Music For Our Souls - Joseph M. Scriven - "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"

 

THE HYMN

One of the best things I was taught growing up—in school, no less—was that Jesus was my friend. Not only did he know everything I did, thought, said, heard, and felt, but He knew my deepest troubles and sorrows. We learned this hymn in grade school, and it is one of many that have stayed with me through the decades.

Some weeks ago, I found it coming to mind in the wee hours of the morning, and the very next day we sang about the friendship God offers us through Jesus our Savior in our Sunday morning church service. We hadn't sung it in AGES!

I felt God using the hymn to speak to my heart, and of course, His timing was perfect to meet my need.

Later, I learned that there’s an interesting story to share about the life of the Hymn’s writer, Joseph Scriven. First, enjoy and sing along with this lovely acoustic version:

SCRIVEN'S STORY

Joseph Scriven was born at Ballymoney Lodge, Banbridge, County Down, Northern Ireland, on September 10, 1819, the son of Captain John Scriven of the Royal Marines and Jane Medlicott, sister of a Wiltshire Vicar, Rev. Joseph Medlicott whom her son was named after. Having come from a comfortably well-off family, Joseph was educated at Trinity College in Dublin and Addiscombe Military Academy near London.

Joseph Medlicott Scriven

During his years at the academy, Joseph came under the influence of the Plymouth Brethren, a fundamentalist group that rejected teachings of most mainline denominations of the day, believing strongly in the “priesthood of all believers” as spoken of in 1 Peter 2:5-9. They also believed in earnestly living out a life of Christian service.

Scriven graduated in 1842 and planned to marry the following year. Tragically, on the night before he was to be married, his fiancée accidentally drowned.

In 1844, at the age of 25, Scriven felt God was calling him to serve in Canada. He migrated but became ill after only being there a short while before returning to his homeland. Nevertheless, he eventually did make Canada his permanent home, coming back to live there in 1847.

Pray Without Ceasing

The beginning lyrics of his most famous hymn came in a letter he wrote to encourage his mother in 1855, after learning she was gravely ill. He had been living in the home of the Pengellys, in Bewdley Ontario, where he was engaged as a private tutor. There he penned his mother a poem of only two verses which he then titled after the entirety of 1 Thessalonians 5:17, which says, “Pray without ceasing.”

He also became engaged to the Pengelly’s niece, Eliza Roche. Scriven encouraged her to be baptized by immersion. The baptism was performed in April, 1860, in Rice Lake. If you know anything about northern climes, April is a very chilly month, still torn between winter and spring. Eliza developed pneumonia and died. Scriven was so grieved by her death, that he left teaching.

Nevertheless, he lived out the next twenty-five years fulfilling his calling to Christian service by performing hundreds of acts of charity. He was known to give his clothing to the needy as well as giving money and his own labor. He was sometimes seen walking the streets of Port Hope, where he lived during the summer months of the year, carrying a saw and sawhorse. He cut wood for the destitute, deliver milk for his landlady, and care for the sick without payment.

Scriven always shared his faith and what drove him to carry out such Christian principles. He could quote scripture for any occasion, and he even preached on Port Hope’s business thoroughfare.

In 1869 Scriven published a collection of 115 Hymns and other verses which did not include "What a friend".

It was in the Sackville home in Bewdley, where he spent his winters, that he wrote the rest of the words to his famous hymn. His hymn was published abroad and in the Port Hope Evening Guide shortly before his death in 1866, although publication doesn’t appear to have been his aim.

As it turned out, Joseph Scriven died at the Sackville home under, what some have called, mysterious circumstances in 1886. He had fallen very ill with a fever, and brought to the Sackville home to recover. The night had grown sultry. At some point during that long, hot night, Joseph M Scriven drowned. He was sixty-six.

He may have gone down to the nearby lake to cool down, or even to get a drink of cold water from the spring. His friend testified:

"We left him about midnight. I withdrew to an adjoining room to watch and pray. You may imagine my surprise and dismay when upon visiting his room I found it empty. All search failed to find a trace of the missing man, until a little after noon his body was discovered in the nearby river, lifeless and cold in death."

He was buried next to his second fiancé in her family cemetery near Bewdley, overlooking the beautiful lake. He left behind one of the world’s most beloved hymns and a legacy of Christian service toward others.

A tall obelisk was built upon his grave with the words from the song and the following inscription:

This monument was erected to the memory of Joseph M. Scriven, B.A., by lovers of his hymn, which is engraved hereon, and is his best memorial.

Born at Seapatrick, Co. Down, Ireland, 10 Sept. 1819, emigrated to Canada 1844. Entered into rest at Bewdley, Rice Lake, 10 August 1886, and buried here.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

Now that I know about the life and hardships Scriven, I am even more deeply touched when I sing this marvelous hymn.

What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer!

Oh, what peace we often forfeit,

Oh, what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer!

Have we trials and temptations?

Is there trouble anywhere?

We should never be discouraged—

Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Can we find a friend so faithful,

Who will all our sorrows share?

