New: Michael Metcalf(e) The Dornix Weaver and Some Dedham Descendants

Michael French Metcalf

In 1637, Michael Metcalfe, a Puritan weaver of dornix cloth, emigrated with his family from Norfolk, England, to escape the wrath of the Anglican authorities. The book begins with the Metcalfe clan still in England, and traces their involvement in the political and religious issues of medieval times. When Michael immigrated to Dedham, Massachusetts, a nascent community outside of Boston, he joined the Puritan community rooted there. Three generations later, some of his descendants dispersed to Connecticut, Vermont, and beyond. After the Revolutionary War, the family branch followed in this book moved to Vermont and then down the Connecticut River, where prospects for a better life were abundant; later, they went to upstate New York before moving to St. Paul, Minnesota, gateway to the American West. In the early twentieth century, the family returned to the Boston area, where Michael’s descendant, George Putnam Metcalf, joined with the Carter family, descendants of Thomas Carter, who was also a Puritan from England and had settled in Dedham at the same time as Michael Metcalfe. The story shows how these original families evolved into Yankee families, and how their relentless quest for better lives motivated the migration of their descendants.

Hardcover, $80, and paperback, $70. Available from all online booksellers.