Noble Deeds Of American Women Part 13

I've pored o'er many a yellow page Of ancient wisdom, and have won, Perchance, a scholar's name--but sage Or bard have never taught thy son Lessons so dear, so fraught with holy truth, As those his mother's faith shed on his youth.

GEORGE W. BETHUNE.

A lady in the district of Beaufort, South Carolina, at the age of seventy-six, anxious once more to enjoy the society of all her children and grandchildren, invited them to spend a day with her. The interview was permitted and was very affecting. It "was conducted just as we should suppose piety and the relation sustained by the parties would dictate. She acknowledged G.o.d in this, as well as in every other way.

Her eldest son, who is a minister of the Gospel in the Baptist denomination, commenced the exercises of the day, by reading the Scriptures and prayer. The whole family then joined in the song of praise to the Giver of every good and perfect gift. This service was concluded by a suitable exhortation from the same person. Eighty-five of her regular descendants were present. Forty-four children and grandchildren, arrived at maturity, sat at the same table at dinner. Of that number, forty-three professed faith in Jesus Christ; of the four surviving sons of this excellent lady, two were preachers of the Gospel, and the other two deacons in the Baptist church.

"Two of her grandsons were also ministers of the same church. When the day was drawing to a close the matron called her numerous children around her, gave them each salutary advice and counsel, and bestowed upon all her parting blessing. The day was closed by her youngest son, with exercises similar to those with which it commenced.

"Mrs. ---- lived eight years after this event, leaving, at her death, one hundred and fifteen lineal descendants, in which large number not a swearer nor drunkard is to be found."[34]

[34] Jabez Burns, D. D.

BOLD ADVENTURE OF A PATRIOTIC GIRL.

Stand Firm for your country: * *

* * it were a n.o.ble life, To be found dead embracing her.

JOHNSON.

There is strength Deep bedded in our hearts, of which we reck But little.

MRS. HEMANS.

We find the following incident in the first volume of American Anecdotes, "original and select." The young heroine of the adventure afterwards married a rich planter named Threrwits, who lived on the Congaree. She has been dead more than half a century, but her name should be remembered while this republic is permitted to stand.

"At the time General Greene retreated before Lord Rawdon from Ninety-Six, when he had pa.s.sed Broad river, he was very desirous to send an order to General Sumter, who was on the Wateree, to join him, that they might attack Rawdon, who had divided his force. But the General could find no man in that part of the state who was bold enough to undertake so dangerous a mission. The country to be pa.s.sed through for many miles was full of blood thirsty tories, who, on every occasion that offered, imbrued their hands in the blood of the whigs. At length Emily Geiger presented herself to General Greene, and proposed to act as his messenger: and the General, both surprised and delighted, closed with her proposal. He accordingly wrote a letter and delivered it, and at the same time communicated the contents of it verbally, to be told to Sumter in case of accidents.

"Emily was young, but as to her person or adventures on the way, we have no further information, except that she was mounted on horseback, upon a side-saddle, and on the second day of her journey she was intercepted by Lord Rawdon's scouts. Coming from the direction of Greene's army, and not being able to tell an untruth without blus.h.i.+ng, Emily was suspected and confined to a room; and as the officer in command had the modesty not to search her at the time, he sent for an old tory matron as more fitting for that purpose. Emily was not wanting in expedient, and as soon as the door was closed and the bustle a little subsided, she _ate up the letter_, piece by piece. After a while the matron arrived, and upon searching carefully, nothing was to be found of a suspicious nature about the prisoner, and she would disclose nothing. Suspicion being thus allayed, the officer commanding the scouts suffered Emily to depart whither she said she was bound; but she took a route somewhat circuitous to avoid further detention, and soon after struck into the road to Sumter's camp, where she arrived in safety. Emily told her adventure, and delivered Greene's verbal message to Sumter, who, in consequence, soon after joined the main army at Orangeburgh."

MRS. CALDWELL AND THE TORIES.

--The spell is thine that reaches The heart.

HALLECK.

Prudence protects and guides us.

YOUNG.

Rachel Caldwell was the daughter of the Rev. Alexander Craighead and the wife of David Caldwell, D. D., whose history is somewhat identified with that of North Carolina. For several years he was at the head of a cla.s.sical school at Guilford in that state, and in the vocation of teacher he had, at times, the efficient aid of his faithful and talented companion. She was a woman of exalted piety; and such a degree of success attended her "labor of love" in the school, that it became a common saying that "Dr. Caldwell makes the scholars, and Mrs. Caldwell makes the preachers."

