Essex County, Massachusetts - Chapter 32: Danvers, 1888 (part 1 of 2)

By Alden P. White

In that part of the town which, a few years ago, belonged to Beverly, the most conspicuous feature of the landscape is a long, high hill, known as Folly Hill. On its summit once stood the lordly mansion of a colonial grandee. Thecellar is still distinctly marked, and portions of the building are still in use as residences a mile or two removed from the original exalted situation. This building experiment, never since repeate<l, was known as "Browne's Folly;" hence the name of the hill. From its top the view includes very much of the original limits of Old Salem. Far beyond the islands of the harbor the ocean fills a wide space of the eastern horizon, while close in the western foreground lie the farms and villages of Danvers.

Many years ago three boys were together on Folly Hill. One of them is living still ; his name must be often mentioned in any history of his native town, and his portrait is presented by the engraver at the close of this sketch. The second was one who reached such an eminence in the science of botany that his name will be found conspicuous in that chapter of this book which treats of the natural hi.story of the county. The third, not a Danvers but a Salem boy, became known wherever English is read, for he wrote the "Scarlet Letter;" he it was, indeed, who, writing of this hill long after, described its outline as a whale's back rising from the calm sea, and in one of those stories into which his wonderful pen wove much of the history of our Puritan forefathers, he told how John Endicott cut out the red cross from the baner of England.

Not long afterwards there was a military muster at Salem. Every able-bodied man in the town and neighborhood was there. All were well armed with steel caps upon their heads, plates of iron upon their breasts and at their backs, and gorgets of steel around their necks.

Endicott was the cajitain of the company. While the soldiers were expecting his orders to begin their exercise, they saw him take the banner in one hand, holding his drawn sword in the other.

"And now, fellow soldiers, you see this old banner of England. Some of you, I doubt not, may think it treason for a man to lay violent hands upon it. But whether or no it be treason to man, I have good iissurance in my conscience, that it is no treason to God. Wherefore, I have resolved that we will rather be God's soldiers than soldiers of the Pope of Rome, and in that mind I now cut the Papal cross out of this banner."

And so he did. And thus in a province belonging to the crown of England, a captain was found bold enough to deface the king's banner with his sword.

Governor John Endicott was the pioneer of Danvers. As he sailed from Cape Ann by the rocky hills of the north shore and brought the "Abigail" to anchor off the few cabins of the " old planters," near Collin's Cove, doubtless his eyes followed the course of the river far inland, where, in the midst of the primeval forest, he was in a few years to hew out a home and found a town.

Endicott landed at Salem in September, 1628. Nearly four years later the company, who by their charter, claimed absolute disposal of all lands therein conveyed, made him a grant in these words :

"1632, July 3. There is a necke of land lyeing aboute 3 myles from Salem, cont. about 300 ac. of land graunted to Capt. Jo : Endicott to enioyto him and his heires forever called in the Indean tonge Wah quamesehcok, in English Birchwood, bounded on the south side with a ryvere call in the Indean tonge Soewampenessett, comonly called the Cowe howse ryver, bounded on the North side with a ryver called in the Indean tonge Conamabsquooncant, comonly called the Ducke ryver, bounded on the East with a ryver leadeing opp to the 2 former ryvers, which is called in the Indean tonge Orkhussunt, otherwise kuowen by the name of Wooleston ryver, bounded on the West with the maine land."

Very soon the Governor entered with characteristic energy upon the work of clearing his grant. He came up in his shallop bringing men well equipped with tools, of which the ax was all important. Within a year seven thousand palisades were cut, and ground was broken for Indian corn. Very early the grant took the name of the " Orchard Farm," and the extent to which the Governor carried the raising of fruit trees may be judged from the fact that some fifteen years after he began his attack on the wilderness he gave five hundred of them to Captain Trask for two hundred and fifty acres of land. For some years the only neighbors were wolves and Indians, and until his men opened roads there was no thoroughfare to town except by water. Just where the Governor is supposed to have made his original lauding a high railroad bridge spans the river, and on the slope be- 27 i tween the river and the site of the homestead there may be seen from the car windows the famous Endicott pear tree. Just exactly how it came there, whether from the seed or by transplanting, is not known, but tradition clings with the firmest grip to the assertion that the Governor's own hands in some way had to do with this very living tree, which now for two hundred and fifty years has each spring put on the verdure of fresh youth. The Orchard Farm was a sort of training school to which presently the sons of well to do settlers were glad to come to learn the Governor's methods of agriculture which they later applied to their own farms. The little army of defence within the " palisadoes " received a supply of equipments on the 27th of the fourth month, 163G.

"This day was brought into town and carried up to Mr. Endicott's these corslets following, viz. : eighteen back peices, eighteen belly peices, eighteen peices of tassys, eighteen head peices of three sorts and but seventeen Gorgets. Itim sixteen Pikes & nineteen swords."

On the 27th of the eleventh month, 1636, John Woodbury, Captain Trask and John Balch were directed to " lay out 200 acres for Mr. Endicott next adjoining the land which was formerly granted him.'' This was a town grant - the simple but all important act of March 3, 1635, giving jurisdiction to towns over their own lands having then been passed - and was called " The Governor's Plain." It is that which lies at the foot of Hog Hill, - its more deserving and euphonious name. Mount Pleasant, - and includes Felton's Corner, the Collins House property and the adjacent lands.

The river which makes up from the ocean to Danversport there divides into three branches, much as one may spread the first three fingers of the hand. These rivers, beginning with the lowest, are known as Water's, Crane and Porter's. The Orchard Farm comprised the peninsula or neck between Water's and Crane; that between Crane and Porter's, upon which the principal village of Danversport is, was granted contemporaneously with the Orchard Farm, to the Rev. Samuel Skelton, a minister of Salem, in these words :

" There is another necke of land lyeing about 3 myles from Salem cont. aboute 2U0ac. graunted to Mr. Sam" Skelton to enioy to him and his heires for ever, called by the Indeaus Wahquack, bounded on the South opon a little ryver, called by the Indeans Conamabsquooncant, opon the North abutting on another ryver called by the Indeans Ponomenneuhcant, and on the East on the same ryver."

For a long time the land included in this grant was known as Skelton's Neck, but it will be seen that until the middle of the last century it remained utterly unsettled.

The land next adjoining the Orchard Farm and northerly of the Governor's Plain, was thus disposed of on the 11th of the eleventh month, 1635.

-' Granted by the freemen of Salem the day and year above written unto Mr. Townsend Byshop of the same his heirs and assigns forever one farm conteyning three hundred acres butting upon Mr. Endicott's Farme on the East and four hundred poles in length and six score poles in breadth, that is to sa}' six score and four at the west end and one hundred and sixteen at the East end, bounded by the water between the farme of the Executors of Mr. Skelton, an (?) him at the North east corner of his farme, and hath there allowed from Mr. Endicott's Farme Kight acres for an highway, is bounded again at the soutli west corner by the Brook, provided always tliat in case of sale, the Town of Salem to have the first proffer of it before any other.

This was the grant in the midst of which was the famous Eebecca Nourse house, which is stil! standing. The house was Bishop's mansion, built when he first occupied the land. He was one of the judges of the local court and was otherwise honored, but he fell from grace on the question of infant baptism, and after a few years he concluded to sell out, perhaps to seek a place where he could think as he pleased. He sold to Henry Chickering, who held it from 1641 to 1648, and then sold it to Governor Endicott who, with this purchase, owned about a thousand acres, running from the iron foundry to beyond the Collins Street station. The price was one hundred and sixty pounds. The Governor settled the Bishop fiirm upon his oldest son, John, when he was married, 1653 and gave him the deed in 1662. After the death of the Governor, in 1665, there was a controversy over the settlement of his estate regarding this property, but the deed held, and instead of passing to Zerubbabel, the surviving brother, when John died without issue in 1668, it was adjudged to have been John's in fee, and he, by will, left it to his widow. She mourned from February to August, then married a Boston minister. Rev. James Allen, and died in five years, leaving the farm to him. Five years later Mr. Allen sold out to Francis Nourse for four hundred pounds. This was April 29, 1678 ; the real estate had more than doubled since the Governor bought it. Very likely the price was governed somewhat by the terms of the sale, which gave the grantee twenty-one years in which to pay the whole purchase money. During this time a series of long and bitter disputes and law-suits arose as to the boundaries of the farm which, though resulting favorably to the Nourses and adversely to the owner of the Orchard Farm, doubtless had its influence in the disaster which befel the family when the aged mother was taken away to die on the gallows, a condemned witch. In a little grove just west of the historic house, where are other family graves, a substantial monument marks her restingplace. It was erected a few j'^ears ago as the result of a movement began in 1875, by which her descendants organized the "Nourse Monument Association." The inscription contains these lines written by Whittier :

Nourse farm, near the angle of Prince Street, at "Muddy Boo," were to be seen, until quite recently, certain depressions which were the remains of ancient wolf-pits.

