lewd behavior with each other upon a bed
Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon
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In 1649, two married women were charged with lesbianism — specifically, “lewd behavior with each other upon a bed.”
Sarah White Norman, then 26 years old, arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts with her husband, Hugh Norman. Some time in 1648, she snuck a kiss from Mary Vincent Hammon, her 16-year-old, also-married neighbor. From there, the affair progressed — until another Plymouth colonist, Richard Berry, claimed to have caught them in the midst of “misdemeanor and lewd behavior,” complete with “with divers lascivious speeches” from Sarah.
The Norman-Hammon case is our only record of lesbian sex in the early American colonies.
At trial, the judge let Mary off with merely an “admonishment,” likely because of her young age. Sarah, however, paid a much higher price. The prosecution brought two additional charges against her — ”unclean” conduct and “lewd” conduct — that then dragged the trial on for another year. Finally, she was found guilty, then made to publicly confess her “unchaste behavior” and swear against future “offenses.”
By the time Sarah got out of court, her husband had deserted her and her children. He boarded a ship back to England, leaving Sarah destitute and ostracized from the small community.
Mary went back to her husband, Benjamin, and bore him several more children. After 1650, Mary and Sarah’s names evaporate from the colonial records.
Just three years later, Richard Berry — the man who brought Sarah and Mary to the authorities — was himself charged with “uncivil living with another man.”
More on 🏳️🌈:
Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time, written by Elisa Rolle
A Short History of Queer Women, written by Kristi Loehr
Forgotten and Overlooked: Queer Trials of the Early Modern Period, the Library of Congress
“Things Fearful to Name”: Sodomy and Buggery in Seventeenth-Century New England, JSTOR
Erasing lesbians erases women’s history, Philadelphia Gay News