Boston City (part 36 of 67)

is supposed to have been buried (somewhere about the foot of Town Hill, near the " Square"), but upon the highest ground on Burial Hill, which at the time of its erection commanded a view of the college. Cf. note in Sewall Papers^ i. 447, and Budington's Ifist, of First Church, in 163 1, and proceeded A.M. in 1635. He was admitted to the church in Charlestown Nov. 6, 1637. His widow, Ann, married the Rev. Thomas Allen. A monument to his memory was erected in our ancient burial ground by graduates of Harvard College. It was dedicated Sept. 26, 1828, when an address was delivered by Edward Everett, and prayer was offered by President Walker, who was at that time pastor of the Second (Unitarian) Church here. The next pastor, the Rev. Thomas Allen, came to New England in 1639; was installed the same year as teacher of this church, and continued as such till i65i,when he was dismissed and returned to England, where he died Sept. 21, 1673, at the age of 6$. During his ministry occurred the troubles with the Baptists, of which there were many in the town. Stephen Fosdick was among the number. He was fined ;^20, and May 7, 1643, was excommunicated. But he was restored to membership Feb. 28, 1663-64. Thomas Gould, who was pastor of the First a member of this church and, like Fosdick, was excommunicated for his heresy July 30, 1665. Thomas Shepard (H. C. 1653) was ordained April 13, 1659, and died of small-pox Dec. 22, 1677, at the age of 43. He was a man of great learning and influence. He preached the Annual

President Oakes delivered a L^tin oration and c//«?77ig/^ %bA^4t^. composed an elegy upon him. He was succeeded by his son, Thomas Shepard (H. C. 1676), who was ordained May 5, 1680, when he received the Right Hand of fellowship from President Oakes. He was the last minister installed here before the abrogation of the colony charter, and died June 7, 1685, aged 27.^

Ordinations were celebrated with great hospitality, not to say hilarity ; and the customs of the colonial period permitted much in the way of gastronomy and conviviality which in these days would shock the sensibilities of even the " advanced " thinkers among us.

Charlestown In The Colonial Period

The schools were early an object of solicitude. As early as June 3, 1636, " Mr. William Withcrell was agreed with to keep a school for a twelvemonth, to begin the 8th of the 6th month, and to have £^0 for this year." In 1646 a rate was gathered for the support of the school; and another was levied in 1650 for the same purpose. Jan. i, 1648-49, it was agreed that the selectmen *' should see about and order a fit place for a school-house," to be built at the town's charge. May i, 1650, a school-house and a watch tower were ordered to be built on Windmill Hill. Jan. 2, 1656-57 it was '* agreed, that a house be made and set up upon the Windmill Hill, and the bell sufficiently hanged thereon, and a sun-dial there to be set up." This building was probably the one which Dr. Bartlett refers to as having been built for a Town House (and upon which were the town bell and clock), but subsequently was used as a school-house. It stood on the present site of the First Parish meeting-house.

In 1652 and 1657 - and probably meanwhile - Mr. John Morley was the schoolmaster. He came from Braintree, and died Jan. 24, 1660-61 by his will estate at Lucas and hunt Leyes in the county annum. In 1670 Cheever went to Boston, and we find record of a certificate * signed by Governor Leverett, that Benjamin Tompson^ (II. C. 1662) might accept the offer of Charlestown to take charge of its school, without giving offence to Boston, which had previously asked him to be an usher in its grammar school. Mr. Tompson accordingly came to our service, upon which he entered in January, 1670- 71. He resigned Nov. 7, 1674, and was succeeded, on the eighteenth of the same month, by Mr. Samuel Phipps /h .^Tk/P

Middlesex.^ In 1678 "the ministers complained in their sermons of the general decay of the schools, and an effort was made to restore them." March 10, 1678-79, a free school was established by the town voting ;^5o per annum for its maintenance " and a convenient house for a schoolmaster." March 30, 1682, a school-house was arranged for, which was to be twenty feet square and " 8 feet stud within joints," with flattish roof and a turret for a

* Printed in N, E, Hist, and Cental. Reg., « May 10, 1643, the colony was divided into xxxiii. 172, where also may be read an elaborate four counties, - Suffolk, Middlesex, Norfolk, and notice of Ezckicl Cheever, by Mr. John T. Essex. Cambridge has always been the shire- Hassnm. town of Middlesex ; but the judicial courts were

* ('f. Kcttcll's Sptfimnis of Ameriam Poetry, statedly held in Charlestown till the Revolution. \,T^%x\\\.,et seq. The same who acquired rcpu- Dr. Hartlett says the court-house was on the tation as a poet. See the chapter on " Colonial cast side of the Square. (See Mr. Smith's Literature," in the present volume. chapter on " Boston and the Colony." - Ed.]

bell ; abo a mantletrec twelve feet long. This building is believed to have occupied the site of the Harvard school-house on Harvard Street. "July 17^ 1684, Mr. Samuel Miles did then enter on the keeping of the Free School of this Towne," - reads the record. He was to have ^^50 per annum for his services. Mr. Mylcs (for this was the proper orthography) had graduated at Harvard College only a few days before this (July i). He soon went to England, where he took orders in the Establishment. Returning to Boston, he was inducted to the rectorship of King's Chapel, June 29, 16891 ^ ^^ successor of RatcliiTe; and in 1693, during a second visit to England, he received a master's degree from the University of Oxford. He died in Boston March 4, 1728-29.* Savage says he was a son of the Rev. John Myles, the Baptist minister of Rehoboth and Swansea, who came to New England from Swansea in Wales about 1662, and died Feb. 3, 1682-83.

The town evinced its interest in the college as early as 1644, when '* it was agreed that one peck of wheat or 12 pence in money shall be paid by every family towards the maintenance of the college at Cambridge."

The fortification of the town was begun as early as 1630, when a fort was built on the top of Town Hill, " with palisadoes and flankers made out, which was performed at the direction of Mr. Graves, by all hands of men, women, and children, who wrought at digging and building till the work was done." This fort was maintained by the town at large expense, and was fostered by the Colony because of its importance. In 1670 (Sept. 25), it was ordered that the guns mounted on Town Hill should not be fired in future " unless the militia see just cause," because of endangering '' Mr. Shepard's and the Town-House glass." The works were soon afterwards abandoned.

The Battery* on Sconce Point was built by order of the General Court in 1634. In 163 1 the town voted to mount the six guns left on the beach by Governor Winthrop, on his removal to Boston, on Moulton's Hill ; but the project was abandoned when it was discovered that the channel lay so far ofl* as to be beyond range. The Battery was maintained till September, 1774, when its guns were secretly removed in the night to a place of safety, by some of the young men in the town. In May, 1672, the town bought of Benjamin Moore -* one sarsnet flag for the Battery,, being the King's Colors. For which he is to be free as to his own proper estate from the town rate for five years ensuing, this year 1672 inclusive. The country, county, and church rates are not included in the town rate above named."

In 1637 Charlestown furnished sixteen men for the Pequot war, twelve of whom, under Sergeant Abraham Palmer, rendered eflicient service in Captain Mason's command. And in 1675 fifteen men were impressed from

Charlestown for service in Philip's war. In \6^6-^^ "The Irish Donation," ^ in aid of the sufferers by the late Indian war, was received by the colonies. The proportion of this town was £\^\ 6s. distributed among twenty-nine families, consisting of one hundred and two persons.

Besides the train-band, which was divided March 16, 1680-81 , into two companies, underthecommand of Captain Laurence Hammond and Captain Richard Sprague, Charlestown boasted, about 1649, was in 1631. Major-General Robert Sedgwick, a friend of Cromwell's, and the ancestor of a distinguished family, and Captain Francis Norton, also a man

Both Sedgwick and Norton were prosperous merchants. Deputy-Governor Francis Willoughby' was another. ^ His wharves were upon either side of ^>^^^^ the ferry to Boston ; and his ship-yard ^^h^ was where the Fitchburg freight-station now stands. Sedgwick's wharves were near the Town Dock. The Honorable Richard Russell, the progenitor of a very distinguished family ^ long resident here, was also much en- of our people. The trades, too, were well represented. Mr. Frothingham says: "In 1640 there were in town tailors, coopers, rope-makers, glaziers, tile-makers, anchor-smiths, collarmakers, charcoal-burners, joiners, wheelwrights, blacksmiths; there was a brew-house, a salt-pan, a potter's kiln, a saw-pit, a wind-mill, a water-mill near Spot Pond, and (certainly in 1645) the old tide-mill at the Middlesex canal landing." In 1636 five hundred acres of land were "reserved to further a flax trade," if such should be found useful ; but I find no mention of the land ever having been improved for this purpose.

Captain Edward Johnson, an early inhabitant of Charlestown, and the father of Wobum, thus describes this town in his curious Wonder-working PravidiHCi^ about 1650: " It hath a large market-place near the water side built round with houses, comely and fair, forth of which there issues two streets orderly built with some very fair houses, beautified with pleasant gardens and orchards. The whole town consists in its extent of about 1 50 dwelling-houses. Their meeting-house for Sabbath assembly stands in the market-place, very comely built and large. The officers of this church are, at this day, one pastor and one teacher, one ruling elder and three deacons. The number of souls are about 160. .. . Their corn-land in tillage in this town is about 1,200 acres." The same writer adds: "In the depth of winter, 1650," a " most terrible fire ... by a violent wind blown " about consumed " the fairest houses in the town," notwithstanding the stringent measures regulating the sweeping of chimneys which were adopted by the town at a very early date.

The colony was prosperous, and so was the town. The more wealthy inhabitants kept one or more slaves, and were enjoying the luxuries as well as the comforts of life at the time of the vacating of the Charter. * Considerable wealth had been accumulated, during half a century, by thrift and foreign commerce.'

