/div>\n

Eliza and her beau — Tristrim Skinner of Edenton, North Carolina — had much in common: a deceased parent they had never known, a surviving but mostly absent parent, and loving cousins acting in loco parentis<\/em>. They both had blood ties to the Williamsburg aristocracy. Through the Pages and Randolphs, they were even distantly related to each other[4]<\/a> and were social equals in a genteel world that valued family, education, piety, and the social graces more than economic status. Eliza, whose grandmother was a Burwell, was connected to a wide network in Williamsburg and Yorktown, including the Nelsons, Harrisons, Armisteads, Meades, Southalls, Littletons, Tazewells, as well as the Lees of \u201cChiskiak\u201d and the Harwoods of Warwick County.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"1848b<\/a>

Market Square in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1845. Eliza shopped at Paul & Pegram, shown at lower left. Historical Collections of Virginia.<\/p><\/div>\n

Her long dead father had owned a warehouse in the Navy Yard and Harwood\u2019s Wharf in Norfolk where he had organized freight and passage, sold wholesale goods, and worked as government appraiser.[6]<\/a> Eliza\u2019s grandfather, Col. Edward Harwood, had squandered the immense family fortune of his<\/em> father, leaving his children to make their own way, by marriage or business, in an urban professional middle class. Her closest brother, Henry, worked as a bookkeeper in Norfolk; her brother, William, taught school in Richmond; her sister, Maria, also a teacher, married newspaper editor and lumber inspector, Charles H. Beale; another sister married a teacher; and another an auctioneer.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"1848<\/a>

\u201cExpectation,\u201d engraved for Graham\u2019s Magazine, March, 1848.<\/p><\/div>\n

At the age of nineteen, Eliza signaled to Tristrim Skinner and the rest of the world both her continued selectivity and her readiness to give up the tiresome life of a belle. At Fauquier Springs, on display among the most refined of southern ladies and gentlemen, Eliza attended a fancy dress ball costumed as a bride, \u201cbeing the simplest and the prettiest I could wear. If only the groom had presented himself \u2013 Many did, but they were not the right one.\u201d In the theatrical, fantastical, competitive climate of the springs, where tableaux, tournaments, hunts, and costume balls were performed and experienced<\/em> by the visitors, Eliza\u2019s choice of costume epitomized her idealized romantic goal of marriage as well as her refusal<\/em> to follow the script and play a part.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

Eliza and Trim were married on February 19, 1849, in a modest ceremony in Williamsburg, performed by their dear friend, the former College professor, Reverend Charles Minnigerode. Eliza had entered society as a bridesmaid at Minnigerode\u2019s wedding and now\u2014six years later, and with his blessing\u2014she concluded her life as a belle.<\/p>\n

Excerpted from Mary Maillard, ed.,\u00a0The Belles of Williamsburg: The Courtship Correspondence of Eliza Fisk Harwood and Tristrim Lowther Skinner 1839-1849<\/em><\/a><\/span>\u00a0copyright \u00a9 Mary Maillard.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

