Noble Deeds Of American Women Part 8

The brothers of Dicey were no less patriotic than she; and they having, by their active services on the side of freedom, greatly displeased the loyalists, these latter were determined to be revenged. A desperate band accordingly went to the house of their father, and finding the sons absent, they were about to wreak their vengeance on the old man, whom they hated for the sons' sake. With this intent one of the party drew a pistol; but just as it was aimed at the breast of her aged and infirm father, Dicey rushed between the two, and though the ruffian bade her get out of his way or receive in her own breast the contents of the pistol, she regarded not his threats, but flung her arms around her father's neck and declared she would receive the ball first, if the weapon must be discharged. Such fearlessness and willingness to offer her own life for the sake of her parent, softened the heart of the "b.l.o.o.d.y scout," and Mr. Langston lived to see his n.o.ble daughter perform other heroic deeds.

One time her brother James, in his absence, sent to the house for a gun which he had left in her care, with orders for her to deliver it to no one except by his direction. On reaching the house one of the company who where directed to call for it, made known their errand, whereupon she brought and was about to deliver the weapon. At this moment it occurred to her that she had not demanded the countersign agreed on between herself and brother. With the gun still in her hand, she looked the company sternly in the face, and remarking that they wore a suspicious look, called for the countersign. Hereupon one of them, in jest, told her she was too tardy in her requirements; that both the gun and its holder were in their possession. "Do you think so," she boldly asked, as she c.o.c.ked the disputed weapon and aimed it at the speaker.

"If the gun is in your possession," she added, "take charge of it!" Her appearance indicated that she was in earnest, and the countersign was given without further delay. A hearty laugh on the part of the "liberty men," ended the ceremony.

REBECCA MOTTE.

We can make our lives sublime.

LONGFELLOW.

During the Revolutionary war, while Fort Motte, situated on Congaree river, in South Carolina, was in the hands of the British, in order to effect its surrender, it became necessary to burn a large mansion standing near the centre of the trench. The house was the property of Mrs. Motte. Lieut. Colonel Lee communicated to her the contemplated work of destruction with painful reluctance, but her smiles, half antic.i.p.ating his proposal, showed, at once, that she was willing to sacrifice her property if she could thereby aid in the least degree towards the expulsion of the enemy and the salvation of the land. The reply she made to the proposal was that she was "gratified with the opportunity of contributing to the good of her country, and should view the approaching scene with delight!"[21]

[21] MRS. BREWTON,--since Foster--one of the most amiable and enlightened of the whig ladies, was an inmate of Mrs. Motte's family at the time of the destruction of her house. Meeting with her shortly after the signing of the preliminary articles of peace at Philadelphia, I inquired--"How it had happened, that she, a helpless, unprotected widow, without any charge of improper conduct, had so far incurred the enmity of the British commanders, as to have been arrested without ceremony, and hurried unprepared, into exile." She answered--"That she knew no act of hers which had merited such ungentlemanly and inhuman treatment."

Entering, however, into conversation relative to the siege and surrender of Fort Motte, she gave at once a clue to the transaction. While the American forces were at a distance, Major M'Pherson, the commander of the post, suffered Mrs. Motte and her family to remain, and an apartment was allowed for their accommodation. But when the post at Thompson's, but a little removed from him, was attacked and carried, antic.i.p.ating the fate which awaited him, immediate removal was not only advised, but insisted on. At the moment of departure, Mrs. Brewton seeing a quiver of arrows, which had been presented to Mr. Motte by a favorite African, said to her friend, "I will take these with me, to prevent their destruction by the soldiers." With the quiver in her hands, she was pa.s.sing the gate, when Major M'Pherson, drawing forth a shaft, and applying the point to his finger, said, "what have you here, Mrs.