The small-pox raged through the winter of 1677-78 and many deaths from it are recorded, - among them that of the Rev. Thomas Shepard. The disease was introduced from English ships. It had previously prevailed to an alarming extent during the winter of 1633-34 ; but at that time it attacked only the Indians.

As early as 1634 it was ordered "that none be permitted to sit down and dwell in this town without consent of the town first obtained." This law was far from being a dead letter. Even hospitality was an expensive virtue ; for the town and colony laws alike prohibited the entertainment of strangers except upon stated conditions; and guests could not be entertained more than one week, except by permission of the selectmen, without a fine being incurred by their hosts.

By Francis S. Drake

THE settlement of Roxbury, coeval with, If not anterior to, that of the Boston peninsula, was made by some of Winthrop's company, under the lead of William Pynchon, as early as the first week in July, 1630; Its first birth-record, that of John, son of Griffin Craft, bearing date July 10 of that year. Untoward circumstances compelled that company *'to plant dispersedly," says one of their number, at Charlestown, Boston, Medford, Watertown, Dorchester, and Lynn ; " others of us two miles from Boston, at a place we named Rocksbury." Mention of the town first occurs in the records of the third Court of Assistants, held Sept. 28, 1630, as one of the plantations on which a part of the general tax of £$0 was levied, and that day has therefore been fixed upon as the official date of Its settlement. Roxbury was the sixth town Incorporated In Massachusetts, and until transferred to Norfolk County, June 20, 1793, constituted a part of the County of Suffolk.

Its Dorchester boundary was settled In 1632; that between Roxbury and Boston in 1636, when it was also ordered by the Court, " that all the rest of the ground between Dorchester bounds and Boston bounds shall belong to the town of Roxbury easterly of Charles River, except the property of the aforesaid towns which they have purchased of particular persons; Roxbury not to extend above eight miles in length from their meeting-house." Respecting the Dedham boundary there was much controversy, and it was not finally adjusted till 1697. For a period of two hundred and twenty years the limits of Roxbury remained essentially the same. It extended eight miles from east to west, and two from north to south, and contained an area of 10,686 acres. On the east was Boston, partly separated from her by a shallow bay; Muddy River (now Brookline) and Newton made her northern boundary ; Dedham lay on the west, and Dorchester on the south.

The first comers settled chiefly in the easterly part of the town next to Boston, with which it was connected by a narrow strip of land a mile In length, called the "Neck," - the only avenue of communication between Boston and tlie main-land for more than a century and a half. From the town street, subsequently known as Roxbury Street, the settlers gradually extended themselves in various directions towards the neighboring towns. Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury, the latter called Spring Street as early as 1690, were settled later.

The natural surface of Roxbury is uneven and rocky : hence its name, which, in the early records, is usually spelled Rocksbury or Rocksborough. Of its numerous elevations the highest are Muddy-Pond Hill, now called Mount Bellevue, in the west, and Parker Hill in the east. The soil is rich and productive. One of its principal features is the conglomerate or pudding-stone with which it abounds.' Originally well wooded, the town suffered from the presence of the besieging army during the winter of 1775-76, who left little diat could be used for fuel, sparing not even the orchards. Water was plenty. Besides Muddy River, Stony, Smelt, and Dorchester brooks, Jamaica, Muddy, and other smaller ponds, Uicrc were also numerous springs. Stony Brook, the most considerable of its streams, took its rise in Muddy Pond, near Dedham. Though now insignificant, its proportions were such in 1825 that it was proposed at that time as the source of sufficient watersupply for Boston.^ Of Smelt Brook, not now in existence, John Dane, who was in Roxbury in 1638, says : *' Weary and thurstey I came by a spring in Roxbury street, and went to it and drank again and again manie times, and I never drank wine in my life that more refresht me, nor was more pleasant to me as I then absolutely thout." Jamaica Pond, a beautiful sheet of water in Jamaica Plain, covers an area of nearly 70 acres, with a depth in some places of from 60 to 70 feet, and is a principal source of the ice-supply of Boston.

Although an occasional arrowhead or other relic has been unearthed, no distinct traces of aboriginal occupation have ever been observed in Roxbury, not even an Indian name remaining to mark the locality of mountain, streamlet, pond, or other natural feature of the landscape. The English settlers found their nearest Indian neighbors at some distance from their borders, inhabiting two small villages on the Neponset and on the Charles, whose waters supplied them with fish. Vagrant Indians infested the settlement, and were occasionally employed as servants, but these aboriginal tramps were oftener driven from the town by the constable. The chief sachem of the territory embracing Roxbury was Chickatabut, whose grandson, Charles Josiah (Wampatuck), the last of his race, in 1686 deeded^ the native right to the territory of Roxbury to its agents, Joseph Dudley and William' Stoughton, for ;f 10. This purchase, as well as that of Dorchester, Medficld, and other places at this time, shows the anxiety of the land-owners to strengthen their titles, which had been placed in jeopardy by the abrogation of the Colonial charter. The slight esteem in which Indian signatures to land-titles were held is seen in the contemptuous remark of Governor Andros, that he regarded them as " of no more worth than the scratch of a bear's paw." The

Roxbury In The Colonial Period

In Wood's New England's Prospect^ the earliest topographical account of the Massachusetts colony, published in 1634, is this first printed description of Roxbury : -

"A mile from this town [Dorchester] lieth Roxberry which is a feire and handsome countrey town, the inhabitants of it being all very rich. This town lieth upon the maine so that it is well wooded and watered, having a cleare and fresh brooke running through the towne ; up which, although there come no alewives, yet there is great store of smelts, and therefore it is called Smelt Brooke. A quarter of a mile to the north side of the town is another river called Stony river upon which is built a water milne. Here is good ground for come and meadow for cattle. Up westward from the town it is something rocky, whence it hath the name of Roxberry ; the inhabitants have faire houses, store of cattle, impaled come fields and fruitful gardens. Here is no harbor for ships because the town is seated in the bottom of a shallow bay which is made by the necke of land on which Boston is built, so that they can transport all their goods from the ships in boats from Boston, which is the nearest harbor."

Seventeen years later Edward Johnson tells us Roxbury was " filled with a very laborious people, whose labors the Lord hath blessed, that in the room of dismall swampes and tearing bushes they have very goodly fruit trees, fruitful fields and gardens, their heard of cows, oxen and other young cattell of that kind about 350, and dwelling houses neere upon 120. Their streets arc large and some fayrc houses yet they have built their house for church assembly destitute and unbeautified with other buildings. The Church of Christ here is increased to about 120 persons." According to the Record of ** Houses and Lands in Roxbury," there were, in 1654, between seventy and eighty homesteads, the owners of lands numbering ninety. The population was about seven hundred souls.

Generally speaking we find the emigrants to New England originating in various parts of Old England and coming together here, for the most part, strangers to one another. The Roxbury pioneers were less heterogeneous, many of them belonging in Nazing, a rural village in Essex county, England, situated on the River Lee, about twenty miles from London, and forming the northwest corner of Waltham Half-hundred. Its old parish church, which may be regarded as the parent of the Roxbury church, stands on the side of a hill overlooking parts of Hertfordshire and Middlesex. Its parish records contain the familiar names of Eliot, Curtis, Graves, Heath, Payson, Peacock, and Ruggles. Some of the Roxbury men were from London and vicinity, a few were from the West of England. They were people of substance, many of them farmers, skilled also in some useful handicraft, none, it is said, being " of the poorer sort." They struck root in the soil immediately, and were enterprising, industrious, and frugal. Among them are found names still borne in Roxbury by their descendants, such as Brewer, Crafts, Curtis, Dudley, Gore, Heath, Payson, Seaver, Weld, and Williams. Outside of Boston no New England town can show such a roll of distinguished names as have illustrated the annals of Roxbury.

The first Nazing pilgrims came over in the " Lion/* William Peirce, master, in November, 163 1, after a passage of ten weeks. In her came John Eliot, with William Curtis and Sarah his wife (Eliot's sister), and their children, in company with the wife of Governor Winthrop. William Heath, with his family, and other Nazing worthies came in the year following ; John Graves, with his wife and five children, came in 1633; and in 1635 a large number came over in the " Hopewell," stimulated by the great movement in England among the friends of religious liberty, which in that year sent 3,000 persons to New England.

William Pynchon,^ the principal founder of the church and town, " a gentleman of learning and religion," was one of the Assistants or magistrates who came over with Winthrop. In 1636 he led a party

» (This likeness follows the steel engraving of Pynchon's portrait, given with a memoir in the N. E, NuL and Getteal. Reg., October, 1859. Cf. Drake's T(ntm of Roxbttry, pp. 1 2, 298. - Ed. | from Roxbury to the Connecticut, and began the settlement of Springfield, so called from the town in England where he formerly resided. He engaged extensively in the beaver trade, and continued in the magistracy until, in 1650, the publication of his Meritorious Price of our Redemption, in opposition to the then prevalent view of the atonement, caused him to be deposed and his book to be burned in the market-place of Boston by order of the Court, who placed him under heavy bonds. Having condemned his book as ** false, heretical, and erroneous," they ordered Rev. John Norton to answer it, and declared their purpose "to proceed with its author according to his demerits unless he retract the same, and give full satisfaction both here and by some second writing to be printed and dispersed in England." He was forced to explain or modify the obnoxious opinions, and, as he was supposed to be " in a hopeful way to give good satisfaction," the judgment of the Court was deferred until its next session in May, 1652. Before that time, Pynchon, disgusted with the intolerant spirit of those in authority, returned to England, published a new edition of his book with additions in 1655, and died there in October, 1661, aged 72. .

