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ARMS OF WILSON,
Of Penrith, Co. Cumberland, and Wellsbourne, Lincolnshire. Granted I 586.
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Vol. 6
Boston Old Sthte House
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CONTENTS.
John Wilson 9
Frank E. B radish.
The Visit of the West Point Cadets to Boston,
1^21 53
William Clarence Burrage.
The Middlesex Canal 67
Moses Whitcher Mann.^
Boston's Last Town Meetings and First City
Election 89
James Mascarene Hubbard.
Documents from Originals in the Society's Col- lections, with Annotations . . . . 121
Wm. T. R. Marvin.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Wilson Arms faces title
By the courtesy of Thomas Minns, Esq.
The John Wilson Memorial Tablet in the First
Church in Boston 50
From a Sketch by W. P. Bodwell.
U. S. Military Academy, West Point . . 54
From an early Print.
Certificate of Stock, and Route of the Mid- dlesex Canal 7©
Canal and Railroad, Wo burn . . . . 72
From a photograph.
The Granite Arch, Medford . . . . 74
From a photograph.
Old Lock Gates at North Billerica . . . 85
From a photograph.
JOHN WILSON
BY
FRANK E. BRADISH.
JOHN WILSON
A PAPER READ BEFORE THE BOSTONIAN SOCIETY, COUNCIL CHAMBER, OLD STATE HOUSE, MARCH 10, 1908, BY
FRANK E. BRADISH
iVER memorable by us, their descend- ants, are the virtues of the Puritans who settled New England, — those brave men, full of faith, who went out under God's guidance, not knowing whither they went : but while the enterprise demanded of them all the sacrifice of comfort and safety, there were among them a few who renounced ease, and luxury, and a high worldly ambition. Conspicuous in this small class was the Rev. John Wilson, the first Pastor of Boston. Mather's remark that " he was descended from eminent ancestors " voices rather the general knowledge as to his influential connections than a genealogical fact.
lO John Wilson.
His pedigree runs back three generations to a respect- able stock among the country gentry. His earliest known ancestor of the Wilson name is his great-grand- father, William Wilson of Penrith, Co. Cumberland, who was born about the year 1490. His son, William Wil- son the second, was born at Penrith early in the reign of Henry VHI, and removed to Lincolnshire where he acquired a considerable estate. He established his place among the landed gentry, and the family coat-of-arms was confirmed to him in the year 1586. He died at the home of his son in Windsor Castle, and was buried there. On a brass plate in St. George's Chapel is this inscrip- tion : — " William Wilson late of Wellsbourne in the County of Lincolne, Gent, departed this Lyfe within the Castle of Windsor, in the Yeare of our Lord 1587. the 27th Day of August, and lyeth buried in this Place.'*
His son, William Wilson, the third, the father of the Rev. John Wilson, was born at Wellsbourne in 1542, and inherited his father's ambition and the ability to ac- complish it. He was educated at Merton College, Ox- ford, taking his Bachelor's degree in 1564, and his Master's degree in 1570. A man of the world, he un- derstood thoroughly the arts by which men rise, and estimated accurately the opportunities of his own posi- tion; every friend he made possessed power or influence, and whether they were noblemen or commoners, in some mysterious way he "grappled them to his soul with hooks of steel," so that his son as well as himself long
John Wilson. II
reaped the rewards of his social skill. He utilized the possibilities of matrimony in the line of his profession by marrying Isabel Woodhall, a niece of Edmund Grindall, Archbishop of Canterbury, descended like himself from the north-country gentry. The advantages of this pru- dent alliance were at once apparent ; he became a chap- lain of the Archbishop, and added living to living, — each one better than the last. He was Rector of Islip in Oxfordshire, and of Cliffe and of Caxton in Kent ; a Prebendary of Rochester Cathedral and of St. Paul's in London, and a Canon of Windsor, where he made his home ; he was also a devisee and legatee under the Arch- bishop's will, and, as a part of his legacy was in books, his academic degrees were, perhaps, not empty titles, but indicated considerable scholarship and a taste for reading.
John Wilson, born at his father's home in Windsor Castle in 1588, seemed destined for a brilliant future. The powerful connections which so often freed him from the oppression of the Bishops during his Puritan career were sufficient, if he had remained a High Churchman, to raise him to any dignity to which he might aspire. Starting far up on the ladder of preferment, guided by his ambitious father, what promotion might he not expect ? Lands and livings and bishoprics, — even the chair of his great-uncle at Canterbury, — were within his reach if he had deemed these the prizes of his high calling. From his birth he was surrounded by
12 John Wilson.
scenes and events adapted to stimulate ambition, and to nourish a taste for luxury and display. As soon as he was old enough to leave home he was sent to Eton, within sight of his birth-place and only a short distance away.
Windsor and Eton have always been closely united in the care of the kings who founded and supported them, in the affections of the high-born youth who are edu- cated at the one place and attend upon their sovereign at the other, and in the verses of the poets to whom their natural beauties so strongly appeal.
The most familiar lines in which these two places are commemorated together, were written a century later than John Wilson's time by the most learned man in Europe, Thomas Gray, himself an Etonian.
" Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade ; And ye, that from the stately brow Of Windsor's heights the expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead, survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among, Wanders the hoary Thames along His silver-winding way."
At this school, the traditions of which have been so highly prized by generations of statesmen and scholars, John Wilson passed his boyhood's years. His stability
John Wilson. 1 3
of character was recognized when he was appointed a praeposter while he was yet the smallest boy in the school, and although the fact that his father had many powerful friends may have marked him out for public honor, he must certainly have attained a good rank by his scholarship when, at the age of twelve, he was chosen by the Master to address in a Latin salutatory the Due de Biron, who visited Eton while ambassador from Henry of Navarre to Queen Elizabeth. The Duke was much pleased with this address, and presented three golden angels to the youthful orator.
That unimpassioned philosopher, Mr. John Stuart Mill, has testified to the elevating influence upon his own mind of a short residence in one of the ancient confiscated abbeys of England ; what then must have been the effect on an emotional nature like John Wil- son's, of spending all his early years among these homes of learning and of majesty. When he was not studying the classics at Eton he was at home in Windsor, rowing on the winding river, by the shores where Caesar's war- horse stamped ; wandering through the park under those wide-spreading oaks beneath whose shade Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror rode together ; having his home within that mighty castle, which was even then the most superb royal residence in Europe. Living thus within its walls, a boy would become famil- iar with every corner of the huge pile ; in his imagina- tion all its legends would be again instinct with life ;
14 John Wilso7i.
every door would open upon some grand, historic event :
•' And hark ! the portals sound, and pacing forth With solemn steps and slow, High potentates and dames of royal birth, And mitred fathers in long order go.
" Girt with many a baron bold.
Sublime their starry fronts they rear ; And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old
In bearded majesty, appear."
The daily incidents of his life could hardly seem com- monplace, for the windows of his father's house looked across the Windsor Terrace over that incomparable view which has been the dehght of generations of monarchs, and every day he would attend service in that glorious church, the walls of which are encrusted with the memo- rials of heroes, and emperors and kings, sheltered by that roof which is at once the admiration and the de- spair of architects. Many times must he have seen the gorgeous pageant, when the Knights of the Garter assembled in the Castle to celebrate in his own chapel the festival of their patron, Saint George ; when the sov- ereign, attended by the most distinguished of England's statesmen and peers, clad in crimson silk and cloth of gold, and wearing around their necks the great emblem of their Order, set with glittering gems, took part in that stately ceremonial, so foreign to our republican
John Wilson. 15
imagination, — the procession and the recession, the king's oblation, with his slow advance to the chancel, his train constantly increasing as, with the formal pause and salutation at each stall, the knights one by one fell into line, until the whole superb company was moving slowly toward the altar; the many reverences to the altar and to the king, — the dinner, served to the proud music of the trumpet and the drum, — in which it was his father's duty to take part.
From this environment of pomp and splendor John Wilson was removed in his natural promotion as an Etonian to that other loved foundation of King Henry VI, King's College, Cambridge. Upon a boy of schol- arly tastes the influence of university life is very marked, and to such a boy as young Wilson it must have been stimulating in the highest degree. The cen- tury and a half that had elapsed since the pious king on February 12, 1441, had laid with his own hand the first stone of the chapel walls, were marked by the greatest changes in social and political life that appear in English history ; Plantagenet, Lancaster and York and Tudor had passed across the stage, and with them had vanished into oblivion both feudalism and despotism. The age of political, intellectual and spiritual freedom had dawned. The college buildings were small and mean compared with those that had hitherto been young Wilson's home, except the chapel, the work of the mighty Tudor, which the great Elizabeth, on her visit
1 6 John Wilson.
in August, 1564, had praised as "beautiful above all others in her realme."
*' So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense Those lofty pillars, spread that branching roof, Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells. Where light and shade repose, where music dwells, Lingering, and wandering on as loath to die ; Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality."
High and noble aspirations filled John Wilson's soul under the inspiration of these surroundings, and the companionship of aged scholars and ingenuous youth. As his individuality began to develop, he felt that he was called to the religious life, and he became the centre of a group of young men of a similar mode of thought, who met in his rooms for religious conversation and prayer. At first his domestic and scholastic train- ing prejudiced him strongly against the Puritans ; but study and inquiry led him to accept their views, and he began to question the authority of the Established Church as expressed in its form of worship. For this the Bishop threatened to expel him from the University, but his father exerted himself through his friends, and the sentence was suspended for three months. This interval, spent in consulting celebrated divines, only fixed him more firmly in his opinions, and his father therefore withdrew him from Cambridge and entered him at the Inns of Court in London to study law.
John Wilso7i. 17
The three years thus spent in the capital were not wasted ; his father took care that he should have good introductions, so that he moved in the best society and made many valuable friends. He became familiar with all the life of the greatest free city in the world, and the illustration of certain of its phases, which delight us in The Fortunes of Nigel, would have been merely realistic commonplace to John Wilson.
As the study of the law and the distractions of metro- politan life did not weaken Mr. Wilson's inclination toward religion and theology, his father reluctantly per- mitted him to return to Cambridge for his Master's degree, which would have been denied him because of his Puritan views, had not the written command of his father's friend, the Earl of Northampton, Chancellor of the University, subdued the scruples of the Vice-Chan- cellor. Mr. Wilson obtained his degree, but he chose to make his residence, not at the royal foundation where he had been bred, but at the new Puritan college, Em- manuel. It was at this time that he uttered his solemn resolution, " That if the Lord would grant him liberty of conscience with purity of worship, he would be con- tent, yea thankful, though it were at the furthermost end of the world."
He had just begun to preach in those towns in which Puritanism had already gained a footing, when his father's life ended on May 15, 161 5. The aged clergyman blessed his offspring in patriarchal fashion,
iS John Wilson.
as they knelt in succession at his bedside. With John Wilson was " that vertuous young gentlewoman, Eliza- beth, the pious daughter of Lady Mansfield, the widow of Sir John Mansfield, the Master of the Minories, to whom he was just betrothed. To him his father said, *Ah, John, I have taken much care about thee, such time as thou wast in the University, because thou wouldest not conform. I would fain have brought thee to some higher preferment than thou hast yet attained unto. I see thy conscience is very scrupulous concern- ing some things that have been observed and imposed in the Church. Nevertheless I have rejoiced to see the grace and fear of God in thy heart; and seeing thou hast kept a good conscience hitherto, and walked accord- ing to thy light, so do still, and go by the rules of God's holy Word. The Lord bless thee and her whom thou hast chosen to be the companion of thy life.' " The Rev. William Wilson was buried beside his father in St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, where he had officiated so many years, and over his grave is this inscription :
" Here underneath lies interr'd the Body of William Wilson, Doctour of Divinitie and Pre- bendarie of this Church by the space of 32 Years. He had Yssue by Isabell his Wife six Sons and six Daughters. He dy'd the 15th of May in the Year of our Lord 1615. of his Age the 73. beloved of all in his Life, much lamented in his Death."
John Wilson. 19
His father's death removed the only restraint on John Wilson's religious enthusiasm, and his objections to the liturgy of the Church of England became more and more pronounced. He was repeatedly silenced by the Bishops, only to be set at liberty to preach again by the overpowering influence of the noblemen whom his father's worldly wisdom had made his fast friends. Wearied at length by perpetual interruption of the work to which he believed God had called him, he lis- tened readily to the proposals of the Adventurers to America. He had then been preaching for fifteen years to the Puritans in the small towns of southern England, and he had a wide acquaintance among those who were to populate the western world ; both ministers and people admired his solid character and enjoyed his fervid eloquence, and they strenuously urged him to remove with them across the ocean and to mould the theological form in which the young empire was to be cast.
During the years preceding the emigration the princi- pal problems that would arise in America were discussed by the firesides of Old England, and the passionate earnestness with which John Wilson supported Win- throp in his struggle with Vane was partly due to his feeling that they had answered all the questions in- volved and had determined the course of their conduct before they ever left their English homes. He did all in his power to forward the plans of Winthrop and his
20 John Wilson.
associates, and on the 22d of March, 1630, he sailed with them from Southampton, leaving behind him his wife, who preferred a luxurious home with her mother in London to the hardships and perils of the ocean and the wilderness.
Mr. Wilson was now forty-two years old, and his had been an active career ; he had already done one life- work, when he left the land of his birth to begin an- other life-work in the new world. The voyage was tedious as well as dangerous ; more than two months they were tossed on the Atlantic, and it was the time of the summer solstice when they cast anchor in Salem harbor. There they were heartily welcomed by Endicott and his company who had crossed before them, but the accommodation was inadequate, and the location did not suit their taste, so they decided at once to remove to Charlestown, where a beginning had been made the year before, and five days after they had disembarked they started southward.
They had had enough, just then, of travel by water, and there were no conveyances by land, and no roads at all — for the Indians were always pedestrians — and only Indian trails ran over the hills of Maiden and Charlestown ; so on that bright, warm day at the end of June, they tramped on foot, led by Indian guides, over the long, rough way. The climate to them was bracing, and their new surroundings were full of interest, as bearing on the life before them. The conversation of
John Wilson. ai
these cultivated gentlemen on their toilsome journey was surely not of Mammon nor of worldly aggrandize- ment, but of the methods by which the settlement of New England might be made subsidiary to the growth of the Kingdom of God, and this " in choice word and measured phrase, above the reach of ordinary men.'* These were not the men whom Lowell has pictured as
" Stern men with empires in their brains, Who saw in vision their young Ishmael strain With each hard hand a vassal ocean's mane."
Mr. Isaac Johnson and the Rev. John Wilson, both the sons of worldly and ambitious clergymen, had re- nounced every conceivable opportunity for political dis- tinction ; and John Winthrop, the successful lawyer, had deliberately chosen the wilderness rather than St. Stephen's storied hall as his field of labor. Neither of them meant to fritter away his energies to found a nation which should return again to the confusion and turmoil of European politics, and boast of a power wholly material. For themselves they sought only free- dom for spiritual growth ; whatever advantages might come to the Commonwealth, they believed would be won, " Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."
The footpath by which they travelled led them into the mystery of the primeval forest, which rose dense and black on either side, enclosing them in gloom, save
22 John Wilson.
when a gleam of flickering sunshine could be seen far before them in some long vista through the trees. At noon they stopped for lunch in a sheltered dell, where the thick green moss made for them a luxurious couch on the banks of a little stream that now ran swift and clear, dancing over sparkling sands, and again, driven from its natural path by a fallen tree, made its way around the obstacle in eddies and rapids white with foam. Here, lulled by the soothing babble of the brook, or by its musical complaint, they took their needed rest and ate their simple repast, " while the cup of still and serious thought went round." The country was not like the much-tilled surface of Old England, but the land had a wild beauty of its own in the awful height of the mighty trees towering into the sky, in the liquid murmur of the waters, in the color of the violets and columbines and anemones at their feet, and in the delicious perfume that is found only in the damp and silent forest. At last from a hill-top they caught sight of the broad and crystal river gliding gently to its union with the ocean.
Arrived in Charlestown, the leaders lodged in a wooden building erected the year before, called "the great house," while the multitude slept in tents and huts about the hill. On July 30th they kept a fast, and after their plain religious service in the open air under the great oak, Mr. Isaac Johnson, the Rev. John Wil- son, Governor Winthrop, and Deputy Governor Dudley
John Wilson. 23
stepped forward and signed a church covenant, which has been the spiritual corner-stone of the churches of Charlestown and Boston, expressed as follows : — "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in obedience to His holy will and divine ordinances — We whose names are here underwritten, being by His most wise and good providence brought together into this part of America in the Bay of the Massachusetts, and desirous to unite into one congregation or church under the Lord Jesus Christ, our head, in such sort as becometh all those whom He hath redeemed and sanctified to Himself, do hereby solemnly and religiously, as in His most holy presence, promise and bind ourselves to walk in all our ways ac- cording to the rule of the Gospel, and in all sincere con- formity to His holy ordinances, and in mutual love and respect to each other, so near as God shall give us grace."
On the 27th of August, after another fast, John Wil- son was ordained teacher of the infant church by im- position of hands, "but only," says Winthrop, "as a sign of election, and not with any intent that Mr. Wilson should renounce his ministry which he received in England."
Charlestown, however, was as little suited as Salem to the needs of the new-comers, for the water was brackish, and many were overpowered by sickness and death ; so the invitation of Mr. Blackstone soon prevailed upon the survivors to cross the Charles and settle on the penin-
24 John Wilson.
sula, where were good springs of fresh water. In Bos- ton Mr. Wilson was again ordained to the ministry, and became the ecclesiastical ancestor of that long line of holy men whose eloquence and learning have adorned religion in that city down to our day.
Although that inexhaustible fountain from which Spring Lane takes its name was the inducement to their removal, the settlers did not make their homes immediately around it. The centre of the original Bos- ton in 1630 was the same as the business centre of the city in 1908 ; that is, the head of State Street. Just what determined this choice can hardly be discovered. Very likely two important Indian trails intersected at this point, one on the line of Washington Street run- ning southerly to Roxbury over the Neck, and the other following Court and State Streets easterly from Scollay Square down to the most convenient landing-place on Merchants Row. Whatever the reason, State Street was laid out of double width at its westerly end, as a market-place, and the most desirable house-lot facing upon it, having Washington Street on the west and State Street on the south, was assigned to the beloved pastor, John Wilson.
The earliest settlers of New England, in their choice of locations, seem to have been governed by a desire to keep near salt water. The extent of the land that has been redeemed from the sea between Merchants Row and Atlantic Avenue is misleading as to the original
John Wilson. 25
appearance of the town. The shore was indented by numerous inlets, so that many places that are now high and dry were then covered by tide-water twice each day. Mr. Wilson's yard ran down to the water at Dock Square, and little Johnny Wilson, afterwards the Rev. John of Medfield, could easily skip pebbles from the beach at the back gate into the ocean.
This proximity to the water, although a valuable in- cident to the estate, required perpetual vigilance on the part of the owner. Butchers settled near-by, and fisher- men frequented the place, and had to be often ad- monished by the Town for befouling the shore with their by-products. The Town Records speak in general terms, and do not disclose who moved the authorities to action, but on many a summer day Mr. Wilson must have conferred with his neighbor. Major General Gib- bons, over the fence that parted their gardens, about the nuisance thus left under their noses, agreeing that butchers' refuse, left when " Robert Nash did kill beastes in the streete," and fish thrown out in the hot sun, formed a nuisance which the town fathers ought to abate.
