"Rebecca Rawson: Portrait of a Daughter of the Puritan Elite in the Massachusetts Bay Colony"

by Michael K. Ward, M.A.

This essay (sans illustrations) was published in
the Fall 1999 issue of the
New England Journal of History.

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The images below are scans of the cover, Table of Contents, and inside back cover from the New England Journal of HIstory : the article follows in text form.  The nineteenth-century line art images of Rebecca Rawson and Edward Rawson were made after oil paintings (c. 1670) and published in The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, by Justin Winsor (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1880).

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     Rebecca Rawson was born on May 23, 1656, in Boston.  A member of a typically large family, she was the ninth of twelve children, born to her father Edward and his wife, Rachel Perne.(6)Four of Rebecca’s adult siblings removed themselves from Massachusetts to reside in England, while the rest, like Rebecca, remained in Massachusetts.  Her life was influenced not only by the theocratic social system of the colony of Massachusetts, with rules based upon Puritan-Calvinist religious precepts and doctrines,(7)  and English common law,(8)  but also by her association in upper class English society in both England and America.  Since “many, if not most, Puritan women conformed to the ideological expectations of their culture”(9)  and in turn, to their families as well, it is important to examine the societal positions and careers of members of the Rawson family.  The picture that emerges is one, which allows some idea of their status, and in turn, the expectations likely to have been imposed on Rebecca.  Such social demands certainly influenced the development of her character and personal behavior, as a member of colonial Massachusetts’ aristocracy.

     The Rawson family did not conform to the general Puritan immigrant stereotype.  They were part of a small number of elites who came from England, and who, through their investments, had a large stake in the overall success of their enterprises in the New World.  As participants in the first wave of Puritan emigration to New England before 1640, where as much as “ninety-five percent [of the people] were small farmers or workmen, . . . together with many indentured servants; . . .[the Rawsons belonged to] the remaining five percent of the population [which] was composed of those governing the colony – the stockholders so to speak; [and] ministers enough to supply the spiritual needs of each town and settlement.”(10)   Indeed, the Rawson family in England had made significant monetary investments in the colony and thus reaped many rewards for so doing, while several other family members served in positions within the religious hierarchy of New England.  For the Rawsons, the origins of their roles in Massachusetts stemmed from similar responsibilities within Puritan society in England; they came from the ranks of the emerging merchant-commercial class of the late Middle Ages, and many of their members were active participants in movements of religious reform.

     To start with, Rebecca’s father, Edward Rawson, was born at Gillingham, Dorsetshire, England, in 1615.  His grandfather was a silk and woolen merchant who held “considerable property.”(11)Edward’s father, David Rawson, followed his dad’s footsteps to become a merchant-tailor in London.  Edward Rawson’s mother, Margaret Wilson, on the other hand, came from a prominent family of religious reformers and Protestant clerics.  She was the daughter of the “Rev. William Wilson, D.D., of Merton College, Oxford, [who also] was prebendary(12) of St. Paul’s and Rochester Cathedrals, was rector of Cliffe, County of Kent, and in 1584 became Canon of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor.”(13)   Furthermore, Margaret’s great-uncle was “Edmond Grindall, D.D., the Archbishop of Canterbury, [who was] a vigorous and noted opponent of the Roman [Catholic] Church.”(14)   Named after this same uncle, Margaret’s brother Edmond became a physician in London.  Dedicated to the goals of the emigrants to New England, he donated the sizeable sum of £1,000 to the Colony of Massachusetts Bay in 1633.(15)   Another one of Margaret’s brothers, the Rev. John Wilson, went to the American colony to become a minister of the First Church in Boston.(16)   Thus Edward Rawson’s lineage combined the Protestant religion with commerce, both attributes which, if retained (and indeed they were in the person of young Edward), made for a very successful man in the Bay Colony.

