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BY ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS.
Historic Americans.
Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
8vo, cloth, $1.50.
" A capital book to awaken an interest ii history." — Ouilook.
THOMAS Y. CROWELL 8c CO., Publishers,
NEW YORK.
THE MISTRESS PRESIDENT' STARTING OFF FOR A DRIVE."
DAYS
en is, indeed, a regard
. . . Hul thcio i<,
LUST RAT ED
DAMES AND DAUGHTERS OF COLONIAL DAYS
BY
GERALDINE BROOKS
"There maybe, and there often is, indeed, a regard for ancestry which nourishes only a weak pride. . . . But there is, also, a moral and philosophical respect for our ancestors which elevates the character and improves the heart." — Daniel Webster.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1900, By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company.
PEEFACE
These narrative sketches of certain dames and daughters of our colonial days are designed to illustrate the different types, epochs, and sections that made up our early American history. Other names of almost equal importance with those chosen could have been included in the pages of this volume, but that might have given undue preponderance to a particular epoch or a special section. It has been the author's endeavor to show in her choice of charactei-s, periods, and environ- ments the changing conditions of colonial life from the stern and controversial days of early settle- ment to the broader if no less strenuous times that saw the birth of the republic.
The author wishes to express her indebtedness to the published researches of that indefatigable delver in colonial history Mrs. Alice Morse Earle, and to the biographical series entitled " Women of Colonial and Revolutionary Days," of which Mrs. Earle is editor ; to the collection of Americana in the Boston Public Library, the Boston Athe- naeum and the Somerville Public Library, and es- pecially to the courtesy of Mr. William S. Thomas, of Baltimore, in placing at her service the excel- lent sketch of Margaret Brent written by his father, the late John L. Thomas.
COl^TEI^TS.
CHAPTER PAGE
i. axxe hutchixsox, of boston, founder of the
First Woman's Club ix America, 1636 . . 1 II. Frances Mart Jacqueline La Tour, the De- fender OF Fort La Tour, 1650 31
III. Margaret Brent, the Woman Euler of ^L\RY-
land, 1650 59
IV. Madam Sarah Knight, a Colonial Traveller,
170-4 75
V. Eliza Lucas, of Charleston, afteravards Wife
OF Chief-Justice Charles Pinckney, 1760 . 103 VI. Martha Washington, of Mount Vernon, Wife
OF General George Washington, 1770 . . 133 VII. Abigail Adams, Wife of John Adams and
Mother of John Quincy Adams, 1770 . . 169 VIIL Elizabeth Schuyler, of Albany, afterwards
Wife of Alexander Hamilton, 1776 . . . 215 IX. Sarah Wister and Deborah Norris, Two
Quaker Friends of Philadelphia, 1776 . . 245
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Drawings hy Charles Copeland.
PAGE
"'The Mistress President' starting off for a
Drive." (Page 164) Frontispiece
" ' My Judgment is not altered, though my Expres- sion alters,' she declared, in Einging Tones," 23
" Every Man was inspired by her Skill and
Courage " 54
"'I 3IAKE you my Sole Executrex,' he said; 'take
All and pay All ' " 64
" Down the Dark Ashley River in a Canoe hol- lowed FROM A Great Cypress " 119
"'Johnny,' the Post-rider" . 196
" The Next Instant the Girl drew quickly away
from the Window" 216
*' Climbing upon a Big Wheelbarrow that stood
there, they peered over the Wall" .... 249
DAMES AND DAUGHTERS OF COLONIAL DAYS
ANNE HUTCHINSON, OF BOSTON,
FOUNDER OF THE FIRST WOMAX's CLUB IN AMERICA.
Born in Lincolnshire, England, 1590. Died at Pelhara, Xew York, in 1643.
"The Joan of Arc of New England, whose dauntless spirit, confronted by her tormentors, triumphed over momentary weakness," — Doyle.
The room was crowded with women, dressed in the olives, browns, and drabs of the quiet Puritan taste. The faces of some bore signs of home- sickness and of longing. Others showed the gen- tleness and fortitude of spirit that had found strength and comfort in the new life over seas. All eyes were fixed in intent earnestness upon the face of the speaker, who gravely sat in her straight- backed chair, beside a severe-looking table strewn with manuscripts.
With her hands clasped firmly in her lap and her
2 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
head thrown back a little, as if in a certain " bold- ness " of spirit, the speaker's bright eyes travelled from one inquiring face to another, while her voice thrilled Avith the enthusiasm she felt in her subject.
She was dwelling upon the superiority of her own minister, the Rev. John Cotton, to the other ministers of that day in and about Boston.
"The difference iDetween Mr. Cotton and the other ministers of this colony," she declared, "is as wide as between heaven and hell ; for he preaches not a convenant of works, but of grace, and they, having not a seal of the spirit, are no able ministers of the New Testament."
There was no stir of surprise or disapprobation among her listeners. Yet these were bold words. Here was a woman venturing to set herself up as a judge over the spiritual heads of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and that, too, at a time when the church was regarded as the centre of all au- thority, life, and interest, when the rules as to church attendance and the observance of the Sab- bath were most rigid, when ministers were esteemed beyond criticism, and church membership was a test of citizenship.
But such were the wisdom, brilliancy, and mag- netism of Mistress Anne Hutchinson, of Boston- town, that her daring words were received with favor rather than with disapproval. Many heads framed in the Puritan caps of those colonial days were seen nodding in agreement with the speaker,
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 3
and one shrewd little woman whispered to her neighbor : " I declare, Mrs. Hutchinson hath more learning than the ministers, hath she not ? "
It was one of many such meetings held at Anne Hutchinson's own dwelling, a plain frame home- stead of those first colony days, standing at the corner of Washington and School streets. Upon the site of that house, years after, was built the famous "Old Corner Book Store," which is still a landmark in the Boston of to-day.
Twice each week the women of Boston, and some from the neighboring towns, would take their way along the narrow winding footpaths that led across the river marshes and through the cornfields, past the meeting-house and the market, to Anne Hutcliinson's home, where in her plain but spacious living-room they would read together, discuss, and criticise the sermons of the ministers in and about the capital of the Puritan colony.
As the originator and leader of these women's meetings Mrs. Anne Hutchinson may be regarded as the first American club-woman, although the difference between the woman's club of to-day and those vague, mystical theological discussions in Anne Hutchinson's house was " as wide " — if we may fall back upon her own antithesis — "as be- tween heaven and hell."
The life of the colonial dames and daughters of Anne Hutchinson's day was wofuUy limited, and it is not surprising that those first Boston women,
4 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
in the absence of all pleasant social gatherings, knowing nothing of newspapers, libraries, or daily mail, found Anne Hutchinson's semi-weekly gather- ings most attractive ; they must surely have en- joyed the freedom of thought and speech, the questioning and objecting practised at their meet- ings, and perhaps, too, they were fascinated by that spice of danger which they realized entered into their criticisms of men, then supreme in control.
Nor is it any wonder that the ministers themselves grew wroth at all this objecting and criticising, that they felt the blow dealt their assumed superiority and their self-conceit, and that they finally rose in a body to denounce and arraign this " breeder of heresies," as they called Anne Hutchinson.
It is a pity that we cannot know this interesting woman more intimately. The most that has been said of her comes from the mouths of her enemies. She was the daughter of Francis Marbury, a noted preacher of Lincolnshire, in old England. Her husband was William Hutchinson of the same English shire.
Of William Hutchinson little is known to us save that he was Anne Hutchinson's husband, and I am very much afraid that it was a case of Mrs. Hutchinson and husband. John Winthrop, in his diary, speaks of William Hutchinson as a man of ''a very mild temper and weak parts, wholly guided by his wife."
But when we discover that William Hutchinson
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 5
was by no means the only man guided by Mistress Anne, and that she numbered among her followers such men as her brother-in-law, the Rev. John Wheelwright, the only man of whom Cromwell ever confessed a fear; William Coddington, a worthy magistrate of Boston, and, later, founder and governor of Rhode Island ; that brilliant and noble " boy governor " of the colony, young Sir Harry Vane ; and, for a while, even that most able religious leader and teacher of his time, John Cot- ton, foremost minister of Boston, lecturer of Trin- ity College, and champion of the civil power ; — we may ascribe Anne Hutcliinson's '^ guidance " less to the " weak parts " of the gentlemen than to the " ready wit " and " bold spirit " which John Wiri- throp also records as characteristic of this out- spoken and brilliant woman.
She, on her part, was deeply influenced by the preaching of John Cotton. In her English home she had listened with intense spiritual fervor to his preaching as vicar of St. Botolph, in that Lincoln- shire Boston which gave its name to the new Bos- ton of Massachusetts Bay. When he became a non-conformist and sought refuge and a home among the Puritans of the Bay State, the memory of his words was still a strong power in the parish he had left, and Anne Hutchinson, upon her arrival at Boston, frankly confessed that she had crossed the sea solely to be under his preaching in his new home.
6 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
It was in September, 1634, that the ship " Grif- fith" brought Mrs. Anne Hutchinson with her hus- band and family to Boston. We are tokl that, even on the voyage across, she " vented " opinions and claimed " revelations " which very much shocked one of her fellow-passengers, the Rev. Mr. Symmes. He must have said as much ; for, soon after land- ing, some report of her fanatical opinions was cir- culated among the members of the church at Boston.
In fact, so great was the dread of what were called the " Antinomian heresies " that Mrs. Hutch- inson was not admitted to membership in the Boston church when her husband was. And even as early as this in her American career she was regarded with some suspicion.
It is hard to tell just how her religious views disagreed with those of the colony churches. Win- throp asserted that she brought two dangerous errors with her. These " errors " hinged upon some abstract difference between a " covenant of works " and a " covenant of grace," all of which sounds un- intelligible to us of to-day.
"As to the precise difference," Winthrop him- self was forced to declare, " no man could tell, ex- cept some few who knew the bottom of the matter, where the difference lay." Gov. John Winthrop was a very able thinker and clear-headed man ; so if he was in the dark we scarcely need trouble our heads over this argument of the long ago.
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 7
But in spite of her revelations and heretical opinions Anne Hutchinson won the regard and love of her fellow-colonists through her kind offices to the sick and sorrowing. And a month after her husband's admission to the Boston church, she, too, was made a member. Those who admitted her to fellowship were, however, soon to regret their ac- tion. For, as you may judge from what has already been said of her. Mistress Anne Hutchinson, al- though an intelligent, courageous, charitable, and helpful woman, was also very free-spoken. Her " voluble tongue " soon involved the colony in a religious and political controversy.
As her teachings began to take effect there resulted among her followers a general practice of attending church in a spirit of criticism. After the sermon objections were discharged at the min- ister " like so many pistol-shots." Open criticism grew into pronounced contempt. When a minister whom they did not care to hear occupied the pulpit some enthusiasts would rise and, " contemptuously turning their backs " upon the preacher, walk out of the meeting-house. This practice was but fol- lowing Mrs. Hutchinson's example ; for whenever the Rev. Mr. Wilson stood up to speak, immediately she would rise and depart. The Rev. Mr. Wil- son was the minister of the Boston church as John Cotton was the teacher, — really a case of pastor and colleague, — and this was the original, though scarcely courteous way that Mrs. Anne Hutch-
8 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
inson took of showing her preference for the "teacher" or colleague.
There is certainly a humorous side to this story of threatened schism in the Boston church; for those stern Puritan divines of solemn face and sombre garb, of autocratic conscience though of God-fearing purpose, of theological bias and of narrow mind, must certainly have cut pitiable fig- ures under the disrespectful treatment of the ob- noxious Hutchinsonians. It is, indeed, a ques- tion whether they were able to maintain their clerical dignity to their own satisfaction under the " pistol-shots " and the contemptuously departing backs.
But there was also a gravely serious side to this affair. Through the teaching of Anne Hutchinson dissension was arising within the colony of Massa- chusetts Bay. Now the safety of the colony de- pended upon the peaceful behavior of the colonists. Any disagreement among them might easily lead to a loss of their charter, and, consequently, to a loss of that religious and civil liberty which was so dear to them.
Gov. John Winthrop and those who supported him felt this keenly. With anxiety and disap- proval they had watched the growing disaffection that had followed upon Mrs. Hutchinson's out- spoken criticisms, and they sought to stop it before it should prove a " canker to their peace and a ruin to their comforts."
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 9
The controversy started in the Boston church. Parson Wilson began to resent Mrs. Hutchinson's hostile attitude toward himself, and the minister and the woman lecturer soon became open antagonists.
The church was divided into two parties. The former governor, John Winthrop, believing that course best for the colony, took up Mr. Wilson's cause, while Mrs. Hutchinson had with her a majority of the Boston church, including young Sir Harry Vane, who was then governor of Massachu- setts Bay. She also had the sympathy and partial support of her teacher and friend, the Rev. John Cotton.
The quarrel soon spread beyond the limits of the town. All the ministers of the surrounding country with the exception of the Rev. John Wheelwright, of Braintree, sided with Wilson and Winthrop. Wheelwright, together with John Cot- ton, was included by Mrs. Hutchinson in the '' cov- enant of grace," and as her brother-in-law and ardent sympathizer he became a prominent member of the Hutchinson faction.
The churches of the colony outside of the capital town supported their ministers, and thus the dis- pute assumed a political character. It became a contest of the suburbs against Boston, Wilson and Winthrop of the Boston church being of the sub- urban or clerical faction.
It seemed, at first, as if the Hutcliinson element would prevail. Mrs. Hutchinson's quick sallies
10 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
and ready replies threw into contempt the grave censures of Winthrop and Wilson. Her brilliancy, her courage, her defiance of authority, were mag- netic. They fascinated and persuaded where the hard, dull logic of the opposition failed. But Mis- tress Anne Hutchinson was soon to learn her own weakness, while the sensitive and impulsive Sir Harry Vane with his broad views of progress was to meet with disappointment. The ministers might be "narrow-minded bigots," as it has become the fashion to characterize them, but they were stern and determined men. And the influence of Win- throp, father of Massachusetts, the defender of the clergy and the old order, was slow, perhaps, but sure.
His power was realized, and resulted in success for himself and the ministers whom he championed, when, at the election held at Cambridge on the 17th of May, 1687, he was chosen governor of the colony in place of young Sir Harry Vane, who, with the other Hutchinsonians, were set aside.
The shock to the enthusiastic hopes of young Sir Harry Vane was too great for recovery. The fol- lowing August he sailed home to England, always to remain, in spite of his stormy Massachusetts ex- perience, a stanch friend to the colonies, always an " apostle of freedom," perishing, indeed, upon the scaffold for liberty of conscience and freedom of man.
With the election of Winthrop as governor,
ANNE HUTCHINSON 11
and the withdrawal of Vane, the clerical faction assumed control. The General Court was composed almost entirely of men from that party, and it at once adopted a course of action that was prompt as well as autocratic.
Attention was first directed toward the Rev. John Wheelwright, of Braintree, one of the ablest sup- porters of the Hutchinson cause. A man of courage and firm purpose, second only in authority to Anne Hutchinson hereelf, he Avas declared guilty of " sedition and contempt " and sentenced to ban- ishment.
Other Hutchinsonians were punished with fines, disfranchisement, or banishment. The main efforts of the Court, however, were exerted against the woman whom the clergy regarded as the " breeder and nourisher of all these disasters."
Wheehviight had not yet left his Braintree home to seek shelter in the wilderness of New Hamp- shire when Mrs. Hutchinson was summoned to appear before the court to answer to charges brought against her. Her trial v^as held at Cam- bridge, on the 17th of November, 1637.
We can well believe that the world had a hard, dull look that day for Anne Hutchinson. She found little consolation in the ice and snow, the barren sea-coast and river banks of her New Eng- land home. As she crossed the Charles on her way to the Cambridge meeting-house, the east wind, sweeping in from the bay, chilled her so that she
12 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS. '
shivered involuntarily. She might almost read a prophecy in its bitterness, but she set her face reso- lutely against it and her firmly closed lips showed that she was bracing herself for the ordeal before her. As she came in sight of the meeting-house she saw that people were gathering there from all quarters. They came in farm wagon, in the saddle, and on foot. Almost every one of impor- tance in the colony was there.
The little log meeting-house of New Towne (the Cambridge of to-day) stood at what is now the corner of Mount Auburn and Dunster streets, just off from Harvard square. It was a cold, dark, barn-like building, and on the morning of Anne Hutchinson's trial the gloom of the November day had settled upon it. The few small windows admitted little light, and to Anne Hutchinson's overwrought imagination those windows seemed like spying eyes frowning down upon her.
Every wooden bench in the house was crowded with spectators. At his table sat Governor Win- throp, surrounded by the Assistants of his Council, the clergy, and the magistrates who made up the court. Gov. John Winthrop's face, rising above the familiar Puritan ruff, looked less kind that day than usual. There was a slight knitting of the broad brow as if he, too, regarded the coming trial as an ordeal which he must undergo for the sake of duty and discipline.
Anne Hutchinson stood in the place assigned
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 13
her and faced her accusers. There was no show of defiance in her manner. Slie was calm and respectful. The hard, determined faces of her judges were in striking contrast to her slight, deli- cate frame and sensitive face, still young, but a little worn from the intellectual warfare through which she was passing. As she stood before the court, under fire of the hostile glances and scolding words of those about her, Anne Plutchinson was not afraid. She knew herself to be in the right, and that thought brought her strength and cour- age. She recalled the story of Daniel the prophet, and how the princes and presidents " sought matter against him concerning the law of God," and cast him into the lions' den, from which, she assured herself, the Lord delivered him. It seemed to her steadfast but over-stimulated mind that the Lord also promised such deliverance to her.
Her spirits rose, but her physical strength seemed deserting her. Her face lost its color. She swayed and grasped the nearest bench for support. Then some one not wholly mthout courtesy toward this one woman standing so alone and unchampioned, offered her a chair and she sat down.
The accusations of the court were at first general and trivial. Mrs. Hutchinson was as quick-witted as usual in her replies. When Winthrop charged her with having held unauthorized meetings at her house, she inquired pertinently :
" Have I not a rule for such meetings in tlie in-
14 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
junctions of Paul to Titus, that the elder women should instruct the younger ? "
Later in the trial the ministers were called upon to testify as to the criticisms which she had passed upon their preaching. They spoke with resent- ment and anger, and, as she listened, Mrs. Hutch- inson experienced her first sensation of dismay. Any words of hers, she realized, would be power- less to appease such bitterness and wounded vanity.
She felt the need of a supporter, some one to help her plead her cause. Suddenly a chair was drawn beside her, and, recognizing in the very movement an expression of the sympathy she craved, she turned gratefully to her friend. And then her face lighted with pleasure. It was her teacher, John Cotton, who sat beside her. But he did not meet the glance of her thankful eyes. He seemed rather to avoid it, as if reluctant to show undue interest in the culprit.
When asked to give his testimony, however, John Cotton spoke eloquently in Anne Hutchin- son's defence, and explained away so smoothly and convincingly the difference which the accused had drawn between his own preaching and the preach- ing of the other ministers that the opposition was somewhat broken down.
Thus far in the trial very little had been proved against Mrs. Hutchinson. Her few supporters in the audience were drawing a sigh of relief as Jolm
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 15
Cotton concluded and William Coddington, her one friendly judge, thought he saw a chance for the woman whom he felt to be unjustly accused.
Then, suddenly, of her own accord, she intro- duced the subject of revelations, and, in the words of her antagonist. Parson Wilson, " her own mouth delivered her into the power of the court."
With a calm and dispassionate fervor she recited her story of miraculous visions, while the court listened with silent but open astonishment. Her closing words rang out with terrible distinctness through the little meeting-house :
" I fear none but the great Jehovah which hath foretold me these things," she cried; "and I do verily believe that he will deliver me out of your hands. Therefore take heed how you proceed against me ; for I know that for this you go about to do me, God will ruin you and your posterity and the whole state."
After these audacious words there was a momen- tary pause of triumph among her enemies, of dis- may among her friends. Then the clergy and the Avhole court hurled at her bitter reproofs, invec- tives, and denunciations. To their minds, by her own voice she had proved herself guilty of an atrocious heresy ; for to the Puritans of that illiberal day belief in personal revelation was a grave sin, and to threaten the disruption of the colony was worse than blasphemy.
