Her new husband was a former rector of the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven who preached occasionally, engaged in modest dealings in the shipping trade, and suffered from epilepsy.

[2] Mary and Colonel Gold Selleck Silliman, a lawyer and member of one of Fairfield County’s most influential families, were married on May 24, 1775, in Stonington following a courtship sustained by frequent letters.

[5] Knowing that military involvement in the American Revolutionary War could rob her of her second husband through absence or death, Mary learned the workings of his farm as well as knowledge of his financial affairs.

[6] Mary fell ill with dysentery in 1776 but upon recovery, ran the Silliman farm, entertained militia officers, housed refugees of war, managed the labor of several enslaved workers and her adult stepson, drew accounts, and collected rent on her late first husband’s farms, all while her husband led the state militia.

[7] On May 2, 1779, a band of Loyalists captured Gold and his son from a previous marriage, Billy, holding them prisoner on a Long Island farm.

[8] On the morning of July 7, 1779, a British fleet arrived to mount a full-scale attack on Fairfield, and Mary evacuated her household to North Stratford.

Throughout her husband’s captivity, she wrote letters to well-connected men, like Connecticut’s Governor Trumbull, in order to appeal for their help in securing an exchange for Gold.

On April 27, 1780, a boat which Mary had hired departed Black Rock Harbor with Judge Jones aboard to return him and bring Silliman back.