Let’s Meet the Brave Women

Over the next few weeks, I am starting a series that will introduce some of the women I profile in “Tracing the Invisible Women Who Helped Birth Connecticut.”

Hannah (Spencer) Brainerd

Hannah Spencer was born 15 Apr 1640 in Lynn, MA to Jared and Hannah (Hills) Spencer. The family moved to Hartford, CT and in 1663/4 Hannah married Daniel Brainerd, Sr.

Factually Based Faux Quote

“I have lived a busy life and seen a lot of our new country. I remember how excited we were to leave Lynn and go to, Hartford, a new place in the wilderness where we could worship God in our way. The trip was long, tiring and sometimes frightening. I had to help Mother with the little ones. In Hartford, I married my fine husband Daniel who lives by God’s word and we moved again. We have eight healthy children. As this sickness wears me down, the older children manage the house and the younger children. May it be God’s will that I get well and take that burden from them.”

Hannah (Spencer) Brainerd died in 1691 when her youngest child was ten.

Next Week

Next week we find out what happens when, at the age of 20, Hannah broke an engagement.

Please comment if you’ve ever known a Spencer or a Brainerd.

Have We Come Too Far

As I surface from my research and writing about the seventeenth century, I listen to what is going on in today’s society. I think that the brave people who came to these shores and settled this country one town at a time would not be happy with the lack of leadership, the erosion of respect for each other, and the just plain greedy corruption of our government.

To begin I have to acknowledge that there was greed in the 1600s and the leaders chosen were from the wealthiest – sound familiar. There also was no equality for women. However, our foremothers were more comfortable in their skins than we women are today.

The correlations of struggle

Since my book, “Tracing the Invisible Women” is about the first women that walked our land, I am trying to find correlations between their lives of struggle and today’s challenges for women. We have all manner of machines to do our work for us. Washing machines do the laundry instead of a full day of having to boil the water outside and scrub the clothes by hand. We go to the shops and buy our clothes instead of carding, spooling, warping, spinning, knitting, weaving, sewing and the many other tasks it took to cloth a family.

There are, however, two ways I think the colonial women had it better than us.

A mission – a passion – a purpose

The pioneering women who helped settle this country lived with a purpose. We may not agree today that having as many children as possible to populate a new country for their faith was a reasonable mission but where would we be if they had not had this spiritual fervor. That, of course, is not all that they did. They helped build communities of people who took care of each other.

As I research the lives of these women, I recognize that they have descendants in every corner of our country today. That is quite a legacy.

Expectation – the drive to have

 Our foremothers were building a legacy for their faith and their only expectation was that God would smile on their efforts and they would multiply.

Conversely, our society today driven to possess, to own, is bankrupting itself. The expectations are so high that we SHOULD HAVE everything we want we have unfortunately reduced the pleasure in what we do have.

Do we have the answers?

The question is how can we stop ourselves from the rampant consumerism and be satisfied with less material goods and put our energies instead toward being involved in building communities.

Can we do it? Do you have any suggestions on how? I would love to hear them. Comment here, tweet me or find me on Facebook. Let’s start the discussion.

Would the Plymouth Colony Have Survived Without Women?

When I say I’m writing a book and start talking about my research on women’s history, people immediately start mentioning famous women.  They want to talk about Clara Barton, Mother Theresa, Ella Fitzgerald, Harriet Tubman, or Amelia Earhart. These women were wonderful and we should be proud of them. They opened doors and leveled the playing field for us by accomplishing great things.

Unsung Heroes

What about the unsung heroes --What about the women behind the scene, behind the man, behind the family, behind the community that do so much for others, should we not be honoring them? I am writing about the women who helped make it possible to settle Connecticut and for us to have a country today. You think that is too bold a statement? What if no women came here on the Mayflower and the Speedwell, and all the other ships that landed here in the 1600s? Would the Plymouth Colony have survived without women? It certainly wouldn’t have grown without their wombs to produce the children.

A Settlement of Men

Actually, there was one settlement that came after the Plymouth Colony and it was all men. Nathaniel Philbrick tells about it in Mayflower: A story of courage community and war. They were not family men and did not think about storing up food for the future. They lived for each day. Without women to garden, cook, make clothes, and everything else the women in the Plymouth Colony did, the men were lost on their own. They did not try to grow their own food, instead they stole from the Native Americans, which caused  violence. In the end, they perished. Some starved to death, others were killed by or went to live with the natives. I think a strong case can be made that if they had women with them there would have been more organization, more community and maybe the colony would have survived.

