Connections: Outliers, outcasts, misfits and ‘fornicators’

The whole community was responsible to feed the hungry, house the homeless, pay damages on behalf of the law-breaker, and answer for the behavior of the sinner.

About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America 2014.

The article about David Magadini generated many comments. The question of what to do about the most vulnerable among us is older than our country.

The first law to address the plight of the poor was passed in the Plymouth Colony in 1692. Far from creating a social safety net, the law was called “warning-out.”

The term requires little explanation. Warning out means just what it sounds like: If you could not pay your way you were asked to leave the town. The colonists feared strangers; feared anyone who “have lately come here to reside and not been duly admitted.”

The key words were duly admitted. To be admitted to the community a stranger was required to demonstrate familial connections with settled members of the community, or sound economic circumstances. That is, they possessed coin of the realm, a marketable skill, or owned tillable land. If they could not demonstrate one of these, they were warned out.

The town selectmen were empowered to give them formal notice that they had to leave.

“April 4, 1783, To the Constable:

In the name of the government and the people you are hereby required forthwith to warn Jacob Benton & Hannah his wife, [and their children] to depart out of this town immediately and no longer make it their residence under the pains that will follow.”

The “pains that will follow” were for those who were warned out but did not leave. They were “subject to the law.” By court order, they were found and jailed until they could be escorted out and urged (often roughly) to continue on their way.

It sounds harsh and yet underlying the seemingly heartless law was an organizing principle more deeply communal than any we hold today. The fundamental principle was: “every member of the community is answerable for the good conduct, the well-being, and the damage done by every other member.” The whole community was responsible to feed the hungry, house the homeless, pay damages on behalf of the law-breaker, and answer for the behavior of the sinner.

Settlement Laws were enacted to minimize the possibility of so enormous a burden. Anyone who wished to settle in a Massachusetts town or village had to be formally accepted by the extant members – “duly admitted.” The hope was any who “might be burdensome” would be identified and refused citizenship.

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These early colonists were carving community out of wilderness. They were taxed for roads, school, church and minister. They were attempting to build – literally – a civilized life. They feared anyone who, rather than contributing, might become a “public charge” and create a “burden likely to be too great for us to bear.”

The stranger was one potential financial threat; another was the fornicator.

In 1761 Berkshire was considered sufficiently settled and civilized to become a county, and to have a criminal court. It was called the Court of General Sessions.

The first case heard in the Court of General Sessions on September 1, 1761 was that of “Susannah York of Sheffield who confesses herself guilty of the crime of fornication on the ninth day of April Anno Domini 1760 and the court having considered of her offense ordered that she pay as a fine to the King the sum of 13/4 and she paid the costs accordingly.”

The value of the fine exacted — 13 shillings 4 pence — was equal to the value of two deer skins — not an insignificant sum.

In every court session there was at least one fornication case. Only women came forward and admitted to the act – no men. The explanation was simple: a fornicator was obviously “a single woman who was begotten of a Bastard Child born of her body.” The child was proof positive of guilt.

The community’s interest was not in the act but the offspring. If the father could be found he was ordered to support mother and child and “pay to Pittsfield the sum of 200 pounds in lawful money to save and spare the town of Pittsfield from any charge that might hereafter arise by reason of said child being born.” Prosecution of fornication cases had more to do with money than morality.

Eighteenth-century Berkshire was a series of small communities: knots of 138 families, or fewer, living in wide clearings in the woods connected by narrow dirt roads. They were vulnerable. Fatherless children were a potential financial burden on the community. The court was making sure that the responsible party paid thus “easing of the towns where bastards are born [the cost] of the child and the education thereof.”

In 1762, Sarah Joyner of Egremont “was brought to answer” a charge of fornication. She could not pay the fine, no family member came to her aid, and so she was ordered to “stand committed till that sentence be performed.” [Stay in jail until she could pay the fine.]

In such a case, anyone could come forward and pay the fine. By virtue of payment, Sarah was bonded (indentured) to that person until she repaid the debt. The one who paid Sarah’s fine determined how long it would take to repay. In the 18th century, giving birth to a fatherless child was a possible road to one form of slavery.

An unmarried mother was not the only woman vulnerable. The St. John family came to Stockbridge in 1769. They were land owners and members of the Congregational Church. When her husband died, Mrs. St. John was left with seven children and a meager inheritance (290 pounds in real property and 100 pounds in personal property – approximately $17,600 today). The fortunes of the family went steadily downhill. Anna returned to her family in Sharon, Connecticut but they would not accept all seven children. Martha was left behind.

Martha, alone and without protection, stole, was caught and found herself unable to make restitution. In 1787, it was “voted that Martha St. John be put up at Publick Vendue [public sale] and sold to the person who bids her off [buys her]”

The bidder paid her debt and by virtue of that payment, St. John was bonded to the debt payer. Unless she found a protector, a husband, or an avenue back to court for an independent determination, her owner might decide repayment was equal to the rest of her life.

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Her purchaser was Azariah Egleton. Six years after Theodore Sedgwick represented Mum Bett and won her freedom, Martha was purchased by Azariah Egleston Esq. That year Mum Bett’s liberator sat on a town committee with Martha’s purchaser. No one remarked on the irony. In fact, it was felt that those who stepped forward in such cases were benevolent: caring for the indigent and relieving the community of the burden.

Americans were always responsible; always accepted the idea of communal responsibility. It took longer to accept the vulnerable among us. For 125 years (1692 – 1819) we sought to oust them. In the nineteenth century we began to accept them and create a social safety net within communities.