Betsy Graeme’s ‘cup of suffering’
Horsham debutante was wealthy, beautiful,
well-educated — and unlucky in love
She had all the advantages. Wealth. Rare beauty. Fluency in several languages. Writer and poet. Socialite and friend of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and many others. But in matters of love, fate betrayed Elizabeth “Betsy” Graeme.
I visited Horsham’s Graeme Park near Warminster to experience where she grew up. The 42-acre park — once a 1,400-acre estate founded by Gov. William Keith in 1722 — is a cocoon of history wedged into modern suburbia. Turning off traffic-clogged County Line Road onto the park’s 1/4-mile-long entrance drive is a journey 300 years into the past. A massive barn and Betsy’s mansion loom over vast lawns reminiscent of grand estates of England. A reflection pond, tall sycamore trees and meandering stream edge the property.
Betsy, born in 1737, was youngest daughter of wealthy Philadelphia physician Thomas Graeme, who acquired the property after the governor’s death. Through private tutors, Betsy became fluent in French, Greek, Latin and Italian. By age 17 she fell in love with Ben Franklin’s son William, 21, who proposed before departing for London to study law. Betsy’s dad convinced her to wait until his return. But sparse correspondence between the two over the next year persuaded William that Betsy had broken the engagement. He remained in England and married someone else.
In deep depression and in ill health, Betsy sailed to Europe to recover. There she met the English king and began a short flirtation with American poet Nathaniel Evans. Back home, she learned her mother had passed, leaving her advice on choosing a husband: “Take him with all his faults and frailties for none are without, and when you have him, expect not too much from him.”
Betsy, re-immersing herself in Philadelphia society, founded America’s first literary salon modeled after those she experienced in Paris. Famed Philly physician Benjamin Rush attended Betty’s “attic evenings” at her home and recalled her “vivid and widely expanded imagination … her body seemed to vanish, and she appeared all mind.” One evening, he brought along Henry Fergusson, 21, a handsome Scotsman fluent in multiple languages and attracted to Betsy, 32. When the two became engaged, her father forbid it. Henry was far too young and had no property. Besides, he was headed to Scotland for the summer. Why not wait?
The couple secretly married prior to his departure. It took months before Betsy summoned courage to tell her 84-year-old dad. “I sat on the bench at the window and watched him coming up the avenue. I was in agony; at every step he was approaching nearer. As he reached the tenant house he fell and died.”
Inheriting the estate, Betsy longed to sell it and live in Philadelphia. Under colonial law, however, only men could sell property, specifically her husband. When he returned in the spring, he tried without success. The American Revolution changed everything. Henry, a loyalist, fled to Britain by mortgaging part of the estate, leaving Betsy behind. In the summer of 1777, 11,000 American troops bivouacked in Warwick and Graeme Park to guard against a British attack on Philadelphia through Bucks County. George Washington, headquartered in Warwick’s Moland House, dined with his officers at Betsy’s home. After 10 days, the Continental Army marched off and was soundly defeated south of Philadelphia. Washington retreated to Valley Forge as the Redcoats seized the city.
Soon Henry returned to aid the occupation. Knowing of his wife’s friendship with Washington, he coerced her into delivering a message to him from Jacob Duche, former chaplain of the Continental Congress. Betsy and the general met in Kulpsville near Graeme Park. On reading the note, Washington denounced Duche for urging him to surrender and chastised Betsy for complicity. Nine months later the British abandoned Philadelphia. Henry left with them, never to return. The state seized Betsy’s estate and promptly auctioned off all her personal belongings. She was embittered, especially toward her husband after learning he fathered a child with a maid during the occupation.
Betsy’s abandonment is recounted in her poem, “The Deserted Wife.” She and other wives like Bensalem’s Grace Growden Galloway lost title to their property through marriage to Loyalist husbands, helping seed the women’s rights movement of the 19th century.
After regaining Graeme Park in 1781 through influential friends, Betsy eventually sold it through her nephew. She never remarried and died in 1801 at age 64. Dr. Rush eulogized her as “a woman of uncommon talents and virtues, admired, esteemed, and beloved by a numerous circle of friends.” But, as he put it, “An early disappointment in love, loss of all her relations, bad health, an unfortunate marriage connection, poverty, and finally a slow and painful death composed the ingredients that filled her cup of suffering.”
Sources include “The Most Learned Woman in America: The Life of Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson” by Ann M. Ousterhout published in 2004. Information on Graeme Park can be found on the web at www.graemepark.org/
Carl LaVO, weekly columnist for The Intelligencer and Bucks County Courier Times, can be reached at carllavo0@gmail.com
