A Woman's Place Is at the Top by Hannah Kimberley

Author:Hannah Kimberley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

7

Born, Not Made

The name Peck is local in derivation and signifies “at the peck,” i.e., at the hilltop. The form of the word in medieval English is pek, “the hul of the pek,” meaning the hill of the peak, in Derbyshire. Another form of the name is Peak. It is of great antiquity, and is found in England, in Belton, Yorkshire, at a very early date. The family has an ancient and honorable lineage, and from the pedigree of the English family of Peck, to be found in the British Museum in London, England, it has been established that Joseph Peck, the immigrant ancestor of the American family of Peck herein dealt with, was of the twenty-first generation in direct descent from John Peck, Esquire, of Yorkshire, England, and was baptized in England on April 30, 1587, and emigrated to America at the age of fifty years.

—The History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Biographical, New York, the American Historical Society, 1920

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ANNIE ARRIVED IN PANAMA on May 31, 1906, when a series of calamities like she had not faced before began. She was delayed in Paita, Peru, for two days and did not arrive to Callao until June 13. Once again, the northern ports were closed except for Callao, due to the continued spread of infectious diseases. Annie had to wait for a boat going north. “Coming down, the Peruvians were afraid of Guayaquil, and going back, Guayaquil and Panama were afraid of Peru,” Annie said. She caught the next available boat out on June 19. Annie arrived in Chimbote on June 21 to spend a few days with the U.S. consul, Victor Pezet, and his family before making her way to San Jacinto. Annie telegraphed her friends in Peru to tell them she had arrived. The sugar plantation in San Jacinto, from where Augusto Leguía had secured horses for Annie, once again sent two men with horses and mules to meet her. She made the eight-hour ride to San Jacinto, where she would meet a man with new horses and mules that the Brysons had sent. They would take Annie to her next stop, which was the Bryson estate, Cajabamba. But when she arrived, there were no mules to carry her luggage on the next leg of the trip. Annie was forced to leave her belongings and supplies behind with the assurance that Mr. Bryson would have someone pick them up and take them to her at Cajabamba. However, the luggage did not appear for another ten days.

Even though Annie had started earlier in the season in order to have time for good climbing conditions, she still had the problem of securing guides. When she was visiting the Colquipucro mine near the Bryson estate, she learned that her guides from her 1904 expedition, “the gallant little Osorio” and “the stalwart Adrian,” had left the mine in Peru and gone to work somewhere else. But there was a man, whom Annie only ever referred to as “E.

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