Tag: Religion
The Puritans came to establish a utopia, not religious chaos
The conventional explanation that the Puritans migrated to New England for religious freedom misses the obvious.
When the Puritans first arrive in 1629, followed the next year with the beginning of their great flood of migration, theirs is a well-orchestrated and well-financed scheme to establish a utopia, one based on their Calvinist Protestant worldview. In many ways, it ranges well beyond the confines of religion.
Crucially, sensing that their mission could be corrupted by false teachings and practices, they squelch unorthodoxy and dissent early on. Within the first decade of their arrival along Massachusetts Bay, they banish Samuel Gorton, Roger Williams, and Anne Hutchinson, who find refuge in Williams’ new colony of Rhode Island. Early Quaker history turns its focus there and neighboring Cape Cod, for good reason, though much also happens north of Boston in Salem, Hampton, and Dover.
Hutchinson’s brother-in-law, the Reverend John Wheelwright, also takes flight and founds the town of Exeter, on the other end of Great Bay from Dover, in New Hampshire.
Others head more or less straight to Dover. Among them is Hansard Knollys, a minister whose evolving theology will lead him to being a founder of the Baptist denomination when he returns to England. He’s not quite there yet when he formally organizes the church in Dover as a congregational society just six years after its first services. Had he been a bit clearer in his theological evolution, Dover could have established the first Baptist church in America, a year before Williams in Providence. Oh, well.
But that does leave an opening for the Quakers a decade later.
All the more, I sense that Knollys leaves enough nonconformist thought in his wake to lead some independent spirits in Dover to privately question the ongoing Puritan preaching. As my new book will note, there are hints of that in the town records – supposedly subversive thinking that has to await the arrival of the itinerant Quakers for confirmation and action.
As we’ll see, it’s a volatile mix awaiting the spark for explosion.
Merrymaking at Mare Mount
Speaking of juicy.
Sandwiched in between the arrival of Pilgrims at Plymouth and the Puritans at the Massachusetts Bay colony, we have the libertine plantation at Mare Mount, or Merrymount, on Boston’s South Shore. It’s a provocative whiff of how New England life could have turned, had Thomas Morton successfully warded off the rival raiders.
The very name “merry” at the time was often a synonym for sexual trysting. As for Merry-Mount? It couldn’t have been more graphic.
Unlike Plymouth, this settlement was prospering and welcoming misfits.
Think of hippie. Maybe even commune. Dancing naked with Natives around a giant maypole, one that’s flagrantly phallic. Not just pagan but also reflecting some lingering Devonshire traditions taken to an extreme. (Significantly, for comparison, most of early Dover’s settlers came from Devon, not the East Anglia of Puritan culture.)
That’s the short version, though there’s much more sketched out in my upcoming book.
And after Merrymount comes crashing down, its founder finds shelter in Sir Ferdinando Gorge’s Maine, not far from Dover.
No, early New England wasn’t all stern Puritans, not by a long shot, no matter how much they tried to keep a lid on.
Nearly two decades later, facing the Quaker outbreak, did Puritan authorities fear the Friends movement might trigger another Merrymount in their midst? As I’ll show, Quakers were anything but quaint and respectable when they show up, though I can assure you they stayed sober rather than make merry. Ahem.
But they were still an alternative to the Puritan rigidity.
Spiritual but not religious?
I know, it’s something I would have claimed for myself, too, way back when.
And it is a common identity for many today.
But after five decades in a disciplined tradition, here’s how I’ve come to see it:
It’s like the difference between a one-night stand and marriage.
Or between lust and love.
On a less flip note, I’ll admit that a problem with a lot of religion arises when it comes second-hand, even as speculation or shallow platitude, rather than from a personal experience of the mysterious divine. And also when it’s approached as law, with its thou-shalt-nots and rewards or punishments, rather than a relationship with the Wondrous Other. (I’ll leave the particular definitions open, for now.) I’ve called the latter approach “thinking in metaphor,” for good reason.
You can see how the theoretical or law-and-order approaches can mess up a romantic relationship. Ditto with the practice of faith.
By the way, I cherish religion that addresses daily life, in the here and now, more than in an abstract hereafter, though I’ll also agree with Freud’s disciple Otto Rank that religion is the one means we humans have with dealing with our ingrained fear of death.
As the saying goes, God is in the details, and I can be quite critical of various traditions and teachings, including my own. Missing the mark, in a Jewish translation, is one definition of sin. At those points, turning – the basis of the word “repentance” – is required. But I’ve also come to cherish what one old Quaker called “mutual irradiation,” those places where humble practitioners of different disciplines cross paths and inspire each other.
