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- Find A Grave Memorial 6783049; Lawrence Southwick came from Lancashire, England, to America in 1627. He returned to England and brought his wife Cassandra and two children to Massachusetts in 1630, on the Mayflower, in company with William Bradford, and settled at Salem, Massachusetts. James Savage, in his Genealogical Dictionary of First Settlers of New England, says: "In the dark days of delusion against the Quakers the whole family of Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick suffered much from fines and imprisonment." In Felt's Annals of Salem we find that on October 14, 1656, the Court of Assistants took into consideration the appearance of Friends in their jurisdiction. They charged them with claiming to be inspired, writing erroneous doctrines, and despising the orders of Church and State. They ordered that if any Friend came into Massachusetts he should be confined in a house of correction, severely whipped, be kept at hard work, and not suffered to speak. On October 14, 1657, the Court of Assistants enacted, that each male of the Friends, if re- turning after the law had been executed on him, should have one of his ears cut off ; for the second return he should have the other ear cut off ; each female so doing- should be whipped ; if either sex came back a third time, they should have their tongues bored through with a hot iron. From the Massachusetts Colonial Records we find that in 1656 Cassandra Southwick was arrested and fined for non-attendance at church. After this, she and her husband were excommunicated from the Church.
In 1657, Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick were committed to a Boston prison for having entertained two Quakers at their house. Lawrence was released, but Cassandra served a sentence of seven weeks' imprisonment for having a Quaker paper in her possession. In May, 1658, Lawrence, Cassandra, and their son Josiah were arrested, whipped, and imprisoned for twenty weeks at Boston for being absent from public worship and owning the Quaker doctrine. In October, 1658, they were again imprisoned, with others, in Ipswich, for the same offence, Cassandra being again whipped. According to the Massachusetts Colonial Records, the Quakers imprisoned at Ipswich were sent for October 19, 1658. All six, including the three Southwick's, were "enjoyed at their peril to depart out of this jurisdiction before the first day of the Court of election next." They still remained; and on May 11, 1659, was passed the sentence of banishment : " It is ordered that Lawrence Southwick and Cas- sandra his wife, Samuel Shattock, * Nicholas Phelps, Joshua Buffum and Josiah Southwick hereby are sentenced, according to the order of the General Court in October last, to banish- ment, to depart out of this jurisdiction by the 8th of June next, on pain of death ; and if any of them after the 8th of June next shall be found 'within this jurisdiction, they shall be apprehended by any constable or other officer, there to lie till the next Court of Assistants, when they shall be tried, and being found guilty of a breach of this law, shall be put to death." Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick went to Shelter Island, Long Island Sound, and soon died there, within three days of each other, from privation and exposure ; his wife died three days after him. Of Endicott and his minions Gough writes : " The proceedings of these haughty rulers are strongly marked throughout with the features of self-importance, inhumanity, and bitter malig- nity ; but I know of no instance of more persevering malice and cruelty, than that wherewith they persecuted the aforesaid Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick and their family. Thus despoiled of their property, deprived of their liberty, driven into banishment, and in jeopardy of their lives, for no other crime than meeting a part and dissenting from the estab- lished worship, the sufferings of this inoffensive aged couple ended only with their lives " (Gough's History of the Quakers
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