The story of a brave little Quaker girl’s perilous ride. How she
saved the lives of many hard-pressed patriots, and won praise from
the lips of General Washington, himself.
The sun was just rising and showering his first rays on the gambrel
roof and solid stone walls of a house surrounded by a magnificent grove
of walnuts, and overlooking one of the beautiful valleys so common
in southeastern Pennsylvania. Close by the house, and shaded by the
same great trees, stood a low building of the most severe type, whose
time-stained bricks and timbers green with moss told its age without
the aid of the half-obliterated inscription over the door, which read,
“Built A. D. 1720.” One familiar with the country would have pronounced
it without hesitation a Quaker meeting-house, dating back almost to the
time of William Penn.
When Ezra Dale had become the leader of the little band of Quakers
which gathered here every First Day, he had built the house under the
walnut trees, and had taken his wife Ann and his little daughter Betty
to live there. That was in 1770, seven years earlier, and before war
had wrought sorrow and desolation throughout the country.
The sun rose higher, and just as his beams touched the broad stone step
in front of the house, the door opened, and Ann Dale, a sweet-faced
woman in the plain Quaker garb, came out, followed by Betty, a little
blue-eyed Quakeress of twelve years, with a gleam of spirit in her face
which ill became her plain dress.
“Betty,” said her mother, as they walked out toward the great horse
block by the roadside, “thee must keep house to-day. Friend Robert
has just sent thy father word that the redcoats have not crossed the
Brandywine since Third Day last, and thy father and I will ride to
Chester to-day, that there may be other than corn-cakes and bacon for
the friends who come to us after monthly meeting. Mind thee keeps near
the house and finishes thy sampler.”
“Yes, mother,” said Betty; “but will thee not come home early? I shall
miss thee sadly.”
Just then Ezra appeared, wearing his collarless Quaker coat, and
leading a horse saddled with a great pillion, into which Ann
laboriously climbed after her husband, and with a final warning and
“farewell” to Betty, clasped him tightly around the waist lest she
should be jolted off as they jogged down the rough and winding lane
into the broad Chester highway.
Friend Ann had many reasons for fearing to leave Betty alone for a
whole day, and she looked back anxiously at her waving “farewell” with
her little bonnet.
It was a troublous time.
The Revolution was at its height, and the British, who had a short time
before disembarked their army near Elkton, Maryland, were now encamped
near White Clay Creek, while Washington occupied the country bordering
on the Brandywine. His force, however, was small compared to the extent
of the country to be guarded, and bands of the British sometimes
crossed the Brandywine and foraged in the fertile counties of Delaware
and Chester. As Betty’s father, although a Quaker and a non-combatant,
was known to be a patriot, he had to suffer the fortunes of war with
his neighbors.
Thus it was with many forebodings that Betty’s mother watched the
slight figure under the spreading branches of a great chestnut, which
seemed to rustle its innumerable leaves as if to promise protection to
the little maid. However, the sun shone brightly, the swallows chirped
as they circled overhead, and nothing seemed farther off than battle
and bloodshed.
Betty skipped merrily into the house, and snatching up some broken
corn-cake left from the morning meal, ran lightly out to the paddock
where Daisy was kept, her own horse, which she had helped to raise from
a colt.
“Come thee here, Daisy,” she said, as she seated herself on the top
rail of the mossy snake fence. “Come thee here, and thee shall have
some of thy mistress’s corn-cake. Ah! I thought thee would like it. Now
go and eat all thee can of this good grass, for if the wicked redcoats
come again, thee will not have another chance, I can tell thee.”
Daisy whinnied and trotted off, while Betty, feeding the few chickens
(sadly reduced in numbers by numerous raids), returned to the house,
and getting her sampler, sat down under a walnut tree to sew on the
stint which her mother had given her.
All was quiet save the chattering of the squirrels overhead and the
drowsy hum of the bees, when from around the curve in the road she
heard a shot; then another nearer, and then a voice shouting commands,
and the thud of hoof-beats farther down the valley. She jumped up with
a startled cry: “The redcoats! The redcoats! Oh, what shall I do!”
Just then the foremost of a scattered band of soldiers, their
buff and blue uniforms and ill-assorted arms showing them to be
Americans, appeared in full flight around the curve in the road, and
springing over the fence, dashed across the pasture straight for the
meeting-house. Through the broad gateway they poured, and forcing open
the door of the meeting-house, rushed within and began to barricade the
windows.
Their leader paused while his men passed in, and seeing Betty, came
quickly toward her.
“What do you here, child?” he said hurriedly. “Go quickly, before the
British reach us, and tell your father, that, Quaker or no Quaker,
he shall ride to Washington, on the Brandywine, and tell him that we,
but one hundred men, are besieged by three hundred British cavalry in
Chichester meeting-house, with but little powder left. Tell him to make
all haste to us.”
Turning, he hastened into the meeting-house, now converted into a fort,
and as the doors closed behind him Betty saw a black muzzle protruding
from every window.
