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Boston in time of Pequot War

Anne Hutchinson and Pequot Wat Links

WWW www.erroluys.com

BS RH “The Pequot War began the Puritan slave trade and introduced bondage to the every day life of Boston and Roxbury. Pequots were all but exterminated. Those left alive were sold as slaves in the Puritan towns or shipped to the West Indies to feed the insatiable Spanish demand for slave labor for their plantations and mines. The chronic labor shortage in NE – made worse by reduced immigration after 1640 – caused the Puritans to adapt the land pattern established by the Spaniards – slavery of Negroes and Indians. The English learned from over half a century of Spanish rule that enslavement was the most appropriate means of punishing and preventing Indian revolts…”

BSRH: The Blessing of the Bay switched to the slave trade in 1638.
Puritan households had Indian slaves (called servants.) Slavery was patriarchal as in the Old Testament. Slaves were protected under Mosaic Law and a mistreated slave brought legislative punishment on the master. Many slaves were freed after six years of faithful service. Public auctions and advertisements of the slaves in the local press was common. The Mather family of Dorchester were among the largest slave holding family in New England.”

1641 Boston settlers bought 45 acres from Rev Blackstone for what they called “Common Use”
1649 law: “there shall be no land granted wither for house plot or garden out of ye open ground or Common field”
On this land against the backdrop of the towns towering three hills – horses, cattle, militia – Despite legend that wandering cows were responsible for notoriously crooked streets, Lawrence Kennedy Planning the City upon the Hill BIBL : “Boston was actually laid out in plan of a medieval English village, with focus on the market area off the town dock.”

Economic future of Boston lay in the harbor. Location ideal to become a major shipping center like old town of Boston, Lincoln shire had played in Medieval times : 13th century was leading port in UK
Within a year construction of 30 ton bark The Blessing of the Bay to carry furs traded with Indians to England

1635 Boston Latin School
1636 Harvard College
1642 General Court instructed every town to see that parents were training their children in “learning and labor and other employments”
1647 Every town with 50 households to pay someone to teach children to read and write
‘ towns with 100 householders had to pay for a grammar school
1643 New England’s First Fruits “shall lie in the desert” without adequate supply of wise and learned masters
Winthrop and so many of his colleagues had studied at Cambridge University

1646 Eight pikemen served at first Harvard commencement in 1646

(Increase Mather, born Dorchester MA, 1639, graduated Harvard 1656 with MA. To trinity College, Dublin 1658. In 1664, a teacher at Boston’s Second Church and later refused to leave to become president of Harvard. Protested withdrawal of MA charter in 1683, but accepted a new charter framed by William and Mary)

1633-34 7,000 Narraganset died in smallpox epidemic

1634 Pequots ordered to pay tributary of 400 fathoms of wampum and surrender of two western Niantics for murder of adventurer, Captain Stone. (Captain Stone, an unsavory West Indian trader and adulterer, banished from Bay Colony under threat of death.)
Pequots refused. Iootash! Stand Firm!

1636 Murder of second European trader, John Oldham. Pequots said to have had nothing to do with this. Involved Block Island tributaries and the Narragansetts.
Endicott sent with orders to kill all males on Block Island and spare only women and children, but bring them away and take possession of the island.

1637 Spring Pequots retaliated with raids along the Connecticut River at Saybrook and Wetherford
Sassacus, Pequot, attempted to get Narraganset to ally.
Roger Williams took credit for persuading them not to do so.

1637 Winter Pequots continued to pick off whites in their territory. Mutilated, tortured, roasted and murdered at least 30.
1000 Pequot killed. 250 by Endicott in CT.

Captives by both sides – servitude x English; adoption x Indian
Reasons for wars: English territory/jurisdiction
Indian: show courage, avenge injury or insult, improve position in commerce, settle dynastic disputes and especially in face of sharply declining population to acquire adoptees.
Frequent and unprovoked kidnappings that disrupted if they did not terminate lives of many Indians and sowed distrust among the rest of the coastal population. Taken to be guides or interpreters or to be displayed as curiosities.
Jester in Tempest quipped that English audiences would pay to seen even a dead Indian

Captain John Mason  Captain John Underhill

“Puritan Army of Christ”
160 men raised in MA.
Only 20 under Capt. Underhill, “a good fighter, but a sorry scamp” reached the scene in season and joined Mason.
Captain Mason – a Low Country soldier who had recently gone from Dorchester, England
Mason attack in 1637 was on village of 70 wigwams in a two-acre area with a palisade of tree trunks ten feet high and sunk three feet into ground with loopholes for marksmen. Only two openings. Tricked Pequots and massacred them “like barnyard geese”
300-700 killed; 22 English wounded, 2 dead; 40 Mohegan dead
“grim harvest of Pequot hands”
Mohawk proudly bestowed on English the head of Sassacus and 40 hands
Primary result established Puritan military supremacy over all Indians south of the Piscataqua River, Portsmouth, NH.

Mason and Uncas – a friendly team for 25 years

Major Talbot (?) and Narragansett Indian – cut off his fingers and toes etc. until they broke his legs and sat down. English watched “forcing tears from their eyes”

Tuspaquin and the black sachem of Assawamsett
Tuspaquin “tested for captaincy” in front of a firing squad

“Insolent and barbarous nation called Pequots “whom by the sword of the lord,” and a few feeble instruments, soldiers not accustomed to war, were drove out on the country, and slain by the sword to the number of 1500 souls, in the space of two months or less, so as their country is fully subdued and fallen into the hands of the English. And to the end that God’s name might have the glory, and His people see the power and magnify His Honor for his great goodness.”

“A people that spend most of their time in the study of warlike policy.”

“What are you, an Indian or an Englishman?”

Lt. Lion Gardiner. Ft. Saybrook – Governor Vane asked that I should prescribe the best way I could quell these Pequots. – Which I did and with my letter sent the man’s rib as a token.

“The servants of the Lord in the Bay”

“And let not Boston, Roxbury, etc. think war is far from them, for this seems to be a universal deluge.”

Mystic Fort: “Many were burnt in the fort, both men and women and children, others were forced out and came in troops to the Indians, 20 and 30 at a time, which our soldiers received and entertained with the point of a sword. There were 1400 souls in the fort and not above 500 of them escaped.”

“We have sufficient light from the word of God for our own proceedings.”

Winthrop re attack in Hideous Swamp: “The prisoners were divided , some of those in the river, and the rest to us; to these we sent the male children to Bermuda, by Mr. Willard Pierce, and the women and children we disposed of in the town.”

“Among the prisoners we have the wife and children of Mononato, a woman of very modest countenance and behavior. It was by her mediation that the two English maids were spared from death. One of her first requests was that the English would not abuse her body, and that her children might not be taken from her. May 28 1637

A few of the prisoners were sold as slaves in the West Indies, others reduced to the same humiliation among the Mohegans or as farm and house servants to the British.

200 surviving Pequots distributed:
100 to Mohicans
80 to Narraganset
20 to Nipmucs …
They were prohibited from using the name Pequot and ordered to use the name of the Indians to whom they were attached.
Though Pequots were dispersed, they would alter regroup.

“And now for another word about the Pequot women and children sent away in that first Boston slave ship to the isle of Providence (15 men and two boys) . Fate must have been worse than it first appears. Four years after they were sold there, the Spaniards descended upon the island, captured it and sent the settlers home. The slaves were held by the Dons. As if by special dispensation of Providence, there now came sailing up under the Spanish guns a vessel from Boston commanded by the same Captain Pierce that had carried out the Indian slaves, The first shot from the land struck the captain and he died within an hour. (Mr. Pierce in the Salem ship, Desire.)

English retained indeterminate number of survivors, women and children, as servants and shipped a dozen Pequot boys to Providence Island in exchange for African slaves

“a divine slaughter” – Shepherd

Narraganset were appalled at the brutality of the English; “It is too furious and slays too many men.”
In early 1640s, English trader Richard Smith estimated 40,000 Narragansetts
Canonicus and nephew Miantonomo (diplomatic and adroit) – pre-eminent role in wampum production.
Gookin described Canonicus as “old and wicked drunkard”/”fawning”

Massachusetts Puritans went along with CT in pushing the fortunes of the Mohegan chief Uncas over those on Miantonomo

1640 Miantonomo summoned to Boston to answer charges he was plotting against Massachusetts Bay. Appeared before General Court. Insulted by Proudy (?) a Pequot interpreter and denied a place at Winthrop’s table.

1643 Miantonomo captured in battle with Uncas. He was fitted with European armor that made it difficult for him to flee. Uncas was ordered to execute him.

Uncas’ execution of Miantonomo (great sachem of the Narragansett) by order of the United Colonies…50 clergymen holding a conference … five called to decide the fate of Miantonomo…authorized Uncas to put him to death

Weeks: …Uncas cutting a slice of flesh from the shoulder of his still quivering victim and eating it, declaring it was the sweetest meat he ever ate. “It makes my heart strong”
Eight commissioners of the colonies in MA and Ct authorized this cold-blooded murder of one of the most faithful friends the whites ever had. ?

After execution of Miantonomo… “for the next 100 years in NE more clergymen fell to the tomahawk, in proportion, than any other class.”

