Martha Eliza Carr was the daughter Walter and Eugenia Paschall Carr of St. Louis. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Martha Eliza Stevens Edgar Paschall (widow of General John Edgar), a portrait of whom she inherited from her mother. The artist of the picture is unknown, but it was probably painted around 1823, on the occasion of Martha Stevens' first marriage to Gen. Edgar. Martha Carr married John Young, and took the painting with her to Geneseo, New York. She in turn passed the portrait (now in the NGA) to her daughters, Mary Paschall Young Doty and Katharine Campbell Young Keck.