Having mentioned the two sons of Governor Endicott, let here a word be said of his descendants. John left no children. Zerubbabel, who lived on the orchard farm, was a phy.sician. His second wife was a daughter of Governor Winthrop,and he had five sons, of whom John went to England and there followed his father's profession ; Zerubbabel and Benjamin lived in Topsfield ; Joseph went to New Jersey, and Samuel remained at home and married Hannah, a daughter of Nathaniel Felton, of Felton's Hill. The widow, Hannah Endicott, married Thorndike Proctor, who in 1764 bought the little old building which was the first meeting-house of Salem, moved it to his land near Boston Street, where it was used first as a tavern and later as part of a tannery until 1865, when it was restored and moved to the rear of Plummer Hall by the Essex Institute, and has since been visited by thousands. Samuel Endicott had four children, but he died when thirty-five years old, leaving his only son, Samuel, a boy of seven, the only representative of the name in the vicinity of the home of his fathers. But tills boy lived to re-establish the family, and died an old man and " captain " in 1766, and was buried in that Endicott family burying-ground, which is plainly in sight across the river from the Danversport railroad station. One of his sisters married Benjamin Porter, the other Martin Herrick. Captain Samuel had a dozen children ; of his sons John, the oldest, kept the orchard farm ; and of his wife, Elizabeth Jacobs, it is related that she was at the South Meeting-house when Colonel Timothy Pickering halted his men on the way to Bunker Hill, and cried out in patriotic zeal : " Why on earth don't you march ; don't you hear the guns at Charlestown ? " The farm passed next to another John, oldest son of John and Elizabeth, one of whose brothers, Robert, married a daughter of Minister Holt, of South Parish, and established an Endicott family in Beverly. The oldest son of this last John was Samuel, who married Elizabeth, daughter of William Putnam, of Sterling, Mass., in 1794, and was the father of the wives of Francis and George Peabody, of Salem, and of William Putnam Endicott, who was born in 1803, graduated at Harvard in 1822, and is still living in Salem, and the father of William C. Endicott, Secretary of War. The orchard farm is retained in this branch of the family, its present owner being William Endicott, of London, England, and js this summer (1887) undergoing extensive improvements at his hands.

Elias Endicott, son of Captain Samuel, was christened in 1729 ; married Eunice Andrews ; died in 1779, was buried in the Plains burying-ground, and left six children : Anna, married Israel Putnam, and became the mother of Hon. Elias Putnam; Elias Endicott, Jr., who was one of theeai'ly shoe manufac- turers, and lived where his grandson, Elias Eudicott Porter now lives ; Israel, who was a mason, lived in the brick house at the Port, which descended to his son, William ; Mary was the wife of Zerubbabel Porter, whose son Alfred was the father of Elias Endicott Porter; and Margaret ("Aunt Peggy") died unmarried.

The first and most distinguished name in our early annals has become, in the male line, utterly extinct. In the Danvers directory the name of Endicott appears but once, - " Lydia W., widow of William." The late William Endicott was one of the early antislavery men, was one of the last of the Danversport sea-captains, often served as moderator of townmeetings, and was otherwise prominent in local affairs ; his daughter, Mrs. H. G. Hyde, resides in Danvers, and two sons in Haverhill.

Ante-dating the Bishops' grant by a month was one of three hundred acres to Robert Cole. This covers the region back of Hog Hill, including Proctor's corner and extending a mile or more towards West Peabody. After a short time Cole sold to Emanuel Downing, a brother-in-law of Governor Winthrop, a lawyer, a man of such high repute and so desirable an acquisition to the colonists that before he arrived a grant of five hundred acres was given him by the town. This he sold to John Porter; it included the Bradstreet farm near the Topsfield line.

Downing's son George, who was one of the first graduates of Harvard, became Sir George Downing, a prominent figure in the history of the Old Country in Cromwell's time. The old Ipswich, road, the first higliway connecting Lynn and Boston with the northern settlements, was laid out through this land, and in 1648 one of his tenants was allowed to keep an " ordinary " to accommodate travelers. For a time the Downings let the farm, and in 1666 it was occupied by John Proctor, who subsequently bought a part of it. Proctor, who came from Ipswich, was a strong man in every sense, and he was one of tlie conspicuous victims of the witchcraft delusion. Many of his descendants have been prominent citizens of South Danvers, where the family is still well represented.

The land next east of Downing's, in the midst of which is the beautiful Rogers estate, was granted, three hundred acres, to Thomas Read, who, with others, went back to England to bear a hand in the coming revolution. In 1701 it was sold to Daniel Epps, the famous school-master, concerning whom it was in 1671 "Voated that the selectmen shall take care to provide a house for Mr. Epps to keep skoole in." The honor of his name was preserved through several generations by men distinguished in our local annals.

The long, high hill south of the Governor's plain was from the first the home of the Feltons. The old homestead at the end of the road which runs from the Ipswich road along the top of the hill was built more than two hundred years ago, and the Nathaniel Felton who now owns and occupies it comes near to being the seventh Nathaniel in direct line. A Jonathan in the third generation is the only break. Besides the inclosed burying-ground, where the Ipswich road makes its steep climb, in which old stones and new contain the names of Proctor and Felton, there are here and thei'e on the hillside traces of more ancient and unmarked graves.

The tract adjoining the Bishop-Nourse farm on the north, covering the village of Tapleyville and extending from Ash Street to a little beyond the meeting-house, at the Centre, was granted to Elias Stileman. The latter sold in 1648 to Richard Hutchinson, who came over in 1634, with his infant son, Joseph. Hutchinson was also one of the grantees of the large tract which included Whipple's Hill, named for the husband of his granddaughter, and in 1637 he was granted twenty acres on the meadow back of the meeting-house, on condition that he should " set up plowing." He died in 1681 at the full age of four score, " a vigorous and intelligent agriculturist and a man of character." It will be seen presently how the lower portion of his estate descended through his son-in-law in an unbroken line of Putnams - the Judge Putnam farm. The upper portion fell to Joseph Hutchinson, who was, like his father, a prominent and influential man, of sound sense and plain words. He it was who out of his homestead lands gave one acre for the first meeting-house and later contributed several more towards a home for the first preacher. The family name is still well represented in the neighborhood. The most distinguished name in the family history is that of Colonel Israel Hutchinson, ef Revolutionary fame, of whom a notice appears elsewhere. He was the son of Elisha, who died before 1730. Elisha was the son of Joseph, who outlived the son some twenty years ; Joseph was the son of that Joseph who was brought over from England in his infancy. A brother to Colonel Israel's father was Ebenezer ; Ebenezer's son was Jeremy, who married a daughter of Asa Putnam, and lived from 1738 to 1805 ; one of Jeremy's sous was Joseph, who was born in 1770, married Phebe Upton, of North Reading, and died in 1832, leaving two sons to become heads of families - Deacon Elijah Hutchinson and Benjamin Hutchinson, both now deceased. The home of Deacon Elijah was the house just west of Nathaniel IngersoU's training-field, formerly " the home of the widow Eunice Upton, inholder." Three fine residences just beyond are those of Deacon Elijah's sons, Warren, Alfred and Edward.

Next west of the Stileman-Hutchinson land was the grant of Francis Weston, which covered the land extending westerly from the church towards the turnpike. Weston was such a man as to be chosen one of the three Representatives of Salem in the first House of Deputies, but like Bishop he was too tolerant for the age, and was invited to leave, in 1638, and his wife was treated to an experience in the stocks.

Six years later it was sold by one John Pease to Richard Ingersoll and his son-in-law, Wm. Haynes. Ingersoll had come over in 1629, and was granted eighty acres at Rial Side. January 12, 1636-37, "Richard Inkersoll is to have Id. for every person he may carry over the North Ferry, during the town's pleasure." He was for a time lessee of the Bishop- Nourse farm, and shortly after this purchase of the Weston grant he died. He was another of the right sort of men, and his son, Nathaniel, was one of the brightest characters of our early history.

Nathaniel was but eleven years old when his father died. His mother married again, and soon the lad found a home Avith Governor Endicott, not that he was driven to this step, but probably only as other boys and young men were glad to be educated in the practical agricultural college at the Orchard Farm. "I went to live with Governor Endicott as his servant four years." He was nineteen when he went back to the land which his father had left him, and near by the present parsonage of the First Church, he built a house of more generous proportions than were common. Here, to the end of his three-score and ten, he was mine host of an open house, the resling-place of weary travelers, the meeting-place on all sorts of occasions of the villagers. Its ample public-room was at once town-house, church and military headquarters, and the whole-souled landlord was looked upon as the natural arbiter of neighborhood quarrels. He was a just man, whose guide of life was the golden rule, and the love and respect universally accorded him were but the natural tribute to his worth. There is nothing out of harmony with such a character in the following permit granted in 1673, though at present men of his stamp are not found keeping bar: "Nathaniel Ingersoll is allowed to sell bear and syder by the quart for the tyme whyle the farmers are a building of their meeting-house and on Lord's days afterwards." When his only child, a little girl, died, he and his wife took and brought up Benjamin, one of the sons of his neighbor Joseph Hutchinson, who was "an obedient son until he came of one and twenty years of age." Ingersoll was not rich, but he gave the young man a liberal marriage gift out of his comparatively small farm. This was but one of a series of gifts of land. When the church was organized, as will hereafter appear, Nathaniel Ingersoll and Edward Putnam were colleagues as first deacons. It will be seen that Deacon Putnam's farm was on the Middleton line two or three miles from the church, and in 1714 he had reached a time when a man sees old age approaching. Ingersoll desired his dear friend to pass his declining years in the comfortable proximity to the church which he had himself ever enjoyed. Therefore, " for the good affection " which he bore to him, he freely gave Deacon Putnam " a piece of land bounded northerly upon the land of Joseph Green (the minister) next to his orchard gate, westerly on the highway, and southerly and easterly on my land," and thither, it is thought. Deacon Putnam came to dwell. When pipes were laid for the water-works, an old well was dug into, thought to have been his. Long before this he had given four acres and a half to Rev. Samuel Parris. By his will he gave the church fifty shillings " for the more adorning the Lord's Table, to be laid out in some silver cup." He gave a life estate in the lands of which he died possessed to his wife, with remainder to his adopted son, except one piece, " a small parcel of land of about two acres, that lyeth between Mrs. Walcots and George Wyotts by the highway, which I give to the inhabitants of Salem Village, for a training place forever." Forever ! What better monument can a man leave to his memory than a reservation of land for the use of the public, forever. The pleasant common at Danvers Centre, bounded on one side by a street which bears the giver's name, is the old training-field of Nathaniel Ingersoll. These words are Mr. Upham's : " Within its enclosure the elements of the military art have been imparted to a greater number of persons distinguished in their day, and who have left an imperishable glory behind them as the defenders of their country, a brave yeomanry in arms, than on any other spot. From the slaughter of Bloody Brook, the storming of the Narragansett Fort and all the early Indian wars; from the Heights of Abraham, Lake George, Lexington, Bunker Hill, Braudywine, Pea Ridge, and a hundred other battle-fields, a lustre is reflected back upon this village parade-ground. It is associated with all the military traditions of the country, down to the late Rebellion."