Jesus knows our every weakness;

Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy-laden,

Cumbered with a load of care?

Precious Savior, still our refuge—

Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?

Take it to the Lord in prayer!

In His arms He’ll take and shield thee,

Thou wilt find a solace there.

Blessed Savior, Thou hast promised

Thou wilt all our burdens bear;

May we ever, Lord, be bringing

All to Thee in earnest prayer.

Soon in glory bright, unclouded,

There will be no need for prayer—

Rapture, praise, and endless worship

Will be our sweet portion there.

If you enjoy these histories of famous hymns, don't miss Cindy Huff's April post: "Jesus Loves Even Me" from the Pen of P.P. Bliss

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The Angel and the Sky Pilot is a Selah Award finalist

in the novella category!

Meet Everett Shepherd, a man with a past, called of God to the lumberjacks in the wilds of northern Minnesota, at the turn of the 20th century.

“A preacher!” The guy nearly shouted. “You hear that, Joe?

We got us a preacher all the way up here.”

A wiry man with scraggly gray whiskers, who must be Joe,

sniffed. “I reckon they got to find a man wherever he goes. Can’t

leave well enough alone.”

Don't miss this rollicking story along with three other stellar novellas of first-time preachers in the Courting the Country Preacher historical collection. Also on Kindle Unlimited and Audible.

4.4 Stars on Goodreads!

Music For Our Souls - Life-Changing Hymns of Isaac Watts

Where would we be without music? When God created us with the desire for song, to invent an endless array of instruments and rhythms, He knew that such a gift would speak to us in a million ways, and that sometimes we would actually need music in order to speak the deep things of our hearts. We use music to express praise, joy, sorrow, longing, hope, blessing--pretty much every emotion we can name can also be expressed with music. There many verses of Scripture which tell us the benefits of music and list occasions for singing or "making melody". Ephesians 5: 18-20 says it most clearly.

"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Oftentimes, when I'm working on writing a novel, a hymn or other piece of music will pop into my thoughts that helps me to express the heart of my story--or better said--the heart of my characters. And why not? Since music offers such vitality of spirit to our lives, wouldn't it imbue a character's life also?

In my recent release, Courting the Country Preacher - Four Stories of Faith, Hope, and Falling in Love, my hero Everett Shepherd (The Angel and the Sky Pilot) preaches a sermon to a rough and tumble logging crew in which he uses the lyrics of a beautiful hymn to express what God did for him. Overcome with humble passion for Christ's transforming power, Isaac Watt's hymn At Calvary describes Everett's own conversion story.

Isaac Watts himself, was the author of hundreds of hymns, some of which the only record is the title, but many others we still enjoy today. He was born July 17, 1674 in Southampton, Hampshire, England, the son of a schoolmaster. He was already writing verses at seven years old. At the age of sixteen, he became a student in the non-conformist academy of an independent minister, Reverend Thomas Rowe. Watts preached his first sermon when he was 24 years old, and went on to become a pastor in London in 1702.

His first published hymn, written at age twenty, is said to have been composed for religious worship. It was titled Behold the Lamb. While Watts's writings included sermons, treatises, poems, and hymns, and he developed a very large collection, it was for the writing of psalms and hymns that he is best known. His published hymns alone number more than eight hundred.

Watts died November 25, 1748. He was known by his friends as a man of great learning and piety, with generousness and largeness of heart. He was buried in a Puritan resting place at Bunhill Fields, but a monument was erected in his honor in Westminster Abbey. Many other monuments have been erected this famous Christian writer over the centuries. 

But it might be said that the best monument of all, is the monument raised in song whenever we sing or play one of his many rich hymns.

Photo: Isaac Watts, Westminster Abbey Memorial, Wikipedia Commons (14GTR)

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Read into the New Year with

Courting the Country Preacher!

Four Stories of Faith, Hope, and Falling in Love

Meet Everett and Angeline in The Angel and the Sky Pilot

Can a new preacher earn the respect of hard-living men—and still respect himself—after a trader's daughter joins the all-male congregation?

HAPPY NEW YEAR, AND HAPPY READING!

How Old Were They? Experience and our Nation's Founding Fathers

 

There's an awful lot of fuss going on about who the incoming president is selecting for his cabinet. While various degrees of mud is dug up and slung, one of the biggest and loudest complaints by the opponents of his choices has been that they are either too young or lack experience, which seems to mean they aren't politician enough. The old guard sure doesn't like being shaken up!

So, let's take a look back at the ages of our founding fathers when they wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence. Let's think about their experience or lack thereof. Consider that most of them weren't politicians at all, but farmers, soldiers, lawyers, printers, and usually held more than one type of vocation.

 

Finally, let us ask ourselves whether or not they knew what they were about. I say that rhetorically, as I believe they clearly did know what they were about, and we've now 250 years behind us as the greatest nation in the world to prove it.

The Declaration Committee, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, John Adams - Library of Congress

HOW OLD WERE THEY?

Signatories of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, by Age Group

20s and 30s: 

Thomas Lynch, Jr., 26
Edward Rutledge, 26
Thomas Heyward, Jr., 30
Benjamin Dr. Rush, 30
Elbridge Gerry, 32
Thomas Jefferson, 33
Thomas Stone, 33
James Wilson, 33
Hooper William, 34
Arthur Middleton, 34
Samuel Chase, 35
William Paca, 35
George Walton, 35
John Penn, 36
George Clymer, 37
Thomas Nelson, Jr., 37
Charles of Carrollton, Carroll, 38
Francis Hopkinson, 38
Carter Braxton, 39

40s:

John Adams, 40
John Hancock, 40
William Floyd 41
Button Gwinnett, 41
Francis Lightfoot Lee, 41
Thomas McKean, 42
Robert Morris, 42
George Read, 42
Henry Richard Lee, 44
Samuel Huntington, 45
Richard Stockton, 45
Robert Treat Paine, 45
William Williamson, 45
Josiah Bartlett, 46
George Ross, 46
Joseph Hewes, 46
William Whipple, 46
Caesar Rodney, 47
William Ellery, 48
Oliver Wolcott, 49

50s:

Abraham Clark, 50
Benjamin Harrison, 50
Lewis Morris, 50
George Whythe, 50
Lyman Hall, 52
John Morton, 52
Samuel Adams, 53
John Witherspoon, 53
Roger Sherman, 55
James Smith, 57

60s+

Philip Livingston, 60
George Taylor, 60
Matthew Thornton, 62
Francis Lewis, 63
John Hart, 65
Stephen Hopkins, 69

Benjamin Franklin, 70

As to their backgrounds, there were merchants, shippers (including a sea captain), farmers, at least one printer, one iron master, and doctors. While some of them were land owners and landed gentry, one of them came to America as an Indentured servant.

Many were trained in the law, but did not all become lawyers. Also, many were trained in theology, and four became ministers. Although there was one Catholic and a few Deists in the group, nearly all of them were Protestants.

Only Samuel Adams pursued politics as a vocation.

To satisfy our curiosity, let's take a look too at the signers of the Constitution, eleven years later.

Signatories of the U.S. Constitution, Sept. 17, 1787, by Age Group

20s and 30s:

Jonathan Dayton, 26

Richard Dobbs Spaight, 29

Charles Pinckney, 29

Abraham Baldwin, 32
Alexander Hamilton, 32

Rufus King, 32

Nicholas Gilman, 32

David Brearly (Brearley), 32

James McHenry, 33

Jacob Broom, 35

Gouverneur Morris, 35

James Madison, Jr., 36

Jared Ingersoll, 37

William Few, 39

40s:

Gunning Bedford, Jr., 40
William Paterson (Patterson), 41

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 41

Thomas Fitzsimons (FitzSimons; Fitzsimmons), 41

Pierce Butler, 43

Thomas Mifflin, 43

Richard Bassett, 45

James Wilson, 45

John Langdon, 46

John Rutledge, 48

Nathaniel Gorham, 49

George Clymer, 49

50s:

Hugh Williamson, 51

Robert Morris, 53

John Dickinson, 54:

George Read, 54
John Blair, 55

George Washington, 55

Daniel Carroll, 57

60s+
William Samuel Johnson, 60

William Livingston, 63

William Blount, 63

Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, 64 (approximately)
Roger Sherman, 66

Benjamin Franklin, 81

I find the youth of our forefathers amazing to consider. It really makes one pause to think about the value and what kinds of "experience" belong to great achievements. 

So don't let the white wigs fool you! Think of a 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson drafting our marvelous Declaration!

From the Library of Congress view:

Thomas Jefferson's Rough Draft of the Constitution of the United States

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Courting the Country Preacher is almost a month old! I am grateful for every one of you who have read and reviewed our sweet stories of new preachers gaining their first pastoring experiences--and finding love.

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Heroines of the Frontier, Part 6 - Women Who Were Pioneers of the Gospel / Jerusha Kirkland

In the annals of American history, of the women who proved themselves brave beyond the pale, the efforts of the women whom God chose to come alongside their husbands to both live out and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ were among the most courageous. One first thinks almost naturally of the famous missionaries to Oregon, Dr. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, and with them Mr. and Mrs. Spaulding. HHH blogger tells Narcissa's story of bravery, fortitude, and heroism in spreading God’s Word in a post here: An Extraordinary Woman. These early western missionaries traversed wide prairies, unimaginable mountain peaks, and raging waters, to bring comfort, medical aid, and the Good News to the indigenous peoples in the forest regions along America's northwestern coast. Others followed them. Stalwart men and brave women who shed their comfortable lives for the sake of aiding their husbands to reach the lost.

But before them were the resolute Moravians, whose missionaries' wives united with their husbands in arduous labors in the wilderness, and their kind offices and gentle ways did much to render the missionary work entirely effectual. They learned native languages, tended the sick, comforted the mothers, and themselves suffered from want. (HHH blogger Denise Weimer has written stories about their efforts in some of her books.)

