Betty Zane – Women in the American Revolution






Betty Zane’s father had buried a store box of black gunpowder in their cabin. Betty Zane volunteered to leave the fort to retrieve more supplies. Because she was a woman, the enemy would let her go; and she was the only one who knew where her father buried the gunpowder. The opposing forces, seeing a young woman emerge from the fort, let her pass. In her family’s cabin, she filled a tablecloth with gunpowder and ammunition, and transported it back to the fort. The enemy again let her pass. When the enemy realized what she was doing, she was attacked by the Indians and shot at, but she made it safely back into the fort.


==Personal life==

Elizabeth “Betty” Zane was married twice and was a mother of seven children.


Zane’s first husband was Ephraim McLaughlin with whom she had four daughters; Mary Ann “Polly”, Sarah Nancy, Rebecca and Hannah McLaughlin. After the death of her first husband, she married Jacob Clark with whom she had a son, Ebenezer Clark, and a daughter, Catherine Clark.






Betty Zane’s great-grandnephew, the author Zane Grey, wrote a historical novel about her, titled Betty Zane. One of the main events in the story is the tale of Zane’s fetching supplies from the family cabin. When Grey could not find a publisher for the book, he published it himself in 1903 using his wife’s money. Grey later named his daughter Betty Zane after his famous aunt.