Her descendants are proud of her & greatly admire her love for her children & indomitable courage when their lives or interests were at hazard & take great pleasure in telling anecdotes of her early life. When first a bride, she journeyed from her parental home at Chester, N. H., to east central Vermont (the North Country, as it was then called) on horseback, carrying a feather bed & a spinning wheel upon her horse. Haynes Johnson settled in Newbury, VT., some time prior to 1770, as he is given as the head of a family there in that year. In those days, for all but the barest necessities of life, the men had to take long journeys to some more settled colony to get supplies & usually brought back a quantity for each of his neighbors. Mr. Johnson, returning from one of these trading expeditions, was taken very ill of cholera morbus at Concord, N. H., died, & was buried there, three weeks before his wife heard what had befallen him.

Being thus left with 3 small children, the youngest but a few weeks old, in a country exposed to the ravages of the Indians & Tories, she decided to go back to her father's in Chester, N. H. The journey had to be made on horseback & most of the way, by bridlepaths through the wilderness with marked trees as the only guide. The eldest boy rode upon a pillion behind her, the second one, she tied on in front & the baby, she carried in a sling in front of her. She forded streams that were so deep that the water washed into her shoes & sometimes she was obliged to remain in the woods all night. On one of these occasions she turned her horse loose & with her children crept under a cart-body that was turned up near the path, where she remained unmolested until morning, when she resumed her journey & arrived safely at her father's. But hearing of no more trouble from the Indians, she returned to Newbury in about a year. The boys - Jonathan, Jessie (b. 3/27/1773) & Haynes (b. 8/13/1775) - lived to grow up & each married a daughter of Capt. Ezekiel Sawyer of Bradford, VT.