About a mile northwest of the training-field is the high hill, upon which is situated the Danvers Lunatic Hospital, ten great buildings in one, whose roofs and pinnacles and central tower are seen for miles around, and form a landmark for fishermen far out in the harbor. This hill was in the midst of a grant to Captain William Hathorne, soldier, lawyer, judge, legislator, whose " many imployments for towne and countrie " were publicly recognized. A well-preserved old house in which Francis Dodge lived, when he sold the form to the State, stood just south of the main building. Two hundred years ago it was the home of Joshua Rea. The hill retains the name of Hathorne.

Thusthelineof original grantssweptinward from the Orchard Farm. Still to the westward three hundred acres near the crossing of the two turnpikes were owned as early as 1650, by Job Swinerton, whose brother was a physician in Salem town. Job Swinerton had formerly lived on the place now owned by Andrew Nichols, Jr.; he sold this to John Martin, and Martin to Dale. From the latter, who was the ancestor of Surgeon General Dale and of those of the name in Danvers, came the name "Dale's Hill." Swinerton died in 1689, nearly ninety years old. One of the old Swinerton homesteads stood where Daniel

P. Pope lives, and some parts of the original estate are still owned and occupied by Swinertons. The tract between the Swinerton grant and the Ipswich River, on both sides of the Andover turnpike, was granted in 1648 to Captain George Corwin, a rich merchant of Salem. William Cantlebury purchased three-quarters of this land. "Buxton's Lane" perpetuates the name of John Buxton, a son-in-law of Cantlebury, and a man whose name appears with Nathaniel Ingersoll's and a few othei's, on a bond which saved the Rev. George Burroughs from unjust imprisonment. Some live hundred acres south of Corwin's grant, and covering much of AVest Peabody, came, by numerous conveyances, to be owned by Robert Goodell, some of which is still owned by descendants of the same name.

The present residence of Rev. Willard Spaulding, in West Peabody, stands on the site of the first Pope homestead. The land about it was first granted in 1640, to another man of the cloth, the Rev. Edward Norris, pastor of the First Church of Salem. It was bought by Joseph Pope in 1664, and his homestead, which remained in the family until 1793, when it was sold to Nathaniel Ropes, of Salem, was standing thirty years ago.

Joseph Pope came over in the " Mai"y and John," in 1634. He and his wife Gertrude were both in sympathy with the Quakers, and were excommunicated. He died about 1667, leaving nine children. Three sons founded families, - Joseph, Benjamin and Samuel. Samuel married Exercise Smith, whose parents were persecuted Quakers in Governor Endicott's time. It is through Joseph that most of the Popes in this vicinity trace their ancestry. Joseph's wife, Abiah Folger, of Nantucket, was an aunt of Benjamin Franklin. They had four sons to grow up. Three of them, - Enos, "clothier;" Eleazer, "cordwainer ; " and Nathaniel, " blacksmith," went to Salem. In 1813 the third Enos, who followed the business which the first began, died at the age of ninetytwo, the oldest man in Salem. Joseph, oldest of the four sons of the second Joseph, was born in 1687, married Mehitable Putnam, and died in 1755. While he was in occupation of the homestead young Israel Putnam, afterwards major general, came and married his daughter Hannah. Israel Putnam went to Pomfret, Conn., and so did his wife's oldest brother, Joseph. The sons of another brother, Ebenezer, were of Salem, while Eleazer's descendants are found principally in Vermont. Another brother, Nathaniel, kept alive the family name at the village. He lived from about 1724 to 1800, married first, a daughter of Jasper Swinerton ; second, a daughter of Peter Clark, the minister. Among his children were Mehitable, wife of Caleb Oakes, and mother of the distinguished botanist, William Oakes ; Amos Pope, the father of Zephaniah ; and Elijah. Elijah died in 1846, eighty years old ; the last of his sons, Jasper, died while yet these notes are unfinished, June, 1887, having reached an age some five years greater than his father's. Jasper leaves no children living. The Popes now living here are the children and grandchildren of the late Nathaniel and of the late Elijah.

Going back to Skelton's Neck, the territory just north thereof, aptly called the Plain, or, more commonly, the Plains, was originally granted to Samuel Sharp, "the godly Mr. Sharp who was ruling elder of the church of Salem." It will later appear what became of this and other lands reaching toward the Topsfield line. East of the Topsfield road, one hundred and sixty acres, of which Augustus Fowler's farm is a part, was granted to Daniel Rea, who first came to Plymouth and then to Salem. He died in 1662, and his only son, Joshua, founded an influential and widely connected family, though the name has passed out of the voting lists. Daniel Rea, son of Joshua, was living in Mr. Fowler's house two hundred years ago. To the eastward of the Reas, the Birch Plain region, the Rev. Hugh Peters had a grant of two hundred acres, which, after his execution, was sold by Captain John Corwin's widow to "Henry Brown, Jr., of Salisbury, yeoman." Browns are still living on a part of the estate. Far to the east, in what is now North Beverly, the land including Cherry Hill was one of the first grants. It was given to William Alford in 1636, and the hill was long called after his name. He sold to Henry Herrick, a younger son of Sir William Herrick, of Beau Manor Park, and the good blood of the ancestors showed itself in the sterling character of many of the descendants. The land between Cherry Hill and the Burley Farm, originally granted to John Holgrave, was later occupied by two Reas, two Bishojis, a Watts and Captain Thomas Raymond. The latter was of a family of military renown; Colonel J. W. Raymond, now one of the County Commissioners, is a descendant. Three Raymonds were in the Narragansett fight, and one, John, was the first to enter the narrow pa.>-s to King Phillip's redoubt, which proved fatal to so many who went out from this vicinity, among others to Captain Joseph Gardner, son-in-law of Emanuel Downing, and to Charles Knight, Thomas Flint and Joseph Houlton, Jr., members of his company.

Covering the Burley Farm, east of Frostfish Brook, were some two hundred and fifty acres originally belonging to Charles Gott, Jeffrey Massey and others, a neighborhood for some time called " Gott's Corner." To the southward of the Ipswich road were the farms of the Barneys and Leaches, through which runs the road to Beverly town. Folly Hill was then Leach's Hill, and its length was bisected by the division line between the farms of the two families. Both names have passed away from the locality ; in the little burying-ground by the highway in which doubtless are nameless graves, one is marked with the name of Martha, wife of Richard Leach, who died in 1756,

F'rom the head of canoe navigation at Frostfish Brook, by the way, there began a well-defined Indian trail, leading, Mr. Nichols says, as far north as Canada. A glance at the county map shows that the location was well-chosen as a terminus of such a trail.

All of this region from Beverly to Reading was known in very early times as " Salem Farms," and the early settlers and their descendants were commonly called " the Farmers." The settlement which grew up along the brooks, which come together near Peabody Square, was at first called Brooksby, later as the Middle Precinct, and became the South Parish of Danvers. Since 1855 it has been a separate town, and an account of its early settlers and growth belongs to the history of Peabody, and will there be found.

Hints of the character of some of the Farmers have been given. As a whole they were a sturdy, intelligent set of men, with the energy and vigor requisite to convert the wilderness into pleasant homes, jealous of their right-5, too prone to lawsuits, fair types of New England yeomanry.

Presently, children who had been born upon the lands, intermarried, established themselves on farms, carved out of the ancestral acres, and took the places of the aged fathers. A feeling grew that they were separated, alike by distance and by manner of life, from the dwellers in the town. It was far to go to church over rough roads and in all weathers, and the church was the centre of all things. They wanted to be a parish by themselves and provide their own minister. In 1670 this desire was expressed in a petition to the town, and some two years later the town's consent was ratified by an act of the General Court. October 8, 1672, the parish known as Salem Village was established ; October 8, 1872, the first church of Danvers observed the two hundredth anniversary of that event.

