Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 6

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I > Part 6

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

ANNE HUTCHINSON AT POCASSET-Roger Williams was scarcely settled at Providence before a fresh controversy arose in Massachusetts over the alleged heretical teachings of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, wife of William Hutchinson. Anne Hutchinson, born Anne Marbury, was a skillful nurse and had so much knowledge of medicine that she is sometimes referred to as a physician. She was a brilliant woman, with charm of manner, marked personal mag- netism, and ability for discussion that captivated her disciples and confounded her opponents. She started the first home classes for immigrant women* in America. It was her practice to hold weekly meetings at her home, to which other women who could not, because of house- hold cares and duties, attend the Sunday church meetings were invited to hear Mrs. Hutchin- son relay the sermons. After a while men as well as women attended these meetings. So long as Mrs. Hutchinson was content to report without comment or criticism there appears to have been no disposition to interfere, but when she ventured to criticise the Sunday ser- mons preached by the ministers and to take issue with the preachers upon matters of doc- trine, exactly that occurred which might be expected in a theocratic state rapidly tending to bigotry of the most intolerant type. Mrs. Hutchinson would have been dealt with immedi- ately and summarily if she had not persuaded to her belief many of the most influential mem- bers of the community, including what gave promise of becoming an aristocracy of wealth in early Boston. The controversy of this period, which involved most of the Puritans of dis- tinction enough to be named in historv. is referred to as the Antinomian heresy, and suggests

*A term applied recently (1926) to classes in their homes for illiterate women unable to attend classes in schools.

EARLY RHODE ISLAND SETTLERS

theological and metaphysical distinctions as to alleged covenants of grace and of works. The Puritan version of the Bible laid the foundation for the controversy in so far as a translator, seeking to emphasize the importance of the word "faith," had rendered the word of Paul as "faith alone," although the same version of the Bible carried the familiar quotation from James, "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." To the definition of metaphysics as "the attempt of one person to make another person who is not capable of understanding see clearly something which the person who is trying to explain it is himself incapable of understanding," might be added the further suggestion of difficulties that arise when neither party to a controversy, in metaphysics or in any other field of science or philoso- phy, is willing to try to understand the position of the other party and each insists that the other party shall accept his own exposition. Anne Hutchinson preached the doctrine of justification by faith alone, or "inward light," which had led some to style her the first Quak- eress; and accused her opponents, in their emphasis upon the covenant of works, of maintain- ing the doctrine of sanctification by works, or external evidence. It is evident that these seventeenth century controversialists had anticipated by almost three centuries the modern squabble between introspective psychologists and those who have chosen to follow the banner of stark realism in behaviorism. The issue, important as it must have been to the Puritans, and significant because it divided them ultimately into two hostile camps, out of which arose two religious sects almost immediately and others later, is vastly less important from the twentieth century point of view than were and are the consequences of it with reference to the state. Out of the controversy came the separation of Congregational and Baptist denom- inations in America, and the establishment of two new settlements in Rhode Island by emi- grants from Massachusetts. Eventually the anti-Hutchinson party controlled the General Court, and on November 2, 1637, William Aspinwall, Deputy from Boston, was expelled from the court, and banished from Massachusetts. John Coggeshall, also from Boston, was expelled from the court, and disfranchised. Aspinwall and Coggeshall were among the founders of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Reverend John Wheelwright was banished, with leave to depart within fourteen days; he established the town of Exeter, New Hampshire. William Balstone and Captain John Underhill were disfranchised and fined. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson was banished. Seventy-five freemen were proscribed on November 20, and ordered to deliver up their arms and ammunition unless they would retract or leave. The church confirmed and ratified the action of the General Court with reference to Anne Hutch- inson by excommunication; the words of her condemnation were pronounced by Reverend John Wilson in March, 1638:

"Therefore in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the name of the church I do not only pronounce you worthy to be cast out, but I do cast you out, and in the name of Christ do I deliver you up to Satan, that you may learn no more to blaspheme, to seduce and to lie ; and I do account you from this time forth to be a heathen and a publican, and so to be held of all the brethren and sisters of this congregation and of others; therefore I command you in the name of Christ Jesus and of this church as a leper to withdraw yourself out of the congregation."

