SAMUEL GORTON Recently there has been on the internet an influence argument having to do with whether in the 17th Century Samuell Gorton influenced the development of Quakerism, or whether instead Quakerism influenced the development of Gortonism. This argument has evidently been mounted by proud descendants of Gorton and facilitated by genealogists. To track this, you can consider the following three articles: PERUSE A 1934 STUDY PERUSE A 1979 STUDY PERUSE A 1983 STUDY I do not myself find anything which would indicate that Samuell Gorton had any influence whatever over the development of Quakerism. Indeed, the impression which I bring away from this reading is that Mr. Gorton of Warwick, Rhode Island was your usual sort of fundie panjandrum preacherman (a phenomenon with which we of the 21st Century are even now all too familiar), establishing his own little church with his own little flock as the venue within which he might play the role of Supreme Pontiff, as a sort of personality cult: “I listen to the Inward Christ, while you listen to me.” This man was a Reverend Jim Jones character if he was anything — “You need to drink this grape Kool-Aid.” It would amaze me to discover that any Quakers of the 17th Century were interested in reducing themselves to being merely such a man’s camp followers. It would seem to me that it is one of the foundation stones of Quakerism, that we do not embrace such religious leadership — that this is a grape Kool- Aid which we always decline. (Of course, I also consider that it was rather wrongheaded for the Puritans to come down into Rhode Island and arrest him and keep him in leg shackles in Charlestown, and come within a skosh of hanging him. That part of it was, one may suppose, something of an overreaction. :-) HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL GORTON SAMUEL GORTON 1592 February 12, Wednesday (1591, Old Style): Samuell Gorton, who had been born at Gorton, a parish of the city of Manchester in Lancashire, England, was on this day baptized at Cathedral Church. (We should note that he would invariably spell his given name “Samuell,” not “Samuel,” throughout his life.) His father was Thomas Gorton and his mother was Thomas’s 2d wife, Anne. The child would have private tutors in the classical languages. 1630 On or before January 22d, Friday (1629, Old Style): In England, Samuell Gorton, who had been apprenticed to a London clothier, got married with Mary Maplett (born on March 12, 1608/1609 in London, died circa 1646 in Warwick, Rhode Island at the age of 38). The couple would produce (but not in this birth sequence) Samuel Gorton (1630-September 6, 1724), who got married with Susanna Burton, Mary Gorton, who got married, perhaps, with Peter Greene, first, and, next, with John Sanford, Mahershalalhashbaz1 “Maher” Gorton (1639- ??), who got married with Daniel Coles, John Gorton (circa 1641-February 3, 1713/1714), who got married with Margaret Wheaton, Benjamin Gorton (circa 1647-December 25, 1699), who got married with Sarah Calder, Sarah Gorton, who got married with William Mace, Ann\Anna Gorton, who got married with John Warner, Elizabeth Gorton, who got married with John Crandall, and Susanna Gorton, who got married with Friend Benjamin Barton (1645-1720) of the East Greenwich Monthly Meeting of Rhode Island. The most wonderful name and one which was the least likely to have been selected from all the names appearing in the Bible was that of Mahershalalhashbaz, and there were, previous to 1680, two persons in the Colony bearing this name, one a daughter of Samuel Gorton of Warwick, whose peculiarities brought on him no end of troubles, while the other was a son of Mary Dyer, she who was hung for the crime of being a Quaker, on the grounds now comprising the beautiful Public Garden and Common in Boston. 1636 At the age of 45, Samuell Gorton sailed aboard the Speedwell with his wife Mary Maplett Gorton, their initial three children, and Samuell’s brother Thomas to Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to escape from a religious dispute. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT In a later timeframe, the Reverend William Hubbard would have his own imitable comments on this “lustre of years” in the history of New England. 1. Cf. ISAIAH 8:1-3, where the longest name in the BIBLE usually appears as “Maher-shalal-hash-baz.” In Hebrew this means “To speed to the spoil, he hasteneth the prey.” 2 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL GORTON SAMUEL GORTON CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE READ HUBBARD TEXT Chapter XXVI. The first Courts kept in the Massachusetts, after the coming over of the Governor. The carrying on of their civil affairs, from the year 1630 to 1636, with the accusations against them before the King and Council. Chapter XXVII. Various occurrences in New England, from the year 1631 to 1636. Chapter XXVIII. Ecclesiastical affairs of the Massachusetts, during the first lustre of years after the transferring of the Patent and Government thither; from Anno 1631 to 1636. Chapter XXIX. Memorable accidents during this lustre of years. The small-pox among the Indians; pestilential fever at Plymouth; with other occurrences worthy to be observed, from the year 1630 to 1636. 