Abigail Beach entered the world on June 4, 1653, in the Puritan settlement of New Haven, Connecticut—a theocratic enclave carved from Algonquin land and governed as much by the Scriptures as by English common law. She was born into a tight-knit world where the clapboard houses stood in orderly rows, livestock wandered unpenned through common pastures, and the rhythm of daily life ticked in step with sermons and bells.