Boston City (part 37 of 67)

The original boundaries of Dorchester were of the most roving and allembracing nature. From various grants of the Court, and the reports of committees appointed to adjust boundaries, we learn that by the year 1637 Dorchester occupied not only all the ground within its present limits, but also extended over the present towns of Milton, Canton, Stoughton, Sharon, Foxboro, and a part of Wrentham, - a district some thirty-five miles long, and running, as computed by a careful historian, to within one hundred and sixty rods of the Rhode Island line. In the year 1657, at 'the request of John Eliot, the town of Dorchester, warmly supporting his mission ^ [C£. George E. Ellis's Life of Jokf$ AToia/i. - Ed.]

Dorchester In The Colonial Period

to the Indians, set apart six thousand acres at Fonkapog for an Indian reservation. In the year 1713, when a new line was run, Dorchester lost, through the mistake of the surveyors, six thousand more acres of its extensive territory.

" The form of this town is almost like a serpent, turning her head to flie northward, over against Tompson's Island and the Castle ; her body and wings, being chiefly built on, are filled somewhat thick of houses, only that one of her wings is clipped, her tail being of such a large extent that she can hardly draw it afler her. Her houses for dwellings are about one hundred and forty, orchards and gardens full of fruit-trees, plenty of corn-land, although much of it hath been long in tillage, yet hath it ordinarily good crops. The number of trees are near upon 1,500. Cows and other cattle of that kind about 450."

Wood, in 1633, in his New England's Prospect, describes Dorchester as " the greatest town in New England, well wooded and watered ; very good arable grounds and hay-ground ; fair cornfields and pleasant gardens, with kitchen gardens. In this plantation is a great many cattle, as kine, goats, and swine. This plantation hath a reasonable harbor for ships, but here is no alewife river, which is a great inconvenience. The inhabitants of this

164a This Robert Pierce was the ancestor of Mr. Everett delivered an oration in Dorchesthe late Rev. Dr. Pierce of Brookline. The ter in 1855. Edward Everett, IVorks, iii. 325.

town were the first that set upon the trade of fishing in the Bay, who received so much fruit of their labors that they encouraged others to the same undertakings."

'' Six miles beyond Braintree lieth Dorchester, a frontier town pleasantly seated, and of large extent into the main land, well watered with two small rivers, her body and wings filled somewhat thick with houses to the number of two hundred and more, beautified with fair orchards and gardens, having also plenty of corn-land and store of cattle, counted the greatest town heretofore in New England, but now gives way to Boston. It hath a harbor to the north for ships.''

Of the one hundred and forty houses described by Josselyn in 1663 * few are now standing. The oldest of these is supposed to be the Minot house, on Chickataubut Street. The first houses of the settlers were probably simple log cabins covered with thatch. As the colony grew, these soon gave way to more comfortable and pretentious structures, but still characterized by what we should consider to-day a barn-like simplicity. The

1 [This house stands in that part of the town called Neponset. A cut showing its present condition is given in Bryant and Gay's United States, ii. $$- The date of its erection is put by ^me as far back as 1633, and it is called the oldest woo'den house standing on the continent. Hist.

Mag., September, 1867, p. 169; AppletofC s Jour^ nai, 1874 ; Harper's Weekly, June 26, 1880, where the view is an erroneous one. The family cradle, which has come down from the days of Elder George Minot, is in the possession of Miss Rachel Minot, of Neponset. - Ed. I picture of the Minot house will be recognized by all old residents of Dorchester as a faithful representation of this venerable building before it took fire in November, 1874. The exact date of its erection is unknown. It is placed by the descendants of the Minot family as early as 1640. Though to all external appearance nothing but a wooden house, its frame is filled in solidly with brick,' either for greater durability or perhaps to render the walls bullet-proof. The house has undergone a few modifications since it was first built. At present it is a mere shell, charred and blackened by the flames ; but its heavy brick-lined frame is still an interesting memorial of the early New England architects, who in more than one sense *' builded better than they knew." Most conspicuous in the history of the house is the legend of a maiden's heroism during the war with Philip in 1675. One Sunday in July of that year, when the house was occupied by the family of John Minot, the maid-servant and two young children were left in the house without protection. An Indian straggler from one of Philip's bands suddenly appeared and sought to gain an entrance. He was promptly discovered by the maid, who hastily put the children under two brass kettles, and ran upstairs for a musket. The Indian fired his gun, but without effect. The courageous young woman returned the fire with more success, wounding

^ [A view of this house is given in A GenecU- and his Descendants^ by Samuel Blake, Boston, <5frVfl/ History of William Blake, of Dorchester, 1857. - Ed.J VOL, I. - - 55.

the Indian in the shoulder; and when, with a desperate indiscretion, he tried to enter through the window, she quickly seized a shovel of hot coals and threw them in his face. The assailant then beat a retreat, and was afterwards found dead in the woods about five miles away.

The Blake house, illustrated on another page, is said to have been built by Elder James Blake prior to 1650. It stands on Cottage Street, near the Five Corners. It remained in the Blake family until 1825. As in nearly all of the old houses, the rooms are very low.

The Tolman House

The Bridgham house, so named from the long occupancy of Jonathan Bridgham, who lived in it his whole life of ninety-one years, stood on Cottage Street, at the junction of Humphreys and Franklin, until May, 1873, when it was removed to widen the street. It was probably built prior to 1637, as Robert Pond, who died in that year, appears to have been its owner.

Although special attention has been paid in this article to the civil history of the town, it would not be complete without some reference to its early religious history. In those days church and town were closely united, and their interests were identical. It is to be remembered, also, that the Dorchester settlers laid so much emphasis upon the religious aims of their enterprise that they organized themselves into a church before leaving England. The establishment of a church in Dorchester is therefore coin- cident with the settlement of the town itself. Dorchester had also the first meeting-house in the Bay. It was built in 163 1 on the plain near the corner of Cottage and Pleasant streets. The building was palisadoed and guarded against Indian attack, and was used as a depot for military stores. Its use as an arsenal was nearly fatal to its use as a meeting-house. While drying a little powder, which took fire by the heat of the pan and set off a small keg near by, Mr. Maverick, the senior pastor, had his clothes singed, and the thatch of the meeting-house was blackened. Winthrop, who relates this fact, has recorded another which shows that the Dorchester people were rather unfortunate in trying to keep their powder dry. " One Glover, of Dorchester, having laid 60 pounds of gunpowder in bags to dry in the end of his chimney, it took fire, and some of it went up the chimney, other of it filled the room and past out at a door into another room, and blew up a gable

Though tried as by fire, the first meeting-house stood for fourteen years. During the first year of its existence the people of Roxbury, then without a church, joined with those in Dorchester in public worship. In 1645 >t was agreed, " for peace and love's sake, that there should be a new meeting-house." Two hundred and fifty pounds were appropriated for this purpose. In 1670 this building was removed to Meeting-house Hill, which has remained the church site for two hundred and ten years.

The first ministers, Maverick and Warham, as already mentioned, were chosen pastors on the organization of the church in England? Winthrop tells us that Maverick was " a man of a very humble spirit, faithful in furthering the work of the Lord here, both in the churches and civil state." He died in February, 1636. Mr. Warham, the junior pastor, a man of strong influence and ability, removed to Windsor and remained there as pastor for thirty-four years.

The death of Mr. Maverick, the removal of a large part of the church members to Connecticut, and the arrival of a fresh load of emigrants, occasioned the reorganization of the church in 1636. A written covenant was then adopted. Whether one had existed before is not known. It was the good fortune of Dorchester, among several claimants, to secure the services of Richard Mather as pastor a few months after the death of Mr. Maverick. The influence in Boston and New England of that distinguished family of which Richard Mather was the first is treated in another chapter of this book; but, as with John White, the eminent services of this man to Dorchester deserve a special recognition in the Dorchester section. Mr. Mather was born at Lowton, in the parish of Winwick, county of Lancaster, England, in 1596. He very early displayed a great capacity for scholarship, and at fifteen years of age was master in a school at Toxteth Park, near Liverpool. He subsequently entered Brazenose College, Oxford, and, after receiving ordination, preached for sixteen years at Toxteth, until suspended for non-conformity in 1633 and again in 1634. The increasing severity of the hierarchy decided him to remove to New England. He travelled to Bristol in disguise, sailed for America, encountering a terrible gale, which he described at length in his interesting journal of the voyage, and arrived in Boston Harbor Aug. 17, 1635. His rare abilities and scholarship were at once recognized in the colony. After his settlement in Dorchester he became a prominent leader in all ecclesiastical affairs. He was one of a committee appointed by the Cambridge council in 1646 to draft a model of church discipline and polity. Among the several models proposed, that drafted by Mr. Mather was substantially adopted. He was an influential member of the council which met at Boston June 4, 1657, and of nearly all other councils held during his ministry. The brethren of Connecticut sought his personal aid in settling the differences of the church at Hartford. Mr. Mather's theological and controversial writings in print and manuscript furnish additional evidence of his industry, ability, and zeal. His great interest in the political condition of England and the colony appears in the days of thanksgiving and prayer which were held by the Dorchester Church

Richard Mather.'

