FAQ & Historical Sources

Answers to common questions about The Prescott Girls: A Letter from Philadelphia, including the real people, places, artifacts, family connections, and historical sources behind the story.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is The Prescott Girls based on real people?

Yes. The Prescott Girls: A Letter from Philadelphia was inspired by real sisters, Beckie, Louisa, and Sallie Prescott, who lived with their mother in the old Pownalborough Court House in Dresden, Maine, during the 1830s. The novel combines documented family history, surviving objects, and historical imagination.

Who were the Prescott girls?

Beckie, Louisa, and Sallie Prescott were sisters connected to the Prescott and Johnson families of Maine. After their father’s death, they and their mother lived at the Pownalborough Court House, a former courthouse, tavern, and post office that had become a family home.

What was the Pownalborough Court House?

The Pownalborough Court House is an eighteenth-century building in Dresden, Maine. It once served as a courthouse, tavern, post office, and community landmark, and later became the home of the family connected to the Prescott girls. It is preserved today by the Lincoln County Historical Association.

Lincoln County Historical Association
Pownalborough Court House Museum

Were the needlework samplers real?

Yes. The story grew out of the discovery of nineteenth-century needlework samplers connected to the Prescott, Johnson, and Canby families. These samplers helped reveal family connections, educational practices, and links between Maine and Philadelphia.

How is Betsy Ross connected to the The Prescott Girls?

Louisa Prescott later married William Jackson Canby, a grandson of Betsy Ross. William later presented many of the family stories and traditions about his grandmother to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, helping launch the legend we know today. The Author will explore that history in the next book, "The Prescott Girls - Louisa's Journey."

How were the illustrations researched?

The illustrations were developed as historic re-imaginings based on documented people, real locations, period clothing, family history, samplers, portraits, and museum collections. Selected clothing references draw upon garments in the Historic Textile & Costume Collection at the University of Rhode Island and the Maine Historical Society collections.

Is the book appropriate for classrooms?

Yes. The book and free teacher resources were designed to support grades 4–7, with classroom materials covering history, literacy, geography, artifact analysis, early American education, letter writing, and critical thinking.

Explore Teacher Resources

Historical Sources & Acknowledgments

Wardrobe and Illustration References

Selected illustrations in this book draw upon garments in the Historic Textile & Costume Collection at the University of Rhode Island and the Maine Historical Society collections. Each of these pieces is identified by its Maine Memory Network number so that the original object may be located:

• MMN #105390 – Brown cotton print dress with large cape collar and full sleeves, c. 1830s
• MMN #105395 – White printed cotton, mid-19th century
• MMN #105806 – Red print cotton, 1843

Map of Maine, 1833

Tanner, Henry Schenck, “A New Map of Maine by H.S. Tanner” (1833). Maine Bicentennial. 27.
University of Maine DigitalCommons

Suggested Reading & Bibliography

The following books and historical studies helped inform the themes, settings, historical questions, and cultural background explored in The Prescott Girls: A Letter from Philadelphia.

Suggested Reading for Young Readers

• Anderson, Laurie Halse. Chains . Simon & Schuster, 2008. Historical fiction about a young enslaved girl’s fight for freedom during the American Revolution.
• Hopkinson, Deborah. Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt . Knopf Books for Young Readers, 1993. A story about resistance, needlework, and messages hidden in fabric.
• Hesse, Karen. Witness . Scholastic, 2001. Told in multiple voices, this free-verse novel set in the 1920s explores courage in the face of bigotry with strong thematic parallels to this story.
• Levinson, Cynthia. We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March . Peachtree, 2012. A nonfiction look at how young people have stood up for justice, then and now.

Recommended Reading for Adults & Educators

• Wickenden, Dorothy. The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women’s Rights . Scribner, 2021. The intersecting lives of real women reshaping American ideals.
• Vaughan, Martha, and Sarah A. P. Goodwin. Sallie and Captain Sam. Lincoln County Pub. Co., 1992. A vivid account based on the diaries of Sarah “Sallie” Prescott.
• Holcomb, Julie L. Moral Commerce: Quakers and the Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Economy . Cornell University Press, 2016. How Quaker families, including women and children, actively resisted slavery through daily choices and conscience-driven consumer behavior.
• Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains . Houghton Mifflin, 2005. A vivid account of the early abolitionist movement, including the rise of the sugar boycott.
• Mintz, Sidney W. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History . Penguin Books, 1985. A cultural and economic study of how sugar shaped empires, economies, and ethics.
• Miller, Marla R. Betsy Ross and the Making of America . Henry Holt and Company, 2010. This biography provides essential context on Quaker life, women’s work, and artisan families in early Philadelphia.
• Canby, William J. Travels to Cuba in 1855: With Notices of Porto Rico and the Slave Trade. Edited by David Edge. Independently published, 2021. This travel journal offers firsthand observations on slavery and trade in the Caribbean.
• James, Joseph. Miscellanies, Moral and Instructive, in Prose and Verse; Collected from Various Authors, for the Use of Schools, and Improvement of Young Persons of Both Sexes . Philadelphia: Joseph James, 1837. The source of the verse stitched into Hannah’s sampler.
• Carter, Elizabeth. Ode to Wisdom . Various printings, 18th–19th century. An excerpt appears in Rebecca Johnson’s 1808 sampler and echoes Enlightenment-era ideals of reason and virtue.
• Wilmunder, Aric, and Lori Love. “Six Stitches Through Time.” PieceWork Magazine, Spring 2026. Discovering the hidden legacy of Betsy Ross’s family in needle and thread.

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