Uncas: “rash and ambitious spirit” “selfish, jealous and tyrannical” After the annihilation of the Pequots, the Mohicans became the dominant tribe in the federation. “Duplicity, deceit and treachery marked his career”
“it pleased God to give Uncas the victory”
Uncas reason for playing the part was to secure overthrow of the other great sachems of the vicinity, to reduce their federation to a state of vassalage and himself as the great Indian King of the day supported by English soldiers

“Christian white men – Puritans – with all the humanity which they practiced toward their own brethren and all the piety which they professed toward God, allowed themselves to be trained by the experience of Indian warfare into a savage cruelty and desperate vengefulness, hardly distinguishing themselves at any point from the victims of their rage. This assertion covers not only the infuriate warfare of our soldiers but equally our legislative acts and measures, and the temper and language of contemporary writers, especially Mather and William Hubbard. The heat, the passion, the scorn and the vindictiveness with which the last-named writers have recorded our early Indian wars certainly bring the frame of their spirits if not their sense of humanity under question.” (Winsor/Ellis)

“stir up trouble and organize a general uprising” = a blanket indictment to cover almost anything that the English might consider inimical to their interests
“depopulated by disease” – in some places, yes, but could be largely a myth to defend occupation of lands
gradually reducing them to a state of vassalage. Native simplicity, relying of the native code of honor, could not stand before European greed.
“The burning embers from the peace pipe he extended to the first settlers kindled into a flame that wiped out his race.”

Extermination: sole solution to problem. The Puritans may not have allowed this but they seem to have acted in the full belief of it.

Cotton Mather: “The doleful creatures are the veriest ruin of mankind. One might see among them what a hard master the Devil is to the most devoted of his vassals.”

Indians: “exquisite torments of their victims.” – the midnight yells and shrieks which palsied in its horrors the inmates of a rude cabin in the woods, the braining of infants, the agonies of the gauntlet, the scornful mockings, aggravated death by slow fires, and all the cunning mutilations by which the savages surpasses the skill of the anatomist and the vivisector e.g. Captain John Tilley while fowling in a canoe was seized by ambushed Pequots who cut off his hands and his feet and praised him for his “stoutness” under the torture in which he lingered for three days.

General Court records tariff of premiums offered and paid for scalps taken by Christian soldiers or by volunteers from Indian men, women and children.

Rev Solomon Stoddard of Deerfield – 1703? – Letter to Gov. Dudley requesting that English near him may hunt Indians with dogs as they do bears.”

1639 Massasoit to Governor Winthrop
1643 to Boston again for “examination”
“A coat of red cloth and a pot of wine”
His son to Harvard.

ANNE HUTCHINSON

1634, Sept 18 arrival of William and Anne Hutchinson
A man of very mild temper and weak parts and wholly guided by his wife
A woman of ready wit and bold spirit

1635 Boston Latin School Sumuis Primi – “We are first”
1635-1645 School conducted in master’s house – 1645 First schoolhouse – Latin School Street (Old City Hall)

1635 Roger Williams banished
Puritan Dilemma:
Cotton versus Roger Williams x “born again” x “King of England’s claims for America”
Williams claimed that King of England had no more right to grant charters to Englishmen to settle on Indian lands than sachems had any right to grant charters to Indians to claim title to any part of England.” Banished in 1635

Anne Hutchinson – “divine revelations” “a woman of haughty and fierce carriage” In November 1636, she was charged with “civil offence of acting in disruptive ways inappropriate for a woman” – banishment and later excommunication. Portsmouth RI, where husband died. Anne and 14 children to long Island where there were killed in 1643 by Indians – all excepting one daughter?

Gorgeanna ME = minister had been excommunicated from the NE church and mayor only a tailor. Sir Ferdinando Gorges was Anglican suspected of Romish sympathies

1630-1670 people left England because of religious persecution – one of the largest waves of emigration swelled the population of NE to 15,000 by 1643

1636, August 30 synod re Hutchinson etc. “… for 24 days they defined to each other the dreadful doctrines that were polluting the air above Boston”

1637 Anne Hutchinson – antinomian view that faith alone is necessary for salvation. Her public avowal that Gospels were irrelevant and that public acts did not prove inherent grace led to this synod. She was found guilty of “traducing” the ministers and banished forever.
1637, Mar – excommunicated

Shepherd and Eliot participated in the Hutchinson trial.

1637: “In 1637 there were not many houses in the town of Boston, among which were two houses of entertainment called ordinaries into which, if a stranger went, he was presently followed by one appointed to that office who would thrust himself into his company uninvited, and if he called for more drink than the officer thought in his judgment he could soberly bear away, he would presently countermand it and appoint the proportion against which he could not get one drop.” – John Josselyn speaking of two inns at Boston, Samuel Cole’s and Balston’s +
Long’s ordinary, The Three Cranes, at Charlestown.

1638 Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, founded by Robert Keayne

(1639 Increase Mather, born Dorchester MA, 1639, graduated Harvard 1656 with MA. To Trinity College, Dublin 1658. In 1664, a teacher at Boston’s Second Church and later refused to leave to become president of Harvard. Protested withdrawal of MA charter in 1683, but accepted a new charter framed by William and Mary)

***

HARVARD

Robert Keayne: “There should be established in Newtowne, the college of Cambridge” – 1636 legally established – no master, no buildings, no students

1637 Minister John Harvard arrived at apex of the Anne Hutchinson controversy – Synod at Newtowne lasted 24 days. – At the Synod, John Harvard learned about plan to establish a college…Son of a Southwark butcher, widowed mother, dead brother…Queenshead Inn, Surrey…inheritances and accumulated wealth by age 30. Master of Arts at Emanuel College, Cambridge. Bequeath half estate when he died …Died September 14, 1638.
Captain Keayne and associates decided to honor him – “Harvard College” and Newtowne became Cambridge. First income from proceeds of Queenshead Inn, until latter burned down in the 1640s. (1764 Harvard Hall burned destroying all of John Harvard’s books. Except The Christian Warfare, which a student took without permission. He returned it and was dismissed.) (David Chester French statue is a composite of collateral descendants)

1638 General Court granted Cambridge, more specifically Harvard College, the exclusive right to operate printing presses
1640 First book printed Bay Psalm Book Stephen Day, printer – Day indenture 7 June 1638 as a locksmith. Nevertheless ran the printing press for Elizabeth Glover until her death in 1643.

1642 First Commencement at Harvard

THANKSGIVING

During the first half century Thanksgiving was specially a day of social religious observance in glad recognition of the safe arrival of ships from England, of the successful issue of the Indian Wars, of the satisfactory settlement of disputed questions of church doctrine or practice, of the restoration of the general health of the community, of the triumphs of Protestantism, and of other and similar calls for gratitude…It was not until the fathers had gained an assured position here, and the facilities for intercourse between the various settlements had become tolerably easy that Thanksgiving became a day for family reunions and domestic festivities.

First public thanksgiving in MA Bay was in July 1630, shortly after arrival of the fleet which brought over Winthrop and his company. July 8: “We kept a day of thanksgiving in all the plantations. The following February there was another Thanksgiving on account of the arrival of the Lyon In order appointing a day to be observed in October 1637, the court recited as the special occasions of thankfulness the conquest of the Pequots, the safe return of the soldiers from warm the success of the synod at Newtown and the good news from Germany.

In the anxious years of 1665, 1666, 1667 – the period in which MA was contending with the royal commissioners, and at some other periods, the court issued, with the order for a day of thankfulness, an order for a day of humiliation.
In 1670 appears for the first time an express prohibition of “all servile labor upon that day, other than is suitable and necessary for the occasions thereof.”

In 1675 in the perilous times of Phillip’s War, the day of thanksgiving appears to have given place to a day of humiliation; but in the following year our fathers appointed both a day of thanksgiving and humiliation, and in the order for the former they mentioned as special causes of thankfulness their “strange advantage and great success in the arm the abatement of epidemical sickness, and the plentiful Harvest.”

BSVF: History 1620+ Rozakis, Laurie: “17th century town officials must have been busy surveying chimneys, keeping pigs off the streets, keeping count of the :many miscarriages that are committed by Saylers…immoderate drinking and other vain expenses… setting laws to curtail the wicked practices of many persons who do profane God’s Holy Sabbaths, and granting widows permission to keep houses of publique entertainment for the selling of coffee, chuchaletto and syder by retayle.”

Elizabeth Payne…? Hester Prynne? – grave in King’s Chapel = wife of Samuel Pain d 1704 aged 52:
“Trial record: Elizabeth Payne spinster being presented by the Grand Jury, in March last for murdering of her child was now brought to the bar and indicated…verdict of not guilty but gratly negligent in not calling for help for preservation of her child. “The Court on consideration of the case for her fornication ( = forsaking of God in seventeenth century) sentenced her to be whipt with twenty stripes paying and discharging the charge of her trial and fees of court stands.”