» IThis cut foIlo«irs a photograph taken from the original picture in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, which, with others of the later Mathers, was given to that Society by Mrs. Hannah Mather Crocker, of Boston. Nathaniel Paine, Portraits and Busts in Public Buildings at Worcester^ Boston, 1876, reprinted from the N, E. Hist, and Cental. Reg,^ January, 1876. A note on Mather's English ancestry is given in the Register^ January, 1879, P* 1^2* '^^^ "^^ ^^ Richard Mather is in the same, July, 1866. The Mather pedigree is followed in Drake's edition of Increase Mather's Philip's War, A Genealogy of the Mather Family was printed at Hartford in 1848, - quite inadequate, however. There is an account of Richird Mather's tomb in ShurtlefTs Boston^ p. 285. W. B. Trask printed the inscriptions from the old burial-ground in the N. E. Hist, and Cental, Reg.^ April, 1850, &c. Some of the inscriptions, with the armorial bearings, are given in the Heraldic yiournal, i. - Ed.]

at his instigation. The important petition made by the town of Dorchester to the General Court in 1664, signed by the principal inhabitants of the town, and praying that the liberties and privileges granted by the charter might still be continued » is in the handwriting of Mr. Mather. His farewell exhortation to the church and people of Dorchester was printed, and a copy given to each family. Mr. Mather's death, in the seventy-third year of his age, which occurred April 6, 1669, is thus entered in the church records: " The Rev. Richard Mather, teacher of the church of Dorchester, rested from his labors.'* The following anagram appears on the church records : -

" Sacred to God his servant Richard Mather, Sons like him, good and great, did call him father. Hard to discern a difference in degree, 'Twixt his bright learning and high piety. Short time his sleeping dust lies covered down. So canH his soul or his deserved renown. From 's birth six lustres and a jubilee To his repose: but laboured hard in thee, O Dorchester I four more than thirty years His sacred dust with thee thine honour rears."

Mr. Mather was assisted for a year and a half by Rev. Jonathan Burr, who was installed as colleague in 1640 and died in 1641. Governor Winthrop has recorded his piety and learning, and Cotton Mather his charity, sympathy, meekness, and humility. Rev. John Wilson, Jun., was ordained as " coadjutor of Mr. Mather, the Teacher," in 1649. After serving for two years he removed to Medfield, where he was pastor for forty years.

By Francis S. Drakb

THAT part of ancient Cambridge lying south of Charles River, formerly bearing the various designations of "The south side of the river/' "The third parish," " The third precinct," " South Cambridge," or " Little Cambridge," and afterwards of Brighton, was set oflf as a separate parish April 2, 1779; was incorporated as the town of Brighton Feb. 24, 1807; and was annexed to Boston, of which it now constitutes the 25th ward, by an Act of the Legislature approved May 21, 1873, and which took effect Jan.

It is bounded north and east by Watertown and Cambridge, from which it is separated by the Charles River; southeast and south by Brookline; and west by Newton. The dividing line between Brighton and Newton was established in 1662 substantially as at present, in consequence of a petition of the inhabitants of Cambridge Village (Newton) to be released from paying church rates to Cambridge, they having built a house of worship for themselves on account of their great distance from that at Cambridge. In 1688 they were set off and made an independent town. The Brookline boundary was settled in 1640.

The eastern portion of Brighton is low and marshy, but towards the south and west it rises into beautiful eminences which command delightful views of Boston and its environs. The soil is naturally fertile, much of it having of late years been devoted to market-gardening and to extensive nurseries. Its small area comprises only 2,660^ acres. The Charles River is here navigable its entire distance for sloops and schooners of several hundred tons burden. This stream, anciently called Quineboquin, was the natural boundary between two hostile tribes of Indians. It rises in Hopkinton and, flowing in a circuitous course, enters Boston Harbor at Charlestown.

Properly speaking, the history of Brighton dates from its formation into a parish in 1779. Its earlier history is included in the following brief sketch of that of Cambridge, of which it was for a century and a half a mere outlying suburb. Its settlement dates from 1635, when the farm lands on the south side of the river were granted to such persons as desired them. The early inhabitants of Cambridge were clustered together in the district bounded north by Harvard street and square, west by Brattle Square and Eliot Street, south by Eliot and South streets, and east by Holyoke Street; so that their brethren across the river were socially and geographically an isolated and distinct community. Spiritually and politically they were one, and for more than a century the same schoolhouse and the same place of worship sufficed for both. So gradual was the growth of Brighton that in 1688, more than half a century after its settlement, it held but twenty-eight families and thirty-five ratable polls. Farming was the sole occupation of her people.

Among the pioneers in its settlement we find in Rev. Thomas Shepard's company the names of Champney and Sparhawk, two of the earliest families established on the south side of the river. Then came Richard Dana; and before 1639 John Jackson, Samuel Holly, Randolph Bush, William Redfen, and William Clements had homes here. Elder Richard Champney, who with Edward Oakes was in February, 1669, appointed to ''catechise the youth of the town on the south side of the bridge," died in that year. Deacon Nathaniel Sparhawk, admitted a freeman in 1639, represented Cambridge in the General Court from 1642 until his death, June 28, 1647. Sparhawk, Champney, and Dana are all represented in Brighton by their descendants to-day. The descendants of Lieutenant Edward Winship, who settled on the college side in 1635, were early and largely represented here also in the succeeding generations.

Cambridge, the mother town, - whose original limits included also Brighton, Newton, Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, and Billerica, - owes her origin to an agreement between Governor Winthrop and most of the Assistants and others, made Dec. 6, 1630, to build a fortified town for the seat of government upon the neck between Roxbury and Boston. Finding this location unsuitable, they resolved on the 28th, after examining elsewhere, to build '*at a place a mile east from Watertown, near Charles River." Here they began the " newe towne," in the spring of 163 1, Deputy- Governor Dudley and his son-in-law Bradstreet being the only members of the Government to fulfil their agreement to build themselves houses therein. Governor Winthrop did indeed build a house, but very soon removed it to Boston. A sharp controversy between Winthrop and Dudley, growing out of this apparent breach of faith, was decided by the elders in favor of the latter.

In pursuance of its original design, the Court, in February, 1631-32, ordered a levy of £60, in the several plantations ** towards the makeing of a pallysadoe about the newe towne." This defensive work was erected and a fosse dug, enclosing upwards of one thousand acres ** paled in with one general fence " about one and one-half miles in length. It was to the opposition of Watertown to the tax levied for this purpose that our House of Representatives owes its origin.

Brighton In The Colonial Period

Quite an accession was made to the small population of Newtown in August, 1632, when, by order of the General Court, the Braintree Company (Rev. Mr. Hooker's), which had begun a settlement at Mount Wollaston, removed hither. Its numbers so increased that one year later it contained nearly one hundred families. In May, 1634, when Dudley was elected governor, it was made the seat of government as was originally intended, and the courts were held here until May, 1636, and again from April, 1637, ^^' til September, 1638. When, in the latter year, Harvard College was established, the name of Newtown was changed to Cambridge, out of regard for the place where so many of the chief men of New England had been educated.

At the Court held May 14, 1634, leave was granted to the inhabitants of Newtown who complained of " straitness for want of land," to seek out some " convenient place for them, with promise that it shalbe confirmed unto them, to which they may remove their habitations or have as an addition to that which already they have, provided they do not take it in any place to prejudice a plantation already settled.*' After examining several places, ** the congregation of Newtown came and accepted such enlargement as had been formerly offered them by Boston and Watertown." This ''enlargement," which was on the south side of the Charles River, embraced the territory since known as Brookline, Brighton, and Newton. Still there was dissatisfaction, and the inhabitants continuing to have '* a strong bent of their spirits to remove," a large number of them went to Connecticut before Sept. 3, 1635, and Mr. Hooker, with most of his congregation, followed in May, 1636. Their possessions in Newtown were purchased by Mr. Shepard and his company, who opportunely arrived in the autumn of 1635, ^^^ early in 1636. The grant of Brookline had been forfeited in consequence of Mr. Hooker's removal; that of Brighton and Newton held good.

The few Indians in Cambridge were subject to the Squaw-Sachem, formerly the wife of Nanepashemit, and maintained friendly relations with the whites. Those of Nonantum, at the western extremity of Brighton, were under Cutshamokin, who resided at Neponset. These, with other Indian rulers, in March. 1644, voluntarily placed themselves under the government of Massachusetts, having previously sold to her all right and title to their land. This had been done " to avoid the least scruple of intrusion," in accordance with the instructions of the Massachusetts Company in England, dated April 17, 1629.

Cambridge men actively participated in the civil, military, and religious events of the colonial epoch; in the Indian war of 1675-76 which threatened the colonists with destruction, and called forth their utmost exertions ; in the fruitless efforts of twenty years* duration to preserve the colonial charter which the home government sought to annul ; and finally, in the revolutionary movement by which the obnoxious government of Andros was overturned.

The Memorial History Of Boston

The religious life of the town was formally begun Oct. ii» 1633, when the First Church was organized, over which Mr. Hooker and Mr. Samuel Stone, who had accompanied Hooker to New England, were respectively ordained pastor and teacher. A new church was organized Feb. I, 1635-36, to take the place of Mr. Hooker's, which had emigrated to Connecticut. Of this congregation, Rev. Thomas Shepard was pastor until his death August 25, 1649; Rev. Jonathan Mitchell from Aug. 21, 1650, to July 9, 1668; Rev. Urian Oakes, Nov. 8, 1671, to July 25, 1681 ; and Rev. Nathaniel Gookin from Nov. 15, 1682, to Aug. 7, 1692.

Hooker, Shepard, and Mitchell were bright and shining lights of the New England pulpit, and were remarkable alike for learning, eloquence, and piety. The notable events in the annals of the Cambridge Church at this period were, the building of a new house of worship in 1650; the persecution of the Quakers in 1663 ; the division caused by the organization of a separate parish at Newton in 1664; and the strong opposition of Rev. Mr. Dunster to the ordinance of infant baptism, which caused his removal from the presidency of the college and from Cambridge. The inhabitants of Brighton formed a part of this congregation for more than a century.

Prior to 1643 a grammar school, of which the celebrated ICIijah Corlet was master, had been established to fit pupils for the college founded by John Harvard in 1638, the year in which, in this place, the first printingpress was set up in the English American colonies. This first school-house stood on the westerly side of Holyoke Street, about midway between Harvard and Mt. Auburn streets. The earliest school-house in Brighton was erected in 1722.