With trembling fingers the little maid picked up her sampler, and as
the thud of horses’ hoofs grew louder and louder, she ran fearfully
into the house, locked and bolted the massive door, and then flying up
the broad stairs, she seated herself in a little window overlooking the
meeting-house yard. She had gone into the house none too soon. Up the
road, with their red coats gleaming and their harness jangling, was
sweeping a detachment of British cavalry, never stopping until they
reached the meeting-house--and then it was too late.
A sheet of flame shot out from the wall before them, and half a dozen
troopers fell lifeless to the ground, and half a dozen riderless horses
galloped wildly down the road. The leader shouted a sharp command, and
the whole troop retreated in confusion.
Betty drew back shuddering, and when she brought herself to look again
the troopers had dismounted, had surrounded the meeting-house, and were
pouring volley after volley at its doors and windows. Then for the
first time Betty thought of the officer’s message, and remembered that
the safety of the Americans depended upon her alone, for her father was
away, no neighbor within reach, and without powder she knew they could
not resist long.
Could she save them? All her stern Quaker blood rose at the thought,
and stealing softly to the paddock behind the barn, she saddled Daisy
and led her through the bars into the wood road, which opened into the
highway just around the bend. Could she but pass the pickets without
discovery there would be little danger of pursuit; then there would be
only the long ride of eight miles ahead of her.
Just before the narrow wood road joined the broader highway Betty
mounted Daisy by means of a convenient stump, and starting off at a
gallop, had just turned the corner when a voice shouted “Halt” and a
shot whistled past her head. Betty screamed with terror, and bending
over, brought down her riding whip with all her strength upon Daisy,
then, turning for a moment, saw three troopers hurriedly mounting.
Her heart sank within her, but, beginning to feel the excitement of the
chase, she leaned over and patting Daisy on the neck, encouraged her to
do her best. Onward they sped. Betty, her curly hair streaming in the
wind, the color now mounting to, now retreating from, her cheeks, led
by five hundred yards.
But Daisy had not been used for weeks, and already felt the unusual
strain. Now they thundered over Naaman’s Creek, now over Concord, with
the nearest pursuer only four hundred yards behind; and now they raced
beside the clear waters of Beaver Brook, and as Betty dashed through
its shallow ford, the thud of horses’ hoofs seemed just over her
shoulder.
Betty, at first sure of success, now knew that unless in some way she
could throw her pursuers off her track she was surely lost. Just then
she saw ahead of her a fork in the road, the lower branch leading to
the Brandywine, the upper to the Birmingham Meeting-house. Could she
but get the troopers on the upper road while she took the lower, she
would be safe; and, as if in answer to her wish, there flashed across
her mind the remembrance of the old cross-road which, long disused, and
with its entrance hidden by drooping boughs, led from a point in the
upper road just out of sight of the fork down across the lower, and
through the valley of the Brandywine. Could she gain this road unseen
she still might reach Washington.
Urging Daisy forward, she broke just in time through the dense growth
which hid the entrance, and sat trembling, hidden behind a dense growth
of tangled vines, while she heard the troopers thunder by. Then, riding
through the rustling woods, she came at last into the open, and saw
spread out beneath her the beautiful valley of the Brandywine dotted
with the white tents of the Continental army.
Starting off at a gallop, she dashed around a bend in the road into the
midst of a group of officers riding slowly up from the valley.
“Stop, little maiden, before you run us down,” said one, who seemed to
be in command. “Where are you going in such hot haste?”
“Oh, sir,” said Betty, reining in Daisy, “can thee tell me where I can
find General Washington?”
“Yes, little Quakeress,” said the officer, who had first spoken to her,
“I am he. What do you wish?”
Betty, too exhausted to be surprised, poured forth her story in a few
broken sentences, and (hearing as if in a dream the hasty commands for
the rescue of the soldiers in Chichester Meeting-house) fell forward in
her saddle, and, for the first time in her life, fainted, worn out by
her noble ride.
A few days later, when recovering from the shock of her long and
eventful ride, Betty, waking from a deep sleep, found her mother
kneeling beside her little bed, while her father talked with General
Washington himself beside the fireplace; and it was the proudest and
happiest moment of her life when Washington, coming forward and taking
her by the hand, said, “You are the bravest little maid in America, and
an honor to your country.”
Still the peaceful meeting-house and the gambrel-roofed home stand
unchanged, save that their time-beaten timbers and crumbling bricks
have taken on a more sombre tinge, and under the broad walnut tree
another little Betty sits and sews.
If you ask it, she will take down the great key from its nail, and
swinging back the new doors of the meeting-house, will show you
the old worm-eaten ones inside, which, pierced through and through
with bullet-holes, once served as a rampart against the enemy.
And she will tell you, in the quaint Friends’ language, how her
great-great-grandmother carried, more than a hundred years ago, the
news of the danger of her countrymen to Washington, on the Brandywine,
and at the risk of her own life, saved theirs.