The climate of England did not agree with Pocahontas, her health failed rapidly, and in the hope that a return to Virginia would save her life, her husband took passage for home. But it was too late; after a sickness of only a few hours, she died, and John Rolfe was left without the vivid presence which had been his blessing and his joy.
Pocahontas was buried at Gravesend on the 21st of March, 1617, and as night fell, and John Rolfe tossed on a bed of anguished memories, it is said that a man muffled in a great cloak stole through the darkness and knelt beside the new-made grave with bowed head and clasped hands.
It was Captain Smith who came to offer reverent tribute to the girl who had given him so much, asking nothing in return, a girl of savage lineage, yet of noble character and great charm, whose blossoming into the flower of civilization had no parallel. Alone there, in the somber night, the silent figure knelt-the brave Captain of her loyal devotion paying tardy homage to Pocahontas, the girl of the Virginia forest, the white man's steadfast friend.
DOROTHY QUINCY: THE GIRL OF COLONIAL DAYS WHO HEARD THE FIRST GUN FIRED FOR INDEPENDENCE
Table of Contents A small, shapely foot clad in silken hose and satin slipper of palest gray was thrust from under flowing petticoats of the same pale shade, as Dorothy Quincy stepped daintily out of church on a Sabbath Day in June after attending divine service.
John Hancock, also coming from church, noted the small foot with interest, and his keen eye traveled from the slipper to its owner's lovely face framed in a gray bonnet, in the depths of which nestled a bunch of rosebuds. From that moment Hancock's fate as a man was as surely settled as was his destiny among patriots when the British seized his sloop, the Liberty.
But all that belongs to a later part of our story, and we must first turn back the pages of history and become better acquainted with that young person whose slippered foot so diverted a man's thoughts from the sermon he had heard preached on that Lord's Day in June.
Pretty Dorothy was the youngest daughter of Edmund Quincy, one of a long line of that same name, who were directly descended from Edmund Quincy, pioneer, who came to America in 1628. Seven years later the town of Boston granted him land in the town that was afterward known as Braintree, Massachusetts, where he built the mansion that became the home of succeeding generations of Quincys, from whom the North End of the town was later named.
As his father had been before him, Dorothy's father was a judge, and he spent a part of each year in his home on Summer Street, Boston, pursuing his profession. There in the Summer Street home Dorothy was born on the tenth of May, 1747, the youngest of ten children. Evidently she was sent to school at an early age, and gave promise of a quick mind even then, for in a letter written by Judge Quincy, from Boston to his wife in the country, he writes:
Daughter Dolly looks very Comfortable, and has gone to School, where she seems to be very high in her Mistresses' graces.
But the happiest memories of Dorothy's childhood and early girlhood were not of Boston, but of months spent in the rambling old mansion at Quincy, which, although it had been remodeled by her grandfather, yet retained its quaint charm, and boasted more than one secret passage and cupboard, as well as a "haunted chamber" without which no house of the period was complete.
There we find the child romping across velvety lawns, picking posies in the box-bordered garden, drinking water crystal clear drawn from the old well, and playing many a prank and game in the big, roomy home which housed such a lively flock of young people. Being the baby of the family, it was natural that Dorothy should be a great pet, not only of her brothers and sisters, but of their friends, especially those young men-some of whom were later the principal men of the Province-who were attracted to the old mansion by Judge Quincy's charming daughters. So persistent was little Dolly's interest in her sisters' friends, that it became a jest among them that he who would woo and win fascinating Esther, sparkling Sarah, or the equally lovely Elizabeth or Katherine Quincy, must first gain the good-will of the little girl who was so much in evidence, many times when the adoring swain would have preferred to see his lady love alone. Dorothy used to tell laughingly in later years of the rides she took on the shoulders of Jonathan Sewall, who married Esther Quincy, of the many small gifts and subtle devices used by other would-be suitors as bribes either to enlist the child's sympathies in gaining their end, or as a reward for her absence at some interesting and sentimental crisis.
