Steere was born to a clothworker at Chertsey, Surrey (about twenty miles north of London), and educated at a local singing school and then at a Latin grammar school. Apprenticed to the cordwainer’s trade in London, Steere became a staunch Whig and avoided Charles II’s suppression of Whigs by taking ship to New England in 1683. He settled in New London, Connecticut, where he became a merchant, but soon moved to Southold, Long Island, to protest local persecution of Quakers. His major work, The Daniel Catcher (1713), was an anti-Catholic answer to John Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel. Steere’s verse has an unusual range and quality among early Anglo-American poets.

There are no Cultural Objects for this author.
Would you like to add a Cultural Object?

There are no pedagogical assignments or approaches for this author.

Literatures of Early America
Transcripts of a student poetry presentation including biographical materials and critical analysis.