Two Elizabeths Chapter 4

The story of Elizabeth Haddon and John Estaugh is so charming and enchanting that it was immortalized by one of our great Romantic poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his poem "Elizabeth." from the collection" Tales of a Wayside Inn." Its popularity can be demonstrated by the familiarity of one of its lines today. 150 years after its publication. "Ships that pass in the Night."
The first years' harvest and preparations for winter were successful, and news of the new immigrant spread, along with a reputation for her generosity and hospitality. She had increased her knowledge of herbal medicine from her Native friends, and traded with them her knowledge on the subject from her native country, and seeds interchanged, so that Elizabeth had quite an herbal dispensary growing behind her house. She used this growing knowledge to treat neighbors for miles around, and this practice continued for the rest of her life.
Wayfarers knew that if need be, her door was always open to share a warm hearth, or a hot meal, a bed for the night. And so it was that on one snowy night, two travelers knocked on her door, and although it had been several years since she'd seen him, she immediately recognized one as John Estaugh. Being who she was, there can be no doubt that she believed Providence had played a role in bringing him to her door.
An evening of pleasant conversation and news from England, concluded with Elizabeth taking John into the kitchen , to show him the ears of corn hanging there, and she told him that those and many more had come from the ear given by him to her family. She told him that she hoped his words of inspiration would fall on similarly fertile soil, and bear abundant fruit in the new world. Although John could command rapt attention and great admiration when addressing a Meeting House crowd, this talent didn't adapt him to being much of a ladies' man. He wasn’t one who could deftly show appreciation for Elizabeth's knack for poetry, or even recognize the flirtation for what it was, so they awkwardly said their goodnights.

The next morning found drifts of snow fallen overnight. Elizabeth put her two boarders to work, harnessing the oxen and clearing paths that would let her tend to her neighbors' needs, both the sick and those in need of food. Although John was unaccustomed to lots of physical labor, he jumped right in, and worked as hard as anyone at the task at hand. The rest of the day and evening he accompanied Elizabeth on her rounds, and although it wouldn't have taken much, she was impressed by his helpfulness, and by the comforting words he spoke to those in distress. So it was that on the next day, when he left to continue the mission he was on, and for the days that followed, she would find herself thinking of him more and more, as nothing can bind two people with a natural attraction to each other like time spent together in charitable works.

A couple months later, as preparations were being made for spring planting, John returned to Elizabeth's farm in the company of a number of other Quakers on a day trip to the Meeting at Salem, and She decided to go with them. Having decided on something, as we have seen, she was most capable of going after it single-mindedly, so after crossing Mantua Creek, and watering the horses, she feigned a problem with the saddle on her horse, so that John would stay behind the group to assist her. She seized this opportunity to propose marriage to him, using language that, in the same way as with her family, he would be least able to argue. "God has commanded me to love thee, John Estaugh."
Elizabeth was by all accounts a very attractive woman, and well to do, and as someone later noted, had John Estaugh been more worldly and wise, he would have been floored by the extraordinary proposal. But he gently told Elizabeth, in the only way that she could have accepted, that he was bound to complete the mission he was on, but that, upon his return to England, he would give it his most solemn consideration. Neither gave much weight to the fact that she was wealthy, and he was, by calling, a man of simpler means, or to the social impropriety of her proposal to him. Upon his return to England, and with or without counsel, he determined that Elizabeth's offer was a great gift indeed, and upon his return two months later, they were married in Quaker fashion. This involves merely sitting together at Meeting, and near the end stating, for all to hear, their intention to be kind and faithful to one another. And so began a long marriage in service to others and with great affection for one another.