Elizabeth Lynd


Born: 1852 in Louisiana
Died: 1927 in Louisiana

This beautiful late 19th century carte de visite features a young woman in an elegant side profile. She wears a velvet and taffeta bustle gown with delicate lace trim and a beautiful hat resting on her curled hair. Thanks to an ink inscription on the reverse side, we know exactly who she was: Elizabeth Lynd.

​Elizabeth’s story unfolds through the pages of federal census records, charting her life from a young girl in a merchant family to a married woman watching the turn of a new century. 

Born in New Orleans on May 14, 1852, Elizabeth was the daughter of William Lynd, a prominent Irish-born cotton broker, and his wife, Margaret. Growing up in the city's 4th Ward alongside her younger brother, George, Elizabeth was raised right in the heart of New Orleans' golden age. 

By her late twenties, likely around the exact time she stepped into J.W. Petty’s studio for this portrait, Elizabeth was still living at home with her parents on Prytania Street, listed simply as "at home" while her brother worked as a clerk in their father's cotton office. 

Love came later in life for Elizabeth. On December 31, 1896 she married George Alfred Beauchamp Hays, the manager of a local cotton press. The 1900 census finds the newlyweds living in New Orleans' 11th Ward, with Elizabeth’s widowed mother, Margaret, living with them. 

​As the years went on, Elizabeth and George moved south to the quiet community of Happy Jack in Plaquemines Parish, where they were recorded in the 1910 census.

​Elizabeth outlived her husband by several years following his passing in 1919. She remained in her beloved home state until February 17, 1927, when she passed away at the age of 74. Today, she rests in the historic and beautifully ornate Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans.

Through this portrait, Elizabeth's elegance, her family's place in the New Orleans cotton trade, and a tiny piece of Bourbon Street history live on.

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