










About Heather Frey Blanton



  1. I often wonder if I’d have the cajones to do something like that! I’m a fighter, so I’d like to think I would….loved the strop of Grace and Rachel!

  2. Oops! * story*

  3. Did you that the church which Mel Gibson’s movie ‘The Patriot’ depicts the British as having burned, was really burned by none other than the Americans?

    Not surprising really, if that movie is anything like Braveheart, then it certainly is going to be rather dubious where historical accuracy is concerned.

  4. Lady of Winchester



  5. Lady of Winchester

    I did check this with hindsight (at least with a Google search). All I heard was that this was something the movie depicted which allegedly did not happen. Not so unusual for a Mel Gibson movie (like the myth of Prima Nocti?).
    The 18 and 19th century is not ‘my period’ at all really, so I am not familiar with it.

    However, I do have something of an issue with the version of American Patriotism that essentially involves what I call ‘Brit Bashing’.
    There is more than one side to a story, and history is rarely ‘black and white’. Dare I say that not all Americans were Lily white and non all British evil incarnate in the Revolutionary War.

  6. I know this story is a little old but I just ran across in doing some research. I appreciate you telling the story of these two courageous women. Grace and Rachel were my 6th great aunts being married to my 6th great uncles William and Barclay Martin. These stories are very true and it just shows that the women of that time knew what it took to survive. As to the comment that a lot of the stories are Brit bashing, you have to understand that the American colonists were being very defiant and were looked down upon by the British. I am sure that not all Brits were terrible but there were plenty in charge that were. There is a story in my family that my 7th great grandmother was sitting on her porch when a British officer rode out to her home. He asked her if she had a son killed in the Battle of Augusta. She said she did (William, Grace’s husband). The British officer replied with a smirk on his face “Well I saw his head shot off”. She replied “He could not have died in a better cause”.

    • Mark, thank you so much for sharing those stories! You have some great genes in your family. I truly enjoyed getting to know these gals. And, as you can tell, I don’t apologize for the Brit Bashing. It was a different time, a different world. Gee, I might have to use that exchange there at the end. Talk about some killer dialogue!

Leave a Reply


WordPress.com Logo


Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: