The Ghost of Mary Dyer

The Founding Fanatics

The Ghost of Mary Dyer

by David Macary, guest author

Although we regularly hear people (commentators, politicians, citizens) refer with pride to our Founding Fathers, it’s unclear whether they’re familiar with the relevant dates. Because if they had done the arithmetic, they surely would’ve noticed that every one of these illustrious “founders” had been born more than a century after this country was already formed.

Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America, was established in 1607, and Plymouth, the second settlement, was established in 1620. By contrast, George Washington was born in 1732, John Adams in 1735, Thomas Jefferson in 1743, and James Madison in 1751.

Technically, these men didn’t “found” us. What they did was engineer our independence from England and invent our federal government, two magnificent achievements that set us on the successful course we’ve followed ever since. But let’s be clear: This country’s ethos—its customs, social rituals, religious beliefs, rural economy, national character—had been in place for a 150 years (that’s six generations) before Jefferson, Madison, et al, ever hung out their shingles.

We were taught in school that the Pilgrims came to America in order to practice “religious freedom.” While that statement is more or less accurate, what they fail to mention is that the Puritans were 17^th-century England’s version of the Taliban. These religious zealots wanted to “purify” Christianity (hence “Puritans”) in much the same way that the Taliban wants to purify Islam.

Indeed, if we wished to be brutally honest, we could say that America was founded by a bunch of religious fanatics, and that it was the framers of the Constitution (educated products of the Enlightenment) who, bless their hearts, saved us from them.

How fanatical were they? Fanatical enough, in 1660, to execute the first female in the colonies. Her name was Mary Dyer. She, along with three male associates [Robinson, Stevenson, Leddra], were hanged by Massachusetts Bay Colony authorities. Dyer and the men had repeatedly ignored warnings not to set foot in Massachusetts, where Quakerism was outlawed, and when the warnings went unheeded, the Colony hanged them.

One can think of many religious people who deserve to be hanged, but Quakers aren’t among them. In fact, Quakerism, with its pacifism and equality for women, seems like one of the more enlightened, dignified religions. But in 1660, the good citizens of Massachusetts chose to kill a group of settlers whose only crime was belonging to another faith and defying the orthodox theocracy. And they killed them in the name of Jesus Christ.

As far as theology goes, our neighbors to the north are, by all accounts, nowhere near as demonstrably religious as we are. A few years ago, I saw Kim Campbell (former Prime Minister of Canada) on Bill Maher’s HBO television show. The panel was discussing the comparative role that religion played in the politics of Canada and America.

Reminded of the fact that George W. Bush had declared, after announcing his candidacy, that he believed God wanted him to run for president, Campbell observed that if a Canadian politician had said the same thing, people would think he was “mentally ill.” And as many will recall, during the 2008 Republican primary, three candidates (Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee) proudly admitted that they didn’t believe in evolution.

Our history is filled with paradoxes. We embrace founders who didn’t actually “found” us, we applaud the Pilgrims for seeking religious freedom when, in fact, they were vehemently intolerant, and we assume we were established as a reverently Christian, God-fearing nation even though the framers took careful steps to ensure that we would never become a theocracy.

In this post-New Deal, post-industrial milieu we find ourselves, we have both kinds of voters: the kind who vote for candidates on the basis of their positions on specific issues (health care, tax reform, trade policy, etc.), and the kind who ignore the boring nuts-and-bolts stuff and simply vote for the candidate they regard as the “most religious.”

And when the Tea Party says that they “want their country back,” and evangelicals say that we will never again be the nation we once were until “we put Jesus Christ back into our lives,” we’re reminded of not only how polarized we are, but of how the ghost of Mary Dyer—the first woman in Colonial America to be executed for civil disobedience—still haunts us.

***** 

For more information on Mary Dyer and why she chose to die for her principles, please click these links:
Top 10 Things You May Not Know About Mary Dyer
Mary Dyer and the First Amendment, 1660-1791

Thank you, David, for this insightful article, used by written permission of the author. 

David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and author (It’s Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor), is a former labor union rep. He can be reached by email.

Mary Dyer, a strong-willed woman

This article, second in a series on strong-willed women that includes Mary Dyer, is found at Jo Ann Butler's Rebel Puritan blog. She asked why I chose to write this blog and a book trilogy on Mary Dyer and her world.

