Assistants, which
was established in Massachusetts in 1639, exercised the divorce power
before the same was conferred upon it by any express grant; though the
records of that court during the period from 1640 to 1673 have been
lost, having been burned, as is supposed, with the Town House, in 1747.

In 1658 the Court of Assistants was expressly authorized to hear and
determine "all causes of divorce;" and nothing can be more certain than
that that court granted divorces in many cases.[9]

[9] See Cowley's pamphlet, "Our Divorce Courts," &c., pp. 11, 13, 28-30.
In the last revision of his History of the United States, Mr. Bancroft
has corrected the errors which disfigured all the earlier editions of
that work, and which are exposed on p. 10.

The leading members of the General Court (which then included the
Assistants), had been born and bred in England, and were familiar with
the general principles which governed the Ecclesiastical Courts, and the
High Court of Parliament, in granting divorces. They knew nothing of any
rules or principles applicable to divorce proceedings except those which
were recognized in the land of their birth, and of course they intended
that those rules and principles should be followed, as, in fact, they
were followed, by the Court of Assistants.

Although the Plymouth Colony had no statute touching divorce, the
General Court of that colony granted divorces in at least six cases, as
follows, viz.: in 1661, to Elizabeth Burge, of Sandwich, from Thomas
Burge; in 1668, to William Tubbs, of Scituate, from Mary Tubbs; in 1670,
to James Skiff from Elizabeth Skiff; in 1673, to Ensign John Williams,
of Barnstable, from Sarah Williams; in 1675, to Mary Atkinson, of
Taunton, from Marmaduke Atkinson; in 1680, to Elizabeth Stevens from
Thomas Stevens; in 1686, to John Glover from Mary Glover.[10]

[10] See the supplementary chapter in the late John A. Goodwin's
"Pilgrim Republic," soon to be published. Perhaps the case of Wade was
rather a decree of nullity than a divorce.

In all these cases except one, the ground on which the divorce was
granted was infidelity to the marriage-vow. In the case of Mr. Atkinson,
the husband was presumed to have died, having been absent, and not heard
of, for seven years.

Prior to 1785 there was no statute in Massachusetts which defined the
causes for which divorces should be granted, or which prescribed the
forms, the rules, or the principles which the