Martha Laurens Ramsay
Martha Laurens Ramsay (1759-1811) was an influential figure in early American history, born into a prominent colonial family in Charleston, South Carolina. She was the daughter of Eleanor Ball Laurens and Henry Laurens, a well-known importer. Ramsay received a comprehensive education that included geography, mathematics, and domestic skills, facilitated by her father’s support and her experiences in Europe. After her mother’s death when she was eleven, Ramsay faced numerous family challenges, including the loss of siblings and the estrangement from her father due to her marital choices.
During her early adulthood in France, she took on significant responsibilities, caring for ill family members and founding a children's school. After returning to Charleston in 1785, she married Dr. David Ramsay, with whom she had eleven children and raised his son from a previous marriage. Before her death, Ramsay revealed a collection of writings to her husband, which he later published posthumously as "Memoirs of the Life of Martha Laurens Ramsay." Her writings reflect her introspective nature and commitment to her beliefs, offering insights into the life of a woman navigating the complexities of her time.
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Martha Laurens Ramsay
- Born: November 3, 1759
- Birthplace: Charleston, South Carolina
- Died: June 10, 1811
- Place of death: Charleston, South Carolina
Biography
Martha Laurens Ramsay was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1759, the daughter of Eleanor Ball Laurens and importer Henry Laurens, a wealthy South Carolina colonial couple. Ramsay had an older brother, John, and an older sister who died when Ramsay was five years old. Ramsay received her education at St. Philip’s Church and from tutors. Her father traveled widely and sent her globes, which she studied along with geography, mathematics, botany drawings, and such domestic skills as sewing and cooking. When she was eleven years old, her mother died, leaving behind a newborn daughter in addition to the other children. Ramsay and the infant were sent to live with a childless aunt and uncle, and her father was often overseas, arranging for the European education of her brothers. In 1775, Ramsay and her sister went to Europe when her uncle’s family moved to England for his health. After the Revolutionary War broke out in the American colonies, the family stayed in southern France until the fighting ended.
While in her early twenties in France, Ramsay took care of her ill family members, served as her younger sister’s tutor, and opened a children’s school in the village of Vigan. Her youngest brother had died a few years prior in an accident at boarding school, and her older brother John, whom she greatly admired, died in 1782, during some of the last fighting in the colonies. In the meantime, their father was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Upon John’s death, Ramsay decided to resolve matters with her father; she and her father became estranged when her father disapproved of her courtship with a Frenchman. Ramsay traveled to Bath, England, in 1783 to care for her recently released and ill father. Ramsay, her father, and the surviving family members returned to Charleston in 1785.
A widowed doctor, David Ramsay, began caring for her father, and she and the doctor were married in January 1787. David Ramsay had a child from his second marriage (both his first and second wives died less than a year after their marriages), and David and Martha Ramsay raised him together, along with eleven children of their own over the course of their twenty-four-year marriage. Just before her death in 1811, Ramsay told her husband about a secret collection of writings she had been keeping during much of her life. David Ramsay, himself a published writer and historian, found her diaries and other writings, and he edited and published them as Memoirs of the Life of Martha Laurens Ramsay (1812). The writings depict a deeply thoughtful woman committed to exploring her inner self and her religious beliefs. The book also includes letters that Ramsay sent and received throughout her life.