"To be disseized of my inheritance; to be judged by three or four committee-men, who are neither bound to law nor evidence,—who are, or may be, mutable in their apprehensions,doing one thing to-day, and soon again undoing what they did,—I conceive, to be judged in such an arbitrary way is repugnant to the fundamental law of England contained in Magna Charta, chap. 29, which says no freeman shall be disseized of his freehold but by the lawful judgment of his peers,—that is to say, by due process of law; which was also confirmed by the Petition of Right, by Act of Parliament,tertio Caroli I. And also such arbitrary jurisdiction was exploded in putting down the Star-Chamber Court; and the excessive fines imposed upon all such actings. See 'English Liberties,' as also the fourth and sixth articles against the Earl of Strafford in Baker's 'Chronicle,' folio 518."He closes one of his remonstrances thus:—"The humble request of your petitioner to the Hon. Gen. Court, that, as an Englishman,—as a freeman of this jurisdiction; as descended from him who, in his time, sought the welfare of this commonwealth,—I may have the benefit and protection of the wholesome laws established in this jurisdiction: that, in my extreme wrong, I may have liberty to seek relief in a way of law, and may not, contrary to Magna Charta, be disseized of my freehold by the arbitrary act of two or three committee-men; the fundamental law of England knowing no such constitution, abhorring such administrations: and that the Hon. Court would release your petitioner from the injurious effects of the said committee's act, and explode so pernicious a precedent."Zerubabel Endicott was an imprudent and obstinate man, but had the traits of a generous, ardent, and noble character. He was a physician by profession. His second wife—the widow, as has been stated, of Rev. Antipas Newman, of Wenham, and daughter ofJohn Winthrop, Jr., governor of Connecticut—survived him. Although he left five sons, the name, at one time, was borne by a single descendant only, a lad of seven years of age,—Samuel, a grandson of Zerubabel. On him it hung suspended, but he saved it. From that boy, those who bear the name in New England have been derived. We rejoice to believe that they will preserve it, and keep its honor bright.Winthrop was recognized as the great leader in the early history of the Colony. He had a combination of qualities that marked him as a wise and good man, and gave him precedence. The eminent dignity of his character was admired and revered by all. No one was more ready to admit this than Endicott. Never were men placed towards each other in relations more severely testing their magnanimity, and none ever bore the test more perfectly. But Endicott was, after all, the most complete representative man of that generation. He was thoroughly identified with the people, participating in their virtues and in their defects. He was a strict religionist, a sturdy Puritan, a firm administrator of the law; at the same time, there are indications that he was of a genial spirit. He was personally brave, and officially intrepid. His administration of the government required nerve, and he had it. Sometimes the ardor of his temperament put him for a moment off his guard; but he was quick to acknowledge his error. He was true to the people, who never faltered in their fidelity to him. The author of "Wonder-working Providence" described him as "a fit instrument to begin the wilderness worke, of courage bold undaunted, yet sociable and of a cheerful spirit." I have presented some instances of his kind and pleasant relations with his workmen and neighbors. His name will ever be held in honored remembrance in this vicinity, where his useful enterprise was appreciated; and his descendants in our day, and to the present time, have contributed to the prosperity and the adornment of the community.It is not unlikely, that hostile feelings towards the Nurses, which contributed afterwards to serious results, may have been engendered in this long-continued land quarrel. There is evidence that no such feeling existed on the part of the Endicotts: but there were many others interested; for, by testimony at the trials and in outside discussions, the whole community had become more or less implicated in the strife. The Nurses, as holding the ground and having to bear the brunt of defending it in all cases of intrusion, had a difficult position, and may have made some enemies. At any rate, this controversy was one of the means of stirring up animosities in the neighborhood; and an account of it has been deemed necessary, as contributing to indicate the elements of the awful convulsions which soon afterwards desolated Salem Village.When we reach the story, for which this account of the farms of the village and the population that grew up on them is a preparative, we shall come back to the Townsend-Bishop grant, and to the house, still standing, that he built and dwelt in, upon it. It may bewell to pause, and view its interesting history prior to 1692. While occupied by its original owner, the "mansion," or "cottage," was the scene of social intercourse among the choicest spirits of the earliest age of New England. Here Bishop, and, after him, Chickering, entertained their friends. Here the fine family of Richard Ingersoll was brought up. Here Governor Endicott projected plans for opening the country; and the road that passes its entrance-gate was laid out by him. To this same house, young John Endicott brought his youthful Boston bride. Here she came again, fifteen years afterwards, as the bride of the learned and distinguished James Allen, to show him the farm which, received as a "marriage gift" from her former husband, she had brought as a "marriage gift" to him. Here the same Allen, in less than six years afterwards, brought still another bride. In all these various, and some of them rather rapid, changes, it was, no doubt, often the resort of distinguished guests, and the place of meeting of many pleasant companies. During the protracted years of litigation for its possession, frequent consultations were held within it; and now, for twelve years, it had been the home of a happy, harmonious, and prosperous family, exemplifying the industry, energy, and enterprise of a New England household. A new chapter was destined, as we shall see, to be opened in its singular and diversified history. But we must return to the enumeration of the original landholders of the village.George Corwin came to Salem in 1638. He had large tracts of land in various places. He lived, a part of his time, on his farm in the village; is found to have taken an active part in the proceedings of the people, particularly in military affairs; and was captain of a company of cavalry. His great mercantile transactions probably led him to have his residence mostly in the town, first on a lot on Washington Street, near the corner of Norman Street, where his grandson the sheriff lived in 1692. In 1660, he bought of Ann, the relict of Nicholas Woodbury, a lot on Essex Street, next east of the Browne Block, with a front of about one hundred and fifty feet. Here he built a fine mansion, in which he lived the remainder of his days. He died Jan. 6, 1685, leaving an estate inventoried at £5,964. 10s.7d.,—a large fortune for those times. His portrait is preserved by his descendants, one of whom, the late George A. Ward, describes his dress as represented in the picture: "A wrought flowing neckcloth, a sash covered with lace, a coat with short cuffs and reaching half-way between the wrist and elbow; the skirts in plaits below; an octagon ring and cane." The last two articles are still preserved. His inventory mentions "a silver-laced cloth coat, a velvet ditto, a satin waistcoat embroidered with gold, a trooping scarf and silver hat-band, golden-topped and embroidered, and a silver-headed cane." His farms in the vicinity contained fifteen hundred acres. His connections were distinguished, and his descendants have included many eminent persons. The name, by maledescent, disappeared for a time in this part of the country; but in the last generation it was restored in the female descent by an act of the Legislature, and is honorably borne by one of our most respectable families, who inherit his blood, and cherish the memorials which time has spared of their first American ancestor.William Hathorne appears on the church records as early as 1636. He died in June, 1681, seventy-four years of age. No one in our annals fills a larger space. As soldier commanding important and difficult expeditions, as counsel in cases before the courts, as judge on the bench, and in innumerable other positions requiring talent and intelligence, he was constantly called to serve the public. He was distinguished as a public speaker, and is the only person, I believe, of that period, whose reputation as an orator has come down to us. He was an Assistant, that is, in the upper branch of the Legislature, seventeen years. He was a deputy twenty years. When the deputies, who before sat with the assistants, were separated into a distinct body, and the House of Representatives thus came into existence, in 1644, Hathorne was their first Speaker. He occupied the chair, with intermediate services on the floor from time to time, until raised to the other House. He was an inhabitant of Salem Village, having his farm there, and a dwelling-house, in which he resided when his legislative, military, and other official duties permitted. His son John, who succeeded him in all his public honors, also lived on his own farm in the villagea great part of the time. The name is indelibly stamped on the hills and meadows of the region, as it was in the civil history of that age, and has been in the elegant literature of the present.William Trask was one of what are called the "First Planters." He came over before Endicott, had his residence on Salem Farms, was a most energetic, enterprising, and useful citizen, and filled a great variety of public stations. He brought large tracts of land under culture, planted orchards, and established mills at the head of tide-water on the North River. He was the military leader of the first age of the plantations in this neighborhood, was captain of the train-band from the beginning, and, by his gallantry and energy in action, commanded the applause of his contemporaries. For his services in the Pequot Expedition, the General Court gave him and his associates large grants of land. His obsequies were celebrated, on the 16th of May, 1666, with great military parade; and the people of the town and the whole surrounding country followed his honored remains to the grave.Richard Davenport came to Salem in 1631. His first residence was in the town; but soon he was led to the Farms. In 1636, he received a grant of eighty acres; in 1638, of two hundred and twenty acres; and, in 1642, eighty acres more, to be divided between him and Captain Lothrop. Besides these, he received several smaller grants of meadow and salt marsh. Such grants were made only with the view of havingthem duly improved; and it cannot be doubted that he was zealously engaged in agricultural operations. His town residence was on a lot reaching from Essex Street to the North River. Its front extended from the grounds now the site of the North Church to North Street. His house stood at some distance back from Essex Street. This estate was sold by his administrators, in 1674, to Jonathan Corwin, whose family occupied it until a very recent period. He left the town in 1643, and subsequently lived in what was afterwards Salem Village, until the public service called him away. He sold some of his estates, but retained others, on the Farms and in the town, to the time of his death. He continued the superintendence of his country estate, which seems to have been his family home, to the last. His military career gave him early distinction, and closed only with his life. In 1634, the General Court chose him "Ensign to Capt. Trask." He was concerned with Endicott in cutting out the cross from the king's colors. The following is from the record of a meeting of the court, Nov. 7, 1634: "It is ordered that Ensign Davenport shall be sent for by warrant, with command to bring his colors with him to the next court, as also any other that hath defaced the said colors." Davenport did not seem anxious to cover up his agency in this matter; for, when he offered his next child to baptism, he signified to the assembly that he was determined to commemorate and perpetuate the memory of the transaction, by having her christened "TrueCross." It was necessary to make a show of punishing Endicott and Davenport on this occasion, to prevent trouble from the home government. Soon after, we find the General Court heaping honors upon Davenport, and finally, in 1639, making him a grant of one hundred and fifty acres of land, specially noticing his services in the Pequot War, which appear to have elicited general applause. In some desperate encounters with the savages, seventeen arrows were shot "into his coat of mail," and he was wounded in unprotected parts of his person. He was twice deputy to the General Court. In 1644, the General Court organized an elaborate system of external defence, the whole based upon Castle Island, now Fort Independence, in Boston Harbor. From that point, hostile invasion by a naval force was to be repelled. Every vessel, on entering, was to report to the castle, be examined and subject to the orders of the commandant. It became the military headquarters of the colony, the protection and oversight of whose commerce were intrusted to the officer in command. This was the highest military station and trust in the gift of the Government. It was assigned to Richard Davenport; and he held it for twenty-one years, to the moment of his death. The country reposed in confidence upon his watchful fidelity. He put and kept the castle in an efficient condition. In 1659, as evidence of their satisfaction and approval of his official conduct, the General Court made him a grant of five hundred acres of land laid out in Lancaster. On the 15th of July, 1665, he was killed bylightning, at his post. The records of the General Court speak of "the solemn stroke of thunder that took away Captain Davenport." The whole country mourned the loss of the veteran soldier; and the Court granted his family an additional tract of one hundred acres of land on the Merrimac River. He was in his sixtieth year at the time of his death. Of the company required to be raised in Salem for the Block-Island Expedition, in 1636, the three commissioned officers were furnished from the Farms,—Trask, Davenport, and Read. They were soldiers by nature and instinct, and to the end. The volleys of devoted, faithful, and mourning comrades were fired over their graves, with no great interval of time. United in early service, separated by the course of their lives, they were united again in death.Thomas Lothrop originally lived in the town, between Collins Cove and the North River. He became a member of the First Church in Salem, and was admitted a freeman in 1634. He soon removed to the Farms; and his name appears among the rate-payers at the formation of the village parish. For many years he was deputy from Salem to the General Court; and after Beverly was set off, as his residence at the time was on that side of the line, he was always in the General Court, as deputy from the new town, when his other public employments permitted. No man was ever more identified with the history of the Salem Farms. He contributed to form the structure of its society, and the character of its population, by all thata wise and good man could do. During his whole life in America, he was more or less engaged in the military service, in arduous, difficult, and dangerous positions and operations; acting sometimes against Indians, and sometimes against the French, or, as was usually the case, against them both combined. He was occasionally sent to distant posts; commanding expeditions to the eastward as far as Acadia. He was at one time in charge of a force at Port Royal, now Annapolis, Nova Scotia. Increase Mather calls him a "godly and courageous commander." When the last decisive struggle with King Philip was approaching, and aid was needed from the eastern part of the colony to rescue the settlements on the Connecticut River from utter destruction, the "Flower of Essex" was summoned to the field. It was a choice body of efficient men, "all culled out of the towns belonging to this county," numbering about one hundred men. Lothrop, of course, was their captain. In August, 1675, they were on the ground at Hadley, the place of rendezvous. On the 26th of that month, Captain Lothrop, with his company, and Captain Beers, of Watertown, with his, after a vigorous pursuit, attacked the Indians in a swamp, about ten miles from Hatfield, at the foot of Sugar-Loaf Hill. Ten were killed on the side of the English, and twenty-six on the side of the Indians, who were driven from the swamp, and scattered in their flight; to fall, as was their custom, upon detached settlements; and continuing to waste and destroy, by fire and sword, withhatchet, scalping-knife, torch, and gun. On the 18th of September, Lothrop, with his company, started from Deerfield, to convoy a train of eighteen wagons, loaded with grain, and furniture of the inhabitants seeking refuge from danger, with teamsters and others. Moseley, with his men, remained behind, to scout the woods, and give notice of the approach of Indians; but the stealthy savages succeeded in effecting a complete surprise, and fell upon Lothrop as his wagons were crossing a stream. They poured in a destructive fire from the woods, in all directions. They were seven to one. A perfect carnage ensued. Lothrop fell early in the unequal fight, and only seven or eight of his whole party were left to tell the story of the fatal scene. The locality of this disastrous and sanguinary tragedy has ever since been known as "Bloody Brook." In the list of those who perished by bullet, tomahawk, or arrow, on that fearful morning, we read the names of many village neighbors of the brave and lamented commander,—Thomas Bayley, Edward Trask, Josiah Dodge, Peter Woodbury, Joseph Balch, Thomas Buckley, Joseph King, Robert Wilson, and James Tufts. One of Lothrop's sergeants, who was among the slain, Thomas Smith, then of Newbury, originated in the village. His family had grants of land, including the hill called by their name.Captain Lothrop was as remarkable for the benevolence of his spirit and the tenderness of his nature as for his wisdom in council, energy in command, or gallantry in battle. Indeed, his character in private lifewas so beautiful and lovable, that I cannot refrain from leading