Floride Bonneau Colhoun Calhoun

Female

February 15, 1792

July 25, 1866

Newport, RI USA
Washington, D.C., USA
Fort Hill, SC USA
Pendleton, SC USA

John C. Calhoun (January 1811)

Floride Bonneau Colhoun met her future husband at her family's summer retreat in Newport, Rhode Island in 1804. Calhoun had just graduated from Yale and was visiting his extended family there. Floride was an attractive and well-connected South Carolinian. The couple married in 1811, the same year Calhoun was appointed to Congress.

Floride also intelligent, stubborn, and possessed a strong sense of morality which she balanced with an amiability that drew Calhoun to her. She was devoutly and deeply religious, a lifelong Episcopalian. She was also an accomplished pianist and passionate about music.

She excelled as the wife of a powerful Washington politician and became one of Washington's most popular hostesses. She was close with President Monroe who had appointed her husband ...his Secretary of War. In the spring of 1820, the Calhoun's infant daughter extremely ill and the President broke established protocol to visit Floride and the baby every day.

In 1831, Floride was the center of the "Petticoat War" that divided the cabinet of President Andrew Jackson. She had snubbed Peggy Eaton, wife of the then Secretary of War John Eaton. Although Peggy was a favorite of the President, she had a dubious reputation and hailed from a modest background. Floride, therefore, refused to return Peggy's calls, causing several other cabinet wives to follow her. Since her husband was the Vice President at the time, it put him in an awkward position, and President Jackson, who was very close to Peggy, was angered. The "Petticoat War" divided the cabinet for over a year until Martin Van Buren broke the impasse.

Floride and John had ten children, five sons and five daughters (three of whom died in infancy). Following her husband's resignation as Vice President, Floride returned to the couple's South Carolina plantation, Fort Hill. She remained there until after her husband's death (in 1850). In 1854, she sold the plantation to her eldest son and moved shortly thereafter to a smaller house in Pendleton, South Carolina. In this time, six of her seven surviving children also died.

Floride died in July, 1866 and is buried in Pendleton, South Carolina, near her children.
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"Floride Bonneau Colhoun Calhoun." Clemson University. http://www.clemson.edu/about/history/calhoun-clemson/floridebcalhoun.html

Hatfield, Mark O. Vice Presidents of the United States: John C. Calhoun (1825 - 1832). Reprinted from Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789 - 1993. Washington, D. C.: U.S. Government Printing Offices, 1997. http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/john_calhoun.pdf