Then Winthrop rose, stern and judicial :
16 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
" Is it the opinion of the court," he demanded, " that, for the troublesomeness of her spirit and the danger of her cause, this woman, Mistress Anne Hutchinson, be banished from the colony? "
Only three hands were lifted in opposition. The court was overwhelmingly against her.
The governor turned to Anne Hutchinson. There may have been some pity in his heart for the darinof and brilliant woman before him. To Anne Hutchinson, however, his eyes looked unsym- pathetic, hard, even cruel.
" Mistress Hutchinson," said the governor, " hear now the sentence of the court. It is that you are banished out of our jurisdiction as being a woman not fit for our society, and you are to be imprisoned until the court shall send you away."
At these harsh and authoritative words there was a glimmer of the old defiance in Anne Hutch- inson's face.
"I desire to know wherefore I am banished," she exclaimed.
" Say no more," came the stern rejoinder. " The court knows wherefore, and is satisfied."
The sentence, as taken from the records of Massachusetts Bay colony, reads as follows — for us it answers Mrs. Hutchinson's query:
" Mrs. Hutchinson being convicted for traducing the ministers, she declared voluntarily the revela- tions for her ground, and that she should be de- livered, and the court ruined and their posterity ;
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 17
and thereupon was banished, and meanwhile was committed to Mr. Joseph Weld until the court should dispose of her."
Mrs. Hutchinson's captivity at the house of Joseph Weld in Roxbury must have been tedious and wearing, but it can scarcely have been lonely.
Although none of her friends except her own family were permitted to see her, lest she might do further harm by spreading her heresies, the eldei^ and ministers of the church were most diligent in their attendance upon her. They came at all hours to discuss and reason with her. Their topics of cojiversation seem to us but the vague points of theological dispute, neither interesting nor intelli- gible. To Mrs. Hutchinson, however, these relig- ious talks were stimulating ; in her peculiar condi- tion of mind and body they were even intoxicating. During these talks, we are told, she gave out more opinions and revelations than ever before.
In a way she enjoyed her imprisonment. She was still the most noted woman in the colony. Her r61e of persecuted prophetess became her. She grew more and more eloquent, and, careless of consequences, opened her mouth and talked freely to the visiting clergy.
The conduct of the eminent Mr. Cotton at this period is anything but edifying, and it must have been to Mrs. Hutchinson fairly heart-rending. Finding that his position in the controversy and his sympathy for Mrs. Hutchinson were not popu-
18 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
lar, but rather endangering to his peace and happi- ness, John Cotton conveniently shifted his ground and converted his sympathy into open opposition. He became foremost in the pursuit of the heretics and the heresies for which Mrs. Hutchinson was re- sponsible. The honored teacher for whom she had left her English home to cross the ocean and brave the Avilderness, to whom she had looked for guid- ance and sympathy and support, had abandoned her, and was walking in the path laid out by his brother ministers. He was somewhat bespattered in his muddy walk, but he was safe.
When spring and milder weather came, Mrs. Hutchinson was to leave the colony. But, before she departed, the ministers and elders had prepared for her one last ordeal. In their talks with her they discovered that she had " gross errors to the number of thirty or thereabouts ; " so they made a list of these " errors " and sent it in the form of an indictment to the Boston church. Thereupon the church at Boston summoned Mrs. Hutchinson to appear, that she might make answer to the accusa- tion and receive the sentence of excommunication.
Excommunication was spiritual disinheritance. Anne Hutchinson was an irreligious daughter, and in the presence of her brothers and sisters of the church she was to be reprimanded by her fathers, the elders, and publicly cast out as an unworthy member.
Late in March, then, she returned to her Boston
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 19
home. There were few friendly faces to greet her. Her husband and brother and nearly all upon whom she might rely were away seeking places of refuge against their coming exile.
The spring was early that year in Ncav England, but in Boston the same harsh east wind gave her a chilling reception. The Boston meeting-house looked gloomy and forbidding. As she entered and took her seat and looked into the faces of the elders and ministers, the sweet hope-breathing blossoms of early spring that she had left behind her in the Roxbury meadows were forgotten. She felt as though she were caught between the hard, gray walls of a prison. This atmosphere of gray- ness and rigidity pervaded everything. It was in the dreariness of the building, the stiffness of the furniture, the sombre dress and intense expression of the spectators, and the severe, unrelenting looks of the clergy. The spirit of liberty had not yet come to Boston-town.
When she had taken the place assigned her, one of the elders rose, called her by name, and read the list of twenty-nine heretical opinions for which she was called to account. After the reading of this indictment Mrs. Hutchinson scanned the faces of her inquisitors.
" By what precept of holy writ," she demanded, a tremor of indignation creepmg into her voice, " did the elders of the church come to me in my place of confinement pretending that they sought
20 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
light, when in reality they came to entrap and betray me ? "
After thus accusing them of double-dealing, she went on to declare that the twenty-nine " gross errors " with which she was charged were really the result of her unjust imprisonment. She defended her heretical opinions with spirit, and " returned," so it was alleged, " froward speeches to some who spake to her."
From ten in the morning until late in the day a fire of texts and biblical references raged with a storm of queries and assertions, and when evening fell they were still discussing only the fourth of the twenty-nine opinions. Finally the people began to realize that they were both hungry and tired. The ministers, in spite of their spiritual office, were also conscious of hunger and fatigue. I fear that they grew cross with this headstrong woman, who was able to out-talk and even to out-endure them all. So they decided to administer a stern admonition to this obstinate sister who would not be convinced.
The announcement of a public reprimand caused a stir in the audience, and two young men, seated together well toward the pulpit, seemed especially excited. The younger of the two was a handsome fellow with a certain dignity and independence of manner that suggested Anne Hutchinson. The elder was of the sturdy, stocky, English type that tells alike of firmness and fearlessness, a specimen of real English grit.
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 21
Scarcely had the judges decreed a public repri- mand when the younger of the two sprang to his feet.
" By what rule," he exclaimed with heat, as he faced the elders and the clergy, " might one be guided in expressing his dissent to this measure ? "
The ministers and elders looked aghast at this audacious boy who dared to question their deci- sion. In their surprise they made no reply to the question raised by young Hutcliinson, for he who ventured to raise a demnr in the assembly was Anne Hutchinson's own son. His companion, who was Thomas Savage, Mrs. Hutchinson's son-in-law, then rose and spoke more deliberately, but with equal antagonism.
" My mother is not accused of any heinous act, but only of an opinion held by her upon which she desires information and light rather than peremp- torily to hold to it. I cannot, therefore, see why the church should yet proceed to admonish her."
At these still more daring words the amazement among clergy and elders grew. Then Thomas Oliver, one of the elders, remarked that it was " a grief to his spirit " to see these two brethren ques- tion the proceedings of the church, and he advanced the original proposition that the meeting should show its displeasure toward them by including them also in the reprimand decreed against Mis- tress Hutchinson, " in order that the church might act in unison."
22 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Thereupon this novel suggestion for silencing opposition was put to vote, and, as no one dared to disagree, the matter \yas carried without dis- sent.
Then John Cotton rose and delivered a very eloquent admonition to Mrs. Hutchinson and her two sons, asserting that these two young men, who had dared to do a filial act, had " torn the very bowels of their souls by hardening their mother in sin."
That ended the session for the day, and Anne Hutchinson was placed in charge of Mr. Cotton until the next church meeting, in the hope that he might "overcome her troublesome spirit."
In making this decision those in authority had not overestimated John Cotton's influence. Indeed, he alone was able to accomplish what the united efforts of the elders, the ministers, and the magis- trates could not. He induced Anne Hutchinson to yield to his persuasions and to give up her resist- ance to authority.
In accordance with her promise, Mrs. Hutchin- son, at the meeting held in the Boston church the week following, read, before a crowded house, with bowed head and in a low tone, her public recanta- tion. Such meekness of spirit is surprising, con- sidering her former bold stand. To those who must admire her original pluck and courage, it may seem a trifle disappointing to have her yield thus to John Cotton, and to admit herself defeated by the
\.Vv\«.'XoV^Vm\^
MY JUDGMENT IS NOT ALTERED, THOUGH MY EXPRESSION ALTERS,' SHE DECLARED, IN RINGING TONES.''
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 23
ministers. Having thus acknowledged herself beaten, it would, at least, be gratifying to learn that the ministers rested satisfied with their tri- umph.
But they did not. She had not gone far enough in her humility to suit them, and one among them brought up her statement, made at the earlier meeting, that her heretical opinions were the result of her close imprisonment. Some of the ministers declared this statement a falsehood, and a discussion arose as to the precise meaning of Mrs. Hutchinson's opinions. The discussion trailed off into unintelligible theories, and clergy, magistrates, and elders, with the one " woman transcendental- ist," are lost to us in the mists and mazes of inde- finable ideas and the hazy differences of theoretical thought.
At last, beset on all sides by men hateful to her, and mocked at by revengeful and triumphant faces, Anne Hutchinson's spirit of antagonism re- turned. She could not bring herself to submit to these hostile persecutors as she had submitted in private to John Cotton, once her accepted guide. With the flush of defiance upon her face she turned upon her foes.
"My judgment is not altered, though my ex- pression alters," she declared, in ringing tones.
At once the assault began anew. From minis- ters, magistrates, and elders came a fierce storm of abuse and a torrent of impetuous words.
24 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
" Her repentance is on paper," shouted one ; '' but sure her repentance is not in her face."
"You have stepped out of your place," cried another, scandahzed by what he deemed her un- womanliness. " You have rather been a husband than a wife, and a preacher than a hearer, a magis- trate than a subject, and, therefore, you have thought to carry all things in church and Common- wealth as you would."
"I cannot but acknowledge that the Lord is just in leaving our sister to pride and lying," said one self-righteous inquisitor. ''I look upon her as a dangerous instrument of the devil raised up among us."
" God hath let her fall into a manifest lie ; yea ! to make a lie," declared another.
" Yea," cried his echo, " not simply to drop a lie, but to make a lie, to maintain a lie ! "
During the onslaught Anne Hutchinson sat stunned and motionless. The gray walls had closed upon her. She saw it was useless now to expect mercy. Only once do we hear her voice, and then in an appeal for the sympathy she most craved.
" Our teacher knows my judgment," she said, turning toward John Cotton. '' I never kept my judgment from him."
But there was no response from her teacher. John Cotton had abandoned her as unreclaimable.
Then came the hour of Parson Wilson's triumph.
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 25
To him fell the lot of pronouncing the sentence of excommunication.
" Are ye all of one mind that our sister here be cast out? " he demanded.
Their silence was his surest answer. And then, in the voice most hateful to Anne Hutchinson, — that of the Rev. John Wilson, — came the terrible words that still sear the story of the old Bay State.
" Thereupon, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the name of the church," he declared, " I do not only pronounce you worthy to be cast out, but I do cast you out; and in the name of Christ I do deliver you up to Satan, that you may learn no more to blaspheme, to seduce, and to lie ; and I do account you, from this time forth, to be a heathen and a publican, and so to be held by all the brethren and sisters of the congregation, and of others ; therefore I command you in the name of Clirist Jesus, and of this church, to withdraw your- self, as a leper, out of the congregation."
As Anne Hutchinson in obedience to the mandate of her judges passed down the aisle and out from the hushed and horrified meeting, there was but one who dared to rise and walk beside her. It was the woman who had been her follower and friend, young Mary Dyer, who, at a later day, was to feel the fatal rigor of Puritan Boston's " discipline."
The two women walked to the door. There some one, steeped in self -righteousness, said, " The Lord sanctify this unto you."
26 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Mrs. Hutchinson turned her clear and steadfast gaze upon the speaker.
" The Lord judges not as man judges," she re- plied. " Better to be cast out of the church than to deny Christ."
The Massachusetts records say that Mrs. Anne Hutchinson was banished on account of her reve- lations and excommunicated for a lie. They do not say that she was too brilliant, too ambitious, and too progressive for the ministers and magis- trates of the colony. But the fact remains that she was. And while it is only fair to the rulers of the colony to admit that any element of disturb- ance or sedition, at that time, was a menace to the welfare of the colony, and that Anne Hutchinson's voluble tongue was a dangerous one, it is certain that the ministers were jealous of her power and feared her leadership.
It is, however, a consolation to know that Mrs. Hutchinson's own family and friends did not agree with the harsh judgment of the clergy and magis- trates of Massachusetts Bay.
They seemed to have been able to put up with whatever peculiarities may have been hers. Per- haps her husband was, as Winthrop asserted, a man of "weak parts," but even weak men have been known to complain upon occasion. This Mr. Hutchinson never did. He shared his wife's ex- communication and banishment without a murmur against her, so far as we can find. He spoke of
ANNE HUTCHINSON, 27
her to certain messengers from the Boston church as "a dear samt and servant of God." Indeed, he must have been a man of some force and abil- ity, for he died a magistrate of the Rhode Island colony, to which he and his family had departed.
It is a relief to come upon that one " dear saint " of William Hutchinson's, after such clerical terms of abuse as " breeder of heresies," " American Jezebel," and "instrument of Satan." It also speaks well for the domestic felicity of the Hutchinson family.
Their home in Rhode Island, where Roger Will- iams welcomed them, was broken up in 1642 by the death of William Hutchinson. Then, with the remaining members of her family, Mistress Anne sought a refuge still farther from the influence of the hostile Bostonians and made her home in the outskirts of the Manhattan colony, among the Dutch, at what is now Pelham Manor near New Rochelle, where Hutchinson's creek and a tongue of land still known as " Anne's Hook " remain as her only memorials.
She was not long a resident of that quiet land, for its peace was soon turned into savage war. In August, 1643, " the Indians set upon them and slew her and all her family," except one child who was taken captive. It was a sad blotting-out of a brill- iant and helpful possibility.
Of course Mrs. Hutchinson's enemies among the Massachusetts Bay ministers made of her terrible fate a powerful warning to schismatics and wrong-
28 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
doers. Her death, so they declared, was God's judgment on one led away by the wiles of Satan.
Our Puritan forefathers had peculiar notions of justice, retribution, right and wrong. But we, in the light of two and a half centuries of progress, can see in Anne Hutchinson's death no such man- ifestation of an angry God, but simply the final tragedy of her life.
Anne Hutchinson's part in the early history of Massachusetts is a sad one — a series of disappoint- ments, defeats, -and disasters. Her story is shad- owed by the gloom of a New England wilderness and the equal dreariness of the stern Puritan laws. It is darkened by the clouds of persecution, excom- munication, and banishment, by the desertion of friends and the horrors of an Indian massacre.
But she stands out as one of the most notable and picturesque figures on the first pages of Ameri- can history — an intellectual force, when intellectu- ality was esteemed the prerogative of the magistrate and the minister; a woman who could not be frightened into an abandonment of her faith ; a woman who had more wit, more daring, and more real independence than the clergy and rulers of the State. Her life may be regarded as a prophecy of that larger liberty for which America has stood for generations.
About her story there hangs the mystery of a career little known before she appeared as a dis- turber of Boston's theological security, and as
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 29
little known after lier dramatic struggle with the authorities of the Bay colony. In recalling the trials and persecutions she suffered on that occasion, it is a satisfaction to find that time brought its own revenge, and that a descendant of the woman whom Massacliusetts cast out, a Hutchinson, came with the seal of kingly authority to rule the colony as its last royal governor.
II.
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR,
THE DEFENDER OF FORT LA TOUR.
Born in France, about 1600.
Died at Port Royal, Nova Scotia, 1645.
** A woman who by her heroism and misfortunes was destined to win romantic immortality in our annals." — Charles G. D. Roberts.
Upon a headland overlooking the Bay of Fnndy and the mouth of the river St. John, where to-day we see the outskirts of a flourishing city, there once stood a sturdy stronghold known as Fort La Tour. Behind high paUsades and four stalwart bastions lived the master of the fort, Sieur Charles St. Etreinee de la Tour, as supreme in authority as any feudal lord across the sea. He was secure from all dangfers of the wilderness in his stone for- tress, with twenty cannon for ordnance and a little band of Frenchmen and red allies for retainers.
Within his fort a certain rude elegance prevailed, transported from the castles of old France, with some few heirlooms and ancestral treasures. At his board there was always an abundance ; fish and
31
32 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
game in their season, fresh from the sea and inhmd streams and the great forests of fir and balsam. And the yearly ship from France brought such luxuries and comforts as could not be obtained in the wilds of Acady.
Charles La Tour was a soldier-trader. He kept up a course of military training among his men, and he trafficked with his neighbors in furs and fish. To his stronghold came Indian hunters from the St. Lawrence and the rivers of Maine, English fishers from Pemaquid and Monhegan, and mer- chants from the distant colony of Massachusetts Bay. Cold evenings in the long northern winters, stern-visaged men gathered round his blazing hearth and smoked the pipe of peace while they told tales of Indian raids, shipwrecks, and adven- tures with the beasts of the forest.
In character La Tour was a bold, unscrupulous, enterprising man, hardened by his wild life of the woods ; in business he was shrewd, growing rich on his furs and fish ; in politics he was firm, under all changes of government and kings at home, un- wavering in his allegiance to Charles La Tour and Charles La Tour's interests ; in religion he was like Malvolio, a " time-pleaser," — he called himself a Huguenot except when it suited his purpose to be a Jesuit. He was, indeed, a very earthly man, with earthly ambitions, earthly loves, and earthly hates. And withal, he was a finished courtier. In spite of his rough life, he showed the stamp of his
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR, 33
lordly ancestry. He was said to be a man of " pres- ence " and "persuasion."
La Tour did not reign alone. About 1625 he had married Frances Mary Jacqueline, who has been described as "a remarkable woman or an uncommon man." She was a creature of splendid spirit and energy. The blood of the Huguenots who fought for religious liberty at Ivry and La Rochelle was in her veins, and her hard life in the wilderness had developed her powers of masculine courage and endurance. She became her husband's able partner in the management of his business and the defence of his rights and his home.
Madame La Tour led a busy life. She helped in superintending the building of forts and the setting of nets, and when there was need she could spear the salmon and the cod or bring down the partridge and the quail. Her hand was steady and her aim was sure. She would make a good soldier when occasion came ; so thought all who knew the wife of Lieutenant-governor La Tour. And the sol- dier husband admired his soldier wife and gave her the independence and responsibilities of a man.
Yet, in spite of the fact that she was "a kind of Amazon," she was a woman of " gentle breeding," according to the old records. The softer, more feminine side of her nature showed in her life at home, the time spent within the four walls of her fortress. She prayed in her chapel, looked after
34 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
her little children, and taught her Indian people. She baked fine bread and sweetmeats for her husband and his retainers, and when the traders and trappers came she served them with wine and meat. But she did not shudder when they told their stories of peril and bloodshed. She was too much the soldier for any " womanish weakness."
At different periods her husband had a trading post on the Penobscot, interests in the Port Royal Colony, and a fort on the bold cliffs of Cape Sable. So Madame La Tour gained an intimate knowl- edge of large tracts of territory in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and our own State of Maine.
There comes a picture of this woman of steady poise, firm look, and clear, far-seeing eyes, following the paths made by the wild beasts over the mountains, gliding through smooth waters in her birch canoe, or sailing in her swift shallop across the waters of the Bay of Fundy, the mists clinging to her mast and the spray dashing across her bows. She grew to love Acadia, its wildness and its freedom. In its vast solitude familiar sights and sounds filled her with deep content, the notes of blackbird, thrush, and woodpigeon, the waves dancing in sunlight across the bay, the trout shining bright and silvery under the clear waters of the river, and the rustling of the rabbit in the bushes.
She and her practical husband Charles La Tour would have lived happy, prosperous, and safe in
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 35
their romantic woodland home, had it not been for the rival chief over the bay. On a clear day La Tour and his lady could distinguish a line of blue hills across the water, directly opposite, and they knew that behind those misty heights, in the colony of Port Royal, dwelt their bitterest enemy. Seigneur D'Aulnay Charnise, a Jesuit, a man as ambitious and daring as La Tour himself.