Admittedly, I do come at this from an essentially mystical community that requires individual awareness, one that’s sometimes referred to as an Alternative Christianity. For a better feel of it, visit my As Light Is Sown blog.
In that stream, William Penn, an unapologetic Christian minister, boldly wrote in the late 1600s:
“The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious and devout souls everywhere are of one religion and when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another, though the diverse liveries they wore here make them strangers.”
As for religion, he noted:
“There is a zeal without knowledge, that is superstition. There is a zeal against knowledge, that is interest or faction; there is a zeal with knowledge, that is religion; and if you will view the countries of cruelty, you will find them superstitious rather than religious. Religion is gentle, it makes men better, more friendly, loving and patient than before.”
Put another way, spirituality and religion are two sides of the coin. One without the other would be counterfeit.
Brother William takes a roundabout route
When Edward Hilton settles on Dover Point, his brother William is dwelling in the Plymouth Bay colony. It’s one more suggestion, in fact, that Edward knew about the Piscataqua watershed before setting forth himself.
William arrives on the second ship to the Pilgrim plantation, followed by his wife and family on the next. They definitely aren’t Pilgrims (the term wasn’t even in use then – Separatists was more accurate). And, for that matter, despite sharing a basic Calvinist theology, the Separatists hold some sharp differences from the Puritans who show up later.
Critically, roughly half of the settlers at new Plymouth aren’t members of the Separatist faith. And that includes the only ordained minister in the colony.
Thus, when William and his wife arrange for a secret Anglican (that is, Episcopal) baptism for their infant, a scandal erupts that sends them scurrying northward and brings to light the sordid background of the now disgraced minister who is promptly banished. (No spoiler here – but you’ll still have to read the book.) These events do present a grittier alternative to the Thanksgiving scenario we usually trot out about the Pilgrim experience.
William winds up in New Hampshire, settling at the Pannaway plantation at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, where he’s soon making salt to be used for preserving fish for shipment.
And then, in the demise of Pannaway, he’s finally at Dover Point.
This isn’t the way his arrival in Dover is commonly painted. Quite simply, he isn’t one of the first two settlers. Thomas Roberts, Edward’s apprentice, earns that honor.
Still, like his brother, William is both a member of the powerful fishmonger guild in London and literate. And things get a bit rowdy when he moves on from Dover to live on the Maine side of the river.
Yeah, if you’re looking for gossip, there’s some juicy stuff on his part, especially when we meet his last wife. She’s definitely not holier-than-thou.
An orange is an orange is an orange orange
The mystics and traditions I’ve encountered are anything but airy-fairy. In fact, they can be pretty down-to-earth and practical, based on personal experience and testing rather than empty speculation or dogma.
As George Fox said at the beginning of the Quaker movement, “This I knew experimentally.” That is, by first-hand experience including trial and error. Or as was said a few years later, “Some of the best barns in Rhode Island were designed during Quaker Meeting,” during quiet meditation.
Never underestimate the importance of the disciplined circle of fellow practitioners, either. Anyone who says “I’m spiritual, not religious,” but lacks that communal base is headed for trouble.
I learned that 50 years ago in a yoga ashram – see my novel Yoga Bootcamp for unorthodox examples of how it works – and have seen it in other traditions since, especially my Quaker circles.
One of my favorite stories comes via fellow blogger Tru-Queer, who relayed the incident this way:
A Tibetan lama and a famous Korean Zen master in the Rinzai school were to have a debate.
The Tibetan lama sat meditating, counting his mala. The Zen master produced an orange from his robes and asked the lama, “What is this?” It was a famous koan. Waiting for a response, the lama continued meditating. The Zen master asked again, “What is this?”
The Tibetan lama spoke with his translator for a moment, who said, “Do they not have oranges where he is from?”
~*~
I suppose I should explain that a koan is a kind of mental puzzle intended to push a student beyond rational thought. Zen is essentially black-and-white ascetic, while Tibetan Buddhism is full of colorful esoteric teaching and drama. Yet here the roles are reversed, in a great joke.
But it doesn’t end there. When’s the last time you really looked at an orange? How many varieties can you identify, much less their differences in uses or subtle flavors? Does your recognition that it’s “an orange” put a stop to regarding it fully? That is, when’s the last time you had an “OH WOW!” moment with something so seemingly commonplace.
