E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Neufeld, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 39079-h.htm or 39079-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/39079/pg39079-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/39079/39079-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. The carat character (^) in Eng^d indicates that the following letter ("d") is superscripted. [Illustration: Eng^d by J.C. Buttre. MARTHA WASHINGTON. FROM STUART'S PICTURE] SIXTEENTH THOUSAND. NOBLE DEEDS OF AMERICAN WOMEN; With Biographical Sketches of Some of the More Prominent. Edited by J. CLEMENT., With an introduction by Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. Such examples should be set before them as patterns for their daily imitation. LOCKE New Edition Revised. New York: Miller, Orton & Co., 25 PARK ROW. 1857. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by Geo. H. Derby & Co., In the Clerk's Office of the Northern District of New York. Editor's Preface. This work was suggested by one of a similar character, entitled "Noble Deeds of Woman," an English work, which contains but three references to American Women, two of which are of but very little importance. Only one article is the same in both works, and that is the letter written by Mrs. Sigourney to the women of Greece, in 1828, in behalf of the ladies of Hartford. This failure to do justice to American women, may have been an oversight; be that as it may, a work of the kind here presented, seemed to be needed, and we regret that its preparation had not been assigned to an abler pen. Multitudes of works have been consulted, and such anecdotes gleaned as it is thought will have a salutary influence on the mind and heart. Should the records of female courage and virtue herein presented to the daughters of the land, encourage, even in the slightest degree, a laudable spirit of emulation, our humble labors will not have been put forth in vain. Facts are more sublime than fictions; and American women have actually performed all the good, and grand, and glorious deeds which the honest and judicious novelist dares ascribe to the female sex; hence we have found no occasion, in striving to make this work interesting, to deviate from the path of historical truth.