The establishment of highways was among the first duties of the inhabitants of the new town. As early as June, 163 1, a canal was made from Charles River to what is now South Street. In 1635 ^ krry was established across the river from the foot of Dunster Street. Opposite this point was the road to Boston, called ''the highway to Roxbury." This old road, which ran through the easterly portions of Brookline and Brighton, is now known as Harvard Avenue. Another early highway was " the Roxbury Path," a portion of what is now Washington Street, by which the Roxbury people went to the grist-mill at Watertown. The path, now Market Street, laid out in 1656 through the land of Richard Dana, was known, after the first meeting-house was built in 1744, as Meeting-house Lane. The crooks and curves of these old thoroughfares sufficiently distinguish them from the straighter highways of a more recent date.

To obviate the inconveniences and perils of a ferry over which there was a large amount of travel, especially on lecture days, a bridge was built in 1662 at a cost of ^200 at the foot of Brighton Street, also connecting with the highway to Roxbury, and which, as it was the largest and finest then in the colony, was called the " Great Bridge." This was swept away by a high tide in September, 1685, from which time until it was rebuilt in 1690 ferriage was resumed here by Mr. Fessenden.

Brighton In The Colonial Period

The heads of families in Brighton in August, 1688, were : Thomas Brown, Samuel and Daniel Champney, Thomas Cheeney, James Clarke, Richard Jacob, Benjamin and Daniel Dany, John Francis, Joshua Fuller, Richard and John Haven, John Mackoon, Sr., John Mackoon, Jr., Thomas Oliver, John and Samuel Oldum, James Phillips, Nathaniel Robbins, Ebenezer Ston, David Stowcll, Samuel and Nathaniel Sparhawke, John and Henry Smith, John Squire, and Isaac Wilson.

SamudI Champney settled in Brighton about 1667; was selectman eleven years between 1681 and 1694; muster-master in 1690; and representative from 1686 to his death in 1695. Daniel Champney, appointed by the Court in 1677 to redeem Indian captives near Wachusett, was selectman in 1684-87, and died in 1691. Francis Dana, chief-justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, member of the Continental Congress, and ambassador to Russia, was a grandson of Daniel, son of Richard, one of the first settlers. John Francis was the grandfather of Colonel Ebenezer, a revolutionary officer who fell at Hubbardston July 7, 1777. Thomas Oliver, of the distinguished family from which sprung Lieutenant-Governor Andrew and Chief-Justice Peter Oliver, was deacon of Newton Church, selectman of Cambridge in 1687, representative eighteen years between 1692 and 1713, and died Nov. 2, 1715. Deacon Nathaniel Sparhawk, selectman seven years, died in December, 1686.

A few examples of its laws and usages will serve to convey a slight idea of the condition of a society in which the civil body and ecclesiastical structure were completely blended. No man could sell or let house or land unless to a member of the congregation. If a dog was seen in the meeting-house on the Lord's Day in time of public worship, the owner was fined. '' Entertaining any stranger or family into the town " against the desire of the congregation, after due warning, was punished by a fine. Any man whose dog is used to pull off the tails of any beasts, and who does not effectually restrain him, shall pay for every offence of that kind 20s. Three persons were appointed by the selectmen, "to have inspection into families that there be no bye drinking or any misdemeanor whereby sin is committed, and persons from their houses unseasonably."

No contemporaneous description of the town in its primitive days remains to us, but we can easily picture to ourselves a small rural settlement of scattered farms, with a river front of six miles or more; its principal street running diagonally through it in the direction of the Watertown mill, and one other much-travelled highway connecting the seat of government of the colony with its seat of learning. The Sparhawk homestead, in which seven generations have resided, was on the corner of Washington and Cambridge Streets. On the opposite corner stood the Winship mansion, latterly a hotel. West of Sparhawk's house, on what is now Market Street, stood the Dana mansion. Samuel Phipps' residence was. also on Washington Street, where Allston Street now is. A number of settlers were clustered together in the northwest corner of the town, near Watertown mill. Here was Nonantum Hill, in and around which was an Indian village, the scene of the first missionary labors of the Apostle Eliot. About on the site of the abattoir were '* The Pines/' a forest of pine trees, the place where the Christian Indians were embarked for Deer Island in October, 1675, ^ ^ place of refuge from the exasperated colonists, who, soon after the breaking out of Philip's war^ wished to destroy them. Excepting the Champney house and the Dana house, each of which are two hundred years old, these and all other memorials of Brighton's colonial days have long ago ceased to exist

By Mellen Chamberlain

CHELSEA, Revere, and Winthrop, the present names of towns which were formerly parts of one town called Chelsea, at the earliest period of their known history were severally called Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh, and Piillen Point; and, for some years before they were set off and organized into a town, they were embraced in the general designation of Rumney Marsh, or Number Thirteen.

It was not until 1636 that towns were legally empowered to act as corporations, with the exclusive right to dispose of lands within their limits, m«ikc by-laws, and elect their own officers ; but from a very early period they were recognized as quasi corporations, with the power to hold lands, or the use of lands, for the general benefit. For in 1632 it was ordered by the General Court, " that the necke of land betwixte Powder Home Hill and Pullen Poynte shall belonge to Boston, to be enjoyd by the inhabitants thereof foreuer;"* and in May, 1634, "that Winetsemet, and the howses there builte and to be builte, shall joyne themselues eith' to Charlton or Boston, as members of that towne, before the nexte Geiiall Court, to be holden the first Wednesday in Septemb' nexte, or els to be layde then to one of those two townes by the Court."* And this choice not having been made when September came, it was ordered " that Wynetsem* shall belonge to Boston, and to be accompted as pte of that towne ; " - and on the twenty-fifth of the same month, " that Boston shall haue inlargem' att Mount Wooliston and Rumney Marshe." *

By these enactments, in which the pleasure of the parties does not appear to have been consulted, a union was formed which continued more than a hundred years, or until Januarys, 1738-39, when, on the petition of the inhabitants of Rumney Marsh, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the inhabitants of Bo.ston, a new town was erected under the name of Chelsea.

During the period between the settlement or the bay and the incorporation of the town, the inhabitants of this district had no separate municipal existence, 2(nd therefore no municipal history. They were a part of the town of Boston, and its history was their history. But as a community dwelling remote from the centre, accessible only by a circuitous land route, or by a difficult and tedious passage by water, they came to have a life of their own, differing in some respects from that of their fellow-citizens who dwelt on the peninsula. This life, however, was marked by no extraordinary events or vicissitudes of fortune.

In some respects they were peculiarly favored. Their situation was healthy ; and in later times the genealogist has noticed the high average duration of human life within the town limits. The soil also was of the best, though not easy to cultivate. On all sides except the west it was washed by seas, creeks, or bays, which moderated the extremes of heat and cold, and afforded abundance of fish and kelp. And of the entire territory it may be said that it contained scarcely a rod of upland not susceptible of remunerative cultivation, while its marshes were valuable for salt grasses.

With these natural advantages, and notwithstanding its remoteness from schoob and churches, and with a large proportion of its proprietors nonresident it compared favorably, at the end of fifty years from its settlement, in wealth and population, with Muddy River, the other outlying portion of Boston, now the flourishing town of Brookline.

Nor did these advantages fail to attract the attention of the early visitors. William Wood, who saw it as early as 1634, says: ''The last towne in the still Bay is Winnisimet ; a very sweet plaice for situation, and stands very commodiously, being fit to entertaine more planters than are yet seated : it is within a mile of Charles Tawne, the River onely parting them. The chiefe Hands which keepe out the Winde and the Sea from disturbing the Harbours are first Deare Iland, which lies within a flight-shot of PuUin-poini, This Hand is so called because of the Deare which often swimme thither from the Maine, when they are chased by the Woolves: Some have killed sixteene Deare in a day upon this Hand. The opposite shore is called Pullin-point^ because that is the usuall Channel. Boats used to passe thorow into the Bay ; and the Tyde being very strong, they are constrayned to goe ashore and hale their Boats by the sealing, or roades, whereupon it was called Pullin-pointy *

While the bold bluffs of Winnisimmet were untouched by the levelling hand of man, and the great hills of the main, towards the north, and the lesser heights to the east, south, and west stood at their original elevations, and covered with primitive forests, the situation must have been one of scarcely paralleled beauty and interest.

1 Wood, New EngUmdU Prospect^ Prince Soc. this r^on can be gathered from the facsimile ol ed., p. 44. [Wood's notion of the topography of his map, given in another section. - Ed.]

Winnisimmet, Etc., In The Colonial Period

Hutchinson says he found mention of planters as early as 1626-27. But who those first settlers were, from whence they came, or how long they continued, must remain the subject of conjecture. Possibly they may have been fishermen, who, having sought shelter in the bay, concluded to remain as husbandmen; but more probably, as Hutchinson suggests, they were from some of the neighboring plantations, or were some of Gorges' party, who dispersed after his return to England.

But whoever these planters may have been, they found the soil occupied by Indians, ^ - subjects of Sagamore John, who for some time lived, and in 1633, with many of his people, died, at Winnisimmet, and of Sagamore James, of Lynn. Both of these chiefs died the same year, and were succeeded by their brother. Sagamore George. There is no evidence that James ever lived within the limits of Chelsea, nor are the limits of their several jurisdictions well defined; but the probabilities are that the subjects of James occupied what is now Revere, and those of John, Chelsea. Nor can the

* The age of the Deane Winthrop house is not settled. It is certain that there was a house on the farm in 1649, ^^^ probably some years earlier; and a plan of 1690 locates the farmhouse as it now stands, - near the junction of the roads leading to Revere and Point Shirley. [It is probably this house that Sewall {Papers^ i. 499) speaks of visiting, July 11, 1699, when he refers to some older house that Winthrop had occupied "in his father's days, more toward Dear Island," where he -- was wont to set up a bush, when he saw a ship coming in. He is now," he adds, " 77 years old ; " and in recording his death, Mar. 16, i703-4» says, "he dies upon his birth-day, just about the breaking of it, 81 years old, - the last of Gov. Winthrop's children, statione ncvissimus exit.*' - Papers/ii. 96. - Ed.J precise spot where Sagamore John lived at the time of his death be determined. But the fact that Mount Washington was called Sagamore Hill as early as 1641,^ and that the valley stretching northward to Woodlawn Cemetery formerly abounded in Indian relics and other indications of Indian occupation, seem to point to these sites as near the dwelling-place of the Sagamore.

