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road, she kept entertainment for travelers, and is called innkeeper. At this place she died, Sept. 25th, 1727, and was brought to New London for interment. A gray headstone, of which an exact impression is given on a fol- lowing page, marks the place.¹ The only child of Madam Knight, Elizabeth, relict of Col. John Livingston, survived her, and presented her inventory, which comprised two farms in Mohegan with housing and mills, £1600, and estate, in Norwich, £210.

      The journal which is here reprinted, had been carefully preserved in manuscript in the Christophers family, to whom it came after the death of Mr. Livingston; Sarah, wife of Christopher Christophers, who was a Prout, of

      ¹ Miss Caulkins's History of New London, 372, et seq.

      PREFACE.

      New Haven, and a relative, being appointed to administer on her estate. From a descendant of this Mrs. Christophers, viz: Mrs. Ichabod Wetmore, of Middletown, the manuscript was obtained for publication. It had been neatly copied into a small book.¹ The original was not returned to Mrs. Wetmore, and, with the exception of a single leaf, has unfortunately been destroyed.²

      Madam Knight's business on this journey was, as she says, the distribution of an estate and one evidently in which she had a personal in- terest. It may possibly have been that of her brother John, who had died in New York a few years previously, or perhaps that of her husband, as stated by Mrs. Hannah Mather Crocker.³ A suggestion has been made that it was the estate of Caleb Trowbridge; but this is not probable, as her name appears in 1704 as a

      ¹ Miss Caulkins's History of New London, 373.

      ² It appears from Mr. Deane's article that this leaf was then in possession of Mr. Theodore Dwight of New York, who edited the journal.

      ³ Historical Magazine, IX, 93.

      PREFACE.

      witness to the papers by which that estate was settled.¹

      It is evident from her journal that Madam Knight was energetic and observing; that she had some imagination and a good perception of the ludicrous. She seems also to have been free from that strict and narrow character which is generally attributed to the Puritan of early New England. She rides a few miles on Sun- day, and considers the prohibition of "innocent merriment among young people," to be "rigid." She makes jokes on Mr. Devil's name, which, only a few years earlier, might have convicted her of witchcraft, if they had come to the ears of Cotton Mather. And although absent from home for five months, and a visitor with at least two or three clergymen, she gives no account of any sermon which she may have heard. Her silence in this particular may have been because there was more novelty in the matters which she narrates.

      Wherever it is possible to make the test, her journal will be found accurate even in slight

      ¹ W. R. D.

      PREFACE.

      matters. It may therefore with good reason be relied upon in all its details.

      In the introduction to the former edition it is said that over the same journey which Madam Knight made, "we proceed at our ease without exposure, and almost without fatigue, in a day and a half." A penciled note made in 1849 to a copy of the edition adds: "now performed by rail road in ten hours." That time is now re- duced to eight. One may venture to think that the speed of travel will never be carried to a much higher degree than it has now reached.

       Albany, 1865.

      THE

      PRIVATE JOURNAL

      KEPT BY

      MADAM KNIGHT,

      ON A JOURNEY

      FROM BOSTON TO NEW YORK,

      IN THE YEAR 1704.

      FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT.

      INTRODUCTION

      THIS is not a work of fiction, as the scarcity of old American manuscripts may induce some to imagine ; but it is a faithful copy from a diary in the author's own hand-writing, compiled soon after her return home, as it appears, from notes recorded daily while on the road. She was a resident of Boston, and a lady of uncommon literary attainments, as well as of great taste and strength of mind. She was called Madam Knight, out of respect to her character, accord- ing to a custom once common in New England; but what was her family name the publishers have not been able to discover.

      The object proposed in printing this little work is not only to please those who have par-

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