Once, ten years after her marriage, she had a narrow escape on one of those rare days.

She had started in a boat with her youngest child, Abijah, and a lad who worked in her household.

It was spring and the St.
John was not yet clear of ice.

Higher up the river the ice broke that morning and came floating down with the current.

The boat in which Mary Garrison and her baby rode was overtaken by the fragments and wrecked.
The mother with her child sought refuge on a piece of ice and was driven shoreward.