3/9/2023 0 Comments Mjournal of madame kight![]() Such experiences, however, were offset by others less wholesome. The following day, after traveling for miles over roads that were “very bad, incumbered with rocks and mountainous passages,” Sarah Knight came to “a bridge under which the river ran very swift, my horse stumbled, and very narrowly escaped falling into the water, which extremely frightened me.”Īs for room and board, Sarah Knight spent an evening with the Congregationalist minister in New London, “where I was very handsomely and plentifully treated and Lodg’d.” The minister, she noted, was “the most affable, courteous, Genero’s and best of men.” In crossing the Thames River in a ferry boat that carried both passengers and their horses, she wrote in an entry dated “Thirsday, Octobr ye 5th”: “Here, by reason of a very high wind, we met with great difficulty in getting over-the Boat tos’t exceedingly, and our horses capper’d at a very surprising Rate, and set us all in a fright.” Still, the difficulties she encountered speak volumes about the physical dangers of long-distance travel by horseback in that era. Knight chose to travel with a post rider or other reliable guide, so she was never alone on the road. ![]() Knight kept a journal of her trip, and it provides us with one of the few first-hand-accounts of travel conditions in Connecticut during colonial times.Īpproximate route of Sarah Kemble Knight's Journey, 1704-1705 She was on her way to New Haven (and later to New York City) to act on behalf of a friend in the settlement of her deceased husband's estate. When she composed the journal, Knight was a 38-year-old married woman and keeper of a boarding house in Boston with some experience as a copier of legal documents. Having been left a widow after her husband's death in 1703, Knight assumed the responsibility of managing her household. Knight was born in Boston to Captain Thomas Kemble, a merchant of Boston, and Elizabeth Trerice. 2.2.4 Danger, courage, and determination.Her view though often times humorous and sometimes racy demonstrate clearly that on her travels from Boston to New Haven her social equal could only be found in her thoughts of home. Kemble Knight dissects the rural New England landscape as an extremely class conscious women. Subjects such as Native Americans, African slaves, indentured servants, travel fears and class consciousness all complicate the journal from simply an adventure to snapshot of society. Heading out form Boston without even a travel guide and barely a game plan she got form place to place, from inn to inn on her whit and where-with-all.īelow that “theme in her journal lies a plethora of social dealings both challenged and supported by her writings. Overall, this journal sets this adventurous woman apart from the typified New England Puritan allowing for her rural New England perspectives and experiences to challenge that stereotype.Ībove all Sarah Kemble Knight’s journey is remarkable in that she ventured alone out into the yet to be tamed New England woods. ![]() The journal also invites discussion on several social issues including, race and social class structure of the period, as well as the education of women (displayed in Kemble Knights business and writing skills). ![]() Kemble Knight chooses to take arduous journey, a most unusual course of action for a Boston Women, and proves witty, savvy and strong enough to trek the wilderness and New England frontier. The journal also challenges many Puritan stereotypes and in fact presents a comedic view of the typical New England Puritan. Through recording her lengthy, arduous journey she captures the essence of rural New England. Kemble Knight’s travel journal sheds much light on early 1700’s New England. The Journal of Madam Knight simple summary ![]()
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