Noble Deeds Of American Women Part 29

MARGARET WINTHROP.

----When meet now Such pairs, in love and honor joined?

MILTON.

Governor Winthrop, the father of the Ma.s.sachusetts' colony, married Margaret, the daughter of Sir John Tindal, in April, 1618. She was his third wife, and a woman of rare qualities both of mind and heart.

Previous to their emigration to New England, it was not an uncommon occurrence for them to be separated, and their correspondence on such occasions savors of the purest affection. Who does not see the image of a devoted wife and an exalted spirit in the following letter, written about the year 1627:

"MY MOST SWEET HUSBAND,--How dearly welcome thy kind letter was to me, I am not able to express. The sweetness of it did much refresh me. What can be more pleasing to a wife, than to hear of the welfare of her best beloved, and how he is pleased with her poor endeavors! I blush to hear myself commended, knowing my own wants. But it is your love that conceives the best, and makes all things seem better than they are. I wish that I may be always pleasing to thee, and that those comforts we have in each other may be daily increased, as far as they may be pleasing to G.o.d. I will use that speech to thee, that Abigail did to David: 'I will be a servant to wash the feet of my lord.' I will do any service wherein I may please my good husband. I confess I cannot do enough for thee; but thou art pleased to accept the will for the deed, and rest contented.

"I have many reasons to make me love thee, whereof I will name two: first, because thou lovest G.o.d; and secondly, because thou lovest me. If these two were wanting, all the rest would be eclipsed. But I must leave this discourse, and go about my household affairs. I am a bad housewife to be so long from them; but I must needs borrow a little time to talk with thee, my sweet heart. I hope thy business draws to an end. It will be but two or three weeks before I see thee, though they be long ones.

G.o.d will bring us together in his good time; for which I shall pray.

Farewell, my good husband; the Lord keep thee.

Your obedient wife,

MARGARET WINTHROP."

Below is another letter from the pen of this good woman, written after her husband had decided to come to Ma.s.sachusetts, and just before his embarkation:

"MY MOST DEAR HUSBAND,--I should not now omit any opportunity of writing to thee, considering I shall not long have thee to write unto. But, by reason of my unfitness at this time, I must entreat thee to accept of a few lines from me, and not impute it to any want of love, or neglect of duty to thee, to whom I owe more than I ever shall be able to express.

"My request now shall be to the Lord to prosper thee in thy voyage, and enable thee and fit thee for it, and give all graces and gifts for such employments as he shall call thee to. I trust G.o.d will once more bring us together before you go, that we may see each other with gladness, and take a solemn leave, till we, through the goodness of our G.o.d, shall meet in New England, which will be a joyful day to us. With my best wishes to G.o.d for thy health and welfare, I take my leave and rest, thy faithful, obedient wife,

MARGARET WINTHROP."[81]

[81] The following extract from a letter written by the Governor in March, 1629, shows that he was not unconscious of the excellence of the gift he possessed in his "yokefellow." Addressing her as "MINE OWN DEAR HEART," he proceeds:

"I must confess thou hast overcome me with thy exceeding great love, and those abundant expressions of it in thy sweet letters, which savor of more than an ordinary spirit of love and piety. Blessed be the Lord our G.o.d, that gives strength and comfort to thee to undergo this great trial, which, I must confess, would be too heavy for thee, if the Lord did not put under his hand in so gracious a measure. Let this experience of his faithfulness to thee in this first trial, be a ground to establish thy heart to believe and expect his help in all that may follow. It grieveth me much, that I want time and freedom of mind to discourse with thee, my faithful yokefellow, in those things which thy sweet letters offer me so plentiful occasion for. I beseech the Lord, I may have liberty to supply it, ere I depart; for I cannot thus leave thee."

Governor Winthrop landed on these sh.o.r.es in June, 1630, and his wife followed him in about a year. She lived till June, 1647, and was perhaps as useful in her more private, as her husband in his public and highly honorable, sphere. "A woman of singular virtue, prudence, modesty and piety;" though dignified, she was condescending; and knowing her place, she kept, and filled, and honored it. With undimmed and steady l.u.s.tre, she shone for sixteen years amid the shadows of night that overhung and threatened the infant colony.

A PIONEER SETTLER'S ADVENTURE.

----Screw your courage up to the sticking place, And we'll not fail.

SHAKSPEARE.

The first settler in Hollis, New Hampshire, was Captain Peter Powers. He removed thither in 1731. His nearest neighbor, for a time, was ten miles distant; and in order to exchange courtesies it was necessary for the families to cross the Nashua river. It had but one convenient and safe fording place in that vicinity, and that one only when the river was low.

