As we honor Veteran’s Day today, let’s talk about women’s involvement in our founding and the Revolution. While researching women’s roles in the American Revolution for a historical novel, I became fascinated by primary sources showing young women working in trades or nurturing “expected” talents like needlework while family members discussed their futures. These moments capture a reality for countless colonial women—lives shaped by expectations, limited by law, yet filled with quiet resistance and remarkable agency.
The Legal Reality: Coverture and Women’s Rights
Women in American Revolution faced coverture, a legal doctrine where a married woman’s legal identity merged with her husband’s. Legal scholar William Blackstone wrote that “the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage.” Married women could not own property, make contracts, or control wages.
Yet historian Karin Wulf’s research in Not All Wives: Women of Colonial Philadelphia reveals the system was more complex than black-letter law suggested. Wulf argues that “unmarried women shaped the city as much as it shaped them.” Women arranged marriage settlements, conducted business as “feme sole” traders, and managed estates when husbands were absent. As Wulf notes, “The presence of unmarried women affected household arrangements, intense and emotional ties, and inheritance practices.”
Women “managed farms, plantations, and businesses while their men went into battle.” Yet Berkin notes the paradox: “Yet no matter how long her caretaking duties lasted, no matter how hard she labored in the fields…these actions did not blur the line between male and female.” Women’s contributions were often minimized within traditional gender roles.
Holly A. Mayer’s recent Women Waging War in the American Revolution (2022) brings together current scholarship examining women’s active participation across all social categories, emphasizing that creative activities often masked deeper longings for autonomy.
Women’s Agency During the Revolutionary War
The war years disrupted traditional gender roles. Cokie Roberts’ Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation chronicles how women organized boycotts, raised funds, managed businesses, and even engaged in espionage.
Consider Esther de Berdt Reed, who in 1780 penned “Sentiments of an American Woman” and organized the Ladies Association of Philadelphia. Reed led a door-to-door fundraising campaign that raised over $300,000 for Washington’s Continental Army—just weeks after giving birth to her sixth child. Or Mary Katharine Goddard, Baltimore’s postmaster from 1775-1789 and likely the nation’s first female federal employee. In January 1777, Goddard printed the first official copy of the Declaration of Independence bearing the signers’ names, typesetting her own name into history: “Baltimore, in Maryland: Printed by Mary Katharine Goddard.” (See image below.)
Berkin observed women transformed peacetime activities “into wartime activities, becoming the unofficial quartermaster corps of the Continental Army.” One British officer acknowledged: “If [we] had destroyed all the men in North America, we should have enough to do to conquer the women.”
These women demonstrated agency within restrictive legal frameworks. As one woman wrote during boycotts, “join with” in protest resolutions “implied independent decision making rarely displayed by ‘Ladies.'”
What Needlework Reveals
Needlework was one domain where colonial women could exercise creativity. Women used it to communicate—samplers included political slogans, mourning pieces commemorated loved ones, and coded messages hid in stitchery during the war. Working within acceptable feminine spheres, women found ways to influence outcomes. They couldn’t vote, but they refused to buy British tea. They couldn’t serve in legislatures, but they managed farms feeding Washington’s army.
The Personal Cost of Public Service
The Revolutionary War demanded sacrifices from women that history often overlooks. Women maintained households, protected children, and kept businesses solvent while managing wartime losses. Their service was essential, yet it brought no political rights. As Berkin writes: “The war for independence allowed, and often propelled, these women to step out of their traditional female roles for the briefest of moments…When the war ended, however, these women returned to their kitchens and parlors—and to the anonymity their society considered feminine.”
Lessons for Today
How do we recognize women’s agency when legal systems denied it existed? How do we properly credit contributions when records were kept in husbands’ names?
These questions matter as we approach America’s 250th anniversary. Accurate history requires acknowledging the full complexity of women’s lives—their constraints and their agency, their sacrifices and their resistance. Women in the American Revolution made choices, took risks, and shaped history—even when the law pretended they didn’t exist.
A Question Worth Pondering for lineage groups: Recognizing Women Patriots
This question of women’s agency has practical implications today for lineage organizations like the Daughters of the American Revolution. Current DAR guidelines state that when a married woman paid supply taxes or furnished aid to the revolutionary cause, patriot recognition goes to her husband because coverture law meant all property belonged to him.
This policy assumes women lacked agency—that they couldn’t make independent decisions about supporting the cause. Yet modern historians like Wulf, Berkin, and others have documented extensive evidence of women’s agency, even within coverture. Women ran businesses in husbands’ absence, made financial decisions, and actively chose to support the revolution.
For a women-centered organization, this presents a question worth pondering. If we recognize that women exercised real agency during the Revolutionary War—managing businesses, making political choices, and taking risks for the cause—should we reconsider how we grant patriot status to married women who demonstrably supported independence, even when legal documents bore only their husbands’ names?
Read the full novel, Carrying Independence, by purchasing an autographed copy. This deep dive focuses on chapter 17 of the novel, in which Susannah is stuck doing needlepoint while her mother outlines her future role as only a married woman. It sets the foundation for her ultimate growth through the freedom that war provided her—a time period in which she gained agency.