We can only conjecture what sort of a home it was which John Wilson provided for his wife in those first six months that he passed in Boston ; probably it was a mere shelter from the weather, hastily thrown together, and which Mrs. Elizabeth Wilson was quite justified in refusing to enter. Subsequently he built a better house
26 John Wilson.
about where the Merchants' Bank is to-day, lying '* in the eye of the sun," and after each successive destruc- tion by fire, he rebuilt on the same spot. The path through his garden was not laid out at all ; it merely straggled in a zigzag fashion from State Street back to Dock Square, and its course must have been exceedingly irregular, since even among the streets of Boston it was distinguished as Crooked Lane. Later it bore the name of its first owner, and it was still as crooked as ever nearly two centuries afterwards. Finally it was widened and absorbed in the extension of Devonshire Street within the memory of those now living, and with the disappearance of Wilson's Lmie the minister's most popular memorial passed from public notice.
For many years after the settlement there was no building where the Old State House now stands, but the open space was used as a market-place as in old English towns, and the Rev. John Wilson, from his front windows, had an uninterrupted view of the home of his brother-in-law, Robert Keayne, the founder of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, who lived on the southerly corner of Washington and State Streets. In the growth of the town this immediate neighborhood was the scene of constant change ; every day something new was brought to the good man's attention, small in itself but acquiring importance from its nearness ; on one side of him Anthony Stoddard was authorized to build out his cellar-door and shop-
John Wilson. 27
window two feet into the street ; on the other side John Cogan was ordered to clear the street before his store, of his chests and boxes piled there, and to secure his cellar-door.
In front of Mr. Wilson's house there was incessant commotion in the market-place ; for in the earliest years there was difficulty in preventing the citizens from using it as a store-yard for timber and stone, and then came the designing and construction of the Town House. Like many market-houses still standing in England, the building was supported on posts, so as to keep an open space underneath it level with the street, where the merchants could assemble at the sound of the bell, to trade in open market in the mediaeval fashion. From time to time very small portions of the ground-floor were closed in and rented by the town as shops ; how keenly Mr. Wilson must have scrutinized these little enclosures^ and how great an interest he had in the cancellation of the leases of the Widow Howin's shop and Richard Taylor's shop, and in the setting apart of the easterly cellar of the Town House as a watch-house, perhaps for the detention of those great criminals who persisted in kicking foot-ball in the streets, contrary to the town ordinance !
The first market-house built in Boston, and the ar- rangement of the street around it and of the neighboring houses was almost a reproduction of the village of Wind-
28 John Wilson.
sor, and Mr. Wilson returning from his midnight visit to some dying parishioner, as Hawthorne has described him, guiding his steps by a lantern, the beams of which, as it swayed to and fro, gave continual variety to the prosaic outlines of the low buildings on Court Street and Washington Street and State Street by the magic of light and shade, might well have dreamed that he was again surrounded by the scenes of his youth, and passing through the little village immortalized by Shaks- pere ; all the while unconscious that the lantern's rays formed an aureole around his own head as of some can- onized saint.
Governor Winthrop had chosen a large lot on the op- posite side of State Street, where the Exchange Build- ing now stands ; next to Governor Winthrop was Mr. Leverett ; and the lot on the southeasterly corner of State and Devonshire Streets was appointed for the Meeting-house. There was no house of worship, how- ever, until the second summer of the settlement, when a small building of sticks and mud, with a thatched roof, was put up on the present site of the Brazer's Building. A better structure was soon substituted for this on the same spot, but the more zealous of the congregation looked back with regret to that first year when the soul- stirring sermons of Mr. Wilson were preached under a tree in the open air, — and John Wilson, it should be remembered, formed his idea of the proper length of sermons at Emmanuel College, under Doctor Chader-
John Wilson. 29
ton who was encouraged, after he had preached two hours, with shouts of "Go on. Sir; for God's sake, go on I "
A more suitable location for the church was chosen ten years later, in 1640, when the lot on State Street was sold and a new Meeting-house was built on Wash- ington Street opposite State Street, — quite the most conspicuous and dignified position in the town, — catch- ing the eye of all who landed where Long Wharf is now; for the market-place was entirely open, and the view up State Street unobstructed for a quarter of a century after the settlement. Even this building was a plain structure compared with the beautiful temple in which John Wilson's latest successor now leads in public worship :
"A square-walled church devoid of a spire, With a lofty gallery for the choir, Who sang, with many an odd inflection, Hymns from a very old collection. There was a pulpit square and high, Massively built as in days gone by, With a damask curtain, dingy red. And a winding stair that upward led. Pews that were never built to please Prosperous saints who love their ease Stood by the aisles, with sides so tall That the children could hardly see at all."
The first winter in Boston was one of suffering and distress: in three months death claimed more than
30 John Wilson.
two hundred of the little colony. The provisions which they had bought in England did not arrive, and the weather was extremely severe. They all lived in huts hastily built of small wood daubed with clay ; the wealthiest were obliged to feed on shell-fish and ground- nuts, and "When one could get a bowl of hasty pud- ding, what better," exclaims Captain Roger Clap, " could one ask ? "
Far from being discouraged, however, by this experi- ence, John Wilson sailed in the spring for England, hoping to persuade his wife to return with him ; but she was still reluctant to leave her London home, and turned a deaf ear to his entreaties. His westward voy- age was longer than usual, and his parishioners, fearing that some disaster had befallen him, appointed a day of fasting and prayer for his safety, but before that day arrived he sailed into the harbor, and the grateful Bostonians turned their fast into a service of thanks- giving.
Twice after this Mr. Wilson returned to England : — once when his wife consented to come back with him, and once to settle some family inheritance. While in the Old World, he went through the country preaching the reformed doctrine in the towns so familiar to him, and confirming the resolution of those who were inclined to emigrate. His descriptions of life in New England may have been a little highly colored, but to him they were not exaggerations, for he deemed the hardships of
John Wilson. 31
the raw life in the wilderness as not worthy to be men- tioned with that simple worship which made this naked shore to him an ante-chamber to the new heaven and the new earth.
Without doubt he revisited the scenes of his early manhood, and at Cambridge expatiated to the pious youth studying there on the opportunity for useful- ness in America. His most attentive audience would be found at Emmanuel College, founded by Sir Walter Mildmay to strengthen the cause of Puritanism only twenty years before John Wilson's birth, where he had completed his academic course, and where he was still remembered ; and who could have attracted his affectionate regard more than that godly young man, John Harvard, who was already inclined to the religious life ; so that from John Wilson's enthusiastic description of the freedom of thought and liberty of worship in the new world naturally came the impulse that moved John Harvard to face the perils of the sea and the hardships of the wilderness.
Of all the duties which Providence appointed to Mr. Wilson during his long life none could have been more wholly pleasing to him, more free from alloy, than his share in the organization of Harvard College. His position and his attainments and his relation to the En- glish University make it certain that, whoever originated the idea of a college in New England, he must have
32 John Wilson.
been one of those earliest and most frequently consulted about it.
How great must have been his joy when the General Court in 1636 voted the appropriation which made possible this great project, and with what loving care he must have followed the successive steps when, in 1637, the site of the new college was fixed at Newtowne, and in 1638 the name of that town was changed to Cambridge in honor of the university town in Old England. The beginnings of the new college in the wilderness did not seem so unpromising to John Wilson as to us. Oxford and Cambridge are now adorned with many fine build- ings which have been built since his day, and the past three centuries have contributed a good deal of that an- tiquity which causes us to regard all their halls as ven- erable ; but to Mr. Wilson many of them were new, and so open to criticism both for their architecture and their location; and he could easily imagine that a college founded in America might in a few years rival its En- glish prototypes in the number and splendor of its buildings.
It is not unreasonable to assume that a strong bond of intimacy united Mr. Wilson and John Harvard, his successor in the Charlestown Church, young enough to be his son, and freshly graduated from "the house of pure Emmanuel " where he himself had spent so impor- tant a part of his own academic life. Frequent and ear- nest must have been their consultations over the welfare
John Wilson. 33
of that church and of the new college ; undoubtedly Wilson consoled Harvard in his last hours, and together they planned that bequest which has made the name of an obscure clergyman one of the most august names of the modern world. Very appropriately has Mr. Pierce placed on the title-page of his History of Harvard Uni- versity two lines from Wilson's Latin Elegy on John Harvard :
Me commune bonum, praesertim gloria Christi, Impulit, et carae posteritatis amor.
Wilson^ " Eleg. in Joh. Harvardum.'
The prejudice of the colonists against the liturgy of the Church of England led them to renounce also the authority of the Bishops and Convocation ; and in order to preserve in America that uniformity of doctrine so dear to all theologians, the colonists instituted a system of visitation by the elder Clergy and the more pious magistrates. It did not last many years, for it was irk- some to parsons fond of smooth bands, and smooth wigs, and smooth faces ; but in the early days of the colony, John Wilson and John Eliot and John Winthrop were constantly moving about from settlement to settle- ment strengthening the faith of the brethren, and dis- cussing with them knotty points of doctrine, and laying hands on those set apart as public teachers. There is hardly a town in the colony of which the records do not show the presence of these faithful servants of God at
34 John Wilson.
the ordination of their earlier pastors. This was really an arduous duty, for to the interior parishes which could not be reached by water, the journey must generally be made on foot over rough ways and in all kinds of weather ; but these men felt that they were doing God's work, and complaint for their own discomfort was the last thing they thought of.
The exigencies of the times obliged our earliest clergy to be emphatically members of the Church Militant. Although they had abandoned their old home, England's foes were still their foes. Every sail that appeared on the horizon might be the forerunner of a French fleet ; so they built a fort on an island in Boston Harbor as a protection from invasion, and to this work of public defence Rev. John Wilson certainly contributed his full share, if Johnson is right in saying in his Wonder- Working Providence: "The Castle is built on the North-East of the Island, upon a rising hill, very ad- vantageous to make many shot at such ships as shall offer to enter the Harbor without their good leave and liking." " The Reverend Doctor Wilson gave bounti- fully for the furthering this Wilderness-work, the which was expended upon great Artillery, his gift being a thousand pound."* Another authority states that this
* Capt. Edward Johnson's " Wonder-working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New- England : " p. 194. For a description of Wilson, partly in the quaint " poetry " of Johnson, see the same work, pp. 39, 40.
John Wilson. 35
sum was given by Doctor Edmund Wilson of London, John Wilson's brother; but Johnson probably means that this money virtually came out of the Wilson estate, as John was Edmund's heir. Pynchon's accounts show the curious items of artillery and ammunition for which this money was expended.
While they planned institutions of religion and learn- ing they were surrounded by numerous and deadly foes. The Pequods saw at once that the nomadic and civic modes of life could not continue side by side, and that the slow processes of time favored the white man, and they resolved to strike while their enemy was weak. Beginning along the shores of the Sound, this bold and enterprising tribe soon spread terror throughout Con- necticut and Massachusetts, and the two colonies re- solved to combine their forces and to take the offensive. While their levies were being raised, more alarming news and pressing calls for help reached Boston, and it was determined to despatch one company immediately to the southward. In thus sending its militia outside its jurisdiction the authority of the infant State must be carefully guarded, and therefore one of the magis- trates must go with the little army : — the cure of souls must not be neglected, so a chaplain must accompany them. "These," says Winthrop, "were chosen thus in open Court ; three magistrates were set apart, and one was designed by lot, — the lot fell on Mr. Stoughton. Also the elders set apart two of the clergy, Rev. John
36 Joht Wilson.
Eliot and Rev. John Wilson, and a lot was cast between them in a solemn public invocation of the name of God, and the lot fell upon Mr. Wilson." To those early fathers of New England, John Wilson was as the prophet Elisha to king Joash. Speaking of the com- pany that marched from Boston, the venerable Hubbard says : — " With them was sent that holy man of God, Mr. John Wilson, Pastor of the First Church in Boston, the Chariots and Horseman of our Israel, by whose Faith and Prayer the Country was preserved, so as it was confidently believed that no Enemy should break in upon a Place whilst he survived ; which as some have observed, accordingly came to pass."
Just as the soldiers were starting it was discovered that some of the officers as well as some of the pri- vates were still '* under a covenant of works." The column was promptly halted, for these victims of error must be weeded out before the expedition could expect success ; this, of course, was work for a clergyman, and the chaplain's duties began in earnest before there was any fighting. The campaign was energetically con- ducted, but Mr. Wilson's share in it was much abbre- viated, for while the extermination of the Indians was going on, the ruling class in Boston was alarmed by the development of a heresy which threatened to shake the established order, and the chaplain was recalled in haste that he might deal as sharply with mistaken white men
John Wilson. 37
in controversy as he had smitten the heathen with the sword.
In the battle of ideas and of words, John Wilson was, of course, an expert ; even his amiable disposition was not proof against the spirit of the time. Religious con- troversy was as the breath of their nostrils to the Chris- tians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; it was the intellectual tonic which made them the strong men that they were. As we look backward over two and a half centuries the distinctions of the antinomian contro- versy seem shadowy as we try to grasp them, and usu- ally wholly incomprehensible, and we wonder how our ancestors could deal so sternly with those who had been their respected and beloved neighbors; for we forget that to the men of 1637 the religious question was all- important.
It is a waste of time to-day to try to understand what propositions either side contended for ; they seem to us to fight " as one that beateth the air," but their acts were simple. They drove out of the colony those who would not conform ; Mrs. Hutchinson was banished, and Harry Vane was deprived of office and sufficiently discouraged to insure his return to England. In all this work John Wilson took a leading part, for the predominance throughout New England of the First Church of Boston gave to its pastor a primacy of dig- nity, if not of authority ; and as human nature does not change, we may be sure that the colonists never wholly
38 John Wilson.
forgot that their amiable pastor had friends at home among the great temporal lords who had never yet failed him.
Into the political contest between Vane and Winthrop Wilson threw himself with all the ardor of his nature ; when the election was adjourned to Cambridge he crossed the river, was one of those who forced an im- mediate decision, and as the situation became critical, he determined to bring to bear all his personal and ecclesiastical influence ; climbing into a tree, and bal- ancing himself on a swaying bough above their heads, he harangued his fellow-citizens on their political duties, and helped to carry the hard-fought election for his friend Winthrop.
The friendship of Winthrop and Wilson was cemented not only by their joint labors on questions of state-craft, but also by their association in many good works, nota- bly in their kindness to Sagamore John. This power- ful chief ruled the tribes at Chelsea and Maiden, and the record says that " he was of a good and gentle dis- position, and listened readily to the preaching of the gospel." When the small-pox broke out among these Indians in 1633, both Winthrop and Wilson continued their ministrations, and when the sachem himself was stricken they visited him in his wigwam, doing what they could to relieve his sufferings, and soothing his last hours with the consolations of religion. As he rec-
John Wilson. 39
ognized that death was near, Sagamore John gave the final and greatest proof of his confidence in the Chris- tian white men, by intrusting to the Governor and the Pastor the care and education of his sons. Johnson tells us that these two good men took the Indian youths into their homes, and brought them up with their own families.
Besides his visits to Chelsea, Mr. Wilson, like the other leading ministers, frequently visited Eliot's and Gookin's settlements of praying Indians, conducting services for them in the open air, advising them on questions of discipline, and solving their theological problems, which now sound so grotesque to us. These journeys were usually made on foot, and the highest talent and learning in the colony were employed in this tiresome work ungrudgingly. The General Court itself could have had no more accompHshed counsellors than the poor red-men of Nonantum, when, on the third of March, 1647, John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians, John Wilson, the first Pastor of Boston, and Henry Dunster, the first President of Harvard College, dis- cussing as they went the great problems of divine will and human destiny, slowly wound their way by the In- dian trail out into the wilderness as far as Newton to hold a lecture there.
As to the appearance of John Wilson in youth or age we have little authentic information ; he had his foibles, no doubt, but personal vanity does not seem to have
40 John Wilson.
been one of them ; in his genuine humiHty he refused to allow his portrait to be painted.* Mather says, " Even his nephew, Mr. Edward Rawson, the honoured Secre- tary of the Massachusetts Colony, could not by all his entreaties persuade him to let his picture be drawn ; but still refusing it, he would reply, * What ! such a poor vile creature as I am ! shall my picture be drawn? I say, no ; it shall never be.' And when that gentleman in- troduced the limner, with all things ready, vehemently importuning him to gratify so far the desires of his friends as to sit a while for the taking of his effigies, no importunity could ever obtain it from him." But he who would not allow his likeness to be taken in his life- time has had the singular good fortune to have his ap- pearance and manner, as well as his moral qualities so presented on the printed page as only the genius of a Rubens or a Murillo could have preserved them on canvas.
Two and a half centuries after his death, Hawthorne, who was a painstaking antiquary as well as an accom- plished writer, embalmed the personality of John Wil- son in one of the finest descriptions of early New England life. He is first represented as leaning over the balcony of the meeting-house and speaking to the unhappy woman on the scaffold below, and appearing as follows: "The reverend and famous John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston, a great scholar like
* See note on page 47.
John Wilson. 41
most of his contemporaries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and genial spirit. There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap ; while his gray eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester's infant, in the unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the darkly- engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons."
Later, Hawthorne describes John Wilson in the Gov- ernor's house, as "the venerable pastor, John Wilson, whose beard, white as a snow-drift, was seen over Gov- ernor Bellingham's shoulder, while its wearer suggested that pears and peaches might yet be naturalized in the New England climate, and that purple grapes might possibly be compelled to flourish against the sunny garden-wall. The old clergyman, nurtured at the rich bosom of the English Church, had a long-established and legitimate taste for all good and comfortable things ; and however stern he might show himself in the pulpit or in his public reproof of such transgressions as that of Hester Prynne, still the genial benevolence of his private life had won him warmer affection than was accorded to any of his professional contemporaries."
Our most authentic information about John Wilson's life in America is derived from Mather's Magftalia, which portrays him as always rejoicing in the Lord. When he marched against the Pequods, he went " with
42 John Wilson.
so much faith and joy, that he professed himself as fully satisfied that God would give the English a vic- tory over those enemies, as if had seen the victory already obtained." " Divers times his house was de- stroyed by fire, which yet he bore with such a cheerful submission, that when one met him on the road inform- ing him, * Sir, I have sad news for you ; while you have been abroad your house is burnt ' ; his first answer was, * Blessed be God ; He has burnt this house, because He intends to give me a better ! ' " " Zeal and love," says Mather, " should be the principal strokes in a picture of this good and great man. He was full of affection, and ready to help and relieve, and comfort the distressed ; his house was renowned for hospitality, and his purse was continually emptying itself into the hands of the needy ; from which disposition of love in him, there once happened this passage : When he was beholding a great muster of soldiers, a gentleman then present said unto him, * Sir, I'll tell you a great thing ; here's a mighty body of people, and there is not seven of them all but what loves Mr. Wilson ' ; but that gracious man presently and pleasantly replied, * Sir, I'll tell you as good a thing as that ; here's a mighty body of people, and there is not so much as one of them all, but Mr. Wilson loves him ! ' "
There is a peculiar charm in a character that starts with an upward tendency and has been constantly sub-
John Wilson. 43
jected to careful cultivation. It does not display such striking contrasts as that of the man who after a youth of error turns in maturity to better things, and then gives proof of great ability ; but it possesses a smooth- ness and an even ripeness that please our taste, and there is the certainty that it will always present those admirable qualities when we look for them. Rev. John Wilson was a fine specimen of carefully trained and com- pletely ripened character ; from childhood he showed a natural aversion to low thoughts and vicious conduct ; he tried persistently to think on a high plane and to live in accordance with his best thoughts ; he seemed to be born with a predisposition to the spiritual life, — to be one of those who were in the poet's mind when he wrote :
" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting.
And Cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home."
For John Wilson truly the things which are seen were temporal, but the things which are not seen were eternal. By the time he came to America his devotion to this idea had reached a point where the simplest ac- cessories of worship seemed to interfere with the free
44 Johi Wilson.
communion of his soul with its Maker ; to him the stately ritual of his native Church was a hindrance ; the lofty vaults of her cathedrals shut him from heaven ; the melodious thunder of the organ mingled with the harmonious chant of the choir drowned in his ears the song of saints and angels around the Throne. Both in England and America he had so kept his real life " hid with Christ in God," that when his summons came he passed
" Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."
John Wilson survived his wife nine years ; his son Edmund, a graduate of Emmanuel and a distinguished physician, never came to New England, and died in London in 1657 ; his daughter Elizabeth married Rev. Ezekiel Rogers of Rowley, and died childless in 1650; his son John, a member of the first class graduated at Harvard, was pastor at Medfield, and was the ancestor of the long line of those who bore the family name ; Mary, his youngest child, and the only one born in America, married Rev. Samuel Danforth of Roxbury, and through her twelve children is the ancestress of a numerous posterity. As we walk the streets of Boston we may meet on any corner some aged man, some bright young girl, or some baby blinking in its nurse's arms, who present to us in actual life and motion the lineaments which John Wilson thought so unworthy to be preserved on canvas.
John Wilson. 45
During his last illness the ministers who had come together from all parts for the annual election for the government of the Colony, held their weekly meetings in his hospitable house, and of them he took an affec- tionate farewell, giving them much advice on matters then occupying their attention, and afterwards solemnly with prayer blessing his friends and attendants, calling himself an unprofitable servant and committing himself to the mercy of God. The evening before he died his daughter asked him, " Sir, how do you do ? " He held up his hand and said, " Vanishing things 1 Vanishing things I " but he then made a most affectionate prayer with and for his friends, and so quietly fell asleep on August 7th, 1667, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. Thus expired that reverend old man, of whom when he left England an eminent personage said, '* New England shall flourish free from all general desolations, so long as that good man liveth in it," which was comfortably accomplished ; he was interred with more than ordinary solemnity.
John Wilson's body was laid in the little burial-ground in the heart of our city, near his friend Mr. Isaac John- son and the other earliest settlers of Boston, and he would be quite satisfied with this lowly resting-place. If pride could have affected his spirit, he would have stayed at home, and his bones would have been laid within those historic walls where the dust of his father
46 Jolrn Wilson.
and of his grandfather mingles with the dust of kings. There, under that decorated roof,
"Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise,"
might have been reared for him too a stately tomb of gleaming marble, inscribed with the titles and distinc- tions he had acquired, and reciting all the virtues he possessed ; but he chose otherwise. In the quiet Parish Church in Boston now tenanted by the same religious society to which he ministered, there is a modest tablet placed on its walls by filial piety,* but his most lasting memorial is far grander than any structure of which the physical senses can take cognizance, — a monument reared by genius in the human imagination ; so long as English literature shall exist, Hawthorne's master-piece will attract all thoughtful and cultivated minds, and the romance of the Scarlet Letter will preserve the name and worth of John Wilson, when pompous marble and enduring bronze shall have crumbled in decay.
* Erected by Thomas Minns, Esq., a descendant of Rev. John Wilson through his daughter, Mary Danforth.
NOTE.
The portrait in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society has been many times reproduced by engraving as the likeness of Rev. John Wilson, but its authenticity has long been questioned. It was given to the Society, according to their records, by Henry Bromfield, February i, 1798. In September, 1867 {M. H. S. Proc, p. 41), Doctor John Appleton stated his reasons for thinking that this was not a likeness of Rev. John Wilson; first, — because the work bears the characteristics of a period later than Wilson's death ; second, — because the costume is that of a later period ; third, — because it seemed to have been painted in Europe; fourth, — because Cotton Mather, who had been baptized by John Wilson, was on intimate terms with Ed- ward Rawson, who was supposed to be the first owner of this portrait, and Mather less than thirty years after Wilson's death recites the story, probably told him by Rawson, of Wilson's emphatic refusal to allow his picture to be drawn, even at the urgent request of Rawson himself. John Wilson, the younger, was one of the appraisers of Rawson's estate, and we may assume that if he had found a portrait of his father there, it would appear in the Inventory.
In December, 1 880 {Af. H. S. Proc, p. 264), Mr. Winthrop read to the Society a letter written to him by President Quincy,
48 John Wilson.
May 19, 1857, which had escaped the files of the Society and had apparently been overlooked by Doctor Appleton. In this letter Mr. Quincy states that this " portrait of the Rev. John Wilson, the first Clergyman of Boston, now in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society," had been presented to the Society at his instance by Hon. William Phillips, on the death of Miss Elizabeth Bromfield in 1 814. "I deem it proper, there- fore, to state to you, as President of that institution, that the portrait in question was carefully preserved from the earliest times, among his descendants in the Bromfield family, certainly for more than a century." Mr. Quincy remarks that Edward Bromfield married in 1683, Mary, daughter of Rev. Samuel Dan- forth, and grand-daughter of Rev. John Wilson, and he adds that he has stated these facts, " that there may be no longer any doubt concerning the authenticity of that portrait."
Rev. John Wilson died in 1667, which was eighty-four years before the birth of his great-great-great-grandson, Henry Brom- field, the donor of the picture ; seventy-two years before the birth of Henry's sister, Elizabeth Bromfield, of whom Mr. Quincy speaks ; and one hundred and five years before the birth of President Quincy, who was himself John Wilson's great-great- great-great-grandson ; to all three of them a picture much later than John Wilson's time would seem ancient, and a very slender thread of tradition in their youth would grow into a strong chain of evidence in their old age.
The public records, however, furnish even a more solid basis for Doctor Appleton's doubts. The Inventory of the estate of Edward Bromfield, the emigrant, was taken February 11, 1734-5, and one of the items is " Dr. Owen's picture," valued at seventy shillings ; no other portrait is inventoried.
Dr. John Owen was a distinguished theologian, whose personal appearance was familiar to all well-read Puritans of that time, but
John Wilson. 49
his fame had not entirely overshadowed in Boston that of Rev. John Wilson, whose incomparable services to the founders of New England were still fresh in the memories of their children. Had Mr. Bromfield possessed a portrait of Mr. Wilson, his execu- tor would not have failed to exhibit it to the appraisers, and they would certainly have named it in the Inventory with the likeness of the great Oxonian ; that it does not appear in that list proves that Edward Bromfield did not own such a portrait at the time of his death. Whether the picture owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society is a likeness of Dr. Owen is not germane to the subject of this paper, and is a question requiring extended and careful investigation.
Perhaps some outward likeness to Rev. John Wilson, certainly a reproduction of his kindly and genial temper, is now preserved at the White House, in the person of his descendant, William Howard Taft, President of the United States.
The Wilson arms, which appear on the frontispiece, follow those on the seal attached to the will of Rev. John Wilson, as illustrated in the Heraldic Journal (II: 182), Boston, 1866, where the late Augustus T. Perkins, in a comment on them, says they are in ac- cordance with those described by Burke. With his statement, William Berry, for fifteen years Registering Clerk to the College of Arms, London, agrees, in his Encyclopoedia Heraldica, or Com- plete Dictionary of Heraldty (II), London. They were granted March 24, 1586, to "Wilson of Penrith, co. Cumberland, and Wel- borne, Lincolnshire." The blazon is : — Per pale, argent and azure, three lion's gambs erased, fessways in pale, counterchanged. Crest, a lion's head argent, guttde de sang. For the privilege of using the armorial plate in colors, which forms the frontispiece to this volume, we are indebted to the courtesy of Thomas Minns, Esq., a descendant.
THE JOHN WILSON MEMORIAL TABLET In the First Church, Boston.
THE VISIT OF
THE WEST POINT CADETS
TO
BOSTON, 1821,
BY
WILLIAM CLARENCE BURRAGE.
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THE VISIT OF THE WEST POINT CADETS TO BOSTON, AUGUST, 1821
A PAPER READ BEFORE THE BOSTONIAN SOCIETY, COUNCIL CHAMBER, OLD STATE HOUSE, NOVEMBER 8, 188?, BY
WILLIAM CLARENCE BURRAGE
lected by her,
iHE records of West Point were de- stroyed by fire in 1834, and I am indebted to Miss Mary Frazier Curtis of this city, for permission to use, in preparation of this paper, material col- from many sources, — and chiefly from the Diary of the Hon. John H. B. Latrobe of Baltimore, an Engineer on the staff of the Commandant during this trip.
The corps of Cadets belonging to the Military Acad- emy at West Point, numbering upwards of 235 officers and men, under the command of Maj. William Jenkins Worth,* embarked on board the steamboats " Rich-
♦ See Note, following the paper.
54 The West Point Cadets'
mond" and "Fire Fly," on Friday, July 20, 1821, at three o'clock, and arrived in Albany on Saturday morn- ing. They were received in a style becoming the hos- pitality of the city by a committee of five, and seven companies of State troops under the command of Major Williams, Marshal.
At 12 o'clock they marched to the Capitol, and after a parade in the public square, were received in the As- sembly Chamber, by the Lieutenant-Governor, Officers of the State, and many distinguished men. After a col- lation they were escorted to their camp grounds. On Sunday they attended service at St. Peter's Church, and on the next day some further exercises and parades took place.
On Wednesday they took their departure and began their march for Boston by the way of Lebanon, N. Y., and Springfield and Worcester, Mass. I will not de- scribe in detail their stay at these places, simply saying that they reached their first halting place, Lebanon (27 miles), the same night. On the 26th they marched through the Berkshire hills to Lenox ( 1 2 miles) ; on the 27th to Chester Factory (20 miles) ; on the 28th to Westfield (19 miles), arriving on the morning of the 29th at Springfield where they rested. August ist they left Springfield at 1 1 o'clock at night for " Thomas's Tavern," near Palmer (22 miles) ; thence proceeding to Leicester (21 miles). They reached Worcester August 3d. The following day they went on, stopping at Fram-
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Visit to Boston. 55
ingham, and thence marched to Roxbury, where they encamped on Faxon's Hill, opposite Gen. H. A. S. Dear- born's mansion. Monday afternoon they were hand- somely entertained by Gen. Dearborn,* when Capt. Samuel Doggett* with the Norfolk Guards acted as their escort. They were received in Roxbury by the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen and welcomed to the town in the most cordial manner.
On Tuesday morning, August 7th, they marched to " the southern barrier " of Boston, " on the Neck," where they were met and welcomed by the Selectmen, and the Boston Artillery under Capt. Thomas J. Lobdell fired a salute. They were then conducted to their place of encampment on Boston Common. The principal part of the population of this and the neighboring towns filled the houses and thronged the streets through which the corps passed. The encampment on the Common was an area of 500 feet square, located between the Great Elm and the " Old Mall."
The coming of this splendid body of young soldiers to Boston had been anticipated with great pleasure, and at the Town meeting held on Thursday, June 15, 1821, the citizens voted "That the Selectmen be requested to adopt such measures as they may deem expedient, to show proper respect to the United States Cadets from West Point, when they shall arrive in Town."
* See Note following this paper.
56 The West Point Cadets'
The wishes of the citizens were evidently carried out. In the afternoon of Tuesday a collation was served in honor of the corps in Concert Hall. The following day they were feasted in the "Odeon," and later a very handsome entertainment was given them in Faneuil Hall by the military companies of Boston.
The President of Harvard University, by direction of the Corporation, invited this body of military students to visit the College. This invitation was accepted on Fri- day, August loth. The corps performed various mili- tary evolutions with their accustomed elegance, address, and skill, and then partook of a collation in the Com- mons Hall. The Columbian Centinel of that date said : "The state of this fine corps is such as the best friends of our country would wish, and fully manifests the advantage of giving a systematic military education to those who are designed to form the future defenders of our Republic."
On Saturday, August i ith, the Selectmen in behalf of the Town, presented the Cadets with a fine stand of colors. A battalion of companies under command of Capt. Martin Brimmer,* composed of the "Rangers," the " Fusil eers," the " Boston Light Infantry," and the " Washington Infantry," acted as escort ; the Selectmen with the colors, the Executive, Legislative, Judicial and Muncipal authorities, officers of the United States Army
* See Note following this paper.
Visit to Boston. 57
and Navy, and invited guests, forming in procession, were conducted from the State House to the enclosed area on the Common.
Mr. Williams,* chairman of the Selectmen, in present- ing the colors spoke as follows : " With veneration for the institutions of our fathers ; — with particular appro- bation of the military school under your charge ; — with sentiments of high respect for the administration of our General Government, — which has, and I trust will con- tinue to foster and support this institution to the honor of our country ; — and in conformity to the spirit of hospitality, which the inhabitants of this town enter- tain toward you and the pupils under your charge, — I have the honor to present to you this stand of colors."
There were two colors, — one of white silk, painted by Penniman, with a figure of Minerva and the symbols of war, and bearing the motto : " a scientia ad glo- RiAM " [To Glory through Learning] ; at her side were the emblems of Wisdom, with the military and naval banners of the United States. The other was maza- rine blue, with the arms and motto of the United States, and was painted by Curtis. Both the colors were marked " presented by the inhabitants of the town
* EUphalet Williams was the Chairman of the Selectmen at this time, and his associates were Messrs. Daniel Baxter, Jonathan Loring, Abram Babcock, David W. Child, Samuel Billings, Jeremiah Fitch, Robert Fennelly and Samuel A. Wells.
58 The West Point Cadets'
OF BOSTON." The " Sea Fencibles " then fired a salute of fifty guns.
Major Worth among other remarks in reply, said, " This sacred emblem of our country will never be tarnished by the Cadets, individually or collectively, and this battalion flag will ever be a rallying point, whether in defence of our country's honor, or in pursuit of the science essential to successful war. We particularly recognize on this occasion the genuine expression of attachment to the government and its institutions, and an approval of every act calculated to consolidate its power and secure its protection. Such sentiments are the natural growth of a soil where the spirit of liberty first sprang into life. I assure you that the citizens of Boston shall never have occasion to reflect that their kindness and confidence have been misplaced."
The corps next passed in review before the Com- mander-in-Chief, Gov. John Brooks, and then formed in column with side-arms, and marched to Faneuil Hall, where a bountiful repast was served in the best style to more than seven hundred persons, by Mr. Smith. The chairman of the Selectmen presided. Among the toasts proposed were the following, characteristic of the fashion of that period : —
By Major Worth : " The civil and military Chief of this Commonwealth ; one of the heroes who nobly consummated in the field that which sages planned in Faneuil Hall."
Visit to Boston. 59
By Jeremiah Fitch : *' May the happiness of the people be the sole ambition of their rulers."
By W. H. Sumner : * " Military discipline, which gives strength to the muscles, grace to the body, and energy to the mind."
By George Blake : " West Point, Hercules in his infancy : What may we not expect from the achievements of his man- hood."
By Hon. Daniel Webster : *• Faneuil Hall, the Cradle of Liberty : It never rocked sons of better promise."
By Cadet Holmes : " The Town of Boston : The first to hoist the proud banner of American Liberty ; we believe it will never desert it."
" The Memory of Gen. Warren : whilst the eternal hills remain on their bases, Bunker Hill shall commemorate his memory."
The ladies were also remembered : —
" The fair daughters of Columbia : May they never give the hand or yield the heart to any but the friends of freedom and their country."
On the following day the corps attended service at the meeting-house of the Rev. John Pierpont, on Hollis Street, and at St. Paul's Church heard the Rev. Dr. Samuel F. Jarvis, its first Rector ; in the evening they listened to the Oratorio of Samson, given by the Handel
* See Note following this paper.
6o The West Point Cadets'
and Haydn Society. On this occasion Mrs. Martin was the solo singer, and in the passage
" Let the bright seraphim in shining row Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow," etc.,
her voice was accompanied by Willis of the Cadet Band, who gave an admirable performance on the keyed bugle. On Monday, by the courtesy of Major Thayer, Superin- tendent of West Point Academy, a grand review was held before his Excellency and suite, who were escorted by the Independent Corps of Cadets of this city, Lieu- tenant-Colonel Adams commanding.
Judge John K. Findlay, a Cadet of the class of 1824, spoke at the Re-union of 1881 as follows : —
We were escorted into the town of Boston and welcomed by her Selectmen, while their Ancient and Honorable Artil- lery Company were firing salutes. Every Cadet who was on this march must have the most lively and pleasant re- membrance of the unbounded hospitality of the citizens of Boston. Cadets walking the streets would be captured and generously entertained. Some comrades and myself experi- enced a delightful captivity of this kind at the house of Major Melville,* a venerable Revolutionary officer, who talked to us like a father, and treated us to delicious fruit grown in his own garden.
The great event of the march, and one that will live in my memory till memory shall fail, was the visit to the second President of the United States. Nothing would have awak-
* See Note following this paper.
Visit to Boston. 6i
ened half the enthusiasm with which the sight of this vener- able man inspired me. I touched the hand that had signed the Declaration of Independence. I heard the voice (now feeble from age) which had hurled the defiance of thirteen feeble colonies to one of the mightiest powers on the globe.
In a volume called " Figures of the Past/' by Josiah Quincy, are the following words : —
One of the interesting occasions at which I heard Presi- dent Adams speak in public was during the visit of the West Point Cadets. This was an event of considerable magni- tude at the time, the corps having marched all the way from Albany, which indeed was then the only way to come. A fine band accompanied them, and they were treated with marked hospitality in every town through which they passed. Gov. Brooks declared that their drill was perfect, and their handsome commander, Major Worth, seemed to the ladies an ideal soldier.
I will next read an extract from Miss Quincy 's Jour- nal : —
Aug. 14, 182 1. Our coachman seeing the little fifer of the band running along the road, told him to *get up behind the carriage," which he did, and our military footman ex- cited some attention. The Cadets halted at the foot of the hill, to refresh themselves at the brook, after their seven miles' march from Boston. They then formed in order and marched past the house with colors flying, and band play- ing ; they halted in the courtyard, where they stacked their arms.
