This page is a part of the Lynn & Nahant town site.  Not for Commercial use.  All rights reserved.

"Lynn and Surroundings" by Clarence W. Hobbs

Transcribed and submitted by Shaun Cook To help transcribe or submit information, please  e-mail  Shaun Cook.

The Quaker Invasion, pgs 44-49

     DURING the first twenty-five years, the colonists of New England managed their affairs both civil and religious entirely in their own way and doubtless much to their own satisfaction. Nearly, if not quite all of those who came hither from England prior to the death of Charles Stuart did so to gain greater freedom in their religious opinions and practices. They came, many of them, from the best-educated, property owninlg classes, who, being hindered from worshiping God according to the dictates of their consciences, at home, resolutely, and of their own accord, sought asylum in the New World. Under the royal patent, those named therein came into absolute control of the territory covered by it, subject only to the claims of the aboriginal proprietors, and the several towns acquired a like title under the grants from the original patentees.
     Matters of religion, especially the organization of a church and the settlement of a minister, became questions of immediate concern, for it was because of their religion, and their regard for their religious tealchers that they had left their former pleasant homes to end their days in the wilderness. Matters of purely civil administration received only secondary attention during the early years of the colony, being, for the most part, provided for in the administration and organization of the church. What seems to us a strange and unreasonable regulation, because of the changed circumstances of our time, that everyone should be taxed for the support of the church, and that no one should vote who was not a church member, was the natural thing for them to do, because ninety-nine persons out of every hundred were members of the church. The charter of the colony in no respect resembled the Constitution under which we live; it was, on the contrary, that of a trading company - a close corporation which has the technical right to expel any person whose presence was deemed prejudicial to the interests of the company in general. Having been persecuted for their religion at home, they naturally sought, in establishing their own religious system, to throw around it every safeguard and influence to maintain its supremacy and secure its permanence, Their troubles at home had arisen from a conflict of beliefs; therefore they would prevent a recurrence of similar troubles in their new home by shutting the door tight against all who would not unreservedly subscribe to their system.
     Their plan was, in a certain narrow and technical sense, just, and would doubtless have been a good one if it could have been made to work. The obstacle to its success lay in their inability to control the thoughts and consciences of all their own people, and the extent of their coast line, which precluded perfect police supervision of all new-comers. The obstacles were not at first apparent, and where there was such a will to carry out their ideas, with a man like Gov. Endicott in authority, seconded by an exceptionally able Court of Assistants, there was certain to be devised ways and means.
     The events attending upon the preaching of George Fox, and the methods by which the English authorities attempted to check the new religious movement, had not been unnoted in the Massachusetts colony; and with a singular seeming forgetfulness of the trials they themselves had passed through, the English Puritans were quite as fierce in their denunciations of the new sect as the authorities of the Establishment, and lent ready countenance to the persecution which was at once raised against it. And the Massachusetts authorities were in full sympathy with their English cousins in regarding Quakerism as a dangerous heresy to be combatted by all means. The Friends on the other side had endured enough persecution to raise the zeal of the leaders to the point of enthusiasm, and it was not long before some of their number felt called to testify for their faith in the New World.
     The first Quakers of note to arrive in Boston were Mary Fisher and Ann Austin. They came in 1652, though it appears that for two years several families of that faith had dwelt unmolested in the Plymouth colony, and that a few had settled in Lynn and Salem. Both were women of mark, having suffered imprisonment and scourging for their faith in England. They found the Massachusetts authorities ready to receive them. They were promptly imprisoned, their books publicly burned, and by the first departing vessel were sent back to Enland, the jailer keeping their beds and Bibles for his fees. Eight more who subsequently arrived were similarly treated, and at the next session of the court a law was enacted forbidding all masters of vessels from bringing Quakers into this jurisdiction, and threatening any Friends who might come, with the House of Correction. This had no effect to deter them from coming, but, on the contrary, only served to inflame the missionary zeal of the Quaker propagandists. The following year a number of Friends, men and women, landed in Boston. They received equally prompt attention as their predecessors, and several of them were accorded the additional courtesy of twenty stripes on the bare back with a whip of three cords, knotted at the ends to give point and pungency to the proceedings. During the succeeding years the whipping-post was one of the busiest of our public institutions. Some of those who had been sent away having returned, the following order was issued by the Court:

     "To the Marshall-General or his deputy: You are to take with you the executioner, and repair to the House of Correction, and there see him cut off the right ears of John Copeland, Christopher Holder and John Rouse, Quakers, in execution of the sentence of the Court of Assistants, for the breach or the law entitled Quakers.

