Samuel Sewall
Encyclopedia
Samuel Sewall was a Massachusetts
judge, best known for his involvement in the Salem witch trials
, for which he later apologized, and his essay The Selling of Joseph (1700), which criticized slavery.
, Hampshire
England
, on March 28, 1652, the son of Henry and Jane Sewall (née Dummer), and grandson of Henry Sewall, the mayor of Coventry
, England. He emigrated with his parents from England
to the Massachusetts
colony in 1661 where they settled in Newbury, Massachusetts
. It is there the young Samuel grew up along the Parker River and Plum Island Sound. Like other local boys he attended school at the James Noyes House
, receiving his primary education from the Reverend Thomas Parker
, M.A. A devout Puritan
, he later moved to Boston to attend Harvard University
, (graduating in 1671), hoping to study for the ministry, but he eventually left to pursue a career in business. He also entered local politics, and was elevated to the position of assistant magistrate in the judiciary that in 1692 judged the people in Salem
accused of witchcraft
. Sewall was perhaps most remarkable among the magistrates involved in the trials in that he was the only magistrate who, some years later, publicly regretted his role, going so far as to call for a public day of prayer, fasting, and reparations. In Salem, Sewall's brother Stephen had opened up his home to one of the initially afflicted children, Betty Parris
, daughter of Salem Village's Reverend Samuel Parris
, and shortly afterward Betty's 'afflictions' appear to have subsided.
Apart from his involvement in the trials, Sewall could be very liberal in his views. In The Selling of Joseph (1700), for instance, he came out strongly against slavery
, making him one of the earliest colonial abolitionists
. There he argued:
He regarded "man-stealing as an atrocious crime which would introduce amongst the English settlers people who would remain forever restive and alien," but he also believed that
Although holding such segregationist
views, he maintained that:
His 1725 essay "Talitha Cumi" refers to the "right of women." It is republished for the first time since 1725 in the appendix to the most recent biography of Sewall.
His Journal, kept from 1673 to 1729, describes his life as a Puritan against the changing tide of colonial life, as the devoutly religious community of Massachusetts gradually adopted more secular attitudes and emerged as a liberal, cosmopolitan-minded community. As such, the diary is an important work for understanding the transformation of the colony in the days leading to the American Revolution
.
In 1717, Sewall was appointed chief justice of Massachusetts.
Sewall married three times. His first wife was Hannah Hull, daughter of John Hull
, mint-master of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
, whom he married on 28 February 1676 in Boston. She was mother of all fourteen of his children. She died in 1717; two years later, in 1719, Sewall married Abigail (Melyen) Woodmansey Tilley, who died seven months later. In 1722, Sewall married Mary (Shrimpton) Gibbs, who survived him.
Sewall died in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 1, 1730 at age 77 and was interred in the family tomb at the Granary Burying Ground
, Tremont Street
, Boston
. His great grandson Samuel Sewall
would later represent Massachusetts in the U. S. Congress
. A biography of Sewall was published by Richard Francis in 2005. SALEM WITCH JUDGE, a biography of Sewall published by his descendant Eve LaPlante, won the 2008 Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction.
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
judge, best known for his involvement in the Salem witch trials
Salem witch trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693...
, for which he later apologized, and his essay The Selling of Joseph (1700), which criticized slavery.
Biography
Sewall was born in BishopstokeBishopstoke
Bishopstoke, a village recorded in the Domesday Book, is a civil parish in the borough of Eastleigh in Hampshire, England. Bishopstoke was also mentioned when King Alfred the Great's grandson King Eadred, granted land at "Stohes" to Thegn Aelfric in 948 AD. The village is about a mile east of...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, on March 28, 1652, the son of Henry and Jane Sewall (née Dummer), and grandson of Henry Sewall, the mayor of Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
, England. He emigrated with his parents from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to the Massachusetts
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
colony in 1661 where they settled in Newbury, Massachusetts
Newbury, Massachusetts
Newbury is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,666 at the 2010 census. Newbury includes the villages of Old Town , Plum Island and Byfield, home of The Governor's Academy , a private preparatory school.- History :Newbury Plantation was settled and incorporated...
. It is there the young Samuel grew up along the Parker River and Plum Island Sound. Like other local boys he attended school at the James Noyes House
James Noyes House
James Noyes House, built ca. 1646, is a historic house at 7 Parker Street in Newbury, Massachusetts.The house was built by the Reverend James Noyes, a Reformed pastor, who arrived in Newbury after landing in Ipswich in the mid-17th century. The Noyes family came from Wiltshire in England. The house...
, receiving his primary education from the Reverend Thomas Parker
Thomas Parker (minister)
Thomas Parker was an English nonconforming clergyman and founder of Newbury, Massachusetts.-Life:He was born probably at Stanton St. Bernard, Wiltshire, the only son of the Reverend Robert Parker, M.A. and Dorothy Stephens. He was admitted into Magdalen College, Oxford, but left when his father...
