Tag: John White

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Mystery Monday: The John White Family and Puritanism

Pilgrims Going to Church by George Henry Boughton (1867), via Wikipedia, public domain.

McMurray Family, Benjamin Family (Click for Family Tree)

Yesterday’s post reviewed a bit of the life of John White, our Puritan ancestor who immigrated to New England about 1638 with his family. The sources listed below will provide more details about all the land he was granted in the Puritan colony of Wenham, which was a part of Salem, Massachusetts at the time.

Although the Puritans came to the New World to find religious freedom, the Puritans wanted only those who worshipped the same way to live in their colonies- no religious tolerance was allowed by the Puritans. Those who had other ideas and challenged the Puritan church were expelled from the colonies, such as Anne Hutchinson, a lay minister (and a woman!! and mother of 11…), and Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island where all could practice religion as they desired. Mary Dyer was hanged by the Puritans of Boston for her Quaker beliefs and not leaving the colony when ordered to do so. The Puritans also were very intolerant of Anglicans,  Baptists, but especially Catholics: a Catholic who had been banished from the colony once would be executed at a second offense.

So was John White a Puritan? It seems he would have been required to be of the faith, since he was granted so much acreage by those in charge of the colony. He, in fact, was one of the largest landholders.

But, his “…name does not appear upon the church roll” per an 1898 letter concerning the Church Record kept by Rev. John Fisk, Pastor of the First Church in Wenham, Massachusetts, organized in 1644. (The Fisks married into the White family.)

We do know that his wife, Joane (West) White, became a member of the very first church formed in Salem on Feb. 26, 1642-3, and three of their children were baptized there- but in their mother’s name. This is curious because in the Puritan faith, the father was the undisputed head of household, and held all power within the family.

The family held lands in Wenham, which was considered a part of Salem, Massachusetts at that time. As the population grew with “The Great Migration” from England, a second church, actually in nearby Wenham, was formed. To become a new member of that church, which was closer to their home, Joane had to be dismissed in good standing from the Salem church, and then accepted into the new church.

Part of her dismissal letter to the Wenham church read:

Whereas Joane White a member of our Congregation, by reason of her abode with you, cannot so well partake with us in ye Ordinances: nor live under our watch…

Know you therefore yet we have consented thereto & request you to receive her in ye Lord, as becometh Scts. & watch over her, administering to her all ye holy things of his house yt she may be prsented blamelesse in ye day of Jesus Christ…

Part of the Puritan faith included watching over the other members and ensuring that they followed the rules of the Bible and society. This preserved order as well as prepared individuals, if they were chosen by God, to go to Heaven. The Puritans did not believe that a life of good works would get one to Heaven- they believed in predestination. However, if chosen, their life would need to have been “blamelesse” in order to receive the Grace of God in the hereafter.

The letter was dated “Salem, 10, 2, 45”- the Puritans dated with the day of the month first, then the month. At that time, the 2nd month of the year was April, as their year started in March, not January. The year was 1645. Seeing that they casually left off the first two digits of the year, as we often do today, could they have imagined that their descendants would have to determine which century they were referencing 373 years later?? They would not have been able to even comprehend the technology that we are using at this moment for me to write this, nor you to read it via computer and the internet. (Nor can we predict how our descendants might read this 373 years from today, in the year 2391!)

Joane’s letter of dismissal from the Salem church was only the first half of her move to the new Wenham congregation. On that same day, 10 April 1645, the letter was read and accepted by the Wenham faithful at a church meeting. As caretaker’s of each member’s soul, the new church wanted to make sure that Joane was faithful enough:

Hereupon ye church desired of her being present to make a declaration of ye worke of Grace on her soule w’ch was done, ye substance whereof was this:

She was brought up in a poore Ignorant place &c. [etc]

her 1st conviction was of ye sins of ye breach of ye sabbath & ye taking of Gods name in vayne, from Commandments 3 & 4th, her hearte being drawn towards New England because good people came hither:–

At last by a providence comeing over was shut up for a long space of time liveing far remote in ye woods from ye means, (of grace) & reading in Romans 10, Faith commeth by hearing: put her affections onward, towards ye desire of ye meanes: — afterwards at Ipswich…– her consent & closure.

Puritans believed that it wasn’t enough to just say that you were a Puritan- one had to have a conversion, or “conviction”- a spiritual event within oneself that bound your soul to God. So the church elders would have asked her about that event, and Joane stated that she was brought up ignorant of the faith. She did have a realization that she was sinful in not keeping the Sabbath and by taking God’s name in vain. Knowing that the faithful were migrating to New England, she too desired to make the journey, which became spiritual as well as physical. Once she got to the colony, however, it was such a deep wilderness and there was little mobility for a woman with many children when walking, riding horseback, or going by boat were all dangerous journeys due to the wildlife, the natives, the weather, etc.

