World Changing Women, Day 3

Just Six Miles

Lydia Darragh (1729-1789)

Snow swirled around a hunched figure and threatened to steal the flour sack she grasped in her cold hands. The wind slowed her down, but she never stopped. Every step brought her closer to her goal and every second counted as she trudged on. Would she be too late to save her country?

Lydia Darragh was a Quaker wife, mother to 9, and had a brave spirit. In 1777, when Lydia was nearly 50 years old, British General Howe’s troops moved in across from her home in Philadelphia. The British knew that Quakers didn’t fight, but Lydia’s oldest son, Charles, had disobeyed the Quaker’s position on non-violence and enlisted in George Washington’s army. Lydia did her part too, by hiding messages behind the coat buttons of her 14-year-old son, and getting him to deliver them. One day, General Howe’s troops demanded to use the Darragh parlor for a meeting and forced the family upstairs. With a wildly thumping but praying heart, Lydia eavesdropped on the meeting and heard their plan to attack Washington’s troops in Whitemarsh. She could have stayed silent. Instead, she chose to act. As another woman of courage was once told:

“If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

The next morning she set out, determined to warn Washington’s troops in time. With a flour sack, Lydia marched the six miles on a cold December day. She passed through the lines, delivered the warning to an American officer, and returned home with her flour. If Lydia had been silent, the British might have caught the Americans unprepared, with serious consequences for the fight ahead.