© 2012 Christy K Robinson

Historical fiction has been my favorite literary genre since I was a young girl. I’ve learned that several of my author friends read my favorite book series on the Childhoods of Famous Americans when we were kids, and it shaped our discovery of history and historical fiction by humanizing icons of history and making them accessible to children. It tickled our imaginations to learn about culture and what life might have been like for Virginia Dare, Martha Washington, or Abigail Adams, as children. (There were boys in the series, too, of course.)

The author's pedigree chart, begun in 1974 and printed in 1994.

My mother was chronically ill, and she drafted me to help her at genealogy and history archives with the fetch-and-carry jobs, or searching the reference files (you know, the little card drawers at the book place, that preceded the search engine). We traced many of our lines back through renaissance and medieval eras to European royalty. One of our most important discoveries in the early 1970s was the confirmation that we were 11 and 12 generations descended from Mary Barrett Dyer, the 17th-century Quaker martyr. In the 1970s and 80s, we believed that Mary was hanged by those mean Boston Puritans for her religious beliefs, “simply for being a Quaker.” Unfortunately, that belief persists in countless web pages today.

Mary Dyer had several opportunities to avoid prison and execution. She could have lived her life in peace and safety, doing anything she wanted to, in Rhode Island, the colony she co-founded. But she intentionally returned to Boston several times to defy her banishment-on-pain-of-death sentence, until she forced their hand and they executed her. It’s not that she wanted to die, but that she was willing to die to shock the citizens into stopping their leaders from the vicious persecution of Quakers and Baptists. Whippings such as Herodias Gardner’s. Mary and other Quakers believed they were called by God to “try the bloody law,” the law that required torture, bankrupting fines, exile, and death for dissenters.

Mary’s sacrifice and civil disobedience worked. After her death in June 1660, a petition to King Charles II resulted in a cease-and-desist order to the Puritan theocracy in New England; and the king’s Rhode Island charter of 1663 (which replaced previous religiously-liberal charters) specifically granted liberty of conscience and separation of church and civil powers in Rhode Island Colony. One hundred thirty years later, the religious-freedom concept modeled by Rhode Island became part of America’s Bill of Rights to the Constitution.

1663 Rhode Island charter, written by Rhode Islanders
such as John Clarke, Roger Williams, and William Dyer,
and granted by King Charles II.

Religious liberties (to practice religion or not without interference of the government) and those who would legislate their morality upon others still clash today, 350 years later. That’s one of the things that compels me to write of a strong-willed woman. Mary Dyer sacrificed her will and her life of ease and wealth, with husband, children, grandchildren, respect and influence for the good of hundreds of people in her own time, and untold hundreds of millions who came after her.

The genealogy hobby is inspiring, educational, and fun. I’m 32 generations down the tree from Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor’s son John was forced to agree to the Magna Carta, a charter of liberties which has been the model of constitutions around the world. On another line, I’m 12 generations down from Mary Barrett Dyer, whose sacrifice laid the groundwork for the human rights in the US Constitution. There are numerous other figures who may not be famous today, but who shaped our society nonetheless. It’s fun to speculate what molecules of DNA have come down to me, or from the thousands of other strong, resourceful, and intelligent women in the family pedigree. They’re the people whose actions and principles formed our society and culture today. They were not wimps. And neither are we. 

***************
Author/blogger/friend (not necessarily in that order) Jo Ann Butler releases book two of her trilogy on Herodias Long Hicks Gardner Porter in autumn 2012. "Herod" or "Harwood," as Jo Ann's heroine is known, was a neighbor of the Dyers in Newport, Rhode Island, beginning in the early 1640s.

William Dyer's 1643 memo regarding Herodias
and her husband John Hicks' domestic violence.
“Memo John Hicks of Nuport was bound to ye pease
by ye Govr & Mr Easton in a bond of £10
for beating his wife Harwood Hicks
and prsented [at this] court was ordered to continue
in his bond till ye next C[ourt] upon which his wife
to come & give evidence concerning ye case”

William Dyer recorded legal documents about Herodias' first marriage, and did business with and served in government with Herod's husbands. It's highly likely that Herodias and Mary Dyer were friends as well as neighbors, because Herodias, like Mary, protested the Puritan persecution of Quakers. Herodias, holding her unweaned baby, was stripped to the waist in public, and whipped with a knotted lash, as punishment for her support for Quakers and dissidence against the Puritan theocratic authority. She was then imprisoned for two weeks in Boston, so you can imagine that her wounds may have become infected and healed badly.

