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PUBLICATIONS 
X 

PROCEEDINGS 

January  26,  191 5  —  October  26,  191 5 


CAMBRIDGE,  MASSACHUSETTS 

1917 


THB  DKIVERSITT  PRK8S,  CAMBRIDOB,   U.S.A. 


4/ 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS 


Page 

THIRTY-THIRD  MEETING,  January  26,  1915 5 

Col.  Henry  Vassall  and  His  Wife  Penelope  Vassall 

WITH  Some  Account  of  His  Slaves 5 

By  Samuel  Francis  Batchelder 

THIRTY-FOURTH  MEETING,  April  27,  1915 86 

The  Beginning  of  the  First  Church  in  Cambridge  .    .      86 

By  HoLLis  Russell  Bailey 
Note  on  the  Deacon's  Books  of  the  First  Church  .    .     114 

By  Henry  Herbert  Edes 
The  Longfellow  Prize  Essay,   1915:    Descriptions  of 

Nature  in  Longfellow's  Poems      116 

By  Margaret  Charlton  Black 

THIRTY-FIFTH  MEETING,  October  20,  1915 123 

Celebration  of  the  One  Hundredth  Anniversary  of 

the  Birth  of  Richard  Henry  Dana 123 

Introductory  Remarks 123 

By  Bishop  Lawrence 
Dana  as  a  Man  of  Letters 127 

By  Bliss  Perry 
Dana  as  an  Antislavery  Leader 133 

By  Moorfield  Storey 
Dana  as  a  Lawyer  and  Citizen     142 

By  Joseph  Hodges  Choate 

THIRTY-SIXTH  MEETING,  October  26,  1915.    Eleventh 

Annual  Meeting      166 

Annual  Report  of  the  Council 166 

Annual  Report  of  the  Treasurer 167 

Election  of  Officers      168 


iv  ILLUSTEATIONS 

Page 

NECROLOGY 169 

OFFICERS 194 

COMMITTEES 195 

MEMBERS .  196 

BY-LAWS 199 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Portrait  of  Henry  Vassall.    By  Copley Frontispiece 

Facsimile  of  a  Page  from  Henry  Vassall's  Expense  Book  22 

Portrait  of  Penelope  Vassall.    By  Copley 44 

Facsimile  of  Penelope  Vassall's  Writing.    (See  p.  40  note.)  .  CO 

Henry  Vassall's  Bookplate 84 

Residence  of  Rev.  Thomas  Hooker  Built  in  1633.    From  a 

Drawing  by  Miss  E.  S.  Quincy  about  1840 99 

Portrait  of  Richard  H.  Dana  (1815-1882).    From  a  Photo- 
graph taken  in  Paris  in  1879 123 


PROCEEDINGS 

OF, 

THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 


THE    THIRTY-THIRD   MEETING 

fTlHE  Thiety-thied  Meeting  of  the  Cambridge  Histoeical 
-^  Society  was  held  on  the  26th  day  of  January,  1915,  at 
7.45  o'clock  in  the  evening,  at  Craigie  House,  the  residence 
of  Miss  Longfellow. 

The  President,  Richaed  Heitey  Daita,  presided.  The 
minutes  of  the  previous  meeting  were  read  and  approved. 

Portraits  of  Henry  Vassall  and  Penelope  Royal  Vassall, 
recently  acquired  by  the  President,  were  exhibited. 

Samuel  Fean^cis  Batchelder  read  an  account  of  the 
originals  of  these  portraits. 

COL.    HENRY   VASSALL 

The  Cambridge  Loyalists  or  "  Tories  "  have  suffered  a  somewhat 
undeserved  neglect  at  the  hands  of  our  historians.  Numerous, 
opulent,  cultivated,  picturesque,  and  exceedingly  interesting  in 
themselves,  they  also  form  the  outstanding  figures  in  the  village 
annals  during  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  —  annals 
which  otherwise  would  be  colorless  to  the  vanishing-point.  Eco- 
nomically they  contributed  vastly  to  the  reputation  and  resources 
of  the  town,  whole  sections  of  which  were  opened  up  and  brought 
to  a  high  state  of  development  by  their  wealth,  intelligence,  and 
taste.     Politically  they  were  the  conscientious  upholders  of  that 


6  THE   CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

realm  of  law  and  order  against  which  their  fellow  countrymen 
gaw  fit  to  revolt,  with  results  that  long  hung  in  the  balance  and 
that  —  had  it  not  been  for  the  unexpected  folly  of  their  leaders 
and  the  equally  unexpected  rise  of  a  first-order  genius  among  the 
revolutionists  —  might  well  have  vindicated  their  position  com- 
pletely. Meantime  they  operated  as  the  flywheel  on  the  over- 
heated engine  of  partisan  passion,  delaying  and  steadying  its 
wilder  impulses  and  preventing  the  ungoverned  excesses  into 
which  it  might  otherwise  have  run.  Socially  and  intellectually 
they  brought  to  a  primitive  community,  which  had  scarcely  ad- 
vanced beyond  the  Elizabethan  era  when  it  was  founded,  the 
amenities,  comforts,  and  ideals  of  the  highest  civilization  of  the 
day,  and  thus  paved  the  way  for  that  cultured  elegance  which 
was  to  distinguish  the  neighborhood  for  many  years  to  come.^ 
In  the  thin  and  vitiated  mental  atmosphere  that  had  felt  no  more 
stimulating  influences  than  the  meagre  precepts  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege (which  itself  was  experiencing  a  time  of  weakness  and  change) 
they  gave  the  first  inspirations  of  a  fuller  and  richer  life.  They 
were,  in  brief,  the  advance  guard  of  those  forces  that  have  trans- 
formed the  isolated,  bucolic  hamlet  ^  into  a  complex  modern  city, 
at  once  eagerly  progressive  and  curiously  conservative. 

At  the  same  time  the  scanty  attention  that  has  been  paid  to  the 
Tories  is  not  unnatural.  Out  of  sight,  out  of  mind ;  and  the  less 
said  about  those  into  whose  inheritance  we  have  so  coolly  entered, 
the  better.  The  adherents  of  a  lost  cause  are  soon  forgotten 
amongst  a  democracy  where  success  is  the  test  and  the  justifica- 
tion of  all  things.  Even  the  genealogist,  struggling  to  ascend 
the  local  family-trees,  passes  by  those  temporary  stocks  that  have 
left  no  scions  among  us  to-day.    Mostly  exotic,  they  grafted  them- 

*  By  an  attraction  that  deserves  a  better  name  than  coincidence,  both  of  the 
mo8t  famous  men  of  letters  that  Cambridge  has  ever  claimed  fixed  their  abodes, 
it  will  be  recalled,  in  mansions  built  by  the  Loyalists. 

'  The  sympatlietic  student  of  pre-revolutionary  Cambridge  must  bear  con- 
stantly in  mind  the  extreme  diminutiveness  of  his  field.  The  settled  part  of 
to^^-n  was  practically  confined  to  the  vicinity  of  Harvard  College,  and  in  1765 
contained  a  white  population  with  the  easily  remembered  total  of  1492.  Thus, 
instead  of  standing  as  now  fourth  or  fifth  in  order  of  size,  Cambridge  was  then 
about  fortieth  on  the  Massachusetts  list,  overwhelmingly  and  apparently  liope- 
lessly  outranked  by  such  important  centres  as  Sutton,  Scituate,  Ipswich,  and 
Rehol)oth.  The  largest  town  after  Boston  was  Marblehead.  Cf.  Benton,  Early 
Cenaits  Making  in  Mass, 


1915.]  COL.   HENEY   VASSALL  7 

selves,  as  it  were,  upon  the  growing  community,  throve,  multi- 
plied, and  then,  before  the  chilling  breath  of  discord  and  revolu- 
tion, suddenly  withered  away  and  vanished,  leaving  no  roots,  no 
fruits,  and  only  here  and  there  an  empty  husk.  The  dead  leaves 
of  their  records  have  been  suffered  to  whirl  off  into  limbo.  Their 
fibres  never  sank  deeper  than  the  superficial  soil  of  New  Eng- 
land life.  The  native  population,  differing  from  them  in  religion, 
in  occupations,  in  habits,  in  philosophy,  and  in  politics,  at  first 
tolerated  them,  then  distrusted  them,  and  at  last  feared  and  as- 
sailed them;  and  when  they  were  extirpated  spent  nearly  a  cen- 
tury in  obliterating  their  vestiges. 

Of  all  that  ghostly  company  no  members  are  more  difficult  to 
trace,  considering  their  numbers  ^  and  wealth,  than  the  great 
family  of  the  Vassalls.  Like  strange  old-world  galleons,  they 
moored  for  a  time  in  the  pleasant  summer  waters  of  ISTew  Eng- 
land, enjoying  and  enriching  themselves  among  the  codfish;  but 
with  the  first  autumnal  northeaster  they  dragged  their  anchors 
and  drifted  helplessly  away  before  the  blast,  the  angry  waves 
closing  over  their  wake,  marked  only  by  an  occasional  bit  of 
wreckage  or  a  fragment  of  flotsam  jettisoned  to  lighten  a  sinking 
ship.  Many  of  their  friends  among  the  Massachusetts  Loyalists 
played  memorable  and  manly  parts  in  the  troublous  sixties  and 
seventies  of  the  revolutionary  century  —  some  are  still  notorious 
for  a  precisely  opposite  course.  'Not  a  few  of  their  native-born 
neighbors,  humble  and  uncouth  as  they  may  have  seemed  in  the 
eyes  of  those  fine  gentry,  are  to-day  vivid  national  figures  and 
familiar  household  words.  But  the  name  of  Vassall  in  New 
England  is  almost  as  if  it  had  never  been.  A  few  stately  country- 
seats,  some  musty  court  and  registry  entries,  an  obscure  lane  in 
Cambridge,  a  township  in  the  Maine  forests,  some  scattered  stones 
in  long-closed  churchyards,  and  a  monument  in  King's  Chapel 
to  a  London  ancestor  are  all  that  now  preser^^e  it  from  utter 
forgetfulness.  Eor  anything  beyond  these  mechanical  and  arti- 
ficial memorials,  for  any  vital  impression  on  the  history  of  the 
time,  for  any  tablet  in  the  hall  of  fame  (even  in  the  Cambridge 
corner  thereof),  for  any  human  interest,  in  legend,  song,  or  story, 
we  look  in  vain. 

*  Harris,  the  authority  on  the  subject,  enumerates  no  less  than  sixty-eight 
who  bore  the  name  in  New  England. 


8  THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

The  very  personalities  of  the  heads  of  the  house  have  perished, 
or  become  dim  and  uncertain.  Their  letters  and  diaries  are 
lost.  Scarcely  a  scrap  of  manuscript  survives  to  show  us  their 
characteristics  and  activities,  intimacies  and  antipathies,  hopes 
and  fears.  Up  to  the  present  time  we  have  not  even  known  how 
they  looked.  For  though  prominent  members  of  the  class  that 
most  liberally  patronized  the  praiseworthy  efforts  of  the  Colonial 
portrait  painters,  their  likenesses,  numerous  as  they  must  have 
been,  were  either  carried  away  in  their  hegira,  or  have  suffered  a 
variety  of  ignominious  fates,  scorned  as  "  nothing  but  pictures 
of  those  miserable  old  Tories."  The  portraits  of  Henry  Vassall 
and  his  wife  Penelope  Royall,  auspiciously  recovered  within  the 
past  twelvemonth  from  a  descendant  distant  in  more  senses  than 
one,  have  therefore  a  value  even  more  unique  than  that  always 
attaching  to  the  work  of  the  master  hand  that  painted  them.^ 

*  The  exhibition  of  these  portraits  before  the  Society  was  the  occasion 
for  the  preparation  of  this  paper.  Their  history  after  leaving  Cambridge 
appears  to  be  as  follows: 

From  Henry  Vassall's  daughter  Elizabeth,  who  married  Dr.  Charles 
Russell,  they  passed  to  her  child  Rebecca,  who  married  in  1793  David  Pearce 
of  Boston,  and  thence  to  his  son  Charles  Russell  Pearce.  While  in  the  cus- 
tody of  the  last  named,  they  were  taken  to  Baltimore,  about  1825.  Through 
his  daughter  Elizabeth  VassaJl  Pearce,  who  married  Mr.  Prentiss,  they  were 
transmitted  to  his  granddaughter  Elizabeth  Vassall  Prentiss,  who  married 
Oliver  H.  McCowen.  In  1914  Mrs.  McCowen,  being  about  to  remove  from  Balti- 
more to  Burmah,  offered  them  to  the  Cambridge  Historical  Society,  and  they 
were  purchased  by  the  president,  Richard  H.  Dana,  3d.  They  are  now  hung  in 
the  Treasure  Room  of  the  Harvard  Library. 

The  canvases  of  Henry  Vassall  and  Penelope  Royall  are  25  by  30  and 
15  by  17  y2  inches  respectively.  When  received  they  proved  to  be  in 
excellent  condition,  needing  only  varnishing  and  a  little  retouching  of 
the  backgrounds.  That  of  Colonel  Vassall  represents  a  man  in  the  prime 
of  life,  half-length,  full  face,  slightly  smiling,  chin  dimpled.  He  wears 
a  powdered  wig,  ruffled  laco  neck-cloth,  brown  embroidered  satin  coat.  The 
coloring  is  brilliant  and  the  face  full  of  cliaracter.  The  bust  portrait  of 
his  wife  is  that  of  a  young,  sweet,  refined  woman,  face  oval,  eyes  large, 
features  regular,  brown  hair  dressed  high  with  a  rose  on  the  left  side. 
Her  citron-colored  dress  is  low  c\it.  Neither  in  size,  coloring,  nor  expression 
is  this  picture  as  striking  as  the  other,  and  one  cannot  but  feel  that  the 
subject  did  not  appeal  to  the  painter  as  strongly. 

Family  tradition  assigns  both  portraits  to  the  brush  of  Copley.  Mr. 
Frank  W.  Bayley,  the  leading  authority  on  the  subject,  announces  after 
careful  inspection  tliat  tradition  is  here  undoubtedly  correct,  and'  proposes 
to  include  both  pictures  in  his  catalogue  of  the  works  of  that  master. 
The  style  and  handling  are  precisely  those  of  Copley  at  the  period  when 
these  canvases  must  have  been  executed;    there  is,  moreover,  documentary 


1915.]  COL.   HENEY   VASSALL 


The  biographer  of  these  Vassalls  seeks  in  vain  to  vivify  his 
sketch  with  the  warm  coloring  and  well-placed  details  so  happily 
employed  by  their  limner.  With  the  present  materials  he  can 
but  trace  some  faint  outlines  on  a  misty  background.  Certain 
names  and  dates  stand  out  clearly  enough.^  Henry  Vassall's  posi- 
tion among  the  far-flung  branches  of  his  family  tree  may  be  seen 
from  the  diagram  appended.  Bom  on  Christmas  Day,  1721, 
the  fourteenth  of  eighteen  children,  of  a  fine  old  English  stock 
long  resident  in  the  West  Indies,  he  too  seems  to  have  lived, 
until  nearly  twenty  years  of  age,  on  the  great  family  estates  in 
Jamaica.  By  that  time  his  father,  Leonard,  and  his  older 
brothers,  Lewis,  John,  and  William,  had  already  been  for  several 
years  in  Boston,  doubtless  attracted  thither  not  only  by  its  great 
commercial  prosperity,  but  also  by  its  superior  social  and  edu- 
cational opportunities.  Of  these  the  boys  had  taken  full  ad- 
vantage. John  graduated  from  Harvard  in  1.732  and  two  years 
later  married  Elizabeth  Phips,  daughter  of  the  lieutenant  gov- 
ernor. In  1736,  to  be  near  his  father-in-law's  delightful  family 
<)ircle  in  Cambridge,^  he  bought  there,  from  the  widow  of  John 

evidence  that  he  painted  several  others  of  the  Royall  family  and  their  connec- 
tions. See  Mass.  Hist.  Sog.  Colleotions,  vol.  71,  page  284. 
^  Both  the  frames  are  old  —  possibly  the  originals  (many  of  Copley's 
frames  v/ere  made  by  Paul  Revere )  —  and  have  merely  been  regilded.  Copies 
of  both  portraits  were  made  some  years  ago  for  Mr.  James  Russell  Soley 
of  New  York  City.  An  indifferent  painting  of  Miss  Elizabeth,  aged  about  six- 
teen, is  now  in  possession  of  Mrs.  H.  L.  Threadcraft  of  Richmond,  Virginia. 
I'ortraits  of  other  members  of  the  Vassall  family  by  Hoppner  and  Reynolds  are 
in  Holland  House,  London. 

(Information  chiefly  supplied  by  Mrs.  S.  M.  de  Gozzaldi  and  Mr.  R.  H. 
Dana,  3d.    See  also  notes,  pages  13,  15.) 

*  ^  For  the  authoritative  data  on  the  family  history  see  the  exhaustive 
researches  of  Edward  Doubleday  Harris,  The  Vassalls  of  New  England  —  the 
basis  of  this  sketch  —  reprinted  from  N.  E.  Historical  and  Genealogical 
Register,  xvii,  56,  113. 

V, '  The  Phips  family  were  the  pioneers  of  the  Loyalist  migration  to  Cam- 
b"idge  that  reached  its  height  about  the  middle  of  the  century.  Spencer 
Phips,  adopted  son  of  the  fabulously  wealthy  Sir  William  Phips,  bought  a 
*'  farm "  in  1706  that  embraced  all  of  East  Cambridge  and  part  of  Cara- 
biydgeport,  and  soon  afterward  the  estate  on  Arrow  Street  that  became 
the  homestead.  His  lavish  hospitality,  together  with  the  distinguished  al- 
liances made  by  many  of  his  children,  who  set  up  splendid  establishments  near 


10  THE  CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jait. 

Frizzell,  the  old  mansion  (now  94  Brattle  Street),  with  about 
Beven  acres  surrounding  it,  which  thereupon  became  permanently 
associated  with  his  patronymic.  In  1741,  shortly  after  the  death 
of  his  father,  he  sold  it  to  his  brother  Henry,  then  a  lad  just 
coming  of  age,  who  in  this  connection  makes  his  first  appearance 
on  the  local  records,  as  "  now  residing  at  Boston,  late  of  the 
Island  of  Jamaica,  Planter."  With  the  domicile  went  the  "  barn 
and  outhouses,''  most  of  the  furniture,  a  chariot,  a  chaise,  and 
four  horses.  Included  in  the  same  deed  were  thirty  acres  of 
"  mowing  and  pasture  land  "  across  the  Charles,  in  the  westerly 
angle  between  the  river  and  "  the  King's  Road  from  Cambridge 
to  Boston."  1 

The  house,  we  may  note,  was  already  of  very  respectable 
antiquity.  From  the  infancy  of  the  town,  indeed,  a  dwelling 
seems  to  have  occupied  the  site.  It  was  a  delightful  location, 
pleasantly  near  the  river,  and  just  *'  without  the  walls  "  of  the 
original  pallysadoe  that  surrounded  the  first  settlement,  and  that 
here  followed  the  line  of  the  present  Ash  Street.  It  thus  formed 
an  early  example  of  a  model  suburban  estate,  combining  easy 
access  to  the  centre  of  society,  business,  and  education  at  "  the 
village,"  with  a  rural  peace  to  which  that  centre  must  have 
seemed  in  comparison  a  bustling  metropolis.  Both  mansion  and 
grounds,  as  Henry  Vassall  found  them,  had  been  enlarged  and 
beautified  by  successive  owners.^  He  continued  the  process, 
rounding  out   the   estate  by  further  purchases  ^   and  building, 

him,  proved  a  magnet  that  drew  to  Cambridge  a  large  portion  of  its  richest 
and  most  fashionable  ante-revohitionary  elements.  Upon  his  death  in  1757  the 
family  traditions  were  well  continued  by  his  son  David. 

*  Middlesex  Deeds,  43/271.  About  on  the  site  of  the  present  University 
Boat  House. 

"  For  exhaustive  (and  occasionally  confusing)  details  of  the  numerous 
changes  in  boundaries,  construction,  and  ownership  for  over  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  see  the  articles  by  three  generations  of  the  Batchelder 
family,  the  proprietors  since  1841,  in  Neta  England  Historical  and 
Oenealogioal  Register,  xlv,  191;  The  Cambridge  of  1776,  93;  Historic 
Chuide  to  Cambridge,  94.  From  them  the  following  reconstruction  is  chiefly 
extracted.  The  grounds  are  now  cut  up  by  modem  streets,  dating  from 
about  1870,  and  are  crowded  with  heterogeneous  dwellings.  The  mansion  itself 
has  served  for  years  as  a  "  select  boarding  house." 

•  In  1746  he  bought  from  his  brother  John  somewhat  more  than  an 
acre  on  the  westerly  side,  extending  from  the  Watertown  road  to  "  Amos 
Marratt's  marsh,"  and  the  next  year  the  half  acre  on  the  corner  of  the 
Watertown  road  and  the  "  highway  to  the  brick  wharf,"  as  Ash  Street  was 


'1915.]  COL.   HENRY   VASSALL  11 

among  other  items,  the  east  wing,  with  its  elaborate  interior  finish, 
and  along  the  street  fronts  the  low  brick  garden-wall,  portions  of 
which  still  remain. 

The  place,  as  he  left  it,  differed  so  materialJj  from  its  present 
shrunken  and  mutilated  condition  that  some  effort  of  the  imagina- 
tion is  needed  to  picture  it  in  its  palmy  days.  Let  us  approach 
in  our  mind's  eye,  that  most  accommodating  of  conveyances.  The 
grounds  extend  along  the  road  to  Watertown  (Brattle  Street) 
from  Windmill  Lane  ^  (Ash  Street)  on  the  east  ^  to  John  Vassall's 
pasture  (Longfellow  Park)  on  the  west.  Tall  hedges  of  flowering 
hawthorns  mark  the  lateral  boundaries.  On  the  north  front, 
gust  inside  the  wall,  towers  a  magnificent  row  of  five-score  acacia 
trees.  The  house  stands  farther  back  from  the  road  than  to-day, 
for  a  ten-foot  strip  was  clipped  from  the  front  yard  when  Brattle 
Street  was  widened  in  1870.^  From  the  rear  of  the  dwelling 
southward  nearly  to  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  river  in  its  salt 
marshes  *  extend  the  famous  gardens.  We  may  saunter  along 
their  white-pebbled  walks,  edged  with  neat  box  rows,  and  admire 

also  described.  (Middlesex  Deeds,  47/350.)  By  these  purchases  the  eastern 
and  western  boundaries  were  completed  as  they  have  existed  until  recent  times. 
Both  transactions  were  doubtless  connected  with  the  Jamaica  "  deal " 
mentioned  on  page  36  herein. 

*  Although  frequently  described  as  a  highway,  the  present  Ash  Street  was 
for  generations  practically  a  private  way,  separating  the  properties  of  Vassall 
ftnd  Brattle,  and  leading  to  land  owned  by  the  Marretts  on  the  river  bank.  In 
1750,  William  Brattle,  Henry  Vassall,  and  Edward  Marrett  Jr.  obtained 
favorable  action  by  the  "  Sessions  "  ( then  fulfilling  the  functions  of  County 
Commissioners)  on  their  petition  "  Shewing  that  there  hath  between  the  Land 
of  the  said  William  &  Henry  been  a  Gate  or  pair  of  Barrs  time  out  of  Mind  in 
the  Lane  leading  to  the  Brick  Wharffe  in  Cambridge,  that  there  is  a  Gate  now 
hanging  in  Said  Place,  they  pray  leave  to  continue  the  Same  in  the  Same  Place 
'till  the  further  Order  of  this  Court."  Page  100,  volume  "  1748-1761,"  Clerk'8 
OflBce,  East  Cambridge. 

*  More  nearly  southeast,  as  north  should  be  northeast,  etc.,  but  for 
the  sake  of  simplicity  the  cardinal  bearings  of  the  old  deeds  have  been 
followed  in  the  text  throughout. 

'  On  this  "  improving "  occasion  the  acacias  were  sacrificed,  and  the 
bx'ick  wall  was  perforce  taken  down.  The  part  opposite  the  lawn  was 
rebuilt  on  the  new  line,  but  this  time  capped  by  a  granite  coping  instead 
of  the  two  planks  set  in  an  "  A  "  shape  that  formerly  topped  it.  Opposite 
the  house  it  was  replaced  by  a  high  rampart  of  imitation  stone,  with 
estrance  gate-posts,  etc.,  in  the  fashionable  taste  of  that  day. 

*  Mount  Auburn  Street  of  course  had  not  then  invaded  "  the  marsh." 
The  estate,  however,  seems  never  to  have  gone  beyond  the  upland. 


12  THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTOEICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

their  choice  shrubs,  vines,  and  fruit  trees,  many,  even  to  the  great 
purple  mulberry,  imported  from  Europe.  Under  the  willows  at 
the  foot  of  the  grounds  we  may  pause  to  drink  from  a  fine 
spring. 

Along  the  western  wing  of  the  house  a  cobbled  courtyard  (now 
the  beginning  of  HaA\i:horn  Street)  opens  from  the  road.  At 
the  head  of  it,  just  clear  of  the  end  of  the  wing,  stands  the  great 
stable,  whence  we  hear  the  stamp  and  champ  of  a  long  row  of 
horses.^  On  the  right  of  the  court  is  the  coach-house,  shelter- 
ing "  the  coach,  the  charriott,  the  chaise,  the  curricle,  the  old 
curricle,"  ^  and  other  vehicular  precursors  of  the  limousine  and 
the  motorcycle.  Here  also  we  may  curiously  inspect  the  owner's 
private  fire-engine,  the  first  machine  of  the  kind  in  Cambridge 
annals,  and  a  striking  illustration  of  the  complete  and  costly 
style  in  which  the  family  establishment  was  maintained.^ 

This  western  wing  is  the  most  ancient  portion  of  the  fabric, 
as  we  may  infer  from  its  huge  chimney-stack  laid  in  clay  instead 
of  mortar,  and  its  low  rooms  finished  with  plaster  made  of  cal- 
cined oyster  shells,  —  carrying  us  back  to  the  days  of  makeshifts 
for  proper  lime.  Its  southward  extension  is  continued  by  a 
long  ell*  (now  much  shortened),  containing  kitchen,  "well 
room,''  garden  shed,  and  other  "  offices,"  some  floored  with  mother 
earth,  some  with  hexagonal  sections  of  tree  trunks  —  an  early 
example  of  wood-block  paving.  Although  we  evidently  have  here 
the  strictly  domestic  side  of  the  building,  the  whole  house,  elabo- 

*  A  memorandum  in  the  little  account  book  later  described  givea  the 
heights  of  ten  horses  by  name  —  "  Ruggles,"  "  Lechmere,"  "  Boy,"  etc.  Two  of 
them  were  ponies.  In  1758  Henry  Vassall  had  so  many  horses  that  he  could 
not  accommodate  them  all,  and  had  to  pay  Gershom  Flagg  "  on  acct  of  rent 
for  Stable  £45." 

*  Inventory  of  1769.    See  Appendix  A. 

*  It  was  so  much  admired  that  there  was  some  talk  of  its  being  "  improvod 
for  the  town's  use;  "  but  the  proposition  was  finally  negatived  by  the  March 
meeting  of  1755,  the  conservative  majority  plainly  preferring  to  put  their 
trust  in  the  good  old  bucket-line  rather  than  in  any  new-fangled  notions. 
Paige,  History  of  Cambridge,  134. 

The  Colonel's  elaborate  forehandedness  was  later  imitated  by  his  brother- 
in-law,  young  Isaac  Royall.  The  latter's  inventory  of  1778  gives  "  Fire  Engine 
£250,"  with  sundry  entries  for  "time  spent  about  ye  Engine  to  get  it 
mended  and  cleaned."    Middlesex  Probate,  No.  19546,  Old  Series. 

*  A  sketch  plan  of  about  1875  gives  the  total  length  of  the  west  side  as 
ninety-one  feet,  of  the  north  front  sixty-three  feet. 


1915.]  COL.   HENRY   VASSALL  13 

rate  and  extensive  as  it  is,  bears  the  character  of  the  true  home- 
stead.^ It  sets  low  on  the  ground.  Its  main  roofs,  crowned  by 
a  small  cupola  in  the  middle,  are  of  the  good  old  gambrel  type. 
Its  outer  walls  are  mostly  covered  with  "  rough  cast "  or  stucco, 
a  logical  finish  for  their  interior  construction  of  oak  beams  filled 
in  with  brick.  Even  some  of  the  partitions,  on  account  of  the 
successive  enlargements  of  the  edifice,  are  of  solid  masonry. 

On  entering  we  find  that  these  enlargements  have  produced 
a  rambling  arrangement  of  rooms  very  different  from  the  four- 
square primness  of  the  typical  ^^  Colonial  mansion "  to  which 
we  are  accustomed.  The  ground  plan  is  like  a  broad,  squat  letter 
•y,  opening  to  the  south.  Parallel  eastern  and  western  wings 
of  different  periods  enclose  between  them  the  great  dining  room, 
which  occupies  the  entire  middle  section,  and  thus  abruptly  bisects 
.the  usual  ^'  long  entry  "  from  the  eastern  to  the  western  door. 
The  chambers  of  the  second  floor  follow  the  same  curious  arrange- 
ment. To  reach  them  there  are  three  separate  staircases.  That 
.of  the  eastern  wing  is  still  one  of  the  handsomest  examples  of 
Colonial  woodwork  to  be  seen  in  Cambridge.  The  apartments 
are  known,  according  to  their  rich  and  diversified  finish,  as  '^  the 
blue  room,''  "  the  best  room,"  "  the  marble  chamber,"  "  the  green 
chamber,"  "  the  cedar  chamber,"  etc.  The  rooms  are  filled  with 
pictures;  even  the  walls  of  the  entries  and  staircases  are  covered 
with  them.  2 

*  In  the  library  is  a  large  collection  of  standard  and  current 
books.     There  is  fine  old  mahogany  furniture  a-plenty,  blue-and- 

^  From  the  date  of  buying  the  house  Henry  Vassall  apparently  never  had 
"any  other  domicile.  Many  of  the  Cambridge  Tories  regarded  the  village 
as  a  summer  resort  only,  and  retired  in  winter  to  their  fine  Boston  dwellings. 
The  Colonel's  brother  William  had  an  especially  magnificent  estate  in  the 
metropolis,  and  his  nephew  John  was  constantly  buying  new  property 
'there.  But  he  himself,  either  from  choice  or  necessity,  made  no  further 
purchases,  and  settled  down  for  life  on  his  compact  and  handsome  possessions 
in  the  university  town. 

'  The  inventory  of  1769  gives  a  hundred  and  fifty.  "  In  the  best  room  " 
were  "  three  family  pictures."  Two  were  doubtless  those  of  the  Colonel 
and  his  wife,  already  mentioned,  and  the  third  that  of  their  daughter 
Elizabeth.  This  inventory,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  that  of  a  de- 
ceased bankrupt  who  had  run  through  most  of  his  property,  and  hence 
represents  only  a  remnant  of  the  full  personal  estate.  It  gives,  for  in- 
stance, only  "  2  horses,  old,"  where  a  dozen  years  before  there  were  ten.  See 
Appendix  A.    Ninety-one  pictures  were  left  in  1778.     (Appendix  B.) 


14  THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

•white  china,  and  an  imposing  array  of  plate  —  over  six  hundred 
ounces.  There  is  fine  old  joinery  too,  balusters,  panels,  wainscot, 
carving.  But  such  evidences  of  wealth  and  taste,  common  to 
all  tlie  more  luxurious  dwellings  of  the  time,  are  not  particularly 
characteristic  of  the  place.  What  most  strikes  the  observer  even 
to-day  is  its  flavor  of  the  native  soil  —  its  true  "  Old  Cambridge  " 
air  —  that  so  contrasts  it  with  its  loftier,  newer,  more  sumptuous 
and  formal  neighbor  across  the  road.  The  latter  was  built  "  all 
of  a  piece  "  in  1759  by  young  John  Vassall,  son  of  our  Henry's 
brother  John  already  mentioned.  A  tradition  of  delicious  mys- 
tery connects  the  two  houses  by  a  secret  underground  passage. 
A  bricked-up  arch  in  Colonel  Henry's  cellar  wall  appears  to  be 
the  foundation  of  both  the  tradition  and  that  part  of  the  build- 
ing. We  may  assume,  from  what  we  know  of  the  owner,  that 
the  feature  was  much  more  probably  the  entrance  to  a  wine 
vault.  Although  this  primitive  ^'  subway  "  has  caved  in  under 
the  prodding  of  modern  investigation,  the  touch  of  romance  in- 
dispensable for  a  historic  mansion  was  supplied,  up  to  living, 
memory,  by  an  absolutely  authentic  secret  recess  closed  by  a 
sliding  panel.  Since  the  "  secret  "  of  its  location  —  by  the  fire- 
place in  one  of  the  oldest  rooms  —  was  as  usual  public  property, 
there  was,  naturally,  nothing  in  it.  Even  the  appropriate  legend 
which  by  all  the  unities  should  have  lingered  there  has  long  since 
slipped  away  to  join  the  majority  of  the  family  traditions  in 
oblivion. 

II 

Such  was  the  home  to  which  young  Harry  Vassall  brought  hia 
bride.  For  as  soon  as  the  place  was  ready  he  married,  January 
28,  1742,  Penelope,  daughter  of  the  immensely  wealthy  old  Isaac 
Eoyall.^     That  magnate,  like  his  wife  (Elizabeth  Eliot  ^),  was 

*  For  a  full  account  of  this  family  see  Harris,  "  The  New  England  Royalls," 
y.  E.  nistorioal  and  Oenealogical  Register,  xxxix,  348. 

•  She  was  a  daughter  of  Asaph  Eliot  of  Boston.  By  a  previous  marriage 
with  John  Brown  of  Antigua  she  had  had  a  daughter  Ann,  who  married  Robert 
Oliver  of  the  same  island,  and  became  the  mother  of  Thomas  and  Elizabeth 
Oliver.  The  last  two  married  respectively  Elizalieth  and  John  Jr.,  children  of 
John  Vassall  Sen.,  brother  of  Henry  Vassall,  who  married  Penelope,  daughter 
of  Mrs.  Koyall  by  her  second  husband.  The  relationships  thus  established  be- 
tween Royalls,  Olivers,  and  Vassalls,  enough  to  dizzy  the  most  indurated  gene- 


1915.]  COL.   HENRY   VASSALL  15 

of  good  Massachusetts  stock,  but  had  spent  most  of  his  life  on  a 
rich  sugar  plantation  which  he  had  early  purchased  in  Antigua,  "  in 
the  Popeshead  Division,''  ^  and  from  which  he  derived  a  princely 
income.  There  Penelope  was  bom,  September,  1724.  Amid 
the  enervatirxg  influences  of  the  social  life  on  that  little  island 
(just  the  size  of  Martha's  Vineyard),  where  rum  was  cheaper  than 
water, ^  where  sybaritic  luxury  rubbed  elbows  with  demoralizing 
primitiveness,^  where  the  blacks  outnumbered  their  masters  al- 
most ten  to  one,  she  passed  her  childhood  —  much,  we  may 
imagine,  as  her  husband  had  passed  his.  In  1737  the  family 
returned  to  Boston  (though  her  brother,  young  Isaac,  had  been 
, sent  back  several  years  earlier  for  his  schooling),*  and  she  found 
herself  in  a  very  different  environment.  From  that  date  we 
have  occasional  references  '^  to  her  of  a  pleasant,  homely  kind : 


alogist,  are  only  typical  of  those  which  interwove  the  whole  group  of  Cam- 
bridge Tories  into  an  indistinguishable  mass  of  cousins  and  "  in-laws." 

*  See  early  maps  in  Oliver,  History  of  Antigua.     The  location  was  on  the 
.northern  shore  of  the  island,  near  "  Royall's  Bay." 

*  "  This  island  is  almost  destitute  of  fresh  springs  .  .  .  only  two  worthy 
of  notice,  therefore  the  water  principally  used  is  rain.  ...  In  dry  s^sons, 
an  article  of  such  vast  consumption  must  necessarily  be  scarce  and  dear; 

,1  have  been  informed  that  rum  and  wine  have  been  given  in  exchange  for 
it."    Luflfman,  Brief  Account  of  Antigua,  61. 

'  "  The  tables  of  the  opulent,  and  also  of  many  who  can  very  ill  afford 
It,  are  covered  with  a  profusion  known  only  in  this  part  of  the  world; 
their  attendants  numerous,  but  it  is  not  uncommon  to  see  them  waiting 
'almost  destitute  of  clothing,  and  the  little  they  have  mere  rags.  ...  A 
few  days  since,  being  invited  to  a  tea-drinking  party,  where  was  collected 
from  ten  to  a  dozen  ladies  and  gentlemen,  a  stout  negroe  fellow  waited, 
who  had  no  other  covering  than  an  old  pair  of  trowsers.  I  believe  I 
•was  the  only  person  present  who  took  the  least  notice  of  the  indelicacy  of 
such  an  appearance,  and  indeed  it  is  my  opinion,  were  the  slaves  to  go 
quite  naked,  it  would  have  no  more  effect  on  the  feelings  of  the  major 
part  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  country  than  what  is  produced  by  the 
Bight  of  a  dog  or  cat."     Letter  of  March  10,  1787.     Idem. 

*  Many  references  to  him  appear  in  the  accounts  of  his  father's  agent 
in  New  England.  (Middlesex  Probate,  19545,  O.S.)  A  particularly  in- 
teresting item  is:  "  1728  Aug.  31  To  cash  pd.  Pelham  for  your  son's  pic- 
ture £15,"  with  a  similar  sum  a  little  later.  The  boy  was  then  scarcely 
ten  years  old.  The  Royalls  evidently  had  a  passion  for  family  portraits. 
Numbers  of  them  are  disposed  of  in  the  will  of  young  Isaac,  and  still 
others  are  catalogued  in  Bayley,  John  Singleton  Copley.  The  inventory 
of  1778  mentions  "A  large  picture  of  2  Children,  £6"  still  remaining  in 
the  Medford  mansion.    Cf.  note,  page  9. 

"  Middlesex  Probate,  19545,  Old  Series,  supra. 


16  THE   CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

1738  June  23  Cash  to  Penelope  20/- 

1740  Marcli  4  Ring  for  Penelope  60/- 

Jun  15  Deblois  teaching  Penelope^  £1 

Aug.  9  Mr.  Stevens  Mak^  Cloggs  for  Penelope  £5.13 

When  in  1739  her  father  died  ^  she  became  by  his  will  half 
owner  with  her  brother  of  the  Antigua  plantation,  and  no  small 
matrimonial  prize.^  Whether  her  wooing  by  the  youthful  Jamaica 
planter,  when  she  was  scarcely  turned  seventeen,  was  warmed  by 
some  adumbration  of  this  pleasing  truth,  we  are  left  to  conjecture. 
Was  it  a  love  match  or  a  mariage  a  la  mode? 

One  fact  is  indubitable.  With  the  exception,  of  a  daughter  who 
died  in  infancy,  the  only  fruit  of  the  union  was  Elizabeth,  bap-" 
tized  in  December  of  1742.  This  solitary  representative  of  the 
next  generation  was  nurtured  with  every  advantage  that  solicitude 
could  devise  and  wealth  procure.  The  scraps  of  family  records 
give  evidence,  if  evidence  were  needed,  that  from  infancy  she  en- 
joyed the  possessions  of  a  princess  —  fine  clothes,  jewelry,  fairy- 
books,  special  furniture,  ponies;  and  when  she  outgrew  the  last, 
a  horse  was  brought  for  her  all  the  way  from  Philadelphia. 
Servitors  hovered  around  her  to  anticipate  her  slightest  want. 
Strange  fruits  and  toys  came  to  her  from  far-away  tropical  islands. 
She  had  the  best  schooling  that  the  metropolis  of  New  England 
could  give  her.  Admiring  relatives  surrounded  and  petted  her; 
distinguished  visitors  applauded  and  rewarded  her  little  displays 
of  cleverness.  Her  portrait  was  painted  while  still  a  child.  Un- 
less human  nature  has  strangely  altered  of  late,  we  may  safely  say 
that  from  her  throne  in  the  nursery  she  ruled  the  household. 

Yet  such  a  lonely  nursery  was  against  all  family  traditions. 
Boston  and  Cambridge,  Milton  and  Braintree,  were  full  of  hand- 
some and  wealthy  young  Vassalls.    The  girls  were  marrying  right 

*  Probably  music  lessons  from  Stephen  De  Blois,  organist  of  King's  Chapel. 
■  Buried  by  mistake  on  his  estate  in  Medford,  he  was  hastily  dug  up  again 

and  carted  to  his  summer  home  at  Dorchester,  where  his  marble  tomb,  pre- 
pared almost  ten  years  before,  awaited  its  occupant  —  foresighted  indeed  dur- 
ing life,  but  somewhat  unable  to  control  his  affairs  post  obit.  Brooks,  Ilistor^y 
of  Medford,  151. 

•  By  the  will  of  her  mother  in  1747  she  further  became  entitled  to  the 
income  of  over  £2000  during  coverture,  and  to  the  principal  if  she  survived 
her  husband.  (Middlesex  Probate,  19543,  O.S.,  and  cf.  page  20.)  It 
is  to  be  feared  that  long  before  his  death,  however,  he  had  managed  to 
reach  and  squander  all  her  property.    See  page  38  et  acq. 


1915.]  COL.   HENRY   VASSALL  17 

and  left  into  the  first  families  of  the  "  court  circle.''  Six  boys  of 
the  name  were  on  the  rolls  of  Harvard  during  the  mid-centurj. 
Our  Henrj,  it  is  true,  did  not  enjoy  the  advantages  of  university 
training,  possibly  because  he  arrived  here  at  about  the  age  when 
boys  then  were  graduated.  Apparently  in  consequence  of  that 
lack,  he  has  been  carelessly  spoken  of  as  uneducated;  though  the 
partial  list,  still  preserved,^  of  his  handsome  library  belies  the 
slur. 

•  But  the  want  of  a  college  education  was  not  by  any  means 
all  that  differentiated  the  subject  of  the  present  sketch  from 
the  other  somewhat  conventional  members  of  his  generation,  or 
the  only  reason  v/hy,  so  far  as  we  can  now  estimate,  he  stands 
out  from  among  them  a  more  picturesque  and  compelling  per- 
sonality. For  he  possessed  qualities  not  always  guaranteed  by  a 
college  degree.  He  was  eminently  a  man  of  affairs,  a  good  organ- 
izer, an  acute  business  manager,  a  leader  acknowledged  and  es- 
teemed both  among  his  own  exclusive  clique  and  among  the  hard- 
headed,  hard-fisted  rank  and  file  of  his  townsmen.  Twice  did  the 
latter,  by  electing  him  their  representative  in  the  General  Court, 
evince  their  appreciation  of  his  political  sagacity.^  His  abilities 
as  a  presiding  ofiicer  made  him  in  considerable  demand  for 
''  moderator  ''  at  towTi  meetings.^  In  church  affairs  he  was,  as 
we  shall  see,  the  local  Episcopalians'  spokesman  and  mainstay.* 
The  trust  and  confidence  reposed  in  him  by  his  own  relatives  is 
shown  in  his  appointment  as  guardian  of  the  children  of  his  de- 
ceased brother  Lewis  of  Braintree.^  His  military  proficiency 
was  notable  enough  to  bring  him  in  1763  the  not  unimportant 
commission  of  lieutenant  colonel  in  the  First  Eegiment  of  Mid- 
dlesex Militia,  commanded  by  his  still  more  versatile  neighbor, 

.  *  See  Appendix  A. 

'  1752  and  1756.  Paij^e,  History  of  Cambridge,  461.  This  was  during 
a  brief  period  in  which  the  town  tried  the  experiment  of  paying  no  salaries 
to  its  representatives,  so  that  a  man  of  wealth  and  leisure  was  almost  a  neces- 
sity for  the  position.  {Idem,  133.)  It  must  be  admitted  that  a  perusal  of 
the  House  journals  for  these  years  does  not  reveal  any  startling  official  acti^'^- 
ties  of  the  Hon.  H.  Vaasall.  Memberships  on  ornamental  committees  and 
similar  complimentary  appointments  are  most  commonly  associated  with  his 
name. 

-'  Cambridge  Town  Records,  MSS.,  passim. 

*  See  page  43. 

'  See  page  25. 


18  THE  CAMBEIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan; 

"William  Brattle.^  If  the  citizen  soldiers  of  liis  day  were  anything 
like  those  of  the  present,  his  appointment  implies  no  small  degree 
of  popularity,  adaptability,  and  skill  in  handling  men.  Though 
at  that  date  there  was  no  chance  for  active  service,  we  can  easily 
picture  the  dashing  figure  he  must  have  made  at  the  annual  Cam- 
bridge "  trainings."  ^ 

Socially,  above  all,  his  family  connections,  lavish  expenditures, 
and  ample  hospitality  gave  him  especial  prominence.  He  was 
long  looked-to  to  do  the  honors  of  the  town  on  any  notable  occasion. 

^  Paige,  History  of  Cambridge,  407.  He  is  thus  remembered  as  Colonel 
Henry,  to  distinguish  him  from  the  other  Henry,  the  son  of  his  brother 
William.  His  successor  in  the  command  was  his  popular  friend,  Thomaa 
Oliver. 

'  An  almost  photographic  account  of  one  of  these  inspiring  occasions 
has  been  left  by  the  Rev.  Winwood  Serjeant,  the  Colonel's  (second)  rector 
at  Christ  Church,  whose  house  adjoined  the  common.  Supplying  the  con- 
text on  one  margin,  which  has  been  torn  off,  it  is  as  follows: 

"  Yesterday  the  Honble  Brigadier  Genl  made  an  elegant  Entertainment  for 
the  Governor,  Council,  &  a  number  of  other  Gentmen :  After  [dinner] ; 
being  the  grand  muster  Day  for  training,  the  several  com  [panics]  of  militia 
were  ordered  to  attend:  &  a  sham  fight  exhibited  [between]  the  English 
&  French:  The  English  marching  through  Cambridge  [w]ere  smartly 
attacked  by  an  ambuscade  of  the  French  who  were  [posted]  behind  Roe's, 
the  Blacksmith's  shop,  near  Col,  Vafsal.  Tlie  noble  [Brigadier]  vigorously 
repulsed  the  Enemy,  forced  his  pafsage  thro'  the  street,  sword  [in  hand] 
&  obliged  the  French  Army  to  retreat  to  a  strong  Fort  deeply  intrenched 
[at  the  c]orner  of  the  Common  to  the  nor'ward  of  our  house;  After  the 
Genl  [had  colle]ctcd  his  forces  together  upon  the  Common,  he  called  a 
Council  of  [war  &  it]  was  soon  determined  to  attack  the  Fort  as  his 
men  were  in  [high  8pir]its  after  the  late  advL,ntage:  they  advanced 
with  great  resolution:  Victory  was  for  some  time  dubious:  but  by  the 
afsistance  of  [a  brisk  f]ire  from  the  artillery  advantageously  posted  on 
the  right  wing,  [the  eloqu]cnce  of  the  Officers,  &  the  never  failing  courage 
of  English  [troops  t]hey  at  last  forced  the  Intrenchments,  &  obliged  the 
Enemy  to  capitulate:  they  quitted  the  fort  to  the  English,  &  marched  thro 
the  Army  with  colours  Hying  &  Drums  beating:  the  English  then  entered, 
demolished  the  outworks  &  set  fire  to  the  fort,  a  parcel  of  sliavings  la,id 
there  for  that  purpose:  Thus  ended  the  famous  Battle  of  Cambridge  to 
the  great  honour  of  Genl  Brattle,  his  officers  &  men:  &  to  the  admiration 
of  a  large  concourse  of  people:  My  House  as  full  of  Ladies  as  it  could 
hold:  Cost  me  a  great  deal  of  Tea,  bread  &  butter  &  wine.  I  make  no  doubt 
you  will  have  a  pompous  account  of  this  Battle  in  the  puljlick  papers. 
What  will  make  it  more  remarkable  in  future  History  is  that  no  body  was 
killed  or  wounded  excepting  one  private  man  belonging  to  the  Artillery 
who  had  a  pretty  large  cartrage  of  powder  for  the  Cannon  in  his  pocket 
which  accidentally  took  fire,  &  burnt  his  cloths  a  good  deal,  but  was  milcli 
more  frightened  than  hurt."  Serjeant  to  Mrs.  Browne,  Cambridge,  October 
7,  1772.    MSS.  in  possession  of  the  Rev.  Arthur  Browne  Livermore. 


1015.]  COL.   HENRY   VASSALL  19 

When,  for  example,  the  Hon.  William  Shirley  passed  through 
Cambridge  on  his  way  to  assume  the  reins  of  his  Majesty's  gov- 
ernment at  Boston,  he  broke  the  last  stage  of  his  journey  '^  at  the 
seat  of  Col.  Vassal,  at  Cambridge,  where  he  lodg'd  that  Night " 
and  ^'  was  waited  upon  by  a  Number  of  Gentlemen  from  whom  he 
received  the  Compliments  of  Congratulation."  ^  He  figured  also 
in  ceremonies  of  a  more  solemn  sort.  The  diary  of  his  contem- 
porary, John  Rowe,  records: 

1766,  Sep.  12,  Fryday.  in  Afternoon  I  went  to  the  Funeral  of  My 
Old  Friend  Sam^  Wentworth.  his  Bearers  were.  Old  M"*  BenJ^  Fan- 
euill  Colo  Henry  Vafsall  M'*  Jos  Lee  M'^  W°^  Sheaff  M""  Richard 
Clark  and  M-^  Tho^  Brinly.^ 

As  to  the  more  intimate  family  life  in  that  noted  "  seat/' 
especially  in  the  earlier  years,  the  annalist  is  supplied  with 
scanty  information.  One  familiar  figure  in  the  experience  of 
every  young  couple  is  not  entirely  obscured  —  the  mother-in-law. 
With  the  Vassalls  her  relations  seem  to  have  been  affectionate  and 
appreciative.    According  to  Mr.  William  Fessenden,  Jr., 

Being  at  the  House  of  M''.  Henry  Vafsall  in  Cambridge  some  time 
in  the  Fall  of  the  Year  1745  I  there  saw  an  ancient  Lady,  who, 
(as  I  was  then  informed)  was  Mrs.  Vaf sal's  Mother.  She  asked  me  if 
I  knew  her  son  Isaac  I  replied  I  did  know  him,  and  that  we  went 
to  the  School  in  Cambridge  at  one  and  the  same  Time.  She  farther 
asked  me  if  I  had  heard  any  Thing  about  Him  that  Day,  I  told 
[her]  I  had  not  she  seemed  to  me  to  be  full  of  Concern  about  Hira, 
for  as  I  understood  by  Her,  Her  Son  was  not  well  She  after  this 
proceeded  in  Her  Discourse,  according  to  [the]  best  of  my  Remem- 
brance as  follows  viz.  I  am  come  to  tarry  with  my  Daughter  Penne 
(as  she  called  M'^^.  Vafsal)  till  Mr.  VafsaPs  return  I  sometimes 
visit  at  one  Child's  and  then  at  Another's  But  my  Son's  I  call 
riiy  Home  She  further  said  She  hoped  M^  Vafsal  would  not  make 
a  long  tarry  for  she  wanted  to  go  home  —  She  also  said  Her  Children 
were  all  y®  Comfort  she  had  left  and  that  they  were  all  kind  and 
Tender  to  Her.^ 

^  Boston  Ne7osletter,  August  12,  1756.  The  event  was  handled  with  such 
matter-of-course  ease  that  not  a  ripple  of  its  excitement  is  reflected  in 
the  household  accounts  for  the  day. 

'  '  MS.  at  Mass.  Hist.  Society.     The  concourse  at  Vassall's  own  funeral  bore 
final  witness  to  his  standing  in  the  community.     See  page  44. 

'  Affidavit  in  No.  129879,  "  Early  Court  Files,"  Clerk's  Office,  Supreme  Judi- 


20  THE   CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

For  her  son  Isaac,  on  the  other  hand,  her  apparent  solicitude 
proved  sadly  deceptive.  When  she  died,  in  April  of  1747,  she 
left  a  long  and  complicated  will,  amidst  all  the  involutions  of 
which  one  painful  fact  was  only  too  clear  —  Isaac  had  been 
omitted  altogether.  Her  only  immediate  bequests  were  a  thou- 
sand pounds  to  each  of  her  three  granddaughters  and  namesakes, 
Elizabeth  Oliver,  Elizabeth  Royall,  and  Elizabeth  Vassall.  The 
gift  to  the  last  was  ^'  now  lying  in  debts  owing  to  me  from  her 
father  Henry  Vassall,  on  two  bonds,"  of  1744,  "  both  to  remain  in 
the  hands  of  the  executor  until  paid."  The  residue  —  the  estate 
was  all  in  bonds  totalling  almost  £8000  —  after  a  long  trust 
term  was  to  be  divided  between  her  daughters  Ann  Oliver  and 
Penelope  Vassall,  for  their  own  private  and  separate  uses. 

Thereupon  Isaac  Royall,  having  divided  with  Henry  Vassall 
all  the  personalty  in  which  Madame  Royall  had  only  a  life  in- 
terest, entered  into  a  solemn  compact  v;ith  him  and  Robert 
Oliver,  father  of  Elizabeth  Oliver,  to  break  the  will.  But  when 
the  appeal  was  finally  carried  up  to  the  Governor  and  Council, 
Henry  VassalPs  name  was  not  on  the  papers.  Whether  this 
was  due  to  his  absence,  or  to  some  quarrel  he  had  had  with  his 
fellow  suitors,  or  to  his  own  good  business  sense,  we  cannot  say. 
At  all  events  the  appeal  was  dismissed,  and  the  Vassalls  were 
free  to  receive  their  appointed  shares,  undiminished  either  by 
contributions  to  the  neglected  Isaac  (who  was  already  rich  enough 
in  all  conscience)  or  by  costs  of  an  expensive  suit^ 

Reminiscent  mutterings  of  this  family  tempest  evidently  per- 
sisted for  years,  especially  in  the  matter  of  the  Antigua  planta- 
tion. This,  for  some  time  after  his  marriage,  Henry  Vassall 
worked,  in  the  right  of  his  wife,  as  joint  tenant  with  its  other 
owner,  Isaac  Royall.  Though  both  were  extremely  young  for 
such  responsibilities,  their  operations  were  so  successful  that 
early  in  1747  they  extended  them  by  leasing  a  nearby  tract  of 
one  hundred  and  forty-eight  acres  from  Robert  Oliver.^  The 
next  year,  however,  they  recorded  an  agreement  to  hold  "  sundry 

cial  Court,  Boston.    Mr.  Vassall's  absence  here  implied  was  doubtless  due  to 
one  of  his  trips  to  the  West  Indies. 

*  Middlesex  Probate,  10.543,  O.S.,  and  Case  No.  129879,  "  Early  Court  Files," 
Clerk's  Office,  Supreme  Judicial  Court,  Boston. 

•  Oliver,  History  of  Antigua,  ii,  3-18. 


1915.]  COL.   HENRY   VASSALL  21 

negroes  and  homed  cattle  and  horses,  which  they  have  jointly 
purchased  since  1739,  and  put  upon  a  certain  plantation,"  no 
longer  as  joint  tenants,  but  as  tenants  in  common,  ''  so  that  no 
right  of  survivorship  be  between  them."  ^  This  may  have  been 
the  outcome  of  what  Koyall  refers  to  as  "  a  Dispute  between 
Mr.  Vassall  and  myself  in  Antigua  when  he  was  on  y®  spot  & 
I  stade  heir  [here]  waiting  for  y®  event  of  our  Scheme  [to  super- 
sede Governor  Benning  Wentworth  of  IN^ew  Hampshire]  which 
was  a  greater  damage  to  me  than  y®  former  [loss  on  sugar]."  ^ 

The  new  arrangement  made  little  practical  difference,  and  the 
Colonel,  who  seems  to  have  been  the  active  partner  throughout, 
continued  his  production  of  sugar  and  rum  ^  so  assiduously  that 
his  brother-in-law  became  jealous,  accused  him  of  monopolizing 
the  plant,  and  brought  suit  "  for  the  use  and  hire  of  the  Windmill, 
Boiling  House,  Cureing  House,  Still  house  and  other  the  Sugar 
Works  erected  and  then  being  upon  eight  Acres  and  three  quarters 
of  Land  of  the  s^  Isaac's  lying  in  the  Division  of  Pope's  head  so 
called,  in  Antigua  aforesd." 

Again,  however,  the  ColoneFs  business  cleverness  proved  more 
than  a  match  for  his  slow-witted  associate,  and  thanks  to  a  pro- 
viso he  had  inserted  in  their  agreement,  he  obtained  a  verdict  in 
his  favor  with  costs,  both  in  the  lower  court  and  on  appeal.  There- 
upon the  exasperated  Royall  actually  brought  a  writ  of  review, 
but  suffered  the  same  fate  a  third  time.^  It  is  easy  to  conclude 
that  this  fresh  wrangle  paved  the  way  for  the  partition  of  the 
whole  estate  a  few  years  later,  as  will  appear. 

Of  Henry  Vassall's  daily  life  when  at  Cambridge,  the  most 
extended  and   illuminating  details   are   to  be  gathered  from   a 

*  Middlesex  Deeds,  47/338.  Vassall  was  then  apparently  in  Antigua,  as  his 
signature  had  to  be  sworn  to  in  Boston  by  one  of  the  witnesses. 

*  Royall  to  Waldron,  Charlestown,  January  15,  1749/50.  "New  Hamp- 
shire Provincial  Papers,  vi,  67.  We  have  here  a  perfect  cameo  of  the  two 
men  —  Royall  easy-going  and  gullible,  losing  money  by  inaction;  Vassall 
energetic,  perhaps  rather  quarrelsome,  but  carrying  his  point. 

*  Of.  Aifidavit  of  Stephen  Greenleaf  in  the  appeal  on  Mrs.  Royall's  will; 
that  he  worked  for  her  many  years,  and  "  whenever  he  carried  in  his 
accots  she  asked  him  what  he  would  drink;  he  told  her  some  of  Mr  Isaac 
Royalls  Double  Still'd  Rum  And  accordingly  she  sent  for  it  &  had  it  & 
gave  it  him  and  further  Deponent  Saith  not." 

*  No.  68209,  "  Early  Court  Files,"  Clerk's  Office,  Supreme  Judicial  Court, 
Boston. 


22  THE   CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

little  expense  book  kept  by  him  during  the  years  1755-1759.^ 
As  this  volume  is  the  only  known  original  source  of  information 
on  our  subject,  it  may  bear  somewhat  extended  quotation.  The 
entries,  from  interior  evidence,  appear  to  be  in  "  old  tenor,''  a 
depreciated  currency  then  fast  disappearing,  which  passed  for 
**  lawful  money  "  at  the  rate  of  seven  and  a  half  for  one,  —  lawful 
money,  the  standard  of  value  in  New  England,  being  in  turn  worth 
only  three-quarters  of  sterling.^ 

The  high  cost  of  living  first  claims  our  attention.  A  load  of 
wood  was  worth  £2 :10,  of  hay  £7  :7 :6,  a  thousand  of  lath  £3, 
"20  locust  posts"  £9,  531/2  bushels  of  oats  £26:15:6,  8  lbs. 
\7?x  candles  £7:10,  a  yoke  of  oxen  £130,  a  hog  £16,  two  shoats 
£9:18,  the  freight  of  a  horse  from  Philadelphia  £8:5,  and  ^' six 
boat  loads  of  Mud  [  ?  manure]  £24.''  For  the  table,  butter  was 
4/6  the  pound,  "  a  loaf  of  Single  refin'd  sugar'"  £3 :5 :10,  "  fish  " 
£6  per  quintal,  geese  18/  each,  numberless  barrels  of  cider  70/ 
a  barrel,  and  Lisbon  wine  £50  per  cask.  Pork  and  Indian-meal, 
the  staples  of  Colonial  diet,  figure  steadily  of  course  on  the  menu; 
but  there  are  plenty  of  more  appetizing  items :  oysters,  herrings, 
"  mackarell,"  salmon,  sausages,  cheese,  almonds,  pears,  radishes, 
"  spinnach,"  turnips,  "  garlix,"  pease,  white  beans,  "  biscuet," 
ducks,  chickens,  turkeys,  fowls,  "  colebrands,"  quails,  teal, 
pigeons,  beef,  calveshead,  rabbits,  lamb,  veal,  venison,  and  quanti- 
ties of  "  lemmons,"  honey,  and  "  chocolat." 

For  personal  use  we  find  sundry  pairs  of  "  Lemonee  handker- 
cheifs  "  at  £24  a  pair, 

''aWigg,  £12" 

"  Earing  [sic]  «  foi*  Betsey  £2 :5  " 

"a  Hatt,  £14" 

*'  pocket  compass  &  silver  pen  £12 :7 :6  " 

"  Desk  for  Betsey  £35  " 

*  Loaned  to  the  Cambridge  Historical  Society  in  1914  by  Mrs.  Oliver 
McCowen.  (See  note,  page  8.)  It  is  4^  by  7  inches,  bound  in  limp  mar- 
bled-paper covers,  and  contains  toward  the  back  a  number  of  blank  pages. 
"  Henry  Vafsall  1753 "  is  writ  large  on  the  fly-leaf,  but  the  first  entries 
are  of  the  journey  of  1755.    See  page  26. 

■  The  net  result  of  all  which  is  that  the  prices  here  given  are  just  ten  times 
their  equivalents  in  sterling. 

*  Cf.  "  Gold  wires  for  ears  "  of  John  Vassall's  daughter  Lucy,  aged  twelve. 
Guardian's  Accounts,  Middlesex  Probate,  23339,  Old  Series. 


Kiity.-u 


,yUst. 


(^^^U>^ p.  K/i^t^, 


ly.  6 


^iT.  ^  -^Z?  J^^ 


/JA^^o^t^  ,^q  Z%^ 


o. 


A  PAGE  OF  HENRY  VASSALL'S  ACCOUNTS 
(Actual  size) 


u 


1915.]  COL.    HENEY   VASSALL  23 

"  cork  Shoes  £6  " 

"  stays  for  Eliz.  Yassall  £25 ''  [She  was  sixteen !] 

"stays  for  P[enelope].  V[assall].  £37" 

"  gave  Betsey  to  buy  a  Gown  £40  ^' 

"  Eliztb  Vassall  to  buy  a  Quilt  £25  " 

"  cash  pd.  fustian  for  her  £4 :10 '' 

''  Mending  watches  £2  :10  " 

"watch  Chain  &c  £2:5'' 

"  tape  &  Camomile  flowers  £1:16" 

"  Leather  Breeches  for  Abraham  Hasey  £12  rl5  " 

and  several  rather  unexpected  charges  for  '^  weaving  cotton  and 
linen  at  the  Manufactory."  Entries  like  the  above,  we  must 
remember,  were  only  the  small  local  expenditures.  Frequent 
references  to  ^^  imposts  of  goods  from  London  "  show  where  the 
more  important  purchases  were  made. 

An  idea  of  the  demands  upon  the  purse  of  a  prominent  man  is 
given : 

1756  March  18th  pd.  Howe  for  my  rates  in  full  £31 :7 :10 
April  26th  pd.  Tappin,  ministerial  rates  £13 :8 :3 

Hasey's  Ditto  £3  :4 :3 
August   20th  pd.   Craddock  my  Subscription  to  Dipper   [the 

organist  at  King's  Chapel]  £10:10 
Nov.   Sam'l  Whittemore,  one  third  of  my  subscription  to  y® 

[Cambridge]  meeting  house  £50 
Marratt  for  y®  Parson's  chaize  £4:10 

1757  Jan.  12th  pd.  S.  Palmer  for  my  taxes  £38:10:11 

Sept.   17th.   S.  Wliittemore  being  in  full  of  my  subscription 
to  the  meeting  house  in  Cambridge  £100 

1758  Feb.  3d.  Prentice  for  taxes  £55 :19  :0 

pd.  Sheaffe  my  Subscription  to  rice  [  ?]  £10 

Cash  p<i  at  Charitable  Society  ^  £10 :15  :6 

Ministerial  taxes  £17:5:0 

Tickets  for  Concert  £11 :5 

pd  10  tickets  Boston  Lottery  Clafs  N'*>  6  £45 

Henry  Prentice  alias  touch  £10 :2  :1 

[an  early  use  of  the  slang  term] 
Prentice,  touch  in  full  £10 :10 

^  Cf.    John   Rowe's    Diary,   October   4,    1764.      "Spent   the    eveng   at   the 
Charitable  Society gave  away  Charity  about  twenty  dollars." 


24  THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

Dec.  25th.  pd.  at  Trinity  Church  £19:10:0 
given  E[lizabeth]  0  [liver]  &  E.  V.  £3:13 
1769  April  at  Charitable  Society  £17 :17 :6 

Besides  the  slaves,  of  whom  anon,^  various  workpeople  and 
local  tradesmen  move  in  and  out  among  these  pages,  —  "  Griggs 
y®  Gardner,"  ^^  Gamage  y®  Cooper,"  ^'  Nancy  y^  manteau  maker," 
"  Welch,  Glazier,"  ''  Dutch  Betty,"  "  Curtis  the  Wheelwright," 
and  so  on.^  Abraham  Hasey,  the  college  carpenter,^  stands  out 
most  prominently  of  all.  Between  him  and  Henry  Vassall  there 
plainly  existed  some  close  though  unexplained  relationship.  For 
the  support  of  this  humble  artisan  (and  his  wife)  the  gilded  man- 
about-town  enters  constant  expenditures,  covering  food,  drink, 
clothing,  rates,  taxes,  and  pocket  money.  Even  his  father-in-law, 
Samuel  Felch  the  tailor,  was  remembered.  Payments  are  also 
made  to 

"  Jenkins  for  paper  hangings  " 

"  Colpee  for  washing  " 

'^  Mrs.  Phillips  for  nursing  " 

"  Isaac  Steams  for  cyder  " 

*  See  page  61  ef  aeq. 

'  Another  rather  famous  retainer  was  "  Miss  Molly  Hancock,  whom,  as  old 
Molly,  we  recollect  in  our  early  days.  She  had  been  employed  by  the 
court  circle,  and  her  admiration  of  the  Vassals  and  others  of  those  old- 
style  gentry  remained  unchanged  by  time.  Her  expression  was,  *  You 
could  worship  the  ground  they  trod  on.'  The  past  was  enough  for  her, 
she  did  not  desire  to  be  reconciled  to  the  present.  Her  small  old  cottage 
stood  on  Garden  Street,  a  short  distance  from  the  northeast  corner  of 
Appian  Way."  John  Holmes,  "  Harvard  Square,"  Harvard  Book,  ii,  44. 
Cf.  Paige,  History  of  Cambridge,  573. 

»  Faculty  Records,  1762  et  seq.  Abraham  Hasey  married,  January  17,  1739- 
40,  Jemima,  daughter  of  Samuel  Felch  of  Reading,  who  had  recently  come  to 
Cambridge.  She  was  bom  in  the  former  town  January  21,  1718.  Hasey  owned 
a  small  piece  of  property  on  the  Watertown  road,  adjoining  John  Vassall,  and 
was  taxed  1/9  for  it  in  1770.  After  the  death  of  his  benefactor,  however,  he 
had  to  realize  on  it.  See  Paige,  Uistorrj  of  Camhridge,  542.  Harris,  Vassalls 
of  New  England,  18.  Felch  Family  History,  pt.  ii,  ch.  vii.  Middlesex  Deeds, 
passim.     Cambridge  Court  Records,  1742-48.     Mass.  Archives,  130/430. 

Isaac  Haaey,  undoubtedly  his  son,  enjoyed,  probably  through  the  kindness 
of  Henry  Vassall,  the  college  education  (claas  of  1762)  which  the  Colonel  him- 
Bclf  never  had  the  advajitage  of.  His  lowly  social  position  is  shown  by  his 
"placing"  in  the  class,  the  last  among  fifty-one.  Nevertlieless  the  boy  had 
good  stuff  in  him,  and  after  "  proceeding  A.M."  became  the  first  minister  of 
Lebanon,  Maine.  N.  E.  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register,  xiv,  90.  Harvard 
Oraduates'  Magazine,  xxv,  190. 


1915.]  COL.   HENRY   VASSALL  25 

"  Jno.  Walland  for  a  wigg  for  Hasey  " 

"  Mrs.  Stearnes  for  her  trouble  " 

"  cash  to  pay  y^  pedlar  ^ 

"  Welch  for  mending  windows  " 

"  y®  Tinker  for  mending  sundrys  " 

"  Dedham  Girl  for  Onions '' 

"  Robcsliaw's  ^  daughter  for  washing  " 

"  Crawford  on  acct.  paving '' 

"  Mrs.  Sables  for  nursing  "  ^ 

There  is,  besides,  a  long  account  with  the  famous  Judah  Monis, 
who  varied  his  teaching  of  Hebrew  at  college  by  keeping  a  hard- 
ware emporium. 

Though  the  Colonel  had  no  son  of  his  o\^m,  a  similar  re- 
sponsibility, as  has  been  mentioned,  fell  to  him  in  1757,  when 
his  deceased  brother  Lewis's  children,  Anna,  aged  eighteen,  and 
Lewis,  aged  sixteen,  nominated  for  their  guardian  their  "  Honored 
Uncle  Henry  Vassall,  of  Cambridge,  Esquire."  They  came  from 
the  Braintree  side  of  the  family.  Since  their  father's  death 
(and  doubtless  before  it)  they  had  been  educated  and  maintained 
^^  by  the  net  proceeds  of  sugar  and  molasses  received  from  Sayers 
&  Gale,  George  Ruggles  and  others,  at  Jamaica."  ^  Lew^is  Vas- 
sall was  already  in  Harvard  College,*  as  a  member  of  the  class 
of  1760,  wherein  he  w^as  "placed  "  according  to  social  precedence 
as  number  five  on  a  list  of  twenty-seven.*^     The  accounts  give  an 

*  Cf.  Christ  Church  Building  Accounts:  "1761  Augt  pd  Robishew  digging 
the  cellar  &  13  days  work  ^  Accot  £16. — .8."  Louis  Robicheau  was  one  of  the 
Arcadian  exiles  or  "  French  neutrals  "  billeted  on  Cambridge  in  1755. 

*  The  number  of  entries  for  nursing,  at  a  period  when  Miss  Elizabeth  was 
well  out  of  her  infancy,  somehow  suggests  that  Mrs.  Vassall  was  more  or  less 
of  an  invalid. 

'  Suffolk  Probate,  57/309.    See  Harris,  VassaUs  of  New  England. 

*  Owing  to  the  inadequate  dormitory  accommodations  he  was  "  hording " 
at  Mary  Minot's,  with  his  sister  Nancy.  Betsy  "Vassall  (then  aged  fifteen) 
was  also  "  hording  "  —  probably  at  school  in  Boston  —  at  George  Craddock's. 

"  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  number  one  was  Thomas  Brattle.  Nearly 
a  year  was  consumed  in  collecting  and  weighing  the  data  for  the  "  placing  " 
of  each  class,  the  final  arbitrament  not  being  announced  until  March  or 
April  after  the  freshmen  had  entered.  The  anxious  punctilio  with  which 
the  duty  was  done  may  be  gathered  from  the  following  entry  in  the  Faculty 
Records:  "15  April  1760.  At  this  Meeting  also  Noyes's  Place  in  his  Clafs 
was  consider'd  &  as  his  Father  is  a  Justice  of  the  Peace  wch  we  did  not 
know  when  the  Clafs  was  plac'd,  it  was  aggreed  the  Place  assigned  him  [No. 


26  THE   CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

excellent  idea  of  the  outlays  for  a  pretty  young  gentleman  in 
the  best  society  of  his  day : 

Letter  of  Guardianship  for  Lewis  &  Ann  Yassall  £4:10 
[December  2,  1757] 

Lewis  to  buy  books  £4:10 

Subscription  to  Lovell  [probably  the  master  of  the  Boston 
Latin  School]  £11:5:0 

Lewis  Vassall,  cash  p*^  him  to  buy  cyder  &  for  pocket  ex- 
penses £6:15:0 

Lewis  Vassall,  cash  for  Entrance  [fee]  for  Dancing  [school]  ^ 
90/-  for  Ent:  for  fencing  100/-  for  him  to  buy  Corks 
£2 :5 :0 

Lewis  Vassall,  to  buy  a  horace  &  for  Pocket  Expenses  £8 :5 

Lewis  Vassall,  pair  of  pumps  for  him  £3 :5  :0 

Lewis  Vassall,  Cash  pd.  Mefsrs  Gould  for  Holland  &  Cam- 
brick  for  his  Shirts,  £56:17:6 

This  little  book,  moreover,  opens  out  a  horizon  wider  than  that 
of  Cambridge,  or  even  of  Boston.  (To  reach  the  latter,  by  the 
way,  there  are  various  entries  of  '^  ferriage,"  showing  that  even 
the  possessors  of  chariots  did  not  always  care  for  the  villainoua 
eight-mile  road  to  the  metropolis.)  Henry  Vassall  travelled  ex- 
tensively. Sometimes  the  trips  were  short,  as  in  May,  1759, 
a  "journey  to  Plymouth  £14:10."  In  October  of  1756  we  find 
the  "  Expenses  of  Journey  at,  to  &  from  Rhode  Island  £36,"  and 
a  similar  entry  just  a  year  later. ^  In  March  and  April  of  1755 
—  the  earliest  entries  in  the  book  —  are  the  road-house  charges  of 

16]  was  too  low,  &  after  the  Matter  was  debated  it  waa  voted  that  his 
Place  shou'd  be  between  Henshaw  &  Angler  [i.e.,  No.  8]." 

*  Cf.  the  guardianship  accounts  for  Lucy  Vassall,  daughter  of  John  Jr.: 

"  1758  June  19  Pd.  Entrance  at  Dancing  School  12/- Dec.  9  Ephraim 

Turner  14  years  Dancing  16/-"  (Middlesex  Probate,  23339,  Old  Series.)  Such 
social  advantages  were  then  as  now  sought  in  Boston,  though  it  is  doubtful 
if  the  Harvard  undergraduates  frequented  them  as  largely  as  at  present. 
Some  years  later,  in  1766,  the  Corporation  Records  mention  that  "  a  dancing 
school  hath  lately  been  open'd  in  Cambridge  &  divers  Scholars  of  this  Houfe 
have  attended  it,  without  Leave  from  the  Government  of  the  College,"  a 
condition  of  things  that  was  adjudged  "  of  bad  Consequence,"  so  that  the 
"  Disapprobation  "  of  the  president  and  fellows  was  to  be  signified  to  the 
selectmen,  —  after  which,  it  is  to  be  supposed,  the  local  cult  of  Terpsichore 
languished. 

'  Probably  business  trips,  Newport  being  the  New  York  City  of  Colonial 
commerce. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   YASSALL  27 

a  trip,  probably  made  on  horseback,  through  Greenwich,  Charles- 
town,  "  Stoneington,"  and  Groton  to  New  London,  where  the 
rider  "  pd  y®  N.  London  Pilot  £27  "  and  evidently  crossed  the 
Sound.  Then  ^^  p^  at  y®  fire  place  on  Long  Island  at  Miller's 
£14:10,"  and  on  through  "  S.  Hampton,"  ''  river  head,"  "  [Mr.] 
Blidenburgh  ^  at  Smith  town,"  Hampstead,  Jamaica,  "  Flatt 
bush,"  "  ye  Narrows,"  "  Statten  Island,"  "  Eliz*^  town,"  Bruns- 
wick, '^  Prince  town,"  and  **  Trentown  "  to  Bristol.  The  trip,  to 
this  point  (where  the  record  ceases),  took  eleven  days. 

His  business  interests  in  the  West  Indies  carried  him  even 
farther  afield.  As  has  been  said,  his  wife's  plantation  at  Antigua 
necessitated  trips  to  that  island  at  frequent  intervals.  One  such 
voyage  was  made  in  1763.^  Again  on  May  19,  1765,  John 
Rowe  notes :  "  Col.  Henry  Vassall  sailed  this  afternoon  in  Capt. 
Phillips  for  Antigua."  ^  His  own  Jamaica  property,  too,  de- 
manded personal  attention.  Though  he  early  sold  some  of  his 
estates  there,  he  long  managed  to  extract  a  good  deal  of  revenue 
from  that  locality.^  One  of  his  journeys  thither  crops  up  some- 
what oddly  among  the  records  of  the  college  with  which  he  had 
no  real  afiiliations.  At  a  meeting  of  the  president  and  fellows, 
December  14,  1756: 

Vafsall,  senr  ^  (A  senior  sophister)  having  some  considerable  Dif- 
ficulties, about  the  Eents  of  his  Estate  at  Jamaica  &  desiring  Leave 
to  go  thither  to  look  after  Them,   His  Guardian  also  the  Lieut. 

*  I  am  informed  that  the  name  of  Blidenburgh  is  still  honorably  represented 
at  Smithtown.  A  little  cluster  of  houses  at  a  landing  on  the  extreme  eastern 
tip  of  Long  Island  is  still  known  as  Fire  Place. 

"  See  page  36.  On  this  visit  we  catch  sight  of  bim  attending  the  auction 
sale  of  the  "  furniture  &c  of  John  Watkins  Esq.  Mr  in  Chancery  deed  "  and 
bidding  in  "A  Mahogany  shaving  stand  £4.18.0"  while  his  friend  Thomas 
Oliver  went  the  whole  figure  and  spent  £J)00  on  slaves,  silver,  and  pictures. 
Antigua  records  for  1763,  communicated  by  Vere  L.  Oliver,  Esq. 

^  Diary,  82.    Concerning  this  voyage  see  page  40. 

*  From  entries  in  the  back  of  the  little  account  book  it  appears  that  in 
1758  he  received  a  single  remittance  from  George  Euggles  of  £1000  sterling 
"on  Acc't  of  J.  V's  Estate"  and  another  of  £100  "on  Acc't  of  Top  Hill 
Estate."  Cf.  the  statement  of  his  brother  William  after  the  Revolution: 
"  I  spent  £50,000  stg.  in  the  United  States,  every  farthing  of  which  I 
received  from  my  Jamaica  estate."  Mass.  Hist.  8oo.  Collections,  Temple 
Papers,  ii,  105. 

°  I.e.,  John  Vassall,  '57,  thus  distinguished  because  Lewis  Vassall,  '60,  had 
just  entered  college. 


23  THE   CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

Governr,   [Spencer  Phips]  backing  thofe  his  Desires,  the  sd  Affair 
now  came  under  our  Consideration. 

Inasmuch  then,  as  the  s^  VafsalFs  Unckle,  Coll<^  Vafsall  of  this 
TowTi,  is  going  to  Jamaica  &  will  take  him  under  his  Care,  &  also 
endeavour  to  assist  Him  in  the  Businefs  he  goes  upon.  It  was  now 
Voted,  That  the  s^  Vafsall  be  allow'd  to  proceed  on  a  Voyage  to 
Jamaica,  for  the  Ends  affores^.  But  that  he  have  not  Liberty,  to 
be  absent  from  the  College  more  than  four  Months,  but  that  He 
be  here  to  attend  his  Businefs  at  the  College,  on  or  before  the  first 
Day  of  May  next.^ 

Yet  why  drag  in  business  interests  when  one  speaks  of  the 
Cambridge  Loyalists?  The  serious  affairs  that  obviously  must 
have  engaged  some  portion  of  their  time  and  energy  are  in- 
variably obscured  in  popular  fancy  by  the  more  pictui'esque 
side  of  their  life,  that  alone  seems  to  be  remembered  to-day.  For 
good  or  ill  we  always  envisage  them,  as  it  were,  through  the 
golden,  lilac-scented  haze  of  a  perpetual  June.  Hardly  had  they 
fled  from  their  lovely  villas  before  a  new  arrival  in  one  of  them, 
echoing  the  envious  gossip  she  heard  around  her,  began  the  tra- 
dition by  writing  that  "  the  owners  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
assembling  every  afternoon  in  one  or  another  of  these  houses 
and  of  diverting  themselves  with  music  or  dancing,  and  lived 
in  affluence,  in  good  humor  and  without  care."  ^     That  they 

*  "  Collej^e  Book  No.  7,"  Harvard  Corporation  Records.  It  is  to  be  ob- 
served that  such  ail  aT>sence  from  college  was  plainly  a  very  serious  matter, 
granted  only  by  the  highest  authority  of  the  University,  and  under  pres- 
sure from  the  most  influential  sources,  to  a  student  whose  wealth  and 
position  entitled  him  to  be  "  placed  "  second  in  his  class. 

This  voyage  to  Jamaica  explains  a  hiatus  in  the  little  account  book  from 
February  11  to  September  15,  1757. 

'  Letters  of  Madame  Riedcsel,  195.  This,  the  stock  quotation  when  speak- 
ing of  the  Cambridge  Loyalists,  has  probably  done  more  than  any  other 
to  settle  their  reputation  with  the  sons  of  the  Puritans.  The  pride  which 
these  urbane  gentry  took  in  their  *'  good  humour "  is  as  curious  as  the 
disfavor  with  which  the  rest  of  the  community  re^rded  it.  Their  rector 
plumed  himself  on  the  fact  that  "  the  people  of  our  communion  are  generally 
frank,  open,  sincere  .  .  .  their  actions  are  social,  generous  and  free.  There 
is  likewise  among  them  a  politeness  and  elegance  which  to  a  censorious  eye 
may  look  worldly  and  voluptuous."  (Apthorp,  A  Review,  etc.,  50.)  To  tlie 
eye  of  the  redoubtable  Jonathan  Mayhew  the  Church  of  England  men  appeared 
"  often  exceedingly  loose,  profligate,  vain  and  censorious,"  and  their  clergy 
disgraced  themselves  by  "  a  pretty  gay,  debonair  and  jovial  coimtenance." 
Ohservations,  etc.,  74. 


1915.]  COL.    HENEY   VASSALL  29 

managed  to  extract  far  more  pleasure  out  of  existence  than  their 
more  serious-minded  neighbors  is  indisputable.  "Notwithstand- 
ing plays  and  such  like  diversions  do  not  obtain  here,"  wrote  a 
visitor  to  Boston  about  the  time  of  Henry  VassalFs  marriage, 
"  they  don't  seem  to  be  dispirited  nor  moped  for  want  of  them ; 
for  both  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  dress  and  appear  as  gay,  in 
common,  as  courtiers  in  England  on  a  coronation  or  birthday. 
And  the  ladies  here  visit,  drink  tea,  and  indulge  every  little 
piece  of  gentility  to  the  height  of  the  mode,  and  neglect  the 
affairs  of  their  families  with  as  good  grace  as  the  finest  ladies 
in  London."  ^  A  favorite  form  of  recreation  was  al  fresco  en- 
tertainments, or  in  winter  convivial  indoor  parties,  at  the  famous 
hostelries  scattered  through  the  beautiful  country  about  Boston. 
The  account  book  gives  sundry  hints  of  such  excursions : 

1756  April  22nd.  p^  y®  reckns  at  Larnards  £20.11.4 

May  10th.  p<^  M^^  Coolidge  tavern  keepers  wife  in  full  £2.10 
August  6th.  Expences  at  the  Castle  &c.  £2.17.6 
Sep.  21  fishing  lines  &  hooks  £1.7 

1757  Dec.  20th.  p^  at  Gratons  ^  £4.15 
Dec.  23d  Sundrys  at  Smiths  £4.10 

1758  May  13th  Expences  at  Dracut  £17.5 
June  29th  p^  at  Natick  £4.10 

1759  Apr.  6  Cash  p^  at  Watertown  £8. 

The  Colonel's  friend,  John  Rowe,  in  his  Diary  a  few  years  later, 
gives  notes  of  a  more  extended  and  social  nature.     Thus: 

1766  Sep.  23  I  went  to  Fresh  Pond  &  din'd  there  on  Turtle  with 
Henry  Vassall  &  wife  &  (a  large  company) 

A  frequent  member  of  these  gatherings,  and  a  close  intimate 
of  the  family,  was  a  certain  ill-defined  cosmopolite,  one  Michael 
TroUett,  a  French  Swiss,  last  hailing  from  Dutch  Guiana,  rich 

*  Bennett,  "History  of  New  England,"  (1740)  Mass.  Hist.  8oc.  Proceed- 
ings, 1860,  125.  The  same  conditions  were  noted  by  a  guest  of  the  Colonel's 
ten  years  later :  "  The  People  of  Boston  dress  very  genteel  &  In  my  Opinion 
both  men  &  Women  are  too  Expensive  in  that  respect."  Some  Cursory  Re- 
marks made  by  James  Birket,  etc.  1150. 

'  John  Greaton  kept  "  The  Greyhound "  at  Roxbury.  Coolidge's  tavern 
was  at  "  Watertown  Bridge."  See  Pierce's  delightful  essay  on  the  amuse- 
ments of  Colonial  Boston  in  his  introduction  to  Letters  and  Diary  of  John 
Rowe.    For  Smith's  at  Watertown  see  page  31. 


30  THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

and  gouty,  trying  in  vain  to  get  a  scapegrace  son  througli  Har- 
vard, and  finally  disappearing  in  the  direction  of  Lancaster.^ 

*  "  Michael  Trollet  Esqr  Native  of  Geneva  of  French  Extract  deceas'd 
Sunday  Morning  July  17tli.  1774."  (Xourse,  Lancaster  Register,  160.)  He 
is  almost  always  mentioned  in  connection  with  Henry  Vassall;  Rowe  notes 
with  surprise,  "  1765,  Feb.  16,  Went  to  see  Mr.  Trollet  who  I  found  alone." 
He  owned  no  real  estate  in  Cambridge,  although  his  personal  taxes  were 
almost  as  high  as  Vassall's  in  1770.  (Mass.  Archives,  130/430,  where  the 
name  is  cjitered  as  "  Truelatt.")  He  had  the  gout  as  early  as  1759,  and  grad- 
ually attained  some  celebrity  as  a  martyr  in  the  cause  of  liigh  living.  "  Gouty 
Trollet  is  going  to  Live  at  Lancaster,"  wrote  the  second  rector  of  Christ 
Cliurch,  Winwood  Serjeant,  to  his  mother-in-law,  Mrs.  Browne,  October  7, 
1772. 

His  son,  Michael  James  Trollett,  entered  Harvard  from  "  Surrinam,"  at 
the  age  of  sixteen  in  1759,  ranking  socially  number  18  out  of  42.  His 
hectic  career  may  be  traced  in  the  Faculty  Records.  In  March,  1760,  he 
was  fined  6/3  for  five  days'  absence,  and  in  April,  2/6  for  two  days.  In 
June  he  was  away  "  a  Week  and  5  Dales,"  and  was  mulcted  16/3.  In 
July,  "  Agreed  also  that  Trollett  be  punishd  with  a  pecuniary  Mulct  for 
going  out  of  Town  wthout  Leave  five  several  Times  according  to  the  College 
Law  provided  in  That  Case  viz  Twelve  Shillings  &  6(1  @  2/6  ^  Time. 
That  Trollet  also  for  two  very  great  Crimes,  One  for  refusing  more  than 
once  to  come  to  his  Tutr  when  sent  for.  The  other,  For  greatly  neglecting 
his  College  Exercises  notwithstanding  the  pecuniary  Mulcts  inflicted  by  his 
Tutr:  be  punish'd  as  ye  College  law  in  case  directs  viz  by  Degradation,  viz. 
Ten  places  in  his  Clafs  and  that  henceforth  he  take  his  place  between 
Putnam  junr  &  Senr  Furthermore  wth  Respect  to  Trollett.  Collo  Brattle 
having  made  complaint  to  us,  That  the  sd  Trollet  grofsly  insulted  his 
train'd  Compa  wh  under  Arms,  by  firing  a  Squib  or  Serpent  among  their 
firelocks  when  loaded  &  primed  &  all  groimded,  wrby  he  great  [ly]  en- 
dangered the  limbs  @  least  of  the  Souldiers  &  Spectators;  yet  he  (Collo 
Brattle)  having  said,  That  he  wou'd  not  desire  the'  said  Trollett  sliou'd 
be  animadverted  upon  by  us;  Provided  he  wou'd  give  Satisfaction  to  him 
for  that  his  OfTense,  Therefore  agreed,  that  before  we  consider  that  his 
AfTair,  He  (Trollet)  shou'd  have  Time  &  Opportunity  given  him  wherein  to 
endeavr  to  make  the  sd  Collo  Brattle  a  proper  Satisfaction.  The  Preset 
read  to  Trollet  the  above  vote  referring  to  Cbllo  Brattle  immediately  after 
this  Meeting.  —  The  above  Vote  with  respect  to  Trollett's  degradation  was 
executed  in  the  Chapel  July  9  imediately  after  Morning  Prayer."  In 
September,  "  Voted  That  Palmer  ...  &  Trollet,  be  punish'd  one  shilling 
&  6d  each,  for  making  tumultuous  &  indecent  noises,  in  the  College  .  .  . 
that  they  be  all  of  ym  sent  for  before  us  (excepting  Trollet  who  was  not 
in  Town,  &  whose  punishmt  must  tlierefore  be  defcrr'd  to  some  other  Time) 
.  .  .  ."  In  October,  "  That  Hill  senr  &  Trollett  be  punish'd  one  Shilling  & 
6d  Each  for  making  tumultuous  &  indecent  Noises  in  the  College.  And 
that  for  an  Jnsult  made  ujwn  Mr.  Thayer  one  of  the  Tutrs  of  this  Houfe, 
They  both  be  publicly  admonish'd  &  Degraded,  viz.  Hill  fourteen  Places 
in  his  Clafs  &  take  his  Place  henceforth  between,  Adams  and  Hunts  present 
Place.  And  that  Trollet  be  degraded  to  the  lowest  place  in  his  Clafs.  — 
The  above  Vote  executed  Oct.   8   imediately  after  morning  Prayers."     The 


1915.]  COL.   HENKY   VASSALL  31 

Rowe  records,  for  instance : 

1766  Sep.  18  I  went  to  Mr.  Smith's  Farm  at  Watertown  M"-  Fes- 
sendens  Brother  &  dined  there  with  M"^  James  Smith  &  wife  M"" 
Murray  &  wife,  Two  M''^  Belchers  M""  Inman,  M""  Walter  Colo 
Henry  Vassall  &  wife  M"*  Trollet,  W^  Cutler  ^  M"*  J.  Amiel  &  mfe  & 
Miss  Chrissy,  Cap^  Buntin  &  Two  French  Gentlemen  from  Guadalope. 

1767  June  8.  Called  on  Henry  Vassall  &  M"^  Trollet,  spent  an  hour 
with  them  &  then  Cap*  Ingram  &  I  went  to  Freshpond  a  fishng.  .  .  . 

These  whiffs  of  a  foreign  entourage  are  very  characteristic  of 

the  atmosphere  which  envelops  the  Vassalls  in  a  semi-romantic 

glamour.    Passing  and  repassing,  with  a  freedom  unknown  to-day, 

between   the   languorous   luxury  of  their   southern   islands    and 

the  prosaic  austerity  of  their  northern  surroundings,   they  not 

unnaturally  chose   their   cronies    from    among   the    ingratiating 

noblesse  of  the  Caribbean,  the  swarthy  grandees  of  the  Spanish 

Main,  who  through  business  or  pleasure  alternated  as  their  hosts 

on  the  enchanted  shores  of  the  Antilles  and  their  guests  in  sedate 

Massachusetts.^     For  the  New  England  gentry,  even  in  the  best 

Quarter  Bill  Book  for  this  period  shows  that  Trollett's  fines,  beginning 
with  1/6  in  the  first  quarter  of  1759,  mounted  to  the  shocking  sura  of 
£2.6.9  by  the  fourth  —  far  the  largest  of  the  whole  college.  In  the  third 
quarter  of  his  sophomore  year  he  abruptly  disappears,  and  the  Faculty 
Records  contain  the  final  note :  "  Memo  Trollet  gave  up  his  Chamber,  Novr 
7,  1760." 

^  Mrs.  Anna  Cutler  figures  frequently  in  the  later  records  of  the  Vassall 
household,  —  at  the  dinner-table,  on  pleasure  parties,  as  witness  to  documents, 
etc.  She  was  the  wife  of  Captain  Ebenezer  Cutler,  long  the  Town  Clerk  of  Lin- 
coln. Her  daughter  Sarah  married  in  1764  Samuel  Hill,  a  Cambridge  carpen- 
ter with  an  unfortunate  reputation  for  shiftlessness.  The  Cutlers  on  the  other 
hand,  though  in  reduced  circumstances,  were  of  eminent  respecta]>ility,  and 
were  somewhat  notable  managers;  and  as  Mrs.  Cutler  was  considerably  older 
than  Mrs.  Vassall  it  seems  likely  that  she  Avas  employed  as  a  sort  of  upper- 
housekeeper,  or  perhaps  as  duenna  for  Miss  Elizabeth.  See  Middlesex  Probate, 
5502  and  5510,  Old  Series.  Cutler  Memorial,  33.  Paige,  History  of  Cam- 
bridge, 585. 

*  A  delicate  sub-tropical  aroma  exhales  even  now  from  the  wills  and  in- 
ventories of  the  family  and  their  connections,  > —  a  seductive  blend  of 
coffee  and  spice  and  sugar,  slaves  and  molasses  and  rum  —  especially  rum. 
While  the  bone  and  sinew  of  New  England  were  hard  at  work  buying  and 
selling,  importing  and  smuggling  these  indispensables,  the  actual  producers 
thereof  were  lolling  in  their  splendid  town  and  country  houses,  satisfying 
tliemselves  with  occasional  jaunts  to  oversee  their  overseers.  This  West 
Indian  influence  on  our  local  records  is  typically  illustrated  by  the  Vassalls. 
Old  Leonard  entailed  on  his  son  Lewis  "  my  Plantation  and  Sugarwork  in 
Luana,   in  the  parish   of   St.   Elizabeth's  in  Jamaica,"   and  devised  to  his 


32  THE   CAMBEIDGE   HISTOEICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

social  life  of  Boston,  the  Colonel  did  not  seem  to  care  overmuch. 
Possibly  he  did  not  feel  altogether  at  home  among  them.  Ex)we, 
in  those  long-drawn  lists  of  guests  at  dinners,  club  meetings,  and 
public  functions,  never  mentions  him  as  appearing  in  town, 
except  semi-occasionally  at  his  brother  William's.  Around  his 
own  mahogany  tree,  nevertheless,  he  delighted  to  gather  select 
coteries,  not  forgetting  the  young  friends  of  Miss  Elizabeth.    E.  g. 

1765,  February  12,  Wednesday.  Went  to  Cambridge  this  forenoon  & 
dind  at  Henry  Vafsalls  with  him  &  M^'^.  Vafsall  M^  Jnman  lliis 
Bettsy  Vafsall  Mifs  Pen:  Winslow  The  Eev^  M''  Griffiths  &  M^'» 
Cutler    also  M"^^  Eow  &  young  Edw^  Winslow  ^ 

We  may  thus  fancy  him  engrossed  and  satisfied  with  the  charmed 
inner  circle  of  Cambridge,  extending  his  own  princely  hospitality 
to  relatives,  intimates,  and  distinguished  visitors. 

Typical,  we  may  be  sure,  was  the  welcome  accorded  to  James 
Birket,  a  wealthy  Antiguan  who  arrived  in  Boston  during  Sep- 
tember, 1750,  on  a  tour  through  New  England.  Although  fur- 
nished with  letters  of  introduction  to  a  number  of  prominent 
residents,  he  almost  immediately  selected  the  most  congenial 
among  them  and  "  went  home  w*^  H  Vassels  to  Cambridge  in  his 
Chariot."  At  the  house  he  found  more  guests  —  ^'  Old  Parson 
Jn^  Chickly  ^  &  his  wife  come  from  Providence    In  a  Chair  47 

son  William  an  interest  in  another  "  on  Green  Island  River,  near  Orange 
Bay  in  the  Parish  of  Hannover,  at  the  West  end  of  Jamaica  and  Joyning 
the  Plantation  I  have  given  by  Deed  unto  my  Son  John  "  ( apparently  "  on 
the  Barquadier  black  river  in  the  Island  of  Jamaica").  John  Jr.  owned 
"  Newfound  River  Plantation  in  Jamaica."  A  cousin,  Florentius  Vassall, 
had  "  several  plantations  in  the  parish  of  Westmoreland,  Jamaica,  known 
as  Friendship,  Greenwich  and  Sweet  River."  Other  relatives  owned  a  good 
part  of  Barbados.  The  Royall  property  in  Antigua  has  been  described. 
The  wife  of  young  Isaac  Royall  inherited  "  Lands  and  Plantations  called 
Fairfield  lying  in  Commewine  River  in  the  Province  of  Surinam."  Of 
young  John  Vassall's  sisters,  Lucy  married  John  Lavicount,  the  heir  of 
"  Long  Lane,  Delaps  &  Windward  in  St.  Peter's  Parish,  Antigua,"  while 
Elizabeth  espoused  Thomas  Oliver  from  the  same  island.  Henry's  sister 
Susanna  married  George  Ruggles,  a  wealthy  merchant  of  Jamaica.  All 
these  fine  gentlemen  resided  in  Cambridge  for  longer  or  shorter  intervals. 

*  MS.  of  Rowe's  Diary  at  Mass.  Hist.  Society.  Vassall's  well-known  hospi- 
tality to  the  clergy  was  wofully  abused  by  the  "  Rev.  Mr.  Griffiths."  1  l.e 
fellow  had  just  arrived  as  successor  to  East  Apthorp  in  the  rectorship  of 
Christ  Church,  but  turned  out  an  arrant  impostor  and  thief  named  Mieux. 

'  The  indomitable  John  Chcckley,  now  nearing  the  end  of  his  pilgrimage, 
but  a  notable  figure  twenty-five  years  before  in  the  early  stages  of  the  great 


I 


1915.]  COL.   HENEY   VASSALL  33 

Miles."  Some  ten  days  were  spent  in  dining,  sight-seeing,  and 
excursions,  along  precisely  the  same  lines  still  employed  by  Cam- 
bridge hosts: 

Sept.  10.    Henry  Vassels  &  Self  went  in  his  Chace  to  Dorchester  to 
dine  with  Cole^  Eob*  Oliver  being  9  Miles  Eeturned  in  the  Evening. 
11th.    We  went  with  a  Couple  of  Country  Clergymen,  Conducted  by 
Hancock  one  of  the  Tutors  to  See  the  College  at  Cambridge  .  .  . 
After  our  return  from  the  Colledg  dined  with  H  Vassels. 
12th.     H.  Vassels,  One  Ellerey,^  Old  Chickley  And  myself  Went  in 

2  Chases  to  Castle  William,  wliich  Stands  upon  an  Island  in  the  Bay 

3  Miles  below  Boston  and  12  from  Cambridge  where  we  dined  with 
the  Captain  Chaplain  &C  in  the  Great  Hall 

Upon  leaving,  however,  he  received  an  attention  which  few  modem 
hosts  would  have  either  the  time  or  the  money  to  bestow. 

18th.  Set  out  for  Ehode  Island,  H.  Vassels  And  his  Wife,  Mary 
Phipps  The  Lieu*  Gov^»  Daughter  w*^  Two  Servants  &C  To  Accom- 
pany me  So  far  on  my  Journey. 

Under  the  tutelage  of  this  pleasant  party  he  spent  a  week  visiting 
and  inspecting  Providence  and  IN^ewport.  Finally,  with  obvious 
regret,  he  notes: 

24th.  This  Morning  I  Accompany'd  my  good  friends  Henry  Vassala 
&  his  Spouse  And  Mary  Phips  on  their  return  back  as  far  as  Bristol 
ferry  which  is  12  Miles  where  I  took  leave  of  'em.^ 

Some  of  the  last  of  the  Colonel's  entertainments  were  those 
connected  with  the  wedding  of  his  daughter  Elizabeth  in  1768. 
The  lucky  man  was  Dr.  Charles  Russell  of  Charlestown.^    After 

"Episcopal  Controversy."  Henry  VassalFs  churchmanBhip  was  of  the  prac- 
tical kind  that  always  kept  open  house  for  the  cloth. 

*  Probably  the  second  husband  of  Lucy,  widow  of  the  Colonel's  brother  John, 
now  deceased. 

"  Some  Cursory  Remarks  made  hi/  James  Birket  in  his  Voyage  to  "N.  America 
It 50-51.  Concerning  Cambridge  itself,  he  observes :  "  The  Town  of  Cambridgts 
is  well  Scituated  .  .  .  but  has  no  trade  (being  too  Near  to  Boston)  the  In- 
habitants depends  Chiefly  on  their  Courts  &C  being  the  Chiefe  of  a  County 
And  the  Colledge  &C  There  are  Some  good  homes  here  and  the  town  is  laid 
out  very  Regular,  but  for  want  of  trade  One  4th  part  of  it  is  not  built."  In  an 
appended  list  of  his  letters  of  introduction  he  enters  "  one  for  Henry  Vassals 
Esqr  my  true  fr'd." 

•  "  1768,  February  17.     I  paid  a  visit  to  Colo.  Henry  Vassall  &  Family 


34  THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

graduating  from  Harvard  in  1757  and  studying  medicine  in 
England  and  Scotland  —  a  rare  privilege  in  those  days  —  he 
had  set  up  in  practice  at  Lincoln,  on  an  estate  inherited  from 
his  uncle,  Judge  Russell.  The  bride  was  one  of  that  fair  bevy 
of  patrician  maidens  whom  a  later  chronicler  who  loved  his  "  old  " 
Cambridge  has  described  as  sympathetically  as  if  he  himself  had 
felt  their  charm.  "  They  blend  prettily  the  courtly  elegance 
which  they  emulate,  with  the  simplicity  of  manner  that  is  their 
provincial  birthright.  Though  conforming  to  the  general  habits 
of  ISTew  England,  they  are  free  from  the  more  rigorous  restraints 
of  Puritanism.  Their  holiday  life  is  to  be  a  short  one.  We  find 
plenty  of  beauty,  but  no  familiar  countenances  in  that  group. 
They  have  left  no  copies  here  by  which  to  recognize  them.  Not 
many  years  hence  those  soft  eyes  will  look  westward  through 
exiles'  tears  to  the  home  that  is  to  know  them  no  more.  Some 
of  those  dainty  hands  must  break  the  bitter  bread  of  dependence, 
and  some  prepare  the  scanty  meal  of  poverty."  ^  Let  us  hope  that 
the  young  couple  had  a  merry  honeymoon,  unshadowed  by  the 
fates  that  were  soon  to  overtake  them. 

Unfortunately  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  these  sumptuous 
festivities  in  the  Vassall  house  were  frequently  accompanied  by 
a  good  deal  of  dissipation.  Gaming  for  high  stakes  was  a  well- 
known  family  failing.  The  ColoneFs  brother  William  was  left 
a  handsome  estate  by  his  father's  will  ^'  upon  this  special  Proviso 
and  Condition,  that  he  go  before  two  Magistrates  ....  and 
solemnly  make  oath  that  for  the  future  he  will  not  play  any 
Game  whatsoever  to  the  value  of  20  s.  at  any  one  time."  ^  His 
other  brother  John,  who  burned  himself  out  at  the  early  age  of 
thirty-four,  was  described  as  "  giving  himself  up  to  pleasure  " 
and  "  spending  his  money  in  pleasures,"  both  in  the  new  world 
and  the  old.^  Only  too  accurately,  it  is  to  be  feared,  did  the 
facetious  Mr.  Jabez  Fitch,  on  observing,  in  1775,  the  family 
crest  of  the  goblet  and  the  sun,  deduce  that  the  bearers  thereof 

where  I  fomid  Dr  RusbcII  who  was  married  to  Miss  Betty  on  Monday  Last." 
John  Rowe,  Diary. 

•  John  Holmes,  "  Harvard  Square,"  Harvard  Book,  ii,  41. 

•  Suffolk  Probate,  33/210. 

•  Waldron  to  Royall,  Portsmouth,  1747  and  1748.  New  Hampshire  Prov. 
Papers,  vi,  43,  45,  etc.  It  is  only  fair  to  state,  per  contra,  that  the  little 
account  book  contains  no  entries  that  can  be  identified  as  losses  at  play. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  35 

were  accustomed  to  drink  wine  by  daylight.^  Indeed  the  only 
"  pen  picture  "  that  we  have  of  our  hero  is  a  sadly  unfavorable 
one.  It  is  attributed  to  the  old  family  slave  Darby,  of  whom 
more  hereafter.^    According  to  his  recollections  many  years  later, 

"  Col.  Henry  Vassall  was  a  very  wicked  man.  It  was  common 
remark  that  he  was  '  the  Devil.'  He  was  a  gamester  and  spent 
a  great  deal  of  money  in  cards  and  lived  at  the  rate  of  ^  seven 
years  in  three,'  and  managed  to  run  out  nearly  all  his  property ; 
so  that  Old  Madam  when  she  came  back  after  the  peace  was 
very  poor.  He  was  a  severe  and  tart  master  to  his  people;  and 
when  he  was  dying  and  asked  his  servants  to  pray  for  him,  they; 
answered  that  he  might  pray  for  himself.''  ^ 

Biassed  and  overdrawn  as  we  may  hope  this  description  to  be 
—  especially  as  coming  from  one  who  declared  to  his  dying 
day  that  George  Washington  himself  was  "  no  gentleman  "  *  — 
yet  it  certainly  receives  ample  confirmation  in  one  respect.  Adroit 
as  he  seems  to  have  been  in  business  matters,  Henry  Vassall's 
pecuniary  position  was  apparently  permanently  precarious.     His 

though  there  are  a  few  purchases  of  the  lottery  tickets  that  were  then 
BO  generally  patronized. 

^  Mass.  Hist.  800.  Proceedings,  2d  Series,  ix,  76.  The  goblet  or  vase,  Tas, 
surmounted  by  the  sun,  Sol,  formed  one  of  those  punning  or  "  canting " 
devices  so  much  affected  by  the  English  heralds  whenever  the  bearer's  name 
could  be  tortured  into  such  shape.  The  most  conspicuous  and  arrogant  use 
of  the  device  still  remaining  is  to  be  seen  on  the  cenotaph  of  John  Vassall, 
St.,  —  the  occasion  of  Fitch's  deduction.  This,  one  of  the  familiar  "  table- 
shaped  "  tombs,  displays  no  inscription  whatever  except  the  above  emblems. 
It  was  to  this  that  O.  W.  Holmes  referred  in  his  Camhridge  Churchyard: 

"  Or  gaze  upon  yon  pillared  stone, 

The  empty  urn  of  pride; 
There  stand  the  Goblet  and  the  Sun  — 

What  need  of  more  beside? 
Where  lives  the  memory  of  the  dead 

"Who  made  their  tomb  a  toy? 
Whose  ashes  press  that  nameless  bed? 

