Eliza Bowen Jumel
Eliza Jumel (April 2, 1775 – July 16, 1865), born into poverty, made her way up the social ladder until she was one of the richest women in New York. Born Betsey Bowen in Providence, Rhode Island, on the eve of the Revolutionary War, Jumel lived in brothels and workhouses throughout her childhood, eventually becoming indentured to a sea captain and his wife. By 1798 both her parents were dead, and the young and ambitious Jumel moved to New York City, when she became an extra in the local theater and worked various jobs as a domestic servant. Several years later, she met the wealthy Stephen Jumel, and they soon married. The house they moved into as their summer home, and the house Jumel would live in in her later life, is preserved today as a historic site, the Morris-Jumel Mansion.
In 1815 the Jumels sailed for France, where Stephen had been born and lived until he was a young man, before emigrating to America. The couple stayed in Paris for a time, but the next year Eliza sailed back to America, while Stephen remained in France. While apart, Eliza managed several of Stephen’s real estate interests with noted business acumen. The couple continued to travel between France and America, sometimes together and sometimes apart. During these travels Eliza amassed a large European art collection, which she brough back to America to great fanfare.
Stephen Jumel died in 1832; shortly thereafter Eliza remarried former vice president Aaron Burr. The match was socially advantages for her and financially advantages for the broke Burr: however, they soon separated and soon after divorced. Jumel lived for another thirty years, continuing to mantain her great estate, and later adopting her great-niece and -nephew, children of her sister. She died in 1865, and was buried in Trinity Churchyard in Manhatten.
(Eliza Bowen Jumel’s Wikipedia page had been extensively edited recently by the RWP. If you have anything to add to it, go ahead!)
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