THE REVOLUTIONARY SHORE: A Northampton wedding, the War for Independence and the first First Couple of Richmond

Pictured: Rind’s Virginia Gazette, March 23, 1775

By Kellee Blake

March 4, 1775

On this very day, 250 years ago . . .

As Virginia leaders prepared to convene in Richmond, Northampton County readied for a society wedding! Pretty and amiable Isabelle[a] Harmanson was to marry the well-liked Dr. William Foushee of Norfolk. The Harmansons’ seaside home Linden buzzed with wedding preparations and the extra work of hosting out-of-town guests. Though Isabelle’s father was not alive to oversee the nuptials, his presence was strongly felt. Kendall Harmanson’s will insisted his daughter be educated in “reading, writing and arithmetick [sic]” and it also endowed Isabelle with two hundred British pounds. The twenty-five-year-old groom was “a gentleman of fine personal appearance” educated in Edinburgh and considered the rising star in an established Norfolk medical partnership.

On Monday, March 6*, shining carriages and the best horses brought local guests to the wedding. The well frocked nineteen-year-old bride was almost certainly presented to the groom by her older brother, John S. Harmanson. The young couple then stood before Reverend Samuel McCroskey and professed the ancient marriage vows of the Church of England. Well considered refreshments surely followed, as did a pleasant time of fellowship. The new Dr. and Mrs. Foushee settled across the Bay in Foushee’s Norfolk home.

The Harmanson-Foushee wedding was a front page article in the March 23 Virginia Gazette. In truth, the anonymous piece was a congratulatory homage to Isabelle and several clues suggest the author may have been a once-hopeful suitor. The tender hearted writer concluded his felicitations with the words of Roman poet Horace: “Happy three times and more are those for whom love holds unbroken bonds, whose love sundered by no bitter strife will not release them before life’s last day.”

The fighting at Lexington and Concord came little more than a month after the Foushee wedding. Isabelle’s husband and brother supported the Patriot cause in many notable ways, but precise evidence of her wartime whereabouts and activities remains elusive. By the Revolutionary War’s end, the Foushees lived in Richmond where Dr. Foushee continued his service as a military surgeon and also served as apothecary for operations at the bustling port.

It was an extraordinary time and the Foushees uniquely witnessed the unfolding of a new era. The capital of Virginia had just moved from Williamsburg to Richmond and, in 1782, Dr. Foushee was chosen as the new capital’s first mayor. Our bride, Isabelle Harmanson, became the first First Lady of Richmond. She used her position well. Isabelle championed education for her own daughters and the Foushees were instrumental in establishing opportunities for women. Isabelle proved a powerful partner in her husband’s ascending medical and political career and she mothered generations of Virginia leaders. Isabelle died in 1802. William Foushee outlived her by some twenty years—even had a city street named for him–but the popular and sublimely eligible doctor never married again.

*The official records show the wedding date as March 6, though the Virginia Gazette article states March 7. 

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