The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1915-11-19
Blue LAWS oF.coNNNEcrlcUr

were part beast, part man, and part
devil; and you were offended. l con-
TESS that tor once, | was mistaken
and now | wish to correct my error
| now tell you, you are not part man
and part beast, but wholly of the
devil"
Peters seemed to have the greatest
hatred of New Haven, and the laws
which he says the other parts of New
England called the blue, or bloody
laws, were enacted by the New Hav-
en- colony; now here is a curious fact:
Peters was the first protested his
torian to record those purpoted laws
and he wrote of them in 1881, and OF
colony which had ceased to exist
ITO years before he made the first
known record of them: New Haven
and Hartford colonies had been unit
ed over century as the Connecticut
colony. Isn't it curious that no other
earlier record can be found of such
ridiculous enactmentS?
All that balderdash about a woman
not being allowed to kiss her child on
the Sabbath day, or that no one
should travel, cook vituals. make beds
sweep house, cut hair or shave on that
day. was pure invention; as a matter
of fact many Puritans did not do
some OF those things on the Sabbath,
but as to laws against them, why,
Peters just made them up.
And to clinch his lies about the
laws he gave incidents of the enforce
ment of them, and while he give
names of New Haven families, he also
purported to Pive dates, and of course
entangled himself. ]. Hammond
Trumbull, whom l had the honor OF
knowing, Connecticut historian, the
only man in his day who could read
Elliotts Indian bible, says this story
OF Grigson's hidden will. discovered
with two. leaves glued together over
hundred years after being recorded,
is the most atrocious lie in the whole
book"
In 1876 Trumbull published his
tory of Blue Laws. True and False;
and with research exposed Peters
falsehoods; get that book and laugh
or weep over it as you will; you may
there find laws taken from the New
England. colonies, New York. Mary
land and Virginia and Old England;
many enactments in greater or less
degree noticeable in respect to blunt
ness, quaintness, particularly, and an
tiquated excess of penalty"
Queer that minister of the Gospel
should make such a book-as that
fiction of Samuel Peters. and stranger
still that twenty years afterwards he
should aspire to be made a bishop in
the Episcopal church; but such is the
fact; and it is also fact that he didn't
get it; but instead letter from the
Archbishop of Canterbury giving
reasons why he should not be conse-
Grated for such high church office
and that letter can be read in the his
torical collections of one of the east
ern states.
Was he humorist7 That story of
the drunken Indian squaw safely sail
ing through the Bellows Falls gorge
in birch-bark canoe, on current
thicker than ice, looks like it; but if
one believes in the Connecticut blue
laws he must believe this squaw story
too. | prefer to laugh at both, as
often have, as l have stood on the
river bank at Bellows Falls and
watched the wondekful pot-holes
worn in the granite and the spruce
logs pitching through for the pulp
mills just below, to be ground up for
such paper as this story is printed on.
OBSERVER.