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THE

PRIVATE JOURNAL

OF A

Journey from Boston to New York

IN

THE YEAR 1704.

KEPT BY

MADAM KNIGHT

ALBANY:

FRANK H. LITTLE

1865.

THREE HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED, OF WHICH

FIFTY ARE ON LARGE PAPER.

MUNSELL, PRINTER,

ALBANY.

PREFACE.

IN the month of October, 1704, Madam Sarah Knight traveled on horseback from Boston to New Haven. She continued her journey to New York in the following December, and after staving there two weeks returned to New Haven, and thence in March to Boston. During this time she kept a journal, which was for many years preserved among her descendants, but now is believed to be lost. This journal was published in New York in 1825, and in the introduction to that edition it is stated that "the original or- thography has been carefully preserved." The present edition is an exact reprint of the former, including the introduction, with the addition of a few notes.

Madam Sarah Knight was born April 19, 1666. She was the daughter of Capt. Thomas

PREFACE.

Kemble, a merchant of Boston, and of Elizabeth Trarice, his wife. He was a native of Great Britain, and resided in Charlestown as early as 1651, and for several years afterwards.² For many years he was an attorney or agent of Mr. Robert Rich, a merchant of London.³ He had several children, one of whom, John, a cooper or carpenter:, died in New York, and by a will made in 1695, gave his lands and houses to his wife for her life, then to Madam Knight for her life, and then to her daughter.¹

Before the birth of Sarah, Capt. Kemble had moved to Boston; and there in 1676 he built a large house on the easterly side of Moon street, corner of Moon street court, about half way from Sun Court street to Fleet street. The house was demolished in 1832, or soon after, and a tobacco warehouse erected, which has now been con-

¹ Savage's Genealogical Dictionary, III, 21 et seq.

² Littell's Living Age, LVII 964; a very full and interesting arti- cle, by Mr. William R. Deane, who has gathered nearly all the facts that are known about Madam Knight, and has kindly per- mitted their use. Much of this preface is taken from that article , which is referred to, for convenience, by his initials.

³ W. R. D.

PREFACE.

verted into the Catholic church.¹ He lived in this house until his deji.th. January 29, 1688-9. His wife survived him until December 19, 1712. The grave stones of both are in the Copp's Hill burying ground.²

Sarah Kemble was married to Richard Knight of Boston, "a Captain of a London trader."³ He died abroad, but in what year is not ascertained. Mr. Deane says that his wife supposed him to be living in 1706, when she signed as his attorney;⁴ but the notice in the Historical Magazine, just referred to, states that her journey in 1704 was to claim some of his property in New York.

The fact that he is not mentioned in the jour- nal seems to favor the latter of these views. He had had a former wife, Remember Grafton, the daughter of Nathaniel Grafton, of Salem;¹ and he is said by one authority to have been "bred a carver."⁵

Soon after her return from the New York

1 Historical Magazine, ix, 93, et seq.

2 W. R. D.

3 Historical Magazine, IX, 93, et seq.

4 W. K. D., referring to Middlesex Reg. Deeds, III, 463.

5 Savage's Genealogical Dictionary.

PREFACE.

journey Madam Knight opened a school for child- ren. Dr. Franklin and Dr. Samuel Mather were among her scholars. As she was the only surviving child of her parents she continued to keep school in the house built by her father until 1714. She then sold the estate to Peter Papillion; and it became afterwards the property of Hannah, wife of Dr. Samuel Mather. In the year 1763 Dr. Mather had the house new glazed; and one pane of glass was preserved as a curi- osity till it was lost when Charlestown was burnt in 1765. That pane bore the following lines written with a diamond:

Through many toils and many flights

I have returned, poor Sarah Knights

Over great rocks and many stones

God has preserved from fractured hones.

It was as a schoolmistress that she acquired the title of Madam; and she is said to have been noted for teaching composition.¹

Elizabeth, the only child of Madam Knight,

¹ Historical Magazine, as cited above. In his autobiography Dr. Franklin does not mention Madam Knight; but he states that he was sent to the grammar school at eight years of age; and this would correspond with the time when Madam Knight gave up her school.

PREFACE.

was born in Boston, May 8th, 1689, and was married there by Dr. Increase Mather to Colonel John Livingston of New London, Oct, 1st, 1713.¹ She was his second wife. His first wife was met by Madam Knight and is mentioned in the journal. Mrs. Elizabeth Livingston survived her husband; but had no children. A table of freestone with this inscription perpetuates her memory:

"Interd vnder this stone is the body of Madam Elizabeth Livingston, relict of Col. John Living- stone of New London, who departed this life March 17th A. D. 1735-6 in the 48th year of her age."²

It was undoubtedly the marriage of her daugh- ter which induced Madam Knight to sell her house. About this time she removed to the neighborhood of Norwich and New London, Ct., and there spent the remainder of an energetic and active life.

¹ W. R. D.

