Edward Johnson (Puritan)

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Edward Johnson (born probably in September 1598 in Herne , Kent , England ; died 23. April 1672 in Woburn , Massachusetts ) was an English Puritans , who after his emigration to the colony Massachusetts one of the leading figures of the first English settlers generation in New England counted . His Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Savior in New England , published in London in 1653, is of importance for American literature and history .

Life

Johnson was probably born in Kent in 1598 . Little is known about his early years, only that he married in 1618 is certain. In 1630 he joined the Great Migration , the mass emigration of English Puritans to North America. He reached the Massachusetts colony aboard the Arbella , the flagship of the first and largest settler fleet, and witnessed John Winthrop's sermon A Model of Christian Charity , which he gave shortly before shore leave . He first settled in Charlestown , then in Salem and then returned to England to bring his remaining family back to join him. A passenger list from June 1637 noted that he embarked on an American sailing ship in Sandwich with his wife Susan, seven children and three servants. He and his family initially moved back to Charlestown.

From 1640 he participated in the planning of the new Woburn settlement, which was completed with the formal foundation of the community in 1642. He took over the office of town clerk that he would hold until his death. Over the years he worked in numerous other public offices, such as a lay judge , a selectman in the city council and a captain in the city militia. From 1646 until his death, he also represented Woburn in almost every annual election period in the General Court of the colony. There he was often elected to important committees. In 1643 he was one of the three captains appointed by the General Assembly of an armed platoon that arrested the sect founder Samuel Gorton in Rhode Island. As a printer, he got the edition of the Cambridge Platform in 1648 , the resolutions of the New England Synod from 1646 to 1648.

Wonder-Working Providence

Johnson's historical work was probably published in London in late 1653, but has the printing date of the following year. The first edition bears the title A History of New England, from the English Planting in the Yeere 1628 untill the Yeere 1652, but this title was probably chosen by Johnson's English printer. In the header of the pages of the issue is the title by which Johnson's work is known to this day: Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Savior in New England ("The miraculous providence of the Savior of Zion in New England"). It is the first significant work of Puritan historiography in New England. Although Governors John Winthrop and William Bradford also write detailed chronicles of the early years of their colonies (Massachusetts and Plymouth), they were not printed until the 19th century, so Johnson's work until the appearance of Cotton Mathers Magnalia Christi Americana (1702) was the most powerful work of its kind.

The Wonder-Working Providence contains a wealth of mundane details about the first years of the New England colonies, especially about the cost and practical conditions and perils of emigration and the political and economic factors in the establishment of new settlements. At the same time, as the title makes clear, the work is a millenarian interpretation of New England history as a history of salvation , that is, as the fulfillment of divine providence and biblical prophecy.

literature

plant

The first edition of Johnson's History of New England is

  • A history of New-England: from the English planting in the yeere 1628 until the yeere 1652: declaring the form of their government, civill, military, and ecclesistique: their wars with the Indians, their troubles with the Gortonists, and other heretiques: their manner of gathering of churches, the commodities of the country, and description of the principall towns and havens, with the great encouragements to increase trade betwixt them and old England. Printed for Nath. Brooke at the Angel in Corn-hill, London 1654.

The facsimile edition from 1867 is of great value at least whether the critical apparatus is concerned:

The relevant modern edition is still today:

Secondary literature

Genealogical literature
Literary literature
  • Stephen Carl Arch: The Edyfing History of Edward Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence. In: Early American Literature 28, 1993. pp. 42-59.
  • Sacvan Bercovitch : The Historiography of Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence. In: Essex Institute Historical Collections 104, 1968. pp. 139-61.
  • Ursula Brumm : Edward Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence and the Puritan Conception of History . In: Jahrbuch für Amerikastudien 14, 1969. pp. 140–51.
    • German translation in: History and Wilderness in American Literature. Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1980 (= Basics of English and American Studies 11). ISBN 3-503-01636-8
  • Michael J. Colacurcio : Godly Letters. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame IN 2006. ISBN 0-268-02290-9
  • Edward J. Gallagher: An Overview of Edward Johnson's "Wonder-Working Providence" . In: Early American Literature 5: 3, 1971. pp. 30-49.
  • Edward J. Gallagher: The "Wonder-Working Providence" as Spiritual Biography . In: Early American Literature 10: 1, 1975. pp. 75-87.
  • Mason I. Lowance: The Language of Canaan: Metaphor and Symbol in New England from the Puritans to the Trancendentalists . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1980. ISBN 0-674-50949-8
  • Kenneth B. Murdock: Clio in the Wilderness: History and Biography in Puritan New England . In: Church History 24, 1955. pp. 221-238. Reprint in: Early American Literature 6: 3, 1971/1972. Pp. 201-219.
Encyclopedia Articles

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical information from: Samuel Sewall: The History of Woburn, Middlesex County, Mass. from the Grant of its Territory to Charlestown, in 1640, to the Year 1680. Wiggin and Lunt, Boston 1868. pp. 73-76. Digitized
personal data
SURNAME Johnson, Edward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English Puritan and pioneer of settlers in New England
DATE OF BIRTH uncertain: September 1598
PLACE OF BIRTH Herne , Kent, England
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1672
Place of death Woburn , Massachusetts