62 The West Point Cadets'
Mr. Adams stood on the piazza, the Cadets before him, Major Worth at his side. The contrast between the vener- able old man almost 87 years of age, and the handsome young officer in the prime of life, was very thrilling. His voice trembled as he began to speak, but as he proceeded it grew stronger, and he made a thrilling and excellent speech. They then partook of a collation arranged under an awning, making themselves comfortable on the grass and under the shade of the horse-chestnut trees, many being so fatigued that they fell asleep. We showed Major Worth the portraits of the Adams family, and also that of Gen. Warren. The new stand of colors was also displayed before us, and the Major made an unsuccessful attempt to induce David Meniac, the Indian Cadet, to speak to us, but he was too bashful. After various military movements the corps marched off to the tune of ** Adams and Liberty," and pro- ceeded to Milton, where an entertainment was given them in the old mansion of Gov. Hutchinson, by Barney Smith, Esq.
The Cadets returned by the way of Charlestown and Bunker Hill, striking their tents at the latter place on Saturday, August i8th, and marching through Dedham, Walpole, Wrentham, Attleborough, Pawtucket and Prov- idence, to New London, where they took a steamer for New York, planning to arrive on Tuesday at West Point.
The influence on the militia companies of the State which resulted from this visit was very marked. During the few weeks after their departure the Boston City
Visit to Boston, 63
Guards, one of the famous companies of Boston in its day, was chartered, and on October 13, voted to adopt the uniform of a gray coat — later trimmed with black and gold, — white pantaloons and a cap with plume "after the fashion of the West Point Cadets."
The Columbian Centinel, in answer to some captious remarks of a New York paper of the time said : —
We know not which had most reason to be proud, — the Cadets, or the men of Massachusetts. Gov. Brooks, though seventy years of age, brought fresh to our minds Washing- ton on the field of parade, and when he reviewed them on that brilliant day it was the second-best sight ever beheld on the Common of Boston.
NOTE.
Brief biographic notes on some of the gentlemen mentioned in the preceding paper as prominent in the reception of the Cadets will be of interest. The leading citizens of Boston cordially joined the town officials in extending a cordial welcome to the young soldiers.
Major William Jenkins Worth was born in Hudson, Columbia County, N. Y., in 1 794. He was Superintendent at West Point 1 820-1 828, and in command during this Visit. He had served, while still a youth, in the War of 181 2, and won distinction as a soldier in the Seminole War, and later in the Mexican War. For his services at Monterey he received the rank of Major General by brevet. He died May 7, 1849, in Texas. A statue has been erected in Central Park, New York, in honor of his memory.
Gen. Henry A. S. Dearborn, an eminent citizen of Boston, was the son of the distinguished Gen. Henry Dearborn, and a grad- uate of William and Mary College in 1803. By profession a lawyer, he held, like his father, many positions of prominence, political and military, and was President of the General Society of the Cincinnati 1848-51. At the time of this visit he was Col- lector of the Port. He died in Portland, Me., July 29, 1851.
The West Point Cadets Visit to Boston. 65
Samuel Doggett was a merchant of Boston, residing in Rox- bury in the later years of his life, where he died August 18, 1856; he was a non-commissioned officer in the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in the year following the visit of the Cadets, and was much interested in military affairs.
Hon. Martin Brimmer, who commanded the escort which con- ducted the Cadets to their camp ground on Boston Common, was a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1814. In college he com- manded the famous company of students whose standard bore the motto Tarn Marti quam Mercurio. He was Captain of the An- cient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1826, and in 1845 was Lieutenant Colonel of the Independent Company of Cadets after its reorganization. He was Mayor of Boston in 1843 ^"^^ 1844, and died April 25, 1847.
Major Thomas Melville, who was long known among the older Bostonians as " the last of the cocked hats," from his adherence to the costume of his ancestors, was bom in Boston, Jan. 16, 1751, graduated at Nassau Hall (Princeton) in 1769, and died in Boston, Sept. 16, 1832. He was one of the famous "Tea-party," fought in the battle of Bunker Hill as an aide to General Warren, and served in other actions in the Revolution. He was a member of the Legislature, Naval officer of the Port of Boston, and held many positions of responsibility and trust. In the collections of the Bostonian Society is preserved his " old three-cornered hat," immortalized by Dr. Holmes, and an old painting of his residence at the West End.
Of the citizens who offered sentiments at the Banquet, Jeremiah Fitch was one of the Selectmen of Boston in 1820 and later, and for several years an Overseer of the Poor.
Hon. William Hyslop Sumner graduated at Harvard in 1 799. He was for several years a Representative in the Legislature, and served the town on many important committees, including
66 The West Point Cadets Visit to Boston.
that appointed to received the President of the United States, Hon. James Monroe, at the time of his visit to Boston in 1817. He held various positions in the militia and was Adjutant-General of the State from 1818 until 1834 when he resigned; he was Commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery at the time the Cadets visited Boston ; he was a member of the Massachu- setts Historical Society, and died October 24, 1861.
Hon. George Blake was a graduate of Harvard in 1789, an eminent lawyer, and U. S. District Attorney for MassachUvSetts, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He delivered the Town Oration on the 4th of July, 1795, and a Eulogy on Washington before St. John's Lodge, both of which .were printed. He served in both branches of the Legislature, was an Alderman of Boston in 1825, and the first Democratic candidate for Mayor of the city. He died Oct. 6, 1841.
THE MIDDLESEX CANAL
AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENTERPRISE
BY
MOSES WHITCHER MANN.
THE MIDDLESEX CANAL
AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENTERPRISE
A PAPER READ BEFORE THE BOSTONIAN SOCIETY, COUNCIL CHAMBER, OLD STATE HOUSE, MAY 12, 1908, BY
MOSES WHITCHER MANN
JHIS first decade of the twentieth cen- tury is replete with great enterprises; the nineteenth far exceeded those pre- ceding in inventions of utility, while the closing of the eighteenth marked the establishment of a national government within whose borders was room abundant for the development of new enterprises and ideas.
The war of the Revolution ended, men turned hope- fully to the arts of peace. New England was no whit behind her sister States, but all felt the impoverishing effects of the long struggle.
The adoption of the Federal Constitution, with the wise administration of Washington, gave confidence and
yo The Middlesex Canal.
encouragement ; and the men who had laid aside the sword proved their abilities in the peaceful callings as well.
The slow moving stage-coach at infrequent intervals was the only public mode of travel, and the slower mov- ing wagons with horses and oxen, the only factors in the carrying trade, except as the rivers proved highways of communication and were utilized after the natural obstructions of rapids and falls had been overcome. Could the men of to-day, by some mysterious happen- ing, be placed under the conditions then existing, what a different world it would seem, and doubtless they would better appreciate the achievements of the men of that day.
Among those* who early made effort in public improve- ments was Judge James Sullivan, afterward Governor of Massachusetts. To him is conceded the inception of the first inland waterway, — the Middlesex Canal. Judge Sullivan had a broad, comprehensive scheme : first, the connecting of Boston harbor with the Merrimack river, this to be followed by improvements on that river, and soon with connection through Lake Sunapee with the Connecticut, then across Vermont to Lake Champlain and so northward to the St. Lawrence and Canada. Observation and experience proved that a single horse upon a river's bank could pull a load in a boat many times greater than one in a wagon on the best road, and with far less risk to conveyance or cargo. Therefore a
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The Middlesex Canal. 71
canal was the solution of the problem of cheaper trans- portation, at the close of the eighteenth century.
Judge Sullivan's project was heartily approved by Col. Loammi Baldwin, then Sheriff of Middlesex. He was a man of much ability and influence, and made a careful canvass of the situation. A company of gentlemen, seven in number, all residents of Medford, united with Messrs. Sullivan and Baldwin, in a petition to the Gen- eral Court for a charter, which was granted on June 22, 1793, and received the signature of Governor Hancock on the same day — almost his latest act.
This charter authorized " The Proprietors of Middle- sex Canal," to lay such assessments from time to time as should be necessary to complete the canal. Its stock was divided into eight hundred shares, having a value of twenty-five dollars each. More than one-fifth was taken in Medford, which town was at first designed to be the southern terminus. By additional legislation the route was extended through Medford and Charlestown six miles farther, to the Charles river, and the plan of utiliz- ing the Medford ponds and Mystic river abandoned.
Boston capitalists, among whom were Cragie, Barrel 1 and Gore were financially interested in the enterprise, which in 1 803 had cost half a million dollars, — no in- considerable sum at that time. One-third of this amount was for the land taken. Thirteen directors managed its affairs, Judge Sullivan being President and Gen. John Brooks, Vice-President.
72 The Middlesex Caiml.
From the first, its superintendence seems to have been in the hands of Colonel Baldwin. In selecting its route, his friend and neighbor, Samuel Thompson of Woburn, assisted and made the preliminary survey. Much diffi- culty was encountered, owing to imperfect knowledge of engineering and the lack of suitable instruments. It was later discovered that other water than that of the Merrimack must supply the canal.
After the arrival of Samuel Weston, a noted English engineer and better equipped, it was found that a rise of one hundred and four feet from tide-water of the Charles, to the Concord river at "Billerica Mills" (North Billerica), was to be overcome. Thence a descent of twenty-six feet must be made to the Merrimack at Chelmsford, where that river bends abruptly eastward. The Concord could be crossed at grade and furnish an unfailing supply of water in either direction.
Mr. Weston surveyed two routes ; one northward from Medford Pond up the Aberjona valley ; the other westward up Horn Pond river, and uniting in Wilming- ton with the former, at Maple Meadow brook, one of the sources of Ipswich river. To effect this, a wide detour around a hill was made, called the "Ox bow." At Horn Pond no loop could be made ; the " bars which they could neither let down nor remove," were climbed by five locks. Either plan was feasible, the ascent in either case the same, and the second location was chosen. Forty years later, the railroad utilized the
The Middlesex Canal. 73
former route, as more practicable for its construction and operation.
The title to the land having been acquired, ground was broken at Billerica by Colonel Baldwin on Sep- tember 10, 1794, with some show of ceremony. (The stockholders were broken without ceremony later on.) Steadily the work progressed as funds were raised by assessments on each share of the capital stock, till in April, 1802, the water flowed into the canal southward from the Concord. On Monday, July 5, the formal opening "as far as Woburn meeting-house" was cele- brated by a " party numerous " under Colonel Baldwin's supervision. The next year (in April) the entire length of the canal was in operation, ten years from its charter grant.
In its course of twenty-seven miles there were eight levels varying from one to six miles in length, and sepa- rated by sixteen locks ; while five others provided en- trance into the Merrimack, Concord and Charles rivers, and at Medford into the Mystic. Suitable waste weirs were placed contiguous to natural water courses, while eleven streams of varying size had to be crossed, and all but one or two at a height requiring a " timber trunk aqueduct."
In some cases the elevation was but slight. At the Shawsheen river the grade required a height of twenty- five feet, and length of one hundred and forty. The Aberjona (sometimes called Symmos' river) aqueduct
74 T^he Middlesex Canal.
was one hundred and eighty feet long, — the longest on the route. Over the Mystic (a tidal stream), the trunk was very strongly built, one hundred and thirty-four feet long, and elevated but little above flood tide.
The canal was spanned by over fifty bridges, the larger portion being "accommodation" bridges, connect- ing portions of an estate divided by its waters ; though the highway was crossed in various localities.
The course of the canal lay through the beautiful estate of Hon. Peter C. Brooks in West Medford, and about 1820 he caused a granite arch to be erected for his "accommodation," a thing of beauty that should be " a joy forever." During all the years since the canal was closed it has thus remained, but by the passing of the estate into new ownership its permanence has been threatened.
At the first construction, all the locks save the three at the northern terminal were built of wood. Those three were of dressed granite, and said to be excelled by no stonework then in the country, while the timber foundation of the lowest one was built of a double layer of oak logs, which squared twenty-four inches. The southern terminal was at " Charlestown mill pond," which lay southward from the present Rutherford Ave- nue at Eden Street, the canal crossing Main Street where is now the great Elevated railroad station.
Tidal gates allowed boats to enter the river, while those in the dam where is now Causeway Street, allowed
The Middlesex Canal 75
entrance into the Boston mill pond. Mill creek (now Blackstone Street) connected this with the harbor : and thus people in the old days went " down to the sea in ships " from the north country by an inland route, with no sea-sickness, and if shipwrecked could usually walk ashore.
A glance at the map will show how Governor Sulli- van's plan secured the northern New Hampshire trade for Boston instead of Portsmouth, by tapping the abrupt bend in the Merrimack at Chelmsford, the canal thus making a comparatively straight course, and avoiding ocean transit and expense of reloading.
As has been said, this great enterprise of the eighteenth century was complete and open for business in 1803, and the stockholders naturally looked for a return on their investment. But ere this could be fully realized, much improvement was required on the Merrimack, in the con- struction of locks and short canals around its various falls.
The funds for building the canal had been raised by assessment, but in this case the promoters resorted to lotteries, which at that day were not considered disrep- utable. Some very facetious advertisements appear in the Columbian Centinely in one of which we read, "a little sweet oil is wanted on the Amoskeag Canal." The lottery tickets for this lubrication were two dollars each, with a grand prize of |> 8,000. The Amoskeag Canal, when completed, made way for the manufacturing city of Manchester.
y6 The Middlesex CanaL
There was also organized a kindred corporation (closely associated with the Middlesex Canal), called the Merri- mack Boating Company. This was to work the river, but the Canal Company put $80,000 into these improve- ments ; $50,000 went into the work at Amoskeag Falls, while the patient stockholders awaited their dividends.
Lowell was yet years in the future, and the Merri- mack tumbled over the Pawtucket Falls as yet unhar- nessed, but at the opening of the Middlesex, the first Pawtucket Canal had been a few years in operation, affording a passage around them for boats and rafts. Lumber and wood, country produce and ashes, formed the principal downward freight, while the stock in trade of the country storekeepers went up stream ; but not all, for the competition of the teamsters still continued. The patient stockholders paid in the last assessment — the one hundredth — and after nineteen years began to see some return in a dividend of $10.00 per share.
By that time the repair bills began to be frequent, for wood is perishable material in locks, bridges and aque- ducts. In 1808, the President, James Sullivan, (then Governor of Massachusetts) died, and also the superin- tendent, Baldwin. John Langdon Sullivan, a son of the Governor, was placed in charge, and seems to have been efficient during his sixteen years of administration.
Just here it is well to recall, that while steam naviga- tion became an assured fact on the Hudson the preced- ing year, even the genius of the elder Sullivan did not
The Middlesex Canal. fj
foresee the railway, with its locomotive engine. The younger Sullivan was however awake to the need of more rapid transit and greater power than that of horses and oxen, and naturally turned toward steam. Making many experiments, he actually applied it to the pro- pulsion of boats to some degree, on both the canal and the river. He soon found that the artificial embank- ments of the canal would not sustain the current created, while the sunken logs and rocks in the river were a continual and effectual menace. Still he did go to Con- cord, N. H., with his steamboat Merrimack in June of 1 8 19, towing loaded boats up-stream, taking the Gov- ernor and members of the New Hampshire Legislature, as well as another party of over two hundred persons, on excursions on the river. He also left a record of the achievement, which may be found in the public prints of the time. More than that, the very engine that pro- pelled his boat was the invention of a man to whom Fulton (just now so much lauded) was indebted for ideas, and who successfully propelled a boat by steam fourteen years before the Clermont.
More than a passing interest attaches to Sullivan's attempt, for could steam have continued in use, there is reasonable probability that the Middlesex Canal would have had longer lease of life, and perhaps even been in operation to-day.
John L. Sullivan brought good executive as well as mechanical talents to its service, issuing a code of
yS The Middlesex Canal.
" Rules and Regulations *' by which all employees were governed, and centralizing the management of affairs. Through his entire term the items of repair were heavy, the Shawsheen Aqueduct renewal costing over a quarter of the year's previous receipts. In 1824 Caleb Eddy came to the management. He made no change in the " Rules," but added a prohibition of the use of " a Signal Horn'' on Sunday, when near any house of worship.
Business was annually increasing, and by 1831, divi- dends had risen to $2,0 per share. A few years pre- vious, the manufacturing town of Lowell had arisen at the Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack, two miles below the terminus of the canal, which was called '* Head of Middlesex."
Mr. Eddy had been directed in 1830 to survey a route for a branch canal to the Hamilton Mills, which would shorten the distance thereto four miles, and save Paw- tucket tolls. He reported the plan to be feasible, but counselled delay. The reason is not far to seek, for despite the remonstrance of the canal proprietors, the General Court had granted a charter for a railroad from Boston to Lowell, and work was in progress on the same. Mr. Eddy had scented the coming danger, and in his report had remarked, " Railroads, the rivals of canals, are yet in a state of infancy. In the minds of many, the infant will expand to a giant form and swallow canals and turnpikes." A quaint prophecy,
The Middlesex Canal. 79
truly ; in fact Mr. Eddy was a past master in the use of quaint language.
Nevertheless business increased, the canal did a larger carrying trade than ever, and numbered its coming rival among its patrons. Prof. Dame has said, " The strange spectacle was presented, perhaps for the first time, of a corporation assisting in the preparation for its own obse- quies."
The 'stone sleepers on which the iron rails were laid were boated down from Tyngsborough and delivered at convenient points along the line. More than this ; the two earliest engines (imported from England) went up in parts in the canal boats to Lowell, to be there assembled in the machine shops of its rival, the " Pro- prietors of Locks and Canals." This was the Pawtucket Canal Company, and was really the power that was building the railroad.
It is an open question as to whether or no the Canal Company realized the gravity of the situation. However this may have been, the canal had to be kept in order. In 1827 the Mystic Aqueduct was renewed, and the next year that across the Aberjona ; the former was of wood with granite piers, and the latter entirely of stone, though reduced in length to eighty feet, but increased to the full width of the waterway. This latter was a massive structure, and one in which the manager took a justifiable pride. He said, " It has been com- pleted at a cost within the estimate, and will need no
8o TJie Middlesex Canal.
repairs for a hundred years." This was true, but how vain are human calculations — sometimes !
The increase of business demanded enlargement of the taverns at the various locks; that at Horn Pond, because of its picturesque location, became a noted pleasure resort. A charming account of a select pic-nic party from Boston, at which Daniel Webster was present, has recently come to our knowledge ; it was found in a lady's diary and another's letters. By them the pond was called "the Lake of the Woods," and very appropri- ately.
The canal was thirty feet wide, and its water three feet deep, — sufficient to float the laden boats whose size was limited by that of the locks through which they passed. Many boats were owned by private individuals, as in the case of the Experiment, from Bedford, N. H. This was built three and a half miles from the Merri- mack, drawn thither by forty yokes of oxen, and launched amid the cheers of the crowd assembled to view the novelty. Its fame preceded it, for its arrival at Boston was " hailed with cannonading," and an- nounced in the public prints of the day.
The Company had but two passenger boats, called " General Washington " and " Governor Sullivan." The speed of the " luggage-boats " was limited to two and a half miles per hour, while rapid transit was attained by the former at the rate of three miles. Rafts of logs were allowed to proceed at the rate of one and a half
The Middlesex Canal. 8i
miles, when united in "bands," but had to pass the locks singly. None but the regular lock-tender might pass any boat or raft through, under a penalty of ten dollars. All traffic ceased at sunset, unless the moonlight was especially favorable.