"All farmers," so ran the vote of the town, "that now are or hereafter shall be willing to join together for providing a minister among themselves whose habitations are above Ipswich Highway, from the horse bridge to the wooden bridge at the hither end of Mr. Endicott's Plain, and from thence on a west line shall have liberty to have a minister by themselves and when they shall provide and pay him in a maintainance, that then they shall be discharged from their part of Salem minister's maintainance." The bounds of Salem Village, though a source of grievous dispute, especially between the farmers and " the Topsfield men," sub-tantially included all of the present town except the two necks of Danversport, a part of North Beverly, considerable of West Peabody and much of the town of Middleton.

This Middleton land was an original grant of seven hundred acres to Governor Richard Bellingham, made by the General Court in 1639. It was bought for two hundred and fifty pounds by two poor men, Bray

Wilkins and John Gingle, who paid down a ton of iron and one pound in money, in all twenty-five pounds, and gave a mortgage back for the balance. They paid off the debt, Wilkins and his sons bought up the Gingle interest, and, in 1702, Wilkins died at great age, a patriarchal land-owner, in the midst of the farms and homes of his descendants. Though beyond the six mile limit, these lands were by special act of the General Court, in 1661, made a part of Salem.

There were \vithin the village, twenty years after its establishment, some hundred and fifty houses. Among the farmers not already mentioned were Daniel Andrew, himself sometimes a school-master, and founder of a family in which a number have followed that calling ; the Flints, some of whom remain on the lands of their ancestors in West Peabody ; Joseph Houlton, the honored head of a fine family, most conspicuous among whom is Samuel Holten, whose name will often appear in these annals ; the Kettels, a name now extinct here ; the Needhams, whose farms were divided by the village line, are still represented in West Peabody by descendants of the family name ; Robert Prince, of whom the late Moses Prince was a descendant in the fifth generation, the latter a man who was eminently distinguished for the extent and accuracy of his knowledge of local history. The Prince farm contained about one hundred and fifty acres and the house which Robert occupied and probably built, is still standing on the estate of J. E. Spring. The widow of Robert married Alexander Osborne, and under that name she was one of the first three arrested for witchcraft, and was taken from this very house to Boston jail, where she died May 10, 1692.

Lying partly within the Village limits and partly in Topsfield, was the land of William Nichols, a large farm which he had bought about 1650, of Henry Bartholemew. "Nichols Brook " which flows through these lands perpetuates his name. He lived to be very old and from his only son, John, came an extensive family. One of the most prominent figures in our local history during the first half of this century was Dr. Andrew Nichols, a son of Andrew of the sixth generation, and were it not for the fact that a notice of his life from the pen of his son Andrew will be found accompanying the engraving at the close of this sketch, it would be fitting at this point to pay a tribute to his worth. Andrew Nichols, civil engineer, son of the doctor, whose home is not far south of the old Nichols farm and whose land includes a part of the Prince land, of which latter family he is a descendant through the marriage of John Nichols and Elizabeth Prince, has written a genealogy of the Nichols family and has collected a rich store of material for local history. Abel Nichols, a brother of the doctor, wa.s the father of the late Abel Nichols, artist, father of Mrs. William E. Putnam and Lewis A. Nichols, and brother of the late Mrs. E. G. Berry.

In the extreme southeastern corner of the town, pleasantly situated on the southern bank of the river below the confluence of its three branches, is a very old and interesting house. It has always remained in the Jacobs family, whose ancestor, George Jacobs, was another of the victims of the witchcraft delusion, and, according to tradition, was hung on an oak tree on his own land and there also buried. It was his great-granddaughter, Elizabeth Jacobs, who married John Endicott and spoke out loud to Colonel Pickering as before related. She lived to be over ninety and died in 1809. Her ancestor had received from Salem a grant of a few acres and six " cow leases," on Rial Side, and it is recorded that the old lady used to tell how, before her marriage, she used to paddle a canoe across the river to milk the cows on this very land, and when the tide was out she would go across the flats on stepping-stones and wade the channel. It must be explained that the channel was much less deep then than now, and, although years ago it was written that " the stones are to be seen to this day," they are out of sight now beneath the mud.

One of the sons-in-law of Francis Nourse was Thomas Preston, the ancestor of a family which has always had representatives prominent in local affairs. Much more space deserves to be here given them than can be afforded. The present Massey estate was long in the Preston family. There, a hundred years ago, lived Levi Preston, who married Mehitable Nichols, and was the father of eleven children. One of these, Levi, built the present meeting-house of the First Church ; Mehitable married Ebenezer Berry, inn-keeper ; Polly married Nathaniel Felton ; Sukey and Eliza, the brothers Asa and Nathan Tapley ; Daniel was the father of Major D. J. Preston, deputy sheriff' and tax collector, recently deceased ; Abel, Hiram, William, John and Samuel - not in the order of their birth - all of these went out from the house on the hill. John went not far. He married Clarissa, the only daughter of Joseph Putnam, the next neighbor, and building an addition to her father's place, they lived there. John Preston died May 28, 1876, in his eighty-sixth year. He was the oldest Free-Mason in town ; was many years a selectman; representative to the General Court; for many years chorister at the First Church in the days of 'cello and double-bass ; Avas one of the early shoe manufacturers, and, after he gave up that business, a good farmer. His widow still survives, and her great age is mentioned in connection with the Putnams. His son, Charles P. Preston, resides on the site of the old house in which his father and grandfather, it might be carried farther, lived. According to the Directory of 1887, but three men in Danvers to-day bear this family name, two of whom are C. P. Preston, just mentioned, and his son.

Deacon Samuel Preston, brother of John, was one of the most distinctive figures, especially in the history of the First Church, of the past half-ceutury. In his later years, as he came regularly to the ancient place of worship, there was coupled with a venerable form and appearance a youthful, elastic step. " There was no good service which he was not prompt, eager and faithful to render. He was of robust mind, of pure tastes, and he had a firm grasp of spiritual and eternal things." He read much and the best books, and it is not strange that in his family there is to be found a highly developed taste for literature. Miss Harriet W. Preston, the well-known authoress and magazine contributor, is his daughter. Something more of him in connection with the shoe businsss.

Present space permits only this brief and incomplete mention of the first settlers. Until 1752, when the district of Danvers was incorporated, the history of the parish of Salem Village is practically the history of that part of the town which still retains the name of Danvers, and its outline will be found in the chapter of church history. In the mean time some families thus far purposely omitted in the mention of the early settlers will here be somewhat more fully noticed.

The Putkams. - One of the most beautiful estates in Danvers is that known as Oak Knoll, which owes much of its attractiveneifs to the taste of its former owner, William A. Lander, Esq., of Salem. It is in the midst of pleasant surroundings, a mile's drive from the Plains, and passers-by peer through the trees to the unostentatious but comfortable mansion which will ever be memorable as the home of one who now for a number of years has been a member of the family of its present owners - the poet Whittier. But this very estate is, in itself, of deeper historical interest. It is the home of the first Putnam, the ancestor of that family which not only is to-day the largest and most distinctive of Danvers, but has its representatives far and wide, and has illuminated our national history with the names of many of its illustrious individuals.

John Putnam, this progenitor, came from Buckinghamshire, England, when well along in years. The land upon which he settled lay just north of Elder Sharpe's grant. Thisi after, resting on Skel ton's Neck, and covering the v.diole of the present central village of the Plains, ran northwesterly to a point at the little pond at Beaver Dam. Putnam's land, including his own grant of a hundred acres, made in 1641, and previous grants to Ralph Fogg, Thomas Lathrop and Ann Scarlett spread out easterly from this point, so as to cover nearly the whole territory west of the Topsfield road from Lindall Hill to beyond the Putnamville school-house.

John Putnam had three sons, all born in the old country. Thomas, the oldest, was a young man of twenty-six at the time of his father's grant in Salem farms; he seems to have first struck out for himself in Lynn, where his character and good education qualified him to act as magistrate, and where he married Ann Holyoke, sister to the grandfather of President Holyoke of Harvard College. Nathaniel who was just then arriving at his majority, and John, a lad of fifteen, probably came with their father to the new home at Beaver Dam. The father was one of the most energetic and successful of the pioneers, and became a very large land-owner. A few months before he died he bought, in company with John Hathorne, Richard Hutchinson and Daniel Rea, two very large tracts, the one including Hathorne's Hill and the surrounding territory ; the other Davenport's, afterwards Putnam's Hill, and the surrounding territory. It Avould seem as though the lion's share of these lands fell to the Putnams.

Thomas, who had moved from Lynn to Salem town and married, some four years after his father's death, for his second wife, the rich widow of Nathaniel Veren, receiving as his double inheritance a portion of the original grant to Captain William Hathorne, built at tne foot of the easterly slope of the hill which perpetuates the grantees' name, a house which, with subsequent additions, still remains, not only in perfect preservation, but in the hands and occupation of Putnams, who are lineal descendants of the builder, and who cherish, with fond interest, the history and traditions of their family. This house is about a mile due west from Oak Knoll, and, according to the location of modern roads, is at the intersection of the highway to Middleton and the Newburyport turnpike, and is directly opposite a fine avenue, which at this point begins its winding climb of Hathorne's Hill to the newjunatic hospital.

