Being the wife of a tavernkeeper meant that Elizabeth helped with the running of the tavern as well as taking care of her family. Washing, cleaning, cooking in a hot kitchen over a fire for hours as well as helping in the barroom was hard work.
Mrs. Ross, as her name was written on the “Applyers of Lots” in Carlisle in 1751, may have been the wife of John Ross, keeper of the Blue Rock Ferry in Hempfield Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who according to court records, turned his wife Elizabeth out of his house in 1737. In 1741, he was ordered to pay her 3 shillings and 6 pence per week for her support.
On the evening of December 11, 1777, Carlisle tailor George Wright, gunsmith Abraham Morrow, shoemaker Edmund Kean, John Gibson, John O’Neal, Fife Major Richard Stack and several others were at the dwelling house and unlicensed tavern of barber Joseph Sabolle of Carlisle.