you into the recesses of his domestic circle. It presents a picture of rare attractiveness. He had no children. His wife was a kind and amiable person. They longed for objects upon which to gratify the yearnings of their affectionate hearts. He had a large estate. His character became known to the neighbors and the country people around. If there was an occurrence calling for commiseration anywhere in the vicinity, it was managed to bring it to his notice. Orphan children were received into his household, and brought up with parental care and tenderness. Many were, in this way, the objects of his charity and affections. Persons especially, who were in any degree connected with his wife's family, naturally conceived the desire to have him adopt their children. This was the case particularly with those who were in straitened circumstances. Others, knowing his disposition, would bring tales of distress and destitution to his ears. Some, perhaps, turned out to be unworthy of his goodness. In one instance, at least, where he had taken a child into his family in its infancy, touched by appeals made to his compassion by the parents, brought it up carefully, watched over its education, and become attached to it, when it had reached an age to be serviceable, the parents claimed and insisted on their right to it, and took it away, much against his will. But the good man's benevolence was not impaired, nor the stream of his affectionate charities checked, by the misconductor ingratitude of his wards or of their friends. His plan was to do all the good in his power to the children thus brought into his family, to prepare them for usefulness, and start them favorably in life. In the case of boys, he would get them apprenticed to worthy people in useful callings. At the time of his death, there were two grown-up members of his family, who appear to have been foisted upon his care in their earliest childhood. But there was no blame to be attached to them in the premises; and they were regarded by him with much affection. There were no relations of his own in this country in need of charitable aid or without adequate parental protection; and it was not strange that several of his wife's connections should have availed themselves of the benefit of his generous disposition. She herself gives a very interesting account of an instance of this sort, in a deposition found wrapped up among some old papers in the county court-house. The object of the statement was to explain how a connection of hers became domesticated in the family."When the child's mother was dead, my husband being with me at my cousin's burial, and seeing our friends in so sad a condition, the poor babe having lost its mother, and the woman that nursed it being fallen sick, I then did say to some of my friends, that, if my husband would give me leave, I could be very willing to take my cousin's little one for a while, till he could better dispose of it; whereupon the child's father did move it to my husband. My dear husband, considering my weakness, and the incumbrance I had in the family,was pleased to return this answer,—that he did not see how it was possible for his wife to undergo such a burden. The next day there came a friend to our house, a woman which gave suck, and she understanding how the poor babe was left, being intreated, was willing to take it to nurse, and forthwith it was brought to her: but it had not been with her three weeks before it pleased the Lord to visit that nurse with sickness also; and the nurse's mother came to me desiring I would take the child from her daughter, and then my dear husband, observing the providence of God, was freely willing to receive her into his house."At the time when this addition was made to his family, there was certainly already in it another of his wife's connections, who had been brought there when an infant in a manner perhaps equally singular, and who had grown up to maturity. The particular "incumbrance," however, spoken of by her, related to another matter. She was an only daughter. Her father had died many years before, at quite an advanced age. Her mother, who was sickly and infirm as well as aged, was taken immediately into her family, and remained under her roof until her death. In her weak and helpless condition, much care and exertion were thrown upon her daughter. The only objection the captain seemed to have to increasing the burden of the household, by receiving into it this additional child with its nurse, resulted from conjugal tenderness and considerateness. It must be confessed that there are some indications of well-arranged management in the foregoing account. The friend who happened tocall at the house the "next day," and who was able to supply what the "poor babe" needed, certainly came very opportunely; and there was altogether a remarkable concurrence and sequence of circumstances. But all that he saw was a case of suffering, helpless innocence, and an opportunity for benevolence and charity; and in these, with a true theology, he read "a providence of God." That child continued, to the hour when he took his last farewell of his family, beneath his roof, and was an object of affectionate care, and in her amiable qualities a source of happiness to him and his good wife. It is stated that the children, thus from time to time domesticated in the family, called him father, and that he addressed them as his children. While they were infants, he was "a tender nursing father" to them. When fondling them in his arms, in the presence of his wife, he would solemnly take notice of the providence of God that had "disposed of them from one place to another" until they had been brought to him; and "would present them in his desires to God, and implore a blessing upon them."The picture presented in the foregoing details is worth rescuing from oblivion. Such instances of actual life, exhibited in the most private spheres, constitute a branch of history more valuable, in some respects, than the public acts of official dignitaries. History has been too exclusively confined, in its materials, to the movements of states and of armies. It ought to paint the portraits of individual men andwomen in their common lives; it ought to lead us into the interior of society, and introduce us to the family circles and home experiences of the past. It cannot but do us good to know Thomas Lothrop, not only as an early counsellor among the legislators of the colony, and as having immortalized by his blood a memorable field of battle and slaughter, but as the centre of a happy and virtuous household on a New England farm. He made that home happy by his benignant virtue. Although denied the blessing of children of his own, his fireside was enlivened with the prattle and gayeties of the young. Joy and hope and growth were within his walls. He was not a parent; but his heart was kept warm with parental affections. He had a home where dear ones waited for him, and rushed out to meet and cling round him with loving arms, and welcome him with merry voices, when he returned from the sessions of the General Court, or from campaigns against the French and Indians.Besides these offices of beneficence in the domestic sphere, we find traces, in the local records, of constant usefulness and kindness among his rural neighbors. He was called, on all occasions, to advise and assist. As a judicious friend, he was relied upon and sought at the bedside of the sick and dying, and in families bereaved of their head. His name appears as a witness to wills, appraiser of estates, trustee and guardian of the young. He was the friend of all. I know not where to find a more perfect union of the hero andthe Christian; of all that is manly and chivalrous with all that is tender, benevolent, and devout.Somewhere about the year 1650, after he had been married a considerable time, he revisited his native country. A sister, Ellen, had, in the mean while, grown up from early childhood; and he found her all that a fond brother could have hoped for. With much persuasion, he besought his mother to allow her to return with him to America. He stated that he had no children; that he would be a father to her, and watch over and care for her as for his own child. At length the mother yielded, and committed her daughter to his custody, not without great reluctance, trusting to his fraternal affection and plighted promise. He brought her over with him to his American home. She was worthy of his love, and he was true to his sacred and precious trust.Ellen Lothrop became the wife of Ezekiel Cheever, the great schoolmaster; and I should consider myself false to all good learning, if I allowed the name of this famous old man to slip by, without pausing to pay homage to it. His record, as a teacher of a Latin Grammar School, is unrivalled. Twelve years at New Haven, eleven at Ipswich, nine at Charlestown, and more than thirty-eight at Boston,—more than seventy in all,—may it not be safely said that he was one of the very greatest benefactors of America? With Elijah Corlett, who taught a similar school at Cambridge for more than forty years, he bridged over the wide chasm between the education brought with themby the fathers from the old country, and the education that was reared in the new. They fed and kept alive the lamp of learning through the dark age of our history. All the scholars raised here were trained by them. One of Cotton Mather's most characteristic productions is the tribute to his venerated master. It flows from a heart warm with gratitude. "Although he had usefully spent his life among children, yet he was not become twice a child," but held his faculties to the last. "In this great work of bringing our sons to be men, he was my master seven and thirty years ago, was master to my betters no less than seventy years ago; so long ago, that I must even mention my father's tutor for one of them. He was a Christian of the old fashion,—an old New England Christian; and I may tell you, that was as venerable a sight, as the world, since the days of primitive Christianity, has ever looked upon. He lived, as a master, the term which has been, for above three thousand years, assigned for the life of a man." Mather celebrated his praises in a poetical effusion:—"He lived, and to vast age no illness knew,Till Time's scythe, waiting for him, rusty grew.He lived and wrought; his labors were immense,But ne'er declined to preterperfect tense.* * * * *'Tis Corlett's pains, and Cheever's, we must own,That thou, New England, art not Scythia grown."To our early schoolmasters, as Mather says, and the later too, I may add, it is owing, that the whole country did not become another Scythia.Ezekiel Cheever was in this country as early as 1637. He was then in New Haven, sharing in the work of the first settlement of that colony, teaching school as his ordinary employment, but sometimes preaching, and in other ways helping to lay the foundations of church and commonwealth. While there, he had a family of several children. The first-born, Samuel, became the minister of Marblehead. In 1650, he was keeping a school at Ipswich. About this time, he lost his wife. On the 18th of November, 1652, he married Ellen, the sister whom Captain Lothrop had brought with him from England. They had several children; one of them, Thomas, was ordained first at Malden, and afterwards at Chelsea. The old schoolmaster died on the 21st of August, 1708, aged ninety-three years and seven months. His son Thomas reached the same age. Samuel, the minister at Marblehead, was eighty-five years old at his death. The name of Ezekiel, jr., appears on the rate-list of the village parish as late as 1731, so that he must have reached the age of at least seventy-seven years.The antiquarians have been sorely perplexed in determining the relationship of the Cheevers and Reas, as they appear to be connected together as heirs of the Lothrop property, in an order of the General Court of the 11th of June, 1681.The facts are these: Captain Lothrop married Bethia, daughter of Daniel Rea. He died without issue, and had made no will. As he was killed in battle, his widow undertook to set up a nuncupativewill. A snow-storm, on the day appointed to act upon the matter, so blocked up the roads, that neither Ezekiel Cheever nor his son Thomas, who had charge of his mother's rights, could get to Salem; and the court granted administration to the widow. The Cheevers demanded a rehearing: it was granted; and quite an interesting and pertinacious law-suit arose, which was finally carried up to the General Court, who decided it in 1681. The widow does not appear to have been actuated by merely selfish motives, but sought to divert a portion of the landed estate from the only legal heir, Ellen, the wife of Ezekiel Cheever, to other parties, in favor of whom her feelings were much enlisted. There is no indication of any unfriendliness between her and her "sister Cheever."Lothrop's wife had become much attached to one of her connections, who had been brought into the family. Her husband, having been fond of children, had often expressed great affection for those of her brother, Joshua Rea. He had also sometimes, in expressing his interest in the Beverly Church, evinced a disposition to leave to it "his ten acre lot and his house upon the same," as a parsonage. Perhaps, if he had not been suddenly called away, he might have done something, particularly for the latter object. It appeared in evidence, from her statements and from others, that he had been importuned to make a will, and that it was much on his mind, particularly when recovering from a long and dangerous sickness the winter before his death; but he never could bebrought to do it. There was no evidence that he had ever absolutely determined on any thing positively or specifically. His widow, who seems to have been a perfectly honest and truthful woman, testified to a conversation that passed between them on the subject, as they were riding "together towards Wenham, the last spring, in the week before the Court of election." In passing by particular pieces of property owned by him, he indulged in some speculations as to what disposal he should make of this or that pasture or plain or woodland. But she did not represent that his expressions were absolute and determinate, but rather indicative of the then inclination of his mind. In another part of her statement, she said, "I did desire him to make his will, which, when he was sick, I did more than once or twice; and his answer to me was, that he did look upon it as that which was very requisite and fit should be done. But, dear wife, thou hast no cause to be troubled; if I should die and not make a will, it would be never the worse for thee; thyself would have the more." It is not difficult to understand the case as it probably stood in the mind of Captain Lothrop. Whenever the subject of making a will, and doing kind things for the Beverly parish, and the individuals in whose behalf his wife was so anxious, was brought up, he felt the force, as he expressed it, "of the duty which God required of a master of a family to set his house in order;" and he was no doubt strongly moved, and sometimes almost resolved, to gratify her wishes: but he remembered thesolemn promise he had made to his mother, as he parted from her for ever, and received his sister from her hands, and every sentiment of honor, and of filial and fraternal love, restrained him; and his mind settled into a conviction that it was his duty to allow his sister the benefit of the final inheritance of his property. As the particular persons to whom his wife wished him to make bequests were her relatives, and the law would give her an ample allowance in the use, for life, of his large landed property, she would be able to provide for them after his death, as he had been in the habit of doing.The General Court took a just view of the case, and decided that she should have the whole movable estate for her own "use and dispose," and the "use and benefit" for life of the houses and lands, "making no strip nor waste;" after her death, the same to go to Ellen, the wife of Ezekiel Cheever. The widow was to pay all debts due from the estate, and also twenty pounds to the children of her brother, Joshua Rea. The Court seemed to think, that, if any expectations had been excited in that quarter, she was fully as responsible for it as her late husband; and, as the Cheevers were to get nothing, while she lived, out of the estate, the Court required her to pay the sum just named to her nephews and nieces. They ordered Ezekiel Cheever to pay five pounds as costs for their hearing the case, which he did on the spot.It may be mentioned, by the way, that the widow of Captain Lothrop was married again within eightmonths of his death; but that was quite usual in those days. She and her new husband concluded that it would be troublesome to take care of Captain Lothrop's several farms. They preferred to live in the town. She was probably over sixty years of age. The conclusion of the whole matter was, that, in consideration of sixty pounds paid down, they surrendered all claim whatever to the "houseing and lands" left by Captain Lothrop, to Cheever and his wife. They conveyed them "free and clear of and from all debts owing from the estate of said Lothrop, and gifts or bequests pretended to be made by him, or by any ways or means to be had, claimed, or challenged therefrom by any person or persons whomsoever." The relict of Captain Lothrop died in 1688.Ezekiel Cheever and his wife, having thus become possessed of all her brother's real estate, conveyed the lands belonging to it in Salem Village to their son, Ezekiel Cheever, Jr. He had, for some years, been living in the town of Salem, carrying on the business of a tailor. He was a member of the First Church, and appears to have been a respectable person. His dwelling-house stood on the lot in Washington Street occupied by the late Robert Brookhouse. He sold it to the Rev. Nicholas Noyes, on the 14th of April, 1684, removed to the village, took possession of the Lothrop farm, and was there in time to bear a share in the witchcraft delusion.In 1636, a grant of land was made to Thomas Gardner of one hundred acres. He came to thiscountry as early as 1624, and resided at Cape Ann. Subsequently he removed to Salem, and, with his wife, was admitted to the church. He was deputy to the General Court in 1637. His grant was in the western part of the township, and embraced land included within the limits of Salem Village. The name still remains on the same territory. His sons became proprietors of several additional tracts in the neighborhood. One of them, Joseph, is connected, in the most conspicuous and interesting manner, with our military history.The destruction of Captain Lothrop and