Religious Freedom is in our Blood

Bowne House in Flushing, Queens, New York

One of the oldest homes in our family tree is still standing in Flushing, Queens, New York after 357 years. John Bowne (1627-1695) built his salt-box style Dutch farmhouse around 1661 on land purchased from the Matincock Indians for eight strings of wampum. (about $14)

John Bowne

John married Hannah Feake (1637-1677), daughter of Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake Hallett (remember her?) in 1656. Hannah was practically early American royalty, being the great-niece of John Winthrop, the founder and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As part of the Dutch colony of New Netherlands, Flushing was subject to the laws of the colony. The heads of the Reformed Dutch Church disapproved of Quakerism, so Governor Peter Stuyvesant issued an edict “forbidding anyone in the colony to entertain a Quaker or to allow a Quaker meeting to be held in his or her house under penalty of a fine of fifty pounds.” Strong words considering the fact that the same colony housed a large number of Quakers (Friends), who at that time had to worship in the woods to avoid detection. “The story goes that Hannah Bowne was nursing her baby by a frosty window looking out into the deeps of the Flushing Forest. She heard hymns, saw a flicker of candlelight between the trees—hulking oaks and big, stalwart tulip trees pointing straight up to heaven. She put her baby in the cradle and walked out the door in her white nightdress, the poplin cool against her skin, feeling strange and beautiful in the evening light. She followed the voices, found the Friends missionizing by a stump, off in the distance, who took her in their arms, and sung her back to camp.”The Bowne House: A Story of Religious Freedom                                     Hannah became a Quaker before her husband ever joined. Because of her he allowed Quaker meetings in his home, a famous act of civil disobedience. Because of her he was arrested for doing so. By then he had become a Quaker himself and though pacifist by persuasion, he didn’t intend to go down easily.  

John Bowne Before Governor Stuyvesant

“Bowne refused to pay his fine or to admit any wrongdoing, even refusing to escape when his cell door was conveniently left open for him. By this time, a no-doubt exasperated Stuyvesant felt that he had no choice but to banish Bowne and to send him packing on the next ship bound for Holland. But, wink-wink, he told him that he was free to get off the ship at any point before it reached its final destination.” Hannah Feake Bowne, Not Just Your Average Quaker John presented his case before the Dutch West India Company in Holland. The burghers in Holland fired off a letter to Governor Stuyvesant that said: “The consciences of men at least ought ever to remain free and unshackled.” Take that, Governor Stuyvesant!

John returned, vindicated, to his wife in New York (New Netherlands came under English rule in 1664). Quaker meetings were held twice a week in the Bowne home for the next thirty years. While John was jailed, Hannah is said to have conducted Quaker meetings in his absence. She raised eight children but found time for missionary work, traveling to Ireland and England to pursue fundraising for the Quaker movement. While in London in 1677 she became ill and died there. The John and Hannah Bowne Home is considered by many to be the birthplace of American religious freedom. (It is now owned and operated by The Bowne House Historical Society.)

 Our ancestry: John & Hannah Bowne>>Mary Johanna Bowne>>Jacob Thorne>>Mary Thorne>>Jacob Laing>>Phebe Laing>>Edward Harned>>Harriet Yardley Harned>>Edgar Charles Forman . . .