     With such a background, it is fitting that Edward Rawson’s wife should also come from similar social origins.  He married Rachel Perne, the niece of the Puritan clergyman, Thomas Hooker.  Rev. Hooker “has been called The Light of the Western Churches,”(17)  and a “pioneer [American] democrat.”(18)   He was originally tried in England for his “nonconformist preaching,” whereby he fled to Holland in 1630, finally ending up in “Newtown (now Cambridge)” Massachusetts in 1633.  There, he again did not comply with the dominant way of things, and came into conflict with John Cotton over issues of ideology and ministerial practice.  Evidently, the strong-willed Thomas Hooker “was discontented with the strict theological rule” in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, which rejected his sense of independence.(19)   Thus, he moved on again, this time to found Hartford, Connecticut in 1636.  In an effort to secure the new settlement’s dominance over the region, Hooker “exhorted” a small army of settlers into battle against the Pequot Indians later in the year.  The Pequots were virtually exterminated in that war.(20)

     With antecedents such as those outlined above, it should be of no surprise that Edward Rawson rose quickly into positions of authority, attaining considerable property in New England.  Arriving at Massachusetts in 1632, at the age of seventeen, he was appointed to positions of leadership in the town of Newbury within six years.  Maintaining and amplifying such status within his community for another twelve years, he was elected secretary of the entire colony in 1650, successively being re-elected for thirty-six years.  This role finally ended when the Massachusetts Bay Colony Charter was revoked by Sir Edmund Andros in 1686.(21)   During that stretch of time, however, as reward for his public service, Secretary Rawson was granted hundreds of acres of land in New Hampshire and south of the Merrimack River in Massachusetts.  With these properties, he was able to trade for and purchase others elsewhere in Massachusetts and Connecticut;(22)  “the large tracts of land granted to him indicate that he was a man of considerable wealth and contributed to the financial support of the new settlement.”(23)  Like most other men of stature in colonial Massachusetts society, Edward Rawson moved with his family to Boston, where he owned acreage bordering the Common, and elsewhere within the city.  Reflecting his affluence and property, Rawson’s Lane (now Bromfield Street) in Boston was named after him.(24)

     Thus, Rebecca grew up in affluence, and certainly must have been required to conform to the standards of her class.  She was especially obliged to comply with the precepts of conservative religious values, as indicated by her heritage in England and the prominent religious roles of her relatives.  Her younger brother, Grindall Rawson, also respected such roles, becoming “the minister of Mendon [Massachusetts], who . . . preach[ed] to the Indians in their own language.”  According to Cotton Mather, the Rev. Grindall Rawson’s abilities were such that “he was a master that had scarce an equal”(25)  Grindall also corrected and co-authored a religious tract written in the Massachusett language by the Rev. John Eliot.(26)  Due to his linguistic talents and knowledge of Native American cultures in the colonies, he and Samuel Danforth were “dispatched” in 1698, to gather intelligence on Christian Indian communities, which were segregated from the white towns throughout New England.(27)  Needless to say, Rebecca was part of a family and a world, which were steeped in Puritan-Calvinist beliefs and values, requiring a large degree of conformity.

     As already described, Edward Rawson was the secretary of the colony for thirty-six years, and Rebecca’s status in Puritan society was one of privilege, where she “was brought up with care in the higher social circles of the town:”(28)

From all accounts, she must have been an unusually attractive girl.  She was born of excellent family and in the very best environment that Boston had to offer.  She was tenderly nurtured and carefully educated and was pronounced by her contemporaries to be one of the most beautiful, polite, and accomplished young ladies of Boston.  She was rather tall, genteel in person, graceful, and had a pleasant wit.  Of a generous, loving, disposition, she was constantly befriending and helping those in distress.  She was much flattered and sought after and courted by the very best people.(29)