Brewton?" "For G.o.d's sake be careful," she replied "these arrows are poisoned." The ladies immediately pa.s.sed on to the out-house, which they were now to inhabit. In the siege which directly followed, when the destruction of the house was determined upon, and missiles eagerly sought for by Lieutenant Colonel Lee for conveying the fire to the s.h.i.+ngles, these arrows being remembered, were presented by Mrs. Motte, with a wish for the happy accomplishment of the end proposed. It was afterwards known, that the first arrow missed its aim, and fell at the feet of the commander, who taking, it up, with strong expressions of anger, exclaimed, "I thank you, Mrs. Brewton." The second arrow took effect, and set fire to the roof, when the brisk discharge of a six pounder being maintained by Captain Finley, in the direction of the stair-case, every effort to extinguish it proved fruitless, until, from the apprehension of the roof falling in, the garrison were compelled to surrender at discretion. General Greene arriving soon after, paid to Major M'Pherson the tribute of applause due to his excellent defence, declaring, "that such gallantry could not fail to procure for him a high increase of reputation." This compliment, however, does not appear to have soothed the mortified soldier; for, walking immediately up to Mrs.

Brewton, he said, "to _you_ madam, I owe this disgrace; it would have been more charitable to have allowed me to perish by poison, than to be thus compelled to surrender my post to the enemy." This speech alone, accounts for the enmity against Mrs. Brewton.--[Knapp's American Anecdotes.

The husband of this n.o.ble-hearted widow had so involved himself by securities for friends, that after the struggle for Independence was over, it was impossible for her to immediately meet all demands against the estate. She, however, resolved that they should some day be liquidated--that, life and health being continued long enough, all obligations of her husband's contracting should be good against herself.

She purchased a large tract of rice land on credit, and by industry and economy was able, in a short time, to pay the old demands, and lived to acc.u.mulate a handsome property. She reminds us of Solomon's picture of the virtuous woman: "She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard."... "She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not of the bread of idleness."

ANOTHER SACRIFICE FOR FREEDOM.

A patriot's birth-right thou may'st claim.

Sh.e.l.lEY.

The subject of the following anecdote was a sister of General Woodhull, and was born at Brookhaven, Long Island, in December, 1740. Her husband was a member of the Provincial Convention which met in May, 1775, and of the Convention which was called two years after, to frame the first state const.i.tution.

While Judge William Smith was in the Provincial Congress, his lady was met, at a place called Middle Island, by Major Benjamin Tallmadge, who was then on his march across Long Island. He told her he was on his way to her house to capture the force then possessing Fort St. George, and that he might be obliged to burn or otherwise destroy her dwelling-house and other buildings in accomplis.h.i.+ng this object. Ready to make any sacrifice for the good of her bleeding country, she promptly a.s.sured the Major that the buildings were at his disposal, to destroy or not, as efforts to dislodge the enemy might require.

A PATRIOTIC DONATION.

Large charity doth never soil, But only whitens soft white hands.--LOWELL.

When General Greene was retreating through the Carolinas, after the battle of the Cowpens, and while at Salisbury, North Carolina, he put up at a hotel, the landlady of which was Mrs. Elizabeth Steele. A detachment of Americans had just had a skirmish with the British under Cornwallis at the Catawba ford, and were defeated and dispersed; and when the wounded were brought to the hotel, the General no doubt felt somewhat discouraged, for the fate of the south and perhaps of the country seemed to hang on the result of this memorable retreat. Added to his other troubles was that of being penniless; and Mrs. Steele, learning this fact by accident, and ready to do any thing in her power to further the cause of freedom, took him aside and drew from under her ap.r.o.n two bags of specie. Presenting them to him she generously said, "Take these, for you will want them, and I can do without them."[22]

[22] Never did relief come at a more propitious moment; nor would it be straining conjecture to suppose that he resumed his journey with his spirits cheered and brightened by this touching proof of woman's devotion to the cause of her country. [Greene's Life of Nathaniel Greene.

"THE LITTLE BLACK-EYED REBEL."

Some there are By their good deeds exalted

WORDSWORTH.

Mary Redmond, the daughter of a patriot of Philadelphia of some local distinction, had many relatives who were loyalists. These were accustomed to call her "the little black-eyed rebel," so ready was she to a.s.sist women whose husbands were fighting for freedom, in procuring intelligence. "The dispatches were usually sent from their friends by a boy who carried them st.i.tched in the back of his coat. He came into the city bringing provisions to market. One morning when there was some reason to fear he was suspected, and his movements were watched by the enemy, Mary undertook to get the papers from him in safety. She went, as usual, to the market, and in a pretended game of romps, threw her shawl over the boy's head and secured the prize. She hastened with the papers to her anxious friends, who read them by stealth, after the windows had been carefully closed."