Prominent among the early inhabitants of Roxbury were: Griffin Craft, father of the first white child born in Roxbury, and the holder of many offices, civil and military; John Johnson, "Surveyor Gen. of all y* armyes," the first constable of the town, and for fourteen years its representative to the General Court; Captain Joseph Weld, a wealthy merchant, active in military affairs, brother of Rev. Thomas Welde ; Robert Williams, founder of one of the most prolific as well as distinguished families of Roxbury, where many of his descendants still reside; John Pierpont, who in 1658 established the first fulling-mill in Roxbury, ancestor of Rev. John Pierpont, poet and clergyman, and of Edwards Pierrepont, late United States Minister to England ; Elder Isaac Heath, the assistant of Eliot in his Indian labors, and William his brother, from whom General Heath of Revolutionary fame was descended ; William Curtis, from whom most of those bearing the name in the United States derive their origin, and whose homestead, a genuine relic of colonial days, is still preserved ; Elder John Bowles, " prudent, gracious, and well-deserving," as he is called by the apostle Eliot ; John Bowles, his son. Speaker of the House in 1690, and prominent in church and town affairs; Deacon William Parke, *'a man of pregnant understanding," one of the founders of the church, and a most useful and honored citizen; William Denison and his sons Edward, Captain George, and Daniel, the latter afterwards a major-general, and highly distinguished both in the civil and military history of New England ; John Gore, many years Clerk of the Writs, ancestor of Governor Christopher Gore ; John Grosvenor, the first to introduce the tanning industry into Roxbury, and whose coat-of-arms in the old cemetery identifies him with the noble family of which the present Duke of Westminster Is the head ; George Alcock, first deacon of the Roxbury Church, ancestor of the philosopher A. Bronson Alcott and Louisa

May Alcott» his gifted daughter ; Joshua Hewes, a merchant of large enterprise, and who held many responsible trusts, public and private ; Daniel Gookin, the friend and companion of Eliot in his missionary work, afterwards major-general and superintendent of the Massachusetts Indians; Phillip Eliot, brother of the apostle, " a right godly and diligent person," a deputy to the General Court, and who held many important offices; Thomas Bell, the munificent benefactor of the Free School in Roxbury, afterwards a wealthy merchant of London; Lieutenant Richard Morris, second commander of Castle William, a representative in 1635-36, and ancestor of Commodore Charles Morris, a distinguished officer of the United States navy; and John Trumbull, founder of the prominent Connecticut family of that name. Such were the men - and the women were of the same exalted stamp - who planted strong and deep the foundations of ,the Puritan Commonwealth. Tough of fibre, earnest of purpose, conscientious in word and deed, and, above all, deeply religious, they wrought after a new pattern a fabric which still serves as a model, and which will ever remain an enduring monument of their wisdom and virtue.

» [There arc other views of the Curtis house in the Ufe of Benjamin R, Curtis; Whitefield's Homes of our Forefathers ; Scribnet^s Monthly, February, 1880 j F. S. Drake's Tcnvn of Roxbury, p. 399, &c The house is supposed to have been built in 1639, and stands on Lamartine Street, near

Boylston Station on the Providence Railroad. William Curtis's wife was a sister of Eliot, and the apostle has doubtless been often sheltered by this roof. A pair of deer's antlers kept in the house are said to have belonged to an animal shot from the house. - Ed.]

Roxbury In The Colonial Period

"A note of ye estates and persons" of Roxbury in 1639 - the earliest list of its inhabitants extant - gives the number of acres and the amount of tax of each of the following persons. The larger land-holders were: Thomas Dudley, Tliomas Wcldc, Philip Eliot, Joshua Hewes, Joseph Weld, William Denison, John Stow, Elder Heath, George Alcock, Isaac Morell, John Gore, John Johnson, William Parke, Samuel Hagborne, George Holmes, Thomas Bell. Those owning less than forty acres were: William Curtis, John Eliot, Thomas Lamb, John Watson, Griffin Craft, John Roberts, John Miller, Edward Porter, James Astwood, Daniel Brewer, John Evans, Robert Williams, William Perkins, Samuel Chapin, William Cheney, John Petit, Abraham Smith, John Perry, Robert Gamblin, William Chandler, Abraham Newell, Samuel Finch, Thomas Pigge, Thomas Waterman, Arthur Gary, John Curteis, Ralph Hemingway, Isaac Johnson, John Bowles, John Mathew, Abraham How, John Burwell, John Trumble, John Hall, Thomas Griggs, Robert Seaver, Thomas Ruggles, Edward Bridge, William Webb, Edward Rigges, Richard Pepper, John Rugglcs, Christopher Peakc, Gavin Anderson, John Levins, Edward Bugby, Richard Pc.icock, I^urcncc Whittemore, Giles Pason, Martin Stebbins, John Stonnard, John Totman, Edward Pason, Sheafe, Thomas

Lands were originally allotted as follows : Each person who came over at his own cost was entitled to fifty acres; each adventurer of fifty pounds in the common stock of the Company received two hundred acres, or in that proportion ; and those who brought over servants were allowed fifty acres for each. Each of the Roxbury settlers had a piece of marsh-land for the salt hay, - one acre of which was equal in value to ten of wood-land, or two of corn or pasture-land. ** A Record of Houses and Lands," the Roxbury Book of Possessions made by Edward Denison in 1654 to replace the original, destroyed at the same time as the town records, is still preserved.

Like other New England towns, Roxbury was a little republic of itself. Its selectmen and other officers were annually chosen ; and all town affairs were decided upon in general meetings of the inhabitants convened at stated periods, or whenever a dozen of them thought proper that one should be held. Political subjects of deep interest, as well as local affairs, were openly discussed, and decided ticcording to the will of the majority. The earliest town records existing date from 1647. Prior to 1643 Thomas Lamb, Joseph Weld, John Johnson, William Perkins, and John Stow were selectmen. In 1649 it was voted that **y^- five men shall have for y* present yere full power to make and execute such orders as they in their apprehension shall think to be conducing to the best good of the town." They were also empowered ** to order and dispose of all single persons and inmates within the town who lived an idle and dissolute life to service or otherwise," - an admirable regulation, and one the re-enactment of which would be most salutary. In 1666 a **clarke"was first chosen to record and transcribe the doings of the town, " unless such things as either are ridiklus or inconvenient/' The endless contention over the question of cattle, swine, &c., running at large, and the numerous warnings out of the town of all strangers and visitors unless they gave sureties for good behavior, are among the matters recorded that strike us of the present day as partaking strongly of both these characteristics.

Careful regulations for preventing fires were made at a very early day, - each householder being obliged to furnish ladders reaching to the house-top. Owing to the scarcity of money, the town in 1667 voted that ** Corn amongst ourselves shall pass current and be paid and received from man to man, corn 3 s. pr bushel ; pease 2 s. ; barley and malt 4 s, 6 d,; rye 4 s,**

The following act, passed in November, 1670, shows us how jealous our ancestors were of the purity of the ballot, and that even in those early days, when church-members only were voters, *' decaite and corrupt practices " had been introduced into elections : -

** For the better regulating and maintaining order in our town elections for time to come," it was voted that " none but the selectmen in being and the constables shall take in voates for election of town officers ; and they may examine the persons that bring in voates for others^ and if they see need they may look over every man's pertikuler voates that so no decaite may be used for corrupting our elections."

Severe labor and great privations were the lot of the settlers during the first year. Food was scarce, and the cold intense. There was much sickness, and many died, - among them Mrs. Pynchon, Mrs. Coddington, Mrs. Phillips, and Mrs. Alcock. So great were the discouragements that many returned ; and, says Dudley, " glad were we so to be rid of them. The ships being gone, victuals wasting* and mortality increasing, we held divers fasts in our several congregations, and from April, 1630, until Dec. following there died 200 at least, so low hath the Lord brought us." Few emigrants arrived in 1631 ; but in 1632 and 1635 many came, and a season of prosperity ensued.

Roxbury is fortunate in the possession of the diary and records of Eliot, from which, and from those of Sewall, Winthrop, Danforth, and others, the following items of interest in her annals have been glekned : ^ -

1 63 1, April 14. - '*We began a court of guard u))on the Neck between Roxbury and Boston, whereupon should be always resident an officer and six men." The gate of this primitive barrier stood at the narrowest part of the Neck, near Dover Slreef. The Roxbury Gate stood where an upright stone marks the old boundary-line between Roxbury and Boston.

Roxbury In The Colonial Period

1645. - "Towards the end of the ist month (March) there happened by Gods providence a very dreadful fire in Roxbiiry street. None knoweth how it was kindled, but being a fierce wind it suddenly prevailed. And in this mans house (John Johnson's) was a good part of ye county magazine of powder of 17 or 18 barrels, which awed ye people that none durst come to save ye house or goods till it was blown up, and by that time the fire had taken ye bams and outhouses (which were many and great) so that none were saved. In this fire were strong observations of Go<rs providence to ye neighbors and towne, for ye wind at first stood to carry ye fire to other houses but suddenly turned it from them. And it was a fierce wind and thereby drave ye elements Ixick from ye neighlx)rs houses, which in a calm time would by ye great heat have been set on fire." Winthrop says the explosion shook the houses in Boston and Cambridge, " so as men thought it had been an earthquake, and carried great pieces of timber a good way olT.*' By this fire the early records of the town were destroyed, - an irreparable loss.

- Dec. - "The first week in the 10th month. This was the most mortal week that ever Roxbury saw, to have five dy in one week and many more lay sick about the townc."

1646. - "This year about the end of the 5th month, upon a suddaine innumerable armys of caterpillars filled the country devouring the grasse, oats, come, wheat, and barley. They wouki crosse highways by thousands. Much prayer was made to God about it, and fasting in divers places, and the Lord heard and on a suddaine took them all away in all parts of the country to the wonderment of all men. It was the Lord, for it was done suddainly." Danforth says : " They marched thorow our fields like armed men and spoyled much com."

