Puritans and other people who would not conform to the service of the Church of England were called Nonconformists. The group of Nonconformists who went away from their own country in 1620, to come as strangers to America, were called the Pilgrims. They came to America in the _Mayflower_, and landed on a big boulder in the edge of the harbor at a place they named Plymouth. Companies of Puritans sailed from England a few years later and landed on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, some at Salem, and some at a place they named Boston, for another town in England. John Winthrop was the leader of this last company, and was made governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritans soon found that there were some of their number who did not believe just as they did. It seems strange now that those who had come from England just to find a place where they could worship God in the way they saw fit could not let others do the same. They came to do what their consciences told them was right, but they would not let others think that any other way was right. So when members of the Society of Friends, called Quakers, came, dressing differently and thinking it wrong to fight and treat the Indians cruelly, the Puritans sent them away. If the Quakers came back to Boston after being sent away, they were hanged on the Common. A man who did not think what his neighbors believed was likely to have a hard time of it. For any one to dress differently from others was considered a great offense. It was the same all over the world, especially in England. The first man who tried to wear a silk hat in London was chased through the streets. The mob battered his hat and tore his clothes, and he barely escaped with his life. Therefore, when Roger Williams, a bright young minister from England, came to preach in the first church of Boston, the people soon found that he believed in a different form of baptism from theirs, and some were angry enough to wish to kill him for being a Baptist. So he left Boston and went to live at Plymouth. The preaching of those days was not so much about doing good and living by the Golden Rule as about certain fixed beliefs. This often led to angry arguments, and some good people became very violent. On this account Roger Williams soon had to leave Plymouth. Then he went to Salem and built a little church there which is still standing, about three hundred years old. Here the young minister kept on preaching what the leaders thought were strange and wicked teachings. It was decided that such a reckless preacher should be arrested and sent in chains to England to be tried, and imprisoned or put to death. But Roger Williams heard of this decision and did not wait to be arrested. When the captain and his men from Boston came to the Salem minister’s house, they found that he had left there three days before.