Eleanor Percy Lee - Marriage and Family

Marriage and Family

On May 25, 1840, Eleanor married the Virginia planter William Henry Lee, cousin of Robert E. Lee. Her father settled the couple with a large dowry from Eleanor's mother's legacy: "a large plantation in Hinds County, Mississippi, with about 85 slaves, assessed in 1838 at the value of $122,000." They frequently stayed in Natchez for its society.

According to her sister Catherine, Eleanor never wrote another poem. In 1844 their half-sister Mary Jane Ellis LaRoche died, followed by their half-brother Thomas. Eleanor gave Catherine the editing lead for their joint volumes, and had never been as prolific. In the summer of 1849 while at the resort of Mississippi Springs, she complained of melancholy. She died of yellow fever during an epidemic that summer, at the age of 30.