For more information on Herodias Long, and to order the book, visit the Rebel Puritan website.
Images courtesy of Jo Ann Butler.

Why Mary Barrett Dyer?

Originally published at the Rebel Puritan website by Jo Ann Butler.

Mistress Dyer is a well-known resident of Newport, Rhode Island, and is featured in Jo Ann Butler’s books Rebel Puritan.  She asked what attracted Christy Robinson to research and write Mary Dyer's life story.

Why Mary Barrett Dyer?

© 2012 Christy K Robinson

Historical fiction has been my favorite literary genre since I was a young girl. I’ve learned that several of my author friends read my favorite book series on the Childhoods of Famous Americans when we were kids, and it shaped our discovery of history and historical fiction by humanizing icons of history and making them accessible to children. It tickled our imaginations to learn about culture and what life might have been like for Virginia Dare, Martha Washington, or Abigail Adams, as children. (There were boys in the series, too, of course.)

My mother was chronically ill, and she drafted me to help her at genealogy and history archives with the fetch-and-carry jobs, or searching the reference files (you know, the little card drawers at the many-books place, that preceded the search engine). We traced many of our lines back through renaissance and medieval eras to European royalty. One of our most important discoveries in the 1970s was the confirmation that we were 11 and 12 generations descended from Mary Barrett Dyer, the 17th-century Quaker martyr. In the 1970s and 80s, we believed that Mary was hanged by those mean Boston Puritans for her religious beliefs, “simply for being a Quaker.” Unfortunately, that belief persists in countless web pages today.

Mary Dyer had several opportunities to avoid prison and execution. She could have lived her life in peace and safety, doing anything she wanted to, in Rhode Island, the colony she co-founded. But she intentionally returned to Boston several times to defy her banishment-on-pain-of-death sentence, until she forced their hand and they executed her. It’s not that she wanted to die, but that she was willing to die to shock the citizens into stopping their leaders from the vicious persecution of Quakers and Baptists. Whippings such as Herodias Gardner’s. Mary and other Quakers believed they were called by God to “try the bloody law,” the law that required torture, bankrupting fines, exile, and death for dissenters.

Rhode Island's 1663 charter
from King Charles II, that
mentions William Dyer's name
twice (and grants religious freedom
to Rhode Island citizens, a first
in Western history.)

 Mary’s sacrifice and civil disobedience worked. After her death in June 1660, a petition to King Charles II resulted in a cease-and-desist order to the Puritan theocracy in New England; and the king’s Rhode Island charter of 1663 (which replaced previous religiously-liberal charters) specifically granted liberty of conscience and separation of church and civil powers in Rhode Island Colony. One hundred thirty years later, the religious-freedom concept modeled by Rhode Island became part of America’s Bill of Rights to the Constitution.

Religious liberties (to practice religion or not without interference of the government) and those who would legislate their morality upon others still clash today, 350 years later. That’s one of the things that compels me to write of a strong-willed woman. Mary Dyer sacrificed her will and her life of ease and wealth, with husband, children, grandchildren, respect and influence for the good of hundreds of people in her own time, and untold hundreds of millions who came after her.

The genealogy hobby is inspiring, educational, and fun. I’m 32 generations down the tree from Eleanor of Aquitaine, author Christy English’s muse. Eleanor’s son John was forced to agree to the Magna Carta, a charter of liberties which has been the model of constitutions around the world. On another line, I’m 12 generations down from Mary Barrett Dyer, whose sacrifice laid the groundwork for the human rights in the US Constitution. It’s fun to speculate what molecules of DNA have come down to me from those two, or from the thousands of other strong, resourceful, and intelligent women in the family pedigree. They’re the people whose actions and principles formed our society and culture today. They were not wimps. And neither are we. 

