Wait, Still: Faith, Fire, and the Price of Freedom
From the Mayflower to a burning frontier town, this is the story of my 7th great grandmother — and what her name still means today.
Her name was not one but two commands, and her birthdate took my breath away. She is the link between three different generations of women, all different religious denominations, and she helps shed a light on what is happening today.
Disgusted with the Church of England’s corruption, vestiges of the Catholic papacy, and intrusion into their beliefs, radical Protestant separatists were forced to leave England for Holland under threat of sedition charges. They weren’t wealthy but they were rich with their faith. For a while they were safe in their adopted town of Leiden, however, after a treaty between Holland and England, they once again felt threatened, and decided to embark on a voyage to a new land.
Two ships were to sail to the new world, but one was not seaworthy. Another 20 people from that ship crowded onto the Mayflower, which was a mix of devout believers, crew and “others.” John Alden was part of the crew and a skilled barrel maker. The Mullins family were believers – and filled with hope.
Later, William Bradford, Governor of the Plymouth Bay Colony, wrote in Of Plymouth Plantation, that their departure from Leiden was like the children of Israel leaving Egypt — leaving a place of bondage, crossing waters, heading toward a promised land they could not yet see.
When the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth in late fall of 1620, the situation was anything but hopeful. While there was only one fatality in transit, they weren’t prepared for the harshness of a New England winter. They had consumed nearly all their provisions. Weakened by hunger, Priscilla Mullins lost her mother, father, and younger brother. By Spring, nearly half of the 102 settlers succumbed to death.
And there would have been more, if it weren’t for the kindness of the Wampanoag tribe led by its great sachem, Massasoit. A peaceful leader, he shared food, taught them to plant, and believed coexistence was possible.
And it was reciprocated. There is evidence of genuine fondness between Massasoit and the leaders of the Plymouth Bay colonists led by Bradford, Edward Winslow and Miles Standish.
When the great sachem was gravely ill, Winslow nursed him back to health. Massasoit was grateful:
“the English are my friends and love me ... whilst I live I will never forget this kindness they have showed me.”
When he learned of a pending attack by warriors from the Massachusetts tribe, Massasoit warned the Plymouth Colony settlers in time.
Through Massasoit’s generosity and their own tenacity, my ninth great grandparents, John Alden and Priscilla Mullins Alden survived. They married and had 10 children, with their third son Joseph being an ascendent.
The next large voyage from England was in 1630 when 700 new settlers landed to create a Christian city. But these weren’t Pilgrims – they were Puritans, looking to purify the Church of England from of any remnants of the papacy. They viewed the Pilgrims as reckless and unmoored. With such a large contingency, they established a foothold in what is now Boston, they formed the Massachusetts Bay Company.
They were far wealthier and didn’t believe in a centralized faith structure which the Church of England (and Catholic Church) demanded. As such, they believed strongly in literacy so everyone could read the bible and established America’s first public school system.
In 1647, a law required towns of 50 families to establish schools – for free as part of a civic obligation.
While there were many benefits from the treaties forged between Massasoit and the Pilgrims, they didn’t feel any need to adhere to them. They pushed west into indigenous areas until settling in Lancaster, which was authorized and governed under the same Puritan charter. The town was incorporated in 1653, and run as a theocracy; the civic and the church being one. Any member of the town, was a member of the church.
One of those who signed the covenant was Roger Sumner, who established the first Church of Lancaster. Roger and his wife Mary (Joslin) lived adjacent to her family’s land. On Dec 10, 1661, a baby girl was born.
A convention at the time was to compress pieces of scripture to create a virtue name. Perhaps inspired by Psalm 37:7 1
“Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him.”
And Psalm 46:10
“Be still and know that I am God”
They named my seventh great grandmother, Waitstill.
Was he foreshadowing patience under injustice and stillness in catastrophe? And for whom was he foreshadowing?
There is a footnote in the Geneva bible:
“He warneth them that persecute the Church, to cease their cruelty: for else they shall feel that God is too strong for them against whom they fight.”
Who is the warning to? Is this a backward stab at the Anglicans who had driven them from England?
After 40 years of peace, the Wampanoag endured devastating consequences from their alliances with the English. They saw their lands confiscated, agreements broken, English sovereignty imposed. After Massasoit’s death, the eldest son was captured by the English, and died. His second son, Metacom, vowed revenge for his brother’s death.
Metacom, who had been given the English name, Philip, voiced his grievance to the Governor of Rhode Island, stating that a half century of English cheating, discrimination, and pressures to sell land, submit to Plymouth colony’s authority, convert to Christianity, and consume alcohol had brought them to the brink of war.
One generation’s kindness was followed by another generation’s betrayal. Not surprisingly, the tribe was angry.
Another tribe impacted by English settlers was the Nashaway. From all accounts they coexisted peacefully with the settlers even as roads were built through the territory. In a report about the indigenous people, with what I perceive as both a tinge of guilt and rationalization, General Daniel Gookin wrote;2
“These have been a great people in former times but of late years have been consumed by the Maquas wars and other ways; and are not above fifteen or sixteen families.”
At their peak, the Nashaways numbered in the thousands. The 1633 smallpox epidemic alone killed hundreds. By 1674 the number that remained was 60-80 people total.
The town of Lancaster was the home of 50 families. Garrisons ringed the town to offer protections from raids. Waitstill’s cousin Abraham, a military man, was there to protect the town. His wife Ann and toddler Beatrice were there as well.
