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- *' *' ** •• *•
anicricau Ibistoric Zovone
HISTORIC TOWNS
OF
NEW ENGLAND
Edited by
LYMAN P. POWELL
Illustrated
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK & LONDON
Zbc 1kiucJ?crbocher press
T898
THIS VOLUME DOES NOT
ClhCULAjt
f
1 1
. ^'■cA
Copyright, 1898
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
vd o
BD
Ube Tknichcrbocfccr press, "flew li?orft
PREFACE
TN July, 1893, while the first Summer Meet-
^ ing of the American Society for the Ex-
tension of University Teaching was in session
at the University of Pennsylvania, I con-
ducted the students, in trips taken from week
to week, to historic spots in Philadelphia, the
battle-fields of the Brandywine and of Ger-
mantown, and to the site of the winter camp at
Valley Forge. The experiment was brought
to the attention of Dr. Albert Shaw, and at
his instance I made a plea through the pages
of T/ie A77terican Moiithly Review of Reviews,
October, 1893, for the revival of the mediaeval
pilgrimage, and for its adaptation to educa-
tional and patriotic uses. After pointing out
some of the advantages of visits paid under
competent guidance and with reverent spirit to
spots made sacred by high thinking and self-for-
getful living, I suggested a ten days' pilgrimage
in the footsteps of George Washington.
IV
Preface
The suggestion took root in the pubHc
mind. Leading journals commended the idea.
New England people, already acquainted with
the thought of local historical excursions, hailed
the proposed pilgrimage with enthusiasm. Men
and women from a score of States avowed
their eagerness to make the experiment ; and
at the close of the University Extension Sum-
mer Meeting of July, 1894, in which I had
lectured on American history, I found myself
conducting for the University Extension So-
ciety a pilgrimage, starting from Philadelphia,
to Hartford, Boston, Cambridge, Lexington,
Concord, Salem, Plymouth, Newburg, West
Point, Tarry town, Tappan, New York, Prince-
ton, and Trenton.
The press contributed with discrimination the
publicity essential to success. Every commu-
nity visited rendered intelligent and generous
co-operation. And surely no pilgrims, mediae-
val or modern, ever had such leadership ; for
among our cicerones and patriotic orators
were : Col. T. W. Higginson, Drs. Edward
Everett Hale and Talcott Williams, Hon.
Hampton L. Carson, Messrs. Charles Dudley
Warner, Richard Watson Gilder, Charles Carl-
ton Coffin, Frank B. Sanborn, Edwin D. Mead,
Preface v
Hezeklah Butterworth, George P. Morris, Pro-
fessors W. P. Trent, William M. Sloane, W.
W. Goodwin, E. S. Morse, Brig.-Gen. O. B.
Ernst, Major Marshall H. Bright, and Rev.
William E. Barton.
I had planned in the months that followed to
publish a souvenir volume containing the more
important addresses made by distinguished
men on the historic significance of the places
visited ; but as the happy experience receded
into the past a larger thought laid hold of me.
Why not sometime in the infrequent leisure of
a busy minister's life edit a series of volumes
on American Histo7^ic Toiviis ? Kingsley's
novels were written amid parish duties, and
Dr. McCook has found time, amid exacting
ministerial duties, to make perhaps the most
searching study ever made by an American of
the habits of spiders. Medical experts agree
concerning the value of a wholesome avoca-
tion to the man who takes his vocation seri-
ously ; and congregations are quick to give
ear to the earnest preacher whose sermons be-
tray a large outlook on life.
A series of illustrated volumes on American
Historic Towns, edited with intelligence, would
prove a unique and important contribution to
vi Preface
historical literature. To the pious pilgrim to
historic shrines the series would, perhaps, give
the perspective that every pilgrim needs, and
furnish information that no guide-book ever
offers. To those who have to stay at home
the illustrated volumes would present some
compensation for the sacrifice, and would help
to satisfy a recognized need. The volumes
would probably quicken public interest in
our historic past, and contribute to the mak-
ing of another kind of patriotism than that
Dr. Johnson had in mind when he defined it
as the "last refuge of a scoundrel."
I foresaw some at least of the serious diffi-
culties that await the editor of such a series.
If all the towns for which antiquarians and
local enthusiasts would fain find room should
be included, the series would be too long. A
staff of contributors must be secured, pos-
sessing literary skill, historical insight, the
antiquarian's patience, and enough confidence
in the highest success of the series to be pre-
pared to waive any requirement of adequate
pecuniary compensation. Space must be ap-
portioned with impartial but not unsympathetic *^
hand, and the illustrations selected with due
discrimination. And, finally, publishers were
Preface vii
to be found willing- to assume the expense
required for the production in suitable form of
a series for which no one could with accuracy
forecast the sale.
The last and perhaps most serious difficulty
was removed almost a year ago when Messrs.
G. P. Putnam's Sons expressed a willingness to
take the commercial risk involved in publishing
the present volume, which will, it is hoped, be
the first of a series. Contributors were then
found whose work has, I trust, secured for
the undertaking an auspicious beginning.
Critics inclined at first glance to speak harshly
of the differences amonor the contributors in
style and in literary method are advised to
withhold judgment till a closer reading has
made clear, as it will, the fundamental
differences there are among the towns them-
selves in history and in spirit. Adequate
reasons which need not be stated here have
made it advisable to omit Lexington, Groton,
Portsmouth, the Mystic towns, and other
towns which would naturally be included in a
later volume on New England Towns, in case
the publication should be continued.
So many have co-operated in the making of
this book that I will not undertake to name
VIU
Preface
them all. But I cannot forbear to acknowledge
the valuable assistance I have received at every
stage of the work from Mr. G. H. Putnam,
Mr. George P. Morris, associate editor of
The Congregationalist, and Miss Gertrude
Wilson, instructor In history at the historic
Emma Willard School. The Century Com-
pany has. In the preparation of the first chapter
on Boston and the chapter on Newport, kindly
allowed the use of certain illustrations and
portions of articles on Boston and Newport,
which have appeared in St. Nicholas and old
Scribner s respectively. Some of the Illustra-
tions for the Portland chapter have been fur-
nished by Lamson, the Portland photographer.
The Essex Institute, with characteristic gen-
erosity, has loaned most of the cuts for the
Salem chapter. The Ohio State Archaeologi-
cal and Historical Society has allowed the
reproduction from The Ohio Quarterly of some
of the designs In the Rutland chapter, while
certain of the illustrations in the Cape Cod
Towns chapter appeared first in Fabnoiith
Illustrated.
Conscious of the editorial shortcomings of
the volume, I still dare to hope that it may
have such a cordial reception as will justify the
Preface
IX
publication at some time of a volume on His-
toric Towns of the Middle States.
Lyman P. Powell
Ambler, Pennsylvania
September 21, 1898.
CONTENTS
Introduction
Portland
Rutland, Mass.
Salem
Boston .
Cambridge
Concord .
Plymouth
Cape Cod Towns
Deerfield
Newport
Providence
Hartford
New Haven .
George Perry Morris .
Samuel T. Pickard .
Edwin D. Mead
George Dimmick Latimer .
Thomas Wentworth Hig-
53
8i
121
ginson
.67
Edward Everett Hale
,87
Samuel A. Eliot
211
Frank B. Sanborn
243
Ellen Watson .
• 299
Katharine Lee Bates .
• 345
George Sheldon
• 403
Susan Coolidge
. 443
William B. Weeden .
• 475
Mary K. Talcott
• 507
Frederick H. Cogswell
• 553
ILLUSTRATIONS
Plymouth in 1622
PORTLAND
Froitispit'ce
White Head, Gushing Island
Deering's Woods
Showing brook which the soldiers had t(j ford in the fight
with the Indians in i63q.
First Parish Church
Containing the Mowatt cannon-ball.
The Birthplace of Longfellow
Henry W. Longfellow ....•••
N. P. Willis . .
RUTLAND
Dr. Cutler's Church and Parsonage at Ipswich Ham-
let, 1787 ^
View of Rutland Street ^
Manasseh Cutler ^
PAGE
55
59
63
67
73
77
83
85
91
1 Reproduced by permission of A. S. Burbank, Plymouth, Mass.
2 Reproduced by permission of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical
Society, Columbus, Ohio.
3 Reproduced by permission of C. R. Bartlett, Rutland, Mass.
xiii
XIV
Illustrations
Nathan Dane ^
RuFus Putnam ^
Site of Marietta and Harmar, 1788 ^ . . .
The " Central Tree " -^ ......
The Old Rutland Inn ■*......
View of Rutland Centre from Muschopauge Hill ^
British Barracks ^
The Rufus Putnam House ^ . .
SALEM
Governor Endicott's Sun-Dial and Sword '
The First Meeting-House, 1634-3Q ^ .
Governor Simon Bradstreet ^ .
Governor John Endicott ^
«
The Pickering Fireback ' .
Old Cradle ^ .....
The Roger Williams' or " Witch House '
Witch Pins ' .
Timothy Pickering ....
Some Old Doorways ' .
BowDiTCH Desk and Quadrant '
William H. Prescott ....
Nathaniel Hawthorne
From an engraving from a painting by C. G. Thompson.
Nathaniel Hawthorne — Birthplace of Hawthorne —
House of the Seven Gables — Grimshawe House —
The Old Town Pump ^
Seal of the City of Salem ' ......
PAGE
92
95
lOI
103
104
107
112
114
122
123
125
126
128
131
137
142
153
155
158
160
163
165
166
^ Reproduced by permission of the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
^ Reproduced by permission of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical
Society, Columbus, Ohio.
^ Reproduced by permission of C. R. Bartlett, Rutland, Mass.
^ Reproduced by permission of the Neiv England Magazine^ Boston, Mass.
Illustrations
XV
BOSTON
Succory or " Boston Weed "
Trinity Church ' ....
Boston in 1757 .....
From a drawing by Governor Pownall.
" Old Corner Bookstore " '
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Public Library
Map of Boston in 1722
Charles Sumner .
Phillips Brooks .
Faneuil Hall in the i8th Century
Governor Thomas Hutchinson .
From a portrait in possession of the Massachusetts Histori-
cal Society, once the property of Jonathan Mayhew.
r Condition. Built
The Old South Church in its Presen
in 1729
Old State House
James Otis
Samuel Adams
Boston Massacre
From a painting by A. Chappel.
Landing of British Troops at Boston, 1768
Map of Boston in 1775
The Frog Pond on the Common as ir now Appears
Seal of the City of Boston ....
167
169
172
175
177
179
180
182
184
189
190
193
197
199
201
203
205
206
209
210
CAMBRIDGE
Harvard College Gate
Home of Longfellow .
213
215
^ Reproduced by permission of Daniel W. Colbath &. Co., Boston, Mass.
•
XVI
Illustrations
" The Muses' Factories." — Lowell .
Statue of John Harvard and Memorial Hall
College
Holworthy Hall, Harvard College
Home of Lowell .
Washington Elm .
James Russell Lowell
Gymnasium, Harvard College
William E. Russell
PAGE
•
221
, Harv
ard
225
229
231
233
237
240
CONCORD
Concord River, by Thoreau's Landing
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1858)
From a sketch by Rowse.
The Light at the Bridge ' .
Redrawn from Ralph Earle's sketch of 1775.
The Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775
From an old print.
Muskets of Captain John Parker
The Minute-Man-
French's first statue.
Hawthorne's Old Manse .
Revolutionary Inn' .
Henry Thoreau (1857) '
Graves of the Emerson Family
Home of Emerson
A. Bronson Alcott (1S75) ' .
Louise M. Alcott
Seal of the City of Concord
245
252
255
263
266
269
274
277
2S0
283
287
292
295
297
^ Reproduced by permission of the New England Magazine, Boston, Mass.
« Reproduced by permission of the W. H. Brett Engraving Co., Boston, Mass.
307
313
321
323
333
Illustrations xvli
PLYMOUTH
Facsimile of a Page from Governor Bradford's Manu-
script, " Plimoth Plantation " .... 301
The original is now in the Boston State House.
Pulpit Rock, Clarke's Island ' ..... 302
The Early Norman Doorway at Austerfield Church . 305
The Old Fort and First Meeting-House. on Burial
Hill, 1621 '
Governor Edward Winslow '
The Harbor '
Plymouth in 1622 '
The " Mayflower" in Plymouth Harbor '
From the painting by W. F. Halsall, in Pilgrim Hall.
The Old Colony Seal ........ 334
The Landing of the F.\thers, Plymouth, December 22,
1620 335
Copied from an old painting on glass.
The Fuller Cradle 337
An Old English Spinning-Wheel 338
The Doten House, 1660 ^ 339
The oldest house in Plymouth.
The Grave of Dr. Francis Le Barran, the Nameless
Nobleman ' . . . . . . . . . 342
Seal of the City of Plymouth ...... 343
CAPE COD TOWNS
The Beach, Falmouth ^ 347
Map OF Cape Cod Section ^ 349
Provincetown . -355
^ Reproduced by permission of A. S. Burbank, Plymouth, Mass.
' Reproduced by permission of the Falmouth Board of Industry, Falmouth,
Mass.
' Reproduced by permission of Geo. H, Walker & Co., Boston, Mass.
XVI 11
Illustrations
Wharves at Provincetown
Provincetown in 1S39 .
From an old drawing.
Highland Light ....
Oyster Point, Wellfleet .
Bishop and Clerk Light, Hyannis
Old Windmill, Eastham
Ruins of the Chatham Light
Life- Saving Station at Wellfleet
Bass River Bridge, South Yarmouth
Barnstable Inn ....
Bird's-eye View of Falmouth ' .
The Village Green '^ .
Shirick's Pond, Falmouth '
The Whale-Ship "Commodore Morris" and the
mouth Captains who Sailed in Her '
DEERFIELD
Old Deerfield Street, 1671-1898
Frary House, 1698
Oldest in the county.
Third Meeting-House, 1695-1729
(Old Indian house on the right.)
Parson Williams's House
Built by the town, 1707 — standing 1898.
Door of " Old Indian House " Hacked by Indians
Now in Memorial Hall.
Tombstones of Rev. John Williams and his Wife
Stephen Williams, 1693-1782 ....
A captive of February 29, 1703-4.
Fal
359
363
371
373
376
378
383
3S6
387
389
395
397
399
401
405
408
419
421
423
425
428
^ Reproduced by permission of the Falmouth Board of Industry, Falmouth,
Mass.
* Reproduced by permission of W. H. Hewins, Falmouth, Mass.
Illustrations
XIX
George Fuller, 1822-1884 . . . .
Buffet from " Parson Williams's " House
Now in Memorial Hall.
PAGE
437
439
NEWPORT
The Old Stone Mill
Newport in 1795 '
George Berkeley, Dean of Derry '' .
Whitehall, the Berkeley Residence, Built 1729
" Purgatory "^
Rochambeau's Headquarters ^ .
Life Mask of Washington ■*....
Made by Houdon in 1785.
The Parsonage of Mrs. Stowe's " Minister's Wooing" '
Doorway OF Old House ON Thames Street ^ .
General Nathanael Greene ' . . . .
From one of Malbone's best miniatures.
Seal of the City of Newport
PROVIDENCE
View of Providence
From the south.
Roger Williams Received by the Indians
From a design by A. H. Wray.
The Roger Williams Monument
Stephen Hopkins ^
445
447
451
453
457
459
463
466
468
471
473
477
479
483
490
^ Reproduced by permission of Simon Hart, Newport, R. I.
^ Reproduced, with permission, from Porter's Two Hundredth Birthday of
Bishop George Berkeley^ published by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons.
^ Reproduced by permission of The Century Co.
* Reproduced, with permission, from the American Monthly Review of Re-
views, from the editor's article on the Renaissance of the Medieeval Pilgrimage^
published in October, 1893.
^ Reproduced by permission of Messrs. D. Appleton & Co.,
XX
Illustrations
Brown University
Francis Wayland
The Capitol . . . .
Seal of the City of Providence
PAGE
493
499
503
506
HARTFORD
Main Street
Old Center Burying-G round
The Charter Oak ....
Old State House, now City Hall
Built in 1794.
Statue of Israel Putnam .
J. Q. A. Ward, sculptor.
Keney Memorial Tower ' .
The Capitol
Soldiers' Memorial Arch .
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Dr. Horace Bushnell .
From a crayon drawing by S. W. Rowse.
J. Hammond Trumbull, LL.D.
Arms of the City of Hartford
509
513
520
529
539
541
543
545
546
547
549
551
NEW HAVEN
Temple Street 555
John Davenport . . * 557
From a portrait in possession of Yale College.
Roger Sherman - 5^1
Photographed from statue on the east front of the Capitol
at Hartford.
* Reproduced from Trips by Trolley and Awheel around Hart/ord.
' Reproduced, with permission, from Boutell's Life of Roger Sherjtian^ pub-
lished by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 111.
Illustrations
XXI
Judges' Cave
A Humane Enemy
Phelps Hall
OsBORX Hall
The Art Building
Noah Webster ' .
Eli Whitney
East Rock Park .
Seal of the City of New Haven
567
571
573
577
579
581
583
585
5S6
^ Reproduced, with permission, from Webster^ s Dictionary^ published by G. &
C. Merriam Co., Springfield, Mass.
INTRODUCTION
By GEORGE PERRY MORRIS
FROM the earliest days of the New Eng-
land Colonies down to the present time,
those European analysts of our national life,
whose opinions have been based on personal
observation, have usually conceded that in New
England towns and villages one might, at al-
most any period of their history, find a higher
average degree of physical comfort, intelli-
gence and mental attainment, and political lib-
erty and power than was or is to be found in
any other communities of Christendom. Thus
Alexis de Tocqueville, in 1835, wrote :
" The existence of the townships of New England is,
in general, a happy one. Their government is suited to
their tastes, and chosen by themselves. . . . The
conduct of local business is easy. . . . No tradition
exists of a distinction of ranks ; no portion of the com-
munity is tempted to oppress the remainder ; and the
I
2 Introduction
abuses which may injure isolated individuals are for-
gotten in the general contentment which prevails. . . .
The native of New England is attached to his township
because it is independent and free ; his co-operation in
its affairs ensures his attachment to its interest ; the
well-being it affords him secures his affection, and its
welfare is the aim of his ambition and of his future ex-
ertions. He takes a part in every occurrence in the
place ; he practises the art of government in the small
sphere within his reach ; he accustoms himself to those
forms which can alone ensure the steady progress of
liberty ; he imbibes their spirit ; he acquires a taste for
order, comprehends the union of the balance of powers,
and collects clear practical notions on the nature of his
duties and the extent of his rights." ^
If this be true, the question inevitably arises,
how has it come to pass ? New England, as a
whole, is far from fertile. Its winters are
long and severe. Of mineral wealth it has lit-
tle. The raw materials for its countless facto-
ries and mills, the fuel for its factories, homes,
and railroads, must be obtained in the territory
south and west of the Hudson River. The
cereals which furnish the staple diet of its peo-
^ De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, chapter v. Mr. F. J.
Lippitt, who assisted M. de Tocqueville in the preparation of this
work, says that once when they "had been talking about town-
meetings, de Tocqueville exclaimed with a kindling eye (usually
quite expressionless), ' Mais, c'est la commune ! ' " — Cf. The Century
Magazine, September, 189S, p. 707.
Introduction 3
pie come from Western plains. Its best blood
and brawn have grone to found commonwealths
ranging from the Alleghany to the Sierra Ne-
vada mountains, and, into towns once popu-
lated and dominated by the purest of English
stock, there have come Irish from Ireland and
Canada, French by way of Canada, Portuguese,
Italians, and Jews from Russia, so that, in
1890, the alien male adult population of the
several States was found by the Federal cen-
sus takers to be, in Maine, 51.43 percent. ; New
Hampshire, 50.5 per cent. ; Vermont, 41.25
per cent.; Massachusetts, 46.10 per cent.;
Rhode Island, 49.78 per cent. ; Connecticut,
36.52 per cent.
And yet, notwithstanding these economic
disadvantages, this depletion of a population
inheriting noble ideals, and the infusion of a
class of settlers holding, in many instances,
political and religious convictions quite at va-
riance with those of the founders of the colo-
nies, the " type " persists. The New England
towns are still unlike, and in some respects
superior to, those of other sections of the
country. The New England States still lead
in reformatory legislation. New England's
approval or disapproval of ideas affecting na-
4 Introduction
tlonal destiny still has weight with Congress
and Presidents altogether disproportionate to
the number of her representatives in Congress
or her votes in the Electoral Colleore.
If one will walk about New Enorland towns
<z>
one will find in each a church, a town-house,
and a school, and in most of them a railroad
station and a factory. In the majority of
them there will also be a public library, small
perhaps and usually housed in the town-house,
but open to all, and supported from the public
funds. In the larger towns, especially in those
where manufacturing is a prominent factor in
the communal prosperity, a hospital, supported
by public taxation, is open to all. In almost
every town there is a grass-covered, tree-shaded
" common," which serves as a village or town
park, and on it usually stand memorial tablets
or statues testifying to the valor of the dead
who went forth to fight in the War of the
Revolution or in the Civil War.
The church symbolizes that belief in God
and that disposition to obey His will and law
which the noblest and wisest men of all ages
and climes have agreed upon as the sine qua
non of civic as well as of individual prosperity,
and in this instance it also stands for that
Introduction 5
separation of Church and State which our
national experience — and that of Canada and
the AustraHan Colonies as well — shows to be
the ideal relation. That for a time, in the
early days of Massachusetts and Connecticut,
there was an unsuccessful attempt to preserve
a union of State and Church, an attempt which
had for some of its least commendable inci-
dents the wholesale hanging of men and women
for witchcraft, the expulsion of Quakers, and
the ostracism or exclusion of Roman Catholics
and Anglicans, is not to be denied.
That the people of New England have been
duly conscientious is apparent by the multipli-
cation of churches at home, and by their never-
ceasing, overflowing gifts to establish churches,
colleges, schools, and Christian missions In the
South and West and In foreign lands. It Is
from the thrifty, prosperous, philanthropic
New Englander that the treasuries of the great
Protestant missionary and educational societies
receive their largest average per-caplta gifts,
and it Is to New England that the steps of the
Western and Southern educator still turn for
endowments which his State may not, or the
people cannot, or do not, give.
Peopled by Inhabitants given over to Intro-
6 Introduction
spection, and as fond of theology as the Scotch,
the early New England communities were in-
tensely religious and sectarian. God to them
was a Personal Sovereign, intimately concerned
with their daily life. They were His chosen
people, and, as such, pledged to obedience to
His service. The Church was His Bride ; the
clergyman was His spokesman, and received
the deference — social as well as official — which
was due to one so augustly commissioned. The
social as well as the intellectual life of the com-
munity centred almost exclusively in the life
of the church and the sermons of its clergy.
Sectarian animosities were the inevitable pro-
duct of a mistaken emphasis put upon the form
or utterance of truth, rather than upon truth
itself ; or, to put it differently, of a provincial-
ism and narrowness of vision that made it im-
possible for the many to understand that truth
is many-sided, that men are different tempera-
mentally, that revelation is continuous and
progressive, and that religion is not theology.
Communities exist in New England where the
old view still obtains, where sectarianism is as
rampant as ever, where the clergyman is the
social autocrat as well as the shepherd of souls.
But such towns are becoming fewer and fewer
Introduction 7
as the years go by, and of towns of the newer
type, where the church is recognized as only
one of the many agents which God has for
ushering in His Kingdom on earth, New Eng-
land now has quite as many, probably, as are
to be found elsewhere.
To those interested in the theological and
religious history of English-speaking peoples,
certain New England towns have a peculiar
fascination and value as environments which
have affected character. Northampton, Mas-
sachusetts, will ever be a Mecca because of
the identification of Jonathan Edwards with
the town. Concord, in the same common-
wealth, has not only the unique glory that
belongs to a town where national history has
been made and the best American literature
of its class written by Hawthorne and Thoreau,
but also it is the town where Emerson's minis-
terial ancestors lived, where he flowered out
and became
that grey-eyed seer
Who in pastoral Concord ways
With Plato and Hafiz walked.
Newport, Rhode Island, with all its present
pre-eminence as a place where " Fashion is a
potency . . . making it hard to judge be-
8 Introduction
tween the temporary and the lasting," will ever
remain most worthy of resort because it was
the birthplace of William Ellery Channing,
and, for thirty years, was the home of the Rev.
Dr. Samuel Hopkins, both eminent as theolo-
gians and as brave pioneer antagonists of human
slavery. Dr. Hopkins was the model for the
New England pastor described by Harriet
Beecher Stowe in The Minister s Wooi7ig.
Northfield, Massachusetts, is known to thou-
sands of Christians the world over, who
have never seen its rare beauty of river and
landscape, because a boy, one Dwight L.
Moody, was born and bred there, and has be-
come the greatest evangelist of modern times.
Litchfield, Connecticut, is famous as the birth-
place of Henry Ward Beecher, and if one
wishes flash-light pictures of New England
ecclesiastical and social life at the beofinninor
of this century, let one read the autobiographic
records of Lyman, Henry Ward, Harriet, and
Catherine E. Beecher.
Portland, Maine, is known to thousands
throughout the English-speaking world, who
are ignorant of every other fact in its long and
honorable history, because Francis E. Clark
there conceived and began that movement to
Introduction 9
enlist young people in active Christian service,
which is now known as the International Young
People's Society of Christian Endeavor, with
54,191 local societies, and more than three and
one quarter million adherents enrolled, Russia
alone, of the nations of the earth, being with-
out a society now. Hartford, Connecticut,
with a discernment and gratitude not always
displayed by municipalities, has named its
beautiful municipal park after Horace Bush-
nell, for many years its most eminent divine
and ''first citizen."
Salem, fascinating as it is because of its con-
nection with the witchcraft delusion and the
early Puritan theocracy ; because of its being
for a time the home of Hawthorne, who has
preserved Its ancient local color and atmos-
phere In his fiction ; and because of its ancient
glory as a seaport town, whence departed a
fleet of salllnor craft that made Salem known
throughout the world, in places where Boston
and New York were then unknown, neverthe-
less derives Its chief glory from the fact that it
was the town where Roger Williams, the Welsh
statesman and prophet, found a church willing
to sit at his feet. The church's loyalty, how-
ever, gave way at last to the resistless pres-
TO Introduction
sure of the civil authorities and the zealous
ecclesiastical tyrants of the Puritan common-
wealth, and it permitted him to depart, to es-
tablish in Rhode Island a community based
upon the principle of entire liberty of con-
science, and majority rule in secular affairs.
Massachusetts' loss and the world's gain are
thus summed up by Gervinus the German
historian :
" The theories of freedom in Church and State,
taught in the schools of philosophy in Europe, were
here [Rhode Island] brought into practice in the govern-
ment of a small community. It was prophesied that
the democratic attempts to obtain universal suffrage, a
general elective franchise, annual parliaments, entire
religious freedom, and the Miltonian right of schism
would be of short duration. But these institutions have
not only maintained themselves here, but have spread
over the whole Union. They have superseded the aris-
tocratic commencements of Carolina and of New York,
the High-Church party in Virginia, the theocracy in
Massachusetts, and the monarchy throughout America ;
they have given laws to one quarter of the globe, and,
dreaded for their moral influence, they stand in the
background of every democratic struggle in Europe."
Boston, with all her glories, has none of
which she is more proud, than the fact that
within her borders Phillips Brooks was born
Introduction 1 1
and labored most of his life. Those who
came within his range of influence said of
him, as Father Taylor said of Emerson, " He
mieht think this or that, but he was more
like Jesus Christ than any one he had ever
known."
To mention Roger Williams, Jonathan Ed-
wards, William EUery Channing, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward
Beecher, Phillips Brooks, Francis E. Clark,
and Dwight L. Moody, is to name the greatest
spiritual forces which New England has known,
and towns fed with manna by such prophets
have not failed to indicate the influence of
personality in transforming environment.
The " town-house," or town-hall, of the New
England town or village, in its architecture,
is a modern structure, often as simple, unpre-
tentious, and unornamented as the " meeting-
house " near which it usually stands on the
village ofreen or " town common." It is the
arena wherein rich and poor, educated and il-
literate, wise and foolish, meet, at least annually,
and as much oftener as occasion demands, to
decide those questions of Home Rule which are
most vital to all concerned. Education, wealth,
moral worth, shrewd native sense, oratory.
12 Introduction
gifts of persuasion, the stirrings of ambition,
civic pride, thrift, foresight, all have their due
weight in this forum, this " school as well as
source of democracy " — as Mr. Bryce aptly
phrases it. But when the vote is taken, the
blacksmith and the bank president, the master
and the servant, the principal of the high school
and the loafer around the village bar stand on
precisely the same footing. The vote of one
is as decisive as that of the other, — no less,
no more.
Debate and procedure which have the qual-
itative character are followed by voting of
the quantitative character, and the result re-
presents average intelligence and capacity for
self-government. But that result, because it is
the product of the expressed will of all, has an
authority more enduring and inspiring than
any that the autocracies, oligarchies, or con-
stitutional monarchies of Europe have ever
displayed or now possess.
Using the town-meeting as a rapier, Samuel
Adams
" fenced with the British ministry ; it was the claymore
with which he smote their counsels ; it was the harp of a
thousand strings that he swept into a burst of passionate
defiance, or an electric call to arms, or a proud paean of
Introduction 13
exulting triumph, defiance, challenge, and exultation —
all lifting the continent to independence. His indom-
itable will and command of the popular confidence
played Boston against London, the provincial town-meet-
ing against the royal Parliament, Faneuil Hall against
St. Stephen's," ^
This popular government not only enabled
the New Enorland Colonies to lead all the
others in the War of the Revolution, it also
furnished men and ideas for the formidable task
of constitution-making after the Revolution
was over and independence won. As early as
1773, the rustic Solons of the town of Mendon,
Massachusetts, had resolved in town-meeting :
" That all men have an equal right to life, liberty, and
property.
" Therefore all just and lawful government must orig-
inate in the free consent of the people.
" That a right to liberty and property, which are natural
means of self-preservation, is absolutely inalienable, and
can never lawfully be given up by ourselves or taken
from us by others."
Naturally, a section of the country where such
sentiments were held by village Hampdens had
a preponderant influence, when the time came
to draft the Declaration of Independence and
^ Geo. Wm. Curtis, Orations and Addresses, vol. iii.
14 Introduction^
the Constitution, and the readiness of the towns
to submit to taxation and to give their sons
when the call to arms came is a matter of un-
impeachable record. In the army of 231,791
soldiers, furnished by the Thirteen Colonies to
combat the forces of Great Britain In the
Revolution, the four New England Colonies
sent 118,251 men, Massachusetts contributing
67,907, Connecticut 31,939, New Hampshire
12,497, and Rhode Island 5,908.
In the War of 181 2, New England, as a
section, was not very enthusiastic, but her
quota of troops was, nevertheless, forthcoming.
In the Civil War, 1861-65, her troops were
the first to respond to the call of President
Lincoln, and, out of 2,778,304 men who
enlisted, 363,161 came from New England.
Of these, Massachusetts furnished 146,730,
Maine 70,107, Connecticut 55,864, New Hamp-
shire Z3^9?)7y Vermxont 33,288, and Rhode
Island 23,236. In fact, surveying the history of
New England towns from the time when they
contributed their quota of men and money to
the aid of the Mother Country In her fight
with France to decide who should be supreme
on the North American continent, down to the
recent contest between the United States and
Introduction 15
Spain, it can truthfully be said of their dem-
ocratic form of government that it "is the
most powerful and flexible in history. It has
proved to be neither violent, cruel , nor impa-
tient, but fixed in purpose, faithful to its own
officers, tolerant of vast expense, of enormous
losses, of torturing delays, and strongest at
the very points where fatal weakness was
most suspected." And this, be it remembered,
where " the poorest and most ignorant of every
race . . . are the equal voters with the
richest and most intelligent." This, too, where
the newly landed, propertyless immigrant from
Italy or Russia, if able to comply with the gen-
erous provisions governing naturalization and
the exercise of the franchise, has the same po-
tentiality at the polls as the thrifty, well-to-do,
heavily taxed citizen whose ancestors, per-
chance, may have come over with the Pilgrims
on The Mayflower.
Considered either in its origin or its develop-
ment, the New England town-meeting merits
the study of all who are interested in the ex-
tension of principles of democracy. The Eng-
lish settlers of New England were, as Mr.
Bryce says, '' largely townsfolk, accustomed to
municipal life and to vestry meetings." They
i6 Introduction
brought with them, as an inheritance from
their Teutonic ancestors, a habit of self-rule
which the peculiar isolation of the colonies
and the separate communities in the colo-
nies strengthened ; hence a form of govern-
ment in which the town was the unit evolved
inevitably.
The more mixed composition of the popula-
tion in the Middle Atlantic Colonies, for the
same reason, inevitably caused a mixed type of
government to be created there, in which the
county or shire divided the authority with the
town ; while in the Southern Colonies the im-
migrants were of such a character, and the eco-
nomic conditions so different from those in
New England, that a more aristocratic form
of government evolved, semi-feudal in its type,
and the county, rather than the town, became
the important minor political unit within the
State, never, however, having a vigorous inde-
pendent life, the colony and afterward the
State becoming the source of authority and
the end of government. Long years after-
ward, in the Civil War, the two types of gov-
ernment clashed, and the type prevailed which
Thomas Jefferson praised and wished trans-
ferred to Virginia, for, said he :
Introduction i;
" Those wards called townships in New Eng-
land are the vital principle of their govern-
ments, and have proved themselves the wisest
invention ever devised by the wit of man for
the perfect exercise of self-government and
for its preservation."
It is well, however, to note, that Mr. Charles
Borgeaud, the eminent Genevan historian, in
his work on the Rise of Modern Democracy,
disputes the Teutonic origin of the town-meet-
ing, and contends that it must be credited to
the democratic principles of the New Testa-
ment as interpreted and accepted, first by the
Brownists of England, and held later by the
Pilgrim Fathers and those of the Puritans
who accepted the Independent form of church
government, rather than to any principle of
communal government first evolved by Teu-
tons. He says :
" At the moment when the colonists of New England
quitted the Mother Country, whatever was left of that
old self-government which had been exercised by their
forefathers was under the influence of the general move-
ment, and was undergoing aristocratic transformation.
The vestries, or meetings of the inhabitants of the parish,
were being replaced by committees known as select
vestries, which were originally elected, and then, before
long, recruited by co-optation. Had the American colo-
i8 Introduction
nists purely and simply imitated in their new country
the system which they had seen at work in England,
they certainly would not have founded the democratic
government of the town-meeting. In order to explain
their political activity, we must take into account, and
that largely, their religious ideas. And we shall be
naturally led to do this if we remember that, in the begin-
ning, each settlement or town was, before all things, a con-
gregation, and that the town-meeting was in most cases
the same thing as the assembly of the congregation. In
Virginia, where the colonists remained members of the
Anglican Church, there was no town-meeting, but only
select vestries as in England, and these had certainly lost
all family likeness, if they really were related to the
Thing and the Tunge??iot."
In due time, when pioneers from New Eng-
land found their way to the then virgin lands
of Central New York, the valley of the Ohio,
and the northern half of the vast valley of the
Mississippi, they carried with them the po-
litical and religious ideals of New England.
Where they were a large majority of the set-
tlers within a given territory, or where at the
time when its organic structure was forming
they dominated it, the town was established as
the political unit in the territory. Such was
the case in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and
Minnesota. Where New England settlers
joined with those from the Middle States, or
Introduction 19
the border States of Kentucky and Virginia,
they often found it necessary to compromise
on a system in which the county and the town
were peers, as in Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa.
But, as experience has proved, the modified
township system, as it is found in IlHnois
and Michigan, is more advantageous than the
system of divided authority, and many of the
Western States are gradually adopting it, Cali-
fornia, Nebraska, and the Dakotas having re-
cently made it either permissible or mandatory.
Nor are signs lacking that in the South, as its
white population increases by immigrants from
the North, as the patriarchal and pastoral type
of civilization gives way to the modern indus-
trial and corporate type, as cities and towns
multiply, and local as well as State pride has
free chance to develop, there will be an adop-
tion of the modified township system and a
gradual abolition of the county system.
Among the changes of the last half-century
in New England, one notable one has been
the tendency of the larger towns to adopt the
city form of government as soon as it was
deemed that the increase of population war-
ranted the step and made it necessary. This
fact, as well as the marked increase of urban
20 Introduction
population in New England/ is counted by
some students of her social development as in-
dicative of retrogression, however inevitable.
Certain it is, that if the town of Brookline,
with its population of 16,164, ^.nd its property
valuation of $64,169,200,' and annual appro-
priations of more than $900,000, can still work
the ancient machinery of the town-meeting
without the slightest loss either of a pecuniary
or a civic sort, other towns, with a smaller
population and much smaller valuation of prop-
erty, cannot reasonably claim that mere physi-
cal growth is any warrant for the change from
a system so purely democratic to one less so
and much more readily adapted to serve the
ends of partisan bosses and those who batten
at the public crib.
The third of the indispensable and ever-
present institutions found in every New Eng-
land town or village is the public school, open
' In iSio, less than 15 per cent, of the population of Rhode Island
was found in towns of 8000 or more inhabitants ; in 1S90, nearly So
per cent. In Massachusetts, in 1790, five per cent, were urban
dwellers; in 1890, 70 per cent. In Connecticut, in 1830, 3 per
cent, lived in cities ; in 1890, more than 50 per cent. In 1840, 3 per
cent, in New Hampshire lived in cities; in 1890, more than 25
per cent. In 1820, in Maine, 4 per cent, lived in cities ; in 1890,
20 per cent.
^ Cf. Town Records of Brookline, 1S97-98.
Introduction 21
to all and supported by all. Roman Catholic,
Protestant and Jew, Caucasian and African,
French Canadian and Irish, Italian and Portu-
guese, English and German, mingle in the
school-room and learn the essential likeness of
each to the other, their common and peculiar
gifts, and their common duties to God and the
State. No man In the community Is so rich
or aristocratic as to escape taxation for sup-
port of the school, even though his children
may never darken the doors. No man In the
community Is so humble or so poor as to be
debarred from sendinof his children to the
hlorhest as well as to the lowest orrades. Un-
sectarian In the sense that they derive support
from taxpayers of all sects and Inculcate the
dogmas of none, secular In the sense that re-
ligion Is not a part of the curriculum, they
ever have been a bulwark to the cause of
religion, partly by reason of the example of
the teaching force, who usually are men and
women with religious faith as well as mental
attainment, and partly because they have de-
veloped the rational powers of men, and thus
enabled them to discriminate between super-
stition and truth. Beelnnlnor In the more
favored and advanced communities, with kin-
22 Introduction
dergarten instruction for young children, and
not ceasing until the youth or maiden is pre-
pared to enter the college or university, the
State and the town, co-operating together,
make it possible for every parent to give to
his children, or for every ambitious or friend-
less bov or orirl to secure for himself or
herself, at the public expense, a thorough
preparatory education. Nor is there any item
of his yearly tax bill which the typical New
Englander pays with greater alacrity and more
certainty of belief as to its equity or economy
than his annual contribution for popular edu-
cation. For it is ingrained in his very being,
woven into the texture of his life, to believe,
as Garfield said, that " next in importance to
freedom and justice is popular education, with-
out which neither freedom nor justice can be
permanently maintained." Moreover, being
shrewd as well as a man of high principles
and a lover of learning for its own sake, the
New Englander is convinced that it pays to
be educated, and to have educated neighbors
and children. His reasoninof takes this form :
The more children in the schools, the fewer
youths and adults in the jails and poorhouses.
The better informed the mill operatives, the
Introduction '^l
larger the output of the mills. The higher
the standard of livinor, the laro^er the demand
for the product of the soil and the loom, and
the better the home market. The more in-
telligent the voter, the less the seductive
power of the demagogue and the "political
boss." In short, the New England people
have always believed, and still believe, what
the inscription on the Public Library in Bos-
ton declares :
THE COMMONWEALTH REQUIRES THE EDUCATION
OF THE PEOPLE AS THE SAFEGUARD
OF ORDER AND LIBERTY.
That the policy has been a wise one, is indi-
cated by New England's share in the various
struggles for liberty which the country has seen,
the stability of all her institutions, her exemp-
tion from disorder and industrial disputes which
culminate in violence, her inhospitality to " boss
rule " in politics, and the thrift and prosperity
of her citizens.
Historically speaking, the "public school"
is a very ancient New England institution.
Boston had one as early as 1635, and, in 1647,
the General Court of Massachusetts enacted :
24 Introduction
" That to the end that learning may not be buried
in the graves of our forefathers, it was ordered in
all the Puritan colonies that every township, after the
Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty house-
holds, shall appoint one to teach all children to write
and read ; and when any town shall increase to the num-
ber of one hundred families, they shall set up a Gram-
mar School, the master thereof to be able to instruct
youth so far as they may be fitted for the University."
Nine years earlier, in 1638, the same body had
founded a college (Harvard) at Cambridge, in
order, as they said, that " the light of learning
might not go out, nor the study of God's word
perish." These two acts of the General Court
may be reckoned as the germs from which
has developed that system of secondary and
higher education which has Qriven Massachu-
setts the place of leader in the history of educa-
tion in America.
In 1645, Connecticut passed a law similar to
the earlier Massachusetts statute of 1642, but
not until 1701 w^as Yale University founded at
New Haven. Rhode Island did not have a
system of popular education until just as the
eighteenth century was closing. New Hamp-
shire, Maine, and Vermont accepted the Mas-
sachusetts methods and ideals, with some minor
variations.
Introduction 25
Devout as were the founders of New Eng-
land, it followed inevitably that they should
establish institutions where their children
might obtain a distinctly religious training as
well as a general education. Thus, for a long
period of New England history, the Christian
academy, under denominational control, flour-
ished just as it does now in the West, and for
much the same reason. As the public-school
system has expanded, as town after town has
added the high school to the primary and gram-
mar school, as sectarian fences have toppled
over or ceased to be restrictive, the academy
of the old type has ceased to play the part it
once did in New England life. But, in any
survey of the history of education in New
England, it should not be overlooked. Many
excellent institutions of this type still survive
to meet the demands of those persons who
either distrust the public high school, or else
are unable to send their children to one,
owing to residence in towns where the school
system has not developed to that extent. But,
as a rule, the New England boy and girl, no
matter what the social station or wealth of his
or her parent, still '* derives his or her prepara-
tion for college or life from the community in
26 Introduction
which he or she Hves." And, as PhilHps Brooks
said in his address at the two hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Latin School :
" That is the real heart of the whole matter. ... It
constitutes the greatest claim of the public-school sys-
tem. It represents the fundamental idea of the town
undertaking the education of her children. . . . It edu-
cates the thought of law and obedience, the sense of
mingled love and fear, which is the true citizen's true
emotion to his city. It educates this in the very lessons
of the school-room, and makes the person of the State
the familiar master of the grateful subject from his boy-
hood. ... It is in the dignity and breadth and serious-
ness which the sense that their town is training them
gives to their training, that the advantage of the public-
school boys over the boys of the best private schools
always consists."
Emigrating westward, the pioneers from
New England carried with them the public
school, the academy, and the college. Con-
necticut's settlers in the Western Reserve,
Ohio, took with them conceptions of duty in
this respect, which profoundly affected the fu-
ture history of the commonwealth. Ohio has
come to be, in this later day, what Virginia
was in the early history of the country — " The
Mother of Presidents " — and has more col-
Introduction 27
leges within its borders than any State in the
Union. It was a Massachusetts soldier, Gen.
Rufus Putnam of Rutland, a Congregational
clergyman, Rev. Manasseh Cutler of Hamil-
ton, Massachusetts, and an Ipswich, Massachu-
setts, lawyer, Nathan Dane, who founded
Marietta, Ohio, and induced Congress to put
into the epoch-marking Ordinance of 1787
governing the Northwest Territory, this re-
markable declaration and article :'
" Religion, and morality, and knowledge, being necessary
to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools
and means of education shall forever be encouraged."
As early as 1797, Muskingum Academy was
founded in the territory conceded, and in due
time came Marietta, Oberlin, Wabash, Illinois,
Knox, Beloit, Olivet, and Ripon Colleges, all
Christian institutions within the territory origi-
nally governed by the Ordinance of 1787.
Precisely similar has been the record of
New England emigrants beyond the Missis-
sippi. Wherever they have settled and shaped
the civic ideals, whether in the Dakotas, Iowa,
Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, or in
California, there they have laid the foundations
of a free public-school system, and of academies
28 Introduction
and colleges controlled by Christian educators
and trustees. Nor do they cease to believe in
the academy and the college now that the com-
petition of the State university in the States
of the interior and the West is so intense, and
the reliance of the treasuries of these Western
Christian institutions upon the gifts of their
friends in New England increases rather than
abates.
Impressed with the need, in all sections of
the country, of a well-instructed and intelli-
gent electorate, and convinced that the South
was too poor to provide for itself the schools
that its unfortunate illiterate whites and blacks
needed. New Englanders early began to con-
tribute to the support of academies and colleges
in the South. Not always welcomed by the
ruling class, the pioneers in this work perse-
vered, and many of them have lived long
enough to receive the thanks of those who
at first despised and scorned them. Millions
of dollars have eone from New England for
the founding and support of such institutions
as Berea College, Kentucky ; Atlanta Univer-
sity, Georgia; Hampton Institute, Virginia;
Fisk University, Tennessee ; and Tuskeegee
Institute, Alabama. Three New Englanders,
Introduction 29
George Peabody of Dan vers, Mass., John F.
Slater of Norwich, Conn., and Daniel Hand
of Guilford, Conn., have given between them
$5,100,000 in bequests or donations for the es-
tablishment or assistance of schools, colleges,
and training schools for teachers In the South.
The Peabody Education Fund, from 1868 to
1897, distributed in the South, from its income
alone, a sum amounting to $2,478,527.
Nor Is New England's Influence, education-
ally speaking, limited to the United States.
The educational system of Honolulu is based
on New Enorland models. Robert Colleee,
near Constantinople, has spread the principles
of Christian democracy in Church and State,
as they are held by New Englanders, through-
out Bulgaria and the Balkan states, and given
ideals to the Young Turkey party In the land
where the Sultan Is dominant. The Hueue-
not Seminary In South Africa was distinctly
modelled after Mt. Holyoke Seminary, and its
first teaching staff was made up of New Eng-
land women educated at Mt. Holyoke. Wher-
ever American Protestant missionaries have
gone and established schools and colleges In
Asia, Africa, or Europe, almost Invariably
the master spirits, the men and women who
30 Introduction
have given character to, and estabHshed the
ideals of, the institutions, have been graduates
of the New Enorland colleges and academies,
even if not New-Enorland-born.
Subtract from the history of education in
the United States, during the latter half of the
century just closing, the influence of four men,
Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, Charles Wil-
liam Eliot, and William Torrey Harris, and
you take from it the best that it stands for
to-day. All of these men were born in New
England. All were reformers. All showed
great administrative ability. All lived to see
their radical views find general acceptance.
Horace Mann did his greatest work in re-
modelling the public-school system of Mas-
sachusetts. Barnard did a similar work in
Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, but
his greatest service to the cause of education
was his masterly editing of the American
yoiirnal of Editcation, from 1855 to 1881.
Eliot has transformed the curriculum of Har-
vard, the oldest university of the North, has
resolutely contended for the largest measure
of election by the student in his selection
of studies, his personal conduct, and his
personal attitude toward God, and he has
Introduction 31
made " Veritas " in very truth the appropriate
motto of the leading American institution of
learning. Harris, as an interpreter of the phi-
losophy of education, both in his many writ-
ings and more numerous addresses, has lifted
the popular conception of the profession of
teaching to a loftier and more rational plane,
while his control of the United States Bureau
of Education since 1889 has given it a stand-
ing abroad, and a measure of utility at home,
which it is gratifying to contemplate.
Few towns in New England possess more
charm, whether of nature or society, than the
towns in which her long-established institu-
tions of learning have taken root, flourished,
and dominated the life of the community.
New Haven, Cambridge, and Providence are
all cities now with a heterogeneous population
and large manufacturing interests, and they
each contain thousands 01 inhabitants to whom
Harvard, Yale, and Brown are of as little
practical benefit or concern as if they were
situated in remote Hawaii or Porto Rico.
Nevertheless, the chief glory of each of these
large towns is its institution of learning, and
to each there come added beauty of life and
elevation of tone because of the presence
32 Introduction
within its borders of so many thirsty and
hungry students and highly educated and apt
instructors. It would be idle, however, to
claim, for instance, that Cambridge to-day is
quite as unique and charming in its simplicity
and purity of life, or quite as classic in its
atmosphere, as it was in the days when the
town was a village, when the university was a
college, and when thouorht and manners were as
ideal as James Russell Lowell in his essay, Cam-
bridge Thirty Years Ago, and Thomas Went-
worth Higginson in his latest book. Cheerful
Yesterdays, picture them.
To study the American college town at its
best, unsullied by the grime of industrialism
and the temptations and conventionalities of
city life, one must go to hill-towns like Am-
herst and Williamstown, Massachusetts, or
Hanover, New Hampshire. But even there,
standards of livinor and conduct among: stu-
dents and instructors have been changed and
influenced by the habits and ideals of the uni-
versities and the cities. Hence, to see the
American college town in all its pristine sim-
plicity and beauty, one now has to go to the
new New England, and visit such institutions
as Oberlin, Beloit, Knox, Iowa, and Colorado
Introduction 33
colleges, concerning which, and others of their
type, Mr. Bryce writes :
" They get hold of a multitude of poor men who
might never resort to a distant place for education.
They set learning in a visible form, plain indeed and
humble, but dignified even in her humility, before the
eyes of a rustic people, in whom the love of knowledge,
naturally strong, might never break from the bud into
the flower, but for the care of some zealous gardener.
They give the chance of rising in some intellectual walk
of life to many a strong and earnest nature who might
otherwise have remained an artisan or storekeeper, and
perhaps failed in those avocations." '
New England has a railroad mileage greater
in proportion to its population and area than
any section of the United States. Indeed, it
is greater than that of any European country.
In 1895, there were 11.77 rniles of railroad for
each one hundred square miles of territory,
and 14. II miles for each ten thousand inhabit-
ants, the proportion in Massachusetts rising
to 26.35 rniles for each one hundred square
miles. The same year, the number of em-
^ Chapter cii., Bryce's American Commomuealth . For an interest-
ing and significant account of the impression made by one of the
Western Christian colleges upon a friendly and thoroughly trained
French observer, see the translation of an article by Th. Bentzon
(Madame Blanc) in the Revue des Deux Monde s, printed in McChire's
Magazine, May, 1895.
3
34 Introduction
ployes engaged in railway traffic in New Eng-
land was 60,593. On January i, 1840, New
England had only 426 miles of railway. Jan-
uary I, 1895, it had 7,398 miles of road, which
reported gross earnings of $82,845,401, and
116,069,178 passengers transported during the
previous year.
The significance of these facts is apparent
to the casual traveller through New England
as well as to the economist. Nerves of steel
and iron have bound urban and rural popu-
lations together, made the cities and towns
accessible to the inland trader, farmer, and
producer, and the country districts accessible
to the wares of the merchant and manufac-
turer, and to the lover of nature. Suburban
residence for the urban toiler has been made
possible and cheap, while New England, as a
whole, has been transformed from an agricul-
tural and seafaring section to one with great
and most varied manufacturing interests.
Boston has come to be next to the largest
centre for exports in the country, and the com-
mercial and industrial as well as the intellect-
ual capital of New England.
From the standpoint of aesthetics, the rail-
road station in the averaoe New Encrland
A
Introduction 35
town is a monstrosity, although In all fairness
it should be said that within a decade there
has been a notable improvement in this respect.
But from the standpoint of economics and
social science, the railway station is subordi-
nate only to the church and the school in its
service to society ; and the degree of civiliza-
tion in any community may be accurately com-
puted by the volume and variety of the traffic
done with Its station agents. If one is desir-
ous of studying the New England town, let
him frequent the platforms of the railroad
station and the freight-house, ascertain how
large a proportion of its inhabitants leave
town daily to do business in the adjacent city,
how many travel even farther in pursuit of
pleasure or on business, how many depart on
outings that imply thrift and a desire for recre-
ation and rest. Let him study the bulk of
the raw material as it comes from the wool-
markets of Europe and America, from the
cotton fields of the South, and from the mines
of Alabama, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota, and
then inspect it as it goes forth again, converted
into manifold forms of useful tools, machinery,
fabrics, etc., and he will not lack for data re-
specting the status of the community. If he
36 Introduction
finds that pianos, organs, books, pictures, the
latest devices of sanitary science, bicycles, etc.,
are arriving, he may justly infer that the in-
habitants are in touch with the outer world
and eager to take advantage of the latest dis-
coveries of men of science. Nor is it impru-
dent to assert that such a study made in the
average New England town will indicate eco-
nomic wants, and their satisfaction, such as no
communities elsewhere can display.
Compared with other sections of the country.
New England has railroads which are better
supervised by the States, more honestly con-
structed, capitalized and administered, and
more responsive to public needs. Concen-
tration of power and responsibility in the
hands of the few goes on apace in New Eng-
land, as well as elsewhere, so that now there
are only four railway corporations of much im-
portance in New England. But, through such
governmental agents as the Massachusetts
Board of Railroad Commissioners (organized
in 1869, and the model for similar bodies else-
where in the nation), the people still retain the
whip-hand, still protect the rights of individuals,
communities, and investors, and bring about
those reductions in fare and freight charges.
Introduction 37
and those improvements in service, which pub-
lic welfare and safety demand.
No attempt — however brief or superficial —
to describe the life of the New England town
of the last decade of the nineteenth century,
especially In the States of Massachusetts, Con-
necticut, and Rhode Island, could justifiably
fail to note the transformation — economic,
physical, and social — which the bicycle and
trolley electric railroad have wrought In the
life of the towns of those States.
New England capitalists and New England
inventors were the first to put on the market
safety bicycles that were well constructed,
adapted for daily use or pleasure, and reason-
ably cheap, and New England still retains
the lead In the domestic and export trade
in bicycles. Naturally, then. New England
people were the first to purchase the product
of their own factories. Space does not suffice
to Indicate here how general now is the use of
the bicycle even In the remotest hamlets, and
how it has changed modes of living. Farm-
ers' boys and girls among the lakes and hills
of Maine and Vermont, fishermen's children
on the sand-dunes of Cape Cod, run their er-
rands, visit their neighbors, and get their daily
38 Introduction
sport with the bicycle. Artisans and profes-
sional men in all the towns and cities o-q to and
from their shops, offices, and homes on steeds
that require no fodder, and while doing it gain
physical exercise and mental exhilaration that
transportation in the old ways never furnished.
Horses still are in demand for sport and
draught work, and the few w^ho love horses
continue to breed and own them. But for the
multitude a far cheaper and more tractable kind
of steed has come, one which rivals the locomo-
tive as well as the horse and forces steam-railway
managers to face serious problems, mechanical
and fiscal.
As to the electric street railway, perhaps a
few facts relative to Massachusetts may indi-
cate a state of affairs that to some extent is
typical now of the section, and will become
more so as population in New Hampshire,
Maine, and Vermont drifts townward.
From i860 to 1889, ^^^ number of street-rail-
way companies In Massachusetts increased only
from twenty to forty-six, and the mileage from
eighty-eight to 574, the motor force of course
being horse-power. From 1889 to 1897, the
number of companies Increased from forty-six
to ninety-three, and the mileage from 547 to
Introduction 39
1413, the motor power being almost exclu-
sively electric. During- the same period, the
number of passengers carried on the ten main
lines increased from 148,189,403 in 1889, to
308,684,224 in 1897. The total capital in-
vested in these street railways now amounts to
$63,112,800, and, in 1897, earned 7.78 per cent,
on the average.
So much for statistics which are impressive
in themselves. But if one would appreciate
the magnitude of this traffic, and the radical
transformation which the new power and im-
proved service have wrought in the life of the
people who patronize these railroads, he must
do more than compare statistics. He must
note the result of making the residence in the
suburb and the workshop in the city accessible
to a degree that the steam railway cannot ex-
pect to duplicate, of giving city dwellers oppor-
tunities to journey seaward and hillward at a
trifling expense, of providing residents of the
villages with inexpensive transportation to the
towns and residents of the towns with trans-
portation to the cities, of cultivating the know-
ledge of and love for open-air life and nature
among city dwellers and of enlarging the social
horizon and area of observation of the vlllao-er,
40 Introduction
of giving a poor man a vehicle that transports
him with a speed and a sense of pleasure that
vies with that of the high-priced trotter of the
wealthy horseman, of giving to society a cen-
tripetal force that tends to take city workers
countryward at a time when other social forces,
centrifugal in their tendency, are drawing him
cityward.
Naught would occasion more bewilderment
to the ancient residents of Marblehead, Hing-
ham, or Plymouth, could they return to their
former places of abode, than the " Broomstick
Trains" which Oliver Wendell Holmes's fancy
pictured thus :
" On every stick there 's a witch astride, —
The string you see to her leg is tied.
She will do a mischief if she can,
But the string is held by a careful man.
And whenever the evil-minded witch
Would cut some caper, he gives a twitch.
As for the hag, you can't see her.
But hark ! you can hear her black cat's purr.
And now and then, as a car goes by.
You may catch a gleam from her wicked eye."
These trains whirl through the crooked streets
with a mysterious, awe-compelling power, that
would suggest witchery were it not for the
Introduction 41
clang of their alarm bells, and the knowledge
that fares must be paid. They disturb the
quiet and solemnity of many an ancient village,
and have brought knowledge of evil as well as
of good to many a youth. What railways and
steamship lines have done in bringing peoples
of all climes and continents nearer together, and
thus at once widened men's area of knowledge
o
and sympathy, and contracted the physical area
of the earth, this the electrically propelled
motor is doing on a smaller scale for the people
of the towns of the ancient commonwealths of
New Enorland.
In ante-bellum days. New England and the
South were, perhaps, most unlike in their at-
titude toward manufacturing, and the differ-
ence was one that meant far more than a mere
incident of difference of climate or a difference
of opinion as to sectional or federal fiscal
policy. The art of manufacturing, as New
Englanders had practised it for generations be-
fore what Is now known as the '' factory system "
developed, had been based on a universal
recognition of the nobility of labor, the neces-
sity for personal initiative, and the duty of
thrift. Toil was considered honorable for men
and women alike. Every hillside stream was
42 Introduction
set at work turning the wheels of countless
mills. Yankee ingenuity was given free play
in the invention of appliances, and Yankee in-
itiative saw to it that after the raw material
was converted into the finished product, mar-
kets were found in the newer settlements of
the Interior and West, or in Europe and Asia.
Many a farmer was a manufacturer as well.
Home industries flourished, and no month in
the year was too inclement for toil and its
reward.
With the application of steam power to the
transportation of freight and passengers, with
the invention of the spinning-jenny and the
perfecting of the cotton loom and the develop-
ment of the " factory system " of specialized
and divided labor, New England, quick to per-
ceive wherein her future prosperity lay, at once
leaped forward to seize the opportunity, and
the relative superiority thus early gained she
has not lost, even though other sections more
favorably situated as to accessible supplies of
fuel and raw materials have, in the meantime,
awakened and developed.
Whether judged by the legislation govern-
ing their operation, their structural adaptability
to the work to be done, their equipment of
Introduction 43
machinery, the variety and quaHty of their
product, or the intelHgence and earning ca-
pacity of their operatives, the New England
factories can safely challenge comparison with
those of any in the world, and the typical fac-
tory towns of New England, whether along
her largest rivers, such as Lowell and Hart-
ford, or at tide-water, as Eall River and Bridge-
port, or nestled among the hills, as North
Adams or St. Johnsbury, are the frequent sub-
ject of study by the deputed agents of Euro-
pean governments or manufacturers, anxious
to ascertain what it is that makes the Ameri-
can manufacturer so dangerous a competitor
in the markets of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Few more interesting movements in the his-
tory of man's upward struggle have been
chronicled than the successive waves of immi-
gration which have swept into the factories of
towns like Lowell, Massachusetts, and Man-
chester, New Hampshire. First came from the
hill towns and farms the daughters of the oriei-
nal English, Irish, and Scotch settlers — women
like Lucy Larcom, — then the Irish, specially
imported from Ireland, and then the French
from Canada. The Irish came when the oricri-
nal stock became, in its own estimation, too
44 Introduction
select for daily toil in the factory. The French
came at an opportune time for the employers,
when the Irish were also stirred by loftier am-
bitions. And it is already apparent that,
whereas the French came, at first, only to win
money to take back to Canada, now they are
settlinor down to become citizens as well
as residents, aspiring to higher and other
realms of activity — in short, getting ready to
give way in turn to some other nationality.
Of course, nothing just stated should be inter-
preted to imply that the ideals of New Eng-
land respecting the honorable nature of toil
have changed, or that her factory operatives
have ceased to be men of all races including
the English. She has, however, witnessed or
rather been the scene of a remarkable process
of assimilation and transformation of races
such as none of the manufacturing towns of
England have seen.
Thus far, consideration has been given to
those factors in the life of the community
which It may truthfully be said are to be found
in a large majority of the towns and villages
of New England. It would be necessary, for
a complete study of the New England town
at its best, to Include other factors, such as the
Introduction 45
savings-bank, the local lodges of the fraternal,
secret orders, the co-operative bank — known in
the Middle States as the building loan associa-
tion,— the daily or weekly local newspaper, and
the gossip and wisdom retailed by the habitues
of the "village store," which, in many of the
smaller towns, serves as the clearing-house
of ideas, local and national. Nor could any
thorough study of the New England town as
an institution fail to note at least the beneficent
effect which the exclusion of shops where in-
toxicating liquors are retailed has had upon
all of the States, thanks to that measure of
prohibition which has been made possible
through statutory or legislative enactment.
So that, in the towns of the agricultural districts
of New England, the legalized dram-shop is
unknown, as are all the attendant moral and
economic evils that follow in its train when the
traffic is tolerated. Nor is the possibility of ex-
cluding the saloon from larger towns — manu-
facturing and residential — to be gainsaid in
view of the record established by such cities as
Cambridge, Somerville, Chelsea, Brookline, and
Newton, Massachusetts. In fact, Cambridge,
with its more than eighty thousand inhabitants,
for nearly twelve years now has enforced local
4^ Introduction
prohibition in a way to make its method of
doing so a model for the country ; the secret of
the method by which it secures an annual
*' No-license vote " and a non-partisan adminis-
tration of all city affairs being, in short, the
union of temperance men of all degrees of
abstinence, Jews and Christians of all sects,
and citizens of all national parties on the
simple platform — " No saloons, and no tests
for local officials other than fitness, and sound-
ness on questions of local policy."
But there is one factor in the life of very
many of the New England towns to-day that
cannot be passed by without some allusion.
It is the town or city library. In many in-
stances the gift of some private donor, who
was either born in the town, and making a
home and fortune elsewhere desired to testify
that he was not unmindful of ancestral en-
vironment and of youthful privileges, or else
accumulated a fortune in the town and de-
sired both to perpetuate his memory and to
render a public service, the library building
usually stands as a token of that marked in-
terest in public education and public welfare
which Americans of wealth reveal by gifts,
generous to a degree unknown elsewhere in
Introduction 47
Christendom, competent European judges be-
ing witnesses. Appleton's An7i2cal Encyclo-
pcdia records a total of $27,000,000 given to
religious, educational, and philanthropic institu-
tions in the United States, in sums of $5000 or
more, by individuals, as donations or bequests
during the year 1896. In this list are recorded
gifts, amounting to $195,000, to establish or
to endow town libraries in New England.
Sometimes the major portion of the contents
of the library building is also the gift of the
generous donor of the edifice, but, usually, the
town assumes responsibility for the equipment
and maintenance of the library, deriving
the necessary income from appropriations
voted by the citizens in town-meetings or by
aldermen and councilmen, members of the
local legislature, and assessed and collected
pro rata according to the valuation of property,
just as all other town or city taxes are col-
lected. But, whether the gift of some private
individual or the creation and property of the
town, the fact remains that the handsomest
public buildings in New England to-day are
the public-library buildings, and in no depart-
ment of civic life are the New England States
and towns so far in advance of those of other
48 Introduction
sections of the country as in their generous
annual appropriations for the maintenance of
this form of Individual and civic betterment.
New Hampshire Is to be credited with the first
law permitting towns to establish and to main-
tain libraries by general taxation. This she
did In 1849. Massachusetts followed in 1854,
Vermont in 1865, Connecticut in 1881. Bos-
ton, however, deserves credit for being the
pioneer in public taxation for a municipal
library, and to the Hon. Josiah Quincy, grand-
father of its present mayor, who, in 1847,
proposed to the City Council that they request
the Legislature for authority to lay a tax to
establish a free library, belongs the honor of
having founded in America a form of muni-
cipal and town activity, than which, as Stan-
ley Jevons says, in his book MetJiods of Social
Refo7^ni, " there is probably no mode of ex-
pending public money which gives a more
extraordinary and immediate return in utility
and enjoyment."
Already, library administrators and far-
sighted educators and publicists foresee a time
when it will be as compulsory for towns to es-
tablish and support free public libraries as it
now Is compulsory for them to establish and
Introduction 49
support free public schools. Massachusetts,
perhaps, approaches nearer that ideal now than
any other State, only ten of its 353 cities and
towns being without public libraries.
Fortunately for the sociologist, the historian,
the economist, and the lover of literature, the
inhabitants of New Enorland have not failed to
chronicle in various forms and ways the deeds
and thoughts of their contemporaries. Thus
there is a large class of historic documents of
which Bradford's history of Plimoth Plantation
is the magntmi opus. Then there are innumer-
able town histories, — of which the four-volume
history of Hingham, Massachusetts, is a model,
— family genealogies, sermons, diaries, volumes
of correspondence, such as that which passed
between John Adams and his wife, memorial
addresses, such as Emerson and G. W. Curtis
delivered at Concord, and Webster and Rob-
ert C. WInthrop at Plymouth, which Inform
and often inspire all who patiently explore
their contents. Last, but not least, there are
the products of New England's representative
authors, who in prose or poetry have recorded
indelibly the higher life of their own or of
passing generations. In short, a literature-
loving people has given birth to literature, and
50 Introduction
the New England town of the past can never
totally fade out of the memory of future gen-
erations so lonor as men and women are left
to read the poetry of Longfellow, Whittier,
Holmes, and Aldrich, Lowell's Biglow Papers,
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Oldtown Folks and A
Ministej'-'' s Woomg, the short stories of Sarah
Orne Jewett, Mary E. Wilkins, Rose Terry
Cooke, Alice Brown, Maria L. Pool, and Jane
G. Austin, the prose romances of Hawthorne
and F. J. Stimson, and the histories of Palfrey,
Bancroft, Parkman, and Fiske.
