Why Herodias Long?

Jo Ann Butler

Why Herodias Long?

By Jo Ann Butler

Author of REBEL PURITAN and
THE REPUTED WIFE

I bear genes from Herodias Long and George Gardner passed from son to grandson, down to my maternal Grandma Gardner.  My genealogy research commenced with Grandma in 1978, and quickly led me to The Gardiners of Narragansett by Caroline Robinson.  There I found the George and Herodias as 1630s immigrants from England, but Herodias and her stormy life occupied far more space in the pages than George’s did.

Herodias and her first husband followed religious exiles from Massachusetts to Newport, Rhode Island.  She was married at the age of thirteen, but otherwise Herodias lived a modern life.  Unless they came from a powerful family, 17^th-century wives were little more than the property of their husbands, and it was extremely rare for a woman to be granted a divorce unless she was abandoned.

However, Herodias was not afraid to pursue what she needed.  She petitioned for two divorces and was legally parted from both husbands after they proved unsuitable.  She acquired her own land (most female landowners were widows), and retained custody of some of her children.

I admire Herodias for her boldness and persistence, but particularly honor her for an act which does not appear in Rebel Puritan, the 2011 historical novel I wrote about her.  This incredible act of bravery is featured in my sequel, The Reputed Wife, which will be published in autumn, 2012.

Whipping Quakers in Boston

Missionaries from England’s Society of Friends first appeared in Boston in 1656, determined to bring their renewed faith to New England’s Puritans.  They were jailed, but when that did not discourage their acts of civil disobedience, both men and women were whipped with increasing savagery.

Herodias met the Friends – often called Quakers – through Mary Dyer, a Newport resident who had become a Quaker convert in England.  Though she may not have been a convert, Herodias walked fifty miles from Newport to Weymouth, Massachusetts to protest against the brutality, carrying a nursing infant in her arms.

Herodias, the Rebel Puritan

She had seen the wounds borne by Quakers whipped in Boston and New Haven.  She had met Humphrey Norton, whose hand was so deeply branded that he might never use it again.  She knew well that she might receive no mercy from Governor John Endecott and his Puritan magistrates and ministers.  And yet Herodias could not remain silent.

After speaking in Weymouth against the whippings, Herodias was arrested.  She and her maidservant were marched ten miles to Boston, where they were whipped on her naked backs in the street, then jailed for two weeks.

Herodias knew all of this could happen, and yet she spoke.  Some of her other acts scandalized her Rhode Island neighbors and her descendants, but for her courage I honor Herodias (Long) Hicks Gardner Porter.

Images:

Personal collection

www.rebelpuritan.com/

http://gordonbush.com/genealogy/images/whipping_quakers.jpghttp://gordonbush.com/genealogy/images/whipping_quakers.jpg

Sometimes Cruel, but Never Unusual: Children’s Lives in the 17th Century

1670 Mason Children

The old rhyme goes, “Men may work from sun to sun; a woman’s work is never done.”   There is no doubt that our colonial forefathers worked hard in planting crops, cutting firewood, and hunting for food.   Their wives were equally busy, but what were children’s lives like in our country’s early days?  Their parents worked hard, but did children have an easy life?

Pilgrim Cradle

They had to survive coming into the world, and what medical assistance was supplied to mother and child often did more harm than good.  Miscarriages and premature births often went unnoted, and in some communities, 30% of the children whose births and deaths were recorded died before their fifth birthday.

Young Mother's Tombstone

Hopefully the newborn’s mother would survive too.  It is estimated that 1 - 1.5% of pregnancies ended in the mother’s death, and throughout their lifetimes, 1 in 8 women died during pregnancy or childbirth.  A nursing mother passes crucial antibodies to her infant with the first milk produced after birth.  If she died, that child began life with a compromised immune system.  If the infant survived, it might be raised by another nursing woman – if one was available.

Three children in one tomb

A child who survived birth was taken to the meetinghouse a few days later for baptism.  In January, ice on the baptismal font would have to be removed first, then the baby was dunked in that frigid water.

