{"id":995,"date":"2024-10-25T20:28:50","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T20:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/s2.designcostaging.com\/clients\/mmm\/?post_type=monuments&p=995"},"modified":"2024-11-13T19:12:53","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T19:12:53","slug":"prudence-wright-memorial-stone","status":"publish","type":"monuments","link":"https:\/\/s2.designcostaging.com\/clients\/mmm\/monuments\/prudence-wright-memorial-stone\/","title":{"rendered":"Prudence Wright Memorial Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to legend, Prudence Wright<\/a> was visiting her mother in Hollis, New Hampshire<\/a> when she overheard a conspiratorial conversation between two loyalists: Benjamin Whiting and her brother, Samuel Cummings. The pair intended to send Leonard Whiting with a message to the British in Boston, revealing the location of gunpowder kept by Patriot forces. As a fervid Patriot, Wright would not allow this to happen easily.<\/p>\n

With her husband away fighting at Concord<\/a> and Lexington<\/a>, Wright gathered an assembly of thirty to forty local women later referred to as \u201cMrs. David Wright\u2019s Guard\u201d to form a militia and foil the loyalists\u2019 plan. With Wright as captain and Sarah Hartwell Shattuck of Groton<\/a> as her lieutenant, they gathered at Jewett\u2019s Bridge over the Nashua River in Pepperell<\/a>. Wearing their husbands\u2019 clothing and, according to Butler\u2019s History of the Town of Groton, \u201c<\/em>armed with muskets, pitchforks and other such weapons as they could find,\u201d the women captured Whiting, confiscated the documents he was carrying and surrendered him to Groton\u2019s Committee of Observation.<\/p>\n

In a surprisingly egalitarian measure for the time, Wright and her guard were compensated for their military service. Pepperell\u2019s town meeting minutes for March 19th, 1777<\/a>, awarded the \u201cLeonard Whiting Guard (so called)\u201d a total of seven pounds, seventeen shillings, and sixpence for their service, purposefully obscuring their identities as women.<\/p>\n

Commemorating its namesake and the militia women under her command, the Prudence Wright Memorial Stone is sited near the Nehemiah Jewett Bridge in Pepperell. The memorial stone was one of several proposed by Pepperell\u2019s Lunar Club to commemorate historical events in the town. In 1887 the club held an art exhibition to generate interest in the project and fund raise. This event attracted the attention of Sarah E. Pevear (Mrs. H.A. Pevear), Wright\u2019s great granddaughter, who summered in Shirley<\/a>. Civically engaged Pevear pledged support for the project and in November 1889 the memorial stone was erected.<\/p>\n

Its inscription reads:<\/p>\n

NEAR THIS SPOT A PARTY
\nOF PATRIOTIC WOMEN, UNDER
\nTHE LEADERSHIP OF MRS. DAVID
\nWRIGHT, OF PEPPERELL, IN
\nAPRIL 1775, CAPTURED LEONARD
\nWHITING, A TORY WHO WAS
\nCARRYING TREASONABLE DESPATCHES
\nTO THE ENEMY AT BOSTON. HE
\nWAS TAKEN A PRISONER TO GROTON
\nAND THE DESPATCHES WERE SENT
\nTO THE COMMITTEE OF SAFETY
\nAT CAMBRIDGE.<\/p>\n

Both Wright and her husband continued to fight for independence throughout the war while raising 11 children. The Prudence Wright Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution was established in 1898, 75 years after the death of its namesake. In 1908 the Chapter marked Wright\u2019s burial site in Walton Cemetery with a marker which was recently restored.<\/p>\n

Such was Wright\u2019s acclaim that she was memorialized by poet Susan H. Wixon in the November 1899 issue of the American Monthly Magazine. <\/em>Celebrating Wright\u2019s endeavors, Wixon writes,<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026Their country\u2019s honor, in an hour
\nMost serious and grave,
\nWas thus upheld with grace and power,
\nBy women true and brave.
\nAnd on the scroll where heroes\u2019 names
\nAppear in shining light,
\nWith names our country proudly claims,
\nGleams that of Prudence Wright.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first memorial to a woman in the Heritage Area, and one of the earliest to a woman in the country, the Prudence Wright Memorial Stone commemorates the heroic actions of a woman\u2019s militia that captured a Tory spy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-995","monuments","type-monuments","status-publish","hentry","city_town-pepperell-ma"],"acf":{"banner_image":1270,"listing_thumbnail":1559,"listing_thumbnail_caption":"","year":"1889","location":"Prudence Wright Overlook, Pepperell, MA","address":"Prudence Wright Overlook, Groton Street","time_period":"1875 - 1924","town":"Pepperell, MA","state":"MA","gallery":[{"image":2007,"caption":"","image_layout":"Portrait","content":""},{"image":1559,"caption":"","image_layout":"Portrait","content":""},{"image":1270,"caption":"","image_layout":"Portrait","content":""}],"one_sentence_description":"","display_on_story_page":"Yes","status":"Active","latitude":"42.66941087800955","longitude":"-71.57456215431374","map_url":""},"yoast_head":"\nPrudence Wright Memorial Stone - 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