And apart from them, when the colonies were shortly to embark on a great separation from old England, God called his servant Samuel Kirkland to the deep forests of upper New York where he was quickly adopted into a tribe of Seneca, one of the Iroquois nations. There he worked and taught the Gospel, while also learning several of the Indian languages. His story is a fascinating one, and you can read about it in J.M. Hochstetler's post right here.

Reverend Kirkland had been involved with ministry among the Oneida Indians for some time, when he returned to Connecticut and married Jerusha Bingham in 1769. She was a devout young woman, being a niece of Eleazer Wheelock, D. D., himself a successful laborer in the Indian missionary work. Jerusha (sometimes called Jemima) entered enthusiastically into the plans of her husband Samuel. Shortly after her marriage, she accompanied him to his post of duty in the wilderness near Fort Stanwix— now Rome.

This was literally on the frontier, in the midst of a dense forest which extended for hundreds of miles in every direction, and was the abode of numerous Indian tribes, some of which were hostile to the white settlers. Their forest-home was near the "Council House" of the Oneidas— in the heart of the forest. There, the devoted couple, alone and unaided, commenced their joint missionary labors. The gentle manners and the indomitable courage and energy of Mr. Kirkland, were nobly supplemented by the admirable qualities of his wife. It was said of her:

“With the sweetness, gentleness, simplicity, and delicacy so becoming to woman under all circumstances, were blended in her character, energy that was unconquerable, courage that danger could not blench, and firmness that human power could not bend.” *

History also notes that she also faithfully discharged her duties as a mother. One of her sons rose to eminence and became President of Harvard College.

While prior to his marriage, Mr. Kirkland made his home and pursued his missionary labors at the Council House, in 1772, he purchased a home in Stockbridge Massachusetts for Mrs. Kirkland and their children. He still continued to preach and teach at the Council House, addressing the Indians in their own language, which both he and his wife had learned fluently. 

Among Kirkland's many Oneida converts to Christianity was the Oneida chief Skenandoah,
who lived at Oneida Castle.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Kirkland visited the wigwams in the woods around her home and instructed the Indian mothers and children, who in turn flocked to her house where she ministered to their bodily and spiritual wants. These were her chosen pupils. Seated in circles on the grassy ground beneath the spreading arches of giant oaks and maples, they listened to her teachings, and learned from her lips the wondrous story of Christ, who gave up his life on the cross that all tribes and peoples of mankind might live through Him. She prayed for and sang with them in the musical tongue of the Oneidas, with the psalms and hymns which she had taught.

The effect Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland wrought among the Oneida was nothing less than a well-ordered community in the wilderness, and many souls were gathered into the fold of Christ. During the years of her residence and labors among the Oneidas, Jerusha won many hearts by her kind deeds as a nurse and medical benefactor to the native men and their wives and children.

She thus demonstrated the exemplary doctrines which she taught. Both she and her husband gained a wide influence among the Indians of the region. They had the distinction of being recommended by the Continental Congress, as having adapted to labor among the Native Americans, and as alone able to preserve the neutrality of the Oneidas toward the Revolutionary War, many of whom, when it became necessary, they were able to win over to the patriot cause.

Jerusha Kirkland rests in Hamilton College Cemetery, Clinton New York.
She died January 23, 1788 at the age of 44.

*William Worthington Fowler. Woman on the American Frontier / A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic" (Kindle Locations 4492-4498). Kindle Edition.

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NEW BOOK RELEASE!

In the spirit of those who have spread the Gospel to regions beyond, it's time to announce the release only three days from now (November 1, 2024) of Courting the Country Preacher, 4 Stories of Faith, Hope, and Falling in Love. That gives a couple days to get the pre-order price guarantee and hurry it along to your mailbox.

Courting the Country Preacher introduces readers to unseasoned ministers of the Gospel and the women anxious to come alongside them, both in ministry . . . and in love. 

Heroine's of the Frontier, Part 5 - Women Who Were Parted Forever / Frances Slocum, Wyoming's Missing Child

I remember when my teacher read Little House in the Big Woods to my third grade class. Of course, we were gripped by Laura Ingalls Wilder's enthralling story of life in Wisconsin's big woods. It was one of the first stories in which I was caused to consider what it meant for pioneers to leave their homes and families and likely never see them again. Letters might be sent once or twice a year, if possible, but in all actuality, ties might be forever cut when a man decided to move his family to a new property or across the ocean of prairie, whether in search of land, freedom, or an elusive wealth.

I even wonder about the people who first settled the farm where I live. They were immigrants from Czechoslovakia. Their newspapers from home were stuffed in the walls of our porch for insulation. Did they see some of their relatives again before they passed on, or were newspapers and letters their only connection to their old country? And where did their children go, those who were raised here on this ground? We only know of one, the youngest, who eventually moved to Maine.

