Journey To North America
Holder went to Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, aboard the Speedwell, landing on July 27, 1656. He and seven other passengers were listed with a “Q” (for Quaker) beside their names. At that time, the Puritans in England and in the English colonies were persecuting Quakers, members of the Religious Society of Friends. The port authorities were alerted to the presence of the Quakers and searched the ship before anyone disembarked. Governor John Endicott ordered that they be brought directly to court. Holder and John Copeland, another Quaker, were questioned by the court and demonstrated their thorough knowledge of the Bible and the law in their testimony.
Holder and Copeland were detained in jail to be deported on the next ship departing for England. While they were still in the jail, Mary Dyer and Anne Burden, two other Friends, arrived in another ship and were arrested on the spot. The authorities in the Massachusetts Bay Colony considered the teachings of the Quakers both heretical and blasphemous. Eventually they deported Holder and the seven who had come with him to England.
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