Humphrey Atherton


Major-General Humphrey Atherton,, was a Puritan and an early settler of Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was the 5th Major General of the Colony of Massachusetts.

Origins

They are at best circumstantial. Biographers of the 19th century did agree that he originated from Lancashire, England. However evidence as to when and where he was born has been disputed.
Robert Charles Anderson, the author of The Great Migration, was of the opinion that this "does not come close to constituting proof of origin." The majority agree with his year of birth being either 1607 or 1608; on the basis of the parish records that an Edmund Atherton of Winstanley, Lancashire, England died in 1612 leaving, as his son and heir, a four-year-old son named Humphrey. However Douglas Hamilton Hurd, in History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts stated that Atherton was 36 years old when he died in 1661. This is likely to be incorrect since Charles Samuel Hall in Hall Ancestry, view was that when Atherton was made a Freeman and was granted property in 1638, "he must at that time reached his majority,", hence the consensus of 1608, being his year of birth. They have also estimated that Atherton was 15 years old when he was married. His wife, Mary, would have been younger.

Emigration

The Massachusetts Bay Colony had been founded by the owners of the Massachusetts Bay Company, which included investors in the failed Dorchester Company which had established a short-lived settlement on Cape Ann in 1623. The colony began in 1628 and was the company's second attempt at colonization. It was successful, with about 20,000 people migrating to New England in the 1630s. Atherton was part of this first wave of Puritan migration to New England, along with his wife Mary, and their three young children.
Biographers agree that he and his family travelled from Lancashire to Bristol and then sailed on the James, in the company of the Reverend Richard Mather; a minister from his home town and his future father in law. James Atherton, his kinsman and a relative also arrived in Dorchester, Massachusetts around the same time.
On June 4, 1635, they set sail for the New World aboard the ship James. However quotating another source, it sailed days earlier;
As the James approached New England, a hurricane struck and it was forced to ride it out just off the coast of modern-day Hampton, New Hampshire. According to the ship's log and the journal of Increase Mather, the following was recorded;
Atherton arrived in Boston on August 17, 1635, after weathering the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Historians are confident Atherton, his wife and three young children arrived at the colony in the ship James, August 17, 1635, However there is no record of an Atherton, since there is no actual list in existence.
There is a record of Nathaniel Wales having voyaged on the James. He referred to Humphrey Atherton as his "brother-in-law" in his will, so it has been assumed that Atherton's wife, Mary, was Wales' sister. However, the term may have been used because Atherton's daughter, Isabel, was married to Nathaniel Wales, Jr. Atherton’s wife was Mary Kennion.
On June 23, 1636 the newly constituted church at Dorchester held its first communion, all present clergy and congregation names were taken and recorded. It is noted that after Humphrey Atherton’s name is quoted, the three letters Esq are written. A term used to denote he was a ‘Gentleman’ at that time. This gives further credence to the belief he could have been a son of Edmund Atherton ‘Gentleman’ of Winstanley, Lancashire who died April 1613.
Atherton’s peers included Richard Callicott, Israel Stoughton, the representative for Dorchester in the Massachusetts General Court in 1634 and 1635. John Underhill, who was tasked to train the militia, Stephen Daye, a printer and John Sassamon, a Massachusett who became a Christian convert, at the time known as a praying Indian, who helped serve as an interpreter to the colonists.

First Church of Dorchester

Atherton was an active member of the congregation of the First Parish Church of Dorchester, which had been established in 1631. During this period, the building was a crude log cabin thatched with grass and an outdoor staircase. The first town meetings were held at the church, which determined policy through open and frequent discussion. Atherton’s friend Richard Mather, following consent of magistrates and clergy led the church until 1669. The congregation included Israel Stoughton.
In 1639 the congregation established first elementary school supported by public money in the New World.

