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letter to John Winthrop in Boston, in which he says that the
good people in London are convinced that the Massachusetts
Bay Company’s purpose is Separatist and asks Winthrop to
alleviate their fears and restore their “former good opinion of
the company.” 11 How were “the good people of London” privy
to news about Separatist Massachusetts in such a short time?
It was only December, six months after the Arbella had
docked in Salem. If Vassall left Salem in late July, he probably
made it back to England by mid- or late September, plenty
of time in which to spread the word around London of the
Separatist nature of the plantation. It seems logical to conclude
that Vassall, either alone or with some of the passengers from
the Lyon and other returning ships, was responsible for painting
the colony as “Separatist,” thereby causing such a stir among
future investors skittish of the seditious label. 12
The Lyon returned to Massachusetts on Feb. 5, 1631.
It contained the much-needed provisions Winthrop had
anxiously requested, plus 26 passengers and letters from
friends back home. Dudley is sorrowed by what they have
to say and continues his ongoing letter to Lady Bridget,
lamenting that “they who went discontentedly from us the
last year, out of their evil affections towards us, have raised
many false and scandalous reports against us, affirming us to
be Brownists in religion, and ill affected to our state at home,
and that these vile reports have won credit with some who
formerly wished us well.” 13 Might those people who formerly
wished them well be the “good people of London” Humphrey
wrote about in his letter to Winthrop?
It is reasonable to conclude that Vassall himself was the bearer
of such news and it is an early indication of the animosity that
was to develop between Vassall and the political and religious
establishment of the Massachusetts Bay.
Despite the ill beginning, Vassall and his family decide to
give Massachusetts another try five years later. This time he
avoids the Bay and settles just a toe into Plimoth colony in a
new town called Scituate, where he and his wife join the local
church of John Lothrop. 14
That move is significant. Plimoth colony was known for
its tolerance and liberality. Vassall spent the next 11 years
challenging autocratic voices in government and religion both
in the Bay and in Plimoth colony, prompting John Winthrop
to call him “a busy and factious spirit always opposite to the
way of our churches and civil governments.” 15
11 Andrews, ibid., 381.
12 Queen Elizabeth and Parliament had decreed Separatism a crime in 1593.
13 Young, ibid.,331.
14 For more on Lothrop’s church, see Dan McConnell, “An Early Congregational
Church Endures Persecution,” Th e Co n g r e g a T i o n a l i s T Vol. 164, No. 2
(December 2010), 12-14.
15 Richard S. Dunn, James Savage, Laetitia Yeandle, eds., The Journal of John Winthrop
1630-1649 (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996), 624.
But one man’s busy and factious spirit was another’s champion.
The first decade into the Great Migration was a heady time for
experimentation. Unconventional voices such as William Vassall,
Roger Williams, and Anne Hutchinson show a great variety of
views; and all three were challenged, albeit for different reasons,
by the likes of Thomas Dudley and John Endicott.
For Vassall or anyone else to taint the new plantation with
the charge of Separatism (no matter how much the movement
had altered itself since Robert Browne’s day) was scandalous
to many Englishmen. That it would later become the working
framework of the New England Way, Congregationalism, was
in 1630 still an untested idea.
For brevity’s sake the rest of Vassall’s long career as a maverick
in New England is omitted here. The reader is encouraged to
read Dorothy Carpenter’s account of his life, available online
at http://home.gwi.net/~sscarpen/vassall/Vassall.pdf .
li n D A k. pA l m E r is the founder and performer
of the walking tour of 17th-century Boston called
Where Did the Puritans Go? (www.puritantour.com),
in which she portrays Ann Vassall,
wife of William Vassall. She holds a Master of
Arts in Teaching from Indiana University and is
a frequent lecturer at historical societies, libraries
and academic institutions throughout New England,
including the Harvard Extension School
and the Congregational Library.
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