American Quotations by William J. Federer 2024

Charter of New Netherlands (June 7, 1629) Freedoms and Exemptions to Patroons, which established the Dutch patroon system of land holdings in New York and New Netherlands. This plan, intended to promote colonization, granted large tracts of land to those who would help fifty families to emigrate and settle along the Hudson River. It stated: <Article XXVII. The Patroons and colonists shall in particular, and in the speediest manner, endeavor to find out ways and means whereby they may support a Minister and Schoolmaster, that thus the service of God and zeal for religion may not grow cool and be...

First Charter of Massachusetts (March 4, 1629) was granted by King Charles I. In June of 1630, ten years after the Pilgrims founded the Plymouth Colony, Governor John Winthrop founded the Holy Commonwealth of Massachusetts with 700 people sailing in eleven ships. This began the Great Migration, which saw more than twenty thousand Puritans embark for New England in the pursuing sixteen years. The First Charter of Massachusetts, March 4, 1629, stated: <And forasmuch as the good and prosperous success of the plantation of the said parts of New England and for the directing, ruling, and disposeing of all other...

New England Grant (February 12, 1629) to Thomas Lewis and Richard Bonighton by the Council for New England: <To all Christian people to whom these present writing indented shall come, the Council for the affairs of New England in America send greeting in our Lord God everlasting... Thomas Lewis...has already been at the charge to transport himself and others to take a view of New England in America...in advancing of a plantation, and does now wholly intend by God's assistance with his associates to plant there, both for the good of his Majesty's realms and dominions and for the propagation of...

John Bunyan (November 1628-August 31, 1688) was an English author who wrote the classic work, The Pilgrim's Progress, 1678. Born in Bedford, England, he was a poor, unskilled tinker by trade. In 1657, at age 29, John Bunyan became a Baptist minister. He was arrested for having religious meetings and preaching without a license from the government. He was imprisoned over 12 years, 1660-72, 1675. John Bunyan wrote in a Relation of My Imprisonment: <Upon the 12th of...November 1660...the justice...issued out his warrant to take me...as if we that were to meet together...to do some fearful business, to the destruction of...

Dutch Reformed Church Letter (August 11, 1628) addressed to Rev. Adrianus Smoutius, Member of the Consistory of the Dutch Reformed Church, Amsterdam: <At the first administration of the Lord's Supper which was observed, not without great joy and comfort to many, we had fully fifty communicants- Walloons and Dutch; of whom, a portion made their first confession of faith before us, and others exhibted their church certificates. Others had forgotten to bring their certificates with them not thinking that a church would be formed and established here; and some who brought them, had lost them unfortunately in a general conflagration, but...