Katharine Greene Amory

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John Singleton Copley, Mrs. John Amory (ca. 1763), oil on canvas.

Katharine[1] Greene Amory (Nov. 22, 1731–April 22, 1777) was an 18th-century Bostonian known for the journal she kept during the American Revolution. It is valued by historians for its record of daily life and for its window onto the viewpoint of a Loyalist woman.

Early years[edit]

Katharine Greene was born in Boston in 1731, the oldest daughter of silversmith Rufus Greene and Katherine (Stanbridge) Greene.[2][3][4]

Career[edit]

In 1756, she married John Amory (1728–1803), a Boston merchant.[4] They had 10 children, 6 sons and 4 daughters.[5] One of their daughters, Rebecca, married lawyer John Lowell, while another married philanthropist John McClean, after whom McLean Hospital is named.[5][6]

Both Amory and her husband were Loyalists, so with the American Revolution under way in May 1775, they moved to London, leaving their children with members of his family. She died in London in 1777 and John returned to America, though he was prevented from going back to Boston by the Massachusetts Banishment Act of 1778.[5]

Amory kept a journal during the crucial revolutionary years of 1775–1777. It was privately published in Boston in 1923 as The Journal of Mrs. John Amory (Katharine Greene) 1775-1777: With Letters from Her Father, Rufus Greene, 1759-1777.

Amory's portrait, painted by John Singleton Copley around 1763, is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (as is that of her husband).[7] It is one of three portraits by Copley of almost identical composition, down to the style and color of the dress; the others are of Lucretia Chandler Murray (Mrs. John Murray) and Mary Greene Hubbard (Mrs. Daniel Hubbard); the fact that all three were cousins may have influenced this marked repetition.[8][9] A Copley portrait of Amory's mother is in the collection of the de Young museum in San Francisco.[10]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Katharine" is the spelling used in the published edition of her journals (1923); however the variants "Katherine" and "Catherine" appear in numerous sources for both Amory and her mother.
  2. ^ Bayley, Frank William, and Augustus Thorndike Perkins. The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley: Founded on the Work of Augustus Thorndike Perkins. Taylor Press, 1915, pp. 43–44.
  3. ^ "Amory Family Papers". Massachusetts Historical Society website.
  4. ^ a b "Diary of William Greene, 1778." Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Dec. 1920, pp. 84–138.
  5. ^ a b c Stark, James Henry. The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution. JH Stark, 1907, pp. 345–46.
  6. ^ Lawrence, Robert Means. The Descendants of Major Samuel Lawrence of Groton, Massachusetts: With Some Mention of Allied Families. Printed at the Riverside Press, 1904, pp. 178–79.
  7. ^ "Mrs. John Amory (Katherine Greene)" Boston Museum of Fine Arts website.
  8. ^ Flexner, James Thomas. John Singleton Copley. Fordham Univ Press, 1948, p. 32.
  9. ^ "John Singleton Copley: Lucretia Chandler Murray (Mrs. John Murray), 1763". Worcester Art Museum website.
  10. ^ "Mrs. Rufus Greene (Katherine Stanbridge Greene)" de Young / Legion of Honor website.
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