Chronology

1613 - His father Edmund Atherton dies.
1625 - Married Mary Kennion at Winwick Parish
1635 - Departs Bristol seeking opportunities in the New World. Arrived in Boston after the Great Colonial Hurricane
1637 - He appears on the records of Dorchester on March 18
1638 - He is appointed as a freeman. That same year he becomes a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts
1638 - Becomes a representative of the General Court for the first time
1639-1641 - He is chosen again to be a representative of the General Court
1643 - Atherton, now a Lieutenant of the Dorchester Militia, is tasked to accompany Captain George Cook of the Cambridge Militia and Lieutenant Edward Johnson of the Woburn Militia, the author of the Wonderworking Providence, to arrest Samuel Gorton and his associates.
1644 - He is sent on an expedition against a Native American tribe. The United Colonies raised an army to protect Uncas, the sachem of the Mohegan’s, against the Narragansett
1650 - He is promoted to captain of ancient and honorable artillery
1653 - He is to the position of Speaker of the House, representing Springfield, Massachusetts in 1653. He becomes Assistant Governor
1654 - As a member of the lower house of the General Court, he would serve as magistrate in the judiciary of the colonial government for the next 8 years
1656 - He is promoted to Major General becoming the Chief Military Officer in New England. Between 1656-1661 he played an active role in the persecution of Quakers
1661 - He is killed instantly after falling from a horse on Boston Common on September 17th

Timeline of key events during his lifetime

1620 - Mayflower drops anchor off Cape Cod
1625 - Charles I of England becomes king
1628 - The Massachusetts Bay Company is granted a royal charter
1629 - The Great Migration to New England begins
1629 - Charles I of England dissolves Parliament, this is followed a period of direct personal rule
1635 - Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony
1635 - The first American public secondary school, Boston Latin Grammar School is founded
1635 - The Saybrook Colony was an English colony established at the mouth of the Connecticut River in present-day Old Saybrook, Connecticut by John Winthrop, the Younger, son of John Winthrop, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It is assimilated into Connecticut Colony 9 years later.
1636 - Puritans from
Massachusetts establish the Connecticut Colony
1636 - Harvard, the first American College is founded. Atherton’s son Hope would graduate in 1665, along with just 7 others
1636-1638 - Armed conflict between the Pequot tribe and an alliance of the colonists from the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook Colony
1637–1639 - John Winthrop is Governor of Massachusetts
1639 - The first free American public school, the Mather school, is founded in Dorchester.
1640 - Richard Mather helps produce the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in the colonies. Exactly 10 years later, Atherton’s daughter Elizabeth would marry his son, Timothy Mather.
1640 - The Massachusetts Bay Colony is becoming economically successful, engaging in trade with England and the West Indies. By this time his eldest son Jonathan, is a mariner sailing to England and onto the West Indies. Jonathan would eventual command numerous vessels
1641 - Richard Mather oversaw the baptism of Dorcas Ye Blackmore, one of the first African American Christians in New England
1641 - Richard Bellingham is elected Governor of Massachusetts
1642 - English Civil War commences. It would last 9 years.
1644 - John Endecott is elected Governor of Massachusetts
1649 - King Charles I of England is beheaded
1649 - John Endecott is elected Governor of Massachusetts
1652 - A shortage of hard currency prompted the colony to establish a mint. Atherton’s friend and business associate, John Hull, Boston Goldsmith is responsible for opening the first mint
1653 - The first American public library is founded in Boston
1653 - Oliver Cromwell is appointed as Lord Protector
1656 - The first Quakers arrive in New England
1660 - Restoration of the English Monarchy. Charles II of England becomes king
1661 - The last Quaker is executed in Boston during March. The following month Charles II ordered the Massachusetts Bay Colony to end the practice

Public Service

Atherton was active in the court and government of the colony, wielding power and influence, whether it be law making or enforcing and interpreting the daily affairs of the newly formed colony for over 23 years.
During this period he was frequently selectman or treasurer, and for several years a member of the Court of Assistants which gave him a say in the appointment of governors, as well as judicial power in criminal and civil matters.