There is extant the original deed from the heirs of Sagamore George, dated April 9, 1685, to Simon Lynde, for the use of the heirs of John Newgate, of the *' Newgate Farm," containing about four hundred or five hundred acres; and another is on record, dated 1685, which covers a large part of

The Yeamans House.'

Revere and some part of Winthrop, running by way of release to some of the principal proprietors. In these deeds the Indians are made to recite earlier conveyances, then lost, reaching back to the " first coming of the English ; " but I know of no foundation for these recitals, unless it may be in the order of the General Court in 1639, by which Mr. Gibbons was empowered to agree with the Indians for the purchase of their lands in Watertown, Cambridge, and Boston.^ But the Indian claims to lands gave the white proprietors so much trouble before this settlement, that in 165 1 they were required to set off twenty acres for the use of Sagamore George.*

^ This house, which stands on Mill Street in Revere, was the farm-house of the estate called the Newgate, Shrimpton, or Yeamans farm, from its successive owners, and is said to have lieen built about 16S0, - and. In that case, for

Nathaniel Newgate, then owner of the estate. At one time it was occupied by Rev. Thomas Cheever, the first settled minister of Chelsea, 1715.

Winnisimmet, Etc., In The Colonial Period

There are many facts preserved by Winthrop and others, respecting Sagamore John, which could properly find place in a history of the town. This most interesting of the Pawtucket Indians - the native chief of Winnisimmet - died, as has already been stated, in 1633, and was buried by ** Mr. Maverick of Winnisimmet."

Who this Mr. Maverick was is by np means clear, though he has generally been supposed to have been Samuel Maverick, of Noddle's Island, who, with John Blackleach, owned Winnisimmet, and sold the whole or the greater part of the same to Richard Bellingham in 1634. But there are circumstances, not to be recited in this brief sketch, which point to Elias, rather than Samuel Maverick, as the friend of the Indians.*

When the ownership of the soil was settled in the inhabitants of Boston, the authorities, in 1637, proceeded to allot the lands on considerations not made the matter of record, unless we may be referred to the proceedings of the Company before the patent was transferred to New England.

It is noticeable that no part of Winnisimmet, then owned by Bellingham, was allotted ; nor was there at that time any recognition of his title or interest in the Maverick and Blackleach estate. But, in 1640, the title which he had received from them in 1634-35 was recognized by the town, so far as its entry in the Town Records as his was a recognition, - though there is no evidence of any grant to the first recorded grantors. Were they some of the old planters of Winnisimmet, or owners under Gorges* patent, whose claim in this particular case was allowed to stand undisputed ?

. Before any recorded grant of any portion of the soil, the General Court passed an order creating a preserve for game, in the following terms: "That noe pson w'soeuer shall shoote att fowle vpon PuUen Poynte or Noddles Island, but the s"* places shalbe reserved for John Perkins to take fowle w*** netts.^ " The consideration for this unique grant does not appear. John Perkins is said to have come over with Roger Williams in 1631, removed with John Winthrop, Jr., to Ipswich in 1633, and represented that town in the General Court in 1636.

A few years later, a portion of this same territory was a common for pasturage; for in February, 1635, at a general meeting upon public notice, it was agreed that certain barren and young cattle should be kept abroad from the Neck, under penalty, and that there should be a little house built, and a sufficiently paled yard to lodge the cattle in of nights at Pullen Point Neck before the 14th day of the next second month.'

Nov. 30, 1635, the town made regulations respecting allotments to new comers, restricting them to such as were likely to be received members of the congregation.* ver, or four of them, shall, by the assignments of the AUotters, lay out their proportion of allotments for farmes att Rumley Marsh, whoe there are to have the same." ^

It was not, however, before Dec. i8, 1637, that the great allotments at Rumney Marsh and Pullen Point were assigned, with specifications of quantity and bounds. In some cases, apparently, these assignments are in pursuance of earlier special grants by the General Court, but not recorded.

The first name on the list is that of " Mr. Henry Vane " (better known as Sir Harry), who, though not then in the country, was set down for two hundred acres, - since well known as the Fenno Farm. How long he held this estate I have not ascertained, but in 1639 it was the property of Nicholas Parker.

The next in order, northerly, was an allotment of one hundred and fifty acres to ** Mr. Winthrop, the elder," - which in 1639, by an unrecorded deed, he sold to John Newgate. This, with other land, constituted what has been successively known as the Newgate, Shrimpton, or Yeamans farm, of about four hundred acres; and it includes the hill east of Woodlawn Cemetery.

The tenth allotment on the list is that of three hundred and fourteen acres to "Mr. Robte Keine," - which, with some additions, constituted the two great farms of Captain Robert Keayne, which have a history.

* [This house, which stands in Revere on the 1670, and may have been the residence of Capmost northerly road leading to Revere Beach, tain John Floyd in 1685. - Ed.]

Winnisimmet, Etc., In The Colonial Period. 45 1

Among the principal grantees of lands at Rumney Marsh or Pullen Point were William Stitson, Major Edward Gibbons, Richard Tuttle, William Aspinwall, William Dyer (husband of the unfortunate Mary Dyer), John Coggeshall, John Oliver, John Cogan, Samuel Cole, William Brenton, and Elias Maverick. Two of these were afterwards Governors of Rhode Island. Many of them were the friends of Mrs.

the Antinomians. For the most part they *^^ were non-resident proprietors, and as such /y-D AH^^^^'tflT^^'i^-^ added little to the wealth or prosperity of 0 ^ ^» ^ going down the harbor in supposed security on their way to their farm at Pullen Point. For particulars of this alarm see the chapter on " Boston and the Neighboring Jurisdictions."

The Winthrop farm is well known, as including allotments to father and son. This son was Dcane Winthrop ; and his name stands first among the entries on the Book of Possessions as owning " one farm at Pulling Point, containing about one hundred and twenty acres," - which in recent vears has again become the property of Boston.

During the Colonial period, and even as late as 1710, the inhabitants of the three precincts sought the privileges of religious worship in the neighboring towns where they had formed church connections ; and, as this was a condition to citizenship, this class embraced all the leading inhabitants. But, since many of the large estates were cultivated by the tenants or servants of the proprietors, Jis early as 1640, in the church of Boston, ** a motion was made by such as have farms at Rumney Marsh, that our brother Oliver may be sent to instruct their servants, and be a help to them, because they cannot many times come hither, nor sometimes to Lynn, and sometime nowhere at all."

For the same period, the town, so far as I can discover, made no special provision for the education of youth, though, doubtless, they had the right to repair to the schools set up in the peninsula. But of even such as could afford the expense, few could avail themselves of this right, as the schools were remote, and the only practicable mode of access to them by ferry was uncertain, difficult, and costly.

The first authorized ferry in New England - perhaps on the continent - seems to have been that between Boston, Charlestown, and Winnisimmet. As early as November, 1630, the General Court ordered, "that whoever shall first give in his name to Mr. Governor that he will undertake to set up a ferry between Boston and Charlestown, and shall begin the same at such time as Mr Governor shall appoint, shall have T* for every person, and i** for every 100 weight of goods he shall so transport." ^ Apparently, this ofler was not accepted until June 14, 1631, under which date is the following entry: *- Edw. Converse hath undertaken to set up a ferry between Charlcstown and Boston, for which he is to have ij*' for every single person, and r' a piece if there be 2 or more."* But, on the i8th May previously, it is recorded that " Thomas Williams hath undertaken to set up a ferry between Winnisimmett and Charlestown, for which he is to have after 3"* a person, and from Winnisimmet to Boston 4** a person."^ These dates seem to settle the question of priority in favor of Winnisimmet.

In September, 1634, the General Court granted the ferry to Samuel Maverick, in fee, reserving the right to determine the rates of transportation ; and the next year Maverick granted his interest to Richard Bellingham, in whom it remained until his death.

Such were the circumstances in which the inhabitants of this territory found themselves for sixty years after the settlement of the Bay. As agriculturalists, they were undoubtedly prosperous; but. in all other respects less fortunate than those whose access to the peninsula was more rapid and less costly. Their relative wealth to Muddy Kivcr (Hrooklinc) may be approximately determined by the following tax-rates: In 1674, Muddy River, £S 15J. ; Rumney Marsh, ;f 12 is. In 1687, j^io iSs, l}id., as against ;^I5 los, 4^., for the other section; while the male inhabitants of sixteen years and upwards were forty-eight in Muddy River, and only thirty-five in Rumney Marsh.