- "Capt. Joseph Weld being dead, the young men of the town agreed together to choose one George Denison a young soldier come lately out of the wars in England, btit the ancient and chief men of the town chose one Mr. Prichard, whereupon much discontent and murmuring arose in the town." The court decided against Young America, and in favor of Prichard.

1646-47. - "This winter was one of the mildest that ever we had, no snow all winter long nor sharp weather, but they had long floods at Connecticut which was much spoyle to ye come in ye meadows. We never had a bad day to goe preach to the Indians all this winter, praised be the Lord ! "

1647.-^" A great sicknesse epidemical did the Lord lay upon us that the greatest part of the town was sick at once. Few died, but of these were the choycest flowers and most gracious saints."

1 66 1, May 28. - " Judah Browne and Peter Pierson, Quakers, tied to a carts tail and whipt through the town with 10 stripes after receiving 30 at Boston, and again 10 8trii>es at Dedham."

1667, March 25. - "Samuel Ruggles going up the meeting hill was struck by lightning, his two oxen and horse killed, a chest in the cart with goods in it burnt in sundry places, himself coming ofl* the cart carried 20 feet from it, yet no abiding hurt."

1670, Oct - "An Indian was hanged for killing his wife, lodging at an Englishmans house in Roxbury. He threw her out of a chamber window and broke her neck."

In the deader night and also Mr Swans. One girl was burned and all the rest had much ado to escape with their lives." Sept. 2 ad the incendiary, a woman, was publicly burned to death in Boston, - the first to suffer such a penalty in New England.

The Indian war of 1675-76 - "Philip's War," as it is called - was the severest ordeal through which New England was ever called upon to pass. Of Roxbury's. share in this contest, so destructive to the colonists, Eliot says, in his diary: *' John Dresser dyed in the wars and was there buryed. We had many slaine in thc.warr, no towne for bigness lost more, if any so many," The intrepid Captain Isaac Johnson, of Roxbury, with five other captains, was killed while storming the Narragansett stronghold, when that fierce tribe was destroyed at the famous 'Fort Fight,' Dec. 19, 1675. The only entrance to the fort was over a felled tree, bridging the swamp, over which but one man could pass at a time, and this narrow pathway was protected by a block-house. The brave Roxbury captain - who was the son of John Johnson, the surveyor-general - was shot dead on this bridge, over which he was leading his men. The roll of his company, which also embraces men from the adjacent towns, includes these of Roxbury: Onesiphorous Stanley, Henry Bowen, Isaac Morill, William Lincolne, Thomas Baker, John Watson, John Corbin, Thomas Cheney, Joseph Goad, Abicl Lamb, Samuel Gardiner, John Scot, Nathaniel Wilson, John Newell, John Hubbard, William Danforth. Some who escaped from this sanguinary engagement were less fortunate in the Sudbury fight, in the following April, in which Thomas Baker, Jr., Samuel Gardiner, John Roberts, Jr., Nathaniel Seaver, Thomas Hawley, Sr., William Cleaves, Joseph Pepper, John Sharpe, and Thomas Hopkins, of Roxbury, were slain. Their families, consisting of thirty-six persons, were among the recipients of the Irish charity sent to New England in 1676. This timely donation - amounting to near one thousand pounds, which was returned with interest during the Irish famine of 1848 - was secured through the instrumentality of Rev. Nathaniel Mather, of Dublin, and was distributed among six hundred families, - sufferers by the Indian war.

The immunity from interference with its charter privileges by the mother country which New England had so long enjoyed ceased on the accession of Charles II. Thenceforth, for a quarter of a century, and until the abrogation of the Charter in 1684, there was a constant struggle for the preservation of that precious guaranty of colonial rights. Among the petitions to the General Court, praying it to be firm in its resolution ** to adhere to the patent and the privileges thereof," is one dated October 28, 1C65, signed by John Eliot, John Bowles, Philip Torrey, Robert Pepper, Samuel Williams, Samuel Scarborrow, Samuel May, William Lion, Moses Crafllts, Samuel Ruggles, Isaac Curtis, and many other inhabitants of Roxbury, requesting the honored Court to '* stand fast in our present libertys," and assuring them they will " pray the Lord to assist them to store right in these shaking times." The General Court endeavored to propitiate the English government, by removing causes of ofience. It modified its severe laws against the Quakers, and condemned Eliot's Christian Commonwtalth^ - a book in which he had defended the principles of popular freedom. Eliot was forced to suppress the work and make public acknowledgment of his error.

In the summer of 1632, the first meeting-house (a "rude and unbeautified " structure, with a thatched roof, destitute of shingles or plaster, and without gallery, pew, or spire) was built on Meeting-house Hill, - the site of the present house of worship of the First Religious Society. Here town meetings were held, and matters cither secular or religious determined, - town and church being but two names for one and the same constituency ; here, for near a century, all marriages, baptisms, and funerals were solemnized ; and here the apostle Eliot preached for nearly sixty years. It is this ministry inseparably connected with his beneficent missionary labors for the Indians, which extended the fame of the grand old apostle to the Indians throughout Christendom, that constitutes the crowning glory of the Roxbury Church.

For two years the people of Roxbury had been assessed for the support of the Charlestown Church, and, under the charge of Deacon George Alcock, had joined themselves to that of Dorchester, '* until such time as God should give them opportunity to be a church among themselves." This First Religious Society of Roxbury, destined to become large and influential, was the sixth in the order of time in New England, - those of Plymouth (1620), Salem (1629), Dorchester (1630), Boston, and Watertown (1632) having alone preceded it. Its founders were William Pynchon, George Alcock, William Parke, John Johnson, Thomas Lamb, William Dcnison, Thomas Rawlings, Robert Cole, William Chase, Thomas Welde, Robert Gamlin, Richard Lyman, Richard Bugby, Jehu Burr, Gregorie Baxter, Francis Smith, John Perrie, John Leavens, and Samuel Wakeman. When the " opportunity " came, through the large accessions made to their number in the summer of 1632, Mr. Thomas Welde was ordained teacher, and John Eliot pastor, of the church and society. Welde's engagement is thus quaintly described : -

" After many imparlances and days of humiliation by those of Roxbury to seek the Lord for Mr Welde his disposing, and the advice of those of Plymouth being taken, he resolved to sit down wi!;h thos? of Roxbury, the diligent people thereof early preventing their brethren of other churches by calling him to be their pastor."

From that day to this uninterrupted harmony has prevailed, if we except the period of the Antinomian Controversy, so called, which in 1637 disturbed the community and seriously threatened the peace of the churches. The leaders of this movement, which Avas a struggle for intellectual freedom against the authority of the clergy, - Anne Hutchinson, John Wheelwright, and others, - were exiled, and their adherents who had signed a petition to the Court aflirming Wheelwright's innocence, which was stigmatized as a ** seditious libel," were disarmed. " The Church at Roxbury," says Winthrop, " dealt with divers of tlieir members there who had their names to the petition, and spent many days in public meetings to have brought them to see the sin in that, as also in the corrupt opinions which they held, but could not prevail with them ; so they pronounced to two or three admonitions, and when all was in vain they cast them out of the church." The Roxbury men disarmed were William and Edward Denison, Richard Morris, Richard Bulgar, and Phillip Sherman. Of those exiled, two - John Coggeshall and Henry Bull - were afterwards governors of Rhode Island, while a third, Phillip Sherman, became a founder and a distinguished citizen of that Colony.

So efficacious a method of promoting the religious education of their children, and at the same time of building up their church, as the establishment of Sunday-schools, was by no means overlooked by the pious founders of New England. ''This day" (Dec. 6, 1674,) says the church record, *' we restored our primitive practice for the training up our youth. First, our male youth in fitting season after the evening services in the public meeting-house, where the elders will examine their remembrance that day and any fit point of catechism. Second, that our female youth should meet in one place where the elders may examine their remembrance of yesterday and about catechise, or what else may be convenient."

When, in 1658, the first house was plastered, shingled, and otherwise " repayred for the warmth and comfort of the people," the puritanic plainness of the old structure was so far departed from that a ** pinakle " was set upon each of its ends. For this improvement Lieutenant John Remington was to be paid ;f22, - ** more if the work deserveth more, lesse if the work deserveth lesse."

In 1674, '* afler much debate with love and condescending one to another," a new and more comfortable house was built, the people of Brook' line contributing and worshipping therein, as they had previously done, until the erection of their own church in 171 5, - one-fifth part of the church being allotted to them, they contributing in that proportion towards the parish expenses. In 1693 liberty was given to " meet persons to build pues around the meeting-house eccept where the boys do sit," the officers of the church and the selectmen to scat the people in accordance with their age and estate.

Before this time the people sat on plain benches, the men and women on opposite sides of the house, the boys separate from both, with a tithing man to keep them in order. The singing, which was congregational and without accompaniment, was from the '* Bay Psalm Book." Rising in their seats, the people stood facing the pastor and sung in unison each line as it was *- deaconed off," or ** lined out." Few congregations could sing more than five tunes. The town was taxed for the support of the minister. The dissenter from the Congregational order was not only a heretic but was politically an alien, members of the church being the only freemen and voters until 1685.

Roxbury In The Colonial Period. 4 13

Perhaps no people ever enjoyed greater religious advantages than those of Roxbury under the able, zealous, and faithful ministrations of Eliot, Wclde, ^ and Danforth. To this cause is to be attributed the steadiness of their attachment to the principles .of the Puritan fathers for a period of two hundred years. A reaction from their too rigid principles was, however, inevitable, and that Roxbury was in some degree affected by it is evident from the fact that both Eliot and Danforth, in their later days, recognized and publicly deplored the decline in vital godliness and in the churches.

