Elizabeth Bordley (1777-1863)

Daughter of Judge John Beale Bordley (1727-1804) and his 2nd wife Sarah Fishbourne, dau. of Wm. Fishbourne, Mayor of Philadelphia and widow of John Mifflin of Phila. Judge Bordley was a friend of George Washington and Elizabeth’s best friend through life was Eleanor Parke "Nellie" Custis who married Lawrence Lewis, Washington’s step granddaughter. They exchanged their portraits by Gilbert Stuart. The one of Elizabeth now in Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (a copy of same in Nellie’s Woodlawn Plantation in Virginia). This and a full length of Elizabeth by Thomas Sully show what a beautiful lady she was. She traveled with her father in the best circles, visited Mt. Vernon often and left a relative silhouettes of General and Mrs. Washington from life. She was considered the social arbitress of Philadelphia. She wrote Biographical sketches of the Bordley Family of Maryland, Phila. 1865. Late in life she married James Gibson, Mayor of Philadelphia. Dr. John E. Bordley has her pair of Tucker vases with her initials. Bryden Bordley Hyde has her silver tea waste bowl, early photos of the silhouettes of General and Mrs. Washington, a Dagguerotype of Elizabeth and her husband c. 1860, and a large, plain gold thumb ring engraved "J.B. Jr." Elizabeth’s half-brother John B. Bordley, Jr. (1764-1815). These acquired from Mrs. Wm. F. Machold daughter of Mrs. Roland S. Morris of Phila. The granddaughter of Edward Shippen, 2nd Cousin, business manager and legatee of Elizabeth Bordley Gibson who seems to have purchased many of her possessions including five Bordley family portraits (2 Gilbert Stuarts and 2 C.W. Peales of her parents, 1 Sully of her), when she died at the Gibson house on S.E. corner of Spruce and 8th Street, Phila. 1863 (see Pillars of Md; McGrath P.432 for the Sully portrait of her, sold at Kennedy Gallery, N.Y.C. Nov. 1985).