Nathaniel, the other son of the pioneer, married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Hutchinson, the man who bought the original grant covering the whole region of Tapleyville, from Walnut Grove Cemetery to the site of the first village church. It was ou a part of this tract which came to him by this marriage that Nathaniel built his home. Though not itself standing, another house of respectable age stands on or near its site. Mr. Nichols thinks the original house stood near the town gravel-pit, on Hobart Street. Notwithstanding the laying out of streets and house-lots in the most thickly settled portion of the town, including the grounds of the town-house, the Peabody Institute and the cemetery, some of the original farm remains about the house which, long the home of Judge Samuel Putnam, a lineal descendant of Nathaniel, has of late years been owned by other Putnams collateral to the Judge, but running back to the same ancestor. This Putnam estate, also very familiar, is on the main thoroughfare from the Plains to Tapleyville, something over a mile in a straight line, nearly south of Oak Knoll. It is on the banks of the stream which drains the meadows of Beaver Dam, and a short distance below the house the stream is met by another which drains the- meadows far to the west and south. This confluence takes place in a natural basin easily and effectively dammed for waterpower, and from very ancient times these Putnams have utilized this power for milling, just where Otis F. Putnam is to-day sawing, grinding and storing ice at the old stand.

From these three homes, then, - of Thomas, near Hathorne's hill ; of Nathaniel, near the mill-pond ; of John, at Oak Knoll, - came the three great families of Putnams.

a. The family of Thomas. - Thomas had three sons who became heads of families, - Sergeant Thomas, Deacon Edward and Joseph. The two former pushed up a mile toward Middleton, and established themselves close together on what is now Dayton Street, near the railroad station at Howe's crossing. Joseph remained on the home place.

No male descendants of Sergeant Thomas are left here. A short time ago William Putnam, an old man, died in his ninetieth year, in the old farm-house on the lower hill, directly in front of the hospital. He was the son of Deacon Eben Putnam, and grandson with three " greats " of Deacon Edward ; and of the two living sons of this old man, one, James Warren, keeps the place, and, rare in these days, has a fine family of eight children, six of whom are boys, to keep the good deacon's name alive at home. The brother of William, Deacon Ebenezer, was the father of Rev. Hiram B. Putnam, now at Derby, N. H., and of Harriet Putnam. One of Deacon Edward's sons, Elisha, moved away to Sutton, Mass., and thus Danvers claims some of the honor which belongs to the name of General Rufus Putnam, son of Elisha, and a native of that town.

No history of this town will be complete without a full account of the part which Danvers took in the settlement of the Northwest Territory. The earliest wagon-train, under command of Captain Hatfield White, a Danvers man, started on its long journey from here. Invitations have just been received by descendants of these pioneers to join in the great centennial celebration, to take place at Marietta in 1888.

General Rufus Putnam, Washington's friend, a famous engineer of the Revolution, presided at the convention in Boston, March 1, 178G, at which the Ohio Company was formed, and April 7, 1788, belaid out at Marietta the first permanent settlement in Ohio. Major Ezra Putnam, his cousin, also a grandson of Deacon Edward, was another of the Ohio pioneers. Nearer home, another descendant of Deacon Edward, Oliver Putnam, honored the familyname by establishing at Newburyport the Putnam Free School. Another descendant was the late lamented Professor John N. Putnam, of Dartmouth College.

Both the second and third generations, and, indeed, at least one of the fourth generation of Putnams, played prominent parts, and some of them very unfortunate ones, in the terrible witchcraft tragedy which spread over this neighborhood. Nearly all of them were deluded. Howotherwise, whenoneof the worst afflicted of the "afflicted children" was the daughter of Sergeant Thomas Putnam, recorder of the parish, and oldest son of the richest man in the village? It struck the proud and powerful family to the centre, and they were not so superior to the unreason of the age as to see that spanking was much more needed than hanging. The sad, dark days of 1692 ! None who have grasped from the wonderful monograph of Mr. Upham anything of their reality will speak in jest of Salem witches. They were taken, most of them, from Danvers homes, homes still standing in our midst, and, condemned by blind terror in the name of Law, after mockeries of trial their necks were broken on the gibbet. The Putnams had a hand in this business, save one. Against the black background there stands one grand stirring picture. It is of a young man twenty-two years of age standing at his farm-house door, with loaded firelock and saddled horse, ready to resist arrest or flee from overpowering force. It is Joseph Putnam, youngest of the sous of the first Thomas, who, in the face of brothers and uncles, from the first denounced the proceedings through and through. Such a course was almost sure death, and for six months gun and horse had been ready day and night. He had been married but a year to a young bride of less than seventeen, a granddaughter both of old John Porter and Major William Hathorne, and she was a worthy wife of a noble husband. It was this son who remained on his father's place, the one opposite the entrance to the hospital.

They had three sons, this young couple, Joseph and Elizabeth, whose names were William, David and Israel. There is a little chamber in the oldest pai't of the old house, which, through the kindness of the occupants, is often visite 1 with great interest. Perhaps here all three of these boys were born, but, alas for the heroes of peace, it is the heroes of war whom men most idolize, and as one enters beneath the oaken beams of the low ceiling, and sees in the quiet room the ancient furniture, the fire-place and other relics of long gone years, the mind strives only to grasp the strange reality that in this very spot that favorite hero of the Revolution, to whom tales of bravery and courage seem as commonly attributed as to the demi-gods of old, " Old Put," Major General Israel Putnam, Washington's "uncut diamond," actually kicked and cried just like any other baby. The wolf's den, the rapid ride from the plow to the Lexington alarm, the tender of the first commission at Boston from the hands of Washington, the dashing plunge at Horseneck, the long service of one of the most trusted commanders, these and all other events of his distinguished life, had a sort of potential existence in this same little room.

He was a little more than twenty-one years old when the event happened to which this item found in an old memorandum book refers: "July ye 19

1739 Israel Putnam and Hannah Pope were married together." Immediately the young couple struck out, took a farm at Pomfret, Conn., and returned thither no more. The descendants of the general are numerous in the State of his adoption, in New York, and especially so, through his son, Colonel Israel, an officer with his father in the Revolution, about Marietta, O. ; and some also in Kentucky and other Southern States.

William, the oldest brother of the general, had no sons. David, the next son, remained on the home place. It was a mistake to insinuate that Israel monopolized the military spirit of the family. David, so Mr. Upham says, was a celebrated cavalry officer, but, being much older than Israel, flourished in the period anterior to the Revolution. Colonel Timothy Pickering used to mention as one of the recollections of his boyhood, that David Putnam " rode the best horse in the province."

To follow briefly down the old house which may now understandingly be identified by the name it commonly bears, the " Old Put " house, David had these sons, - William, Joseph, Israel and Jesse. Joseph was "Deacon Joseph" of the Village Church, for whom David built that other Putnam house a short distance from his own, known as the " Colonel Jesse house." Of Colonel Jesse and his children, a few words farther on.

William, eldest son of David, moved to Sterling, Mass. A daughter of his became the wife of Captain Samuel Endicott, of Salem, and their son, William P. Endicott, who married Miss Crowningshield, is the father of Hon. William Crowningshield Endicott, President Cleveland's Secretary of War. Another descendant of William Putnam, of Sterling, was the Rev. George Putnam, D.D., long and well known as pastor of the First Church of Roxbury.

Jesse, the youngest son of David, was a graduate of Harvard, and a well known merchant of Boston, whose earlier residence was on Summer Street, near Trinity Church. His daughter Catherine was that lady of fine culture and patriotic spirit who, in her eighty-fifth year, presented a silk banner to the Putnam Guards of Danvers as they went out to war.

Israel, the third son of David, the fourth in line of ownership, remained on the old place, and from him it descended to the only one of his three sons who married, - Daniel. Daniel married the daughter of another Putnam, Stephen, whom we shall meet in the family branch of Nathaniel, and of his twelve children, two. Miss Susan and her brother Ansel W., are the present occupants of the historic house. The youngest daughter Julia, widow of Hon. John D. Philbrick, of whom something is written in connection with our schools, resides nearly opposite. Allen, the oldest, and Benjamin Wadsworth, the youngest son, reside in Boston. Daniel and Ahira manufactured shoes in a shop still standing within the yard of the old house; the widow and a granddaughter of

Daniel, who reside here, are his only living representatives; Aliira's son, Granville B., is a well known teacher in Boston, and the name of his other s^n. Major Wallace A. Putnam, stands first on the monument erected to the Danvers men, who lost their lives in the late war. Deacon William R. Putnam tilled his ancestral acres some thirty years, removed, to reside with his children at Redwing, Minn., in 1874, and there died in 1886. The male lineage of the old General Putnam house runs back then thus, - Ansel, Daniel, Israel, David, Joseph, Thomas. There are now living but five grandsons of Daniel in the male line, and none of them live in Danvers.

A few words concerning the family of Jesse, "Col. Jesse" before alluded to. He was himself one of the prominent and widely known citizens of his day, one of the foremost advocates of the early temperance reform and one of the strongest opponents of slavery. In his manner he was somewhat brusque, and, like his grandfather, he was fond of a good horse.