Then there were those pioneers who had to survive against starvation, fires, raids, illness--entirely alone. They had to do the best they could, whether covering themselves with dirt in a tilled field to escape a prairie fire, hiding in a well to escape raiders, walking for miles to find their way out of the wilderness, or treating their own illnesses with whatever they had on hand. I can't even imagine the trials.

And there were those whose foray into the wilderness brought them to their journey's end in ways they never could have anticipated. Here is one such story.

Wyoming's Missing Child - Frances Slocum 

The Capture of Frances Slocum (Internet Archives Book Image)

The Slocum family were Quakers who emigrated from Rhode Island to the Wyoming Valley in eastern Pennsylvania in 1777. They settled on the edge of the wilderness near Wilkes-Barre with their four children ages 13, 9, 5, and a, trusting that the Quakers' peaceable relations with the natives would keep them safe. However, on November 2nd in 1778, while Mr. Jonathan Slocum was away, three Delaware Indians attacked the family farm and carried off Frances Slocum, age five, her younger brother Ebenezer, and Wareham Kingsley, a young boy whose family was living with the Slocums at the time. Ebenezer was released, but both Frances and Wareham were carried away, while Frances's mother begged for her release. The last Mrs. Slocum saw of her child was likely a tearful glance as she cried out, arms outstretched. After that, Mrs. Slocum never saw Frances again, although she never gave up hoping for her return.

Over the following years, her family continued the search for their missing sister. Her brothers traversed the forests from the Susquehanna to the Great Lakes and even into the wilds of Canada hoping for some shred of evidence that their sister was still alive, but to no avail. Even when, by treaty, the Indians were made to return their captives, Frances was never numbered among them. Eventually, they began to believe that she had not survived her captors or their harsh lifestyle in the wilderness.

It turned out they were wrong. The Delaware had given young Frances to a childless Delaware chief and his wife, who raised her as their own child and named her Weletasash. Frances grew and assimilated into her adoptive family. She was married for a brief period to a Delaware man, but when she suffered domestic violence at his hand, she returned to her Delaware parents. 

At some point she encountered a wounded Miami man while traveling through the forest. With her parents' assistance, she brought him to their village, where he remained with them and regained his health. His name was She-pan-can-ah, known as Deaf Man to the white men because of his deafness. Frances eventually married him, and the couple had two boys, who died young, and two girls. They also moved to the Mississinewa Valley of north-central Indiana.

Nearly six decades passed, when one day Colonel George Ewing, an Indian trader fluent in Miami, stopped for the night at the double cabin of an elderly Miami woman and her extended family in Deaf Man's Village. During Ewing's stay, the woman revealed that she born a white woman who was abducted as a child. She no longer spoke English but remembered a few things. One was that she'd come from a Quaker family somewhere near the Susquehanna River, and she recalled that their last name was Slocum. 

There were theories about why she chose to reveal her identity to Ewing. Ewing believed it was because she was old, and that she wished the truth to be known before she should die.

Ewing went away purposing to find the woman's white relation. After some time, with a letter the postmaster in Lancaster which was misplaced for a spell, a notice was published that finally found its way to a minister in the Wyoming Valley and eventually to Frances's brother Joseph. 

After making a number of arrangements, the siblings of Frances traveled to Indiana near present-day Peru to meet their long-lost sister. They were shocked at the sight of her, so changed. One brother cried out, "Oh! Is that my sister?"

Certain bits of information were exchanged through an interpreter, as Francine answered questions stoically, her two grown daughters beside her:

"What was your name when a child?"

"I do not recollect."

"What do you remember?"

"My father, my mother, the long river, the staircase under which I hid when they came."

"How cam you to lose your thumb-nail?"

"My brother hammered it off a long time ago, when I was a very little girl at my father's house."

"Do you know how many brothers and sisters you had?"

She then mentioned them, and in the order of their ages.

"Would you know your name if you should hear it repeated?"

"It is a long time since, and perhaps I should not."

"Was it Frances?"

At once a smile played upon her features, and for the moment there seemed to pass over the face what might be called the shadow of an emotion, as she answered, "Yes."

William Worthington Fowler. Woman on the American Frontier / A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic" (Kindle Locations 3050-3058). Kindle Edition.

Despite her siblings urging her, however, Frances rejected their with to return with them, leaving her Miami family behind. She no longer had any desire to go back to that long-forgotten life, but preferred to remain with her adopted people. 

Joseph Slocum and his two daughters returned a second time to try and convince her to come with them, but even so, Frances would not be moved. "I would feel like a fish out of water," she told the interpreter.

Frances did agree to allow her Slocum family's request to have her portrait painted however. 

Although Frances Slocum never returned to the home or family to whom she was born, she did leave a legacy. A short time after their reunion, the Miami tribes began to be forcibly removed to Kansas. Frances appealed for help from her white brothers, Joseph and Isaac Slocum, who with the aid of a lawyer in Peru, found sympathetic ears in Congress for an exemption for an old woman who had suffered much hardship and hoped to remain near both her families, native and white. So, three years after Frances's identity was revealed, Congress signed a treaty providing some of the Miami with land grants allowing them to remain in Indiana. While Frances herself was not allowed a land grant, the two daughters with whom she was living were, so she and her family were able to remain in Indiana. The members of her Miami village formed the nucleus of today's Miami Nation of Indiana.

