Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1849-06-21
John Rogers and his "1Jine Chill
dren with one at the Breast"


dren with one at the Breast"
- A writer in the Cambridge Mass Chrol
icle, thus puts at rest the vexed question
how many children had John Rogers 2
which has puzzled all readers of the Oh
New-England Primer:
How often have children been puzzle
by the expression, "nine small children AM
one at the breast" not knowing whethe
.ne last named was intended to be included
81 OF added to, the number first mentioned
h Toinetlmes they tried to solve the question
H. cunning the heads of the children 10
n;ndP o'ure but the artist, modestly decil-
mess :" " NEEDLE with matters beyond his bus
matt. useu' IN the old Primers, to leave the
a cto.. dS much in the dark as he found it..
dors 'i"us indistinctness in the picture rem
ILL, utterly impossible to distinguish the
uieh OF the Martyr from the cohinlo"
ro "e ) and thus, in obscurty the matler
unnamed for neatly two centuries, ia tne
recent editIon-''with an historical intro
duction by III. Humphrey, d. d., FTes'ueit
OF Amherst College, and in the one Of
which oy%aRne hundred thousand copies
have lately Nseen circulated by the Massa-
chusetts Sabbath School Society, the pub
fishers have attempted to settle the matter
by giving us distinct picture, in which the
spectators are left out, and the vile and
nine small children besides the one at the
breast are plainly represented.
The earliest published history Of the mar
tvrdom is Foxes Acts and Monuments of
these latter and periIous Dayes," printed in
London, A, D. 1862, only seven years afisr
the death Of Rogers and. whilst his numer-
Gus family were still living. 1t contains the
following statement
CHS '0ite and children, being .KI in
number, X able to go out and one sucking
her breast, met him on the way as he rent
towarfs SmithfeM."
A person inclined to skepticsm as to the
accuracy of the proposed correction, may
perceive a slight degree of ambiguity in the
language Of FoXe; therefore | produce an.
other evidence. In Middleton's Evangcli-
cal Biography, Vol. l, page 1902, we read,
Ellis tsJfc and ten children by her side
with one at her breast met him by thc ray"
AS the matter is one which has become hal
lowed in the minds of many by early asso.
ciaticns, they may be unwilling to change
their long cherished views without still fur
Their testimony of the correctness of the al.
terations, For their benefit will give one
extract from a recent publicaton-th re-
suit of great research and a work of the high
est authority on historical and other matters
pertaining to the period of which it treats
1.-The Annals Of the English Bible by
Christopher Anderson, London, 1852
On the 2S6th page of the second volume
may be found this passage -
"7Hc people acre gigcing thanks for his
but there among the crovd, there
met him the rife, 'ohOm neither Gardner
nor Bonner aoouM permit him to see. His
rife, tie foreigner, with all hr children.
n \ y y the eldest now nearly scucatcen
gears Of age; the youngcst, or the ELEy-
ENTH child, an unconscious babe nor hang
ing at the mothers breast !"
Thus it has been shown from the highest
English authorlty-the earliest and the la
the true number of Mrs. Rogers
children was not nine nor ten but elcucn-
The error at first may have been merely ty-
aphical-arising from the transposition
of the numerical letters XI, as originally
printed in F2 s 1--we .@aiipad t1PeiPState
the error.