He died in 1860, but his widow, Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Silas Merriara, of Middleton, whom he married in her twentieth year, still living, celebrated November 14, 1884, her one hundredtli birthday. Rare event; fitly celebrated. The "tribe of Jesse " were six sons and six daughters, a family in all respects to be proud of. Four of the surviving five were present with their mother on the occasion just mentioned. These twelve children were, in order, Catherine, Andrew, Elizabeth, Francis P., Henry F., Calvin, Mary J., Martha A., Sarah W., Charles, Emily A. and John M. The latter lives on his father's place, and in his family is another Jesse. The other survivors are Calvin; Sarah, widow of George W. Fuller ; and Emily, widow of Rev. Richard T. Searle. Francis died at his home near by his father's a few years ago, much respected. Henry and Charles died in the West, the latter having been superintendent of schools in St. Louis. (Mrs. Putnam died September 20, 1887, at the age of 102 years, 10 months, 6 days.)

b. Tlie family of Nathaniel. - N?thaniel, " Lieutenant," - military titles were common in the family - had two sons, Benjamin and John, The latter went beyond the westerly slope of Hatliorne's hill and established himself near the Log Bridge over the Ipswich River, on the farm now owned by George H. Peabody. He was known as " Carolina John," and this name occurs on a rough diagram of a division of land drawn in ink on the parchment binding of one of the old volumes of records in the registry of deeds at Salem. The site of his home is marked by a very old but well preserved house, situated beneath ancient elms, where the high land begins to slope to the river meadows. It was in the immediate neighborhood of the other river farms upon which the brothers Deacon Edward and Sergeant Thomas Putnam, cousins of this John, were settled. John had these sons, - Josiah, John, Amos, Samuel and Daniel. A grandson, Daniel, was a deacon of the village church ' and lived close by his grandfather's place on one of the Peabody farms, and died in 1801, aged sixty-three years. Neither of the brothers, except John, leave descendants of the male line in Danvers. A descendant of Josiah, Hon. Harvey Putnam, born at Brattleboro, Vt., in 1793, was a prominent lawyer in Schenectady, N. Y., a member of Congress, and his son, Hon. James O. Putnam, of Buffalo, has long been one of the most distinguished men of western New York, John, brother of Josiah, had three sons, - John Amos, Edmund. An eccentric old man well-known some years ago, published a rambling autobiographical sketch called "The Life and times of Peter Putnam." Peter's grandfather was the brother of Amos and Edmund, just mentioned, and their estate was on the turnpike, south of Hathorne's hill.

Amos Putnam was a physician, and one ot the active patriotic spirits of Revolutionary times. His name often occurs in honorable connection on the records of the town. His residence was the brick house near Felton's corner, where afterwards the late Daniel Tapley lived. A son of Dr. Amos, James, also a physician, is to be remembered with his estimable wife who long survived him, as the parents of those two teachers " Hannah and Betsey," names always spoken together because they always taught together, and fondly cherished by many of our older people. Recently a number of the survivors of their old scholars met with Mrs. Harriet P. Fowler to consider the erection of a memorial over their hitherto unmarked graves. Something further of them will be found in the chapter on schools.

Edmund Putnam, brother or rather half-brother of Dr. Amos, was "Deacon Edmund," whose name is revered by Universalists as the pioneer of the departure of that denomination from the old faith. He served as deacon in the village church from 1762 to 1785, and died in 1810, aged eighty-six years. He lived in the old house standing between the Topsfield road and the railroad, a well preserved relic of witchcraft times, now owned by Augustus Fowler. Deacon Edmund's sons were Andrew, Israel and Edmund. Israel was the father of Elias Putnam, " Squire Lias," a name at which the pen halts to find words of fitting tribute and then passes altogether, on the announcement that a distinguished son, Rev. Dr. Alfred P. Putnam, is to contribute a sketch of his father's life, to appear in subsequent pages of this book. In the number and character of descendants the line of Edmund, Israel and Elias is well represented at home and abroad.

Poplar and Locust Streets cross each other a third of a mile above the Square at the Plains. Both are ancient roads; the former, the old "Dyson Road" from Beverly to Andover ; the other, the " Topsfield Road." At this corner was the old homestead of Judge Timothy Lindall. Speaking roughly, the roads cross at right angles, the Topsfield road running north, the Andover road running west. Another road, now called Summer Street, starts from the Andover road about a half mile west from the Lindall corner, and runs north parallel to the Topsfleld road, till it meets a fourth road, now called North Street, which, starting from the Topstield road a mile and a half above the Lindall corner, runs west, the " back road " to Topsfield. About the sides of the parallelogram which, still roughly speaking, is formed by these four roads, are a number of old Putnam homes. Oak Knoll, the family starting-point, is itself on the easterly side of Summer Street, about midway of its length. The first Putnam to push much northward was Benjamin, elder of the two sons of Nathaniel. He was "Deacon Benjamin,'' who settled on the place now owned and occupied by Miss Goodhue, the very old house standing on or near the ancient site, being on North Street, midway between Summer Street and the Topsfield road. Deacon Benjamin died in 1714, fifty years old. By will he gave his son Daniel "one hundred and fifty pounds for his learning." Daniel went to Harvard, and among his college mates during the last year of his course was Joseph Green, son of the village minister. Daniel graduated in 1717, the first of a long list of subsequent graduates of the same name. He became a minister in North Reading, and died there, leaving descendants.

Nathaniel, oldest son of Deacon Benjamin, moved back south to his grandfather's, Nathaniel's, place by the mill-pond. He, likewise, was a deacon, serving twenty-three years, dying in 1754, and he was the father of still another deacon, Archelaus, who at one time lived where the late Gilbert Tapley died, and of whom the story is elsewhere told how he was the pioneer of Danversport.

Tarrant Putnam, next son of Deacon Benjamin, and the first of a number of other Putnams to bear that peculiar name, was the father of Gideon, still another deacon, who died in 1811, eighty-four years old. Gideon was a store-keeper, who lived and carried on his business at the well-known corner where subsequently Jonas Warren, Daniel Richards, and the sous of the latter, succeeded him. It was Deacon Gideon who, by selling cheese iu Revolutionary times at nine shillings per pound, was declared an enemy of his country, though he so far regained popular favor as to be sent soon after to the General Court. He will be remembered as the father of that distinguished citizen whose name has been already mentioned - Judge Samuel Putnam, who died about thirty years ago on the homestead estate of the original Nathaniel. He is remembered as an old gentleman courtly and refined, of the manners of the old school, esteemed and respected by all who knew him.

After a highly honorable and extensive practice at the bar, in which his severe application showed itself in the fruits of' exact and comprehensive legal learning, he was appointed in 1814, on the death of Chief

Justice Sewall, to a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court. This he held until January 26, 1842. The late Alfred A. Abbott thus spoke of him at the celebration of the centennial of the town, 1852 : " For more than a quarter of a century did he fulfill, ably and faithfully, the duties of his high station, doing his full part to sustain and elevate that reputation of our Supreme bench which has made its decisions standard and indisputable authority throughout the land. Our reports contain a great number of his opinions, elaborate and rich, than which few are cited with more frequency, or held in greater respect. At length, when the weight of increasing years began to oppress him, Judge Putnam voluntarily put off the judicial ermine, with a rare delicacy and commendable good sense resigning his lofty trust while yet his mental vigor was unabated, and retiring from his wellearned and still fresh laurels to the joys and comforts of private life. No one has illustrated the family name with a purer life, higher virtues or juster fame." He was the grantor of the lands of the Walnut Grove Cemetery, Peabody Institute and surrounding estates. He carried on the milling business before alluded to, and numerous documents are on file in the Town-House showing with what courteous firmness he asserted and maintained his rights whenever the mill privilege was in danger of being infringed, as when Sylvan Street was laid out in 1842 over his dam. As early as 1820, so wrote an aged citizen a few years ago. Judge Putnam was the only man in Essex County who laid in ice fur market. Then the ice was cut from the pond with an axe, loaded upon sleds without tools, stored in a cellar built for that purpose and was delivered to consumers with the naked hands. A load was driven twice a week to Salem. This cellar held but a hundred tons; the present harvest is more than five thousand tons. The descendants of Judge Putnam reside chiefly in Boston. A son, Samuel R., married a sister of James Russell Lowell, and their son. Lieutenant William Lowell, fell bravely fighting at Ball's Bluflf in 1861. His mother was the writer of a remarkable series of sketches on Plungary at the time of the struggle of Kossuth and his compatriots for liberty. Dr. Charles G. Putnam, second son of the judge, was an eminent practitioner in Boston, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and through his generosity the town possesses a substantial memorial of the family in the reservation known as Pickering Park, at the meeting of several streets laid out through the old farm. This was presented to the town by Dr. Putnam in 1875.

Deacon Tarrant Putnam, uncle to Judge Samuel, was the father of Dr. Israel, of Bath, Me., and Tarrant, a New York merchant of great wealth. A son of Dr. Israel is Hon. William L. Putnam, ex-mayor of Portland and a leading lawyer there, at present prominent as representing the United States in the fishery controversy with the Dominion,

Just opposite the junction of Summer and North Streets, situated on a high hill at the northwest corner of the parallelogram and looking directly southerly to Oak Knoll is a pleasant old farm-house known as the Wallis farm. This was the home of Benjamin, one of the seven sons of Deacon Benjamin and the ancestor of Benjamin C. Putnam, now of Danvers, the sixth Benjamin in line. The fourth son of Deacon Benjamin, and the last to be here mentioned, was Stephen. He pushed around to the easterly side of a long high hill which monopolizes much of the northerly portion of the land included by the roads spoken of and which fittingly bears the name of Putnam's Hill, and established himself on the site of the present residence of Henry A. White. The descendants of Stephen have been more conspicuous and are at present more numerously represented than any others of this branch of the family. The old house is still remembered by some, standing under a great willow, beneath which was a large horse-block. Here, as well as on some other estates, slaves were kept ; one, " old Rose," was bought in Jamaica by the pound.

