Quakers, Baptists and witches need not apply

Now comes one of those difficulties in dealing with the genealogies I have access to on Family Search. While following the Morse line of Orphah Morse, the richest lineage of my possible ancestors, I came across Samuel Morse (no, not that Morse), who immigrated to America in 1635 at the age of 50. 

As I searched for a historical connection I could tie to for this post, I found that he had been one of the original signers of the Dedham Covenant, which I'll discuss in just a bit. But as I began to read through the various documents posted about him and seek out confirmation of those records on the Web, I ran into the question of which Samuel Morse this might be.

To make a long story short(er). posters to his entry disagree as to who Samuel's father is, though in the end they all seem to agree that Samuel Morse came to America in 1635 and is the Morse listed in the passenger manifest for the Increase, the ship he and his family sailed on. The problem is that Samuel's age listed on the manifest means he can't be the son of the man listed in the genealogy. The solution provided by proponents of this scion is to merely state the manifest has to have the wrong age. Other genealogy sites accept a different parentage that produces a settler whose age agrees with the passenger manifest.  I don't know that I'll find the solution with my meager resources.

Samuel settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony town of Watertown, now a part of the greater Boston area. Not long after the Morse family's arrival the General Court of the Massachusetts colony decided that new settlements needed to be established further inland than the existing settlements. These settlements were situated along the coast and were fairly close together. Rumors abounded that Native Americans in the colony had grown tired of colonists' intrusions and would soon go to war.

The court initially approved two new towns; one would become Concord, the other Dedham, now considered to be a suburb of Boston. Both sites were fortified with sufficient armaments to discourage attacks by the natives, and this seems to have worked well. 

The original grant for Dedham covered about 200 square miles with seemingly every resource settlers could need -- lakes, forests, meadows, etc. Eventually John Eliot, from last time's post, established one of his "praying Indian" enclaves in the Dedham area and worked out a deal for them to have 2,000 acres of land. 

Another feature of the settlement was that the Dedham settlers didn't just stroll into the area and take over. Instead they negotiated a number of agreements with the existing tribes that spelled who controlled what territory and preserved the tribes' rights to hunt, plant and fish throughout the territory.

A group of 18 men, representing the original families to settle the area met shortly after the grant was announced and developed the Dedham Covenant mentioned above. 

The document has five provisions:

1) Signers pledged to profess and practice one faith, the foundation of which was supposed to be everlasting love. I have to note that the one faith they pledged was the Puritan understanding of Christianity. 

2) They would accept people personally known to them so as to keep out any "contrary minded" candidates or carefully inform potential settlers that they should "walk in a peaceable conversation with all meekness of spirit, for the edification of each other in the knowledge and faith of the Lord Jesus; and the mutual encouragement unto all temporal comforts ... seeking the good of each other ..."

3) If residents should have a dispute with each other, they would bring the matter to "one, two, or three others" of the settlement for a determination as soon as possible. 

4) Every man having a plot in the town had to pay his share of "rates of money," essentially taxes, and be subject to any rules or laws that might be adopted by the town.

5) Sign the covenant to demonstrate to all the settlers' commitment. 

Anyone considered to be troublesome or likely to become a "public charge"  was to be forbidden admittance to the town's society. The document seems to suggest that it held sway in perpetuity. In reality it governed the settlement for 50 years.

The Dedham Historical Society notes that while the covenant held sway, records show "no instances of dissension, Quaker or Baptist expulsions, or witchcraft persecutions."

The document probably was intended as a sort of utopian expression of how a Christian society should function. It's a good thing that no witchcraft persecutions took place, but the covenant has an exclusionary tone that doesn't completely fit with the religious language it contains -- you're perfectly welcome here as long as you believe and act exactly the way we think you should. 

Samuel would reside here a few years and then take advantage of the opportunity to start another settlement. We'll look at that next time. 

Image: Monument erected in memory of seven Puritans who immigrated to America, including my possible 9th great-grandfather.