By Justin Winsor

ACCORDING to the best information to be obtained*^ it appears that during the fifty years which passed from the setting up of the first press in New England to the close of the Colonial Period, there were issued in Boston and in Cambridge something over three hundred separate publications. Of these nearly two thirds were expositions of religious belief, or writings in defence of dogmas, or aids to worship, - and all in the English tongue. If we add a score or more of tracts, or books of similar import, but printed in the Indian language, we materially strengthen the proportion of theology and religion. It cannot be unnoticed that of the remainder much the larger part was a growth of the same soil. Thus the fifty-two almanacs, the thirty and more publications of laws and official documents, and the expositions of college activity, all indicated how much dogma and exhortation ruled the day. During these same years there were perhaps a score of issues that may be classed as history, or materials for the history, of the Colony ; and these were not without something of the same flavor. Of all this rather surprising fecundity for an infant settlement, there is perhaps not a single native production that can be held to be a memorable addition to the world's store of literature ; and of such as were borrowed, an edition of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, printed in 1681, is the only one of those books usually accounted famous.* The censors suppressed another when they denied their imprimatur, in 1667, ^o ^ reprint of Thomas k Kempis's Imitation of Christ, The same predominating spirit characterized most of the works of New England origin which for many

> Cf. the Ante-Revolutionary BiMiograpky of The only copy which has been noted is one dc- S. F. Haven, Jr., appended to the edition of scribed by Henry Stevens as in the Brinley Col- Thomas's History of Printinfr issued by the lection (not yet, however, entered in its catalogue, American Antiquarian Society. so far as printed), with the imprint « Boston in he failed to comprehend all that this well-remembered couplet meant.^ Cotton Mather indicated it when he said, ** The Gospel has evidently been the making of our towns ;" and what has sprung from the New England town all who have studied the history of our old Theocracy and of our popular assemblies may very easily determine.^ John Adams told a Virginian that the Old Dominion could become what New England is, when they knew what town-meetings and training days are, when they had town schools, and when they looked up to an old aristocracy, such as the ministers were to the Puritans, to speak ill of whom was a crime. These olden traits may have now disappeared ; but they have moulded a people.

It was not because of any insufficiency of intellect and scholarly training in the first comers that a literature in any true sense failed to be developed. Their virility created not so much letters as empire ; it contributed to found a people rather than to stamp a literature.

It has been computed ^ that nearly one hundred University men came over from England to cast their lot in the new colony between 1630 and 1647; and of these two thirds came from Cambridge, particularly from Emanuel College, - the Puritan seed-plot. This had been the college of John Cotton. Wheelwright, who sponsored in the new Boston the controversy of the Antinomians, had been the contemporary of Cromwell at Sidney Sussex. John Harvard, Thomas Shepard, Roger Williams, Henry Dunster, and John Norton - all with influence emanating from or directed upon the settlement at the Bay - had trodden the banks of the Cam with John Milton and Jeremy Taylor. President Chauncey had been a Fellow at Trinity with the saintly George Herbert. Richard Mather, the founder of an almost royal line in our theocratic history, and Harry Vane, the champion of Anne Hutchinson, had been students at Oxford. The memories of the University were likewise borne across the sea by Winthrop, Saltonstall, and Hradstrcct, by Wilson and Eliot. Of the forty or fifty Cambridge or Oxford men who were in Massachusetts up to 1639, Mr. Dexter computes that one half were seated within five miles of Boston or Cambridge. It was this leaven that determined the early New England history ; but it ran little into literature as such. Writing and book-making were but means to other ends than intellectual stimulation. Their aim was to define theological dogma, and to enforce observances rigidly. The mental activity of the time meant cognizance of error and intolerance of misbelief. Where education of that sort did not exist, there were no such eager promptings to the study of polemics, and the dead level of intellectual content often enforced charity. The neighboring colony of Plymouth had hardly any learned men. They waited long to set up a schoolmaster, while the Bay so promptly founded a college ; but they gave Roger Williams an asylum.* They had noble men, if uneducated, who counselled toleration of the Quakers ; and they hanged no witches. It was indeed fortunate for the Bay that the older colony was what she was. Her milder spirit in the end permeated the stronger colony, and Massachusetts Puritanism took on the hue of the Pilgrims* nobler independency. Still Massachusetts came out the stronger for the tribulations, endured and enforced, of her scholarly divines. Its fruit, however, Was in character rather than in letters.

Nor were the books they brought with them more promising for us than those they wrote. A few lists of such are preserved. One is that bequest of three hundred and twenty volumes by which John Harvard, in 1638, laid the foundations of the great library at Cambridge. Another is a list of forty books which Governor Winthrop contributed to the same collection. Edward Everett could well congratulate his friend, the author of the Life of yohn Winthrop, while communicating the list from the college archives, that the honored magistrate had not transmitted the books to his descendant.*

Whatever of production there was, however, it was not for a long time permitted to Boston to print her own books. The Rev. Mr. Glover left the old country for New England in 1638, having with him on shipboard a press and one ..^-tx/^^ x^ m^ y% Stephen Daye to work it. Glover died on /y></^ /^^^^ ^^^Ci

* They were not sorry, however, when he left the other list. A list of books left by Governor them. Williams, though an amiable man, was a Thomas Dudley is given in N, E. Hist, and disputatious one, and such men are always disa- Getteal. Reg.y 1858, p. 355. The titles of ninety greeable. His defenders rightly say much in his books borrowed in 1647 by Richard Mather are praise, and his detractors have great grounds given in 4 Mass, Hist, Coll. viii. p. 76. Palfrey refor condemning his forward and militant discon- grets that we are not furnished with an invoice tent. He was not a comfortable man to have of the books which Dunton, the London bookin one's neighborhood. seller, brought to Boston on a venture in 16S6;

* The list of Harvard's books is preserved in and Mr. Whitmore, in his edition of Dunton^ p. the College Archives. Quincy, //istory of Har- 314, supplies its place as well as he can with the wn/6'>irtvrj/Vy,i. 10, gives a few titles; they were list of what was another bookseller's stock-inall burned with the College Library in 1764, save trade in 170a A catalogue of Rev. Michael one book, which is still religiously preserved. Wigglesworth's library Is appended to J. W. R. C. Winthrop, Life of John Winthrop, gives Dean's Sketch of his life, 1863.

wrote to Bermuda, "Wee have a printery here and thinke to goe to worke with some speciall things." ^ In March, 1639, the press was at work. An almanac, and a broadside oath' for freemen to subscribe were the initial issues; and then followed the well known Bay Psalm Book^ as it was called.^ The -J. ^^.^^ widow Glover now married Dqn- succeeded Daye as the printer. In 1660 Mar- tjatmuf^ Clc^^^ maduke Johnson was sent over by the Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Indians. He brought a new press, with ^ new type, and was set to work in printing books for the natives to read. The government control of production was more definitely fixed when, in 1662, licensers were named ; and to keep the matter still further in control, it was ordered in 1664 that no printing should be allowed in any town but Cambridge. This order held good for ten years longer, till. May 27, 1674, the General Court ** granted that there may be a printing press elsewhere than at Cambridge." Under this permission John Foster set up to be the first Boston printer. He was a Dorchester boy, had graduated at the College in 1667, and then for a few years had taught /^]^^^ /pOSHi^X^* school in his native town. In December, the " Sign of a Dove " was hung out for his office, where he took in work for the press which he had just bought. It was natural enough, considering the times, that his first author and his last should be Increase Mather, and in the short interval - 1674-81 - during which Foster ran the press, Mather furnished the copy for about fifteen of the imprints. This first Boston printer was but thirty-three when he died ; ^ and on his foot-stone it s This was the oath esUblished in 1634. No copy of this first broadside is known. The text of the oath can be found in Childe's Ntw EnglandU Jonas cast up in Lotidon, 1647 ; in Felt's Ipswith ; in Charters and Laws of Massachusetts Bay; in N, E, Hist, and Getteal, Register ^ January, 1849. This oath took the place of an earlier one, which, with a list of freemen, is given in the Register, iii. 89.

grave-stone in the old burying-ground at Uphaiiv's Corner, Dorchester : " The ingenious mathematician and printer, Mr. John Foster, aged 33 years, dyed Scptr. 9^'», 1681." On his foot-stone Ovid's *' Ars illi sua census erat " is translated oh in the text. - Epitaphs from the Old Buryinggronnd in Dorchester, Boston, 1869, p. II. The title (on the opposite page) of the first book he printed is somewhat reduced from a copy bought in 1879 from the lirinley Collection by the Public Library of Boston. It was a presentation copy from its author to '* y* Rev^ Mr. Higginson in Saleni," and is so inscribed. It cost the library I92.50; and another copy, in exquisite binding, brought at the same sale, 114a CL Brinley Catalogue, No. 1,046; Sibley's //nrvard Graduates, i. 440; Nathaniel Paine's McUher Publications, p. 23.

The Literature Of The Colonial Period A Sermon

is quaintly said of him, "Skill was his cash/' - a very good capital for a printer in these days as in those.^ After Foster's death the care of the press was committed by the magistrates to Samuel Sewall, and it does not appear to have been altogether a nominal one. He remained in charge of it till 1684,' working himself at the case, as it would seem.

Boston, if she did not print, had certainly much to do with the production of the first Anglo-American book, - the Psalms turned into metre, as Governor Winthrop described it ; the Bay Psalm Book? or the New England Version of the Psalms ^ as it has been at different times called. The version of Sternhold and Hopkins made a part of the Puritans' Bible ; * but there seems to have been a feeling among them that the words of Scripture lost something of sanctity in the transmutations of that version. One cannot say how far this dissatisfaction may have arisen by an incident which Josselyn records. That traveller speaks, in 1638, of his arrival in Boston, and of his calling upon John Cotton, and of delivering to him " from Mr. Francis Quarles, the poet, the translation of the i6th, 25th, 57th, 88th, 113th, and

1 Sibley, in the second volume of his /Arvard GrndiMtes^ now in press, gives an account of Foster. The first type he used was pica ; but he did his best work with a long-primer font, bought in 1678. A list of the works printed by him is given in the Boston Daily Advertiser^ May 9, 1875. C- Brinley Catalogue^ No. 2669; Shurttcffs Boston^ p. 284 ; Hist, of Dorchester^ pp. 244, 492.