The Puritan theocracy, in the instance of Anne Hutchinson and others who had followed her in religion, had once more invoked the power of the state in a religious controversy, and the state had been made the too willing agent of the church. Again, as in the case of Roger Williams, the parties were Theocracy vs. Democracy ; and again the champions of democracy withdrew from Massachusetts. While one may ponder what punishment might have been meted out to the opponents of Anne Hutchinson had she and her followers controlled the General Court, in view of the bitterness which was involved in the struggle, there is this much that may be written truly, that they, as freemen in Rhode Island, did sustain the doc- trine of liberty of conscience, and that one of them, John Clarke, wrote the King Charles Charter of 1663, which guaranteed "full liberty in religious concernments."

RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

The defeated party had begun plans for emigration so early as the autumn of 1637. The leaders were John Clarke, a physician as well as a Baptist minister, newly arrived at Boston while the Antinomian controversy was at almost white heat, and William Coddington, third deputy from Boston to the General Court, which expelled William Aspinwall and John Cogge- shall. Coddington, a rich merchant, was an adherent of Anne Hutchinson, but, though tried by the General Court, was adjudged not guilty. John Clarke arrived in Boston in November, 1637, and as he wrote in a pamphlet published in Rhode Island in 1651, and subsequently in London in 1652 under the title "Ill News from New England," thought it strange to see that men "were not able so to bear with others in their different understandings and consciences, as in these uttermost parts of the world to live peaceably together."* He proposed migration, and to him and others was delegated the selection of a suitable place for founding a new colony. Moving to the north to escape the heat of the summer in Boston, the cold of winter was so severe, according to John Clarke's narrative, "that we were forced in the spring to make toward the south. So having sought the Lord for direction, we all agreed that while our vessel was passing about a large and dangerous Cape [Cape Cod], we would cross over by land, having Long Island and Delaware Bay in our eye for the place of residence. So to a town called Providence we came, which was begun by one Mr. Roger Williams (who for matter of conscience had not long before been exiled from the former jurisdiction), by whom we were courteously and lovingly received, and with whom we advised about our design. He readily presented two places before us on the same Narragansett Bay, the one upon the main called Sowams,t the other called then Aquidneck, now Rhode Island. We inquired whether they would fall in any other patent, for our resolution was to go out of them all. He told us (to be brief) that the way to know that, was to have recourse unto Plymouth. So our vessel as yet not being come about, and we thus blocked up, the company determined to send to Plymouth, and pitched upon two others together with myself, requesting also Mr. Williams to go to Plymouth to know how the case stood. So we did, and the magistrates thereof very lovingly gave us a meeting. I then informed them of the cause of our coming unto them, and desired them in a word of truth and faithfulness to inform us whether Sowams were within their patent, for we were now on the wing, and were resolved, through the help of Christ, to get clear of all, and be of ourselves, and provided our way were clear before us, it were all one for us to go further off as to remain near at hand. Their answer was that Sowams was the garden of their patent, and the flower in the garden. Then I told them we could not desire it, but requested further in the like word of truth and faithfulness to be informed whether they laid claim to the islands in the Narragansett Bay, and that in particular called Aquidneck? They all with a cheerful countenance made us this answer: It was in their thoughts to have advised us thereto, and if the provident hand of God should pitch. us thereon they should look upon us as free, and as loving neighbors and friends should be assistant to us upon the main."

Roger Williams negotiated with the Narragansett Indians for a deed of Aquidneck, although he generously shared the credit for his success with Sir Harry Vane. Roger Wil- liams, writing in 1658, said: "It was not price nor money that could have purchased Rhode Island. Rhode Island (Aquidneck) was obtained by love; by the love and favor which that honorable gentleman, Sir Harry Vane, and myself had with that great Sachem Mian- tonomah, about the league which I procured between the Massachusetts English, etc., and the Narragansetts in the Pequod War. It is true I advised a gratuity to be presented to the Sachem and the natives." The deed was taken in the name of William Coddington and others, settlers, and dated March 24, 1638. It included Rhode Island and other islands in the

*Compare the words used in the Charter of 1663: "not being able to bear, in these remote parts, their different apprehensions in religious concernments."

