Authors starting with B

- Anne Bradstreet (1612 - September 16, 1672) -

Ancestry: Northampton, Great Britain

Anne Bradstreet was an English-American writer, the first notable American poet, and the first woman to be published in Colonial America. Her work was very influential to Puritans in her time.

Bradstreet was born Anne Dudley in Northampton, England, 1612. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, a steward of the Earl of Lincoln, and Dorothy Yorke. Due to her family's position she grew up in cultured circumstances and was a well-educated woman for her time, being tutored in history, several languages, and literature. At the age of sixteen she married Simon Bradstreet. Both Anne's father and husband were later to serve as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne and Simon, along with Anne's parents, immigrated to America aboard the Arbella as part of the Winthrop Fleet of Puritan emigrants in 1630.

Despite poor health, she had eight children and achieved a comfortable social standing. Having previously been afflicted with smallpox, Anne would once again fall prey to illness as paralysis took over her joints.

On July 10, 1666, the Bradstreet home burned down in a fire that left the family homeless and without personal belongings for a time. By then, Anne Bradstreet's health was slowly failing. She suffered from tuberculosis and had to deal with the loss of her daughter Dorothy to illness as well, losing her son shortly afterwards. But her will remained strong, and perhaps, as a reflection of her religious devotion and her knowledge of Biblical scriptures, she found peace in the firm belief that her daughter was in heaven.

Anne Bradstreet died on September 16, 1672 in North Andover, Massachusetts at the age of 60. North Andover is the original Andover Parish founded by the the Stevens, Barker and Bradstreet families plus others in the 1640s. The precise location of Anne's grave is uncertain as she may either have been buried next to her husband in "the Old Burying Point" in Salem, Massachusetts, or in "the Old Burying Ground" on Academy Road in North Andover, Massachusetts.

A marker in the North Andover cemetery commemorates the 350th anniversary (2000) of the publishing of the poetry of Anne Dudley Bradstreet in London in 1650. This may be the only site honoring her memory in America. Her words and work have been hidden within the shadows of history for close to 400 years.

Four years after the death of Anne in 1672, Simon Bradstreet married for a second time to a lady also named Anne. Simon died in Salem in 1697.