     Thus, when she was courted by a man identified as “Sir Thomas Hale, Jr., the nephew of Lord Chief-Justice Hale of England, . . .[and] when he asked to marry her, the [Rawson] family and she herself, were flattered and pleased.”  The Rawsons certainly expected nothing less for Rebecca, for as far as they were concerned, “[s]he had the breeding and education, the bearing and culture that fitted her for the polite world and she thought herself worthy to be a great lady, [even] the wife of a baronet.”(31)  Personal worthiness was a theme that pervaded Calvinism and all of Puritan New England life, and a person’s success or failure was considered to indicate his or her worthiness before God.  Rebecca must have considered herself so favored, and with the consent of her father who likely negotiated the marriage contract,(32) she was married to “Sir Thomas Hale” on “July 1, 1679, by a minister of the gospel, in the presence of near forty witnesses,”(33) and “traded her father’s surname for her husband’s, in a symbolic transferal of the male right to “govern, direct, protect, and cherish” her.”(34)

It was a brilliant wedding and Rebecca, now addressed as Lady Hale, was much envied by the young women in the best Boston society.  She was handsomely furnished and embarked with Sir Thomas for England with every reason to expect a happy and useful life as a great lady. (35)

For inheriting daughters who were married, the separate . . .principle of coverture applied.  Under English common law, “feme covert” stipulated that married women had no right to own property – indeed, upon marriage, . . .personal property which a married daughter inherited from her father, . . .immediately became the legal possession of her husband, who could exert full powers of ownership over it.(37)

     Because of the Rawson’s wealth and prominence in New England, Rebecca’s “property” that she took with her to England was likely to have been substantial in expense: “The exact value of these endowments varied according to a father’s wealth and inclination, . . .as a general rule, the father of the young woman settled on the couple roughly one half as much as the father of the young man.”(40)  Regardless of the value of Rebecca’s property, “Sir Thomas” evidently made off with a significant sum in money and personal property.  The Rawson family provided him with lucrative prospects, and Thomas’ fallacious efforts apparently paid off well for him.  Furthermore, as if to add insult to Rebecca’s injuries, the Rawsons and their affiliates in England learned that Rebecca’s husband was not Sir Thomas Hale, but one Thomas Rumsey, who “pretended that he came to New England on account of religion.”(41)  As it turned out, Rumsey had swindled other members of Massachusetts’ upper class as well:

[Thomas Rumsey] succeeded in ingratiating himself with others besides the Rawson family . . .[and] had gained the confidence of John Hull, the treasurer and mint-master of the Colony, who advanced him two hundred and fifty pounds in silver, on bills drawn on Sarah, Viscountess Croyden, who was found to be a myth.(42)

     Because she had lost her entire inheritance, and had no assets other than her own skills and abilities, and due to the other circumstances of her predicament, Rebecca chose to remain in England.  It is possible that she also felt as though she no longer had the traits of “the virtuous woman,”(44) and that her misfortune was punishment for some wrong committed on her part.  Besides, if she readily returned to Boston, her father would surely have filed suit for her divorce or annulment, exercising his rights and obligations as a parent, according to Puritan custom.(45)  Unlike New England, where divorce laws and customs were well established, England forbade such proceedings until 1753.(46)  Perhaps Rebecca still hoped that her husband might return; at least she could still maintain the legal status of marriage for herself and her child, where in Massachusetts, such status would certainly have been terminated.  Regardless of her reasons, Rebecca decided to remain in England, away from all her associations in Boston.  Perhaps it was simply a matter of protecting her self-esteem.  “Pride kept the deserted woman in England for thirteen years, where, declining the assistance of her friends, she supported herself and child by painting on glass, and by the exercise of her other accomplishments.”(47)

     Her family and friends repeatedly petitioned her to return nonetheless.  Finally, in 1692, the year prior to her father’s death, Rebecca decided to return to Massachusetts:

. . .the solicitations and entreaties of her father and friends in America persuaded her to return.  She took passage with one of her uncles, in a vessel belonging to him, bound for Boston by way of Port Royal, Jamaica.  She left her child in England in the care of a sister who had no children and desired to keep it.  The ship arrived at Port Royal and, after a few days delay, was about to set sail for Boston, when on June 9, 1692, the place was visited by a tremendous earthquake.  The chief part of the city, which was built on a shelving bank of sand, slipped into the sea.  All the shipping in the harbor was destroyed.  The ship on which Rebecca Rawson was travelling was swallowed up, with its passengers and crew.  Her uncle, who happened to be on shore at the time, settling up his accounts, was the only person saved out of the entire ship’s company to divulge the sad news.(48)