The boatmen and laborers were paid from $17 to $21 and board per month, though some received $1.50 per day ; but all deducted from their bills a shilling for each meal eaten at the Company's taverns. The items of "rations," "allowance," and charges for "washing" which appear in those old accounts, throw light on the old time customs ; as does also a certain bill of wine, lemons and sugar (IJ27.00) for the " Directors' party." There was an extra charge for " broken tumblers," and also an item which at this remote day is much to the credit of the said Directors, viz: ;^ 14.00 credit for wine not used, and returned. A more modest sum appeared in the same year's account (and then deemed a necess- ity), which read thus : " Rum, found the men at the time of the freshet and on other disagreeable jobs, $1.50."
Then there was the " bounty " (about two shillings each), for the killing of "musk ratts." The boys of those days did a good business in trapping the " ratts," as after submitting the entire animal to the nearest agent the skin could be retained. It has been intimated that not all for whom the bounty was paid were caught within the prescribed limits, but the extermination of
82 The Middlesex Canal.
the rodents was needful, for they damaged the embank- ment seriously.
Each boat-captain had a "passport," furnished him for each trip, which was endorsed by the lock-tenders as the boat passed them. This served to keep the latter at their places, and to prevent " imposition on the part of the boatmen." These were a jolly set, and life on the old canal was not always strenuous. The tow path in summer became a favorite walk from Boston and from the several villages — a veritable "Lover's Lane." In the winter the pleasure-seekers followed the bed of the canal ; the water was largely drawn off, but enough was left to form an icy pavement, and one perfectly safe. Without exception, every man with whom the writer has conversed as to his recollections of the old waterway, has referred with pleasure to the long skating trips enjoyed upon it. The boys of the Boston Latin school occasion- ally made the trip from Boston to Lowell, and return, in an afternoon and evening.
When the railroad was opened, its competition was speedily felt by the canal proprietors, whose receipts fell off one-third. The railroad was soon extended to Nashua, N. H., and another reduction was the result. The follow- ing year the income was insufficient to pay the running expenses, and the gravity of the situation had become apparent.
The dividends had been kept up in the recent years. Two townships in Maine near Moosehead Lake, which
The Middlesex Canal. 83
had been granted to the canal proprietors in 18 16, had been sold and the proceeds had been thus applied, but in 1 84 1 one of the trusted employees disappeared with $10,000 of the funds of the canal and its associate, the Boating Company: — i^3, 757-97 of this amount belonged to the Middlesex Canal. In the quaint language of Caleb Eddy, the defaulter " thought it was better to be a rogue in Canada, than an honest man in his own country." Mr. Eddy took prompt action to secure something from the " dwelling house and canal boats left in his hasty flight," but probably realized little from the former and less from the latter.
Like a sensible manager, he undertook to devise a way whereby the canal, even with its occupation gone, might still be useful. Its proprietors were debarred from a competition by the legislative action alluded to, or they might have put rails on their tow-path and had both railw^ay and canal. Mr. Eddy styled that charter clause " a plunge of the knife to the hilt into the rights of the canal, and a coat of mail for the Railroad." He came forward with a plan to utilize the portion between Billerica and Woburn as an aqueduct, to supply Charles- town and Boston with water. From Woburn it was to be conveyed in iron pipes to Mt. Benedict in Charles- town, thence across Cragie's Bridge (near the site of the Charles River dam) to Boston.
In presenting this plan, he published an interesting and highly instructive as well as authentic sketch of the
84 The Middlesex Canal.
canal, supplementing his plan for water-supply with estimates, analyses of water, and opinions of eminent lawyers ; and urged the plan upon the attention of the proprietors as the one most feasible by which to save their enterprise from wreck. Nothing, however, came of it. This was in 1843, ^^d after a few years of plucky but profitless competition, the operation of the canal ceased entirely.
The last boat passed through the canal in April, 1852, just fifty years after its partial opening to Woburn. Its charter was formally extinguished by decree of the Supreme Court, October 3, 1869. The land which it had occupied was sold at auction, and in some places has since undergone radical change by the levelling of embankments, filling the channel, and the removal of bridges and locks. In Medford, Summer (first called Middlesex) Street, and Boston Avenue mark its course. In Woburn and Winchester fine residences are erected on its site, and the beautiful Woburn Library overlooks its old channel ; while the railroad, after climbing the eighty-foot rise from the Aberjona, and pausing for forty years (presumably for breath), now continues northward by the same route which the canal took at the begin- ning of the century.
The construction of the Mystic Valley Parkway has obliterated some of its remains, but just away toward the site of the old aqueduct over the Aberjona, the ancient waterway is in excellent preservation. Though
The Middlesex Cartal. 85
invaded for some years for dwelling purposes, the resi- dents and their houses are gone, and nature has dealt gently with its relics, as the tall trees witness.
Through Wilmington and Billerica the same kindly hand has covered its banks with verdure and its stones with moss, while in many places a forest has arisen where once the laden boats glided along and the horses and oxen patiently plodded. The dressed stone of the locks at Woburn may be found in various house-founda- tions by the observant seeker ; while the abutments of several aqueducts still remain in place, grim and dark, silent witnesses of the arduous labor it took to build them over a century ago. For a half mile in Wilming- ton, the modern trolley car rolls along on the ancient tow path, under the trees that have grown beside it.
The pier and abutments at the Shawsheen river are well worth a journey to see. Though the wooden trough of the aqueduct has long since succumbed to the forces of nature, the same silent influence has invested the granite walls (innocent of mortar in construction) with a dignity that impresses the beholder. At North Billerica one guard-lock remains with its gates, and con- veys the water to the wheel pits of the Talbot Mills ; while a little below is the ruin of the lock into the lower river, with a fragment of the gate still in the water.
At Middlesex Village, where the entrance was had into the Merrimack, is the " Hadley pasture," once a scene of activity, as the boats went up and down the
86 The Middlesex Canal.
three steps of the fine stone locks. All these are gone, but the little office of the collector still remains on the hill beside the lock-site, and cows graze quietly under the trees which have grown in the excavation. Far dif- ferent is the change near its old southern terminal from the quiet canal travel to the strenuous " rush hours " of the Elevated trains at Sullivan Square.
Beside the great enterprises designed and completed in recent years, the Middlesex Canal seems small and insig- nificant. But viewed in the true light of comparison with the appliances and means then existing, it will be readily seen to take rank with them, equal, if not greater even, in magnitude and importance. It accomplished for a time its object, bearing no small part in the pro- gress of its day, owing to the energy and perseverance of Massachusetts men ; it was outstripped in public service only by the power of steam, — also in the hands of New England men, — and contributed substantially to the business prosperity of Boston.
During the early years of the canal's decadence, three inventions, — the art of photography, the sewing machine, and the electric telegraph, — came into use. These, not to mention others, have been potent factors in the nineteenth century development, and proved commercially their usefulness ere the canal was aban- doned, and in a way that Sullivan and his contempo- raries little dreamed of. The giants of steam and the
Tlie Middlesex Cajiai. 87
wizards of electricity, soon to wake from slumber, were to be harnessed for the service of mankind the world over and waters under, with better facilities and more abundant means, but with no more perseverance than was shown by the pioneers in this eighteenth century enterprise.
This question is often asked : What will not the pres- ent century develop ? Could the men of to-day return at the close of this century, they might possibly see as much to surprise them, as would Governor Sullivan, his son John, or Colonel Baldwin, if they, with Caleb Eddy, could be transported some night by canal -boat into Sulli- van Square. We might even hear an echo of quaint Caleb Eddy's philosophy : *' Improvements will go on while man has mind."
NOTE.
A " CREEK " which extended from the harbor on the east, to Charles River on the west, separating the northern part of Boston from the main peninsula, was utilized as early as 1641 for conveying merchandise, and subsequently received the name of Canal Creek. See Bowen's Picture of Boston, p. 216(1838). It is often mentioned in the old records: July 5, 1631, an order of the Court of Assistants, directed it to be " cleared." Its entrance was near the Town Dock, and at the other end it was utilized to form a tide-mill, by water from the harbor, retained by a cause- way extending westward from Charlestown Bridge. This mill- pond was filled up in 1835, largely with material from " Cotton Hill," the estate of the late Gardiner Greene, but a portion was left open for several years longer, and occupied by a canal, " sub- stantially built with stone walls, and of sufficient breadth to allow the Middlesex canal boats to pass each other." (Bowen.)
These boats, " with their cargoes of wood, etc.," had used the mill-pond while waiting for discharge, and when that was filled, utilized this canal for the same purpose. Its owners seem to have included many who were interested in the Middlesex Canal, but, so far as we can learn, it had no other connection with the latter, the terminal of which was on the other side of the Charles River.
BOSTON'S LAST TOWN MEETINGS AND FIRST CITY ELECTION
BY
JAMES MASCARENE HUBBARD.
BOSTON'S LAST TOWN MEETINGS
AND FIRST CITY ELECTION
A PAPER READ BEFORE THE BOSTONIAN SOCIETY, COUNCIL CHAMBER, OLD STATE HOUSE, DECEMBER 9, 1884, BY
JAMES MASCARENE HUBBARD
[ETWEEN the years 1784 and 181 5 there were five different attempts to secure a city charter for Boston, all of which failed on account of the very strong conservative opinion which pre- vailed in the town. In 1821, however, the population having increased to nearly 45,000, and the number of voters being over 7,000, it was recognized by all intelli- gent people that some change must be made. " When a town meeting was held on any exciting subject in Faneuil Hall," says Mr. Quincy in his " Municipal His- tory of Boston," "those only who obtained places near the Moderator could even hear the discussion. A few
92 Boston^ s Last Town Meetings
busy or interested individuals easily obtained the man- agement of the most important affairs, in an assembly in which the greater number could have neither voice nor hearing. When the subject was not generally exciting, town meetings were usually composed of the Selectmen, the town officers, and thirty or forty inhabitants."
After describing, briefly, the system of the town finances which were under the sole control of a com- mittee of finance composed of the Selectmen, Overseers of the Poor, and Board of Health, Mr. Quincy goes on to say that the tax which they " proposed was often voted at a town meeting in which the members of those boards themselves constituted a majority of the inhabi- tants present."
For these and other important reasons, a Committee was appointed at a town meeting held October 22, 1 82 1, to consider the subject of the administration of the town and county. The members of this Committee were : John Phillips, William Sullivan, Charles Jackson, Josiah Quincy, William Prescott, William Tudor, George Blake, Henry Orne, Daniel Webster, Isaac Win slow, Lemuel Shaw, Stephen Codman, and Joseph Til den. On December loth they made a report, "but did not venture to go farther than to recommend some improve- ments in the government of the town." These con- sisted simply in advising that a body of [41] Assistants should be chosen annually in the wards, who with the Selectmen should form a Town Council ; and that the
And First City Election. 93
town should form a county by itself, with a view to reducing expenses and reforming certain abuses in the Courts.
After considerable debate the report was recommitted to the Committee, which was at the same time increased by the addition of one person from each of the twelve wards, "with instructions to report a system for the government of the town, with such powers, privileges, and immunities as are contemplated by the amendment of the Constitution of the Commonwealth [adopted that year], authorizing the General Court to constitute a city government." The most prominent of the addi- tional members then chosen appears to have been Maj Benjamin Russell.
On Monday, the last day of the year, the Committee made its final report, which, I presume, was drawn up by the Hon. Lemuel Shaw, then Senator from Suffolk County. Faneuil Hall was filled on that and the two following days with a noisy and excited assembly, which debated with much heat but with general good humor the various provisions of the report. These debates were reported very briefly by all the papers except the Advertiser^ which gave a detailed and at times a very graphic account of the proceedings. They appear to have differed but little from those in an ordinary ward meeting of the present day. The familiar cries of " Question " and " All up, all up," constantly resounded through the hall. Unpopular speakers and bores were
94 Boston's Last Town Meetings
unceremoniously stamped or hissed down, notwithstand- ing the efforts of the Moderator, Mr. Francis J. Oliver, to secure an impartial hearing for each. This gentle- man won universal approbation by the manner in which he discharged duties which are described as ** very ardu- ous and perplexing." "At times," says an eye-witness, "a stranger on entering Faneuil Hall in the midst of these debates, would almost fancy himself in Bedlam, and that the * moon had come nearer the earth than she was wont, and had made some men mad.' " One indi- vidual who held up both hands in voting was denounced and promptly arrested, we presume by the constable, Mr. Reed.
There was a tribune for speakers in the south gallery, but I infer that it was rarely used. The report was presented and the obscure or doubtful points explained from time to time by Gen. William Sullivan, the chair- man of the Committee. The Hon. William Tudor, how- ever, appears to have had the laboring oar in securing its adoption. The only other member of the Committee who took a prominent part in the debate was George Blake, Esq., the District Attorney. Mr. S. A. Wells, one of the Selectmen, was also a prominent speaker. These gentlemen, if I am not mistaken, comprised all of the more intelligent class of the townspeople who took a noteworthy part in the three days' proceedings of this last of the great town meetings. Most of the other speakers appear to have been not unfairly, though irrev-
And First City Election. 95
erently, characterized as " mushroom town-meeting ora- tors, and weak heads."
The proceedings were opened by a motion of Mr. Tudor that the final question should be taken by ballot on the following Monday, without debate. This report, it should be said, had been printed and a copy left at every house in the town. This motion finally prevailed, notwithstanding the opposition of those who apparently desired to defeat the whole movement, — James T. Austin, Esq., being their principal spokesman.
Nearly the whole of the first day was occupied with de- bating the singularly unimportant question as to whether the word * town ' or * city ' should be used. Still, the Ad- vertiser in one of its short editorials probably expresses the feelings of a great many who clung to the old name. Mr. Nathan Hale says : " The change appears to us to be in very bad taste, and what is of more importance,
very bad policy It is not a mere matter of fancy,
but of serious interest, and one which may have a great effect upon the future quiet of the Commonwealth." He feared, I am inclined to think, that the jealousy which the country towns cherished against Boston, would be increased by its taking the title of city. The debate began by the simultaneous rising of two well- known town characters of that day, Samuel Adams, not the Revolutionary patriot, I hasten to say, but the late town-crier, and Ebenezer Clough. The latter, a Custom- house Inspector, and conspicuous on account of his silver
g6 Bostons Last Town Meetings
buckles, prevailed and addressed the meeting in a style of eloquence evidently peculiar to himself. He began by saying that "he rose in behalf of his native town, not as an orator nor a college-learned man, but as a plain, humble citizen, for the benefit of his fellow-citizens. If Demosthenes had lived at the present day, he would find the people all running after oratory. Religion walks out of the pulpits, that oratory may walk in. * O, Boston, how art thou fallen ! ' " With this preamble he proceeded to oppose the change to a city government from the workingman's point of view, arguing after this manner : " Again, sir, some gentlemen carpenters and mechanics think that if we have a city, the mechanics will not be able to come in from the country and get away their work ; but they will find themselves mistaken. Again, sir, I have heard gentlemen coopers say that barrels will not be brought in, and undersell them. But if they can't be brought in, won't folks go out and buy ; and will that give you your price } " Truckmen were assured that the tails of their trucks would be cut off, and their trucks changed into New York drays, and that as every driver would be obliged to own his truck, if a man should fall sick his family would starve, since he would be unable to employ a substitute. "Who then will be benefited ? " he concluded. " It is the fat, lazy men who are too proud to work. I think, sir, that this report, like the Hartford Convention, is pregnant of evils, and will dissolve in smoke."
And First City Election. 97
Mr. Abraham Quincy, a grocer, urged the adoption of the term * city ' for the following reasons, which I take in a condensed form from the Galaxy, edited by J. T. Buckingham. Because " the Father of his country stood waiting for hours on the Neck when he visited this town in '98, and there was nobody to receive him." And because " the king of France loaned a work to our Board of Health, accompanied with superb engravings on the yellow fever, together with an engraving of the kine-pock pustule." He was answered by Mr. Fitch Tufts, a distiller, who conceived that the speaker had attacked the dignity of the town. His closing words were, that he hoped "the word *town' will be retained. It was music in his ears. Those who acted in the Revolution were clothed with dignity as a garment ; for they wore the hats and cloaks of Hancock. He hoped the people would not barter their liberties for a mess of pottage."
At this point the patience of the audience gave out and great confusion prevailed, during which Mr. Abra- ham Quincy vainly sought to speak. Finally a hearing was obtained for Mr. Samuel Adams, wire-worker, that is, a maker of rat-traps, and late town-crier, who made a characteristic speech amid malicious " cries of Lotcder" although the orator appeared to labor excessively at his lungs. His opening words were, " Fellow citizens, you must consider me as on the brink of an eternal world," and the burden of his speech was, " Names is nothing.
98 Bostoris Last Town Meetings
Only let us have Boston, and I care not what you call it." Later on in the debate, which from this time took a more serious turn, he " rose and moved that the word
* Boston ' be added to the word * city,' " to the great merriment of the assembly.
After some very sensible words from Messrs. William Sturgis, Blake and Wells, Maj. Benjamin Russell argued in favor of the word * city * on the ground that the people of Boston could not be called citizens if they were inhabitants of a town. "The word citizens," he insisted several times, "was derived from the term city," — a remark which provoked Mr. Buckingham to an edito- rial on "Major Russell's Lecture on Etymology," begin- ning; "Ours be the delightful employment to rescue from the all-gormandizing jaws of oblivion this learned and elaborate attempt to dispel the darkness which en- velopes the etymology of the word citizen." The word
* city ' was finally agreed upon by a very small majority, after the house had been counted twice, the more intelli- gent class voting to retain the word * town.'
The next question was " whether the executive officer shall be called Intendant " or Mayor. As before, the first speaker was one of those gentlemen who contrib- uted to the fun without adding to the dignity of the pro- ceedings, a Mr. Emmons, described as a " fruit seller, near the Post Office," but familiarly known, if I am not mistaken, as " Pop " Emmons. His remarks were, how- ever, drowned in a chorus of shouts and hisses, and Mr.
And First City Election. 99
Adams made a fresh appearance in the character of a New England Dogberr)^ "He was opposed to the term Mayor. A mare is a horse, and he had as lief be called a horse or an ass as a mare. He preferred the name President. There was dignity in the sound. He should count it an honor to be called President, but had he the wisdom of Solomon and the riches of the East, he would not accept the office to be called a Mare."
After this point was settled, the meeting debated the question as to whether the Aldermen should be chosen at large or by districts. General Sullivan explained that the question had been discussed a great deal in the Com- mittee which was of the opinion " that it would not be expedient to have one Selectman [Alderman] for each ward, as it would tend to divide the town too much into distinct portions." The views of the Committee prevailed, although the people have now decided in favor of the latter method.
General Sullivan again rose to explain the section of the report providing that the Mayor should be chosen by the City Council. "He was always reluctant to take away privileges from the people : but an executive officer will necessarily come in contact with the inhabitants ; many will be offended ; if he does his duty he will not be re- elected, or he will be so bending as to be unfit for re- election." The second Mayor, the Hon. Josiah Quincy, it may be said here, was re-elected five times and then declined a re-nomination. "He was confident we should
lOO Boston's Last Town Meetings
have a more efficient officer if he were to be chosen by the City Council. It is intended that he shall be imme- diately chosen after the election of the Aldermen and Common Council. There will be no room for intrigue, for these persons will not know, except the day previous, of their being electors of the Mayor." He was not strenuous on the matter, however, and after a short discussion the question was decided in favor of a choice by the people.