That New Englanders in the past have been
and even now are provincial, is the indictment
of Europeans and of some Americans. That
they have developed reason at the expense of
imagination, utility at the expense of beauty,
is also affirmed. Their Puritan ancestors are
the butt of the ridicule of the caricaturist, of
ultra-Liberal preachers and devotees of materi-
alistic science, and of those who have never
read history, European or American. No less
an authority than Matthew Arnold has de-
scribed the life of New Enorland as " uninter-
esting." To all such critics, the New Englander
can and will reply with dignity and force when
proper occasion offers, but this is not the place
Introduction 51
even to summarize his argument. Suffice it to
say that the children of New England are ever
returning to her. They sojourn for a time in
Europe, the valley of the Mississippi, in South-
ern California, and in Hawaii. They find
more salubrious climes, more beautiful works
of ecclesiastical and municipal art, better mu-
nicipal government, and sometimes greater
opportunities for Investment of capital and
ability and choicer circles of society than those
which exist in the towns In which they were
born or reared. But In due time the yearning
for the hills, valleys and seacoast of rocky and
rigorous New England, for the established in-
stitutions, the generally diffused Intelligence,
the equality of opportunity, the sane standards
of worth, and the Inspiring historical traditions
of the early home becomes too strong to be
resisted longer, and back to the homestead
they come — some on annual visits, some as
often as the exchequer permits, some never to
depart. New England has thousands of citi-
zens to-day who, having either made, or failed
to make, their fortunes In the West, have re-
turned to New England to dwell. Once a
New Englander, always a New Englander, In
spirit If not In residence. Travel abroad, or
52 Introduction
residence elsewhere, may modify the austerity,
broaden the sympathy, poHsh the manners, and
stimulate the imagination of the New Eng-
lander, but it never radically alters his views
on the great issues of life and death, or makes
him less of a democrat or less of a devotee of
Wisdom.
HISTORIC TOWNS OF
NEW ENGLAND
PORTLAND
''THE GEM OF CASCO BAY"
By SAMUEL T. PICKARD
PORTLAND enjoys a peculiar distinction
among New England cities, not only by
reason of the natural advantages of her loca-
tion, but because of the historical events of
which she has been the theatre, and the men
of mark in literature, art, and statesmanship
whom she has produced. Among the indenta-
tions of the Atlantic coast there is no bay
which presents a greater wealth and variety of
charming scenery, in combination with the ad-
vantages of a safe and capacious harbor, than
that on which Portland is situated. It is
53
54 Portland
thickly studded with islands which are of most
picturesque forms, presenting beetling cliffs,
sheltered coves, pebbly beaches, wooded
heights, and wide, green lawns dotted with
summer cottages. It is of the beauty of this
bay that Whittier, who was familiar with its
scenery, sings in The Ranger :
"' Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer.
Does the golden-locked fruit-bearer
Through his painted woodlands stray ;
Than where hillside oaks and beeches
Overlook the long blue reaches.
Silver coves and pebbled beaches,
And green isles of Casco Bay ;
Nowhere day, for delay,
With a tenderer look beseeches,
' Let me with my charmed earth stay ! ' "
The peninsula upon which Portland is lo-
cated is almost an island. It is nearly three
miles lonor, and has an averao^e width of three
quarters of a mile — making it in area the
smallest city in the United States, and the
most compactly settled, for its forty thousand
inhabitants occupy almost every available
building spot. At each extremity of the pen-
insula is a hill on the summit of which is a
wide public promenade, affording charming
J
56 Portland
views — to the east, of the bay, the islands, and
the blue sea beyond ; to the west and north-
west, of the White Mountain range, all the
peaks of which are visible, the intervening dis-
tance being about eighty miles. The Western
Promenade is the favorite resort at sunset ; the
Eastern has charms for all hours of the day.
Both can be reached by electric railways.
In 1 6 14, Captain John Smith, of Pocahontas
fame, came prospecting along this coast, and
gave the name to Cape Elizabeth, which it still
bears, in honor of the Virgin Queen, then re-
cently deceased. The first settlers, George
Cleeves and Richard Tucker, came hither in
1632, and the settlement was known as Casco
until the name was chanored to Falmouth in
1658 ; it was incorporated as Portland in 1785.
There were but few settlers in the first forty
years, and these lived in amity with the In-
dians until the time of King Philip's War.
In 1676, the settlement was utterly de-
stroyed by the savages, and all who were not
killed were carried into captivity. One of the
killed was Thomas Brackett, an ancestor of
the statesman who in these later days has
made the name famous — Thomas Brackett
Reed. Mrs. Brackett was carried by the In-
Portland 57
dians to Canada, where she died in captivity.
Two of her grandchildren came back to Fal-
mouth when the place was rebuilt after the
second destruction by the French and Indians,
in May, 1690. In 1689, a large body of French
and Indians threatened the town. They were
routed in Deering's Woods by troops from Ply-
mouth Colony, commanded by Major Church.
Eleven settlers were killed and a laro^e number
wounded. It is a curious fact that Speaker
Reed is also a descendant of the first settler,
Cleeves. There is somethinof remarkable in
the persistency with which the descendants of
the pioneers returned to the spot where there
had been complete and repeated massacres of
their ancestors. There are many families in
Portland beside the one mentioned above who
are descended from the pioneers who were
killed or driven off by the savages.
The first minister of Falmouth was the Rev-
erend George Burroughs, who escaped the
massacre of 1676 by fleeing to one of the is-
lands in the bay. Unfortunately for him, be-
fore the place was rebuilt he removed to
Salem ; he was too independent, however, to
suit the dominant clergy, and was hanged as a
wizard in 1692, on charges incredibly ridicu-
58 Portland
lous. The speech made by this worthy man
on the scaffold brought the people to their
senses and ended the witchcraft craze. His
descendants also went back to Falmouth and
are represented in many families of the pre-
sent city of Portland, who take no shame from
the hanorinpf of their ancestor.
So thorouofh was the second destruction of
the place in 1690, that no one was left to bury
the victims of the slaughter. Their bleached
bones were gathered and buried more than two
years after by Sir William Phips, while on his
way from Boston to build a fort at Pemaquid.
The settlement of the peninsula was resumed
after the treaty of peace concluded at Utrecht
in 1 7 13, and for sixty years thereafter the
growth of the place was rapid. When the
town was bombarded and burned by a British
squadron in October, 1775, there were nearly
three hundred families made homeless — about
three quarters of the entire population. For
nine hours, four ships anchored in the harbor
threw an incessant shower of grape-shot, red-
hot cannon-balls, and bombs upon the defence-
less town, which had shown its sympathy with
the patriot cause in a practical way after the
battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. The
CO X
Q H
8 --
CO 2
i g
en o
uj <
6o Portland
spirited citizens of Falmouth might have
avoided the bombardment by giving up a few
cannon and small-arms ; but this, in town meet-
ing, they refused to do, even when they saw
the loaded guns and mortars trained upon
them at short range, and knew that Captain
Mowatt had a special grudge against the
place because of an insult put upon him by
some of the citizens a few months earlier.
The spirit of the town was not broken by the
terrible punishment it received. A few days
after Mowatt sailed aw^ay, while the ruins were
still smoking, a British man-of-war came into
the harbor to forbid the erection of batteries,
and the demand was met by the throwing up
of earthworks and the placing of guns, which
forced the immediate departure of the ship.
The lines of these earthworks are still to be
traced at Fort Allen Park, a beautiful pleasure
ground on Munjoy overlooking the harbor,
and they are preserved with care as a relic of
Revolutionary times. Another relic is a can-
non-ball thrown from Mowatt's fleet, which
lodged in the First Parish meeting-house, and
is now to be seen in the ceiling of the church
which occupies the same site. From this ball
depends the large central chandelier. There
Portland 6i
was an Incident of the bombardment which
Illustrates the simplicity and coolness of a
heroine whose name deserves a place beside
that of Barbara Frietchle. The fashionable
tavern of the town was kept by Dame Alice
Greele, and here, during the whole Revolu-
tionary period, the committee of public safety
met, the judges held their courts, and political
conventions had their sessions. It was here
that the citizens In town meeting heroically
voted to stand the bombardment rather than
give up the guns demanded by Mowatt. But
after making this brave decision they hastily
packed up all their portable possessions and
removed their families to places of safety,
some not stopping short of Inland towns, and
others finding shelter under the lee of a high
cliff that used to be at the corner of Casco and
Cumberland Streets, at no great distance from
their homes. Braver than the bravest of the
men of Falmouth, Dame Alice would not de-
sert her tavern, although Its position was so
dangerously exposed that every house In Its
vicinity was destroyed by bursting bombs and
heated cannon-balls. Throughout that terri-
ble day she stood at her post, and with buck-
ets of water extlnorulshed the hres on her
62 Portland
premises as fast as kindled. When Mowatt
began to throw red-hot cannon-balls, one of
them fell into the dame's back yard among
some chips, which were set on fire. She
picked up the ball in a pan, and as she tossed
it into the street, she said to a neighbor who
was passing : " They will have to stop firing
soon, for they have got out of bombs and are
making new balls, and can't wait for them
to cool ! " Portland ought to mark with a
bronze tablet the site of Alice Greele's tavern.
The building stood until 1846 at the corner
of Congress and Hampshire Streets. It was
then removed to Washinorton Street.
Portland had a rapid growth of population
and increase in wealth during the European
disturbances caused by the ambition of Napo-
leon. The carrying-trade of the world was
almost monopolized by neutral American bot-
toms, and ship-building became then, as it
continued to be for a long time afterward, a
leading industry along the Maine coast. Great
fortunes were made by Portland ship-owners.
Many fine old-fashioned mansions that now
ornament Congress, High, State, Spring, and
Danforth Streets, were built by merchants in
the first years of the present century, and are
63
FIRST PARISH CHURCH.
CONTAINING THE MOWATT CANNON-BALL.
64 Portland
reminders of the peculiar conditions of that
time. A sharp check to the rising tide of
prosperity was given by the embargo act of
1807. After the peace of 181 5, the trade with
the West Indies grew into great importance,
and for fifty years was a leading factor in the
commerce of Portland. Lumber and fish were
the chief exports, and return cargoes of sugar
and molasses made this the principal market
for those commodities — the imports in these
lines for many years exceeding those at New
York and Boston. West India molasses was dis-
tilled in large quantities into New England rum,
until the temperance reform, under the lead of
the Portland philanthropist, Neal Dow, closed
up the distilleries ; in their place came sugar
factories and refineries which turned out a more
wholesome product. But about thirty years
ago, changes in the methods of making sugar
caused the loss of this industry to Portland.
The development of the canning business
has of late years been an important feature
of the industrial prosperity of Maine, owing
partly to the fact that the climate and soil of
this State produce a quality of sweet corn that
cannot be matched in other States, and also to
the fact that the system of canning now in use
Portland 65
was a Portland Invention. All over the in-
terior of IVIaine may be found corn factories
owned by Portland merchants, and, on the
coast, canneries of lobsters and other products
of the fields and fisheries of Maine.
Portland is the winter seaport of the Cana-
das, and several lines of steamships find car-
goes of Western produce at this port. For
this business the port has excellent facilities,
as it is the terminus of the Grand Trunk Rail-
way system, which has its other terminus at
Chicago. There is another line to Montreal,
through the White Mountain Notch, which,
like the Grand Trunk, owes its existence to
Portland enterprise. Of late years the lakes
and forests and sea-coast of Maine have, to a
marked degree, become the pleasure-ground
of the Union, and, naturally, Portland is the
distributing point for the rapidly increasing
summer travel in this direction. Its lines of
railway stretch northward and eastward to
regions abounding in fish and game ; the
White Hills of New Hampshire and the
Green Mountains of Vermont are within easy
reach. Steamers from this port ply along the
whole picturesque coast to New Brunswick
and Nova Scotia. During the summer
66 Portland
months, eight or ten pleasure steamers make
trips between the city and the islands of
Casco Bay, furnishing a great variety of pleas-
urable excursions. These islands, except the
smallest of them, are the summer homes of a
multitude of families — many of them from
Canada and from the Western States.
The ancient Eastern Cemetery, on the
southern slope of Munjoy, is the burying-
place of the pioneers, including the victims of
the French and Indian massacres of two cen-
turies ago. The graves most frequently visited
are those of the captains of the U. S. brig
E7ite7^prise and His Majesty's hx\<g Boxer, both
of whom were killed in the naval enoraorement
off this coast, September 5, 1 8 1 3. By their side
lies Lieutenant Waters, mortally wounded in
the same action. The poet Longfellow was in
his seventh year at the time of this fight, and his
memory of it is enshrined in My Lost Youth :
" I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide !
And the dead captains as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,
Where they in battle died."
Commodore Edward Preble, of Tripoli fame,
and Rear-Admiral Alden, who fought at Vera
a.
O
UJ
O
<
_i
Q.
X
I-
CO
LU
I
!-
68 Portland
Cruz, New Orleans, and Mobile, both Port-
landers, are buried here. There is also a
monument commemorating the gallant Lieu-
tenant Henry Wadsworth, who fell before Tri-
poli in 1804, — a volunteer in a desperate and
tragic enterprise. He was a brother of Long-
fellow's mother, and a new lustre has been
added to his name by the nephew who bore it.
In this ground also, but unmarked, are the
graves of the victims of the French and Indian
siege and massacre of 1690, and of the eleven
men killed in the more fortunate battle of the
previous year.
The first house in Portland built entirely of
brick was erected in 1785, by General Peleg
Wadsworth, who was Adjutant-General of Mas-
sachusetts during the Revolution ; it is now
known as the Longfellow house, and stands
next above the Preble House, on Congress
Street. The poet was not born in this house,
but was brought to it as an infant, and it was
his home until his marriage, in 1831. It is now
owned and occupied by his sister, Mrs. Pierce,
who has provided that eventually it shall be-
come the property of the Maine Historical So-
ciety, which ensures its preservation as a
reminder that Maine gave our country its most
Portland 69
widely known and best-loved poet. The house
in which Longfellow was born is the three-
story frame building at the corner of Fore and
Hancock Streets. Around the corner, on
Hancock Street, is the house in which Speaker
Reed was born.
For his services in the Revolutionary War,
Massachusetts gave General Wadsworth a
large tract of land in Oxford County, to im-
prove which he removed to Hiram, and the
family of his son-in-law, Stephen Longfellow,
thereafter occupied his residence in Portland.
To the end of his life, the poet made this
house his home whenever he visited the scenes
of his youth, and many of his best poems were
written there. The central part of the hotel
adjoining was the mansion of Commodore Ed-
ward Preble, built just before his death in
1807, and some of the best rooms in this hotel
have still the wood-carving and other ornament-
ation given them by the hero of Tripoli. A
grandson of the Commodore was one of the
officers of the Kearsarge when that ship sunk
the rebel cruiser Alabavia, in the most pictur-
esque naval engagement of modern times.
We have seen that Portland has a history
connecting it with the French and Indian
70 Portland
Wars, the Revolution, and the War of 1812.
It was also the scene of a curious episode in
the late Civil War — the cuttinof out of the
United States revenue cutter Caleb Cushing, in
June, 1863. The cutter had been preparing
for an encounter with the rebel privateer Ta-
cony, which had been capturing and burning
many vessels on the coast of New England.
A delay in fitting her out had been occasioned
by the illness and death of her captain. In
the meantime, the Tacony had captured the
^Q^oovi^x Archer, and transferred her armament
to the prize, which, after burning the Tacony,
boldly sailed into Portland harbor in the guise
of an innocent fisherman, with Lieutenant
Reade in command. His purpose was to burn
two gunboats then being fitted out in the
harbor, but he found them too well guarded.
He then turned his attention to the cutter,
which was preparing for a fight with him with
no suspicion that he was lying almost along-
side. Captain Clarke had died the day before
Reade's arrival, and Lieutenant Davenport, a
Georgian by birth, was in command of the
cutter. At night, when only one watchman
was on deck, a surprise was quietly effected,
and the crew put in irons. With a good wind
Portland 71
the cutter might easily have gotten away from
the sleeping town and slipped by the unsuspi-
cious forts ; but she was becalmed just after
passing the forts, and In the morning three
steamers were armed and sent In pursuit. At
the time It was supposed that the Southern
lieutenant had turned traitor, but the event
proved his loyalty ; for he refused to inform
his captors where the ammunition was kept,
and they had only a dozen balls for the guns,
which were all spent without Injury to the
pursuers. The affair was watched by thous-
ands on the hills and house-tops, and on yachts
which In the dead calm were rowed to the
scene. At length the town was startled by
the blowing up and utter demolition of the
cutter ; the Confederates had set fire to the
vessel and tried to escape In the boats, but
were at once captured by the steamers which
had been circling around them. The Ai^cher
was also captured, with all the chronometers
and other valuables of the vessels bonded or
destroyed by the Tacony. It proved an Im-
portant check to the operations of the Confed-
eracy on the sea, and it came just one week
before the battle of Gettysburg and the capture
of Vicksburg.
72 Portland
The first British squadron to enter the
harbor of Portland after the bombardment by
Mowatt in 1775, came just eighty-five years
afterward to a day. It was sent to give dignity
to the embarkation of the Prince of Wales in
i860. It was in Portland, at what are now
called the Victoria wharves, that the Prince,
then a young man of nineteen, took his last
step on American soil. His embarkation on a
bright October day was one of the finest pag-
eants ever witnessed in this country. Five of
the most powerful men-of-war in the British
navy, in gala trim, with yards manned, saluted
the royal standard, gorgeous in crimson and
gold, then for the first and only time displayed
in this country. The deafening broadsides
when the Prince reached the deck of the Hero
were answered from the American forts and
men-of-war.
Another pageant, this time grand and solemn,
was enacted in this harbor, in February, 1870.
A British squadron, convoyed by American
battle-ships, brought the remains of the philan-
thropist, George Peabody, in the most power-
ful ironclad the world had then seen. The
funeral procession of boats from the English
and American ships was an impressive spectacle.
i\ ci..-0-v^ ^^^ . "^^^^^^-^^Gv^^ JUuo^'
73
74 Portland
It was a bright winter day, immediately suc-
ceeding a remarkable ice-storm, and the trees
of the islands, the cape, and the city sparkled
in the sun as if every bough were encrusted
with diamonds — a wonderful frame for a memo-
rable picture. Nature had put on her choicest
finery to relieve the sombre effect of the draped
flags, the muffled oars, the long, slow lines of
boats, and the minute guns from ships and
forts.
The great fire of July 4, 1866, which burned
fifteen hundred buildings in the centre of the
city, also destroyed an immense number of
shade trees, mostly large elms, the abundance
of which had oriven to Portland the title of
** Forest City." In a few years the buildings
were replaced by greatly improved structures ;
but the trees could not be improvised so read-
ily, and the scar of the fire is still noticeable
from the absence of aged trees in the district
swept by it. Advantage was taken of the
clearing of the ground in the most thickly
settled part of the city, to lay out Lincoln
Park in the centre of the ruins. This is now
a charming spot, with its fountain and flowers,
its lawns and shaded walks.
The city is fortunate in the abundance and
Portland
/o
purity of its water supply, which is drawn from
Lake Sebago, sixteen miles distant. The
natural outlet of this lake is the Presumpscot
River, which has several valuable water-powers
alonor its short course to its mouth in Casco
Bay, near Portland harbor.
It will be remembered that Nathaniel Haw-
thorne received his collegiate education, in the
same class with Longfellow, at Brunswick,
which is in the same county with Portland, but
it is not so generally known that during his
teens his home was at Raymond, on the shore
of Sebago Lake, and in the same county.
Part of each year he spent in school at Salem ;
but his mother's home was in the little hamlet
in the picturesque wilderness a few miles from
Portland, and here he spent the happiest
months of his youth, as he has testified in
many letters. His biographers have gener-
ally failed to take account of this, and, indeed,
have asserted that he was at Raymond only a
part of one year. A little volume recently
published, entitled Hawthorne s First Dzary^
brinors out the facts in this neo^lected but im-
portant episode in the career of this great mas-
ter in our literature. While fitting for college,
Hawthorne became, for a single term, the pupil
76 Portland
of the Reverend Caleb Bradley, of Stroud-
water, a suburb of Portland. The building in
which he studied is still to be seen at Stroud-
water. The house of his mother at Raymond
is converted into a church, but as to ex-
terior remains very much as when his boy life
was spent in it. It was in this same county of
Cumberland that Mrs. Stowe wrote the whole
of Uncle Toms Cabin, while her husband was
a professor in Bowdoin College. Thus, three
of the greatest names in American literature
are linked to Portland and its immediate vicin-
ity.
Portland can count to her credit many
jurists, lawyers, and orators of national re-
pute, among them Theophilus Parsons, Simon
Greenleaf, Ashur Ware, Sargent S. Prentiss,
Nathan Clifford, and George Evans. William
Pitt Fessenden lived and died in the house on
State Street now occupied by Judge W. L.
Putnam. Like Fessenden eminent as Senator
and Secretary of the Treasury, Lot M. Mor-
rill spent the last years of his life in Portland.
Still another great Senator and Secretary of
the Treasury, who was also Chief-Justice, hon-
ored this city by bearing its name — Salmon
Portland Chase. He was actually named for
77
78 Portland
the town, his uncle, Salmon Chase, being a
Portland lawyer, and his parents were deter-
mined that there should be no mistake as to
the person for whom he was named !
At an early period in his career, James G.
Blaine edited the Portland Daily Advertiser,
Among writers of celebrity, we may name N.
P. Willis and his sister, " Fanny Fern" ; John
Neal, poet and novelist ; Henry W. and Sam-
uel Longfellow ; J. H. Ingraham, whose many
novels had a great sale fifty or sixty years ago ;
Elijah Kellogg ; Mrs. Ann S. Stephens ; Seba
Smith, author of the Jack Dowrmig Letters,
and his more famous wife, Elizabeth Oakes
Smith; Thomas Hill, for a time President of
Harvard University ; and the divines, Edward
Payson and Cyrus Bartol. The home of
Charles Farrar Brown, " Artemus Ward," was
in an adjoining county, but like the Chief-
Justice just mentioned, he came to Portland
for his baptismal name, his uncle, Charles Far-
rar, being a Portland physician. Two sculp-
tors of national fame have gone out from
Portland — Paul Akers and Franklin Simmons,
and some of the best works of both these artists
adorn public places in the city. The Dead Pearl
Diver, by Akers, may be found in the reading-
Portland 79
room of the Public Library ; and Simmons
has two bronze statues in the city, one a seated
figure of Longfellow, at the head of State
Street, overlooking " Deering's Woods," and
the other a noble statue of America, in Monu-
ment Square, commemorating the sons of
Portland who died for the Union ; no finer
soldiers' monument than this has ever been
erected. Of other artists who have attained
distinction, we may name H. B. Brown, now
residing in London, whose landscapes and
marine views have given him a recognized
position among the best American artists ;
Charles O. Cole, portrait painter ; and Charles
Codman, J. R. Tilton, and J. B. Hudson,
landscape painters.
Immense sums are being expended on the
defences of the city by the United States
government, as it is realized that in case of
war with Great Britain this would be the point
of attack, because Portland is the natural sea-
port of the Canadas, and Maine is thrust, in a
provoking way, between the Maritime Pro-
vinces and the Province of Quebec. Portland
can indulore in no dream of grreat commercial
importance so long as the country which its
position especially dominates is under a for-
So
Portland
eign flag ; but if ever Maine should be annexed
to Canada, or the annexation takes the alter-
native form, a great future is assured for a
town so favorably located. In the meantime,
the beautiful citv must be content to be the
centre of distribution for the pleasure travel of
the summer, and for the other half of the year,
by means of its capacious harbor, it can con-
tinue to furnish an outlet for that part of the
business of the Great Lakes which in summer
is handled at Montreal.
OLD RUTLAND, MASSACHUSETTS
THE CRADLE OF OHIO
By EDWIN D. MEAD
THE Old South Historical Society in Boston
inaugurated in 1896 the custom of annual
historical pilgrimages. It had learned from
Parkman and Motley and Irving how vital
and vivid history is made by visits to the
scenes of history. Its pilgrimages must be
short to places near home ; but the good
places to visit in New England are many.
Great numbers of people, young and old,
join in the pilgrimages. Six hundred went to
the beautiful Whittier places beside the Mer-
rimac, the second year ; and as many the third
year to the King Philip country, on Narragan-
sett Bay.
The first year's pilgrimage was to old Rut-
land, Massachusetts, *'the cradle of Ohio." A
hundred of the young people went on the train
81
(o<h%o
82 Old Rutland
from Boston, on that bright July day ; and
• when they had climbed to the little village on
the hill, and swept their eyes over the great
expanse of country round about Wachusett
and away to Monadnock, and strolled down to
the old Rufus Putnam house, by whose fireside
the settlement of Marietta was planned, a
hundred more people had come from the sur-
rounding villages ; and a memorable little cele-
bration was that under the maples after the
luncheon, with the dozen energetic speeches
from the young men and the older ones. It
was a fine inauguration of the Old South pil-
grimages, and woke many people to the great
possibilities of the historical pilgrimage as an
educational factor.^
Ten years before, there was hardly a man in
Massachusetts who ever thought of Rutland
as a historical town. The people of Princeton
and Paxton and Hubbardston and Oakham
looked across to the little village on the hill
from their villages on the hills, and they did
not think of it ; the people of Worcester drove
up of a Sunday to get a dinner at the old vil-
lage tavern, and they did not think of it ; the
Amherst College boys and the Smith College
^ See Editor's Preface p. v.
84 Old Rutland
girls rode past on the Central Massachusetts
road, at the foot of the hill, on their way to
Boston, and heard " Rutland !" called, but they
thought nothing of history ; and in Boston the
last place to which people would have thought
of arranging a historical pilgrimage was this
same Rutland.
Yet when the Old South young people went
there on their first pilgrimage, Rutland had
already become a name almost as familiar in
our homes as Salem or Sudbury or Deerfield.
The Old South young people themselves had
been led to think very much about it. In
1893, the year of the World's Fair at Chicago,
the great capital of the great West, a place
undreamed of a hundred years before, when
Rutland was witnessing its one world-histor-
ical event, the Old South lectures were de-
voted to " The Opening of the West." Two
of the eight lectures were upon " The North-
west Territory and the Ordinance of 1787"
and "Marietta and the Western Reserve";
two of the leaflets issued in connection were
Manasseh Cutler's Description of Ohio in
lySy and Garfield's address on The Noi^th-
west Tei'ritory and the Western Reserve ; and
one of the subjects set for the Old South es-
\
86 Old Rutland
says was " The Part Taken by Massachusetts
Men in Connection with the Ordinance of
I 787." These studies first kindled the imagina-
tions of hundreds of young people and first
roused them to the consciousness that westward
expansion had been the great fact in our his-
tory from the time of the Revolution to the
time of the Civil War ; that New England
had had a controlling part in this great move-
ment, which, by successive waves, has reached
Ohio, Illinois, Kansas, Colorado, Oregon, so
that there is more good New England blood to-
day west of the Hudson than there is east of it ;
and that this movement, which has transformed
the United States from the little strip along the
Atlantic coast which fought for independence
to the orreat nation which stretches now from
sea to sea, began at the old town of Rutland,
Massachusetts. This Rutland on the hill is
the cradle of Ohio, the cradle of the West.
It was not, by any means, these Boston lect-
ures on ''The Opening of the West" which re-
awakened Massachusetts and the country to the
forgotten historical significance of old Rutland.
That awakening was done by Senator Hoar,
in his great oration at the Marietta centennial,
in 1888. Senator Hoar's oration did not in-
Old Rutland ^7
deed awaken Massachusetts to the great part
taken by Massachusetts men in connection
with the Ordinance of 1787, or the part of
New England in the settlement and shaping
of the West. No awakening to these things
was necessary. There is no New England
household which has not kindred households
in the West, ever in close communication with
the old home ; and the momentous significance
of the Ordinance of 1787, and the decisive
part taken by Massachusetts statesmen in se-
curing it, the Massachusetts historian and ora-
tor were never likely to let the people forget.
" At the foundation of the constitution of these new
Northwestern States," said Daniel Webster in his great
reply to Hayne, "lies the celebrated Ordinance of 1787.
We are accustomed to praise the lawgivers of antiquity ;
we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus ;
but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver,
ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct,
marked and lasting character than the Ordinance of
1787. That instrument was drawn by Nathan Dane,
a citizen of Massachusetts ; and certainly it has
happened to few men to be the authors of a political
measure of more large and enduring consequence. It
fixed forever the character of the population in the vast
regions northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them
involuntary servitude. It impressed on the soil itself,
while it was yet a wilderness, an incapacity to sustain
SS Old Rutland
any other than free men. It laid the interdict against
personal servitude, in original compact, not only deeper
than all local law, but deeper also than all local constitu-
tions. We see its consequences at this moment, and
we shall never cease to see them, perhaps, while the
Ohio shall flow."
Mr. Hoar spoke as strongly of the Ordinance,
in his Marietta oration. " The Ordinance of
1787 belongs with the Declaration of Inde-
pendence and the Constitution ; it is one of
the three title-deeds of American constitu-
tional liberty." But the chief merit of his
oration was not the new emphasis with which
he said what Webster had said, but the pict-
uresqueness and the power with which he
brouorht the men and the events of that orreat
period of the opening of the West home to
the imagination. The oration was especially
memorable for the manner in which it set
Rufus Putnam, the man of action, the head
of the Ohio Company, the leader of the Mari-
etta colony, in the centre of the story, and
made us see old Rutland as the cradle of the
movement.
Complete religious liberty, the public sup-
port of schools, and the prohibition forever
of slavery, — these were what the Ordinance
Old Rutland 89
of 1787 secured for the Northwest. ''When
older States or nations," said Mr. Hoar, " where
the chains of human bondage have been broken,
shall utter the proud boast, ' With a great sum
obtained I this freedom,' each sister of this im-
perial group — Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois,
Wisconsin — may lift her queenly head with
the yet prouder answer, ' But I was free-born.'"
The moment of this antislavery article of the
Ordinance, in view of the course of our national
history during the century that has followed, it
would not be possible to overstate. When the
great test of civil war came, to settle of what
sort this republic should be, who dare con-
template the result had these five States been
slave States and not free !
Massachusetts makes no false or exclusive
claims of credit for the Ordinance of 1787.
She does not foro-et the services of William
Grayson, nor those of Richard Henry Lee.
She does not forget Thomas Jefferson.^
'The Ordinance of 1784, the original of the Ordinance of 1787,
was drawn up by Jefferson himself, as chairman of the committee
appointed by Congress to prepare a plan for the government of
the territory. The draft of the committee's report, in Jefferson's
own handwriting, is still preserved in the archives of the State De-
partment at Washington. "It is as completely Jefferson's own
work," says Bancroft, "as the Declaration of Independence." Jef-
ferson worked with the greatest earnestness to secure the insertion of
90 Old Rutland
The names of Nathan Dane, Rufus Putnam,
Rufus King, Timothy Pickering and Manas-
seh Cutler are names of the greatest moment
in the history of the West. No other group
of men did so much as these Massachusetts
men to determine what the ofreat West should
be, by securing the right organization and in-
stitutions for the Northwest Territory and by
securing at the beginning the right kind of
settlers for Ohio.
It was really Manasseh Cutler who did most
at the final decisive moment to secure the adop-
a clause in the Ordinance of 1784 prohibiting slavery in the North-
west ; and the clause was lost by only a single vote. " The voice of
a single individual," said Jefferson, who foresaw more clearly than
any other what the conflict with slavery was to mean to the republic,
"would have prevented this abominable crime. Heaven will not
always be silent. The friends of the rights of human nature will
in the end prevail," They prevailed for the Northwest Territory
with the achievement of Manasseh Cutler, Rufus Putnam and
Nathan Dane.
Was it from Jefferson that Putnam and his men at Marietta caught
their classical jargon ? There was a great deal of pretentious classi-
cism in America at that time, new towns everywhere being freighted
with high-sounding Greek and Roman names. The founders of
Marietta — so named in honor of Marie Antoinette — named one of their
squares Capiiolium ; the road which led up from the river was the
Sacra Via; and the new garrison, with blockhouses at the corners,
was the Campus Maj-tius. Jefferson had proposed dividing the
Northwest into ten States, instead of five as was finally done, and for
these States he proposed the names of Sylvania, Michigania, Asseni-
sipia, Illinoia, Polypotamia, Cherronesus, Metropotamia, Saratoga,
Pelisipia and Washington.
MANASSEH CUTLER.
91
92
Old Rutland
tion of the clause In the great Ordinance which
forever dedicated the Northwest to freedom.
Of all these Massachusetts men he was by far
the most interesting personality ; and of all
revelations of the inner character of that criti-
cal period, none is more in-
teresting or valuable than
that given by his Life and
t^ Letters. It is to be remem-
bered too that the first com-
pany of men for Marietta —
Cutler urged Adelphia as
the right name for the town
— started from Man ass eh
Cutler's own home in Ips-
wich, joining others at Dan-
vers, December 3, 1787,
almost a month before the Rutland farmers
left to join Putnam at Hartford. For the
shrine of Manasseh Cutler is not at Rutland,
but at Hamilton, which was a part of Ipswich.
The home of Nathan Dane was Beverly.
NATHAN DANE.
" It happened," said Edward Everett Hale, at the Ma-
rietta centennial, '* that it was Manasseh Cutler who was
to be the one who should call upon that Continental Con-
gress to do the duty which they had pushed aside for
five or six years. It happened that this diplomatist sue-
Old Rutland 93
ceeded in doing in four days what had not been done in
four years before. What was the weight which Manas-
seh Cutler threw into the scale ? It was not wealth ; it
was not the armor of the old time ; it was simply the
fact, known to all men, that the men of New Eng-
land would not emigrate into any region where labor and
its honest recompense is dishonorable. The New Eng-
land men will not go where it is not honorable to do an
honest day's work, and for that honest day's work to
claim an honest recompense. They never have done it,
and they never will do it ; and it was that potent fact,
known to all men, that Manasseh Cutler had to urge in his
private conversation and in his diplomatic work. When
he said, * I am going away from New York, and my con-
stituents are not going to do this thing,' he meant ex-
actly what he said. They were not going to any place
where labor was dishonorable, and where workmen were
not recognized as freemen. If they had not taken his
promises, they would not have come here ; they would
have gone to the Holland Company's lands in New York,
or where Massachusetts was begging them to go — into
the valley of the Penobscot or the Kennebec."
Senator Hoar, in his oration, said of Manas-
seh Cutler :
" He was probably the fittest man on the continent,
except Franklin, for a mission of delicate diplomacy.
It was said just now that Putnam was a man after Wash-
ington's pattern and after Washington's own heart.
Cutler was a man after Franklin's pattern and after
Franklin's own heart. He was the most learned natural-
ist in America, as Franklin was the greatest master in
94 Old Rutland
physical science. He was a man of consummate pru-
dence in speech and conduct ; of courtly manners ; a
favorite in the drawing-room and in the camp ; with a
wide circle of friends and correspondents among the
most famous men of his time. During his brief service
in Congress, he made a speech on the judicial system,
in 1803, which shows his profound mastery of constitu-
tional principles. It now fell to his lot to conduct a
negotiation second only in importance to that which
Franklin conducted with France in 1778. Never was
ambassador crowned with success more rapid or more
complete."
But here, in old Rutland, It is not with Ma-
nasseh Cutler that we are concerned, but with
Rufus Putnam. Rufus Putnam was the head
of the Ohio Company, and the leader in
the actual settlement of the new Territory.
It was with Putnam that Manasseh Cutler
chiefly conferred concerning the proposed Ohio
colony. He left Boston for New York, on his
important mission, on the evening of June 25,
1787, and on that day he records in his diary :
" I conversed with General Putnam, and set-
tled the principles on which I am to contract
with Congress for lands on account of the Ohio
Company." Of Rufus Putnam, Senator Hoar
said in his oration, after his tributes to Var-
num, Meigs, Parsons, Tupper and the rest :
'^V. .^
0.
^^^ J^^^^^n^^^^t^L^
95
96 Old Rutland
" But what can be said which shall be adequate to the
worth of him who was the originator, inspirer, leader,
and guide of the Ohio settlement from the time when he
first conceived it, in the closing days of the Revolution, un-
til Ohio took her place in the Union as a free State in the
summer of 1803 ? Every one of that honorable body would
have felt it as a personal wrong had he been told that the
foremost honors of this occasion would not be given to
Rufus Putnam. Lossing calls him ' the father of Ohio.*
Burnet says, * He was regarded as their principal chief
and leader.' He was chosen the superintendent at the
meeting of the Ohio Company in Boston, November 21,
1787, 'to be obeyed and respected accordingly.' The
agents of the company, when they voted in 1789 'that
the 7th of April be forever observed as a public festival,'
speak of it as ' the day when General Putnam com-
menced the settlement in this country.' Harris dedi-
cates the documents collected in his appendix to Rufus
Putnam, ' the founder and father of the State.' He was
a man after Washington's own pattern and after Wash-
ington's own heart ; of the blood and near kindred of
Israel Putnam, the man who ' dared to lead where any
man dared to follow.'"
Mr. Hoar recounts the great services of Put-
nam during the Revolution, beginning with
his brilliant success in the fortification of Dor-
chester Heights :
" We take no leaf from the pure chaplet of Washing-
ton's fame when we say that the success of the first great
Old Rutland 97
military operation of the Revolution was due to Rufus
Putnam."
But it was not Senator Hoar's task to nar-
rate the military services of General Putnam.^
" We have to do," he said, " only with the entrench-
ments constructed under the command of this great en-
gineer for the constitutional fortress of American liberty.
Putnam removed his family to Rutland, Worcester
County, Mass., early in 1780. His house is yet stand-
ing, about ten miles from the birthplace of the grand-
father of President Garfield. He himself returned to
Rutland when the war was over. He had the noble
public spirit of his day, to which no duty seemed trifling
or obscure. For live years he tilled his farm and ac-
cepted and performed the public offices to which his
neighbors called him. He was representative to the
General Court, selectman, constable, tax collector and
committee to lay out school lots for the town ; State
surveyor, commissioner to treat with the Penobscot In-
dians and volunteer in putting down Shays's Rebellion.
He was one of the founders and first trustees of Leices-
^ Rufus Putnam was born in Sutton, Massachusetts, April 9, 1738,
just fifty years before he founded Marietta, where he died May r,
1824. He was a cousin of General Putnam. Early in life he was a
millwright and a farmer ; but he studied mathematics, surveying and
engineering — after distinguished service in the old French war — and
became our leading engineer during the Revolution, and an able offi-
cer in many campaigns. He first planned the Ohio settlement, and
at the outset made it a distinct condition that there should be no
slavery in the territory. Five years after the founding of Marietta,
Putnam was made Surveyor-General of the United States ; and his
services in Ohio until the time of his death were of high importance.
98 Old Rutland
ter Academy, and, with his family of eight children,
gave from his modest means a hundred pounds toward
its endowment. But he had larger plans in mind. The
town constable of Rutland was planning an empire."
Putnam's chief counsellor in his design at the
first was Washington, whose part altogether in
the opening of the West was so noteworthy.
Mr. Hoar tells of the correspondence between
Putnam and Washington, and follows the in-
teresting history to the organization of the
Ohio Company, at the Bunch of Grapes Tav-
ern in Boston, in 1 786, and the departure of
the Massachusetts emigrants at the end of the
next year.
" Putnam went out from his simple house in Rutland
to dwell no more in his native Massachusetts. It is a
plain, wooden dwelling, perhaps a little better than the
average of the farmers' houses of New England of that
day ; yet about which of Europe's palaces do holier
memories cling ! Honor and fame, and freedom and
empire, and the faith of America went with him as he
crossed the threshold."
To Rutland, as one who loved the old town
and its history has well said, ''belongs the
honor of having carried into action the Ordi-
nance of 1787. Standing on Rutland hill, and
looking around the immense basin of which it
Old Rutland 99
forms the centre, it is with conscious pride that
one looks upon the old landmarks and calls up
to the imagination the strong and brave and
true men whose traditions have permeated the
soil and left their marks in the civilization
which has been the type for the development
of the whole of the orreat Northwest." For
this old town on the hilltop was veritably
"the cradle of Ohio." Here was first effect-
ually heard that potent invitation and com-
mand, so significant in the history of this
country in these hundred years, " Go West ! "
This town incarnates and represents as no other
the spirit of the mighty movement which dur-
ing the century has extended New England all
through the great West.
As early as 1783, about the time of the
breaking up of the army at Newburgh on the
Hudson, General Putnam and nearly three
hundred army officers had proposed to form a
new State beyond the Ohio, and Washington
warmly endorsed their memorial to Congress
asking for a grant of land ; but the plan mis-
carried. As soon as the Ordinance was passed,
the Ohio Company, of which Putnam was the
president, bought from the government five or
six million acres, and the first great movement
loo Old Rutland
of emigration west of the Ohio at once began.
Within a year following the organization of
the territory, twenty thousand people became
settlers upon the banks of the Ohio. But the
Pilgrim Fathers of the thousands and the mil-
lions, the pioneers to whom belongs the praise,
were the forty or fifty farmers who from old
Rutland pushed on with Putnam through the
snows of Connecticut and Pennsylvania, com-
ing to Pittsburgh just as the spring of 1 788
came, and dropping down the river to Marietta
in the little boat which they had named, by a
beautiful fatality, the JMay flower. " Forever
honored be Marietta as another Plymouth ! "
The men who first settled the Northwest
Territory, — as President Hayes, following Mr.
Hoar at Marietta, well called it, "the most
fortunate colonization that ever occurred on
earth," — and who set the seal of their charac-
ter and institutions upon it, were of the best
blood of New England.
" Look for a moment," said Mr. Hoar, " at the forty-
eight men who came here a hundred years ago to found
the first American civil government whose jurisdiction
did not touch tide-water. See what manner of men they
were ; in what school they had been trained ; what tra-
ditions they had inherited. I think that you must agree
I02 Old Rutland
that of all the men who ever lived on earth fit to perform
' that ancient, primitive and heroical work,' the founding
of a State, they were the fittest."
Here we remember too the words of Washing-
ton.
" No colony in America," said Washington, the warm
friend of Putnam, who was deeply concerned that the
development of the West should begin in the right way,
in the hands of the right men, " was ever settled under
such favorable auspices as that which has just com-
menced at the Muskingum. Information, property and
strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the
settlers personally, and there never were men better cal-
culated to promote the welfare of such a community."
We honor old Rutland not only because she
sent men to open the West, but because she
sent her best, because she pitched the tone for
the great West high.
But Rutland is not only " the cradle of
Ohio," pre-eminent as that distinction is in her
history. She also — like the other towns on the
hills round about her, and like every good old
New England town — has her long line of sim-
ple local annals, well worthy the attention of
the summer visitor from Boston or Chicago.
Happy are you if you hear them all from the
lips of one or another of the local antiquar-
ians, as you ride with him through the fields
Old Rutland
103
to Muschopauge Pond, or along the Princeton
road to Wachusett, or over Paxton way to see
the lot which Senator Hoar has bought on the
top of Asnebumskit Hill, — perhaps finding
the Senator himself on the hill, as we did,
where he could see Worcester in one direc-
tion, and in the other, Rutland.
I remember well the crisp September night
when I first saw Rutland, with the new moon
in the clear sky, and the even-
ing star. I remember that
the man who drove me up
from the little station to the
big hotel on the hill, while I
filled my lungs with Rutland
air, proved to be the hotel
proprietor himself, and,
which was much better,
proved — and proved it much
more the next day — to be the
very prince of local antiquar-
ians. He had himself writ-
ten a history of Rutland for a history of
Worcester County, and there was nothing that
he did not know. If there was anything, then
the good village minister — he has been to Mari-
etta since, and is president of the Rutland His-
THE CENTRAL TREE.
I04
Old Rutland
torlcal Society — had read it in some book ; or
the town clerk knew it ; or Mr. Miles remem-
bered it — who was to Rutland born, and whose
memory was good. So in the dozen pleasant
visits which I have made to Rutland since, I
have not only taken mine ease with the benevo-
lent boniface, but have taken many history les-
sons on the broad piazzas and the hills.
THE OLD RUTLAND INN.
The boniface will tell you, sitting in the cor-
ner looking toward Wachusett, how, in 1686,
Joseph Trask, alias Pugastion, of Pennicook ;
Job, alias Pompamamay, of Natick ; Simon
Pitican, alias Wananapan, of Wamassick ;
Sassawannow, of Natick, and another — Indi-
ans who claimed to be lords of the soil — gave a
Old Rutland 105
deed to Henry Willard and Joseph Rowland-
son and Benjamin Willard and others, for £2'^
of the then currency, of a certain tract of land
twelve miles square, the name in general being
Naquag, the south corner butting upon Mus-
chopauge Pond, and running north to Ouani-
tick and to Wauchatopick, and so running
upon great Wachusett, etc. Upon the peti-
tion, he will tell you, of the sons and grand-
sons of Major Simon Willard, of Lancaster,
deceased — that famous Major Willard who
went to relieve Brookfield when beset by the
Indians — and others; the General Court In
I 713 confirmed these lands to these petitioners,
'' provided that within seven years there be
sixty families settled thereon, and sufficient
lands reserved for the use of a gospel ministry
and schools, except what part thereof the Hon.
Samuel Sewall, Esq., hath already purchased,
— the town to be called Rutland, and to lye to
the county of Middlesex." The grant was
about one eighth of the present Worcester
County, comprising almost all the towns round
about. When the new Worcester County was
incorporated, Rutland failed of becoming the
shire town, Instead of Worcester, by only one
vote — and that vote, they say In Rutland, was
io6 Old Rutland
bought by a base bribe. The antiquarian
taverner will point his spy-glass toward Barre
for you, and tell you it was named after our
CTood friend in the House of Commons in the
Stamp Act days ; toward Petersham hill, back
of it, where John Fiske spends his summers,
and tell you about Shays' Rebellion ; toward
Hubbardston, and tell you it was named for
an old speaker of the Massachusetts House of
Representatives ; toward Princeton, and tell
you it perpetuates the memory of Thomas
Prince, the famous old pastor of the Old South
Church in Boston, founder of the Prince Li-
brary ; toward Paxton, and tell you about
Charles Paxton, who was something or other ;
toward Oakham, and tell you something else.
He will tell you that H olden is so called after
that same family whose name is also honored
in H olden Chapel at Harvard College ; and
he will probably point to Shrewsbury, on the
hill away beyond H olden, and talk about Gen-
eral Artemas Ward, whose old home and grave
are there.
He will tell about the first settlers of Rut-
land, respectable folk from Boston and Concord
and other places, and how many immigrants
from Ireland there were, with their church-mem-
io8 Old Rutland
bership papers in their pockets. He will tell
you of Judge Sewall's farm of a thousand acres
in the north part of the town, and of his gift of
the sacramental vessels to the church ; of the
five hundred acres granted to the Ancient and
Honorable Artillery Company ; of how the
road throuorh the villao^e was laid out ten rods
wide, and so remains unto this day ; of the
call to the " able, learned, orthodox minister,"
Joseph Willard, in 1721, and how he was "cut
off by the Indians " — shot in the field north of
the meeting-house — just before the installation
day, so that Thomas Frink, " an able and
learned, orthodox and pious person," was called
instead. Presently there was " a coolness in
affection in some of the brethren " towards
Mr. Frink, because two fifths of the church-
members were Presbyterians, over against the
three fifths Congregationalists, and '' contrary
to his advice and admonition communed with
the Presbyterians in other towns." The upshot
was a split, and a Presbyterian church in the
west part of the town. These Rutland Presby-
terians seem to have come from Ireland — they
were of the same sort as those who founded
Londonderry, New Hampshire just before ;
and some of them were so tenacious of their
Old Rutland 109
own ordinances that they carried their Infants
in their arms on horseback as far as Pelham to
have them baptized In good Presbyterian form.
Rutland had her minute-men, and fifty of
them were at Bunker Hill. She had some
hot town-meetings between the Stamp Act
time and Lexington, and passed ringing reso-
lutions and some stiff Instructions to Colonel
Murray, her representative to the General
Court, whom more and more she distrusted,
and who, when the final pinch came, declared
himself a Tory out-and-out, and fied to Nova
Scotia, leaving Rutland " by a back road," to
avoid a committee of the whole, which was on
its way to visit him.
To tell the truth, this Tory Colonel, John
Murray, must have been the most interesting
figure ever associated with old Rutland, save
General Rufus Putnam himself ; and, curiously
enough, the Putnam place had belonged first
to Murray, — the house being built by him for
one of his married daughters, all of Murray's
lands and goods being confiscated, and this
house falling into Putnam's hands in 1780 or
1782, probably at a very low figure.
He was not John Murray when he came to
Rutland, but John McMorrah. He came
no Old Rutland
from Ireland with John and Elizabeth Mc-
Clanathan, Martha Shaw and others, his
mother dying on the passage. He was not
only penniless when he set his foot on the
American shore, but in debt for his passage.
"For a short time," says the chronicle, "he
tried manual labor ; but he was too lazy to
work, and to beg ashamed." He found a friend
in Andrew Hendery, and began peddling ; then
he kept a small store, and later bought cattle
for the army. Everything seemed to favor him,
and he became the richest man that ever lived
in Rutland. "He did not forget Elizabeth Mc-
Clanathan, whom he sailed to America with, but
made her his wife." She lies, along with Lu-
cretia Chandler, his second wife, and Deborah
Brindley, the third, in the old Rutland grave-
yard. "He placed horizontally over their graves
large handsome stones underpinned with brick,
whereon were engraved appropriate inscrip-
tions." He had a large family, seven sons and
five daughters ; and the oldest son, Alexander,
remained loyal to America and to Rutland
when his father fled — entering the army and
being wounded in the service. Murray be-
came a large landholder and had many tenants ;
he was the " Squire " of the region. He grew
Old Rutland m
arbitrary and haughty as he grew wealthy, but
was popular, until the stormy politics came.
" On Representative day," we read, " all his
friends that could ride, walk, creep or hobble
were at the polls ; and it was not his fault if
they returned dry." He held every office the
people could give him, and represented them
twenty years in the General Court. He was a
large, fleshy man, and, '' when dressed in his
regimentals, with his gold-bound hat, etc., he
made a superb appearance." He lived in style,
with black servants and white. " His high com-
pany from Boston, Worcester, etc., his office
and parade, added to the popularity and
splendor of the town. He promoted schools,
and for several years gave twenty dollars
yearly towards supporting a Latin grammar
school." He also gave a clock to the church,
which was placed in front of the gallery, and
proved himself a thoroughly modern man by
inscribing on the clock the words, " A Gift of
John Murray, Esq."
All these things your loyal Rutland host will
tell you, or read to you out of the old books, —
where you can read' them, and many other
things. And he will take you to drive, down
past the Putnam place, to the field where a
I 12
Old Rutland
large detachment of Burgoyne's army was
quartered after the surrender at Saratoga.
The prisoners' barracks stood for half a cent-
ury, converted to new uses ; and the well dug
by the soldiers is still shown — as, until a few
years ago, were the mounds which marked the
BRITISH BARRACKS.
graves of those who died. Three of the offi-
cers fell in love with Rutland girls, and took
them back to England as their wives. Yet
none of their stories is so romantic as the story
of that vagrant Betsy, whose girlhood was
passed in a Rutland shanty, and who, after she
married in New York the wealthy Frenchman,
Stephen Jumel, and was left a widow, then
married Aaron Burr.
Old Rutland 113
St. Edmundsbury, In old Suffolk, where Rob-
ert Browne first preached independency, has
an air so bracing and salubrious that it has
been called the Montpellier of England. Old
Rutland might well be called the Montpellier
of Massachusetts. Indeed, when a few years
ago the State of Massachusetts decided to es-
tablish a special hospital for consumptives, the
authorities asked the opinions of hundreds of
physicians and scientific men in all parts of the
State as to where was the best place for it, the
most healthful and favorable point ; and a vast
preponderance of opinion was in behalf of
Rutland. On the southern slope, therefore,
of Rutland's highest hill the fine hospital now
stands ; and until people outgrow the foolish
notion that a State must have all its State in-
stitutions within its own borders, — until Massa-
chusetts knows that North Carolina is a better
place for consumptives than any town of her
own, — there could not be a wiser choice. The
town is so near to Worcester, and even to
Boston, that its fine air, broad outlook and big
hotel draw to it hundreds of summer visitors ;
and latterly it has grown enterprising, — for
which one is a little sorry, — and has water-
works and coaching parades.
114
Old Rutland
The central town in Massachusetts, Rutland
is also the highest village In the State east of
the Connecticut. From the belfry of the village
church, from the dooryards of the village peo-
ple, the eye sweeps an almost boundless horl.
zon, from the Blue Hills to Berkshire and from
Monadnock to Connecticut, and the breezes
on the summer day whisper of the White Hills
and the Atlantic. It is not hard for the imagin-
ation to extend the view far beyond New
England, to the town on the Muskingum which
the prophetic eye of Putnam saw from here,
and to the great States beyond, which rose
obedient to the effort which began with him ;
1^ ^ it Is not hard
^^W^ „ft^HM ^^ catch mes-
sages borne on
winds from the
Rocky Mount-
ains and the
Pacific.
Just at the
foot of the hill,
— to the west,
stands the old Rufus Putnam
house, the church clock telling the hours above,
Wachusett looming beyond the valley, the
THE RUFUS PUTNAM HOUSE.
as Is fitting.
Old Rutland 115
maples rustling before the door, to the west
the sough of the pines. Its oaken timbers are
still as sound as when Murray put them in
place before the Revolution, each clapboard
still intact, the doors the same, the rooms but
little altered. Could Putnam return to earth
again and to Rutland, he would surely feel
himself at home as he passed through the gate.
In 1893, when the enthusiasm re-inforced
by our Old South lectures on *'The Opening
of the West " was strong, I wrote these words
about the Rufus Putnam house :
" This historic house should belong to the people. It
should be insured against every mischance. It should
be carefully restored and preserved, and stand through
the years, a memorial of Rufus Putnam and the farmers
who went out with him to found Ohio, a monument to
New England influence and effort in the opening and
building of the great West. This room should be a
Rufus Putnam room, in which there should be gathered
every book and picture and document illustrating Put-
nam's career ; this should be the Ordinance room, sa-
cred to memorials of Manasseh Cutler and all who
worked with him to secure the great charter of liberty ;
this the Marietta room, illustrating the Marietta of the
first days and the last, binding mother and daughter to-
gether, and becoming the pleasant ground for the inter-
change of many edifying courtesies. There should be,
too, a Rutland room, with its hundred objects illustrat-
ii6 Old Rutland
ing the long history of the town, — ahiiost every important
chapter of which has been witnessed by this venerable
building, — with memorials also of the old English Rut-
land and of the many American Rutlands which look
back reverently to the historic Massachusetts town ; and
a Great West library, on whose shelves should stand the
books telling the story of the great oak which has grown
from the little acorn planted by Rufus Putnam a hun-
dred years ago. We can think of few memorials which
could be established in New England more interesting
than this would be. We can think of few which could
be established so easily. It is a pleasure to look for-
ward to the day when this shall be accomplished. It is
not hard to hear already the voice of Senator Hoar, at
the dedication of this Rufus Putnam memorial, deliver-
ing the oration in the old Rutland church. Men from
the West should be there with men from the East, men
from Marietta, from the Western Reserve, from Chicago,
from Puget Sound. A score of members of the Anti-
quarian Society at Worcester should be there. That
score could easily make this vision a reality. We com-
mend the thought to these men of Worcester. We
commend it to the people of Rutland, who, however the
memorial is secured, must be its custodians."
Just a year from the time these words were
written, the pleasing plan and prophecy — more
fortunate than most such prophecies — began to
be fulfilled. It was a memorable meetinof in
old Rutland on that brilliant October day in
1894. Senator Hoar and seventy-five good
Old Rutland 117
men and women came from Worcester ; and
Edward Everett Hale led a zealous company
from Boston ; and General Walker drove over
with his friends from Brookfield, his boyhood
home near by, — the home, too, of Rufus Putnam
before he came to Rutland ; and when every-
body had roamed over the old Putnam place,
and crowded the bie hotel dininof-room for
dinner, and then adjourned to the village
church, so many people from the town and the
country round about had joined that the
church never saw many larger gatherings.
The address which Senator Hoar gave was
full of echoes of his great Marietta oration ;
and when the other speeches had been made,
it was very easy in the enthusiasm to secure
pledges for a third of the four thousand dol-
lars necessary to buy the old house and the
hundred and fifty acres around it. The rest
has since then been almost entirely raised ; the
house has been put into good condition, and
is visited each year by hundreds of pilgrims
from the East and the West ; and a note-
worthy collection of historical memorials has al-
ready been made, — all under the control of the
Rutland Historical Society, which grew out of
that historic day, and which is doing a noble
ii8 Old Rutland
work for the Intellectual and social life of the
town, strengthening in the minds of the people
the proud consciousness of their rich inherit-
ance, and prompting them to meet the new
occasion and new duty of to-day as worthily as
Rufus Putnam and the Rutland farmers met
the duty and opportunity of 1787. In the
autumn of 1898, there was another noteworthy
celebration at Rutland. This time it was the
Sons of the Revolution who came ; and they
placed upon the Putnam house a bronze tablet
with the following inscription, written by Sen-
ator Hoar, who was himself present and the
chief speaker, as on the earlier occasion :
"Here, from 1781 to 1788, dwelt General Rufus Put-
nam, Soldier of the Old French War, Engineer of the
works which compelled the British Army to evacuate
Boston and of the fortifications of West Point, Founder
and Father of Ohio. In this house he planned and ma-
tured the scheme of the Ohio Company, and from it
issued the call for the Convention which led to its organ-
ization. Over this threshold he went to lead the Com-
pany which settled Marietta, April 7, 1788. To him,,
under God, it is owing that the great Northwest Territory
was dedicated forever to Freedom, Education, and Re-
ligion, and that the United States of America is not
now a great slaveholding Empire."
Many such celebrations will there be at the
Old Rutland
119
home of Rufus Putnam, and at the little vil-
lage on the hill. Ever more highly will New
England estimate the place of old Rutland
in her history ; ever more sacred and signifi-
cant will it become as a point of contact for
the East and West ; and in the far-off years
the sons and daughters of Ohio, Indiana, Il-
linois, Michigan and Wisconsin will make pil-
grimages to it, as the children of New England
pilgrimage to Scrooby.
SALEM
THE PURITAN TOWN
By GEORGE DIMMICK LATIMER
SALEM is what historical students would call
2.palimpsest, an ancient manuscript that has
been scraped and then rewritten with another
and later text. By careful study of the almost
illegible characters and sometimes by chemical
treatment, great treasures of the ancient learn-
ing, such as Orations of Cicero, the Institutes
of Gains and versions of the New Testament,
have been discovered under monkish rules
and medieval chronicles. Such a charm of
research and discovery awaits the historical
student in this modern, progressive city. The
stranger within our gates is at first impressed
by the many good business blocks, the elegant
residences amid beautiful lawns on the broad,
well-shaded streets, the handsome public build-
ings, many of them once stately mansions of
121
122
Salem
the old sea-captains, and a very convenient
electric-car service that makes the city a fam-
ous shopping-place for the eastern half of the
county. But here and there the visitor comes
upon some memorial tablet or commemorative
stone, some ancient cemetery or venerable
building — faded characters of an earlier text —
that brings to mind
the great age of
Puritanism or the
only less interest-
ing era of our
town's commercial
supremacy ; while
if he enters the
Essex Institute to
see its large and
valuable historical
collection, it is modern
Salem that is obliterated and
the stern poverty and aus-
tere piety of the Fathers
that stand out distinctly.
With what interest he will
look at the sun-dial and
sword of Governor Endi-
cott, at the baptismal shirt of Governor
GOVERNOR ENDICOTT'S
SUN-DIAL AND SWORD.
124 Salem
Bradford, and at the stout walking-stick of
George Jacobs, one of the victims of the
Witchcraft Delusion ! The ancient pottery,
the old pewter and iron vessels, the antique
fowling-pieces and firebacks, the valuable auto-
graphs of charters and military commissions
and title-deeds — all these survivals of the
seventeenth century help to reconstruct that
Puritan settlement under the direction of
Endicott and Bradstreet, of Higginson and
Roger Williams. Or if the visitor has entered
the Peabody Academy of Science, rich in
natural history and ethnological collections, it
is the proud record of commercial supremacy
at the beginning of this century which the old
palimpsest reveals. As he studies the models
of famous privateers and trading-vessels, the
oil portraits of the old sea-captains and mer-
chant princes, the implements and idols, the
vestments and pottery, they brought
" From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,"
he can easily imagine himself back in the days
when Derby Street was the fashionable thor-
ouo^hfare and its fine mansions overlooked the
beautiful harbor, the long black wharves with
Salem 125
their capacious warehouses and, moored along-
side, the restless barks and brigantines for the
moment quiet under the eyes of their hardy
and successful owners.
Thanks to the historic spirit and the pains-
taking, loving labors of her citizens, Old Salem
is easily deciphered under
the handsome, modern, pro-
gressive city of thirty-four
thousand inhabitants with
factories, electric plants and
Queen Anne cottages.
Thanks to the genius of her
distinguished son Nathaniel
Hawthorne, the interpreter governor simon brad-
of the Puritan spirit, an in- street.
visible multitude of figures in steeple-hats and
black cloaks and trunk-breeches, with here and
there some gallant whose curling locks and gay
attire are strangely out of place in the sober
company, may always be suspected on the
sleepy back-streets with their small, wooden,
gambrel-roofed houses, or musing under the
ancient willows in the venerable cemetery since
1637 known as "The Burying Point," where
were laid the bodies of Governor Bradstreet and
many another Puritan. There are few Ameri-
126
Salem
can cities in which it is so easy to feel the
influence of a great past and to call up the
images of Puritan minister and magistrate,
for in Salem we are surrounded by their
memorials, the houses they built, the church in
which they first worshipped, their charter and
title-deeds, their muskets
and firebacks, even the
garments they wore.
Salem really dates from
1626, when Roger Co-
nant and a little band of
English farmers and fish-
1^ e r m e n, in discouraged
mood, left the bleak shore
of Cape Ann and came to
this region, then called by
the Indians Naumkeag,
a large tract of land, heavily wooded to the
westward, and at the east running in irregu-
lar, picturesque manner out into Massachusetts
Bay. Hither came in September, 1628, Cap-
tain John Endicott and a hundred adventur-
ers, brinorinor with them a charter from the
English company that claimed ownership of
this territory, and many articles of English
manufacture to exchange with the Indians for
GOVERNOR JOHN ENDICOTT.
Salem 127
fish and furs. Endicott had been appointed
Governor by the company, and immediately
began to display the strength of character and
readiness in resource that justified the wisdom
of the directors and made him during his life-
time one of the commanding figures of the
Bay Colony.
It was a busy time for these serious immi-
grants, who came in the fall and had to make
hurried preparation for the w^inter. Behind
them extended the vast, unknown forest, ten-
anted by savages and wild beasts, while in
front stretched the three thousand miles of
salt water they had just traversed. They built
houses, they felled trees, they made treaties
with the Indians, they hunted, fished, and
ploughed the land they cleared. Apparently
little had been done by Conant and his dis-
couraged friends, but they had left a " faire
house " at Cape Ann which was now brought
to Naumkeaof for the Governor's use.
Some of the colonists were actuated by love
of religious freedom and some by hopes of
gain. A strong hand was needed to enforce
order and to give the settlement that religious
character which its founders desired. It was
found in Endicott, then in the prime of life,
128
Salem
sternest of Puritans, quick of temper, imperi-
ous of will, and fortunately of intense religious
convictions.
Hawthorne is the poet of the Puritan age.
After reading the events of that memorable
century in Felt's Annals of Salein and Up-
ham's Salem Witchci^aft, the student should
turn to the pages of the
romancer for vivid pic-
tures of the Puritan in
his greatness of spirit
and severity of rule. In
The Maypole of Mer^ry
Moitnt Hawthorne has
shown us, as only this
Wizard of New England could, the dramatic
moment when Endicott, accompanied by his
mail-clad soldiers, presented himself at Mount
Wollaston, near Quincy, and abruptly ended
the festivities of the young and thoughtless
members of the colony whom the lawless Mor-
ton had gathered around him. Nor would
the portrait of Endicott be complete without
the touch that shows him, in fierce anti-prela-
tial mood, cutting out the blood-red cross from
the English flag, for which daring deed the
General Court, fearing trouble with the home
THE PICKERING FIREBACK.
Salem 129
government, condemned him, then ex-Gover-
nor, to the loss of his office as assistant, or
councillor, for one year.
The beginning of the severe, repressive rule
of the Puritan over domestic and social life,
so repellent to modern thought, is found in
the instructions sent to Endicott by the di-
rectors of the English company.
" To the end the Sabbath may be celebrated in a religious
manner, we appoint that all that inhabit the Plantation,
both for the general and the particular employments, may
surcease their labour every Saturday throughout the year
at 3 o'c in the afternoon, and that they spend the rest
of that day in catechizing and preparing for the Sabbath
as the ministers shall direct."
He was also to see that at least some members
of each family were well grounded in religion,
" whereby morning and evening family duties may be
well performed, and a watchful eye held over all in
each family . . . that so disorders may be pre-
vented and ill weeds nipt before they take too great a
head."
For this purpose the company furnished him
with blank books to record the daily employ-
ments of each family and expected these re-
cords to be sent over to England twice a year.
130 Salem
In our natural dislike and distrust of such a
Puritan Inquisition we should remember that
the exigencies of the time and place go far
towards justifying such stern precautions. The
English company wanted a successful settle-
ment, one to which they could themselves re-
treat if political and ecclesiastical oppression
in the old country should prove too great for
their endurance ; and they well knew that pro-
sperity depended upon order, sobriety, thrift,
and piety. The splendid history and the
moral leadership of New England in these
three centuries have justified this painstaking,
minute, even exasperating watch over the wel-
fare of a colony far from the restraints of an
old civilization, in peril from hostile savages
and lawless adventurers on an inhospitable
soil.
