Boston City (part 39 of 67)

1818, and that portion relating to New England setts," in the Lowell Lectures on Massachuis given in 2 Mass. Hist. Coll., ii. 97-124. - Ed.) setts and its Early History, tionary showed him among the names of the settlers who came over before .1692, and their descendants to the third generation, one hundred and thirty-four medical practitioners. Of these twelve, he says, and probably many more, practised surgery ; three were barber-surgeons. Johnson ^ has preserved an account of one of these last, William Dinely, whose life, death, and succession form a half-pathetic, half-grotesque tale. He was one of those who in 1637 were disarmed for heresy in following Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson. As a preacher of heresy he enjoyed, according to Johnson, singular advantages. '' This barber was more than ordinary laborious to draw men to those sinful errors that were formerly so frequent, and now newly overthrown by the blessing of the Lord, upon the endeavor of his faithful servants with the word of truth, he having a fit opportunity, by reason of his trade; so soon as any were set down in his chair, he would commonly be cutting off their hair and the truth together: notwithstanding some report better of the man, the example is for the living, the dead is judged of the Lord alone." In 1639, during a violent storm, a Roxbury man, suffering agonies from the toothache, sent his maid for William Dinely to come and draw it. Whether or not Dinely proposed at this fit opportunity to draw also the Roxbury man's errors cannot now be said. Both man and maid lost their way in the storm, and were frozen stiff, and found so many days after. Poor Madam Dinely, sick at home, gave birth shortly after to a child, who was named, with homely pathos, Fathergone Dinely.

The Boston town records report an apothecary, William Davice, in 1646, to whom permission was given to set up a '* payll" [fence] before his hall window and parlor window, three feet from his house. From entries occasionally in the same records it would seem that in the earliest days the doctor's services were more or less at the charge of the town. At any rate, in 1644, at a meeting of the selectmen of Boston, July 30, it was " ordered that the constables shall pay unto Tho. Oliver, Elder of the Church, seven pounds for seven months attendance upon the cure of the servant of Tho. Hawkins; " and April 25, 1660, a like order directed the treasurer to pay Mr. Snelling^ fifty-four shillings for physic administered to Robert Higgins. Perhaps these were dispensary doctors, and it should be remembered that some familiarity with physic was a part of the education of men like Winthrop.

- An interesting piece of legislation relating to medical practice appears in the Records of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, under date of May 2, 1649, beginning: "Forasmuch as the law of God (Ex. x. 13) allows no man to touch the life or limb of any person except in a judicial way, be it hereby ordered and decreed that no person or persons whatsoever that are employed about the bodies of men, women, or children for the preservation of life and health, as physicians, chirurgeons, midwives, or others, pre- sume to exercise or put forth any act contrary to the known rules of art, nor exercise any force, violence, or cruelty upon or towards the bodies of any, whether young or old (no, not in the most difficult and desperate cases), without the advice and consent of such as are skilful in the same art, if such may be had, or at least of the wisest and gravest then present." The consent of the patient also, if he was compos mentis^ was essential, and heavy penalties were laid for the infraction of the law. Whether or not some fatal accident resulting from malpractice had frightened the General Court into this legislation, which was vague and apparently unpractical, it is to be noted that the names of seven deputies are given who dissented from the order ; among . them the Boston recorder, Edward Rawson, and Robert Keayne and James Penn, also from Boston.

There was but one lawyer in colonial Boston, and he had a sorry time of it. Thomas Lechford, of Clement's Inn, came to Boston in 1637, willing to cast in his lot with the people here, though not entirely at one with them in questions of doctrine. He brought with him his knowledge of his profession, but both doctrinally and professionally he was regarded with suspicion. The magistrates, speaking through Winthrop at a little later date, held it objectionable that lawyers should direct men in their causes. No advocates were allowed ; but, what could scarcely have been less prejudicial to justice, magistrates, who were afterward to decide causes, were accustomed to give private advice beforehand.^ Several of the magistrates had been students of law in England ; they had exercised also there the functions of justices, and they brought to the business of legislation a certain technical knowledge of law. Attorneys were discountenanced, though not -actually forbidden, and a prisoner or suitor might plead his own cause, or a friend might appear in his behalf, but not for a fee. Lechford, for going to a jury and pleading with them out of court, was " debarred from pleading any man's cause hereafter unless His own, and admonished not to presume to meddle beyond what he shall be called to by the Court." ^ This one solitary case, in which the lawyer was employed for the prosecution of an action to recover under a will, snuffed out the advocate and left the Court as it had been. Lechford thereafter tried to maintain himself as a scrivener, and obtained a little employment from the magistrates. His doctrinal position being equally prejudicial to his interests, he finally abandoned Boston to its lawyerless fate. " I am kept," he writes, " from the Sacrament and all place of preferment in the Commonwealth, and forced to get my living by writing petty things which scarce finds me bread ; and therefore sometimes I look to planting of corn, but have not yet here an house of my own to put my head in, or any stock going." ' He stayed here about three years, but there was no place for him.

to keep people fron\ going to law. In 1635, it o£ the cause, if they Cann." - Ed.] was ordered ** that none among u^ shall sue at * Mass, Col, Records^ i. 270.

A town which could get along without advocates could not get along without courts and government. This is not the place in which to sketch the organization of the town or commonwealth, but it may be permitted to indicate the political duties and privileges of a Boston freeman at this period. It must be borne in mind that only a minority of the townsmen had any voice in the government; but the courts were open to all, as were the house of correction and the stocks. A standing rule required a freeman to be first a member of the church; and Lechford makes the statement that ** three parts of the people of the country remain out of the church.** ^ It is certain that the franchise was not eagerly sought, since it carried with it many vexations, and it is fair to conclude that a comparatively small proportion of the men of Boston engaged in its civil affairs ; but then those who did were very lively in their interest. The freeman was called upon to choose deputies to the General Court, but was not restricted to a choice among his townsmen. He was called upon also once a year to cast his vote for governor, deputy-governor, and assistants. The form of election is preserved for us by Lechford : -

" The manner of the elections is this : At first the chief Governor and magistrates were chosen in London, by erection of hands, by all the Freemen of this society. Since the transmitting of the Patent into New England, the election is not by voices, nor erection of hands, but by papers,* thus : The general Court electory sitting, where are present in the church, or mseting-house at Boston, the old Governor, Deputy, and all the magistrates, and two Deputies or Burgesses for every town, or at least one ; all the Freemen are bidden to come in at one door and bring their votes in paper for the new Governor, and deliver them down upon the table before the Court, and so to pass forth at another door. Those that are absent send their votes by proxy. AU being delivered in, the votes are counted, and according to the major part the old Governor pronounceth that such an one is chosen Governor for the year ensuing. Then the Freemen, in like manner, bring their votes for the Deputy-Governor, who being also chosen, the Governor propoundeth the Assistants one after the other. New Assistants are, of late, put in nomination by an order of General Court beforehand to be considered of.' If a Freeman give in a blank, that rejects the man named ; if the Freeman makes any mark with a pen upon the paper which he brings, that elects the man named ; then the , blanks and marked papers * are numbered, and according to the major part of either the man in nomination stands elected or rejected. And so for all the Assistants. And after every new election, which is by their Patent to be by J. H. Trumbull, who had the advantige of ' This order, made in May, 1640, was in conaccess to a manuscript journal of Lechford's. sequence of some jealousy of the magistrates The original edition is rare, but is found in and apprehension that they were assuming several of our libraries. A part of the original greater power.

upon the last Wednesday in every Easter term, the new Governor and officers are all newly sworn. The Governor and Assistants choose the Secretary. And all the Court consisting of Governor, Deputy, Assistants, and Deputies of towns give their votes as well as the rest ; and the Ministers and Elders and all church officers have their votes also in all these elections of chief magistrates. Constables and all other inferior officers are sworn in the general, quarter, or other courts, or before any Assistant." *

The magistrates and officers with whom the townsman of Boston would have to do bore, with one exception, well-seasoned English names. The name of "selectman," so familiar to New England ears, appears to have been evolved from the exigencies of town life here. The Boston records are curious in illustrating this point General meetings were warned from house to house; and once in six months until 1647, ^ft^r that once a year, a number of citizens were chosen, as the phrase generally ran, ** for the affairs of the town," or ** for the town's occasions." The number varied, but they are called in 1634 the "ten men; " in 1641 the "nine men;" again, the "overseers ; " sometimes they are called the " townsmen." Indeed, it would appear as if this name may have been the familiar title, for in 1643 the phrase is the "select townsmen;" in 1647, when the election was made annual, it becomes and remains "selectmen;" and in 1655 we read that a certain question of administration of a will, which required the witness of memory, was referred " to the present selectmen, together with the help of the ancient townsmen." *