A large part of the remainder of the sessions was taken up with debating a question in which there was the keenest interest, and in which the public sentiment was so nearly equally divided, that it was decided in both ways, a compromise being finally reached in a vote to submit it separately to the people on the following Monday. This question was, whether all elections should be held in the wards, or whether the State and United States elections should continue to be held in ** General Meeting " in Faneuil Hall, the municipal elec- tions, only, being held in the wards. The Committee, I believe unanimously, supported this latter method, as did the bulk of the Federalist party, constituting the wealth and aristocracy of the town. The Democrats or Republicans and the so-called "Middling Interest," composed of the small shop-keepers, mechanics and laborers, were in favor of the former method, and I can- not help thinking that the weight of argument was in their favor.
And First City Election. lOi
On the one hand it was said that elections in Faneuil Hall were dignified proceedings, " the pride of the town and the wonder of strangers," and that they tended to unite the people. On the other hand those in favor of ward elections declared that many of the inhabitants "have an invincible repugnance to crowding through the lines of noisy vote distributors formed at the doors, and to encounter the uproar and confusion of the scene . . . that much time was wasted in going to Faneuil Hall, and that many mechanics were ashamed to go.'* As the irrepressible Adams puts it : " Many persons can't attend here. For instance a journeyman who is in your employ. They feel so delicate in your employ, they are afraid of offending you. They are the sinners [sinews] of the State." On this question the principal advocates for ward elections were Messrs. Wells and George Blake, while General Tudor fought vigorously for the old-time method.
On the clause authorizing the City Council to sell or lease the property of the city, the perennial solicitude for the preservation of the Common (which, together with Faneuil Hall, was excepted) was expressed by Mr. Emmons who "rose and in his accustomed style of vehemence and emotion, learned in the school of the * astute ' Kemble, stated, ' I wish you all a Happy New year. I hold a paper in my hand which I intended to read, but it is so plainly on the tablet of my heart that — away with paper — I'll do without it." After a few
I02 Boston's Last Town Meetings
more remarks, the Advertiser reporter says that "his fellow-citizens manifested, by their hisses, decided re- pugnance to a continuance of the speaker's argument,** and he was with some difficulty silenced to enable Mr. Adams to say, among other things, that " a new set of men might get together under the capacity of selling city property y
Another point which excited some interest was whether the School Committee should be chosen by the City Council or by the people. The former method, which was that proposed in the report, was adopted at one session and voted down at the next. The right to fix the number of Representatives to the General Court was also given to the Council, notwithstanding the protest of those who desired that the power should belong directly to the people. It seems that the legal limit was fifty Representatives, but this number was rarely, if ever, sent. In the next succeeding election, for instance, twenty -five was the number actually chosen. The method had previously been, as one of the speakers said, " that a few hundred men have decided in caucus how many Representatives we should send, and their recommendation had always been adopted.*'
The town meeting closed with a heated passage at arms between Messrs. James T. Austin and George Blake, on the motion of the former that the Charter should be accepted by the citizens before it should go into effect.
And First City Election, 103
Our final quotation shall be from a speech by Mr. Adams, whose office as Town-crier seems to have given him a power and persistence of lungs which no cries of " Question " could overcome. " I would exam- ine the act," he exclaimed ; "Like David of old, I would not give sleep to my eyes nor slumber to my eyelids until I had pondered it well. I have done it, have lain awake all night ruminating on these here things." It is rather strange that Mr. Austin's sensible motion, though probably made with a view to defeating the contemplated change, was lost.
The question as finally submitted to the town was divided into five "Resolves." ist. Shall there be a City government .? 2d. Shall the elective United States and State officers be chosen in wards ? 3d. Shall the City Council decide the number of Representatives ? 4th. Shall the Town be a County and have a Police Court } 5th. Shall the name be altered from Town of Boston to City of Boston.? These "Resolves," with the exception of the fourth, were all carried on the following Monday by small majorities in a general total of 4,818 votes. The fourth received 4,557 votes.
Had the proceedings been a little more orderly, and the "mushroom" orators less prominent, there can be little doubt that the Town organization would have been retained some time longer. The " No City " ticket, it should be said, the device of Mr. Clough, had upon it " the figure of a beast [evidently intended for a
104 Boston s Last Town Meetings
mare\ with four legs, lying on its back, with its heels upward, each of which was secured with chains."
The next step was to secure the passage of an Act through the General Court. This was not accomplished without considerable difficulty. The Charter was drafted by the Hon. Lemuel Shaw, and a bill embodying it was introduced into the Senate on January 30. This was passed apparently without much debate on February 12, although with an amendment " providing that the elec- tions of State and United States officers shall be holden as heretofore in Faneuil Hall, instead of being holden in wards as proposed by the bill." The decision of the town on this point was thus deliberately reversed on the ostensible ground that voting in wards except for muni- cipal officers was unconstitutional.
The House put off a consideration of the bill till the 1 6th, a week before the adjournment, and after a long and desultory debate refused to accept the Senate*s amendment and voted, 63 to 61, to refer the bill to the next General Court. At the next session, the gentle- man who had it in charge, General Tudor, moved a re- consideration of this vote, which was carried, as was also an amendment by which the whole question of voting was to be again submitted to the people to decide by ballot. With this amendment the Senate concurred, and the bill was passed to be engrossed. The victory, how- ever, had not yet been won. On the day before adjourn- ment, the bill was again taken up, and the section giving
And First City Election. 105
to the Legislature a control over the Charter was amended. In this the House now refused to concur, and again voted to postpone the bill indefinitely. On the next day, the last day of the session, this vote was recon- sidered and the original bill was sent back to the Senate, which receded from its position but at the last moment added a new amendment, providing that the Charter should be submitted to the people "to be accepted or rejected by them at a meeting to be holden within twelve days from the passing of the bill." In this the House fortunately concurred, and the bill finally passed a few moments before the Legislature was prorogued.
The day appointed for voting upon the acceptance of the Charter was March 4th, and the contest waxed more furious than ever in the intervening time. There were numerous appeals in the papers both for and against its acceptance, as well as several public meetings for the same purpose. I confess to a considerable surprise to find that many of these meetings at this time were held on Sunday evenings, both in Faneuil Hall and else- where. In nearly every case, however, they were called by the Republicans or Democrats, and rarely by the Federalists.
The chief opposition to the Charter was aroused by the section, which remains unaltered to this day, declar- ing that nothing in the Act " shall be so construed as to restrain or prevent the Legislature from amending or altering the same whenever they shall deem it expedi-
io6 Boston's Last Town Meetings
ent." This was thought to give an undue power to the Legislature, and some absurd arguments, as that " if the Charter is accepted, we may have as Mayor, possibly, some worthy gentleman from Berkshire," were urged against it. Mr. Hale, in an elaborate editorial in the Advertiser on the morning of the election, advocated its rejection on this ground of undue power ; while Mr. Buckingham, in the Galaxy ^ objected to it on the totally different ground that the City Council had too much power in fixing the number of Representatives. In his issue for March ist, together with a serious article in which this objection is strongly urged, he gives " Eleven reasons why it ought to be accepted." Of these the sixth and eighth are as follows : — " Because the Select- men invited to their dinner whom they thought proper, omitting others, who, from long experience, were much better judges of good eating and drinking Be- cause the editor of the Centinel [Maj. Benjamin Russell], who knows every things and can guess at what he does not know, says, the Charter will not suffer by a com- parison with any other act of incorporation in the United States."
The Charter was accepted by a majority of 916 votes in a total of 4,678. The second question, "Shall the elections for State and United State Officers be holden in general meeting .? " was decided in the negative by a majority of 926, the proposition receiving, says Mr.
And First City Election. 107
Hale, " the undivided support of the Democratic party, while the Federalists were divided upon it."
This important decision excited a more than local interest, as the following editorial from the New York Commercial Advertiser for March 9th shows. " Huzza for the City of Boston ! — We are glad to find that after another sharp contest the townsmen of Boston have de- cided that henceforth and forever hereafter, they will rank among the citizens of the earth. Selectmen are to be transformed into Aldermen, Constables into Mar- shals, etc., etc. It will now be necessary for some of their shipping merchants to put two or three of their vessels into the Green Turtle commerce. — In the mean- time, before the arrival of the first cargo, we would recommend the new Aldermen to take a trip to this city, and be initiated into the Hoboken Turtle Club ; and also to take lessons of our worshipful corporation, in the art and mystery of eating turtle soup once a month for the benefit of the poor''
From this time to the " second Monday of April," the day fixed by the Charter for the choice of the new City Government, the chief point of interest was the ques- tion, "Who should be Mayor?" Their conception of the qualities of this officer was fine and worthy of being noted. I make, almost at random, an extract from one of the numerous 'editorials and letters on this subject which appeared in the papers. The Commercial Gazette says : — " The executive office of Mayor is one which
io8 Boston's Last Town Meetings
will require much energy and decision of character, as well as abstract ability. He must not be a time-server to the rich, nor bend too lowly to the poor. He must not be a politician in practice, nor an intriguer in prin- ciple. Uncontrolled by interest, unawed by faction, he must assume a firm step, and have an eye to everything in his course. He should be taken without reference to any considerations but those of worth, talent, and force of character, from the whole community; and if so taken there can be no hazard in predicting the success of his career."
Still this important question did not wholly absorb the public attention. The people at the North End, for instance, were now determined to recover the political influence which they appear to have lost in late years under the town government. This is very evident from a communication to the Patriot^ in which the writer, after enumerating the number of Firewards, School Committee and Overseers whom they propose to elect, adds "besides two Aldermen, this being the number which the three wards are entitled to, and we have there also as fat ones as any in the city." Then additional officials are suggested, as a City Engineer and an In- spector of Signs. This officer " should be appointed by the School Committee, with authority to rase, burn and destroy all signs, sign-boards and shutters, which exhib- ited either false taste, false grammar, or false spelling. As the avails of his official duties would furnish a large
And First City Election. 109
family with fuel, almost as long as the Alexandrian Library furnished the hot baths of the capital city of Egypt, no expense would be incurred for such an officer's support." The author of this suggestion pro- ceeds to give instances, such as " Vittling and Storig," and closes with a practical example of the absolute dan- ger of such signs to an unwary public, in that " No long time since, an invalid gentleman came near to being thrown from his horse, which took fright " at one of these signs. I hasten to add that this truly Boston horse was not shocked at a case of " false grammar or false spelling," but at a case of "false taste," in a poor picture.
The first nomination for Mayor, so far as I have ob- served, was made in the Evening Gazette for March 19th. "We learn," it says, "with great pleasure, that at a meeting of gentlemen belonging to both sides in politics, it has been agreed to vote for the Hon. Harri- son Gray Otis, now Senator in Congress, as Mayor of this City, and to support a Board of Aldermen, consist- ing of a due proportion of each political party." This paragraph the Advertiser copies and, editorially, heartily concurs in the nomination, " provided it is confirmed by the delegates from the wards, who will probably be as- sembled for the purpose of making nominations for the important city offices." The statement of the Gazette was, however, authoritatively denied in the issue of the Advertiser, No nomination for Mayor took place at
no Bostons Last Town Meetings
this meeting. "The gentlemen there present merely voted that it was expedient to choose a certain number of Aldermen from the party which is in the minority in this town, and at the same time appointed a committee from each party to communicate this vote to the consti- tuted authorities of their respective parties. A report of a joint committee of the two parties was made, recom- mending to the meeting to abstain from all nominations whatever, as such a step would interfere with that course of proceeding which has long been observed in this town and which it is most desirable to preserve. This report was accepted uttanimously !'
In the Galaxy for March 29th, Mr. Buckingham says, "We have already heard the names of Messrs. J. Phillips, Lloyd, Otis, Quincy, D. Sargent, and Tudor, mentioned as suitable persons to fill the office " of Mayor, and then proceeds with much force to state his preferences. He does not deny the fitness of the other gentlemen named, ** but, if a public life of the most undeviating adherence to principle — if a course of honest and independent con- duct through evil report and good report — if experience in the deliberative assemblies of the State and nation — if courtesy to political opponents, and the exercise of gentlemanly deportment to all, whether high or low, rich or poor, are to be of any avail, then Mr. Quincy is pre-eminently entitled to be the first Mayor of the City of Boston." The main interest at this time, however.
And First City Election. iii
was in the State election, which was held a week before the municipal election.
On the 28th of March, the last town meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, Judge Josiah Quincy being Moder- ator. The matters acted upon related to the House of Industry building at South Boston, and a new school house at the North End. The last " General Meeting " was held in the same place for the State election on April I St, the polls being open from 9 until 2 o'clock in the afternoon. About 4,535 votes were cast, of which Gov. John Brooks received 3,114.
The Federal nominating caucus for city officers was held at the Exchange Coffee House on Thursday even- ing, April 4th, Hon. William Sullivan being Moderator, and Samuel Swett, Esq., Clerk. It was composed of the general committee, consisting of one delegate from each ward and the ward committees, " who were invited by the general committee to notify twenty-five citizens of each ward to attend with themselves at a primary nominating caucus." Several gentlemen were nomin- ated for Mayor, and were then marked on prepared lists with the following result: — H. G. Otis had 175, Josiah Quincy 170 and Daniel Sargent 13. Five Fed- eralists, two Democrats, and one gentleman repre- senting the "Middling Interest" (Mr. Joseph Jenkins), were nominated as Aldermen. Mr. Quincy 's supporters were greatly chagrined at the result of the caucus and openly charged his opponents with unfair dealings,
112 Bostons Last Town Meetings
" some contending that persons had been permitted to mark after the vote had passed for the closing of the marking." This of course was denied, but without sat- isfying Mr. Quincy's friends, and the next evening a caucus of the citizens of the " Middling Political Inter- est '* was held in the United States Court Room, and he was unanimously nominated for Mayor. To the great surprise and against the wishes of many of his best friends, he consented to run. The Democrats or Re- publicans made no nominations for Mayor or Aldermen, and but for this unfortunate and ill-omened split, our first Mayor would probably have received a unanimous vote.
Shortly before this the town had been divided into twelve new wards, and it may be of interest to note where the caucuses were held. Ward i, Salem Street Academy. 2, Church in Methodist Alley. 3, Oliver Hatch's Hall, Cross and Millpond Streets. 4, Wyatt's Hotel, Court Street. 5, Parkman's Market, Cambridge Street. 6, Schoolhouse in Derne Street. 7, Fenno's Hotel, School Street. 8, Exchange Coffee House. 9, Gun House, Fort Hill. 10, Boston Circus, Mason Street. 11 and 12, Pantheon, Orange Street. The polling places were, Ward i. North School House. 2, Church in Methodist Alley. 3, First Baptist Church in Back Street. 4, Faneuil Hall. 5, Parkman's Market. 6, Third Baptist Meeting House, Charles Street. 7, New State House. 8, Exchange Coffee House. 9,
And First City Election. 113
Boylston School House, Fort Hill. 10, Church in Essex Street. 11, Pantheon Hall. 12, O. Fisher's Building, 8 Washington Street.
The election took place on Monday, April 8th. The respective ward meetings were opened with prayer at 9 o'clock. There was apparently no regular time for clos- ing the polls, but this was done at the option of the ward officers. The registration lists had been prepared by the Assistant Assessors going from house to house and taking down the names. It was proposed by some to have printed ballots, but "the invariable usage is in favor of written votes," and these were probably in most instances cast. The publishers of the Commercial Gazette announced, however, that they had prepared printed lists of votes for " the Federal Republican Elec- tors of Ward No. 8."
On the evening before the election the Democrats at the North End, unwilling to vote for either of two such pronounced Federalists as Messrs. Otis and Quincy, nominated Mr. Thomas L. Winthrop for Mayor, without his knowledge or consent. Monday proved to be a stormy day, and the vote was consequently smaller than that on the preceding Monday at the State election Both the Advertiser and Commercial Gazette had edi- torials favoring Mr. Otis and vigorously condemning the course of Mr. Quincy. Not only did he not receive the regular nomination, says the former, but " he very lately resigned the office of Speaker of the House of
1 14 Boston's Last Town Meetings
Representatives to accept a judicial office," and
he had been " the most zealous and active opponent of the city Charter." Many persons, indeed, expected till the last moment that he would withdraw from the con- test, rather than be made " the instrument of disunion and disorganization of the Federal party."
The result of the election was that H. G. Otis re- ceived 1384 votes, Josiah Quincy 1736, T. L. Winthrop 361, George Blake 157, and scattering 62, and there was no choice. There was naturally a very bitter feel- ing on both sides, Mr. Otis's friends being especially mortified at the result, as Mr. Quincy drew off about five or six hundred Federal votes, or just enough to defeat him. Both candidates that same day withdrew their names, Hon. Thomas H. Perkins acting for Mr. Otis in his absence.
The interest which this indecisive election created in the country is shown by the following extract from the Philadelphia Democratic PresSy which I quote to show how high party feeling ran in those days. After commenting upon the political record of the two candi- dates, it goes on to say : — " Upon what American prin- ciples, upon what American feeling can such men be worthy of the suffrages of American citizens t In the memory of many a Bostonian such men would not be tolerated in Boston. They would, like the Tea, be thrown into the bay, by a parcel of Indians, or they would be habited in such suits of domestic manufacture.
And First City Election. 115
that their dearest friends would shrink from their em- braces."
On the next Friday evening a meeting was held at the Exchange Coffee House, the Hon. Thos. H. Perkins in the chair, and Colonel Lyman, Secretary ; the Hon. John Phillips, then President of the Senate, was nomi- nated. The election was held on Tuesday, April i6th, and Mr. Phillips was chosen, receiving 2467 votes out of 2661. Of the scattering votes, however, 39 were thrown out, because the word "Honorable" was not prefixed to his name.
The new city government was inaugurated May ist, in Faneuil Hall, which " was filled to excess, and many went away unable to obtain seats or stand. Two of the extensive galleries were filled with ladies, the number estimated at 1,200." The Rev. Dr. Thos. Baldwin, the senior clergyman in the city, " addressed the Throne of Grace in prayer," and Chief Justice Parker then admin- istered the oath to the Mayor-elect, who afterwards ad- ministered it to the Aldermen and the Common Council. The Chairman of the Selectmen, Mr. Eliphalet Williams, delivered to the Mayor, besides a silver casket contain- ing the new Charter, "the ancient Act incorporating the town of Boston, together with a continued series of municipal records from the year 1634 inclusive, to the present period ; also all the title deeds, documents and evidences of the real and personal estate belonging to the inhabitants of the City of Boston." Mr. Phillips
Ii6 Bostons Last Town Meetings
then made a short address, after which the Mayor and Aldermen met in the Board of Health room, and the Common Council in the Selectmen's room. The latter chose the Hon. William Prescott as their Chairman, and Thomas Clark, as Clerk. The City Council, as the whole body was called, then met in convention and elected Samuel F. McCleary, Esq., City Clerk, by a practically unanimous vote.
