CHAPTER I.

MY YOUTH AND EARLY LIFE.


AS the principal object of this work, is to give an account of my
experiences in the North-West, and my many adventures during the last
few months, I would deem it out of place to detain my readers with any
lengthy description of my birth-place or any details of my younger
days. I have noticed many false reports that have been circulated
through the press, upon the different situations and conditions in the
North-West--whether as to the whites, the half-breeds, or the Indians.
In the second chapter I will give a truthful version of what I saw,
heard and know. Still I cannot well enter upon this work, with justice
to myself or to my late husband, without informing my readers whence
we came and how our lots happened to be cast together amidst the
scenes of our new home, and upon the theatre of the fearful tragedy in
which we played such important parts.

My grandfather, Henry Marshall Fulford, while yet a young man, about
the year 1812, came from Woburn Massachusetts, and established his
home on the Aylmer road, near Bytown, the Ottawa of to-day, where he
carried on an extensive lumbering and farming business. My father was
born there, and it was also the place of my own birth. Our home was
situated about two miles and a half from Aylmer, and about five miles
from the present capital of the Dominion.

In those days Ottawa was called Bytown. No one then dreamed that it
was destined to become the capital and the seat of the future Federal
government of the country. The town, for it was then a town, was small