. . .a daughter owed almost complete allegiance to her father’s wishes.  He was to supervise whom she might choose as friends, direct her to the service of others, and remind her to keep constant watch over the state of her soul. . . When she reached a marriageable age, a daughter should “do nothing” without her father’s approval; in marriage matters, she should be “very well contented . . .to submit to such condition[s]” as her parents “should see providence directing.”(50)

     The abandoned Rebecca was not alone in England, as the preceding information indicates, and remained in the company of her family and other relatives there, probably in accordance with the idea of “female dependence [and deference to familial male authority that] was so much a part of Puritan life.”(51)  Yet, Rebecca Rawson was apparently successful in supporting herself and her child, as an independent woman, in contrast to “the institutional checks on female independence,” that may not have been as effective outside the American colony.(52)

     The extended period of Rebecca’s resistance to her father’s requests that she return to Massachusetts also run contrary to Puritan roles expected of her,(53) though her decision to remain in England might have been further encouraged during the latter period of her exile, when the witchcraft craze swept the colony.  Her status as an unwed or single mother, without financial assets could have placed her in a category of women which was potentially dangerous to her well-being, perhaps causing her greater chance of being accused of witchcraft should she return home.  The fact that she had prominent (and wealthy) male relatives in New England, though, could also have precluded such allegations.(54)  Due to his prior role as secretary of the colony, Edward Rawson may have had some involvement as an authority in the witchcraft hearings.  One can only guess whether this possibility, or that of her brother Grindall’s close association with Cotton Mather, would have helped or hindered her in such a case.(55)   Regardless of such speculation, Rebecca set off to return to New England, in mid-1692, when the Salem Witchcraft Trials were in full swing, so such concerns on her part may have been negligible.

     According to Puritan worldview, “outbreaks of natural catastrophe” and other “signs” indicated the spiritual decay of the culture at large.(56)  Beginning in the 1660s, ubiquitous “jeremiads” issued from pulpits by clerics, who were losing their hold on society, laid all blame for economic problems, political ills, and various calamities, on societal “declension.”(57)  The Rawson’s beliefs were likely to have been in agreement with such convictions.  Could they have viewed their family’s afflictions as a sign of spiritual imbalance?  Though entirely speculative, but following Puritan worldviews, a case could have been made by most New Englanders of the time, that Rebecca Rawson’s death in the earthquake, the untimely death of her sister Mary, three months later, and the death of her father, a year later, were spiritual punishments.  If so, this manner of thought, pervasive in the culture overall, surely added to the distress the Rawson family and their friends.

     The story of Rebecca Rawson is unusual in the chronicles of colonial New England.  Her life was that of a woman of the Puritan elites, whose lives were supposed to exemplify the favor of God as bestowed on His Elect, and whose disfavor was seen in examples of sorrow and misfortune.  The account of her life also illustrates significant elements in the lives of seventeenth-century Puritan women.

(1)  Virginia DeJohn Anderson, New England’s Generation: The Great Migration and the Formation of Society and Culture in the Seventeenth Century, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).  Anderson follows the lead of scholars such as Perry Miller and Bernard Bailyn, who perpetuate the notion that the Puritans in New England were united under common religious ideals and goals, largely ignoring individual aggrandizing efforts by many (if not most) of the colony’s elites.  Stating that such endeavors to enrich themselves were subordinate to societal goals, (p. 45), Anderson asserts that the Puritans in the Bay Colony enjoyed “comparative economic equality” (p. 1).

