United States History Commons^™

Letter From Francis L. Lee To Mr. Stuart, Francis Lightfoot Lee

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

Francis Lightfoot Lee writes to W. Stuart requesting the services of his carpenter.

The Journal Of Major George Washington, George Washington

Zea E-Books in American Studies

In October of 1753, George Washington, a 21-year-old major in the Virginia militia, volunteered to carry a letter from the governor of Virginia to the French commander of the forts recently built on the headwaters of the Ohio River in northwestern Pennsylvania. The French had recently expanded their military operations from the Great Lakes into the Ohio country, and had spent the summer of 1753 building forts and roads along the Allegheny River, with the design of linking their trade routes and sphere of influence down the Ohio to the Mississippi. Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie believed them to be in …

A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission And Non-Resistance To The Higher Powers: With Some Reflections On The Resistance Made To King Charles I. And On The Anniversary Of His Death: In Which The Mysterious Doctrine Of That Prince’S Saintship And Martyrdom Is Unriddled, Jonathan Mayhew

Zea E-Books in American Studies

After the Restoration of the English monarchy in the person of Charles II in 1660, the new king and his first Parliament declared the anniversary of the beheading of his father Charles I (January 30, 1649) a religious holiday with a special commemoration in the Book of Common Prayer, naming the late monarch a saint and martyr. This holiday was not generally celebrated in Massachusetts until the emergence of several Anglican churches there in the early eighteenth century. In 1750, Jonathan Mayhew, the twenty-nine-yearold pastor of the West (Congregational) Church in Boston, took occasion to dispute the first Charles’ credentials …

The Tryal Between J.G. Biker, Plaintiff; And M. Morley, Doctor Of Phyfic, Defendant; For Criminal Conversation With The Plaintiff’S Wife; On Tuefday The 30th Of June At Guildhall, London, Sword &. Buckler Court

Special Collections Miscellanea

An account of a civil suit, including witness testimony, of charges of assault and criminal conversation against the defendant for having unlawful martial relations with the plaintiff’s wife. The evidence presented during the trial suggests witness tampering took place on the part of the plaintiff, which resulted in a verdict for the defendant. Printed for J. Huggonson in Sword and Buckler Court, Ludgate-Hill. 1741.

Letter From Robert Livingston To Messieurs Storke And Gainsborough Of London, Written March 19, 1734 From South Carolina., Robert Livingston

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

Livingston requests that cargo of a sloop sailing from South Carolina to New York be insured.

(Deducing by the date of this item, the author/creator is neither of the father and son Robert Livingstons, the latter known as a founding father of the U.S.)

South Carolina Colonial Writ Signed By Charles Hill, Charleston, May 8, 1722., George William Frederick, Charles Hill

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

This writ or warrant deals with a case of trespass with damages of 50 pounds sterling.

The Negro Christianized. An Essay To Excite And Assist That Good Work, The Instruction Of Negro-Servants In Christianity (1706), Cotton Mather, Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

There were Africans in New England before there were Puritans there, and by 1700 they numbered about 1,000 out of a total population of 90,000. Roughly half of them lived in Massachusetts, and were concentrated in Boston and the coastal towns. Puritans actively participated in the trafficking of enslaved persons, importing Africans from the West Indies and sometimes selling native American prisoners overseas.

Cotton Mather’s household contained enslaved Negro servants, and his congregation at the Second (or North) Church included both merchants of slavery and persons of African descent. The pamphlet reprinted here appeared in 1706 without his name, but …

Magnalia Christi Americana, Cotton Mather, Thomas Parkhurst

Osher Map Library Rare Books

Full title: Magnalia Christi Americana: or, the Ecclesiastical history of New-England, from its first planting in the year 1620. unto the year of Our Lord, 1698. In seven books ... By the Reverend and learned Cotton Mather. London: Printed for Thomas Parkhurst, at the Bible and Three Crows in Cheapside. MDCCII.

Early New England history.

7 parts in 1 volume

Phineas Pemberton, Alice Hodgson Pemberton Via Joseph Kirkbride, November 18, 1700, Phineas Pemberton

Pemberton Correspondence Transcriptions

Letter dated November 18, 1700 (November 8, 1700 Old Style) from Phineas Pemberton to his wife, Alice Hodgson Pemberton.

A New Discovery Of A Vast Country In America, Louis Hennepin, Jacob Tonson

Osher Map Library Rare Books

Full title: A new discovery of a vast country in America, extending above four thousand miles, between New France and New Mexico with a description of the Great Lakes, cataracts, rivers, plants, and animals also, the manners, customs, and languages of the several native Indians, and the advantage of commerce with those different nations with a continuation, giving an account of the attempts of the Sieur de la Salle upon the mines of St. Barbe, &c. : the taking of Quebec by the English, with the advantages of a shorter cut to China and Japan : both parts illustrated with …

Mary Pike, George Heathcote, March 30, 1697; August 6, 1697, Mary Pike

Pemberton Correspondence Transcriptions

A letter from Mary Pike to George Heathcote on March 30, 1697

Old Mens Tears For Their Own Declensions, Mixed With Fears Of Their And Posterities Further Falling Off From New-England’S Primitive Constitution, Joshua Scottow

Zea E-Books in American Studies

This is an online edition of Scottow’s popular tract, published in Boston in 1691, based on the first edition. Later editions were published in Boston in 1715, 1733, and 1749, and in New London in 1769. It is a searchable PDF document. The characteristics of Scottow’s original text (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, italics, etc.) have been retained. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected, and a list of emendations is included at the end. Its typographic design is based on that of the original. The work decries the falling off of New England from the purity and purpose of its original founding, …

An Arrow Against Profane And Promiscuous Dancing Drawn Out Of The Quiver Of The Scriptures, Increase Mather

Electronic Texts in American Studies

When a dancing master arrived in Boston in 1685 and offered lessons and classes for both sexes during times normally reserved for church meetings, the Puritan ministers went to court to suppress the practice. Increase Mather (1639-1723) took the leading part, writing and publishing this tract, which compiles arguments and precedents for the prohibition of “Gynecandrical Dancing, [i.e.] Mixt or Promiscuous Dancing, viz. of Men and Women … together.” These justifications were certainly shared with the court, which found the dancing master guilty, fined him £100, and allowed him to skip town.

