After he died, she was to manage the estate only until her son William Byrd III came of age, but he had married and decided to live with his wife at the family's Belvidere plantation instead.

[9][10] In the 1720s and 1730s, Virginia's elite class began to "cultivate a sense of civilized living and grace," according to scholar Peter Martin.

[9] The Byrds relied on Westover to produce wealth and afford them a lifestyle befitting their class.

According to biographer Kathleen M. Brown, it provided them a "personal arena for mastery" that did not require them to perform manual labor themselves.

A white woman called "Nurse" and Anaka, an enslaved women, cared for the children.

[12] Her husband described running the plantation: Like one of the patriarchs, I have my flocks, my bond-men, and bond-women, and every sort of trade amongst my own servants, so that I live in a kind of independence on every one, but Providence.

I must take care to keep all my people to their duty, to set all the springs in motion, and to make every one draw his equal share to carry the machine forward.After her husband died in 1744, she became the owner of Westover and its enslaved workers, and became a prominent property owner in the colony, until her only son William Byrd III came of age at 21, according to the terms of the willf.

He and Elizabeth Hill Carter were married in 1748 and lived at Belvidere, another Byrd estate, in Richmond, Virginia.

In her letters to her son, Byrfd told him of decisions she made and sometimes sought his advice, such as questions she asked him about the windmill, purchasing and maintaining horses, and agriculture.

[14] In 1756, William left his wife and children at Belvidere and fought in the French and Indian War under Lord Loudoun.