The Common Council, it should be said, was certainly a very notable body of men and well characterized by Mr. Phillips in his inaugural address. "When I look around," he says, "and observe gentlemen of the high- est standing and most active employments, devoting their talents and experience to assist in the commence- ment of this arduous business, in common with my fellow citizens, I appreciate most highly their elevated and patriotic motives. I well know, gentlemen, the great sacrifice of time, of ease and emolument, which you make, in assuming this burden." Among the forty-eight gentlemen, to whom these words addressed, were Messrs Samuel Parkman, Robert G. Shaw, William Sullivan, Samuel Appleton, Thomas Motley, Jonathan Amory, Patrick T. Jackson, Enoch Silsby, Augustus Peabody, William Prescott, John Welles, Jonathan Davis, James Perkins, Peter C. Brooks, Winslow Lewis, John Howe, Cyrus Alger, John French and Moses Williams. Would God we might see another body of such men filling their places I Of these it may be noted that James Per-
And First City Election.
117
kins, Peter C. Brooks and Robert G. Shaw were unani- mously elected, while Samuel Perkins, D. W. Bradlee, John Howe and John French lacked only a very few votes of the whole number cast.
The Mayor's address closed with words which it will be well for this generation to recall : — "I invite you to unite in beseeching the Father of Light, without whose blessing all exertion is fruitless, and whose grace alone can give efficacy to the councils of human wisdom, to enlighten and guide our deliberations with the influence of His Holy Spirit, and then we cannot fail to promote the best interests of our fellow citizens."
NOTE.
So many of the old landmarks have been changed or obliterated by the lapse of time since the first city election, it may be well to give the location of some of the meeting and polling places men- tioned on pages 112 and 113.
" Methodist Alley " was the approach to " Ingraham's Yard," and is now known as Hanover Avenue, a short street from Han- over to North Street, which took its name from the fact that here was erected in 1794-6, the first Methodist Meeting-house in Boston.
Oliver Hatch was an innholder; his tavern was on Cross and Millpond Streets, and there no doubt was his " Hall." " Wyatt's Hotel " was perhaps kept by Lot Wyatt, given as a " Victualler " in the Directories of the time. In 1820-21 he is called of Salt Lane, and the following year his place seems to have been in Williams Court.
" Parkman's Market," the building still standing on the corner of North Grove and Cambridge Streets, has been occupied for various purposes since it ceased to be a market.
The exact location of " Boston Circus," on Mason Street, we have not ascertained, but very probably it occupied one of the sites on the west side, where a few years later, there were large stables. In 1822, the "Pantheon," was the name of the hall in the Boylston Market building, on the corner of Boylston and Washington Streets, that part of Washington Street being then called Orange Street as far south as Dover Street.
The " First Baptist Church " was on the corner of Stillman and Salem Streets, on a lot occupied by that body for more than one hundred and fifty years. The " Third Baptist Meeting House" was that better known by the name of its pastor, the Rev. Daniel Sharpe, who served from 1812 to 1853, and the "Church in Essex Street" stood on the corner of Essex and what is now Chauncey Street; the Society was founded in 18 19, and the Rev. James Sabine was its minister at the time of the election.
ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS
SELECTED FROM THE COLLECTIONS
OF THE
BOSTONIAN SOCIETY.
DOCUMENTS
FROM ORIGINALS IN THE BOSTONIAN SOCIETY'S COLLECTIONS. WITH ANNOTATIONS BY
WILUAM T. R. MARVIN.
jMONG the ancient documents preserved in the archives of the Bostonian Society are several relating to the very early days of the settlement of the town of Boston. One of these is a contempo- rary copy, attested in his own hand by Edward Rawson, of a portion of a deed of sale of land on State Street, on which stood the house where Governor Winthrop lived for many years before he occupied *' the mansion house on the Green," opposite the eastern end of School Street. This portion printed below has special interest to our Society, as it gives the names of several of Win- throp's neighbors, and the location of their homes, — all
122 Original Documents.
of them, as will be seen, very near the place on which the Old State House now stands.
Residence of Governor Winthrop.
A Coppie of the Contents of Richard Hutchison's Deed
to Mr. Bre[nton]
To All Christian people to whom theis prefents shall come Richard Hutchison of the Cittie of London within the Comonwealth of Engl. Jronmonger &c.
Wheras Val. Hill Late of Boston in Neve Engl, afore- fayd Merchant by his Deed of Sale bearing date the 24**^ day of May Sixteen hundred fourtie & nine did giue. Grant, Bargain & Sell vnto the abouemenconed Richard Hutchifon All that Mafsion houfe in Boston formerly the howfe of John Wenthrop Senior in Boston Aforefayd Efquire with all the Yards, Orchards, Gardens & all the howfmg thereon Errected (the howfe & Gar- den then in pofsefsion of Cap* Robert Harding Ex- cepted) with all the Liberties, priuiledges & Appurte- nances to the Same in any wife belonging or Appurtein- ing — being bounded with the Streete, the howfes of the Late Cap^ Robert Harding, Will Dauis & J° HoUan on the North, the Coue on the East, the Creek & m^ Steuen Wenthropps Marsh on the South, & the howfe & Land of the late m''. Tho: Leuerit on the West, &c. & Wheras the Sayd Val. Hill within the bound Above- menc5ned fold vnto Will: Philpote A parcel of land being 3 rodds wide & 4 rodds long &c And by him
Original Documents, 123
Afsigned ouer to William Brenton of Boston Aforesayd & bearing date the 22 day of May 16^0 :
Now Know all men by theis prefents that for and in Consideracon of the Suin of 555^' to the Abovemen- coned Edw. Hutchifon Son & heire Apparant & Agente & Attorney allso vnto the Abovemenconed Richard Hutchison & Mary his wife & haue Abfolutely Given Granted, Bargained Sold &c vnto the Sayd Will: Bren- ton his heirs & Assignes for Euer All that Manfion howfe heretofore the howfe of the Sayd J°: Wenthropp Senior Esquire &c. Jn witness wherof the Sayd Rich- ard Hutchison & Marie his wife & Edw. their Son & heire Apparent &c haue herevnto Set their hands & Seales this first day of March One Thowsand Six hun- dred Fiftie & Seuen.
Signed & deliuered by the Edward Hutchison & A
withinnamed Edward Scale
Hutchison the day
within menconed in the prefence of vs Samuell Hutchifon Anthony Stoddard Edw. Hutchifon Senior
This Deed Acknowledged by Edward Hutchifon this first of March 165I
Before me Ric: Bellingham Dep^ Gou".
Entered & recorded this 3^ of March ^|f J
^ Edw. Rawfon Recorder.
124 Original Documents.
The document closes by a certificate signed by Raw- son that "This is A true Copie of so much of the originall Deed as it is Recorded, as Attests," etc.
From the original deed, which is printed in Suffolk Deeds, III : 124-126, it is evident that Winthrop's es- tate covered most of the land bounded by what are now Congress, State and Kilby Streets, and that at that time the water of the harbor came nearly or quite up to the lines of the latter street. On the southerly side was "Mr. Stephen Winthrop's marsh," and a "creek," pos- sibly the outlet of the famous spring which gave its name to Spring Lane. In November, 1643, Winthrop conveyed to his son Stephen all his " lott or parcell of land .... called the Greene, lying by the Spring," on the condition that the Governor and his wife should have the use of one-half of it and the buildings to be erected thereon, for the term of their lives. Thus the two parcels of land very probably adjoined each other, but no attempt has been made to establish this in- ference.
The land described in the deed as formerly the prop- erty of Winthrop was sold by him in September, 1643, to Valentine Hill, William Tyng and eight others. Of these purchasers, Hill acquired a certain portion on which stood Winthrop's house, with its gardens and orchards, which he sold to Hutchinson in 1649 J another parcel of the same estate, containing about twelve square rods, he sold to Willian^ Fhilpot, who in turn conveyed
Original Documents. 12$
it to William Brenton. In 1660 Brenton's property was next west of Harding's estate,* and in the deed from Hutchinson it is mentioned that the " mansion house heretofore the house of John Winthropp Senior " is included. He seems to have previously purchased another portion of the Winthrop estate, as the lot ad- joining Holland's property on the south-east belonged to him in 1656.!
It is not our purpose to trace in detail the subsequent ownership of this land. This has been very carefully done by Mr. Frederick Lewis Gay, in a paper printed on pages 86-90 of the Third Volume of the Transactions of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, who shows that Winthrop's residence probably stood on the spot now covered by the main hall of the Boston Stock Exchange. Leverett's estate extended from the south-easterly cor- ner of State and Congress Streets to the marsh already mentioned. Capt. Harding's was the south-east corner of State and Kilby Streets. John Holland was his next neighbor on the west, and William Davis next. While Philpot owned the land mentioned in the deed he built upon it " a dwelling house and a Salt house."
Some of these locations are indicated by a deed of Judith Holland, then of Dorchester, called in 1656 "widow of John Holland," who April 24, 1657, con- veyed her land ** bounded with the streete y* leadeth to
» See Suffolk Deeds, V: 231. t Ibid., Ill : 15, 16.
126 Original Documents.
the great wharf e northwest," to Thomas Pecke of Bos- ton. In this deed the estate of William Davis is men- tioned as next and bounding it on the west, and that of Brent on on the south-east (thus apparently having a front on what is now Kilby Street), as already men- tioned. The property which she conveyed was about one-half of a larger estate which Holland had bought of Francis Smith, and later sold to Capt. James Oliver, whose ground was "next to the water on the east part." The latter lot seems to have been the estate mentioned in Hutchinson's deed as occupied by Capt. Robert Harding in 1657-58 ; another part of his land Holland had sold to Davis, as will be seen below, but as the object of these notes is only to show the residents on this part of State Street about the time that Winthrop was living there, no attempt has been made to trace the dates of transfers, or the various holders of titles. Some biographical notes of the persons named in the deed may be of interest.
Richard Hutchinson was a brother of the Rev. William (husband of the famous Mrs. Ann Hutchinson), and of John and Samuel Hutchinson, sons of John, of Alford, England. Nothing has been found to show that he was ever in Boston. John and Samuel, — the latter one of the witnesses of the deed, — were members of the Ancient and Honorable Artil- lery Company. Samuel died unmarried, July 14, 1667.
Valentine Hill, a merchant of Boston in 1636, was ad- mitted a freeman May 13, 1640, and the following month
Original Documents. 127
ordained a deacon of the First Church. He was a public- spirited man, and in 1641 one of the grantees of the Town or Bendall's Dock. He was a Selectman 1641 to 1647, at which time he lived on what is now Washington Street, op- posite the office of the Boston Globe; this estate he sold to Capt. William Davis about 1649, and removed to Dover, N. H. He represented that town in the House of Deputies 1 65 2-1 65 5 inclusive, and again in 1657, and died there in 1661. March 25, 1639, "Brother Valentine Hill [had leave] to build a fitting-house and a shopp upon the house-plott which he hath bought that was our brother M. William Aspinwall's, and to let it to Francis Lysle Barber." This place, says the historian of the Ancient and Honorable Artil- lery Company (of which Hill was a member in 1638), was " on State Street, opposite the Merchants' Exchange."
Robert Harding came in Winthrop's company in 1630, and was one of the earliest members of the First Church in Boston, his name being eleventh on the Covenant signed at Charlestown, Aug. 27, 1630. He was Ensign of the train- band under Capt. Underbill, and the seventeenth signer of the original roll of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, 1637, though he had been disarmed shortly before by order of the General Court, for his heterodoxy, which he seems to have recanted, as he was again received into the Church; his repentance was hardly sincere, for in 1640 his love for the anabaptist doctrine again triumphed, and he went to Rhode Island and was one of the Assistants there in 1 64 1. He was a member of the first Board of Selectmen in Boston in 1634, and served again in that office from 1637 to 1 640, with the exception of six months ; he was one of several
128 Original Documents.
who in 1636 loaned the town Five pounds towards building the Fort on Fort Hill, and the same year was one of " the richer inhabitants " who contributed towards the support of " the Master of the Free School," now the Boston Latin School. He married, May 18, 163 1, the widow Philippa Hammond, who came over in the same ship with him, and was a mem- ber of the First Church ; his second wife, whom he married Oct. 17, 1645, was Esther Willis, of Hartford. The follow- ing year he returned to England, and in 1651 was a merchant in London.
William Davis, of Boston in 1643, was an apothecary ; admitted to the Church July 28, 1644, and made a freeman in 1645 ; " A man of wealth, enterprise and discretion," he was Selectman of Boston 1647, 1654-1661, and again 1670- 1675 ; one of the founders of the Old South Church. He was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Com- pany, and its Captain in 1664 and 1672, and held various positions in the military service of the Colony, commanding a troop of horse in Ninigret's War. He was also a Repre- sentative in the Legislature from Springfield and Haverhill, in each of which towns he seems to have resided for a longer or shorter period. His house was on the lot next west of that on the corner of Kilby and State Streets, which he had bought of Holland,* where in Provincial days stood the Bunch of Grapes Tavern. By a deed dated June 9, 1658, William Davis, " now resident in the Island of Barbadoes," and his wife Mary granted " one dwelling house .... front- ing next the broad streete from the markett place [where
« See Suffolk Deeds, III : 15, 16.
Original Documents. 129
the Old State House now stands] downe to m*" Webbs, wharf e .... with the yard and well belonging to sajd house." Mr. Bren ton's lands on the south-east are mentioned in the same deed as adjoining.* Davis subsequently returned to Boston. He died May 23, 1676, and was buried in King's Chapel Burial-ground.
Mr. Thomas Leverett was the Ruling Elder of the First Church in Boston. He resigned his office of Alderman of the borough of Old Boston, England, in 1633, and arrived Sept. 4, 1633, in Boston, in the "Griffin." His residence " had State Street on the north, and the marsh of Mr. Win- throp on the south." (Hist. A. and H. A. Co., I, p. 92.) After his death this house was occupied by his son, John, one of the most prominent men of his time. That part of Congress Street north of Water Street was long known as Leverett's Lane, in honor of the distinguished father and son.
William Philpot was of Boston in 1645, ^'^d is called a saltmaker; he was admitted to the Church November 29th of that year. He married, December, 165 1, Mrs. Ann, widow of George Hunn.
Bradstreet-Waldron Charges.
A Chardge drawne vp against m' Isaac Wal-
dron of Boston Apothecary for his Injurious &
reflective speeches and bold Affirmation^ in his
1st chardging the wo^'pf^i Symon Bradstreet Esq""
one of ye Assistants of his Maj*yes Court of
» Suffolk Deeds, III : 167,168.
130 Original Documents.
Assistants of y*^ Jurisdiction in the open County Court in January last Contrary to truth : saying that the sajd m''. Bradstreet had not or did not p^sent the originall bond he tooke ag* him the sajd Waldron : binding him over to that Court to Ans^. for his mischarging sends (?) all "^sons as Capt. Tho. marshall Joell Jenkins &c Againe & Againe saying that he presumed (?) & denied (?) that to be the originall bond &c.
2ly In his bold Affirmation at the Sajd County
Court the same time of his tryall that what he had donn was by the Advise & order of sajd m'. Bradstreet or els he had not Don it &c and this rejtterated Contrary to truth.
3ly ffor bold & reittirated & Abusive refflection*
againe & Againe in like words in his Reasons of Appeale from the Judgment of the Sajd County Court to this Court of Assistants Against the Sajd Worp^^ m^. Bradstreet before the Country thereby Indeavoring to bespatte"" and Asperse him of whom this Country hath had so long ex- periens of Sincere able & faithfull adminstration of Justice.
Isaac Waldron, who is called a physician by Savage, probably came to Boston from York, Me., as he was in that town in 1670 and appears in Boston in 1676 ; he died in 1683, and the record of the administration of his estate is in the Suffolk Probate Court.
Original Documents. 131
Simon Bradstreet came over in Winthrop's company in 1630, and had been chosen an Assistant before leaving England. He was almost constantly in office, filling many positions of prominence in the Massachusetts Bay, being an Assistant from 1668 to 1678, and the following year was Governor. This fixes very closely the time when this " Chardge " was preferred, no date appearing in the docu- ment except that of the month. As Waldron came to Boston in 1676, and Bradstreet ceased to be an Assistant in 1678, evidently this offensive conduct must have been in 1677 or '78.
Capt. Thomas Marshall is best known as the landlord of the Anchor Tavern, which stood on the west side of Saugus River, on the road from Salem to Boston, where the General Court allowed him " to sell strong water to travillers and alsoe other meet provisions." This he continued to do for forty years. He received from Cromwell a captain's commission in the Parliamentary army. He joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery in 1640, and in 1675 com- manded the Lynn company in King Philip's War. He represented Lynn in the General Court six times between 1659 and 1688, and in 1659 was authorized to join in mar- riage such persons in Lynn as conformed to the legal re- quirements, but was discharged from "officyating in that imployment" in 1670, because of his "overmuch credulity." Judge Sewall, in his Diary, speaks of stopping at his tavern in 1686. He died Dec. 23, 1689, aged seventy-three.
Joel Jenkins was probably of Boston ; his will (No. 1662 in the missing docket of the Suffolk Probate Court) was made in 1688.
132 Original Documents.
Daniel Allen to Joseph Dudley, Esq^. in London.
f Mr. Peter Clark, Q. D. C.
Boston Augs* 16 1683 Dear S*^
Wee are now in dayly Expectation of Carey by whome hope to be informed of yo*" welfare and health but bad Effect of Randolphs arrivall* there as the countryes con- cerne, is much feared. about a week agoe governor Dungon for York arrived in the constant Warwick frig- att, is gone home over Land and Governor Cranefeildf with the commission'*s for the Narrhaganset province in his Comp^ intending before they return to have a full report of the place and claimes : two dayes agoe Dr. Rogersf was inaugurated, and our Commencement de- ferred till Septemb'^. and being at Colledge I found Thomas labouring of an ague w^^ is there almost Epi- demic case have Since given him a dos. of Physick and doubt not his speedy recovery : we have no newes to offer of the generall court, but all of any Reason be- ing Sensible of the desperatenes of our Charter wish for a Sessions that Some of the lawes which will be directory to a new constitution to make our
♦ Randolph's " arrivall " in England, carrying his numerous charges against Massachusetts, the " bad Effect " of which caused the fear to which the writer alludes, was on May 28, 1683.
t Governor Cranfield spent most of his time in Boston in the spring and summer of 1683. (Palfrey, Hist, of New England^ III : 412.)
X President of Harvard College, 168 2- 1684.
Original Documents. 133
yoake heavy might be removed, and Expunged, there is nothing yet done as to the fifty pounds they last Voted for you neither do I ever Expect to receive it the treasurer I beleive thinks he shall be aforehand w*^ you, and being zealous that our patent may be dam[. . .] they are wilhng to Save the money if they can ; or if you have no more interest there when our libertyes here are gone you will altogether faile of yo'^ Expectation for I beleive nothing but opprobriums will be thought due to Such as are witnesses to their losse ; .