Mather’s tract on dancing is an overwhelming compendium …

The Cry Of Sodom Enquired Into, Samuel Danforth

Zea E-Books in American Studies

This is a well-known execution sermon from seventeenth-century Massachusetts, delivered on the occasion of the sentencing to death of a young man convicted of bestiality—specifically of copulation with a mare, in which he was discovered in the open in broad daylight. Samuel Danforth, who wrote and delivered the sermon, would have known the condemned young man very well. Benjamin Goad had been born into Danforth’s congregation at Roxbury and had grown up under his pastoral care. Danforth was also familiar with the anguish of a parent over the death of a child, having suffered the deaths of eight of his …

Roger Longworth, James Harrison, April 20, 1671, Roger Longworth

Pemberton Correspondence Transcriptions

Letter dated April 20, 1671 (10 2mo. 1617 Old Style) from Roger Longworth in Lancaster Castle to James Harrison. He mentions Thomas Bond receiving ten pounds and fifty shillings at Lancaster but the rest is not yet paid. Longworth and his fellow prisoners wrote to the judges for more information on when they will be called to court. Longworth also mentions travel plans—possibly to London—after he is released.

The Life And Death Of That Reverend Man Of God, Richard Mather, Teacher Of The Church In Dorchester In New-England. A Facsimile Reprint With An Introduction ..., Increase Mather, Benjamin Franklin V, William K. Bottoroff

Electronic Texts in American Studies

We most often turn to American Puritan prose to glean historicalor biographical data. If we seek a biography that spans the evolution of American Puritanism from its nadir in England through its zenith in the New England of the 1630's to 1650's, and to the beginning of its decline as symbolized by the "Half-Way Covenant" in 1662, we may turn to Increase Mather's biography of his father, The Life and Death of That Reverend Man of God, Mr. Richard Mather. It includes the background for the elder Mather's decision to emigrate to New England (events leading to his suspension from …

A Declaration Of The Sad And Great Persecution And Martyrdom Of The People Of God, Called Quakers, In New-England, For The Worshipping Of God, Edward Burroughs

Zea E-Books in American Studies

From 1656 through 1661, the Massachusetts Bay Colony experienced an “invasion” of Quaker missionaries, who were not deterred by the increasingly severe punishments enacted and inflicted by the colonial authorities. In October 1659, two (William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson) were hanged at Boston; in June 1660, Mary Dyar (or Dyer) became the third; in March 1661, William Leddra became the fourth (and last) to suffer capital punishment or “mar-tyrdom” for their Quaker beliefs.While members of the Society of Friends rushed to Massachu-setts to test the harsh sentences under the newly enacted laws, other Friends in England simultaneously petitioned Parliament and …

Four English Histories Of The Pequod War, P. Vincentius, John Underhill, Lion Gardener, John Mason

Zea E-Books in American Studies

P. Vincentius, A True Relation of the Late Battell fought in New England, between the English, and the Salvages : With the present state of things there (1637)

John Underhill, Newes From America; or, A New and Experimentall Discoverie of New England; Containing, a Trve Relation of Their War-like proceedings these two yeares last past, with a Figure of the Indian Fort, or Palizado (1638)

Lion Gardener, Relation of the Pequot Warres [1660]

John Mason, A Brief History of the Pequot War: Especially of the memorable Taking of their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637 (1736)

Gods Promise To His Plantation, John Cotton

Zea E-Books in American Studies

The work reprinted here, in an online electronic text edition, is Cotton’s famous farewell sermon preached at the departure of the Winthrop fleet in Southampton in 1630. Gods Promise to His Plantation (1630)—courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society—is an ideological justification for engaging in such a risky venture, a promotional tract to encourage emigration, and a typological argument for possessing the wilderness. Like Winthrop’s famous A Model of Christian Charity (1630), John Cotton’s sermon is central to the Puritan experiment in the New World.

New-England Or A Briefe Enarration Of The Ayre, Earth, Water, Fish And Fowles Of That Country. With A Description Of The Natures, Orders, Habits, And Religion Of The Natives; In Latine And English Verse, William Morrell, Andrew Gaudio , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

This text, a Latin poem in dactylic hexameter with an accompanying English translation in heroic verse stands as the earliest surviving work of poetry about New England and the second oldest poem whose origins can be traced directly to the British American colonies. Only two copies of the original 1625 edition are known to survive; one is held at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and the other is housed at the British Museum. The Latin portion comprises 309 lines and praises the geographic features, flora and fauna of New England, and spends a majority of its verses describing …

The Early Causes Of The Virginia-Maryland Boundary Controversy, 1627-1668., J. Taylor Ellyson

Honors Theses

The boundary disputes between Virginia and Maryland were due mainly to the haphazard way in which the King of England granted the land in the New World, but the lack of geographical knowledge, on the part of the commissioners of the colonies, and later of the states, aided much in furthering these disputes, which covered a period of about two hundred and fifty years (1632-1894), and were only ended by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States.

This paper is not a history of these boundary controversies, but only that part of the subject, which led to …