his company, on the 18th of September, filled the country with grief and consternation; and, as the year 1675 drew towards a close, the conviction became general, that the crisis of the fate of the colonies was near at hand. The Indians were carrying all before them. Philip was spreading conflagration, devastation, and slaughter around the borders, and striking sudden and deadly blows into the heart of the country. It was evident that he was consolidating the Indian power into irresistible strength. Among papers on file in the State House is a letter addressed to the governor and council, dated at Mendon, Oct. 1, 1675, from Lieutenant Phinehas Upham, of Malden. In command of a company, acting under Captain Gorham of Barnstable, who had also a company of his own, he had been on a scout for Indians beyond Mendon, which was a frontier town. Their route had been over a sweep of territory then an almost unbroken wilderness, embracing the present sites of Grafton, Worcester, Oxford, and Dudley. The result of the exploration is thus given: "Now, seeing that in all our marches we find no Indians, we verily think that they are drawn together into great bodies far remote from these parts." From other scouting parties, it became evident that this opinion was correct, and that the Indians were collecting stores and assembling their warriors somewhere, to fall upon the colonies at the first opening of spring. Further information made it certain, that their place of gathering was in the Narragansett country, in the south-westerly part of the colony of Rhode Island. There was no alternative but, as a last effort, to strike the enemy at that point, with the utmost available force. A thousand men were raised, 527 by Massachusetts, 315 by Connecticut, and 158 by Plymouth. Massachusetts organized a company of cavalry and six companies of foot soldiers, Connecticut five and Plymouth two companies of foot. All were placed under the command of Governor Winslow, of Plymouth. The winter had set in earlier than usual; much snow had fallen, and the weather was extremely cold. The seven companies of Massachusetts, under the command of Major Samuel Appleton of Ipswich, started on their march, Dec. 10. On the evening of the 12th, having effected a junction with the Plymouth companies, they reached the rendezvous, on the north side of Wickford Hill, in North Kingston, R.I. On the 13th, Winslow commenced his move upon the enemy. On the 18th,the Connecticut troops joined him. His army was complete; the enemy was known to be near, and all haste made to reach him. The snow was deep. The Narragansetts were intrenched on a somewhat elevated piece of ground of five or six acres in area, surrounded by a swamp, within the limits of the present town of South Kingston. The Indian camp was strongly fortified by a double row of palisades, about a rod apart, and also by a thick hedge. There was but a single entrance known to our troops, which could only be reached, one at a time, over a slanting log or felled tree, slippery from frost and falling snow, about six feet above a ditch. There were other passages, known only to the Indians, by which they could steal out, a few at a time, and get a shot at our people in the flank and rear. Many of our men were cut off in this way. The allied forces had expected to pass the night, previous to reaching the hostile camp, at a garrison about fifteen miles distant from that point; but the Indians had destroyed the buildings, and slaughtered the occupants, seventeen in number, two days before. Here the troops passed the night, unsheltered from the bitter weather. The next day, Dec. 19, was Sunday; but their provisions were exhausted, and the supply they had expected to find had been destroyed with the garrison-house. There could be no delay. They recommenced their march, at half-past five o'clock in the morning, through the deep snow, which continued falling all day, and reached the borders of what was described, by awriter well acquainted with it, as "a hideous swamp." Fortunately, the early and long-continued extreme cold weather of that winter had rendered it more passable than it otherwise would have been. But the ground was rough, and very difficult to traverse. They were chilled and worn by their long march, following winding paths through thick woods, across gullies, and over hills and fields. It was between one and two o'clock in the afternoon, and the short winter day was wearing away. Winslow saw the position at a glance, and, by the promptness of his decision, proved himself a great captain. He ordered an instant assault. The Massachusetts troops were in the van; the Plymouth, with the commander-in-chief, in the centre; the Connecticut, in the rear. The Indians had erected a block-house near the entrance, filled with sharp-shooters, who also lined the palisades. The men rushed on, although it was into the jaws of death, under an unerring fire. The block-house told them where the entrance was. The companies of Moseley and Davenport led the way. Moseley succeeded in passing through. Davenport fell beneath three fatal shots, just within the entrance. Isaac Johnson, captain of the Roxbury company, was killed while on the log. But death had no terrors to that army. The centre and rear divisions pressed up to support the front and fill the gaps; and all equally shared the glory of the hour. Enough survived the terrible passage to bring the Indians to a hand-to-hand fight within the fort. After a desperate struggle of nearly three hours, thesavages were driven from their stronghold; and, with the setting of that sun, their power was broken. Philip's fortunes had received a decided overthrow, and the colonies were saved. In all military history, there is not a more daring exploit. Never, on any field, has more heroic prowess been displayed. By the best computations, the Indian loss was at least one thousand, including the large numbers who perished from cold, as they scattered in their flight without shelter, food, or place of refuge. Of the colonial force, over eighty were killed, and one hundred and fifty wounded. Three of the Massachusetts captains—Johnson, Gardner, and Davenport—were killed on the spot. Three of the Connecticut captains—John Gallop, Samuel Marshall, and Robert Seely—also fell in the fight. Captain William Bradford, of Plymouth, was wounded by a musket-ball, which he carried in his body to his grave. Captain John Gorham, also of the Plymouth colony, was shortly after carried off by a fever, occasioned by the over-exhaustion of the march and the battle. Lieutenant Phinehas Upham, of Johnson's company, was mortally wounded. Great value appears to have been attached to the services of this officer. In the hurried preparation for the campaign, Captain Johnson had nominated his brother as his lieutenant. The General Court overruled the appointment. Johnson cheerfully acquiesced, and, in a paper addressed to the Court, assured them that he "most readily submitted to their choice of Lieutenant Upham." This single passage is an imperishable eulogium upon the characters of the two brave men who gave their lives to the country on that fatal but glorious day.Captain Gardner's company was raised in this neighborhood. Joseph Peirce and Samuel Pikeworth of Salem, and Mark Bachelder of Wenham, were killed before entering the fort. Abraham Switchell of Marblehead, Joseph Soames of Cape Ann, and Robert Andrews of Topsfield, were killed at the fort. Charles Knight, Thomas Flint, and Joseph Houlton, Jr., of Salem Village; Nicholas Hakins and John Farrington, of Lynn; Robert Cox, of Marblehead; Eben Baker and Joseph Abbot, of Andover; Edward Harding, of Cape Ann; and Christopher Read, of Beverly,—were wounded. An account of the death of Captain Gardner, in detail, has been preserved. The famous warrior, and final conqueror of King Philip, Benjamin Church, was in the fight as a volunteer, rendered efficient service, and was wounded. His "History of King Philip's War" is reprinted, by John Kimball Wiggin, as one of his series of elegant editions of rare and valuable early colonial publications entitled "Library of New England History." In the second number, Part I. of Church's history is edited by Henry Martyn Dexter. Church's account of what came within his observation in this fight, with the notes of the learned editor, is the most valuable source of information we have in reference to it. He says, that, in the heat of the battle, he came across Gardner, "amidst the wigwams in the east end of the fort,making towards him; but, on a sudden, while they were looking each other in the face, Captain Gardner settled down." He instantly went to him. The blood was running over his cheek. Church lifted up his cap, calling him by name. "Gardner looked up in his face, but spoke not a word, being mortally shot through the head." The widow of Captain Gardner (Ann, sister of Sir George Downing) became the successor of Ann Dudley, the celebrated poetess of her day, by marrying Governor Bradstreet, in 1680. She died in 1713.There is a curious parallelism between the first and the last great victory over the Indian power in the history of America. An interval of one hundred and sixty one years separates them. On the 19th of December, 1836,—the anniversary of the day when Winslow stormed the Narragansett fort,—Colonel Taylor received his orders to pursue the Florida Indians. It was a last attempt to subdue them. They had long baffled and defied the whole power of the United States. Every general in the army had laid down his laurels in inglorious and utter failure. He started on the 20th, with an army of about one thousand men. On the 25th, he found himself on the edge of a swamp, impassable by artillery or horses. On the opposite side were the Indian warriors, ready to deal destruction, if he should attempt to cross the swamp. He had the same question to decide which Winslow had; and he decided it in the same way, with equal promptness. The struggle lasted about the same time; andthe loss, in proportion to the numbers engaged, was about the same. The results were alike permanently decisive. Okee-cho-bee stands by the side of Narragansett, and the names of Josiah Winslow and Zachary Taylor are imperishably inscribed together on the tablets of military glory.Dr. Palfrey says that Captain Nathaniel Davenport was a son of "Davenport of the Pequot War." He was born in Salem, and brought up in the village. His name, with those of his brave father, and his associate in youth and in death Joseph Gardner, belongs to our local annals. They were both the idols of their men. Davenport was dressed, when he fell, in a "full buff suit," and was probably thought by the Indians to be the commander-in-chief. On receiving his triple wound, he called his lieutenant, Edward Tyng, to him, gave him his gun in charge, delivered over to him the command of his company, and died.There has been some uncertainty on the point whether Nathaniel Davenport was a son of Richard, the commandant at the castle. The fact that he was associated with William Stoughton, and Stephen Minot whose wife was a daughter of Richard Davenport, as an administrator of the estate of the latter, has been regarded as rendering it probable. Dr. Palfrey's unhesitating statement to that effect is, of itself, enough to settle the question. There is, moreover, a document on file which proves that he is correct. Nathaniel's widow had some difficulty in settling his estate, and applied to the General Court for its interposition.Quite a mass of papers belong to the case. Among them is a bill of expenses incurred by her in connection with his funeral charges, such as, "twenty-one rings to relatives," and to those "who took care to bring him off slain, eight pounds;" and "for mourning for my mother Davenport, sisters Minot and Elliot, and myself, sixteen pounds." This latter item is decisive, as we know that two of Richard Davenport's daughters married persons of those names. It is a circumstance of singular interest, as showing by how slight an accident—for it is a mere accident—important questions of history are sometimes determinable. This item, so far as I have been able to find, is the only absolute evidence we have to the point that Richard was the father of Nathaniel Davenport; and it would not have been in existence, had not questions arisen in the settlement of the estate of the latter requiring the action of the General Court. The record of baptisms in the First Church at Salem, prior to 1636, is lost. The names of Richard Davenport's children, baptized subsequent to that date, are in the records of the Salem or Boston churches. As Nathaniel is understood to have been one of the earliest born, the record of his baptism was probably in the lost part of the Salem book.It may be thought surprising, that so little appears to have been known concerning an officer of his rank and parentage, and whose death has rendered his name so memorable. To account for it, I must recur to the history of the Narragansett expedition. No military organization was ever more rapidly effected, or morethoroughly and promptly executed its work. The commissioners of the three united colonies were satisfied that the Indian rendezvous at Narragansett, where their forces and stores were being collected and their resources concentrated, must be struck at without a moment's delay; that the blow must be swift and decisive; that it must be struck then, in the depth of winter; that, if deferred to the spring, all would be lost; that, if the Indian power was allowed to remain and to gather strength until the next season, nothing could save the settlements from destruction. Early in November, they formed their plan, and put the machinery for summoning all their utmost resources into instant action. On the 30th of November, the officers appointed for the purpose made return, that they had impressed the required number in the several counties and towns, fitted them out with arms, ammunition, clothes, and all necessary equipments; that the men were on the ground, ready to go forward. There was no time for recruiting, or raising bounties, or substitute brokerage; no time for electioneering to get commissions. The rank and file were ready: they had been brought in by a process that gave no time for canvassing for offices. A summons had been left at the house of every drafted man, to report himself the next morning. If any one failed to appear, some other member of the family, brother or father, had to take his place. The organizing and officering of this force must be done instanter. All depended upon suitable officers being selected. A company was waiting at Boston for a captain, and a captain must be found. Some one in authority happened to think of Nathaniel Davenport. His childhood and youth had been passed at Salem Village and on Castle Island: on reaching maturity, he had removed to New York, and been there for years in commercial pursuits. A short time before, he had returned to Boston, and engaged in business there. His father had been dead since 1665, and not many persons knew him,—only, perhaps, a few of his early associates, and the old friends of his father: but they knew, that, from his birth to his manhood, he had breathed a military atmosphere,—was a soldier, by inheritance, of the school of Lothrop, Read, and Trask; and it was determined at once to hunt him up. He was serving at Court; taken out of the jury-box in a pending trial; and placed at the head of the company. The accurate historian of Boston, Samuel G. Drake, says, "Captain Davenport's men were extremely grieved at the death of their leader; he having, by his courteous carriage, much attached them to himself, although he was a stranger to most of them when he was appointed their captain. On which occasion he made 'a very civil speech,' and allowed them to choose their sergeants themselves." He had no time to settle his accounts, arrange his affairs, or confer with any one, but led his company at once to the rendezvous. These circumstances, perhaps, partially explain why so little seems to have been known of him in Boston, or to local writers.Besides Captains Gardner and Davenport and the men whose names have been mentioned as killed or wounded, there were in the Narragansett fight the following from Salem Village and its farming neighborhood: John Dodge, William Dodge, William Raymond, Thomas Raymond, John Raymond, Joseph Herrick, Thomas Putnam, Jr., Thomas Abbey, Robert Leach, and Peter Prescott. There may have been others: no full roll is on record. The foregoing are gathered from partial returns miscellaneously collected in the files at the State House. The Dodges (sometimes the name is written Dodds, which appears, I think, to have been its original form), and the Raymonds (sometimes written Rayment), were, from the first, conspicuous in military affairs. A few words explanatory of their relation to the village may be here properly given.On the 25th of January, 1635, the town of Salem voted to William Trask, John Woodbury, Roger Conant, Peter Palfrey, and John Balch, a tract of land, as follows: "Two hundred acres apiece together lying, being at the head of Bass River, one hundred and twenty-four poles in breadth, and so running northerly to the river by the great pond side, and so in breadth, making up the full quantity of a thousand acres." These men were original settlers, having been in the country for some time before Endicott's arrival. This circumstance gave to them and others the distinguishing title of "old planters." The grant of a thousand acres, comprising the five farms above mentioned, was always known as "the Old Planters' Farms." Thefirst proprietors of them, and their immediate successors, appear to have arranged and managed them in concert,—to have had homesteads near together between the head of Bass River and the neighborhood of the "horse bridge," where the meeting-house of the Second Congregational Society of Beverly, or of the "Precinct of Salem and Beverly" now stands. Their woodlands and pasture lands were further to the north and east. An inspection of themapwill give an idea of the general locality of the "Old Planters' Farms" in the aggregate—above the head of Bass River, extending northerly towards "the river," as the Ipswich River was called, and easterly to the "great pond," that is, Wenham Lake. Conant, Woodbury, and Balch occupied their lands at once. I have stated how Trask's portion of the grant went into the hands of Scruggs, and then of John Raymond. Palfrey is thought never to have occupied his portion. He sold it to William Dodge, the founder of the family of that name, known by way of eminence as "Farmer Dodge," whose wife was a daughter of Conant. A portion of the grant assigned to Conant was sold by one of his descendants to John Chipman, who, on