Gertrude Stein was aiming at something similar with her “A rose is a rose is a rose,” which blows open when you learn she was also speaking of a friend named Rose and not just the metaphors associated with a specific flower that somehow too often gets lost in the entire equation.
So just how do we live full of wonder – a state a Friend hailed as the Holy Now?
I’d say having dear ones who share it with you does help. Even if they’re Zen Buddhists.
No, the settlers don’t own the land – they can merely hold it and pay rents
It’s hard for modern Americans to understand a basic reality of European colonies in the New World.
None of the players in the story own the land they’re dealing with.
Not the settlers, even though they’re clearing it and building on it.
Nor the proprietors or investors, either. They’re more like developers who offer leasing opportunities. Think of rental agents.
Nor the Indigenous tribes, surprisingly, even though many of the settlers also negotiate a payment to them for their land. The use of their land, more accurately. Admittedly, the payments are largely symbolic – a bushel of corn a year, for example.
No, quite simply, all land “belongs” to the king, and he allocates the privilege of using it as a means of leveraging his own prestige and power.
Under the feudal system, that would mean grants to barons and other lords in return for their fealty.
They, in turn, could dole some out to knights, who then become wealthy, as well.
Add to that the gentlemen farmers, living off the rents to their estates.
And then yeomen, who are still free on their own tenants, as their small holdings were called.
And husbandmen.
And, somewhere below that, the serfs who are bound to the land and its holder. Well, by this point in time, they’d been freed but were still at the bottom of the ladder.
~*~
THIS IS THE MODEL OF LANDHOLDING – not landownership – up through the American Revolution.
Its assumptions are quite different from those of modern Americans. What do you mean? I don’t own the ground under my house and barn?
No, you don’t. And you still have to pay rent on it.
~*~
AS A FURTHER COMPLICATION, charters could be revoked or rewritten.
Falling out of the king’s favor would have costly and dire consequences.
As my upcoming book describes, this land arrangement affected Dover and the rest of New England through a series of realignments and controversies and attempted evictions.
In fact, it almost leads to a rebellion in Boston Harbor against the king a century-and-a-half before Paul Revere’s midnight ride. Well, that’s one aside I don’t develop. There’s too much else going on along the Piscataqua.
The Piscataqua’s first European settlers set up at two sites
From the git-go, there’s been a rivalry between Portsmouth and Dover, though a closer look reveals it’s more nuanced than what we usually think.
The 1622 contract for developing the Piscataqua watershed allows for more than one vessel to arrive and more than one settlement to be planted along the river.
Scotsman David Thomson is the head of the operation. He sets forth in the Jonathan and establishes his fortified Pannaway plantation at the mouth of the river in today’s Rye – not Portsmouth, contrary to the Port City’s claims of founding. He’s highly placed politically, somehow having the ear of King James I. And specifically, he’s the only one named in the grant.
Pannaway faces the open Atlantic, with salt marsh to its back.
~*~
IN CONTRAST, when the Providence arrives a month later, she apparently sails straight up the river to today’s Hilton Point aka Dover Point, where Edward Hilton and Thomas Roberts then set up operations. They disembark at Pomeroy Cove, which they name for Leonard Pomeroy, one of the three principal backers of the project. He’s also Lord Mayor of Plymouth, England, home of the company, and co-owner of the ship that’s brought them this far.
As I detail in my upcoming book, Hilton likely knew of the site even before setting sail. It was far enough inland to be sheltered from violent storms. Vast forests extended from the riverbanks, with timber for shipbuilding, piers, and barrels as well as homes and bridges and wild game for the taking. Best of all, the point was a confluence of rich tidal waters, with the Great Bay estuary on one side along with its tributary streams and, on the other side, the Piscataqua and its Cochecho and Salmon Falls rivers. Cod, salmon, sturgeon, eels, herring, oysters, clams, and lobsters are bountiful. Why go out to sea when the fish come right up to you?
While Pannaway is thoroughly documented, in part through its stream of visitors, its existence is short-lived, and the site’s abandoned by 1626, when Thomson relocates to an island in Boston Harbor and disappears soon after. His widow then promptly marries Samuel Maverick – yes, the source of that word. It’s a rough-and-tumble world.
~*~
OUT OF THE SPOTLIGHT of documentation, Hilton and Roberts continue on, in time joined by Edward’s brother William and their sister or possibly cousin Rebecca along with more family.
