Author: Markoe, Peter
Biography:
MARKOE, Peter (1752?-92: ANBO)
"Peter the Poet" was born on St Croix in what was then the Danish West Indies (now part of the US Virgin Islands) and held Danish citizenship. His parents Elizabeth (Kenny) Rogers Markoe and Abraham Markoe owned a sugar plantation. Their son was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford, and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn, but Abraham Markoe resettled in Philadelphia about 1770 and both father and son belonged to a regiment of Light Horse in the state militia. In 1775 when Denmark declared its neutrality, the father and probably the son had to give up their involvement, but Peter was on the muster again (or still) in 1786-9. Peter Markoe did not marry and is said to have been "convivial"--which may be code for "alcoholic"--but his literary output was significant. Besides his poetry and the tragedy The Patriot Chief, he published an epistolary prose satire, The Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania (1787), and a ballad opera, The Reconciliation (1790). (ANBO 5 Jan. 2020; DAB) HJ