the 28th of December, 1715, was ordained as the first minister of the "Second Beverly Society." He was the grandfather of Ward Chipman, Judge of the Supreme Court, and for some time President, of the Province of New Brunswick, and whose son of the same name was chief-justice of that court. He was also grandfather of the wife of the great merchant, William Gray,whose family has contributed such invaluable service to the literature, legislation, judicial learning, and general welfare of the country. The Rev. Mr. Chipman was the ancestor of many other distinguished persons. The house in which he lived is still standing, near the site of the church in which he preached. It is occupied by his descendants, bearing his name, and, although much time-worn, has the marks of having been a structure of a very superior order for that day. The venerable mansion stands back from the road, on a smooth and beautiful lawn, bordered by a solid stone wall of even lines and surfaces. In these respects it well compares with any country residence upon which taste, skill, and wealth have, in more recent times, been bestowed.The dividing line between Beverly and Salem Village, as seen on themap, finally agreed upon in 1703, ran through the "Old Planters' Farms," particularly the portions belonging to the Dodges, Raymonds, and Woodbury. It went through "Captain John Dodge's dwelling-house, six foot to the eastward of his brick chimney as it now stands." At the time of the witchcraft delusion, the Raymonds and Dodges mostly belonged to the Salem Village parish and church. They continued on the rate-list, and connected with the proceedings entered on the record-books, until the meeting-house at the "horse bridge" was opened for worship, in 1715, when they transferred their relations to the "Precinct of Salem and Beverly."When Sir William Phipps got up his expeditionagainst Quebec, in 1690, William Raymond raised a company from the neighborhood; and so deep was the impression made upon the public mind by his ability and courage, and so long did it remain in vivid remembrance, that, in 1735, the General Court granted a township of land, six miles square, "to Captain William Raymond, and the officers and soldiers" under his command, and "to their heirs," for their distinguished services in the "Canada Expedition." The grant was laid out on the Merrimack, but, being found within the bounds of New Hampshire, a tract of equivalent value was substituted for it on the Saco River. Among the men who served in this expedition was Eleazer, a son of Captain John Putnam, who afterwards, for many years, was one of the deacons of the Salem Village Church.The short, rapid, sharp, and sanguinary campaign against the Narragansetts seems to have tried to the utmost, not only the courage and spirit of the men, but the powers of human endurance. The constitutions of many were permanently impaired. As much fatigue and suffering were crowded into that short month as the physical forces of strong men could bear. We find such entries as this in the town-books:—"Salem, 1683. Samuel Beadle, who lost his health in the Narragansett Expedition, is allowed to take the place of Mr. Stephens as an innkeeper." A petition, dated in 1685, is among the papers in the State House, signed by men from Lynn, the Village, Beverly, Reading, and Hingham, praying for a grant of land, fortheir services and sufferings in that expedition. The petition was granted. The following extract from it tells the story: "We think we have reason to fear our days may be much shortened by our hard service in the war, from the pains and aches of our bodies, that we feel in our bones and sinews, and lameness thereby taking hold of us much, especially in the spring and fall."While there is "reason to fear" that the days of many were shortened, there were some so tough as to survive the strain, and bid defiance to aches and pains, and almost to time itself. In a list of fourteen who went from Beverly, six, including Thomas Raymond and Lott, a descendant of Roger Conant, were alive in 1735!The grants of land made to these gallant men and their heirs amounted in all, and ultimately, to seven distinct tracts, called "Narragansett Townships." They were made in fulfilment of an express public promise to that effect. It is stated in an official document, that "proclamation was made to them, when mustered on Dedham Plain" on the 9th of December, just as they took up their march, "that, if they played the man, took the fort, and drove the enemy out of the Narragansett country, which was their great seat, they should have a gratuity in land, besides their wages." The same document, which is in the form of a message from the House of Representatives to the Council of the Province of Massachusetts, dated Jan. 10, 1732, goes on to say, "And as the condition has been performed, certainly the promise, in all equity and justice,ought to be fulfilled. And if we consider the difficulties these brave men went through in storming the fort in the depth of winter, and the pinching wants they afterwards underwent in pursuing the Indians that escaped, through a hideous wilderness, known throughout New England to this day by the name of thehungry march; and if we further consider, that, until this brave though small army thus played the man, the whole country was filled with distress and fear, and we trembled in this capital, Boston itself; and that to the goodness of God to this army we owe our fathers' and our own safety and estates,"—therefore they urge the full discharge of the obligations of public justice and gratitude. They did not urge in vain. The grants were made on a scale, that finally was liberal and honorable to the government.I have dwelt at this great length on the Narragansett campaign and fight, partly because the details have not been kept as familiar to the memory of the people as they deserve, but chiefly because they demonstrate the military genius of the community with whose character our subject requires us to be fully acquainted. The enthusiasm of the troops, when Winslow gave the order for the assault, was so great, that they rushed over the swamp with an eagerness that could not be restrained, struggling as in a race to see who could first reach the log that led into the fiery mouth of the fort. A Salem villager, John Raymond, was the winner. He passed through, survived the ordeal, and came unharmed out of the terrible fight.He was twenty-seven years of age. He signed his name to a petition to the General Court, in 1685, as having gone in the expedition from Salem Village, and as then living there. Some years afterwards, he removed to Middleborough, joined the church in that place in 1722, and died in 1725. The fact that his last years were spent there has led to the supposition that he went from Middleborough to the Narragansett fight; but no men were drafted into that army from Middleborough. It was not a town at the time, but was organized some years afterwards. It had no inhabitants then. Philip had destroyed what few houses had been there, and slaughtered or dispersed their occupants.Thus far our attention has been directed to that portion of the population of Salem Village drawn there by the original policy of the company in London to attract persons of superior social position, wealth, and education to take up tracts of land, and lead the way into the interior. It operated to give a high character to the early agriculture of the country, and facilitate the settling of the lands. Without taking into view the means they had to make the necessary outlays in constructing bridges and roads, and introducing costly implements of husbandry and tasteful improvements, but looking solely at the social, intellectual, and moral influence they exerted, it must be acknowledged that the benefit derived from them was incalculable. They gave a powerful impulse to the farming interest, and introduced a high tone to thespirit of the community. They were early on the ground, and remained more or less through the period of the first generation. Their impress was long seen in the manners and character of the people. There was surely a goodly proportion of such men among the first settlers of this neighborhood.I come now to another class drawn along with and after the preceding,—the permanent, substantial yeomanry with no capital but their sturdy industry, doing hard work with their strong arms, and striking the roots of the settlement down deep into the soil by mixing their own labor with it. A glance at themapwill be useful, at this point, showing the general direction by which the farming population advanced to the interior. All between the North and Cow House Rivers was, as now, called North Fields, and is still for the most part a farming territory. All north of Cow House River, westwardly to Reading and eastwardly to the sea, was originally known as the "Farms" or "Salem Farms." When the First Beverly Parish was set off in 1667, it took from the "Farms" all east of Bass River. As Topsfield and other townships were established, they were more or less encroached upon. The "Farmers" as they were called, although unorganized, regarded themselves as one community, having a common interest. The tide of settlement flowed up the rivers and brooks, sought out the meadows, and was drawn into the valleys among the hills.John Porter, called "Farmer Porter," came withhis sons from Hingham, and bought up lands to the north of Duck or Crane River. His family before long held among them more land, it is probable, than any other. He served many years as deputy in the General Court, first from Hingham and then from Salem. He is spoken of in the colonial records of Massachusetts as "of good repute for piety, integrity, and estate." The Barneys, Leaches, and others went eastwardly towards Bass River. The Putnams followed up Beaver Brook to Beaver Dam, and spread out towards the north and west; while Richard Hutchinson turned southerly to the interval between Whipple and Hathorne Hills, bought the Stileman grant, and cleared the beautiful meadows where the old village meeting-house afterwards stood. He was a vigorous and intelligent agriculturist, and a man of character. He died in 1681, at eighty years of age, leaving a large and well-improved estate. His will has this item: I give "five acres of land to Black Peter, my servant." He had given fine farms to his children severally, many years before his death. His second wife, who survived him, had no children. He had come by her into possession of a valuable addition to his estate. After distributing his property, and providing legacies for children and grandchildren, his will left it to the option of his widow to spend the residue of her days either in the family of his son Joseph, or elsewhere; if she should prefer to live elsewhere, then she should receive back, in her own right, all the property she had originally owned; if she continuedto live to her death in Joseph's family, then her property was to go to him and his heirs. This, I think, shows that he was as sagacious as he was just.Richard Ingersoll came from Bedfordshire in England in 1629, bringing letters of recommendation from Matthew Cradock to Governor Endicott. After living awhile in town, a tract of land of eighty acres was granted to him, on the east side of Wooleston River, opposite the site of Danversport, at a place called, after him, Ingersoll's Point. He there proceeded to clear and break ground, plant corn, fence in his land, and make other improvements. He also carried on a fishery. Subsequently he leased the Townsend Bishop farm, where he lived several years. He died in 1644. Not long before his death, he purchased, jointly with his son-in-law Haynes, the Weston grant. His half of it he bequeathed to his son Nathaniel. He was evidently a man of real dignity and worth, enjoying the friendship of the best men of his day. Governor Endicott and Townsend Bishop were with him in his last sickness, and witnesses to his will. His widow married John Knight of Newbury. In a legal instrument filed among the papers connected with a case of land title, dated twenty-seven years after her first husband's death, she expresses in very striking language the tender affection and respect with which she still cherished his memory.William Haynes married Sarah, daughter of Richard Ingersoll, and occupied his half of the Weston grant. In company with his brother, Richard Haynes, hehad before bought of Townsend Bishop five hundred and forty acres, covering a considerable part of the northern end of the village territory. They sold one-third part of it to Abraham Page. Page sold to Simon Bradstreet, and John Porter bought all the three parts from the Hayneses and Bradstreet. It long constituted a portion of the great landed property of the Porter family. These facts show that William Haynes was a person of means; and the manner in which he is uniformly spoken of proves that he was regarded with singular respect and esteem. He died about 1650, and his son Thomas became subsequently a leading man in the village.There has been uncertainty where William Haynes came from, or to what family of the name he belonged. Among the papers of the Ingersoll family, it has recently been found that he is mentioned as "brother to Lieutenant-Governor Haynes." There seems to be no other person to whom this language can refer than John Haynes, who, after being Governor of Massachusetts, removed to Connecticut where he was governor and deputy-governor, in alternate years, to the day of his death. John Haynes, as Winthrop informs us, was a gentleman of "great estate." His property in England is stated to have yielded a thousand pounds per annum. Dr. Palfrey says he was "a man of family as well as fortune; and the dignified and courteous manners, which testified to the care bestowed on his early nurture, won popularity by their graciousness, at the same time that they diffused a refininginfluence by their example." If William of the village was brother to John of Connecticut, the fact that he and his brother Richard could make such large purchases of lands, and the remarkable respect manifested towards him, are well accounted for. The Ingersoll family traditions and entries would seem to be the highest authority on such a point.Job Swinnerton was a brother of John who for many years was the principal physician in the town of Salem. He had several grants of land, and was a worthy, peaceable, unobtrusive citizen. He seems to have kept out of the heat of the various contentions that occurred in the village; and, although his influence was sometimes decisively put forth, he evidently did nothing to aggravate them. He died April 11, 1689, over eighty-eight years of age. He had a large family, and his descendants continue the name in the village to this day. Daniel Rea came originally to Plymouth, and in 1630 bought a dwelling-house, garden, and "all the privileges thereunto belonging," in that town. In 1632 he removed to Salem, and at once became a leading man in the management of town affairs. He had a grant of one hundred and sixty acres, which he occupied and cultivated till his death in 1662. He had but two children: one, the wife of Captain Lothrop; the other, Joshua Rea, became the founder of a large family who acted conspicuously in the affairs of the village for several generations. Jacob Barney was an original grantee, and for several years a deputy. His son ofthe same name became a large landholder, and, on the 5th of April, 1692, at the very moment when the witchcraft delusion was at its height, gave two acres conveniently situated for the erection of a schoolhouse. He conveyed it to inhabitants of the neighborhood to be used for that purpose, mentioning them severally by name. I give the list, as it shows who were the principal people thereabouts at the time: "Mr. Israel Porter; Sergeant John Leach; Cornet Nathaniel Howard, Sr.; Corporal Joseph Herrick, Sr.; Benjamin Porter; Joshua Rea, Sr.; Thomas Raymond, Sr.; Edward Bishop,secundus; John Trask, Jr.; John Creesy; Joshua Rea, Jr.; John Rea; John Flint, Sr." Lawrence Leach received a grant of one hundred acres; and others of the same name and family had similar evidence that they were regarded as valuable accessions to the population. William Dodge and Richard Raymond had grants of sixty acres each; Humphrey and William Woodbury had forty each. The families of Leach, Raymond, Dodge, and Woodbury, still remain in the community of which their ancestors were the founders. John Sibley had a grant of fifty acres. Robert Goodell was a grantee, and became a large landholder.The descendants of the two last-named persons are very numerous, and have maintained the respectability of their family names. They are each, at this day, represented by gentlemen whose enthusiastic interest in our antiquities is proved by their invaluable labors and acquisitions in the interesting departments of genealogy and local history,—John L. Sibley, Librarian of Harvard University; and Abner C. Goodell, Register of Probate for the County of Essex.
"To be disseized of my inheritance; to be judged by three or four committee-men, who are neither bound to law nor evidence,—who are, or may be, mutable in their apprehensions,doing one thing to-day, and soon again undoing what they did,—I conceive, to be judged in such an arbitrary way is repugnant to the fundamental law of England contained in Magna Charta, chap. 29, which says no freeman shall be disseized of his freehold but by the lawful judgment of his peers,—that is to say, by due process of law; which was also confirmed by the Petition of Right, by Act of Parliament,tertio Caroli I. And also such arbitrary jurisdiction was exploded in putting down the Star-Chamber Court; and the excessive fines imposed upon all such actings. See 'English Liberties,' as also the fourth and sixth articles against the Earl of Strafford in Baker's 'Chronicle,' folio 518."
"To be disseized of my inheritance; to be judged by three or four committee-men, who are neither bound to law nor evidence,—who are, or may be, mutable in their apprehensions,doing one thing to-day, and soon again undoing what they did,—I conceive, to be judged in such an arbitrary way is repugnant to the fundamental law of England contained in Magna Charta, chap. 29, which says no freeman shall be disseized of his freehold but by the lawful judgment of his peers,—that is to say, by due process of law; which was also confirmed by the Petition of Right, by Act of Parliament,tertio Caroli I. And also such arbitrary jurisdiction was exploded in putting down the Star-Chamber Court; and the excessive fines imposed upon all such actings. See 'English Liberties,' as also the fourth and sixth articles against the Earl of Strafford in Baker's 'Chronicle,' folio 518."