Rev. Thomas Welde, the first pastor of the Roxbury Church, a native of Tirling in Essex, I'2ngland, was educated at the University of Cambridge, and then settled in the ministry in his native place. Incurring the penalties of the laws against Nonconformists, he was obliged to fly for safety to New England. Just before his departure, and while standing in jeopardy from the persecutions of Laud, then Bishop of London, Welde and Rev. Thomas Shepard " consulted together whether it was best to let such a swine root up God's plants in Essex and not give him some check." Arriving at Boston in the "William and Francis," June 5, 1632, he was ordained pastor in July, Eliot being soon after settled with him as teacher. In 1639 he assisted Eliot and Richard Mather in making the New England version of the Psalms, known as the *' Bay Psalm Book," which remained in use for more than a century. Sent in 1641 to England as agent for the Colony, he never returned, but obtained a living at Gateshead, near Newcastle, and died in London, March 23, 1661.

" Valiant in the faith, a defender of the truth and of the churches in this land, both in the pulpit and with his pen," Welde had great influence with the magistrates, by whom he was frequently consulted, and was active in the persecution of Roger Williams and of Anne Hutchinson. Mrs. Hutchinson had affirmed that Welde and some other ministers did not preach a covenant of grace. The conspicuous part which Welde took in the cruel persecution ending in the excommunication and banishment of this gifted woman and her followers, places him in the same category with Laud and other persecutors for opinion's sake. While she was a prisoner in his brother's house in Roxbury, not even her husband or children being allowed to see her except with leave of the Court, Mrs. Hutchinson was exposed to the visitations of this " holy inquisitor," whose efforts to convince her of her error were wholly futile. It is a singular fact that the blood of these bitter foes eventually commingled, a grandson of Welde having married a grand-daughter of the woman he had stigmatized as " the American Jezebel."

Nazing in Essex, England, of which we have before spoken, has the distinction of being the birth-place of the apostle Eliot. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, after which he taught a while in the grammarschool at Little Baddow, kept by that eminently pious and learned divine, Thomas Hooker ; and having determined to become a preacher, and finding little encouragement in England at that day for a Puritan minister, he took passage in the "Lion" for New England, arriving at Boston Nov. 2, 1631..

Respecting the manner of his settlement in Roxbury, which took place notwithstanding Boston *' labored all they could, both with the congregation of Roxbury and with Mr. Eliot himself/' to secure his services, he tells us in his Church Record, -

''Mr. John Eliot came to N. E. in the 9th month, 1631. He left his intended wife in England to come the next year. He adjoyned to the church at Boston, and there exercised in the absence of Mr. Wilson, the pastor, who was gone l)ack to England for his wife and family. The next summer Mr. Wilson returned, and by y\ time tlie church at Boston was intended to call him to office, his friends were come over and settled at Roxborough, to whom he was foreingaged / if he were not called to office before they came he was to joyne with them ; wliereupon the church at Roxborough called him to be teacher in the end of the summer, & soon after he was ordained to f. office in the church. Also his wife came along with the rest of his friends the same time, & soon after their coming they were married."

The special merit of Eliot, and that which entitled him to be called the "apostle," lay in his zealous and unwearied efforts to Christianize the Indians. This, in the language of the charter of the Massachusetts Company, was declared to be " the principal cause of this plantation." Upon the colony seal an Indian with extended hands raised the Macedonian cry, ** Come over and help us I " " That public engagement," wrote Eliot j^^ ^6ioh to a friend in 1659, "together with pity for the poor Indian and desire to make the name of Christ chief in these dark ends of the earth, and not the rewards of men, were the very first and chief movers, if I know what did first and chiefly move in my heart, when God was pleased to put upon me that work of preaching to them."

After acquiring the native language, a two years* labor, he began his missionary work at Nonantum, now Newton, whither he was accompanied by Rev. Thomas Shepard, of Cambridge, and Elder Heath and Daniel Gookin, of Roxbury, Oct. 28. 1646. He preached once a week alternately at the wigwams of Waban, at Nonantum, and of Cutshamokin, near Dorchester Mill, extending his labors also to various points on the Merrimac River, Martha's Vineyard, Lancaster, Brookfield, and the country of the Nipmuks, which included parts of southwestern Massachusetts and northern Connecticut. He was violently opposed by the sachems and pow-was, or priests, and in his frequent journeys into the wilderness experienced many privations. On one of these expeditions he tells us " it pleased God to exercise us with such tedious rains and bad weather that we were extreme wet, insomuch that I was not dry night nor day from the 3rd day of the week to the sixth, but so travelled and at night pull oflf my boots, wring my stockings, and on with them, again." It was his maxim that the Indians must be civilized in order to their being Christianized. One season of hunting, he said, undid all his missionary work. He drew up for them a simple code of laws, urged upon them the necessity of industry, cleanliness, good order, and good

In 1661, after twelve years' labor, Eliot's translation of the New Testament into the Indian tongue was printed, the whole Bible being completed in 1663. The expense was principally borne by the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, at the head of which was the excellent Sir Robert Boyle, through whose influence £$0 were annually paid to Eliot by the Society. Primers, grammars, psalters, catechisms, Baxter's CV?//, and otlicr books in the Indian tongue followed ; no pains were spared to teach the natives to read and write; and soon there were fourteen places of Praying Indians, as they were called, and eleven hundred souls apparently converted. In 1673 six Indian cluivchcs had been gathered. Then came Philip's war, the death-blow to the work upon which the apostle had set his heart, and in which he had been nearly spent. In the course of the conflict some of the Praying Indians joined their countrymen, which so exasperated the English that those who remained could with difficulty be preserved from their vengeance, and a breach was created between the two races that could never be healed. In 1684 the Indian towns had been reduced to four; the tribes steadily dwindled and finally disappeared.

Eliot was a founder and principal promoter of the grammar-school in Roxbury, and was zealous in his efforts for the establishment of schools throughout the colony. It is the testimony of two intelligent Dutch travellers who visited him in 1679, when he was seventy-five years old, that he was the best of the ministers they had yet heard. " He that would write of Eliot," says Cotton Mather, '* must write of charity or say nothing." Besides

' [This antique chair, having been preserved in a Roxbury family, was given to the late Rev. Dr. Harris, and rests at present in the First Church in Dorchester, and bears this inscription : "This chair once belonged to the Rev. John Idiot, of Roxbury, commonly called the Apostle to the Indians, and was used in his study. It was placed under the pulpit of this meeting-house (built in 1816 by the first parish in Dorchester) by Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, D.D., for forty-three years its pastor, as a venerated me* morial." We are indebted to his successor, the Rev. S. J. Barrows, for a sketch of it. A bureau with the initials I. E. upon it, thought to have been Eliot's, belonged to the late Gen. W. H. Sumner, and is figured and described in the Al JE, f/i'si. and CeneaL Register^ October, 1855, and January, 1858. - Ed. J being the friend and protector of the Indian, he was the first to lift up his voice against the treatment accorded to the negro in New England, and offered to teach such in his neighborhood as might once a week be sent to him.

Frugal and temperate through a long life, he never indulged in the luxuries of the table. His excellent wife, who died three years before him, and who skilfully dispensed medicines to the sick in her vicinity, managed his private affairs, so that he might devote his whole time and strength to his public labors. The death of this venerable and Christ-like man occurred May 20, 1690, at the age of eighty-six. Had he been a Roman Catholic he would assuredly have been canonized. After the decease of Danforth, Eliot's youngest son, Benjamin, was for some years his colleague. The church record kept by the apostle contains many curious and interesting particulars respecting the early inhabitants of the town.

Rev. Samuel Danforth, a native of Framlingham, England, was brought over by Nicholas, his father, in 1634, and graduated at Harvard College in 1643. In 1649 he became Eliot's assistant, so continuing until ordained his colleague, Sept. 24, 1650. Here he continued until his decease, ** neither the incompetency of his salary nor the provocation which unworthy men in the neighborhood sometimes tried him withal could persuade him to remove unto more comfortable settlement." Cotton Mather also tells us that he was very affectionate in his manner of preaching, seldom leaving the pulpit without tears; and, referring to his astronomical labors, a department of knowledge in which he excelled, quaintly adds, " several of his astronomical composures have seen the light of the sun."

He published a particular account of the comet of 1664, and a series of almanacs. In the church records, under date of Nov. 19, 1674, Eliot writes this touching passage : ** Our reverend pastor Mr. Samuel Danforth sweetly rested from his labors. It pleased the Lord to brighten his passage to glory. He greatly increased in the power of his ministry, especially the last summer. Wc consulted together about beautifying the hou.se of God, and to order the congregation into the primitive way of collections. My brother Danforth made the most glorious end that ever I saw."

Benjamin Thompson, a " learned schoolmaster and physiciiin and y* renouncd poet of New England," was son of Rev. William Thompson, of Braintree, where he was born in 1642. Graduating at Harvard in 1662, he taught school in various places, and finally in Roxbury, where he died, April 13, 1714. His principal poem, "New England's Crisis," has in it a strong vein of vigorous satire, and contrasts the degeneracy of his day with the good old times when, -

<< Men had better stomachs at religion Than I to capon, turkeycock, or pigeon, When honest sisters met to pray, not prate About their own and not their neighbor's state."

Some of Thompson's verses are in the Magnalia, and in a poem prefixed to Hubbard's Indian Wars there are some sprightly and characteristic lines.