Go,  ask  the  village  boy." 

The  pride  in  these  armorials  seems  to  have  been  a  family  characteristic. 
Thus  we  find  Miss  Lucy,  daughter  of  John  Jr.,  at  the  age  of  fifteen  employ- 
ing John  Gore  for  "  drawing  a  Coat  of  Arms,"  "  painting  the  arms,"  and 
"  Framing  &  Glazing  Do."    ( 1763-1764) .    Middlesex  Probate,  23339,  Old  Series. 

^  See  page  74  et  seq. 

'  MS.  notes  by  Dr.  N.  Hoppin  circa  1855,  in  Christ  Church  papers. 

*  See  page  75. 


36  THE  CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

very  start  in  life  was  far  less  generous  than  that  given  his 
brothers.  He  was  only  a  younger  son,  and  manifestly  not  a  great 
favorite  with  his  father.^  When  old  Leonard  died  in  1737  it 
was  found  that  the  principal  provision  made  for  the  lad  in  the  will 
was  the  transfer  of  £3000  Jamaica  currency  owing  to  the  testator 
from  his  other  son  John.  To  suggest  that  this  was  one  reason 
for  Henry's  leaving  the  island  and  seeking  the  well-stocked  matri- 
monial market  of  Boston  may  be  ungallant;  but  it  must  be 
admitted  that  his  courtship  of  Penelope  Royall  began  shortly 
after  she  had  become  an  heiress  in  her  own  right.  Even  this 
advantageous  match  did  not  steer  him  clear  of  financial  shoals. 
He  began  to  be  in  straits  for  ready  money  as  early  as  1744,  when, 
as  we  have  seen,  he  borrowed  £1000  from  his  mother-in-law, 
Madame  Royall.  The  next  year,  like  a  true  man  of  fashion,  he 
owed  Billings  Bros.,  his  Boston  tailors,  no  less  than  £621.19, 
and  became  so  deeply  embarrassed  that  he  sold  some  of  his 
Jamaica  property  to  his  brother  John,  who  as  a  part  of  the  con- 
sideration agreed  to  discharge  the  above  debt,  along  (presumably) 
with  many  others. 

This  transaction,  we  may  observe  in  passing,  was  the  indirect 
cause  of  preserving  to  us  the  only  known  first-hand  statement  of 
our  hero  —  giving  us  a  glimpse  of  his  mode  of  life  and  manner 
of  doing  business,  as  well  as  of  his  last  sickness.  In  John's  settle- 
ment with  Billings  a  question  arose  as  to  the  allowance  to  be 
made  for  the  depreciation  of  the  currency,  a  bone  of  contention 
that  our  more  stable  monetary  system  has  happily  buried.  A 
long-standing  dispute  ensued,  and  finally  the  executors  of  the 
parties,  now  both  deceased,  carried  the  matter  to  the  highest 
court.    Among  the  papers  in  the  case  ^  occurs  the  following : 

I  Henry  Vassall  do  testify  and  swear  that  in  the  year  1746  I 
sold  an  Estate  I  had  in  Jamaica  to  my  Brother  John  Yassall  which 
was  to  be  paid  for  at  different  Times  and  in  different  Ways,  among 
the  Rest  he  was  to  discharge  a  Bond  I  had  given  to  Messrs.  Billings's 
which  he  did  &  delivered  to  me,  how  he  did  it,  I  then  knew  not, 
from  which  Time  I  heard  nothing  of  it  untill  the  [year]  1763,  when 

*  He  was,  for  instance,  the  only  boy  of  the  family*  whom  the  old  gentle- 
man did  not  see  fit  to  send  through  Harvard  College. 

•  Voftaall  V.  Billings,  No.  147649,  "Early  Court  Files,"  Clerk's  Office, 
Supreme  Judicial  Court,  Boston. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  37 

a  Day  or  two  after  my  Arrival  from  Antigua,  Mr.  Richard  Billings 
&  Mr.  Ezekiel  Goldthwait  came  to  my  House  and  desired  to  speak 
with  me,  accordingly  we  went  into  my  Garden,  when  Mr.  Billings 
told  me  he  had  Some  Difficulty  in  settling  with  my  Nephew  John 
Vassall  and  asked  me  about  the  settlement  of  the  Bond,  whether  I 
could  remember  if  I  had  allowed  Depreciation,  I  told  him  all  that 
I  remembered  was  that  there  was  such  a  Bond  but  it  was  so  long  ago 
that  I  did  not  recollect  the  Particulars  of  settling  it,  but  imagined 
the  Bond  would  shew  it,  he  asked  me  to  let  him  see  the  Bond,  I 
told  him  I  could  not  look  for  it  then,  but  I  should  be  in  Boston 
in  a  few  Days  &  that  I  would  look  for  it  &  bring  it  with  me,  which 
I  accordingly  did  &  shewed  it  to  Mr.  Rich^  Billings  who  desired 
me  to  let  him  have  it  to  shew  Mr.  Goldthwait,  I  told  him  no,  but 
I  should  be  on  Change  at  one  of  ye  Clock  where  if  Mr.  Goldthwait 
came,  he  might  see  it,  which  he  did  and  I  shewed  it  to  him.  About 
a  week  or  Ten  Days  after  my  Nephew  Jno  Vassall  came  to  me  and 
asked  me  whether  I  remembered  any  Thing  about  allowing  Deprecia- 
tion to  his  Father  on  my  Bond  to  the  Billings's  which  his  Father 
settled  with  them,  because  he  had  found  among  his  Father^s  Papers 
a  note  from  the  Billingss  to  allow  his  Father  the  Depreciation  out 
of  the  Bond  his  Father  had  given  them  in  Case  I  did  not  allow 
it;  I  told  him  that  it  was  a  great  while  ago,  and  that  I  did  not 
recollect  the  Transaction,  and  that  Mr.  Billings  had  been  with  me 
on  the  same  subject,  and  that  I  had  told  him  the  same,  upon  which 
he  desired  I  would  endeavour  to  recollect  the  affair,  for  he  said,  if 
his  Father  had  been  allowed  it,  he  did  not  desire  it  again,  but  that 
if  his  Father  had  not  reed,  it,  it  was  but  just  they  should  allow 
it.  Upon  which  I  promissed  him  I  would  endeavour  to  recollect 
the  settlement  of  the  affair  and  which  accordingly  I  endeavoured 
to  do,  when  after  a  good  while  considering  &  recollecting  several 
Circumstances,  it  brought  the  whole  Transaction  to  my  mind, 
which  is  as  follows:  my  Brother  John  came  to  my  House  &  tak- 
ing out  the  Bond  from  his  Pocket,  says,  Harry,  here  is  your 
Bond  to  the  Billingss  which  they  have  assigned  over  to  me  with 
Depreciation  which  you  may  allow  or  not,  it  is  nothing  to  me,  I 
told  him  I  should  allow  no  Depreciation,  upon  which  he  said  he 
would  not  if  he  was  in  my  Place,  accordingly  I  took  a  Receipt  of 
him  in  full  on  the  Back  of  the  Bond  and  allowed  him  in  the  settle- 
ment for  the  amount  of  the  Bond  with  its  Interest  as  so  much  reed, 
in  part  pay  for  the  Purchase  he  had  made  of  me  without  allowing 

Depreciation  then  or  since.  __ 

Henry  Vassall 

Cambridge  March  24th,  1768. 


38  THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

Middlesex  ss:  March  24th,  1768. 

Henry  Vassall  Esqr,  subscriber  to  the  above  &  foregoing  Deposition 
being  carefully  examined  &  cautioned  to  testifie  the  whole  Truth 
made  oath  to  the  Truth  of  the  same,  he  the  said  Henry  is  under 
such  bodily  Infirmities  &  sickness  as  render  him  uncapable  of  travel- 
ling &  appearing  in  Person  at  the  Inferiour  Court  of  Common  Pleas 
now  hoi  den  at  Charlestown  in  &  for  the  County  of  Middlesex  at 
which  Court  there  is  a  Cause  depending  —  John  Vassall  Esqr.  Pit. 
Richard  Billings  Deft,  &  in  which  Cause  said  Deposition  was  takea 
to  be  used. 

The  proceeds  of  the  Jamaica  sale  did  not  long  suffice  for  his 
needs,  and  in  1748  we  find  him  mortgaging  his  Cambridge  prop- 
erty as  security  on  a  loan  of  £779  from  James  Pitts,  a  rich  Boston 
merchant,  whom  w^e  shall  hear  more  of.^  In  1752  he  recovered 
by  due  process  of  law  ^  some  £90  sterling  on  a  note  given  in 
1746  by  his  brother  John,  now  deceased,  probably  in  connection 
with  the  Jamaica  transactions. 

By  what  devices  he  tided  over  the  deficits  of  the  next  few  years 
we  have  little  information,^  but  it  is  probable  that  his  wife^s  prop- 
erty formed  the  chief  source  of  collateral,  especially  her  undi- 
vided half  of  the  *'  Popeshead "  plantation  at  Antigua.  The 
possibilities  in  that  direction  having  apparently  become  exhausted 
by  1764,  he  was  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  borrowing  some  £430 
from  his  daughter,  who  had  just  emerged  from  her  minority  into 
the  convenient  ownership  of  a  small  separate  estate.*  The  cash 
lasted  him  scarcely  a  month,  and  he  became  more  deeply  involved 
than  ever.  His  creditors  were  pressing  him  hard  and  seemed 
about  to  take  possession  of  Mrs.  VassalPs  equities  remaining  in  the 

*  Middlesex  Deeds,  48/81.  For  Pitts's  next  entry  in  the  drama,  see 
page  56. 

'  Vassall  V.  Bill  et  al.  exors.,  "  Inferiour  Court "  files,  Clerk's  OflBce,  East 
Cambridge. 

*  The  accounts  for  1757  and  1758  mention  numerous  "  notes  of  hand  "  for 
various  amounts,  as  well  as  the  payment  of  a  "  Bond  to  John  Gore  for 
£112.19.8  L.M."  and  of  semi-annual  interest  of  £132  (old  tenor)  on  "my  Bond 
to  Mrs.  Henderson." 

*  The  sum  was  secured  only  by  his  personal  bond,  dated  December  10,  1764. 
Soon  after  Elizabeth's  marriage  her  husband  insisted  on  something  more  sub- 
stantial, whereupon  the  Colonel  blandly  executed  still  another  mortgage  on  the 
homestead  February  20,  1769  —  his  last  recorded  act  and  a  thoroughly  char- 
acteristic one.    Middlesex  Deeds,  68/588. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  39 

Antigua  lands.  In  this  crisis  he  consulted  his  fidus  Achates, 
John  liowe,  one  of  Boston's  leading  merchants,  who  has  given  a 
vivid  picture  of  the  gravity  of  the  situation  —  the  wife's  anxiety, 
the  family  councils,  the  calling-in  of  friends  among  eminent 
lawyers  and  men  of  affairs : 

1165,  Jan.  8th.  Mrs.  Vassall  came  from  Cambridge  on  Certain  Busi- 
ness and  dind  with  Mrs.  Rowe. 

22nd.  Colo  Henry  Vassall  &  Lady  came  to  town  today  about 
Business. 

Feb.  14th.  Went  afternoon  to  W™  Vassals  Esq''  and  talkd  over 
his  Brother  Henrys  Affairs. 

16th.  dind  at  Colo  Henry  Vassall  with  M'^  W^  Vassall  &  Chris: 
Minot  M'-s  Vassall  &  M^-^  Cutler 

18th.  M^  W"  Vassall  Colo^^  Henry  Vassall  M"^  Banister  Mr 
Jnman  Chris  Minot  &  Colo  Tho^  Oliver  dind  with  Mrs,  Rowe  &  Me 
after  dinner  we  Consulted  ab^  the  Settlement  of  Colo  Henry  Vassalls 
affairs  and  after  a  long  debate  agreed  on  a  plan  of  Settlement 

22nd     H  Vassall  came  to  town 

28th.  dind  at  M""  W'"  Vassalls  with  him  &  Wife  M'-s  Symes  Miss 
Christian  &  Miss  Sally  Vassalls  Henry  Vassal  Esq'"  &  Lady  Major 
John  Vassall  Colo.  Oliver  Colo  Jerry  Gridley  Christo  Minot  This 
Afternoon  M'*  Henry  Vassall  &  Wife  executed  the  Deeds  for  the  Farm 
&  Negroes  at  Antigua 

March  23d.  Henry  Vassall  Esqr  came  after  dinner  and  settled 
with  me  '■ 

These  "  deeds  "  took  the  shape  of  a  formal  partition  of  the 
Antigua  property  owned  in  common  with  Isaac  Royall,  whose 
sister's  half,  euphoniously  described  as  "  charged  with  certain 
sums  to  Lane  &  Co.,"  was  now  set  off  to  her  by  definite  bounds. 
This  moiety  was  then  conveyed  to  trustees,^  one  of  whom  seems 
to  have  been  the  obliging  little  Thomas  Oliver,  the  Colonel's 
neighbor  both  at  Popeshead  and  at  Cambridge.  The  terms  of 
the  trust  apparently^  provided  that  the  income  from  the  planta- 

*  MS.  of  Diary  at  Mass.  Hist.  Society.  For  the  discovery  of  the  above  en- 
tries, and  of  other  original  sources,  I  must  thank  my  friend,  Charles  M.  An- 
drews, of  Yale  University. 

2  Antigua  Records,  Lib.  W,  vol.  5,  fol.  222,  and  Lib.  O,  vol.  7,  fol.  87. 
For  the  abstracts  of  these  records  I  am  indebted  to  the  generous  assistance 
of  Vere  L.  Oliver,  Esq.,  of  Sunninghill,  Berks.,  editor  of  Caribheana. 

'  See  page  60. 


40  THE   CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY      [Jan. 

tion  should  be  used  towards  paying  off  the  encumbrances  with 
which  it  was  so  heavily  burdened.  In  any  case  it  is  plain  that 
practically  nothing  was  added  thereby  to  the  Vassall  till,  for  in 
a  few  months,  after  a  final  despairing  trip  to  the  islands,^  the 
much  harassed  Henry  was  obliged  to  sell  his  thirty  acres  across 
Charles  River  (already  mortgaged  to  Pitts)  to  Ebenezer  Bradish, 
the  college  glazier,  for  £506.^ 

Two  years  later,  by  some  financial  sleight-of-hand  that  again 
testifies  to  his  business  adroitness,  he  managed  to  mortgage  once 
more  his  long-suffering  homestead  for  £225,  this  time  to  his 
boon  companion  TroUet,  whom  the  cards  had  perhaps  favored.^ 
This,  however,  was  only  an  acconmiodation  between  friends.  His 
general  credit  was  now  as  dissipated  as  his  habits,  and  towards 
the  end  his  wife  had  to  negotiate  what  small  loans  she  could 
secure  on  her  own  account.*    During  his  last  years,  too,  it  is  plain 

*  See  page  27. 

'  October,  1765.  Middlesex  Deeds,  65/146.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the 
next  year  Henry  Vassall's  name,  although  it  heads  the  list  of  Christ  Church 
parishioners  made  out  by  the  locum  tenens,  Rev.  Mr.  Agar,  is  not  among  those 
marked  by  that  ingenuous  divine  as  "  very  rich  "  —  videlicet :  John  Borland, 
William  Vassall,  John  Apthorp,  Ralph  Inman,  John  Vassall,  Thomas  Oliver 
and  Isaac  Royall.  (Original  Letter-Book,  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel,  London.) 

»  Middlesex  Deeds,  67/205. 

*  In  1767  and  1768,  for  example,  she  made  a  series  of  notes  at  regular  in- 
tervals to  her  old  friend  Elizabeth  Hughes,  each  for  £26,13.4,  perhaps  to  meet 
the  interest  on  some  other  indebtedness.  On  these  she  was  sued  almost  thirty 
years  later!  (No.  106852,  "  Early  Court  Files,"  Clerk's  Office,  Supreme  Judicial 
Court,  Boston.)  Another  note  of  the  same  series,  with  interest  endorsed  up  to 
July  20,  1769,  is  filed,  apparently  by  mistake,  with  a  collection  of  documents 
relating  to  William  Vassall's  lands  in  Pownalboro,  1776  et  seq.  Mass.  Hist. 
Soc.  Library,  MSS.  026.2  "  Vassall  Papers." 

"  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Hughes  of  Cambridge,  singlewoman,"  is  another  of  the 
shadowy  figures  that  flit  through  the  Vassall  and  Royall  records.  Her  family 
were  neighbors  of  the  Royalls  at  "  Popeshead."  One  of  them,  Captain  Richard, 
migrated  to  Boston,  where  in  1713  he  married  Sarah  Reed;  and  Elizabeth,  born 
1710,  was  their  child.  Either  in  Antigua  or  at  Boston  she  grew  very  friendly 
with  the  Royalls,  for  in  1746  old  Madame  Royall  left  her  by  will  £300  "  as  a 
token  of  my  love."  Afterward  she  became  either  an  inmate  or  a  constant  visi- 
tor at  the  Va-ssalls,  and  appears  in  the  Colonel's  accounts  as  receiving  many 
small  sums  for  "  sundrys  "  and  the  like.  Through  the  death  of  her  parents  she 
came  into  some  property  in  Boston,  and  hence  was  able  to  alleviate  the  finan- 
cial distresses  of  Mrs.  Vassall.  She  died  in  1771,  leaving  a  number  of  the  hit- 
ter's unpaid  notes  in  her  inventory.  Her  gravestone  is  in  the  Copp's  Hill 
ground.  See  Oliver,  History  of  Aniigua,  ii,  88.  Putnam,  Lieut.  Joshua  Eewes, 
417.    Suffolk  Probate,  14929. 


1915.]  COL.   HENRY   VASSALL  41 

that  the  greater  part  of  his  personal  property,  horses,  slaves,  etc., 
was  turned  into  sorely  needed  cash.  Under  such  notorious  cir- 
cumstances, therefore,  it  could  have  caused  little  surprise  among 
the  Cambridge  gossips  to  learn  after  his  death  that  he  had  not 
attempted  to  dispose  of  his  shrunken  and  heavily  hypothecated 
estate  by  will,  and  that  the  said  estate  (valued  at  only  £1000 
for  the  realty  and  £705  for  the  personalty  ^)  was  shortly  declared 
insolvent. 

Considering  the  ample  evidences  of  Henry  Vassall's  business 
ability,  and  the  plump  fortunes  amassed  by  his  brothers,  and 
even  allowing  generously  for  the  undoubted  expense  ^  of  keeping 
up  an  establishment  such  as  he  delighted  in,  we  must  admit  that 
it  is  difficult  to  explain  where  all  his  money  went  to,  unless  in 
some  such  manner  as  hinted  above.  Yet  let  us  not  frown  too 
heavily  on  the  failings  of  a  Colonial  gentleman  of  active  spirit 
and  ample  leisure,  who  wrote  Esquire  after  his  name  in  a  day 
when  that  suffix  had  a  definite  connotation.  He  had  been  born 
and  bred  amid  the  unexacting  moral  standards  of  a  clime  where 
the  spirit  of  pleasure  had  permeated  his  very  marrow.  Trans- 
planted to  a  drier  and  more  searching  ethical  atmosphere,  his 
early  inoculation  (so  to  say)  kept  him  immune  from  the  scorch- 
ing breath  of  the  superheated  New  England  conscience.  Though 
he  doubtless  listened  decorously  enough  to  the  fulminations  of 
the  orthodox  ministry  around  him,  in  his  own  heart  he  felt  free 

*  See  Appendix  A.  In  1770,  evidently  before  the  Widow  Vassall  had  made 
much  further  reduction  in  the  estate,  she  was  taxed  14/4  for  the  realty  and 
8/9  for  the  personalty.  Her  fallen  fortunes  may  be  inferred  from  a  compari- 
son of  the  taxes  paid  by  the  other  members  of  her  social  set  (Cambridge  Tax 
List,  1770.    Mass.  Archives,  130/430)  : 


Mr.  &  Mrs.  Borland 

£1.9.8  real 

£6.16.11  personal 

William  Brattle 

1.0.6 

3.17.7 

Ralph  Inman 

1.14.5 

13.1 

Joseph  Lee 

13.4 

2.17.9 

Richard  Lechmere 

19.3 

2.9.6 

Thomas  Oliver 

1.16.5 

1.3.0 

David  Phips 

1.5.8 

15.5 

George  Ruggles 

1.5.8 

3.6 

Jonathan  Sewall 

11.8 

13.6 

John  Vassall 

2.12.7 

14.2 

'  The  account  book  shows  that  in  the  years  1757  and  1758  his  outlays  for 
petty  cash  were  about  £9000  "old  tenor,"  or  £1200  lawful  money  (£900  ster- 
Hng),  per  annum. 


42  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

to  follow  the  example  of  the  hard-riding,  hard-drinking  parsons 
of  the  good  old  school  in  '^  the  established  church."  And  if  he 
shared  their  weaknesses,  he  also  shared  their  bluff  and  open- 
handed  virtues. 

For,  paradoxical  as  it  may  appear,  Henry  Vassall,  like  his 
father  before  him,  was  a  strong  and  generous  supporter  of  reli- 
gion. As  such  he  is  honorably  remembered  to-day,  when  his 
imperfections  have  been  long  forgotten,  like  many  a  character 
more  completely  canonized.  The  Church  of  England,  his  family 
creed,  naturally  came  first  in  his  interests.  To  its  representa- 
tives his  latch-string  was  always  out  and  his  purse-strings  always 
loose.  At  the  age  of  only  twenty-five  he  gave  forty  pounds 
towards  the  rebuilding  of  King's  Chapel,^  and  soon  after  the 
beautiful  new  edifice  was  finished  he  bought  a  pew.  In  maturer 
years  he  was  elected  a  vestryman.^  The  fragment  of  his  accounts 
that  we  possess  gives  an  idea  of  his  steady  assistance  to  that 
parish : 

1756  Apr.  26th.    p^  Capt.  Forbes  for  my  pew  at  y®  Chappie  £20.5 
Aug.  20    p^  Craddock  my  Subscription  to  Dipper  [the  organ- 
ist] £10.10 

1758  Mar.  20th.     tax  of  pew  at  Chappie  £18.18 

1759  Apr.  9th.     p^  tax  &  subscription  to  Chappie  £42 

Trinity  Church,  too,  had  reason  to  be  grateful  for  his  aid.  He 
was,  for  example,  one  of  the  largest  contributors  to  its  first  organ, 
and  on  Christmas  Bay,  1758,  increased  its  collection  by  some 
twenty  pounds. 

All  this  time  he  was  paying  his  regular  "  ministerial  taxes  '^ 
in  Cambridge  and  Abraham  Hasey's  as  well.  More  than  that, 
he  was  displaying  an  admirably  liberal  spirit  by  subscribing 
handsomely  to  the  new  "  meeting  house  "  that  Dr.  Appleton  was 
erecting  there: 

1756,  Nov.  19th.  pd.  Sam'l  Whittemore  one  third  of  my  subscrip- 
tion to  y«  meeting  house  £50 

1757,  Sept.  17th.  S.  Whittemore  being  in  full  of  my  Subscription 
to  the  meeting  house  in  Cambridge  £100 

*  Adding  the  rather  unusual  but  highly  business-like  proviso,  —  "  One  half 
to  be  paid  when  begun." 

•  Foote,  Annals  of  King's  Chapel,  ii,  paaaim. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  43 

Therein  also  he  took  a  pew,  one  of  the  best,  "between  Lt.  Col. 
David  Phipp's  pew  on  the  right  and  Rev.  Mr.  President  Holyoke's 
on  the  left."  ^ 

Most  memorable  of  all,  he  was  the  leader  of  the  movement  in 
1759  for  establishing  Christ  Church  in  Cambridge.  ^  He  headed 
the  petition  to  enlist  the  aid  of  the  London  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts;  he  subscribed  £80 
to  the  building  fund;  he  cajoled  £15  more  out  of  the  repre- 
hensible Trollet  and  actually  persuaded  him  to  take  a  pew;  he 
was  chairman  of  the  building  committee ;  ^  he  bought  a  pew 
(No.  3)  in  the  middle  aisle,  and  he  served  as  a  vestryman,* 
in  either  first  or  second  place  on  the  list,  continuously  from  the 
organization  of  the  parish  till  the  day  of  his  death.  Perhaps  in 
recognition  of  his  services  he  was  given  the  privilege  of  building 
the  only  tomb  beneath  the  church.^ 

In  that  tomb  he  was  duly  laid,  with  characteristic  elegance, 

*  See  plan  of  pews  in  Paige,  293.  He  sold  it  to  Harvard  College  in  1761, 
after  Christ  Church  had  been  opened.     Middlesex  Deeds,  58/502. 

'  "  Several  branches  of  our  Braintree  family  of  Vassalls  had  removed  and 
planted  themselves  in  the  very  front  of  the  university,  and  they  must  have  an 
Episcopal  church."  J.  Adams  to  Morse,  Quincy,  December  2,  1815.  Works  of 
John  Adams,  x,  187. 

'  "  Voted  that  Colo  Henry  Vassall  make  some  enquiries,  and  take  such  meas- 
ures as  he  shall  think  proper,  about  procuring  Stone  and  Lime  for  building  the 
Church."     Records,  October  3,  1759. 

*  Though  for  some  unexplained  reason  never  as  a  warden,  a  position  fre- 
quently occupied  by  his  nephew  John,  and  indeed  by  nearly  all  the  prominent 
Cambridge  Tories  in  turn. 

"  The  parish  records  are  silent  on  the  subject,  but  it  seems  probable  that, 
sensible  of  his  approaching  dissolution,  he  caused  his  last  resting  place  to  be 
constructed  during  the  progress  of  his  final  malady. 

The  tomb  is  a  brick  vault,  9  by  10  feet  in  area,  sunk  in  the  gravel  of  the 
cellar  floor.  Its  slightly  arched  top  was  originally  almost  flush  with  the  sur. 
face,  but  owing  to  a  recent  lowering  of  the  grade,  now  protrudes  for  about  a 
foot.  Its  main  axis  is  east  and  west,  or  transverse  to  that  of  the  church  build- 
ing. The  door,  at  the  west  end,  was  originally  reached  by  a  flight  of  stone 
steps,  now  removed  and  filled  in.  Against  the  upper  part  of  the  bricked-up 
entrance  arch,  and  projecting  above  ground,  has  been  erected  a  slate  slab  in- 
scribed Henry  Vassell.  The  structure  is  now  almost  in  the  middle  of  the 
cellar,  but  before  the  lengthening  of  the  church  it  was  much  nearer  the  chancel 
—  probably  directly  below  the  pew  of  its  owner,  who  had  one  of  the  best  seats 
in  the  edifice,  although  the  exact  location  is  conjectural  to-day.  At  least  the 
tomb  is  not  centred  on  the  main  axis  of  the  church,  but  is  pushed  a  little  to 
tl:e  west,  so  as  to  bring  it,  not  under  the  middle  aisle,  but  under  a  pew  on  the 
right-hand  side  thereof. 

For  the  interments  in  the  Vassall  tomb  see  note,  page  78. 


44  THE   CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

when  a  lingering  illness  had  brought  his  gay  life  to  a  close  — 
after  that  fitful  fever  sleeping  well  amid  the  old  Cambridge  sur- 
roundings that  he  loved,  happy  in  escaping  the  fast-approaching 
tribulations  which  were  to  allot  scattered  and  distant  graves  to 
his  family  and  friends  who  kept  allegiance  to  the  King's  most 
excellent  majesty,  his  crown  and  dignity.  The  Boston  papers 
for  Monday,  March  20,  1769,  contained  the  following  item: 

On  Friday  laft  Col.  Henry  Vassall  departed  this  Life  in  the  48th 
Year  of  Age,  at  his  Seat  in  Cambridge.  We  hear  that  he  will  be  in- 
terred if  the  Weather  permits,  on  Wednefday  next,  and  that  the 
Funeral  will  go  precifely  at  4  o'Clock  in  the  Afternoon.^ 

The  service  took  place  as  announced,  a  typical  March  gale  being 
only  the  weather  to  be  expected.  Thanks  to  trusty  John  Kowe, 
we  actually  have  the  scene  before  us  —  unique  of  its  kind  in  the 
annals  of  Christ  Church: 

1769,  March  22.  Wed.  Very  Cold  Blows  hard  N.West.  Dined  at 
Mr.  Inman  at  Cambridge  with  him,  Mr.  Cromwell,  Lady  Frankland,* 
Mrs,  Harding,  Miss  Molly  Wethered,  Mrs.  Rowe  &  George  Inman.  In 
the  afternoon  I  went  to  the  Funerall  of  Henry  Vassall  Esq.  I  was  a 
pall-holder,  together  with  Gen.  Brattle,  Col.  Phipps,  Jos.  Lee  Esq., 
Eich^  Lechmere  Esq.  &  Robert  Temple  Esq.  It  was  a  very  handsome 
Funerall  &  a  great  number  of  people  &  carriages, 

III 

The  Widow  Penelope  after  these  elaborate  obsequies  continued, 
as  best  she  could,  to  occupy  the  stripped  and  mortgaged  home- 
stead. We  have  a  sight  of  her  entertaining  a  mighty  genteel 
company,  "  drinking  tea  and  coffee,"  on  the  occasion  of  the 
christening  of  her  namesake  —  her  daughter's  baby,  Penelope 
Russell.^     She  dutifully  began  the  attempt  to  pay  off  her  hus- 

*  Boston  Post  Boy  d  Advertiser.  Similar  notices  are  in  each  of  the  other 
papers,  except  that  the  Boston  Evening  Post  adds  "  after  a  lingering  Illness." 
We  have  seen  (page  38)  that  he  was  too  sick  to  go  to  Charlestown  just  a  year 
before.  The  register  of  Christ  Church  gives  his  death  on  the  17th,  but  no  men- 
tion of  his  burial. 

*  Lady  Frankland  with  her  son  Henry  Cromwell  had  returned  to  Boston  and 
Hopkinton  in  June  of  the  previous  year,  after  the  death  of  her  husband  at 
Bath.  They  were  particular  friends  of  the  Inmans,  and  intimate  with  tlio 
whole  Cambridge  coterie.  A  touch  of  romance  is  added  to  Henry  Vassall's 
fiineral  by  the  presence  of  "  the  beautiful  Agnes  Surriage." 

*  Rowe,  Diarj/,  April  9,  1769.    Cf.  Christ  Church  register  and  Harris,  TAe 


VA 


A 


1 


1915.]  COL.   HENRY   VASSALL  45 

band's  debts,  probably  with  the  aid  of  the  Eoyalls  and  the 
Russells.^  To  raise  funds  she  evidently  strained  her  slender  re- 
sources to  the  utmost,  as  is  shown  in  the  pitiful  appraisal  of  her 
property  remaining  in  1778.^  But  the  earnest  efforts  of  a  re- 
duced gentlewoman  to  satisfy  her  vicarious  creditors  gave  her 
little  popular  sympathy,  so  long  as  she  echoed  the  sentiments 
and  followed  the  fortunes  of  that  unhappily  prominent  Cambridge 
faction  that  persisted  in  its  loyalty  to  King  George. 

Herein  lay  her  undoing.  Penelope  VassalPs  temperament  was 
of  the  type  that  copies  rather  than  originates.  From  her  family 
characteristics,  her  early  environment,  and  her  later  history  we 
picture  her  as  lacking  in  nearly  all  the  sturdier  New  England 
virtues.  The  scanty  traces  she  has  left  on  the  narrative  of  her 
generation  are  as  pale  as  if  recorded  with  disappearing  ink.  She 
seems  to  have  been  too  frail  to  rear  the  large  family  that  was 
then  customary.  Her  portrait,  painted  in  her  younger  days, 
shows  her  as  small  and  delicate,  with  little  individuality.  The 
few  remaining  specimens  of  her  handwriting  are  unformed  and 
crude  to  the  point  of  childishness.  In  a  crisis  she  possessed 
neither  the  firmness  for  independent  action  that  might  have  car- 
ried the  day,  nor  the  prudent  self-effacement  that  might  have 
enabled  her,  along  with  such  ultra-moderates  as  her  neighbor, 
Judge  Lee,  to  lie  by  while  the  storm  passed  overhead. 

The  latter  course  she  could  have  followed  with  comparative 
ease.  There  is  no  record  that  either  she  or  her  husband  had  ever 
adopted  an  attitude  that  gave  grounds  for  any  active  hostility 
from  the  "  sons  of  liberty.'^  He  had  held  no  royal  offices,  signed  no 
"  loyal  addresses,"  or  taken  other  steps  that  would  have  rendered 
his  memory  obnoxious.  He  had  not  been  a  member  of  that  inner 
ring  of  Tories  upon  whom  the  full  weight  of  revolutionary  wrath 

Vassalls  of  New  England,  22.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Rowe  "  stood  Sponsors."  In  1757 
Mrs.  Vassall  had  been  a  "  surety  "  along  with  Gov.  Benning  Wentworth  and 
Charles  Paxton  at  the  baptism  of  young  Benning  at  King's  Chapel,  Boston. 
(Wentworth  Genealogy,  i,  534.)  That  seems  to  be  almost  the  only  mark  she 
has  left  on  the  records  of  her  time,  up  to  her  husband's  death.  It  suggests  at 
least  the  society  in  which  she  moved. 

*  Trollet  assigned  his  mortgage  to  her  in  1770  for  £206.13.4.  (Middlesex 
Deeds,  71/18.)  In  June  of  1773  she  got  £490  ready  money  from  George  Minot, 
who  then  paid  off  a  mortgage  of  which  she  had  become  assignee.  (Suffolk 
Deeds,  121/129,  margin.) 

*  See  page  55  and  Appendix  B.    For  the  sale  of  the  slaves  see  page  68. 


46  THE   CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jaj^. 

descended.  On  the  contrary  he  was  plainly  far  from  unpopular 
with  his  townsmen.-^  Even  the  motto  on  hie  crest  chimed  closely 
with  tlieir  underlying  thought  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  struggle  — 
"  Often  for  King,  for  Country  always."  ^  His  remaining  property 
was,  alas,  scarcely  enough  to  excite  a  beggar's  cupidity.  And  since 
he  had  been  dead  for  nearly  six  years  before  affairs  reached  the 
climax,  it  is  conceivable  that  his  spouse,  had  she  remained  quietly 
on  the  homestead,  might  well  have  avoided  serious  molestation. 

Had  she  realized  it,  indeed,  nothing  would  have  served  her 
80  well  as  sticking  to  the  ship.  In  those  days  of  fantastic  mis- 
trust, steadfastness  when  surrounded  by  the  insurgents  seemed 
to  prove  one's  sympathy  with  their  cause;  flight  showed  one's 
adherence  to  the  established  order.  The  paradox  was  widely 
accepted  as  a  test  by  both  sides.  Thus,  the  Secretary  of  the  So- 
ciety for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  based  his  conviction  of 
one  of  its  missionaries  for  treachery  on  the  theory  that  "  if 
Mr.  Bass  had  been  truly  loyal,  I  can't  see  how  it  was  possible 
for  him  to  stay  at  Newburyport,  a  place  so  much  in  favor  of  the 
other  part."  ^  Per  contra,  even  the  estimable  "  Ebenezer  Bradish, 
Jun.  Esq.,"  who  happened  to  "  withdraw  himself  from  Cambridge 
and  retire  to  Boston  on  the  day  of  the  late  unhappy  commence- 
ment of  hostilities,"  so  "  increased  the  publick  suspicions  against 
him,  whereby  he  is  rendered  more  odious  and  disagreeable  to  his 
countrymen,"  that  he  required  an  imposing  certificate  from  a 
number  of  leading  patriots  to  prevent  the  impression  that  he  was 
"  a  person  unfriendly  to  the  just  rights  and  liberties  of  his 
Country."  *  But  as  for  Penelope  Vassall,  with  the  fatal  facility 
for  imitation  that  sometimes  marks  the  feminine  mind,  she  did  as 
her  fashionable  friends  and  neighbors  did,  and  during  the  memo- 

*  A  curious  confirmation  of  hia  amicable  relations  with  his  neighbors  is  to 
be  found  in  the  almost  total  absence  of  his  name  from  the  court  records  of  hia 
time,  while  his  brothers  John  and  William  and  his  nephew  John  figure  in  some 
rather  famous  suits.  (Cf.  Paige,  History  of  Cambridge,  131,  etc.)  It  will  l)e 
noticed,  too,  that  none  of  his  numerous  mortgagees  took  advantage  of  their 
foreclosure  rights  as  long  as  his  widow  continued  to  occupy  the  premises,  but 
seem  to  have  accorded  her  every  consideration. 

■  8<i€pe  pro  rege,  semper  pro  repuhlica.  The  radicalism  of  the  sentiment  so 
grated  upon  the  loyalty  of  hia  nephew,  John  Vassall,  that  he  abandoned  its  use 
altogether. 

»  Bartlett,  Frofutier  Missionary,  313. 

*  Force,  American  Archives,  4th  Series,  ii,  484.    May  3,  1775. 


1 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  47 

rable  winter  of  1774-75  ^  followed  them  into  Boston  to  seek  the 
protection  of  Thomas  Gage.    From  that  moment  the  die  was  cast. 

By  the  date  of  the  Battle  of  Lexington  her  son-in-law,  Dr. 
Eussell,  correctly  diagnosing  certain  feverish  symptoms  in  the 
body  politic,  was  discreetly  embarked  for  Martinico,  probably  with 
his  wife  and  family,  which  now  numbered  several  daughters.^ 
(Henry  Vassall  had  neither  sons  nor  grandsons.)  The  Widow 
seems  to  have  lingered  to  save  what  she  could  from  the  old  home ; 
for  after  it  was  seized  by  the  provincials,  her  '^  packages  "  of 
personal  belongings,  which  Heaven  knows  must  have  been  atten- 
uated enough,^  were  graciously  allowed  to  "  pass  into  Boston  or 
elsewhere."  ^  A  quaint  exception  was  made  of  her  medicine  chest, 
long  a  carefully  cherished  family  treasure.^  It  was  too  valuable 
to  be  lost  to  the  Continental  medical  corps.  For  some  time,  in- 
deed, it  was  one  of  the  only  two  supply  boxes  they  possessed.^ 

*  The  precise  date  is  diflBcult  to  determine.  She  would  naturally  follow  the 
movements  of  her  nephew,  John  Vassall,  across  the  road.  Foote  says  the  latter 
was  driven  out  of  town  by  a  mob  early  in  1775  {Annals  of  King's  Chapel,  ii, 
315),  but  this  seems  to  lack  confirmation.  The  certificate  of  the  Cambridge 
selectmen  who  confiscated  his  property  states  that  he  "  went  to  our  Enemies  in 
April  1775,"  but  the  word  "  April  "  is  struck  through  with  the  pen.  ( Middle- 
Bex  Probate,  23340,  O.S.)  Mrs.  Vassall's  brother,  Isaac  Royall,  did  not  defi- 
nitely retire  from  his  Medford  mansion  until  April  16.  (Suffolk  Probate, 
85/531.)  It  is  unquestionably  picturesque  to  refer  to  the  "flight"  of  the 
Tories  into  Boston,  but  "  straggle  "  is  a  more  accurate  term. 

'  Harris,  Vassalls  of  Neu?  England,  21. 

*  A  far  richer  and  more  influential  personage.  Lady  Frankland,  on  retiring 
from  Hopkinton,  was  allowed  to  take  only  "  6  trunks,  1  chest,  3  beds  and  bed- 
ding, 6  wethers,  2  pigs,  1  small  keg  of  pickled  tongues,  some  hay,  3  bags  of 
com  and  such  other  goods  as  she  thinks  proper."  The  elastic  interpretation, 
placed  upon  the  final  clause,  and  the  alarming  consequences,  provide  both  en- 
tertainment and  instruction  for  the  reader  of  the  American  Archives. 

*  Committee  of  Safety  Journals,  May  13,  1775.  In  the  first  confusion  over 
the  disposition  of  the  Loyalists'  abandoned  property,  we  find  "  Mr.  David 
Sanger  directed  to  fill  the  widow  Vassall's  barns  with  hay,"  on  July  4,  and  a 
couple  of  days  later  Mr.  Seth  Brown  ordered  "to  clear  the  widow  Vassal's 
barns  for  the  reception  of  hay  and  horses  for  the  colony  service,"  etc.  (Idem, 
586,  587.)  The  house  itself  was  by  this  time  in  active  use  as  medical  head- 
quarters.     (See  page  53.) 

"  "Jan.  1,  1757.  pd.  mending  key  Medecine  Chest,  &c,  £1:6."  (Account 
book,  uhi  supra.)  This  private  drug-store,  for  it  appears  to  have  been  no  less, 
affords,  like  the  family  fire-engine,  another  instance  of  the  unusual  elaboration 
of  the  household  arrangements.  Colonel  Vassall  was  evidently  prepared  to  cope 
with  inflammatory  conditions  of  every  description.     See  also  p.  81,  middle. 

'  The  other  was  in  Roxbury.  See  report  of  committee,  June  12,  1775.  Jour- 
nals  of  Provincial  Congress,  323. 


48  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

With  her  pathetic  scraps  of  salvage,  therefore,  our  Penelope 
turned  toward  her  family  estates  in  Antigua.^  There  is  a  quite 
believable  story  that  in  the  haste  and  bewilderment  of  her  start 
she  had  to  take  along  a  certain  Miss  Moody,  related  to  the  Pep- 
perells  of  Kittery,  a  damsel  who  happened  to  be  staying  with 
her  and  who  could  find  no  opportunity  of  getting  home  again. 
In  the  West  Indies,  according  to  the  tradition,  while  waiting  a 
chance  to  return,  this  unintentional  refugee  was  courted,  mar- 
ried, and  finally  settled  down  for  life.^ 

But  to  reach  Antigua  was  now  no  easy  matter.  Dr.  Russell 
must  have  sailed  on  one  of  the  last  ships  that  left  Boston  for  the 
Caribbean,  and  by  the  time  that  his  mother-in-law  had  decided  on 
any  definite  course  of  action  the  only  port  where  she  could  hope 
to  embark  was  Salem  —  probably  the  "  elsewhere  "  specifically 
in  mind  when  her  property  pass  was  issued  to  her.  Thither  her 
brother  had  already  betaken  himself  with  the  same  object,  and 
thither  she  seems  to  have  followed  him.  Both  were  doomed  to 
disappointment.  IsTot  a  passage  to  the  southward  could* be  pro- 
cured. In  this  dilemma  Isaac  Royall  determined  "  with  great 
reluctance  "  to  push  on  to  Halifax  and  thence  to  England,  giving 
the  abject  excuse  that  "  my  health  and  business  require  it."  ^ 

'  Winsor,  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  iii.  111.  Harris,  Vassalls  of  New 
England,  14. 

"  The  Gamlridge  of  1776,  100.  The  tale  is  substantiated  to  the  extent  that 
the  first  William  Pepperell's  granddaughter,  Mary  Jackson,  born  1713,  married 
a  man  named  Moody.  (Howard,  Pepperells  in  America,  17.)  The  name  was 
.common  in  the  Pepperell  neighborhood,  at  Kittery,  York,  etc.  It  is  also  found, 
however,  in  the  records  of  Montserrat.  The  man  in  question,  for  example,  may 
have  been  George  Moody,  bom  there  in  1726.  {Caribheana,  i,  43.)  If  so,  the 
young  lady  would  naturally  have  found  herself  very  much  at  home  in  the  West 
Indies.  It  was  also  natural  that  she  should  put  herself  under  the  protection 
of  Madame  Vassall,  for  the  latter's  niece,  Elizabeth  Royall,  had  married 
"  Young  Sir  William  "  Pepperell  when  he  assumed  his  grandfather's  title  in 
1767.  As  the  baronet  and  his  wife  sailed  for  England  in  1775,  it  is  quite  under- 
atandable  that  a  relative  who  really  wished  to  go  to  the  islands  should  have 
kept  with  Mrs.  Vassall. 

For  the  following  interesting  variant  on  the  tradition  I  am  indebted  to 
Henry  Vassall's  grcat-great-grand-nephew,  John  Vassall  Calder,  Esq.,  who  still 
occupies  a  part  of  the  Jamaica  property  at  Worthy  Park :  "  As  you  are  aware, 
at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  the  Vassalls  had  to  flee  from  Boston,  and  it  is 
»aid  they  left  a  girl  with  her  nurse  who  was  never  heard  of.  About  fifty  years 
ago  my  Grandmother  got  a  letter  from  a  woman  who  claimed  relationship  as 
being  the  descendant  of  the  lost  girl ;    she  never  answered  the  letter." 

•  Brooks,  History  of  Medford,  147.    Foote,  Annals  of  King's  Chapel,  ii,  311. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  49 

From  a  step  so  bold  and  unaccustomed  Penelope  Yassall  recoiled. 
One  more  chance  remained  for  carrying  out  her  original  plan. 
Bidding  her  brother  (as  it  proved)  a  last  farewell,  she  joined  one 
of  the  parties  of  Tories  who  in  the  panic  after  the  first  blood- 
letting of  the  war  hurried  off  to  Nantucket,  on  the  well-founded 
assumption  that  that  shrewdly  self-centred  and  ultra-pacific 
Quaker  community  would  prove  a  sort  of  neutral  territory  or 
safety-zone.  Among  these  Loyalists  was  Mrs.  Mary  Holyoke  of 
Salem,  whose  connections  in  Cambridge  had  often  brought  her  to 
that  village.  Debarking  at  the  island  on  April  29th,  she  records 
in  her  diary  and  letters  the  numerous  acquaintances  that  flocked 
thither  for  weeks  afterwards.  On  May  21st  she  notes,  —  "  Mrs. 
Vassal  &  Fitchs  ^  Family  arrived."  And  on  June  2nd,  —  "  Drank 
tea  [ !]  yesterday  at  old  Friend  Husseys  with  Friend  Vassel."  ^ 

No  further  mention  of  Mrs.  Vassall  at  Nantucket  occurs,  and 
it  is  to  be  supposed  that  among  the  extensive  shipping  of  that  sea- 
faring population^  she  soon  found  opportunity  to  fulfil  her  in- 
tention of  sailing  for  Antigua.  Her  destination  once  reached, 
however,  proved  but  a  gloomy  haven  of  refuge.  Her  own  patri- 
mony at  ^^  Popeshead,"  by  transactions  already  narrated,*  was  no 
longer  at  her  disposal,  and  she  not  improbably  sheltered  herself 
on  the  adjacent  plantation  of  her  brother,  where  she  was  joined 
by  the  Russells.  But  conditions  on  the  island  were  now  very 
different  from  those  of  her  girlhood  there.  Her  elegant,  affluent 
friends  were  gone.  Times  were  bad.  The  sugar  market  had 
been  paralyzed  by  the  war.  The  cost  of  the  simplest  commodi- 
ties had  quadrupled.^  The  estates  were  neglected.  Many  were 
abandoned  altogether  and  overrun  by  the  peculiar  rank  grass 
that   is   the  bane   of  Antiguan   agricultuxe.      The   seasons,   too, 

*  Samuel  Fitch,  the  Boaton  lawyer,  was  a  noted  Tory,  proscribed  in  1778. 
Like  most  of  the  other  Nantucket  refugees,  he  soon  plucked  up  courage  and 
returned  to  the  mainland.  He  stayed  out  the  Siege  of  Boston,  and  at  the 
Evacuation  went  to  Halifax  with  a  family  of  seven. 

^  Dow,  The  Holyoke  Diaries,  87  and  88,  n.  Some  of  the  Nantucket  Husseys 
owned  lands  in  Cambridge. 

'  The  widespread  commercial  interests  of  Nantucket  at  this  period  made  it 
almost  as  important  a  point  of  departure  for  travellers  as  is  New  York  City 
to-day.  During  the  Revolution  the  West  India  trade  was  continued  pertina- 
ciously, its  danger  being  more  than  compensated  by  its  profit. 

*  See  page  39. 

■  Southey,  Chronological  History  of  the  West  Indies,  ii,  425. 


50  THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

were  unpropitious ;  a  series  of  disastrous  droughts  and  terrific 
hurricanes  added  to  the  ruin.  One  after  another  the  planters 
went  do^vn  in  financial  wreck.^  Most  of  the  non-resident  owners, 
now  a  thousand  leagues  overseas,  could  no  longer  make  their 
trips  of  inspection;  and  their  local  agents,  always  sufliciently 
unscrupulous,  were  busily  feathering  their  own  nests  with  what 
remained.  Matters  went  from  bad  to  worse.  In  1778  there  was 
no  crop  whatever,  tlie  drought  having  destroyed  all  the  cane.^ 
In  1779  "  every  part  of  the  surface  of  the  ground  became  parched 
up;  and  all  the  ponds  were  dry.  The  importation  of  water  was 
altogether  insufficient  to  supply  the  demand.  The  stock  and 
negroes  perished  in  the  greatest  agony;  and  a  malignant  fever 
at  the  same  time  threatened  total  destruction  to  all."  ^  In  1780- 
81  the  climax  of  Mrs.  Vassall's  own  misfortunes  came  with  the 
deaths  of  her  son-in-law.  Dr.  Russell,  her  last  male  protector, 
and  her  pusillanimous  brother,  Isaac  Royall,  who,  ignoring  his 
sister  in  his  will,  devised  his  plantation  to  his  own  child,  Eliza- 
beth.* Mrs.  Russell,  now  thrown  with  her  daughters  upon  her 
mother's  hands,  thus  definitively  empty,  was  like  her  parent  the 
guileless  victim  of  her  own  countrymen's  revengeful  greed.     Her 

*  A  visitor  in  1787  wrote:  "This  country  is  poor,  most  of  the  landholders 
being  impoverished  from  a  series  of  bad  crops  previous  to  the  last  three  yea^rs. 
In  fact,  the  greater  part  of  the  estates  in  this  island  are  in  trust,  or  under 
mortgage  to  the  mercliants  of  London,  Liverpool  and  Bristol."  Luilman,  Bi'ief 
Account  of  the  Island  of  Antigua,  49. 

In  Jamaica,  from  1772  to  1791,  more  than  one-third  of  the  planters  parsed 
through  bankruptcy,  and  a  considerable  proportion  of  tlie  plantations  was  given 
up.  ( See  the  sympathetic  and  comprehensive  account  by  Pliillips,  "  A  Jamaica 
Slave  Plantation,"  Amerioam,  Hist.  Review,  xix,  543. )  John  Vassall  stated  that 
he  "  had  £3,000  a  year  coming  in  from  his  Jamaica  Estate  before  the  Hurri- 
cane " —  a  particularly  calamitous  visitation  occurred  in  1780 — and  "His 
Estate  having  suffered  considerably  by  the  Hurricane,  is  the  Cause  of  it's  not 
having  produced  him  anything  since  1781,"  so  that  "  he  has  laid  down  his 
Coach  &  given  up  his  House  [at  Clapham]  &  lives  at  Bristol."  (1783-84.) 
American  Loyalists  Transcripts,  iv,  388  and  vii,  180.   New  York  Public  Library. 

«  Edwards,  History  of  the  West  Indies,  (1793)  i,  447. 

«  Southey,  Chronological  Hist.  W.  I.,  ii,  459. 

*  Suffolk  Probate,  85/531.  She  had  married  Sir  William  Pepperell  (Spar- 
hawk  ) ,  who  is  accordingly  described  later  as  "  owner  of  Royalls,  Antigua." 
(Oliver,  History  of  Antigua,  iii,  56.)  The  place  was  evidently  in  no  condition 
to  attract  him  as  a  residence,  for  he  soon  sold  it  to  Thomas  Oliver  (cf.  p.  60,  n) 
and  continued  to  live  in  England  till  his  death  in  1816.  It  may  be  added  that 
the  desolated  state  of  the  West  Indies,  and  the  serious  interruption  of  com- 
munication with  them,  account  for  the  appearance  in  England  of  many  Loyalists 
who  might  have  been  expected  to  take  refuge  on  their  own  insular  possessions. 


i 


1915.]  COL.   HENRY   VASSALL  51 

husband's  property  at  home  had  been  confiscated,  and  ho  himself 
forbidden  to  return.^  Mother,  daughter,  and  granddaughters 
formed  a  sad  illustration  of  the  familiar  axiom  that  the  Loyalists 
seemed  to  leave  naught  behind  them  but  homeless  widows  and 
unprovided  orphans,  —  whose  sufferings  tempt  U5  to  go  a  step  be- 
yond the  poet's  line  and  add  that  even  when  it  is  not  fated  that 
men  must  work,  still  women  must  weep. 

It  was  at  about  this  time  that  poor  Penelope,  lonely  and  bereft, 
gathered  her  little  flock  about  her  and,  giving  a  last  good-bye 
to  her  childhood's  home,  returned  with  a  sort  of  childish  hopeful- 
ness to  the  scene  of  her  married  life.  Yet  how  changed  that 
scene!  Marius  among  the  ruins  of  Carthage  was  a  thing  of  joy 
and  gladness  compared  to  a  Loyalist  in  Cambridge  after  the 
Kevolution.  The  college,  it  is  true,  with  the  placid  persistence 
of  an  institution  whose  thoughts  were  not  of  this  world,  still 
calmly  ground  out,  much  as  of  yore,  its  annual  grist  of  ministers. 
But  the  once  thriving  village,  famed  for  its  beauty,  with  its  com- 
mon "  like  a  bowling  green,"  was  almost  unrecognizable.  Spared, 
to  be  sure,  from  the  actual  ravages  of  the  enemy  that  had  deso- 
lated Portland,  N^ew  Haven,  and  others  of  its  ilk,  it  yet  had 
endured  the  almost  equally  severe  handling  of  a  year's  occupa- 
tion by  an  ill-disciplined  militia  ^  and  the  hard  usage  of  another 
year  as  a  prison  camp.  Dwellings  had  been  maltreated,  fences 
torn  away,  tillage  laid  waste,  timber  and  shade  trees  felled,  roads 
ruined,  and  farms  ^^  thrown  open,  cut  up  and  broken  to  pieces."  ^ 
"  Oh !  "  w^rote  a  visitor  to  the  famous  Inman  place  after  the 
Siege  of  Boston,  ^^  that  imagination  could  replace  the  wood  lot, 
the  willows  round  the  pond,  the  locust  trees  that  so  delightfully 
ornamented  and  shaded  the  roads  leading  to  this  farm  .  .  .  but 
in  vain  to  wish  it,  — >  every  beauty  of  art  or  nature,  every  elegance 
which  it  cost  years  of  care  and  toil  in  bringing  to  perfection,  is 
laid  low.     It  looks  like  an  unfrequented  desert,  and  this  farm 

*  "  Charles  Russell  of  Lincoln,  physician,"  was  included  in  the  Proscription 
Act  of  October  16,  1778.    Mass.  Province  Laws,  v,  914. 

*  One  excuse  offered  for  the  vile  accommodations  given  the  Convention 
Troops  a  year  and  a  half  afterward  was  "  the  late  Devastation  and  Destruction 
of  the  Neighbourhood."  Burgoyne  to  Laurens,  Cambridge,  February  11,  1778. 
Colonial  Office  Class  5,  vol.  95,  p.  385.    Public  Record  Office,  London. 

"  Dana  to  Heath.  York  Town,  December  8,  1777.  Mass.  Hist.  8oc.  Collec- 
tions, 7th  Series,  iv,  pt.  ii,  191. 


52  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTOEICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

is  an  epitome  of  all  Cambridge,  [once]  th^  loveliest  village  in 
America."  ^  Dilapidated  store-sheds,^  with  the  ragged  cellar- 
holes  and  ditches  of  vanished  encampments,  disfigured  the  centre 
of  the  town;  gaunt  heaps  of  dismantled  earthworks  encumbered 
the  approaches;  and  ramshackle  barracks,  already  falling  to 
decay,  rattled  and  swayed  in  the  winds  that  swept  the  surround- 
ing hilltops.  The  very  tombs  of  the  dead  in  the  to"WTi  burying 
ground  had  been  despoiled  of  their  leaden  inscription-panels.  The 
living  population  was  miserably  reduced  in  every  sense  of  the 
word.  Of  the  natives,  many  had  moved  away,^  others  had  en- 
tered the  army,  and  some  had  fallen  on  the  field  of  battle.     Of 

*  Letters  of  James  Murray,  Loyalist,  246.  (April  17,  1776.)  General 
Greene  wrote,  Dec.  31,  1775:  "We  have  suffered  prodigiously  for  want  cf 
wood.  .  .  .  notwithstanding  we  have  burnt  up  all  the  fences  and  cut  down  all 
the  trees  for  a  mile  round  the  camp."  An  account  of  the  insurgents  in  a  Lon- 
don paper  observes,  —  "  They  have  burnt  all  the  fruit-trees  and  those  planted 
for  ornament  iu  the  environs  of  Cambridge."  Frothingham,  Siege  of  Boston, 
276  and  n. 

'  "  The  town  of  Cambridge  is  about  six  miles  from  Boston,  and  was  the 
country  residence  of  the  gentry  of  that  city ;  there  are  a  nmnber  of  fine  houses 
in  it  going  to  decay,  belonging  to  the  Loyalists.  The  town  must  have  been  ex- 
tremely pleasant,  but  its  beauty  is  much  defaced,  being  now  only  an  arsenal  for 
military  stores."  (Letter  of  November  30,  1777.  Anburey,  Travels  through 
America,  ii,  67.)  For  the  curious  continuance  of  Cambridge  as  a  military 
depot  up  to  recent  times,  see  the  article  by  A.  M.  Howe,  "  The  Arsenal  and  the 
Guns  on  the  Common,"  Ca/inhridge  Ilist.  Soc,  Proceedings,  vi,  5. 

■  Overshadowed  by  the  more  dramatic  departure  of  the  Tories,  the  much 
larger  exodus  of  the  natives  from  Cambridge  in  1775-76  has  escaped  general 
attention.  With  the  very  first  hostilities  the  women  and  children  all  left  town 
(Letter  of  Mrs.  Inman,  Cambridge,  April  22,  1775.  Letters  of  James  Murray, 
Loyalist,  184),  followed  almost  immediately  by  the  entire  personnel  of  Harvard 
College,  including  all  the  transient  and  many  of  the  hitherto  permanent  ele- 
ments of  the  population.  Substantial  citizens  of  two  opposite  classes  also  dis- 
appeared, the  militarists  enlisting  in  the  army  and  the  pacifists  seeking  a  less 
warlike  environment.  Among  them  were  many  landholders.  The  tax  list  for 
1777  (preserved  in  Mass.  Archives,  322/123)  gives  191  taxpayers  in  the 
village  itself,  124  in  Menotomy,  87  "  south  of  Charles  River,"  and  96  "  non- 
residents." The  names  are  all  indigenous:  no  account  is  taken  of  Loyalist 
absentees  or  their  confiscated  estates.  That  year's  total  of  498  polls  continued 
to  decrease,  until  in  1781  there  were  but  417  (Mass.  Archives,  161/369)  ;  and 
even  as  late  as  1822  the  number  of  voters  was  only  475  (Paige,  448). 

A  striking  effect  of  this  exodus  is  found  in  a  comparison  of  the  census  fig- 
ures for  1765  and  1776.  (Paige,  History  of  Cambridge,  452.)  During  that  in- 
terval most  Massachusetts  towns  of  1500  population  had  increased  to  1900-odd. 
In  Cambridge  this  normal  increase  was  completely  wiped  out  by  the  hegira  of 
the  final  two  years,  bo  that  the  net  gain  in  eleven  years  was  only  about  a  dazen 
persons. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  53 

the  old  aristocracy,  the  Phipses  and  the  Inmans,  the  Ruggleses 
and  the  Borlands,  the  Lechmeres  and  the  Olivers,  were  gone, 
never  to  return.  The  local  trades  and  industries  that  once  sup- 
plied their  numerous  minor  wants  were  well-nigh  extinguished. 
The  plentiful  golden  sovereigns  that  used  to  jingle  in  many  a 
townsman's  pocket  had  been  replaced  by  infrequent  scraps  of  dirty 
and  almost  valueless  paper.  The  beautiful  little  church  that 
Henry  Vassall  had  practically  founded  was  desecrated  and  closed ; 
its  jovial  English  parson  was  a  penniless  paralytic,  dying  by 
inches  at  Bath  in  the  old  country.  Bitterest  sight  of  all  was  the 
former  homestead,  fast  deteriorating  in  heedless  plebeian  hands, 
after  a  series  of  vicissitudes  so  rapid,  varied,  and  bizarre  that  a 
stouter  heart  than  the  Widow's  might  well  have  stood  aghast  at 
their  recital. 

Penelope  Vassall's  abandonment  of  the  property,  indeed,  may 
be  said  to  have  been  the  first  episode  of  a  chapter  in  which  the 
history  of  the  estate,  long  mounting  in  interest  and  brilliancy  like 
the  glittering  ascent  of  a  rocket,  suddenly  ^'  broke  "  in  a  cluster 
of  spectacular  incidents  that  seem  by  contrast  to  throw  into  deeper 
shadow  its  subsequent  descent  to  the  commonplace  dinginess  of 
to-day.  The  first  and  most  harrowing  metamorphosis  had  begun 
imder  her  very  eyes,  when  the  home  that  had  sheltered  her  for 
thirty-three  years  was  seized  by  the  revolutionists  for  their  mili- 
tary hospital.  That  term  at  its  best  in  the  eighteenth  century 
connoted  something  incomprehensible  to  the  reader  of  the  twen- 
tieth, but  in  the  conditions  at  Cambridge  in  the  spring  of  1775 
it  implied  a  scene  of  confusion,  misery,  and  horror  that  at  first 
appeared  little  better  than  a  shambles.^  Without  the  benefits 
either  of  reasonable  foresight  or  of  previous  experience,  without 
time  for  preparation,  without  sufficient  accommodations,  without 
system,  without  a  regular  staff,  without  medicines,  instruments, 
or  appliances,  without  (of  course)  anaesthetics  —  save  rum  —  this 
last  refuge  for  the  sick  and  dying  might  have  seemed  about  to 
take  a  place  in  medical  annals  almost  on  a  level  with  Libby  Prison 
or  the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta.     But  New  England  physicians 

*  "  We  see  Doct.  Turner  perform  the  oflEice  of  surgery  ( or  rather  of  butchery ) 
on  one  Jones  of  Capt.  Ripley's  Company,  who  had  a  great  mortification  sore  on 
his  side.  After  we  had  seen  the  aforesaid  operation  with  great  pity  to  the 
patient  we  came  home."  Diary  of  Jabez  Fitch,  Mass.  Hist.  Society  Proceed- 
ings, Second  Series,  ix,  88. 


54  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

have  never  lacked  courage  and  resource.  Their  own  vigorous 
efforts  were  soon  seconded  by  the  best  medical  talent  from  the 
other  colonies  and  directed  by  the  administrative  genius  of  Wash- 
ington. Affairs  took  on  a  new  complexion,  the  principal  diffi- 
culties of  the  situation  were  gradually  overcome,  and  before  the 
end  of  the  Siege  of  Boston  the  Vassall  house  had  attained  well- 
merited  historic  fame  as  the  original  headquarters  of  the  Conti- 
nental medical  department.^ 

A\Tien  finally  abandoned  by  the  military  authorities  the  Widow 
VassalFs  property,  as  she  subsequently  learned,  had  been  promptly 
seized  by  the  civil,  as  coming  under  the  legislative  resolve  just 
passed  which  confiscated  the  estates  of  persons  who  were  ''  Ene- 
mical  to  the  Colony  and  have  fled  to  Boston  or  elsewhere  for 
Protection."  ^  Unable  to  make  a  better  disposition  of  it,  the 
committee  leased  it  for  £15  a  year  to  "  Capt.  Adams  of  Charles- 
town."  ^  In  him  we  probably  discern  Nathan  Adams,  veteran 
of  the  French  War,  later  carpenter  and  innkeeper  by  turns,  whose 
own  house  at  Charlestown  had  been  burned  during  the  affair  at 
Bunker's  Hill.^ 

In  his  new  domicile  he  soon  had  opportunity  to  revive  his  old 
calling  and  play  the  host  to  unexpectedly  distinguished  guests. 
For  on  the  6th  and  7th  of  November,  1777,  Cambridge  found  itself 
invaded  by  the  enemy  in  greater  numbers  and  with  more  serious 
results  than  at  any  other  period  of  its  revolutionary  history.  These 
warriors,  to  be  sure,  bore  neither  arms  nor  malice  against  the 
town,  being  in  short  the  heterogeneous  horde  of  British  and  Hes- 
sians who  made  up  the  "  Convention  Troops  "  under  Burgoyne, 

*  For  a  detailed  study  of  this  subject  see  the  second  part  of  this  paper. 

'  Such  was  the  paraphrase  of  the  Cambridge  committee  in  its  report.  (1778. 
Mass.  Archives,  154/48.)  The  actual  language  of  the  resolve  (April  19,  1776) 
referred  to  those  who  "  have  fled  to  Boston  in  the  late  time  of  distress  to  secure 
themselves,"  thus  ingeniously  setting  up  cowardice  as  a  test  of  loyalty.  The 
whole  shameful  history  of  the  Confiscation  Acts  may  be  found  in  Goodell's  in- 
valuable compilation,  Mass.  Provvnce  Lmos,  v,  706  and  999.  See  also  the 
illuminating  commentary  of  Davis,  John  Chandler's  Estate,  eh.  iii. 

'  1776.  Mass.  Archives,  154/48.  This  rental  was  much  the  smallest  of  any 
of  the  Cambridge  confiscated  estates  —  additional  e\idence  of  the  condition  of 
the  property. 

*  Robert  Adams  History,  12.  Cf.  Hunnewell,  A  Century  of  Town  TAfe,  1.34, 
156.  In  like  manner  a  number  of  other  mansions  of  the  Cambridge  Tories  after 
confiscation  were  leased  to  various  Charlestown  refugees,  by  a  kind  of  poetic 
justice. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  55 

on  their  way  from  the  fatal  field  of  Saratoga  to  the  transports 
that  were  expected  soon  to  embark  them  at  Boston  and  return 
them  to  England,  according  to  agreement.  The  Colonel's  home- 
stead and  the  Captain's  temporary  leasehold  was,  not  inappro- 
priately, one  of  the  very  first  edifices  taken  for  housing  the 
officers  of  the  British  contingent,  its  tenant  displaying  a  willing- 
ness to  receive  them  that  contrasts  sharply  with  the  churlish  at- 
titude unfortunately  adopted  by  the  townspeople  in  general.  Had 
they  followed  his  example,  indeed,  not  only  would  the  annals 
of  Cambridge  have  been  spared  a  deep  blemish,  but  the  whole 
history  of  the  Convention  Troops,  and  thus  of  the  later  stages 
of  the  Revolution  itself,  might  have  been  very  different  from  the 
actual  outcome.^  As  it  befell,  however,  the  expected  speedy  em- 
barkation was  postponed  indefinitely,  and  the  notorious  stand 
taken  by  the  American  Congress  as  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  Sara- 
toga Convention  resulted  in  the  occupation  of  the  house  by  the 
captives  for  a  full  year. 

Not  until  November,  1778,  were  the  last  of  the  luckless  troops 
and  subordinate  oflScers  marched  away  from  Cambridge  on  the 
succeeding  stage  of  their  phantasmal  journey  to  freedom,  and 
Henry  Vassall's  mansion  bade  a  final  farewell  to  the  scarlet  and 
gold  of  that  royal  uniform  which  he  himself  had  been  wont  to 
don.  Then  it  was  that  the  old  house,  already  headquarters- 
hospital,  prison  and  barracks,  sank  to  the  lowest  level  of  its  mili- 
tary history  and  became  mere  loot.  Tired  of  the  farce  of  "  pre- 
serving "  and  "  improving  "  property  which  they  never  intended 
the  owners  should  repossess,  the  Massachusetts  authorities  ordered 
a  general  sale  of  the  Loyalists'  remaining ,  estates.  "  William 
How,  trader,"  of  Cambridge  was  the  ^'  agent "  for  what  poor 
personalty  of  Madame  Vassall's  could  still  be  ferreted  out  by  her 
zealous  and  "  patriotic  "  fellow  townsmen.^  The  "  vendue  "  took 
place  April  1,  1779,  with  ironical  solemnity  and  every  outward 
form  that  could  give  a  color  of  legality  to  this  final  act  of  injus- 
tice.^    Everything  went,  from  the  tattered  wreck  of  the  great 

^  For  fuller  consideration  of  this  matter  see  post,  as  above. 

*  Mass.  Archives,  154/332. 

'  Certificate  of  Selectmen,  June  1,  1778;  order  for  inventory,  June  8,  1778; 
inventory  dated  June  24,  1778.  (See  Appendix  B)  ;  commissioners  sworn  Jan- 
uary 11,  1779;    sale,  April  1,  1779;    agent's  account  allowed  and  filed  Decern- 


56  THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

chariot  to  "  3  beehives,"  from  which,  as  from  other  lordlier  homes, 
the  Tory  drones  had  long  ago  flown.  Nearly  all  the  useful 
articles  having  already  disappeared,  the  bulk  of  the  sale-catalogue 
was  composed  of  the  pictures,  mostly  put  up  in  arbitrary  lots  of 
half-a-dozen,  and  knocked  down  to  whichever  of  the  local  Brad- 
ishes.  Palmers,  Reads,  Prentices,  and  Wyeths  would  take  them. 
The  total  realized  the  apparently  imposing  sum  of  £275  —  in 
paper,  or  *'  old  Emission,"  but  worth  in  "  silver  money  £25."  ^ 

The  realty,  though  it  could  not  be  treated  so  cavalierly,  was 
disposed  of  quite  as  effectually.  The  Act  of  1780,  by  which 
"  absentee  "  estates  were  to  be  sold  at  auction,  excepted  such  as 
were  under  mortgage  before  April  19,  1775  —  of  course  with  the 
understanding  that  the  mortgagee  was  a  good  "  friend  of  liberty." 
Whether  by  virtue  of  his  unquestioned  prominence  in  such  a 
capacity,  or  by  a  technical  priority  of  claim,  the  almost  forgotten 
James  Pitts,  the  Colonel's  creditor  of  1748,^  now  reappears  upon 
the  scene.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  reappears  only  in  name,  since 
he  had  died  in  1776.  But  he  had  left  behind  as  executor  his 
enterprising  and  equally  "  patriotic  "  son  John.  As  soon  as  the 
Legislature,  of  which  the  latter  was  a  member,  began  to  consider 
the  above  action,  he  evidently  took  steps  to  secure  his  testator's 
long-dormant  and  possibly  doubtful  claims  to  the  Vassall  place, 
cannily  making  hay  while  the  sun  shone  in  a  field  where  there 
was  none  to  say  him  nay.^  So  complete  was  the  success  of  his 
machinations  that  by  the  time  Mrs.  Vassall  reached  Cambridge 
again  (perhaps  hastened  by  rumors  of  what  had  been  going  on 
in  her  absence)  she  found  herself  as  thoroughly  dispossessed  as 
the  veriest  ghost. 

Had  John  Pitts  taken  his  gentle  little  victim  into  his  confi- 
dence he  might  have  confessed  that  the  game  proved  hardly  worth 
the  candle.  In  1781  he  complained  to  his  brother-in-law  that  the 
old  gentleman's  numerous  and  widely  scattered  properties  were 

ber  5,  1781.  (Middlesex  Probate,  No.  23342,  O.S.)  The  last  date  seems  a  clue 
to  the  time  of  the  real  owner's  return,  actual  or  impending. 

*  In  Mass.  Archives,  154/257,  the  personalty  before  the  sale  was  appraised 
at  £29.    As  to  the  pictures,  see  page  13. 

■  See  page  38. 

•  "  Jno  Pitt,  Esq.,"  a  "  non-resident,"  was  taxed  £5.4.6  for  real  estate  in  Cam- 
bridge in  1777.  (Mass.  Archives,  322/123.)  The  property  is  not  specified,  but 
there  is  little  room  for  doubt  on  the  question. 


1 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  57 

being  so  mercilessly  stripped  and  at  the  same  time  so  mercilessly 
taxed  that  they  must  be  sold.  The  next  year  he  wrote  that  the 
scarcity  of  cash  and  the  enormons  taxes  were  driving  folks  mad, 
but  that  much  of  his  father's  property  had  fortunately  been  got 
rid  of.  ^^  We  have  also  disposed  of  Vassalls  place  at  Cambridge 
to  Nathaniel  Tracy  Esq.  for  Eight  hundred  and  fifty  pounds, 
payable  in  one  year.''  The  price,  he  added,  in  view  of  the  tre- 
mendous shrinkage  in  realty  values,  was  considered  very  high  — 
but  so  were  the  risks  of  collecting  it  from  a  purchaser  whose 
interests  were  mainly  in  shipping.-^ 

Nathaniel  Tracy  was  in  effect  one  of  those  merchant  princes 
whose  romantic  fortunes  and  extraordinary  idios^Ticrasies  have 
cast  a  glamour  over  the  history  of  the  ancient  town  of  Newbury- 
port.^  He  had  a  passion  for  acquiring  fine  houses.  His  purr 
chases,  it  is  said,  extended  along  the  whole  Atlantic  coast  as  far 
as  Philadelphia.^  Among  his  Cambridge  takings  at  this  period 
were  the  three  hundred  acres  of  the  famous  ^'  Ten  Hills  Farm," 
the  former  seat  of  the  Temples.*  He  had  already  bought  the 
John  Vassall  estate  across  the  road,  and  seems  to  have  added  the 
homestead  merely  because  it  was  adjacent  and  in  the  market. 
But  he  flew  his  financial  kite  too  high.  His  sevenscore  merchant- 
men and  cruising  ships  were  wrecked  or  captured,  his  huge  gov- 
ernment contracts  were  repudiated,  and  in  a  few  years  he  conveyed 
his  property  for  the  benefit  of  creditors.^  The  old  place  hung 
in  the  wind  for  some  time,  till  finally  taken,  along  with  the  other 
family  seat  (a  total  of  over  one  hundred  and  forty  acres),  by 
Andrew  Craigie  in  1792,  "being  the  late  Homestead  of  Henry 
.Vassall,  Esquire."  ^ 

The  active  and  ingenious  Mr.  Craigie  had  an  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  the  house  already.  He  had  been  the  first  Apothecary 
General  of  the  Continental  Army,  and  as  such  a  constant  at- 

'  Senator  John  Pitts  to  Colonel  Warner  of  Portsmouth,  Boston,  May  10, 
1782.  James  Pitts  Memorial,  58.  For  the  conveyance  itself,  dated  April  14, 
1782,  see  Middlesex  Deeds,  83/170. 

'  For  biography  and  portrait  see  J.  J.  Currier,  Ould  NewJmry,  554.  Har- 
vard Graduates'  Magazine,  xxv,  193. 

'  Historic  Guide  to  Cambridge,  101. 

*  Middlesex  Deeds,  83/171. 

"  1786.     Middlesex  Deeds,  94/383. 

•  Middlesex  Deeds,  110/406. 


58  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

tendant  at  the  former  medical  headquarters  —  high-priest,  so  to 
speak,  at  the  shrine  of  that  chest  ^  which  once  concealed  a  moiety 
of  all  his  malodorous  mysteries.  He  too  was  now  immensely 
wealthy,  but  for  him  also  the  whirligig  of  time  brought  in  its 
revenges ;  his  ambitious  projects  in  Cambridge  real  estate  proved 
premature,  and  like  so  many  other  owners  of  the  old  mansion 
he  died  a  bankrupt^ 

That,  to  be  sure,  was  long  after  the  Widow  Vassall's  day.  Dur- 
ing her  lifetime  the  beautiful  old  place  seemed  doomed  to  be 
bandied  about  with  true  American  insouciance  —  now  as  a  mere 
land  speculation,  now  to  round  out  a  deal  in  neighboring  proper- 
ties—  and  in  requital  seeming  to  bring  only  bad  luck  to  its 
holders.  Its  character  as  a  homestead  was  utterly  gone.  'None 
of  its  transitory  owners  lived  in  it.  Up  to  the  time  it  was  sold 
by  the  Pittses,  Captain  Adams  continued  his  precarious  occu- 
pancy.^ If  young  Pitts  and  inherent  probability  are  to  be  trusted, 
he  took  good  care  to  leave  as  little  as  possible  behind  him.  Both 
Tracy  and  Craigie  naturally  preferred  the  better  preserved 
grandeurs  of  the  newer  mansion  across  the  road.  The  former 
leased  the  old  house  to  one  Fred  Geyer,  grandson  of  Governor 
Belcher,  who  had  owned  it  from  1717  to  1719;  the  latter  to 
Mr.  Bossenger  Foster,  his  brother-in-law  and  a  "  gentleman  of 
leisure,"  who  like  Trollett  died  of  the  gout.* 

Its  rightful  mistress  could  only  look  on  in  silent  hopelessness 
as  the  estate  drifted  further  and  further  beyond  her  reach.    Un- 

*  See  page  47. 

*  1819.  "  Well  would  it  have  been  for  him  if  his  friends  could  have  said  to 
him,  —  '  Thou  hast  no  speculation  in  thine  eyes.'  But  he  had,  and  a  great  deal 
of  it.  His  plan  was  to  develop  Lechmere's  Point,  called  in  my  younger  days 
'  The  Pint,'  and  bring  into  the  market  the  land  he  had  secured  there.  The  new 
road  to  *  The  Colleges,'  now  Cambridge  Street,  the  bridge  to  Boston,  still  called 
Craigie's  bridge,  the  removal  to  the  *  Pint'  of  the  Court  House  and  Jail,  were 
all  parts  of  this  plan.  ..  .  .  The  [turnpike]  toll  which  was  to  repay  the  build- 
ing was  found  represented  only  by  the  funeral  knell  of  departed  funds."  John 
Holmes,  "  Andrew  Craigie." 

'  Although  the  "  agents  "  of  the  confiscated  estates  were  authorized  to  lease 
them  for  only  one  year,  Mr.  Mason,  in  the  same  way,  kept  his  occupancy  of  the 
Phips  house  for  a  decade.  {Historic  Guide  to  Cambridge,  83.  See  note,  page 
54.)  Adams's  name  is  repeated  as  the  tenant  of  the  Vassall  house  in  Mass. 
Archives,  154/382,  under  the  assigned  date  of  1782.  But  shortly  after  the  sale 
to  Tracy,  he  is  described  as  "  of  Stoneham  "  ( 1783) .  Wyman,  Oenealogies  and 
Estates  of  Charlestoum,  i,  10. 

*  Paige,  History  of  Cambridge,  547,  etc.;    Cambridge  Hist.  8oo.  Proc.  ix,  7. 


1915.]  COL.    HENKY   VASSALL  59 

like  some  of  the  more  fortunate  and  forceful  Loyalists  who  dared 
to  return  after  the  war,  she  had  no  influential  champions  to 
cajole  or  bully  the  authorities  into  restoring  her  property.  Her 
immediate  male  relatives  were  in  England,  and  for  all  the  good 
they  did  her  might  as  well  have  been  in  an  old  ladies'  home.  Her 
brother  Isaac  Royall,  "  confessedly  a  gen*  of  much  timidity/'  was 
dying  at  Kensington ;  her  nephew,  John  Vassall,  was  "  living 
very  comfortably ''  at  Clapham,  spending  his  time  in  grumbling 
and  pension-hunting;  her  brother-in-law,  William  Vassall,  was 
busy  writing  lachrymose  letters  bewailing  his  own  lost  property 
in  Boston.  Her  former  neighbors  who  had  espoused  the  patriot 
cause  had  little  but  hard  looks  and  muttered  accusations  for  any- 
one who  could  be  held  even  remotely  responsible  for  the  sore 
straits  in  which  they  now  found  themselves. 

Outcast  and  homeless  in  Cambridge,  she  took  refuge  in  Boston, 
most  likely  with  the  Russell  connections.  There  she  passed  the 
wretched  remainder  of  her  days,  in  sad  contrast  with  her  earlier 
years.  She  had  been  ruthlessly  robbed  of  her  property  by  the 
very  government  under  which  she  had  sought  protection.  Both 
her  own  and  her  husband's  families  had  vanished ;  she  had  neither 
son  nor  grandson  upon  whom  to  lean;  her  household  consisted 
entirely  of  "  elegant  females  "  as  dependent  as  herself.  As  for 
earning  a  livelihood,  pride  forbade  what  incompetence  had  already 
made  impossible.  To  poverty  and  age  were  superadded  the 
anxieties  connected  with  the  affairs  of  her  unlucky  spouse,  whose 
old  debts  oppressed  and  distracted  her  timid  nature.  In  a  kind 
of  financial  nightmare  long-forgotten  creditors  pounced  ghoul- 
ishly  upon  her  and  pursued  her  endlessly  from  court  to  court. 
It  is  some  comfort  to  know  that  in  most  cases  she  was  able  to 
escape  their  clutches.^ 

But  there  was  a  brighter  side  to  the  picture.  Her  own 
family  connections  did  not  entirely  desert  her.  Among  the 
exiles  in  London  Avas  a  kindly  cousin,  Joseph  Royall,  '^  late  of 

*  E.g.  Procter  v.  Vassall  (1794),  on  her  notes  made  in  1767-68.  Verdict  for 
defendant  with  costs,  affirmed  on  appeal.  (No.  106852,  "Early  Court  Files," 
Clerk's  Office,  Supreme  Judicial  Court,  Boston.)  She  was  also  sued  on  her  own 
more  recent  notes  by  John  Semple  of  Glasgow  (1786),  William  Mackay  of 
Boston  (1788),  etc.  A  quaint  official  testimony  to  her  poverty  is  seen  in  the 
sheriff's  returns  on  these  writs,  the  usual  article  attached  being  "  a  chair,  the 
property  of  the  defent.'* 


60  THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

Jamaica/'  ^  By  some  unexplained  good  fortune  he  had  been 
able  to  retain  from  the  spoilers  more  than  twenty-five  acres  of 
land  in  Dorchester  and  Milton,  with  house,  barn,  etc.  These, 
in  1782,  he  conveyed  to  her,  ^'  in  consideration  of  the  affection 
I  bear  my  cousin  Penelope  Vassall  of  Boston,  widow,  and  for 
five  shillings/'  She  in  turn  sold  them  in  various  parcels  as 
fast  as  she  could,  eking  out  on  the  proceeds  her  dreary 
existence.^ 

Her  greatest  benefactor  of  all  was  her  nephew  by  marriage, 
Thomas  Oliver,  now  of  Bristol,  England,  a  generous  little  gentle- 
man who  had  proved  a  true  friend  in  need  to  more  than  one  of 
his  former  neighbors  in  Cambridge.  His  family  estates  in  An- 
tigua adjoined  those  of  the  Royalls,  and  although  Mrs.  Vassall's 
depreciated  share  of  the  latter  plantation  was  in  the  hands  of 
creditors,  he  was  evidently  convinced  by  practical  experience  that 
the  place  was  capable  of  successful  rehabilitation.  As  a  trustee  ^ 
for  the  Widow,  therefore,  he  seems  to  have  undertaken  the  re- 
demption of  the  property,  gradually  paying  off  the  debts  with 
which  it  was  burdened,  and  (aided  by  a  general  improvement  of 
local  conditions)  bringing  it  to  such  a  pitch  of  efficiency  that  by 
1791  her  interest  in  it  was  valued  at  £5167.  At  that  date  he 
took  a  formal  lease  from  her  for  nine  years  at  £350  per  annum, 
and  in  1795,  all  the  encumbrances  having  been  cleared  up,  he 
received  a  conveyance,  presumably  by  w^ay  of  mortgage.*  Although 
it  is  pretty  certain  that  the  greater  part  of  the  actual  proceeds 
of  these  transactions  had  already  been  advanced  to  Penelope 
in  a  long  series  of  anticipatory  loans,  which  had  kept  her 
from  starvation  for  years  past,  yet  there  is  reason  to  believe  that, 
thanks  to  the  warm-hearted  ex-lieutenant-govemor,  the  close  of 
her  life  was  blessed  with  something  resembling  an  income,   a 

*  1778.  Harris,  "The  New  England  Royalls,"  2^.  E.  Hist.  Gen.  Register, 
xxxix,  354,  n. 

*  Suffolk  Deeds,  passim, 

'  See  page  39.    Oliver  was  noted  for  his  success  as  a  planter. 

*  Antigua  Records,  Lib.  V,  vol.  5,  fol.  86,  and  Lib.  O,  vol.  7,  fol.  87.  His 
lease  of  Mrs.  Vassall's  half  was  simultaneous  with  a  purchase  of  Isaac  Royall's, 
containing  about  sixty  acres  and  forty  slaves.  {Idem,  Lib.  W,  vol.  5,  fol.  222.) 
The  supposition  of  a  mortgage  is  necessary  in  view  of  the  fact  that  after  Mrs. 
Vassall's  death  her  heirs  sold  the  same  property  to  him  outright  (1806)  for 
about  £6000.  {Idem,  Lib.  F,  vol.  7,  fol.  203.)  He  thus  became  owner  of  tlie 
entire  Royall  plantation. 


.iSl 


-o 


4 


02    5     5 


>  5  8 


^p»gg 


^^^w^m^^mm^m^mw^ 


1915.]  COL.    HENEY   VASSALL  61 

luxury  to  which  she  had  been  unaccustomed  for  almost  thirty 
ycars.^ 

At  last,  as  the  new  century  dawned,  her  poor  shadow  faded 
from  the  scene,  after  seventy-six  years  in  a  world  wherein  she 
had  found  that  wealth  and  beauty  and  happiness  are  but  shadows 
too.  She  was  buried  beside  her  husband,  one  dark  November  day  ^ 
of  1800,  in  the  tomb  he  built  beneath  Christ  Church.  By  her 
will,^  feebly  scrawled  on  a  bit  of  note-paper,  she  left  all  her  estate 
"  in  possession,  remainder  or  reversion  whether  in  the  United 
States  or  the  Island  of  Antigua,"  to  her  ^'  only  child  Elizabeth 
Russell  of  Boston,  widow,"  and  appointed  her  as  administratrix. 
But  two  years  later,  before  the  estate  had  been  closed,  Mrs.  Hus- 
sell  was  laid  beside  her  parents,^  and  the  lingering  possibility 
that  the  old  Vassall  homestead  might  welcome  back  its  rightful 
occupants  was  gone  forever. 

IV 

IsTo  mention  of  Henry  Vassall  or  of  his  tomb  would  be  complete 
without  some  account  of  his  slaves,  Anthony,  or  ^^  Tony,"  the 
father  and  "  Darby  "  the  son,  already  alluded  to.  Their  position 
in  Cambridge  annals  is  unique.  They  afford  our  only  instance 
of  well-authenticated  cases  illustrating  the  fortunes  of  ex-slaves 
of  the  "  George  Washington's  body-servant "  type.  Tony's  in- 
determinate, serio-comic  role  during  the  Revolution  —  half  chat- 

*  In  1794,  for  example,  she  was  able  to  turn  the  tables  of  the  law  by  suing 
George  Bacon  of  Stoekbridge  for  a  loan  to  him  of  £12,  No.  98194,  "  Early 
Court  Files,"  Clerk's  Office,  Supreme  Judicial  Court,  Boston. 

'  She  died  on  the  19th.  Harris,  "  The  New  England  Royalls,"  2V.  E.  Hist. 
Gen.  Register,  xxxix,  353. 

'  Suffolk  Probate,  No.  21362. 

*  Mrs.  Russell  left  no  will  and  apparently  no  property  save  the  Antigua  in- 
terests. Just  what  these  amounted  to  is  hard  to  say.  For  several  years  after 
her  death  they  were  so  little  considered  that  it  was  not  thought  worth  while 
even  to  settle  her  estate.  Then,  as  has  been  noted,  they  were  sold  by  her 
daughters  to  Oliver,  nominally  for  £6000.  Probably  to  satisfy  the  conveyancers, 
administration  was  taken  out  in  1807,  but  the  papers  were  so  carelessly  drawn 
that  one  cannot  but  feel  they  represented  very  little.  Some  of  the  printed  forms 
are  of  the  wrong  kind,  others  are  erroneously  indorsed,  and  Penelope  Vassall  is 
described  throughout  as  intestate.  (Suffolk  Probate,  Nos.  21362  and  23010.) 
The  bonds  were  set  at  $20,000.  If  this  sum,  according  to  the  usual  rule,  was 
twice  the  value  of  the  estate,  we  may  infer  the  latter  was  not  more  than  about 
£2000,  which  figure  may  have  represented  the  actual  amount  paid  (or  already 
advanced)  by  Oliver. 


62  THE   CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

tel,  half  independent  wage-earner,  now  quasi-foundling  and 
pauper,  now  high  financier  —  quaintly  suggests  the  political  and 
civic  no-man's-land  through  which,  lacking  the  short  cut  of  an 
authoritative  pronunciamento/  the  negroes  of  New  England  passed 
on  their  way  from  servitude  to  citizenship.  Darby,  on  the  other 
hand,  surviving  far  into  the  nineteenth  century  and  within  living 
memory,  forms  as  it  were  an  ebon  link  connecting  the  heroic  and 
the  modem  periods  of  the  town  history.  Father  and  son  together 
have  earned  our  gratitude,  too,  for  perpetuating  between  them  most 
of  the  scanty  traditions  of  their  "  family ''  that  we  still  possess. 

Tony,  according  to  these  traditions,^  was  shanghaied  from  Spain 
at  an  early  age,  with  the  lure  of  "  seeing  the  world."  The  par- 
ticular portion  of  the  universe  exhibited  to  him  was  the  island 
of  Jamaica.  Here  he  was  bought  for  a  coachman  by  young  Harry 
Vassall,  and  his  travels  were  soon  extended  to  Cambridge.  Like 
master,  like  man.  When  the  Colonel  married  Penelope  Royall, 
his  coachman  espoused  her  maid  '^  Coby,"  ^  or  Cuba  (said,  in 
spite  of  her  name,  to  have  been  a  full-blooded  African),  and  the 
happy  pair  brought  up  a  numerous  family.'* 

How  many  compatriots  they  had  in  the  Vassall  household  dur- 
ing its  heyday  is  uncertain.  The  Colonel  unquestionably  brought 
other  slaves  with  him  from  Jamaica  besides  Tony.  A  number 
were  contributed  by  Mrs.  Vassall  as  a  part  of  her  dowry.     The 

*  The  Massachusetts  legislators  could  never  quite  screw  up  their  courage  to 
the  point  of  emancipating  the  slaves  within  their  jurisdiction.  The  subject 
was  debated  "for  many  years"  without  result;  and  even  in  1777,  when  the 
country  was  ringing  with  the  battle-cry  of  freedom,  and  the  negroes  themseh-es 
were  petitioning  earnestly  for  recognition,  a  bill  for  that  purpose  was  tabled 
on  the  second  reading,  while  a  letter  to  Congress  was  prepared.  With  a  sorry 
mixture  of  timidity  and  arrogance  it  stated  that  the  delay  was  due  to  a  fear 
tliat  action  by  Massachusetts  might  have  too  "  extensive  influence  "  on  "  our 
Brethren  in  the  other  Colonies."  The  letter  itself  was  tabled,  and  nothing 
more  was  done.  Mass.  Archives,  197/125.  Historic  Magazine,  Second  Series, 
V,  52. 

'  See  a  manuscript  note,  apparently  taken  down  by  Rev.  Dr.  Hoppin  from 
the  statements  of  Darby  about  1855,  preserved  in  the  papers  of  Christ  Church. 

*  Old  Isaac  Royall  by  his  will  in  1738  had  bequeathed  to  his  daughter  "  one 
Negro  Girl  called  Present  and  one  Negro  Woman  called  Abba  &  her  Six  Chil- 
dren named  Robin  Coba  Walker  Nuba  Trace  &  Tobey  to  hold  to  my  Said 
Daughter  &  her  Heirs  forever  [!]."    Middlesex  Probate,  19545,  O.S. 

*  Several  of  them  can  be  seen  on  the  inventory  of  1769.  It  is  amusing  to 
notice  that  according  to  cash  values  therein  Tony  was  scarcely  half  the  man 
his  wife  was.    See  Appendix  A. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  63 

names  of  nearly  a  score  are  scattered  under  various  dates  through 
the  scanty  manuscripts  mentioning  such  matters.  Added  to  the 
similar  establishments  of  the  other  rich  West  India  planters  of 
the  town,  they  gave  pre-revolutionary  Cambridge  the  strange  nota- 
bility of  a  black  population  nearly  three  times  greater  than  that 
of  any  other  place  with  less  than  2000  inhabitants  in  the  whole 
province.-^  In  some  of  these  establishments  they  were  so  numer- 
ous that,  as  at  the  Royalls,  they  had  separate  "  quarters,"  after 
the  Southern  custom.  In  others,  as  (traditionally)  at  the  Bor- 
lands,  they  occupied  an  extra  story  of  the  main  house.  In  many 
churches  they  were  given  a  special  gallery;  but  just  what  was 
done  with  them  at  Christ  Church,  which  had  no  galleries,  and 
where  they  must  have  been  particularly  in  evidence,  is  not  clear. ^ 
On  a  list  ^  of  the  families  of  that  parish,  drawn  up  by  the  rector 
in  1763,  Colonel  Vassall  is  put  down  for  ten  persons.  Since 
himself,  his  wife,  and  Miss  Elizabeth  account  for  only  three,  we 
conclude  that  even  at  this  date,  when  his  fortunes  were  on  the 
wane,  he  had  at  least  seven  servants  worth  mentioning  in  such  a 
connection.  And  since  the  expense  book  already  quoted  gives  no 
clue  to  any  servant  receiving  regular  wages,  we  may  further  con- 
clude that  all  seven  were  slaves. 

*  The  special  census  in  1754  of  "  Slaves  of  16  Years  and  over,"  and  the 
"lost"  general  census  of  1765,  recently  rediscovered  by  Benton,  yield  the  fol- 
lowing comparisons  for  the  towns  nearest  to  Cambridge  in  size: 

Order  in                                                                                  1754  1765 

Population                                                                              Slaves  Negroes  Total 

3Gth.    Sudbury 14  27  1772 

37th.    Harwich 14  23  1772 

38th.    Attleboro' 10  15  1739 

39th.    Cambridge 56  ^  90  1582 

40th.    Concord 15  27  1564 

41st.     Boxford 8  17  1550 

42nd.    Reading 20  34  1537 

A  striking  exception,  due  of  course  to  the  same  causes,  is  found  in  the  little 
hamlets  of 

Lexington 24  44  912 

Medford 34  47  790 

'  Some  of  the  largest  slaveholders  —  Borland,  Phips,  John  Vassall  —  had 
two  pews  each,  and,  as  many  of  the  side  pews  were  never  bought,  there  would 
be  plenty  of  room  for  such  other  slaves  as  actually  attended ;  but  the  religious 
instruction  of  their  servants  was  scarcely  a  strong  point  with  the  easy-going 
proprietors  of  "  Church  Row." 

*  Perry,  Papers  Relating  to  tlie  Church  in.  Massachusetts,  502. 


64  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

The  sable  brethren,  despite  their  lowly  status,  occupy  a  promi- 
nent place  in  the  above  expense  book.  The  daily  marketing  and 
"  sundrys,'^  it  appears,  were  usually  intrusted  to  "  Tony,"  '^  Jack," 
or  "  Jemmy  "  ^  —  sometimes  to  "  Merryfield."  Then  there  were 
"  leather  breeches  for  Jemmy  £7 ;  "  and  for  his  more  expansive 
father,  "  pd.  Hall  for  toneys  breeches  £8.5."  There  are  also 
such  items  as  ^^  pd.  peak  ^  for  Nursing  Cuba  £6 ;  "  and  on  Christ- 
mas Day,  ''  given  servants  £5.12.6." 

Entries  like  these  are  characteristic  of  the  kindly  and  paternal 
relations  that  almost  always  mitigated  the  conditions  of  slavery 
in  New  England.  The  indefensible  ethics  of  the  system  were 
practically  obscured  by  the  simple-hearted  friendliness  thr^t  made 
the  Africans  well-nigh  members  of  the  family.^  In  mnny  house- 
holds they  even  ate  at  their  master's  table.  Indeed  William 
Vassall,  the  Colonel's  brother,  who  owned  swarms  of  negroes 
in  Jamaica,  had  "  scruples "  as  to  retaining  them  in  bondage 
at  all.  He  actually  consulted  Bishop  Butler  on  the  question, 
but  decided  —  doubtless  wuth  considerable  relief  —  to  make  no 
change  when  that  famous  casuist  reassured  him  "  on  Scripture 
ground."  * 

Strict  historical  impartiality  compels  the  admission  that  there 
was  another  side  to  the  shield.  In  base  return  for  their  humane 
treatment  the  slaves  sometimes  displayed  rank  ingratitude  and 
treachery.  Morally  and  intellectually  they  were  for  the  most 
part  mere  children,  and  occasionally  exceedingly  naughty  children. 
The  court  records'^  give  us  a  shocking  instance  of  perversity  in 
the  Vassall  household  itself  —  a  crime  as  black  as  the  perpetrators. 

•  Son  of  Tony  and  older  brother  of  Darby. 

'  Cf.  the  entry  in  the  interleaved  almanac  of  Rev.  Andrew  Eliot  of  Boston: 
**  1744,  Mar.  14  Mary  Peake  came  to  nurse  our  Child  at  18/  ^  week." 

•  Cf.  the  numerous  entries  regarding  the  death  of  "Negro  George,"  one  of 
Isaac  Royall's  slaves.  E.g.,  "  1776  March,  To  the  Sexton  &  Bearers  for  negro 
Georges  Funeral  15/7;  To  time  in  Apprizing  George's  Cloathes  &  takg  Care  of 
them  3/-"    Middlesex  Probate,  19546,  Old  Series. 

•  Dexter  to  Belknap.  Belknap  Papers,  ii,  384.  See  also  the  working-over  of 
this  famous  section  of  the  Belknap  correppondonce  by  such  authorities  as  G.  H. 
Moore,  History  of  Slavery  in  Massachusetts,  and  E.  Washburn,  Mass.  Hist.  Soo. 
Collections,  J^th  Series,  iv,  333,  and  Lectures  on  Early  Massachusetts  His- 
tory, 193. 

•  No.  69278,  "  Early  Court  Files,"  Middlesex  "  Minute  Book  "  1752-56.  and 
Records,  Superiour  Court  of  Judicature,  vol.  "  1752-53  "  fol.  126,  all  in  Clerk's 
OflSce,  Supreme  Judicial  Court,  Boston. 


1915.]  COL.   HENEY   VASSALL  65 

The  Jurors  for  the  said  Lord  ye  King  Upon  Their  Oath  Present 
That  William  Heley  of  Cambridge  in  the  County  aforesaid  Laborer 
and  Eobbin  ^  of  Cambridge  aforesd  Laborer  and  Servant  of  Henry 
Vassell  of  Cambridge  aforesd  Esqr.  did  on  ye  Ninth  of  May  last  at 
Cambridge  aforesaid  With  force  and  Armes  Brake  &  Enter  the  Dwell- 
ing house  in  Cambridge  aforesd  of  William  Brattle  Esq.  and  with 
force  as  aforesd  feloniously  Take  Steal  &  Carry  away  Out  of  ye  Same 
house  An  Iron  Chest  and  the  Money  Goods  and  Chattels  hereafter 
mentioned  then  in  the  Same  Chest  being,  namely,  Six  hundred  and 
three  Spanish  Milld  Dollars,  one  half  of  a  Dollar  and  one  Eighth  of 
a  Dollar,  One  hundred  and  Seventy  Pieces  of  Eight,  One  Large  Silver 
Cup,  Two  Silver  Chafing  dishes.  One  Silver  Sauce  Pan,  Three  Silver 
Tankards,  Nine  Silver  Porringers,  thirteen  Large  Silver  Spoons,  One 
Silver  Punch  Ladle,  Twelve  Silver  Tea  Spoons,  One  pair  of  Silver 
Tea  tongs  One  Silver  Pepper  Box,  four  Silver  Salt  Salvers,  One 
Large  Silver  Plate,  Two  Silver  Canns,  Two  Silver  C&r  die-Sticks  One 
pair  of  Silver  Snuffers  and  Snuff  Dish  two  Silver  Sweet  Meat  Spoons, 
One  Silver  Spout  Cup,  One  Hundred  and  thirty  three  Small  Pieces 
of  Silver  Coin  Two  hundred  and  Eighty  Six  Copper  half  pence,  & 
Eight  Small  Bags  being  the  Goods  and  Chattels  of  the  said  William 
Brattle  and  altogether  of  ye  Value  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  .pounds 
Lawful  money  against  the  Peace  of  ye  said  Lord  the  King  and  the 
Law  of  this  Province  in  that  Case  made  and  Provided. 

Edmd  Teowbridge,  Attr    Dom  Rex, 

[Endorsed'] 

This  is  a  True  Bill 

Ephraim  Jones  foreman. 

To  this  Indictment  the  said  William  Heley  &  Eobin  severally  plead 
guilty 

Attr        Saml  Winthrop  Cler. 

Eobbin  Negro  on  his  Examination  Taken  This  19th  of  May  AD 
1752  before  Saml  Danforth  &  E.  Trowbridge  Esqrs.  Says  That  Last 
Satturday  was  Seven  night  abt.  Two  of  ye  Clock  in  ye  night  Wm. 
Healy  &  I  were  Concern'd  in  Stealing  ye  Chest  of  Silver  some  Time 
Since  sd  Healey  Told  me  that  it  was  a  good  Time  to  get  into  Coll. 
Brattles  House  &  Get  Something.  I  told  him  I  was  afraid  by  reason 
of  ye  Small  Pox  he  thereupon  Told  me  That  he  would  go  into  ye 
house  if  I  would  go  along  with  him  &  I  agreeing  to  it  he  in  ye  sd. 
Saturday  Night  Came  &  Awaked  me  out  of  my  Sleep  &  we  went  to 
Coll  Brattles  house  &  he  Went  into  Coll.  Brattles  Barn  &  Got  a  Ladder 

*  Brother  of  Cuba.    See  note,  page  62. 


66  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

&  Set  up  agt  ye  Back  of  Ye  house  &  Got  into  ye  Back  Window  and 
Got  Out  ye  Chest  let  it  down  on  ye  Roof  of  ye  Studdy  and  delivered 
it  to  me  on  ye  Ladder  &  I  held  it  there  Until  he  got  down  &  then 
we  Carried  it  Out  of  ye  Gate  &  Thence  Thro'  my  master  Garden  into 
ye  Cornfield  &  there  we  got  an  ax  (which  I  Fetch)  &  he  Opend  it  & 
I  went  away  for  fear  of  ye  Small  Pox  &  when  it  was  Open'd  He  Took 
ye  Money  Out  of  ye  Chest  &  then  Berried  ye  Chest  in  ye  field  where 
it  lay  with  ye  Plate  in  it  Until  ye  next  Monday  Night  When  we  Took 
ye  Plate  out  &  Carried  ye  Chest  away  &  Berried  it  in  a  Ditch  in  Mr 
Elleries  land  &  we  hid  both  ye  money  &  plate  Under  My  Masters 
Bam  where  it  was  found.  Dick  Brattle  gave  in  ye  first  Information 
Concerning  ye  money  he  Said  That  there  was  an  Iron  Chest  in  ye 
Closet  in  his  Masters  Chamber  yt  he  Supposed  was  half  full  of  Money 
&  yt  if  Wm.  Healey  Could  Carry  him  off  he  Could  Get  him  money 
Enough  This  Was  Soon  after  Wm.  Came  to  live  at  my  Masters,  .  .  . 
We  Told  Toney  of  it  &  he  Crept  Under  Ye  Barn  Flower  to  hide  ye 
money  ye  Next  Morning  after  we  Stole  it  but  he  never  had  any  part 
of  it  as  I  know  of  but  had  ye  promise  of  part  of  it.  I  took  ye  money 
This  day  &  put  it  in  ye  place  whence  I  Fetched  it  &  that  is  ye  Same 
money  we  Took  Out  of  ye  Chest  we  Took  Everything  Out  of  ye 
Chest  but  some  papers  Wm  Heley  proposed  (that  when  we  were 
ready  to  go  oif )  to  Take  My  Masters  plate  but  I  told  him  it  would 
not  do.    No  other  persons  were  knowing  of  ye  affair. 

Wm.  Heley  Says  That  Dick  Brattle  Told  Bobbin  where  his  Masters 
Gold  &  Silver  was  &  yt  his  Masters  daughter  was  agoing  to  be  mar- 
ried &  if  they  did  not  get  it  Soon  it  would  not  be  Worth  While  to 
meddle  With  it  dick  Said  there  was  a  Vast  deal  of  Gold  &  A  great 
Many  Rings  in  a  Box  in  his  Misters  Chamber  yt  stood  on  a  desk 
there  &  that  there  was  an  Iron  Chest  in  ye  Closett  that  was  half  full 
of  Dollars  &  Carried  Bobbin  to  see  ye  Chest  yt  if  they  were  Enoculated 
he  Robin  might  get  it.  Last  Saturday  Night  was  seven  Night  Robin 
&  I  went  into  Coll  Brattles  he  went  in  to  ye  Barn  &  got  a  ladder  & 
set  up  agt  ye  Back  Side  of  ye  house  &  opened  ye  Chamber  window 
got  in  &  Took  Out  ye  Iron  Chest  &  let  it  down  on  ye  ladder  Bobbin 
bought  3  pair  of  stockins  &  Two  handkerchief  with  part  of  ye  money 
one  of  which  Joseph  Luke  had  &  also  two  of  ye  Dollars  Robbin  & 
Toney  hid  ye  Money  ye  next  morning.  Robin  Opend  ye  Chest  & 
Took  Out  ye  Money  &  left  ye  Plate  in  ye  Chest  which  he  Buried  in 
ye  Field,  Joseph  Luke  was  knowing  of  ye  design  of  Stealing  ye  money 
abt  3  weeks  Since  &  it  was  Agreed  That  Dick  Should  have  half  & 
ye  Other  was  to  be  divided  between  Luke  Robin  &  myself  Luke  was 
not  present  when  the  money  was  Stole,  but  Come  afterwards  &  de- 


1915.]   .  COL.    HENEY   YASSALL  67 

manded  his  part  and  Said  ye  reason  he  did  not  help  was  because  he 
was  drunk  Robbin  &  I  were  with  Luke  yt  Evening  before  ye  money 
was  Stole  &  drank  togeather  in  Mr.  Reed's  Yard.  I  stood  by  Coll 
Brattles  dore  &  by  ye  Gate  (while  Robbin  was  entring  ye  house)  to 
Watch  &  See  that  he  was  not  discovered  &  yt  no  One  was  a  Comeing. 

