Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman was born in Randolph, Massachusetts, and attended Mount Holyoke College (then, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) in South Hadley, Massachusetts, for one year, from 1870–71. Freeman's parents were orthodox Congregationalists, causing her to have a very strict childhood. Religious constraints play a key role in some of her works. She later finished her education at West Brattleboro Seminary. She passed the greater part of her life in Massachusetts and Vermont. Freeman began writing stories and verse for children while still a teenager to help support her family and was quickly successful. Her best-known work was written in the 1880s and 1890s while she lived in Randolph. She produced more than two dozen volumes of published short stories and novels.

This is an historical romance written in 1900s but set in 1680s Jamestown, Virginia. The plot revolves around the colonists' anger over the Navigation Act that deprived them of the profits from their tobacco crops. In the middle of this little rebellion is the romance between Harry Wingfield, a gentleman-tutor, and Mary Cavendish, a head-strong eighteen-year-old.