Frances Slocum was parted from her family for nearly the whole of her life, but she was not forgotten. She died of pneumonia in 1847 in Deaf Man's village at 74 years of age and was buried beside She-pan-can-ah and their two sons. In 1965, during construction of a dam that would soon be used to flood the area, their graves were moved to Wabash, Indiana, and a monument was raised there in her honor.

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One more month to pre-order Courting the Country Preacher, Four Stories of Faith, Hope. . .and Falling in Love! (Releases November 1, 2024)

About the Collection

Being a preacher in the countryside is not for the faint of heart nor faith. Four inexperienced preachers face a myriad of challenges including those who figure a man of the cloth needs a wife. Can they meet the expectations of "helpful" congregants and be true to their hearts?

Convincing the Circuit Preacher by Carolyn Miller, Australia, 1863

Mail Order Minister by Kari Trumbo, South Dakota, 1889

The Mountie's Rival by Angela K. Couch, Canada, 1907

The Angel and the Sky Pilot by Naomi Musch, Minnesota, 1910

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Heroines of the Frontier, Part 5, Women Who Escaped Captivity / Anna Rouse Philbrick

 

In the course of American history, we've heard many frontier stories of capture by Indians as settlers moved across the land. Some captives survived and remained for their lifetimes with their Native American captors, even forming familial bonds. Others' lives ended violently, and still some others escaped. There were also those who were released and returned to their homes. 

Some names that come to the forefront of these stories, and whose names I've linked to further articles or video for more in-depth looks at their stories, include:

• Fanny Kelly, captured by Sioux and freed five months later. Her story has been written about previously, here on the HHH blog, by Janalyn Voight. Find it at the link. 
• Olive Oatman, the famous eleven-year-old girl abducted in the desert southwest and widely recognized by the blue tattoos she received from her captors. Years later, she was ransomed by the U.S. army in a story both complex and tragic.
• Mary Draper Ingles the renowned Virginian woman taken by the Shawnee after the Draper's Meadows Massacre in 1755 escaped her captors and walked five or six hundred miles across rivers and over mountains to get home. Her story has been immortalized in books and movies.
• Jenny Wiley (born Jean "Jenny" Sellards), in a very sad and tragic story, attempted to fend off an attack by eleven Indians from four different tribes, while at her cabin in Kentucky, but she was eventually captured along with two of her children who did not survive capture. She was held for eleven months until she escaped to Harmon's Blockhouse in another county. 
• Amanda "Anna" Bell Brewster was violently attacked and carried away by a raiding band of Sioux while working in a field at her Kansas home. On the journey, she was traded for horses to a passing group of Cheyenne. After Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer's 7th US Calvary attacked Chief Black Kettle's village, she was released by them.  
• Hannah Dustin was a Puritan woman from Massachusetts who is famously depicted in this painting, not only for her escape from her Abenaki captors during King William's War, but for killing and scalping her captors in the process. 

There are many other women who suffered captivity, some famous and some who merely line the annals of our nation's strange and often tragic history.

One such name you might not have heard of is that of Anna Rouse Philbrick, a young bride who went missing on her wedding day, when her home in the Michigan wilderness was attacked during Pontiac's War.

Here is her story as told in Woman on the Frontier, by William W. Fowler (Please note that this story is in the Public Domain, and it is written with some language we would not deem tasteful or would be considered biased today. I chose to leave it unedited or unredacted, in it's original form as the author intended.)

Anna Rouse Philbrick:

A STOLEN BRIDE

In the year 1762 the Great Pontiac, the Indian Napoleon of the Northwest, had his headquarters in a small secluded island at the opening of Lake St. Clair. Here he organized, with wonderful ability and secrecy, a wide-reaching conspiracy, having for its object the destruction of every English garrison and settlement in Michigan. His envoys, with blood-stained hatchets, had been despatched to the various Indian tribes of the region, and wherever these emblems of butchery had been accepted the savage hordes were gathering, and around their bale-fires in the midnight pantomimes of murder were concentrating their excitable natures into a burning focus which would light their path to carnage and rapine.

While these lurid clouds, charged with death and destruction, were gathering, unseen, about the heads of the adventurous pioneers, who had penetrated that beautiful region, a family of eastern settlers, named Rouse, arrived in the territory, and, disregarding the admonitions of the officers in the fort at Detroit, pushed on twenty miles farther west and planted themselves in the heart of one of those magnificent oak-openings which the Almighty seems to have designed as parks and pleasure-grounds for the sons and daughters of the forest.

Miss Anna Rouse, the only daughter of the family, had been betrothed before her departure from New York State to a young man named James Philbrick, who had afterward gone to fight the French and Indians. It was understood that upon his return he was to follow the Rouse family to Michigan, where, upon his arrival, the marriage was to take place.

In a few months young Philbrick reached the appointed place, and in the following week married Miss Rouse in the presence of a numerous assemblage of soldiers and settlers, who had come from the military posts and the nearest plantations to join in the festivities.

All was gladness and hilarity; the hospitality was bounteous, the company joyous, the bridegroom brave and manly, and the bride lovely as a wild rose. When the banquet was ready the guests trooped into the room where it was spread, and even the sentinels who had been posted beside the muskets in the door-yard, seeing no signs of prowling savages, had entered the house and were enjoying the feast. Scarcely had they abandoned their post when an ear-piercing war-whoop silenced in a moment the joyous sound of the revelers. The soldiers rushed to the door only to be shot down. A few succeeded in recovering their arms, and made a desperate fight. Meanwhile the savages battered down the doors, and leaped in at the windows. The bridegroom was shot, and left for dead, as he was assisting to conceal his bride, and a gigantic warrior, seizing the latter, bore her away into the darkness. After a short but terrific struggle, the savages were driven out of the house, but the defenders were so crippled by their losses and by the want of arms which the enemy had carried away, that it was judged best not to attempt to pursue the Indians, who had disappeared as suddenly as they came.

When the body of the bridegroom was lifted up it was discovered that his heart still beat, though but faintly. Restoratives were administered, and he slowly came back to life, and to the sad consciousness that all that could make life happy to him was gone forever.

The family soon after abandoned their new home and moved to Detroit, owing to the danger of fresh attacks from Pontiac and his confederates. Years rolled away; young Philbrick, as soon as he recovered from his wounds, took part in the stirring scenes of the war, and strove to forget, in turmoil and excitement, the loss of his fair young bride. But in vain. Her remembrance in the fray nerved his arm to strike, and steadied his eye to launch the bullet at the heart of the hated foes who had bereft him of his dearest treasure; and in the stillness of the night his imagination pictured her, the cruel victim of her barbarous captors.

Peace came in 1763, and he then learned that she had been carried to Canada. He hastened down the St. Lawrence and passed from settlement to settlement, but could gain no tidings of her. After two years, spent in unavailing search, he came back a sad and almost broken-hearted man.

Her image, as she appeared when last he saw her, all radiant in youth and beauty, haunted his waking hours, and in his dreams she was with him as a visible presence. Months, years rolled away; he gave her up as dead, but he did not forget his long-lost bride.

One summer's day, while sitting in his cabin in Michigan, in one of those beautiful natural parks, where he had chosen his abode, he heard a light step, and, looking up, saw his bride standing before him, beautiful still, but with a chastened beauty which told of years of separation and grief.

Her story was a long one. When she was borne away from the marriage feast by her savage captor, she was seen by an old squaw, the wife of a famous chief who had just lost her own daughter, and being attracted by the beauty of Miss Rouse, she protected her from violence, and finally adopted her. Twice she escaped, but was recaptured. The old squaw afterwards took her a thousand miles into the wilderness, and watched her with the ferocious tenderness that the tigress shows for her young. At length, after nearly six years, her Indian mother died. She succeeded then in making her escape, traveled four hundred miles on foot, reached the St. Lawrence, and after passing through great perils and hardships, arrived at Detroit. There she soon found friends, who relieved her wants and conveyed her to her husband, whom she had remembered with fondness and loved with constancy during all the weary years of her captivity. 

William Worthington Fowler. Woman on the American Frontier / A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic" (Kindle Location 2959). Kindle Edition.

 

Coming November 1st, from Barbour Fiction!

Courting the Country Preacher:

Four Stories of Faith, Hope. . .and Falling in Love

About the Collection

Being a preacher in the countryside is not for the faint of heart nor faith. Four inexperienced preachers face a myriad of challenges including those who figure a man of the cloth needs a wife. Can they meet the expectations of "helpful" congregants and be true to their hearts? 

Convincing the Circuit Preacher by Carolyn Miller, Australia, 1863

Mail Order Minister by Kari Trumbo, South Dakota, 1889

The Mountie's Rival by Angela K. Couch, Canada, 1907

The Angel and the Sky Pilot by Naomi Musch, Minnesota, 1910

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Heroines of the Frontier, Part 3 - Women Who Survived Alone / Mrs. Frank Noble

Occasionally, while mulling over a story or plot idea, I have to ask myself, Is such a situation plausible? Could that have really happened? This is especially true when I'm writing within historical constructs. Yet during research, I find that the saying is very often true--facts are stranger than fiction. If not strange, then at least more extreme.

I have a penchant for stories about individuals who are fending for themselves or warding off danger in the wilderness. Whether it's a childhood classic like Sign of the Beaver or My Side of the Mountain, or a biography of Simon Kenton or Daniel Boone, the bravery that it took to face great peril and personal challenge against the odds of nature or foes, compels me like no other story. Are you that way?

