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��Intolerance in New Hampshire.
��INTOLERANCE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. By M. V. B. Knox, Ph. D.
��The first settlers in New Hamp- shire, as early as 1633, ten years af- ter commencing their improvements, attempted at Dover to organize a church, but with poor success. Bad or incompetent ministers, a sharp rivalry between the Puritan and Epis- copal members of the community, tended to impair the success of the attempts. Finally, in 1G38, a church was organized, a house of worship located and built three or four miles from the present city of Dover. The hostility between the two opposing elements became so sharp that it is said an appeal was made to arms. In 1638, at Hampton, also, a few months earlier than at Dover, Rev. Stephen Bachiler founded a church, and at Exeter one was established the same year by an ecclesiastical fugitive from Boston. Fift}' acres of land at Portsmouth in 1640 were granted to support an Episcopal church.
Continual disagreements seem to have made the course of religious life very checkered : ministers were found unworthy, the sharp opposition by Puritan people to others bore its fruit, and many obstacles incident to a new country were in the way. In some instances, other than that gift at Ports- mouth, land was set aside for the sup- port of the ministry. In 1641, when the New Hampshire settlements were, for the time being, included in Massa- chusetts, the intolerant laws of the latter were set in motion, some Qua- kers and witches harried, but no great injury was done them. Three Quaker women, in 1G62, were com-
��manded by the constables of the town to be made fast to the tail of a cart, drawn through the streets, whipped not to exceed ten stripes^on the bare back in each town, and so taken out of the colony. This sentence was carried out, at least in Dover.
Some concessions seem to have been granted New Hampshire, for the decree of the General Court of Massachusetts in 1642 was that each town of New Hampshire should send a deputy to that body, though they might not" be church members. In 1659 a law was passed by the Gen- eral Court against the festival of Christmas and kindred ones, super- stitiously kept, it said. The next 3^ear a law passed that a suicide must be buried in the highway, the privi- lege being denied of burial in a churchyard, and that a heap of stones be piled above his grave as a brand of infamy. This law was copied from old English ones. People absent from church, in 1662, were fined five shillings for each absence, and one woman was i)ut into the stocks an hour on her husband's refusing to pay her fine for such absence. One man was fined forty shillings for entertain- ing some Quakers four hours in one day.
In 1680 Charles Second issued a commission constituting a council to govern New Hampshire. In this doc- ument he is careful to insist that vir- tue and good living be encouraged, " that by such example ye infidle may be invited and desire to partake of ye Christian Religion." Libertv of con-
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