                                                                                                                                          EDWARD RAWSON,  
                                                                                                                                                                     Secretary.

And the order was carried out to the letter; but even these harsh measures failed of the desired effect. Not only were the English Quakers stirred to greater zeal, but murmurings against the severity of the punishments began to be heard among the colonists, and it was found that many of them had adopted the Quaker belief, these being specially numerous in the yicinity of Lynn and Salem, so that the goyernment had not only those who came hither to look after, but also an uncomfortable number planted upon the soil, who were every whit as firm in their faith as the magistrates in their determination to root out Quakerism. Lynn and Salem early became a center of the Quaker influence. Refusing to perform military sernce or to pay church rates, they suffered many indignities, and had their cattle, corn, hay and domestic furniture distrained for paymcnt. Mention is made in the Friends' records of George Oaks, who appears to haye been one of the first Quakers in Lynn, the entry being: "Taken away for the priest, Samuel Whiting, one cow, valued at £3." The good minister seems not to have despised the cow, though his estimate of the Quakers is given. In enumerating the evils with which the people of New England have to contend, he remarks that "it is cause for humiliation that our sins have exposed us to live among such wicked sinners." among whom he ranks "atheists and Quakers. "It has been understood among Friends that the first Friends' meetings in this vicinity was held in a house on what is called the old road to Salem, and near the Lynn mineral spring farm; composed of those from Salem and Lynn who had adopted the Friends' belief. But while these things had been going on in Lynn, the authorities in Boston had no end of trouble. The whippings, imprisonments and maimings to which the Quakers were subjected at length roused the genuine martyr spirit in not a few, who felt that they could render no better service to their religion than to come to New England and protest against the persecutions of their sect. Accordingly in 1658 the General Court passed a law banishing all incoming Quakers "on pain of death." This severe legislation was not passed unanimously . Very many of the Court had begun to doubt the wisdom of the course that was being pursued, and the measure had only a majority of one in a vote of twenty-five. The details for the enforcement of the statute included summary arrest and imprisonment without bail until the next term of Court. Scarcely was the ink dry on the parchment when William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevens, with Mary Dyer and Nicholas Davis, arrived in Boston. They were arrested, and a decree of banishment issued against them. The two latter obeyed for a time, but Robinson and Stevens came directly to Lynn and Salem, where they commenced active evangelistic work. But the authorities soon learned their whereabouts, and they were re-arrested. The following month :Mary Dyer returned boldly to Boston, and was immediately secured. In due season the fated trio were taken before the Court, tried, and sentence of death passed upon them. On the 27th of October they were led away to execution. Robinson and Stevens were hanged first, but as the rope was being adjusted about the neck of Mary Dyer, a reprieve was received, and she was sent to her home in Rhode Island. The next summer found her again in Boston. She was taken before the Court, and the sentence reaffirmed. Being asked why she had returned, she said: "I came, in obedience to the will of God, to the last General Court, desiring you to repeal your unrighteous laws of banishment on pain of death; and that same is my work now, and earnest request; although I told you that if you refused to repeal them, the Lord would send others of His servants to witness against them." This time there was no reprieve, and she died at the time appointed.
     The record of the months following reads little like the history of Puritan New England. It would be impossible to describe the bitterness of persecution to which Quakers in the northern counties of Massachusetts and in New Hampshire were subjected. To the terrors of the jail and the pillory were added unspeakable indignities at the hand of brutal officials. Both men and women were stripped of their clothing and cruelly scourged at the whipping-post, or were tied to a cart's tail and whipped from town to town, their property confiscated and their homes taken from them, and in some instances they were condemned to be sold for payment of jail and officers' fees. On one such episode Whittier has founded his famous poem of Cassandra Southwick, which is in many respects one of the most thrilling products of his gifted pen. And not a few suffered death upon the gallows. A characteristic official document of the time reads thus:

     "To the Constables of Boston, Charlestown, Malden and Lynn:
          You are required to take into your custody, respectively, Edward Wharton, convicted of being a vagabond from his own dwelling place; and the Constable of Boston is to whip him severely with thirty stripes on his naked body; and from constable to constable you are required to convey him until he come to Salem, the place where he saith he dwelleth; and in so doing this shall be your warrant.