The town records of Boston include the proceedings of the general townmeetings and of tlie meetings of the selectmen. A large part of the business was in allotting portions of the peninsula to inhabitants, but cognizance was taken of all matters of local concern, and special officers were appointed as occasion arose, so that the records have great value as containing the gradual evolution of that distinguishing feature of New England life, - the selfgovernment of the town.^ Almost from the beginning the town of Boston had its town-clerk, its treasurer, and its constables. The surveyor of highways was an officer early needed, and his appointment grew put of the need. "It is agreed that every one," reads the record of Jan. 4, 1635, "shall have a sufficient way unto his allotment of ground, wherever it be, and that the Inhabitants of the town shall have liberty to appoint men for the setting of them out as need shall require, and the same course to be taken for all common highways, both for the town and country." The need that cows should be kept by the inhabitants of Boston, and the lack of separate and defined pasturage, led early to the appointment of cow-keepers. A fold-keeper was appointed with duties apparently of a pound-keeper, and since there are no references to folding after the use of the term pound, pounder, or poundkeeper, it may be that both the offices were the same, called at first by one name, afterward by the other. The regulations respecting the yoking and ringing of swine and the freedom of these animals about town required the appointment of a hog-reeve. Water-bailiffs had oversight of the shore, ** to see that no annoying things either by fish, wood or stone, or other such like things be left or laid about the sea-shore." There were clerks of the market, and later sealers of weights and measures, packers offish and meat, gaugers, and sealers of leather, all elected in town-meeting. There was a townrecorder who was sometimes also the treasurer. In 1659, for the first time, a moderator was chosen to hold office for a year and regulate public townmeetings. A clerk of the writs kept the records of births, marriages, and deaths.

If the townsman or any servant or Indian ran against the laws, - and as these met one at every turn, chances for infraction were multiplied, - there was a variety of punishment provided. The whipping-post appears as a land-mark in the Boston records in 1639, and the frequent sentences to be whipped must have made the post entirely familiar to the town. It stood in front of the First Church, and was probably thought to be as necessary to good discipline as a police-station now is. A community in which whipping was freely used was probably not much surprised when President Dunster, of Harvard, whipped two of his students for an offence, applying the rod faithfully himself.

The pillory and stocks were easily moved, and could be placed anywhere where they might be needed. The stocks stood sometimes near the whipping-post; sometimes, as by an anticipatory sarcasm, at the head of State Street. The builder of the first stocks in Boston - at THE STOCKS. least the first mentioned in the records - had the honor of being the first to try them. Edward Palmer, in 1639, was employed to build stocks in Boston, but when he presented his bill it was held to be extortionate; and by a piece of grim pleasantry the Court fined him, and sentenced him to be set an hour in the stocks. Winthrop tells an amusing story, not without some sense of its humor himself, of a scrape into which one of La Tour's party fell. Writing in 1644, he says: -

" There arrived here a Portugal ship with salt, having in it two Englishmen only. One of these happened to be drunk, and was carried to his lodging ; and the constable, (a godly man and zealous against such disorders), hearing of it, found him out, being upon his bed asleep ; so he awaked him, and led him to the stocks, there being no magistrate at home. He being in the stocks, one of La Tour's gentlemen lifted up the stocks and let him out. The constable, hearing of it, went to the Frenchman .())eing then gone and quiet), and would needs carry him to the stocks; the Frenchman offered to yield himself to go to prison, but the constable, not understanding his language, pressed him to go to the stocks ; the Frenchman resisted and drew his sword ; with that company came in and disarmed him, and carried him by force to the stocks ; but soon after the constable took him out and carried him to prison, and presently after took him forth again and delivered him to La Tour. Much tumult there was about this : many Frenchmen were in town, and other strangers, which were not satisfied with this dealing of the constable, yet were quiet.''

The magistrates looked into the case, and decided that the gentleman must go back to prison till the Court met. Their Dogberry must be sustained. Some Frenchmen offered to go bail, but their offer was declined as coming from strangers : -

" Upon this two Englishmen, members of the church of Boston, standing by, offered to be his sureties, whereupon he was bailed till he should be called for, because La Tour was not like to stay till the Court. This was thought too much favor for such an offence by many of the common people, but by our law bail could not be denied him ; and beside the <!()nslal)lc w;ls the occasion of all this ill transgressing the bounds of his office, and that in six things : i. In fetching a man out of his lodging that was asleep upon his bed, and without any warrant from authority. 2. In not putting a hook upon the slocks, nor setting some to guard them. 3. In laying hands upon the Frenchman that had opened the stocks, when he was gone and quiet, and no disturbance then appearing. 4. In carrying him to prison without warrant. 5. In delivering him out of prison without warrant. 6. In putting such a reproach upon a stranger and a gentleman when there was no need, for he knew he would be forthcoming, and the magistrate would be at home that evening ; but such are the fruits of ignorant and misguided zeal."

The constable was evidently the most ubiquitous representative of the law, and it is not surprising that he should sometimes assume the office of the magistrate, when he was charged daily with so many functions. His appearance was nearly as impressive as that of a drum-major, for, beside the sternness of countenance which his calling demanded, it was directed by the

The Pillory

General Court that he " shall have a staff with some remarkable distinction provided by the town, which may be as a sign or badge of his office, and this staff to take along with him when he shall go forth to discharge any part of - his office ; which staff shall be black and about five feet or five and a half foot long, tipped at the upper end about five or six inches with brass." The Tipstaff thus was as near an approach to familiar slang as our ancestors seem to have allowed. Nevertheless, in spite of the dignity of this office, - because, perhaps, of its arduousness, - it became difficult after a while to secure constables, especially in Boston ; and in 1653 a fine of ten pounds was laid on any one who refused to accept the office.^

The opportunities of the constable were frequent and various, for the laws were minute and explicit. The early records of the colony sound with the swish of the rod, and no picture of the early Boston seems at all complete without a well-filled stocks and bilboes. Robert Bartlett, presented for cursing and swearing, was sentenced to have his tongue put in a cleft stick. John Smith, for swearing, being penitent, was set in the bilboes. The treasury must have been considerably augmented if all the fines imposed were paid. Nor were the graver modes of correction and punishment wanting. Already, in 1632, a House of Correction was ordered for Boston, and with it a house for the beadle, who seems to have acted as sheriff. The gallows stood ready to receive obdurate sinners,* and while the penalty of death upon the statute book was probably in many cases only a solemn threat, it is certain that no merely sentimental dread of capital punishment stood in the way of inflictoing it. In one instance, at least, the public executioner burned heretical books in the market-place, when, in 1654, the books of John Reeves and Lodowich Muggleton, who pretended to be the last two witnesses and prophets of Jesus Christ, appeared in Boston. Two years later some books in defence of the Quaker doctrine shared the same fate.

The town crier was another ancient officer whose voice has been silent for some years in Boston. His orders were to cry three several times for things lost, and to keep a book wherein he was to write down faithfully all such things with their marks, the names of parties, and the days of crying, his fees being twopence apparently for each article.

For protection against fire there were laws, buckets, and ladders ; and in 1654, at any rate, fire-engines were offered to the selectmen by Joseph

1 |Savage*s Boston by Daylight and Gaslight^ him, one of which, by Cotton Mather, was the 1873, since enlarged into a History of the Boston first of his three hundred and eighty-three publi- Watch^ gives further details. Some particulars cations. Dunton speaks of another of these relating to the setting of watches are noted in sermons by Increase Mather, as preached before Sewall Papers^ i. 53. - Ed.] five thousand people in Mr. Willard's meeting-

2 [The earliest executions look place on the house, after the "gallery had cracked" in the Common. Shurtleff, Description of Boston^ 352. new church, where the services began. The Dunton, Z///^x, p. 118, describes with a good place of execution was "about a mile out of deal of particularity the execution of Morgan, Boston." - Ed.]

Boston In The Colonial Period

Jynks. The chief cause of fire was held to be in flaming chimneys, and a fine was exacted in every case where fire was seen to issue above the top ; special orders were given also from time to time to secure chimneys when they appeared to be dangerous. Chimney-sweepers were under the appointment of the selectmen. At the time of what was known as the Great Fire, in 1653-54, an order of the town required every householder to provide for his house a ladder long enough to reach to the ridge, and " a pole of about twelve foot long, with a good large swab at the end of it, to reach the roof of his house to quench fire," while six good and long ladders for the use of the town were hung upon the side of the meeting-house. Further regulations gave power to the authorities to pull down houses if necessary to stop fire, permission to construct a cistern, and restricted the building of a fire within certain limits after nine o'clock at night and before five in the morning. So, later still, a regulation was made to prevent people from carrying fire from one house to another in " open fire-pans or brands-ends ; *' and a special order forbade any person taking tobacco, or bringing a lighted match or fire, underneath or about any part of the town-house, except in case of military exercise.^ In 1652 there was a water-works company incorporated in Conduit Street, of which an account is given in another chapter.* One Captain Cromwell® had given some bells to the town, and in 1650 the selectmen were em-

' After the second fire in 1676, which succeeded to the name of the Great Fire, the General Court took action which recalls distinctly enough the condition of affairs after what is now known as the Boston Fire. "Upon complaint made by the selectmen of Boston of the inconvenience of the straitness of the streets lately laid waste by fire, it is ordered that no person presume to build there again without the advice and order of the selectmen, until the next General Court," 24th May, 1676.

