"SOME QUAKERS WERE BRANDED ON THE FACE WITH A RED-HOT IRON WITH [AN] H. FOR HERESIE."
Oct 27, 1659
Then Marmaduke Stephenson stepped up the ladder and said "Be it known unto all this day that we suffer not as evil-doers, but for conscience sake." As he was turned off the gallows, the ladder pushed away, he said, "This day shall we be at rest with the Lord."
"Friends or Quakers going to execution"
William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson
"Robinson and Stevenson, who were hanged from an elm tree on Boston Common in Boston, were the first Quakers to be executed in America. The two had violated a law passed by the Massachusetts General Court the year before, banning Quakers from the colony under penalty of death." (history)
"Marmaduke Stephenson had been a ploughman in Yorkshire in England in 1655, when he felt what he believed to be the love and presence of the living God as he followed the plough. Leaving his family to the Lord's care, he followed the divine prompting to Barbados in June 1658, and after some time there he heard of the new Massachusetts law and passed over to Rhode Island. There he met William Robinson, another Friend from the company of the Woodhouse, and in June 1659 with two others they went into the Massachusetts colony to protest at their laws. Mary Dyer went for the same purpose. The three were arrested and banished, but Robinson and Stephenson returned and were again imprisoned. Mary Dyer went back to protest at their treatment, and was also imprisoned. In October 1659, Endecott, as per the instruction of the law previously passed, pronounced sentence of death upon the three."
"Robinson and Stevenson, who were hanged from an elm tree on Boston Common in Boston, were the first Quakers to be executed in America. The two had violated a law passed by the Massachusetts General Court the year before, banning Quakers from the colony under penalty of death." (history)
"Marmaduke Stephenson had been a ploughman in Yorkshire in England in 1655, when he felt what he believed to be the love and presence of the living God as he followed the plough. Leaving his family to the Lord's care, he followed the divine prompting to Barbados in June 1658, and after some time there he heard of the new Massachusetts law and passed over to Rhode Island. There he met William Robinson, another Friend from the company of the Woodhouse, and in June 1659 with two others they went into the Massachusetts colony to protest at their laws. Mary Dyer went for the same purpose. The three were arrested and banished, but Robinson and Stephenson returned and were again imprisoned. Mary Dyer went back to protest at their treatment, and was also imprisoned. In October 1659, Endecott, as per the instruction of the law previously passed, pronounced sentence of death upon the three."
June 1, 1660
Mary Dyer before execution
"Mary Barrett Dyer was an English Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony (now in present-day Massachusetts), for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony.
Mary Dyer also stepped up the ladder, her face was covered and the halter put round her neck, when the cry was raised, "Stop! for she is reprieved." She was again banished, but returned in May 1660. Since her reprieve others, both colonists and visiting Friends, had brought themselves within the capital penalty, but the authorities had not ventured to enforce it. After ten days Endecott, at the bidding of the courts, sent for her, and asked her if she were the same Mary Dyer who had been there before. On her avowing this, the death sentence was passed and executed."