*****

 Christy K. Robinson is an author and editor whose book We Shall Be Changed was published in hardcover in 2010. She's currently (in 2012) researching and writing a historical novel on Mary Barrett Dyer, 1611-1660. (The book was published as Mary Dyer Illuminated in October 2013.) You can reach Christy at http://christykrobinson.com .

Christy also has an excellent blog about William and Mary (Barrett) Dyer at http://marybarrettdyer.blogspot.com and I urge you to check it out!

Knowing people who know people

Lange Eylandt, cropped from a Dutch map.
In the 1650s-1670s, Johann Polhemus ministered at the west end,
in Brooklyn, while Mary Dyer spent the winter of
1659-1660 on Shelter Island at the east end.

If you enjoy learning about the human experience and culture of the 17th century, take a look at the article I posted on my other history blog, Rooting for Ancestors. It's about the Dutch Reformed minister to Brazil, and the first minister of the first Dutch churches on Long Island, Rev. Johann Theodorus Polhemius.

I doubt that there was a direct connection to William or Mary Dyer, but Polhemius was a beloved and well-respected minister in the New Amsterdam society. He was one of the ministers who, in 1658, reported that "The raving Quakers have not settled down -- for altho our government has issued orders against these fanatics, nevertheless they do not fail to pour forth their venom. There is one place in New England where they are tolerated and that is Rhode Island, which is the caeca latrina ["bowels latrine"] of New England." (Really, the cesspool? That's not very nice to say!) 

Polhemus' children and his widow would almost certainly have known or come under the influence of the New York mayor, Major William Dyer, 1640-1688. Yes, the younger William, who obtained his mother's reprieve from death in October 1659. At the risk of placing that earworm song "It's a Small World," in your brain, I urge you to read:

Rev. Johann Polhemus' deadly scrapes <---Click the link

Eleven places in New York City with 17th-century history

What would you like to know?

© Christy K Robinson

Photo by Eric Pettee.

Although this blog was planned for several weeks before it went live, Sept. 1, 2012 begins a new year of posts on the culture, religion, politics, and events surrounding William and Mary Dyer, in mid-17th century Britain and New England.

Overall, the site has received more than 16,300 views in those 366 days. The most popular articles are shown in the graph. As an author, I'd love to believe that all those views were in pursuit of my golden prose, or my spiffy headlines--but hold on a second. If I look at other stats, I learn that at least a third of my visitors didn't come for the articles at all. They came for the images, through Google searches. <sigh>

These are the top search words that terminated at this blog:

Mary Dyer – 200; Baldness cure – 95; Cocoa beans – 56; Paths – 99; Anencephaly – 90

Most-popular articles read on this blog.

Many of the searches were by Dyer descendants looking for genealogy lines, which isn't the purpose of this blog. But it tells me that there are many thousands of Dyer descendants who would like to either connect their lines with the famous Mary Dyer, or to find her antecedents.

Quakers/Friends visit this blog regularly, which is not surprising, considering the iconic status Mary Dyer holds for that group. 

Some readers ended up at this site because they were students working on history papers. In the next few months, I'd like to add student-friendly articles that will help dispel some of the myths that most people, including history instructors, still consider to be truth.

Two very popular articles that had little to do with the Dyers (but covered their culture) were the "leg-bomb" pictures after the Angelina Jolie appearance at the Academy Awards, and the article about various disease remedies of the 17th century, specifically the baldness cure! Most of the hits on the baldness cure came from southeast Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Yemen and Oman. Really? Is chicken poo on the scalp a viable option there? And just how follicle-challenged are the southern Asians? 

There was a big spike in views of "Mary Dyer's Monster" when the TV drama Private Practice depicted a character bearing an anencephalic baby.

Other searches were definitely creepy: when I posted about the drunkard's cloak and the scold's bridle, there were oodles of hits, some of which led back to porn bondage sites. I have not read the 50 Shades trilogy, but the scold's bridle article peaked when the book sales did. Eww.

I wonder what sort of labels or keywords
I need to include, to spark interest from Greenland,
New Guinea, Siberia, and Antarctica?

Six months into writing this blog, I added a map of hits to see the regions the readers came from. The dots are not the total number of hits, but the cities where the hits originated. For instance, if you click on the blog once or repeatedly, it's counted in the total number, but only shows up as one dot on the map.

