The exceptional biography - from letters, a diary, and
reminiscences - of an unknown woman (1736-1818) whose life spanned
the Great Awakening, the Revolution, and the first-score years of
the 19th century. Father was a Stonington, Conn. minister whose
authority, but not faith, was undermined by the dissension arising
from the first Great Awakening. Mary, his beloved daughter, was
sent at 15 to Sarah Osborn's school for young women st Newport,
where "the lessons of character" instilled by her father were
reinforced. In 1756, during a round of visits, she was introduced
to unassuming young Joseph Fish of New Haven, whose proposal Mary
accepted because "he grew more and more amiable and agreeable to me
and my friends." Their first child, a girl, died in infancy: only
the beginning of Mary's trials, Joseph himself, an epileptic, died
in 1767, leaving her with three sons. These were difficult years in
which Mary, by her own words, found herself "in the valley, a
valley dark and dismal, I could not see light in either world."
Despite several suitors, she did not rush back into marriage, and
only st age 38 accepted Gold Select Silliman, of one of Fairfield's
leading families. "While Silliman and Mary wrote love letters,
others had been more grimly engaged at Lexington and Concord."
Silliman received his marching orders; fought in several battles;
then returned to secure the locality. But on May 2, 1779, he was
forcibly abducted and held for almost a year in an enemy
stronghold. All the while, Mary maintained a household that now
comprised her first three sons, two sons by Silliman, and assorted
hangers-on, On his eventual return, financial problems festered.
Though (to Mary) mere "trifles when set against the blessings of
family," they may nonetheless have hastened his death, in 1789.
Only slowly did Mary manage to extricate herself from her
precarious financial position. In her later years, by contrast, she
seemed (according to one son) "to be travailing up instead of down
the hill of life." She even married again, a doctor acquaintance in
Middletown; but she spent much of ben time staying with family
members who needed her care. The suicide of a grandson tested her
faith as had no other death. But she could be proud of her extended
family, all of whom attested to her authority as matriarch. "In
Mary's hands," write the Buels, "the family became as vigorous an
instrument as institutions] religion for the maintenance of the
faith which. . . provided a revolutionary generation with a link to
their origins." Engrossing family history, very well told. (Kirkus
Reviews)
"Vivid, splendid reading—reading for pleasure, for profit, for a sure grasp of the past that made the present possible." —William Manchester Combining the skills of a gifted writer and a scholar's grasp of early America,
The Way of Duty draws readers into a vividly evoked world. The Buels have used a rich trove of documents to tell the story of a Connecticut woman, Mary Fish Silliman (1736–1818), whose adventures illuminate the day-to-day realities of living through the American Revolution.
"An admirable book about an admirable person. . . . Thoroughly engrossing." —Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World
"Engrossing family history, very well told." —Kirkus Reviews
"A poignant, even heart-wrenching story. The Buels make clear just how disruptive the Revolution was in the private lives of families. It is a beautifully written, irresistible story that tells a lot about what the Revolution really meant." —Richard L. Bushman, Columbia University
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