An instant of an apoplexy

‘Nanny, our servant, died in an instant of an apoplexy. Lord, make it useful to the young people in our family, and may we all improve by the warning.’ This entry was written by Martha Laurens Ramsay, a rich Southerner who died 215 years ago today. Her published journals would later provide a rich account of family life in South Carolina during the early years of the United States.

Martha Laurens was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1759, the eldest daughter of Henry Laurens, one of colonial America's most prominent merchants and statesmen, and his wife Eleanor Ball Laurens. Her childhood was shaped by both privilege and upheaval. Following her mother's death when Martha was thirteen, much of her education fell to relatives and private tutors. During her youth she spent periods in England and France while her father pursued business and diplomatic responsibilities, experiences that broadened her outlook and exposed her to a wider world than most American women of her generation encountered.

The American Revolution transformed the Laurens family's fortunes and circumstances. Henry Laurens became President of the Continental Congress and later served as a diplomat for the new United States, while enduring imprisonment in the Tower of London after being captured at sea by the British. Throughout these turbulent years Martha developed the habits of religious self-examination and disciplined reflection. Deeply influenced by Presbyterian evangelicalism, she cultivated a faith that shaped every aspect of her private and family life.

In 1786 she married Dr David Ramsay, a physician, politician and historian who had served as a surgeon during the Revolutionary War and would become one of the earliest historians of the United States. The couple settled in Charleston and eventually had eleven children, though several died in infancy or childhood. Ramsay declared insolvency in the late 1790s, and was sued by Martha's brother in bankruptcy proceedings. As Ramsay’s wife, Martha experienced financial hardship, often feeling her faith was being tested. She took it upon herself to take responsibility for the ‘kins-keeping’ of the Laurens family; she and her husband adopted her niece Frances Eleanor Laurens, the daughter of her late brother John Laurens. Martha died on 10 June 1811, still only in her early 50s. Further information is available at Wikipedia.

Alongside the demands of motherhood and household management, Martha maintained journals and correspondence. These survive because her husband drew heavily upon them when compiling Memoirs of the Life of Martha Laurens Ramsay, published in two volumes in 1812, a year after her death. The work - freely available at Internet Archive - combines extracts from journals, letters and family recollections to present a portrait of her character and religious life. Although never intended for publication, the diary passages preserve a distinctive female voice from the early United States. Historians have since valued them as an important record of domestic life, evangelical belief and family relationships in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

16 July 1791

‘My feet had well nigh slipped, through the prevalence of my easily besetting sin; nevertheless, I laid me down to sleep, rejoicing that I had not utterly fallen. Lord, make me at all times watchful.’

17 July 1791

‘Lord, may this be a sanctified sabbath; a day to be remembered for holy resolutions and enabling grace. I am weak; O when shall the time of full strength come. In all the great trials and lesser vexations of life, may patience have its perfect work, till I lie down where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.’

19 July 1791

‘I thank God for the ease and cheerfulness of this day; and that, in spite of secret griefs, and spiritual conflicts, my soul and body do both sweetly repose themselves in the God of my salvation.’

21 July 1791

‘Nanny, our servant, died in an instant of an apoplexy. Lord, make it useful to the young people in our family, and may we all improve by the warning.’

25 November 1791

‘My husband set out for Columbia. I pray God bless and preserve him; the same day, my dear little Patty fell into the parlour fire; but by God's good providence I was enabled to snatch her out, and smother the flame, before she had received any considerable injury; may God's goodness deeply affect me; and may I show forth his praise in a holy life. Lord, pluck her as a brand from everlasting burnings, and make her thine own child.’

6 October 1794

‘My sister Pinckney died, having been generally delirious from Friday; and her speech so thickened, that though she attempted it in the intervals of reason, she never could make us understand what she wished to say to us. Miss Futerell and myself were constantly with her; but my heart is too full to write on this subject. Lord, thou knowest my groanings, and my sighings are not hid from thee; commiserate thy poor, sinful, suffering creature; and fill me with humility and resignation, under this exceedingly heavy stroke of thy Providence.’

23 August 1796

‘Eleanor and myself taken with the fever. I had it moderately, but our dear Eleanor was like to die; she was brought low, indeed, and our hearts were filled with anguish on her account; but it pleased God to give efficacy to the means used for her recovery; a fourth bleeding, more copious than three preceding ones, seemed to relieve some of the most distressing and alarming symptoms she laboured under. I did not hide her danger from her, and have since repeatedly urged to her the propriety of devoting to God the life which he redeemed from the grave.’

2 June 1808

‘My dear husband, who is certainly a true believer, and a great noter of Providence, having received two dollars from a casual patient, said to me, “Here are two dollars which I have just got by chance.” I said, thank ye; but don't, at this time, when we are in such want of money, say that any comes by chance. He smiled with his usual kindness, and said, I only meant that I got it from a passing and not a stated patient... About two hours after he sent me up twenty dollars, just after I had been earnestly praying that the Lord from the storehouses of his mercy, would send some supply to my necessities and those of my family.’