+Probably Warren or Bristol ; Barrington, perhaps. The exact location of Sowams has been a matter of much controversy.

EARLY RHODE ISLAND SETTLERS

bay except Prudence, the right of grass in the river and coves about Kickemuit and up to Poppasquash. On July 6 the settlers purchased wood and grass rights at Tiverton. A com- pact had been drawn up and signed by the settlers on March 7, 1638, and on the same day William Coddington was elected executive under the title "Judge." The first settlement on the Island of Rhode Island was made at a place called Pocasset on the shores of the cove north of the village now called Newtown. That this site rather than the later location at Newport happened to be chosen is explained by the probability that the vessel carrying the larger number of settlers entered Narragansett Bay through the Seaconnet River, and sailed up, selecting the cove as the most feasible anchorage and landing place. The Aquidneck com- pact bears the signatures of William Coddington, John Clarke, William Hutchinson, Jr. (hus- band of Anne Hutchinson), John Coggeshall, William Aspinwall, Samuel Wilbur, John Porter, John Sanford, Edward Hutchinson, Jr., Thomas Savage, William Dyer, William Freeborn, Philip Sherman, John Walker, Richard Carder, William Balstone, Edward Hutch- inson, Sr., Henry Bull and Randall Holden. The names of Thomas Clarke, John Johnson, William Hall and John Brightman also were signed, but bear erasure marks on the original document, which is in the Rhode Island archives in the possession of the Secretary of State. At the first town meeting held at Pocasset on May 13, 1638, William Coddington, William Hutchinson, John Coggeshall, Edward Hutchinson, William Balstone, John Clarke, John Porter, Samuel Wilbur, John Sanford, William Freeborn, Philip Sherman, John Walker and Randall Holden, the original thirteen at Pocasset, were present.

NEWPORT SETTLED-The settlement at Pocasset grew rapidly as other disciples of Anne Hutchinson than those banished or disciplined withdrew from Massachusetts and followed her to Rhode Island. There were probably not less than 100 families at Pocasset in the first year of the settlement. Careful exploration of the island was made, disclosing the land- locked harbor at Newport, with possibilities for commercial development quickly recognized by the alert settlers, some of whom, including Coddington, were merchants, to whom farm life was irksome. On April 28, 1639, an agreement signed at Pocasset by William Codding- ton, John Clarke, Nicholas Easton, Jeremy Clarke, John Coggeshall, Thomas Hazard, Wil- liam Brenton, Henry Bull and William Dyer witnessed their agreement to withdraw and found a settlement elsewhere on the island. Newport was chosen as the site for the new set- tlement. March 12, 1640, the two island settlements reunited, and the name Portsmouth was assigned to the plantation (Pocasset) at the north end of the island.

As Providence had been, and was still, Newport and Portsmouth also became havens of refuge for the persecuted from other New England colonies and from England and other parts of Europe. To Newport came the "Woodhouse," the first Quaker ship, which landed eleven Quakers on the island. Thither also fled Obadiah Holmes from Massachusetts, after banishment, and from Plymouth, where he had established at Seekonk the first Baptist church in the Cape Cod colony. Of the original Pocasset and Newport settlers, and of those who came later, many departed for other places. William Hutchinson died in 1642, and his widow, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, removed with his family shortly thereafter to a spot near Hell Gate at the western entrance to Long Island Sound. There she and the family were murdered by Iroquois Indians. Of the character and ability of Anne Hutchinson estimates of contemporaries vary with the bias of the period. Of later writers among even the descend- ants of the Massachusetts Puritans the opinion generally held is that she was a remarkable woman whose appearance in Boston happened at a period in which the town was psychologi- cally prepared for the outburst which her teaching precipitated. Not all of the Puritans were ready to follow the leadership that was converting the government of the colony into an unbearable tyranny. Roger Williams and Thomas Hooker had left, each one to establish a democracy that approached nearer to the ideal that was to be American. In dealing with Anne Hutchinson and her followers, as with others before and after, the Massachusetts

RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

leaders assumed the position that religious freedom threatened the security of the state; it did seriously threaten theocracy. With the departure from the colony of one after another of the progressive spirits who might have saved it from madness, the control of the govern- ment of Massachusetts was strengthened for the megalomania that displayed itself in the frenzied fury of whipping heretics, hanging Quakers and burning witches, which ended only when the King of England, Charles II, intervened and forbade judicial murder in Massa- chusetts, 1661.

SAMUEL GORTON-A fourth settlement in Rhode Island was made at Shawomet, later called Warwick, by Samuel Gorton, sometimes called the Firebrand of New England, who purchased land from the Indians under a deed dated January 12, 1642-1643. Gorton arrived at Boston from England in March, 1637, and removed shortly thereafter to Plymouth. Scarcely a year had passed ere his views upon religion had occasioned a disturbance in Plymouth. Ralph Smith objected to Mrs. Smith's attendance at religious ceremonies con- ducted by Gorton in the latter's home, and sought to evict Gorton, who occupied part of a house owned by Smith. In the parallel case in Providence Joshua Verein was disfranchised temporarily for interfering with his wife's liberty of conscience in attending religious cere- monies of her own choice. The outcome of the Gorton-Smith controversy in Plymouth is not clear from the record. Samuel Gorton was banished from Plymouth actually for open contempt of court in the process of defending Ellin Aldridge, a servant in his family, who was threatened with exile as a vagabond outcast because she had smiled in church. If Gorton did not display his contempt for the court and government at Plymouth in his arraignment of the judges, he made no serious effort to conceal it. The dignity of a court must be pre- served even in a democracy.

From Plymouth Samuel Gorton removed to Pocasset; there he was one of those who signed an agreement to reorganize the body politic after the withdrawal of the Newport set- tlers, carrying with them officers and records, had destroyed for the time being the govern- ment existing under the compact signed at Boston. Gorton subsequently refused to become a party to the agreement of March, 1640, through which Newport and Pocasset, the latter under the name of Portsmouth, were reunited, and at that time raised a question as to the right of any group of settlers to establish a government without royal sanction. This issue of legitimacy was fundamental, involving as it did controversy that troubled Rhode Island for a generation, until, in 1663, King Charles II granted the royal Charter. Before the court at Portsmouth, this time defending another servant, who was charged with assault and bat- tery, Gorton denied the court's jurisdiction and constitutionality for want of royal authoriza- tion, alleging that none of the governments in Rhode Island had a legal foundation through relation to the crown .* Again Gorton so conducted himself as openly to affront the court and incur punishment for flagrant contempt, not the least of his offences including addressing the justices as "just asses." No court may admit its own incompetence to the extent of denying the validity of the government to which it owes its existence; a justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island remarked two and one-half centuries later in the course of a trial in which the constitutionality of the court itself had been questioned,t that "the court has no constitutional right to commit suicide." Whether or not Gorton was whipped, a moot question for debate, he was ordered to depart from the Island of Rhode Island, and went. In maintaining that there was no legal establishment in Rhode Island Gorton had neglected the possibility that a de facto government may become de lege. There was no question of religion, and none of conscience involved in the Portsmouth trial.

Gorton went to Providence, and there he applied for reception as freeman and inhabitant. Both Roger Williams and William Arnold opposed the petition, because of the contempt for

*For a discussion of this point see Newport vs. Gorton, 22 R. I., 196. +Floyd vs. Quinn, 24 R. I., 147.

