In the twentieth year of her age, she was married to William Miller… and
after a very harmonious union of a few years, he was removed by death,
leaving her with two daughters. This bereavement occurred during the
revolutionary war between this country and Great Britain, when heavy
contributions were levied on real estate, to meet the expenses of that
contest.
Being possessed of a large landed estate, and restrained by her religious
principles from paying taxes for the support of war, her personal property
was taken, including all her stock of every description. Horses, cattle,
hogs, and sheep were driven off to satisfy such demands, leaving her without
any facilities to obtain from her farm the means of support for herself and
her two little girls.
On one occasion, a few months after the decease of her husband, when on her
way to visit her mother, then labouring under a disease that proved mortal;
on coming to a turn in the road that gave her a view of her house, she saw
one team at the mill loading with flour, and another at the barn loading with
wheat in the sheaf, in obedience to the authorities entrusted with the charge
of procuring supplies for the army. For a few moments she felt great
discouragement, and was almost ready to sink under the accumulation of
difficulties and afflictions that surrounded her, but her mind was remarkably
arrested and impressed with a belief that she should be enabled to make such
exertions as might be requisite for the support of herself and her children.
To this impression she had often subsequently to recur, and her confidence
remained firm and her fortitude undaunted, through all the trials which
attended her at that eventful period. Being left a widowed mother of two
almost infant daughters, without father or brother to aid or protect her, and
in a neighbourhood traversed in succession by detachments of both the
contending armies — her situation required the exercise of great prudence and
fortitude.
In this state of things, approaching to anarchy, many of those denominated
collectors of taxes, being needy and unprincipled, seized valuable articles
of furniture and personal estate of various descriptions, without form of
law, which were sold without previous notice for less than half their value — in some instances, for not a fourth or sixth part — and often purchased by
those who took them from their owners. Amid all these trials, she firmly
maintained her adherence to the principles of peace, and often spoke in
commemoration of that Power, that, though silent and unseen, sustains those
who depend on it for guidance and support, in the path of obedience to
manifested duty.