« N. E. Hist, and Getieal. /»<f., 1855. p. 287. There is, unfortunately, a gap in Sewalt's Diary for these years. Cf. Colony Records^ v. 323, Oct. 12, 1681. The order appointing him printer is given in 5 Mass, Hist, ColL^ v. 57. where is also

* This designation seems to have been currently applied to this book, whose title reads The whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English metre. As the Plymouth people used the Ainsworth Psalter, the designation was a natural one. Cf. Palfrey's Hrw England^ ii. 41; Samuel £. Staples on "The Ancient Psalmody and H3rmno1ogy of New England,** in Worcester Soc, of Antig, Proc* 1879.

137th Psalms into English metre for his approbation." What return Mr. Quarles got we know not; but whatever it was we may well believe it gave the key to what others in New England thought o( it. Roger Williams said that, in the opinion of some people, "God would not suffer Mr. Cotton to err." Governor Bradford records of him in his level verse, -

That John Cotton could be a critic in the belief of his contemporaries, as he could be and was an umpire in all else, admits of little doubt. We also know that if stirred, as he was when Thomas Hooker died in 1647, he could deliver himself of what passed with our Puritan Fathers for verse.

So in due time the preparation of a new version more literal than melodious, as the versifiers confessed, was entrusted to a committee. Richard ^^ *A» ^ -^/» l/ Mather, who had arrived in 1635, and was l\\CnQ/r0 ytV^rfi^ settled over the Dorchester parish, was the chief of them. He was a man with a " loud and big " voice, and, as Professor Tyler ^ well says of him, possessed the " faculty of personal conspicuousness," - a trait which descended to the son and grandson. His, we may infer, was the guiding spirit ; and there exists to-day among the manuscripts of the Prince Library ' what appears to have been his rough draft of the preface to the book, in some memoranda on " The Singing of Psalmes in setting forth the praises of the Lord." It seems likely from the superscription of the draft, " For my reverend brother, Thomas Shepard," that the final plea, as it stands in the printed preface, may have had the revision of that Cambridge divine. The draft, as Mather leaves it, seems to indicate that Shepard would finish it from some memoranda ^.^^ which he had already presented. With Mather were ^"J/lO"^ tuTf^ joined the two ministers of the Roxbury church, - Eliot, later to be known as the Apostle, and Thomas Weld, who did not remain long in the Colony.

As a specimen of English verse it is hardly possible to imagine anything much worse than this version. Grammar is tortured ; the ear is filled with dissonance ; the sense confused ; and the printer kept company with

» Nisi^ry of Awurkan LiUrature, where will Literature, and Tarbox's article in the New be found a good description of the Bay Psalm Engiandir, March, i88a Book, See also Duyckinck's Cyc, of Amer, * Frince Library Catalogue, p. 158.

the authors in scattering his points with utter disregard of propriety. Shcpard, if he had a hand in the final fashioning of the preface, could not wink at the bad metre of the '' poets/' as he called them, and flung a squib at them in the shape of a quatrain, which is well known : -

Of missing to give us very good rhyme ; And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen, But with the text's own words you will them strengthen."

Still the work succeeded, by dictation if not by merit, and a second edition followed without much change, and Cotton was in due time able to write of it : " Because the former translation of the Psalms doth in many things vary from the original, and many times paraphraseth rather than translateth, besides divers other defects (which we cover in silence), we have endeavored a new translation of the Psalms into English metre, as near the original as we could express it; and those Psalms we sing both in our public churches and in private." ^ It gradually, however, became apparent that a " little more art " was necessary even in translating the inspired Word ; and so, after ten years, the book was committed for revision to President Dunster, who had the assistance of a young scholar, just from England, Richard Lyon. This edition - the third - contains some ** spiritual songs,** and was issued in 1650. Cotton now prepared the way for it by publishing " Singing of Psalms a Gospel ordinance," in which he made a special pica for the " little more art." Dunster claimed that he had added " sweetness of the verse " to the " gravity of the phrase of sacred writ." The book afterwards went through numerous editions, and became in later ones a considerable favorite in the mother country, some of the dissenting churches in England using it as late as 1725,^ while in Scotland traces of it are found as late as the middle of the last century.' In Boston and vicinity it

* QoWoxi^Way of the Congregational Churches ^ the library of the late E. A. Crownlnshield, and p. 67. finally was lodged hi the Brinley Collection j and

* Mr. Charles Deane has a " fifteenth '* edi- when this was sold, March, 1879, it was bought by tion. London, 1725. Mr. Vanderbtlt for |i,2oa A fifth (defective)

* The original edition of 1640 is one of the copy passed from the Prince Library into the books greatly coveted by collectors of Ameri- collection of the late George Livermore, where cana. The Prince Library (Boston Public Lib- it now is. Prince Caialogne, p. 7. A literal rary) had originally five copies. Two are now reprint of this edition was made in 1862 under in it. A third, of peculiar interest as having the sui>ervision of Dr. Shurtleff. Memoir of been Richard Mather's own copy, passed by an George Livemiore^ by Charles Deane, Mass. understanding into the hands of the late Dr. Hist, Soc, Proc.^ January, 1869^ p. 460. Brin- Shurtleff. On the scattering of his effects, the ley dUalogite^ No. 848. It Ih not quite certain deacons of the Old South Church,.who are the whether the second edition, 1647, was printed owners in fee of the Prince Library, brought in Cambridge or in England. It is somewhat suit to recover this copy; but the statute of smaller in size, has some changes in spelling, limitations prevented their getting it. It was but is not otherwise different from the 1640 accordingly sold in 1876, and was bought by edition. The only copy known passed at the Mr. C. Fiske Harris, of Providence, for $1,025. Drinley sale, 1879, into the Fiske Harris Library and has become the chief treasure of that gen- at Providence, bringing $435. Haven, Ante* tleman's very extensive collection of American Rn*olutionary Publications; Brittley Catalogue^ verse. A fourth copy passed similarly into No. 850.

remained in use quite as long. There exists a letter of a number of the first parish in Roxbury, addressed to their pastor in 1737, speaking of ** The New England version of the Psalms, however useful it may formerly have been/' as now " become, through the natural variableness of language, not only very uncouth, but in many places unintelligible." The letter suggests that the version of Tate and Brady be substituted.^ The change in this parish did not take place, however, till 1758, when Tate and Brady was first put in use; but the Church Records add, "Some people were much offended at the same."^

There was, perhaps, a greater tendency in those days than even now to run into verse the record of daily occurrences, the outpouring of sentiment, sympathy, and adulation. Allegory, anagram, and acrostic took everybody captive. The dead, memorable or not, must, have their elegies. Every strange circumstance was a symbol of something to happen, or an interpretation of what had passed. If some credulous person reported to John Cotton upon a battle which had been witnessed between a snake and a mouse, the latter prevailing, the good teacher must find in it the conquest of the devil by the church. Interpretation, however, evinced the good man's skill far more than his verse; and even Cotton Mather found his grandfather's metrical lucubrations more sanctified with piety than elevated with poetry.

The most noted versifier of the Colonial Period which Boston may claim is one whose grave-stone at Roxbury speaks of him as a " learned schoolmaster and physician, and the renowned poet of New England." * This was

1 1 is name is kept alive by what is usually quoted as ** Our Forefathers' Song," a bit of verse with a rather lively swing to it, picturing the privations of the earlier times, when

"The dainty Indian maize Was eat with clam shelb out of wooden U^ys, Under thatched hutts without the cry of rent, And the best sauce to every dish, Content"

Boston can hardly claim Madam Anne Bradstreet, except as a passing sojourner, though Foster's press brought out the first American edition of her poems in 1678.* She may have followed her husband, Simon Bradstrcet, and her father, Thomas Dudley,' when, with Winthrop, they passed over to Shawmut from Charlestown ; but Cambridge, Ipswich, and Andovcr claim her as a resident, though according to Ellis,' it is not at all unlikely her remains rest in the Dudley tomb at Roxbury, and John Norton, and Cotton Mather were but two of those who threw wreaths upon it in the shape of extravagant laudations. To the sulphurous production of Michael Wigglesworth, the Day of Doom, we may well be glad Boston lays no tiaim. Ezekiel Cheever, who afterwards became our famous schoolmaster, tutored the poet at New Haven ; Harvard educated him; Maiden listened to his ministration, and all New

'* Lantern of Saint Botolph ceased to bum When from the portals of that church he came To be a burning and a shining light Here in the wilderness."*

Cotton's ascendancy seems to have been a purely personal one. Hubbard speaks of his " insinuating and melting way." There is certainly little in his writings, as left to us, to fix our attention.^ The " walking library," as his grandson' called him, "the father and glory of Boston," seems like

- It purports lo have been corrected and en- that not a copy is known, according to Sibley, of larged by several pocnui found among her papers the first three editions. Cf. J. W. Dean's Memoir after her death {1672). There was a third pf Wigglesworlh Kn J^, E, Hist, nnd Cental, Reg,, edition in 1 7 58. April, 1863, and separately, two editions ; Briniey

« It is interesting to note that her f.ithcr's Caiaiogtie.tio,^', ?^h\t,f% Hnrvard Graduates ; library contained one poem at least which may Tyler's American Literature, Ac Some of Wighave gladdened her youthful muse, " Yc Vision glcsworth*s verses, not .elsewhere printed, are In of Piers Plowman." Mass. Hist, Soc, Froc,, May, 1871.

- John Harvard Ellis's introduction to his » Longfellow, New England TSragedies,^, 15. edition of her Poems^ Charlestown, 1867. Cf. - There is in the cabinet of the Massachualso Professor M. C. Tyler, Hist, of Amer, Liter- setts Historical Society a MS. volume made by ature, i. 278. Captain Robert Keayne, 1639, entitled, '* Mr.

