NOVEMBER 2024 DOCUMENT OF THE MONTH
TITLE: Letter from John Bowne in New Amsterdam to Hannah Bowne at Flushing.
DATE: 5th of 9th month, 1662 (November 5, 1662 Old Style / November 15, 1662 New Style)
DOCUMENT ID: BFP #2018.1.03.01
Commentary by Charlotte Jackson, Bowne House Archivist
Note: for the full text of the letter, download the transcription above, or scroll to the end of the post for a modernized version with standard spelling.
The New Amsterdam Stadt Huys, where John Bowne was imprisoned.
John Bowne wrote this letter in the fall of 1662 while imprisoned in New Amsterdam. He had already languished in the jail room of the Dutch Stadt Huys, or Town Hall, for two months at the pleasure of New Netherland’s autocratic Director-General, Peter Stuyvesant. His crime, of course, was hosting forbidden Quaker meetings in his own home, and worse still, insisting before the court upon his "liberty of conscience." The recipient was his wife, Hannah Feake Bowne, at their home in Flushing. Bowne dates his letter Quaker-style, avoiding the pagan Roman names of the months: “this 5th of the 9th month: [16]62” (Old Style.) This date corresponds to November 15 in the modern calendar (New Style.)
Bowne's arrest occurred on September 11, 1662 New Style. At that time, Hannah had been gravely ill, as recalled in Bowne’s journal: “...the Scout came to my house at Flushing with a company of men with swords and guns (where I was tending my wife sick in bed and my youngest child sick in my arms, which was both so ill that we watched two or three together.)” In fact, Hannah was not only ill, but also pregnant; their daughter Abigail would be born in February 1663, as a ship carried John across the Atlantic into exile. Bowne repeatedly protested against the cruelty of the Dutch authorities in taking him from his family in their vulnerable condition. Although it contains no allusions to her health, this letter is the first confirmation of Hannah’s recovery and return to active life. Their youngest child at the time, 18-month-old Mary or Marie Bowne, also survived.
To my surprise, I have found no references in the historical or genealogical literature to this letter from the period of Bowne’s trial and imprisonment. By contrast, the June 1663 letter John Bowne sent to Hannah from exile in Amsterdam, with its account of his appeal to the Dutch West India Company, has been quoted by historians several times. Possibly scholars have found this earlier letter uninteresting for the very reasons that I find it interesting: its wealth of mundane detail and its focus on subsistence agriculture and the business of daily life. Bowne could be eloquent when speaking for an audience, witness his petition to the West India Company, or his testimony at Hannah’s memorial. Yet here Bowne composes no speeches about liberty of conscience, and relates no dramatic scenes from his ordeal in the New Netherland legal system. Nor does he waste space on flowery professions of love, though deep affection for his "dear and loving wife" is evident. After opening with expressions of their shared religious sentiments, he requests a list of items from home, before pivoting to the true and urgent subject of the letter: “...providing for our family.”
With winter looming on the Long Island frontier, this was a matter of survival. Bowne instructs Hannah on the management of the farm in his absence: which animals to slaughter, what type of grains and pulses to trade for, who might loan their ox-carts for the haying and where to lay the tobacco to dry. Such details hold little relevance for historians of religion or bards of civic virtue. Instead, they open a window onto daily life in agrarian Colonial society, where even heroes and martyrs had families to feed.
This little-known document also sheds light more specifically on several of the enduring mysteries of the Bowne family’s ordeal. How did John Bowne survive for months on a bread and water diet without starving or suffering severe malnutrition? It turns out that Bowne was permitted to “order in.” His rather basic wish list for Hannah includes turnips, Indian corn or maize, and firewood to cook with. (A page of accounts in the back of his diary reveals that he also had an arrangement with a tavern near the jail that was owned by an English couple, and even that he may have bribed his guards with strong liquor.)
Another question frequently asked by visitors and researchers at the Bowne House: however did Hannah manage, alone on the farm with the children during John’s eighteen-month absence? The answer revealed in these two brief pages is that she wasn’t alone—she had the proverbial village to help her. Hannah’s step-father William Hallett, her brother John Feake, and at least two other friends or neighbors are to be enlisted for the haying; another neighbor is to round up the free-range hogs for the winter; Hannah’s brother John is also to lay in firewood and clear new ground for next year’s planting. Bowne’s laundry list of such chores, traditionally handled by men, makes concrete the weight of responsibility that now lay on Hannah’s shoulders, in addition to the women’s work that already filled her days. Yet it also illustrates the strength of the rural community that she could turn to for support.
Finally, in a hastily scrawled postscript, John requests “my paper book with the red cover.” This must be Bowne's journal, in which he would record the saga of his arrest, trial, imprisonment, and exile; his appeal to the Dutch West India Company; and his eventual, Odyssean return. Notably, the first passage in his account to use the present tense is: “…I was brought to the State House and there put in the prison room, where I have remained ‘til this 19th of the 9th month, being the 4th day of the week, and yet remain here.” Given this date (November 19 Old Style/29 New Style), Hannah must have arrived with the notebook within two weeks of John’s letter, on what seems to have been an extended conjugal visit. Hannah was now in her seventh month of pregnancy. Although John never mentions her condition, in either the Journal or his letter, it must have been weighing on his mind when he wrote, “I think it will not be convenient for thee to come down any more as once this winter.” The trip from Flushing to New Amsterdam took the better part of a day in good weather, even without bumpy rides on icy cart tracks, leading to a treacherous passage up Flushing Creek and down the East River from the Sound.
