Norwich bulletin., 1913-10-22
A Strenuous Woman's Life Over 200 Years Ago

A many sided character: she possessed
 to an unusual degree great energy and
 good education. She wrote poetry and
 diaries, speculated in Indian lands and
 at different times kept tavern, man
 ! aged a shop of merchandise and cul1-
 Vated q farm. Surely New England
 head if it were on old England should
 i CTS!
 Norwich first claims her as a citizen
 1 in 1698 when she appears with goods i to sell, and is styled a widow and ! shop-keeper." She seemed of a some what rowing disposition. and remained | but a short time in Norwich, perhaps l three or four years.
 1 At the time of her celebrated journey | from Boston to New York, she lived in 1 Boston The journal she kept during l her travels was published some years ago under Theodore DWights super vision. It must have been a tremend- | ous undertaking for one lone woman to | set out on a perilOus journey like this two hundred years ago, riding thro' the i Narra gansett woods meant dangers, ! not only from hostile Indian tribes, but i from four-footed beasts as well. Even men would not start out on journey
 of a few miles without asking for prayers before they went The post riders put some six days to this same | journey between Boston and New York. i This diary of Mrs. Knights is of 1 special importance to us New England 1 CTS, because it gives most vivid pie ] ture of by-gOne days and customs, i told with such delicious sense of humor that we turn to her little way l side sketches again and again.
 Her route was probably by the shore line, passing thro Providence. New 1 London, Guilford New Haven" In the first edition of Mrs, Knights journal are two manuscript accounts of her, which are very interesting because they prove to the would-be doubter l that she was a most intrepid woman. 1 Let me give a few excerpts from the i first account "as it is written, without | punctuation and due regard for capi- ! tals
 l In 1704 she made a Journey to New 1 York to claim some property belonging i to her husband. She returned on horse ] back, March, 1I05. Soon after her re-
 turn she opened school for children.
 Dr. Franklin and Dr. Samuel Mather i secured their first rudiments of edu l cation from her Her parents both died and as she was the only child they left, 1 she continued to keep school in the mansion house till 1714. The force
 of Mme Ks Diamond Ring was dis played on several panes of glass in the old house and one pane of glass was preserved as a curiosity for years, till 1775. It was lost when CharleStOWn
 was burnt by the British, June IT. The lines on the glass were committed to memory by the present writer "Thro' many tolls and many frights have returned poor Sarah Knights Over great rocks and many stones God has preserV'd from fractured bones This manuscript was whitten by a granddaughter of Rev. Cotton Mather The other manuscript reads very much like the above. It tells of the famous pane of glass being preserved as curiosity by an antiquerity (thts word has a delicious old-timey sound until
 the British set fire to the town She obtained the honorable title of Mad anne by being a famous school miS~ tress in her day. She taught Df.' 1 Franklin to write She was highly re- spected by Dr. Cotton Mather, as a
 woman of good and pleasant humor," The following extracts from her journal give a good bit of local col or, and this is an abbreviated account of her first lodging place:
 T was greeted most disCourteOusly by the land lady, who rores out: Law for me. what in the world brings you here at this time a-night? I never | see woman on the Rode so Dreadful late in all my Varsall Life. Who are you? Where are you going? I'm scared out of my wits" with much more of the same kind. I told her she treated me very Rudely, and I did not think it my duty to answer her un- WOmanly, Question Miss stared 8 while, drew a chair bid me sitt And
  rings and returning sett herself just before me showing the way to Reding that I might see her Ornaments. But her granams' new rung sow, had it ap- peared, would have affected me as much I pray'd Miss to shew me where I must Lodg. She conducted me to a barbour in a little back Lento which was almost filled with the bedstead, which was so high that I was forced to climb on a chair to gitt up to ye wretched bed that lay on it, on which having Stretched my tired Limbs. and Lay'd my head on Sad-coloured pill low I began to think on the transac- tions of all past day"
 This picture does not give one the idea of true home comfort. We feel we would have liked to have 'stretcht' those tired bones of hers on snowy lin en and soft clean pillows.
 Those tall four posters that have
 descended or ascended to us from our ancestors, no one could mount with out 8 chair.
 The word Lento, or lean-to was the back portion of a house, having raft CTS or supports leaning on another building. In another description of a nights lodging, her room was shared, as was the country custom. by the men" who jeuFneyed with her, The 1 following entry sh6%Rs that the cook ing was net always agreeable to Mad Game's palate, which we fancy some