By far the most eminent citizen of colonial Roxbury was Thomas Dud- Icy, founder of a family that furnished two governors, a chief-justice, and a speaker of the House, all of whom played conspicuous parts in the affairs of New England. Thomas Dudley, second Governor of Massachusetts, and one of the most eminent of the Puritan pioneers, was the son of Captain Roger Dudley, who was *' slain in the wars." Brought up as a page in the family of the Earl of Northampton, he was afterward a clerk in the office of Judge Nichols, where he acquired a knowledge of the law that was highly useful to him in his subsequent career. His intelligence, courage, and prudence, already strongly developed, procured for him, the age of twenty-one, the captaincy of an English company which he led at the siege of Amiens under Henry of Navarre, and, later on, the stewardship of the estate of the Earl of Lincoln, which, by careful management, he succeeded in freeing from a heavy load of debt. A Puritan of the Puritans, and a parishioner of the famous John Cotton, he, with four others, undertook, although he was then fifty years of age, the settlement of the Massachusetts colony, and came over with Winthrop as Deputy-Governor in 1630. Dudley at first settled in Newtown, but removed to Roxbury to place himself under the ministrations of Eliot and Welde. In 1644, at the age of sixty-eight, he was chosen Sergeant-Major-General, the highest military office in the colonies. He was Governor in 1634, 1640, 1645, and 1650, and Deputy-Governor or Assistant in the intervening years, and from the time of his arrival until his death, which took place on July 31, 1653, in his seventy-seventh year.

Vol. 1.-53

Dudley was a man of sound judgment, inflexible integrity, great public spirit, and exemplary piety. No one of his contemporaries was more strongly imbued with the intolerant spirit of his age, and he took a prominent part in the proceedings against Roger Williams, Wheelwright, Anne Hutchinson, and others. A Universalist church now occupies the site of the residence of one of the most intolerant of men. After his death these lines were found in his pocket : -

** Let men of God in courts and churches watch - - O'er such as do a toleration hatch, Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice To poison all with heresy and vice. If men be left and otherwise combine, My epitaph 's I dy*d no libertine."

With Governor Winthrop the arbitrary and hot-tempered deputy had frequent quarrels. One of these, described by the former, terminated thus : " So the deputy rose up in great fury and passion and the governor grew very hot also so as they both fell into bitterness, but by mediation of the mediators they were pacified." Their differences were finally and most appropriately ended at Concord, where each had a grant of land, and where the Governor yielded to Dudley the first choice. His daughter Ann, who married Governor Bradstreet, was famed in her day as a poet, a volume from her pen in 1650 being the first book of poetry published in America. Governor Joseph Dudley, his son, was a conspicuous actor in the later colonial and earlier provincial history of New England.

A brief survey of the town and some of its principal features at the close of the seventeenth century may not be unacceptable to the reader.

At the corner of Washington and Eustis streets is one of the oldest burial places in New England, the first interment in it having been made in 1633. The oldest remaining gravestone bears date 1653. Here, side by side with the apostle Eliot and Robert Calef, were laid the Dudleys, the Warrens, and others of lesser note. Here Lyon and Lamb lie down together in fraternal harmony, peacefully commingling their ashes with those of Pigge and Peacock, while near them reposes the dust of Pepper and Onion, - savory conjunction I Inseparable in life, even in death they arc not divided.^

On entering the cemetery the first tomb that meets the eye, and the one upon the highest ground, is covered with an oval slab of white marble, bearing the name of Dudley. In it were laid the remains of Governors Thomas and Joseph Dudley, Chief-Justice Paul Dudley, and Colonel William Dudley, a prominent political leader a century and a half ago. The original inscription plate is said to have been of pewter, and to have been taken out and run into bullets by the provincial soldiers during the siege. Near the centre

1 So far as is known, the first instance of Adams, of Roxbury, wtien Mr. Wilson, minister prayer at a funeral in Massachusetts occurrea of Medfield, prayed with the company before Aug. 19, 16S5, at the burial of Rev. William they went to the grave.

of the ground is the Parish Tomb, in which are the remains of the pastors of the First Church, including the apostle Eliot; and upon a slab of white marble arc inscribed their names and periods of service.^ Among the inscriptions in this old burial-place, one of which - that of John Grosvenor - is accompanied with a coat-of-arms, are the following : -

** Here lyes Interred y* body of William Denison Master of Arts & Representative for y* town of Roxbury about 20 years who departed this life March 22d. 1717-18 aetatis 54.

** The Free Schoole in Roxburie " originated in 1642 in a bequest by Samuel Hagburne of 20J. per annum, " when Roxburie shall set up a free schoole in the towne." In August, 1645, some sixty of the principal inhabitants, " out of their religious care of posteritie," and considering " how necessary the education of their children in literature will be to fit them for publicke service in succeeding ages," bound themselves to the payment of certain sums yearly for the support of a free school, and in 1646 pledged their houses, barns, orchards, and homesteads to carry out their purpose. For near a century the school was managed by seven feoffees, ;f20 to £2^ per annum being allowed the teacher. One of these, Mr. John Prudden, in 1668, engaged at £2^ per annum to instruct the children " in all scholasticall morall, and theologicall discipline, ABCDarians excepted." The standard of admission must originally have been of the simplest, since in 1728 it was so raised that only such were received as could spell common easy English words. The grammar school became a Latin school when, in 1674, the legacy of Mr. Bell became available, but of eighty-five scholars in 1770 but nine were students of that tongue.

Of John Eliot's active agency in the establishment of this school, and the high reputation it thus early enjoyed, Rev. Cotton Mather says : ** God so blessed his endeavors, that Roxbury could not live quietly without a free school in the town. And the issue of it has been one thing that has almost made me put the title of schola illttstris upon that little nursery; that is, that Roxbury has afforded more scholars first for the college and then for the public than any other town of its bigness, or if I mistake not of twice its bigness, in New England."

In 1663 the town gave for the use of the schoolmaster " forever," and " not to be sold or given away," the wood and timber on ten acres of its common land. In 1680 the parents were ordered to supply the school with fuel, either half a cord of wood or 4r. for each child, excepting' those who were too poor. This custom continued down to the close of the last century.

The liberality of its founders and the generous gifts of Thomas Bell and others have made the '* Roxbury Latin School," as it is now called, one of the best endowed institutions of learning in New England. Nine generations of Roxbury boys have imbibed freely at this fountain of learning, a goodly number of whom have reflected credit on their alma mater. " Father Stowe" and Joseph Hansford are the earliest mentioned of its teachers. Among those of a later date we find the names of Benjamin Thompson, " renouned poet of N. Engl. ; " Joseph Warren, the patriot and martyr, and Increase Sumner, afterwards Governor of Massachusetts, both natives of Roxbury; William Gushing, afterwards a Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court; Samuel Parker, afterwards Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts ; and Ward Chipman, subsequently President and Commander-in-Chief of New Brunswick.

In the early days the highways were let out by the year for pasturage, and were generally fenced across to keep in the cattle. In 1652 a committee was appointed to stake them out and settle all questions respecting them. Among the twenty highways laid out in 1663 were those now known as Washington, Roxbury, Tremont, Dudley, Perkins, Centre, and Warren streets, and Walnut Avenue, four rods wide ; and Parker, School, Boylston, Eustis, Dennis, Albany, Green, Heath, and Ruggles streets, two rods in width. The highway over the Neck, long known as V the town street," or Roxbury Street, now Washington, was frequently covered with water in the spring, rendering it almost impassable ; and in it, during violent snow-storms, travellers sometimes lost their way and perished with the cold. The common, an extensive tract of wild land near the centre of the town, now forms a portion of the beautiful Forest Hills Cemetery.

The old Training Field, containing seven acres, formed the eastern portion of the triangle lying between Washington, Eustis, and Dudley streets. Captain John Underhill's company, composed of the freemen of Boston and Roxbury, trained here on the first Tuesday of every month. Underhill's ensign was Richard Morris, one of the founders of the Ancient and Honor- able Artillery Company, " a very stout man and experienced soldier." The Roxbury company, of which Joseph Weld was the first captain, was in 1636 included in the regiment, of which Winthrop was colonel and Dudley lieutcolonel. There were ten Roxbury men in the expedition under Stoughton against the Pcquods in 1637. In 1762 the old Training Field ceased to be public property.

For more than a century the Greyhound tavern was the principal publichouse in Roxbury. It stood on Washington Street, opposite Vernonj and was torn down during the Revolution. Its position on the only road leading out of Boston - there were then no bridges - made it a noted resort in the days when public meetings, festive gatherings, and other assemblages of a political, social, or*business character were usually held in such places, and, being famed for the excellence of its punch, it was much frequented by the convivial spirits of Boston and vicinity.

While tolerating the sale of wine and beer, drunkenness was severely dealt with by our Puritan fathers, who taught and practised the duty of self-control. March 4. 1633, the Court orders that "Robert Coles for drunkenness by him committed at Roxbury shall be disfranchised, wcare about his nccke & soe to hangc upon his outward garment a D made of redd clothe & sette upon white ; to contynue this for a yeare and not to leave it off at any tyme when he comes amongst company under penalty of XLs. for the first offence & V. pounds the second, & afler to be punished by the court as they think meet; also he is to weare the D outwards and is cnjoyned to appear at the next General Court & to contynue there until it be ended."

From the earliest period leave was granted to ** draw " wine and to brew and sell "penny beere." In 1678, soon after the close of the Indian war, intemperance had grown so prevalent that the town voted that neither wine nor liquors should be sold at any ordinary, and that there should be but one ordinary in the town. This prohibitory enactment did not long remain in force.

The old school-house stood where the brick edifice, erected for the school in 1742, still stands in what is now Guild Row. The mansion built by Governor Dudley, famous in colonial and provincial days for the number of distinguished guests it had entertained, stood where the Universalist Church now stands, and was taken down during the siege of Boston. Its sightly and eligible location renders it quite probable that it was the spot selected by Pynchon for his own residence, and the fact that his departure occurred at the same time as Dudley's settlement in Roxbury serves to strengthen the supposition. Between it and the old school-house ran Smelt Brook, and adjoining it on the west was Meeting-house Hill and the church. Fronting it on the east was the home of John Eliot, whose garden extended along the north side of Dudley Street, across what is now the lower part of Warren Street, to the Training Field. Along the town street in the direction of Boston, the earliest settled part of Roxbury, were the homesteads of Weld,

Heath, Denison, Bowles, Hewes, Hagborne, Peacock, and Captain John Johnson. Deacon Parke and the Williaipses were on the Dorchester road (Dudley Street); Cheney, I^eavcns, and Bugbcc on the Uraintree road (Warren Street) ; Lamb, Gore, Pierpont, and Craft on the road to Cambridge (Roxbury and Tremont streets). South of Meeting-house Hill were the homes of Alcock, Newell, Morrill, Porter, and Dane. Ruggles, William and Peleg Heath, Philip Eliot, Seaver, and Bell were on the Dedham road (Centre Street) ; while at Jamaica Plain and beyond were Curtis, Brewer, May, Mayo, Polley, Thomas, Davis, Lion, and Bowen.

