On 3 November, 1759, Eleanor Ball gave birth to a daughter to her husband Henry Laurens in Charles Town, South Carolina. As parents to the girl, Henry Laurens and Eleanor Ball named her Martha Laurens. By the father's side, her great grandparents were born in Rochelle. As faithful Huguenots rather than Catholics, they suffered religious persecution in France. Then they came to America in the later 17th century. By the mother’s side, her maternal ancestors migrated from Devonshire in England, and settled in South Carolina about the same time. In Charles Town, Henry Laurens was an eminent businessman and could make a good living for his family. What’s more, as was an outstanding politician, he was the president of the Continental Congress, then a diplomatic prisoner of war in the Tower of London, and finally, in 1782, one of four official negotiators of the peace treaty that ended the war between the Great Britain and the United States. Born in such a family, Martha had good opportunities to accept well education.
When Martha was young, she showed great interest in learning. As a three years old girl, she “could readily read any book, and, what is extraordinary, in an inverted position, without any difficulty.” As she grew up, she made great progress in her education. She not only acquired a grammatical knowledge of the French language, but knew geometry and mathematics very well. In order to know the world, she even asked her father to purchase a pair of globes for her. On May 18, 1774, in a letter to her daughter, Henry Laurens told her that he recollected a pair of globes for her and asked Mr. Grubb to ship “a pair of the best eighteen inch, with caps and a book of directions” to her uncle James Laurens who would deliver them to her.
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