I  took  ye  Dollars  that  Were  found  on  me  Out  of  a  napkin  in  Mr. 
Yassells  Little  house  where  there  was  also  Some  Coppers  yt  Toney 
Brought  from  Boston  in  Exchange  for  Some  of  ye  Dollars  yt  were 
stole.  The  Dollars  found  on  me  are  part  of  Coll.  Brattles  as  I  sup- 
pose &  Believe  for  Robbin  Told  me  he  had  sent  some  down  by  Toney 
&  He  Told  me  he  put  them  in  ye  napkin  &  were  part  of  Coll  Brattles 
The  Coppers  you  have  are  my  own  &  also  One  of  ye  Dollars.  Our 
design  was  to  go  to  Cape  Breton  &  from  thence  to  France. 

At  his  Majesty's  superior  Court  of  Judicature,  Court  of  Assize 
and  general  goal  Delivery  begun  &  held  at  Concord  ...  4  August 
1752  .  .  . 

The  Court  having  considered  the  Offence  of  the  said  Wm  Heley 
and  Robin,  order  that  each  of  them  be  whipt  twenty  Stripes  upon  his 
naked  back  at  the  public  whiping,  and  that  they  pay  the  sd  Wm 
Brattle  trible  the  value  of  the  Goods  stolen  (the  trible  being  £786) 
the  goods  returned  (being  of  the  value  of  £214)  to  be  accounted  part; 
and  that  they  pay  costs  of  prosecution  standing  committed  until  this 
Sentence  be  performed. 

N.B.  in  Case  the  sd  Wm  Heley  &  Robin  be  unable  to  make  resti- 
tution or  pay  the  trible  Damages  ordered  that  the  sd  Wm  Brattle  be 
&  hereby  is  impower'd  to  dispose  of  the  sd  Wm  Heley  in  Service  to 
any  of  his  Majesty's  Subjects  for  the  Term  of  twenty  years,  and  to 
dispose  of  the  sd  Robin  for  the  Term  of  his  natural  Life. 

Since  nothing  more  is  heard  of  either  of  the  culprits  it  is  to 
be  supposed  that  this  harsh  sentence  ^  was  duly  carried  out,  and 
that  Henry  Vassall  was  thus  deprived  of  another  portion  of  his 
fast-disappearing  property. 

Tony  himself,  although  he  plainly  hovered  on  the  outskirts  of 
the  crime  as  a  willing  accessory,  seems  to  have  been  able  to  clear 
his  reputation  and  to  maintain  his  confidential  relations  with  his 
master.     The  tie  between  them  was  apparently  one  of  real  affec- 

*  Cf.  the  even  more  terrible  punishment,  three  years  later,  of  two  negroes 
who  had  poisoned  their  master,  and  who  were  executed  on  Cambridge  Common : 
"  Mark,  a  fellow  about  30,  was  hanged ;  and  Phillis,  an  old  creature,  was  burnt 
to  death."  Winthrop's  Diary,  September  18,  1755,  quoted  in  Paige,  History  of 
Cambridge,  217. 


68  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Jan. 

tion.  They  had  been  together  nearly  all  their  lives,  and  it  needs 
but  a  modicum  of  imagination  to  fancy  the  escapades,  equine  and 
otherwise,  to  which  the  old  coachman  had  been  privy.  Though 
the  Colonel,  as  we  have  seen,  probably  sold  off  several  of  his 
slaves  during  the  financial  stresses  of  his  later  years,  yet  he  stead- 
fastly refused  to  part  with  Tony.  So  too  Madame  Vassall  after 
his  death.  In  her  attempts  to  clear  the  estate  from  debts  she 
even  sold  Cuba  and  the  children  ^  to  young  John  Vassall  across 
the  road  (though  the  actual  transfer  could  have  been  scarcely 
more  than  nominal),  but  kept  Tony  on  the  old  place.^ 

In  return  the  slave  exhibited  a  Casabianca-like  fidelity.  It 
is  not  unlikely  that  when  both  Vassall  families  retreated  from 
Cambridge  he  was  left  in  charge  of  the  combined  properties.^  At 
all  events  he  hung  about  the  homestead  during  the  eclipse  of  its 
former  splendor  like  a  kind  of  dusky  human  penumbra.  His 
shadowy  presence  haunts  the  Burgoyne  dinner  traditions*  and 

*  As  late  as  a  generation  ago  there  was  said  to  be  "  documentary  evidence  " 
that  in  1722  she  showed  her  "  kindness  "  by  paying  £20  to  free  one  of  Tony's 
children  from  slavery.  {The  Cambridge  of  1116,  100.)  Since  the  date  is  ob- 
viously wrong — it  should  probably  be  1772  —  we  may  suspect  a  further  con- 
fusion in  the  statement  and  assume  that  under  the  circumstances  the  payment 
was  made  not  by,  but  to  her,  and  that  her  object  was  not  so  much  altruistic  as 
to  raise  much  needed  funds. 

Although  even  in  the  forced  settlement  of  estates  the  slaves  of  New  England 
were  generally  treated  with  consideration,  a  shocking  instance  of  the  opposite 
sort  is  found  in  the  letters  of  the  Rev.  Winwood  Serjeant.  After  the  death  of 
his  father-in-law,  the  Rev.  Arthur  Browne  of  Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  the  latter's 
old  serving-man  "  Jess  [  ?  Jesse]  "  was  sold  to  a  planter  in  the  West  Indies  in 
1774.  In  a  frenzy  of  despair  at  the  separation  from  all  his  lifelong  associa- 
tions, the  poor  creature  threw  himself  overboard  on  the  voyage  and  perished 
miserably. 

*  Where  he  duly  appears,  solus,  on  the  inventory  of  1778.  (See  Appendix  B.) 
It  is  instructive  to  notice  that  he  is  now  entered  somewhat  hesitatingly  as  a 
"  negro  man,"  not  as  a  slave,  and  has  no  appraised  money  value  as  a  chattel. 
Neither  does  he  figure  on  the  actual  sale-list  of  the  ensuing  auction.  Plainly 
public  opinion  was  setting  in  the  opposite  direction.     (See  note,  page  70.) 

*  In  August,  1775,  a  committee  appointed  to  take  charge  of  "  such  Estates 
only  as  may  be  found  without  Occupant  or  pofsessor,"  reported  that  "  many  of 
them  who  are  left  in  pofsefsion  under  pretence  of  occupants  are  only  negroes 
or  servants  &c  and  that  in  some  inftances  the  Officers  Doctors  and  others  be- 
longing to  the  army  have  entered  upon  &  taken  pofsefsion  &  make  wafte  on  sd 
Eftates."  (Mass.  Archives,  154/30.)  The  language  here  points  unmistakably 
to  the  Vassall  houses,  one  of  which  was  now  in  full  swing  as  a  hospital  and 
the  other  as  military  headquarters. 

*  See  post. 


1915.]  COL.   HENEY   VASSALL  69 

appears  sharply  silhouetted  on  the  inventory  of  1778.-^  We  also 
glimpse  him  at  work  on  the  confiscated  estate  of  his  mistress's 
brother  at  Medford  —  work  which,  in  his  new  status  of  a  paid 
hand,  he  seems  to  have  valued  more  highly  than  his  employer  did.^ 
^'  Antony  Vafsall  —  1  "  is  entered,  along  with  ^'  Cato  Board- 
man  —  1,"  on  the  list  of  polls  in  Cambridge  for  1777,  but  is 
taxed  for  neither  personalty  nor  realty.  The  exemption  he  had 
cleverly  secured  by  taking  up  his  domicile  with  his  wife  and 
children,  who  "  inhabited  a  small  tenement  on  Mr.  John  Vassal's 
estate  and  improved  a  little  spot  of  land  of  about  one  and  a  half 
acres  lying  adjacent,"  ^  and  thus  contriving  to  enjoy  a  freedom 
from  rents  and  taxes  as  well  as  from  bondage.^  When  in  1781 
the  final  sale  of  all  confiscated  Loyalist  property  was  arranged, 
he  beheld  with  dismay  the  vanishing  of  his  peculiar  privileges, 
but  determined  to  take  advantage  of  the  anomalous  conditions  to 
secure  if  possible  a  free  title  to  his  diminutive  domain.  Like 
any  other  full-fledged  citizen,^  therefore,  he  petitioned  the  Legis- 

*  See  Appendix  B. 

'  The  accounts  of  Simon  Tufts,  "  Agent  for  Isaac  Royall,  Absentee,"  include: 

1776  Dec.  10  To  Toney  Mrs.  Vassalls  Negro  £4. 

1777  Jan.  17  To  Toney  Vassall  4. 
Apr.  15  To  Toney  Vassall's  Ballance  1.12. 
Jul.  28  To  Toney  Vassall's  full 

Ballance  by  Arbitration  0.6.6 

'  "  Memorial  of  Anthony  Vassall  of  Cambridge,  a  negro  man,"  to  the  Massa- 
chusetts Legislature,  1781.  (Mass.  Archives,  231/114-15.)  The  location  was 
evidently  "  The  Farm  House  East  of  the  Garden,"  with  one  and  one-half  acres 
and  22  rods,  valued  in  the  inventory  of  1778  at  £243.  (Middlesex  Probate, 
23340,  O.S.)  On  this  inventory  Cuba  and  little  Darby  are  plainly  identiiSed  as 
"  one  negro  woman  of  about  40  years  of  age,  one  negro  boy  about  8  years,"  to- 
gether with  the  most  recent  arrival  of  all,  "  another  negro  child  about  three 
months."  On  reconsideration  this  last  item  was  struck  through  with  the  pen. 
The  above  are  the  only  entries  of  the  kind.  No  values  are  set  against  them. 
(Cf.  note,  page  68.) 

*  Furthermore,  he  undoubtedly  managed  to  benefit  by  the  kindly  action  of 
the  House  of  Representatives,  wliich,  considering  that  several  refugees  "  have 
left  behind  them  some  of  their  Families  who  through  Age,  Infirmity  or  other 
Circumstances  are  unable  to  provide  for  their  own  Support,"  resolved  "to 
grant  a  reasonable  Allowance  towards  the  Support  &  Maintenance  of  Persons 
in  such  Circumstances,"  and  to  pay  "  such  reasonable  Charges  as  may  have 
arisen  for  boarding  &  supporting  such  Persons  since  the  Departure  of  the 
aforesaid  Refugees."     (November,  1776.)     Mass.  Archives,  154/73. 

'  Slavery  in  Massachusetts,  impliedly  done  away  with  by  the  Bill  of  Rights, 
received  its  coup  de  grace  in  1781  by  the  decision  in  the  case  of  "Quork" 


70  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

lature  —  having  "  a  large  family  of  children  to  maintain,  and 
being  an  old  man,  and  his  wife,  who  was  of  great  help  to  him, 
Ibeing  sick  "  —  to  have  his  squatter's  rights  confirmed  by  a  good 
title  from  the  state.  The  friendly  hand  that  drafted  the  memorial 
(Tony's  own  chirographical  powers  were  limited  to  making  his 
mark  —  a  bold  and  handsome  capital  "  T  ")  added,  not  without 
effect,  "  that  though  dwelling  in  a  land  of  freedom,  both  himself 
and  his  wife  have  spent  almost  sixty  years  of  their  lives  in  slavery, 
and  that  though  deprived  of  what  now  makes  them  happy  beyond 
expression  yet  they  have  ever  lived  a  life  of  honesty  and  been 
faithful  in  their  master's  service,"  and  expressed  the  hope  "  that 
they  shall  not  be  denied  the  sweets  of  freedom  the  remainder 
of  their  days  by  being  reduced  to  the  painful  necessity  of  begging 
for  bread."  On  this  quaint  appeal  the  good-natured  law-makers, 
perhaps  further  influenced  by  the  above  delicate  suggestion  that 
the  petitioners  otherwise  might  "  come  on  the  town,"  compromised 
by  ordering  that  out  of  the  proceeds  of  the  John  Vassall  sales 
Tony  should  be  paid  the  sum  of  £12,  and  the  same  amount  an- 
nually thereafter  from  the  public  funds.  ^ 

Had  we  not  other  proofs  that  Tony  Vassall  had  absorbed  no 

Walker  v.  Jennison.  One  of  the  earlier  decisions  leading  up  to  this  conelu- 
eion,  it  may  be  of  interest  to  recall,  was  a  test  case  (Quincy's  Reports,  29 
et  aeq. )  over  another  Cambridge  slave,  "  James "  Lechmere,  undoubtedly  a 
friend  of  Tony's.  Public  opinion  in  New  England,  long  somnolent  on  the  whole 
subject  because  of  its  easy  conditions,  became  aroused  during  the  mid-century; 
and  thereafter,  John  Adams  declares,  he  never  knew  a  jury  render  a  verdict  to 
the  effect  that  a  man  was  a  slave.  He  cynically  adds,  however,  that  the  motives 
for  such  sentiments  were  the  very  reverse  of  exalted,  being,  to  wit,  the  selfish 
opposition  of  the  laboring  whites,  who,  as  their  numbers  increased,  determined 
to  oust  their  unpaid  competitors.  {Belknap  Papers,  ii,  401.  See  also  Wash- 
burn and  Moore,  already  cited,  page  64.)  As  early  as  1763,  Governor  Bernard 
wrote  to  the  Lords  of  Trade :  "  The  People  here  are  very  much  tired  of  Negro 
Servants;  and  It  is  generally  thought  that  it  would  be  for  the  public  good  to 
difcourage  their  importation,  if  it  was  not  at  prefent  very  inconfiderable.** 
Benton,  Early  Census  Making  in  Massachusetts,  55. 

*  Mass.  Resolves,  1781,  January  Session,  chap.  Ixxxi.  Such  petitions  were 
not  uncommon.  An  extraordinarily  flowery  appeal  from  one  of  Isaac  Royall's 
slaves,  "  Belinda,"  bom  on  the  Rio  da  Valta,  Africa,  received  equally  favorable 
action  in  1783.  (Mass.  Archives,  239/12.)  This  dusky  beldame  seems  to  have 
been  a  rather  notorious  source  of  anxiety  to  her  owner,  for  in  his  will  he  be- 
queathed to  his  daughter  "  my  Negro  Woman  Belinda  in  case  she  does  not 
choose  her  Freedom;  if  she  does  choose  her  Freedom  to  have  it  provided  she 
get  security  that  she  shall  not  be  a  charge  to  the  Town  of  Medford."  Suffolk 
Probate,  85/535.    See  note,  page  71. 


1915.]  COL.   HENRY   VASSALL  71 

small  share  of  his  former  master's  financial  adroitness,  we  should 
be  surprised  to  find  that,  after  such  a  pitiable  account  of  his 
poverty,  and  having  failed  in  his  ingenious  attempt  to  acquire 
a  home  at  the  public  expense,  he  was  able  to  secure  one  in  the 
usual  manner  from  his  own  private  means.  In  1787  he  bought 
a  house  and  a  quarter  of  an  acre  of  land  ^  from  Aaron  Hill,  brick- 
Layer,  and  four  years  later  a  small  tract  adjoining.  In  1793  he 
acquired  from  John  Foxcroft  nearly  five  acres  ^  on  the  other  side 
of  the  road  (Massachusetts  Avenue).  His  total  outlay  for  these 
purchases  was  no  less  than  £152. 

The  source  of  this  unexpected  wealth  is  one  of  the  most  amaz- 
ing bits  of  his  history.  As  has  been  said,  he  lived  during  the 
Revolutionary  period  with  his  wife  and  children  on  the  land  of 
John  Vassall,  whose  property  they  were.  As  long  as  it  was  possible 
so  to  do,  he  insisted  that  the  cost  of  their  maintenance  should 
stand  on  the  same  footing  with  any  other  outlays  for  preserving 
the  confiscated  personalty  until  it  should  be  sold.  Of  the  correct- 
ness of  this  he  actually  succeeded  in  convincing  the  ^'  agent,"  Far- 
rington,  on  whose  accounts  appears  the  extraordinary  entry: 

P^  Anthony  Yassall  for  supporting  a  Negro  woman  &  two  Children 
(3  Years,)  belonging  to  the  Estate  of  s^  [John]  Vassall    £222.=^ 

Cambridge  therefore  may  boast  the  singular  distinction  of  having 
possessed  a  reputable  resident  who,  with  neither  resources  nor 
backers,  achieved  by  perfectly  legal  means  the  supposedly  impos- 
sible feat  of  having  his  cake  and  eating  it  too,  —  enjoying  for  a 
period  of  years  a  commodious  dwelling,  a  garden  lot,  a  devoted 
spouse,  and  a  family  establishment,  which  not  only  cost  him 
nothing,  but  finally  netted  him  a  handsome  surplus  and  a  govern- 
ment pension. 

*  Middlesex  Deeds,  96/84.  The  title  shows  that  this  was  the  plot  formerly 
owned  by  Benjamin  Cragbone,  tanner,  who  built  thereon,  about  1766,  one  of 
those  "  little  black  story  and  a  half  houses  with  gambrel  roofs,  that  saw  the 
row  that  was  going  on  the  19th  of  April,  '75."  (John  Holmes,  "  A  Cambridge 
Robinson  Crusoe,"  in  The  City  and  the  Sea,  20.)  The  location  was  near  the 
corner  of  the  present  Massachusetts  Avenue  and  Shepard  Street.  {The  Cam' 
bridge  of  1116,  100.    See  also  Paige,  History  of  Cambridge,  519.) 

*  Middlesex  Deeds,  105/274  and  110/199. 

'  Middlesex  Probate,  No.  23340,  O.S.  The  transaction  was  probably  modelled 
on  the  similar  charge  by  the  executor  of  Isaac  Royall  "  for  Supporting  Belinda 
his  aged  Negro  Servant  for  3  Years,  £30,"  but,  it  will  be  noted,  on  an  enor- 
mously inflated  capitalization. 


72  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

On  his  own  manor  thus  ludicrously  procured,  with  his  truly 
valuable  helpmeet,  "  two  pigs,  a  horse,  cart  and  tackling,  a  boat- 
hook,  etc.,"  ^  the  old  Loyalist  coachman  dwelt  for  some  thirty 
years,  plying  the  trade  of  a  ^'  farrier  "  ^  in  an  intermittent  and 
desultory  fashion  which  he  more  than  atoned  for  by  the  admirable 
regularity  with  which  he  drew  his  pension.  The  following  pastoral 
document  ^  gives  a  good  example  of  his  craft.  That  word,  indeed, 
may  be  taken  with  a  double  meaning,  since  we  have  here  addi- 
tional evidence  that  Tony's  commercial  methods  were  of  the  most 
advanced  order  and  included  the  thoroughly  modern  system  of 
overcharging  for  everything. 

Will°»  Winthrop  Esq' 

ti'irOl  To  Antony  Vafsall  D'^ 

To  keeps  Your  Horfe  on  hay  from 
t^lO  Nov'-  to  this  Jany  1792  being 
63  days  at  1/6  ^  day  4.14.6 

To  triming  said  Horfe  3. 

Docking  s<^  Horfe  1.6 


£4.19.0 


after  mature  Confideration  of  the  above 
Acct  it  appears  to  me  that  there  is  due 
to  Antony  Vafgell  £2.10.6 

Eben^  Stedman 
[Endorsed'] 
Tony  Vafsall's  Acco* 
pd  Jan.  12,  1793 


January  12  1793  Rec^  payment 
of  the  within  Acco*  which  is 
in  full  of  all  debts  dues  and 
demands  whatever 

his 
Antony     "["     Vassall 
Test.  mark 

Jno.  Alford  Mason 

*  Inventory  of  1811.    Middlesex  Probate,  No.  23335,  Old  Series. 

■  He  is  designated  in  the  records  both  as  "  farrier  "  and  as  "  lalwurer,"  and 
in  one  case  (probably  most  to  his  liking)  receives  the  sonorous  appellation  of 
**  yeoman." 

•  Preserved  in  a  scrap-book  at  the  Cambridge  Public  Library. 


1915.]  COL.   HENEY   VASSALL  73 

Like  most  of  his  race,  Tony  was  never  averse  to  abandoning 
the  grosser  forms  of  toil  for  the  fine  art  of  conversation;  and  he 
delighted  to  expound  to  the  younger  generation  the  glories  of  the 
good  old  times  before  the  war.  He  was  famous  for  his  grandilo- 
quent descriptions  of  the  ancient  splendors  of  "  the  family  "  and 
his  own  Apollo-like  magnificence  on  the  box  seat  of  the  chariot 
when  they  drove  to  church  on  Sundays  or  into  Boston  for  some 
stately  function.  Such  reminiscences  were  of  course  strongly  col- 
ored by  the  native  foibles  of  the  narrator;  -it  is  doubtless,  for 
example,  due  to  his  vivid  African  imagination  that  the  old  Vassall 
house  for  generations  afterwards  enjoyed  the  reputation  of  being 
"  ha'nted.'^  ^ 

In  September  of  1811,  at  a  fabulous  age,^  Anthony  Vassall 
shuffled  off  this  earthly  stage,  leaving  the  faithful  Cuba  as  his 
chief  mourner.^  Her  tears,  nevertheless,  were  not  so  blinding 
as  to  make  her  lose  sight  of  the  "  pension."  Since  by  its  terms 
it  was  not  payable  to  her,  she  lost  no  time  in  applying  afresh  to 
the  Great  and  General  Court,  "  at  a  very  advanced  period  of  life 
and  destitute  of  other  regular  means  of  support,"  praying  the 
legislators  ^'  to  take  pity  on  her  humble  state,  and  seeing  the 
premises,  to  grant  the  continuance  of  the  said  pension  of  £12 
during  the  remnant  of  her  life."  To  enforce  her  claim  she 
piquantly  pointed  out  that  the  original  annuity  was  to  be  paid 
out  of  the  proceeds  of  the  estate  of  John  Vassall,  "  on  her 
your  petitioner's  account,  and  for  her  support;  as  she  was, 
prior  to  the  Revolution,  and  at  the  time  of  the  confiscation,  the 

*  The  Cambridge  of  1776,  100.  Such  stories  naturally  lost  nothing  in  the 
lively  fancies  of  the  many  young  folks  who  subsequently  occupied  the  mansion. 
Persons  now  living  can  testify  to  mysterious  nocturnal  rustlings  in  the  great 
chamber  where  Church  was  confined  (see  post)  ;  the  negro  boy  who  was 
pricked  to  death  by  Burgoyne's  officers  ( see  post )  "  walked  "  in  one  of  the  attic 
rooms;  the  ghost  of  old  Governor  Belcher  (the  owner  from  1717  to  1719) 
could  be  heard  tiptoeing  along  the  halls  in  his  squeaky  riding-boots;  on  stormy 
nights  the  balls  of  spectral  skittle-players  reverberated  along  the  roof. 

'  Given  in  Cambridge  Vital  Records,  ii,  772,  as  ninety-eight. 

'  Middlesex  Probate,  No.  23335,  O.S.  At  or  soon  after  this  date  his  heirs 
seem  to  have  been  his  daughter  Catherine  (evidently  named  for  his  former 
master's  granddaughter,  Miss  Russell)  ;  Abigail  (Hill),  widow  of  James  or 
*•  Jemmy " ;  Eliza  Flagg,  daugliter  of  Cyrus ;  Flora,  widow  of  "  Bristol  " 
Miranda  (compare  the  John  Miranda  mentioned  in  Paige,  450)  ;  and  Darby, 
described  as  "  the  only  son."  Dorinda,  mentioned  in  the  inventory  of  1769, 
had  died  in  1784.    Cambridge  Vital  Records,  ii,  772. 


74  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

domestic  slave  and  dependent  of  the  said  John  Vassall,  and  her 
said  husband  was  not."  Through  the  good  offices  of  Lemuel 
Shaw,  the  Legislature  resolved  to  accede  to  her  .request  and 
continue  her  little  dole,  now  represented  by  $40,  '^  until  further 
order  of  this  Court."  ^  The  last  clause  evinced  an  almost  need- 
less precaution.    The  old  crone  claimed  her  pittance  but  one  year 


Darby,  the  best  remembered  child  of  the  couple,  was  born,  if 
his  own  statement^  is  to  be  relied  on,  in  May  of  1769,  beneath 
the  roof  of  John  Vassall,  who  had  already  purchased  the  mother 
Cuba,  and  thus  become  entitled  to  her  offspring.  At  a  tender  age 
he  was  "  given  "  to  George  Reed  of  South  Woburn,  a  recent  con- 
vert to  Episcopalianism  and  one  of  the  group  who  from  that  dis- 
tant township  occasionally  attended  Christ  Church,  Cambridge.* 
That  worthy  patriot,  when  the  Revolution  broke  out,  threw  to 
the  winds  his  half-assimilated  Church  of  England  principles,  joined 
the  provincial  forces,  marched  to  Bunker  Hill,  was  there  stricken 
by  ^'  a  surfeit  or  heat,"  and  in  a  few  days  expired.^ 

*  Mass.  Resolves  of  1811-12,  chap,  cliv,  and  accompanying  papers:  "Peti- 
tion of  Cuby  Vassall,"  approved  Feb.  28,  1812  by  her  fellow-townsman  Gov. 
Gerry.  See  Judge  Shaw's  reminiscences  of  the  matter  in  Mass.  Hist.  Society's 
Proceedings,  1st  Series,  iv,  66. 

'  Her  age  is  given  as  seventy-eight.  As  in  her  husband's  case,  consumption 
was  the  immediate  cause  of  death.  (Cambridge  Vital  Records,  ii,  772.)  Both 
were  buried  from  the  First  Parish,  of  which  they  were  doubtless  members, 
Christ  Church  at  this  period  being  closed. 

'  Hoppin  MS.  (see  note,  page  62).  Cf.  Darby's  own  deposition  in  Suffolk 
Deeds,  387/122. 

*  See  Sewall,  History  of  Wohum,  500.  The  Reeds  were  considerable  slave- 
holders (Johnson,  Woburn  Deaths,  154)  and  made  a  specialty  of  getting  their 
stock  very  young.  In  a  case  parallel  to  Darby's,  "  Venus "  was  given  to 
Swithin  Reed  while  she  was  so  tiny  that  she  was  brought  from  Boston  in  a 
saddlebag.  (Curtis,  Ye  Olde  Meeting  House,  61.)  A  "nigger  baby"  in  fact, 
among  the  well-to-do  of  those  days,  was  a  favorite  and  frequent  gift.  Many 
slaveholders  regarded  their  property'^  offspring  as  troublesome  incumbrances 
and  "  gave  them  away  like  puppies,"  or,  in  default  of  ready  recipients,  adver- 
tised them  with  a  cash  bonus  to  the  taker.  (Moore,  History  of  Slavery  in 
Mass.,  57,  quoting  Belknap.  See  also  Washburn,  ubi  supra,  216.)  As  late  as 
1779  "  Cato,"  son  of  "  Violet,"  was  sold  at  the  age  of  six.  See  Littleton  v. 
Tuttle,  a  note  to  the  case  of  Winchendon  v.  Hatfield  (4  Mass.  Reports,  128), 
relating  to  the  fortunes  of  "  Edom  London,"  who  in  nineteen  years  changed 
masters  no  less  than  eleven  times,  besides  twice  enlisting  in  the  Continental 
Army. 

"  Sewall,  History  of  Woburn,  673,  n. 


i 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  75 

Little  Darby  thereupon  wandered  back  to  Cambridge,  only  to 
find  his  first  master  as  effectually  beyond  recall  as  his  second. 
To  fill  the  gap  a  third  was  unexpectedly  offered  in  no  less  a  per- 
sonage than  George  Washington  himself.  For  when  the  General 
arrived  at  his  permanent  headquarters  in  the  abandoned  John 
Vassall  house,  he  found  the  youngster  (so  the  story  runs)  dis- 
consolately swinging  on  the  gate.  The  Virginia  planter,  who  had 
handled  slaves  all  his  life,  good-naturedly  proposed  to  take  the 
boy  into  his  service.  What  must  have  been  his  astonishment  when 
the  pickaninny  coolly  inquired  as  to  the  rate  of  compensation. 
Such  a  left-handed  manifestation  of  the  new  and  much  vaunted 
'^  spirit  of  liberty  "  was  not  at  all  to  the  taste  of  the  Commander- 
in-chief,  and  his  emphatic  remarks  on  the  subject  caused  Darby 
Vassall  to  declare  to  the  day  of  his  death  that  "  General  Washing- 
ton was  no  gentleman,  to  expect  a  boy  to  work  without  wages.''  ^ 

Further  details  of  his  youthful  days  are  lacking,  except  his  own 
statement  that  he  was  brought  up  a  Congregationalist  —  not  sur- 
prising in  view  of  the  almost  total  extinction  of  the  doctrines  of 
England,  religious  as  well  as  political,  in  his  neighborhood.  Fol- 
lowing the  general  seaward  migration  of  the  negroes  after  the 
Revolution,  he  left  his  parents  in  Cambridge  and  drifted  into 
Boston.  In  the  metropolis  he  soon  did  sufficiently  well  to  buy, 
with  his  brother  Cyrus,  a  little  house  on  May  Street.^  He  mar- 
ried Lucy  Holland  in  1802,  and  had  several  children.^  Inheriting, 
as  it  were,  a  certain  gentility  in  his  humble  station,  he  was  em- 
ployed by  some  of  the  best  old  families  of  Boston  —  the  Shaws, 
the  Curtises,  etc.  —  and  plainly  won  their  friendship  and  esteem.* 
His  prosperity  enabled  him,  after  the  death  of  his  father  Tony, 
to  buy  out  the  interests  of  all  the  other  heirs  to  the  Cambridge 

*  New  England  Hist.  Gen.  Register,  xxv,  44,  where  by  obvious  error  the 
anecdote  is  assigned  to  old  Tony. 

^  1796.  Suffolk  Deeds,  183/79  et  passim.  He  is  therein  described  as  a 
"laborer."  His  other  brother,  James,  meantime  became  a  "hairdresser." 
May  Street  is  now  Revere  Street. 

*  Harris,  Vassals  of  New  England,  13,  n.  Boston  Birth  Records,  1810- 
1849,  passim. 

*  In  1824  he  was  living  in  the  household  of  the  wealthy  Samuel  Brown  of 
Boston,  who  had  evidently  befriended  him  for  years,  and  who  by  will  not  only 
left  him  wearing  apparel,  fuel  and  provisions,  but  also  released  him  from  a 
mortgage  of  two  thousand  dollars  on  the  May  Street  property,  given  in  1807  to 
cover  the  expense  of  erecting  a  "  New  Brick  mansion,  house  "  thereon.  Suffolk 
Probate,  123/615.    Suffolk  Deeds,  220/276. 


76  THE   CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Jan. 

property,  at  a  cost  of  $620/  and  in  1827  to  build  another  house 
on  the  land.^ 

The  death  of  his  wife  the  following  year  probably  marks  the 
turning  of  his  good  fortune's  tide.  One  by  one,  also,  his  children 
dropped  away,  in  almost  every  case  from  consumption.  Brother 
Cyrus  had  long  ago  passed  over  Jordan.^  As  old  age  crept  on. 
Darby  fell  upon  evil  times,  was  forced  first  to  mortgage  and  then 
to  sell  his  little  freeholds,*  and  finally  to  resort  to  the  charity  of 
the  Brattle  Square  Church  in  Boston,  of  which  he  had  long  been 
a  member.  There  he  became  a  picturesque  and  rather  noted 
figure.  Scrupulously  observing  the  conventions  of  the  olden  time, 
Sunday  by  Sunday  he  toiled  up  to  the  abandoned  slaves'  gallery, 
or  "  nigger  loft,''  over  the  organ,  until  his  pathetic  solitude  proved 
too  much  for  the  tender-hearted  pastor.  Dr.  Lothrop,  and  he  was 
given  a  comfortable  seat  near  the  pulpit.  His  greatest  pleasure 
was  a  formal  call  upon  the  minister,  who  always  received  him  as 
deferentially  as-  if  he  had  been  a  stranger  of  distinction.*^ 

The  old  fellow's  most  cherished  possession  was  what  he  termed 
his  "  pass,"  dated  1843  and  signed  by  Miss  Catherine  Kussell,^  the 
granddaughter  of  Henry  Vassall.  This  grisly  document,  which 
would  have  delighted  the  heart  of  "  Old  Mortality,"  guaranteed 
him  admission  to  no  worldly  dignity  or  mundane  privilege,  but 
to  a  place  after  death  in  the  vault  beside  the  mouldering  bones  of 
the  proud  old  "  family  "  of  which  he  still  counted  himself  a  mem- 
ber. He  would  frequently  make  a  Sunday  pilgrimage  to  Christ 
Church  to  assure  himself  that  his  precious  prospective  domicile 
was  in  statu  quo,  and  when  present  he  always  attended  the  Com- 

»  December  24,  1813.    Middlesex  Probate,  23335,  Old  Series. 

«  Middlesex  Deeds,  270/411. 

'  Boston  Death  Records,  passim,  where  are  also  set  down,  at  this  period, 
a  considerable  number  of  deaths  of  other  "  colored  people  "  bearing  the  Vassall 
patronymic  —  doubtless  the  remnants  of  the  households  of  John,  William,  and 
other  relatives  of  Colonel  Henry.    See  also  Camhridge  Vital  Records,  ii,  772. 

•  Middlesex  Deeds,  294/248,  etc. 

•  Memoir  of  Lothrop,  by  Dr.  A.  P.  Peabody.  Mass.  Hist.  8oc.  Proceedings, 
2d  Series,  iii,  169. 

•  She  died  in  1847  and  was  buried  in  the  family  tomb  under  Christ  Church. 
Harris,  Vassals  of  New  England,  22.  A  letter  from  this  biographer,  dated 
1862  and  preserved  in  the  church  files,  gives,  along  with  other  details  of  thia 
matter,  a  copy  of  the  "  pass."  It  extended  the  privilege  also  to  the  meml)er9 
of  Darby's  family,  consisting,  at  its  date,  of  a  daughter  and  two  grandchildren. 
All  apparently  predeceased  him. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  77 

mimion.  One  of  the  most  touching  sights  of  the  mid-century  in 
Camhridge  was  to  see  this  octogenarian  representative  of  '^  the 
constant  service  of  the  antique  world  "  deferentially  waiting  till 
all  the  white  "  quality  "  had  partaken,  and  then  creeping  forward 
in  lonely  humility  to  receive  the  Sacrament. 

'T  is  ended  now,  the  sacred  feast; 

Yet  on  the  chancel  stair 
For  whom  awaits  the  white-robed  priest? 

Who  still  remains  to  share 
The  broken  body  of  his  Lord, 

To  drink  the  crimson  tide 
For  us  to-day  as  freely  poured 

As  erst  from  Jesus^  side? 

'T  is  he,  our  brother  —  in  the  view 

Of  Him  who  died  to  free 
His  children,  of  whatever  hue. 

From  sin's  captivity. 
Not  to  the  children's  board  he  comes, 

Nor  drinks  the  children's  cup. 
But  meekly  feeds  him  on  the  crumbs 

The  dogs  may  gather  up. 

Ne'er  may  the  Ethiop's  dusky  skin 

A  lighter  shade  attain, 
But  One  can  cleanse  the  heart  within 

From  sin's  corroding  stain. 
Foremost  on  earth  we  taste  the  bliss 

Our  Banquet  here  supplies. 
Nor  know  what  station  shall  be  his 

When  feasting  in  the  skies. 

Samuel  Batchelder,  Jr.,  circa  1856. 

Finally,  at  the  venerable  age  of  ninety-two,  Darby  Vassal!  was 
accorded  the  honor  he  had  so  long  anticipated,  and  under  circum- 
stances of  solemnity  and  publicity  which  he  never  could  have  dared 
to  picture  in  his  fondest  dreams.  On  the  afternoon  of  October  15, 
1861,  the  old  slave  was  duly  interred  in  the  Vassal!  tomb.  The 
service  took  place  precisely  one  hundred  years  from  the  day  the 
church  was  formally  dedicated  under  the  auspices  of  his  father's 
master,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  elaborate  observances  marking 
that  centennial;   during  the  first  feverish  excitement,  too,  of  that 


78  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

titanic  struggle  that  was  to  abolish  all  slavery.  Such  a  combina- 
tion of  circumstances  made  the  poor  negro's  funeral  a  memorable 
occasion.^  Among  the  notable  gathering  were  such  well-known 
medical  men  as  Morrill  Wyman  and  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  for 
the  opportunity  was  taken  to  examine  and  identify  the  remains 
already  in  the  vault.^  Soon  afterward,  by  order  of  the  city  au- 
thorities, it  was  permanently  sealed,^  and  with  it  the  last  chapter 
in  the  story  of  Henry  Vassall. 

[The  concluding  portion  of  this  paper,  on  certain  uses  of  the  Vassall  house 
during  the  Revolution,  will  appear  in  the  next  volume  of  these  Publications.] 

*  See  the  Boston  Traveller,  October  16,  1861;  Cambridge  Chronicle,  October 
19,  1861,  etc. 

^  "  The  vault  contained  nine  coffins.  The  upper  one  of  a  row  of  three  on  the 
north  side  contained  as  indicated  by  the  plate  the  remains  of  Catherine  Graves 
Russell,  died  Sep.  5,  1847.  The  one  below  it,  somewhat  decayed,  contained  the 
remains  of  a  woman,  supposed  to  be  the  wife  of  Colonel  Vassall,  died  in  1800. 
The  lower  coffin  held  the  remains  of  a  man,  doubtless  Colonel  Vassall,  its  ap- 
pearance and  position  seeming  to  indicate  its  priority  in  the  vault.  On  the 
south  side  were  the  coffins  of  four  young  children  and  two  adults.  Of  the  four, 
all  were  considerably  broken  and  decayed.  Scarcely  any  remains  were  per- 
ceivable —  merely  a  few  detached  bones.  The  largest  might  have  been  that  of 
a  child  two  years  old,  and  was  in  the  best  preservation.  The  one  that  seemed 
to  be  the  oldest  was  marked  with  nail-heads  '  E.R.,  born  &  died  Jan^.  27, 
1770'  ...  In  this  coffin  were  noticed  a  number  of  cherry  stones,  the  kernels 
eaten  out  by  some  mouse  which  had  carried  them  thither,  secure  of  a  safe  re- 
treat. The  upper  of  the  two  large  coffins  on  which  these  small  ones  rested 
contained  the  bones  of  a  man  over  forty-five  years  of  age.  The  lower  limbs 
were  covered  thick  with  hay,  seeming  to  indicate  transportation.  No  clue  was 
obtained  to  the  person  of  the  occupant.  [Undoubtedly  Lieutenant  Bro^vn.  See 
post.]  The  remains  in  the  lower  coffin  were  supposed  to  be  those  of  Mrs. 
Russell,  wife  of  Dr.  Charles  Russell,  died  in  1802."  Harris,  Vassalls  of  'Sew 
England,  13,  n-. 

*  After  discussing  the  question  at  several  meetings,  the  parish,  to  avoid 
possible  legal  complications  with  the  descendants  of  the  owners  of  the  tomb, 
petitioned  the  Cambridge  aldermen,  and  obtained  from  them  an  order  dated 
April  6,  1865,  that  it  should  be  "  permanently  closed,"  The  entrance  at  the 
west  end  was  bricked  up,  a  slate  slab  placed  against  it  bearing  the  original 
proprietor's  name  (misspelled),  the  stone  steps  which  led  down  to  it  were 
removed,  and  the  slope  filled  in  level  with  the  rest  of  the  cellar  floor.  Parish 
Records,  vol.  2,  passim,  especially  page  294. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  79 


APPENDIX   A 

[From  Middlesex  Probate  Files,  No.  23336,  Old  Series] 

Inventory  of  the  Real   &   Perfonnall   Eftate  belonging  to   Henry 
Vafsall  late  of  Cambridge  Esq'  Deceas'd  — 

House     Lands     Stables  8cc ;^iooo     o     o 

In  the  Best  Room 

I  Large  pier  Glafs  JT^.     a  Sconce  Ditto  6.6.8     2  Large  &  6  fmall 

Chairs  £^     Jappan  Tea  Table  12/ 14188 

3  Family  Pictures  £'i.      Nine  Enameld  Cups  &  Saucers     6   CofFe 

Cups     Bowl  &c.  on  the  Tea  Table  ;^i 400 

In  the  Clofitt 

II  China  Dishes  27  Enameld  plates  4  Burnt  China  6  Bowls  & 
plates     6  Images     2  China  Mugs     2  Glafs  Cups     5  Beer  Glafs 

1  Salver      i    pair  Branch   Candlefticks      i    Doz*^   Wash   Hand 
Glafses     6  Saucers  pick' d     23  Glafs  Bucketts     15  Wine  Glafses 

2  Doz°  Jelly  Ditto     i  Tray     2  Decanter 9     7     8 

In  the  Boffatt 

3  China  Bowls     1 3  China  plates     2  Dishes     China  Tray     7  Cups 

&  Saucers     Wash  Hand  Bafon     Glafs  Salver 488 

Turkey  Carpett 168 

In  the  Blue  Room 

I  Sconce  ;^5  2  large  &  4  fmall  Chairs  ^^2.8  i  Tea  Table  be- 
longs to  Mrs.  Rufsell  ;^i.io 8180 

I  Round  Table  6/8     Brafs  And  Irons  10/      ....,_..  0168 

In  the  Clofitt 

40  plates    fome  broke   of  Different    China    ;^2.i3.4     2   Doz°    & 

j^  Blue  &  White  China  ^1.12 454 

4  pickled  plates  5/     2  Delph  Fruit  Basketts  4/     2  Stone  Ditto  4/ 

3  Delph  punch  Bowls  8/     4  China  3  Broke  17/4       ....  i    18     4 
Glafses  in  y«  Clofitt  /1.6.8     Baskett   5/     3   Scollop   Shells   4/ 

3  China  Dishes  one  broke  12/ 278 

In  the  Boffatt 

I  Doz'i  China  plates  ;i^i.6.8     punch  Bowl  13/4     Stone  Turine  & 

Dish  8/     Stone  pickled  pott  6/ 2   14     o 

I  Dozn  Large  &  Small  Blue  &  White  China  Dishes  £%  Glafs  in 
y«  Boifatt  1 8/     Jappan  Salver  2/8     Grotto  4/ 348 


80  THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

In  the  Keeping  Room 

%  Sconce  Glafses  £z.S.%     Marble  Table  £z.i'i.^     One  large  & 

one  fmall  mehogny  Table  £z 800 

a  Round  Straw  Bottom'd  Chairs  6/8     Eight  Old  Leather  Bottom' d 

Chairs  ;^i. 4     Mr  Sherly  picture  2/8 1    13     4 

Rum  Case  10/     And  Irons     Shovel  &  Tongs  14/8     pair  of  Large 

Tongs  6/8     profpective  Glafs  8/ i    19     4 

Old  Carpit  4/     Old  Plate  &  Knife  Baskett  with  6  Buck  handled 

Knives  &  forks  6/ o   10     o 

In  theClofttt 

9  Stone  Dishes  8/     Doz"  Stone  plates  6/     Jelly  Glafses  1/     Ten 

Wine  Glafses  &  Baskett  6/8    .Earthen  pitcher  1/ 128 

parcel   Broken   Glafs  &   China   mended   4/     Tobacco  Tongs  /8 

hatchet  &  mallet  for  Sugar  /6     fmall  Scive  /* 054 

Glafs  musturd  pott  1/4     Glafs  for  Vinegar  &  Oyl  /4     3  Salts  1/4 

Cork  puller  /4     Glafs  Candleftick  &  Delph  Bowl  1/6     ..     .  0410 

Cloaths  Brush  1/     fmall  Decanter  %/     14  China  Plates  ;^i       .     .  130 

In  the  Little  Entry 
6  Leather  Bucketts     1  Glafs  Lanthorn  ;^i.  15 1   15     o 

In  the  Little  Room 

Old  Sconce  Glafs  £i.iS     "Doz^  Candle  moulds  ;^i     three  Guns 

£'1     filver  hiked  fword  £z 7160 

Mourning    Sword    5/      Hanger    18/      Red    Housing    8/      small 

Dish  8/     Checquer  Board  3/ a     2     o 

Case  of  Mathamatical  Inftruments  8/     Shaving  Box  &  Rafors  6/ 

Tools  &  Broken  thing  in  ye  Clofitt  8/ 120 

In  the  Kitchen 

Copper  Stew  pan  £\.^    Dutch  Ovcn';^i     Four  large  &Tmall  Bell 

mettled  Skillets  ;^i.  10 3    14     o 

Old  Copper  Ladle  4/     Fish  Kittle  Old  1 2/     Two  Copper  potts  for 

meat  £i.^o     Four  Iron  2  large  2  fmall  6/ 3    12     o 

a  Iron  Skillets  2/     Two  Iron  Dish  Kittles  1/4     Iron  Tea  Kittle 

one  old  Copper  one  6/     three  Grind  Irons  10/ 0194 

2  Frying  pans  8/     Toast  Iron  1/4     Chaffing  Dish  1/     three  And 

Irons  8/     Fender  /8     Tongs  &  peal  4/ 130 

Jack  £z.%     a  large  fpits   8/     small  Ditto   1/     Six  Broken  Brafs 

Candlefticks  7/     Flower  Box  1/     Lamp  3/ 380 

Coffa  pott  5/     three  Tin  Dish  &  One  plate  Cover  4/     Tin  Graters 

1/     Scales  &  Weights  £\ i    10     o 

plate  Rack  3/     Old  Table  3/     Tin  Fender  12/     Six  Old  Straw 

bottom'd  Chairs  /8     Iron  Spider  2/     Rolingpin  1/     .     .      .      .  190 

Marble  morter  15/     Seven  Trammels  7/     Copper  Fountain  ;^i.8 

Eight  Cloaths  Basketts  18/ 380 

Tin  Ginger  bread  &  other  pans  3/6     2  Trays  &  Meal  Trough  3/ 

Meal  Chest  4/     a  pair  Flat  Irons  Old  1/ on 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  81 

Iron  Box  &  3  Grates  1/6     4  Old  Chairs  1/     And  Irons  &  Tongs 

6/     Old  Bedftead  &  Table  leaves  12/ 106 

In  The  Marble  Chamber 

Blue  Harrateen   Bed  &   Curtains  £z.%     E^sy   Chairs  £i.iS     fix 

ftjtting  Chairs  ^4. 16 900 

Drefsing  Table  belongs  to  M"  Rufsell 

Drefsing  Glafs  ;^i.4     three  Cushings  for  Windows  12/     3  Glafs 

Lamps  ;^i.  10     2  Carpitts  16/ 420 

Feather   Bed  Bolfter  &   pillows    5*3    @    1/6   is  £i^     Bedftead   6/ 

8  pair  Blanketts  ^4.6.8 8   12     8 

Id 

4RugS;^i.io     Small  Feather  Bed  60     ;^3.6.8 4  16     8 

In  the  Green  Chamber 

Green  Harrateen  Bed  &  Curtains  ;^i.8     Old  Easy  Chair  6/     fix 

fctting  Chairs  j/^2. 8     Drefsing  Table  16/ 4   18     o 

Drefsing  Glafs  1 8/     Feather  Bed  Bolfter  &  pillows  60  ;^  3. 1 2     Bed- 
ftead ;^i     fmall  Table  5/     And  Irons  4/ 5190 

In  the  Cader  Chamber 

Green  Harrateen  Bed  &  Curtains  Old   12/     2  mehogony  Desks 

;^4.io     Medicine  Box  12/     Table  ^T  1.4 6   18     o 

Feather  Bed  Bolfter  &  pillows  60  ^4     Mattrafs  Bed  12/     Bedftead 

12/  Large  Trunk  12/     3  old  Chairs  8/ 640 

6    Old    Carpetts    12/      portmantle    Trunk    10/      fmall    Scales    & 

Weights  16/     Counterpin  £'^•^1 320 

Wash  Hand  Bafon  &  Chamber  pott 001 

In  the  Little  Chamber 

Id 

Old  Linnin  Bed  &  Curtains  8/     Bed  Bolfter  &  pillows  50  /3.6.8 

Bedftead  6/     2  Old  Chairs  2/     Trunk  12/ 4   14     8 

Allarbaster  Image  1/6     fmall  Looking  Glafs  4/     Great  Chair  8/ 

6  Cushions  9/     4  ftone  Chamber  potts  1/ 136 

In  the  Entry  Chamber 
Small  Bed  Bolfter  &  pillow  ^2.5     Bedftead  6/ a  11     o 

In  the  Kitchen  Chamber 

Bedftead    12/     2    Feather    Beds     Bolfters     i    pillow   1V2  £6.io 

Old  Desk  &  Book  Case  ^ 1. 10     Old  Desk  6/ 8   18     o 

Old  Drefsing  Table  10/     4  old  Chairs  1/4     fmall  Looking  Glafs 

3/     pair  Dogs  3/     Old  Tongs  &  Shovel  2/8     Warming  pan  5/  150 

In  the  Entry 
Mehogony  Tibbie  ;^ 1. 4     34  Great  &  fmall  pictures  ^1.14  ...  2  18     o 

On  the  Stair  Case 
33  Great  &  fmall  Glafs  pictures  ;^2. 8     5 1  Great  &  fmall  pictures  ^6  880 


82 


THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTOEICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 


In  the  Chamber  Entry 
ftS  Great  &  fmall  pictures  ;^i.i2.6 

22  Damask  Table  Cloath  @  10/8  is  ;^ii.i4..8  16  Old  &  Other 
Damask.  Napkins  @  2/ is  ;^ 1. 1 2 

12  Diaper  Napkins  @  1/6  is  18/  12  Old  Diaper  Table  Cloaths 
^i.io     9  pair  old  Holland  Sheets  @  13/4  is  £6 

2  pair  of  fmall  Holland  Sheets  @  12/  is  ;^  1.4  3  pair  &  one  Sheet 
old  @  16/  is  £^.l(> 

2  pair  of  New  Cotton  Linnen  Sheats  @  10/  is  ;^i  2  pair  &  fmall 
Ditto  @  8/4  is  ;^ 1. 5 

3  pair  of  Old  Cotton  Linnin  Ditto  ;^i.  10     24  old  pillow  Cafes  8/  . 

Best  pewter  105  @  1/6  is;^7-i7'6     Old  pewter  70  @  1/  is;^3.io 

4  Brafs  Kittles  90  ^4. 17.2  

Crimfon  Velvett  Fumature  for  Horse  £6     Green  Ditto  Cloath  old 

;^i.4     Saddle  18/ 

In  the  Stable 

pair  of  Horses  Old  £iz     Coach  with  Hamefs  £iz     Chariott  ;^5o 

Chaise  with  Hamefs  ;^5.6.8 

Old  Hamefs  3/     Curricles  Carrage   12/     Chaise  Body  12/     Old 

Chaise  Body  6/     Old  Curricle  Hamefs  6/ 

a    pair   of  Old  Holfters   1/6     Garden    Enjine  Hofe  £\./^      Old 

Wheels  for  y®  Coach  £i.^ 

pair   Joints    1/     Crofs    Cutt    Saw    8/     a    Old   Saddles   4/     Old 

Saddle  4/  '.     .     .     .- 

In  the  Celler 

Large  Copper  ;^8  2  Iron  Trivetts  9/  6  Old  Wash  Tubs  3/ 
Dumb  Betty  1/  2  Cyder  Barr^^  4/  fundry  Cract  &  Broke 
ftone  potts  on  y®  Stair  way  5/     i  Grofs  of  Bottles  in  forts  £i.6.% 

1  Case  of  Large  Bottles  ;^i.  12  52  Bottles  Great  &  fmall  with  Old 
Cafes  15/     3  J"ggs  &  Jarr  13/ 

Copper  Funnell  ;^i.io  Whole  &  Broken  Juggs  4/  9  Doz'^  & 
%  Quart  Bottles  £1 

14  Old  Cask  £1./^     Sand  Bin  8/ 

Servants 

Tony  j{^i 3.6.8     Dick /6. 1 3. 4     James  ;^4o 

Dorrenda  £\z     Auber  [?  Cuba]  ^20 

Servants  Beds  &  Beding  ^i.  12 

Rolling  Stone  &  Garden  Tools  ;^i.4  6  Old  Chairs  in  y«  Summer 
House  8/ 

Plate 

%  Cans     2  fait  fpoons  24  Ounces     Tankerd  34     2  Butler  Cups 

oz  ox  oz 

j6«^     fmall  Salver  5     Candlefticks  ziyi     Coffa  pott  46     Tea- 
pott  19     4  Salts  \oyi     Cream  pott  5^     Tea  Kittle  43     ftand 


I    12     6 

13      6     8 

880 

400 

250 
I    18      o 

II      76 

4   17      2 

820 


79  6  8 
1190 
296 
017     o 


I    II      8 

300 


2140 
I    12     o 


60     o     o 
3200 

I     12        O 


1915.]  COL.    HENEY   VASSALL  83 

for  Ditto  23^  Chaffing  Dish  24  ^  Chaffing  Dish  2 1  ^  2  por- 
ringers 19^  6  fpoons  14  Salver  16  3  Large  &  i  Small 
fpoon  17^  punch  ftrainer  5  Snuffers  &  Stand  2  fmall  fait 
fpoons  Tea  Finger  11  }4  ftand  with  Casters  6i}(  i  Doz'* 
Tea  fpoons  &  ttrainer  6  fmall  Ditto  pepper  Box  punch 
Ladle  large  fpoon  15°^  porringer  4  fpoons  fy  1  Doz 
Defert    fpoons    &    Forks    32     Handles    for    Defert   Knives    1*5 

I    Doz   Great  fpoons     y*   Handles  for   Knives   &  Forks   76 }4 

Marrow  fpoon  i  Ounc  &  )4 
The   Amount   of   the   whole  plate   is   Six   Hundred    Ounces    @ 

6/8  oz is         200     o     o 

Case  for  Knives  &  Forks  ^3. 6. 8     2  Giafs  Cruett  &  Salts  6/     Case 

for  y®  Defert  Knives  &  Forks  ;^ 1. 10 528 

Case  of  Defert  Knives  &  Forks  ^1.8     Calabash  Tipt  with  Silver  3/ 

Gold  Whater  ;^i3.6.8     5  Labels  4/ 15      i      8 

I   pair  of  Horse   Nitts  £z     1    Hammock  ;^i.8     Carpett  ;^i.io 

Old  Knive  &  Fork  7  Ounces  @  6/8  £2. 6.6 746 


£'67^ 


Books  1 


Chambers  Diet:  2  Vols  £z     Bailey  Ditto  6/8     Hist,  of  Religion 

2  Vols  1 8/         Tacitus  En^  2  Vols  8/ 3128 

Pridieux  Connect:  2  Vol  18/     Trial  of  y®  Earl  of  Macclesfield  2/ 

Tillotsons  Sermons  3  vol  12/ 1120 

Survey   of  y®   Globe    1/4     Bentivollio   &    Urinia  province   Laws 

Tempery  Ditto     Grotius  Countefs  pembroke  4/ 054 

Bible  6/     Collect  of  Voyages  4  Vols,  ^i      Quincy  Dispensatory  4/ 

Method  with  y®  Deist  2/     Gents  Inftruct'  2/ 1    14     o 

Hist  of  W™  Stevens  1/6     5  Vol  Clarendon  Hist,  of  y^  Rebellion 

first  mifsing  5/     Lock  on  Human  Underftanding  8/   .      .      .      .  o   14     6 

Vindication  of  y°  Deffence  of  Xanity  2  Vol  6/8  Short  way  Teach- 
ing y®  Languages  /8  5  Vols  Roman  His  by  Eachad  5/  .  .  .  0124 
pridiaux  Life  of  Mahomet  1/     Bulls  Sermons  4   Vols  4/     Bland 

Disapline  1/     Hist  Revolution  of  portugal  1/6 066 

Hamilton  Acct  of  East  Ind:  2  Vol  3/     Life  of  Marlbro  2  Vol  12/ 

1.3.  &  4  Vol  Rollin  BellLett  5/     Dio  Xian  Rit  12/        ...  120 

Nature  Display^  3  Vol  8/     Hist  of  y^  Turks  4  Vol  12/     Shaftbury 

Char:   3  Vol  12/     Hist  of  China  4  Vol  12/ 240 

The  Prater.  1/6     Tatler  4  Vol  8/     Conduct  of  Married  Life  3/4 

Modem  Travels  4  Vol  10/8     Swift  Works  13  Vol  £1     .      .     .  236 

Lydia  4  Vol  4/     Robinson  Crufoe  2  Vol  2/     Comical  Hist  2  Vol. 

2/8     Jofhua  Truman  2  Vol  2/8 0114 

Mirza  &  Fatima  1/4     Friends  2  Vol^4/     Betfy  Thoughtlefs  4  Vol 

4/     S' Chas  Goodvilie  2  Vol  3/     Hap  Orph'^  2/8       ....  o   15     o 

*  Several  of  these  books  were  contributed  by  Mrs.  Vassall  from  the  much 
smaller  library  of  her  father,  Isaac  Royall,  Senior.  See  his  inventory  of  1741, 
Middlesex  Probate,  19545,  Old  Series,  where  the  prices  rule  far  higher  —  but 
partly  because  then  figured  in  Old  Tenor.  Henry  Vassall  added  to  his  shelves 
from  time  to  time:  "1758  Jany  9th.    Cash  pd  Books  £9.10." 


84  THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Jan. 

New  Attalantis  4  Vol  8/     Mifs  Cadiero  4  Vol  5/     Don  Quixote 

5  Vol  5/     Cafsandra  4  Vol  5/     Vade  Mecom  1/ 140 

Life  of  M'  Anderfon  4/     Whichcrly    plays  3/     Bishop  of  London 

Sermons  2  Vol  5/     Du  Clos  Maners  of  y«  Age  4/       ....  o   16     o 

Valet  a   Vol  4/8      Memors  of  Man  of  Quality  2   Vol   3/     West 

Deftence  of  y"  Refurrection  2/     Shakfpear  Work  10/8  Vol       •  0198 

Turkish  Spy  7  Vol   14/     Spct  [?  Spectator]  8  Vol  £1      Guardian 

2  Vol  5/     RoUan  Anch*  Hist  10  Vol  ^^1.4 330 

Free  Holder  1/6  Anti  Gallican  3/  Travel  of  Cyrus  2/  Cleo- 
patra 8  Vol  16/     Stage  Coach  1/ 136 

Betfy  Bams  4/8     Conver"  Moral  Enter:   1/6     Fortunate  Country 

Maid  2  Vol  4/8     Life  of  Cleavland  9/4 102 

M"  Bhcn  plays  4  Vol  6/     Agreable  Uglinefs  1/     Hist  of  Pilgram 

2/8     Venetian  Tales  I /     Ecepd  Gaz'  1/ o   11      8 

Miramega  2/7     Gays  Fables  3/     Cha'  Osberns  Esq'  1/6     Tele- 

machus  3/     Tales  of  y®  Faries  8/ o   1 8      i 

Love   Letters    1/4     Hay  ward  Nov^  4  Vol  4/     Otway  plays   4/ 

W^  Biiigfield  2/ o    1 1     4 

Lord  Landown  Works  3  Vol  5/     Hist  of  Scot  Family  /6     Rigester 

1756  /6     Chyne  English  Malady  4/     Roderick  Random  3  Vol. 

3/    •      ;      •      •      •      ; o   13     o 

True  Merit  True  Happinefs  2  Vol  4/     Female  Quixote  2  Vol  4/8 

Perlian  Tales  3  Vol  6/     Hist  of  Young  Lady  of  Distin  2  vol  4/  0188 

Jofeph  Andrews  2  Vol  4/     Lovers   1/     Peter  Wilkins  2  Vol  5/ 

Lucy  Villiers  2  Vol  5/     Amelia  4  Vol  10/     Farqhur  play  2  Vol 

4/ X      9     o 

Modern    Adventures    2    Vol    5/     i.     2    4    &    5    vol    of   David 

Simple  11/     Chinefe  Tales  2d  vol  1/     Dicky  Gotham  &  Doll 

Clod  2d  Vol  2/ o   19     o 

Advent  of  Count  Fathom   i*  Vol  2/     Congreave  plays  3  Vol  4/ 

1 1  vol  of  Perfian  Letters  I /4     Ditto  of  Telemichus  3/     ...  o   10     4 

Adventures    of   Cap*    Greenland    4    Vol    9/4     i.    &    3    Vol.    of 

Pervian  Tales  2/8     Select  Novals  9  Vol  6/     Humerest  i*  Vol.  1/  0190 

I*  Vol  of  mogul  Tales  1/     Ditto  of  Select  Novels  1/     2d  vol  of 

popes  Works  I  /     Scotch  Marine /6     2d  Vol  of  y«  Parish  Girl  4/  076 

lack  Conner  2  Vol  4/     Harriet  Stewart  2  Vol  4/     2d  Vol  Female 

Foundling  1/6      i  &  2  Vol  Le  Bell  Afsembly  2/8       ....  0122 

I  &  3  Vol  Religious  Philosopher  4/     2d  Vol  of  Ditto  1/      i*  Vol 

of  Canterbury  Tales  2/     Bradley  Com  pleat  Body  Husbandry  3/  o    10     o 

I*  Vol  of  Mortames  Art  of  Husbandry  1/     Ditto  of  Luis  14th  2/ 

7th  Vol  Life  of  Queen  Ann  2/     Bradly  Ancht  Husbandry  2/  070 

it  vol  of  Modern  Husbandry  1/     2d  vol  Hist  of  Jews  j/     2d  vol 

Epistle    for    Ladys    2/     Life    of  St    Ignatius    fz     Shirlock    on 

Death  1/ 052 

Compleat  French  Master  1/     Hist  of  y"  World  1/     prefent  ftate 

of  Britain  1/     Ditto  1/     Telemachus  French  /6 046 

Crofflin   Anamadverfions  on  y«  Talmud  /i      Adventures  of  Gile 

Bias  4  Vol.  5/      1.2.3.  &  6  Vol  Arabian  Nights  Enter  4/     .      .  091 

Adventures  of  M'  Lovel  2/     Leonora  Female  Quixote  &  Otway 

broken  Vol!  2/ 04 


£^70S 


91 


t72.ry  / air  all. 


m 


HENRY   VASSALL'S  BOOKPLATE 
(Slightly  enlarged) 

This  very  scarce  plate  is  almost  unknown  to  collectors.  It  was  discovered  in 
the  "  Ubrary  "  of  Christ  Church.  Boston,  in  a  copy  of  the  rare  work  Defence  of 
the  Christian  Revelation,  printed  at  London  In  1748,  "  to  be  difperfed  In  His  Maj- 
esty's Colonies  &  Iflands  in  America." 

See  page  35,  n. 


1915.]  COL.    HENRY   VASSALL  85 

We  the  Subscribers  Appointed  by  the  Hon^'^  Sam"  Danforth  have  ApprizM  the 
Above  Inventory  belonging  to  the  sd  Henry  Vafsall  Esqr  Decea'd 

Septr.  8.  1769.     D»  Ruflel  (one  of  the  adminn)  Henry  Prenticb 

exhibited  the  foregoing  Inventory  on  Oath  Ebbn»  Stedman 

Scpf  jo«'>-  1769  M"  Penelope  Vaffel  the  other  Ebbnbzr   Bradish 
adminiftf  made  oath  to  the  fame  Inventory —  all  fworn  before  the  Judge 

S,  Danforth  J.  prob. 


APPENDIX   B 

[From  Middlesex  Probate  Fi/eSj  No.  2JJ42,  Old  Series] 

Middlefex  fs 
An  Inventory  of  the  Perfonal  Eftate  whereof  Penelope  Vafsall  Late 
of  Cambridge  In  the  County  of  Middlefex  who  fled  from  her  Habi- 
tation to  the  Enemies  of  this  State:  was  Seisd  in  the  aforsd  County, 
taken  by  us  the  Subscribers  Appointed  By  the  Hon^i  John  Winthrop 
Efq  Judge  of  Probate  of  wills  &c  for  Said  County  as  the  Same  was 
Shewn  us  by  William  How  appointed  Agent  to  the  Same  Eftate  by 
the  aforsd  Judge 

to  one  Chariot  ;^ioo     one  Iron  Ban  37/ loi  "  17  "  o 

one  pair  Large  handirons  52/     one  Small  Do  34/ 4  "    6  "  o 

onetrivit58/     Some  old  harnis  24/ 4"    2"o 

one  pair  Shears  12/     oldiron  36/     one  Box  24/ 3  "  12  "  o 

one  wicker  Baflcet  12/     one  hamper  with  lumber  10/      .      .     .     .  i  "    2  "  o 

one  tinn  fender  60/     two  old  Safhes  ;^5 8  "    o  "  o 

three  bee  hives  30/     two  Buckets  36/ 3  "    6  "  o 

five  Canvis  pictures  90/     fifteen  Large  Do.  jCS.  15 1 1  "    5  "  o 

Eighteen  D^  N^  2  72/     thirteen  D"  N«  3  40/ 5  "  12  "  o 

Sixteen  Small  Do  40/     four  Glafs  D«  48/ 4  "     8  "  o 

nineteen  gilt  D<*  76/     one  Glafs  Lanthom  45 6  "     i  "  o 

one  marble  table  £<)     one  plate  grate  48/ ii''8"o 

two  Large  Caniflers  12/     part  of  two  Cariges  ;^24 24  "  12  "  o 

one  Churn  18/     one  Large  picture  20/ 1*18  "o 

one  negro  man  Named  toney \      . 

Cambridge  June  y*  24.  1778  Aaron  Hill 

W"  Gamagb 
Tho'   Barrett 


Tho'  Barrett 
Middlesex  ii  Jany  1779  Exhibited  upon  Oath  by  the  Agent  William  Howe. 

before  me  J  WiNTHROP  J.  Prob  — 

Miss  Alice  Maky  Longfellow  read  an  account  of  the 
Longfellow  House  and  the  people  who  had  dwelt  within  it. 
The  paper  is  withheld  from  publication  for  the  present. 

The  thanks  of  the  Society  were  voted  to  Mr.  Batchelder 
and  to  Miss  Longfellow,  and  the  meeting  was  dissolved. 


86         THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY    [Apeil, 


THE   THIETY-FOUETH  MEETING 

nPHE  Thirty-fourth  Meeting  of  the  Cambridge  Histor- 
iCAL.  Society  was  held  on  the  27th  day  of  April,  1915, 
at  7.45  o'clock  in  the  evening,  in  Agassiz  House  Theatre, 
Eadcliffe  College. 

The  President,  Eichard  Henry  Dana,  presided.  The 
minutes  of  the  previous  meeting  were  read  and  approved. 

HoLLis  Eussell  Bailey  announced  the  gift  of  photo- 
graphs of  the  portraits  of  Eev.  Nathaniel  Appleton  and 
Mrs.  Appleton  in  Memorial  Hall.^ 

HoLLis  Eussell  Bailey  then  read  a  paper  on 


THE    BEGINNING    OF    THE    FIEST    CHHECH   IN 
CAMBEIDGE 

Introduction 

The  history  of  the  church  beginnings  in  New  England  is  a 
large  part  of  the  history  of  the  settlement  of  the  colonies  them- 
selves. 

New  England  was  settled  for  three  reasons :  the  first  and  most 
potent -one,  the  establishment  of  churches  where  the  colonists 
could  worship  God  in  their  own  way ;  the  second,  the  attainment 
of  civil  and  industrial  liberty;  and  the  third,  the  conversion  of 
the  Indians. 

A  town  without  a  church  was  something  that  was  not  thought 
of  and  was  not  allowable.  The  voters  were  to  be  church  members, 
which  implies  the  existence  of  a  church.  A  church  could  exist 
without  a  pastor,  and  this  happened  from  time  to  time  in  many 
cases. 

*  These  portraits  are  now  hung  in  the  Treasure  Room  of  the  Widener  Memo- 
rial Library  of  Harvard  College. 


1915.]  FIRST    CHURCH    IN   CAMBRIDGE  87 

Plymouth 

When  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  settled  at  Plymouth  in  1620  their 
pastor,  the  Kev.  John  Kobinson,  with  a  majority  of  his  congrega- 
tion, remained  in  Holland,  and  he  died  before  he  could  carry 
out  his  intention  of  joining  the  colony.  From  1620  until  1629 
the  church  at  Plymouth  continued  without  a  pastor,  being  under 
the  guidance  of  a  ruling  elder,  William  Brewster.  In  1629  Mr. 
Ralph  Smith  became  the  pastor  at  Plymouth,  but  was  not  satis- 
factory and  soon  resigned. 

The  church  at  Plymouth  dates  its  beginning  from  1620,  with 
the  addition  ^'  founded  at  Scrooby  England  1606." 

Salem 

In  1628,  when  a  colony  at  I^aumlieag,  now  Salem,  was  begun, 
the  Rev.  Francis  Higginson,  an  eminent  Puritan  preacher  and 
school  teacher,  was  invited  to  go  there.  In  1629  he  accepted  the 
invitation  and  was  accompanied  or  followed  by  two  other  minis- 
ters, Mr.  Skelton  and  Mr.  Bright.  Mr.  Skelton  was  elected  as 
pastor  and  Mr.  Higginson  as  teacher  or  associate. 

The  proper  way  of  proceeding  in  the  settling  of  a  pastor 
was  at  this  time  a  matter  of  some  doubt  and  difficulty. 

There  were  no  precedents  to  guide  them.  They  accordingly 
turned  for  advice  to  the  settlers  at  Plymouth,  and  Mr.  Fuller, 
one  of  the  deacons  of  the  church  at  Plymouth,  gave  his  assistance. 

One  thing  was  deemed  to  be  necessary,  viz.,  that  those  who  in- 
tended to  be  of  the  church  should  enter  into  a  covenant  to  walk 
together  according  to  the  word  of  God.  The  election  of  a 
minister  or  ministers  was  to  be  by  the  people.  A  day  of  fasting 
and  prayer  was  set  apart  for  consideration  and  decision.  At 
Salem  thirty  persons  owned  the  covenant,  as  the  phrase  was. 
Delegates  or  messengers  were  invited  to  come  from  Pljmiouth  to 
attend  the  installation. 

The  church  thus  begun  at  Salem  still  continues  and  dates  its 
beginning  from  1629. 


88         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL    SOCIETY    [April, 

Boston 

In  the  summer  of  1630  the  leaders  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay 
Colony  —  John  Winthrop,  Thomas  Dudley,  Isaac  Johnson,  Sir 
Richard  Saltonstall,  Simon  Bradstreet  —  and  their  families  and 
associates,  several  hundred  in  number,  arrived  at  Charlestown, 
bringing  with  them  the  charter  which  defined  th^ir  rights  and 
duties.  They  landed  first  at  Salem,  which  they  found  suffering 
from  famine  and  sickness,  over  eighty  having  died. 

Boston  harbor  was  explored  and  Charlestown  was  selected  as 
the  place  for  the  first  settlement.  Already  a  great  house  was  there, 
built  by  a  Mr.  Graves  and  his  servants,  who  were  sent  over  by  the 
Company  the  year  previous.  Winthrop  and  Dudley  and  some 
others  used  this  as  a  residence  for  a  time,  and  it  was  later  used 
as  the  meeting  house  from  1633  to  1636. 

The  settlers  at  Charlestown  were  already  suffering  from  hunger 
and  sickness  and  many  were  dying.  July  30,  1630,  was  set  apart 
as  a  day  of  fasting  and  prayer.  The  colonists  had  brought  with 
them  the  Rev.  John  Wilson,  who  like  Winthrop  came  from  Suffolk 
Coimty.  At  the  close  of  the  religious  exercises,  which  were  prob- 
ably held  under  the  branches  of  a  tree,  the  following  church  cove- 
nant was  signed  by  Winthrop,  Dudley,  Bradstreet,  and  many 
others,  men  and  women. 

Church  Covenant 

In  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  in  Obedience  to  His 
holy  will  and  Divine  Ordinance  — 

We  whose  names  are  hereunder  written,  being  by  His  most  wise 
and  good  Providence  brought  together  into  this  part  of  America  in 
the  Bay  of  Massachusetts  and  desirous  to  unite  ourselves  into  one 
congregation  or  Church  under  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  our  Head  in 
such  sort  as  becometh  all  those  whom  he  hath  redeemed  and  sancti- 
fied to  himself,  do  hereby  solemnly  and  religiously  (as  in  his  most 
holy  Presence)  Promise  and  bind  ourselves  to  walk  in  all  our  ways 
according  to  the  Rule  of  the  Gospel  and  in  all  sincere  Conformity  to 
his  holy  Ordinances  and  in  mutual  love  and  respect  each  to  the 
other  so  near  as  God  shall  give  us  grace. 

It  was  nearly  a  month  later,  on  August  27,  1630,  that  the 
church  organization  was  completed.      On  that  day  a  fast  was 


1915.]  FIRST    CHURCH    IN    CAMBRIDGE  89 

held  and  Mr.  Wilson  was  chosen  as  teacher,  Mr.  Nowell  as  elder, 
and  Mr.  Gager  and  Mr.  Aspinwall  as  deacons.  The  minister 
was  ordained  with  the  laying  on  of  hands,  hut  only  as  a  sign  of 
election  and  confirmation. 

It  has  been  said  that  all  the  Congregational  churches  of 
America  have  taken  their  form  of  organization  from  that  used 
on  this  occasion  in  Charlesto^vn. 

The  church  thus  organized  has  continued,  and  is  now  called 
the  First  Church  in  Boston.    It  dates  its  beginning  from  1G30. 

The  sickness  among  the  colonists  at  Charlestown  was  so  great 
and  the  deaths  so  numerous  that  Winthrop,  who  was  governor, 
and  the  greater  part  of  the  church  removed  across  the  river  fo 
Boston  and  settled  there.  Those  who  remained  at  Charlestown 
continued  as  members  of  the  Boston  church  until  October,  1632, 
when  those  at  Charlestown  became  a  church  separate  from  Boston, 
and  Mr.  James  was  chosen  as  pastor.  In  1630  other  churches 
were  organized,  among  them  one  at  Dorchester  and  one  at  Water- 
town. 

Cambridge 

It  was  not  until  December  28,  1630,  that  it  was  decided  to 
locate  a  settlement  at  New  Town,  now  Cambridge,  and  to  build 
houses  there  the  following  year.  It  is  by  reason  of  this  decision 
that  the  city  of  Cambridge  dates  its  beginning  from  1630. 

It  did  not  really  exist  except  on  paper  until  1631,  when  Dudley, 
Bradstreet,  and  a  few  others  built  houses  and  went  there  to  live. 
Governor  Winthrop  had  promised  to  go  there  and  live,  and  went 
so  far  as  to  begin  to  build,  but  changed  his  mind  and  built  at 
Boston,  which  caused  some  hard  feeling  between  Dudley  and 
himself. 

The  first  mention  of  anything  in  the  way  of  a  church  at  New 
Town  or  Cambridge  that  I  have  found  is  a  statement  in  Win- 
throp's  Diary  that  "  the  ministers  afterwards  for  an  end  of  the 
difference  between  the  Governor  and  Deputy  [i.e.,  between  Win- 
throp and  Dudley]  ordered  that  the  governor  should  procure  them 
a  minister  at  New  Town  and  contribute  somewhat  towards  his 
maintenance  for  a  time;  or  if  he  could  not  by  the  spring  effect 
that,  then  to  give  the  deputy  toward  his  charges  in  building  there 
twenty  pounds."     This  apparently  was  in  1631.     The  number 


90         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [April, 

who  settled  at  New  Town  in  1631  probably  did  not  exceed  eigbt 
persons  and  their  families.  In  February,  1G32,  it  was  decided 
that  New  Town  should  be  fortified  with  a  palisade  or  stockade, 
the  expense  of  which  should  be  borne  by  the  twelve  towns  then 
existing  in  the  colony. 

In  August,  1632,  New  Town  became  a  place  of  some  size.  A 
company  had  come  from  Braintree  in  Essex  County,  England, 
and  had  begun  to  settle  at  Mount  Wollaston.  By  order  of  tho 
court  they  were  required  to  remove  to  New  Town.  There  were 
some  twenty  families  in  this  company.  Their  coming  increased 
the  number  in  New  Town  to  about  forty  families.  This  number 
was  increased  somewhat  by  1633.  It  will  be  noted  that  only 
half  of  the  inhabitants  were  of  the  Braintree  Company. 

The  autumn  of  1632  was  a  time  of  much  building  in  the  little 
settlement.  Besides  the  houses  required  for  the  members  of 
the  Braintree  Company,  it  is  a  matter  of  record  that  a  meeting 
house  was  built  and  was  ready  for  use  in  December,  1632.  It 
was  situated  at  the  comer  of  what  are  now  Mount  Auburn  and 
Dunster  streets.  As  Dudley  and  Bradstreet  in  1630  were  mem- 
bers of  the  church  in  Boston,  it  is  probable  that  they  and  other 
settlers  in  Cambridge  in  1631  and  1632,  before  the  meeting  house 
was  built,  may  have  attended  church  in  Boston. 

In  the  spring  of  1631  the  Rev.  Mr.  Wilson,  the  minister  of 
the  church  in  Boston,  went  to  England  for  a  visit.  He  recom- 
mended to  his  congregation  the  exercise  of  prophecy  during  his 
absence  and  designated  Governor  Winthrop,  Mr.  Dudley,  and 
Mr.  Nowell  the  elder  as  most  fit  for  this  service. 

As  the  meeting  house  at  New  Town  was  ready  for  use  in 
December,  1632,  and  there  was  no  settled  minister  until  October, 
1633,  it  seems  probable  that  church  services  were  held,  as  they 
had  been  at  Plymouth  and  in  Boston,  without  the  assistance  of 
an  ordained  minister.  Mr.  Dudley  and  Mr.  Bradstreet  may 
have  exercised  prophecy,  as  it  was  termed. 

The  Braintree  Company  so  called,  which  settled  in  New  Town 
in  August,  1632,  has  also  been  called  ^^  Hooker's  Company.''  The 
reason  for  this  is  not  stated.  Braintree  was  some  twenty-five 
miles  distant  from  Chelmsford  in  England,  where  Mr.  Hooker 
was  settled  before  he  was  compelled  to  flee  to  Holland,  so  that 
the  Braintree  people  as  a  body  could  not  well  have  been  members 


I 


1915.]  FIRST    CHURCH   IN    CAMBRIDGE  91 

of  his  church  or  congregation  in  England.  But  as  I  shall  state 
a  little  later,  Mr.  Hooker's  fame  as  a  Puritan  preacher  extended 
to  all  parts  of  Essex  County  in  England,  and  his  services  were 
earnestly  desired. 

The  invitation  which  was  sent  to  Mr.  Hooker  by  the  settlers 
in  Cambridge  must  have  been  extended  not  merely  by  the 
members  of  the  so-called  Braintree  Company,  but  also  by  the 
more  prominent  men  in  the  town,  such  as  Dudley  and  Bradstreet 
and  others  of  the  original  settlers.  The  invitation  was  a  very  cor- 
dial one,  and,  as  Mr.  Hooker  was  not  pleased  with  the  condition 
of  religious  affairs  in  Holland,  was  accepted  by  him.  He  was 
authorized  to  select  someone  to  come  with  him  as  an  assistant  and 
made  choice  of  Mr.  Samuel  Stone,  a  young  man  then  settled  at 
Towcester. 

Cambridge  Town  Records 

The  first  book  of  Cambridge  town  records  gives  one  glimpse 
of  church  affairs  prior  to  the  coming  of  Mr.  Hooker.  This  record 
is  as  follows: 

The  24th  of  December  1632  Ann  Agreement  made  by  a  Generall 
Consent  for  a  monthly  meeting. 

Impr,  that  Every  person  under  subscribed  shall  (meet)  Every 
first  Monday  in  Every  Mounth  within  (the)  meeting  house  in  the 
Afternoone  within  half  (an)  ouer  after  the  ringing  of  the  bell 
and  that  every  (one)  that  make  not  his  personall  apearance  there 
(and)  continews  ther  without  leave  from  (the  beginning)  untill  the 
meeting  bee  Ended  shall  for(feit  for  each)  default  XII  d,  and  if  it 
be  not  paid  before  (the  next)  meeting  then  to  duble  it  and  soe  untill 
(paid). 

Tho.  Dudley        John  Haynes  and  others 

These  meetings  were  evidently  for  town  business  and  were 
not  for  lectures,  like  those  held  in  Boston  weekly  on  Thursday 
afternoons,  which  became  an  important  part  of  the  religious  life 
of  the  people.  By  a  vote  passed  December  7,  1635,  these  meet- 
ings were  continued. 

I  will  now  give  biographical  sketches  of  Mr.  Hooker  and  Mr. 
Stone,  who  were  shortly  to  become,  one  the  pastor  and  the  other 
the  teacher  of  the  Eirst  Church  in  Cambridge, 


92         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [Apeil, 

Thomas  Hooker 

Thomas  Hooker  was  bom  in  the  little  hamlet  of  Marfield  in 
Leicestershire,  England,  in  the  year  1586.  He  was  baptized 
in  the  parish  church,  an  interesting  picture  of  which  is-  given 
in  the  history  of  the  First  Church  in  Hartford,  Connecticut. 
The  Hooker  family,  judging  from  entries  upon  the  parish  register, 
was  of  some  note. 

Marfield  was  in  the  parish  of  Tilton,  and  the  parish  church 
stood  on  the  hill  at  Tilton.  It  was  built  in  the  twelfth  century 
and  contained  interesting  monuments  and  effigies  of  crusaders 
and  others,  calculated  to  awaken  the  interest  and  stimulate  the 
imagination  of  a  boy  as  intelligent  as  Hooker. 

When  about  thirteen  years  old  he  was  sent  to  a  preparatory 
school  at  Market  Bosworth,  where  he  was  fitted  for  the  university. 
While  he  was  there  Queen  Elizabeth  died  and  James  of  Scotland 
came  to  the  English  throne  as  the  first  of  the  Stuart  kings.     , 

Hooker  was  about  eighteen  years  old  when  he  entered  Queens 
College  at  Cambridge  in  1604.  Before  very  long  he  was  trans- 
ferred to  Emmanuel,  where  he  received  the  degree  of  A.B.  in 
1608  and  three  years  later,  in  1611,  the  degree  of  A.M.  Here, 
then,  at  Cambridge  Hooker  was  a  student  for  at  least  seven  years 
and  probably  remained  as  a  fellow  for  some  years  more. 

Cambridge  during  these  years  was  the  centre  of  Puritanism, 
and  Hooker  must  have  known  John  Cotton,  who  was  a  student 
and  lecturer  at  Emmanuel  College  and  was  destined  like  Hooker 
to  play  later  a  leading  part  in  the  life  of  N'ew  England.  It  was 
just  when  Hooker  was  taking  his  degree  of  A.B.  in  1608  that 
John  Robinson  and  his  Scrooby  church  went  into  exile  in  Hol- 
land for  conscience'  sake. 

It  was  while  Hooker  was  a  fellow  at  Cambridge  that  his  reli- 
gious convictions  became  fixed  and  his  inclinations  turned  to 
the  ministry.  A  rector  was  wanted  at  Esher,  a  small  place  south 
of  London,  and  Mr.  Hooker  received  the  appointment.  The 
patron  of  the  living  was  a  Mr.  Drake.  Mr.  Hooker  was  described 
to  him  as  a  great  scholar,  an  acute  disputant,  a  strong,  wise, 
modest  man,  and  in  every  way  fully  qualified  for  the  place. 

Mr.  Hooker  lived  with  Mr.  Drake,  and  it  was  an  important 
part  of  his  work  to  act  as  spiritual  adviser  to  Mrs.  Drake,  who 


1915.]  FIRST    CHURCH   IN    CAMBRIDGE  93 

apparently  was  of  a  melancholy  disposition.  It  is  stated  that 
she  was  marvellously  delighted  with  Mr.  Hooker's  new  method  of 
stating  things.  But  a  matter  of  more  importance  to  Mr.  Hooker 
was  his  meeting  with  Mrs.  Drake's  waiting  woman  or  companion, 
named  Susannah,  and  making  her  his  wife. 

About  1625  Mr.  Hooker  accepted  a  call  as  lecturer  in  con- 
nection with  the  church  of  St.  Mary's  at  Chelmsford  in  Essex, 
of  which  the  Rev.  Dr.  Michaelson  was  the  rector.  These  lec- 
tureships were  an  outgi-owth  of  the  Puritan  movement  and  were 
the  means  of  gaining  a  more  efficient  preaching  service.  The 
system  was  finally  broken  up  by  Archbishop  Laud  in  1633,  who 
denounced  the  lecturers  as  most  dangerous  enemies  of  the  state. 

The  noble  old  church  of  St.  Mary  at  Esher,  a  venerable  Gothic 
structure  of  great  antiquity,  was  for  about  three  years  the  scene 
of  Mr.  Hooker's  public  labors.  His  ministrations  made  a  wide 
and  profound  impression.  People  flocked  to  hear  him  "  and  some 
of  great  quality  among  the  rest."  Chief  of  these  was  the  Earl 
of  Warwick,  who  afterwards  sheltered  and  befriended  Mr. 
Hooker's  family  when  he  was  forced  to  flee  the  country.  A  letter 
written  in  1629  by  the  vicar  of  Braintree  to  Laud's  chancellor 
says: 

Since  my  return  from  London  I  have  spoken  with  Mr.  Hooker 
but  I  have  small  hope  of  prevailing  with  him.  .  .  .  All  men's  ears 
are  now  filled  with  ye  obstreperous  clamours  of  his  followers  against 
my  Lord  [i.e.,  Archbishop  Laud]  as  a  man  endeavouring  to  sup- 
press good  preaching  and  advance  Popery.  ...  If  these  jealousies 
be  increased  by  a  rigorous  proceeding  against  him  ye  country  may 
prove  very  dangerous.  If  he  be  suspended,  it  is  the  resolution  of  his 
friends  to  settle  his  abode  in  Essex,  and  maintenance  is  promised 
him  in  plentiful  manner  for  the  fruition  of  his  private  conference, 
which  hath  already  more  impeached  the  peace  of  our  Church  than 
his  publique  ministry. 

His  genius  will  still  haunt  all  the  pulpits  in  ye  country  where 
any  of  his  scholars  may  be  admitted  to  preach.  .  .  .  There  be  divers 
young  ministers  about  us  that  spend  their  time  in  conference  with 
him  and  return  home  and  preach  what  he  hath  brewed.  Our  people's 
pallats  grow  so  out  of  tast  y't  noe  food  contents  them  but  of  Mr. 
Hooker's  dressing.  I  have  lived  in  Essex  to  see  many  changes, 
and  have  seen  the  people  idolizing  many  new  ministers  and 
lecturers  but  this  man  surpasses  them  all  for  learning  and  some 


94         THE    CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [April, 

other  considerable  partes,  and  gains  more  and  far  greater  followers 
than  all  before  him. 

Writing  again  June  3,  1629,  Collins,  the  vicar,  says: 

This  will  prove  a  leading  case,  and  the  issue  thereof  will  either 
much  incourage  or  discourage  the  regular  clergie.  All  men's  tongues, 
eyes,  and  ears  in  London  and  all  the  counties  about  London  are 
taken  up  with  plotting,  talking,  and  expecting  what  will  be  the 
conclusion  of  Hooker's  business. 

Both  of  these  letters  conclude  with  advice  to  let  Mr.  Hooker 
get  out  of  the  way  quietly. 

In  lN"ovember,  1629,  a  petition  was  sent  to  Archbishop  Laud 
in  behalf  of  ^'  Mr.  Thomas  Hooker  preacher  at  Chelmsford."  It 
was  signed  by  fifty-one  Essex  County  ministers  and  certified  "  we 
all  esteeme  and  know  the  said  Mr.  Thomas  Hooker  to  be  for 
doctryne  orthodox,  and  life  and  conversation  honest,  and  for  his 
disposition  peacable." 

But  he  was  forced  to  resign  his  position  at  Chelmsford.  He 
first  removed  to  a  small  village  four  miles  away,  called  Little 
Baddow,  where  he  kept  a  school  in  his  own  hired  house.  Here 
he  had  as  assistant  John  Eliot,  whose  name  is  familiar  as  the 
Apostle  to  the  Indians.  It  was  while  living  with  Mr.  Hooker 
that  Eliot  was  converted  to  religion.    Eliot  says : 

To  this  place  was  I  called  through  the  infinite  riches  of  God's 
mercy  in  Christ  Jesus  to  my  poor  soul;  for  here  the  Lord  said  to 
my  dead  soul  live;  and  through  the  grace  of  Christ  I  do  live  and 
shall  live  forever!  When  I  came  to  this  blessed  family  I  then  saw, 
and  never  before,  the  power  of  godliness  in  its  lively  vigor  and 
efficacy. 

But  Mr.  Hooker  was  not  allowed  to  remain  here  unmolested. 
In  1630  he  was  cited  to  appear  before  the  High  Commission 
Court.  He  gave  a  bond  of  fifty  pounds  for  his  appearance,  but 
with  the  consent  of  his  sureties  he  absconded  and  went  to  Holland. 
The  officer  arrived  at  the  seaside  just  too  late  for  his  arrest. 

By  thus  fleeing  he  doubtless  escaped  the  fate  of  another  non- 
conformist minister,  who  was  the  same  year  pilloried,  Avhipped, 
branded,  slit  in  the  nostrils,  and  deprived  of  his  ears.     The  ship 


1915.]  FIEST    CHURCH   IN   CAMBRIDGE  95 

ran  aground  and  was  near  being  a  wreck,  but  Mr.  Hooker  finally 
arrived  safely  in  Holland. 

At  Amsterdam,  where  he  remained  for  a  short  time,  he  was 
not  well  received.  Questions  were  raised  as  to  his  views  con- 
cerning the  Brownists,  and  the  church  synod  voted :  "  That  a 
person  standing  in  such  opinions  .  .  .  could  not  with  any  edifica- 
tion be  admitted  to  the  Ministry  of  the  English  Church  at 
Amsterdam. '^ 

Thereupon  Mr.  Hooker  went  to  Delft,  where  he  was  associated 
for  about  two  years  with  Mr.  Forbes,  pastor  of  the  English  church. 
Mather  in  his  '^  Magnalia "  speaks  of  the  relationship  which 
existed  b'etween  Mr.  Forbes  and  Mr.  Hooker  during  this  period 
as  that  of  ^^  one  soul  in  two  bodies."  The  text  of  Mr.  Hooker's 
first  sermon  at  Delft  was  "  To  you  it  is  given  not  only  to  believe 
but  also  to  suffer." 

In  1632  Mr.  Hooker  left  Delft  and  went  to  Rotterdam  to 
become  joint  pastor  with  the  celebrated  Dr.  William  Ames  over 
the  English  congregation  there.  He  became  joint  author  with 
Dr.  Ames  of  a  book  entitled  "  A  Fresh  Suit  against  Human  Cere- 
monies in  God's  Worship."  Hooker's  views  are  shown  by  the 
following  statement  contained  in  this  book,  viz.,  ^'  Ecclesiastical 
corruptions  urged  and  obtruded  are  the  proper  occasion  for 
Separation." 

Mr.  Ames  says  of  Mr.  Hooker  that,  though  he  had  been  ac- 
quainted with  many  scholars  of  divers  nations,  yet  he  never  met 
with  Mr.  Hooker's  equal,  either  for  preaching  or  disputing. 

But  the  state  of  things  in  Holland  was  unsatisfactory  to  Mr. 
Hooker.  He  writes  to  Mr.  Cotton  from  Rotterdam  that  "  they 
content  themselves  with  very  forms  though  much  blemished."  This 
letter  may  have  been  a  part  of  the  negotiations  which  were  to  take 
Mr.  Hooker  and  Mr.  Cotton  together  to  'New  England. 

As  already  stated,  a  company  from  Essex,  sometimes  called 
the  Braintree  Company  and  sometimes  Mr.  Hooker's  Company, 
had  gone  from  England  in  1632  to  New  England  and  settled 
at  Mount  Wollaston  and  later  at  New  Town.  They  with  the 
others  at  New  Town  had  sent  an  invitation  to  Mr.  Hooker  to 
come  and  be  their  pastor. 

And  so  in  1633  Mr.  Hooker  crossed  over  from  Holland  to 
England   and,    after   a   very  narrow  escape   from   arrest,   with 


98         THE    CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL    SOCIETY    [April, 

Mr.  Cotton  got  incognito  on  board  the  GHffin  and  sailed  for 
New  England.  The  identity  of  both  was  concealed  until  they 
were  well  out  at  sea.  A  voyage  of  eight  weeks  brought  them  to 
Boston,  where  they  landed  September  4,  1633.  The  monotony  of 
the  voyage  was  doubtless  diversified,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Salem 
Company,  by  one  or  two  sermons  or  lectures  daily. 

Witli  Mr.  Hooker  and  Mr.  Cotton  came  Mr.  Samuel  Stone  and 
also  Mr.  John  Haynes  from  Copford  Hall  in  Essex. 

Samuel  Stone 

The  Rev.  Samuel  Stone  was  born  in  Hertford  or  Hartford,  a 
place  about  twenty-five  miles  north  of  London.  He  was  baptized 
July  30,  1602,  which  makes  him  thirty-one  years  old  when  he 
reached  New  England.  It  is  probable  that  he  fitted  for  college 
in  the  grammar  school  in  his  native  town.  In  1620  he  was 
matriculated  at  Emmanuel  College  in  Cambridge  University.  The 
influences  which  moulded  Stone's  college  life  were  essentially 
those  which  affected  that  of  Mr.  Hooker.  In  due  course  he  re- 
ceived his  degree  of  A.B.  and  in  1627  received  that  of  A.M. 

He  next  studied  theology  with  the  Rev.  Richard  Blackerby 
at  a  private  school  in  Essex  County. 

In  1630  he  became  a  Puritan  lecturer  at  Towcester  in  North- 
amptonshire, where  he  went  by  the  commendation  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Shepard,  who  had  known  him  in  college.  In  1633  Mr.  Stone  was 
invited  '^  by  the  judicious  Christians  "  that  were  coming  to  New 
England  with  Mr.  Hooker  to  accompany  them  and  be  an  assistant 
to  Mr.  Hooker.  Three  young  men  were  proposed,  Mr.  Shepard, 
Mr.  Norton,  and  Mr.  Stone,  but  Mr.  Stone  was  finally  selected. 
The  following  incident  took  place,  which  is  given  as  showing  the 
ready  wit  of  Mr.  Stone.  It  may  be  stated  in  the  language  of  the 
"  Magnalia  " : 

Returning  into  England  in  order  to  a  further  voyage  he  [Mr. 
Hooker]  was  quickly  scented  by  the  pursevants ;  who  at  length  got  so 
far  up  with  him  as  to  knock  at  the  door  of  that  very  chamber  where 
he  was  now  discoursing  with  Mr.  Stone;  who  was  now  become  his 
designed  companion  and  assistant  for  the  New  England  enterprise. 
Mr.  Stone  was  at  that  instant  smoking  of  tobacco;  for  which  Mr. 
Hooker  had  been  reproving  him  as  being  then  used  by  few  persons 


1915.]  FIRST    CHUECH    IN"   CAMBRIDGE  97 

of  sobriety;  being  also  of  a  sudden  and  pleasant  wit  he  stept  into 
the  door  with  his  pipe  in  his  month  and  such  an  air  of  speech  and 
look  as  gave  him  some  credit  with  the  officer.  The  officer  demanded 
whether  Mr.  Hooker  were  not  there.  Mr.  Stone  replied  with  a 
braving  sort  of  confidence,  "  What  Hooker  ?  Do  you  mean  Hooker 
that  lived  once  at  Chelmsford  ?  "  The  officer  answered,  "  Yes,  he !  " 
Mr.  Stone  immediately  with  a  diversion  like  that  which  once  helped 
Athanasius  made  this  true  answer,  —  "  If  it  be  he  you  look  for  I  saw 
him  about  an  hour  ago  at  such  an  house  in  the  town;  you  had 
better  hasten  thither  after  him."  The  officer  took  this  for  a  sufficient 
account  and  went  his  way. 

The  First  Church  in  Camhridge 

Mr.  Hooker  and  Mr.  Stone  arrived  in  "Ne-w  Town  early  in 
September,  1633.  Mr.  Dudley,  as  the  leading  citizen,  made  Mr. 
Hooker  a  member  of  his  household  until  such  time  as  he  could 
provide  himself  with  a  house  of  his  own.  He  appears  to  have 
been  a  man  of  affairs  as  well  as  a  pastor,  for  he  speedily  acquired 
land  in  different  parts  of  the  town.  The  coming  of  Mr.  Cotton 
and  Mr.  Hooker  was  a  great  event  in  the  life  of  the  colony. 

"  They  did  clear  up  the  order  and  method  of  church  gov- 
ernment according  as  they  apprehended  was  most  consonant  to 
the  Word  of  God,"  and  Mr.  Cotton  published  a  treatise  called 
"The  Way  of  the  Churches  in  Few  England."  I  quote  from 
Hubbard,  who,  writing  about  1690,  adds,  "  After  this  manner 
have  ecclesiastical  affairs  been  carried  on  ever  since  1633." 

On  October  10,  1633,  or  about  that  date  Mr.  Cotton  was 
solemnly  ordained  as  teacher  of  the  church  in  Boston  of  which 
Mr.  Wilson  was  pastor.  The  proceedings  were  conducted  with 
fasting  and  prayer,  and  all  the  established  forms  and  ceremonies 
were  observed.  There  was  no  gathering  of  a  new  church,  as  the 
church  had  been  organized  in  1630.  The  church  officers  were 
increased  or  changed  by  the  election  of  Thomas  Leverett  as  a 
ruling  elder  and  Mr.  Firmin  as  a  deacon.  Mr.  Leverett  had  come 
to  Boston  in  1633,  probably  with  Mr.  Cotton. 

On  the  next  day  after  this,  viz.,  on  October  11,  1633,  Mr. 
Hooker  and  Mr.  Stone  in  similar  manner  were  installed  at  IN'ew 
To^\Ti,  the  one  as  pastor  and  the  other  as  teacher.  The  exercises 
were  doubtless  in  the  meeting  house  built  in  1632. 


98         THE    CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL    SOCIETY    [April, 

Governor  Wintlirop,  the  Rev.  John  Cotton,  and  the  Rev.  John 
Wilson,  all  from  Boston,  must  have  heen  in  attendance,  with 
many  more  from  the  surrounding  towns.  The  event  was  a  notable 
one  and  must  have  been  so  regarded.  The  accounts  which  we  have 
are,  however,  very  meagre.  Winthrop  says  in  his  Diary,  under 
date  of  October  11,  1633,  "  A  fast  at  New  Town,  when  Mr.  Hooker 
was  chosen  Pastor  and  Mr.  Stone  teacher  in  such  manner  as  be- 
fore at  Boston." 

As  it  was  already  customary  to  have  a  ruling  elder  and  two 
deacons  it  is  probable  that  these  officers  of  the  church  were  at  the 
time  elected,  but  who  the  deacons  were  is  a  matter  of  conjecture. 
Winthrop  states  that  William  Goodwin  in  September,  1634,  was 
the  ruling  elder  at  Newtown.  He  is  thought  to  have  been  a 
graduate  of  Oxford.  He  arrived  in  New  England  in  Septem- 
ber, 1632.  He  became  a  man  of  large  means  and  great  influence 
and  held  the  office  of  ruling  elder  in  the  church  at  Hartford, 
Connecticut. 

There  is  some  reason  to  think  that  the  deacons  may  have  been 
Andrew  Warner  and  John  Bridge.  It  is  certain  that  Andrew 
Warner  was  afterwards  for  many  years  a  deacon  of  the  church 
at  Hartford  and  that  John  Bridge  was  for  many  years  a  deacon 
of  the  church  at  Cambridge.  Just  when  they  were  elected  does 
not  clearly  appear. 

It  is  also  certain  that  the  church  at  Cambridge  must  have  had 
a  church  covenant,  but  just  what  it  was  we  do  not  know.  It  may 
have  been  similar  to  that  adopted  at  Charlestown  in  1630,  already 
given.  It  was  very  likely  similar  to  the  one  used  by  the  second 
church  in  Hartford  in  1670,  which  was  as  follows: 

Church  Covenant 

Since  it  has  pleased  God  in  his  infinite  mercy  to  manifest  himself 
willing  to  take  unworthy  sinners  near  unto  himself  even  into  covenant 
relation  to  and  interest  in  him,  to  become  a  God  to  them  and  avoucli 
them  to  be  his  people,  and  accordingly  to  command  and  encourage 
them  to  give  up  themselves  and  their  children  also  unto  him :  We 
do  therefore  this  day  in  the  presence  of  God  his  holy  angels  and 
this  assembly  avouch  the  Lord  Jehovah  the  true  and  living  God, 
even  God  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost  to  be  our  God 
and  give  up  ourselves  and  ours  also  unto  him  to  be  his  subjects  and 


0^ 


1915.]  FIRST    CHURCH   IN   CAMBRIDGE  99 

servants  promising  through  grace  and  strength,  in  Christ  (without 
whom  we  can  do  nothing)  to  walk  in  professed  subjection  to  him  as 
our  only  Lord  and  lawgiver  yielding  universal  obedience  to  his 
blessed  will,  according  to  what  discoveries  he  hath  made  or  hereafter 
shall  make  of  the  same  to  us:  in  special  that  we  will  seek  him  in 
all  his  holy  ordinances  according  to  the  rules  of  the  gospel,  submitting 
to  his  government  in  this  particular  Church,  and  walking  together 
therein  with  all  brotherly  love  and  mutual  watchfulness  to  the 
building  up  of  one  another  in  faith  and  love  unto  his  praise:  all 
which  we  promise  to  perform  the  Lord  helping  us  through  all  his 
grace  in  Jesus  Christ. 


Pastorate  of  Thomas  Hooker 

Savage  the  historian  gives  the  following  as  the  order  in  which 
the  early  churches  in  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony  were  gathered : 

1.  Salem  1629,  6  August. 

2.  Dorchester  1630,  June. 

3.  Boston  1630,  30  July. 

4.  Watertown  1630,  30  July. 

5.  Roxbury  1632,  July. 

6.  Lynn  1632. 

7.  Charlestown  1632,  2  Nov. 

8.  Cambridge  1633,  11  Oct. 

9.  Ipswich  1634. 

The  pastorate  of  Thomas  Hooker  extended  from  October,  1633, 
to  February,  1636,  and  possibly  to  May,  1636.  He  built  a 
house  in  what  is  now  the  college  yard  on  the  site  of  the  present 
Boylston  Hjall.  I  here  present  what  I  believe  to  be  a  picture  of 
this  house,  which  continued  standing  until  about  1843.  This 
picture  is  a  most  interesting  one  and  will  carry  the  reader  back 
to  the  beginning  better  than  any  language  which  I  can  use.  Copies 
can  be  obtained  from  Mrs.  Silvio  M.  de  Gozzaldi. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  this  house  became  the  property 
and  residence  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Shepard,  and  on  his  death  was 
occupied  by  the  Eev.  Jonathan  Mitchell,  who  assumed  not  only 
the  house,  but  also  the  widow  of  his  predecessor. 

Cambridge  during  the  time  of  Mr.  Hooker  was  the  scene  of 
a  number  of  important  events. 


100       THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL    SOCIETY    [Apbil, 

The  General  Court  (or  as  we  call  it,  the  Legislature)  of  the 
colony  met  in  'New  Town  in  1634  in  September  and  used  the 
meeting  house  for  its  sessions.  The  next  year  also  the  General 
Court  met  at  the  meeting  house  in  New  Town,  and  John  Haynes, 
Esq.,  a  resident  of  New  Town,  was  chosen  governor.  Mr.  Haynes 
was  at  considerable  expense  in  entertaining  the  members. 

It  is  recorded  that  Mr.  Hooker  not  only  preached  in  New  Town, 
but  also  in  Boston,  and  that  every  other  Thursday  was  his  lecture 
day  in  New  Tovm.  It  is  also  recorded  that  whenever  Mr.  Hooker 
visited  Boston,  which  he  often  did,  he  attracted  great  crowds  by 
his  fervent,  forcible  preaching.  The  ill  feeling  between  Dudley 
and  Winthrop,  already  spoken  of,  appears  to  have  continued ;  and 
some  rivalry  sprang  up  between  Mr.  Hooker  and  Mr.  Cotton. 

The  number  of  colonists  was  rapidly  increasing  and  the  original 
settlements,  including  Boston  and  New  Town,  felt  that  they  were 
much  crowded.  In  1633  and  1634  there  was  a  good  deal  of  talk 
in  New  Town  among  the  principal  citizens  about  going  elsewhere. 
The  matter  was  discussed  at  much  length  in  the  General  Court. 
As  a  result  of  this  feeliug  and  this  discussion  it  was  decided  in 
1633  to  establish  a  settlement  at  Agawam,  which  in  1634  was 
renamed  Ipswich.  The  Rev.  Thomas  Parker  was  the  first  minis- 
ter at  Agawam,  but  was  succeeded  in  1634  by  the  Rev.  Nathaniel 
Ward. 

I  speak  of  these  things  here,  as  the  settlement  of  Agawam  was 
to  result  in  Mr.  Hooker's  losing  three  of  his  principal  parishioners 
and  their  families.  I  refer  to  Gov.  Thomas  Dudley,  the  Hon. 
Simon  Bradstreet,  and  Maj.  Gen.  Daniel  Denison.  Bradstrcet 
and  Denison  were  sons-in-law  of  Dudley,  and  their  removal  to 
Ipswich  with  their  families  in  1636  must  have  made  a  large  gap 
in  Mr.  Hooker's  congregation. 

In  1634  and  1635  there  was  constant  talk  about  making  new 
settlements  on  the  Connecticut  River. 

