Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker

by Ruth Talbot Plimpton

This is the story of Mary Dyer whose indomitable efforts to seek and find freedom to worship lead eventually to her death. Her quest began when she and her husband sailed from old to new England in 1635. Landing in Boston, they were soon disillusioned by the intolerant practices and beliefs of the Puritans, who considered that all truth could be found in the Old Testament and only there. Variations, from Puritan interpretations of the Ten Commandments, were punished by cruel torture and/or death. Banished from Boston for protesting such rigidity in belief and in practice, Mary was among the group who founded Rhode Island, where freedom in belief and in practice of worship was established. Mary Dyer did not cease from exploring every available form of worship until she discovered the one which spoke the truth to her. On a trip back to England, Mary met George Fox, who gave her the confidence that women had special intellectual and spiritual gifts. Fox encouraged her to become a Quaker and a missionary. She was alarmed by Boston Puritan laws designed to repress and eliminate Quakers. Undaunted, Mary challenged the Puritan intolerance.My life not availaeth me in comparison with the liberty of the truth.

Genres: Biography, American History

234 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1994

Reviews

[Jennifer Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I selected this book to learn about the life of my 10th great grandmother Mary Dyer. After reading this book, I discovered my prior knowledge of the early American colonies lacking, especially in regards to religious practices and freedoms, or lack of freedoms for the non-Puritan in the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The story of Mary Dyer is a story of spiritual discovery - wrestling with grace and works, choosing conviction over comfort and seeking a personal relationship with Christ while literally laying down her own life to stand against religious intolerance. This book tells the story missing from many classrooms. Some colonists may have crossed the Atlantic seeking religious freedom, however many of these same colonists were intolerant of beliefs different from their own. While the prose is not eloquent and the author takes some liberties, if you want to dig deeper into the struggle for freedom in America, read this book.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mary Dyar was a Quaker martyr who willingly went to the gallows for her beliefs. The Puritans who ran colonial Massachusetts in the 1600s were a judgmental and cruel bunch, ready to beat and hang any who didn't follow their Calvinistic fundamentalism, which included the Quakers of course. They put four of them to death before the crown in London stopped them. If nothing else this book reminds us of the dangers of fundamentalism when it gets political power.

[James Olson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker
by Ruth Talbot Plimpton
[15 cm x 23cm hardcover, 217 pages, 8pt (2.8mm) font]
I get the impression the (late) author originally intended to write a book about 'the early settlement and politics of the Massachusettes Bay Colony' and, for whatever reason, decided to make it about Mary Dyer; while making good use of the research already gathered.

While I certainly appreciate the historical details, of the settlement and politics, the information is not particularly well organized or presented. To do so may have revealed its possible original intent.

If there was an intention to draw the reader to care about Mary Dyer, and pull them into an emotional experience, that wholeheartedly failed with me. And, as both a lifelong Quaker and one of Mary's 10x great-grandsons, I was hoping for an emotional experience. But the prose never got me there. It read much like her Wikipedia page.

Nevertheless, I'm grateful for the facts researched, will take notes the next time I read it, and think there might be some non-Dyer information that's useful to me.

However, I must point out that the two pages (168 and 179) referring to my 8x great-grandparents, Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, and two of their adult children is a jumbled mess and factually incorrect. It does make me wonder about the rest of the book.

[Bauer Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A former Puritan who became a Quaker, Mary Dyer is one of the four executed Quakers known as the Boston Martyrs. In 1657 and 1658 Massachusetts passed anti-quaker laws that made Dyer’s decision to take up missionary work dangerous. She imprisoned and expelled from cities in New England multiple times for her beliefs. In 1660 she returned to Boston to appeal her banishment, which failed and she was hung on June 1st, 1660." An important figure in both religious history and women's studies in AP US History.

[Michael Cabus · Rating 5 out of 5]

When one reads a book set in early American history, one is struck by the wildness and wilderness.

The historical themes, though, seem unchanged, as if our modern world overlaid technology onto existing paradigms: our 21st century is much like our early origins. These include a population easily buying into the ideas of hatred of those racially different; religious ideology having strength over individual freedoms; and some of those in power craving nothing more than to keep it, and expand it.

Dyer was searching for something else, and the author captures this disenchantment with a community that was bipolar: people coming together because of the need for religious freedom, who in turn establish rules that are aimed at persecution.

That she dies seems almost impossible, given her escapes: to different parts of America, to England...many places in which she could have survived. Her last return to Boston, a place she knows full well she will be killed for being in, brings the conclusion the reader knows is coming, but is startled by. This was a self-chosen martyrdom, and the line between ego and divine inspiration is often a difficult one to discern. It's clear Dyer believed it was her fate, the reason for her existence, that her new faith was worth not hiding or denying.

The author was able to capture, too, a relationship between man and woman bound in understanding, and commitment to each other.

The wilderness in America may now seem much more out of the way; in my home state of New Jersey, one is surrounded by strip malls, gas stations, diners, Adult video stores, playgrounds, baseball fields. From the wooden lands discovered and inhabited, reading a book likes this makes you wonder if what was done with the experiment was worth it. However, this book reminded me that being a Seeker, being resilient, evolving...this is what being American is.

Make America great again?
No, Make our souls great again.

B+

[Kathy Marcum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. Interesting that the puritans leave one place for religious freedom only to find more persecution.

[Mary Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read about the colonies on an extensive basis but this book did fill in the gaps about Rhode Island and the tolerance of that colony.