He closes one of his remonstrances thus:—
"The humble request of your petitioner to the Hon. Gen. Court, that, as an Englishman,—as a freeman of this jurisdiction; as descended from him who, in his time, sought the welfare of this commonwealth,—I may have the benefit and protection of the wholesome laws established in this jurisdiction: that, in my extreme wrong, I may have liberty to seek relief in a way of law, and may not, contrary to Magna Charta, be disseized of my freehold by the arbitrary act of two or three committee-men; the fundamental law of England knowing no such constitution, abhorring such administrations: and that the Hon. Court would release your petitioner from the injurious effects of the said committee's act, and explode so pernicious a precedent."
"The humble request of your petitioner to the Hon. Gen. Court, that, as an Englishman,—as a freeman of this jurisdiction; as descended from him who, in his time, sought the welfare of this commonwealth,—I may have the benefit and protection of the wholesome laws established in this jurisdiction: that, in my extreme wrong, I may have liberty to seek relief in a way of law, and may not, contrary to Magna Charta, be disseized of my freehold by the arbitrary act of two or three committee-men; the fundamental law of England knowing no such constitution, abhorring such administrations: and that the Hon. Court would release your petitioner from the injurious effects of the said committee's act, and explode so pernicious a precedent."
Zerubabel Endicott was an imprudent and obstinate man, but had the traits of a generous, ardent, and noble character. He was a physician by profession. His second wife—the widow, as has been stated, of Rev. Antipas Newman, of Wenham, and daughter ofJohn Winthrop, Jr., governor of Connecticut—survived him. Although he left five sons, the name, at one time, was borne by a single descendant only, a lad of seven years of age,—Samuel, a grandson of Zerubabel. On him it hung suspended, but he saved it. From that boy, those who bear the name in New England have been derived. We rejoice to believe that they will preserve it, and keep its honor bright.
Winthrop was recognized as the great leader in the early history of the Colony. He had a combination of qualities that marked him as a wise and good man, and gave him precedence. The eminent dignity of his character was admired and revered by all. No one was more ready to admit this than Endicott. Never were men placed towards each other in relations more severely testing their magnanimity, and none ever bore the test more perfectly. But Endicott was, after all, the most complete representative man of that generation. He was thoroughly identified with the people, participating in their virtues and in their defects. He was a strict religionist, a sturdy Puritan, a firm administrator of the law; at the same time, there are indications that he was of a genial spirit. He was personally brave, and officially intrepid. His administration of the government required nerve, and he had it. Sometimes the ardor of his temperament put him for a moment off his guard; but he was quick to acknowledge his error. He was true to the people, who never faltered in their fidelity to him. The author of "Wonder-working Providence" described him as "a fit instrument to begin the wilderness worke, of courage bold undaunted, yet sociable and of a cheerful spirit." I have presented some instances of his kind and pleasant relations with his workmen and neighbors. His name will ever be held in honored remembrance in this vicinity, where his useful enterprise was appreciated; and his descendants in our day, and to the present time, have contributed to the prosperity and the adornment of the community.
It is not unlikely, that hostile feelings towards the Nurses, which contributed afterwards to serious results, may have been engendered in this long-continued land quarrel. There is evidence that no such feeling existed on the part of the Endicotts: but there were many others interested; for, by testimony at the trials and in outside discussions, the whole community had become more or less implicated in the strife. The Nurses, as holding the ground and having to bear the brunt of defending it in all cases of intrusion, had a difficult position, and may have made some enemies. At any rate, this controversy was one of the means of stirring up animosities in the neighborhood; and an account of it has been deemed necessary, as contributing to indicate the elements of the awful convulsions which soon afterwards desolated Salem Village.
When we reach the story, for which this account of the farms of the village and the population that grew up on them is a preparative, we shall come back to the Townsend-Bishop grant, and to the house, still standing, that he built and dwelt in, upon it. It may bewell to pause, and view its interesting history prior to 1692. While occupied by its original owner, the "mansion," or "cottage," was the scene of social intercourse among the choicest spirits of the earliest age of New England. Here Bishop, and, after him, Chickering, entertained their friends. Here the fine family of Richard Ingersoll was brought up. Here Governor Endicott projected plans for opening the country; and the road that passes its entrance-gate was laid out by him. To this same house, young John Endicott brought his youthful Boston bride. Here she came again, fifteen years afterwards, as the bride of the learned and distinguished James Allen, to show him the farm which, received as a "marriage gift" from her former husband, she had brought as a "marriage gift" to him. Here the same Allen, in less than six years afterwards, brought still another bride. In all these various, and some of them rather rapid, changes, it was, no doubt, often the resort of distinguished guests, and the place of meeting of many pleasant companies. During the protracted years of litigation for its possession, frequent consultations were held within it; and now, for twelve years, it had been the home of a happy, harmonious, and prosperous family, exemplifying the industry, energy, and enterprise of a New England household. A new chapter was destined, as we shall see, to be opened in its singular and diversified history. But we must return to the enumeration of the original landholders of the village.
George Corwin came to Salem in 1638. He had large tracts of land in various places. He lived, a part of his time, on his farm in the village; is found to have taken an active part in the proceedings of the people, particularly in military affairs; and was captain of a company of cavalry. His great mercantile transactions probably led him to have his residence mostly in the town, first on a lot on Washington Street, near the corner of Norman Street, where his grandson the sheriff lived in 1692. In 1660, he bought of Ann, the relict of Nicholas Woodbury, a lot on Essex Street, next east of the Browne Block, with a front of about one hundred and fifty feet. Here he built a fine mansion, in which he lived the remainder of his days. He died Jan. 6, 1685, leaving an estate inventoried at £5,964. 10s.7d.,—a large fortune for those times. His portrait is preserved by his descendants, one of whom, the late George A. Ward, describes his dress as represented in the picture: "A wrought flowing neckcloth, a sash covered with lace, a coat with short cuffs and reaching half-way between the wrist and elbow; the skirts in plaits below; an octagon ring and cane." The last two articles are still preserved. His inventory mentions "a silver-laced cloth coat, a velvet ditto, a satin waistcoat embroidered with gold, a trooping scarf and silver hat-band, golden-topped and embroidered, and a silver-headed cane." His farms in the vicinity contained fifteen hundred acres. His connections were distinguished, and his descendants have included many eminent persons. The name, by maledescent, disappeared for a time in this part of the country; but in the last generation it was restored in the female descent by an act of the Legislature, and is honorably borne by one of our most respectable families, who inherit his blood, and cherish the memorials which time has spared of their first American ancestor.
William Hathorne appears on the church records as early as 1636. He died in June, 1681, seventy-four years of age. No one in our annals fills a larger space. As soldier commanding important and difficult expeditions, as counsel in cases before the courts, as judge on the bench, and in innumerable other positions requiring talent and intelligence, he was constantly called to serve the public. He was distinguished as a public speaker, and is the only person, I believe, of that period, whose reputation as an orator has come down to us. He was an Assistant, that is, in the upper branch of the Legislature, seventeen years. He was a deputy twenty years. When the deputies, who before sat with the assistants, were separated into a distinct body, and the House of Representatives thus came into existence, in 1644, Hathorne was their first Speaker. He occupied the chair, with intermediate services on the floor from time to time, until raised to the other House. He was an inhabitant of Salem Village, having his farm there, and a dwelling-house, in which he resided when his legislative, military, and other official duties permitted. His son John, who succeeded him in all his public honors, also lived on his own farm in the villagea great part of the time. The name is indelibly stamped on the hills and meadows of the region, as it was in the civil history of that age, and has been in the elegant literature of the present.
William Trask was one of what are called the "First Planters." He came over before Endicott, had his residence on Salem Farms, was a most energetic, enterprising, and useful citizen, and filled a great variety of public stations. He brought large tracts of land under culture, planted orchards, and established mills at the head of tide-water on the North River. He was the military leader of the first age of the plantations in this neighborhood, was captain of the train-band from the beginning, and, by his gallantry and energy in action, commanded the applause of his contemporaries. For his services in the Pequot Expedition, the General Court gave him and his associates large grants of land. His obsequies were celebrated, on the 16th of May, 1666, with great military parade; and the people of the town and the whole surrounding country followed his honored remains to the grave.
Richard Davenport came to Salem in 1631. His first residence was in the town; but soon he was led to the Farms. In 1636, he received a grant of eighty acres; in 1638, of two hundred and twenty acres; and, in 1642, eighty acres more, to be divided between him and Captain Lothrop. Besides these, he received several smaller grants of meadow and salt marsh. Such grants were made only with the view of havingthem duly improved; and it cannot be doubted that he was zealously engaged in agricultural operations. His town residence was on a lot reaching from Essex Street to the North River. Its front extended from the grounds now the site of the North Church to North Street. His house stood at some distance back from Essex Street. This estate was sold by his administrators, in 1674, to Jonathan Corwin, whose family occupied it until a very recent period. He left the town in 1643, and subsequently lived in what was afterwards Salem Village, until the public service called him away. He sold some of his estates, but retained others, on the Farms and in the town, to the time of his death. He continued the superintendence of his country estate, which seems to have been his family home, to the last. His military career gave him early distinction, and closed only with his life. In 1634, the General Court chose him "Ensign to Capt. Trask." He was concerned with Endicott in cutting out the cross from the king's colors. The following is from the record of a meeting of the court, Nov. 7, 1634: "It is ordered that Ensign Davenport shall be sent for by warrant, with command to bring his colors with him to the next court, as also any other that hath defaced the said colors." Davenport did not seem anxious to cover up his agency in this matter; for, when he offered his next child to baptism, he signified to the assembly that he was determined to commemorate and perpetuate the memory of the transaction, by having her christened "TrueCross." It was necessary to make a show of punishing Endicott and Davenport on this occasion, to prevent trouble from the home government. Soon after, we find the General Court heaping honors upon Davenport, and finally, in 1639, making him a grant of one hundred and fifty acres of land, specially noticing his services in the Pequot War, which appear to have elicited general applause. In some desperate encounters with the savages, seventeen arrows were shot "into his coat of mail," and he was wounded in unprotected parts of his person. He was twice deputy to the General Court. In 1644, the General Court organized an elaborate system of external defence, the whole based upon Castle Island, now Fort Independence, in Boston Harbor. From that point, hostile invasion by a naval force was to be repelled. Every vessel, on entering, was to report to the castle, be examined and subject to the orders of the commandant. It became the military headquarters of the colony, the protection and oversight of whose commerce were intrusted to the officer in command. This was the highest military station and trust in the gift of the Government. It was assigned to Richard Davenport; and he held it for twenty-one years, to the moment of his death. The country reposed in confidence upon his watchful fidelity. He put and kept the castle in an efficient condition. In 1659, as evidence of their satisfaction and approval of his official conduct, the General Court made him a grant of five hundred acres of land laid out in Lancaster. On the 15th of July, 1665, he was killed bylightning, at his post. The records of the General Court speak of "the solemn stroke of thunder that took away Captain Davenport." The whole country mourned the loss of the veteran soldier; and the Court granted his family an additional tract of one hundred acres of land on the Merrimac River. He was in his sixtieth year at the time of his death. Of the company required to be raised in Salem for the Block-Island Expedition, in 1636, the three commissioned officers were furnished from the Farms,—Trask, Davenport, and Read. They were soldiers by nature and instinct, and to the end. The volleys of devoted, faithful, and mourning comrades were fired over their graves, with no great interval of time. United in early service, separated by the course of their lives, they were united again in death.
Thomas Lothrop originally lived in the town, between Collins Cove and the North River. He became a member of the First Church in Salem, and was admitted a freeman in 1634. He soon removed to the Farms; and his name appears among the rate-payers at the formation of the village parish. For many years he was deputy from Salem to the General Court; and after Beverly was set off, as his residence at the time was on that side of the line, he was always in the General Court, as deputy from the new town, when his other public employments permitted. No man was ever more identified with the history of the Salem Farms. He contributed to form the structure of its society, and the character of its population, by all thata wise and good man could do. During his whole life in America, he was more or less engaged in the military service, in arduous, difficult, and dangerous positions and operations; acting sometimes against Indians, and sometimes against the French, or, as was usually the case, against them both combined. He was occasionally sent to distant posts; commanding expeditions to the eastward as far as Acadia. He was at one time in charge of a force at Port Royal, now Annapolis, Nova Scotia. Increase Mather calls him a "godly and courageous commander." When the last decisive struggle with King Philip was approaching, and aid was needed from the eastern part of the colony to rescue the settlements on the Connecticut River from utter destruction, the "Flower of Essex" was summoned to the field. It was a choice body of efficient men, "all culled out of the towns belonging to this county," numbering about one hundred men. Lothrop, of course, was their captain. In August, 1675, they were on the ground at Hadley, the place of rendezvous. On the 26th of that month, Captain Lothrop, with his company, and Captain Beers, of Watertown, with his, after a vigorous pursuit, attacked the Indians in a swamp, about ten miles from Hatfield, at the foot of Sugar-Loaf Hill. Ten were killed on the side of the English, and twenty-six on the side of the Indians, who were driven from the swamp, and scattered in their flight; to fall, as was their custom, upon detached settlements; and continuing to waste and destroy, by fire and sword, withhatchet, scalping-knife, torch, and gun. On the 18th of September, Lothrop, with his company, started from Deerfield, to convoy a train of eighteen wagons, loaded with grain, and furniture of the inhabitants seeking refuge from danger, with teamsters and others. Moseley, with his men, remained behind, to scout the woods, and give notice of the approach of Indians; but the stealthy savages succeeded in effecting a complete surprise, and fell upon Lothrop as his wagons were crossing a stream. They poured in a destructive fire from the woods, in all directions. They were seven to one. A perfect carnage ensued. Lothrop fell early in the unequal fight, and only seven or eight of his whole party were left to tell the story of the fatal scene. The locality of this disastrous and sanguinary tragedy has ever since been known as "Bloody Brook." In the list of those who perished by bullet, tomahawk, or arrow, on that fearful morning, we read the names of many village neighbors of the brave and lamented commander,—Thomas Bayley, Edward Trask, Josiah Dodge, Peter Woodbury, Joseph Balch, Thomas Buckley, Joseph King, Robert Wilson, and James Tufts. One of Lothrop's sergeants, who was among the slain, Thomas Smith, then of Newbury, originated in the village. His family had grants of land, including the hill called by their name.