Freeman

Atherton was first accepted as a freeman on May 2, 1638. Since both the leadership and majority of the population was strongly Puritan, to progress as he did so quickly, he would have held these beliefs.
In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a man had to be a member of the Church to be a freeman; in neighboring Plymouth Colony a man did not need to be a member of the Church, but he had to be elected to this privilege by the General Court. Being a freeman carried with it the right to vote and own land; and in Plymouth only freemen could vote by 1632. There was an unstated probationary period, usually one to two years, that the prospective "freeman" needed to go through, and he was allowed his freedom if he did pass this probationary period of time. A Freeman was said to be free of all debt, owing nothing to anyone except God Himself.

Representative of the General Court

Atherton first became a representative of the General Court in 1638 and 1639–41. He was elevated to the position of Speaker of the House, representing Springfield, Massachusetts in 1653. He became Assistant Governor, As a member of the lower house of the General Court, he also served as magistrate in the judiciary of the colonial government, in 1654; and remained as such until his accidental death.
Between 1656-1661 he played an active role in the persecution of Quakers,, having been successful in the apprehension and conviction of heretics the decade before.

Persecution of individuals accused of witchcraft

Atherton was a strong believer in the evils of witchcraft, and with his position of power, he assisted with the persecution of women of witchcraft. Harlow Elliot Woodword, in Epitaphs from the Old Burying Ground in Dorchester, said that:
Atherton had believed in witches and felt it to be a duty which he owed to God and to his Country to mete out to the poor creatures, against whom accusations were brought, the punishment, which, in his opinion, they so richly merited.
Woodward said that, in his capacity as assistant, Atherton had been instrumental in bringing about the execution of Mrs. Ann Hibbins, a wealthy widow, who was executed for witchcraft on June 19, 1656. Hibbins was later fictionalized in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In that book she was depicted as the sister of Governor Bellingham.

Persecution of Quakers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony

The 1640s and 1650s in England were a time of great turmoil. The English Civil War led to the establishment of the Commonwealth of England and eventually the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. In this period, Massachusetts was generally sympathetic to Cromwell and the Parliamentary cause. With the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, all of the colonies, and Massachusetts in particular, came under his scrutiny. In 1661 he issued a mandamus forbidding further persecution of the Quakers.

The Case of Mary Dyer

As a member of the lower house of the General Court, he also served as magistrate in the judiciary of the colonial government,
In his position of authority, Atherton was directly involved in the persecution of Quakers and there were several incidents in particular that the Quakers wrote about his involvement. The case of Mary Dyer, a Quaker, who we now know as one of the Boston martyrs. She was executed in 1660 after returning to Boston despite having been banished.
Atherton would have been the Assistant Governor at the time, under John Endecott and at the hanging of Mary Dyer he was said to have remarked,
She hangs there like a flag.
The Quakers understood this comment to be an insulting boast. A statue was dedicated to Mary Dyer in June 1959 and is located outside the Massachusetts State House.

The Case of Wenlock Christison

, was a Quaker who had also repeatedly returned to Massachusetts despite banishment, whose trial in May, 1661 put an end to the execution of Quakers. He was sentenced to death, but the law was changed soon after, and he was not executed. He was the last Quaker to be sentenced to death in Massachusetts. The Quakers believed that during an altercation between the accused and Atherton at the trial, Christison prophesied the outcome of his trial as well as the circumstances of Atherton's untimely death.
Quaker writer George Bishop wrote,
Yea, Wenlock Christison, though they did not put him to death, yet they sentenced him to die, so that their cruel purposes were nevertheless. I cannot forbear to mention what he spoke, being so prophetical, not only as to the judgment of God coming on Major-general Adderton, but as to their putting any more Quakers to death after they had passed sentence on him.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow recreated the Christison trial in his play which included the damnation of Atherton by the accused.

Justice of the peace

Atherton was a "long a justice of the peace, and solemnized many marriages". One of the marriages over which he officiated was that of Myles Standish, Jr. and Sarah Winslow.

Military Career

In 1638 Atherton was a founding member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts and organized the first trained band in Dorchester.
The Artillery Company was a focal point in the colony for people who disagreed with the orthodoxy of the colony's Puritan leaders. Many of its leading members, Leverett among them, opposed the colonial crackdowns on religious dissenters. Its members also engaged in trade. They frequently partnered in trading ventures.. The mixture of military leadership and commercial enterprise would have led to conflicts of interest.