The sons who grew up on this hill-side farm included Timothy, a Tory, who went to Nova Scotia ; Moses, a Harvard graduate of 1759, who went to Wilton, N. H. ; Phinehas, Aaron and Stephen, Jr. Phinehas went westward and established his home a half a mile north of the "Old Put" house; of his five sons, Joseph remained at home, and Charles P. Preston, a son of his only child Clarissa, widow of John Preston, now in her ninety-fifth year, is the present owner and occupant of the premises. Matthew, another son of Phinehas, went south to the Rebecca Nourse homestead of witchcraft history, which place has come down through another Matthew and Orrin to the heirs of the latter. Timothy, another son of Phinehas, came to the Plains and lived long on the site of the present residence of his grandson, Otis F. Putnam; he was the father of Elbridge, AVillard, Adrian and Gustavus, of whom the latter only survives, and through these bons, except Willard, numerous descendants of " Uncle Timmy " are living in the town.

Pushing south from his father's home, Stephen's son Aaron went to the southern slope of Putnam's hill and probably built the pleasant old house which one can see through the leafy lane leading in from the Topsfield road near the residence of Israel H. Putnam. Aaron had two sons to establish families, Simeon and Rufus. Simeon's sons were Simeon, Aaron, Augustus, Edward B. and Israel H., the latter retaining the ownership of the old place; the well known face and figure of the former, "Uncle Sim," for many yeans tax-collector, will be long remembered ; he died April 14, 1880, in his seventy-fifth year. Rufus, soon after his marriage, struck out into a new quarter for the Putnams, and bought one of the old Leach homesteads, under the easterly slope of Folly Hill ; William, the survivor of his two sous, is still living near the site of the old house in his eightyfourth year ; the other son, Rufus Putnam, after a long and honorable service as teacher in the higher schools of Salem, built about thirty years ago on his portion of his father's farm, the house in which he died in November, 1875. He brought back to his native town the ripe wisdom of mature years and the benefit of his counsel was often sought, especially in the settlement of estaccs. He was long president of the Savings Bank, and long on the school committee; he was quiet in his life, of unspotted character, and greatly respected.

To go back a step now to the farm of Stephen : Stephen, Jr., the youngest brother of Phinehas, Aaron and the others, just mentioned, remained at home. Stephen, Jr., was a carpenter who built or helped to build the village meeting-house of 1786, and he was the father of these children, - Stephen, Moses, Jacob, Susanna, Ruth, Samuel, Eben, Hannah and Sally. The first and the last two died unmarried. Moses and Samuel established themselves close by their grandfather's home, and each built up a large and successful shoe business in the neighborhood, which as an involuntary tribute to the energy and worth of these brothers has for some forty years borne the name of Putnamville. The old name of this locality to the Topsfield line was Blind-hole, after a swamp. Jacob learned the tanner's trade at Elias Endicott's, bought the old Frye's Tavern, between Peabody and Salem, and built up a successful business there. George F. Putnam, of Salem and Boston, is his son. Eben, the last survivor of the children, came early down to Danvers Plains, in the days when there was no village to speak of, where now is the business centre of the town. Of the daughters, Susanna married Daniel Putnam, lived in the " Old Put " house, and was the mother of the present occupants. Ruth was the wife of Andrew Batchelder, and lived in the old Lindall house. A number of old clocks bear his imprint as " clock-maker ; " by a second Avife his descendants are likewise numerous and respectable.

The three sons who remained at home all lived to a good old age, to be popularly known as " uncles" - Uncle Moses, Uncle Sam and Uncle Eben - and were fathers of very large families. Uncle Moses was according to the tax-list of 1847 the richest man in town. Those next approaching him were Daniel P., Jonathan and Samuel King, Gilbert Tapley, Benjamin Porter, Samuel Putnam and Elias Putnam. He died September 10, 1860, in his eighty-fifth year. Four of his children are living, - Harriet, the wife of Deacon S. P. Fowler ; Susan, widow of Daniel F. Putnam ; Moses; and Emeline, wife of Charles A. Putnam, of Boston. Of Samuel's children, these, - Mary, widow of Elbridge Trask ; Thomas, Albert, Charles A. and Henry. Of Eben's children, these, - Edwin F. ; Elizabeth, wife of William Cheever, of Staten Island ; Margaret, widow of Joseph W. Ropes ; and Mrs. Hannah Bomer, in the west.

C. Tlie family of John. It was "Lieutenant," afterwards " Captain '' John, youngest of the three sons of the pioneer, who remained on the original Putnam homestead at Oak Knoll. He was impetuous, rough, ever ready to stand by his rights if need be with force and arms, but when the farmers realized that education was lax among them, it was this same man whom they selected " to take care that the law relating to the catechising of children and youth be duly attended," and to see " that all families do carefully and constantly attend the due education of their children and youth according to law." In his family the minister, George Burroughs, and his wife lived nine months in the year 1680, and on these beautiful premises where the poet is passing his declining years, the minister gave evidence of that great strength which twelve years later was credited to the devil and cost him his life.

John Putnam had four sons, - Jonathan, James, Eleazer and John. Stretching eastward from Oak Knoll a broad fertile plain lies between Lindall Hill and Putnam's Hill. Skirting the northern limits of this plain was an ancient road, traces of which are yet visible, which coming from Wenham passed by Oak Knoll and so on through a pai't of the pleasant avenue which leads by the old Prince house, a relic of witchcraft times, which is now the farm-house of J. E. Spring's place, around Beaver Dam to the village church, a road over which, without doubt, many sad and anxious hearts passed to trial and condemnation in the terrible days of 1692. Just opposite the residence of the late Nathaniel Boardman, and included within his estate, is an old well-preserved house, the oldest in Putnamville. It marks the point at which a traveler coming across the meadow from Oak Knoll would strike the Topsfield road, and thither Jonathan Putnam pushed out and built, it is thought at least a part of this very house. Jonathan's son Jonathan is the ancestor of Nathan T. Putnam and the descendants of his son David in town are the Boardman family.

James, second son of John, seems to have taken the homestead, Oak Knoll. To follow down this interesting estate, it probably passed next to James' son Jethro, at any rate Jethro"s son Enoch lived there. Colonel Enoch Putnam was one of the distinguished men of his time. He was forty -three years old when the Revolution broke out, and as a lieutenant in Colonel Hutchinson's Minute -men went to Lexington ; by good service in the war he won his higher title of colonel. It was the two daughters of Colonel Enoch whom two sons of Phinehas Putnam, Joseph and Timothy, married, and as Mrs. Preston, the aged lady before rel'erred to is the daughter of Joseph, she is likewise the granddaughter of Colonel Enoch, and to a young lady, her own granddaughter, has passed a plain gold ring, worn quite smooth, but with this inscription legible, - " Remember the giver. - E. P.'' The giver was the colonel and the wearer was the great-great-grandmother of the present owner. The only son of Colonel Enoch, Jethro, married a daughter of the distinguished Dr. Holten, and of his family the representatives of his son Philemon still live here. As Jethro Avent to live on the Holten place it is probable that about that time the old homestead went out of the Putnam family. Some fifty years it was owned by Nathaniel Smith and wife, and was sold with sixty-five acres of land to William A. Lander, April 9, 1841. By subsequent purchases Mr. Lander became owner of nearly as much more adjoining land. The old house was allowed to stand two or three years after the present residence was built. It stood on the level field where now is the pear orchard and not far from the old well and the large elm which was dug and planted by slave labor. Mr. Lander lived on the place which his own taste has made so beautiful until 1875, when he removed to Salem, and the place then passed to its present owners, the family of the late Colonel Edmund Johnson, of Boston, who died in 1877. Mr. Whittier is a relative of the family, and has spent most of his time at Oak Knoll, a name which he himself gave the estate.

But another and later Putnam homestead, just this side of Oak Knoll, remained in the family much longer than the original homestead. It was probably built by James Putnam, an uncle of Colonel Enoch, and passed down through Archelaus to his son, Doctor Archelaus, then to his son, James A., whose heirs sold it to Mr. Lander..

John A. Putnam, of Danvers, is one of the children of James A. Hon. James Putnam, of whom Chief Justice Parsons said, " he was the best lawyer in North America," an uncle of Dr. Archelaus, was undoubtedly born in this old house. He practised in Worcester, and among his students was John Adams, the second President; he succeeded Edmund Trowbridge as Attorney-General of the province, was raised to the bench and held other high positions. But he threw the weight of his powerful influence and character in favor of the Royalists and was proscribed as a Tory.

Two (Jonathan and James) of the sons of Lieutenant John have been thus mentioned. The next (Eleazer) went over to the site afterwards occupied by Phinehas Putnam, of the branch of Nathaniel, and now owned by Charles P. Preston, Eleazer being of the third generation and Phinehas of the fifth. One of the sons of Eleazer, Henry went to Medford, and it will be read elsewhere how he followed his sons to Lexington and was killed. Samuel, another son, established his home where the late Sylvanus B. Swan died, which was long the home of Samuel's son, Eleazer, " Squire Ely," pronouncing it with the " E " long and the "ly" short, widely known and trusted as magistrate, surveyor and conveyancer. Of the 'Squire's three sons. Rev. Israel Warburton Putnam, D.D., born in 1786, was a very distinguished clergy- man, who was settled twenty years at Portsmouth, N. H., and thirty years at Middleboro', Mass. ; Archelaus, a physician, practised in Windham, N. H. ; and Samuel was for many years a distinguished teacher of Brooklyn, N. Y.

