The daughter of Henry Lane and Mary Hinton Lane, Margaret Lane camefrom an affluent family of North Carolina landed elite. In 1785 hergrandfather, Joel Lane, one of the founders of the city of Raleighand member of the colonial General Assembly, gifted a home andplantation near Raleigh to her father. She would, in turn, bring thisproperty—and the slaves that labored there—to her marriage to her1817 marriage Moses Mordecai, aprominent lawyer and judge. The Mordecai House, as it came to beknown, would stay in the family until 1967, when the city acquired itand created a park and historic site. Margaret and Moses had threechildren, including Henry, and after shedied in 1821, he married her sister, Anne.