Valuable Diaries

Mayflower is a book every American should read. Philbrick’s research is extensive.  During his research, Philbrick had access to diaries of William Bradford, John Winthrop, and others that gave him insights into the temper of the period. We are fortunate today that many of these diaries have been printed and digitalized for Internet access. Unfortunately, there are few seventeenth century diaries by women. They didn’t have the time. Although most could read because it was required by the church that she read and teach her children to read the Bible. They didn’t, however, know how to write, which is evidenced by the fact they made a mark instead of a signature on legal papers.

I have always thought we do not honor enough the behind-the-scene people, who  help make things happen while others take credit. In the women’s magazine I published some years ago, we made it our mission to seek out unknown women and write about their everyday successes.

One of the reasons this project attracted me is how writers had totally ignored these women. Every time I looked at all the books written about the prominent men,  I could not help but question how prominent  they would have been if their wives had not performed as expected. The wives made their clothes befitting their positions, took care of their homes and children, and behaved according to the strict tenets of the community, making the men look good.

Who Were These Invisible Women that Helped Settle Connecticut?

One of the reasons I took on the task of writing about the history of the women of East Haddam was because they were invisible. Writing about invisible people is an exciting challenge.  Some of the families that I am researching came from Massachusetts to Hartford in the Connecticut Colony. For some of these women, there is absolutely no information at all on the local level. That means my research has to extend to other parts of New England.

Were There Horses?

When we think of Native Americans, we visualize them on horses but the New England tribes did not have horses at that time. The tribes in the plains had horses given to them by the Spaniards. Most sources say the New England colonists did not have horses. Yet, in John Winthrop’s letter to his wife during his 1630 voyage, he said they had horses abroad, along with the cows, sheep and swine.

I researched wills to see if any of these early colonists bequeathed horses and I could find none in the families I’m researching. It is a reasonable conclusion that the main group of colonists that I am following as they traveled from the Boston area to settle Hartford, Haddam and East Haddam did not have horses. In the book, I detail the facts to back up this supposition. Since the colonists did not have horses, they had to carry everything they needed to start a village. They were on a mission to start communities and “people” the land. 

 

For the women, this trek from Boston to Hartford was just as difficult (if not more so) than for the men at their sides. It was an arduous trip for all. Often the women had small children to carry and sometimes were carrying one in their womb as well. Yet, when you look at the Founders Statue in Hartford or the list of founders for Haddam and East Haddam, all you will see are the names of the men. Of course, that is how it was at that time. Now we need to change that and make these women visible.

Who Were They?

Who were these invisible women?  Mehitable (Spencer) Cone – 12 children, Hannah (Hills) Spencer – 13 children, Mary (Smith) Barnes – 8 children, Deborarh (Spencer) Hungerford – 9 Children, Sarah (Hungerford) Cone – 11 children, and many more. In the book, I profile approximately 70 women.

We need to pay attention to the contributions of the women that made the completion of the colonists’ mission to populate the land possible by having 8 to 12 children. This allowed each family to have a bigger farm and get more land. This caused trouble a few years later but that is another story.

In the Connecticut Colony, the size of a man’s estate (being land) dictated his importance in the community. A woman’s womb was a valuable commodity for raising sons to settle more land. 

Women at Risk

Considering that childbirth was the biggest killer of women at the time means that these women were risking their lives, time after time, to help build the family’s estate, a community and a state.

Of course, while these women were carrying and delivering these babies and then taking care of them as babies, they were also making the cloth to make the family’s clothing, planting and weeding the garden, making candles so they had light, milking the cow so she would have cream to make cheese and butter. She also had to bake the bread and make the meals. Just writing this has made me tired.

We should honor these women and that is why I am writing about them so they will no longer be invisible. My goal is to give them a face and a voice by telling their stories.

Number Four of my 4-Pronged Research Plan

The last item of my research plan was to investigate what resources there are online. I was amazed at how much more there is available online than just five years ago when I started this project.

As I said before, many organizations are working at a fast pace to get much of their materials online and available to everyone. The Godfrey Library (Godfrey.org) in Middletown has a tremendous amount online and is putting more up every day. What you can access is dependent upon what level of membership you have but even at the lowest level, there is an incredible amount of information literally at your fingertips.

Another valuable online resource is Find a Grave (findagrave.com), and it is free. Hundreds of volunteers travel to different graveyards and record the information found on gravestones. Putting this research online is a great boon for people looking for their ancestors. If you are doing a family history or looking for an ancestor, try searching through the millions of grave records they have accumulated. That sounds like a difficult task but they have it so organized, it is not. Many family histories have to start with finding when the person died and working backwards with that information to find out more about the life of that person.

The Connecticut Historical Society (CHS.org) has a number of catalogs online, including manuscripts. They have a blog outlining some of the available manuscripts at manuscripts.wordpress.com. They are part of a collaborative digital collection found at www.cthistoryonline.org.