S^ I sent '^ Grenner (?) the Coppyes of those write- ings you sent for Authentick and Attested, have since wrote to Hawly (?) concerning the Survey (?) have yet no answer now again am sending M"" Cordis (?) is in readiness and I hope it shall speedily be accomplished : I wrote of my intentions to see the place myself ; but am discouraged having been lately troubled with violent Haemorrhagia pulmonum, which left behind it some ill symtomes, beleive the Dr. must Cure me tho thank god I am in very competent health at present : Have made some progresse in the Sale of the goods Sent me and doubt not giving the gentlemen Satisfacton unlesse unhappy accidents prevent, forget not to insert here my humble thanks for yo"" paines and care in obligeing the Cent"^ which hope will be continued : I have sent M"" Dingley some money reed of Mrs. Creenough, but Mr. Pigotts busyness is not like to be issued child hav- ing lost one of the bonds and his own obligaton for
134 Original Documents.
two cannot be proved against him because the witnesses are dead and he will not own it.
Mr. Lellond lyes dead in his house being taken sud- denly with vomiting and flux dyed ye 14 instant : my Bro^: Wade is in great strait about his Bretheren whome he meets with trouble from ; there is no will but an old one in which he makes his wife and son Jon- athan Exeu^ gives Jonathan the land in Engld. and the rest to be divided amongst the rest here, but he dare not prove it wants yo^ advice greatly Mr. Stoughton being sick of an agew, and the Governo''* espousing Nats : Cause whose insolence to his Brother is matchles upon that Acct (?) there will be unavoidably law suites before full settlement. I have just now been with Thomas and find his ague hath left him and his colour begins to returne, having missed two fitts : S"* I am affraid of tediousnesse else would enlarge therefore onely offer Mr. Hubbard service with desire of your Excuse for not writing, because he would not burthen you ac- cept also the service of my Sister Dudley wife and all friends which also is the best at present from S^
Y"^ unworthy much obliged Brother & Servt. Daniell Allin.
|]^ * Bradstreet was then Governor : William Stoughton was an Assist- ant, 1671-86. He held various important positions in the Colony, and was a supporter of Sir Edmund Andros, and one of his Counsellors until the overthrow of the Royal Governor in April, 1689.
Original Documents. 135
Col. Thomas Dungon was Governor of New York, where he succeeded Andros, Sept. 30, 1683, after the latter had been recalled, and Major Anthony Brockholst, his Lieuten- ant Governor, had temporarily taken his place. His char- acter is depicted in various lights, according to the preju- dices of his personal friends or his enemies. By the former he is called " a man of integrity, moderation and genteel manners, as well as a patriot." His opponents disliked him because he was a Roman Catholic, for his attempt to secure the Connecticut Charter and make that Colony a part of New York (see Andros Tracts, I : p. 127), and also for his course in reference to leasing lands at Pemaquid. In the changes following the accession of William and Mary he was dismissed from the offices which he had held under Charles II, but was afterwards created Earl of Limerick.
Edward Cranfield, said to have been one of the family of the Lord Monteagle who was concerned in the " Gun- powder plot," was Governor of New Hampshire when Allen wrote, having been installed in that office at Portsmouth, October 4, 1681, and his administration, which lasted until 1684, was peculiarly oppressive. He disliked the people and especially the ministers of " the Bostoners' Colony." In June, 1683, he wrote to England that "The Bostoners' prin- cipals in matters of government debauches all the neighbor- ing Colonies," and in October of the same year, speaking of Harvard College, which he had frequently denounced in his letters to England, he advised that it be " utterly extirpated, for from thence those half-witted philosophers turn either atheists or seditious preachers," for, said he, "I utterly des- pair of any true duty and obedience to his Majesty until
136 Original Documents.
their College be suppressed and their ministers silenced." In the year this letter was written Randolph had urged the King to make Cranfield Governor of Massachusetts. He left the country in the winter of 1684-85.
The Rev. John Rogers, of the Class of 1649, "entered into office" April 10, 1682, succeeding President Urian Oakes, who died July, 1681. Rogers had previously been elected, but declined. He was inaugurated, as appears by Allen's letter, August 14, 1683, and died in office July 2, 1684. Those were troublous times at Harvard; no class graduated in 1682, and only three received their degrees in 1683. Dr. Increase Mather of Boston, and the Rev. Samuel Torrey of Weymouth, had each been chosen and declined before Rogers accepted, though Mather finally consented to take the position after the death of Rogers.
President Quincy, in his History of Harvard University (1 : 38) says, " At this period, the difficulty of finding per- sons suitable and willing to accept the office was great." He does not give the date of the inauguration of Rogers, and refers to his administration very briefly. The same authority remarks that " the political and religious parties of the country were, during [this] time in a state of excitement and struggle." These facts, of which we have a glimpse in Allen's letter, seem to give sufficient ground for the delay in inaugurating President Rogers.
INDEX.
1. INDEX OF NAMES. II. INDEX OF PLACES AND SUBJECTS.
1. INDEX OF NAMES.
In cases of well-known public men the Christian name is given, though it may not always appear in the text.
Adams, John 6i, 62
Lieut.-Col. 60
Samuel 95, 96, 99, 101-103 Alger, Cyrus 116 Allen, Daniel 132, 134-136 Amory, Jonathan 116 Andros, Sir Edmund 134, 135 Appleton, John 47, 48
Samuel 1 16 Aspinwall, William 127 Austin, James T. 95, 102, 103
Babcock, Abram 57
Baldwin, Col. Loammi 7 1-73, 76,
87 Thomas 1 1 5 Barber, Francis Lysle 127
Barren, 7 1
Baxter, Daniel 57
Bellingham, Gov. Richard 41, 123
Berry, William 49
Billings, Samuel 57
Biron, Due de 13
Blackstone, William 23
Blake, George 59, 66, 92, 94, 98,
loi, 102, 114 Bowen, Abel 88 Bradish, Frank E. 9 Bradlee, D. W. 117 Bradstreet, Gov. Simon 1 29-1 31,
134 Brenton, William 122, 123, 125,
126, 129 Brimmer, Martin 56, 65 Brockholst, Anthony 135 Bromfield, Edward 48, 49 Elizabeth 48 Henry 47, 48 Mary (Danforth) 48 Brooks, Gov. John 58, 61, 63, 71, III Peter C. 74, 116, 117 Buckingham, J. T. 97, 98, 106, no
Burke, 49
Burrage, William Clarence 53
I40
Index of Names.
Carey, 132
Chaderton, Dr. 28 Child, David W. 57 Clap, Roger 30 Clark, Thomas 116 Clough, Ebenezer 95, 103 Codman, Stephen 92 Cogan, John 27
Cragie, 7 1
Cranfield, Gov. Edward 132, 135,
136 Cromwell, Oliver 131
Curtis, 57
Mary Frazier 53
Dame, Prof. 79 banforth, Mary 48
Mary (Wilson) 44, 46
Samuel 44, 48 Davis, Jonathan 116
Mary 128
William 122, 125-129 Dearborn, Henry A. S. 64
Dingley, 133
Doggett, Samuel 55, 65 Dudley, Gov. Thomas 22
Mrs. 134 Dungon, Gov. Thomas 132, 135 Dunster, Henry 39
Eddy, Caleb 78, 79, 83, 87 Eliot, John ^iZ^ 36. 39
Emmons, 98, 10 1
Endicott, John 20
Fennelly, Robert 57 Findlay, John K. 60 Fitch, Jeremiah 57, 59, 65 French, John 116, 117 Fulton, Robert 77
Gay, Frederick Lewis 125 Gibbons, Maj.-Gen. 25
Gookin, 39
Cordis, 133
Gore, 71
Gray, Thomas 12 Greene, Gardiner 88 Greenough, Mrs. 133 Grindall, Edmund 11
Hale, Nathan 95, 106, 107 Hammond, Philippa 128 Hancock, Gov. John 71 Harding, Esther (Willis) 128
Philippa (Hammond) 128
Robert 122, 125, 127 Harvard, John 31-33 Hatch, Oliver 118
Hawley, 133
Hawthorne, Nathaniel 28, 40, 41,
46 Hill, Valentine 122, 124, 126, 127 Holland, John 122, 125, 126, 128
Judith 125 Holmes, Cadet 59
Oliver Wendell 65 Howe, John 116, 117 Howin (Widow) 27 Hubbard, 86, 134
James Mascarene 91 Hunn, Ann ( ) 129
George 129 Hutchinson, Ann 126
Edward 123
John 126
Mary 123
(Mrs.) 37
Richard 122-126
Samuel 123, 126
Thomas 62
William 126
Index of Names.
141
Jackson, Charles 92
Patrick T. 116 Jarvis, Samuel F. 59 Jenkins, Joel 130, 131
John (Sagamore) 38, 39
Joseph 1 1 1 Johnson, Edward 34, 35, 39
Isaac 21, 22, 45
Keayne, Robert 26
Latrobe, John H. B. 53
Lellond, 134
Leverett, John 129
Thomas 28, 122, 129 Lewis, Winslow 116 Limerick, Earl of 135
Lloyd, 110
Lobdell, Thomas J. 55 Loring, Jonathan 57 Lowell, James Russell 21 Lyman, Col. 115
Mann, Moses Whitcher 69 Mansfield, Elizabeth 18
I^dy 18
Sir John 18 Marshall, Thomas 130, 131 Martin, Mrs. 60 Marvin, William T. R. 121 Mather, Cotton 9, 40-42, 47
Increase 156 McCleary, Samuel F. 116 Melville, Thomas 60, 65 Meniac, John 62 Mildmay, Sir Walter 31 Mill, John Stuart 13 Minns, Thomas 46, 49 Monroe, James 66 Monteagle, Lord 135 Motley, Thomas 116
Nash, Robert 25 Northampton, Earl of 17
Oakes, Urian 136 Oliver, Francis J. 94
James 126 Ome, Henry 92 Otis, Harrison Gray 109-]
114 Owen, John 48, 49
"3.
Parker, Chief Justice 115 Parkman, Samuel 116 Peabody, Augustus 1 16 Peck, Thomas 126
Penniman, 57
Perkins, Augustus T. 49
James 116
Samuel 117
Thomas H. 114, 115 Phillips, John 92, no, 115, 116
William 48 Philpot, Ann ( ) [Hunn] 129
William 122, 124, 125, 129
Pierce, 33
Pierpont, John 59
Piggott, 133
Prescott, William 92, 116 Pynchon, 35
Quincy, Abraham 97
Josiah 47, 48, 61, 91, 92, 99, 1 10- 114, 136 Quincy, Miss 61
Randolph, Edmund 132, 136 Rawson, Edward 40, 47, 121, 123, 124
Reed, 94
Rogers, Elizabeth (Wilson) 44 Ezekiel 44
142
Index of Names,
Rogers, John 132, 136 Russell, Benjamin 93, 98, 106
Sabine, James 118 Sargent, Daniel 110, iii Savage, James 130 Sewall, Samuel 131 Sharpe, Daniel 118 Shaw, Lemuel 92, 93, 104
Robert G. 116, 117 Silsby, Enoch 116 Smith, , Mr. 58
Barney 62
Francis 126 Stoddard, Anthony 26, 123 Stoughton, Gov. William 35, 134 Sturgis, William 98 Sullivan, James 70, 71, 75, 76, 86,
87 John Langdon 76, 77, 87 William, 92, 94, 99, 11 1, 116
Sumner, William Hyslop 59, 65
Swett, Samuel iii
Taft, Pres. William Howard 49
Taylor, Richard 27
Thayer, Major 60
Thompson, Samuel 72
Tilden, Joseph 92
Tudor, William 92, 94, 95, 10 1,
104, no Torrey, Samuel 136 Tufts, Fitch 97 Tyng, William 124
Underbill, John 127
Vane, Gov. Harry 19, 37, 38
Wade, 134
Jonathan 134 Waldron, Isaac 129, 130, 131 Warren, Joseph 59, 62, 65 Washington, George 63, 66, 69
Webb, 129
Webster, Daniel 59, 80, 92 Welles, John 116 Wells, S. A. 94, 98, 1 01
Samuel A. 57 Weston, Samuel 72 Williams, Major 54
Eliphalet 57, 115
Moses 116 Willis, 60
Esther 128 Wilson, Edmund 35, 44
Elizabeth ( ) 25, 44
Isabell 18
John 9-49
John, Jr. 25
Mary 44
William 10, 18 Winslow, Isaac 92 Winthrop, Gov. John 19, 21-23, 28, 33. 35' 38. 122-127, 129,
131
Robert C. 47 Stephen 122, Thomas L. w
124
3» II
Woodhall, Isabel 1 1
Worth, William Jenkins 53, 58, 6r,
62, 64 Wyatt, Lot 1 18
^^m^
II. INDEX OF PLACES AND SUBJECTS.
A New England Dogberry 99 Aberjona River 72,73, 79, 84 Albany 54, 61
St. Peter's Church 54 Alford, Eng. 126 An Indian Cadet 62 Anchor Tavern 131 Amoskeag Canal 75 Amoskeag Falls 76 Ancient and Honorable Artillery
26, 60, 65, 66, 126-128, 131 Attleborough 62
Baltimore 53 Barbadoes 128 Bedford, N. H. 80 Billerica 73, 83, 85 Boston : — Artillery55
Bendall's Dock 127
Boylston Market 118
Boylston School-house 113
Brazer's Building 28
Bunch of Grapes Tavern 128
Circus 112, 118
City Guards 63
Common 55, 57, 63, 65, loi
Concert Hall 56
Cotton Hill 88
Boston {confd) : Crooked Lane 26 Essex Street Church 113, 118 Exchange Coffee House, iii,
112 Faneuil Hall 56, 58, 59, 91, 93,
94, 100, loi, 105, III, 112, 115 Fenno's Hotel 112 First Baptist Church 112, 118 First Church 29, 36, 37, 46, 127-
129 First Meeting-house 28, 29 First Methodist Meeting-house
112,118 Fisher's Building 113 Fort Hill 112, 113, 128 Fusileers 56 Great Elm 55 Gun House 112 Handel and Haydn Society 60 Hatch's Hall 112 Hollis Street Church 59 Independent Cadets, 60, 65 Ingraham's Yard 118 King's Chapel Burying Ground
129 Latin School 128 Leverett's Lane 129
144
Index of Places and Subjects.
Boston {confd) : Light Infantry 56 Localities of Ward Rooms 112,
113 Location of Gov. Winthrop's
House 121-126 Methodist Alley 112, 118 Mill-pond 75 Old South Church 128 Old State House 9, 26, 53, 69,
91, 122, 129 Pantheon 112, 113, 118 Parkman's Market 112, 118 Presents a Stand of Colors to
U. S. Cadets 56-58 Rangers 56
Salem Street Academy 112 Sea Fencibles 58 St. John's Lodge 66 St. Paul's Church 59 Supervision of Sign-boards, 108,
109 Third Baptist Meeting-house
112, 118 Town Dock 88 Washington Infantry 56 Webb's Wharfe 129 Wilson's Gift of Artillery 34 Winthrop's Marsh 124, 129 Wyatt's Hotel 112, 1 18 Boston Newspapers ; —
Advertiser 95, 102, 106, 109, 113
Globe 127
Columbian Centinel 56, 63, 75,
106 Commercial Gazette 107, 113 Evening Gazette 109 Galaxy 97, 106, no Patriot 108 Boston, England 129] Bounties paid Trappers 81
Cambridge 32, 38
Harvard College 31, 39, 44, 56, 65, 66, 132, 135, 136
Marti-Mercurian Company 65
Newtowne 32 Cambridge, England 15-17, 31, 32
Emmanuel College 17, 28, 31,
32. 44
King's College 15 Canterbury, Eng. 11 Caxton, Eng. 11 Charles River 23, 71, 73, 83, 88 Charlestown 20, 22, 23, 62, 71, 74, 83, 127
Bridge 88
Bunker Hill 59, 62, 65
Church 32
Mt. Benedict 83
Sullivan Square 86, 87 Chelmsford 72, 75 Chelsea 38, 39 Chester Factory 54 Cincinnati, Society of 64 Cliffe, Eng. 1 1 Concord 73 Concord, N. II. 77 Concord River 72, 73 Cragie's Bridge 83
Dedham 62
Democratic Press, Phila. 114
Dorchester 125
Dover, N. H. 127
Eton, Eng. 12, 13
Framingham 54
Gunpowder Plot 135
Hadley Pasture 85
Index of Places and Suhjectz.
145
Hamilton Mills 78 Hartford, Conn. 128 Haverhill 128 Horn Pond 72, 80 Hudson, N. Y. 64
Ipswich River 72 Islip, Eng. 1 1
King Philip's War 131
Lake Champlain 70 Lake of the Woods 80 Lake Sunapee 70 Latin Elegy on Wilson 33 Lebanon, N. Y. 54 Leicester 54 Lenox 54
London, Eng. 11, 16, 20, 30, 35, 44, 49, 122, 128 St. Paul's 1 1 Lowell 76, 78, 79, 82 Lynn 131
Magnalia cited 41
Maiden 20, 38
Manchester 75
Maple Meadow Brook 72
Massachusetts Historical Society
48, 49, 66 Medfield 25, 44 Medford 71, 73» 74. 84 Medford Pond 72 Melborne, Eng. 49 Merrimack Boating Co. 76, 83 Merrimack River 70, 72, 73, 75,
76, 78, 80, 8s Mexican War 64 Middlesex Village 85 Middling Interest Party 100, iii,
112
Milton 62
Hutchinson's Mansion 62 Monterey, Mexico 64 Moosehead I^ke 82 Mystic River 71, 73, 74, 79
Narragansett Province 132
Nashua 82
Nassau Hall (Princeton) 65
New London 62
New York, 72, 132, 135 Central Park 64 Commercial Advertiser 107 Hoboken Turtle Club 107
Newton 39
Ninigret's War 128
Nonantum 39
North Billerica 72, 85
Oxford, Eng. 32 Merton College 10
Palmer 54
Passenger Boats on Middlesex
Canal 80 Pawtucket, R. I. 62
Canal 76, 79
Falls 76, 78 Pemaquid, Me. 135 Penrith, Eng. 10, 49 Pequod Indians 35, 36, 41 Portland, Me. 64 Portsmouth, N. H. 75, 135 Providence, R. I. 62
Rochester Cathedral 1 1 Rowley, Eng. 44 Roxbury 24, 44, 55, 65
Faxon's Hill 55
Norfolk Guards 55
146
Index of Places and Subjects.
Salem 20, 23, 131 Saugus River 131 Seminole War 64 Shawsheen River 73, 85 Signal Horns 78 Small -pox among Indians 38 Southampton, Eng. 20 Springfield, 54, 128 St. Lawrence River 70 Symmes River 73
Talbot Mills, 85 Thomas's Tavern 54 Tyngsborough 79
Walpole 62 War of 1812 64
Warwick Frigate 132
Wellsbourne, Eng. 10
Westfield 54
Weymouth 136
William and Mary College 64
Wilmington 72, 85
Wilson Arms 49
Wilson, Portrait, doubtful 47-49
Winchester 84, 85
Windsor, Eng. 11-14, 27
Castle, 10, II, 18
St. George's Chapel 10, 14, 18 Woburn 72, 73, 83-85 Worcester 54 Wrentham 62
York, Me. 130
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