Brave New Worlds

The Congregational Church began in 1592, when a few independent thinkers decided to defy Henry VIII and divorce themselves from the Church of England. I've gathered they were a feisty, foolhardy lot, since in those days the only way to successfully form your own church was to get the heck out of England. They tried Holland for a while, but a small band of them eventually chose a piece of southern Massachusetts coastline as their safe haven. They named their earliest settlement Plymouth. We know them now as The Pilgrims.

In 1641, about 20 years after the Mayflower's voyage, Rev. Samuel Newman shepherded a group of Congregationalists from Weymouth, England across the pond to join Plymouth Colony. A couple years later, they headed inland into the wilderness, and purchased about 8 sq miles from Massasoit, the local native chief, in what's now East Providence, RI.

Newman's band named their new settlement Rehoboth, and, of course, they established a church there in 1643. Among Rev. Newman's followers were widow Elizabeth Browne Walker and her 15-yr-old son, Philip---my 7th great grandfather. Philip became an upstanding member of his community, and when he died in 1679, he was buried in a tract of land adjacent to the church.

Tuesday, we walked that historic cemetery, searching for Philip's grave, which Joe located after a diligent search. His grave has two markers-- the original crudely-chiseled one that was unearthed by a plow in the 1870s, and a more elaborate memorial headstone (behind the original in the photo)  that was erected when the old one came to light. Running my hand over that 333-yr-old slab of granite gave me pause, to say the least.
 
We also traipsed among various Bowens and Ides and Kents, looking for the graves of Philip's son Samuel, his grandson Peter, and his great-grandson Moses. (We knew they were all there b/c findagrave.com says they are!) When I came upon Moses, my 4th great g'father, I stood for a moment in front of his headstone and pondered the wonders of the 80 years he lived, from 1726 to 1806. He witnessed and fully supported the Revolution, and his younger brother Lt. Aaron Walker (whose grave lay a few feet away) was a militiaman killed at the Boston Siege in October 1775. That winter, in January of '76, Moses and his wife added a 13th child to their brood and they named the infant after his Uncle Aaron. This younger Aaron-- my 4th grt g'father-- was the first of my line of Walkers to eventually relocate further west. He settled in Iowa and fathered Sarah, who would become my mother's paternal great grandmother.

In their fledgling days as a separatist group in the early 1600s, the Congregationalists were radical thinkers. Their  way of worshiping emphasized the right and responsibility of each properly organized congregation to determine its own affairs, without having to submit these decisions to the judgment of any higher human authority, such as popes and kings. They championed such fringey notions as abolition, women's suffrage, and a strange idea they called "universal salvation." They founded many of our more progressive Northeastern universities and colleges, including Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Middlebury and Amherst. Later, as they drifted into our present-day Midwest, they established Carleton, Grinnel and Oberlin.

I have been aware of these deep roots of mine for only about two years. My mother died in 2006 with no clue of her remarkable heritage. It's one thing to know that "my people" were among the first Europeans to brave this New World--- come hell, high water, or native resistance to their increasing and multiplying. (There are probably several million of us today who claim that distinction.) It's yet another to know that-- not being a church-going sort myself-- the Pilgrims were in many ways "my kind of people." I share with them a love for academic freedom and social justice. And maybe it's thanks to their actually doing something proactive for themselves in the face of some serious religious persecution that I tend to root for the brow-beaten and the underdog today.

Tomorrow Gale and I are hopping the bus to NewYork City! Just for a quick overnight, and dinner with an old college friend of G's. Wish us luck in our first visit to the Big Apple, especially regarding our attempts to navigate the subway system from Penn Station to Brooklyn. Our own brave new world.