When Adin Manly, my 4X great grand uncle, recorded the story of leaving Massachusetts for the wilds of upstate New York in February 1817, he described the journey in practical terms: he and his new wife, Miriam, were married on January 17 and a month later they set out with a group and three yoke of oxen and a large covered wagon. The trip took twenty-two days, bringing them to their new home sometime in late February or early March. However, another detail buried later in Adin’s account changes the way I picture that journey entirely.

Their first child, Hartwell Dewing Manly, was born on September 24, 1817. Do the math, and Miriam was was almost certainly already pregnant when she climbed into that wagon and left Massachusetts behind. Suddenly this wasn’t simply the story of a young couple heading west in search of a new life. It is also the story of a newly-married, pregnant woman traveling for three winter weeks by ox-drawn wagon toward an unfamiliar place where living conditions would prove extremely difficult – and where, months later she would give birth to a tiny baby boy.

According to Adin’s account below, Miriam cared for that fragile son for months after his birth, while herself suffering from fever and ague that plagued her nearly every day for months. Adin goes on to say that at six months, Hartwell only weighed four pounds.

Adin never tells us what then 24-year old Miriam thought or felt about any of it. But sometimes the dates tell a story the writer never intended to tell.