Michael Wigglesworth

• BIRTH 18 Oct 1631 Yorkshire, England
• Baptism 21 Oct 1631 Wrawby, Lincolnshire, England
• DEATH 10 Jun 1705 (aged 73) Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA
• BURIAL Bell Rock Cemetery, Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA Show Map GPS-Latitude: 42.4176460, Longitude: -71.0709131
• PLOT Range 3 Row 6 MEMORIAL ID 18784172 Photos by B. Mercer & Mary Simonelli, Bio by: The Guardian

Biography

Michael Wigglesworth (1631–1705) was a Puritan minister and poet whose poem The Day of Doom was a bestseller in early New England. Poet, Clergyman and Physician. Immigrated along with his devout Puritan parents to Massachusetts during the year of 1638. Being exceptionally intelligent he was sent to the new Harvard College in 1648. While studying medicine he struggled with the ideas of theology and philosophy that later inspired both his sermons and poetry.

He eventually put his study of medicine on hold in order to concentrate on the ministry. He would later take the position as pastor for the town of Malden, Massachusetts. It was there that he was a practicing physician and wrote his well known poems. He is best known for his poetry, specifically the poem "The Day of Doom". His commitment to both the people of Malden and God were his primary concern until his death. His poetry is still deliberated even today.

Family

Michael Wigglesworth was born October 18, 1631 in Wrawby, Lincolnshire. His father was Edward Wigglesworth, born 1603 in Scotton, Lincolnshire, and his mother was Ester Middlebrook of Wrawby (born in Batley), who married on October 27, 1629 in Wrawby. The family moved to New England in 1638. They originally lived in Charlestown, Massachusetts, then soon moved to New Haven, Connecticut. When Wigglesworth was ten years old his father became bed-ridden, forcing him to leave school to help maintain the family farm.

He graduated from Harvard in 1651 and taught there as a tutor until 1654, sometimes preaching in Charlestown and Malden, Massachusetts. He became a minister in Malden in 1654 but not actually ordained until 1656.

Work

Wigglesworth believed that he was essentially not worthy of believing in God as a result of merely being human. When he underwent a series of nocturnal emissions in his early life, he was thereafter convinced of his damnation. Through his diaries, he recounts his struggle to remain pure and good, despite continually relapsing into what he viewed as man's natural depravity.

When Wigglesworth became a minister of a church, he was soon overcome with a psychosomatic disorder in which he felt he could do everything except preach. His confused and disappointed congregation elected to find a replacement for Wigglesworth, an unnamed preacher who went on to embezzle funds from the church. Thereafter, Wigglesworth was reinstated and encouraged to take up preaching again.

In his diaries, Wigglesworth expresses an overwhelming sense of inferiority. First with his refusal to accept the presidency of Harvard due to his lack of self-confidence, and again when he married his cousin because, he claims, he is not good enough to find another woman.

Yet he was eventually to marry three times: Mary Reyner in 1655, Martha Mudge in 1679 and Sybil (Avery) Spearhawk in 1691. A daughter Mercy Wigglesworth was born February 21, 1655. With his second wife he had six children, including Samuel Wigglesworth born circa 1689. His youngest son, with his third wife was clergyman Edward Wigglesworth (1693–1765) who had several namesakes. Son Samuel had 12 children, including one also named Edward Wigglesworth (1741–1826) who was Colonel in the American Revolutionary War.

In 1662 he published The Day of Doom or a Poetical Description of the Great and Last Judgment, a "doggerel epitome of Calvinistic theology", according to the anthology, Colonial Prose and Poetry (1903), that "attained immediately a phenomenal popularity. Eighteen hundred copies were sold within a year, and for the next century it held a secure place in [New England] Puritan households. As late as 1828 it was stated that many aged persons were still alive who could repeat it, as it had been taught them with their catechism; and the more widely one reads in the voluminous sermons of that generation, the more fair will its representation of prevailing theology in New England appear."

Despite the fierce denunciations of sinners and the terrible images of damnation in The Day of Doom, its author was known as a "genial philanthropist, so cheerful that some of his friends thought he could not be so sick as he averred. Dr. Peabody used to call him 'a man of the beatitudes', ministering not alone to the spiritual but to the physical needs of his flock, having studied medicine for that purpose," according to Colonial Prose and Poetry.

Other works by Wigglesworth include God's Controversy with New England, Meat out of the Eater, and "God's Controversy with New England," (1662). The latter poem was unpublished, yet provides a lengthy commentary on the fears of Puritans that they would be stricken by God for their sin, and persecuted by House of Stuart.

Wigglesworth died June 10, 1705 in Malden, Middlesex County. This epitaph on Wigglesworth's grave has been attributed to Cotton Mather:

His pen did once Meat from the Eater take
And now he's gone beyond the Eater's reach
His body once so thin was next to none
From hence he's to unbodied spirits flown.
Once his rare skill did all diseases heal
And he doth nothing now uneasy feel.
He to his paradise is joyful come
And waits with joy to see his Day of Doom.

Inscription
MEMENTO MORI - FUGIT HORA

HERE LYES BURIED Ye BODY OF
THAT FAITHFULL SERVANT OF
JESUS CHRIST Ye REVEREND
Mr MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH
PASTOUR OF Ye CHURCH OF CHRISt
AT MAULDEN [gap] YEARS WHO
FINNISHED HIS WORK AND ENTREd
APON AN ETERNAL SABBATH
OF REST ON Ye LORDS DAY JUNE
Ye 10th 1705 IN Ye 74th YEAR OF His AGE
HERE LIES INTERD IN SILENT GRAVe
BELOW MAULDENS PHYSICIAN
FOR SOUL AND BODY TWO

Parents
Edward Wigglesworth 1603–1653
Hester Middlebrook

Spouses
Martha Mudge Wigglesworth 1662–1690 (m. 1679)
Sibyll Sparhawk Avery Wigglesworth 1655–1708 (m. 1691)

References

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wigglesworth

[2] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18784172/michael-wigglesworth

[3] http://www.noyesgenealogy.net/getperson.php?personID=I11370&tree=noyes TNG Genealogy] - SmartCopy: Mar 22 2017, 19:02:30 UTC

[4] http://www.myheritage.com/research/collection-1/myheritage-family-t... MyHeritage Family Trees] via sister Abigail Sweetser (born Wigglesworth) by SmartCopy: Jul 17 2015, 22:02:24 UTC