ELECTION SERMON

A sermon preached after the annual election of magistrates in Boston.

ELIOT, THE APOSTLE

A Puritan minister who became a missionary to the Indians. -

EMERSON, RALPH WALDO

A Transcendentalist philosopher who believed in the virtues of nature and self-reliance. He is an unmentioned presence throughout The Scarlet Letter, for it is principally his beliefs that are being tested in the character of Hester Prynne.

FIRST ANCESTOR

William Hathorne, Hawthorne's great-great-great grandfather, who was one of the original founders of Salem. He came to New England with John Winthrop in 1630. (The w was added to the name later.)

GENEVA CLOAK

A black cloak worn by members of the Calvinist clergy. Puritanism was an offshoot of Calvinism, which originated in Geneva, Switzerland.

GOSSIPS

Originally friends or close acquaintances, but here perhaps used also in the modern sense of idle chatterers.

HIBBINS, MISTRESS

The wife of a wealthy, Boston merchant, listed by one historical source known to Hawthorne as the sister of Governor Bellingham. She was hanged as a witch in 1656.

HUTCHINSON, ANN

A religious dissenter who was excommunicated by the Puritans and expelled from Boston in the 1630s.

IRVING'S HEADLESS HORSEMAN

The ghostly figure who frightened the schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

JOHNSON, ISAAC

One of Winthrop's original company in 1630. He came to America just a few months before he died. He was the richest man in Boston of his time. KING JAMES

Protestant son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who followed Queen Elizabeth on the throne of England. His reign marked the beginning of a creeping decadence in the court that the Puritans heartily disliked.

KING'S CHAPEL

An 18th-century Boston landmark. Founded in the 1750s, it was the first Episcopal church in America.

KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

Medieval order whose task it was to oversee pilgrims on their way to the holy land.

LETHE

The river of forgetfulness in Hades, the Greek underworld.

LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH

Popular 19th-century poet and fellow student of Hawthorne at Bowdoin College.

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