CHRONOLOGY OF THE PEQUOT WAR

1630s Increased Dutch and English migration into Connecticut Valley, Pequot territory.
Pequot efforts to oust Dutch kill Indians (probably Narragansetts or a subject tribe) trading at the House of Hope, a Dutch trading post.
Dutch retaliate, killing Pequot sachem Tatobam.
1634 Captain John Stone killed by western Niantics, a tributary tribe of the Pequots. Circumstances of the attack unclear.
23 October 1634 Pequots send messenger bearing gifts and promises of tribute to Roger Ludlow, deputy governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
7 November 1634 Second Pequot embassy.Massachusetts Bay-Pequot treaty: Pequot negotiators agree · to hand over Stone’s murderers · to pay indemnity of £250 sterling in wampum · to cede Connecticut lands · to trade with the English · to have disputes with Narragansetts mediated by the English. Pequot council does not ratify the treaty, objecting to the indemnity and arguing that Stone’s murderers were all either dead or beyond their reach.
16 June 1636 Jonathan Brewster, trader from Plymouth, conveys message from Uncas, chief of the Mehegans, that the Pequots plan a preemptive strike against the English.
July 1636 Conference at Fort Saybrook of Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay officials with representatives of Western Niantics and Pequots. English colonists reassert demands of 1634 treaty.Sassacus, Western Niantic sachem, pledges loyalty and submission to English.John Oldham and crew killed by Narragansetts or a subject tribe off Block Island.Narragansett sachems Canonchet and Miantonomo condemn the murder and offer reparations. Miantonomo leads party to Block Island to exact vengeance. Canonchet and Miantonomo promise not to ally selves with Pequots in any dispute between English and Pequots.
25 August 1636 Captains John Endecott, John Underhill, and William Turner sent to Block Island with to apprehend killers of Stone and Oldham and to seek reparations or plunder.Most of the population of Block Island had escaped and had left little to plunder.
August 1636 Endecott sails troops to Fort Saybrook to punish Pequots.Lieutenant Lion Gardiner protests his actions.Endecott sails to Pequot Harbor at mouth of Pequot (Thames) River. Pequots ask what he wants, and Endecott announces his goal.Pequots request conference. Endecott refuses, demanding that Pequots fight in European-style open battle.Pequots refuse.English troops burn Pequot houses and destroy crops.
Late summer 1636 Pequots attack Fort Saybrook. Siege continues intermittently for months.
Late winter 1637 Mason visits fort but does not provide much relief.
Spring 1637 Pequots attempt to persuade Narragansetts to ally with them against the English.English send Roger Williams to persuade Narragansetts to remain neutral.
March 1637 Miantonomo allies Narragansetts with the English, "solemnizing the treaty with a gift of wampum and the severed hand of a Pequot brave" (Axelrod 19).
18 April 1637 Massachusetts General Court authorizes levy to raise funds for anticipated costs of war against Pequots.
April 1637 Saybrook Company sends Underhill to Saybrook with 20 men.Mason reinforces Fort Saybrook.Gardiner, Underhill, and Mason quarrel.
23 April 1637 Attack on settlers working in field near Wethersfield, in retribution for confiscation of land belonging to Sowheag, a sachem. Seven to nine settlers are killed and two girls are taken captive.
Late spring 1637 Colonists become increasingly alarmed. Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut colonies decide to fight Pequots together.
10 May 1637 Mason leaves Hartford with 90 colonists and 60 Mohegans under Uncas to attack Pequot fort Sassacus, on Pequot Harbor. Some members of the Boston church refuse to join the expedition because John Wilson is the chaplain.
15 May 1637 Mason and Uncas arrive at Saybrook with their troops.Uncas leads 40 warriors into battle against Pequots and Niantics, killing 4-7, taking one prisoner, and leaving one Mohegan wounded.At Fort Saybrook, Mason’s men torture the prisoner. Underhill shoots him, ostensibly to end his suffering.
16 May 1637 Underhill places his 19 men under Mason’s command. 20 of Mason’s men are sent to reinforce Connecticut’s other settlements.
18 May 1637 Mason and Underhill’s forces embark.
20 May 1637 Mason and Underhill arrive in Narragansett territory.
22-24 May 1637 Mason, Underhill, and Lieutenant Richard Siely confer with Narragansetts. Narragansetts under Miantonomo and Eastern Niantics under Ninigret ally with the English.
25 May 1637 English and their allies approach Sassacus’s Pequot Harbor fort. Decide to attack Mystic Fort instead.English and allies arrive at Mystic at night and make camp.
26 May 1637 English fire a volley at dawn, then storm the fort. Mason enters at northeast, and Underhill enters at southwest.Pequots fight fiercely. Mason abandons plan to seek booty and sets fire to 80 huts housing approximately 800 people (men, women, and children). 600-700 Pequots die in an hour. 7 are taken captive, and 7 escape.Two Englishmen are killed, with 20-40 wounded.English march toward their ships, burning Pequot dwellings along the way.
Late May or early June, 1637 Mason and Underhill’s troops unite with Massachusetts troops led by Captain Patrick and Israel Stoughton.Group of Pequots discovered near Connecticut River is surrounded by Narragansetts who pretend to offer protection, enabling the English troops to capture them. Survivors flee, some to Manhattan Island.
July 1637 Stoughton and Mason pursue fugitive Pequots.
13 July 1637 English forces surround Mystic survivors in swamp near New Haven. English offer safe conduct to old men, women and children and to non-Pequot residents of the swamp. 200 people accept this offer. 80 warriors refuse it and start shooting arrows at English. English soldiers close in on them.
14 July 1637 20-30 Indians (Mason says 60-70) escape in early-morning fog.
Summer 1637 Sassacus and other Pequots seek refuge with neighboring tribes but tribes are intimidated by the English (and in some cases were already unfriendly with the Pequots). Sassacus is refused sanctuary. English receive severed heads of Pequots as tribute from other tribes, including head of Sassacus sent by Mohawks.
21 September 1638 Treaty of Hartford: · Survivors of swamp siege divided as slaves among Indian allies: 80 to Uncas and Mohegans, 80 to Miantonomo and Narragansetts, 20 to Ninigret and Niantics · No Pequot may inhabit former Pequot territory · Name Pequot to be expunged; Pequot slaves must take name of tribes to which they are enslaved.
Fall 1638 Group of Pequots settle at Pawcatuck in violation of treaty.Mason sent with 40 English soldiers and 120 Mohegans under Uncas to clean them out.Narragansetts attack Uncas as he is plundering the wigwams, but refuse to fight the English.
Notes
1. Mason reports that they went with 120 men: "The Council of Massachusetts being informed of their proceedings, sent to speak with the Pequots, and had some Treaties with them: But being unsatisfied therewith, sent forth Captian John Endicot Commander in Chief, with Captain Underhill, Captain Turner, and with them one hundred and twenty Men: who were firstly designed on a Service against a People living on Block Island, who were subject to the Narragansett Sachem; they having taken a Bark of one Mr. John Oldham, Murdering him and all his Company:" (17)
2. Axelrod raises questions about this warning: "Moreover, a victory over the Pequots would render the other tribes in the region more pliable: the Western Niantics, who lived near the mouth of the Connecticut River and were subject to the Pequots; the Eastern Niantics, whose territory lay east of the Pequots, near the Pawcatuck River, and who were allied with the Narragansetts; and the Narragansetts, a large tribe on the bay named after them. Traditional rivals of the Pequots, they would be uneasily wooed to the English cause. A more solid and cordial English-Indian alliance was quickly forged with the Mohegans, really a Pequot splinter group whose leader, Uncas, desired to unseat Sassacus, the feared and mighty sachem of the Pequots proper. Indeed, it is entirely possible that Uncas’s warning to the colonists, apprising them of Pequot war intentions, was a fabrication meant to provoke combat." (Axelrod 18)
3. Historians suggest a variety of reasons for this change of plans, ranging from its relative proximity (Mason 26) to a deliberate choice to avoid a battle and instead to have a massacre (Jennings).
Sources
· Axelrod, Alan. Chronicle of the Indian Wars: From Colonial Times to Wounded Knee. New York: Prentice Hall, 1993.
· Cave, Alfred A. The Pequot War. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1996.
· Hall, David D., ed. The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A Documentary History. 2nd ed. Durham and London: Duke UP, 1990.
· Jennings, Francis. The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest. New York: W. W. Norton, 1976
· Mason, A Brief History of the Pequot War: Especially of the memorable Taking of their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637. Boston, 1736. History of the Pequot War, ed. Charles Orr. Cleveland: Helman-Taylor, 1897.

Bibl: The Real Founders of New England Charles Bolton
OLDHAM: Oldham was offered the position of overseer of trade at Cape Ann but preferred to remain at Natascot. In 1626 he set out for Virginia but nearly lost his life on the Cape Cod shoals. He became reconciled to the people around him, and moving to Wtaertown,represented the town in the first General Court. He bought Prudence Island and from there carried out trade with the Narragansett Indians.
In July 1636, John Gallop of Boston encountered Oldham’s pinnance off Block Island, her deck occupied by 14 Indians. With his crew of two young sons and a hired man Gallop opened fire and rammed the pinnace. After a sanguinary fight he boarded the pinnace while hjis crew covered him with their guns. In the stern sheets he saw a corpse under a seine. It was still warm; the skull was cleft and the hands and feet were in the process of amputation. Gallop washed the blood from the dead man’s face and exclaimed:

Ah, brother Oldham, is it thou? I am recoved to avenge thy blood.”

