The loss that made me heavy

Source & context

A complete, very short firsthand dream report and its emotional consequence within the June 20, 1689 entry. The wife dies in the dream; the passage is not a claim that she had died. 'Last Sabbath day night' is retained without calculating an exact modern date. The surrounding letter-writing and subsequent visits are waking diary entries, outside this account.

Samuel Sewall (1652–1730), own diary, Diary of Samuel Sewall, vol. I (1674–1700), in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. V, fifth series, second edition (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1878), Diary, printed p. 259. Original Committee of Publication: George E. Ellis; William H. Whitmore; Henry Warren Torrey; James Russell Lowell (Committee of Publication). Original-edition witness: Internet Archive, University of California Libraries scan funded by MSN. Original dates, spelling, source brackets and author qualifications retained; descriptive title and navigation metadata added by Synastry.

The 20 June 1689 entry recalls “Last Sabbath day night”; an exact dream date is not supplied.

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Public domain in the United States (1878 edition) ↗

Original 1878 second edition of seventeenth-century diary text, visually verified from title page and verso. IA metadata marks US status NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT. Publication predates 1931; Samuel Sewall (1652–1730) and the original nineteenth-century publication committee are long deceased. This uses the old published text and an expired-US-publication basis, not a modern edited transcription or new Creative Commons licence. No blanket worldwide clearance is asserted.

Connections in the Loom

Titles, theme labels, illustrations and map connections are editorial navigation aids. They are separate from the account’s words and do not establish connections between real people.