Margaret Bayard Smith
American writer (1778-1844)
Margaret Bayard Smith (20 February 1778 – 7 June 1844) was an American writer and political commentator in the early Republic of the United States, a time when women generally lived within strict gender roles. Her writings and relationships shaped both politics and society in the capital of early Washington, DC. Her literary reputation is based primarily on a collection of her letters and notebooks written from 1800 to 1841, and published posthumously in 1906 as The First Forty Years of Washington Society, edited by Gaillard Hunt.
Smith began writing books in the 1820s: a two-volume novel in 1824 called A Winter in Washington, or Memoirs of the Seymour Family, and What is Gentility? (1825). She also wrote several biographical profiles, including one of her close friend Dolley Madison for the National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, published in 1836.
Early life
Margaret Bayard was born on 20 February 1778 in rural Pennsylvania, the seventh of eight children born to Colonel John Bubenheim Bayard (1738–1807) and the former Margaret Hodge (1740–1780). At the time of her birth during the Revolutionary War, her father was serving with George Washington at Valley Forge. One of her first cousins was Rev. Charles Hodge (1797–1878). Her mother died in 1780, when Margaret was a toddler.
“Margaret Bayard Smith” enters the record as american writer (1778-1844). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Margaret, Bayard and Smith can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16859111. VIAF identifies the subject as 51545453. The Library of Congress control number is nr91021248. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1778, 1844, 1800 and 1841.
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This entry incorporates text from “Margaret Bayard Smith” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.