Foxcroft, June 3, 1755, Works, 16: 668.
∑∫∏ Notes to Pages 411–13
Sedgwick and Marquand, Stockbridge, 75. That Edwards had on hand ''7 gal. of good West Indian rum'' is an indication that prohibition of alcohol was not yet part of New England's Reformed culture.
47. Esther Edwards Burr to Lucy Edwards, November 4, 1754, in The Journal of Esther Edwards Burr, 1754–1757, ed. Carol Karlsen and Laurie Crumpacker (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 292.
48. Journal of Esther Edwards Burr, November 8, 1754, 60–61. The ''diary'' is in the form of extended letters to her friend Sally Prince, daughter of Thomas Prince, in Boston. Esther's fears were shared by some of the most knowledgeable. On November 18, 1754, Colonel Israel Williams, who had succeeded his late uncle John Stoddard as the chief commander on the frontier, recommended more troops to protect Stockbridge because of fears of defection by the Stockbridge Indians. Joseph Dwight, on the scene, defended the Stockbridge Indians and feared more bad treatment of them from outsiders. Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 110.
49. In late November, in his first return to the pulpit after a second round of his illnesses, Edwards repreached to his English congregation a thanksgiving sermon that he had first preached ''for victory over the rebels'' in 1746. Probably the occasion was the successful reconciliation, negotiated by Joseph Dwight, of the government of Massachusetts with the Stockbridge Indians and the agreement of many of the Indians to be ''received as soldiers in the province service.'' Edwards reminded his people that God often bestowed great temporal mercies to his covenanted nations, even when they were wicked, as he had often to ancient Israel. Such blessings were, no less than punishments, calls for repentance. Sermon, Exodus 33:19 (August 1746 and November 1754), Works of Edwards transcription.
50. Edwards to Joseph Dwight, February 26, 1755, Works, 16: 657–58. 51. Edwards to Thomas Foxcroft, June 3, 1755, Works, 16: 668, says, ''I am yet in a low state as to my health.''
52. Edwards to Thomas Prince, April 14, 1755, Works, 16: 659; and Edwards to Thomas Foxcroft, March 8, 1755, Works, 16: 658.
53. Timothy Dwight Sr. to Thomas Foxcroft, April 1, 1755. Dwight thought that Foxcroft might hear of plans for Edwards to leave. Dwight also wrote to Foxcroft regarding the Northampton situation and to Edwards on June 6, 1753, December 7, 1753, and February 22, 1754. In the latter he complained of Edwards' Northampton replacement, John Hooker, whom he thought lacked experimental religion and ''lurches toward an Arminian justification.'' Beinecke, George Claghorn transcriptions.
54. Edwards to Foxcroft, June 3, 1755, Works, 16: 668. On the Indian delegate see Claghorn's note, Works, 16: 659n.
55. Hawley manuscript, Congregational Library, Boston, 4, November 20, 1755, quoted in Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 12: 396.
56. Edwards to Jonathan Edwards Jr., May 27, 1755, Works, 16: 666–67. Edwards to Foxcroft, June 3, 1755, Works, 16: 668.
57. Edwards to Thomas Prince, September 15, 1755, Works, 16: 673. By the next summer Edwards had moved his Stockbridge boys to the safer confines of Bethlehem, where his friend Joseph Bellamy taught them. Edwards to Joseph Bellamy, [June 1756], Works, 16: 688–89. Edwards to Joseph Bellamy, February 12, 1757, Works, 16: 700–701. Edwards to Joseph Bellamy, August 6, 1757, Works, 16: 724–25.