[2] Her friends throughout her life were some of the most well-known American authors, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott.

Her mother was a poet and songwriter, and told Jane many stories of her ancestors, especially of Francis Le Baron — the nameless nobleman — and his descendants.

Le Baron and his Daughters, cover the era from the landing of the Pilgrims upon Plymouth Rock, in 1620 to the days of the American Revolution, in 1775.

At the time of her death, she was engaged upon a story which followed the fortunes of the Aldens and others of the Plymouth Colony in the migration to Little Compton or Sakonnet Point, Rhode Island.

[10] Nineteenth-century biographies portray her as a prolific writer who always wrote carefully and in finished style, claiming that her work was distinctly American in every essential way.

[10] However, more modern studies have begun to recognize that while Austin did engage in extensive research for her historical fiction, she also embellished her stories and as a result ensured the lasting popularity of many myths about the Pilgrims.

[14] She also lived with a married daughter in Roxbury, passing a part of the winter in Boston in order to be near her church, and every summer returning to Plymouth, where she constantly studied not only written records, but crumbling gravestones and oral tradition.