Young children were assailed by disease, impure food and water, and accidents.  Cotton Mather, a Puritan minister in Boston, sired 15 children, 8 of which died before being weaned.  He wrote, "We have our children taken from us, the Desire of our Eyes taken away with a stroke."  40% of 17^th century children did not become adults.

“In the midst of life we are in death” comes from the Book of Common Prayer.  Children learned that early, for they were often taken to public hangings for an object lesson in crime and punishment.  Funerals and wakes were held at home.  Hell awaited most children, or so they were told, for "their Hearts naturally, are a meer nest, root, fountain of Sin, and wickedness." (Benjamin Wadsworth)

Some cures were worse than the disease.  A child being treated for rickets (vitamin D deficiency) might be dosed with snakeroot and saffron steeped in rum, then dipped head first in cold water.  If that didn’t make the child sweat, “Let a little blood be taken out of ye feet…and that will cause them to sweat afterwards.”  Wearing wolf’s fangs might make the child’s teeth come in more easily, but that was less painful than scratching the child’s gums with an osprey bone.

The Capel family

Infanta Margarita

Both boys and girls wore linen gowns in their earliest years, similar to the one worn by Lady Capel’s baby.  When children were old enough to be ‘breeched,’ boys wore shirts & breeches like their father’s.  Girls were clad in miniature versions of their mother’s clothing.  Few children were so fortunate as to wear the stuff of the Infanta’s painting:

Boy Eating Porridge by Hals

Children ate and drank what their parents ate, including beer.  Milk was only available when cows had calves.  Water was considered to be an unhealthy drink.  Rightly so, when it was drawn downstream from a cow pasture or privy.

Girl With Broom - Fabritius

Childhood labor laws – what were they?  As soon as they were big enough to hold a broom, children worked alongside their parents.  They were not considered to be mouths to feed, but helping hands.  The more children a family had, the more likely that family was to prosper. 

Miss Campion with hornbook

In our country’s early days, formal education was a luxury for most boys, but it was sometimes available.  In 1640 Robert Lenthall was granted 100 acres of land in Newport, Rhode Island “for Encouraginge of ye poorer sort to trayne up their youthe in Learninge.”  The school was not successful, though, and Lenthall returned to England a few years later.  However, affluent children, both boys and girls, might be educated.  In this picture, Miss Campion holds a hornbook printed with the alphabet.

As early as age 10, many children were sent to work for another family, or were bonded to tradesmen as an apprentice.  An indenture could last a specific span, say, 5-7 years, until the age of 21, or perhaps until a girl married.  A boy could learn to be a tailor or cobbler, but there was great potential for abuse unless that child’s family was keeping an eye on him.

Children at Plimoth Plantation

Children did have some time for fun.  Marbles, tops, and pieces of ceramic dolls are turned up by colonial archeologists. King Charles I and his father both issued a Book of Sports, listing “lawfull Recreations and honest exercises” to be played “upon Sundayes and other Holy days, after the afternoone Sermon.”

Puritans were far stricter, but games for children were allowed – within reason.  In 1657, because several people had been hurt, boys who played “football in the streets” would be fined 20 shillings.  But they could play football, wicket, and other games on the Common.

17th century doll

Sampler by Loara Standish

Girls were taught household crafts, and perhaps that wasn’t as much fun as playing football.  But they also had dolls, including this early model.  It doesn’t look much like today’s Barbies, but with a dress, a painted face, and perhaps a wig, it would have provided a young girl with an hour’s entertainment.

It is clear from this blog that I have a liking for our country’s earliest days.  However, when I consider whether I’d rather have been a child in the 20^th century, or the 17^th, I am glad to have been born in modern days.