DAVID THOMSON came to Thomson’s Island from Little Harbor, Piscataqua in 1626. He seems to have died gthe same year, leaving a widow who married Samuel Maverick and a son John whose claim to the island was recognized in 1648.

“It was inevitable that the northern colonists and trhe Separatisist at Boston and Plymout should not see eye to eye. Jennes in his work on the Isle of Shoals has exposed the gulf between them…Thomas Diudley stated that some of his fellow passengers in 1630 proved to be “desperately wicked” and were drawn away to the Piscataqua where they had heard of men of “their own disposition.”
Thomas Jenner in 1640 called thye people of the Maine coast “genrally very ignorant, superstititious, and vitious, and scarse any religious.” The people north of the Merrimac were not too temperate in retort.
Captain Underhill of Hilton’s Point on the Piscataqua said in 1638 that the Bostonians were religiously zealous “ as the scribes and Pharisees were,” and was haled into court for a remand. Another from the same settlements said in 1632 that the Massachsietts men “ were all goe to the Devil; they are a people not worthy to live on God’s earth; fellows that keep hogs all the week, and preach there on the Sabbath.”

CRIME and PUNISHMENT 1642: BIBL:Story of the Old Town House /Benton
David Fairfield was found guilty upon his own confession of having had carnal lnowledge of a child of tender years, the daughter of Mr Humfrey, one of the magistrates.
The court agd that the said Fairfield shall be severely whipped at Boston the next lecture day & have one of his nostrils slit so high as may well be & then to be seared & to be kept in prison, till he be fit to be sent to Salem & then to be whoipped again and have the other nostril slit and seared; then further he is confined to Boston Neck, so as if he be found at any time to go out of Boston Neck, that is, beyond the railed toward Roxbury, or beyoond the low water mark, he shall be put to death upon due conviction thereof; and he is also to ear a hempen roape around his neck, the end of it hanging out two foot at least, and so often as he shall be found abroad without it, he shall be whipped; and if he shall at any time hereafter attempt to abuse any person as formerly,he shall be put to death upon due conviction & he is to pay Mr Humfrey forty pounds.
Jenken Davies…for the same offence whipped and sent to prison till he be sent to Linne, and if he go out of bounds without licence, he shall be put to death….hempen rope …during the pleasure of the court. Whipped etc without it. Death for a repeat offence and £40 to Mr Humfrey.
John Hudson…for same offence….whipped , returned to prison, to Salem, whipped, and $20 to Humfrey….

CALEB SNOW – HISTORY OF BOSTON 1824

Arbella: for so they called the Eagle in honor of Lady Arbella….a ship of three hundred tons, Captain Peter Millbourne, manned with 52 seamen and carrying 28 guns.

First winter: When the winter set in, which was on Dec 24, the cold came on with violence. Till that day the weather had been for the most part fair and open, with gentle frosts at night, but by the 26th the river was so frozen over that they of Chrlestown could not come to the sermon at Boston till the afternoon at highwater. From that time on their chief care was to keep themselves warm. They were so short of provisions that many were obliged to live on musels, clams and other shellfish, with groundnuts and acorns instead of bread.”

First fire…recorded on March 16, 1631, the chimney of Mr Thmas Sharp’s house caught fire, the splinters not being clayed at the top, and taking the thatch burnt it down. The wind being northwest drove the fire to Mr Colborn’s house, which was some rods off and burnt that down too.

Henry Vane: a man of profound dissimulation, and of quick conception: very eloquent, ready, sharp and weighty in his expressions; of a pleasant wit and great understanding;piercing into and discerning the purposes of other mne with wonderful sagacity, while he had himself a true vultuum clausum, such a singular conountence that no man could guess from it what he intended.

In May 1639 the whole miltiary of te Bay were mustered at Boston in two regiments, to the number of a thousand soldiers, well armed and exercised. Another general training in Boston on Sept 13, 1641, lasted two days. About 1200 men were exercised in most sorts of land service, yet oit was observed that there was no man drunk, though there was plenty of wine and strong beer in the town. – not an oath sworn, no quarrel, nor any hurt done. A more lofty but less perspoicious acccount of one of these military displays is given in a narritive of the first thirty years of the old planters. It is said to have taken place at Fox Hill, a spot of rising ground which formerly existed at the bottom of the Common. The pomp and circumstance of the exhibition was so striking that some people entertained fears, lest offence might be taken in the mother country, as if the colonists were looking up to a state of independence.

The Revolutions taking place in England excited the attention of the colonial government and it was determined to send three agents to congratulate the parliament on their success and be ready to improive any opportunity to advantage the colony. The men were the Reverneds Weld and Peters and Mr William Hibbins, a principla merchant. The two former neer returned to America.

Wintrhop died beginning of 1649. Gov Winthrop’s House stood on spot occupied by the South Row, about opposite School Street. It was of wod two stories high and was demolished by the British in 1775. He is judge to have been about six feet high, not corpulent, long favored, with a dark blue eye, high forehead, long beard, and dark hair, which he wore in the form of a natural wig.

WHARVES: By January 21, 1639, some important undertaking of this kind had been commenced for on that day “there is granted to the overseers of the wharves and crane a hundred acres of land at Mt. Wollaston next to the allotment already granted, toward the repairing and maintaining of the said warfs and crane.” On Nov 29, 1641, Valentine Hill and associates authorized and agree to build certain wharves, and keep them in repair, on condition that for every hundred poiunds thus laid out within five years, they are to have the improvement nine years thereafter, and to receive tonnage and wharfage. There is no doubt that this embraced some of the wharves between the town dock and Long Wharf

1643 grant of the Mill Creek to Burden, Button, Hill etc…within the space of there years erect one or more corn mills…

1651 publication of JOHNSON’s description:

…This city-like towne is crowded on the Sea-bankes, and wharfed out with great industry and cost, the buildings beautiful and large, some fairely set forth with brick, tile stone, slate, and orderly placed with comely streets, whose continual enlargement preages some sumptuous City. The wonder of this modern age, that a few years should bring forth such great matters by so meane a handful, and they spo fat from being enriched by the spoils of any other nations, that the states of many of them have been spoiled by the Lordly Prelacy, whose lands must assuredly make restitution. But now behold the admirable acts of Christ, at this his peoples landing,the hideous thikcets in this place were such that the wolves and bears nursed up their young from the eyes of all beholders, in those very places where the streets are full of boys and girls sporting up and down, with a continued concourse of people. Good store of shipping is here yearly built, and some very fair ones, both Tar and Mastes the country affords from its own soile, also stores of vituall for their own and foreign ships, who resort hither for that end; this town is the very mart of the land, French, Portugals and Dutch come hither for traffique.

COTTON—death toward the close of 1652 at 67. Cotton’s personal appearance was strikingly impressive. His complexion was clear and fair, and his countenace florid; in size he was rather short and inclining toward corpulence, but in the whole of an agreeable mediocrity. In his youth his hair was brown but as he advan ed to old age it became white. His eye flashed the keenest rebuke on every appearance of evil…He had a clear, neat and audible voice, which easily filled the largest halls. His delivery was not noisy and thundering yet it had a very awful majesty, set off with a natural and becoming motion of his right hand. He generally devoted twelve hours a day to his studies….

HIBBINS: 1655 tried for witchcraft. Her hubsand, who died July 1654, was an agent for the colony in England, severalk years an assitant, and a merchant of note in town, but losses in the latter part of his life had reduced his estate, and increased the natural crabbiness of his wife’s temper,which made her turbulent and quarrlesomem and brought her under church censures, at length rendered her so odious to her neighbors as to cause her to be acccused of witchract.The jury brought her in guilty, but the magistrate refused to accept the verdict;so the case came to the general court,where the popular clamor against her prevailed and the miserable old lady wa condemned and executed in June 1656. Search was made on her body for tetts, and in er chests and boxes for puppets or images, but there is no record of ever being found. Mr. Beach, a minister in Jamaica, in a letter to Dr, Increase Mather… your famous Mr Norton once aid at his own able, before Mr Wilson, the pastor, elder Penn and myself…that one of your magistrate’s wives was hnaged for a witch only for having more wit than her nighbors. It was his very expression; she having, as he explaiuned it, guessed that two of her persecutors were talking of her, which proving true, cost her her life…”

PRINCIPAL HOUSES..a great hall ornamented with pictures and a great lantern, and a velvet cushion in the window seat, which looks intothe garden. On either side is a great parlour, a little parlor or study. These are furnished with great looking glasses, turkey carpets, window curtains and valance, pictures and a map, a brass clock, red leather-backed chairs and a great pair of andirons, The chambers are well supplied with feather beds, warming pans, and every other article necessary for comfort or display. The pantry is well filled with substantial far and dainties, prunes, marmelade and madeira wine. Silver tankards, wine cups and other articles of plate are not uncommon: the kitchen is completely stocked with pewter, copper and iron utensiles. Very many families employed servanyts and in one we see a Scotch boy valued among the property and invoiced at £14.