It was the most natural thing in the world that La Tour and Charnise should have quarrelled. They both held commissions from the French gov- ernment as the king's lieutenant in Acadia. They ruled in the same land and engaged in the same trade. Each was in the way of the other.
Charnise was the aggressive one. He recog- nized the advantages of La Tour's position in his post on the St. John, and he " wrathfully " made up his mind that he himself would have that fort.
During their boyhood and young manhood, while La Tour had lived a life of deprivation and hardship in the Acadian woods with the French adventurer Biencourt, Charnise had been growing in the knowledge of diplomacy at the French court. La Tour was almost a stranger in France, but Charnise was a man of influence there and a favorite with Richelieu. So when Charnise set about working the ruin of his rival he began by trying to damage La Tour's reputation with the French government. At first he met with small success, but he was so persistent and so perfect in artifice
36 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
that he finally got what he had been seeking — the king's order for La Tonr's arrest.
La Tour, however, was not easily managed. He would not allow himself to be bullied into sub- mission by Charnise, Richelieu, the king, and the whole French court. When the warrant for his seizure was flourished in his face he felt the hilt of his sword, looked with increasing confidence at his cannon, his strong walls, his faithful soldiers, and his valiant wife. Then, with suave insolence, he smiled into the face of his enemy and refused to be arrested.
And Charnise, who at the time had not suffi- cient force to attack Fort La Tour, was obliged to withdraw for the present. But of course he did not fail to send back word of La Tour's defiance, and in a short time he was again in France, strengthen- ing himself at court and obtaining assistance for the destruction of his rival.
Meanwhile La Tour, a commissionless rebel, held the fort for no king but La Tour. Yet, with all his self-reliance and easy optimism, he foresaw his danger in the coming crisis. Charnise, of him- self, was not at all formidable in his eyes ; but Charnis^, supported by the whole French govern- ment, might speedily wipe out Fort La Tour, its commander, and all belonging to him. La Tour as well as Charnise must look for help from with- out. Naturally, he stood no chance at the French court ; but there was his wife's Huguenot city of
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 37
La Rocbelle, and there were his neighbors, the New Englanders ; he was not so badly off, after all. Considering thus. La Tour acted accordingly and sent messengers across the ocean to La Rocbelle and down the coast to the little town of Boston. There were delays, however, and Charnise was prepared for the attack before La Tour was ready to resist him.
One cloudy spring morning La Tour and his wife were within their fort talking hopefully of the expected arrival of the ship "Clement" with supplies and reenforcements from La Rocbelle, when the fog suddenly lifted from the bay and disclosed three ships and several " smaller crafts " gliding quietly into the harbor. There was no doubt in the minds of Monsieur and Madame La Tour as to who commanded the fleet. They knew that they had now to deal with Seigneur D'Aulnay Charnise in earnest.
Like lightning came La Tour's commands. Be- fore Charnise had disembarked his five hundred men every soldier in Fort La Tour was at his post, among them Lad}^ La Tour dauntlessly directing the cannonading. And when Charnise, at the head of his troops, made a swift charge up the embankment he was met with a fierce volley of shot from bastion and palisade. The stone walls of the fort received the fire of the besiegers in serene contempt. Charnise was obliged to retire in a passion and resort to slower methods.
38 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
He straightway proceeded to blockade fort and harbor. The outlaw chieftain and his amazon wife should submit to Seigneur D'Aulnay Charnise or starve. So he tliought to himself as he paced the deck of his ship and waited impatiently for hunger to do its work.
Meanwhile, the " Clement " arrived from La Rochelle ; but, on account of the blockade, it could not enter the harbor. At the fort they spied it through a glass and signalled to it. Then, one moonless night. La Tour and madame stepped into their shallop and slipped quietly out with the tide. The pines and cliffs of the shore were left behind and the sound of men's voices on the ships of the besieger died away as their boat glided on toward the " Clement." They were soon upon its deck, setting sail for Boston, and before dawn the ex- governor and his wife were beyond the sight and power of their enemy, Charnise.
On the pleasant June afternoon when the '' Cle- ment " arrived in Boston harbor. Dr. Cotton was writing at his study window, and Governor Win- throp was in his garden on his island with " his wife and his sons and his son's wife." It was the year 1643, when the town of Boston was very quiet and peaceful. Young Harry Vane was no longer there with his impulses and impetuosities, nor brilliant Anne Hutchinson with her " Antinomian heresies." A pleasant calm had succeeded the storm aroused by these two vehement persons,
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 39
and things were going smoothly, and, in the minds of some worldly-minded folk, rather dully in the little Puritan ''city."
At the moment of La Tour's coming, Dr. Cot- ton was nibbling his quill and thinking hard about theology, and Governor Winthrop was bending with some pride over his bed of flourishing carrots and cabbages. The notion of French ships and French invaders was far from their thoughts. Cas- tle Island was deserted, and the " Clement " sa- luted and passed by without receiving answer.
The wife of Captain Gibbons, with her children, was being rowed down the harbor to her husband's farm on Pullen Point, the Winthrop of to-day, when she suddenly descried the ship with French colors flying from the mast, and French soldiers crowding the deck. The poor woman was much frightened and implored her rowers to hasten and land at the governor's garden, which, by the way, is the present site of Fort Winthrop in Boston harbor. But one of the " Clement's " crew had already recognized Mistress Gibbons as an old acquaintance. So La Tour manned his shallop and was hurrying after her to speak with her. And as Winthrop and his family looked up from their carrots and cabbages, they beheld a badly scared woman-neighbor flying before a boatload of much amused French adventurers. It was a rude awakening from agricultural dreams.
Here was Boston at the mercy of the Acadian
40 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
governor. " He might," as Winthrop affirmed, " have gone and spoiled Boston and taken the ships and sailed away without danger of resist- ance." But instead, he landed quite peaceably, exchanged " salutations " with the governor, and told the cause of his coming — that the " Cle- ment " had been sent to him from France, but his old enemy, Charnise, had blockaded the river St* John so that she could not get in, and that he had, accordingly, slipped out of the river in a shallop by night and come to ask help from the " good, kind people of Boston." La Tour spoke with his usual powers of " persuasion," and Winthrop was impressed with his good will toward the Puritan colony.
The La Tours and Mistress Gibbons took tea with the Winthrops that night. The quiet do- mestic scene around the supper table must have brought a feeling of pleasant restfulness to Ma- dame La Tour, whose ear had become so accus- tomed to noises of war and turmoil. Without the open window all was still, and within, the sweet, delicate face of the governor's wife, Mar- garet Winthrop, was smiling cordially over the teacups, and the dignified host was gravely atten- tive to the wants of his guests. The French woman had not been in so homelike an atmos- phere since the days of her girlhood at La Rochelle. To find herself once more in the company of so re- fined a gentleman and gentlewoman as John Win-
FRANCES MARF JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 41
throp and his wife, must have been a satisfaction to this woman of equally " gentle " breeding.
Madame's husband, we may be sure, was as cheer- ful and suave as usual. All through supper he talked like an ardent Protestant. Madame, too, spoke of her Huguenot faith, but with this differ- ence,— she was sincere. La Tour showed great interest in his host's vegetables, and praised his government of the colony. He was, indeed, gen- erally agreeable and entertaining. And madame also was charming and deliglited the company with lively tales of her adventures in the forest and as a soldier in her husband's fort. Margaret Win- throp's eyes opened wide with wonder as she lis- tened to the daring woman. She would not have liked to change places with Madame La Tour.
In the meantime news of the arrival of a French ship spread through the town. The people were alarmed for their governor, and after supper three shallops filled with armed men came to escort him to his "city" home. But Winthrop, as we know, was confident of La Tour's friendliness, and sending Mistress Gibbons home in his own boat he sailed up to the town in La Tour's shallop.
On landing, the La Tours were escorted by the governor and a guard to their lodgings at the home of Captain Gibbons. The captain's house stood on what is now the east side of Washington street, near the foot of Cornhill. It was on a bend of the cove, and as Madame La Tour woke each
42 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
day she could look out upon the harbor with its green marshes and islands glowing in the morning light.
Monsieur and Madame La Tour stayed in Boston until the fourteenth of July. This visit of the feudal chief and his wife greatly enlivened the Puritan town. The governor and magistrates de- bated long and heatedly the matter of aiding La Tour. Some were of the opinion that it was wrong for Christians to have to do in any way with " idolaters " — these discerning Puritans had their doubts as to La Tour's sincerity in Prot- estantism, — while others declared it was always Christian to help a brother in distress. As was their custom in all perplexities, they consulted their Bible, and quoted largely from the examples of Jehoshaphat, Ahab, Ahaziah, Josias, the King of Babylon, Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba, and precedents of similar character, " the relevancy of which is not very apparent."
And while these discussions were going on La Tour was allowed to land his men " in small com- panies that our women might not be affrighted by them." Then there were reviews of the French and English troops on the Common, which the women attended, some rather fearfully and others, like Madame La Tour, with spirit and enthusiasm. Madame was probably proud of those French " mili- tary movements " that so interested the governor and magistrates.
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 43
During their jaunt in Boston the La Tours were dined and entertained courteously, and we may truly say that they were well received by the '' first families " of Boston. But the other towns of the colony disapproved, and letters poured in on the governor " charging sin upon the conscience in all these proceedings," and one "judicious" parson predicted that before Boston was rid of the French stranger, blood would be spilled in the streets.
The " French stranger," however, behaved ad- mirably. Winthrop records that he " came duly to our church meetings and always accompanied the governor to and from thence." La Tour was a sly fellow. He knew how to win the approval of his Boston friends. Of what was he thinking as he sat, with bowed head and solemn face, under the preaching of the eloquent Doctor Cotton ? Not of things spiritual, we may be sure. But madame his wife was certainly a good Christian, and prob- ably treasured some of the good doctor's words to her dying day.
The upshot of it all was that the Bostonians, too prudent to give direct aid to La Tour, allowed him to make any arrangements he could with the inhabitants of the town and the masters of the vessels in the harbor. So he hired from Captain Gibbons and Thomas Hawkins four ships with ordnance and fighting men. And when Monsieur and Madame La Tour set sail with their fleet the
44 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
dignitaries of Boston escorted them to the wharf and cheered them with good wishes. It was quite evident that the Frenchman and his wife were well liked by their Puritan friends.
All this time Charnise had been waiting in his ship and wondering at the stern stuff of which his rival was made. And he smiled maliciously as he reflected that it was only a question of time. In the end La Tour must give in.
Suddenly round the bend in the shore came the fleet of five ships. On the deck of one stood La Tour ready for fight. Charnise then, for the first time, saw that his enemy had escaped him and that he had returned revengeful and triumphant. The outwitted chief did not make a trial of strength with his rival. He speedily hoisted sail and was off for Port Royal. And behind him La Tour fol- lowed q uickly . The tables were turned indeed.
Arrived in his Port Royal harbor, Charnise ran his ships aground and he and his men fortified themselves in their stronghold. La Tour was for making a united attack upon Charnise's fort im- mediately, but the Boston captains did not share La Tour's hatred for his rival and had scruples about carrying the war into the enemy's camp. However, they allowed those of the men who wished, to volunteer, and a charge was made in which three men fell on each side.
After this rather fruitless sally, La Tour cap- tured a pinnace belonging to Charnise. Upon this
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 45
event, the Puritan conscience seems to have dis- appeared. The Bostonians gladly " went halves " with La Tour and his Frenchmen in the division of booty and, before the close of the day, Charnis^ had lost besides his three men a boatload of valu- able moose and beaver skins.
La Tour had done his rival all the harm he could for the present, and returned to his own fort to prepare for Charnise's next attack, which he knew must come soon. Although he parted from the Boston captains with a show of friendli- ness, he cherished a secret grudge against them for spoiling his victory by refusing to take part in the attack. But then, what could he expect ? They were only Englishmen, he reflected ; his wife's people, the French Huguenots, would serve him better. And Madame La Tour was forthwith despatched to La Rochelle. La Tour relied on his wife's cleverness. He felt that she would manage for him better than an}'' other messenger he could send.
What must have been the thoughts of Madame La Tour as she journeyed over the summer sea to La Rochelle? She had left France a girl. She was returning after many years to her old home. Recollections crowded upon her ; memories that, for fear of discontent, she had tried to forget dur- ing her life in the shaggy forests. As she looked into the face of the skj^, so blue by day, by night so bright with stars, and as she listened to the rush
46 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
of the water against lier boatside and smelt the salt of the sea, she saw the narrow, winding streets of La Rochelle, the familiar houses with the quaint carving on the doorways, and the faces of her childhood's friends. She would be glad to tread the streets once more, to enter the remembered halls, and feel the welcoming hand-shake.
But she would find France changed to her. Though her own heart was loyal, enemies had sprung up ; men who called her husband rebel and traitor, who hated her as they hated him. Her thoughts went back to her husband and her children, and the country she was leaving. Acadia, not France, was her homeland now, the place of vast forests and clear waters and jagged cliffs, where she had labored and suffered and enjoyed so much. And, like a good Huguenot, she knelt and prayed that she might succeed in bringing aid to the fort that was her only home.
Her worst enemy was in France before her. Charnise was already at the French court, strength- ening his interests, and when he heard of the arrival of La Tour's wife he declared that madame was as big a traitor as her husband and forthwith procured a warrant for her arrest.
It was but a hurried meeting and parting Madame La Tour had with her Rochellois friends. She was warned that Charnise was on her track and she was forced to flee to England. She started on her way again, and soon all that she could discern
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 47
of the French land she had so longed to revisit was the low regular line of the coast, and the shore birds who were following the boat out to sea.
As soon as she reached England she quickly set about her business and freighted a London ship with provisions and munitions of war for Fort La Tour ; but first of all she wrote to her husband explaining the delay, telling of the danger she had been in from Charnise, and expressing ardent long- ings to be back at the fort with the necessary sup- plies. As she walked about among the London wharves and warehouses, making her arrangements with Alderman Berkley, the OAvner of the ship, and Bailey, the captain, her thoughts were continually with the little garrison at the mouth of the St. John. Perhaps Charnise was already besieging it, and, with this reflection, she implored a speedy departure.
At last she was off. The sounds of creaking boom and straining timbers were in her ear, and the breath of the sea was in her face. It was good to realize that she was bound for home, and that she was returning with help for the struggling fort. Roger Williams, the founder of the Providence plantations, was on board with her. He had se- cured his charter, and was carrying it back to his colony. One can fancy Madame La Tour in con- versation with the Rhode Island governor; Their liberal ideas must have made them congenial com- panions. We can imagine them discussing English
48 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
and French politics, smiling over the eccentricities of their Massachusetts friends, and discussing the possibilities of the American colonies.
And while they were thus engaged, Bailey, their captain, was looking well to his own interests, and carrying them far out of their course in order that he miglit trade w^th the Indians and grow rich. After much dallying of this sort, and expostulation on the part of the passengers, the ship at length entered the Bay of Fundy, where, to Madame La Tour, the waves were higher and the spray Salter than anywhere else in the world. Already she could almost see the sui-f breaking on the head- lands of her rock-l)ound home, and fancied she heard the deep roar and backward rush of the sea as it struck the shore and receded.
She was not, however, destined to realize her dreams of home so soon. Through the mist a ship was making toward them. Upon the deck were French soldiers and Jesuit priests. In one quick glance, Madame La Tour had recognized the figure of her enemy standing near the wheel. The next moment she was hidden in the hold of the London vessel, listening with dread to Charnise's inquiries concerning her ship and her captain's equivocating replies. Bailey was assuring the Frenchman that he was bound direct for Boston, and that there was no French blood aboard. Charnise, finally, was sat- isfied and let the ship pass. Then madame emerged from her hiding-place and laughed with Roger
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 49
Williams and the captain over her narrow escape and the trick they had played upon Seigneur D'Aul- nay Charnise.
But although madame could appreciate the joke, she was angry, as well she might be. Captain Bailey's devotion to his own interest had so de- layed the ship that they were too late to reach and succor Fort La Tour. Charnise, it was quite evi- dent, was cruising to intercept all aid that might be going there. If Bailey had not been so selfish, argued madame, she would have been safe within her stronghold before Charnis^ had crossed the Atlantic. If Fort La Tour was taken, the London captain was to blame. And as they left the waters of the bay behind and made their way along the coast to Boston, Bailey encountered the rough edge of madame's tongue. Her temper was thor- oughly roused against her procrastinating captain.
Madame La Tour had been on the ocean six months, and absent from her home a whole year, when she finally landed in Boston and was wel- comed by her Puritan friends. As soon as she arrived, we are told, madame commenced her suit against Bailey, the captain, and Berkley, the con- signee of the ship.
The trial of these two men came off in the Bos- ton meeting-house where, a few years before, Anne Hutchinson had been cast out as an unworthy sis- ter of the church. The Lady La Tour appeared and gave her testimony before the " magistrates and a
50 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
jury of principal men." And she must have made an impression on those stern and serious individ- uals, for the court was quite in her favor, and the jury awarded her damages to the amount of two hundred pounds. Bailey and Berkley were ar- rested and, in order to secure their release, they were obliged to surrender their cargo. They had learned their lesson. It was not prudent to trifle with a woman like Madame La Tour.
After reading the story of Anne Hutchinson's hard times in the Puritan capital one likes to dwell on this episode in Boston's history. It shows us that Winthrop and Cotton and even that crabbed, jealous man, Parson Wilson, had a kindly, courteous side, although, in their treatment of Mrs. Hutchinson, we could hardly believe it possi- ble. They disapproved of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. She crossed them and aroused their antagonism. Madame La Tour was in trouble. She appealed to their sympathy. Moreover, they liked her, personally, and they considered her a plucky, able woman and a devoted wife, well worthy of their service.
But the support they gave her " caused much trouble," Winthrop says. Their fault-finding neighbors, as usual, objected and " two of the gentlemen " who sided with Madame La Tour were afterwards arrested in London and fined for their decision in favor of " the lady."
"The lady," however, kept her goods, and hired
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 51
three ships that were lying in Boston harbor to carry her home. With many regrets she said " good-by " to the pleasant room with the canopy bed at Mistress Gibbons', the green islands and marsh grasses of the harbor, and the kind, friendly people who came to see them off. Quiet, conser- vative Boston had never seemed so attractive to her as on that day, when she came to leave it for the confusion and warfare of Fort La Tour.
About the time of her departure another visitor appeared in Boston, " one Marie, supposed to be a friar, but habited like a gentleman." This Mon- sieur Marie had a great deal to say about Madame La Tour and her husband. Charles La Tour, he declared, was a traitor ; and, as for madame, " she was known to be the cause of all his contempt and sedition." From this it may be judged that Charnis^ was still at his intrigues. He wished to win the Bostonians to his side as he had done the king and the P'rench court. This messenger of his, Marie, had been sent for that purpose.
The Bostonians scented danger. They regretted having taken any part in the quarrel between the rival Acadian chiefs. They sought to make friends with Charnise and, at the same time, to keep friends with La Tour, and behaved in a manner well matching the conduct of their shrewd and politic French neighbors.
Meanwhile, Madame La Tour reached her fort in safety. It seemed good to be back after her
52 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
wanderings and dangers and she smiled and talked gayly as she took her place once more in the garri- son. As her well-freighted ships were unloaded, she showed with pride what fine stores of provi- sions and ammunition she had brought back with her. She had many questions to ask about the happenings at the fort during -her absence. And then, as La Tour and his men gathered round and the wood blazed high in the great fireplace and the light of the flames danced along the rafters, shone reflected in the silver tankards, and lighted up her own dark gypsy-like beauty and the bronzed faces of the men about her, she told the story of her long journey. Many deep-mouthed oaths greeted her reference to Chariiise's pursuit of her and the order for her arrest, but there was loud laughing when she described her escape from him in the Bay of Fundy.
As they listened, those brave, rough fellows of the forest exalted her more than ever. What a queen they had at Fort La Tour, so plucky and so clever ! She had given them renewed life and strength. For days after her return it was the Fort La Tour of former times, overflowing with plenty and good cheer.
