James Ballou III Religious Leader and Patriot of 1776

James Ballou III was born in 1723 in an area of Massachusetts that would become Rhode Island. James was the third generation Ballou (named James) to be born in the New World.  Their patriarch Maturin Ballou, a Baptist minister, immigrated from England. Seeking freedom from the Puritans, he helped Roger Williams co-found Rhode Island. The northeast corner of the state was known as the "Ballou District."  James III’s mother, Catherine Arnold, was related to Benedict Arnold.

In 1744, now in Rhode Island, James married Tamasin Cook. Before the Revolution, they had 11 children who all survived childhood including James IV who was famous for his ability to tell the future. His daughter Elizabeth was the mother of President James A. Garfield.

James III's cousin Abner Ballou was their strict Baptist pastor.  By 1770, James broke from the family church and started his own which allowed members to worship with song.  He moved his family to New Hampshire and bought seven adjoining lots for his seven sons. He ultimately encouraged the family to believe in universal salvation. His cousin’s son Hosea Ballou became an influential clergyman now called the father of American Universalism.

In 1779 at age 56, James III joined Mooney’s Regiment of the New Hampshire Militia, raised in defense of Rhode Island. As a fifer, his job was to play the tunes that would signal the soldiers’ next action.

He lived to age 88, just in time to see the war of 1812. Twenty-one Daughters of the American Revolution list James Ballou III as their patriot ancestor.

From Housekeeper to Wife to Scarlet Woman

My 11th great grandfather, the Reverend Stephen Betchelder, came to the new world in 1632 during the Puritan movement when he was 71! He had been married to my 11th great grandmother, Anne Bates, for 30 years before she died.  He remarried to Helena Mason and brought her and his daughter, my 10th great grandmother Deborah and her husband the Reverend John Wing and others to Massachusetts with them.  They may have spent time in the Netherlands (like the Pilgrims) first after escaping the harsh church laws in England.

After 20 years of marriage, Helena died and left the 86-year-old great grandfather and religious leader alone.  He found a 29-year-old widow and mother of two, Mary Bailey, and hired her to take care of his household in exchange for room and board for her family.  However, Puritan law decreed that a man and a woman cannot live together unless they are married.  Even if he's in his 80s and not interested in her as a paramour but as a servant.

He wrote to his friend Governor John Winthrop (another 10th great grandfather):

"And whereas, by approbation of the whole plantation of Strawberry Bank, they have assigned an honest neighbor, (a widow) to have some eye and care towards my family, for washing, baking, and other such common services, -- it is a world of woes to think what rumors detracting spirits raise up, that I am married to her, or certainly shall be and cast on her such aspersions without ground or proof, that I see not how possibly I shall subsist in the place, to do them that service from which, otherwise they cannot endure to hear I shall depart. The Lord direct and guide us jointly and singularly in all things, to his glory and our rejoicing in the day and at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ! "

Due to the rumor mongers, they were fined 10 pounds (about $1,600 today) for this transgression. But to circumvent the law, he announced to the world that he and Mary were married! By himself as pastor!

On April 9, 1650, the fine was cut in half "for not publishing his marriage according to law." The marriage never appears in the paper trail. It was "ordered that Mr. Betchelder and Mary his wife shall live together, as they publicly agreed to do, and if either desert the other, the Marshal is to take them to Boston to be kept until next quarter Court of Assistants, to consider a divorce. Bail to be granted if satisfactory security could be obtained. In case Mary Betchelder lives out of this jurisdiction without mutual consent for a time, notice of her absence to be given to the Magistrates at Boston."

Meanwhile, Mary fell in love with a young neighbor, George Rogers, and had a child with him.  The court sentenced both of them to a whipping for adultery and she petitioned for a divorce from Stephen.  

Poor, old Reverend Stephen Betchelder, frustrated and humiliated by the harsh reactions by his Puritan neighbors, he returned to England where he died at 95, just 17 days before Mary's divorce was granted.