America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation Paperback by Kenneth C. Davis Page B
Authors: Kenneth C. Davis
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but most agree that Hannah Dustin received a reward of £25, while Mary Neff and young Samuel split another £25—significant purses for colonial American farmers. All three also enjoyed hearty congratulations, along with a great many dinner invita-tions. In a short time, Hannah Dustin was the most famous woman in America.
This heroic tale of “redemption” and victory over the Indians, and by extension their French allies, was hailed in Puritan Massachusetts, possibly all the more because of Hannah Dustin’s somewhat disreputable family history. Her father, Michael Emerson, had been in legal trouble for abusing his Haverhill neighbors and family, which included nine children; six other children had died in infancy. In a time when corporal punishment of children was the norm, Emerson had been convicted and fined for “cruel and excessive beating” of one of his daughters. Another Emerson daughter, Mary, had been sentenced, along with her husband, to be whipped for the crime of fornication before marriage, a crime taken very seriously in Puritan Massachusetts. As David Hackett Fischer notes, “Even in betrothed couples, sexual in-tercourse before marriage was regarded as a pollution which had to be purged before they could take [their] place in society and—most important—before their children could be baptized.”8
Far more notoriously, Hannah’s unmarried sister Elizabeth— the victim of the earlier beating at her father’s hand and already the mother of one “fatherless” little girl—had been tried and convicted of infanticide for the strangling of infant twins; their paternity remained | 50 \
Hannah’s Escape
a secret she took to the gallows. At Elizabeth Emerson’s hanging on June 8, 1693, Cotton Mather had preached a sermon he considered one of his best, using for his text Job 36:14: “They die in youth and their life is among the unclean.”9
Before Hannah Dustin’s exploits provided him with such a mother lode of material, Cotton Mather had gained great notoriety for his writings on witchcraft and for his central role in the Salem witch trials of 1692–93. His 1689 book, Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, had practically served as a textbook for the Salem prosecutions, and three of the five judges in the Salem trials were friends of his and members of his congregation. The son of Increase Mather, the equally illustrious and influential Puritan leader and president of Harvard College, Cotton Mather would now serve as the chief instrument in turning Hannah Dustin’s tale of captivity and vengeance into a Puritan parable of divine justice. In his accounts, Hannah’s perseverance triumphed over the twin perils of popery and native savagery.
In several pamphlets and later in his landmark 1702 book known as The Ecclesiastical History of New England, Mather repeated Dustin’s tale for its enormous propaganda value. It had all the ingredients the Puritan preacher needed for his purposes: depraved Indians—baby killers, no less—working in concord with the papist French, set against a virtuous Massachusetts wife and mother capable not only of saving herself and her fellow captives but also of striking a blow against the forces of idolatry and Satan. This despite the fact that Hannah Dustin was not a member of any church at the time. She officially joined Haverhill’s congregation only in 1724, at age sixty-seven. 10
Mather’s account made Hannah Dustin a colonial-era icon. Although overlooked or entirely forgotten by more recent American his-
| 51 \
America’s Hidden Hi Ç ory tory books, Dustin could lay claim to a singular distinction: a statue honoring her was unveiled in 1874, the first permanent statue of a woman erected in the United States. It immortalized Dustin, hatchet in one hand, scalps in the other.
While some details of Hannah Dustin’s extraordinary escape were undoubtedly embroidered upon as the story grew over time into regional legend, there
This heroic tale of “redemption” and victory over the Indians, and by extension their French allies, was hailed in Puritan Massachusetts, possibly all the more because of Hannah Dustin’s somewhat disreputable family history. Her father, Michael Emerson, had been in legal trouble for abusing his Haverhill neighbors and family, which included nine children; six other children had died in infancy. In a time when corporal punishment of children was the norm, Emerson had been convicted and fined for “cruel and excessive beating” of one of his daughters. Another Emerson daughter, Mary, had been sentenced, along with her husband, to be whipped for the crime of fornication before marriage, a crime taken very seriously in Puritan Massachusetts. As David Hackett Fischer notes, “Even in betrothed couples, sexual in-tercourse before marriage was regarded as a pollution which had to be purged before they could take [their] place in society and—most important—before their children could be baptized.”8
Far more notoriously, Hannah’s unmarried sister Elizabeth— the victim of the earlier beating at her father’s hand and already the mother of one “fatherless” little girl—had been tried and convicted of infanticide for the strangling of infant twins; their paternity remained | 50 \
Hannah’s Escape
a secret she took to the gallows. At Elizabeth Emerson’s hanging on June 8, 1693, Cotton Mather had preached a sermon he considered one of his best, using for his text Job 36:14: “They die in youth and their life is among the unclean.”9
Before Hannah Dustin’s exploits provided him with such a mother lode of material, Cotton Mather had gained great notoriety for his writings on witchcraft and for his central role in the Salem witch trials of 1692–93. His 1689 book, Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, had practically served as a textbook for the Salem prosecutions, and three of the five judges in the Salem trials were friends of his and members of his congregation. The son of Increase Mather, the equally illustrious and influential Puritan leader and president of Harvard College, Cotton Mather would now serve as the chief instrument in turning Hannah Dustin’s tale of captivity and vengeance into a Puritan parable of divine justice. In his accounts, Hannah’s perseverance triumphed over the twin perils of popery and native savagery.
In several pamphlets and later in his landmark 1702 book known as The Ecclesiastical History of New England, Mather repeated Dustin’s tale for its enormous propaganda value. It had all the ingredients the Puritan preacher needed for his purposes: depraved Indians—baby killers, no less—working in concord with the papist French, set against a virtuous Massachusetts wife and mother capable not only of saving herself and her fellow captives but also of striking a blow against the forces of idolatry and Satan. This despite the fact that Hannah Dustin was not a member of any church at the time. She officially joined Haverhill’s congregation only in 1724, at age sixty-seven. 10
Mather’s account made Hannah Dustin a colonial-era icon. Although overlooked or entirely forgotten by more recent American his-
| 51 \
America’s Hidden Hi Ç ory tory books, Dustin could lay claim to a singular distinction: a statue honoring her was unveiled in 1874, the first permanent statue of a woman erected in the United States. It immortalized Dustin, hatchet in one hand, scalps in the other.
While some details of Hannah Dustin’s extraordinary escape were undoubtedly embroidered upon as the story grew over time into regional legend, there
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