Mrs. Elizabeth Ross: Shopkeeper/Feme Sole Trader

Mrs. Ross, as her name was written on the “Applyers of Lots” in Carlisle in 1751,¹ may have been the wife of John Ross, keeper of the Blue Rock Ferry² in Hempfield Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who according to court records, turned his wife Elizabeth out of his house in 1737.³ In 1741, he was ordered to pay her 3 shillings and 6 pence per week for her support.⁴

Elizabeth Ross was obviously independent enough to locate herself in a new town on the Pennsylvania frontier in 1751. There were very few occupations open to women in the eighteenth century so she chose the most obvious occupation--that of shopkeeper.

She purchased Lot #77 on the northwest corner of High and Pitt streets and built a two-story stone house where she lived and ran her shop. In 1752, she was listed as “shopkeeper” on a bond to tavernkeeper John McCallister of Carlisle⁵ and in 1757 as a “sole feme trader”⁶ for a debt owed to Carlisle mason James Stackpole.⁷

Mrs. Ross brought a legal suit in October 1754 against Samuel Stevens, John Paterson, John Fox, Robert Taylor, Charles Patterson, William McCoskry, William Brown, William Miller, James Pollock, Thomas Henderson, Stephen Foulk, Robert Smith, Andrew McIntire, Robert Callender and Robert Guthrie for trespass and assault and battery.⁸ Several of these men were masons and carpenters. It is intriguing to speculate what motivated them to take that action. It’s possible that they may have built her house, she owed them money, and they entered her house to take goods in lieu of the money she owed them.

After Braddock’s defeat in 1755, and the subsequent Indian incursions on the Pennsylvania frontier, business and trade was substantially reduced in Carlisle. Perhaps that led Elizabeth to keep a tavern. In October 1757, she was indicted for keeping a tippling house (the legal term for operating a tavern without a license.) She pleaded guilty and was committed to jail until she paid the fine of £5.⁹ Mrs. Ross continued to be listed as a shopkeeper on Carlisle tax lists, and from 1764 on she was listed as a “widow.”

Merchants and tradesmen often had to sue their customers for unpaid bills. In 1763, Elizabeth sued Carlisle mason James Stackpole for debt several times. In April, the sheriff levied Stackpole’s house and lot to pay the debt, and in October the sheriff levied Stackpole’s "negro" man.¹⁰

Although Mrs. Ross’s children (it’s not certain if she had more than one) did not live in Carlisle, several of her grandchildren did. Elizabeth’s daughter Jane had married John Mitchell in the 1730s. In 1756, Jane’s daughter, Elizabeth Mitchell, married Thomas Holt at St. James Episcopal Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They moved to Carlisle where Holt’s mother Dorcas was living with her second husband Arthur Buchanan. Another granddaughter, Eleanor Mitchell, married Henry Cunningham. He was the undersheriff of Cumberland County for several years in the 1760s and early 1770s.

Elizabeth’s name does not appear on Carlisle tax lists after 1770, so she may have been living with one of her grandchildren’s families at the time of her death. She died in 1774, and since there is no marker for Elizabeth, there is no record of her age. Her daughter, Jane Ross, was born c. 1710, so if Elizabeth was her natural mother, and not her step-mother, then Elizabeth could not have been born much later than 1690-1695. Jane Ross married John Mitchell. He died in 1772 and she died a year later.

Mrs. Ross’ heirs owned her house and lot on the corner of High and Pitt streets until 1827 when they sold the property to John Moore, Iron-master of South Middleton Township for $1000.¹¹