Her father, Richard Russell, was cashiered over a scandal, and, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, the stress drove her mother "violently insane".
While Peter's role in the Provincial administration faded,[colloquialism] he had acquired ownership of 45,000 acres (18,000 hectares), making him wealthy, on paper.
[1] He would have liked to have liquidated his landholdings, and retired to England as he became older and his health failed, but there was little market for property in an era when the Crown was granting free land to anyone deemed worthy.
[1][5][6] According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, after Peter's death, Elizabeth relied on the family of Dr. William Warren Baldwin.
After Maria's death the entire estate ended up in Baldwin's control, and eventually in the hands of his heirs.