Are there subjects in this period that you'd like to see covered? Are you an authority on the era who could contribute an article? Please use the comments below to let me know your ideas.

How rodents carried out the will of God

Puritans versus the Book of Common Prayer

© 2012 Christy K Robinson

This article is copyrighted. Copying, even to your genealogy pages, is prohibited by US and international law. You may "share" it with the URL link because it preserves the author's copyright notice and the source of the article.  
All rights reserved. This book or blog article, or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The Book of Common Prayer, 1662 edition

The Book of Common Prayer has been used by Anglicans since 1549. It contains the liturgy for various worship and sacramental services, including baptism, marriage, funeral, and communion (Eucharist) ceremonies, as well as the scripture readings for the holidays of the church year, and of course, prayers for all occasions. The book has been updated over the centuries and decades, but some phrases, particularly in the wedding service, remain virtually unchanged: “dearly beloved,” “until death do us part,” “ashes to ashes,” and many others.

Non-conformists like the Puritans (who considered themselves reforming members of the Church of England) resisted or refused use of the BCP on the grounds that the Anglican church had not broken completely with the Roman Catholics at the Reformation. Puritans pointed to the priests’ garment (the surplice), bowing to the communion bread and wine (idolatry because the Eucharist were symbols, not God’s flesh and blood), the use of musical instruments and vocal harmony in services, and the stained glass and religious art, as proof that the Reformation had not put off these distractions for pure and holy worship of God. The Book of Common Prayer was too ritualized for Puritan tastes.

William Laud, Bishop of Bath, Wells, and London in the 1620s, was a “favorite” of King Charles I of England, and although he held some beliefs in common with Puritans and had at one time given them a measure of support or tolerance, he became increasingly authoritarian in his administration of church discipline. In 1633, he was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury, and his restrictive and punitive policies in pursuit of uniformity actually spurred the Great Migration of Puritans from England to North America.

The Book of Common Prayer was not a favorite in Massachusetts Bay Colony, a theocracy ruled by Puritan/Congregationalist magistrates and ministers. Nor was it approved in Plymouth, New Haven, or Connecticut Colonies. It wasn’t banned because the Church of England was nominally the state religion, but neither was it used in New England churches in the mid-17th century.

Because Rhode Island colonists were exiled from other colonies for their dissidence to Puritanism, the BCP was never an issue there. From its inception in 1638, Rhode Island separated civil and ecclesiastical powers and its citizens enjoyed freedom of religion.

The BCP bound together with Psalms and the Greek
New Testament, in the same way John Winthrop Jr.'s
book was bound. The mouse ate the part of the book that was
exposed to him, which would have been the BCP, not the Bible.
Winthrop's miracle story is humorous when you know
how the book was bound.

John Winthrop Sr., governor of Massachusetts Bay colony for most of his nineteen years in Boston, was an attorney and magistrate, and one of the investors in the Massachusetts Bay Company. He ordered government on Puritan beliefs and with his business and ministerial partners, created a theocracy. Winthrop kept a journal intended to be a historical record of the founding of the colony. Many of the events he reported were infused with moral conclusions, like this little gem below. Notice that he doesn’t actually criticize the Book of Common Prayer—he only wonders at the strange occurrence. The reader is left to conclude that even vermin were directed by God in their foraging.

December 15, 1640—“About this time there was a thing worthy of observation. Mr. Winthrop the younger [the governor's son], one of the magistrates, having many books in a chamber where there was corn of divers sorts [wheat, barley, rye, Indian corn], had among them one wherein the Greek [New] testament, the psalms, and the common prayer were bound together. He found the common prayer eaten with mice, every leaf of it, and not any of the two other touched, nor any other of his books, though there were above a thousand.” ~ Journal of Gov. John Winthrop

It seemed miraculously clear to John Winthrop Sr. that God had made his will plain on the matter of the Book of Common Prayer and what it was good for: mouse chow.

On the other hand, the Anglican hand, the mice could be considered highly selective in their choice. The winter stores of grain were not good enough for these critters. No, they knew Jesus' proverb that  “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’" Matthew 4:4.

In the English Civil War, Parliamentary forces took Archbishop Laud captive. He was imprisoned for four years and executed in 1645. The BCP was outlawed during the reign of Parliament and the Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell, and replaced with the Directory for Publique Worship.

