Wives of famous men are often overshadowed in life and soon forgotten. Yet those are the people I’m drawn to, the ones who lead us down historical roads less traveled.

Anne Ledyard, the wife of local hero Colonel William Ledyard, famously killed during the Battle of Groton Heights on Sept. 6, 1781, is a woman local history has forgotten, yet her sacrifice deserves remembrance.

On the day of the British massacre at Fort Griswold, Anne returned in the evening from her safe refuge on a Thames River barge. She no doubt responded urgently to the bloody scene, wandering among many women with lanterns, looking for lost sons and husbands.

She was surely led to her husband, now dead, a sword tear in his vest. She was a widow at age 37. With six children at home, including 10-day-old Charles, her life had fallen apart.

I picture her walking solemnly from the fort, consumed by despair, toward her mother-in-law’s home on Groton Bank, where the children were secluded. Just two months previously, she and William had buried their daughter, Sarah, only 16 years old. And now she’d lost her beloved William, the head of the family, her means of support.

Born in Stonington, Anne Williams was almost 17 when she married William Ledyard at the Parke-Williams Homestead in Stonington, a section of town now called Old Mystic. Her new husband was a 22-year-old merchant who, along with older brother Ebenezer, imported and exported goods to and from the West Indies. It was a lucrative time for trade merchants in Groton and New London.

By 1781, her 20-year marriage to William had produced nine children, but, in addition to Sarah, they had also lost 11-year-old William four years prior.

Colonel Ledyard had become a respected citizen of some stature, elected in 1773 and 1776 to represent Groton in the Colonial Assembly.

But that fatal sword to his chest had thrust Anne into new and difficult circumstances.

Many colonial widows had to remarry for their family’s survival, but some were able to maintain their independence whether through their deceased husbands’ business or some other means.

Anne never remarried, perhaps a sign of her financial stability, ingenuity and fortitude.

A year after losing her husband, Anne had to suffer the deaths of both her son Henry, 2, and daughter, Mary Ann, 19. Mary Ann had just married six months prior. Infectious disease was a constant threat to life in the colonies.

In the years following the war, Anne sold off land acquired by William and petitioned the state to recoup William’s military pay still owed him, “in order to continue her children as apprentices.”

She also requested compensation since William’s “business in a seafaring line was destroyed by the war.”

Though Connecticut was on the brink of bankruptcy, rife with corruption, in 1790 Anne was able to squeeze 520 pounds out of the state, a considerable amount, and “80 in solid coin.”

By 1781, William had been a merchant for many years, so perhaps he provided Anne some support through his estate and liquidation of assets. She may well have worked in some aspect of Ebenezer’s trade business.

The fact that the 1790 New London County Census listed her as “Head of Household” and a slave owner, as were many middle- and upper-class Connecticut families, indicates she managed financially.

The Monument House Museum at Fort Griswold displays a survey map showing two houses belonging to Colonel Ledyard on Groton Bank. Anne probably raised her family in one of them.

Her trials ended in 1790, when terrible tragedy struck the family again.

Anne and Charles suffered serious afflictions and died hours apart on Sept. 8, possibly victims of a terrible influenza epidemic sweeping the country. Anne’s remaining four children were likely taken in by family.

Anne and Charles share the same casket in Groton’s Colonel Ledyard Cemetery. The mournful elegy etched on the gravestone, largely unreadable today, describes who the wife of Colonel Ledyard was:

“Here lieth, reunited to Parent Earth, in the forty-sixth year of her life, Anne, for a few years the disconsolate relict of Col. Wm. Ledyard, who, in a fort adjoining this ground, fell gallantly defending these towns and harbor. At her fond request her youngest son, Charles, aged eight years, lies in her arms. Those who know how to estimate female accomplishments in the person of a tender mother will judge of the melancholy reverence with which this stone is erected to her memory by her only surviving child, Peter V. Ledyard.”

Peter memorializing his mother as a “disconsolate relict” speaks of her consuming grief.

On annual observances of the Battle of Groton Heights, honor the heroes but remember those in the shadows, those who live on the historical road less traveled.

John Steward lives in Waterford and can be reached at tossinglines@gmail.com, or visit www.johnsteward.online.