When we think about the founding of America, we often picture dramatic moments like the signing of the Declaration of Independence or George Washington crossing the Delaware. But some of the most crucial work was quite hush hush—in shadows and secrecy. My favorite hidden history? The Continental Congress maintained not one, but two sets of official records during the Revolutionary War. The public journals for the Crown told one story. The “Secret Journals” told another entirely.
Charles Thomson: America’s Keeper of Secrets
Charles Thomson served as the only Secretary of the Continental Congress for its entire fifteen-year existence, from 1774 to 1789. While delegates came and went, Thomson remained the constant presence, faithfully recording debates and decisions that would shape the infant nation. His name was regarded as an emblem of truth, and in all the factional disputes of the Revolutionary period, his judgment was respected.
But Thomson held a responsibility that went far beyond typical record-keeping. He was trusted to decide which minutes of their meetings and decisions were recorded in the Secret Journal. This wasn’t just administrative discretion—it was a matter of life and death during wartime.
Why Two Sets of Books?
The Continental Congress faced an impossible situation. As rebels fighting against the British Crown, they were technically committing treason with every decision they made. Yet they also needed to govern, conduct diplomacy, and coordinate military efforts. The Continental Congress, recognizing the need for secrecy regarding foreign intelligence, foreign alliances, and military matters, maintained “Secret Journals,” apart from its public journals, to record its decisions in such matters.
And yes—they actually called them the “Secret Journals.” Not the “Confidential Records” or “Classified Documents” or some other euphemistic title. Just the Secret Journals. The straightforward name tells us everything about the founders’ mindset: they knew they were doing dangerous work, and they weren’t going to pretend otherwise.
The public journals served multiple purposes. They kept colonists informed about congressional actions and demonstrated legitimacy to both supporters and skeptics. But they were also sent to Britain as required communications from what the Crown still considered its colonial assemblies.
The Secret Journals, however, contained the real business of revolution. Congress recorded all decisions regarding the Committee of Secret Correspondence in “Secret Journals”, separate from the public journals used to record decisions concerning other matters. These confidential records documented intelligence operations, foreign negotiations, covert supply chains, and military strategies that would have meant execution for anyone involved if discovered by British forces.
What the Continental Congress Secret Journals Contained
The scope of activities hidden in these journals was remarkable. The committee employed secret agents abroad, conducted covert operations, devised codes and ciphers, funded propaganda activities, authorized the opening of private mail, acquired foreign publications for analysis, established courier systems, and developed maritime capabilities apart from the Continental Navy.
The Secret Journals covered the period from 1775-88 and included sensitive intelligence operations and foreign negotiations. They documented everything from arms procurement in France to intelligence gathering about British troop movements. The journals also contained records of financial arrangements that couldn’t be made public—payments to spies, funding for covert operations, and contracts with suppliers who needed anonymity for their own protection.
On November 9, 1775, the Continental Congress adopted its oath of secrecy, one more stringent than the oaths of secrecy it would require of others in sensitive employment. This wasn’t theatrical politics—it was survival.
The Weight of Secrets
Thomson’s role required incredible discretion and judgment. He had to determine which congressional decisions could safely appear in public records and which needed to remain hidden. After leaving office, he chose to destroy a work of over 1,000 pages that covered the political history of the American Revolution, stating his desire to avoid “contradict[ing] all the histories of the great events of the Revolution”.
This destruction of records represents one of American history’s great mysteries. What did Thomson know that he felt needed to remain buried? His decision to preserve the myths and legends of the Revolution rather than reveal the messy, complicated truth shows how heavy the burden of these secrets became.
The Secret Journals weren’t published until 1821, more than thirty years after the Continental Congress disbanded. None of the contemporary editions included the “Secret Journals” (confidential sections of the records), which were not published until 1821. By then, most of the original participants were dead, and the new nation was strong enough to handle the truth about its covert beginnings.
From History to Fiction: A Novelist’s Discovery
When I was researching Carrying Independence, I knew my protagonist Nathaniel needed a cover story for his mission. I had already named him Nathaniel Marten, choosing his German-based name by reviewing birth/death/marriage records in the Pennsylvania area for the mid-1700s (nearly 1/3 of PA citizens were German).
During my deep dive on the Continental Congress Secret Journal entries, one particular entry caught my attention—a resolution about contracting with a “Mr. Mirtle” for importing goods. The language was formal, vague, and clearly designed to hide the true nature of whatever operation was being authorized.
The Declaration of Independence being engrossed, and compared at the table, was signed by the members. Resolved, That the secret committee be empowered to contract with Mr. Mirtle for the importation of goods to the amount of thirty thousand pounds sterling, at his risk, and fifteen thousand pounds sterling at the risk of the United States of America, for the publick service. That the marine committee be empowered to purchase a swift sailing vessel to be employed by the secret committee in importing said goods.
Then I realized something incredible: Marten and Mirtle are both derived from Mars, the Roman god of war. My fictional character’s name and the name in this entry were a perfect historical coincidence. I could use this to give Nathaniel exactly what he needed for such a secret mission. An alias.