, M.A. A devout Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
, he later moved to Boston to attend Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, (graduating in 1671), hoping to study for the ministry, but he eventually left to pursue a career in business. He also entered local politics, and was elevated to the position of assistant magistrate in the judiciary that in 1692 judged the people in Salem
Salem, Massachusetts
Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
accused of witchcraft
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
. Sewall was perhaps most remarkable among the magistrates involved in the trials in that he was the only magistrate who, some years later, publicly regretted his role, going so far as to call for a public day of prayer, fasting, and reparations. In Salem, Sewall's brother Stephen had opened up his home to one of the initially afflicted children, Betty Parris
Betty Parris
Elizabeth "Betty" Parris was one of the accusers during the Salem witch trials. In the winter of 1691–1692, Betty, the nine-year-old daughter of the Salem, Massachusetts' Reverend Samuel Parris and his wife Elizabeth, was the first to claim illness due to being "bewitched"...
, daughter of Salem Village's Reverend Samuel Parris
Samuel Parris
Samuel Parris was the Puritan minister in Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem witch trials; he was also the father of one of the afflicted girls, and the uncle of another.-Life:...
, and shortly afterward Betty's 'afflictions' appear to have subsided.
Apart from his involvement in the trials, Sewall could be very liberal in his views. In The Selling of Joseph (1700), for instance, he came out strongly against slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, making him one of the earliest colonial abolitionists
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
. There he argued:
- "Liberty is in real value next unto Life: None ought to part with it themselves, or deprive others of it, but upon the most mature Consideration."
He regarded "man-stealing as an atrocious crime which would introduce amongst the English settlers people who would remain forever restive and alien," but he also believed that
- "There is such a disparity in their Conditions, Colour, Hair, that they can never embody with us, and grow up into orderly Families, to the Peopling of the Land."
Although holding such segregationist
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
views, he maintained that:
- "These EthiopiaEthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
ns, as black as they are; seeing they are the Sons and Daughters of the First Adam, the Brethren and Sisters of the Last ADAM, and the Offspring of God; They ought to be treated with a Respect agreeable."
His 1725 essay "Talitha Cumi" refers to the "right of women." It is republished for the first time since 1725 in the appendix to the most recent biography of Sewall.
His Journal, kept from 1673 to 1729, describes his life as a Puritan against the changing tide of colonial life, as the devoutly religious community of Massachusetts gradually adopted more secular attitudes and emerged as a liberal, cosmopolitan-minded community. As such, the diary is an important work for understanding the transformation of the colony in the days leading to the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
.
In 1717, Sewall was appointed chief justice of Massachusetts.
Sewall married three times. His first wife was Hannah Hull, daughter of John Hull
John Hull (merchant)
John Hull was the leading merchant and mintmaster of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He married Judith Quincy , daughter of Judith Pares John Hull (18 December 1624 – 1 October 1683) was the leading merchant and mintmaster of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He married Judith Quincy (1626–1695),...
, mint-master of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
, whom he married on 28 February 1676 in Boston. She was mother of all fourteen of his children. She died in 1717; two years later, in 1719, Sewall married Abigail (Melyen) Woodmansey Tilley, who died seven months later. In 1722, Sewall married Mary (Shrimpton) Gibbs, who survived him.
Sewall died in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 1, 1730 at age 77 and was interred in the family tomb at the Granary Burying Ground
Granary Burying Ground
Founded in 1660, the Granary Burying Ground in Massachusetts is the city of Boston's third-oldest cemetery. Located on Tremont Street, it is the final resting place for many notable Revolutionary War-era patriots, including three signers of the Declaration of Independence, Paul Revere and the five...
, Tremont Street
Tremont Street
Tremont Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts.-Etymology:The name is a variation of one of the original appellations of the city, "Trimountaine," a reference to a hill that formerly had three peaks. Beacon Hill, with its single peak, is all that remains of the Trimountain...
, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. His great grandson Samuel Sewall
Samuel Sewall (congressman)
Samuel Sewall was an American lawyer and congressman. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.After attending Dummer Charity School , Sewall graduated from Harvard College Samuel Sewall (December 11, 1757 – June 8, 1814) was an American lawyer and congressman. He was born in Boston,...
would later represent Massachusetts in the U. S. Congress
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
. A biography of Sewall was published by Richard Francis in 2005. SALEM WITCH JUDGE, a biography of Sewall published by his descendant Eve LaPlante, won the 2008 Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction.
External links
- 100 Parish Cemetery, York, Maine. Descendants buried here.
- Reading by Eve LaPlante from her biography of Sewall, courtesy of the Maine Humanities CouncilMaine Humanities CouncilLocated in Portland, Maine, the was founded in 1975 as a private nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It is one of 56 in the United States and its territories....
- The Family of Dummer of British Origin