1637 Of the about 3,000 Pequot who remained after the separation of the Mohegan and the decimation caused by the small pox during the winter of 1633-1634, fewer than half would survive the race war with the English which took place during this year, to be sold into slavery in the Bermudas. THE SCARLET LETTER: At about the centre of the oaken panels that lined the hall was suspended a suit of mail, not, like the pictures, an ancestral relic, but of the most modern date; for it had been manufactured by a skilful armourer in London, the same year in which Governor Bellingham came over to New England. There was a steel head-piece, a cuirass, a gorget and greaves, with a pair of gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath; all, and especially the helmet and breastplate, so highly burnished as to glow with white radiance, and scatter an illumination everywhere about upon the floor. This bright panoply was not meant for mere idle show, but had been worn by the Governor on many a solemn muster and draining field, and had glittered, moreover, at the head of a regiment in the Pequod war. For, though bred a lawyer, and accustomed to speak of Bacon, Coke, Noye, and Finch, as his professional associates, the exigenties of this new country had transformed Governor Bellingham into a soldier, as well as a statesman and ruler. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 3 HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL GORTON SAMUEL GORTON According to THE RECORDS OF THE COLONY OF NEW PLYMOUTH IN NEW ENGLAND, THE STORY HOW SAMUEL GORTON FOUGHT IN THE PEQUOT WAR, published in 1855 or 1856 in Boston by Nathaniel Bradstreet Shurtleff, Samuell Gorton took part in this extermination of the Pequot. (If this source be accurate, and it also be accurate as has been alleged, that later on in life Gorton would find himself in sympathy with the Quaker Peace Testimony as this testimony was pioneered in 1661 by Friend George Fox and others — then these two circumstances would presumably indicate that Gorton was under the influence of the Friends rather than vice versa.) Duxbury was incorporated as the 2nd town in the Plymouth colony. In this year or the following one, Samuell Gorton, becoming involved again in dispute at Plymouth,2 fled again, this time to Aquidneck Island. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT 1638 June 27, Tuesday (Old Style): Samuell Gorton was admitted as an inhabitant of Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT 1639 William Hall, an inhabitant of Newport, Rhode Island, joined with several others to found the town of Portsmouth. William was spelling his name Haule. A house was constructed for Friend Nicholas Easton, eventually facing Farewell Street, the first dwelling constructed in Newport, Rhode Island. This dwelling would burn in 1641 and be replaced, and upon the death of Nicholas Easton in 1676, it and the property on which it stood would be bequeathed to the Newport Friends. This piece of land eventually would be used in 1699 for the Great Meetinghouse of the Friends. At Portsmouth, Samuell Gorton joined Mistress Anne Hutchinson in ousting William Coddington. Upon Coddington’s return to power Gorton would himself get turned out. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT In this year the Gortons had their daughter whom they named Mahershalalhashbaz.3 2. He attempted to explain another Plymouth man, Ralph Smith’s, anger at him by suggesting that this man’s spouse, Mistress Smith, had “preferred his family services to those of her husband.” Then when a servant in his family, Ellin Aldridge, was accused of a vague “offensive speeches and carriages,” Gorton suggested that her only offense had been smiling in church and, when he went to court on her behalf, did not endear himself when he implicitly suggested that the officer of the court was an ally of Satan: “If Satan will accuse the brethren let him come down from Jehoshuah’s right hand and stand here!” 4 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL GORTON SAMUEL GORTON The most wonderful name and one which was the least likely to have been selected from all the names appearing in the Bible was that of Mahershalalhashbaz, and there were, previous to 1680, two persons in the Colony bearing this name, one a daughter of Samuel Gorton of Warwick, whose peculiarities brought on him no end of troubles, while the other was a son of Mary Dyer, she who was hung for the crime of being a Quaker, on the grounds now comprising the beautiful Public Garden and Common in Boston.