(2)  Perry Miller, Errand into the Wilderness, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 1-5, uses the theme of a sermon with the same title, delivered by the Rev. Samuel Danforth.  Serving as a metaphor for the objectives of the emigrants to New England, Miller furthers the conventionalized notion that the Puritans emigrated to New England explicitly for the purpose of establishing a religious community there.  Anderson (1991: pp. 92 and 95) defends the uneven social hierarchy in New England for its “stabiliz[ing]” effect, and the unequal land distribution schemes of the Puritans, which favored elites, by asserting that they were essential to keeping a balance between the “pure communalism” of Plymouth Colony, and the “unrestrained individualism” of Virginia Colony.  Vernon Louis Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought: The Colonial Mind, 1620-1800, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1927) claims that Puritan class/caste hierarchies were part of the cultural baggage of Europe, and comprised a set of ideologies which conflicted with an emerging sense of individualism beginning in the seventeenth century.  John Frederick Martin, Profits in the Wilderness: Entrepreneurship and the Founding of New England Towns in the Seventeenth Century, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991: pp. 120-21), and Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England, (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1944, 1966) both cite Puritan claims of a “divine order” (Morgan, p. 18) to justify Puritan economic and social inequalities; the haves and have-nots were deemed as being ordained of God to each assigned status.  David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgement: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989; p. 245) illustrates the uneven distribution of power in seventeenth-century New England.  On p. 154, he states: “Grace seemed to run in families.”

(3)  Anderson, 1991, states that the “Great Migration” of the 1630s (which the Rawsons participated in), was “made largely of middling families” (p. 10).  She also points out how “. . .the Puritan gentry [which included the Rawson extended family] . . . helped to finance colonization efforts [in New England] (but . . . were conspicuously reluctant to emigrate themselves)” (p. 18).

(4)  Edward Rawson authored several articles, including “The Revolution in New-England Justified, etc., etc.,” which was “published in Boston in 1691, [and] was one of many tracts composed in defense of the overthrow of the Dominion of New England and Governor Edmund Andros in Massachusetts . . .[and] specifically devised to justify Puritan actions during the “Glorious Revolution” in America, . . .” (Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren, The Annals of America, Volume I, 1493-1754, (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1976), p. 282), thus clearly indicating his position as a landed member of the ruling class who stood to lose much investment property when Governor Andros revoked the Massachusetts Bay Company charter in 1686, for malfeasance against the crown.  Martin, (1991: p. 259) points out how the changes made by the Andros government were merely institutional, and not social, as more traditional interpretations have asserted.  On June 20, 1676, under instruction from the “governing council” at Charlestown, Massachusetts, Secretary Edward Rawson delivered the first “Thanksgiving Proclamation” (Gerald Murphy, preparer, The First Thanksgiving Proclamation, (Cleveland Free-Net and National Public Telecomputing Network, 1997).

(5)  James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, Appleton’s Cyclopædia of American Biography, (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1988), p. 192.

(6)  Rebecca was the sixth daughter born to her parents.  She was named for her sister Rebecca Rawson, born two years earlier, and who apparently died in her infancy. (John Marshall, Rawson Family, <www.intercall.com>, 1997).

(7)  Miller, 1964: p. 98, asserts that the Puritans’ own brand of religion was not altogether true to the “doctrine . . .[and] tradition” of Calvin.  Jonathan Edwards (1745-1801) and not the Puritans, became “the first consistent and authentic Calvinist in New England,” according to Perry Miller.

(8)  Roscoe Pound, Organization of Courts, (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1940), pp. 27 and 33: Until “the forfeiture of the Massachusetts Bay charter” in 1686, the Puritan system of laws and courts was based in English tradition, but unlike England, forbade professional lawyering.  Thus, this time “has been called a period of law without lawyers.”  It is also important to clarify the separation of these two systems, (Christianity and the common law).  Beginning with a statement to the effect by Lord Hale in 1676, lawyers, judges, legal scholars, and historians have erroneously asserted both traditions to be part of one system under the common law (Stuart Banner, “When Christianity Was Part of the Common Law,” Law and History Review, Volume 16, Number 1, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press and the American Society for Legal History, Spring 1998; pp. 27-62).

(9)  Lyle Koehler, “The Oppression of Women in New England,” Major Problems in American Women’s History, edited by Mary Beth Norton, (Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1989), p. 34.

(10)  George F. Dow, Everyday Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, (New York: Dover Publications, 1988), p. 101.

