Madam Knight, as Sarah Kemble Knight is known, was a Boston schoolteacher and businesswoman. In the autumn of 1704 she made a business trip to New York by way of Rhode Island and Connecticut. On the journey she kept a journal which gives a vivid account of her experiences. You will find that this Boston woman writes about Connecticut as though it were a foreign country. She had a good sense of humor and a keen eye for detail. You learn in this report that not all of your New England ancestors were cultivated people like governors Winthrop and Bradford. THE THIRD DAY Wednesday, October 4, 1704 About four in the morning, we set out for Kingston [_Rhode Island_] (for so was the town called) with a French doctor in our company. He and the post put on very furiously, so that I could not keep up with them, only as now and then they’d stop till they see me. This road was poorly furnished with accommodations for travelers, so that we were forced to ride 22 miles by the post’s account, but nearer thirty by mine, before we could bait [_feed_] so much as our horses, which I exceedingly complained of. But the post encouraged me by saying we should be well accommodated anon at Mr. Devil’s, a few miles further. But I questioned whether we ought to go to the devil to be helped out of affliction. However, like the rest of [_the_] deluded souls that post to the infernal den, we made all possible speed to this devil’s habitation, where, alighting in full assurance of good accommodation, we were going in. But meeting his two daughters, as I supposed twins, they so nearly resembled each other, both in features and habit, and looked as old as the devil himself and quite as ugly, we desired entertainment but could hardly get a word out of ’em, till with our importunity [_urging_], telling them our necessity, etc., they called the old sophister, who was as sparing of his words as his daughters had been, and no, or none, was the reply he made us to our demands. He differed only in this from the old fellow in t’other country: he let us depart.... Thus leaving this habitation of cruelty, we went forward, and arriving at an ordinary [_inn_] about two mile further, found tolerable accommodation. But our hostess, being a pretty full-mouthed old creature, entertained our fellow traveler, the French doctor, with innumerable complaints of her bodily infirmities and whispered to him so loud that all the house had as full a hearing as he, which was very diverting to the company (of which there was a great many), as one might see by their sneering. But poor weary I slipped out to enter my mind in my journal, and left my great landlady with her talkative guests to themselves.... THE SIXTH DAY Saturday, October 7