There  were  colonists  not  only  in  New  Tovm,  but  also  in  Dor- 
chester and  Roxbury  and  Watertown,  who  were  desirous  of  re- 
moving. Among  these  were  Mr.  Hooker  and  Mr.  Stone  and  a 
considerable  number  of  their  parishioners.  It  was  finally  de- 
cided in  1635,  the  consent  of  the  General  Court  having  been  first 
obtained,  that  a  removal  to  Connecticut  should  take  place  in, 
the  following  year,  and  a  number  of  the  residents  of  New  ToAvnj 


1915.]  FIRST    CHURCH   IN"   CxVMBRlDGE  101 

were  sent  in  the  fall  of  1635  to  occupy  a  town  site  and  prepare 
for  the  settlement  of  it.  The  place  selected  is  now  called  Hartford. 
In  August,  1635,  at  or  about  the  time  that  Mr.  Hooker  had 
decided  to  leave  JSTew  Town,  the  Kev.  Thomas  Shepard  arrived 
from  England  with  a  large  number  of  new  settlers  in  two  ships. 
It  was  very  soon  arrauged  that  Mr.  Shepard  and  some  of  those 
who  had  come  with  him  should  settle  at  ]^ew  Town  in  the  place 
of  those  who  were  to  go  to  Connecticut.  Just  how  the  newcomers 
were  provided  for  during  the  winter  of  1635-1636  does  not 
appear.  The  houses  of  Dudley,  Bradstreet,  Denison,  and  some 
others  in  ISTew  Town  were  probably  available  for  the  use  of  some 
of  the  newcomers.  It  was  decided  that  Mr.  Shepard  should  be 
installed  before  Mr.  Hooker  and  Mr.  Stone  and  those  who  were 
going  with  them  took  their  departure. 

.    Election  of  Thomas  Shepard 

February  1,  1636,  was  the  day  selected  for  the  election  of 
Mr.  Shepard. 

The  exercises  which  were  held  on  the  occasion  of  Mr.  Shepard^s 
election  are  described  at  considerable  length  by  Winthrop  in 
his  Journal.  He  gives  only  a  few  lines  to  the  ordination  of  Mr. 
Hooker  in  1633.  He  gives  nearly  two  pages  to  the  installation 
of  Mr.  Shepard  in  1636.  What  he  says  is  given  in  full  in  Paige's 
"  History  of  Cambridge.'' 

Winthrop  speaks  of  the  occasion  as  the  raising  of  a  church 
body.  It  is  said  that  the  covenant  was  read  and  they  all  gave  a 
solemn  assent  to  it.  Whether  this  was  the  original  church 
covenant  or  not  does  not  appear.  Mention  is  made  of  an  elder 
and  of  a  deacon  to  be  chosen,  but  their  names  are  not  given.  It 
is  probable  that  the  ruling  elder  was  Richard  Champney,  who 
came  in  1635  with  Mr.  Shepard,  and  the  deacon  John  Bridge, 
who  came  in  1632.  The  Rev.  John  Cotton  assisted  in  the  exer- 
cises, as  Winthrop  states,  but  it  does  not  appear  whether  Mr. 
Hooker  and  Mr.  Stone  were  present  or  not.  Elders  were  invited 
from  all  the  neighboring  churches  and  there  was  a  great  assembly 
present. 

It  appears  from  Winthrop's  account  that  the  ordination  of 
Mr.  Shepard  did  not  take  place  until  a  later  date.     Possibly  he 


102       THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [April, 

was  not  ordained  until  June,  1636,  after  Mr.  Hooker  had  re- 
moved to  Connecticut.  The  history  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Shepard 
is  well  known  to  all.  He  was,  to  say  the  least,  a  worthy  successor 
of  Thomas  Hooker.  The  limits  of  this  paper  forbid  my  saying 
more  of  him  at  this  time. 


The  Departure  of  Thomas  HooJcer 

It  was  not  until  nearly  four  months  after  the  election  of  Mr. 
Shepard  that  Mr.  Hooker  and  Mr.  Stone  and  others  of  New  Town, 
about  one  hundred  persons  in  all,  took  their  departure  through 
the  wilderness  to  Connecticut.  The  names  of  those  of  Hooker's 
flock  who  left  New  Town  and  went  to  Connecticut  are  as  follows : 


1. 

Jeremy  Adams 

28. 

William  Lewis 

2. 

Matthew  Allen 

29. 

Richard  Lord 

3. 

William  Andrews 

30. 

John  Maynard 

4. 

John  Arnold 

31. 

Hester  Mussey 

6. 

John  Barnard 

32. 

Joseph  Mygate 

6. 

Richard  Butler 

33. 

James  Olmstead 

7. 

William  Butler 

34. 

William  Pantry 

8. 

Clement  Chaplin 

35. 

Stephen  Post 

9. 

Mrs.  Chester 

36. 

John  Pratt 

10. 

John  Clark 

37. 

Nathaniel  Ricliards 

11. 

Nicholas  Clark 

38. 

Thomas  Scott 

13. 

Robert  Day 

39. 

Thomas  Spencer 

13. 

Joseph  Easton 

40. 

William  Spencer 

14. 

Edward  Elmer 

41. 

Timothy  Stanley 

15. 

Nathaniel  Ely 

42. 

Edward  Stebbins 

16. 

James  Ensign 

43. 

George  Steele 

17. 

Richard  Goodman 

44. 

John  Steele 

18. 

William  Goodwin 

45. 

George  Stocking 

19. 

Seth  Grant 

46. 

Rev.  Samuel  Stone 

20. 

Samuel  Greenhill 

47. 

John  Talcott 

21. 

Stephen  Hart 

48. 

William  Wadsworth 

22. 

John  Hayacs,  Esq. 

49. 

Samuel  Wakeman 

23. 

Rev.  Thomas  Hooker 

50. 

Andrew  Warner 

24. 

John  Hopkins 

51. 

Richard  Webb 

25. 

Thomas  Hosmer 

52. 

William  Westwood 

26. 

Thomas  Judd 

53. 

John  White 

27. 

William  Kelsey 

54. 

Samuel  Whitehead 

1915.]  FIRST    CHURCH    IN    CAMBRIDGE  103 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  six  of  those  who  may  be  called 
Mr.  Shepard^s  followers,  viz., 

1.  William  Blumfield  4.  Clement  Chaplin 

2.  Benjamin  Burr  5.  William  Ruscoe 

3.  William  Butler  6.  Thomas  Weller 

instead  of  remaining  with  him  followed  Mr.  Hooker  to  Hartford. 

JSTovember  23,  1635,  which  was  after  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Shepard 
and  his  followers,  a  general  town  meeting  was  held,  and  the  fol- 
lowing nine  men  were  elected  as  selectmen  to  order  the  business 
of  the  to'v\Ti  for  the  year  following  and  until  new  be  chosen  in 
their  places : 

1.  William  Andrews  5.  Nicholas  Danforth 

2.  John  Bridge  6.  Roger  Harlakendeu 

3.  Clement  Chaplin  7.  Thomas  Hosmer 

4.  Joseph  Cooke  8,  William  Spencer 

9.  Andrew  Warner 

Of  these  nine,  four,  viz., 

1.  John  Bridge  3.  Nicholas  Danforth 

2.  Joseph  Cooke  4.  Roger  Harlakenden 

remained  in  New  Town  after  Mr.  Hooker  removed,  and  five,  viz., 

1.  William  Andrews  3.  Thomas  Hosmer 

2.  Clement  Chaplin  4.  William  Spencer 

5.  Andrew  Warner 

followed  Mr.  Hooker  to  New  Town,  Connecticut.    Mr.  Andrews 
returned  and  was  again  elected  as  a  selectman  in  1640., 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  Mr.  Hooker  and  Mr.  Stone,  when  they 
departed  to  Connecticut,  did  not  take  all  of  the  church  mem- 
bers with  them.  At  least  eleven  families  remained,  viz.,  those  of 

1.  Guy  Bainbridge  6.  John  Gibson 

2.  Thomas  Beale  7.  Bartholomew  Green 

3.  John  Benjamin  8.  Samuel  Green 

4.  John  Bridge  9.  Nathaniel  Hancock 

5.  Christopher  Cane  10.  William  Mann 

11.  John  Masters 


104        THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [Apeil, 

The  town  of  New  Town  continued  as  a  town  in  Massachusetts. 
There  was  no  break  in  the  continuity  of  its  existence.  The  meet- 
ing house  which  belonged  to  the  town  remained  and  continued  in 
use  for  religious  exercises.  The  town  record  book  and  the  book  of 
Proprietors'  records  both  remained.  The  new  town  in  Connecti- 
cut, to  be  sure,  was  at  first  called  New  Town.  But  the  use  of  the 
name  in  Connecticut  did  not  affect  its  use  in  Massachusetts. 

In  regard  to  the  church  covenant  I  find  no  suggestion  that  it 
was  taken  away.    History  is  a  blank  on  this  point. 

Mr.  Hooker  continued  at  Hartford  until  his  death  in  1647. 
His  gravestone  may  be  seen  there  in  the  old  burying  ground. 
It  is  claimed  in  Hartford  that  he  was  the  originator  of  the  idea 
of  a  fundamental  law,  or  as  we  call  it  a  written  constitution, 
adopted  by  a  free  people,  restricting  themselves  in  various  ways 
as  to  future  legislation. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  in  the  same  year  that  Mr.  Hooker  re- 
moved to  Hartford,  one  of  the  ministers  and  the  larger  part  of 
the  congTcgation  of  the  church  at  Dorchester  removed  to  Con- 
necticut and  settled  the  town  of  Windsor.  The  question  of  the 
true  beginning  of  the  present  church  at  Dorchester  has  been  the 
subject  of  discussion,  but,  as  already  noted,  that  church  now  claims 
that  its  beginning  was  in  1630. 

Tlie  Church  at  Hartford 

The  church  of  Mr.  Hooker  in  Hartford  in  a  certain  sense  still 
exists.  It  calls  itself  the  First  Church  of  Christ  in  Hartford. 
As  I  am  told,  both  it  and  the  parish  with  which  it  was  connected 
gave  up  their  legal  existence  a  few  years  ago,  or  rather  merged 
the  same  into  a  new  corporation  organized  under  the  laws  of 
Connecticut. 

What,  if  anything,  was  done  in  1636  at  Hartford  in  the 
way  of  a  new  organizing  or  gathering  of  a  church  cannot  now 
be  ascertained,  as  the  early  records  at  Hartford  long  since  dis- 
appeared. It  is  certain  that  the  church  at  Hartford  from  1636 
was  connected  with  the  new  town  of  Hartford,  which  built  and 
owned  a  new  meeting  house  and  paid  the  ministers  until  such 
time  as  the  parish  at  Hartford  began  to  exist  separate  from  the 
town. 


1915.]  FIRST   CHURCH   IN   CAMBRIDGE  105 

The  present  church  at  Hartford  dates  its  beginning  from  1632, 
claiming  that  there  probably  was  a  church  gathered  in  New  Town, 
Massachusetts,  as  early  as  the  fall  of  1632,  when  the  meeting 
house  was  completed,  and  that  this  was  the  beginning  of  the 
church  at  Hartford. 

Church  Name 

The  early  name  of  the  church  in  Cambridge  was  the  Church 
of  Christ  at  Cambridge.  This  is  the  name  used  by  the  Rev. 
Jonathan  Mitchell  in  1658  in  his  list  of  the  church  members. 

The  name  '^  Ye  first  Church  in  Cambridge ''  appears  in  the 
church  records  under  date  of  April  25,  1740,  and  after  that 
date  is  frequently  used.  The  church  has  never  been  called  the 
Second  Church  in  Cambridge,  as  it  naturally  would  have  been 
if  the  first  .church,  that  of  Mr.  Hooker,  had  ceased  to  exist  in 
Cambridge  in  1636. 

We  have  one  piece  of  record  evidence  which  is  worthy  of 
special  notice  as  to  the  beginning  of  the  First  Church  in  Cam- 
bridge. I  refer  to  a  letter  from  Mr.  William  Winthrop  to  the 
Rev.  Abiel  Holmes,  dated  May  19,  1795,  which  contains  the 
following : 

"  Sir :  Dr.  Dana  in  a  note  has  given  a  list  of  the  ministers  in  this 
Parish,  which  I  believe  is  not  so  correct  as  the  one  I  now  send." 

The  list  Winthrop  gives  is  as  follows : 

1.  Rev.  Thomas  Hooker,  ordained  October  11,  1633,  Mr.  Samuel 
Stone  his  assistant.  Mr.  Hooker  removed  (with  many  of  his 
Parish)  to  Hartford  in  Connecticut  eTune  1636  and  there  died  July 
7,  1647  Aet.  61.  Mr.  Stone  went  with  him  to  the  same  place  and 
there  died  July  20,  1663. 

2.  Rev.  Thomas  Sheppard  ordained  February  1,  1736  [should 
be  1636]  and  died  Aug.  25,  1649  Aet.  43. 

The  list  continues,  number  9  being  the  Rev.  Abiel  Holmes, 
installed  January  25,  1792. 

Legal  Status  of  Colonial  Churches 

In  the  case  of  Avery  v.  Tyringham,  3  Mass.  160  (1807), 
Parsons,  C.  J.,  says : 


106       THE    CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [ArEiL> 

Under  the  colonial  laws,  the  church  members  in  full  communion 
had  the  exclusive  right  of  electing  and  settling  their  ministers,  to 
whose  support  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  were  obliged  to  con- 
tribute. And  when  the  town  neglected  or  refused  suitably  to  main- 
tain the  minister,  the  county  court  was  authorized  to  assess  on  the 
inhabitants  a  sum  of  money  adequate  to  his  support.  Under  the 
colony  charter  no  man  could  be  a  freeman,  unless  he  was  a  church 
member,  until  the  year  1662;  and  a  majority  of  the  church  con- 
stituted a  majority  of  the  legal  voters  of  the  town.  After  that  time, 
inhabitants,  not  church  members,  if  freeholders,  and  having  certain 
other  qualifications,  might  be  admitted  to  the  rights  of  freemen.  In 
consequence  of  this  alteration,  a  different  method  of  settling  a 
minister  was  adopted,  under  the  provincial  charter.  The  church 
made  the  election,  and  sent  their  proceedings  to  the  town  for  their 
approbation.  If  the  town  approved  the  election,  it  also  voted  the 
salary  and  settlement.  When  the  candidate  accepted,  he  was  solemnly 
introduced  to  the  office  by  ordination,  and  became  the  settled  minister, 
entitled  to  his  salary  and  settlement  under  the  votes  of  tlie  town. 
If  the  town  disapproved,  and  the  church  insisted  on  its  election,  it 
might  call  an  ecclesiastical  council;  and  if  the  council  approved 
the  election,  the  town  was  obliged  to  maintain  the  person  chosen, 
as  the  settled  minister  of  the  town,  by  the  interference  of  the  Court 
of  Sessions,  if  necessary;  but  if  the  council  disapproved,  the  church 
must  have  proceeded  to  a  new  election. 

In  Burr  v.  Sandwich,  9  Mass.  277  (1812),  Parsons,  C.  J.,  says: 

Now  a  parish  and  church  are  bodies  with  different  powers.  A 
regularly  gathered  congregational  church  is  composed  of  a  number 
of  persons,  associated  by  a  covenant  or  agreement  of  church  fellow- 
ship, principally  for  the  purposes  of  celebrating  the  rites  of  the 
supper  and  of  baptism.  They  elect  deacons;  and  the  minister  of  the 
parish  is  also  admitted  a  member.  The  deacons  are  made  a  corpora- 
tion, to  hold  property  for  the  use  of  the  church,  and  they  are  ac- 
countable to  the  members.  The  members  of  the  church  are  generally 
inhabitants  of  the  parish;  but  this  inhabitancy  is  not  a  necessary 
qualification  for  a  church  member.  This  body  has  no  power  to 
contract  with  or  to  settle  a  minister,  that  power  residing  wholly  in 
the  parish,  of  which  the  members  of  the  church,  who  are  inhabitants, 
are  a  part.  The  parish,  when  the  ministerial  office  is  vacant,  from 
an  ancient  and  respectable  usage,  wait  until  the  church  have  made 
choice  of  a  minister,  and  have  requested  the  concurrence  of  the 
parish.     If  the  parish  do  not  concur,  the  election  of  a  church  is  a 


1915.]  FIRST    CHURCH   IN   CAMBRIDGE  107 

nullity.  If  the  parish  concur,  then  a  contract  of  settlement  is  made 
wholly  between  the  parish  and  the  minister  and  is  obligatory  only 
on  them. 

In  Baher  v.  Fates,  16  Mass.  487  (1820),  Parker,  C.  J.,  says: 

If  a  church  may  subsist  unconnected  with  any  congregation  or 
religious  societ}^,  as  has  been  urged  in  argument,  it  is  certain  that 
it  has  no  legal  qualities,  and  more  especially  that  it  cannot  exercise 
any  control  over  property  which  it  may  have  held  in  trust  for  the 
society  with  which  it  had  been  formerly  connected.  That  any  num- 
ber of  the  members  of  a  church,  who  disagree  with  their  brethren, 
or  with  the  minister,  or  with  the  parish,  may  withdraw  from  fel- 
lowship with  them  and  act  as  a  church  in  a  religious  point  of  view, 
having  the  ordinances  administered  and  other  religious  offices  per- 
formed, it  is  not  necessary  to  deny;  indeed,  this  would  be  a  question 
proper  for  an  ecclesiastical  council  to  settle,  if  any  should  dispute 
their  claim.  But  as  to  all  civil  purposes,  the  secession  of  a  whole 
church  from  the  parish  would  be  an  extinction  of  the  church;  and 
it  is  competent  to  the  members  of  the  parish  to  institute  a  new  church, 
or  to  engraft  one  upon  the  old  stock  if  any  of  it  should  remain; 
and  this  new  church  would  succeed  to  all  the  rights  of  the  old,  in 
relation  to  the  parish.  This  is  not  only  reasonable,  but  it  is  conform- 
able to  the  usages  of  the  country;  for,  although  many  instances 
may  have  occurred  of  the  removal  of  church  members  from  one 
church  or  one  place  of  worship  to  another,  and  no  doubt  a  removal  of 
a  majority  of  the  members  has  sometimes  occurred,  we  do  not  hear 
of  any  church  ceasing  to  exist,  while  there  were  members  enough 
left  to  do  church  service.  No  particular  number  is  necessary  to 
constitute  a  church,  nor  is  there  any  established  quorum,  which 
would  have  a  right  to  manage  the  concerns  of  the  body.  According 
to  the  Cambridge  Platform,  ch.  3,  sec.  4,  the  number  is  to  be  no 
larger  than  can  conveniently  meet  together  in  one  place,  nor,  ordi- 
narily, fewer  than  may  conveniently  carry  on  church  work.  It  would 
seem  to  follow,  from  the  very  structure  of  such  a  body  as  this,  which 
is  a  mere  voluntary  association,  that  a  diminution  of  its  numbers  will 
not  aifect  its  identity.  A  church  may  exist,  in  an  ecclesiastical 
sense,  without  any  officers,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  Platform ;  and,  with- 
out doubt,  in  the  same  sense  a  church  may  be  composed  only  of 
femes  covert  and  minors,  who  have  no  civil  capacity.  The  only  cir- 
cumstances, therefore,  which  gives  a  church  any  legal  character,  is 
its  connection  with  some  regularly-constituted  society;  and  those 
who  withdraw  from  the  society  cease  to  be  members  of  that  particu- 


108        THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [April, 

lar  church,  and  the  remaining  members  continue  to  be  the  identical 
church.  .  .  . 

But  where  members  enough  are  left  to  execute  the  objects  for 
which  a  church  is  gathered,  choose  deacons,  etc.,  no  legal  change  has 
taken  place;  the  body  remains,  and  the  secession  of  a  majority  of 
the  members  would  have  no  other  effect  than  a  temporary  absence 
would  have  upon  a  meeting  which  had  been  regularly  summoned. 

That  a  church  cannot  subsist  without  some  religious  community 
to  which  it  is  attached,  with  the  exceptions  before  stated,  is  not 
a  new  theoiy.  It  has,  we  believe,  been  the  understanding  of  the 
people  of  New  England,  from  the  foundation  of  the  colonies.  .  .  . 

There  appeared  to  be  little  practical  distinction  between  church 
and  congregation,  or  parish,  or  society,  for  several  years  after  our 
ancestors  came  here.  It  was  not  till  the  year  1611,  that  we  find  any 
legislative  recognition  of  the  right  and  power  of  churches  to  elect 
ministers.  Before  that  period,  without  doubt,  the  whole  assembly 
were  considered  the  church,  or  so  great  a  portion  of  it,  that  no 
necessity  of  any  regulation  could  exist.  But  in  that  year,  the  right 
to  gather  churches  under  certain  restrictions  was  established,  and 
the  power  of  electing  church  officers,  comprehending,  without  doubt, 
ministers,  was  vested  in  the  church.  How  the  ministers  before  that 
time  were  supported  does  not  appear ;  but  it  is  probable,  by  voluntary 
contribution;  for  it  does  not  appear  that  any  legal  obligation  was 
created  before  the  year  1652.  ...  In  1654,  authority  was  given 
to  the  county  court  to-  assess  upon  the  inhabitants  a  proper  sum 
for  the  support  of  the  minister,  if  any  defect  existed. 

In  Stehhins  v.  Jennings,  10  Pick.  172  (1830),  Shaw,  C.  J.,  says: 

That  an  adhering  minority  of  a  local  or  territorial  parish,  and 
not  a  seceding  majority,  coijstitutes  the  church  of  such  parish  to 
all  civil  purposes,  was  fully  settled  in  the  case  of  Baker  v.  Fates, 
16  Mass.  R.  503,  and  Sandiwich  v.  Tildcn  there  cited.  .  .  .  From 
these  views,  it  seems  evident,  that  the  identity  of  a  congregational 
cliurch,  used  in  the  sense  already  explained,  must  be  considered  as 
depending  upon  the  identity  of  the  parish  or  religious  society,  with 
which  it  is  connected.  .  .  .  Even  should  every  member  of  an  existing 
church  die  or  remove,  it  would  be  competent  for  other  members  of 
the  parish  or  religious  society  to  associate  themselves  for  the  pur- 
pose of  celebrating  the  chrisitian  ordinances,  or  in  the  language  of 
the  early  days  of  New  England,  to  gather  a  church,  and  such  as- 
sociated body  would  possess  all  the  powers  and  privileges  of  the 
church  of  such  parish,  and  would  be  the  legitimate  successor  of 


1915.]  FIEST    CHURCH   IN   CAMBRIDGE  109 

the  former  church,  to  the  same  extent  as  if  no  suspension  or  inter- 
ruption in  the  regular  succession  and  continuity  of  the  body  had 
taken  place.  Such  a  body  would  have  the  power  of  electing  deacons, 
and  when  elected,  by  force  of  the  statute,  all  property,  real  and 
personal,  which  had  been  held  by  their  predecessors,  or  given  to  the 
church,  would  vest  in  such  deacons.  ...  If,  then,  it  is  asked 
whether,  if  a  church  be  dissatisfied  with  the  doctrines  taught,  and 
the  instructions  given,  in  the  parish  in  which  it  is  formed,  they 
cannot  withdraw,  the  answer  appears  to  us  to  be  obvious;  that  the 
organization  of  a  church  in  any  parish  is  designed  for  the  edification, 
and  benefit  of  those  members  who  choose  to  unite  in  it,  and  if  those 
members,  be  they  few,  many  or  all,  can  no  longer  conscientiously 
attend  there,  they  may  unquestionably  withdraw  and  provide  for 
the  institution  of  public  worship  elsewhere.  But  this  they  neces- 
sarily do  in  another  and  distinct  capacity,  —  that  of  a  religious 
society.  They  may  also  form  a  church,  but  it  will  be  the  church 
of  the  society  thus  established,  and  not  the  church  of  the  society 
from  which  they  have  withdrawn.  .  .  . 

Upon  a  review  of  the  subject  the  Court  are  all  of  opinion,  as  it 
was  substantially  decided  in  Baker  v.  Fales,  so  far  as  that  case  in- 
volved the  same  point,  that  in  whatever  aspect  a  church,  for  some 
purposes  may  be  considered,  it  appears  to  be  clear,  from  the  constitu- 
tion and  laws  of  the  land  and  from  judicial  decisions,  that  the  body 
of  communicants  gathered  into  church  order,  according  to  established 
usage,  in  any  to-vvn,  parish,  precinct,  or  religious  society,  established 
according  to  law,  and  actually  connected  and  associated  therewith 
for  religious  purposes,  for  the  time  being,  is  to  be  regarded  as  the 
church  of  such  society,  as  to  all  questions  of  property  depending 
upon  that  relation. 

In  Weld  V.  May,  9  Cush.  181  (1852),  Shaw,  C.  J.,  says: 

The  character,  powers  and  duties  of  churches  gathered  within 
the  various  congregational  parishes  and  religious  societies  in  this 
commonwealth,  have  been  definitely  known  and  understood  from 
the  earliest  period  of  its  existence.  Indeed,  the  main  object  of  the 
first  settlers  of  the  country,  in  their  emigration  hither,  was  to  manage 
their  religious  affairs  in  their  own  way.  The  earliest  thing  they 
established  was  a  congregation  and  a  congregational  church.  The 
legal  character  of  the  church  was  well  understood. 

It  was  a  body  of  persons,  members  of  a  congregational  or  other 
religious  society,  established  for  the  promotion  and  support  of  public 
worship,  which  body  was  set  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  society. 


no       THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [April, 

for  peculiar  religious  observances,  for  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's 
Supper,  and  for  mutual  edification.  They  were  usually  formed  and 
regulated  by  a  covenant,  or  articles  of  agreement,  which  ea<ch  separate 
church  formed  for  itself,  sometimes  with  the  advice  of  other  churches, 
by  which  they  mutually  stipulated  to  assist  each  other,  by  advice 
and  counsel,  in  pursuing  a  christian  course  of  life,  to  submit  to 
proper  censure  and  discipline  for  any  deviation  therefrom,  and  gen- 
erally, to  promote  the  essential  growth  and  welfare  of  each  other. 
They  might  consist  of  all  or  only  a  portion  of  the  adult  members  of 
the  congregation  with  which  they  were  connected. 

Conclusions 

Prom  the  foregoing  it  follows: 

1.  The  First  Church  in  Cambridge  began  October  11,  1G33, 
when  Thomas  Hooker  was  ordained. 

2.  The  church  which  was  gathered  in  1633  continued  its  legal 
existence  in  Cambridge  and  did  not  come  to  an  end  when  Mr. 
Hooker  and  a  considerable  number  of  the  church  members  re- 
moved to  Connecticut. 

3.  The  present  churches,  which  are  named  The  First  Church 
in  Cambridge  (Unitarian)  and  The  First  Church  in  Cambridge 
(Congregational)  respectively,  should  date  their  beginning  as 
1633  instead  of  1636,  or  else  they  should  change  their  respective 
names. 

NOTE 

For  a  paper  by  the  Rev.  Edward  Henry  Hall,  D.D.,  written  in  1911, 
entitled  "  Relations  between  the  First  Church  of  Hartford  and  the  First 
Church  in  Cambridge,"  in  which  different  conclusions  are  reached,  see  Puhlicor 
tions  of  the  Colonial  Society  of  Massachusetts,  vol.  xiii,  pages  273-277. 

For  an  interesting  paper  prepared  by  the  Hon.  Chief  Justice  Shaw  containing 
a  lucid  exposition  of  the  legal  grounds  of  the  decision  in  Baker  v.  Fales,  16  ]\Tas8. 
487  ( 1820),  above  referred  to,  see  the  Appendix  to  this  article.  This  paper  was 
written  by  the  Chief  Justice,  about  1857,  at  the  request  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  (ieorge  E. 
Ellis  for  insertion  in  the  Appendix  to  his  "  Half  Century  of  the  Unitarian 
Controversy." 


1915.]  FIEST    CHURCH    IN    CAMBRIDGE  111 


I 


APPENDIX 

Comment  X)N  the  Case  of  Baker  v.  Fales,  16  Mass.  487 

BY  Chief  Justice  Lemuel  Shaw 

It  is  true,  as  you  have  stated,  that  in  the  earlier  years  of  our  colonial 
history  the  power  of  choosing  the  minister,  or  teaching  elder,  in  a  parish  or  reli- 
gioi;s  society,  was  vested  in  tlie  church ;  but  so  was  the  election  to  civil  offices. 
Church  members  alone  had  a  right  of  suffrage  in  civil  affairs.  Afterwards,  the 
church  and  the  society  had  a  concurrent  vote,  and  the  law  on  the  subject  was 
varied  from  time  to  time. 

But  to  avoid  any  collision  or  conflict  of  authority  on  this  subject,  it  was  ex- 
pressly provided  by  the  Constitution  of  1780,  —  the  fundamental  law,  not  to  be 
changed  by  the  Legislature,  —  that  the  parish,  or  religious  society,  or  town,  or 
district,  where  the  same  corporation  exercised  the  functions  of  a  town  and  reli- 
gious societ}',  should  have  the  exclusive  right  and  power  of  electing  the  minister 
and  contracting  with  him  for  his  support.  The  language  of  the  Constitution 
upon  this  subject  is  explicit,  as  follows:  "  Provided,  notwithstanding,  that  the 
several  towns,  parishes,  precincts,  and  other  bodies  politic,  or  religious  societies, 
shall,  at  all  times,  have  the  exclusive  right  of  electing  their  public  teachers,  and 
contracting  with  them  for  their  support  and  maintenance."  And  when  the 
Third  Article  of  the  Declaration  of  Rights,  containing  this  provision,  was  abro"- 
gated  by  amendment  in  1833,  this  provision  securing  to  religious  societies  the 
right  of  election  was  reinstated,  and  is  now  a  part  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
Commonwealth;  except  that,  instead  of  the  term  "  public  teachers  "  in  the  first 
instrument,  the  more  specific  designation  of  "  pastors  and  religious  teachers  "  is 
substituted.  This  was  accompanied  with  another  fundamental  principle,  that 
all  religious  sects  and  denominations  shall  be  equally  under  the  protection  of 
the  law,  and  no  subordination  of  any  one  sect  or  denomination  to  another  shall 
be  established  by  law.  These  provisions  constitute  the  legal  foundations  of  the 
religious  institutions  of  the  Commonwealth. 

The  religious  society  may  be  a  territorial  or  a  poll  parish,  or  organized  as  a 
religious  society  under  the  statute,  and  may  be  of  any  denomination.  Such  a 
religious  society  is  a  corporation  and  body  politic,  capable  of  taking  and  hold- 
ing property  in  its  own  right,  for  the  purposes  for  which  it  is  organized,  which 
are,  the  support  and  maintenance  of  public  worship  and  religious  instruction, 
providing  for  all  the  expenses  incident  to  these  duties,  as  building  a  meeting- 
house, settling  a  minister,  providing  for  his  support,  and  the  like.  The  church 
is  a  body  of  individuals  formed  within  a  religious  society  by  covenant,  for  the 
celebration  of  Christian  ordinances,  for  mutual  edification  and  discipline,  and 
for  making  charitable  provision  for  its  own  members,  and  for  all  expenses  inci- 
dent to  these  specific  objects.  The  church  may  be  composed  of  all  or  of  a  part 
of  the  members  of  a  religious  society.  It  may  be  composed  of  males  and  females, 
adults  and  minors ;  though  by  long-established  usage  adult  male  members  alone 
vote  in  church  affairs. 

Now  it  is  manifest  that,  under  the  foregoing  provision  of  the  Constitution, 
the  legal  voters  of  the  parish  alone  have  by  law  the  power  to  vote  in  the  settle- 


112        THE    CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [April, 

ment  of  a  minister,  and  the  church  as  an  organized  body  can  have  no  nega- 
tive. But  each  male  member  of  the  church  is  usually,  if  not  necessarily,  a 
member  of  the  religious  society,  and  as  such  has  his  equal  voice  with  all  other 
members  of  the  society.  But  in  fact  and  in  practice,  church-members,  being 
among  the  most  respected  members  of  the  society,  will  ordinarily  have  an  in- 
fluence, by  their  counsel  and  their  character,  much  greater  than  the  proportion 
which  they  numerically  bear  to  the  whole  number  of  voters.  And  from  the  re- 
spect due  to  such  a  body,  as  a  matter  of  courtesy,  they  are  usually  consul t'xl, 
and  in  many  instances  are  requested  to  take  the  lead  in  giving  a  call  to  a  min- 
ister; and,  if  the  parish  concur,  in  making  the  ecclesiastical  arrangements 
for  his  ordination,  the  invitation  of  a  council,  and  the  usual  solemnities  at- 
tending such  settlement.  This  customary  deference  to  the  church  is  all  just  and 
proper,  and  a  course  which  every  lover  of  Christian  harmony  and  order  would 
approve.  But  if  such  harmony  cannot  be  maintained,  and  the  parties  come  to 
a  controversy  requiring  an  appeal  to  the  law,  the  law  must  decide  these  ques- 
tions of  right  according  to  the  express  provision  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
laws  of  the  land,  without  regard  to  sect  or  denomination. 

Another  fundamental  principle  lying  at  the  foundation  of  these  legal  deci- 
sions is  this:  That  the  church  of  any  religious  society,  recognized  by  usage 
and  to  some  extent  by  law  as  an  aggregate  body  associated  for  highly  useful 
and  praiseworthy  purposes,  whose  usages  and  customs  are  to  be  respected  and 
encouraged,  is  not  a  corporation  or  body  politic  capable  of  taking  and  holding 
property.  No  doubt,  in  the  very  earliest  times  there  was  some  confusion  in  the 
minds  of  our  ancestors  upon  this  subject;  but  ever  since  1754,  now  more  than 
a  century,  the  distinction  between  church  and  society  has  been  well  kno^vn  and 
universally  observed.  Tlie  very  purpose  of  the  statute  of  1754  was  to  vest 
deacons  of  Congregational  Churches,  and  the  wardens  and  vestry  of  Episcopal 
Churches,  with  corporate  powers  to  take  property  for  the  church,  for  the  very 
reason  that  the  church,  as  an  aggregate  body  of  individuals,  not  a  corporation, 
could  not  by  law  take  property,  or  hold  and  transmit  it  in  succession.  Since 
that  time,  church  property  and  parish  property  liave  been  regarded  as  wholly 
distinct.  Church  property  holden  by  deacons  could  not  be  appropriated  by  the 
pariah  as  of  right,  nor  could  parish  property  be  used  or  appropriated  by  the 
church.  In  the  Dedham  case  there  might  be  some  doubt  raised  in  the  mind  of 
one  not  attending  carefully  to  this  legal  distinction.  The  property  originated 
in  grants  made  to  the  church  in  form  at  the  very  early  date  of  1660,  when,  aa 
I  have  said,  tliere  was  some  confusion  of  terms ;  for  though  it  was  given  to  the 
First  Church,  it  was  for  the  support  of  "  a  teaching  elder,"  i.e.,  a  minister, 
which  is  peculiarly  a  parish  purpose.  The  court  decided  in  that  particular 
case,  that,  by  the  particular  grant,  the  legal  estate,  being  given  to  "  the  church  '* 
by  force  of  the  statute  of  1754,  vested  in  the  deacons  as  church  property  in 
trust  for  the  support  of  a  minister,  and  so  was,  in  effect,  in  trust  for  the  parish. 
But  the  court  decided  in  that  same  case,  that,  but  for  the  trusts  declared  in 
those  grants,  the  parish,  as  such,  would  have  no  claim,  legal  or  equitable,  to 
the  property  granted,  or  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  it. 

The  effect  of  that  decision  was  that  the  legal  estate  vested  in  the  deacons 
as  church  property;  and  that  the  First  Parish,  as  a  corporation,  had  no  title 
to  it.  And  this  is  manifest  from  the  consideration  that  the  deacons  of  the 
church  maintained  the  action  as  the  recognized  legal  oA^Tiers. 

As  to  which  of  the  two  parties  in  that  suit  were  rightfully  the  deacons  of 
the  Church  of  the  First  Parish,  —  that  was  a  distinct  question.  And  upon  con- 
siderations, and  as  matter  of  law,  the  court  decided,  that,  although  a  majority 


1915.]  FIKST    CHURCH    IN    CAMBRIDGE  113 

of  the  members  of  the  First  Church  seceded  and  withdrew  from  the  society 
after  they  had  given  a  call  to  a  minister,  in  which  the  church  as  a  body  did 
not  concur;  yet  those  of  the  church  who  remained  and  adlicred  to  the  First 
Parish  constituted  the  Church  of  the  First  Parish,  with  the  incidental  right 
of  removing  and  choosing  deacons ;  and  the  deacons  whom  they  had  chosen,  in 
place  of  those  whom  they  had  removed,  were  the  deacons  of  the  Church  of  the 
First  Parish. 

The  principle,  then,  appears  to  be  this:  That  a  church  is  an  associated  body, 
gathered  in  a  religious  society  for  mutual  edification  and  discipline  and  the 
celebration  of  the  Christian  ordinances.  It  is  ascertained  and  identified  as  the 
Church  of  the  Parish  or  religious  Society  in  which  it  is  formed.  The  Church 
of  the  First  Parish  of  D.,  for  example,  is  ascertained  and  identified  by  its  ex- 
istence in,  and  co,nnection  with,  that  parish.  If  a  majority  of  the  members 
witlidraw,  they  have  a  full  right  to  do  so,  but  they  thereby  cease  to  be  the 
church  of  that  parish.  They  withdraw  as  individuals,  and  not  as  an  organ- 
ized body.  They  may  form  a  religious  society  by  applying  to  a  justice  of  the 
peace,  under  the  statute,  to  call  a  meeting,  and  a  church  may  be  gathered  in 
such  society.  But  it  would  be  a  new  society,  and  the  church  gathered  in  it 
would  not  be  the  Church  of  the  First  Parish  of  D.  They  might  associate  others 
with  themselves  and  settle  a  minister,  but  this  would  not  make  such  society 
the  Church  of  the  First  Parish.  It  follows  as  a  necessary  legal  consequence, 
that  all  church  property,  even  a  service  of  plate  for  the  communion,  given  to 
the  Church  of  the  First  Parish  of  D.,  must  be  and  remain  for  the  church  gath- 
ered in  that  parish,  and  those  who  may  succeed  them  in  that  parish,  and  it  can- 
not go  to  the  use  of  any  other  church  or  the  church  of  any  other  society. 
However  desirable  it  may  seem  to  all  right-thinking  persons  that  all  such  con- 
troversies should  be  avoided,  by  an  amicable  adjustment  of  all  such  claims 
upon  the  principles  of  the  most  liberal  equity  and  charity,  and  with  a  just 
regard  to  the  feelings  as  well  as  the  rights  of  all,  yet,  if  parties  will  appeal  to 
the  law  to  decide  a  question  respecting  the  right  of  property,  even  to  a  service 
of  church  plate,  the  law  must  decide  it  upon  the  same  legal  principles  which 
govern  the  acquisition  and  transmission  of  property  in  all  other  cases. 

There  is  no  case  in  which  it  has  been  decided,  in  this  Commonwealth,  that 
any  parish  or  religious  society,  acting  as  a  corporation  charged  wuth  the  special 
duty  of  supporting  and  maintaining  public  worship,  have  a  right  to  recover 
property  of  a  seceding  church,  or  of  any  church  of  such  parish.  But  the  con- 
troversy has  always  been  between  those  members  of  the  church  of  a  designated 
parish  who  remain  with  that  parish,  and  those  who  secede,  retire,  or  witlidraw 
therefrom,  as  to  which  is  the  real  church  of  said  parish.  It  has  been  a  question 
of  identity,  and  the  decision  has  gone  upon  the  principle,  that,  whatever  other 
rights  or  claims  the  retiring  or  seceding  members,  even  though  a  majority,  may 
have,  they  could  not  be  considered  in  law,  after  such  secession,  as  the  Church 
of  that  Parish. 


114       THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [April, 
Heney  Heebeet  Edes  made  the  following  communication: 

The  Deacons'  Books  of  tlie  First  Church  in  Cambridge,  in  two 
parchment-bound  volumes,  cover  the  period  from  1637  to  1723, 
with  a  number  of  entries  ranging  from  1724  to  1783,  comprising 
in  all  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

The  accounts  relate  to  the  collections  taken  up  from  week  to 
week  for  the  support  of  the  minister,  for  the  poor  of  the  Church, 
and  for  special  cases  where  help  was  needed,  such,  for  instance,  as 
the  sufferers  by  the  great  fire  in  Boston  in  March,  1760.  There 
are  also  accounts  with  different  persons  of  receipts  and  payments. 
Some  of  the  accounts  give  interesting  facts  as  to  the  administra- 
tion of  the  Sacrament,  the  ordination  and  death  of  the  ministers, 
and  other  details  concerning  the  life  and  activities  of  the 
Church. 

There  are  entries  relating  to  the  Church  and  its  members,  and 
to  Cambridge  town  affairs  following  the  Hooker  Emigration,  in 
June,  1636,  some  of  which  have  never  been  used,  certainly  not 
in  their  full  original  text. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  Colonial  Period,  for  several  years, 
the  names  of  the  preachers  from  Sunday  to  Sunday  are  given, 
as  well  as  the  amounts  paid  them  for  preaching  the  sermons. 
Here  we  find  the  names  of  the  Mathers,  the  Cottons,  and  others 
prominent  among  the  clergy  of  those  days. 

There  are  votes  passed  by  the  deacons  on  various  subjects,  and 
several  annual  lists  of  parishioners  who  were  in  arrears,  with 
the  amounts  due  from  each.  We  also  find  curious  receipts  for 
money,  with  autograph  signatures  of  some  of  the  settled  ministers 
of  the  Church,  and  occasional  entries'  relating  to  the  Church 
property.  Here,  too,  strange  to  say,  may  be  found  many  entries 
of  interest  to  the  political  economists,  since  they  afford  prices 
current  of  breadstuffs  and  all  kinds  of  provisions  in  which  a  large 
part  of  the  rates  were  paid,  a  small  portion  only  having  been  paid 
in  money.  In  these  records  we  see  also  the  relative  value  of  Old 
Tenor  and  E'ew  Tenor  at  different  periods. 

Among  the  more  important  items  in  these  venerable  volumes 
are  those  recording  the  actual  or  approximate  dates  of  death  of 
not  a  few  parishioners,  while  other  entries  reveal  relationships 
when  settlements  of  open  accounts  Avith  parishioners  who  had  died 


1915.] 


FIRST    CHURCH   IN    CAMBRIDGE 


115 


were  made  with  heirs  or  kinsfolk.    The  phonetic  spelling  of  family 
names  reveals  the  pronunciation  in  vogue  two  hundred  years  ago. 

There  are  many  names  recorded  in  these  books.  Owing  to 
the  imperfection  of  the  Cambridge  Vital  Records  kept  by  the 
Town  Clerk,  and  of  the  Church  Records  proper,  —  those  kept 
by  the  ministers  prior  to  1696,  —  the  entries  and  lists  preserved 
in  the  Deacons'  Records  are  of  unusual  value.  A  few  names, 
taken  at  random,  will  indicate  the  wide  field  covered  by  these 
volumes : 


i 


Adams 
Angier 

Francis 
Frost 

Remington 
Robbins 

Barrett 

Goffe 

Russell 

Boardman 

Bradish 

Brattle 

Gookin 

Green 

Hancock 

Sparhawk 

Spencer 

Stedman 

Champney 
Cook 

Hastings 
Ireland 

Stone 
Swan 

Coolidge 

Cooper 

Cutter 

Jackson 
Leverett 
Locke 

Tidd 

Trowbridge 

Warland 

Dana 

Danforth 

Dickson 

Manning 

Nutting 

Oliver 

.Wellington 
Whittemore 
iWillard 

Dunster 

Fillebrown 

Foster 

Parker 
Phipps 
Prentice 

Winship 
.Wyeth 

Foxcroft 

Read 

"While  the  Records  do  not  readily  lend  tKemselves  as  material 
for  an  interesting  paper  to  be  read  before  this  Society,  they 
contain  original,  unused  matter  of  interest  and  importance  to 
the  historian  and  genealogist  interested  in  the  history  of  Cam- 
bridge, and  of  the  families  who  were  seated  here  in  the  days  of 
the  Colony  and  the  Province. 


The  thanks  of  the  Society  were  voted  to  Mr.  Bailey  and 
Mr.  Edes  and  the  meeting  was  dissolved. 

By  vote  of  the  Council,  the  Longfellow  Medal  Prize  Essay 
for  1915  is  printed  here. 


116        THE    CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [April, 

Longfellow  Prize  Essay  for  1915 
desciiiptio:n^s  of  i^ature  in  LONGFELLOWS 

POEMS 

By  Margaeet  Charlton  Black 

Every  true  poet  is  a  lover  of  nature.  This  has  been  so  from 
earliest  times  until  the  present  day  and  will  be  so  throughout 
the  ages.  For  Homer  moonlight,  starlight,  the  rosy-fingered 
dawn,  and  the  wine-dark  sea  had  a  peculiar  fascination.  To 
Chaucer  the  coming  of  spring  and  the  spreading  of  the  daisy 
against  the  sun  were  a  source  of  unending  delight.  Shakespeare 
worshipped  nature  with  heart  and  soul;  there  is  nothing  in 
heaven  or  earth,  in  sea  or  air,  that  has  not  been  touched  on  by 
the  pen  of  this  creator.  After  the  artificial  themes  and  purely 
intellectual  subjects  of  the  verse  of  the  time  of  Queen  Anne  the 
world  turned  with  gladness  and  relief  to  the  nature  poetry  of 
Thomson,  Collins,  and  Burns,  and  all  that  is  meant  by  the  litera- 
ture of  romanticism.  For  Wordsworth  the  love  of  nature  was  a 
passion.  The  cataract  haunted  him;  the  tall  rock,  the  mountain 
crest,  the  lake,  and  the  gloomy  woodland  were  meat  and  drink 
to  his  imagination. 

In  the  gi'owth  and  development  of  American  poetry  nature 
Las  been  one  of  the  chief  subjects  of  interpretation  from  the 
first.  In  the  seventeenth  century  Mistress  Anne  Bradstreet  intro- 
duced notable  descriptions  of  flowers,  birds,  fields,  and  woods 
into  her  ^'  Contemplations "  and  "  The  Four  Seasons  of  the 
Year,"  and  before  the  eighteenth  century  closed  Philip  Freneau 
had  enriched  the  world  of  nature  poetry  by  "  The  Wild  Honey- 
suckle "  and  *'  The  Indian  Burying  Ground,"  anticipating  and 
preparing  the  way  for  such  lyrics  as  Bryant's  ^^  To  the  Fringed 
Gentian "  and  "  To  a  Water-Fowl."  It  is  significant  that  in 
the  earliest  poems  of  Longfellow,  who  was  to  become  the  most 
representative  American  man  of  letters,  nature  should  be  the 
leading  theme ;  "  An  April  Day,"  "  Autumn,"  "  Woods  in 
Winter,"  "  Sunrise  on  the  Hills "  are  among  the  first  poems 
which  he  gave  to  the  world.  What  makes  this  the  more  note- 
worthy is  that,  while  Bryant  is  usually  regarded  as  the  Ameri- 


1915.]  NATURE    IN   LONGFELLOW'S    POEMS  117 

can  poet  of  nature,  Longfellow's  special  appeal  is  supposed  to 
be  to  the  domestic  affections  through  the  purity,  sweetness,  and 
tenderness  with  which  he  has  depicted  the  common  emotions 
of  the  human  heart.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Longfellow  has  written 
more  nature  lyrics  than  any  other  American  poet,  and  many  of 
the  best  known  nature  descriptions  in  solitary  epithets  or  single 
lines  are  from  his  poems.  In  the  world  of  modern  expression 
are  no  more  widely  known  bits  of  word  picture  than  "  the  trailing 
garments  of  the  night,"  "  the  cold  light  of  stars,"  "  the  forest 
primeval,"  "  the  trampling  surf,"  "  the  fenceless  fields  of  air," 
"  with  what  a  glory  comes  and  goes  the  year."  These  are  indeed 
household  words. 

From  his  birthplace  and  his  early  environment  in  the  north- 
ern city  between  the  ocean  and  the  pine  woods  of  Maine,  Long- 
fellow derived  that  passion  for  the  forest  and  the  sea  which  is 
felt  through  all  his  more  notable  verse.  !No  poet  has  given  a 
more  hauntingly  beautiful  account  of  the  facts  and  circumstances 
that  colored  his  young  imagination  and  shaped  his  emotional 
being  than  Longfellow  in  "  My  Lost  Youth."  Here  may  be  read 
the  secret  of  that  love  of  the  ocean  and  that  ardent  passion  for 
the  "  sheen  of  the  far-surrounding  seas."  What  a  fascination 
for  an  impressionable  boy  there  must  have  been  in  the  black 
wharves  and  the  stately  ships,  the  Spanish  sailors  from  distant 
lands,  the  magic  and  mystery  of  the  sea  itself!  And  it  was  in 
the  environment  of  his  boyhood  home  that  he  first  heard  the 
rustling  of  the  forest  primeval.  The  deep  shadows  of  the  glades 
and  the  breeze  in  the  tree-tops  aroused  in  him  that  sense  of 
harmony  between  nature  and  the  soul  of  man  which  marks  all 
his  later  descriptions  of  forest,  field,  and  sea.  So  vividly  were 
these  recollections  of  childhood  pictured  in  his  memory  that  in 
after-years,  when  his  heart  wandered  back  among  the  dreams 
of  the  days  that  were,  he  rediscovered  his  lost  boyhood:  nothing 
was  forgotten ;  even  the  "  gleams  and  glooms  that  dart  across 
the  schoolboy's  brain  "  seemed  but  the  thoughts  of  yesterday. 

His  parents,  in  no  less  degree  than  the  romantic  environment 
of  sea  and  woodland,  were  an  inspiration  to  the  young  poet. 
He  had  such  parents  as  a  poet  should  have:  the  father  wise, 
strong,  with  a  marked  religious  bent;  the  mother  tender,  gentle, 
with  an  emotional  nature  tuned  to  the  finest  issues  by  her  knowl- 


118       THE   CAMBKIDGE   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY     [April, 

edge  of  all  that  is  best  and  worthiest  in  imaginative  literature. 
Little  wonder  that  the  lad  became  a  poet  and  an  interpreter  of 
the  fields,  the  woods,  the  dim,  dark  sea,  the  light  of  stars,  the 
beauty  and  the  mystery  of  childhood.  Hence  come  the  light 
that  lies  on  his  early  nature  poems  and  the  beauty  of  the  lines 
in  ^*  Sunrise  on  the  Hills."  To  all  who  have  seen  the  ^'  sun's 
returning  march  ''  and  the  "  clouds  all  bathed  in  light,''  cro^vning 
the  hill-tops  and  gleaming  on  the  distant  water,  these  verses  will 
express  the  feelings  and  emotions  that  spring  up  in  the  heart 
at  the  splendor  of  such  a  vision.  Here,  even  in  this  early  poem, 
may  be  noted  what  is  characteristic  of  the  nature  description  in 
the  later  and  longer  works,  particularly  in  "  Evangeline  "  and 
in  "  Hiawatha,"  a  tendency  to  emphasize  general  rather  than 
particular  truths  in  regard  to  the  external  world.  The  descrip- 
tion is  not  that  of  a  self-conscious  or  scientifically  trained  ob- 
server, but  the  imprinting  of  the  seal  of  a  noble  and  generous 
personality  upon  the  great  elemental  aspects  of  nature. 

In  the  year  1839  the  first  published  volume  of  Longfellow's 
poems  appeared  under  the  title  of  "  Voices  of  the  Night."  Here 
are  found  some  of  the  best  known  verses  in  the  English  language, 
well  knovsTi  because  in  their  simplicity  and  sincerity  they  make 
an  appeal  where  ^'  the  mighty  thought "  of  many  a  grand  old 
master  has  failed  to  touch  or  inspire.  In  the  ^^  Prelude  "  the 
poet  retires  from  the  busy  hum  of  the  city  to  seek  relief  and 
comfort  in  the  stillness  and  solitude  of  the  forest.  It  is  spring- 
time, and  the  freshness  of  the  new  world  cheers  the  heart  and 
fills  the  mind  with  inspiration  and  hope.  How  is  it  that,  when 
the  spirit  is  weary  and  oppressed,  there  is  a  mysterious  magic 
in  the  woodland  that  has  the  power  to  charm  away  all  sorrow  and 
unhappiness  ?  This  secret  the  poet  knew  full  well,  and  his  verses 
give  the  solution  of  many  a  difficulty  and  charm  aAvay  many  a 
grief  from  which  there  might  seem  no  escape.  The  "  Hymn 
to  the  Night "  is  one  of  the  great  lyrics  of  modern  literature. 
This  poem,  "The  Evening  Star,"  and  "The  Bridge  at  IVlid- 
night "  express  hauntingly,  mysteriously,  the  beauty  and  mysti- 
cism of  the  twilight  and  the  dark.  The  opening  verse  of  the 
Hymn  is  indeed  a  poem  in  itself,  charged  in  every  syllable  with 
vividness  and  imagination. 

Among  these  early  writings  are  many  poems  that  show  Long- 


1915.]  NATURE    IN   LONGFELLOW'S    POEMS  119 

fellow's  wholesome  love  and  worship  of  external  nature.  Spring, 
the  period  of  youth  and  gladness,  seems  to  have  appealed  strongly 
to  him.  The  spirit  of  the  season,  when  all  things  are  new,  ani- 
mates his  poetry,  yet  in  the  very  verses  that  follow  the  description 
of  the  darting  swallows  and  the  budding  elms  we  have  the  pathetic 
lines,  ^'  It  is  not  always  May !  ",  "  There  are  no  birds  in  last 
year's  nest !  "  This  mingling  of  joy  and  sorrow  betokens  the  true 
interpreter,  for  when  we  are  happiest,  tears  are  not  far  away. 

Was  it  through  constant  intercourse  with  hills  and  woodlands 
that  Longfellow  came  to  know  and  love  the  birds  of  the  meadows 
and  the  forests  ?  He  is  a  friend  and  protector  of  them  all ;  there 
are  none  too  small  or  insignificant  to  escape  his  sympathetic 
notice.  He  has  no  favorites,  so  it  seems;  but  the  musical  song 
of  one,  the  brilliant  plumage  of  another,  fill  him  with  equal 
delight  and  inspiration.  He  called  them  all  by  name,  and  speaks 
with  peculiar  tenderness  of  the  robin  and  the  bluebird,  the  humble 
sparrow  and  the  lonely  seabirds. 

Surely  there  was  never  a  more  earnest  appeal  in  behalf  of 
the  birds  than  that  made  through  the  Preceptor's  lips  in  "  The 
Birds  of  Killingworth."  The  season  is  spring,  and  the  blossom- 
ing orchards  and  running  brooks  proclaim  new  life  and  vigor 
everywhere.  Joy  and  happiness  reign  in  field  and  sky  and 
everywhere  save  in  the  hearts  of  the  foolish  inhabitants  of  the 
village.  They  view  with  horror  and  dismay  this  blithest  of  all 
seasons,  for  to  them  it  means  the  advent  of  their  mortal  enemies, 
the  birds.  These  stolid,  narrow-minded  villagers  seem  to  symbol- 
ize that  blinded  company  of  people  whose  vision  is  so  stunted  that 
it  cannot  see  its  own  gain.  The  little  that  is  taken  by  these 
"  feathered  gleaners  "  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  return  that 
is  made  in  their  pleasant  company,  their  jubilant  songs,  and 
good  service  rendered  in  the  fields  and  gardens.  But  no!  To 
those  who  merely  look  for  worldly  gain  such  ^'  fine-spun  senti- 
ment "  can  give  no  surety  or  trust.  The  birds,  like  common 
^'  thieves  and  pillagers,"  are  convicted,  sentenced,  and  put  to 
death.  It  is  a  melancholy  world  that  the  poet  pictures,  bereft  of 
the  little  creatures  that  fill  the  land  with  music  and  make  this 
dull  life  a  paradise  on  earth;  all  nature  mourns  for  the  lost 
children  of  the  wood.  No  rest  or  ease  is  given  to  the  unhappy 
farmers,  for  retribution  is  swift  and  sudden.     The  grasshopper 


120        THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [April, 

and  the  caterpillar  make  havoc  of  the  crops;  the  hoped-for  suc- 
cess has  turned  out  an  utter  failure.  Sadder  and  wiser  men,  the 
people  of  Killingw^orth  do  what  they  can  to  make  amends  for 
the  mad  ^'  Slaughter  of  the  Innocents,"  and  early  in  the  follow- 
ing spring  numerous  cages  filled  with  song  birds  are  brought  to 
the  stricken  town.  The  cages  are  opened;  the  little  prisoners 
escape,  and  once  more  the  lonely  fields  and  forests  are  filled 
with  joyous  music  and  glad  h}Tnns  of  praise.  There  is  a  quaint 
blending  of  humor  and  pathos  in  this  little  story,  and  this  makes 
its  mission  doubly  effective. 

The  ^'  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn  "  are  varied  and  differ  widely 
in  subject  matter  and  setting,  but  the  narratives  have  noteworthy 
touches  and  expressions  taken  from  the  realm  of  nature.  "  Paul 
Revere's  Ride  "  is  lit  up  by  the  moonrise  on  the  bay,  and  the 
fresh  breeze  of  early  dawTi  is  felt  in  the  closing  lines.  In  '^  The 
Ballad  of  Carmilhan  "  are  singularly  vivid  nature  descriptions  — 
the  sunbeams  dancing  on  the  waves,  the  mysterious  setting  of  the 
sun  behind  tall,  gloomy  mountains,  capped  with  snow,  followed  by 
the  storm  at  sea. 

Longfellow's  passion  for  the  ocean  has  been  referred  to  above. 
He  has  spoken  of  its  splendor  and  majesty;  he  has  told  of 
its  cruelty,  its  ruthlessness.  Two  poems  that  come  immediately 
to  mind  in  this  connection  are  "  The  Skeleton  in  Armor  "  and 
"  The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus."  The  one  represents  the  wild, 
dark  sea  of  the  far  north  and  the  bold  Vikings  in  their  huge- 
prowed  ships;  the  other  pictures  the  angry  ocean  of  winter  off 
the  New  England  coast  and  the  tragedy  of  the  wrecked  schooner. 
In  both  ballads  Longfellow  has  caught  the  spirit  of  his  theme; 
they  are  graphic,  vivid,  alive  with  color  and  animation. 

In  Longfellow's  longer  poems,  and  particularly  in  "  Evange- 
line "  and  "  Hiawatha,"  although  engrossed  with  a  powerful 
theme  and  characters  intensely  human,  the  poet  furnishes  a  nature 
setting,  or  background,  of  singular  beauty  and,  at  times,  richness. 
How  wonderfully  the  opening  lines  of  "  Evangeline "  portray 
the  majesty  and  mystery  of  the  dim,  gray  forest,  the  melancholy 
fascination  of  the  deep-voiced  ocean!  The  language  and  expres- 
sion are  like  sonorous  music  from  an  organ,  rich  and  full.  In 
the  earlier  verses  of  the  poem  Longfellow  has  set  himself  to 
describe  the  happy  and  contented  life  of  the  Acadian  farmers  and 


1915.]  NATUEE    IN   LONGFELLOW'S    POEMS  121 

the  loveliness  of  the  surrounding  country.  It  is  a  glorious  land 
of  broad  flat  meadows  and  good  pasturage,  fields  of  salt  hay 
stretching  away  to  the  ocean,  and,  far  in  the  distance,  lofty 
mountains  and  dark  masses  of  woodland.  As  the  poem  proceeds 
there  is  unrolled  before  our  eyes,  like  a  vast  pageant,  an  ever- 
changing  panorama  of  life  and  color.  In  telling  of  the  lonely 
wanderings  of  Evangeline  the  poet  follows  the  patient  pilgrim 
down  the  swift-moving  river  of  the  west,  the  banks  of  which  on 
either  hand  are  filled  with  strange  sights  and  brilliant  vegetation. 
Days  and  nights  pass,  and  the  travellers  reach  the  sluggish 
waters  of  the  broad  lagoons,  the  cypress  swamps,  and  the  avenues 
of  tall,  dark  cedar  trees.  There  is  something  unspeakably  fas- 
cinating in  the  beauty  of  the  southern  landscape.  Longfellow 
felt  this  charm  and  in  these  pictures  of  the  radiant  fairyland 
makes  his  readers  feel  it  too.  Intermingled  with  these  wonderful 
pictures  of  the  golden  sunset,  "  setting  water,  sky,  and  forests 
on  fire  at  a  touch,"  are  suggestions  of  the  dewy  fragrance  and 
soft  wonder  of  the  summer  night,  the  fresh  breezes  and  bright 
sunlight  of  the  morning.  The  story  of  the  later  wanderings  un- 
folds turbulent  rivers,  far-reaching  stretches  of  prairie,  and  vast 
ranges  of  snow-clad  hills.  The  closing  lines  of  the  poem  bear  a 
strange  resemblance  to  those  with  which  it  began.  There  is 
something  almost  prophetic  in  the  idea  that  years  have  come  and 
gone,  people  have  died  and  long  been  forgotten,  yet  still  stands 
the  forest  primeval,  and  the  deep-voiced  ocean  still  speaks  from 
its  rocky  caverns  on  the  shore. 

In  ^'  Hiawatha "  Longfellow  has  given  fresh,  beautiful  ex- 
pression to  the  spontaneous  happiness  of  the  outdoor  world.  It 
is  a  poem  written  for  those  who  love  simple,  primeval  life,  who 
take  delight  in  the  innocent,  childlike  pleasures  of  primitive  condi- 
tions. The  religious  genius  of  the  American  Indian  worships 
at  the  shrine  of  Nature.  Hiawatha  is  the  child  of  Nature;  her 
creatures  are  his  brothers,  her  wonders  and  beauties  his  daily 
companions;  under  the  open  sky  he  listens  to  her  music  and  her 
teachings.  Here  more  than  in  any  other  poem  Longfellow  has 
expressed  the  thought  that 

To  him  who  in  the  love  of  Nature  holds 
Communion  with  her  visible  forms,  she  speaks 
A  various  language. 


122       THE   CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY    [April, 

Such  a  study  as  we  have  made  shows  that  the  almost  universal 
appeal  of  Longfellow  is  due  in  no  small  measure  to  the  simple 
hut  sincere  way  in  which  he  has  dealt  with  such  springs  of 
emotion  as  starlight,  the  simple  life  of  the  fields  and  woods,  the 
magic  and  mystery  of  the  sea.  From  such  elemental  sources 
his  power  is  drawn,  the  power  that  brings  under  a  spell  the 
hearts  of  children  and  of  all  who  retain  the  clean,  clear  vision 
of  youth. 


f^^a 


1815-1882 


1915.]  INTEODUCTOEY   EEMARKS  123 


THE   THIRTY-FIFTH  MEETING 

jfTlHE  Thirty-fifth  Meeting  of  the  Cambridge  His- 
^-■-  TORiCAL  Society  was  a  special  public  meeting  ^  held  in 
Sanders  Theatre  on  Wednesday,  October  20,  1915,  at  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  to  celebrate  the  one  hundredth  anni- 
versary of  the  birth  of  Richard  Henry  Dana. 

The  order  of  exercises  was  as  follows : 

Introductory  Remarks Rt.  Rev.  William  Lawrence 

Dana  as  a  Man  of  Letters Professor  Bliss  Perry 

Dana  as  an  Antislavery  Leader    .     .     .    Moorfield  Storey,  Esq. 
Dana  as  a  Lawyer  and  Citizen       .     .     .  Hon.  Joseph  H.  Choate 

The  Rt.  Rev.  William  Lawrence,  Bishop  of  Massachu- 
setts, presided,  having  been  introduced  by  HoUis  Russell 
Bailey,  chairman  of  the  Committee  in  charge. 

INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS 
Bishop  Lawrence 

Fellow  Citizens: 

We  have  met  this  evening  to  recognize  the  centenary  of 
Richard  Henry  Dana.     Can  any  of  us  recall  a  similar  meet- 

1  In  connection  with  this  meeting  there  was  given,  in  the  Treasure  Room 
of  the  Harvard  College  Library,  during  the  week  of  October  14-21,  an  exhi- 
bition of  books,  manuscripts,  portraits,  and  objects  of  personal  or  historic 
interest  relating  to  Mr.  Dana.  This  exhibition  was  open  to  the  public  without 
charge.     See  Appendix. 


124         THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTOEICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

ing  held  in  memory  of  one  who  was  a  private  citizen  and  who 
in  his  day  was  not  the  object  of  popular  applause  ?  Indeed, 
though  a  citizen  of  public  spirit  and  rare  devotion  to  the 
State,  he  was  defeated  in  political  life  and  rejected  by  the 
Senate  for  an  exalted  appointment ;  though  a  man  of  great 
ability,  he  did  not  meet  with  the  success  that  his  earher 
years  promised. 

The  fact  that  Mr.  Dana's  fellow  citizens  meet  one  hundred 
years  after  his  birth  to  recall  his  life  suggests  that  he  had 
qualities  which  are  not  tested  by  popular  conceptions  of 
success,  that  he  had  elements  of  genius,  ideals,  and  habits  of 
thought  which  touch  the  deeper  sentiment  of  mankind  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  his  influence  more  permanent  than  that  of 
the  men  of  his  time  who  were  conspicuously  successful. 

It  is  that  we  may  recall  these  ideals  and  characteris- 
tics that  we  are  met  to-night.  As  presiding  officer,  it  is 
for  me  to  do  little  more  than  introduce  the  speakers.  I 
may,  however,  be  pardoned  for  saying  a  few  introductory 
words. 

Mr.  Dana  came  of  the  best  and  most  characteristic  New 
England  stock,  and  he  took  great  satisfaction  in  that  fact. 
In  temperament  and  ideals  he  was  true  to  his  stock.  First, 
the  spirit  of  liberty  and  of  the  equal  rights  of  men  before 
the  law  were  so  wrought  into  the  fabric  of  his  character  that 
his  soul  was  afire  at  any  invasion  of  this  principle.  When, 
therefore,  a  despised  black  man  was  about  to  be  carried  into 
bondage,  Mr.  Dana  stood  by  his  side  in  his  defense  as  natu- 
rally as  if  he  had  sprung  to  the  defense  of  his  own  brother. 
Again,  in  his  law  practice  the  question  of  the  amount  in- 
volved or  the  fee  to  be  received  had  no  interest  for  him ;  and 
his  sense  of  duty  was  such  that  he  never  failed  to  serve  the 
humblest  with  the  best  of  his  time  and  thought.  This  imagi- 
nation and  love  of  liberty  compelled  him  to  press  out  into 
the  field  of  international  relations   in  the  hope  that  there 


1915.]  INTEODUCTORY   REMARKS  125 

might  be  built  up  a  system  of  international  comity  and 
justice,  which  since  his  day  has  grown  in  strength  and  has 
won  favoring  sentiment  throughout  the  world,  but  which 
during  the  past  year  has  been  rudely  shaken. 

Every  boy  born  upon  the  coast  of  Massachusetts  has  in 
him  the  fever  for  salt  air  and  the  sea.  Hence  when  in  youth 
he  was  compelled  to  leave  home  on  account  of  trouble  with 
his  eyes,  he  turned  instinctively  to  the  sea,  and  he  wrote  a 
narrative  which  in  its  simplicity  and  directness  of  expression 
was  a  fresh  product  of  literature  and  has  become  an  English 
classic. 

Deeper  than  any  other  moving  force  in  the  New  England 
character  has  been  the  mystic  power  of  religious  faith. 
From  every  line  in  Mr.  Dana's  ancestry  there  was  gathered 
into  him  a  deep  and  abiding  faith  in  God  and  in  the  revela- 
tion of  Himself  through  Christ.  His  personal  religious  his- 
tory was  similar  to  that  of  many  a  New  Englander.  His 
sentiment  revolted  at  the  hard  and  intellectual  conception  of 
the  faith  as  expressed  in  the  orthodoxy  of  his  youth.  His 
practical  and  positive  temperament  w^as  not  satisfied  with  the 
transcendental  religion  which  expressed  itself  in  vague  as- 
pirations after  the  power  that  makes  for  righteousness. 
Hence  he  was  drawn  to  the  expression  of  Christian  faith  as 
found  in  the  Episcopal  Church,  the  daughter  of  the  Church 
of  England.  He  liked  background  in  his  family  history,  he 
liked  it  in  his  church.  Its  simplicity  and  positiveness  of 
faith  supported  him,  and  its  liturgy  and  sacraments  com- 
forted and  inspired  him.  Faithful  and  devoted  as  a  member 
and  officer  of  the  Church,  he  carried  his  religion  into  every 
detail  of  his  life,  —  into  the  slightest  duty.  He  made  it  also 
the  atmosphere  of  his  home  and  the  support  of  the  members 
of  his  family.  Prayer  and  religious  conversation  were  as 
natural  as  the  converse  of  children  and  friends.  His  re- 
ligious faith  sustained  him  in  days  of  disappointment  and 


126         THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

carried  him  in  serenity  through  times  of  physical  danger  and 
lifted  him  to  the  great  heights  of  chivalry. 

When  Matthew  Arnold  told  the  English  people  that  the 
Memoirs  of  General  Grant  were  a  great  piece  of  English 
literature  they  rubbed  their  eyes  and  wondered  how  it  was 
possible  for  a  man  so  slightly  educated,  from  their  academic 
point  of  view,  to  write  a  great  piece  of  English  literature. 
General  Grant  had  the  subtle  faculty  of  observation  and  of 
expressing  what  he  observed  in  such  language  that  others 
can  see  what  he  saw.  Mr.  Dana  had  that  same  genius,  the 
capacity  of  observation  and  of  revealing  to  others  in  simple 
language  what  he  saw  and  thus  bringing  him  beside  the 
reader  in  the  vision  which  he  wished  to  express.  That 
faculty  or  genius  runs  all  through  "  Two  Years  Before  the 
Mast "  as  it  runs  through  "  Robinson  Crusoe." 

We  have  many  of  us  been  to  a  New  England  funeral  in 
the  country,  and  we  have  most  of  us  read  more  or  less  of 
Daniel  Webster,  but  if  one  wants  to  be  carried  right  into  the 
atmosphere  of  New  England  as  she  was  some  seventy  years 
ago  and  to  gain  a  conception  of  the  masterfulness  of  Daniel 
Webster,  let  him  read  only  half  a  dozen  pages  of  Mr.  Dana 
as  he  describes  the  funeral  of  Daniel  Webster  at  Marshfield. 
There  we  seem  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  Massachusetts,  into 
its  quaint  habits,  and  there  I  say  we  gain  a  conception  of  the 
power  of  Daniel  Webster  such  as  we  may  not  receive  from 
reading  volumes  descriptive  of  that  power. 

Mr.  Dana  therefore  had  a  literary  genius,  and  it  is  that  we 
may  gain  a  fuller  conception  of  that  literary  genius  that  we 
are  to  listen  to  Professor  Bliss  Perry  on  "  Dana  as  a  Man 
of  Letters." 


1915.]  DANA   AS   A   MAN    OF   LETTERS  127 

RICHARD   HENRY  DANA  AS  A  MAN   OF  LETTERS 
BLISS  PERRY 

The  popular  impression  of  Richard  Henry  Dana  is  that  he  was  a 
man  of  one  book.  Such  impressions  are  not  always  infallible,  and 
yet  the  offhand,  instinctive  judgment  upon  which  they  rest  is 
usually  right  enough  for  all  practical  purposes.  In  Dana's  case 
the  popular  verdict  is  not  likely  to  be  reversed.  It  is  one  of  the 
ironies  of  literature  that  this  son  of  a  poet,  inheriting  so  much  that 
was  finest  in  the  old  New  England  culture,  a  pupil  of.  Emerson, 
trained  at  Harvard,  toiling  gallantly  in  a  great  profession,  a  public- 
spirited  citizen  of  a  commonwealth  which  he  served  nobly  and  with- 
out much  tangible  reward,  should  be  chiefly  remembered  by  his 
record  of  an  enforced  holiday  in  his  boyhood  —  by  what  he  him- 
self called  a  "parenthesis"  in  his  life. 

But  the  irony,  as  happens  so  often  with  irony,  serves  to  reveal  a 
fundamental  law.  It  explains  this  author's  nature.  In  that  "pa- 
renthesis," as  in  the  parenthesis  or  postscript  of  many  of  our  private 
letters,  Dana  unconsciously  expressed  himself.  His  two  years  as  a 
common  sailor  offered  him  the  magical  human  chance,  and  he  took  it. 
There  was  something  in  him  for  which  the  decorous  and  conventional 
life  of  Boston,  in  the  thirty  years  preceding  the  Civil  War,  allowed 
no  place  in  its  scheme.  "  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast "  belongs  to 
the  literature  of  escape.  In  as  true  a  sense  as  Thoreau's  "  Walden" 
or  Parkman's  "Oregon  Trail"  it  is  a  record  of  an  excursion  into  the 
uncivilized,  the  actual;  or,  as  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  puts  it,  "not 
the  shoddy  sham  world  of  cities,  clubs  and  colleges,  but  the  world 
where  men  still  lead  a  man's  life."  Here  Dana  could  truly  express 
himself,  although  self-expression  was  one  of  the  last  things  that  he 
had  in  mind.  He  intended  a  descriptive  narrative  of  objective 
fact,  "to  present  the  life  of  a  common  sailor  at  sea  as  it  really  is," 
and  the  task  was  perfectly  suited  to  his  simple,  earnest  nature, 
to  his  lucid  mind  and  style,  to  his  self-forgetful  interest  in  men 
and  things  that  lay  beyond  the  horizon  of  conventionality. 

He  was  fortunate,  then,  in  the  relation  of  his  theme  to  himself. 
It  was  adapted  to  his  powers  of  observation  and  description,  con- 
genial to  his  natural  tastes  and  sympathies.     The  real  romance  of 


128         THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

adventure  revealed  itself  gradually  to  a  temperament  hitherto 
chiefly  responsive  to  the  note  of  literary  romanticism.  Books  had 
prepared  the  way.  Young  Dana  knew  his  Spenser  and  Byron, 
Wordsworth  and  Scott.  It  is  characteristic  of  his  generation  that 
he  finds  Robinson  Crusoe's  island,  on  his  outward  voyage,  "the  most 
romantic  spot  on  earth"  his  eyes  had  ever  seen;  that  "San  Juan 
is  the  only  romantic  spot  in  California,"  and  that  he  experienced 
here  a  "glow  of  pleasure  at  finding  that  what  of  poetry  and  ro- 
mance I  ever  had  in  me  had  not  been  entirely  deadened  by  the 
laborious  and  frittering  life  I  had  led";  that  the  solitaiy  grave  of 
the  English  captain  at  San  Pedro  "was  the  only  thing  in  California 
from  which  I  could  ever  extract  anything  like  poetry."  His  heart 
beats  fast  when  he  discovers  at  San  Pedro  a  volume  of  Scott's 
"Pirate,"  and  when  he  finds  at  San  Diego,  at  the  bottom  of 
a  sea  chest,  Godwin's  "Mandeville,  a  Romance,"  he  drinks  de- 
light  as  from  a  "spring  in  a  desert  land."  Very  real  to  him  was 
this  romantic  sentimentalism,  and  very  characteristic  of  a  bookish 
boy  in  the  year  1835.  But  was  it  true  that  only  in  such  moods 
lurked  the  spirit  of  poetry?  Dana's  own  narrative  answers  him 
with  a  triumphant  negative.  The  unconscious  element  of  his  story 
has  outlasted  the  self-conscious.  How  about  sending  down  the 
royal  yard  in  Monterey  harbor,  when  the  "  well  done  "  of  the  mate 
gave  him  as  much  satisfaction  as  he  ever  felt  at  Cambridge  on  see- 
ing a  "^ewe"  at  the  foot  of  a  Latin  exercise?  How  about  running 
the  surf  at  Santa  Barbara?  Or  swinging  off  a  four-hundred-foot 
cliff,  at  San  Juan,  on  a  pair  of  halyards,  to  save  a  few  hides,  and 
being  told  for  his  pains :  "  What  a  d — d  fool  you  were  to  risk  your 
life  for  half-a-dozen  hides  I "  How  about  furling  the  ice-covered  jib 
wliile  drenched  v/ith  the  long  combers  off  Cape  Horn?  To  Richard 
Dana's  straightforward  mind  such  things  were  all  in  the  day's  work. 
They  were  duties  that  must  be  done,  and  he  did  them,  as  he  described 
them,  in  all  simplicity.  He  told  the  pedagogic  Horace  Mann  that 
his  book  "had  life,"  but  he  could  not  then  realize  that  to  a 
hiter  generation,  taught  by  Kipling  and  Conrad,  this  very  day's 
work  was  the  essence  of  romance,  while  the  glimpse  of  Robinson 
Crusoe's  island  and  the  lonely  California  grave  of  the  forgotten 
Englishman  were  only  its  accidents,  its  mere  fringe  of  literary 
association. 


1915.]  DANA   AS   A   MAN    OF   LETTEES  129 

Another  good  fortune  lay  in  the  obvious  framework  and  sequence 
of  the  story.  Like  Defoe's  most  famous  narrative,  it  had  its  natural 
beginning,  its  natural  series  of  climaxes,  and  its  due  return  to  the 
starting-point.  No  artificial  literary  plot  could  be  better  curved 
than  that  outwaixi  voyage  of  the  brig  Pilgrim  in  August,  1834,  the 
timeless  sojourn  in  the  new  land  of  California,  then  the  long  beat 
homeward  of  the  ship  Alert  around  the  Horn  and  up  past  the 
equator  and  into  Boston  harbor  in  September,  1836.  Fact  is  an 
artist,  though  not  always  the  master  artist,  and  in  Dana's  case  fact 
served  him  as  faithfully  as  the  north  star.  He  made  his  selections, 
of  course,  from  the  diary  of  experience,  but  that  instinct  for  the 
essential  point,  which  afterward  made  him  a  good  lawyer,  is  evi- 
dent in  the  orderliness  with  which  he  presents  the  cardinal  features 
of  a  complex  situation.  He  was  not  tempted,  like  some  greater 
writers  of  the  sea,  such  as  Pierre  Loti  and  Conrad,  into  over- 
subtlety.  He  is  sometimes,  like  Kipling,  over- technical,  but  it  is 
due  to  an  honest  boyish  enthusiasm  for  the  right  name  of  eveiy 
rope. 

Dana  was  fortunate,  above  all,  in  his  youthfulness.  He  wrote 
at  twenty-two.  The  "parenthesis"  did  not  come,  as  it  comes  to 
many  men,  even  if  it  comes  at  all,  too  late  in  their  life-sentence. 
"Yet  we  were  young"  is  the  best  comment  upon  the  hardships  of 
himself  and  his  companions  in  California.  "Yet  we  were  young"; 
young  enough  to  "like  anything  in  the  way  of  variety,"  to  feel  that 
the  prospect  of  a  change  "  sets  life  in  motion."  Nothing  is  more 
touching  in  Dana's  later  diaries  and  correspondence  than  his  belief 
that  this  gift  of  youth,  under  different  circumstances,  might  still 
be  perennially  his.  He  writes  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine,  after  a  sail- 
ing voyage  to  the  Maine  coast:  "I  believe  I  was  made  for  the  sea 
and  that  all  my  life  on  shore  is  a  mistake.  I  was  intended  by  nature 
for  a  general  roamer  and  traveller  by  sea  and  land,  with  occasional 
edits  of  narratives,  and  my  duties  as  lawyer,  scholar  and  publicist 
are  all  out  of  the  way."  Years  afterward  he  writes  to  his  wife  from 
Minnesota:  "We  ought  to  have  been  travellers;  had  no  profession 
and  no  home,  and  roamed  over  the  world  together,  like  two  civilized 
and  refined  gypsies."  "  My  life  has  been  a  failure,"  he  wrote  in 
1873,  "compared  with  what  I  might  and  ought  to  have  done.  My 
great  success  —  my  book  —  was  a  boy's  work,  done  before  I  came 


130         THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

to  the  Bar."  His  sojourn  at  Castellamare  in  May,  1881,  a  few 
months  before  his  death,  seemed  to  him  "a  dream  of  life."  Such 
confessions  as  these  are  the  outbreak  of  an  essentially  romantic 
temperament,  forced  by  external  circumstances  to  compete  with 
the  persons  whom  he  described  perfectly  in  his  first  book  as  the 
people  who  never  walk  in  but  one  line  from  their  cradle  to  their 
grave.     Boston  was  full  of  such  people  then,  as  it  is  still. 

One  cannot  say  whether  Dana  would  have  been  happier  had  his 
desire  for  a  life  of  romantic  travel  been  granted.  Certainly  he  was 
denied  that  other  dream  of  his,  equally  romantic,  equally  like  cer- 
tain moods  of  Chateaubriand,  in  which  Dana,  who  sighed  and  wept 
all  day  over  Charlotte  Yonge's  "Heir  of  Redcliffe,"  desired  to  give 
himself  "to  contemplation,  to  religious  exercises,  to  nature,  to  art, 
to  the  best  of  reading  and  study."  This,  too,  was  not  to  be.  He 
was  disappointed,  said  his  law  partner,  Mr.  Parker,  in  every  high 
ambition  of  his  life.  But  to  dwell  upon  this  phase  of  his  human 
hunger  for  the  food  that  is  just  out  of  reach  is  to  forget  the  great 
good  luck  of  his  boyhood,  that  golden  parenthesis  of  nineteen  to 
twenty-one,  to  which  he  chiefly  owes  to-day  the  place  he  holds  in 
human  memory. 

I  am  not  forgetful,  of  course,  and  no  one  who  has  read  Dana*s 
published  work  can  be  unmindful,  of  the  literary  excellence  of  his 
miscellaneous  writings.  He  was  always  the  master  of  a  clear,  direct, 
and  vigorous  style,  warmed  by  broad  sympathies  and  sometimes 
heightened  by  passionate  feeling.  His  arguments  for  the  reading 
of  the  Bible  in  public  schools,  on  the  Judiciary,  and  on  the  Rendi- 
tion of  Anthony  Bums  are  notable  even  in  a  generation  of  notable 
addresses.  The  fme  irony  of  his  attack  upon  Webster  in  the  imag- 
inary *' Great  Gravitation  Meeting,"  the  acute  perception  and  mas- 
culine force  of  his  "Grasp  of  War"  speech,  his  exhaustive  "Note  on 
the  Monroe  Doctrine,"  his  ingenious  though  unsuccessful  argument 
before  the  Halifax  Fishery  Commission,  in  which  he  describes  the 
men  of  Gloucester  as  vividly  as  Burke,  three  quarters  of  a  century 
before,  had  described  the  deep-sea  fishermen  of  the  Atlantic  —  these 
are  characteristic  examples  of  his  learning  and  eloquence.  His  de- 
lightful narrative  of  a  brief  journey  "To  Cuba  and  Back"  exhibits 
his  dispassionate  grasp  of  complicated  political  and  social  condi- 
tions, the  free  play  of  an  acute  and  orderly  intelligence.     To  those 


1915.]  DANA   AS   A   MAN    OF   LETTERS  131 

who  infer  that  Dana's  harassed  and  overburdened  mature  life  was 
without  gleams  of  imagination,  let  me  quote  one  sentence  from  his 
eulogy  of  Rufus  Choate  before  the  Suffolk  bar,  that  bar  that  had 
listened,  not  many  years  before,  to  Choate's  own  eulogy  of  Webster: 

"  Sir,  I  speak  for  myself,  —  I  have  no  right  to  speak  for  others, 
—  but  I  can  truly  say,  without  any  exaggeration,  taking  for  the 
moment  a  simile  from  that  element  which  he  loved  as  much  as  I 
love  it,  though  it  rose  against  his  life  at  last,  —  that  in  his  presence 
I  felt  like  the  master  of  a  small  coasting  vessel,  that  hugs  the  shore, 
that  has  run  up  under  the  lee  to  speak  to  a  great  homeward-bound 
Indiaman,  freighted  with  silks  and  precious  stones,  spices  and  costly 
fabrics,  with  sky-sails  and  studding-sails  spread  to  the  breeze,  with 
the  nation's  flag  at  her  mast-head,  navigated  by  the  mysterious 
science  of  the  fixed  stars,  and  not  unprepared  with  weapons  of  de- 
fence, her  decks  peopled  with  men  in  strange  costumes,  speaking  of 
strange  climes  and  distant  lands.  ..." 

Such  writing  lingers  in  the  memory,  though  it  be  only  the  mem- 
ory of  a  few.  But  for  one  American  who  has  read  Dana's  "  Speeches 
in  Stirring  Times"  there  are  thousands  throughout  the  English- 
speaking  world  who  have  shared  with  the  boyish  Dana  his  pleasure 
in  the  "perfect  silence  of  the  sea"  and  "the  early  breaking  of  day 
on  the  wide  ocean,"  his  awe  at  "the  cold  and  angry  skies"  and 
"long  heavy  ugly  seas"  off  the  Cape,  who  have  seen  with  him 
the  "malignant"  brightness  of  the  lightning  in  the  tropical  storm, 
tlie  yellow  California  sunshine  and  the  gray  California  fog,  and  the 
slow,  stately  motion  of  the  groaning  Antarctic  icebergs  with  the 
whirling  snow  about  their  summits.  Once,- on  the  homeward 
voyage,  there  came  to  him  an  experience  thus  described: 

"One  night,  while  we  were  in  these  tropics,  I  went  out  to  the  end  of 
the  flying-jib  boom,  upon  some  duty,  and,  having  finished  it,  turned 
round,  and  lay  over  the  boom  for  a  long  time,  admiring  the  beauty  of 
the  sight  before  me.  Being  so  far  out  from  the  deck,  I  could  look  at 
the  ship,  as  at  a  separate  vessel ;  —  and,  there  rose  up  from  the  water, 
supported  only  by  the  small  black  hull,  a  pyramid  of  canvas,  spreading 
out  far  beyond  the  hull,  and  towering  up  almost,  as  it  seemed  in  the  in- 
distinct night  air,  to  the  clouds.  The  sea  was  as  still  as  an  inland  lake; 
the  light  trade  wind  was  gently  and  steadily  breathing  from  astern  ;  the 
dark  blue  sky  was  studded  with  the  tropical  stars ;  there  was  no  sound 


132         THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

but  the  rippling  of  the  water  under  the  stem  ;  and  the  sail 8  were  spread 
out,  wide  and  high  ;  the  two  lower  studding-sails  stretching,  on  each 
side,  far  beyond  the  deck ;  the  top-mast  studding  sails,  like  wings  to 
the  top-sails;  the  top-gallant  studding  sails  spreading  fearlessly  out 
above  them ;  still  higher,  the  two  royal  studding-sails,  looking  like  two 
kites  flying  from  the  same  string ;  and  highest  of  all,  the  little  sky-sail, 
the  apex  of  the  pyramid,  seeming  actually  to  touch  the  stars,  and  to  be 
out  of  reach  of  human  hand.  So  quiet,  too,  was  the  sea,  and  so  steady 
the  breeze,  that  if  these  sails  had  been  sculptured  marble,  they  could 
not  have  been  more  motionless.  Not  a  ripple  upon  the  surface  of  the 
canvas ;  not  even  a  quivering  of  the  extreme  edges  of  the  sail  —  so  per- 
fectly were  they  distended  by  the  breeze.  I  was  so  lost  in  the  sight, 
that  I  forgot  the  presence  of  the  man  who  came  out  with  me,  until  he 
said,  (for  he  too,  rough  old  man-of-war's  man  as  he  was,  had  been  gaz- 
ing at  the  show)  half  to  himself,  still  looking  at  the  marble  sails  — 
*How  quietly  they  do  their  work ! '" 

There,  at  least,  is  the  magical  moment,  and  what  matters  it 
whether  the  moment  comes  early  or  late  in  a  writer's  life?  It  is 
all  the  same,  said  Marcus  Aurelius,  whether  a  man  looks  on  these 
things  three  years  or  a  hundred.  No,  it  is  not  quite  the  same; 
surely  that  man  is  to  be  envied  who  has  seen  the  vision  of  beauty 
and  has  had  the  felicity  of  recording  it,  in  the  days  of  his  youth. 

Bishop  Lawrence.  One  of  the  greatest  tests  of  moral 
courage  is  in  the  readiness  of  a  man  of  high  social  position 
to  throw  away  his  position  for  a  cause.  It  called  for  great 
courage  in  the  early  fifties  to  be  an  antislavery  leader,  but  at 
that  time  the  antislavery  people,  most  of  them,  had  very  little 
social  position.  They  were  most  of  them  unknown  men  and 
women.  Mr.  Dana  took  great  satisfaction  in  his  descent  and 
in  his  social  position.  Therefore  when  he  entered  into  the 
ranks  of  the  antislavery  leaders  he  showed  exceptional  moral 
courage,  —  for  in  those  days  it  meant  ostracism  from  many 
whose  company  he  counted  the  dearest  and  whose  regard  he 
highly  esteemed.  Hence  when  Mr.  Dana  entered  the  list  of 
antislavery  leaders  he  not  only  risked,  and  to  a  certain  degree 
threw  away,  his  social  position,  but  he  at  the  same  time 


1915.]       DANA   AS   AN   ANTISLAVERY   LEADER  133 

contributed  to  the  cause  of  the  antislavery  advocates  some- 
thing which  was  of  great  value  to  them  in  bringing  their 
cause  before  the  people.  It  is  the  story  of  Mr.  Dana  as  an 
antislavery  leader  that  Mr.  Moorfield  Storey  will  tell  us  this 
evening. 

DANA  AS   AN  ANTISLAVERY  LEADER 
MOORFIELD  STOREY 

We  are  wont  to  speak  of  the  years  when  our  Fathers  were 
struggling  for  independence  as  "  the  times  that  tried  men's  souls,'* 
but  such  times  are  not  peculiar  to  any  generation,  and  the  sons 
have  endured  trials  quite  as  severe  as  those  which  tested  the  man- 
hood of  their  sires.  The  leaders  of  the  Revolution  had  behind 
them  all  their  friends  and  neighbors  except  a  small  minority.  They 
had  the  solace  of  popularity.  During  the  four  years  of  civil  war 
our  souls  were  tried  and  our  hearts  were  very  sore,  for  we  knew 
that  the  future  of  our  country  and  the  freedom  of  a  race  were  at 
stake,  and  our  hopes  rose  and  fell  as  the  varying  fortunes  of  the 
war  now  discouraged  and  now  cheered  us.  But  the  people  on  each 
side  were  substantially  united  and  felt  that  they  won  or  lost  with 
the  whole  community  in  which  they  lived.  We  had  at  least  that 
company  which  "  misery  loves." 

So  to-day  in  the  great  struggle  for  civilization  and  freedom  which 
desolates  Europe,  every  soldier  feels  that  behind  him  and  beside 
him  are  his  fellow  countrymen,  all  standing  together  and  fighting 
for  everything  that  men  hold  dear.  It  is  far  easier  to  fight  with  so 
great  a  host  than  to  stand  with  truth  on  the  scaffold  and  face  the 
opposition  not  only  of  the  crowd,  but  of  friends  whom  we  love  and 
respect.  It  takes  more  courage  to  lead  a  forlorn  hope  than  to 
charge  with  a  triumphant  army. 

The  souls  of  the  men  who  began  the  war  against  human  slavery 
were  put  to  the  supreme  test  of  courage  and  endurance.  No  pop- 
ular sympathy  upheld  their  hands  or  cheered  their  efforts.  Strange 
as  it  seems  to  us,  only  fifty  years  since  Richmond  fell,  the  public 
opinion  of  the  United  States  before  the  civil  war,  supported  human 
slavery,  was  bUnd  to  its  atrocities,  and  regarded  its  opponents  as 


134         THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

enemies  of  society.  To  them  the  avenues  which  lead  to  worldly 
success  were  closed.  The  great  business  interests  of  the  country, 
the  great  pohtical  parties,  the  church,  the  universities,  the  leaders 
of  society,  the  men  to  whom  their  fellow  citizens  looked  for  guid- 
ance frowned  upon  the  advocates  of  human  freedom,  while  the 
mobs  wliich  murdered  Lovejoy  and  dragged  Garrison  through  the 
streets  of  Boston  only  showed  to  what  personal  peril  the  anti- 
slavery  men  were  exposed. 

Mr.  Emerson  in  an  unpublished  diary  states  the  situation  in 
graphic  language: 

*"Tis  against  the  plain  interest  of  young  men  to  allow  freedom. 
Young  man!  the  poor  Kansas  settlers  give  no  elegant  suppers,  no 
Saturday  dinners,  no  private  box  have  they  at  the  opera.  If  you  vote 
to  garrote  them,  and  stand  by  Missouri  and  the  Union,  j'ou  can  just  as 
well  praise  the  Kansas  of  a  thousand  years  ago,  namely  Marathon :  talk 
just  as  glibly  of  Milton  and  the  Puritans.  You  can  edit  Landor :  you 
can,  like  Guizot  and  Sparks,  write  eulogies  of  "Washington.  Judges, 
bank  presidents,  railroad  men,  men  of  fashion,  lawyers  universally,  all 
take  the  side  of  slavery.  What  a  poor  blind  devil  are  you  to  break 
your  shins  for  a  bit  of  moonshine  against  the  goodwill  of  the  whole 
community.  '  Meanness,'  do  you  say?  Yes,  but  when  meanness  is  in 
such  good  company,  when  the  university  and  the  faculty  of  law  and  of 
medicine  and  of  divinity  itself  are  infinitely  mean,  who  knows  which  is 
meanness?  What  a  fool,  when  the  whole  world  has  lost  its  wits,  to  be 
the  only  sane  man." 

Is  it  not  strange  that  in  the  land  of  the  free,  —  the  hope  of  the 
oppressed,  among  a  people  brought  up  to  believe  that  "  all  men  are 
created  equal "  and  who  professed  to  be  Christians,  a  system  so 
truly  described  as  "  the  sum  of  all  the  villainies  "  should  be  ap- 
proved by  men  of  light  and  leading  ?  When  as  a  junior  in  Harvard 
College  I  walked  over  the  Blue  Hills  on  the  day  that  we  heard  of 
Lee's  surrender,  I  remember  saying  to  my  companion:  "It  is  diffi- 
cult even  now  to  believe  that  slavery  ever  existed  in  this  country," 
and  I  have  never  since  ceased  to  wonder  at  the  sfcite  of  feeling  here 
in  Massachusetts  between  1845  and  1860,  for  she  was  "  kneelin' 
with  the  rest." 

In  1845  Mr.  Dana  was  only  thirty  j^ears  old.  He  had  been  mar- 
ried for  four  years  and  had  childi-en.     He  was  dependent  on  his 


1915.]        DANA   AS    AN   ANTISLAVERY   LEADER  135 

earnings,  but  his  social  connections  were  of  the  best,  his  reputation 
for  ability  was  established,  and  his  professional  success  seemed 
assured.  He  was  conservative  by  nature,  and  had  no  sympathy 
with  the  abolition  movement,  as  is  shown  by  the  following  entry 
in  his  diary  made  in  June,  1843,  after  seeing  something  of  the  pro- 
ceedings in  "  the  anti-slavery  convention." 

"  The  elements  of  which  the  convention  was  composed  are  dreadful. 
Heated,  narrow-minded,  self-willed,  excited,  unchristian,  radical  energies 
set  to  work  upon  a  cause  which  is  good,  if  rightly  managed,  but  which 
they  have  made  a  hotbed  for  forcing  into  growth  the  most  dangerous 
doctrines  to  both  church  and  state.  They  are  nearly  all  at  the  extreme 
of  radicalism,  socialism  and  infidelity." 

Yet  he  was  a  Free  Soiler,  and  in  a  letter  to  Daniel  Lord  of  New 
York  he  gave  his  reasons  for  his  faith.     From  this  letter  I  quote : 

"1.  I  am  a  Free  Soiler  by  inheritance.  I  am  the  son  and  grandson 
of  Federalists.  The  northern  Federalists  were  decided  Free  Soilers. 
The  exclusion  of  slavery  from  the  Northwest  territory  is  owing  to  them. 
In  New  England  they  opposed  the  Missouri  compromise  to  the  last. 
The  yielding  to  the  South  on  that  point  in  1820,  the  parent  of  so  much 
evil,  was  by  the  Democrats.  ... 

"2.  I  am  a  Free  Soiler  by  education.  I  was  educated  a  Whig.  The 
Whig  party  of  New  England  has  been  a  decided  Anti-slavery  and  Free 
Soil  party  up  to  and  through  the  contest  of  1848.  I  will  agree  to  adopt 
no  positions  on  the  slave  question,  or  any  great  matter,  for  which  I 
cannot  vouch  the  unanimous  or  all  but  unanimous  resolves  of  the  Whig 
legislatures  and  conventions  of  Massachusetts.  .  .  . 

*'  3.  My  conservatism  leads  me  to  it.  There  is  a  compound  of  self- 
ishness and  cowardice  which  often  takes  to  itself  the  honored  name  of 
Conservatism.  That  false  conservatism  I  call  Hunkerism.  Now, 
hunkerism,  of  all  names  and  sections.  Whig  or  Democratic,  making  ma- 
terial prosperity  and  ease  its  pole  star,  will  do  nothing  and  risk  nothing 
for  a  moral  principle.  But  not  so  conservatism.  Conservatism  some- 
times requires  a  risking  or  sacrificing  of  material  advantages.  Radi- 
calism, also,  will  do  nothing  to  resist  the  growth  of  slavery,  because 
that  is  purely  an  act  of  justice  to  others.  It  is  not  our  freedom  that  is 
at  stake.  If  it  were,  the  Tammany  Hall  mob  would  be  on  our  side  and 
beyond  us.  But  in  a  case  for  liberal,  comprehensive  justice  to  others, 
with  only  a  remote  and  chiefly  moral  advantage,  conservatism  is  more 
reliable  than  radicalism.  .  .  ." 


136         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTOEICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

He  stated  his  position  publicly  on  taking  the  chair  at  a  Free  Soil 
meeting  in  July,  1848,  after  the  antislavery  agitation  had  become 
intense.     He  then  said : 

**  I  am  a  Whig,  a  Whig  of  the  old  school:  I  may  say,  without  affecta- 
tion, a  highly  conservative  Whig.  ...  I  am  in  favor  of  supporting 
all  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution  in  good  faith,  as  well  as  in 
profession. 

"Why  then  am  I  here?  I  understand  this  to  be  no  meeting  for 
transcendental  purposes,  or  abolition  purposes,  or  politico-moral  re- 
form. .  .  .  The  'subject  of  our  story'  is  simply  this.  Massachusetts 
has  deliberately  taken  a  position  in  favor  of  excluding  slavery  from  new 
territories,  leaving  each  state  now  in  the  Union  to  manage  its  own 
slavery.  .  .  .  The  Convention  at  Springfield  last  autumn  unanimously 
passed  the  resolution  I  hold  in  my  hand : 

"  Resolved^  That  if  the  War  shall  be  prosecuted  to  the  final  subjuga- 
tion and  dismemberment  of  Mexico,  the  Whigs  of  Massachusetts  now 
declare,  and  put  this  declaration  of  their  purpose  on  record,  that  Mass- 
achusetts will  never  consent  that  American  territory,  however  acquired, 
shall  become  a  part  of  the  American  Union,  unless  on  the  unalterable 
condition  that  *  there  shall  be  neither  Slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude 
therein,  otherwise  than  in  the  punishment  of  crime.'  Now,  we  are  here 
because  we  intend  to  adhere  to  this  resolution." 

The  Whig  leaders  having  ma^le  it  apparent  by  their  silence  as 
well  as  by  their  speeches  for  General  Taylor,  the  Whig  candidate 
ior  President,  that  they  either  did  not  "think  the  Free  Soil  ques- 
tion of  consequence  enough  to  speak  upon,"  or  that  they  did  not 
feel  at  liberty  to  speak  upon  it,  Dana  refused  to  follow  them. 

Stated  briefly,  his  position  was  that  slavery  was  so  great  an  evil 
that  it  could  not  be  tolerated  in  territories  where  it  did  not  exist, 
but  that  under  the  Constitution  we  could  not  interfere  with  it  in  the 
states  where  it  was  already  established.  This  was  the  platform  on 
which  the  Republican  party  was  founded  and  upon  which  it  made 
the  contests  in  1866  which  resulted  in  the  defeat  of  Fremont,  and 
in  1860,  when  its  victory  made  Abraham  Lincoln  president.  In 
1848,  however,  there  were  few  who  were  ready  to  accept  this  doc- 
trine. Mr.  Dana  was  one  of  the  few  who  left  the  Whig  party  and 
attended  the  Free  Soil  convention  at  Buffalo  which  nominated 
Van  Buren  and  Adams.      Into  tliis  independent  movement  ho 


1915.]       DANA   AS    AN"   ANTISLAVERY   LEADER  137 

threw  himself  with  all  his  might ;  and  while  the  result  of  the  effort, 
measured  by  the  votes  cast  at  the  election,  was  insignificant,  nev- 
ertheless it  sounded  the  knell  of  the  Whig  party  and  sowed  the 
seed  from  which  the  Republican  party  was  so  soon  to  spring.  Its 
seeming  defeat  was  really  a  glorious  victory.  The  men  who  met 
in  Buffalo  made  the  antislavery  movement  practical,  and  began 
the  campaign  which  ended  in  the  emancipation  proclamation  and 
in  Appomattox. 

Throughout  this  struggle  Dana  stood  firmly  with  the  Free  Sell- 
ers and  Republicans,  but  he  supported  them  as  a  citizen  and  not  as 
a  politician,  though  generally  in  close  touch  with  the  Republican 
leaders.  A  brilliant  political  career  was  open  to  him,  his  abilities 
fitted  him  to  lead,  and  his  inclination  prompted  him  to  enter  political 
life,  but  on  the  other  hand  the  demands  of  his  family  made  him  stick 
to  his  profession,  and  in  1852,  when  he  was  asked  to  preside  at  the 
meeting  held  in  Faneuil  Hall  to  ratify  the  Free  Soil  nominations, 
he  made  his  choice  and  refused,  but  his  diary  records  his  difficulty 
in  reaching  his  conclusion : 

*'  Never  more  distressed  in  my  life  to  make  a  decision.  Talked  with 
Adams,  Wilson  and  others.  All  wanted  me  to  speak.  Very  reluctantly 
and  quite  unsatisfied  determined  to  decline.  Did  so.  I  do  not  know 
that  I  ever  so  much  regretted  the  want  of  property  to  enable  me  to  do 
a  great  public  duty." 

"His  poverty  but  not  his  will"  declined,  and  the  community 
lost  the  services  of  an  able,  brave,  and  sincere  man  whose  presence 
in  the  public  councils  would  have  been  invaluable  during  the  great 
struggle  which  was  then  impending. 

As  I  have  said,  every  instinct  of  this  conservative  lawyer  and 
churchman,  this  believer  in  constitution  and  law,  made  him  a 
supporter  of  existing  institutions  and  an  opponent  of  agitators  and 
fanatics ;  but  when  Texas  had  been  a,nnexed  and  the  slave  owners, 
growing  more  arrogant,  passed  the  Fugitive  Slave  law,  he  rose  to 
the  emergency.  This  law  permitted  a  man  to  swear  before  any 
obscure  magistrate  in  a  slave  state  that  another  man  was  his  slave, 
and  then  required  the  marshals  and  commissioners  of  the  United 
States,  without  considering  whether  this  ex  parte  affidavit  was  true, 
to  arrest  the  alleged  slave  and  deliver  him  to  the  claimant  on  proof 


138         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

only  that  the  person  arrested  was  the  person  mentioned  in  the  affi- 
davit, giving  the  commissioner  if  he  remanded  the  slave  a  fee  of 
ten  dollars,  and  if  he  decided  against  the  claimant  a  fee  of  only 
five,  —  a  small  bribe,  you  will  say,  but  this  was  the  day  of  small 
things,  and  the  men  who  framed  the  law  thought  the  difference 
worth  making.  Bj^  express  provision  of  the  law  the  testimony  of 
the  alleged  fugitive  could  not  be  admitted,  but,  in  the  case  of  An- 
thony Burns,  his  casual  replies  to  questions  asked  by  the  claimant 
after  his  arrest  were  admitted  against  him  to  establish  his  identity. 
His  word  could  be  fciken  to  keep  him  a  slave,  but  his  oath  would 
not  avail  to  make  him  free.  Had  any  one  under  such  a  law  sought 
to  take  another's  horse  the  community  would  have  risen  in  arms 
against  it,  but  when  it  was  used  to  deprive  a  man  and  his  descend- 
ants forever  of  freedom,  the  American  people  as  a  whole  approved. 
There  were  men  who  could  not  submit  to  such  a  travesty  of  law, 
men  in  whose  hearts  and  minds  the  spirit  of  Anglo-Saxon  freedom 
was  too  deeply  rooted,  and  among  them  Mr.  Dana  was  a  leader. 
His  opportunity  came  when  a  negro  living  in  Boston  as  Frederick 
Jenkins  was  arrested  as  a  fugitive  slave  under  the  name  of  Shad- 
rach,  and  Mr.  Dana  in  his  diary  states  what  followed : 

**  While  in  my  office  at  about  10:30  Mr.  Charles  Davis,  Parker  and 
others  came  in  and  told  me  that  the  marshal  had  a  fugitive  slave  in 
custody  in  the  United  States  court  room  before  Mr.  George  T.  Curtis 
as  commissioner.     I  went  immediately  over  to  the  Court  House." 

He  did  not  wait  for  a  summons,  but  without  hesitation  volun- 
teered to  defend  the  unfortunate  negro  against  the  power  of  the 
United  States,  a  step  which  affected  his  whole  future,  as  he  was 
soon  to  realize. 

He  was  accepted  by  Jenkins  as  his  counsel,  and  at  once  "  pre- 
pared a  writ  of  *  de  homine  replegiando '  and  a  petition  for  a  habeas 
corpus  addressed  to  Chief  Justice  Shaw."  Quoting  again  from 
Mr.  Dana's  diaiy : 

*'  With  this  petition  I  called  on  the  Chief  Justice  and  stated  to  him 
that  it  was  a  case  of  an  alleged  fugitive  slave,  and  that  our  object  was 
to  test  the  constitutional  power  of  the  coramissoner  to  issue  a  warrant. 
The  Chief  Justice  read  the  petition  and  said  in  a  most  ungracious  man- 
ner, 'This  won't  do.  I  can't  do  anything  on  this,'  and  laid  it  upon  the 
table  and  turned  away  to  engage  in  something  else." 


1915.]        DANA   AS   AN   ANTISLAVERY   LEADER  139 

Dana  persisted  and  forced  the  Chief  Justice  from  one  objection 
to  another,  and  as  we  read  them  we  share  Dana's  opinion  that  they 
were  "  frivolous  and  invalid";  but  finding  the  judge  determined  not 
to  grant  the  writ,  he  withdrew  to  consider  what  further  steps  to 
take.  Judge  Metcalf,  a  man  little  inclined  to  speak,  was  present 
at  Dana's  interview  with  Judge  Shaw,  "and  expressed  himself  very- 
much  disturbed  by  the  conduct  of  the  chief,"  and  it  is  melancholy 
to  think  that  the  Chief  Justice  of  Massachusetts  should  make  every 
attempt  to  evade  his  duty  in  a  case  of  such  vital  importance.  While 
Dana  was  considering  the  situation,  Jenkins  or  Shadrach  was  res- 
cued, and  so  the  case  ended. 