This discovery shaped how I wrote Chapter 14. I used the exact format and language style of authentic Secret Journal entries but inserted my fictional “carrying committee” and the mysterious Mr. Mirtle contract. The entry in the novel reads exactly like the real thing because it follows the actual patterns Thomson used when recording sensitive operations.
The beauty of historical fiction lies in these moments where research and imagination intersect. By grounding fictional elements in authentic historical practices, the story gains credibility while honoring the real experiences of people who lived through these extraordinary times. (It also allowed me to bring in the notion of Nathaniel taking the sailing vessel referenced here. Later in the novel, he hops on the ship The Frontier featuring a new fictional character—and one of my favorites—Captain Hugo Blythe.)
When Secrets Finally Came to Light
For decades after the Revolution, the Secret Journals remained exactly that—secret. The Continental Congress disbanded in 1789, but the confidential records stayed locked away. It wasn’t until 1821, more than thirty years later, that these hidden chapters of American history were finally published by Thomas B. Wait in Boston under the official title “Secret Journals of the Acts and Proceedings of Congress, From the First Meeting Thereof to the Dissolution of the Confederation.”
The timing wasn’t accidental. By 1821, most of the original participants were dead, and the United States was strong enough to handle revelations about its covert beginnings. The published Secret Journals revealed a four-volume treasure trove of intelligence operations, foreign negotiations, and military strategies that had been hidden from British eyes during the war.
Today, curious readers can explore these fascinating documents themselves through digital archives. The complete Secret Journals are available online, offering an unvarnished look at how the founders really operated when they thought no one would ever know.
Legacy of the Secret Journals
The Secret Journals remind us that the founding of America wasn’t just about grand speeches and dramatic declarations. It was also about intelligence networks, covert operations, and the countless unnamed individuals who risked everything to make independence possible. For years, Thomson’s brain held the best record of what really happened in the Continental Congress.
These hidden records shaped American independence in ways we’re still discovering today. They reveal the Continental Congress as a sophisticated operation that understood the complexities of 18th-century geopolitics. The founders weren’t just idealistic rebels—they were strategic thinkers who built an intelligence apparatus that helped secure victory against the world’s most powerful empire.
The next time you read about the Revolutionary War, remember that for every public resolution passed by the Continental Congress, there may have been secret decisions recorded in Thomson’s careful handwriting. Some of those secrets changed the course of history. Others remain buried forever.
PS: A Secret Journal Entry about Women in the Revolution
While researching the Continental Congress Secret Journals, I stumbled upon another entry that perfectly illustrates how these records captured the human side of the Revolution. On page 804 of the Journals, there’s a matter-of-fact entry about reimbursing Mary House—the same innkeeper whose boarding house sheltered James Madison and other Virginia delegates—for “boarding and funeral expenses of General Du Coudray, deceased.”
died shortly after arriving in America. Congress quietly reimbursed Mary House $400 for his board and lodging, plus $137 for “sundries furnished for the funeral”—a total of $537. The entry sits between payments for paper-making supplies and engraving work, as routine as any other congressional expense.
This small entry reveals something profound about the Revolutionary War experience. Behind every grand military appointment and strategic decision were real people—innkeepers like Mary House who opened their homes to foreign volunteers, provided comfort in their final days, and handled the practical necessities when death arrived unexpectedly. Mary House and her daughter Eliza Trist represent the countless women who supported the Revolution in ways that rarely made it into official histories. I proved Mary House as a new female Patriot for the DAR as part of my work on Eliza Trist’s life and journals, and entries like this in the Secret Journals provide rare glimpses into their vital contributions.
The Secret Journals captured these human moments alongside the covert operations, reminding us that the Revolution was fought and supported by ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
On April 3rd, we lost my mum. Margaret Lindsay (Klock) Chase. Wife. Mother. Aunt. Friend. My family and I appreciate everyone who has commented about their experiences with her or shared their condolences. Here is our tribute for her, along with some of our favorite images. We’re sure they will make you smile. You may want to grab a tissue… We’ve certainly gone through our fair share.
Margaret Chase: 1940 – 2024
She was just so sweet. This phrase has been the one most spoken this week about Margaret Lindsay (Klock) Chase, age 84, after her passing on Wednesday, April 3, 2024, in Medicine Hat, Alberta. She was a girl from Saskatchewan. Simple in needs and wants. One might even say she was ordinary. And yet, for those who never met Margaret, you’ll soon understand why it’s a shame you did not know this extraordinary person.
The Early Years
Life, for Margaret, began Naicam, Saskatchewan on March 26, 1940. A town with a population of just 267—it’s only 670 or so now. She was born to Margaret Catherine (Floss) Klock, who had come to Canada from Chicago, and Erie Klock, who farmed land he’d acquired through the Canadian Homestead Act of the 1930s. The third and accidental child, Margaret was just two months old when her father died of Leukemia.
Suddenly, what might have been a harvest life, was now hardscrabble. Aside from affection from a stray cat named Toby, she and two siblings (Catherine and Frank) endured crushing winters and windy prairie summers. Home was troubled by a grieving and often difficult mother. Margaret recalled an embarrassingly dirty house, albeit one also littered with books. She was always thankful for the gift of reading, but also recalled a year she was thankful for shoes. They’d been given to her by a friend who had outgrown a pair. Those hand-me-downs saved her from being among a handful of students who went to the one room schoolhouse barefoot.
