Date:

1777

Description:

Rebecca's husband is shot and killed, after being suspected as a Tory, even though his involvement, being a Quaker, was unlikely. The story goes that after his death, Rebecca "left within the twelve days - traveled on foot with her three children to Danby, a distance of seven miles, through the uninterrupted forests of the then wilderness country, rendered doubly gloomy by the fitful gusts and wails of a bleak November wind." She would have been around 20 years old, with her daughter Lucretia who was 5, son Joseph who was around 3, and a baby, Rhoda. They would go to live with her husband's family, who were complete strangers. Their home was later pillaged of all their belongings shortly after they were gone. Rebecca's personal account was first published in 1855 in the Rutland Herald newspaper by C. H. Congdon, and it says of her that she was "a high spirited woman, with a temperment rather sanguine than otherwise, and her villifiers, with all their heroism, did not confront her."

Location:

Danby, Vermont, USA

Sources:

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