* [This Captain Cromwell was a notorious character, who might well figure in a Boston romance. Winthrop, Hist, of New England, ii. 263, records his being here a common seaman in 1636. He was a vagabond of kindly nature, but was then well treated by one "of the poorer sort," and remembered it when ten years later, in 1646, he came into the harbor with a number of Spanish prizes in his train, which he had captured in a freebooting way, under a commission from the Earl of Warwick. Coming across the bay, stress of weather had forced him into Plymouth, where he and his men " spent liberally and gave freely," which the Pilgrims, in their straits, were not averse to their doing. Here one of Cromwcirs men got drunk, and assaulting the captain the fellow was killed by a blow from his rapier. Cromwell then brought his fleet to Boston, and, as the story goes, though he had money enough to hire the finest house in town, he contented himself with quarters under the humble roof of the poor man who had earlier befriended him. Bradford, recording his story, PiymouthPlantation, 441, says that " he scattered a great deal of money " in Boston, " and yet more sin, I fear, than money." He presented to the Governor a rich sedan chair which he had taken on one of his prizes; and Winthrop, a little later, turned it to good account in giving it to D*Aulnay by way of propitiation, when he settled terms of a treaty with him. Cromwell liked Boston well enough to settle here, but he was soon off on another marauding expedition, and was absent three years. Bradford says " he tooke sundry prises, and returned rich unto the Massachusets, and ther dyed the same somere, having gott a fall from his horse, in which fall he fell on his rapeir hilts, and so brused his body as he shortly after dyed thereof." This happened between August, 1649, when he made his will, and October, when it was probated. In it he gave six bells to the town, doubtless some of his plunders. (iV. E, HisL and Geneal, Reg, iii. 268.) His widow, Anne, married Robert Knight ; and, again a widow, married John Joyliffe, in 1657, whose death Sewall records in 1701. {Sewall Papers, ii. 48.) It was one of the Cromwell bells, probably, referred to in the following memorandum from the Town Record, in 1655: "A greatt bell belonging to the towne sent to Castle Island to Capt Richard Davenport." - Ed.]

powered to dispose of them to the best advantage, and to lay out the proceeds in one bell for a clock ; but a year or two afterward the bells had not been disposed of, for it was ordered on March i, 1652, " that James Everill and the neighbors which set up the Conduit by the Dock shall have one of the bells (which were given by Captain Cromwell) for a clock, and to enjoy it while they make that use of it there." Smaller bells were used by bellmen, who went up and down at night as special watchmen.*

The beacon on Sentry Hill was the great alarm-tower of the town. It was ordered to be set up in March, 1634-35, " ^^ g'^e notice to the country of any danger, and that there shall be a ward of one person kept there from the first of April to the last of September; and that upon the discovery of any danger the beacon shall be fired, an alarm given, as also messengers presently sent by that town where the danger is discovered to all other towns within the jurisdiction." But the necessity of a watch and of military training was coincident with the settling of the town. In 1631 it was ordered that a watch of six and an ofiicer should be kept in Boston; and in the same year a training was observed every Saturday. The next year the training-day was made monthly, and in 1637 ^he number of trainings in the year was reduced to eight ; but every person above eighteen, except the magistrates and elders, was compellable for service either in person or by substitute. The magistrates and teaching elders were also allowed each a man free from training. Absence from training was fined, and a little later, in 1645, it was ordered that all the youth from ten to sixteen years should be instructed by a competent person in the exercise of small arms, such as small guns, half pikes, and bows and arrows.* The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company dates from this time, when on the 13th of March, 1638-39, it was formed under its first name of the " Military Company of the Massachusetts." ^

Some slight military pomp added to the dignity of the Governor's office. It was ordered, in 1634-35, that at every General Court six men appointed by the Governor from his town should attend with halberds and swords upon the person of the Governor, - a custom which has survived apparently in the occasional attendance of the Lancers, as at Commencement. This custom of military attendance is referred to by Winthrop in his Journal,

> [The Town Records, under date of " 26th, Newgate and George Clifford, who agreed to do loth moneth," 1653, say: " Simon Rogers and " all common service in drumming for the towne Robtt. Read hath engaged to serve the towne as on Trayning dayes and watches." Perry lived Bellmen, to goe up and downe throughout the on School Street, near Province Street. He towne by the space of five howers in the night, continued to drum for some years after this, notbeginning at eleaven, and soe to contynue till withstanding the new appointments. - Ed.] foure, and to have twentye shillings by the week « [Z. G. Whitman's History of this company for their labor." - Ed.] has been twice printed, - 1820 and 1842. Captain ming to the Company upon all occasions." His been the chief promoter of the new organizapay was increased to £^ lor., in 1642. For his tion; and the Boston association claims to be an where he speaks of a difficulty which he had with the attendants : ** Upon the election of the new governor, the sergeants who had attended the old governor to the Court (being all Boston men, where the new governor also dwelt) laid down their halberds and went home ; and whereas they had been wont to attend the former governor to and from the meetings on the Lord's days, they gave over now, so as the new governor was fain to use his own servants to carry two halberds before him ; whereas the former governor had never less than four." ^

The clergy, however, were as high in honor and social position as the magistrates. In the list of things noted the i6th of March, 1628-29, to provide to send for New England, the order in which these '* things *' stand is (i) Ministers; (2) Patent under Seal; (3) Seal, - and after that seed grains of various sort. The Company was plainly intent on sowing the seed of the Word first ; ^ and in a subsequent meeting for the preliminary arrangements it was decided that the expense of ministers and churches should be borne one half by the Company, one half by the individual planters. The very first order upon the records of the Massachusetts Bay Colony after reaching this country has reference to the building of houses for the ministers, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Phillips, and the furnishing them with sup- , plies. They were ever in the minds of the Colony. In 1646 the supply was giving out, and there began to be an opportunity for home-bred ministers. We read in the records of the colony: " This Court being sensible of the necessity and singular use of good literature in managing the things of greatest concern in the Commonwealth, as also perceiving the fewness of persons accomplished to such employment, especially for future times, have thought meet to propose to all every our reverend elders and brethren that due care be had from time to time to employ and exercise such students, especially in divinity, so that they may not have to go away." It was added as a practical suggestion that the younger students should assist the church officers in their work. In 1657 other troubles arose, and a committee was appointed to inquire into the alleged poverty of the ministers of the churches.

The well-known respect shown to the clergy was a part of that general respect for religion and religious observances which found expression in a number of legislative acts, all looking toward conformity to the Puritan ideal.^ Absence from church meetings was visited by fines and imprisonment. Should any man reproach the Word or the minister thereof, he was

* " Now to declare how this people pro- ing Providence, bk. ii. ch. 22. ceeded in religious matters, and so consequently ^ [Dr. Dexter has shown the common notion, proceeded against. For the first offence he was to be reproved by the magistrate. For the second he was to pay five pounds, or stand two hours openly upon a block four feet high, on a lecture day, with a paper fixed on his breast, with the words " A WANTON Gospeller " written in capital letters, that others might " fear and be ashamed of breaking out into the like wickedness." Indians were to be taught religion and laws, and to be brought under the same ecclesiastical discipline. Blasphemy, whether by Indian or white man, was punishable by death. Notorious and obstinate heretics were fined. The Church was regarded as an essential part of the State, and disregard of it was disregard of the plainest means of knowing the laws. ** Seeing that the Word is of general and common behoof to all sorts of people, as being the ordinary means to subdue the hearts of hearers not only to the faith and obedience to the Lord Jesus, but also to civil obedience and allegiance unto magistrates, and to just and honest conversation toward all men : it is therefore ordered and declared that every person shall duly resort and attend upon the Lord's Day, fasts and thanksgivings, or be fined." ' The Lord's Day was guarded by stringent regulations. " If any young person or others be found without either meeting house,* idling or playing during the time of public exercise on the Lord's day, it is ordered that the constables or others appointed for that end shall take hold of them and bring them before authority." ^ Within the meetinghouse boys were also under watch. Indeed, the Puritan attitude towards boys generally is one of vast suspicion. They were in the eyes of the law a species of untamed beings, always bound for mischief, and capable of developing into good citizens only through a most restrictive process. There were regular officers, the tithing-men, employed to act as special police within the meeting-houses. ** Sergeant Johnson and Walter Merry are requested to take the oversight of the boys in the galleries, and in case of unruly disorders to acquaint the Magistrates therewith."* ** Jno. Dawes is ordered to oversee the youth at the new meeting-house that they behave themselves reverently in the time of divine worship, and to act according to his instructions therein." ^ The boys in the galleries were spectators of the services that went on under their eyes. It is doubtful if they were regarded as themselves a positive part of the worshipping congregation ; but long before they came to their freedom they must have become familiar with the services on Sunday, and with the topics discussed from the pulpit. At first there was no bell to call people together, but a drum was beaten. It is probable that the first use of a bell was at the hands of the bellman going about the town as the hour for worship drew near.^ The families

* [See, on early bells in Boston, N. E. the shore), where he had a warehouse and brew- Hist, and Geneal. Reg.y April, 1874, p. 180; also, house, maintained there a dial as early as 1643. E. H. Goss's Early Bells of Massachusetts, Dr. Record Commissioners, Second Rept., p. 75. - Ed.]

