{"id":79613,"date":"2021-08-03T13:58:36","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T17:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=79613"},"modified":"2022-06-10T13:15:17","modified_gmt":"2022-06-10T17:15:17","slug":"quakers-witch-trials-nathaniel-hawthornes-salem-family-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/quakers-witch-trials-nathaniel-hawthornes-salem-family-line.html","title":{"rendered":"Quakers & Witch Trials: Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s Salem Family Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry concludes her story about a controversy in Salem, Massachusetts, over the treatment of some Quaker tombs in 1835, focusing on the family lines of author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Melissa is a genealogist who has a blog, AnceStory Archives<\/a>, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Author\u2019s Note:<\/em><\/strong> I came across this story while researching the 17th century Quaker families in Salem, Massachusetts. They are the ancestors of the tombs in Salem that are the focus of today\u2019s story. A list of these Salem Quakers can be found in Jonathan M. Chu\u2019s book Neighbors, Friends, or Madmen: The Puritan Adjustment to Quakerism in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts Bay<\/em> (p. 169-173). These Quakers are also cited in the court documents available online at the University of Virginia site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Quakers, esteeming persecution as a divine call to the post of danger, laid claim to a holy courage, unknown to the Puritans themselves\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

–Nathaniel Hawthorne<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: Nathaniel Hawthorne, c. 1862. Credit: Mathew Brady; Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To conclude my recent series on the tombs scandal in Salem, Massachusetts (see links at the end of this article), today I am covering the first generations of the family lines of the tombs\u2019 owners. Many were persecuted Quakers and blood relations to author Nathaniel Hawthorne (who added a \u201cw\u201d to his family surname of \u201cHathorne\u201d). The passage above is from Nathaniel\u2019s story \u201cThe Gentle Boy,\u201d sourced from the early histories of the 17th century Quakers.<\/p>\n

I begin with Nathaniel\u2019s gr. great grandmother, Quakeress Elizabeth Freestone Turner Gardner (1619-1665). She married 1st Robert Turner and 2nd George Gardner. Her daughter Ruth Gardner by her second husband married Judge John Hathorne, noted for his connection in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials \u2013 actions for which Nathaniel\u2019s ancestor never repented.<\/p>\n

Judge Hathorne\u2019s father, Major William Hathorne, was called a bitter persecutor of Quakers by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nathaniel\u2019s grandmother Rachel Phelps, wife of Daniel Hathorne, descends from the Phelps family who played host to illegal Quaker meetings raided by orders of Major Hathorne.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth (Mrs. George Gardner) is cited several times in the Essex County Court records for absence from the Puritan church meetings and for attending the \u201coutlawed\u201d private Quaker meetings held in the Phelps home.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth was also cited for attending Quaker meetings in the home of Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick. You can view the cited cases in the \u201cRecords and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Volume II\u201d on the University of Virginia website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth\u2019s fines paid to the courts totaled over 24 pounds, quite a hefty sum for that time. (Chu, Jonathan: Neighbors, Friends, or Madmen: The Puritan Adjustment to Quakerism in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts Bay<\/em>, p. 172)<\/p>\n

It is no surprise Elizabeth deviated from the conventional Puritan sect. During her first years in Massachusetts, she lived in the home of her aunt Anne Hutchinson. Hutchinson hosted private religious meetings in her home; she was noted in the Evening Star<\/em> as America\u2019s first \u201cclub woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article reported:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnne Hutchinson was actually, if not formally, America\u2019s first club woman. She organized in her Boston home the forerunner of all those groups in which women throughout the United States assemble today to improve themselves and the rest of the world. For this reason, among others, she is regarded also as the pioneer feminist among the North American colonists.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"An<\/a>
Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 8 February 1942, page 57<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to this article:<\/p>\n

\u201cShe lived at Boston only four years, but that was quite long enough for the great religious controversy, in which she was the central figure, to rock the colony from top to bottom\u2026 She talked about a \u201ccovenant of grace\u201d as opposed to a \u201ccovenant of works.\u201d She taught that holiness consisted of a state of heart, not of good works\u2026 This philosophy was a protest against the legalism of the Puritans and a blow against the authority of the clergy.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Illustration:<\/a>
Illustration: \u201cAnne Hutchinson on Trial,\u201d from Geraldine Brooks\u2019 book \u201cDames and Daughters of Colonial Days,\u201d New York: T.Y. Crowell & Co., 1900, p. 23.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I found an interesting article in the Boston Herald<\/em> on early tavern and house owners in Boston who supported Anne Hutchinson. Although she began her spiritual teachings with women, she would catch the ears of several prominent men.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Boston Herald (Boston, Massachusetts), 4 June 1901, page 10<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article reported:<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time Anne Hutchinson\u2019s Antinomian heresy sprang up, and the colony was disturbed by a religious dispute, never fully understood then or now, a war of words. The question whether \u2018sanctification helps to evidence to us our justification\u2019 has not yet been settled. Mrs. Hutchinson\u2019s neighbors generally took her side, and were frowned upon and punished by the magistrates.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Turner family were neighbors of Anne Hutchinson. Robert Turner married her niece Elizabeth Freestone (Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s gr. great grandmother).<\/p>\n

Robert was a shoemaker and purchased property from his brother-in-law, Valentine Hill, husband to Francis Freestone, Elizabeth\u2019s sister.<\/p>\n

I found a Boston Herald<\/em> article citing Robert Turner in his trade.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Boston Herald (Boston, Massachusetts), 16 July 1905, page 47<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It reads:<\/p>\n

\u201cBy an order of the General Court in October, 1648, the shoemakers of Boston were incorporated, on a petition signed by Richard Webb, James Everett, Robert Turner and Edmund Jackson, and these men were empowered to regulate the \u2018shew\u2019 trade for three years.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Shoemaker Robert Turner\u2019s house was sold in 1651 to Thomas Roberts, a felt maker and father to Elizabeth Roberts \u2013 who married John Turner, son of Robert and Elizabeth Turner. John built the Salem home on Turner Street made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s novel The House of the Seven Gables<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Two of Elizabeth\u2019s children carried on her namesake. Both Ruth Hathorne and John Turner II named their last child Freestone.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned for more genealogy on these family lines\u2026<\/p>\n

Note:<\/em><\/strong> Just as an online collection of newspapers, such as GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>, helped tell the stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s early Salem family line, they can tell you stories about your ancestors that can\u2019t be found anywhere else. Come look today and see what you can discover!<\/p>\n

Genealogy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Robert and Elizabeth (Freestone) Turner:<\/p>\n

Their children (records from Colonial Society of Massachusetts<\/a>)<\/p>\n