Monadnock Moment No. 111

Era 2: Colonization and Settlement - 1623 to 1763

The Ordeal of Mrs. Prichard

In the decades just before the Revolutionary War, the Town of Walpole, New Hampshire was a forested landscape with scattered clearings where settlers had built their homes. To the settlers new to the region, this was a wilderness environment. It was in this setting that a Walpole resident by the name of Mrs. Prichard experienced her ordeal in the forests around Walpole.

One day Mrs. Prichard started out through the woods with her two year old child to visit a neighbor. As they walked along the trail, she and the child came upon a large snake. They left the trail to avoid the snake and lost their way. Search parties were sent out, but Mrs. Prichard thought that they were Indians pursuing her. Consequently, she hid in the forest to avoid them.

She was unable to find her way home and subsisted on berries and bark. Several days after they became lost, the baby died and Mrs. Prichard buried it under a log. She continued through the woods eating berries and plants.

Exactly three weeks after she became lost a group of men found her near the mouth of Cold River, her clothing destroyed by the underbrush. She ran from the men, but they overtook her and returned her to her home. Mrs. Prichard had wandered through the forests of Walpole for 21 days, and was found five miles from the spot where she first began her journey.