- The poem went through eight American Cotton our Teacher, his Sermons or expositions editions, beside some English ones. Its popu- upon the Bookes of the New Testament." Cf. larity is best tested by the actual destruction of Mass. Hist. Soe, Proc., April, 186S.

one we would not know, when we read his defence of intolerance in his controversy with Roger Williams. His dismal scouring of the " Bloody Tcnent " is curious as a study of the times, and is of some historical value, but unprofitable and almost unsupportable for all else. Of Hooker and Shepard Boston knew but little, except so far as Cambridge, so interlinked in all intellectual movements with the metropolis, lent a reflected light. Hooker comes down to us as a presence of mystical sanctity. What he wrote was clearly earnest, with not a little of the scholarly rhetoric of the University. Shepard is a harsher and a darksome individuality.^ Z/h0* fttk^^ Norton came later, and removed from Ipswich to Boston ' in 1653, to make good, as he might, the place of Cotton.

He signalized his reverence for his predecessor in a Life and Death of tliat deservedly famous Man of God, Mr, yohn Cotton, which he scAt to London to be printed, in 1658. The admirer of a stalwart kind of chastisement finds all in him that could be desired. The gloomy sectary wonders at the terror he caused to the impenitent. What he wrote was as sulphurous and as dry as a tinder-l>ox, but in it dogma and conceit, it must be confessed, were at times somewhat amusingly jumbled.^

What Tyler* calls the Dynasty of the Mathers began with Richard, of Dorchester (1636-1669), whom we have already connected with the Bay Psalm Book, The Mather race gained a craftier power in his son Increase, who preached his first sermon in 1657; and when he printed his first book, twelve years later (1669), he began to manifest that surprising fecundity which kept the presses of Boston, Cambridge, and London busy for more than a lifetime.^ For nearly sixty years Increase Mather well-nigh ruled in the Boston, if not in the New England, theocracy. He was the first born on her soil to succeed to a power even greater than that of the early fathers. Springing from the times, he could never rise above their level. The son, Cotton (who falls, as an author, within the next period), proved a less vital force ; for the father was the clearer and abler writer, and in affairs much the stronger head. But both were unfortunately deficient in all that makes men able to lead their fellows to a higher plane. When we contemplate the power they possessed, we can but regret it was not spent to better advantage. Boston and New England were never lifted to any height, be it intellectual

^ There is quite enough printed of the ser- Mather papers have been printed by the Massamons of the time without going to the common- chusetts Historical Society. Increase Mather'ji or spiritual, through the influence of the Mathers. So long as their influence prevailed, this people never saw the dawn of spiritual liberty; and never had taught to them the distinction between cultivation and pedantry.

The only literature of the Colonial Period to be contemplated with much satisfaction is that which chronicles the history of its people, and telb the story of the " Empire in their brains," as Lowell phrases it The Journal which Winthrop began on his embarkation and continued to his death, - the work of a grave, self-respecting gentleman, always moderate in expression, sometimes elevated, and not wholly free from incredible things vouched for by divers godly persons, - affords as noble a record of the beginnings of a people as any State could boast. The letter ^ of Dudley to the Countess of Lincoln (March 12, 1630) is replete with tenderest interest; and the story which it tells of hope and endurance is noble in its simplicity, written as it was, " rudely, having yet no table nor other room to write in than by the fireside, on my knee, in this sharp winter." We may not account the narrative which Roger Clap wrote for his children as contributing anything of literary value, but we should miss much that we know of the time and its trials were it omitted from our inheritance. Wood, who came over in 1629, and published his Nexv England's Prospect in 1634, showed not a little delicacy in his descriptive touches, and we cannot but recognize in his pages something of the flavor of literary book-craft.

Wouder-working Providefices of Sioris Savior^ between 1649 and 1651, when he was a resident of Woburn ; but he relies upon passages which might well have been inserted in a manuscript prepared as the events went on, as may be inferred from the marginal dates. It is only on this supposition that wo can claim the book in part at least as a Boston emanation, - a book which, if Poole is not over-confident in his estimate, is the most important record of New England's life which the first hundred years brought forth. As a writer he is certainly not lovable ; he is awkward,

* This first api>eared In print in Massachu- sued by the younger Ferclinando Gorges in 1659^ seits^ or the First Planters of Nnv England^ 1696, under the title " America painted to the Life," and is reprinted in Mass, Hist, Coll, viii. Another purporting to be written by the elder and augmanuscript, somewhat more extended, was fol- mented by the younger Gorges, is held to be for lowed by Farmer in Nno Hampshire Hist, Coll. the most part a fraudulent or ignorant issue of iv. ; in Force's Trads, ii. ; and in Young's Chron- the sheets of Johnson's lx)ok, which was reprinted ides of Massathtisetts, in 2 Masu Hist, CotL ii., iii., iv., vil., and viii.;

* Such is the running title, but A History of and again, edited, with a valuable introduction, A>Ti» ^//^#m^ stands first on the title, - a sub- by W. F. Poole, Andover, 1867. Cf. Charles stitutc very likely of the printer. The original l>cane In No, Amer, Pev,, January, 1868, p. 319; edition was published at London, 1654. Tyler, E. A. Park in Congregational Qnarterfy, January, American Literature, I. 137. What Is known at 18681 J. D. Washburn in Am, Antiq, Soe. Proe,, the third (dated 1658) of the Gorges Tracts, Is- April, 1877.

grim, militant, but sturdy, and thoroughly representative. The book was issued anonymously, but there would appear to be the best reasons for ascribing it to Johnson.

Of the writings of Eliot and Gookin there is little need of mention here. Eliot, besides his connection with the Bay Psalm Book, and his translations into the Indian language, wrote somewhat in explanation and furtherance of his labors as a missionary ; but such writings belong for consideration to other connections. Gookin was not a resident of Boston, but his position as superintendent of the Indians, and as a high military officer, brought him ' naturally into relations with the magistrates, who centred in Boston. The fate of what he left in manuscript, however, has been told elsewhere.^

1 See the chapter on ''The Literature of the Indian Tongue,' **The Indians of Eastern MassachusetU," by Dr. Ellis, s William Ementrn, HUiory of the First Churchy 94.

By The Hon. J. Hammond Trumbull, Ll.D.

THE Indians of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Rhode Island, a great part of Connecticut, and the islands near the coast, spoke the same language, with considerable differences of dialect; "yet so," said the Commissioners of the United Colonies in 1660, *'as the natives well understand and converse with one another, throughout the whole country where the English have to do." The differences were no greater than are heard in provincial dialects of France or of England ; between the popular speech of Devon and Lancashire, for instance, or between Somerset and Suffolk. The language was, in a larger sense, itself a dialect of the Algonkin, - a name first given by Champlain to a tribe living on the Ottawa River in Canada, and subsequently extended to a great family of nations and languages. In the first half of the seventeenth century, the Algonkin race had spread over a territory nearly half as large as Europe. Algonkin dialects were spoken on the Atlantic coast, from Hudson's Bay and northern Labrador to Cape Hatteras.

Rosier, who accompanied Waymouth to New England in 1605, and wrote a True Relation of the voyage, appended to it a brief list of " words which he learned of the Savages, in their Languages." These words, some of which are clearly in the Abnaki dialect, probably were obtained from the natives whom Waymouth kidnapped on the coast of Maine and carried back with him to England.

In 1634, William Wood printed, at the end of his New England's Prospect, "A small Nomenclator " of the language of the natives, " whereby such as have in-sight into the Tongues may kno^ to what Language it is most inclining; and suqh as desire it as an unknowne Language onely, may reap delight, if they can get no profit.^' This Nomenclator comprises more than three hundred words and phrases. Wood had been living in New England about four years, and in the compilation of his vocabulary he may have been assisted by Roger Williams, who, before he left Salem, had made considerable progress in the Indian language.

In 1643, Williams, while in England, published his Key into the Language of America, This was partly written on his passage, and was printed soon after he reached London. " I drew the materials, in a rude lump, at sea," he says in his prefatory address, " as a private help to my own memory, that I might not by my present absence lightly lose what I had so dearly bought;** but, " remembering how oft I have been importuned by worthy friends, of all sorts, to afford them some helps this way, I resolved (by the assistance of the Most High) to cast those materials into this Kcy^ pleasant and profitable for all, but specially for my friends residing in those parts." This Key has served, as its author hoped it might do, to " unlock some rarities concerning the Natives themselves," and many writers have been indebted to it for information respecting the manners and customs of the Indians of New England. As a vocabulary and phrase-book it is of considerable value to students of the language, though it is evident that the autfior had not penetrated the mysteries of Algonkin granmiar.^

Before Williams's Key was published, the Rev. John Eliot, of Roxbury, had begrun to study the Massachusetts language, and in October, 1646, had acquired sufficient knowledge of it to be able to preach to the Indians without an interpreter.^ A Catechism which he prepared for their instruction was printed in Cambridge in 1654; and the next year his Indian versions of Genesis and the Gospel of Matthew were printed at the same press. To these he added, before the end of 1658, translations of a few Psalms in metre. If a copy of any of these earliest works of Eliot is still in being, no American collector has been fortunate enough to discover and secure it.

