Mary Rowlandson defending her house, from the frontispiece of a 1770 edition of her narrative. Source · Public domain
About Mary Rowlandson
Mary White Rowlandson (c. 1637-1711) was born in England and came as a child with her family to Massachusetts, where they settled at Lancaster, a frontier town on the Nashaway River. She married the Reverend Joseph Rowlandson, Lancaster's first minister, in 1656, and they had four children, one of whom died in infancy. Captured with three of her children in the attack on Lancaster in February 1676 during King Philip's War, she was ransomed after nearly twelve weeks; her husband became minister at Wethersfield, Connecticut, and died in 1678. She married Captain Samuel Talcott in 1679 and lived at Wethersfield until her death.
Frequently Cited
“my Bible; which was my guide by day, and my pillow by night.”
“I have seen the extreme vanity of this world: One hour I have been in health, and wealthy, wanting nothing. But the next hour in sickness and wounds, and death, having nothing but sorrow and affliction.”
Mary Rowlandson's narrative tells of the eleven weeks and five days she spent as a captive during King Philip's War, the conflict of 1675-1676 between the New England colonies and an alliance of Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc and other Native peoples led in part by the Wampanoag sachem Metacom, whom the English called King Philip. It opens on 10 February 1675, by the Old Style calendar then used in English New England (20 February 1676 in modern reckoning), when a large war party attacks Lancaster, Massachusetts.