Timeline Background

1635 April 1635. In the INCREASE of London, Mr. Robert L…bound for New England. These have taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and have brought certificates of their conformity which is this day filed….
ROBERT CORDELL Goldsmith in Lembert Street sent them away…All for ROBERT NANNY 22 the new land in the INCREASE” (Volume 14, p 319 of New England Genealogical Register) Footnote says that this street is most like Lombard St in London

1635 Authority to appropriate taxes lodged in the General Court
1635 Settlement at Hartford (Thomas Hooker)
1635 Magistrates’ Court established
1635 Boston Public Latin School for boys opened
1635 First Prison in Boston opened
1635 Colonists experienced first hurricane
1635 English clergyman Richard Mather keeps a journal of his voyage to America

1636 Founding of Providence, R. I. by Roger Williams, who establishes Rhode Island as a place of religious toleration.
1636 Roger Williams expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony. He established the colony of Providence Plantations in territory disputed by Pokanoket and Narragansett.
1636 Thomas Hooker, Puritan minister unhappy with the strict religious rule in MA, founds Hartford CT
1636 Oct 28 General Court establishes a college in Newtowne, later Cambridge. “When any scholar is able to understand Tully or such like classical author extempore, and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose… and decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, let him then and not before, be capable of admission into the college.” Rev Henry Dunster was the first president.

1636 May 26, KATHERINE WHEELWRIGHT ARRIVES IN BOSTON WITH HER FAMILY
John Wheelwright, father = brother in law and supporter of Anne Hutchinson
On the 12 June following, Rev Wheelwright and his wife were admitted to the church in Boston

1636 Efforts made to have him called to be a teacher of the church where he was a member but this was opposed by Governor Winthrop, who said that he “thought reverently of his godliness and abilities, so as he could be content to live under such a ministry, yet seeing that he was apt to raise doubtful disputations, he could not consent to choose him to that place”

Rev Wheelwright became pastor of a church near Mount Wollaston – now Quincy…Near the beginning of the following year, Mr. W preached a sermon for which he was hauled into court

1636-1637. Pequot War.
July 1636. The murder in 1634 of Capt. John Stone, a disreputable English seaman and merchant, and of trader John Oldham on 20 July 1636, reportedly by Pequots, leads to reprisals against Pequot settlements. This marks the beginning of the Pequot War, although the conflict is not officially so designated until 1637.
24 August 1636. After Massachusetts Governor Henry Vane commissions John Endicott to assemble a force of 90 men to seek out Block Island tribe of Pequots and demand their surrender, Endicott destroys the Block Island settlement. In retaliation, the Pequots attack Fort Saybrook and its commander Lieutenant Lion Gardiner.
1636 Henry Adams departed for New England, settled in Quincy, Massachusetts
1636 “Wards” organized for day protection
1636 First Slave in Boston (Noddle Island)

1637 Pequot War. Roger Williams helps to convince the Narragansetts, traditional enemies of the Pequots, to join the New Englanders' side of the conflict.

20 JANUARY. BOSTON CLERGYMAN JOHN WHEELWRIGHT PREACHES A SERMON SUPPORTING THE IDEAS OF ANNE HUTCHINSON AND HER FOLLOWERS
ANNE HUTCHINSON WAS SENTENCED TO BANISHMENT ON NOVEMBER 7 CHARGED WITH HERESY FOR PREACHING THAT FAITH ALONE WAS SUFFICIENT FOR SALVATION. SHE WAS CONDEMNED BY AN ECCLESIASTICAL SYNOD AT NEWTOWNE, MASS.
REV WHEELWRIGHT IS SENTENCED TO BANISHMENT ON 12 NOVEMBER Ordered to leave the jurisdiction of the court in 14 days

Hon James Savage on Wheelright’s fast-day sermon: “In unhesitatingly say that it was not such as can justify the Court in their sentence of sedition and contempt, not prevent the present age as regarding that proceeding as an example and a warning of the usual tyranny of ecclesiastical factions.”

.26 May. The burning of the Pequot fort by Capt. John Mason and his forces at Fort Mystic, Connecticut, kills 300-700 men, women, and children (Go to an essay on the Pequot War that discusses the conflicting historical accounts and to Mason's narrative on the war.)
28 July. Most of the remaining Pequots are killed near New Haven, Connecticut, by combined forces from Massachusetts and Connecticut.
To prevent the re-election of Governor Vane, who is sympathetic to Anne Hutchinson and her ideas, John Winthrop moves the voting to Newtown and thus is himself elected Governor of the colony.
December. Under the leadership of Peter Minuit, a group of Swedish colonists establishes a settlement called New Sweden on the Delaware River.
1637 Thomas Morton, New English Canaan
1637 Samuel Appleton settled in New Ipswich
1637 Taunton MA is founded by “an ancient maid” of 48. Unmarried women have a difficult time making a living, and marriage usually takes place early. After they reach 25, unmarried women are often ridiculed and restricted by law.
1637 Emigration from England to America is restricted

1638 REV WHEELWRIGHT bought of the Indians a large tract of land around Squamscot Falls, founded the town on Exeter and became pastor of the church founded there.

1638 Three Plymouth colonists tried and hanged at Plymouth for the murder of a Nipmuck man who resided with the Narragansett.
1638 7 March. Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for her religious beliefs, Anne Hutchinson leaves Boston and helps to establish Pocasset, or Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
1638 First Swedish settlers in America landed at Fort Christian, Del. Established First Lutheran congregation in America.
21 September 1638. Signing of the Treaty of Hartford formally ends the Pequot War. Remaining members of the Pequot tribe are divided up among the Puritans’ Indian allies; Pequot territories are turned over to the Puritans as spoils of war. This treaty marked the end of the Pequots as a distinct people.
1638 First printing press in America north of Mexico set up in Cambridge by Stephen Daye. – First almanac An Almanac for the year of Our Lord, 1639 by William Pierce published. Lynn as a shoe factory
1638 First Baptist church in America was established in Providence by Roger Williams
1638/1646 laws against smoking “out of dores” inspired not so much by Puritan mores as because “fires have been often occasioned by taking tobacco
1638 Torture as a punishment is abolished in England

1639 Ousamequin (Massasoit) and his son Mooanam reaffirmed treaty relations with Plymouth; agreed not to cause any "unjust" wars and also not to sell any land without the consent of the colony government.
1639 A fulling mill is in operation at Rowley
1639 The Fundamental Orders, composed by Roger Ludlow, adopted by reps from Hartford, Windsor, Wethersfield.
1639 Sept 4, the General Court enacted a law against drinking toasts saying that the “common custom of drinking to one another is a mere useless ceremony, and draweth on the abominable practice of drinking healths.” Repealed in 1645
1639 New England laws governing the clothing of men reflected the gay attire of the day: men were censured for wearing “immoderate great breeches” broad shoulder bands, capes and double ruffles. Silk roses were worn as adornment on shoes.
1639 A woman of Plymouth convicted of adultery was sentenced to be whipped at a cart tayle and to weare a badge upon her left sleeve during her abroad in the community. If found in public without the badge, she was to be burned in the face with a hot iron. Generally the letters AD made up the badge.

1640 From the New England History and genealogy records records. Volume 33 page 93…Notes on the Dover Combination…Public records Office London. N.H. papers volume 47 …”WITNESSED 2/30/1640 … Robert Nanney. Page 97…Nanney, Robert, Protest 1641. Taxed 1649 and appears no more in Dover. (See Savage) Was of Boston afterwards

1640 The Bay Psalm Book published in Boston. It contained no music but suggested 48 melodies at which psalms might be sung.
1640s Mohegans and Narragansetts disputed over the distribution of the defeated Pequots and their lands. Narragansetts war with the Mohegans. Miantonomo attempted to build alliance to halt the expansion of the English.
C1640: first women barrister in America – Margaret Brent, colonial attorney for Calvert, Lord Proprietor of Maryland
1640-1690 At Newport RI, men amused themselves by bowling on the green
1640 Scots invade England in Second Bishops’ War and defeat the English at Newburn-on-Tyne. Charles 1 makes peace of Ripon. His promise to pay the Scots army 850 pounds a day forces him to recall Parliament

1641 Enterprising men in Salem produce salt by the evaporation of seawater. First American patent awarded to Samuel Winslow for this process
1641 Piscataqua and adjacent areas deemed to come under the governance of Massachusetts Bay
1641 Body of Liberties promulgated (Nathanial Ward) –a legal code formed by the General Court contained strong hints of the growing spirit of colonial independence. – Five years later, in 1646, the court replied to criticism of its provisions: “Our allegiance binds us not to the laws of England any longer than while we live in England.”
1641 English parliament passes bill to prevent its dissolution without its own concsent; it cites grievances against Charles I, suspecting him of involvement in the Irish massacre of 30,000 Protestant in Ulster.

1642 PEOPLE OF EXETER VOLUNTARILY PLACE THEMSELVES UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF MA AND REV WHEELWRIGHT MOVES TO WELLS, ME. A CONSIDERABLE NUMBER OF THE MEMBERS OF HIS CHURCH FOLLOWED HIM TO WELLS.

After some months at Wells, he wrote a letter to Governor Winthrop, expressing his sorrow for the part he played in the controversy several years before, and his grief for the censorious speeches he then used; and declaring his readiness to give satisfaction, if it should appear to him ‘by scripture light, that in any carriage, word or action, he had walked contrary to rule.’

