- Katherine Marbury, the younger sibling of the famous Anne Marbury Hutchinson, was born between about 1607-1610 as one of 15 or 20 children of Rev. Francis Marbury and Bridget Dryden Marbury. Not all of the children survived infancy or childhood. Perhaps one of her educated siblings taught Katherine to read and write. Many women could read, but few could write, and Katherine did write.
Katherine married Richard Scott in 1632 in Hertfordshire, about 28 miles northwest of London. In May or June 1634, they set sail with Anne and William Hutchinson on the Griffin, moving their households and children to Boston to follow their minister, Rev. John Cotton, who had emigrated the year before. The Church of England was making life dangerous for dissenters like Cotton.
The Hutchinsons settled in Boston; the Scotts moved first to Ipswich, near Salem, where they would have been exposed to the teachings of Rev. Roger Williams. There, they also would have been well acquainted with Gov. John Endecott and John Winthrop, Jr. When Roger Williams fled to what would become Providence Plantations, Rhode Island, to escape Puritan persecution, the Scotts also moved. Richard wrote the Compact that Providence founders signed. Their house plot backed up to Roger Williams’ property. And they, like other original settlers, had other parcels of farmland, pasture, woods, and marsh nearby, the better to make use of natural resources.
On January 16, 1638, Gov. John Winthrop wrote, “At Providence things grow still worse; for a sister of Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of one Scott, being infected with Anabaptistry, and going last year to live in Providence, Mr. Williams was taken (or rather emboldened) by her to make open profession thereof, and accordingly was rebaptized by one Holyman, a poor man late of Salem.” There is no other evidence that Katharine Scott had, or wished to have, any influence upon Roger Williams. They never agreed, and upon two occasions Roger Williams had her, with other wives of his neighbors, arrested, but he did not carry his suits to a conclusion before the Court.
From 1638 to 1642, when William Hutchinson died and Anne moved away, Katherine and Richard didn’t live far from her older sister. It was 28 miles by land, but it would have been a quick trip by water. Anne, a midwife, would have been welcome assistance as Katherine’s first children were born. Katherine herself may have been a midwife, since it was their mother who trained her daughters to the profession.
In any case, Katherine’s family was growing. She gave birth to nine children, and most survived to adulthood. Two of the girls, Mary Scott Holder, and Patience Scott Beere, are said by Quaker historians to have accompanied Quakers on speaking missions to Boston. Because of their youth, and possibly because of their cousin Edward Hutchinson’s legal influence in Boston, they were confined at the jailer’s home instead of in the prison, until their fees and fines were paid. Both girls, at age 11 and 16, accompanied Mary Dyer on her walks from Providence to Boston, knowing from their own and their mother’s experience that they risked whippings, forced labor, or even death.
Though Katherine Marbury had aristocratic roots, her father was a poor clergyman and teacher, the father of many children, and died when she was a toddler. Katherine would not have brought money to the marriage. That tells us that Richard Scott must have worked hard, bought some indentured servants, and taken some risks that paid off.
Richard may have sailed to England in 1654, and become a Quaker there. Most people think that he became a Quaker Friend, though, in 1656, when the first missionaries sailed to America and the Scotts provided hospitality to them in their home in Providence. Surely there must have been transatlantic correspondence for the Scotts, who were Baptists, to embrace such a change so early. The Scotts are considered to be the first Quaker converts in New England.
Among the first missionaries were Quakers from England and Barbados, and one of them, Christopher Holder, fell in love with the teenage Mary Scott, who was still too young to marry. Holder, John Rous, and John Copeland traveled New England to preach their faith, and to disrupt the Puritan services. When they were beaten nearly to death, or starved in prison and released, they came back to Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, for sanctuary and recuperation.
In June 1658, Katherine Scott wrote a protest letter to John Winthrop, Jr., governor at Hartford, Connecticut, about the Quaker persecution there. Unfortunately, Winthrop was away and didn’t receive her letter for months.
