Elizabeth Nelson Page (1770–1854), planter, was born at Yorktown. She was the sixth child and eldest daughter of Revolutionary War general and Virginia governor Thomas Nelson. In 1788 she married Mann Page (1766–1813), who owned Shelly, a Gloucester County estate. Following her husband’s death, Page managed the plantation. In 1820 she owned seventy-four slaves, and three decades later she owned forty-seven slaves and real estate valued at $14,000 (Richard Channing Moore Page, Genealogy of the Page Family in Virginia [1893], 78, 171–2; VMHB description begins Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1893–  description ends 19 [1911]: 204–5; ViHi: Page Family Papers; DNA: RG 29, CS, Gloucester Co., 1820, 1850, 1850 slave schedules).

Thomas Nelson’s widow, Lucy Grymes Nelson, and other heirs petitioned the virginia legislature on 19 Dec. 1821 for compensation for personal funds Thomas Nelson spent to support the American effort during the Revolutionary War. On 26 Feb. 1822 the committee to which the petition was referred deemed it reasonable, but apparently no bill was prepared before the 1821–22 legislative session ended. In the following term the Virginia House of Delegates granted leave on 27 Dec. 1822 to draft a bill “concerning the representatives of general Thomas Nelson deceased,” but on 20 Feb. 1823 the House gave Nelson’s widow and heirs permission to withdraw from consideration the petition and documents they had submitted in December 1821 (JHD description begins Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia description ends [1821–22 sess.], 60, 201–2; [1822–23 sess.], 75, 209). Between 1833 and 1846 Nelson’s heirs submitted a series of similarly unsuccessful petitions to the United States Congress (JHR description begins Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States description ends , esp. 27:41, 200, 37:351 [11 Dec. 1833, 14 Jan. 1834, 16 June 1846]).