The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony both inspire and puzzle us. They were a hardy, determined group, fired with a faith seldom seen today. Yet, despite their godliness and their goodliness, they are paradoxes we can never quite solve. On the one hand, we revere the picture of the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving; on the other hand, we shudder at the sound of hysterical neighbors screaming, "Witch! Witch!" and the image of goodly Puritans hanging from a tree branch. To try to reconstruct the times and lives of these people from whom we inherited so much, we can go to official court records which they carefully kept, and we can go to artists of later periods who researched the Puritans and reconstructed aspects of their lives. This track hopefully gives you a start on your own journey of discovery about the New England Puritans.

KEYWORDS: american history, colonial america, puritans, top track