RHODE ISLAND HISTORY - Rhode Island Historical Society

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35Tlverton's Fight For Religious Liberty,1692-1724joseph Anthony and John Sisson. tax assessors ofTiverton. and John Akin and Philip Tabor. tax assessorsof Dartmouth, on May 25. 1723 were arrestedand put in the Bristol County jail for civildisobedience. They had refused to 3SS6S taxeslevied upon their towns by the legislature. It wasnot the first time this had happened; in 1708 taxassessors o f the same towns had been jailed forthe same reason. But while seen as criminals bythe majority of people in Massachusetts, thesetax assessors were heron in the eyes of their fellowtownsmen. and so should they be viewed bytheir descendants today. Incarcerated for the principleof religious liberty, they and their fellowtownsmen. by thirty years of persistent resistanceto intolerance. brought about a major victory inthe long struggle for separation of church andstate in New England.Although Tiverton did not become a townshipuntil 1694 - when it separated from the town ofDartmouth - and although it did not become partof the colony of Rhode Island until the king settledthe lon g-standin g boundary dispute with thatcolony in 1746, the people who settled in westernP lymouth had much more in common with thefollowers of Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williamsthan they did with the Puritans and Pilgrims.Predominantly Quakers and Baptists, theyhad settled on the outskirts of Plymouth colony,cheek to jowl with the Wam panoa g Indians, becausein that frontier region the authorities allowedconsiderable tolerance. Despite somedesultory efforts by the Plymouth magistrates topromote orthodox Congregationalism in thewestern area. few Congregationalists settledthere. When the king merged Plymouth into theMassach usetts Bay colony by the charter of 1692.by William G. McLoughlinthemore strict and domineering Puritans of Bostonsought to bring these outlanders int o the Congregationalfold. They did not reckon with thedissenters' stubborn determination to sustain libertyof conscience: nor have most historians giventhe dissenters the recognition they deserve.Quakers established their first meetings inDartmouth and Tiverton in the 16905and becamepart of the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting. LeadingTiverton Quakers in those years were JosephWanton, Amos Sheffield and Richard Borden.Stephen Wilcox. John Tucker. Nathaniel Howlandand Deliverance Smith were prominentQuakers in Dartmouth from 1690 to 1724. JohnCooke was founder of the Baptist movementthere. As a boy. he came over on the Mayflowerbut was expe lled from the Pilgrim church atPlymouth in 1654 for "the error of Anabaptistry."He moved to the frontier in Dartmouth, joinedJohn Clarke's Baptist church in Newport. and in1684 organized a group of his Dartmouth followersinto a church. Worship services were he ld at acentral point on the line between Dartmouth andTiverton. After Cooke died in 1695 the leadingmembers (and lay preachers) of the church wereHugh Mos ier or Mosher , Aron Davis, John Morseor Morss, Daniel Gold. Jacob Matt, and ThomasTaber, J r.The General Court passed a law in 1695 requiringevery Massachusetts town to hire and supportan "able, learned, and orthodox" minister of thegospel. By learn ed the magistrates meant a maneducated in Greek and Latin (at Harvard, or after1701. at Yale) and by orthodox they meant a Calvinistwho adhered to the doctrines and practicesof the Puritan churches.' But the majority of Tivertonand Danmouth inhabitants, being Baptists-William G. McLou l hlin is proI_ of hStory at Br.-nUnivtnit}' and th ~ aulhor of RhtJ
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RHODE ISLAND HISTORY - Rhode Island Historical Society

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