Through such gifts in her tiny post-depression town, she learned gratefulness. That trait helped her make friends—like Donna (Brodt) Fleming—who enabled her to make the most of her growing up years. With them, she played hockey. Learned to figure skate. Joined the basketball team. Truly non-denominational, she often accompanied her friends to their respective churches on weekends—relishing in the shared meals and a joy of music that would only grow and deepen over time.
Soon after high school, she headed to the big city of Moosejaw, Saskatchewan to find work.
“I remember staring up at the tall buildings with my mouth hanging open,” she once told her daughter, Karen. “And those buildings were just three or four floors. It was silly to think they were big after seeing Chicago and New York years later.”
In Moosejaw, she began working for the Saskatchewan Power Corporation in 1960, as a clerk for engineers. With only two skirts, and a couple tops to wear, she worried she wasn’t looking smart enough for such a job. She recalled her boss pish-poshing it as nonsense. She was just what they needed. Presentable, clean, and always willing to work and lend a hand to others.
It was that smart simplicity that she exuded when Cecil Chase of Limerick, Saskatchewan strolled into the office. In his RCAF uniform, he came to pick up a friend—Margaret’s coworker and friend, Mabel—who needed a ride. That first look is all it took. After a little colluding with Mabel, soon they were on their first date to a baseball game. They were engaged a year later, and Margaret and Cecil married on June 23rd, 1962.
Engagement DayWedding Day, 1962Getting a sunburn on the honeymoon
She continued to work with the Power Corporation in Regina as Cecil went back to school, and by the late 1960s, they’d moved to the even bigger city of Calgary, Alberta. Following a teaching opportunity at SAIT for Cecil, the move enabled Margaret to finally realize the career she’d deeply craved. Motherhood.
Years later, when women were said to have it all, she was asked about why she stayed home. “Let me make it clear,” she said, “I could have worked, and I chose motherhood. I can’t say everyone did, but I really chose it. And I loved it—every moment of it.”
A son, Raymond Bruce, came first in 1968—just before the move to Calgary, and a year before man landed on the moon. Three years later, in 1971, a girl, Karen Alison, was the last to join the small family. Shortly before that, Margaret and Cecil bought their first home in Calgary, in Highwood, a relatively new neighborhood north of downtown. It would be their home for the next 18 years.
There on Hendon Drive, Margaret was industrious, a partner any working woman today would love to have by their side. She made every penny of Cecil’s teaching income go further by contributing on the home front, despite having no experience. At first she couldn’t cook a thing—her first attempt at biscuits would be forever called bullets. Enter Cecil’s mother, Effe (Marples) Chase, an affectionate mother-in-law who lovingly taught Margaret to bake and cook.
From then on, Margaret made every loaf of bread the family ate for 16 years. She pickled. Made jam. Filled three boxes with handwritten recipes. Planted a garden and raspberry bushes. Learned to oil-paint and make Belgian chocolates. Sewed Halloween costumes. Worked out to Jane Fonda. And created a tidy, warm house so welcoming, as one relative commented, “anybody could drop in, sit at the table, and right away feel at home.”
“She just handled everything that needed to be done,” Cecil said. “Things I hadn’t thought about—from birthday cards to homework to cutting coupons to painting the window trim. If it was needed to make our home and family life run efficiently and economically, she did it effortlessly. She made us work. Even when we started camping and traveling.”
On the Road and Meeting Others
By 1978, the Calgary house became what some people now call “Sticks-n-Bricks.” It’s the house you live in when you’re not traveling in an RV. Margaret and Cecil were determined to show their kids more than just the prairies of Canada. That year, they took the first of what would become an every-summer excursion via motorhome to see North America.
Camping at Waterton National Park
The trip was planned in part by Margaret to visit relatives she’d never met before. Paul Chaffee in Kansas City, and in Chicago a half-brother to her own mother named Charles Blanchard. In between were tours of historic places. Custer’s Last Stand. The Lincoln Memorial in D.C. And it was the first time, at 38 years old, that Margaret visited and fell in love with the ocean at Rehoboth Beach.
It’s thanks to Margaret, and her insistence upon keeping a journal, that the joyful experiences of that ten week trip and others were documented. She also tracked every dollar spent on camping, groceries, books, and gas. It amounted to around just $2600—coming in just under the money budgeted from what Cecil had earned teaching night-classes.
“Whether we were on one of those trips or at home,” her son, Bruce, said, “Mom was that person who kept track of details. And she never met a stranger. She’d pop into a grocery store to get a couple things, and leave us sitting in the car for half an hour because she’d ask someone about their day and really wanted to know the answer.”
Sister-in-law, Telva Chase, said , “Sometimes she’d be so busy asking about you, that the conversation would be nearing the end and you’d realize you hadn’t asked her a darn thing.”
