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"The Reformed Pastor"

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Religious beliefs led to relatively high literacy rates among early New England Protestants and their European counterparts. This book, "The Reformed Pastor," belonged to Hannah Westcarr Beaman (1646-1739) of Deerfield, Massachusetts. The author was Richard Baxter, a Puritan minister and a chaplain in Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army during the English Civil War (1642-1648.) Hannah first received this book while married to her first husband, Dr. John Westcarr of Hadley, Massachusetts. Although Greek and Latin had not been spoken for centuries, they remained the written languages in which educated people, usually men, were expected to discuss complicated ideas in this period. Hannah knew enough Latin to be able to write"ejuslibris"- "her book." Hannah gave the book to her brother, Thomas Barnard, who took it with him when he went to Harvard College to prepare for the ministry.

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