Eeference has been made to the fact that Henry, son of Eleazer, son of Lieutenant John, was killed at Lexington. One of his sons, also Henry, was wounded in the same engagement. Allen Putnam, a young son of this Henry, is said to have beeo the first to leap ashore of the colonists who went out to found Ohio. The Danvers home of Allen's grandfather seems to have been the old Amos Wilde house, on Locust Street, opposite Chestnut Street.

It was John, another son of Lieutenant John Putnam, who, in connection with his father, is supposed to have built the "old Clark house," still standing, not far north of Oak Knoll. Among his descendants the name of Caleb often occurs; none are known in Danvers.

At a gathering of the descendants of Deacon Benjamin Putnam, held a few years ago, one of our oldest citizens, as orator, recalled how, in his childhood he sat in the old brick meeting house when the familiar faces of the Putnams were in every part of the church, their titles, positions and scriptural names all objects of veneration. There were, he said, -

" Benjamin and Joseph, Timothy and Eleazer, Philemon and Hiram, James and Ebenezer, Amos and Stephen, Seth and Simeon, Israel and David, Peter and Gideon, Phinelias and Matthew, Ezra and Nathaniel, Moses and Samuel, Jesse and Daniel."

No genealogy of the family has been published, though Dr. A. P. Putnam has collected a rich store of material, of which, doubtless, he will some day gave the public the benefit. For what is here given the writer is indebted to certain members of the famil}' and others in Danvers, and to Dr. Putnam for a number of interesting notes which have been mainly incorporated in the manuscript.

The Porters. - Among the records of old deeds at Salem is an agreement made the 10th day of the Third Month, 1643, between Samuel Sharpe, of Salem, and John Porter, of Hingham:

" Tlie sd Samuel doth hereby sell unto ye said Jno. his fearme lying North ef Mr. Skelton's farme Deceased with ye meadow ground thereto annexed & all appurtenances thereto belonging for ye summe of one hundred & ten pounds to be paid in money Cattle & come at such rates as 2 or more indili'erent men shall apprize them te be paid at 3 several payments that is to say fifty pounds the 2(lth of this present mouth being 3rd month 1643 and thirty pounds of ye 3d mo IG 14 & other thirty pounds on the first day of ye 3rd mo in 1645 In witness whereof the parties above sd have hereunto set their hands the day and year above written

The deed, acknowledged before Governor Endicott, conveyed all the land now covered by the central village of Danvers, "the Plains." The purchaser, John Porter, came from England and settled at Hingham, where he was in 1(335. He was sent from

Hingham as a deputy to the General Court in 1644, and that same year moved his family and his goods, probably by water, to make a new home at Salem Farms. According to the family tradition, he lived in the old house which was standing in the field near the present location of the Unitarian Church within the memory of living persons. He was a tanner by trade, and some remains of his tan-yard were discoj'- ered many years ago near the old house. An ancient well is still to be seen close by. John Porter was a man of energy and influence ; he was well known throughout the colony, held many ofiicial positions, - selectman, deputy to General Court, etc., - and he became probably the largest individual land-owner in what is now the town of Danvers. He and John Putnam stand together as prominent figures in our earliest history. Both were the ancestors of a very numerous and honorable line of descendants. If the Porters at first owned the most acres, certainly the Putnams came next, and the two families together held fully two-thirds of the present town and extended beyond its limits. Their farms were adjacent, inter-marriages, of course, occurred, and many now living here and elsewhere trace back their ancestry, often in more ways than one, through Porter-Putnam unions to the two Johns.

John Porter's oldest son, John, was a distinguished exception to the " honorable line " above referred to ; he was a reprobate. He abused his parents till they appealed to the law. He was punished condignlj', and were it not for his mother's forbearance would probably have been hung. Later his case became very conspicuous, because upon his aj^peal for redress made to the four commissioners of Charles II., sent over in 1664 to curb the liberties of the colonists, occurred a memorable struggle, in which the General Court had every advantage of position, and used it, to the final rout of the royal emissaries. The elder John refers in his will to his " sonue John Porter, who, by his Rebellious & wicked practices, hath been a great grief to his ])arents, & greatly wasted my estate." The man left no descendants to be ashamed of such an ancestor. Three other sons, like the three sons of John Putnam, became the heads of great families, - Samuel, Joseph and Israel.

Samuel, " mariner," settled in Wenham, on the easterly shore of the lake, and a part of his original farm is still occupied by his descendants. His only son, John, did much to wipe out the dishonor with which his uncle had stained his grandfather's name. This John was of high respectability, representative to the General Court and moderator of town meetings during the first quarter of the last century, and he married into another eminent family, the Herricks, of Alford's - now Cherry Hill. From the single thread of an only son the line now branched out in the families of five sons, they being of a family of eleven children, whose ages at death aggregated nine hundred and fifty-five years. Of these five sous,

Samuel, the oldest, lived on the lake-side homestead, and he, too, married well, his wife being a granddaughter of Governor Simon Bradstreet. Samuel's grandson Isaac was the father of Colonel Paul Porter, commander of the Ipswich regiment of militia in the war of 1812, and a very prominent citizen of Wenham, through whose children to the third and fourth generation the name is preserved in that town. One of the younger of the five sons just mentioned was Jonathan, an inn-holder of Wenham, who was also sent to the General Court. His oldest son was Benjamin, and with him the name returns to Danvers, and adds to our list of military heroes one of the most distinguished. On the pleasant southern slope of the first hill which one meets in driving from Danvers Plains to Topsfield is a well-preserved gable-roofed house, once one of the Ilea homes. In a portion of this old house Zerubbabel Rea lived, a hundred and twenty-five years ago, more or less. Through his marriage with Sarah, widow of Bartholomew Brown, and daughter of Zerubbabel Eea, the place thenceforth became the home of Benjamin Porter, who had four sons. Of these, Moses was the oldest, - General Moses Porter, of whom a sketch appears in what is written concerning the Revolution. He was never married. The homestead passed to the third son, Zerubbabel. He, too, was a tanner, and certain stone door-steps in the vicinity are relics of his bark-mill, which stood in the rear of Augustus Fowler's residence, itself a well-preserved relic of two centuries ago. Zerubbabel Porter vvas also the very first shoe manufacturer of Danvers, the pioneer of that industry for which the town soon become noted. Until within a few years ago the little square shop was sitting in the angle between the highway and the drive to the Rea-Porter house, hugging close to the hill, which was the cradle of our shoe business. Of the men who were there employed, and of the growth of the liusiness from the beginning, a few words will be found elsewhere. Zerubbabel Porter was one of the early Universalists, " was of rare intelligence, a ready speaker at town-meetings, wrote much and well for the newspapers, especially upon political subjects." The writer happened to come across this letter in the files of old papers at the Town- House :

"I lately received my tax bill for 18;J9, lind addition to my former taxes for many years past about fifty percent. I think, gentlemen, you must have wrong conceptions of my property and circiinistances. I am bordering on eiglity years of age and feeble healtli, . . . as to property, not five dollars has been added to my estate the year past. . . . Perhaps you think I have stock in the Village bank, by the advice of friends I gave my note on Interest for five shares and have paid the interest ever since, you of course will judge the value of such property. . . . It has always been my fortune to labor hard, at the age of twenty-one it was my fortune to loose one of my hands, of course it made work extiemely hard, now I am done, think uf these things and doo what is right - if you can consistently with your feelings I think will abate some of my tax -I am gentlemen myself some acqvuiinted with assessing taxes. I very well know it is a difficult office to perform, but

Zerubbabel Porter died November 11, 1845, in his eighty-seventh year. He left two sons, Warren and Alfred. The former was lieutenant in the War of 1812, and afterwards was commissioned lieutenant-colonel. Three males only of the next generation are living in town, Elias Endicott Porter, son of Alfred ; and Dr. Warren Porter and John W. Porter, attorney, sons of Colonel Warren, and upon one little boy, the son of the latter, at present depends the preservation in Danvers of this branch of the family name.

Of the male descendants of pioneer John Porter's next son, Joseph, there are none at all left here. They early scattered. One - Samuel, son of Eleazer, son of Samuel, sou of Joseph - graduated at Harvard in 1763, became an eminent lawyer in Salem, was proscribed as a Tory, went to London and died there, after revisiting this country in 1798, - " a gentleman of culture and refinement, who contributed greatly to the enjoyment of the band of refugees at the weekly meetings of the New England Club in London during the war."

One of the purchases which the first John Porter made, was that of the Emanuel Downing grant of five hundred acres near the Topsfield line. This farm he gave to Joseph upon his marriage with Anna, daughter of Major William Hathorne, and for many years it remained in the family, probably longer than any other in Danvers. It went down to the fourth consecutive Joseph, who died in 1805, and then passed to Captain Dudley Bi-adstreet, who married this last Joseph's daughter Polly, from whom it descended to his son, Major John Bradstreet. This is why this old Porter farm is commonly called the " old Bradstreet farm." ,