Elizabeth Willing Powel: Difference between revisions

Elizabeth Willing Powel
Portrait of Elizabeth Willing Powel by Matthew Pratt, c. 1793
Born	Elizabeth Willing (1743-02-21)February 21, 1743 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, British America
Died	January 17, 1830(1830-01-17) (aged 86) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Resting place	Christ Church Burial Ground
Spouse	Samuel Powel ​ ​ (m. 1769; died 1793)​
Parents	Charles Willing (father) Ann Shippen (mother)
Relatives	Edward Shippen (great-grandfather) Thomas Willing (brother) James Willing (brother) Mary Willing Byrd (sister) John Hare Powel (nephew and chosen heir) Ann Willing Bingham (niece)
Signature

Elizabeth Willing Powel (February 21, 1743 [O.S. February 10, 1742/43] – January 17, 1830) was an American socialite and a prominent member of the Philadelphia upper class of the late 1700s and early 1800s. The daughter and later wife of mayors of Philadelphia, she was a politically connected woman who hosted well-attended and high-profile parties, after the fashion of a French salon, which 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 events. After the American Revolutionary War, she once again took her place among the most prominent Philadelphian socialites, establishing a salon of leading intellectuals and political figures.

Powel corresponded widely, including with the political elite of the time. She was a close friend and confidant to George Washington and was among those that 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, physics, medicine, education, and philosophy. Powel is also said to be the person who asked Benjamin Franklin, "What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?", to which he reportedly said, "A republic ... if you can keep it",^[a] an often quoted statement about the Constitution of the United States. The exchange was first recorded by James McHenry, a delegate of the Constitutional Convention, in his journal entry dated September 18, 1787. Powel's exchange with Franklin was adapted over time, with the role played by Powel all but removed in 20th-century versions and replaced with an anonymous "lady", "woman", or "concerned citizen". The setting of the conversation was also revised from her home at the Powel House to the steps of Independence Hall.

After her husband Samuel Powel's death in 1793, Powel managed the family estate and business dealings. She built a home for her nephew and chosen heir, John Hare Powel, on the country estate which she inherited from her husband. She died on January 17, 1830, and was buried beside her husband at Christ Church. The Powel House was renovated and reopened to the public as a museum in 1938. Two rooms from the house have been reconstructed as exhibits at museums in Philadelphia and New York City. The Powel's country estate later became part of Powelton Village in Philadelphia. Hundreds of her letters and several portraits of her survive.

Elizabeth Willing was born in Philadelphia on February 21, 1743 [O.S. February 10, 1742/43],^[6][7] to Charles and Ann (née Shippen) Willing.^[8][9] The family lived in a house on the corner of Third Street and Willings Alley in Philadelphia.^[6][10] Charles had immigrated to the city at the age of 18 as a merchant in foreign trade. He was elected as mayor of Philadelphia in 1748 and 1754.^[11] Ann came from a Quaker family of successful merchants who had immigrated to the Colonies three generation prior.^[12] While the details of her education are unknown, according to historian David W. Maxey, the family was wealthy enough to easily afford private tutoring, and the content of Elizabeth's writing indicates a quality education.^[6]

Elizabeth had five elder siblings, Thomas, Ann, Dorothy, Charles, and Mary, and five younger siblings, Richard, Abigail, Joseph, James, and Margaret.^[13] Dorothy was married to Walter Stirling in 1753, Mary to William Byrd III in 1761, and Ann to Tench Francis Jr. in 1762.^[13][14] This made Elizabeth the eldest of her unmarried sisters. Thomas, who had inherited their home after their father's death in 1754, was married to Ann McCall in 1763 and quickly began to fill the house with more children. This resulted in increased pressure on Elizabeth to find a suitor and begin a family of her own. 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, she would have been among the first to know.^[14]

Portrait of Samuel Powel by Angelica Kauffman, c. 1764–1765^[15]

Portrait of Powel by Matthew Pratt, c. 1768–1769^[16]

