Bishop took six months to make an escape plan, waiting for an opportune moment, and around 1780, she went overboard through the side of the ship and swam towards the shore at Stamford, Connecticut.

[5] She made a weekly journey from her cave to attend Sunday services at the South Salem Presbyterian Church, first changing into a neater attire at a local residence.

[8] The land around her cave was a treeless patch covered in grass, with peach trees and beans, cucumbers, potatoes, and grapevines which extended into the nearby woods.

[5] According to Theodore L. Van Noden, in his unpublished 1927 book of the history of South Salem, she arrived in Connecticut close to the American Revolution and was of medium height, fairly skinned, and was elegantly charming.

He is quoted as saying "The stone is dedicated to her memory as a compassionate woman who, with unwavering determination, faced the challenges of nature and society, living the life she chose in accordance with her convictions.

"[11] According to historian Linda Grant De Pauw, the experience she endured during her capture by pirates was "so traumatic that she could not bear to return to normal human society".

The poem reads as the following:For many a year the mountain hag Was a theme of village wonder; For she lived in a cave of the dizzy craig, Where the eagle bore his plunder.

Her long snowy locks, like the winter drift, On the wind were back ward east; And her crippl'd form glided by so swift, You had said 'twere a ghost that passed.

And her house was a cave in the giddy rock, That o'erhung a sullen veil; And 'twas deeply scarred by the lightning's shock And swept by the vengeful gale.

As alone on the cliff she musingly sate, The fox at her fingers would snap: The raven would sit on her snow-white pate, And the rattle-snake coil in her lap; And the vulture look'd down with a welcoming eye, As he stooped in his airy swing; And the haughty eagle hovered so nigh, As to fan her long locks with his wing.

But when winter rolled dark its sullen wave From the west with gusty shock—Old Sarah, deserted, crept cold to her cave, And stept without bed in her rock.

No fire illum'd her dismal den: Yet a tattered Bible she red; For she saw in the dark with a wizzard ken—And talked with the troubled dead, And 'twas said that she mutter'd a foreign name, With curses too fearful to tell; And a tale of perfidy, madness, and shame, She told to the walls of her cell.

Like a desolate ruin she stood on the brink, With a writhed hp and a glaring eye; And her cold clay with horror seem'd to shrink, As the stranger came shuddering nigh.