Boston In The Colonial Period

were divided, as one sometimes now sees them in New England country villages, - the men on one side, the women and girls on the other, and the boys, who made a third class, by themselves, with the tithing-man to supervise them. The ruling elders had a seat immediately below the pulpit, facing the congregation. They were raised apparently upon a platform ; and in front of them, upon a lower plane, yet still often above the people, sat the deacons in similar position. The dignity and social rank of the families was indicated in the places severally assigned to them. The first service was at about nine o'clock in the morning. The pastor began with extemporaneous prayer, lasting about a quarter of an hour. After prayer, either the pastor or a teaching elder read a chapter in the Bible and expounded it. A psalm was then sung, lined out by one of the ruling elders. The Psalms were something of a stumbling-block to the people. The Psalter, as used in the English church, was adapted to chanting, and moreover the associations with it were of prelacy. The Puritans, by the same instinct which led them to reprehend the reading of the Bible without comment as savoring of idolatry and the surrender of reason, wished to use the Psalms in a metrical version ; and in the early years of Massachusetts Bay used either that of Sternhold and Hopkins, or that made by Ainsworth, of Amsterdam. The Plymouth people used the latter, Priscilla Mullins among them : -

The Bay Psalm Book superseded these in Boston in 1640. For a long time a very small number of tunes - of which York, Hackney, Windsor, St. Mary's, and Martyrs were the chief - were in use by congregations.^ Instrumental music was proscribed. There is little reference to the singing in churches in the early records, and the darkness is made more dense by this unexplained passage in the records of the General Court, under date of June i, 1641 : "Mr. Edward Tomlins, retracting his opinions against singing in the churches, was discharged." There is nothing to enlighten us as to the ground of Mr. Tomlins's objections; he may have murmured against the quality of the musi^, as people do to-day who are not arrested ; or he may have had painful doubts as to the propriety of singing at all.

After the singing came the sermon, which was the piice de resistance. When there was an affluence of ministry, one expounded the Word while another preached. The sermon was rarely written out in those days ; it was measured, not by the number of pages upon which it was written, but by the hour-glass which stood at the preacher's side. The minimum or regulation length seems to have been an hour, but Johnson ' speaks of a listener to Mr. Shepard, of Cambridge, seeing the glass turned up twice ; and on a special occasion, - the planting of a church at Woburn, - he relates that the Rev. Mr. Syms continued in preaching and prayer about the space of four or five hours.^ Following the sermon was a prayer by the teaching elder - and the blessing. Sometimes another psalm also was sung after the sermon. A second service, substantially the same in character, was at two o'clock in the afternoon.

The mode of dispensing the sacrament of the Lord's Supper did not materially differ from that still in use in Congregational churches. Baptism was usually administered on Sunday in church, generally the Sunday nearest the birth of the child. Lechford, who is the authority for the mode of observances at this time, seems to imply that the rite was generally performed after service in the afternoon. It is done, he adds, " by either Pastor or Teacher, in the Deacon's seat, the most eminent place in the church, next under the Elder's seat. The Pastor most commonly makes a speech .or exhortation to the church and Parents concerning Baptism, and then prayeth before and after. It is done by washing or sprinkling." * The same writer does not fail to describe another part of the service which has always been conspicuous, and, because of its secular associations, perhaps especially interesting to the boys in the gallery, - "which ended," he says, directly after his description of baptism, ** follows the contribution, one of the Deacons saying, * Brethren of the congregation, now there is time left for contribution, whereof as God hath prospered you, so freely offer.' Upon some extraordinary occasions, as building and repairing of churches or meeting-houses, or other necessities, the ministers press a liberal contribution, with effectual exhortations out of Scripture. The Magistrates and chief Gentlemen first, and then the Elders, and all the congregation of men and most of them that are not of the church, all single persons, widows, and women in absence of their husbands, come up one after another one way and bring their offerings to the Deacon at his seat, and put it into a box of wood for the purpose, if it be money or papers ; if it be any other chattel, they set it or lay it down before the Deacons, and so pass another way to their seats again. This contribution is of money, or papers promising so much money: I have seen a fair gilt cup with a cover offered there by one, which is still used at the communion. Which moneys and goods the Deacons dispose towards the maintenance of the Ministers, and the poor of the church, and the church's occasions, without making account ordinarily."* Josselyn describes the scene even more graphically: "On Sundays in the afternoon, when sermon is ended, the people in the galleries come down and march two abreast up one aisle and down the other until they come before the desk, for pulpit they have none ; before the desk is a long pew, where the Elders and Deacons sit, one of them with a money-box in his hand, into which the people as they pass put their offering, - some a shilling, some two ishillings, half a crown, five shillings, according to their ability and good will ; after this they conclude with a psalm." ^

Inasmuch as church membership was coincident with the jright of suffrage, the reception into the church was invested with much circumstance. Johnson has given a close account of the customary proceedings : -

" After this manner the person desirous to join with the church cometh to the Pastor and makes him acquainted therewith, declaring how the Lord hath been pleased to work his conversion ; who discerning hopes of the person's faith in Christ, although weak, yet if any appear, he is propounded to the church in general for their approbation touching his godly life and conversation, and then by the Pastor and some brethren heard again, who make report to the church of their charitable approving of the person. But before they come to join with the church, all persons within the town have public notice of it ; then publicly he declares the manner of his conversion, and how the Lord hath been pleased, by the hearing of his Word preached and the work of his Spirit in the inward parts of his soul, to bring him out of that natural - darkness which all men are by nature in and under, as also the measure of knowledge the Lord hath been pleased to indue him withal. And because some men cannot speak publicly to edification through bashfulness, the less is required of such ; and women speak not publicly at all." *

The public occasions in Boston centred about the church. Besides Sundays, the great gatherings were at lectures, thanksgivings, and fasts, attendance at which was nearly as obligatory as on Sunday services. Days of fasting were not annual or fixed, but appointed from time to time by the General Court, and by special churches, with more or less fulness of explanation as to their occasion. ** To entreat the help of God," one order reads, " in the weighty matters that are at hand, and to divert any evil plot which may be intended, and to prepare the way of friends which we hope may be upon coming to us." ** For want of rain and help of brethren in distress, ... for the sad condition of our native country, ... for drought and sickness at home and trouble in England," were others. Neither was Thanksgiving then set for annual observance at the end of harvest. June 13, 1632, one was ordered for ** God's great mercy to the church in Germany and the Palatinate; " in October, 1633, " for a bountiful harvest and the arrival of persons of special use and quality," - that was when Cotton and Hooker and Haynes came over; Sept. 8, 1637, "for success and safe return of the Pequot expedition, especially the success of the conference at New Town, and good news from Germany."

The Thursday Lecture is an old Boston institution which dates from this time. " Upon the week days," writes Lechford, 1638-41, "there are Lectures in divers towns and in Boston upon Thursdays, when Master Cotton teacheth out of the Revelation."^ The rage for lecture-going led people to go from one town to another during the week, until the matter came to be so serious that the magistrates were at first disposed to interfere,^ but the elders advised against anything that looked like discouraging the people from going to meetings. The Court did, however, in 1633, make a regulation that no lecture should begin before one o'clock, to prevent too great interference with business, but the law was repealed in 1640. There is a single reference in Winthrop^ to a regular Saturday evening service, and the old New England custom of reckoning Sunday from sunset of Saturday to sunset of Sunday, has an indefinite origin.®

The excitement of meetings and lectures stood to the stricter sort as a recreation from their work. They were by the hard custom of their own minds, and by a bitter hostility to anything that looked like license, perpetually endeavoring to put down all amusements in the population outside of their small compact body. They boasted that none of the holidays of England had survived the passage of the Atlantic ; and, as Christmas lifted its head, they smote at it with a law. " For preventing disorders,*' reads the Record of General Court, May 11, 1659, "arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this Court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shillings as a fine to the county. And whereas not only at such times, but at several other times also, it is a custom too frequent in many places to expend time in unlawful games, as cards, dice, &c.," a penalty is imposed for that. It was plainly the intent of the Court to disgrace Christmas by associating it with lawless proceedings.* Other laws against cards and dice were very early passed. Bowling about inns was forbidden, and so, as we have seen, was dancing prohibited. Football was not forbidden except in streets, lanes, or enclosures.^ This regulation, like the one against fast driving in the streets of Boston, which the General Court found it desirable to pass in 1662, were in the interest especially of old people and young children. In that day also the Common appeared on the lighter side of life. Josselyn, describing the town as it was between 1660 and 1670, says : " Their streets are many and large, paved with pebble stone, and the south side adorned with Gardens and orchards. The Town is rich and very populous, much frequented by strangers ; here is the dwelling of their Goversuming it, in 1844. It was given up a few years ing to evening, he wrote arguments before his

