Elizabeth Willing Powel

Elizabeth Willing Powel (February 21, 1743 – January 17, 1830) was an American socialite and a prominent member of the upper class of Philadelphia in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The daughter, later sister and then wife of mayors of Philadelphia, she was a salonnière who hosted frequent gatherings that became a staple of political life in the city. During the First Continental Congress in 1774, Powel opened her home to the delegates and their families, hosting dinner parties and other events. After the American Revolutionary War, she again took her place among the most prominent Philadelphian socialites, establishing a salon of the Republican Court of leading intellectuals and political figures.

Powel corresponded widely, including with the political elite of the time. She was a close friend and confidante to George Washington and was among those who convinced him to continue for a second term as president. She wrote extensively, but privately, on a wide range of subjects, including politics, the role of women, medicine, education, and philosophy. Powel is said to be the person who asked Benjamin Franklin, "What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?", to which he reportedly replied, "A republic... if you can keep it",Efn|Some sources quote Franklin's response as "A republic, madam—if you can keep it" with the inclusion of the term "madam" as James McHenry retold the story in The Republican, or Anti-Democrat newspaper on July 15, 1803. McHenry's original journal entry during the Convention reads: "A lady asked Dr. Franklin well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy – A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it." to Charles and Ann Willing. The family lived in a house on the corner of Third Street and Willings Alley in Philadelphia. Charles had immigrated to the city from England, at the age of 18, as a merchant in foreign trade. He was elected as mayor of Philadelphia in 1748 and 1754. Ann came from a Quaker family of successful merchants who had immigrated to the Colonies from England three generations prior. While the details of Elizabeth's education are unknown, according to historian David W. Maxey, the family was wealthy enough to afford private tutoring, and the content of Elizabeth's writing indicates a quality education.

Elizabeth had five elder siblings, Thomas, Ann, Dorothy, Charles, and Mary, and five younger siblings, Richard, Abigail, Joseph, James, and Margaret. Dorothy was married to Walter Stirling in 1753, Mary to William Byrd III in 1761, and Ann to Tench Francis Jr. in 1762. Thomas inherited the family home after their father's death in 1754, a year after Margaret was born. He became mayor of Philadelphia and married Ann McCall in 1763. When they began to have children and the house became more crowded, there was increased pressure on Elizabeth, the eldest of her unmarried sisters, to find a suitor and begin a family. Rumors in 1768 spoke of Elizabeth's supposed engagement to John Dickinson, a man ten years her senior and author of the widely circulated Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. Elizabeth denied any such relationship in private letters to her sister Mary, assuring her that, should such a connection exist, Mary would have been among the first to know.

Marriage and children

Elizabeth married Samuel Powel. Also of Quaker ancestry, he was among the richest people in Philadelphia; at 18 years old, he had inherited the fortune of his grandfather Samuel , who was among the first settlers of the Province of Pennsylvania. 's son, also named Samuel and father to Elizabeth's husband, died in 1747, only after having found success as a merchant and shortened his surname to Powel. Elizabeth's husband graduated from the College of Philadelphia in 1759, before he embarked on a seven-year tour of Europe to study art. He went to Rome where he sat for a portrait by the painter Angelica Kauffman and had an audience with Pope Clement XIII. In England, he was baptized into the Anglican Church like John Morgan, his companion on the tour, was before him.

Samuel and Elizabeth's marriage brought together two of the most prominent mercantile families in the city. Their wedding on August 7, 1769, was held at Christ Church and officiated by Jacob Duché. Five days before, Samuel purchased for his new family a home later known as the Powel House. Their second child, a girl, was stillborn on August 6, 1771, or as Elizabeth wrote "at most but just breathed". Another boy was stillborn on April 2, 1772. Their fourth child was christened Samuel C. but died after only two weeks on July 11, 1775.

Salonnière During the 1774 meeting of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Powel opened her home to the delegates and their families, hosting dinner parties and events. Women were generally excluded from official roles in political institutions, and hosting prominent figures in domestic settings emerged as an opportunity to take a leading role in political discourse. In at least one instance, Adams recalled enjoying what, from his Puritan perspective, was "a most sinful feast". His diary records the dishes served to guests: "curds and creams, jellies, sweetmeats of all sorts, twenty kinds of tarts, truffles, floating-island, sylabubs, etc., in fact everything that could delight the eye or allure the taste." After drinking a selection of "punch, wine, porter, beer, etc. etc.", he and others were inspired to admire a view of the city by climbing the steeple of a nearby church. His wife Abigail Adams noted Powel as "the best informed, most affable, very friendly and full of conversation, a woman of many charms."

American Revolution When the Revolutionary War began in 1775, Powel and her husband remained in the city. He was elected mayor of Philadelphia and began his first term on October 3, 1775. The Declaration of Independence was signed in July 1776 and the city government dissolved, making him the last colonial mayor of Philadelphia. His loyalty was equivocal, and he seems to have had little interest in the outcome of the war. Elizabeth's allegiance during the war remains uncertain. She was concerned with the destruction of Philadelphia. As large fires burned throughout the city, she unsuccessfully attempted to save the furniture from her sister Ann's home.

