{"id":91677,"date":"2023-05-19T10:49:25","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T14:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=91677"},"modified":"2023-05-19T10:49:58","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T14:49:58","slug":"famous-she-doers-of-early-america-anne-dudley-bradstreet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/famous-she-doers-of-early-america-anne-dudley-bradstreet.html","title":{"rendered":"Famous She-Doers of Early America: Anne Dudley Bradstreet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry writes about Anne Dudley Bradstreet, America\u2019s first woman poet, who arrived in 1630. 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

Today I pay homage to Anne Dudley Bradstreet (1612-1672), mother, author, wife, and \u201cEmpress Consort of Massachusetts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now say, have women worth, or have they none?
\nOr had they some, but with our Queen is\u2019t gone?
\nNay Masculines, you have thus tax\u2019d us long;
\nBut she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong.
\nLet such as say our sex is void of reason
\nKnow ’tis a slander now, but once was treason.<\/p>\n

–\u201cIn Honour of That High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth<\/a>,\u201d by Anne Dudley Bradstreet<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Illustration:<\/a>
Illustration: frontispiece for \u201cAn Account of Anne Bradstreet: The Puritan Poetess, and Kindred Topics,\u201d edited by Colonel Luther Caldwell (Boston, 1898). Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The above lines crafted by Bradstreet were written about the late Queen Elizabeth I.<\/p>\n

According to Ann Woodlief, Bradstreet approached \u201cfeminist\u201d views with humor when responding to those Puritans who felt women should be silent, modest, and living in the private rather than the public sphere \u2013 and the poem above is a good example of how this poetess handled her Puritan patriarchs.<\/p>\n

In an article published by the Kalamazoo Gazette<\/em> in 1895, Anne is described as \u201cOne of these \u2018illuminated Christians.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Kalamazoo Gazette (Kalamazoo, Michigan), 20 September 1895, page 8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article reported:<\/p>\n

\u2026Anne Dudley Bradstreet, the friend and ship companion of the ill-fated Lady Arbella Johnson<\/a>, who died so soon after her arrival in Salem [in 1630]. This Anne Bradstreet was New England\u2019s first writer of verse who made old Ipswich the birthplace of American poetry. She was the wife of Governor Simon Bradstreet, and they lived on High Street near the Burial Hill. The first farm laid out in the early township of Ipswich \u2013 New Meadows, now Topsfield \u2013 was the one given by Gov. Bradstreet to his son Simon, whose descendants bearing the name of Bradstreet occupy an old-fashioned homestead<\/a> close to the original one of 1635. It is said that while Anne Dudley, the poet wife of Gov. Bradstreet, has transmitted her genius to some of her descendants, among whom are Oliver Wendell Holmes and Richard H. Dana, the benevolent features and amicable characteristics of her husband, the old colonial governor, can be easily traced in some of his descendants in the village. She was the daughter of that rigid old Puritan, Gov. Thomas Dudley [and his wife Dorothy Yorke], and every generation since her time has had a Dudley Bradstreet, even to the present occupant of the hill farm on old Ipswich River.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And there are some who were named after the famed fem bard; among them, Annie Dudley Bradstreet, born to Grover Cleveland Bradstreet, who married Thomas Richard Armacker in 1968.<\/p>\n

In 1901 Miss Esther Stuffins published an essay \u201cLiterary Women of Colonial Times\u201d that won a medal from the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The Evansville Courier<\/em> printed a copy.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Evansville Courier and Press (Evansville, Indiana), 3 February 1901, page 9<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In her essay, Stuffins noted that Anne Dudley Bradstreet paved the way for future women writers and provided some background.<\/p>\n

She wrote:<\/p>\n

Very little is known of her early life, but judging from her writings she must have had several afflictions, for at the age of 19 she wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cTwice ten years not fully told since nature gave me breath,
\nMy race is run, my thread is spun, lo, here is fatal death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some years later Miss Dudley married Simon Bradstreet, and to them were born eight children, of whom Mrs. Bradstreet speaks in one of her poems as \u201cEight birds hatched in one nest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Bradstreet\u2019s poems were published in London in 1650 under the title of \u201cThe Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America<\/a>.\u201d Her verses are distinguished by a great amount of curious and exact learning and are set forth with singular quaintness. The poems entitled \u201cThe Simple Cobbler of Agawam\u201d and \u201cContemplations\u201d are the most worthy of note.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Bradstreet died in 1672, having prepared the way for the first great feminine author of the eighteenth century, Mercy Otis Warren<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although Bradstreet\u2019s exact grave is unknown, a commemorative marker was placed at an old burial ground in North Andover two decades ago. The area where Anne is buried is dubbed \u201cThe Valley of the Poets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: memorial marker for Anne Dudley Bradstreet in the Old North Parish Burial Ground, North Andover, Massachusetts. Credit: Sarnold17; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The marker reads:<\/p>\n

Mirror of her age, glory of her sex, whose Heaven-born soul leaving its earthly shrine, chose its native home, and was taken to its rest, upon 16th<\/sup> Sept. 1672. –John Norton Jr., 1672<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was searching for relics associated with Bradstreet and came across this announcement in the Boston Herald<\/em> which was a bit surprising. Bradstreet\u2019s heirlooms were sold for pennies on the dollar to antique dealers and collectors by some strange circumstances.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Boston Herald (Boston, Massachusetts), 21 July 1934, page 9<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article reported:<\/p>\n

Heirlooms once owned by Anne Dudley Bradstreet, America\u2019s first woman poet, were sold at bargain prices today at a public auction of antiques removed many years ago from the Bradstreet home in Academy Road, which was erected in 1630.<\/p>\n

Hollis R. Bailey, member of the state board of bar examiners and a Boston lawyer, in whose family the antiques have been held since 1834, ordered the sale of the collection, which filled most of the \u201cred barn\u201d behind the historic old house.<\/p>\n

Antique dealers from far and near joined with private collectors and prominent residents of the town in bidding for the articles, which were sold by James T. Hainsworth, a North Andover selectman.<\/p>\n

By order of Bailey, nothing was withdrawn because too low a price was offered. Experts in the values of antiques said that the articles were sold at \u201cridiculously low prices\u201d but some of the local residents who are amateurs in appraising heirlooms dating back to long before the Revolution expressed the opinion that the prices were too high \u201cfor such old stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the aim of Mr. Bailey to dispose of the entire collection and when Hainsworth took down his red flag, nothing resembling an antique remained unsold.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hollis Russell Bailey<\/a>, the son of Otis Bailey and Lucinda Alden Loring, grew up in the historic house. He died in Boston after a long illness the same year as the auction. This house, once believed to be Bradstreet\u2019s home, was discovered to be the Parson Barnard House<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Recommended reading: \u201cMistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America\u2019s First Poet<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Explore over 330 years of newspapers and historical records in GenealogyBank. Discover your family story! Start a 7-Day Free Trial<\/a><\/p>\n

Note on the header image:<\/em><\/strong> Anne Bradstreet plaque, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Credit: Daderot; Wikimedia Commons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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