- [Cf. Savage's Winthrop's Nnv England, so too." - Ed.] i. 130. Cotton Mather says of John Cotton : * [See a curious instance in Bradford's Ply-

"The Sabbath he began the evening before; mouth Plantation, ^, 112. - Ed.) for which keeping of the Sabbath from even- * Boston Town Records^ 141, 157.

nor. On the north-west and north-east two constant Fairs [ferries] are kept for daily Traffick thereunto. On the south there is a small but pleasant common where the Gallants a little before sunset walk with their marmalet madams, as we do in Morefields, &c., till the nine aclock bell rings them home to their respective habitations,^ when presently the Constables walk their rounds to see good orders kept, and to take up loose people." ^ The first positive enactment by which the Common became a fixed tract of land, substantially as we now have it, was in March, 1640, when it was " also agreed upon that henceforth there shall be no land granted either for houseplot or garden to any person out of the open ground or common field which is left between the Sentry Hill and Mr. Colbron's end; except three or four lots to make up the street from Bro. Robert Walker's to the Round Marsh." - From that time onward there were frequent votes and orders in town-meeting, all looking to a cleanly and orderly use of the Common. It was used then, as now, for trainings ; but the picture which Josselyn draws gives a better clew to the unfailing interest which the people have always taken in the Common.

It is very clear that in the judgment of the law-makers industry and not amusement was the business of the young. Long and serious orders appear in the records looking towards the morals of young people, and safeguards were found in regular employment and in education ; perhaps it would be accurate to say that their idea of education included work as one of the primary methods of education. The state-and-church refused to delegate this instruction to families ; it conceived it to be a part of its own business to be a guardian of the young, whether these were in families or not. A succession of orders, extending over a series of years, will best illustrate this attitude of the government toward families and children. On the 14th of June, 1642, we read: -

" This Court, taking into consideration the great neglect of many parents and masters in training up their children in learning and labor and other employments which may be profitable to the commonwealth, do hereupon order and decree that in every town the chosen men appointed for managing the prudential affairs of the same shall henceforth stand charged with the care of the redress of this evil, so as they shall be sufficiently punished by fines for the neglect thereof, upon presentation of the grand jury, or other information or complaint in any court within this jurisdiction ; and for this end they or the greater number of them shall have power to take account from time to time of all parents and masters, and of the children, concerning the calling and employment of the children, especially of their ability to read and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of this country, and to impose fines upon such as shall refuse to render such account to them when they shall be required. . . . They are to take care of such as are set to keep cattle, that they be set to some other employment withal as spinning upon the rock, knitting, weaving tape, &c., and that boys and girls be not suffered to converse together so as may occasion any wanton dishonor or immodest behavior ; and for the better performance of this trust committed to them, they may divide the town amongst them, appointing to every of the said townsmen a certain number of families to have special oversight of. They are also to provide that a sufficient quantity of material as hemp, flax, &c., may be raised in their several towns, and tools and implements provided for working out the same."

In 1646: '* If any child or children above sixteen years old, and of sufficient understanding, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he or she shall be put to death, unless the parents have been unchristianly negligent or provoking by extreme and cruel correction.** An incorrigible son could be presented by his parents and put to death, but the law remained, so far as evidence appears, a mere brutumfultnen. A more genial treatment of such cases is suggested by the order of August 22, 1654: " Magistrates have authority to whip divers children and servants who behave themselves disrespectfully, disobediently, and disorderly toward their parents, masters, and governors.*' The selectmen again in 1668 are ** required to see that all children and youth under family government be taught to read perfectly the English tongue, have knowledge in the capital laws, and be taught some orthodox catechism, and that they be brought up to some honest employment."

Marriage, as performed in Boston, was made by the law of 1646 an act of the civil magistrate, ** or such other as the General Court, or Court of Assistants, shall authorize in such place where no magistrate is near.'*^ Mr. Savage could discover no ** record of a marriage performed by a clergyman prior to 1686. except in Gorges* Province, by a clergyman of the Church of England.** ^ The minister, if he were present, was sometimes called upon to ** improve the occasion." The old English custom of announcing the banns was retained, and on occasion of important prospective marriages the minister preached a sermon. Trumbull, in his notes to Lechford*s Plain Dealing, instances such an occasion in 1640, when the minister gave a practical and pointed discourse from Ephesians, vi. 10, II. applying the text "to teach us that the state of marriage is a warfaring condition.** ^

Finally, when the Boston man of the colonial period came to be buried, he went to his grave with all the uncircumstanced solemnity which he regarded in life. He had stripped life of its decorations, and sought the solid uncompromising reality ; he asked for nothing else at death. There was no necessity to advertise, " Friends are requested not to send flowers." Lechford's account has a real dignity in its brief statement: *' At Burials nothing is read, nor any funeral sermon made ; but all the neighborhood, or a good company of them, come together by tolling of the bell, and carry the dead solemnly to his grave, and there stand by him while he is buried. The ministers are most commonly present." *

* [Notwithstanding the statement of the text that Savage could find no record of a marriage by a clergyman prior to 1686, the accounts of the sad romance connected with the name of Rebecca Rawson fix her marriage, July i, 1679, " by a minister of the gospel, in the presence of near forty witnesses." This lady was the daughter of Secretary Rawson, and was born May 23, 1656, and was brought up with care in the higher social circles of the town One Thomas Rumsey, who came to Boston under the pretence of being a nephew of Lord Chief-Justice Hale, and calling himself Sir Thomas Hale, gained her affections. Being married, the young pair went to England. Upon landing, the scamp managed to secure the contents of her trunks, and escape. It was ascertained by the lady's friends in England that the fellow had already a wife in Canterbury. Pride kept the deserted woman in England for thirteen years, where, declining the assistance of her friends, she supported herself and child by painting on glass, and by the exercise of her other accomplishments. At length

We began this chapter with a reference to Governor Winthrop's death, for it is of Boston at that time that we have especially written. We may properly close with his funeral. " His body/* we are told, " was, with great solemnity and honor buried at Boston, in New England, the third of April, 1649." * The only intimation of the ceremony above the ordinary silent entombment is in the order of the General Court sanctioning the action of the Surveyor General, who lent, on his own responsibility, a barrel and a half of powder to the artillery company to expend in solemnizing the funeral. *

By Edwin L. Bynner

NO picture, map, or satisfactory account of the ancient peninsula of Shawmut, as it appeared to Winthrop and his colonists, has been discovered ; but from the abundant descriptions of later times there needs no great effort of the imagination to bring it clearly to mind.

From Captain John Smith we might fairly have expected a chance word of description, were it not for a reasonable doubt as to whether the great navigator ever . penetrated our inner harbor, or otherwise came within view of the peninsula.' The visit of Miles Standish's exploring party, sent out from Plymouth in 1621, was, as appears in an earlier chapter,^ scarcely more fruitful in result. The man, moreover, of all others, who was best fitted to speak with authority upon this pre-colonial period has left us nothing. William Blaxton, or Blackstone, the first white settler upon the peninsula, that doughty recluse who left his retreat upon the sunny slope of Beacon Hill, as he boldly avowed, to escape from the intolerant atmosphere of " the Lords Brethren," no doubt left much interesting matter touching his own history and his wilderness home among the papers which were destroyed by the burnings and ravagings of Philip's war.

Failing all these sources of information, it is curious that we are left to the early impressions of " a romping girl " for our first description of the peninsula as it looked in its virgin wildness, which, although but an old lady's recollection of the scenes of her youth, recorded after the lapse of almost a century, is too graphic to be forgotten. Anne Pollard,® the impulsive young woman who was the foremost to leap ashore from the first boat-load of colonists as they passed over from Charlestown and touched at the North End, has described her girlish impression as of a place " very uneven, abounding in small hollows and swamps, covered with blueberries and other bushes."

This has a characteristic New England flavor, and is undoubtedly true to life so far as it goes ; but, topographically, the peninsula in those days must have had other and more prominent features to distinguish it from the surrounding country or the islands in the harbor, of which, but for the interposition of human hands, it would doubtless long since have swelled the number.

Flung boldly out from the mainland, like a restraining arm to hold back the too eager rushing of the rivers Charles and Mystic to the sea, it formed an admirable natural barrier, and commanded the entrance to the rich and smiling country beyond. With no more symmetry of form than a splash of molten lead dropped into the cooling waters, it must nevertheless have presented - with its lofty hills, with its deep coves and smaller inlets, with its bristling headlands and its bold unwooded outline - striking and picturesque features to the eye.