1642 John Cotton, The True Constitution of a Particular Visible Church
1642 Harvard holds first commencement
1642 Joseph Jencks, a skilled English iron maker founded Saugus Iron Works 1644
1642 French establish settlement at Montreal
1642 Charles 1 rejects English Parliament’s demands for control of militia and church affairs and for selection of king’s ministers. English war begins with Cavaliers against Roundheads.

“Puritan” Boston 1636-1870 – A “criminal” timeline:

BIBL: Police Recollections or Boston by Daylight and Gaslight –Edward Savage 1873 …

A grand jury was not organized till Sept 1, 1635, and that was none too soon for at first setting it wad found to have “over one hundred presentments, and among them were some of the magistrates.”

1636, 27 Feb.. Organization of town watch… “there shall be a watch taken up and gone around with from the first of the second month next for ye summertime from sunne set an hour after beating of ye drumme, upon penaltie for everyone wanting therein twelve pence every night.”
“There were numerous struggling Indians, who paid their nocturnal visits from the wilderness, and they were not over scrupulous in relation to etiquette or the ownership of property. There were also among the inhabitants “a set of knaves, thieves, and burghers, of their own “kith and kin”. Wolves and bears were also numerous, and came into Boston even, and carried off young kids and lambs. Nor was this all; masters were sorely annoyed by frequent desertions of their slaves – black and white.

1659: William Robinson and Marmaduke Stephenson, men of reproachable character, were hanged on the limb of tree on the Common, as Antimonians and heretics. When dead, they were rudely cut down by the hangman, Robinson falling so as top break his skull. Their friends were not allowed their bodies, but they were stripped, and cast naked into a hole, without any covering of dirt, and were soon covered with water.” “A Mr. Nichols built a fence about the place to protect them.” Mrs Dyer was to have been hung at the same time but was reprieved for a season. Peter Pearson, Judith Brown and George Wilson, were whipped through the town to the wilderness, tied to a cart-tail “the executioner having prepared a cruel instrument wherewith to tear their flesh.” These were no solitary instances.

1670 An Indian hung in gibbets on Boston Common for the murder if Zachary Smith in Dedham Woods.

1672 Gov Bellingham imprisoned George Heathcock for neglecting to take off his hat when delivering a letter. Boston had fifteen hundred families and there were not 20 houses that had ten rooms apiece. There were no musicians by trade. A dancing school was set up, but it was put down.

1676: After the terrible fire… “cages were set up about town to put violators of the Sabbath in, and constables were ordered to search out and arrest Quakers. Margaret Brewster went into the South Church and pronounced her curse. She had her face blackened and wore sackcloth, Margaret was hurried of to jail and brought to court the next day. She had been washed, and the officer could not identify her, but she was whipped.

1701 “Several persons warned out of town for fear they will become paupers.” Watchmen on duty from 10 till broad daylight. “They are to go about silently with watch bills, not using any bell, and no watchman to use any tobacco while making their rounds; and when they see occasion to call to persons to take care of their light.”

1709 Town officials fined for neglect of duty. A minister said, “The covetous office-holders are intent on gain; sometimes they are contriving to remover obstructions; sometimes to prevent discovery; sometimes in supplanting rivals, they spend many hours in imagining mischief on their beds.” The watch increased to 15. They petition for leave to prosecute those who abuse them while on duty.

1710 Male and female Indians sold as servants.

1711 Terrible fire…many persons were killed by blowing up houses. Several sailors perished in flames, in trying to save the church bell (first meeting house)
Fire wards appointed: They were to “carry a staff five feet long, colored red, with a bright brass spike at the end, six inches long, and have power to command all persons at fires.” Bounties for Indian scalps paid in Boston.
Deaths in town during the year: whites 305; Negroes and Indians 58

1713 Numerous colored people advertised for sale… A Mr. Bacon going over the Neck one winter night lost his way and both he and team perished of cold.

1715 Four watch houses – one in Clark Square, one near the Conduit, one near the schoolhouse, Queen St, and one at South End.

1718 Mary Porcell, Abigail Thurston and Esther Ray, were publicly whipped for being night walkers, and afterwards fined ten shillings each.

1725 A lad aged 17 years, for abusing some smaller children, sentenced to be whipped thirty nine stripes at a cart tail, twelve at the gallows, thirteen at the head of summer street, thirteen below the townhouse, and be committed to Bridewell six months.

1726 Fly, Cole and Grenville hanged for piracy.

1728 Phillips –Woodbridge duel. Shortly after a anti-dueling law provided “the offender was to be carried in a cart with a rope around his neck to the gallows, to sit thereon one hour, and be imprisoned 12 months. The person killed “to be buried with a stake driven through his body, and stones piled on his grave,”

1730 centennial…Mr. Prince preached a sermon to the legislature in which he says “a flood of irreligion and profaneness has come in upon us – so much terrible cursing, swearing, lying, slandering and backbiting, cruel injustice, oppression, rioting and drunkenness.”
City officials include 7 fence viewers, 16 scavengers, 4 hog reeves, 25 watchmen.

1734 A mob demolished a house of ill-fame under the countenance of some well-meaning magistrates. The town voted to build a workhouse. The weight of bread was established, bakers to put their initials on each loaf.

1735 Watchmen ordered to cry the time of night and state of the weather, in a moderate tone, as they walk their rounds after 12 o’clock, – “One o’clock, clear, and all’s well.” Boston divided into 12 wards. Names dropped and numbers used instead. Thirty shillings allowed each watch house for winter coal. 4 watch houses – Old North, New North, Townhouse and South End. One watchmen to attend at each watch house door all night.”

1737 A workhouse built near the Granary and a house at Rainsford Island for people with contagious diseases Quarantine established.

1739 Dock Square Marketplace torn down by a mob.

1740 The watch ordered to look for disorderly Negroes and Indians.

1742 There were said to be in Boston, 16,382 inhabitants, 1,200 widows, 1,719 dwelling houses, 116 warehouses, 1,514 negroes, 418 horses and 141 cows.

1746 “The Justices in town agree to walk and observe the behavior of the people on Lord’s Day.”

1747 A riot on the wharves, by Commodore Knowles pressing laborers into service.

1752. By act of British parliament, this year began on Jan 1 instead of March 25

1753 “A female accused of lewdness was exposed nearly naked on a scaffold near the town house, for the space of an hour, facing each of the four cardinal points fifteen minutes, suffering the most disgusting and brutal treatment by a mob”

1754 Elizabeth Creighton whipped for cohabiting with a Negro

1756 In consequence of numerous evening processions got up by the lower classes, and ending often in bloodshed, a law was passed to prevent such assemblages.

1760 Terrible fire near Oliver’s Dock.

1763 Serious difficulties between revenue officers and people. Otis speech against the Writs of Assistance in the Council Chamber. It was said that then and there was independence born. The terms Whig and Tory came into use.

1765 Capt Semmes of the south watch reported that “Negro Dick came to the watch house and reported rowdies under his window. Watchmen sent and met a gang of rowdies, one of whom drew a sword. The watch cried murder and fled to the watch house and the rowdies fled.”
Union Club or Sons of Liberty formed.

1769 the watch ordered to patrol two together and to arrest all Negroes found out after dark without a lantern.

1770 + Events relating to Massacre + T Party + Siege etc.
Specials:
1775: July 12 “The inhabitants of Boston held a town meeting at Concord. Negroes were summoned by General Howe to meet at Faneuil Hall, to form a scavenger party. Oscar Merriam, a sharp old Whig darkie remonstrates, and gets put in Jail.
Oct 8 “Gen Howe issued a proclamation forbidding all persons to leave Boston without a pass “on penalty of military execution”

1770-1816 See Photocopies. In Police - Crime

1816 …As respects The Hill it consists principally of drunkards, harlots, spendthrifts and outcasts from the country; in truth, Beelzebub holds a court there, and almost every town in the Commonwealth has a representative. These are great nuisances, but every large town has them, whether governed by selectmen, or mayor and alderman, in spite of jails and workhouses, and probably will till the millennium.”

1817 Daniel Britton sent to jail for stealing hens. “He is a brawny chimney sweep, and parades in the streets in a big cap, a long stick, and a train of boys at his heels, to the great annoyance of people.”
March 13 Henry Phillips hung on Boston Neck for the murder of Gaspard Denegri, near Roebuck Tavern, in January last. “After the cap was drawn over his eyes, he sang a song of three verses, dropped the handkerchief, and was launched into eternity.

1819 William Johnson sent to State Prison for life, for robbing a countryman of squirrels on the Common, where he decoyed him, under pretence to find a purchaser.

1821 “Watchman are not to walk or talk together on their beats, They are to go their rounds and return to their box, and there wait till the time arrives to go round again. They are not to cry the time of night in a vociferous voice.” September 19 – A man named Pearl convicted of adultery with a young woman who had been working with him as a carpenter’s apprentice in male attire, for three years. December 23: several burglaries having been committed, several persons were very severe on the Watch, and said, “They care for nothing but their pay, and are sure to get that: give us a private watch.” Others said,” A private watch, like the one in 1816, as soon as the stores are closed, would be found at the Exchange, sipping coffee. The only safe way is for merchants to watch themselves.” Others said, “Who will work faithfully all night for the bare stipend of fifty cents?”

