Cambridge Synod is held.

(Aug.) A series of meetings to reconcile 82 religious differences among ministers is held in what was then called Newtowne. Rev. John Cotton concedes is brought back into the communion with the other ministers, but Rev. John Wheelwright refuses and is banished three months later.* On August 15, 1648, the assembly is disrupted when a snake slithers in through the door of the meeting house. Its head is quickly stomped by a Mr. Tompson of Braintree. Although the incident is seen by some as symbolizing the unity achieved against heresy, but Anne Bradstreet biographer Helen Campbell later writes, “All the more liberal spirits saw that Massachusetts could henceforth be no home for them, and made haste to other points.”