As a contrast to this gloomy picture of social
life, their intentions towards the Indians shine
in a bright light. The company wrote to
Endicott in reference to the land questions
certain to arise :
" If any of the savages pretend right of inheritance to
all or any part of the lands granted in our Patent, we
pray you endeavour to purchase their title, that we may
avoid the least scruple of intrusion."
Salem
i^i
Great pains were taken to establish just and
humane relations with the red man. One of
the objects of the company was the conversion
of the Indians to the Gospel of Christ. Among
the wise measures of the day it was forbidden
to sell them muskets, ammunition or liquor,
and they were permitted to enter the settle-
ment at certain stated
times only, for purposes
of trade or treaty. As a
nation, our treatment of
the Indian has been so
barbarous that this saga-
cious and Christian policy
of the first Puritans calls
for the highest praise and
reveals another valuable
trait in the heroic charac-
ter of the Fathers.
That first winter at
Naumkeag was a severe
test of the fortitude of the Puritans. They
suffered from lack of sufficient food and ade-
quate shelter, and many died from disease.
In their great need Governor Endicott wrote
to Governor Bradford and asked that a phy-
sician be sent to them from the Plymouth set-
OLD CRADLE.
132 Salem
tlement. Soon Dr. Fuller came and not only
ministered to the sick, but in many conversa-
tions with Endicott and his companions
doubtless prepared the way for their adoption
of the Congregational or Independent form
of church. The Pilgrims had withdrawn from
the Church of England, averse to its ritual
and discipline, and were known as Separatists.
Even before their arrival at Plymouth they
instituted the Congregational form of worship
and discipline which they had already practised
in England and Holland. But the Puritans
at Naumkeag had intended to reform and not
to give up the Anglican liturgy to which they
were attached by tradition and sentiment.
The Episcopal or the Congregational order
of service was a momentous issue in these
formative months and it is significant that
on Dr. Fuller's return to Plymouth Endicott
wrote to Bradford : " I am by him satisfied,
touching your judgement of the outward form
of God's worship ; it is, as far as I can yet
gather, no other than is warranted by the evi-
dence of truth."
In the following spring four hundred im-
migrants and four Non-conformist clergymen,
among them Francis Higginson and Samuel
Salem 133
Skelton, arrived and steps were then taken
for the formal organization of the church. In
the contract the English company made with
the Rev. Francis Higginson there is another
evidence of its generous and enliorhtened
policy. He was to receive ^30 for his outfit,
^10 for books and ^30 per annum for three
years. In addition, the company was to find
him a house, food, and wood for that period,
to transport himself and family, and to bring
them back to England at the expiration of the
time if it should then be his wish. He was
also to have one hundred acres of land, and if
he died his wife and children were to be main-
tained while on the plantation.
At this time the Indian name Naumkeag
was given up and the settlement took its pre-
sent name of Salem, an abbreviation of Jerusa-
lem and meaning, as every one knows, Peace.
The important event was the organization of
the church. Services had been held durinor
the winter, perhaps in that " faire house " of the
Governor's, and doubtless the whole or parts
of the Anglican liturgy had been used. A
radical change now occurred. After suitable
preparation by prayer and fasting the ministers
were examined to test their fitness for the
134 Salem
office, and then by a written ballot, the first
use of the ballot in this country, Samuel Skel-
ton was elected pastor and Francis Higginson
teacher or assistant pastor. Then Mr. Higgin-
son and " three or four of the gravest members
of the church " laid their hands upon the head
of Mr. Skelton, and with appropriate prayer
installed him as minister of this first Puritan
(as distinguished from the Pilgrim) church in
America. Afterwards, by a similar imposi-
tion of hands and prayer by Mr. Skelton, Mr.
Higginson was installed as teacher. The Ply-
mouth church had been invited to send dele-
gates, and as one of them Governor Bradford
came, delayed by a storm, but in time to offer
the right hand of fellowship. Thirty names
were sig^ned to the followinof covenant and the
First Church of Salem was organized : " We
covenant with the Lord and with one another,
and do bind ourselves in the presence of God,
to walk together in all His ways, according as
He is pleased to reveal Himself unto us in His
blessed word of truth." The deed was done.
The Congregational creed and polity were
adopted and the church that for more than
two centuries dominated New England thought
and life was established in Salem.
Salem i35
For several years the youthful church met in
a private house. But in 1634 the colonists
were ready to build the "meeting-house" and
the small, bare edifice, built of logs and boast-
ing a thatched roof and stone chimney, was
soon erected. '' A poor thing, but mine own,"
the Puritan might have said as he recalled
the venerable and beautiful cathedrals of the
mother-country. But the Puritan doubtless
never quoted Shakespeare. It is more proba-
ble that he thought of the tabernacle with
which the chosen people journeyed in the wil-
derness, long before Solomon's temple crowned
Mount Moriah, and rejoiced that the House of
the Lord was at last set up in their midst.
The sinewy oak timbers of this ancient build-
ino-, within modern roof and walls, sfi7/ remain,
one of the most impressive monuments of this
ancient town. Its size, 20 x 1 7 feet, makes one
somewhat skeptical of the familiar statement
that everybody went to church in the good old
times. But I doubt not that both floor and
gallery were well filled Sundays and at the
great Thursday lecture, although on both
days the preacher had the privilege, to mod-
ern divines denied, of reversing his hour-
glass after the sand had run out and, secure of
136 Salem
his congregation, deliberately proceeding to
his " Finally, Brethren." On one side sat the
men, on the other the women and small child-
ren, each in his proper place, determined by
wealth or public office. Even in that religious
age four men, it appears, were appointed to
prevent the boys from running downstairs be-
fore the Benediction was pronounced, while the
constable, armed with a long pole tipped with
a fox's tail, was always at hand to rouse the
drowsy or inattentive. There was at each
service a collection. Only church-members
could vote at the town-meetings, held at first
in the new meeting-house, but every house-
holder was taxed for the support of the church.
In 1630, John Winthrop, the newly ap-
pointed Governor of the Colony, accompanied
by several hundred persons, came to Salem.
Disappointed in the place, they soon moved
to Charlestown, and there established the seat
of eovernment. From that date Salem took
the second place in the Colony, but always
maintained, then as now, an independent, pub-
lic-spirited life.
Hither came, in 1634, Roger Williams, after
the vicissitudes in those days experienced by
an original and outspoken man. After the
138 Salem
death of Mr. Higginson, he became the min-
ister of the First Church. The original tim-
bers of his dwelling-house, dating from 1635,
are still to be seen, more ancient than the
ancient roof and walls that cover them, and
reveal faded characters of the Puritan pal-
impsest. A double interest attaches to this
venerable building, since as the residence
of Judge Corwin tradition has made it the
scene of some of the preliminary examinations
in the witch trials. But the wanderings of
Roger Williams were not yet ended. His at-
tacks upon the authority of the magistrates as
well as his controversies with the ministers
brouo^ht him under the condemnation of the
General Court. Though the Salem church re-
sisted, it was obliged to part with its minister
who quitted Massachusetts under sentence of
banishment, to become the Founder of Rhode
Island. A remarkable man was Roger Wil-
liams, of great gifts and singular purity of
conscience, but his inflexible spirit, opposed
to the theocratic rule of ministers and magis-
trates, was wisely set at constructive work in
another colony.
This was the eventful age of Puritanism in
the mother-country and in the colonies. All
Salem 139
that we read of the austere piety and social
restraints of the Puritan theocracy is found in
this period from 1629 to 1700. Much might
be said of the growth of Salem in population
and wealth and influence in this century, but
there is no time to tell the story in a single
chapter. We come at once to the close of the
century when the old town earned an unenvia-
ble notoriety by the tragic affair known as the
Witchcraft Delusion.
We must think of Salem in 1692 as a town
of 1700 inhabitants, in a delightful situation on
Massachusetts Bay, almost encircled by sea-
water, while at the west stretched away the
vast forest, broken here and there by large plant-
ations or farms which it was the policy of the
Governor to orrant to those who would under-
take the pioneer work of cultivation. These
farms, widely scattered, were known as Salem
Village, and at a place a few miles from Sa-
lem, now known as Danvers Centre, there was
a little group of farmhouses surrounding a
church, of which the Rev. Samuel Parris was
minister. In this family were two slaves, John
and Tituba, whom he had brought from the
West Indies, and two children, his daughter
Elizabeth, nine years old, and his niece Abi-
I40 Salem
gail Williams, eleven years of age. In the
winter of 1691-92 these children startled the
neighborhood by their unaccountable perform-
ances, creeping under tables, assuming strange
and painful attitudes, and uttering inarticulate
cries. At times they fell into convulsions and
uttered piercing shrieks. Dr. Griggs, the
local physician, declared the children be-
witched, and this explanation was soon af-
ter confirmed by a council of the ministers
held at Mr. Parris's house.
Absurd as such an explanation seems to us,
it must be remembered that, with rare ex-
ceptions, every one at that time believed in
witchcraft. It found an apparent confirmation
in the text, " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to
live" (Exodus xxii., 18), and the great legal
authorities of England, Bacon, Blackstone,
Coke, Selden, and Matthew Hale, had given
decisions implying the fact of witchcraft and
indicating the various degrees of guilt. It was
easier to accept this explanation since execu-
tions for this crime had already taken place at
Charlestown, Dorchester, Cambridge, Hart-
ford and Springfield. Governor Winthrop,
Governor Bradstreet and Governor Endicott
had each sentenced a witch to death. Gover-
Salem 141
nor Endicott had pronounced judgment upon a
person so important as Mistress Ann Hibbins,
widow of a rich merchant and the sister of
Governor Behingham, famihar to us all in the
pages of The Scarlet Letter. A few years be-
fore, Cotton Mather, the distinguished young
divine of Boston, had published a work affirm-
ing his belief in witchcraft and detailing his
study of some bewitched children in Charles-
town, one of whom he had taken into his own
family the better to observe.
It is not surprising, therefore, that these
young girls, instead of being punished for mis-
chievous conduct or treated for nervous de-
rangement, were pitied as the victims of some
malevolent persons and urged to name their
tormentors. Encouraged by the verdict of
physician and ministers, countenanced by Mr.
Parris and the church-members, these " afflicted
children," as they and some other girls and
women similarly affected in the village were
now called, began their accusations. The first
persons mentioned were Tituba, the Indian
slave. Goody Osborn, a bedridden woman
whose mind was affected by many troubles,
physical and mental, and Sarah Good, a friend-
less, forlorn creature, looked upon as a vagrant.
142
Salem
In March, 1692, the first examinations were
held in the meeting-house in Salem Village,
John Hawthorne, ancestor of the novelist, and
Jonathan Corwin acting as magistrates. The
accused did not receive fair treatment — their
guilt was assumed from the first, no coun-
sel was allowed, the judges even bullied
them to force a confession. The evidence
against them, as in all the
following cases, was "spec-
tral evidence," as it was
called. It consisted of the
assertions of the children
that they were tortured
whenever the accused looked
at them, choked, pinched,
beaten, or pricked with the
pins which they produced
from their mouths or clothing, and in one in-
stance, at least, stabbed by a knife the broken
blade of which was shown by the "afiiicted
child." ^ In one or two cases the children were
convicted of deception, as in the case of the
broken knife-blade. A young man present
testified that he had broken the knife himself
and had thrown away the useless blade in the
presence of the accusing girl. But with merely
WITCH PINS.
Salem 143
a reprimand from the judge and the injunc-
tion not to tell lies, the girls were permitted to
make their monstrous charges against the men
and women who stood amazed, indignant,
helpless, before accusations they could only
deny, not refute.
In this first trial Tituba confessed that under
threats from Satan, who had most often ap-
peared to her as a man in black accompanied
by a yellow bird, she had tortured the girls,
and named as her accomplices the two women,
Good and Osborn. After the trial, which took
place a little later in Salem, Tituba was sent
to the Boston jail, where she remained until
the delusion was over. She was then sold to
pay the expenses of her imprisonment, and is
lost to history. The other women were sent
to the Salem jail, which they left only for their
execution the following July.
The community felt a sense of relief after
the confession of Tituba and the imprisonment
of the other women. It was hoped Satan's
power was checked. But on the contrary the
power of the devil was to be shown in a
far more impressive manner. The '* afflicted
children " continued to suffer and soon beean
to accuse men and women of unimpeachable
144 Salem
lives. Within a few months several hundred
people in Salem, Andover and Boston were
arrested and thrown into the jails at Salem,
Ipswich, Cambridge and Boston. As Gover-
nor Hutchinson, an historian of the time,
stated, the only way to prevent an accusation
was to become an accuser. The state of affairs
resembled the Rei^n of Terror in France a
century later, when men of property and po-
sition lived in fear of being regarded as '* a
suspect."
For the thrilling story of these trials and
their wretched victims the student should turn
to Mr. Upham's authoritative and popular
volumes upon Salem Witchcraft. The reader
can never forget the tragic fate of the vener-
able Rebecca Nurse, George Burroughs, a for-
mer clergyman of the church in Salem Village,
and the other victims. Here we can review
only the trial of the Corey family, a fitting
climax to this scene of horror.
Two weeks after the trial of Tituba and her
companions, a warrant was issued for the arrest
of Martha Corey, aged sixty, the third wife of
Giles Corey, a well-known citizen. She was a
woman of unusual strength of character and
from the first denounced the witchcraft excite-
Salem 145
ment, trying to persuade her husband who
believed all the monstrous stories, not to at-
tend the hearings or in any way countenance
the proceedings. Perhaps it was her well-
known opinion that directed suspicion to her.
At her trial the usual performance was enacted.
The girls fell on the floor, uttered piercing
shrieks, cried out upon their victim. " There
is a man whispering in her ear ! " one of them
suddenly called out. " What does he say to
you?" the judge demanded of Martha Corey,
accepting without any demur this " spectral
evidence." " We must not believe all these dis-
tracted children say," was her sensible answer.
But good sense did not preside at the witch
trials. She was convicted and not long after-
ward executed. Her husband's evidence went
against her and is worth noting as fairly re-
presentative of much of the testimony that con-
victed the nineteen victims of this delusion :
" One evening I was sitting by the fire when my wife
asked me to go to bed. I told her I would go to prayer,
and when I went to prayer I could not utter my desires
with any sense, not open my mouth to speak. After a
little space I did according to my measure attend the
duty. Some time last week I fetched an ox well out of
the woods about noon, and he laying down in the yard,
I went to raise him to yoke him, but he could not rise,
14^ Salem
but dragged his hinder parts as if he had been hip shot,
but after did rise. I had a cat some time last week
strongly taken on the sudden, and did make me think
she would have died presently. My wife bid me knock
her in the head, but I did not and since she is well. My
wife hath been wont to sit up after I went to bed, and 1
have perceived her to kneel down as if she were at
prayer, but heard nothing."
It is hard to believe that such statements,
most probable events interpreted in the least
probable manner, should have had any judicial
value whatever. Yet it is precisely such a
mixture of superstition and stupid speculation
about unusual or even daily incidents that was
regularly brought forward and made to tell
against the accused.
Soon after his wife's arrest Giles Corey him-
self was arrested, taken from his mill and
brought before the judges of the special court,
appointed by Governor Phipps but held in
Salem, to hear the witch trials. Again the
accusing girls went through their performance,
again the judges assumed the guilt of the
accused, and tried to browbeat a confession
from him. But in the interval between his
arrest and trial this old man of eighty had had
abundant leisure for reflection. He was sure
Salem 147
not only of his own innocence but of his wife's
as well, and it must have been a bitter thought
that his own testimony had helped convict her.
Partly as an atonement for this offense and
partly to save his property for his children,
which he could not have done if he had been
convicted of witchcraft, after pleading " not
guilty " he remained mute, refusing to add the
necessary technical words that he would be
tried '' by God and his countr^^' Deaf alike
to the entreaties of his friends and the threats
of the Court, he was condemned to the torture
of peine forte et dtire, the one instance when
this old English penalty for contumacy was
enforced in New England. According to the
law the aged man was laid on his back, a board
was placed on his body with as great a weight
upon it as he could endure, while his sole diet
consisted of a few morsels of bread one day
and a draught of water the alternate day, until
death put an end to his sufferings.
The execution of eight persons on Gallows
Hill three days later, September 22, were the
last to occur in the Colony. Accusations were
still made, trials were held, more people were
thrown into jail. But there were no more
executions, and the next spring there was, ac-
148 Salem
cording to Hutchinson, such a jail delivery as
was never seen before.
" The smith filed off the chains he forged,
The jail bolts backward fell ;
And youth and hoary age came forth
Like souls escaped from hell."
The tragedy was at an end. It lasted about
six months, from the first accusations in March
until the last executions in September. Nine-
teen persons had been hanged, and one man
pressed to death. There is no fotindation for
the statement that witches were burned. No
one was ever burned in New England for
witchcraft or any other crime. But hundreds
of innocent men and women were thrown into
jail or obliged to flee to some place of con-
cealment, their homes were broken up, their
property injured, while they suffered great
anxiety for themselves and friends.
It was an epidemic of mad, superstitious
fear, bitterly to be regretted, and a stain upon
the high civilization of the Bay Colony. It is
associated with Salem, but several circum-
stances are to be taken into consideration.
First of all, note the fact that while the victims
were residents of Essex County, of Salem and
Salem 149
vicinity, and the trials were held in Salem, yet
the special court that tried them was appointed
by the Governor ; the Lieutenant-Governor of
the Colony, Stoughton, presided ; and Boston
ministers, notably Cotton Mather, the influ-
ential minister of the North Church, were
interested observers. Boston as well as Salem
is responsible for the tragedy. In the second
place, remember that this dramatic event with
all its frightful consequences led to a more
rational understanding of the phenomena of
witchcraft. By a natural revulsion of feeling
future charges of witchcraft were regarded with
suspicion, "spectral evidence" was disallowed,
and there were no more executions for this
crime in New England.
Various explanations of the conduct of the
"afflicted children" have been offered. One
writer has suggested that they began their
proceedings in jest but, partly from fear of
punishment if they confessed, partly from an
exaggerated sense of their own importance,
they continued to make charges against men
and women whom they heard their elders
mention as probable witches. In that little
settlement there were property disputes, a
church quarrel, jealousies, rivalries, and much
ISO Salem
misunderstanding, which had their influence.
Another writer lays stress upon *' hypnotic in-
fluence " and believes these young girls and
nervous women were improperly influenced
by malevolent persons, probably John and
Tituba the Indian slaves. But a more natu-
ral explanation is that they were the victims
of hystero-epilepsy, a nervous disease not so
well understood in the past as to-day, which
has at times convulsed the orderly life of a
school or convent, and even a whole com-
munity. Then, too, the belief in witchcraft was
general. Striking coincidences, personal ec-
centricities, unusual events and mysterious dis-
eases seemed to find an easy explanation in
an unholy compact with the devil. A witti-
cism attributed to Judge Sewall, one of the
judges in these trials, may help us to under-
stand the common panic : '' We know who 's
who but not which is witch." That was the
difficulty. At a time when every one believed
in witchcraft it was easy to suspect one's
neighbor. It was a characteristic superstition
of the century and should be classed with the
barbarous punishments and religious intoler-
ance of the age.
Eventually, justice, so far as possible, was
Salem 151
done to the survivors. The Legislature voted
pecuniary compensations and the church ex-
communications were rescinded. Ann Putnam,
one of the more prominent of the ''afflicted
children," confessed her error and prayed for
divine forgiveness. Rev. Samuel Parris of-
fered an explanation that might be considered
an apology. Judge Sewall, noblest of all the
civil and ecclesiastical authorities implicated in
this tragedy, stood up in the great congrega-
tion. Fast Day, in the South Church, Boston,
and acknowledged his error in accepting
*' spectral evidence."
" Spell and charm had power no more,
The spectres ceased to roam,
And scattered households knelt again
Around the hearths of home."
Salem grew in wealth and population slowly
but substantially. In 1765 there were only
4469 inhabitants. With the rest of the Colony
she was putting forth her strength in the French-
Indian wars and also resisting what she termed
the usurpations of the Royalist governors or
English Parliament. It was a public-spirited
as well as high-spirited life. Soldiers and
bounties and supplies were generously fur-
152 Salem
nished for the wars. Pirates were captured
or driven from the coast. A valuable com-
merce was developed, churches were built and
schools increased. In 1768 the Essex Gazette
was founded, with the motto, " Ovme tulit
punctum qui miscuit 7itile dzilci^' — a motto that
measures the social changes from the time of
Endicott and Williams.
The citizens of Salem were not wanting in
patriotism or courage in the years immediately
preceding the Revolution. They met in the
old town-house to protest against the Stamp
Act, to denounce the tax on tea and the clos-
ing of Boston port, and in 1774, in defiance
of General Gage, to elect delegates to the
First Continental Congress about to meet in
Concord. As early as 1767 a committee had
been appointed '' to draft a subscription paper
for promoting industry, economy and manu-
factures in Salem, and thereby prevent the
unnecessary importation of European com-
modities which threaten the country with pov-
erty and ruin." The report of the committee
was not accepted but the movement was char-
acteristic of the attitude of Salem.
A just claim is made that the first armed
resistance to the British government was made
/uc^^/K^^^^^^-^'^^
153
154 Salem
in Salem at the North Bridge, Sunday, Feb-
ruary 26, 1775, when the citizens assembled
and took their stand on the north bank of the
river to prevent Colonel Leslie and his three
hundred soldiers from marchinor into North
Fields in search of cannon supposed to be
concealed there. The British officer thought
of firing upon the citizens who, after crossing
the bridge, had raised the draw and now stood
massed on the opposite bank. But a towns-
man, Captain John Felt, said to the irate
officer who had looked for an unimpeded
march, "If you do fire you will all be dead
men." His prompt utterance appears to have
restrained the firing. Tradition says that
there was a struggle to capture some boats,
one of which at least was scuttled. After an
hour and a half of delay, in which time Rev.
Mr. Barnard of the North Church was con-
spicuous for his moderate counsels, the vexed
and defeated Colonel Leslie promised that if
the draw were lowered and he were permitted
to march his men over it a distance of thirty
rods, he would then wheel about and leave the
town, an agreement fairly carried out. A com-
memorative stone marks this place and signifi-
cant event at the beginning of the Revolution.
i^ ^^^^^m^^mp
SOME OLD DOORWAYS.
155
15^ Salem
The years from 1760 to the War of 181 2
were the period of commercial prestige. At
the beginning of the Revolution Washington
turned to the coast towns for a navy, and
Salem answered by furnishing at least 158
privateers. Many were the prizes brought
into the harbor as the war continued, and, as
a result of this seamanship, an immense im-
petus was given to ship-building and the devel-
opment of foreign commerce. This may be
called the romantic era in the life of the vener-
able town. At the close of the war the town
could boast of its great merchants and adven-
turous captains whose vessels were found in
every port. Where did they not go, these
vessels owned by Derby, Gray, Forrester,
Crowninshield, and many another well-known
merchant !
Under the stern rule of Endicott the old
Puritan town had banished Quakers and Bap-
tists and Episcopalians, but in the early years
of this century her sons were intimate with
Buddhist and Mohammedan and Parsee mer-
chants. In 1785 "Lord" Derby, as Haw-
thorne called him, sent out the Grand Tti7'k
which, nearly two years later, brought back
the first cargo direct from Canton to New
Salem i57
England. At this time it is with peculiar in-
terest we read that in 1796 this same " Lord"
Derby sent the Astrea to Manila, which re-
turned the following year with a cargo of
sugar, pepper and indigo upon which duties
of over $24,000 were paid. That was the
time when a sailing-vessel after a long voy-
age might enter the harbor any day, and
therefore the boys of the town lay on the
rocks at the Neck, eager to sight the incoming
ship, and earn some pocket-money for their
welcome news. Sig^nificant is the motto on the
present city seal : Divitis IndicE usque ad ttl-
timuDi sinum. They were a hardy race —
these Vikings of New England — bold, self-
reliant, shrewd, prosperous, equally ready to
fight or trade, as occasion might demand.
The sailors of that day were the native sons
of Salem, sturdy citizens, often well-to-do, who
miofht have an *' adventure " of several hun-
dred dollars aboard to invest in tea or sugar
or indigo. At fourteen or fifteen the Salem
boy went out in the cabin of his father's vessel,
at twenty he was captain, at forty he had re-
tired and in his stately mansion enjoyed the
wealth and leisure he had bravely and quickly
earned. In 18 16 Cleopati^ds Barge, a vessel
^5^
Salem
of 190 tons burden, was launched in the har-
bor, and George Crowninshield went yacht-
ine in the Mediterranean in this luxurious
vessel, — perhaps the first American pleasure
yacht, as much admired in Europe as in New
England. Many are the traditions of this
romantic and prosperous era. Many are the
famous names of merchants and sailors — men
of great wealth and public spirit, mighty in
time of war and influential in affairs of state, as
Colonel Timothy Pickering, and Benjamin W.
Crowninshield, esteemed at home and abroad
for their enlightened, progressive, humane,
public-spirited services to town and State.
Many of their stately man-
sions still remain to attest
the wealth and fashion and
gracious hospitality of
that period. The spacious
rooms, rich in mahogany
furniture, carved wainscot-
ing, French mirrors, and
Canton china, were the
scenes of elegant and me-
morable entertainments
when Washington, Lafay-
ette, and many other celebrated men of Europe
BOWDITCH DESK AND
QUADRANT.
Salem 159
and America visited the old town. As regards
the beautiful objects of interior decoration, —
now so eagerly sought, and often purchased
at high prices, — Salem is one vast museum,
almost every home boasting its inherited treas-
ures, while a few houses are so richly dowered
that the envy of less fortunate housekeepers
can be easily pardoned.
The commerce in time went to Boston, and
many of the sons of Salem followed it to help
build up the wealth and character of the larger
city. In fact where have not the sons, like
the vessels, of Salem gone ? Their memory
is green in the old town and the citizen points
with pride to the former residence-site of
many a distinguished man she calls her son ;
of Bowditch, mathematician and author of the
famous Navigator, of Judge Story and his no
less eminent son, the poet and sculptor, of W.
H. Prescott, the heroic historian of Spain, of
Jones Very, poet and mystic, and of many
another man of mark in law and literature.
But of all the distinguished sons of Salem
no one makes so eloquent an appeal to the
popular heart as Nathaniel Hawthorne. Vis-
itors are particularly interested in the places
associated with his life and romances. Of these
i6o
Salem
there are many, for the noveHst lived at one
time or another in half a dozen Salem houses,
while several are identified with his stories. To
\
7^C^
appreciate Hawthorne one should read him
here, in the old Puritan town with its ancient
houses, several of which date from the seven-
teenth century, its commemorative tablets,
ancient tombstones, family names, and the
collections of the Essex Institute. With magic
Salem i6i
pen he traced the greatness and the Httle-
ness of the Puritan age, its austere piety, its
intolerance, its stern repression of the lighter
side of human nature, its moral grandeur and
its gloomy splendor. He did for our past
what Walter Scott did for the past of the
mother-country. Another " Wizard of the
North," he breathed the breath of life into
the dry and dusty materials of history ; he
summoned the great dead again to live and
move among us.
The visitor will be interested in all the
houses associated with his name,— the modest
birthplace on Union Street, the old residence
on Turner Street popularly but erroneously
called the House of the Seven Gables, the
Peabody homestead, beside the Old Burying
Point, where he found his wife and also Di\
Grimshawes Secret. The visitor will be most
interested, however, in the three-story, wooden
building with the front door opening into the
little earden at the side, after the fashion of
many Salem houses, where he lived when
Surveyor of the Port and wrote the immortal
romance of Puritan New England. Here his
wife wept over the woe of Hester Prynne and
Arthur Dimmesdale, and hither came James T.
i62 Salem
Fields to hear the story which he so eagerly ac-
cepted. After one has read the facts of history
in Felt and Upham and the diaries and chron-
icles of the seventeenth century, it is well to turn
to Hawthorne for the realistic touch that makes
the Puritan characters live once more for us.
His sombre genius was at home in the Puritan
atmosphere. How clearly its influence over
him is acknowledged in the Introduction to
The Scarlet Letter I He had the literary taste
and the literary ambition, and he found his
material in the musty records of the Custom-
house, in the town pump so long a feature
of Salem streets, in the church steeple, the
ancient burying-ground, the old gabled houses,
even the Main Street that had witnessed the
varied pageants of more than two centuries.
He was always leaving Salem and always re-
turning, drawn by the "sensuous sympathy of
dust for dust." Here his ancestors lay buried,
and here, although he has said he was hap-
piest elsewhere, lay his inspiration. The
strange group of Pyncheons, Clifford, Hepzi-
bah and the Judge, the Geiitle Child, the
Minister with the Black Veil, Lady Eleanore
in her rich mantle, and the tragic group of The
Scarlet Letter — these are not simply the crea-
163
164 Salem
tions of a delicate and somewhat morbid im-
agination, even more are they the marvellous
resurrection of a life long dead.
The old town has a genuine pride in her
great son whose fame, assured in England as
in America, has added to her attractions. But
owinof to his invincible reserve and lonor ab-
sences he had only a limited acquaintance in
Salem, and there is comparatively little of rem-
iniscence and anecdote among those who re-
member him. He chose his companions here,
perhaps in reaction from the intellectual society
he had had in Concord, perhaps in search of
literary material, from a jovial set with many
a capital tale to tell of the old commercial
days when the Custom-house with its militant
eagle aloft was the centre of a bustling, cos-
mopolitan life that surged up and down its
steps and over the long black wharves of
Derby Street. Like many men of genius his
character had more than one side and can
now be studied in the abundance of material
which the unwearied industry of his children
has given us.
The novelist has gone, as the merchant and
sailor went, as the Puritan magistrate and
minister went. Another set of priceless as-
5^^'))^.! ^ ^^"'
..on^^= CO.-,,, 1
'^""thI)^^^ C,A&uE5..
165
1 66
Salem
sociatlons is added to the old town which now
must confess to factories and a foreign popu-
lation like many another New England seaport.
The resident of Salem lives in a modern,
progressive, handsome city, made the more at-
tractive by eccentric roofs, " Mackintire " door-
ways, carved wooden mantels and wainscoting,
ever suggestive of the venerable and impres-
sive past, a past that may well serve as a
challenge to the children of Viking and Puri-
tan, inviting them to a fine self-control and a
broad public spirit.
BOSTON
THE TRIMOUNTAIN CITY
By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
THE summer traveller who approaches Bos-
ton from the landward side is apt to
notice a tall and abundant wayside plant, hav-
inor a rather stiff and uno^ain-
ly stem, surmounted by a
flower with soft and delicate
petals and of a lovely shade
of blue. This is the succory
{Cichoriitm Inly bus of the
botanists), described by Em-
erson as '' succory to match
the sky." But it is not com-
monly known in rural New
England by this brief name,
beinpf oftener called " Boston
weed," simply because it
grows more and more abundant as one comes
167
SUCCORY OR BOSTON
WEED."
1 68 Boston
nearer to that city. When the experienced Bos-
ton traveller, returning to his home in late sum-
mer, sees this fair blossom on an ungainly stem
assembled profusely by the roadside, he begins
to collect his parcels and hand-bags, knowing
that he approaches his journey's end.
The original Boston, as founded by Gov-
ernor John Winthrop in 1639, was established
on a rocky, three-hilled peninsula, in whose
thickets wolves and bears were yet harbored,
and which was known variously as Shawmut
and Trimountain. The settlement itself was
a sort of afterthouo^ht, beinor taken as a sub-
stitute for Charlestown, where a temporary
abode had been founded by Winthrop's party.
There had been much illness there, and so
Mr. Blackstone, or Blaxtone, who had for
seven years been settled on the peninsula,
urged the transfer of the little colony. The
whole tongue of land then comprised but 783
acres — an area a little less than that originally
allotted to Central Park in New York. Bos-
ton now includes 23,661 acres — about thirty
times the original extent of the peninsula. It
has a population of about 500,000 — the State
Census of 1895 showing 496,920 inhabit-
ants. By the United States Census of 1890
170 Boston
it had 448,477, and was then the sixth in
population among American cities, being sur-
passed by New York, Chicago, Philadelphia,
Brooklyn, and St. Louis ; and the union of
New York and Brooklyn probably making it
now the fifth. In 1880 it ranked fifth, St.
Louis having since outstripped it. In 1870
it was only seventh, both St. Louis and
Baltimore then preceding it. As with most
American cities, this growth has been partly
due to the annexing of suburbs ; but during
the last fifteen years there has been no such
annexation, showing the increase to be genuine
and intrinsic. The transformation in other
ways has, however, been more astonishing than
the o-rowth. Of the oricrinal three hills, one
only is now noticeable by the stranger. I
myself can remember Boston, in my college
days, as a pear-shaped peninsula, two miles
by one, attached to the mainland by a neck a
mile long and only a few yards wide, some-
times actually covered by the meeting of the
tide-waters from both sides. The water also
almost touched Charles Street, where the Pub-
lic Garden now is, and it rolled over the fiats
and inlets called the Back Bay, where the cost-
liest houses of the city now stand.
Boston 1 71
The changes of population and occupation
have been almost as great as of surface. The
blue-jacketed sailor was then a figure as famil-
iar in the streets as is now the Italian or the
Chinese ; and the long wharves, then lined with
great vessels, two or three deep, and fragrant
with spicy Oriental odors, are now shortened,
reduced, and given over to tugs and coasters.
Boston is still the second commercial port in
the country ; but its commerce is mainly coast-
wise or European only, and the picturesque
fascination of the India trade has passed away.
Even on our Northwest Pacific coast the early
white traders, no matter whence they came,
were known by the natives as " Boston men."
The wealth of the city, now vastly greater
than in those days, flows into other channels —
railways, factories, and vast land investments
in the far West — enterprises as useful, perhaps
more lucrative, but less picturesque. It is a
proof of the vigor and vitality of Boston, and
partly, also, of its favorable situation, that it
has held its own through such transformations.
Smaller cities, once powerful, such as Salem,
Newburyport, and Portsmouth, have been
ruined as to business by the withdrawal of
foreign trade.
172
Boston
Boston has certainly, in the history of the
country, represented from an early time a
certain quality of combined thrift and ardor
which has made it to some extent an individual
city. Its very cows, during its rural period,
shared this attribute, from the time when they
laid out its streets by their devious wander-
ings, to the time when " Lady Hancock" — as
she was called — helped herself to milk from
BOSTON IN 1757.
FROM A DRAWING BY GOVERNOR POWNALL.
the herd of her fellow-citizens in order to
meet a sudden descent of official visitors upon
her husband, the Governor. From the time
Vv^hen Boston was a busy little colonial mart —
the epoch best described in Hawthorne's
Province House Legends and My Kiiisman
Alajor Molineux — through the period when,
as described in Mrs. Ouincy's reminiscences,
the gentlemen went to King's Chapel in scarlet
Boston 173
cloaks, — down to the modern period of trans-
continental railways and great manufacturing
enterprises, the city has at least aroused a
peculiar loyalty on the part of its citizens.
Behind all the thunders of Wendell Phillips's
eloquence there lay always this strong local
pride. " I love inexpressibly," he said, " these
streets of Boston, over which my mother held
up my baby footsteps ; and if God grants me
time enough, I will make them too pure to be
trodden by the footsteps of a slave." He sur-
vived to see his dream fulfilled. Instead of the
surrendered slave, Anthony Burns, marching
in a hollow square, formed by the files of the
militia, Phillips lived to see the fair-haired boy,
Robert Shaw, riding at the head of his black
regiment, to aid in securing the freedom of a race.
During the Revolution, Boston was the cen-
tre of those early struggles on which it is now
needless to dwell. Faneuil Hall still stands
— the place from which, in 1774, a letter as
to grievances was ordered to be sent to the
other towns in the State ; the old State House
is standing, where the plans suggested by the
Virginia House of Burgesses were adopted ;
the old South Church remains, whence the
disguised Indians of the Boston Tea-Party
1 74 Boston
went forth, and where Dr. Warren, on March
5, 1/75, defied the British officers, and when
one of them held up warningly some pistol-
bullets, dropped his handkerchief over them
and went on. The Old North or Christ
Church also remains, where the two lights
were hung out as the signal for Paul Revere's
famous ride, on the eve of the battle of
Lexington.
So prominent was Boston during this period
that it even awakened the jealousy of other
colonies ; and Mr. Thomas Shirley, of Charles-
ton, South Carolina, said to Josiah Quincy,
Jr., in March, 1773 : " Boston aims at nothing
less than the sovereignty of this whole conti-
nent. . . . Take away the power and su-
perintendence of Britain, and the colonies
must submit to the next power. Boston would
soon have that."
One of the attractions of Boston has long
been, that in this city, as in Edinburgh, might
be found a circle of literary men, better organ-
ized and more concentrated than if lost in the
confusion of a larger metropolis. From the
point of view of New York, this circle might be
held provincial, as Edinburgh no doubt seemed
from London ; and the resident of the larger
Copyright by Daniel W. Colbath
& Co., Boston. 1895. "old CORNER BOOKSTORE.
175
1 76 Boston
community might scornfully use about the Bos-
tonian the saying attributed to Dr. Johnson
about the Scotchman, that " much might be
made of him if caught young." Indeed, much
of New York's best literary material came
always from New England ; just as Scotland
still holds its own in London literature. No
doubt each place has its advantages, but there
was a time when one might easily meet in a
day, in one Boston bookstore — as, for instance,
in the " Old Corner Bookstore," built in 1712,
and still used for the same trade — such men as
Emerson, Parker, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes,
Whittier, Sumner, Agassiz, Parkman, Whipple,
Hale, Aldrich, and Howells ; such women
as Lydia Maria Child and Julia Ward Howe.
Now, if we consider how much of American lit-
erature is represented by these few names, it is
evident that if Boston was never metropolitan,
it at least had a combination of literary ability
such as no larger American city has yet rivalled.
I remember vividly an occasion when I was
required to select a high-school assistant for
the city where I then lived (Newport, Rhode
Island), and I had appointed meetings with
several candidates at the bookstore of Fields
& Osofood at Boston. While I was talkincr
a^i-Kt^ci^
^^!^g/7^?Lj$y^
^11
178 Boston
with the most promising of these — the daugh-
ter of a clergyman in northern Vermont — I
saw Dr. O. W. Holmes pass through the shop,
and pointed him out to her. She gazed eagerly
after him until he was out of sight, and then
said, drawing a long breath, *' I must write to
my father and sister about this ! Up in
Peacham we think a great deal of authors ! "
Certainly a procession of foreign princes or
American millionaires would have impressed
her and her correspondents far less. It was
like the feeling that Americans are apt to have
when they first visit London or Paris and see
—in Willis's phrase — "whole shelves of their
library walking about in coats and gowns " ;
and, strange as it may seem, every winter
brings to Boston a multitude of young people
whose expressed sensations are very much like
those felt by Americans when they first cross
the ocean.
The very irregularity of the city adds to its
attraction, since most of our newer cities are apt
to look too regular and too monotonous. For-
eign dialects have greatly increased within a few
years ; for although the German element has
never been large, the Italian population is con-
stantly increasing, and makes itself very appar-
I So Boston
ent to the ear, as does also latterly the Russian.
Books and newspapers in this last tongue are
always in demand. Statues of eminent Bos-
tonians — Winthrop, Franklin, Samuel Adams,
Webster, Garrison, Everett, Horace Mann,
and others — are distributed about the city, and
though not always beautiful as examples of art,
are suggestive of dignified memories. Institu-
tions of importance are on all sides, and though
these are not different in kind from those now
numerous in all vigorous American cities, yet in
Boston they often claim a longer date or more
historic associations. The great Public Li-
brary still leads American institutions of its
class ; and the Art Museum had a similar
leadership until the rapid expansion of the
Metropolitan Museum of New York City.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and the New England Conservatory of Music
educate large numbers of pupils from all parts
of the Union ; while Boston University and
Boston College hold an honored place among
their respective constituencies. Harvard Uni-
versity, Tufts College, and Wellesley College
are not far distant. The Boston Athenaeum
is an admirable model of a society library.
The public-school system of Boston has in
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Boston i8i
times past had a great reputation, and still re-
tains it ; though it is claimed that the newer
systems of the Western States are in some de-
gree surpassing it. The Normal Art School
of the State is in Boston ; and the city has its
own Normal School for common-school teach-
ers. The free lectures of the Lowell Institute
are a source of instruction to large numbers
every season ; and there are schools and classes
in various directions, maintained from the
same foundation. The great collections of
the Boston Society of Natural History are
open to the public ; and the Bostonian Society
has been unwearied in its efforts to preserve
and exhibit all memorials of local history.
The Massachusetts Historical Society includes
among its possessions the remarkable private
library of Thomas Dowse, which was regarded
as one of the wonders of Cambridge fifty years
ago, and it possesses also the invaluable manu-
script collections brought together by Francis
Parkman when preparing his great series of
histories. The New England Historic-Gen-
ealogical Society has a vast and varied store
of materials in the way of local and genealogi-
cal annals ; and the Loyal Legion has a library
and museum of war memorials.
l82
Boston
For many years there has been in Boston a
strong interest in physical education — an in-
terest which has passed through various phases,
but is now manifested in such strong institutions
as the Athletic
Club and the
Country Club —
the latter for
rural recreation.
There is at
Char lesbank,
beside the
Charles River, a
public open-air
gy m n a s i u m
which attracts a
laree constitu-
ency ; and there
is, what is espe-
cially desirable,
a class for wo-
men and child-
ren, with pri-
vate erounds and buildinors. It is under most
efficient supervision, and is accomplishing
great good. There are some ten playgrounds
kept open at unused schoolhouses during the
CHARLES SUMNER.
Boston 1 8
o
summer vacations, these being fitted up with
swings, sand-pens, and sometimes flower-beds,
and properly superintended. A great system
of parks has now been planned, and partly es-
tablished, around Boston, the largest of these
being Franklin Park, near Egleston Square ;
while the system includes also the Arnold
Arboretum, the grounds around Chestnut Hill
Reservoir and Jamaica Pond, with a Marine
Park at South Boston. Most of these are
easily accessible by steam or electric cars,
which are now reached from the heart of the
city, in many cases through subways, and will
soon be supplemented or superseded, on the
more important routes, by elevated roads.
The steam railways of the city are also to
have their stations combined into a Northern
and a Southern Union Station, of which the
former is already in use and the latter in pro-
cess of construction.
This paper is not designed to be a catalogue
of the public institutions and philanthropies of
Boston, but aims merely to suggest a few of the
characteristic forms which such activities have
taken. Nor is it written with the desire to
praise Boston above her sisters among Ameri-
can cities ; for it is a characteristic of American
1 84
Boston
society that, in spite of the outward uniformity
attributed to the nation, each city has never-
theless its own
characteristics ;
and each may
often learn from
the others. This
is simply one of
a series of pa-
pers, each with
a specific sub-
ject and each
confined to its
own theme.
The inns, the
theatres, the
club-houses of a
city, strangers
are likely to dis-
cover for them-
selves ; but there are further objects of in-
terest not always so accessible. For want
of a friendly guide, they may miss what would
most interest them. It is now nearly two
hundred years since an English traveller
named Edward Ward thus described the Bos-
ton of 1699 :
Copyright l)y H. G. Smith, Boston, 1893.
PHILLIPS BROOKS.
Boston 185
" On the southwest side of Massachusetts Bay is Bos-
ton, whose name is taken from a town in Lincohishire,
and is the metropolis of all New England. The houses
in some parts joyn, as in London. The buildings, like
their women, being neat and handsome. And their
streets, like the hearts of the male inhabitants, being
paved with pebble."
The leadership of Boston in a thousand
works of charity and kindness, during these
two centuries, has completely refuted the hasty
censure of this roving Englishman ; and it is to
be hoped that the Boston of the future, like
the Boston of the past, will do its fair share in
the development of that ampler American civil-
ization of which all present achievements
suggest only the promise and the dawn.
REVOLUTIONARY BOSTON
" Then and there American Independence was born."
By EDWARD EVERETT HALE
THE American Revolution began in Boston.
Different dates are set for the begin-
ning. John Adams says of Otis's speech in
1 76 1 in the Council Chamber of the Old
State House, " Then and there American
Independence Vv^as born." The visitor to Bos-
ton should go, very early in his visit, into the
Old State House ; and when he stands in the
Council Chamber he will remember that as dis-
tinguished a person as John Adams fixed that
place as the birthplace of independence.
But one does not understand the history of
the opening of the great struggle without
going back a whole generation. It was in
1 745 that Governor William Shirley addressed
the Massachusetts General Court in a secret
session. He brought before them a plan
187
1 88 Revolutionary Boston
which he had for the conquest of Louisburg
in the next spring, before it could be re-
inforced from France. The General Court
(which means the general assembly of Massa-
chusetts) at first doubted the possibility of suc-
cess of so bold an attempt ; but eventually
Shirley persuaded them to undertake it. The
Province of New Hampshire and that of Con-
necticut co-operated, and their army of pro-
vincials, with some assistance from Warren
of the EngHsh navy, took Louisbourg, which
capitulated on the 17th of June, 1745. Ob-
serve that the 17th of June is St. Botolph's
day ; and that he is the godfather of Bos-
ton.
When Louis XV. was told that this hand-
ful of provincials had taken the Gibraltar of
America, he was very angry. In the next
spring, the spring of i 746, with a promptness
and secrecy which make us respect the admin-
istration of the French navy, a squadron of
more than forty ships of war, and transports
sufficient to bring an army of three thousand
men, was fitted out in France and despatched
to America, with the definite and acknow-
ledged purpose of wiping Boston from the
face of the earth :
>•
3
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igo
Revolutionary Boston
" For this Admiral D'Anville
Had sworn by cross and crown
To ravage with fire and steel
Our helpless Boston town."
GOVERNOR THOMAS HUTCHINSON.
AFTER A PORTRAIT IN POSSESSION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
ONCE THE PROPERTY OF JONATHAN MAYHEW.
It was a disgrace to the military and naval
organizations of England at the same time, that
they had so little information there on the
subject.
Revolutionary Boston 191
They found out at last that this immense
French fleet had sailed or was sailing. I think
that it was the strongest expedition ever sent
from Europe to America between Columbus's
time and our own. Some blundering attempts
to meet it were made by the English Admir-
alty. But their admiral had to make the lame
excuse that seven times he tried to go to
sea and seven times he was driven back
by gales. Whatever the gales were, they did
not stop D'Anville and his Armada, and poor
Boston, which was to be destroyed, our dear
little "town of hen-coops," clustering around
the mill-pond, knew as little of the fate pre-
pared for it as the British Admiralty. It was
not until the month of September, i 746, that a
fishing-boat from the Banks, crowding all sail,
came Into Boston and reported to Governor
Shirley that her men had seen the largest fleet
of the largest vessels which they had ever seen
In their lives, and that these were French ves-
sels. Shirley at once called his Council to-
gether and " summoned the train bands of the
Province." The Council sank ships laden with
stones In the channels of the harbor. Hasty
fortifications were built upon the Islands, and
Shirley mounted upon them such guns as he
192 Revolutionary Boston
could brincr togfether. The "train bands" of
o o
the Province promptly obeyed the call, and for
the next two months near seven thousand sol-
diers were encamped on Boston Common, ready
for any movement which the descent of D'An-
vllle might require. Cautious, wise, and strong
beyond any of his successors in his office, Shir-
ley put his hand upon the throttle of the
newspapers. D'Anville should not learn, nor
should anybody learn, that he had an army in
Boston or that he knew his danorer. And so
you may read the modest files of the Boston
papers of that day and you shall find no refer-
ence to these military movements of which
every man and woman and child in Boston
was thinking. It is not till his young wife
dies that, by some accident in an editorial
room, the confession slips into print that the
train bands of the Province accompanied her
body to its grave.
It was the only military duty which was
required of that army of six thousand four
hundred. The people of the times would have
told you, every man and woman of them, that
the Lord of Hosts had other methods for
defending Boston.
What happened, or, if you please, what tran-
THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH IN ITS PRESENT CONDITION.
193 BUILT IN 1729.
194 Revolutionary Boston
spired, was this : Among his other prepara-
tions for his enemy, Shirley proclaimed a
solemn Fast Day, in which the people should
meet in all their meetingf-houses and seek
the help of the Almighty, and they did so.
Thomas Prince, of the Old South Meeting-
house, tells us what happened there. In the
morning, a crowded congregation joined in
prayer, and Prince told them of their danger
and exhorted them to their duty. In the after-
noon the assembly met again. As Prince led
them in their prayer, what seemed a hurricane
from the southwest struck the meeting-house.
A generation after, men remembered how
the steeple above them shook in the gale, and
Prince went on, calmly, in his address to the
God who rides on the whirlwind :
" We do not presume to advise, O Lord,
but if Thy Providence requires that this tem-
pest shall sweep the invaders from the sea, we
shall be content."
And this was precisely what happened :
This southwest gale tore down the Bay. This
side Cape Sable, just off Grand Manan, it
found D'Anville's squadron in its magnificent
array. It drove ship against ship. It cap-
sized and sank some of the noblest vessels.
Revolutionary Boston 195
It tore the masts out of others. It discour-
aged their crews and their officers. All that
was left of this gallant squadron (which was to
burn our " hen-coops " here) took refuge in
Halifax Bay or crept back under jury-masts to
France. In the harbor of Chebucto, as they
called Halifax, the wrecks of the fleet were
repaired as best they might be. D'Anville
and his first oflicer both died, one as a suicide,
and the other from the disgrace of the discom-
fiture. It is said in Nova Scotia that you
may see some of the ships now, if you will
look down at the right place in the clear sea,
off Cape Sable. A miserable handful of the
vessels straggled back to France at the open-
ing of the winter.
The colonists of New England had thus
learned two lessons, one in 1745, and one in
1746. In 1745 they had learned that without
any assistance from their own king they could
storm and take the strongest fortress in
America. In 1746 they learned that the an-
ger of the strongest prince in Europe was
powerless against them. Those who believed
in the immediate providence of God thought
that He stretched out His arm in their defense.
Those who did not, thought that in the general
196 Revolutionary Boston
providence of God, a people who were three
thousand miles away from the greatest sov-
ereign of the world might safely defy his
wrath. Curiously enough, in the next year,
1747, the people of Boston had an opportunity
to learn a third lesson by measuring strength
with their own sovereign.
In that year Admiral Knowles, in command
of the English squadron, — rather a favorite
till then, I fancy, with the people here, — hap-
pened to want seamen. He availed himself of
that bit of unwritten law which held in Ene-
land till within my own memory, by impress-
ing seamen from the docks. A memorial of
the General Court says that the English gov-
ernment had carried this matter so far that,
as they believed, three thousand Americans
were at that time in the service of the British
navy, having been unwillingly impressed there.
But Knowles carried it farther yet. He took
on board his fleet some hundreds of ship-
carpenters, mechanics, and laboring men ; and
Boston broke out into a blaze of excitement
and fury. There followed the first of the
series of proceedings which, with various modi-
fications, lasted for thirty years, until General
Howe withdrew the British fleet and army from
197
OLD STATE HOUSE.
198 Revolutionary Boston
Boston. It was a combination of riots and
town-meetings, the town-meetings expressing
seriously what the rioters did not express so
well, the rioters giving a certain emphasis,
such as was understood in England, as to
the intention of the town-meetings of Boston.
We have the most amusino^ details of this
affair in a very valuable and interesting his-
tory just published by Mr. John Noble. The
rioters seized Knowles's officers whom they
found in the town, and shut them up for host-
ao^es. Knowles declared that he would bom-
bard the town. But what with the General
Court and the town-meetings and the magis-
trates and the rest, he was soothed down, the
people gave up their hostages, and he gave up
the men whom he had seized. Boston had
measured forces in this affair with King
George. Both were satisfied with the result ;
and, if I may so speak, this first tussle ended
in a tie.
Here were three trials of strength in three
years. And the Boston people learned in each
of them the elements of their real power.
When, nearly twenty years after, Otis made
his eloquent protest against the Writs of
Assistance, he did not succeed. The Court
."^^^J^^
200 Revolutionary Boston
decided that the Province must permit the
officers to make the searches in private houses
which the Crown asked. But there was a
point gained, in the confession that the Crown
must ask, and thinking men took note of that
confession.
" Sam " Adams, as he was always affection-
ately called, had graduated at Harvard College
in I 740. There is no direct evidence known to
me, but without it I believe that almost from
that time Sam Adams was the inspiring genius
of one or more private clubs in which the young
men of Boston were trained in the funda-
mental principles of independence. On the
other side it may be said that from the mo-
ment when Quebec fell the home government
of England did everything that can be con-
ceived of to disgust and alienate the people of
Boston. The disgust showed itself now in
grumbling, novv^ in physical violence. In the
midst of it all there was one quiet leader be-
hind the scenes. Sam Adams had the confi-
dence of the gentry and of the people both.
When he wanted a grave and dignified expres-
sion of opinion he had a town-meeting called,
and then this town-meeting heard speeches
and passed resolutions of such dignity and
^^^^''^^^^^'^^^.t::^ ^>^^6
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20I
202 Revolutionary Boston
gravity as were worthy of any senate in the
world. On the other hand, if Sam Adams
needed to give emphasis to such resolution,
the mob of Boston appeared in her streets,
did what he wanted it to do, and stopped
when he wanted it to stop. It is fair to say
that George III.'s ministers lost their heads
in their rage against the riots of Boston.
The Boston Port Bill, the maddest and most
useless act of vengeance, was aimed at the
Boston mob ; and yet in the thirty years be-
tween Louisbourg and Lexington this riotous
mob of Boston never drew a drop of humian
blood in. all its excesses. And this, though
once and acrain the soldiers and sailors of
England killed one and another of the peo-
ple.
Now to follow along step by step the visible
memorials of the war, I advise you to go to
Roxbury through Washington Street by one of
the Belt-line cars. The verv name, Washinor.
ton Street, should remind you that Washington
rode in in triumph by this highway on the i 7th
of March, 1776, the day when General Howe
and the English troops evacuated the town.
Let the car drop you at the Providence railway
crossing in Roxbury and take another car to
204 Revolutionary Boston
Brookline ; or go on foot. All this time you
have been on the track of the English general,
Lord Percy, who was sent out with his column
to reinforce Colonel Smith, who had charge of
the earlier column sent against Concord, on
the day of the battle of Lexington. You can,
if you choose, on your wheel or on your feet,
go into Cambridge with this column ; but take
care not to cross Charles River by the first
bridge, but by that where the students' boat-
houses are, on the road which becomes Boyls-
ton Street as you enter Cambridge. You
may then go on to Lexington and Concord.
On another day, start from Cambridge at
the Law School. This stands on the very site
of the old parsonage — General Ward's head-
quarters. The evening before the battle of
Bunker Hill, Prescott's division was formed
in parade here and joined in prayer with the
minister of Cambridge before they marched to
Bunker Hill. Anybody will show you Kirk-
land Street, which is the name now given to
the beeinninor of " Milk Row," the road over
which they crossed to Charlestown. If you
are afraid to walk, take your wheel. Two
miles, more or less, will bring you eastward to
Charlestown Neck. Then turn to your right
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2o6 Revolutionary Boston
and walk to Bunker Hill Monument, which
you can hardly fail to see.
It is quite worth while to ascend the monu-
ment. It gives you an excellent chance to
obey Dr. Arnold's rule and study the topo-
graphy on the spot. You cannot fail to see
the United States Navy Yard just at your feet.
Here Howe's forces gathered for the attack
on Prescott's works on the day of the battle.
And to the shore they retired after they were
flung back in the first two unsuccessful attacks.
In the mad attack on Prescott's works, Gen-
eral Gage lost, in killed and wounded, one quar-
ter of his little army. What was left became the
half-starved garrison of Boston. I say " mad at-
tack," because Gage had only to order a gun-
boat to close the retreat of the American force,
and he could have starved it into surrender.
But such delay was unworthy of the dignity of
English generals, or, as they then called them-
selves, *' British " generals. It is to be remem-
bered that this use of the w^ord " British," now
much laughed at, was the fashionable habit of
those times.
The date of the battle was June 17, 1775.
Oddly enough, this had long been the saint's
day of St. Botolph, the East Anglian saint
Revolutionary Boston 207
for whom Boston in England was named. It
seems probable, however, that this odd coinci-
dence was never noticed for a hundred years.
Since the majority of the people of Boston
and Charlestown have been Catholics, it has
attracted attention.
From that date to March 17, 1776, the date
just now alluded to, Boston and the English
army were blockaded by the American troops.
They had gathered on the day after Lexing-
ton, commanded at first by Artemas Ward, the
commander of the militia of Massachusetts, and
afterwards by Washington, with Ward as his
first major-general. The English retained their
hold on Charlestown, but once and again the
Americans attacked their forces there. They
never marched out beyond Boston Neck or
Charlestown Neck.
On the south, their most advanced works
were where are now two little parks. Black-
stone Square and Franklin Square, on the
west and east sides of Washington Street, re-
spectively. They had a square redoubt on
the Common, where is now a monument to the
heroes of the Civil War. A little eastward of
this was a hill called Fox Hill, which was dugr
away to make the Charles Street of to-day.
2o8 Revolutionary Boston
Farther west, where the ground is now cov-
ered with buildings, were two or three re-
doubts, generally called forts, by which they
meant to prevent the landing of the Americans.
At that time Beacon Hill was much higher
than it is now. Exactly on the point now
marked by a monument, a monument was
erected after the Revolution, in commemora-
tion of the events of the year when it began.
The present monument — completed lately — is
an exact imitation of the first, but that this is
of stone, and that was of brick. This has the
old inscriptions.
Washington drove out the English by erect-
ing the strong works on what was then called
Dorchester Heights, which we now call South
Boston. The places where most of these
works existed are marked by inscriptions. In-
dependence Square is on the site of one of
them.
The careful traveller may go out to Rox-
bury, follow up Highland Street and turn to
the right, and he will find an interesting me-
morial of one of the strong works built by
General Ward. From this point, north and
east, each of the towns preserves some relic of
the same kind. In Cambridcre one is marked
THE FROG POND ON THE COMMON
AS IT NOW APPEARS.
209
2IO Revolutionary Boston
by a public square, on which the national flag
is generally floating.
At the North End of Boston, where Is now,
and was then, the graveyard of Copp's Hill,
the English threw up some batteries. These
are now obliterated, but the point is Interest-
ing in Revolutionary history, because it was
from this height that Gage and Burgoyne saw
their men flung back by the withering fire of
Bunker Hill.
CAMBRIDGE
By SAMUEL A. ELIOT
" There is no place like it, no, not even for taxes."
Lowell's Letters, ii. , 102,
THE early history of New England seems
to many minds dry and unromantlc. No
mist of distance softens the harsh outlines, no
miraofe of tradition lifts events or characters
into picturesque beauty, and there seems a
poverty of sentiment. The transplanting- of a
people breaks the successions and associations
of history. No memories of Crusader and
Conqueror stir the imagination. Instead of
the glitter of chivalry we have but the sombre
homespun of Puritan peasants. Instead of
the castles and cathedrals on which time has
laid a hand of benediction we have but the
rude log meeting-house and schoolhouse. In-
stead of Christmas merriment the voice of our
past brings to us only the noise of axe and
211
212 Cambridge
hammer, or the dreary droning of Psalms. It
seems bleak, and destitute of poetic inspiration ;
at once plebeian and prosaic.
But I cannot help feeling that if we look be-
neath the uncouth exterior we shall find in
New England history much idealism, much
that can inspire noble daring and feed the
springs of romance. Out of the hard soil of
the Puritan thougrht, out of the sterile rocks
of the New England conscience, spring flowers
of poetry. This story of the planting of Cam-
bridge has — if I might linger on it — a wealth
of dramatic interest, not indeed in its antiquity,
— it is but a story of yesterday, — but in the hu-
man associations that belong to it and the
patriotic memories it stirs. The Cambridge
dust is eloquent of the long procession of
saints and sages, scholars and poets, whose
works and words have made the renown of
the place. First the Puritan chiefs of Massa-
chusetts ; then the early scholars of the budding
commonwealth ; then the Tory gentry who
made the town in the days before the Revolu-
tion the centre of a lavish hospitality, and who
maintained a happy social life of which the
memories still linorer in the beautiful homes
which they left behind them ; then the patriot
'^ ' -'^jmff*
2 14 Cambridge
army surging about Boston in the exciting
year of the siege, with the inspiring traditions
of what Washington and Warren and Knox
and Greene and the rest did and said ; and
finally the later associations of our great
scholars and men of letters, chief of whom we
rank Lowell and Holmes and Longfellow,
whose lives were rooted deep in the Cambridge
soil and whose dust there endears the sod.
The first figures on our Cambridge stage
are those of the leaders of the Massachusetts
colony. While Boston was clearly marked
for prominence in the colony because of its
geographical position, there was not at first
the intention to make it the seat of govern-
ment. It was too open to attack from the sea ;
a position farther inland could be more easily
defended, not indeed from the Indians, but
from the enemy most to be dreaded, — the war-
ships of an irate and hostile motherland. Ac-
cordingly Governor John Winthrop and his
assistants, shortly after the planting of Boston,
journeyed in the shallop of the ship in which
they had come from England, four miles up
the Charles River behind Boston until they
came to a meadow gently sloping to the river-
side, backed by rounded hills and protected
Cambridge
215
by wide-spreading salt marshes. There on the
28th of December, 1630, they landed and fixed
HOME OF LONGFELLOW,
the seat of their government. To quote the
old chronicle :
" They rather made choice to enter further among the
Indians than to hazard the fury of malignant advers-
aries who might pursue them, and therefore chose a
place situated upon Charles River, between Charles-
town and Watertown, where they erected a towne called
Newtowne, and where they gathered the 8th Church of
Christ."
2i6 Cambridge
It was agreed that the Governor, John Win-
throp, the Deputy Governor, Thomas Dudley,
and all the councillors, except John Endicott,
who had already settled at Salem, should build
and occupy houses at Newtowne, but this
agreement was never carried out. Winthrop,
Dudley and Bradstreet built houses, and the
General Court of the colony met alternately
at Newtowne and at Boston until 1638, when
it finally settled in Boston. Yet in spite of
the superior advantages of Boston the new
settlement evidently flourished, for in 1633 a
traveller — the writer of New England's Pros-
pect— describes the village as " one of the
neatest and best compacted towns in New
England, having many fair structures, with
many handsome contrived streets. The in-
habitants, most of them, are rich and well
stored with cattle of all sorts."
This is doubtless an extravagant picture and
true only in comparison with some of the
neighboring plantations which were not so fa-
vorably situated. Newtowne was really a crude
and straggling settlement made up of some
sixty or seventy log cabins or poor frame
houses stretching along a road which skirted
the river marshes and of which the wanderings
Cambridge 217
were prescribed more by the devious channel
of the Charles than by mathematical exactness.
The meeting-house, built of rough-hewn boards
with the crevices sealed with mud, stood at
the crossing of the road with the path that led
down to the river, where there was a ladder for
the convenience of landing. So primitive was
the place that Thomas Dudley, the chief man
of the town, writing home, could say, '' I
have no table nor any place to write in than
by the fireside on my knee." Such was the
splendor of the whilom capital of New Eng-
land.
Like most of the Massachusetts towns, Cam-
bridge began as a church. Though Dudley
and Bradstreet and Haynes were high in
the councils of the infant commonwealth, hold-
ing successively or simultaneously the offices
of governor and military chief, yet the lead-
ing personality of the village was the minister.
The roll of Cambridore ministers beeins with
the great name of Thomas Hooker, the founder
of Connecticut, and the man who first visioned
and did much to make possible our American
democracy. Hooker, with his congregation
from Braintree, In Essex, England, came to
Massachusetts in 1632, and after a short stay
2i8 Cambridge
at Mount Wollaston, settled at Newtowne,
raising the population to nearly five hundred
souls. But the stay of the Braintree church
was short. Some adventurous spirits had
penetrated the wilderness of the interior until
they discovered the charm and fertility of the
valley of the Connecticut, and soon Hooker
and his company were impelled by " the strong
bent of their spirits " to remove thither. They
alleged, in petitioning the General Court for
permission to remove, that their cattle were
cramped for room in Newtowne, and that it
behooved the English colonists to keep the
Dutch out of Connecticut ; but the real motive
of the exodus was doubtless ecclesiastical.
Hooker did not find himself altogether in ac-
cord with the Boston teacher, John Cotton.
"Two such eminent stars," says Hubbard,
writing in 1682, "both of the first magnitude,
though of different influence, could not well
continue in one and the same orb." Hooker
took the more liberal side in the antinomian
controversy which had already begun to make
trouble, and his subsequent conduct of affairs
In Connecticut shows that he did not approve
the Massachusetts policy of restricting the suf-
frage to church members. In the spring of
Cambridge 219
1636, therefore, Hooker and most of his con-
gregation sold their possessions, and driving
one hundred and sixty cattle before them, went
on their way to the planting of Hartford and
the founding of a new commonwealth.
This was the first of many separations by
which Cambridge has become the mother of
many sturdy children. The original bound-
aries of the town stretched from Dedham on
the south all the way to the Merrlmac River
on the north. Gradually, by the gathering of
new churches and peaceable partition, this ter-
ritory has been divided, and out of the original
Newtowne have been formed, besides the
present Cambridge, Blllerica, Bedford, Lexing-
ton, Arlington, Brighton and Newton. Gov-
ernors Dudley and Bradstreet removed to
Ipswich, and Simon Wlllard went to be the
chief layman of Concord and a famous builder
and defender of towns.
The rude houses of Hooker's congregation
were bought by a newly arrived company, the
flock of the Rev. Thomas Shepard. This
firm but gentle leader, who left a deep Impress
on the habit of the town, was a youth of
thirty-one, and a graduate, like many of the
Massachusetts leaders, of Emanuel College, at
2 20 Cambridge
Cambridge. He came to New England with
a company of earnest followers, actuated, as he
wrote, by desire for "the fruition of God's or-
dinances. Though my motives were mixed,
and I looked much to my own quiet, yet the
Lord let me see the glory of liberty in New
England, and made me purpose to live among
God's people as one come from the dead to
His praise." His brave young wife died " in
unspeakable joy" only a fortnight after his
settlement at Cambridge, and was soon fol-
lowed by the chief man of his flock and his
closest friend, Roger Harlakenden, another
godly youth of the manly type of English pio-
neers. At once, too, Shepard was plunged into
the stormy debates of the antinomian contro-
versy which nearly caused a permanent divi-
sion in the Congregational churches. The
general election of 1637, which was held on
the Common at Newtowne, was a tumultuous
gathering, and discussion over the merits of
''grace " and ''works" ran high till John Wil-
son, minister of the Boston church, climbed up
into a big oak tree, and made a speech which
carried the day for John Winthrop to the con-
fusion of the heretical disciples of Anne Hutch-
inson. Through these stormy waters Shepard
E
! 1
222 Cambridge
steered his course so discreetly that he came
into high favor among all people as a sound
and vigilant minister, and Cotton Mather tells
us that " it was with a respect unto this vigi-
lancy and the enlightening and powerful minis-
try of Mr. Shepard, that, when the foundation
of a college was to be laid, Cambridge, rather
than any other place, was pitched upon to be
the seat of that happy seminary."