(11)  Glenn Tilley Morse, “Edward Rawson, Secretary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and His Unfortunate Daughter, Rebecca,” Old Time New England: The Bulletin of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, (Boston: Harrison Gray Otis House, 1921), p. 123.

(12)  Prebendary is an office in the Anglican Church, which may or may not involve the payment of money and/or property to the office holder.

(13)  Morse, 1921: p. 123.  St George’s chapel was built by Edward IV in the fifteenth century.  It has served the English and British royal families ever since, and is the burial place for “several of England’s kings” Columbia Encyclopedia, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 2983).

(14)  Morse, 1921: p. 123.

(15)  For comparison, it is noteworthy that £25 was the “sum approximated [for] the annual rent for a family farm and equaled a quarter or more of the value of personal property owned by many urban artisans” (Anderson, 1991: pp. 33-34).  Anderson uses this figure (£25) to illustrate the expense of passage for an average family from England to Massachusetts.  Relating to English financial interests in the colonies, Martin (1991) describes investment schemes involving “planters” who relocated to New England as part of their role in securing investors’ profits; “both [investors and planters] would see a return” (pp. 34-5).

(16)  Edward Rawson and his family maintained close contact with this uncle in Boston, and were members of his congregation.  When the Rev. John Wilson of the First Church died, “Edward Rawson was one of twenty-eight dis-affected members of the First Church . . .who founded the . . .Old South Church,” the south-west corner of which, was built on property that he (Edward Rawson) owned in Boston (James W. Spring, Boston and the Parker House, (Boston: J. R. Whipple Corporation, 1927), p. 27).

(17)  William J. Jackman, The History of the American Nation, (Chicago: Hamming Publishing Company, 1913), p. 115.

(18)  Miller, 1964: p. 46.

(19)  The Columbia Encyclopedia, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 1266.  Miller (1964: pp. 29-36), shows how these two clerics differed on the basis of theory; Cotton Mather (and his father, Increase) adhered to Puritan fundamentals, stipulating that the ultimate control and authority of the church should be in the hands of its elders.  Hooker disagreed, favoring a more progressive approach involving the congregation in the decision-making of the church.  Morgan, (1944, 1966) asserts that Hooker broke from tradition, allowing for the general franchisement of townspeople, regardless of family associations and lineages.

(20)  Jackman, 1913: pp. 117-20.

(21)  The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, (Brooklyn, New York: The Scientific Press, Robert Drummond and Company, and James T. White and Company, 1906), p. 472; Wilson and Fiske, 1888: p. 191.  Upon hearing the news that Sir Edmund Andros had cancelled the charter, Secretary Edward Rawson is quoted as exclaiming, “Our condition is awful!” (Arthur Gilman, The Story of Boston: A Study of Independency, (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons and the Knickerbocker Press, 1890), p. 158.

(22)  Martin, 1991: p. 61, footnote 32.  In his book, Martin illustrates the pure-profit motives on the part of land investors and non-resident landlords throughout New England in the mid-seventeenth century.  Edward Rawson as a shareholder, participated in the affairs surrounding several of these land “companies.”

(23)  Morse, 1921: p. 127.

(24)  Richard W. Wilkie and Jack Tager, Historical Atlas of Massachusetts, (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1991), p. 23; Justin Winsor, The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1880), pp. xiv and xxii; p. 380, footnote 2: “Rawson, b. 1615, d. 1693, was for many years Secretary of the Colony, 1650-1686.  His portrait is preserved [at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, 101 Newbury Street, Boston]. . . and there are other engravings of it . . .He is buried in the Granary burial-ground.  The present Bromfield Street bore his name, and was known as Rawson’s Lane up to 1796.”