Lieutenant of the Militia

Atherton entered the ranks as a Lieutenant. His responsibilities included subduing and controlling Native Americans; as well as apprehending criminals, such as those accused of heresy.
As a junior officer of the Suffolk Regiment, his many tasks and responsibilities included subduing the Native American population. Ebenezer Clapp, in The History of Dorchester said of Atherton:
He had great experience and skill in the treatment of the Indians, with whom his public duties brought him in frequent contact. He manifested much humanity and sympathy for their ignorant and degraded condition, but exercised great energy and decision of character when necessary.

In 1637 the colonists had sided with the Mohegans in the Pequot War, which wiped out most of the Pequot people. By the early 1640s tensions were building between the Mohegans and the Narragansetts.

From Captain of the Militia to Major

Atherton was promoted to Captain.
In 1644 he was sent, with Captains Johnson and Cook, to Narragansett to arrest and try Samuel Gorton for heresy. It was hoped that Gorton's complaint of his treatment was exaggerated, for he said, in passing through Dorchester. 'A large concourse of persons assembled with several ministers to witness the passage of the troops, and the prisoners were stationed apart and volleys of musketry fired over their heads in token of victory.'

In 1643, Massachusetts Bay Colony sent Atherton as part of a militia force to Shawomett to arrest Samuel Gorton, the founder of Warwick, Rhode Island. Some articles refer to his crime being heresy. However the most likely reason for Gorton’s forced removal was a land dispute. The Indian Sachem Miantonomi had sold Gorton the Shawhomett Purchase for 144 fathoms of wampum, which included the towns of Coventry and West Warwick, Rhode Island. Disputing the purchase were Sachems Sacononoco and Pumham who claimed that Miantonomi had sold their land without asking for their approval. These Sachems took their case to Boston, where they placed their lands under Massachusetts rule.
After a tense standoff, he surrendered to the Massachusetts forces. This event led to the unity of three settlements on Narragansett Bay and seeking a royal charter, thereby allowing them to form the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
Atherton lead the English expedition into Narraganset country in 1644 with the aim of renewing alliances. The English had already defeated the Pequots in the eastern part of Connecticut. Ninigret was the sachem of the Niantic people, a tribe of the Narragansets who fought an English proxy war against the Mohegans lead by Uncas. However Ninigret and his men abandoned their siege.

Atherton, who held the rank of Captain at the time, marched into the wigwam of Ninigret and threatened his Ninigret’s life. This step had the desired effect and the sachem begged for his life, and promised submission.

In 1645, the New England Colonies met by representatives to consult upon the tribal differences and appointed a Council of War; Capt. Miles Standish, of Plymouth, was chairman. John Mason of Connecticut; John Leverett and Atherton of Massachusetts, were the other councilors".
The New England colonies, with the exception of Rhode Island, formed a confederation called "The Four United Colonies of New England". Rhode Island, according to The Proceedings of the Rhode Island Historical Society, 1881–1882, was excluded, not for reasons of religious differences, but because its founder, Roger Williams, had been banished from Massachusetts "for denying the right of the magistrates to take the lands of the Indians with out compensating the owners". The United Colonies obtained Narragansett lands within the boundaries of Rhode Island by putting in motion a series of events that began with their promise of aid to the Mohegan Sachem, Uncas, whom they had supported during the Pequot War, if he declared war against the Narragansett Sachem, Miantinomo. During the ensuing war, Miantinomo was captured and brought to the commissioners of the Four United Colonies at Hartford. "After obtaining him as a captive, they could find no excuse for putting him to death; and, to avoid the responsibility, they referred his case for decision to a convention of ministers in Boston; Winthrop states, 'Miantinomo was killed near Hartford by a blow on the back of his head with a hatchet.' "
and Miantinomo
The Connecticut settlers demanded land from Uncas in return for their assistance to him. "Trumbull states, 'Mr. Leffingwell obtained nearly the whole township of Norwich for his services.'" Miantinomo's successor, Pessicus, declared war against Uncas and the colonies fined him 2000 fathoms of wampum for causing the hostilities, which he was unable to pay."
Humphrey Atherton was sent by the commissioners of the Four Colonies, with twenty armed men, to enforce the payment. As stated in Arnold's history of Rhode Island, 'Atherton forced his way, pistol in hand, into the wigwam, and, seizing the Sachem by the hair, dragged him out, threatening instant death if any resistance was offered.' The debt was settled by Pessicus giving a mortgage of all his lands to the commissioners of the Four Colonies.

He was promoted to Major after the invasion of Warwick.

Elevation to the rank of Major General

After several years; he attained the rank of Major-General, and becoming the Most senior military officer in the colony after replacing Robert Sedgwick.
Atherton was the fifth holder of this rank. His predecessors were Thomas Dudley, John Endicott, Edward Gibbons and Robert Sedgwick.
In 1658, Atherton came into contact with Native Americans again when he was appointed by the General Court to the post of Superintendent of Indian Affairs, overseeing the praying Indians; Nipmuck Indians who had been converted to Christianity by John Eliot. He held that position until his death.
Though a terror to warlike Indians, yet he was the trusted friend of all who were well disposed, helping on their education and Christianizing, and guarding their rights, so that he had immense personal influence with them, and was a successful treaty-maker

Business Enterprises

Atherton was a merchant who traded soap and other items in Dorchester. He was as a wealthy man and had significant influence in the militia as well as in local government and the judiciary.
He owned land in Dorchester, which included a large portion of South Boston. He also owned a share of land in what later would become Milton, Massachusetts. The General Court awarded to him for his public service, but because some of it impeded the town on Hadley, Massachusetts, he was given a new grant that had an additional. Since he had represented Springfield, Massachusetts in the General Court, he probably owned land in Springfield as well. When he died, his estate was worth 900 pounds, not including much of this land.

Land Speculator: The Atherton Purchases

Atherton had been familiar with the Narraganset area since 1644.
The Atherton Trading Company was formed in 1659 ; with Atherton and John Winthrop the Younger, Governor of Connecticut at the helm. This partnership of merchants and investors included Elisha Hutchinson, Richard Smith and Boston traders; John Tinker, Amos Richardson and William Hudson. Their land speculation in the Narraganset area of Rhode Island was at the expense of the Native American inhabitants.
Critics from the Colony of Rhode Island alleged that Atherton had kept one signatory, the Narragansett sachem Pessacus’s s younger brother drunk for several days and took him to Boston in order to secure perceived “rights” to the land at little expense.
John Hull, a Boston goldsmith had been responsible for opening the first mint in Boston 4 years earlier, along with other Boston Merchants acquired a land grant, south of Wickford, known as the Pettaquamscutt Purchase. Atherton’s company obtained a large track of land north of Kingston, 5000 acres of land on Boston Neck, above Wickford. The Commissioners of the New England Confederation were opposed to the dissenters in Rhode Island, appear to have colluded with the Atherton Company by imposing a heavy fine on the Niantic Indians for an infraction by certain members of the tribe.
Atherton played a key role in fighting and removing Indians from land he later owned.

The group circumvented Rhode Island's law by acquiring the land when the Natives defaulted on a loan.
In 1660, commissioners of the Four Colonies, of whom John Winthrop, Jr. was one, transferred ownership of the mortgage of Pessicus's land to the Atherton Trading Company for 735 fathoms of wampum. The company then foreclosed on the mortgage. The land included the Narragansett property within the bounds of Rhode Island. Rhode Island found this transference of land to be illegal and prevented the sale of the land for several years.
The list of proprietors dated Oct 13, 1660 also included Thomas Willett, later to be the first Mayor of New York.
The conflicting purchase claims were settled after Atherton’s death in 1679.
The company, which by then had changed its name to "Proprietors of the Narragansett Country," eventually did sell of the land to Huguenot immigrants who began a colony there called Frenchtown. The Huguenots lost the land when, in 1688, a Royal Commission determined the Atherton claim to be illegal.

