City on the Other Hill: The Plough Patent, the Company of Husbandmen, and a Radical Puritan Colonization Project

Winner of the 2018 Walter Muir Whitehill Prize in Early American History

This article provides a comprehensive account of the “Company of Husbandmen” created to settle southern Maine in 1631 under the “Plough Patent.” Partly inspired by radical religious ideas, the project quickly collapsed. The scheme nevertheless offers insight into early New England history, while illuminating transatlantic Puritan controversies and colonization aspirations.