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By Sherlene
Hall Bartholomew
One of my husband
Dan’s ancestors came over on the Mayflower, and his are among
those first migrant Separatists who celebrated our nation’s
First Thanksgiving and who, in turn, are honored by us each November.
Too forgotten
are those of another class that includes my ancestors--those the
settlers brought over later to run their iron mills and other business
on the Sabbath, so the more godly “Puritans,” as we
have come to call them, could attend church.
I still remember
that day in an earlier Thanksgiving season when I visited the Historical
Library and Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts, only to find that
the place was overrun with visitors to their holiday fair. Among
delightful, traditional commodities for sale, I found stacks of
red-covered books about the early settlers of Springfield. I saw
that they were selling like hotcakes, so I bought one, too, and
browsed through the index, hoping to find mention of my people.
Sure enough,
there was Nicholas Pinion, on page twenty-eight! I dropped my jaw,
along with all my bags, as I stood, transfixed, reading that my
Nicholas, an early ironworker, was hauled into court for brawling,
swearing, and “beating his wife.” As if that weren’t
enough, this book also said he was also “presented for killing
five children, and his wife says, one of them being a year old.”
Editors Michael
F. Konig and Martin Kaufman used Nicholas as an example of those
“unruly Elizabethan laborers” whose “civilities”
the early promoters of local business “viewed as questionable,”
but whom the Puritans were “confident they could reform, or
at least control.” These writers divided the early Springfield
settlers into two classes, the “Distinguished” and the
“Obscure,” and they did not make at all obscure their
assignment into one of these categories of my people!
I could have
taken all this with a little more grace had I not, upon leaving
the fair, been confronted by the lordly statue of one of the more
“distinguished” of Springfield’s earliest settlers—none
other than my man Dan’s ancestor Deacon Samuel Chapin. No
doubt the Deacon was one of those magnanimous leaders described
on page twenty-nine, who tolerated the “distempers”
of my ancestor and “similar ‘disorderly’ workmen
who were, it seems, eventually cured.” The book quotes foremost
historian of the New England ironworks, E. N. Hartley, for pointing
out that ‘the ironworkers and their children settled down
mainly as farmers, joining the church, sharing in the distribution
of lands, and coming, in general, strongly to resemble the regular
inhabitants for whom they had once been trial and tribulation.”
With somewhat
shaken drive, I did return to the court records, hoping to learn
more. Yes, Nicholas was there for a host of evils, including fighting
with his wife so as to cause her to suffer a miscarriage (and keeping
the neighbors awake with all the ruckus), being absent from meeting
four Sabbaths, and for spending his time in drinking and ‘common’
swearing. In fact his swearing got so bad, he was hauled into court
for it when neighbor Quinten Pray testified that while “meeting
with s. Pinion last Lord’s day coming out of the corn, he
heard sd Pinion swear, by ___, all his pumpkins were turned into
squashes, by ___’s blood, he had but one pumpkin out of it.”
Court records
I found had more to say about this family of mine. Nicholas’
son Thomas, also my ancestor, was hauled into court for getting
drunk. There was brawling, womanizing, and vandalizing of homes
and liquor cabinets of their Puritan magistrates—and while
they were in church, no less! I read court testimony by Nicholas’
daughters, who told how their masters at the mill solicited “favors”
before dispensing gloves and other commodities from the company
store—items these young women testified were dearly gained,
so their old mother Elizabeth would not freeze that winter.
[I have since
found a fascinating book, Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered
Power and the Founding of American Society (Knopf, 1996), by
Cornell’s Prof. Mary Beth Norton, in which she devotes eleven
pages to the Pinion family, concluding: "If anyone had held
a 'most dysfunctional family' contest in seventeenth-century New
England, the clan headed by Nicholas Pinion, an iron worker, would
have won easily. Pinion family members were prosecuted 26 times
over two generations, for offenses ranging from profanity to gossip,
theft, absence from church and infanticide. Especially egregious,
in the colonists' eyes, was Pinion's inability to control his wife.”]
All this did
not particularly strengthen my tight hold on a promise in my Patriarchal
Blessing that I come from noble stock. Before I could gulp twice
over these old court records, I got some instruction that I soon
knew flowed from a higher source. A feeling came over me that warmed
chilled notions about these, my people. Motions of love, joy, and
peace softened my heart, as the Spirit taught me of God’s
love for Nicholas Pinion and all his family. I cried, as I began
to understand the magnitude of Christ’s atonement and His
mercy for those who struggle in darkness, not comprehending the
light and freedom in His law. I also felt chastised for my pride--that
I should even think to judge this eighth great-grandfather
of mine who forged a life for me that is so much better than anything
he might have dared dream for himself.
Humbled, I fired
off a letter to the Springfield Historical Museum, highlighting
the accomplishments of some of Nicholas’ descendants, suggesting
that they tell the editors of their book that, along with all due
honor to the early members of the “distinguished class,”
there for sure ought to be a monument to those “obscure”
souls they imported to do their dirty work. I made a case that these
laborers did as much or more than their colonial magistrates to
build this nation and deserve our respect.
(Hmmm. Do you
suppose the new governor of Massachusetts might take initiative
to so remember the working class? I can see it now—a statue
of my unbecoming Nicholas Pinion that rivals one so glorious as
that of Deacon Chapin—but perhaps in Lynn, Sudbury, or New
Haven, where Nicholas made sure we’d find him and all his
family in their records. Better yet, when Governor Romney restores
fiscal solvency, Massachusetts libraries and archives might be open
more than a few hours a week, and the roads might even be plowed,
so we can get to them!)
I, who previous
to this experience had nothing but disdain for the scenery, fumes,
and on-location atmosphere that Geneva Steel long brought to Utah,
developed sudden tolerance, even there. (I can see it now: Geneva’s
Joe Cannon commissions a statue to early colonist mill workers,
as did the railroad magnate who built Samuel Chapin’s.)
On a more serious
note, as important to the salvation of my own soul, it occurred
to me on that memorable day, as I got instruction while pouring
over those court records, that if God so loved Nicholas Pinion,
was it not possible that He also loves me more than I understood
before? As one who keeps lists of ways I need to improve, sometimes
the goal to become more Christ-like got lost among the weeds in
my garden and the empty pages of my daily journal. It took Nicholas
Pinion to teach me something about the power of our Lord’s
grace. I walked away from those court records with a more grateful
and hopeful attitude about a lot of things.
Only yesterday,
in the course of writing this column, I contacted Dr. Mary Beth
Norton on the phone and found out even more that I didn’t
want to know about my Pinions (she searched original manuscripts
not open to the public for thirteen years, so knows what she is
talking about). In the course of our long conversation, this engaging
scholar told me about a cousin descendant, Malcolm Pinion, who also
contacted Professor Norton, after reading her book. This morning
I already got a response from him to my e-letter, asking him if
we cousins could share notes about our ancestors:
“Believe
it or not, I am a Southern Baptist pastor in the heart of conservatism.
My family, too, is somewhat sedate as compared to Nicholas. I have
even read from the pulpit Dr. Norton’s assessment that our
Pinions were the most dysfunctional family in America, as an illustration
that God can still work miracles! I hope we can pick up more correspondence
in the future. At the moment I am preparing to travel to Memphis
for a seminar as I finish work on my doctorate.”
There’s
much for which we can be grateful, as we gather our families at
this season of thanksgiving. Whether or not we have colonial American
background, we can honor those who taught us how to be brave and
free, as they forged a path to the comparative opportunity and prosperity
we so enjoy. I, with many of you, am going to give special thanks,
as I do each day, for rich abundance, gleaned while searching for
and learning from my kin.
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