Here are some inspiring stories¹ of women in American history. We hope they are an encouragement!

Mary Morris (wife of Robert Morris²) fled her home with her four young children (the oldest being only 7) as the British approached Philadelphia. Getting to safety, she wrote to her husband recounting her flight: “I long to give you an account of the many difficulties and uneasiness we have experienced in this journey. Indeed my spirits were very unable to the task after that greatest conflict, flying from home.”³

Gertrude Read (wife of Declaration signer George Read⁴) and her four young children suffered hardships as they were frequently left alone under continual threat⁵ as the British marched through and occupied parts of the state. Despite the long separations from her husband and the many times she had to move her family to safety, a biographer of George Read notes, “she never was dejected…she animated his fortitude by her firmness.”⁶

As the British made their way to Princeton in the early years of the war, Annis Stockton⁷ (wife of Declaration signer Richard Stockton), personally secured numerous state papers to keep them safe from the British. When Richard heard⁸ of the British approach, he quickly acted to get his family (including six children) to safety. He, himself, was arrested the very evening his family got to safety and remained in horrible prison conditions until Congress was able to arrange better accommodations. He never fully recovered and died in 1781.

Mary Bartlett (wife of Declaration signer Josiah Bartlett) also faced many hardships. In 1774, arsonists⁹ (assumed to be Loyalists opposed to Josiah’s support of the Americans) burned down the Bartlett’s home. Mary did not despair but simply moved her 12 children to the family’s farm. A biographer noted that she managed the farm herself and “in all her letters to her husband and her children, there is not one word of regret at his course or pity for herself, left alone to bear the double duties incumbent upon her.”¹⁰

Endnotes

¹ “Women Heroes,” WallBuilders.
² John Sanderson, Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence (Philadelphia: R. W. Pomeroy, 1824), V:189-375.
³ Henry Clinton Greene & Mary Wolcott Greene, The Pioneer Mothers of America, (NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1922), 3:159.
⁴ “Read, George,” ed. Dumas Malone, Dictionary of American Biography (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935), 15:422-424.
⁵ Greene & Greene, Pioneer Mothers, (1922), 3:211.
⁶ John Sanderson, Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence (Philadelphia: R. W. Pomeroy, 1824), IV:27.
⁷ Greene & Greene, Pioneer Mothers, (1922), 3:133.
⁸ “Stockton, Richard,” ed. Malone, DAB (1936), 18:45-46.
⁹ “Josiah Bartlett,” National Park Service, July 4, 2004.
¹⁰ Greene & Greene, Pioneer Mothers, (1922), 3:12-13.