Note 412 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

Earle, Customs and Fashions, 77. "A poem, by Mrs. Emma Willard, entitled 'Bride-Stealing, a Tale of New England's Middle Ages,' is preserved in Everest's Poets of Connecticut. It gives a poetical account of one among many instances of 'stealing the bride' that occurred in the early days of the colony."—Hollister, Hist. of Conn., I, 438, note. See also Stiles, Windsor, 475; Weeden, Ecc. and Soc. Hist. of N. E., I, 295; and Huntington, Celebration of the 200th Anniversary of Hadley (Northampton, 1859), 43.