A Girl Called Samson (20)

June 23, 1777

Dear Miss Samson,

It is not for the man who has everything and wants more that we fight, but for the man who has nothing. In no place on earth can a man or woman who is born into certain circumstances ever hope to truly escape them. Our lots are cast from the moment we inhabit our mothers’ wombs, from the moment we draw breath. But perhaps that can change here, in this land.

Our lives are so short. Very little of what you or I do will be felt in this generation or even in the next. Your forefathers—such a pedigree you have—set foot on this continent more than 150 years ago. We will never know what it cost them to cross a sea toward a dream, yet here we are.

What will life look like 150 years from now? I suspect our descendants will take us for granted, just like we take our ancestors for granted. No one will remember John Paterson when that time comes. Even my children’s children will have no real knowledge of me or what I dreamed of, but God willing, they will reap the rewards of my efforts.

Many wonder what it is all for. I wonder what it is all for. And yet that truth, the truth of the ages, is that it is not for ourselves that we act. It is not our lives we are building, but the lives of generations that will come. America will be a beacon to the world—I believe that with all my heart—but that beacon is lit with sacrifice.

You should go to Lenox, to Paterson House. Elizabeth would welcome you. She calls you little sister. It is not Paris, but should you need a new frontier, you are welcome in our home. Two of my sisters and my mother live nearby—my beloved sister Ruth passed away last January—and it is a great comfort to me that they all have each other. As for me, I do not know when I will return. I hardly know what I have gotten myself into, and pray only for the strength to see it through.

John Paterson, Brigadier General

It was a speech so beautiful and impassioned that I wore it out with rereading and memorized whole passages, marveling endlessly that I’d even received such a communication. I suspected it was not so much a letter for me as it was a reminder to himself, as if John Paterson had needed to buoy himself up in a moment of frailty. It was his declaration to the world, and I’d simply been fortunate enough to read it.



All the best young men were gone, the educated and unlearned alike, and Middleborough had no one to teach the children their lessons. When I learned of the position, I volunteered, and Deacon and Mrs. Thomas vouched for my abilities.

“She knows much of the Bible by heart and reads and writes like a true scholar,” Deacon Thomas attested, and I was given the position, though my compensation was limited to the generosity of the families I served.

“We will consider more pay when you have proven yourself,” the local magistrate said, and I agreed, though I never saw a single shilling from him in the time I taught in the one-room schoolhouse near the Third Baptist Church.

We practiced our letters, did our figures, and made a study of the maps in our possession. It was not a Yale education, but I didn’t do too badly, and I had only to level my “fearsome” gaze on the children and they did as they were instructed, for the most part.

I had inherited all Reverend Conant’s books, and I was generous with them, but the children—I was glad to see almost as many girls as boys—weren’t ready for Shakespeare. I told them the stories instead, reading sections and adding my own narrative.

We had arm wrestles and footraces at recess, and I did not let any of them best me. It was not dignified, but the boys were quite impressed and the little girls delighted.

I dedicated a small portion of our time each day to learning sundry things: tying knots and learning stitches and identifying the local flora and fauna. An education was about more than reading and arithmetic. It was about wonder too, and becoming able and useful people.

I told the children they need not enjoy or be good at everything, though I felt a right hypocrite, given that I had always demanded excellence from myself in all things. There were no lessons or assignments tailored to just the boys or only the girls. All my instruction was for every child, and surprisingly, there was very little resistance, even from the parents.

Perhaps they had low expectations of the female schoolteacher. Perhaps they knew it was only temporary, and when the war ended and life “returned to normal” I would be gone. But “normal” changed, and though I was the first female schoolteacher in Middleborough, I doubted I would be the last. It only took one person to climb a mountain or reach a summit before others followed and sought new heights.

To Elizabeth I wrote:

I am finally attending school, a place so long denied me, and I am ecstatic. It is only in the winter months for a few hours a day, and I am still able to do my weaving and assist the Thomases in the evenings and in the early mornings before school starts.

Jeremiah is the oldest of my students, and it is a joy to have him there, grinning at me from the back row. I don’t know how long he’ll attend. He is aching to join the fight, and I have no doubt that when he is of age, he will go as all the others have done, though I am praying he doesn’t. I will miss him too much.

Teaching has helped to ease my restlessness and given me purpose. I am striving to be a Proverbs 31 woman, as you are, but Romans 12:2 is more to my liking: “And be not conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

I fear I will be conformed to my very small world forever, but perhaps the boundaries are not as rigid or unforgiving as I once believed. It will not come as a surprise to you that I am enjoying pushing up against them.