Captain Lothrop was as remarkable for the benevolence of his spirit and the tenderness of his nature as for his wisdom in council, energy in command, or gallantry in battle. Indeed, his character in private lifewas so beautiful and lovable, that I cannot refrain from leading you into the recesses of his domestic circle. It presents a picture of rare attractiveness. He had no children. His wife was a kind and amiable person. They longed for objects upon which to gratify the yearnings of their affectionate hearts. He had a large estate. His character became known to the neighbors and the country people around. If there was an occurrence calling for commiseration anywhere in the vicinity, it was managed to bring it to his notice. Orphan children were received into his household, and brought up with parental care and tenderness. Many were, in this way, the objects of his charity and affections. Persons especially, who were in any degree connected with his wife's family, naturally conceived the desire to have him adopt their children. This was the case particularly with those who were in straitened circumstances. Others, knowing his disposition, would bring tales of distress and destitution to his ears. Some, perhaps, turned out to be unworthy of his goodness. In one instance, at least, where he had taken a child into his family in its infancy, touched by appeals made to his compassion by the parents, brought it up carefully, watched over its education, and become attached to it, when it had reached an age to be serviceable, the parents claimed and insisted on their right to it, and took it away, much against his will. But the good man's benevolence was not impaired, nor the stream of his affectionate charities checked, by the misconductor ingratitude of his wards or of their friends. His plan was to do all the good in his power to the children thus brought into his family, to prepare them for usefulness, and start them favorably in life. In the case of boys, he would get them apprenticed to worthy people in useful callings. At the time of his death, there were two grown-up members of his family, who appear to have been foisted upon his care in their earliest childhood. But there was no blame to be attached to them in the premises; and they were regarded by him with much affection. There were no relations of his own in this country in need of charitable aid or without adequate parental protection; and it was not strange that several of his wife's connections should have availed themselves of the benefit of his generous disposition. She herself gives a very interesting account of an instance of this sort, in a deposition found wrapped up among some old papers in the county court-house. The object of the statement was to explain how a connection of hers became domesticated in the family.
"When the child's mother was dead, my husband being with me at my cousin's burial, and seeing our friends in so sad a condition, the poor babe having lost its mother, and the woman that nursed it being fallen sick, I then did say to some of my friends, that, if my husband would give me leave, I could be very willing to take my cousin's little one for a while, till he could better dispose of it; whereupon the child's father did move it to my husband. My dear husband, considering my weakness, and the incumbrance I had in the family,was pleased to return this answer,—that he did not see how it was possible for his wife to undergo such a burden. The next day there came a friend to our house, a woman which gave suck, and she understanding how the poor babe was left, being intreated, was willing to take it to nurse, and forthwith it was brought to her: but it had not been with her three weeks before it pleased the Lord to visit that nurse with sickness also; and the nurse's mother came to me desiring I would take the child from her daughter, and then my dear husband, observing the providence of God, was freely willing to receive her into his house."
"When the child's mother was dead, my husband being with me at my cousin's burial, and seeing our friends in so sad a condition, the poor babe having lost its mother, and the woman that nursed it being fallen sick, I then did say to some of my friends, that, if my husband would give me leave, I could be very willing to take my cousin's little one for a while, till he could better dispose of it; whereupon the child's father did move it to my husband. My dear husband, considering my weakness, and the incumbrance I had in the family,was pleased to return this answer,—that he did not see how it was possible for his wife to undergo such a burden. The next day there came a friend to our house, a woman which gave suck, and she understanding how the poor babe was left, being intreated, was willing to take it to nurse, and forthwith it was brought to her: but it had not been with her three weeks before it pleased the Lord to visit that nurse with sickness also; and the nurse's mother came to me desiring I would take the child from her daughter, and then my dear husband, observing the providence of God, was freely willing to receive her into his house."
At the time when this addition was made to his family, there was certainly already in it another of his wife's connections, who had been brought there when an infant in a manner perhaps equally singular, and who had grown up to maturity. The particular "incumbrance," however, spoken of by her, related to another matter. She was an only daughter. Her father had died many years before, at quite an advanced age. Her mother, who was sickly and infirm as well as aged, was taken immediately into her family, and remained under her roof until her death. In her weak and helpless condition, much care and exertion were thrown upon her daughter. The only objection the captain seemed to have to increasing the burden of the household, by receiving into it this additional child with its nurse, resulted from conjugal tenderness and considerateness. It must be confessed that there are some indications of well-arranged management in the foregoing account. The friend who happened tocall at the house the "next day," and who was able to supply what the "poor babe" needed, certainly came very opportunely; and there was altogether a remarkable concurrence and sequence of circumstances. But all that he saw was a case of suffering, helpless innocence, and an opportunity for benevolence and charity; and in these, with a true theology, he read "a providence of God." That child continued, to the hour when he took his last farewell of his family, beneath his roof, and was an object of affectionate care, and in her amiable qualities a source of happiness to him and his good wife. It is stated that the children, thus from time to time domesticated in the family, called him father, and that he addressed them as his children. While they were infants, he was "a tender nursing father" to them. When fondling them in his arms, in the presence of his wife, he would solemnly take notice of the providence of God that had "disposed of them from one place to another" until they had been brought to him; and "would present them in his desires to God, and implore a blessing upon them."
The picture presented in the foregoing details is worth rescuing from oblivion. Such instances of actual life, exhibited in the most private spheres, constitute a branch of history more valuable, in some respects, than the public acts of official dignitaries. History has been too exclusively confined, in its materials, to the movements of states and of armies. It ought to paint the portraits of individual men andwomen in their common lives; it ought to lead us into the interior of society, and introduce us to the family circles and home experiences of the past. It cannot but do us good to know Thomas Lothrop, not only as an early counsellor among the legislators of the colony, and as having immortalized by his blood a memorable field of battle and slaughter, but as the centre of a happy and virtuous household on a New England farm. He made that home happy by his benignant virtue. Although denied the blessing of children of his own, his fireside was enlivened with the prattle and gayeties of the young. Joy and hope and growth were within his walls. He was not a parent; but his heart was kept warm with parental affections. He had a home where dear ones waited for him, and rushed out to meet and cling round him with loving arms, and welcome him with merry voices, when he returned from the sessions of the General Court, or from campaigns against the French and Indians.
Besides these offices of beneficence in the domestic sphere, we find traces, in the local records, of constant usefulness and kindness among his rural neighbors. He was called, on all occasions, to advise and assist. As a judicious friend, he was relied upon and sought at the bedside of the sick and dying, and in families bereaved of their head. His name appears as a witness to wills, appraiser of estates, trustee and guardian of the young. He was the friend of all. I know not where to find a more perfect union of the hero andthe Christian; of all that is manly and chivalrous with all that is tender, benevolent, and devout.
Somewhere about the year 1650, after he had been married a considerable time, he revisited his native country. A sister, Ellen, had, in the mean while, grown up from early childhood; and he found her all that a fond brother could have hoped for. With much persuasion, he besought his mother to allow her to return with him to America. He stated that he had no children; that he would be a father to her, and watch over and care for her as for his own child. At length the mother yielded, and committed her daughter to his custody, not without great reluctance, trusting to his fraternal affection and plighted promise. He brought her over with him to his American home. She was worthy of his love, and he was true to his sacred and precious trust.
Ellen Lothrop became the wife of Ezekiel Cheever, the great schoolmaster; and I should consider myself false to all good learning, if I allowed the name of this famous old man to slip by, without pausing to pay homage to it. His record, as a teacher of a Latin Grammar School, is unrivalled. Twelve years at New Haven, eleven at Ipswich, nine at Charlestown, and more than thirty-eight at Boston,—more than seventy in all,—may it not be safely said that he was one of the very greatest benefactors of America? With Elijah Corlett, who taught a similar school at Cambridge for more than forty years, he bridged over the wide chasm between the education brought with themby the fathers from the old country, and the education that was reared in the new. They fed and kept alive the lamp of learning through the dark age of our history. All the scholars raised here were trained by them. One of Cotton Mather's most characteristic productions is the tribute to his venerated master. It flows from a heart warm with gratitude. "Although he had usefully spent his life among children, yet he was not become twice a child," but held his faculties to the last. "In this great work of bringing our sons to be men, he was my master seven and thirty years ago, was master to my betters no less than seventy years ago; so long ago, that I must even mention my father's tutor for one of them. He was a Christian of the old fashion,—an old New England Christian; and I may tell you, that was as venerable a sight, as the world, since the days of primitive Christianity, has ever looked upon. He lived, as a master, the term which has been, for above three thousand years, assigned for the life of a man." Mather celebrated his praises in a poetical effusion:—
"He lived, and to vast age no illness knew,Till Time's scythe, waiting for him, rusty grew.He lived and wrought; his labors were immense,But ne'er declined to preterperfect tense.* * * * *'Tis Corlett's pains, and Cheever's, we must own,That thou, New England, art not Scythia grown."
"He lived, and to vast age no illness knew,Till Time's scythe, waiting for him, rusty grew.He lived and wrought; his labors were immense,But ne'er declined to preterperfect tense.
* * * * *
'Tis Corlett's pains, and Cheever's, we must own,That thou, New England, art not Scythia grown."
To our early schoolmasters, as Mather says, and the later too, I may add, it is owing, that the whole country did not become another Scythia.
Ezekiel Cheever was in this country as early as 1637. He was then in New Haven, sharing in the work of the first settlement of that colony, teaching school as his ordinary employment, but sometimes preaching, and in other ways helping to lay the foundations of church and commonwealth. While there, he had a family of several children. The first-born, Samuel, became the minister of Marblehead. In 1650, he was keeping a school at Ipswich. About this time, he lost his wife. On the 18th of November, 1652, he married Ellen, the sister whom Captain Lothrop had brought with him from England. They had several children; one of them, Thomas, was ordained first at Malden, and afterwards at Chelsea. The old schoolmaster died on the 21st of August, 1708, aged ninety-three years and seven months. His son Thomas reached the same age. Samuel, the minister at Marblehead, was eighty-five years old at his death. The name of Ezekiel, jr., appears on the rate-list of the village parish as late as 1731, so that he must have reached the age of at least seventy-seven years.
The antiquarians have been sorely perplexed in determining the relationship of the Cheevers and Reas, as they appear to be connected together as heirs of the Lothrop property, in an order of the General Court of the 11th of June, 1681.
The facts are these: Captain Lothrop married Bethia, daughter of Daniel Rea. He died without issue, and had made no will. As he was killed in battle, his widow undertook to set up a nuncupativewill. A snow-storm, on the day appointed to act upon the matter, so blocked up the roads, that neither Ezekiel Cheever nor his son Thomas, who had charge of his mother's rights, could get to Salem; and the court granted administration to the widow. The Cheevers demanded a rehearing: it was granted; and quite an interesting and pertinacious law-suit arose, which was finally carried up to the General Court, who decided it in 1681. The widow does not appear to have been actuated by merely selfish motives, but sought to divert a portion of the landed estate from the only legal heir, Ellen, the wife of Ezekiel Cheever, to other parties, in favor of whom her feelings were much enlisted. There is no indication of any unfriendliness between her and her "sister Cheever."
Lothrop's wife had become much attached to one of her connections, who had been brought into the family. Her husband, having been fond of children, had often expressed great affection for those of her brother, Joshua Rea. He had also sometimes, in expressing his interest in the Beverly Church, evinced a disposition to leave to it "his ten acre lot and his house upon the same," as a parsonage. Perhaps, if he had not been suddenly called away, he might have done something, particularly for the latter object. It appeared in evidence, from her statements and from others, that he had been importuned to make a will, and that it was much on his mind, particularly when recovering from a long and dangerous sickness the winter before his death; but he never could bebrought to do it. There was no evidence that he had ever absolutely determined on any thing positively or specifically. His widow, who seems to have been a perfectly honest and truthful woman, testified to a conversation that passed between them on the subject, as they were riding "together towards Wenham, the last spring, in the week before the Court of election." In passing by particular pieces of property owned by him, he indulged in some speculations as to what disposal he should make of this or that pasture or plain or woodland. But she did not represent that his expressions were absolute and determinate, but rather indicative of the then inclination of his mind. In another part of her statement, she said, "I did desire him to make his will, which, when he was sick, I did more than once or twice; and his answer to me was, that he did look upon it as that which was very requisite and fit should be done. But, dear wife, thou hast no cause to be troubled; if I should die and not make a will, it would be never the worse for thee; thyself would have the more." It is not difficult to understand the case as it probably stood in the mind of Captain Lothrop. Whenever the subject of making a will, and doing kind things for the Beverly parish, and the individuals in whose behalf his wife was so anxious, was brought up, he felt the force, as he expressed it, "of the duty which God required of a master of a family to set his house in order;" and he was no doubt strongly moved, and sometimes almost resolved, to gratify her wishes: but he remembered thesolemn promise he had made to his mother, as he parted from her for ever, and received his sister from her hands, and every sentiment of honor, and of filial and fraternal love, restrained him; and his mind settled into a conviction that it was his duty to allow his sister the benefit of the final inheritance of his property. As the particular persons to whom his wife wished him to make bequests were her relatives, and the law would give her an ample allowance in the use, for life, of his large landed property, she would be able to provide for them after his death, as he had been in the habit of doing.
The General Court took a just view of the case, and decided that she should have the whole movable estate for her own "use and dispose," and the "use and benefit" for life of the houses and lands, "making no strip nor waste;" after her death, the same to go to Ellen, the wife of Ezekiel Cheever. The widow was to pay all debts due from the estate, and also twenty pounds to the children of her brother, Joshua Rea. The Court seemed to think, that, if any expectations had been excited in that quarter, she was fully as responsible for it as her late husband; and, as the Cheevers were to get nothing, while she lived, out of the estate, the Court required her to pay the sum just named to her nephews and nieces. They ordered Ezekiel Cheever to pay five pounds as costs for their hearing the case, which he did on the spot.
It may be mentioned, by the way, that the widow of Captain Lothrop was married again within eightmonths of his death; but that was quite usual in those days. She and her new husband concluded that it would be troublesome to take care of Captain Lothrop's several farms. They preferred to live in the town. She was probably over sixty years of age. The conclusion of the whole matter was, that, in consideration of sixty pounds paid down, they surrendered all claim whatever to the "houseing and lands" left by Captain Lothrop, to Cheever and his wife. They conveyed them "free and clear of and from all debts owing from the estate of said Lothrop, and gifts or bequests pretended to be made by him, or by any ways or means to be had, claimed, or challenged therefrom by any person or persons whomsoever." The relict of Captain Lothrop died in 1688.
