The Life and Times of William Pynchon

The History of the Americans

William Pynchon, ancestor of the American novelist Thomas Pynchon, was the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts, a successful fur trader, merchant, and magistrate, and at age 60 wrote the first of many books to be banned in Boston. Pynchon had come to Massachusetts with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, and soon became one of the wealthiest merchant/traders in the colony. He founded Springfield on the main trail between the Dutch trading posts near Albany and Boston, and controlled the fur trade coming down the Connecticut River from the north. He had unusually modern opinions about the Indians and Indian sovereignty, opposed the Pequot War, and was a respected leader in New England, until he ran afoul of the Reverend Thomas Hooker, the founder of the Connecticut River Towns. Their dispute would alter the map of New England forever.

Pynchon was an independent thinker, especially in matters of economics and theology. In 1650, he published a book titled The Meritorious Price of our Redemption, and would be prosecuted for heresy. This episode is his story.

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Selected references for this episode

David M. Powers, Damnable Heresy: William Pynchon, the Indians, and the First Book Banned (and Burned) in Boston

Samuel Eliot Morison, Builders of the Bay Colony