That curiosity about others, and Margaret’s love of travel flourished after Cecil retired. The two bought another RV, threw a few things in storage, and for five years lived the nomad/snowbird life. They summered in Alberta, golfed and toured in south Texas in winter, and dropped in on folks—often by surprise—as they traveled full-time in the age before cell phones. She visited Fort Klock at Fort Plains in New York, exploring roots of her father’s family.
She had longed to hear an Irishman say her name (Margaret has a different roll on the tongue over there). And in 2007, thanks a trip with Cecil hosted by her son and daughter-in-law, she finally did. She wanted to, and did, kiss the Blarney stone. She lifted a pint and, despite an in-grown toenail, she hoofed her way without complaint at a swift pace across the cities and country-sides of Ireland, England, and Scotland.
Despite not seeking a career, she did work some. It included being receptionist and human resources assistant at the School Board in downtown Calgary. In the eighties, she sold microwaves at Market Mall—a job that led to her saying “just zap it” when food required reheating. Much later, after retiring from RV life and settled in Medicine Hat, Alberta, she sold barbeques at the local Walmart. She eclipsed previous sales swiftly. There are surely a handful of folks in Medicine Hat staring at a grill they don’t remember buying. But they certainly remember that nice chatty lady who sold it to them.
Before she was 60, she was a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. She’d visited 47 of the United States and nine of the Canadian provinces. Always she drank coffee (and an occasional rum), and wanted bacon and eggs as often as possible, even for dinner. She shared many a meal with family, and with chosen family in Calgary and Medicine Hat.
She could wipe the floor with you in a game of cards. She laughed heartily at a great joke, her head back and showing off her molars, but she couldn’t tell a joke to save her soul. She often told the punchline first, and then laughed even harder after declaring, “Blasted, I said it wrong didn’t I? Damn.”
The Other Side of Life
Now, before you go thinking that Margaret’s life was one joyful day, year, and excursion after another, here comes the rest of the story. Margaret’s concern for folks also meant that she often put others ahead of her own needs. And once the purpose of motherhood ended, and menopause crept in, there also came knocking a family inheritance—a depression that plagued her mother, her siblings, and her for decades. And then came a diagnosis that stuck to her like a bad penny. Bipolar.
Symptoms were kept at bay by a few medications for a few years, but once the traveling ceased, the ups and downs increased. Over nearly 30 years, those wide-swinging emotions were regulated by a series of trips to psychiatrists, who ordered an ever-increasing concoction of medications. Some worked for a while. Some did not. Some may have contributed to cancer. And one or two contributed to an eventual failure of her kidneys. Not enough doctors encouraged cognitive behavioral or talk therapy.
She willingly shared that realization in recent years with her daughter’s new partner, Ted Petrocci, a psychotherapist. “As inquisitive and thoughtful as she was,” Ted said, “Margaret absolutely would have benefited from it. She would have discovered solutions that would have eliminated so many medications.”
A saving grace for Margaret, was Cecil. He was a loyal and loving sounding board—always eager to help her get better, and to be the rock she clung to. She was grateful he loved her in spite of the issues and illnesses, and told him as much. Through it all, they upheld those vows they’d made 60 years earlier. Through good times and the darkest days, they always kissed each other goodnight. In the last months, they could be found together napping—one in a bed, one in a chair, still holding hands. And when her tired body was finally giving out, surrounded by the love of family and friends, it was to him Margaret looked one last time. On April third, she opened one eye, and held Cecil’s gaze until she left the world.
Would she have wanted anyone to write about how challenging her last three decades and that horrible diagnosis were? No, probably not. She often asked not to let anyone know she suffered from depression and illnesses, and many probably had no idea. The smile was often a mask. And for those old friends who wondered why she stopped calling, many never knew it was because her mind was often too heavy for her hand to pick up the phone. So why share such private details now when we’re celebrating her life?
Why Margaret Matters to Us All
When we write obituaries, we often share useless dates. When we read famous obituaries or hear eulogies, we want to know what the person accomplished. What did they contribute to mankind? The reality is, most of us are trying to just live. And for so many, life doesn’t afford space for grand achievements. At best, it’s ordinary. Simple. But it can also be complicated. Difficult or dark. It’s not always sunny even when the sun is out. And yet…
Margaret is an example of how mental and physical health can either derail a person, or we can choose to spread joy in spite of the hand we’re dealt. No matter how simple or difficult our lives, it’s really our little acts of kindness for others that bring more sunshine than rain.
No matter how much her diagnoses and medications and surgeries impacted her health, she had a smile to share, and her heart was always declared to be strong. Caregivers and younger people quickly called her Mum. She hugged unconditionally. Everyone, no matter their stature or job or race or gender, had a story, and she wanted to know it.
To her, everyone mattered. And therefore, so does she.
Let’s Be More Margaret
In a world troubled by divisiveness, war, and unrest, we all might try to be a little more like Margaret Chase. How?
Maybe it’s sharing a bright smile like hers.
Maybe you stop in the grocery store to ask a stranger how they are, and it’s such a genuine ask, you both talk next to the tomatoes for half an hour.
Maybe it’s not what you wear, or how many things you own, but that you pitch in to help when needed, and without being asked.
Maybe you make memories by saving your pennies to travel, by sharing shoes, or by simply singing with or to someone.