(25)  Winsor, 1880: p. 471; Wilkie and Fiske, 1888: pp. 191-2; who write; “Several interesting anecdotes are recorded of Rev. Grindall Rawson in connection with Cotton Mather, who mentions him in his “Mantissa,” and says in one of his sermons: “We generally esteemed him as a truly pious man, and a very prudent one.  He was an accomplished scholar and writer, and preached to the Indians in their own language.”  It is not surprising that Grindall Rawson should have enjoyed the prestige of being Mendon’s minister.  His father, Secretary Rawson was closely affiliated with the complex network of “leading entrepreneurs,” who were involved in the other colonies of New England, and who were the developers of Mendon (Martin, 1991: p. 88).  Grindall was not the first of the Rawsons to be involved in Indian affairs in Massachusetts.  His father, Edward Rawson also served the “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel [“Among the Indians” (Morse, 1921: p. 127)] in New England,” supervising the dispensation of “goods and commodities.”  He was removed, however, due to complaints made by the Indians he served, who remonstrated that he failed to implement his assignments.  Such accusations were made to officials in the Andros government, who had dissolved the Puritan charter in 1686 (William Kellaway, The New England Company 1649-1776: Missionary Society to the American Indians, (Glasgow, Scotland: Longman’s Green and Co., Ltd. & The University Press, 1961), pp. 62-70).  The Native Americans were certainly aware of the tension between English and colonial authorities, and most likely made good use of opportunities to achieve gains for their own people.

(26)  Ned Brierley, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin, personal communications about the Massachusett language and other tongues of the Algonquian language family, 1996 and 1998.  Mr. Brierley provided the UTCAT University of Texas at Austin Library Catalogue of the Grindall Rawson materials on microcard; the titles of which are listed as follow, with their English translations as available.  Grindall Rawson, Sampwutteahae Quinnuppekompauaenin; (The Sincere Convert); 1689; originally written by John Eliot, with incorrect Massachusett language usage; corrected and co-authored by Rawson.  (also see Kellaway, 1961: pp. 146-8); Nashauanittue Meninnunk wutch Mukkiesog; (Spiritual Milk for Babes); 1691; New England's duty and interest, to be an habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness.  Containing doctrine, caution, and . . . ; 1698; Wunnamptamoe Sampooaonk Wussampoowontamun Nashpe moeuwehkomunganash (A Confession of Faith); 1699; Miles Christianus, or Christians treated in the quality of soldiers, as it was delivered in a sermon preached in Boston; 1703; The necessity of a speedy and thorough reformation, as it was discoursed in a sermon, preached before His Excellency, . . . in Boston; 1709.  Grindall Rawson also translated into the Massachusett language, “Cotton Mather’s An Epistle to the Christian Indians, Giving them a Short Account, of what the English Desire them to know and to do, in order to their Happiness . . . (Boston: 1700),” (Kellaway, 1961: p. 148).  In a network of family ties and professional associations rivaling those of the great planters of the antebellum South over a century later, it is interesting to note that Grindall Rawson married Susanna Wilson, the daughter of his great-uncle, the Rev. John Wilson, and Sarah Hooker (Marshall, 1997).  Additionally, according to James Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1977), Susanna’s father, the Rev. John Wilson, was a “colleague of the “Rev. Richard Mather” [the father of Increase and grandfather to Cotton]. . .” (Volume IV, p. 314).

(27)  Daniel R. Mandell, Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth-Century Eastern Massachusetts, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), pp. 35 and 47; Kellaway, 1961: pp. 233-9.

(28)  Winsor, 1880: p. 519, footnote 2.  Anderson (1991: p. 125) cites the overall affluence created in New England, as leading the people to “assume the rank of gentleman.”  Rebecca Rawson and her family surely expected nothing less for themselves.

(29)  Morse, 1921: pp. 127-8.

(30)  Ibid.: p. 127; Rebecca’s sister Rachel Rawson married William Aubrey, a London merchant and “factor for the iron works at Lynn [Massachusetts]” in 1653.  Her sister Mary Perne Rawson wed the Rev. Samuel Torrey in 1657 (Marshall, 1997).  Another sister, Mary (Elizabeth?) Rawson, married Thomas Briscoe (or Broughton?) of Boston, whose father was a successful merchant and mill owner (Savage, 1977: Volume I, pp. 78 and 263-4; Marshall, 1997).

