The 1661 Bowne House is celebrating Liberty 2020, the 375th anniversary of the 1645 Flushing Town Charter. The Charter guaranteed "liberty of conscience" to all residents of the Dutch village then called Vlissingen. This document inspired both the 1657 Flushing Remonstrance and John Bowne’s later appeal to the Dutch West India Company after his 1662 arrest for practicing his religion.

John Bowne (1627-1695), an Englishman for whom the historic house is named, cited the charter in his plea for religious freedom after being deported to Holland for allowing Quakers to worship in his home shared with his first wife Hannah, a Quaker minister. Bowne’s courageous stand was an important step to ensuring that Quakers and others in New Netherland enjoyed the freedom to practice the religion of their choice in their homes, and helped inspire the principles of liberty of conscience and religious tolerance later enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

This celebration will include presentations of research undertaken by the staff and volunteers of the Bowne House and Bowne House descendants into Flushing’s early history, including a weekly blog entitled Profiles of the Flushing Charter Signers. This blog will introduce Flushing’s founding document and feature biographical profiles of its 18 original signers.

If you have questions or sources to share, please contact the Bowne House Historical Society via the website or email office@bownehouse.org.

The Bowne House is celebrating the 375th anniversary of the 1645 Flushing Town Charter. Our new weekly blog will introduce Flushing’s founding document and feature biographical profiles of its 18 original signers.

Future posts will appear on the Profiles of the Flushing Charter Signers page.

2020 marks the 375th anniversary of the Town of Flushing, or “Vlissingen,” as it was then known. On October 10, 1645, Director-General Willem Kieft of the New Netherland colony granted 18 mostly English settlers the right to found a town on the western end of Long Island. The Charter spelled out the boundaries of the settlement; the tithes to be paid (in crops, butter or cheese); the rights to “hawking, hunting, fishing and fowling” conferred; even the weights and measures (Dutch) and calendar (“New Style” or Gregorian) to be used in official records. Most importantly, however, it guaranteed the residents “liberty of conscience,” a rare offer of tolerance in an era beset by Europe’s religious wars:
“We do give and graunt unto the said Patentees…to have and Enjoy the Liberty of Conscience, according to the Custome and manner of Holland, without molestaçõn or disturbance, from any Magistrate or Magistrates, or any other Ecclesiasticall Minister, that may extend Jurisdicçõn over them…”
William Kieft
Read the full text of the Flushing charter

Director Kieft was not motivated by lofty ideals regarding religious freedom. The sparsely populated colony of New Netherland needed settlers. The Netherlands themselves were relatively peaceful and prosperous in this period, so it was hard to induce the Dutch to emigrate to a harsh wilderness. To survive, the colony had to attract other nationalities, who worshipped outside the Dutch Reformed Church. Kieft’s policy of tolerance drew religious non-conformists who chafed under the strict discipline of the Puritan English colonies. Just two months after the Flushing Charter, this same provision was incorporated into the Charter of Gravesend, another majority-English town founded by religious dissident Lady Deborah Moody. The pragmatic toleration of the Dutch met with the idealism of English non-conformists and “seekers” alongside other persecuted groups, such as the French Huguenots. Amid the ensuing conflict and compromise, a spirit arose that one day would embrace not just a private liberty of conscience, as conceded by the Dutch, but public free exercise of religion as expressed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
But who were the 18 original settlers named as patentees in the Flushing Charter? And what motivated them to migrate to a foreign colony, where they would comprise a religious, linguistic, and cultural minority? The Charter lists the following names:
Thomas Farrington, John Townsend, Thomas Stiles, Thomas Saul, John Marston, Robert Field, Thomas Applegate, Thomas Beddard, Laurence Dutch, John Lawrence, William Lawrence, William Thorne, Henry Sawtell, William Pigeon, Michael Millard (Milner), Robert Firman, John Hicks, and Edward Hart.
Some of these individuals stayed in Flushing and became prominent citizens, such as Edward Hart, the Town Clerk who served as draughtsman of the Flushing Remonstrance in 1657. Eight of the original eighteen signed the Remonstrance, today regarded as a landmark expression of the principle of religious freedom. Others soon moved elsewhere, or were largely lost to the historical record. Together this group comprise a checkerboard of characters, occupations and motivations. They include the literate and the illiterate, farmers and magistrates, diplomats and former privateers, patriarchs and bigamists. In the run-up to the October 10th anniversary of the signing, we will examine what is known of each man’s story and how it may relate to our theme of “Liberty.”

Our research is a work in progress, and the Bowne House team welcomes new information about the signers and their legacy from historians and descendants alike. If you have sources to share, please contact the Bowne House Historical Society via the website or email office@bownehouse.org