                                                                                                                                                        JOHN ENDICOTT

     A sudden ending came to the bloody persecution. Prominent Friends in England suceeded in gaining the ear of Charles, who had but just been called back from his twelve years' exile. Reports had already reached the royal ear of the independent attitude assumed by the colonists, most of whom had been in ardent sympathy with Cromwell, and had not been backward in expressing their preferences; and the incident of the persecutions was seized upon as a convenient pretext for letting the colonists feel the weight of his hand. Accordingly a letter was addressed to Governor Endicott, under the King's hand, ordering the immediate cessation of the persecution; and, as if to make the intervention all the more galling, the letter was given into the hands of Samuel Shattuck, a Quaker who had but lately been expelled from Boston, to be conveyed to its destination. The incidents of the reception of this letter have inspired the pens of both Longfellow and Whittier. The verses of the latter are especially valuable as showing the estimate in which a member of the persecuted sect holds the character and acts of their greatest enemy in the New World:

                  THE KING'S MISSIVE.

          Under the great hill sloping bare
          To cove and meadow and common lot,
          In his council chamber and oaken chair
          Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott-
          A grave, strong man who knew no peer
          In the pilgrim land where he ruled in fear
          Of God, not man, and for good or ill,
          Held his trust with an iron will.

          He had shorn with his sword the cross from out
          The flag, and cloven the may-pole down;
          Harried the heathen round about,
          And whipped the Quakers from town to town.
          Earnest and honest, a man at need
          To burn like a torch for his own harsh creed,
          He kept with the flaming brand of his zeal 
          The gate of the holy commonweal.
                     
          The door swung open, and Rawson, the Clerk,
           Entered and whispered under breath:
          "There waits below for the hangman's work
          A fellow banished on pain of death-
          Shattuck of Salem, unhealed of the whip,
          Brought over in Master Goldsmith's ship,
          At anchor here in a Christian port,
          With freight of the Devil and all his sort!"

          Twice and thrice on his chamber floor
          Striding fiercely from wall to wall;
          "The Lord do so to me and more,"
          The Governor cried, "if I hang not all!
          Bring hither the Quaker!" Calm, sedate,
          With the look of a man at ease with fate,
          Into that presence grim and dread
          Came Samuel Shattuck, with hat on head

          Off with the knave's hat!" An angry hand
          Smote down the offence; but the wearer said,
          With a quiet smile: "By the King's command,
          I bear his message and stand in his stead."
          In the Governor's hand a missive he laid,
          With the royal arms on its seal displayed;
          And the proud man spake, as he gazed thereat,
          Uncovering: Give Mr. Shattuck his hat."

          He turned to the Quaker, bowing low:
          "The King commandeth your friends' release;
          Doubt not he shall be obeyed, although
          To his subject's sorrow and sin's increase.
          What he here enjoineth John Endicott
          His loyal servant questioneth not.
          You are free! God grant the spirit you own
          May take you from us to parts unknown

     So persecution ended, and the Quakers gradually came into possession of all the rights of citizens, and were accorded the privilege of churches and schools of their own. In Lynn the number of Quakers rapidly increased. The witchcraft delusion in 1692 diverted attention from them for a time, and after that had become history, they were found to have become somewhat aggressive and disputatious. Finally Rev. Mr. Shepherd hit upon a new method of combatting them, and a fast was appointed for the church, to the end "that the spiritual plague might proceed no further," of which Cotton Mather wrote: "The spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ gave a remarkable effect unto this holy method of encountering the charms of Quakerism. It proved a better method than any coercion of the civil magistrates." And he adds: "Quakerism in Lynn received, as I am informed, a death wound from that very day." However this may have been, eight years later we find the Rev. Mr. Shepherd, with an imported champion from England, meeting the leading lights of the Quakers in a joint discussion, which narrowly escaped being a riot. In 1723 Richard Estes presented the society with a large lot on Silsbee street, on which their first house of worship was erected. In 1816 that house was removed to make room for the present edifice, and now serves as an office for S. N. Breed & Co., on the corner of Broad and Beach streets. In 1826 the Quaker meetinghouse in Boston and the burial grounds adjoining having been long disused, and few or none of the society remaining in the city, it was thought best to remove the bones; and the remains of one hundred and nine persons, among whom were many martyrs to the faith, were taken up and removed to the Friends' cemetery in this city. The neighborhood of Nahant street was for many years headquarters for the Society of Friends, and to this day their descendants own and occupy some of the best places in that beautiful section. This, in brief, is the story of the Quaker Invasion, and it forms one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of our city and of the Commonwealth.

This site may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion without my permission. © 2006 Copyright by Shaun Cook