Meet the Ancestor: Elizabeth Bordley

Elizabeth Bordley was born in 1717 to Thomas, a wealthy landowner, who acquired the town’s pastureland after the original statehouse burned along with the city land records. After her father died, her brother Steven built the first five-part house in Annapolis, where he and his sister lived out their lives. After Steven’s death, Elizabeth continued to live in the house as a single woman for another 25 years. Just before her death in 1789, she donated the pastureland to “the people of St. Anne’s parish” to be used as a burying ground. Elizabeth must have been one of the first to be buried in the new cemetery (St. Anne’s Cemetery), although there is no memorial marking her grave. Her home was sold in 1804 to John Randall and is known today as the Bordley-Randall house.