Nicholas Upsall
Encyclopedia
Nicholas Upsall was an early Puritan
immigrant to the American Colonies, among the first 108 Freemen
in colonial America. He was a trusted public servant who after 26 years as a Puritan, befriended persecuted Quakers
and shortly afterwards joined the movement. He was banished from Massachusetts at 60 years of age and helped to found the first Monthly Meeting
of Friends in the United States at Sandwich, Massachusetts
.
in 1620, until 1629, only about 300 Puritans had survived in New England, scattered in small and isolated settlements. In 1630, their population was significantly increased when the ship Mary and John arrived in New England carrying 140 passengers from the English West Country counties of Dorset
, Somerset
, Devon
and Cornwall
. These included Nicholas Upsall, Roger Ludlow
e, John Mason, Samuel Maverick
, William Phelps
, Henry Wolcott and other men who would become prominent in the founding of a new nation.
It was the first of the ships later called the Winthrop Fleet
to land in Massachusetts. Nicholas married Dorothy Capen (1611–1675). They had fours daughters: Amasa, born December 1635; a daughter Elizabeth born December 1637 who married William Greenough on July 4, 1651; a daughter Susannah born July 12, 1639 who married Joseph Cooke on November 10, 1659; and Experience born January 19, 1640 who died August 2, 1659.
at the first General Court held in the Colonies on October 19, 1630 and took the Oath of Freemen among 108 others on May 18, 1631. Upsall was an upstanding Puritan and citizen for more than a quarter of a century. He was among the first to become a Freemen, possessing full citizenship as a result, and gained public trust, respect and esteem. He later found that his prior role in the community did not protect him against religious persecution.
Upsall was granted land in Dorchester in 1633 and became its first bailiff and ratter in 1634. "It is ordered by the town of Dorchester," April 17, 1635, "that Nicholas Upsall and Matthew Grant shall p'ceed in the measuring of the great lotts as they have begun."
Upsall was licensed as an innkeeper from 1636-1638. "It is ordered," according to the town records of June 27, 1636, "that Nicholas Upsall shall keep a house of entertainment for strangers." He was selectman in 1638 and 1642. In 1637 he was a member of the jury of Life and Death, as it was called, to distinguish it from the grand jury.
Upsall apparently maintained an independent mind on political and religious matters, and was seen as man of "sober, and of unblameable conversation." His stature in the community is also evidenced in a letter from Roger Williams
to John Winthrop
, dated Providence, April 16, 1638. Williams requested Winthrop to send his reply to Upsall in Dorchester, "because it is not safe for his messenger to wait for the answer." This was three years after Williams's banishment.
The same year Upsall became an original and the twenty-third charter member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston
, the oldest military company in America, which serves today as Honor Guard to the Governor of Massachusetts who is also its Commander in Chief.
In 1644 Upsall and his family moved to Boston, and with his wife Dorothy was admitted to the church there on May 28. He was already a large property holder there, for in 1637 "he owned the land from the north-east side of Richmond Street and from Hanover Street to the sea." He was also an inn-keeper of the Red Lyon Inn on the northeast corner of North and Richmond Streets.
became the first known Quakers to set foot in the New World. They journeyed from England to Barbados
and eventually arrived at the Massachusetts Bay Colony
. Their goal was to spread the beliefs of the Friends among the colonists.
In Puritan
-run Massachusetts, which was extremely antagonistic towards dissenting viewpoints, the women were harshly persecuted. They were imprisoned, stripped to the waist and publicly whipped, and their books and materials were burned. The magistrates were set on starving the women and burying them. An unknown individual, likely Upsall, offered to pay their fine if he could be allowed to speak with them. The magistrates, having boarded up their jail window to isolate them, refused. Upsall, "touched with compassion," gave their guard five shillings a week to permit him to bring food to the women. The women were deported back to Barbados after five weeks, having been unable to share their faith with anyone except perhaps Upsall.
Upsall's act of kindness apparently escaped detection. But his contact with the women and their steadfast faith apparently moved him. On October 14, 1656, the Magistrates caused that a law prohibiting any citizen from aiding the Quakers was read in public. The act was apparently read before the door of his inn, and he is recorded as having raised his voice in protest. He later wrote, "...that he did look at it as a sad fore-runner of some heavy judgment to fall on the country." On the following morning he was called before the Court and charged with having expressed his disapprobation of the law against Quakers.
A fine of twenty pounds was exacted from him, Governor Endecott
saying, "I will not bate him [i.e., reduce his fine] one Groat." He was besides banished to depart in thirty days, including four in prison, and was fined three pounds more for not attending worship after banishment. At 60 years of age, Upsall abandoned the Puritan Church, giving up the rights and privileges accorded to him as a Freeman, and joined the Friends. He was banished as a result and took refuge during the winter of 1656 in Sandwich, Massachusetts
. There he helped to found the first Monthly Meeting
of Friends in the United States. It began meeting in 1657 at the home of William and Priscilla Allen. Other founding Quakers included Richard Kerbey, Elizabeth Newland, and Stephen and Daniel Wing.
