t
is possible that if the lives of the early settlers and the scenes of
those times were in full laid before us for review, we would find many
instances in which women displayed even greater courage than the men,
and in enduring the most severe privations and dangers, held out even
longer.

Had Captain Godfrey not been possessed with such a companion as his
wife, it seems almost certain he would have been made a prisoner and,
perhaps, been murdered. Her tact and perseverance in danger secured his
liberty and rescued him from death.

When her friends in London tried hard to persuade her from accompanying
her husband on his second venture in the colony, she calmly replied:
"Where my husband goes I can follow, if it be in the wilderness among
savages, or even through fire and blood. I love my husband, and wherever
he may be, to that spot I am attracted more strongly than to any
other." How much these brave words sound like those of Madame Cadillac,
spoken three quarters of a century earlier.

On the 24th of July, 1701, Cadillac landed at Detroit, and set himself
to found the place. Soon after this Madame Cadillac, who had been left
behind at Quebec, plunged into the wilderness to rejoin her husband.

It was a thousand miles in a birch bark canoe rowed by half-clad
Indians, and the route was through a dense forest and over great waters
swept by the September storms, but this brave woman undertook the
journey attended by only a single female companion.

When subsequently reminded of its hazards and hardships, she simply
replied: "A woman who loves her husband as she should, has no stronger
attraction than his company, where ever he may be."

The rich heritage we enjoy comes to us through the great efforts of
patriotism and dogged perseverance of our ancestors (the fathers and
mothers of the country). As we in gratitude remember the former, let us
not forget the latter.

Margaret Godfrey died in London about the year 1807, having survived her
husband fully twenty years. She was beloved by friends, and esteemed by
all who came in contact with her. She sank full of years undimmed by
failure and unclouded by reverses. Who can think of such persons as Mrs.
Godfrey without acknowledging that such are the true nobility of the
human race!

And now, when from the long distance of a hundred years or more, we
look back upon the hardships and misfortunes endured by one family of
the early colonists, we feel assured that pen an