ABSTRACT
Eliza McCardle was born on October 4, 1810, to John McCardle, a shoemaker of Scotch-Irish descent, and Sarah Phillips McCardle in Greeneville, Tennessee. She was an only child. Her parents were married on April 23, 1809 and, typical of the settlers in the eastern Tennessee mountains, never knew economic fortune or success. In 1824 Eliza’s father was an innkeeper in Warrensburg, Tennessee. Two years later he died, leaving his wife, Sarah, with the responsibility of rearing their daughter. Sarah McCardle remarried in 1833, to Moses L. Whitesides.
