The Litigious Life of John Barnes

John Barnes, an English emigrant to Plymouth colony, was no stranger to controversy. Court records reveal a man prone to conflict, crudeness, and inebriation. On February 2, 1657, tensions flared when Barnes accused Edward Holman of luring his young servant away from work duties to go on leisure boat trips to Duxbury. The court fined Holman and promised to double the fine if it happened again. 

The two had a history of conflict. Years earlier both Holman and Barnes were fined for drunkenness on a Sunday, and Barnes, a wealthy businessman, was even sentenced to sit in the stocks. Another time Barnes was ordered to pay Holman compensation for a wrongful land deal. 

Mr. Barnes’ drinking problem continued to be an issue, leading to multiple court appearances, warnings, and even threats to punish both the establishments that served him and the people who drank with him. His "frequent and abominable drunkenness" led to a revocation of his Plymouth citizenship.

Plymouth records show that Barnes was later in court for land disputes, trespassing, harassing his neighbor's children, striking both a neighbor's son and his horse, and was yet again fined for drunkenness.  

The last mention of John Barnes in the Plymouth court records was in 1672 when a jury was called to determine his cause of death. Apparently, the sixty-year-old man was petting his bull when it turned and gored him in the leg with its horn. The wound was "both broad and deep," and he died thirty-two hours later. 

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“As the coal maketh burning coals, and wood a fire, so the contentious man is apt to kindle strife.”

(Proverbs 26:21; 1599 Geneva Bible)

Anne Clarke’s Heartbreaking Victory

In the heart of Puritan New England, where piety clashes with humanity, Anne Clarke stood before the stern faces of Boston's magistrates asking for divorce. None had ever been granted before in the rapidly growing colony of Massachusetts Bay. Her fate, and that of her children, would be in the hands of the court, but she was more than prepared to make her case. 

Anne Clarke makes her case in court

Anne filed for divorce from her husband on the grounds of marital abandonment and adultery. Given his calloused nature toward his wife and children, Mr. Clark gave Anne a surprising gift that would make the process easy. He wrote out a signed affidavit in which he clearly explained that he had knowingly and purposefully abandoned his wife, he had no desire to return to her, and he was now living with another woman. 

Divorce among Puritan communities was not illegal, but strongly discouraged. Adultery was the most common grounds for divorce, but desertion and cruelty were also accepted as legal cause. However, women had the greater challenge obtaining a divorce, requiring higher standards of proof for their spouse’s offences. 

Fortunately for Anne, the facts were clear. Not only was her husband open and unrepentant about his ongoing affair, but he had also fathered two children with the other woman. 

In a ruling recorded on January 5, 1643, the court noted that Denis Clarke had indeed deserted his wife, refused to return, and confessed to living in adultery, so therefore Anne Clarke “is granted to be divorced."

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“If there be any that provideth not for his own, and namely for them of his household, he denieth the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”

(1 Timothy 5:8; 1599 Geneva Bible)

Twelve Honest Men

In November 1620, the men aboard the Mayflower signed a document known as the Mayflower Compact, agreeing that they would come together as a political body to create “just and equal laws” for their new colony. One of their first laws in Plymouth Colony paved the way for jury trials. On December 17, 1623, the town court ordered that all matters of crime, trespass, and debt disputes “should be tried by the verdict of twelve honest men... in form of a jury."

Before this, crimes and legal disputes were handled within regular town meetings under the oversight of the governor, but as the colony grew, the town meeting became unwieldy for many tasks. The Pilgrim’s desire for freedom in religious practice did not mean they rejected the semblance of law and order, so as citizens of England they conducted their affairs in ways familiar to them, and that would meet the approval of governing authorities. Their differences with the Church of England may have motivated the young colony to work all the more to show themselves as conscientious and law-abiding citizens and loyal subjects of His Majesty, King James.

Although the jury system was rarely needed in the earliest days, it was certainly tested a few years later when the first murder occurred in their midst. In 1630, one of the original Mayflower passengers was put on trial before a jury and found guilty of "willful murder by plain and notorious evidence." He was soon after hanged for his crime. 

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“And I charged your Judges that same time, saying, Hear the controversies between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. Ye shall have no respect of person in judgment, but shall hear the small as well as the great: ye shall not fear the face of man: for the judgment is God's....” 

(Deuteronomy 1:16-17;1599 Geneva Bible)