Margaret Eliza Engelhard (née Cotten) was born in Tarboro (Edgecombe County), North Carolina on November 13, 1835 to John Whitaker Cotten and Laura Placidia Clark Cotten. In her teenage years, she attended Saint Mary's School in Raleigh and kept residency variously during that time in Raleigh, Tarboro, and Wilmington. In 1855, she married Joseph Adolphus Engelhard at age nineteen and would go onto have four children with him. Margaret died in Raleigh on January 31, 1895. A surviving journal, written by Margaret when she was around seventeen years old, is held by the State Archives of North Carolina.