But as the supplies began to diminish, moments of depression returned and increased. So long as Charnis^ lived and his ships of war were anchored m Acadian waters there was no peace for Charles La Tour and those of his fort. Without reen-
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 53
forcement, the little garrison stood no chance against Charnis^'s superior force. There was noth- ing to do but to try again for help from outside. This time La Tour decided to go himself and seek for it, and he left his fort under the command of his trusty wife.
Madame La Tour parted from her husband with encouraging words. But, as she saw his white sail disappear around the bend in the shore, she turned and walked back over the steep, rocky path to the fort, pale-faced and solemn, with a feeling of dread in her heart.
Two monks passed her at the gate and bowed to her with cringing deference. They were supposed to have been kept by La Tour out of allegiance to King Louis. But madame's Huguenot blood had always rebelled at entertaining Jesuits, and these two men she had good reason to dislike. There was something underhanded and mean in their be- havior. She recognized them as spies in the em- ploy of Charnise. ' One might have them hanged, she reflected. But such a course seemed to her cowardly. As she faced them, her contempt for them shone in her eyes, and she said shortly :
" You may go. I have no further need of you."
The men drew their friars' robes about them and departed with sinister smiles. They went direct to Charnisd and reported the situation at Fort La Tour : the food was low, the powder nearly gone, and the garrison weak and under the command of
54 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
a woman, they said. Charnis^ exulted. The mo- ment had come for him to renew the attack.
From the lonely ramparts by the sea the watchers at the fort could see Charnise's cruisers flitting to and fro beyond the harbor mouth, wait- ing to catch La Tour on his return. Suddenly there was a movement of concerted action among the ships. Charnise was closing in with his fleet toward the walls of Fort La Tour.
The assault began on a February morning. The Acadian world was white and cold. Fort La Tour rose on its rocky heights like an ice palace glisten- ing in the sunshine. Behind every gun and can- non in the castle was a determined fighting-man, and on one of the bastions stood a woman of sol- dierly bearing. Madame La Tour's sure aim and steady hand did not fail her on that day. Her commands came in quick, distinct tones. Every man was inspired by her skill and courage.
In answer to the fire from Charnise's warships, a volley rang out from the cliffs of St. John. Fort La Tour blazed with the flashes of many heavy guns, and balls whizzed through the air and rid- dled the vessels in the harbor. Before night twenty of Charnise's men fell dead on the decks and thirteen were lying wounded. But the walls of Fort La Tour stood as firm and impregnable as the surrounding rocks.
The boats in the harbor were in sorry plight. Water was pouring into them through the holes
EVERY MAN WAS INSPIRED Bi nER $-<,,_>_ Ai,D CGjRAGE.
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 55
made b}^ the cannon shot. Charnis^ was obliged to hurry them around the curve in the shore out of reach of the fort artillery. And there he ran them aground on the beach. They had barely escaped sinking.
That night, while there was great enthusiasm and rejoicing in the castle on the heights, a morti- fied and enraged French general sat beside his camp-fire and nursed his hatred against the woman leader who had worsted him.
From February until April those at Fort La Tour watched and waited anxiously. Though Charnise did not renew the attack, he kept a close blockade in the harbor and no help could arrive. Madame La Tour and her soldiers were not igno- rant of their fate. They knew that they were doomed, but they kept up courage and, with French spirit, laughed and joked over their din- ners of dry codfish. But there were times when the men sat silent and despairing, and madame's brave words failed her. Then, shutting herself within her chapel, she prayed for hours at a time. She was preparing for death as her Huguenot parents had taught her.
" One still spring night," says an Acadian historian, " came the beginning of the end." The watchers on the rampart of the fort heard the " rattling of cables " and " the splash of lowering boats " in the harbor. The alarm was given and when at dawn the besiegers made their attack
56 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
upon the landward and weaker side of the fort, the desperate little band met them with fury and again drove them back.
The defenders had no hope, but they were determined to hold the fort to the last moment, and the sight of their woman leader, who, in the midst of shouting, smoke, and firing, remained clearheaded and courageous, made heroes of them all. After three days of fighting Charnise had gained no advantage.
But finally, one of La Tour's garrison, a Swiss guard, was bribed by Charnise's offer of gold. And on Easter morning when Madame La Tour and her garrison were at prayers in the chapel, the Swiss traitor on the ramparts did not warn them as Charnise's force was advancing up the cliffs, but he quietly stole down and opened the gates.
The besiegers were within the palisades. They had only to scale the inner walls and the fort was theirs. Here, however, the defenders, led on by Madame La Tour, rushed upon them. Charnise's men were pouring over the walls on all sides, but the men of the fort gathered round madame their commander and fought with such fierceness and boldness that the besiegers were repulsed again.
Then Charnise, believing that the garrison must be larger than he had supposed, and fearing that he might be forced to suffer the humiliation of being beaten by a woman a second time, called for a truce and " offered honorable terms." Madame
FRAXCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 57
La Tour, to save the blood of her soldiers, agreed and put her name to the articles of surrender.
The story is that when Charnis^ was within the fort and looked into the faces of the little starving band whom he had feared on the other side of the wall, he went into a passion and with a harsh laugh he tore up the capitulation under the eyes of the woman general. And then, impelled by a mean, revengeful nature, he took her garrison and had them hanged man by man, while he forced madame to stand by, with a halter round her neck, and watch their agonies.
Madame La Tour never recovered from the shock of tliat terrible scene. The slaughter of her devoted followers, probably even more than the destruction of her fort or the ruin of her husband's fortunes, broke her strong, heroic spirit. She died a few weeks later, a captive at Port Royal, and was buried on the banks of the St. John.
Of course the tale of the rival chiefs does not end with the death of Madame La Tour. That romantic chapter in Acadian history closes drama- tically with a drowning accident and a wedding. Charnise, who had become sole lord of Acadia, when just at the height of his power, fell into his "turbid little river" of Port Royal, and was swept away in its " deep eddies." Whereupon La Tour, who was always a patient, cheerful man, returned from his homeless wanderings, stepped into his rival's shoes, laid hold of all his belongings,
58 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
and, to make good his own title, married his enemy's widow, Madame Charnis^. Let us hope she led him a dance !
They were neither of them very estimable men, these rival chiefs. It was an age of trickery, greed, and treachery, and so far as we can judge, La Tour and Charnise possessed the qualities of their time in full measure. But the heroine of their story was of a very different sort, and the fame of Madame La Tour has come down to us from the stormy period in which she lived as clear and bright as the rushing waters that swept the shores of her wild, woodland home.
III.
MARGARET BRENT,
THE WOMAN RULER OF MARYLAND.
Boi-Q in England about 1600.
Died at St. Mary's, Maryland, about 1661.
'' Had she been born a queen she would have been as brilliant and daring as Elizabeth ; had she been born a man she would have been a Cromwell in her courage and audacity." — John L. Thomas.
When Charles the First of England gave to Lord Cecil Baltimore that land in the new world which he had called Maryland in honor of his queen Henrietta Maria, he could not foresee that this Maryland would one day come under the guidance of a woman who would be likened in brilliancy and daring to his cousin, Queen Elizabeth, and in courage and audacity to liis judge and successor, Oliver Cromwell. And yet, not long after King Charles made that grant of land to his friend Lord Baltimore, such a woman of queenly daring and republican courage found her way to the new colony and into the councils of its leading men, and her name, Margaret Brent, stands for the most
59
60 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
vigorous force in the early history of Maryland. However, she might not have exerted quite so much influence over those first Maryland colonists had she not stood in the relationship she did to the governor of Maryland, Leonard Calvert, the brother of Lord Baltimore. There are some who think that Margaret Brent was an intimate friend or kinswoman of Leonard Calvert and there are others who believe that she was his sweetheart. The historian who knew the most about her was of the latter opinion. Doubtless the historian was rigfht. But we need not decide. It is better to let the atmosphere of doubt and mystery still linger about the names of Margaret Brent and Leonard Calvert and their old-time relationship. There is a certain charm in the indefiniteness of her past.
It was in the year 1634 that Leonard Calvert came to America, bringing over three hundred colonists, some twenty of them men of wealth and position. Among those who voyaged with him were Father White, the good priest who labored to convert the Indians of the Potomac country, Thomas Cornwaleys, an honest soldier, the Miles Standish of Maryland, and Thomas Green, a man of slight ability, the one who succeeded Leonard Calvert in the government of the colony. These three hundred English colonists sailed into that great bay of four leagues width, the Chesapeake, up that broad river the Potomac, which the Indians
MARGARET BR EXT. 61
told tliem flowed "from the smiset" and landed in a region of glistening sands and waving forest trees, a country filled in the long summer with singing birds and a " millionous multitude" of wild-flowers. There, where a little river joins the waters of the Potomac, they founded their city and they called both the city and the river St. Mary's. The city has long since vanished, but its memory still lingers in the river and its name.
Four yeare after the coming of Leonard Calvert and those first Maryland settlei^, Margaret Brent arrived in the city of St. Mary's. She had sailed from England Avith her sister Mary, her brothei^s Giles and Fulk, their servants, and nine other colonists. It was in November that Mistress Mar- garet first saw Maryland, then brilliant in the beauty of an Indian summer. The orioles were still singing in the forests, the late wild-flowere were blooming in the crevices of the rocks, and the trees still kept their foliage of red and gold. Mistress Margaret must have felt with those other early Maryland colonists that the air of her new home was "like the breath of Heaven;" that she had entered " Paradise."
Margaret Brent, her sister and brothers were received in all honor by Governor Calvert. Giles was at once appointed member of the Council and was advanced from one position to another until finally, in the year 1643, when Leonard Calvert was called to England, he was made acting governor.
62 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
Giles Brent's individual merit hardly justified his rapid rise to power. He was a loyal, zealous man, but there were other men in the colony equally loyal and zealous and at the same time more able and popular than he ; Thomas Cornwaleys was one of these. So it has been surmised that per- haps Mistress Margaret was the cause of Giles's high favor with Governor Calvert. Governor Cal- vert was ever eager to please the woman who was his friend, cousin, or sweetheart, as the case may have been, and in making his appointments he was not likely to forget that Giles was Margaret's brother.
The whole Brent family, the Avomen as well as the men, played an active, prominent part in the affairs of the colony. Immediately after their ar- rival they took up land in the town and on Kent Island, built themselves manor houses, and carried on a prosperous business.
Margaret became as wise as her brothers, or even wiser, in the intricacies of the English law ruling estates and decedents. We hear of her remsterina" cattle marks, buying and selling property, and sign- ing herself " Attorney for my brother."
Indeed, she was so much engaged in her land operations and business of all sorts that she had no time to think of love. Governor Calvert and all the gentlemen of liis Council might importune her. Still she remained Mistress Margaret Brent and, like the great English queen to whom she has
MARGARET BRENT. 63
been compared, chose to retain, in spite of lovers' pleadings, the sovereignty of her own heart and hand.
Nevertheless, though she would not be wooed and won, she ruled royally among her little court of admirers at St. Mary's. We wonder at her in- fluence and power and can only understand them when we come to know her. As we look into the early records of the Maryland colony and catch those rare glimpses of Mistress Margaret, we find that she was no ordinary person. She was, indeed, a woman of brains, courage, and executive ability. She knew people and was able to manage them and their affairs with remarkable tact. Moreover, al- though she was no longer very young, she could still please and fascinate. And so it is not sur- prising that she became in effect, if not in fact, the woman ruler of Maryland.
One would like to know where Mistress Mar- garet was when Clayborne, the Puritan claimant to Kent Island, and the pirate Ingles made raids upon her home. At that time Governor Calvert, who had just returned from England, was forced by the invaders to flee to Virginia and many Marylanders, loyal to him, went with him. Perhaps Mistress Margaret was one of those who shared his exile, or perhaps, in her fearlessness and daring, she re- mained in Maryland to look after his estates, her brother', and her own.
Two years passed before Governor Calvert was
64 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
able to put down the rebellion and return to his colony. But he did not live long to enjoy the peace that followed. He died in the summer of 1647, when he was still a comparatively young man. As he had neither wife nor children, there was much wondering as to whom he would appoint his heir and many thought of his brother, Lord Baltimore, who had met with recent losses at home and in the province.
Thomas Green with a few others of the Gov- ernor's Council and Mary and Margaret Brent were with him just before he died. He named Thomas Green his successor as governor. Then his eyes rested upon Margaret Brent, perhaps with love, at least with confidence and admiration. There Avas no one in the colony so wise, so able, so loyal as she. Leonard Calvert had always known that. Pointing to her so that all might see and under- stand, he made the will that has come down to us as the shortest one on record. " I make you my sole executrix," he said ; " take all and pay all." And after he had spoken these words of laconic in- struction, he asked that all would leave him " ex- cept Mistress Margaret."
We cannot know what passed between Leonard Calvert and Margaret Brent in their last interview and whether it was as friends, cousins, or sweet- hearts that they said good-by. Margaret never told. We can only see that it was to her he addressed his last words and in her placed his " especial trust and
MAKE YOU MY SOLE EXECUTRIX,' HE SAID; 'TAKE ALL AND PAY ALL.
MARGARET BRENT, 65
confidence ; " and that, whatever was the tie that bound them, for him it was closer than any other.
" Take all and pay all," he had said, and Margaret Brent determined to carry out his com- mand to the letter. The first thing that she took was his house. There was some dispute as to her title to it ; but Mistress Margaret did not wait for this dispute to close. She was convinced that her claim was a good one and being a woman of quick, decided action, she at once established hei-self in the governor's mansion, for she was well ac- quainted with the old law by which " possession is nine points." Then, having secured the house, she collected all of Governor Calvert's property and took it under her care and management.
This would have been enough for most women. But Mistress Margaret was not so easily satisfied. She was determined to have all that was implied in the phrase " Take all and pay all." So we soon find her making claim that, since she had been appointed '' executrix " of Leonard Calvert, she had the right to succeed Leonard Calvert as Lord Baltimore's attorney and in that character to receive all the profits and to pay all the debts of his lordship's estate and to attend to the estate's preservation.
This declaration astounded the Maryland colo- nists. They had their doubts as to the legality of Mistress Margaret's claim and made objection to it. But she, who was never daunted by opposition.
66 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
applied to the Provincial Court for an interpreta- tion of her rights. And the court interpreted in perfect accordance with Mistress Margaret's wishes. It is surprising what powers of persuasion she possessed.
Margaret Brent was soon not only mistress of Governor Calvert's mansion. By her own decree and with the sanction of the Provincial Court, she had become Lord Baltimore's attorney, and in that dignified position she had control of all the rents, issues, and profits of his lordship's estate. The fact that Lord Baltimore himself knew noth- ing of all this mattered little to Mistress Margaret. She knew and was satisfied. That was sufficient.
Her next step was more daring than all those that went before. It was no less than a demand for vote and representation ; and that two centu- ries and a half ago, when talk of woman's rights was as unheard of as the steam engine, or the force of electricity ! Certainly Mistress Margaret was far in advance of her times.
On the strength of her own assertions she de- cided that she had as good a claim as au}^ one to a voice and a seat in the General Assembly. Leon- ard Calvert in his lifetime, as Lord Baltimore's at- torney, had the right to vote, she reflected ; and now since Leonard Calvert was dead and she had suc- ceeded as his lordship's attorney, it was only fair that the right to vote should pass on to her.
Her audacity carried her even further. She was
MARGARET BRENT. 67
Leonard Calvert's " executrix," she told herself, and was entitled to a vote in that capacity. And 30, she concluded, she had the right to two votes in the General Assembly.
No one but Margaret Brent would have medi- tated those two votes, one for a foreign lord who had never authorized her to act for him and the other for a dead man whose only instructions to her had been : " Take all and pay all." We can only wonder at her presumption and ingenious reasoning, as did a masculine biographer of hers who was moved to exclaim in admiration of her daring — " What man would ever have di'eamed of such a thing 1 "
Her astonishing stand for woman's rights was made on the twenty-fii-st of January, 1648. At the first beat of the drum that used to call the assembly- men together in the early days of the Maryland colony. Mistress Margaret started on her way for Fort St. John's, where the General Assembly was to meet. There was determination in her eyes and in her attitude, as she sat erect upon her horse and rode along over the four miles of snow-covered road to the fort. She was deciding that at least she would have her say before the court and show the justice of her suit.
The assemblymen were expecting a visit from Margaret Brent. They had some notion of the mission upon wliich slie was coming and they were uncertain how to receive it, for they did not like
68 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
either the thought of granting or of denying her request. So, when she entered the coart room, they glanced at each other with looks that seemed to say, " We had better adjourn ; " and Governor Green, who, if the truth may be told, was always a little afraid of Mistress Margaret, was the most disconcerted of all.
Mistress Margaret, however, would not let her- self be disturbed by the cool reception with which she was met. Though the court tried to hedge her about with rules and orders to keep her quiet, she remained firm in her intention to speak. And finally, when her opportunity came, she rose and put forward, for the first time in America, the claim of a woman's right to sit and vote in a legis- lative assembly.
We can only imagine the scene that followed that brief and daring speech of hers in the court room of Fort St. John's. A wave of startled wonder and amazement passed over the whole Assembly. And yet, preposterous as her demand was to those first Maryland planters, there were some among them who, moved by her forcible, persuasive eloquence, would have been willing to grant her request. But Governor Green, who was usually so weak and vacillating, became for once firm and decided and gained control over the minds of all his assemblymen. He had always regarded Margaret Brent as his most dangerous rival and it was his greatest wish to keep her out
MARGARET BRENT. 69
of power. If he should grant her a seat or a voice in the Assembly, he reflected, she might manage to govern all the voting and all the speaking in the house, and perhaps, for there was no limit to her pre- sumption, as the attorney of Lord Baltimore, she might get herself elected governor. It angered liim to remember he had heard it whispered mischiev- ously through the colony that Mistress Margaret would make a better governor than Thomas Green. The time had come, he told himself, when either he or she must prevail. So he braced himself for prompt and autocratic action and flatly refused, as the Maryland records attest, " that the said Mre. Brent should have any vote in the house."
" The said Mre. Brent " did not take her defeat without protest. She objected vehemently to the proceedings of the Assembly and departed from the court room in angry dignity. She had failed in her purpose ; but by her bold stand she had made for herself a signal record as the fii^t woman in America to advocate her right to vote.
It was Governor Green who had denied her this right and yet it was Governor Green who turned to her for help whenever an emergency arose. And emergencies were constantly arising in the half- settled province of Maryland. Soon after the death of Leonard Calvert, there threatened to be a mutiny in the army. The soldiers had fought against Clayborne and Ingles for Governor Calvert, when he was an exile in Virginia, and Governor
70 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Calvert had promised them that they should be paid in full " out of the stock and personal property of his lordship's plantation." Governor Calvert was dead, the pay was not forthcoming, and the only course left to the soldiers seemed to be in- surrection. Governor Green could think of noth- ing to appease the half-starved, indignant troops and, much against his dignity, he went to Margaret Brent for aid. As soon as Mistress Margaret heard of the trouble that was brewing she remembered the instructions which Leonard Calvert had given her to " pay all." So without hesitation she sold cattle belonging to Lord Baltimore and paid off all the hungry soldiers. This was not the only time that Mistress Margaret was called upon to calm an angry army.
News travelled slowly in those early colonial days and it was some time before Lord Baltimore heard of all that Margaret Brent was claiming and doing as his own attorney and the executrix of his brother. Not really knowing Mistress Margaret, he was inclined to look upon her as an officious sort of person who had been " meddling " in his affairs and he wrote " tartly " and with " bitter in- vectives " concerning her to the General Assembly.
But the Assembly understood Margaret Brent better than Lord Baltimore did, and they sent a spirited reply to him in gallant praise of Margaret Brent and her wise conduct. They told his lord- ship, with unconscious humor, that they did
MARGARET BRENT. 71
" verily believe " it was better for his own advan- tage and the colony's safety that his estate was in her hands rather than "in any man else's." The soldiers, the Assembly said, would never have treated any other with " that civility and respect " which they always showed to her and when, at times, they were " ready to run into mutiny," she was the only one in all the colony who was able to pacify them. Indeed, all would have gone " to ruin," de- clared the loyal assemblymen, if Mistress Brent had not been proclaimed his lordship's attorney by order of the court, and the letter ends with the dignified but indignant protest that Mistress Brent had deserved '' favor and thanks " from his lordship rather than all those '' bitter invectives " which he had been pleased to express against her.
