Story of Mary Dyar
From John Fox's Book of Martyrs:
Though Mary Dyar and Nicholas Davis left that jurisdiction for that time, yet Robinson and Stevenson, though they departed the town of Boston, could not yet resolve (not being free in mind) to depart that jurisdiction, though their lives were at stake. And so they went to Salem, and some places thereabouts, to visit and build up their friends in the faith. But it was not long before they were taken and put again into prison at Boston, and chains locked to their legs. In the next month, Mary Dyar returned also. And as she stood before the prison, speaking with one Christopher Holden, who was come thither to inquire for a ship bound for England, whither he intended to go, she was also taken into custody.
Thus, they had now three persons, who, according to their law, had forfeited their lives. And, on the twentieth of October, these three were brought into court, where John Endicot and others were assembled. And being called to the bar, Endicot commanded the keeper to pull off their hats; and then said, that they had made several laws to keep the Quakers from amongst them, and neither whipping, nor imprisoning, nor cutting off ears, nor banishment upon pain of death, would keep them from amongst them. And further, he said, that he or they desired not the death of any of them.
Mary Dyar wrote this letter in 1659, after she, Marmaduke Stephenson, and
William Robinson were sentenced to death for preaching the Quaker faith in
Boston.
To the General Court in Boston.
Whereas I am by many charged with the guiltiness of my own blood; if you
mean in my coming to Boston, I am therein clear, and justified by tile Lord,
in whose will I came, who will require my blood of you, be sure, who have
made a law to take away the lives of the innocent servants of God, if they
come among you, who are called by you, cursed Quakers; although I say, and am a living witness for them and the Lord, that he hath blessed them, and sent them unto you; therefore be not found fighters against God, but let my counsel and request be accepted with you, to repeal all such laws, that the Truth and servants of the Lord may have free passage among you, and you be kept from shedding innocent blood, which I know there are many among you would not do, if they knew it so to be; nor can the enemy that stirreth you up thus to destroy his holy seed in any measure countervail the great damage that you will, by, by thus doing, procure.
Therefore seeing the Lord hath not hid it from me, it lieth upon me, in love
to your souls, thus to persuade you. I have no self-ends the Lord noweth;
for if my life were freely granted by you, it would not avail me, nor could
I expect it of you, so long as I should daily hear or see the sufferings of
these people, my dear brethren, and the seed with whom my life is bound up, as I have done these two years: and now it is like to increase, even unto death, for no evil doing, but coming among you. Was ever the like laws heard of among a people that profess Christ come in the flesh? And have such no other weapons but such laws to fight against spiritual wickedness withal, as you call it? Woe is me for you! Of whom take ye counsel?
Search with the light of Christ in you, and it will show you of whom, as it
hath done me and many more, who have been disobedient and deceived, as now ye are: which light as ye come into, and obeying what is made manifest to you therein, you will not repent that you were kept from shedding blood, though it were by a woman. It is not mine own life I seek, (for I choose rather to suffer with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of Egypt,) but the life of the seed, which I know the Lord hath blessed, and therefore seeks the enemy thus vehemently to destroy the life thereof, as in all ages he ever did. O hearken not unto him, I beseech you, for the seed's sake, which is one and all, and is dear in the sight of God, which they that touch, touch the apple of his eye, and cannot escape his wrath; whereof I having felt, cannot but persuade all men that I have to do withal, especially you who name the name of Christ to depart from such iniquity as shedding blood, even of the saints of the Most High.
Therefore let my request have as much acceptance with you, if you be
Christians, as Esther's had with Ahasuerus, whose relation is short of that
that is between Christians: and my request is the same that her's was: and he said not that he had made a law, and it would be dishonourable for him to revoke it; but when he understood that those people were so prized by her, and so nearly concerned her, as in truth these are to me, you may see what he did for her. Therefore I leave these lines with you, appealing to the faithful and true witness of God, which is one in all consciences, before whom we must all appear; with whom I shall eternally rest, in everlasting joy and peace, whether you will hear or forbear. With him is my reward, with whom to live is my joy, and to die is my gain, though I had not had your forty-eight hours warning, for the preparation of the death of Mary Dyar.
And know this also, that if through the enmity you shall declare yourselves
worse than Ahasuerus, and confirm your law, though it were but by taking
away the life of one of us, that' the Lord will overthrow both your law and
you, by his righteous judgments and plagues poured justly upon you, who now, whilst ye are warned thereof, and tenderly sought unto, may avoid the one, by removing the other. If you neither hear, nor obey the Lord, nor his servants, yet will he send more of his servants among you, so that your end shall be frustrated, that think to restrain them ye call cursed Quakers, from coming among you, by any thing you can do to them. Yea, verily, he hath a seed here among you, for whom we have suffered all this while, and yet suffer; whom the Lord of the harvest will send forth more-more labourers to gather, out of the mouths of devourers of all sorts, into his fold, where he will lead them into fresh pastures, even the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Oh, let none of you put this good day far from you, which verily in the light of the Lord I see approaching even to many in and about Boston, which is the bitterest and darkest professing place, and so to continue so long as you have done, that ever I heard of.
