Elizabeth was born a pioneer and possessed an equal amount of daring and resolution for which the following incident, related by her granddaughter, giver her credit. During the Revolution and at the time of the Battle of Bennington in 1777, her parents were living near the battlefield; her father and brothers had gone to the scene of the action. It was in the days of New England slavery, and her father owned a slave. Some of the family were sick with the measles, but hearing the roar of the terrible conflict, they sought safety in flight. Yoking the oxen hastily and putting a few valuables in the cart, she bade the slave drive the oxen while she harnessed the horses; placed a bed in the wagon, helped her feeble mother and sick sister in and they were off. As they came in sight of the raging battle, their path diverged and led them down into a deep, marshy gutter, which held the wheels of the cart fast in the mud. The slave, angry because he had not been allowed to drive the horses, refused to help his young mistress in this trying predicament. Dauntless, she alighted, and seizing some rails near by she laid them pontoon fashion, hitched the horses in front of the oxen, and with one long, hard pull they were extricated and on their way to safety (Severance, B. Frank. Genealogy and biography of the descendants of Walter Stewart of Scotland and of John Stewart who came to America in 1718 and settled in Londonderry, N.H. Greenfield, Mass. : T. Morey & Son, 1905, pg. 86-87).