Anne Dudley Bradstreet: North America’s First Published Poet
Anne Bradstreet was a seventeenth-century literary sensation. Her book of poetry The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in the New World was a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic and the first book of poetry by a North American author, male or female. Eight years after it first hit bookshelves, it remained one of “the most vendible books in England" alongside works by William Shakespeare and John Milton.
Born to Thomas and Dorothy Dudley in England, she sailed to a new life in North America aboard the Arbella in 1630. She lived with her family in Charlestown, Cambridge, and Ipswich before settling in what is now North Andover in 1646. Both her husband and her father were governors of Massachusetts, and they were wealthier than most. She grew up reading, and spent her adult years writing.
Simon Bradstreet, Merchant, Judge, Governor, & “Dear and Loving Husband” to Anne.
Simon Bradstreet was a singular force in colonial Massachusetts: he wielded an extraordinary amount of power as secretary of the colony, a judge in Essex county, and as one of the wealthiest merchants of his generation. He was sent on a number of diplomatic missions–meeting with kings and royal officials, as a representative from America. In 1679, he became the Governor of the Colony–a position he held (off and on) for over a decade. He is also the subject of many love poems written by his wife Anne, including “To My Dear and Loving Husband” and “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent on Publick Employment.”
Recovering Names Once Known : Enslaved & Indentured Residents.
Though Anne Bradstreet and her poetry brought us to her doorstep, it has become very clear to us that this site was the home to many other less-documented people. Our research has recovered the names of the indentured servants (John Carr, William Young, Alexander Sessions) & enslaved Africans (Jack, Gallio Nota, Stacy, Hannah, & Bilhah) who shared houses with the Bradstreet family at various times. Reading the houses and landscape, meticulously, and with great care and imagination, brings the world of everyday seventeenth-century colonial life into sharper focus.