Anne came of a good family.

She was the daughter of an Irish lawyer, who went to Carolina and became a planter, and there the little girl grew up.

When her mother died she kept the house, but her disposition was very much more masculine than feminine.
She was very quick-tempered and easily enraged, and it is told of her that when an Englishwoman, who was working as a servant in her father's house, had irritated Anne by some carelessness or impertinence, that hot-tempered young woman sprang upon her and stabbed her with a carving-knife.
It is not surprising that Anne soon showed a dislike for the humdrum life on a plantation, and meeting with a young sailor, who owned nothing in the world but the becoming clothes he wore, she married him.
Thereupon her father, who seems to have been as hot-headed as his daughter, promptly turned her out of doors.

The fiery Anne was glad enough to adopt her husband's life, and she went to sea with him, sailing to New Providence.

There she was thrown into an entirely new circle of society.