I have been swept along by life’s storms, made to choose my life’s path on the wing, often with few options. As I look back I see that even when I thought I was choosing, often I elected merely to survive. I have struggled with a natural tendency to anger and to fabricate tales, but my heart was ever watchful for rightness and goodness, and love. There are those like my Cullah, who stand stalwart without lies, without anger, against the gale of life, and I honor them. I was placed on this shore in a time that has changed, I think, the world—at least if I am to believe what I heard and read when at last our Declaration was read from an upper window in Boston. Perhaps, along with hundreds of other women in this place during this momentous time, I have made a difference. Perhaps I kept some from freezing or starving. The hidden room and unseen stairs in this house have been a respite place for one runaway slave and her babe on their way north.
I am my own tapestry, then, made as I could for myself. Some holes in my fabric have been made by others, some torn by chance. Missing threads in the weave represent all those I have loved who died so long before me. Sunshine and apple blossoms tint it, along with sea foam and stars. Dark places mark where tears dyed the cloth, darker still, the stains of blood, all of it laced with the crystal blue of Meager Bay on a bright day and a single strand of ruby the color of the ring of my mother’s that I still have. The strong, even places consecrate moments where love outmatched loss, and where great good came from sacrifice. When it was finished, it was not what I expected it to be. I had once imagined to live as a delicately fashioned bolt of fine silk of high and gentle quality, perfect but for a minor slub or two. The life I have lived was not a lady’s silk but a colorful, natty tapestry of embroidery, wincyette, lace, and motley. Many men I have known in my life will be written about and remembered for the deeds they have done these many years since the colonies loosed their bonds. My story is the story of other women like me, women who left no name, who will not be remembered or their deeds written, every one of them a restless stalk of flax who lent fiber to the making of a whole cloth, every one of them a thread, be it gold, dapple, crimson, or tarred. Let this tapestry be a record, then, that once there lived a woman, and that her name was Resolute.
GLOSSARY AND PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
Bewend (bee-WEND)—to berate
Blithest (BLEYE-thest)—loveliest Eadan (AEH-dan)
Flawy (FLAH-wee)—flowery
Gamock (GAMM-ock)—fool, silly person Gree-a-tuch (GREE-ah-touch)—a female child before baptism and bestowal of a name Gumboo (gum-BOO)—transliterated from Scots giumbhu: Bless me!
Hack-slaver (HACK-slah-ver)—a rogue Hasken (HAH-skuhn)
Hogshead (HOGS-head)—a barrel Johansen (yo-HAHN-sehn)
Lamont (Scots LAMB-int)—a Highland clan MacPherson (Mack-FAIR-sn)
MacLammond (Mack-LAMB-int)
Massapoquot (Mass-ah-POE-kwaht) Meager Bay, Jamaica—later changed to Montego Bay Mistick—old spelling of the town of Mystik, Massachusetts Mummers (MUM-ehrs)—traveling theatrical band of poets, musicians, and mimes Pasties (PASS-tees)—double-crusted pastries filled with meat and vegetable Patois (pah-TWAH)—combination of French, English, and one or more native tongues Sally—to commerce with, to venture, or to ambush Sclarty-paps (SLAHR-tee-paps)—slovenly housekeeper, lazy Scunging (SKUHN-jing)—dirty and unkempt Williwaw (WILL-ee-WAH)—a turbulent storm Wincyette (win-see-ETT)—cotton fabric with a raised nap on both sides
GAELIC CHARMS
FROM Carmina Gadelica (ca 1870)
Blessing the Loom
… Consecrate the four posts of my loom, Till I begin on Monday.
Her pedals, her sleay, and her shuttle, Her reeds, her warp, and her cogs, Her cloth-beam, and her thread-beam, Thrums and the thread of the plies.
Every web, black, white, and fair, Roan, dun, checked, and red,
Give Thy blessing everywhere, On every shuttle passing under the thread.
Thus will my loom be unharmed, Till I shall arise on Monday …
Blessing the Cloth
The shank of the deer in the head of the herring, in the tail of the speckled salmon.
May the man of this clothing never be wounded, may torn he never be;
What time he goes into battle or combat, May the sanctuary shield of the Lord be his.
This is not second clothing and it is not thigged, nor is it the right of sacristan or of priest.
Cresses green culled beneath a stone, and given to a woman in secret.
The shank of the deer in the head of the herring, in the tail of the speckled salmon.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War. New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 2000.
Belknap, Jeremy. The History of New Hampshire. Boston: Stephens, Ela & Wadleigh, 1784.
Bisset, Robert. The History of the Reign of George III to the Termination of the Late War. Philadelphia: Levis and Weaver, 1810.
Bourke, Angela. The Burning of Bridget Cleary. Middlesex, Harmondsworth: Penguin; New York: Viking, 2000.
Campbell, J. F. Popular Tales of the West Highlands, Orally Collected. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1858 to 1877.
Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica. Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1900.
Evans, Elizabeth. Weathering the Storm: Women of the American Revolution. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975.
Fischer, David Hackett. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Foster, William Henry. The Captors’ Narrative: Catholic Women and Their Puritan Men on the Early American Frontier. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003.
French, Allen. The Day of Concord and Lexington. Concord, Massachusetts, 1925.