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by Sarah Brownell (Contribution by), Julie Boyd Cole (Author)
In the year 1712, young Sarah Wells' future in the New World didn't look very promising. She was an orphan, an indentured apprentice, and at the mercy of her master in the tiny new settlement of Manhattan. When she reached 21, she would have just two choices - marry or sell herself to a new master for another seven years. Instead, she changed her fate. Her master, a land speculator with a sketchy reputation, offered her an unprecedented 100 acres if she would serve as his representative to make a claim in the wilderness of the Hudson River Highlands. She set aside her overwhelming fear and headed north with a handful of hired carpenters and three Native people in a single-mast sloop. Not only did the young woman survive the journey into the wild, but she thrived for nearly a century in Orange County, New York. In the wilderness and with the assistance of the Munsee tribe of Indigenous People, she eventually married, had 12 healthy children, built a stone house that still stands today, survived the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, outbreaks of yellow fever and small pox, and the unbelievable uncertainty of frontier life. Her neighbors were many of the most important men and women of this new democracy and her descendants now number more than 76,000. She was an American Pioneer.