No doubt both husband and wife were wondering when they would see each other again, and when (or if) he would get to meet his unborn child. However, the relentless Quaker focus on higher things did not allow for much sentimental expression, regardless of the occasion. Indeed, twelve days later John Bowne’s Journal memorializes Hannah Bowne's departure with the same stoic economy as his letter: “my wife...went away the next 2nd day morning, on the 1st day of the 10th month Old Style.”
This article was adapted from an article that originally appeared in the Fall 2017 issue of the Bowne House Newsletter.
FULL TRANSCRIPTION:
My dear and loving wife, I dearly salute thee in the
Lord and the breathings of my soul and spirit is unto
the God of my salvation that we may both be preserved
in the patience of the saints, faithful unto the only:
that no temptation may prevail against us, but that
we may continually stand in His will, freely
given up to do or suffer whatever he requires of us
as he shall reveal it in us and make it known unto us.
And now my dear heart, as for thy coming down I leave it
to thy freedom whether thou wilt come this week or
wait a little further, for I would not have thee from
home at the return of R.H.[1] (remember my dear love
to him). I think it will not be convenient for thee
to come down any more as once this winter:[2] If there
be any of your wood ready, I would have some sent; if not, I can
have it here as I need it. For my money also I would have
a few raw turnips, and when thou comes bring a little
Indian meal if thou have it: I would have two shirts,
but as for anything else, other linens or vittles, I would
have thee send such as thou canst make ready without
much trouble; now as for providing for our family:
if thou see cause to send after the hogs I would ha[ve]
thee hire Richard Wilday[3] and if thou see it need[ful] [....]
I leave it to thee: either to kill the bull or to exchan[ge]
him or a cow for a beast that is more fit. Or if thou
canst buy half of a good beast a leufe {alive?} for Indian
corn, or Indian corn and peasen {peas}: or to do farther
as thou sees fit: as for the hay, I think S.S.[4] will
help home with it shortly. Tell Richard Stokins[5] that
I desire him to lend his cart to get it home with, or if
he can help himself, with his cart and oxen, we
shall help him again in some other work, and if so,
then see to borrow William Hallett’s cart,[6] or some other,
and follow it with two carts: brother John[7] should make ready
some places to set it on: I think it may be best to
set the greater part of it where we used to do, if it be
thought fit, and the rest either by the tobacco house side,
or in the grass[y] place's end, or over the way by the fresh:[8]
which[ever] John and thee thinks best: for I think the cattle
must be housed much as they was last year. Seeing we
are deprived of making better: when John is not about
other needful work, he may be either providing firewood
for winter or a-clearing in the new ground: my horse was
[PAGE TWO]
taken up at Oyster Bay, and dear Robert[9] hath him to Shelter
Island. I think if Nicholas Davies’ vessel[10] be come
safe from England, and he bring goods to Oyster
Bay as he did intend, to let him have my horse, and
if he come to our house thee may tell him so;
therefore I would have the horse kept in good case,
or else turned up when Robert hath done with him.
Remember my dear love to my father, and brother
and sister Farrington[11] and my dear children, brother
John and Sarie, with Joan and all the rest of friends
and neighbors in general, whose faces I doubt not but
I shall see again in the Lord’s time, to whom I
commit thee and rest thy dear husband,
John Bowne
For my dear and
loving wife Hanna
Bowne at Vlishing
these [go]
[sideways next to address, in another hand]
John Bowne
to his wife in
1662
[upside down at bottom of page]:
I would have my paper book with the red cover,[12]
and if the swine may be found and got,[13] let as many
of them be put up to fatting as you shall think
fit. I know no likelihood at present of my coming out.
The Governor[14] was intended, as I heard, to go away to-
wards Fort Orange[15] this night, but that there is a ship
come in today: what news she bring I cannot
yet tell: this 5th: of the 9: month :62:
[1] R.H: Likely Robert Hodgson, Quaker missionary who first arrived in New Netherland on the Woodhouse in 1657 and was arrested by Stuyvesant for his unauthorized preaching. John Bowne’s journal records that Hodgson visited him in jail.
[2] Hannah was about seven months pregnant at this time, possibly explaining Bowne’s caution against a repeat trip.
[3] Refers to Richard Wilday, “his home lott bounded by John Bowne” in 1675 deed (Bowne Family Papers #2018.1.01-13)
[4] S.S. probably Samuel Spicer (1640-1699), Quaker then resident in Gravesend, L.I. The Spicers were under sentence of exile for their unorthodox beliefs, but evidently had ignored the sentence.
[5] Believed to be Richard Stockton, a signer of the 1657 Flushing Remonstrance and ancestor of the Declaration of Independence signer of the same name.
[6] William Hallett, the third husband of Hannah Bowne’s mother, Elizabeth (Fones-Winthrop-Feake) Hallett
[7] John Feake/Feke, (1639–1724), Quaker of Flushing and later of Oyster Bay, was the brother of Hannah Bowne.
[8] "the fresh": a fresh-water spring or pool
[9] Possibly Robert Hodgson (see note 1 above), or else Robert Feake, brother of Hannah.
[10] Nicholas Davis or Davies, a Quaker sea captain and merchant active in trans-Atlantic trade.
[11] Bowne’s brother-in-law Edward Farrington, a signer of the 1657 Flushing Remonstrance, and sister Dorothy (Bowne) Farrington.
[12] “my paper book”: Probably John Bowne’s journal, today owned by the New York Historical Society
[13] “If the swine may be found”: It was customary for pigs to be left loose to forage in the countryside.
[14] The Governor: Director-General Peter Stuyvesant, sometimes called “Governor”
[15] Fort Orange: Dutch settlement at site of present-day Albany, New York
Transcription by Kate Lynch; edited by Charlotte Jackson. Note that spelling has been standardized and punctuation/capitalization added in places for clarity. A literal transcription may be downloaded by clicking the “Transcription” button at the top of this post.