The Women of The American Revolution, Vol. 2

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Ellet Elizabeth Fries. The Women of The American Revolution, Vol. 2

XXVI. MARTHA WASHINGTON

XXVII. ABIGAIL ADAMS

XXVIII. MARTHA WILSON

XXIX. REBECCA MOTTE

XXX. SUSANNAH ELLIOTT

XXXI. BEHETHLAND FOOTE BUTLER

XXXII. HANNAH CALDWELL

XXXIII. DEBORAH SAMSON

XXXIV. MARGARET GASTON

XXXV. FLORA M'DONALD

XXXVI. RACHEL CALDWELL

XXXVII. THE WOMEN OF WYOMING

XXXVIII. JANE CAMPBELL

XXXIX. CORNELIA BEEKMAN

XL. FRANCES ALLEN.41

XLI. MARGARET ARNOLD

XLII. JANE M'CREA

XLIII. NANCY HART

XLIV. REBECCA BIDDLE

XLV. ANN ELIZA BLEECKER

XLVI. ANNA BAILEY

XLVII. THE WOMEN OF KENTUCKY

XLVIII. ELIZABETH ZANE

XLIX. MARGARET MORRIS

L. MISCELLANEOUS ANECDOTES

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The Letters of Mrs. Adams are well known to American readers. Her history and character have been so well unfolded in these and in the memoir by her grandson, that an extended sketch of her would be superfluous. Only a brief notice, therefore, is here required.

Abigail Smith was descended from the genuine stock of the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts. Her father, the Reverend William Smith, was for more than forty years minister of the Congregational Church at Weymouth. The ancestors of her mother, Elizabeth Quincy, were persons distinguished in the sacred office, and first in honor among the leaders of the church. From this ancestry, it may be inferred that her earliest associations were among those whose tastes and habits were marked by the love of literature. She was the second of three daughters, and was born at Weymouth, Nov. 11th, 1744. Not being sent to any school, on account of the delicate state of her health, the knowledge she evinced in after life was the result of her reading and observation, rather than of what is commonly called education. The lessons that most deeply impressed her mind were received from Mrs. Quincy, her grandmother, whose beneficial influence she frequently acknowledges. Her marriage took place, October 25th, 1764. She passed quietly the ten years that succeeded, devoting herself to domestic life, and the care of her young family. In 1775 she was called to pass through scenes of great distress, amid the horrors of war and the ravages of pestilence.

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The robbery of her father's house by a company of bandit tories was, however, the most alarming and exciting scene, illustrative of the times of the Revolution, through which Mrs. Wilson passed. This occurred in June, 1783. Deprived, by the marriage of his daughter in 1776, of the maternal care which she had exercised over his younger children, Colonel Stewart, on his appointment to the staff of the Commander-in-chief, had placed them at school, and broken up his establishment in King-wood. But when the triumph at Yorktown gave assurance of peace, in the hope of a speedy return to the enjoyments of private life, he gathered his two sons and two daughters to a home again, under the management, for a second time, of their elder and now widowed sister: not at Landsdown, his former dwelling, however, but at the "Union," in the adjoining township of Lebanon. Like Sidney, this old residence was, in that day, one of the great houses of upper jersey; and the surrounding farm, comprising a thousand acres of land under fine cultivation, was noted throughout the State. The dwelling consisted of three separate houses, built at different periods – one of brick, one of wood, and the other of stone – without regard to any harmony of style or architecture. They were so situated as to form the connecting sides of a quadrangular courtyard, into which the porches and a piazza opened. With a farm-house and numerous out-buildings clustering round, the whole presented the aspect of a hamlet, rather than of a single abode, in the midst of the landscape spreading widely on the east, the west and the south. Immediately in the rear, on the north, stretches the chain of rugged hills, which separate the head waters of the Raritan from those of the Muskenetcong, a tributary of the Delaware; and within a quarter of a mile of the house was the mouth of the wild ravine of the "Spruce Run," the only pass through them for miles on either hand. This gorge, filled with interlacing trees and closely-set thickets bordering the rapid waters of the stream, afforded, in the days of Indian warfare, a choice place of ambush; and on the occasion referred to, was selected by the tory robbers, as the securest approach to the scene of their depredations, and a safe place of concealment, for the day preceding their descent upon "the Union." It was the Sabbath. Spies in advance, whom the servants at the dairy recollected to have seen moving stealthily about in the early dusk, reported to their accomplices, as was afterwards learned, the retirement for the night of the workmen to their quarters, and the departure of the overseer also to his home, after having been to Mrs. Wilson, as accustomed, for instructions for the following day. These could scarce have had time to fall asleep, when the family, with some female friend, on a visit, enjoying the cool of the evening in the porch of the principal building, were startled by the sudden exclamation, in a suppressed but authoritative tone: "Surround the house! Close in!" While from either side some twenty or thirty men, disguised with paint and charcoal, and armed with various weapons, rushed upon them. Silence was enjoined on pain of death, and inquiry made for Colonel Stewart. They evidently supposed him to be at home, and his capture if not assassination, was doubtless a chief object in their plans. But he had been summoned away by express, and accompanied by General Lincoln, had left for Philadelphia, with a large amount of public funds at a late hour the day before. Being assured of this, the ring-leaders approached Mr. Charles Stewart, the eldest son of the Colonel, and a son-in-law, the late Judge Wilson of Landsdown, both young men some twenty years of age and the only gentlemen of the party, saying, "you are our prisoners;" and demanded their purses and watches. Young Wilson, somewhat recovered from the first surprise, and his Irish blood inflamed by the indignity, replied, "I would like, to know who the d – l you are, first!" when he instantly received a severe stroke across the head with a sword or sabre, laying open his forehead from temple to temple. A pistol was immediately afterwards placed at the breast of young Stewart, because he hesitated, after delivering his purse, to yield up his watch, the dying gift of his mother. Mrs. Wilson in alarm for her brother rushed forward, promising, if life and further bloodshed were spared, the money and every thing valuable in the house should be delivered up. Upon this she was ordered with her brother, to show two of the gang to her father's apartments. Here, besides a considerable amount in specie, they secured four thousand dollars in current bills, while another package containing the same amount, being placed among some wearing apparel, escaped their notice. In addition to this money, a large amount of silver plate, a quantity of valuable linen, every article of gentlemen's apparel in the house, three watches, Colonel Stewart's sword and a pair of superb pistols, with heavy mountings of solid silver beautifully and elaborately wrought, a present of friendship from Baron Steuben, were among the booty secured.

The pistols thus lost, brought from Europe by the Baron, had been carried by him through the war. The circumstances under which they were presented to Colonel Stewart are honorable alike to the generous spirit both of himself and friend, and deserve a record.

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