Elizabeth married Samuel Powel (born 1738) at Christ Church on August 7, 1769. Their wedding was officiated by Jacob Duché.^[17][18] Also of Quaker ancestry, Samuel was well traveled and, at the time, one of the richest merchants in Philadelphia. As a young man, he had inherited a fortune from his grandfather Samuel Powell who was among the first settlers of the Province of Pennsylvania and died in 1756.^[17][b] This marriage brought together two of the most prominent mercantile families in the city.^[19] Five days before their wedding, Powel had purchased for his new family a home later known as the Powel House; it was located on South Third Street in Philadelphia,^[7][20] just south of Elizabeth's childhood home.^[21][22]

Each of the Powels' four children died young.^[7][18] Their first son, born on June 29, 1770,^[23] was christened Samuel Jr. before he died on July 14, 1771. 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, and third son, was christened Samuel C. but died after only two weeks on July 11, 1775.^[24] The death of her children and the constant depression that resulted from it throughout her life was reflected in her correspondence.^[25] She kept a lock of hair from both her sons named Samuel and wrote often of her loss, lamenting her unfulfilled dreams of raising a child.^[24][25][c]

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 to discuss the politics of the day.^[27] Most women were excluded from the political institutions of the day, and hosting politicians and prominent public figures in a domestic setting became their opportunity to take a leading role in political discourse.^[27] Elizabeth's well-attended and high-profile parties at Powel House followed the conventions of French salons and became a staple of political life in the city.^[7] She encouraged political discourse and often opined on matters of state. Her sister, Ann Francis, wrote to their sibling Mary Byrd of the "uncommon command [Elizabeth] has of language and [how her] ideas flow with rapidity."^[28] French nobleman François-Jean de Chastellux recalled that, "contrary to American custom," rather than her husband as the foremost political thinker of the house, "[Mrs. Powel] plays the leading role in the family".^[27][29]

Powel played host to contemporary elites, including Benjamin Rush, the Marquis de Lafayette, and John Adams.^[30] 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."^[31][32] After drinking a selection of "punch, wine, porter, beer, etc. etc.", he and others were inspired to admire the view of the city by climbing the steeple of a nearby church.^[33] He noted Powel as "the best informed, most affable, very friendly and full of conversation, a woman of many charms."^[34]

When the Revolutionary War began in 1775, the Powels remained in the city. Samuel was elected mayor of Philadelphia and began his first term on October 3, 1775.^[26][35] The Declaration of Independence was signed in July 1776 and the city government dissolved, making Samuel the last colonial mayor of Philadelphia.^[36][35] Samuel's loyalty was equivocal, and he seems to not have had any interest who won or lost.^[37] Elizabeth's loyalty remains a mystery.^[38] She was concerned with the destruction of the city. As large fires burned throughout the city, she unsuccessfully attempted to save the furniture from her sister Ann's home.^[39]

During the occupation of the city as part of the Philadelphia campaign, the Powel House was taken over by the British. Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, used the ballroom as his military headquarters from winter to early spring of 1778.^[40] For two weeks in June 1778, Carlisle personally commandeered the Powels' bed chambers, forcing them to move to a wing of their home normally reserved for household servants.^[37][41] Carlisle and the Powels often dined together and discussed politics; he found them "very agreeable, sensible people".^[40][42] 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.^[41][43][44] In 1789, Samuel was reelected, becoming the first post-revolution mayor of Philadelphia.^[36][35]

Portrait of George Washington by Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller, 1794^[45]

The withdrawing room from the Powel House, reconstructed as an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

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.^[7][46] The Washingtons first met the Powels in September or October 1774 as dinner guests at notable homes in Philadelphia while George served as a delegate of the First Continental Congress.^[47] They were officially introduced on January 6, 1779, at a Twelfth Night ball hosted by the Powels and attended by the Washingtons who were celebrating the 20th anniversary of their marriage.^[48][49] Washington renewed his friendship with the couple when he returned to Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention in May 1787.^[34][50] His diary and various letters indicate frequent visits to the home, passing mornings drinking tea and evenings dining.^[51][d] The Powels also visited Mount Vernon in October of the same year.^[52][53]