The dialect of Western Connecticut (including all New Haven colony) differed more widely than the dialects of Narragansett and Plymouth from the Massachusetts. The Rev. Abraham Pierson, minister of Branford, near New Haven, after some years' study of the language, undertook to prepare an Indian Catechism "to suit these southwest parts" of New England. His work was ready for the press in 1657, and was sent to England to be printed at the charge of the Corporation for Propagating the Gospel. But the manuscript was lost at sea, and when Mr. Pierson had prepared another

1 The book it a small octavo, containing lieved to be the only one in this country. Now fourteen sheets, making 224 pages, the title-leaf there are perhaps twenty, certainly fifteen, copies included s but several mistakes were made in in American libraries. The late Mr. John Carnumbering the pages. It was printed by Gregory ter Urown, of Providence, had/7v copies ; there Dexter, who afterwards came over to settle in are two in the Ixnox Library, New York, and the colony Williams had founded, and became a two were in the late Mr. George llrinlcy's IH-ominent citizen of Providence. It was re- library, Hartford. Uut as copies have multiprinted by the Massachusetts Hj&torical Society plied the price has steadily advanced. In 1783 in the third and fifth volumes of the first series at the sale of Croft's library in London, the Key of their Cpiiecthns, and by the Rhode Island brought four shillings and sixi>cncc; in 1813 Historical Society in 1827. A literal reprint, Gossctl's copy sold for ov\y four sAilthigs ; in even to the reproduction of tyiM>grnpliicnl inac- 1871 John KushcII Smith offered two copicH, - curacies of the original, was printed (with an one at hveh'e guineas^ and the other, newly introduction and notes) in the first volume of bound, at thirteen fpiineas\ neither had to wait the NarragttHuU Chiles Publications^ Providence, long for buyers, and in 1879 one of Mr. Brinle/s i866w In 1837 the Massachusetts Historical copies was sold for ^105. Sodet/t copy of the original edition was be- * [Cf. Dr. ElUs in Chap. VI. - £d.J copy, the Commissioners, considering " the hazard of sending, and difficulty of true printing it without a fit overseer of the press, skilled in the language," decided to have it printed by Green, in Cambridge. The first sheet (16 pages) was worked off before the end of December, 1658, and the imprint of the volume is of that year; but it was not all through the press before the fall or winter of 1659. It is a small octavo of five sheets and a half, - 68 pages, including the title-leaf and a blank page at the end.*

The book is a curiosity in more respects than one. An English translation of the Catechism is interlined throughout, and is not undeserving the study of missionary teachers, home and foreign, as an example of ** how not to do it." The author begins with a demonstration of the existence and unity of God, which to the average Indian mind must have been as intelligible and satisfactory as the enunciation of a proposition in quaternions, or Hegel's definition of the Idea. To the third question: "How do you prove that there is but one true God?" the Indian disciple is instructed to reply, inter alia: "Because singular things of the same kind when they are multiplied are differenced among themselves by their singular properties ; but there cannot be found another God differenced from this, by any such like properties," - and so on.*

We come now to the great work of Eliot and of the Cambridge press. In December, 1658, he had completed, except final revision, his translation of the whole Bible into the Massachusetts dialect.' " Oh, that the Lord would so move," he prayed, " that by some means or other it may be printed." The Corporation in London supplied the means, and the first sheet of the New Testament was in type before Sept. 7, 1659.

Tvhat is known of Scot, it seems probable that he had this title-page printed and prefixed to one or more copies that he took with him to England, after the restoration of Charles the Second.

The first sheet, which was sent to England by the Commissioners in Decem1)er, 1658, as a specimen of the work, was reprinted there by order of the Corporation, in the spring of 1659^ at the end of a quarto tract entitled A further Accompt of the Pro^esse of the Gospel amongst the Indians, &c. This has, in place of the Cambridge imprint : " London, printed by M. Simmons, 1659.*'

The Congregational Library in Boston possesses a copy - possibly unique - of ^ Christian Covenanting Confession, printed on a single page, small 4to, in two columns, Indian and English. It is mentioned by Cotton Mather, - who quotes a few words from it in the Magnalia (bk. iii. 178), - as "a covenant with God which it was Eliot*s desire to bring the Indians inta" Probably it was printed before - but not long before - the gathering of the first Indian church, at Natick, in i66a

» **Some Helps for the INDIANS Shenh ing them How to improve their natural Reas^, to know the Tme God, and the true Christian Religion, t. By leading them to see the Divine Authority of the Scriptures. 2. By the Scriptures the Divine Truths necessary to Eternal Salvation, Undertaken At the Motion, and published by the Order of the Commissioners of the (/nited Colonies. By ABRAHAM PiERSON. Examined and approved by Thomas Stanton Interpreter-General to the United Colonies for the Indian Language, and by some of the most able Interpreters amogst [sic] us. Cambridg, Printed by Samuel Green 1658.'*

* Mr. Pierson*s Some Helps must be reckoned among the rarest of American books. The Lenox Library in New York possesses the only known copy with the original title-page (as above). A copy in the British Museum has a different title-page, on which the author is described as " Pastor of the Church at Branford." The work appears to have been ** Examined and approved by that Experienced Gentleman (in the Indian Language) Captain John Scot," instead of by the -- Interpreter-General," Thomas Stanton ; and " Printed/^r Samuel Green " is substituted for " Printed by Samuel Green." From

There were now two presses in Cambridge. One, purchased by the Rev. Josse Glover and brought over in 1638, was in the possession of Mr. Dunster, President of the College, who married Mr. Glover's widow. It was managed till about 1649 by Stephen Daye, afterwards by Samuel Green. The types that came with it were given to the College, and at the instance of the Commissioners of the United Colonies the Corporation in London had provided a new supply of new type for the Indian work. In the winter of 1657-58, Mr. Hezekiah Usher went to England as the agent of the Commissioners, and, before his return, he bought, with money furnished by the Corporation, a press, several fonts of type, and other printing materials. The new press was set up in 1659, and was given in charge to Green.

Only a few sheets of the New Testament were worked off before the arrival, in the summer of 1660, of Marmaduke Johnson, a printer sent from London to assist Green in printing the Bible and other Indian books. Both presses were now kept busy, and when the Commissioners met in 1661 (September 5), the New Testament was ** finished, printed, and set forth," and the impression of the Old had advanced to the end of the Pentateuch. The Commissioners "thought meet to present his Majesty," now happily restored, with a copy of the New Testament ; and a dedication - or, as they styled it,, a "preface" - was drawn up, commending the work "To the High and Mighty Prince, Charles the Second," &c. The edition was about fifteen hundred copies. Of these perhaps five hundred in all were separately bound. Twenty copies were sent to England, of which two, after " being very fairly bound up," were to be presented to the King and the Lord Chancellor; five others, to Dr. Reynolds, Mr. Caryll, Richard Baxter, and the vice-chancellors of the two universities; and the remaining thirteen were left to the disposal of Mr. Ashhurst and Richard Hutchinson (members of the Corporation).

The New [ Testament [ of our | Lord and Saviour | Jesus Christ. | Translated into the | Indian Language, | and Ordered to be Printed by the Commissioners of the United Colonies \ in New-England, | At the Charge, and with the Consent of the | Corporation in England | For the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Indians | in New-England. \ - | Cambridg : | Printed by Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson. \ MDCLXI. |

WUSKU I WUTTESTAMENTUM | NUL-LORDUMUN | JESUS CHRIST | Nuppoquohwussuaeneumun. | - [a lozenge-shaped ornament of printers' marks.] - | Cambridge 2 | Printed by Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson. \ MDCLXI. j nient and of both editions of the Bible have been the first edition of the liiblc, though there are |)ermore than once published, and need not be re- haps nine or ten copies of it in American libraries,

The Indian Tongue And Its Literature

The Old Testament was all printed and the Indian Bible complete before the Commissioners met in September, 1663. The Corporation had ordered a metrical version of the Psalms to be printed, to be bound with the Bible. September 18 the Commissioners wrote that they had directed Mr. Usher to present the Corporation, " by the next ship, with 20 copies of the Bible, and as many of the Psalms, if printed off before the ship's departure hence." Simon Bradstreet and Thomas Danforth were appointed to prepare *' an epistle to the Indian Bible, dedicatory to his Majesty, and to cause the same to be printed."

Up-Biblum God Vvusk.U Testament

sheet with the " dedicatory epistle," to be inserted in the copies sent to England, and from most of these copies the Indian title - leaf was removed. They were bound in London by order of the Corporation. The three " dedication " copies which I have seen, in their original binding, - of which the Allen copy, once in the library of the late Mr. Brinley, is one, - are in uniform smooth dark-blue (nearly black) morocco, with gilt backs and sides and gilt leaves, and were furnished with clasps.

brought to New England, was employed by Mr. Usher, and paid two and sixpence per Bible, he finding "thread, glue, pasteboard, and leather claps," for himself. In 1664 he addressed a memorial to the Commissioners of the United Colonies, complaining of the insufficiency of this pay. " I finde by in the Lenox Library, New York, and the library » [This and the other fac-similes in this secof the late Mr. John Carter Brown, of I'rovi. tion are taken from copies in the Mass. Hist, experience," - he writes, from Boston, August 30, - "thai in things belonging to my trade, I here pay iSs, for that which in England I could buy for four shillings, they being things not formerly much used in this country." The Indian title is as follows: -

Testament | kah wonk | Wusku Testament. | - | Ne quoshkinnumuk nashpe Wuttinneumoh Christ | noh asoowesit | John Euot. | - | Cambridge: | Printeuoop nash|)e Samuel Grem kah Marmaduke yohnson. \ r663.

Literally: "The-whole Holy his-Bible God, both Old Testament and also New Testament. This turned [translated] by the-servant-of Christ, who is-called John Eliot," &c. At the end of the Old Testament are the words, Wohkukquolisinwog Quoshodtumwaenuog^ i. e. " The Prophets are ended."

The New Testament is followed by Eliot's metrical version of the Psalms : Wame Ketoohomae Uketoohomaongash David (i. e. All the-singing Songs-of David) making one hundred double-column pages. They end on the second leaf of a sheet, and on its third leaf follows what has been called a " Catechism." It contains some rules for holy living, given as answers to two questions: I. "How can I walk all the day long with God?" II. "What should a Christian do, to keep perfectly holy the Sabbath day?"

The paper used for this Bible was of excellent quality, of the size known to old printers as "pot" (from its original water-mark, a tankard), which should measure 12^ by 15 inches, giving ,6^ by 7^ for the quarto fold. The type is described by Mr. Thomas as " full-faced bourgeois on brevier body."