The founding of Harvard College by the
little colony was surely one of the most heroic,
devout and fruitful events of American his-
tory. Upon the main entrance to the college
grounds is written to-day an inscription taken
from one of the earliest chronicles, entitled
New England's First Fruits. We read that :
" After God had carried us safe to New England and
wee had builded our houses and provided necessaries for
our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's wor-
ship and settled the Civil Government, one of the next
things we longed for and looked after was to advance
learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to
leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our pre-
sent ministers shall lie in the dust."
Accordingly, on the 28th day of October,
1636, Sir Harry Vane — Milton's " Vane, young
in years, but in sage counsel old" — being the
Cambridge 223
Governor, the General Court of the colony
passed the following memorable vote : '' The
Court agrees to give ;^400 towards a school
or college — whereof ;!^200 shall be paid the
next year and ^200 when the work is fin-
ished." In the following year this vote was
supplemented by a further order that the col-
lege " is ordered to be at Newtowne, and that
Newtowne shall henceforth be called Cam-
bridge." This is the significant act that marks
the distinction between the Puritan colony
and all pioneer settlements based on material
foundations. For a like spirit under like cir-
cumstances history will be searched in vain.
Never were the bases of such a structure laid
by a community of men so poor, and under
such sullen and averted stars. The colony was
nothing but a handful of settlers barely cling-
ing to the wind-swept coast ; It was feeble and
Insignificant, In danger from Indians on the
one hand and foreign foes on the other ; It was
in throes of dissension on the matter of heresy
which threatened to divide It permanently,
yet so resolved were the people that " the
Commonwealth be furnished with knowing
and understanding men and the churches with
an able ministry," that they voted the entire
2 24 Cambridge
annual income of the colony to establish a
place of learning. Said Lowell :
" This act is second in real import to none that has
happened in the Western hemisphere. The material
growth of the colonies would have brought about their
political separation from the mother country in the ful-
ness of time, but the founding of the first college here
saved New England from becoming a mere geographical
expression. It did more, it insured our intellectual in-
dependence of the old world. That independence has
been long in coming, but the chief names of those who
have hastened its coming are written on the roll of Har-
vard College."
But even the self-sacrificing zeal of the
colonists would have been almost unavailincr
had it not been for the cominor to Massachu-
setts at this time of a young Puritan minister,
another graduate of Emanuel, upon whom
death had already set his seal. Says the
chronicler :
" As we were thinking and consulting how to effect this
great work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one
Mr. John Harvard, a godly gentleman and a lover of
learning then living amongst us, to bequeath the one
half of his estate, in all about ;!^i7oo, toward the erection
of the college, and all his library."
Was ever a gift so marvellously multiplied as
the bequest of this obscure young scholar ?
#^S"
STATUE OF JOHN HARVARD AND MEMORIAL HALL, HARVARD COLLEGE.
225
2 26 Cambridge
By this one decisive act of public-spirited and
well-directed munificence this youth made for
himself an imperishable name and enrolled
himself amonor the foremost of the benefactors
of humanity. In acknowledgment of Har-
vard's bequest the General Court voted in
1638 '' that the College at Cambridge be called
Harvard College."
It is the presence of the college that has
given distinctive atmosphere to Cambridge.
The character of the place has been deter-
mined by the fact that for more than two cent-
uries and a half it has been the home of
succeeding generations of men. devoted not to
trade and manufacture, but to the cultivation
of the intellectual and spiritual elements in
human life. Over the college gate stands an
iron cross and upon the gate-post is the seal
of the college with " Veritas " written across
its open books. The Harvard life and spirit
and teaching are all adapted to lead young
men to the love and service of truth arid to
send them out to a ministry as wide and varied
as the needs of humanity. The influence of
the scholars and teachers and administrators
that have been drawn Into the service of the
college is paramount, even If it is unconsciously
Cambridge 227
exercised and felt, in the community about the
college. Here have always been — inevitable
in a town which is the resort of the chosen
youth of the country — a healthy, wholesome
independence of spirit and a high-minded
earnestness. Here has always been the re-
fined simplicity of life natural to a community
composed of, or influenced by, men of quiet
tastes and modest incomes. Here is that
touch of sentiment which binds men to the
place of their education and to the memories
and friendships of youth. Here are the asso-
ciations with great events and names which
inspire patriotism and ambition of worthy
service. Then, too, it has been said :
" Cambridge is an interesting place to live in because
the poetry of Holmes, Longfellow and Lowell has
touched with the light of genius some of its streets,
houses, churches and graveyards, and made familiar to
the imaginations of thousands of persons who never saw
them, its rivers, marshes and bridges. It adds to the
interest of living in any place that famous authors have
walked in its streets, and loved its highways and byways,
and written of its elms, willows and ' spreading chestnut
tree,' of its robins and herons. The very names of Cam-
bridge streets remind the dwellers in it of the biographies
of Sparks, the sermons of Walker, the law-books of
Story, the orations of Everett, and the presidencies of
Dunster, Chauncy, Willard, Kirkland and Quincy."
2 28 Cambridge
The place is not unworthy of the wealth of
affection and poetic tribute that has been lav-
ished upon it. The old Puritan church records,
with their quaint entries about heresies and
witchcraft, about ordinations where " four gal-
lons of wine " and bushels of wheat and malt
and hundredweights of beef and mutton were
consumed, and about funerals conducted with
solemn pomp ; and the town records with
notes about the " Palisadoe " and the Common
rights and "the Cowyard " and the building
of "The Great Bridge," — a vast undertaking,
— have more than merely antiquarian interest,
for they reveal the intelligent and sturdy de-
mocracy and broad principles of government
upon which the American republic rests.
But if these ancient records seem uninviting,
let the visitor turn to the annals of the stirring
time of the Revolution. General Gage called
Harvard Colleofe "that nest of sedition." In
that nest were hatched John Hancock, James
Otis, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Joseph
Warren and many another of the patriot
leaders. The town was the abode of many
of the leading Tory families, but as early as
1765 the town-meeting voted "that (with all
humility) it is the opinion of the town that
230 Cambridge
the Inhabitants of this Province have a legal
claim to all the natural, Inherent, constitutional
rights of Englishmen and — that the Stamp
Act Is an Infraction upon these rights." And
after an argument on the merits of the ques-
tion It was further ordered " that this vote be
recorded In the Town Book, that the children
yet unborn may see the desire their ancestors
had for their freedom and happiness." For
the next ten years there Is scarcely a proceed-
ing In the preliminary debates and contests
that led up to open revolution that Is not Il-
lustrated In the resolutions recorded by the
Cambridge town clerk. Vote followed vote,
as the restrictive measures of Parliament Irri-
tated the townsmen, till at the town-meeting
of 1773 it was resolved ''that this town — Is
ready on the shortest notice, to join with the
town of Boston and other towns, in any meas-
ures that may be thought proper, to deliver
ourselves and,; posterity from slavery." The
2d of September, 1774, just escaped the his-
toric Importance of April 19th In the next
year. On that day several thousand men
gathered on Cambridge Common and pro-
ceeded In orderly fashion to force the resigna-
tion of two of His Majesty's privy councillors,
Cambridge
2^1
and then, marching up Bratde Street to the
house of the Lieutenant-Governor of the
Province, Thomas OHver — the house that was
afterwards the home in succession of Elbridge
HOME OF LOWELL.
Gerry, Rev. Charles Lowell and his son James
Russell Lowell — they extorted from him, too,
a pledge to resign. *' My house in Cam-
bridge," he wrote, *' being surrounded by
about four thousand men, I sign my name —
2^2
Cambridge
Thomas Oliver." Both the first and second of
the Provincial Congresses met in Cambridge,
and at last the running battle of April 19,
1775, swept through the borders of the town.
Twenty-six Americans were killed within the
boundaries of Cambridge, six of them citizens
of the place, and the American militia who
followed the British retreat from Concord on
that momentous evening lay on their arms at
last on Cambridge Common.
For eleven months after Concord fight, Cam-
bridge was a fortified camp. The college build-
ings, the Episcopal church and the larger houses
were occupied as barracks. General Ward
established his headquarters in the gambrel-
roofed house which was afterwards the birth-
place of Oliver Wendell Holmes. On the
lawn before the house, in the hush of the June
evening, Prescott's men were drawn up, while
President Langdon of the college, in cap and
gown, prayed for the success of their arms ere
they marched to Bunker Hill. Two weeks
later Washington reached the camp, and on
July 3d, under the spreading elm at the west-
ern end of the Common, unsheathed his sword
and, as the inscription reads, " took command
of the American Army." Washington lived
WASHINGTON ELM.
233
234 Cambridg"e
fe
for a while in the president's house, but soon
made his headquarters in the fine old mansion
of the Vassalls which was later the home of
Lonoffellow.
After March, 1776, when Boston was finally
evacuated by the British, Cambridge ceased to
be involved in the military events of the Rev-
olution, but in 1777 the captured troops of
Burgoyne were quartered in the town, the
soldiers swinging their hammocks in the col-
lege buildings and the officers occupying the
deserted mansions of '' Tory Row." Burgoyne
lived in the house sometimes called, in derision
of its first clerical occupant, " The Bishop's
Palace," and Riedesel and his accomplished
wife in the Lechmere house. '' Never have I
chanced," wrote Madame Riedesel, " upon
such a charming situation," and never has our
colonial life been more charmingly described
than by this brave and vivacious German lady
in the letters written from her pleasant prison
to her distant home.
For fifty years after the Revolutionary
epoch, Cambridge was a country town of quiet
habits, its only distinguishing characteristic
being the scholastic and literary atmosphere
that hung about the college. It was a good
235
236 Cambridge
place to be born In, and it was surely good to
live in the place where Everett and Ouincy
ruled the academic world ; where Longfellow
wrote his poetry, and Palfrey his history, and
Sparks his biographies ; where Washington
Allston painted and Margaret Fuller dreamed ;
where William Story and Richard Dana and
Lowell and Holmes and the rest walked to
church and stopped to gossip with the neigh-
bors at the post-office.
" No town in this country," says Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, "has been the occasion of two literary de-
scriptions more likely to become classic than two which
bear reference to the Cambridge of fifty years ago. One
of these is Lowell's well-known Fireside Travels and the
other is the scarcely less racy chapter in the Harvard
Book, contributed by John Holmes, younger brother of
the * Autocrat.' "
To these happy descriptions we may now add
the accounts of Colonel HIgglnson's boyhood
In his Cheerful Yesterdays, and Dr. Holmes's
loving story of his birthplace in the Poet at
the Breakfast Table.
" Cambridge," wrote Lowell, " was still a country village
with its own habits and traditions, not yet feeling too
strongly the force of suburban gravitation. Approaching
it from the west, by what was then called the New
Road, you would pause on the brow of Symond's Hill to
^v' O
ce.
<
>
<
X
•£
CO
<
z
>
238 Cambrido^e
&
enjoy a view singularly soothing and placid. In front
of you lay the town, tufted with elms, lindens, and horse-
chestnuts, which had seen Massachusetts a colony, and
were fortunately unable to emigrate with the Tories, by
whom, or by whose fathers, they were planted. Over it
rose the noisy belfry of the College, the square, brown
tower of the Episcopal Church, and the slim, yellow spire
of the parish meeting-house. On your right the Charles
slipped smoothly through green and purple salt meadows,
darkened here and there with the blossoming black grass
as with a stranded croud-shadp-^v. To your left upon the
Old Road you saw spme l^ialf-dozen dignified old houses
of the colonial time, all comfortably fronting southward.
. . We called it ' the Village ' then, and it was
essentially .an English village — quiet, unspeculative,
without enterprise, sufficing to itself, and only showing
such differences from the original type as the public
school and the, system, of town government might su-
perinduce. A few houses, chiefly old, stood around the
bare common, with ample elbow-room, and old women,
capped and spectacled, still peered through the same
windows from which they had watched Lord Percy's
artillery rumble by to Lexington, or caught a glimpse of
the handsome Virginia general who had come to wield
our homespun Saxon chivalry. The hooks were to be
seen from which had swung the hammocks of Burgoyne's
captive red-coats. If memory does not deceive me,
women still washed clothes in the town spring, clear as
that of Bandusia. One coach sufficed for all the travel
to the metropolis."
Cambridge Is no longer the idyllic village of
Cambrido^e 239
^&
Lowell's boyhood, but a great suburban city
bustling with many activities. So rapid has
been the erowth that Lowell on his return
from Europe in 1889 wrote:
" I feel somehow as if Charon had ferried me the wrong
way, and yet it is into a world of ghosts that he has
brought me. I hardly know the old road, a street now,
that I have paced so many years, for the new houses.
My old homestead seems to have a puzzled look in its
eyes as it looks down — a trifle superciliously methinks —
on these upstarts.
" The old English elms in front of my house have n't
changed. A trifle thicker in the waist, perhaps, as is
the wont of prosperous elders, but looking just as I first
saw them seventy years ago, and it is balm to my eyes.
I am by no means sure that it is wise to love the ac-
customed and familiar as much as I do, but it is pleasant
and gives a unity to life which trying can't accomplish."
Cambridge is to-day the abode of as happy,
comfortable and progressive a people as the
world contains. It presents a unique example
in this country of a city thoroughly well gov-
erned. It is now a quarter-century since parti-
sanship has been tolerated in city affairs. In
the City Hall, erected under the administration
of Mayor William E. Russell, who here got
his training for the splendid service he after-
ward rendered to the State, and might, had his
240
Cambridge
life been spared, have rendered to the nation,
no hquor Hcense has ever been signed. So
excellent has been the record of successive non-
partisan administrations in the city that the
very phrase, "The Cambridge Idea," has be-
come well known
even outside the
limits of Massa-
chusetts as signify-
ing the conception
of public office as
a public trust and
the conduct of
municipal affairs
on purely business
principles. Yet in
spite of its muni-
cipal expansion
and business enter-
prises, Cambridge
is still pre-eminently the place where the lamp of
learning is kept lighted. Though the college
waxes great in numbers and its buildings mul-
tiply, and the jar of business invades the aca-
demic quiet, yet the purposes and habits of the
scholar's life still distinguish the community.
It is said that when Cambridge people are at a
WILLIAM E. RUSSELL.
Cambridge 241
loss for conversation one asks the other, '' How
is your new book coming on ? " and the ques-
tion rarely fails to bring a voluble reply. There
is an entire alcove in the City Library devoted
to the works of Cambridge writers. *' Briga-
dier-Generals," said Howells, himself once a
resident of the town, "were no more common
in Washington during the Civil War than au-
thors in Cambridge." It is an interesting illus-
tration of the persistence of good tradition that
the place where was established the first print-
ing-press in America, set up by Stephen Daye
in 1639, should still be a centre of book-pro-
duction. Not only do John Fiske and Charles
Eliot Norton and Thomas Wentworth Hieein-
son and a score of others maintain the literary
reputation of the place, but the great establish-
ments of the Riverside Press, the University
Press and the Athenaeum Press put forth a
constant stream of high-standard publications,
and send a most characteristic Cambridge pro-
duct all over the world. Still is Cambridge
one of the shrines of pilgrimage. The anti-
quarians ponder over the mossy gravestones in
the little " God's Acre " between the " Sentinel
and Nun," as Dr. Holmes called the two church
towers which front the college gate, and there
242 Cambrido^e
^:>
they read the long inscriptions that tell the
virtues of the first ministers of the parish and
the early presidents of the college. The
patriots come and stand under the Washington
elm, or linger by the gates of the Craigie
house or Elmwood, or pace the noble Me-
morial Hall, which declares how Harvard's sons
died for their country, while visitors flock to
the great museum which the genius and en-
ergy of Louis Agassiz upbuilt, and to the gar-
den where Asa Gray taught and botanized.
Thousands of men all over the country think
of Cambridge with grateful love as they re-
member the years of their happy youth ; and
the citizens of the place, while they look back-
ward with just pride, look forward with con-
fidence that there is to be more of inspiring
history and true poetry in the city's future than
in its fortunate past.
CONCORD
FIRST IN MANY FIELDS
By frank B. SANBORN
OLD this New World is, — geologically
more ancient, perhaps, than that hemi-
sphere from whose western edge Columbus set
sail, four centuries ago, and found our conti-
nent lying across his way, as he plodded to
Cathay. Yet, uncounted as our barbarous cent-
uries and antediluvian aeons are, real history
begins only with the opening of the seventeenth
century, when the English Puritan and the
French Jesuit transferred to these shores the
unfolding civilization and the rival religions
of Western Europe. When we see at Ply-
mouth the wooded glacial hillsides, under which
the Pilgrims landed and established democracy
in their wilderness, we may remember that
their venture, though bolder, because earlier,
than that of Bulkeley and Willard, who planted
243
244 Concord
the Concord colony, was yet but fifteen years
in advance, and was made beside a friendly
ocean, bearing succor and trade, and feeding
them from its abundance. But the Concord
colonists sat down in the gloomy shadow of
the forest, amid trails of the savage and the
wolf. Still more heroic was the crusade of the
Jesuit in New France ; but while romance and
martyrdom were his lot, our Puritans planted
here the germs of a grand republic.
" God said, ' I am tired of kings,
I suffer them no more ;
Up to my ear the morning brings
The outrage of the poor.
I will divide my goods,
Call in the wretch and slave ;
None shall rule but the humble,
And none but Toil shall have.' "
The first event in the history of Massachu-
setts was this planting of a territorial demo-
cracy. The colony of Concord was granted by
Winthrop and his legislature in September,
1635, to Peter Bulkeley, a Puritan minister,
from the little parish of Odell or Woodhill
(colloquially called " Wuddle") in English Bed-
fordshire, and to Simon Willard, a merchant,
from Hawkshurst in Kent. Twelve other fam-
246 Concord
ilies were joined with them in the grant, and
another minister, Rev. John Jones, brought
other famihes from England, aiming towards
Concord, in October, 1635. The situation
was doubtless chosen by Major Willard, an
Indian trader and in after years a fighter of
the Indians ; who also selected and partly colo-
nized two other towns, farther in the wilder-
ness,— Groton and Lancaster. But the true
father of this Concord, and probably the giver
of its name (altering it from the Indian Mus-
ketaquit), was Rev. Peter Bulkeley, ancestor of
its most celebrated citizen, Waldo Emerson.
Of this worthy, whose grave, like that of Moses,
is unknown to this day, something should be
said, before we come to later heroes. Peter
Bulkeley was the son of Rev. Edward Bulke-
ley, a doctor of divinity in English Cam-
bridge,— a scholar and man of wealth, who
was rector of the Bedfordshire parish just
named, where his son was born in 1583. He
succeeded his father there in 1620.
It is in the country of John Bunyan and
Cowper the poet, this little parish of Odell.
Like Concord River, the Ouse, on which it
stands, is unmatched for winding, even in
England. Below the old castle of Odell, and
Concord 247
the church, still standing, where the Bulkeleys
preached, runs this crooked stream, murmuring
as it meanders through its fringe of meadow-
land, green as the richest strip of English
pasture can be, which lies between such a
river and the low hills that come down towards
its edge. This Ouse (there is another in York-
shire) flows from Bucks, the county of John
Hampden, through Bedford, the county of
the Russells, and Huntingdon, where Crom-
well lived, and finally into the North Sea
at Lynn. On the north bank lies the hill
upon which Odell stands, — the highway from
Sharnbrook to Harrold and Olney (long
the home of Cowper) running from east to
west along the breast of the hill. The old
church standing amid trees — conspicuous is a
chestnut of surpassing size and beauty — is
directly opposite the ancient castle, now a
comfortable and handsome mansion, built some
two hundred years ago, — or about the time the
oldest houses in Concord were built.
It was no love of adventure, we may be sure,
that brought Peter Bulkeley, at the age of fifty-
two, from this lovely country into a land of
forests and of poverty ; but a desire to escape
the ecclesiastical tyranny of Laud and his bish-
248 Concord
ops, and to establish a true church in the wil-
derness. Some difficulties attended even this,
for when, in July, 1636, Mr. Bulkeley was
about to oro^anize his church at Cambrido^e, in
order to have Sir Henry Vane and John Win-
throp (Governor and Deputy Governor that
year) present at the ceremony, lo and behold !
these great men " took it in ill part, and
thought not fit to go, because they had not
come to them before, as they ought to have
done, and as others had done before them, to
acquaint them with their purpose." Again, in
April, 1637, when Mr. Bulkeley was to be or-
dained (also in Cambridge), Winthrop says
that Vane and John Cotton and John Wheel-
wricrht, and the two rulinof elders of Boston
" and the rest of that church which were of
any note, did none of them come to this meet-
ing." " The reason was conceived to be," adds
Winthrop, " because they counted the Concord
ministers as /^^^/ preachers," — that is, believers
in a covenant of works (of the Law) instead
of a covenant of grace. This was the issue
upon which Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutchinson
were banished, soon after.
Indeed, the ordination of Mr. Bulkeley took
place in the very height of that fierce contro-
Concord 249
versy between John Cotton and his former sup-
porters, Wheelwright and Vane, which came
near breaking up the Httle colony ; and the Con-
cord minister was one of the synod which, the
next August, or perhaps later, specified some
eighty doctrinal opinions as erroneous or hereti-
cal,— about one error for every two white per-
sons in Concord. The covenant of the village
church, however, breathes a more liberal spirit ;
for in it we find these words, evidently from
the hand of Bulkeley :
"Whereas the Lord hath of His great goodness
brought us from under the yoke and burdening of men's
traditions, to the precious liberty of His ordinances,
which we now do enjoy, — we will, according to our
places and callings, stand for the maintenance of this
liberty, to our utmost endeavor, and not return to any
human ordinances from which we have escaped."
And the spirit of his oft-quoted sermon is also
a witness to his true piety, whatever his doc-
trinal narrowness :
" There is no people but will strive to excel in some-
thing ; what can we (in Concord) excel in, if not in holi-
ness ? If we look to number, we are the fewest ; if to
strength, we are the weakest ; if to wealth and riches, we
are the poorest of all the people of God through the
whole world. We cannot excel nor so much as equal
other people in these things ; and if we come short in
250 Concord
grace and holiness too, we are the most despicable peo-
ple under Heaven."
Let us hope that the wish of the good pastor
was granted, and that he Hved to see the fruit
of his labors. Yet there is a letter of his, writ-
ten in 1650 to John Cotton, in which Bulkeley
seems to regret the democratic liberty which
Emerson, his descendant, never ceased to ap-
prove. The Concord minister writes :
" The Lord hath a number of holy and humble ones
here amongst us, for whose sakes He doth spare, and will
spare long ; but, were it not for such a remnant, we
should see the Lord would make quick work amongst
us. Shall I tell you what I think to be the ground of
all this insolency which discovers itself in the speech of
men ? Truly, I cannot ascribe it so much to any out-
ward thing, as to the putting of too much liberty and
power into the hands of the multitude, which they are
too weak to manage ; many growing conceited, proud,
arrogant, self-sufficient. . . . Remember the former
days which you had in old Boston ; yet the number of
professors is far more here than there. But tell me,
which place was better governed ? When matters were
swayed there by your wisdom and counsel, they went on
with strength and power for good. But here, where the
heady or headless multitude have gotten the power into
their hands, there is insolency and confusion ; and I
know not how it can be avoided, unless we should make
the doors of the church narrower."
Concord 251
This was the caution and reversion of age,
— for the doubting Peter was then sixty-seven.
But Emerson, at the age of sixty, could say,
with unabated faith in Freedom :
" Call the people together !
The young men and the sires,
The digger in the harvest field,
Hireling and him that hires ;
Lo now, if these poor men
Can govern the land and sea,
And make just laws below the sun,
As planets faithful be."
The experience of the ages has shown that
the Puritans were right in making the doors
of the church wider, not narrower ; though we
still hear the complaint of aged men, or young
men born with a call to be old, that the former
times were better than ours, and the "head-
less multitude " must be deprived of a voice in
their own destiny.
When Emerson in 1835, at the two hun-
dredth anniversary of Concord, proposed to re-
quite England's gift of her printed Doomsday
Book by presenting her and the other Euro-
pean nations with our yet unpublished town re-
cords, he said : " Tell them the Union has 24
States, and Massachusetts is one ; that in Mas-
sachusetts are 300 towns, and Concord is one ;
252
Concord
that In Concord are 500 rateable polls, and
every one has an eqiLal vote!' To-day there
R. W. EMERSON (1858).
FROM A SKETCH BY ROWSE.
are 45 States ; Massachusetts has 322 towns,
besides nearly 30 cities ; and instead of 500
ratable polls, Concord has now 1200; but
each one still has an equal vote.
Concord 253
Men are carried along, in spite of them-
selves, by the doctrine or system which they
embrace ; their life principle, once adopted,
has more force than their temporary wish or
will. So Calvinism, of which Peter Bulkeley
was a fervent disciple, with its constant stress
laid on the worth of the individual man, led
inevitably to democracy, no matter how much
the innate aristocratic feelinor of the Enorlish
gentleman — the class to which Bulkeley be-
longed— might revolt thereat. It was the
same in both countries, the mother and the
daughter ; Old Enorland and New Enorland
found John Calvin leading them along towards
the Commonwealth of equal rights and abol-
ished privileges, — towards Sidney and Locke,
Franklin and Jefferson, Lincoln and Gladstone.
This, then, is the first historic lesson of Con-
cord, as of all New England,— Democracy
through Calvinism, in spite of recalcitrant
gentry and reactionary ministers. Philan-
thropy, too, that modern invention, which
may almost be said to have come in with the
eighteenth century, and to have had Franklin
for its first missionary, began to show itself in
our meadowy town, whose very name pre-
figured it. The epitaph of Rev. John Whit-
254 Concord
ing, parish minister here for twenty-six years
(dying in 1752), records that he was "a gen-
tleman of singular hospitality and generosity,
who never detracted from the character of any
man, and was a tC7iwe7^sal lover of niaiikind!'
This would have been no compliment in Bulke-
ley's time, when the saints were entitled to be
loved, and sinners were excluded ; but the
eighteenth century set up a higher standard,
which has been maintained till now, when the
votaries of evolution and the survival of the
fittest are teaching a return to the old doctrine,
— only reversing it ; for now it is the sinners
whom we are expected to admire, and to hate
the saints.
The second historic lesson of Concord is
like unto the first, — but more startling and
brilliant. It was the lesson of Revolution,
which has been thoroughly learned since 1775.
The embattled farmers who, at yonder bridge,
" Fired the shot heard round the world,"
were conservative revolutionists, and as far
from anarchy as from atheism. In the instruc-
tions given by this town to its representative
in 1774, — or rather, in a report made in towm-
meeting, January 20th of that year, in view of
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256 Concord
the Boston Tea-Party, — it was declared as the
voice of the town :
" That we will, in conjunction with our brethren in
America, risk our fortunes, and even our lives, in de-
fence of his Majesty King George the Third, his per-
son, crown, and dignity ; and will also, with the same
resolution, as his freeborn subjects in this country, to
the utmost of our power and ability, defend all our
charter-rights, that they may be transmitted inviolate to
the latest posterity."
Three months after this, when the Boston
Port Bill was in agitation, and two months
later, when it had passed Parliament, the
farmers of Concord took a bolder tone, —
" conscious," as they said in town-meeting,
" of no alternative between the horrors of
slavery, and the carnage and desolation of a
civil war," except non-importation of British
goods, to which the good citizens bound them-
selves. Still later, in a county convention
which met in Concord, August 31, 1774, it
was resolved :
" That we by no means intend to withdraw our alle-
giance from our gracious Sovereign ; that when our an-
cestors emigrated from Great Britain, charters and
solemn stipulations expressed the conditions, and what
particular rights they yielded ; what each party had to
Concord 257
do and perform, and what each of the contracting parties
were equally bound by. Therefore a debtor may as
justly refuse to pay his debts, because it is inexpedient
for him, as the Parliament deprive us of our charter
privileges, because it is inexpedient to a corrupt admin-
istration for us to enjoy them. . . . And a sense of
our duty as men, as freemen, as Christian freemen,
united in the firmest bonds, obliges us to resolve that
every civil officer in this Province, now in commission,
and acting in conformity to the late act of Parliament,
is not an officer agreeable to our charter — therefore un-
constitutional^ and ought to be opposed. . . . As we are
resolved never to submit one iota to the Act, we will
not submit to courts thus constituted, and acting
in conformity to said Act. ... In consequence of
this resolve, all business at the Inferior Court of Com-
mon Pleas, and Court of General Sessions of the Peace,
next to be holden in Concord, must ceased
This was peaceful revolution, proceeding,
not upon any vague notion of a general " Social
Contract," but on formal violations of a written
contract, the Colony Charter, as explicitly
stated. I ask attention to this, because it has
been a favorite fancy of some modern writers,
who praise the Puritans and disparage Jeffer-
son and Franklin, that our Revolutionary
fathers had gained through those two latitu-
dinarians a glimpse of the levelling French
doctrines, and gave themselves up to be guided
258 Concord
by Rousseau and Voltaire, in dereliction of
their Puritan ancestry. Precisely the opposite
is true ; the French author whom Jefferson
may have had in mind, when he was not think-
ing of Pym and Hampden, Sergeant Maynard,
Locke, and Algernon Sidney, — I mean Montes-
quieu,— having derived his theories more from
the English constitutionalists than they from
him. Probably not one of the men of Middle-
sex, who thus led the way to revolution in
this law-abiding town of Concord (the seat
of county justice), ever heard of Rousseau ; but
they were lawyers, deacons, country justices
and farmers, accustomed to sit on juries ; and
they understood the law of contract and the
obligations of fair trade as well as any English
lord could tell them.
They voted further, on this eventful sum-
mer day, that '' a Provincial Congress is ab-
solutely necessary, in our present unhappy
situation," — and they named October, and
Concord, as a suitable time and place for its
assembling. This first Provincial Congress
did meet, October 7th, at Salem, but adjourned
to Concord that day ; it first met here, October
1 1, I 774, and, finding the county court-house too
small for its three hundred members and clerks,
Concord 259
and the people who gathered to support them,
it moved over to the parish meeting-house
(built in 1 71 2), and remained in session there
five days, when it removed to Cambridge, for
the sake of being nearer Boston, then held as
a garrison by British troops. The second Pro-
vincial Congress, of 1775, ^.Iso met in Con-
cord for four weeks of March and April ; and
it had only been adjourned four days when
the British grenadiers made their midnight
march from Boston to Lexington, hoping to
catch there the arch-rebels Hancock and Sam
Adams, who had orone to Lexington as mem-
bers of the Committee of Public Safety (of
which Dr. Warren was chairman), then the
executive of Massachusetts under the new
revolutionary government. The Provincial
Congress, the legislature of the Province, met
again for the last time in Concord, April 22,
1775, to consider the results of the eventful
19th. It finally dissolved May 31st, after hear-
ing a sermon from Dr. Langdon, the Presi-
dent of Harvard College ; and Concord ceased
forever to be the legislative capital of Mas-
sachusetts. It became temporarily, however,
the seat of Dr. Langdon's College, which in
October, 1775, began its recitations in the
26o Concord
court-house and meeting-house, and so con-
tinued till June, 1776.
Even Harvard College was at that time
revolutionary ; it gave up its few buildings in
Cambridge to the army of Washington, and
its president, a cousin of the wealthy New
Hampshire patriot, John Langdon, made the
prayer for Bunker Hill battle, as the troops
marched out of Cambridge to give a feeble
support to Prescott and his Middlesex farmers,
entrenched on the hill. Washington had not
yet reached Cambridge, to take command ;
had his strategic eye taken in the situation
that morning, the result at Bunker Hill would
have been different.
Lexington, the town which gave its name to
the battle of April, 1775, more decidedly than
Concord, — though both names occur from the
first, — was an offshoot from the older towns
of Cambridge, Watertown and Woburn, rather
than an original church seat, and was not
established as a town until 1712. A range
of hills separates it from the valley of the
Musketaquit, and Paul Revere, in his night
ride of April i8th, celebrated by Longfellow,
could not cross those hills, but left his mes-
sage of war to be borne on to Concord vil-
Concord 261
lage by young Prescott, distantly related to
Prescott of Bunker Hill. But Lexington,
though little more than half so populous as
Concord at that time, had a warlike people,
many of them descended from the fighting
Monros of Scotland, captured by Cromwell,
and exiled for their loyalty to the Stuarts. In
Lexington they again turned out against the
house of Hanover, and they were commanded
that April morning by the grandfather of Lex-
ington's most famous son, Theodore Parker.
Captain John Parker, though ill on the 19th
of April, did his soldier's duty from two in the
morning till midnight ; and some of his men
returned the British fire in early morning,
against hopeless odds. Their turn came in the
afternoon, when the retreating British were
only saved from total defeat by the cannon of
Lord Percy. Those first heroes of the Revo-
lution, John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who
had been at the Provincial Congress in Con-
cord, at Lexington were in the early morning
in the parsonage of Rev. Mr. Clark, a kins-
man of Hancock, and narrowly escaped cap-
ture by the British soldiers, who had special
orders to seize them.
John Pierpont, a poet whose Pegasus balked
262 Concord
now and then, In his verses at Acton, April 19,
185 1, anticipated Longfellow by this Words-
worthlan version of Revere's ride to Lexing-
ton :
" The foremost, Paul Revere,
At Warren's bidding has the gauntlet run
Unscathed, and, dashing into Lexington,
While midnight wraps him in her mantle dark,
Halts at the house of Reverend Mister Clark."
As compared with Concord, though both
were rural towns, Lexington was then, and
long remained, more rustic than Its westward
neighbor ; with less trade, less culture and
fewer of the tendencies toward literature which
early showed themselves In the parish of the
Bulkeleys and Emersons. When Theodore
Parker, in his career of scholarship and re-
form, began to look outward from his father's
Lexington farm, It was towards Concord, as
well as towards Boston, that he turned his
eyes ; he taught a district school In Concord,
and preached In Its pulpit as a candidate to
stand beside Dr. Ripley, the pastor of the Old
Manse. In after years he thus described the
event which gave Lexington Its chief title to
fame, before Parker's own birth there :
fit
IILii'l;::
264 Concord
" The war of Revolution began at Lexington, to end at
Yorktown. Its first battle was on the Nineteenth of
April. Hancock and Adams lodged at Lexington with
the minister. In the raw morning, a little after daybreak,
a tall man, with a large forehead under a three-cornered
hat, drew up his company of 70 men on the Green, —
farmers and mechanics like himself ; only one is left now
(1851), the boy who played the men to the spot. (It
was Jonathan Harrington the fifer.) They wheeled into
line to \vait for the Regulars. The captain ordered
every man to load his piece with powder and ball.
' Don't fire,' were his words, ' unless fired upon ; but if
they want a war, let it begin here.' The Regulars came
on. Some Americans offered to run away from their
post. Captain Parker said, ' I will order the first man
shot dead that leaves his place.' The English commander
cried out, ' Disperse, you rebels ! lay down your arms
and disperse ! ' Not a man stirred. ' Disperse, you
damned rebels ! ' shouted he again. Not a man stirred.
He ordered the vanguard to fire ; they did so, but over
the heads of our fathers. Then the whole main body
levelled their pieces, and there was need of ten new
graves in Lexington. A few Americans returned the
shot. British blood stained the early grass which waved
in the wind. ' Disperse and take care of yourselves ! '
was the captain's last command. There lay the dead,
and there stood the soldiers ; there was a battle-field
between England and America — never to be forgot,
never to be covered over. The ' Mother-country ' of the
morning was the ' enemy ' at sunrise. ' Oh, what a glor-
ious morning is this ! ' said Samuel Adams,"
Seven men had been killed on the spot,
Concord 265
nine wounded, — a quarter-part of all who had
stood in arms on the Green, under the eyes of
Hancock and Adams.
One of the Lexington Munroes, Ensign
Robert, was the first man killed by Pitcairn's
volley ; he was sixty-four years old, and had
been color-bearer in the capture of Louisburg
by assault in 1745. Two of his sons and two
sons-in-law were in his company on Lexington
Green, and eleven of the Munroe clan were in
arms that day. Captain Parker did not long
survive the battle, dying the next September ;
but when the Civil War came on, his grand-
son Theodore had bequeathed to Massachu-
setts, and Governer Andrew had placed in her
Senate Chamber, beside the trophies sent by
Stark from Bennington,
" two fire-arms, formerly the property of my honored
grandfather, — to wit, the large musket or King's arm,
which was by him captured from the British in the bat-
tle of Lexington, and which is the first fire-arm taken
from the enemy in the war for Independence ; and also
the smaller musket used by him in that battle."
Theodore Parker had died in May, i860.
Pitcairn and his redcoats, delayed only half
an hour by this bloody overture to Washing-
ton's grand career, marched on towards Con-
266
Concord
cord, little knowing what would meet them
there. As they climbed the hills in Lexingr-
ton and Lincoln, they could surmise, however,
that the country was rising, for the church-
bells were ringing an alarm of fire. Pierpont,
MUSKETS OF CAPTAIN JOHN PARKER.
at Acton, overlookino- the neiofhborinor towns
named by hirh, gave the geography of this
rising in spirited couplets :
" Now Concord's bell, resounding many a mile,
Is heard by Lincoln, Lincoln's by Carlisle,
Carlisle's by Chelmsford, — and from Chelmsford's swell
Peals the loud clangor of th' alarum bell.
Till it o'er Bedford, Acton, Westford spreads,
Startling the morning dreamers from their beds."
Concord 267
These are the small towns lying along the
Concord and Merrimac rivers, and their tribu-
taries, which sent forth the minute-men to fight
at Concord Bridsfe.
Prescott had done his warnincr work well :
and as Emerson said in 1835 •
" In these peaceful fields, for the first time since a hun-
dred years (King Philip's War), the drum and alarm-gun
were heard, and the farmers snatched down their rusty-
firelocks from the kitchen walls, to make good the reso-
lute words of their town debates. These poor farmers
acted from the simplest instincts ; they did not know it
was a deed of fame they were doing."
It was Emerson's grandfather, the town
minister, who met them on Concord Green,
before his church, and who entered that night
in his almanac the events he had witnessed, as
soon to be quoted.
By the 17th of June, Massachusetts had an
army ; but when the Concord farmers made
their appeal to arms, two months earlier, it was
the spontaneous uprising of an armed people
to maintain their own votes and defend their
threatened homes. This it is, and not their
military achievement, striking as that was,
which gives their town a place in martial his-
tory. The unregenerate imagination of man-
268 Concord
kind still delights, after so many centuries of
barbarous warfare, in the recital of deeds of
battle and the conquering march of great sol-
diers ; Alexander and Caesar — even Hannibal
and Bonaparte — continue to receive admira-
tion for their victories ; but the purer fame
of Washington rests on the accomplishment of
that for which the men of Middlesex rushed
to arms on the 19th of April, 1775. As Emer-
son, our Washinorton in the field of literature,
said, ''If ever men in arms had a spotless
cause, they had."
*' Behold our river bank,
Whither the angry farmers came
In sloven dress and broken rank, —
Nor thought of fame :
Their deed of blood
All mankind praise ;
Even the serene Reason says
' It was well done.' "
War had been the normal state of Europe ;
and from the hour when Bulkeley and Willard
made here their honest bargain with the red
landlords of these game preserves, cornfields,
and fishing-places, down to the Franco-German
campaigns of 1870, — 235 years, — there had
been scarcely a period of twenty peaceful
THE MINUTE-MAN.
FRENCH'S FIRST STATUE,
269
270 Concord
years In that hemisphere. With us it was
different ; but for the strife between France
and England, in which the colonies were
more or less entangled, Massachusetts had
seen no warfare in her borders for nearly
a century, when the insolence of the mother-
country forced independence upon us against
our will. Yet the fight at the North Bridge
was no impromptu affair, as the utterances of
our Concord yeomen show. They had de-
clared they would fight for King George or
against him, as His Majesty might elect; and
when he had made his foolish choice they did
not hesitate, — much as they had reason to
dread the ordeal by combat. And here again
came in the spirit of Calvinism, rallying to the
Old Testament, rather than to the New with
its gospel of peace and love, — its amnzstze gen-
erate, as poor Trilby says. The grandfather
of Emerson (who was also the great-great-
great-grandson of Peter Bulkeley) was parish
minister of Concord ; he had been chaplain to
the Provincial Congress, and he died in Ver-
mont, as chaplain in the Revolutionary army
of General Gates. Five weeks before the inva-
sion of his parish by the redcoats, he had
preached to the militia companies gathered in
Concord 271
this town for review, a famous sermon from
the text, " And behold, God Himself is with us
for our Captain, and His priests with sounding
trumpets to cry alarm against you." He was as
good as his word, for he was one of the first to
take his musket and join the minute-men in the
early morning of the 19th of April ; and return-
ing to the Old Manse (then the new manse, for
it was built for him and his bride a few years
earlier) to protect his family, he saw the brief
fight at the bridge from his study window, and
wrote of the day's doings this brief chronicle
of an eye-witness. His grandson found it in a
page or two of his family almanac, where, at
the end of April, he wrote, " This month re-
markable for the greatest events of the present
age."
" This morning, between i and 2 o'clock, we were
alarmed by the ringing of the bell, and upon examination
found that the troops, to the number of 800, had stole
their march from Boston, in boats and barges, from the
bottom of the Common over to a point in Cambridge,
near to Inman's Farm, and were at Lexington Meeting-
house, half an hour before sunrise, where they fired upon
a body of our men, and (as we afterward heard) had killed
several. This intelligence was brought us first by Dr.
Samuel Prescott, who narrowly escaped the guard that
were sent before on horses, purposely to prevent all posts
2/2 Concord
and messengers from giving us timely information. He,
by the help of a very fleet horse, crossing several walls
and fences, arrived at Concord at the time above men-
tioned ; when several posts were immediately despatched,
that returning confirmed the account of the regulars' ar-
rival at Lexington, and that they were on their way to
Concord. Upon this, a number of our minute-men be-
longing to this town, and Acton, and Lincoln, with sev-
eral others that were in readiness, marched out to meet
them ; while the alarm company were preparing to receive
them in the town. Capt. Minot, who commanded them,
thought it proper to take possession of the hill above
the Meeting-house, as the most advantageous situation.
No sooner had our men gained it, than we were met by
the companies that were sent out to meet the troops,
who informed us that they were just upon us, and that
we must retreat, as their number was more than treble
ours. We then retreated from the hill near the Liberty
Pole, and took a new post back of the town upon an em-
inence, where we formed into two battalions, and waited
the arrival of the enemy.
*' Scarcely had we formed, before we saw the British
troops at the distance of a quarter of a mile, glittering in
arms, advancing towards us with the greatest celerity.
Some were for making a stand, notwithstanding the su-
periority of their number ; but others, more prudent,
thought best to retreat till our strength should be equal
to the enemy's, by recruits from the neighboring towns
that were continually coming in to our assistance. Ac-
cordingly w^e retreated over the bridge ; when the troops
came into the town, set fire to several carriages for the
artillery, destroyed 60 bbls. flour, rifled several houses^
Concord 273
took possession of the Town-house, destroyed 500 lb. of
balls, set a guard of 100 men at the North Bridge, and
sent a party to the house of Col. Barrett, where they were
in expectation of finding a quantity of warlike stores.
But these were happily secured just before their arrival,
by transportation into the woods and other by-places.
" In the meantime the guard set by the enemy to secure
the pass at the North Bridge were alarmed by the ap-
proach of our people ; who had retreated as before men-
tioned, and were now advancing, with special orders not
to fire upon the troops unless fired upon. These orders
were so punctually observed that we received the fire of
the enemy in three several and separate discharges of their
pieces, before it was returned by our commanding offi-
cer ; the firing then became general for several minutes ;
in which skirmish two were killed on each side, and sev-
eral of the enemy wounded. (It may here be observed
by the way, that we were the more cautious to prevent
beginning a rupture with the King's troops, as we were
then uncertain what had happened at Lexington, and
knew not that they had begun the quarrel there by first
firing upon our people, and killing eight men upon the
spot.) The three companies of troops soon quitted their
post at the bridge, and retreated in the greatest disorder
and confusion to the main body, who were soon upon their
march to meet them.
" For half an hour the enemy, by their marches and
countermarches, discovered great fickleness and incon-
stancy of mind, — sometimes advancing, sometimes return-
ing to their former posts ; till at length they quitted the
town and retreated by the way they came. In the mean-
time, a party of our men (150), took the back way through
2 74
Concord
the Great Fields into the East Quarter, and had placed
themselves to advantage, lying in ambush behind walls,
fences and buildings, ready to fire upon the enemy on
their retreat."
This account differs slightly from others, and
omits many particulars ; it is the most valuable
HAWTHORNE'S OLD MANSE.
sincrle version of the memorable skirmish at the
Bridge, — in itself trifling, but momentous in its
results. Parson Emerson was himself one of
those who wished to meet the troops near his
Concord 275
own meeting-house, but was wisely overruled.
He says that two British soldiers were killed
at the Bridge — Shattuck, the town historian,
says three ; the difference is accounted for by a
dismal tale which Hawthorne was perhaps the
first to print. He derived it, he says, from
Lowell, the poet, who had picked it up, no
doubt, in his short residence at Concord in the
spring of 1838, when "rusticated" here from
Harvard College. It may be read in the
Mosses from an Old Manse, wherein is found
one of the best pictures of our peaceful scenery,
— so far removed from thought of bloodshed.
" A youth," says Hawthorne, " in the service of the
clergyman [Parson Emerson], happened to be chopping
wood, that April morning, at the back door of the
Manse ; and when the noise of battle rang from side to
side of the Bridge, he left his task and hurried to the
battle-field, with the axe still in his hand. The British had
by this time retreated, the Americans were in pursuit ;
and the late scene of strife was thus deserted by both
parties. Two soldiers lay on the ground — one was a
corpse — but, as the young New Englander drew nigh,
the other Briton raised himself painfully upon his hands
and knees, and gave a ghastly stare in his face. The
boy — it must have been a nervous impulse, without pur-
pose— uplifted his axe, and dealt the wounded soldier
a fierce and fatal blow upon the head."
276 Concord
To a certain extent, Bancroft, In his account
of the fight, confirms this tale, saying :
" The Americans acted from impulse, and stood aston-
ished at what they had done. They made no (immedi-
ate) pursuit, and did no further harm, — except that one
wounded soldier, rising as if to escape, was struck on the
head by a young man with a hatchet. The party at Col.
Barrett's might have been cut off, but was not molested."
It is traditional that when this party, which
had been sent to destroy the military stores at
Colonel James Barrett's, two miles to the west-
ward, came back to the Bridge, alarmed by the
firing, and saw their countrymen lying dead
there, one of them with his head laid open,
they were struck with fear and ran on to the
main body in the village, telling of what they
had seen. And it was this single incident, very
likely, which led the English officers, and Lord
Percy himself, to report " that the rebels
scalped and cut off the ears of some of the
wounded who fell into their hands." Bancroft
indignantly denies this, saying, " The false-
hood brings dishonor on its voucher ; the peo-
ple whom Percy reviled were among the mildest
and most compassionate of their race," — which
is true.
It is no wonder that the British troops on
Concord
'^n
their flight back to Boston that day, pursued
and ambuscaded by hundreds and thousands of
the aroused mihtia of Middlesex and Essex
counties, should themselves have committed
some barbarities, — for their defeat and humllla-
REVOLUTIONARY INN.
tlon were great. They lost In course of the
day 273 men and officers, — more than had fal-
len on that glorious day-slxteen years before,
when Wolfe died In the arms of victory at
Quebec. The loss of the yeomanry was only
ninety-one — a third of the British loss, — while
all the trophies and circumstances of victory
were on the American side. From that day,
the Revolution was begun, — to end only with
278 Concord
the creation of a new republic. Concord, as
President Dwight said, '' prefaced the history
of a nation, the beginning of an empire."
'* Man," he added, " from the events that have
occurred here, will in some respects assume a
new character ; and experience a new destiny."
Hence the interest with which the world, from
that day forward, began to look on this little
town.
Yet the prominence of Concord in the re-
volutionary century that followed her skirmish
at the Bridge and along the Lexington road
was in part accidental ; for Boston and Vir-
ginia were the X.\\o foci of the American revolt,
and Concord became famous chiefly because
it was near Boston. It was otherwise with
the literary revolution that began sixty years
later, with Emerson for its Washington, — and
with results that seem as permanent, and in
some sort as important, as those which Wash-
ington secured to his countrymen. In 1835,
when Emerson's literary career may be said to
have fairly begun, America had maintained
her political independence, but had lost much
of her political principle : she was powerful
without moral progress, and without either a
profound philosophy or an original literature.
Concord 279
The beginnings of poetry and art were visible,
but they were more in promise than in per-
formance. Our poHtical writings, though dis-
paraged by Jeremy Bentham, were coming to
be recognized as among the foremost ; but we
had Httle else that Europe cared to read, — a
few sketches by Irving, a dozen novels by
Cooper, two or three sermons and as many
essays by Channing.
Into the stagnation of this shallow pool of
American letters, Emerson, in 1836, cast the
smooth stone of his philosophical first book,
— Natiu^e. It made little immediate stir ;
the denizens of the pool paid small heed to
it, and few of them guessed what it meant.
It was written in Concord, and chiefly at
the Old Manse, where Emerson dwelt with
his mother and kindred before his second
marriage in 1835, and where Hawthorne after-
ward made the house and himself widely
known. The fixing of his own residence
in this town by Emerson was due in part
to ancestry, and still more to a perception of
the fitness of the remon for the abode of a
poet and sage. The same perception, by
Hawthorne, Alcott, Ellery Channing and oth-
ers,— together with the important fact that it
28o
Concord
was Emerson's chosen retreat, — brought those
Hterary men here. Thoreaii, the most original
and pecuHar genius of the whole group, was
born here, and never had much inclination to
leave Concord, al-
though in youth he
talked of adventur-
ing to the wild West,
— Kentucky and Illi-
nois at that time, —
whither his friend,
Ellery Channing,
afterward did in fact
ofo. Around Emer-
<_>
son, this circle, with
many who only lived
here temporarily
HENRY THOREAu. (1857.) ^^^^^ Margaret Fuller
and George William Curtis), or not at all, gath-
ered as friends and brothers, or else as disci-
ples,— and thus the name of Concord became
associated, and justly, with a special and re-
markable school of thought and literature.
Thousands now visit the graves of these worth-
ies, to which, and to their haunts in life — their
walks and seats and sylvan places of resort, — an
increasing host of pilgrims come year by year.
Concord 281
The Arabs have a proverb, — " Though a
hundred deserts separate the heart of the
Faithful from the Kaaba of Mecca, yet there
opens a window from its sanctuary into thy
soul." For those who have the true inward
illumination, therefore, pilgrimage is not need-
ful ; yet to all it is agreeable, and it has been the
practice of mankind for ages, and will be, so
long as we remain ourselves but pilgrims and
wayfarers on this earth. Nasar, the son of
Khosrou, who wrote in the time of Haroun
Al-Rashid, and called his book The Traveller s
Wallet, was not the first, nor Bunyan, with
his Pilgrims Progress, the last, to look on life
as a journey ; but let us hear what that Persian
says of it :
" Man, endowed with intellect, must search into the
origin of his existence, — whence he came, and whither
he shall go, — reflecting that in this world he is making a
toilsome journey, without stop or stay, — not even for the
twinkling of an eye, — until he has traversed the measure
of that line which marks the time allotted for his exist-
ence. For that we are but pilgrims here on earth, God
has mysteriously declared."
The attraction of Emerson and the rest of
the Concord authors, whose homes or tombs
so many pilgrims visit, comes chiefly from the
recognition bythem of this search by mankind
282 Concord
after the Infinite, — their insight into the nature
and worth of this pilgrimage of Hfe which all
are making. Man loves and seeks amusement
to beguile his toilsome or monotonous journey,
— and hence the pleasure so many take in the
lighter and more graceful or laughable forms
of literature. But sooner or later, and in many
persons at all times, what Tennyson calls
*' the riddle of the painful earth " is before us
all for consideration, if not for solution. We see
that the universe is moral, — even if we cannot
read the moral aright, — and we seek those who
can give us '' the word of the enigma," as the
French say. Emerson gave it in his manner,
Hawthorne in his, Thoreau in still another way ;
and these three Concord authors not only had
much vogue in their lifetime, but are yet more
widely read since their death. Others, like
Ellery Channing, found little audience in youth,
and time has not yet essentially enlarged the
circle of their readers. With the same moral
view of life which his more successful friends
took, Channing, the poet (who must always be
distinguished from Dr. Channing, the divine,
his uncle), had in his style something of that
distraction which Montaigne declares is needful
to poets.
284 Concord
"The precepts of the masters," says this eccentric
Gascon, " and still more their example, tell us that we
must have a little insanity, if we would avoid even more
stupidity. A thousand poets drawl and languish in
prose ; but the best ancient prose (and 'tis the same
with verse) glows throughout with the vigor and daring
of poesy, and takes on an air of inspiration. The poet,
says Plato " (and here Montaigne gives his own quaint
form to the familiar passage in Plato's Laws), " sitting on
the Muses' tripod, pours out like mad all that comes into
his mouth, as if it were the spout of a fountain ; without
digesting or weighing it. So things escape him of vari-
ous colors, of opposite natures, and with intermittent
flow. Plato himself is wholly poetic ; the old theology,
say the scholars, is all poetry ; and the First Philosophy
is the original language of the gods."
To this wild rule more than one of the Con-
cord philosophers conforms ; there is a percept-
ible lack of method, even when their meaning
is fairly clear. Hawthorne incurs less of this
censure than the rest ; but he confessed that
he did not always comprehend his own allegor-
ies, nor know exactly the moral he would in-
sinuate. Emerson goes more directly to his
mark; a Frenchman (Chantavoine) has said
of him, '' In his Essays he is first of all a philo-
sophic moralist, never quite forgetting that he
was once a preacher." But, in contrasting him
with French writers, Chantavoine admits that
Concord 285
Emerson has something which the Hght and
brilHant Parisian essayists lack :
" We are afraid, I suppose, of losing touch with things,
if we rise much above them ; we do not soar high, con-
tent to skim the surface ; we distrust those generalities,
however eloquent or edifying, which might lead us too
far aside. Yet, should we borrow something of Emer-
son's manner, French criticism, both historical and liter-
ary, would gain by it ; there might possibly be less ease,
less lightness of touch, less glancing wit in our essays ;
but in return there would be more earnestness and
depth in our judgments on men and affairs."
Emerson was a reader and admirer of French
prose ; he did not find much poetry in French
verse. The glancing- of his wit was as quick
and searching as that of Paris ; but he belongs
more to the literature of the world than most of
the French prose authors since Montaigne and
Pascal. In American literature he is unique ;
so, in his very different way, is Thoreau ; so is
Hawthorne ; and no American, not even one
of these three, can be compared with any of
them on terms of similarity. There is that
in their best writing which puts us upon our
best thinking, and leads us along the upper
levels of life. Particularly is this true of
Emerson ; Virtue, radiant, serene and sover-
286 Concord
eign, sways the realm where Emerson abides,
and to which he welcomes his readers, who
become his friends. It was said of Socrates,
in a dubious compliment , that he " brought
philosophy down from heaven to earth " ; it
might as truly be said of Emerson that he
raises earth to the level of divine philosophy.
His method in this is purely poetic ; therefore,
while in verse he lacks w^hat is usually called
creative power, he brings with him the atmos-
phere of poesymore constantly than anymodern
poet ; nor, since Milton, Spenser, and Shake-
speare, has any English poet excelled him in this.
To this quality, as well as to his courage of
opinion and his penetrating insight, do we owe
it that he first proclaimed our intellectual inde-
pendence of the mother-country, as Franklin,
Washington and Jefferson declared our politi-
cal independence. There is, indeed, a certain
resemblance between Washington and Emer-
son which might escape the notice of those
who look chiefly at the totally different work
each had to do, and the diversity of life and
opinion which contrasted Virginia and New
England so sharply.
It must be confessed that, in 1732, Con-
cord was hardly so constituted as naturally
s
%■
288 Concord
to give birth to Washingtons ; indeed, Vir-
ginia produced but this one, amid all her great
men. The extreme narrowness of Puritan
opinion, even when modified by Baptists and
Quakers, was not favorable to the rise of men
like the great Virginians of the eighteenth
century. A milder intellectual climate, a tem-
per less given to disputes about faith and
works, election and reprobation, was needful
to produce characters so broad, so moderate,
and yet so firm, as Washington's. New Eng-
land did give birth to Franklin, in the very
midst of Mathers and Sewalls ; but he had to
slip away to Philadelphia, in order to grow
into his full stature as philanthropist and phil-
osopher. The intolerance of New England
deprived us, for more than a century, of the
opportunity to produce genius and the gentler
forms of heroism. We had the Adamses to set
the Revolution on foot, the soldiers of New
Hampshire and rural New England to fight
its battles ; but its noblest leader must come
to us from the Potomac, and take us back
there, when the long fight was won, to estab-
lish our government beside its waters, in sight
of his own broad domain. It was not till this
century, now declining, that Concord could
Concord 289
show an intellectual Washington ; and Emer-
son must be born in Boston, less provincial
than our meadowy village, our " rural Venice,"
as Thoreau called it in times of river-freshet.
Naturally, when men appear on earth of
Washington's or of Emerson's stamp, there
has been a long preparation for their advent.
They are not found among Hottentots or
corn-crackers, 'longshoremen or cowboys ; but
in some longf-tilled ofarden of the human
species, where certain qualities have been
inbred by descent and betterment for many
generations. Poverty may be their birthright,
as in the case of that greatest of Washington's
successors, Abraham Lincoln, but the experi-
ences that are transmuted by descent into
greatness are quite as often those of poverty
as of wealth. Self-reliance, veracity, courage,
and the gift of command are essentials in the
founders and preservers of nations ; these are
fostered in all new colonies, and therefore
were common qualities in New England, as
in Kentucky and Virginia, in their early years.
But among the planters of Virginia there grew
up a form of society, now forever extinct there,
in which these high qualities, together with
courtesy and breadth of view, were cultivated
290 Concord
and flourished to ,an extent which the Cal-
vinistic rigors and enforced economies of New
o
England never knew. That petty system of
inquiring into creeds and points of doctrine
which our ancestors brought with them from
the Puritan parishes of England, and which
was increased here by infusions from Scotland,
and the tyranny of ecclesiastical control in
Massachusetts and Connecticut, was not wholly
unknown in Virginia ; but its ill effects were
dissipated by the customs of large landholding,
outdoor sports, and certain traditions of honor
and breeding which the best of the Virorinians
brought with them from England, and kept
up by their habit of frequent intercourse with
the mother-country.
It was no sin in Virginia to dance and
play the fiddle ; the Anglican Church, while
prescribing a formal creed, did not concern
itself to inquire every Sunday, or every
Thursday, into all the dogmatic abstractions
of the Westminster Assembly's Catechism,
longer or shorter ; men's minds were left
to take the course most natural to them.
But in New England, along with much acute
speculation (the best type of which is Jona-
than Edwards), there went a morbid conscien-
Concord 291
tiousness, turning its eyes upon Inward and
even petty matters, and leading to number-
less quarrels about Original Sin, Half-way
Covenants, Justification by Faith, etc. Con-
cord was less Infested by this carping, persecut-
ing, quarrelsome spirit than most of New
England ; yet the church records, and the col-
lections of old Dr. Ripley, show there was
much of It. Emerson declares, and justly,
that good sense has marked our town annals :
*' I find no ridiculous laws, no eaves-dropping
legislators, no hanging of witches, no ghosts,
no whipping of Quakers, no unnatural crimes."
But the spirit which led to these mischiefs In
other regions of Massachusetts and Connecti-
cut was all about us ; and It narrowed the
minds and the opportunities of Concord before
the Revolution. It was chiefly In New Hamp-
shire, Maine and Vermont, where ecclesiastical
domination was less rigid, that mental freedom
manifested Itself. In the other colonies of
the North, wealth and culture were apt to be
on the side of England, when our troubles
began ; In Virginia and the Carollnas, and to
some extent In New Hampshire and Maine,
wealth took the colonial side.
We may call the Imaginative force and
292
Concord
breadth of the Concord authors " Shake-
spearian " for lack of a better word ; but there
was a man of singular mental penetration
sometimes visiting here, — Jones Very, of
Salem, — who once made a wider generaliza-
tion— whether wisely or not. When Very
was asked to discriminate betwixt Wisdom
and Genius, he said, " Wisdom is of God ;
Genius is the decay of Wisdom " ; adding in
explanation, '' To the pre-existent Shake-
speare, wisdom
was offered ; he
did not accept
it, and so he
died away into
genius." We had
a superior sage
here (Bronson
A 1 c o 1 1), who
had little of the
Shakespearian
genius, but much
of that mystic
wisdom w h i c h
Very thought
older and nobler than genius. Religion was
his native air, — the religion of identity, not
A. BRONSON ALCOTT. (1875.)
Concord 293
of variety ; he could not be polytheistic,
as many Christians are, even while fancying
themselves the most orthodox worshippers of
the One God. He had that intense applica-
tion of the soul to one side of this sphere of
life, which led him to neglect the exercise
of intellectual powers that were amply his.
His gift it was, not to expand our life into
multiplicity, — which was the tendency of Emer-
son, as of Goethe and Shakespeare, — but to
concentrate multiplicity in unity, seeking ever
the ONE source whence flow these myriad mani-
festations. His friends used to call him, in
sport, the " Vortical philosopher," because his
speculations all moved vortically toward a
centre, or were occupied with repeating one
truth in many forms. He was a votary of the
higher Reason ; not without certain foibles
of the saint ; but belonging unmistakably to
the saintly order. Of course he was the mock
of the market-place, as all but the belligerent
saints are ; but he was a profound, vivifying
influence in the lives of the few who recog-
nized his inward light.
From Alcott, in his old age, — he was in his
eightieth year when the experiment began, —
came the impulse to that later manifestation
294 Concord
of the same spirit which had led Emerson
and his youthful friends to the heights and
depths of Transcendentalism. I speak of the
Concord School of Philosophy, which, in the
last years of Emerson and Alcott, and with
the co-operation of disciples of other philo-
sophic opinion, gave to the town a celebrity
in some degree commensurate with its earlier
reputation. It began in the library of Alcott's
Orchard House, where his genial daughter,
Louisa, had written several of her charming
books ; it was continued in a chapel, built for
the purpose, under the lee of Alcott's pine-
clad hill, and amid his orchard and vineyard.
It brought to reside in Concord that first of
American philosophers, Dr. W. T. Harris ;
and it gathered hundreds of eager or curious
hearers to attend the lectures and debates on
grave subjects which a learned body of teach-
ers gave forth. It continued in existence from
the summer of 1879 ^^ ^^^.t of 1888, when
its lessons were fitly closed with a memorial
service for Bronson Alcott, its founder, who
had died in March, 1888. As* was said by the
Boston wit of the fight on the 19th of April, —
" The Battle of Lexington ; Concord furnished
the ground, and Acton the men," — so it might
-^ . 3o^ . v>A- ^-^^..
295
296 Concord
be said of this summer university, that Con-
cord provided chiefly the place in which St.
Louis and IlHnois, New York and Boston,
Harvard and Yale, held converse on high
topics. Yet Concord gave the school hospi-
tality, and several of its famous authors took
part in the exercises, — sometimes posthum-
ously, by the reading of their manuscripts, as
in the case of Thoreau.
Along with the events and the literature
that have given our town a name throughout
the world, there has flowed quietly the stream
of civil society, local self-government and
domestic life ; broadened at critical times by
manifestations of political energy, in which
families like those of Hoar, Heywood, Bar-
rett, Whiting, Robinson, Gourgas, etc., have
distinguished themselves. Benefactors like
Munroe, who built the Public Library, Dr.
Ripley, who for half a century filled the
pulpit and took pastoral care, and John Tile-
ston, who brought the public schools to their
present useful form ; soldiers of the Civil
War, like Colonel Prescott and Lieutenant
Ripley, and hundreds of unnamed soldiers in
the battle of life, — women no less than men, —
have given their innumerable touch of vigor
Concord
297
and grace to the ever-building structure of
Concord life. Painters of our own have added
color, and sculptors like French, Elwell and
Ricketson have adorned the town with art.
And so we pass on into the new century, with
no conscious loss of vital power, — yet with a
keen regret for the great men who have gone
from amoncr us.
PLYMOUTH
THE PILGRIM TOWN
By ELLEN WATSON
" Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the
wrong ; —
Nay, but she aimed not at glory, no lover of glory she ;
Give her the glory of going on, and still to be,"
Tennyson's Wages.
TO the stout-hearted Pilgrims who landed
here in 1620 this " glory of going on, and
still to be " has been meted in lavish measure.
For nearly three hundred years the fire first
kindled in far-away Scrooby in the hearts of
John Robinson, Elder Brewster, Richard Clyf-
ton, the youthful William Bradford and their
devoted followers has burned with a clear
flame ; the torch of truth there lit by them has
been handed on from generation to generation.
For the many latter-day pilgrims who visit
the shrines of New England, the gray boulder
299
300 Plymouth
on Clarke's Island where the weary voyagers
rested after their stormy cruise in the shallop ;
the humble rock on our shore where they at
length found shelter ; our noble statue of " clear-
eyed Faith " and the not far distant monument
on Bunker Hill, will ever bear like testimony
to the courage of that little band of independ-
ent thinkers. Meetinor in secret in the Manor-
House of Scrooby, these far-sighted heroes,
when they *'shooke of the yoake of antichrist-
ian bondage " of the Church of England, made
possible for their descendants a later Declara-
tion of Independence !