Having occasion, on a pleasant August morning, to visit her neighbor, Mrs. Powers mounted a Narraganset, hastened away, and reached the place of destination long before noon. Early in the after part of the day a fearful thunderstorm came up, and continued for several hours. Just at sunset the clouds began to break away, and Mrs. Powers immediately started on her return. She did not reach the river until some time after dark; and coming to the ford, she found the bank full and the water--as a narrator of the incident has it--"pressing on it with great rapidity." Added to this alarming circ.u.mstance, the wind had shifted and rolled the clouds up the sky again, so that the rain was descending in torrents, and drowning the threatening voice of the waves. Trusting to the experienced animal to keep the ford, and giving a slack rein, without realizing the danger, the courageous woman plunged into the black stream. The steed almost instantly lost its foothold, and "rolling in the waves at a full swim," made for the opposite sh.o.r.e. Missing the ford, and striking a forefoot on a rock in the bed of the stream, the animal was raised momentarily half way out of the water. Then plunging forward, it sank so deep that Mrs. Powers was raised from the pommel; but seizing the horse's mane as it rose, she held her grasp till they were safely on sh.o.r.e. The faithful animal soon found the right track, and in a brief hour Mrs. Powers was under the shelter of her cabin.

MRS. McKENNY.

More can I bear than you dare execute.

SHAKSPEARE.

"Not a great way from Steel's and Taylor's forts was a settlement consisting of a few families, among which were those of William McKenny and his brother James. These lived near Fishing creek. In the summer of 1761, sixteen Indians, with some squaws of the Cherokee tribe, took up their abode for several weeks near what is called Simpson's shoals, for the purpose of hunting and fishing during the hot months. In August, the two McKennys being absent on a journey to Camden, William's wife, Barbara, was left alone with several young children. One day she saw the Indian women running towards her house in great haste, followed by the men. She had no time to offer resistance; the squaws seized her and the children, pulled them into the house, and shoved them behind the door, where they immediately placed themselves on guard, pushing back the Indians as fast as they tried to force their way in, and uttering the most fearful outcries. Mrs. McKenny concluded it was their intention to kill her, and expected her fate every moment. The a.s.sistance rendered by the squaws, whether given out of compa.s.sion for a lonely mother, or in return for kindness shown them,--proved effectual for her protection until the arrival of one of the chiefs, who drew his long knife and drove off the savages. The mother, apprehending another attack, went to some of her neighbors and entreated them to come and stay with her.

Robert Brown and Joanna his wife, Sarah Ferguson, her daughter Sarah and two sons, and a young man named Michael Melbury, came, in compliance with her request, and took up their quarters in the house. The next morning Mrs. McKenny ventured out alone to milk her cows. It had been her practice heretofore to take some of the children with her, and she could not explain why she went alone this time, though she was not free from apprehension; it seemed to be so by a special ordering of Providence. While she was milking, the Indians crept towards her on their hands and knees; she heard not their approach, nor knew any thing till they seized her. Sensible at once of all the horror of her situation, she made no effort to escape, but promised to go quietly with them. They then set off towards the house, holding her fast by the arm.

She had the presence of mind to walk as far off as possible from the Indian who held her, expecting Melbury to fire as they approached her dwelling. As they came up, he fired, wounding the one who held Mrs.

McKenny; she broke from his hold and ran, and another Indian pursued and seized her. At this moment she was just at her own door, which John Ferguson imprudently opening that she might enter, the Indians without shot him dead as he presented himself. His mother ran to him and received another shot in her thigh, of which she died in a few days.

Melbury, who saw that all their lives depended on prompt action, dragged them from the door, fastened it, and repairing to the loft, prepared for a vigorous defence. There were in all five guns; Sarah Ferguson loaded for him, while he kept up a continual fire, aiming at the Indians wherever one could be seen. Determined to effect their object of forcing an entrance, some of the savages came very near the house, keeping under cover of an outhouse in which Brown and his wife had taken refuge, not being able, on the alarm, to get into the house. They had crept into a corner and were crouched there close to the boarding. One of the Indians, coming up, leaned against the outside, separated from them only by a few boards, the crevices between which probably enabled them to see him. Mrs. Brown proposed to take a sword that lay by them and run the savage through the body, but her husband refused; he expected death, he said, every moment, and did not wish to go out of the world having his hands crimsoned with the blood of any fellow creature. 'Let me die in peace,' were his words, 'with all the world.' Joanna, though in the same peril, could not respond to the charitable feeling. 'If I am to die,'

she said, 'I should like first to send some of the redskins on the journey. But we are not so sure we have to die; don't you hear the crack of Melbury's rifle? He holds the house. I warrant you that redskin looked awfully scared as he leaned against the corner here. We could have done it in a moment.'

