... return to Colonial America through the eyes of a young girl and share in her childhood journey.

Written by Diane Leatherman
Illustrated by Raya Bodnarchuk

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Available at the Farm's GateHouse Shop or Purchase online $7.95 each

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Abigail Jones thinks she is 11-years-old, but she isn’t exactly sure. She knows a few letters but she can’t read. She and her family live during the Colonial Period shortly before the American Revolution. Their lives are hard; they live at a level common to most ordinary people in the 18th century. Their house has a dirt floor and mud and wattle chimney. Abigail is the oldest child in the family and her mother depends on her way too much. Mama was raised in an artisan family as an only child and is ill-prepared to be the wife of a poor tobacco farmer in Virginia, bearing one child after the other. The family lives a harsh existence, by our standards. But the hard work and tedium are occasionally relieved by the Market Fair! Abigail and one of her brothers become apprenticed in different trades; for Abigail it means escape.

Diane Leatherman was one of the early Claude Moore Colonial Farm “wives” at the time of this country’s bicentennial in the 1970s. As farm wife, she often brought her children to work with her where they portrayed members of the “Farm family”. She has had several other careers in the 20th century including writing her first historical fiction for children, Rebecca, A Maryland Farm Girl, published in 2002, and illustrated by Raya Bodnarchuk.

For additional information, please contact The Bounty Project, Claude Moore Colonial Farm at (703)847-0710 or email bounty@1771.org.
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