history and historical fiction

This book brings history so close to home. It really tells us that ordinary people play an important part in the making of headlines. It is a beautiful and exciting tale, yet utterly simple.

The illustrations are remarkable. In this age of up-front color their textures, shades of grey, and perspectives are refreshing. Appropriate also to the period portrayed.

A definite must for all young people. With real possibilities as well, because of its high interest level, for teaching English as a Second Language to older students.

I am the author of this book and here are my comments: Daughter of Liberty portrays an incident in the life of my great, great, great, great Aunt Wyntje (Wyn) Quackenbosch (Quackenbush) Mabie who served as a messenger for General Washington during the Revolutionary War. In November 1776 she rode from her farm in Tappan, New York to Fort Lee, New Jersey, and rowed across the Hudson River by rowboat to retrieve papers from Washington's former headquarters at the Roger Morris House, now called the Morris-Jumel Mansion. Then she rowed back across the Hudson River and delivered the papers to Washington at his new headquarters in Hackensack, New Jersey. The papers contained names of suppliers and volunteer troop replacements so that Washington could quickly restore his shattered defenses. His Army had been reduced to 6,000 troops in just a few short months after the British invasion of New York city in August 1776. The papers were an aid to his first major victory at Trenton on December 26, 1776. I took certain liberties to write Wyn Mabie's story so that young readers could comprehend the complex events of the times. This included the addition of Jan and Janneke, ten-year-old twin cousins of Wyn's husband, Abraham, who were being cared for by Wyn and her Aunt Susanna. The twins actually represented Wyn's and Abraham's own children, a boy Abraham, age two months, and a girl Elizabeth, age 2, who would be too young at the time to talk about their feelings when Wyn undertook her mission. This type of writing - fact meeting fiction - is a process of harvesting things one accidentally knows and merging them with facts. Often it means bending the facts in order to arrive at the truth. For me, writing Wyn Mabie's story meant verifying through research a story that had been passed down in my family since the Revolutionary War. Then I linked the details of her mission with precise events and the time they occurred. This research took nearly twenty years to complete before I wrote and illustrated the finished book, which took one year. My purpose for creating Daughter of Liberty was to confirm a life that had become a legend, by restoring Wyn Mabie and her heroism to the book of life. For this reason I begin her story with this 184l quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson: There is probably no history, only biography.