As part of the 1976 Bicentennial Celebration, "the National Historical Activities Committee requested all the members of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America to search out old diaries, letters and similar materials of their colonial (up to 1830) and/or pioneer ancestresses. ... Here in this small volume are a few papers, culled from that number that came in from across our land."--Foreword, p. iii. Includes Elizabeth Timothy who took over publication of the Gazette of the State of South Carolina, Henrietta Deering Johnston who was the first pastellist in Colonial America, and Phoebe Jenkins Waight who was mistress of a plantation on Johns Island which was occupied by British soldiers in 1780.