Elizabeth Covan Grier: A Coastal Matriarch of the Waccamaw
Elizabeth Coven Grier (1800-1873) Restored from a tintype portrait by Josh Dukes Elizabeth Covan (1800-1873)—known in her family as “Betsy”—was the only child of Mary Tillman and a Frenchman identified in family records as Mr. Covan. Her early life was shaped by both loss and continuity. Her father died when she was very young, and after her mother remarried, Elizabeth was largely raised by her grandmother at Petersfield Plantation. It was there that she spent her formative years. Family lore preserves a story about her parents’ courtship. At a Halloween gathering before her marriage, her mother Mary Tillman is said to have seen in a mirror the image of a dark-haired young man leaning on an open trunk. Months later, while traveling north with her mother, she reportedly encountered both the trunk and the man in a store. The two later met again at a ball and were soon married. From that union came Elizabeth, their only child. Elizabeth herself was born on a wet and stormy night. O...