Reality Outshines Fiction

I just finished a terrific book. It's The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor by Sally Armstrong. It's what might be called a historical biography with a touch of imagination thrown in. It's the story of the author's own great-great-great grandmother whose dynasty of descendants numbers in the hundreds today. The story takes us back to around 1776 when Charlotte Taylor, a feisty and determined young woman runs away from her gentrified English family with the family's black butler. They end up in the West Indies where Pad (the butler) succumbs to a fever and dies, leaving Charlotte pregnant. Not officially married, Charlotte nevertheless assumes the role of widow and fortunately makes the acquaintance of a kind older man who runs a trading post on the Baie des Chaleur in what is today New Brunswick's north shore, but which then was basically wilderness. The next 60-some years of Charlotte's life are a fantastic story of survival against great odds, three marriages and many children. Besides being a well researched account of the settlement of the Miramichi, the author weaves in from her imagination many anecdotes and stories that paint a remarkably believable picture of this woman.

An interesting website Charlotte Taylor: Her Life and Times developed by one of Charlotte's descendants contains lots of factual information as well.