² Miss Frances M. Caulkins's History of New London, 365. Many of the subsequent details of Madam Knight's life, after she removed from Boston, are copied by permission from Miss Caulkins' His- tory, and from a letter written by her to Mr. Deane in 1858, and printed in the article already mentioned.

PREFACE.

In 1717 a silver cup for the communion service was presented by her to the church in Norwich; and the town by vote, August 12th, gave her liberty to "sit in the pew where she used to sit."¹ In 1718, March 26th, Madam Knight and six other persons were presented in one indictment "for selling strong drink to the In- dians." They were fined twenty shillings and costs. It is added to the record, "Mrs. Knight accused her maid, Ann Clark, of the fact." Af- ter this period Madam Knight appears as a land purchaser in the North Parish of New Lon- don, generally as a partner with Joseph Brad- ford. Col. Livingston had purchased a great amount of land from the Mohegan Indians, which he had gradually parted with. Madam Knight and Mr. Bradford repurchased much of this land. One deed conveyed to them more than two thousand acres for which they paid £1000; and another deed was for about half that extent.

She was also a pew holder in the new church

1 In those early days places were assigned, or, as the phrase was, "the meeting house was seated" by the authority of the town. The "chief seats in the synagogues" were matters of great interest and ambition and sometimes of much controversy.

PREFACE.

built in the North Parish of New London about 1724, and was sometimes styled of Norwich and sometimes of New London. She retained her dwelling house in Norwich; but her farms where she spent a portion of her time, were within the bounds of New London. On one of these, the Livingston farm, upon the Norwich road, she kept entertainment for travelers, and is called innkeeper. At this place she died, Sept. 25th, 1727, and was brought to New London for interment. A gray headstone, of which an exact impression is given on a fol- lowing page, marks the place.¹ The only child of Madam Knight, Elizabeth, relict of Col. John Livingston, survived her, and presented her inventory, which comprised two farms in Mohegan with housing and mills, £1600, and estate, in Norwich, £210.

The journal which is here reprinted, had been carefully preserved in manuscript in the Christophers family, to whom it came after the death of Mr. Livingston; Sarah, wife of Christopher Christophers, who was a Prout, of

¹ Miss Caulkins's History of New London, 372, et seq.

PREFACE.

New Haven, and a relative, being appointed to administer on her estate. From a descendant of this Mrs. Christophers, viz: Mrs. Ichabod Wetmore, of Middletown, the manuscript was obtained for publication. It had been neatly copied into a small book.¹ The original was not returned to Mrs. Wetmore, and, with the exception of a single leaf, has unfortunately been destroyed.²

Madam Knight's business on this journey was, as she says, the distribution of an estate and one evidently in which she had a personal in- terest. It may possibly have been that of her brother John, who had died in New York a few years previously, or perhaps that of her husband, as stated by Mrs. Hannah Mather Crocker.³ A suggestion has been made that it was the estate of Caleb Trowbridge; but this is not probable, as her name appears in 1704 as a

¹ Miss Caulkins's History of New London, 373.

² It appears from Mr. Deane's article that this leaf was then in possession of Mr. Theodore Dwight of New York, who edited the journal.

³ Historical Magazine, IX, 93.

PREFACE.

witness to the papers by which that estate was settled.¹

It is evident from her journal that Madam Knight was energetic and observing; that she had some imagination and a good perception of the ludicrous. She seems also to have been free from that strict and narrow character which is generally attributed to the Puritan of early New England. She rides a few miles on Sun- day, and considers the prohibition of "innocent merriment among young people," to be "rigid." She makes jokes on Mr. Devil's name, which, only a few years earlier, might have convicted her of witchcraft, if they had come to the ears of Cotton Mather. And although absent from home for five months, and a visitor with at least two or three clergymen, she gives no account of any sermon which she may have heard. Her silence in this particular may have been because there was more novelty in the matters which she narrates.

Wherever it is possible to make the test, her journal will be found accurate even in slight

¹ W. R. D.

PREFACE.

matters. It may therefore with good reason be relied upon in all its details.

In the introduction to the former edition it is said that over the same journey which Madam Knight made, "we proceed at our ease without exposure, and almost without fatigue, in a day and a half." A penciled note made in 1849 to a copy of the edition adds: "now performed by rail road in ten hours." That time is now re- duced to eight. One may venture to think that the speed of travel will never be carried to a much higher degree than it has now reached.

Albany, 1865.

THE

PRIVATE JOURNAL

KEPT BY

MADAM KNIGHT,

ON A JOURNEY

FROM BOSTON TO NEW YORK,

IN THE YEAR 1704.

FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT.

INTRODUCTION

THIS is not a work of fiction, as the scarcity of old American manuscripts may induce some to imagine ; but it is a faithful copy from a diary in the author's own hand-writing, compiled soon after her return home, as it appears, from notes recorded daily while on the road. She was a resident of Boston, and a lady of uncommon literary attainments, as well as of great taste and strength of mind. She was called Madam Knight, out of respect to her character, accord- ing to a custom once common in New England; but what was her family name the publishers have not been able to discover.

The object proposed in printing this little work is not only to please those who have par-