Penelope Barker

Penelope Padgett was born June 17, 1728, at Blenheim Manor in Edenton in the Colony of North Carolina, one of three daughters to Samuel Padgett, a physician, and Elizabeth Blount. Her sisters were Sarah and Elizabeth. Padgett was the granddaughter of Anne Willis and James Blount, a prominent planter of Chowan County. The Padgetts lived on a 2,000-acre plantation. As she grew up, Penelope lived a comfortable life of teas, church suppers, parties, and balls. By 1745, when she was a teen, her father and married sister, Elizabeth Hodgson, died consecutively, leaving her to raise Elizabeth's children, Isabella, John, and Robert. Her brother-in-law and later husband, John Hodgson, managed her father's estate. ==Personal life and planter==

Barker married her deceased sister's husband, John Hodgson, in 1745 at about the age of 17. Their first son was Samuel. Only two years after their marriage, John died, when she was pregnant with their second son Thomas. While her husband was unable to return home from London, Barker managed their estates and home, which included two children. By that time, she had lost four of her own children and three children from her husbands' previous marriages. Her son Thomas Hodgson died at the age of 25 in 1772. Barker inherited her husband's estate of 25 enslaved people, their luxury furnishings, and the plantation. Barker died in 1796. She and her husband are buried alongside each other in the small graveyard called Johnston's cemetery at Hayes Plantation, near Edenton. ==Edenton Tea Party==

Barker was known as a patriot of the Revolution and ten months after the famous Boston Tea Party, she organized a Tea Party of her own. Barker wrote a statement proposing a boycott of British goods, like cloth and tea. Followed by 50 other women, the Edenton Tea Party was created. The women were praised as patriots by the Colonial American press. a group of patriots gathered the tea and sold it to other patriots to fund the rebellion against the British. They had also ousted royal officials and agents at the time. The Daughters of Liberty, like the Sons of Liberty, boycotted British goods. In 1908, a plaque was dedicated by the Daughters of the American Revolution of North Carolina and placed in the state Capitol Building in Raleigh, North Carolina. It honored her leadership at the Edenton Tea Party. In 1940, a marker was placed at West Queen Street (US 17 Business) in Edenton by the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program. It states, "Women in this town led by Penelope Barker in 1774 resolved to boycott British imports. Early and influential activism by women." ==See also==