Joane did, however, probably have her Bible in the wilderness, and as she was probably able to read Romans 10, she realized that she needed to be a part of a church with a preacher to speak of the faith. She apparently decided that at Ipswich, which was about 7 miles from Wenham. (This is about a three-hour walk today with paved roads, but going through the wilds of Massachusetts in 1645 might have taken much longer.)

The men of the church asked Joane more questions, and she gave her confession and acceptance of the church Covenant.  Satisfied with her conviction and answers, the elders told her to come back the next Sabbath.

Three days later, on 13 April 1645, Joane returned to the Wenham church:

After ye sermon & singing, ye letters of dismission concerning Joane White were publickly read, and after that ye Church had by vote manifested their willingness to reach forth unto her ye right hand of fellowship: –she was admitted & pronounced and actual member of this church.

Knowing that the family practiced Puritanism, we can surmise that the whole family was literate. Puritan leaders believed that wives, children, and servants should be able to read the Bible as well as civil laws, and in 1642 in Massachusetts, the leaders required husbands to teach reading and writing to their family and servants. Five years later Massachusetts required a teacher and school for any town over 50 households, and Harvard and Yale were founded to further educate men for the ministry.

Learning of Joane’s involved process of becoming a church member, we can understand why her husband, John White, may not have been listed on a church roll. By the 1640s, the second generation of the first Pilgrims had become more lax in requiring a “conviction” experience, yet some were allowed to “be” Puritans so that the faith would not lose members. John may have been one of those who had not experienced a “conviction” or who was more interested in survival and business than his own spiritual journey, so he probably never joined the church. A Puritan wife, however, had the duty of ensuring that her children were brought up properly in the faith, and Joane did just that.

The Puritan tradition lived on in the Congregational Church, and we have quite a few ancestors who were deacons,  ministers, and/or missionaries in the Congregational church. None were descended from John White, but they carried the spirit of Puritanism that he must have embodied despite not officially being a church member.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. I am definitely not an authority on religious thought and practice, but the above is my understanding from the copious reading I have done on the subject. For more information on Puritanism and some of our other family members who practiced that faith, see also “Thankful Thursday: Thanksgiving Day has New Meaning This Year”–http://heritageramblings.net/2015/11/26/thankful-thursday-thanksgiving-day-has-new-meaning-this-year/
  2. “Sorting Sunday: John White, Our Puritan Immigrant,” Heritage Ramblings blog.  http://heritageramblings.net/2018/11/25/sorting-sunday-john-white-our-puritan-immigrant/
  3. Genealogy of the Descendants of John White of Wenham and Lancaster, Massachusetts. 1638-1900, in Two Volumes. Almira Larkin White, 1900. Volume 1 has provided information for this blog post. Both volumes are available on archive.org.
  4. Ancestry.com. Colonial Families of the USA, 1607-1775 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors. Accessed 11/24/2018. Original data: Mackenzie, George Norbury, and Nelson Osgood Rhoades, editors. Colonial Families of the United States of America: in Which is Given the History, Genealogy and Armorial Bearings of Colonial Families Who Settled in the American Colonies From the Time of the Settlement of Jamestown, 13th May, 1607, to the Battle of Lexington, 19th April, 1775. 7 volumes. 1912. Reprinted, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1966, 1995.
  5. “Puritans”– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritans#Puritans_in_North_America; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Puritans_under_King_Charles_I#The_foundation_of_Puritan_New_England,_1630–1642; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan_migration_to_New_England_(1620–40)
  6. The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England by Edmund S. Morgan, 1966.

 

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Original content copyright 2013-2018 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 
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Sorting Sunday: John White, Our Puritan Immigrant

The Puritan by Augustus Saint Gaudens – Springfield, Massachusetts, via Wikipedia, public domain.

McMurray Family, Benjamin Family (Click for Family Tree)

Now that we are all post Thanksgiving-turkey-and-pie-food-comas and on to the shopping frenzy, if your feet or fingers would like to take a break, here is a bit about our own Puritan immigrant, John White.

First, an important note: There are two other men named John White who came to the colonies very early. One, a minister and founder of Massachusetts, travelled the ocean on another ship named Mayflower– not the original, 1620 vessel- and the other came in 1632 on the ship Lyon. Our McMurray-Benjamin line is not related to either of these men, as far as we have been able to ascertain. (See notes below.) There are some online family trees, however, that do have these three men mixed up (I too was confused by them for many years), so be careful out there in wild, wild GenealogyTreeLand.

