10 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
a sturdy, adventuresome woman of great character and faith. She bore
nine children who survived childhood.^2
Samuell’s true calling was spreading the Gospel. He was an egalitar-
ian radical, holding that women could and should be preachers, which
scandalized many. “There is no distinction between male and female in point
of ruling or not ruling, speaking or not speaking,” Gorton declared. He was
equally passionate about the separation of church and state. Civil war was
brewing in England over the controversial reign of Charles I, whose mar-
riage to a French Catholic and overtures to high-church clericalism con-
firmed the Puritans’ worst suspicions. Samuell and Mary resolved to
start a new life in America, only to discover that its advance billing as an
exemplar of religious freedom had been greatly exaggerated by the colo-
nial chamber of commerce. In Boston, at least, the welcome mat wasn’t
out for noncomformists with an “exasperating spirit of independence.”^3
The growing Gorton family soon moved to Plymouth, where they at-
tended the compulsory Sabbath services. Samuell was also conducting
his own meetings twice daily. “He preached like no one in New England,”
William Gerald McLoughlin testifies in Rhode Island, a Bicentennial His-
tory. Gorton denied that heaven and hell were “states of the soul following
death,” asserting that “God rewards or punishes us daily by his spiritual
presence or absence from our hearts.” He rejected literal interpretations
of Old Testament stories, asserting that every true believer could become
a priest by studying Christ’s words. Most controversial of all, Gorton held
that since all men and women were equal under Christ, the courts of men
had no business questioning anyone’s religious beliefs. “Any erection of
authority of the State within the Church, or the Church within the State,
is superfluous and as a branch to be cut off.”^4
Many early accounts claim Gorton’s religious opinions were “obnoxious”
to the people of Plymouth, but a new examination by an English historian,
Grahame Gadman, concludes that “Gorton’s form of worship was in fact
closer to what the original Pilgrim Fathers brought with them in 1620,”
while the Plymouth Colony was migrating toward the religious beliefs of its
“less tolerant and economically dominant Massachusetts neighbors.”^5
theLAd n -gRABBing MAssAchusetts estABLishMent viewed Gorton as
a dangerous firebrand. When the Gortons’ maid was hauled into a kanga-
roo court for smiling in church, Samuell was a character witness, reading
aloud from Scripture with animated zeal and urging the citizens to “stand
for your liberty.” The maid’s fate is unreported, but Samuell was accused
of sedition and banished from Plymouth. “The Gortons were turned out