[1]<\/a> Eliza\u2019s parents, Susan Hollands Gilbert (1793-1858) and John Robbins Harwood married on February 1, 1811. Their eldest child, William Bacon Harwood, was born the same year. Their second son, Reynier [Reynear] Gilbert Harwood, died when eight months old from exposure while in a boat fleeing Norfolk during the British bombardment in June 1813. Eliza Fisk Harwood\u2019s daughter, Marian Fisk Skinner (1853-1941) maintained that the second, third, and fourth children \u2013 Reynier, John Dabney (who was later lost at sea), and sister, Virginia \u2013 were triplets.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> TLS to EFH November 19, 1848; February 8, 1849, SFP. As historian Catherine Clinton notes, such an arrangement was not unusual. Mothers with several girls might send one of them to a childless sister or sister-in-law, an arrangement that benefited all involved, most particularly the adopted daughter, who was \u201cdoubly mothered.\u201d Catherine Clinton, Plantation Mistress<\/em>, 53-54. Frederick Blount Drane, “adopted” inscription on back of daguerreotype of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Harwood, private collection.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Nathaniel Beverley Tucker to Lucy Tucker, May 11-12, 25, 1843; Charles Minnigerode to Cynthia Tucker, July 6, 1843, Tucker Coleman Papers, Swem Library, College of William and Mary. Eliza\u2019s bound music books show several examples of her signature as Eliza Fisk, private collection, Elizabeth Matheson.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Armistead C. Gordon, \u201cThe Stith Family,\u201d William and Mary Historical Quarterly<\/em> 22 (July 1913, January 1914): 44-51, 197-208; Armistead C. Gordon, \u201cFurther Notes on the Stith Family,\u201d William and Mary Historical Quarterly<\/em> 22 (April, 1914), 273-275; Ronald L. Hurst, \u201cThe Peyton Randolph House Restored,\u201d Antiques Magazine<\/em>, January 1, 2001; Richard Channing Moore Page, Genealogy of the Page Family in Virginia<\/em> (New York: Press of the Publishers\u2019 Printing, 1893), 78-81; Francis L. Berkeley, \u201cBerkeley Manuscripts,\u201d William and Mary Historical Quarterly<\/em> 6 (January 1898): 135-152; Nathaniel Claiborne Hale, Roots in Virginia: An Account of Captain Thomas Hale, Virginia Frontiersman, His Descendants and Related Families<\/em> (Philadelphia: n.p., 1948) 40.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Sheila R. Phipps, Genteel Rebel: The Life of Mary Greenhow Lee<\/em> (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004), 2; Lyon G. Tyler,<\/strong> \u201cLightfoot Family,\u201d William and Mary Historical Quarterly<\/em> 2 (April 1894): <\/em>259-262; 3 ( October 1894): <\/em>107-108; Lyon G. Tyler, \u201cThe Lee Family of York County,\u201d William and Mary Historical Quarterly <\/em> 24 (July 1915): 46-54; Richard Channing Moore Page, Genealogy of the Page Family in Virginia<\/em> (New York: Publishers\u2019s Print Co., 1893), 78-81; Lyon G. Tyler, \u201cNotes by the Editor,\u201d William & Mary Historical Quarterly<\/em> 2 (April 1894): 230-236; Armistead C. Gordon, \u201cBurwell Family Records,\u201d William & Mary Historical Quarterly<\/em> 15 (October 1906): 93; John Marshall, \u201cBurwell Family,\u201d April 15, 2000, http:\/\/homepages.rootsweb.com\/~marshall\/esmd42.htm<\/a><\/span> (October 31, 2013); \u201cPersonal Notices From The Virginia Gazette<\/em>, 1736-1738,\u201d William and Mary Historical Quarterly<\/em> 5 (April 1897): 240-244.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> John C. Emmerson, Jr., comp., The Steamboat Comes to Norfolk Harbor: And the Log of the First Ten Years 1815-1825<\/em> (Portsmouth, VA: n.p., 1947), 377; Congressional Serial<\/em> Set (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1831), 231.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> \u201cCol. William Harwood\u2019s Will,\u201d Newport News Warwick Historical Preservation Association, http:\/\/www.rootsweb.ancestry.com\/~vannwhpa\/vannwhpa\/col__wm__harwoods_will.htm<\/a><\/span>; \u201cHenry Harwood,\u201d 1860 U.S. Census, Norfolk, Norfolk, Virginia, Roll:\u00a0M653_1366<\/em>;\u00a0Page:\u00a0542<\/em>; \u201cWilliam B. Harwood,\u201d 1850 U. S. Census, Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, Roll M432_951<\/em>,\u00a0Page\u00a0407B<\/em>; \u201cMaria Beale,\u201d 1870 U.S. Census, Norfolk, Norfolk, Virginia; \u201cVirginia Addington,\u201d 1850 U. S. Census, Norfolk, Norfolk, Virginia, Roll:\u00a0M432_964<\/em>;\u00a0Page 110B<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> EFH to TLS August 22, 1846, SFP. Historian Charlene M. Boyer Lewis, in her excellent study of life at the courting grounds of the Virginia Springs, explores southerners\u2019 fascination with romanticism, medieval chivalry, olden times, and exotic lands, and notes that the events were more than just games and imitation: people \u201cwere playing out their own fantasies.\u201d The tournaments allowed men and women \u201cto live their romanticized ideal of themselves in full by playing the roles of maidens and cavaliers.\u201d Charlene M. Boyer Lewis, Ladies and Gentleman on Display: Planter Society at the Virginia Springs 1790-1860 <\/em>(2001), 177-186, 200-208.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A younger daughter of the eleven children of John and Susan Harwood, Eliza Fisk Harwood (1827-1888) did not grow up with the rest of her family in the naval port of Norfolk, Virginia.[1] Her mother had \u201cgiven\u201d Eliza as a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1943,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"spay_email":""},"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P4M6TH-vi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1940"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1940"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2229,"href":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1940\/revisions\/2229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}