(31)  Morse 1921: p. 128.  It is interesting to note that Lord Hale (1609-76) referred to here, who was the “chief justice of the Court of King’s Bench ([appointed] 1671),” (see Columbia Encyclopedia, 1993: p. 1176; “Sir Matthew Hale”), was also the same justice who made the statement: “Christianity is parcel to the laws of England” (Banner, 1998: p. 29; see also footnote #8, this essay).  Such an unprecedented statement made in England by justice Hale, in the 1676 blasphemy trial of John Taylor (ibid.), suggests that Hale’s own beliefs were consistent with the views of Puritans in the Bay Colony.  His name would surely have had much currency in New England.

(32)  Morgan, 1944, 1966: pp. 83-4.  Morgan refers to upper class “bargaining” of the financial aspects of the marriage arrangement.

(33)  Winsor, 1880: p. 519, footnote 2.

(34)  Koehler, 1989: p. 30.

(35)  Morse, 1921: p. 128.

(36)  Carol F. Karlsen, “The Potentially Powerful Witch,” Major Problems in American Women’s History, edited by Mary Beth Norton, (Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1989), p. 73.

(37)  Ibid.: p. 74.

(38)  Morse, 1921: p. 128.

(39)  Winsor, 1880: p. 519, footnote 2.

(40)  Karlsen, 1989: p. 73.

(41)  Morse, 1921: pp. 128-9, description of a document in the Massachusetts State Archives, “containing the sworn testimony of Theodore Atkinson and Mary, his wife, both of Boston,” recounting the transformation of “Thos. Rumsey . . .a Kentishman” into Thomas “Hailes,” whose father was a “knight & baronet.”

(42)  Ibid.: p. 128.

(43)  Ibid.: p. 129.

(44)  Mary Beth Norton, editor, “Cotton Mather on the Virtuous Woman, 1698,” Major Problems in American Women’s History, (Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1989), p. 21; Virginity was deemed a womanly virtue by the Puritans, whose ideologies also viewed women as essentially corrupt, and “a necessary Evil” (Morgan, 1944, 1966: p. 29).  The cultural deck was probably stacked against Rebecca Rawson’s favor should she have returned to New England.

(45)  Morgan, 1944, 1966: p. 83.  Edmund Morgan points out (p. 81) that marriages, especially among the Puritan upper class, were negotiated and “contingent upon satisfying a girl’s parents that she would be taken care of.”  When such obligations were not met, divorce could be initiated by the father of the bride.

(46)  Ibid.: p. 39.

(47)  Winsor, 1880: p. 519, footnote 2.

(48)  Morse, 1921: p. 129.

(49)  Esther Adelaide Flint, (the author’s maternal grandmother, b. 1902, Marblehead, Massachusetts; d. 1997, Poway, California); personal communications about the Flint, Hatch, Putnam, and Rawson families, et al., 1960 through 1997.

(50)  Koehler, 1989: p. 29; Edmund Morgan (1944, 1966: p. 17) discusses such subordinate deference to social and familial superiors as being part of “the very soul of the [Puritan social] order.”  Yet, Morgan asserts, (on pp. 83-4) that the Puritans frowned upon forced marriages.

(51)  Koehler, 1989: p. 34.

(52)  Ibid.: p. 35.

(53)  Puritan children, even adult children, were subordinate to their parents (Anderson, 1991: p. 158; Morgan, 1944, 1966: pp. 17-19).

(54)  Karlsen, 1989: pp. 80-1.

(55)  Rawson descendants assert this fact as part of their family lore (E. A. Flint: personal communications, 1960-1997), though any actual involvement was probably limited to recording the minutes of the proceedings.  Secretary Edward Rawson took the minutes of the trials of witches in Newbury, Massachusetts, from December 1679 to early 1681 (John J. Currier, History of Newbury Massachusetts, 1635–1902, (Newbury: Damrell & Upham, 1902), pp. 186–89).

(56)  Anderson, 1991: p. 194; Hall, 1989: (p. 78) points out the ancient roots of this manner of thought.

(57)  Miller, 1964: p. 6.

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