The Women of Red Clay Running Waters

March 26, 2025

Even though the main character in my story is John Ridge, this being Women’s History Month, my thoughts turn to the real women who populate the pages of Red Clay, Running Waters, their courage, their devotion, and their influences on the shaping of history.

Sarah Bird Northrop Ridge grew up in Connecticut, coming from a family prominent of physicians, pastors and Yale graduates. She was a descendent of one of Massachusetts first settlers and her grandfather served as surgeon in the Revolutionary War. Her family moved to Cornwall, Ct in 1820 for her father to take up the position of steward for the first institution of higher learning for Native American in the United States, The Foreign Mission School. It was there she met and married John Ridge, a Cherokee student at the school. At 19 years old, she and John were betrothed, but the pledge remained a secret; their marriage incited social outrage. She left her New England home and family to live among the Cherokee. She remained in the area for the rest of her life. She was the mother of 7 children. Although she lived in relative comfort for many years as the wife of a prominent Cherokee political figure, she too found herself swept into center of the Indian Removal Crisis, ultimately forced from her home in the fight to support her husband and children in the midst of the personal, political, and social upheaval of the time. She was active in fostering schools and education among her husband’s people throughout her lifetime, proving herself to be a devoted partner, morally courageous, and resourceful. The children from her marriage became physicians, journalists and lawyers. Future generations of John and Sarah’s descendants still live in the area.

Her fellow New Englander, Harriet Gold Boudinot, came from a prosperous Cornwall family of standing, her father being a member of the General Assembly and one of the founders of the Foreign Mission School. She was about 16 when she first met Elias Boudinot, John Ridge’s cousin, whom she married in 1826 at the age of 21, after years of correspondence and soul searching. Their marriage and its impact on the community of Cornwall and efforts to ‘educate the heathen’ ultimately led to the closing of the school. Harriet also left her prosperous home and family in Connecticut where she had endured sever censure for choosing to become Elias’s bride, She also joined her husband in the Cherokee Nation in Georgia. There she lived under much more modest circumstances, tirelessly managing a large household, teaching Sunday school, evangelizing, and had 6 children while she helped her husband with the publication of The Cherokee Phoenix, the 1st Native American newspaper in the United States.

Sophia Sawyer, was another New England woman, who was a missionary teacher at several mission stations within the Cherokee Nation, Georgia. She was a penniless orphan who was devoted to the multiracial children she taught, eventually following the Cherokee to Oklahoma after the Removal. Brave, dedicated, and forthright in expressing her opinions, she often ran afoul with many of the more conservative (male) missionaries to the Cherokee. She worked to improve the stature and education of all the children she taught, in particular the girls. She chose to come to Arkansas to accompany and support Sarah and her children in her time of great need. Sophia established the Fayetteville Female Seminary on grounds not far from the house Sarah occupied, This school was one of the first institutions of its kind in the State, educating students of both races. This school eventually led to Fayetteville Arkansas becoming a respected seat of higher education for the State.

Examples of devotion, dedication, love, sacrifice, and moral fortitude, these three women are little known today, but each had a significant impact on the places they lived, the people they lived with, and the times they lived in.

Their stories come to life on the pages of Red Clay Running Waters where you can come to know them for yourself.