The 17th Century - Historical Facts and Baldwins, #1

I've been wondering lately. Who in our family tree was alive during such-and-such? During events in human history? That is, we know Mozart was a big deal during this or that period, and Shogun (the movie) was set around this or that time, and it seems like a LONG time ago so it just becomes abstract data. But since we can fortunately trace our family back so far, surely one or more generations of Baldwins was alive to see or maybe have heard about all of these events, and these things would have been current news stories for them.

Of course, when you think about it, at least one member of your family has always been alive, for the entirety of human history. Whee!

I thought it might be fun to once in a while make posts about which Baldwin was alive during this or that famous occurrence, and to see what exactly happened during their lifetimes. Genealogy, for me, becomes far more interesting when you can place a person in context of world events. So I'll start writing up these posts in order to show these things. I'll jump around in time with this series of posts. But I will start by talking about-

The 17th Century.

Many of my family posts have discussed the Baldwin migration from England to the USA during the earlier portion of this century. It is where I started the blog so I will start these also in this period.

The 17th century runs from 1601 to 1700 AD. There were approximately four generations of our family living then, with a little overlap of course. You can consider alternatively that there were eight couples, due to the Esther/Asahel split and we are descended from both branches.

First we have Sylvester Baldwin (1571-1632) and Jane Wells. For Jane I have a birth date of 1572, which seems probable. We also have Richard Baldwin who lived about 1565-1632, and Isabella Harding who died in 1633. These are the parents of the Baldwins who hopped on the Martin and took a boat ride to Massachusetts. This generation (which I note as '4') were all born in England and as far as I know died there also. They lived in the area of Buckinghamshire.

If generation 4 did ever hear music, it would have had to have been played live. Even though they did have 8-track tapes with all the latest hits, the 8-track player would not be invented for another 400 years. Not really. All music had to be performed by professionals or sung in churches themselves.

The earlier musical period, Renaissance, was coming to a close around the 1560s. In the 1580s madrigals were developed in England. Madrigals were mostly vocal in nature. Instruments were considered to be less important and were used only for occasional accompaniment or for dances. New forms of now-familiar modern instruments were being developed. They had something called a slide trumpet back then, which seems to be something between a trumpet and trombone. They also had a sort of trombone as well, which they called a sackbut.

A Sackbut. Don't be a perv!

The next generation (gen "5") of Baldwins were born around the turn of the century. Sylvester Baldwin (1598-1637) and Sarah Bryan (1606-1669), Joseph Baldwin (1609 - 1684) and Hannah Witlock (1616-1661). These lived in England until the puritan migration began and they undertook the journey to America in 1637.

Baroque music started up around 1600 as well and this period lasted for over a century. During Sylvester Sr. and Richard's day, Claudio Monteverdi was an active composer and opera pioneer. His L'Orfeo was composed in 1607 and followed the story of Orpheus going down into Hades to rescue his dead wife. Spoiler alert: he doesn't. Then either Apollo comes out of nowhere to bring Orpheus up to heaven, or a bunch of drunk women harass him until the end of time. It depended on which version you got. Weird stuff.

Please note here the strange similarity between the story of Orpheus and the account of Lot's wife as noted in the Bible. Orpheus looked behind him and his wife was taken away as they fled; Lot's wife looked behind her at the city and was turned into salt, lost to her husband. Suspicious!

L'Orfeo Music

Some of the Baldwins seemed pretty well-to-do, but I do not know if they would have frequented any operas. From what I am finding, the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell had banned plays and closed all theaters by 1642. It looks like Baldwin generations 4 and 5 may all have been killjoys of this sort, though to my knowledge they were of a different sect. I mean, they literally got in a boat and started their own country to get away from pretty much EVERYTHING, so seeing L'Orfeo would have been out of the question. Party poopers!

In Italy, the Milan Cathedral might have about halfway completed, since it took from 1386 to 1965 to construct. This was a Catholic church, so the Puritans wouldn't have liked this either... I don't want to come down too hard on the Puritans, because they had their beliefs, but man... Imagine having a chance to see some of these exciting works in person, all brand-new cultural developments, and those who did have that opportunity were too stuck in their strict beliefs to enjoy any of it! They even tried to have it all shut down or destroyed!

Milan Cathedral, Interior, Present Day

Ah well. In Japan, the Sengoku Jidai, or Period of the Warring States, was coming to a head after over a century of civil wars and constant battle. At the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa finally defeated Lord Ishida, ending the Sengoku Jidai. Tokugawa's shogunate began in the year 1603 when the Emperor recognized him as Shogun, and this paved the way for the rise of modern day Japan. Japan, along with Germany, becomes fairly important later on in world events.

Feudal Era Japan. What a mess!

James Clavell wrote a popular book about this period, titled Shogun, and they made a mini-series which you really ought to watch. It had John Rhys-Davies in it and I met him once in person.

So there!