From  that  time  on,  to  quote  his  own  words,  he  had  "  the  privi- 
lege of  being  counsel  for  every  fugitive  slave  and  for  most  of  those 
who  w^ere  indicted  for  rescue,"  and  he  discharged  his  duty  as  coun- 
sel with  unflinching  courage,  great  ability,  and  in  most  cases  with 
success.  It  is  impossible  for  us  now  to  realize  against  what  obsta- 
cles and  at  what  a  sacrifice  he  did  this  work. 

When  Sims,  the  next  alleged  fugitive  slave,  was  arrested,  "  Mr. 
Sewall  applied  to  the  Supreme  Court  for  a  habeas  corpus,  and  it 
was  refused  without  argument.  After  it  was  refused  Mr.  Sewall 
asked  leave  to  address  the  court  in  favor  of  the  petition,  and  was 
refused."  This  was  no  pettifogger  seeking  to  raise  a  frivolous 
question,  but  an  eminent  member  of  the  bar  representing  all  that 
was  best  in  Massachusetts,  of  ancient  descent  and  singularly  high 
character,  whom  the  court  refused  even  to  hear  on  a  great  question 
of  human  freedom.  No  wonder  that  during  the  following  Saturday 
and  Sunday  leading  lawyers  like  Charles  G.  Loring  and  Franklin 
Dexter  spoke  privately  to  the  court,  and  that  on  their  urgency  an 
intimation  was  given  that  argument  would  be  heard.  Accordingly 
on  the  next  day,  without  preparation,  Mr.  Dana  addressed  the  court, 
and  Mr.  Rantoul  followed,  and  within  a  few  hours  the  court  re- 
fused the  writ.  Such  proceedings  make  us  hesitate  to  speak  of  the 
"good  old  times,"  but  they  lend  force  to  every  argument  against 
an  elective  judiciary  or  the  recall  of  decisions  or  judges,  since  they 
prove  that  even  a  magistrate  like  Chief  Justice  Shaw  could  not 
rise  above  the  political  feeling  of  his  time.  This  was  a  single  in- 
stance of  weakness,  a  single  blot  on  a  great  judicial  career.  How 
much  worse  would  our  conditions  be  if,  as  a  rule,  a  seat  on  the 


140         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

bench  could  be  obtained  or  held  only  by  adopting  the  political 
views  of  the  popular  majority  for  the  moment  I 

The  men  whom  Dana  served  belonged  to  the  weakest  class  in 
the  world.  They  had  neither  votes,  influence,  nor  property,  nor 
even  the  rights  of  human  beings.  They  could  give  him  no  com- 
pensation for  his  services,  and  when  it  was  offered  by  others  he 
returned  it  in  a  letter  from  which  I  quote  the  following : 

"  They  [the  donors]  give  me  more  credit  than  I  am  willing  to  receive. 
The  good  fortune  which  is  said  to  attend  early  rising  made  me  one  of 
the  first  of  the  members  of  the  bar,  if  not  the  first,  to  hear  that  there 
was  a  man  in  custody  as  a  slave  in  the  court  room.  To  render  myself 
at  once  on  the  spot  and  to  offer  my  professional  services  to  him  and  to 
those  who  were  coming  forward  as  his  friends  was  an  act  I  trust  natural 
to  me,  and  requiring  no  effort  or  sacrifice.  ...  I  have  done  so  in  the 
cause  of  alleged  slaves  in  Boston  heretofore,  and  so  have  others,  and 
I  hope  the  members  of  the  bar  in  Massachusetts  will  never  fail  to  be 
ready  to  render  this  service  gratuitously  to  the  cause  of  humanity  and 
freedom.  A  portion  of  my  time  and  the  application  of  such  influence 
and  ability  as  I  may  possess  is  the  only  contribution  I  have  to  make.  .  .  . 

*' Besides  my  own  feeling  in  the  matter,  which  would  be  conclusive 
with  me,  I  would  not  have  the  force  of  the  precedent,  which  has  been 
set  in  the  trials  for  freedom  in  Massachusetts  thus  far,  impaired  in  the 
least  for  the  honor  of  my  profession  and  the  welfare  of  those  in  peril." 

These  are  words  which  it  is  pleasant  to  read  in  these  days. 

His  course  exposed  him  to  serious  personal  danger.  On  the 
evening  of  the  very  day  when  Anthony  Burns  was  carried  back  to 
slaveiy  through  the  sullen  streets  of  Boston,  Dana  was  attacked 
on  his  way  home  by  a  ruffian  hired  to  assault  him,  and  received 
a  blow  which,  had  it  fallen  a  very  little  to  the  right  or  left,  would 
have  blinded  and  perhaps  killed  him.  The  history  of  the  attack 
and  the  capture  and  conviction  of  his  assailant  is  a  very  interesting 
story,  unhappily  too  long  to  be  related  here. 

Having  nothing  to  expect  from  his  clients  or  their  friends,  he 
had  on  the  other  hand  to  face  not  only  the  frowns  of  the  court  and 
the  hostility  of  society,  but,  as  Mr.  Adams  says:  "From  the  pro- 
fessional point  of  view  this  open  and  conscientious  adhesion  to  the 
unpopular  side  affected  Dana  much  more.  .  .  .  Nearly  all  the 
wealth  and  the  moneyed  institutions  of  Boston  were  controlled  by 


1915.]       DAXA   AS   AN-   ANTISLAYERY   LEADER  141 

the  conservatives,  and  among  the  moneyed  institutions  were  the 
marine  insurance  companies.  The  ship-owners  and  merchants  were 
Whigs  ahnost  to  a  man.  It  is,  therefore,  safely  within  the  mark 
to  say  that  Dana's  political  course  between  1848  and  1860  not  only 
retarded  his  professional  advancement,  but  seriously  impaired  his 
income.  It  kept  the  rich  clients  from  his  office.  He  was  the 
counsel  of  the  sailor  and  the  slave,  —  persistent,  courageous,  hard- 
fighting,  skilful,  but  still  the  advocate  of  the  poor  and  the  unpop- 
ular. In  the  mind  of  wealthy  and  respectable  Boston  almost  any 
one  was  to  be  preferred  to  him —  the  Free  Soil  lawyer,  the  counsel 
for  the  fugitive  slave,  alert,  indomitable,  always  on  hand.  The 
Boston  Advertiser  even  published  an  article  signed  by  '  The  Son 
of  a  Merchant '  calling  on  all  merchants  to  withdraw  their  business 
from  Mr.  Dana  and  to  proclaim  non-intercourse.  It  is  impossible 
to  say  how  many  clients  were  prevented  from  going  to  Dana  dur- 
ing his  years  of  active  practice  by  considerations  of  this  sort;  but 
the  number  was  unquestionably  large,  and  the  interests  they  repre- 
sented larger  still.  Indeed,  brilliant  as  was  his  career  at  the  bar, 
he  never  had  what  would  be  considered  a  lucrative  practice ;  and 
that  he  did  not  have  such  a  practice  was  due  to  prejudice  connected 
with  his  early  political  associations.  He  too  suffered  for  his  advo- 
cacy of  the  poor  and  the  oppressed.  .  .  .  Up  to  1848  he  was  on 
exactly  the  right  path,  —  the  path  to  distinctive  professional  emi- 
nence. Had  he  adhered  to  it,  he  not  improbably  would  at  least 
have  attained,  had  he  so  desired,  that  foremost  place  in  the  judiciary 
of  Massachusetts  once  held  by  his  grandfather.  Most  assuredly  he 
would  have  risen  to  the  front  rank  of  his  profession  as  a  jurist  of 
national  fame." 

His  partner,  Francis  E.  Parker,  wrote  after  Mr.  Dana's  death  ; 

"Baffled  as  he  had  been  for  more  than  twenty  years,  disappointed  in 
every  high  ambition  of  his  life,  fallen  in  evil  times  and  evil  tongues, 
how  bravely  he  kept  his  courage ! " 

It  is  true  that  he  won  neither  great  wealth  nor  high  office,  and 
that  in  his  own  commonwealth  he  saw  many  mn  both  who  were  in 
no  way  superior  to  him  in  ability  or  character,  like  his  arch-enemy 
Benjamin  F.  Butler;  but  "the  wise  years  decide."  Weighed  in 
the  true  scales,  could  any  fortune,  however  large,  or  any  office, 


142         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

however  high,  —  could  anything  that  he  won  for  himself  outbalance 
the  unselfish  service  which  he  rendered  to  others  ?  Is  self-sacritice 
failure  ?  Shall  we  measure  success  by  what  a  man  gets  or  by  what 
he  gives?  Shall  we  forget  the  immortal  words,  "Inasmuch  as  ye 
have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren  ye  have 
done  it  unto  me  ?  " 

Let  us  rather  hold  him  up  to  the  generous  youth  of  this  country 
as  an  example  of  the  highest  success,  and  say  with  Mr.  Adams: 
"  His  connection  with  those  cases  was  the  one  great  professional 
and  political  act  of  his  life.  It  was  simply  superb.  There  is  noth- 
ing fairer  or  nobler  in  the  long,  rich  archives  of  the  law ;  and  the 
man  who  holds  that  record  in  his  hand  may  stand  with  head  erect 
at  the  bar  of  final  judgment  itself." 

Bishop  Lawrence.  No  son  of  Harvard  is  more  welcome 
than  Mr.  Choate.  His  loyalty  to  Harvard  is  expressed  in  a 
characteristic  remark  some  years  ago  when  he  said,  "When 
in  London  if  I  heard  the  name  of  any  young  man  rising  to 
distinction  in  America,  no  matter  what  part  of  America,  I 
always  took  up  the  Quinquennial  and  looked  to  see  in  what 
year  he  graduated." 

We  have  just  heard  the  eulogy  of  Rufus  Choate  by  Mr. 
Dana,  and  we  can  be  confident  that  if  Mr.  Dana  could  speak 
he  would  be  much  gratified  to  know  that  his  position  as  a 
lawyer  and  a  jurist  was  to  be  presented  by  Joseph  Choate. 


DANA  AS   A  LAWYER   AND  A   CITIZEN 
JOSEPH  II.   CHOATE 

I  REGARDED  it  as  a  great  honor  to  be  asked  to  prepare  a  paper 
about  Richard  IT.  Dana,  as  a  lawyer  and  citizen,  for  the  celebration 
of  the  centenary  of  his  birth. 

He  has  been  dead  for  thirty-four  years,  and  sleeps  in  the  old 
Protestant  cemetery  at  Rome  in  company  with  Shelley  and  Keats 
in  a  land  which  he  loved  to  visit  and  where  his  closing  years 
were  spent. 


1915.]      DANA    AS    A   LAWYER   AND   A    CITIZEN  143 

At  such  a  distance  of  time  the  professional  life  and  work  of  any 
lawyer,  however  distinguished,  ceases  to  be  of  general  interest 
unless  connected  with  events  which  have  become  historical  and  of 
surpassing  human  interest.  Fortunately  for  Mr.  Dana,  his  active 
professional  and  public  life  of  twenty-five  years  embraced  the  pe- 
riod of  the  Civil  War  and  the  thrilling  events  which  preceded  and 
followed  it,  and  he  was  able  to  render  signal  services  to  the  state 
and  the  nation  which  ought  never  to  be  forgotten. 

The  unusual  fame  which  he  had  acquired  as  a  very  young  man 
by  the  publication  of  "Two  Years  Before  the  Mast,"  which  still 
reads  like  a  romance  and  a  companion-piece  to  "  Robinson  Crusoe," 
and  the  publication  of  the  "Seaman's  Friend,"  which  naturally 
followed  it,  necessarily  brought  him  a  sort  of  maritime  practice 
when  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar  and  opened  a  law  office  in  1841 
at  the  age  of  twenty-six. 

He  had  just  married,  was  without  independent  means,  and  had 
every  incentive,  as  he  had  abundant  ability,  to  take  a  leading  place 
in  the  profession  for  which  his  keen  intelligence,  his  habits  of  pro- 
found thought,  and  his  soaring  ambition  naturally  fitted  him. 
There  was  another  thing  which  doubtless  stimulated  his  hope  and 
desire  for  the  rapid  advance  in  professional  and  public  affairs,  which 
might  well  have  been  expected  from  his  brilliant  talents  and  his 
undisputed  ability.  He  was  justly  proud  of  his  distinguished  lin- 
eage, which  ran  back  into  colonial  days.  Several  of  his  direct  an- 
cestors, whose  names  can  be  found  in  the  Harvard  Catalogue,  had 
taken  part  in  the  public  life  of  New  England.  His  grandfather, 
Francis  Dana,  had  been  a  delegate  from  Massachusetts  to  the  Con- 
tinental Congress,  had  signed  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  had 
been  appointed  minister  to  Russia  during  the  Revolutionary  War, 
and  after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  was  for  fifteen  years 
Chief  Justice  of  Massachusetts.  There  were,  also,  in  the  maternal 
line  of  his  ancestry  two  colonial  governors  and  a  signer  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  he  had  a  certain  fastidiousness 
of  manner  which  kept  him  aloof  from  the  ordinary  run  of  men. 
He  had  a  natural  liking  for  the  best  company,  which  he  always 
frequented,  and  no  desire  to  cultivate  miscellaneous  acquaintances, 
none  of  the   hail-fellow-well-met  to  everybody,  which  naturally 


144         THE    CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

tends  to  promote  a  young  man's  rapid  advancement  in  the  profes- 
sion or  in  public  life.  But  for  all  that  he  had  a  genuine  enthusiasm 
for  popular  liberty  and  equality  under  the  law,  and  an  abiding  faith 
in  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  as 
it  was  advocated  by  Lincoln. 

I  doubt,  too,  whether  he  had  that  all-absorbing  love  of  the  law 
which  is  necessary  to  a  highly  sustained  professional  career.  He 
loved  to  travel,  and  was  particularly  fond  of  the  society  of  superior 
men  and  women.  He  evidently  had  a  strong  liking  for  public  life, 
and  an  ambition  for  high  office,  which  he  was  admirably  qualified 
to  fill,  so  that  he  followed  the  law  rather  as  a  means  of  livelihood 
than  as  an  exalted  vocation  to  which  he  could  devote  all  his  strong 
and  manly  qualities,  and  strive  for  success  in  it  as  though  there 
were  no  other  object  worth  living  for. 

His  personal  devotion  to  Washington  AUston,  who  had  married 
his  father's  sister,  was  strikingly  characteristic,  and  I  think  he 
derived  from  AUston  some  of  his  habits  of  thought  and  of  action. 

Allston,  besides  being  a  great  artist,  was  a  man  of  rare  and 
delicate  and  sensitive  personality,  quite  likely  to  impress  strongly 
a  high-toned  youth  like  Dana. 

The  latter  says  of  him  in  his  Journal :  "  He  says  that  if  things 
go  on  as  they  promise  now  that '  in  eighty  years  there  will  not  be 
a  gentleman  left  in  the  country.'  He  says  that  the  manners  of 
gentility,  its  courtesies,  its  deferences,  and  graces  are  passing  away 
from  among  us.  Whether  they  pass  away  or  no,  he  is  a  good 
specimen  of  them.  Born  of  a  distinguished  family  in  Carolina, 
and  educated  in  the  feelings  and  habits  of  a  gentleman,  with  a 
noble  nature,  a  beautiful  countenance,  and  a  graceful  person,  what 
else  could  he  be  ?  " 

And  on  the  occasion  of  AUston' s  sudden  death,  he  takes  leave 
of  him  in  these  words :  "  The  exquisite  moral  sense,  the  true  spir- 
ituality, the  kindliness  and  courtesy  of  heart  as  well  as  of  manner, 
the  corresponding  external  elegance,  the  elevation  above  the  world 
and  the  men  and  things  of  it,  where  have  these  ever  been  so  com- 
bined before  ?  "  And  the  same  question  might  well  be  asked  about 
Mr.  Dana. 

His  own  early  and  even  precocious  literary  success  had  some- 
thing, I  think,  to  do  with  shaping  his  subsequent  life.     It  gave 


1915.]      DANA   AS    A   LAWYER   AND    A    CITIZEN"  145 

him  an  easy  footing  in  the  society  and  friendship  of  the  best  men, 
such  as  Mr.  Webster,  Judge  Story,  George  Ticknor,  Charles  Fran- 
cis Adams,  Franklin  Dexter,  Charles  Sumner,  George  S.  Hillard, 
and  others  who  were  the  leaders  of  New  England  life,  and  he  stood 
well  with  them  all.  Indeed,  literature  must  have  been  his  first 
love,  which  was  evinced  by  his  signal  success  in  that  direction 
even  before  he  came  of  age,  and  by  his  devotion  in  later  years  to 
the  company  of  those  choice  and  kindred  spirits  and  men  of  letters 
who  composed  the  famous  Saturday  Club. 

Mr.  Horace  Mann  he  did  not  altogether  like;  and  no  wonder,  for 
there  could  hardly  be  two  more  opposite  natures  than  theirs. 
When  Mann  was  at  the  head  of  the  Board  of  Education,  he  pro- 
posed to  Mr.  Dana  that  the  Board  of  Education  should  publish  his 
"  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast "  if  he  would  practically  rewrite  it 
to  suit  Mr.  Mann's  practical  ideas,  and  his  account  of  their  inter- 
view at  which  the  matter  was  discussed  is  most  amusing.  It 
ended  in  Mr.  Dana  positively  refusing  to  make  any  substantial 
changes  in  the  book,  and  Mr.  Mann  being  contented  with  nothing 
less  than  changes  which  would  entirely  destroy  its  character. 

Too  strenuous  labor,  after  he  reached  the  age  of  forty-five,  seems 
frequently  to  have  overtaxed  Mr.  Dana's  strength.  Up  to  that 
time  he  had  a  remarkable  buoyancy  and  vigor  which  had  been 
splendidly  fortified  by  his  two  years  at  sea.  A  weakness  of  the 
eyes  had  compelled  him  to  take  the  voyage  of  which  his  book  is 
the  record,  out  of  the  very  heart  of  his  college  life,  coming  back  to 
graduate  with  a  class  two  years  later  than  that  which  he  had  en- 
tered. From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  professional  life, 
whatever  his  hands  found  to  do  he  did  it  with  his  might.  His 
attention  to  details  was  extraordinary,  and  thus  he  was  always  in 
danger  of  overwork,  which  compelled  him  to  take  frequent  vaca- 
tions to  counteract  that  danger. 

There  was  one  great  hero  with  whom  these  vacation  rambles 
brought  him  into  close  and  interesting  contact,  and  that  was  John 
Brown,  not  yet  John  Brown  of  Ossawatomie,  but  a  plain  and 
rugged  farmer  of  North  Elba  in  the  Adirondacks,  where  he  ran 
an  active  branch  of  the  famous  underground  railroad,  over  which 
he  was  constantly  conducting  fugitive  slaves  to  freedom. 

More  than  twenty  years  afterward  Dana  wrote  an  account  of  it 


146         THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

for  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  read  of  Mr.  Dana, 
fastidious  though  he  was,  sitting  down  to  dinner  with  Mr.  Brown 
and  "  his  unlimited  family  of  children,  from  a  cheerful,  nice  healthy 
woman  of  twenty  or  so  and  a  full-sized,  red-haired  son,  who  seemed 
to  be  foreman  of  the  farm,  through  every  grade  of  boy  and  girl  to 
a  couple  who  could  hardly  speak  plain,"  and  among  them  two 
fugitive  negroes  whom  he  had  just  brought  in  and  whom  he  intro- 
duced to  Mr.  Dana  as  Mr,  Jefferson  and  Mrs,  Wait,  as  persons  of 
entire  social  equality. 

Little  did  he  think,  as  he  sat  at  that  rude  feast  of  "  Ruth's  best 
bread,  butter,  and  corn  cakes,  with  some  meat  and  tea,"  that  in  a 
few  years  the  rugged  farmer,  who  sat  at  the  head  of  the  table  and 
entertained  him  so  cordially,  would  have  become  the  great  martyr 
of  freedom,  so  that  his  name  and  his  spirit  would  lead  the  embat- 
tled hosts  of  America  to  the  final  triumph  of  liberty  and  union  I 

Mr.  Dana's  first  venture  in  politics,  in  his  thirty-third  year,  in 
1848,  marked  clearly  his  independence  of  spirit,  his  love  of  the 
right,  and  determination  to  maintain  it  at  whatever  cost,  and  his 
clear  foresight  into  the  political  future.  He  had,  like  almost  all 
Massachusetts  boys,  grown  up  as  a  disciple  of  Mr.  Webster.  He 
hated  the  Abolitionists  who  were  altogether  too  unconventional  for 
him,  but  he  made  his  d^but  in  political  life  as  chaii'man  of  the  Free 
Soil  meeting  at  the  Tremont  Temple.  He  declared:  "I  am  a 
Free  Soiler,  because  I  am  (who  should  not  say  so)  of  the  stock  of 
the  old  northern  gentry,  and  have  a  particular  dishke  to  any  sub- 
serviency, or  even  appearance  of  subserviency,  on  the  part  of  our 
people  to  the  slaveholding  oligarchy.  I  was  disgusted  with  it  in 
college  and  at  the  law  school,  and  have  been  since,  in  society  and 
politics.  The  spindles  and  day-books  are  against  us  just  now,  for 
Free  Soilism  goes  to  the  wrong  side  of  the  ledger.  The  blood,  the 
letters,  and  the  people  are  our  chief  reliance." 

It  was  a  bold  step  for  a  young  lawyer  and  statesman  to  come  out 
in  this  way  in  1848  in  Boston,  where  Webster  was  still  lord  of  the 
ascendant  and  where  all  the  best  people,  with  whom  Dana  had 
always  been  associated,  were  his  devoted  followers,  and  where 
there  was  a  strong  afiiliation,  as  Charles  Sumner  put  it,  "  between 
the  lords  of  the  lash  and  the  lords  of  the  loom."  But  Dana  was 
not  dismayed.     He  went  to  the  Buffalo  convention  as  a  delegate 


1915.]      DANA   AS   A   LAWYEE   AXD   A    CITIZEN"  147 

and  came  back  to  advocate  the  election  of  Martin  Van  Buren  for 
President  and  Charles  Francis  Adams  for  Vice-President,  and  from 
August  to  November  he  laid  aside  his  law  practice  and  devoted 
himself  to  making  speeches  for  this  seemingly  hopeless  cause, 
which  he  had  the  foresight  to  see  would  result  by  and  by  in  the 
collapse  of  the  Whig  party  and  the  prevention  of  the  further  ex- 
tension of  slavery.  From  this  time  forward  he  was  generally 
recognized  as  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  promising  antislavery 
men  of  the  country,  rather  to  the  horror  and  disgust  of  many  of 
his  old  associates;  and  some  of  his  social  relations  that  had  been  of 
the  warmest  and  closest  character  were  broken  off. 

The  wealth  of  Boston,  its  merchants  and  manufacturers  and 
shipowners,  were  against  him,  and  his  success  as  a  lawyer,  which 
had  been  good  at  the  start,  must  have  been  seriously  interfered 
with ;  but  little  did  he  care  for  that,  for  he  knew  he  was  right  and 
meant  to  stick  to  it,  and  presently,  by  the  very  reason  of  his  po- 
litical secession,  his  great  opportunity  came  in  the  fugitive  slave 
cases,  which  enabled  him  as  a  lawyer  to  render  memorable  service 
to  the  good  of  mankind. 

I  think  myself  that  when  the  first  attempts  to  enforce  the  fugi- 
tive slave  law  of  1850  were  made  in  Boston,  the  great  majority  of 
the  educated  people,  and,  indeed,  of  all  the  people  of  Massachusetts, 
would  have  preferred  that  the  enforcement  of  the  odious  law  should 
be  quietly  submitted  to  without  any  demonstration  against  it.  The 
compromise  measures  of  1850,  of  which  that  law  was  a  part,  had 
been  accepted,  strangely  enough,  as  a  finality.  They  had  been 
advocated  by  Mr.  Webster,  Mr.  Clay,  and  Mr.  .Calhoun,  all  of  them 
already  old  men,  who  had  desired  nothing  so  much  as  that  the 
slavery  question  should  be  settled  for  once  and  forever,  while  they 
were  still  upon  the  political  stage.  They  believed  that  the  fugitive 
slave  law  was  practically  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution,  and  that 
attempts  to  enforce  it  would  result  in  no  serious  harm.  In  this,  as 
the  result  showed,  they  proved  to  be  blind  leaders  of  the  blind ;  but 
the  people  of  Massachusetts  generally  were  still  inclined  to  follow 
their  lead.  But  not  so  with  Mr.  Dana  and  Charles  Sumner  and 
Robert  Rantoul.  They  appear  to  have  recognized  the  binding 
force  of  the  constitutional  provision,  that  "no  pereon  held  to  serv- 
ice or  labor  in   one  State   under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into 


148         THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

another  state,  shall  in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein, 
be  discharged  from  such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up 
on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due  " ; 
but  they  believed  also  that  this  did  not  dispense  with  essential 
safeguards  for  the  protection  of  persons  involved,  and  especially 
that  they  were  entitled  to  a  trial  by  jury  and  to  such  other  protec- 
tion as  might  be  afforded  to  them  by  legislative  provisions  of  the 
states  which  would  not  be  in  conflict  with  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States. 

So  when  the  first  seizure  under  the  odious  law  was  made  by  the 
arrest  of  Shadrach  in  Boston  on  the  15th  of  February,  1851,  Mr. 
Dana,  having  heard  of  it,  instantly  repaired  to  the  Court  House, 
and,  offering  his  services  to  the  fugitive,  prepared  and  presented 
to  Chief  Justice  Shaw  a  petition  for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  his 
behalf.  But  the  learned  Chief  Justice  was  not  inclined  to  inter- 
fere, and  while  Mr.  Dana  was  considering  going  before  anotlier 
judge,  a  mob  of  negroes  invaded  the  Court  House  and  rescued  the 
prisoner  and  enabled  him  to  make  his  way  to  freedom.  The  arrest 
and  the  rescue  and  the  attack  upon  the  Court  House  made  a  tre- 
mendous sensation,  and  the  federal  authorities  made  strenuous 
efforts  to  punish  somebody  for  the  escape  of  the  prisoner. 

Among  others  they  made  a  wholly  unwarranted  attack  upon 
Mr.  Charles  G.  Davis,  who  had  assisted  Mr.  Dana  in  the  pro- 
posed defense  of  Shadrach,  charging  him  with  aiding  and  abet- 
ting in  the  escape  of  the  fugitive  slave,  with  which  he  had  no 
more  to  do  than  the  man  in  the  moon;  but  his  trial  before  the 
United  States  commissioner  occupied  four  days,  and  he  was  ably 
defended  by  Mr.  Dana,  whose  argument  in  his  defense  is  a  model 
of  forensic  eloquence,  a  perfect  gem ;  and  Mr.  Davis  was  discharged 
by  the  commissioner,  who  found  no  case  against  him. 

In  the  meantime,  Mr.  Dana  and  Mr.  Sumner  were  busily  em- 
ployed in  drawing  up  laws  to  meet  what  they  regarded  as  the 
dangers  and  outrages  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill,  at  the  request  of 
a  committee  of  the  legislature. 

On  the  7th  of  April  in  the  same  year  another  fugitive  slave,  Sims, 
was  arrested  by  the  marshal  and  his  posse  and  locked  up  in  the 
Court  House,  which  was  guarded  by  a  huge  force  of  policemen,  and 
a  chain  was  stretched  entirely  around  it,  so  that  everyone  that 


1915.]      DANA   AS    A   LAWYER   AND   A    CITIZEN  149 

entered  it,  including  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  and  parties 
having  business  before  that  tribunal,  must  go  under  the  chain. 
Mr.  Rantoul  and  Mr.  Dana  appeared  in  the  Supreme  Court  and 
moved  again  for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  which  was  promptly- 
denied,  the  Chief  Justice  giving  the  opinion  of  the  court  refusing 
tlie  writ.  The  opinion  held  that  "the  only  question  was  whether 
the  Commissioner  could  constitutionally  act:  — that  the  act  of  1793 
gave  the  same  powers  to  magistrates  which  this  act  gives  to  Com- 
missioners, and  was  acquiesced  in  for  more  than  fifty  years,  and 
recognized,  or  at  least  was  not  decided  to  be  unconstitutional  by 
any  court.  So  the  court  held  that  the  point  must  be  considered  as 
settled  by  lapse  of  time,  acquiescence,  and  recognition."  And  again 
Mr.  Sumner  and  Mr.  Dana  went  before  a  federal  judge  and  made 
an  ineffectual  effort  for  release  of  the  fugitive,  and  the  next 
day,  as  Mr.  Dana  relates,  between  four  and  five  o'clock  in  the 
morning  "the  poor  fellow,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  was  marched  on 
board  a  vessel,  escorted  by  a  hundred  or  more  of  the  city  police 
under  orders  of  the  United  States  marshal,  armed  with  swords  and 
pistols,  and  in  a  few  minutes  she  sailed  down  the  harbor." 

Ill  connection  with  this  case  it  is  pleasant  always  to  remember 
thcit  Judge  Devens,  who  was  the  marshal  on  the  occasion  and  had 
such  an  unpleasant  duty  to  perform,  afterward,  when  he  became 
Attorney  General  of  the  United  States  in  1877,  employed  Sims  as 
a  messenger  in  the  Department  of  Justice,  which  position  he  held 
for  several  years  while  Devens  remained  in  office. 

But  one  startling  and  immediate  result  of  these  two  cases  was  the 
election,  within  a  fortnight  after  the  rendition  of  Sims,  of  Charles 
Sumner  as  United  States  Senator  to  fill  the  seat  which  Mr.  Webster 
had  occupied.  Meanwhile  Mr.  Dana  continued  for  several  months 
the  defense  of  the  rescue  cases,  as  they  were  called,  and  nobody 
that  he  defended  was  ever  convicted. 

One  of  the  most  singular  of  these  cases  was  that  of  Elizur 
Wright,  the  celebrated  journalist  and  linguist.  He  was  tried  for 
complicity  in  the  rescue  of  Shadrach,  and  as  he  was  absolutely  in- 
nocent, he  refused  to  have  any  counsel,  but  defended  himself.  The 
jury  disagreed,  standing  eleven  for  conviction  and  one  for  acquittal, 
but  on  a  new  trial  he  was  acquitted,  being  defended  this  time  by 
Mr.  Dana,  who  says  that  Wright  was  entirely  clear  of  all  connection 


150         THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTOEICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

with  the  rescue  in  fact,  although  he  was  delighted  with  the  result. 
The  result  of  his  trial,  Mr.  Dana  says,  showed  the  importance  of 
the  professional  services  of  an  advocate. 

Mr.  Dana's  services  in  the  cause  of  freedom  continued  as  long  as 
there  was  any  slave-hunting  upon  the  soil  of  Massachusetts,  and 
ended  on  Boston's  Black  Friday,  the  2d  of  June,  1854,  when 
Anthony  Burns,  the  last  fugitive  slave  arrested  under  the  act,  was 
consigned  by  Judge  Loring  to  the  custody  of  tlie  marshal  to  be 
escorted  back  to  slavery. 

Mr.  Dana  in  his  Diary  thus  describes  it:  **This  was  a  day  of  in- 
tense excitement  and  deep  feehng  in  the  city,  in  the  State,  and 
throughout  New  England,  and  indeed  a  great  part  of  the  Union. 
The  hearts  of  millions  of  persons  were  beating  high  with  hope, 
or  indignation,  or  doubt.  The  Mayor  of  Boston  has  ordered  out 
the  entire  military  force  of  the  city,  from  1500  to  1800  men,  and 
undertaken  to  place  full  discretionary  powers  in  the  hands  of 
General  Edmands.  These  troops  and  the  three  companies  of  reg- 
ulars fill  the  streets  and  squares  from  the  Court  House  to  the 
end  of  the  wharf  where  the  revenue  cutter  lies,  in  which  Burns, 
if  remanded,  will  be  taken  to  Virginia." 

Mr.  Dana  labored  very  hard  for  the  acquittal  of  this  fugitive, 
and  his  argument  at  the  conclusion  of  the  case,  which  occupied 
four  hours  in  its  delivery,  is  so  incisive  and  convincing  that  but 
for  his  adamantine  conservatism  Judge  Loring,  the  magistrate, 
who  was  the  learned  Judge  of  Probate  and  a  professor  in  the  Dane 
Law  School,  might  well  have  decided  in  favor  of  freedom  and  dis- 
charged the  prisoner. 

I  have  laid  great  stress  upon  the  services  of  Mr.  Dana  in  his 
fugitive  slave  cases,  not  only  because  of  the  intense  interest  in 
that  exciting  period  of  our  history,  but  also  because  they  placed 
him  in  the  very  front  rank  of  his  profession  in  Massachusetts  and 
made  him  an  exceedingly  prominent  figure  among  the  public  men 
of  New  England ;  and  we  should,  I  think,  have  expected  that  his 
aspirations  for  public  office  would  have  been  sooner  gratified. 
These  services  of  his  brought  him  no  pecuniary  reward,  for  they 
were  rendered  in  behalf  of  those  who  were  wholly  without  means 
or  credit,  and  in  the  case  of  Anthony  Burns,  which  was  the  mosti 
important  of  all,  he  absolutely  declined  all  pecuniary  compensation.] 


1915.]      DANA   AS    A   LAWYER   AND   A    CITIZEN  151 

I  have  described  these  labors  of  Mr.  Dana's  as  great  services 
rendered  not  only  to  the  State  but  to  the  Nation,  because  they 
aroused  universal  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  boasted  compro- 
mise measures  of  1850,  which  were  designed  to  settle  the  slavery 
question  forever,  were  not  final,  but  a  total  failure;  that  freedom 
would  not  down  at  the  bidding  of  Congress,  even  when  led  by  the 
great  statesmen  of  a  past  age.  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Webster  both 
died  in  1852,  Mr.  Calhoun  having  preceded  them  to  the  grave  in 
1850.  Their  compromise  measures  were  buried  with  them,  and 
the  whole  question  had  to  be  fought  out  in  blood  under  the  lead 
of  Lincoln. 

In  the  midst  of  these  exciting  and  unrewarded  professional 
labors,  Mr.  Dana  spent  three  months  in  the  summer  of  1853  as 
a  member  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  Massachusetts, 
of  which  many  of  the  leading  men  of  the  state  were  members, 
and  among  whom,  from  his  first  appearance,  although  it  was  his 
first  experience  in  a  deliberative  body,  he  at  once  came  to  the 
front. 

Mr.  Adams  very  justly  says  that  "there  was  no  man  in  the 
convention  who  rose  more  rapidly,  or  into  greater  prominence  as 
a  debater,  than  did  Dana."  And  Charles  Sumner,  who  was  also 
a  member,  subsequently  spoke  of  him  as  *'the  man  of  by  far  the 
greatest  legislative  promise,"  criticising  only  his  tendency  to  over- 
debate,  due  to  excessive  readiness  and  facility.  He  took  an  active 
part  in  aU  the  serious  discussions,  and  in  that  which  was  the  most 
important  of  all,  the  judiciary  question,  he  made  a  most  effective 
and  conclusive  argument,  which  Mr.  Choate,  who  the  next  day 
made  one  of  the  great  speeches  of  his  life  in  the  convention  on 
the  same  subject,  declared  to  be  "such  a  speech  as  one  hears  once 
in  an  age."  He  spoke  in  favor  of  the  proposition  that  it  was  in- 
expedient to  make  any  change  in  the  appointment  or  tenure  of 
judges.  There  was  some  popular  demand  that  Massachusetts 
should  follow  the  example  that  had  then  been  set  by  many  of  the 
states  of  the  Union  to  have  her  judges  elected  by  the  people  in- 
stead of  appointed  by  the  governor  for  life  or  during  good  behavior. 
There  was  also  a  proposition  that  the  judges  should  be  appointed 
by  the  governor  and  council  for  a  term  of  ten  years. 

To  both  of  these  propositions  Mr.  Dana,  from  beginning  to  end. 


152         THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

made  strenuous  and  unceasing  opposition,  culminating  in  the  argu- 
ment to  which  I  have  already  referred. 

Unfortunately,  almost  all  the  states  of  the  Union  have  abandoned 
the  ancient  system  of  appointing  judges  for  life  or  duiing  good 
behavior,  which  has  worked  so  admirably  in  England  since  the 
Revolution  of  1688,  in  the  United  States  federal  system  since  the 
foundation  of  the  government,  and  to  this  day  remains  intact  in 
Massachusetts;  and  it  is  largely  owing  to  the  loyal  and  powerful 
exertions  of  such  men  as  Mr.  Dana  and  Mr.  Choate  that  this  com- 
monwealth owes  the  retention  of  that  system,  which  makes  its 
judiciary,  to  say  the  least,  compare  favorably  with  that  of  the  other 
states  of  the  Union,  and  puts  its  courts  side  by  side  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  common  law  with  those  of  England  and  with  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

If  the  people  of  Massachusetts  understand  their  true  interest 
and  set  a  proper  value  upon  the  high-toned  administration  of 
justice  as  it  prevails  to  this  day  in  its  courts,  they  will  always  re- 
ject all  attempts  from  whatever  quarter  to  make  their  judiciary 
elective.  There  is  always  a  danger  of  efforts  being  made  in  that 
direction,  and  nothing  shows  more  clearly  the  imminent  character 
of  that  danger  than  the  fact  that  in  this  very  Constitutional  Con- 
vention of  1853,  the  last,  I  believe,  that  has  been  held  in  Massachu- 
setts, the  Constitution,  as  adopted  and  submitted  to  the  people,  pro- 
posed the  appointment  of  judges  for  the  term  of  ten  years,  which 
led  to  its  defeat  by  a  majority  of  about  six  thousand  in  a  t;Otal 
popular  vote  of  125,000,  so  that  to-day  your  people  stand  on  this 
question  as  they  have  stood  ever  since  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu- 
tion of  1780,  and  will,  as  I  hope,  stand  forever.  You  have  to-day 
an  absolutely  independent  judiciary,  as  impartial  as  the  lot  of 
humanity  admits,  which  helps  to  make  the  government  of  the 
commonwealth  a  government  of  laws,  and  not  of  men. 

After  all  these  labors  Mr.  Dana  took  a  holiday,  and  had  his  first 
glimpse  of  Europe,  to  which  he  had  long  looked  forward  with 
eager  anticipation.  To  be  sure,  it  only  lasted  for  two  months,  but 
he  saw  and  enjoyed  and  recorded  everything.  He  was  just  at 
the  age  to  make  the  most  of  it,  and  so  thorough  and  constant  had 
his  reading  been  all  his  life  about  England,  that  he  seemed  to  know 
it  all  by  heart,  and  revelled  most  heartily  in  all  the  places  and 


1915.]      DA:N'A   as    a   lawyer   and    a    CITIZEN"  153 

people  with  which  his  reading  had  made  him  so  familiar.  In  Eng- 
lish history  especially  he  was  thoroughly  versed,  and  he  lost  no 
time  in  his  haste  to  visit  all  the  great  and  interesting  historical 
places, — Westminster  Hall,  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  the  Inns  of 
Court,  Kenilworth  and  Warwick  Castle,  the  Courts  of  Justice, 
Stonehenge  and  Wilton,  Greenwich  and  the  Zoo,  and  St.  James's 
Park,  —  and  he  happily  fell  in  with  many  of  the  leading  English 
men  and  women  of  the  day,  whom  he  appreciated,  and  they  mani- 
festly appreciated  him.  Nothing  could  possibly  have  been  more 
to  his  liking,  and  he  returned  at  the  end  of  his  perfect  vacation 
thoroughly  refreshed  and  renewed,  to  resume  the  daily  work  of 
his  profession,  which  must  have  seemed  to  him  after  the  supreme 
delights  of  the  summer  a  little  more  arduous  toil  than  ever  before. 

From  1856  to  1860  was  the  best  and  richest  period  of  his  pro- 
fessional life.  He  had  some  great  cases,  which  attracted  wide 
attention,  in  one  of  which,  the  Dalton  case,  the  cause  celehre  of 
the  time,  he  proved  himself  a  match  single-handed  against  two 
great  leaders  of  the  bar,  Ruf  us  Choate  and  Henry  F.  Durant,  who 
together  opposed  him,  and  but  for  the  twelfth  dissenting  juror  he 
would  have  won  the  case. 

Those  were  the  days  of  overwork  for  all  eminent  lawyers,  for 
Mr.  Choate,  in  summing  up,  talked  for  ten  hours,  taking  two  entire 
days  of  the  court's  time,  and  Mr.  Dana  followed  and  spoke  for 
twelve  hours,  occupying  parts  of  three  days.  Fortunately  for  us 
to-day  time  is  more  precious,  the  pressure  upon  the  courts  vastly 
more  intense,  and  the  two-hour  rule  would  be  strictly  applied. 

Those  four  years  were  much  the  hardest  of  Mr.  Dana's  life,  and 
his  constitution  proved  in  the  end  wholly  unequal  to  the  strain; 
for  at  the  end  of  them,  in  spite  of  occasional  holidays  and  voyages, 
he  completely  collapsed  in  the  midst  of  the  argument  of  an  excit- 
ing cause,  and  recalling  the  experience  of  his  two  years  before  the 
mast,  he  wisely  concluded  that  nothing  less  than  a  voyage  around 
the  world  would  save  him;  and  after  a  lapse  of  fifteen  months, 
in  which  he  made  the  circuit  of  the  globe,  concluding  with  a  brief 
glimpse  again  of  England,  he  returned  home,  once  more  in  good 
health,  to  find  his  country  in  the  midst  of  that  great  campaign  of 
1860  which  resulted  in  the  election  of  Lincoln  and  brought  on  the 
Civil  V/ar. 


154         THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

Through  aU  that  anxious  period  he  held  the  office  of  United  States 
Attorney  for  the  district  of  Massachusetts,  a  position  which  he 
greatly  magnified  by  his  wonderful  qualifications  in  character  and 
abilit}',  and  he  argued  with  a  consummate  power  the  prize  causes 
in  which  the  legality  of  the  whole  conduct  of  the  government 
during  the  Civil  War  was  directly  challenged.  Both  in  the  Dis- 
trict court  of  Massachusetts  and  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  where  he  opened,  and  Mr.  Evarts,  the  companion  of  his 
boyhood  and  his  lifelong  friend,  closed,  he  cleared  up  all  the  diffi- 
cult and  knotty  questions  involved.  Mr.  Adams  records  that 
one  who  was  present  at  the  final  hearing,  after  Mr.  Dana  had  closed 
his  argument,  happened  to  encounter  Judge  Grier,  who  had  retired 
to  the  corridor  in  the  rear  of  the  bench,  and  whose  clear  judicial 
mind  and  finely  cultivated  literary  taste  had  keenly  enjoyed  the 
speech;  in  a  burst  of  unjudicial  enthusiasm  he  said:  "Well 
your  little  'Two  Years  Before  the  Mast'  has  settled  that  question; 
there  is  nothing  more  to  say  about  it."  Judge  Grier  shortly  af- 
terward stated  the  opinion  of  the  court,  affirming  at  almost  every 
point  the  positions  of  the  government,  and  giving  the  highest  legal 
sanction  to  President  Lincoln's  acts.  This  was  undoubtedly  Mr. 
Dana's  greatest  professional  achievement  and  the  one  to  which  he 
looked  back  to  the  end  of  his  life  with  the  utmost  elation. 

I  should  be  doing  great  injustice  to  Mr.  Dana  if  I  failed  to 
mention  the  famous  speech  he  delivered  in  Faneuil  Hall  on  June 
21,  1865,  at  an  important  meeting  called  to  consider  the  subject  of 
the  reorganization  of  the  states  lately  in  rebellion,  and  the  ad- 
dress to  the  country  which  he  prepared  on  that  occasion,  and  which, 
like  the  speech,  attracted  wide  notice. 

Mr.  Dana  to  the  end  of  his  days  justly  took  great  pride  in  this 
address,  in  which  he  seems  to  have  led  the  way  in  claiming  that 
the  government,  having  put  down  the  rebellion  by  force  of  arms, 
and  holding  all  the  rebel  states  in  the  "  grasp  of  war,"  as  he  called 
it,  might  continue  its  militar}^  occupation  of  the  conquered  territory 
until  it  could  secure  what  it  regarded  as  a  just  solution  of  the 
tremendous  questions  involved. 

He  said :  "  We  stand  upon  the  ground  of  war,  and  we  exercise 
the  powers  of  war.  I  put  that  proposition  fearlessly :  The  conquer- 
ing party  may  hold  the  other  in  the  grasp  of  war  until  it  has  secured 


1915.]      DANA   AS    A   LAWYEE   AND    A    CITIZEN  155 

whatever  it  has  a  right  to  require.  Having  succeeded  in  this  war, 
and  holding  the  rebel  states  in  our  military  occupation,  it  is  our 
right  and  duty  to  secure  whatever  the  public  safety  and  the  public 
faith  require." 

But  he  by  no  means  justified  those  portions  of  the  measures  of 
reconstruction  which  led  for  a  while  to  the  shocking  negro  domina- 
tion in  several  of  the  southern  states,  and  in  the  same  speech,  and 
in  the  memorable  address  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  which 
was  drawn  by  him,  he  did  not  ask  that  the  nation  should  insist  on 
an  unconditioned  universal  suffrage  for  the  freedmen,  but  that  the 
right  of  suffrage  should  be  given  to  them  in  such  manner  as  to 
be  impartial,  and  not  based  in  principle  upon  color,  but  to  be 
reasonably  attainable  by  intelligence  and  character,  putting  them 
on  the  same  ground  of  equality  as  prevails  in  Massachusetts,  where 
the  right  to  vote  is  secured  alike  to  black  men  and  white  who  can 
read  and  write. 

It  is  safe,  I  think,  to  say  that  if  the  doctrines  laid  down  by  Mr. 
Dana  in  this  speech  and  address  had  been  more  closely  followed, 
great  mischiefs  would  have  been  avoided  and  the  terrible  task  of 
reconstruction  would  have  been  made  more  easy. 

After  the  close  of  the  war  Mr.  Dana  resigned  his  office,  and  was 
not  engaged  in  any  more  serious  forensic  conflicts,  but  he  devoted 
two  continuous  years  to  his  edition  of  Wheaton's  "  Elements  of 
International  Law,"  which  he  greatly  enriched  by  a  series  of  most 
learned  and  elaborate  notes,  and  it  may  fairly  be  said  that,  until 
the  outbreak  of  the  present  horrible  war,  this  book  of  his,  in  which 
he  embodied  all  the  rich  fruits  of  his  learned  and  laborious  life, 
was  a  great  standard  authority  on  the  subject  of  which  it  treated, 
and  was  valued  as  such,  not  only  in  his  own  country,  but  in  Eng- 
land and  among  the  continental  nations. 

At  this  moment  international  law  must  be  admitted  to  be  in  a 
state  of  suspense ;  at  any  rate  when  peace  comes  it  will  have  to 
be  restated  and  remade  with  all  the  changes  necessitated  by  the 
exigencies  of  the  war  and  its  results.  Even  if  it  ends  as  we  hope, 
international  law  cannot  be  taken  up  where  it  stood  in  August, 
1914;  but  Dana's  notes  to  Wheaton's  Elements  will  form  a  most 
valuable  stepping-stone  to  its  future  progress,  by  which,  as  we 
hope,  the  permanent  peace  of  the  world  wiU  be  secured. 


156         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTOEICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

Let  me  give  you  a  single  illustration  of  how  international  law  has 
failed  to  deal  by  any  possibility  with  the  difficulties  presented  by 
the  present  war,  on  the  single  subject  of  aeroplanes  and  Zeppelins, 
which  have  been  causing  so  much  havoc  and  dismay  throughout 
the  world  during  the  last  twelve  months.  When  the  Emperor  of 
Russia  issued  liis  call  for  the  first  peace  congress  he  referred  to  the 
subject  of  aircraft  and  commended  it  to  the  study  of  the  first 
conference.  The  first  conference  met  in  1899.  They  discussed 
the  subject  very  fully,  and  finally  concluded  that  the  world  was 
not  ripe  for  action  on  their  part ;  but  they  prohibited  the  throwing 
of  projectiles  from  dirigible  balloons  or  any  other  aircraft  for  the 
period  of  five  years,  expecting  that  the  second  conference  would 
meet  by  that  time  and  take  the  subject  up  with  better  knowledge. 
Well,  no  conference  was  called  until  eight  years,  in  1907.  And 
there  we  had  a  great  discussion  on  the  subject.  England  and  Ger- 
many were  of  one  mind,  to  prohibit  the  throwing  of  these  projec- 
tiles. Lord  Reay,  one  of  the  leading  English  delegates,  made  a 
brilliant  speech  iu  support  of  the  proposition  to  prohibit,  in  which 
he  said  that  two  elements,  the  land  and  the  sea,  were  enough 
for  war ;  that  the  air  and  the  sky  ought  to  be  reserved  for  peace. 
And  the  result  was  that  we,  with  consummate  wisdom,  as  we 
thought,  but  with  what  seems  to  have  been  utter  folly,  renewed 
the  prohibition  for  a  period  that  should  terminate  with  the  adjourn- 
ment of  the  third  Hague  conference,  which  has  never  met  and 
perliaps  wilf  never  meet.     So  it  is  all  left  in  the  air. 

Mr.  Dana  still  cherished  his  lifelong  ambition  for  high  poHtical 
office,  for  which  he  was  so  admirably  qualified,  but  this  ambition 
was  doomed  to  bitter  disappointment,  which,  however,  he  never 
allowed  to  cloud  his  later  years,  for  these  were  always  cheerful, 
happy,  and  devoted  to  good  works. 

He  accepted  the  nomination  for  Congress  in  the  Essex  district 
against  the  notorious  General  Butler,  with  whom  he  maintained 
an  unequal  contest  single-handed.  He  proved  to  be  no  match  for 
the  general  in  the  latter's  characteristic  rough-and-tumble  methods 
of  warfare,  and  came  out  at  the  end  of  tlie  poll  with  an  unhappily 
small  vote.  But  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  standing  for  the  public 
credit  against  the  avowed  champion  of  repudiation. 

Another  visit  to  England  and  Scotland,  again  for  health's  sake, 


1915.]      DANA   AS    A   LAWYER    AND    A    CITIZEN  157 

brought  him  back  to  America  to  resume  in  a  quiet  way  the  practice 
of  his  profession.  After  his  misadventure  in  the  congressional 
election  he  had  substantially  abandoned  all  hope  of  public  life, 
when  suddenly,  to  his  great  surprise.  President  Grant  in  1876  sent 
in  his  name  to  the  Senate  for  the  very  office  which  of  all  others  it 
would  have  given  him  the  greatest  pleasure  to  fill,  and  which,  as  I 
think,  of  all  Americans  he  was  then  the  most  fit  to  fill  and  to  adorn 
—  the  English  mission.  But  here  again  he  encountered  obstacles 
which  neither  he  nor  the  President  could  have  expected.  Politics 
of  a  very  questionable  character  overwhelmed  his  nomination,  and 
his  old  and  doughty  antagonist,  mth  all  the  hostile  company  that 
he  could  muster,  venomously  besieged  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Foreign  Affairs,  to  whom  the  nomination  had  been  referred.  The 
nomination  was  reported  adversely  as  the  result  of  a  very  sorry 
chapter  in  senatorial  politics. 

Had  his  nomination  been  confirmed,  Mr.  Dana's  appointment  as 
minister  to  England  would  have  been  a  perfectly  ideal  one.  His 
character,  his  education,  his  sympathies,  and  all  the  associations  of 
his  life  would  have  made  him  a  most  acceptable  and  popular  repre- 
sentative of  the  United  States  in  the  mother  country,  and  he  in 
turn  would  have  revelled  in  the  duties  and  pleasures  of  the  office. 
I  regard  his  defeat  as  having  worked  a  very  serious  loss  to  the 
governments  and  the  people  of  both  nations. 

His  defeat,  however,  did  not  prevent  the  State  Department,  of 
which  Mr.  Evarts  was  then  the  head,  from  selecting  Mr.  Dana  as 
one  of  the  counsel  of  the  United  States  Government  before  the 
international  commission  appointed  to  meet  at  Halifax  to  dispose 
of  the  fisheries  questions  between  the  two  countries,  where  again 
he  rendered  most  excellent  service,  after  which  he  bade  farewell 
to  the  profession  and  spent  his  remaining  days  in  Europe,  contem- 
plating and  preparing  for  a  new  work  upon  international  law, 
which  unhappily  he  never  lived  to  complete. 

I  confess  my  inability,  in  the  space  of  time  allotted,  to  do  justice 
to  Mr.  Dana's  lofty  character  and  to  his  signally  noble  career,  which 
was  guided  from  first  to  last  by  high  principle,  an  indomitable 
courage,  a  lofty  independence  of  spirit,  and  a  mind  always  con- 
scious to  itself  of  right.  He  met  with  many  cruel  disappointments, 
his  aspiring  dreams  were  not  realized,  but  take  him  for  all  in  all 


158         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

he  was  a  man  of  whom  his  native  state  and  country  may  well  be 
proud  and  give  him  a  high  place  among  their  immortals. 

I  have  said  nothing  of  his  private  and  domestic  relations,  but  I 
cannot  refrain  from  quoting  what  Mr.  Parker,  his  partner  for  many 
years,  said  when  he  heard  of  his  death :  "  He  was  the  steadiest  of 
friends,  the  most  indulgent  and  affectionate  to  those  whom  he  once 
honored  with  his  friendship." 

We  may  well  close  this  celebration  of  the  centenary  of  Mr.  Dana's 
birth  by  commending  the  study  of  his  pure  and  dignified  life  and 
character  to  the  young  men  of  coming  generations ;  —  from  first  to 
last  the  perfect  gentleman. 

Bishop  Lawrence.  In  behalf  of  the  Cambridge  Historical 
Society  may  I  thank  you  for  your  presence.  It  is  appro- 
priate that  this  meeting  should  be  here  in  honor  of  a  citizen 
of  Cambridge,  an  Overseer  of  Harvard  College,  and  a  Presi- 
dent of  the  Harvard  Chapter  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa.  And 
in  your  behalf  I  thank  the  Cambridge  Historical  Society  for 
being  the  means  of  giving  us  such  a  beautiful  revelation  of 
the  life  and  character  of  Richard  Henry  Dana. 


APPENDIX 

EXHIBIT  IN  CONNECTION  WITH  THE 

DANA  CENTENARY 

IN  THE  TREASURE  ROOM  OF  HARVARD  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

October  14-22,  1915 

Portrait  of  Richard  Dana  (1700-1772)  by  John  Singleton  Copley. 

Harvard  A.B.  1718.  Trial  justice,  leading  barrister  with  James  Otis  at 
the  Boston  Bar;  frequently  presided  at  Faneuil  Hall  meetings  of  the  Sons 
of  Liberty;  drafted  resolutions  for  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  addressed 
to  the  King  and  Parliament;  took  the  affidavit  of  Andrew  Oliver  not  to 
enforce  the  Stamp  Act,  in  1765.    Great  grandfather  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr. 

The  frame  originally  held  a  portrait  of  Governor  Hutchinson,  presented 
by  liim  to  Judge  Edmund  Trowbridge  of  Cambridge.    Judge  Trowbridge 
being  a  Tory,  his  family,  afraid  of  an  attack  by  the  mob  or  of  a  visit  from 
the  Sons  of  Liberty,  cut  out  and  burned  the  portrait  and  put  into  the  frame 
this  portrait  of  Richard  Dana,  Trowbridge's  brother-in-law. 
Original  affidavit  of  Andrew  Oliver,  commissioner  of  the  Crown,  taken  before 
Richard  Dana  in  1765,  binding  himself  not  to  enforce  the  Stamp  Act.    Haw- 
thorne's "Grandfather's  Chair"  gives  a  description  of  the  scene. 
Portrait  of  Francis  Dana  (1743-1811)  by  Walter  M.  Brackett,  from  two  old 
pastels  (one  by  Sharpies). 

Harvard  A.B.  1762.    Son  of  Liberty,  on  special  mission  to  Great  Britain 
just  before  and  in  the  early  days  of  the  Revolution,  member  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Legislature  and  Continental  Congress,  signer  of  the  Articles  of 
Confederation,  chairman  of  the  committee  of  Continental  Congress  on  war, 
on  special  mission  with  John  Adams  to  France  and  Holland,  appointed  min- 
ister to  St.  Petersburg,  where  he  went  in  1781,  member  of  the  United  States 
Constitutional  Convention  and  of  the  Massachusetts  Convention  adopting 
the  same,  Chief  Justice  of  Massachusetts.    Grandfather  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr. 
Framed  ink  sketch  copied  from  sketch  by  Jacob  Bigelow  of  Dana  house  on  Dana 
Hill,  built  in  1785  by  Chief  Justice  Francis  Dana.    Burned  down  in  1839. 
R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  was  one  of  the  Cambridge  Volunteer  Fire  Department  and 
was  very  active  on  the  occasion.    Lent  by  Miss  E.  E.  Dana. 
Portrait  of  Richard  Henry  Dana  (1787-1879)  by  William  M.  Hunt. 

Harvard  A.B.    1808.     Lawyer,  member  of  Massachusetts  Legislature, 
poet,  essayist,  and  one  of  the  editors  of  the  North  American  Review.    Father 
of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr. 
Photograph  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Sen.,  at  the  age  of  eighty-five. 


160  THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY  [Oct. 

Portrait  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.  (1815-1882),  by  G.  P.  A.  Healy  in  1876.  (Upper  half 
of  the  face  is  very  good,  but  month  and  chin  are  not  satisfactory.) 

Photograph  of  another  portrait  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  by  G.  P.  A.  Healy,  belonging 
to  the  estate  of  his  daughter,  Charlotte  (Dana)  Lyman  of  Chicago. 

Silhouette  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  in  his  boyhood. 

Daguerreotype  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  taken  in  1840. 

Three  daguerreotypes  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  taken  in  1840,  one  of  them  with  sailor 
cravat,  and  the  others  with  the  cravats  of  the  time. 

Photograph  standing  with  left  arm  on  chair,  in  full  dress-suit,  costmne  worn  in 
addressing  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court,  taken  about  1848-1850. 

Framed  photograph  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.  (enlarged),  taken  in  the  early  fifties, 
about  the  time  of  the  fugitive  slave  cases. 

Three  photographs  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  taken  about  1870,  1872  and  1879. 

Pen  and  ink  sketch  of  the  brig  Pilgrim  by  J.  Henry  Blake,  taken  from  a  large 
water  color  which  belonged  to  Captain  Bangs  Hallett,  who  commanded  the  Pil- 
grim in  1830,  now  in  the  possession  of  Judge  Fred  C.  Swift  of  Yarmouthport. 
Presented  by  J.  H.  Blake. 

Oil  painting  of  the  brig  Pilgrim,  made  in  1911,  by  S.  M.  Chase,  follo\\ing  accu- 
rately every  detail  of  the  description.  The  Pilgrim  was  built  in  1825,  at  Med- 
ford,  Mass.,  length  85  ft.  6  in.,  breadth  21  ft.  7H  in.,  depth  10  ft.  9%  in.,  180H 
tons. 

Picture  of  the  Alert  in  a  storm,  painted  by  Charles  H.  Grant.  This  painting 
belonged  to  Captain  William  Dane  Phelps,  who  commanded  the  Alert,  1840- 
1843.    Lent  by  liis  daughter,  Mrs.  Charles  E.  Goodwin  of  Lexington. 

Water  color  of  the  Alert,  painted  for  Captain  Phelps,  when  on  the  coast  of  Cali- 
fornia in  1840.    Lent  by  Mrs.  Goodwin. 

Oil  painting  of  the  Alert  by  S.  M.  Chase,  1911,  following  accurately  every  detail 
of  the  description.  The  Alert  was  built  in  Boston  in  1828,  length  113  ft.  4  in., 
breadth  28  ft.,  depth  14  ft.,  399  tons.    Builder,  Noah  Brooks  of  Boston. 

Large,  fully  rigged  model  of  the  Alert  lent  by  Mrs.  Henry  F.  Wild,  Dana's  daugh- 
ter.    (The  deck  not  quite  correct.) 

Photograph  of  Captain  Faucon  who  commanded  the  Alert  and  afterward  the  Pil- 
grim on  the  coast  of  California,  taken  in  1894  at  the  age  of  eighty-seven.  Cap- 
tain Faucon  was  frequently  favorably  mentioned  in  "Two  Years  Before  the 
Mast." 

Photograph  of  the  Cliffs  of  San  Juan  Capistrano  and  Dana's  Cove,  California. 
Down  these  cliffs  Dana  risked  his  life  to  save  a  few  hides,  on  the  captain's  call 
for  a  volunteer. 

Photograph  of  the  De  la  Guerra  house,  Santa  Barbara,  California. 

Framed  painting  of  the  daughters  of  a  Spanish  Don  in  California  in  the  early 
forties,  supposed  to  be  Dona  Anita  and  Dona  Angustias  de  la  Guerra  de  Noricgo 
y  Carrillo,  described  in  "Two  Years  Before  the  Mast."  Lent  by  Mrs.  Charles 
E.  Goodwin. 

Long  panoramic  photograph  of  San  Diego  Bay,  seen  across  the  site  of  the  old 
hide  houses.    Lent  by  Mrs.  H.  F.  Wild. 

Photograph  of  doorway  of  mission  at  San  Luis  Rey,  California. 


1915.]        EXHIBIT  — HARVARD  COLLEGE  LIBRARY         161 

Large  wrought  iron  nail  from  hide  house  at  San  Diego,  California.    Lent  by  Mrs. 

H.  F.  Wild. 
Tarpaulin  hat  worn  by  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  while  at  sea.    These  hats  were  worn  on 

the  back  of  the  head,  the  sea  fashion  of  those  days.    It  was  sewed  and  covered 

by  Dana.    (See  chapter  26  of  "Two  Years  Before  the  Mast.") 
Flannel  jacket  and  trousers  cut  and  sewed  by  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  while  at  sea,  as 

told  in  "Two  Years  Before  the  Mast." 
Some  of  his  other  sea-clothes. 
Personal  log  of  Andrew  B.  Amazeen,  chief  mate  of  the  Pilgrim,  kept  on  passage 

home  in  the  Alert,  1836.    Lent  by  Edward  C.  Amazeen  of  Melrose. 
Seaman's  papers  of  Andrew  B.  Amazeen.    Lent  by  Edward  C.  Amazeen. 
Porcellian  and  Phi  Beta  Kappa  medals  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr. 
Manuscript  dissertation  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  "Moral  and  Literary  Character  of 

Buhver's  Novels,"  winning  the  Bowdoin  prize,  at  Harvard  College,  1837. 
Harvard  College  catalogues  in  which  Dana's  name  appeared. 
Dana's  Diary  (kept  during  the  voyage),  from  which  the  manuscript  of  "Two 

Years  Before  the  Mast"  was  written  out. 
From  the  manuscript  of  "Two  Years  Before  the  Mast,"  the  account  of  the 

flogging. 
Fugitive  slave  case.    Brief  and  notes  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  in  the  trial  of  the  negro 

Scott  and  others,  1851,  for  rescuing  the  slave  Shadrach. 
Short  brief  (about  the  size  of  one's  hand)  being  the  notes  from  which  a  four  hours' 

argument  was  made  by  Dana  against  the  rendition  of  Anthony  Burns,  the  fugi- 
tive slave,  1854. 
Notes  taken  by  Mr.  Dana  during  the  trial  of  the  same. 
Silver  salver  presented  May  2,  1854,  to  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  by  Wendell  Phillips  and 

others,  for  his  defense  of  Anthony  Burns,  the  fugitive  slave,  Mr.  Dana  having 

refused  any  compensation  for  his  services  in  that  or  any  other  fugitive  slave 

case. 
"Specimens  of  the  British  Poets."    Presented  to  Mr.  Dana  in  1853  by  a  colored 

woman — "As  a  small  token  of  my  Respect  for  your  untiring  exertions  not  only 

in  my  cause,  but  in  being  a  friend  in  all  cases  to  a  proscribed  race. 

Respectfully 

RosANNE  Taylor." 
A  London  edition  of  Hallam's  works,  in  eight  volumes,  presented  to  Mr.  Dana 

by  Robert  Morris,  the  first  colored  lawyer  of  Boston,  and  others  of  his  race, 

with  a  grateful  inscription.    [This  was  not  found  in  time  for  the  exhibit.] 
Commission  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  as  United  States  District  Attorney,  signed  by 

Lincoln  and  Seward. 
Draft  of  a  letter  from  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  to  William  M.  Evarts,  advising  against 

the  trial  of  Jefferson  Davis  for  treason.    Evarts  and  Dana  had  been  appointed 

counsel  by  the  government  to  conduct  the  trial  in  1868,  but  their  advice  against 

the  measure  was  accepted. 
Vertical  folder  case  containing  letters  received,  newspaper  clippings  of  speeches, 

resolutions  and  articles  prepared  by  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  arranged  chronologically. 
Six  bound  volumes  of  letters  received  by  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  from  1838  to  December, 

1860. 


162  THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY  [Oct. 

Letter  of  Mr.  Lee  Warner  introducing  to  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  his  "young  friend  J. 
Bryce,"  the  present  Lord  Bryce. 

Letters  from  Lord  Chancellor  Cranworth,  Chief  Justice  Campbell,  and  the  Duke 
of  Argyll,  selected  from  letters  received  by  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  while  in  England 
in  1856. 

Letter  of  Lafayette  to  William  Ellery,  a  signer  of  the  Declaration,  great  grand- 
father of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr. 

Proclamation  of  Count  Rochambeau,  commander  of  the  French  fleet  during  tlie 
Revolutionary  War,  presented  to  William  Ellery. 

Letter  from  William  Wordsworth,  and  copy  of  poem  in  hand"WTiting  of  Mrs. 
Wordsworth,  to  Washington  Allston,  uncle-in-law  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr. 

Letter  from  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  to  Wasliington  Allston. 

Editions  of  "  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast" 

1840.  New  York,  Harper  &  Bros.     (Harper's  Family  Library,  No.  106.)    Boimd  in 
black  cloth. 

The  first  edition,  published  anonymously.    This  copy  is  full  of  pencil  notes  of 
correction  and  suggestion  by  the  author's  father,  R.  H.  Dana,  Sen. 
The  same.    Bound  in  brown  linen. 

The  same  edition  appeared  subsequently  with  different  dates  in  the  imprint. 

1841,  London,  Edward  Moxon.    Bound  in  half  calf. 

An  author's  edition,  Moxon  having  voluntarily  paid  more  for  the  privilege 
in  England  than  Dana  got  from  Harper  &  Bros,  in  America,  though  there 
was  then  no  international  copyright. 

1854.  London,  G.  Routledge  &  Co.    12th  thousand. 

1869.  Boston  &  New  York,  Ticknor  &  Fields. 

With  illustration  at  head  of  first  chapter. 

Other  copies  of  the  same  date  have  imprint,  Boston,  Fields,  Osgood  &  Co., 
successors  to  Ticknor  and  Fields. 

The  preface  to  tliis  "New  edition"  reads:  "After  twenty-eight  years,  the 
copyright  of  this  book  has  reverted  to  me.  In  presenting  the  first  'author's 
edition'  to  the  public,  I  have  been  encouraged  to  add  an  account  of  a  visit  to 
the  old  scenes,  made  twenty-four  years  after,  together  with  notices  of  the  sub- 
sequent story  and  fate  of  the  vessels,  and  of  some  of  the  persons  with  whom  the 
the  reader  is  made  acquainted.    R.  H.  D.,  Jr.    Boston,  May  6,  1869." 

1869.  London,  Sampson  Low,  Son  &  Marston. 

With  frontispiece,  and  chapter  "Twenty-four  Years  After." 

1871.  Boston,  James  R.  Osgood  &  Co.,  late  Ticknor  &  Fields  and  Fields,  Osgood  &  Co. 

With  illustration  at  beginning  of  first  chapter,  and  additional  chapter  "  Twenty- 
four  Years  After." 

1872.  The  same. 

1873.  The  same. 
1875.  The  same. 

1877.  Edinburgh,  Adam  &  Charles  Black. 

With  frontispiece  and  vignette  on  title  page;   contains  glossary  of  sea  terms 

and  draAvings  of  ships  evidently  taken  from  Dana's  Seaman's  Manual. 
1879.  Boston,  Houghton,  Osgood  &  Co. 

Same  as  James  R.  Osgood  &  Co.'s  editions. 
1890.  New  York,  Worthington  Co. 
1894.  London,  Glasgow  and  Dublin,  Blackie  &  Son,  Ltd.    (Blackie's  School  and  Hom« 

Library.) 


1915.]         EXHIBIT  — HARVARD  COLLEGE  LIBRARY  1G3 

1895.  Boston  &  New  York,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 

With  illustration  at  head  of  first  chapter  and  chapter  "Twenty-four  Years 

After." 

1895.  Boston  &  New  York,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 

The  same  as  the  last,  but  with  portrait  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  as  frontispiece  (from 
daguerreotype  of  1840,  with  sailor  necktie). 
Another  copy. 

Illustrated  with  photographs  taken  on  the  spot  in  California  and  maps  in- 
serted. Handsomely  bound  in  leather,  with  manuscript  index.  Presented 
to  the  widow  of  the  author  in  1896  by  her  nephew  and  niece.  Full-rigged 
ship  embossed  on  cover. 

[1895.]  Boston  &  New  York,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.    (Riverside  Literature  Series.) 

1895.  Philadelphia,  Henry  Alteraus. 

With  picture  of  full-rigged  brig  as  frontispiece.  Title  page  in  red  and  green. 
A  few  wood-cut  illustrations  through  the  book.    Abridged. 

1896.  New  York,  Boston  and  New  Orleans.    University  Publishing  Co.    Paper  cover. 

Abridged  for  school  reading  with  an  introduction  and  notes.     (Very  much 
abridged.) 
1896.  Boston,  New  York  and  Chicago.    Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.     (Riverside  School 
Library.) 

1899.  London,  Adam  &  Charles  Black. 

With  illustrated  cover  in  colors;  illustration  on  back  and  front;  frontispiace 
and  title  page  with  illustrations  of  vessels  and  a  glossary  of  sea  terms;  ship's 
sail  and  rigging  evidently  taken  from  Dana's  Seaman's  Manual. 

1900.  New  York,  D.  Appleton  &  Co.    (World's  Great  Books  Series,  Aldine  edition.) 

Bound  in  green  buckram.  With  critical  and  biographical  introduction  by 
Charles  Warren  Stoddard ;  with  chapter  "  Twenty-four  Years  After."   Portrait. 

1909.  New  York,  P.  F.  Collier  &  Son.    (Harvard  classics.) 

With  introduction,  notes  and  illustrations;  photograph  from  portrait  by  Miss 
Pertz  opposite  title  page. 

1909.  New  York,  Macmillan  Co.     (Pocket  American  &  English  Classics.) 

Frontispiece  portrait  and  autograph.  School  edition  with  glossary.  With  in- 
troduction and  notes  by  Homer  Eaton  Keyes. 

1911.  New  York,  Macmillan  Co. 

With  introduction  by  Sir  Wilfred  Grenfell  and  illustrations  by  Charles  Pears. 
Handsome  edition  with  colored  illustrations  and  good  type. 

1911.  Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 

With  a  supplement  by  the  author,  and  introduction  and  additional  chapter 
entitled  "Seventy-six  Years  After,"  by  his  son.  Indexed;  appendix  with 
information  regarding  the  vessels,  their  crews  and  officers.  Colored  illustra- 
tions by  E.  Boyd  Smith.  Front  cover  illustration  from  S.  M.  Chase's  pic- 
ture of  the  Alert  (colored).  Charts  of  the  voyage  and  of  the  coast  of  Cali- 
fornia on  fly-leaves  at  the  beginning  and  end  of  book. 
The  same  in  two  volumes.    Bound  in  canvas. 

Edition  de  luxe,  with  many  additional  drawings  and  sketches,  etc.  Limited 
edition,  large  paper. 

Undated  Editions 

Philadelphia,  Henry  Altemus. 
With  frontispiece  portrait  marked  Richard  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  but  in  reality  a  pic- 
ture of  his  father.    Somewhat  abridged.    A  picture  of  the  brig  was  substituted 
as  frontispiece  in  a  later  edition. 


164  THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY  [Oct. 

New  York,  Hearst  &  Co. 

Illustrated  cx)ver  back  and  front. 
New  York,  F.  M.  Lupton  Publishing  Co.    Green  paper  cover. 
New  York,  A.  L.  Burt. 

Full-page  illustration  of  a  barkentine  opposite  title  page. 
New  York,  Merrill  &  Baker.     (The  Levant  edition.) 

Full-page  illustration  of  fishing  boat  hailing  ship  in  fog  opposite  title  page. 

Title  page  in  red  and  black. 
New  York,  John  W.  Lovell  Co. 

Date  of  purchase,  December,  1889.  i 

New  York,  Lovel,  Coryell  &  Co. 
New  York,  American  Publishers'  Corporation. 
London,  New  York  and  Melbourne,  Ward,  Lock  &  Co. 

Frontispiece  a  full-page  illustration  of  the  brig. 
London,  J.  M.  Dent  &  Sons;  New  York,  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.        (Everyman's 

Library,  edited  by  Ernest  Rhys.) 
London,  Milner  &  Sowerby. 

With  frontispiece  of  brig  and  irrelevant  picture  on  title  page.    With  additions 

and  appendix  not  by  the  author. 
London,  Frederick  Warne  &  Co.    Paper  cover. 

Includes  a  glossary  of  sea  terms. 
London,  T.  Nelson  &  Sons.    (Sixpenny  Classics.) 

Photogravure  of  brig  before  the  wind  with  full  sail  set.   Much  abridged.     This 

copy  bought  in  Glasgow,  1913. 
The  same. 

With  wrapper  marked  "Price  in  France  1  fr."    This  copy  from  Paris,  1915. 

In  the  Congressional  Library  there  is  a  Dutch  translation  printed  in  Holland. 

In  a  catalogue  of  foreign  books  is  advertised  a  German  translation,  evidently 

taken  from  Harper's  anonymous  edition,  but  attributed  to  James  Fenimore 

Cooper,  and  a  French  translation,  anonymous. 

Fifty-four  editions  or  more,  issued  by  thirty-two  different  publishers,  are 

known. 

Editions  of  " The  Seaman's  Friend" 

The  Seaman's  Friend;   containing  a  treatise  on  practical  seamanship,  with 

plates;  a  dictionary  of  sea  terms;  customs  and  usages  of  the  merchant  service; 

laws  relating  to  the  practical  duties  of  master  and  mariners. 
1841.  Boston,  Charles  C.  Little  &  James  Brown  and  Benjamin  Loring  &  Co.;  New 

York,  Dayton  &  Saxton,  and  E.  &  G.  W.  Blunt;  Philadelphia,  Carey  &  Hart. 
1847.  Boston,  Thomas  Groom  &  Co.    5th  edition. 

Interleaved,  with  a  few  notes  by  the  author. 
1851.  Boston,  Thomas  Groom  &  Co.    6th  edition,  revised  and  corrected. 
1854.  Boston,  Thomas  Groom  &  Co.    7th  edition. 

An  8th  edition  was  issued  in  1856,  and  a  9th  in  1857. 
1861.  Dana's  Seamen's  Friend.    New  edition  revised  and  corrected;   and  with  notes 

by  James  Lees.    London  &  Liverpool,  George  Philip  &  Son. 
1871.  The  Seaman's  Manual.    12th  edition,  revised  and  corrected  in  accordance  with 

the  most  recent  acts  of  Parliament.    By  John  J.  Mayo,  registrar  general  of 

shipping  and  seamen.    London,  E.  Moxon,  Son  &  Co. 


1915.1         EXHIBIT  — HARVARD  COLLEGE  LIBRARY         1G5 

Editions  of  ** To  Cvba  and  Back.    A  Vacation  Voyage" 

1859.  Boston.    Ticknor  &  Fields. 

Two  copies,  one  a  presentation  copy,  "Sarah  W.  Dana,  from  her  husband, 
the  author,  May  20,  1859."    One,  with  autograph  of  author. 
1859.  London.    Smith,  Elder  &  Co. 
1887.  Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.     Fourteenth  edition.  ' 

Wheaton's  Elements  of  International  Law.     Eighth  edition.     Edited,  with 
notes,  by  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.    Boston,  Little,  Brown  and  Company,  1866. 

Presentation  on  fly  leaf  to  Edmund  T.  Dana,  brother  of  the  author  in  the 
author's  handwriting. 
Reprint  of  Richard  Henry  Dana's  Note  (215)  to  Wheaton's  International  Law, 
illustrating  the  rights  of  law  as  to  neutrals,  printed  by  the  executive  department 
for  the  use  of  the  agents  and  attorneys  of  the  United  States  at  the  arbitration 
at  Geneva,  with  a  letter  from  J.  C.  Bancroft  Davis,  Department  of  State,  Wash- 
ington, August  3,  1871. 


A  full  collection  of  arguments,  reports,  and  articles  in  magazines  and  in  pam- 
phlet form  including  Lexington  Centennial  oration;  the  Old  South  argument;  the 
defense  of  Rev.  I.  S.  Kallock;  the  argument  in  the  Dal  ton  divorce  case;  tribute 
to  Judge  Sprague;  address  on  Edward  Everett;  argument  against  the  proposed 
removal  of  Judge  Loring;  speech  at  Manchester,  N.  H.,  just  before  the  opening 
of  the  Civil  War;  Faneuil  Hall  address  on  the  question  of  reconstruction; 
Enemy's  territory  and  alien  enemies;  trial  of  Rev.  O.  S.  Prescott;  the  Bible 
in  schools;  usury  laws  and  several  reprints;  argument  before  the  Halifax 
Fisheries  Commission;  argument  in  the  Amy  Warwick  prize  cause;  defense  of 
Charles  G.  Davis  charged  with  attempt  to  rescue  fugitive  slave;  argument 
against  the  incorporation  of  the  town  of  Belmont;  argument  on  the  judiciary; 
report  of  Overseers;  article  on  Francis  Dana,  grandfather  of  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.; 
on  the  discovery  of  ether;  argument  in  defense  of  Anthony  Bums;  speech  on 
the  reorganization  of  the  rebel  states,  June  21,  1865;  voyage  on  the  Grand 
Canal,  Atlantic  Monthly,  May,  1891;  Allston  and  his  unfinished  picture,  At- 
lantic Monthly,  1889;  On  Leonard  Woods,  Scribner's  Monthly,  November, 
1880;  sketch  of  American  diplomacy,  Scribner's  Monthly,  August,  1880;  how 
we  met  John  Brown,  Atlantic  Monthly,  1871. 

Richard  Henry  Dana,  Jr.  Speeches  in  Stirring  Times  and  Letters  to  a  Son, 
edited  with  introductory  sketch,  a  bibliography  and  notes  by  Richard  H.  Dana, 
3d.    Boston  and  New  York,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1910. 

With  a  bill  of  sale  of  slaves  inserted. 

Richard  Henry  Dana.    A  Biography:  By  Charles  Francis  Adams.    Boston, 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1890.    2  vols. 
A  later  revised  edition  of  the  same. 


166         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 


THE   THIETY-SIXTH   MEETING 

npHE  Thirty-sixth  Meeting  of  the  Cambridge  Historical 
Society,  being  the  eleventh  annual  meeting,  was  held 
on  the  26th  day  of  October,  1915,  at  eight  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  in  Agassiz  House  Theatre,  Eadcliffe  College. 

In  the  absence  of  the  President  and  the  Vice-Presidents, 
the  meeting  was  called  to  order  by  the  Secretary.  Hollis 
Kussell  Bailey  was  chosen  chairman.  The  minutes  of  the 
previous  meeting  were  read  and  approved. 

The  Annual  Keports  of  the  Council,  the  Secretary,  the 
Curator,  and  the  Treasurer,  with  the  Keport  of  the  Auditor, 
were  presented  as  follows: 

ANNUAL   KEPOKT    OF   THE    COUNCIL 

Four  meetings  of  the  Council  were  held  during  the  year. 

At  the  first  meeting,  held  October  27,  1914,  the  President  read 
a  letter  from  George  G.  Wright,  offering  to  will  to  the  Society  his 
local  historical  material.  Mrs.  Gozzaldi  read  a  letter  from  Elias 
Howe  Stockwell,  stating  that  he  had  sent  to  the  Society,  as  a  loan, 
a  portrait  of  Elias  Howe. 

At  the  second  meeting,  held  December  29,  1914,  various  changes 
were  made  in  the  functions  and  membership  of  several  of  the 
Standing  Committees.  A  special  Committee  was  appointed  to 
secure  new  members  and,  to  the  present  writing,  it  has  added 
thirty-three  names  to  the  roll. 

At  the  third  meeting,  held  March  31,  1915,  a  communication 
was  received  from  the  librarian  of  the  Cambridge  Public  Library, 
offering  to  donate  duplicates  of  Cambridge  directories  and  other 
volumes.  It  was  voted  to  print  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society 
the  Longfellow  Medal  essay  by  Margaret  Charlton  Black. 

At  the  fourth  meeting,  held  May  17,  1915,  it  was  voted  that 


1915.]        ANNUAL   EEPOET    OF   THE    COUNCIL  167 

Mrs.  Gozzaldi  be  authorized  to  purchase  the  Inman  journals,  the 
expense  not  to  exceed  $100.    The  purchase  was  effected  for  $60. 

The  Eeport  of  the  Secretary,  being  confined  to  a  notice 
of  the  several  meetings  of  the  year,  is  not  printed. 

No  formal  Curator's  report  was  presented,  and  the  list 
of  gifts  for  the  year  will  be  printed  in  the  next  volume  of 
the  Proceedings. 


ANNUAL   EEPORT    OF    THE    TREASURER 

In  obedience  to  the  requirements  of  the  By-Laws  the  Treasurer 
herewith  presents  his  Annual  Report  of  the  Receipts  and  Dis- 
bursements for  the  year  1914-1915. 

CASH   ACCOUNT 

RECEIPTS 

Balance  28  October,  1914      $380.92 

Admission  fees $52.00 

Annual  Assessments:  Regular  Members $453.00 

Associate  Members  .    .    .         6.00      459.00 

Interest .96 

Society's  Publications  sold 4.75       516.71 

$897.63 

DISBURSEMENTS 

The  University  Press,  printing $289.33 

Samuel  Usher,  printing  notices  of  meetings,  etc.       .    .    ^   .    .  52.75 

Mrs.  E.  W.  Hildeburn,  George  Inman  Journals        60.00 

Ella  S.  Wood,  services  as  cataloguer ^  36.00 

Remington  Typewriter  Co.,  rent  of  typewriter 4.00 

Edith  L.  Wilde,  clerical  services  rendered  the  Treasurer        .    .  25.00 

Radcliffe  College,  use  of  theatre      3.22 

WilUam  H.  Cutler,  use  of  "Emerson  J"  for  meeting      ...  1.00 

Typewriting  reports,  papers,  etc 17.45 

Postage,  expressage,  stationery  and  all  petty  items      ....  17.57       506.32 

Balance  on  deposit  22  October,  1915      391.31 

$897.63 

Heney  H.  Edes, 

Treasurer, 
CAMBRiDaE,  25  October,  1915. 


168        THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 


KEPOET    OF    THE    AUDITOK 

I  FIND  the  foregoing  account  from  28  October,  1914,  to  22  Octo- 
ber, 1915,  to  have  been  correctly  kept  and  to  be  properly  vouched. 
I  have  also  verified  the  cash  balance  of  $391.31. 

Andrew  McF.  Davis, 

Auditor, 
Boston,  25  October,  1915. 

The  Eeport  of  the  Committee  on  Nomination  of  Officers 
was  read  and  accepted,  and  the  Committee  was  discharged. 

The  following  persons,  nominated  by  the  Committee,  were 
elected  by  ballot  for  the  year  1915-16; 

President William  Roscoe  Thayeb 

i  Andrew  MoFarland  Davis 
Archibald  Murray  Howe 
WORTIIINGTON  -ChAUNCY   FORD 

Secretary Albert  Harrison  Hall 

Curator Albert  Harrison  Hall 

Treasurer Henry  Herbert  Edes 

The  Council 

WiLLLAM  Roscoe  Thayer  Hollis  Russell  Bailey 

Andrew  McFarland  Davis  Samuel  Francis  Batcueldee 

Archibald  Murray  Howe  Frank  Gaylobd  Cook 

Wobthington  Chauncy  Ford  Mary  Isabella  Gozzaldi 

Albert  Harrison  Hall  William  Coolidge  Lane 

Henry  Herbert  Edes  Alice  Mary  Longfellow 

It  was  voted  that  the  thanks  of  the  Society  be  extended 
to  Eichard  Henry  Dana  for  his  long  and  faithful  service 
as  President  during  a  period  of  ten  years. 

No  papers  were  read  at  this  meeting,  and,  the  officers 
having  been  elected,  the  meeting  was  dissolved. 


1915.]  NECROLOGY  169 


NECEOLOGY 

"  Abbott,  Miss  Carrie  Frances,  was  bom  July  1,  1854,  at  Brigh- 
ton, Massachusetts,  where  the  early  years  of  her  life  were  spent.  She 
was  directly  descended  from  Major  Simon  Willard  of  Colonial  fame. 
In  girlhood  she  moved  with  her  parents  to  Cambridge,  which  there- 
after was  her  home.  She  was  one  of  four  children  and  their  last 
survivor.  Her  education  was  obtained  in  private  schools  of  Cam- 
bridge, of  which  Mr.  Gale's  school  for  young  ladies  was  the  last. 
In  religious  thought  Miss  Abbott  was  a  Unitarian,  and  for  many 
years  was  a  member  of  the  First  Church  in  Cambridge  and  shared 
its  varied  interests.  She  was  interested  in  the  philanthropic  and 
educational  institutions  of  Cambridge,  including  the  Cambridge 
Hospital,  the  Avon  Home,  the  Cambridge  Homes  for  Aged  People, 
the  Associated  Charities  of  Cambridge,  and  Eadcliffe  College.  She 
was  actively  connected  with  the  Associated  Charities,  where  she 
rendered  excellent  service  as  a  friendly  visitor.  All  of  the  above  in- 
stitutions were  beneficiaries  under  her  will.  Music  was  a  deep  abid- 
ing influence  throughout  her  life,  and  besides  this  she  had  decided 
tastes  for  literature,  English  and  German,  travel,  and  the  occupa- 
tions of  out-of-door  life. 

Miss  Abbott  possessed  the  New  England  temperament  to  a  marked 
degree,  being  a  person  of  strong  convictions,  frank  utterance,  ready 
wit,  and  independence  of  character. 

She  endured  a  long,  wearying  illness,  throughout  which  she  was 
an  example  of  remarkable  fortitude.  Her  death  occurred  June  1, 
1909. 

Abbott,  The  Eev.  Edvs^ard,  D.D.,  was  bom  in  Parmington,  Maine, 
July  15,  1841.  He  was  the  youngest  son  of  Jacob  and  Harriet 
Vaughan  Abbott.  He  was  prepared  for  college  partly  under  the 
tuition  of  his  brothers  and  partly  at  the  Farmington  Academy.  He 
received  the  degree  of  A.B.  at  the  University  of  New  York  in  1860, 
and  his  alma  mater  in  1890  honored  him  with  the  degree  of  doctor  of 
theology. 

After  leaving  college,  in  1860,  he  entered  Andover  Theological 
Seminary,  preparatory  to  becoming  a  minister  of  the  Congregational 
Church.    His  ordination -took  place  on  July  28,  1863. 


170         THE    CAMBRIDGE   IIISTOEICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

While  still  connected  with  the  Andover  Seminary  he  spent  some 
months  with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  in  the  service  of  the  United 
States  Sanitary  Commission. 

In  18()5  he  organized  what  has  since  become  the  Pilgrim  Church 
in  Cambridgeport.  In  1869  he  severed  his  connection  with  this  church 
and  became  associate  editor  of  the  Congregationalist.  From  1877  to 
1888  and  again  from  1895  to  1903  he  was  editor  of  the  Literary  World. 

While  living  in  Cambridge,  after  the  close  of  the  war,  he  served 
as  a  member  of  the  school  board.  In  1872  and  1873  he  was  chaplain 
of  the  Senate  of  the  Commonwealth. 

In  1878  he  joined  the  Episcopal  Church.  His  life  with  the  Congre- 
gationalists  was  one  of  happiness  and  usefulness.  He  had  the  esteem 
of  his  brethren  and  their  confidence,  manifested  in  the  positions  of 
honor  in  which  from  time  to  time  he  was  placed.  There  was  no 
bitterness  in  the  separation,  and  love  and  goodwill  always  prevailed 
upon  either  side. 

Immediately  after  his  confirmation  by  Bishop  Paddock,  Mr.  Abbott 
was  appointed  a  special  lay  reader  in  charge  of  St.  James,  then 
a  small  and  struggling  mission  in  Cambridge.  He  was  ordained 
deacon  January  8,  1879,  and  on  January  20,  1880,  he  was  made 
priest  and  became  the  rector  of  the  parish.  In  spite  of  maaiy  urgent 
and  attractive  calls  to  go  elsewhere,  he  continued  with  St.  James 
for  twenty-eight  years,  when  he  was  made  rector  emeritus. 

He  married  first,  February  16,  1865,  Miss  Clara  Davis.  Their 
children  were  Edward  Apthorp,  Madeline  Vaughan,  and  Eleanor 
Hallowell.  His  first  wife  died  May  25,  1882,  and  he  married  again, 
August  21,  1883,  Miss  Katherine  Kelley,  daughter  of  Hon.  Alfred 
and  Mary  Seymour  Welles  Kelley,  of  Columbus,  Ohio. 

He  died  in  Boston  April  5,  1908.  He  held  many  important  offices, 
both  within  and  without  the  Church.  He  was  secretary  of  the  standing 
committee  of  the  diocese,  a  deputy  to  the  general  convention,  and  dean 
of  the  Eastern  Convocation.  He  was  president  of  the  Associated  Chari- 
ties of  Cambridge  and  president  of  the  Cambridge  City  Mission. 

Immersed  as  he  was  in  Church  work,  he  nevertheless  found  time 
for  literary  work  of  no  mean  character.  He  was  the  author  of 
many  books  and  papers,  including  '^A  Paragraph  History  of  the 
American  Eevolution,*'  "  A  Paragraph  History  of  the  United  States,'* 
and  a  "  History  of  Cambridge." 

He  was  a  very  quiet  ajid  unassuming  man.  As  a  pastor  he  waa 
surpassed  by  few.  As  a  preacher  of  the  word  of  God  he  stood  among 
the  highest.  He  had  the  courage  of  his  convictions.  He  was  a 
loyal  friend. 


1915.]  NECROLOGY  171 

Baker,  Miss  Charlotte  Alice,  was  born  April  4,  1833,  at 
Springfield,  Massachusetts.  Her  father  was  Matthew  Bridge  Baker 
of  Charlestown,  her  mother  Catharine  Catlin  of  Greenfield.  Her 
father,  after  three  jK^ars  at  Harvard,  took  up  the  study  of  medicine 
and  tlien  married  and  settled  at  Springfield,  Massachusetts. 

Dr.  Baker  was  a  descendant  of  Thomas  Baker,  who  was  in  Rox- 
bury  as  early  as  1640,  and  of  Deacon  John  Bridge,  who  was  in 
Cambridge  in  1633. 

Catharine  Catlin  traced  her  ancestry  back  to  Mr.  John  Catlin 
(son  of  John  of  Wethersfield),  who  came  to  Deerfield  soon  after 
its  permanent  settlement  in  1671.  On  her  mother's  side  Catharine 
Catlin  came  from  Rowland  Stebbins  (Roxbury,  1634),  who  with 
William  Pynchon  was  a  founder  of  Springfield. 

Miss  Baker's  story  of  her  childhood  was  printed  in  1870  under 
the  title  "  The  Doctor's  Little  Girl."  She  was  a  pupil  at  Deerfield 
Academy  and  for  one  year  at  Dr.  Cornelius  Sowle  Cartee's  school  in 
Charlestown. 

She  early  became  a  teacher  and  was  for  a  short  time  with  her 
aunt  at  La  Salle,  Illinois,  and  for  a  longer  period  at  Deerfield 
Academy.  Then  from  1856  to  1864  she  was  in  Chicago  with  her 
friend,  Miss  Susan  Minot  Lane. 

In  1864  the  school  in  Chicago  was  given  up  and  the  two  friends 
came  to  live  with  Miss  Baker's  mother  in  Cambridge.  Miss  Baker 
now  engaged  in  the  work  of  writing  articles  and  reviews  for  newspapers 
and  magazines  and  also  papers  upon  historical  subjects.  Her  work 
as  a  teacher  was  not  abandoned,  and  after  a  short  interval  she  with 
Miss  Lane  opened  a  school  on  Charles  Street  in  Boston.  In  1882, 
by  invitation  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Barthold  Schlesinger,  Miss  Lane  and 
Miss  Baker  moved  their  school  to  the  beautiful  Schlesinger  estate 
in  Brookline,  where  they  continued  until  Miss  Lane's  death  in  1893. 

Miss  Baker's  great  interest  was  in  Deerfield  and  in  Deerfield 
Academy.  She  prepared  and  read  many  papers  before  the  Pocum- 
tuck  Valley  Memorial  Association  of  Deerfield.  In  1897  she  printed 
a  volume  containing  thirteen  of  these  papers,  entitled  "  True  Stories 
of  New  England  Captives  Carried  to  Canada  during  the  Old  French 
and  Indian  Wars."  In  the  preface  she  wrote:  "I  have  taken  upon 
myself  a  mission  to  open  the  door  for  their  return."  She  went 
several  times  to  Canada,  searching  the  records  there.  Of  the  Deer- 
field captives  she  learned  of  eighteen  whose  fate  had  not  been 
loiown  and  also  learned  the  fate  of  many  more  from  other  New 
England  towns.  The  value  of  this  work  was  fully  recognized,  and  she 
was  invited  to  membership  in  the  New  York  and  Montreal  Historical 


172         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

Societies  and  was  often  asked  to  speak  on  historical  subjects  in  the 
Old  South  Church  in  Boston. 

She  owned  and  lived  in  the  oldest  and  most  interesting  house  in 
Deerfield.  She  named  it  Frary  House,  after  her  ancestor,  Sampson 
Frary,  who  may  have  built  it  as  early  as  1683.  She  provided 
that  it  should  go  ultimately  to  the  Historical  Association  in  Deer- 
field.  She  was  one  of  the  trustees  of  Deerfield  Academy  and 
worked  untiringly  to  strengthen  it.  The  "  C.  Alice  Baker  Endow- 
ment Fund  "  constitutes  her  fitting  memorial. 

She  died  in  Pittsfield  May  22,  1909.  The  meeting  house  bell  tolled 
the  number  of  her  years  to  tell  the  people  of  Deerfield  that  they  had 
lost  their  friend  and  benefactor. 

Bradbury,  William  Frothingham,  was  born  May  17, 1829,  in  the 
town  of  Westminster,  the  son  of  William  S.  and  Elizabeth  (Emerson) 
Bradbury.  His  paternal  ancestor,  Thomas  Bradbuiy,  came  to  Maine 
in  1634,  and  his  maternal  ancestor,  Thomas  Emerson,  came  to  Ips- 
wich, Massachusetts,  in  1635.  Thomas  Bradbury  came  to  New  Eng- 
land as  the  agent  of  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  the  proprietor  of  what 
is  now  the  State  of  Maine.  Thomas  removed  to  Ipswich,  where  he 
continued  to  live,  holding  many  town  offices.  He  was  also  a  repre- 
sentative to  the  General  Court  for  seven  years.  The  wife  of  Thomas 
was  accused  of  being  a  witch  and  was  tried  and  convicted,  but 
sentence  was  never  imposed.  William  S.  Bradbury  was  one  of  the 
leading  men  of  Westminster  and  held  many  offices  in  the  town  and 
also  served  several  terms  in  the  Legislature. 

William  F.  Bradbury  received  his  early  education  in  the  schools 
of  Westminster.  He  then  entered  Amherst  College  and  was  graduated 
in  1856  as  the  first  scholar  in  his  class. 

He  came  to-  Cambridge  soon  after  his  graduation  and  was  ap- 
pointed submaster  of  physics  and  mathematics  in  the  high  school. 
In  1864  he  was  named  as  the  Hopkins  classical  teacher  and  retained 
that  title  throughout  his  connection  with  the  school.  He  became 
head  master  of  the  school  in  1881,  and  when  the  school  was  divided 
in  1886  he  was  made  head  master  of  the  Cambridge  Latin  School. 
He  continued  in  this  position  until  his  retirement  in  1910  after  a 
total  service  of  fifty-four  years. 

Mr.  Bradbury  was  a  great  educator  and  placed  his  school  in  the 
first  rank  of  American  high  schools.  In  1900  his  scholarship  was 
recognized  by  his  alma  mater,  which  conferred  on  him  the  degree 
of  L.H.D.  He  wrote  many  schoolbooks  and  was  the  author  of  many 
papers  upon  educational  subjects.     He  belonged  to   a  number  of 


1915.]  NECROLOGY  173 

teacliers'  clubs  and  associations  and  served  as  treasurer  of  the  Teach- 
ers' Annuity  Guild. 

His  love  for  music  was  deep  and  abiding.  He  joined  the  Handel 
and  Haydn  Society  in  1864,  was  elected  a  director  of  the  society  in 
1871,  ajid  was  made  its  secretary  in  1899.  He  held  this  office  until 
1909,  when  he  was  elected  president  and  served  in  that  capacity 
until  his  death.  After  his  retirement  from  school  work  he  wrote  a 
"  History  of  the  Handel  and  Haydn  Society .''  Mr.  Bradbury  took  a 
keen  interest  in  local  politics  and  served  for  one  year  in  the  common 
council. 

He  was  married  August  27,  1857,  to  Margaret  Jones  of  Tempi  eton. 
He  died  October  22,  1914.    His  wife  and  three  children  survive  him. 

He  will  be  missed  not  only  as  a  distinguished  citizen,  but  as  a 
friend  and  companion. 

Brown,  John  Greenwood,  was  born  in  Cambridge  November  24, 
1846,  and  was  a  lifelong  resident  of  our  city.  He  died  January  1, 
1908.  He  was  survived  by  his  wife,  to  whom  he  was  married  in 
1871,  and  also  by  one  daughter,  Miss  Elizabeth  G.  Brown. 

Mr.  Brown  received  his  education  in  the  public  schools  of  Cam- 
bridge. Upon  leaving  school  he  entered  the  iron  and  steel  trade 
and  continued  in  this  business  until  his  death.  He  was  for  some 
years  a  member  of  the  firm  of  Bacon  and  Brown  and  later  was 
president  of  the  Brown- Wales  Company.  He  was  uniformly  success- 
ful in  his  business  career  and  had  the  hearty  respect  of  all  his  as- 
sociates. To  an  eminent  degree  he  exemplified  the  Christian  virtues 
amid  the  strenuous  activities  of  a  prosperous  business  life.  He 
became  a  member  of  the  First  Baptist  Church  during  the  pastorate 
of  Eev.  Sumner  P.  Mason.  Subsequently  he  joined  the  Old  Cam- 
bridge Baptist  Church,  in  which  he  long  served -as  deacon. 

He  was  a  director,  and  for  a  short  time  president,  of  the  Cam- 
bridge Young  Men's  Christian  Association.  He  belonged  to  the 
Cambridge  Club,  the  Iron  and  Hardware  Club,  and  the  Cambridge 
Chapter  of  the  Sons  of  the  American  Revolution. 

He  will  be  remembered  for  his  kindly  earnestness,  his  unremitting 
zeal  in  every  noble  effort,  and  his  generous  support  of  many  worthy 
undertakings. 

Cogswell,  Edward  Russell,  the  son  of  Charles  Northend  and 
Margaret  Elizabeth  (Russell)  Cogswell,  was  bom  in  South  Berwick, 
Maine,  June  1,  1841. 

He  came  to  Cambridge  in  1852  and  was  a  pupil  at  the  Webster 


174         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

Grammar  School.  Having  fitted  for  college  at  the  Cambridge  High 
School  and  with  John  Noble  (H.  C.  1850),  he  entered  with  the 
class  of  1864.  At  the  end  of  his  sophomore  year  he  enlisted  in 
Company  F,  Forty-fourth  Regiment,  M.  V.  M.,  and  served  until 
June,  1863.  He  came  back  to  college  for  a  short  time  and  left 
during  the  first  term  of  his  senior  year. 

In  October  of  this  year  he  was  married  to  Sarah  Parks  Proctor 
of  Great  Falls,  New  Hampshire.  Soon  after  this  he  began  the 
study  of  medicine  with  Professor  Jeffries  Wyman  at  Cambridge, 
attending  the  lectures  at  the  Harvard  Medical  School  during  the 
winter  of  1864-1865.  In  the  fall  of  1865  he  entered  the  Harvard 
Medical  School  and  remained  until  July,  1867,  when  he  received 
the  degree  of  MJ).  and  began  the  practice  of  medicine  in  Cam- 
bridge. In  1871  he  received  the  degree  of  A.B.  (out  of  course) 
as  of  the  class  of  1864. 

He  was  a  member  of  the  school  committee  of  the  city  of  Cam- 
bridge from  1869  to  1879  and  health  officer  of  the  city  in  1878  and 
1879. 

In  September,  1880,  he  removed  to  New  York,  where  he  remained 
two  years,  and  then  returned  to  Cambridge  and  resided  at  61  Kirk- 
land  Street  until  his  death. 

He  was  a  member  of  the  board  of  aldermen  during  the  years 
1885,  1886,  1887,  and  1890,  and  served  for  several  years  as  a  trustee 
of  the  public  library.  He  was  elected  a  trustee  of  the  Cambridge 
Hospital  in  1897,  and  for  seventeen  years  devoted  much  of  his  time 
and  thought  to  the  affairs  of  that  institution.  Elected  warden  of 
St.  Peter's  Church,  Cambridge,  in  1866,  he  served  for  forty  years 
in  that  office  and  was  then  made  warden  emeritus.  He  was  a 
director  of  the  Charles  River  National  Bank  from  1909  to  1914. 
A  member  of  the  board  of  investment  of  the  Cambridge  Savings 
Bank  for  nearly  twenty-five  years,  he  served  as  a  vice  president  for 
four  years,  and  in  June,  1911,  was  elected  president  of  the  bank, 
which  office  he  held  until  his  death  on  December  22,  1914. 

His  wife,  Sarah  P.  Cogswell,  died  in  1907,  and  his  four  children, 
Charles  N.,  George  P.,  Margaret  E.,  and  Edward  R.  Cogswell,  sur- 
vive him. 

Goodwin,  Miss  Amelia  Mackay,  with  her  nine  Mayflower  an- 
cestors, her  descent  from  a  long  line  of  Puritan  dignitaries,  and  her 
own  interest  in  New  England  traditions,  belonged  by  right  as  well 
as  by  choice  to  an  historical  society.  Her  father  was  the  Rev.  Hersey 
Bradford  Goodwin,  the  scholarly  and  admired  young  Concord  min- 


1915.]  NECROLOGY  175 

ister,  the  colleague  of  Dr.  Ripley,  and  her  mother  was  Amelia  Mackay 
of  Boston.  Mr.  Goodwin  died  when  his  daughter  was  about  three 
years  old,  and  his  wife  died  soon  after  him,  leaving  her  two 
children,  Hersey  Bradford  and  Amelia  Mackay  Goodwin,  to  the  wise 
and  tender  care  of  her  brother  and  sister,  Mr.  Barnard  Mackay 
and  Miss  Frances  M.  Mackay.  Prof.  William  Watson  Goodwin 
was  the  son  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Goodwin  and  his  first  wife  and  lived 
through  his  youth  with  her  family  in  Plymouth. 

Miss  Goodwin  was  a  lady  of  modesty  and  refinement,  with  no  touch 
of  modern  aggressiveness,  devoted  to  her  friends,  of  whom  she  had 
many,  and  a  lover  of  animals,  of  birds,  and  of  fiowers.  She  was 
courteous  and  considerate  and  wished  always  to  give  her  full  share 
of  money,  service,  and  hospitality  to  the  community,  and  her  well- 
considered  private  charities  were  numerous.  The  Unitarian  Church 
and  its  interests  were  much  in  her  mind,  and  she  did  for  it  and 
the  Indian  Association  regular,  thorough,  and  conscientious  work. 
She  cared  for  reading  and  good  literature.  A  friend  said  of  her 
that  she  was  conservative  by  inheritance  and  by  taste,  but  was  un- 
usually open  minded  to  new  ideas;  and  even  for  those  she  could  not 
accept  she  showed  an  amused  tolerance.  She  had  a  marked  personal- 
ity ;  she  was  true  and  loyal  and  had  a  full,  useful,  but  uneventful  life. 

Miss  Goodwin's  manner  was  gentle  and  self-distrustful,  but  she 
had  the  Puritan  iron  in  her  blood,  which  made  her  "  to  true  occasion 
true."  She  bore  bravely  the  sorrows  of  life  and  she  had  the  com- 
mon sense  and  the  faith  which  accepts  the  inevitable  with  patience 
and  with  hope;  and  the  dignified  serenity  with  which,  for  several 
hours,  she  consciously  awaited  death,  saying  she  was  not  unhappy  in 
the  expectation,  would  have  made  her  ancestors  proud  of  their  de- 
scendant. 

Miss  Goodwin  was  born  in  Concord,  Massachusetts,  on  October  23, 
1835,  and  died  in  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  on  March  21,  1914. 

Gray,  John  Chipman,  LL.B.,  LL.D.,  was  born  at  Brighton,  Mas- 
sachusetts, July  14,  1839,  and  died  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  Feb- 
ruary 25,  1915.  He  was  the  son  of  Horace  Gray  (H.  C.  1819)  and 
his  second  wife,  Sarah  Russell  (Gardner)  Gray,  who  was  the  daughter 
of  Samuel  Pickering  Gardner  (H.  C.  1786). 

He  was  married  June  4,  1873,  to  Anna  hymaji  Mason,  daughter 
of  the  Rev.  Charles  Mason  (H.  C.  1832)  and  granddaughter  of  the 
Hon.  Jeremiah  Mason  (Y.  C.  1788).  They  had  two  children,  Ro- 
land Gray  (H.  C.  1895)  and  Eleanor,  wife  of  Henry  D.  Tudor 
(H.  C.  1895). 


