Elizabeth Hill Byrd (1754-1819)

Elizabeth Hill Byrd Farley was the daughter of William Byrd III and Elizabeth Hill Carter Byrd. She married James Parke Farley in March 1771. Her second husband was John Dunbar. Her third husband was Henry Skipwith, who she married in 1799. Mary Willing Byrd’s 1813 will mentions “portraits” of this subject, which were left to Evelyn Byrd Page, implying more than one. One is possibly the portrait of the subject as an adult by Cosmo Alexander. If there was a second, it is very likely by John Wollaston and was painted at the same time that Wollaston painted her mother and all three of her older brothers (William Byrd IV, John Carter Byrd, and Thomas Taylor Byrd).

Possible reference: “Portraits of her aunt Skipwith” were left to Evelyn Byrd Page in the 1813 will of Mary Willing Byrd.

See: “The Will of Mrs. Mary Willing Byrd, of Westover, 1813, with a List of the Westover Portraits.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 6, no. 4 (April 1899): 345–58.