He made friends among the Indians, and one of the chiefs called him "friend," and offered to build him a comfortable house, if he could accept his hospitality. The chief commented about Upsall's persecutors: "What a God have the English who deal so with one another over the worship of their God."
On October 19, 1658, the Puritans passed a law stating that any Quaker who refused banishment would face "pain of death." Upsall eventually left Sandwich for Rhode Island, though he returned to Boston after three years, when he was imprisoned for two years.
When Quakers Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson
were executed, their bodies were dumped in into a pit dug nearby without a marker. Upsall, from his prison, asked to be permitted to build a fence around their burial site, but his request was denied. From prison, he still attracted people to his beliefs, and he was then sent to the Castle in Boston harbor for another year. During 1660-1664, "twenty-two [individuals] had been banished on pain of death, three martyred, three had their right ear cut off, one had been burned in the hand with a letter H, three had been ordered by the court to be sent to Barbadoes as slaves, thirty-one persons had received six hundred and fifty stripes administered with extreme cruelty, £1044 of property had been taken from them, and another was martyred in 1661.
His wife petitioned twice on his behalf, and when King Charles II ordered Governor Endecott to release all Quakers, Upsall along with many others was finally released. The court record recounts, "Nicholas Vpshall being formerly sentenced to perpetual Imprisonment, & obteyning a Reprivall, hath greatly abused their lenity, do therefore Order him to be Confined again to ye house of John Capen." "Reprivall" [i.e., a "reprieve"] still meant banishment, and his transfer to his brother-in-law John Capen's home stipulated that he may remain free, "provided he does not corrupt any with his pernicious opinions," or does not teach "the diabolical doctrines and horrid tenets of the cursed sect of Quakers." He died there in August 1666 and was buried in Copp's Hill Burying Ground.
Historians believe the furniture he bequeathed to the Friends were in the Red Lyon Inn, which he owned at the time of his death.
In 1694, Edward Shippen
, the first mayor of Philadelphia under the city charter, gave a piece of land for a Friends Meeting House. On Brattle Street, near the site of the Quincy House
, the Friends recorded that the "money from Nicholas Upsall's Chamber to go towards it." The records of the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England, dated April 7, 1694, contain the following:
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
immigrant to the American Colonies, among the first 108 Freemen
Freeman (Colonial)
Freeman is a term which originated in 12th century Europe and is common as an English or American Colonial expression in Puritan times. In the Bay Colony, a man had to be a member of the Church to be a freeman. In Colonial Plymouth, a man did not need to be a member of the Church, but he had to be...
in colonial America. He was a trusted public servant who after 26 years as a Puritan, befriended persecuted Quakers
Quakers in North America
Quakers in North America constitute approximately 30% of Quakers worldwide, according to the online Quaker Information Center. There are about 107,000 individual Quakers and about 44 Friends Yearly Meetings in North America....
and shortly afterwards joined the movement. He was banished from Massachusetts at 60 years of age and helped to found the first Monthly Meeting
Monthly meeting
Monthly Meetings are, traditionally, the basic unit of administration in the Religious Society of Friends .For some Friends a Monthly Meeting is a single Meeting , while for others it is a grouping of Meetings which come together for administrative purposes. Membership in the Religious Society of...
of Friends in the United States at Sandwich, Massachusetts
Sandwich, Massachusetts
Sandwich is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 20,675 at the 2010 census. The Town Hall is located right next to the Dexter Grist Mill, in the historic district of town....
.
Arrival in the colonies
From their first arrival aboard the MayflowerMayflower
The Mayflower was the ship that transported the English Separatists, better known as the Pilgrims, from a site near the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, , in 1620...
in 1620, until 1629, only about 300 Puritans had survived in New England, scattered in small and isolated settlements. In 1630, their population was significantly increased when the ship Mary and John arrived in New England carrying 140 passengers from the English West Country counties of Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
and Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
. These included Nicholas Upsall, Roger Ludlow
Roger Ludlow
Roger Ludlow was one of the founders of the Colony of Connecticut. He was born in March 1590 in Dinton, Wiltshire, England. Roger was the second son of Sir Thomas Ludlow of Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire and Jane Pyle, sister of Sir Gabriel Pyle...
e, John Mason, Samuel Maverick
Samuel Maverick (colonist)
Samuel Maverick was a 17th century English colonist in what is now 'Massachusetts,' the United States. Arriving ahead of the famed Winthrop fleet, Maverick became one of the earliest settlers, one of the largest landowners and one of the first slave-owners in Massachusetts...