Plant a garden or at least white daisies (her favorite).
Certainly, it’s gathering around the table with friends and family, and laughing even when you feel like crying.
Be sure you kiss someone goodnight.
Show gratitude and tell them you love them, no matter how hard the day.
And then, as she has, you’ll make it incredibly damn difficult for friends and family to think of a world without you in it. Fare thee well, sweet Margaret. We lift a pint to you and happily say we are all so very glad you were here.
During this Women’s History Month, and ahead of the nation’s 250th celebrations, I have the great fortune of announcing a new Revolutionary female Patriot. I spearheaded an application with the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) to prove a new female American Revolutionary-era Patriot.
Mary House owned and operated a boarding house in Philadelphia, the House Inn. Because she paid taxes on the inn, her support tax directly helped fund the Revolutionary war. Just two blocks from the famous State House, where Revolution was debated and the Declaration of Independence signed, the inn was a respected political hub, frequented by familiar founding fathers.
In this press release issued by NSDAR, Pamela Wright, NSDAR President General and the National Society’s volunteer elected CEO, says, “We are thrilled to add Mary House to our list of verified female Patriots. As we approach our nation’s 250th birthday, DAR members across the country are concentrating on sharing the stories of these amazing Americans, helping contemporary U.S. citizens understand the relevancy of Patriots to our lives today. As a female entrepreneur myself, I am inspired by the story of Mrs. House.”
The star on this map shows the location of the House Inn. To red outline to the left is the State House. The red outline down and to the right, is the Arch Street Quaker Burial ground where Mary House was buried.
The House Inn hosted Thomas Jefferson and Other Founders
Mary House was a wise entrepreneur. After her husband died, the widow established the boarding house, which quickly became known for what was then called “fine entertainments.” It offered quality lodgings, good food and refreshments, and above all an atmosphere that encouraged convivial engagement. It quickly attracted founding fathers familiar to us now. Silas Deane, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. Mary recognized that congressmen visits to Philadelphia would increase as Revolution rumbled through the colonies. Consequently, she wisely moved her already established House Inn closer to the action, to Fifth and Market Streets. Like the famed City Tavern, the House Inn was a gathering place for end-of-day political discourse over dinner and drinks.
Finding Mary House and Proving Her as Patriot
Although I spearheaded the search and the NSDAR application, the journey to validate Mary House’s Patriot status was a collaborative effort. It took multiple years and involved more than 15 individuals across five NSDAR chapters and three states, along with additional historians and translators. To submit an application for patriot status for Mary House, we found and proved lineage to a living descendant. That descendant is also related to two other significant figures: Jefferson and the subject of what I call my Eliza Project.
Mary House’s Daughter, Eliza Trist, Went West & Kept a Journal
Mary House is significant in her own right as a supporter of the Cause and an entrepreneur. She is also the mother of Eliza House Trist—a woman who traveled west in 1783, two decades before Lewis and Clark. Eliza Trist kept this journal for Thomas Jefferson. Trist met Jefferson when he lodged at the House Inn. The two became significant in each others lives, and long after her westward journey, Eliza Trist’s grandson married Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughter. Consequently, this new NSDAR member on this application, is related to House, Trist, and Jefferson.
To be frank, I feel like we’ve hit the NSDAR’s version of a quadfecta or superfecta. Myself, and this incredible network of genealogists and historians, have correctly proven four positions significant to the NSDAR. New female Patriot. New Female Explorer. New member. And all connected to Thomas Jefferson.
The only known portrait of Eliza House Trist. From the Ledger book of William Bache, National Portrait Gallery.
What will the Patriot Status Achieve?
Mary House was buried in Philadelphia, in the Quaker Arch Street burial ground, which was built over in the late 1800s. Eliza Trist is buried at Monticello. Neither woman has a gravestone, and their contributions have never been granted state historical markers. As I mentioned in the press release, “The goal is to ensure each of these women has a grave marker and historical recognition… In honor of the 250th, we are striving to broaden the narrative we tell about the founding of this country. Eliza and Mary matter. Who we tell our origin stories about matters so more of us can envision ourselves contributing to our future.”
The Permission slip provided by the Quakers to bury Mary House in the Arch Street grounds.
To learn more about Eliza House Trist
I am producing a more comprehensive and widely-accessible narrative for Mary House and Eliza Trist. For now, you can learn more about Eliza House Trist’s journey when you pre-order a copy of The Travel Journal of Eliza House Trist, 1783-84. It’s a brand new transcription, with a brief introduction. For the first time, her journal is replicated as she originally wrote it. In this beautifully hardbound book, is an all new introduction and a map of her journey. The book publishes April 15th.
They walked through ancient empires, scaled snowy mountains, and defied societal norms, yet countless women from history remain silent, their stories lost in the shadows of their male counterparts. As I work on documenting the life of Eliza House Trist, I recognize that we writers have the power to resurrect these voices. Fully crafting female historical characters, we can allow them to resonate with readers of all ages, and also illuminate the richness and complexity of the past.
But how do we create these women who leap off the page and touch hearts across generations? Here are three key ingredients:
1. Unveiling the Human Beneath the History
While historical context paints the backdrop, don’t let dates and events overshadow your character’s inner world. Dive into their hopes, fears, vulnerabilities, and passions. Make them laugh, cry, yearn, and rage. Readers connect with characters who feel real, whose triumphs and stumbles mirror our own.
2. Challenging Norms of Female Historical Characters
Don’t shy away from portraying the limitations women faced in their era. Whether it’s societal expectations, legal restrictions, or even the physical realities of life, these constraints often fueled unique forms of resilience, resourcefulness, and rebellion. Show how your character navigates these obstacles, revealing both the external struggle and the internal growth it sparks.
3. Finding the Universal in the Specific
While historical details bring authenticity, the core of your character’s journey should resonate with readers beyond their time period. Is it a fight for justice, a yearning for love, or the quest for self-discovery? Grounding your historical narrative in timeless themes ensures your characters speak to readers across generations, sparking empathy and understanding.
Examples of Writing Female Historical Characters
For further inspiration, dive into the works of authors like E. Carson Williams (Lis), whose newsletters celebrate the bravery of lesser-known women who are deeply inspiring to young girls today. (Her answers to reader questions are worth readings and the Mewsings from her cats are also hilarious.) Or author Linda Sittig, whose books and blog—StrongWomeninHistory.com—illuminate the lives of female pioneers and history-makers.
For an example of how to make history also wildly entertaining, immerse yourself in podcasts like The History Chicks. Bethany and Mini uncover the extraordinary stories of women hidden in the annals of history, like Mexico’s La Malinche. Don’t have time for a 90-minute podcast? You can check out their minicasts and each podcast begins with a 30-second summary.
Need some practical resources? Check out my own guide on researching women like a historical novelist to help you write beyond the genealogy of a figure. By learning more about their networks and connections, you can weave them into narratives that captivate, educate, and feel more like our own lives.
By bringing female historical characters to life, we not only honor their legacies but also expand our understanding of the past and present. So, pick up your pen, tap your keys, and let the forgotten women sing their stories – the world needs to hear their voices.
Over the last couple of weeks, I conducted two live webinars on the topic of researching female historical figures or ancestors using some of my own organization and exploration methods—those of a historical novelist.
In total, over 535 people registered for the webinars, and a great portion of them are now out there thinking about their endeavors a little differently. They’re not researchers or genealogists. They’re storytellers.
Why researchers need to think like novelists?
Gathering dates about a person’s life ignores (and worse, buries) the impact of that life. Think of your own history. If I only knew family tree facts about you—the dates and locations of birth, death, and marriage for your family, children, and in-laws… Well, how much would I really understand about your life story?
I’d be ignoring your education, career, your neighbors and friends, your book clubs, adventures, influences, hopes, disappointments, and all your small and significant milestones. I’d also be unable to determine your contributions, if any, to our greater American story.
Why details in women’s stories matters.
Gathering only dates about female ancestors—or “Patriots” as they are known in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)—perpetuates a major problem in our educational system; the women are not being shown as integral to American history in proportion to their contributions and achievements.
By gathering only genealogical details, researchers like Margot Shetterly would not have unearthed the hidden figures in our history. Margot’s deeper exploration helped us learn about all those women, like mathematician Katherine Johnson, who helped humans go to the moon.
American history is a human story.
It’s easy when there are over 900 biographies of George Washington, to think that American history was primarily made by men. Thankfully, a few of those biographies are written by women (thank you, Alexis Coe), but casting blame as to why women’s contributions are only a small portion of our collective American history, isn’t going to change it. We must change it.
Your mission is to become storytellers.
We must look at American history as human, and to do that more women need to become storytellers who can balance the history by showing us the other gender.
Together, along with 185,000 DAR members doing the same, we can show future generations how women—both famous and ordinary—contributed in extraordinary ways to our American history.
How to conduct and organize research.
Okay, but how do you become a storyteller? Like a novelist, you need to expand your subject’s network, and then you need to better catalog your own researcher’s network.
My video and links below will help you come to understand these two areas. This is the full webinar, free to watch. Included below are links the notes and the networking charts explained in the webinar.
Watch. Share this post.
Together we women can rise and shine the light on women’s history.
GET THE NOVEL: If the webinar content impacts your thinking, I hope you’ll order a copy of Carrying Independence to show your support for such presentations, and to see my research suggestions in action. Print & Ebook retailers, and excerpts can be found at: CarryingIndependence.com.
On this, July 4th, my blog features the last in a brief series related to the history and signing of the Declaration of Independence… Part one began here.
So many blogs will rightly tell you that the Declaration of Independence was not written, voted for, or even signed on July 4th. All true. Today, however, I’d rather talk about the only woman whose name graces the Declaration. A woman featured in Carrying Independence.
Mary Katharine Goddard
Her brother was a drunkard. He owned his own print-shop which often fell into neglect as he stumbled around the colonies bemoaning (whining) that Benjamin Franklin had been given the title of Postmaster General over him.