During the Philadelphia campaign, the Powel House was taken over by the British during their occupation of the city. Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, used it as his headquarters while leading the Peace Commission, which unsuccessfully sought an end to the war. Carlisle and his staff remained for about ten days in June 1778, forcing the Powels to move to a wing of their home normally reserved for servants. Carlisle and the Powels often dined together and discussed politics; he found them "very agreeable, sensible people". When British troops withdrew from the city, Elizabeth emerged among the most prominent Philadelphian socialites of the post-revolution period, establishing the Philadelphia salon of the Republican Court from the leading intellectual and political figures of colonial America. As the foundations of the new nation were established, the Republican Court played a key role in facilitating political affiliation and communication, in addition to cementing the social status and personal reputation of the aristocratic elite, as they adapted to the emerging democratic society.

Friendship with George Washington

Elizabeth was a close friend and confidant to George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and later the first president of the United States. She was also a friend of his wife, Martha. Her letter reads in part: The Antifederalist would use [retirement] as an argument for dissolving the Union, and would urge that you, from experience, had found the present system a bad one, and had, artfully, withdrawn from it that you might not be crushed under its ruins... For God's sake do not yield that empire to a love of ease, retirement, rural pursuits, or a false diffidence of abilities...

They corresponded regularly throughout the 1780s and 1790s.

Later life and death

Mayor Powel was reelected for a second term in 1789, becoming the first post-revolution mayor of Philadelphia. He was elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate the following year. In 1793, Philadelphia experienced an epidemic of yellow fever, during which the Washingtons invited the Powels to seek refuge at Mount Vernon. The family decided instead to remain in the city, where a tenth of the 50,000 residents contracted the disease and died including Samuel in September. Powel never remarried in the three decades after her husband's death. Following the death of George Washington in December 1799, she was among the first to write to his widow. Powel continued her correspondence with the Washington family, including George's nephew, Bushrod Washington, for whom she had purchased a gift of black satin robes upon his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court in April 1799. Her funeral five days later was, according to Maxey, a well-attended "social event and a religious experience" presided over by William White, the bishop of Pennsylvania. Her obituary eulogized her as one who had "mind cast in an unusual mold of strength and proportion".

Powel: Well, Doctor, what have we got? (In his earlier journal entry, this question was posed as "...what have we got a republic or a monarchy?" He again included the anecdote in his 1811 political pamphlet The Three Patriots, an attack on Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.) In this pamphlet, he notes that the conversation took place as Franklin was just entering the room to meet Powel, presumably at her home.

Writing in 1814, Powel could not recall, but would not deny, that the interaction had taken place:

I have no recollection of any such conversations... Yet I cannot venture to deny after so many years have elapsed that such conversations had passed. I well remember to have frequently associated with the most respectable, influential members of the Convention that framed the Constitution, and that the all-important subject was frequently discussed at our house.

The story of Powel's exchange with Franklin was adapted over time. While Franklin's response continued to be attributed to him, the role played by Powel was all but removed in 20th-century versions. The question is also mentioned in speeches at both the 1940 and 1968 Republican National Conventions in which it is attributed to a "woman" and a "concerned citizen", respectively. In 1934, the Philadelphia Museum of Art returned the majority of the interior elements purchased from the house. This included the entry archway, a wall with a fireplace from the first-story back parlor, and molding from throughout the house. Copies were made of the woodwork from the second-floor front parlor and from the adjacent withdrawing room. With the reappropriated elements, the Powel House was fully restored and furnished with pieces from the 18th century. It was opened to the public as a museum in 1938. The second-floor front parlor remains as an exhibit at Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the withdrawing room is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Powel meticulously copied her letters to relatives and friends; each was signed "Eliza Powel". Nearly 500 of her letters survive.

Several portraits of Powel survive. The earliest are a circa 1755–1759 portrait by John Wollaston and a circa 1760 miniature by an unknown artist. The first of two portraits by painter Matthew Pratt, Portrait of Mrs. Samuel Powel (née Elizabeth Willing), is from around the time of her marriage to Samuel in 1769. It is owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Before his death during the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic in 1793, the painter Joseph Wright started a portrait of Powel that went unfinished. Wright's painting was anonymously donated around 2020 and is held by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association.

Powel received frequent requests for portraitures by a number of artists, directly or through friends and relatives, many of which she declined. In 1809, Benjamin Trott created a miniature which Powel commended for its "great taste" though she said it was "a too flattering likeness to be a perfectly correct one". Eight years later, Thomas Sully based a bust portrait on the miniature by Trott. Powel sat for her final portrait at the age of 81 or 82, circa 1825, for a painting by a young Francis Alexander. This last portrait is owned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.