And every year, with the new knowledge it
brings, adds to the pathos of that Nearly en-
deavor after religious and civil liberty. i> Many
English scholars, generously overlooking the
Separation of 1776, have traced on the mother
soil of Old England the very beginnings of the
Separatist movement, and thanks to their care-
ful study of musty records and yellow parch-
ments we now have a satisfactory, though still
incomplete, record of those few eventful lives
to which we proudly owe our present freedom.
One enthusiast even finds the earliest evid-
ences of this movement in the concerted ac-
tion of certain rebellious weavers of the twelfth
\
Qyf M/t/foI^ fli^^^oTL
4ftt Jecm^-
V /Tif^?^
S^^n^J.o^^ A-e>^-c.- omj..^^,^^aAtr-. Corr.cl^^n /y
i.„.„7rf. =^//r--''-; -"fy^'^""*" ^i^i..u..i. y«^«
\B.nd: Jt
FACSIMILE OF A PAGE FROM GOVERNOR BRADFORD'S MANUSCRIPT, " PLIMOTH PLANTATION."
301 THE ORIGINAL IS NOW IN THE BOSTON STATE HOUSE.
302
Plymouth
century — thirty weavers of the diocese of
Worcester — who were summoned before the
Council of Oxford to answer a chargre of mak-
ing light of the sacraments and of priestly
pov/er. Though they answered that they were
Christians and reverenced the teachings of the
Copyright, 1893, by A. S. Burban
PULPIT ROCK, CLARKE'S ISLAND
apostles, they were driven from the country as
heretics, to perish of cold. This "pious firm-
ness " on the part of the council, writes the
short-sighted chronicler, not only cleansed the
realm of England from the pestilence which
had crept in, but also prevented it from creep-
ing in again. But the pestilence did creep in
Plymouth 303
again and again and the weeds grew apace, for
which thanks are chiefly due to John WycHf
and his followers.
Even before the Reformation Foxe tells of
" secret multitudes who tasted and followed the
sweetness of God's Holy Word, and whose
fervent zeal may appear by their sitting up all
night in reading and hearing." But we must be
content to trace our ancestry and our love of
liberty to the early years of the seventeenth
century, at which time, as we may now all read
in the clear lettering of Bradford's own pen,
" truly their affliction was not smale ; which notwithstand-
ing they bore sundrie years with much patience, till they
were occasioned to see further into things by the light of
y^ word of God. How not only these base and beggerly
ceremonies were unlawfull, but also that y^ lordly &
tiranous power of y^ prelats ought not to be submitted
unto ; which thus, contrary to the freedome of the gos-
pell, would load & burden mens consciences, and by
their compulsive power make a prophane mixture of per-
sons and things in the worship of God. And that their
offices & calings, courts and cannons &c. were unlaw-
full and antichristian ; being such as have no warrante in
y^ word of God ; but the same that were used in poperie
& still retained."
So these brave men, whose hearts the Lord
had touched with heavenly zeal for His truth.
304 Plymouth
" as y^ Lords free people joined them selves into a
church estate, in y^ felowship of y^ gospell, to walke in
all his wayes, made known, or to be made known unto
them, according to their best endeavours, whatsoever it
should cost them, the Lord assisting them. And that it
cost them something this ensewing historic will declare."
The charming scene of these secret meet-
ings is now well known. In the little village
of Scrooby, where the three shires of Notting-
ham, York and Lincoln join their borders, then
stood a stately manor-house, once the favorite
hunting-seat of the archbishops of York.
Under this hospitable but already somewhat
crumbling roof William Brewster, who had
been appointed ''Post" of Scrooby in 1590,
welcomed these sufferers for conscience sake.
Hither they stole through the green country
lanes, from far around to listen to the " illumin-
ating ministry " of Richard Clyfton,
" a grave & revered preacher who under God had been
a means of y^ conversion of many. And also that
famous and worthy man, Mr. John Robinson, who after-
wards was their pastor for many years till y^ Lord tooke
him away by death."
Here, too, from the neighboring hamlet of
Austerfield, came the lad William Bradford,
already eager for spiritual guidance. Walk-
THE EARLY NORMAN DOORWAY AT AUSTERFIELD CHURCH.
305
o
06 Plymouth
ing under the ehn-trees of the highroad, and
through the yellow gorse, across green mead-
ows and by the banks of the placid Idle, he
stopped perhaps to admire the mulberry-tree
planted there by the world-weary Cardinal
Wolsey. That arch-enemy of the Reforma-
tion little thought that a branch of this tree
would one day cross the Atlantic, to be pre-
served with Pilgrim relics by friends of that
" new, pernicious sect of Lutherans," against
which he warned the king !
Near Bradford's birthplace in Austerfield
now stands, completely restored, the twelfth-
century parish church where he was baptized
in 1590, and from which he "seceded" when
about seventeen years old. Did the quaint
old bell-cote with the two small bells, the beau-
tiful Norman arch of the southern doorway
with its rich zigzag ornament and beak-headed
moulding, the wicked-looking dragon on the
tympanum, with the tongue of flame — did this
perfect picture of Old-World beauty flash
across his memory when, some thirty years
later, he helped build the rude fort on our Bur-
ial Hill, which served as the first " Meeting-
House" in New England ?
We like to believe that Bradford belonged
Plymouth
307
to the honest yeoman class, that he "was used
to a plaine country Hfe & the innocente trade
of husbandrey " ; we know that he had a natu-
ral love of study which led him, despite the
many difficulties he met, to master the Dutch
Jif Ay "^^ >
Cupyri^'lit t.y A. S. burbauk
THE OLD FORT AND FIRST MEETINQ-HOUSE, ON BURIAL HILL, 1621.
tongue as well as French, Latin, Greek and
Hebrew, which latter tongue he studied the
more, "that he miorht see with his own eves
the ancient oracles of God in all their native
beauty."
Associated as teacher here with the vener-
able Richard Clyfton, " the minister with the
long white beard," and succeeding him as pas-
tor, we have found the eloquent John Rob-
3o8 Plymouth
inson, that winner of all men's hearts, that
helper of all men's souls. A youthful student
at Cambridge, living in an age and in an at-
mosphere of religious questioning, he was
deeply troubled with scruples concerning con-
formity. He tells us "had not the truth been
in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my
bones, I had never broken those bonds of
flesh and blood wherein I was so straitly tied,
but had suffered the light of God to have
been put out in mine unthankful heart by
other men's darkness." Happy in finding
congenial spirits in the new community at
Scrooby, Bradford tells us he soon became
"every way as a commone father unto them." "Yea,
such was y^ mutuall love and reciprocall respecte that
this worthy man had to his fiocke and his flocke to him
that it might be said of them as it once was of that fa-
mouse Emperour, Marcus Aurelious and y^ people of
Rome, that it was hard to judge wheather he delighted
more in haveing such a people, or they in haveing such a
pastor. His love was greate towards them, and his care
was all ways bente for their best good, both for soul &
body."
Under his inspiring guidance, and with Wil-
liam Brewster as their especial stay and help,
they were mercifully enabled to " wade through
Plymouth 309
things." Some twenty-three years older than
Bradford, we learn from that modest chronicler,
who wrote " in a plaine stile, with singuler
regard unto y^ simple trueth in all things,"
that Brewster had also a wider experience of
the world.
" After he had attained some learning, viz., the know-
ledge of the Latin tongue and some insight into the
Greek, and spent some small time at Cambridge, and
then being first seasoned with the seeds of grace and
virtue, he went to the Court, and served that religious
and godly gentleman, Mr. Davison, divers years, when
he was Secretary of State, who found him so discreet and
faithful, as he trusted him above all others that were
about him, and only employed him in matters of greatest
trust and secrecy."
After the innocent Davison was committed to
the Tower by the treacherous " Good Queen
Bess," Brewster retired to Scrooby, where he
greatly promoted and furthered their good
cause : " he himself most commonly deepest
in the charge, and sometimes above his ability,
and in this estate he continued many years,
doing the best he could, and walking accord-
ing to the light he saw, until the Lord revealed
further unto him."
But these assemblies, however humble and
3IO Plymouth
secret, could not long escape the vigilant eye
of the law. They were now
'' hunted and persecuted on every side, so as their former
afflictions were but as flea-bitings in comparison of these
which now came upon them. For some were taken
and clapt up in prison, others had their houses besett
& watcht night and day, & hardly escaped their hands ;
and y* most were faine to flie and leave their howses
and habitations, and the means of their livelihood."
" Seeing them selves so molested, and that ther was no
hope of their continuance ther, by a joynte consente
they resolved to goe into the Low-Countries, wher they
heard was freedome of Religion for all men."
This quitting their native soil, their dear
friends and their happy homes to earn their
living, they knew not how, in a foreign country,
was indeed considered by many of them to be
" an adventure almost desperate, a case in-
tolerable, & a misserie worse than death."
But after many betrayals, many delays, many
hardships by land and sea, they finally
weathered all opposing storms. At Amster-
dam, that friendly city of the Netherlands
Republic, whose Declaration of Independence
dates from July 26, 1581, they met together
again, with no small rejoicing.
But in the midst of the wealth of this fair
city they soon saw " the grime and grisly face of
Plymouth 311
povertle coming upon them Hke an armed man,
with whom they must bukle and incounter,
and from whom they could not flye." For this
reason, and to avoid religious contentions
already rife there, in a year's time they decided
to remove to Leyden, "a fair and bewtifull
citie, & of a sweete situation." Here the
story of the long siege of Leyden, bravely
sustained in 1573, must have excited their
ready sympathy, and the city's choice of a
university, offered by William of Orange,
Instead of the exemption the city could have
had from certain imposts, must have won
the admiration of these scholarly men.
The stay of the English exiles here of some
twelve years — the period of the truce between
Holland and Spain — was, though trying, no
doubt a good preparation for the greater
hardships they were to endure. While Brad-
ford wove fustian and his fellow-workers carded
wool, made hats and built houses, Brewster
printed '' heretical " books, and taught Eng-
lish " after y^ Latin manner." The harmony
of their peaceful and industrious lives attracted
many friends, until some three hundred kin-
dred spirits joined John Robinson In his
prayers for " more light."
312 Plymouth
One who soon proved himself to be an in-
valuable member of the community was Ed-
ward Winslow, a highly educated gentleman
from Worcestershire. His energy, his diplom-
acy and practical experience of the world,
his influence with Cromwell and other power-
ful friends in high places, removed many diffi-
culties in the way of the struggling colony that
was to be. Four times he was their chosen
agent in England, and was thrice elected gov-
ernor.
Here John Carver, a trusted adviser, who
later became the first governor of New Ply-
mouth, was chosen deacon of their church.
Serving in the troops sent over by Elizabeth
to aid the Dutch in maintaining the Protestant
religion against the Spaniards was the valiant
soldier, Myles Standish, of the Dokesbury
branch of the Standishes of Lancashire, who
date from the Conquest. There the beautiful
Standish church still bears on its buttresses
the family shield — three standing dishes argent
on a field azure — and Standish Hall is still hung
with portraits of warriors in armor, beruffed
lawyers with pointed beards, and gay courtiers
of the Oueen — the Roman Catholic ancestors
of our plain fighter ! Luckily for us all, he
Cupyright by A. S. Burbank.
>
H/
: -"XMJn^^i-^
yz>
313
3^4- Plymouth
cast in his lot with the plucky workers he met
in Leyden, and his cheery presence and cour-
age must have been of great service in plan-
ning the perilous voyage on which they were
about to embark.
For, as the truce with Spain drew to a close,
and as the older among them began to consider
the uncertain future that lay before their child-
ren, they longed to take refuge on some freer
soil, however far away. As Bradford writes,
with a courage at once humble and sublime :
" Lastly (and which was not least) a great hope and
inward zeall they had of laying some good foundation,
or at least to make some way thereunto, for y^ propagat-
ing and advancing y^ gospell of y* kingdom of Christ in
those remote parts of y' world : yea, though they should
be but even as stepping-stones unto others for y^ per-
forming of so great a work."
So, " not out of newfangledness, or other such
like giddie humor, but for sundrie weightie and
solid reasons," the voyage was determined
upon, and the King's consent to their emigra-
tion to America sought.
Winslow tells us, in his jBrze/e Narrative
of the Trite Grounds for the First Planting of
New England, that when their plans were laid
before King James he remarked that "" it was
Plymouth 315
a good and honest notion," and asking further
what profits might arise, he was answered,
"fishing." "So God have my soul," he said,
" so God have my soul, 't is an honest trade ;
't was the apostles' own calling ! " And we
may state here, notwithstanding Bradford's
statement that in the beginning " we did lack
small hooks," New England, before 1650, an-
nually sent to Europe ^100,000 worth of dried
codfish.
After many weary negotiations, a patent was
at length obtained, but the future colonists
were refused a formal grant of freedom in re-
ligious worship under the King's broad seal.
A loan was made by some seventy " Merchant
Adventurers" in England, and late in July,
1620, we find our future colonists on the quay
at Delfthaven, ready to embark on the Speed-
well. They are surrounded by their tearful
friends, for whom, Winslow says, " they felt
such love as is seldom found on earth."
Many of their number are to stay at Leyden
under the faithful care of John Robinson,
whose touching farewell words Winslow has
preserved for us :
'' he charged us before God and his blessed angels to
follow him no further than he followed Christ ; and if
o
1 6 Plymouth
God should reveal anything to us by any other instru-
ment of his, to be as ready to receive it as ever we were
to receive any truth by his ministry ; for he was very
confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break
forth out of his holy word."
This sad scene must have been still vivid in
Bradford's memory when he wrote some ten
years later in Plymouth :
" truly dolfull was y^ sight of that sade and mournfull
parting ; to see what sighs and sobbs and praires did
sound amongst them, what tears did gush from every
eye, & pithy speeches peirst each harte " ; " but they
knewe they were pilgrimes, and looked not much on
those things, but lift up their eyes to y^ heavens, their
dearest cuntrie, and quieted their spirits."
After a good run with a prosperous wind they
found the Mayflower at Southampton, but as
the Speedwell proved unseaworthy they were
again delayed, and after putting in for repairs
to Dartmouth and Plymouth, the Mayflower
finally, on September i6th, sailed alone from
Plymouth. Observe the group of brave voy-
as^ers settinor forth on an unknown "sea of
troubles," trustful wives and children, manly
youths and blooming maidens, as they wave a
last good-by to dear Old England from the
deck of the Mayflower. Their leaders form
Plymouth 317
a notable band : Brewster, Carver, Bradford,
WInslow, Standish, the soul, the heart, the
head, the good right hand, the flashing sword,
well-chosen instruments to unlock the frozen
heart of New England, and to found there
Empire such as Spaniard never knew."
Perhaps George Herbert, prince of poets,
referred to this sailing when he wrote in his
CJutrch Militant :
Religion stands on tiptoe in our land,
Ready to pass to the American strand."
Of the terrible discomforts and dangers of
that perilous voyage of sixty-seven days who
has not read the pitiful story ? Have we not,
all of us, ''come over in the Mayflower,'' and
rejoiced with these patient souls when at length,
one clear morning in November, the shores of
Cape Cod lay fair before their expectant eyes ?
Determining to put in to Cape Cod harbor,
and so to land on a territory where their patent
could confer no rights, the leaders of the ex-
pedition, after consulting together in the cabin
of the Mayflower, there drew up and signed
the historic "Compact" which was to convert
the hundred voyagers into the founders of a
o
1 8 Plymouth
commonwealth. There they solemnly and
mutually, in the presence of God and of one
another, combined themselves into a civil
body politic, to frame and enact such just and
equal laws from time to time as should be
thought most meet and convenient for the
general good of the colony, unto which they
promised all due submission and obedience.
While their sloop-rigg shallop of some
fifteen tons was made ready for exploration by
sea, those who went at once far into the forest
came back with reports of fine growths of oak,
pine, sassafras, juniper, birch and holly, abund-
ant grape-vines and red cedar, which like san-
dalwood
" Sheds its perfume on the axe that slays it."
They found excellent springs, many deer
and wild-fowl, and what proved to be their
salvation in the wilderness, *' divers faire Indian
baskets filled with corn, which seemed to them
a goodly sight." For this precious seed-corn
the Indian owners were conscientiously paid
double price some six months later.
The weakness and illness natural after the
discomforts of such a voyage now made them-
selves felt in an alarming manner, and an ex-
Plymouth 319
ploring party was hastily organized to select
the spot for their final settlement. Setting
forth in the frail shallop, a party of eighteen
picked men, after a successful " First En-
counter" with the Indians, were driven by a
furious gale to take shelter in the lee of a little
island lying in a friendly harbor to the west of
their starting-point. After thawing out over
a good cedar-wood fire and resting for a night,
they explored the island and repaired their
boat. Of this island, afterward named for
John Clarke, mate of the Mayflower, Bradford
writes :
" But though this had been a day and night of much
trouble & danger unto them, yet God gave them a morn-
ing of comforte & refreshing (as usually he doth to his
children), for y^ next day was a faire sunshining day,
and they found them sellvs to be on an iland secure
from the In<ieans, wher they might drie their stufe, fixe
their peeces, & rest them selves, and gave God thanks
for his mercies, in their manifould deliverances. And
this being the last day of y"" weeke, they prepared ther to
keepe y^ Sabath. On Munday they sounded the har-
bor, and founde it fitt for shipping ; and marched into
y*" land and found diverse cornfeilds and litle runing
brooks, a place (as they supposed) fitt for situation ;
at least it was y^ best they could find, and y^ season &
their presente necessitie made them glad to accepte
of It."
320 Plymouth
So, on the 21st day of December, 1620, was
made the now world-famous landing at Ply-
mouth, of which these few words are the humble
record.
After a week of anxious waiting their return
must have been' hailed with delight on board
the Mayflower, and their good tidings warmly-
welcomed. As with all sails set the good ship
made her way into the harbor, eager eyes
doubtless watched with joy the high hills of
Manomet, the wooded bluffs, the shining, pro-
tecting beaches, the fair island, the low friendly
stretch of the mainland sloping back to the
picturesque hillsides, which make Plymouth
harbor at all times and seasons a goodly sight
to look upon. And here at length lay safely
at anchor the
" . . . simple Mayfiower of the salt-sea mead ! "
And now, " Courteous Reader," as writes
that most faithful secretary of the Pilgrims,
Nathaniel Morton, mhis New England Memor-
ial (1669), "that I may not hold thee too
long in the porch," even in such goodly com-
pany, I bid you welcome to the Plymouth of
to-day. For in the harbor, the sand-dunes,
the green hillsides and the fresh valleys and
^22
J
Plymouth
meadows, In the blue streams and ponds, the
past is inseparably blended with the present.
A small theatre it is, and the actors w^ere but
few who played such important Indies in the
building up of a nation, but the few memorials
in which that early struggle for existence is
recorded are here lovingly preserved.
From the Rock where they landed we may
follow their weary footsteps up the steep as-
cent of the first street, now named for Ley-
den, their city of refuge, and which may well
be called the Via Sacra of Plymouth. Run-
ning back from the waterside to the foot of
Burial Hill, and parallel to the Town Brook,
it formed the centre of their daily toil, the scene
of their early joys and sorrows. Here on
either hand were staked out the homesteads
for the nineteen first families ; here with sturdy
courage and endless labor they dragged the
trees felled outside the clearing, and built their
rude houses, thatching them with swamp-grass.
The site of their first or " Common-House"
is now marked, and near the lot assigned to
Elder Brewster still we may stop to drink from
the Pilgrim Spring: the "delicate water" is
fresh and sweet now as when our thirsty fore-
fathers delighted in it.
324 Plymouth
Crossing Main Street, once the King's high-
way, we find ourselves in Town Square, under
the shade of beautiful old elm-trees, planted
more than a hundred years ago. To the north
was William Bradford's homestead. Here
came all those who sought advice and help in
their sore need, and here in 1630 were begun
those '' scribbled writings " which, " peeced up
at times of leasure afterward," are now printed
in letters of gold in many a faithful memory !
Here, perhaps, or in the vicinity of the Com-
mon House, was concluded their first treaty
with a foreign power for mutual aid and pro-
tection, when the noble chief Massasoit, with
his sixty Indian braves, was led thither by
Samoset, the friendly sachem, whose English
welcome had surprised the anxious colonists.
Through Samoset they learned that some four
years before a pest had devastated that region,
called by them Patuxet. With him came Tis-
quantum, who became a valued friend and in-
terpreter, teaching them to plant their corn
when the oak-leaves were the size of a mouse's
ear, and to place three herring in each hill with
the seed-corn, which novel practice awakened
serious doubts in English minds.
In the autumn of 1621, this was the scene
Plymouth 325
of the first Thanksgiving held in New Eng-
land, when, their houses built, their crops gar-
nered from some thirty fertile acres, their furs
and lumber safely stored, they made merry for
three days, with Massasoit and ninety Indians
as guests. Even with fish, wild-fowl and deer
in plenty, the good housewives must have spent
a lively week of preparation for such a feast !
Farther up the slope was built, in 1637, their
first meeting-house, and at the head of the
Square now stands the lately completed stone
church of the first parish. In the belfry
hangs the old town bell, cast by Paul Revere,
which for nearly a century has had a voice in
the affairs of the town.
Following the now steep incline, we stop to
take breath on the brow of the hill, the spot
so wisely chosen by Captain Myles Standish
for the building of the solid timber fort,
whereon he promptly placed his cannon.
" Unable to speak for himself was he,
But his guns spoke for him right valiantly I "
And most persuasive did their voices prove,
inspiring awe in the hearts of the " salvages "
for many miles around !
Here in the shelter of the fort they met
326 Plymouth
for worship ; here their hymns of praise and
prayers for guidance arose in the still air of
the wilderness. In four short months one half
of these brave souls had been laid to rest on
Cole's Hill by the waterside. And yet, when
one April morning those who were left to
mourn them stood here watching the May-
flower weigh anchor, to flit with her white sails
over the blue sea which parted them from Old
England, not one soul faltered, not one went
back I
The sad loss of their good Governor Carver,
whose responsible place was taken by William
Bradford, and the daily trials and hardships
of that first long year, shook not their sturdy
faith. Each day brought its absorbing task, and
when, one morning in November, the sentry at
the fort shouted, " Sail, ho ! " and the Fo7'tnne
came sailing in by the Gurnet Nose, bringing
the first news from the other side, they were
ready with a return load of lumber, furs and
sassafras for the Merchant Adventurers. Of
this load, valued at ^500, Edward Winslow
modestly writes in his letter to England :
'' Though it be not much, yet it will witness
for us that we have not been idle, considering
the smallness of our numbers this summer."
Plymouth 327
Two years later, after a trying season of
drought and famine, when, their corn ex-
hausted, " ground-nuts, clams and eels " were
their only food, they still gave thanks to God
that He had given them of " the abundance of
the seas, and of the treasures hid in the sand."
When even the strongest men among them
had grown weak for want of food, and their
eyes were wearied with watching for a friendly
sail, the good ship Anne was sighted in the
offing. Dear relatives and friends brought
them timely succor and new courage ; a sea-
son of rejoicing followed, and many happy
weddings were celebrated.
In the A7ine, perhaps, came the Old Colony
record-book, in which was made the early re-
gistration of births, marriages and deaths. The
first of the laws therein enacted, dating from
December 27, 1623, established trial by jury,
as may still be seen in the quaint handwriting
of these hard-working heroes. This book,
together with the Charter of 1629, curious
old papers concerning the division of cattle
brought over in the Charity in 1624, ancient
deeds signed by the Indians, the original own-
ers of this our goodly heritage, and many
another time-stained treasure, is now carefully
328 Plymouth
preserved and gladly shown in the Registry of
Deeds in the Court House.
Looking to the north, beyond the town of
Kingston, lying, with its sweet rose-gardens,
on the pretty winding river named for that
arch betrayer, Captain Jones, of the May-
flower, WQ see Duxbury and the green slopes
of Captain's Hill, so named in honor of Myles
Standish, who from the top of his gray stone
monument still guards us in effigy. Linger-
ing near the fort and the guns he loved so
well, he must often have looked this way, and
admired the fine position this hill offered for a
homestead. And as with years the colony grew
larger, as children came to him and Barbara,
and when his first Company of Standish Guards
were in perfect training and could be relied upon
to defend the colony at need, he bought out
Winslow's share in the famous red cow, and led
the way to the new fields he longed to conquer.
There he was soon followed by John Alden and
Priscilla, the Brewsters and other families, and
at Marshfield, near by, the Winslows became
their neighbors. So some eleven years after
the landing came the first separation, which
though not a wide one was a sore grief to
their tender-hearted governor.
Plymouth 329
Amonor the now rare grravestones of the
seventeenth century on Burial Hill, we look
in vain for the most familiar names : Elder
Brewster died in 1644, lamented by all the col-
ony ; Edward Winslow died at sea in 1655,
and in the two years following this sad loss
Myles Standish and Governor Bradford ended
their labors. So closed the lives of these lead-
ers of men. Descendants, brave, wise and
strong like themselves, continued worthily the
work they had nobly begun.
From 1630, Plymouth held friendly inter-
course with the Boston Bay Colony. The ter-
rors of the war with Philip, treacherous son of
the friendly Massasoit, had united her with the
neighboring colonies against a common foe, and
at length, after seventy-one years of nearly in-
dependent existence, we find her, in 1692,
absorbed, with some regret, into the royal
province of Massachusetts, but still ready to
take her part in public affairs.
That the role played by her was a worthy
one, the tablets about us testify. Heroes of
the expedition against Louisbourg, in 1745, lie
here ; more than a score of Plymouth patriots
who served in the Revolution, and many a
brave soldier who won his laurels in the War
330 Plymouth
of 1861. Under this stone, with its quaint
urn and willow-branch, rests the famous naval
hero of the Revolutionary war, Captain Simeon
Sampson, whose cousin Deborah spun, dyed,
and wove the cloth for the suit in which she
left home to serve as a soldier. Their story,
and that of many another hero and heroine
now lying here, have been well told by Mrs.
Jane Goodwin Austin.
Beneath his symbolic scallop-shell we read
the name of Elder Faunce, who knew the Pil-
grims, and, living for ninety-nine years, formed
an important link between two centuries. The
stone consecrated to the memory of the Rev.
Chandler Robbins, who for nearly twoscore
years toward the close of the last century gave
his faithful services to the first parish, reminds
us that at one time the town fathers found it
advisable to request him " not to have more
horses grazing on Burial Hill than shall be
really necessary ! "
Here, in old times, could be had a grand
view of the shipping, come from the West In-
dies and all parts of the world ; from here the
news of many fatal shipwrecks had been spread
through the town, to rouse willing help for
suffering sailors ; here, too, no doubt, men's
Plymouth 331
souls were often tempted to incur the fine of
twenty shillings, the cost of ''telling a lie
about seeing a whale," in those strict days
when a plain lie, if "pernicious," was taxed at
half that price !
Old Father Time with his scythe and hour-
glass— symbols of his power — rules here over
seven generations ; but lingering while the set-
ting sun illumines the harbor and the surround-
ing hills with the same radiance that rejoiced
the first comers, while Manomet glows with a
deeper purple, and the twin lights of the Gur-
net shine out, we may still feel in very deed
that
" The Pilgrim spirit has not fled."
Turning from the story of Plymouth, as
written on the lichen-covered headstones on
Burial Hill, let us wend our way under the
shady elms of Court Street to Pilgrim Hall,
built in 1824 by the Pilgrim Society, instituted
four years earlier. Here we may trace, in the
many treasured reminders of their daily lives,
the annals of those brave souls in whom
" . . . persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition."
o '> O
Plymouth
On broad canvases are portrayed the tearful
embarkation from Delfthaven, the landing on
this cheerless, frozen shore. Here are hung
charming pencil sketches of Scrooby and Aus-
terfield, and many interesting portraits : Dr.
Thatcher, the venerable secretary of the Pil-
grim Society, and author of a charming his-
tory of Plymouth ; the Rev. James Kendall,
for nearly threescore years the beloved minis-
ter of the First Church ; Gov. Edward Winslow
and his son Josiah ; Gen. John Winslow, who
by royal command in 1755 helped to drive
from their homes the French Acadians ; Dea-
con Ephraim Spooner, whose " lining out " of
the old hymns formed an impressive part of
" Anniversary Day " ; Daniel Webster, who
lived in Marshfield, and whose glowing oration
of 1820, in honor of the two hundredth anni-
versary^ of the landing of the Pilgrims, was
epoch-making in Plymouth annals.
Among the many priceless books and docu-
ments here we find the lately acquired Specu-
lum E2tropcE (1605) by Sir Edwin Sandys,
the active friend of our Separatists in England ;
' The illustration shown on page 335 is from a pen-and-ink copy of a
quaint old painting on glass from China, probably in 1820. In that
country a set of china with this design as decoration was made for
this Plymouth celebration.
334
Plymouth
two autographs of John Robinson render this
volume of special interest. A facsimile of the
Bradford manuscript also is here, and a Confu-
tation of the Rhemists Translation, printed by
Brewster in Leyden, in 1618. Among the
old Bibles worn by hands seeking for guidance
and comfort is one belonging to John Alden,
dated 1620. Here also are a copy of Robert
Cushman's memorable sermon on " The Dan-
ger of Self-love," delivered by him in Plymouth
in 162 1 ; one of the seven precious original
copies of Motu'fs Relation the journal writ-
ten by Bradford and Winslow in 1620-21, and
so promptly printed in London in 1622 ; one
of the four copies of Eliot's Indian Bible
(1685) ; the Patent of 162 1, granted our colo-
nists by the New England Company, and the
oldest state paper in the United States.
A large copy of the seal
of the colony, in hand-
somely carved oak, reminds
us that the oriorinal seal
was stolen in the days of
Andros. Its appropriate
motto, " Patrum pietate
ortum, filiorum virtute ser-
vandum," may be found
THE OLD COLONY SEAL.
33^ Plymouth
used as a heading of the first Plymotith Jotu^-
nal, pubHshed by Nathaniel Coverly in 1 785,
of which one file is preserved in the library of
rare old books. Here are the Orieinal Re-
cords of the Old Colony Club, founded in i 769,
but dissolved four years later when party feel-
ing ran high between the Whigs and Tories.
Its worthy members first instituted the cele-
bration of "Forefathers' Day," and here we
may read the bill of fare of their first dinner,
"dressed in the plainest manner," beginning
with "a large baked Indian whortleberry pud-
ding," " a dish of Succotash," " Clamms," etc.
The Indian dishes, succotash and nokake, and
the five parched corns which recall the time
when their last pint of corn was divided among
them, still form part of the "twenty-second"
dinner of every faithful descendant !
Here the sword of the truculent Myles Stan-
dish lies at rest, and beside it, in lighter vein, a
bit of the quilt that belonged to his wife Rose,
and a sampler skilfully embroidered by his
daughter Lora. Between the ample armchairs
in which Governor Carver and Elder Brewster
must have pondered over many a weighty pro-
blem of government for the people and by the
people, is the closely woven little Dutch cradle
Plymouth
ZZ7
in which Peregrine White, that most youthful
of voyagers, was rocked to sleep. The large
hole worn in the foot of the cradle suggests
pleasantly that the rosy toes of the sturdy baby
colonists made early for freedom ! Perhaps
The fuller cradle.
the tiny leathern ankle-ties, hardly four inches
in length, which belonged to Josiah Winslow
— this was long before they thought of making
him governor — had a hand, or rather a foot, in
that bombardment ! Near the shoes is a dainty
salt-cellar of blue and white enamel, delicately
painted with pink and yellow roses, suggestive
of fine linen and pleasant hospitality. Here
too are
30^
Plymouth
" The wheels where they spun
In the pleasant light of the sun,"
those anxious, lonely housewives, waiting for
their good men to return from dangerous ex-
peditions in the
forest or on the
sea. Thus varied
was the freight of
the AI ay flower.
As we walk
through the lively
main street of the
town, we must stop
to admire the fine
pfambrel roof of
the old house
where lived James
Warren, that active patriot, who became pre-
sident of the Provincial Congress, and whose
wife, Mercy Otis Warren, wrote the " rousing
word " which kindled many a heart in Re-
volutionary days. The line of fine lindens
just beyond, as they rustle in the cool sea-
breeze, could whisper many a charming tale of
lovely dames and stately men, of scarlet cloaks
and powdered wigs they have watched pass by
under their shading branches, of treasures of
AN OLD ENGLISH SPINNING-WHEEL,
Plymouth
339
old china and old silver, of blue tiles and claw-
footed furniture, of Copley portraits now packed
off to the great city, and of many changes come
about since they came here as young trees
from Nova Scotia, in a raisin-box.
Overlooking the blue water stands the old
Winslow house, the solid frame of which came
from England in 1754. Under its spreading
lindens, through the fine colonial doorway so
Copyright by A '^ l.ur
THE DOTEN HOUSE, 1660.
THE OLDEST HOUSE IN PLYMOUTH.
beautifully carved, many distinguished guests
have passed, and here Ralph Waldo Emerson
was married to Lydia Jackson, who was born
in the picturesque house just beyond, almost
hidden in trees and vines.
340 Plymouth
A drive toward the south will take us by
some of the oldest houses. From the one with
a dyke in front, Adoniram Judson, the' famous
Baptist missionary, took his departure for Bur-
mah. His devoted sister then vowed that no
one should cross the threshold until his return,
and the door-step was taken away. Grass grew
over the pathway, and the front door remained
closed, for he died at sea, in 1850.
As we pass the handsome new building of
the High School, it is good to remember, in
this Plymouth of eight thousand inhabitants,
paying thirty-four thousand dollars for last
year's "schooling," that in 1672 it was decided
that Plymouth's school, supported by the rents
of her southerly common-lands, was entitled to
£2)Z^ the fishing excise from the Cape, offered
to any town which would keep difrec colonial
school, classical as well as elementary. And
in that free school began an early struggle of
the three R's against Latin and Greek. From
Plymouth went Nathaniel Brewster, a graduate
of Harvard's first class of 1642, and the first
of a long line of Plymouth students to enter
Harvard.
Past the blue Eel River, flowing gently
through shining green meadows to the sea, we
Plymouth 341
may drive along quiet roads in Plymouth
Woods, under sweet pines and sturdy oaks,
by the shore of many a calm pond, sparkling
in its setting of white beach sand. We cross
old Indian trails, perhaps, and skirt acre after
acre of level cranberry-bogs, pink and white,
like a sheet of delicate sprig-muslin, when in
bloom, and bright with the crimson fruit in
early autumn. In these woods in their season
bloom sweet mayflowers, the rare rhodora, the
sabbatia, sundew and corema, and there many
another treasure may be found by those who
know how to seek !
When these forests were first explored, an
enterprising member of the Mayflower s crew,
climbing a high tree to see how the land lay,
saw shining before him a blue sheet of water
which he took to be the ocean, and this was
called after him " Billington's Sea." Following
the shore of this lake, through the leafy paths
of Morton's Park, we come upon the source of
the famous Town Brook, which with its hon-
orable record of two centuries' supply of ale-
wives has always played an important part in
the town's annals, helping to grind the Pil-
grims' first grists in 1636, and now lending its
busy aid in turning complicated machinery.
342
Plymouth
In the fields on either side — the hunting-
grounds of the banished race who once re-
joiced in their possession — are still found the
beautifully worked Indian arrow-heads and
hatchets ; here the smoke arose from their wig-
R A N C -> ,^ " ^ - ^ r^^\ .V ^/
!,■>*' 'A. 36 ViTvr \
THE GRAVE OF DR. FRANCIS LE BARRAN, THE NAMELESS NOBLEMAN.
wams ; here they often paddled past in their
swift canoes, and here, perhaps, were shot the
five deer that formed their offering in the first
New England Thanksgiving.
But the manifold charms of Plymouth and
Plymouth
343
Plymouth Woods must be seen and felt on the
soil whence they sprung ! So in the hope that
the '* Courteous Reader " to whom they are
still unfamiliar may care to verify this truthful
statement, we leave in brief and imperfect out-
line this story of the Old Colony, whither
*' they wente weeping and carried precious
seeds ; but they shall returne with joye and
bring their sheaves."
CAPE COD TOWNS
FROM PROVINCETOWN TO FALMOUTH
By KATHARINE LEE BATES
C'APE COD," wrote Thoreau, ''is the
^ bared and bended arm of Massachu-
setts ; the shoulder is at Buzzard's Bay ; the
elbow, or crazy-bone, at Cape Mallebarre ; the
wrist at Truro ; and the sandy fist at Province-
town — behind which the State stands on her
guard."
This sandy fist curls toward the wrist in
such fashion as to form a semicircular harbor,
famous as the New World haven which first
gave shelter to the Mayflower and her sea-
worn company. On the 21st of November
(by our modern reckoning), 1620, the Pilgrims,
after their two bleak months of ocean, cast
anchor here, rejoicing in the sight and smell
of "oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras and other
sweet wood." Here they signed their mem-
345
34^ Cape Cod Towns
orable compact, forming themselves Into a
" civil body politic " and covenanting with one
another, as honest Englishmen, to " submit to
such government and governors as we should
by common consent agree to make and choose."
Upon the adoption of this simple and signifi-
cant constitution, the Pilgrim Fathers, still on
board the Mayflower in Provlncetown harbor,
proceeded to set in motion the machinery of
their little republic, for "after this," wrote
Bradford, " they chose, or rather confirmed,
Mr. John Carver (a man godly and well ap-
proved amongst them) their Governor for one
year." That same day a scouting party went
ashore and brought back a fragrant boatload
of red cedar for firewood, with a goodly report
of the place.
These stout-hearted Pilgrims were not the
first Europeans to set foot on Cape Cod.
Legends of the Vikings which drift about the
low white dunes are as uncertain as the shift-
ing sands themselves, and the French and
Florentine navigators who sailed along the
North American coast in the first half of the
sixteenth century may have done no more
than siorht this sickle of land between sea and
bay, but there are numerous records of Fng-
I <
348 Cape Cod Towns
lish, French and Dutch visits within the last
twenty years before the coming of the May-
flowe7\ It may be that no less a mariner than
Sir Francis Drake was the first of the English
to tread these shores, but that distinction is gen-
erally allowed to Captain Bartholomew Gos-
nold, who made harbor here in 1602 and was
'' so pestered with codfish " that he gave the
Cape the name, "which," said Cotton Mather,
''it will never lose till shoals of codfish be
seen swimming upon the tops of its highest
hills." Gosnold traded with the Indians for
furs and sassafras root, and was followed the
next year by Martin Pring, seeking a cargo of
this latter commodity, then held precious in
pharmacy. Within the next four years three
French explorers touched at the Cape, and a
French colony was projected, but came to
nothing. The visit of Henry Hudson, too,
left no traces. In 16 14 that rover of land and
sea. Captain John Smith, took a look at Cape
Cod, which impressed him only as a " headland
of hills of sand, overgrown with scrubby pines,
hurts [huckleberries] and such trash, but an
excellent harbor for all weathers." After
Smith's departure, Hunt, his second in com-
mand, enticed a group of Nauset Indians on
350 Cape Cod Towns
shipboard, carried them off, and sold them into
slavery at Malaga, Spain, for twenty pounds a
man. As a consequence of this crime, the
Indians grew suspicious and revengeful, but
nevertheless an irregular trade was maintained
with them by passing vessels, until the pesti-
lence that raored amonor the red men of the
region from 1616 to 16 19 interrupted com-
munication.
The Pilorrims tarried in Provincetown har-
bor nearly a month. The compact had been
signed, anchor dropped and the reconnoissance
made on a Saturday. The Sunday following,
the first Pilgrim Sabbath in America, was de-
voutly kept with prayer and praise on board
the Mayflower, but the next morning secular
activities began. The men carried ashore the
shallop which had been brought over in sec-
tions between-decks and proceeded to put it
together, while the women bundled up the
soiled linen of the voyage and inaugurated the
first New England Monday by a grand wash-
ing on the beach. On Wednesday, Myles
Standish mustered a little army of sixteen
men, each armed with musket, sword and
corselet, and led them gallantly up the wooded
cape, *' thorou boughes and bushes," nearly as
Cape Cod Towns 351
far as the present town of Wellfleet. After
two days the explorers returned with no worse
injury than briar-scratched armor, bringing
word of game and water-springs, ploughed
land and burial-mounds. William Bradford
showed the noose of the deer-trap, a " very
pretie devise," that had caught him by the leg,
and two of the sturdiest Pilgrims bore, slung
on a staff across their shoulders, a kettle of
corn. As the few natives whom the party had
met fled from them, the corn had been taken
on credit from a buried hoard. The followine
year that debt was scrupulously paid, but a
custom had been established which still pre-
vails with certain summer residents on the Cape,
who are said to make a practice of leaving their
grocery bills over until the next season.
As soon as the shallop could be floated, a
larger expedition was sent by water along the
south coast to seek a permanent settlement.
Through wind and snow the Pilgrim Fathers
made their way up to Pamet River, in Truro,
the limit of the earlier journey. They did not
succeed in agreeing upon a fit site for the
colony, but they sought out the corn deposit
and, breaking the frozen ground with their
swords, secured ten bushels more of priceless
352 Cape Cod Towns
seed for the springtime. On the return of the
second expedition there was anxious discussion
about the best course to pursue. Some were
for settHng on the Cape and Hving by the fish-
eries, pointing out, to emphasize their argu-
ments, the whales that sported every day about
the anchored ship ; but the Pilgrims were of
agricultural habit and tradition and had reason
enough just then to be weary of the sea. The
situation was critical. '' The heart of winter
and unseasonable weather," wrote Bradford,
*' was come upon us." The gradual slope of
the beach made it always necessary to "wade
a bow-shoot or two " in oroinor ashore from the
Mayflowe}^, and these icy foot-baths were largely
responsible for the " vehement coughs " from
which hardly one of the company was exempt.
Once more, on the i6th of December,
the shallop started forth to find a home for
the Pilgrims. Ten colonists, including Carver,
Bradford and Standish, together with a few
men of the ship's crew, volunteered for this
service. It was so cold that the sleety spray
glazed doublet and jerkin "and made them
many times like coats of iron." The voyagers
landed within the present limits of Eastham or
Orleans, where, hard by the shore, a camp was
Cape Cod Towns 353
roughly barricaded. One day passed safely
in exploration, but at dawn of the second,
when, "after prayer," the English sat about
their camp-fire at breakfast, " a great and
strange cry " cut the mist, and on the instant
Indian arrows, headed with deer-horn and
eagles' claws, whizzed about their heads. But
little Captain Standish was not to be caught
napping. " Having a snaphance ready," he
fired in direction of the war-whoop. His com-
rades supported him manfully, their friends in
the shallop, themselves beset, shouted encour-
agement, and the savages, gliding back among
the trees, melted into " the dark of the morn-
ing." After this taste of Cape Cod courtesy,
the Pilgrim Fathers can hardly be blamed for
taking to their shallop again and plunging on,
in a stiff gale, through the toppling waves,
until, with broken rudder and mast split in
three, they reached a refuge in the harbor of
Plymouth.
When the adventurers returned to the May-
flower' with glad tidings that a resting-place
was found at last, the historian of the party,
William Bradford, had to learn that during
his absence his wife had fallen from the
vessel's side and perished in those December
354 Cape Cod Towns
waters. Three more of the colonists died in
that first haven, and there Httle Peregrine
White began his earthly peregrinations. In
view of all these occurrences, — the signing of
the compact in Provincetown harbor, the first
landing of the Pilgrims on the tip of Cape Cod,
the explorations, the first deaths and the first
birth, — it would seem that Provincetown is
fairly entitled to a share of those historic hon-
ors which are lavished, none too freely, but,
perhaps, too exclusively, upon Plymouth.
When the Mayflower sailed away, carrying
William Bradford and his tablets, the beauti-
ful harbor and its circling shores were left to a
long period of obscurity. Fishers, traders and
adventurers of many nations came and went
on their several errands, but these visits left
little trace. The Plymouth colonists, mean-
while, did not forget their first landing-point,
but returned sometimes, in the fishing season,
for cod, bass and mackerel, always claiming
full rights of ownership. This claim rested
not only on their original brief occupation,
but on formal purchase from the Indians, in
1654, or earlier, the payment being "2 brasse
kettles six coates twelve houes 12 axes 12
knives and a box." In process of time, as the
35^ Cape Cod Towns
English settlers gradually pushed down the
Cape, a few hovels and curing-sheds rose
on the harbor shore, but the land was owned
by Plymouth Colony until Massachusetts suc-
ceeded to the title. These Province Lands
were made a district, in the charge of Truro,
in 1714, but in 1727 the "Precinct of Cape
Cod " was set off from Truro, and estab-
lished, under the name of Provincetown, as a
separate township. It was even then merely
a fishing-hamlet, with a fluctuating population,
which by 1750 had almost dwindled away.
In Revolutionary times, it had only a score of
dwelling-houses, and its two hundred inhabit-
ants were defenseless before the British, whose
men-of-war rode proudly in the harbor. One
of these, the Somerset, while chased by a French
fleet on the Back Side, as the Atlantic coast
of the Cape is called, struck on Peaked Hill
bars, and the waves, taking part with the re-
bels, flung the helpless hulk far up the beach.
Stripped by "a plundering gang" from Pro-
vincetown and Truro, the frigate lay at the
mercy of the sands, and they gradually hid her
even from memory ; but the strong gales and
high tides of 1886 tore that burial-sheet aside,
and brouofht the blackened timbers agfain to
Cape Cod Towns 357
the light of day. The grim old ship, tormented
by relic-hunters, peered out over the sea, look-
ing from masthead to masthead for the Union
Jack, and, disgusted with what she saw, dived
once more under her sandy cover, where the
beach-grass now grows over her.
Since the Revolution, Provincetown has
steadily progressed in numbers and prosperity,
until to-day, with over four thousand five
hundred inhabitants, it is the banner town of
the Cape. During this period of develop-
ment, the Province Lands, several thousand
acres in extent, naturally became a subject of
dispute. Old residents had fallen into a way
of buying and selling the sites on which they
had built homes and stores, as if the land were
theirs in legal ownership. Five years ago,
however, the General Court virtually limited
State ownership to the waste tracts in the
north and west of the township, leaving the
squatters in possession of the harbor-front.
" The released portion of the said lands,"
stated the Harbor and Land Commissioners
in their report of 1893, "is about 955 acres
and includes the whole inhabited part of the
town of Provincetown."
The present Provincetown is well worth a
35^ Cape Cod Towns
journey. From High Pole Hill, a bluff seventy
feet high in the rear of the populated district,
one gazes far out over blue waters, crossed
with cloud-shadows and flecked with fishinor-
craft. Old sea-captains gather here with spy-
glasses to make out the shipping ; bronzed
sailor-boys lie in the sun and troll snatches of
song ; young mothers of dark complexion and
gay-colored dress croon lullabies, known in
Lisbon and Fayal, over sick babies brought
to the hilltop for the breezy air ; the very par-
rot that a black-eyed urchin guards in a group
of admiring playmates talks " Portugee."
Leaning over the railing, one looks down the
bushy slope of the bluff to the curious huddle
of houses at its base. Out from the horse-
shoe bend of shore, run thin tongues of wharf
and jetty. Front Street follows the water-
line, a seaport variety of outfitting stores and
shops, mingled with hotels, fish-flakes, ship-
yards and the like, backing on the beach, with
the dwelling-houses opposite facing the harbor-
view. Back Street copies the curve of Front,
and the two are joined by queer, irregular
little crossways, that take the abashed wayfarer
close under people's windows and along the
very borders of their gardens and poultry-
Cape Cod Towns
.59
yards. Althoug-h nearly all of the buildings
stand on one or the other of these main
streets, there are bunches and knots of houses
in sheltered places, looking as if the blast had
blown them into accidental nooks. In general
WHARVES AT FROVINCETOWN.
these houses are built close and low, tucked
in under one another's elbows, but here and
there an independent cottage thrusts its sharp-
roofed defiance into the very face of the
weather.
Up and down the sandy knolls behind the
360 Cape Cod Towns
streets straggle populous graveyards, where
one may read the fortunes of Provincetown
more impressively, if less precisely, than in
the census reports. Where the goodly old
Nathaniels and Shubaels and Abrahams and
Jerushas rest, a certain decorum of green sod-
ding and white headstone is maintained, de-
spite the irreligious riot of the winds. The
Catholic burial-ground, too, is not uncared for
in its Irish portion. Marble and granite monu-
ments implore " Lord have mercy on the soul "
of some Burke or Ryan or McCarty, but the
Portuguese, wanderers from the Cape Verde
Islands and the Azores, sleep the sleep of
strangers, with no touch of tenderness or
beauty about their dreary lodging. Only here
and there a little Jacinto or Manuel or Antone
has his short mound set about with fragments
of clam-shell, as if in children's play. Some
lots are enclosed, the black posts with rounded
tops looking like monastic sentries, and a few
headboards, with the painted name already
rain-washed out of recognition, lean away from
the wind. In the centre of this oraunt o^rave-
yard, where the roaring Atlantic storms tear up
even the coarse tufts of beach-grass, a great
gray cross of wood, set in a hill of sand,
Cape Cod Towns 361
spreads weather-beaten arms. The guardian-
ship of the Church and the fellowship of the
sea these Portuguese fisherfolk brought with
them, and as yet America has given them
nothinor dearer.
The Portuguese constitute a large proportion
of the foreign element in Barnstable County,
where nearly nine tenths of the people are of
English descent. The protruding tip of Cape
Cod easily catches such ocean drift as these
Western Islanders, and they have made their
way as far up the Cape as F'almouth, where they
watch their chance to buy old homesteads at
low rates. They are natural farmers and even
in Harwich and Truro divide their labors be-
tween sea and land. But it is in Province-
town that these swart-faced strangers most do
conorreo^ate, o^ardeninor wherever a o^arden is
possible, tending the fish-weirs, working, when
herring are plenty, in the canning factories,
and almost monopolizing the fresh fishing in-
dustry. Even those who are most thrifty,
building homes and buying vessels, wear the
look of aliens, and some, when their more
active years are over, gather up their savings
and return to the Azores ; but the raven-haired
girls are beginning to listen to Yankee wooers,
362 Cape Cod Towns
and the next century may see the process of
amalgamation well under way. Already these
new Pilerims have tasted so much of the air of
freedom as to wax a little restive under the
authority of their fiery, devoted young priest,
who upbraids them with his last expletive for
their shortcomings as energetically as he aids
them with his last dollar in their distress.
In the general aspect of the port, it is as
true to-day as when, in 1808, the townspeople
petitioned for a suspension of the embargo,
that their interest is '' almost totally in fish and
vessels." A substantial citizen keeps his boat
as naturally as an inlander would keep his
carriage. Any loiterer on the street can lend
a hand with sweep-seine or jibstay, but the
harnessing of a horse is a mystery known to
few. In 1 8 19, there was but one horse owned
in Provincetown, and that "an old, white one
with one eye." In point of fact, however, the
fortunes of Provincetown seem to demand, at
present, some further support than the fisher-
ies. It is believed that, by dint of capital,
labor and irrigation, more could be gained
from the soil, and that the advantages of the
place as a summer resort might be developed.
The whaling business has greatly declined
Cape Cod Towns
3^3
since the discovery of petroleum, the mackerel
have forsaken their old haunts, and even cod-
fishing, in which Provincetown long stood sec-
ond to Gloucester, is on the wane. Wharves
and marine railways are falling into ruin, and
the natives of the old Cape seek a subsistence
PROVINCETOWN IN 1839.
FROM AN OLD DRAWING.
in Western ranches and crowded cities, leaving
their diminished home industries to the immi-
grants. Still twoscore or so of vessels go to
the Grand Banks, and as many more engage
in the fresh fishing. Emulous tales do these
fishermen tell of quick trips and large catches,
for example the clipper Jttlia Costa, under a
Portuguese skipper, which set sail at six in the
morning for fishing-grounds about fifteen miles
3^4 Cape Cod Towns
northeast of Highland Light, took fifteen thou-
sand pounds of cod, and arrived at her Boston
moorinors an hour before midniorht. But the
o o
"fish-stories" told in Provincetown are more
often legends of the past, before the heroic
days of whaling went out with the invention
of the explosive bomb lance, — legends of for-
tunes made in oil and ambergris, of hair-breadth
escapes from the infuriated monsters, and es-
pecially of Moby Dick, the veteran whale who,
off the coast of Chili, defied mankind until the
whale-gun rolled him over at last, with twenty-
three old harpoons rusted in his body.
The foreicrn element in Provincetown is not
all Portuguese. There is a sprinkling of many
nationalities, especially Irish, and, more num-
erous yet, English and Scotch from the Brit-
ish provinces, while sailor-feet from all over
the globe tread the long plank-walk of Front
Street. This famous walk was built, after
much wrangling, from the town's share of the
Surplus Revenue distributed by Andrew Jack-
son, and the story goes that the more stiff-
necked opponents of this extravagance refused
their lifetimes long to step upon the planks,
and plodded indignantly through the sandy
middle of the road. Upon this chief thorough-
Cape Cod Towns 365
fare stand several churches, looking seaward.
Sailors in these waters used to steer by the
meeting-house steeples, which are frequent all
along the Cape. Some of those early churches
now struggle on with meagre congregations,
and a few are abandoned, the wind whistling
through the empty belfries. Provincetown has
a record of ancient strife between the Orthodox
and the Methodists. The established sect re-
sented the intrusion of the new doctrine to
such a degree that they made a bonfire of the
timber designed for the Methodist building.
The heretics effectively retaliated by securing
the kev to the Orthodox meeting-house, lock-
ing out the astonished owners, and taking
permanent possession, triumphantly singing
Methodist hymns to the Orthodox bass-viol.
It was thirty-two years before the discomfited
Orthodox rallied sufficiently to build them-
selves another church.
Journeying from Provincetown, " perched
out on a crest of alluvial sand," up the wrist of
the Cape, one sees the land a-making. At
first the loose sand drifts like snow. Then the
coarse marsh-grasses begin to bind and hold
it, low bushes mat their roots about it, and
planted tracts of pitch-pine give the shifting
3^6 Cape Cod Towns
waste a real stability. The Pilgrims found,
they said, — but perhaps there was a Canaan
dazzle in their eyes, — their landing-place well
wooded and the soil "a spit's depth, excellent
black earth." But now all sods and garden-
ground must be brought from a distance, and a
mulberry or a sycamore, even the most stunted
apple-tree that squats and cowers from the
wind, is a proud possession. When President
Dwight of Yale rode through Truro into Pro-
vincetown a century ago, he was amazed at the
sterility and bleak desolation of the landscape,
half hidden as it was by " the tempestuous
tossing of the clouds of sand." He was told
that the inhabitants were required by law to
plant every April bunches of beach-grass to
keep the sand from blowing. The national
government, stirred by the danger to the harbor,
afterwards took the matter in hand. Between
1826 and 1838, twenty-eight thousand dollars
were expended in an attempt to strengthen
the harbor shores by beach-grass. Of late
Massachusetts has become aroused to the des-
olate condition of her Province Lands, and is
making a determined effort to redeem them by
the planting of trees and by other restorative
measures. These blowing sand-dunes have,
Cape Cod Towns 367
however, a strange beauty of their own, and
the color effects in autumn, given by the low
and ragged brush, are of the warmest.
" It was like the richest rug imaginable," wrote Tho-
reau, '' spread over an uneven surface ; no damask nor
velvet, nor Tyrian dye or stuffs, nor the work of any
loom, could ever match it. There was the incredibly
bright red of the Huckleberry, and the reddish brown of
the Bayberry, mingled with the bright and living green
of small Pitch-Pines, and also the duller green of the
Bayberry, Boxberry and Plum, the yellowish green of
the Shrub Oaks, and the various golden and yellow and
fawn-colored tints of the Birch and Maple and Aspen, —
each making its own figure, and, in the midst, the few
yellow sand-slides on the sides of the hills looked like
the white floor seen through rents in the rug,"
The sand has dealt most unkindly of all with
Truro, choking up her harbor, from which a
fine fleet of mackerel vessels used to sail. No
longer is her rollicking fishing-song, apparently
an inheritance from Old England, lifted on the
morning breeze :
" Up jumped the mackerel.
With his striped back —
Says he, reef in the mains'l, and haul on the tack.
For it 's windy weather.
It 's stormy weather.
And when the wind blows pipe all hands together —
For, upon my word, it 's windy weather.
3^8 Cape Cod Towns
" Up jumped the cod,
With his chuckle head —
And jumped into the main chains to heave at the lead, —
For it 's windy weather," etc.
This town, the Indian Pamet, was formally
settled in 1 709 by a few English purchasers
from Eastham, having been occupied earlier
only by irresponsible fishermen and traders.
The new planters took hold with energy, wag-
ing war against blackbirds and crows, wolves
and foxes, for the protection of their little
wealth in corn and cattle, while none the less
they dug clams, fished by line and net and
watched from their lookouts for offshore whales.
The Cape plumes itself not a little upon its
early proficiency in whaling. In 1690, one
Ichabod Paddock, whose name might so easily
have been Haddock, went from Yarmouth to
Nantucket " to instruct the people in the art
of killing whales in boats from the shore."
And when the sea-monster, thus maltreated,
withdrew from its New England haunts, the
daring whalemen built ships and followed,
cruising the Atlantic and Pacific, even the Arc-
tic and Antarctic oceans. But the Revolution
put a check on all our maritime enterprises.
The Truro fishermen, like the rest, laid by
Cape Cod Towns 369
their harpoons, and melted up their mackerel
leads for bullets. From one village of twenty-
three houses, twenty-eight men gave up their
lives for liberty. In religion, too, Truro had
the courage of her convictions, building the
first Methodist meeting-house on the Cape,
the second in New England. The cardinal
temptation of Cape Cod is Sunday fishing,
and Truro righteousness was never put more
sharply to the pinch than in 1834, when a pro-
digious school of blackfish appeared off Great
Hollow one autumnal Sabbath morning. A
number of Truro fishermen, from the Grand
Banks and elsewhere, were on their way home
in boats from Provincetown, when the shining
shoulders of hundreds of the g^reat fish were
seen moving through the waves. With for-
tunes in full view, a goodly number of these
men shifted into boats which rowed soberly
for their destination, while the rest, with eager
outcry, rounded up the school, and drove the
frightened creatures, with shouts and blows
from the oars, like sheep upon the beach.
Church-members who took part in the wild
chase were brought to trial, but a lurking sym-
pathy in the hearts of their judges saved them
from actual expulsion.
Z7^ Cape Cod Towns
This befell within the period of Truro's
highest prosperity. From 1830 to 1855 the
wharves were crowded with sloops and schoon-
ers, a shipyard was kept busy, and salt was
made all along the shore. At the middle of
the century, the town had over two thousand
inhabitants, but the number has now fallen off
by some three fifths. The *' turtle-like sheds
of the salt-works," which Thoreau noted, have
been long since broken up and sold for lumber.
There is weir-fishing still, supplying fresh fish
for market and bait for the fishing-fleets of
Provincetown and Gloucester. Rods of the
black netting may be seen spread over the
poverty-grass to dry.
Although the sand of Cape Cod is in some
places three hundred feet deep, there is be-
lieved to be a backbone of diluvian rock.
There is a clay vein, too, which slants across
the Cape and crops out at Truro in the so-called
Clay Pounds, now crowned by Highland Light,
shining two hundred feet above the ocean. This
hill of clay thus renders a sovereign service
to that dangerous stretch of navigation. It
must be borne in mind that Cape Cod runs
out straight into the Atlantic for twoscore
miles, by the south measurement, and then,
Z12 Cape Cod Towns
abruptly turning, juts up another forty to the
north. The shifty sand-bars of the Back Side
have caught, twisted and broken the hulls of
innumerable craft. One gale of wind wrecked
eighteen vessels between Race Point, at the
extremity of the Cape, and Highland Light.
The average width of our crooked peninsula
is six miles, but at Truro it narrows to half
that distance. Across this strip the storms
whirl the flinty sand, until the humblest cot-
tage may boast of ground-glass window-panes.
The coast outline is ever changing and the
restless dunes show the fantastic carvings of
the wind. The 'houses cuddle down into the
wavy hollows, with driftwood stacked at their
back doors for fuel, and with worn-out fish-
nets stretched about the chicken-yards. Here
and there a pine-tree abandons all attempt at
keeping up appearances and lies flat before
the blast. The ploughed fields are as white
with sand as so many squares of beach, and
the sea-tang is strong in the air. Accustomed,
before their harbor failed them, to depend
chiefly upon the sea for subsistence, the people
of Truro now find it no easy matter to wrest a
living from what they have of land. Every-
thing is turned to account, from turnips to
/
374 Cape Cod Towns
mayflowers. Along those sand-pits of roads,
bordered with thick beds of pink-belled bear-
berries, or where the dwarfish pines, their
wizened branches hung with gray tags of moss,
yellow the knolls, are gathered large quantities
of sweetest, pinkest arbutus for the Boston
market.
Wellfleet, which drew off from Eastham in
1 763, has also fallen on evil days. Perhaps
the fishermen have overreached themselves
with the greedy seines. There is high contro-
versy on this point between line-fishers and
weir-fishers, but the fact stands that fish are
growing scarce. Wellfleet had once her hun-
dred vessels at the Banks, her whaling-schoon-
ers, built in her own yards from her own timber,
and beds of oysters much prized by city pal-
ates. There was a time when forty or fifty
sail were busy every season transporting Well-
fleet shell-fish to Boston. " As happy as a
clam " might then have been the device of
Wellfleet heraldry. But suddenly the oyster
died and, although the beds have been planted
anew, the ancient fame has not been fully re-
gained. A town, too, many of whose citizens
spent more than half their lives on shipboard,
was sure to suffer from our wars, peculiarly
Cape Cod Towns 375
disastrous to seafaring pursuits. Early in the
Revolution, Wellfieet was constrained to peti-
tion for an abatement of her war-tax, stating
that her whale-fishery, by which nine tenths of
her people lived, was entirely shut off by British
gunboats, and that the shell-fish industries, on
which the remaining tenth depended, was
equally at a standstill. In this distress, as
again in the Civil War, Cape Cod sailors
took to privateering and made a memorable
record, Wellfieet, like Truro, has lessened
more than one half in population since 1850,
but her shell roads are better than the sand-
ruts of her neighbor, and bicyclists and other
summer visitors are beginning to find her out.
She has her own melancholy charm of barren-
ness and desolation quite as truly as she has
her characteristic dainties of quahaug pie and
fried-quahaug cakes. The place abounds in
dim old stories, from the colonial legend of the
minister's deformed child, done to death by a
dose from its father's hand, that child whose
misshapen little ghost still fiits, on moonlight
nights, about a certain rosebush, to the many-
versioned tale of the buccaneer, ever and anon
seen prowling about that point on the Back Side
where Sam Bellamy's pirate-ship was cast
376
Cape Cod Towns
away, and stooping to gather the coins flung
up to him by the skeleton hands of his drowned
shipmates. A volume would not suffice for
the stories of these Cape towns. Their very
calendar is kept by storms : as the Magee storm
of December, 1778, when the government brig
General Arnold, commanded by Captain James
Magee, went down ;
or the Mason and
Slidell storm of
1862, when the
Southern emissaries
were brought from
Fort Warren to Pro-
vi nee town, and
there, amidst the
protest of the ele-
ments, yielded up
to the British
^\.^2.v[i^x Rinaldo ; or
the pitiless October
BISHOP AND CLERK LIGHT, HYANNIS. ^^|^ ^£ ^g^^^ ^^J^^^^
from Truro alone forty-seven men were swal-
lowed by the sea.
The quiet little town of Eastham, originally
*' Nawsett," settled in 1646, only seven years
after the three pioneers, Barnstable, Sandwich
Cape Cod Towns zil
and Yarmouth, has shared the hard fortunes of
the lower Cape. With a remnant of less than
five hundred inhabitants, it finds, under the
present stress, a resource in asparagus, shipping
a carload or two to Boston every morning in
the season. To this land industry the ocean
consents to contribute, the soil being dressed
for '' sparrowgrass " with seaweed and shells.
But no hardship can deprive Eastham of its
history. After the encounter between the Pil-
grims and Indians here in 1620, the place was
not visited again until the following July, when
Governor Bradford sent from Plymouth a
boatload of ten men to recover that young
scapegrace, John Billington. This boy, whose
father, ten years after, was hanged by the col-
onists for murder, had come near blowing up
the Mayflower, in Provincetown harbor, by
shooting off a fowling-piece in her cabin, close
by an open keg of powder, and, later, must
needs lose himself in Plymouth woods. He
had wandered into the territory of the Nausets,
who, althouorh this was the tribe which had
suffered from Hunt's perfidy, restored the lad
unharmed to the English. The Nausets fur-
ther proved their friendliness by supplying the
Pilgrims, in the starving time of 1622, with
37^
Cape Cod Towns
stores of corn and beans. But the followino-
year, suspecting an Indian plot against the
colonists, Myles Standish, that " little chimney
soon on fire," appeared upon the Cape in full
panoply of war, executed certain of the alleged
conspirators and so
terrified the rest
that many fled to
the marshes and
miserably perished.
The traveller up
the Cape notices
still that Eastham
has more of a land
look than the lower
towns. The soil is
darker, small stones
appear, and the
trees, although still
twisted to left and right, as if to dodge a blow,
are larger. The Indians had maize-fields there
and the site seemed so promising to the Pilgrims
that talk sprang up in the early forties of trans-
ferring the Plymouth colony thither. As a com-
promise, several of the old-comers obtained a
grant of the Nauset land, and established a
branch settlement, soon incorporated as a town-
OLD WINDMILL, EASTHAM.
Cape Cod Towns 379
ship. Promptly arose their meeting-house,
twenty feet square, with port-holes and a thatch.
They secured a full congregation by absence
penalties of ten shillings, a flogging or the
stocks. One of these sturdy fathers in the
faith. Deacon Doane, is said to have lived to
the patriarchal age of one hundred and ten,
rounding life's circle so completely that at the
end, as at the beginning, he was helplessly
rocked in a cradle.
Thoreau was amused over a provision made
by the town of Eastham in 1662, that "a part
of every whale cast on shore be appropriated
for the support of the ministry," and drew a
fancy-picture of the old parsons sitting on the
sand-hills in the storms, anxiously watching for
their salaries to be rolled ashore over the bars
of the Back Side. One of these w^orthies.
