Margaret Agnew Blennerhassett

Margaret Agnew Blennerhassett (1771 – June 16, 1842) was an English-American poet and aristocrat.

Life Margaret Agnew was born in 1771, in Bishop Auckland, England. Her father, Robert Agnew, was the lieutenant governor of the Isle of Man. Margaret defied social and religious conventions by marrying her maternal uncle, Harman Blennerhassett, a wealthy Irish aristocrat. They shared a 7,000-acre estate in County Kerry until 1795, when their union and Harman's revolutionary ideals prompted them to sell the estate and immigrate to America.

Margaret is said to have been above average height with brown hair and blue eyes. She often wore her hair bound in a silk headdress. She wrote and spoke French and Italian fluently. She would often accompany her husband on hunting trips and enjoyed horseback riding.

The couple left London and sailed to New York City in America. Once there they traveled south to Pittsburgh, PA and then chartered a boat down the Ohio River.

In 1825, Margaret and her children joined Harman in Europe. Harman died in 1831. Margaret remained in Europe until 1842, when she and son Harman Jr., returned to the United States. She petitioned Congress for restitution for the Blennerhassett Mansion’s destruction alongside Henry Clay, who was previously involved in defending Burr and her husband and had learned that she was residing in a New York tenement and was struggling to support her severely afflicted son. Clay, recognizing the injustice that had befallen her, attempted to persuade Congress to provide her with a modest compensation for the destruction of her home, years after the tragic events that had happened. Although a Senate committee voted in favor of her appeal, she died June 16, 1842, in a poor house in New York City. The Sisters of Charity buried her in a New York cemetery.

Their home on the island remained empty for many years before finally burning to the ground. Between 1984 and 1991, the State of West Virginia reconstructed the Blennerhassett Mansion on its original foundations. The mansion and island comprise Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park. In 1996, the bodies of Margaret and Harman Jr. were reburied on the island in an historical Episcopal ceremony. It was not common at the time for women to publish under their own names; that is why Margaret published under the pseudonym "A Lady". The first collection of poems she published, The Deserted Isle, referenced her beloved Island, now known as Blennerhassett Island.

Blennerhassett's life was also the subject of a 1901 novel, Blennerhassett; or, The Decrees of Fate, by Charles Felton Pidgin.