But we are not left long to imagination or surmise. The first visitor to the new colony who has given us a record of his impressions was William Wood, an intelligent young Englishman, who came over before 1630, and was in Boston so shortly after the settlement of the town that little or no change could have taken place in its general features. " Boston," he says, " is two miles North-east from Roxberry : His situation is very pleasant, being a Peninsula^ hem'd in on the South-side with the Bay of Roxberry^ on the North-side with Ckarles-river, the Marshes on the backe-side, being not halfe a quarter of a mile over; so that a little fencing will secure their cattle from the Woolues. Their greatest wants be Wood and Medow-ground which never were in that place ; being constrayned to fetch their building timber and fire-wood from the Hands in Boates, and their Hay in Loyters. It being a Necke and bare of wood, tliey are not troubled with three great annoyances of Woolves, Rattlesnakes, and Musketoes." ^

In a note upon this passage Shaw disputes the statement that there never was any wood upon the peninsula, and asserts - upon what authority does not appear - that it had been cleared by the Indians for planting corn. He adds: "There were, however, many large clumps left, sufficient for fuel and timber. The growth was probably similar to that of the islands." There was undoubtedly some wood growing upon the Neck proper, for we find several entries relating to it in the early records ; but that there never was a great deal, and by no means " sufficient for fuel and timber," is evident from a passage in one of Winthrop's letters to his son in 1637: *- We at Boston were almost ready to brake up for want of wood."

The natural advantages of its position would seemto have been reason enough for the selection of the peninsula for a settlement; but Roger Clap, who came over shortly before Winthrop, and was present at the latter's arrival, intimates in his Memoirs that the spot was chosen because it was already cleared. *' Governor Winthrop," he says, " purposed to set down his Station about Cambridge or somewhere on the river ; but viewing the place liked that PLAIN neck which was called then Blackstone's Neck'^

Most of the early writers, however, attribute the choice to the abundance of good water on the peninsula, and the want of it at Charlestown ; and Prince, following the Charlestown Records, describes Mr. Blackstone coming over and informing " the Governor of an excellent spring there, withall inviting and soliciting him thither. [Upon which it seems that Mr. Johnson, with several others, soon remove and begin to settle on that side of the river.] " * Dr. Snow adds plausibility to this theory by giving as the meaning of the Indian name Shawmut, - " living fountains,'' which etymology, be it said, is disputed by excellent authorities.^

Before proceeding to record the rapid changes which took place in the outward aspect of the peninsula, and of the infant town that lay nestled among its hills, it may be well to review its physical characteristics, by which the better to note the effect of those vast modifications which in the course of years have changed it almost beyond recognition.

And first, of its position with regard to the surrounding country, we have two early pictures, which can hardly be improved. In his Two Voyciges^ Josselyn says : -

" On the North-side of Boston flows Charles-River^ which is about six fathom deep. Many small Islands lye to the Bayward, and hills on either side the River ; a very good harbour, here may forty Ships ride ; the passage from Boston to Charlestoivn is by a Ferry, worth forty or T\^y pounds a year, and is a quarter of a mile over."

Equally graphic is the description of the harbor given in the New England's Prospect, which still remains good after the lapse of nearly two centuries and a half: -

*' This Harbour is made by d great company of Hands, whose high Clifles shoulder out the boistrous Seas, yet may easily deceiue any unskilfuU Pilote, presenting many faire openings and broad sounds which afford too shallow water for any Ships, though navigable for Boates and small Pinnaces.

1 The " excellent spring " referred to was soon to be mentioned. [Shurtleff, Desc, of Bosdoubtless the ''great spring" in Spring Lane, /^^/f, ch. xxix., gives an account of the springs near which Governor Winthrop built his house, originally found in the peninsula. They are It is the best known and oftenest mentioned of marked by a blue cross in the map in this volall the original fountains. It was long ago filled ume. See Wheildon, Sentry or Beacon Hill, ch. up and a pump placed in its stead, which was xi., on " Beacon Hill Springs.*' There seems to standing within the memory of people still living, have been a spring or other source of water sup- It is supposed to have been the waters of this ply on Cotton Hill (Pemberton Hill), as will same spring that bubbled up when they were appear from a vote of the town later quoted in making excavations for the new Post Office in the text. - Ed.)

entrance, and that not very broad; there scarce being roome for three Ships to come in board-and-board at a time, but being once within there is roome for the Anchorage of 500 Ships." ^

Of the general shape and size of the peninsula we have conflicting accounts. Wood calls it 'Mn form almost square/' while Johnson says ** the forme of this Town is like a heart," - comparisons which, as we shall see, were both rather fanciful and wide of the mark. As to its dimensions, the most reliable estimates fix its original area in 1630 at somewhat less than one thousand, and probably about seven hundred, acres, - an area now very much increased by the encroachments upon the sea, made mostly during the present century.

Chief among the natural features of ** that plain neck " which Governor Winthrop so wisely chose, were its hills and coves. And of these it may be said the coves of Boston have swallowed up its hills, and this by the law of natural growth and necessity; and however much the latter may once have added to the beauty and picturesqueness of the town, we can scarcely regret their loss when we consider how much they have contributed to its material splendor and prosperity. The hills were named at first from convenience or association.

** The building of the Fort," says Wheildon, in his admirable monograph upon Beacon Hill,^ ** furnished a name for one of them, the Windmill for a time the name for another, and the central hill, with its three little hills, received the name of Tramount, which it retained until it was used as a look-out, - a place of observation and watching, - when it was called Sentry Hill. After the erection of the beacon in 1635 it received the name of Beacon Hill, and lost the name of Tra-mount, or Tremount, which it had conferred upon the town. So that we have had for this hill the names of Sentry, Tra-mount, and Beacon ; and for the settlement those of Shawmut, Tramountaine, and Boston."

While Copp's and Fort Hills were single elevations of land standing apart. Beacon Hill embraced the high ridge of land which extended through ' the centre of the peninsula, from the head of Hanover Street south-west to the River Charles. " It was conspicuous," says Wheildon, ** by its height and commanding prospect, and was made more so by its three peculiar summits, all of which - whatever regrets there may be concerning them - have been made so available in the enlargement and improvement of the city."

1 [Wood's idea of the configuration of the in Young's Chronicles of Mass,, p. 389^ and in harbor and the adjacent coasts is seen in the cu- Palfrey's New England, i. 36a It was also rerious map which appeared in his New England *s produced in fac-simile by William B. Fowle in Prospect, with the title : The South part of New 1846. Frothingliam, in his History of Charles- England as it is Planted this yeare,\(i'^ It is the town, p. 63, gives a section showing Boston oldest map known giving any, however inexact, Harbor. - Ed.]

A portion of this map is given herewith, in fac- don, Boston, 1877, - published under the aussimile, from a copy of the book owned by Mr. pices of the Bunker-Hill Monument Association.

Topography, Etc., Of The Colonial Period

Of these three " little rising hills " the easternmost was called Cotton Hill, from the Rev. John Cotton, who once lived upon its slope, - a name which we may be pardoned for regretting was afterwards changed to Pemberton. Its ancient summit, which is fixed by Drake at the southerly termination of Pemberton Square, rose eighty feet above the pavement of to-day. Beacon Hill, the middle peak, which has been aptly likened to a sugar-loaf, and once soared to a similar height above its present level, or about one hundred and thirty-eight feet above the sea, was formerly flat upon the top "for the space of six rods at least." This plainly appears upon our earliest known plan of the town, published by Bonner in 1722, a section of which is given herewith.

The third or westernmost peak was called at different times West Hill, Copley's Hill, Mount Vernon, and other names less generally known. This hill, although wisely chosen by Blackstone for his residence, seems afterwards to have been of less interest and importance than the others. It was occupied by the British in 1775, and has, in the march of events, been dug down and thrown into Charles River to extend the city in that direction.

The Tramount has been compared, not inaptly, to the head and shoulders of a man ; and this left shoulder, as we face the north, is said to have risen to its highest point somewhere between Mount Vernon and Pinckney streets ; and we are told that " on the top directly opposite Charles Street meeting-house there was a boiling spring open in three places, at a height of not less than eighty feet above the water."