Rev. Samuel Treat, whose oratory outroared
the stormy surf, shares with Richard Bourne,
of Sandwich, the memory of a true pastoral
care for the Cape Indians. He was, in re-
turn, so well beloved, that, on his death, his
wild converts dug a long passage through the
remarkably deep snowfall of the time, and
bore him on their shoulders down this white
archway to his grave. The Revolutionary War
380 Cape Cod Towns
was a heavy drain on the resources of the
staunch httle town, but, with the restoration
of peace, whaHng and all kinds of deep-sea
fishing were resumed, and a tide of prosperity
set in. Salt-works were established, and pre-
sently Eastham was able to afford such luxuries
as a pulpit cushion and a singing-school.
Orleans, set off in 1797 from the southerly
portion of Eastham, has an old-fashioned
quaintness that is better than business pros-
perity. Sand has partially closed the harbors,
and the population has been dwindling for the
past half-century, but the ocean still serves old
neighbors as it can with quahaugs and the
seaweed, now collected for paper-making. The
distinction of being the terminus of the French
Atlantic Cable fromi Brest is in keeping with
the name Orleans — a unique instance of a for-
eign title among these old Cape towns. The
early settlers put by the melodious I ndian words,
Succanessett, Mattacheeset, and the rest, and
substituted the dear home names from Devon,
Cornwall, Norfolk and Kent. The christening
of Brewster, Bourne and Dennis honored sev-
erally the Pilgrim elder, the Sandwich friend of
the Indians and a Yarmouth pastor ; but these
are of comparatively recent date. As Well-
Cape Cod Towns 381
fleet and Orleans have been cut, on north and
south, out of the original Eastham, so were
Harwich, Chatham, Dennis, Brewster, once
*' within the liberties of Yarmouth."
The history of Yarmouth, too, is so closely
allied to the histories of Barnstable and of
Sandwich, with her daughter Bourne, that the
story of all these may be told as one.
These three initial settlements on the Cape
were recognized as townships in 1639. From
the outset, the difference in their locations mi-
posed upon them different tasks. Yarmouth,
the elbow town of the Cape, bore the brunt
of wind and wave ; Sandwich kept the border,
notably in King Philip's War, when she guarded
the faithful Cape Indians from temptation and
received for safe harborao^e Ens^lish refuorees
from the ravaged districts ; and Barnstable, the
aristocratic sister of the group, made traditions,
set examples and produced the Otis family.
With Old Yarmouth, the Cape widens. No
longer do householders, as at Truro, own land
in strips from shore to shore. The soil, too,
deepens, and the cows need not with hungry
noses brush away the drifted sand to find the
grass. On the Back Side is no marked change
in aspect. Still pine grove after pine grove
382 Cape Cod Towns
adds flavor to the salt air, and where the
carpet of needles is trodden through, gleam
patches of white sand. The strange reap-
pearance of the Some7'set is out-miracled in
Old Ship Harbor, where, in 1863, long after
the significance of the name had been for-
gotten, the hull of the Sparrozu-Hawk, wrecked
there in 1626, on her way from London to
Virginia, rose again to view. This portion of
the Cape is in excellent repute with pleasure-
seekers, and the seaside cottage is ubiquitous,
especially in beautiful Chatham, whose ever-
changing shore takes the wildest raging of the
surf. Harwich, which has orone throuofh the
' <Z> O
regular stages of whaling, codding, mackerel-
fishinor and salt-makino^, cultivates in turn the
summer boarder, but somewhat quizzically.
Retired sea-captains are not easily overawed
even by golf-sticks, and retired sea-captains,
in Harwich, are as thick as cranberries. Snuff-
ing the brine, they pace their porches like so
many quarter-decks and delight their auditors
and themselves with marvellous recitals. The
Cape has not proved friendly to manufactures
in eeneral. Salt-works and ^lass-works have
come to naught, — but the spinning of sea-
yarns is a perennial industry.
384 Cape Cod Towns
Many of the summer guests prefer the north
side of the Cape, where fogs are less frequent,
or where. In ancient Indian parlance, old Maus-
hope smokes his pipe less often. Such find in
Brewster and Dennis no less delightful colonies
of ancient ship-masters, living easily off their
sea-hoards. In 1837 that little town of Dennis
claimed no fewer than one hundred and fifty
skippers sailing from various American ports,
and in 1850 it was said that more sea-captains
went on foreign voyages from Brewster than
from any other place in the United States.
Often their wives sailed with them and had
thereafter something wider than village gossip
to bring to the quilting- and the sewing-circle.
It was a great day for the children In the vil-
lage when a sea-captain came home. From
door to door went his frank sailor-gifts, jars
of Chinese sweetmeats, shimmering Indian
stuffs, tamarinds, cocoanuts, parrots, fans of
gay feather, boxes of spicy wood, glowing
corals, and such great, whispering shells as
Cape Cod beaches never knew. It was a
hospitable and merry time, given to savory
suppers, picnic clambakes, and all manner of
neighborly good-cheer. Even the common
dread made for a closer sympathy. Any
Cape Cod Towns 385
woman, going softly to her neighbor to break
the news of the husband lost in Arctic ice,
might in some dark hour drop her head upon
that neighbor's shoulder in hearing of a son
drowned off the Banks or slain by South Sea
Islanders.
The old town of Yarmouth, dozing thus
among children already gray, has many a thing
to dream about, when the surf is loud. She
remembers the terrible gale of 1635, in which
the Thacher family were wrecked upon the
island that since has borne their name, the
March snow-storm that destroyed the three
East Indiamen from Salem, the stranding of
the English Jasoii, and many a tragedy more.
Along that treacherous Back Side, lighthouse
towers are now closely set, and well-equipped,
well-manned life-saving stations have succeeded
the rude Charity Houses, the fireplace, wood
and matches, straw pallet, and signal-pole
which used to give what succor they might
to hapless mariners. The old volunteer coast-
guard, which rarely failed to pace the beach
in storms, is now replaced by a regular patrol,
carrying lanterns and red hand-lights and
thoroughly drilled in the use of shot-line and
breeches-buoy. But still the fierce-blowing
386
Cape Cod Towns
sand cuts their faces to bleeding and still the
furious surf makes playthings of their life-
boats, so that manhood has no less heroic
opportunity than in the earlier days. The
crew at one of these stations, after an exposure
of twelve hours on the wintry beach, failed
V
LIFE-SAVING STATION AT WELLFLEET.
in every effort to launch the surf-boat and
had to see the rescue they should have made
effected by a crew of fishermen volunteers.
The keeper brooded over his disgrace and
the following winter wiped out what is known
upon the Cape as the "goading slur" by a
o
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388 Cape Cod Towns
desperate launching in a surf that beat the
Hfe from his body.
Ever since the day of the Pilgrims, who
made the suggestion, and of George Washing-
ton, who furthered the project, there has been
talk of a Cape Cod canal to expedite traffic
and avert disaster. A channel between East-
ham and Orleans was once forced by the sea,
and various routes through Yarmouth, Barn-
stable and Sandwich have been surveyed, and
charters granted, but ships still round Race
Point. The railroad, however, which was built
by slow stages down the Cape and reached
Provincetown only a quarter of a century since,
has facilitated travel, doing away both with
the red-and-yellow mail-coach, which used, a
hundred years ago, to clatter through to Bos-
ton in two glorious days, and with the packet
service of jolly memory. Yarmouth and Barn-
stable were sharp rivals in these packet trips,
Barnstable putting her victories into verse :
" The Commodore Hull she sails so dull
She makes her crew look sour ;
The Eagle Flight she is out of sight
Less than a half an hour.
But the bold old Emerald takes delight
To beat the ComTnodore and the Flight.'*
Cape Cod Towns
389
Barnstable has pursued from the outset a
course of modest prosperity. She does not
ask too much of
fortune. If her
census-roll has
gained only five
in the last de-
cade, that is bet-
ter than losing,
as most of the
Cape towns have
done, and, even
so, her numbers
rank next to Pro-
vincetown. How
humble were the
beginnings of
this sedate and
gracious county
seat may be learned from the letter of an early
citizen, declining Governor Winslow's appoint-
ment to lead an expedition against the Dutch.
This quiet colonist, who commanded the Ply-
mouth forces in King Philip's War, pleads his
domestic cares :
'' My wife, as is well known to the whole town, is not
only a weak woman, and has been so all along, but now,
BARNSTABLE INN.
390 Cape Cod Towns
by reason of age, being sixty-seven years and upwards,
and nature decaying, so her ilhiess grows more strongly
upon her. Never a day passes but she is forced to rise
at break of day, or before. She cannot lie for want of
breath. And when she is up, she cannot light a pipe of
tobacco, but it must be lighted for her. And she has
never a maid. That day your letter came to my hands,
my maid's year being out, she went away, and I cannot
get or hear of another. And then in regard of my occa-
sions abroad, for the tending and looking after all my
creatures, the fetching home my hay, that is yet at the
place where it grew, getting of wood, going to mill, and
for the performing all other family occasions, I have now
but a small Indian boy about thirteen years of age, to
help me. Sir, I can truly say that I do not in the least
waive the business out of an effeminate or dastardly
spirit, but am as freely willing to serve my King and my
country as any man whatsoever, in what I am capable and
fitted for, but do not understand that a man is so called
to serve his country with the inevitable ruin and destruc-
tion of his own family."
An " effeminate or dastardly spirit " would
indeed be a novelty in the birthplace of James
Otis. But it was not only in face of the Indian
and the redcoat that these three old towns
showed firm courage. To their glory be it re-
membered that they withstood the persecutor
and bluntly refused to enforce the laws against
heresy, so that a special officer had to be sent
by Plymouth Court to hunt out and oppress
Cape Cod Towns 391
the Quakers. Under his petty tyrannies, the
faith of the Friends gained many converts, and
Quakerism became permanently estabHshed on
the Cape.
These upper towns have never depended
on the sea as exclusively as those below, and
hence the decline of the fisheries has been less
disastrous to them. They need industries to
hold their young people at home, but the ma-
rine manufacture of salt by solar evaporation,
the discovery of a Dennis sea-captain, has had
its day, and the once famous Sandwich glass-
works are now idle. Sheep-raising and cattle-
raisinor were lonor since abandoned, but while
the New England Thanksgiving lasts, cran-
berry culture bids fair to yield an honest profit.
As early as 1677, Massachusetts presented
Charles II. (put out of humor by the pine-
tree shilling) with three thousand codfish, two
hogsheads of samp and ten barrels of cran-
berries. These last are still good enough for
a better king than the Merry Monarch, and
cranberry-picking is one of the most pic-
turesque sights on the modern Cape. Hun-
dreds of pickers, gathering by hand or with
the newlv invented machines, move over a
bog in ordered companies. The *' summer
392 Cape Cod Towns
folks " flock to the fun, and Portuguese, Ital-
ians, Swedes, Poles, Finns, Russians, troop
down from Boston and over from New Bed-
ford for the brief cranberry season, or they
may come earlier to join the blueberry-pickers
that dot the August hills. The bogs are easily
made from the wastes of swamp, which are
drained, sanded, planted and given three
years to grow a solid mat of vines. The crop
from a few acres brings dollars enough to carry
the thrifty Cape Codder through the year.
Rents are of the lowest, and the shrewd old
seaman who tends his own garden, salts his
own pork, raises his own chickens, milks his
own cow and occasionally " goes a-fishin',''
while his wife cooks and sews, and " ties tags "
for pin-money, has no heavy bills to meet.
There is so little actual poverty in these towns
that the poorhouse is often rented.
Even Mashpee, once the Indian reservation,
but now a little township peopled by half-
breeds, mulattoes and a sprinkling of whites,
grows tidier and more capable every year. The
aborigines of Cape Cod have left slight traces
save the melodious names that cling to bay
and creek. Arrow-heads are scattered about,
and now and then the plough turns up one of
Cape Cod Towns 393
the clam-shell hoes with which the Nausets
used to till their maize-fields. The Praying
Indians of the Cape deserve our memory,
for they were always faithful to their English
neiorhbors. When the first reoflmentwas raised
in Barnstable County for the Revolutionary
War, twenty-two Mashpees enlisted, of whom
but one came home. A Praying Indian of
Yarmouth has won a place in New England
song, — Nauhaught the Deacon, who, hunger-
pinched, restored the tempting purse of gold
to the Wellfleet skipper and received a tithe
'' as an honest man."
The beauty of the upper Cape, culminating
in the lovely town of Falmouth, is largely rural
and sylvan. A system of dyking has, within
the last fifty years, converted much of the salt
marsh to good, fresh meadow, and, from Or-
leans up, the look of the country is more and
more agricultural. Portions of Yarmouth are
well wooded, and in Barnstable, Sandwich and
Falmouth are depths of forest where the fox
and the deer run wild. The wolf alone has
been exterminated, and that with no small
trouble, the Cape finally proposing, after grisly
heads had been nailed on all her meeting-
houses, to build a high fence along her upper
394 Cape Cod Towns
border and shut the wolves out. But Ply-
mouth and Wareham objected, from their
side of the question, to having the wolves
shut in, and this ingenious scheme had to
be abandoned. These woodlands are dotted
in profusion with silvery ponds, which the
Fish Commission at Wood's Holl keeps well
stocked. Often the north side, as in Sand-
wich, is skirted by long stretches of unre-
claimed marsh, over which the heron flaps,
with the distinguished air of an old resident,
and from which the sweet whistle of the
marsh quail answers the " Bob White " of the
woods. There is plenty of rock in this land-
scape, the backbone of the Cape jutting
through. Barnstable proudly exhibits four
hundred feet of wall, two feet in width, wrought
from a sincrle mass of ofranite found within her
limits. Falmouth arbutus grows pinkest about
the base of a big boulder known as City Rock,
and a field of tumbled stones upon her Ouisset
road is accounted for on the hypothesis that
here the Devil, flying with his burden over to
Nantucket, "broke his apron-string." The
trees, too, are of goodly size and stand erect.
Elms, silver-leaf poplars, balm of Gileads,
great sycamores, spotted with iron-rust lichen,
39^ Cape Cod Towns
and willows, lemon yellow in the sun, shade the
waysides. Golden-winged woodpeckers and
red-shouldered blackbirds dart to and fro, while
the abundance of jaunty martin-houses shows
that Cape Cod hospitality is not limited to the
human.
The quiet, white homesteads, with green
blinds, broad porches and sometimes a cupola
for the sea-view, stand in a sweet tranquillity
and dignity that should abash the showy sum-
mer residence. But these old-fashioned homes
keep up with the times. Against the well-
sweep leans the bicycle. The dooryards are
blue with myrtle, or pink with rose-bushes,
or gay with waving daffodils. Old age is in
fashion on the Cape. When twilight fades,
the passer-by sees gathered about the early
evening lamp the white heads of those whose
*' chores " are done. And though death comes
at last, the cemeteries are so tenderly kept that
the grave is robbed of half its dread. Even
in the oldest burial-grounds, where the worn,
scarred stones lean with the privilege of age,
the staring death's-heads are cozily muffled in
moss, and '' Patience, wife of Experience,"
sleeps under a coverlet of heartsease.
All the way from Provincetown to Falmouth
39^ Cape Cod Towns
are certain briny signals, — a ship's figure-
head, marble steps whose stone was washed
ashore as wreckage, lobster-pots, herring-nets,
conch-shells set on lintels, a discontented polar
bear pacing a stout-paled yard, ruffling cocka-
toos, boats converted into flower-boxes, whales'
vertebrae displayed for ornament, garden-beds
marked out with scallop-shells, everywhere the
ship-shape look, the sailor's handy rig, and
everywhere the codfish used for weathercocks.
In Barnstable court-house a mammoth cod is
suspended from the ceiling. Vistas of ocean
outlook, too, from under arches of green
branches, flash upon the eye, the salty flavor
is not lost in woodland fragrances, and the roll-
ing hills and wavy pastures take their model
from the sea.
Of the old-timey features of the Cape, no
one is more impressive than the witch-like
windmill with its peaked cap, outspread arms
and slanting broomstick, reminding us that the
Pilgrims came from Holland. Some of these
antique mills have been bought by summer
residents and moved to their estates for curios-
ities, but the one at Orleans was in use as late
as 1892, taking its profitable toll of two quarts
out of the bushel.
400 Cape Cod Towns
The general history of Fahnouth but re-
peats the story of her sister towns. The first
settlers are believed to have come in boats from
Barnstable, in 1660. They encamped for the
night among the flags of Consider Hatch's
Pond, where a child was born and, in recogni-
tion of the rushes that sang his earliest lullaby,
named Moses. The town was duly incorporated
in 1686, next after Eastham, and has steadfastly
stood for piety, wisdom and patriotism. She
admitted the Quakers, and if one of her dea-
cons held a negro slave, as colonial deacons
often did, poor Cuffee was at least brought to
the communion table. It is Truro that con-
tains " Pomp's Lot," where the stolen African,
with loaf of bread and jug of water at his feet
for sustenance on his new journey, escaped
slavery by hanging. As for learning, it was
Sandwich Academy which the Cape towns
held in awe, but our Falmouth men, like the
rest, half sailor, half farmer and all theologian,
had a genuine culture, born of keen-eyed
voyaging and of lonely thought, that kept
the air about them tingling with intelligence.
When it comes to war stories, if Provincetown,
from her end of the Cape, can tell of her boy
in blue that went down with the CiLmberlandy
402 Cape Cod Towns
and her naval captain at Manila, Falmouth
can recall that twice she was bombarded by
the British and twice defended by the valor of
her sons, and when the Civil War broke out,
with the larger share of her able-bodied men
at sea, she yet sent more than her quota of
soldiers to the front.
Within the last quarter-century, Falmouth
has entered on new activities, largely due to
the increasing fame of Buzzard's Bay as a
summer resort. The story goes that the town
had all gone to sleep, but somebody woke one
day and painted his front fence, and forth-
with his neighbors, not to be outdone, painted
theirs, and their houses too, and the new era
came in with a rush. But v/hatever good fort-
une the future has in store, Paul Revere's
bell, that sounds from her central steeple, will
hold Falmouth true to her traditions ; for these
Cape towns, simple as their record is, have
worked out on unconsciously heroic lines the
essential principles of a God-fearing, self-re-
specting democracy.
DEERFIELD
OLD POCUMTUCK VALLEY
By GEORGE SHELDON
TO every one familiar with the history of the
old Bay State, the name of Deerfield
naturally brings to mind two diverse pictures :
one, the giant trees of the primeval forest un-
der whose sombre shade the white-haired
Eliot prayed, and the sluggish stream beside
whose banks he gathered its roving denizens
for a test of civilization ; the other, that scene
of woe and desolation, when, under a wintry
sky, the glare of burning houses lighted up a
wide expanse of snow, shaded by dark columns
of wavering smoke, and splashed here and
there with red. The first picture suggests
possibilities, the second results. The connect-
ing link between the two is the fact that out
of the labors of Eliot on the river Charles
403
404 Deerfield
grew directly the settlement of the English on
the Pocumtuck.
Back of all was the interest in the newly dis-
covered heathen, which sent currents of gold
from England across the seas to the Indian
missions. Of all these that of the Apostle Eliot
was the head and front. His first attempt, at
Newton, was a failure, from its proximity to a
Christian towp. On his petition, the General
Court granted him a tract in the wilderness
where he and the uncontaminated native could
come face to face with the God of Nature.
This tract was claimed by the town of Dedham,
and, after a successful legal contest, the General
Court gave the claimant in lieu of it the right
to select eight thousand acres in any unoccu-
pied part of the colony. After wide search
this grant was laid out on Pocumtuck River,
and the selection was ratified by the Court,
October 1 1, 1665.
This power, however, was only leave to pur-
chase of the native owners. The laws recog-
nized the rights of the Indians to the soil, and
no Englishman was allowed to buy or even re-
ceive as a gift any land from an Indian without
leave of the General Court. The oft-repeated
slander that the fair purchase of land from the
4o6 Deerfield
Indians was peculiar to William Penn, can be
refuted in general by a study of our early
statute books, and in particular by an examin-
ation of the original deeds from the Indians,
now in our Memorial Hall.
It will be seen by these deeds that the In-
dians reserved the right of hunting, fishing
and gathering nuts — all, in fact, that was of
any real value to them. The critic says that
in such trades the price was nominal and that
the Indian was outrageously cheated. Fort-
unately, in this case existing evidence proves
that Dedham paid the natives more than the
English market price, in hard cash, and besides
gave one acre at Natick for every four here.
The money to pay for the eight thousand
acres was raised by a tax on the landholders of
Dedham, the owners paymg in proportion to
the number of shares or "cow commons"
held ; and their ownership of the new territory
was in the same proportion. There were five
hundred and twenty-two shares in all, held
in common, covering the whole of Dedham.
In 1 67 1 a committee from Dedham laid out
highways, set apart tracts for the support of
the ministry, laid out a " Town Plott," and
large sections of plow-land and of mow-land.
Deerfield 407
In each of these sections individuals were as-
signed by lot their respective number of cow
commons. Later the woodlands were divided
in the same manner. For generations this
land was bought and sold, not by the acre, but
by the cow common, fractions thereof being
sheep or goat commons, five of these being a
unit.
The ''Town Plott," laid out in 1671, is the
Old Deerfield Street of to-day.
The first settlers at Pocumtuck were not,
as generally supposed, the original Dedham
owners. The shares of the latter had been
for years on the market, and many had passed
to outsiders. But only picked men were al-
lowed to become proprietors. This fact is
illustrated by votes like the following :
" Dec. 4, 1 67 1. John Plimpton is allowed to
purchase land of John Bacon at Pawcumtucke
provided that the said John Plimpton doe set-
tle thereupon in his owne person." On the
same day the request of Daniel Weld for leave
to purchase was refused. No reason was as-
signed, and Mr. Weld was admitted soon
after.
"Feb. 16, 1671-2. Lieft. Fisher is alowed
libertie to sell 6 cow common rights and one
o
4o8
Deerfield
sheepe common right at Paucomtuck to Na-
thaniel Sutthfe of Medfield."
FRARY HOUSE, 1698. OLDEST IN THE COUNTY.
The pioneer settler here was Samuel H ins-
dell, of Medford. He had bought shares, and,
impatient of delay in making the division, he
became a squatter, and in 1669 turned the first
furrow in the virgin soil of Pocumtuck. Sam-
son Frary was a close second, if not a contem-
porary ; *' Samson Frary's cellar " is mentioned
in the report of the Committee, May, 1671.
Deerfield 409
The settlers increased rapidly. May 7,
1673, the General Court gave them " Liberty
of a Towneship," which is Deerfield's only
''Act of Incorporation." Soon after, a rude
meeting-house was built, and Samuel Mather
served as a minister among them.
A loose sheet of paper has been found dated
Nov. 7, 1673, with a record of a town-meeting.
This was signed by the following, who must be
called the earliest settlers :
Richard Weler John Barnard
John Plympton John Weler
Joshua Carter Samuel Herenton
Samson Frary John Hinsdell
Quinten Stockwell Ephraim Hinsdell
Joseph Gillet Moses Crafts
Barnabas Hinsdell Nathaniel Sutley
Robert Hinsdell John Farrington
John Allen Thomas Hastings
Daniel Weld Francis Barnard
Samuel Hinsdell Samuel Daniel
Experience Hinsdell James Tufts.
The action of this meeting was chiefly on
the division of land, but it was voted that '' all
charges respecting the ministers sallerye or
maintenance bee leuied and raised on lands for
the present." Another page shows a meet-
4IO Deerfield
ing November 17, 1674, when the plantation
was called Deerfield. We have no clue as to
why or by what authority it was so called.
The newcomers found the meadows free
from trees, with a rich soil which soon yielded
abundantly of wheat, rye, peas, oats, beans,
flax, grass and Indian corn. The meadows
were enclosed with a common fence to keep
out the common stock, which roamed at will
on the common land outside.
The war of 1675 is called "Philip's War"
because Philip was able to incite the tribes to
hostilities against the whites, rather than be-
cause it was carried on under his direction. A
seer and a patriot Philip may have been, but
he was not a warrior. It is not known that
he was ever in a single conflict.
When the first blood was shed at far-away
Swanzey, in June, 1675, the men of Pocum-
tuck were not disquieted. With the Indians
about them they had lived for years in perfect
harmony. But when the blow fell on Captains
Beers and Lothrop under the shadow of their
own Wequamps, war became a reality. As a
measure of defense two or three houses were
slightly fortified, and none too soon. The
villao^e was marked for destruction. On the
Deerfield 411
morning of September i, 1675, the Indians
gathered in the adjoining woods, awaiting
the hour when the men, scattered about the
meadows at their work could be shot down
one bv one, leavinor the women and children
to the mercy of the Indians. This plan was
frustrated. The Indians were discovered early
in the morning by James Eggleston, while
looking for his horse. Eggleston was shot
and the alarm given. The people fled to the
forts. These were easily defended by the
men, but beyond the range of their muskets
ruin and devastation held sway.
Deerfield was the first town in the Connecti-
cut Valley to be assaulted, and the alarm was
general. The news reached Hadley the same
day while the inhabitants were gathered in the
meeting-house observing a fast ; " and," says
Mather, " they were driven from the holy ser-
vice they were attending by a most sudden and
violent alarm which routed them the whole day
after." Their alarm and rout were needless ; no
enemy appeared. Yet these words of the his-
torian are the narrow foundation on which
Stiles and others gradually built up the roman-
tic myth of Goffe, as the guardian and deliverer
of Hadley.
412 Deerfield
September 2, the tactics at Deerfield were
successfully repeated by the Indians at North-
field. Eight men were killed in the meadows,
but enough were left in the village to hold
the stockade. September 4, Captain Richard
Beers with his company who were marching to
their relief, were surprised, and himself and
twenty men were slain. September 5, Major
Robert Treat, with a superior force, brought
off the beleaguered survivors.
Sunday, September 12, another blow fell
upon Deerfield. The place had now a garri-
son under Captain Samuel Appleton. The
Indians could see from the hills the soldiers
gathering in one of the forts for public wor-
ship. They laid an ambush to waylay the
soldiers and people returning after service to
the north fort, but all escaped their fire save
one, who was wounded. Nathaniel Cornbury,
left to sentinel the north fort, was captured,
and never again heard from. Appleton rallied
his men, and the marauders, after inflicting
much loss on the settlers, drew off to Pine Hill.
But a sadder blow was to fall upon the dwell-
ers in this little vale. The accumulated result
of their industry and toil was to disappear in
flame and ashes. In their wanton destruction
Deerfield 413
the Indians had spared the wheat In the field
for their own future supply ; *' 3000 bushels
standing in stacks," says Mather. This wheat
was needed at headquarters to feed the gath-
ering troops, and Colonel Pynchon, the Com-
mander-in-Chief, gave orders to have it threshed
and sent to Hadley. Captain Thomas Lothrop,
with his company, was sent to convoy the
teams transporting it.
September 18, 1675, ''that most fatal day,
the saddest that ever befel New England," says
a contemporary, " Captain Lothrop, with his
choice company of young men, the very flower
of the county of Essex," marched boldly down
the street, across South Meadows, up Long
Hill, into the woods stretching away to Hat-
field Meadows. Confident in his strength,
scorning the enemy. Captain Lothrop pushed
on through the narrow path, with not a flanker
or vanguard thrown out. Extending along his
left lay a swampy thicket through which crept
a nameless brook. Gradually, the swamp nar-
rowed, and turned to the right across the line
of march. At this spot the combined force
of the enemy lay in ambush, and into this trap
marched Lothrop and his men. While the
teams were slowly dragging their loads through
414 Deerfield
the mire, it is said the soldiers laid down their
guns to pluck and eat the grapes which grew
in abundance by the way. Be this true or not,
at this spot they were surprised and stunned
by the fierce war-whoop, the flash and roar of
muskets with their bolts of death. Captain
Lothrop and many of his command fell at the
first fire. The men of Pocumtuck sank, the
''Flower of Essex" wilted before the blast, and —
" Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead
Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters
red."
The sluggish stream was baptized for aye,
"Bloody Brook."
Captain Samuel Moseley, who was search-
ing the woods for Indians, hearing the firing,
was soon on the ground. Too late to save,
he did his best to avenge ; he charged repeat-
edly, scattering the enemy, who swarmed as
often as dispersed. But he defied all their
efforts to surround him. His men exhausted
with their long efforts, Moseley was about to
retire, when just in the nick of time Major
Treat appeared, with a force of English and
Mohegans. The enemy were driven westward
and were pursued until nightfall. The united
Deerfield 4^5
force then marched to Deerfield, bearing their
wounded, and leaving the dead where they fell.
Mather says, "this was a black and fatal day
wherein there was eight persons made widows
and six and twenty children made orphans, all
in one little Plantation." That plantation was
Deerfield, and these were the heavy tidings
which the worn-out soldiers carried to the
stricken survivors of the hamlet. Of the seven-
teen fathers and brothers who left them in the
morning, not one returned to tell the tale. The
next morning, Treat and Moseley marched to
Bloody Brook and buried the slain — " 64 men
in one dreadful grave." The names of sixty-
three are known, and also of seven wounded.
John Stebbins, ancestor of the Deerfield tribe
of that name, is the only man in Lothrop's
command known to have escaped unhurt.
The reported force of the enemy was a thou-
sand warriors, and their loss ninety-six. This
must be taken with a grain of allowance.
Deerfield was now considered untenable, and
the poor remnant of her people were scattered
in the towns below.
October 5, Springfield was attacked. The
Indians laid the same plan as at Deerfield and
Northfield. Only notice given by a friendly
4i6 Deerfield
Indian during the nlo^ht before saved the town
from total destruction. The assailants were
Indians who had lived for generations neigh-
bors and friends of the Springfield people. On
the 4th they had made earnest protestations of
friendship, on the strength of which the garri-
son had marched to Hadley. This deliberate
treachery was probably planned by Philip.
October 19, a large party made an attack on
Hatfield, but was repulsed.
As the spring of 1676 advanced, a large body
of Indians collected at Peskeompskut for the
purpose of catching a year's stock of shad and
salmon. Parties from thence occasionally har-
assed the settlers below, who knew that when
the fishing season was over, the enemy would
constantly infest the valley, and watch every
chance to kill the unprotected. They there-
fore determined to take the initiative, and at
nightfall of May 18, a party of about a hun-
dred and fifty men under Captain William
Turner made a night march, surprised the
camp at daylight the next morning and de-
stroyed many of the enemy.
The homeward march was delayed so long
that Indians from neighboring camps began
to appear. A released captive reported that
Deerfield 4^7
Philip with a thousand warriors was at hand,
and as the enemy swarmed on rear and flank,
the retreat became almost a panic. The strag-
gling and the wounded were cut off. Captain
Turner was shot while crossing Green River,
about a mile from the battle-field, and the party,
under Captain Samuel Holyoke, reached Hat-
field with the loss of forty-two men.
The warring Indians never recovered from
the blow at Peskeompskut. Besides their slain,
they lost their year's stock of fish, and the hun-
dreds of acres of Indian corn they had planted
with the assurance of a permanent abode in
that region. The broken, disheartened clans
drifted aimlessly eastward. They quarrelled
among themselves. Philip, with a few follow-
ers, skulked back to Pokanoket, where he fell,
August 12, 1676. The war ended soon after.
In the spring of 1677, some of the old set-
tlers came back and planted their deserted
fields ; preparations for building were well ad-
vanced by some of the more venturesome,
when, September 19, they were surprised by
Ashpelon with a party of Indians from Canada,
and all were either killed or captured.
In 1679 the General Court passed an act
regulating the resettlement of deserted towns,
4i8 Deerfield
requiring the consent of certain authorities who
should prescribe
" In what form, way & manner, such townes shallbe
settled & erected, wherein they are required to haue a
principal respect to neerness and conveniency of habita-
tion for securitie against enemyes & more comfort for
Xtian comunion & enjoyment of God's worship & educa-
tion of children in schools & civility."
By virtue of this act a committee was appointed
under whose direction a resettlement of the
town began in the spring of 1682. Induced by
grants of land, new settlers appeared, and the
plantation progressed rapidly. In 1686, sixty
Proprietors are named. This year, young John
Williams appears on the scene as candidate
for the ministry; and, September 21, he re-
ceived a "call." He was married July 20,
1687, to Eunice, daughter of Rev. Eleazer
Mather, of Northampton. October 18, 1688,
he was ordained, and the First Church was
organized.
The second meeting-house was built in 1684,
the third in 1695, the fourth, a very elaborate
one, in 1729, the fifth, the present brick struct-
ure, in 1824, and it is still occupied by the First
Church. In all these, save the last, the wor-
shippers were ''seated" by authority.
Deerfield
419
In 1688, on the news of the Revolution in
England, the seizure of Andros in Boston and
the call for the election of representatives to
organize a new government for the Colony, the
THIRD MEETINQ-HOUSE, 1695-1729.
Cold indian house on the right.)
men of Deerfield acted promptly. Lieutenant
Thomas Wells, a commissioned officer under
Andros, was selected to represent the town,
and the selectmen sent to Boston a certificate
to that effect. These men were fully aware
420 Deerfield
that in the case of a faikire of the movement,
the vindictive Andros would wreak his venge-
ance upon all concerned. Shrewd men were
at the fore, and Randolph himself might search
the town records in vain for any trace of these
proceedings or other treasonable action.
Durine Kine William's War, the town was
harassed by the enemy ; drought and insects
ruined the crops, and a fatal distemper pre-
vailed. There was question of deserting the
place, but bolder counsels controlled. Baron
Castine with an army from Canada attempted
a surprise of the town, September 15, 1694,
but he was discovered just in time to close
the eates, and was driven back with small
loss to the defenders. Another army organ-
ized in Canada for the same purpose turned
back on being discovered by scouts. During
this trial Deerfield suffered great losses, but
pluck carried her through.
Queen Anne's W^ar broke out in i 702. The
population here was about three hundred souls.
The fortifications on Meeting-house Hill were
strengthened, and the house of the commander,
Captain Wells, about forty rods south, was
palisaded. In May, 1703, Lord Cornbury,
Governor of New York, sent word that he had
422 Deerfield
learned through his spies of an expedition fit-
ting out against Deerfield. Soon after, Major
Peter Schuyler sent a similar warning to Rev.
John Williams. These warnings were em-
phasized in July by news that the Eastern
Indians had made a simultaneous attack on
all the settlements in Maine, only six weeks
after signing a treaty of peace with the most
solemn declarations of eternal friendship.
Twenty soldiers were sent here to reinforce
the home guard, and all were on the alert ;
two men, however, were captured October 8,
and were carried to Canada. On the alarm
which followed sixteen more men were sent
here. October 21, Rev. John Williams writes,
on behalf of the town, to Governor Dudley :
"... We have been driven from our houses &
home lots into the fort, (there are but 10 houselots in the
fort) ; some a mile, some two miles, whereby we have
suffered much loss. We have in the alarms several times
been wholly taken off from any business, the w^hole town
kept in, our children of 12 or 13 years and under we
have been afraid to improve in the field for fear of the
enemy. . . . We have been crowded togather into
houses to the preventing of indoor affairs being carryd
on to any advantage, . . . several say they would
freely leave all they have & go away were it not that it
would be disobedience to authority & a discouraging
423
DOOR OF "old INDIAN HOUSE" HACKED BY INDIANS.
NOW IN MEMORIAL HALL.
424 Deerfield
their bretheren. The frontier difficulties of a place so
remote from others & so exposed as ours, are more than
can be known, if not felt.
Nothing can add to this simple and pathetic
statement.
The months dragged slowly on, and no en-
emy. The deep winter snows seemed a safe
barrier against invasion. The people, breath-
ing more freely, gradually resumed their wonted
ways ; but dark clouds loomed up, all unseen,
just beyond the northern horizon. In the
early morning of February 29, 1 703-4, like a
thunderbolt from a clear sky, an army of
French and Indians under Hertel de Rouville
burst upon the sleeping town, and killed or
captured nearly all of the garrison and inhabit-
ants within the fort. Through criminal care-
lessness the snow had been allowed to drift
against the palisades, until, being covered with
a hard crust, it afforded an easy and noiseless
entrance, so that the enemy were dispersed
among the houses before they were discovered.
The captives were collected in the house of
Ensign John Sheldon, which, being fired by the
enemy only on their retreat, was easily saved,
and stood until 1848. It was popularly con-
sidered the only one not burned, and has gone
426 Deerfield
into history as the " Old Indian House."
Its front door, hacked by the Indians, is now
preserved in Memorial Hall. By sunrise
the torch and tomahawk had done their
work. The blood of forty-nine murdered men,
women and children reddened the snow.
Twenty-nine men, twenty-four women and
fifty-eight children were made captive, and in
a few hours the spoil-encumbered enemy were
on their three-hundred miles' march over the
desolate snows to Canada. Twenty of the cap-
tives were murdered on the route, one of them
Eunice Williams, wife of the minister. The
spot where she fell is marked by a monument
of enduring granite. •
The desolated town was at once made a mili-
tary post, and strongly garrisoned. Of the sur-
vivors, the men were impressed into the service,
and the non-combatants sent to the towns be-
low. Persistent efforts were made to recover
the captives. Ensign Sheldon was sent three
times to Canada on this errand. One by one,
and against great odds, most of the surviving
men and women were recovered ; but a large
proportion of the children remained in Can-
ada. Many of their descendants have been
traced by Miss Baker, author of Trtte Stories
Deerfield 427
of New Engla7id Captives, among them some
of the most distinguished men and women of
Canadian history.
The inhabitants of Deerfield gradually re-
turned to their desolate hearthstones and
abandoned fields, and held their own during
the war, but not without severe suffering and
a considerable loss of life. Peace was estab-
lished by the Treaty of Utrecht in 17 13.
Nine years of quiet followed, in which the
town prospered. The Indians mingled freely
with the people, bartering the products of their
hunting for English goods. A permanent
peace was hoped for, but this hope was blasted
on the outbreak of the Eastern Indians in i 722.
Incited by the Canadians, the northern tribes
joined in the war ; and Father Rasle's war
brought the usual frontier scenes of fire and
carnage ; the trading Indians being the most
effective leaders or guides for marauding par-
ties. Many Deerfield men were in the ser-
vice, notably as scouts. Inured to hardship,
skilled in woodcraft, they were more than a
match for the savage in his own haunts and in
his own methods of warfare.
In 1729, before the new meeting-house was
finished, the people were called to mourn the
428
Deerfield
death of dielr loved and revered pastor, Rev.
John WilHams, so widely known as "The
Redeemed Captive." His successor was Rev.
Jonathan Ashley, who was ordained in 1732
and died in i 780.
STEPHEN WILLIAMS, 1693-1782.
A CAPTIVE OF FEBRUARY 29, 1703-4.
Rev. Stephen Williams, a son of Rev. John
Williams, the first pastor, was born in Deer-
field in 1693, taken captive to Canada in 1704,
Deerfield 429
redeemed in 1 705, graduated at Harvard in
1 7 13, settled as minister at Longmeadow in
1 716, dying there in 1782 ; he was Chaplain in
the Louisburg expedition in 1745, and in the
regiment of Col. Ephraim Williams in his fatal
campaign in 1755, and again in the Canadian
campaign of i 756. His portrait, reproduced on
page 428, was painted about 1748 ; it is now in
the Memorial Hall of the Pocumtuck Valley
Memorial Association, within fourscore rods of
the spot where the original was born, and
whence he was carried into captivity.
On the closing of Father Rasle's war the
settlement expanded ; trade and home manu-
factures flourished. Deerfield remained no
longer the frontier town of the valley, and the
brunt of the next border war (of i 743 ) was felt
by the outlying settlements. The one sad blow
upon this town fell at a little hamlet called
The Bars. August 25, 1746, the families of
Samuel Allen and John Amsden, while work-
ing in a hay-field on Stebbins Meadow, with
a small guard, were surprised by a party of In-
dians from Canada, and five men were killed,
one girl wounded and one boy captured.
This followed close on the fall of Fort Massa-
chusetts, and danger of French invasion was
430 Deerfield
felt to be imminent. Active measures were
taken for defense ; the forts were repaired and
the woods filled with scouts.
The closing war with France found Deerfield
more strongly bulwarked, and still less exposed
to attack. No blood was shed within her nar-
rowed bounds. Her citizens held prominent
positions, and did their part in the campaigns
which resulted in the conquest of Canada and
the consequent immunity from savage depreda-
tions. The nest destroyed, the sting of the
hornets was no longer felt or feared. The
last raid on Massachusetts soil is described in
the following mutilated despatch to the military
authorities in Deerfield :
" CoLRAiN, March y« 21, 1759.
" Sir : — These are to inform you that yesterday as Jo*
McKoon [Kowen] & his wife were coming from
Daniel Donitsons & had got so far as where Morrison's
house was burned this day year, they was fired upon by
the enemy about sunset. I have been down this morn-
ing on the spot and find no Blood Shed, but see where
they led off Both the above mentioned ; they had their
little child with them. I believe they are gone home.
I think their number small, for there was about 10 or 12
came [torn off] "
The most important civil events of this
Deerfield 431
period were the divisions of the township. In
1753 the Green River District, which included
what is now Greenfield and Gill, was made a
distinct municipality. The next year the con-
struction of a bridge over the Pocumtuck River
at Cheapside was a prominent issue ; the dis-
cussion ended in establishing a ferry at the
north end of Pine Hill in i 758. That year the
people in the vicinity of Sugar Loaf petitioned
the General Court — but without success — for
liberty to form a ministerial and educational
connection with the town of Sunderland, and
to be exempted from paying certain town taxes
in consequence. In 1767 the inhabitants of
Deerfield-Southwest were set off into a town
named Conway ; and Deerfield-Northwest be-
came the town of Shelburne in 1 768. The
same year Bloody Brook people caught the
division fever, but it did not carry them off.
A permanent peace being settled and an un-
stable currency fixed on a firm cash basis, busi-
ness projects multiplied, and Deerfield became
the centre of exchange and supply for a large
territory. The mechanics, or " tradesmen "
as they were called, and their apprentices,
rivalled in numbers the agricultural population.
Here were found the gunsmith, blacksmith,
432 Deerfield
nailer and silversmith, the maker of snow-
shoes and moccasins, the tanner, currier, shoe-
maker and saddler, the pillion, knapsack and
wallet-maker, the carpenter and joiner, the clap-
board and shingle-maker, the makers of wooden
shovels, corn-fans, flax-brakes, hackels, looms
and spinning-wheels, cart-ropes and bed-lines,
and pewter buttons, the tailor, hatter, furrier,
feltmaker, barber and wigmaker, the cart-
wright, millwright, cabinet-maker, watchmaker,
the brickmaker and mason, the miller, the
carder, clothier, fuller, spinner, weaver of duck
and common fabrics, the potter, the grave-
stone-cutter, the cooper, the potash-maker, the
skilled forger who turned out loom and plow
irons, farm and kitchen utensils. There were
doctors and lawyers, the judge and the sheriff ;
storekeepers were many, and tavern-keepers
tralore. To all these the old account-books in
Memorial Hall bear testimony.
Many leading men held commissions from
the King In both civil and military service.
These were rather a distinctive class, holding
their heads quite high, and when the Revolu-
tion broke out they were generally loyal to the
King, making heavy odds against the Whigs.
But new leaders came to the front, who, so far
Deerfield 433
as they had character and force, held their own
after the war, and the old Tory leaders were
relegated to the rear.
At the opening of the Revolutionary War
the parties were nearly equal in numbers ; on
one yea and nay test vote there was a tie. Ex-
citement ran high. In 1774 the "Sons of
Liberty " erected a Liberty Pole, and at the
same time a " Torv Pole," whatever that mio-ht
be. The mob spirit was rampant. Through
it the fires of patriotism found vent ; but it was
always under the control of the leaders, and
its most common office was to " humble the
Tories," and compel them to sign obnoxious
declarations of neutrality, or of submission to
the will of the Committees of Safety and Cor-
respondence. A Tory of this period wrote :
" Oh Tempora, all nature seems to be in con-
fusion ; every person in fear of what his Neigh-
bor may do to him. Such times never was
seen in New England."
<z>
In October, 1774, a company of minute-men
was organized here as part of a regiment
under the Provincial Congress. November 14,
staff-officers were chosen. David Field, colo-
nel, and David Dickinson, major, were both
of Deerfield. December 5, the town raised
434 Deerfield
money to buy ammunition by selling lumber
from its woodland. January 5, 1775, an emis-
sary from General Gage was here, advising
the Tories to go to Boston. " The standard
will be set up in March," he said, " and those
who do not go in and lay down their arms
may meet with bad luck." He was discovered,
but had the good luck to escape a mob ; an-
other agent who came a few days later was not
so fortunate.
But the culmination of all the secret machi-
nations and open preparations was at hand.
April 20, at a town-meeting, votes were passed
to pay wages to the minute-men for what they
had done ; " to encourage them in perfecting
themselves in the Military /\rt," provision was
made for " practicing one half-day in each
week."
The voters could hardly have left the meet-
ing-house, when the sound of a galloping horse
was heard, and the hoarse call, " To arms ! To
arms ! " broke upon the air. The horse bloody
with spurring and the rider covered with dust
brought the news of Concord and Lexington.
The half-day drills had done their work. Be-
fore the clock in the meeting-house steeple
struck the midnight hour, fifty minute-men,
Deerfield 435
under Captain Jonas Locke, Lieutenant
Thomas Bardwell and Lieutenant Joseph
Stebbins, were on the march to Cambridge.
This company was soon broken up ; Captain
Locke entered the Commissary Department,
while Lieutenant Stebbins enhsted a new com-
pany, with which he assisted General Putnam
in constructing the redoubt on Bunker Hill, and
in its defense the next day, the ever-glorious
I /th of June. One Deerfield man was killed
and several were wounded.
Independence Day should be celebrated,
in Deerfield, June 26, for on that day in 1776
the town
*' Voted that this Town will (if y^ Honorable Congress
shall for y^ safety of y^ Ufiited Colonies declare the?n In-
dependent of y' Kingdom of Great Britain) Solemnly
Engage with their Lives and For tunes to Support thetn in
y Measure, and that y* Clerk be directed to make an
attested copy of this Vote and forward y^ same to Mr.
Saxton, Representative for this town, to be laid before
the General Court for their Information."
Here was treason proclaimed and recorded,
and every voter was exposed to its penalty.
Ten days later the Continental Congress
issued the world-stirring Declaration of In-
dependence.
43^ Deerfield
On Burgoyne's Invasion in 1777 a company
under Captain Joseph Stebbins and Lieuten-
ant John Bardwell marched for Bennington.
They were too late for the battle at Walloom-
sack, and found the meeting-house filled with
Stark's Hessian prisoners. But they had their
share in the work and glory of rounding up
and capturing the proud soldiers of Burgoyne.
Deerfield had statesmen as well as soldiers.
May I, I 780, the town met to consider the new
Constitution of Massachusetts ; the clerk read
the instrument " paragraph by paragraph with
pauses between." After due discussion, a com-
mittee was chosen to " peruse the Constitution
. . . and make such objections to it as they
think ought to be made." Three town-meetings
were held, the committee reported, and finally
a vote was passed " not to accept the third Arti-
cle in the Declaration of Rights," and that a
candidate for orovernor must " Declare himself
of the Protestant Reliction " instead of " Christ-
ian Religion." The term of eight years in-
stead of fifteen was voted as the time when the
Constitution should be revised. With these
changes, our civic wisdom approved of this
important State paper.
Deerfield did her full duty in furnishing her
Deerfield
437
quota of men and supplies through the war.
Occasionally, in the later years of the struggle,
1822-1884.
the Tories temporarily obstructed the necessary
town legislation. Some of these soon found
43^ Deerfield
themselves behind the bars, and others In en-
forced silence under penalty of like restraint.
The minister, Mr. Ashley, who had been firm
in his loyalty, died in i 780, and the Tories lost
one of their strongest supports. Not until
1787 could the town unite upon his successor,
when Rev. John Taylor was ordained. The
uprising called Shays' Rebellion did much to
harmonize the warring factions, as all united to
put it down. Three companies, under Cap-
tains Joseph Stebbins, Samuel Childs and
Thomas W. Dickinson, were sent to the field
of action.
From this time, harmony prevailed, and the
career of the town was that of an industrious,
hard-working, prosperous, intellectual people.
Libraries and literary societies were estab-
lished, which are still flourishing. Deerfield
Academy was founded in 1797, and endowed
largely through the liberality of the citizens.
Its influence was felt for generations, as its
pupils from far and wide were scions of leading
families. Among its faculty and graduates may
be named men of national reputation, in the
scientific, the historical, the ecclesiastical, the
military, the artistic and the industrial world.
Failing health obliged Mr. Taylor to resign ;
5;jp«^^.^<^: _,U«,,-JJ,J^_-^
BUFFET FROM PARSON WILLIAMS'S HOUSE.
NOW IN MEMORIAL HALL.
439
440 Deerfield
and in 1807 ^he Rev. Samuel Willard suc-
ceeded him in the ministry, when, in the separa-
tion of the Congregational churches, Deerfield
led the van on the liberal side.
The political storms of the first two decades
of the century raged here with strength and
vigor. In the War of 1 812 a " Professor of the
Art of War " was added to the faculty of the
Deerfield Academy, and a Peace Party circu-
lated their protesting publications.
Deerfield was early at the front in the anti-
slavery agitation, and in the war lost some of
her best blood. The names of her dead in
that righteous war are carved on a fitting
monument pointing aloft from the midst of
her ancient training-field.
One great attraction in the old town is the
Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, char-
tered in 1870. It owns and occupies the old
academy building, which it secured when the
new Free Dickinson Academy was established
in 1878. Its museum occupies the entire struct-
ure, and contains an exhaustive, characteristic
collection of the implements, utensils and
general household belongings of the colonial
days ; and also of the original lords of the
valley, the Pocumtuck Indians.
Deerfield 441
In the ante-railroad days, Cheapslde, at the
head of Pocumtuck River navigation, was a
thriving business village, with large imports of
foreign wet and dry goods, and large exports
of lumber, woodenware and brooms ; Deer-
field was long famous for its stall-fed beef, as
many a New York and Boston epicure did
testify ; but the advent of the iron horse soon
brought about the departure of the fall boat,
and the passing of the stall-fed ox. The old
town is no longer a centre of political power,
or of trade and manufactures. The generous
additions of territory to her original Grant
have been bestowed upon the children of her
loins, now flourishing towns about her. The
advent of factories has absorbed one by one
her multifarious mechanical industries. Her
young men and maidens are seeking elsewhere
spheres of action in fields till now undreamed
of.
But Old Deerfield still retains much of her
best. Still, as of old, she is an intellectual
centre. Still beautifully situated, she lies in
the embrace of the broad green meadows, with
here and there a gleam of silver from the sinu-
ous Pocumtuck. Her ancient houses, shadowed
by towering elms, hoary with age, her charm-
442 Deerfield
Ing wooded heights, her romantic gorges and
tumbhng brooks, her restful quiet, her famous
past, all in harmony with the thought and
feeling of her inhabitants, still attract alike
men and women of letters, the artist and the
historical student.
NEWPORT
THE ISLE OF PEACE
By SUSAN COOLIDGE
THE Isle of Peace lies cradled in the wide
arms of a noble bay. Fifteen miles long
and from four to five miles in width, its shape
is not unlike that of an heraldic dragon, laid
at ease in the blue waters, with head pointed
to the southwest. From this head to the jut-
ting cape which does duty as the left claw of
the beast, the shore is a succession of bold
cliffs, broken by coves and stretches of rocky
shingle, and in two places by magnificent curv-
ing beaches, upon which a perpetual surf
foams and thunders. Parallel ridges of low
hills run back from the sea. Between these
lie ferny valleys, where wild roses grow in
thickets, and such shy flowers as love solitude
and a sheltered situation spread a carpet for
the spring and early summer. On the farther
443
444 Newport
uplands are thrifty farms, set amid orchards
of wind-blown trees. Ravines, each with its
thread of brook, cut their way from these
higher levels to the water-line. Fleets of lilies
<z>
whiten the ponds, of which there are many on
the island ; and over all the scene, softening
every outline, tingeing and changing the sun-
light, and creating a thousand beautiful effects
forever unexpected and forever renewed,
hanors a thin veil of shiftinor mist. This the sea-
o o
wind, as it journeys to and fro, lifts and drops,
and lifts again, as one raises a curtain to look
in at the slumber of a child, and, having looked,
noiselessly lets it fall.
The Indians, with that fine occasional in-
stinct which is in such odd contrast to other of
their characteristics, gave the place its pretty
name. Aquidneck, the Isle of Peace, they
called it. To modern men it is known as the
island of Rhode Island, made famous the
land over by the town built on its seaward
extremity — the town of Newport.
It is an old town, and its history dates back
to the early days of the New England col-
ony. City, it calls itself, but one loves bet-
ter to think of it as a town, just as the word
*' avenue," now so popular, is in some minds
.:h
i T
44^ Newport
forever translated into the simpler equivalent,
"street." As the veiling mists gather and
shift, and then, caught by the outgoing breeze,
float seaward again, we catch glimpses, framed,
as it were, between the centuries, quaint, oddly
differing from each other, but full of interest.
The earliest of these glimpses dates back to
an April morning in 1524. There is the cliff-
line, the surf, the grassy capes tinged with sun,
and in the sheltered bay a strange little vessel
is dropping her anchor. It is the caravel of
Vezzerano, pioneer of French explorers in
these northern waters, and first of that great
tide of " summer visitors " which has since
followed in his wake. How he was received,
and by whom, Mr. Parkman tells us :
" Following the shores of Long Island, they came
first to Block Island, and thence to the harbor of New-
port. Here they stayed fifteen days, most courteously re-
ceived by the inhabitants. Among others, appeared two
chiefs, gorgeously arrayed in painted deer-skins ; kings,
as Vezzerano calls them, with attendant gentlemen ;
while a party of squaws in a canoe, kept by their jealous
lords at a safe distance, figure in the narrative as the
queen and her maids. The Indian wardrobe had been
taxed to its utmost to do the strangers honor, — coffee
bracelets and wampum collars, lynx-skins, raccoon-skins,
and faces bedaubed with gaudy colors.
448 Newport
" Again they spread their sails, and on the fifth of
May bade farewell to the primitive hospitalities of New-
port." '
Wampum and coffee bracelets are gone
out of fashion since then, the appHcation of
" gaudy colors " to faces, though not altogether
done away with, is differently practised and to
better effect, and squaws are no longer relega-
ted by their jealous lords to separate and dis-
tant canoes ; but the reputation for hospitality,
so early won, Newport still retains, as many a
traveller since Vezzerano has had occasion to
testify. And still, when the early summer-
tide announces the approach of strangers, her
inhabitants, decking themselves in their best
and bravest, go forth to welcome and to
" courteously entreat " all new arrivals.
Again the mist lifts and reveals another
picture. Two centuries have passed. The
sachems and their squaws have vanished, and
on the hill-slope where once their lodges stood
a town has sprung up. Warehouses line the
shores and wharves, at which lie whalers and
merchantmen loading and discharging their
cargoes. A large proportion of black faces
appears among the passers-by in the streets,
' Pioneer's of France in the iVew IVorla.
Newport 449
and many straight-skirted coats, broad-brimmed
hats, gowns of sober hue and poke-bonnets of
drab. Friends abound as well as negroes, not
to mention Jews, Moravians, Presbyterians
and " Six-Principle " and " Seven-Principle "
Baptists ; for, under the mild fostering of
Roger Williams, Newport has become a city
of refuge to religious malcontents of every
persuasion. All the population, however, is
not of like sobriety. A ''rage of finery" dis-
tinguishes the aristocracy of the island, and
silk-stockinged gentlemen, with scarlet coats
and swords, silver-buckled shoes and lace ruf-
fles, may be seen in abundance, exchanging
stately greetings with ladies in brocades and
hoops, as they pass to and fro between the
decorous gambrel-roofed houses or lift the
brazen knockers of the street-doors. It is a
Saint's-Day, and on the hill above, in a quaint
edifice of white-painted wood, with Queen
Anne's royal crown and a gilded pennon on its
spire, the Rev. Mr. Honeyman, missionary
of the English Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel, is conducting the service in Trinity
Church. The sermon begins, but is inter-
rupted by a messenger who hurries in with a
letter which he hands to the divine in the pul-
450 Newport
pit. The clergyman reads it aloud to his audi-
ence, pronounces a rapid benediction, and
"wardens, vestry, church and congregation"
crowd to the ferry-wharf, off which lies a
''pretty large ship," just come to anchor. A
boat rows to the shore, from which alights a
gentleman of " middle stature, and an agreea-
ble, pleasant and erect aspect," wearing the
canonicals of an Enorlish dean. He leads bv
the hand a lady ; three other gentlemen follow
in their company. The new arrival is George
Berkeley, Dean of Derry, philosopher and
scholar, who, on his way to Bermuda with the
project of there planting an ideally perfect
university, " for the instruction of the youth
of America" (!), has chosen Rhode Island as a
suitable vantage-point from which to organize
and direct the new undertaking. His com-
panions are his newly married wife and three
" learned and elegant friends," Sir John James,
Richard Dalton and the artist Smibert. Not
every Saint's-Day brings such voyagers to
Newport from over the sea. No wonder that
Trinity Church services are interrupted, and
that preacher and congregation crowd to the
wharf to do the stranofers honor !
The Berkeley party spent the first few
Newport
451
months of their stay in the town of Newport,
whence the Dean made short excursions to
what Mrs. Berkeley terms " the Continent,"
meanmo^
the
mam-
land opposite. To-
ward the close of their
first summer, James,
Dalton and Smibert
removed to Boston,
and the Berkeley
family to a farm in
the interior of the is-
land, which the Dean
had purchased and
on which he had built
a house. The house
still exists, and is still
known by the name
of Whitehall, given
it by its loyal owner
in remembrance of
the ancient palace of
the kings of England.
The estate, which
comprised less than a
hundred acres, lies in a grassy valley to the south
of Honeyman's Hill, and about two miles back
QEORQE BERKELEY,
DEAN OF DERRY.
452 Newport
from what is now known as the " Second
Beach." It commands no ''view" whatever.
Dean Berkeley, when asked why he did not
choose a site from which more could be seen,
is said to have replied that " if a prospect
were continually in view it would lose its
charm." His favorite walk was toward the
sea, and he is supposed to have made an out-
door study of a rocky shelf, overhung by a
cliff cornice, on the face of a hill-ridge front-
inor the beach, which shelf is still known as
" Bishop Berkeley's Rock."
Three years the peaceful life of Whitehall
continued. Two children were born to the
Bishop, one of whom died in infancy. The
house was a place of meeting for all the mis-
sionaries of the island, as well as for the more
thoughtful and cultivated of the Newport so-
ciety. At last, in the winter of 1 730, came
the crisis of the Bermuda scheme. Land had
been purchased, the grant of money half pro-
mised by the English Government was due.
But the persuasive charm of the founder of
the enterprise was no longer at hand to influ-
ence those who had the power to make or mar
the project ; and Sir Robert Walpole, with
that sturdy indifference to pledge, or to other
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_l
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454 Newport
people's convenience, which distinguished him,
intimated with fatal clearness of meaning, that
if Dean Berkeley was waiting in Rhode Island
for twenty thousand pounds of the public
money to be got out of his exchequer, he
might as well return to Europe without further
loss of time. The bubble was indeed broken,
and Berkeley, brave still and resolutely patient
under this heavy blow, prepared for departure.
His books he left as a gift to the library of
Yale College, and his farm of Whitehall was
made over to the same institution, to found
three scholarships for the encouragement of
Greek and Latin study. These bequests ar-
ranged, his wife and their one remaining child
sailed for Ireland. There, a bishopric, and
twenty years of useful and honorable labor,
awaited him, and the brief dream of Rhode
Island must soon have seemed a dream indeed.
Few vestiges remain now of his sojourn, — the
shabby farmhouse once his home, the chair in
which he sat to write, a few books and papers,
the organ presented by him to Trinity Church,
a big family portrait by Smibert, and, appeal-
ing more strongly to the imagination than
these, the memory of his distinguished name
as a friend of American letters, still preserved
Newport 455
by scholarship or foundation In many Institu-
tions of learning — and the little grave In
Trinity churchyard, where, on the south side
of the Kay Monument, sleeps '' Lucia Berke-
ley, daughter of Dean Berkeley, obiit the fifth
of September, 1731."
The traveller who to-day is desirous of visit-
ing Whitehall may reach it by the delightful
way of the beaches. Rounding the long curve
of the First Beach, with its dressing-houses
and tents, its crowd of carriages and swarms
of gayly clad bathers, and climbing the hill at
the far end, he will find himself directly above
the lonely but far more beautiful Second
Beach. Immediately before him, to the left,
he will see Bishop Berkeley's Rock, with its
cliff-hung shelf, and beyond, the soft outlines
of Sachuest Point, the narrow blue of the East
Passage, and a strip of sunlit mainland. The
breezy perch where Alciphron was written
is on the sea-face of one of the parallel rock-
formations which, with their intervenino- val-
leys, make up the region known as " Paradise
Rocks." Near by, in the line of low cliffs
which bounds the beach to the southward, is
the chasm called " Purgatory," a vertical fissure
some fifty feet in depth, into which, under cer-
45^ Newport
tain conditions of wind and tide, the water
rushes with orreat force and is sucked out with
<_>
a hollow boom, which is sufficiently frightful
to explain the name selected for the spot.
The rocks which make up the cliffs are in
great part conglomerate, of soft shades of pur-
ple and reddish gray. Beyond, the white
beach glistens in the sun. And to the left, the
road curves on past farmhouses and " cottages
of gentility." Away on the valley slope, the
slow sails of a windmill revolve and flash, cast-
ing a flying shadow over the grass. A mile
farther, and the road, making a turn, is joined
to the right by what seems to be a farm-lane
shut off bv orates. This is the entrance to
Whitehall. The house can be dimly made
out from the road — a low, square building with
a lean-to and a long, steep pitch of roof, front-
ing on a small garden overgrown with fruit-
trees. The present owner holds it from the
college under what may truly be called a long
lease, as it has still some eight hundred and
odd years to run. He has built a house near
by, for his own occupation, and, alas ! has re-
moved thither the last bit that remained of the
decorative art of the old Whitehall, namely,
the band of quaint Dutch tiles which once sur-
457
PURGATORY."
45^ Newport
rounded the chimney-piece of the parlor. But
the parlor remains unchanged, with its low ceil-
ing and uneven floor ; the old staircase is there,
the old trees, and, in spite of the tooth of time
and the worse spoliation of man, enough is left
to hint at the days of its early repute and to
make the place worth a visit.
One more glimpse through the mist before
we come to the new times of this our Isle of
Peace. It is just half a century since Berke-
ley, his baffled scheme heavy at his heart, set
sail for Ireland. The fog is unusually thick,
and lies like a fleece of wool over the sea.
Absolutely nothing can be seen, but strange
sounds come, borne on the wind from the di-
rection of Block Island — dull reports as of
cannon signals ; and the inhabitants of New-
port prick up their ears and strain their eyes
with a mixture of hope and terror ; for the
French fleet is looked for ; English cruisers
have been seen or suspected hovering round
the coast, and who knows but a naval engage-
ment is taking place at that very moment.
By and by the fog lifts, with that fantastic de-
liberation v/hich distinoruishes its movements,
and presently stately shapes whiten the blue,
and, gradually nearing, reveal themselves as
Newport
459
the frigates Survcillante, Amazone and Gtiipe,
The Dicke of Bicrgitndy, and The Neptune,
"doubly sheathed with copper"; The Con-
querant, The Provence, The Eveille, also
"doubly sheathed with copper"; The Luzon
and The Ardent, convoying a host of trans-
ports and store-ships ; with General Rocham-
ROCHAMBEAU'S HEADQUARTERS.
beau and his officers on board, besides the
regiments of Bourbonnais, Soissonais, Sain-
tonge and Royal Deux Fonts, five hundred
artillerists and six hundred of Lauzan's Le-
gion, all come to aid the infant United States,
then in the fourth year of their struggle for
independence. Never was reinforcement
more timely or more ardently desired. We
460 Newport
may be sure that all Newport ran out to greet
the new arrivals. Among the other officers
who landed on that eventful iith of July,
was Claude Blanchard, commissary-in-chief of
the French forces — an important man enough
to the expedition, but of very little importance
now, except for the lucky fact that he kept a
journal, — which journal, recently published,
gives a better and more detailed account of
affairs at that time and place than any one
else has afforded us.
It is from Blanchard that we learn of the
three months' voyage ; of sighting now and
again the vessels of the English squadron ; of
the Chevalier de Fernay's refusal to engage
them, he being intent on the safe-conduct of
his convoy ; of the consequent heart-burnings
and reproaches of his captains, which, together
with the stings of his own wounded pride, re-
sulted in a fever, and subsequently in his death,
recorded on the tablet which now adorns the
vestibule of Trinity Church. The town was
illuminated in honor of the fleet. '' A small
but handsome town," says Blanchard, "and
the houses, though mostly of wood, are of an
agreeable shape."
The first work of the newly arrived allies
Newport 461
was to restore the redoubts which the EngHsh
had dismantled and in great part destroyed.
It was at this time that the first fort on the
Dumphngs, and the original Fort Adams, on
Brenton's Reef, were built. The excellent
Blanchard meanwhile continues his observa-
tions on climate, society and local customs.
One of his criticisms on the national charac-
teristics strikes us oddly now, yet has its inter-
est as denoting the natural drift and result of
the employment of a debased currency.
" The Americans are slow, and do not de-
cide promptly in matters of business," he ob-
serves. " It is not easy for us to rely upon their
promises. They love money, and hard money ;
it is thus they designate specie to distinguish
it from paper money, which loses prodigiously.
This loss varies according to circumstances and
according to the provinces."
Later we hear of dinners and diners :
" They do not eat soups, and do not serve up ragouts
at their dinners, but boiled and roast, and much vegeta-
bles. They drink nothing but cider and Madeira wine
with water. Tlie dessert is composed of preserved quinces
and pickled sorrel. The Americans eat the latter with
the meat. They do not take coffee immediately after
dinner, but it is served three or four hours afterward
with tea ; this coffee is weak, and four or five cups are
4^2 Newport
not equal to one of ours ; so that they take many of
them. The tea, on the contrary, is very strong. Break-
fast is an important affair with them. Besides tea and
coffee, they put on table roasted meats, with butter,
pies and ham ; nevertheless they sup, and in the af-
ternoon they again take tea. Thus the Americans are
almost always at table ; and as they have little to occupy
them, as they go out little in winter, and spend whole
days alongside their fireside and their wives, without read-
ing and without doing anything, going to table is a relief
and a preventive of ennui. Yet they are not great
eaters."