It is also possible to just Google a name. A word of caution though, what you will get may be helpful but these records need to be verified. These family histories put online by amateur genealogists are not always accurate. Some mistakes are so glaring that you cannot miss them. In one record I was researching, the person has one of their subjects being born and being married on the same day.

I have found though that they sometimes give me a clue that fits into my giant jigsaw puzzle. In one case, I thought the resource was all wrong but then realized there was a stepmother involved that I knew nothing about. Even if the rest of the record was wrong, this gave me a new avenue to follow. I see my whole project as one huge jigsaw puzzle with myriad little pieces that have to be found. Since I love puzzles, I enjoy this.

Number Two in 4-Pronged Research Plan

The second part of my research plan for my series of books, Herstory, Stories of the Women of East Haddam through the Centuries, was to look at what organizations there might be that would have some benefit to a historical writer. It is important to belong to organizations that bring like-minded people together so they can network and share information.

I immediately became a Godfrey Library Scholar (godfrey.org). Their wonderful library in Middletown is crammed full with historical research resources, especially for family and genealogy. They have volunteers who are working tirelessly to get more and more files online. By becoming a “scholar,” I not only support the organization but gain access to both the physical facility to draw help from, as well as their extensive online resources.

Another valuable group is the American Association for State and Local History (aaslh.org). Although this organization is national and more oriented to history professionals than to writers, their publications give a good overview of what is going on in the field. They have a local annual event with speakers that should be informative.

AASLH has a section on their website called “Hot Topics,” which is a great medium for keeping abreast of at-risk funding for libraries and museums. AASLH board members, who are on national boards and task forces, testify at governmental hearings when needed to support funding for organizations promoting preserving our history.

Another organization that is especially valuable to my project is the Connecticut Society of Genealogists (csginc.org). They provide information on all the facilities in the state that have genealogical holdings, where the Family History Centers are located, and what local facilities have one-of-a-kind resources such as manuscripts, diaries and account books listed by town. They generously provide telephone numbers and addresses. CSG also has a number of informative publications, which can be read in printed form or online. Members have more access to the content and features on the website.

Then there is the Association for the Study of Connecticut History (asch.ccsu.edu). As its name states, ASCH addresses a vital need by promoting the study of Connecticut history. ASCH publishes Connecticut History, the only journal dedicated expressly to the state’s history. It also publishes an informative newsletter. I am thrilled that ASCH has chosen me to be one of the presenters at their fall meeting in Nov. at Manchester Community College. Synergy at work again, the theme this year is “Women in Connecticut.” It will be an honor to share my research at this meeting.

Developing a 4-Pronged Research Plan

I am a planner by nature so developing a research plan was top on my “to do” list when I decided to move ahead with the Herstory, Stories of the Women of East Haddam through the Centuries series. This is something I suggest anyone starting a big project take the time to do. Relying on my journalistic background I saw a research plan as basic who, what, where and when.

The 4 points of my research plan were facilities, organizations, reference books and the Internet. Today I will talk about the facilities that have resources available to me.

For researching local family histories and women in history, you have to start with libraries and   historical societies that have family/local histories and genealogies in their collections. For instance, my series of books is about the women of East Haddam, CT. That does not mean my research will be restricted to East Haddam. Especially when you are talking about the seventeenth century, I have to cast a wider net than that. Especially considering I am writing about the female unsung heroes that no one has written about or in most cases paid any attention to in print.

I put together a list of the top 10 resource facilities I would want to visit.

Rathbun Library History Room  (rathbunlibrary.blogspot.com)

East Haddam Historical Society

Haddam Historical Society (haddamhistory.org)

Godfrey Memorial Library (godfrey.org)

Middlesex County Historical Society (middlesexhistory.org)

The Connecticut Historical Society (chs.org)

Connecticut Society of Genealogists (csginc.org)

Hartford Public Library History Room (hartfordlibrary.org/localhist.htm)

Connecticut State Library and Archives (cslib.org/archives)

Meriden Public Library History Room (meridenlibrary.org/adult/meriden-history)

Each of them has materials that pertain to the settlers of East Haddam. Names like Cone, Hungerford, Brainerd, Lord, Chapman, Gates, Olmstead and Spencer to name just a few.

The next step was to make a list of telephone numbers, addresses and contact person for each place. Then I was ready to start making appointments. It is always a good idea to call and make an appointment so the individuals you will be meeting with have an idea of what information you are seeking.

My plan was to start close to home at the Rathbun Library History Room. Rathbun has such extensive local history records that I could just hole up there for months. I will detail my experiences at each of these resources in later posts.

Next post, I will talk about some of the organizations I have joined, and why that is important.