Paschall, Martha Eliza Stevens Edgar

Biography

Martha Eliza Stevens was the oldest daughter of William Stevens, whose family had emigrated from Norfolk, Virginia, to Kaskaskia, Illinois in the early days of westward expansion. Kaskaskia, where Martha was born around 1808, had been settled by Canadian fur traders on a strip of land at the junction of the Mississippi and Kaskaskia Rivers in the first decade of the eighteenth century. (In 1818 Kaskaskia was named the Illinois state capitol, a title it held until 1881, when a Mississippi flood destroyed the entire town.) In 1823, Martha married General John Edgar. Edgar had come to America from his native Ireland and had participated in the American Revolution on the side of the colonies. As a reward for his distinguished service, Congress presented him with a tract of land in Kaskaskia, where he built a house and engaged in a variety of enterprises from grist mill construction and salt manufacture to trade. Soon the largest private landowner and wealthiest man in what was then known as the Northwestern territory, he was elected to the first legislature of the region, assembled in Cincinatti in 1799. Martha was also courted by the much younger Nathaniel Paschall of Knoxville, Tennessee, but her parents found the General a far more propitious match and the wedding was arranged. It was probably on the occasion of her marriage that Martha sat for a portrait by an unknown American painter (NGA 1983.95.1). Seven years after their marriage, General Edgar died, bequeathing Martha his entire fortune. Paschall, who was by this time the successful editor, proprietor, and political columnist for The Missouri Republican, asked once again for Martha's hand. They were married in 1832 and made St. Louis, fifty miles from Kaskaskia, their home, raising at least three children. Their third daughter, Cora, is recorded as having died at age seventeen in April 1854. Another daughter, Eugenia (later Mrs. Walter Carr), inherited the portrait of her mother, which descended in turn through Eugenia's daughter and granddaughters. Martha died in August of 1859.

Bibliography

1907

Roberts, James H. "The Life and Times of General John Edgar." Transactions of the Illinois Historical Society 12 (1907): 71-73.

1982

Stanley, Lois, George F. Wilson, and Maryhelen Wilson. Death Records from Missouri Newspapers, January 1854-December 1860. 1982: 180.

1992

Chotner, Deborah, with contributions by Julie Aronson, Sarah D. Cash, and Laurie Weitzenkorn. American Naive Paintings. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 565, 567.

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