A Journey to Ohio in 1810 by Dwight

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Transcriber's note

Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end. All other inconsistencies are as in the original.

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YALE HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY FROM THE INCOME OF

THE FREDERICK JOHN KINGSBURY MEMORIAL FUND

A Journey to Ohio in 1810

As Recorded in the Journal of MARGARET VAN HORN DWIGHT

Edited with an Introduction by MAX FARRAND

New Haven YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

First published, October, 1912 Second printing, December, 1912 Third printing, December, 1913 Fourth printing, April, 1920 Fifth printing, October, 1933

INTRODUCTION

"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.

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