On the 5th of March, 1781, General Wash-
ington arrived in Newport. Blanchard thus
records his first impressions of the commander-
in-chief : " His face is handsome, noble and
mild. He is tall — at the least, five feet eight
inches (French measure). In the evening I
was at supper with him. I mark, as a fortun-
ate day, that in which I have been able to
behold a man so truly great."
After the war came a period of great busi-
ness depression, in which Newport heavily
shared. The British, during their occupa-
tion of the town, had done much to injure
it. Nearly a thousand buildings were de-
stroyed by them on the island ; fruit- and shade-
trees were cut down, the churches were used
LIFE MASK OF WASHINGTON.
MADE BY HOUDON IN 1785.
463
4^4 Newport
as barracks, and the Redwood Library was de-
spoiled of its more valuable books. Commerce
was dead ; the suppression of the slave-trade
reduced many to poverty, and the curse of
paper money — to which Rhode Island clung
after other States had abandoned it — poisoned
the very springs of public credit. Brissot de
Warville, in the record of his journey "per-
formed" through the United States in 1788,
draws this melancholy picture of Newport at
that time :
'' Since the peace, everything is changed. The reign
of solitude is only interrupted by groups of idle men
standing, with folded arms, at the corners of the streets ;
houses falling to ruin ; miserable shops, which present
nothing but a few coarse stuffs, or baskets of apples, and
other articles of little value ; grass growing in the public
square, in front of the court of justice ; rags stuffed in
the windows, or hung upon hideous women and lean,
unquiet children."
Count Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, writing ten
years later, calls the place *' cette ville tiHste et
basse^' and further ventures on this remarkable
criticism of its salubrity :
*' The healthfiilness of the city of Newport and its en-
virons is doubtless the result of the brilliancy and cool-
ness of its climate, but this coolness proves fatal to its
Newport 465
younger inhabitants, and the number of young men, and,
above all, of young women, who die yearly of consump-
tion is considerable. It is noteworthy that the inscrip-
tions on the tombstones in the cemetery indicate in
almost all cases that the person interred is either very
young or very old — either less than twenty years of age
or more than seventy."
Whether this statement of Count Rochefou-
cauld's bears the test of examination would be
impossible now to determine, for the century
since his visit has made changes in the city of
the dead as marked as those effected in the
city of the living. But the " cool and bril-
liant " air with which he finds fault has since
been proved by many invalids to be full of
health-giving properties. Consumptives are
more often sent to Newport for cure, nowa-
days, than away from it. Asthma, diseases of
the chest and throat, nervous disorders, insom-
nia, excitability of brain, are in many cases
sensibly benefited by the island climate, which,
however, is less *' brilliant " than sedative.
This is attributed to the relaxing effects of
the Gulf Stream, which is popularly supposed
to make an opportune curve toward the shore
and to produce a quality of air quite different
from that of other New England seaside cli-
466
Newport
mates. Whatever may be the truth as to the
bend of this obhging current, it is certain that
something has given to the place an excep-
tional climate, pure, free from malaria and
exempt equally from the fiercer heats of sum-
mer and the severer colds of winter.
It was not till about the year 1830 that the
true source of
Newport's pros-
perity was real-
ized to be her
climate. Since
then she has be-
come more and
more the Mecca
of pilgrims from
all parts of the
country. Year
by year, the
town has spread
and broadened,
stretchinor out wide arms to include distant
coigns of vantage, until now the summer city
covers some miles in extent, and land, unsalable
in the early part of the century, and but twenty
years ago commanding little more than the price
of a Western homestead, is now valued at from
THE PARSONAGE OF MRS. STOWE'S
" MINISTER'S WOOING."
Newport 4^7
ten to fourteen thousand dollars an acre !
Every year adds to the number of cottages
and villas and to the provision made for the
accommodation of strangers. The census,
which in winter counts up to less than twenty
thousand, is during the four months of " the
season " swelled by the addition of thousands
of strangers, many of whom are in a manner
residents of the place, owning their own houses
and preserving their domestic privacy.
A walk in the older and more thickly settled
parts of the town is not without its rewards.
There are to be found well-known objects of
interest, — the Jewish burial-ground, with its
luxurious screen of carefully tended flowers ;
the Redwood Library, rich in old books and
the possession of the finest cut-leaved beech
on the island ; and the old Stone Mill, on
which so much speculative reasoning in prose
and verse has been lavished. Some years
ago, those ruthless civic hands which know
neither taste nor mercy, despoiled the mill of
the vines which made it picturesque, but even
thus denuded, it is an interesting object. There
is old Trinity, with its square pews and burial
tablets, and a last-century " three-decker" pul-
pit, with clerk's desk, reading-desk and preach-
468
Newport
ing-desk, all overhung by a conical sounding-
board of extinguisher pattern — a sounding-
n"
DOORWAY OF OLD HOUSE ON THAMES STREET.
board on which whole generations of little boys
have fixed fascinated eyes, wondering in case
Newport 469
of fall what would become of the clergyman
underneath it. And, besides these, each west-
ward-leading street gives pretty glimpses of
bay and islands and shipping, and there is al-
ways the chance of lio^htine on a bit of the
past, — some quaint roof or wall or doorway,
left over from Revolutionary times and hold-
ing up a protesting face from among more
modern buildincrs.
Winter or summer, the charm which most
endears Newport to the imaginative mind is,
and must continue to be, the odd mingling of
old and new which meets you on every hand.
A large portion of the place belongs and can
belong to no other day but our own, but
touching it everywhere, apart from it but of it,
is the past. It meets you at every turn, in
legend or relic or quaint traditionary custom
still kept up and observed. Many farm-hands
and servants on the island still date and renew
their contracts of service from " Lady-Day."
The "nine-o'clock bell," which seems derived
in some dim way from the ancient curfew, is
regularly rung. The election parade, dear to
little boys and peanut-venders, has continued
to be a chief event every spring, with its pro-
cession, its drums, its crowd of country visitors,
4/0 Newport
and small booths for the sale of edibles and
non-edibles pitched on either side the State-
House Square, which, in honor of this yearly
observance, is called familiarly, ''The Parade."
One of the oldest militia companies in New
England is the Newport Artillery, and TJie
Mercury, established in 1758 by a brother of
Benjamin Franklin, is the oldest surviving news-
paper in the United States. Newport also
possesses a town-crier. He may be met with
any day, tinkling his bell at street corners and
rehearsing, in a loud, melancholy chant, facts
regarding auction-sales, or town-meetings, or
lost property. And, turning aside from the
polo-play or the Avenue crowded with brilliant
equipages, a few rods carries you to the quiet
loneliness of a secluded burial-place, with the
name of an ancient family carved on its locked
gate, in which, beneath gray headstones and
long, flowering grasses, repose the hushed
secrets of a century ago. Or, fresh from the
buzz and chatter, the gay interchange of the
day, you may chance on an old salt spinning
yarns of pirates and privateers, phantom ships
or buried treasure, or an antiquary full of well-
remembered stones whose actors belong to the
far-gone past, — stories of the extinct glories of
Newport
471
the place, of family romance and family trag-
edy, or tragedy just escaped. What could be
finer contrast than tales like these, told on a
street-corner where, just before, perhaps, the
question h a d
been about
Wall Street or
Santiago, if the
French frigate
were still in the
bay, or when
would be the
next meeting of
the Town and
Country Club !
Indeed, it is not
so many years
since visitors
to Newport
miorht have
held speech
with a dear old
lady whose memory carried her back clearly and
distinctly to the day when, a child six years old,
she sat on Washington's knee. The little girl
had a sweet voice. She sang a song to the great
man, in recompense for which he honored her
GENERAL NATHANAEL GREENE.
FROM ONE OF MALBONE'S BEST MINIATURES.
472 Newport
with a salute. "It was here, my dear, and
here, that General Washington kissed me,"
she would say to her grandchildren, touching
first one and then the other wrinkled cheek ;
and to the end of her life, no other lips were
suffered to profane with a touch the spots thus
made sacred.
In a country whose charm and whose re-
proach alike is its newness, and to a society
whose roots are forever being uprooted and
freshly planted to be again uprooted, there is
real education and advantage in the tangible
neighborhood of the past ; and the Newport
past is neither an unlovely nor a reproachful
shape. There is dignity in her calm mien ;
she looks on stately and untroubled, and com-
pares and measures. The dazzle and glitter
of modern luxury do not daunt her : she has
seen splendor before in a different generation
and different forms, she has shared it, she has
watched it fade and fail. Out of her mute,
critical regard, a voice seems to sound in tones
like the rustle of fallino- leaves in an autumn
day, and to utter that ancient and melancholy
truth, Vanitas vaiiitatum ! "The fashion of
this world passeth away." We listen, awed for
a moment, and then we smile again, — for bright-
Newport
47,^
ness near at hand has a more potent spell than
melancholy gone by, — and turning to our
modern lives with their movement and sun-
shine, their hope and growth, we are content to
accept and enjoy such brief day as is granted
us, nor '' prate nor hint of change till change
shall come."
PROVIDENCE
THE COLONY OF HOPE
By WILLIAM B. WEEDEN
THE capital of Rhode Island, the second
city of New England, — an agricultural
village in the seventeenth, a commercial port
in the eighteenth, and a centre of manufactur-
ing in the nineteenth century, — lies at the head
of Narragansett Bay. The mainland of the
State westward to Connecticut, according to
Shaler, rests on very old rocks of the Lauren-
tian and Lower Cambrian series. The greater
part of the bay and the land near Providence
is upon rocks belonging to the Coal measures.
These rocks, softer than the older ones, have
been cut away and afford the inlets of the bay.
The surface of the State and the sloping hills
of Providence have been profoundly affected
by the wearing course of the glaciers.
The original village skirted along the west-
475
4/6 Providence
ern side of the ridge, by which ran the Httle
Moshassuck and Woons-asquetucket Rivers.
Eastward the ridge stretched in a plateau to
the larger Seekonk, w^hich cut off the penin-
sula. On the eastern side of the Seekonk,
Roger Williams had settled and planted, when
Plymouth Colony significantly advised him
to move on. In June, 1636, with five com-
panions, he crossed the Seekonk and landed on
the rock, since raised to the grade of Ives and
Williams streets. Here, as the tradition runs,
Indians greeted him cordially, *' What Cheer,
Netop ! What Cheer ! " He had arranged
with the Narragansett sachems, Canonicus
and Miantinomi, for deeds of the lands about
these rivers and the Pawtuxet, with certain un-
defined rights extending westward and north-
ward.
The canoe kept away from What Cheer or
Slate rock, south and westward around Tock-
wotton and Fox Point, up the Providence
River, to land near where St. John's Church
stands. The spring of water attracting the
pioneer and kept as public property is in the
basement of a house on the northwest corner of
North Main Street and Allen's Lane. North
Main was the '' Towne Streete," occupied by
47^ Providence
the little band of settlers. Williams's " home-
lot " stretched easterly, including the land of
the Dorr Estate, at the corner of Benefit and
Bowen Streets. A stone in the rear of the
buildings marks the spot where Roger Wil-
liams was burled.
In this man was the germ of Providence,
the adumbration of the little commonwealth
of Rhode Island. Whatever drove him from
Massachusetts, however the Puritans enforced
their narrow political scheme, the result was a
free State founded on new principles of gov-
ernment. In the words of Thomas Durfee :
*' Absolute sincerity is the key to his character, as it was
always the mainspring of his conduct. . . . He had
the defect of his qualities ; — an inordinate confidence
in his own judgment. He had also the defects of his
race ; — the hot Welsh temper, passionate and resentful
under provocation, and the moody Welsh fancy."
The '' Plantations of Providence" began in
these " home-lots," reaching eastward from the
" Towne Streete." It was intended to give
each settler five acres. Some had, moreover,
meadow-lands, and there were common rights,
as in all the plantations of New England.
Chad Brown, John Throckmorton, and Greg-
ory Dexter were the committee who made
> >
— m
O z
< s
480 Providence
the first allotment. The land had been con-
veyed from the Indian sachems, and Williams
gave it by "initial deed" to his twelve com-
panions, making thirteen original proprietors.
" Probably in the autumn of 1638, and cer-
tainly prior to the i6th of March, 1639,"^ the
settlers formed the first Baptist church in
America. Williams was pastor for about four
months, with Holyman as colleague. Chad
Brown was ordained in 1642 with William
Wickenden. The latter was succeeded by
Gregory Dexter. The present church, adapted
by James Sumner from designs of James Gibbs,
architect, was built in 1775. Earlier than this,
though the date is not fixed, the proprietors
had made the following agreement, the import-
ance of which can hardly be overestimated :
" We whose names are hereunder, desirous to inhabit
in the town of Providence, do promise to subject our-
selves in active or passive obedience, to all such orders
or agreements as shall be made for public good of the
body, in an orderly way, by the major assent of the present
inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together
into a town-fellowship, and such others whom they shall
admit unto them only in civil things,"
Here was laid the foundation of soul liberty.
Let us refer to Diman : " Thus, for the first
' Arnold, Rhode Island, i. , 107.
Providence 481
time in history, a form of government was
adopted which drew a clear and unmistakable
line between the temporal and spiritual power,
and a community came into being which was
an anomaly among the nations." It was a pure
democracy, controlling^ the admission of its
members.
They soon found that some delegation of
power was needed for civil administration, and
in 1640 they elaborated their system somewhat,
and established rudimentary courts. They per-
ceived that they could not remain safely be-
tween the unfriendly colonies of Massachusetts
on one side, and the alien Dutch of New York
on the other. They sent Williams to Eng-
land, whence he returned in 1644, bringing a
parliamentary charter. Under this, the towns
of Providence, Portsmouth and Newport were
united, with the name "The Incorporation of
Providence Plantations in the Narragansett
Bay in New England." In 1645 there were,
accordinor to Holmes, loi men in Providence
capable of bearing arms. Staples thinks this
estimate includes the population of Shawonet
or Warwick. In 1663 John Clarke of New-
port obtained the royal charter, which was
adopted by the freemen of the towns, and the
4^2 Providence
commonwealth was entitled the " Colony of
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations."
The oldest tax or rate bill extant dates from
1650, when Roger Williams was assessed
^1.13.4. In 1663 the whole tax was ^36. as-
sessed in '' Country pay," which performed such
important functions in the currencies of New
England, viz., wheat at 4.S. 6d., peas, 3^-. 6d.,
butter, 6d.
An important factor in the daily life of Pro-
vidence has always been in the crossing of the
main stream which limited the early village on
the west. Mr. Fred. A. Arnold's careful in-
vestigation ^ shows that a bridge at Weybosset,
"formerly Wapwayset," or "at the narrow
passage," was built before 1660. It was re-
paired and renewed at various times. In i66|-
Roger Williams undertook, in a most interest-
ing document, to maintain it by co-operative
labor from the townsmen and tolls from stran-
gers. It was enlarged until, in the middle of
our century, tradition claimed it to be the wid-
est bridge in the world. Other bridges spanned
the river, and in the present year the old Wey-
bosset is being replaced by an elaborate steel
structure laid on piers of granite.
' Proc. R. I. H. S., July, 1895
■s^.
483
THE ROGER WILLIAMS MONUMENT.
484 Providence
In 1 675-1676 King Philip's War, in which
the Narragansetts joined, raged through south-
ern New England, and our little plantation was
devastated. The women and children gener-
ally, with the greater part of the men, sought
safety in Newport, Long Island or elsewhere.
Thirty houses were burned, chiefly in the north
part of the town. After the Indians were
beaten, the village was slowly rebuilt. At this
time the administration of the settlement was
In the hands of the Friends. Their Influence
was second only to that of the Baptists, until
after the Revolution. The only original house
standing Is the Interesting Roger Mowry^
tavern, built In 1653 or earlier, called also the
Whipple or Abbott house. Guarded by a
large elm. It stands on Abbott Street, which
runs eastward from North Main. The town
council met there, and tradition says Williams
conducted prayer-meetings In It.
Some of the sites of the early planters are
interesting. Richard Scott, a Quaker and an-
tagonlst of Williams, lived on the lot next north
of St. John's churchyard. Mary Dyre went
from here to be hangred on Boston Common.
Near Dexter's (afterward Olney's) lane lived
^ Isham & Brown, Houses, p. 21.
Providence 485
Gregory Dexter. Chad Brown, the ancestor
of so many men of mark, Hved on land now
occupied by College Street. The purpose of
the original allotment was to give fronts upon
the " Towne Streete " and river, and equal
shares of farm-lands. According to Dorr^ :
" This attempt at democratic equality only created a
multitude of small estates widely separated, and in some
instances nearly or quite a mile apart. Besides his home-
lot of five acres, each proprietor had a ' six-acre lot,' at a
distance from his abode; and in a few years one or more
' stated common lots,' which he acquired by purchase
from the Proprietary, or by their occasional land divid-
ends among themselves."
The chief holdings were on *' Providence
Neck," but they gradually extended into
''Weybosset Neck."
The latter years of Roger Williams were
largely occupied by controversies with his
neighbors, including his especial opponent,
William Harris. The germs of a new State,
rendered indestructible by the complete sep-
aration of church and state, if slumbering, yet
lived in spite of the petty social stagnation of
an agricultural community.
Early in the eighteenth century, the planta-
^ Planting of Providence, p. 43.
486 Providence
tion took a new departure. Nathaniel Browne,
a shipwright, had been driven out from Massa-
chusetts, because he had become " a convert
to the Church of England." In 171 1 the
town granted him one half-acre on " Waybos-
set Neck on salt water," and again another
half-acre for buildingr vessels. His vessels
were amone the first to sail from Providence
for the West Indies. Horse-carts and vehicles
had been used before 1 700 by the wealthy,
but Madame Knight's journey to New York
from Boston in 1 704 shows that the saddle
and pillion were the common conveyance along
the bridle - paths. Galloping on the Town
Street was prohibited in 1681. Through Paw-
tucket, the Bostonians came by the present
North Burying Ground into the Town Street,
then crossed Weybosset Bridge on their way
toward the southwest. In the wider part of
Weybosset thoroughfare, there stood a knoll,
which has been levelled away. The road swept
around and created the bulging lines of the
street. Travel went on through Apponaug
and North Kinp-stown, over Tower Hill and
by the Narragansett shore, over the Pequot
path toward New York. At this period, the
road was opened toward Hartford, and im-
Providence 487
proved communications were made with the
surroundinor towns. It was not until 1820
that a direct turnpike was opened from Pro-
vidence to New London.
Of more importance even was the way into
the world outward, through the bay. Pardon
Tillinghast had been granted land twenty
feet square for a storehouse and wharf " over
against his dwelling-place," in 1679-80, at the
foot of the present Transit Street. There was
struggle and competition for " lands by the
sea-side," or " forty-foot lots, called warehouse
lots," throughout this time, and complete divi-
sion of the shore privileges was not effected
until 1 749. All these restless movements
showed that the town was waking up and
sending its commerce abroad into foreign
countries. The first effectual street, regula-
tions were in i 736.
The next church organized after the First
Baptist followed the faith of the Six-Principle
Baptists. The Friends, as they were expelled
from Massachusetts, settled in various towns
of Rhode Island. Mention has been made
of Richard Scott. In 1672 George Fox
visited Newport, and he held a meeting *' in a
great barn" at Providence. Here was a con-
4^8 Providence
testant worthy of our doughty champion,
WilHams. They disputed with voice and pen,
recording their angeHc moods in these argu-
mentative titles : The Fox Digged out of his
Bitrrowes begged one side of the question ;
this was answered with equal logic in A New
England Firebrmid Qttenched. The Friends
built a meeting-house about 1 704.
The First Congregational Pedobaptist (now
Unitarian) Society was formed about 1720.
They built a house for worship in 1723, at the
corner of Colleofe and Benefit Streets, where
the Court House now stands. This buildinor
o
became the " Old Town House," when the
society moved to its present location at the
corner of Benevolent and Benefit Streets.
Meanwhile the adherents of the Church of
England, yet to become the Protestant Epis-
copal Church of the United States, were
gathering in our town. There is some dispute
as to the first movements, but Dr. McSparran
of Narragansett affirmed that he ''was the first
Episcopal minister that ever preached at Pro-
vidence." The society thus formed finally
took the name of '' St. John's Church, in Pro-
vidence." The church was raised in 1722, on
the spot where the present building succeeded
Providence 489
It In 1810. It will be observed that these new
ecclesiastical developments moved along with
the broader commercial life which was anlmat-
ting the community.
Any historical student should examine
Rhode Island for what It Is, and even more
for what It Is not. Roofer Williams and his
fellows tried a " lively experiment " as daring
as It was fruitful. They severed church and
state, cutting off thereby the help of an edu-
cated clergy. They founded a political de-
mocracy, tempering it with the best aristocracy
to be obtained, without the ordinary facilities of
education derived through such help. Neither
the Williams Independents nor the Quakers
followed the common formulas of education,
which were generally In the hands of Angli-
cans or Presbyterians. This does not prove
that societies can safely drop scholastic educa-
tion. Many communities have failed for lack
of such education. It does prove that the
Anglo-American stock engaged In political
and economical development will educate
Itself. At first sight. It was hardly to be
expected that Isolated and unlettered Pro-
vidence would be prominent In resisting Eng-
land, or In forming a new government. But
490
Providence
she did this, in full share, and the embodi-
ment of her citizenship, the type of her repub-
lican character, was in one man, Stephen
Hopkins — "great not only in capacity and
force of mind, but also — what is much rarer —
in originative faculty."
Born a farmer in 1707, removing to Pro-
vidence in 1 73 1, a member of the General
Assembly in i 732, Chief
Justice in 1739, ^^^ ^^
the committee to form
Franklin's plan of colon-
ial union at Albany in
1754, a signer of the
Declaration in 1776 — we
have here the full meas-
ure of a republican citi-
whether by the
dard of Cato, or by
the later models of
T,i8B7,Bvo.APPLETON.co. Pj-^nklin and Washing-
ton. " A clear and convincing speaker, he
used his influence in Congress in favor of
decisive measures."
In I 758 the first postmaster was appointed by
Dr. Franklin. The State House on North
Main Street was erected in 1759; the Fire
FROM " APPLETONS' CYCLO. OF AM. BIOG.
COPYRIGH
Providence 49^
Department began in 1 763 ; a " vigorous ef-
fort" was made for free schools in 1767.
A great change was wrought about 1 763
by the opening of Westminster Street. A town
named for Mr. Fox's pohtical district had been
projected on the west side. It was strangled
by the influence of the southern counties.
Finally the way across the marsh was laid out.
As late as 1771, there were only four houses
on the southern and one on the northern side
of Westminster Street.
Joseph and William Russell, Clark and
Nightingale, with James Brown, the father
of the four brothers mentioned below, were
among the prominent merchants before the
Revolution.
Next to the political change of colony into
State, the greatest monument of the larger
Rhode Island is the University. Rhode Isl-
and College, to become Brown University
in 1804, was located under President Man-
ning at Warren in 1766. By the "resolute
spirits of the Browns and some other men of
Providence," University Hall was built in
1770. A government stable and barrack dur-
ing the Revolution, it has been a beacon-light
ever since.
492 Providence
We said not much might have been expected
of httle Rhody, by common rules of historic
proportion, but the overt acts of the American
Revolution began right here in 1772. The
oppressive colonial administration, begun by
Grenville, was especially vexatious in Narragan-
sett Bay. The British cruiser Gaspee, attempt-
ing an illegal seizure, ran aground on Namquit,
since known as Gaspee Point. The news
ran like lightning through the town, that the
Hawk was fettered on our shore. Four broth-
ers, Nicholas, Joseph, John and Moses, de-
scended from Chad Brown, were all promin-
ent merchants. John was a man of the time.
Afterward, his powder, seized in a raid in
the British West Indies, arrived in time to be
issued in the retreat from Bunker Hill. Brown
planned a daring attack on His Majesty's
vessel in James Sabin's inn. The historic room
has been transferred bodily by the Talbots
to their home at 209 Williams Street. Eight
long-boats were provided by Brown and moved
under the command of Abrahami Whipple,
afterward a commodore in the Revolutionary
navy. A boat from Bristol joined the party.
Lieutenant Duddingston answered the hail of
the patriot raiders and was severely wounded,
'1
494 Providence
shedding the first British blood in the War
of Independence. Whipple's men boarded
the cruiser, drove the crew below, took them
off prisoners, then fired and destroyed the
vessel. It shows the firm temper and new
American loyalty prevailing in the town, that
large rewards brought out no information
which would effectively prosecute Brown and
Whipple or their fellow offenders. Brown was
arrested and imprisoned during the occupation
of Boston, but for want of sufficient proof he
was discharged.
Providence contributed its full share to the
Revolution. Stephen Hopkins signed the
Declaration of Independence with a tremulous
hand, but a firm heart. Troops were freely
furnished and privateers brought wealth to
the town. The second division of the French
contingent passed the winter of 1782 in en-
campment on Harrington's Lane. The street
is now known as Rochambeau Avenue. New-
port, hitherto the more important port, lost her
commerce through the British occupation. The
natural drift of commerce to the farthest in-
land waters available was precipitated by these
political changes. Newport never recovered
her lost prestige, and Providence developed
Providence 495
rapidly after the peace. Voyages, which had
been mostly to the West Indies with an occa-
sional trip to Bilbao and the Mediterranean,
soon stretched around the world to harvest the
teeming wealth of the Chinese and Indian seas.
The Ge7ieral Washmgton, the first vessel from
Providence in that trade, sailed in 1787. Ed-
ward Carrington sent out and received the last
vessels in 1841. In the early years of the
nineteenth century, the profits of the Oriental
trade were very great.
The manufacture of cotton was attempted
by several parties, but it was not established
in Providence. Samuel Slater located in Paw-
tucket in 1790. He was induced to come to
our State through the sagacity, enterprise and
abundant capital of Moses Brown. After about
a year, a glut of yarns occurred, and Almy,
Brown and Slater had accumulated nearly six
thousand pounds. Brown said : " Samuel, if
thee goes on, thee will spin up all our farms."
The manufacture extended rapidly and became
the chief source of the prosperity of the State.
It absorbed the capital, which was gradually
withdrawn from commerce and shipping.
An important element in the development
of our city has been the free banking system.
49^ Providence
The first institution in our State and the second
in New England was the Providence Bank,
chartered in i 791.
Newspapers only slightly affected the life of
the eighteenth century. They began, in a
humble way, the great part they were to play
in later, modern development. The Providence
Gazette and Country Journal was first pub-
lished in 1762 by William Goddard. The
Mamtfacturers and Farmers Journal, still
continuing its prosperous career, appeared in
1820. The Gazette was enlivened by adver-
tisements in verse, of which this is a specimen,
from the year i 796 :
" A bunch of Grapes is Thurber's sign,
A shoe and boot is made on mine,
My shop doth stand in Bowen's Lane,
And Jonathan Cady is my name."
Housekeepers In our day consider the ser-
vant-girl question a hard problem, but hear the
complaint a century ago. There had been
taken away
" from the servant girls in this town, all inclination to
do any kind of work, and left in lieu thereof, an impudent
appearance, a strong and continued thirst for high wages,
a gossiping disposition for every sort of amusement, a
leering and hankering after persons of the other sex, a
Providence 497
desire of finery and fashion, a never-ceasing trot after
new places more advantageous for stealing, with a num-
ber of contingent accomplishments, that do not suit the
wearers. Now if any person or persons will restore that
degree of honesty and industry, which has been for
some time missing,"
then this rugged censor offers $500 reward.
In 1767 the first regular stage-coach was ad-
vertised to Boston. In 1793 Hatch's stages
ran to Boston and charged the passengers a
fare of one dollar, the same sum which the
railway charges to-day. In 1796 a navigable
canal was projected to Worcester, John Brown
being an active promoter. The project was not
carried through until i828,when the packet-boat
Lady Cai^rington passed through the Black-
stone Canal. The enterprise had poor success.
John Brown built Washington Bridge across
the lower Seekonk, connecting the eastern shore
to India Point, where the wealth of Ormus and
of Ind was discharged from the aromatic ships.
In this period the first steamboat came from
New York around Point Judith and connected
with stages to Boston.
The international disputes concerning the
embargo and non-intercourse with Great Brit-
ain, which led up to the War of 18 12, found
49^ Providence
Providence opposed in opinion to the Execut-
ive of the United States. But the opposition
was loyal and the government received proper
support. Peace was very welcome when it
was proclaimed in 1815. This year, a tremend-
ous gale swept the ocean into the bay and
the bay into the river, carrying ruin in their
path. The waters were higher by some seven
feet than had ever been known. The fierce
winds carried the salt of the seas as far inland
as Worcester. Thirty or forty vessels were
dashed through the Weybosset Bridge into
the cove above. Others were swept from their
moorinors and stranded amono^ the wharves.
Shops were smashed or damaged and the whole
devastation cost nearly one million of dollars — a
great sum in those days. It was a radical
measure of improvement. New streets were
opened and better stores rose amid the ruins.
South Water and South West Water Streets
date hence, and Canal Street was opened soon
after.
In 1832 the city government was organized,
with Samuel W. Bridgham for mayor. A seri-
ous riot occurring the previous year had shown
that the old town government was outgrown.
The railways to Boston and Stonington
Providence
499
changed the course of transportation. In
1848 the Worcester connection, the first in-
tersecting or cross Hne in New England, gave
direct intercourse with the West.
We sent out Henry Wheaton, one of the
masters of international law, and we adopted
Francis W^ayland, — '
a citizen of the
world, — who set an
endurinor mark on
Rhode Island. Pre-
sident of Brown
University, 1827-
1855, his work in
the American edu-
cational system has
not yet yielded its
full fruit. He
brouo^ht teacher
and pupil into closer
contact by the liv-
ing voice. He projected a practical method
for elective studies and put it in operation at
Brown University in 1850. Started too soon,
and with insufficient means, it opened the way
to success, when the larger universities in-
auorurated similar methods after the Civil War.
FRANCIS WAYLAND.
500 Providence
Nine hundred and forty-six students now at-
tend where Manning and Wayland taught.
x\n armed though bloodless insurrection in
1842 brought our State to the verge of revolu-
tion. The old charter of 1663 limited suffrage
to freeholders and their oldest sons. Thomas
Wilson Dorr was the champion of people's
suffrage. His party elected him governor
with a legislature, by irregular and illegitimate
voting. They mustered in arms and tried to
seize the State arsenals in our city. Dorr had
a strong intellect ; he was a sincere and unself-
ish patriot, though perverse and foolish in his
conduct of affairs. The suffrage was widened
by a new constitution in 1843, which has just
been revised by a constitutional commission.
The early cotton manufacture was fostered
by the well-distributed water-power of Rhode
Island. The glacial grinding of the land had
left numerous ponds and minor streams, — ad-
mirable reservoirs of water-power, — just the
facilities needed for weak pioneers. As the
century advanced, greater force was needed.
About 1847 George H. Corliss bent his tal-
ents and energies to extend the power of the
high-pressure steam-engine. He adapted and
developed better cut-off valves, which preserved
Providence 501
the whole expansive force of the steam, stopped
off before it filled the cylinder. It was a new
lever of Archimedes, and Corliss's machines
went over the whole world. This new mas-
tery of force stimulated all industries.
Our little community showed its customary
military spirit in 1861. Governor William
Sprague mustered troops with great energy.
After the famous Massachusetts 6th, the
Rhode Island ist Militia with its ist Battery
were the first reinforcements which arrived at
Washington. In field artillery, our volunteers
were especially proficient.
The growth of the population of Providence
is shown in the following table :
1708 1,446 1840 23,172
1730 3,916 1850 41,513
1774 4,321 i860 50,666
1800 7,614 1870 68,904
1810 10,071 1880 104,857
1820 11,745 1885 118,070
1830 16,836 1895 145,472
We could not notice all parts of Providence
in this cursory survey. Small as well as large
implements of iron, jewelry and silver, the
invention and immense production of wood-
502 Providence
screws, India-rubber, worsted, — all these com-
plicated industries have built up an extending
and encroaching city, until now three hundred
thousand people dwell within a radius of ten
miles from our City Hall.
Old Providence, the home of Williams and
the Quakers, is fading away. The " Towne
Streete," its meandering curves gradually
straightening, will hardly be recognized a cent-
ury hence. The Mowry house, the homes of
Stephen and Esek Hopkins, are small, when
compared with the mansions of John Brown,
Thomas P. Ives, Sullivan Dorr and Edward
Carrington ; while the solid comfort prevailing
in the eighteenth century, as embodied in these
houses, is surpassed, though it may not be
bettered, by the more pretentious domestic
architecture of our day. The Independent
worshipers In the First Baptist and First
Congregational churches would feel strange
under the domes of the beautiful Central Con-
gregational. The Anglicans of the first St.
John's would be bewildered by the pointed
arches of St. Stephen's. The few Catholic
Immigrants, bringing the Host across the seas
with tender care, and resting at St. Peter and
St. Paul's, would be amazed by the sw^arm of
504 Providence
well-to-do citizens clustering- beneath the mas-
sive towers of the Cathedral.
The industrial and economic evolution is fully
as ereat as the aesthetic and architectural.
The crazy little organism of Almy, Brown and
Slater is replaced by the long, whirling shafts,
the spindled acres of the Goddards' Ann and
Hope Mill at Lonsdale. The homely security
of the market house (present Board of Trade),
the Providence Bank and the " Arcade " is
overshadowed by the City Hall, the Rhode
Island Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital
Trust Company. University Hall burgeons
into the fair arches of Sayles Hall. No medi-
eval builder worked more reverently than Al-
pheus C. Morse, as he devotedly wrought at his
task, getting the best lines into stone and lime.
Not always does the work of the modern
builders tend toward beauty. The masterly
brick arcades of Thomas A. Teft kept the
city's approaches for a half-century. Swept
away by the more convenient passenger sta-
tion of the New York and New Haven Rail-
way, they will leave behind many regrets.
The maenificent marble State House will lift
the observer away from and above all the
buildings below.
Providence 505
The growth of Providence runs even with
the State's, except in the excrescent luxury of
Newport in its summer bloom. We cannot
stand still like Holland ; we must look outward
or decay. The American destiny is reaching
out, notwithstanding the caution of the prud-
ent, perhaps of the judicious. The mystic
Orient, no longer mysterious, beckons from the
West Instead of the East. It led the Browns,
Iveses, Carringtons, Maurans, and their capt-
ains, the H oldens, Ormsbees, Paiges and
Comstocks, to opulence. Their descendants,
with more abundant capital, ready skill and
better organization, ought not to lag in the
world's march. Men must be forthcomino-.
There has been always a cosmopolitan flavor
in the little State, isolated between the restless
intellectual energy of Massachusetts and the
steady Puritan development of Connecticut.
Boston had more trade than Providence and
Newport ; she was not so truly commercial.
The larger Franklin went over to Pennsyl-
vania, but the next man, Stephen Hopkins,
stayed In Rhode Island. The seed which
Berkeley planted sprouted In Channing, and
that Influence went througrhout New Eno^land.
The little State has never been without ideas.
5o6
HARTFORD
''THE BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN
DEMOCRACY"
By MARY K. TALCOTT
AMONG the historic cities of New Eng-
land, Hartford claims a foremost place.
Not only was its settlement of great conse-
quence at the time, but for historical importance
and far-reaching results this colony's claims to
attention are second only to those of Plymouth
and Boston. The foundation of Hartford was
a further application and development of the
Ideas that brought the Puritans to this country,
and, to quote the historian, Johnston, —
" Here is the first practical assertion of the right of
the people, not only to choose, but to limit the powers
of their rulers, an assertion which lies at the foundation
of the American system. . . . It is on the banks of
the Connecticut, under the mighty preaching of Thomas
Hooker, and in the constitution to which he gave life, if
not form, that we draw the first breath of that atmosphere
507
5o8 Hartford
,/
which is now so familiar to us. The birthplace of
American democracy is Hartford "
This constitution, first promulgated in Hart-
ford, was the first written constitution in history
which was adopted by a people and which also
organized a government. John Fiske says :
" The compact drawn up in the Mayflower's cabin was
not, in the strict sense, a constitution, which is a docu-
ment defining and limiting the functions of government.
Magna Charta partook of the nature of a written
constitution as far as it went, but it did not create a
government."
On the 14th of January, 1639, the freemen
of the three towns, Windsor, Hartford, and
Wethersfield, assembled at Hartford, and
drew up a constitution, consisting of eleven
articles, which they called the " Fundamental
Orders of Connecticut," and under this law the
people of Connecticut lived for nearly two
centuries, as the Charter granted by King
Charles H., in 1662, was simply a royal recog-
nition of the government actually in operation.
Another writer says :
"We honor the limitations of despotism which are
written in the twelve tables ; the repression of monarch-
ical power in Magna Charta, in the Bill of Rights, and
5IO ^A' Hartford
in that whole undefinable creation, as invisible and in-
tangible as the atmosphere but like it full of oxygen
and electricity, which we call the British Constitution.
But in our Connecticut Constitution we find no limitation
upon monarchy, for monarchy is unrecognized ; the
limitations are upon the legislature, the courts, and
executive. It is pure democracy acting through repre-
sentation, and im])osing organic limitations. Even the
suffrage qualification of church membership, which was
required by our older sister Colony of Massachusetts,
was omitted. Here in a New England wilderness a few
pilgrims of the pilgrims, alive to the inspirations of the
common law and of the British Constitution, so full of
Christianity that they felt the great throb of its heart of
human brotherhood, and so full of Judaism that they
believed themselves in some special sense the people of
God, made a written constitution, to be a supreme and
organic law for their State "
But for the immediate inspiration of this
document we must look to a "lecture,"
preached by Mr. Hooker on Thursday, May
2 1, 1638, before the legislative body of free-
men. Dr. Bacon says of it :
" That sermon, by Thomas Hooker, is the earliest
known suggestion of a fundamental law, enacted, not by
royal charter nor by concession from any previously
existing government, but by the people themselves, — a
primarv and supreme law by which the government is
constituted, and which not only provides for the free
Hartford 5 1 1
choice of magistrates by the people, but also sets the
bounds and limitations of the power and place to which
each magistrate is called."
But we must know something of a people to
whom such doctrines were preached — of a
people capable of receiving and applying such
truths. It is said that three kingdoms were
sifted to furnish the men who settled New Eng-
land, and it may also be said that the Massa-
chusetts Colony was sifted to supply the
Connecticut settlers. Three of the eight
Massachusetts towns, Dorchester, Watertown,
and Newtown (now Cambridge), were not in
full agreement with the other five, especially
on the fundamental feature of the Massachu-
setts polity, the limitation of office-holding and
the voting privilege to church-members. At
first the majority were unwilling to grant the
minority ''liberty to remove." John Haynes
was made Governor of Massachusetts In 1635,
probably with the hope of retaining his friends
In the Colony. But their desire to leave was
too strong ; small parties of emigrants made
their way to the banks of the Connecticut
during the year 1635, but the main body of
the colonists did not leave until the spring of
1636. Dr. Benjamin Trumbull, the first
512 Hartford
historian of Connecticut, writing more than
one hundred years ago, says :
" About the beginning of June Mr. Hooker, Mr,
Stone, and about a hundred men, women, and children
took their departure from Cambridge, and travelled more
than a hundred miles thro' a hideous and trackless
wilderness to Hartford. They had no guide but
their compass ; made their way over mountains, thro'
swamps, thickets, and rivers, which were not passable
but with great difficulty. They had no cover but the
heavens, nor any lodgings but those which simple
nature afforded them. They drove with them a hundred
and sixty head of cattle, and by the way subsisted on
the milk of their cows. Mrs. Hooker was borne through
the wilderness upon a litter. The people generally
carried their packs, arms, and some utensils. They were
nearly a fortnight on their journey."
Trumbull adds : " This adventure was the
more remarkable, as many of this company
were persons of figure, who had lived in Eng-
land in honor, affluence, and delicacy, and
were entire strangers to fatigue and danger."
When dismissing these colonists Massachusetts
sent with them a governing committee, or
commissioners, as they were called. At a
meeting of these commissioners, held February
2 1, 1637, the plantation, which had been called
Newtown, was named Hartford. As Cover-
514 Hartford
nor Haynes was born in the immediate vicinity
of the EngHsh Hertford, he probably had
much influence in naming the new plantation.
On the nth of April, 1639, ^^e first general
meeting of the freemen under the constitution
was held, and John Haynes was elected the
first Governor of Connecticut. This selection
shows his active sympathy and co-operation
with Hooker, and we can entirely agree with
Bancroft, when he says: ''They who judge
of men by their services to the human race
will never cease to honor the memory of
Hooker, and of Haynes."
But the soil of Hartford has had other
occupants ; not only the aboriginal owners
of the soil, for when the English came
they found a Dutch trading-post established
on what is yet known as Dutch Point. The
English claimed the territory now compre-
hended in the State of Connecticut by virtue
of the discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot
in 1497, and more especially in 1498. This
territory was included in the grant to the Ply-
mouth Company in 1606, but that organization
undertook no work of colonization. When the
settlers of 1635 came they took possession of
this portion of the valley of the Connecticut
Hartford 515
under the English flag, and claimed the terri-
tory by virtue of patents from the English
crown. They paid Sequassen, the Indian
chief, who ruled the river Indians, for his lands,
and when the Pequots, his over-lords, disputed
Sequassen's right to sell, the colonists attacked
them, and practically exterminated the tribe.
The Dutch settlement oriorinated from discov-
eries by Adrian Block, who sailed through the
Sound in 1614, and up the Connecticut, or
Fresh River, as he called it, in his sloop, The
Unrest, as far as the falls, and upon his report
to the States-general, a company was formed
for trading in the New Netherlands. Only
limited privileges were granted to this com-
pany, and it was afterwards superseded by the
Dutch West India Company, to whom the ex-
clusive governmental and commercial rights for
the territory were granted. The Dutch were
influenced much more by the desire for a
lucrative trade with the natives than by any
wish to found a colony, and in 1633 they built
a fort on the spot still called Dutch Point, in
Hartford, for the purpose of protecting their
traffic with the Indians, which they had been
carrying on for some ten years. This fort was
known as the House of Hope, and when the
5i6 Hartford
English came they settled all about it, but did
not interfere with the Dutch occupation. Nat-
urally, there was friction between the two
nationalities, and petty trespasses of various
kinds were charged by both parties. Finally,
after repeated complaints, the Commission-
ers of the United Colonies, Massachusetts,
Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, met
at Hartford, September ii, 1650, with Peter
Stuyvesant, Director of the New Netherlands,
to consult upon the proper boundaries of the
Dutch jurisdiction. The matter was referred
to arbitrators, and resulted in a transfer to the
English of all the territory lying west of the
Connecticut except the land in Hartford actu-
ally occupied by the Dutch, the New Nether-
lands taking the country east of the river.
But this arrangement did not last long, as, in
1653, war was declared between England and
Holland, and the colonies were required by
Parliament to treat the Dutch as the declared
enemies of the Commonwealth of England.
Trumbull says :
" In conformity to this order the General Court was
convened, and an act passed sequestering the Dutch
house, lands, and property of all kinds at Hartford, for
the benefit of the Commonwealth ; and the Court also
Hartford 517
prohibited all persons, whatsoever, from improving the
premises by virtue of any former claim or title had,
made, or given, by any of the Dutch nation, or any
other person, without their approbation,"
Even after this change of rulers a few of the
Dutch traders remained in Hartford, as is
shown by references to them on the records,
but they all finally returned to the New
Netherlands.
During the next thirty years the little settle-
ment on the banks of the Connecticut con-
tinued to grow and prosper, having very little
to do with the affairs of the outside world.
In 1675 and 1676, King Philip's War caused
great alarm and anxiety for a time, but after
this conflict was concluded by the subjugation
of the Indians, peace and quietness again
reigned. Soon after the accession of James
II., in 1685, this quiet was however rudely dis-
turbed by the issue of a writ of qito warranto
against the Governor and Company of Con-
necticut, summoning them to appear before
his Majesty, and show by what warrant they
exercised certain powers. In reply, the Colony
pleaded the Charter, granted by the King's
royal brother, made strong professions of their
loyalty, and begged a continuance of their
5i8 Hartford
privileges. Two more writs of quo warranto
were issued against Connecticut, but she still
refused to surrender her Charter, and re-
elected Robert Treat as Governor. The Char-
ter of Massachusetts had been vacated, and
Chalmers, in his History of the America^i
Colonies, says that '' Rhode Island and Con-
necticut were two little republics embosomed
in a great empire." Rhode Island, however,
submitted to his Majesty, so Connecticut stood
alone in refusing to surrender her Charter.
In the latter part of 1686, Sir Edmund Andros
arrived in Boston, bearing his royal commis-
sion as Governor of New England. After
some correspondence with Governor Treat,
who still stood firm, he left Boston for Hart-
ford, with several members of his Council and
a small troop of horse. When he arrived in
Hartford, October 31, 1687, he was escorted
by the Hartford County Troop, and met with
great courtesy by the Governor and his assist-
ants. Sir Edmund was conducted to the Gov-
ernor's seat in the council chamber, and at
once demanded the Charter. Trumbull says :
" The tradition is that Governor Treat strongly repre-
sented the great expense and hardships of the colonists
in planting the country, the blood and treasure which
Hartford 5^9
they had expended in defending it, both against the
savages and foreigners ; to what hardships and dangers
he himself had been exposed for that purpose ; and that
it was like giving up his life now to surrender the patent
and privileges so dearly bought, and so long enjoyed.
The important affair was debated and kept in suspense
until the evening, when the Charter was brought and
laid upon the table, where the Assembly were sitting.
By this time great numbers of people were assembled,
and men sufficiently bold to enterprise whatever might
be necessary, or expedient. The lights were instantly
extinguished, and one Captain Wadsworth, of Hartford,
in the most silent and secret manner carried off the
Charter, and secreted it in a large hollow tree, fronting
the house of the Honorable Samuel Wyllys, then one of
the Magistrates of the Colony. The people appeared all
peaceable and orderly. The candles were officiously re-
lighted, but the patent was gone, and no discovery could
be made of it, or of the person who had conveyed it
away."
Sir Edmund was disconcerted, but declared
the government of the colony to be in his
own hands, annexed Connecticut to Massa-
chusetts and the other New England colonies,
appointed officers, and returned to Boston.
After the downfall of Andros, in 1689, Gov-
ernor Treat resumed his position as Governor
of Connecticut, and the Charter reappeared
from its seclusion, and continued to be the
organic law of Connecticut, although in Parlia-
520
Hartford
ment, during the remainder of the colonial
period, various attempts were made to have it
abrogated. But the Charter Oak, where tra-
dition declared that the document was con-
cealed, continued to be a sacred and venerated
object until its fall, August 21, 1856.
THE CHARTER OAK.
A people that have no history are the hap-
piest, therefore we may assume that Hartford
was a happy and flourishing town during the
remainder of the colonial period, and even
Hartford 521
during the Revolution there is but Httle
to tell of Hartford. Its situation, so far re-
moved from the seacoast, secured it from the
attacks of the British troops, and it was for
that very reason a safe and desirable place for
the meetings of Generals Washington and
Rochambeau, when they wished to arrange the
plans for the campaigns that ended with the
surrender of Yorktown. The first of these
historic meetings took place September 1 7,
1780. Rochambeau came from Newport
through Eastern Connecticut, and Washing-
ton rode from New Windsor on the Hudson
with a guard of twenty-two dragoons. The
meeting took place in the public square on
the site of the present post-office, and as the
two tall, fine-looking commanders-in-chief ap-
proached each other bowing, an eye-witness
said that it was like the meeting of two na-
tions. The following year another meeting
took place at Wethersfield.
During the colonial period there was very
little literary production in America, except
sermons and theological treatises, and Hart-
ford was no exception to this rule. Her first
author was one of her founders, the Rev.
Thomas Hooker, " The Light of the Western
52 2 Hartford
Churches." His writings consisted exclusively
of sermons. They were first published in
London, and but few have been reprinted in
this country. No preacher of great reputation
succeeded him, nor any writers whatever. But
during the Revolution a star arose on the hori-
zon,— McFingaL The first part of the poem
appeared as independent verses in the Con-
nectic2it Cotirant in 1775. General Gage had
issued a fierce proclamation, threatening to
exempt from general pardon some of the
Continental leaders, and Trumbull's poem
burlesqued the manifesto. It was at once
reproduced in the Philadelphia papers, and
undoubtedly did a very important work in
stimulating the thought and passion of the
American Revolution. About 1782 the whole
work was published by Messrs. Hudson &
Goodwin, '* near the Great Bridge, Hartford."
Tradition states that the scene of the '' Town
Meeting" refers to the old South Church In
this city. Nathaniel Patten, an enterprising,
and not over-scrupulous printer In Hartford,
issued a second edition of McFingal, without the
author's consent, and It is an interesting fact
that out of this piracy of Trumbull's work here
in Hartford grew the national copyright law.
Hartford 523
Trumbull and Noah Webster both exerted
themselves strenuously In favor of such a law,
and, in i j^^^^, the General Assembly of Con-
necticut passed an " Act for the Encourage-
ment of Literature and Genius," which secured
to authors their copyright within the State.
The personal exertions of Noah Webster in
defense of his spelling-book led to the passage
of similar laws by the legislatures of other
States, and finally to the passage of a general
law bv Conofress, modelled on the Connecticut
act of 1783. All the literature of that period
in America bears the impress of the golden
age of Queen Anne, the Spectator and the
Tatler, Addison and Steele ; and McFingal
reminds the reader now of Hicdibras, now
of the Ditnciad.
John Trumbull was born in Watertown, Con-
necticut, then Westbury, April 24, i 750. Both
on his father's side and his mother's he was of
the pure Brahmin stock of New England, and
through his mother he was related to Jonathan
Edwards, Timothy Dwight, his fellow-poet,
and many other writers of a later time. He
exhibited marvellous precocity, and, his father
being engaged in preparing a youth of sev-
enteen for examination at Yale, the boy
524 Hartford
of seven was so eager to join in the elder
youth's studies that his father allowed him to
go through the same course of Greek, Latin,
and Mathematics. Both the lads passed,
and were admitted members of the college,
but the boy of seven was not allowed to pro-
ceed with his college course until he was older.
He early began writing essays of a satirical
nature, and while a tutor at his Alma Mater
he wrote TJie Progress of Didness, a keen and
stinging satire on contemporary life. It also
shows, like McFingal, the technical precision
of the literary artist. The year 1774 Trum-
bull, spent in the law-office of John Adams, in
Boston, then returned to New Haven, and in
1 78 1 took up his residence in Hartford, where
he remained until 1825, when he went to Detroit
to live with a married daughter, and died there
in 1 83 1. In his later life he gave up litera-
ture for the law, and was at different times
State Attorney for Hartford County, Repre-
sentative to the State Legislature, Judge of
the Superior Court (1801-1819), and Judge
of the Supreme Court of Errors (1808-18 19).
In the first decade of our independence the
*' Hartford Wits " made this little provincial
capital a brilliant intellectual centre, and an
Hartford 525
Important focus of political influence. The
original members of the association or club
were, Dr. Lemuel Hopkins, John Trumbull,
Joel Barlow, and David Humphreys. We
may call it remarkable, because, at that time,
when Boston was as barren of literary talent
as she has since been prolific, this little town
of three thousand inhabitants boasted at least
four poets who had gained a national reputa-
tion. Hopkins was born in Waterbury, Con-
necticut, in 1750, was a distinguished physician,
and one of the founders of the Connecticut
Medical Society. He died in Hartford in
1 80 1, and his grave may be seen in the old
Center burying-ground. No edition of his col-
lected poems has ever been published. They
consisted in great part of his contributions to
the Anarchiad, the Political Greejihonse, and
the Echo, which were serial satires in verse
by the Hartford Wits. T\i^A7iarcJiiad resem-
bled the Rolliad of Frere and Canning, and
with the Echo contained a series of social and
political satires. Hartford at this time, became
and for twenty years thereafter was, the liter-
ary headquarters of the Federalist or Conser-
vative party, which favored a strong, general
government, and opposed French democracy.
526 Hartford
In consequence, as party feeling ran so high,
it became a mark for obloquy and vituperation
among the Jeffersonians, which gave it an
honorable resemblance to Boston in the anti-
slavery times.
David Humphreys was born in Derby,
Connecticut, in 1753, served honorably dur-
ing the Revolution, and had the distinction
of being Washington's aid-de-camp. He also
held, after the war, the position of secretary
to the commissioners — Franklin, Jefferson,
and Adams — appointed to negotiate treaties
of commerce with various European powers.
Joel Barlow is perhaps the best known of any
of the Wits, and but a small portion of his
career was passed in Hartford. He took up
his residence in our town in 1782, just after
leaving the army. He was then engaged in
writing his best known poem, the epic Vision
of Colitrnbits, but he did much other literary
work, and was also the editor of a weekly
newspaper, called The A7nerican Mercury,
for which he wrote many essays, said to be the
precursors of the modern editorial. In 1787,
he completed the Vision of Columbus, and it
was published by subscription and dedicated
to Louis XVI., King of France. During the
Hartford 527
next year, 1788, Barlow left Hartford to go
abroad ; he remained In Europe for seven-
teen years, and when he returned took up
his residence in Washington. Finally, going
abroad as Ambassador to France, he died in
Poland, while following Napoleon then en-
gaged in his Russian campaign. Richard
Alsop and Theodore Dwight, Senior, were
admitted into the coterie of the Hartford
Wits, and wrote much of the Echo, and a few
lines in this series were also contributed by
Drs. Mason F. Cogswell and Elihu H. Smith.
The Echo was a sort of Yankee Dtniciad.
It contained many local allusions, as to the
Blue Laws, the Windham Frogs, etc., and
was also the vehicle of much political satire
on the Democrats. Theodore Dwight, one of
the Echo poets, was editor of the Connecticut
Mirror, and also secretary of the famous
Hartford Convention.
No political subject has ever been the theme
of more gross misrepresentation or more con-
stant reproach than the assembly of delegates
from the New England States which met at
Hartford in December, 1814. After the war
of 181 2 had continued two years, our public
affairs were in a deplorable condition. The
528 Hartford
army intended for defending the sea-coast had
been sent to the borders to attack Canada ; a
British squadron was lying in the Sound to
blockade the harbors on the Connecticut
coast, and to intercept our coasting trade ;
the banks, south of New England, had
suspended the payment of specie ; our ship-
ping lay in our harbors, embargoed, disman-
tled, and perishing ; the Treasury of the
United States was nearly exhausted, and a
general disheartenment prevailed throughout
the country. In this situation of affairs a
number of ofentlemen in Massachusetts be-
lieved that a convention of prominent men
might do good. Many petitions from numer-
ous towns in Massachusetts were received,
stating the sufferings of the country in conse-
quence of the embargo and the war, and Gov-
ernor Strong summoned a special meeting of
the Massachusetts Legislature in October,
1 8 14, when a resolution was passed appointing
delegates to a convention to be held in Hart-
ford. The Connecticut Legislature was in
session at the same time, and received a com-
munication from the Massachusetts body, re-
questing them to join in appointing delegates
to the convention. This they did, and seven
OLD STATE HOUSE,
NOW CITY HALL.
529
530 Hartford
delegates were sent. On December 15,
1 814, the convention, numbering twenty-six
delegates, representing Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and
Vermont, met in the council chamber of the
State House, now the City Hall of Hartford.
Among the delegates were men of such as-
sured position as Harrison Gray Otis, George
Cabot, William Prescott, the father of the
historian, and Stephen Longfellow, the father
of the poet, from Massachusetts ; Chaun-
cey Goodrich, Governor John Treadwell,
Roger Minot Sherman, and James Hillhouse,
of Connecticut. Their deliberations contin-
ued for three weeks, and their sittings were
held with closed doors, a fact which was
brought up against them by their political ad-
versaries as evidence of dark and nefarious
designs. During the sessions a small body
of recruits for the army, then in Hartford,
were paraded in a threatening manner by
the officer in command. The proceedings re-
sulted in the adoption of a report and the
passage of resolutions recommending amend-
ments to the Constitution of the United
States. Amone the recommendations was
one proposing that representative and direct
Hartford 531
taxation should be apportioned according to
the respective numbers of free persons in the
States, excluding slaves and Indians. This
document was immediately published, and
was read with orreat eacferness. Those who
expected to discover sentiments of a seditious
and treasonable nature were disappointed.
The report expressed an ardent attachment to
the integrity of the republic, and its sentiments
were liberal and patriotic. A short time after
the publication of this document the news of
the declaration of peace was received. The
people, without waiting to hear the provisions
of the treaty, showed their joy by bonfires and
illuminations, — a striking commentary upon
the character of the war and the general feel-
inor about it. The war beine over, the work
of the Hartford Convention was no longer
needed, and the jarring interests of the State
and Federal governments were harmonized.
During the last century the chief business
of Hartford was the trade with the West
Indies. There was also some traffickine
with Ireland and with Lisbon, timber being
exported to the first named, and fish to the
latter. From 1750 to 1830, Hartford not only
imported goods from the West Indies, but
532 Hartford
was also a distributing centre for the surround-
ing country, and for the region that stretches
northward to the sources of the Connecticut.
During the first thirty years of this century
the wharves on the river bank were bustHne
with traffic and Hned with vessels, often three
or four rows deep. Large warehouses ex-
tended along the banks of the river, where
beef and pork were packed for the export
trade, great quantities being brought down
the river in brine, and inspected and repacked
here. The numerous scows and flat-boats in
which the up-river trade was carried on, were
loaded on their return voyage with sugar, rum,
molasses, coffee, salt and other West Indian
commodities. S. G. Goodrich, in his Recollec-
tions of a Lifetime, describes the city as a
centre of the West India trade, and as smelling
of rum and molasses. The inland transpor-
tation of goods was carried on by lines of
freight-wagons running to Westfield, Granby,
Monson, Brimfield, Norfolk, Canaan, and the
towns in Berkshire County. There were also
packet lines running to Boston, New York,
Albany, Nantucket, Baltimore, Norfolk, and
Richmond. But the building of the Boston
and Albany, and of the New York and New
Hartford 533
Haven railroads cut off gradually all the in-
land and up-river commerce from Hartford,
and diverted trade into other directions. This
obliged the merchants of Hartford to turn their
enercjies to other lines of business.
One of the most successful of these, and
one in which Hartford now holds a unique
position, is the insurance business. Nowhere
else has the business of fire insurance reached
such magnitude as in Hartford. The aggre-
gate capital of the six fire insurance companies
in the city is $10,250,000, which exceeds one
quarter of the capital of all the fire companies
in the country. It is supposed that the busi-
ness began in marine underwriting, as Hart-
ford formerly had such large shipping interests
and so many vessels concerned in trade with
the West Indies. An insurance office was
opened in Wethersfield in 1777 by Barnabas
Dean, presumably for shipping. Fire insur-
ance policies were issued in 1 794, and in i 795
a company was formed for the purpose of un-
derwriting on "vessels, stock, merchandize,
etc." In 1810 the oldest of the present Hart-
ford fire insurance companies was formed, — the
Hartford, with a capital of $150,000. All the
early insurance companies made the mistake
534 Hartford
of dividing profits in periods of prosperity, re-
serving little or nothing for a day of adversity.
But the Hartford met with a severe lesson in
December, 1835, when the great fire in New
York swept away the capital of the company.
All losses were paid in full, and the confi-
dence inspired by this policy increased the
business of the company fivefold. In 187 1
the great Chicago fire endangered the exist-
ence of the strongest Hartford companies, and
five of them were forced to discontinue. But
the able management of the four that paid
their losses and continued to do business has
given the Hartford companies a good reputa-
tion. The life insurance business was also
early organized in Hartford, which was the
earliest place, except the already great cities of
New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, to estab-
lish this system firmly, and several of the
Hartford companies rank among the leading
institutions in this business in the country. In
Hartford was founded the first accident in-
surance company organized in America.
Hartford possesses a number oi well-known
educational and philanthropic institutions, —
Trinity College ; the Wadsworth Athenaeum,
containing the Watkinson Library of Refer-
Hartford 535
ence, the Connecticut Historical Society's
collections, the picture gallery and public
library ; the Theological Seminary, the School
for the Deaf, the Retreat for the Insane ; all
founded in the first half of this century.
First, chronologically, comes " The American
Asylum for the Education and Instruction of
Deaf and Dumb Persons," the mother-school
of all similar institutions in this country. In
1887, when the recurring years brought about
the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, the founder of
this school for the deaf, the day was cele-
brated by all deaf-mutes throughout the United
States, and commemorated by public services
and general festivities. In a building on Main
Street, now constituting the southern end of
the City Hotel, the American Asylum gathered
its first seven pupils, April 15, 181 7. The
starting-point of the enterprise was the eager
desire of Dr. Mason F. Cogswell to secure an
education for his daughter, Alice, a deaf-mute,
whose infirmity was caused by an attack of
spotted fever. In 18 15, several prominent
gentlemen in Hartford took steps towards the
orp^anization of such a school at the instance
of Dr. Cogswell, and decided to send the Rev.
53^ Hartford
T. H. Gallaudet, then just out of the Andover
Theological Seminary, to Europe, for the pur-
pose of acquiring the art of instructing deaf-
mutes. Accordingly, Mr. Gallaudet proceeded
to Paris, where he was cordially received by
the Abbe Sicard, the Director of the famous
Institution for Deaf-Mutes, founded some
years earlier by the Abbe de I'Epee. Here
every facility was accorded to Mr. Gallaudet,
and when he was ready to return to America,
one of Sicard's pupils — Laurent Clerc by
name, — offered his services as an instructor in
the school to be founded in America, and as
he was himself a deaf-mute he was a living
demonstration of the fact that a very high de-
gree of education was possible to deaf-mutes.
In 1818, the number of pupils having increased
to sixty, it appeared to the directors that their
work was likely to become national, and it
seemed proper to invoke the aid of Congress.
A petition was accordingly sent to Congress,
and was strongly supported by the Connecti-
cut members, by the Speaker, Henry Clay,
and by many other influential and philanthropic
men. Congress responded by an appropri-
ation of an entire township, comprising 23,000
acres of land. This grant was judiciously
Hartford 537
converted Into cash and invested, and the
income thus received has enabled the insti-
tution to receive pupils at about one half
the actual cost of their education. The build-
ing now in use was completed in 182 1. Since
1825 pupils have been received from the
States of Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Maine, Vermont, and Rhode Island, under
an arrangement made with the official au-
thorities in those States. While a large pro-
portion of the instructors have always been
college graduates, at the same time indus-
trial instruction has, since 1823, been an es-
sential feature in the training, thus render-
ing the pupils self-supporting members of
society.
Another evidence of the philanthropic feel-
ing animating the citizens of Hartford about
the same date as the foundation of the Deaf
and Dumb Asylum, was the establishment in
1824, of the Connecticut Retreat for the In-
sane. At that time there were only two other
institutions in the country for the exclusive
care of insane persons, and the importance of
restorative treatment was but little under-
stood.
Many citizens of Hartford signed the petition
s^.8 Hartford
Dvj
requesting the General Assembly to pass an
act of incorporation for Washington College,
and when the news of its passage was received,
May 1 6, 1823, their joy was manifested by
the liorhtinor of bonfires and the firino^ of can-
non. The people of Hartford surpassed all
others in raising money for the new insti-
tution. More than three fourths of the sum
appropriated by the State, $50,000, was con-
tributed by them, and their city was therefore
selected as the seat of the College. A fine
site was secured on an eminence overlooking
the Little River, the hill now crowned by the
beautiful State Capitol, and in 1825 two build-
ings were ready for occupation. The College
was opened under the presidency of the Rt.
Rev. Thomas C. Brownell, Bishop of Con-
necticut, and at all times since its foundation
the institution has been administered by men of
learning and wisdom. The name was changed
in 1844 to Trinity College. In 1871, when the
city of Hartford decided to offer to the State
a site for the new Capitol, it was proposed to
purchase the College campus for that purpose
and in February, 1872, the trustees sold the
grounds to the city, reserving the right to use
them for five or six years. In 1873 a site of
i^i^
^iSdSft:.**^!)*^
STATUE OF ISRAEL PUTNAM.
J. Q. A. WARD, SCULPTOR.
539
54<^ Hartford
some eighteen acres on the slope of Rocky
Hill, commanding a beautiful view in every
direction, was purchased by the College.
Ground was broken on Commencement Day,
1875, with impressive ceremonies, and two
large buildings were ready for occupation in
1878. The erection of the Northam Gateway,
in 1 88 1, unites the buildings and completes
the western side of the proposed quadrangle.
The lofty towers have added greatly to the
appearance of the structure. The style of ar-
chitecture is secular Gothic of the early French
type.
The buildings of the Theological Seminary
on Broad Street attract attention by their size
and dignity. The institution was established
in East Windsor in 1833, and was removed to
Hartford in 1865, occupying the old Wads-
worth house and other buildings on Prospect
Street. In 1879, ^^^ present structure was
occupied, and it has since been enlarged by
the addition of the Case Library.
The first great manufacturing enterprise in
Hartford, and still perhaps the best known
and most important, is the Colt's Patent Fire
Arms Manufacturing Company, established by
Colonel Samuel Colt in 1848. Colonel Colt
Hartford
541
planned his works on a mag-nificent scale, and
time has proved the wisdom of his plans. To
pistols, rifles, and shotguns the company has
added, from time to time, the manufacture of
gun machinery, Gatling guns, printing-presses,
portable steam-engines, and Colt automatic
ofuns. Aside from the
output of weapons and
machinery, the Colt
works have been of
great value as an educat-
ing force in applied
mechanics, and they
have turned out many
men who have founded
large manufacturing
establishments. The
armory grounds now in-
clude two memorial
buildings, the Church of
the Good Shepherd,
built in 1868 by Mrs.
Colt, in memory of her
husband, and a compan-
ion to this, built in 1896, a parish house, in
memory of Commodore Caldwell H. Colt,
a structure complete and satisfying in all
KENEY MEMORIAL TOWER.
542 Hartford
its decorations and appointments. Another
memorial structure in the city is just ap-
proaching completion, — the Keney Memorial
Tower. In this, Hartford will possess an
architectural feature unique in American cities,
— a Norman bell and clock tower, with fine
carvings.
