Gary Patterson - Chemistry in 17th-Century New England

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I would like to thank the History of Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society for its support of a symposium on chemistry in America before 1876. I would also like to thank my co-organizers, Ed Cook and Seth Rasmussen. The primary source research for this work has benefitted from the extensive collection of Winthrop Family papers by the Massachusetts Historical Society. I would like to thank Trevor Levere, Louise Palmer and Seth Rasmussen for careful reading and good suggestions for improvement.

Fig. 1.1

Captain John Smith (15791632) (National Park Service, by permission)

Fig. 1.2

John Winthrop, Sr. (15881649).

Courtesy American Antiquarian Society

The Massachusetts Bay Company was a commercial venture []. While there were religious aspects to an explicitly Puritan commonwealth, the proprietors in England expected to make money. How were they going to do that? The king expected the colonies to be a source of wealth for him. London merchants expected to sell finished goods to the needy colonists. New England had substantial natural resources, but in order to reach a market for these goods, they needed to be transported somewhere else. This increased the costs and reduced any profit.