Washington's relationship with Powel was perhaps the closest of all his friendships with women in his later life. They enjoyed a respect for each other as intellectual equals.^[50] In November 1792, Washington confided in Powel that he intended to step down at the end of his first term as president. In her own words, her "mind was thrown into a train of reflections", and she considered it "inconsistent with [their] friendship" to withhold her thoughts. She wrote Washington urging him to reconsider.^[7][54] Her letter dated November 17, 1792, reads in part:^[54]

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 ...

According to Washington biographer Ron Chernow, her letter may have been the "decisive stroke" in convincing Washington to seek a second term.^[55] Although he did not reply to the letter, it seems that he was not offended by the strongly worded seven-page letter. Their friendship continued unaffected,^[56] and he even commissioned a poem by Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson as a gift to Powel for her 50th birthday a few months later in February 1793.^[57][58]

George and Elizabeth corresponded regularly. He signed his letters, "With the greatest respect and affection", and she referred to him as "My dear Sir" and signed her letters, "Your sincere affectionate friend."^[59] Their relationship lasted until Washington's death in 1799. However, according to Cassandra Good, Marymount University professor of history and politics, theirs was not a romantic relationship, and it was within custom for prominent men of the period to befriend women.^[60][e] As was also customary, they were careful to include Martha in the friendship.^[f] George was also friendly towards Samuel and even took part in Samuel's avocation of creating silhouettes by posing for one himself.^[64] The two men also shared an interest in agriculture.^[47]

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 Samuel contracted and later died of the disease on September 29.^[7][65] Powel never remarried and lived for more than three decades after her husband's death.^[66] Following the death of George Washington in December 1799, she was among the first to write to the widowed Martha.^[7][25][67] 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.^[7]

Besides nominal gifts to some relatives and others, Samuel left all his wealth to Elizabeth and appointed her executrix of his will.^[68] She oversaw the management of the estate and wrote more often on the subject.^[69] She sold Powel House in 1798^[70] and spent her final years in a mansion on Chestnut Street, a short distance from Independence Hall.^[71] On May 13, 1800, she began building a new house at Powelton, the country estate Samuel had purchased in June 1775.^[72] At the suggestion of her sister Margaret and her husband Robert Hare, Powel accepted their son John Willing Hare—who later became John Hare Powel—as her heir.^[73]

A month before her death, attendants at a dinner party reported she was in a state of "nervous irritability and mental distress," questioning "Have I ever done good in my life? Can people go to Heaven without doing good?"^[74] She died on January 17, 1830.^[75] 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.^[66] She is buried beside her husband in the cemetery at Christ Church in Philadelphia.^[74]

John Hare inherited most of Powel's estate including Powelton.^[76] The property in Blockley Township included a Greek Revival country home, built by Elizabeth in the early 1800s, which John Hare expanded in 1824–25 with designs from architect William Strickland.^[77] He also inherited her mansion on Chestnut Street which he converted into a hotel named Marshall House^[78] and then leased to Samuel Badger who operated it from 1837 to 1841.^[79]

Powel maintained frequent correspondence with her influential interlocutors. She discussed politics and the education and social standing of women, exchanged poetry, recommended books, and reviewed scientific findings in medicine and physics.^[80] She frequently studied and wrote on the subject of health, prompting Elizabeth Hamilton to later recall, "[r]emember Mrs. Powel on the advantages of health, and disadvantages of the want of it."^[69] When Rush published his Thoughts upon Female Education (1787), he dedicated the work to Powel.^[81][82]

She wrote on the subject of religion, including to her eventual protégé Bushrod Washington, saying of David Hume and of deist philosophers generally, that they were like a person who would leave a family homeless by knocking down their house without providing shelter, arguing that the foundations of the home were not solid.^[63]