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The years before 1638 were difficult ones for the English. Charles the First was king, and he, like his father, had abandoned many of the practices of the Anglican Church founded by Henry VIII in the 1530s. The “Eleven Years Tyranny” from 1629-1640 was also called “The Personal Rule,” as Charles insisted on the return of sacraments and religious ceremonies similar to those of the Catholic Church, which had been outlawed for much of the previous century. This “return to popery,” as many called it, caused the Puritans to become even more dissatisfied with the English government. Charles 1 created illegal taxes as well, placing significant burdens on the common people, including many merchant Puritans, and was so frustrated with Parliament not giving him what he wanted that he disbanded it several times. (Hence, “The Personal Rule.”) With further persecution of Puritan clergy and laymen alike, many more decided to leave England. By 1638, four Puritans had been “martyred” to the cause (tortured and imprisoned, but not executed), the last of them due to importation of works censored because they were critical of the king and his government. Many Puritans lost hope that their religion and country would be reformed to be more “pure.” Perhaps this was the final motivator for “our” John White and his family to undertake the perilous voyage to New England. It was good timing, as civil war was soon to come in England (1641).

We have no record of exactly when and from where the John White family took leave of chaotic England and set sail, nor the name of the ship that carried them to the shores of New England. In 1784, a descendant recorded that John came from the west part of England, and more recent research verifies that he was baptized in South Petherton, Somerset, England (SW England), and born about 1602. He married Joan West in Drayton Parish of Somerset, in 1627.  Five of the known White children were born in England, with Mary born there about 1635; the rest were born in Massachusetts. There is record of John White being “of Salem in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 1638,” per the White genealogy, although a GoogleBooks description states they migrated in 1639 to Salem, Massachusetts. (This date might be because of the land grant date- see next paragraph.)

Knee buckles worn by John White on his voyage from England to Massachusetts in 1638. Genealogy of the Descendants of John White of Wenham and Lancaster Massachusetts by Almira Larkin White, 1900, page 17.

 

The Puritans had strict rules for those who lived in their colonies, and John was officially “received an inhabitant of Salem” in August, 1639, when he was granted 60 acres of land. On Feb.1, 1642, he was granted 6 acres of meadow at nearby Wenham, which he had already been mowing “for these 2 or 3 years past.” Town records note at least 48 more acres were granted to John White, and the first saw and grist mill in Wenham was built on a stream that ran through John’s land.

Although there has been an assumption that John White was a Puritan, curiously, we have no real documentation of him being a church member. More to come on that point, but we do know that he lived in Puritan colonies and was granted land by the Puritans. He and his family came to New England just 18 years after the first Pilgrims landed, but their stories differed in many ways- we will explore that further in future posts.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. “Mayflower” was a common name used for ships in England. A second Mayflower made the trip to Plymouth Colony in 1629, also carrying Puritans from Leiden. In 1630 this same Mayflower was a part of the Winthrop Fleet, and the “other” (Rev.) John White, of Dorchester, England, was a part of passengers in this fleet. This Mayflower made 3 more successful trips to the colonies but was lost on a fourth trip in 1641.The original Mayflower of Plymouth Rock fame had returned to London in 1621, and her captain and owner died in 1622. The ship laid in the Thames in London (it is believed) until an appraisal in 1624 for Capt. Jones’ estate inventory. No one knows for sure what happened to her after that time, though it is surmised she was taken apart and timbers used in various land structures. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower for more information.
  2. Yet another John White of Messing, Essex, England, immigrated to the colonies in 1632 on the ship Lyon. He first lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then Hartford, Hadley, and Hartford again. See The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Vols. 1-3, page 1976-1979, by Robert Charles Anderson, NEHGS.
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritans, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Puritans_under_King_Charles_I
  4. Genealogy of the Descendants of John White of Wenham and Lancaster, Massachusetts. 1638-1900, in Two Volumes. Almira Larkin White, 1900. Volume 1 has provided information for this blog post. Both volumes are available on archive.org.
  5. Ancestry.com. Colonial Families of the USA, 1607-1775 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors. Accessed 11/24/2018. Original data: Mackenzie, George Norbury, and Nelson Osgood Rhoades, editors. Colonial Families of the United States of America: in Which is Given the History, Genealogy and Armorial Bearings of Colonial Families Who Settled in the American Colonies From the Time of the Settlement of Jamestown, 13th May, 1607, to the Battle of Lexington, 19th April, 1775. 7 volumes. 1912. Reprinted, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1966, 1995.
  6.  Genealogy of the Descendants of John White of Wenham and Lancaster, Massachusetts. Almira Larkin White, Chase Brothers, 1900. (Also brief bio.) https://books.google.com/books/about/Genealogy_of_the_Descendants_of_John_Whi.html?id=uqVbAAAAMAAJ

 

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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

Original content copyright 2013-2018 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 
Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog.
 Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.