Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

260 GENEALOGICAL NOTES OF BARNSTABLE FAMILIES.
tures of these men the poet Whittier says you could read :
"My life is hunted—evil men
Are following in my track ;
The traces of the torturer's whip
Are on my aged back."
Naturally, however meek a man maybe, it is hardly to be
expected that a man having the traces of the whip on his own
person, can describe so calmly as one who had not suffered.
Bishop, Vol. 1, page 389, says :" "As for this Barlow, his natural
inclination is to be lazy, filthy and base to all. In his former
years, he was one of the Protectors Preachers at Exeter, in New
England and elsewhere ; of which being weary, or having worn
that trade out, or it having worn out him, he turned lawyer and
so came into Plymouth Patent, where he became a notorious
spoiler of the goods of the innocent by being a marshal."
•June 23, 1658, Marshal Barlow arrested Christopher Holder
and John Copeland,* two Quaker preachers, while on their way' to
a meeting in Sandwich. They had been banished from the
Colony on the 2d of the preceding February, and had been whipt
at Plymouth on the 8th of that month for not complying with the
order of the Courts. Barlow carried them before the selectmen
of Sandwich, who had been appointed by the Court, in the
absence of a magistrate, to witness the execution of the law.
They "entertaining no desire to sanction measures so severe
towards those who differed from them in religion, declined to act
in the case." Barlow, disappointed at the refusal, took the
prisoners to his house, where he kept them six days, and then on
29th of June, carried them before Mr. Thomas Hincliley of
Barnstable, who had that month been elected one of the magistrates
and an assistant of Gov. Prence. Bishop, page 184, thus
describes the scene at the execution : "They, (Christopher Holden
' and John Copeland) being tied to an old post, had thirty-three
cruel stripes laid upon them with a new tormenting whip, with
three cords, and knots at the ends, made by the Marshal, and
brought witli him. At the sight of which cruel and bloody execution,
one of the spectators (for there were many who witnessed
against it) cried out in the grief and anguish of her spirit, saying :
"How long, Lord, shall it be ere thou avenge the blood of thine
elect?" And afterwards bewailing herself, and lamenting her
loss, said : "Did I forsake father and mother, and all my dear
* Before 1654 ^Christopher Holder resided at Winterhounie, in Gloucestershire, England.
He is represented to be a well educated man and of good estate. He came to New
England in 1656 and again in 1657, and spent the winter of that year in the West Indies. He
returned to England in 1660 and there married Mary, daughter of Richard and Katherine
Scott, of Providence, K. I. He repeatedly visited America and other countries, and suffered
much in his native country and in foreign Lands. He died July 13, 1688, aged about
60. John Copeland was fi-om Yorkshire and had also been well educated. He came to
America in 1657. In 1661 he was in London, and in 1687 he was in Virginia. He married
thrice, and died at North Cave, County of York, March 9, 1718, veiy aged. Among the
first settlers it is probable they found many whom they had known in England