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Samuel Sewall

 
Biography: Samuel Sewall
 
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The voluminous diary of Samuel Sewall (1652-1730), American jurist, provides a vivid picture of the Boston of his day as well as of himself.

Samuel Sewall was born on March 28, 1652, in North Baddesley, Hampshire, England. His father was an occasional minister and cattle raiser who had spent from 1634 to 1646 in Massachusetts, where he had met his wife. After study at a grammar school, Samuel went to Newbury, Mass., where his father had returned two years earlier. Samuel's education continued under the local minister. In 1667 he entered Harvard; he graduated in 1671 and became master of arts in 1674. Unlike most of his classmates, he did not become a minister.

In 1676 Sewall married the daughter of a prosperous merchant. The story that his wife's dowry was her weight in the pine-tree shillings her father minted may not be apocryphal. Sewall went to work for his father-in-law. He became a constable in 1679, and in 1681 he was appointed to the Massachusetts General Court. His wife's inheritance after her father's death in 1683 was substantial, and it permitted Sewall to shift from business to civic service.

Sewall's diary records his daily life, with few opinions and no introspection. He was mainly conservative, conventionally religious, worldly but charitable, a Puritan and a Yankee. His diary indirectly reveals contemporary attitudes. It covers a business trip he made to England in 1688-1689. It is less detailed than one might wish on the Salem witch trials of 1692, when he served as one of seven judges. Eventually he saw the evil of which he had been guilty by his condemnation of "witches," and in 1697 he publicly acknowledged his error.

Following the witch trials, Sewall was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, a post he held for twenty-five years. Then for eleven years he was chief justice. He was devoted to the cause of Christianizing Native Americans and freeing slaves. To the latter cause he devoted a pamphlet, The Selling of Joseph (1700). Another pamphlet, Phaenomena quadem Apocalyptica ad aspectum Novi Orbis configurata (1687), argued that New England was a suitable site for the new Jerusalem.

Sewall's wife died in 1717. Of their fourteen children, only five survived her. Sewall married two more times. One failed courtship attempt is described in one of the diary's most attractive episodes. Sewall died in Boston on Jan. 1, 1730.

Further Reading

Sewall's diary was published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in three volumes (1878-1882); abridged versions were edited by Mark Van Doren (1963) and Harvey Wish (1967). An attractive biography is Ola E. Winslow, Samuel Sewall of Boston (1964). The Salem witchcraft trials are treated in Chadwick Hansen, Witchcraft at Salem (1969).

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Samuel Sewall
 
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(born March 28, 1652, Bishopstoke, Hampshire, Eng. — died Jan. 1, 1730, Boston, Mass.) British-American colonial merchant and jurist. He immigrated to America as a boy and became manager of the New England colonial printing press (1681 – 84) and a member of the governor's council (1684 – 1725). In 1692 he was appointed to preside at the Salem witch trials, in which 19 people were executed. Later admitting the error of the court's decision, he stood silently in the Old South Church in Boston in 1697 while his confession of error and guilt was read aloud. His three-volume Diary (published 1878 – 82) provides a view of New England Puritan life.

For more information on Samuel Sewall, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Samuel Sewall
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Sewall, Samuel (syū'əl) , 1652–1730, American colonial jurist, b. England. He was taken as a child to Newbury, Mass., and was graduated from Harvard in 1671. He became a minister but gave up the cloth to assume management of a printing press in Boston and entered upon a public career. He was elected (1683) to the general court and was a member of the council. As one of the judges who tried the Salem witchcraft cases in 1692, he shared responsibility for the condemnation of 19 persons. However, he became convinced of the error of these convictions and in 1697 in Old South Church, Boston, publicly accepted the “blame and shame” for them; thereafter he annually spent a day of repentance in fasting and prayer. Sewall served (1692–1728) as judge of the superior court of the colony, being chief justice during the last 10 years. His diary (3 vol., 1878–82; repr. 1973) is very revealing of the man and of the period.

Bibliography

See biographies by O. E. Winslow (1964), T. B. Strandness (1967), and E. LaPlante (2007); N. H. Chamberlain, Samuel Sewall and the World He Lived In (1897, repr. 1967).

 
Works: Works by Samuel Sewall
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(1652-1730)

1674Diary. Jurist and government official Sewell commences his remarkable and invaluable record of his daily activities and observations that, except for a gap between 1677 and 1685, continues until 1729 and earns him the sobriquet "the American Pepys." The Diary would be first published in 1878-1882.
1691The Revolution in New England Justified. Sewall provides a defense of the uprising that deposed Governor Edmund Andros.
1697Phaenomena quaedam apocalyptica.... The work is Sewall's statement about and apology for his role as a judge of the Salem witch trials. He was the only judge publicly to lament the trials. The work predicts that New England will become the New Jerusalem and will be the subject of John Greenleaf Whittier's poem "The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall."
1700The Selling of Joseph. Sewall's antislavery tract, one of the earliest published in the colonies, condemns slavery based on the doctrine that both blacks and whites descended from Adam and Eve.
1721A Memorial Relating to the Kennebeck Indians. Sewall argues on behalf of humane treatment of the Indians.
1729Diary. Begun in 1674, with a break from 1677 to 1685, Sewall's major work is concluded. The Diary portrays life in Massachusetts during that colony's transition from a religious experiment to a thriving, more secular community. Unlike many Puritan journals, it is not a record of a spiritual odyssey. Sewall's writings reflect the life of a wealthy merchant, banker, landowner, councilman, and judge, and they are filled with local news events: the death of major figures, important political elections, legislative and judicial decisions, business transactions, and social happenings. The diary would be first published in 1878-1882.
1873"Talitha Cumi." Sewall's eighteenth-century essay arguing against theologians who deny the resurrection of women is finally published. It includes Sewall's provocative statement that "If we should wait till all the ancients are agreed in their opinions, neither men nor women would ever get to heaven."

