The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1893-06-21
TIE BLUE LAWS.
They Are Found to Have Had No Real
Place I'm Authentic History.

They Are Found to Have Had No Real
Place in Authentic History.
Popular myths and historical false
hoods have IA tenacity of life that is
amazing. Never chase a lie" was an
old saying; ''let it alone and it will run
itself to death" But many an old and
absurd legend or myth bellies that
maxim, and seems to keep, if not to
gather vitality, at every step, as it
speeds its way down the ages.
Strange as such credulity seems,
there are thousands and tens of thou
sands of people, both in this country
and abroad, who actually believe
that what are known as the
Blue Laws" of Connecticut were
the regularly enacted laws of
the New Haven colony, and that they
contained such absurd statements as
that no husband should kiss his wife,
and no mother her children, on Sun
day or on fast day; that beer-barrel
should be whipped if the beer in it
worked on Sunday; that on that day
no one should cook food, make beds,
sweep house, cut hair, or shave him
self, and that every male in the colony
should have his hair cut round, by
cap, or if cap was wanting, then by
the scooped-out shell OF alfpumplsin!
And not only are these blue Laws"
believed by persons whom we might
naturally suppose to be more or
less credulous, but also by many in
telligent and generally well-informed
people Men prominent in the pulpit,
at the bar and in literary and educa-
tional circles have referred to these
absured rules as undoubted exactions of
the puritans.
The true origin of this popular fiction
was given in recent mum Der of the
New York Observer in an article writ
ten by Rev. Tryon Edwards, part of
which we quote:
1.-The true origin of these Blue Laws
is that they were written by Rev. (?)
Samuel A. Peters, renegade tory,
who was driven from the colony. and
who in anger and spite published these
laws in 1881. According to the historian
est falsifier in the colony, telling
such incredibly absurd stories as that
of the 'Windham frogs and of those
unearthly and fearful quadrupeds, the
Cuba and the 'Whapperlknocller,' and
that Rev. Thomas Hooker of Hartford,
spread the poison of smallpox on the
leaves of Bibles which he sent to the
Indians, and so swept away the great
| sachem Connecticotc ian imaginary per-
| SOM and his warriors, and so laid waste
| their kingdom; and, climax of all. that
| the Connecticut river, at Bellows Falls,
| is so consolidated and hardened by the
pressure of the narrow and rocky gorge
through which it rushes that it is
| harder than marble, and a crowbar of
| iron can not be forced into it, but, of
| course, would float on its surface like a
hip or feather!
'Such was the author of the "Blue
Laws" which are JUST about as anthem
tic as the stories aforementioned, and
of others like them originating with
| Peters, which might well do credit to
| Baron Munchausen himself. So strange
| ly preposterous were his absurd state
ments that some have charitably sup
posed him to have been insane. But
his method and motives point rather to
a malice and spite which hoped to de-
fame the colony from which he was
driven, by fabrications which, strange
to say. have found thousands of cred
ulous believers, Is it not high time that
editors, publishers, essayists, and all
who would be thought intelligent,
should cease to quote such ridiculous
falsehoods as to the actual enactments
of the PuritanS?"