The Maryland assemblymen could not give Mis- tress Margaret the right to vote, but they could defend her even against the lord of their colony and declare her the ablest man among them. It must have made Mistress Margaret herself very proud to think of the respect and confidence which she in- spired in her fellow colonists.
To the end of her days Margaret Brent contin- ued to lead a life of ability and energetic action. There are occasional glimpses of her later history, as she flashes across the records of the Maryland colony always a clear-cut, fearless, vigorous person- ality. At one time she appeai-s before the Assem- bly claiming that the tenements belonging to the
72 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
rebels within Leonard Calvert's manors should be under her care and management. Again she comes pleading her cause against one Thomas Ger- rard for five thousand pounds of tobacco. At an- other time she figures as an offender accused of stealing and killing cattle, only to retort signifi- cantly that the cattle were her own and to demand a trial by jury.
In all of these cases and many others too she seems to have had her way. The General Assem- bly never denied her anything but the right to vote. She had only to express a wish in her clear, per- suasive fashion and it was granted. In point of fact, Margaret Brent ruled the colony.
She finally disappears from our view at the age of fifty-eight in the character of a " mourning sweet- heart." Neither her mature age nor her strong- minded notions could scare away her lovers. She certainly was a remarkable woman in more ways than one.
When she came for the last time before the Gen- eral Assembly her hair must have been gray but her speech no less eloquent and her manner no less charming than in the days of Leonard Calvert. We can imagine her, in the presence of the court, stating with dignity and frankness that she was the heir of Thomas White, a Maryland gentleman, who, dying, had left her his whole estate as a proof of ''his love and affection and of his constant wish to marry her."
MARGARET BRENT. 73
One would like to know more of Thomas White, that truly loyal and devoted Maryland gentleman. But he appears only in the one r61e, that of Mis^ tress Margaret's lover. For it is quite incongruous to associate him with that other Thomas White who owned the place of unromantic name, " The Hog- pen Tavern." Mistress Margaret's Thomas White was probably a quiet, gentle, unobtrusive sort of man who admired in her the daring qualities which he liimself lacked.
It has been suggested that possibly, if Thomas White had lived, Mistress Margaret might have been induced at last to resign her independent state and to take, in place of her ow-n name, that of Mrs. Thomas White ; that she had grown weary of her land operations and her duties as executrix and at- torney and was willing to settle down to a life of domestic calm. But it is almost impossible to think of Margaret Brent as changing her business- like, self-reliant nature and meditating love and matrimony. It is more likely that this interesting and unusual colonial dame died as she had lived, loving notliing but the public good and the man- agement of her own and other people's affaii-s.
IV.
MADAM SARAH KNIGHT,
A COLONIAL TRAVELLER.
Bora in Boston, April 19, 1666.
Died at New London, Connecticut, September 25, 1727.
'■'■ She was a woman of great energy and talent and must have been counted an extraordinary character in those early days." — Alice Morse Earle.
Debby Billixgs was meditating going to bed. She was very sleepy. Her head was nodding and dropping heavily upon the hard, uneasy back of her chair and drowsiness had so filled her eyes that she saw all things crookedly. The dishes in the dresser were performing queer antics and the table and chairs were assuming all sorts of strange atti- tudes. Debby began to fear the witches were tormenting her.
Suddenly her ear caught the sound of horses' hoofs coming nearer and nearer. She straightened in her chair, rubbed her eyes, stretched herself, and yawned. It was late for travellers to be on the road, thought Debby ; could they be coining to the farm for a night's lodging ?
The noise of the horses' hoofs stopped at the 75
76 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
farm gate. Debby heard the riders dismount and some one speak a few Avords, as though of direction. Then the door opened and Debby found herself face to face with a very unexpected guest. She started from her chair and stared as if she feared the witches still were tormenting her.
She had not thought to see a traveller in petti- coats, such handsome petticoats, too, and in the midst of her alarm at the arrival of so unusual a guest Debby looked with curious, admiring eyes at the newcomer's costume, the scarlet cloak and little round cap of Lincoln green, the puffed and ruffled sleeves, the petticoat of green drugget- cloth, the high-heeled leather shoes with their green ribbon bows, and the riding-mask of black velvet which, Debby remembered to have heard, only ladies of the highest gentility wore. But as she gazed, Debby began to have unpleasant feelings, wondering what could bring so fine a lady to her door at such an hour, on so dark and disagreeable a night. The simple but suspecting country wench was frightened. She retreated a few steps from her lady guest and exclaimed in excited tones :
" Lawful me, madam, what in the world brings you here at this time a night? I never see a woman on the road so dreadful late in all my 'versal life. Who are you ? — where are you going ? I 'm scared out of my wits."
Madam had taken off her riding-mask and was surveying Debby in amazement. She appeared to
MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 77
be undecided whether or not to answer such im- pertinent questions.
Just then the door opened again and in came a man whom Debby recognized as a certain John whose father kept a tavern at Dedham, twelve miles away on the Boston turnpike. The girl turned immediately to him and began addressing him with her storm of startled queries :
'' Is it you, John ? How de do ? Where in the world are you going with this woman ? Who is she?"
But John was uncommunicative. He scarcely looked at Debby. Settling himself on a bench in one corner of the room, he fumbled in his pocket and finally brought out a dark, suspicious-looking bottle to which he straightway gave his entire attention.
For a moment Debby stared blankly at John and his black jug. Then her gaze returned to madam.
Madam was beginning to show signs of im- patience under all this interrogation. She sighed, jerked off her gloves, and began tapping the floor restlessly with her riding-Avhip. She looked very tired and her glance wandered significantly to the nearest chair.
Meanwhile the long silence was increasing Debby's alarm and she burst out once more with her questions.
" Lawful heart, ma'am ! won't you tell me who
78 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
you are ? " she implored. " Why have you come here ? Where are you going ? "
Madam frowned. The girl's ill breeding irritated her. " I think you are treating me ver}^ rudely," she said in cool, polite tones, " and I do not think it my duty to answer your unmannerly ques- tions."
Her words somewhat abashed Debby, who stood before her guest, nervously rolling the corners of her apron.
Observing the girl's discomfiture, madam added more kindly, " My reason for coming here is not so strange, though you choose to consider it so. I do but desire a night's lodging, intending to journey on to-morrow morning, in company with the post."
Debby was not satisfied by this explanation and she continued to gaze at madam in dazed perplex- ity. But slie recovered her Avits enough to think to ask her guest to be seated.
" Thank you," said madam, sitting down and eying Debby with an amused expression that the girl could not understand. " I am glad your chairs are useful as well as ornamental." Then, glancing at the silent, bibulous man in the corner, she con- tinued, " Master John, I '11 warrant you can leave that black junk of yours long enough to receive your pay, can't you ? "
The fellow was on his feet in a moment, shuffling toward her with an expansive grin on liis honest countenance.
MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 79
" I shall recommend you," remarked madam in laughing tones, as she put the money into liis hand, "as a gallant squire to all ladies in distress. But a word of advice, Master John," she added, lowering her voice, " be quicker with the tongue and slower with the bottle. 'T would improve you vastly."
John's grin returned and then gradually faded away. It was hard to tell whether madam were joking or serious.
It was quite evident, however, that madam was travel-worn and tired — too travel- worn and tired for further convei-sation. Even in the pale candle- light one could see that her handsome petticoat and neat shoes were splashed with mud and that the hair beneath her little round cap was loose and wind-blown. As she sat leaning back in her chair with half-closed eyes she looked as though she had found her journey a hard one. For a moment she remained in that attitude of exhaustion. Then, addressing Debby, she said wearily, " Will you have the goodness to show me where I may lodge ? " adding under her breath, " me thinks I could sleep on corn husks to-night, but hope my patience will not be taxed to that extent."
Debby conducted her guest to an adjoining room and, opening the door, disclosed a little back parlor almost filled with a high bedstead, the sight of which caused madam to raise her eyebrows in despair. Debby showed the room mechanically and
80 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
did not cease to wonder and look doubtful. Her perplexity was not lost upon her guest. As madam turned at the door and took the candle which Debby offered her, she looked into the girl's eyes and laughed, "You can stare, wench," she said. " I doubt not you will recognize me to- morrow morning. Good-night and pleasant dreams to you. Mistress Billings," and with another laugh and a quick courtesy madam entered her room and the door closed behind her.
For a moment Debby stood with her glance fixed on the door through which madam had vanished. Then she went up to John, who was pocketing his money and his dark bottle, slowly and safely.
" John," said the girl in a loud whisper, pulling at his sleeve to get his attention, " who is she ? "
John's only answer was a long shake of the head.
''But," insisted Debby, "how came you with her? That you surely can tell me."
John surveyed Debby for several seconds in silence until the talking mood, which was rare with him, came upon him. Then he opened his mouth — it was a broad one — and said :
" About seven o'clock this evening, while 1 was a-settin' at father's tavern with the rest of the boys, in comes mother with a dame who was strange to us all. Mother, speaking to us, says, ' This lady wants to get a guide to go with her to Billings's to meet the post — do any of you men
MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 81
care to go along with her, for a sum ? ' At first we all sat staring at our pewter mugs, at mother, and most of all at the strange dame who stood back, holding her mask before her face and looking half as if she did not like the scene she had got into and half as if she did not care. At last I, not minding the thought of the money, and wish- ing to oblige the lady, riz and says, ' What will you give me to go with you ? ' ' Give you ? ' says she, looking straight at me and almost as though she could see through me, — ' are you John ? ' says she. ' Yes,' says I, wondering by what powei^ of good or evil she had divined my name and then thinking perchance my mother had told it to her. ' John 's my name for want of a better,' says I. ' Well, Mr. Jolm,' sajs she, ' you look like an honest man ; make your demands.' ' Why, half a piece of eight and a dram of whiskey,' says I. ' Agreed,' says she. She gave me my dram on hand and while I drank it she stood by the hearth, warming her hands and making a handsome pict- ure in the firelight."
Here John paused, surprised by his own elo- quence.
" Did you hold much speech with her on the road ? " inquired Debby with interest. She had been listening intently to all that John had said and her curiosity concerning madam was grow- ing.
"Yes, considerable," John replied rather proudly.
82 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
" I told her the adventures I had passed in late rid- ing and the dangers I had escaped and she said," added John, with one of his expansive grins, " that she guessed I must be a prince in disguise."
" But was not madam herself greatly terrified to be riding so late in the darkness ? " asked Debby, shuddering at the very thought and haunted by imaginings of wolves prowling along forest paths, naked savages shooting from behind trees, and swift-running rivei^ that swept horse and rider away. For beyond the towns the New England of Debby's day was a wilderness.
" Not until we had rid about an hour," answered John. " Then we came to a thick swamp, which very much startled her, especially by reason of the heavy fog which made the darkness so great that she could not see her way before her, as she said. Here she pulled in her nag and declared she dared go no further. But I bid her not fear, told her I had crossed a thousand such swamps, that I knew this one well, and that we should soon be over. Thereupon she rallied her courage, gave reins to her nag, and said with a laugh she would venture her fate in the swamp rather than stay to perish like ye babes in the wood."
" And what did she mean by that, John ? " queried the ever curious Debby.
John only shook his head by way of reply. Evi- dently he was not very well versed in literature. He was pulling on his cap and muffling his coat
MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 83
about him preparatory to departure and had already returned to his taciturn self.
" Without doubt she is brave," remarked Debby half to hei^elf. " But I like not these mystifying ways," and here Debby fell to rolling the corners of her apron once more in nervous fashion. An expression of fear gradually came into her face. "Lawful heart, John!" she whispered, growing suddenly pale, '^ do you think — do you think that perchance she may be a — - witch ? "
Master John sent a contemptuous glance in the trembling Debby 's direction. " Humph," said he, and opening the door he went out into the night.
A few moments later Debby crept to her bed- chamber, and when she fell asleep it was to dream that the world was overrun with witches in scarlet cloaks and velvet riding-masks.
Meanwhile the lady who had aroused so many doubts and tremoi-s in Debby 's simple mind was sleeping peacefully. She did not have upon her conscience, as Debby had feared, any witchcraft sins to disturb her slumbers. Indeed, for all her strange and unexplained appearance, there was nothing mysterious about her ; she was only an honored gentlewoman of Boston town travelling to New York on business.
But there was a great deal that is remarkable about her. The very fact of her journey makes her a woman worthy of note. Traveller in petticoats were not so common then as nowadays. Indeed
84 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
it has been said that Madam Knight, for this was the fair traveller's name, was probably the first woman to take such a journey on horseback. The lonely woods of Massachusetts and Connecticut offered many terrors and " startled " even " mascu- line courage." As a matter of fact, no man of New England dared venture twenty miles beyond the limits of his town until after the church had offered prayers for his safety. No wonder that madam's feminine courage was tried on her long, difficult, perilous journey and that, as she herself confessed, she sometimes became " fearful." Yet, in spite of her " fearfulness," she went and returned, protected only by hired guides, or the western post, or such travellers as she chanced to meet upon her way ; and we know from her own words what an interesting, exciting, trying time she had of it. Her journal of her travels has come down to us and is a charming bit of " wit and wisdom."
And along with the journal, certain historical facts relating to the author have descended, so that we are able to know this Madam Sarah Knight of colonial days better than did her contemporary. Mistress Debby Billings. We learn that Sarah Knight was the daughter of Captain Thomas Kem- ble and Elizabeth Kemble of Boston town. The gravestones of madam's father and mother are still to be seen in the old Copp's Hill burying-ground. Her father was a prosperous Boston merchant. He carried on an extensive trade as the American
MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 85
agent for a London firm and he was one of those to whose charge the Scotch prisonere, serving as ''indentured servants," were sent over after Crom- well's victory at Dunbar.
So far as we can judge, Captain Kemble was a man of good repute, for the most part circumspect in his conduct. Only once do we find him falling from grace; and this is remarkable, for grace, as interpreted by his Puritan neighbors, was by no means easy of attainment. Upon that one occasion when he did offend, he was severely reprimanded for his misdemeanor. The tell-tale record brands him as a malefactor and informs us that he was put in the stocks two hours for his " lewd and unseemly behavior," Avhich consisted in his kissing his wife publicly on the doorsteps of his own house when he had just returned home after a voyage of three years !
Sarah Kemble Knight was Boston born and Bos- ton bred. In the little Puritan city she grew up with her numerous brothers and sisters, learning to read and write fluently, probably listening every Sunday to the preaching of the great Doctor In- crease Mather, and perhaps — who knows? — fall- ing in love with one of her father's "indentured servants."
But, whatever her girlish experiences were, we know that she finally married a Boston man, a wid- ower, Mr. Richard Knight. Nothing much is said of Madam Knight's husband. We cannot even
86 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
be sure whether he were dead or only absent in the fall of the year 1704, when she set out on her famous journey to New York. That she styled her- self as " widow " a few years later is positive. In- deed, she might have been one long before, in so far as any influence her husband had upon her story.
At the time of her journey Madam Sarah was living with her widowed mother and her little daughter Elizabeth in her handsome ''mansion house " on Moon street, near New North square, in the neighborliood of the Mathers and not far from the Franklins. The atmosphere about her house must have been rather dreary, monotonous, and comparatively unenlightened. The first American newspaper, the " Boston News Letter," had just been published. Only a few copies were printed once a week and each copy contained but four or ^YQ square feet of reading matter. Madam's li- brary cannot have been especially entertaining or wholly satisfactory to a woman of her brilliant fancy. A great deal of the best English literature was as yet unwritten or unknown. The " Specta- tor " had not appeared, nor any of Pope's verses. Dr. Johnson was not born and Shakspere was almost forgotten. One wonders how Madam Knight ever kept her original humor and lively imagination, when the conversations of her friends the Mathers, and other Puritan divines, their sonorous sermons, and their lugubrious dissertations on witchcraft, were the chief source of her intellectual life.
MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 87
We cannot but feel some indignation against the stern Puritan civilization which offered no en- couragement to such wit as Madam Sarah's. To be sure, her talent for letters ran in a lighter vein than the genius of those about her, but it was none the less a talent because it treated of other matter than that of theology and superstitious belief. There is real literary merit in the sprightly pages of her journal.
Her journal has also a certain historical value. It does not mention any important events or noted people of that day, but it presents a vivacious picture of colonial customs and gives an entertain- ing description of the places through which Madam Knight passed in her travels.
Madam's diary does not tell us just why she made her journey. We only know that she went to arrange about some New York property of hers which, it is supposed, had been left her by a New York relative. Perhaps too, with her enterprising, energetic nature, she may have had a wish to break through her narrow boundaries, to meet with adventures, to see the world, even though in so doing she must climb " steep and rocky " liills, cross " tottering bridges," ford " hazardous " rivers, and encounter bears, wolves, and savages.
But whatever were her reasons for going, she certainly must have created quite a stir about her quiet New England home on that October after- noon, when, dressed in her brilliant travelling-
88 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
costume of scarlet and green, mounted on her horse, and accompanied by her kinsman Captain Robert Luist, her first guide, she started on her journey and rode away, waving a farewell to her friends and neighbors who had gathered in her garden to wish her " Godspeed."
With this moment of departure madam's journal begins. Captain Luist, she tells us, accompanied her as far as the Rev. Mr. Belcher's house at Dedham, where she went in hopes of meeting the western post. She waited there until evening, but the post did not come. Thereupon madam, noth- ing daunted, determined to ride on to " Billingses," where she was told the post would be sure to lodge. It was then that she made her appearance at the Dedham tavern and found a guide in honest John, who so gallantly left his pew^ter mug to escort her to the house of Mistress Debby Billings. And the reception which Madam Sarah had from that scary young woman is historic.
Madam had some other uncomfortable times at her various lodging-places in the course of her travels and she writes of her tavern experiences in her characteristically amusing and abusive fashion. She often found the food which was put before her quite unpalatable. At one " ordinary," as a tavern was called in those early days, " a woman brought in a twisted thing like a cable but something whiter," madam records, "and laying it on the board tugged for life to bring it into a capacity to spread.
MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 89
whicli having with great pains accompHshed, she served a dish of pork and cabbage, T suppose the remains of dmner. The sauce was of a deep purple which I tho't was boiled in her dye kettle ; the bread was Indian and everything on the table service agreeable to those. I being hungry, got a little down, but my stomach was soon cloy'd."
Upon another occasion madam was even more unfortunate in her fare and could not get even " a little down."
" We baited our horses," she writes, '' and would have eaten a morsel ourselves but the pumkin and Indian bread had such an aspect, and the bare- legged punch so awkward or rather awful a sound that we left both and proceeded forward."
Indeed, her epicurean taste was sorely tried by these "ordinary" tables and her love of comfort was equally annoyed by the "wretched" beds upon which she was forced to sleep. She found the " ordinary " beds distressingly high and as hard as they were high ; the coverlets were often "scanty" and, concerning the linen, she remarks with delicate insinuation of its dinginess that it was " sad colored."
Here is a pathetic glimpse of Madam Sarah passing the night at a wayside inn where the food w^as so poor that she could not eat and the bed so bad that she could not sleep and where her room was shared, as was the custom of the time, by the guides who travelled with her : " Riding till about
90 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
nine," she says, "we arrived and took np our lodg- ings at an ordinary which a French family kej)t. Here, being very hungry, I desired a fricassee, which the Frenchman, undertaking, managed so contrary to my notion of cookery that I hastened to bed supperless ; arriving at my apartment I found it to be furnished, amongst other rubbish, with a high bed, a low one, a long table, a bench, and a bottomless chair. Little Miss went to scratch up my kennell which rustled as if she 'd been in the barn amongst the husks and suppose such Avas the contents of the tickin'. Nevertheless, being exceedingly weary, down I laid my poor carkes (never more tired) and found my covering as scanty as my bed was hard. Anon I heard another rustling noise in ye room, called to know the matter. Little Miss said she was making a bed for the men ; who, when they were in bed complained their leggs lay out of it by reason of its shortness. My poor bones complained bitterly, not being used to such lodgings and so did the man who was with us ; and poor I made but one grone which was from the time I went to bed to the time I riss, which was about three in the morning, set- ting up by the fire till light."
