Introduction: “Liberty to Inhabit in Any Part of this Jurisdiction
Already Planted”: Hadley’s Beginnings
Episode 1: “Peeping through the Crevises of my Close Cell”: The
Angel of Hadley, William Goffe, in Hadley and Hartford
Episode 2: “A Worme at the Roote of Theocraticall Government”:
Hadley’s Opposition to the Half-Way Covenant
Episode 3: “A Trust Committed to Us by Solemn and Solemnly Ratified
Covenant”: Governor Edward Hopkins’ Grammar School at Hadley
Postscript: “Declension from the Primitive Foundation Work”
Carl I. Hammer is research associate at the University of Pittsburgh.
Carl I. Hammer skillfully integrates three incidents at the
frontier town of Hadley, Massachusetts—interesting in themselves,
but not obviously of more than local importance—into the larger
canvas of the evolution of New England during the latter half of
the seventeenth century. He contends that ‘declension’ from the
founders’ ideals ought to be understood as ‘secular,’ i.e.,
political and social as much as religious. Not the least appeal of
this engaging book is Hammer's account of the further adventures of
the regicide William Goffe, the legendary ‘Angel of Hadley.'
*Baird Tipson, Gettysburg College*
A deep dive into the religious debates and political tensions that
shaped the founding of this once-influential Massachusetts town,
Carl I. Hammer's Pugnacious Puritans tracks the entangled motives
of powerful personalities as they navigated imperial, colonial, and
local interests. This up-close look at early Hadley is illuminating
not only as a case study of town-making in the Connecticut Valley,
but also as a window to theology, ambition, interest, and power
across seventeenth-century New England.
*Marla R. Miller, University of Massachusetts Amherst*
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