[marshmallow]

I agree that the Puritans were no lovers of religious freedom. However, that wasn't really what I was referring to.

I was thinking of their profound and bitter anti-Catholicism which spread far beyond Massachusetts Bay.

[AnAmericanMother]

Well, their anti-Catholicism was different from the mid-Atlantic anti-Catholicism, which in its turn was different from the Know-Nothings, or the 1840s reaction in the Northeast, or the Civil War disturbances in NYC . . . .

. . . . not to mention the mainline Anglican anti-Catholicism which was nourished right through Victorian times by such otherwise admirable men as Charles Kingsley. . . . his public and disgraceful correspondence with Cardinal Newman makes the Puritans look like models of charm and decorum by comparison . . . .

. . . . I can only conclude that there was a lot of it going round, and we can't blame it all on the Puritans! They hated Anglicans, too, after all!