, William Phelps
William Phelps (colonist)
William Phelps was a Puritan Englishman who immigrated in 1630 to the American Colonies. He was one of the founders of both Dorchester, Massachusetts and Windsor, Connecticut, foreman of the first grand jury in New England, served most of his life in early colonial government, and played a key...
, Henry Wolcott and other men who would become prominent in the founding of a new nation.
It was the first of the ships later called the Winthrop Fleet
Winthrop Fleet
The Winthrop Fleet was a group of eleven sailing ships under the leadership of John Winthrop that carried approximately 700 Puritans plus livestock and provisions from England to New England over the summer of 1630.-Motivation:...
to land in Massachusetts. Nicholas married Dorothy Capen (1611–1675). They had fours daughters: Amasa, born December 1635; a daughter Elizabeth born December 1637 who married William Greenough on July 4, 1651; a daughter Susannah born July 12, 1639 who married Joseph Cooke on November 10, 1659; and Experience born January 19, 1640 who died August 2, 1659.
Became Freeman and led community
The earliest record of Nicholas Upsall was on September 28, 1630, when he was impanelled on a jury by the Court of Assistants to look into the death of Austen Bratcher. He applied for FreemanFreeman (Colonial)
Freeman is a term which originated in 12th century Europe and is common as an English or American Colonial expression in Puritan times. In the Bay Colony, a man had to be a member of the Church to be a freeman. In Colonial Plymouth, a man did not need to be a member of the Church, but he had to be...
at the first General Court held in the Colonies on October 19, 1630 and took the Oath of Freemen among 108 others on May 18, 1631. Upsall was an upstanding Puritan and citizen for more than a quarter of a century. He was among the first to become a Freemen, possessing full citizenship as a result, and gained public trust, respect and esteem. He later found that his prior role in the community did not protect him against religious persecution.
Upsall was granted land in Dorchester in 1633 and became its first bailiff and ratter in 1634. "It is ordered by the town of Dorchester," April 17, 1635, "that Nicholas Upsall and Matthew Grant shall p'ceed in the measuring of the great lotts as they have begun."
Upsall was licensed as an innkeeper from 1636-1638. "It is ordered," according to the town records of June 27, 1636, "that Nicholas Upsall shall keep a house of entertainment for strangers." He was selectman in 1638 and 1642. In 1637 he was a member of the jury of Life and Death, as it was called, to distinguish it from the grand jury.
Upsall apparently maintained an independent mind on political and religious matters, and was seen as man of "sober, and of unblameable conversation." His stature in the community is also evidenced in a letter from Roger Williams
Roger Williams (theologian)
Roger Williams was an English Protestant theologian who was an early proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. In 1636, he began the colony of Providence Plantation, which provided a refuge for religious minorities. Williams started the first Baptist church in America,...
to John Winthrop
John Winthrop
John Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer, and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of...
, dated Providence, April 16, 1638. Williams requested Winthrop to send his reply to Upsall in Dorchester, "because it is not safe for his messenger to wait for the answer." This was three years after Williams's banishment.
The same year Upsall became an original and the twenty-third charter member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts
The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts is the oldest chartered military organization in North America and the third oldest chartered military organization in the world...
, the oldest military company in America, which serves today as Honor Guard to the Governor of Massachusetts who is also its Commander in Chief.
In 1644 Upsall and his family moved to Boston, and with his wife Dorothy was admitted to the church there on May 28. He was already a large property holder there, for in 1637 "he owned the land from the north-east side of Richmond Street and from Hanover Street to the sea." He was also an inn-keeper of the Red Lyon Inn on the northeast corner of North and Richmond Streets.
Met and joined Quakers
In 1656, Mary Fisher and Ann AustinAnn Austin
Ann Austin was one of the first women persecuted for her religious beliefs in the American colonies. She attended Blair Academy 1845, going HAM every night....
became the first known Quakers to set foot in the New World. They journeyed from England to Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
and eventually arrived at the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
. Their goal was to spread the beliefs of the Friends among the colonists.
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
-run Massachusetts, which was extremely antagonistic towards dissenting viewpoints, the women were harshly persecuted. They were imprisoned, stripped to the waist and publicly whipped, and their books and materials were burned. The magistrates were set on starving the women and burying them. An unknown individual, likely Upsall, offered to pay their fine if he could be allowed to speak with them. The magistrates, having boarded up their jail window to isolate them, refused. Upsall, "touched with compassion," gave their guard five shillings a week to permit him to bring food to the women. The women were deported back to Barbados after five weeks, having been unable to share their faith with anyone except perhaps Upsall.
