Finding Anne Bradstreet | God's World News
Finding Anne Bradstreet
Time Machine
Posted: April 25, 2019
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    Professor Christy Pottroff (left) and a student visit a burial ground and stone marker bearing Anne Bradstreet’s name in North Andover, Massachusetts. (AP)
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    Anne Bradstreet’s husband’s name, Samuel is written on the title page of a 1678 edition of a book of her poetry. (AP)
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    A drawing depicts Anne Bradstreet at her writing desk in the 1600s.
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    Anne Bradstreet’s own handwriting is seen in an original manuscript called "Meditations Divine and Moral." (AP)
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    Professor Pottroff says this marker is not where the poet is buried. The real resting place of America’s first published poet is still a mystery. (AP)
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Finding Anne

Anne Bradstreet was the first poet ever published in North America. She died long ago—in 1672. Now professors and students at Merrimack College in Massachusetts want to know: Where is she buried?

A marker stands for Mrs. Bradstreet in an old burial ground near the college. But it is not over her gravesite. Her original grave marker was probably wooden. Time likely wore it away long ago. The professors and students think Mrs. Bradstreet was buried on the land where her family home used to be. They plan to use radar to search for her grave.

Anne’s Life

When she was a girl, Anne was very sick with a disease called rheumatic fever. She wrote poems to please her father, who made sure she got a good education. She was married when she was just 16 years old. In one famous poem, she wrote about how much she loved her husband: “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold/ Or all the riches that the East doth hold.”

Mrs. Bradstreet also wrote about the difficulty of life in America. Her husband became governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He traveled to England on business. (That was very hard. After all, Mr. Bradstreet couldn’t just hop on a plane to come home! He had to take a grueling, long sea voyage.) While he was gone, Mrs. Bradstreet took care of her home without him—and their eight children. She was never strong after her childhood illness. Still, she didn’t stop writing.

Mrs. Bradstreet was a Puritan—Christians who separated from the Church of England. Some came to America to practice their religious beliefs freely. Many people have forgotten about Mrs. Bradstreet’s work. But God has not. She believed poetry was a way to glorify Him.