Although Samuel was later known by the Colonial-revival appellation of "Patriot Mayor", his attitude towards the Revolutionary War was more measured.^[30] Elizabeth's sisters were active in the homespun movement and efforts to boycott British goods, but it does not seem that Elizabeth joined them.^[83] She did lament the lack of education the Revolutionary War would cause, citing "the want of proper schools for the instruction of youth ... especially when the barbarities of war have almost made mankind savage."^[39] According to Maxey, her later writing seems to suggest there may have been at least one Patriot at the Powel House.^[71] When the War of 1812 broke out, her love for her country and strong hatred for the British became clear as she wrote:^[84]

The armies of Europe are mostly composed of the refuse of our species. Even the officers are generally (particularly the English with a few exceptions) men of desperate fortunes or the younger sons of genteel families, who are glad to get rid of the expense, and trouble of weak immoral dissipated lazy boys, that are utterly incapable of providing for themselves in any line of productive industry. Certainly the English are a proud, cruel sordid tyrannic selfish nation, as they have evinced by their brutal conduct in Asia, Africa, America, Ireland, Denmark, and in Scotland ... I cannot but suspect from the present conduct of the British, that they are fast returning to their pristine state of barbarity. Their execrable practice of pillaging, and burning, is only worthy of a nation of incendiaries, and thieves of the worst cast. Contrast what I have alledged as strictly true, with the real pretensions of the American Army, which is generally composed of the yeomanry of our country, respectable citizens, industrious well informed tradesmen who have families and property to protect, professional men of various descriptions, and some highminded generous gentlemen of independent fortune [who], although they are not designated by titular distinctions, have just claims to great personal nobility.

In her letters, Powel expressed contempt for Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son and his treatment of women. To her sister Mary, she wrote in December 1783 that Chesterfield "mistook appetite for love and regarded the object of his inclinations only as it could contribute to the gratification of his vicious desires." She warned of the dangers of taking pity on a seductive man that would lead a married woman to a precipice of "utter and inevitable disadvantage."^[85] In a circa 1784 letter to Maria Page, Mary's recently married daughter, Powel warned of the dangers of men who, "destined by opinion and uncontrolled custom", "do not love to find a competitor in the softer sex"—an arrangement which Powel believed required the utmost delicacy from educated women.^[86]

Despite her proximity to and friendships with the political and philosophical elites of the day, Powel expressed her misgivings about women holding public office. In another letter to Mary, dated November 29, 1785, she wrote:^[87]

A fine woman is totally unfit for government and what we commonly called the great affairs of public life. [Women] are quick at expedient, ready in the moment of sudden exigencies, excellent to suggest, but their imagination runs riot; it requires the vigor of mind alone possessed by men to digest and put in force a plan of any magnitude. There is a natural precipitancy in our sex that frequently frustrates its own designs.

The Powels maintained a substantial cadre of slave free and indentured servants. Christ Church records record the marriage of a slave of "Mr. Powel" less than a year after the Powels' wedding in 1769. Their purchase of a slave in October 1773 for the price of £100^[g] is also noted in local tax records. By 1790, the family no longer held slaves in their service, although their peers and neighbors continued to do so.^[89] According to existing records, the Powels took considerable care regarding their servants' welfare, including Elizabeth allowing for a number of them in her will once she became a widow.^[90][h] In one instance, she caused a dispute with the family of Alexander Wilcocks, by luring away their cook, Betty Smith, who was unhappy with the treatment of her employers. Powel concluded that Smith was ultimately a free woman and could make such decisions for herself.^[90]

Although she was both raised in and married into slave-owning families, Powel later strongly oppose the institution. On her death she left a 20-year annuity of $100^[i] to the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, along with a message to be included in their minutes, reading in part:^[92]

I abhor slavery under any modification and consider the practice of holding our fellow creatures in bondage alike inconsistent with the principles of humanity and the free republic institutions ... I feel it to be the duty of every individual to cooperate by all honourable means in the abolition of slavery, and in the restoration of freedom to that important part of the family of mankind, which has so long groaned under oppression.