Mrs. Quincy, who before her marriage was Elizabeth Wendall, of New York, was in full sympathy with her light-hearted, lively family of boys and girls. Although the household had for its deeper inspiration those Christian principles which were the governing factors in family life of the colonists, and prayers were offered morning and night by the assembled family, while the Sabbath was kept strictly as a day for church-going and quiet reflection, yet the atmosphere of the home was one of hospitable welcome. This made it a popular gathering-place not only for the young people of the neighborhood, but also for more than one youth who came from the town of Boston, ten miles away, attracted by the bevy of girls in the old mansion.
Judge Quincy was not only a devout Christian and a respected member of the community, he was also a fine linguist. He was so well informed on many subjects that, while he was by birth and tradition a Conservative, giving absolute loyalty to the mother country, and desirous of obeying her slightest dictate, yet he was so much more broad-minded than many of his party that he welcomed in his home even those admirers of his daughters who were determined to resist what they termed the unjust commands of the English Government. Among these patriots-to-be who came often to the Quincy home was John Adams, in later days the second President of the United States, and who was a boy of old Braintree and a comrade of John Hancock, whose future history was to be closely linked with the new and independent America. Hancock was, at the time of his first visit to the old Quincy mansion, a brilliant young man, drawn to the Judge's home by an overwhelming desire to see more of pretty Dorothy, whose slippered foot stepping from the old meeting-house had roused his interest. Up to the time when he began to come to the house, little Dorothy was still considered a child by her brothers and sisters, her aims and ambitions were laughed at, if she voiced them, and she was treated as the family pet and plaything rather than a girl rapidly blossoming into very beautiful womanhood.
As she saw one after another of her sisters become engaged to the man of her choice, watched the happy bustle of preparation in the household, then took part in the wedding festivities, and saw the bride pass out of the old mansion to become mistress of a home of her own, Dorothy was quick to perceive the important part played by man in a woman's life, and, young as she was, she felt within herself that power of fascination which was to be hers to so great a degree in the coming years. Dorothy had dark eyes which were wells of feeling when she was deeply moved, her hair was velvet smooth, and also dark, and the play of feelings grave and gay which lighted up her mobile face when in conversation was a constant charm to those who knew the vivacious girl. When she first met John Hancock she had won an enviable popularity by reason of her beauty and grace, and was admired and sought after even more than her sisters had been; yet no compliments or admiration spoiled her sweet naturalness or her charm of manner.
In those days girls married when they were very young, but Dorothy withstood all the adoration which was poured at her feet beyond the time when she might naturally have chosen a husband, because her standards were so high that not one of her admirers came near to satisfying them. But in her heart there was an Ideal Man who had come to occupy the first place in her affection.
As she had sat by her father's side, night after night, listening while John Adams spoke with hot enthusiasm of his friend John Hancock, the boy of Braintree, now a rising young citizen of Boston, the resolute advocate of justice for the colonies, who stood unflinchingly against the demands of the mother country, where he thought them unfair,-the conversation had roused her enthusiasm for this unknown hero, until she silently erected an altar within her heart to this ideal of manly virtues.
Then John Hancock came to the old mansion to seek the girl who had attracted his attention on that Sabbath Day in June, little dreaming that in those conversations which Dorothy had heard between her father and John Adams she had pieced together a complete biography of her Hero. She knew that in 1737, when the Reverend John Hancock was minister of the First Church in the North Precinct of Braintree (afterward Quincy), he had made the following entry in the parish register of births:
John Hancock, my son, January 16, 1737.
Dorothy also knew that there in the simple parsonage the minister's son grew up, and together with his brother and sister enjoyed the usual life of a child in the country. When he was seven years old his father died, leaving very little money for the support of the widow and three children. Thomas Hancock, his uncle, was at that time the richest merchant in Boston, and had also married a daughter of a prosperous bookseller who was heir to no small fortune herself. The couple being...
