Sarah Sally (Hull) Westbrook (1779-1814)
A week or so after her sleigh fell through the ice while crossing the Detroit River during her “rescue” from Delaware by husband Andrew, Sally was dead, most likely from pneumonia. We know little of Sally except that she was born in New Jersey in 1779 and likely came to Upper Canada with her parents after 1784 with the bulk of Loyalists. She married Andrew in 1799, just in time for a new century and a new life. To put things into perspective, Sally was a contemporary of Jane Austen, born 250 years ago on December 16, 1775. Jane never went out of fashion and is getting a lot of press these days. Jane’s father was the rector of an Anglican parish. This gave him access to the best social circles of the landed gentry; prestige but without the income. The “landed” gentry means those who inherited rentable land or an estate. Thus, he had to supplement his meager income by farming, teaching, and boarding pupils to support his family of seven children. Jane’s education was entirely designed to catch an eligible husband, preferably rich, since there was
frustration and a woman’s fate in a society that had no use for her talents. Jane pioneered the notion of strong women who know their own minds and personalities. She is considered to be the originator of the Rom-Com formula that Hallmark has so successfully inherited. Sally, on the other hand, married a good provider. She and Andrew owned a thriving farm of over 4000 acres and several businesses. This should, by British standards of the time, have placed them in the ranks of the landed gentry. After all, wasn’t the opportunity to better oneself the aim of every person who ever came to the New World? The Westbrooks were still not accepted by the “betters” of our territory, namely the Springers (whom Andrew had so unceremoniously bundled off as a prisoner the week before) and, of course, Talbot. The class system had followed them to the New World. For Sally to manage that huge farm and raise her five children (one of whom was still in diapers) while Andrew was in exile demonstrates a tremendous strength of character.
Jane Austen (1775-1817), contemporary of Sally Westbrook (1779-1814)
no other way for a woman to obtain wealth. Indeed, with the inheritance laws of the time, all property went to the son or the next-in-line male upon the death of the father. Jane was engaged to be married in 1802, but changed her mind the next day. Jane never married. Her novels are concerned with love and marriage...but mostly they are about disappointment. In effect, they are a study of
And what of Andrew? Surely this was the lowest time of his life. Ostracized in a strange land for his egalitarian views and decision to join the Americans, property gone, Simon and Ebenezer gone, Sally gone, Andrew found himself alone with five hungry children to raise. What could he do? (To be continued.) Photo courtesy of freebooksummary.com
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