Memoirs of an American Lady: With Sketches of Manners and Scenery in America, as They Existed Previous to the Revolution

by Anne MacVicar Grant

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370 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1808

About the author

Anne Macvicar Grant, often styled Mrs Anne Grant of Laggan, was a Scottish poet and author best known for her collection of mostly biographical poems, Memoirs of an American Lady, as well as her earlier work, Letters from the Mountains.

Anne Macvicar was born in Glasgow, the only child of Duncan Macvicar. Macvicar served as an officer with the 77th Regiment of Foot in North America. His wife and daughter joined him in Charleston, South Carolina in 1758. The family then moved to the New York colony. At Albany and Oswego, Anne lived among Dutch settlers, French Huguenots, English soldiers, African-American slaves, and the Mohawk people. She learned Dutch and frequented the summer wigwams of the Indians. She could speak their language sufficiently well to converse with their women and children.

Macvicar retired from the army in 1765, and the family returned permanently to Scotland in 1768. In 1773, Macvicar was appointed as barrack-master at Fort Augustus in Inverness-shire.

In May 1779, Anne married the Rev. James Grant, the minister at Laggan, where the couple lived for the next 22 years. Of their twelve children, eight survived to adulthood, six daughters and two sons. James Grant died in 1801. In June 1803, Anne and her children moved to Woodend near Stirling. In 1806, her correspondence with friends was published under the title Letters from the Mountains. Her recollections of growing up in pre-revolution America were published under the title Memoirs of an American Lady in 1808.

In 1809, Anne move to Edinburgh, where she ran a private school. Her Essays on the Superstition of the Highlands of Scotland, with Translations from the Gaelic were published in 1811.