"Mrs. McKenny, meanwhile, having failed to get into her house, had been again seized by the Indians, and, desperately regardless of her own safety, was doing all in her power to help her besieged friends. She would knock the priming out of the guns carried by the savages, and when they presented them to fire, would throw them up, so that the discharge might prove harmless. She was often heard to say, afterwards, that all fear had left her, and she thought only of those within the building, for she expected for herself neither deliverance nor mercy. Melbury continued to fire whenever one of the enemy appeared; they kept themselves, however, concealed, for the most part, behind trees or the outhouse. Several were wounded by his cool and well-directed shots, and at length, tired of the contest, the Indians retreated, carrying Mrs.

McKenny with them. She now resisted with all her strength, preferring instant death to the more terrible fate of a captive in the hands of the fierce Cherokees. Her refusal to go forward irritated her captors, and when they had dragged her about half a mile, near a rock upon the plantation now occupied by John Culp, she received a second blow with the tomahawk which stretched her insensible upon the ground. When after some time consciousness returned, she found herself lying upon the rock, to which she had been dragged from the spot where she fell. She was stripped naked, and her scalp had been taken off. By degrees the knowledge of her condition, and the desire of obtaining help came upon her. She lifted up her head, and looking around, saw the wretches who had so cruelly mangled her, pulling ears of corn from a field near, to roast for their meal. She laid her head quickly down again, well knowing that if they saw her alive, they would not be slack in coming to finish the work of death. Thus she lay motionless till all was silent, and she found they were gone; then, with great pain and difficulty, she dragged herself back to the house. It may be imagined with what feelings the unfortunate woman was received by her friends and children, and how she met the bereaved mother, wounded unto death, who had suffered for her attempt to save others. One of the blows received by Mrs. McKenny had made a deep wound in her back; the others were upon her head....

"The wounds in Mrs. McKenny's head never healed entirely; but continued to break out occasionally, so that the blood flowing from them stained the bed at night, and sometimes fragments of bone came off; nevertheless, she lived many years afterwards and bore several children.

She was at the time with child, and in about three months gave birth to a daughter--Hannah, afterwards married to John Stedman--and living in Tennessee in 1827. This child was plainly marked with a tomahawk and drops of blood, as if running down the side of her face. The families of McKenny and McFadden, residing on Fishing creek, are descended from this Barbara McKenny; but most of her descendants have emigrated to the West.

The above mentioned occurrence is narrated in a ma.n.u.script in the hand-writing of her grandson, Robert McFadden."[82]

[82] Women of the Revolution, vol. 3.

THE FISHERMAN'S HEROIC WIFE.

Strong affection Contends with all things, and o'ercometh all things.

JOANNA BAILLIE.

"One of the small islands in Boston bay was inhabited by a single poor family. The father was taken suddenly ill. There was no physician. The wife, on whom every labor for the household devolved, was sleepless in care and tenderness by the bedside of her suffering husband. Every remedy in her power to procure was administered, but the disease was acute, and he died.

"Seven young children mourned around the lifeless corpse. They were the sole beings upon that desolate spot. Did the mother indulge the grief of her spirit, and sit down in despair? No: she entered upon the arduous and sacred duties of her station. She felt that there was no hand to a.s.sist her in burying her dead. Providing, as far as possible, for the comfort of her little ones, she put her babe into the arms of the oldest, and charged the two next in age to watch the corpse of their father. She unmoored her husband's fishing boat, which, but two days before, he had guided over the seas, to obtain food for his family. She dared not yield to those tender recollections, which might have unnerved her arm. The nearest island was at the distance of three miles. Strong winds lashed the waters to foam. Over the loud billows, that wearied and sorrowful woman rowed, and was preserved. She reached the next island, and obtained the necessary aid. With such energy did her duty to her desolate babes inspire her, that the voyage which depended on her individual effort, was performed in a shorter time than the returning one, when the oars were managed by two men, who went to a.s.sist in the last offices to the dead."

MRS. JAMES K. POLK.

A fault doth never with remorse Our minds so deeply move, As when another's guiltless life Our error doth reprove.