“Not Without Peril”, written in 1943, is the story of Jemima Sartwell. Jemima was born in Groton, Massachusetts in 1724. She was younger than the Farnsworth brothers but she was born in the same town that they were born in. Jemima’s father built a fort between Northfield and Brattleboro, called Fort Sartwell. From Fort Sartwell, Jemima moved with her first husband, to a fort at the Great Meadow - what is now Putney, Vermont. When her first husband, William Phipps, was killed by Indians, she married Caleb Howe and spent some time with him at Fort Number 4. In 1755, Caleb was killed in an Indian raid, and Jemima and her children were captured and taken to Canada. The end of the French and Indian war saw Jemima and most of her children returned to the American colonies. They moved back to Fort Sartwell. At Fort Sartwell, Jemima married a man younger than her, Amos Tute. Jemima outlived her third husband and died in 1805 at the age of 81.
This book was a page turner. Jemima had such a hard life, yet she never gave up. I’m sure Allis took lots of liberties in fleshing out her story. I know there is only so much you can do with the information you get from primary resources. However, Allis brings Jemima to life in the pages of her books. On every page, there is a new danger or adventure as Jemima travels up and down the Connecticut River searching for safety and security, needing to feed and clothe her children while keeping them safe from Indian attack.
People talk about how things are changing so quickly in the new millenium. I agree, there have been many changes from when I was a child in the 60’s and 70’s. It is mind boggling, however, to think of the changes Jemima saw in her lifetime. When she left Groton, Massachusetts, Fort Sartwell was the last outpost of English civilization. Soon the Fort at Number 4 was the edge of the frontier, and Jemima was there. She lived part of her life being terrified that Indians were going to burst into her home and kill her. She was kidnapped and brought from Fort Sarwellt to Canada, where she lived among the Indians and the French, two cultures that were totally foreign to her. When she returned home to Fort Sartwell, she could finally live without fear of the Indians, only to deal with the upheaval of several changes of government, as her town changed from being under Massachusetts jurisdiction, New Hampshire jurisdiction, and finally New York jurisdiction. Through all the switching of governments, though, Jemima was a subject of the King of England. In her later life, Jemima became a citizen of the new United States of America, and a citizen of the State of Vermont. By then, growing towns lined both sides of the Connecticut River, where Jemima had traveled up and down the river in a canoe through uninhabited wilderness only decades earlier.
One of the things I liked best about this book was Jemima and Caleb’s attitude toward the river. At one point in the book, Jemima promises Caleb that she will keep herself and her children near “Big Ma”, which is what they called the Connecticut River. Maybe this is a total fiction by Allis, but if so, at least someone was thinking about the river that way in 1943. Allis’ first book, written in 1939, was called “The Connecticut River”. Allis was born in 1886 in Ludlow, Vermont and died in 1958 in New Haven, Connecticut.
“The Years of the Life of Samuel Lane” was about a man who lived in Stratham, New Hampshire. He was born in 1718, four years before Jemima Sartwell, and married his wife Mary the same year Stephen Farnsworth married Eunice. When he was married, Samuel had already been in business for several years after finishing an apprenticeship with his father. Samuel was a shoemaker. He would soon become a tanner, a farmer, and a surveyor as well. When he was married, he was already a homeowner and already owned several pieces of nice furniture. Samuel’s wife Mary brought many of the items she needed to set up housekeeping with her, as her marriage portion, given to her by her parents when she married. This contrast so starkly with Jemima Sartwell, who started her married life with the clothes on her back. She never really had a house of her own. She lived first in the fort at Great Meadow, the at the Fort at Number 4, and finally back at Fort Sartwell, which she took possession of after her father died.
It was easy to understand how Samuel became so prosperous so quickly. He had four businesses and he worked hard at them all. Samuel was a shoemaker and made shoes for the wealthy and elite of Strawberry Banke, as well as for the average citizens in his town of Stratham, New Hampshire. He had a tannery business, that he started when he realized that he was paying a lot of money to tanners to tan the leather he used to make shoes with, when he could tan it himself and turn more of a profit on shoes. Before long, he was tanning leather for other shoemakers to use. He was also a farmer, feeding his ever growing family from the food he grew and selling the surplus at the market at Strawberry Banke. Lastly, Samuel was a surveyor.
I originally bought this book because I wanted to know about surveying in the New Hampshire Wilderness during this time period. Samuel Lane didn’t survey in the Upper Valley, but he did get as close as Holderness. There are good descriptions of the actual process of surveying in the book, better than I could find on the internet. Samuel usually just surveyed for the people of his hometown, but in 1748, he agreed to “go into the woods”. His diary states that “this is the first time I ever Camp’d in the woods.” His life was a far cry from Jemima Sartwell’s, who spent most of her life traveling through the woods, often spending several nights in a row sleeping outside, especially when she was an Indian captive. We get the idea that Samuel was not in love with the experience of “camping in the woods”.
His first wilderness surveying trip took place in late November and early December. On the first few days the weather was pleasant, but the last two, in December, were cold and rainy. He found out he preferred cold and rainy December over the hot summer months, though. His next foray into the woods took place in the summer, and he came back so bitten on his face by mosquitoes that his family barely recognized him. From then on, Samuel refused to do any wilderness surveying except in October.
Interestingly enough, both “Not Without Peril” and “The Years of the Life of Samuel Lane” ended with the same type of observation. In “Not Without Peril”, elderly Jemima is given a coin minted in the newly formed United States of America. Allis says that “hard money meant nothing to Jemima”. She did not understand the value of currency, and preferred to take comfort in the security afforded by land, house and home. In “The Years of the Life of Samuel Lane, Samuel’s son Jabez inherits Samuel’s house and land. Unfortunately Jabez died quite soon after Samuel. The author says that there was $500 in bank stock in Jabez’s estate. Jabez intended for that money to support his wife for several years after his death. Jerald Brown says, “Such a financial vehicle was never employed by Samuel; his security rested in land and individuals.”
I would recommend both of these books to readers who like to read history. “Not Without Peril” is a novel based on the life of a real woman. You can order it from The Fort at Number 4. “The Years of the Life of Samuel Lane” is a nonfiction account of the life of a man who lived in Stratham, New Hampshire, based on his diary and account book. You can order it from many booksellers on the internet.
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