The Journal of Margriet Van Tassel

The book bears no title.

Its cover is dark leather, dry and cracked at the corners, with no identifying marks upon the exterior.

The first page contains two things.

A date.

November, 1781.

And beneath it, written in a careful, practiced hand:

Margriet Van Tassel.

The journal was preserved among generations of family papers at Ashwood Farm, wrapped in old cloth and stored alongside household records, correspondence, and other belongings whose original owners are long deceased.

There is little to distinguish it from the many private journals kept by women of the eighteenth century.

At first.

Its earliest entries concern the ordinary business of maintaining a household during the closing years of the Revolutionary War.

The approaching winter. The price of grain. The condition of the root cellar.

There are accounts of hunger, lost livestock, and neighbors whose families had been divided or destroyed by the fighting.

Margriet writes without embellishment.

Her observations are practical, precise, and occasionally devastating in their simplicity.

But woven among these accounts is another subject.

One she appears to have concealed from nearly everyone around her.

Fragment I — The Western Boundary

November 1781. Transcribed excerpt.

The Rider came again last night along the western boundary.

The passage continues with Margriet's reluctance to wake her husband, Cornelius, who she believes would offer an ordinary explanation for what she heard.

A scout. An animal. The wind moving through the trees.

Her account does not suggest that she found these explanations convincing.

More curious is her repeated attention to the horses.

Margriet appears to have regarded their behavior as a more reliable indication of the visitor's presence than anything she could observe herself.

Fragment II — The Horses

Date uncertain. Transcribed excerpt.

The animals go quiet in their stalls before I hear anything myself.

Elsewhere in the same account, Margriet distinguishes their stillness from fear.

She had evidently observed frightened horses before.

Whatever occurred along the western boundary, she believed their response was different.

No corresponding account has been found in the surviving household records.

Fragment III — The Woman from the Hollow

Spring 1782. Selected references.

Several entries describe conversations with a woman whose identity Margriet does not establish.

She calls her the woman from the Hollow.

In one passage, she uses the abbreviation old H.

The woman appears to have possessed knowledge concerning the mysterious rider and his movements through the valley.

Margriet records these conversations with noticeably greater care than her ordinary household observations.

It is possible she regarded the information as important.

It is also possible she feared forgetting it.

The identity of the woman remains unresolved.

A problem of dates

The references to old H. warrant particular attention.

Local tradition places the death of Hulda of Bohemia around 1777.

Margriet's journal begins four years later.

The references to the unidentified woman occur later still.

If the two women were the same person, the accepted chronology would require reconsideration.

There are, however, other possibilities.

The abbreviation may refer to someone entirely different.

The name may have been shared.

Or Margriet may have been recording information passed down through another source.

Without further documentation, identification would be premature.

The pages not reproduced

The journal continues through 1783.

Later entries contain references to the western boundary, the rider, and conversations that appear to have influenced Margriet's understanding of both.

These passages have not been included in the present transcription.

Their meaning remains under examination.

The final pages suggest that Margriet understood her writing might eventually be read by someone who had not yet been born.

Whether she intended the journal as a family record, a warning, or something else cannot presently be determined.

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Related records: Ashwood Farm · Hulda's Glen · The Old Dutch Church

End of available transcription.

Additional pages remain under review.