Talk:Simon Bradstreet/Archives/2015

deputy and assistant governors

Wikipedia is very weak on the make-up of the colonial government of Massachusetts. I supposed we are all weak on this subject. But here is a brief primer. In the early days there were commonmen and freemen. The freemen had paid or repaid money owed for their passage to New England. They owned land and were members of the church. As landowners they had a say in goverment. When the colony was small all the freemen got together several times per year to convict witches and Quakers and to divide up Indian land. But as the colony grew there was a need for a representative government. So freemen selected selectmen at town meetings and the selectmen selected deputies (the upper house) and assistants (the lower house) the the General Court. There were many more assistants than there were deputies. The assistants had the most power. They selected the governor from among their ranks and they served as the judiciary, which means they could continue convicting women of witchcraft and ordering Quakers to be hanged or beaten. Having said all that, I am changing the part of this article where it says that the assistants were the upper house of the General Court to say that it was the lower house. --Ishtar456 (talk) 03:02, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Due to the general weakness of info on the subject of the early colonial government of Massachusetts,I made have erred in my earlier statement that the assistants were the lower house. I am correcting my earlier correction as a conflicting source says the court of assistants was the upper house. I wish I could find a good source on this subject.--Ishtar456 (talk) 15:01, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Bradstreet house and portraits

I have uploaded an image of a Simon Bradstreet house; I believe this residence to be in Salem. [1]. I was a bit pushed for time, but I also uploaded these two portraits, which both look to be an improvement over the current one, and only need a bit of fiddling with. One also includes Bradstreet's signature: [2] [3] MarmadukePercy (talk) 09:51, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Nice work, the portraits are a definite improvement. I find it odd, though, that the mansion picture is in none of the Google Book editions of Lossing (who NYPL credit with it) that I looked at. I did find it used here, though. Magic♪piano 13:54, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Cambridge

I looked at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and noticed that it doesn't (unless I'm misreading) square with your account. This is what it says about Bradstreet's connections with Emmanuel:

The Revd Bradstreet had been one of the overseers of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Simon remained at grammar school until the age of fourteen, at which time he was taken into the family of Theophilus Clinton, fourth earl of Lincoln. Eight or nine years later Dr John Preston persuaded Lord Lincoln to allow Simon to go to Emmanuel and serve as a tutor to Lord Rich. When Rich failed to arrive, according to Cotton Mather, Bradstreet returned briefly to the household of the earl of Lincoln, and then became steward to the dowager countess of Warwick.

(Francis J. Bremer, "Bradstreet, Simon (bap. 1604, d. 1697)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37215)

I know nothing at all about the subject, and have no views one way or the other, but I thought I'd bring this to your attention.

Incidentally, you write both "accommodationist" and "accomodationist" in the article. I imagine the former is correct, but I didn't dare assume and change the other. It's an excellent article, may I say, and (hush!) rather better than the ODNB one, me judice. I don't much like doing GA judgments, but will take this one on (a fairly easy task) if you don't get another reviewer coming forward in the next week or so. Do let me know if my services are needed. Tim riley (talk) 13:03, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. As far as I can recall, other sources place the Preston/Rich (Lord Rich was Warwick's son) episode during Bradstreet's first (and only, at least as alleged by Anderson) stay at Emmanuel, which is where I've placed it. This may be slightly problematic given their ages (he was 16 at entry to Emmanuel, and Rich would have been 9 in 1620), but I don't know at what age it was then typical for students to start there. Bremer has written widely on the Puritans, so it is possible that some of the older sources have their timing wrong, and the genealogists aren't looking in the right places. I'll have to poke at this. (Anderson, in disputing the second stint at Emmanuel, IIRC thinks the timing just can't work.)

I often get "accommodationist" wrong; it's been corrected by gnomes often enough in other articles. Magic♪piano 13:40, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Most sources that discuss Bradstreet, especially those from the 19th century (but also include the above ODNB quote), seem to follow Cotton Mather link. There is a reading of Mather that is consistent with Bradstreet's attendance at Emmanuel in 1623-4 that I think Anderson may not have seen. Mather essentially has a gap of two years between Simon Sr.'s death and Simon Jr.'s start of service with Dudley. This would correspond to the Simon Jr.'s first attendance at Emmanuel. John Preston became master at Emmanuel in 1622 (per WP/DNB). It is consistent for him to seek a tutor/sizar for the 12-year-old Rich in 1623, which would correspond to Simon's second term (which ends with M.A. in 1624 according to Venn, and corresponds with Dudley's departure from Lincoln's service in 1624, bringing Simon back to Lincoln). It of course implies that Simon was then absent from Lincoln's service, something not stated (or denied) in sources, and contrary to implications that his service was continuous.

The question is, can I source and phrase this all without drifting into original research? Magic♪piano 15:23, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Point taken. I'd address this by saying that most sources suggest x though y suggests an alternative. If you're reasonably confident that x or y is overwhelmingly probable you could reasonably consign the other narrative to a footnote. Just a thought, and sorry if I'm over-complicating things. Tim riley (talk) 18:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Not a problem, sometimes interesting little facts pop out of these sorts of things. I had never looked closely at the sources on this point, just noted the apparent conflict. I've rephrased it; it's a little awkward, but I think I've avoided the OR trap. Magic♪piano 01:27, 30 March 2011 (UTC)