Let the time past, therefore, suffice, for such a profession as brings forth
such fruits as these laws are. In love, and in the spirit of meekness, I
again beseech you, for I have no enmity to the persons of any; but you shall know, that God will not be mocked; but what ye sew, that shall ye reap from him, that will render to every one according to the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil. Even be it, saith
Mary Dyar.
The General Court summoned Mary before them on May 31, 1660.
"Are you the same Mary Dyar that was here before?" Governor Endicott asked her.
"I am the same Mary Dyar that was here at the last General Court," she replied.
"You will own yourself a Quaker, will you not?"
"I am myself to be reproachfully called so," Mary said stiffly.
Governor Endicott said, "The sentence was passed upon you by the General Court and now likewise; you must return to the prison and there remain until tomorrow at nine o'clock; then from thence you must go to the gallows, and there be hanged till you are dead."
Mary Dyar did not flinch. "This is no more than what you said before."
"But now it is to be executed," said Endicott. "Therefore prepare yourself tomorrow at nine o'clock."
"I came in obedience to the will of God to the last General Court desiring you to appeal your unrighteous laws of banishment on pain of death," said Mary, "and that same is my work now, and earnest request, although I told you that if you refused to repeal them, the Lord would send others of his servants to witness against them."
"Are you a prophetess?" asked the Governor.
"I speak the words that the Lord speaks in me and now the thing has come to pass."
Endicott reached his saturation point and, waving to a prison guard, yelled, "Away with her! Away with her!"
At the appointed time on June 1, 1660, Mary was escorted from her prison cell by a band of soldiers to the gallows a mile away. Apprehensive that a gathering crowd might become uncontrollably compassionate, the Magistrates took every precaution to cut off communication between Mary Dyar and her followers. Led through the streets sandwiched between drummers, with a constant rat-a-tat-tat in front and behind her, Mary Dyar walked to her death.
Despite these precautions, some of the followers were able to get close enough to appeal to her to acquiesce in banishment. "Mary Dyar, don't die. Go back to Rhode Island where you might save your life. We beg of you, go back!" "Nay, I cannot go back to Rhode Island, for in obedience to the will of the Lord I came," Mary said, "and in His will I abide faithful to the death."
At the place of execution the drums were quieted and Captain John Webb spoke, trying to justify what was about to happen. "She has been here before and had the sentence of banishment upon pain of death and has broken the law in coming again now," he said. "It is therefore she who is guilty of her own blood."
Mary contradicted him. "Nay, I came to keep bloodguiltiness from you, desiring you to repeal the unrighteous and unjust laws of banishment upon pain of death made against the innocent servants of the Lord. Therefore, my blood will be required at your hands who wilfully do it." Mary then turned towards the crowd and continued, "But, for those who do it in the simplicity of their hearts, I desire the Lord to forgive them. I came to do the will of my father, and in obedience to this will I stand even to death."
Pastor Wilson cried, "Mary Dyar, O repent, O repent, and be not so delued and carried away by the deceit of the devil." Mary looked directly at him and said, "Nay, man, I am not now to repent."
John Norton stepped forward and asked, "Would you have the elders pray for you?" Mary responded, "I desire the prayer of all the people of God." A voice from the crowd called out, "It may be that she thinks there is none here." John Norton pleaded, "Are you sure you dont' want one of the elders to pray for you?" Mary answered, "Nah, first a child, then a young man, then a strong man, before an elder in Christ Jesus."
Someone from the crowd called out, "Did you say you have been in Paradise?" Mary answered, "Yea, I have been in Paradise several days and now I am about to enter eternal happiness."
Captain John Webb signalled to Edward Wanton, officer of the gallows, who adjusted the noose. Mary needed no assistance in mounting the scaffold and a small smile lighted her face. Pastor Wilson had his large handkerchief ready to place over her head so no one would have to see that look of rapture twisted to distortion - only the dangling body. As her neck snapped, the crowd stood paralyzed in the silence of death until a spring breeze lifted her limp skirt and set it to billowing. "She hangs there as a flag for others to take example by," remarked an unsympathetic bystander. That was indeed Mary Dyar's intention - to be an example, a "witness" in the Quaker sense, for freedom of conscience.
Despite all the frantic attempts of the Boston magistrates to rid themselves of the challenging Quakers, they failed. Mary's death came gradually to be considered a martyrdom even in Massachusetts, where it hastened the easing of anti-Quaker statutes. In 1959 by authority of the Massachusetts General Court, which had condemned her nearly 300 years before, a bronze statue was erected in her memory on the grounds of the State House in Boston. A statue of her friend, Anne Hutchinson, stands in front at the other wing. The words of my 10th great grandmother, Mary Barrett Dyar, written from her cell of the Boston jail are engraved beneath:
My Life not Availeth Me
In Comparison to the
Liberty of the Truth