1822 Legislature passed act establishing The City of Boston. March 4 town meeting at Faneuil Hall approves. Boston to become a city on May 1, 1823.
Owing to the disorderly state of the Hill and Ann Street, constables were detailed there in Sundays.
In consequence of the bad condition of the Jail in Court Square, prisoners were taken to Lechmere Point. – An effort was made to introduce the treadmill to punish criminals.

1823 New buildings completed…”The new Court House in Leverett Street be called City Court House” Jail, house of correction and police court
May 13 “All cows going at large, shall wear a tally on their necks, with owner’s name and number of the license. “No citizen shall pasture more than one cow on the Common.”
“Shaking down” by the girls becomes frequent on The Hill.

1824 Ordinance passed to re-number the streets, placing the even numbers on one side. And the odd on the other. Middle and North to be called Hanover Street. And the main street from The Market to Roxbury line shall be called Washington Street.”
Sep 15 Dr. Harrington fined $150 for letting rooms to Susan Bryant for unlawful purposes.
Oct 14 An officer detailed to patrol Ann Street by day.
The Washington Gardens, a place of great attraction on Tremont Street, between West and Temple Place, were opened.

1825 ? July 22 - Beehive destroyed in Prince Street by a mob.
July 24 – A riot attempted at Tin Pot, Ann Street, which was suppressed.
Boston contained 58,281 inhabitants. White M 27,911 F 29,453 Colored M 974 F 943
Dec 21 Keane riot at Boston Theatre…A large number of men, but no women were present…5000 people more or less connected with the riot, many persons badly injured.

1826 Jan 1 City gov. inaugurated. Josiah Quincy, Mayor.
May 6 The Mayor of Boston fined for fast riding. – A stone curb ordered to be built around Frog Pond. Park Street Mall laid out.
July 4 A liberty pole erected corner Essex and Washington Streets. Presidents Jefferson and Adams both died this day.
July 14 A riot on Negro Hill. Several houses pulled down.

1827 Constable ordered to patrol the Common by day…No more liquor to be sold on the Common on public days.
Aug 11..Palm leaf hats first worn in Boston.
Dec 15..No child to be admitted to school unless vaccinated.
During the year 921 persons have been committed to Boston jail for debt.

1828 The Ursuline Convent at Mount Benedict, Charlestown completed.
100 persons injured by falling of floor while witnessing the laying of corner stone of Methodist Church, North Bennet Street.
Nov 4 The Centre Watch petition for beds, but don’t get them. The Grand Jury complained of being annoyed by prisoners hammering stone.

1829. Harrison Gray Otis, Mayor.
A gas street lamp placed in Dock Square, as an experiment.
July 4 Celebrated with little spirit….On the Common, no liquor, no booths, no people.”
….In the evening, a man tried to whip Big Dick and got the worst of it…
Nov 28 JB Booth comes near killing another actor in a sword exercise at the Tremont, pretends to be crazy and leaves the city.
Dec 30 A great Anti-Masonic meeting at Faneuil Hall, resolved to put down the order.

1830: March 15 Cows excluded from the Common
Boston had 61,381 inhabitants of which 1915 were colored.
September 17: A committee long having the matter under consideration decided this day to be the anniversary of the settlement of Boston…
Oct 14 Corner stone of Masonic Temple, Tremont Street laid.
Nov 8 Another police officer placed at Ann Street.

1831 June 13 Chambers over the Market to be called Quincy Hall.
Nov 16 Mr. Anderson attempted to sign at Tremont Theatre but was driven from the stage, for alleged abuse of the Yankees.
Dec 28 Calvin Edson, the living skeleton, on exhibition in Boston.

1832 Centre Watch removed from Kilby Street to basement in Joy’s building.
July 30 The Asiatic cholera appeared in Boston. $50000 appropriated to combat. Disappeared in a few weeks.
Oct Great complaint against the gas works on Copp’s Hill.
Dec 21 Great excitement in Boston in consequence of alleged murder of Sarah Maria Cornell by Rev E. K. Avery, a Methodist minister at Tiverton RI
Dec 31 Eleven o’clock at night, Bromfield Street watch meeting broken up by rioters.

1833 John B. Carter and Mary Bradley, a worthy young couple, committed suicide by hanging themselves together face to face in her father’s store.
March 26 Eliza Towers and other temperance men petitioned to have the eleven o’clock bell discontinued but Boston would have its eleven o’clock.
April 8; Jim Crow Rice jumping at Tremont Theatre.
May 1 First Boston omnibus run between Roxbury and Chelsea Ferry.
June 28 A fight between constables and gamblers on Boston Common

1834 May 4 David Crockett visited Boston
July 3 During terrible storm the figurehead of the Constitution was cut off and carried away.
July 4 The christening of the Whig Party. 2000 persons sat down to a feast under a tent on the common
Aug 11 Monday evening, the Ursuline Convent burnt.
1834 Ursuline Convent – ruins left as they were to 1875

Sept 19 Hair beds furnished for the watch
Sept 22 Blackstone Street completed and named. Ann Street widened to connect Merchant’s row with Blackstone.
There are 71 gas lamps in Boston.

1835June 9 Five Spanish pirates hung + sixth on Sept 12.
Aug 13 George Robert Twelve Hewes, 96, last surviving member of the Tea Party visited Boston from his residence in NY.
Oct 22 George Thompson mobbed at the Liberator office in Washington St.

1836 “Ordered that hereafter the church bells be rung at twelve, instead of eleven o’clock.
The Boston Stone was set in a building in progress of erection on corner of Marshall and Creek.

1837 June 11 Sunday afternoon: The Broad Street riot occurred between Irishmen and fire companies, in which it was said 15,000 people were engaged. It was finally suppressed by the military.
July 5? The edgestones around the Frog Pond to be removed.
Ten deaths by cholera during the year and 11 by delirium tremens.

1838 The city Marshal made a descent on gamblers in Milk Street –12 arrested.
June 18 Abner Kneeland sent to jail for two months for blasphemy.
July 24: Great Webster Dinner at Faneuil Hall. Jim Wilson of New Hampshire ? a guest.
Sept 11: The striped pig on exhibition at Dedham muster and elsewhere.

1839 180 gas lamps in city.
Oct 19 A tar and feathering liquor informer case occurred.
Marcus Morton elected gov by one vote.

1840 Morton signs new liquor bill to great rejoicing.
March 10: Daguerreotypes first taken in Boston
June 4 Steam Packet communication between Boston and Liverpool.
July 4 Celebrated with great spirit, partaking somewhat of a political character. “log cabins” “coon skins” and “hard cider” were in the play, and “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” were the watchwords.

1841: Father Matthew, the Irish Temperance Reformer in Boston
March 18 Old County Court house fitted up and renamed City Hall
The government removed there from the Old Town House
Front Street to be called Harrison Ave
Boston Museum, corner Tremont and Bromfield opened.
Nov 17 Abby Folsom broke up a meeting in Marlboro Chapel
Nov 24 The French prince DeJoinville danced in Faneuil Hall with the Mayor’s lady.
Municipal Court Docket showed five hundred and sixty nine cases for the year.

1842: Elder Knapp, a revival preacher, reported to have said “It is easier for a shad to climb a greased barber’s pole tail foremost, than for a sinner to get to heaven.” Held forth in Boston.
Abby Folsom and Joseph Lamson created sensations.
July 4: It was said that 8000 school children were on the Common in the day and 100,000 witnessed the fireworks in the evening.

1843 Jan 1 Merchants Exchange, State Street opened.
Apr 23 Day is fixed by prophet Miller for end of the world. A large number assemble at the Miller Tabernacle in Howard Street – nothing happened but the meeting.
Aug 27: A riot in North Square between Negroes and sailors.
Sept 4: Winfield Scott visited Boston
Sept: Captain of the Watch fined for smoking in the street

1844 Men drove teams and skated from Long Wharf to Boston light.
May 20 Old Bull gave his first Violin Concert at the Melodeon – and Mr. Franklin threw three somersets at the Circuit.
June 4: The Fairchild excitement commenced?
July 4: Fireworks on the easterly part of the common for the last time.
Sept 19: Great Whig meeting on Boston Common. The close of the year is noted for a municipal political strife.

1845 Jan 6 city govt organized without a mayor.
Feb 21 Thomas Davis elected Mayor, at the eighth trial.
July 22 “Henry Smith, the Razor Strop man in State Street crying “a few more left”
Oct 18: Howard Theater (built on the site of the Miller Tabernacle) opened.
Oct 27 Maria Bickford murdered in Mount Vernon Avenue.

1846 March 24 Albert Tirrell on trial for murder of Maria Bickford. He was acquitted.
May 14: One hundred and twenty nine vessels in Boston Harbor
May 16 War between US and Mexico
June 4 Recruiting parties patrolling the streets for Mexican volunteers
Watch numbered about 150.