Of Copp's Hill and the many associations clustering about it we have* abundant records. Less high than Beacon Hill, less regular in shape than Fort Hill, it had an equal value in the general outline and configuration of the town. Rising precipitously from the water on the north-east to a height of fifty feet, it swept away in a long gentle slope toward the south and west, leaving its summit almost level. Here was set up the first windmill used in the colony, which "was brought down from Watertown in August, 1632, because it would not grind there except with a westerly wind ; " hence the

* (This is the outline of the three summits from old descriptions. Between the two eastof the central ridge of the peninsuU as given by eriy summits, intersected or bounded by Somer- ground obtained the name of Windmill Hill.^ It is said also to have been called Snow Hill before it received its present name of Copp's Hill. Of William Copp, from whom its name came, we read that he was a worthy

1 [The second windmill was erected the next year (1633) in Roxbury, by Richard Dummcr, on Stoney Brook, where a dam existed till within a few years, not far from the Roxbury Station, on the Providence Railroad ; or it is possible a mill erected this same year at Ncponset was the second within the present municipal limits. - Ed.]

in 1728, and reproduced in full in Shurtleffs Desc, of Boston^ the hill is given a rounder outline. The late Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch, who remembered the hill before it was cut down, spoke of it as of "a very peculiar conical shape, ... a grassy hemisphere," so steep that the boys could with difficulty mount the perfectly regular curve of its side. Accounts of its cutting down will be giv^n in a later volume, -r- £0.]

* [This cut shows, in the clotted line, the bounds of the original reservation of six rods square made by the town on its summit, the beacon occupying the portion later held by the monument. Mr. N. I. Bowditch traced the first grant of land about this reservation in his " Gleaner " articles, published in the Boston Evming Transcripty in 1855, and is quoted in Wheildon, p. 90, aijd in Sumner's East Boston, p. 194. Robert Turner, a shoemaker, who is found in the colony as early as 1637, seems to have gradually extended his paisture up the slopes of the hill, so that he owned eight acres near the summit at his death, his land stretching westerly nearly to Hancock Street. The oldest deed from the town to him bears date 167a His son John sold to Samuel Shrimpton, in 1673, a gore of what is now the State-House lot, bounded east on the way leading from the Training-field (Common) to the Sentry Hill ; and this way, then thirty feet wide, makes the beginning of that part of the present Mount Vernon Street, which on the modem maps bends at a right angle and joins Beacon Street. John Turner dying in 1681, his executors sold his land to the same Shrimpton, who thus acquired *'a11 Beacon Hill." See Introduction to Vol. II. - En.]

shoemaker, and an elder in Dr. Mather's church. His title to the neighboring lot is sufficiently shown in the following extract from the townrecords : -

"The possessions of William Copp within the limits of Boston : One house and lott of halfe an acre in the Mill-field, bounded with Thomas Buttolph south-east : John Button north-east : a marsh on the south-west : and the river on the north-west" *

The third and last hill, of which no trace is now left, once formed, to the stranger sailing up the harbor, perhaps the most prominent feature of the town ; placed as it was in the very foreground, near the shore, and rising to a height of eighty feet above the level of the sea. First called Corn Hill from having been one of the early planting grounds of the colonists, . it afterwards received the name of Fort Hill from the defensive works built upon it about May 24, 1632. Like Copp's Hill it was rough and steep on its northerly and easterly sides, but declined in an easy slope towards the south and west. The approaches to it are shown on the map in this volume.

Besides these there was formerly a small hill in the marshes at the bottom of the Common, of which we find frequent mention in the early records under the name of Fox Hill, which, however, like its loftier brethren, long ago fell an inevitable prey to the ravenous maw of the sea, and was dug down and flung into the marsh.*

1 [This puts his lot just south-east of where Charles- River bridge l>ends into Charlestown Street. See the note on Copp's family in Sewall Papers, ii. 408. - Ed.]

2 [This cut follows a sketch made by IJeutenant Williams, of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, during the siege of Boston, - a date nearly one hundred and fifty years indeed after the settlement ; but during that interval probably nothing had been done by man to change the outline of the eminence. Beyond is seen the Back Bay and the mouth of the Charles. The scarped character of the northern side of the hUl is shown distinctly. Towards the water it sloped sharply to a bluff, at the foot of which among boulders the waves washed, even within the memory of a generation but just gone. - Ed.|

' [Leonard Buttall burned lime upon it in the early days, and in 1649 Thomas Painter was allowed "to erect a milnc" there. /Record Commissioner^ Second Report^ 56, 59, 66, 97. -Ed.]

Only inferior in topographical value to its hills were the coves of Boston. These deep inlets, worn by the sea wherever the yielding nature of the soil permitted, were, in 1630, fast changing the character of the place; and as the waves at high tide poured over the lowlands lying between Copp's Hill and the Tramount, and washed to a thinner and thinner thread its frail hold upon the continent, the peninsula already began to take on the semblance of two islands.^ At this point man steps in to arrest the progress of natural forces ; modern enterprise has achieved what the vain words of the old Danish king were impotent to effect. The course of the sea has not only been stayed, but turned back upon itself; and with immense effect. Nothing has so changed the outward aspect of Boston as filling up its coves ; no longer like two islands, no longer like a peninsula, Boston appears to-day firmly welded to the main land as part and parcel of the continent.

Of these coves the most easterly, and from its position the most important, was the Town Cove ; stretching from a point near the base of Copp's Hill on the north to Fort Hill on the south, it swept inward almost to the foot of Brattle Street The shape of this inward sweep, which was first known as Bendall's Dock, and then as Town Dock, is shown in the map in the present volume.

The North Cove or Mill Pond, as it was afterwards called, once covered a large part of the area enclosed between Copp's and the point of upland that extended north-west from Beacon Hill, and is now one of the most busy and thriving districts of the North End. Divided from the sea on the north-west by a narrow causeway, - said to have been first used by the Indians as a pathway across the marsh, - the course of which may in part still be traced in the general direction of Causeway Street, its southerly margin ran some distance inside of Merrimac Street ; on the west it followed a little outside the line of the lower part of Leverett Street, and on the east it swept somewhat beyond the line of Salem and Prince streets. When the Second Baptist Church was located in Baldwin Place, it stood in part over the water, and candidates for baptism are said to have been immersed at the rear of the church. " The station house of the Boston and Maine Railway," says Drake, " stands in the midst of this Mill Pond ; while the Lowell, Eastern, and Fitchburg occupy sites beyond the causeway rescued from the sea." Altogether the cove occupied an area a little larger than the Common.

The third or South Cove, which, starting from Windmill Point very nearly at the junction of Federal, Cove, and East streets, swept away towards the South-Boston bridge and washed the eastern sands of the Neck, was of less interest and importance than the others, and has been more slowly filled up.

Besides these large coves, there were numerous smaller inlets or creeks that added greatly to the broken and ragged appearance which the shore-

^ [It may be inferred from an order in the that so late as 1644 it was thought to be easier Town Records, granting permission to Nathaniel to keep a channel for the water which some- Woodward to lay *'a water channell of timber times washed over the Nedc, than to dyke it in one of the causewayes towards Rocksbury,'* out. - Ed.] - - VOL. I. - 67.

line originally presented. One large creek wound inward from Liberty Square along Water Street nearly to the Spring-gate. A branch extended across Congress Street and beyond Franklin. An aged inhabitant, quoted by Shaw, had seen a canoe sail at diflferent times over the spot which now makes the corner of Congress and Water streets, while the same witness " remembers having heard Dr. Chauncy say that he had taken smelts " at the head of the other creek in Federal Street.

These various inlets left, of course, corresponding headlands, several of which received names and were known as landmarks. We read of Blaxton's (or Blackstone's) Point at the West End, situated near West Cedar Street, between Pinckney and Mount Vernon, said to have been near the residence and not far from the famous spring of William Blackstone ; Barton's Point on the north-west, near Craigie Bridge, named from James Barton, a wellknown rope-maker in his time, whose name is preserved in Barton Street ; , Hudson's Point, where Winthrop landed, and where Anne Pollard leaped ashore, situated at the extreme north-east end and named for Francis Hudson, the Charlestown ferryman, but originally called " Ye Mylne Point " in the grant of the Ferry to Thomas Marshall in 1635 J Merry's Point, near the Winnisimmet ferry, named for Walter Merry, a neighboring shipwright; Fort Point, near Fort Hill, or the present Rowe's Wharf, and Windmill Point, before mentioned.^

Not less important than all these coves and hills and headlands was that long narrow strip of land properly called " The Neck," which, beginning to narrow just south of Eliot Street, stretched away like a ribbon of varying width to the main land. Vastly different, however, to its present aspect was its condition in those early days when the road which trav-. ersed it was well-nigh impassable in the spring, when the horses waded knee-deep in water at full tides, when the only timber upon the whole peninsula grew upon the Neck, and the marshes on either hand were the favorite hunting-ground of the sportsman.

With such great unevenness of surface, with a coast line so abounding in irregularities, with a territory so narrow and circumscribed, it must be confessed that Boston in 1630 presented to the statesman founding a colony destined in time to extend its influence over a continent, or even to the weary band of emigrants seeking a refuge and a home, a place which to our modern eyes seems rich chiefly in possibilities.