Her abhorrence of slavery can be traced back to at least as early as 1814 when she began contemplating the bequest to the Abolition Society. She confided in her lawyer her hope that the end of slavery would be realized before the expiration of her bequest.^[92]

In September 1787, in the final days of the Constitutional Convention, the delegates set to drafting the Constitution of the United States. Powel is said to have shared an exchange with Benjamin Franklin, for which she is most often remembered. According to James McHenry, a delegate of the Convention, she asked Franklin, "What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" referring to the governmental structure of the newly formed United States. Franklin is said to have responded, "A republic ... if you can keep it."^[3][27][47]

James McHenry's journal entry dated September 18, 1787

McHenry in a portrait attributed to James Sharples, c. 1795–1800

The first account of the story was recorded by McHenry on the last page of his journal about the Convention. The entry, dated September 18, 1787, 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."^[7] He later added on the same page: "The lady here alluded to was Mrs. Powel of Philad[elphi]a."^[3][4][27] On July 15, 1803, McHenry published an extended version of the conversation in The Republican, or Anti-Democrat, a short-lived anti-Jeffersonian newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland:^[3][93][94]

Powel: Well, Doctor, what have we got?^[j]
Franklin: A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.^[k]
Powel: And why not keep it?
Franklin: Because the people, on tasting the dish, are always disposed to eat more of it than does them good.

The following month, the anecdote was reprinted in several Federalist newspapers, including the Middlebury Mercury in Vermont, The Spectator in New York, the Alexandria Advertiser in Virginia, and the Newburyport Herald in Massachusetts.^[95] Historian J. L. Bell believes that McHenry, a staunch Federalist, may have had political motivations for changing the story. While the original version was whether the U.S. was a monarchy or a republic, McHenry recalls in his later versions a second question from Powel implying that the first question was whether the country was to be a republic or a democracy.^[2][95] He again included the anecdote in his 1811 political pamphlet The Three Patriots, an attack on Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.^[96] In this pamphlet, he notes that the conversation took place as Franklin was just entering the room to meet Powel, presumably at Powel House.^[97][98]

Writing in 1814, Powel could not recall, but would not deny, that the interaction had taken place:^[7]

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.

Powel remembered an account of the conversation also appearing in Zachariah Poulson's Daily Advertiser, but she could not recall on what date. Bell notes that he did not locate the story in the Daily Advertiser, and it did appear elsewhere, so Powel may have misremembered where else, besides McHenry's writings, she had seen it.^[47][97]

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.^[27][99] McHenry's journal on the Constitutional Convention first appeared in print, in its entirety including the footnote mentioning Powel, in the April 1906 issue of The American Historical Review.^[93][100][l] It is to this publication that Bartleby.com and The Yale Book of Quotations trace the anecdote's recent history.^[93] In later versions, the setting of the exchange was revised from the Powel House to the steps of Independence Hall or the streets of Philadelphia. Powel herself was often replaced with an anonymous "lady", "woman", or "concerned citizen".^[27][99] Hilmar Baukhage, in his remarks at a 1940 alumni symposium at the University of Chicago, attributes the question to a woman who stuck her head out of a window as the delegates were coming out on to the streets of Philadelphia.^[99][102] 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.^[99] Michael P. Riccards wrote in his 1987 book, A Republic, If You Can Keep it, that "as [Franklin] shuffled down the streets of Philadelphia, an inquisitive woman stopped him and asked, 'What have you given us?' "^[103]

When Powel is included in biographer Walter Isaacson's 2003 book, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, she was portrayed not as a prominent figure of importance and intelligence but as an "anxious lady" who "accosted" Franklin.^[27] Isaacson writes that Powel asked "what type of government have you given us?"^[104] According to Zara Anishanslin, this also diminishes her role by relaying her question in the passive form.^[27] Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch's book, A Republic, If You Can Keep It, published in September 2019, did not mention Powel^[27] and instead attributes the question to a "passerby" who posed it to Franklin as he exited the Constitutional Convention.^[105] The same month, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while announcing the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump in the House of Representatives, attributed the question to "Americans gathered on the steps of Independence Hall". Anishanslin notes that neither Gorsuch nor Pelosi mention Powel and argues that Powel's "erasure not only creates a founding-era political history artificially devoid of women, but it also makes it harder to imagine contemporary women ... as political leaders".^[27]

