Customer Reviews

Builders of the Bay Colony

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Samuel Eliot Morison paints a pretty detailed and accurate picture of what life was like during the first few decades of settlement in Massachusetts in the 1600s. He does this by presenting biographies of about a dozen important figures during that time and place, representing a cross-section of the colony: Governor John Winthrop, goldsmith and businessman John Hull, first president of Harvard Henry Dunster, theologian Thomas Shepard, missionary to the Indians and Bible translator into Algonkin John Eliot, poetess Anne Bradstreet, and lawmaker Nathaniel Ward are a few. Morison breaks with the revisionist view of 1930 when the book was first published and as presented by historian J. Truslow Adams that few of the earliest settlers were actually Puritans; he sides with the earlier view that indeed most were. Morison quotes heavily from the original Puritan documents, many of which are highly entertaining as well as being informative. Morison is of an older school of historical writing where scholarship is, of course, important, but so is literary skill: he is authoritative and able to relate a clever or witty observation at the same time. He is, therefore, a pleasure to read. I recommend the 2nd edition in that it adds a profile of fur trader and frontier official William Pynchon not found in the 1st edition.

I would not read this book if you have never read any other books on the History of early New England. It is very densely written and with the many sentences you sometimes lose sight about what really happened.

When you do decide to read this thoroughly (and it will take a long time) it becomes more interesting. The book is a collection of biographies of important people in 17th century New England that made the region what it was and still is today. It is an attempt to pierce into the Puritan mind and he has succeeded.

Interesting for those already interested, but unreadable for people who do not know a lot.