At the close of the colonial period a change had undoubtedly taken place in character and manners, owing, in part, to the close connection of Roxbury with the metropolis. Everywhere the too rigid austerity of the social and religious life of the Puritan pioneers had given place to a freer and more unrestrained play of the social forces. Intemperance had greatly increased. Attendance at church had grown less constant. More costly dress and equipage, and greater refinement of manners began to be observable. Other changes of a beneficial character appeared. Farming was then 9nd long continued to be the principal occupation of the people ; but the introduction of cloth manufacture, of tanning, and other industries to supply the wants of Boston, always a ready market for her agricultural products, gave the town an additional impetus, and added materially to her wealth and population. With respect to the latter, it must, however, be borne in mind that numerous emigrations, especially that of thirty families to Woodstock, Conn., in 1686, had materially lessened her numbers. Notwithstanding this drawback, Roxbury at this period was unquestionably a thriving and influential town.

By Rev. Samuel J. Barrows

OF the suburban sections now included in the corporate limits of Boston, Dorchester is one of the most beautiful. Its broad fields and meadows, its ancient homesteads the heritage of colonial estates, its well-kept lawns and fruitful gardens, its noble bay, its numerous rock-ribbed hills, and its general accessibility to the heart of the city have made it a favorite place of residence for many years. No district is more replete with lovely views than are furnished from some of these lofty hills, - commanding the city, the harbor, the Blue Hills, Brookline, Cambridge, Milton, and a whole circle of neighboring towns. And there is no town so near the city which so long preserved its original simplicity and solidity.

The town of Dorchester was annexed to Boston in. 1870. It is to be remembered, however, that Dorchester, Roxbury, Charlestown, and Boston, prior to the town organizations, were all originally under the same general government in the earliest days of the colony, and that Dorchester formed a part of Suffolk County until 1793. Although now a silent partner in the new firm, it can point to a time when Boston itself was a stripiling of no speci<il promise, called Blackstone's Neck, - a neck without any body, so far as population is concerned, except that which Dorchester and Charlestown furnished. Boston bears a different relation to its suburbs from that of many large cities, where the centre has been first formed and the periphery afterwards, and the suburbs have been thrown off by a force of growth from within. In Boston two segments, Charlestown and Dorchester, were formed before the centre was even attempted.

Dorchester was settled June 6 (o. S.), 1630, some weeks before Boston. Had not the waters of Dorchester Bay been more shallow than those on the other side of Dorchester Heights, we should probably have had to record the annexation of Boston to Dorchester instead of the reverse. In fact there are many of the old residents of the place who prefer to consider the annexation in that light.

The settlement of Dorchester arose from the same influences in England, which, two years before, had settled the town of Salem, and, ten years earlier, had planted the Leyden refugees about Plymouth Rock. The conflict between Puritanism and the hierarchy had assumed threatening proportions. There were two solutions for distressed England. One was to be found in a Puritan sea-voyage ; the other was furnished by the radical surgery of the New Model.

Of the active promoters of Puritan emigration, Rev. John White, Rector of Trinity Parish, Dorchester, England, was the most prominent. The colonization of Massachusetts is a lasting memorial of his zeal, energy, and executive ability. It was he who gathered the company of emigrants in England and organized the church which settled Dorchester, and the town was in all probability named in his honor. Mr. White had early shown his sympathy in the emigration movement by giving of his heart and purse to help the settlers at Plymouth. He had encouraged the Dorchester fishermen in their voyages to the American waters. One object of the settlement which he sought to make at Cape Ann, in 1624, under Roger Conant, was to furnish a depot for the fishermen on the coast. The practical failure of this enterprise only stimulated Mr. White to greater efforts, and the expeditions to Salem in 1628 and 1629 were prompted by his active exertions. With a persistent and contagious zeal, Mr. White immediately gathered another company of emigrants from the western counties of England, very few of whom had known each other before. This band assembled in the New Hospital, Plymouth, England. John White was present, and preached in the morning. In the afternoon a church was organized, and the Rev. John Maverick and Rev. John Warham were chosen ministers. On the 20th of March (O. S.), 1630, the company, numbering about one hundred and forty, sailed in the ship " Mary and John," a vessel of four hundred tons, under command of Captain Squeb.

Roger Clap, one of the passengers, in his quaint memoirs, - the earliest contemporaneous document relating to Dorchester, - thus refers to the voyage: "So we came, by the good Hand of the Lord, through the Deeps comfortably; having Preaching or Expounding of the Word of God every day for Ten Weeks together, by our ministers."

It was understood that the " Mary and John " was bound for the Charles River. Either through an ignorance which, in the absence of charts and maps at that time, might be considered pardonable, or through a perversity which the indignant passengers considered very unpardonable. Captain Squeb, says Roger Clap, *' would not bring us into Charles River, as he was bound to do ; but put us ashore and our Goods on Nantasket Point, and left us to shift for ourselves in a forlorn place in this Wilderness." * The date of the arrival was May 30 (O. S.), 1630. It is well known that previous to the coming of the Winthrop fleet, of which the " Mary and John " was the first to arrive, a few adventurous planters, such as Tompson, Blackstone, and

> [It should be remembered, however, that whether at Light-houae Channel or at Shawmut. there was a diversity of opinion in those days as See Mr. Winsor's chapter on ** The earliest maps to where the mouth of the Charles River was, of MassachusettsBay and Boston Harbor. " - Eo.]

Dorchester In The Colonial Period

others* had established themselves about the harbor for the purpose of trading with the Indians.^ From one of these old planters the newly-landed emigrants at Nantasket procured a boat, and loaded it with goods. About ten men, well armed, under command of Captain Southcot, started for Charles River. They landed first at the peninsula afterwards called Charlcstown. Here they found some Indian wigwams and a solitary Englishman, who treated them to some boiled fish (which Roger Clap describes as bass), without bread, - afterwards a somewhat familiar and monotonous diet. The scouting party moved up the Charles River until the stream grew narrow and narrower, and finally landed at the present site of Watertown. The Indians quickly assembled, upon their arrival, to the number, as they judged, of about three hundred. But the mediation of an old planter (whom they had probably brought from Charlestown with them, and who could speak a little of the Indian language) prevented any hostilities. The next morning an Indian appeared, graciously holding out a fish, which he exchanged for a biscuit. From the very beginning the Dorchester settlers seem to have had friendly dealings with the Indians.

After spending a few days at the site of Watertown, and building a temporary shelter for their goods, the scouting party received word to return, as the main company at Nantasket had found a neck of land adjoining a place called by the Indians Mattapan, which would serve both to nourish their cattle and prevent them from straying. The exploring party re-embarked for Dorchester, and thus Watertown lost the honor which it nearly achieved of being the second settlement of the Massachusetts Colony. A piece of land at Watertown, called " Dorchester Fields," long preserved the memory of this early expedition.

A week from the arrival of the " Mary and John " at Nantasket the removal of the passengers' effects was completed, and Sunday, the 6th of June, was observed as a day of rest and thanksgiving. The settlement of the town is reckoned from that day. The south side of Dorchester Neck (South Boston) is supposed to be the landing-place of the first settlers. A week later they were gladdened by the arrival at Salem of the " Arbella," the admiral ship of the fleet, with Governor Winthrop on board. We are told that a few days later Winthrop, after exploring the Charles and Mystic to find a good place for settlement, returned to Salem by way of Nantasket, and composed the differences between Captain Squeb and his indignant passengers.

Dorchester was thus the first settled town in Suffolk County. It did not receive its final baptism, however, until the fall, when at a meeting of the Court of Assistants, held at Charlestown, Sept. 7, 1630, it was ordered that -' Trimountaine shalbe called Boston ; Mattapan, Dorchester; and the towne vpon Charles Ryver, Watertown."* "Why they called it Dorchester," says James Blake, next to Roger Clap the earliest annalist of the town, " I never heard ; but there was some of Dorset Shire, and some of y^ Town of

When, in the fall of 1630, a few months after the landing, the Court of Assistants found it necessary to define and grant the privilege of freemanship, out of one hundred and eight persons who made application for this right, twenty-six were of Dorchester,

" In our beginning," says Roger Clap, " many were in great Straits for want of Provision for themselves and their little Ones. Oh, the Hunger that many suffered, and saw no hope in an Eye of Reason to be supplyed, only by Clams^ and Muscles^ and Fish. . . . Bread was so very scarce that sometimes I tho'ht the very Crusts of my Father's Table would have been veiy sweet unto me. And when I could have Meal and Water and Salt boiled together, it was so good who could wish better? ... It was not accounted a strange thing in those Days to drink Water, and to eat Savip or Hominie without Butter or Milk. Indeed, it would have been a strange thing to see a piece of Roast Beef, Mutton, or Veal; though it was not long before there was Roast Goat." Yet the old Puritan grit and the Puritan faith did not wince under the most extreme hardship. " I took notice of it, as a Favour of God unto mc," says the philosophical Captain Clap, " not only to preserve my Life, but to give me Contentment in all these Straits ; insomuch that I do not remember that I ever did wish in my Heart that I had not come unto this Country, or wish myself back again to my Father's House." In these days, two hundred and fifty years later, when the Massachusetts Indian has nearly disappeared, and thousands of the western tribes would starve to death every winter if the Government withheld the supply of food, it is interesting to recall the fact that the Massachusetts Indian established the kindly precedent by dividing his portion with the destitute white man. Roger Clap has embalmed this fact in a pious pun. " In those Days, in our Straits, though I cannot say God sent a Raven to feed us, tis lie did the Prophet lilijah; yet this I can say to the Praise of God's Glory, that lie sent poor raven-ons Indians, which came with their Baskets of Corn on their Backs to Trade with us, which was a good supply unto many." The relief ship which has sailed for Ireland this year is a reminder of the fact that two centuries and a half ago the distressed colonists welcomed with joy a ship which brought them provisions from the Irish shore.