Ezekiel Cheever and his wife, having thus become possessed of all her brother's real estate, conveyed the lands belonging to it in Salem Village to their son, Ezekiel Cheever, Jr. He had, for some years, been living in the town of Salem, carrying on the business of a tailor. He was a member of the First Church, and appears to have been a respectable person. His dwelling-house stood on the lot in Washington Street occupied by the late Robert Brookhouse. He sold it to the Rev. Nicholas Noyes, on the 14th of April, 1684, removed to the village, took possession of the Lothrop farm, and was there in time to bear a share in the witchcraft delusion.
In 1636, a grant of land was made to Thomas Gardner of one hundred acres. He came to thiscountry as early as 1624, and resided at Cape Ann. Subsequently he removed to Salem, and, with his wife, was admitted to the church. He was deputy to the General Court in 1637. His grant was in the western part of the township, and embraced land included within the limits of Salem Village. The name still remains on the same territory. His sons became proprietors of several additional tracts in the neighborhood. One of them, Joseph, is connected, in the most conspicuous and interesting manner, with our military history.
The destruction of Captain Lothrop and his company, on the 18th of September, filled the country with grief and consternation; and, as the year 1675 drew towards a close, the conviction became general, that the crisis of the fate of the colonies was near at hand. The Indians were carrying all before them. Philip was spreading conflagration, devastation, and slaughter around the borders, and striking sudden and deadly blows into the heart of the country. It was evident that he was consolidating the Indian power into irresistible strength. Among papers on file in the State House is a letter addressed to the governor and council, dated at Mendon, Oct. 1, 1675, from Lieutenant Phinehas Upham, of Malden. In command of a company, acting under Captain Gorham of Barnstable, who had also a company of his own, he had been on a scout for Indians beyond Mendon, which was a frontier town. Their route had been over a sweep of territory then an almost unbroken wilderness, embracing the present sites of Grafton, Worcester, Oxford, and Dudley. The result of the exploration is thus given: "Now, seeing that in all our marches we find no Indians, we verily think that they are drawn together into great bodies far remote from these parts." From other scouting parties, it became evident that this opinion was correct, and that the Indians were collecting stores and assembling their warriors somewhere, to fall upon the colonies at the first opening of spring. Further information made it certain, that their place of gathering was in the Narragansett country, in the south-westerly part of the colony of Rhode Island. There was no alternative but, as a last effort, to strike the enemy at that point, with the utmost available force. A thousand men were raised, 527 by Massachusetts, 315 by Connecticut, and 158 by Plymouth. Massachusetts organized a company of cavalry and six companies of foot soldiers, Connecticut five and Plymouth two companies of foot. All were placed under the command of Governor Winslow, of Plymouth. The winter had set in earlier than usual; much snow had fallen, and the weather was extremely cold. The seven companies of Massachusetts, under the command of Major Samuel Appleton of Ipswich, started on their march, Dec. 10. On the evening of the 12th, having effected a junction with the Plymouth companies, they reached the rendezvous, on the north side of Wickford Hill, in North Kingston, R.I. On the 13th, Winslow commenced his move upon the enemy. On the 18th,the Connecticut troops joined him. His army was complete; the enemy was known to be near, and all haste made to reach him. The snow was deep. The Narragansetts were intrenched on a somewhat elevated piece of ground of five or six acres in area, surrounded by a swamp, within the limits of the present town of South Kingston. The Indian camp was strongly fortified by a double row of palisades, about a rod apart, and also by a thick hedge. There was but a single entrance known to our troops, which could only be reached, one at a time, over a slanting log or felled tree, slippery from frost and falling snow, about six feet above a ditch. There were other passages, known only to the Indians, by which they could steal out, a few at a time, and get a shot at our people in the flank and rear. Many of our men were cut off in this way. The allied forces had expected to pass the night, previous to reaching the hostile camp, at a garrison about fifteen miles distant from that point; but the Indians had destroyed the buildings, and slaughtered the occupants, seventeen in number, two days before. Here the troops passed the night, unsheltered from the bitter weather. The next day, Dec. 19, was Sunday; but their provisions were exhausted, and the supply they had expected to find had been destroyed with the garrison-house. There could be no delay. They recommenced their march, at half-past five o'clock in the morning, through the deep snow, which continued falling all day, and reached the borders of what was described, by awriter well acquainted with it, as "a hideous swamp." Fortunately, the early and long-continued extreme cold weather of that winter had rendered it more passable than it otherwise would have been. But the ground was rough, and very difficult to traverse. They were chilled and worn by their long march, following winding paths through thick woods, across gullies, and over hills and fields. It was between one and two o'clock in the afternoon, and the short winter day was wearing away. Winslow saw the position at a glance, and, by the promptness of his decision, proved himself a great captain. He ordered an instant assault. The Massachusetts troops were in the van; the Plymouth, with the commander-in-chief, in the centre; the Connecticut, in the rear. The Indians had erected a block-house near the entrance, filled with sharp-shooters, who also lined the palisades. The men rushed on, although it was into the jaws of death, under an unerring fire. The block-house told them where the entrance was. The companies of Moseley and Davenport led the way. Moseley succeeded in passing through. Davenport fell beneath three fatal shots, just within the entrance. Isaac Johnson, captain of the Roxbury company, was killed while on the log. But death had no terrors to that army. The centre and rear divisions pressed up to support the front and fill the gaps; and all equally shared the glory of the hour. Enough survived the terrible passage to bring the Indians to a hand-to-hand fight within the fort. After a desperate struggle of nearly three hours, thesavages were driven from their stronghold; and, with the setting of that sun, their power was broken. Philip's fortunes had received a decided overthrow, and the colonies were saved. In all military history, there is not a more daring exploit. Never, on any field, has more heroic prowess been displayed. By the best computations, the Indian loss was at least one thousand, including the large numbers who perished from cold, as they scattered in their flight without shelter, food, or place of refuge. Of the colonial force, over eighty were killed, and one hundred and fifty wounded. Three of the Massachusetts captains—Johnson, Gardner, and Davenport—were killed on the spot. Three of the Connecticut captains—John Gallop, Samuel Marshall, and Robert Seely—also fell in the fight. Captain William Bradford, of Plymouth, was wounded by a musket-ball, which he carried in his body to his grave. Captain John Gorham, also of the Plymouth colony, was shortly after carried off by a fever, occasioned by the over-exhaustion of the march and the battle. Lieutenant Phinehas Upham, of Johnson's company, was mortally wounded. Great value appears to have been attached to the services of this officer. In the hurried preparation for the campaign, Captain Johnson had nominated his brother as his lieutenant. The General Court overruled the appointment. Johnson cheerfully acquiesced, and, in a paper addressed to the Court, assured them that he "most readily submitted to their choice of Lieutenant Upham." This single passage is an imperishable eulogium upon the characters of the two brave men who gave their lives to the country on that fatal but glorious day.
Captain Gardner's company was raised in this neighborhood. Joseph Peirce and Samuel Pikeworth of Salem, and Mark Bachelder of Wenham, were killed before entering the fort. Abraham Switchell of Marblehead, Joseph Soames of Cape Ann, and Robert Andrews of Topsfield, were killed at the fort. Charles Knight, Thomas Flint, and Joseph Houlton, Jr., of Salem Village; Nicholas Hakins and John Farrington, of Lynn; Robert Cox, of Marblehead; Eben Baker and Joseph Abbot, of Andover; Edward Harding, of Cape Ann; and Christopher Read, of Beverly,—were wounded. An account of the death of Captain Gardner, in detail, has been preserved. The famous warrior, and final conqueror of King Philip, Benjamin Church, was in the fight as a volunteer, rendered efficient service, and was wounded. His "History of King Philip's War" is reprinted, by John Kimball Wiggin, as one of his series of elegant editions of rare and valuable early colonial publications entitled "Library of New England History." In the second number, Part I. of Church's history is edited by Henry Martyn Dexter. Church's account of what came within his observation in this fight, with the notes of the learned editor, is the most valuable source of information we have in reference to it. He says, that, in the heat of the battle, he came across Gardner, "amidst the wigwams in the east end of the fort,making towards him; but, on a sudden, while they were looking each other in the face, Captain Gardner settled down." He instantly went to him. The blood was running over his cheek. Church lifted up his cap, calling him by name. "Gardner looked up in his face, but spoke not a word, being mortally shot through the head." The widow of Captain Gardner (Ann, sister of Sir George Downing) became the successor of Ann Dudley, the celebrated poetess of her day, by marrying Governor Bradstreet, in 1680. She died in 1713.
There is a curious parallelism between the first and the last great victory over the Indian power in the history of America. An interval of one hundred and sixty one years separates them. On the 19th of December, 1836,—the anniversary of the day when Winslow stormed the Narragansett fort,—Colonel Taylor received his orders to pursue the Florida Indians. It was a last attempt to subdue them. They had long baffled and defied the whole power of the United States. Every general in the army had laid down his laurels in inglorious and utter failure. He started on the 20th, with an army of about one thousand men. On the 25th, he found himself on the edge of a swamp, impassable by artillery or horses. On the opposite side were the Indian warriors, ready to deal destruction, if he should attempt to cross the swamp. He had the same question to decide which Winslow had; and he decided it in the same way, with equal promptness. The struggle lasted about the same time; andthe loss, in proportion to the numbers engaged, was about the same. The results were alike permanently decisive. Okee-cho-bee stands by the side of Narragansett, and the names of Josiah Winslow and Zachary Taylor are imperishably inscribed together on the tablets of military glory.
Dr. Palfrey says that Captain Nathaniel Davenport was a son of "Davenport of the Pequot War." He was born in Salem, and brought up in the village. His name, with those of his brave father, and his associate in youth and in death Joseph Gardner, belongs to our local annals. They were both the idols of their men. Davenport was dressed, when he fell, in a "full buff suit," and was probably thought by the Indians to be the commander-in-chief. On receiving his triple wound, he called his lieutenant, Edward Tyng, to him, gave him his gun in charge, delivered over to him the command of his company, and died.
There has been some uncertainty on the point whether Nathaniel Davenport was a son of Richard, the commandant at the castle. The fact that he was associated with William Stoughton, and Stephen Minot whose wife was a daughter of Richard Davenport, as an administrator of the estate of the latter, has been regarded as rendering it probable. Dr. Palfrey's unhesitating statement to that effect is, of itself, enough to settle the question. There is, moreover, a document on file which proves that he is correct. Nathaniel's widow had some difficulty in settling his estate, and applied to the General Court for its interposition.Quite a mass of papers belong to the case. Among them is a bill of expenses incurred by her in connection with his funeral charges, such as, "twenty-one rings to relatives," and to those "who took care to bring him off slain, eight pounds;" and "for mourning for my mother Davenport, sisters Minot and Elliot, and myself, sixteen pounds." This latter item is decisive, as we know that two of Richard Davenport's daughters married persons of those names. It is a circumstance of singular interest, as showing by how slight an accident—for it is a mere accident—important questions of history are sometimes determinable. This item, so far as I have been able to find, is the only absolute evidence we have to the point that Richard was the father of Nathaniel Davenport; and it would not have been in existence, had not questions arisen in the settlement of the estate of the latter requiring the action of the General Court. The record of baptisms in the First Church at Salem, prior to 1636, is lost. The names of Richard Davenport's children, baptized subsequent to that date, are in the records of the Salem or Boston churches. As Nathaniel is understood to have been one of the earliest born, the record of his baptism was probably in the lost part of the Salem book.
It may be thought surprising, that so little appears to have been known concerning an officer of his rank and parentage, and whose death has rendered his name so memorable. To account for it, I must recur to the history of the Narragansett expedition. No military organization was ever more rapidly effected, or morethoroughly and promptly executed its work. The commissioners of the three united colonies were satisfied that the Indian rendezvous at Narragansett, where their forces and stores were being collected and their resources concentrated, must be struck at without a moment's delay; that the blow must be swift and decisive; that it must be struck then, in the depth of winter; that, if deferred to the spring, all would be lost; that, if the Indian power was allowed to remain and to gather strength until the next season, nothing could save the settlements from destruction. Early in November, they formed their plan, and put the machinery for summoning all their utmost resources into instant action. On the 30th of November, the officers appointed for the purpose made return, that they had impressed the required number in the several counties and towns, fitted them out with arms, ammunition, clothes, and all necessary equipments; that the men were on the ground, ready to go forward. There was no time for recruiting, or raising bounties, or substitute brokerage; no time for electioneering to get commissions. The rank and file were ready: they had been brought in by a process that gave no time for canvassing for offices. A summons had been left at the house of every drafted man, to report himself the next morning. If any one failed to appear, some other member of the family, brother or father, had to take his place. The organizing and officering of this force must be done instanter. All depended upon suitable officers being selected. A company was waiting at Boston for a captain, and a captain must be found. Some one in authority happened to think of Nathaniel Davenport. His childhood and youth had been passed at Salem Village and on Castle Island: on reaching maturity, he had removed to New York, and been there for years in commercial pursuits. A short time before, he had returned to Boston, and engaged in business there. His father had been dead since 1665, and not many persons knew him,—only, perhaps, a few of his early associates, and the old friends of his father: but they knew, that, from his birth to his manhood, he had breathed a military atmosphere,—was a soldier, by inheritance, of the school of Lothrop, Read, and Trask; and it was determined at once to hunt him up. He was serving at Court; taken out of the jury-box in a pending trial; and placed at the head of the company. The accurate historian of Boston, Samuel G. Drake, says, "Captain Davenport's men were extremely grieved at the death of their leader; he having, by his courteous carriage, much attached them to himself, although he was a stranger to most of them when he was appointed their captain. On which occasion he made 'a very civil speech,' and allowed them to choose their sergeants themselves." He had no time to settle his accounts, arrange his affairs, or confer with any one, but led his company at once to the rendezvous. These circumstances, perhaps, partially explain why so little seems to have been known of him in Boston, or to local writers.
Besides Captains Gardner and Davenport and the men whose names have been mentioned as killed or wounded, there were in the Narragansett fight the following from Salem Village and its farming neighborhood: John Dodge, William Dodge, William Raymond, Thomas Raymond, John Raymond, Joseph Herrick, Thomas Putnam, Jr., Thomas Abbey, Robert Leach, and Peter Prescott. There may have been others: no full roll is on record. The foregoing are gathered from partial returns miscellaneously collected in the files at the State House. The Dodges (sometimes the name is written Dodds, which appears, I think, to have been its original form), and the Raymonds (sometimes written Rayment), were, from the first, conspicuous in military affairs. A few words explanatory of their relation to the village may be here properly given.