 

Sources:

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/childbirth.cfm

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/usdeath.cfm

Child Life in Colonial Days – Alice Morse Earle  1899

Customs and Fashions in Old New England – Alice Morse Earle  1893

Woman’s Life in Colonial Days – Carl Holliday  1922

Images:

Mason Children: http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/Early_American/Artists/unidentified_17th/elizabeth_f/painting-discussion.html

Cradle: http://www.pilgrimhall.org/collects.htm

Tombstones: personal collection

Baptismal font: http://www.squidoo.com/colonial-williamsburg#module150843586

Lady Capel gown: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1600%E2%80%931650_in_fashion

Velasquez’ Infanta Dona Magarita de Austria: http://www.wga.hu/html_m/v/velazque/10/index.html

Fransz Hals’ “Boy Eating Porridge”: http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_206792/Reynier-Fransz-Hals/Boy-eating-Porridge

Carel Fabritius’ “A Girl With a Broom”: http://www.traceyourdutchroots.com/art/bezem.html

Miss Campion with Hornbook: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornbook

Blowing bubbles: http://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/playing-learning

Sampler by Loara Standish: http://www.pilgrimhall.org/samplers2.htm

The Invisible Woman

Visible woman.jpg

No, not the Visible Woman, which was one of my favorite educational toys in the 60s.  Though she is most revealing, I am talking about Invisible Women.

Pilgrim compact.jpg

Do you see any women in this painting?  Just that lady hovering off to one side.  In real life, she wouldn't even have been in the room,  because women played no part in colonial New England governments.  Information about individual women in those days can be hard to find.  Anyone who has researched their genealogy knows what I’m talking about.

New England Marriages.jpg

Let’s look at a page of Clarence A. Torrey’s “New England Marriages Prior to 1700.”  This genealogists’ reference lists names and marriage dates for men and women who wed in New England, or before they crossed the Atlantic.  These couples fill 848 closely-spaced pages.

I conducted an experiment, using page 443 for a (hopefully) typical example.  On that page we find 56 New England men who were wed to 46 women between 1620 and 1700.  If you wonder why there were 56 men and 46 women, I counted  second and third marriages.  Of those 56 men, only one first name is questioned.

As for those 46 women, 33 were identified by their first and surnames (3 surnames are questionable).  9 are known by their first name only.  The final 4 women’s names are completely unknown.  So, on that page of his master work, Torrey could fully identify 98% of the men, but only 77% of their wives.  About 17% of the women are known by their given names only, and nearly 9% are completely unidentified.  Why such a difference?

Puritan worship.jpg

Women and men led different lives.  Both worked hard every day of their lives, to be sure, but it was men’s names which filled the record books.  They paid the taxes, served in the military and government, voted, and owned the land.  In most places women could not own land if they were married; their husbands did.

Wives might be found in church records - if those books survived four centuries to be read by genealogists.  Women were mentioned in wills, but few left wills of their own.  Their names might be entered on their babies’ birth records, but often it was just the father’s.  If the family was affluent enough, you might find a gravestone.

gravestone.jpg

Vital records were kept in many New England towns from the start.  Combined with church and probate records, they provide genealogists and historians with names and dates for births, marriages, and deaths of most of the women on page 443 of Torrey.  Many of New England’s precious records have survived.

Some towns weren’t so lucky.  Newport, Rhode Island, watched its vital records, deeds to land, and probate records sail away in British hands during the Revolutionary War.  Those records were returned to Newport years later, soaked and illegible after they were accidentally sunk in New York City’s harbor.

Consequently, many of Newport’s pre-Revolutionary women simply disappeared.  In the Rhode Island Genealogical Dictionary by John O. Austin, I examined 56 Newport men who were known to have married 63 women.  (I have no doubt that many of them made second and third marriages which were lost along with Newport’s records)

52 of those women’s first names have been found, but surnames of only 17 are known.  Therefore, only 27% of those 63 women can be traced to their parents by today’s genealogists.  Sadly, 11 of those 63 wives are completely unknown.  Nearly 20% of our pre-Revolutionary ancestresses from Newport are lost.

Puritan woman at work.jpg

Birth records everywhere once have linked a girl child with her father – and perhaps - her mother.  The entry of a marriage in the church or town books may have recorded the union of husband and wife.  Men left legacies to their beloved wives, but if those records are lost we may never know the identities of these women.

That is how some women become invisible in colonial New England.  How do they become visible beyond mere vital statistics?  That is another story, and will be my one of my next topics.