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After marrying in secret, Christina Stuart emigrated to America, becoming its only Scottish First Lady, at the cost of financial hardship and personal heartache
WORDS SAM KHAN-MCINTYRE & TIM SIDDONS O
n 6 August 1773, Christina Stuart boarded a ship bound for America with her new husband. But having been disowned
by her father, cut off from her inheritance and estranged from her family, it was hardly the adventure to the land of opportunity anticipated by many other emigres. And although she enjoyed a happy marriage
and a successful life overseas – her husband was a successful lawyer, president of the Continen- tal Congress and a US federal judge – Christina did not return to Scotland and she never saw her family again. Christina’s story could have been lifted from
the pages of an historical romance. The daugh- ter of John Stuart, the 6th Earl of Traquair, she