Velvet, Letters, and Liberty: Libricola on Elizabeth Murray’s World

Join Libricola once a month in assessing literature that is connected to our monthly themes and the historical narrative you’d encounter on one of our historic tours of Boston. This month, delve deeper with Libricola on Elizabeth Murray Campbell Smith Inman.

I will use a chunk of my allotted words here to name one of the 18th century occupants of Boston’s oldest burying ground: Elizabeth Murray Campbell Smith Inman.

Patricia Cleary's biography, Elizabeth Murray: A Woman's Pursuit of Independence in Eighteenth-Century America, is finally off my reading list this Women’s History Month. She interests me because my history jam is 18th-century relationships to material things, and how those relationships were expressed in writing and on stage. To clarify, here’s part of an ad Murray published: “Imported from LONDON, By Elizabeth Murray, And to be Sold...flower'd Velvet and Capuchin Silks, black Fringes, Bone Lace...Poplins for Winter Gowns...the newest fashion'd Hoops, Caps, Ruffles, Stomachers, Tipets...Sattin Gloves and Mittens...&c. &c. &c.”

Some of the Murrays began immigrating to the American colonies in the 1730s. Elizabeth eventually chose Boston—a harbor city full of shops—as the place to make her living. With some financial backing as well as her own hard work and decisions, she began selling fine imported goods from England. She had ten years of success with her shop, making devoted friends and business allies.

Eventually her Boston circle included several nieces, raised and mentored like daughters. Her mentorship helped many Boston women gain practical skills and paths to socioeconomic independence. Among her protégés were sisters Ame and Elizabeth Cummings, who feature in another of our posts this month. 

Murray always maintained some version of  independence. She kept her own money and property through signed agreements in her second and third marriages, managed estates as both a widow and a wife, and became a matriarch in the Murray family. 

One might call her a colonial influencer, affecting lives with her convictions that women could—and needed to be able to—make their way in life. She shared her skills and resources widely. She networked in business and private life in Boston and England, leaving behind a much larger written record than most women of her time. 

That record includes being accused of spying for the British, despite colonial militia being quartered at her Cambridge house. With friends on both sides, Murray supplied comforts to—and drank coffee with—imprisoned redcoat officers. The patriot Boston newspapers reported it, and no one threw shade like 18th-century journalists. This moment marks a fascinating part of her written legacy.

Murray lived through the 1775 Siege of Boston and the Battle of Bunker Hill. It’s revealing to read her letters to her third husband, Ralph Inman, who was in the besieged city. She was left to manage his Cambridge house, as well as the property of her second husband, James Smith. Her exasperated complaints that Inman couldn’t seem to care less about her struggles show everyday life unfolding—or sometimes unraveling.

Cleary makes Murray accessible as a person, with intriguing habits, quirks, and inconsistencies on display. It is an enjoyable read and features a good balance between significant events and personal stories, history and character.

But, as with many figures of this period, those two elements clash; with everything I admire and appreciate about Murray, there is still the presence of enslaved people. Their purchase was part of the family’s first steps in the colonies, and they were part of Murray’s inheritance from her second husband. Although she cared for and protected everyone in her life as the Revolutionary War began, they were still property whose situation she accepted and benefitted from. 

So her life demands critical thinking and assessment about the American past, even to the rejection of some of its foundations. We can thoughtfully do this as readers while exploring an unusual, intriguing life like Elizabeth Murray’s.