Powel House, photograph by Cortlandt V. D. Hubbard, Historic American Buildings Survey, c. 1960s^[106]

Front hallway and stairs, photograph by Hubbard, Historic American Buildings Survey, 1962^[107]

In 1925, the Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired the interior decoration of the Powel House, including the woodwork. The second-floor front parlor was reconstructed as an exhibit inside the museum.^[108] Under the leadership of Frances Wister, the house located at 244 South Third Street was purchased in 1931 by the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks (PhilaLandmarks).^[109] On May 28, 1934, the Philadelphia Museum of Art returned the majority of the interior elements it had purchased from the house. This included the entry archway, a wall with a fireplace from the first-story back parlor, and many feet of molding from throughout the house. Copies were made of the woodwork from the second-floor front parlor and from the adjacent withdrawing room.^[110] With the reappropriated elements, Powel House was fully restored and furnished with pieces from the 18th century.^[110][111] It was opened to the public as a museum on November 23, 1938.^[112][113] The second-floor front parlor remains as an exhibit at Philadelphia Museum of Art,^[114] and the withdrawing room is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.^[115]

Powel made meticulous copies of her letters to relatives and friends. Each was signed "Eliza Powel", which she included in her saved copies.^[74] According to an estimate by Samantha Snyder, reference librarian at George Washington's Mount Vernon, more than 500 of Powel's letters are in the collections of institutions across the United States.^[116] In late 2016 or early 2017, a descendant of John Hare found a previously undiscovered cache of documents belonging to Elizabeth in a false-bottom trunk. The collection of about 256 pages, consisting mostly of financial records and inventories in her handwriting, was given to PhilaLandmarks for preservation.^[61]

Several portraits of Powel have been identified. The earliest of these is a circa 1760 miniature of a young Elizabeth created by an unknown artist. The painter Matthew Pratt is credited with two of her later portraits. The earlier of these, 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.^[16][117] The second portrait by Pratt, Mrs. Samuel Powel, was created soon after her husband's death in 1793. Maxey dedicates a significant portion of his 2006 essay, A Portrait of Elizabeth Willing Powel (1743–1830), to the task of ascertaining the date, meaning, and provenance of the latter Pratt portrait. Maxey concludes that the painting portrays her in a revealing invented yellow dress as a bereaved mother in the 1780s, rather than a grieving widow at the age of 50 as the date of its commissioning would suggest.^[118] At the time of its acquisition by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1912, it was believed to be the work of John Singleton Copley, a claim that was refuted in 1915 by Charles Henry Hart.^[119][120]

Powel received frequent requests for portraitures by a number of artists, directly or through friends and relatives, many of which she declined.^[121] 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.^{[122][123][124]} Powel sat for her final portrait at the age of 81 or 82, c. 1825, for an intense and unforgiving painting by a young Francis Alexander. This last portrait is owned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.^[125]

• Ann Willing Bingham, niece of Elizabeth Powel, contemporary, and fellow Philadelphia socialite
• History of Philadelphia
• Women in the American Revolution

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Elizabeth Willing Powel.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Elizabeth Willing Powel.

• Elizabeth Willing Powel at Find a Grave
• The Power Broker and the King Maker: The Life of Elizabeth Willing Powel with Samantha Snyder (podcast), from the series Conversations at the Washington Library
• "The Account Books of Elizabeth Willing Powel: Part 1", "Part 2", and "Part 3", by Ted Maust, Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks
• "Elizabeth Powel and James McHenry Revisited" by J. L. Bell in his blog Boston 1775
• Papers of Dr. James McHenry on the Federal Convention of 1787 – The Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School