Mary Rowlandson

Mary White was born in Somerset, England, about 1637. Her family emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, settling first at Salem and in 1653 at Lancaster, on the frontier, where in 1656 she married the Reverend Joseph Rowlandson; they had four children. In February 1676, during King Philip's War between the English colonists and several Native American nations, Lancaster was attacked, and Rowlandson and three of her children were among those taken captive. Her youngest daughter, Sarah, died of her wounds after a week. For more than eleven weeks Rowlandson traveled with her captors through the wilderness, separated from her other children, until she was ransomed in May 1676 for twenty pounds raised by the women of Boston. Her family was reunited, and in 1677 they moved to Wethersfield, Connecticut, where her husband became pastor; he died the next year. Her account, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, published in 1682, describes her ordeal and her reliance on the Bible, and it was widely read in New England and England. In 1679 she married Samuel Talcott. She died in 1711.

Mary Rowlandson is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: A Puritan whose faith shaped her account of her captivity. Source: Wikipedia