 
Wikipedia: Samuel Sewall
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For the jurist and US Congressman, see Samuel Sewall (congressman).
Samuel Sewall

1729, by John Smybert
Born March 28, 1652 (1652-03-28)
Hampshire, England
Died January 1, 1730 (1730-02)
Boston, Massachusetts
Occupation Judge
Known for Salem witch trials
Spouse(s) Hannah Hull
Abigail (Melyen) Woodmansey Tilley
Mary (Shrimpton) Gibbs

Samuel Sewall (March 28, 1652 - January 1, 1730), was a Massachusetts judge, best known for his involvement in the Salem witch trials, for which he later apologized, and his essay The Selling of Joseph (1700), which criticized slavery.

Contents

Biography

Sewall was born in Hampshire, England, on March 28, 1652, the son of Henry and Jane Sewall, and grandson of Henry Sewall, the mayor of Coventry, England. He emigrated from England to the Massachusetts colony in 1661 and settled in Boston. A devout Puritan, he attended Harvard University, (graduating in 1671), hoping to study for the ministry, but he eventually left to pursue a career in business. He also entered local politics, and was elevated to the position of assistant magistrate in the judiciary that in 1692 judged the people in Salem accused of witchcraft. Sewall was perhaps most remarkable among the magistrates involved in the trials in that he was the only magistrate who, some years later, publicly regretted his role, going so far as to call for a public day of prayer and fasting, and reparations. In Salem, Sewall's brother Stephen had opened up his home to one of the initially afflicted children, Betty Parris, daughter of Salem Village's Reverend Samuel Parris, and shortly afterward Betty's 'afflictions' appear to have subsided.

Apart from his involvement in the trials, Sewall could be very liberal in his views. In The Selling of Joseph (1700), for instance, he came out strongly against slavery, making him one of the earliest colonial abolitionists. There he argued:

"Liberty is in real value next unto Life: None ought to part with it themselves, or deprive others of it, but upon the most mature Consideration."

He regarded "man-stealing as an atrocious crime which would introduce amongst the English settlers people who would remain forever restive and alien," but he also believed that

"There is such a disparity in their Conditions, Colour, Hair, that they can never embody with us, and grow up into orderly Families, to the Peopling of the Land."

Although holding such segregationist views, he maintained that:

"These Ethiopians, as black as they are; seeing they are the Sons and Daughters of the First Adam, the Brethren and Sisters of the Last ADAM, and the Offspring of God; They ought to be treated with a Respect agreeable."

His 1725 essay "Talitha Cumi" refers to the "right of women." It is republished for the first time since 1725 in the appendix to the most recent biography of Sewall, [1].

His Diary, kept from 1673 to 1729, describes his life as a Puritan against the changing tide of colonial life, as the devoutly religious community of Massachusetts gradually adopted more secular attitudes and emerged as a liberal, cosmopolitan-minded community. As such, the diary is an important work for understanding the transformation of the colony in the days leading to the American Revolution.

In 1717, Sewall was appointed chief justice of Massachusetts.

Sewall married three times. His first wife was Hannah Hull, daughter of John Hull, mintmaster of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, whom he married on 28 February, 1676 in Boston. She was mother of all fourteen of his children. She died in 1717; two years later, in 1719, Sewall married Abigail (Melyen) Woodmansey Tilley, who died seven months later. In 1722, Sewall married Mary (Shrimpton) Gibbs, who survived him. [2][3]

Sewall died in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 1, 1730 at age 78 and was interred in the family tomb at the Granary Burying Ground, Tremont Street, Boston. His great grandson Samuel Sewall would later represent Massachusetts in the U. S. Congress. A biography of Sewall was published by Richard Francis in 2005; two years later another appeared by Eve LaPlante, Sewall's 6-great-grand-daughter.[4]

Bibliography

Wikisource has original works written by or about:

Works include:[5]

  • The Revolution in New England Justified, 1691
  • Phaenomena quaedam Apolyptica, 1697 online text (PDF version)
  • The Selling of Joseph, 1700
  • Proposals Touching the Accomplishment of Prophecies, 1713
  • Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729.
  • Talitha Cumi, or Damsel, Arise, 1725. Reprinted in Salem Witch Judge, 2007.

Notes

  1. ^ LaPlante, Eve (2007). Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall (1st ed. ed.). New York: HarperOne. pp. 304–11. ISBN 978-0-06-078661-8. 
  2. ^ LaPlante op. cit., pp. 285–7
  3. ^ Graves, Eben W. (2007). The Descendants of Henry Sewall (1576-1656) of Manchester and Coventry, England, and Newbury and Rowley, Massachusetts (1st ed. ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Newbury Street Press. pp. 89–90. ISBN 978-0-88082-198-8. 
  4. ^ LaPlante op. cit., pp. 312–3
  5. ^ PAL: Samuel Sewall (1652-1730)

References

External links

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Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Samuel Sewall".  Read more

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