Archive:NEHGR, Volume 149

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Robertson, David T., "Some Savin Hill (Dorchester) Families," NEHGR, Volume CXLIX (1995), pp. 28-40.

[p. 28]

[Footnote:] The author is indebted to Carol Zurawski, Lynn Whitney, and David R. Starbuck, authors of Seventeenth Century Survey of Dorchester (Boston University, 1979). Their book, though not cited as an authoritative source for this article, helped explain the transfer of property in Savin Hill during this period. The map on the opposite page is adapted from Figure 6 (page 60) of their work.

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"Reviews of Books," NEHGR, Volume CXLIX (1995), pp. 187-193.

[p. 187]

Pilgrim Path: The First Company of Women Missionaries to Hawaii, by Mary Zwiep. (University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. Softcover. 376 p.) Order from University of Wisconsin Press, 114 N. Murray St., Madison, WI 53715. Price not stated.

Thanks to James Michener, the story of New England's mission to Hawaii in the early 19th century is a familiar one. Yet Mary Zwiep's book holds many surprises. Using the voluminous letters and diaries written by the seven women in the first mission company, Zwiep refuses to leave us on the final page with any neat summary of who the women "really" were, or of what we in the present ought to think of them. Instead, she acquaints us with a fascinating, frustrating group of human beings, whom we both admire and long to argue with.

The women who sailed from Boston in 1820 on the leaky brig Thaddeus were Sybil (Moseley) Bingham, Jerusha (Burnap) Chamberlain, Lucia (Ruggles) Holman, Maria (Sartwell) Loomis, Nancy (Wells) Ruggles, Lucy (Goodale) Thurston, and Mercy (Partridge) Whitney. Their lives were full of contradictions. They believed it a woman's duty to "submit to, obey, and reverence her husband"; (46), but God alone was their final judge. They felt it their responsibility to make comfortable homes and to bring up their children by traditional principles, yet they left home and hearth and went out among strangers to do it. By marrying the men they did, they also willingly chose a lifetime career which held no promise of ease or even safety.

In Hawaii, while their husbands assumed authoritative positions as preachers, translators, and administrators, the women took up their allotted role of visiting and teaching, and generally showing Christianity in action in daily life. ...

Margaret F. Costello

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"Recent Acquisitions," NEHGR, Volume CXLIX (1995), pp. 194-205.

[p. 205]

WHITNEY/RIEHL. Whitney - Riehl and allied families: Boyd, McDowall, McKim, Riehl "Riel", Steichelman / Leslie P. Whitney. [S.J.]; Whitney, [1980] 105 p.; ill.; 28 cm. Gift of Verne R. Spear. [CS71/W62/1992]

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