Salem Witch Judge (41 page)
Authors: Eve LaPlante
Samuel also returned as an adult to Baddesley, the village where he had lived between the ages of two and nine. Baddesley’s town center
has moved since then and been renamed North Baddesley, but the small medieval church he knew, where his father occasionally preached, remains amid farmland, rolling fields, and woods. In the burying place beside the Parish Church of Saint John the Baptist (or, simply, the South Baddesley Church), one can still find the gravestone of Samuel’s “Aunt Rider,” Anne Dummer Rider, which he viewed in February 1689, not quite a year after she died. The neighboring property is now the Rider Farm.
Samuel’s parents came to Baddesley in 1654 from the (then) slightly larger village of Bishopstoke, where Samuel was born in 1652. Bishopstoke lies between Winchester and Southampton in the Itchen Valley. In Samuel’s time this region was open heath and fields not divided by the blackthorn hedges and hawthorn boundaries that are ubiquitous now. Local roads have changed dramatically too as a result of nineteenth-century Enclosure Acts, which split huge medieval estates into small parcels. The few surviving seventeenth-century roads, according to Don Bryan, are the ones that now appear “narrow and sunken” below the fields. “A road in a hollow, like Bishopstoke Lane, is an old road, which his family would have known.”
The house in which Samuel Sewall was born is gone, although the Itchen Valley offers several examples of the sort of timber-framed, thatched cottage the Sewalls occupied. As for the church in which five-week-old Samuel was baptized on May 4, 1652, it burned down years ago. Only its altar stone remains, embedded in a meadow on the eastern bank of the River Itchen Canal, which flows where a tributary of the River Itchen ran then. These words are etched into the stone:
Here lyeth buried the body of
Henry Cox gentleman
Late pastor of the church of Christ at Stoke
Died June 30 1697
Parish records indicate that the Reverend Cox baptized Samuel’s younger siblings John in October 1654, Stephen in August 1657, and Jane in October 1659. Beside the altar stone a sign announces, “The place where you stand is holy ground.”
1652 | Born in Bishopstoke, Hampshire, England, to Henry and Jane Dummer Sewall, March 28 |
1658 | Future wife Hannah Hull born in Boston to John and Judith Quincy Hull, February 14 |
1661 | Samuel, his siblings, and his mother followed his father to Massachusetts and settled in Newbury, north of Boston, which his grandfather and father had helped to found in 1635 |
1667 | Began studies at Harvard College, age fifteen |
1671 | Earned BA at Harvard |
1674 | Earned MA at Harvard, met Hannah Hull |
1676 | Married Hannah Hull in Boston, February 28 |
1677 | Accepted as a member of the Third Church of Christ in Boston |
1677 | First child, John, born (died at seventeen months) |
1678 | Made a freeman (voter) of the colony |
1678 | Second child, Samuel, born |
1680 | Third child, Hannah, born |
1681 | Fourth child, Elizabeth, born |
1683 | Elected to the General Court as a deputy (antecedent of representative) |
1684 | Fifth child, Hull, born (died at twenty-three months) |
1684 | Elected to the General Court as an assistant (antecedent of senator) |
1685 | Sixth child, Henry, born (died at two weeks) |
1687 | Seventh child, Stephen, born (died at six months) |
1688 | Eighth child, Joseph, born |
1690 | Ninth child, Judith, born (died at six weeks) |
1691 | Chosen to serve on the Provincial Council, successor of the General Court |
1691 | Tenth child, Mary, born |
1692 | Appointed judge of the witchcraft court in Salem, May to October |
1692 | Appointed judge of the Superior Court of Judicature, America’s first independent judiciary, December |
1693 | Eleventh child, Jane, born (died at five weeks) |
1694 | Twelfth child, Sarah, born (died at two years) |
1696 | Thirteenth child stillborn |
1697 | Publicly repented for his role in the witchcraft trials and executions, January 14 |
1697 | Published his essay on Revelation, Phaenomena quaedam Apocalyptica ad Aspectum Novi Orbis configurata, stating the godliness of America and Native Americans |
1699 | Became commissioner of the Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel Among the Indians in New England |
1700 | Wrote and published America’s first antislavery tract, The Selling of Joseph, A Memorial, June |
1702 | Fourteenth child, Judith, born |
1710 | Death of daughter Mary (age nineteen, in childbirth) |
1713 | Published “Proposals Touching the Accomplishment of Prophecies Humbly Offered,” appendix to Phaenomena quaedam Apocalyptica |
1715 | Appointed judge of probate for Suffolk County |
1716 | Death of daughter Elizabeth (age thirty-four) |
1717 | Death of wife Hannah (age fifty-nine) |
1718 | Became chief justice of the Superior Court of Judicature |
1719 | Married Abigail Woodmansey Tilley, who died seven months later |
1722 | Married Mary Shrimpton Gibbs, who survived him |
1724 | Death of daughter Hannah (age forty-four) |
1724 | Wrote essay Talitha Cumi, arguing that women’s bodies as well as men’s are resurrected in heaven |
1725 | Resigned from the Provincial Council |
1727 | Published second edition of Phaenomena quaedam Apocalyptica, November |
1728 | Resigned from Superior Court of Judicature and Probate Court due to advanced age and ill health |
1730 | Died at home on January 1, age seventy-seven, survived by three children, Sam Jr., Joseph, and Judith |
Phaenomena quaedam APOCALYPTICA
Ad Aspectum NOVI ORBIS configurata
Or, some few Lines towards a
description of the NEW HEAVEN
As It makes to those who stand
upon the NEW EARTH
(1697)
Psalm 45:10. Forget also thy own people, and thy fathers house.
Isai. 11:14. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistins toward the west.
Act. 1:6–8. Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?…
Luke 15:24. For this My Son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found….