Some inventions from around this time: The refracting telescope (1608), human-powered submarine (1620), slide rulers (1624), blood transfusions (1625), steam turbines (1629), and micrometers (in 1636).

By about a third-of-the-way through the century, most of generation 4 had died. Richard Baldwin (1622-1665) and Elizabeth Alsop (1625-1688) had come along... about 1625! They were busy settling Milford as has been established, and the period of American colonization was well underway. Parallel branch David Baldwin (1651-1689) and Mary Stream (1651-1712) were born a few decades later, actually, about the middle of the 17th century, making them somewhat younger than Richard and Elizabeth. I call this batch "generation 6".

In 1631, Mount Vesuvius erupted. In 1632, they started work building the Taj Mahal in India. In 1633, Galileo went to trial before the Roman Catholic Inquisition.

Nobody expects the Roman Catholic Inquisition!

By 1634, Japan had become a "locked country"; it had entered a period of self-imposed isolationism where trade, travel, and relations between other countries had become severely restricted. In 1636, Harvard was founded in Massachusetts. In 1637 the first Opera house opened in Venice. Japan expels all foreigners in 1641. Nobody is allowed to enter.

1649 was a big year for England. Oliver Cromwell began his conquest of Ireland in this year. This conquest lasted until 1653. When the New Haven Colony began to go under, Cromwell invited the Puritans to come back to Europe and to settle instead in either Spain or Ireland. Both countries had lands that Cromwell intended to conquer. Imagine if they had done so? We Baldwins would not exist. Milford would probably be called Marbles or something weird. People would have ten dollar bills with Jonathan Winter on them. Lake George NY would be instead called "Polly's Pond". Who knows?

1649 also featured the execution of Charles I. In 1648 Charles was moved to Hurst Castle where he was indicted for treason by the newly formed "Rump Parliament". I have no idea what they were thinking. Charles was soon successfully tried and subsequently executed; his head was removed in "one clean stroke". Get this: people who watched his death dipped their hankies in his blood as a memento. Isn't that crazy? Anyway this was all well and good for Democracy in England. The republic Commonwealth of England was created and the monarchy was abolished. And England was forever changed. Except it wasn't, because the monarchy was restored a mere 10 years later to his son Charles II in 1660.

Womp womp!

Generation 7 of Baldwins was born around this time. Theophilus Baldwin (1659-1698) and Elizabeth Campfield, or Canfield, (1660-1730). Their grandparents began to die out at this time, although Joseph lived into the 80s. The 1680s.

In 1654 the British Museum was established. Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament in 1653, and he died in 1658. Also in 1658 the Taj Mahal was completed. In 1663, France took control over New France, which was a region colonized by France in North America to the north. New France eventually extended down into the present-day United States, which is why the USA had to buy the land from Napoleon, but this takes place a few hundred years later. The next year in 1664, New Amsterdam was captured by the British, who gave it a more familiar name: New York.

1665 saw the Great Plague of London. 1666 saw the Great Fire of London. Doctor Who's The Visitation is set just before this great fire. 1666 was also going to be the year in which the video game CastleVania: Resurrection was slated to take place. It is indeed lamentable that this Sega Dreamcast title was cancelled and never released, since it would have featured the return of Sonia Belmont and her descendant Victor. I will place the video below for my convenience, since I am fairly certain that nobody else reading will give a hoot.

It seems that 1666 is always a popular year for fictional stories. Probably due to those famous triple sixes and all.

In the 1670s, there were some Indian Wars in New England. The Narraganset signed a peace treaty with Connecticut in 1675, but there were many other tribes involved in attacks in Massachusetts, and Rhode Island... it was a whole thing. I intend to read more about it, myself.

In the 1680s, our Baldwin ancestors Samuel Baldwin (1683 - 1740) and Sarah Kirby (b.1685) were born. In 1685, Johann Sebastian Bach was born. He was pretty famous. 1688 sees the Glorious Revolution in England. In 1689 those crazy Americans came up with the Bill of Rights.

The Salem Witch Trials took place in 1692. I think the trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts, but most of the people were living in Danvers, MA. They were living in Salem Village, that is, which at the time was a part of Salem, MA, but now Salem Village is a part of modern-day Danvers, MA. So if you go up to Salem Mass, just remember if you want to see the actual original village sites where those poor people lived, they're about 15 minutes away in Danvers.

Giles Corey was one of those accused and executed during the trials. He refused to even enter a plea, neither guilty nor innocent. In order to squeeze a response out of him, officials stuck him under some boards and put rocks on top of him until he was pressed to death. Even though he beat a guy so badly that the guy later died, Giles Corey was so stubborn, he stood up to those in power. And that makes him still pretty cool.

Giles Museum Exhibit. Picture from TripAdvisor

The 17th Century drew to a close with a famine in Finland (1696), the end of the Great Turkish War (1699), and the first steam engine also in 1699.

Did you read all of this in one sitting? I'm pooped!