Peter J. Malia

Visible Saints, West Haven, Connecticut, 1648 - 1798 Peter J. Malia

Visible Saints is the story of colonial America in miniature. Through seven generations, the village of West Haven struggled to win its freedom from New Haven. What it earned instead was a reputation as the problem child of the Puritan Order. In a sharply divided community of Puritan saints and Anglican dissenters, West Haven's curious blend of religion and politics proved to be an explosive mix that paved the road to Revolution. As a shoreline community with a front-row seat to the war, West Haven suffered a series of enemy assaults that changed the village forever and forged a unique American community. Visible Saints is a fascinating study that will be valued by students and general readers alike for its scholarship and as history well told. (274 pp. 68 illustrations, annotated, genealogical appendix, bibliography, and index).