When the whig women in her neighborhood heard of Burgoyne's surrender, and were exulting in secret, the cunning little "rebel," prudently refraining from any open demonstration of joy, "put her head up the chimney and gave a shout for Gates!"

A BENEVOLENT QUAKERESS.[23]

How few, like thee, inquire the wretched out, And court the offices of soft humanity!

ROWE.

Charity Rodman was born in Newport, Rhode Island, in the year 1765. Her father was a sea-captain, and died at Honduras while she was in infancy.

She married Thomas Rotch, of Nantucket, Ma.s.sachusetts, on the sixth of June, 1790. Soon afterwards the Rotch family removed to New Bedford, where they have since distinguished themselves by their energy and uprightness of character, and their success in the mercantile business, being extensively engaged in the whale-fishery. Of some of them, as traffickers, it may be said, as it was of the merchants of Tyre in the days of her glory: "they are among the honorable of the earth."

[23] Some of the facts embodied in this article were gathered by the author while on a visit to Ma.s.sillon, Ohio, in the summer of 1847, and were communicated to the public at that time through the columns of the Western Literary Messenger; others were lately and very obligingly furnished by Dr. William Bowen, of that place.

About the year 1801, Mrs. Rotch removed with her husband to Hartford, Connecticut, where she remained till 1811. She then, in a feeble state of health, and for its improvement, accompanied her husband on a journey through Ohio, and other parts of the West. The mildness of the winter was favorable to her const.i.tution, and, restored to comfortable health, she returned to Hartford in the early part of the next summer. The following November she removed to Kendol, in Stark county, Ohio, near the site of the present village of Ma.s.sillon.

There the mind of Mrs. Rotch, cooperating with the long-cherished wishes of her heart, originated and matured plans for the establishment of a "school for orphan and dest.i.tute children." Having traveled much, she had made extensive observations; and with an eye always open to the condition and wants of human kind, she early and often felt the force of a remark once made to her by an English friend: "That there were a great many children _wasted_ in this country"--a painful truth, but no less applicable to Great Britain than to the United States.

Her husband died in 1823, and bequeathed to her, during life, his large and entire estate. His personal property was left in her hands to be disposed of as her philanthropic heart might dictate. This formed the basis of the school-fund which she left, and which, four or five years after her death, which occurred on the sixth of August, 1824, amounted to twenty thousand dollars. The interest of this sum has since purchased a farm of one hundred and eighty-five acres, one and a half miles from the village of Ma.s.sillon, and erected, at a cost of five thousand dollars, a large brick edifice for educational and dwelling purposes, which has been open seven years and which sustains forty pupils. The real and personal estate of the inst.i.tution, is now estimated at thirty-five thousand dollars.

A cla.s.s of ten pupils enter annually and remain four years. The school is established on the manual labor plan; and the boys are thoroughly instructed in the art of husbandry, and the girls in culinary duties and the manufacture of their own wearing apparel. Children enter between the ages of ten and fourteen, hence the youngest leave as advanced in life as their fifteenth year, a period when their habits of industry and their moral principles usually become too well established to be easily changed.

This school, founded by the benevolence of a single individual--a devout, yet modest and quiet member of the Society of Friends--is destined to become a source of inestimable blessings. Every half century, five hundred otherwise neglected plants in the garden of humanity, will there be pruned and nurtured, and strengthened for the storms of life; and many of them will doubtless be fitted to bear fruit here to the glory of G.o.d, and be finally transplanted to bloom in eternal youth in the gardens above.

The offspring of Christian philanthropy, the school will stand as a lasting memorial of woman's worth. The highest ambition of its founder was to be a blessing to those who should come after her; and it may be said that while she did not live in vain, neither did she die in vain.

Her death threw a legacy into the lap of orphanage, the benignant influence of which will long be felt.

The grave of Mrs. Rotch is overlooked by the monument of her munificence, but no marble nor enduring object marks the spot. Virtues like hers neither crave nor need _chiseled_ words of praise; they are engraved on the hearts of the succored, to be remembered while those hearts continue to beat; and the feet of befriended children will keep a path open to the grave of their foster-mother, for ages.

A PIONEER IN SUNDAY SCHOOLS.[24]