Sometimes when bed and board were both satis- factory, madam had yet another cause for annoy- ance. The people who frequented these ordinaries, where she was obliged to lodge, Avere not always of the nicest sort. There was among them a good
MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 91
deal of drinking and brawling and some of their conversations, to qnote Madam Sarah's own expres- sion, "are not proper to be related by a female pen." When madam found their talk and behavior unbearable she would quietly " slip out and enter her mind in her journal," by way of consolation.
Occasionally the noise of these tavern roisterers kept her awake after she had retired for the night. One evening in particular she could get no sleep because of the clamor of some of the town topers in the next room. The " town topers," it seems, were discussing the meaning of the name of their country (Narragansett), and one of their number grew especially vehement and upheld his side of the argument " with a thousand imprecations not worth notice, which he uttered with such a roreing voice and thundering blows with the fist of wicked- ness on the table that it pierced my head. I heart- ily fretted," continues poor madam, '^ and wished 'em tongue tyed ; but with little success. They kept calling for t'other Gill, Avhich, while they were swallowing, was some intermission, but pres- ently like oyle to fire, increased the flame. I set my candel on a chest by the bedside and setting up, fell to my old way of composing my resent- ments in the following manner :
" ' I ask thy aid, 0 Potent Rum !
To charm these wrangling topers dum Thou hast their Giddy Braines possest The man confounded with the Beast —
92 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
And I, poor I, can get no rest
Intoxicate them with thy fumes :
O still their tongues till morning comes ! '
" And I know not but my wishes took effect," she adds exultantly, '' for the dispute soon ended with t'other dram ; and so good-night ! "
Surely the entertainment which Madam Knight had at the taverns along her route was not always of the most enjoyable sort. Yet such as it was, it was better than none, as madam herself realized upon those occasions when hospitality was denied her. For there were a few places where madam and her guides were not even admitted and madam could do nothing but depart in indignation and, at the first opportunity, " compose her resentment " on paper. She is quite eloquent in her '' resent- ments " and we cannot but admire her mastery of uncomplimentary expression. Once it was a " surly old she-creature not worthy the name of woman who would hardly let us go into her door, though the weather was so stormy none but she would have turned out a Dogg." And, at another time, the house of a Mr. Davol, or Devil, as she point- edly spelled it, was the " habitation of cruelty."
" I questioned," remarks madam, with light irony, " whether we ought to go to the Devil to be helpt out of affliction. However, like the rest of De- luded Souls that past to ye Infernal denn, we made all possible speed to this Devil's Habitation ; where, alighting, in full assurance of good accom-
MADAM SARAH KNIGHT, 98
modation, we were going in. Bnt meeting his two daughters, as I supposed twins, they so nearly resembled each other, both in features and habit and look't as old as the Divel himself and quite as ugly, we desired entertainment, but could hardly get a word out of 'um, till with our importunity, telling them our necessity, etc., they call'd the old Sophister who was as sparing of his words as his daughters had bin and no or none was the reply he made to our demands. He differed only in this from the old fellow in t' other country ; he let us depart."
However, madam's troubles on her journey were not confined to taverns and surly tavern keepers. The road itself caused her much anxiety and terror. Often, while she was riding along in the darkness, she fancied " each lifeless Trunk with its shattered Limbs " was " an armed Enofine " and every little stump a " Ravenous devourer." And when she knew that there was a river ahead which must be crossed "no thouorhts but those of the dang'rous River could entertain her imagination." Sometimes she saw herself " drowning, otherwhiles drowned, and at the best like a holy sister just come out of a Spiritual Bath in dripping Garments." She had as little confidence in a canoe as some anxious fathers and mothers have in these modern days and she has left a vivid description of her first trip in that " ticklish Indian vehicle."
" The canoe," she says, " was very small and
94 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
shallow so that, when we were in, she seemed re'dy to take in water which greatly terrified me and caused me to be very circumspect, sitting with my hands fast on each side, my eyes steady, not daring so much as to lodge my tongue a hair's breadth more on one side of my mouth than t'other, nor so much as think on Lott's wife, for a wry thought would have oversett our wherey."
Amid such fears as these of capsizing canoes, hazardous rivers, armed enemies, and ravenous devourers, madam retained her dauntless, venture- some spirit. What her guides dared, she dared also and although she sometimes hesitated and grew " fearful," she always managed to " rally her courage " and go bravely on.
She used to find it a great comfort in her perilous travels to indulge her imagination. She liked to fancy that the moonlight had transformed the forest trees into a " sumptuous city filled with famous Buildings, churches with their spiring steeples. Balconies and Galleries " and she invested this visionary city with " grandeurs " of which she had heard and of which she had read in the stories of foreign lands. Often, when the time was favor- able to poetic thought, she would " drop into poetry " and compose verses upon the moon, or poverty or any subject that happened to inspire her. And while she was entertaining herself in this agreeable fashion, she forgot her " weariness and toils " and was only roused from her " pleasing
MADAM SARAH KXIGHT. 95
imaginations " by the post sounding his horn. That sound of the post's horn, madam declared, was the sweetest music in her ears, for it meant that they had arrived at their night's lodging and that her journey for that day was ended.
It must have been a great relief to Madam Knight when she came to the large towns of New Haven and New York and found friends and rela- tives who treated her to such comfort and hospital- ity as she had not enjoyed at the taverns along the way. She visited in each of these towns several weeks, observing and commenting upon the man- ners and customs of the people and delighting to compare all things in both places with " ours in Boston." At that time Boston was the big city — it had a population of ten thousand, while New York was only half as large.
The people of New Haven and of the Connecticut Colony in general, madam decides, are too inde- pendent in some ways and too rigid m others. She is shocked at their leniency in regard to divorce. " These uncomely Standawaj's," she says, " are too much in vogue among the English in this indulgent colony, as their records plentifully prove and that on very trivial matters." She thinks that they are also too familiar with their slaves and complains that " into the dish goes the black hoof as freely as the white hand." It might be stated, parentheti- cally, that table manners cannot have been very elegant in Madam Knight's day. But she wonders
9G COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
that they should be so severe as regards a harmless kiss and innocent merriment among young people. And she tells of an amusing custom in practise at their weddings, where the bridegroom runs away, is pursued by the bridesmen, and dragged back " to duty." Her opinion is that the people of New Haven are a rather awkward, countrified set. She judges them according to her critical Boston standard and thinks they show the lack of educa- tion and conversation. " Their w^ant of improve- ments," she says, "renders them almost ridiculous," and to illustrate tlie truth of her statement she gives a vivid description of a scene in a New Haven merchant's house, which served as his " shop."
" In comes a tall country fellow," she records, " with his Alfogeos full of Tobacco. He advanced to the middle of the room, makes an awkward nodd and spitting a large deal of Aromatic Tincture, he gave a scrape with his shovel-like shoe, leaving a small shovel-full of dirt on the floor, made a full stop, hugging his own pretty body with his hands under his arms, stood staring round him like a catt let out of a basket. At last, like the creature Balaam rode on, he opened his mouth and said ' Have you any ribinnes for hat bands to sell, I pray ? ' The questions and answers about the pay being past, the ribin is bro't and opened. Bumpkin simpers, cryes, ' It 's confounded gay, I vow,' and beckons to the door. In comes Joan Tawdry, dropping about fifty curtsies, and stands by him. He shows her
MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 97
the ribin. ' Law you,' says she, ' it 's right gent ; do you take it, it's dreadful pretty.' Then she enquires, ' Have you any hood silk, I pray ? ' Which, being brought and bought, ' Have you any thread silk to sew it with?' says she. Which being accommodated with, they departed."
In New York madam found the people more to her likmg. " They are ' sociable ' and ' court- eous,' " she says. And she remarks that " tliey are not so strick in keeping the Sabbath as in Boston " and that "they treat with good liquor literally." Neither of these facts at all disturbed Madam Sarah; the merry dame from Boston town had little of the puritanical about her. She speaks with enthusiasm of the fine sleighing in the little Dutch capital and "the houses of entertainment at a place called the Bowery." The "Bowery" of those days was highly respectable and well calculated to please a person of ^ladam Sarah's aristocratic tastes. Madam herself went sleighing with her New York friends, passed fifty or sixty swift-driving "slays " on the way, and stopped at a farmhouse where they met with "handsome entertainment." On the whole, Madame Knight enjoyed her fortnight's stay in New York immensely and left the " pleasant city," as she herself declared, "with no little regret."
Difficult as madam's journey to New York had been, her journey home was even more so. For it was midwinter when she came to return and the
98 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
cold, the storms of wind and snow, and the ice on the rivers added to her fears and discomforts. She was a joyful and much relieved woman when, on the third of March, after an absence of five months, she reached home in safety and found her " tender" mother and her " dear and only child, with open arms, ready to receive her " and her friends '^ flock- ing in " to welcome her. We can imagine with what interest and sympathy all gathered round to hear the tale of her travels, how they praised her for lier perseverance and courage, and how even Cotton Mather smiled over the amusing parts of her narrative.
But Madam Knight's story of her journey can- not have been any more entertaining to her relatives and friends than it is to us who read it looking back across two hundred years of change and progress. It is the quaintness and remoteness of Madam Knight and her journal that especially interest us. Our world is so different from hers. The Shore Line Express now carries us in a few hours over the same road upon which she spent so many weary days and nights. Pleasant pasture lands have taken the place of the great forests which used to terrify her. Big cities have grown out of the little one-tavern towns where she often went supperless to bed. Indeed, the very " grand- eurs," which she imagined in the woods on those moonlight nights have come to pass and the " famous buildings," the " churches with spiring
MADAM SARAH KXIGHT. 99
steeples," the " Balconies," and " Galleries " of her dream are now more real than the far-away, primi- tive world of her journal.
Fortunately, our knowledge of Madam Knight does not end with her journal of her travels. In her later days she continued to be remarkable. We realize the extent of her energy and literary ability when we learn that, soon after her return from her trip to New York, she opened a school in her handsome house on Moon street. She be- came quite celebrated in her new capacity ; in those days a schoolmistress was almost as great a rarity as a traveller in petticoats. Among her pupils she numbered no less a pei-sonage than Benjamin Franklin. Samuel Mather was another of her scholars. And it was a Mather of a later generation, Mrs. Hannabell Crocker, who called Madam Knight an ''original genius " and said her ideas of that talented lady were formed from having heard Dr. Franklin and Dr. blather converse about their old schoolmistress. One would like to see that " old schoolmistress " as she appeared to the two learned doctors, when they were small boys blotting their copy books, mispronouncing the big words in their primers, and trembling at the awful birch that hung behind madam's stiff-backed chair. She scolded them, we may be sure, and used for their benefit some of her wonderful abusive language. But we know she must have smiled as well and told them funny stories ; even in the school-room
100 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
Madam Kiiiglit cannot have missed the humor- ous.
Madam Knight did not end her days as a school- mistress nor as a resident of Boston town. When her daughter married and went to live in New London, madam followed her there and spent the rest of her life either in New London or at Norwich. She owned several farms in New London, but her dwelling-house and the church Avhich she attended were at Norwich. It is recorded that she gave a silver communion cup to the Norwich church and the town, in gratitude for her gift, voted her per- mission " to sit in the pew wliere she used to sit."
In both Norwich and New London madam seems to have been highly respected for her many excel- lent qualities, but we find one black mark against her name which reminds us of her fatlier's " lewd and unseemly behavior." She is accused by those scrupulous Puritan records of "selling strong drinks to the Indians."
At the Livingston farm in New London on the Norwich road madam is reported to have kept " entertainment for travellers " and it was at this farm that she died. So the last character in which she appeared was that of an inn-keeper. No doubt hers was a model ordinary, free from clamorous town topers, mountainous beds with sad-colored pillows, fricassees that could not be swallowed, pumpkin and Indian mixed bread of dreadful aspect,
MADA.V SARAH KNIGHT. 101
bare-legged punch of awful sound, and the host of other tavern ills from which she herself had suffered. And we may well believe that many a weary, hungry traveller had cause to bless the pleasant farm on the Norwich road and the tidy, smiling, bustling genius of the place. Madam Sarah Knight.
V.
ELIZA LUCAS, OF CHARLESTON,
APTERWAKDS WIFE OF CHIEF-JUSTICE CHARLES PINCKNEY.
Born on the island of Antigua in 1723. Died at Philadelphia, May 24, 1793.
" A woman of character and capacity who, in a private sta- tion, by her enterprise and perseverance, conferred a great benefit upon her adopted home." — Harriott Horry Ravenel.
The tall clock in the library corner struck eleven. Colonel Pinckney looked up from his book to listen, while Mrs. Pinckney, his wife, and her niece. Miss Bartlett, stopped in their needle- work as if waiting for something to happen. But nothing did happen and Miss Bartlett made a grimace at the clock's face as she remarked in a tone of mingled regret and protest:
" I fear our dear Miss Lucas must have decided not to honor us this morning. Surely she would have been here by now, if she were coming, for she never allows herself the luxury of being late."
*' Our dear Miss Lucas," echoed the colonel from the depths of his book, " has doubtless found
103
104 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
her indigo, ginger, and cotton too engrossing to resign them for the pleasure of our company."
'* Indigo, ginger, and cotton, indeed," exclaimed Miss Bartlett, impatiently, " I vow, Miss Lucas loves the vegetable world too dearly if she must neglect her friends for it. Her devotion to agricul- ture amounts to a passion. To me such a taste seems almost unfeminine." And Miss Bartlett returned to her embroidery with a virtuous air, as if anxious to prove her own unassailable fem- ininity.
"Not unfeminine," protested her aunt, who never could bear to hear a word of criticism passed upon her young friend. " I consider Eliza's gar- dening a very innocent and useful amusement, and other girls who trifle away their time in vain pursuits would do well " —
Here Mrs. Pinckney's remarks, which to her niece's apprehensive ears bore promise of a ser- mon, were interrupted by the sound of a light, firm footstep ringing along the flagstone hall.
" ' T is Eliza ! " they all exclaimed together, and the next moment a fair-haired, blue-eyed English girl was standing in the doorway. Her calash, the fashionable large bonnet of the day, had fallen back and showed all her bright, sunny locks, while her long, flowing cloak, parting, disclosed her gown of blue taffety and her shining white arms and neck. Her eyes danced with pleasure as she looked from one to another of her three friends.
ELIZA LUCAS. 105
"I am a little late," she said apologetically, courtesying to the colonel and his wife, and affec- tionately returning Miss Bartlett's embrace.
" Yes, we feared you were not coming at all, and stayed away because you loved your garden better than your friends," declared Miss Bartlett, with a reproving look.
" You have been roundly scolded, my dear," re- marked Mrs. Pinckney, "and I have been endeav- oring to defend you and your garden to the colonel and my niece, though I must confess to have been a little jealous myself of your indigo, ginger, and cotton."
The colonel led his young guest to a chair and helped her to remove her cloak.
" How is the little visionary ? " he inquired with a quiet, merry smile. " Has she come to town to partake of some of the amusements suitable to her time of life ? "
" I see you have all conspired to tease me about what you are pleased to call my ' whims,' " re- torted Miss Eliza, with a toss of her pretty head ; "but I warn you if you do not show greater re- spect for my schemes I will not tell you my latest."
" Oh, pray tell us," they all exclaimed. " We will promise to be very kind and considerate," added Mrs. Pinckney.
Eliza shook her head and smoothed her bonnet strings meditatively. " No, Mrs. Pinckney," she said, "not even you, I fear, can be kind and
106 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
considerate to this last one. But," and she looked up with a bright smile, " I am not the one to spoil a joke, even at my own cost. You will all laugh when I tell you I am so busy providing for pos- terity I hardly allow myself time to eat and sleep."
" Or to visit your friends," put in the colonel with a merry twinkle.
" Or to visit my friends," assented Eliza, gayly. " But hear my scheme : I am making a large plan- tation of oaks, with a view to the future, when oaks will be more valuable than they are now."
" Which will be when we come to build fleets, I presume," said the colonel, and the twinkle still lingered in his eyes.
" Yes, when we come to build fleets," she affirmed stoutly. " Ah 1 I knew you would laugh at me, Colonel Pinckney. But I do not care. My whims and projects will turn out well by and by. You shall see. Out of many surely one may hit."
Colonel Pinckney smiled approvingly on the young enthusiast.
" You have a fertile brain for scheming, little visionary," he remarked, and Eliza felt flattered without quite understanding why.
" I have brought back the books you lent me, Colonel Pinckney," she said, diving into her cloak's ample pockets and bringing out three good-sized volumes, — a Virgil, Richardson's " Pamela," and an ancient-looking law book. " I return them with
ELIZA LUCAS. 107
thanks," slie continued. " I was much entertained by them," and crossing over to his table she laid them down beside him.
" And did you find Virgil as good company as I promised you ? " he inquired, looking with interest into her animated face.
" Better," was the decided answer. " I have got no further than the first volume, but so far I am agreeably disappointed. I imagined I should im- mediately enter upon battles, storms, and tempests that would put me in a maze, but," and her eyes began to dance, " I found myself instructed in agriculture. Virgil is quite of my mind. He loves the country. His pastorals are beautiful, I think."
" Still harping on agriculture," exclaimed Miss Bartlett, with a despairing sigh.
" Yes, and so would you," laughed Eliza, sitting down beside her friend, "if you had travelled through the meadows as I have this morning, and smelled the scent of the young myrtle and seen the violets and jasmines in bloom."
" Oh, I do love that phase of ' agriculture,' " protested Miss Bartlett. " 'T is only your passion for planting I cannot comprehend. Tell me, has the mocking-bird begun his songs yet ? "
" Yes," exclaimed Eliza, with a little ripple of delight, "and such sweet harmonies! He would win one into a love of nature if naught else could."
108 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Colonel Pinckney turned about in his chair and surveyed Eliza with an expression of amused wonder.
" I wish you would give me your recipe for making time," he said. " A young woman who reads Virgil's pastorals, Richardson's latest senti- mental novel, and Dr. Wood on law, who starts a large plantation of oaks, who runs numerous other plantations of indigo, ginger, cotton, figs, etc., and has still time enough left to listen to the mocking- bird, — such a young woman must surely have some magical influence over old Cronos. How do you ever manage it, little visionary ? "
Eliza laughed merrily.
" By early rising," she answered. " You know I am up every morning at five. An old gentle- woman in our neighborhood is often quarrelling with me for being up so early. She is in great fear lest it should spoil my chances for marriage. For she says it will make me old before I am young."
" I imagine that sort of apprehension does not frighten you," Mrs. Pinckney remarked smilingly.
" No, indeed," declared Eliza, with a determined shake of the head. " I told her if I should look older for rising early, I really would be older, for the longer we are awake the longer we are alive."
" That is unmistakably good logic," agreed Mrs» Pinckney, "but you know the Pinckney motto for
ELIZA LUCAS. 109
you has always been ' Work less and play more.' We are of the old gentlewoman's opinion ; we want you to be young before you are old."
" And yet 't was you yourself, Mrs. Pinckney, and your niece here who j)^^t me to the difficult task of working on lappets."
" Oh, how have you come on with yours ? " in- quired Miss Bartlett, with the proud consciousness that her own lappets were lying beautifully finished in her chest of drawers upstairs.
Eliza sighed. '' I find them but slow work," she said. " And you know I can never go to them with a quite easy conscience. My father has such an aversion to my employing my time in needle- work."
" I confess I rather share in your father's aver- sion to the needle, Miss Eliza," declared the colonel, " and never see ladies talking over their work with- out suspecting they are hatching mischief."
" Oh, fie, uncle," exclaimed Miss Bartlett. " For shame ! How can you be so ungallant ? Come, dear Miss Lucas, let us leave him to aunt's regen- erating influence, and you shall go with me and see my lappets."