The Messrs. Keney have left another mem-
orial of themselves in the Keney Park, a fine
addition to the Hartford park system. The
beauty of Hartford and its desirability as a
residence have both been much increased by
the munificence of individual citizens, and the
wise policy of the city government in creating
a system of public parks. The first of these,
Bushnell Park, the city owes to the wise fore-
thought of Dr. Horace Bushnell, one of her
most distinguished citizens. Laid out in 1859,
it is, probably, after Central Park in New
York, the oldest public city park in the coun-
try, and it was obtained in the face of much
opposition by a man possessed of great intel-
lect and foresight — for whom it was named in
1876. The building of the Capitol on the
brow of the hill overlooking the Park, and the
construction of the Soldiers' Memorial Arch in
1886, have added much to its beauty and com-
Hartford
543
pleteness. In 1894, Hartford acquired another
park the gift of Col. Albert A. Pope, the head
of the Pope Manufacturing- Company. This
park is situated in the south part of the city.
THE CAPITOL.
Very soon afterwards, by the will of Charles
M. Pond, the city became possessed of a valu-
able tract of land on Prospect Hill, the former
residence of Mr. Pond. This he desired should
be called Elizabeth Park in memory of his
wife. Now the Pope, Elizabeth, Keney, and
Riverside Parks, the latter on the north mead-
544 Hartford
ows and near the city water-works, make
a boulevard around Hartford, which will add
much in the future to the beauty of this already
beautiful city.
After the brilliant galaxy of the " Hartford
Wits" disappeared, a graver class of liter-
erary men took their places : Noah Webster,
with his spelling-book and dictionary (he was
born in Hartford, West Division, Oct. i6,
1758); Samuel G. Goodrich (Peter Parley);
Mrs. Lydia Huntley Sigourney, who obtained
the title of " the American Hermans," an almost
lifelong resident of Hartford, where her first
volume of poems was published in 1815 ;
George Denison Prentice and John Greenleaf
Whittier both lived in Hartford for a time,
doing editorial work, when they were yet
young and unknown men ; Henry Barnard,
LL.D., distinguished for his labors in the
cause of education, was born in Hartford in
181 1, and is still enjoying an honored old age
in his native city. But the man of highest
genius in Hartford's list of authors during the
first half of this century was Horace Bushnell.
He came to the city in 1833, as pastor of the
North Church, and remained until his death,
in 1876. His sermons and essays all show
SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL ARCH.
545
546
Hartford
great imagination and beauty of style, as well
as great power of thought. In 1864, Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, who had once before
^l,^;^^'^?^^^^-**-^
lived in Hartford as a teacher in the famous
school of her sister, Miss Catharine Beecher,
again took up her residence in the city, and
continued to live here until her death, in 1896.
DR. HORACE BUSHNELL.
FROM A CRAYON DRAWING BV S W. ROWSE.
547
54^ Hartford
During this period a number of her later
works were written.
Of Hving authors, Charles Dudley Warner
and Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) have
a world-wide reputation. Mr. Warner came
to Hartford in i860, as one of the editors of
the Press, and subsequently became one of the
owners and editors of the Courant, with which
paper he is still associated. His Summer in
a Garden, which first brought him into notice,
appeared in the columns of his newspaper in
1870, and since that time he has written many
essays, novels, and books of travel. Mr.
Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, No-
vember 30, 1835, has lived in Hartford since
1 87 1, and all his books which have appeared
since 1872 have been written in our city,
except his X'dX^'^X., Folloiving the Equator. John
Fiske, the historian and essayist, was born in
Hartford in 1842, but he left the city at an
early age, and his reputation has been won
elsewhere. The same can be said of Edmund
Clarence Stedman, the poet and critic, who
was born in Hartford in 1833.
James Hammond Trumbull, LL. D., born
in Stonington in 1821, but almost a lifelong
resident of Hartford, dying there in 1897, was
Hartford
549
one of the most distinguished philologists and
antiquarians in the country, and his great famil-
iarity with the Indian tongues made him an
authority on that subject. Dr. Trumbull's
brother, Rev. Henry Clay Trumbull, D.D.,
of Philadelphia, since 1875 editor of the Sim-
day School Times,
was a resident of our
city from the year
1851 to 1875, ^"^^
during that period
he published some
of his religious and
biographical works.
Two other members
of the same family, a
sister and daughter
of Dr. J. H. Trum-
bull, Mrs. Annie
Trumbull Slosson, '■ hammond trumbull, ll.d.
and Miss Annie Eliot Trumbull, have dis-
tinguished themselves in literature, by their
novels and short stories, some being character
studies of New England life. In this line also
another Hartford writer excelled, Mrs. Rose
Terry Cooke, who was born in Hartford in
1827, and died in Pittsfield, Mass., in 1892.
550 Hartford
She contributed many graphic stories of rural
New England life to the pages of the Atlantic
Monthly, Harpei^s\ and other magazines, which
stories were afterwards collected and pub-
lished in book form. Richard Burton, born
in Hartford in 1858, recently appointed Pro-
fessor of Enoflish Literature in the Univer-
sity of Minnesota, has already made a name
among the younger men as a poet and critic.
Frederick Law Olmsted, born in Hartford,
November 10, 1822, now a resident of Brook-
line, Mass., is well known as one of the fore-
most landscape-gardeners in this country, and he
has also made valuable contributions to the
literature of travel and horticulture. Many
other persons, either natives or residents of
Hartford, have won renown in various fields
of authorship. In the art world, Hartford
claims Frederick E. Church and William Ged-
ney Bunce, the painters, E. S. Bartholomew,
the sculptor, and William Gillette, the actor
and playwright, all natives of the city.
Hartford citizens have borne their part in
the councils of the nation. Gideon Welles
was Secretary of the Navy under President
Lincoln during the Civil War, and until 1869.
Isaac Toucey held the same office under Presi-
Hartford 551
dent Buchanan. Hon. John M. Niles was Post-
master-General in 1840, under Van Buren, and
also Senator for a long period. The Hon. Mar-
shall Jewell was appointed by President Grant
United States Minister to Russia in 1873, and
in 1874 he was recalled to enter the Cabinet as
Postmaster General. In later years the Hon.
James Dixon and General J. R. Hawley have
been prominent in the United States Senate.
Hartford has increased largely in popula-
tion durine the last decade, and the numerous
trolley lines that have been built, running like
the spokes of a wheel into the surrounding
country, have contributed much to the pros-
perity of the city. Many handsome residences
have been built, new streets have been laid
out, and our city appears to have entered
upon a career that promises increased wealth
and success.
NEW HAVEN
''THE CITY OF ELMS"
By FREDERICK HULL COGSWELL
THE main incidents in the history of New
Haven have a flavor of romance. Even the
original settlement, usually a prosy affair, was
brought about by the chance letter of a victori-
ous soldier. On the 26th of June, 1637, a com-
pany of wealthy English immigrants sailed into
Boston harbor, undecided as to its final des-
tination. It was led and directed by Reverend
John Davenport, a Non-conformist clergyman
of London, and Theophilus Eaton, a retired
merchant of the same town, who had once re-
presented the British crown at the court of
Denmark. The company had thought to settle
near Boston, but a theological controversy that
threatened to envelop the whole jurisdiction
led to a change of plan, and for several months
the party remained at Boston in a state of
indecision.
553
554 New Haven
Meanwhile, the Pequod war was raging along
the coast of Long Island Sound, and as the
beaten braves were being driven westward
toward the valley of the Hudson, their pursu-
ers came upon a spot of surprising beauty.
Its charms detained them long enough to note
its details. There was a broad wooded plain
skirted with green and fertile meadows, bounded
on either side by a gently flowing river, and
guarded on the north by giant cliffs. Here and
there the smoke of Indian camp-fires curled
gracefully above the tree-tops, and bark-canoes
darted swiftly about in the placid waters of the
bay. The place was occupied by friendly na-
tives, anxious for protection against their tribal
enemies. Game abounded in the forests ; the
streams were alive with fish ; and the piles of
oyster-shells along the shore told of bivalvian
riches beneath the glistening waves. The
English officers, elated with victory and de-
lighted w^ith the newly discovered land, wrote
enthusiastic descriptions to their friends at Bos-
ton. As one with an eye to the material ad-
vantages expressed it : " It hath a fair river,
fit for harboring of ships, and abounds with
rich and goodly meadows."
The immigrants at once determined to in-
TEMPLE STREETo
555
55^ New Haven
vestigate, and Eaton, taking a small vessel,
sailed down the coast and into the harbor of
Quinnipiac. He and his companions lost no
time in deciding as to their future home. He
left seven men to spend the winter with the
Indians, and returned to Boston. Those who
remained lived in a hut near the shore, and be-
fore spring came, one of them died. His name
was Beecher, and he has been claimed as the
ancestor of the Beecher family in this country.
His wife and children came with the main
party when the cold weather had passed. A
few rods to the west of this first hut stood, in
after years, the forge of Lyman Beecher's
father.
It is uncertain just what name the Indians
applied to the town. The early spelling varied
so much that nearly forty different combina-
tions of letters have come down to us, as re-
presenting it. It is apparent that the settlers
were unable to acquire the aboriginal pronun-
ciation, or to correctly express it in English.
They finally adopted " Quinnipiac " as being
more euphonious than " Quilillioak " " Ouillipi-
age " and " Queenapiok."
It was with feelings not easily described that
the newcomers sailed into the harbor and
New Haven
557
looked upon their future home. There they
were to spend the rest of their Hves, there they
would be laid to rest when their earthly labors
were done, and there would dwell their poster-
ity, to represent the principles for which they
had sought a new
world. In the land
of their birth they
could not worship as
they chose. Unless
they followed the rule
set down by others,
they were not only
called heretics and
emissaries of the
devil, but were im-
prisoned and fined,
and subjected to
great personal indignity. They felt that they
were being deprived of a natural right, and
despairing of better times at home, came to
find a place where they could enjoy uninter-
rupted the free exercise of conscience.
They were obliged for a time to live on the
boat in which the voyage had been made. The
first Sunday morning all came ashore to wor-
ship under the branches of an oak-tree which
JOHN DAVENPORT.
FROM A PORTRAIT IN POSSESSION OF
YALE COLLEGE.
558 New Haven
stood on the bank of a small stream that
emptied Into the bay. It was in the month of
April, 1638, and the leaves were not far forth,
but under that canopy the first sermon ever
heard in that region was preached. This
famous tree stood for more than a hundred
years after, and when it fell a tablet was placed
on a near-by building to show succeeding gen-
erations where the forefathers first met for
public worship.
A compact was made with the Indians, and
the town was laid out by John Brockett, a
civil engineer, whose love of a Puritan maiden
had led him to abandon brilliant prospects of
preferment and cross the seas. First, a large
tract was apportioned for a market-place, then
the streets were plotted in regular squares sur-
rounding it. The dwellings ranged from mere
huts to mansions of grand proportions. Eat-
on's house contained nineteen fireplaces, and
was one of the few^ houses in the country where
sufficient books were found to form a library.
Romance soon gave place to tragedy. An
Englishman was found murdered in the neigh-
boring woods, and an Indian so near as to
invite suspicion. He was arrested and brought
to the market-place. No laws had been framed,
New Haven 559
but an agreement had been made soon after
landing, that all disputes should be settled
according to Scripture. An inquiry estab-
lished the Indian's guilt, but there was doubt
as to the Scriptural text to apply. The Old
Testament rule, '' Whoso sheddeth man's blood,
by man shall his blood be shed," made the
outlook gloomy for the prisoner, while he saw
hope in the more recent dispensation, " Go
and sin no more." The Puritan forefathers
leaned to the conservative view of the case,
laid the Indian over a log, chopped off his
head, and "pitched it upon a pole in the
market-place."
The first public building to be erected, as
might have been expected, was a meeting-
house. This was built near the centre of the
market-place, and the present edifice stands
to-day on nearly the same spot. The meeting-
house was not merely a place for public wor-
ship, but town-hall, voting-booth, court-room
and forum as well. In summer it was a pleas-
ant place in which to sit, with bird-songs and
odor-laden breezes floating in through the open
windows, and the long-drawn, monotonous
drone of the parson's voice lulling to dreamy
drowsiness. But in winter, with the mercury
560 New Haven
twenty degrees below zero ; with tingling ears
and aching nose ; with shivering frames and feet
like cakes of ice, and every man's breath show-
ing white on the frosty air, hell-fire seemed
less terrible than the preacher would have it
appear.
There were means, however, of getting peri-
odically thawed. Those who lived in town
could repair to their homes at the intermis-
sion, while the farmers sought their " sab-
bada-housen " (Sabbath-day houses). These
were small huts, each containing a chimney
and rude fireplace, and were grouped irregu-
larly about the meeting-house. Here the
stiffened limbs were rubbed and toasted, and
the creature comforts of pies and cakes and
home-brewed ale were enjoyed. Stern times
were those, and many a mother saw her ten-
der child laid away in the little burying-ground,
chilled to death by the bitter cold of the meet-
ing-house.
While the hearts of these early Puritans
beat warmly, their rigid views of life and duty
sometimes led to acts of great severity. Pub-
lic whipping was resorted to, not only as a
punishment supposed to be fit for the culprit,
but as a warning and a deterrent. It is hard
ROGER SHERMAN.
561 PHOTOGRAPHED FROM STATUE ON THE EAST FRONT OF THE CAPITOL AT HARTFORD.
5^2 New Haven
to Imagine a father handing a child over to
the courts for pubHc humihation, yet Richard
Malbon, a magistrate, sat at the trial of his
daughter Martha, and condemned her to be
flogged at the whipping-post. The shameful
performance took place on the northwest corner
of the market-place, close by the schoolhouse,
so that the youthful mind need not fail to
understand that the way of the transgressor
was hard.
The " Witch Trial " created some excite-
ment in the early days. Elizabeth Godman
was the town scold, and kept her neighbors
in a state of perpetual worry. Her chief
delight was in creatingand perpetuating feuds.
She had been warned by the magistrates that
her way of life was objectionable and might
lead to trouble. One day, in spite of the judi-
cial warning, she called at Mistress Hooke's
and asked for home-brewed beer. A mug was
given her, but she used only part of it. The
next day the whole barrel of " beare " was
found to be sour. Here were symptoms of
witchcraft ! Soon after one of Goody Thorpe's
chickens died, and when they opened it they
found its orizzard full of water and worms !
Suspicion began to turn to certainty. This
New Haven 5^3
led to a quarrel between Elizabeth Godman
and Mistress Bishop, and in consequence the
latter's baby was born dead. To cap the
cHmax, Mr. Nash's boy had a fit of sickness
that puzzled the doctors, and it was thought
best, in order to prevent further calamities, to
have Elizabeth Godman arrested and tried as
a witch. In good old Salem her chances of
escape might have been narrow ; but while her
judges believed in witchcraft and were ready
to punish it by death, she was triumphantly
acquitted, and wagged her spiteful tongue un-
molested the rest of her life.
The most dramatic event in the early history
of the colony was the coming of the regicides.
Major-Generals Edward Whalley and William
Goffe, distinguished leaders in the parliament-
ary army, had sat on the commission that had
condemned Charles I. to the block. Both men
stood close to Cromwell during the period of
the protectorate, Whalley being Cromwell's
cousin, and Goffe a son-in-law of Whalley.
Both acted as shire governors and were close
personal advisers of the Lord Protector. At
Cromwell's death Goffe was considered a prob-
able successor, but the monarchy was restored
in the person of Charles II., and all who had
564 New Haven
been connected with the trial and execution of
the late klne were oblicred to flee for their
lives. Whalley and Gofl"e sailed for Boston
and for a time lived there openly, but a royal
warrant for their arrest finally came, and Gov-
ernor Endlcott issued orders for their appre-
hension. The only men in the country to
whom they could look for protection were Mr.
Davenport, a known sympathizer and a friend
of Cromwell, and William Jones, whose father
had been taken as a regicide and executed in
London. The hunted men accordingly started
for New Haven on horseback, arriving on the
7th of March, 1661. They went to the house
of Mr. Davenport and for the next three weeks
were concealed there, or across the street by
William Jones. On the 27th, the news of a
proclamation for their arrest reached New
Haven, and the two generals proposed some
military tactics to throw possible pursuers off
the scent. They accordingly appeared upon
the street the next morning as travellers just
arrived from the north, let their identity be
known, made various Inquiries concerning the
town, and asked the way to Manhattan. They
departed to the southward and disappeared ;
but on arriving at Milford, ten miles below,
New Haven 565
they entered the woods and returned quietly
to the house of Mr. Davenport. Two weeks
later, Kellond and Kirke, two officers commis-
sioned by Governor Endicott, arrived with a
warrant and called upon Deputy-Governor
Leete at Guilford. There were several men
in the Governor's office when the officers pre-
sented their credentials. The Governor took
the papers and began to read aloud, letting
out the whole secret, as he doubtless intended,
so that the generals might receive warning and
escape. The officers soon found that both the
magistrates and the people were inclined to
shield the regicides, but made desperate efforts
to effect a capture. The fugitives, however,
assisted by Davenport, Jones and others,
eluded them at every point. Finally, after
exhausting their patience and ingenuity, the
officers gave up the chase and returned to
Massachusetts ; but offered large rewards for
the apprehension of the regicides. These re-
wards stimulated the ambition of certain per-
sons, and it was even more dangerous for the
hunted men to appear in public, or to let their
hiding-place be known. Those who were be-
friending them were in equal danger ; for by
aiding and comforting "traitors" they were
5^6 New Haven
liable to arrest and execution for the crime of
high treason.
The regicides remained in the colony about
two years, hiding in the houses of their friends ;
in an old mill just outside the boundaries of
the town ; in a cave on the side of West Rock ;
in a pile of rocks on the top ; in a Milford cel-
lar ; and other places of more or less doubtful
identity. The best known of these places is
the pile of boulders on the extreme top of
West Rock known as " Judges Cave." It is
visited every year by thousands of people, who
regard it as a connecting link between New
Haven and the great tragedy of English his-
tory.
i\bout the year 1670 a mysterious gentle-
man about sixty years old, calling himself
"James Davids," came to New Haven with
the evident intention of spending the rest
of his days in the town. He appeared to be
wealthy, but no one knew anything of his past.
He claimed to be a retired merchant. It is said
that one Sunday while Sir Edmund Andros
was attendinor church on the Green, he noticed
a tall, soldierly-looking man in a neighboring
pew, and inquired who he was. " He is a
merchant residing here," was the reply. " I
New Haven
567
know he is not a merchant," said Sir Edmund •
'' he has filled a more responsible position than
that ! " Governor Andros had not time to
follow up his suspicions, but after the mysteri-
JUDQES CAVE.
ous stranger s death, twenty years later, it came
to be known that he was Colonel John Dixwell,
another regicide, who had fled from England
to escape execution. A century and a half
5^8 New Haven
afterwards, his descendants erected a monu-
ment to his memory behind Center Church on
the Green, where it is still an object of inter-
est to visitors.
New Haven received her baptism of fire
during the Revolution in the form of an inva-
sion by a detachment of the British army, July
5, 1779. The apparent purpose of this act
was to cause Washingrton to weaken his force
at West Point in order to defend the Con-
necticut coast. Washington attacked Stony
Point as a counter-irritant, but this did not
affect the British until after they were through
with New Haven, which was then a village of
about eighteen hundred inhabitants. The
evening previous (Sunday), arrangements had
been made for a celebration of the third anni-
versary of the Declaration of Independence,
but at ten o'clock the town was startled
by the boom of a signal-gun in the harbor.
All was confusion during the night, and about
five o'clock Monday ^morning President Stiles,
from the steeple of the college chapel, saw,
by the aid of a spy-glass, the British fleet
embarking at West Haven. A company of
students formed and marched to hinder the
invaders, while the beacon-fires that had been
New Haven 569
lighted during the night on the neighboring
hilltops brought bodies of armed patriots from
the surrounding towns. In spite of deter-
mined opposition, the enemy, led by General
Garth, entered the town at noon and pro-
ceeded to plunder and destroy. A pitched
battle was fought on the northwest corner of
Broadway, but the defenders were overpow-
ered by superior numbers. The intention of
the enemy was to burn the town, but it was
found that this could not be done without en-
dangering the property of the numerous Tories.
An equal number of troops (1500) landed at
Lighthouse Point and approached the town
from the east, the intention being to crush all
opposition by a junction of the two armies,
while Sir George Collier was to bombard the
town from his war-ships in the harbor. It
having been decided not to apply the torch,
those who had entered from the west slept on
the Green during the niorht, and toward morn-
ing embarked on the boats at the wharf, after
burning much shipping. The eastern division,
under General Tryon, captured Rock Fort
(afterwards named Fort Hale), but were unable
to enter the town. The next day they found
the patriots collecting in such numbers that
57^ New Haven
they decided to withdraw and bestow their
attentions upon the Httle town of Fairfield,
which they burned.
A house still standinor on the north side of
the Green was used by the British as a hos-
pital. Under a tree in front, Whitefield once
preached to the multitude, and Jonathan Ed-
wards used to court the daughter of the house.
Colonel Aaron Burr, then twenty-three
years old, took an active part in defending
the town.
Out on the Allingtown heights, to the
southwest of the town, stands a monument to
the memory of Adjutant-General Campbell of
the British army. This officer showed such
a noble spirit of humanity in the discharge of
a disagreeable duty, protecting the helpless
and preventing needless destruction, that the
citizens of New Haven erected this stone to
perpetuate his virtues. While on an errand
of mercy he was shot by a young man, and
on his monument are inscribed the words :
''Blessed are the Merciful."
The Dark Day, immortalized by Whittier,
was the 19th of May, 1780. The Legislature
was in session in the old State House on the
New Haven
571
Green when a sudden darkness fell. Many-
believed the Judgment Day was at hand. In
the midst of the excitement a motion was
made to adjourn, when Colonel Abraham Dav-
.- ''■'^^;;^!Jg^^/ -'. .■><^^=^^'*^
A HUMANE ENEMY.
enport, great-grandson of John Davenport, rose
and said : " I am against an adjournment. The
Day of Judgment is either approaching, or it is
572 New Haven
not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjourn-
ment ; if it is, I choose to be found doing my
duty. I wish, therefore, that the candles may
be brought, and we proceed to business."
** And there he stands in memory this day,
Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen
Against the background of unnatural dark,
A witness to the ages as they pass,
That simple duty hath no place for fear."
The foundation of Yale, the " Mother of
Colleges," dates back to the colonial period,
and was due to the foresight of John Daven-
port. Within ten years of the settlement of
the town, a parcel of land was set aside and
known as "college land," and as early as 1654
the records of the General Court show " that
there was some notion againe on foote con-
cerning the setting vp of a Colledg here at
Newhaven, Wch, if attayned, will in all likely-
hood prove verey beneficiall to this place."
In spite of Davenport's efforts, the project
was not carried out during his lifetime, but in
1664, the Hopkins Grammar School, named in
honor of Governor Hopkins, was organized as
a collegiate school. The work of this school
being chiefly of a preparatory nature, ten Con-
gregational ministers organized a society for
i8-««P
•■''=»«**»:-
PHELPS HALL.
573
574 New Haven
the conducting of a college, and, in i 700, this
was chartered as " A Collegiate School in his
Majesty's Colony of Connecticut." The first
rector, or president, was Reverend Abraham
Pierson of Killingworth, and the first student
was Jacob Hemingway. For a time the col-
lege was settled at Saybrook, but in 1716 it
was removed to New Haven. Two years later
the name Yale College was adopted in honor
of Elihu Yale, at that time its largest bene-
factor.
The college library had a unique origin. In
I 700, the ten ministers forming the society met
at Branford, and each donated a few volumes,
saying as he laid them down : " I give these
books for the founding of a college in this
colony." Forty books were given, forming
the nucleus of the great University Library.
The first public commencement occurred in
1 718, the first building having been erected
the year previous. For nearly a century and
a half the colleo^e had to endure a hard strusf-
gle for existence, but at the present day, owing
to the donations of its graduates and friends,
it ranks as one of the richest colleges in the
country, and possesses some of the finest and
best-equipped buildings in the world. Van-
New Haven 575
derbilt Hall, given by Cornelius Vanderbilt ;
Phelps Hall, in honor of William Walter Phelps;
and Osborn Hall, in memory of Charles J.
Osborn, are notable illustrations of combined
utility and art. Vanderbilt Hall is not only
the costliest but the most complete college
dormitory in America.
The rare opportunities now offered at Yale
for a wide range of study and original investi-
gation are too well understood to need men-
tion. In 1887, it was resolved that the college
had, in view of the establishment of the various
departments comprised in a university, attained
to that dignity ; and since that time it has been
known as Yale University.
The Theological Department may be said to
have existed from the beginning, theology hav-
inor been one of the chief studies for a hundred
years. It has existed as a separate department
since 1822, and the Law Department was
established the same year. The Medical De-
partment was organized in 181 2. The Sci-
entific Department originated in 1846 in a
professorship in agricultural chemistry and an-
other in analytical chemistry, and since 1859
has occupied separate buildings as a distinct
department.
57^ New Haven
Yale has always been progressive in respect
to the Fine Arts. On receiving the collection
of Colonel Trumbull, embracing many pictures
of scenes and participators in the Revolution-
ary War, a building was erected for their ex-
hibition on the campus. Lecture courses were
given and interest so far developed that later a
large and beautiful building was erected for
the purposes of an art school, which has at-
tained great success.
Yale shows that she well deserves her reputa-
tion by more than doubling the number of her
students within twenty years. The present at-
tendance is upwards of twenty-five hundred,
drawn from all parts of the world. The only aris-
tocracy at Yale is that of brains and character,
and it is a significant comment on this state of
affairs to note that the sons of millionaires fre-
quently do without the luxuries to which they
are accustomed, to avoid being classed merely
as rich men's sons. The Yale spirit recognizes
manliness and industry as paramount qualities,
and none stands higher among his fellows than
the poor boy who courageously works his way
through college, overcoming the obstacles that
lie in his way, and maintaining an honorable
rank in his class.
57S New Haven
New Haven has sought to preserve memo-
ries and mementoes of her historic existence,
and the Historical Society building, at the foot
of Hillhouse Avenue, never fails to quicken the
pulses of the antiquary. Here he finds one of
Benjamin Franklin's Leyden jars ; Benedict Ar-
nold's badly punctuated sign, his account-book,
medicine chest, mortar and pestle ; the table on
which Noah Webster wrote the Dictionary ; a
silver spoon that once belonged to Commodore
Isaac Hull (said to have been in his mouth
when he was born) ; and an almost endless
collection of relics, rare portraits and books.
Of famous houses, many are still standing :
two of Benedict i\rnold's ; the dwelling of Roger
Sherman, signer of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, the city's first mayor and a United
States Senator ; the Trowbridge house, built
in 1642 by an original settler; the Noah Web-
ster house and others of less interest. One of
the '' famous spots" is the northwest corner of
Union and Fair Streets, where once stood the
house of Isaac Allerton, a Pilgrim of the May-
flower. A tablet has been placed on the pre-
sent building bearing the following inscription :
" Isaac Allerton, a Pilgrim of the Mayflcnver, and
the Father of New England Commerce, lived
on this Ground from 1646 till 1659."
-Q
.80 New Haven
r\cross the way, on the southeast corner,
stands an old house bearing the announcement
that this was the birthplace of Andrew Hull
Foote, Rear Admiral of the United States
Navy.
Center Church, near the centre of the Green
on Temple Street, stands over what was form-
erly a portion of the orig-inal burying-ground,
and but a few feet from the site of the first
meeting-house. From its historic associations
it is one of the most interesting churches in
the country. Over the principal entrance are
these inscriptions :
QUIXXIPIAC CHOSEN FOR SETTLEMENT, A.D. 1637.
THE WILDERNESS AND THE SOLITARY PLACE
SHALL BE MADE GLAD FOR THEM.
O GOD OF HOSTS LOOK DOWN FROM HEAVEN AND
BEHOLD AND VISIT THIS VINE.
A.D. 163S, A COMPANY OF ENGLISH CHRISTIANS LED BY JOHN DAVEN-
PORT AND THEOPHILUS EATON WERE THE FOUNDERS OF THIS
CITY. HERE THEIR EARLIEST HOUSE OF WORSHIP WAS
BUILT A.D. 1639.
THE FIRST CHURCH BEGINNING WITH WORSHIP IN THE OPEN AIR
APRIL 15 (O. S), WAS THE BEGINNING OF NEW HAVEN, AND WAS OR-
GANIZED AUG. 22 (O. S.), 1639. THIS HOUSE WAS DEDICATED Ta
THE WORSHIP OF GOD IN CHRIST DEC. 27, 1814.
fi<yy
581
582 New Haven
Dr. Leonard Bacon was for many years pas-
tor of this church. Underneath is a crypt con-
taining the remains and tombstones of many
of the Puritan fathers and their famihes ; and
here hes the body of Abigail Pierson, sister of
the first president of Yale, and wife of John
Davenport, Jr.
While around and beneath Center Church
" the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep," the
oldest cemetery now existing is that on Grove
Street. Many distinguished sons of New Ha-
ven are buried there, among them Rear-Ad-
miral Andrew H. Foote, General Amos B.
Eaton, Admiral Francis H. Gregory, General
Alfred H. Terry, Noah Webster, Lyman
Beecher, Benjamin Silliman, Theodore Win-
throp, Jedediah Morse (father of American
geography), the elder President Dwight and
President Day, Colonel David Humphreys,
aide on the staff of General Washington, Eli
Whitney, inventor of the cotton-gin, Jehudi
Ashmun, first colonial agent at Liberia, Gov-
ernors Ingersoll, Baldwin, Edwards, and many
others eminent in business and professional
life.
Tottering old men sometimes point to places
where Nathan Hale made his great leap, where
583
584 New Haven
John C. Calhoun got his boots made, where
Joel Barlow ate his hasty pudding, the porch
where Commodore Hull liked to sit; and tell
no end of stories about visits of Lafayette,
James Monroe and " Old Hickory." These
are innocent chroniclers, forgetting the present
in the glorious past, and we must allow a little
for the play of the imagination ; but when they
aver that Noah Webster, as a lieutenant com-
manding a company of Yale students, once
escorted General Washins^ton throuorh the
town and received a compliment therefor, an
approving nod is in order, for the great lexico-
grapher recorded the incident in his diary " at
the day and time of it."
Visitors frequently refer to the city as an
overgrown village. It is hard for a New York
man to realize as he strolls through the ample
grounds of his New Haven friends, that he is
In a city of more than one hundred thousand
inhabitants. The value put upon breathing-
places Is shown In the large tracts of land
devoted to public purposes. One walks hardly
ten minutes in any direction without coming
upon a square shaded by graceful elms and
carpeted by a cleanly shaven lawn ; while
the margins of the city by river and sound
<
Q.
o
o
a:
H
<
586
New Haven
abound in tastefully arranged parks. The
transformation of the two great wooded ridges
beyond the dwelling -line into well -graded
drives, art vying with nature to please the eye
and win the soul to beauty, completes the im-
pression sometimes expressed, that New Haven
is an immense village encircled by gardens.
But while all this may suggest a condition of
dreamy repose, the city is by no means given
over to dolce far niente. The University
with its manifold departments is a veritable
hive of industry; the scales of Justice at the
County Court House are tipping endlessly in
favor of right against wrong ; while the busy
hum of the Winchester Arms and a hundred
other mills, makes a music that dies not out.
Altogether, historic New Haven is a pleas-
ant place in which to live, and its hospitality
is as generous as are its gardens and its parks.
INDEX
Acton, Mass., 262, 266,272, 294
Adams, John, 49, 187, 228, 524,
526
Adams, Samuel, 12, 180, 200,
202, 228, 259, 261, 264, 265
Agassiz, Louis, 176, 242
Akers, Paul, 78
Albany, 532
Alcott, A. Bronson, 279, 292,
293, 294
Alcott, Louisa, 294
Alden, John, 328, 334
Alden, Priscilla, 328
Alden, Rear-Admiral, 66
Aldrich, Thomas B., 50, 176
Allen, Samuel, 429
Allerton, Isaac, 578
Allston, Washington, 236
Alsop, Richard, 527
Amherst College, 82
Amsden, John, 429
Amsterdam, 310
Andover, Mass., 144
Andrew, Gov. John, 265
Andros, Sir Edmund, 334, 419,
420, 518, 519, 566, 567
Ann, Cape, 126, 127
Anne, Queen, 420, 449, 523
Appleton, Capt. Samuel, 412
Apponaug, R. I., 4S6
Aquidneck, 444
Arlington, Mass., 219
Arnold, Benedict, 578
Arnold, Fred, A., 206
Arnold, Matthew, 50
Arnold, Thomas, 482
A.shley, Rev. Jonathan, 428, 438
Ashmun, Jehudi, 582
Austerfield, 304, 306, 332
Austin, Jane Goodwin, 50, 330
B
Bacon, Dr. Leonard, 510, 582
Bacon, Francis, 140
Bacon, John, 407
Baker, Miss C. Alice, 426
Baldwin, R. S., 582
Bancroft, George, 50, 89, 276, 514
Bardwell, John, 436
Bardwell, Thomas, 435
Barlow, Joel, 525, 526, 527, 584
Barnard, Henry, 30, 544
Barnard, Rev. Mr., 154
Barnstable, Mass., 376, 381, 388,
3S9. 393, 394, 397, 400
Barnstable County, Mass., 361,
393
Barre, Mass., 106
Barrett, Col. James, 273, 276
587
588
Index
Bartholomew, E. S., 550
Bartol, Cyrus, 78
Bates, Katharine Lee, 345
Bedford, .Mass., 219, 266
Bedfordshire, 244, 246, 247
Beecher, Catherine, S, 546
Beecher, Henry Ward, S, 11
Beecher, Lyman, S, 556, 582
Beers, Capt. Richard, 410, 412
Bellingham, Gov. Richard, 141
Bennington, Vt., 265,436
Bentham, Jeremy, 279
Bentzon, Th., 33
Berkeley, George, 450, 451, 452,
454, 455, 458, 505
Berkeley, Lucia, 455
Berkeley, Mrs. George, 451
Beverly, Mass., 92
Billerica, Mass., 219
Billington, John, 377
Blackstone, Sir William, 140
Blaine, James G., 78
Blanchard, Claude, 460, 461, 462
Block, Adrian, 515
Block Island, 446
Borgeaud, Charles, 17
Boston, 23, 58, 64, 81, 82, 84, 86,
94, 96, 98, 102, 106, III, 113,
141, 143, 144, 149, 159, 167-
210, 230, 234, 248, 256, 259,
262, 271, 277, 278, 289, 294,
329, 364, 374, 377, 388, 392,
419, 434, 441, 451, 484, 486,
494, 497, 4q8, 505, 507, 518,
519, 524, 525, 526, 532, 534,
553, 556, 564
Boston, England, 207, 250
Boston College, 180
Boston University, 180
Bourne, Mass., 380, 381
Bourne, Richard, 379
Bowditch, Nathaniel, 159
Bowdoin College, 76
Brackett, Thomas, 56
Brackett, Mrs. Thomas, 56
Bradford, Gov. William, 49, 124,
131, 132, 134, 299, 303, 304,
306, 308, 309, 311, 314, 315,
316, 317, 319, 324, 326, 329,
334, 346, 351, 352, 353, 354,
377
Bradley, Rev. Caleb, 75
Bradstreet, Simon, 124, 125, 140,
216, 217, 219
Braintree, Eng., 217, 21S
Branford, Conn., 574
Brewster, Mass., 380, 381, 384
Brewster, Nathaniel, 340
Brewster, William, 299, 304, 308,
309, 311, 317, 322, 328, 329,
334, 336
Bridgham, Samuel W., 498
Brighton, Mass., 219
Brimfield, Conn., 532
Brindley, Deborah, no
Bristol, R. I., 492
Brockett, John, 558
Brooktield, Mass., 20, 105, 117
Brookline, Mass., 204, 550
Brooks, Phillips, 10, ii, 26, 184
Brown, Alice, 50
Brown, Chad, 478, 480, 485, 492
Brown, Charles Farrar, 78
Brown, H. B., 79
Brown, James, 491
Brown, John, 492, 494, 497, 502
Brown, Joseph, 492
Brown, Moses, 492, 495
Brown, Nicholas, 492
Brown University, 491, 499
Browne, Nathaniel, 486
Browne, Rev. Robert, 113
Brownell, Thomas C, 538
Brunswick, Me., 75
Bryce, James, 12, 15, 33
Buchanan, James, 551
Bucks County, Eng., 247
Bulkeley, Rev. Peter, 243, 244,
246, 247, 248, 249, 251, 253,
268, 270
Bunce, William G., 550
Bunker Hill, 58, 109, 204, 206,
232, 260, 261, 300, 435, 492
Bunyan, John, 246, 281
Burgoyne, Gen. John, ri2, 210,
234, 238, 436
Index
589
Burnet, Jacob, 96
Burns, Anthony, 173
Burr, Aaron, 112, 570
Burroughs, Rev. Cleorge, 57, 144
Burton, Richard, 550
Bushne]], Dr. Horace, 9, 1 1, 542,
544
Buzzard's Bay, 345, 402
C
Cabot, George, 530
Cabot, John, 514
Cabot, Sebastian, 514
Cady, Jonathan, 496
Calhoun, John C, 584
Calvin, John, 253
Cambridge, Eng,, 220, 30S, 309
Cambridge, Mass., 140, 181, 204,
208, 211-242, 248, 259, 260,
271, 435,511. 512
Campbell, William, 570
Canaan, Conn., 532
Canning, George, 525
Canonicus, 476
Cape Cod Towns, 345-402
Carlisle, Mass., 266
Carrington, Edward, 495, 502
Carver, John, 312, 317, 326, 336,
346, 352
Casco, Me., 56
Casco Bay, 66, 75
Castine, Baron, 420
Chandler, Lucretia, no
Channing, Rev. W. Ellery, 8, 11,
279, 2S0, 2S2, 505
Chantavoine, 284
Charles I., 563
Charles II. , 391, 508, 563
Charlestown, Mass., 136, 140,
141, 168, 204, 207, 215
Chase, Salmon, 76
Chatham, Mass., 381, 382
Chauncy, Rev. Charles, 227
Chelmsford, Mass., 266
Child, LydiaM., 176
Childs, Samuel, 438
Church, Frederick E., 550
Church, Major, 57
Clark, Francis E., 8, 11
Clark, Rev. Mr., 261, 262
Clarke, Captain, 70
Clarke, John, 319, 481
Clay, Henry, 536
Cleeves, George, 56, 57
Clemens, Samuel L., 548
Clerc, Laurent, 536
Clifford, Nathan, 76
Clyfton, Richard, 299, 304, 307
Codman, Charles, 79
Cogswell, Alice, 535
Cogswell, F. H.. 553
Cogswell, Mason F., 527, 535
Coke, Edward, 140
Cole, Charles 0., 79
Collier, Sir George, 569
Colt, Caldwell H., 541
Colt, Col. Samuel, 540
Colt, Mrs. Samuel, 541
Conant, Roger, T26, 127
Concord, Mass., 7, 49, 106, 164,
204, 219, 232, 243-297, 434
Conway, Mass., 431
Cooke, Rose Terry, 50, 549
Coolidge, Susan, 443
Cooper, J. Fenimore, 279
Copley, JohnS., 339
Corey, Giles, 144, 146
Corey, Martha, 144, 145
Corliss, George H., 500, 501
Cornbury, Lord, 420
Cornbury, Nathaniel, 412
Corwin, Jonathan, 13S, 142
Cotton, Rev. John, 218, 248,
249, 250
Coverly, Nathaniel, 336
Cowper, William, 246, 247
Cromwell, Oliver, 247, 261, 312,
563, 564,
Crowninshield, Benjamin W.,
158
Crowninshield, George, 156, 158
Cumberland County, Me., 76
Curtis, George W., 49, 280 DBMflAl
Cushman, Robert, 334
Cutler, Manasseh, 27, 84, 90, 92,
93. 94, 115
590
Index
D
Dalton, Richard, 450, 451
Dana, Richard, 236
Dane, Nathan, 27, 87, 90, 92
Danvers, 92
Danvers Centre, 139
D'Anville, Admiral, 190, 191,
192, 194, 195
Dartmouth, Eng., 316
Davenport, Abraham, 571
Davenport, John, 553, 564, 565,
571, 572, 580
Davenport. John, Jr., 582
Davenport, Lieutenant, 70
Davison, William, 309
Day, Jeremiah, 582
Daye, Stephen, 241
Dean, Barnabas, 533
Dedham, Mass., 219, 404, 406,
407
Deerfield, Mass., 84, 403-442
Delfthaven, 315, 332
Dennis, Mass., 380, 3S1, 384,
391
Derby, Conn., 526
Detroit, 524
Devon, 380
Dexter, Gregory, 478, 480, 485
Dickinson, David, 433
Dickinson. Thomas W., 438
Diman, Rev. J. L., 480
Dixon, James, 551
Dixwell, Col. John, 567
Doane, Deacon, 379
Dokesbury, Eng., 312
Donitson, Daniel, 430
Dorchester, Mass., 96, 140, 511
Dorchester Heights, 208
Dorr, Sullivan, 502
Dorr, Thomas W., 500
Dow, Neal, 64
Dowse, Thomas, 181
Drake, Sir Francis, 348
Duddingston, Lieutenant, 492
Dudley, Gov. Thomas, 216, 217,
219, 422
Dunster, Rev. ?Ienry, 227
Durfee, Thomas, 478
Duxbury, Mass., 328
Dwight, Theodore, 527
Dwight, Timothy, 278, 366, 523,
582
Dyre, Mary, 484
E
Eastham, Mass., 352, 368, 374,
376, 377, 37S, 379, 3S0, 381,
38S, 400
Eaton, Amos B., 582
Eaton, Theophilus, 553, 556,
558, 580
Edinburgh, 174
Edwards, Governor, 582
Edwards, Jonathan, 7, 11, 290,
523, 570
Eggleston, James, 411
Eliot, C. \V., 30
Eliot, John, 334, 403, 404
Eliot, Samuel A., 211
Elizabeth, Cape, 56
Elizabeth, Queen, 309, 312
Elwell, J. D., 297
Emanuel College, 219, 224
Emerson, Ralph W., 7, 11, 49,
176, 246, 250, 251, 267, 268,
270, 278, 279, 280, 28r, 282,
284, 285, 286, 289, 291, 293,
294, 339
Emerson, Rev. Mr., 270, 274, 275
Endicott, John, 123, 124, 126,
127, 12S, 129, 130, 131, 132,
140, 141, 152, 156, 216, 564,
565
Essex, Eng., 217
Essex County, Mass., 148, 277,
413, 414
Evans, George, 76
Everett, Edward, 180, 227, 236
Fairfield, Conn., 570
Falmouth, Mass., 345, 361, 393,
394, 396, 400, 402
Falmouth, Me., 56, 57, 58, 60, 61
Index
591
Farrar, Charles, 78
Faunce, Elder, 330
Felt, Capt. John, 154
Felt, Rev. J. B., 128, 162
Fern, Fanny, 78
Fernay, Chevalier de, 460
Fessenden, William Pitt, 76
Field, Col. David, 433
Fields, James T., 162, 176
Fisher, Lieutenant, 407
Fiske, John, 50, 106, 241, 508,
548
Foote, Andrew Hull, 580, 582
Fox, George, 487
Foxe, Edward, 303
Franklin, Benjamin, 93, 94, iSo,
253, 257, 2S6, 288, 470, 490,
505, 526, 57S
Frary, Samson, 408
French, Daniel C, 297
Frink, Rev. Thomas, 108
Fuller, Dr., 132
Fuller, George, 437
Fuller, Margaret, 236, 280
Gage, Gen. Thomas, 152, 206,
210, 228, 434, 522
Gallaudet, Thomas H., 535, 536
Garfield, James A., 84, 97
Garrison, William L., 180
Garth, General, 569
Gates, Gen. Horatio, 270
George III., 198, 202, 256, 270
Gerry, Elbridge, 231
Gibbs, James, 4S0
Gill, Mass., 431
Gillette, William, 550
Gladstone, William E., 253
Gloucester, Mass., 363, 370
Goddard, William, 496
Godman, Elizabeth, 562, 563
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 293
Goffe, William, 411, 563, 564
Good, Sarah, 141, 143
Goodrich, Chauncey, 530
Goodrich, S. G., 532, 544
Gosnold, Bartholomew, 348
Granby, Conn., 532
Grand Man an, 194
Grant, Ulysses S., 551
Gray, 156
Gray, Asa, 242
Grayson, William, 89
Greele, Alice, 61, 62
Greene, Nathanael, 214, 471
Greenfield, Mass., 431
Greenleaf, Simon, 76
Gregory, Francis H., 582
Griggs, Dr., 140
Groton, Mass., 246
Guilford, Conn., 565
H
Hadley, Mass., 411, 413, 416
Hale, Edward Everett, 92, 117,
176, 185
Hale, Matthew, 140
Hale, Nathan, 582
Halifax, 195
Halifax Bay, 195
Hamilton, Mass., 92
Hampden, John, 247, 258
Hancock, John, 172, 228, 259,
261, 264, 265
Hancock, " Lady," 172
Hand, Daniel, 29
Hannibal, 268
Harlakenden, Roger, 220
Haroun Al-Rashid, 281
Harrington, Jonathan, 264
Harris, William, 485
Harris, W. L., 96
Harris, W. T,, 30, 31, 294
Harrold, Eng., 247
Hartford, 9, 92, 140, 219, 486,
507-551
Harvard, John, 224, 226
Harvard University, 24, 106, 180,
222, 224, 226, 228, 242, 259,
260, 275, 340, 429
Harwich, Mass., 361, 381, 382
Hatfield, Mass., 413, 416, 417
Hawkshurst, Eng., 244
592
Index
Ilawley, J. R., 551
Hawthorne, John, 142
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 7, 9, 50,
75, 125, 128, 156, I5g, 160,
162, 172, 275, 279, 282, 284,
285
Hayes, Rutherford B., 100
Haynes, Gov. John, 2 [7, 511,
514
Hemingway, Jacob, 574
Hendery, Andrew, no
Herbert. George, 317
Hertford, Eng., 514
Hibbins, Ann, 141
Higginson, Rev. Francis, 132,
133, 134, 138
Higginson, Rev. John, 124
Higginson, Thomas W., 32, 167,
236, 241
Hill, Thomas, 78
Hillhouse, James, 530
Hinsdell, Samuel, 408
Hoar, George F., 86, 88, 89, 93,
94, 96, 97, 98, 100, 103, 116,
117, 118
H olden, Mass., 106
Holmes, John, 236
Holmes, Oliver W., 40, 50, 176,
17S, 214, 227, 232, 236, 241
Holmes, Rev. Abiel, 481
Holyman, Rev. Mr., 480
Holyoke, Capt. Samuel, 417
Honeyman, Rev. Mr., 449
Hooker, Rev. Thomas, 217, 218,
219, 507, 510, 512, 514, 521
Hopkins, Dr. Lemuel, 525
Hopkins, Dr. Samuel, 8
Flopkins, Esek, 502
Hopkins, Governor, 572
Hopkins, Stephen, 490, 494, 502,
Howe, General, 196, 202, 206
Howe, Julia Ward, 176
Howells, William D., 176, 241
Hubbard, Rev. William, 218
Hubbardston, Mass., 82, 106
Hudson, Henry, 348
Hudson, J. B., 79
Hull, Isaac, 578, 584
Humphreys, David, 525, 526,
582
Huntingdon, 247
Hutchinson, Anne, 220, 248
Hutchinson, Gov. Thomas, 144,
148
IngersoU, Governor, 582
Ingraham, J. H., 78
Ipswich, Mass., 92, 219
Irving, Washington, 81, 279
Ives, Thomas P., 502
J
Jackson, Andrew, 364, 584
Jackson, Lydia, 339
Jacobs, George, 124
James, Sir John, 450, 451
James I., 314, 315
Jefferson, Thomas, 16, 89, 90,
253. 257, 25S, 2S6, 526
Jewell, Marshall, 551
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 176
Johnston, Alexander, 507
Jones, Capt., 328
[ones, Rev. John, 246 •
Jones, William, 564, 565
fudson, Adoniram, 340
Jumel, Betsy, 112
Jumel, Stephen, 1 12
K
Kellogg, Elijah, 78
Kendall, Rev. James, 332
Kent, Chancellor, 244, 380
Killingworth, Conn,, 574
King, Rufus, 90
Kingston, Mass., 328
Kirkland, Rev. John T., 227
Knowles, Admiral, 196
Knox, Gen. Henry, 214
L
Lafayette, Marquis de, 158, '584
Lancashire, 312
Index
593
Lancaster, Mass., 105, 246
I.angdon, John, 260
Langdon, Rev. Samuel, 232, 259
Larconi, Lucy, 43
Latimer, George D., 121
Laud, Archbishop, 247
Lee, Richard Henry, 89
Leete, Deputy Governor, 565
I'Epee, Abbe de, 536
Leslie, Col., 154
Lexington, Mass., 58, 109, 174,
202, 204, 219, 238, 259, 260,
261, 262, 264, 265, 266, 271,
272, 273, 278. 294, 434
Leyden, 311, 314, 315, 322, 334
Lincoln, Abraham, 14, 253, 289,
550
Lincoln, Mass., 266, 272
Lincolnshire, 185, 304
Lisbon, 531
Litchfield, Conn., 8
Locke, John, 253, 258
Locke, Jonas, 435
London, 174, 176, 178, 185, 334,
522, 553, 564
Londonderry, N. IL, 108
Longfellow, Henry W., 50, 66,
68, 69, 75, 78, 79, 176, 214,
227, 234, 236, 260, 262
Longfellow, Samuel, 78
Longfellow, Stephen, 69, 530
Longmeadow, Mass., 429
Lonsdale, R. I., 504
Lossing, B. J., 96
Lothrop, Capt. Thomas, 410,
413, 414, 415
Louis XV., 188
Louis XVI., 526
Louisbourg, 188, 202, 265, 329,
429
Lowell, James Russell, 32, 50,
176, 214, 224, 227, 231, 236,
239, 275
Lowell, Rev. Charles, 231
Lynn, Eng., 247
M
Magee, Capt. James, 376
Malbon, Martha, 562
Malbon, Richard, 562
Mann, Horace, 30, 180
Manning, Pres. James, 491, 500
Manomet, 320, 331
Marcus Aurelius, 308
Marie Antoinette, 90
Marietta, Ohio, 27, 82,84, 86, 88,
90, 92, 97, 100, 103, 115, 116,
117, 118
Marshfield, Mass., 328, 332
Mashpee, Mass., 392
Mason, James M., 376
Massasoit, 324, 325, 329
Mather, Cotton, 141, 149, 222,
348, 409, 411, 413, 415
Mather, Eleazer, 418
Mather, Eunice, 418, 426
Mayfloiver, 15, 100, 316, 317,
319, 320, 326, 328, 338, 341,
345, 346, 348, 350, 352, 353,
354, 377, 508, 578
Maynard, Sir John, 258
McClanathan, John and Eliza-
beth, no
McKoon, Joseph, 430
McSparran, Doctor, 488
Mead, Edwin D., 81
Medfield, Mass., 408
Medford, Mass., 408
Meigs, Return J., 94
Mendon, Mass., 15
Merrimac River, 219, 267
Miantinomi, 476
Middlesex County, Mass., J05,
258, 260, 268, 277
Milford, Conn., 564, 566
Milton, John, 222, 286
Minot, Captain, 272
Mobile, 68
Monadnock, 82
Monroe, James, 584
Monscm, Conn., 532
Montaigne, 282, 284, 285
Montesquieu, 258
Montpellier, 113
Montreal, 65
Moody, Dwight L., 8, 11
594
Index
Morrill, Lot M., 76
Morris, G. P., i
Morse, Alpheus C, 504
Morse, Jedediah, 5S2
Morton, Nathaniel. 320
Moseley, Capt. Samuel, 414, 415
Motley, John Lothrop, 81
Mount Wollaston, 128, 218
Mowatt, Captain, 60, 61, 62, 72
Mowry, Roger, 484
Munroe, Robert, 265
Murray, xA.lexander, no
Murray, Col. John, T09, no,
III, 115 "
Musketaquit River, 260
Muskingum, 102
N
Nantucket, 368, 394, 532
Narragansett Bay, 81, 475, 481
Narragansett, R. I., 488
Natick, Mass., 104, 406
Nauhaught, Deacon, 393
Naumkeag, 126, 127, 131, 132,
133
Neal, John, 78
New Bedford, 392
Newburgh, N. Y., 99
Newburyport, 171
New Haven, 24, 487, 524, 532,
553-586
Newport, R. I., 7, 176, 443-473,
481, 484, 487, 494, 505, 521
Newton, Mass., 219, 404, 511
Newtown, Conn., 512
Newtowne, Mass., 215, 216, 218,
219, 220, 223
New Windsor, 521
New York, 64, 93, 94, 168, 170,
174, 176, 441, 486, 497, 532,
534, 584
Niles, John M., 551
Noble,' John, 198
Norfolk, 380
Norfolk, Conn., 532
Norfolk, Va., 532
Northampton, Mass., 7, 418
Northfield, Mass., 412, 415
North Kingstown, R. I., 486
Norton, Charles E., 241
Nottingham, 304
Nurse, Rebecca, 144
O
Oakham, 82, 106
Odell, Eng. , 244, 246, 247
Oliver, Thomas, 231, 232
Olmsted, Frederick L., 550
Olney, Eng., 247
Orleans, Mass., 352, 380, 381,
388, 393, 396
Osborn, Charles J., 575
Osborn, Goody, 141, 143
Osgood, James R., 176
Otis, Harrison Gray, 530
Otis, James, 198, 228, 390
Ouse River, 246, 247
Oxford, 302
Oxford County, Me., 69
Paddock, Ichabod, 368,
Palfrey, John G., 50, 236
Pamet, 368
Pamet River, 351
Paris, 178, 536
Parker, Capt. John, 261, 264,
265
Parker, Theodore, 176, 261,262,
265
Parkman, Francis, 50, 81, 176,
181, 446
Parris, Elizabeth, 139
Parris, Rev. Samuel, 139, 140,
141, 15'
Parsons, Samuel H., 94
Parsons, Theophilus, 76
Pascal, 285
Patten, Nathaniel, 522
Pawtucket, R. I., 486, 495
Pawtuxet River, 476
Paxton, Charles, 106
Paxton, Mass., 82, 103, T06
Index
595
Payson, Edward, 78
Peabody, George, 29, 72
Pelham, Mass., 109
Pemaquid, 58
Penn, William, 406
Pennicook, 104
Percy, Lord, 204, 238, 261, 276
Peskeompskut, 416, 417
Phelps, William Walter, 575
Philadelphia, 170, 288, 522, 534
Philip, King, 56, 81, 267, 329,
381, 3S9, 410, 416, 417, 484,
517
Phillips, Wendell, 173
Phipps, Sir William, 58, 146
Pickard, Samuel T,, 53
Pickering, Timothy, 90, 158
Pierce, Mrs. Anne L., 68
Pierpont, John, 261, 266
Pierson, Abigail, 582
Pierson, Abraham, 574
Pilgrimage, Historical, v, 82
Pitcairn, Major, 265
Pitican, Simon, 104
Pittsburgh, Pa., 100
Pittsfield, Mass., 549
Plato, 7, 284
Plimpton, John, 407
Plymouth, 131, 243, 299, 343
Plymouth Colony, 57
Plymouth, Eng. , 316
Plymouth, Mass., 100, 299-343,
377, 378, 390, 394, 507
Pocumtuck, Mass., 407, 408, 410,
414
Pocumtuck River, 403, 404, 431,
441
Pokanoket, 416
Pompamamay, 104
Pond, Charles M., 543
Pond, Elizabeth, 543
Pool, Maria L., 59
Pope, Albert A., 543
Portland, 8, 53-80
Portsmouth, X. 11., 171
Portsmouth, R. 1., 481
Powell, Lyman P., xi
Preble, Com. Edward, 66, 69
Prentice, George D., 544
Prentiss, Sargent S., 76
Prescott, Col. George, 296
Prescott, Col. William, 204, 206,
232, 260
Prescott, Dr. Samuel, 261, 267,
271
Prescott, William, 530
Prescott, W. H., 159
Presumpscot River, 75
Prince, Thomas, 106, 194
Princeton, Mass., 82, 103, 106
Pring, Martin, 348
Providence, R. I., 475-506
Provincetown, Mass, 345, 346,
350, 354-3^5, 366, 369, 370,
376, 377, 388, 389, 396, 400
Pugastion, 104
Putnam, Ann, 151
Putnam, Israel, 96, 97, 435
Putnam, Rufus, 27, 82, 88, 90,
92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100,
102, 109, 114, 115, 116, 118,
119
Putnam, \N . L., 76
Pym, John, 258
Pynchon, Colonel, 413
Quebec, 200, 277
Quincy, Josiah, 227, 236
Quincy, Josiah, Jr., 174
Quincy, Mass., 128
Quincy, Mrs. Josiah, 172
Quinnipiac, 556, 580
R
Rasle, Father, 427, 429
Raymond, 75, 76
Reade, Lieutenant, 70
Reed, Thomas B., 56, 57, 69
Revere, Paul, 174, 260, 262, 325,
402
Riedesel, von. Baron. 234
Riedesel, von, Baroness, 234
Ripley, Lieutenant, 296
596
Index
Ripley, Rev. Dr., 262, 291, 296
Robbins, Rev. Chandler, 330
Robinson, Rev. John, 299, 304,
307, 311, 315, 334
Rochambeau, Count, 459, 521
Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Count,
464, 465
Rousseau, Jean J., 25 S
Rouville, Hertel de, 424
Rowlandson, Joseph, 105
Roxbury, 202, 20S
Russell, Joseph, 491
Russell, William, 491
Russell, William E., 239
Rutland, Eng., 116
Rutland, Mass., 81-119
Sabin, James, 492
St. Edmundsbury, 113
Salem, 9, 57, 75, 84, 121-166,
171, 216, 258, 385, 563
Samoset, 324
Sampson, Deborah, 330
Sampson, Simeon, 330
Sanborn, Frank B., 243
Sandwich, Mass., 376, 379, 380,
381, 388. 391, 393, 394, 400
Sandys, Sir Edwin, 332
Saratoga, N. Y., 112
Sassawannow, 104
Saybrook, Conn., 574
Schuyler, Major Peter, 422
Scott, Richard, 4S4
Scott, Walter, 161
Scrooby, Eng., 119, 299, 300,
304, 308, 309, 332
Sebago, Lake, 75
Seekonk River, 476, 497
Selden, John, 140
Sequassen, 515
Sevvall, Samuel, 105, 108, 150,
151
Shakespeare, William, 135, 286,
292, 293
Sharnbrook, Eng., 247
Shaw, Martha, no
Shaw, Robert, 173
Shawmut, 168
Shawonet, R. I., 481
vShays, Daniel, 97, 106, 438
Shelburne, Mass., 431
Sheldon, Ensign John, 424, 426
Sheldon, George, 403
Shepard, Rev. Thomas, 219,
220, 222
Sherman, Minot, 530
Sherman, Roger, 578
Shirley, Gov. William, 187, 191,
194
Shirley, Thomas, 174
Shrewsbury, Mass., 106
Sicard, Abbe, 536
Sidney, Algernon, 253, 258
Sigourney, Lydia H., 544
Silliman, Benjamin, 582
Simmons, Franklin, 78, 79
Skelton, Rev. Samuel, 133, 134
Slater, John F., 29
Slater, Samuel, 495
Slidell, J., 376
Slosson, Annie T., 549
Smibert, John, 450, 451, 454
Smith College, 82
Smith, Colonel, 204
Smith, Elihu H., 527
Smith, Elizabeth Oakes, 78
Smith, Capt. John, 56
Smith, John, 348
Smith, Seba, 78
Socrates, 286
Somerset, H. M. S., 356
South Boston, 183
Sparks, Rev. Jared, 227, 236
Speedzi'ell, the, 315, 316
Spenser, Edmund, 286
Spooner, Ephraim, 332
Sprague, William, 501
Springfield, Conn., 140
Springfield, Mass., 415, 416
Standish, Barbara, 328
Standish, Lora, 336
Standish, Myles, 312, 317, 325,
328, 329, 336, 350, 352, 353,
378
Index
597
Standish, Rose, 336
Stark, Gen. John, 265, 436
Stebbins, John, 415
Stebbins, Lieut. Joseph, 435,
436, 438
Stedman, Edmund C, 548
Stephens, Mrs. Ann S., 78
Stiles, Ezra, 411, 568
Stimson, F. J., 50
Stonington, Conn., 498, 548
Story, Joseph, 159, 227
Story, William, 236
Stoughton, Lieutenant-Gover-
nor, 149
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 8, 50,
76, 546
Strong, Governor, 528
Stroudwater, 76
Stuyvesant, Peter, 516
Sudbury, 84
Suffolk, England, 113
Sumner, Charles, 176
Sumner, James, 4S0
Sunderland, 431
Suttlife, Nathaniel, 408
Sutton, Mass., 97
Swanzey, 410
Talcott, Mary K., 507
Taylor, Father, 11
Taylor, Rev. John, 438
Teft, Thomas A., 504
Tennyson, Alfred, 282, 299
Terry, Alfred H., 582
Thatcher, Doctor, 332
Thoreau, Henry, 7, 280, 282, 285,
289, 296, 345, 367, 370
Throckmorton, John, 478
Tileston, John, 296
Tillinghast, Pardon, 487
Tilton, J. R., 79
Tisquantum, 324
Tituba, 139, 141, 143, 144, 150
Tocqueville, Alexis de, i
Toucey, Isaac, 550
Trask, Joseph, 104
Tread well, John, 530
Treat, Major Robert, 412, 414,
415
Treat, Robert, 518, 519
Treat, Rev. Samuel, 379
Trimountain, 168
Trinity College, 534, 538
Tripoli, 69
Trumbull, Annie E., 549
Trumbull, Dr. Benjamin, 511,
512, 516, 518
Trumbull, Colonel, 576
Trumbull, Henry C, 549
Trumbull, James H., 548, 549
Trumbull, John, 522, 523, 524,
525
Truro, Mass., 345, 351, 356, 361,
366-376, 381, 400
Tryon, General, 569
Tucker, Richard, 56
Tufts College, iSo
Turner, Capt. William, 416, 417
U
Upliam, Charles VV., 12S, 144,
162
V
Van Buren, Martin, 551
Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 575
Vane, Sir Henry, 222, 248, 249
Varnum, J. M., 94
• Very, Jones, 159, 292
Vezzerano, 446, 448
Voltaire, 258
W
Wachusett, Mass., 82, 103, 104,
105, 114
Wadsworth, Captain, 519
Wadsworth, Henry, 68
Wadsworth. Gen. Peleg, 68, 69
Wales, Prince of, 72
Walker, Gen. Francis A., 117
Walker, Rev. James, 227
Walpole, Sir Robert, 452
598
Index
Wamassick, 104
Wananapan, 104
Ward, Gen. Artemas, 106, 204,
207, 208, 232
Ward, Edward, 184
Ware, Ashur, 76
Warebam, Mass., 396
Warner, Charles Dudley, 548
Warren, James, 338
Warren, Joseph, 174, 214, 228,
259, 262
Warren, Mercy Otis, 338
Warren, R. I., 49
Warville, Brissot de, 464
Warwick, R. I., 481
Washington, D. C, 241, 527
Washington, George, 93, 96, 98,
99, 102, 154, 158, 202, 207,
208, 214, 232, 260, 265, 268,
278, 286, 288, 289, 388, 462,
471, 472, 490. 521, 526, 568,
582, 584
Waterbury, Conn., 525
Waters, Lieutenant, 66
Watertown, Conn., 523
Watertown, Mass., 215, 260, 511
Watson, Ellen, 299
Wauchatopick, 105
Wayland, Francis, 499, 500
Webster, Daniel, 49, 87, 88, 180,
332
Webster, Noah, 523, 544, 578,
582, 584
Weeden, William B., 475
Weld, Daniel, 407
Welles, Gideon, 550
Wellesley College, 180
Wellfleet, Mass., 351, 374^ 375.
376, 380, 393
Wells, Captain, 420
Wells, Thomas, 419
Westbur}% Conn., 523
Westfield, Conn., 532
Westford, Mass., 266
West Haven, Conn., 568
West Point, 568
Wethersfield, Conn., 508, 521,
533
Weybosset, R. I., 482, 485
Whalley, Edward, 563, 564
Wheaton, Henry, 499
Wheelwright, John, 248, 249
Whipple, Abraham, 492, 494
Whipple, Edwin P., 176
White, Peregrine, 337, 354
White field, George, 570
Whiting, Rev. John, 253
Whitney, Eli, 582
Whittier, John G., 50, 54, 81,
176, 544, 570
Wickenden, William, 480
Wilkins, Mary E., 50
Willard, Benjamin, 105
Willard, Henry, 105
Willard, Rev. Joseph, 108, 227
Willard, Rev. Samuel, 440
Willard, Simon, 105, 219, 243,
244, 246, 268
William the Silent, 311
Williams, Abigail, 140
Williams, Col. Ephraim, 429
Williams, Rev. John, 418, 422,
428
Williams, Roger, 9, 11, 124, 136,
138, 152, 449. 476, 478, 480,
481, 482, 484, 485, 486, 488,
489, 502
Williams, Rev. Stephen, 428
Willis, N. P., 78, 178
Wilson, Rev. John, 220
Windsor, Conn., 508
Winslow, Edward, 312, 314, 315,
317, 326, 328, 329, 332, 334,
389
Winslow, Gen. John, 332
Winslow, Josiah, 332, 337
Winthrop, Gov. John, 136,
140, 168, 180, 2T4, 216, 220,
24S
Winthrop, Robert C, 49
Winthrop, Theodore, 582
Woburn, Mass., 260
Wolfe, Gen. James, 277
Wolsey, Cardinal, 306
Woodhill, 244
Wood's Holl, Mass., 394
Index
599
Worcester County, Mass., 97,
103, 105
Worcester, Eng. , 302
Worcester, Mass., 82, 103, 105,
III, 113, 116, 117, 498, 499
Worcestershire, 312
Wyclif, John, 303
Wyllys, Samuel, 519
Y
Yale, Elihu, 574
Yale University, 24, 366, 454,
523, 572, 574, 575, 576, 582,
584, 586
Yarmouth, Mass., 368, 377, 380,
381, 385, 393
Yorkshire, 247, 304
Yorktown, 521
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