Childhood
Margaret, nicknamed "Peggy", was the fourth and youngest daughter, of Edward Shippen, IV and Margaret Francis the daughter of Tench Francis, Sr., and born into a prominent Philadelphia family which included two Philadelphia mayors and the founder of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Edward Shippen was a judge and member of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania; the family were considered "Loyalists," with allegiance to the British crown. Peggy was the youngest child of the family, though there were two other boys born later who died in infancy. She grew up as the baby of the family, but soon became the favorite of her father.
Sources related that Peggy enjoyed music, doing needlework and drawing and participated in the study of politics. She looked up to her father and, under his tutelage, learned about politics and the forces which led to the American Revolution.
Read more about this topic: Peggy Shippen
Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“The fact remains that the human being in early childhood learns to consider one or the other aspect of bodily function as evil, shameful, or unsafe. There is not a culture which does not use a combination of these devils to develop, by way of counterpoint, its own style of faith, pride, certainty, and initiative.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)
“It is as if, to every period of history, there corresponded a privileged age and a particular division of human life: “youth” is the privileged age of the seventeenth century, childhood of the nineteenth, adolescence of the twentieth.”
—Philippe Ariés (20th century)
“Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth
Proceed thy honours. I am lost, but see
In simple childhood something of the base
On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,
That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,
Else never canst receive. The days gone by
Return upon me almost from the dawn
Of life: the hiding-places of man’s power
Open; I would approach them, but they close.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)