Note 388 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

"A good story is told of Wm. Wanton—governor of Rhode Island, 1732-3—in Deane's Scituate. Before his removal from that place to Newport, prior to 1700, he had married Ruth Bryant, daughter of a Congregational deacon. Wanton's family were Quakers. Religious objections were made to the match on both sides. He said, 'Friend Ruth, let us break from this unreasonable bondage—I will give up my religion, and thou shalt thine, and we will go over to the Church of England, and go to the devil together.' They fulfilled this resolution so far, says our author, as to go to the Church of England, and marrying and adhering to the Church of England during life."—Arnold, Hist. of Rhode Island, II, 113, note.