Not the least of these are the stories about the women who found themselves alone and struggling for survival against the odds. We might think of a novel like Follow the River by James Alexander Thom based upon the true story of a woman captured by the Shawnee after the Draper's Meadow Massacre in 1755, as she escapes, pregnant and alone, through hundreds of miles of wild country. 

History is fraught with hazards women had to conquer as they braved settlement on the fringe of the frontier. And yes, the stories, though incredible, are so very plausible. Still, I wonder if I (or my novel characters) could have survived:

• Fighting off wild animals
• Warding off an enemy attack
• Keeping husband or children alive through devastating illness
• Facing starvation
• Building a shelter in a storm
• Finding the way home

Throughout history, women have been defenders, protectors, and even providers for their homes and families. 

Photo credit Bluesnap on Pixabay

Last month I wrote about Hannah Hendee, a woman who rescued her own children and those of other families by repeatedly fording a river and standing up to the enemy who'd borne them away. Here's another true story of resilience and perseverance that's nearly unimaginable, seemingly implausible, yet resides within the annals of history, and is probably not so very unusual.

______________________________________________

(From Woman on the Frontier, by William Worthington Fowler. Public Domain.)

Mrs. Frank Noble

Mrs. Frank Noble, in 1664, proved herself worthy of her surname. She and her husband, with four small children, had established themselves in a log-cabin eight miles from a settlement in New Hampshire, and now known as the town of Dover.

Their crops having turned out poorly that autumn, they were constrained to put themselves on short allowance, owing to the depth of the snow and the distance from the settlement. As long as Mr. Noble was well, he was able to procure game and kept their larder tolerably well stocked. But in mid-winter, being naturally of a delicate habit of body, he sickened, and in two weeks, in spite of the nursing and tireless care of his devoted wife, he died. The snow was six feet deep, and only a peck of musty corn and a bushel of potatoes were left as their winter supply. The fuel also was short, and most of the time Mrs. Noble could only keep herself and her children warm by huddling in the bedclothes on bundles of straw, in the loft which served them for a sleeping room. Below lay the corpse of Mr. Noble, frozen stiff. Famine and death stared them in the face. Two weeks passed and the supply of provisions was half gone. The heroic woman had tried to eke out her slender store, but the cries of her children were so piteous with hunger that while she denied herself, she gave her own portion to her babes, lulled them to sleep, and then sent up her petitions to Him who keeps the widow and the fatherless. She prayed, we may suppose, from her heart, for deliverance from her sore straits for food, for warmth, for the spring to come and the snow to melt, so that she might lay away the remains of her husband beneath the sod of the little clearing.

Every morning when she awoke, she looked out from the window of the loft. Nothing was to be seen but the white surface of the snow stretching away into the forest. One day the sun shone down warmly on the snow and melted its surface, and the next morning there was a crust which would bear her weight. She stepped out upon it and looked around her. She would then have walked eight miles to the settlement but she was worn out with anxiety and watching, and was weak from want of food. As she gazed wistfully toward the east, her ears caught the sound of a crashing among the boughs of the forest. She looked toward the spot from which it came and saw a dark object floundering in the snow. Looking more closely she saw it was a moose, with its horns entangled in the branches of a hemlock and buried to its flanks in the snow.

Photo by Madhu Shesharam on Unsplash

Hastening back to the cabin she seized her husband's gun, and loading it with buckshot, hurried out and killed the monstrous brute. Skilled in woodcraft, like most pioneer women, she skinned the animal and cutting it up bore the pieces to the cabin. Her first thought then was of her children, and after she had given them a hearty meal of the tender moose-flesh she partook of it herself, and then, refreshed and strengthened, she took the axe and cut a fresh supply of fuel. During the day a party came out from the settlement and supplied the wants of the stricken household. The body of the dead husband was borne to the settlement and laid in the graveyard beneath the snow.

Nothing daunted by this terrible experience, this heroic woman kept her frontier cabin and, with friendly aid from the settlers, continued to till her farm. In ten years, when her oldest boy had become a man, he and his brothers tilled two hundred acres of meadow land, most of it redeemed from the wilderness by the skill, strength, and industry of their noble mother. 

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When I read of such heroism on the frontier, I am awed. I doubt my own strength, yet I am inspired to stretch beyond my own limitations when I write stories of heroines in my novels. Isn't that what history teaches us to do and partly what fiction is for?

What are some books you've read (or written) lately that feature heroines in the wilderness?

COMING FALL 2024

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COURTING THE COUNTRY PREACHER

Four Stories of Faith, Hope. . .and Falling in Love

Every Preacher Needs a Wife, Right? Being a preacher in the countryside is not for the faint of heart nor faith. Four inexperienced preachers face a myriad of challenges including those who figure a man of the cloth needs a wife. Can they meet the expectations of "helpful" congregants and be true to their hearts?

Convincing the Circuit Preacher by Carolyn Miller Australia, 1863

Mail Order Minister by Kari Trumbo South Dakota, 1889

The Mountie's Rival by Angela K. Couch Canada, 1907

The Angel and the Sky Pilot by Naomi Musch Minnesota, 1910