Family and Legacy

Atherton married Mary Kennion on March 29, 1625 at Winwick Parish
Joshua Atherton wrote about the origins of his family in the 18th century and said that Humphrey Atherton and his wife were each about 15 years old when they were married.
The last name of his wife is often disputed, with her being referred to as Mary Wales, due to Atherton being named as a brother-in-law to Nathaniel Wales. Confusion arose because of this and the most Plausible reason for him being referred to as a brother in law is because his daughter Isabel married Nathaniel Wales Jnr.
He and his wife, Mary, had 12 children and several New England families have traced their ancestry to them. He is interred at Dorchester North Burying Ground, one of the oldest cemeteries in New England.
Children of Humphrey and Mary Atherton:
His property passed onto his grandson and namesake Humphrey Atherton, the son of Consider Atherton, his second son.
Many U.S. and Canadian families have traced their ancestry to this early settler who is interred at Dorchester North Burying Ground, one of the oldest cemeteries in New England.
Atherton’s descendants number in the thousands today. Some of his notable descendants include;
Those sharing the same last name include:
Direct descent:
On September 16, 1661, Atherton was riding his horse through Boston Common, on his way home after drilling his troops when his mount collided with a cow. He died from head injuries sustained in a fall from his horse.
The death of Atherton, by accident, in 1661, deprived the colony of one of its principal men.
The diary of John Hull described the event
.... he was taken up speechless and senseless, and so continued from six o’clock till one o’clock in the morning, and died. Sept 20. His corpse attended to the grave with ten foot-companies, and the country troop from Boston to Dorchester.

Atherton’s accidental death was seen by the Quakers as a punishment from God for his persecution of them, an idea repeated in a play by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Woodward, aforementioned author of Epitaphs from the Old Burying Ground in Dorchester, said that because of Atherton's persecution of the Quakers:
they believed his horrible death to be God's visitation of wrath

Woodword credits Joseph Besse, a Quaker author, with the following account of Atherton's death:
Humfray Adderton, who at the trial of Wenlock Christison, did, as it were, bid defiance to Heaven, by saying to Wenlock, 'You pronounce Woes and Judgements, and those that are gone before you pronounced Woes and Judgements; but the Judgements of the Lord God are not upon us yet,' was suddenly surprised: having been, on a certain day, exercising his men with much pomp and ostentation, he was returning home in the evening, near the place where they usually loosed the Quakers from the cart, after they had whipped them, his horse, suddenly affrighted, threw him with such violence, that he instantly died; his eyes being dashed out of his head, and his brains coming out of his nose, his tongue hanging out at his mouth, and the blood running out at his ears: Being taken up and brought into the Courthouse, the place where he had been active in sentencing the innocent to death, his blood ran through the floor, exhibiting to the spectators a shocking instance of the Divine vengeance against a daring and hardened persecutor; that made a fearful example of that divine judgment, which, when forewarned of, he had openly despised, and treated with disdain.

Longfellow repeated this sentiment in his account of Atherton's death in the final scene of John Endicott. In the scene Governor Endicott, while speaking to Richard Bellingham, asks if it is true that Humphrey Atherton is dead. Bellingham confirms that he is and adds:
His horse took fright, and threw him to the ground, so that his brains were dashed about the street.
Endicott responds:
I am not superstitious, Bellingham, and yet I tremble lest it may have been a judgment on
him.

Atherton, whose wife, Mary died in 1672. is interred at the Dorchester North Burying Place in Boston. Engraved upon his tombstone are the following words :

Here lies our Captain & Major of Suffolk was withall;
A godly magistrate was he, and Major General;
Two troop horse with him here comes, such worth his love did crave
Two companies of foot also mourning march to his grave,
Let all that read be sure to keep the faith as he has done
With Christ he lives now crowned, his name was Humphrey Atherton.

Winthrop’s journal incorrectly states that Atherton died in 1665. All other records and his gravestone indicate that he died in 1661.