Upsall's act of kindness apparently escaped detection. But his contact with the women and their steadfast faith apparently moved him. On October 14, 1656, the Magistrates caused that a law prohibiting any citizen from aiding the Quakers was read in public. The act was apparently read before the door of his inn, and he is recorded as having raised his voice in protest. He later wrote, "...that he did look at it as a sad fore-runner of some heavy judgment to fall on the country." On the following morning he was called before the Court and charged with having expressed his disapprobation of the law against Quakers.
John Endecott
John Endecott was an English colonial magistrate, soldier and the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. During all of his years in the colony but one, he held some form of civil, judicial, or military high office...
saying, "I will not bate him [i.e., reduce his fine] one Groat." He was besides banished to depart in thirty days, including four in prison, and was fined three pounds more for not attending worship after banishment. At 60 years of age, Upsall abandoned the Puritan Church, giving up the rights and privileges accorded to him as a Freeman, and joined the Friends. He was banished as a result and took refuge during the winter of 1656 in Sandwich, Massachusetts
Sandwich, Massachusetts
Sandwich is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 20,675 at the 2010 census. The Town Hall is located right next to the Dexter Grist Mill, in the historic district of town....
. There he helped to found the first Monthly Meeting
Monthly meeting
Monthly Meetings are, traditionally, the basic unit of administration in the Religious Society of Friends .For some Friends a Monthly Meeting is a single Meeting , while for others it is a grouping of Meetings which come together for administrative purposes. Membership in the Religious Society of...
of Friends in the United States. It began meeting in 1657 at the home of William and Priscilla Allen. Other founding Quakers included Richard Kerbey, Elizabeth Newland, and Stephen and Daniel Wing.
He made friends among the Indians, and one of the chiefs called him "friend," and offered to build him a comfortable house, if he could accept his hospitality. The chief commented about Upsall's persecutors: "What a God have the English who deal so with one another over the worship of their God."
On October 19, 1658, the Puritans passed a law stating that any Quaker who refused banishment would face "pain of death." Upsall eventually left Sandwich for Rhode Island, though he returned to Boston after three years, when he was imprisoned for two years.
When Quakers Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson
William Robinson
William Robinson, or Will Robinson or Bill Robinson or other nicknames, may refer to:-Historical:* William Robinson , Quaker martyr* William Benjamin Robinson , Canadian fur trader and political figure...
were executed, their bodies were dumped in into a pit dug nearby without a marker. Upsall, from his prison, asked to be permitted to build a fence around their burial site, but his request was denied. From prison, he still attracted people to his beliefs, and he was then sent to the Castle in Boston harbor for another year. During 1660-1664, "twenty-two [individuals] had been banished on pain of death, three martyred, three had their right ear cut off, one had been burned in the hand with a letter H, three had been ordered by the court to be sent to Barbadoes as slaves, thirty-one persons had received six hundred and fifty stripes administered with extreme cruelty, £1044 of property had been taken from them, and another was martyred in 1661.
His wife petitioned twice on his behalf, and when King Charles II ordered Governor Endecott to release all Quakers, Upsall along with many others was finally released. The court record recounts, "Nicholas Vpshall being formerly sentenced to perpetual Imprisonment, & obteyning a Reprivall, hath greatly abused their lenity, do therefore Order him to be Confined again to ye house of John Capen." "Reprivall" [i.e., a "reprieve"] still meant banishment, and his transfer to his brother-in-law John Capen's home stipulated that he may remain free, "provided he does not corrupt any with his pernicious opinions," or does not teach "the diabolical doctrines and horrid tenets of the cursed sect of Quakers." He died there in August 1666 and was buried in Copp's Hill Burying Ground.
Death and legacy
On October 13, 1666, Nicholas' estate after payment of his debts was valued at £543, 10s, a large estate for his times, especially given that for the last ten years of his life he lived in exile for having become a Quaker. His will specifically includes the Quakers:Historians believe the furniture he bequeathed to the Friends were in the Red Lyon Inn, which he owned at the time of his death.
In 1694, Edward Shippen
Edward Shippen
Edward Shippen was the second mayor of Philadelphia. He was appointed to a one year term by William Penn in 1701. In 1702, he was elected to a second one year term, making him the first elected mayor of Philadelphia...
, the first mayor of Philadelphia under the city charter, gave a piece of land for a Friends Meeting House. On Brattle Street, near the site of the Quincy House
Josiah Quincy House
The Josiah Quincy House , located at 20 Muirhead Street in the Wollaston neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts, was the country home of Revolutionary War soldier Colonel Josiah Quincy I, the first in a line of six illustrious Josiah Quincys that included three Boston mayors and a president of...
, the Friends recorded that the "money from Nicholas Upsall's Chamber to go towards it." The records of the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England, dated April 7, 1694, contain the following: