Bøger udgivet af Colonial Society of Massachusetts

The Eighteenth-Century Records of the Boston Overseers of the Poor constitutes the collection of the earliest and most complete set of records pertaining to poor relief in early America. In a substantial introduction, the editor Eric Nellis describes the process by which the Overseers of the Poor, a board made up of generally wealthy merchants elected by the town meeting, attempted to distinguish between the "deserving" poor, eligible for "outdoor" relief in their homes, and the "undeserving" poor, who were remanded to the rigors of the workhouse. Because each Overseer knew personally the recipients of public charity, researchers will find here a wealth of detail about the nature of poverty and welfare in eighteenth-century America. This selection of records includes admissions records from 1758 to 1800, births and deaths from 1756 to 1771, a census and inventory of the almshouse, as well as fragmentary financial records from the period.

This is the sermon notebook of the pastor of the local church in Salem at the time of the notorious witchcraft hysteria of 1692-93. These sermons were preached from his ordination in 1689, through the summer of trials and executions in 1692, and on into the aftermath of the controversy.

The south coast of Massachusetts, adjoining the Rhode Island border, was throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a safe haven for those seeking to avoid too close scrutiny by either provincial authorities or the Congregational establishment in Boston. Thus, this borderland provided a refuge for Native Americans, freed Blacks, and religious dissidents, especially Quakers who faced severe penalties in the Bay Colony. The Dartmouth Monthly Meeting was the first group of Friends to gather for organized worship in the region. Since their founding in 1699, they have collected and preserved their records well into the twentieth century. Recognizing that a continuous set of records over such a long span of time was indeed a remarkable survival, the Dartmouth Historical and Arts Society set about digitizing and transcribing these manuscripts, and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts has joined in the effort by publishing the eighteenth-century minutes of both the Men's and Women's Monthly Meetings. Thomas Hamm of Earlham College has provided a succinct and knowledgeable introduction that will make clear to non-Quaker readers some of the religious group's most distinctive practices. The minutes of the monthly meeting might best be described as business and disciplinary records, rather than a description of what transpired in the weekly "First Day" meetings for worship. Quakers believed that God inspired women as well as men, that women had just as much right to speak and preach and pray publicly as men. Quakers were expected to marry other Quakers, and those who did not might be disowned. Cases of bastardy and fornication (generally understood as resulting in the birth of a child too soon after marriage) also came before the monthly meeting, as well as offenses against "plainness," sharp business practice, and the slander of fellow Friends. The refusal to take oaths and serve in the military brought Quakers into conflict with local authorities, and Friends were forbidden to profit from war-making in any way, either by repairing guns for soldiers, owning or serving aboard privateers, or even purchasing goods that had been seized from enemy ships. Thus, the Minutes of the Dartmouth Month Meeting constitute a rich hoard of information for social historians and genealogists alike. Distributed for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.

The south coast of Massachusetts, adjoining the Rhode Island border, was throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a safe haven for those seeking to avoid too close scrutiny by either provincial authorities or the Congregational establishment in Boston. Thus, this borderland provided a refuge for Native Americans, freed Blacks, and religious dissidents, especially Quakers who faced severe penalties in the Bay Colony. The Dartmouth Monthly Meeting was the first group of Friends to gather for organized worship in the region. Since their founding in 1699, they have collected and preserved their records well into the twentieth century. Recognizing that a continuous set of records over such a long span of time was indeed a remarkable survival, the Dartmouth Historical and Arts Society set about digitizing and transcribing these manuscripts, and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts has joined in the effort by publishing the eighteenth-century minutes of both the Men's and Women's Monthly Meetings. Thomas Hamm of Earlham College has provided a succinct and knowledgeable introduction that will make clear to non-Quaker readers some of the religious group's most distinctive practices. The minutes of the monthly meeting might best be described as business and disciplinary records, rather than a description of what transpired in the weekly "First Day" meetings for worship. Quakers believed that God inspired women as well as men, that women had just as much right to speak and preach and pray publicly as men. Quakers were expected to marry other Quakers, and those who did not might be disowned. Cases of bastardy and fornication (generally understood as resulting in the birth of a child too soon after marriage) also came before the monthly meeting, as well as offenses against "plainness," sharp business practice, and the slander of fellow Friends. The refusal to take oaths and serve in the military brought Quakers into conflict with local authorities, and Friends were forbidden to profit from war-making in any way, either by repairing guns for soldiers, owning or serving aboard privateers, or even purchasing goods that had been seized from enemy ships. Thus, the Minutes of the Dartmouth Month Meeting constitute a rich hoard of information for social historians and genealogists alike. Distributed for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.

Charles Morton was transatlantic Puritanism's most famous educator at the time of his arrival in Boston in 1686. His Logick System advocated the vigorous Aristotelian logic popularized by Melanchthon. William Brattle, a generation younger than Morton, was one of Harvard's most beloved tutors. Brattle introduced newly fashionable Cartesian logic into the Harvard curriculum. His Compendium of Logick ultimately superseded the text of his well known colleague and continued to be used at Harvard until the mid-eighteenth century. Although Harvard was a small provincial outpost in the history of logic, its position in America as a bastion of Puritanism makes it an excellent locale for the examination of one idiosyncratic strain of dogmatic, religiously-oriented logical thought. Morton's and Brattle's texts teach us much about the Puritans, especially about the epistemology, psychology, and theology that supported their particular form of religious rationalism.

