Estate / Collection: The Victor Gulotta Collection

GOOKIN, DANIEL

Autograph document signed. Cambridge: 2 August 1652. One page manuscript on paper in ink, signed “Daniel Gookin,” being several depositions in a suit between Henry Prentiss and William and Winifred Homans along with others "at ye court at Cambridge." 12 x 8 inches (30 x 20 cm). Some repair and paper replacement to verso.

An interesting list of sundry complaints recorded by Daniel Gookin as Deputy to the General Court at Boston. The various complaints from Gilbert Crackbond, Andrew Stimson, John Gibson, Henry Prentiss and Winifred Homans have to do with pigs, cows, trespass, and other aspects of colonial life over which the citizenry frequently quarreled and dragged each other into the general court

Daniel Gookin (1612-1687) had originally settled in Virginia in the early 1640s and became close with Puritan ministers from New England sent south at the request of Virginia authorities at a time when ministers were in short supply. The New England ministers were given a cold reception in Virginia by Governor Berkeley and Gookin decided to join them when they left for Massachusetts in 1644. At Roxbury, Gookin befriended the Reverend John Eliot known as the "Apostle to the Indians." Gookin petitioned on behalf of the Native Americans alongside Eliot and wrote quite eloquently about them in his two books on the subject. In 1649, Gookin was chosen as Deputy from Cambridge to the General Court held in Boston and held the post for nearly 35 years including at the time of this document. His signature is scarce and desirable for his association with Eliot.

Provenance: sold C.F. Libbie, 6 January 1891, as part of the Documents Collected by the Late Prof. E. H. Leffingwell; Sotheby’s, The Property of the Elsie O. and Philip D. Sang Foundation, April 26, 1978, lot 103.

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