Either way, Roberts and Rebecca soon marry and start a farm about a mile from the point – they later move it another mile-and-half – but theirs will still be the oldest family-owned farm in the future United States well into the 20th century.
It must have been lonely through much of that first decade. The Hilton-Roberts clan was definitely on the frontier, and ongoing war in Europe cut off much ship traffic.
Edward Hilton is, however, definitively rewarded for his six years of habitation and hard labor by a charter giving him clear control at Dover Point. And they must be prospering, as seen in assessments placed on their province or his brief return to England for the legal document, perhaps a fish delivery, and definitely a marriage.
While Thomas and Rebecca Roberts remain in Dover for the rest of their lives, her brothers eventually move on – Edward to Exeter and William, by degrees along the Maine side of the Piscataqua. All of their lives take colorful turns along the way, which I relate in the book.
Even though Portsmouth baldly claims 1623 as its founding date, it had no European settlement until the Laconia Company chose to set up operations there in 1629 or 1630, calling their site Strawbery Banke. Yes, that was one more convolution of investors.
~*~
AND THAT’S THE BARE-BONES VERSION. There’s plenty in my upcoming book to flesh it out, some of it rather earthy – especially when we get to the contemporaneous and scandalous Merrymount plantation down on Plymouth Bay.
Fact: New Hampshire is the second-oldest state to be settled in New England. Older than Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, or Vermont.
Kinisi 90
dead ancestors
or broken dolls
devotions of habit
or discomfort
The early investors were looking for gold, not Jesus
To understand why a third of Dover became Quaker in the mid-1600s, we need to go back to the very founding of the colony.
The common presentation of history has New England settlement being prompted by a quest for religious liberty – you know, the Pilgrims and then the Puritans – but close examination finds that’s not the full story.
For instance, the first permanent English habitation, Plymouth in southern Massachusetts, is only half Pilgrims – the other half is diverse individuals looking for economic opportunity. The colony is also heavily in debt to investors in London who dictate much of its operation. Religion isn’t on their radar.
There’s nothing altruistic in the investors’ role. They’re looking for quick returns on their money. Their eye is on gold and silver or at least a shortcut to the Far East and its lucrative spices. Trade for furs could also be lewdly profitable. And then there’s the possibility of creating landed estates in the New World, where they could live at ease as gentlemen farmers supported by the rents paid by their tenants once the time’s ripe.
All of that puts the investors at odds with settlers who are out to establish homes, livelihoods, and security.
~*~
AS A FURTHER COMPLICATION, the investors come in layers. One company holds rights to the development of all of New England and then enters agreements with others interested in specific tracts, sometimes within a specified timeframe.
Sir Ferdinando Gorges is the godfather of all this and plays a crucial role in the birth of Maine, which emerged largely on its border with Dover. Quite simply, the Maine side of the Piscataqua River is a big part of early Dover’s community.
Sir Ferdinando’s business associate, Captain John Mason, emerges more directly as the proprietor of New Hampshire itself.
Together, only two years after the Pilgrim venture, they negotiate with a band of Devonshire merchants to settle on the Piscataqua River, today’s border between New Hampshire and Maine.
~*~
THEIR AGREEMENT SPECIFIES seven settlers – and, as we will see, that implies their families, servants, and laborers – intent on commercial opportunity. Forget religion.
The Puritans, pointedly, are nowhere to be found. They’re still seven or eight years off in the future. Their arrival to the south of New Hampshire will, however, spark a culture clash and ongoing power struggle that will include Maine. As you’ll see, the plot thickens.
In the meantime, the odds are greatly against the survival of the Piscataqua enterprise.
Other attempts in New England have failed, some without a trace, as would others. The Plymouth colony is faltering.
Remember, nobody finds gold or silver or that shortcut to China.
Even so, Gorges and Mason leave a deep imprint on the future Dover.
As do Edward Hilton, a member of the powerful fishmongers’ guild in London, and his apprentice, Thomas Roberts. Their outpost at Dover Point is the start of the seventh oldest permanent European settlement in the United States – and the third oldest in New England.
Edward has been recognized as the Father of New Hampshire.
Thomas, however, is generally neglected, even though he has a more central role in its continuing development. He even becomes Quaker, for all intents and purposes. And though an apprentice, he’s not a disadvantaged youth looking for a step upward. He comes from a privileged family, and his father, by some accounts, is about to become a baron.
~*~
ALL OF THAT’S PART of what we’ll be celebrating next year – 400 years after their arrival. And my new big book tackles some of the story.
