Existing comment:
Elizabeth DePeyster Peale, 1765-1804
In April 1791, Elizabeth "Betsy" DePeyster, the daughter of a New York City merchant, travelled to Philadelphia where she met Charles Willson Peale, an American portrait painter. Peale, a widower, was searching for a new wife and a mother for his six children. Upon observing the "serious motherly appearance" of Betsy, then twenty-six, Peale knew he had found the right woman. On May 23, after a brief courtship and secret engagement, Betsy's father blessed their union.
James Peale, 1795 |