Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson

Elizabeth Graeme was first engaged to Benjamin Franklin’s son William, but the engagement ended when he left for Europe.  Undaunted, she eloped with loyalist Henry Fergusson, who was charged with treason for aiding General Howe and banned from America. She remained.  She was a prolific writer and poet.  Her Wednesday evenings salons were attended by Francis Hopkinson and Benjamin Rush in addition to many of the writers she mentored.  "No other author did as much to encourage womens' writing in the eighteenth-century America."