The priority of settlement in favor of Dorchester, though only of a few weeks, was also marked by a priority of growth. A second ship-load arrived from Weymouth, England, in July, 1633, and brought eighty passengers, who settled at Dorchester. In October of this year, from the assessments made by the Court, it appears that Dorchester was the largest or wealthiest town in Massachusetts. While Boston, Roxbury, Newton, Watertown, and Charlestown were each taxed £^i, and Salem £2i, Dorchester was assessed for ;C8o. Prince says, " in all military musters or civil assemblies where dignity is regarded, Dorchester used to have the precedence."

Dorchester In The Colonial Period

The distinguished honor is claimed for Dorchester of having the first special town government in New England. During the early years of settlement the affairs of the colony were administered by the Court of Assistants. Such local authority as was needed beyond the orders of the Court was no doubt exercised by the clergymen, deacons, and magistrates. Meetings of the Dorchester Plantation were occasionally held. In the subsequent records there is reference to such a meeting in 1631, "to make and confirm orders for the control of their affairs." But no special town government existed. The necessity of some form of representative local regulation was soon felt, and at a meeting of the '* Dorchester Plantation" held Oct. 8, 1633, an order was passed which has become of such historic interest that we transcribe it in the original form : -

" Imprimis, It is ordered, that for the generall good and well ordering of the aflayres of the plantation, there shall be every Mooneday before the Court by eight of the clocke in the moming, and presently upon the beating of the drum, a generall mccteing of the inhabitants of the plantation at the Meeting Houses there to settle and sett downe such orders as may tend to the generall good as aforesayd, and every man to be bound thereby without gainsaying or resistance."

Another new feature was the appointment of twelve selectmen, who were to hold monthly meetings, and whose orders were binding when confirmed by the Plantation.

This order, it will be seen, contains the germ of the New England town government, which was afterwards adopted by the other towns, and, as De Tocqueville promptly recognized, exercised *' the most prodigious influence" on the history of New England.

In the May of the following year, - 1634, - when it was ordered that four General Courts should be kept every year, at three of which every town should be represented by deputies, Dorchester sent three members, - Israel Stoughton, William Phelps, and George Hull.

As we might expect from its size and importance, the town of Dorchester figures very frequently in the old colonial records. Its name, as already noticed, was given at the second Court of Assistants, when Boston wjis also named. At the third Court, held Sept. 28, 1630, Thomas Stoughton was appointed its constable, and six months later learned the limits and responsibilities of his office, when he was fined five pounds by the Court for taking upon himself to marry a couple, and was ordered to be imprisoned until the fine was paid. Some years later this fine was remitted. Most of the orders of the Court related to the appointment of officers, the mending of roads, the settlement of boundaries, the adjustment of disputes, &c., but the importance of Dorchester to Boston is seen in the order of Nov. 7, 1632, when the inhabitants of Boston were granted liberty fo " fetch wood from Dorchester neck of land for twenty years, the property of the land to re- main with Dorchester." Its military importance was recognized in 1634 by an assignment of three pieces of ordnance, and leave was granted to the Deputy-Governor to have ** his Indian trained with the rest of the company at Dorchester." The novel way in which the Dorchester poor-fund was recruited in 1632 leads us to infer that our early fathers considered that intemperance owed some reparation to poverty. It was ordered that " y« remainder of Mr. Allen's Strong-Water, being estimated about 2 Gallandes, shall be delivered into y* handes of the Deacons of Dorchester for the benefit of the poore there, for his selling of it dyvers tymes to such as were drunke by it, he knowing thereof."

In 1645 an instrument called the ''Directory" was adopted, containing regulations which the inhabitants bound themselves to observe in conducting town meetings. The Directory provided that ''Althings should be aforehand prepared by y* Selectmen; that all Votes of Importance should ^ be first drawn in writing, and have 2 or 3 distinct

ISSf^^ C0l^^ Readings before y* Vote was called for; that ^^ every man should haue libertie to speak his mind ^fffjk^itjZ- meekly and without noise ; that no man should

The first Dorchester record-book is the oldest town record in Massachusetts. Its six hundred and thirty-six pages cover the period from January, 1632-33, to 1720, and mainly contain lists of selectmen, orders relating to land-grants, fences, roads, &c., having an interest for the antiquary, though but little for the general reader.^ There is one important dety, and being included in Young's Chronicles Richard Mather kept on his voyage over, Mayof Mcus. Humphrey Atherton was a major- August, 1635 (^^ printed in Young's Chronicles his horse was struck by a stray cow. In the in the last century, and called Annals of Dorcollision he was thrown and killed, Sept. 16, Chester. The oration which Edward Everett, order, however, which must not be overlooked. It is referred to by the oldest inhabitants with the greatest pride. I refer to the order making provision for a free school. On the 4th March, 1634-35, the General Court made a grant of Tompson's Island to the inhabitants of the town of Dorchester. On the 30th of May, 1639, four years after the grant, the town voted to lay a tax upon the proprietors of this island ** for the maintenance of a school in Dorchester." From a later instrument we learn that those who paid rent numbered about one hundred and twenty, and therefore included the principal part of the adult male inhabitants of the town. This order, it is claimed, was the first public provision made for a free school in America '* by a direct tax or assessment on the inhabitants of the town." The rent imposed on the island was ;f 20, "to be paid to such a schoolemastcr as shall undertake to teach English, latine, and other tongues, and also writing." It was left to the discretion of the elders and the seven men for the time being, " whether maydes shalbe taught w*" the boyes or not" In 1641, by another instrument, signed by seventy-one of the inhabitants of the town, it was agreed that the island and all profits and benefits thereof should be forever bequeathed and given away from themselves and their heirs unto the town of Dorchester, " for the maintenance of a free schople in Dorchester," with the proviso that the income should not be put to any other use. Rev. Thomas Waterhouse was the first teacher. In 1645, wardens were appointed to manage the affairs of the school, and various rules were adopted for its government. The schoolmaster was not to be chosen without the consent of the major part of the inhabitants. For seven months of the year the hours were fixed from 7 o'clock to 11, and from i o'clock to 5; for the other five months from 8 o'clock to 11, and 1 o'clock to 4. Every Monday, from 12 o'clock to i, scholars were called together and questioned upon what they had learned on the Sabbath day preceding, and on Saturdays, at 2 o'clock, were catechised in the principles of the Christian religion. Another rule was that the schoolmaster " shall equally and impartially receive and instruct such as shalbe sent and Committed to him for that end, whither there parents bee poore or rich, not refusing any who have Right and Interest in the Schoole."

When, in 1648, the claim of John Tompson to the island already named, by virtue of his father David's occupancy, was granted by the Court, a thousand acres of land were assigned to Dorchester in lieu thereof. Individual bequests attest the great interest which the early settlers had in their free school. The earliest of these was the legacy of John Clap in 1655. The land he bequeathed at South Boston Point was sold in 1835 ^^f ^he sum of $I3»S90.62. Another bequest, made in 1674, by Christopher Gibson, who was one of the first applicants for freemanship in Dorchester in 1630, now amounts to $17,575.79, and the j^i50 given by Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton towards the advancement of the salary of the schoolmaster has swelled to $4,140. When Dorchester was annexed to Boston these funds were made over to the city, but the income of the Gibson fund is appropriated for the supply of the Dorchester schools with such library books and apparatus as are not furnished by the city ; and the income of the Stoughton fund is credited annually to the appropriation for salaries of school instructors.

The bold spirit of enterprise which, in common with an earnest religious faith, brought the colonists to New England, was not checked when they had landed on its shores. The people of Dorchester had hardly been settled three years before that westward movement began which was to result in the immediate foundation of Connecticut, and, fed by new and still flowing streams from Europe, was eventually to spread across the continent. We have no space in this article to speak of that movement in detail. It must suffice to say that in 1633 the glowing reports brought by Indians and adventurous scouts of the fertility of the Connecticut valley, heightened by seeing specimens of its valuable furs, stimulated the enterprise of the Dorchester people, and a Connecticut fever set in which was not easily abated. The colonial government strongly opposed the movement, but was Anally obliged to consent. A trading-house established by the people of Plymouth in Connecticut in 1633, on or near the site of the present town of Windsor, became the nucleus of the new settlement in 1635. An advance party left in the summer of that year, and were followed in November by sixty persons, with a large number of cattle. The journey was one of much hardship ; the winter which followed was marked by great suffering. Winthrop tells us that they lost near £2,000 worth of cattle, and were obliged to eat acorns, malt, and grains. Having been threatened with starvation in the early months of their settlements in Dorchester, it may seem strange that so many of the first planters should invite the same peril a second time. It is another illustration of their native pluck and determination. Though most of the first party were obliged to return to Dorchester, in the spring of 1636 they set out again, with Mr. Warham, the junior pastor of the church, and a large part of its members. With those from Dorchester were others from Cambridge and Watertown.*

The departure of the emigrants was facilitated by the fact that a vessel arrived in 1635 from England with Richard Mather and a large company, many of whom were prepared to buy the places of those who wore going away. Notwithstanding the efforts of the colonial government to discourage it, emigration did not finally cease till 1637.