Elizabeth Jacquelin Ambler Papers(1780–1832)

• MS 1954.5
• Microfilm: M-1120
• Transcript: TR/53
• 25 items

Correspondence from Elizabeth Jacquelin Ambler Brent Carrington (1765–1842), elder daughter of Jacquelin and Rebecca Burwell Ambler, includes letters to her friends, Mildred Smith Dudley of Yorktown, Virginia, and Frances Caines of Bristol, England. These letters, Elizabeth’s own copies of the originals, describe her family’s difficulties during the American Revolution; the sudden death of her first husband; and the unfortunate life of one of her childhood friends.

Later letters to her sister, Ann Ambler Fisher, are Eliza’s attempts to describe their family and its antecedents; their life in Yorktown before the Revolution; the hardships of their flight from the British; and the changes the war made in their lives. Included are sketches of their parents and their brother-in-law, Chief Justice John Marshall. Some passages on her later life explain why she retained these letters. Also included is Eliza’s copy of an 1815 letter from John A.B. Fisher to his mother, discussing his parents’ reaction to his desire to become a minister.

Ten of the letters are published, with some editing and alteration, in Atlantic Monthly, LXI, (Oct. 1899), pp. 535–549. Biographical information is available in The Dictionary of Virginia Biography, vol. 3, pp. 35–37.

These letters are also quoted in:

• Kerrison, Catherine. “By the Book: Eliza Ambler Brent Carrington and Conduct Literature in Late Eighteenth-Century Virginia,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 105, no. 1 (1997), pp. 27–52.
• Pecquet du Bellet, Louise, b. 1853. Some Prominent Virginia Families, vols. 1–2. Lynchburg, VA: J.P. Bell, 1907.

Inventory

• View Virginia Heritage Project finding aid