Mirabilis Member Years

There shall be initially 410 Mirabilis Members. Mirabilis is latin for miracle. The Mirabilis Members will each be unique in that they will adopt a year in the great American story.

1640

The calling of the Long Parliament in England, who deny the King money to fight more wars against the Scots, effectively ends the outpouring of Puritan émigré’s to New England. They see a possibility of change in their favor if King Charles can be stopped.

1641

Massachusetts Bay Colony takes over jurisdiction of New Hampshire

1642

New Netherlands Colony goes to war against Hudson River Indians who have been raiding the colony; they finally sign a short-lived peace treaty. It was known as Kieft’s War.

1643

Elder William Brewster of Plymouth died, age 76, having served the congregation with all his considerable abilities and wisdom since the founding of the colony twenty-three years earlier. There is a beautiful little park and memorial in his honor in Plymouth today.

1644

Chief Opechancanough leads another massacre in Virginia, 22 years after the first, to wipe out the English. More than 500 men, women, and children are slaughtered. The war lasts two years and Gov. Berkley’s reprisals eliminate the Powhatan Confederacy from history and define geographical boundaries not to be crossed. Two tiny Indian reservations are all that are left today of the tribes.

1645

Ever eager for peace and Christian reconciliation, Plymouth signs a peace treaty, along with the other New England colonies, with the Narragansetts, before war can break out.

1646

Sir William Berkeley builds Green Spring, Virginia’s first great house. It set the example for plantation architecture for generations to come: symmetrical, brick, with a central entrance and great hall flanked by spacious rooms.

1647

One-legged army veteran Petrus Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam and brings civil order, church discipline, and education to the wayward colony. Business booms, building increases on a broad scale and the population increases steadily.

1648

The Dutch and Swedes fought over land along the Schuykill River near Philadelphia. Both sides built forts—the Swedes burnt down the Dutch fort twice.

1649

Maryland passes “Toleration Act.”
In England, King Charles I is executed for treason against Parliament and England