Princeton NJ Events Calendar

The Tory’s Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America - Revolution Up Close: A Public Lecture Series

Share:

Thursday June 4, 2026
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Princeton University - Robertson Hall 100 (Arthur Lewis Auditorium)

The Spurgin family of North Carolina experienced the cataclysm of the American Revolution in the most dramatic ways—and from different sides. This engrossing book tells the story of Jane Welborn Spurgin, a patriot who welcomed General Nathanael Greene to her home and aided Continental forces while her loyalist husband was fighting for the king as an officer in the Tory militia. By focusing on the wife of a middling backcountry farmer, esteemed historian Cynthia Kierner shows how the Revolution not only toppled long-established political hierarchies but also strained family ties and drew women into the public sphere to claim both citizenship and rights—as Jane Spurgin did with a dramatic series of petitions to the North Carolina state legislature when she fought to reclaim her family’s lost property after the war was over.

Click here for more information