Rev. Stephen Bachiler - A Puritan Pioneer Preview

 

Rev. Stephen Bachiler - Preview

My 10th Great-Grandfather

Stephen Bachiler's Signature

Setting the Stage

Stephen Bachiler, his daughter Theodate and her husband Christopher Hussey, have the distinction of being the first of my European ancestors to emigrate to the New World. They were among the Puritans who fled religious persecution from the Anglican Church in England in the decade known as the Great Migration, arriving only a few years after the Pilgrims’ 1620 voyage on the Mayflower. The Bachiler and Hussey families crossed the Atlantic in one of eleven ships forming the Winthrop Fleet, funded by the English Massachusetts Bay Company, established in 1628. They were early arrivals among about 20,000 Puritans who migrated to New England in the 1630s.

Stephen Bachiler is best known for his tireless battle against governmental control of his ministry. He left England in search of separation of church and state but encountered even more vehement opposition to his beliefs by the Puritan theocracy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was constantly harassed and chastised by foes and government authorities and forced to move to new settlements where he attempted to preach in peace. He may have even been one of the real-life figures which inspired the character, Rev. Dimmesdale, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. He was truly one of the pioneers who sought religious freedom and separation of church and state in early colonial America.

Bachiler/Hussey Joined Armchair
1650-1700
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

Religious Conflict in England

The Roman Catholic Church held jurisdiction over England until King Henry VIII sought a divorce from his first wife, who failed to produce any male heirs. When the Pope refused to allow Henry to annul his marriage to Catherine in 1529, Henry declared himself the supreme head of the Church of England and remarried (five more times!) During the next century, the whims of each monarch in power controlled whether Protestant or Catholic religions would be favored or tolerated in England. Church and state were not separate, and dissenters were arrested and punished for failure to attend the Anglican Church, for criticizing it, or for gathering to worship in other churches.

In the late 1500s, different branches of Protestant faith began to flourish in Europe. The Puritans established a following that rejected the practices of the Anglican Church, which retained rituals from the Catholic religion. The conflicts between the Puritans and the monarchy reached an unbearable point when King Charles I dissolved Parliament in 1629, where numerous Puritan members held seats. Puritans became the target of constant persecution from the English church and government and began to flee from England in search of religious freedom. They first went across the English Channel to the Netherlands but feared the loss of their language and culture there and set their sights on finding refuge in the New World. This was the beginning of the Great Migration movement to Massachusetts and the West Indies.

The Puritans were well-educated and intensely devoted to their religious beliefs. The great paradox of their faith was that they became intolerant of other religions and punished or banished anyone who strayed from their strict code of conduct. Use of barbarous corporal punishment on offenders, such as whipping, locking in stocks and even branding hands or faces with a hot iron, or cutting off ears or noses, was not uncommon. They wrote many letters, diaries, sermon notes, and other first-hand accounts of their life in New England which survived and provided vivid images of their trials and triumphs in America.  

Next - Education and Ministry in England