When the print shop was left in Mary Katharine’s hands in Baltimore in the mid 1770s, Mary Katharine (with two As) became known not only as the printer, but the editor and the first female Postmaster of Baltimore. (As she says in novel, “It does not take a man to organize the mail… I was already writing and publishing both the Maryland Journal and the Baltimore Advertiser, so why not know the post routes, too?”)
Postmasters in the colonies were paid by Congress, making Mary Katharine the first female federal employee of the newly formed United States. But by the end of 1776, problems in that new country were afoot.
Congress Had a Failing Army
Getting all the congressmen to sign a sole copy of a Declaration—while hiding their identities—was one thing. Ensuring troops stayed to fight was quite another. By January of 1777, the enlistments of soldiers who had joined in July of ’76 were nearly up. Their morale was severely down. Would you have stuck around after 6–8 months of marching, starving, and losing, or would you go home to tend your farm and eat?
Congress decided to admit “to a candid world” who the signers were. They put out the call to printers asking them to make a copy of the Declaration with all their names typeset so all those soldiers could see exactly who and what they were fighting for.
A Woman Volunteers
Enter Mary Katharine Goddard. In February of 1777, she volunteered her print shop in Baltimore to print documents, called broadsides. She used the font Caslon, which, ironically, was created in a type foundry in England. Two hundred copies were made and circulated among the states. To date, nine copies still exist.
Only one signer’s name does not appear on the Goddard broadside. That of Thomas McKean of Delaware. It’s believed that when Goddard printed these copies, the congressmen had yet to sign the original—further proof that the congressmen were not all together on August 2nd for the formal engrossing.
Although her name doesn’t appear on the original signed version of the Declaration, I still point to her when historians ignore women’s roles in the struggle for independence. Mary Katharine not only participated, she even had the wherewithal to typeset her own name on her copies, thereby inking herself into history.
Reader Insider Note: In order to make copies like the Goddard broadside, printers often worked alongside the original document. In my novel, my protagonist, Nathaniel, not only delivers the document, but stays to help Mary Katharine Goddard typeset the thing. To read how it was done, and to see the sparks fly between Postmistress and Post rider, you can get the book… (ahem—it’s just 99¢ all this week).
I remember visiting Colonial Williamsburg when I first moved to Virginia. A reenactor spoke to our tour group about all Martha Washington accomplished during her life. Land holdings inherited from a first husband, passed via coverture to the second, George. Childbirth. Hostess to hundreds of visitors at Mount Vernon each year. During one particular hog-season, she oversaw the slaughter and smoking of 50 hams.
This five-foot-nothin’ Virginian had always been shown to me as a noble, rosy-cheeked woman who would become our first First Lady. Not once had I ever heard her being referred to as an aide-de-camp.
Martha as Aide-de-camp, No. 33
In 1776, aides-de-camp were all men—officers in the Continental Army who were General Washington’s private secretaries or couriers, who gathered intelligence, or handled Washington’s correspondence and social affairs. There were 32 in all. Until 1906.
Martha was about 45 in 1776—so this public domain image is a closer representation of her while an aide-de-camp.
That year, Worthington Chauncey Ford, chief of the Manuscripts Division at the Library of Congress, reviewed Martha Washington’s role in the Cause. She often traveled with her husband and stayed at headquarters during the winter months, including Valley Forge in 1777, where she did more than simply improve morale through social events. She also fulfilled the role of clerical assistant to the general, contributing so much that Ford added Martha to the list.
While this designation is well-known among Revolutionary historians, for me that her contributions had been overshadowed for over 130 years—and never were they discussed in any of my American history classes—was a revelation. The lopsided history we’re often shown about the men winning the war, while the women smoked hams… well, that’s bologna. (To be sure, it was slaves who Martha was overseeing each hog-season, and their stories are thankfully getting deeper coverage in historic places now.)
Learning through my own studies that “contribution” is not tied to race, gender, or official rank has enabled me to feel quite free, especially as a “popular historian,” to chase history about lesser known roles, people, or events.
After 20 years in the Midwest and 10 years in the Wild West, my partner and I landed in Richmond, Virginia in 2016.Prior to moving here, I had little knowledge about the Civil War—even less about Richmond’s role in it.
Like many others, the way I can best access history is through narratives from or about people who lived through specific periods of time.Since moving here, my portal to Civil War times has been through the life of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Unionist Spy who lived in Church Hill.
Elizabeth’s story took a hold in me, and I knew I wanted to share it.And so, in collaboration with a few musicians and the Richmond Story House, we recorded an audio narrative of her story (hear a sample here).You can now take this 70-minute, 2-mile, downloadable walking tour on your own time, by yourself or with a group.The tour starts and ends at St. John’s Church in Church Hill.
Elizabeth’s Significance Then and Now
Following the fall of Richmond, Ulysses S. Grant said that Elizabeth Van Lew provided him with “the most valuable information received from Richmond during the war.” Her lessons continue to provide us with knowledge of our city’s participation in the slave trade and the Civil War, challenging participants to make connections between this history and the insidious forms of racism still alive in our city and world today.
Thanks for sharing in the spirit of learning about our collective American History by subscribing to the blog. Guest posts like this one are welcomed and encouraged––by academics, historians, authors, artists, and storytellers. Contact me for details.