And accordingly the girls made their courtesies and withdrew.
Upstairs, in Miss Bartlett's little blue and white bedroom, the lappets were displayed to advantage, and duly admired. Then the two friends sat to- gether upon the broad window seat and entered
110 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
into one of those confidential chats peculiar to young girls.
Presently Eliza drew a folded piece of paper from her gown, and waved it before her friend just out of arms' reach.
" What is it, a love letter ? " exclaimed Miss Bartlett, her curiosity immediately aroused.
Eliza laughed, shook her head, but said nothing and continued to flourish the paper tantalizingly in the air. Finally, however, after much coax- ing from Miss Bartlett, she said, a little shame- facedly :
" This morning, while I was lacing my stays, the mocking-bird inspired me with the spirit of rhyming."
" Then 't is a bit of poetry you have there ? " exclaimed Miss Bartlett, catching Eliza's arm. " Give it me," she commanded. " You promised me your next verse."
Eliza gave it up reluctantly.
" If you let any mortal besides yourself see it " — she began, pausing for lack of a threat terrible enough.
But Miss Bartlett was resolving secretly to show it to her aunt and uncle at the first opportunity. She read it first to herself, and then aloud in an impressive voice :
" Sing on, thou charming mimic of the feathered kind, And let the rational a lesson learn from thee To mimic (not defects) but harmony,"
ELIZA LUCAS, 111
" What a clever girl you are," she exclaimed admiringly, as she finished it, " to turn so easily from planting to poetry ! " Then a sudden thought struck her and she surveyed Eliza critically.
" I believe you are in love," she said. " People in love are always writing verses."
" Yes," returned Eliza, with laughing eyes, " I am in love — with the mocking-bird." Then she continued more seriously. "My dear, you must abandon all thoughts of my falling in love and getting married. I just writ papa this morning that a single life is my only choice."
" And has he been urging matrimony upon you," exclaimed Miss Bartlett, looking interested.
" Yes," replied Eliza, with something between a sigh and a laugh. " A few days ago he writ to inform me that two gentlemen were each desirous of becoming my husband, a Mr. W. whom I scarcely know, and a Mr. L. whom I scarcely like."
" And what answer did you send to their pro- posals ? " asked Miss Bartlett, who dearly loved anything romantic.
"I sent them my compliments and thanks for their favorable sentiments of me, but begged leave to decline their offers."
There was a moment's pause, and then Miss Bartlett remarked, with a side glance at her friend :
" I think I have guessed who Mr. L. is. Why will you not have him ? He is an agreeable gen- tleman, and rich too, they say."
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Eliza flung up her head.
" All the riches of Chili and Peru put together, if he had them, could not purchase a sufficient esteem for him to make him my husband," she affirmed with spirit.
Miss Bartlett sighed.
" I fear you will die an old maid, my dear," she remarked. "I doubt if you will ever get a man to answer your plan."
" And die an old maid I certainly shall, unless I find the right man," protested Eliza, quite un- daunted. " Matrimony is a ticklish affair and requires the nicest consideration," she added more gayly; '-for if you happen to judge wrong and are unequally matched there is an end of all hu- man felicity, and as Dr. Watts says,
*•' As well may heavenly concord spring From two old lutes without a string.' "
Thus the time passed pleasantly in talk of matrimony, beaux, and other engaging matter until dinner was announced, and the girls went down to rejoin the colonel and Mrs. Pinckney in the large dining-room below.
Eliza always enjoyed her visits to the Pinckney mansion. She felt more at home with the colonel and his wife than with any of her other Charleston friends, and although they were as much as twenty years her seniors, she found their sensible con- versation more to her taste than the "flashy non-
ELIZA LUCAS. 113
sense," as she called it, of many of her younger acquaintances.
Mrs. Pinckney chaperoned her, advised her, and made much of her; the colonel lent her books, discussed literature and planting with her, and teased her about her " whims ; " while both of them grew very fond of their bright young friend, and were continually urging her to come and stay with them. And Eliza, for all her serious-minded- ness, was enough of a girl to enjoy the gayeties their city home offered and to find the balls, re- ceptions, and dinner parties to which they took her a pleasant change from her quiet, retired life in the country.
Yet her country life had been of her own choos- ing. In one of her many letters she writes :
'' My papa and mamma's great indulgence to me leaves it to me to chuse our place of residence, either in town or country, but I think it more prudent as well as more agreeable to my mamma and self to be in the country during my father's absence."
Eliza was a girl of sixteen when she came to " chuse " her " place of residence " in South Caro- lina. Up to that time her home had been in the West Indian island of Antigua, where her father, Lieut.-Col. George Lucas, an officer in the Eng- lish army, was stationed. Most of her child- hood, however, was not passed in Antigua, but in England, for she was sent there with her little
114 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
brothers, George and Tom, to be educated, and she grew up in the great city of London under the care of a good English woman named Mrs. Boddicott.
Meanwhile, in Antigua, her poor mamma had been languishing in the tropical heat of her new land and longing for the green valleys and breezy hilltops of Old England. She grew more and more sickly, and soon after Eliza's return to Antigua Governor Lucas went with his family in search of a climate which would suit his wife's delicate health. They liked the pretty, balmy land of Carolina so well that they settled there, and Colonel Lucas started extensive plantations in St. Andrew's parish, near the Ashley river, about seventeen miles from Charleston. But, at the renewal of England's war with Spain, he was obliged to hurry back, and Eliza was left with the care of a delicate mother and a little sister, and the management of a house and three plantations. It was a responsible position for a girl of sixteen. Eliza, however, was a capable, practical, level- headed young woman, and she filled her place well.
She entered upon her agricultural duties with energy and spirit. Her plan was to see what crops could be raised on the highlands of South Carolina to furnish a staple for exportation. She tried plots of indigo, ginger, cotton, lucerne, and cassada.
ELIZA LUCAS. 115
With her indigo she was especially successful, and after many disappointments she mastered the secret of its preparation. Her experiments in that crop proved a source of wealth to the colony, the annual value of its exportation, just before the Revolution, amounting to over a million pounds. And her biographer quite justly implies that this modest, unassuming colonial daughter of almost two hundred years Ijack did as much for our country as any " New Woman " has done since.
From the time of her coming to Carolina, Eliza's letters tell the story of her life. There are letters to her friends in Charleston only seventeen miles away, letters to Mrs. Boddicott in London and to her Boston cousin, and, occasionally, letters to some old school friend, letters addressed in an elder-sisterly vein to her young brothers in Eng- land, and letters filled with business matter, scraps of news, and affectionate messages to her father, her "best friend," as she calls him, — all these written in the stilted phraseology of the day, but showing a charming, unaffected personality and a character earnest, persevering, and self-reliant.
As we read them, we are impressed with the fulness and usefulness of this young girl's life.
"I have a little library, well-furnished," she writes, " (for my papa has left me most of his books), in which I spend part of my time. My music and the garden, which I am very fond of, take up the rest that is not employed in business
116 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
of which my father has left me a pretty good share, and indeed 'twas unavoidable, as my mamma's bad state of health prevents her going thro' any fatigue. I have the business of three plantations to transact which requires much writing and more business and fatigue of other sorts than you can imagine, but lest you should imagine it too burthensome to a girl at my early time of life, give me leave to assure you I think myself happy that I can be useful to so good a father."
And again, speaking of her engagements, she writes, "I have particular matters for particular days. Mondays my musick master is here. Tues- day my friend Mrs. Chardon (about three miles distant) and I are constantly engaged to each other. Thursday, the whole day, except what the necessary affairs of the family take up, is spent in writing letters on the business of the plantations or on letters to my friends. Every other Friday, if no compan}^, we go a-visiting. So that I go abroad once a week and no oftener."
Every day she gave instruction to her small sister " Polly " and taught a " parcel of little Negroes " how to read. There were always calls to be made upon the poor and sick who lived near. And she even established herself as a notary to meet the needs of some unfortunate neighbors who " never think of making a will till they come upon a sick bed and find it too expensive to send to town for a lawyer." So Miss Lucas, who was
ELIZA LUCAS. 117
already housekeeper, teacher, nurse, and planter, became a lawyer too, and borrowing some ponder- ous volumes from her friend, Mr. Pinckney, she straightway " engaged herself with the rudiments of the law." Imagine poor little " Betsey," as she was sometimes named, puckering up her fair forehead and puzzling her quick wits over the difficult places, " cramp phrases," she called them, and finally mastering them, so that she was at last able to " convey by will, estates, real and personal, and never forget in its proper place, him and his heirs forever." But even the obliging Miss Lucas must "draw the line" somewhere and when "a widow Avith a pretty little fortune" teased her " intolerable " to draw her a marriage settlement, Eliza declared it was quite " out of her depth " and " absolutely refused it."
In the midst of this busy life, Eliza found time to cultivate her artistic tastes. She tells us that she devoted certain hours every day to the study of music, and we find her writing to ask her father's permission to send to England for " Can- tatas, Welden's Anthems, and Knolly's Rules for Tuning." Her fondness for literature quite scan- dalized one old gentlewoman in the neighborhood, who took such a dislike to her books that " she had like to have thrown my Plutarch's Lives into the fire. She is sadly afraid," writes the amused young lady, " that I will read myself mad."
Fortunately for Eliza, however, all her friends
118 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
were not so hostile to her literary pursuits as this elderly gentlewoman. Colonel Pinckney's advice and encouragement to her in her reading helped her greatly. " With graceful ease and good nature peculiar to himself," she writes of him, '' he was always ready to instruct the ignorant." Here she was modestly classing herself with the ignorant, but Colonel Pinckney would never have placed her in such a category. He had the highest respect for her intelligence and probably enjoyed her naive criticisms, her keen appreciations, and youthful enthusiasms quite as much as she did his " graceful " and " good-natured " instructions.
Eliza was musical and literary and she was also, as we have already seen, a genuine lover of nature. A bird's nest interested her more than a party, and she lamented the felling of a tree like " the loss of an old friend." All through her letters we are catching glimpses of green fields, pleasant groves of oak and laurel, and meadows fragrant with the young myrtle, the yellow jasmine, and the deep blue violets of Carolina, while the sweet melodies of her " darling," the mocking-bird, are continually echoing through the pages.
And there is another sort of music, very different from the mocking-bird's, which is heard now and then in her letters. It is the humming and scrap- ing of the fiddles floating down to us through the vista of almost two hundred years ago in the solemn measures of the minuet, the gay jigging
'DOWN THE DARK ASHLEY Rl
'ER IN A CANOE CYPRESS."
HOLLOWED FROM A GREAT
ELIZA LUCAS, 119
strains of the reel and the merry country dances. For this industrious young daughter of colonial days could be frivolous when occasion demanded and trip a dance as charmingly as any city belle.
Society in Charleston and the pleasant " country seats " near her home was very gay. Miss Lucas was quite overwhelmed with invitations. Not only the Pinckneys but many other friends and ac- quaintances urged her to accept their hospitality and be " 3^oung " along with them and pressed her to " relax," as she expressed it, " oftener than she found it in her power to do so." England's war with Spain brought English soldiers and sailors to the shores of Carolina, and she writes to her papa about the entertainment of the Jamaica fleet with, " I am told, fifty officers." And at the governor's ball to these officers, on the king's birth-night, she danced with " your old friend Captain Brodrick," she writes, and was quite besieged by a Mr. Small, " a very talkative man," she declares, " who said many obliging things of you, for which I thought myself obliged to him and therefore punished my- self to hear a great deal of flashy nonsense from him for an hour together."
When Miss Lucas went to a party she travelled in a post-chaise which her mamma had imported from England, and her escort rode beside her on a " small, spirited horse of the Chickasaw breed." Or, if she went by water, she was carried down the dark Ashley river in a canoe hollowed from a
120 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
great cypress, and manned by six or eight negroes all singing in time with the silent swing of their paddles. We can imagine Miss Lucas upon such occasions, admiring the brightness of the stars, talking gayly in anticipation of the coming dance, singing little snatches of song, or quietly enjoying the beauty of the night.
There was always good cheer awaiting the guests at the manorial houses along the Ashley river. Eliza tells us of the venison, wild fowl, and fish, the turkey and beef, the peaches, melons, and oranges in which the country abounded. After the feast the men lingered over their wine and the ladies gossiped in the drawing-room until the fiddles began to play. Then the gentlemen left their caps and with low bows and elaborate com- pliments invited their partners to the dance, and soon the house was ringing with merry measures of music and the beat of many feet. And wliile the gentlemen, in powdered hair, long-waistcoats, and buckled shoes, and the ladies, in towering head dresses, flaring skirts of brocade, lute-string, and taffety, and amazingly high-heeled slippers, were dancing in the hall, the shining, smiling negroes all beribboned for the ball were footing it gayly in the servants' quarters and upon the lawn and broad piazzas.
Such were the good social times in which Eliza Lucas took part. But although she enjoyed them and entered into them witli spirit she did not
ELIZA LUCAS. 121
dwell much upon them. Her thoughts did not run to any great extent upon feasting, balls, and beaux. She was engaged with more serious mat- ters, and the gentlemen to whom she gave her consideration Avere not Captain Brodrick, nor talkative Mr. Small, nor her suitors Mr. L. and Mr. W., but her father in the West Indies, and her old friend Colonel Pinckney, and her brothers across the sea.
She was very much worried by the dangers of the campaign in which her father w^as engaged, and longed for the war to end. " I wish all the men were as great cowards as myself," she declared ; "it would make them more peaceably inclined."
She was also uneasy about the boys, George, who was preparing to enter the army, and little Tom, who was ill at school. Finally George received his commission and went to join the army in Antigua, and then his sister grew anxious about the expeditions in which she knew he must take his part.
Besides this affectionate care for her brothers' welfare, she seems also to have had, as their elder sister, a strong feeling of responsibility over them, and in a letter to George, written to him shortly after his arrival in Antigua, she warns him against the dangers of " youthful company, pleasure, and dissipation, and especially against the fashionable but shameful vice too common among the young and gay of your sex — the pretending a disbelief
122 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
of and ridiculing of religion." Then follows an expression of her own belief, neither eloquent nor original, but the frank confession of a sincere and earnest faith.
This whole letter to her brother George is re- markably grave and thoughtful. And it is only natural it should have been so, for it was written at a serious time in Eliza's life. Her little brother Tom far off in England was growing rapidly worse, and in Charleston, only a few miles away, her dear friend Mrs. Pinckney was dying.
First came Mrs. Pinckney's death, and then, a few months later, it was decided as a desperate venture that Tom should attempt the voyage to the West Indies. At the same time General Lucas sent his son George to bring Mrs. Lucas and the girls back to Antigua to meet him.
But Eliza was not destined to make her voyage to Antigua, and it was her old friend Colonel Pinckney who prevented her departure. The story is told that, once upon a time, Mrs. Pinckney had said that rather than have her young favorite lost to Carolina she would herself be willing to step down and let her take her place. Poor woman ! She probably never imagined that Fate and her own husband would take her so thoroughly at her word. But so it happened. And when Colonel Pinck- ney, the Speaker of the House of the Assembly, a member of the Royal Council of the Province, a distinguished lawyer, a wealthy planter, a man of
ELIZA LUCAS. 123
"charming temper, gay and courteous manners, well-looking, well-educated, and of high religious principles," when this " ideal " gentleman offered himself to Miss Lucas, the choice of a " single life " somehow lost its charms for her, and she smilingly agreed to become Mrs. Pinckney the second.
You see the " right man " had arrived. As Miss Lucas herself expressed it to her dear Boston cousin, Fanny Fairweather, who seemed disposed to chaff her about her change of mind, she had found a man " who came up to her plan in every title." No wonder the prospect of matrimony with such a partner was more attractive to her than the sinorle life of which she had before made choice.
o
Accordingly, on a warm sunshiny day in May of the year 1744 she was married to Mr. Pinckney, " with the approbation of all my friends," as she proudly declared. She and her husband did not go immediately to the Pinckney summer home in Belmont, but for the first few months they stayed with her mother, until Mrs. Lucas was able to set sail with George and little Polly for Antigua.
Although Mrs. Eliza was troubled at the thought of having to part from her family, still there was other cause for her to be happy. And she was happy, eloquently so. Her letters of this period have a decidedly joyful ring, as if the young bride were continually congratulating herself upon her '' choice."
124 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
" You will be apt to ask me," she says, writing to an old school friend, — and we can almost see her expression of smiling content as she makes her statement, — '' you will be apt to ask me hoiv I could leave a tender and affectionate father, mother, brother, and sister to live in a strange country, but I flatter myself if you knew the char- acter and merit of the gentleman I have made choice of, you would think it less strange."
And to her father, who had already given his approbation, she writes :
" I do assure you, sir, that though I think Mr. Pinckney's character and merit are sufficient to engage the esteem of any lady acquainted with him, the leaving of you at such a distance was an objection I could not easily get over ; but when I considered that Providence might by some means or other bring us together again, and that it must be a great satisfaction to you, as well as to myself, to know that I have put myself into the hands of a man of honor, whose good sense and sweetness of disposition give me a prospect of a happy life, I thought it prudent as well as entirely agreeable to me to accept the offer."
As we read this old letter, so quaint and formal in its wording, yet charming in its simplicity and earnestness, it is pleasant to know that Mr. Pinck- ney's " good sense " and '' sweetness of disposi- tion " continued, and that his young wife was able to realize her " prospect of a happy life."
ELIZA LUCAS, 125
But this was to have been the story of Miss Eliza Lacas, a daughter of colonial days ; and a husband's temper and a young bride's confidences should have had no place in it. Still, now that we have already peeped, we may go on and, like a sibyl or gypsy fortune-teller, take a brief glance into that future in w^hich Mrs. Charles Pinckney, no longer Miss Eliza Lucas, is the heroine.
First, there comes a picture of her homes, the big city house on the bay, with its flagstone hall and heavily panelled, wainscoted rooms, and the pleasant summer residence in Belmont, five miles away from Charleston, where the river widened like a lake and the lawns and meadows stretched out in broad expanse. We may follow Mrs. Pinck- ney through her sitting-room, her library, and her kitchen, out into the servants' quarters and the garden and upon the shady lawns, busying herself now here, now there, the same indnstrious woman as in her girlhood.
And the new life brought new responsibilities. On many nights the house was brilliantly lighted and the halls and drawing-rooms of the Pinckney mansion were crowded with gentlemen in square- cut coats and satin knee breeches, and ladies in rustling brocaded goAvns. For Colonel Pinckney — Chief-Justice Pinckney, as he came to be — occupied a high position in the colony, and his wife's social duties were not slight.
But there were other times when the house was
126 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
quiet except for the patter of children's feet upon the stairways and the echo of children's voices through the halls. There were three children: Charles, the eldest, a clever, serious child of whom the family legend has told many amazing things, and warm-hearted, sunny-natured Tom, and their pretty sister Harriott, " like " her mother, it was said, fair-haired and blue-eyed, with a dash of her mother's spirit and energy.
Then there came a day when Mrs. Pinckney no longer gave her parties to the people of Carolina, and when the passers-by missed the merry faces of the three children peering at them from the windows of the Pinckney mansion. For one March morning in the year 1753, Chief- Justice Pinckney, the new Commissioner of the Colony, and liis family sailed away and arrived in England with the springtime.
Five years the Pinckneys remained in England, livinp- sometimes in London, sometimes at Rich- mond, sometimes in Surrey, "the garden county of England," with an occasional season at Bath. The boys were "put" to school and the whole Pinckney family made themselves " at home."
To Mrs. Pinckney England had always been "home," and she was very happy renewing old friendships and forming new ones. In the country she had her garden, and in London she enjoyed the gayeties of the city, especially the theatre, and she " never missed a single play when Garrick was to act." Only two things troubled her, the " heart-
ELIZA LUCAS. 127
lessness " of the Londoners and the " perpetnal card-playing." Of the latter she remarks with disgnst, " it seems with many people here to be the business of life."