176         THE    CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

After  studying  at  the  Boston  Latin  School  he  entered  Harvard  in 
1855  and  was  graduated  in  1859,  receiving  the  degree  of  A.B. 
He  then  attended  the  Harvard  Law  School  and  received  the  degree 
of  LL.B.  He  served  in  the  Union  Army,  1862-1865,  as  second 
lieutenant  in  the  Forty-first  Massachusetts  Infantry  and  in  the  Third 
Massachusetts  Cavalry  and  as  aide-de-camp  to  Gen.  George  H.  Gor- 
don.   He  finally  became  a  judge  advocate  with  the  rank  of  major. 

After  the  war  he  entered  upon  the  practice  of  law  in  Boston,  in 
partnership  with  John  Codman  Eopes,  and  continued  in  practice 
until  his  death. 

December  24,  1869,  he  was  appointed  lecturer  at  the  Harvard 
Law  School  and  continued  as  such  until  March  18,  1875,  when  he 
became.  Story  professor  of  law.  November  12,  1883,  he  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  Royall  professorship,  which  position  he  held  until  he 
resigned  February  1,  1913,  and  became  Royall  professor  of  law 
emeritus.  He  was  the  author  of  "  Restraints  on  Alienation,"  "  The 
Rule  against  Perpetuities,"  "  Cases  on  Property,"  and  "  The  Nature 
and  Sources  of  the  Law." 

Mr.  Gray  was  president  of  the  Harvard  Alumni  Association,  presi- 
dent of  the  Harvard  Chapter  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  fellow  and  vice 
president  of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  member 
of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  and  president  of  the  Boston 
Bar  Association.  He  received  the  degree  of  LL.D.  from  Yale  in 
1894  and  from  Harvard  in  1895. 

In  active  practice  Mr.  Gray  was  not  a  jury  lawyer.  He  was  an 
adviser,  an  arguer  before  courts  of  last  resort,  a  man  of  learning 
and  experience  in  every  part  of  the  law,  and  an  unsurpassed  expert 
in  the  law  of  property.  His  strength  lay  in  thoroughness,  clearness, 
and  the  ability  to  combine  learning  with  common  sense.  He  was  in 
the  first  rank  at  the  bar,  and  yet  he  found  his  career  as  a  teacher 
more  interesting  and  considered  it  more  important.  He  began  as  a 
lecturer  before  the  time  of  Langdell  and  Ames  and  continued  his 
own  method  after  they  had  made  the  case  system  a  success.  But 
eventually  he  became  a  convert,  adopted  that  system,  and  produced 
six  volumes  of  cases  for  the  use  of  his  classes. 

Mr.  Gray  kept  up  his  interest  in  the  ancient  classics  and  read 
Homer  for  pleasure.  Similarly  he  amused  himself  with  mathe- 
matics, including  the  calculus.  The  intricacies  of  theology  in- 
terested him  profoundly,  but  he  was  not  neglectful  of  novels  and  of 
art.  He  had  an  even  temper,  frankness  of  utterance,  kindness, 
humor.  He  treated  his  pupils  as  fellow  students,  working  with  them 
on  an  equal  footing  to  get  at  the  truth.     His  simple,  direct,  and 


1915.]  NECROLOGY  177 

kindly  manner  was  the  same  to  everyone,  and  the  form  and  sub- 
stance of  his  speech  were  fit  for  any  company. 

In  1881  Mr.  Gray  acquired  by  devise  from  his  uncle,  John  C. 
Gray  (PI.  C.  1817),  the  house  on  Brattle  Street,  in  Cambridge, 
bought  in  1808  by  his  grandfather,  Lieut.  Gov.  William  Gray,  the 
well-known  merchant  of  Salem  and  Boston.  William  Gray  and 
the  two  John  C.  Grays,  though  not  citizens  of  Cambridge,  lived  in 
this  house  a  portion  of  every  year,  continuously,  from  1808  or  1809 
to  1914,  inclusive.  The  house  was  built  shortly  before  1808  by 
Jonathan  Hastings,  whose  father  of  the  same  name  was  steward  of 
Harvard  College. 

Hannum,  The  Hon.  Leander  Moody,  was  born  at  Northampton, 
Massachusetts,  December  22,  1837.  He  died  at  his  home,  333  Har- 
vard Street,  Cambridge,  September  17,  1909. 

He  received  his  education  in  the  schools  of  Northampton,  at  Wil- 
liston  Seminary,  and  at  the  English  and  Classical  Institution  of 
Springfield. 

At  the  age  of  seventeen  he  went  with  his  father  to  California  by 
way  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama.  After  spending  two  years  there 
he  returned  to  Massachusetts  and  entered  the  wholesale  grocery 
business  as  a  clerk.  Two  years  later  he  was  employed  by  the  Home 
Sewing  Machine  Company  as  cashier  and  correspondent  in  New 
York  City. 

In  1864  he  started  on  his  own  account  a  grocery  store  in  Cam- 
bridge on  what  was  then  called  Main  Street.  He  also  engaged  in 
the  ice  trade  and  meanwhile  developed  a  large  and  lucrative  real 
estate  business,  to  which  after  1878  he  devoted  his  chief  attention. 
He  was  prominent  in  Cambridge  as  a  successful  business  man  and 
as  a  faithful,  efficient  worker  in  church  and  city  affairs.  He  waa 
elected  to  the  common  council  in  1873  and  to  the  board  of  aldermen 
in  1874  and  1875.  He  was  a  member  of  the  General  Court  in  1876 
and  1877  and  of  the  State  Senate  in  1881  and  1882.  For  ten  years 
he  was  a  member  of  the  Cambridge  water  board  and  served  as  special 
commissioner  for  Middlesex  County.  For  twenty-five  years  he  was 
chairman  of  the  standing  committee  of  the  Third  Congregational 
(Unitarian)   Society. 

He  was  a  member  of  Amicable  Lodge  of  Free  and  Accepted  Masons 
and  was  also  a  member  of  the  Royal  Arch  Chapter  and  of  Boston 
Commandery.  He  belonged  to  the  Colonial  Club,  the  Cambridge 
Club,  the  Citizens'  Trade  Association,  and  the  Real  Estate  Exchange 
of  Boston. 


178         THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

December  15,  1859,  he  married  Miss  Anne  Demain  of  Cambridge, 
who,  with  two  children,  predeceased  him. 

Mr.  Hannum  was  liberal  both  in  his  views  and  with  his  means. 
He  was  a  man  of  high  ideals,  a  wise  counsellor,  a  patriotic  citizen, 
a  good  neighbor,  and  a  loyal  friend. 

Irwin,  Miss  Agnes,  was  born  March  15,  1841,  in  Washington. 
Her  father,  William  W.  Irwin,  was  then  Congressman  from  Pitts- 
burgh, Pennsylvania.  Her  mother,  Sophia  Dallas  Irwin,  was  a 
descendant  of  Benjamin  Franklin  and  also  of  Alexander  James 
Dallas,  who  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  then  Secretary  of 
War  under  President  Madison. 

Miss  Irwin's  early  years  were  spent  in  Copenhagen,  Denmark, 
where  her  father  was  sent  as  United  States  Minister,  and  later  in 
Washington.  Thus  she  was  brought  up  in  the  stimulating  atmos- 
phere of  distinguished  people  and  of  public  affairs  both  here  and 
in  Europe.  In  1862  her  family  moved  to  New  York  and  Miss 
Irwin  continued  her  studies,  mostly  by  herself,  in  the  Astor  Library. 

In  1869  she  became  the  head  of  a  girls'  school  in  Philadelphia, 
where  she  taught  until,  in  1894,  she  came  to  Eadcliffe  as  dean.  Dur- 
ing her  holidays  Miss  Irwin  travelled  much  in  Europe,  thus  becom- 
ing intimate  with  the  scenes  of  history  and  with  great  pictures 
and  works  of  art.  She  visited  universities  and  studied  foreign  lan- 
guages and  met  and  made  friends  with  interesting  people  all  over  the 
world. 

In  1895  the  Western  University  of  Pennsylvania  conferred  on 
her  an  honorary  degree,  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  in  1898  gave 
her  the  degree  of  LittJ).,  and  in  1906  St.  Andrews,  Scotland,  gave 
her  an  LL.D. 

When,  in  1894,  Miss  Irwin  came  to  Cambridge,  Radcliffe  was  in 
a  formative  period.  Under  her  guidance  it  became  a  real  college, 
firmly  established  on  lasting  foundations.  Not  herself  a  college 
woman,  for  fifteen  years  she  stood  at  the  head  of  one  of  the  most 
important  of  women's  colleges  as  the  ideal  of  an  educated  woman. 
In  her  the  world  could  see  a  woman  of  higher  education,  dis- 
tinguished in  mind  and  manner,  learned  in  many  subjects,  conversant 
with  the  ways  of  men  and  women,  and  at  home  with  the  arts  and 
letters.  To  her,  education  was  the  mental  power,  to  be  gained 
through  constant  work  and  discipline,  which  can  change  life  from 
a  dreary  routine  to  a  way  of  peace  and  happiness.  Sincerity  was  the 
special  note  in  Miss  Irwin's  character.  She  never  pretended  to  any- 
thing.    She  had  great  visions  and  ambitions  for  Eadcliffe  and  she 


1915.]  NECEOLOGY  179 

gave  to  it  of  her  strength  freely.    Her  influence  is  still  felt  and  is  a 
part  of  Eadcliffe's  inheritance. 

Miss  Irwin  retired  from  office  September  1,  1909.  Her  death 
took  place  December  5,  1914,  at  Philadelphia. 

KiERNAN,  Thomas  J,  was  bom  in  Cambridge  July  27,  1837, 
tlie  son  of  Thomas  and  Mary  Kiernan.  He  received  his  education 
in  the  public  schools  and  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  in  March,  1855, 
he  was  appointed  janitor  of  the  Harvard  College  Library  in  the 
place  of  his  father,  who  had  been  taken  ill  and  who  died  shortly 
after.  Thomas  Kiernan,  the  father,  had  been  janitor  since  1829,  so 
that  the  combined  terms  of  service  to  the  University  of  father  and 
son  covered  a  period  of  eighty-five  years. 

In  1877,  w^hen  Mr.  Justin  Winsor  was  made  librarian,  Mr.  Kier- 
nan was  appointed  superintendent  of  circulation,  which  position  he 
held  until  his  death,  July  31,  1914.  In  1892  Harvard  College  con- 
ferred upon  him  the  honorary  degree  of  master  of  arts. 

June  2,  1875,  he  was  married  to  Fannie  Crossman  of  Taunton, 
who  died  ]\Iay  9,  1914.  The  only  surviving  member  of  the  family 
is  a  son,  William  L.  Kiernan,  who  was  an  assistant  on  the  staff 
of  the  Harvard  College  Library  for  several  years  and  later  an  assistant 
in  the  Massachusetts  State  Library. 

Mr.  Kiernan's  long  service  of  fifty-nine  years  at  the  Hansard 
Library  had  brought  him  into  intimate  contact  with  the  older  and 
younger  members  of  the  faculty,  as  well  as  students,  year  after  year, 
and  many  graduates  who  returned  in  later  life  for  Commencement 
found  opportunity  to  look  in  upon  their  old  friend. 

A  few  sentences  from  the  following  letter  show  the  regard  in  which 
many  a  Harvard  man  held  Mr.  Kiernan : 

My  acquaintance  with  him  goes  back  to  my  student  time  at  Harvard,  1859- 
63,  at  which  period  we  both  were  young  fellows.  That  was  wlien  Mr. 
Sibley  was  Librarian;  and  I  cannot  forget  how  much  dependence  Mr. 
Sibley  seemed  to  me  to  place  even  then  upon  "  Thomas  "  and  how  helpful 
and  sympathetic  "  Thomas "  always  was  to  us  youngsters.  Coming  back 
to  Boston  every  five  or  six  years,  it  gratified  me  to  find  that  despite  my 
long  periods  of  absence  abroad,  he  always  knew  me,  called  me  by  name, 
and  was  glad  to  see  me.  Tlie  Library  will  never  seem  quite  the  same  to 
me  in  the  future  with  Mr.  Kiernan  no  longer  to  be  foimd  at  his  well-known 
desk.  Besides,  I  shall  miss  his  help,  which  was  always  rendered  when 
wanted,  and  rendered  with  so  much  cheerfulness,  promptness,  and  definite 
knowledge.  It  is  fine  tliat  he  died  while  still  at  his  post;  to  have  dropped 
his  connection  with  the  Library  and  "  retired "  would  have  been  a  severe 
blow  to  him.  He  was  a  fine  type  of  a  sort  of  which  there  can  never  be  too 
many,  —  modest,  sincere,  effective,  friendly,  helpful. 


180         THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTOEICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

LoNGSTRETH,  Mes.  Mary  Oliver  HASTINGS,  the  daughter  of 
Oliver  and  HuldaJi  (Holmes)  (Tribou)  Hastings,  was  born  Novem- 
ber 4,  1845,  in  the  fine  old  mansion,  101  Brattle  Street,  Cambridge, 
then  recently  built  by  her  father.  Here  her  early  life  was  spent  as 
her  education  progressed  through  the  various  schools  in  Cambridge, 
beginning  with  the  dame  school  of  Miss  Jennison  on  Garden  Street, 
followed  by  those  of  Miss  Lyman,  Mr.  Williston,  and  Professor  Agas- 
siz.  On  October  11,  1871,  she  married  Dr.  Morris  Longstreth  of 
Philadelphia,  of  the  Harvard  class  of  1866.  Dr.  Longstreth  became 
eminent  in  his  profession  in  Philadelphia  and  was  for  many  years 
professor  of  pathology  in  the  Jefferson  Medical  College  there.  Their 
home  was  a  centre  of  large  hospitality  during  the  forty  years  of 
their  residence  in  Philadelphia,  and  Mrs.  Longstreth  was  active  in 
social  life,  having  been  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Acorn  Club  and 
president  of  the  Cavendish  Whist  Club.  On  their  return  to  the 
family  mansion  in  Cambridge,  in  1911,  the  same  hospitable  and 
gracious  spirit  prevailed  as  she  welcomed  again  the  friends  of  her 
early  days.  But  only  three  short  years  were  given  the  Longstreths 
in  which  to  enjoy  their  Cambridge  life,  for  in  the  summer  of  1914, 
while  travelling  abroad  in  the  hope  of  restoration  to  health,  both 
Mrs.  Longstreth  and  her  husband  died  within  a  very  short  time  of 
one  another  at  Barcelona,  Spain  —  Mrs.  Longstreth  on  August  28, 
1914,  and  Dr.  Longstreth  on  September  19.    They  had  no  children. 

Lovely  in  their  lives,  in  death  they  were  not  divided. 

McKenzie,  The  Eev.  Alexander,  was  bom  at  New  Bedford 
December  14,  1830.  His  father  was  Capt.  Daniel  McKenzie  and 
his  mother  Phoebe  Mayhew  (Smith)  McKenzie.  He  fitted  for  col- 
lege at  Phillips  Andover  Academy  and  entered  Harvard  in  1855. 
Having  received  the  degree  of  A.B.  in  1859,  he  entered  the  Andover 
Theological  Seminary  and  graduated  in  1861.  The  degree  of  A.M. 
was  conferred  upon  him  at  Harvard  in  1862.  In  1879  Amherst 
College  gave  him  the  degree  of  D.D.,  and  in  1901  Harvard  conferred 
upon  him  the  degree  of  S.T.D. 

He  was  pastor  of  the  South  Church  in  Augusta,  Maine,  1861- 
1867.  In  January,  1867,  he  was  called  to  the  First  Church  in  Cam- 
bridge (Congregational),  which  was  then  located  on  Mount  Auburn 
Street.  He  continued  as  pastor  and  pastor  emeritus  of  this  church 
for  forty-seven  years,  retiring  from  active  service  in  1910.  In  1872 
the  society  moved  into  its  new  church  at  the  corner  of  Garden  and 
Mason  streets  and  Dr.  McKenzie  was  presented  with  the  house  ad- 
joining, where  he  continued  to  live  until  his  death. 


1915.]  NECKOLOGY  181 

He  was  married  January  25,  1865,  in  Fitchburg  to  Miss  Ellen 
Holman  Eveleth.  He  was  survived  by  his  wife  and  two  children. 
Prof.  Kenneth  McKenzie  of  Yale  University  and  Miss  Margaret 
McKenzie. 

Dr.  McKenzie  was  a  lecturer  at  Harvard,  1882-1883,  and  served  as  a 
University  preacher,  1886-1889.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Board  of 
Overseers,  1872-1884,  and  was  secretary  of  the  board,  1875-1901. 

He  was  lecturer  at  the  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  1881- 
1882  and  1894-1897,  and  was  president  of  the  Board  of  Trustees 
of  Wellesley  College,  a  trustee  of  Phillips  Academy,  Andover,  and  a 
trustee  of  Hampton  Institute,  Virginia. 

In  1890  he  was  president  of  the  Boston  Seaman's  Friend  Society 
and  of  the  Boston  Port  Society.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Historical  Society;  trustee  of  Bowdoin  College,  1866-1868; 
member  of  the  Cambridge  school  committee,  1868-1874;  and  trustee 
of  the  Cambridge  Hospital.  In  1880  he  was  president  of  the  Boston 
Congregational  Club.  He  was  a  corporate  member  of  the  American 
Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions. 

He  was  the  author  of  the  following:  Two  Boys,  1870;  Lectures 
on  the  History  of  the  First  Church  in  Cambridge,  1873;  Caonbridge 
Sermons,  1884;  Some  Things  Abroad,  1887;  Christ  Himself,  ^1891; 
The  Divine  Force  in  the  Life  of  the  World,  1898 ;  A  Door  Opened, 
1898;  Now,  1899;  Getting  One's  Bearings,  1903;  Two  Ends  of  a 
House  Boat,  1910. 

He  was  a  co-worker  with  the  Eev.  Thomas  Scully,  the  Eev.  Francis 
G.  Peabody,  and  others  in  the  cause  of  no-license  in  Cambridge  in 
the  early  years  when  the  saloon  still  prevailed.  He  was  equally 
interested  and  helpful  in  the  later  years  when  no-license  was  an 
established  thing. 

Dr.  McKenzie  was  a  great  preacher.  In  the  pulpit  all  his  superb 
gifts  of  mind  and  heart  rose  to  their  highest  pitch.  He  dealt  with 
living  themes  for  the  needs  of  living  people. 

He  died  in  Cambridge  August  6,  1914. 

Myers,  The  Hon.  James  Jefferson,  was  born  at  Frewsburg, 
New  York,  November  20,  1842.  His  father,  Eobert  Myers,  was  a 
lumberman,  and  young  Myers,  until  he  was  twenty  years  of  age, 
shared  his  father's  responsibilities  and  assisted  him  in  carrying  on 
his  business. 

He  entered  Harvard  College  in  1865  and  graduated  in  due  course 
in  1869  with  the  degree  of  A.B.  He  then  studied  law  at  the  Har- 
vard Law  School,  receiving  the  degree  of  LL.B.  in  1872. 


182         THE   CAMBEIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

He  was  admitted  to  the  Suffolk  bar  in  1873  and  began  the  prac- 
tice of  his  profession  in  partnership  with  Joseph  Bangs  Warner 
under  the  firm  name  of  Myers  and  Warner.  Mr.  Myers  was  very 
early  employed  by  Mr.  Gordon  McKay  and  continued  as  his  at- 
torney and  adviser  until  the  death  of  Mr.  McKay,  when  he  became  a 
trustee  of  his  estate  and  the  principal  agent  of  his  great  benefactions. 

In  1893  Mr.  Myers  was  elected  to  the  House  of  Representatives 
and  continued  for  ten  years  as  a  member  of  that  body.  In  1900 
he  was  chosen  Speaker  and  for  three  years  held  tha,t  office.  The 
votes  of  his  fellow  citizens  and  his  fellow  members  registered  for 
ten  years  their  recognition  of  his  integrity,  sincerity,  and  prudence 
in  public  affairs.  After  his  retirement  from  political  life,  in  1903, 
Mr.  Myers  devoted  his  time  chiefly  to  the  administration  of  the 
McKay  estate,  which  had  important  interests  in  various  parts  of  the 
country. 

In  1874  he  secured  rooms  in  Wadsworth  House  in  Cambridge  and 
kept  them  until  his  death.  He  never  married,  but  was  of  a  social  dis- 
position and  a  welcome  guest  in  many  Cambridge  homes.  He  was 
always  a  strong  Republican  in  politics,  but  was  a  firm  believer  in  the 
principle  of  non-partisanship  in  municipal  affairs.  He  assisted  in 
many  .movements  for  social  betterment  and  political  reform. 

In  1890  he  took  a  leading  part  in  the  organization  of  the  Colonial 
Club  in  Cambridge.  He  was  an  active  member  of  the  Cambridge  Club 
and  held  the  office  of  president. 

His  character  was  like  his  physical  appearance,  robust,  firm,  and 
serene.    He  possessed  buoyant  courage  and  inward  peace. 

He  died  April  13,  1915.  He  will  always  be  remembered  as  an 
able  lawyer,  a  good  citizen,  and  a  faithful  public  servant. 

Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  was  bom  at  Shady  Hill  in  Cambridge 
November  16,  1827,  his  father  being  Andrews  Norton,  one  of  the 
leading  Unitarians  of  his  time,  librarian  of  the  College  1813-21,  and 
professor  of  sacred  literature  in  the  Divinity  School  from  1819  to 
1830.    He  died  October  21,  1908,  in  the  house  in  which  he  was  born. 

Mr.  Norton  was  graduated  from  Harvard  College  in  1846,  having 
"  highly  distinguished "  himself  in  Greek  and  Latin.  He  entered 
the  East  India  house  of  William  S.  BuUard  and  was  sent  in  1849  as 
supercargo  to  Calcutta.  After  seeing  something  of  India  and  the 
East  he  came  home  by  the  way  of  Egypt  and  Europe.  On  returning 
to  Cambridge  he  received  a  temporary  appointment  as  instructor  in 
French  at  Harvard,  to  supply  the  place  of  a  friend  who  had  fallen  ill. 
After  this  he  engaged  in  literary  work  and  spent  a  good  deal  of  time 


1915.]  NECKOLOGY  183 

in  Europe  in  the  study  of  art  and  literature.  His  friendship  with 
John  Ruskin  produced  a  lasting  effect  upon  both. 

After  1860  Shady  Hill  was  Mr.  Norton's  home.  He  was  on  terms 
of  intimacy  with  Longfellow,  Lowell,  and  Holmes.  Hawthorne, 
Whittier,  and  Emerson  were  his  familiar  friends.  From  18G2  to 
1868  Mr.  Norton  served  with  Lowell  as  joint  editor  of  the  North 
American  Review  and  in  1865  assisted  in  starting  the  Nation. 

In  1874  he  undertook  a  course  of  lectures  on  art  in  the  University 
and  in  1875  was  appointed  professor  of  the  history  of  art,  which 
position  he  held  for  twenty-three  years.  He  was  the  exponent  of 
true  culture.  He  loved  truth  and  honesty,  which  he  inculcated  in 
his  pupils. 

He  was  intensely  loyal  and  did  much  to  encourage  patriotism.  He 
was  interested  in  the  affairs  of  Cambridge  and  assisted  in  the  cause 
for  no -license  and  for  honest  government. 

He  received  highest  honors  from  Harvard,  Columbia,  Yale,  Cam- 
bridge, and  Oxford.  The  Harvard  Alumni  elected,  him  as  their 
president  and  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Overseers. 

Mr.  Norton  married,  in  1862,  Miss  Susan  Sedgwick,  daughter  of 
Theodore  Sedgwick,  a  lajwyer  of  New  York.  Mrs.  Norton  died  in 
1872.  They  had  six  children,  three  daughters  and  three  sons,  all 
of  whom  are  still  living.^ 

The  foregoing  is  merely  an  outline.  For  a.  true  picture,  reference 
may  be  had  to  the  memoir  prepared  by  Mr.  William  Eoscoe  Thayer, 
printed  in  the  Harvard  Graduates*  Magazine  for  December,  1908,  vol. 
17,  no.  66. 

Pearson,  Legh  Eichmond,  was  born  in  Kingston,  New  Hamp- 
shire, March  23,  1832.  His  father  was  Eev.  Ora  Pearson  and  his 
mother  Mary  Kimball  Pearson.  His  father  was  a  Congregational 
minister,  who  was  graduated  at  Middlebury  College  in  1820.  He 
preached  at  Kingston,  New  Hampshire,  at  Compton  in  Canada,  and 
at  Glover,  Vermont,  and  was  for  several  years  in  the  service  of  the 
American  Tract  Society.  He  died  at  Peacham,  Vermont,  July  5, 
1858. 

Mr.  Pearson's  mother,  Mary  Kimball,  was  a  descendant  in  the 
seventh  generation  of  Eichard  Kimball,  who  came  from  England 
in  1634  and  settled  in  that  part  of  Watertown  which  is  now  in- 
cluded in  Cambridge,  his  house  being  near  what  is  now  the  corner 
of  Huron  Avenue  and  Appleton  Street.     Mary  Kimball  Pearson 

*  Dr.  Rupert  Norton  died  in  Baltimore  19  June,  1914. 


184        THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

died  at  Peacham,  Vermont,  August  27,  1884,  She  was  a  woman  of 
great  intelligence  and  Christian  worth. 

Mr.  Pearson  served  in  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  as  a  member  of 
the  Fifteenth  Vermont  Regiment.  He  married  October  22,  1867, 
Harriet  Torrey  of  Cambridge  and  settled  in  Cambridge,  where  he 
continued  to  live  for  about  forty  years.  His  wife  died  in  October, 
1903,  and  a  few  years  later  he  moved  to  North  Reading,  where  he 
died  July  6,  1909. 

He  was  a  member  of  the  First  Church  in  Cambridge  (Congrega- 
tional) and  held  the  office  of  librarian  of  the  Shepard  Historical 
Society.  The  following  quotation  from  a  letter  written  to  Mr.  Pear- 
son March  15,  1906,  by  Mr.  J.  C  Thorp,  president  of  the  Cambridge 
Social  Union,  shows  in  a  fitting  manner  Mr.  Pearson's  connection 
with  that  body: 

In  anticipation  of  your  voluntary  retirement  from  the  position  of  super- 
intendent and  librarian  of  the  Social  Union,  I  am  directed  by  the  executive 
board  to  express  to  you  their  personal  regret  at  your  departure,  and  their 
cordial  recognition  and  appreciation  of  your  long  and  faithful  service. 

Starting  with  the  Union  at  its  very  beginning,  one  of  its  incorporators, 
and  for  more  than  thirty  consecutive  years  connected  with  it  as  a  member, 
director,  and  librarian  and  superintendent,  your  long  and  unbroken  associa- 
tion with  it  is  as  striking  as  your  devotion  to  its  interests  has  been  untiring. 
You  have  thoroughly  earned  the  leisure  which  you  now  seek,  and  our  best 
wishes  for  many  happy  years  go  with  you. 

Mr.  Pearson  was  one  of  the  charter  members  of  the  Cambridge 
Historical  Society  and  was  present  at  its  first  meeting,  held  at  the 
Cambridge  Social  Union  June  17,  1905. 

Perrin,  Franklin,  was  bom  in  Boston,  August  9,  1830,  and 
died  on  February  23,  1914.  He  was  the  direct  descendant  of  John 
Perrin,  who  came  from  England  on  the  ship  Safety  in  1635  and 
settled  in  Braintree.  His  father,  Augustus  Perrin,  who  died  in  1844, 
was  a  merchant  importer.  His  mother,  Harriet  Child,  was  descended 
from  Benjamin  Child,  who  came  from  England  to  Roxbury  in  1630. 

As  a  boy  and  throughout  his  life  Franklin  Perrin  was  fond  of 
reading  biography  and  history,  and  in  languages  French  and  Spanish 
were  his  favorites.  He  attended  the  Boston  schools  and  was  grad- 
uated from  the  high  school  in  1847.  He  then  became  a  clerk 
for  Bates  and  Thaxter  and  made  voyages  in  their  ships  as  supercargo. 
Later  he  regretted  not  having  improved  the  opportunity  of  going  to 
college,  but  as  he  was  the  youngest  son  he  was  led  by  the  example 
of  his  five  older  brothers  to  enter  upon  a  business  career. 


1915.]  NECEOLOGY  185 

Soon  after  attaining  his  majority  he  became  the  senior  partner 
in  the  firm  of  Perrin  and  Gilbert  in  the  shipping  trade  to  the  East 
Indies.  Later  he  formed  a  partnership  with  David  C.  Perrin  in 
the  importation  of  palm  leaf;  he  invented  a  loom  for  weaving  palm 
leaf  with  a  cotton  warp,  as  well  as  several  other  minor  contrivances 
which  proved  useful.  This  business  continued  until  the  importation 
of  palm  leaf  from  Cuba  came  to  an  end. 

Mr.  Perrin's  integrity  and  business  ability  were  recognized  by  the 
city  where  he  lived  so  long.  From  1880  to  1885  he  was  city  auditor 
of  Cambridge.  He  was  treasurer  of  the  Cambridge  Horse  Rail- 
way until  it  was  absorbed  by  the  West  End  Company.  For  ten 
years  he  was  treasurer  of  the  Homes  for  Aged  People  and  for 
twenty  years  a  director  of  the  same  charity.  He  was  also  trustee 
and  auditor  of  the  Cambridge  Savings  Bank  for  about  twenty-eight 
years.  From  1889  to  1910  he  was  manager  of  the  Cambridge  Safety 
Vaults. 

On  liis  retirement  it  was  written  of  him : 

Mr.  Franklin  Perrin,  after  twenty-one  years  of  service,  lays  off  the  business 
harness  and  seeks  a  well-earned  repose.  It  is  profitable  to  have  the  places, 
where  men  are  brought  into  close  contact  with  the  public,  filled  by  those 
whose  efficiency  is  supplemented  by  courtesy,  intelligence,  and  affability. 
Added  to  these,  and  above  these,  the  element  of  unblemished  integrity  should 
take  precedence. 

The  community  will  long  remember  Mr.  Perrin,  and  he  will  carry  into 
his  retirement  the  fine  aroma  of  gracious  example  in  all  these  traits  worthy 
of  remembrance. 

In  his  leisure  hours  Mr.  Perrin  compiled  a  comprehensive  chart  of 
English  sovereigns  for  school  use.  He  also  wrote  a  few  stories  for 
the  Youth's  Companion;  and  for  the  Cambridge  Historical  Society 
he  wrote  a  brief  paper  upon  "  General  Walcott's  Company  Unat- 
tached," in  which  he  served  in  the  Civil  War.  He  prepared  a  "  Hand- 
book of  American  Trees  and  Shrubs." 

He  was  a  life  member  of  the  American  Unitarian  Association  and 
of  the  Cambridge  Unitarian  Club.  He  was  for  years  deacon  in  the 
First  Church  and  took  a  leading  part  in  all  its  activities,  setting 
a  remarkable  example  of  regularity,  promptness,  and  zeal.  For  ten 
years  he  was  superintendent  of  the  Sunday  school.  He  was  greatly 
beloved  on  account  of  his  kindliness,  generosity,  and  unselfishness. 

Mr.  Perrin  was  married  in  1855  to  Louisa  C,  the  daughter  of  the 
Kev.  Nathaniel  Gage  and  Abby  Eichardson  Gardner,  a  descendant  of 
Thomas  Gardner,  who  came  to  Brookline  in  the  ship  Safety  in  1635. 
They  had  one  son,  Arthur  Perrin. 


186        THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTOEICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

Piper,  William  Taggard,  died  July  25,  1911.  He  was  born 
in  Boston  August  9,  1853,  of  parents  whose  ancestry  is  traced  back 
to  early  Colonial  times.  He  attended  the  Boston  public  schools,  in- 
cludiug  the  Quincy  Grammar  and  the  Latin  School,  at  both  of  which" 
he  won  a  Franklin  Medal.  Entering  Harvard  College  in  1870,  he 
graduated  with  distinction  in  1874  and  was  elected  to  the  Harv^ard 
Chapter  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa.  He  then  went  to  England,  where  he 
matriculated  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and  pursued  his  classical 
studies  for  two  years.  Later  he  spent  another  year  in  Europe,  partly 
in  study  at  the  University  of  Leipzig.  In  1878  he  returned  to 
Cambridge  and  continued  a  post-graduate  course,  receiving  the  degree 
of  A.M.  in  1881  and  of  Ph.D.  in  1883. 

In  1879  he  married  Anne  Palfrey  Bridge,  who  died  in  1911.  Tl>ey 
had  four  children,  all  of  whom  survive  them. 

Of  sufficiently  independent  means,  he  devoted  his  life  to  pul)lic 
service.  He  was  an  active  member  of  the  First  Parish  and  First 
Church  and  served  on  various  committees  with  great  fidelity  and 
conscientiousness.  He  was  an  officer  of  the  Cambridge  Associated 
Charities,  president  of  the  Avon  Home>  trustee  and  later  president 
of  the  Massachusetts  Homeopathic  Hospital,  trustee  of  the  Boston 
State  Hospital,  and  one  of  the  founders  of  the  District  Nursing 
Association. 

He  served  in  the  common  council  in  1887  and  1888  and  as  alder- 
man in  1890.  In  1891  he  became  a  member  of  the  school  committee 
and  continued  as  such  for  eighteen  years,  holding  the  office  of  presi- 
dent for  seventeen  successive  years.  In  1892  he  was  chosen  a  trustee 
of  the  Public  Library,  in  which  office  he  remained  for  nearly  seventeen 
years,  serving  as  president  the  larger  portion  of  the  time.  He  was  a 
director  of  the  Cambridge  Trust  Company  from  its  beginning.  He  be- 
longed to  the  Cambridge  Club  and  was  elected  its  president  in  1907. 

No  one  could  be  brought  in  contact  with  Mr.  Piper,  whether  so- 
cially, officially,  or  in  business  relations,  without  being  impressed 
with  his  fairness,  justice,  candor,  and  fearlessness.  He  was  modest, 
retiring  even  to  shyness,  free  from  prejudices,  benevolent  in  giving 
both  of  his  time  and  his  means,  and  interested  in  all  attempts  to 
better  society  and  individuals.  He  deserved  well  of  the  community 
in  which  he  lived.  A  full  memoir  of  Mr.  Piper  by  John  Woodbury 
appeared  in  the  Publications  of  the  Colonial  Society  of  Massachusetts, 
xiv,  351-358. 

Read,  The  Hon.  John,  was  bom  in  Cambridge  May  19,  1840,  the 
son  of  William  and  Sally  (Atkins)  Read.    He  received  his  preparatory 


I 


1915.]  NECROLOGY  187 

education  in  the  public  schools  of  Cambridge,  and  in  the  high  school 
was  a  member  of  one  of  the  first  classes  taught  by  Mr.  William  F. 
Bradbury.  He  graduated  from  Harvard  in  1862  and  received  the 
degree  of  A.M.  in  1865.  He  married  Miss  Elise  Welch  of  Bos- 
ton, who  died  in  1914.  He  died  in  Cambridge  July  29,  1915.  Three 
sons,  J.  Bertram  Eead,  William  Eead,  2d,  and  Harold  W.  Read, 
survive  him. 

Immediately  on  graduating  from  college  he  enlisted  in  the  United 
States  Navy  and  served  through  the  Civil  War.  He  was  on  the 
turreted  ironclad  ram  Keohuk  when  that  vessel  was  sunk  by  the 
guns  of  Fort  Sumter  in  the  first  attack  on  Charleston  in  April,  1863. 
He  afterwards  participated  in  different  engagements  with  the  West 
Gulf  squadron  in  1863  and  1864  and  served  on  blockade  duty  off 
the  Louisiana  and  Texas  coasts.  He  was  taken  prisoner  during  an 
engagement  at  Calcasieu  Pass  May  6,  1864,  and  for  eight  months 
was  confined  in  a  stockade  camp  in  a  Texas  swamp.  The  fact  that 
his  father  was  able  to  get  quinine  to  him  by  way  of  Mexico  probably 
saved  his  life,  for  of  one  hundred  and  eleven  men  captured  with  him 
only  thirty  survived. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  he  entered  the  business  house  of  his  father, 
dealing  in  military  and  sporting  goods,  and  later  became  a  part- 
ner with  his  brothers  under  the  firm  name  of  William  Read  and 
Sons. 

Mr.  Read  always  took  a  keen  interest  in  public  affairs  and,  while 
a  staunch  Republican,  believed  in  non-partisanship  in  municipal 
government.  He  was  a  member  of  the  common  council  in  1880  and 
1881,  and  in  1882  and  1883  was  a  member  of  the  board  of  aldermen. 
He  was  elected  to  the  House  of  Representatives  in  1888  and  was 
State  Senator  in  1892  and  1893.  WTiile  a  member  of  the  Legisla- 
ture he  assisted  in  carrying  through  the  bill  to  allow  Cambridge  to 
borrow  $500,000  for  the  water  works,  the  bill  authorizing  the  park 
loan,  the  act  allowing  Cambridge  to  take  land  in  Belmont  for  the 
high-service  reservoir,  and  the  bill  for  the  increase  of  the  state  naval 
militia.  He  is  credited  with  the  defeat  of  the  bill  to  annex  Cam- 
bridge to  Boston. 

He  was  commissioner  of  the  Massachusetts  Nautical  Training 
School,  member  of  the  St.  Botolph  Club,  of  Charles  Beck  Post  56 
G.  A.  R.,  the  Loyal  Legion,  the  Kearsarge  Naval  Veterans,  the 
Association  of  Survivors  of  Rebel  Prisons,  and  of  the  Cambridge 
Club.  He  was  a  trustee  of  the  Sailors  Home  in  Quincy.  He  attended 
the  First  Parish  Church  in  Cambridge. 

Mr.  Read  was  deeply  interested  in  everything  that  concerned  the 


188         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

city  and  took  an  active  part  in  all  public  movements.  He  will  be 
long  remembered  as  an  honorable  merchant,  a  wise  counsellor,  and 
a  public-spirited  citizen  who  did  his  full  duty  in  war  and  in  peace. 

Saunders,  George  Savil,  was  born  in  Cambridge  October  2, 
1823,  in  the  house  on  Garden  Street  looking  upon  the  Common  and 
adjoining  Christ  Church.  His  father,  William  Saunders,  was  a 
master  builder  by  occupation  and  built  a  number  of  the  best  known 
Cambridge  houses,  including  the  one  on  Garden  Street  where  he 
lived.  William  Saunders  was  one  of  the  selectmen  in  the  town 
of  Cambridge  and  became  a  member  of  the  first  common  council 
after  Cambridge  became  a  city.  A  year  later  he  was  a  member  of 
the  board  of  aldermen. 

The  son,  after  a  thorough  education  in  the  Cambridge  public 
schools  and  a  brief  service  in  a  Cornhill  bookstore,  entered  the  liard- 
ware  business.  He  was  first  employed  by  his  brother  William  and 
then  by  his  brother  Charles.  In  1847  he  became  a  partner  in  the 
firm  of  Johonnot  and  Saunders  at  21  Dock  Square,  Boston,  and 
continued  prosperously  with  the  same  partner  at  the  same  place  for 
the  next  twenty-nine  years.  In  1877  he  moved  to  the  corner  of 
Washington  Street  and  Cornhill  and  formed  a  partnership  with  his 
son  George  E.  Saunders,  continuing  the  business  in  the  new  store 
for  thirty  years.  The  firm  then  moved  across  the  street  to  168 
Washington  Street,  and  soon  after  Mr.  Saunders  retired  from  active 
connection  with  the  business. 

In  1847,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  Mr.  Saunders  was  married 
to  Lucy  C.  Willard  of  Cambridge  and  began  a  home  life  which 
continued  happily  for  over  sixty  years.  In  1855  he  built  the  house 
on  Concord  Avenue  which  was  his  home  for  fifty-four  years. 

Mr.  Saunders  gave  freely  of  his  time  and  energy  to  the  community 
in  which  he  lived.  He  was  a  lifelong  member  of  the  First  Church 
in  Cambridge  (Congregational)  and  served  as  one  of  its  deacons 
for  forty  years.  He  was  elected  a  member  of  the  common  council 
of  the  city  in  1855,  1856,  and  1857  and  served  as  president  during 
the  last  two  years.  Again  in  1863  and  1864,  and  still  again  in 
1878  and  1879,  he  served  in  the  same  body  and  again  held  the 
office  of  president.  In  1865  and  1866  he  was  a  representative  to 
the  General  Court  He  was  a  member  of  the  Cambridge  Cemetery 
Commission  for  thirty-eight  years.  He  was  a  charter  member  of 
the  Cambridge  Club  and  rarely  missed  one  of  its  meetings.  He 
died  at  the  age  of  eighty-six  on  June  6,  1909.  He  was  true  to  the 
best  ideals  of  his  city  and  his  time. 


1915.]  NECEOLOGY  189 

Sawyee,  Geoege  Carleton,  was  horn  in  Salem,  Massachusetts, 
December  23,  1835.  His  ancestors  had  resided  in  New  England 
for  over  two  hundred  years.  His  parents  were  Leveritt  A.  and 
Martha  A.  Sawyer.  He  entered  Harvard  in  1851,  after  five  years 
of  preparation  in  the  Salem  Latin  Grammar  School.  He  was  a  dis- 
tinguished scholar  and  one  of  the  first  eight  elected  into  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  Society.  He  aidopted  teaching  as  his  lifework.  Begin- 
ning at  Phillips  Exeter  Academy  in  1855,  he  remained  as  instructor 
in  the  classics  until  1858,  when  he  became  the  principal  of  the  Utica 
Free  Academy.  When  he  began  his  service  there,  there  were  some 
sixty  pupils;  when  he  resigned  in  1896,  there  were  over  four  hundi-ed. 

He  married  at  Exeter,  July  29,  1858,  Mary,  daughter  of  Dr.  David 
Wood  and  Elizabeth  (Abbot)  Gorham. 

He  spent  the  last  years  of  his  life  in  Cambridge,  where  he  devoted  his 
time  to  books  and  literary  pursuits,  surrounded  by  many  old  friends. 

He  died  December  15,  1914.  Always  a  gentleman  in  the  broadest 
and  best  sense,  his  uniform  courtesy  and  real  enjoyment  in  rendering 
service  gathered  round  him  an  ever-widening  circle  of  warm  friends. 

Stokee,  Miss  Saeah  Feances,  was  born  in  Boston,  March  17, 
1842,  and  died  at  Cambridge  March  12,  1915. 

Miss  Storer's  lineage  was  typically  New  England.  Her  father, 
Eobert  Boyd  Storer  of  Portland  and  Boston,  came  of  the  Langdons 
of  New  Hampshire  and  the  Boyds,  Woodburys,  and  Storers  of  Maine, 
families  active  and  respected  as  leaders  in  colonial  days  and  the  Eevo- 
lution.  The  Boyd  immigrant  was  the  younger  brother  of  that  Earl 
of  Kilmarnock  who  lost  his  head  on  the  Tower  block  after  the 
battle  of  Culloden. 

Sarah  Sherman  Storer,  her  mother,  was  the  daughter  of  Samuel 
Hoar  of  Concord  and  the  sister  of  Senator  George  F.  Hoar  and 
Judge  E.  E.  Hoar.  Five  of  her  paternal  forbears  or  their  brothers 
fought  at  Concord  Bridge;  Eoger  Sherman  of  Connecticut,  a  signer 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  was  her  maternal  grandfather. 

Miss  Storer's  family  connections  were  numerous.  They  congre- 
gated at  New  Haven  and  Concord  and  later  at  Cambridge,  and  she 
knew  them  intimately.  Kinship  was  to  her  a  claim  never  to  be 
denied,  and  always  the  title  of  "cousin"  called  forth  her  eager 
hospitality. 

In  1858  Miss  Storer's  parents  moved  from  Boston  to  Cambridge, 
where  she  attended  Mr.  Agassiz's  school.  Her  visits  to  her  grand- 
parents' house  at  Concord  were  frequent,  and  there  she  became  much 
at  home. 


190         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

The  War  of  the  Rebellion  left  its  mark  deeply  upon  her  genera- 
tion. She  saw  her  brother,  most  of  her  cousins,  and  the  young 
men  of  her  circle  leave  for  the  front,  and  many  of  them  did  not 
return.  She  bore  her  part  in  the  activities  of  those  who  stayed  at 
home,  worked  with  the  Sanitary  Commission  and  the  McClellan 
Club  of  Cambridge,  and  after  the  war  was  actively  interested  in 
the  Home  for  Aged  Colored  Women  in  Boston,  of  whose  board  she 
was  a  member  until  a  few  years  before  her  death. 

With  the  New  England  atmosphere  of  the  mid-nineteenth  century 
we  are  wont  to  associate  a  certain  austerity  of  thought  and  rigidity 
of  manner.  The  keen  and  detached  analysis  of  self  and  of  one's 
finer  emotions,  which  was  the  philosophical  fashion  of  the  day,  made 
for  repression.  But  it  was  Miss  Storer's  singular  charm  that,  al- 
though she  grew  up  in  two  strongholds  of  the  New  England  traits, 
she  walked  with  an  abundant  sweetness  radiating  from  her  —  the 
simplest  and  gentlest  of  natures.  One  of  her  Concord  kinswomen 
said  of  her :  "  Fanny  is  a  real  princess ;  she  always  speaks  the  truth." 
And  so  she  did  —  but  she  hurt  no  one  by  the  telling. 

She  loved  dogs  and  flowers  and  children,  kept  faith  with  them, 
and  was  at  their  service  with  a  delighted  and  unconscious  prodigality. 
Her  firm  belief  in  the  goodness  of  the  world  made  conventional 
religious  doctrine  seem  superfluous  and  transcended  logical  and 
formal  creeds.  The  generous  quality  of  her  heart,  her  absolute  fear- 
lessness, and  native  high-mindedness  made  mean  capitulations  im- 
possible to  her. 

High-spirited,  with  a  kind  of  gallantry  of  thought  and  action, 
her  life  was  a  blessed  example  of  courtesy,  courage,  and  the  God- 
given  happiness  of  those  who  give  of  themselves  without  stint. 

WiLLARD,  Joseph,  was  bom  in  Boston  December  6,  1834.  He 
traced  his  descent  in  the  seventh  generation  from  Major  Simon  Wil- 
lard,  who  came  to  Cambridge  in  1634  and  was  a  principal  founder 
of  Concord,  Lancaster,  and  Groton,  a  man  of  importance  in  town 
and  colony  till  his  death  in  1676.  The  ancestors  of  Joseph  Willard 
in  six  succeeding  generations  were  Harvard  graduates,  one  being  Presi- 
dent and  another  Vice-President  of  the  college. 

Joseph  Willard,  his  father,  was  a  lawyer  and  a  student  of  history, 
an  accomplished  antiquarian,  whose  record  of  the  Willard  family 
has  been  called  a  "  model  memoir."  He  married  in  1830  Susanna 
Hickling  Lewis,  a  descendant  of  Richard  Warren  of  the  Mayflower. 
Mrs.  Willard  was  a  woman  of  rare  gifts  and  accomplishments,  and 
the  family  home  in  Allston  Street,  at  that  day  a  pleasant  neighbor- 


1915.]  NECEOLOGY  191 

hood  with  an  agreeable  social  environment,  was  the  centre  of  a  large 
hospitality.  Under  such  favoring  influences  Joseph  Willard  grew 
up,  was  educated  at  the  Latin  School,  and  awarded  a  Franklin 
Medal  at  graduation  in  1850.  He  entered  Harvard  in  the  class 
that  graduated  in  1855,  a  class  destined  to  contain  many  men  of 
note.  A  short  experience  of  teaching,  both  during  the  college  vaca- 
tion and  the  year  after  graduation  at  the  school  of  Eev.  Samuel 
Eobert  Calthrop  of  Bridgeport,  Connecticut,  brought  out  his  native 
gift  of  imparting  knowledge  and  his  powers  of  discipline.  In  1858 
he  received  the  degree  of  LL.Bw  from  the  Harvard  Law  School.  For 
several  years  he  assisted  in  the  preparation  of  different  law  books, 
one  of  these  being  the  treatise  of  Gov.  Emory  Washburn  entitled 
"The  American  Law  of  Eeal  Property,"  which  after  the  death  of 
Governor  Washburn  was  edited  by  Mr.  Willard.  January  29,  1863, 
he  was  admitted  to  the  Suffolk  bar  and  was  made  a  member  of  the 
firm  of  Hillard,  Willard,  and  Hyde.  After  four  years  the  partner- 
ship was  dissolved,  when  Mr.  Hillard  became  United  States  District 
Attorney.  Mr.  Willard  thereafter  practiced  alone,  having  his  office 
in  Niles  Block  in  Boston.  In  1865  he  filled  temporarily  the  office 
of  clerk  of  the  Superior  Court,  then  vacant  by  reason  of  his  father^s 
death.  Later  he  served  on  the  Boston  school  board.  He  was  Com- 
missioner of  Insolvency  in  1873.  In  1874  he  received  the  offer 
of  the  judgeship  of  the  Municipal  Court  at  South  Boston,  which 
ofier  he  declined.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Boston  Bar  Association 
and  of  the  Harvard  Law  School  Alumni  Association.  He  contributed 
legal  articles  to  various  magazines,  notably  the  American  Law  Re- 
view. One  of  these,  "  The  Eight  of  a  Landlord  to  Eegain  Possession 
by  Force,"  was  of  special  interest.  He  also  twice  edited  the  textbook 
entitled  "  The  American  Law  of  Landlord  and  Tenant." 

In  1900  he  delivered  a  course  of  lectures  at  the  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology  on  business  law.  He  was  a  charter  member 
of  the  St.  Botolph  Club,  a  member  of  the  Examiner  Club,  and  in 
1894  he  was  admitted  to  the  Harvard  Chapter  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa. 
He  found  much  intellectual  recreation  in  writing  on  various  literary 
subjects  for  the  Examiner  Club,  while  his  affiliation  with  the  Ap- 
palachian Club  kept  alive  his  love  of  outdoor  pursuits.  But  his  hap- 
piest hours  were  spent  among  his  books. 

His  classmate  Mr.  Frank  B.  Sanborn  says  of  him : 

The  curious  and  exact  learning  of  the  two  Presidents  Willard  (the  elder 
of  whom  was  author  of  an  elaborate  "  Body  of  Divinity "  in  folio,  and 
the  younger  accomplished  in  science  as  well  as  in  divinity)  reappeared  in 
the  late  Joseph  Willard,  who  waa  not  only  versed  in  the  Latin  and  Greek, 


192         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

French  and  German  taught  at  Harvard  in  1855,  but  extended  his  acquisi- 
tions to  the  various  languages  of  eastern  Europe  and  western  Asia.  In 
law  he  was  a  profound  student  also,  but  a  quiet  practitioner,  seldom  plead- 
ing in  court,  but  much  trusted  for  his  care  and  settlement  of  estates 
and  his  knowledge  of  those  points  which  imply  a  prodigious  reading  in  Eng- 
lish decisions  and  American  law  reports.  His  acquaintance  with  the 
literature  of  many  nations  was  also  great,  and  it  was  not  safe  to  make 
a  quotation  in  Willard's  presence  unless  you  had  read  your  author  pretty 
carefully.  Not  that  he  was  captious  or  pedantic,  for  nobody  was  more 
good-natured,  but  he  had  the  instinct  for  precision  in  facts  and  words  which 
the  modern  prevalence  of  hasty  journalism  and  of  sensational  fiction  under 
the  guise  of  history  has  put  somewhat  out  of  fashion.  He  wrote  Latin 
with  classic  elegance  and  apparently  as  readily  as  English,  a  lost  art  in 
New  England,  I  incline  to  think.  Armenian  and  the  Slavonic  languages 
were  a  playgroxmd  for  him,  and  he  so  far  exceeded  most  of  his  friends  in 
thoee  studies  that  they  took  him  for  authority  without  question. 

He  was  an  associate  member  of  the  Cambridge  Historical  Society, 
and  his  latest  service  of  friendly  remembrance  was  in  the  preparation 
for  the  Society  in  1906  of  a  memorial  of  Jolm  Bartlett,  author  of 
'*  Familiar  Quotations.'^  In  the  early  part  of  1908  his  health,  which 
for  two  years  or  more  had  been  failing,  gave  way,  and  after  a 
short  illness  of  three  weeks  he  died  in  Boston  on  April  27,  1908,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-three  years,  four  months,  twenty-one  days.  Mr.  Willard 
never  married. 

Of  his  personal  qualities  it  is  not  here  possible  to  speak  fully, 
but  no  notice  of  him  would  be  adequate  that  omitted  the  mention 
of  his  brilliant  wit,  his  enduring  qualities  of  faithfulness  and 
friendly  service,  his  public  spirit  and  devotion  to  the  highest  ideals. 
He  was  an  example  of  conspicuous  success,  not  of  the  gross  material 
sort,  but  of  success  the  rarest  and  most  refined,  that  stands  for  un- 
worldliness  and  for  the  realities  of  life. 

Wyman,  Mokrill,  was  born  in  Cambridge  July  10,  1855,  a  son 
of  Morrill  Wyman  (H.  U.  1833),  M.D.,  LL.D.,  who  was  a  professor 
at  Harvard,  1853-1856,  and  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Overseers, 
1875-1887. 

Morrill  Wyman  the  younger  lived  all  his  life  in  Cambridge.  He 
spent  two  years  at  Harvard  with  the  class  of  1880  and  later  attended 
the  Harvard  Medical  School  for  three  years. 

He  was  one  of  the  promoters  of  the  Cambridge  Civil  Service 
Reform  Association  and  held  the  office  of  secretary.  He  was  also 
one  of  the  organizers  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  Ijeague, 
which  began  in  1881  with  a  meeting  at  Newport,  Rhode  Island.  He 
was  on  its  executive  committee,  later  called  its  council,  for  many 


1915.]  NECKOLOGY  193 

years.  He  was  interested  with  others  in  the  introduction  of  the 
Australian  ballot  in  Massachusetts  in  the  early  eighties.  In  all 
this  work  Mr.  Wyman  was  faithful  and  thorough.  He  had  a  certain 
aptness  for  drawing  up  circulars  and  petitions  in  a  way  that  was 
clear  to  the  public.  Mr.  Wyman's  lucidity  of  statement  and  really 
interesting  style  were  well  shown  in  the  brief  memoirs  which  he 
prepared  and  published  of  his  father  and  grandfather,  Doctors  Mor- 
rill and  Eufus  Wyman. 

Mr.  Wyman  never  married.  He  died  in  Cambridge  January  15, 
1914.  He  gave  expression  to  his  father's  interest,  as  well  as  that  of 
himself,  in  the  Cambridge  Hospital  and  the  First  Parish  and  First 
Church  in  Cambridge  by  generous  legacies  to  those  institutions  as 
well  as  to  Harvard  University. 


194         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  SOCIETY 
1914-1915 

President Richard  Henry  Dana 

(Andrew  McFarland  Davis 
Archibald  Murray  Howe 
William  Roscoe  Thayer 

Secretary Albert  Harrison  Hall 

Curator       Albert  Harrison  Hall 

Treasurer Henry  Herbert  Edes 

The  Council 

Richard  Henry  Dana  Andrew  McFarland  Davis 

Archibald  Murray  Howe      William  Roscoe  Thayer 
Albert  Harrison  Hall  Hollis  Russell  Bailey 

Henry  Herbert  Edes  Frank  Gaylord  Cook 

Samuel  Francis  Batchelder  William  Coolidge  Lane 
Mary  Isabella  Gozzaldi        Alice  Mary  Longfellow 


1915.]  OFFICEES    OF   THE    SOCIETY  195 


COMMITTEES   APPOINTED   BY   THE    COUNCIL 

1914-1915 

On  the  Early  Roads  and  Topography  of  Cambridge 

Stephen  Paschall  Shaeples,  Chairman 
Edward  John  Brandon  Geoege  Clement  Deane 

On  the  Collection  of  Manuscripts,  Autographs  and  Printed 

Material 

Henry  Herbert  Edes,  Chairman 
Albert  Bushnell  Hart  William  Coolidge  Lane 

Edwin  Blaisdell  Hale  Feank  Gayloed  Cook 

On  Sketches  of  Noted  Citizens  of  Cambridge 

Maey  Isabella  Gozzaldi,  Chairman 
Samuel  Feancis  Batcheldee  Aechibald  Mueeay  Howe 

On  Publication 

William  Coolidge  Lane,  Chairman 
Heney  Heebeet  Edes  Samuel  Feancis  Batcheldee 

On  Memoirs  of  Deceased  Members 
Hollis  Russell  Bailey,"  Chairman         William  Roscoe  Thayer 

On  the  Collection  of  Oral  Tradition,  Objects  of  Historical 
Interest,  Portraits  and  Views 

Maey  Isabella  Gozzaldi,  Chairman 
Margaret  Jones  Bradbury  Grace  Owen  Scudder 

Elizabeth  Ellery  Dana  George  Grier  Wright 

Mary  Helen  Deane  Susanna  Willard 

To  Audit  the  Accounts  of  the  Treasurer 
Andrew  McFarland  Davis 

On  the  Longfellow  Centenary  Medal  Prize 

William  Eoscoe  Thayer,  Chairman 
Edward  Bangs  Drew  Edward  Francis  Gam  well 


196 


THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTOEICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 


REGULAR  MEMBERS 
1914-1915 


Abbot,  Marion  Stanley 
Allen,  Flora  Viola 
Allen,  Frank  Augustus 
Allen,  Mary  Ware 
Allen,  Oscar  Fayette 
Ames,  Sarah  Russell 
AuBiN,  Helen  Warner 
Aubin,  Margaret  Harris 

Bailey,  Hollis  Russell 
Bailey,  Mary  Persis 
Bancroft,  William  Amos 
Batchelder,  Samuel  Francis 
Beale,  Joseph  Henry 
Bell,  Stoughton 
Benson,  Edward  McElroy 
Bill,  Caroline  Eliza 
Blackall,  Clarence  Howard 
Blish,  Ariadne 
Blodgett,  Warren  Kendall 
BooDY,  Bertha  M. 
Brandon,  Edward  John 
Brock,  Adah  Leila  Cone 
Brooks,  Sumner  Albert 
Bulfinch,  Ellen  Susan 
Bumstead,  Josephine  Freeman 

Calkins,  Raymond 
Cary,  Emma  Forbes 
§Clark,  Elizabeth  Hodges 
*CoGSWELL,  Edward  Russell 
Cook,  Frank  Gaylord 
Cox,  George  Howland 
Crothers,  Samuel  McChord 
Cutter,  Henry  Orville 

♦  Deceased 


Dallinger,    William    Wilber- 

FORCE 

*Dana,  Edith  Longfellow 
Dana,  Elizabeth  Ellery 
Dana,  Richard  Henry 
Darling,  Eugene  Abraham 
Davis,  Andrew  McFarland 
Davis,  Mary  Wyman 
Deane,  George  Clement 
Deane,  Mary  Helen 

§Deane,  Walter 
Devens,  Mary 
Dexter,  Mary  Deane 
Dodge,  Edward  Sherman 
Dow,  George  Lincoln 
Drew,  Edward  Bangs 
Drinkwater,  Arthur 
Driver,  Martha  Elizabeth 
Dunbar,  William  Harrison 

Edes,  Grace  Williamson 
Edes,  Henry  Herbert 
Eliot,  Charles  William 
Eliot,  Grace  Hopkinson 
Eliot,  Samuel  Atkins 

EVARTS,   PrESCOTT 

Farlow,  Lilian  Horsford 
Fenn,  William  Wallace 
Fessenden,  Marion  Brown 
Forbes,  Edward  Waldo 
Ford,  Worthington  Chauncey 
Foster,  Francis  Apthorp 
Fowler,  Frances 
Fox,  Jabez 

§  Resigned 


1915.] 


EEGULAR   MEMBERS 


197 


GozzALDi,  Mary  Isabella 
Gray,  Anna  Lyman 
♦Gray,  John  Chipman 
Grozier,  Edwin  Atkins 

Hale,  Edwin  Blaisdell 
Hall,  Albert  Harrison 
Harris,  Elizabeth 
Hart,  Albert  Bushnell 
Hastings,  Frank  Watson 
HiNCKs,  Edward  Young 
Hodges,  George 
HoppiN,  Eliza  Mason 
HoRSFORD,  Katharine 
Houghton,  Alberta  Manning 
*HouGHTON,  Elizabeth  Harris 
Houghton,  Roseryss  Gilman 
Howe,  Archibald  Murray 
Howe,    Arrla    Sargent    Dix- 

WELL 

Howe,  Clara 

HuRLBUT,  Byron  Satterlee 

Kellner,  Maximilian  Lindsay 
Kendall,  George  Frederick 
Kershaw,  Justine  Houghton 
Kiernan,  William  L. 
King,  William  Benjamin 

Lambert,  Anna  Read 
Lane,  William  Cooudge 
§Leavitt,  Erasmus  Darwin 
Longfellow,  Alice  Mary 
Lowell,  Abbott  Lawrence 

Marcou,  Philippe  Belknap 
*McDuFFiE,  John 
McIntire,  Charles  John 
Melledge,  Robert  Job 
Merriman,  Dorothea  Foote 
Merriman,  Roger  Bigelow 
Mitchell,  Emma  Maria 
*  Deceased 


MoRisoN,  Anna  Theresa 
MoRisoN,  Robert  Swain 
Morse,  Velma  Maria 
MuNROE,  Emma  Frances 
*Myers,  James  Jefferson 

Nichols,  Henry  Atherton 
Nichols,  John  Taylor  Gilman 
§NoRTON,  Grace 
Norton,  Margaret 
NoYES,  James  Atkins 

Paine,  James  Leonard 
Paine,  Mary  Woolson 
Parker,  Henry  Ainsworth 
Parsons,  Caroline  Louisa 
Peirce,  Bradford  Hendrick 
Pickering,  Anna  Atwood 
Pickering,  Edward  Charles 
Pickering,  William  Henry 
Poor,  Clarence  Henry 
Potter,  Alfred  Claghorn 
PousLAND,  Caroline  Loring 

Rand,  Harry  Seaton 

*Read,  John 

,  Read,  William 
Reid,  William  Bernard 
Robinson,  Fred  Norris 
Robinson,  James  Lee 
Ropes,  James  Hardy 
RuNKLE,  John  Cornelius 

Saunders,  Carrie  Huntington 
Saunders,  Herbert  Alden 
Saville,  Huntington 
Sawyer,  George  Augustus 
*Sawyer,  George  Carleton 
ScuDDER,  Grace  Owen 

SCUDDER,   WiNTHROP   SaLTON- 
STALL 

Sharples,  Stephen  Paschall 
§  Resigned 


198         THE   CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 


SPALDmo,  Phiup  Leffixgwell 
Spencer,  Hexrt  Goodwin 
Sprague,  Willl\.m  Hatch 
Stearns,  GENE^^EVE 
Stone,  AYilljam  Eben 
*Storer,  Sarah  Frances 
Swan,  William  Donnison 

Thayer,  Willia^i  Roscoe 
Thorp,  Joseph  Gilbert 
§TicKNOR,  Florence 
§TiCKNOR,  Thomas  Baldwin 
ToppAN,  Sarah  Moody 

Walcott,  Anna  Morrill 
Washburn,  Henry  Bradford 
Webster,  Kenneth  Grant  Tre- 

MAYNE 


Webster,  Edith  Forbes 
Wellington,   Sarah   Cordelia 
Fisher 

§Wesselhoeft,  Mary  Leavitt 

§Wesselhoeft,  Walter 
White,  Auce  Maud 
White,  Moses  Perkins 

§Whittemore,  Isabella  Stewart 
Whittemore,     William     Rich- 
ardson 
WiLLARD,  Susanna 
WiLLi.\^i3,  Olive  Swan 
WiNLocK,  Mary  Peyton 
W^ooD,  John  Willlam,  Jr. 
Worcester,  Sarah  Auce 
Wright,  George  Grier 

Yerxa,  Henry  Detrick 


ASSOCIATE  MEMBERS 

Carter,  Charles  Morland  §Felton,       Eunice       Whitney 

DuRRELL,  Harold  Cl-\rke  Farley 

Leverett,  George  Vasmer  Lovering,  Ernest 


HONORARY  MEMBERS 

Choate,  Joseph  Hodges  Howells,  William  Dean 

Rhodes,  James  Ford 


Deceased 


§  Resigned 


1915.]  BY-LAWS  199 


BY-LAWS 


I.    Corporate  Name. 

THE   name   of   this   corporation   shall  be  "  The   Cambridge   His- 
torical Society." 

II.    Object. 

The  corporation  is  constituted  for  the  purpose  of  collecting  and  pre- 
serving Books,  Manuscripts,  and  other  Memorials,  of  procuring  the 
publication  and  distribution  of  the  same,  and  generally  of  promoting 
interest  and  research,  in  relation  to  the  history  of  Cambridge  in  said 
Commonwealth. 

III.    Eegular  Membership. 

Any  resident  of  the  City  of  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  shall  be 
eligible  for  regular  membership  in  this  Society.  Nominations  for  such 
membership  shall  be  made  in  writing  to  any  member  of  the  Council,  and 
the  persons  so  nominated  may  be  elected  at  any  meeting  of  the  Council 
by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  the  members  present  and  voting.  Persons  so 
elected  shall  become  members  upon  signing  the  By-Laws  and  paying 
the  fees  therein  prescribed. 

IV.    Limit  of  Regular  Membership. 

The  regular  membership  of  this  Society  shall  be  limited  to  two 
hundred. 

V.    Honorary  Membership. 

Any  person,  nominated  by  the  Council,  may  be  elected  an  honorary 
member  at  any  meeting  of  the  Society  by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  the 
members  present  and  voting.  Honorary  members  shall  be  exempt  from 
paying  any  fees,  shall  not  be  eligible  for  office,  and  shall  have  no 
interest  in  the  property  of  the  Society  and  no  right  to  vote. 

VI.    Associate  Membership. 

Any  person  not  a  resident,  but  either  a  native,  or  formerly  a  resident 
for  at  least  five  years,  of  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  shall  be  eligible  to 


200         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTOEICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

associate  membership  in  the  Society.  Nominations  for  such  meraber- 
Bhip  shall  be  made  in  writing  to  any  member  of  the  Council,  and  the 
persons  so  nominated  may  be  elected  at  any  meeting  of  the  Council  by 
a  vote  of  two- thirds  of  the  members  present  and  voting.  Associate 
members  shall  be  liable  for  an  annual  assessment  of  two  dollars  each, 
payable  in  advance  at  the  Annual  Meeting,  but  shall  be  liable  for  no 
other  fees  or  assessments,  and  shall  not  be  eligible  for  office  and  shall 
have  no  interest  in  the  property  of  the  Society  and  no  right  to  vote. 


VII.    Seal. 

The  Seal  of  the  Society  shall  be :  Within  a  circle  bearing  the  name  of 
the  Society  and  the  date,  1905,  a  shield  bearing  a  representation  of  the 
Daye  Printing  Press  and  crest  of  two  books  surmounted  by  a  Greek 
lamp,  with  a  representation  of  Massachusetts  Hall  on  the  dexter  and  a 
representation  of  the  fourth  meeting-house  of  the  First  Church  in  Cam- 
bridge on  the  sinister,  and,  underneath,  a  scroll  bearing  the  words 
Scripta  Manent. 

VIII.   Officers. 

The  officers  of  this  corporation  shall  be  a  Council  of  thirteen  members, 
having  the  powers  of  directors,  elected  by  the  Society,  and  a  President, 
three  Vice-Presidents,  a  Secretary  with  the  powers  of  Clerk,  a  Treas- 
urer, and  a  Curator,  elected  out  of  the  Council  by  the  Society.  All  the 
above  officers  shall  be  chosen  by  ballot  at  the  Annual  Meeting,  and 
shall  hold  office  for  the  term  of  one  year  and  until  their  successors  shall 
be  elected  and  qualified.  The  Council  shall  have  power  to  fill  all 
vacancies. 

IX.    President  and  Vice-President. 

The  President  shall  preside  at  all  meetings  of  the  Society  and  shall  be 
Chairman  of  the  Council.  In  case  of  the  death,  absence,  or  incapacity 
of  the  President,  his  powers  shall  be  exercised  by  the  Vice-Presidents, 
respectively,  in  the  order  of  their  election. 

X,  .Secretary. 

The  Secretary  shall  keep  the  records  and  conduct  the  correspondence 
of  the  Society  and  of  the  Council.  He  shall  give  to  each  member  of  the 
Society  written  notice  of  its  meetings.  He  shall  also  present  a  written 
report  of  the  year  at  each  Annual  Meeting. 


i 


1915.]  BY-LAWS  201 

XI.  Treasurer. 
The  Treasurer  shall  have  charge  of  the  funds  and  securities,  and  shall 
keep  in  proper  books  the  accounts,  of  the  corporation.  He  shall  receive 
and  collect  all  fees  and  other  dues  owing  to  it,  and  all  donations  and 
testamentary  gifts  made  to  it.  He  shall  make  all  investments  and  dis- 
bursements of  its  funds,  but  only  with  the  approval  of  the  Council. 
He  shall  give  the  Society  a  bond,  in  amount  and  with  sureties  satisfac- 
tory to  the  Council,  conditioned  for  the  proper  performance  of  his 
duties.  He  shall  make  a  written  report  at  each  Annual  Meeting.  Such 
report  shall  be  audited  prior  to  the  Annual  Meeting  by  one  or  more 
auditors  appointed  by  the  Council. 

XII.  Curator. 

The  Curator  shall  have  charge,  under  the  direction  of  the  Council,  of 
all  Books,  Manuscripts,  and  other  Memorials  of  the  Society,  except  the 
records  and  books  kept  by  the  Secretary  and  Treasurer.  He  shall  pre- 
sent a  written  report  at  each  Annual  Meeting. 

XIII.  Council. 

The  Council  shall  have  the  general  management  of  the  property  and 
affairs  of  the  Society,  shall  arrange  for  its  meetings,  and  shall  present 
for  election  from  time  to  time  the  names  of  persons  deemed  qualified  for 
honorary  membership.  The  Council  shall  present  a  written  report  of 
the  year  at  each  Annual  Meeting. 

XIY.    Meetings. 

The  Annual  Meeting  shall  be  held  on  the  fourth  Tuesday  in  October 
in  each  year.  Other  regular  meetings  shall  be  held  on  the  fourth  Tues- 
days of  January,  and  April  of  each  year,  unless  the  President  otherwise 
directs.  Special  meetings  may  be  called  by  the  President  or  by  the 
Council. 

XY.    Quorum. 

At  meetings  of  the  Society  ten  members,  and  at  meetings  of  the 
Council  four  members,  shall  constitute  a  quorum. 

XVI.    Fees. 
The  fee  of  initiation  shall  be  two  dollars.     There  shall  also  be  an 
annual  assessment  of  three  dollars,  payable  in  advance  at  the  Annual 


202     THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY     [Oct.  1915. 

Meeting ;  but  any  Regular  Member  shall  be  exempted  from  the  annual 
payment  if  at  any  time  after  his  admission  he  shall  pay  into  the 
Treasury  Fifty  Dollars  in  addition  to  his  previous  payments;  and  any 
Associate  Member  shall  be  similarly  exempted  on  payment  of  Twenty- 
five  Dollars.  All  commutations  shall  be  and  remain  permanently 
funded,  the  interest  only  to  be  used  for  current  expenses. 

XYII.   Resignation  of  Membership. 

All  resignations  of  membership  must  be  in  writing,  provided,  how- 
ever, that  failure  to  pay  the  annual  assessment  within  six  months  after 
the  Annual  Meeting  may,  in  the  discretion  of  the  Council,  be  considered 
a  resignation  of  membership. 

XVIII.   Amendment  op  By-Laws. 

These  By-Laws  may  be  amended  at  any  meeting  by  a  vote  of  two- 
thirds  of  the  members  present  and  voting,  provided  that  the  substance 
of  the  proposed  amendment  shall  have  been  inserted  in  the  call  for  such 
meeting. 


C|)e  Camtirttige  ?|tstorical  ^octetj 


PUBLICATIONS 
XI 

PEOCEEDINGS 

January  25,  1916 — October  24,  1916 


CAMBRIDGE,  MASSACHUSETTS 

1920 


TITE   UNIVERSITY    VRKS3,    CAMBRIOOK,    U.  S.  A. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


^ 


Page 
OFFICERS  AKD  COMMITTEES .         5 

PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  THIRTY-SEVENTH  TO 

THIRTY-NINTH  MEETINGS 7 

PAPERS 

Extracts  prom  Letters  of  the  Reverend  Joseph 
WiLLARD,  President  of  Harvard  College,  and 

OF    SOME    OF   HIS    CHILDREN,    1794-1830    ....  11 

By  his  Grand-daughter,  Susanna  Willaed 

Excerpts  from  the  Diary  of  Timothy  Fuller,  Jr., 
AN  Undergraduate  in  Harvard  College,  1798— 
1801 33 

By  his  Grand-daughter,  Edith  Davenport  Fuller 

Biographical    Sketch    of    Mrs.    Richard    Henry 

Dana 53 

By  Mrs.  Mary  Isabella  Gozzaldi 

Early  Cambridge  Diaries 57 

By  Mrs.  Harriette  M.  Forbes 

ANNUAL  REPORT  OF  THE  TREASURER  ....       84 

NECROLOGY 86 

MEMBERSHIP 89 

For  a  memorandum  on  the  Vassall  Portraits,  etc.,  see  Volume  XII. 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  SOCIETY 

1915-1916 

President William  Roscoe  Thayer 

I  Andrew  McFarland  Davis 
^Archibald  Murray  Howe 
WORTHINGTON  ChAUNCEY  FoRD 

Secretary Albert  Harrison  Hall 

Curator §Albert  Harrison  Hall 

Treasurer Henry  Herbert  Edes 


The  Council 

William  Roscoe  Thayer    Andrew  McFarland  Davis 
*Archibald  Murray  Howe  Worthington  Chauncey  Ford 
Albert  Harrison  Hall       Henry  Herbert  Edes 
Hollis  Russell  Bailey      Samuel  Francis  Batchelder 
Frank  Gaylord  Cook  Mary  Isabella  Gozzaldi 

William  Coolidge  Lane     Alice  Mary  Longfellow 

Richard  Henry  Dana 
Elected  Feb.  23,  1916,  vice  A.  M.  Howe 

*  Deceased  §  Resigned 


COMMITTEES  APPOINTED  BY  THE  COUNCIL 
1915-1916 

On  the  Early  Roads  and  Topography  of  Cambridge 

Stephen  Paschall  Sharples,  Chairman 
Edward  John  Brandon  George  Clement  Deane 

On  the  Collection  of  Manuscripts,  Autographs  and  Printed 
Material 

Henry  Herbert  Edes,  Chairman 
Albert  Bushnell  Hart  William  Coolidge  Lane 

Edwin  Blaisdell  Hale  Frank  Gaylord  Cook 

On  Sketches  of  Noted  Citizens  of  Cambridge 

Mary  Isabella  Gozzaldi,  Chairman 
Samuel  Francis  Batchelder       *Archibald  Murray  Howe 

On  Publication 

William  Coolidge  Lane,  Chairman 
Henry  Herbert  Edes  Samuel  Francis  Batcheldeb 

On  Memovrs  of  Deceased  Members 

HoLLis  EussELL  Bailey,  Chairman    Henry  Orville  Cutter 
Susanna  Willard 

On  the  Collection  of  Oral  Tradition,  Objects  of  Historical 
Interest,  Portraits  and  Views 

Mary  Isabella  Gozzaldi,  Chairman 
§Margaret  Jones  Bradbury  Grace  Owen  Scudder 

Elizabeth  Ellery  Dana  George  Grier  Wright 

Mary  Helen  Deane  Susanna  Willard 

To  Audit  the  Accounts  of  the  Treasurer 
Andrew  McFarland  Davis 

On  the  Longfellow  Centenary  Prize  Medal 

Edward  Bangs  Drew,  Chairman 
James  Hardy  Ropes  Robert  Walcott 

*  Deceased  §  Resigned 


PKOCEEDINGS 

OF 

THE  CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 


THE  THIRTY-SEVENTH  MEETING 

January  25,  1916 

THE  Thirty-seventh  Meeting  of  the  Society  was 
held  at  the  residence  of  Mrs.  Silvio  M.  de  Gozzaldi,  96 
Brattle  Street,  Cambridge,  the  President,  William  Roscoe 
Thayer,  in  the  chair. 

The  President  announced  that  the  collections  of  the  So 
ciety  had  been  removed  from  the  Cambridge  Public  Library 
to  the  Widener  Library  of  Harvard  University,  where  they 
were  open  to  the  use  of  members  and  of  all  other  interested 
persons. 

Miss  Alice  Mary  Longfellow  read  a  biographical  sketch 
of  Mr.  John  Holmes,  and  Miss  Mary  Lee  Ware  read  a 
number  of  his  letters. 

Mrs.  William  Roscoe  Thayer,  Mrs.  Silvio  M.  de  Goz- 
zaldi and  Miss  Clara  Howe  narrated  personal  recollec- 
tions of  Mr.  Holmes. 

These  are  all  withheld  from  publication  here  as  they  are 
to  be  issued  in  separate  book  form.^ 

1  In  November,  1917,  there  was  published  by  Houghton  Mifflin  Company  a  volume 
entitled,  "  Letters  of  John  Holmes  to  James  Russell  Lowell  and  others.  Edited  by 
William  Roscoe  Thayer.  With  an  introduction  by  Alice  M.  Longfellow  and  with 
illustrations."  Copies  were  sent  without  charge  to  all  members  of  the  Cambridge 
Historical  Society. 


THE  THIRTY-EIGHTH  MEETING 

April  27,  1916 

THE  Thirty-eighth  Meeting  of  the  Society  was  held 
at  the  residence  of  Albert  Bushnell  Hart,  19  Craigie 
Street,  Cambridge.  In  the  absence  of  the  President  and  all 
the  Vice-Presidents,  Hollis  Russell  Bailey,  of  the  Council, 
presided.  The  minutes  of  the  last  two  meetings  were  read 
and  approved. 

Announcement  was  made  of  the  gift  of  a  map  of  Old 
Cambridge  from  Archibald  Murray  Howe. 

Miss  Susanna  Willard  read  extracts  from  letters  of  her 
grandfather  President  Joseph  Willard  and  of  several  of  his 
sons  and  daughters.     (Printed,  pp.  11-32.) 

Miss  Edith  Davenport  Fuller  read  extracts  from  the 
diary  of  her  grandfather,  Timothy  Fuller,  Jr.,  while  an  under- 
graduate in  Harvard  College,  1798-1801.  (Printed,  pp. 
33-53.) 

The  thanks  of  the  Society  were  voted  to  Professor  Hart 
for  his  hospitality  and  the  meeting  dissolved. 


THE  THIRTY-NINTH   MEETING 
October  24,  1916 

THE  Thirty-ninth  Meeting  of  the  Cambridge  His- 
torical Society,  being  the  Twelfth  Annual  Meeting, 
was  held  at  the  residence  of  the  President,  William  Roscoe 
Thayer,  8  Berkeley  Street,  Cambridge. 

The  President  called  the  meeting  to  order  and  in  the  ab- 
sence of  the  Secretary  appointed  Samuel  Francis  Batchelder 
as  Secretary  pro  tern.  The  minutes  of  the  last  meeting  were 
read,  corrected,  and  allowed. 

The  President  appointed  Miss  Elizabeth  Ellery  Dana, 
Samuel  Atkins  Eliot,  and  James  Atkins  Noyes  as  a  Commit- 
tee on  Nominations. 

In  place  of  the  annual  report  of  the  Council  William 
CooLiDGE  Lane  made  an  informal  report  for  the  Publica- 
tion Committee. 

The  annual  report  of  the  Secretary  was  read,  corrected, 
and  allowed. 

The  annual  report  of  the  Curator  was  read  and  allowed. 

The  annual  report  of  the  Treasurer  was  read  by  Henry 
Herbert  Edes.     (Printed,  pp.  84-85.) 

Voted  that  the  report  of  the  Treasurer  be  accepted.  The 
report  of  the  Auditor,  Andrew  McFarland  Davis,  was 
read  and  accepted. 

The  President  made  a  brief  address,  congratulating  the 
Society  on  possessing  at  last  a  permanent  home  for  its  col- 
lections in  the  Widener  Library;  also  on  the  immediate  pros- 
pect of  enlarging  its  field  of  publication  by  a  volume  of 
letters  of  the  late  John  Holmes.    He  voiced  the  deep  sorrow 


10  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

of  the  Society  in  the  death  of  its  Vice-President,  Archibald 
Murray  Howe. 

It  was  voted  that  Albert  Harrison  Hall  have  the 
thanks  of  this  Society  for  his  services  as  Secretary  and 
Curator  for  the  past  four  years. 

The  Committee  on  nominations  brought  in  the  following 
report: 

President William  Roscoe  Thayeb 

{Andrew  McFabland  Davis 
WORTHINGTON   ChAUNCEY    FoRD 
Hollis  Russell  Bailey 

Secretary Samubx  Francis  Batcheldeb 

Curator Edward  Locke  Gookin 

Treasurer Henry  Herbert  Edes 

The  Council 

WiLLLiM  Roscoe  Thayer  Frank  Gaylord  Cook 

Richard  Henry  Dana 

WORTHINGTON  ChAUNCEY  FORD  MaRY   ISABELLA   GOZZALDI 

Hollis  Russell  Bailey  George  Hodges 

Samuel  Francis  Batchelder  William  Coolidge  Lane 

Edward  Locke  Gookin  Alice  Mary  Longfellow 

Henry  Herbert  Edes  Fred  Norris  Robinson 

The  above  persons  were  duly  elected  as  the  officers  of  the 
Society  for  1916-1917. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  business  meeting  Mrs.  Mary 
Isabella  Gozzaldi  read  a  biographical  sketch  of  Mrs. 
Eichard  Henry  Dana.     (Printed,  pp.  53-57.) 

Mrs.  Harriette  Merrifield  Forbes  of  Worcester  read 
a  paper  on  Early  Cambridge  Diaries,  accompanied  by  a  care- 
ful list  of  such  diaries.     (Printed,  pp.  57-83.) 

It  was  voted  that  Mrs.  Forbes  have  the  thanks  of  this 
Society  for  her  valuable  and  interesting  contribution. 

The  President  announced  the  subject  of  the  Longfellow 
Centenary  Prize  Medal  Essay  for  1917  to  be: 

Longfellow's  Poems  on  Camhndge  and  Cheater  Boston. 

The  meeting  then  dissolved. 


I 


1916.]        LETTERS    OF   REV.   JOSEPH   WILLARD 


11 


EXTRACTS  FROM  LETTERS  OF  THE  REVEREND 
JOSEPH  WILLARD,  PRESIDENT  OF  HARVARD 
COLLEGE  AND  OF  SOME   OF  HIS  CHILDREN 

1794-1830 

Selected  and  Annotated  by  his  Grand-dafghteb, 

Miss  Susanna  Willabd 

Read  April  27,  1916 

From  1799  to  1804,  Joseph  Willard  (President  of  Harvard, 
1781-1804)  took  occasional  journeys  for  health  or  pleasure,  and 
certain  portions  of  his  letters  to  his  wife  written  during  those 
journeys  are  here  transcribed.  The  first  letter  is  simply  of  a 
domestic  character,  giving  a  little  glimpse  of  the  home  atmo- 
sphere in  the  old  '^President's  House,"  now  known  as  ^'Wads- 
woTth.  House."  Mrs.  Willard,  bom  Mary  Sheaf e  of  Portsmouth, 
had  evidently  gone  to  visit  her  family  in  that  town. 


President  Willard  to  his  Wife 

[Cambridge]  Oct.  2,  1794. 
My  dear  Mrs.  Willard: 

Eight  days  have  now  elapsed  since  you  left  home ;  I  hope  you  have 
been  well  and  are  in  the  enjoyment  of  your  friends  at  Portsmouth; 
let  nothing  interrupt  your  enjoyment,  let  no  anxieties  about  those 
you  have  left  at  Cambridge  mar  your  pleasures,  for  I  assure  you  we 
are  at  present  all  comfortable,  all  our  children  are  very  well,  and  our 
daughters  conduct  the  household  affairs  with  great  propriety  and  good 
order;  Sophia ^  makes  a  steady  and  judicious  housekeeper.  Though 
I  shall  find  it  painful  enough  to  be  deprived  of  your  company  for  a 

*  Sophia  Willard,  then  nineteen  years  old,  eldest  child  of  President  Willard, 
married,  in  1802,  Francis  Dana,  son  of  Chief  Justice  Dana. 


12  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTOKICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

long  season,  yet  I  sincerely  wish  you  now  to  take  time  sufficient  to 
make  all  the  visits  that  you  desire,  the  only  requisition  I  make  is, 
that  you  improve  every  opportunity  to  send  me  a  line,  as  your  letters 
are  always  grateful  to  me  and  in  some  measure  mitigate  the  pain  of 
your  absence. 

Albaity,  Aug.  1,  1799. 

My  letter  of  last  Sabbath  evening  which  went  by  way  of  the  Post 
Office  left  me  at  Northampton;  the  next  morning  after  a  seasonable 
breakfast  I  set  off  for  Pittsfield,  travelling  to  Dalton  32  miles; 
24  miles  of  the  32  were  on  horseback;^  I  rode  the  farther  in  that 
mode  in  order  that  Sidney,  being  in  the  chaise,  might  ease  the  chaise- 
horse  by  walking  up  a  number  of  long  steep  hills.  Tuesday  we  rode 
to  Pittsfield,  breakfasting  at  a  good  tavern,  calling  later  at  Mr.  Van 
Schaicks,  and  in  the  afternoon  waiting  upon  Mrs.  Allen  where  we 
were  hospitably  entertained;  in  the  late  afternoon  went  to  Lebanon 
for  the  night;  visiting  the  Shaking  Quakers  the  next  day  finding  in 
their  settlement  neatness  and  economy  most  pleasing.  Journeying 
on  to  Albany  we  put  up  at  the  Tontine  Coffee  House,  a  place  of  ex- 
cellent entertainment;  in  the  evening  paid  our  respects  to  Gov.  Jay, 
who  received  us  with  plain  and  unaffected  politeness ;  shall  dine  with 
him  on  Monday.  I  called  also  on  the  Lieut.  Gov.  Van  Rensselaer,- 
but  he  had  gone  to  his  country  farm  about  a  mile  out  from  the  city : 
thither  we  rode  out  on  Monday.  I  have  the  satisfaction  of  informing 
you  that  notwithstanding  the  imfavorable  season  with  the  great  heat 

^  From  the  volume  entitled  "  Memories  of  Youth  and  Manhood,"  written  by 
Professor  Sidney  Willard,  son  of  the  President,  I  have  taken  the  description  of 
the  latter's  habiliments  as  adapted  for  travelling;  and,  by  the  way,  a  perusal 
of  this  book  with  its  record  of  the  earlier  life  of  the  College  and  Cambridge 
will  well  repay  the  reader,  and  will  add  much  interesting  detail  to  the  letters 
here  presented.  Sidney  Willard  accompanied  his  father  on  this  journey,  and 
writes: 

"  My  father  procured  a  saddle  horse  in  addition  to  his  own  horse  and  chaise, 
intending  as  his  health  and  comfort  should  permit,  to  try  the  saddle  instead 
of  the  chaise,  but  his  black  broadcloth  garments,  and  large  full-bottomed  wig 
and  beaver  cocked-hat,  under  the  summer  sun  soon  gave  warning  that  the 
shade  of  the  carriage  was  desirable,  and  it  was  not  long  before  I  had  sole  pos- 
session of  the  saddle  horse,  and  became  so  habituated  to  the  seat  and  so  fami- 
liar with  the  ways  of  the  beast,  that  we  might  have  l>een  taken  for  a  centaur." 

'  "  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer  was  a  graduate  of  Harvard  College  in  1782,  a 
member  of  the  first  class  which  was  graduated  under  Mr.  Willard's  presidency; 
he  was  commonly  called  the  *  Patroon,'  in  Albany  and  the  neighborhood,  being 
the  proprietor  of  an  immense  landed  estate,  occupied  by  a  very  numerous  ten- 
antry."   Memories  of  Youth  and  Manhood,  p.  82. 


1916.]        LETTERS    OF   EEV.   JOSEPH   WILLARD  13 

since  leaving  Cambridge,  my  journey  thus  far  has  evidently  subserved 
my  health  and  I  cannot  help  entertaining  the  pleasing  hope  that  the 
drinking  of  the  mineral  waters  and  further  journey ings,  will  by  the 
blessing  of  Providence  restore  me  to  a  considerable  degree  of  health, 
so  that  on  my  return  I  may  attend  to  the  duties  of  my  office  with 
steadiness.  After  dinner  today  I  expect  to  ride  to  Schenectady  16 
miles,  half  the  distance  to  Ballston  Springs,^  where  I  hope  to  dine 
tomorrow. 

Ballston  Spbings,  Aug.  12,  1799. 

My  health  has  sensibly  improved  ever  since  I  came  to  this  place, 
drinking  the  waters  and  bathing;  tomorrow  shall  set  off  for  Lake 
George  to  be  gone  a  few  days;  Mr.  Geyer^  and  daughter,  Mrs.  Hay 
and  niece,  Mrs.  Parker,  and  Mr.  Bossinger  Foster  and  brother  are 
all  here.^ 

PiTTSFiELD,  Lord's  Day,  July  25,  1801. 

Left  Worcester  for  Northampton  in  the  stage,  spent  the  evening 
at  the  Governor's,*  in  company  with  Rev.  Mr.  Williams^  and  Dr. 
Hunt  very  agreeably;  next  day  set  off  in  the  stage  from  Pomeroy's  in 
company  with  Mr.  Ebenezer  Hunt  who  is  going  to  Ballston  Springs 
for  his  health.  I  have  journeyed  thus  far  in  the  stage  with  as  little 
fatigue,  I  think,  as  I  should  have  driven  myself  in  my  own  carriage 
and  with  much  less  care.  Mr.  Allen  preached  in  the  forenoon  and 
I  preached  for  him  in  the  afternoon.  Tomorrow  I  expect  to  be  at 
Albany. 

*  Ballston  Springs,  a  small  watering  place  in  Saratoga  County,  New  York, 
a  few  miles  south  of  Saratoga,  containing  but  two  houses  for  visitors,  but 
patronized  by  invalids  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  possessing  a  saline  spring 
discovered  in  1769. 

'  Frederick  Geyer,  who  lived  in  the  Vassall  house  in  1791 ;  his  daughter  mar- 
ried Andrew  Belcher,  grandson  of  Governor  Jonathan  Belcher.  Mrs.  Hay  was 
probably  Mrs.  Richard  Hay,  formerly  Anna  Adams.  Bossenger  Foster  was  a 
brother-in-law  of  Andrew  Craigie  and  lived  in  the  Vassall  house.  Historic 
Guide  to  Cambridge,  p.  98. 

«  Again,  in  1800,  President  Willard  found  it  necessary  to  journey  for  his 
health,  and  writes  from  Ballston  Springs,  August  21:  "I  drink  the  waters 
three  times  a  day,  and  find  the  same  relish  for  them  as  formerly;  the  weather 
has  been  remarkably  cool  ever  since  I  left  Cambridge,  the  journey  very  agree- 
able, the  company  pleasing." 

*  Governor  Caleb  Strong. 

"  Samuel  Williams,  Hollis  Professor  of  Mathematics  and  Natural  Philos- 
ophy at  Harvard  from  1780  to  1788.  He  lived  in  Rutland,  Vt.,  from  1789  to 
his  death  in  1817,  preaching  from  1789  to  1795.  He  was  the  author  of  "  Tlie 
Natural  and  Civil  History  of  Vermont,"  published  in  1794. 


14  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

Philadelphia,  August  31,  1801. 

After  leaving  New  York  on  Wednesday,  I  set  off  in  the  stage  for 
Philadelphia,  spending  one  night  there  and  on  Friday  reached  Balti- 
more. In  the  afternoon  visited  Bishop  Carroll,  who  received  me  with 
great  politeness  and  friendship,  and  in  various  ways  was  very  atten- 
tive to  me. 

On  Monday  set  out  for  the  City  of  Washington  by  way  of  Annapolis ; 
arrived  in  the  afternoon  and  waited  upon  the  Chancellor  of  the  State, 
with  a  letter  of  introduction  and  was  by  the  Chancellor  introduced 
to  the  Governor^  with  whom  I  took  tea.  Annapolis  is  a  charming 
situation  and  is  inhabited  by  a  number  of  Gentlemen  of  opulence; 
formerly  a  place  of  trade  but  Baltimore  has  taken  it  all  away.  On 
Tuesday  set  off  for  Washington  and  viewed  all  that  is  worth  seeing 
in  that  new  city,  the  Capitol  and  the  President's  house;  the  next 
morning  set  out  for  Mt.  Vernon,  in  company  with  Judge  Cranch  ^ ; 
I  was  received  by  Mrs.  Washington  with  her  usual  easy  politeness  arid 
with  great  apparent  cordiality  which  I  believe  was  real;  she  says  it 
gives  her  the  greatest  pleasure  to  have  her  friends  come  and  visit  her 
at  her  seat;  she  urged  us  much  to  tarry  and  dine  with  her,  but  as 
we  had  to  return  to  Washington  that  evening  we  could  not  make  it 
convenient  and  consequently  excused  ourselves  after  the  visit  of  an 
hour.  Before  returning  to  Washington  we  visited  the  tomb  where 
Gen.  Washington's  body  was  deposited,  a  spot  which  I  could  not  view 
without  great  veneration,  but  I  hope  not  of  the  superstitious  kind. 

On  Saturday  reached  Philadelphia,  and  on  Sunday  preached  for 
Dr.  Ewing  in  the  forenoon,  and  for  Dr.  Green  in  the  afternoon,  at 
whose  house  I  now  am;  shall  visit  Princeton,  Bethlehem,  and  New 
York,  on  the  way  back,  and  from  the  latter  place  hope  to  find  a  Packet 
ready  to  sail  for  Providence;  should  that  be  the  case,  I  shall  step  on 
board,  and  hope  it  will  be  but  a  short  time  before  I  shall  be  at  Cam- 
bridge, for  I  am  becoming  solicitous  to  be  with  my  family  and  the 
College. 

President  Willard's  death  occurred  at  Nev^  Bedford,  September 
25,  1804,  while  returning  from  a  journey  to  Cape  Cod.  Mrs. 
Willard  outlived  her  husband  many  years,  making  her  home  in 
Portsmoutli,  and  dying  there  in  1826. 

Of  their  thirteen  children,  eight  lived  to  maturity,  and  five  of 
these  married.     The  eldest  son,  Augustus,  graduated  from  Har- 

*  Governor  John  Francis  Mercer, 

"  Judge  William  Cranch,  bom  at  Weymouth,  Mass.,  in  1769,  was  of  Wash- 
ington and  Alexandria,  father  of  Christopher  Cranch. 


1916.]        LETTERS   OF  REV.   JOSEPH   WILLARD  15 

vard  in  1793.  In  1798  he  was  sent  abroad  by  his  uncle  James 
Sheafe,  a  prosperous  merchant  of  Portsmouth,  as  supercargo  of  the 
ship  Apollo,  bound  from  Norfolk  to  Falmouth.  He  was  captured 
by  a  French  privateer  off  the  Spanish  coast  and  detained  on  shore 
some  three  months.  During  this  time  he  kept  a  journal,  full  of 
picturesque  descriptions  of  the  little  Spanish  towns  where  he 
was  quartered.  This  journal  is  still  preserved  along  with  the 
letters  here  transcribed.  In  August,  1799,  he  sailed  on  a  voyage  to 
the  West  Indies,  and  at  Jamaica  was  seized  with  yellow  fever, 
dying  at  the  age  of  twenty-three. 

I  give  here  two  of  his  letters,  one  to  his  father  and  the  other 
to  his  mother. 


Augustus  Willaed  to  his  Fathee 

Norfolk,  Va.,  July  29,  1798. 
Dear  Sir: 

I  have  written  you  of  my  safe  arrival  here  after  a  pleasant  passage; 
I  hope  before  I  leave  this  place  to  receive  letters  from  you  which 
will  be  in  good  season  if  you  write  soon  after  the  information  received 
by  Mr.  Sheafe  at  Commencement. 

You  cannot  but  be  sensible  of  the  great  satisfaction  your  letters 
would  afford  me;  their  reception  would  be  something  like  seeing  one 
of  the  family,  and  I  should  be  very  willing  to  take  payment  in  such 
papers,  for  the  many  looks  of  affection  which  I  cast  towards  you. 
I  have  taken  a  freight  for  Falmouth,  England,  and  orders,  but  there 
is  not  much  doubt  of  the  ship's  going  to  London ;  however,  should  you 
or  any  of  the  family  wish  to  write  me,  if  you  will  enclose  your  letters 
to  Messrs.  Lane  and  Frazer,  London,  I  shall  undoubtedly  get  them,  as 
I  shall  give  them  information  from  Falmouth  where  bound;  I  have 
some  prospect  of  sailing  under  convoy  of  one  or  two  English  Letters 
of  Marque.  I  have  taken  part  of  cargo  in  and  shall  probably  sail  in 
20  or  25  days.  Hope  to  steer  clear  of  the  Sans-Culottes ;  should  the 
wretches  get  me,  and  imprison  me,  I  trust  I  shall  go,  well  stocked  with 
resolution  to  bear,  and  spirit  which  shall  despise,  their  cruelties. 

I  shall  not  fail  to  enjoy  good  health,  if  temperance  in  diet  and 
regularity  of  life  will  give  it.  Give  my  duty  to  Mama  and  love  to 
Brothers  and  Sisters. 

Your  dutiful  Son, 

Augustus  Willard. 


16  THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 


Augustus  Willaed  to  his  Mother 

CoBUNNA,  Nov.  11,  1798. 

Deae  Mother: 

Having  at  this  moment  a  good  opportunity  by  the  Capt.  of  the  ship 
in  which  I  was  in,  it  would  be  inconsistent  with  my  duty  and  my 
feelings,  to  neglect  it  and  not  give  you  information  where  I  am, 
how  I  do,  and  what  I  am  about. 

You  will  undoubtedly  hear  by  the  way  of  Mr.  Sheafe  of  my  being 
captured  by  the  French;  this  took  place  the  19th  ultimo.^  I  was  de- 
tained on  board  the  Privateer  about  25  days;  I  experienced  no  ill 
treatment,  but  at  the  moment  when  we  had  an  engagement  with  an 
English  Privateer  for  an  hour  and  a  quarter,  I  wished  myself  on  terra 
firma.  I  was  landed  in  this  country,  and  after  travelling  300  miles 
over  the  Mts.  witli  much  danger  and  fatigue,  I  safely  arrived  in  this 
place  8  days  since,  where  for  certain  reasons  I  am  induced  to  stay 
some  time;  but  were  I  at  liberty  and  there  was  propriety  in  going 
or  staying,  you  cannot  I  think  hesitate,  on  which  my  choice  would 
fix;  you  need  not  have  a  single  anxiety  as  to  my  situation,  or  be 
troubled  at  what  I  have  passed  through;  being  possessed  of  good 
health  and  spirits,  I  think  I  shall  not  find  it  difficult  to  trample  a 
few  vexations  under  foot.  This  town  is  one  of  the  best  on  this  coast, 
but  yet  it  seems  to  be  half  filled  with  Barbarians ;  the  peasants  in  the 
country  are  miserably  poor,  and  the  superstition  throughout  the  coun- 
try is  disgusting  to  an  American;  should  I  see  you  I  could  give  you 
many  descriptions  which  would  excite  your  laughter  and  your  pity; 
they  would  lose  their  spirit  by  being  penned.  I  must  conclude  with 
warm  wishes  for  your  happiness  and  that  of  my  brothers  and  Sisters. 
Your  dutiful  Son, 

Augustus  Willard. 

The  remaining  letters  are  from  several  other  of  the  President's 
children.  They  began  in  1816,  when  Joseph,  the  youngest  of  the 
family,  then  just  eighteen  and  a  Senior  in  College,  writes  to  his 
favorite  sister  Theodora,  in  Portsmouth  (who  became  the  wife 
of  Dr.  Samuel  Luther  Dana,  the  noted  chemist). 
*  He  evidently  means  September  19. 


1916.]        LETTERS   OF   REV.   JOSEPH   WILLARD  17 


Joseph  Willard  to  his  sister  Theodora 

Cambbiooe,  February,  1816. 

I  have  been  to  three  parties  since  my  return  from  Portsmouth,  two 
small  ones  at  Mr.  Warland's^  at  both  of  which  we  danced  and  I  of 
course  enjoyed  myself  much,  and  likewise  to  a  very  large  one  at  Mr. 
Bigelow's  2  where  nearly  all  that  Cambridge  could  muster  were  present 
These  three  are  the  only  parties  of  any  description  that  have  been 
given  this  winter.  Almost  as  soon  as  I  arrived  here  I  heard  com- 
plaints of  the  dullness  of  the  town ;  every  one  says  it  is  owing  to  the 
loss  of  the  Willard  family;  tho  there  may  be  some  truth  in  this 
assertion  I  am  unwilling  to  allow  it  to  a  great  extent,  yet  it  will  serve 
to  show  how  much  you  are  all  lamented  and  perhaps  may  gratify  your 
vanity.  H.  Plunkett  went  to  Boston  last  week  to  visit,  and  Miss 
Abba  Peirce  ^  is  staying  here  to  supply  her  place ;  to  tell  you  the  truth 
I  much  prefer  the  latter,  she  has  none  of  those  foolish  affected  ways 
that  spoil  Miss.  Plunkett's  good  looks.  Nothing  of  consequence  has 
occurred  for  some  time  past;  Cambridge  is  no  place  for  news.  Last 
Sunday  evening  I  visited  the  Misses  Howes;*  they  spoke  much  of 
the  Plunkett  family.  Tabby  shed  five  tears,  the  other  two,  six  each. 
Have  you  heard  of  Joe  Reed's  death  and  the  loss  it  has  occasioned? 

Last  Wednesday  was  a  great  day  with  us  here,  peculiarly  gratifying 
to  the  students  on  account  of  the  Ball  which  we  had  in  the  evening, 
that  was  very  splendid  and  did  great  honor  to  those  who  managed  it ; 
there  was  a  great  dispute  about  who  was  the  Belle  of  the  evening, 
tho  the  opinions  of  the  gentlemen  were  chiefly  divided  between  two 
candidates,  Miss  Lithgoe  and  Miss  Bradford ;  ^  as  for  myself  I  thought 
Miss  Bradford  far  the  most  deserving  tho  I  don't  pretend  to  much 
judgment  in  these  affairs. 

^  The  Warland  family  were  among  the  early  settlers;  Elizabeth  Warland 
married  first  Dr.  John  Abbot,  and  second,  in  1822,  Dr.  Samuel  Manning. 

*  Mr.  Bigelow,  father  of  the  Messrs.  Bigelow,  founders  of  the  firm  of  Bige- 
low  Brothers  and  Kennard,  jewellers  of  Boston,  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school 
living  in  the  old  Inman  house. 

'  Perhaps  Abby  Hinckley  Peirce,  who  married  Allen  Putnam  in  1831. 

*  Elizabeth,  Tabitha,  and  Anna  were  the  daughters  of  William  and  Tabitha 
Howes.    Cambridge  Vital  Statistics. 

'  Miss  Bradford,  one  of  the  daughters  of  Captain  Gamaliel  Bradford. 


18  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTOIIICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 


Joseph  Willakd  to  his  sisteb  Theodora 

Cambbidge,  February,  1816. 
I  heartily  thank  you  for  the  interest  you  take  in  my  welfare  and 
happiness,  and  I  hope  for  my  own  sake  as  well  as  yours  that  any 
reasonable  expectation  you  may  form  concerning  my  future  success 
may  not  be  entirely  disappointed,  and  accordingly  I  shall  do  all  in 
my  powers  to  prevent  it ;  be  assured,  my  dear  girl,  that  the  part  I  have 
for  next  exhibition  was  unexpected  by  me,  but  I  am  glad  I  have  one 
as  it  affords  so  great  a  pleasure  to  you  all;  otherwise  I  should  have 
been  perfectly  indifferent  about  having  it  for  more  reasons  than  one. 
It  is  indeed  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  write  a  part,  greater  than  you 
think  for  perhaps;  besides,  the  continual  apprehension  I  am  under 
that  I  shall  not  succeed  well,  has  taken  away  half  the  pleasure  I  should 
have  otherwise  enjoyed  this  term;  fortunately  exhibition  is  near  at 
hand  and  I  shall  not  have  to  remain  in  a  state  of  uncertainty  much 
longer;  the  30th  of  April  will  be  the  great  decisive  day,  and  after 
that  I  expect  to  feel  more  at  ease  than  I  do  at  present.  The  subject 
of  my  part  is,  "The  Physical  Cause  as  determining  the  opinions  of 
men."  But  what  can  one  imagine  more  awkward  and  disagreeable 
than  speaking  one's  own  composition  before  a  numerous  and  learned 
assemblage  ? 

LUCINDA  WlLLARD^   TO  HEE  BROTHER  JoSEPH 

Cambridge,  1817. 

I  am  reading  Tales  of  my  Landlord;  I  recognize  the  author  of 
Waverly;  his  writings  are  all  very  racy  and  all  original,  but  I  do 
not  think  he  could  disguise  himself.  Sarah  Ann  Dana  ^  is  to  be  mar- 
ried before  the  next  term;  her  sisters  I  believe  will  board  with  her 
at  the  Point  and  Edmund  is  to  have  a  housekeeper. 

Everybody  here  is  preparing  to  be  married  but  I  believe  I  shall  not 
establish  myself  here,  unless  I  conclude  to  build,  for  houses  are 
very  scarce.  I  have  been  to  no  parties  here  as  yet,  but  I  am  going  to 
drink  tea  with  Mrs.  Frisbie  ^  in  a  sociable  way. 

Mr.  Norton  gives  no  more  lectures  till  next  fall  because  he  is  some- 

*  Lucinda  Willard  was  the  literary  and  romantic  member  of  the  family. 