More than once during the Revolution, the house of Dr. Caldwell, who was a stanch friend of his country, was a.s.sailed by tories:[35] and on one occasion, while his wife was alone and the marauders were collecting plunder, they broke open a chest or drawer and took therefrom a table-cloth which was the gift of her mother. She seized it the moment the soldier had it fairly in his hand, and made an effort to wrest it from him. Finding she would be the loser in a trial of physical strength, she instinctively resorted to the power of rhetoric. With her grasp still firm on the precious article, she turned to the rest of the plunderers, who stood awaiting the issue of the contest, and in a beseeching tone and with words warm with eloquence, asked if some of their number had not wives for the love of whom they would a.s.sist her, and spare the one dear memorial of a mother's affection! Her plea, though short, was powerful, and actually moved one man to tears. With rills of sympathy running down his cheeks, he a.s.sured her he had a wife--a wife that he loved--and that for her sake the table-cloth should be given up. This was accordingly done, and no further rudeness was offered.

[35] The tories not only destroyed his property, but drove him into the woods, where he was often obliged to pa.s.s nights; and some of his escapes from captivity or death are said to have been almost miraculous.--He resumed his labors as teacher and pastor after the war; and continued to preach till his ninety-sixth year. He died in 1824, at the age of ninety-nine. His wife died the following year, in the eighty-seventh of her age.

In the fall of 1780, a "way-worn and weary" stranger, bearing dispatches from Was.h.i.+ngton to Greene, stopped at her house and asked for supper and lodgings. Before he had eaten, the house began to be surrounded by tories, who were in pursuit of him. Mrs. Caldwell led him out at a back-door, unseen in the darkness, and ordered him to climb a large locust tree, and there remain till the house was plundered and the pursuers had departed. He did so. Mrs. Caldwell lost her property, but her calmness and prudence saved the express, and that was what most concerned the patriotic woman.

THE MOTHER OF RANDOLPH

She led me first to G.o.d; Her words and prayers were my young spirit's dew; For when she used to leave The fireside every eve, I knew it was for prayer that she withdrew.

PIERPONT.

The biographers of John Randolph mention the interesting fact that his mother taught him to pray. This all-important maternal duty made an impression on his heart. He lived at a period when skepticism was popular, particularly in some political circles in which he had occasion to mingle; and he has left on record his testimony in regard to the influence of his mother's religious instruction. Speaking of the subject of infidelity to an intimate friend, he once made the following acknowledgment:

"I believe I should have been swept away by the flood of French infidelity if it had not been for one thing--the remembrance of the time when my sainted mother used to make me kneel by her side, taking my little hands folded in hers, and cause me to repeat the Lord's Prayer."

CORNELIA BEEKMAN.

The smallest worm will turn when trodden on, And doves will peck, in safeguard of their brood.

SHAKESPEARE.

The vaunts And menace of the vengeful enemy Pa.s.s like the gust, that roared and died away In the distant tree.

COLERIDGE.

Mrs. Cornelia Beekman was a daughter of Pierre Van Cortlandt, Lieutenant Governor of New York from 1777 to 1795; and she seems to have inherited her father's zeal for the rights of his country. She was born at the Cortlandt manor house, "an old fas.h.i.+oned stone mansion situated on the banks of the Croton river," in 1752; was married when about seventeen or eighteen, to Gerard G. Beekman; and died on the fourteenth of March, 1847. A few anecdotes will ill.u.s.trate the n.o.ble characteristics of her nature.[36]

[36] For a fuller account of her life, see the second volume of Mrs.

Ellet's Women of the Revolution, to which work we are indebted for the substance of these anecdotes.

When the British were near her residence, which was a short distance from Peekskill, a soldier entered the house one day and went directly to the closet, saying, in reply to a question she put to him, that he wanted some brandy. She reproved him for his boldness and want of courtesy, when he threatened to stab her with a bayonet. Unalarmed by his oath-charged threats--although an old, infirm negro was the only aid at hand--she in turn threatened him, declaring that she would call her husband and have his conduct reported to his commander. Her sterness and intrepidity, coupled with her threats, subdued the insolent coward, and, obeying her orders, he marched out of the house.

A party of tories, under command of Colonels Bayard and Fleming, once entered her house, and, with a great deal of impudence and in the most insulting tone, asked if she was not "the daughter of that old rebel, Pierre Van Cortlandt?" "I am the daughter of Pierre Van Cortlandt, but it becomes not such as you to call my father a rebel," was her dauntless reply. The person who put the question now raised his musket, at which menacing act, she coolly reprimanded him and ordered him out of doors.

His heart melted beneath the fire of her eye, and, abashed, he sneaked away.

In one instance, a man named John Webb, better known at that time as "Lieutenant Jack," left in her charge a valise which contained a new suit of uniform and some gold. He stated he would send for it when he wanted it, and gave her particular directions not to deliver it to any one without a written order from himself or his brother Samuel. About two weeks afterwards, a man named Smith rode up to the door in haste, and asked her husband, who was without, for Lieutenant Jack's valise.

She knew Smith, and had little confidence in his _professed_ whig principles; so she stepped to the door and reminded her husband that it would be necessary for the messenger to show his order before the valise could be given up.

"You know me very well, Mrs. Beekman; and when I a.s.sure you that Lieutenant Jack sent me for the valise, you will not refuse to deliver it to me, as he is greatly in want of his uniform."