Records of Trial from Thomas Shepard’s Church in Cambridge, 1638–1649

Lori Rogers-Stokes, Ph.D., is an independent scholar and contributing editor for New England’s Hidden Histories. She studies the founding decades of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, during which forms of church and state were put in place that would shape American history for centuries to come.

• 1. Re-reading, Re-interpreting, and Recovering Priceless Texts.- 2. Close-Reading the Shepard Manuscripts.- 3. “Venture and Try”: Women Taking the Ultimate Leap ofFaith.- 4. The Shepard Context.- 5. Heroic Souls: Reading the Cambridge Women’s Records.- 6. Conclusion.

“Most seventeenth-century Massachusetts churches required that prospective members tell the church convincingly of the working of God’s grace in them. Few of these conversion narratives have survived … . Records of Trials is an adventurous revisionist exploration of those Cambridge narratives.” (Michael P. Winship, Church History, Vol. 92 (4), December, 2023)