■  The  Misses  Sarah  Ann  and  Elizabeth  Dana  were  engaged  respectively  to 
James  Foster  and  George  Foster,  sons  of  Bossenger  Foster  and  Mary  ( Craigie ) 
Foster.  The  brothers  died  in  Cambridge  within  a  week  of  each  other  of  a  vio- 
lent epidemic,  in  1817.    The  Misses  Dana  never  married. 

•  Mrs.  Frisbie  was    the  wife  of    Levi  Frisbie,  College  Professor  of    Latin. 


1916.]        LETTEES   OF   REV.   JOSEPH   WILLARD  19 

what  out  of  health ;  I  have  been  to  one  as  I  found  some  of  the  ladies 
here  went,  although  a  few  of  the  government  are  opposed  to  it:  but 
the  President  and  Sidney  ^  are  not  among  the  foes  to  Ladies  improve- 
ment ;  I  think  I  should  admire  the  study  of  Theology. 


Maky  Willakd  to  her  beother  Joseph 

PoETSMOUTH,  July  26th,  1817. 

There  is  a  great  dearth  of  communicable  matter  here  at  present ;  in- 
deed we  are  generally  in  a  pretty  vapid  state  as  you  know ;  the  Presi- 
dent's^ visit  of  which  you  heard  enough  or  too  much  probably  produced 
considerable  excitation;  but  the  calm,  the  ennui,  that  succeeds  such 
excitation,  depresses  the  heart  below  its  common  level.  There  was 
one  circumstance  connected  with  the  President's  visit  of  peculiar  in- 
terest to  us;  when  the  head  of  the  Nation  was  entering  Portsmouth 
Saturday,  whom  should  we  spy  in  the  first  or  second  carriage  in  the 
train,  with  hat  off  and  spectacles  on  and  look  full  of  importance,  but 
our  friend  Dr.  Waterhouse^  by  the  side  of  the  great  General  Dear- 
born *  but  without  his  laurels ;  the  next  day  [Sunday]  just  before  the 
bell-ringing  in  the  afternoon,  whom  should  Miss  Polly  [the  writer, 
Mary  Willard]  be  called  down  to  see,  but  Dr.  Waterhouse;  I  luckily 
bethought  myself  of  putting  on  my  gloves  for  he  would  of  course 
shake  hands  with  us  all;  he  proposed  accompanying  us  to  Meeting; 
Mother  told  him  it  was  a  very  long  walk,  but  he  was  sure  that  if  the 
ladies  could  bear  it  he  could;  as  it  was  rather  late  before  we  set  off 
we  met  throngs  of  people,  greater  numbers  being  out  than  usual  from 
the  hope  of  seeing  the  President;  I  thought  that  people  stared  at  us 
very  much  and  held  down  my  head  from  shame,  thinking  that  every 
one  knew  Dr.  Waterhouse,  made  more  conspicuous  by  his  golden  in- 
signia ;  little  did  I  think  with  how  much  honor  we  were  looked  up  to. 
We  afterwards  learnt  that  it  was  noised  abroad  that  the  President 
was  waiting  upon  the  Miss  Willards  to  Meeting!  Happy,  happy, 
happy,  fair ! ! !  The  next  day  we  met  Dr.  Waterhouse  in  the  street 
and  he  took  the  opportunity  to  make  us  another  call;  he  said  he 

Mrs.  Norton  wa8  the  wife  of  Andrews  Norton,  Dexter  Professor  of  Sacred 
Literature. 

^  President  John  Thornton  Kirkland  and  Professor  Sidney  Willard,  son  of 
President  Joseph  Willard. 

*  President  Monroe. 

'  Dr.  Benjamin  Waterhouse,  horn  in  Newport,  R.  I.,  1754,  died  1846;  Profes- 
sor of  the  Theory  and  Practice  of  Medicine  at  Harvard,  1783;  introduced  vac- 
cination into  this  coimtry. 

*  General  Henry  Dearborn  was  Secretary  of  War  under  Washington. 


20  THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

should  accompany  the  President  to  Portland,  returning  to  Portsmouth 
by  Friday,  by  which  time  he  supposed  we  should  have  commands  for 
Cambridge,  but  as  we  passed  no  compliment  upon  him  it  is  to  be  be- 
lieved that  he  took  it  in  dudgeon,  for  we  have  seen  nothing  more 
of  him. 

Joseph  Willakd  to  his  sisteb  Theodora 

Cambrhmie,  1819. 

My  little  room  appears  doubly  pleasant  after  a  short  absence,  and 
in  resuming  my  studies^  I  feel  an  increased  relish,  as  time  spent  in 
visiting  though  in  reality  spent  agreeably  appears  little  better  than 
lost.  Saturday  evening  drank  tea  at  Mrs.  Webber's  ;2  and  Monday 
drank  tea  at  the  Danas';  spent  the  night  at  Sweet  Auburn.  Mr. 
Craigie  was  taken  with  an  apoplectic  fit  on  Thursday  night  and  died 
yesterday  having  remained  senseless  all  the  time;  Francis  Alsop  is 
staying  in  Boston ;  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dabney  sailed  a  few  weeks  since. 

When  at  the  Danas' '  last  evening  saw  Louisa's  carriage ;  it  took  in 
Dr.  Holmes,  and  then  Dr.  Waterhouse,  Rebecca,  and  Mary ;  *  it  passed 
me  as  I  was  going  to  Sweet  Auburn ;  I  observed  the  Dr's  ruffle  being 
very  long  and  wide;  passed  Thomas  Lee's  just  as  the  marriage  cere- 
mony was  about  commencing;  how  horribly  ludicrous  to  see  a  man 
married  with  one  foot  in  the  grave. 

Barnum  has  given  up  his  tavern,  and  Smith  has  taken  the  house 
and  will  let  rooms  to  the  scholars  and  graduates,  a  happy  thing  for 
Cambridge  and  College ;  "  'T  is-But "  boards  at  Sweet  Auburn,  Lucy 
in  Boston,  Ben  and  the  cow  in  Sawyer's,  and  I  keep  the  Mansion 
house  **  and  lord  it  over  the  larder,  wine  closet,  cakebox,  and  the  re- 
maining musk-melons  and  peaches. 

Cambridge  is  very  healthy;  there  was  not  a  single  death  in  the 
course  of  the  summer. 

*  Joseph  Willard  was  studying  law  as  a  law  student  in  the  newly  estab- 
lished Law  School  of  the  University,  and  received  his  degree  of  LL.B.  in  1820, 
the  first  year  in  which  it  was  given. 

'  The  widow  of  President  Samuel  Webber  of  Harvard.  Andrew  Craigie  was 
Apothecary  General  during  the  Revolutionary  War. 

'  See  the  note  on  the  residences  of  the  Dana  family  at  the  end  of  these 
letters. 

*  Rebecca  and  Mary  were  the  daughters  of  the  famous  Dr.  Waterhouse,  who 
was  sixty-five  at  the  time  of  his  marriage  to  Louisa,  daughter  of  Thomas 
Lee,  Jr.  Rev.  Dr.  Abiel  Holmes,  father  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  performed 
the  ceremony. 

*  Undoubtedly  the  residence  of  Professor  Sidney  Willard  in  Holyoke  St., 
where  he  lived  from  1811  to  1832.  This  house,  called  the  "  Cooke-Holyoke 
house,"  built  in  1668,  was  replaced  by  a  club-house  in  1905. 


1916.]        LETTERS   OF  REV.   JOSEPH   WILLARD  21 

Joseph  Willabd  to  his  sister  Theodoba 

Cambridoe,  October  12th,  1819. 

The  time  is  fast  approaching  when  I  shall  be  obliged  to  leave  this 
place,  dearer  to  me  than  any  one  (except  a  native  of  the  Town)  can 
conceive.  I  shall  ever  esteem  it  a  great  blessing  and  no  less  of  an 
advantage  that  I  have  been  able  to  complete  my  studies  here  in  a 
more  systematic  manner  than  I  should  have  been  able  to  do  elsewhere ; 
while  at  the  same  time  I  have  enjoyed  the  best  and  most  refined  society 
that  New  England  can  boast  of ;  soon  all  these  advantages  and  enjoy- 
ments must  be  given  up  and  a  struggle  made  to  gain  a  bare  sub- 
sistence; perhaps  some  of  the  comforts  of  life  may  be  a  reward  of 
great  exertions  but  of  this  I  may  doubt ;  where  I  may  go  is  at  present 
in  nubibus  as  we  say  in  the  law;  you  shall  know  by-and-by  what  are 
my  intentions;  meantime  as  Linkum  Fidelius  expresses  it,  "The 
offence  of  exciting  a  woman's  curiosity  without  the  indulgence  thereof 
is  heinous  beyond  compare."  Parties  are  nearly  over  except  the 
pleasant  reading  parties  which  come  weekly ;  Mrs.  C.  Paine  ^  gave  a 
large  party  last  evening,  but  the  weather  was  so  unpleasant  and  the 
night  had  so  much  of  the  blackness  of  darkness  that  I  was,  much  to 
my  disappointment,  obliged  to  stay  at  home.  Mr.  Allston  ^  will  soon 
go  to  Boston,  though,  if  he  had  not  lately  been  at  considerable  expense 
in  fitting  up  a  room  there,  he  would  be  in  Cambridge. 

Mr.  Everett^  will  move  to  Cambridge  shortly,  he  has  taken  rooms 
at  Rynecks. 

Dr.  Bigelow  has  commenced  his  Rumford  lectures;  I  have  not  at- 
tended any  of  them)  nor  can  I  learn  that  they  are  abundantly  interest- 
ing. Sophia  Dana  runs  away  with  the  first  honors  of  Dr.  Park's 
school  and  Mary  Dana  with  all  the  young  theological  hearts  in  Cam- 
bridge.* 

*  Mrs.  Charles  Paine  of  Waltham. 

^  Washington  Allston,  the  noted  painter. 

*  Edward  Everett,  who  had  been  appointed  Professor  of  Greek  Literature  in 
1815,  but  was  now,  after  four  years  of  study  and  travel  in  Europe,  just  taking 
up  his  work  in  Cambridge. 

*  Sophia  and  Mary  Dana  were  the  daughters  of  Sophia  Willard  and  Francis 
Dana,  son  of  the  Chief  Justice.  Sophia  married  Mr.  George  Ripley  of  Brook 
Farm  fame. 


22  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

LUOINDA  WHiLARD  TO   HER  BROTHER   JoSEPH 

Portsmouth,  November  5th,  1821. 

I  feel  sure  Lancaster  would  be  a  very  pleasant  place  to  live  in ;  ^ 
facility  of  intercourse  in  the  world  ought  to  increase  our  benevolence ; 
it  approximates  us  in  one  thing  to  the  society  of  the  blessed;  that  is 
in  seeing  all  our  friends  at  once  almost,  but  I  fear  the  resemblance 
will  hold  in  no  other  respect. 

LUCINDA  WiLLAKD  TO  HER  BROTHER  JoSEPH 

Portsmouth,  November  2l8t,  1821. 

I  think  Lancaster  would  be  a  very  pleasant  place  to  live  in  with 
some  people  who  understood  the  charms  of  conversation  and  who  would 
be  social  and  lively;  for  my  own  part  if  it  would  not  seem  romantic 
I  would  say,  and  I  will  if  it  does,  that  I  infinitely  prefer  the  simplicity 
and  unsophisticated  charms  of  the  country  to  the  frippery  and  cere- 
mony of  town,  and  I  think  the  mind  ought  to  be  more  ennobled  by 
contemplating  the  works  of  its  creator,  than,  as  Dr.  Pearson^  calls 
them,  the  despicable  works  of  man. 

I  think  Sophia  [Dana]  is  so  fond  of  the  flowery  paths  of  literature 
and  perhaps  even  of  the  rugged  ascents  of  learning,  that  she  would 
enjoy  teaching  intelligent  scholars. 

I  think  Mary^  will  continue  to  do  a  great  deal  of  good  here  and 
must  inevitably  contribute  to  lessen  the  frivolity  and  love  of  riches 
in  the  town  by  giving  her  pupils  treasures  within. 

We  have  had  the  third  number  of  the  Idle  Man;*  I  do  not  like 
it  as  well  as  the  others,  but  I  mean  to  read  it  to  myself,  for  it  is  not 
of  that  kind  which  should  be  by  one  made  audible.  I  think  the  man- 
ner of  the  oifer  and  the  conversations  beforehand  perfectly  natural 
for  peculiar  people  of  sentiment,  but  it  has  so  much  simplicity  I  think 
it  will  not  please  the  great  world ;  I  think  a  man  in  love  would  hope 
more  than  the  hero  did  in  his  low  fortunes ;  there  is  considerable  stage 

'  Joseph  Willard  lived  in  Lancaster,  Mass.,  ten  years  or  more  as  a  practis- 
ing lawyer. 

*  Eliphalet  Pearson,  Professor  of  Hebrew  and  Oriental  Langruages  at  Har- 
vard, 1786-1806. 

*  Mary  Willard  (daughter  of  the  President),  who  taught  school  in  Ports- 
mouth, N.  H.,  for  several  years. 

*  The  "  Idle  Man,"  a  poem  by  Richard  H.  Dana,  son  of  Chief  Justice  Dana. 


1916.]        LETTERS   OF   REV.   JOSEPH   WILLARD  23 

effect  in  the  parting  however.  Ricliard  Dana  has  a  great  many- 
beauties  in  all  his  writings  and  many  just  sentiments,  and  much  more 
heart  and  soul  than  Mr.  Everett  shows  in  his  writings. 


Joseph  Willard  to  his  sisteb  Theodoka 

Cambbidge,  1822. 

There  have  been  two  cotillion  balls  in  this  vacation ;  at  each,  Elislia 
Fuller  was  one  of  the  managers,  and  danced  double  shuffle  in  the 
fashion  of  a  son  of  Afric.  A  large  party  last  week  at  Professor 
Steams.^ 

Mr.  Everett  ^  is  to  return  to  Cambridge ;  the  Overseers  will  take  no 
further  measures  against  him.  No  news  of  much  consequence  just 
now  but  here  are  a  few  little  details :  Mrs.  Abbot  ^  is  soon  to  be  mar- 
ried to  Dr.  Manning;  the  Dr.  has  built  a  three-story  shingle  palace 
south  side  of  the  market  place.  Mary  Holmes's*  engagement  sur- 
prised all. 

Betsy  and  Sarah  Dana  think  of  building  in  the  spring  near  the 

*  Asahel  Stearns  was  University  Professor  of  Law,  1817-1829.  He  lived  in 
what  is  now  called  the  Foxoroft  House,  which  then  stood  on  Kirkland  St.  oa 
the  site  of  the  present  New  Lecture  Hall. 

*  Edward  Everett  had  settled  in  Cambridge  on  his  return  from  Germany  in 
1819,  but  in  April,  1821,  he  formally  asked  permission  of  the  Corporation  to 
remove  to  Boston,  at  the  same  time  proposing  that  his  salary  should  be  reduced 
to  $1200.  His  object  was,  on  the  one  hand,  to  be  relieved  from  duties  in  con- 
nection with  the  "  Immediate  Government "  —  duties  which  he  considered  for 
him  a  waste  of  time,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  have  more  of  the  society  of  his 
friends  in  Boston.  He  pointed  out  that  the  same  privilege  was  at  that  moment 
enjoyed  by  seven  out  of  the  fifteen  professors  on  foundations. 

Ilie  Corporation  at  first  declined  to  grant  the  request,  but  afterward  ap- 
proved it  and  referred  the  matter  to  the  Overseers.  The  Overseers,  "after 
ample  discussion,"  voted  on  Nov.  6,  1821,  to  refer  the  subject  to  the  next  semi- 
annual meeting  of  the  Board,  and  on  May  7,  1822,  voted  "That  it  would  be 
highly  detrimental  to  the  interests  of  the  University  to  depart  from  the  ancient 
usage  of  requiring  the  constant  residence  of  those  professors  whose  offices, 
from  the  nature  of  them,  are  essentially  connected  with  the  necessary  studies 
of  the  undergraduates."  In  the  meantime,  on  Feb.  18,  1822,  Professor  Everett 
notified  Judge  Davis,  the  Treasurer,  that  he  had  taken  a  house  in  Cambridge, 
and  asked  to  be  restored  to  the  list  of  "  Full  Pensioners."  With  his  newly 
married  wife,  a  daughter  of  Peter  C.  Brooks,  he  lived  for  a  time  in  one  half 
of  the  Craigie  House. 

'  Mrs.  Abbot  was  Elizabeth  Warland,  who  married  Dr.  Samuel  Manning  in 
1822. 

*  Mary  Holmes  was  the  daughter  of  Rev.  Abiel  Holmes;  she  married  Dr. 
Usher  Parsons  in  1822. 


24  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

Parsonage ;  ^  they  have  a  very  fine  house  on  paper  where  very  likely  it 
will  always  remain;  the  great  picture  is  going  on;  when  finished, 
Martha  is  to  be  married.* 

Mrs.  Coffin^  does  not  succeed;  the  business  of  taking  boarders  is 
overdone  in  Cambridge. 

It  was  ascertained  a  few  weeks  since  that  Captain  Bradford,  Mrs. 
Ripley's  father,  offered  himself  to  Mrs.  Craigie  last  summer;  Mrs. 
Craigie  told  Hannah  Newell*  that  if  she  were  ever  married  again, 
it  would  be  to  some  dashing  young  ofiBcer  between  nineteen  and  twenty- 
one  with  two  epaulettes. 


Joseph  Willaed  to  his  sister  Theodora 

Lancaster,  1822. 

How  do  you  get  along  with  Scott,  have  you  arrived  at  Kenilworth? 
We  received  the  Pirate  the  next  morning  after  it  was  published  and 
took  great  delight  in  the  reading  thereof;  after  due  deliberation,  de- 
termined to  place  it  in  the  new  series  after  Kenilworth  and  Ivanhoe. 

Joseph  Willabd  to  his  sister  Mary  at  Portsmouth 

Lancaster,  February,  1822. 

I  dined  at  Mr.  Ripley's  on  Christmas  day,  was  received  like  a 
brother;  the  company  were  Capt.  and  Dr.  Bradford,  Messrs.  Walker 
and  Palfrey  clerical,  Trowbridge,  Tucker,  Dunkins,  laymen  and  lay- 
women." 

To-day  I  went  to  the  wedding  but  it  was  full  half  through ;  I  was 
spattered  with  mud  for  I  rode  all  the  way  on  horseback,  but  was 
cordially  received  and  cossetted  up,  had  a  good  time  and  did  my  duty 
in  the  way  of  eating  wedding  cake;  felt  grieved  however  that  the 

'  The  Parsonage  at  thisi  time  was  the  old  Holmes  House  near  the  Common. 
The  ladies  evidently  gave  up  their  plan  for  they  moved  in  the  autumn  into  the 
house  on  Quincy  St.,  built  (probably  for  them)  by  Dr.  Thomas  Foster. 

'  This  was  the  marriage  of  Martha  Dana  to  Washington  Allston,  who  was 
working  upon  the  "  Belshazzar." 

•  Mrs.  Coffin  may  have  been  Mrs.  Eunice  Coffin,  widow  of  Peleg  Coflfin. 

•  Hannah  Newell  was  of  Charlestown,  later  living  in  Cambridge. 

•  Rev.  Samuel  Ripley,  minister  at  Waltham;  Rev.  James  Walker,  later 
President  of  Harvard  College;  Hon.  John  G.  Palfrey,  historian;  Miss  Susan 
Dunkin  of  Bethune  descent,  daughter  of  Chancellor  Dunkin  of  South  Carolina; 
Captain  Gamaliel  Bradford. 


1916.]        LETTERS   OF  EEV.   JOSEPH   WILLARD  25 

good  old  custom  of  saluting  the  bride  had  gone  out  of  fashion;  lost 
much  thereby.  I  wish  you  were  all  in  Massachusetts  for  it  is  agreed 
on  all  hands  that  Mass.  is  fifty  years  in  advance  of  New-Hampshire ! 


LUCINDA  WiLLARD  TO  HER  BROTHER  JoSEPH 

Portsmouth,  1823. 

Do  send  us  the  names  of  the  writers  in  the  last  North  American; 
I  have  only  read  the  review  of  Miss  Edgeworth  and  am  very  glad 
they  have  no  carping  criticism  upon  this  great  and  agreeable  writer; 
though  no  one  can  admire  Scott  more  than  I  do  yet  I  am  not  unwilling 
to  say  that  the  Absentee  is  as  good  as  Nigel,  and  Ennui  better  than 
the  Legend  of  Montrose.  I  think  there  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in 
what  the  reviewers  say  of  the  disadvantageous  situation  of  ladies  with 
respect  to  developing  their  powers;  their  situation  in  society  prevents 
them  from  feeling  the  possession  of  these  powers ;  in  most  circles  now 
it  would  excite  a  smile  to  hear  a  lady  mention  the  word  philosophy 
or  politics ;  philosophy  must  be  more  comprehensive  and  politics  more 
liberal,  before  ladies  can  be  considered  as  subjects  for  the  one,  or  as 
having  an  interested  feeling  in  the  other.  We  have  been  reading 
Reginald  Dalton  and  re-reading  some  of  Scott  which,  like  Shakespeare, 
bears  repeated  perusals.  Elizabeth  Hale  ^  is  in  town,  a  lady  whom  re- 
port says  has  had  Twenty-nine  offers ;  will  you  not  come  and  make  the 
number  even?  The  other  evening  we  had  an  Oratorio  given  here; 
a  trumpeter  came  from  Boston  and  Mr.  Furbish  from  Cambridge  was 
in  the  estimation  of  all  a  most  beautiful  singer,  his  voice  mellow  and 
strong,  and  he  sang  alone  accompanied  by  the  violin. 


Mrs.  President  Willard  to  her  son  Joseph 

Portsmouth,  May  6th,  1823. 

We  are  to  have  great  doings  here  on  the  23*^  of  May  in  commemora- 
tion of  the  landing  of  our  forefathers;  all  kinds  of  amusements  to 
gratify  the  ladies,  and  feasting  with  the  addition  of  good  wine  and 
punch  for  the  gentlemen.  The  spirit  of  matrimony  rages  to  an  un- 
common degree ;  Cousin  Emily  and  Mr.  Peirce  have  at  last  concluded 
their  long  courtship  and  were  married  last  Sunday  at  church;  many 
others  are  to  follow.    We  hear  sad  news  from  Cambridge  which  I  hope 

*  Elizabeth  Hale  of  Dover,  New  Hampshire,  born  1800,  waa  the  daughter  of 
William  Hale  and  Lydia  Rollins;  married  Judge  Jeremiah  Smith. 


26  THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTOIUCAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

is  much  exaggerated ;  the  reports  say  that  forty  scholars  have  marched 
off ;  it  is  an  arduous  task  to  keep  in  order  so  many  rebellious  spirits ; 
were  the  youth  sensible  of  the  pain  they  cause  the  Governors  of  the 
College  by  their  misconduct,  and  the  pleasure  they  afford  them  by 
the  opposite  course,  they  never  would  offend  in  thought,  word,  or  deed ; 
surely  they  would  not,  if  any  ingenuous  feelings  possest  their  hearts, 
even  if  it  were  but  one  spark. 


LUCINDA  WiLLARD  TO   HEE  BROTHER  JoSEPH 

Portsmouth,  1824. 

Your  sister  Lucinda,  though  she  finds  some  things  to  interest  her, 
such  as  the  domestic  affections  and  duties  and  the  endeavor  to  improve 
her  heart  and  mind,  still  does  not  find  felicity;  music  and  painting 
would  give  a  zest  to  life  but  they  would  be  unattainable  in  Ports- 
mouth ;  never  was  a  place  so  destitute  of  music  and  musical  taste ;  in 
this  sepulchre  of  the  soul,  actors,  artists,  and  musicians  have  not  been 
appreciated  as  men  of  genius. 

Have  you  read  the  Pioneer  ?  one  third  of  it  interested  me  very  much ; 
Leather  Stocking  was  very  poetical.  I  read  Peveril  of  the  Peak  with 
much  delight. 


Joseph  Willard  to  his  Mother 

Lancaster,  1825. 
Dear  Mother: 

I  reached  Lancaster  on  Tuesday,  met  with  many  kind  greetings 
from  my  friends;  I  found  my  office  open,  a  Justice's  commission  in 
waiting,  and  a  large  accession  of  books  for  my  law  library,  that  I 
hope  may  tempt  some  student  to  enter  his  name  in  my  office.  I  can 
truly  say  that  I  feel  great  satisfaction  in  turning  over  my  law  books 
and  engaging  in  the  details  of  professional  business ;  though  I  am  fond 
of  pleasure  I  cannot  call  myself  its  complete  votary;  I  love  variety 
and  some  degree  of  excitement,  but  I  am  glad  to  return  to  the  cus- 
tomary duties  of  home;  it  happens  well  when  a  man's  contentment 
and  the  occupation  that  gives  him  his  bread  and  butter  are  in  perfect 
keeping. 


1016.]        LETTERS   OF   REV.   JOSEPH   WILLARD  27 

LUCINDA  WiLLARD  TO   HER  BROTHER   JoSEPH 

Portsmouth,  January  25th,  1825. 

There  must  have  been  a  gloom  cast  over  Cambridge  on  the  17th  by 
the  death  of  Mrs.  Parsons;  Augusta  gave  the  account  of  her  death; 
Dr.  Holmes  conducted  the  service  like  a  true  Christian.^ 

I  do  not  know  but  Elizabeth  Hale  has  another  added  to  her  list  of 
admirers,  no  less  than  the  celebrated  La  Fayette;  he  spent  the  night 
at  her  father's  house;  Elizabeth  had  an  India  muslin  made  for  the 
occasion,  but  her  face  needed  no  exotics  for  the  occasion,  her  bril- 
liant eyes  are  lighted  from  within;  I  suppose  our  country  does  not 
abound  in  beauty,  it  is  not  a  Circassia,  but  La  Fayette  must  have  seen 
enough  to  know  it  is  not  foreign  to  the  soil. 

LUCINDA  WlLLARD   TO   HER  BROTHER  JoSEPH 

Oambbidoe,  1825. 

Mr.  E.  Dana  ran  away  from  Cambridge  on  Commencement  week 
to  avoid  the  fatigues  of  housekeeping,  for  it  is  expected  of  him  on 
such  occasions  to  give  dinners,  and  you  know,  or  you  do  not  know,  not 
being  at  the  head  of  an  establishment,  how  much  sweeter  it  is  to 
receive  than  to  give.  Mr.  Allston  did  not  come  upon  either  of  the 
literary  holidays  being  very  much  engaged  in  Belshazzar,  a  fine  picture 
report  says  it  is  to  be,  and  by  a  fine  artist  I  hear  also,  who  has  been 
to  England  and  still  more  to  Italy. 

LUCINDA  WiLLARD  TO   HER  BROTHER  JoSEPH 

Portsmouth,  1825. 

Professor  Willard,  Professor  Channing,  and  Mr.  Richard  Dana 
have  been  honoring  Portsmouth  by  their  presence  and  what  was  more 
the  two  strangers  condescended  to  be  very  much  pleased  with  its  ap- 
pearance and  site;  I  told  Mr.  Dana  that  there  were  scarcely  any 
literary  men  here ;  I  did  know  of  one,  but  he  had  gone  out  of  town ; 
but  he  said  he  had  not  come  to  see  literary  men. 

'  Mra  Parsons,  wife  of  Dr.  Usher  Parsons  and  daughter  of  Rev.  Abiel 
Holmes.  Augusta  Willard,  daughter  of  President  Joseph  Willard  and  second 
wife  of  Dr.  Samuel  Luther  Dana. 


28  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 


Joseph  Willard  to  his  sistee  Mabt 

Caicbbidoe,  1825. 

An  excess  of  quiet  reigns  in  Cambridge  without  interruption  save 
by  Dr.  Holmes's  bell  that  proclaims  aloud  one  and  nine  of  the  clock; 
but  1  mistake,  they  of  the  Steams  family  are  rising  in  their  strength 
to  contrive  an  in-gathering  of  the  mob;  the  halls  of  the  palace  are 
thrown  open  and  the  sounds  of  music  and  dancing  and  the  voice  of 
mirth  break  through  the  solemn  silence  of  vacation ;  all  this  probably 
for  Miss  Mary  Appleton  now  on  a  visit  at  Professor  Steams. 

Mr.  Allston  has  returned  to  Boston;  the  hand-writing  is  finished 
excepting  a  few  never  ending  last  touches;  but  genius  is  not  to  be 
hurried. 


Sophia  Dana  to  her  uncle  Joseph  Willard 

Cambridge,  February,  1826. 
Dear  Uncle  Joseph: 

Our  Cambridge  gossip  Mrs.  B.  is  busier  than  ever  and  Uncle  Ned  ^ 
has  given  her  the  title  of  the  "Devil's  Spinning  Jenny."  We  have 
been  interested  this  last  week  in  an  account  of  Byron  written  by  his 
friend  Dallas;  the  Lord  Byron  whom  the  world  knows  was  created 
by  the  imaginations  of  this  same  world  after  his  Harold  appeared, 
but  the  tme  nature  of  the  man  was  good.  Mrs.  Everett  gave  a  large 
cotillion  party  last  evening,  all  Cambridge  there  even  to  the  Warlands 
and  Plymptons.  Two  thousand  dollars  has  been  subscribed  for  our 
little  church  ^  and  then  we  shall  all  turn  rigid  Episcopalians. 

You  don't  know  what  a  situation  we  are  in  in  Cambridge  now, 
nothing  but  deep  mud  all  around  us,  and  the  prospect  of  not  going 
out  for  a  week,  all  the  ladies  kept  at  home  except  Mrs.  Peck  *  and  even 
India-rubber  shoes  are  of  no  avail. 

Miss  Sales*  has  been  dangerously  ill  with  the  croup,  and  (^orge 
Brooks  not  expected  to  live ;  all  the  old  people  seem  to  be  retiring  from 

*  Edmund  T.  Dana. 

'  Christ  Church,  repaired  and  renovated,  and  reopened  for  divine  service  on 
July  30,  1826. 

*  Mrs.  Peck,  born  Harriet  Billiard,  was  the  wife  of  William  Dandridge 
Peck,  Professor  of  Natural  History  at  Harvard. 

*  Miss  Sales,  daughter  of  Francis  Sales,  Instructor  in  Spanish  and  French. 
Professor  Sales  married  Mary  Hilliard. 


1916.]        LETTERS   OF   REV.  JOSEPH   WILLARD  29 

the  scene  of  action.    Miss  Ann  EUery*  desires  to  be  remembered  to 
you ;  she  is  very  happy  but  thinks  there  are  too  many  old  maids ! 

Dr.  Webster  ^  is  coming  out  here  to  live  in  Mr.  Farrar*s  house ;  also 
Mrs.  Emerson  and  her  two  celebrated  sons  are  coming ;  ^  Mr.  Everett 
we  hear  intends  building. 

After  the  death  of  Mrs.  Willard  in  Portsmouth  in  1826,  the 
daughters  returned  to  Cambridge  to  live. 


LUCINDA  WiLLAKD  TO  HER  BROTHER  JoSEPH 

Cambbiooe,  1827. 

Have  you,  heard  that  Mr.  Abram  Hilliard  called  upon  Mr.  Edmund 
Dana  to  see  what  part  he  would  take  in  Parish  affairs;  Mr.  Dana 
answered  that  he  had  no  concern  with  Dr.  Holmes  as  a  preacher  but 
thought  him  a  good  man ;  that  for  himself,  he  read  his  Bible  for  him- 
fielf ;  I  do  not  know  if  he  added  what  he  always  says  when  talking 
upon  such  subjects,  that  he  did  not  want  one  piece  of  potter's  earth 
to  dictate  to  another  what  to  believe;  it  seems  to  be  against  his 
principles  to  hear  preaching;  he  thinks  his  freedom  is  violated  in 
listening,  but  his  brother  Richard  and  sisters  make  up,  I  cannot  say 
atone,  for  all  his  deficiencies  in  this  respect.  Mr.  Hilliard  found 
fault  with  Dr.  Holmes  for  introducing  Watts;  Edmund  Dana  said 
if  he  wanted  poetry  there  was  a  good  deal  in  Watts,  more  he  thought 
than  in  any  other  version. 

Mary  Willard  to  her  brother  Joseph 
Dear  Joseph  :  Cambridge,  March,  1828. 

Your  sisters  thought  it  incumbent  upon  them  to  make  a  party  for 
Mrs.  Kirkland*  and  there  has  not  been  a  female  in  the  house  un- 

*  Miss  Ann  Ellery,  daughter  of  William  Ellery,  the  "  Signer,"  was  born  in 
1755,  died  in  1834  in  Cambridge. 

'  Professor  John  Webster  of  the  Harvard  Medical  School. 

'  Mrs.  Emerson  moved  out  to  Cambridge  in  1818-19,  when  her  son  William, 
who  had  just  graduated,  had  a  school  in  his  mother's  house,  and  Ralph  Waldo, 
a  Sophomore  in  College,  assisted  him;  but  afterward  she  returned  to  Boston, 
where  William  opened  a  school  for  girls  in  Federal  Street.  In  1826  William 
had  just  returned  from  Germany  and  had  decided  not  to  enter  the  ministry. 
Ralph  Waldo  was  obliged  to  spend  the  winter  of  1826-27  in  the  South  on  ac- 
coimt  of  his  health ;  so  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  Mrs.  Emerson  did  not  return 
to  Cambridge. 

•  Wife  of  President  Kirkland,  who  was  just  about  to  retire  from  the 
presidency. 


30  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

employed,  even  little  Hannah*  (four  years  old)  had  an  engaged  air 
and  appeared  full  of  business.  Our  party  was  like  other  parties,  lively 
and  sociable ;  some  of  the  invited  guests  probably  enjoyed  themselves, 
and  more  did  not,  but  chose  from  benevolence,  propriety,  or  ambition, 
to  appear  happy.  The  College  Government,  a  few  ladies  out  of  it, 
and  some  Theological  students  constituted  the  company.  Miss  Lydia 
Kneeland^  came  and  the  President  [Kirkland]  being  her  only  com- 
peer, part  of  her  entertainment  devolved  upon  him;  he  said  to  Miss 
Lydia  "  I  suppose  Mrs.  Hedge  comes  to  see  you  more  than  you  go  to 
see  her,  and  you  can  treat  her  with  cake  and  wine  and  such  good 
things  which  Mrs.  Hedge  could  not  do  she  has  so  many  to  feed  and 
clothe." 

This  sounded  like  the  President  who  is  thought  by  all  I  have  heard 
speak  of  him  to  be  a  different  man  from  what  he  was  before  his  sick- 
ness.   There  is  a  report  that  Dr.  Pollen  ^  and  Eliza  Cabot  are  engaged. 

Religious  parties  are  high  in  Cambridge.  Abraham  Hilliard  is 
slow  in  his  operations,  and  there  has  not  yet  been  a  second  Parish 
Meeting  upon  ministerial  concerns. 


LUCINDA  WlLLARD  TO   HER  BROTHEB   JoSEPH 

Cambridge,  October,  1828. 

Last  evening  Augusta  and  I  spent  at  Mr.  Dana's  where  we  had  no 
pitched  battle  but  a  great  deal  of  pleasant  skirmishing  which  perhaps 
you  know  I  have  no  objection  to,  and  we  did  not  contend  for  a  party 
but  for  the  truth ;  nor  did  any  of  us  feel  bound  to  support  the  other. 
The  great  and  mighty  subject  concerned  the  important  town  of  Cam- 
bridge which  can  be  called  the  little  peaceful  village  no  longer,  as 
husband  is  against  wife  and  mother  against  daughter  as  it  were.  The 
Chapel  Sunday  School  may  cause  a  great  deal  of  ill-feeling  among  the 
Calvinistic  part  of  Dr.  Holmes's  Parish  towards  the  College,  for  a 
great  many  of  his  parishioners  carefully  i^mnvited  by  the  College  have 
sent  their  children  to  the  school.  One  or  two  among  the  disaffected 
of  Dr.  Holmes's  parishioners,  ascertaining  that  those  who  applied  for 

*  "  Little  Hannah "  was  Hannah  Willard,  daughter  of  Profeseor  Sidney 
Willard,  and  later  the  wife  of  John  Bartlett,  tlie  author  of  "  Familiar  Quota- 
tions." The  party  described  took  place  in  the  house  in  Holyoke  St.,  mentioned 
as  the  "  Mansion." 

'  Lydia  Kneeland,  daughter  of  Dr.  William  Elneeland  and  sister  of  Mrs. 
Levi  Hedge,  who  was  Mary  Kneeland. 

•  Rev.  Charles  Follen,  Instructor  in  German  in  the  College,  afterward 
Professor. 


1916.]        LETTERS    OF   EEV.   JOSEPH   WILLARD  31 

admittance  would  not  be  excluded,  invited  the  parents  belonging  to 
the  Parish  to  send  their  children.  Whether  these  officious  people  con- 
fined themselves  to  Unitariaiis,  I  do  not  know.  Dr.  Holmes  is  excited 
and  called  at  our  neighbor  Metcalf  s  who  sends  his  children,  telling 
him  it  was  an  opposition  school.  Its  origin  was  owing  to  Mrs.  Follen 
the  eminent  teacher  in  Boston  who  wished  to  employ  her  benevolence 
and  her  powers  by  exciting  the  College  Society  to  form  a  school,  but 
with  no  intention  of  interfering  with  Dr.  Holmes.  Mr.  Abram  Fuller 
spent  last  evening  here  and  told  us  of  the  engagement  of  Miss  Mil- 
liard to  Mr.  Little  of  the  firm. 


Mary  Willabd  to  her  brother  Joseph 

Cambridge,  December,  1830. 

Do  you  know  how  enlightened  our  College  ladies  are  becoming? 
Sundry  of  the  Professors  are  volunteering  lectures  in  their  respective 
branches  to  the  College  families  and  others  of  their  acquaintance; 
these  are  delivered  each  week  in  Holden  Chapel.  Judge  Story  com- 
menced, and  feelingly  deplored  our  peculiar  situation  in  the  midst 
of  science  and  literature,  yet  none  imparted  to  us;  (how  often  have 
I  thought  and  said  the  same  thing).  The  Judge  was  succeeded  by 
Mr.  Ticknor  in  Belles-Lettres ;  he  commenced  last  evening  upon 
Shakespeare,  noticing  the  general  literature  of  that  period;  Mr. 
Farrar,^  Dr.  Webster,  Mr.  Metcalf,  and  Ashmun  follow.  Dr.  Follen, 
if  he  can  get  enough  subscribers,  is  to  deliver  the  course  he  is  giving 
in  Boston  here  at  the  Court  House. 

Cambridge  is  almost  choked  with  inhabitants.  We  have  become  a 
little  acquainted  with  Mrs.  Howe;  Miss  Ashmun^  is  to  be  with  her 
this  winter  and  Mr.  Ashmun  at  Mrs.  Newell's,  so  there  will  be  no 
lack  of  agreeable  people  around  us.  Frank  Higginson's  name  is  on 
the  list  of  physicians.  Dr.  Hedge  goes  out  in  all  weathers  but  looks 
miserably.  Miss  Elizabeth  is  to  be  married  in  a  few  weeks.  Miss 
Quinc/s  ^  Soirees  are  suspended  for  the  vacation.  There  is  wonderful 
news  from  abroad,  no  danger  of  falling  asleep  over  the  newspaper; 
I  have  been  reading  Parry's  account  of  his  Arctic  expedition;  it  is 

*  Professor  John  Farrar,  Hollis  Professor  of  Mathematics  and  Natural 
Philosophy.  He  lived  on  Kirkland  St.  in  the  house  now  occupied  by  Professor 
Edward  C.  Moore. 

*  Mrs.  Howe,  widow  of  Judge  Samuel  Howe;  Miss  Lucy  Ashmun,  sister  of 
the  distinguished  lawyer,  John  Hooker  Ashmim,  lately  appointed  Royall  Pro- 
fessor of  Law  in  the  University. 

»  Mis8  Quincy,  daughter  of  President  Quincy,  who  had  been  inaugurated 
Jan.  29,  1829. 


32  THE    CAMBKIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

deeply  interesting  and  he  and  his  comrades  were  admirable  fellows, 
yet  their  scheme  appears  to  be  the  maddest  that  was  ever  undertaken ; 
supposing  the  desired  passage  could  be  found,  of  what  use  would  it 
be  encumbered  as  the  whole  region  is  with  perpetual  ice  ?  I  have  been 
reading  Marcian's  Colonna ;  one  volume  of  Miss  Aiken's  James  is  all 
else  that  I  have  read  of  late  in  polite  literature.  Will  it  do  to  say 
that  I  have  not  yet  read  the  Pirate?  We  have  it  in  the  house  and 
I  think  I  cannot  face  you  till  I  have  read  it;  but  have  you  read  the 
Metaphysics  of  Germaine? 

The  Danas  are  so  often  mentioned  in  these  letters  that  a  note  in  regard  to 
their  various  places  of  residence,  derived  from  facts  commimicated  by  Miew 
Elizabeth  E.  Dana,  will  not  be  out  of  place. 

Chief  Justice  Francis  Dana  (1743-1811)  built  the  fine  old  Dana  mansion 
on  Dana  Hill  (western  side  of  the  present  Dana  Street)  in  1785.  The  family 
continued  there  only  a  few  years  after  his  deatli  in  1811.  In  1813  his  son 
Richard  married,  and  was  living  on  Green  Street,  Cambridgeport.  In  1817, 
another  son,  Edmund  Trowbridge,  and  the  three  daughters,  Martha,  Elizabeth 
and  Sarah,  were  living  in  a  house  on  the  north  side  of  Moimt  Auburn  Street, 
between  Holyoke  and  Dunster  Streets,  which  their  father  had  inherited  from 
hia  uncle,  Judge  Edmimd  Trowbridge.  Here,  probably,  Edmund  T.  Dana  con- 
tinued to  live  for  some  years,  but  his  sisters,  about  1819,  moved  to  a  house 
on  Mason  Street,  on  the  present  site  of  the  Radcliffe  Gymnasium.  It  was 
from  here,  doubtless,  that  Joseph  Willard  saw  tlie  carriage  conveying  Dr. 
Waterhouse  to  his  wedding  (p.  20).  In  1818  Richard  H.  Dana,  Sr.,  was 
living  on  Broadway,  comer  of  Columbia  Street,  but  soon  moved  to  the  Vassall 
House  on  Brattle  Street,  where  he  lived  from  1818  or  1819  to  1821;  but  early 
in  1822,  when  his  wife  and  yoimgest  child  died,  he  was  living  in  the  Wiggles- 
worth  house  ( on  the  site  of  Boylaton  Hall ) .  There  his  three  sisters  joined  him 
for  a  few  months. 

In  the  meantime  Dr.  Thomas  Foster,  in  1816,  had  bought  from  the  Reverend 
Edmund  Dana,  Vicar  of  Wroxeter,  England,  and  brother  of  Chief  Justice 
Francis  Dana,  the  land  on  Quincy  Street  which  had  come  into  Edmimd  Dana's 
possession  by  inheritance,  and  here  in  1822  he  built  a  house  which  was  im- 
mediately occupied  by  Richard  Henry  Dana  and  his  sisters,  of  whom  two, 
Elizabeth  and  Sarah,  had  been  engaged  to  Dr.  Foster's  two  deceased  brothers. 
( This  is  the  house  lately  the  home  of  Dr.  A.  P.  Peabody  and  now  of  Professor 
Palmer.)  Here  the  Danas  lived  from  September,  1822,  to  March,  1832,  and 
here,  in  1830,  the  oldest  sister,  Martha  Remington  Dana,  was  married  to  Wash- 
ington Allston.  The  Allstons  afterwards  built  a  studio  and  later  a  house  at  the 
comer  of  Magazine  and  Auburn  Streets  in  Cambridgeport,  and  it  was  probably 
at  this  time  that  Edmund  T.  Dana  moved  into  the  house  on  Green  Street 
where  his  brother  had  formerly  lived  and  where  he  could  enjoy  the  society  of 
his  intimate  friend  Allston.    Here  he  lived  until  his  death  in  1859. 

It  was  probably  in  1832,  after  the  death  of  Dr.  Foster,  that  R.  H.  Dana,  Sr., 
and  his  children  and  the  two  unmarried  sisters  moved  to  the  house  on  the 
northeast  corner  of  Brattle  and  Church  Streets.  It  was  from  that  house  that 
R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  departed  for  his  "  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast,"  in  August, 
1834.    When  he  returned,  in  1836,  the  family  had  removed  to  Boston.  —  Editor. 


I 


191G.]  DIARY   OF   TIMOTHY   FULLER,   JR.  33 


EXCERPTS  FROM  THE  DIARY  OF  TIMOTHY 

FULLER,  JR.,  AN  UXDERGRADUATE  IX 

HARVARD  COLLEGE,  1798-1801 

By  his  Gran^i>-daughtek,  Edith  Davenport  Fuller 
Read  April  27,  1916 

Timothy  Fuller,  Jr.,  author  of  the  diary  from  which  I  am  to 
read,  was  born  in  Chilmark,  Martha's  Vineyard,  July  11,  1778. 
He  was  the  son  of  Rev.  Timothy  Fuller,  of  Princeton,  Massachu- 
setts, who  was  a  Harvard  graduate  of  the  class  of  1760. 

The  diary  covers,  with  some  gaps,  the  last  three  years  which 
Timothy  Fuller  spent  as  a  student  at  Harvard  CoUege,  namely, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  college  term  in  August,  1798,  through 
Commencement,  1801,  when  he  received  his  degree  of  A.B.  These 
years  were  during  the  presidency  of  Rev.  Joseph  Willard. 

After  his  graduation  he  spent  some  time  in  charge  of  Leicester 
Academy,  in  order  to  acquire  funds  for  prosecuting  the  study  of 
law,  which  he  did  in  the  office  of  Hon.  Levi  Lincoln  of  Worcester, 
Massachusetts. 

From  1802  until  1833,  Timothy  Fuller  was  a  resident  of  Cam- 
bridge and  practised  law  in  Boston.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
Massachusetts  Senate  from  1813  to  1816;  representative  in  Con- 
gress from  1817  to  1825;  speaker  of  the  Massachusetts  House  of 
Representatives  in  1825 ;  a  member  of  the  Executive  Council  in 
1828. 

After  his  marriage,  in  1809,  to  Margaret  Crane,  daughter  of 
Major  Peter  Crane  of  Canton,  Mass.,  he  lived  for  some  years  on 
Cherry  Street,  Cambridgeport,  where  his  daughter,  Margaret,  was 
bom  in  1810,  his  son  Arthur  Buckminster  in  1822,  and  Richard 
Frederick  in  1824.  Later  he  bought  the  Dana  mansion  on  Dana 
Hill  and  lived  there  until  1831.  From  1831  until  his  removal  to 
Groton,  Massachusetts,  in  1833,  he  lived  in  the  house  known  as 
the  "  Brattle  House  "  on  Brattle  Street,  now  occupied  by  the  Cam- 
bridge Social  Union.  He  died  in  Groton,  October  1,  1835.  His 
diary  gives  a  picture  of  student  life  at  Harvard  College  in  the 


34  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

last  years  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

Additional  facts  concerning  Hon.  Timothy  Fuller  and  his  fam- 
ily will  be  found  in  ^'  Thomas  Fuller  and  his  Descendants,"  begun 
by  Kev.  Arthur  B.  Fuller  and  continued  by  his  daughter,  Edith 
Davenport  Fuller.    Privately  printed  in  1902. 

DIARY  OF  TIMOTHY  FULLER, 

Class  of  1801.     Hcurvard  University 
1798 

Aug.  14.  Rode  with  Williams  from  Princeton  to  Billerica ;  walked 
the  rest  of  the  way  to  Cambridge. 

Aug.  15.  The  room  assigned  to  Crocker  and  me  is  No.  19,  HoUis, 
the  same  we  asked.  Mr.  Popkin,^  tutor  of  Greek,  has 
quitted  college  during  the  vacation.  Tho'  never  popu- 
lar, he  is  much  regretted  by  most  of  the  students  in 
every  class. 

Aug.  17.  The  President,  Joseph  Willard,  is  reported  to  be  better. 
Took  Harvard  Algebra  from  the  college  library.  Sold 
my  Sallust,  4/6. 

Aug.  21.  Went  to  Boston.  Bo't  a  lock  for  our  room  for  9  shillings. 
At  a  meeting  of  the  Physicians  it  has  been  ascertained 
that  only  eight  persons  are  sick  of  the  yellow  fever 
which  has  lately  prevailed  there. 

Aug.  22.  Began  the  reading  of  Moore's  Journal  during  a  residence 
in  France,  August  to  December,  1792. 

Aug.  26.    The  yellow  fever  increases  in  Boston. 

Aug.  27.    Began  our  Greek  week  ^  to  Mr.  Pearson ;  after  considerable 

*  John  Snelling  Popkin  (A.B.  1792)  had  been  tutor  in  Greek,  1795-1798. 
After  serving  as  minister  of  the  Federal  Street  Church  in  Boston,  1799-1802, 
and  as  minister  of  the  Church  in  Newbury,  1804-1815,  he  returned  to  the  Col- 
lege as  Professor  of  Greek  in  1815. 

'  Ever  since  the  foundation  of  the  College  the  greater  part  of  the  instruc- 
tion had  been  given  by  tutors,  usually  four  in  number.  Down  to  1766  the  four 
tutors  had  divided  the  foui'  classes,  Freshmen,  Sophomores,  Junior  Sophisters 
and  Senior  Sophisters  among  them,  each  instructing  the  class  under  him  in  all 
branches,  and  continuing  to  teach  the  same  boys  throughout  the  four  years  of 
their  College  course.  In  1766,  at  the  instance  of  the  Overseers,  a  new  plan 
"  for  the  advancement  of  learning  "  was  introduced,  "  that  one  of  the  Tutors 
shall  teach  Latin,  another  Greek,  another  Logick,  Metapliysics,  Ethics,  and  the 
other  Natural  Philosophy,  Geography,  Astronomy  and  the  Elements  of  the 
Mathematics,"  all  to  be  responsible  also  for  Elocution,  Composition  in  English 
Rhetoric  and  other  parts  of  Belles  Lettrea,  (Coll.  Book,  vii.  p.  156.)  At  the 
beginning  the  first  four  days  of  the  week  were  to  be  devoted  to  the  four  sub- 


1916.]  DIARY   OF   TIMOTHY   FULLER,  JR.  35 

1798  altercation  and  many  questions  we  avoided  a  lesson  in 

Homer  by  pretending  to  have  received  wrong  informa- 
tion  concerning  the  exercises  of  the  ensuing  week. 

Aug.  28.  Went  to  Boston.  The  fever  is  thought  to  be  very  danger- 
ous, more  so  than  it  seemed  last  week.  Took  coffee  at 
Pillsbury's  room  with  Abbot,  Allen,  Cummings,  Dawes, 
Phinney,  Peirce,  and  Pillsbury.  The  object  is  to  form 
a  social  club  of  the  most  respectable  characters  in  the 
class,  whose  sentiments  on  most  important  subjects  will 
be  generally  uniform;  not  demagogues  —  fishers  for 
popularity  —  but  such  as  will  act  on  liberal  principles 
uninfluenced  by  temporary  applause  or  disapprobation. 

Aug.  31.  Our  Coffee  club  met  at  9  o'clock  p.  m.  to  discuss  the  ex- 
pediency of  forming  a  Mavortian  band  [military  com- 
pany] among  the  students  of  the  lower  classes,  for  the 
seniors  refuse  to  take  any  part  in  it.  After  considerable 
debate  it  was  decided  to  advocate  the  plan  and  we  sub- 
scribed to  the  proposed  articles.  Paid  my  third  quarter- 
bill. 

Sept.  3.    Latin  week.    The  yellow  fever  is  reported  to  be  in  town. 

Sept.  6.  The  Dudleian  lecture  was  delivered  today,  by  Mr.  Haven 
of  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire. 

Sept.  6.  The  students  met  and  agreed  to  petition  the  Corporation 
for  a  recess  on  account  of  the  fever.  It  is  said  no  great 
danger  need  be  apprehended,  but  the  reports  of  the 
physicians  are  little  regarded. 

Sept.  9.  Mr.  Thaddeus  Mason  Harris  of  Dorchester  preached.  Our 
petition  for  a  recess  is  rejected. 

jects  successively  by  each  class,  each  tutor  taking  the  four  classes  by  turns, 
while  Friday  and  Saturday  were  given  to  the  English  branches.  The  next 
year,  however,  the  plan  was  amended  as  follows: 

"  That  each  Class  be  instructed  four  dales  successively  in  every  Week  in  the 
same  branch  of  Learning  by  the  Tutors  to  whose  department  it  belongs  and 
shall  attend  the  several  tutors  in  rotation  whereby  the  same  tutor  shall  have 
the  same  class  every  fourth  week."  (Coll.  Book,  vii.  p.  169.)  Hence  the  refer- 
ences in  the  journal  to  Greek  week,  Latin  week,  etc.  At  the  time  when  the 
present  entries  fall  the  Natural  Philosophy  week  seems  temporarily  to  have 
been  omitted. 

The  four  tutors,  when  Fuller  entered  College,  were  W.  A.  Barron,  1793-1800; 
Levi  Hedge,  1795-1810;  William  Wells,  1798-1800;  and  James  Kendall,  1798- 
1799.  Besides  the  tutors,  there  were  three  professors,  —  David  Tappan,  Hollis 
Professor  of  Divinity,  1792-1803;  Samuel  Webber,  Hollis  Professor  of  Mathe- 
matics and  Natural  Philosophy,  1789-1806  (afterwards  President)  ;  and  Eliph- 
alet  Pearson,  Hancock  Professor  of  Hebrew,  1786-1806.  Joseph  Nancrede  was 
Instructor  in  French,  1787-1800. 


36  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

1T98 

Sept.  10.   Began  our  Logic  week. 

Sept.  16.  My  classmate  Fox  was  last  night  taken  ill  and  Dr.  Gam- 
mage  pronounces  the  disorder  yellow  fever.  It  seems 
high  time  for  a  recess. 

Sept.  17.  Greek  week.  Recited  to  Mr.  Kendall.  He  seems  rather 
too  much  disposed  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  stu- 
dents, and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  strict  justice  may  be 
dispensed  with. 

Sept.  18.  My  sister  Sally  expects  to  take  a  seat  in  the  stage  to- 
morrow with  Mrs.  Sukey  Williams  for  Merrimac,  N.  H. 
The  latter  goes  through  apprehension  of  the  fever. 

Sept.  19.  Rainy  weather.  The  drouth  has  been  so  great  for  some 
time  that  vegetation  has  almost  ceased. 

Sept.  20.  Coffee  club  met  at  the  rooms  of  Adams,  2d.  The  con- 
troversy was  on  this  question :  "  whether  the  learned 
languages  be  too  much  studied  at  the  University."  Ob- 
tained a  vote  to  have  the  question  given  out  by  the 
President. 

Sept.  27.    Took  Quintilian  from  the  library. 

Oct.  1.  Went  to  Boston.  Mr.  Elbridge  Gerry,  our  third  Envoy 
extraordinary  to  France,  arrived.  He  stayed  some  time 
after  his  colleagues  Pinckney  and  Marshall,  and  as  he 
received  from  the  French  minister  Talleyrand  particu- 
lar marks  of  favor,  it  is  hinted  that  he  has  been  made 
the  dupe  of  French  policy.  The  base  artifices  resorted 
to  by  Talleyrand  to  induce  him  to  commence  a  negotia- 
tion separate  from  his  colleagues,  though  rejected  by 
him,  yet  gave  him  a  flattering  idea  of  his  own  political 
importance.  The  fever  has  much  abated  since  the  late 
rains  and  colder  weather. 
Oct.  7.  The  most  violent  storm  of  rain  I  ever  remember.  My 
study  which  is  at  the  north  corner  of  Hollis  was  deluged 
with  rain. 
Oct.  8.  Monday,  Logic  week.  For  a  part  of  the  morning  we  con- 
sidered a  syllogism  under  the  first  figure.  At  11  o'clock 
I  carried  up  three  syllogisms.  One  was:  whether  ab- 
surdity and  falsehood  be  wit? 

1.  If  absurdity  and  falsehood  (or  untruth)  were  wit, 

liars  and  fools  would  be  witty. 

2.  But  fools  and  liars  are  not  per  se  witty. 

3.  Therefore :  absurdity  and  falsehood  are  not  wit. 


1916.]  DIAEY   OF   TIMOTHY   FULLER,   JR. 


37 


t 


1798  N.  B.    Man}^  syllogisms  the  most  silly  and  absurd 

were  carried  up  by  those  who  aimed  at  being  witty. 

Oct.  14.    Rode  to  Framingham  with  Peggy  Atwood. 

Oct.  15.  Sunday  p.  m.  waited  on  Miss  Atwood  to  meeting  and 
afterwards  to  Major  Buckminster's  ^  where  we  drank 
tea.  Returned  to  Boston.  The  chaise  broke  down  at 
Weston  and  I  was  hindered  one  hour  to  have  it  mended. 

Oct.  23.  Set  out  for  Princeton.  Arrived  at  Groton  about  10  A.  m. 
and  dined  with  my  classmate  Lawrence.  The  rain  pre- 
vented my  going  to  Leominster  and  obliged  me  to  put 
up  at  the  tavern  in  Lancaster. 

Oct.  24.  Breakfasted  at  Parson  Gardner's.^  Was  much  entertained 
by  the  independence,  sincerity,  and  simplicity  which 
characterize  the  old  gentleman.  Arrived  at  Sterling 
at  11.  Dined  at  Rev.  F.  Allen's  with  Wilkes  Allen  [a 
classmate].  Soon  after  dinner  a  polite  invitation  ar- 
rived from  Tutor  [James]  Kendall  and  his  sister  to 
make  one  of  a  tea-circle  at  their  father's  that  afternoon. 
I  postponed  going  to  Princeton  until  next  day.  In  the 
evening  attended  dancing-school  and  went  through  two 
country  dances  with  Eliza  Barnard. 

Oct.  26.  Went  to  Mr.  Brooks'.^  That  family  are  at  present  much 
afflicted  at  having  no  news  from  their  eldest  son,  Elisha, 
who  sailed  for  Leghorn  in  February  last  in  a  Danish 
vessel.  The  latest  arrivals  say  that  no  such  vessels  have 
been  at  Leghorn  and  their  best  hope  is  that  the  French 
have  carried  him  into  some  of  their  ports  and  put  it  out 
of  his  power  to  transmit  intelligence  to  his  owners  or 
friends. 

Oct.  30,  Called  at  the  school-house  of  Hannah  Woods,*  who  dis- 
missed the  school  for  the  day.  Waited  on  her  later  to 
Mr.  Cushing's  and  found  the  young  ladies  at  home. 
Their  papa  soon  returned.    The  young  ladies  gratified 


*  Timothy  Fuller  was  related  to  the  Buckminsters  through  his  grandmother, 
Anna  Buckminster,  grand-daughter  of  Col.  Joseph  Buckminster,  one  of  the 
original  settlers  of  Framingham.  Major  Lawson  Buckminster  here  mentioned 
was  her  brother.  He  was  for  twenty-four  years  town  clerk  of  Framingham, 
and  for  many  years  kept  a  tavern, 

*  Rev.  Francis  Gardner  (Harv.  1755)  was  minister  in  Leominster  from  1762 
to  1814. 

'  Enoch  Brooks,  for  over  thirty  years  to^vn  treasurer  of  Princeton. 

*  Dauj^hter  of  the  first  schoolmaster  of  Princeton.  Married  Nahum  Wilder 
m  1800  and  lived  in  Princeton. 


38  THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

1798  me  with  a  specimen  of  their  musical  talents  which  quite 

enraptured  me.  Polly  Cushing's  performance  on  tlio 
violin  was  peculiarly  ravishing. 

Nov.  3.  Set  out  for  Boston.  Was  so  fortunate  as  to  fall  in  with  a 
gentleman  who  was  leading  a  horse  which  he  very 
kindly  —  both  to  himself  and  me  —  pennitted  me  to 
ride  to  Cambridge. 

Nov.  5.  The  day  appointed  by  law  for  choosing  a  member  of 
Congress.  The  contest  between  Federalists  and  Jacobins 
is  violent.  In  Cambridge  the  candidates  are  Timothy 
Bigelow  of  Groton,  Federal,  and  J.  B.  Varnum,  Jacobin. 
The  former  had  85  votes,  the  latter  119.  As  soon  as 
that  issue  was  announced,  a  number  of  students  who 
were  present  expressed  their  disapprobation  by  a  general 
hiss!  The  infatuated  dupes  of  Jacobinic  fraud  bawled 
aloud  to  drive  all  students,  without  distinction,  from 
the  house.  Peirce  and  myself,  who  had  neither  hissed 
nor  made  the  least  disturbance,  were  shouldered  out 
with  the  rest.  I  wrote  an  account  of  the  affair,  with 
considerable  colouring,  for  the  "  Centinel,"  which  is  to 
publish  it  on  Saturday.^ 

Nov.  7.  Went  to  Boston  to  inquire  concerning  Elisha  Brooks. 
Nothing  has  been  heard  of  him  or  his  vessel  since  its 


Nov.  20.  I  was  summoned  before  the  Government  with  several 
others  of  my  class  to  give  what  information  we  could 
concerning  the  noise  and  disorder  in  chapel.  Custom 
has  established  it  as  a  point  of  honor  among  students 
never  to  give  information  against  each  other,  and  al- 
though I  felt  inclined  to  contribute  to  the  punishment 
of  the  violators  of  decorum  in  a  sacred  place,  yet  I  felt 
that  I  must  keep  silence.^ 

Nov.  24.  Wrote  a  piece  of  French  and  handed  it  to  M.  Nancr^de. 
Went  to  Boston  and  was  introduced  to  Parson  James 
Freeman  who  preaches  at  the  stone  chapel  corner  of 

*  The  communication  mentioned  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  "  Centinel  "  of  this 
date. 

'  Tlie  records  of  the  Faculty,  Nov.  20,  1798,  state  that  "it  appeared  that 
Jewett  had  been  guilty  of  great  and  repeated  inattention,  and  frequent'  inde- 
corum during  the  religious  exercises  of  the  Chapel,  and  especially  of  disturb- 
ing the  public  devotions  of  the  last  evening,"  and  he  was  suspended  till  the  first 
Monday  in  April.    Dix  and  Little  for  like  misconduct  were  likewise  suspended. 


1916.]  DIAEY   OF   TIMOTHY   FULLER,   JR.  39 

1798  School  Street   [King's  Chapel].     He  is  an  agreeable 

man,  extremely  well-bred,  and  not  deficient  in  sense. 

Nov.  26.  Went  to  the  theatre.  The  piece  was  called  "  Cheap  Liv- 
ing." I  was  highly  delighted  with  the  character  of  Sir 
Edward  Bloomly,  a  youth  of  sixteen,  acted  by  Mrs. 
Hodgkinson.  She  resembled  Joseph  Buckminster^  in 
voice,  size,  and  manner. 

Nov.  27.   Took  my  name  out  of  the  Buttery^  till  vacation,  being 
two  weeks  more  than  the  time  allowed  me  for  instruct- 
ing school. 
Dec.  1.    Set  out  on  foot  for  Boxford  where  I  am  to  teach. 

[Although  the  account  of  his  school-teaching  is  en- 
tertaining, I  shall  omit  it.  It  abounds  in  accounts  of 
singing-schools,  balls,  etc.  He  returned  to  Cambridge 
on  February  11th,  1799,  and  put  his  name  again  "  in 
the  Buttery."] 

1799 

Feb.  22.  Agreeably  to  a  vote  of  the  students  and  the  permission 
of  the  government,  HoUis  and  Massachusetts  Halls  were 
elegantly  illuminated  from  7  to  9  p.  m.  in  commemora- 
tion of  the  birthday  of  the  illustrious  Washington.* 

March  2.    Walked  to  Boston.    On  the  way  called  at  the  court  house 

1  Joseph  Stevens  Buckminster,  Fuller's  second  cousin,  had  entered  College 
in  1797  at  the  age  of  thirteen  and  graduated  in  1800,  one  year  ahead  of  Fuller. 

"  A  term  inherited  from  the  English  universities.  The  Buttery  (in  the 
basement  of  the  east  end  of  Harvard  Hall)  was  the  oflSce  of  the  Butler,  who 
kept  the  record  of  attendance  on  commons,  of  rooms  occupied,  and  also  of 
fines  imposed.  On  admission  scholars  entered  their  names  in  the  Buttery,  and 
took  them  out  when  they  had  leave  of  absence.  The  Butler  also  kept  on  sale 
various  articles  of  food  and  drink,  stationery,  bats  and  balls,  and  the  like. 
Sidney  Willard  states  that  the  office  was  abolished  about  1801. 

»  From  the  Faculty  records,  Feb.   18,   1799: 

"  A  request  of  the  Students  for  permission  to  illuminate  the  windows  of 
their  chambers  the  next  Friday  evening,  in  commemoration  of  the  birth  of  the 
illustrious  General  Washington,  who  has  again,  at  the  call  of  his  country, 
undertaken  the  command  of  its  Forces  in  its  defence,  was  communicated:  And 
after  mature  deliberation, 

"Voted,  that  in  consideration  of  particular  circumstances,  existing  at  the 
present  time,  permission  be  given ;  but  that  permission  shall  not  be  construed 
into  a  precedent  in  any  future  time." 

Careful  provision  was  made  that  every  room  should  be  occupied  and  watched 
during  the  time  of  the  illumination  as  a  precaution  against  fire  and  that  no 
window  should  have  more  candles  than  half  the  number  of  panes  in  it.  "  Voted, 
that  the  Tutors  and  Librarian  be  desired  to  see  that  the  windows  be  prepared 
for  illiunination  in  such  a  manner,  that  no  damage  may  be  likely  to  ensue." 


L 


40  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

1799  and  heard  part  of  the  trial  of  Abijah  Adams  who  had 

been  indicted  for  seditious  and  libellous  matter  against 
some  of  our  public  characters.    It  was  not  decided. 

March  10.    On  Sunday  Mr.  Foster  of  "  little  Cambridge ''  ^  preached. 

March  15.  Carried  up  our  themes  to  "Mr.  Pearson.  His  labors  have 
been  confined  hitherto  to  correcting,  or  rather  mutilat- 
ing, our  English  and  he  has  racked  his  inventive  genius 
in  distorting  and  mangling  what  we  have  written. 

[Here  a  portion  of  the  diary  is  lacking.  It  begins 
again  Dec.  10th,  1799,  when  he  left  to  teach  school  in 
Stow.    I  omit  his  experiences  there.] 

1800 

Peb.  10.  The  papers  are  filled  with  Buonaparte's  usurpation,  but  I 
suspect  that  Sieyes  is  the  grand  agent  in  the  new  order 
of  things. 

Feb.  11.  Many  of  the  students  went  to  Boston  to  see  a  Masonic 
procession  and  hear  an  oration  by  T[imothy]  Bigelow 
of  Groton  on  the  virtues  of  Washington.^ 

Feb.  12.  Went  to  Boston  and  called  at  Mr.  Parkman's*  —  the  emi- 
nent merchant  —  spent  a  half  hour  in  attending  the 
debates  of  the  House  of  Representatives  on  a  bill  for  a 
new  court  of  judicature.    Mr.  John  Lowell  opposed  it. 

Feb.  21.  This  day  being  fixed  by  Harvard  University  Government 
to  commemorate  the  virtues  of  Washington,  a  proces- 
sion was  formed  at  the  chapel  and  proceeded  to  the 
meeting-house  where  the  president  delivered  a  Latin 
discourse.  Afterwards  Washington  Allston  delivered  a 
poem  and  Watson  an  oration.  The  exercises  were  closed 
with  a  sermon  and  prayer  by  Dr.  Tappan.     Allston's 

'  Brighton. 

'  Washington  had  died  Dec.  14,  1799.  Commemorative  orations  were  deliv- 
ered at  various  dates  up  to  Feb.  22,  1800.  George  Blake  spoke  before  St.  John's 
Lodge,  February  4 ;  Fisher  Ames  at  the  Old  South  before  the  Legislature,  Feb- 
ruary 8;  Timothy  Bigelow  at  a  Masonic  celebration  in  the  Old  South  on 
February  11,"  the  day  set  apart  by  them  to  pay  funeral  honors  to  our  de- 
ceased Brother."    The  College  celebration  was  on  February  21. 

*  Samuel  Parkman,  the  wealthy  Boston  merchant,  and  deacon  of  the  Second 
Church  for  twenty-three  years,  had  built  for  himself  a  stately  colonial  man- 
sion, No.  5  Bowdoin  Square.  His  grandson,  Francis  Parkman,  the  historian, 
lived  here  from  1838  to  1851.  It  is  described  in  Wheelwright's  memoir  of 
Francis  Parkman  (Publications  of  Tlie  Colonial  Society  of  Massachusetts, 
i.  313-314),  and  a  photograph  of  the  house  is  to  Idc  found  in  Fai'nhara's  Life  of 
Francis  Parkman. 


1916.]  DIARY    OF   TIMOTHY    FULLER,   JR.  41 

poem  had  several  striking  passages.     Dr.  Tappan  did 
liimself  honor.  ^ 

*  On  Dec.  28,  1799,  the  Faculty  records  contain  the  following  entry: 

"  The  President,  Professors,  and  Tutors,  throughly  penetrated  by  that  affect- 
ing event,  which  has  so  deeply  impressed  the  Public  mind ;  and  viewing  it  as  a 
proper  and  due  acknowledgment  to  the  Great  Author  of  '  every  good  and  per- 
fect gift,'  to  take  a  respectful  and  pious  notice  of  the  recall  of  distinguished 
characters,  for  important  purposes  lent  to  earth;  desirous  also  of  joining  with 
all  good  Societies  of  men  in  lamenting  the  loss,  which  the  Republic  of  Letters, 
as  well  as  our  common  Country  has  sustained;  and  wishing  in  particular, 
that  the  University  in  Cambridge,  which  in  consequence  of  her  being  situated 
in  the  first  Scene  of  the  American  War,  first  shared  the  protection,  may  not 
appear  forgetful  of  the  Savior  of  our  Coimtry  and  the  Patron  of  Science ; 

"  Voted,  that  the  following  exercises,  being  introduced  and  concluded  with 
prayer,  adapted  to  the  mournful  occasion  and  intermixed  with  sacred  music, 
instrumental  and  vocal,  be  publicly  performed  in  pious  commemoration  of  the 
singular  talents,  eminent  virtues,  and  unparalleled  services  of  Washington 
the  Good, 

"1.  An  Introductory  Address  in  Latin.     By  the  President. 

"  2.  An  Elegiac  Poem  in  English,    By  Allston,  a  Senior  Sophister. 

"  3.  A  Funeral  Oration  in  English.    By  Watson,  a  Senior  Sophister. 

"  4.  A  Solemn  and  Pathetic  Discourse.    By  the  HoUis  Professor  of  Divinity." 

On  February  21,  1800,  the  exercises  were  held  and  are  thus  described  in  the 
Faculty  records : 

"  The  exercises  which  the  President,  Professors  and  Tutors,  by  their  votes 
of  December  28,  1799,  determined  should  be  publicly  performed,  in  solemn  com- 
memoration of  General  Washington,  were  this  day  attended. 

"  The  Procession  moved  from  the  Philosophy  Chamber  to  the  Meeting  House 
about  eleven  o'clock  in  the  forenoon.  A  short  time  after  the  Company  had  en- 
tered, the  President  introduced  the  occasion  of  the  meeting  by  reading  the 
votes  of  the  Government;  after  which  he  addressed  the  Throne  of  Grace  by  a 
short  prayer  adapted  to  the  Solemnity.  He  then  delivered  a  Latin  address  con- 
taining some  prominent  traits  of  the  Character  of  the  illustrious  Deceased, 
both  of  a  public  and  private  nature,  intermixed  with  sentiments  religious  and 
moral,  and  in  the  latter  part  he  turned  himself  in  a  short  parental  exhortation 
to  the  two  youths  who  were  to  perform  on  this  mournful  occasion;  and  then 
particularly  and  affectionately  addressed  the  Professor  of  Divinity,  who  was  to 

conclude  the  solemn  exercises.    Allston  then  delivered  an  English  Poem, 

and  was  followed  by  his  Classmate  Watson  in  an  English  Oration ;  in  both  of 
which  performances  a  number  of  memorable  transactions  of  the  Hero  and 
Patriot,  in  his  important  public  Stations,  were  handsomely  commemorated,  and 
his  private  virtues  properly  celebrated. 

"  The  Professor  of  Divinity  then  delivered  an  animated  Discourse  in  Eng- 
lish, in  which,  in  an  able  manner,  he  delineated  the  virtues  and  excellencies, 
both  of  a  public  and  private  nature,  which  this  Great  and  Good  Man  had  emi- 
nently exhibited,  even  to  the  last  closing  Scene,  and  then  improved  the  Subject 
by  pertinent  and  pathetic  religious  and  moral  reflections  and  exhortations,  and 
concluded  the  Solemnity  by  a  pertinent  prayer. 

"  N.B.    All  the  exercises  were  delivered  from  the  Desk. 

"  Several  pieces  of  Music,  both  vocal  and  instrumental,  well  adapted  to  the 
mournful  occasion,  were  performed  in  the  front  Gallery." 


42  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

1800 

Feb.  22.  President  Washington's  birthday  kept  as  a  fast  [on  ac- 
count of  his  recent  death]  throughout  the  Union.  In 
the  evening  the  Hasty  Pudding  Club  met  at  Cummings' 
room  and  according  to  appointment  I  spoke  on  "  The 
Influence  of  Example."  We  then  went  in  procession  to 
Porter's  and  with  the  seniors  took  a  decent  repast  and 
drank  sixteen  patriotic  toasts;  eleven  of  these  were 
written  by  myself.  My  oration  met  with  undeserved 
indulgence  and  approbation. 
Feb.  23.  Sunday.  I  walked  to  Boston,  went  to  Parson  Freeman's 
meeting  and  sat  with  his  family.  I  saw  there  the 
Misses  Swan  but  do  not  think  them  handsome.  In  the 
afternoon  went  to  hear  Mr.  Emerson^  at  the  old  brick 
meeting-house.  I  saw,  though  at  a  distance,  the  Misses 
Parkman. 
Feb.  24.    Greek  week.     The  Au.  R.  met.     I  put  in  the  "bloody 

treat." 
March  4.  Went  to  Boston  to  send  a  bundle  to  Merrimac.  Had  a 
peep  from  the  street  at  Margaret  Rogers  as  she  sat  by 
Mr.  Parkman's  parlor  fire.  Were  I  such  a  milk-sop  as 
to  love,  I  might  think  this  glimpse  very  precious. 
March  6.  I  declaimed  in  chapel  from  Pope's  Essay  on  Man :  "  Honor 
and  shame  from  no  condition  rise."  Was  happy  in 
being  told  that  I  spoke  better.  In  the  evening  a  num- 
ber of  students  joined  in  a  masquerade  at  Blood's  hotel. 
I  went  as  a  spectator  and  was  much  entertained. 

March  21.  Carried  my  theme  on  Friendship  to  Mr.  Pearson.  Mr. 
Webber  gave  his  fifth  lecture  on  the  subject  of  pendu- 
lums. I  went  to  Boston  and  called  on  Dr.  Warren  ^  to 
propose  taking  charge  of  the  bell  at  his  medical  lectures 
next  fall  as  a  compensation  for  attending  the  lectures. 

March  23.  Our  themes  were  returned  by  Mr.  Pearson.  Only  three 
received  the  double  mark:  Cummings,  Lawrence,  and 
myself.  Our  subject  was  "  Friendship  is  the  wine  of 
life." 
April  15.  Quarterly  exhibition.  Tudor,  Bigelow,  Dawes  and  others 
took  part.  The  performances  were  generally  indifferent 
though  the  brilliant  assemblage  of  ladies  should  have 

*  The  Rev.  William  Emerson,  minister  of  the  First  Church  from  1799  to 
1811,  the  father  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

'  Dr.  John  Warren,  Professor  of  Anatomy  and  Surgery,  1782-1812. 


s^^ 


1916.]  DIARY   OF   TIMOTHY   FULLER,   JR.  43 

1800  communicated  vivacity  and  stimulated  exertion  in  all 

the  exhibitors. 
April  29.    Leaving  Merrimac  where  I  have  spent  a  few  days,  I  rode 
with  Williams  to  Billerica  after  which  I  walked  eighteen 
miles  to   Cambridge.     Being  somewhat  tired,  I  went 
immediately  to  bed. 

May  11.  Sunday.  After  meeting  I  wrote  a  satire  upon  the  pieces 
which  have  been  read  at  the  Au.  R.  and  which  the 
writers  seem  to  consider  witty  though  to  me  they  appear 
only  gross. 

May  13.  Yesterday  [Leonard]  Jarvis  [a  senior]  came  into  my 
room  and  after  asking  for  a  list  of  the  names  of  our 
class,  desired  my  opinion  of  several  of  them.  He  then 
very  frankly  told  me  that  his  motive  for  asking  was  to 
judge  who  ought  first  to  be  elected  into  the  *  B  K  so- 
ciety. I  was  pleased  with  his  confidence  and  answered 
him  with  sincerity. 

May  39.  After  some  altercation  the  students  agreed  to  parade  be- 
fore the  college  yard  to  receive  Governor  Strong  and  his 
retinue  on  their  way  from  Judge  Dana's  seat  to  Boston.^ 

Junes.  Abbott,  Cummings  and  myself  were  initiated  into  the 
$  B  K  society.  No  others  were  elected  that  day  be- 
cause Peirce's  name  was,  by  accident,  not  on  the  nomi- 
nation list. 

*  Hon.  Caleb  Strong  had  just  been  elected  Governor  and  was  about  to  be  in- 
augurated in  Boston.  He  had  come  from  his  home  in  Northampton  and  had 
spent  the  night  l)efore  at  Chief  Justice  Dana's  in  Cambridge.  The  "  Colum- 
bian Centinel,"  May  31,  1800,  states  that  "The  citizens  of  Boston,  ...  at  an 
early  hour  assembled  in  large  numbers,  on  horseback,  and  in  carriages,  on  the 
Westerly  side  of  West  Boston  Bridge,  and  being  formed  into  Sections,  pro- 
ceeded to  the  house  of  Chief-Justice  Dana,  where  they  received  the  Governor 
elect,  and  were  joined  by  Major-General  Hull,  his  suite,  and  officers  of  his 
division."  A  procession  being  formed,  it  moved  "  through  Cambridge,  Charles- 
town  and  the  principal  streets  of  this  town,  to  the  New  State  House,  where  the 
Governor  alighted ;  and  the  cavalcade  was  dismissed.  As  the  procession  passed 
through  Cambridge,  the  University,  ever  ready  to  pay  respect  to  federalism 
and  distinguished  merit,  was  not  now  in  the  rearward.  The  President,  Pro- 
fessors and  Tutors  waited  on  the  Governor  elect,  and  the  students  presented 
themselves  in  two  ranks  in  front  of  the  Colleges,  through  which  the  extensive 
cavalcade  passed;  while  the  college-band,  or  musical  society,  placed  themselves 
on  the  top  of  Massachusetts  Hall,  playing  The  President's,  and  other  federal 
marches,  as  the  procession  passed.  As  soon  as  the  escort  came  abreast  of  the 
parsonage,  all  the  bells  of  the  town  and  college  commenced  ringing,  which  with 
the  vast  cavalcade,  and  crowd  of  citizens,  afforded  one  of  the  proudest  triumphs 
of  federalism  that  Cambridge  has  ever  exliibited." 


44  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

1800 

June  4.  Went  with  Mr.  Emerson  ^  to  Boston.  We  walked  with 
my  sister  and  Miss  Atwood  in  the  mall.  Mr.  Emerson 
expressed  great  satisfaction  with  his  visit. 
June  7.  At  Commons  in  the  morning  a  piece  of  biscuit  being 
thrown  near  the  tutors,  apparently  with  the  intention 
of  hitting  them,  many  were  called  upon  for  evidence 
and  myself  among  others ;  but  not  being  able  to  discover 
the  thrower,  they  fined  all  who  sit  at  our  table  a  dollar 
each. 

June  12.  The  Phi  Beta  Kappa  elected  Peirce,  Kent,  Williams,  Bond, 
and  Hallowell. 

Tlie  President  gave  my  name  out  of  the  buttery  for 
seven  nights  and  I  went  to  Boston  to  stay  with  Uncle 
William  Williams.^  At  night  I  returned  to  Cambridge 
to  meet  the  Sp.  C.^ 

June  15.  Walked  to  Cambridge  to  hear  Dr.  Tappan's  discourse  and 
Joseph  Stevens  Buckminster^s  valedictory  oration  to 
the  Adelph.  Theol.*  The  latter  was  beautiful,  abound- 
ing in  eloquent  and  natural  figures. 

June  16.  Returned  to  Boston  and  finished  the  last  pages  of  my 
oration  on  "  National  Virtue."  I  spoke  to  Mr.  Callen- 
der  of  State  Street  to  make  me  a  coat.  My  grand- 
mamma [Williams]  gave  me  five  dollars  toward  the 
expense. 

June  17.  Had  my  coat  from  Callender's.  The  cloth  was  nine  dol- 
lars, the  making  three;  cape,  velvet  and  buttons,  one 
dollar  each;  trimmings  $1.22.  Total  fifteen  dollars.  In 
the  evening  I  returned  to  Cambridge  and  met  with  the 
*  B  K.  The  ten  newly  elected  members  were  initiated. 
July  6.    I  went  to  Boston  for  Mr.  Freeman's  black  silk  gown  which 

he  had  offered  to  lend  me  for  exhibition. 
July  8.    Had  our  summer  exhibition.    The  performances  in  general 
were  good.      Mansfield's   poem   on   "  Hope "    received 

*  Joseph  Emerson  of  the  class  of  1708.  After  graduation  he  had  taught 
in  the  Academy  in  Framingham,  where  Fuller  doubtless  had  met  him.  He  re- 
turned to  Cambridge  in  May,  1800,  as  a  resident  graduate  in  preparation  for 
the  ministry.    His  life,  by  his  brother,  Ralph  Emerson,  was  published  in  1834. 

»  Son  of  Rev.  Abraham  Williams,  A.B.  Harv.  1744. 

*  Speaking  Club,  later  the  Institute  of  1770. 

*  The  "  Adelphi  Theologia,"  later  known  as  the  Society  for  Religious  Im- 
provement, was  founded  in  1785,  and  continued  to  1847.  The  complete  records 
of  the  Society  are  in  the  College  Library. 


1916.]  DIARY   OF   TIMOTHY   FULLER,   JR.  45 

1800  much  applause.     I  delivered  an  oration  on  "  National 

virtue ''  and  had  unmerited  approbation.  Many  who 
were  present  declared  it  the  best  exhibition  they  ever 
knew.    Between  thirty  and  forty  ladies  were  present. 

July  13.  Sunday.  Went  into  Boston.  Met  F.  D.  Channing  ^  on  the 
bridge  where  we  had  a  discussion  on  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa.  I  went  with  my  sister  and  Tempy  Smith  to 
meeting  at  Dr.  Lathrop's.^  There  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  once  more  Susannah  Parkman.  We  exchanged 
many  benign  looks ! 

July  16.  Annual  commencement.  About  10  o'clock  Nancy  Buck- 
minster  with  her  Mr.  Bell  and  his  sister  called  and  I 
conducted  them  to  the  meeting-house.  The  perform- 
ance of  the  day  began  at  11  o'clock.  The  parts  were 
most  of  them  good.  The  second  in  dignity  —  English,, 
oration  by  Buckminster,  —  was  excellent.  It  drew  uni- 
versal applause.  The  subject  was  "Literary  national 
character."  Allston's  poem  on  "  Energy  of  character  " 
was  well  received.  James  Richardson,  student  of  law, 
spoke  an  oration  for  tlie  Masters  of  arts,  teeming  with 
the  narrow  politics  of  "  The  Centinel "  and  with  reflex- 
ions on  the  conduct  of  Pres't  Adams,  altho'  in  his 
presence.  When  he  had  done  it  was  loudly  clapped  by 
some  and  as  loudly  hissed  by  others. 

In  the  evening  the  *  B  K  met  at  Porter's  tavern. 
Mr.  Popkin  brought  forward  a  resolution  that  the  so- 
ciety publish  a  review  directed  by  a  committee  appointed 
for  the  purpose.  The  close  of  the  festival  was  embit- 
tered by  several  illiberal  toasts,  among  the  rest  one  by 
Paine  to  the  "  Essex  Junto."  Sorry  I  am  to  see  men  so 
bare-faced  in  their  support  of  a  set  of  aristocrats, 
calumniators  of  our  Adams  as  well  as  of  all  moderate 
men.* 

*  Francis  Dana  Channing,  A.B.  Harv.  1704, 

*  Dr.  John  Lathrop,  minister  of  the  Second  Church. 

*  This  reference  to  the  anniversary  meeting  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa  in  1880  ia 
welcome,  since  the  Society's  own  records  of  these  meetings  from  1799  to  1825 
are  lost.  The  project  of  a  literary  review  is  mentioned,  however,  in  a  letter  to 
the  Yale  Chapter,  May  23,  1801,  which  states  that  a  "committee  was  chosen 
for  the  purpose  of  considering  the  best  mode  of  carrying  it  into  eflFect."  The 
Committee  included  John  Davis,  1781,  afterward  Judge  of  the  U.  S.  District 
Coxu-t  and  for  seventeen  years  Treasurer  of  the  College;  John  Thornton  Kirk- 
land,  1789,  afterwards  President  from  1810  to  1828;  John  Snelling  Popkin, 
1792,  later  Professor  of  Greek;  and  either  Francis  Dana  Channing,  1794  (re- 


46  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

1800  [He  then  went  home  to  Merrimac,  N.   H.,  for  a 

month's  vacation.] 

Aug.  9.  I  took  leave  of  my  family.  I  went  no  farther  than  Bowers' 
tavern  at  BiUerica  where  I  retired  to  bed.  About  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning  I  quitted  my  bed  and  walked 
nine  miles  to  Lexington  meeting-house  before  sunrise. 
I  was  detained  by  a  shower  on  the  road  yet  arrived  at 
Cambridge  at  half  past  seven,  a.  m.  Afterwards  I  went 
to  Boston  and  found  my  friends  there  all  well. 

Aug.  11.  Crocker  and  I  removed  to  the  room  assigned  us  for  next 
year.  No.  25,  north  entry,  Hollis. 

Ang.  22.  Within  the  past  two  days  onr  class  have  omitted  blessings 
in  the  hall.  N.  B.  The  junior  class  have  displayed 
considerable  insolence  upon  that  and  another  occasion. 

Ang.  23.  I  wrote  a  historical  disquisition  intended  for  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  society.  In  the  evening  I  went  to  the  Hasty 
Pudding  club.  My  motive  in  going  was  to  contribute 
all  in  my  power  to  revive  its  spirit  and  consequence.  I 
was  treated  with  such  indecency  and  rudeness  by  For- 
rester, Sullivan  and  Williams  that  I  soon  quitted  them. 
These  polite  gentlemen  afterwards  were  dismissed  the 
club. 

Aug.  27.  I  wrote  my  forensic  "  Whether  promiscuous  immigration 
be  beneficial  to  the  United  States." 

Sept.  2.  On  Saturday  last  I  dined  at  Porter's  tavern  at  the  invita- 
tion of  Captain  Ome,  father  to  Sam.  Ome,  one  of  my 
particular  freshmen.  Miss  Ome,  Sam's  sister,  is  very 
pretty  and  well-bred.  After  dinner  we  all  went  to  the 
museum  together. 

Sept.  5.  I  measured  the  playground  by  the  last  case  in  survejring, 
i.  e.  by  taking  the  bearings  of  the  sides  with  the  com- 
pass. I  spent  the  night  watching  with  Cutts,  who  is 
dangerously  ill. 

Sept.  7.  Ben  Peirce  *  read  to  me  his  oration  to  be  spoken  at  the 
exhibition.  The  subject  is  "Liberty"  and  he  has 
handled  it  in  a  masterly  manner;  it  must  be  approved 
by  persons  of  taste  and  judgment  but  perhaps  may  not 
be  popular. 

ferred  to  just  above),  or  William  EUery  Channing,  1798.    The  project  waa 
again  discuseed  in  1802,  but  nothing  further  was  heard  of  it.     (Cat^ogue  of 
the  Harvard  Chapter  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  1912,  pp.  144,  145.) 
'  Librarian  of  Harvard  College,  1826-1831. 


1916.]  DIARY   OF   TIMOTHY   FULLER,   JR.  47 

1800 

Sept.  9.    In  the  evening  the  *  B  K  met  at  my  chambers.     The 
performances  in  general  had  marks  of  haste  and  care- 


Sept.  10.  Went  to  Boston  with  Mr.  Emerson.  "We  purchased  fifteen 
dollars  worth  of  books  for  the  *  B  K  library. 

Sept.  11.  I  was  informed  of  the  suspension  of  four  sophomores  for 
no  other  crime  than  going  in  a  procession  at  the 
departure  of  one  of  their  class,  whom  they  thought  un- 
justly suspended.^     Likewise  [heard]  that  Tutor  Kim- 

*  The  account  of  the  proceedings  in  the  Faculty  Records  is  worth  quoting 
for  its  picturesque  character  and  its  serious  tone,  and  for  the  contrast  it  pre- 
sents between  methods  of  discipline  then  in  vogue  and  those  of  the  present  day. 

"  Septr  4,  1800.  It  appeared,  upon  due  examination  that  Jones  1st  had  been 
guilty  of  acting  a  principal  part  in  the  scene  of  noise  and  disorder  the  preced- 
ing evening,  which  he  not  only  tolerated,  but  was  even  active  in  exciting  and 
promoting,  at  hia  own  chamber,  to  the  great  disturbance  and  dishonor  of  the 
College.  That  said  Jones  absolutely  declined,  when  interrogated,  to  give  in-, 
formation  relative  to  those  whom  he  knew  to  be  most  concerned  with  him  in 
said  offences.  And  whereas  such  conduct  has  a  very  pernicious  influence  on  the 
order  and  decorum,  on  the  literary  improvement  and  moral  character,  of  the 
Members  of  this  Society,  and  on  the  happiness  of  the  individual  himself,  which 
can  be  effectually  counteracted  only  by  animadversion  and  amendment  .  .  ." 
Jones  was  suspended  for  six  months  and  required  to  pursue  his  studies  with 
Rev.  Mr.  Palmer  of  Needham. 

"September  9th  and  continued  by  adjournment  to  the  11th,  1800.  .  .  . 
Upon  examination,  it  appeared  to  the  full  satisfaction  of  the  immediate  Gov- 
ernment of  the  College,  that  on  the  5th  Instant,  being  the  day  on  which 
Jones  1st  was  suspended,  a  combination  was  formed  by  a  large  majority  of 
the  Members  of  the  Sophomore  Class,  for  the  purpose  of  escorting  said  Jones 
on  his  departure  out  of  the  town  of  Cambridge,  in  form  of  funeral  procession ; 
and  that  said  procession  actually  took  place,  and  this  at  a  time,  when  all 
concerned  in  it  were  by  law  required  to  be  present  at  a  College  Exercise,  and 
that  after  leaving  Jones,  they  returned  in  the  same  solemn  manner,  not  only 
through  the  Town,  but  through  the  College  yard,  and  around  the  College  build- 
ings within  the  same,  to  the  College  House,  whence  they  at  first  proceeded;  by 
which  combination  and  procession  not  only  the  wholesome  Laws  of  the  Society 
were  openly  violated,  but  the  rightful  authority  thereof,  particularly  as  then 
recently  and  justly  exercised  in  the  punishment  of  said  Jones,  to  whom  (as 
they  repeatedly  avowed  to  the  Government)  they  meant  by  this  conduct  to 
show  respect,  grossly  insulted;  and  it  further  appeared,  that  this  instance  of 
combination  has  been  followed  to  the  present  day  by  a  series  of  irregularities 
and  insults  on  the  part  of  said  Class ;  by  all  which  the  good  order  and  respect- 
ability of  the  Society  are  greatly  injured ;  and  whereas  it  appears  indispensably 
necessary  to  check  this  disposition  to  combination,  a  measure  at  once  illegal 
in  itself  and  directly  tending  to  subvert  all  Government,  by  which  individuals 
therein  concerned  expect  to  be  secured  from  punishment,  if  not  from  detection, 
and  are  therefore  emboldened  to  go  great  lengths  in  defiance  of  legal  authority ; 
and  whereas  by  the  College  Laws  express  provision  is  made  in  certain  cases, 


48  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

1800  ball  had  enjoined  our  class  to  ask  a  blessing  at  meals 

before  the  tutors  came  in.  P.  M.  Our  class  had  a  meet- 
ing and  it  appearing  from  the  words  of  the  law  that  the 
Seniors  could  not  be  obliged  to  ask  blessings  except 
when  the  tutors  were  absent  from  the  whole  meal,  Voted: 
"  That  we  will  not  comply  with  the  requisition  [of  Mr. 
Hedge]  "  viz ;  to  ask  blessings,  *'  that  we  will  take  the 
head  of  the  table  alphabetically,  and  in  case  any  fine 
should  be  inflicted,  \^dll  make  ourselves  responsible  for 
payment.  Should  anyone  be  rusticated,  or  even  sus- 
pended, we  unanimously  agree  to  quit  College." 

Sept.  12.  In  the  morning  Abbot  took  his  seat  at  the  head  of  the  table 
and  not  having  asked  a  blessing  was  fined  20  cents.  At 
noon  Mr.  Kimball  came  in  seasonably  to  ask  the  blessing. 

Sepi  13.  In  the  morning  Mr.  Hedge  ^  addressed  us  on  the  propriety 
of  complying,  as  he  said,  with  the  law,  but  concluded 
to  dispense  with  it  provided  we  would  wait  until  a  tutor 
entered.  Thus  he  conceded,  and  we  have  obtained,  our 
point.  P.  M.  —  Abbott,  Bond,  and  myself  revised  the 
laws  of  the  Hasty  Pudding  club.  The  principal  altera- 
tion we  made  was  that  we  are  to  spend  the  evening  in 
trying  cases  by  jury,  as  in  the  Coffee  club.  The  H.  P. 
club  has  languished  so  much  of  late  that  we  think  noth- 
ing else  can  revive  it. 

of  which  the  preceding  is  one,  for  *  selecting  such  and  so  many  of  the  offenders 
for  punishment,  as  may  be  necessary  for  good  order;  *  and  whereas  it  still  far- 
ther appeared  that  Draper  and  Savage  were  of  the  number  concerned  in  said 
combination  and  in  its  execution ;  and  as  it  appears  in  perfect  consistency  with 
Law  18,  Chapter  4,  it  may  be  done,  and  that  the  good  of  the  Society  does  now 
require  it:  .  .  ."  therefore  Draper  and  Savage  were  suspended  for  four 
months.  Moreover  it  was  found  that  Reed  and  Willard  had  been  concerned 
"in  erecting  on  the  College  House,  the  5th  Instant,  a  pole  with  a  black  streamer 
attached  to  it,  as  a  public  and  conspicuous  ensign  of  mourning  for  a  censure, 
which  the  Government  had  been  necessitated  to  inflict  on  a  Student  for  mis- 
demeanor; thereby  openly  encouraging  and  promoting  disorder  and  offering 
insult  to  the  Government,"  and  they  were  accordingly  suspended  for  five 
months. 

Furthermore,  Jones's  suspension  was  protracted  to  nine  months,  because 
he  had  been  guilty  of  "  acting  hia  part,  in  concert  with  others  of  his  Class, 
combined  with  a  view  to  defeat  the  salutary  operation  of  the  punishment,  pro- 
mote disorganization  in  this  Society,  and  publicly  insult  its  authority  in  a 
mock  funeral  procession,  formed  for  the  purpose  of  accompanying  him  to  a 
considerable  distance  in  his  departure  from  the  Town,  at  the  time  of  a  Col- 
legiate stated  exercise  for  that  Class." 

*  Levi  Hedge,  Tutor,  1795-1810;  and  a  Professor  until  1832;  father  of 
Professor  Frederic  H.  Hedge. 


1916.]  DIARY   OF   TIMOTHY   FULLER,   JR.  4^ 

1800 

Sept.  14.  I  had  leave  to  stay  from  meeting ;  Mr.  Hedge  detained  me 
to  discuss  the  question  of  "  blessings  '^  at  Commons,  but 
we  left  it  in  statu  quo. 
Sept.  28.  Visited  the  locks  of  Middlesex  canal  in  Chelmsford  by 
which  vessels  of  almost  any  size  are  transferred  from 
the  Merrimac  to  the  canal,  about  sixteen  or  twenty  per- 
pendicular feet.  Walked  from  there  to  Lexington,  about 
twelve  miles,  slept  there  and  then  walked  to  Cambridge, 
arriving  before  nine  o'clock  a.  m. 
Sept.  30.  After  our  quarterly  exhibition  I  dined  at  Porter's  tavern 
with  Mr.  Peirce's  and  Mr.  Nichols'  families.  I  walked 
to  Mr.  Craigie's  summerhouse^  with  Lydia  Nichols. 
Abbott,  Rogers,  Sally  Peirce  and  her  sister  were  also 
of  the  party. 

Oct.  1.  Boston.  At  four  o'clock  my  Mamma  set  out  for  Merrimac 
in  the  stage  and  soon  after  I  walked  to  Cambridge.  In 
the  evening  the  Hasty  Pudding  club  met  at  my  room 
and  broke  up  about  11. 

Oct.  5.  Sunday.  Early  in  the  morning  Tutor  White's  freshman 
called  to  inform  me  that  White  *  had  fined  Crocker  and 
myself  a  dollar  each  for  having  a  noise  at  our  room  at 
an  unseasonable  hour  last  night.  This  becoming  known 
several  members  of  the  club  offered  to  intercede,  and  if 
White  remained  inflexible,  to  mark  his  name  with  let- 
ters of  infamy,  as  he  has  been  a  member  of  the  H.  P. 
Club.  Kent  and  Abbott  accordingly  remonstrated  and 
White  offered  to  remit  the  fine  but  refused  to  give  up 
the  principle  on  which  it  was  imposed,  that  is  singing 
[in  college  dormitories]  after  nine  o'clock. 

Oct.  7.  A  subject  for  dissection  having  been  secured.  Dr.  Warren 
gave  us  a  lecture  on  the  abdomen  and  its  contents. 

Oct.  8.  Heard  that  Livermore  was  ill  of  a  sore  throat.  Spent  the 
afternoon  with  him  and  am  to  attend  him  during  the 
night. 

Oct.  9.  Sunday.  Livermore  much  better.  The  pleasure  he  seems 
to  take  in  my  attendance  would  endear  the  task,  were 
it  a  thousand  times  greater.  Handed  in  my  theme 
"  Aut  Caesar  aut  Nullus  "  which  I  consider  the  best  I 
ever  wrote. 

*  This   atood  about   where  the  Harvard   Astronomical   Observatory  now 
stands  and  commanded  a  fine  view. 

*  Daniel  Appleton  White,  class  of  1797,  tutor  from  1799  to  1803. 


50  THE    CAMBKIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

1800 

Oct.  13.  I  was  so  ill  with  the  sore  throat  that  could  not  go  to  Dr. 
Warren's  lecture.  The  president  gave  me  my  name 
out  of  the  buttery  for  a  week,  on  account  of  my  being 
ill.  Livermore  came  to  see  me,  though  he  is  not  yet 
recovered  from  the  sickness.  Mr.  S.  Clarke  carried  me 
in  his  chaise  to  my  uncle's  Th.  Williams  in  Boston. 

Oct.  15.  Dr.  Warren,  who  attends  my  aunt,  pronounces  me  better 
but  not  well  enough  to  return  to  Cambridge.  This 
evening  considerable  company  called,  with  whose  follies, 
since  I  am  obliged  to  be  silent,  I  could  the  better  divert 
myself.  Among  them  was  Miss  Elizabeth  Doubleday, 
about  thirty,  rather  plain,  has  read  considerable,  which 
makes  her  pedantic  and  dogmatical.  By  frequenting 
Boston  society  she  has  contracted  a  certain  kind  of 
politeness  which  influences  all  that  she  says  and  does. 
It  would  seem  that  while  convinced  of  her  own  superior- 
ity she  deems  it  a  condescension  to  be  civil.  Notwith- 
standing this,  I  must  confess  that  she  is  a  pretty  good 
companion.     She  also  serves  as  a  foil  to  the  amiable 

Miss  R s  whose  cheerful  sweetness  and  unreserved 

sincerity,  together  with  a  pretty  and  expressive  face, 
make  her  truly  engaging. 

Oct.  17.  At  half-past  nine  o'clock  I  took  leave  of  my  kind  Grand- 
mamma and  rode  with  Mr.  Clarke  to  Cambridge,  where 
I  attended  Dr.  Warren's  lecture  [on  the  veins  and 
arteries]. 

Oct.  26.  Mr.  Hedge  read  to  our  class  some  of  the  recent  laws  of 
the  college,  one  of  which  prohibited  leaning  forward  in 
class  and  enjoined  us  to  "  sit  in  an  erect  position " ! 
What  admirable  legislation !  Such  laws  call  for  prompt 
opposition. 
Dec.  9.  The  Remonstrance  against  the  newly  promulgated  college 
laws  is  signed  by  four-fifths  of  the  students.  It  is 
decided  to  call  a  meeting  of  the  committee  tomorrow 
to  receive  further  instructions.  The  committee  took 
this  step  to  avoid  the  imputation  of  precipitancy  or  un- 
authorized action.  The  number  of  subscribers  to  the 
Remonstrance  is  about  140,  non-subscribers  about  25.^ 

'  The  new  laws  which  called  forth  the  remonstrance  of  the  students  are 
entered  as  follows  in  the  records  of  the  Faculty,  Nov.  24,  1800: 

*'  Voted,  that  the  following  Regulations  he  estahlished ;  and  that  they  be 
communicated  to  the  Students  by  their  respective  Tutors. 


1916.]  DIARY   OF   TIMOTHY   FULLER,   JR.  51 

1800 

Dec.  11.  The  committee  carried  the  Remonstrance  to  the  President 
who  very  ungraciously  and  ungracefully  received  it. 
Dr.  Tappan  sent  for  me  to  expostulate  with  me  on  the 
behavior  which  he  heard  I  exhibited  in  the  chapel  at 
his  last  lecture.  We  compromised  very  amicably  and  I 
went  to  Boston. 

Dec.  12.  I  put  an  advertisement  in  the  "  Centinel "  for  a  private 
evening  school.  In  the  evening  I  had  a  happy  walk 
with  Livermore,  who  is  now  quite  well.  Much  of  my 
happiness  of  late  arises  from  our  friendly  companion- 
ship. 

[Gap  here.    Begins  again  July,  1801.] 

1801 

July  13.   In  Salem  with  Peirce.^ 

Early  this  morning  we  went  into  the  museum  of  the 
India  marine  society,  which  has  been  only  two  years 

"  1.  That  the  Students  be  required  to  sit  in  an  upright  and  decent  posture, 
at  public  worship  in  the  Meeting-House,  during  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures 
previous  to  prayers  in  the  Chapel,  and  at  public  Lectures,  and  that  any  Stu- 
dent who  shall  hold  down  his  head  on  those  occasions  be  liable  to  punishment 
for  the  same. 

"  2.  That  any  Student,  who  shall  read,  talk  or  whisper  in  the  time  of  public 
worship  in  the  Meeting-House  or  Chapel,  or  at  public  Lectures,  shall  be  liable 
to  punishment  for  the  same. 

"  3.  That  all  stamping,  clapping,  and  other  indecencies  at  the  public  Decla- 
mations in  the  Chapel  be  prohibited." 

Disorders  at  Chapel  followed.  On  December  4th  Mitchel  1st  was  found 
"  guilty  of  making  exertions  to  obstruct  the  passage  from  the  Chapel  after  the 
evening  prayers  of  this  day ;  which  obstruction  was  attended  witli  great  tiunult 
and  disorder,"  and  he  was  suspended  for  six  months. 

On  the  next  day  "  Dix,  after  his  class  had  retired,  was  found  at  the  outer 
door  of  the  Chapel,  which  had  been  shut  for  the  purpose  of  producing  a  scene 
of  disgraceful  and  impious  tumult;  it  also  appeared  that  he  made  no  attempt 
to  open  the  door  and  thus  to  end  or  escape  from  the  disorder,  though  his  situa- 
tion gave  him  opportunity  to  do  it."  Dix  and  another  student,  Davenport,  who 
had  been  similarly  engaged,  were  accordingly  suspended  for  five  months. 

It  was  also  found  that  "  Newcomb  1st,  though  he  was  there  in  the  midst  of 
great  noise  and  irregularity  and  might  have  easily  opened  the  door  and  with- 
drawn, made  no  effort  to  do  it;  that  on  the  contrary,  as  he  explicitly  declared 
to  the  Government,  he  regarded  every  attempt  to  prevent,  suppress,  or  even 
escape  from  such  disorderly  scenes,  as  mean  and  dishonorable,"  and  he  suffered 
the  same  penalty  as  the  others. 

1  Benjamin  Peirce,  a  classmate  of  Fuller's,  graduated  at  the  head  of  his 
class.  He  at  first  returned  to  Salem  to  engage  in  the  India  trade  with  his 
father,  but  later  became  Librarian  of  the  College,  1826-1831,  His  History  of 
Harvard  University  was  printed  after  his  death. 


52  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

1801  collecting,  but  is  extensive,  considering  the  time.     I 

breakfasted  with  Peirce  at  his  father's  and  then  took 
affectionate  leave  of  that  very  interesting  family.  Betsy 
Peirce  gave  me  a  beautiful  nosegay,  of  which  the  chrys- 
anthemum formed  a  part.  She  has  promised  to  pre- 
serve its  seed,  and  the  seed  of  a  very  beautiful  double 
pink,  to  give  or  send  me  next  autumn.  Arrived  at  Bos- 
ton before  twelve  o'clock  and  purchased  my  wines  for 
Commencement  at  Mr.  Stackpole's. 

July  14.  In  the  morning  my  father  and  my  sister  Debby  arrived 
from  Merrimac.  I  went  to  Cambridge  to  prepare  my- 
self to  receive  my  friends  tomorrow.  Toward  night 
my  father  and  I,  riding  in  a  chaise  with  my  wines,  etc., 
were  caught  by  a  heavy  shower,  but  took  refuge  in  a 
shed  and  suffered  but  little.  I  slept  with  Livermore  at 
Register  Bartletfs. 