When Charles II was restored to the English throne in 1660, the BCP was brought back for use in Anglican churches and revised. The Act of Uniformity was passed on 19 May 1662, and the Book of Common Prayer returned to use in July.

Fast-forward to the 21^st century: The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, tweeted on 20 June 2012, “We are celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Book of Common Prayer today in Parliament. 350 years young and not out!”


*****

Christy K Robinson is author of these sites:  

• Discovering Love (inspiration)
• Rooting for Ancestors (history and genealogy)
• William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)

and of these books:

·          We Shall Be Changed (2010)
·          Mary Dyer Illuminated (2013)
·          Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This (2014)
·          The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport (2014)
·          Effigy Hunter (2015)
·          Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother (2018)

A peek at William Dyer's handwriting

 © Christy K Robinson

This article is copyrighted. Copying, even to your genealogy pages, is prohibited by US and international law. You may "share" it with the URL link because it preserves the author's copyright notice and the source of the article.  
All rights reserved. This book or blog article, or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

William Dyer's 27 May 1660 letter to Massachusetts General Court.
You can buy a high-resolution, ready-to-frame reproduction of this letter
by clicking on the "letter" tab above this article.
Image courtesy of Massachusetts Archives

Honored Sirs,

It is no little grief of mind, and sadness of hart that I

am necessitated to be so bould as to supplicate your Honored

self with the Honorable Assembly of your General Court to extend your

mercy & favor once again to me & my children. Little did I

dream that ever I should have had occasion to petition you in

a matter of this nature, but so it is that through the divine providence

and your benignity my sonn obtained so much pitty & mercy att

your hands as to enjoy the life of his mother. Now my supplication

to your Honors is to begg affectionately, the life of my dear wife,

'tis true I have not seen her above this half yeare & therefore

cannot tell how in the frame of her spiritt she was moved thus

againe to runn so great a Hazard to herself, and perplexity

to me & mine & all her friends and well wishers. So itt is from

Shelter Island about by Pequid Narragansett & to the towne of Providence…

This is a fragment of a complete letter by William Dyer, dated 27 May 1660, written from Portsmouth, Rhode Island. It was an attempt to free his wife, Mary Barrett Dyer, from prison and her death sentence. But Mary had intentionally defied her death-penalty Massachusetts banishment order, and sailed from Shelter Island (northeastern end of Long Island) into the Narragansett Bay, perhaps gliding past her own home on the western shore of Rhode Island north of Newport. She kept going by water to Providence, and then, in a reversal of her and William’s first exile from Massachusetts in 1638, she walked to Boston.

She was arrested, imprisoned, tried, and sentenced to death, which was carried out on 1 June 1660.

A close inspection of the high-resolution image shows faded black ink on linen-textured paper that browned over the intervening 350 years. The left edge is stained by glue or book-binding. The right edge is understandably frayed and flaked. William’s handwriting here is consistent with other documents he wrote, with a fine-tipped quill and artistic flourishes. There are a few ink blots, particularly on loops, and the double t's (lett, quiett, att) are heavier than other letters, where he may have refreshed his quill.

The language, though tender when he refers to Mary, is otherwise courtly and professional (honored sirs, render you Love and Honor), as one would assume from a former clerk, secretary of state, and attorney general. He was no friend or colleague of Governor Endecott or Deputy Governor Bellingham, but he tried to appeal to their and the jury’s emotions about putting a beloved wife and mother to death, a woman who could be suffering from delusions (William was not a Quaker and didn't share his wife's beliefs).

What do you think William Dyer’s handwriting says about his personality or frame of mind? How does it compare with his wife’s handwriting?

The background of William's 17th-century words and phrases that are unfamiliar to us more than 350 years later, is given in the book Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This (Vol. 2 of the trilogy on the Dyers), by Christy K Robinson.

Related article: Found! More documents in William Dyer's hand 

*****

Christy K Robinson is author of these sites:  

• Discovering Love (inspiration)
• Rooting for Ancestors (history and genealogy)
• William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)

and of these books:

·          We Shall Be Changed (2010)
·          Mary Dyer Illuminated (2013)
·          Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This (2014)
·          The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport (2014)
·          Effigy Hunter (2015)
·          Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother (2018)