The small family joined with a manager Mr. Edgar to form a theater troupe called the Charleston Comedians.

One of the most impressive venues at which she performed was the Chestnut Street Theater near Independence Hall in Philadelphia, which seated 2,000.

[3] Over the course of her career she played some 300 parts, as well as choral and dancing roles, including William Shakespeare characters Juliet Capulet and Ophelia.

[2] Hopkins died three years later in October 1805, possibly of yellow fever, leaving Eliza an 18-year-old widow.

[4] The Baltimore-born David Poe Jr. saw Eliza performing in Norfolk, Virginia, and decided to join her acting troupe, abandoning his family's plans for him to study law.

[6] The couple traveled throughout New England and the rest of the northeast, playing in various towns such as Richmond, Philadelphia, and at an outdoor summer theater in New York City before finally settling in Boston.

They stayed in Boston for three consecutive seasons of thirty weeks each in a theater that fit an audience of about one thousand.

Eliza had often been praised for her acting ability while David's performances were routinely criticized harshly, possibly due to his own stage fright.

[citation needed] In 1811, while staying at a boarding house in Richmond, Virginia, for a performance, Eliza began spitting blood.

[10] Eliza finally died on Sunday morning, December 8, 1811, at the age of twenty-four,[13] surrounded by her children.