EARLY RHODE ISLAND SETTLERS

government which Gorton had expressed at Plymouth and at Portsmouth. Roger Williams was not willing to expand his insistence upon liberty of conscience and full liberty in religious concernments to the anarchy and chaos involved in the denial of civil government. His posi- tion on this issue was expressed clearly and masterfully in a letter written some years later :

There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and this is a true picture of a commonwealth, or a human combination, or society. Both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked in one ship, upon which supposal I affirm, that all the liberty of conscience that ever I pleaded for turns upon these two hinges-that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews or Turks be forced to come to the ship's prayers or worship, nor compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any. I further add that I never denied that, notwithstand- ing their liberty of conscience, the commander of this ship ought to command the ship's course; yea, and also to command that justice, peace, and sobriety, be kept and practiced, both among the seamen and all the passengers. If any of the seamen refuse to perform their services, or passengers pay their freight; if any refuse to help, in person or purse, toward the common charge or defence; if any refuse to obey the common laws and orders of the ship concerning their common peace or preservation; if any shall mutiny, and rise up against their commanders and officers; if any should preach or write that there ought to be no commander because all are equal in Christ, therefore no masters or officers, no laws or orders, nor correc- tions nor punishments; I say I never denied but in such cases, whatever is pretended, the commander or commanders may judge, resist, compel, and punish such transgressors according to their deserts and merits.

Gorton and his followers continued in Providence until the resistance of one of them to the service of court process distraining his cattle in civil proceedings arising out of a personal law suit produced bloodshed. They then withdrew to Pawtuxet and built houses. At Paw- tuxet events followed rapidly to produce the situation that preceded armed intervention by Massachusetts,* the arrest and trial of Gorton in Massachusetts, and treatment of Gorton by the Massachusetts authorities which made him, now a martyr suffering in a common cause, beloved of Rhode Islanders because of his treatment by the common enemy, and because of his subsequent contribution to the strength of colony and state. Gorton and his followers removed from Pawtuxet to Shawomet, the purchase of which included the territory now occupied by the towns of Warwick, West Warwick and Coventry. Gorton in later years was a constructive, though always belligerent, participant in public affairs.

LATER SETTLERS -- No list of settlers in Rhode Island would be complete that did not include all of those who have come through three centuries, for Rhode Island is still in the twentieth century a frontier state in its work of absorbing immigration attracted hither by the broad liberality of public life and opportunities for employment. It remains at this time to mention, following the settlement of the four original Rhode Island towns, other earlier settlers and settlements that were not merely extensions of the original communities. West- erly, the fifth Rhode Island town to be incorporated, was settled by Newport people, drawn thither by the advantageous situation with reference to the Pawcatuck River and Lit- tle Narragansett Bay. The Island of Manisses, called Louisa by Verrazzano and Block Island by the Dutch rediscoverer, was taken by Massachusetts as spoils of conquest in the Pequot War, and granted on October 19, 1655, to John Endicott and others, who sold it to a land company. Settlement was begun in 1662, the party proceeding from Boston to the Taunton River, through which and Mount Hope Bay, and Narragansett Bay they sailed out to the island. A granite monument marks the spot near which these pioneers made their landing and began their plantations. Block Island was included in Rhode Island as described by the Charter of 1663, and was incorporated as a town under the name of New Shoreham in 1672.

In the Narragansett country, a name applied in colonial days to approximately all of Washington County, and part of Kent County, trading posts were established by the Dutch

*See Chapter V.

RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

at an early period. Richard Smith, originally from Gloucestershire, England, but directly from Taunton, established a trading post at what has since been known as Wickford. The lumber for the house was transported by ship from Taunton. Near Smith's trading post Roger Williams also maintained a trading post for a few years, eventually selling out to Smith his "trading house, two big guns and a small island for goats." Richard Smith leased land from the Indians in 1656 for sixty years; in 1659 for 1000 years; and in 1660 obtained title in fee simple by quitclaim deed of the reversion. Randall Holden and Samuel Gorton bought Fox Island and a neck of land near Wickford in 1659. The Atherton purchase of a large part of the Narragansett country, made in violation of law, was one source of friction between Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts, all rival claimants .* When Walter House was killed by Thomas Flounders, inquests were conducted by both Rhode Island and Con- necticut officers. The territory was organized as a Rhode Island town under the name Kingstown in 1674.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 6

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716