Mr. Pinckney, however, who was a Carolinian born and had no early associates such as hers to endear England to him, was not so well satisfied. "He has many yearnings after his native land," wrote his wife, " though I believe never strangers had more reason to like a place, everything consid- ered, than we have, but still I can't help applying a verse in the old song to him sometimes :
" Thus wretched exiles as they roam
Find favor everywhere, but languish for their native home."
The Pinckney exiles certainly " found favor everywhere." Even royalty opened its doors to them and the}^ were entertained for several hours by the widowed Princess of Wales and her nine little princes and princesses. Among them was the future George III., who, of course, could not know that his guests would some day be his " rebels."
But these pleasant days in England had to end. And when the war between France and England was renewed and the English colonies in America endangered. Judge Pinckney instantly decided to return to Carolina and settle his affairs there. His wife and his little girl went with him. Both the boys were left at school. It was a sad good-by for the mother, parting from her sons. Fortunately,
128 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
she could not know that when she next saw her little boys she would be a widow and they would be grown men.
Her widowhood began soon after her arrival in Carolina. Then there were long, sorrowful days when she was, as ^he expressed it, seized with the "lethargy of stupidity." But her business abil- ity and her love for her children brought her back to an interest in life, and in time she was able to look after her plantation affairs and to write to her friends in England, thanking them for their " kindness " to her " poor fatherless boys," and sending loving messages to " my son Charles " and " dear little Tomm."
Of her " Tomm," she writes :
" Tell the dear saucy boy one scrap of a penn from his hand would have given his mamma more joy than all ye pleasures of Bath could him."
And again :
" My blessing attend my dear little man and tell him how much pleasure it gives his mamma to see his little scrawl, if it is but in writing his name."
To the elder one, Charles, she gave motherly warnings and advice. She wished to impress him with the feeling of responsibility, now that he had become the head of his family.
" My dear child," she says, " tho' you are very young, you must know the welfare of a whole fam- ily depends in a great measure on the progress you make in moral virtue, religion, and learning."
ELIZA LUCAS. 129
How well Charles Cotesworth Pinckney satisfied his mother's hopes one of her later letters shows, where she refers to him as " one who has lived to near twenty-three years of age without once of- fending me."
Indeed, Charles Pinckney and his younger brother both became excellent young men, winning high praise for their " moral virtue, religion, and learning." And "• dear little Tomm " was made the '' Grecian " of his year at Westminster and " Cap- tain of the Town Boys."
Meanwhile Mrs. Pinckney took great comfort in her daughter Harriott, who was always with her, and Harriott's education was her chief task and greatest pleasure.
" I love a garden and a book," she writes — and we realize that Mrs. Pinckney's tastes have not changed since her girlhood ; " and they are all my amusements, except I include one of the greatest businesses of my life, — my attention to my dear little girl. A pleasure it certainly is to cultivate the tender mind, ' to teach the young idea how to shoot,' etc., especially to a mind so tractable and a temper so sweet as hers."
So, under her mother's good care, Harriott Pinckney grew up into a tall, pretty, graceful girl, light-hearted and lively. She soon had her ad- mirers, among them a Mr. Horry, who was, she declared, '' so joked about me that it prevents his calling on us, lest it should be thought that he
130 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
had a serious attachment, and I am so much joked that I believe I look so simple when he is in company that he thinks me half an idiot." Mr. Horry and Miss Pinckney, however, must have thoroughly recovered from the bad effects of joking, for they were married soon after and Mrs. Pinck- ney was left alone with lier slaves and her planta- tion work in her Charleston home.
And now we are coming to Mrs. Pinckney's last days, and we find them colored with the shades of war. There had always been more or less of war in her life. First, in her girlhood, it was the Spanish war, which threatened her own home and filled her young heart with anxiety for her father and her brother; then, in later years, occurred the terrible Indian raids, in which many a brave Caro- lina soldier lost his life ; and, finally, when she was a grandmother, the Revolution came.
Mrs. Pinckney's position at the beginning of the Revolution was a hard one. For she was, like her own State of Carolina, part rebel and part Tory. Among the English people she numbered many of her dearest friends ; she remembered her fair-haired English mother and her father in his British regi- mentals; as a child, she had trod on English pave- ment, played with English children, and knelt in English cloisters. And her heart was loyal to the king and home. But her boys, in spite of their fourteen years in England, were, as their father had been, thoroughly American. From tlie very first
ELIZA LUCAS, 131
they had been enthusiastic rebels. Even as a boy at school Tom had won the name of " Little Rebel," and in one of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney's earli- est portraits he is presented as declaiming against the Stamp Act. And when the test came their mother's sympathy went with the cause for which her boys were fighting and she made their country her country.
She never regretted lier choice. Even after she lost all that she had, for her country and their country, she did not complain, but wrote to Tom:
" Don't grieve for me, my child, as I assure you I do not for myself. While I have such children need I think my lot hard? God forbid. I pray the almighty disposer of events to preserve them and my grandchildren to me and, for all the rest, I hope I shall be able to say contentedly, ' God's sacred will be done.'"
She was rewarded for her brave cheerfulness, and lived to see America free and at peace, and her sons respected American citizens. And so her old age was happy — happier indeed, she declared smilingly, than her youth had been; for
" I regret no pleasures that I can't enjoy," she writes, " and I enjoy some that I could not have had at an early season. I now see my children grown up and, blessed be God, I see them such as I hoped. What is there in youthful enjoyment preferable to this ? "
Thus, with a bright smile and a tone of sweet content, she leaves us.
VT.
MARTHA WASHINGTON, OF MOUNT VERNON,
WIFE OF GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON.
Born in New Kent Coanty, Virginia, June 21, 1731. Died at Mount Vernon, May 22, 1802.
"Not wise or great in any shining Avorldly sense was she, but largely endowed with those qualities of the heart that conspire to the making of a noble and rounded character. . . . She was well worthy to be the chosen companion and much-loved Avif e of the greatest of our soldiers and the purest of our patriots." — Anne Ilollings worth Wharton.
The fair Penelope in the old Greek days can hardly have been more admired and sought after by her troublesome suitors than was a certain capti- vating widow who lived in our own land over a hundred years ago. Her name was Martha Custis. Young, pretty, and reported to be the richest widow in Virginia, she must have excited ardent longings in the hearts of the young Virginia plant- ers and the gallants of the Williamsburg court who knocked at the door of her beautiful home, the " White House," on the banks of the York. 133
134 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
One day, however, they knocked only to be told that the mistress of the " White House " was no longer there.
In May of the year 1758 Mrs. Custis left her homestead and plantation to pay a visit to her friend Major Chamberlayne, who owned a large estate along the river, not far from the " White House." Perhaps the young widow had felt lonely in her great manor house with only her two little children and the slaves for company, — it was less than eighteen months since her husband's death, — or perhaps the attention of some per- sistent lover had become annoying. History does not tell us the reason of her eventful visit at her neighbor s. But if, as some one has surmised, she turned to Major Chamberlayne for protection from the importunities of some suitor her visit was not a success. For it was during her stay at Major Chamberlayne's that fate finally overtook her — fate in the shape of a big Virginia colonel.
The big Virginia colonel who was destined to put so sudden a stop to Mrs. Custis's widowhood was already a young military hero. All Virginia admired him for his brave fight at Braddock's de- feat, where he had two horses shot under him and four bullets through his coat. The colonel was a very tall man, standing " six feet two in his slip- pers," they say, and his splendid, soldierly figure as he rode by on his favorite brown horse or walked with his " light, elastic step " along the roads and
MARTHA WASHINGTON. 135
by-ways of the Old Dominion was one that his countrymen were proud to recognize.
The renown of his courage and daring had duly impressed Mrs. Custis. Although the little widow herself was the most gentle and peace- loving of women, she delighted to honor warlike virtues in other people. And we may be sure that while, at her home on the banks of the York, she was spinning among her slaves, or singing lullabies to her babies, or chatting with lier guests in the long parlors, a name often on her lips and in her thoughts was that of the big Virginia colonel — George Washington.
How a shy, brown-haired, hazel-eyed little maid called Patsy would have blushed and started if a gypsy had looked at her palm and told her that her own name linked with that greatest American name would some day be world-famous ! But there is no record that any gypsy or fortune-teller ever predicted great things of the small girl who afterwards became Martha Washington.
When she was known as little Patsy Dandridge she was a sensible, pretty, well-behaved child, who at an early age learned the mysteries of "cross, tent, and satin stitch, hem, fell, and overseam," how to dance the minuet, and how to play upon the spinnet. At that time domestic and social accom- plishments were considered of far greater impor- tance in a young lady's education than book learn- ing, and Patsy's intellectual training was somewhat
136 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
neglected, as we may judge from the few letters written by Martha Washington that have come down to us. Their funny wording and spelling make us smile now.
But when Miss Martha Dandridge, as a sweet little debutante of fifteen, entered the gay social world of the " court " at Williamsburg no one liked her any the less because she spelled do, no, and go, " doe," " noe," and " goe." They admired her pretty face and manners, her grace in dancing, and her ease in playing on the spinnet. " She was soon recog- nized as one of the reigning belles in the small world of Williamsburg," says the chronicler, " and straightway engaged the affections of one of its most desirable partis^ Mr. Daniel Parke Custis."
In the course of Mr. Custis's true love, how- ever, there was a serious obstacle, an obstacle in the person of his own father. Colonel John. Colonel John Custis was an erratic gentleman whose marriage was not the least erratic thing about him. In the spirit of Shakespeare's Petru- chio he married a fair and shrewish lady ; but with less hapj)y results than Katherine's husband, it would seem, if we may go by the inscription which he commanded his son, upon pain of disin- heritance, to have engraved upon his tombstone :
" Under this marble lies the body of Hon. John Custis, Esq., aged 71 years, and yet he lived but* seven, which was the space of time he kept a bachelor's home at Arlington."
MARTHA WASHINGTON. 137
This would certainly imply that the colonel was unfortunate in his matrimonial venture. Yet his unlucky experience did not discourage him from undertaking the management of his son's marriage. He chose for his future daughter-in- law a cousin, Miss Evelyn Byrd, whose father Avas a gentleman almost as eccentric as Colonel John himself.
These two ambitious parents, bent on a union of their fine estates and aristocratic families, argued, commanded, and threatened, quite regardless of the fact that their children had no affection for each other, and were indeed much averse to this marriage of convenience. The situation became dramatic. The fathers grew passionate, but the young people remained firm in their resistance. This state of affairs went on for some time, and Miss Byrd and Mr. Daniel Custis approached their thirtieth birthdays while yet in the single state.
All this while Miss Byrd, so the story goes, was cherishing a hopeless love for an English gentle- man of royal birth. In the course of time Daniel came to know the little debutante with the hazel eyes, and then the thought of a marriage with any one but Miss Martha Dandridge became intoler- able to him. While his father's threats grew more and more severe, Daniel quietly went his way, courting sweet Miss Patsy, winning her love, and obtaining her father's consent to their engagement.
At this stage Colonel John's frowns, always
138 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
terrible, must have been very terrible to the young girl of sixteen whom he did not wish for a daugh- ter-in-law, and it would not have been surprising if they had frightened Miss Martha out of her usual discreetness. But she seems to have be- haved with much dignity and good judgment, and when the death of Miss Byrd finally put an end to the colonel's favorite project he was able to listen with some attention to the good reports he heard of Miss Dandridge. Some sensi- ble words of hers, when brought to his knowl- edge, quite took his fancy, and he straightway made up his mind in favor of the match. A mutual friend of the father and son immediately took advantage of the colonel's friendly disposi- tion and wrote to the young lover,
" Deab Sir : This comes at last to bring you the news that I believe will be most agreeable to you of any you have ever heard. That you may not be long in suspense, I shall tell you at once. I am empowered by your father to let you know that he heartily and willingly consents to your marriage with Miss Dandridge — - that he has so good a character of her that he had rather you should have her than any lady in Virginia — nay, if possible, he is as much enamoured with her character as you are with her person, and this is owing chiefly to a prudent speech of her own. Hurry down immediately for fear he may change
MA R THA WA SHING TON. 139
the strong inclination he has to your marrying directly. I shall say no more, as I expect you soon to-morrow, but conclude what I really am, "Your most obliged and affectionate humble servant,
"J. Powers."
Mr. Custis, we may be sure, acted upon the advice of his good friend Mr. Powers. He and Miss Dandridge, who was barely eighteen on her wedding day, were married " directly," for fear Colonel John might " change his strong inclina- tion ; " and according to tradition the erratic old colonel was the first to salute the bride " with a kiss on both cheeks."
Although Mr. Custis married his j^oung wife in such haste, he did not end his days according to the old adage, repenting at leisure, but found com- fort and domestic satisfaction in his life with her. In spite of his queer old father and his shrewish mother, he was an agreeable, sociable man, and appears to have made Mrs. Martha a very good sort of husband. The young couple spent their winters at the " Six Chimney House " in Williams- burg, in the midst of court gayeties, while their summers were passed at their country home on the banks of the York, always spoken of as " The White House."
Mr. Custis's story reminds one of the old fairy tales in which the hero, having undergone all his
140 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
troubles before marriage, was able to '" live happily ever after." But in Mr. Custis's case the " ever after ' only lasted seven years, for at the age of twenty-five Mrs. Custis was left a widow, with her little Jacky and Patsy to bring up, and one of the largest estates in Virginia to manage. We read that she conducted her business affairs wisely, and showed herself, in regard to money matters, a capable, level-headed woman.
When, after her first year of mourning and widowhood, Mrs. Custis went to pay her visit at Major Chamberlayne's, she was, as we know, " a tempting widow, independent of the jointure land." Those hazel eyes were as soft and expressive as they had been in the days when they charmed Mr. Custis, and very soon they had bewitched that great man George Washington.
When Colonel Washington, on his mission to the governor at Williamsburg, crossed William's Ferry that bright morning in May he had no suspicion of what awaited him at the big Cham- be rlayne house opposite. It was the day after Mrs. Custis's arrival. Several guests were assembled in her honor, and through the open windows the sound of laughter and merry voices floating down to the river must have rung invitingly in the ears of the young colonel. But he resolutely turned his horse toward the Williamsburg road.
Almost immediately, however, he was stopped by Major Chamberlayne. The major had seen
MARTHA WASHINGTON. 141
Washington crossing the river, and had hurried down to entreat him not to pass by without spend- ing a few days under his roof. At first, they say, the colonel replied that he must decline the invi- tation, and not until Major Chamberlayne men- tioned the fact that a very charming widow was visiting him, did Washington hesitate and yiekl.
The father of our country always was fond of the ladies, even from the days of his bojdsh love for the famous " Lowland Beauty." Probably the discerning major realized this and saved what he knew would be his best inducement for the last. It told. Washington received it with dignity, and said without a smile on his handsome, serious face that he would '' dine — only dine " with the major. Then, handing his reins to his attendant, Bishop, and giving instructions to have the horses saddled and ready for departure early in the afternoon, he dismounted and walked with the jolly major up to the house.
We may be sure that several eyes peering from the windows and doorway of the great manor house had been watching the major's conference with the renowned young colonel — those hazel eyes, too, very likely. And a little stir of excite- ment went through the rooms as George Washing- ton was seen nearing the house. But when Major Chamberlayne entered with his tall, dignified friend at his side, every one had quieted down to a calm and sedate reserve, and Washington was
142 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
presented to the major's guests with much cere- mony and propriety.
Mrs. Custis looked very pretty that morning in a gown of her favorite white dimity, a cluster of mayblossoms at her belt, and a little white cap half covering her soft, waving brown hair.
The guests lingered at the table until late in the afternoon, we are tokl. The little widow and the big colonel talked long and earnestly. When Mrs. Custis smiled. Colonel Washington smiled ; when Mrs. Custis sighed, Colonel Washington sighed ; and when one of her mayblossoms fell to the floor, he picked it up and she pinned it on his coat lapel, while he smiled down affectionately at her fluffy white cap.
In such pleasant occupation it is no wonder that Washington forgot the appointed hour of his de- parture, forgot Bishop and the horses, forgot his mission to Williamsburg, and even the governor himself.
Meanwhile the faithful Bishop was outside waiting with the horses, and wondering what could keep his master so long, — his master who was always "the most punctual of men." And the major, as he stood at the window, looked from Bishop at the gate to Washington and the widow in the parlor, and he smiled. The major loved a joke.
The sun had set and the twilight was falling when Washington finally started to his feet, declar-
31 A R THA WA SHING TON. 143
ing that lie must be off. But the major laid a re- straining hand on the young man's shoulder.
"No guest ever leaves my house after sunset," he said. At the same moment the widow's hazel eyes looked up into the colonel's gray ones, and Colonel Washiiigton sat down again.
He was soon entering once more into a conver- sation with the widow which lasted until late in the evening. And when, the next morning, he took his leave of her, it was only au revoir for them. For they had agreed that after the business with the governor was over, Washington should proceed to the " White House " and visit Mrs. Custis there.
The story is that when Washington returned from Williamsburg that night he was met at the ferry by one of Mrs. Custis's slaves.
"Is your mistress at home?" he inquired of the negro, who was rowing him across the river.
" Yes, sah," the slave replied, and then added, perhaps a little slyly, his white teeth flashing in a broad smile, " I reckon you 's the man what 's 'spected."
So we may know that Mrs. Custis was prepared to receive her distinguished guest. And when, at sunset, Washington arrived at the " White House," the widow was waiting for him in her sweetest gown and her most becoming cap. The smile with which she greeted him must have made him feel very much at home, for it was during this visit
144 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
that lie eagerly pressed his suit, with such success that Mrs. Custis finally agreed to become Mrs. Washington.
But Washington's love-making was brought to a sudden stop. Stern duty was awaiting him on the frontier, and very soon he was back there, taking part in the expedition against the French which terminated victoriously at Fort Duquesne.
Of the love-letters which he wrote to his be- trothed during this period only one has come down to us, a manly, affectionate letter, showing the straightforward nature of the man :
" We have begun our march to the Ohio [he writes from Fort Cumberland, July 20, 1758]. A courier is starting for Williamsburg, and I embrace the opportunity to send a few words to one whose life is inseparable from mine. Since that happy hour when we made our pledges to each other my thoughts have been continually going to you as to another self. That all-powerful Providence may keep US both in safety is the prayer of
" Your faithful and ever affectionate friend,
'^G. Washington."
The wedding which took place on the sixth of the following January was a brilliant one, full of sunshine, life, and color. The belles and beaux of Williamsburg were there, and the wealthy planters from the surrounding country with their wives and daughters, all very grand in their satins
MARTHA WASHINGTON. 145
and brocades, tlieir gold lace and shining buckles. Among tliem was the governor himself, in a beau- tiful scarlet suit. The bridegroom, we are told, was splendid in his blue coat lined with red silk, his gold knee buckles, his powdered hair, and his straight sword at his side. But the little bride was the most gorgeous of all. She wore a heavy white silk gown shot with silver, a pearl necklace at her throat and pearl ornaments in her hair, and her high-heeled satin slippers were clasped with diamond buckles. The story is that she and her bridesmaids were driven home in a coach drawn by six horses, while Washington rode beside the coach on his favorite brown horse.
Life opened brightly for George and Martha Washington, and their honeymoon did not end with the proverbial six months, but lasted, we may truly say, the forty years of their married life.
Amid the perplexities and harassing cares of his responsible career it must have been a deep satisfaction to Washington to have as a companion one who entered so heartily into his love of country pursuits, his " simple pleasures " and "homely duties," one who sympathized so fully with his thoughts, feelings, and ideals. " The partner of all my domestic happiness," he called his wife ; and Mrs. James Warren, writing to Mrs. John Adams, described the " general's lady " as a woman qualified " to soften the hours of private
146 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
life, to sweeten the cares of a Hero, and smooth the rugged paths of war."
In return, the " Hero " did everything he could to " soften the hours of private life," " to sweeten the cares " of a mother, and " smooth the rugged paths " of housekeeping and letter-writing.
He took entire charge of his wife's property and managed the estates of her children with the ut- most care and consideration. When Mrs. Wash- ington's duties as a hostess became very great, he wished to save her the small worries and petty details of housekeeping,