Mrs. Butcher

There were many women in Loudoun County around the turn of the nineteenth century who were referred to as Mrs. Butcher. Given the limited information provided by the Mason family manuscript account book entries in which she appears, it can be inferred that Mrs. Butcher was the spouse of John Butcher, who paid Stevens Thomson Mason cash on Mrs. Butcher’s behalf in 1798. There were several John Butchers living in Loudoun County at the time; the Mrs. Butcher in the account book was most likely Susannah Butcher, whose husband John died in 1804.

Her separate account in the Mason family manuscript account book suggests that Mrs. Butcher might have been operating outside of the bonds of coverture. In theory, though not always in practice, coverture allowed wives neither to maintain any personal financial control, nor to engage in financial transactions in their own names. Like other women who held accounts with the Masons, Mrs. Butcher may have also been a widow, which would have freed her from the constraints of coverture. The John Butcher mentioned in her entry also could have been a relative to whom she was not married. “Mrs.” Butcher was even possibly a single woman because the title “Mrs.” was not always used exclusively for married women during this period.

By Nicole Falgiano