MASSACHUSET; Boston, Printed by Bartholomew Green, and John Allen, and are to be sold by Richard Wilkins, 1697
[Dedicated] To the honorable, William Stoughton Esq., Lieut. Governour and Commander in Chief, in and over His Majesties Province of the Massachusets Bay in New-England…[and] To the honorable, Sir William Ashurst, Knight, Governour, and the Company for the Propagation of the GOSPEL to the Indians in New-England, and places adjacent, in AMERICA…For I can’t but think that either England, or New-England, or both (Together is best) is the only Bride Maid mentioned by Name in David’s prophetical Epithalamium, to assist at the Great Wedding now shortly to be made. And for ought I know, this Noble Gift, Administered by your hands, may be partly intended. Angels Incognito have sometimes made themselves guests to Men, designing thereby to surprise them with a Requital of their Love to Strangers. In like manner the English Nation, in shewing Kindness to the Aboriginal Natives of America, may possibly, shew Kindness to Israelites unawares…. Instead of being branded for Slaves with hot Irons in the Face and arms; and driven by scores in mortal Chains: they shall wear the Name of God in their foreheads, and they shall be delivered into the glorious Liberty of the Children of God…. Now that their Miseries be very inveterate, yet GOD can speedily, and easily give them a New Name, and in a moment, change the Scene. Asia, Africa, and Europe have, each of them, had a glorious Gospel Day: None therefore will be grieved at any ones pleading that America may be made a Coparcener with her Sisters in the Free, and Soveraign Grace of God. God many times sets one thing against another: and we may hope that Unparallel’d Severity will be succeeded by Superabundant BENIGNITY. And when the Messiah shall have gathered his Sheep belonging to this his American Fold: His Churches Musick being then compleat in the Harmony of Four Parts: The whole Universe shall ring again with Seraphick Acclamations, ONE FLOCK! ONE SHEPHERD!
Your Honours most humble Servant,
S. SEWALL
Not to begin to be; and so not to be limited by the concernments of Time, and Place; is the Prerogative of GOD alone. But as it is the Priviledge of creatures, that GOD has given them a beginning: so to deny their actions, or them, the respect they bear to Place, and successive
duration, is, under a pretence of Promotion, to take away their very Being. Yet notwithstanding, some Things have had this to glory of; that they have been time out of mind; and their Continuance refuses to be measured by the memory of Man.
Whereas New-England, and Boston of the Massachusets have this to make mention of; that they can tell their Ages; and account it their Honour to have their Birth, and Parentage kept in everlasting Remembrance. And in very deed, the Families and Churches which first ventured to follow Christ thorow the Atlantick Ocean, into a strange Land, full of wild men, were so Religious; their End so Holy; their Selfdenyal in pursuing of it, so Extraordinary; that I can’t but hope that the Plantation has thereby gaind a very strong Craft; and that it will not be of one or two, or three Centuries only; but very long lasting. Some who peremptorily conclude that Asia must afford situation for New-Jerusalem, are of the mind, when that divine City comes to be built, the Commodities of It will be so inviting as will drain disconsolate America of all Its Christian Inhabitants, as not able to brook so remote a distance from the beloved City. But if Asia shoald be again thus highly favored, and the eldest daughter be still made the darling; yet ’tis known there will be a River, the Streams whereof shall make glad the City of God.
The Correspondence, and Commerce of the little cities, and villages in the three Kingdoms, and Plantations, do make LONDON glad. And so it will be with New Jerusalem: the Nations of them which are saved, shall walk in the light of it: and the Kings of the Earth do bring their glory and honour into it. New Jerusalem will not straiten, and enfeeble; but wonderfully dilate, and invigorate Christianity in the several Quarters of the World; in Asia, in Africa, in Europe, and in America. And one that has been born, or but liv’d in America, between thirty, and fourty years; it may be pardonable for him to ask. Why may not that be the place of New Jerusalem?
Problematical Questions do circulate; and this was set up by Dr. Twisse above threescore years ago, the newness of it in its return after so considerable a space of time, will, I hope, render it gratefull; or at least, will procure leave for one, with a little alteration, to enquire, Why may not New-Spain be the place of New Jerusalem? Its being part of the New World, one would think, carries with it no contradiction thereunto.
Places are usually called new from the newness of their situation, and not from their being built anew; as New-Spain, New-England, New-London.
For certain, If Mr. Eliot’s Opinion prove true; viz. that the aboriginal Natives of America are of Jacob’s Posterity, part of the long since captivated Ten Tribes; and that their Brethren the Jews shall come unto them, the dispute will quickly be at an end. Manasseh-Ben-Israel is said to have published a book entitled, The hope of Israel, endeavouring to prove this Position. For my own part, what Mr. Downam, and Mr. Thorowgood have written on this head, seems to be of far more weight with me than what Hornius, or any other that I have seen, have guess’d to the contrary. Mr. Eliot was wont to say The New-English Churches are a preface to the New Heavens: and if so, I hope the preface and Book will be bound up together, and this Mexican Continent shall comprehend them both.
Who can tell, but that David may thus fetch a compass behind his Antichristian enemies and come upon them over against the Mulberry trees, and utterly destroy them by the brightness of his coming? Who can tell but that Christ may in this manner expose the lewd fondness of the Unholy War, and happily umpire the Difference about the holiness of Places by causing New Jerusalem to come down from God out of Heaven, upon that Earth wherein Satan, for many Ages, has peaceably possessed an entire, and far more large empire than any where else in the whole world besides? No body doubts but that our Saviour can enter into this strong man’s house, bind him, and spoil his goods: Let us wait till He revive us by saying, I am willing. If I mistake not we have a warrant sufficient enough to encourage us unto a perseverance in hoping, and waiting upon God for this Salvation….