July  15.  Commencement.  This  day  ushers  me  with  my  classmates 
into  the  great  world.  Gov.  Strong  and  W.  Sargent  with 
most  of  the  first  characters  in  the  state  were  present. 
[He  mentions  each  speaker  who  had  a  part  in  the  exer- 
cises and  criticizes  the  composition  and  the  elocution. 
Apparently  most  of  the  orators  spoke  too  low.]  Dawes 
was  much  praised  as  a  speaker.  The  Conference  upon 
"The  Invention  of  the  Plow,  the  Mariner's  Compass, 
the  Printing  Press,  and  the  Telescope  "  by  Abbott,  Cum- 
mings,  Lawrence,  and  Parsons,  was,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, of  a  motley  complexion.  Abbott's  part  on  the 
plow  was  sweetly  written  and  he  spoke  well,  yet  the 
audience  did  not  give  vociferous  applause.  The  forensic 
by  Bigelow  and  myself  "Whether  Occupancy  Create 
Right  of  Property"  was  not  applauded  much,  but  havS 
been  handsomely  spoken  of,  particularly  Bigelow's  part 
of  it.  Peirce's  oration  on  "  Public  Spirit "  was  liked 
by  men  of  sense,  but  was  not  adapted  to  catch  the 
rabble.  Our  commencement  had  the  character  of  being 
scientific  but  not  popular.  I  own  that  I  thought  mysejf 
sure  of  being  popular,  and  was  disappointed  but  not 
mortified. 

My  uncles  and  their  families,  together  with  my  sis- 
ters, took  some  cake,  cheese,  wine,  etc.,  with  me,  and, 
with  much  transient  company,  spent  the  afternoon  at 
my  chambers. 


1916.]  BIOGKAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  MRS.  R.  H.  DANA     53 

1801 

July  16.  Anniversary  of  the  *  B  K.  After  despatching  the  usual 
business  at  Porter's  Hall,  we  walked  in  procession  to 
the  chapel  where  Brother  David  Everett,  Attorney,  of 
Boston,  delivered  a  poem  and  F.  D.  Channing,  Attor^y, 
of  Cambridge,  a  beautiful  oration.  Both  are  soon  to 
be  printed.  I  was  almost  sick  and  tired  out  and  so  did 
not  dine  with  the  Society. 

July  17.  Took  leave  of  Peirce.  Called  on  friends  in  Boston,  and 
saw  Boutell  who  lent  me  his  watch  for  use  in  Leicester 
Academy,  where  I  am  to  succeed  him  as  master  of  the 
institution* 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  MRS.  RICHARD  HENRY 
DANA   (EDITH  LONGFELLOW) 

By  Mks.  Mary  Isabella  Gozzaldi 
Read  October  24,  1916 

I  HAVE  been  asked  to  speak  to  you  to-night  about  one  of  our 
Charter  Members.  It  is  a  difficult  task,  for  she  was  known  to 
most  of  you,  and  to  many  of  us  she  is  a  living  friend,  gone  only  on 
a  long  journey  from  which  there  is  no  return. 

At  the  organization  meeting  of  the  Cambridge  Historical 
Society,  held  in  the  parlor  of  the  old  Brattle  House,  Mrs.  Kichard 
H.  Dana  took  a  prominent  part.  She  felt  that  the  Society  had  a 
future,  her  only  regret  being  that  it  had  not  already  had  a  past. 
At  all  subsequent  meetings  when  possible  she  was  present,  and  by 
her  earnest  attention  encouraged  the  speaker,  nor  was  there  ever 
wanting  at  the  close  of  the  evening  intelligent  criticism  and  hearty 
thanks,  given  in  her  cordial,  pleasant  manner.  Two  years  ago  at 
the  Annual  Meeting  in  1914,  we  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  from 
her  the  history  of  the  Female  Humane  Society,  which  had  just 
completed  a  century  of  existence.  In  that  society  she  had  been 
many  years  an  indefatigable  worker  and  during  its  last  years  its 
President. 

Edith  Longfellow  was  born  at  Craigie  House,  October  22, 1853. 
She  was  the  fifth  child  and  third  daughter  of  Henry  WadswortK 


54  THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

and  Frances  (Appleton)  Longfellow.  Her  eldest  sister  died  be- 
fore her  birth ;  two  years  later  another  sister  came  to  complete  the 
trio  and  be  her  lifelong  companion  in  work  and  play. 

Edith  more  than  any  other  member  of  the  family  resembled  her 
father,  was  a  true  Longfellow ;  she  had  his  clear  complexion,  rose- 
pink  cheeks,  searching  sapphire-blue  eyes  and  golden  hair.  Of 
medium  height,  she  was  slight  and  graceful ;  though  alert  in  her 
movements,  she  possessed  a  certain  calm  dignity  which  showed  the 
control  of  soul  over  body.  Her  voice  in  speaking  was  sweet  and 
well-modulated ;  her  laugh,  such  as  is  called  silvery,  lingered  long 
in  the  memory  of  the  listener;  her  smile  lighted  up  her  face  with 
a  singular  beauty. 

Mrs.  Dana  retained  to  the  last  the  natural  unconsciousness  of 
her  youth,  her  enthusiasm,  frankness  of  speech,  and  intense  sym- 
pathy with  children  as  well  as  with  her  equals.  She  loved  the 
companionship  of  her  elders,  and  during  the  long  illness  of  her 
aunt  was  constantly  with  her.  She  never  thought  of  herself  or 
considered  that  anyone  would  care  to  know  her  or  do  for  her.  She 
was  modest,  generous,  held  high  ideals,  and  was  keenly  sensitive  to 
injustice.  She  held  firmly  to  what  seemed  to  her  the  right,  but 
avoided  discussions,  and  gave  allowance  for  different  points  of 
view.  'No  kindness  nor  courtesy  was  beneath  her  notice,  no  favor 
that  it  was  in  her  power  to  give  but  was  instantly  granted  if  she 
believed  it  right.  On  hearing  some  tale  of  sorrow  or  need,  her  first 
thought  was  —  How  can  I  help  ?  Wliat  must  I  do  ?  —  and  no 
time  was  lost  between  the  thinking  and  the  doing  of  the  most  prac- 
tical thing  possible.  To  the  poor  and  unfortunate  she  was  a  true 
friend,  and  rarely  was  an  appeal  made  to  her  in  vain.  She  gave 
not  only  from  her  purse;  her  advice  and  sympathy  were  at  the 
service  of  all.  Truly  one  may  say  of  her  as  was  said  of  her  Master 
—  "She  went  about  doing  good."  She  fulfilled  the  prophecy  of 
her  father  in  his  poem,  "  To  a  Child  " : 

"It  was  her  pride 
To  linger  by  the  laborer's  side, 
With  words  of  sympathy  and  song 
To  cheer  the  weary  way  along." 

Edith  Longfellow's  childhood  was  a  happy  one,  spent  in  the 
bright,  sunny  rooms  of  Craigie  House,  among  the  branches  of  the 


I 


1916.]  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  MRS.  R.  H.  DANA     55 

old  tree  at  the  foot  of  the  garden,  beside  the  pond,  or  sliding  on  it, 
in  summer  by  the  seaside  at  Nahant.  In  the  old  nursery  there 
were  delightful  plays,  acting  out  poems,  or  illustrating  them  with 
pencil  and  paint-brush.  There  was  a  dancing  school  in  Lyceum 
Hall,  where  the  elder  Papanti,  with  fiddle  under  his  chin,  showed 
the  children  what  could  be  done  with  their  feet.  There  were  chil- 
dren's parties,  simple  entertainments  compared  with  those  of  to- 
day; there  were  May  Days  with  wreaths  of  paper  flowers;  and 
birthdays,  and  endless  games  of  imagination.  There  was  the  con- 
stant coming  and  going  in  her  home  of  noted  and  interesting 
people. 

When  she  was  seven  years  old  there  fell  over  it  all  the  greatest 
tragedy  that  can  come  into  a  child's  life  —  the  loss  of  her  mother. 
To  an  English  governess,  Miss  Davy,  the  education  of  the  two 
younger  daughters  was  confided,  and  well  she  fitted  them  for  their 
future  lives.  A  few  young  girls  shared  with  them  the  advantages 
of  '^  Parliament,"  as  the  school  hours  were  called.  In  May,  1868, 
Mr.  Longfellow,  his  son  Ernest  and  his  bride,  and  the  three  daugh- 
ters went  to  Europe  for  a  stay  of  eighteen  months,  seeing  all  that 
was  best  worth  seeing,  both  people  and  places.  Returning  to 
Craigie  House,  Edith  then  spent  a  few  years  at  the  Berkeley  Street 
School  in  Cambridge. 

Before  her  marriage  Edith  Longfellow  read  Dante  in  the  orig- 
inal with  her  father.  This  she  carried  out  conscientiously  for  at 
least  two  years,  enjoying  the  association  with  her  father  in  his 
work,  and  he  presented  to  her  a  volume  of  Petrarch  inscribed  in 
memory  of  those  readings. 

Back  of  her  home,  on  what  was  once  part  of  the  John  Vassal! 
and  Craigie  estate,  lived  Richard  H.  Dana,  2d,  author  of  "  Two 
Years  Before  the  Mast."  There  was  pleasant  intercourse  between 
the  two  families,  and  on  January  10,  1878,  the  only  son,  Richard 
H.  Dana,  3d,  was  married  in  Appleton  Chapel  to  Edith  Long- 
fellow. Until  that  time  Mrs.  Dana  had  attended  College  Chapel, 
or  the  Unitarian  Church  in  Harvard  Square,  with  her  family, 
having  a  class  in  the  Sunday  School  of  the  latter  church.  The 
first  years  of  their  marriage  were  spent  in  Boston,  and  she  became 
a  member  of  the  Episcopal  Church  to  which  her  husband  and  her 
aunt,  Mrs.  James  Greenleaf,  were  so  devotedly  attached.  From 
the  time  of  their  return  to  Cambridge,  about  1887,  when  they  built 


56  THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

the  commodious  house  on  Brattle  Street  just  west  of  her  old  home, 
she  was  a  constant  attendant  at  St.  John's  Chapel,  connected  with 
the  Theological  School,  and  an  active  worker  in  its  Missionary 
Society.  In  the  new  home  four  sons  and  two  daughters  were 
brought  up  with  a  mother's  tender  care,  all  living  to  mourn  her 
loss. 

Although  Mrs.  Dana  was  devoted  to  her  family  and  most  happy 
in  her  domestic  life,  her  social  duties  were  not  neglected.  Always 
thoughtful  for  her  friends,  many  strangers  who  came  to  live  here 
can  attest  that  it  was  to  her  great  kindness  they  owed  their  pleasant 
introduction  to  Cambridge  society.  She  was  always  ready  to  pro- 
mote the  pleasure  of  the  young  people  in  their  dances  and  amuse- 
ments. She  spent  a  morning  every  week  at  the  Himiane  Society, 
cutting  out  and  distributing  sewing  to  the  poor  women;  her  in^ 
terest  in  the  Holy  Ghost  Hospital  for  Incurables  never  flagged. 
She  was  an  ardent  worker  in  the  Woman's  Auxiliary  to  the  Civil 
Service  Reform  Society,  of  which  her  husband  was  President,  and 
often  accompanied  him  to  the  Annual  Meetings.  Several  times 
she  crossed  the  ocean  with  him,  and  spent  some  months  in  foreign 
lands.  On  her  last  journey  with  her  husband  to  the  West  in  De- 
cember, 1914,  Mrs.  Dana  was  asked  to  give  recollections  of  her 
father,  which  she  did  most  acceptably  to  large  and  most  apprecia- 
tive audiences  at  Minneapolis  and  Omaha,  and  at  the  University 
at  Lincoln,  Nebraska. 

Mrs.  Dana  belonged  to  the  Mothers'  Club,  the  Bee,  the  St. 
John's  Missionary  Society,  and  neighborhood  societies,  and  noth- 
ing that  tended  to  the  welfare  of  her  native  city  was  neglected. 
One  may  speak  of  her  life  as  domestic  and  uneventful;  but  its 
roots  went  deep  down,  and  it  has  left  a  lasting  impression  on  our 
City.  Mrs.  Dana  was  taken  ill  December,  1914,  and  after  more 
than  six  months  of  patient  suffering,  she  was  called  to  her  reward 
July  21,  1915. 

Had  James  Russell  Lowell  written  his  verses  "  To  My  Love  " 
on  knowing  Mrs.  Dana,  they  could  not  have  more  aptly  depicted 
her: 

"Great  feelings  hath  she  of  her  own, 
Which  lesser  souls  may  never  know; 
God  giveth  them  to  her  alone, 
And  sweet  they  are  as  any  tone 
Wherewith  the  wind  may  choose  to  blow. 


a916.]  EAKLY  CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  S7 

"  Yet  in  herself  she  dwelleth  not, 
Although  no  home  were  half  so  fair ; 
No  simplest  duty  is  forgot, 
Life  hath  no  dim  and  lowly  spot 
That  doth  not  in  her  sunshine  share. 

"  She  doeth  little  kindnesses, 
Which  most  leave  undone  or  despise; 
For  naught  that  sets  one  heart  at  ease, 
And  giveth  happiness  or  peace. 
Is  low  esteemed  in  her  eyes. 

"  She  is  most  fair,  and  thereunto 
Her  life  doth  rightly  harmonize; 
Feeling  or  thought  that  was  not  true 
Ne'er  made  less  beautiful  the  blue 
Unclouded  heaven  of  her  eyes. 

"  She  is  a  woman ;  one  in  whom 
The  spring-time  of  her  childish  years 
Hath  never  lost  its  fresh  perfume. 
Though  knowing  well  that  life  hath  room 
For  many  blights  and  many  tears." 


EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES 

By  Mbs.  Haejbiette  M.  Forbes 
Op  Worcester,  Mass. 

Read  October  24,  1916 

I  WISH  first  to  call  your  attention  to  a  few  varieties  of  diaries 
which  are  not  represented  among  those  which  I  have  discovered 
kept  by  Cambridge  people  or  by  those  resident  temporarily  in  the 
town. 

There  are  no  ship  journals  —  the  old  time  log-book,  which  not 
only  gives  the  ship's  log,  but  often  much  entertaining  news  of  other 
captains  and  their  boats,  notes  on  new  countries  with  descriptions 
of  their  peculiarities,  daily  life  on  shipboard,  and  often  family 
details  and  relationships.  Many  of  these  log-books  are  very 
cleverly  illustrated  with  pen  and  ink  drawings  or  watercolor  maps, 
sketches  of  queer  fish,  bits  of  landscape,  or  more  imaginative 
pictures. 

I  have  not  discovered  a  "  death  diary  "  —  a  record  which  was 


58  THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

not  especially  uncommon  and  was,  as  its  name  implies,  only  written 
in  when  some  one  died  in  the  neighborhood.  These  are  valuable 
as  supplementing  the  town  records  and  often  contain  further  facts, 
like  the  cause  of  death. 

I  have  found  no  scout  journal  kept  in  the  early  Indian  wars  by 
a  Cambridge  man,  and  rather  strangely  no  journal  at  all  of  the 
French  and  Indian  wars. 

Although  there  are  many  early  Quaker  diaries,  kept  by  English 
people  who  came  to  this  country  or  by  preachers  who  travelled 
from  place  to  place,  —  the  only  Quaker  whom  I  have  noted  as 
-visiting  Cambridge  is  Rev.  George  Keith  from  London,  who 
preached  here  in  1702.  Almost  all  of  these  diaries  mention  New- 
port, 'New  Bedford,  Nantucket,  Lynn,  Salem,  Hampton,  and 
Dover,  and  I  infer  from  this  that  there  were  few  Quakers  in 
Cambridge. 

Equally  odd  is  the  fact  that  there  is  none  kept  by  a  woman, 
except  the  one  of  Madam  Riedesel,  who,  of  course,  was  not  a  Cam- 
bridge woman.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  why  in  this  early 
seat  of  education  and  culture  the  women  in  this  respect  seem  to  be 
behind  those  of  other  parts  of  Massachusetts  and  other  states  of 
New  England.  Did  they  undervalue  their  own  abilities  because 
they  were  surrounded  by  so  many  learned  men  ?  Or  did  so  many 
men  keep  diaries,  that  the  women  felt  there  was  no  need  ?  A  simi- 
lar condition  seems  to  have  existed  among  the  ministers^  wives. 
Of  the  forty-six  diaries  kept  by  women  elsewhere,  there  are  only 
three  by  ministers'  wives,  although  quite  a  number  by  ministers' 
daughters.  The  wife  surely  was  not  less  fitted  to  write  her  daily 
doings  and  thoughts  than  other  women,  but  her  literary  husband 
perhaps  considered  that  his  o^vn  prerogative,  and  her  share  of  the 
work,  in  those  days  of  free  hospitality,  was  more  strenuous. 

Subtracting,  however,  the  above-mentioned  varieties  from  Cam- 
bridge diaries,  what  do  we  have  left  ? 

As  we  might  expect,  the  two  larger  classes  are  first  the  diaries 
and  orderly  books  of  the  Revolution,  forty-five  in  number,  and 
second  those  kept  by  teachers  or  students  at  Harvard,  about  thirty- 
two,  a  few  minister's  diaries,  besides  the  Harvard  College  teachers, 
and  one  or  two  of  less  importance  by  other  men.  Besides  these 
there  are,  of  course,  numberless  references  to  Cambridge  in  diaries 
kept  in  other  places,  by  travellers  who  passing  through  Boston 


1916.]  EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  59 

went  out  to  see  the  Colleges,  or  by  ministers  or  lawyers  whose 
hearts  turned  back  longingly  to  their  Alma  Mater,  who  occasion- 
ally went  to  a  Commencement  and  who  invariably,  if  their  slender 
means  allowed,  sent  their  sons  (or  some  of  them)  to  enjoy  the 
benefits  which  were  almost  their  own  whole  stock  in  trade. 

The  diaries  of  the  College  presidents  are  not  as  full  or  as  valu- 
able as  we  could  wish.  Of  the  five  known  to  exist,  that  of  Presi- 
dent Chauncey,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  not  been  discovered.  The 
quotations  from  it  suggest  it  was  largely  of  a  religious  nature,  as 
was  that  of  the  Rev.  Increase  Mather.  Mather,  however,  gives 
many  interesting  glimpses  of  his  personal  feelings  in  regard  to  the 
College  —  feelings  which  we  judge  he  considered  rather  more  im- 
portant than  the  welfare  of  the  College  itself.  The  Mathers, 
both  Increase  and  Cotton,  kept  their  diaries  for  others  to  read, 
probably  with  an  eye  to  posterity,  and  apparently  failed  to  see  the 
vanity  and  pride  of  their  long  entries.  In  July,  1700,  when  In- 
crease Mather  was  made  president,  the  General  Court,  with  what 
Cotton  characterizes  as  "  a  wonderful  Impetuosity  "  demanded  of 
him  to  take  up  his  residence  in  Cambridge ;  "  and,''  he  adds,  "  it 
was  the  apprehension  of  his  best  friends  that  if  my  Father  had 
now  declined  going  to  Cambridge  the  Clamour  and  Reproach  of 
all  the  land  against  him  would  have  been  insupportable;  he  must 
have  died  with  infamy.''  So  Increase  hastened  away  to  Cam- 
bridge and  Cotton  records  his  ovm  distress  on  account  of  "the 
strangely  melancholy  and  disconsolate  Condition  of  mind  which 
my  Father  has  carried  with  him  to  Cambridge,  the  place  which  of 
ail  under  Heaven  was  most  abominable  to  him." 

Wadsworth's  so-called  book  relating  to  College  affairs,  and  Lev- 
erett's  volume  of  corporation  notes  and  Sunday  diary,  possess  in- 
terest, but  not  the  information  which  a  man  like  Judge  Sewall 
would  have  given.  Sewall's  diary  by  the  way  is  full  of  allusions 
to  Cambridge  and  his  long  description  of  the  installation  of  Pres. 
Leverett,  January  8,  1707/8,  enables  us  to  reconstruct  the  scene 
with  vividness.  I  will  quote  only  a  part  of  it.  "The  Gov- 
ernor prepared  a  Latin  speech  for  installment  of  the  President. 
Then  took  the  President  by  the  hand  and  led  him  down  into  the 
Hall.  The  Books  of  the  College  Records,  Charter,  Seal,  and  Keys 
were  laid  upon  a  Table  running  parallel  with  that  next  the  Entry. 
The  Governor  sat  vdth  his  back  against  a  noble  fire ;  Mr.  Russel 


60  THE    CAMBKIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

on  his  left  hand  innermost,  I  on  his  right  hand;  President  sat 
on  the  other  side  of  the  table  over  against  him.  Mr.  Neh.  Hobart 
was  called  and  made  an  excellent  Prayer;  then  Joseph  Sewall 
made  a  Latin  Oration.  Then  the  Governor  read  his  Speech  and 
(as  he  told  me)  moved  the  Books  in  token  of  their  delivery. 
Then  President  made  a  short  Latin  si>eech,  importing  the  diffi- 
culties discouraging,  and  yet  that  he  did  accept.^'  Other  Latin 
addresses,  prayer,  and  singing  followed,  and  they  ended  the  day 
with  "  a  very  good  Dinner  upon  three  or  four  Tables." 

President  Holyoke's  diary  is  made  up  of  exceedingly  short  en- 
tries, rarely  more  than  a  line  for  each  day ;  but  in  these  extremely 
short  sentences  we  get  many  hints  of  the  duties  of  a  College  presi- 
dent in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Life  may  be  more 
strenuous  to-day,  but  we  are  inclined  to  doubt  this  oft-repeated 
statement  when  we  read  some  of  these  old  entries.    For  instance : 

March  22,  1743.    Made  112  Baybery  Candles.    15  lbs  12  oz. 
March  23.    Made  62  lbs  tallow  candles,  29  small,  331/2  great. 
April  11.    Drew  off.  and  filled  up  16  barrels  of  cider,  besides  one 

left  for  present  drinking. 
September  17.     Candles  all  gone. 
January  16,  1745.    Mattins  without  candles. 
January  10,  1748.    Mattins  at  6h.  30'. 
January  18.     Vespers  without  Candles  for  myself. 
Feb.  1,  Mattins  at  6  Clock. 

These  few  extracts  cover  five  years  during  which  he  is  often 
making  candles,  which  seem  to  have  been  used  as  long  as  they 
lasted  at  these  extremely  early  morning  and  evening  services.  It 
must  have  been  a  relief  to  him  when  a  modern  invention  was  first 
introduced  into  his  busy  life  and  he  could  write  on  November  26, 
1755:  "First  began  to  burn  a  lamp.'^  He  was  not,  however,  re- 
lieved from  the  necessity  of  making  cider  and  every  year  that  duty 
falls  to  him  as  well  as  the  responsible  ones  indicated  in  the  follow- 
ing entries : 

April  21,  1758.    Put  in  ye  spirits  in  ye  Cyder. 

November  16,  1763.     My  wife  preparing  to  make  soap. 

18.   Finished  making  soap  [evidently  a  duty  in  which  he  assisted] 

viz.  6  or  7  barrels. 
April  20,  1764.    New  laid  eggs  tallowed  today. 


1916.]  EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  61 

Mingled  with  these  more  personal  details  are  occasional  historical 
items, 

November  12,  1756,  Cambridge  meeting  house  begun  to  be  raised 

And  on  January  23,  1764,  he  gives  an  account  of  the  naming 
of  Hollis  Hall:  — 

"This  day  Hollis  Hall  was  named  by  Gov.  Fra.  Bernard  in  the 
presence  of  the  General  Court,  both  Council  and  House  in  the  Chapel. 
The  Governor  came  up  about  one  o'clock  soon  after  which  all  went 
into  the  Chapel  at  the  tolling  of  the  Bell,  the  President  and  Corpora- 
tion preceding  the  Governor  and  General  Court,  and  when  all  were 
well  seated  the  President  rising  up  said,  as  there  are  here  present 
His  Excellency  the  Governor,  the  Honourable  His  Majesty's  Council 
and  the  Honourable  House  of  Representatives  who  by  their  votes  gave 
to  the  College  the  new  Building,  in  our  view  it  cannot  be  an  improper 
time  to  ask  a  name  for  it,  wherefore  I  apply  to  Your  Excellency  to 
give  the  name.  Upon  which  His  Excellency  standing  up  said,  I  now 
give  to  this  new  Building  the  name  of  Hollis  Hall.  Upon  which  the 
President  said  There  is  now  expected  a  gratulatory  oration  to  this 
venerable  audience  and  Let  the  Orator  ascend  the  Desk.  Upon  which 
the  Orator  (Taylor  a  junior  sophister)  accordingly  ascended  and  pro- 
nounced with  suitable  and  proper  action  an  English  Oration.  After 
which  the  assembly  broke  up,  the  president  and  Corporation  still  pre- 
ceding the  Governor  and  General  Court,  and  then  all  went  into  the 
new  Building  to  view  it  and  while  they  were  there  the  Steward  sent 
word  the  Dinner,  to  which  all  had  been  invited,  was  upon  the  Table. 
All  then  repairing  to  the  Hall  sat  down  to  Dinner  a  little  before 
two  o'clock.  Memo.  The  ministers  of  Boston  &c,  tho  they  were  all 
invited  the  Day  before  to  this  entertainment,  yet  all,  being  highly 
affronted,  refused  to  come." 

This  last  quotation  shows  one  of  the  charms  of  these  old  diaries 
—  the  problems  that  the  ordinary  reader  cannot  solve.  He  wants 
to  know  why  the  ministers  of  Boston  and  vicinity  were  so  highly 
affronted  —  his  sympathies,  of  course,  are  always  with  the  writer 
of  the  diary,  the  man  who  with  more  or  less  fullness  is  letting  him 
look  into  his  inmost  soul  and  who,  for  the  time  being,  is  the  read- 
er's personal  friend.  THe  diary  of  some  one  of  these  Boston  minis- 
ters may  perhaps  give  the  answer  to  this  riddle. 

There  are  several  early  diaries  of  tutors  or  professors  at  the 
College.    That  of  I^oahdiah  Eussell  who,  though  not  a  Tutor,  was 


62  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

in  close  relation  with  the  College  government  as  a  resident  gradu- 
ate, gives  an  interesting  glimpse  into  College  discipline  on  March 
23,  1682. 

"The  Corporation  met  in  the  College  Library,  between  nine  and 
ten  of  ye  clock  being  Monday.  About  three  of  ye  clock  the  under 
graduates  were  called  in  ye  Hall  to  be  examined  about  ye  abusing  of 
ye  freshmen.  About  five  of  ye  clock  or  between  4  and  5  they  were 
called  in  again  to  hear  ye  Corporation's  conclusion. 

"Yt  Webb  should  have  what  gifts  were  bestowed  on  him  by  the 
College  taken  away,  and  yt  he  should  be  expelled  ye  College,  and 
having  called  for  a  Bible  on  which  his  name  was  written,  Mr.  Mather 
tore  it  oif.  Moreover  if  he  was  seen  in  the  College  after  24  hours  ye 
resident  fellows  were  to  carry  him  before  ye  civil  Magistrates." 

"3rd  Mo.  4th  day  Webb  was  readmitted  into  tlie  College  to  his 
former  place  and  standing.'^  ^ 

Did  Increase  Mather  rewrite  his  name  in  the  torn  Bible? 
Noahdiah  is  silent  on  this  point,  but  undoubtedly  some  Bible  v^as 
permitted  to  the  young  man  as  he  afterwards  was  minister  for 
forty  years  at  Fairfield,  Conn.,  and  is  described  as  "  a  gentleman 
of  Probity  and  Piety  and  of  distinguishing  Erudition  in  Gram- 
mar, Rhetorick,  Logick  and  Theology,  especially  Systematical; 
a  firm  Calvinist  in  Principal  and  accounted  by  the  most  Judicious 
an  eminent  preacher." 

About  this  time  the  two  Dutch  pastors,  Dankers  and  Sluyter, 
made  their  trip  to  America  and  wrote  their  interesting  journal. 
They  give  the  following  amusing  description  of  Harvard  College 
when  JSToahdiah  Russell  himself  was  a  pupil,  along  with  Thomas 
Cheever,  John  Danforth,  Joseph  Capen,  John  Cotton,  Grindall 

*  The  Corporation  record  is  as  follows,  under  date  of  March  27,  1682: 
"  Whereas  great  complaints  have  been  made  against  Web  for  his  abusive  car- 
riages, in  requiring  some  ffreshmen  to  go  upon  his  private  Errands,  in  striking 
them;  &  m  scandalous  negligence  of  those  Dutyes  he  is  bound  to  attend  by 
Colledge  Law;  &  having  persisted  obstinately  in  his  evills,  notwithstanding 
means  used  to  reclaime  him;  &  not  attending  the  Corporation  this  day,  wn 
required;  he  is  sentenced,  first  to  be  deprived  of  the  pension  formerly  allowed 
him,  and  also  to  be  expelled  the  Colledge;  and  in  case  he  prsume  after  the 
space  of  24  hours  to  appear  within  the  Colledge  Walls,  then  the  fellows  are  to 
cause  him  to  be  carryed  before  civill  authority."     (College  Book,  iii.  p.  75.) 

May  4,  1682.  "  The  Petition  of  Joseph  Web  formerly  expelled  the  Colledge, 
being  prsented  to  &  considered  of  by  the  Corporation,  they  consent  that  he 
shall  be  readmitted  into  the  Colledge  on  his  good  behaviour  being  publikely 
read  in  the  Hall,  &  by  him  publickly  acknowledged."   {Ibid.  p.  78.) 


1916.]  EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  63 

Rawson,  Urian  Oakes,  and  Cotton  Mather.    He  writes  on  July  9, 

1680:^ 

"We  reached  Cambridge  about  eight  o'clock.  It  is  not  a  large 
village  and  the  houses  stand  very  much  apart.  The  College  building 
is  the  most  conspicuous  among  them.  We  went  to  it,  expecting  to  see 
something  curious,  as  it  is  the  only  College  or  would-be  academy  of  the 
Protestants  in  all  America,  but  ...  we  neither  heard  nor  saw  any- 
thing mentionable ;  but  going  to  the  other  side  of  the  building  we  heard 
noise  enough  in  an  upper  room  to  lead  my  comrade  to  suppose  they 
were  engaged  in  disputation.  We  entered  and  went  upstairs,  when  a 
person  met  us  and  requested  us  to  walk  in,  which  we  did.  We  found 
there  eight  or  ten  young  fellows  sitting  around,  smoking  tobacco,  with 
the  smoke  of  which  tlie  room  was  so  full  that  you  could  hardty  see ;  and 
the  whole  house  smelt  so  strong  of  it  that  when  I  was  going  upstairs  I 
said  "This  is  certainly  a  tavern."  We  excused  ourselves,  that  we 
could  speak  English  only  a  little,  but  understood  Dutch  or  Erench, 
which  they  did  not.  However  we  spoke  as  well  as  we  could.  We  en- 
quired how  many  professors  there  were  and  they  replied  not  one,  that 
there  was  no  money  to  support  one.  We  asked  how  many  students 
there  were.  They  said  at  first  30  and  then  came  down  to  20.  I  after- 
wards understood  there  are  probably  not  10.  They  could  hardly  speak 
a  word  of  Latin  so  that  my  comrade  could  not  converse  A^^th  them. 
They  took  us  to  the  library  where  there  was  nothing  particular.  We 
looked  over  it  a  little.  They  presented  us  with  a  glass  of  wine.  This 
is  all  we  ascertained  there.  The  minister  of  the  place  goes  there  morn- 
ing and  evening  to  make  prayer  and  has  charge  over  them.  The  stu- 
dents have  tutors  or  masters." 

The  student  diaries  to  which  I  have  had  access  are  mostly  of 
rather  uninteresting  details  although  all  of  them,  in  giving  names 
of  their  friends  and  some  deaths,  have  great  value  to  the  descend- 
ants of  the  people  mentioned.  I  quote  one  rather  harrowing 
passage  from  that  of  Samuel  Chandler,  Jr.,  which  is  especially 
interesting  as  describing  the  methods  used  in  the  most  learned 
community  in  America  in  trying  to  resuscitate  one  who  had  been 
drowned.  July  1,  1773,  he  gives  a  long  account  of  the  death  by 
drowning  of  the  "  prettiest  and  likeliest  youth  in  class  about  fif- 
teen years  of  age." 

"  The  Scholars  soon  got  a  diving  to  find  him.  Parker  a  Boy  belong- 
ing to  Welch  the  Painter  first  felt  him.    Bliss  first  brought  him  ofi. 

*  Memoirs  of  the  Long  Island  Historical  Society,  1867,  i.  384. 


64         THE    CAMBRIDGE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

the  Bottom,  and  Peele  who  sayed  his  life  yesterday  first  brought  him 
out  of  the  water,  when  he  was  soon  brought  on  shore,  rolled  and  rubed 
with  Salt  &c.  .  .  .  He  was  supposed  to  be  under  water  near  half  an 
Hour  before  they  found  him.  They  brought  him  ashore  about  1/2  after 
Eleven,  tryed  all  Experiments  such  as  Rolling  him,  rubing  with  salt, 
poring  Spirits  down  his  throat,  blowing  into  his  mouth  with  Bellowses 
&c.  They  tryed  to  bleed  him  but  could  find  no  vain.  There  was  not  a 
quart  of  water  in  him,  which  made  the  Docters  think  he  was  frighted 
into  a  Fit.  They  worked  on  him  at  the  side  of  the  Bank  till  near 
twelve  when  they  carried  him  to  Welch's  the  painter's  where  they 
wrapt  him  up  in  [warm]  ashes  and  continued  rubing  and  applying 
hot  cloths.  Dr  Lord,  who  came  from  Boston  accidentally,  made  out 
to  bleed  him  in  the  jugular  vain;  he  bled  very  freely  but  no  life 
appeared  ...  He  was  kept  the  afternoon  wrapt  up  in  Salt,  all  but 
his  head.  I  continue  with  him,  likewise  Numbers  of  other  Scholars 
the  chief  of  the  afternoon.  At  night  he  was  carryed  to  Mr.  Sewall's 
and  put  in  a  warm  bed. 

"July  3,  Mr.  Wadsworth  has  got  lieve  for  the  Freshmen  to  were 
Black  Gowns  and  Square  Hats  at  the  Funeral  today.  .  .  .  The  fresh- 
men, several  of  them,  have  walked  about  the  Town  with  their  Black 
Gowns  on,  the  Inhabitants  not  knowing  what  it  ment  nor  who  they 
were  .  .  /'  Then  follows  an  account  of  the  funeral  in  Boston,  and 
he  adds :  "  Numbers  of  the  freshmen  walked  over  the  Ferry  with  their 
Gowns  on.    Seemed  very  grand  in  general." 

The  diaries  of  the  Eevolution  leave  little  to  be  desired.  From 
the  orderly  books  we  get  the  oflScial  side  of  the  soldiers'  life  with 
some  glimpses  of  the  civilians'  point  of  view.  There  are  twenty-two 
of  these  orderly  books  on  my  list,  all  kept  by  men  in  the  patriot 
ranks.  Cases  of  court  martial  are  recorded  in  them,  and  one  reads 
them  with  bated  breath,  dreading  to  learn  that  some  honored  an- 
cestor of  his  own  stole  a  chicken  or  slunk  away,  a  homesick  boy,  to 
his  own  village.  A  few  extracts  from  the  orderly  book  of  Gen. 
Glover  will  give  an  idea  of  the  less  usual  information  to  be  gleaned 
from  them.  We  have  often  heard  of  the  nondescript  dress  of  the 
patriots  in  the  early  days  of  the  war,  but  Gen.  Glover's  entry  of 
General  Orders,  23d  July,  1775,  made  at  Cambridge,  adds  a  little 
local  color :  ^ 

**A8  the  continental  army  have  unfortunately  no  Uniforms  and 
consequently  many  inconveniencies  must  arise  from  not  being  able 

*  Essex  Institute,  Hiat.  Coll.  1863,  v.  115. 


1916.]  EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  65 

always  to  distinguish  the  commissioned  officers  from  the  non-commis- 
sioned and  the  non-commissioned  from  the  privates,  it  is  desired  that 
some  badges  of  distinction  may  be  immediately  provided ;  for  instance 
—  the  Field  Officers  may  have  red  or  pink  coloured  cockades  in  their 
hats,  the  Captains  yellow  or  buff,  and  the  Subalterns  green.  They  are 
to  furnish  themselves  accordingly.  The  Sergeants  may  be  distin- 
guished by  epaulette  or  stripe  of  red  cloth  sewed  upon  the  right  shoul- 
der.   The  Corporals  by  one  of  green." 

When  the  British  spies  John  Howe  and  Col.  Smith  start  out 
on  a  trip  to  Worcester  on  April  2,  1775,  and  wish  to  dress  as  coun- 
trymen, they  wore,  according  to  Hbwe's  journal,  "  gray  coats, 
leather  breeches  and  blue  mixed  stockings,  with  silk  handkerchiefs 
round  our  necks  with  a  small  bundle  tied  up  in  a  homespun 
checked  handkerchief  in  one  hand  and  a  walking  stick  in  the 
other."  ^  As  this  costume  was  the  one  which  they  considered  the 
most  complete  disguise,  the  chances  are  that  it  was  the  dress  most 
commonly  worn  by  the  men  who  assembled  a  few  weeks  later  at 
Cambridge.  The  hats  probably  were  those  they  had  taken  down 
from  the  pegs  behind  the  kitchen  door.  Epaulettes  of  red  and 
green  and  cockades  of  yellow,  buff,  or  pink  must  have  added  an 
indescribable  touch  to  their  appearance  as  they  marched  against 
the  trim,  red-coated  Regulars. 

May  I  make  one  more  extract  from  the  entertaining  orderly 
book  of  Gen.  Glover,  in  the  possession  of  the  Essex  Institute. 

"  The  General  does  not  mean  to  Discourage  the  Practice  of  bathing 
while  the  weather  is  warm  enough  to  continue  it.  But  he  expressly 
forbids  any  Person  doing  it  at  or  near  the  Bridge  in  Cambridge,  where 
it  has  been  observed  and  complained  of  that  many  men  lost  to  all 
sense  of  Decency  and  Common  Modesty  are  Running  about  Naked 
upon  the  Bridge  while  Passengers  and  even  ladies  of  the  First  Fashion 
in  the  Neighborhood  are  passing  over  it  as  if  they  meant  to  glory  in 
their  Shame." 

The  diaries  of  the  soldiers  are  full  of  details  of  their  daily  life 
and  work.  James  Stevens  of  Andover  was  a  rather  ignorant  man, 
judging  from  his  extraordinary  spelling,  but  a  real  Yankee  in 
being  a  Jack  of  all  trades.  He  acts  sometimes  as  carpenter,  mak- 
ing chests  and  coffins,  and  building  stores  and  barracks ;  sometimes 

*  History  of  Middlesex,  ii.  579. 


66  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

he  is  the  camp  cook,  in  which  occupation  he  seems  to  take  a  com- 
mendable pride,  as  on  July  26,  1775,  he  records 

"  I  cukt.  I  got  for  berkfust  som  bef  staks  and  for  diner  I  got  a  ris 
puden  &  bef  &  tumeps ; '' 

Occasionally  he  goes  into  the  hospital  and  this  carpenter-cook 
becomes  the  nurse  of  the  ill  and  wounded.  There  are  very  few 
Sundays  in  the  long  months  he  spent  in  Cambridge  when  he 
does  not  manage  to  get  to  church  once  at  least,  and  perhaps  twice ; 
and  November  23  he  writes, 

"This  day  wos  thanksgivin  we  did  not  worke.  I  went  &  herd  a 
sarmon.    At  night  we  had  a  fine  super." 

Strikes  are  not  peculiar  to  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  cen- 
turies, to  judge  from  James  Stevens's  account.  He  writes  on 
Sunday,  December  the  10th: 

"This  morning  I  went  to  cuk;  the  men  went  out  to  work,  Capt. 
Polerd  Com  out  &  said  that  our  wages  wos  cut  down  to  eight  penc 
the  men  al  Left  of  Worke  in  the  fore  nune  Capt.  Polerd  com  &  said 
that  we  wos  all  deesmist.  Monday  the  11th.  This  morning  Capt. 
Polerd  cam  out  &  said  if  we  would  go  to  worke  we  should  have  seven 
pound  ten  a  Month." 

Lieut.  Col.  Experience  Storrs  who  came  up  from  Connecticut 
with  his  company  of  men  was  quartered  in  the  house  of  Thomas 
Fayerweather  and  his  entry  for  June  8,  1776,  gives  us  a  glimpse 
of  the  feelings  of  even  a  patriotic  householder  when  called  upon  to 
relinquish  his  home  for  the  good  of  the  country.    He  writes :  — 

"Mr.  Fairweather  came  home  last  night  out  of  humor  as  they 
tell  me.  No  wonder,  his  house  filled  up  with  soldiers,  and  perhaps  his 
interest  suffers  as  it  really  must.  Sent  for  me,  yet  appears  to  act  the 
part  of  a  gentleman." 

There  apparently  is  no  end  to  the  mention  of  Cambridge  in  the 
diaries  of  travellers  and  alumni.  The  Rev.  Ebenezer  Parkman 
of  Westborough,  who  graduated  from  Harvard  in  1721,  evidently 
felt  that  his  college  life  meant  more  to  him  than  the  Dutch  pastors 
would  have  thought  possible,  if  we  can  judge  from  the  sacrifices 
that  he  was  willing  to  make  in  order  that  his  sons  might  have  like 
benefit.     His  youngest  son,  Elias,  the  last  of  a  family  of  sixteen 


1916.]  EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  67 

children,  was  thirty-six  years  younger  than  the  oldest  child,  and 
attained  his  college  age  in  the  troublous  times  during  the  Revolu- 
tion when  money  was  sadly  depreciated,  living  expenses  terribly 
increased,  while  country  ministers'  salaries  remained  about  the 
same.  I  give  a  few  extracts  from  Mr.  Parkman's  diary  ^  about 
these  college  expenses:  — 

August  16  1779.  Elias  shews  me  his  quarter  bills  which  are  not 
paid,  viz. 

to  Feb.  26,  1779  which  is £17.3.4 

The  4th  Quarter  Bill  from  Feb.  26  to  May  28,  1779  is  .   .   .      £48.5.0 

64.8.4 
Besides  these  Mr.   Philips  Paylons  Buttery  Sizing  from 
Nov.  27,  1778  to  July  14,  1779,  £38.18.0  not  paid  which 
buttery  bill  added  is £103.6.4 

N.  B.  This  gave  me  some  diflSculty  that  these  several  Bills  were  unpaid 
seeing  I  gave  Eliaa  an  Hundred  Dollars  on  March  17  and  with  a  View  to  his 
discharging  that  Bill  which  was  due  on  Feb.  26  last. 

Besides  which  he  had  more  of  me  at  different  times  in  y®  Spring 
particularly  on  May  31,  14  dollars  delivered  by  Breck;  more  by  Breck 
again  about  y®  same  time  £22  4.  0.  (that  is  74  Dollars,  which  with  the 
14  Dollars  on  May  31  as  aforesaid  made  88  Dollars.) 

August  24.  Ellas,  to  whom  I  delivered  30  Dollars  more,  left  us  to 
return  to  Cambridge. 

October  7.  Elias  comes  up  from  Cambridge  for  money  to  pay  his 
Quarter  Bills  to  May  28  last,  which  he  says  is  £64.  8. 4.  which  gives  me 
some  Perplexity  seeing  I  have  given  him  so  much,  especially  last 
August  to  pay  those  Bills.  N".  B.  on  Aug.  17  $100  and  on  y«  24  $30 
more. 

October  8.  Breck  lends  me  the  money  I  want  for  Elias  viz.  231 
dollars. 

The  next  day  Elias  sets  off  for  Cambridge  with  his  $231. 
He  seems  to  spend  a  good  deal  of  time  at  home  the  next  few 
months,  perhaps  for  economy's  sake;  but  by  March  21,  1780,  his 
father  has  again  to  consider  the  question  of  paying  his  College 
bills:  — 

N.  B.  T  delivered  to  Elias  $400  of  which  176  is  from  my  own  Desk  and 
borrowed  $224  of  my  son  Breck. 

*  Edited  by  Harriette  M.  Forbes.  Printed  by  the  Westborough  Historical 
Society,  1899. 


68  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY      [Oct. 

March  24.  Breck  unhappily  brot  back  y^  letter  I  wrote  to  my  son 
William  about  wood  for  Elias.  I  wrote  another,  but  know  of  no  con- 
veyance. It  is  80  rugged  weather  that  I  am  much  afraid  Elias  will 
be  put  to  difficulty,  and  be  obliged  to  buy  at  y«  excessive  Cambridge 
price. 

June  6  1780.  Elias  setts  out  on  Breck's  horse  for  Cambridge.  I 
gave  him  to  pay  his  Quarter  bills  and  other  Expenses,  to  be  used  with 
the  utmost  prudence,  $800. 

June  17.  Capt.  Fisher  brings  a  letter  from  Elias,  who  writes  that  as 
the  conclusion  of  all  Collegiate  Exercises  was  at  3  o'clock  y®  afternoon 
of  y^  13th,  and. no  public  performances  to  be  on  y«  21st  as  was  ex- 
pected, by  reason  of  y*  immense  expense  of  necessarys  there,  so  there  is 
nothing  to  hinder  his  returning  home  on  Monday  next. 

June  20.  N.  B.  While  we  were  dining  came  in  Elias  from  Cam- 
bridge. 

June  21.  Took  an  opportunity  tO'  reckon  with  Elias  as  to  his  Ex- 
penses. I  found  there  was  so  great  Alteration  of  Times,  Customs  and 
Charges  as  was  very  astonishing  —  especially  considering  that  no 
alteration  was  made  by  y«  Constable  or  y®  Town  as  to  what  is  paid  to 
me. 

June  23.  Have  been  in  uncommon  surprise  at  Elias's  wanting  so 
large  a  sum  of  money  as  was  called  for  to  pay  his  Buttery  bill,  which 
amounts  to  £321  6.  I  gave  him  $300  of  my  own,  borrowed  of  Breck 
620  and  am  obliged  to  send  money  for  the  Degree  which  must  be  30/ 
hard  money  which  at  60  for  one  (as  now  y*^  custom  is)  comes  to  $300 
These  I  receive  of  Breck,  and  offer  him  5  Milled  Dollars.  So  y*  I  now 
give  Elias  1220  Dollars  and  he  goes  to  Cambridge  to  clear  off  and 
finish  there." 

In  October  of  1784,  Simeon  Baldwin,  a  young  tutor  at  Yale, 
takes  a  trip  in  Massachusetts,  which  brings  him  twice  to  Cam- 
bridge.    On  his  first  visit  he  is  received  by 

"  Mr.  Hale,  a  very  accomplished  and  polite  tutor.  We  dined  with 
the  circle.  Found  the  manners  of  their  hall  much  similar  to  our  own, 
except  the  custom  of  wearing  hats.  We  took  wine  at  Mr.  Hale's. 
Attended  the  lecture  of  Prof.  Williams',  neither  the  delivery  or  the 
matter  exceeded  my  expectations.  He  led  us  into  the  philosophy 
chamber  where  we  viewed  their  elegant  paintings,  and  into  the  ap- 
paratus room  which  certainly  was  exceedingly  elegant,  costly,  various 
and  useful;  then  into  the  museums  and  rooms  replete  with  a  great 
variety  of  the  curiosities  of  art  and  nature.  The  library  was  distinct 
from  these.    The  apartment  was  elegant.    The  distribution  discovered 


1916.]  EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  69 

great  taste  and  the  number  of  volumes  is  about  1 1,000,  most  of  them  ele- 
gantly bound,  lettered  and  gilt."  [After  a  visit  in  Salem,  Mr.  Baldwin 
comes  back  to  Cambridge  on  October  13  and  writes:]  "Attended  morn- 
ing prayers ;  took  breakfast  in  the  hall.  Spent  a  part  of  the  forenoon 
with  Prof.  Wigglesworth  and  dined  with  the  President  [Dr.  Willard]. 
The  table  was  very  elegantly  furnished  with  a  rich  variety.  The 
tutors  of  Harvard  were  with  us.  Conversation  was  not  very  lively  but 
on  general  subjects.  The  president  is  very  reserved,  has  not  the  ease 
of  manners  which  is  visible  in  Dr.  Stiles,  yet  there  is  a  dignity  in 
his  deportment  and  a  sensible  look.  He  is  a  worthy  man  and  presi- 
dent. After  taking  leave  of  him  and  smoking  a  pipe  with  the  tutors 
we  took  our  leave  of  the  circle  and  set  out  for  Boston  by  way  of 
Charlestown."  ^ 

My  last  quotation  will  be  from  the  diary  of  Dr.  Bentley  of 
Salem  for  July  18,  1792,  when  he  goes  back  to  the  Commence- 
ment, starting  from  Salem  by  stage  at  three  in  the  morning.  E[e 
writes :  — 

*'  A  scaffold  fronting  the  desk  was  erected  for  the  government  and 
the  speakers,  and  for  the  first  time  the  Ladies  were  introduced  into 
the  Galleries  of  the  house.    The  concourse  was  uncommonly  great."  * 


A   LIST  OF  CAMBRIDGE  DIARIES 

Pbesidents,  Teachers  and  Other  Officials  of 
Harvard  College 

Rev.  Charles  Chauncey.  1592-1672.  President  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege, 1654-1672.    A  book  of  extracts,  of  a  religious  nature. 

Mentioned  in  Memorials  of  the  Chaunceys  by  W.  C.  Fowler, 
Boston,  1858,  p.  21. 

Rev.  Samuel  Deane.  1733-1814.  Librarian,  1760-1762;  Tutor, 
1763-1764.  Interleaved  almanacs,  February  1,  1761  to  October  18, 
1814.  Items  on  his  domestic  affairs,  and  news  of  his  friends.  Many 
vital  statistics.    Very  few  entries  for  1762  and  1763. 

Portland  Public  Library,  1761  to  1801.  Printed  in  Willis,  W. 
Journals  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Smith  and  the  Rev.  Samuel 
Deane,  Portland,  1849. 

»  Life  and  letters  of  Simeon  Baldwin,  1919,  pp.  221,  226. 
'  Diary  of  William  Bentley,  D.D.,  Salem,  1905,  i.  382. 


70  THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

Henry  Flynt.  1675-1760.  Tutor,  1699-1754;  Fellow,  1700-1760; 
Secretary  of  Board  of  Overseers,  1712-1758.  Diary,  1724  to  June  5, 
1747.  A  valuable  description  of  the  life  of  the  day.  Largely  a  record 
of  religious  experience,  personal  matters,  expenses,  affairs  of  the 
college  and  his  own  land  and  buildings.  He  mentions  many  people. 
The  entries  are  sometimes  very  short  and  sometimes  very  long. 
Harvard  College  Archives.    Unpublished. 

Rev.  Caleb  Gannett.  1745-1818.  Tutor,  1773-1780;  Steward, 
177^1818.  Diary,  January  1,  1777  to  November  27,  1782.  A  daily 
journal  of  events  in  his  own  life  and  travels;  many  marriages,  deaths, 
court  trials,  items  of  college  news,  prices  paid  for  various  articles,  and 
other  personal  matters.    Bound  in  two  volumes. 

Harvard  College  Library,  given  by  Rev.  Thomas  B.  Gannett, 
So.  Natick,  Mass.    Unpublished. 

Edward  Holyoke.  1689-1769.  Librarian,  1709-1712;  Tutor,  1712- 
1716;  President,  1737-1769.  Sixty  interleaved  ahnanacs,  April  25, 
1709  to  December  25,  1765.  The  entries  are  generally  of  a  line  a  day 
and  are  very  concise.  There  are  many  vital  statistics  and  town  and 
personal  matters.  He  and  his  son  also  kept  daily  meteorological 
records,  which  are  not  printed. 

Privately  owned,  except  that  for  1715  which  is  in  Harvard  College 
Library.  Full  extracts  are  printed  in  Dow,  G.  F.,  Holyoke 
Diaries,  Essex  Institute,  Salem,  1911. 

John  Leverett.  1662-1724.  Tutor,  1685-1697;  President,  1707- 
1724.  (1)  Diary,  October  28,  1707  to  August  23,  1723.  Partly  a 
private  diary  but  mainly  minutes  of  Corporation  meetings.  (2) 
Sunday  diaries,  April  5,  1696  to  February  21,  1697;  September  5, 
1708  to  April  30, 1710,  mostly  notes  on  sermons  he  heard. 

(1)  Harvard  College  Archives.  (2)  American  Antiquarian 
Society.    Unpublished. 

Rev.  Increase  Mather.  1639-1723.  Fellow,  1675-1685;  President 
or  Rector,  1685-1701.  Interleaved  almanacs  and  diaries,  1660-1721. 
''  The  entries  contain  many  pious  ejaculations  of  the  writer  and 
illustrate  the  working  of  his  mind  on  everyday  subjects.  They  are  of 
interest  as  giving  the  kind  of  food  that  was  then  thought  needful  for 
the  mental  and  spiritual  growth  of  the  religious  man."  Gives  his 
early  life,  illnesses  with  remedies  used,  funerals,  news  of  Indian  wars, 
family  matters,  &c. 

Massachusetts  Historical  Society  owns  1674  to  1721,  with  omis- 
sions.   American  Antiquarian  Society  owns  1660,  1668,  1693, 


1916.]  EARLY   Cz\MBRIDGE   DIARIES  71 

1695,  1696,  1698,  1702,  1704,  1706,  1717,  and  1721.  The 
Diary  from  March  1675  to  Dec.  1676  was  printed  in  Mass. 
Hist.  Soc.  Proc,  Jan.  1900, 2d  series,  xiii.  397-411.  Separately 
printed,  with  extracts  from  another  diary,  1674-1687,  by  S.  A. 
Green,  Cambridge,  1900,  pp.  54. 

Eliphalet  Pearson.  1752-1826.  Hancock  Prof,  of  Hebrew,  1786- 
1806;  Acting  President,  1804-06.  Diary,  January  1,  1799  to  October 
31,  1801.  Short  entries  of  his  daily  doings,  visits  in  Salem,  Boston 
and  other  places;  with  College  and  Andover  Academy  business. 
Each  entry  begins  and  ends  with  a  number  —  apparently  the  time 
when  he  gets  up  and  goes  to  bed. 
Privately  owned.    Unpublished. 

Dr.  Thomas  Robie.     1689-1729.     Librarian,  1712-1713;  Tutor, 
1714-1723.     Diary,  November  30,  1721  to  October  25,  1722.     A, 
doctor's  record  of  inoculations,  visits,  symptoms,  &c. 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society.    Unpublished. 

Rev.  Daniel  Rogers,  of  Exeter,  N.  H.  1707-1785.  Tutor,  1732- 
1741.  Interleaved  almanacs,  1730  to  1785,  with  many  omissions. 
Usually  a  line  each  day.    A  valuable  record. 

New  England  Historic  Genealogical  Society.  That  for  1735  is 
in  the  Library  of  Congress.  UnpubUshed;  except  1747,  which 
is  in  the  Hammatt  Papers,  Ipswich,  1880-89,  p.  304. 

Benjamin  Wadsworth.  1670-1737.  Fellow,  1697-1707,  1712- 
1725;  President  of  Harvard  College,  1725-1737.  (1)  Journal,  June 
10,  1725  to  October  1,  1736,  relating  especially  to  College  affairs, 
commencements,  matters  of  discipline,  some  personal  items,  &c. 
(2)  Diary,  January  19,  1693  to  February  3,  1737.  "  The  books  con- 
tain the  names  of  more  than  fifty  persons  wha  boarded  in  his  family 
for  longer  or  shorter  periods  —  mostly  boys  in  school  or  in  college, 
but  some  females,  among  whom  was  Sarah  Leverett,  youngest  daugh- 
ter of  Gov.  Leverett.  .  .  .  Besides  the  accounts  kept  with  these 
boarders  are  entered  the  dates  of  about  thirty  clerical  ordinations  and 
several  items  of  personal  history.''  It  also  includes  a  journal  of  a 
tour  when  he  went  with  the  Commissioners  of  Massachusetts  to  treat 
with  the  Five  Nations,  August  6  to  31, 1694. 

(1)  Harvard  College  Archives.  Unpublished.  (2)  Massachu- 
setts Historical  Society.  Unpublished,  except  the  Tour  of  the 
Commissioners  (Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.  4th  series,  i.  102). 

John  Winthrop.  1714-1779.  Hollis  Professor  of  Mathematics 
and  Natural  Philosophy,   1738-1779;   Fellow,    1765-1779;  Acting 


I 


72  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

President,  1773-1774.  (1)  Annotated  almanacs,  1743,  1744,  1745, 
1747,  1748,  1751, 1766,  1770,  1778,  1779,  containing  short  entries  of 
personal  happenings;  literally  a  "  line-a-day."  (2)  Journal,  1766- 
1779,  largely  an  account  book,  with  notes  of  his  farming,  in  a  copy  of 
"  Daily  pocket  journal  for  1756." 

(1)  Owned  by  Miss  Elizabeth  Harris,  of  Cambridge.     (2)  In 
Harvard  Collie  Library.    Both  unpublished. 


Students  at  Harvard  College 

Rev.  Samuel  Whiting  (class  of  1653),  of  Billerica,  Mass.  1633- 
1713.  Diary,  April  17  to  December  25,  1653.  Record  of  sermons 
and  lectures  which  he  attended  at  Harvard,  most  of  them  by  Jona- 
than Mitchell. 

American  Antiquarian  Society.    Unpublished. 

Rev.  Noadiah  Russell  (class  of  1681),  of  Middletown,  Conn.  1659- 
1713.  (1)  Diary,  March  23, 1682  to  March  21, 1684.  Full  of  current 
events,  college  affairs  and  unusual  phenomena.  The  author  evi- 
dently remained  in  Cambridge  as  a  resident  graduate  for  two  years 
until  he  went  to  Ipswich  (October  1683)  to  teach  the  grammar  school 
there.  (2)  A  very  brief  record  of  events  written  in  an  interleaved 
almanac,  March  1, 1687  to  February  29, 1688,  a  line  for  each  day. 
(1)  Published  in  N.  E.  Hist.  Gen.  Reg.  Jan.  1853,  vii.  53-59. 
(2)  Privately  owned. 

Hon.  Josiah  Cotton  (class  of  1698),  of  Plymouth,  Mass.  1680- 
1756.  "  The  manuscript  contains  accounts  of  the  relatives  of  the 
writer,  with  many  letters  from  his  father  and  mother  and  a  minute 
narrative  of  his  own  life,  including  a  too  brief  mention  of  his  life  as  an 
undergraduate  of  Harvard  College."  Written  mostly  without  date 
but  usually  called  his  journal. 

Privately  owned.    Unpublished. 

John  Comer  (class  of  1724),  of  Boston.  1704-1734.  Diary, 
August  1,  1721  to  September  1723.  Only  a  few  entries  for  each 
month. 

Printed  in  Rhode  Island  Historical  Society  Collections,  viii. 

Rev.  Nicholas  Oilman  (class  of  1724),  of  Kingston  and  Durham, 
N.  H.  1708-1748.  Diary,  1722-1738.  Very  short  entries  on  per- 
sonal affairs. 

Privately  owned.    Unpublished.    Extracts  in  Oilman,  Arthur. 
The  Oilman  family,  Albany,  1869. 


1916.]  EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  73 

Enoch  Freeman  (class  of  1729),  of  Eastham,  Mass.  and  Portland, 
Me.  1706-1788.  Diary,  1720  to  1785.  Part  of  this  was  kept  when 
he  was  a  student  at  Harvard.    Very  few  entries  after  1740. 

Portland  Public  Library.     Extracts  in   Freeman  Genealogy, 
Boston,  1875. 

EUsha  Odlin  (class  of  1731),  of  Exeter,  N.  H.  1709-1752.  Al- 
manac for  1729.  Entries  from  February  1  to  November  30  on  the 
weather,  personal  doings,  deaths,  names  of  preachers  and  their  texts. 
From  April  29  to  June  28  and  from  September  1  he  is  a  student  at 
Harvard  College. 

American  Antiquarian  Society.    Unpublished. 

Dr.  Edward  Augustus  Holyoke  (class  of  1746),  of  Cambridge,  Mass. 
1728-1829.  Interleaved  almanacs,  1742,  1743,  1744,  1746,  1747., 
**  Nearly  one  half  of  the  entries  are  in  shorthand  and  have  not  been 
deciphered." 

Harvard  College  Library.    Published  in  Dow,  G.  F.  The  Holy- 
oke Diaries,  Essex  Institute,  Salem,  1911. 

Dr.  Solomon  Williams  (class  of  1747),  of  Cambridge  and  Roxbury, 
Mass.  1728-  .  Ames's  Almanac  interleaved,  1747, 1748.  Items, 
on  personal  matters,  hair  cuts,  wigs,  foot-wear,  commencement,  col- 
lege debts,  which  his  honored  father  discharges.  After  graduation,^ 
he  teaches  school  in  Roxbury. 

Wisconsin  Historical  Society.    Unpublished. 

John  Holyoke  (class  of  1751),  of  Cambridge.  1734-1753.  Diary, 
January  7  to  December  9,  1748.  Short  entries  of  his  daily  doings 
and  studies  at  Harvard  College. 

Harvard  College  Library.    Published  in  Dow,  G.  F.  The  Holy- 
oke Diaries,  Essex  Institute,  Salem,  19^11,  pp.  44-46. 

Rev.  Nathan  Fiske  (class  of  1754),  of  Brookfield,  Mass.  1733- 
1799.  Interleaved  almanacs,  1754r-1756,  1758,  1762-64,  1767,  1770- 
71,  1773,  1793,  1796,  1798.  Begins  with  his  life  in  Harvard  College, 
attending  lectures,  classes,  his  commencement  on  July  17,  1754. 
The  later  volumes  relate  to  his  work  as  a  pastor  and  to  events  in  the 
town  of  Brookfield. 

American  Antiquarian  Society.    UnpubUshed. 

Rev.  Jacob  Bailey  (class  of  1755),  of  Pownalborough,  Me.  and 
Cornwallis  and  AnnapoHs,  N.  S.  1731-1808.  Diary,  1751  to  June 
22,  1779. 

Extracts  in  Bartlet,  W.  S.  The  Frontier  Missionary,  Boston,  1853. 


*74  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

Nathaniel  Ames  (class  of  1761),  of  Dedham,  Mass.  1741-1822. 
Diary  in  interleaved  almanacs,  January  1,  1758  to  July  18,  1761. 
Notes  on  College  life  and  the  happenings  in  the  immediate  vicinity 
—  the  great  fire  in  Boston,  hurricanes,  etc. 

Dedham   Historical   Society.      Extracts   printed   in   Dedham 
Historical  Register,  January  to  October,  1890,  vol.  i. 

Rev.  Perez  Fobes  (class  of  1762),  of  Raynham,  Mass.  1742-1812. 
Diary,  and  commonplace  book,  August  26,  1759  to  August  20,  1760. 
"  Worthy  of  preservation  as  indicating  the  character  of  the  institu-^ 
tion  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century."  Only  one  entry  between 
November  1759  and  August  1760. 

Harvard  College  Library.    UnpubHshed. 

Rev.  Moses  Hale  (class  of  1771),  of  Cambridge  and  Boxford,  Mass. 
1750-1786.  Diary,  April  1  to  December  31,  1770.  Daily  events, 
social  affairs,  visits,  etc. 

Historical  Society  of  Old  Newbury.    Unpublished. 

Daniel  Rogers  (class  of  1771),  of  Boston,  Halifax,  Nova  Scotia  and 
other  places.  1749-1803.  Diary,  1761  to  1768.  "  Full  of  details  of 
the  various  business  enterprises  in  which  Rogers  was  engaged.  Very 
interesting  material  for  a  biography  of  a  typical  18th  century  Ameri- 
can."   Rosenthal's  catalogue. 

Owned  by  Ludwig  Rosenthal,  Munich,  Bavaria.    UnpubHshed. 

Samuel  Chandler,  Jr.  (class  of  1775),  of  Newburyport,  Mass. 
1753-1786.  Diary,  February  10  to  December  9,  1773.  "  Well  bound 
in  sheep  skin  and  embellished  with  wonderful  heads  drawn  in 
ink." 

Privately  owned.    Extracts  were  printed  in  Harvard  Graduates' 
Magazme,  1902,  x.  375-381,  529-535. 

Rev.  Paul  Litchfield  (class  of  1775),  of  Carlyle,  Mass,  1752-1817. 
Diary,  March  23  to  July  19,  1775. 

Massachusetts  Historical  Society.    Extracts  in  Mass.  Hist.  Soc. 
Proc,  1882,  xix.  376-379. 

Daniel  Stamford  (class  of  1790),  of  Boston,  Mass.  1766-1820. 
Diary,  July  1786  to  March  3,  1794.  Contains  an  interesting  account 
of  his  Hfe  in  Harvard  College,  teaching  school,  courtship,  writing 
verses,  etc. 

Privately  owned.    Unpublished. 


1916.]  EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  75 

Hon.  Timothy  Fuller  (class  of  1801),  of  Cambridge,  Mass.  1778- 
1805.  Diary,Augustl4, 1798  to  July  17, 1801.  Kept  while  a  student 
at  Harvard  and  a  school  teacher  at  Stow,  Leicester,  &c. 

Owned  by  Miss  Edith  D.  Fuller,  Cambridge.  Unpublished. 
Extracts  in  the  present  volume  of  the  Cambridge  Historical 
Society. 


Diaries  of  Soldiers  at  Cambridge,  including  those  kept  by 
"The  Enemy" 

Thomas  Anburey,  of  England.  Journal,  August  8,  1776  to 
December  15,  1781.  A  journal  in  the  form  of  letters,  beginning 
when  he  sailed  for  America.  He  was  an  officer  in  the  29th  regiment 
of  foot  and  was  captured  with  Burgoyne.  Describes  the  march  to 
Cambridge  and  the  stay  there  until  December  1778  when  the  troops 
were  removed  to  Virginia.  Very  full  of  incidents  and  descriptions 
with  maps  of  the  marches. 

In  his  Travels  through  the  interior  parts  of  America,  London, 
1789.    2  vols. 

Col.  Jeduthan  Baldwin,  of  North  Brookfield,  Mass.  1732-1788. 
Journal,  December  8,  1775  to  January  17,  1779.  In  Cambridge  up  to 
April  20,  1776  when  he  leaves  for  Quebec.  Tells  the  daily  doings  of 
his  regiment  and  the  news  as  it  came  to  him. 

Privately  owned.  Published,  with  a  memoir  and  notes,  by  T.  W. 
Baldwin,  Bangor,  1906;  vol.  3  of  the  Publications  of  the  De 
Burians  of  Bangor. 

Dr.  Jeremy  Belknap,  of  Dover,  N,  H.  1744-1798.  Journal  of  his 
tour  to  the  camp  at  Cambridge,  October  16-25,  1775. 

Massachusetts  Historical  Society.  Printed  in  the  Society's 
Proceedings,  1860,  iv.  77-86. 

Lieut.  Benjamin  Craft,  of  Manchester,  Mass.  1738-1823.  Jour- 
nal, June  15-November  15,  1775.  He  was  in  Capt.  Benjamin 
Kimball's  company  at  Cambridge  and  Winter  Hill.  Camp  news. 
Court  martials,  sermons,  musters,  visits  of  friends  and  other  daily 
news.  "  He  was  a  man  of  observant  mind,  careful  in  his  statements 
and  painstaking  in  giving  many  things  of  value." 

Privately  owned.  Printed  in  Essex  Institute,  Hist.  Coll.  1861, 
iii,  51-57.  Also  in  Crafts,  J.  M.  The  Crafts  family,  North- 
ampton, 1893,  pp.  672-688. 


'f 


76  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

Amos  Famsworth,  of  Groton,  Mass.    1754-1847.    Diary,  April  19, 
1775  to  April  6,  1779.    Kept  partly  in  Cambridge.    He  was  at  Con- 
cord, Lexington,  and  Bunker  Hill.    Full  of  interesting  details. 
Printed  in  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proc.  1898,  2d  series,  xii.  74-107. 

Caleb  Haskell,  of  Newburyport,  Mass.  1723-  .  Diary,  May 
5, 1775  to  May  30, 1776.  He  was  with  Arnold's  expedition  to  Quebec, 
and  in  camp  at  Cambridge  before  starting. 

Privately  owned.  Printed,  Caleb  Haskell's  Diary,  Newbury- 
port, 1881. 

Phineas  Ingalls,  of  Andover,  Mass.  1758-1844.  Revolutionary 
War  Journal,  April  19,  1775  to  January  2,  1776.  He  was  a  soldier 
in  Capt.  Thos.  Poor's  company,  stationed  in  Cambridge  and  vicinity. 
Gives  daily  work  and  news  in  the  camp. 

Privately  owned.  Printed  in  Essex  Institute,  Hist.  Coll.  1917, 
liii,  81-88. 

Paul  Lunt,  of  Newburyport,  Mass.  1747-1824.  Diary,  May  10  to 
December  23,  1775.  Daily  entries  of  personal  and  military  move- 
ments. "  A  journal  of  travels  from  Newburyport  to  Cambridge  and 
in  the  camp." 

Privately  owned.  Printed  in  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proc.  1872,  xii. 
192-207.  Separately  printed  for  private  distribution,  Boston, 
1872.    Edited  by  Dr.  S.  A.  Green. 

Daniel  McCurtin,  of  Pennsylvania.  Journal,  July  18,  1775  to 
May  29,  1776.  On  the  siege  of  Boston  and  the  camp  at  Cambridge' 
where  he  remains  four  days;  then  he  is  stationed  at  Roxbury. 

Owned  in  1857  by  Mr.  L.  Clark  Davis  of  Philadelphia.  Printed 
in  Balch,  T.  Papers  relating  chiefly  to  the  Maryland  line 
during  the  Revolution,  Phila.,  The  Seventy-Six  Society,  1857, 
pp.  11-41. 

Joseph  Merriam,  of  Grafton,  Mass.  1734-1814.  Diary,  April  19 
to  May  24,  1775.  The  writer  was  in  Aaron  Kimball's  Company,  and 
in  Gen.  Artemas  Ward's  Company.  He  was  stationed  on  Cambridge 
Common.  Gives  an  account  of  the  battle  of  Lexington  and  a  long 
list  of  soldiers  who  left  the  company  without  leave.  The  diary  is 
unnamed  but  at  the  beginning  of  the  book  he  writes,  "  Mr.  Grout 
took  the  Place  of  Joseph  Meriam  May  14,"  and  on  May  14,  "  Mr.  D. 
Grout  came  to  take  my  place." 

Boston  Public  Library  in  Chamberlain  Collection  No.  B.  12.72. 
Unpublished. 


1916.]  EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  TT 

George  Morison,  of  Sherman's  Valley,  Pa.  Diary,  July  12,  1775 
to  September  24,  1776.  He  is  in  Arnold's  expedition  to  Quebec.  Is 
in  camp  at  Cambridge  from  August  9  to  September  11,  1775.  Was 
in  company  of  riflemen  commanded  by  Capt.  Hendricks. 

Printed  as  An  interesting  journal  of  occurrences  during  the  ex- 
pedition to  Quebec,  Hagerstown,  1803.  Also  Reprinted, 
Tarrytown,  N.  Y.,  W.  Abbott,  1916. 

Solomon  Nash,  of  Abington,  Mass.  1753-1778.  Journal,  January 
1,  1776  to  January  9, 1777.  It  contains  short  entries  of  daily  happen- 
ings while  he  was  at  Roxbury,  Cambridge,  Governor's  Island  and 
White  Plains.    He  was  in  Capt.  Drury's  company. 

New  York  Historical  Society.  Privately  printed  with  introduc- 
tion and  notes,  by  C.  I.  Bushnell,  New  York,  1861. 

Nathaniel  Obear,  of  Wenham,  Mass.    1743-1784.    Diary,  May  25, 
1775,  for  more  than  three  months.    Begins  at  Cambridge  when  he 
joins  the  army;  he  is  at  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill. 
Privately  owned.    Unpublished. 

John  Policy,  of  Charlton,  Mass.  1743-1829.  Diary,  May  12  to 
December  22, 1775.  "  Wherein  is  contained  an  account  of  the  battles 
and  skirmishes  which  happened  near  Boston  between  the  American 
and  regular  troops  when  we  were  engaged  in  civil  war."  Kept  at 
Roxbury  and  Cambridge. 

Chicago  Historical  Society.    Unpublished. 

Gen.  Friedrich  Adolph  Freiherr  von  Riedesel,  of  Hesse.    1738- 

1800.    Journals,  1777.    He  was  with  Burgoyne's  army  and  was  quar- 
tered in  Cambridge. 

In  his  Memoirs,  and  letters  and  journals,  trans,  from  the  German 
of  Max  von  Eelking,  by  W.  L.  Stone,  Albany,  1868.  (Original  Ger- 
man, Leipzig,  1856.)  Also  quoted  frequently  in  Madame  de  Rie- 
desel's  Letters  and  journals,  1867. 

Madame  de  Riedesel,  of  Hesse.  1746-1808.  Journal,  April  16, 
1777  to  1783.  The  journal  begins  when  she  sails  from  England  for 
Quebec  and  is  continued  in  Canada,  Saratoga,  Cambridge,  Connecti- 
cut, and  other  places.  She  was  with  her  husband  who  was  in  Bur- 
goyne's army  and  she  gives  many  vivid  pictures  of  the  war. 

In  her  Letters  and  memoirs.  New  York,  1827;  Letters  and  jour- 
nals, Albany,  1867.    (Original  German,  Berlin,  1800.) 

James  Stevens,  of  Andover,  Mass.  1749-1834.  Journal,  April 
19,  1775  to  April  20,  1776.    "  The  journal  of  James  Stevens  gives  a 


78  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

glimpse  of  Andover  in  the  day  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  also  a 
picture  of  the  camp  life  of  the  soldiers  about  Boston  in  the  first  year 
of  the  war,  their  journey ings  back  and  forth  between  Cambridge  and 
Andover  and  the  sort  of  Hfe  they  led  while  on  duty."  He  was  in 
Capt.  Thomas  Poor's  company. 

Owned  by  Moses  T.  Stevens,  North  Andover.    Printed  in  Essex 
Institute,  Hist.  Coll.  1912,  xlviii.  41-71. 

Lieut.  Col.  Experience  Storrs,  of  Mansfield,  Conn.  1734-1801. 
Diary,  June  1  to  28,  1775.  Kept  at  Cambridge,  where  he  was  quar- 
tered in  the  house  of  Thomas  Fayerweather. 

Printed  in  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proc.,  1875,  xiv.  84-91. 

Dr.  James  Thacher,  of  Barnstable  and  Plymouth,  Mass.  1754- 
1844.  Military  journal,  July,  1775  to  February,  1776.  He  was 
surgeon  at  the  Cambridge  Hospital  until  he  was  transferred  to 
Roxbury.  Gives  some  local  details,  with  accounts  of  affairs  in 
progress  elsewhere. 

Printed  in  Boston,  1823.    Also  later  editions. 

Gen.  Samuel  Blatchley  Webb,  of  Weathersfield,  Conn.  1753- 
1807.  Diary,  March  1  to  10, 1776.  In  camp  at  Cambridge;  fortifying 
Dorchester,  and  the  cannonading  of  Boston. 

Privately  owned.    Printed  in  vol.  1  of  his  Correspondence  and 
journals,  edited  by  W.  C.  Ford,  New  York,  1893. 

Major  Ennion  Williams.  Journal,  October  4  to  25, 1775.  Account 
of  a  journey  to  the  American  camp  at  Cambridge,  where  he  spent 
several  days. 

Pennsylvania   Archives.      Printed   in   Pennsylvania   Archives, 
1890,  2d  Ser.  xv.  7-20. 

Aaron  Wright,  of  Reading,  Penn.  Diary,  June  29,  1775  to  July  4, 
1776.  The  company  to  which  he  belonged  was  ordered  to  Cambridge. 
A  picture  of  the  daily  life,  employments,  and  small  events  of  camp 
Hfe  among  the  soldiers. 

Printed  in  Historical  Magazine,  July,  1862,  vi.  208-212;  also  in 
Boston  Transcript,  April  11,  1862. 

Unknown  author  (called  Hendrick's  Journal).  Diary,  July  13  to 
December  31,  1775.  "  Of  a  march  of  a  party  of  Provincials  from 
Carlyle  to  Boston  and  from  thence  to  Quebec  with  an  account  of  the 
attack  and  engagement  at  Quebec."  This  was  a  party  of  riflemen 
imder  Capt.  Wm.  Hendricks  and  John  Chambers.    Justin  H.  Smith 


3916.]  EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  79 

(Arnold^s  March  from  Cambridge  to  Quebec,  p.  39)  assigns  this 
journal  to  Serg.  WilHam  McCoy. 

Published  in  Glasgow,  1775;  also  in  Pennsylvania  Archives, 
vol.  XV. 


Orderly  Books  kept  at  Cambridge  when  the  Troops  were 
Stationed  there  in  1775  and  1776 

Loammi  Baldwin,  of  Woburn,  Mass.  1745-1807.  Orderly  book, 
January  5  to  March  28,  1776. 

Massachusetts  State  Archives.    Revolutionary  Rolls,  vol.  77. 

Nathan  Bowen,  of  Marblehead,  Mass.  1752-1837.  Orderly  book, 
April  9  to  July  6, 1775.   At  Cambridge  and  Winter  Hill. 

Prvately  owned.     Copy  of  part  of  this  is  in  the  Boston  Public 
Library.    Unpublished. 

Major  Thomas  Bumham,  of  Ipswich,  Mass.  1750-1833.  Orderly 
book,  March  10  to  31,  1776.  Begins  at  Cambridge;  all  in  the  vicinity 
of  Boston. 

Essex  Institute,  Salem.    Unpublished. 

Moses  Fargo,  of  New  London,  Conn,  and  Sandisfield,  Mass. 

Orderly  book,  April  23  to  August  7,  1775.     "  Kept  by  himself  at 

Cambridge  for  the  use  of  Capt.  Wm.  Coitus  company,  it  being  the 

4th  Co.,  6th  Regiment  under  Col.  Samuel  Holden  Parsons  of  Lyme." 

Owned  by  Miss  M.  E.  S.  Coit  in  1879.    Published  in  Conn.  Hist. 

Soc.  Coll.  1899,  vii.  9-95. 

Gen.  John  Glover,  of  Marblehead,  Mass.  1732-1797.  Orderly 
book,  June  29,  1775  to  July  26,  1776. 

Essex  Institute,  Salem.    Extracts  in  Essex  Institute,  Hist.  Coll. 
1863,  v.  112-117. 

Lt.  Col.  Thomas  Grosvenor,  of  Pomfret,  Conn.  1744-1825.  Or- 
derly book,  July  3  to  December  30,  1775. 

Copy,  made  by  Peter  Force,  in  Library  of  Congress.    Unpub- 
lished. 

Col.  William  Henshaw,  of  Leicester,  Mass.  1735-1820.  Orderly 
book,  April  20  to  September  25,  1775. 

Pubhshed  in  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proc,  1876,  xv.  75.    Reprinted, 
with  additions  by  H.  E.  Henshaw,  Boston,  1881. 


80  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETV      [Oct. 

Major   Obadiah   Johnson,   of  Canterbury,   Conn.     1736-1801. 
Orderly  book,  July  22  to  September  22,  1775.    He  was  major  of  the 
3d  Conn,  regiment,  of  which  Israel  Putman  was  colonel. 
Privately  owned.    Unpublished. 

Col.  Ebenezer  Learned,  of  Oxford,  Mass.  1728-1801.  Orderly 
book,  July  19, 1775  to  January  12, 1776.  At  Roxbury  and  Cambridge. 
Formerly  called  Ward's  Orderly  book. 

American  Antiquarian  Society.    Unpublished. 

Major  William  Lee.  Orderly  book,  June  23  to  August  8,  1775. 
At  Winter  Hill,  Cambridge,  and  Roxbury. 

Massachusetts  Historical  Society.    Unpublished. 

.    Nathan  Morse,  of  Grafton,  Mass.     1750-1841.     Orderly  book, 
November  5,  1775  to  January  1,  1776.    Part  of  the  entries  are  at 
Cambridge  and  part  at  Roxbury.    Nathan  Morse  was  orderly  ser- 
geant of  Capt.  Drury's  company  in  Col.  Ward's  regiment. 
Boston  Public  Library.    Unpublished. 

Adj.  Jeremiah  Niles,  of  Lebanon,  Conn.  Orderly  book,  August 
10,  1775  to  January  6,  1776.  He  was  of  Col.  Richard  Gridley'a 
company. 

Library  of  Congress.    Unpublished. 

Brig.  Gen.  John  Paterson,  of  Lenox,  Mass.    1744-1808.    Orderly 
book,  July  19  to  September  5, 1775. 
Library  of  Congress.    Unpublished. 

Capt  William  Reed,  of  Abington,  Mass.  1735-1778.  Orderly 
book.  May  12  to  August  25,  1775.  At  Roxbury  and  Cambridge.  He 
was  of  the  Sixth  Mass.  regiment. 

Library  of  Congress.    Unpublished. 

William  Walker,  of  Grafton,  Mass.    Orderly  book,  July  8  to 
October  9,  1775.    At  Camp  3,  Charlestown,  and  at  Cambridge. 
Library  of  Congress.    Unpublished. 

Gen.  Artemas  Ward,  of  Shrewsbury,  Mass.  1727-1800.  Orderly 
book,  April  20,  1775  to  April  3,  1776. 

Privately  owned.    Unpublished.    Manuscript  copy  in  the  office 
of  the  Adjutant  General  in  Boston. 

Joseph  Ward.  Orderly  book,  while  he  was  acting  as  secretary  to 
General  Ward,  April  20  to  September  6,  1775. 

Massachusetts   Historical   Society.     Passages   are   quoted   in 
illustration  of  Col.  William  Henshaw's  Orderly  book,  in  the 


1916.]  EARLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  81 

Society's  Proceedings,  1876,  xv.  87-145.  This  is  a  copy,  with 
some  changes  and  additions,  of  Gen.  Artemas  Ward's  Orderly 
book.  It  is  frequently  quoted  as  Fenno's  Orderly  book  because 
on  the  front  cover  of  the  first  volume  appears  the  statement 
"Kept  by  John  Fenno,  Secretary  to  the  Commander-in-chief." 
But  Fenno  never  held  that  position,  and  the  statement,  evi- 
dently a  later  addition,  is  not  in  the  hand  of  the  writer  of  the 
book. 

Gen.  George  Washington.  1732-1799.  Orderly  book,  July  9  to 
October  17,  1775.  At  headquarters,  Cambridge.  President  Wash- 
ington also  went  twice  to  Cambridge  in  his  New  England  tour  in  1789 
which  he  records  in  his  diary  for  that  year.  Each  time,  however,  he 
stayed  only  part  of  a  day. 

Privately  owned.    UnpubHshed. 

Unknown  author.  Orderly  book,  July  4  to  December  4,  1775.  At 
Cambridge  and  Roxbury. 

Pennsylvania  Historical  Society,  Philadelphia.    Unpublished. 

Unknown  author.    Orderly  book,  September  6  to  October  8,  1775. 
At  Roxbury  and  Cambridge.    Perhaps  kept  by  a  Worcester  man. 
American  Antiquarian  Society.    Unpublished. 

Unknown  author.  Orderly  book,  December  12,  1775  to  January 
5,  1776.  At  Roxbury  and  Cambridge.  Name  of  Samuel  Brown  of 
Abington  on  cover. 

Massachusetts  Historical  Society.    Unpublished. 

Unknown  author.    Orderly  book,  January  1  to  April  20,  1776. 
The  writer,  one  of  Capt.  Stephen  Bedlam's  Company  of  Artillery, 
evidently  lived  in  Weymouth.    Kept  at  headquarters  at  Cambridge 
until  March  24,  1776,  then  in  New  York. 
Boston  Public  Library.    Unpublished. 


Miscellaneous  Diaries  kept  either  in  Cambridge  or  by 
Cambridge  Men 

Rev.  William  Brattle,  of  Cambridge.  1662-1717.  Diary,  April  1, 
1699  to  May  24,  1701.  A  few  scattered  entries  of  weather  and  farm- 
ing notes  kept  in  the  back  pages  of  the  church  record  books. 

Owned  by  First  Church  in  Cambridge.    Published  in  Genealogi- 
cal Magazine,  1906,  i.  358-361. 


82  THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTOKICAL    SOCIETY      ]  Oct. 

Rev.  Samuel  Cooke,  of  the  Second  Precinct,  Cambridge.  1709- 
1783.  Diary,  September  12,  1739  to  June  4,  1783.  "  It  is  made  up 
almost  entirely  of  matters  connected  with  his  parish;  has  a  record  of 
the  births,  deaths,  baptisms  and  marriages  from  1739  to  1783." 
Largely  notes  for  sermons. 

Arlington  Historical  Society  (in  the  Arlington  Public  Library). 
Unpublished. 

Judge  Francis  Dana,  of  Cambridge.  1743-1811.  Three  journals: 
1781,  a  journey  through  Spain;  July  to  August,  1781,  from  Amster- 
dam to  St.  Petersburg;  January  to  May,  1783,  a  journal  in  Europe. 

Owned  by  Richard  H.  Dana  of  Cambridge.    Unpublished. 

Rev.  Isaiah  Dunster,  of  Cambridge.     1720-1791.     Interleaved 
ahnanac,  1747.     Personal  matters,  vital  statistics.     Many  people 
mentioned  from  Eastham,  Dartmouth,  Cambridge  and  other  places. 
Essex  Institute,  Salem.    Unpubhshed. 

Edmund  Frost,  of  Cambridge.  1715-1777.  Memoranda,  Novem- 
ber 18,  1755  to  November  23,  1770.  A  few  entries  of  especially  note- 
worthy events,  natural  phenomena  or  other  matters.  Only  four 
pages  of  long  letter  paper. 

Privately  owned.  Published  in  N.  E.  Hist.  Gen.  Reg.  1901,  Iv. 
441-442. 

Lt.  George  Inman,  of  Cambridge,  Mass.     1755-1789.     Diary, 

January  7,  1782  to  January  31,  1789.    One  volume  of  this  diary  is 

rather  retrospective.    He  describes  past  events  in  which  he  had  a 

part,  including  his  services  in  the  King's  Own  during  the  Revolution. 

The  other  four  volumes  are  regular  diaries  of  his  daily  life  telling 

much  about  the  tories  in  England.    It  was  all  written  in  England. 

Cambridge  Historical  Society.    Extracts  in  Penn.  Mag.  of  Hist., 

1883,  vii.  237-248;  also  a  fragment  in  Scull,  G.  D.  The  Evelyns 

in  America,  Oxford,  1881,  p.  129. 

Rev.  Thomas  Shepard,  of  Cambridge.  1605-1649.  Diary,  No- 
vember 25,  1640  to  March  28,  1644.  **  Is  of  little  historical  value 
being  principally  a  record  of  his  religious  experiences." 

A  copy  is  owned  by  the  New  England  Historic  Genealogical 
Society;  also  by  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society.  The 
portion  from  Nov.  25,  1640  to  Dec.  27,  1641  is  owned  by  the 
New  York  Historical  Society.  Part  of  the  diary  from  Dec.  27, 
1641  was  published  in  Boston  in  1747,  in  a  volume  entitled 


1916.]  EAKLY   CAMBRIDGE   DIARIES  83 

"  Three  Valuable  Pieces  " ;  also  separately  as  Meditations  and 
Spiritual  Experiences,  Edinburgh,  1749,  and  Glasgow,  1847; 
also  in  Shepard's  Works,  1853. 

Ebenezer  Stedman,  of  Cambridge.  1709-1785.  Ahnanac,  1764, 
with  short  entries  written  on  the  margins:  the  arrival  and  sailing  of 
ships,  weather  &c.    Of  slight  value. 

New  England  Historic  Genealogical  Society.    Unpublished. 

Unknown  author,  of  Cambridge.  Almanac,  1730,  with  entries  on 
the  margins.  The  writer  was  a  friend  of  Gov.  Belcher  who,  when  he 
returned  from  England,  'Hook  up  his  lodging  at  our  house."  Mentions 
the  Brattles  many  times,  local  and  college  matters.  Some  births  and 
deaths. 

American  Antiquarian  Society.    Unpublished. 


84  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 


ANNUAL  REPORT  OF  THE  TREASURER 

In  obedience  to  the  requirements  of  the  By-Laws,  the  Treasurer 
herewith  presents  his  Annual  Report  of  the  Receipts  and  Disburse- 
ments for  the  year  1915-1916. 

CASH  ACCOUNT 

RECEIPTS 

Balance  27  October,  1915 $391.31 

Admission  Fees $30.00 

Annual  Assessments:  Regular  Members $456.00 

Associate  Members 8.00    464.00 

Interest 6.76 

Society's  Publications  Sold 3.00 

Contributions:  Richard  Henry  Dana 100.00       603.76 

$995.07 

DISBURSEMENTS 

The  University  Press,  printing,  etc $316.09 

Samuel  Usher,  printing  notices  of  meetings,  etc 19.50 

F.  W.  Spear,  printing  notices  of  Council  meetings,  etc.     .    .    .         6.70 
Edith  H.  Wilde,  clerical  services  rendered  the  Treasurer  .   .    .       25.00 

Radcliffe  College,  use  of  Agassiz  House 2,10 

Sarah  L.  Patrick,  typewriting  reports,  papers,  envelopes,  etc.       11.10 
Ralph  M.  Folkins,  work  on  two  plans  for   Dr.  Stearns's 

Billerica  papers 3.00 

Mary  I.  Gozzaldi,  expense  incurred  on  Paige's  Index    ....        9.50 

Postage,  stationery,  and  all  petty  items 11.40 

Library: 

EUa  S.  Wood,  services  as  cataloguer $99.00 

Gordon  W.  Thayer,  classifying  books 24.75 

Julia  Freedman,  copying 2.66 

Harvard  University  Press,  making  book-plates  .  .         2.48 

Harvard  College  Library,  supplies 3.43 

Library  Bureau,  index  cards 2.88 

John  Brenner,  sealing  and  tagging  books    ....         4.00 
Hersum  &  Co.,  Inc.,  moving  Society's  effects  to 

Widener  Library 12.00    151.20 

Dana  Centenary: 

HoUis  R.  Bailey,  postage  and  incidentals    ....    $25.75 
Suffolk  Engraving  &  Electrotyping  Co.,  making 

portrait  of  Mr.  Dana 13.00 

F.  W.  Spear,  printing  tickets,  envelopes,  circulars, 

programs,  etc 70.00 

Richard  H.  Jones,  reporting  proceedings 7.75 

Clerical  services 33.35     149.85       705.44 

Balance  on  deposit  23  October,  1916 289.63 

$995.07 

Henry  H.  Edes, 

Treasurer, 
Cambridge,  24  October,  1916. 


19 16. J   ANNUAL  REPORT  OF  THE  TREASURER     85 

I  FIND  the  foregoing  account  from  27  October,  1915,  to  23  October, 
1916,  to  have  been  correctly  kept  and  to  be  properly  vouched.  I  have 
also  verified  the  cash  balance  of  $289.63. 

Andrew  McF.  Davis, 

Auditor. 
Boston,  24  October,  1916. 


86  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 


NECROLOGY 

Houghton,  Elizabeth  Harris,  was  born  in  Cambridge,  March  6, 
1858.  Her  father,  Henry  Oscar  Houghton,  of  Sutton,  Vermont,  came 
to  Cambridge  in  1849,  when  he  established  the  printing  office  that  in 
1852  became  the  well-known  Riverside  Press.  He  was  descended  from 
John  Houghton  of  Lancaster,  England,  who  settled  in  Lancaster, 
Massachusetts,  in  1635,  and  through  his  grandmother,  Mary  Willard, 
from  one  of  our  earliest  Cambridge  settlers.  Major  Simon  Willard. 
Miss  Houghton's  mother  was  Nancy  Wyer  Manning,  a  descendant  of 
another  Cambridge  settler,  William  Manning. 

Miss  Houghton's  education  was  chiefly  at  the  hands  of  a  governess 
at  home  and  in  two  private  schools  in  Boston. 

Miss  Houghton's  life  was  devoted  to  the  welfare  of  others.  The 
Boys'  Club  of  the  Social  Union,  of  which  she  was  the  head  for  many 
years,  was  one  of  her  most  engrossing  interests.  She  was  not  content 
with  teaching  boys  in  the  evenings ;  she  followed  them  up,  helped  them 
when  in  trouble,  and  set  them  on  their  feet  when  they  fell. 

But  Miss  Houghton's  interests  were  so  varied  and  her  private  chari- 
ties so  widespread  that  no  one  knows  them  all.  She  was  active  in  all 
the  parish  work  of  Christ  Church,  carrying  on  for  some  time  a  mis- 
sionary society  for  young  girls.  She  also  labored  in  the  Diocesan 
Auxiliary  to  the  Board  of  Missions,  being  secretary  of  the  Domestic 
Branch,  and  she  worked  for  the  extension  of  the  Junior  Auxiliary 
throughout  the  country.  To  encourage  the  young  girls  of  the  Cam- 
bridge School,  founded  by  the  late  Arthur  Oilman,  she  gave  to  it  one 
of  the  Longfellow  medals,  struck  by  this  Society,  that  it  might  be 
yearly  competed  for  in  the  school.  She  was  a  faithful  reader,  and 
for  many  years  treasurer,  of  the  Church  Librar^^  Society,  founded  by 
her  friend  the  late  Horace  E.  Scudder.  As  a  member  of  the  Old  Cam- 
bridge Conference  of  the  Associated  Charities  she  was  a  constant  at- 
tendant at  the  Monday  meetings,  where  her  practical  advice  carried 
great  weight.  Visiting  among  the  poor  of  this  neighborhood,  she  was 
enabled  to  do  much  to  improve  the  conditions  of  their  families  and 
homes.  Much  of  her  time  was  given  to  the  Consumers*  League,  and 
she  was  for  years  a  member  of  the  State  Anti-Suffrage  Committee. 
The  doors  of  her  hospitable  home  on  Garden  Street,  which  she  shared 


1916.]  NECROLOGY  87 

with  her  sister,  stood  always  open  for  all  kinds  of  betterment  meetings, 
as  well  as  for  social  entertainments  and  neighborhood  clubs. 

She  died  as  the  result  of  a  distressing  automobile  accident  near 
Harvard  Square  on  May  20,  1915. 

Leavitt,  Erasmus  Darwin,  was  born  in  Tjowell,  October  27,  1836. 
He  was  the  son  of  Erasmus  Darwin  Leavitt  and  Almira  (Fay)  Leavitt. 
After  completing  his  education  in  the  public  schools  of  Lowell,  he  en- 
tered the  machine  shop  of  the  Lowell  Manufacturing  Company  in  1852 
and  served  three  years  as  an  apprentice.  Following  this,  he  was  one 
year  with  Corliss  &  Nightingale,  at  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  and 
later  was  assistant  foreman  of  the  City  Point  Works  in  South  Boston, 
where  he  had  charge  of  building  the  engines  for  the  flagship  Hartford. 

In  1859-1861  he  was  chief  draftsman  for  Thurston,  Gardiner  &  Co., 
of  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  leaving  there  to  enter  the  United  States 
Navy  in  the  summer  of  1861.  He  served  in  the  Navy  through  the 
War  of  the  Rebellion,  and  during  the  term  of  service  was  detailed  to  the 
Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis  as  instructor  in  steam  engineering. 

In  1867  Mr.  Leavitt  resumed  the  practice  of  mechanical  engineering, 
making  a  specialty  of  pumping  and  mining  machinery.  From  1874  to 
1904  he  was  consulting  engineer  of  the  Calumet  &  Hecla  Mining  Com- 
pany, during  which  time  he  designed  and  superintended  the  building 
of  the  enormous  equipment  now  in  use  at  Calumet.  Mr.  Leavitt  was 
also  employed  as  consulting  engineer  for  Henry  R.  Worthington  of 
New  York,  for  the  Dickson  Manufacturing  Company,  and  for  the  cities 
of  Boston  and  Cambridge.  He  designed  the  pumping-engine  for  the 
city  of  Louisville,  Kentucky.  He  was  advisory  engineer  for  the  Beth- 
lehem Steel  Company  and  for  South  African  Mining  companies. 

He  was  a  member  of  many  scientific  and  engineering  societies  and 
served  as  President  of  the  American  Society  of  Mechanical  Engineers. 
In  1884  he  received  the  honorary  degree  of  Doctor  of  Engineering 
from  Stevens  Institute  of  Technology  of  New  Jersey. 

He  retired  from  active  practice  in  1904.  His  life  was  one  of  close 
application  to  his  chosen  profession  and  he  occupied  a  leading  position 
among  the  most  eminent  engineers  of  this  country  and  Europe.  Dur- 
ing his  many  trips  abroad  he  received  marked  attention  from  engi- 
neers and  from  various  engineering  societies. 

He  married,  on  June  5,  1867,  Annie  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Wil- 
liam Pettit  of  Philadelphia.  His  wife  died  in  1889.  He  died  in 
Cambridge,  an  honored  citizen,  March  11,  1916.  He  is  survived  by 
his  daughters,  Mrs.  Walter  Wesselhoeft,  Miss  Margaret  Leavitt,  and 
Mrs.  Paul  A.  H.  VanDaell. 


88  THE    CAMBEIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 

Worcester,  Sarah  Alice,  was  born  in  Hollis,  New  Hampshire, 
April  4,  1844.  She  died  in  Gloucester,  Massachusetts,  February  4, 
1916.  The  greater  part  of  her  life  she  was  a  teacher,  beginning  to 
teach  at  the  age  of  fifteen  in  her  native  place.  After  graduating  from 
the  New  London  Literary  and  Scientific  Institute  in  1866,  ^e  be- 
came principal  of  the  high  school  in  Rockport,  Massachusetts,  and 
later  first  assistant  in  the  high  school  at  Gloucester.  From  1873  to 
1875  she  taught  in  the  Watertown  high  school;  from  January,  1876, 
until  1888  in  the  Newton  high  school;  and  later  in  Urbana,  Ohio, 
O^Jk  Park,  Illinois,  and  again  in  Gloucester.  In  1892  she  became  pro- 
fessor of  modem  languages  in  the  University  of  Urbana,  Ohio.  In 
the  meantime  she  had  made  several  trips  to  Europe  acquiring  a  profi- 
ciency in  French,  German,  and  Spanish.  In  1903,  while  in  Europe 
for  the  fifth  time,  she  met  Pere  Hyacinthe  and  Mme.  Loyson  at 
Geneva,  and  was  asked  by  them  to  aid  in  establishing  in  Jerusalem  a 
non-sectarian  college  for  girls.  She  visited  Palestine  to  study  the 
situation  but  reported  adversely  to  the  founding  of  a  college  there. 
From  this  time  she  devoted  herself  to  literary  work,  completing  the 
revision  of  a  Spanish  translation  of  Swedenborg's  "  Heaven  and  Hell," 
and  being  engaged  for  five  years  on  revising  and  enlarging  a 
"Worcester  Genealogy"  first  published  in  1856.  This  was  completed 
in  1914. 

She  was  a  devoted  member  of  the  New  Church  and  took  an  active 
part  in  literary  and  patriotic  societies  —  the  Daughters  of  Founders 
and  Patriots  of  America,  the  Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution, 
and  the  Massachusetts  Society  for  the  Higher  Education  of  Women. 

In  the  summer  of  1914  she  became  critically  ill,  and  after  seven- 
teen months  of  helplessness,  died  at  the  home  of  her  sister,  Mrs.  Wil- 
liam H.  Jordan,  in  Gloucester. 


1916.] 


MEMBEKSHIP 


89 


MEMBERSHIP 

1916-1916 

HONORARY  MEMBERS 

Choate,  Joseph  Hodges  Howells,  William  Dean 

Ehodes,  James  Foed 


REGULAR  MEMBERS 


Abbot,  Marion  Stanley 
Allen,  Flora  Viola 
*Allen,  Frank  Augustus 
Allen,  Mary  Ware 
Allen,  Oscar  Fayette 
Amee,  Albert  Francis 
Ames,  Sarah  Eussell 
AuBiN,  Helen  Warner 
AuBiN,  Margaret  Harris 

Bailey,  Hollis  Eussell 
Bailey,  Mary  Persis 
Bancroft,  William  Amos 
Batchelder,  Samuel  Francis 
Beale,  Joseph  Henry 
Bell,  Stoughton 
Benson,  Edward  McElroy 
Bill,  Caroline  Eliza 
Blackall,  Clarence  Howard 
Blish,  Ariadne 
Blodgett,  Warren  Kendall 
BooDY,  Bertha  May 
Brandon,  Edward  John 
Brock,  Adah  Leila  Cone 
Brooks,  Sumner  Albert 
BuLFiNCH,  Ellen  Susan 
BuMSTEAD,  Josephine  Freeman 


Calkins,  Eaymond 
Cary,  Emma  Forbes 
Cook,  Frank  Gaylord 
Cox,  George  Howland 
Crothers,  Samuel  McChord 
Cutter,  Henry  Orville 

Dallinger,  William  Wilber- 

force 
Dana,  Elizabeth  Ellery 
Dana,  Eichard  Henry 
Darling,  Eugene  Abraham 
Davis,  Andrew  McFarland 
Davis,  Mary  Wyman 
Deane,  George  Clement 
Deane,  Mary  Helen 
Devens,  Mary 
Dexter,  Mary  Deane 
Dodge,  Edward  Sherman 
Dow,  George  Lincoln 
Drew,  Edward  Bangs 
Drink  water,  Arthur 
Driver,  Martha  Elizabeth 
Dunbar,  William  Harrison 

Edes,  Grace  Williamson 
Edes,  Henry  Herbert 
Eliot,  Charles  William 


Deceased 


90  THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY      [Oct. 


Eliot,  Grace  Hopkinson 
Eliot,  Samuel  Atkins 
Emery,  Woodward 
Ensign,  Martha  Louise 
Evarts,  Prescott 

Farlow,  Lilian  Horsford 
Fenn,  William  Wallace 
Fessenden,  Marion  Brown 
Forbes,  Edward  Waldo 
Ford,  Worthington  Chauncey 
Foster,  Francis  Apthorp 
Fowler,  Frances 
Fox,  Jabez 
Fuller,  Edith  Davenport 

GooKiN,  Edward  Locke 
GooKiN,  Warner  Foote 
Gozzaldi,  Mary  Isabella 
Gray,  Anna  Lyman 
Grozier,  Edwin  Atkins 

Hale,  Edwin  Blaisdell 
Hall,  Albert  Harrison 
Harris,  Elizabeth 
Hart,  Albert  Bushnell 
Hastings,  Frank  Watson 
HiNCKS,  Edward  Young 
Hodges,  George 
HoppiN,  Eliza  Mason 
Horsford,  Cornelia 
Horsford,  Katharine 
Houghton,  Alberta  Manning 
Houghton,  Roserysse  Oilman 
♦Howe,  Archibald  Murray 
Howe,    Arria    Sargent    Dix- 

WELL 

Howe,  Clara 

HuRLBUT,  Byron  Satterlee 

Hurlbut,  Eda  Woolson 

§Kellner,  Maximilian  Lindsay 
Kendall,  George  Frederick 
•  Deceased 


Kershaw,  Justine  Houghton 
KiERNAjT,  William  L. 
King,  William  Benjamin 

Lambert,  Anna  Read 
Lane,  William  Coolidge 
Lawrence,  Isabelle  Went- 

worth 
Lawson,  Maud  Adela 
Longfellow,  Alice  Mary 
Lowell,  Abbott  Lawrence 

Marcou,  Philippe  Belknap 
McIntire,  Charles  John 
Melledge,  Robert  Job 
Merriman,  Dorothea  Foote 
Merriman,  Roger  Bigelow 
Mitchell,  Emma  Maria  Cut- 
tee 
MoRisoN,  Anna  Theresa 
MoRisoN,  Robert  Swain 
Morse,  Velma  Maria 
MuNROE,  Emma  Frances 

Nichols,  Henry  Atherton 
Nichols,  John  Taylor  Oilman 
Norton,  Margaret 
Noyes,  James  Atkins 

Paine,  James  Leonard 
Paine,  Mary  Woolson 
Parker,  Henry  Ainsworth 
Parsons,  Caroline  Louisa 
Peirce,  Bradford  Hendrick 
Pickering,  Anne  Atwood 
Pickering,  Edward  Charles 
Pickering,  William  Henry 
Poor,  Clarence  Henry 
Potter,  Alfred  Claghorn 
PousLAND,  Caroline  Lorinq 

Rand,  Harry  Seaton 
Read,  William 

f  Resigned 


1916.] 


MEMBERSHIP 


91 


Reid,  William  Bernard 
Robinson,  Feed  Norris 
Robinson,  James  Lee 
Ropes,  James  Hardy 
Runkle,  John  Cornelius 

Sachs,  Paul  Joseph 
Saunders,  Carrie  Huntington 
Saunders,  Herbert  Alden 
Saville,  Huntington 
Sawyer,  George  Augustus 
ScuDDER,  Grace  Owen 

SCUDDER,     WiNTHROP     SaLTON- 
STALL 

Sharples,  Stephen  Paschall 
Spalding,  Philip  Leffingwell 
Spencer,  Henry  Goodwin 
Sprague,  William  Hatch 
Stearns,  Genevieve 
Stone,  William  Eben 
Swan,  William  Donnison 


Thayer,  William  Roscoe 
Thorp,  Joseph  Gilbert 
ToppAN,  Sarah  Moody 

Walcott,  Anna  Morrill 
Washburn,  Henry  Bradford 
Webster,  Kenneth  Grant  Tre- 

MAYNE 

Webster,  Edith  Forbes 
Wellington,  Sarah  Cordelia 

Fisher 
White,  Alice  Merrill 
White,  Moses  Perkins 
Whittemore,  William   Rich- 
ardson 
WiLLARD,  Susanna 
Williams,  Olive  Swan 
WiNLOCK,  Mary  Peyton 
Wood,  John  William,  Jr. 
*V/oRCESTER,  Sarah  Alice 
Wright,  Gecp.ge  Grier 

Yerxa,  Henry  Detrick 


ASSOCIATE  MEMBERS 


Allen,  Gardner  Weld 
Carter,  Charles  Morland 
§DuRRELL,  Harold  Clarke 
Fiske,  Gertrude  Horspord 

*  Deceased 


Leverett,  George  Vasmeb 
LovERiNG,  Ernest 
Ware,  Mary  Lee 

S  Resigned 


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