Volume Five covers the last years of Hutchinson's governorship. The proliferation of committees of correspondence throughout the province in late 1772 prompted Hutchinson to make a major speech at the opening of the General Court in January 1773, laying out his understanding of the relationship between the colonies and Parliament. The speech prompted a series of rejoinders and counter rejoinders that dragged on throughout the winter. No sooner had the matter died down, then Samuel Adams announced he had in his possession "letters of an extraordinary nature" written by Hutchinson and others who sought to undermine the liberties of the citizens of Massachusetts. When eventually published, the letters, which appeared to have been stolen from the files of a highly-placed English official after his death, did not support the wild rumors Adams and others had promulgated, yet the damage was done and the legislature petitioned the crown for his removal. Hutchinson asked for leave to go to England to defend himself, but before permission arrived, news of the Tea Act reached Boston, precipitating a new controversy. Hutchinson's refusal to allow the tea to be returned to England led directly to the Boston Tea Party and, in turn, to the passage of Coercive Acts by Parliament. Hutchinson felt powerless before the storm of controversy he had aroused and left Massachusetts on June 1, 1774, ostensibly to report on American affairs in London, but, in reality never, to return.

The second volume of Thomas Hutchinson's correspondence covers the years 1767 through 1769. Hutchinson's papers have always been among the most basic sources for historians writing about Boston in the 1760s and 1770s, and the publication of this volume is a valuable step toward making this content widely accessible.

The story of the origins of the first Anglican congregation established in Boston and New England, Kings Chapel, is significantly shaped by the gradually emerging imperial policies of the government of Charles II during the late seventeenth century.

George Thatcher served as a US representative throughout the Federalist Era - the most critical period of American constitutional history. Written over his forty-year career, the over two hundred letters and writings selected for this edition will appeal anyine looking for an encyclopaedic resource on the Founding generation.

Gathers together nineteen essays first delivered at the Winterthur Museum's 2013 Furniture Forum. It amply illustrates how research concerning one of America's most productive centres of furniture-making has diversified in the forty years since the Colonial Society of Massachusetts published Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, the proceedings of a similar conference held in 1973.

British Regulars marched into Boston at midday on Saturday, 1 October 1768. For weeks there had been rumours that the landing would be resisted. But by four in the afternoon the two regiments were parading on the Common without incident. This fifth volume of the Bernard Papers examines the evidence and debates as they unfolded in Boston and London.

Because colonialism entailed controlling how history is told, native and non-native scholars have tended to write parallel histories without examining points of intersection. This book examines the intersection, overlapping, and conflict between the scholar's past and the native present in New England.

Beautifully illustrated, this collection of essays will introduce the reader to a rich, surprising, thought-provoking and entirely new view of early New England. Eleven essays written by historians, archaeologists, art and architectural historians, and literary scholars recast our understanding of New England by setting its material and visual culture in new contexts.

Henry Hulton was an Englishman who moved to Boston in 1767 as a member of the American Board of Customs Commissioners, that was supposed to curtail smuggling. It failed, and Hulton fled Massachusetts. This title presents his history, his letters, and the letters of his sister, which provide a view into the onset of the Revolution in Massachusetts.

Some of the most unique and important of all early American law reports are those of Josiah Quincy Junior (1744-1775). This book presents Quincy's candid accounts of events great and small that shed light on life in the American colonies just before the Revolution.

Some of the most unique and important of all early American law reports are those of Josiah Quincy Junior (1744-1775). This book presents Quincy's candid accounts of events great and small that shed light on life in the American colonies just before the Revolution.

John Cotton Jr was the second son of one of the famous clergymen of New England's founding generation. At the age of 22, already pastor of the church in Wethersfield, he lost his ministry as a result of a sexual scandal. Disgraced and jobless, Cotton moved his family to distant Martha's Vineyard to start anew as a missionary to the Indians.

Sir Francis Bernard (1712-1779) was the royal governor of colonial Massachusetts from 1760 to 1769. His letters and other incidental papers provide insight into the personalities and bitter controversies agitating Boston in the pre-Revolutionary period. This book includes his letters.

Part of the ""Portrait of a Patriot"" series that presents the major papers of the Boston lawyer and patriot penman Josiah Quincy Jr (1744-1775). This volume introduces you to Quincy's ""Legal Commonplace Book"" which illustrates the systematic program of reading through which aspiring young lawyers learned their trade in colonial New England.

Long dismissed as conventional and antiquarian, church records are actually unparalleled sources for historians offering information on a range of topics. This volume includes two of the finest sets of church records from the colonial era of Massachusetts history - the Reading church records, and the Rumney Marsh records.

Helps you meet Quincy as a rising member of the Massachusetts bar and a member of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, making a tour of the southern colonies to assess the depth of commitment to the patriot cause there. This work shows how Quincy was dazzled by the opulence and sophistication of late-eighteenth-century Charleston society.