"If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play
needs no epilogue;" and Rosalind might well have added that a good story
needs no prologue. The present journal is complete in itself, and it is
such a perfect gem, that it seems a pity to mar its beauty by giving it
any but the simplest setting. There are many readers, however, with
enough human interest to wish to know who Rosalind really was, and to be
assured that she "married and lived happily ever after." That is the
reason for this introduction.
Margaret Van Horn Dwight was born on December 29, 1790. She was the
daughter of Doctor Maurice William Dwight, a brother of President
Timothy Dwight of Yale, and Margaret (DeWitt) Dwight. The death of her
father in 1796, and the subsequent marriage of her mother, was probably
the reason for Margaret Dwight being taken by her grandmother, Mary
Edwards Dwight, a daughter of Jonathan Edwards, who trained her as her
own child in her family in Northampton. The death of her grandmother,
February 7, 1807, was the occasion of her going to live in New Haven in
the family of her aunt, Elizabeth Dwight, who had married William Walton
Woolsey, and whose son was President Theodore Woolsey.
Three years later, in 1810, Margaret Dwight left New Haven to go to her
cousins in Warren, Ohio. It was doubtless there that she met Mr. Bell,
whom she married, December 17, 1811, a year after her arrival. William
Bell, Jr., was born in Ireland, February 11, 1781, and after 1815 he was
a wholesale merchant in Pittsburgh.
The family genealogy formally records that Margaret Dwight Bell became
the mother of thirteen children, that she died on October 9, 1834, and
that she was "a lady of remarkable sweetness and excellence, and
devotedly religious." Family tradition adds a personal touch in relating
that her home was a center of hospitality and that she herself was
active and very vivacious.
The journal of the rough wagon trip to Ohio in 1810 was evidently kept
by Margaret Dwight in fulfilment of a promise to her cousin, Elizabeth
Woolsey, to whom it was sent as soon as the journey was over. A good
many years later the journal was given to a son of the author, and the
original is now in the possession of a granddaughter, Miss Katharine
Reynolds Wishart of Waterford, Pennsylvania. It has been well cared for
and is in excellent condition, except that the first two pages are
missing. This is of less importance from the fact that two independent
copies had been made. The text of the journal here printed is taken from
the original manuscript, and is reproduced as accurately as
typographical devices permit.