Frances Hart was born in the Hague to Moses and Esther Hart. As a young woman she moved to Charleston, South Carolina, with her brother Joshua, who became a successful merchant. In 1761 she married Mordecai Sheftall, a merchant, tanner, landowner, and slaveowner in Savannah, Georgia. She gave birth to six children, and the family was active in congregation Mickve Israel, for many years hosting services in their home.

Mordecai was an ardent supporter of the Patriot cause, and during the Revolutionary War participated in the defense of the city in 1778. He and their eldest son, Sheftall Sheftall, were taken captive. Meanwhile, Frances, having taken refuge in nearby Charleston, now had to support herself and four children, without access to the property and resources left behind. Sheftall took it upon herself to try to secure her son and husband’s release, petitioning officers in the Continental Army to intercede. She also regularly wrote to her husband in his captivity aboard the prison ship Nancy. Meanwhile, she rented a house in Charleston and saw to her children’s education. In a letter of March 1780, she wrote to Mordecai that she had “received the two thousand pounds of Mr. Cape, with which I make exceeding well out by doing a little business.” We don’t know exactly what kind of business she pursued, but in a later letter she wrote that she was “obliged to take in needle worke to make a living for my family,” and younger son informed his father in a letter that his mother was making a living taking in washing and ironing. During the period of her husband’s imprisonment, Sheftall had to face yellow fever and smallpox epidemics and the British siege of Charelston.

Mordecai and Sheftall were eventually released and, after further complications, finally made it to Philadelphia. In April 1781 the family was reunited there, although their clothing was impounded to pay their passage from Charleston. After the war, they returned to Charleston and to something like the life they had previously known. Following her husband’s death in 1791, Sheftall unsuccessfully petitioned Congress for the financial losses suffered by the family during the war and for repayment of loans made by her husband to the Patriot cause.