An early best seller -- by a woman -- in the New World
Before we start on this week's promised tale of how John Hoar rescued a woman from captivity, I want to briefly revisit the freeman's oath. I had mentioned that taking the oath was required for the males in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and for membership in the General Court, which functioned much like a legislature. My wife asked me if that was the only benefit. The oath also allowed the freeman to vote and hold other public offices in the county. I provided a quote that said a date could not be found for John Hoar's oath. This quoted followed a sentence detailing some of Hoar's activities in the colony as a lawyer, which suggests to me that his practicing law may have been contingent on his having taken the oath, but I have no other evidence that this would be true. I discovered a book published in the 1800s that contained a list of the freeman in the colony with the date each took the oath. Two men with the name Hoar are listed, Leonard, John's brother and the t...