Although Blackstone judiciously built his little cabin upon the westerly declivity of Beacon Hill, Winthrop and his associates pitched their temporary tents, and afterwards built their log-huts and houses, on the eastern side of the peninsula around what was called afterwards the Town Cove. ** It is difficult," says Shaw, " to assign a reason for this, but the first paragraph in the town records establishes the fact that in 1634 this was - the chief landing-place.' "

Topography, Etc., Of The Colonial Period. 53 1

It was the chief landing-place, it may be said, evidently because it was the most convenient ; while its proximity to the fountain of delicious water in Spring Lane, together with its position, - hedged about as it was by the three hills, and commanding the approach from the harbor, - would seem to afford reason enough for Winthrop's choice.

The first houses were necessarily of the rudest description, and they seem to have been scattered hither and thither according to individual need or fancy. The early streets, too, obedient to the same law of convenience, naturally followed the curves of the hills, winding about their bases by the shortest routes, and crossing their slopes at the easiest angles.

To the pioneer upon the western prairie it is comparatively easy to lay out his prospective city in squares and streets of unvarying size and shape, and oftentimes, be it said, of wearying sameness ; to the colonist of 1630 upon this rugged promontory of New England it was a different matter. Without the power or leisure to surmount the natural obstacles of his new home, he was contented to adapt himself to them. Thus the narrow, winding streets, with their curious twists and turns, the crooked alleys and short-cuts by which he drove his cows to pasture up among the blueberry bushes of Beacon Hill, or carried his grist to the windmill over upon Copp's steeps, or went to draw his water at the spring-gate, or took his sober Sunday way to the first rude little church, - these paths and highways, worn by his feet and established for his convenience, remain after two centuries and a half substantially unchanged, endeared to his posterity by priceless associations.

And so the town, growing at first after no plan and with no thought of proportion, but as directed and shaped by the actual needs of the inhabitants, became a not unfitting exponent of their lives, - the rough outward garb as it were of their hardy young civilization. Convenience was the first consideration ; and we accordingly find that starting from the* eastern cove the settlement gradually moved north and south, following the ins and outs of the sea-banks, and clinging so closely to the shore-line that for many years there was no building upon the sides of the hills. In all early views of the ^own, even down to a time long subsequent to the colonial period, this is apparent; and the houses are seen crowded thickly along the water's edge, while Beacon Hill rises bare and blank in the background.

To prove, however, that the early settlers were not without any care or consideration for the looks of their new home, we find that at a meeting of the overseers held in 1635 it was ordered: ^ -

"That fi:om this day there shall noe house at all be built in this towne neere unto any of the streetes or laynes therein but with the advise and consent of the overseers of the towne's occasions for the avoyding of disorderly building to the inconvenience of streets and laynes, and for the more comely and Commodious ordering of them, upon the forfeyture, for every house built Contrarie to this order, of such sume as the ouerseers shall see fitting." At a subsequent meeting in the same month it was further provided : '* Item : that John Gallop shall remove his payles at his yard's end within fourteen days, and to range them even with the comer of his house for the preserving of the way upon the sea-banke.**

Three public structures of a peculiar character, placed respectively upon each of the three hills, early combined to give character and variety to the little settlement. These were the fort, the windmill, and the beacon; all of which gave names more or less enduring to the sites they occupied. The fort placed upon Cornhill and begun May 24, 1632, was a joint work, - Charlestown, Roxbury, and Dorchester taking part in its construction, each town working a day in turn. The windmill, as before stated, was brought down from Watertown and set up at the North End, where it will be safe to assume it soon found something other than *' westerly winds " to set its huge clumsy wings whirling ; while the origin of the beacon may be found in the following resolution of the Court of Assistants dated March 4, 1634 :

'' It is ordered that there shalbe forth with a beacon sett on the Gentry hill at Boston to give notice to the Gountry of any danger, and that there shalbe a ward of one pson kept there from the first of April to the last of September ; and that upon the discovery of any danger the beacon shalbe fired, an allarum given, as also messengers presently sent by that town where the danger is discov'ed to all other townes within this jurisdiccon."

The beacon, as seen in the usual engravings of it, was simply a tall pole furnished with wooden rungs for climbing, with an iron pot filled with tar depending from a crane at its top.

It is not known that the combustibles were ever fired. Flaming from a height of sixty-five feet from the ground, and over two hundred above the tide, the beacon would have furnished a conspicuous signal in case of alarm.^

It is unfortunate that the only description we have of the town in its first decade is that of Mr. John Josselyn, a young Englishman who, although of sufficient intelligence and education, thought more of telling strange and curious things for his readers at home than of leaving reliable matter foi^ history. On his arrival here in 1638 he says: ** Having refreshed myself for a day or two upon Noddle's Island I crossed the Bay in a small Boat to Boston which then was rather a Village than a Town, there being not above twenty or thirty houses." The editor of Winthrop's New England very properly reflects upon this statement, and accuses the author of having omitted a cipher from the end of his figures or of scorning to count the log-cabins in his estimate.^

In the early days before the settlement took form we find the different districts of the town called " fields," - as " The Neck Field " or " The Field

1 The lantern of the State House is about two hundred and twenty feet above the sea level. - (Barry, /TA/. ^ ilAwj., i 214, and others have inade similar comments. - Ed.] ^ towards Roxburie " on the south, beyond Dover Street; "Coleborn's Field," lying about the present Common Street ; ** The Fort Field " on the east, *'The Mylne Field" on the north, and "The New Field" on the west; together with "The Gentry Field," which last alone still remains to us in substantially its ancient form, being in part the land now embraced by the Common. But this was only in the beginning; streets and highways were rapidly formed and named. At the North End there were very soon three principal thoroughfares, - Fore, Middle, and Back streets, now known as North, Hanover, and Salem. In June, 1636, we find in an order of the Court which provides for " a sufficient footway to be made from William Coleborn's field,^ and unto Samuel Wilbore's field next Roxbury^' the origin of our present Washington Street, in the part south of Castle Street, not for many years, however, to be known by its modern name. In " y* Mylne Street," a highway laid out in 1644 and conducting towards Windmill Point, we recognize the Summer Street of the present day. We learn furthermore from the Town Records that in March, 1640, a street was laid out to lead up over the hill, which followed the line of the present School Street. State Street was " a primitive highway" of very short extent, which led into the flats at Merchants Row, and was usually spoken of as the Water Street.

Considerable change in the appearance of things at the North End about this time resulted from a grant of the town, July 31, 1643, to Henry Simonds, John Button, and others, of the whole area of land embraced by the North Cove, together with the marshes beyond. This was upon condition that the grantees should put up on the premises " one or more corn-mills, and maintain the same forever." Leave was also given to them '* to dig one or more trenches in the highways or waste grounds, so as they may make and maintain sufficient passable and safe ways over the same for horse and cart." The grantees went speedily to work and dug the ditch, which soon acquired and ever afterward retained the name of the Mill Creek ; bridges were thrown across it at Hanover Street, and later, when they had filled in the marsh, at North Street, and mills were built upon the margin of the Mill Pond, and were called the South and North Mills,' including in all a grist mill, ^ saw mill, and in later years a chocolate, mill.

The Mill Creek thus formed separated the town into two parts, and was for a long time considered the dividing line between the North and South ends. There is reason to believe that there had formerly been a small natural watercourse across the marshy neck, thus practically making an island of the North End, which indeed has even been called the " Island of Boston." *

Besides these various mills, Winthrop tells of another windmill being erected in 1636, the location of which, although not given, was probably at Windmill Point, or perhaps near the spot now known as Church Green; while before 1650 there were three others stationed respectively at Fox Hill, at Fort Hill, and upon one of the elevations ^ in " the New Field." These, with that already mentioned upon Copp's Hill, sufficiently attest tlic growth and prosperity of the colony; and we may easily conceive that, perched thus upon their respective headlands, and all set whirling by an easterly wind, they must have given the town a curious and busy aspect to the traveller sailing up the harbor about the year 1650.

'^ Invironed it [the peninsula] is with the Brinish flouds saving one small Istmos which gives free accesse to the Neighbour Townes by Land on the South side ; on the North-west and North-east two constant Faires [ferries] are kept for daily traffique thereunto. The forme of this Towne is like a heart naturally scituated for Fortifications, having two Hills on the fi-ontice part thereof next the Sea ; the one well fortified on the superficies thereof with store of great artillery well mounted, the other hath a very strong battery built of whole Timber and filled with Earth at the descent of the Hill [Copp's] in the extreme poynt thereof; betwixt these two strong armes lies a large Cove or Bay on which the chiefest part of this Town is built, overtopped with a third Hill ; all three like overtopping Towers keepe a constant watch to foresee the approach of forrein dangers, being furnished with a Beacon and lowd babling guns to give notice by their redoubled eccho to all their Sister-townes. The chief Edifice of this City-like Towne is crowded on the Sea-bankes and wharfed out with great industry and cost, the buildings beautifull and large ; some fairely set forth with Brick, Tile, Stone, and Slate, and orderly placed with comely streets."