1847 Jan 22 Terrible Fire in Causeway, Medford and Charlestown Streets. A complete sheet of cinders covered the north part of the city, presenting one of the most sublime and terrific spectacles ever witnessed.
Feb 7 Currier and Trotts Store, Washington Street robbed of a large amount of jeweler
March 31 A Temperance meeting (Deacon Grant) broken up at Faneuil Hall.
May 1 Revere House, Bowdoin Square completed and opened.
May 13 Mayor and Alderman voted to allow no more liquor stores.
Ship fever raging at Deer Island – a large police force detailed there.
June 12 House of Deacon Grant, temperance reformer, disgracefully defaced.
July 27 Iron seats passed on Common to bar whittlers
Oct 7 News reached Boston that the American flag is flying over the Halls of Montezuma, Mexico
Nov 18 Chinese junk arrived in Boston

1848 Feb 29 City Hall in mourning for death of John Quincy Adams, born July 11, 1767, died Feb 23, 1848
March 10: The 28 gallon liquor law passed.
Mar 14 Sam Houston of Texas at Tremont Temple
Apr 27 Watchman Estes shot in Sister Street
June 16 General Order to complain of all persons smoking in the streets.
July 22 MA Regiment, Colonel Isaac Wright, returned from the Mexican War
Sept 18: Thrilling account of Californian gold rush reaches Boston
Oct 25 Grand introduction of water from Cochituate to Boston and a jet of water sent up from a fountain in the Frog Pond – an event worthy of commemoration
Dec 27 Salstillo left Boston with 12 passengers for the gold mines.

1849 Jan 1 Good sleighing and great horse-racing on the Neck
Jan 9 Ship Edward Everett and two others clear for California.
Feb 19 City Government offered a reward of fifty cents for every dog’s head.
Feb 21 People walk on ice from Long Wharf to Spectacle Island
June 4 Asiatic cholera made its appearance.
Sept 17 James Hayes, an Irishman, dies in Hamilton Street, aged 108
Nov 1 Eye and Ear Infirmary completed in Charles St

1850 Boston has 197 schools and 20,000 pupils.
Number of deaths exceeds any previous year because of cholera, being 5068.
50 police officers, 225 watchmen, the beat of each man averaging over a mile.
Aug 30 Webster hung at the Jail for the murder of Parkman
Sep 28 Jenny Lind sang at the Tremont
Oct 26 Slave catchers arrested in Boston, great excitement among colored people.
Number of dwelling houses 13,173 Inhabitants 138,788.

From 1851…Savage became intimately engaged in “police duties”
See Photocopies for 1851 to 1873

‘During my police life I had many thousands of persons in my custody, the books at Station One (North End) alone showing a record of some sixty thousand names, during the seven years I was in charge there. (!)

Anne Hutchinson
Divine Rebel by Selmar Williams

Born July 1591, Reverened Francis Marbury m Bridget Dryden 1587, second wife.
Elizabeth I (1558 – 1603) -- Armada just three years before – “Gloriana”
No longer practicable to indulge in centuries old sport of denouncing women – without casting aspersions on the queen herself
Maternal uncle of Anne’s mother was Sir Anthony Cope MP – led opposition to Elizabeth viz Cope’s Bill and Book to revise the Book of Common Prayer got him into Tower for a month
1578 Francis clashed with the Bishop of London, John Aylmer at 23, latter an opponent of all reformers High Commission of the church…
M “I say that the Bishops of London and Peterborough and all the bishops of England are guilty of the death of as many souls as have perished by the ignorance of the ministers of their making whom they knew to be unable.”
Church was riven with incopetence and stupidity
B: “thou art a very ass, an idiot, a fool”
B: “thou art an overthwart Puritan knave…
M: “I am no Puritan. I beseech you be good to me. I have been twice in prison, but I know not why.”
B” “have him to the Marshalsea. There he shall cope with the papists.”
M” I am to go whither it pleseath God, but remember God’s judgments. You do me open wrong. I pray God forgive you.”
Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, but who should teach them knowledge?”

1591 was master of Alford Grammar School and preacher at St Wilfrid
Stripped of living because of criticism of Bishops…not until 1594 did he finally recover his licence to preach. Three years of enforced idleness and smoldering anger coincided with first three years of Anne’s life
Childhood “spent more time reading than sewing samplers”
Female literacy was higher in Elizabeth’s reign than ever before or until late 19th century
1603 James 1
1605…her father had given up.
At 14, Anne moved with family to London ST Martin in the Vintry in Thames St
One of 10 children living
Over next five years, M got increasingly prosperous appointments
Since english society was organized by parishes, Francis as minister was chief ogf the vestry, the select group of the most influential men of his small community or parish. Many historians contend that there was a straight line for the parish asembly in old england to the town meeting of New England. There were 122 parishes in London, so that as rector M presided over the day to day concerns of 28,000 people.
Oldest daughter at home in London, helped mother with three new births…midwife
Seeds of rebellion were planted in London when she came into contact with ideas of Familism, a radical sect from the Continent: Among other attractions, this sect preached direct communication between each individual and God. Totally rejected were predestination and Original Sin, which carried with it a denunciation of Eve. An alternative name of the sect was Family of Love, referring to members bound together by an intimate relationship with God.

Women and Puritanism…concealment of the Martin Marprelate printing presses x 1589
James proclaimed that Puritanism “agrees as well with a monarchy as God and the Devil.”
James and bishops denouncing women viz “never must midwives be allowed to baptize the newborn, even when no priest was available or even when the baby was on the verge of death
Moment James had crown on head he gave notice that he would trample women into permanent invisibility unlike his predecessor. All attempts to improve female education were quashed….A stiff new witchcraft statute. More than forty percent hanged under James law would have escaped death under Elizabeth. James reissued his own tract Daemonolgie in which he deduced that for every 21 witches, 20 were women.All women were lustful, weak and prey to the snares of the devil…witch-women were the Devil’s handmaidens, trouble-seeking, evil-producing outsiders, outspoken non-conformists
“The more women, the more witches.”
1610 – surfacing of the legend of Pope Joan 886 in book by Alexander Cooke, vicar of Leeds..presented for the express purpose of demolishing Catholicism..Cooke insisted that she had fatally undermined the Church
At the beginning of 1611, Anne not yet 20 saw her whole world collapse when her father, aged 55 died.
August 9, 1612 year after her father’s death, married William Hutchinson, who she had known since childhood, a wealthy sheep farmer and textile merchant from Alford. Hutchinson’s uncle was mayor of Lincoln…and his grandfather served in same office. Nouveau riche. …
Alford, silent windswept plains, the Dutch windmilles, dykes and an occasional tree dotting the landscape

Gervase Markham The English Housewife

1613 Edward first of 15 children was born and baptised on May 28
… “like all other women who went down to the well of death with each pregnancy….Anne found that religion had special appeal.”
50 per cent of babies died before three and one in five women died of pregnancy related complication

Alford x Lincolnshire x Horncastle x Boston

Female preachers…orginated in Holland and spread to England…interrupt their sermons with a tale of having heard a “Voice from Heaven.” Prophets they called themselves, meaning they had the power to reveal, predict and interpret God’s will.
One woman made a lasting impression on Ann “Woman of Ely”…she spoke of her years later. Ely 6o miles south of Alford…A Familist

Cotton took over Boston pulpit in July 1612, month before Anne and William settled at Alford A long tradition of rebellious Puritanism in Boston spurred by steady enconomic decline…late sixteenth century the port silted over ending 300 year reign as hanseatic port for wool and wine
Cotton gave Boston a reputation as a town “famous for religion” Tweaking the noses of his superiors, he refused to wear the surplice, use the cross in baptism, compel communicants to kneel for the sacrament
1614 visitation by Bishop Neile of Lincoln…”five hours long service, where there were as many sleepers as wakers, scare any man but was sometimes forced to wink or nod.
24 mile day and a half long journey from Alford to Boston
Cotton: There were scores of godly persons in Boston who entered into a covenant with the Lord and with one another to follow after the Lord in the purityt of worship.”

Pregnant every fifteen to 23 months, Ann rejected church dogamn that women, by the very act of giving birth, were adding to the sin quotient of the world.She refused to believe that they were each inseparably born in original son.
Inspired by Cotton, she held meetings in her own home, sermonizing and discussing her personal interpreations of the scriptures.
An intellligent, experienced and skillful nurse and midwife.
Cotton himself remarked later that she was “well-beloved in England at Alford…”

1614 Joseph Swetnam published The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward and unconstant woman:Or the vanitie of them choose you whether With a commendation of wise, virtuous and honest Women, Pleasant for Unmarried Men, profitable for young men, and hurtful to none. The best wufe Swetnam concluded woud be a 17 year old :flexible and bening, obedient and subject to do anything.” Pamphlet reissued 10 times to 1634
Response by Constantia Munda – The Worming of a Mad Dog…Spawned an anonymous play, Swetnam, the Woman-Hater, arraigned by Women.. Swetnam, given alias Misogynos.

1620s a new anti-feminist pamphlet called Hic Mulier…Man-Woman, roughly..Hic Mulier or The Man-Woman, Being a Medicine to Cure the Coltish Disease of the Staggers in the Man Woman of our Times….calling women the gilt dirt and renouncing them for cutting their hair….harks back to New Testament, Cor 11;15 “But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering.”…etc. “bait which the devil hath laid toi catch the souls of wanton woman.”

Jane Hawkins, seer, soon to be one of her closest friends…1625

Mary Dyer “w very proper and comely young woman”

Griffin set sail in July 1634 Zechariah Symmmes William Bartholomew

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