Elizabeth (Betsey) Throop was born in Bristol, RI September 15, 1747, and died October 4, 1823 . Her family was one of the early settlers of what was to become a busy seaport. Bristol flourished during these pre-Revolutionary days with ships transporting agriculture products, wool and timber to the larger port city of Newport. Thomas Throop, her grandfather and her father Thomas both prospered and built fine homes.
Bristol, sources say, had patriotic sympathies so it is not surprising that Betsey would join a spinning match as a Daughter of Liberty and labor at the wheel to protest the Stamp Act. Although contemporaneous newspaper accounts report many such spinning matches, few accounts record names. Finding such specific news articles in the May 14, 1766, and April 14, 1766, Newport Mercury that link results of the spinning match, names and specifically reports the participants were “Daughters of Liberty” is rare.
October 25, 1770, she married Edward Richmond from a prominent Little Compton, RI family. Together they had seven children. There are no known accounts of their life together, but we can assume that the British occupation was a lengthy demoralizing hardship as it was for so many Rhode Islanders of that time.