On the 25th of January, 1635, the town of Salem voted to William Trask, John Woodbury, Roger Conant, Peter Palfrey, and John Balch, a tract of land, as follows: "Two hundred acres apiece together lying, being at the head of Bass River, one hundred and twenty-four poles in breadth, and so running northerly to the river by the great pond side, and so in breadth, making up the full quantity of a thousand acres." These men were original settlers, having been in the country for some time before Endicott's arrival. This circumstance gave to them and others the distinguishing title of "old planters." The grant of a thousand acres, comprising the five farms above mentioned, was always known as "the Old Planters' Farms." Thefirst proprietors of them, and their immediate successors, appear to have arranged and managed them in concert,—to have had homesteads near together between the head of Bass River and the neighborhood of the "horse bridge," where the meeting-house of the Second Congregational Society of Beverly, or of the "Precinct of Salem and Beverly" now stands. Their woodlands and pasture lands were further to the north and east. An inspection of themapwill give an idea of the general locality of the "Old Planters' Farms" in the aggregate—above the head of Bass River, extending northerly towards "the river," as the Ipswich River was called, and easterly to the "great pond," that is, Wenham Lake. Conant, Woodbury, and Balch occupied their lands at once. I have stated how Trask's portion of the grant went into the hands of Scruggs, and then of John Raymond. Palfrey is thought never to have occupied his portion. He sold it to William Dodge, the founder of the family of that name, known by way of eminence as "Farmer Dodge," whose wife was a daughter of Conant. A portion of the grant assigned to Conant was sold by one of his descendants to John Chipman, who, on the 28th of December, 1715, was ordained as the first minister of the "Second Beverly Society." He was the grandfather of Ward Chipman, Judge of the Supreme Court, and for some time President, of the Province of New Brunswick, and whose son of the same name was chief-justice of that court. He was also grandfather of the wife of the great merchant, William Gray,whose family has contributed such invaluable service to the literature, legislation, judicial learning, and general welfare of the country. The Rev. Mr. Chipman was the ancestor of many other distinguished persons. The house in which he lived is still standing, near the site of the church in which he preached. It is occupied by his descendants, bearing his name, and, although much time-worn, has the marks of having been a structure of a very superior order for that day. The venerable mansion stands back from the road, on a smooth and beautiful lawn, bordered by a solid stone wall of even lines and surfaces. In these respects it well compares with any country residence upon which taste, skill, and wealth have, in more recent times, been bestowed.
The dividing line between Beverly and Salem Village, as seen on themap, finally agreed upon in 1703, ran through the "Old Planters' Farms," particularly the portions belonging to the Dodges, Raymonds, and Woodbury. It went through "Captain John Dodge's dwelling-house, six foot to the eastward of his brick chimney as it now stands." At the time of the witchcraft delusion, the Raymonds and Dodges mostly belonged to the Salem Village parish and church. They continued on the rate-list, and connected with the proceedings entered on the record-books, until the meeting-house at the "horse bridge" was opened for worship, in 1715, when they transferred their relations to the "Precinct of Salem and Beverly."
When Sir William Phipps got up his expeditionagainst Quebec, in 1690, William Raymond raised a company from the neighborhood; and so deep was the impression made upon the public mind by his ability and courage, and so long did it remain in vivid remembrance, that, in 1735, the General Court granted a township of land, six miles square, "to Captain William Raymond, and the officers and soldiers" under his command, and "to their heirs," for their distinguished services in the "Canada Expedition." The grant was laid out on the Merrimack, but, being found within the bounds of New Hampshire, a tract of equivalent value was substituted for it on the Saco River. Among the men who served in this expedition was Eleazer, a son of Captain John Putnam, who afterwards, for many years, was one of the deacons of the Salem Village Church.
The short, rapid, sharp, and sanguinary campaign against the Narragansetts seems to have tried to the utmost, not only the courage and spirit of the men, but the powers of human endurance. The constitutions of many were permanently impaired. As much fatigue and suffering were crowded into that short month as the physical forces of strong men could bear. We find such entries as this in the town-books:—"Salem, 1683. Samuel Beadle, who lost his health in the Narragansett Expedition, is allowed to take the place of Mr. Stephens as an innkeeper." A petition, dated in 1685, is among the papers in the State House, signed by men from Lynn, the Village, Beverly, Reading, and Hingham, praying for a grant of land, fortheir services and sufferings in that expedition. The petition was granted. The following extract from it tells the story: "We think we have reason to fear our days may be much shortened by our hard service in the war, from the pains and aches of our bodies, that we feel in our bones and sinews, and lameness thereby taking hold of us much, especially in the spring and fall."
While there is "reason to fear" that the days of many were shortened, there were some so tough as to survive the strain, and bid defiance to aches and pains, and almost to time itself. In a list of fourteen who went from Beverly, six, including Thomas Raymond and Lott, a descendant of Roger Conant, were alive in 1735!
The grants of land made to these gallant men and their heirs amounted in all, and ultimately, to seven distinct tracts, called "Narragansett Townships." They were made in fulfilment of an express public promise to that effect. It is stated in an official document, that "proclamation was made to them, when mustered on Dedham Plain" on the 9th of December, just as they took up their march, "that, if they played the man, took the fort, and drove the enemy out of the Narragansett country, which was their great seat, they should have a gratuity in land, besides their wages." The same document, which is in the form of a message from the House of Representatives to the Council of the Province of Massachusetts, dated Jan. 10, 1732, goes on to say, "And as the condition has been performed, certainly the promise, in all equity and justice,ought to be fulfilled. And if we consider the difficulties these brave men went through in storming the fort in the depth of winter, and the pinching wants they afterwards underwent in pursuing the Indians that escaped, through a hideous wilderness, known throughout New England to this day by the name of thehungry march; and if we further consider, that, until this brave though small army thus played the man, the whole country was filled with distress and fear, and we trembled in this capital, Boston itself; and that to the goodness of God to this army we owe our fathers' and our own safety and estates,"—therefore they urge the full discharge of the obligations of public justice and gratitude. They did not urge in vain. The grants were made on a scale, that finally was liberal and honorable to the government.
I have dwelt at this great length on the Narragansett campaign and fight, partly because the details have not been kept as familiar to the memory of the people as they deserve, but chiefly because they demonstrate the military genius of the community with whose character our subject requires us to be fully acquainted. The enthusiasm of the troops, when Winslow gave the order for the assault, was so great, that they rushed over the swamp with an eagerness that could not be restrained, struggling as in a race to see who could first reach the log that led into the fiery mouth of the fort. A Salem villager, John Raymond, was the winner. He passed through, survived the ordeal, and came unharmed out of the terrible fight.He was twenty-seven years of age. He signed his name to a petition to the General Court, in 1685, as having gone in the expedition from Salem Village, and as then living there. Some years afterwards, he removed to Middleborough, joined the church in that place in 1722, and died in 1725. The fact that his last years were spent there has led to the supposition that he went from Middleborough to the Narragansett fight; but no men were drafted into that army from Middleborough. It was not a town at the time, but was organized some years afterwards. It had no inhabitants then. Philip had destroyed what few houses had been there, and slaughtered or dispersed their occupants.
Thus far our attention has been directed to that portion of the population of Salem Village drawn there by the original policy of the company in London to attract persons of superior social position, wealth, and education to take up tracts of land, and lead the way into the interior. It operated to give a high character to the early agriculture of the country, and facilitate the settling of the lands. Without taking into view the means they had to make the necessary outlays in constructing bridges and roads, and introducing costly implements of husbandry and tasteful improvements, but looking solely at the social, intellectual, and moral influence they exerted, it must be acknowledged that the benefit derived from them was incalculable. They gave a powerful impulse to the farming interest, and introduced a high tone to thespirit of the community. They were early on the ground, and remained more or less through the period of the first generation. Their impress was long seen in the manners and character of the people. There was surely a goodly proportion of such men among the first settlers of this neighborhood.
I come now to another class drawn along with and after the preceding,—the permanent, substantial yeomanry with no capital but their sturdy industry, doing hard work with their strong arms, and striking the roots of the settlement down deep into the soil by mixing their own labor with it. A glance at themapwill be useful, at this point, showing the general direction by which the farming population advanced to the interior. All between the North and Cow House Rivers was, as now, called North Fields, and is still for the most part a farming territory. All north of Cow House River, westwardly to Reading and eastwardly to the sea, was originally known as the "Farms" or "Salem Farms." When the First Beverly Parish was set off in 1667, it took from the "Farms" all east of Bass River. As Topsfield and other townships were established, they were more or less encroached upon. The "Farmers" as they were called, although unorganized, regarded themselves as one community, having a common interest. The tide of settlement flowed up the rivers and brooks, sought out the meadows, and was drawn into the valleys among the hills.
John Porter, called "Farmer Porter," came withhis sons from Hingham, and bought up lands to the north of Duck or Crane River. His family before long held among them more land, it is probable, than any other. He served many years as deputy in the General Court, first from Hingham and then from Salem. He is spoken of in the colonial records of Massachusetts as "of good repute for piety, integrity, and estate." The Barneys, Leaches, and others went eastwardly towards Bass River. The Putnams followed up Beaver Brook to Beaver Dam, and spread out towards the north and west; while Richard Hutchinson turned southerly to the interval between Whipple and Hathorne Hills, bought the Stileman grant, and cleared the beautiful meadows where the old village meeting-house afterwards stood. He was a vigorous and intelligent agriculturist, and a man of character. He died in 1681, at eighty years of age, leaving a large and well-improved estate. His will has this item: I give "five acres of land to Black Peter, my servant." He had given fine farms to his children severally, many years before his death. His second wife, who survived him, had no children. He had come by her into possession of a valuable addition to his estate. After distributing his property, and providing legacies for children and grandchildren, his will left it to the option of his widow to spend the residue of her days either in the family of his son Joseph, or elsewhere; if she should prefer to live elsewhere, then she should receive back, in her own right, all the property she had originally owned; if she continuedto live to her death in Joseph's family, then her property was to go to him and his heirs. This, I think, shows that he was as sagacious as he was just.
Richard Ingersoll came from Bedfordshire in England in 1629, bringing letters of recommendation from Matthew Cradock to Governor Endicott. After living awhile in town, a tract of land of eighty acres was granted to him, on the east side of Wooleston River, opposite the site of Danversport, at a place called, after him, Ingersoll's Point. He there proceeded to clear and break ground, plant corn, fence in his land, and make other improvements. He also carried on a fishery. Subsequently he leased the Townsend Bishop farm, where he lived several years. He died in 1644. Not long before his death, he purchased, jointly with his son-in-law Haynes, the Weston grant. His half of it he bequeathed to his son Nathaniel. He was evidently a man of real dignity and worth, enjoying the friendship of the best men of his day. Governor Endicott and Townsend Bishop were with him in his last sickness, and witnesses to his will. His widow married John Knight of Newbury. In a legal instrument filed among the papers connected with a case of land title, dated twenty-seven years after her first husband's death, she expresses in very striking language the tender affection and respect with which she still cherished his memory.
William Haynes married Sarah, daughter of Richard Ingersoll, and occupied his half of the Weston grant. In company with his brother, Richard Haynes, hehad before bought of Townsend Bishop five hundred and forty acres, covering a considerable part of the northern end of the village territory. They sold one-third part of it to Abraham Page. Page sold to Simon Bradstreet, and John Porter bought all the three parts from the Hayneses and Bradstreet. It long constituted a portion of the great landed property of the Porter family. These facts show that William Haynes was a person of means; and the manner in which he is uniformly spoken of proves that he was regarded with singular respect and esteem. He died about 1650, and his son Thomas became subsequently a leading man in the village.
There has been uncertainty where William Haynes came from, or to what family of the name he belonged. Among the papers of the Ingersoll family, it has recently been found that he is mentioned as "brother to Lieutenant-Governor Haynes." There seems to be no other person to whom this language can refer than John Haynes, who, after being Governor of Massachusetts, removed to Connecticut where he was governor and deputy-governor, in alternate years, to the day of his death. John Haynes, as Winthrop informs us, was a gentleman of "great estate." His property in England is stated to have yielded a thousand pounds per annum. Dr. Palfrey says he was "a man of family as well as fortune; and the dignified and courteous manners, which testified to the care bestowed on his early nurture, won popularity by their graciousness, at the same time that they diffused a refininginfluence by their example." If William of the village was brother to John of Connecticut, the fact that he and his brother Richard could make such large purchases of lands, and the remarkable respect manifested towards him, are well accounted for. The Ingersoll family traditions and entries would seem to be the highest authority on such a point.
Job Swinnerton was a brother of John who for many years was the principal physician in the town of Salem. He had several grants of land, and was a worthy, peaceable, unobtrusive citizen. He seems to have kept out of the heat of the various contentions that occurred in the village; and, although his influence was sometimes decisively put forth, he evidently did nothing to aggravate them. He died April 11, 1689, over eighty-eight years of age. He had a large family, and his descendants continue the name in the village to this day. Daniel Rea came originally to Plymouth, and in 1630 bought a dwelling-house, garden, and "all the privileges thereunto belonging," in that town. In 1632 he removed to Salem, and at once became a leading man in the management of town affairs. He had a grant of one hundred and sixty acres, which he occupied and cultivated till his death in 1662. He had but two children: one, the wife of Captain Lothrop; the other, Joshua Rea, became the founder of a large family who acted conspicuously in the affairs of the village for several generations. Jacob Barney was an original grantee, and for several years a deputy. His son ofthe same name became a large landholder, and, on the 5th of April, 1692, at the very moment when the witchcraft delusion was at its height, gave two acres conveniently situated for the erection of a schoolhouse. He conveyed it to inhabitants of the neighborhood to be used for that purpose, mentioning them severally by name. I give the list, as it shows who were the principal people thereabouts at the time: "Mr. Israel Porter; Sergeant John Leach; Cornet Nathaniel Howard, Sr.; Corporal Joseph Herrick, Sr.; Benjamin Porter; Joshua Rea, Sr.; Thomas Raymond, Sr.; Edward Bishop,secundus; John Trask, Jr.; John Creesy; Joshua Rea, Jr.; John Rea; John Flint, Sr." Lawrence Leach received a grant of one hundred acres; and others of the same name and family had similar evidence that they were regarded as valuable accessions to the population. William Dodge and Richard Raymond had grants of sixty acres each; Humphrey and William Woodbury had forty each. The families of Leach, Raymond, Dodge, and Woodbury, still remain in the community of which their ancestors were the founders. John Sibley had a grant of fifty acres. Robert Goodell was a grantee, and became a large landholder.
The descendants of the two last-named persons are very numerous, and have maintained the respectability of their family names. They are each, at this day, represented by gentlemen whose enthusiastic interest in our antiquities is proved by their invaluable labors and acquisitions in the interesting departments of genealogy and local history,—John L. Sibley, Librarian of Harvard University; and Abner C. Goodell, Register of Probate for the County of Essex.