Sodomy Case: New Hampshire, February 14, 1635

"Two men . . . committed sodomy"

The papers of the Province of New Hampshire, settled in 1623, include a report:

Capt. Wiggin, Governor of Pascutaquack, under Lord Say and Brook wrote to our governor, desiring to have two men tried here, who had committed sodomy with each other and that on the Lord's day in time of public exercise. The governor and divers of the assistants met and conferred about it but did not think it fit to try them here.(1)

References

  1. Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 73, citing Nathaniel Bouton, ed., Provincial Papers: Documents and Records Relating to the Province of New Hampshire, from the Earliest Period of its Settlement: 1623-1687 (Concord, N.H.: G. E. Jenks, 1867), vol. I, p. 106.