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ChaPter one The Years before the Diary, 1673–1688 to paraphrase John Milton, as morning shows the day, so childhood shows the woman. While few facts are available regarding Mehetabel Chandler Coit’s early years, it is clear from her later writings that the events and circumstances of her childhood and adolescence played a major role in the formation of her identity. her family life, social environment, physical location , and educational and religious grounding each contributed to the shaping of her personality in meaningful and lasting ways. even though she spent the greater part of her life in surroundings far removed from her birthplace—and amid social and political conditions varying markedly from those of her youth—Mehetabel Chandler Coit remained, to some extent, a product of her early background. any insight into her character, then, must begin with her own beginnings, and with an understanding of the factors that not only gave direction to her future but influenced the experiences of her entire generation. The setting of Mehetabel’s childhood and early adolescence was the town of roxbury in the Massachusetts bay Colony, where she was born on august 24, 1673. Situated approximately three miles south of boston, roxbury was considered a strategic outpost because it guarded the only road into boston, a thin strip of land known as boston neck. Settled in 1630, roxbury soon became known as a “fair and handsome country town,” and one commentator could term its inhabitants “very rich” for possessing “fair houses, store of cattle , . . . and fruitful gardens.” by the time of Mehetabel’s birth, the town was considered one of the wealthiest in new england. The Chandlers and many of their neighbors supported themselves primarily by farming; members 1 Chapter One 2 of some of the more elite families in town, such as the dudleys (the poet anne bradstreet’s family of birth), held positions of authority in the colonial government from the beginning.1 Since ancestry and family history were so important to Mehetabel—and to her society in general—her family’s origins in new england provide a vital framework for her story. Mehetabel’s parents, John and elizabeth douglas Chandler, were both children of english immigrants who had come to the new World during the Great Migration of 1630–1642, during which roughly twenty thousand religious nonconformists, known as Puritans for their desire to purify the Church of england, had settled in new england. John Chandler had been about three when his parents, William, a yeoman and “pointer of laces,” and annis bayford Chandler, emigrated in 1637 with their other three children: nine-year-old Thomas, eight-year-old hannah, and one-yearold William. a fifth child, Sarah, was born in roxbury the year after their arrival. The Chandlers hailed from bishop’s Stortford, hertfordshire, a market town northeast of London, and William and annis most likely chose to settle in roxbury because many of its residents had ties to their hometown. another draw may have been roxbury’s minister, the reverend John eliot, who was originally from a neighboring parish in england.2 roxbury was a largely Puritan settlement, founded by people who held to the Calvinist concept that some people were preordained for eternal salvation , while others were destined for hell. Central to their convictions was a belief in the importance of faith, of reading the bible, of living an upright life, and of undergoing a personal conversion experience—the revelation of having received God’s grace and thus salvation—which was required for official church membership. The Puritans, who were also known as Congregationalists because individual congregations held the power to select their leaders and determine how their churches would be run, regarded themselves as God’s chosen people and america as a potential new Jerusalem. William and annis Chandler both became members of roxbury’s Puritan church, and by 1640 William had acquired twenty-two acres of land and was considered a “freeman,” someone who held full political rights. he did not have a chance to prosper in roxbury, however, for he soon became ill with a “consumption” that ultimately killed him at the age of forty-seven in early 1642. despite having spent only a few years in town, William had apparently made a positive impression on the community, for reverend eliot remarked in the church records that he had “lived a very religious & Godly life,” leaving “a sweet memory & savor behind him.”3 [18.117.216.229] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 04:59 GMT...

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