Taking her part in the labor of the household at a time when it was expected that the woman portion would not only care for the house, prepare the food, and make the clothes for all the family, but also weave and spin the materials as well, she yet managed to acquire an education of which graduates of our modern schools and colleges might well be proud. “She studied while she spun flax, tying her books to the distaff.” She not only became well read in literature and history, and acquainted with the progress of science, then just beginning to attract the attention of scholars, but learned to write and speak the French language fluently. She gave enough attention to music to be able to accompany her voice on the guitar, and was sufficiently skilled in the use of pencil and brush to paint some very creditable portraits upon ivory, several of which are still in the family. She was an adept in the mysteries of the needle, “in fine embroidery with every variety of lace and cobweb stitch,” and was gifted with great skill and celerity in all manner of handicraft, so that in after-years “neither mantua-maker, tailoress, or milliner ever drew on the family treasury.” Belonging to a family distinguished in both branches of her ancestry, and residing, while her father lived, in the centre of the village of Guilford, which could boast that more than four-fifths of its original population belonged to families with coats-of-arms in Great Britain, and afterwards taken to the home of her grandfather, General Ward, who was the foremost man of the town and one of the leading men in the State, and who kept open house to all strangers, she enjoyed the best social advantages which the times afforded. Tall and beautiful in form and feature, with a winning and yet commanding presence, “she was so sensitive and of so great natural timidity that she never spoke in company or before strangers without blushing, and was absolutely unable in after-life to conform to the standard of what was expected of a pastor’s wife and lead the devotions in the weekly female prayer-meeting.” She was early confirmed in the Episcopal Church; her parents, although both from strictly Puritan families, having joined that denomination upon their marriage. They had held through all the Revolutionary struggle to their loyalty to King George, and this had subjected them to the determined opposition of their neighbors, and stamped the family, perhaps, with something of that independence of character which opposition to a prevailing popular sentiment is adapted to give, and which is so marked a feature in her descendants.