Chapter I: Preface

An appropriate supplement to the memoirs of the “Women of the American Revolution,” is the story of the wives and mothers who ventured into the western wilds, and bore their part in the struggles and labors of the early pioneers. Indeed, so obvious a consequence of the Revolution was the diffusion of the spirit of emigration, that the one work naturally calls for the other, the domestic history of the period being incomplete without it. To supply this want, very little published material existed, and that little in the shape of brief anecdotes, scattered through historical collections made in several Western States, and scarcely known in other parts of the Union. But a vast store might be yielded from the records of private families, and the still vivid recollections of individuals who had passed through the experiences of frontier and forest life, and it was not yet too late to save from oblivion much that would be the more interesting and valuable, as the memory of those primitive times receded into the past.

Application has been made, accordingly, to the proper sources throughout the Western States, and the result enables me to offer such a series of authentic sketches as will not only exhibit the character of many pioneer matrons--characters that would pass for strongly marked originals in any fiction--but will afford a picture of the times in the progressive settlement of the whole country, from Tennessee to Michigan. To render this picture as complete as possible, descriptions of the domestic life and manners of the pioneers, and illustrative anecdotes from reliable sources, have been interwoven with the memoirs, and notice has been taken of such political events as had an influence on the condition of the country.

All the biographies, except those of Mrs. Boone and Mary Moore, have been prepared from private records, furnished by relatives or friends, and in two or three instances by the subjects. I do not except those of Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Rouse, for which I am indebted to the courtesy of Dr. S. P. Hildreth, though they appeared in a more extended form many years since, in a Western periodical of limited circulation. My grateful acknowledgments are due to Mr. Milton A. Haynes, of Tennessee, for the memoirs of Mrs. Bledsoe, Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Shelby, written for this work; and also to Mr. A. W. Putnam, of Nashville, Tennessee, for those of Mrs. Sevier and Mrs. Sparks. Both in Tennessee and Ohio I had access to valuable manuscripts belonging to the Historical Societies, and to letters in the possession of individuals. For most of the sketches illustrative of Michigan, included in those of Mrs. Clark, Mrs. Bryan, Mrs. Rumsey and Mrs. Noble, I have pleasure in acknowledging my obligations to an accomplished friend--Miss Mary H. Clark of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The published works from which extracts have been made, are generally mentioned, and a repetition of authorities would be unnecessary. Flint’s Life of Boone, Dr. Hildreth’s Notes on the Pioneer History of Ohio, Howe’s Historical Collections of Ohio, and Lanman’s History of Michigan, have chiefly aided me, though a vast number of other books have been consulted.

A word may be permitted here as to the proprietorship of memoirs prepared from original materials derived from private sources. It seems reasonable that the exclusive right should belong to the one who procures and works up such materials; and that no other person can, without a violation of the principles of common justice, make use of the memoirs to such an extent as to interfere with the interests of the original work. This remark is called forth by the fact that a volume was published in Buffalo, in 1851, entitled “Noble Deeds of American Women, with Biographical Sketches of some of the more prominent”--in which thirty-eight sketches prepared entirely from original manuscripts, (the subjects not even named in any other published work,) were taken from the volumes of “The Women of the American Revolution,” twenty-six of them being appropriated, in an abridged form, without the slightest acknowledgment.

E. F. E.

CONTENTS.

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