Mingling Souls Upon Paper: An Eighteenth-Century Love Story

By local Salem historian Bonnie Hurd Smith November 3, 1774, Gloucester, Massachusetts -- When John Murray entered the Sargents’ best parlor on that chilly November day, he looked forward to greeting his host, Winthrop Sargent, and warming himself by the fire as they discussed Universalist theology. As a tireless and popular preacher of universal salvation since he had first sailed for the British colonies in 1770, John expected his reception to resemble dozens of earlier such encounters. But this meeting was different because here, in Gloucester, he met Mr. Sargent’s daughter. Judith Sargent Stevens was twenty-three years old, lovely, intellectually curious, and devoted to her chosen faith, Universalism. John was a robust thirty-three, a man whose charismatic presence and outgoing personality dominated the room.But Judith was married, and any thought of a romance with John was out of the question. Instead, Judith hoped they could “surely, and with the strictest propriety, mingle souls