KATHERINE SCOTT TO JOHN WINTHROP, JR.
For the hand of John Winthrop called Governor, at Harvard in New England, there deliver with trust.
Providence, this 17 June 1658
John Winthrop, - Think it not hard to be called so, seeing Jesus, our Savior and Governor, and all that were made honorable by him, that are recorded in Scripture, were called so. I have writ to thee before, but never heard whether they came to thy hand; my last, it may be, may trouble thee, concerning my son; but truly I had not propounded it to thee but to satisfy his mind, and to prevent his going where we did more disaffect; but I hear no more of his mind that way. I hope his mind is taken up with the thing which is the most necessary, and first to seek his kingdom, &c. Therefore let you be burred in silence: but my later request I must revise, and that is only out of true love and pity to thee, that thou mayest be free, and not troubled, as I have heard thy father was, upon his death bed, at the banishment of my dear sister Hutchinson and others. I am sure they have a sad cup to drink, that are drunk with the blood of the saints.
O my friend, as thou lovest the prosperity of thy soul and the good of thy posterity, take heed of having thy hand, or heart, or tongue lifted up against those persons that the wise yet foolish world in scorn calls Quakers: for they are the messengers of the Lord of Hosts, which he hath in his large love and pity sent into these parts, to gather together his outcasts and the distressed of the children of Israel: and they shall accomplish the work, let the rage of men be never so great: take heed of hindering of them, for no weapon formed against them shall prosper. It is given to them not only to believe, but to suffer, &c., but woe to them by whom they suffer.
O my friend, try all things, and weigh it by the balance of the sanctuary: how can you try without hearing of them, for the ear tries words as the mouth tastes meat. I dare not but bear witness against the unjust and cruel laws of my countrymen in this land: for cursed are all they that cometh not out to help the Lord against the mighty; and all that are not with him are against him, &c. Woe be to men that gather and not by the Lord, & cover with a covering, and not with his Holy Spirit: which woe I desire thou mayest escape.
Katherine Scott
But finally in 1658, the Quaker missionaries’ repeated disobedience in Massachusetts Bay Colony was too much for Gov. Endecott. He and the magistrates of the court sentenced the three Quaker men to have their right ears cropped as previously threatened.
The hearts of Boston residents were softening because of the severity of punishment of Quakers, who were other (possibly misguided but not heretical) Christians. They saw their neighbors fined, their stock or crops confiscated, and lives threatened, yet the Quaker numbers grew exponentially.
The court decided to execute judgment on the three Quaker men secretly, inside the prison and away from the public. They wanted to punish the Quakers and banish them without arousing sympathy. The method of ear amputation involved binding the prisoner’s head to a post and then slicing off the ear, or sometimes the prisoner’s head was locked in the pillory and his ears nailed to the board and later sliced off. It was not a common punishment, but three Puritans had been cropped in 1637 by Church of England officials. Perhaps Endecott thought this was a fitting revenge, 21 years later.
Quaker historian George Bishop wrote,
"And Katharine Scott, of the Town of Providence, in the Jurisdiction of Rhode Island (a Mother of many Children, one that had lived with her Husband, of Unblameable Conversation, and a Grave, Sober, Ancient Woman, and of good Breeding, as to the Outward, as Men account) coming to see the Execution of John Copeland, Christopher Holder, and John Rouse, all single young men, their ears cut off the 7th of the 7th month [7 Sept.] 1658, by order of John Endicott, Gov., whose ears you cut off, and saying upon their doing it privately, -- That it was evident they were going to act the Works of Darkness, or else they would have brought them forth Publickly, and have declared their Offence, that others may hear and fear. -- Ye committed her to Prison, and gave her Ten Cruel Stripes with a threefold corded knotted Whip, with that Cruelty in the Exec
mother of many children, well-bred, many Bostonians knew her father
|