She was 23 and wanted a job at the Continental Congress in 1776. The same day, George Washington received news that a Royal Scotsman, Roger Casement, had been captured. Casement was brought to the Congress to face a trial for treason, and against his wishes, was granted a presidential pardon and released from captivity.
Soutier’s life got off to a rocky start. When Washington first came to power, he refused to give pro-slavery lawmakers on the American Enterprise Committee a permanent seat in the House of Representatives until they changed their allegiance from King George III to one of the new nation’s founding fathers.
Soutier found herself closely acquainted with men and women who became some of the nation’s most famous statesmen, including James Madison, Robert Hamilton, Patrick Henry, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, and the nation’s first president, George Washington. Soutier says her heritage was like a “dispense of organic goodwill.”
“I guess I was those who were born during that period of the overthrow of King George III,” Soutier told me in a recent interview. “We were born into a family that had educated my grandmother, who was a teacher, who brought me up very much following in those progressive ideals. My dad was a tennis player. My mom was a lawyer.”