Manuscript document signed, a deed of sale of "our parcel of upland or ploughing ground" in Ipswich to James Howe Sr., signed by both Simon and Anne Bradstreet

Bradstreet, Anne; and Simon Bradstreet

Edité par Andover, Massachusetts, 1656

1p. 7-3/8x11-1/2 inches. Two red wax seals. Countersigned by Edmond Faulkner and Hannah Bradstreet as witnesses. Born in England, Anne Bradstreet was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, a colonial magistrate who served several terms as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1628, she married Simon Bradstreet and the couple arrived in America on June 14, 1630 aboard the Arbella along with John Winthrop. The couple initially settled in Cambridge, but moved to the new Ipswich settlement in 1635. Nine years later, Simon and Anne Bradstreet purchased land in what is now North Andover and left Ipswich. It was in this very period that Anne Bradstreet wrote many of her poems. Bradstreet's first collection of poems was published without her knowledge in London in 1650, under the title The Tenth Muse, and for the most part comprised of her early work accomplished while still in England. In 1678, six years after her death, a new edition of her poems was published in Boston. "[That edition] contained her revisions of her earlier poems, and the greater part of her mature work. These later poems show that she had no only learned to see nature and human life directly, but also to look into her own heart and write with the imaginative vision of a poet. The long poem 'Contemplation' is more than external description. The New England landscape, which invites her meditation, has grown familiar enough to be quietly possessed . Her personal poems . throw light on the Puritan view of life, as it looked to one born to it. It is a view without harshness, the view of one strong in mind, devout of heart, one to whom the beauty of holiness is beauty indeed. In the slender sheaf of Anne Bradstreet's best work there is a quality which marks her as a poet for whom her sex and the date 1650 are only incidental" (Ola Elizabeth Winslow, entry for Bradstreet in Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary). The present document, a deed selling farm land in Ipswich to John Howe (or How), Senior is among very few known documents signed by Bradstreet to ever appear on the market and among very few known to exist. Interestingly, Howe's son's wife, Elizabeth Howe (1637-1692) would be among the women accused, tried, indicted and executed at the Salem witch trials. Unrecorded in Sanborn & Watson's Ipswich Deeds (2023) Old folds, separations and paper losses, staining. Housed in a red morocco backed clamshell box 1p. 7-3/8x11-1/2 inches. Two red wax seals. Countersigned by Edmond Faulkner and Hannah Bradstreet as witnesses. N° de réf. du vendeur 372586

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : Manuscript document signed, a deed of sale ...
Éditeur : Andover, Massachusetts
Date d'édition : 1656
Signé : Signé par l'auteur