On the morning of February 10, 1676, more than 400 warriors: Narragansett, Wampanoag, and Nipmuc, in addition to the few remaining Nashaways, attacked. They were unmerciful – bludgeoning victims, crushing their skulls, and burning everything in their paths. A minister’s wife, Mary Rowlandson, and her six year-old daughter were both wounded. Captured, and forced to walk for miles without food except berries and raw, slain animals, Mary carried Sarah for almost two weeks until the child succumbed in her arms.
Mary was freed after three months in captivity and wrote bitterly about the experience.
“I have seen the extreme vanity of this World: One hour I have been in health, and wealth, wanting nothing: But the next hour in sickness and wounds, and death, having nothing but sorrow and affliction.”3
She referred to her tormentors as “those black creatures in the night,” “heathens,” demons.”
Waitstill’s cousin Abraham was killed – and his wife and child kidnapped. Like Mary, they were marched west through the wilderness to evade the colonial militias. Unable to keep up, Ann and Beatrice succumbed. Another cousin was saved by friendly indigenous.
What wasn’t burned was abandoned. Lancaster was gone.
The Sumner family is not listed in the many books and memoirs as being among the captured or killed.4 Still, with the destruction of the entire town confirmed, they too lost everything. Did Roger have an inkling about the raid, and move his family from Lancaster out of caution?
Prior to living in Lancaster, Roger was the deacon of a Church in his parents adopted hometown of Dorchester. He married Mary Joslyn, and their first two children were born there. When Mary’s father, Thomas Joslyn, died in 1660, Mary and her siblings were each willed portions of land. Having an opportunity to start a new church, and homestead, the Sumners moved to Lancaster.
Roger took an active role – signing the town covenant, becoming a road commissioner, being an elected official – and Deacon of the First Church of Lancaster. In essence, Roger was at the center of the town’s civic, religious, and administrative life. Deacon, arbitrator, road commissioner, covenant signer.
Where then was he when the town was in peril?
While it is possible that he heard rumors of attacks and decided to leave fortuitously, I think there might be another explanation. Records show that Roger’s mother died in June of 1676. Perhaps he took his family, now numbering 7 children, to Dorchester just prior to the raid, to visit his ailing mother.
Indeed, an eighth child, a son, Ebenezer, was born there in 1678.
Ebenezer means “stone of help” in Hebrew.
From 1 Samuel 7:12 — after the Israelites defeated the Philistines, Samuel took a stone and set it up saying:
“Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.”
Was this his way of thanking the Lord for his intercession?
Waitstill was Roger and Mary’s first child born in Lancaster. They gave her a name that means both patience and wait for the Lord to help. It seemed prescient. She was 14 when Indians raided her town – and somehow, she and her family were safe.
Called to her faith, she married another deacon, Manassah Tucker, and raised 9 children, including a daughter named Waitstill and a son named Ebenezer. Her youngest was Benjamin, a Hebrew name meaning “son of my right hand.” He is my 6th great grandfather and he had a son by the same name. Benjamin Jr. was 10 when his grandmother died.
Benjamin Tucker’s son, Woodward, married Lucy Durkee – who at the age of 14, ran into the woods alongside her mother to survive an Indian raid. A raid by the Abenaki that was orchestrated by the British in a desperate attempt to maintain power over subjects who no longer had any allegiance to them.
What do I make of all this?
I couldn’t ignore the coincidences: two 14-year-olds, a century apart, survived Indian raids and the burning of their towns; and Waitstill, such a unique name, sharing a birth date with my Mom. December 10th also marks the death of Mom’s father, and her sister Ann. All of them Irish Catholic.
The type of people my ancestors might have wanted purged.
It’s human nature to want to see villains and heroes. But I can’t. They are my blood; a chain of humans of different faiths who, in their desire for religious freedom and agency, sometimes impinged on the rights of others.
It’s a story that rhymes with today.
“God has yet more light and truth to break forth from his holy word.”
I write every Friday about lost moments in history and the small human truths that stitch us together — I’d love to have you along.
The Other Raid …
It boggles my mind how people survived through these times. A little over a year ago I wrote about burning of Royalton, VT, and how my 5th and 4th great grandmothers, survived.
Raid of Royalton, VT: Lucy Anna Durkee
I feel like I have started several of these essays with “the news is grim.” Most everyone I know starts their day with a cringy-peek at yesterday’s events – to quickly j…
What I Read
Six years after her ordeal, Mary Rowlandson wrote “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.” Her account of her captivity and treatment is a visceral encapsulation of her pain, anger, and sorrow. Notably, it lacked fear. It was written in disgust. The manuscript is roughly 80 pages and is available on the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg.
Final Thoughts
Today’s essay came about because while driving back from Buffalo, my laptop tethered to my phone, I was digging through family records — the Tucker line, and found a name – Waitstill – and her birthdate, Dec. 10th. They stopped me in my tracks and made me dig deeper. I hope you enjoyed it.
Have you ever found an ancestor whose name carried a meaning you only understood much later? Or discovered a date that keeps returning in your family like a tide? Tell us in the comments!
Looking for the light, always,
xoxo, Diane
Geneva Bible of 1599
Many of the facts and quotations from folks The early records of Lancaster, Massachusetts. 1643-1725
Fascinating to contemplate these two experiences of fourteen year old girls a century apart. I remembered that John Alden had approached Priscilla on behalf of Miles Standish, who was too modest to come courting himself. Priscilla preferred John to Miles. Longfellow wrote a poem The Courtship of Miles Standish about John Alden and Priscilla Mullins.
I liked the surging rythm you used to pace the story telling. Kind of a rush ahead, then slow, rush ahead then slow. It works very well for a story spanning centuries. And the name Wait Still is too perfect!