Boston City (part 40 of 67)

This account must appear somewhat rose-colored when compared with that of the Royal Commissioners written fifteen years later, who say with less enthusiasm that, " Their houses are generally wooden, their streets crooked, with little decency and no uniformity." And this, although not very flattering, seems a very natural first impression for the transatlantic visitor of two centuries ago, notwithstanding Mr. Jossclyn's testimony at about the same time that "the Buildings are handsome, joyning one to the other, as in London, with many large streets, &c. ;" that there were " fair buildings,* some of stone," together with the ac count of Mr. Gibbs's ** stately edifice,"* and the " three fair Meeting-houses

Topography, Etc., Of The Colonial Period

The tone of this as well as of the previous extract from Johnson is misleading, and can only be accounted for by a traveller's incorrigible habit of exaggerating. It is evident enough from facts in our possession, and from early views of the town, that " stone houses *' and " stately edifices " were only too rare ; that the buildings were chiefly of wood ; ^ that they were generally small, unpainted, and unimposing, if not mean-looking; and that, placed hither and thither in the crooked streets, they must have very dimly recalled London or any other continental city.

In twenty years, however, the town had no doubt grown greatly, and many and striking changes had taken place in its outward aspect. It was beginning to have a settled, thriving, and prosperous look ; its principal streets had been laid out and *' paved with pebble," docks and wharfs built,' ferries established, and prominent public buildings added. Some of these deserve particular mention. The strong battery mentioned in Johnson's description above was that known for many years as the North Battery ; it was built about the year 1646,^ on the petition of the North-enders, and at their own expense, they praying that they might "for the future bee freed from all rates and assessments to what other fortifications bee in the towne until such time as the other part of the towne, not joyning with us herein, shall have disbursed and layed out in equall proporcion of their estates with ours as by trew account may appear." Although made only of strong timber filled with earth it was admirably located at Merry's Point above described, and with its " lowd babling guns " commanded not only the harbor, but the entrance to the river. Twenty years later, in 1666, there was built at the southern end of the cove upon the site of the present Rowe's Wharf, and under the shadow of Fort Hill, a similar defensive work, - the famous Sconce or South Battery.* It is quaintly and sufficiently described in the Report of the Commissioners sent by the General Court to inspect it in 1666: -

" Wee enf ed a well contriued fort, called Boston Sconce ; the artillery therein is of good force and well mounted, the gunner attending the same ; the former thereof suiteable to the place, so as to scower the harbour, to the full length of their shot euery

' See in corroboration of this the Journal of ton, 126. The Town Records, under date of Jasper Dankers, who came to Boston in i68a "8th of nth mo. 1643,'' show that a committee He. says: "All the houses are made of thin (Captain Keayne, Captain Hawkins, Ensign small cedar shingles nailed against frames and Savage, Sergeant Hutchinson, Sergeant Johnson, then filled in with brick and other stuff ; and so and Sergeant Oliver) were named "for the orderare their churches." ing of which." Second Rept, of Record Commis-

^ [The Town Records previous to 1650 show sioners^ 77. - Ed.] numerous permits given to " wharf out *' before * [It was erected by Major-Gencral John way ] it is spacious w^n, that the trauerse of one gunne will not hinder the other's course ; and for defence, the foundation is of stone and well banked w^ earth for dulling the shott and hindering execution ; ffinally, wee app'hend it to be the compleatest worke of that kind which hitherto hath been erected in this country."

" It was chiefly of brick with embrasures in front and places for cannon on its flanks, and a deep ditch on its south side ; and had two gates, one for carriages and teams, and another for persons on foot. Regular watches and wards were kept near it. A little to the south of this had been placed in earlier times a row of palisades. After the disappearance of the hostile Indians, the whole fortification fell into decay, and was not renewed till into the next century."

In the harbor there was a fortification erected on Castle Island, and Johnson describes it as built on the north-east end of the island, " upon a rising hill." Views of the island taken in the next century show that in its present state it has been considerably cut down from its original height ; indeed, its name seems to imply a commanding altitude, for it was called Castle Island before a fortification was begun there, and while it was the intention of the colonists to make their seaward defence at Nantasket, - a scheme soon however abandoned. In the summer of 1634 Deputy Roger Ludlow was chosen to oversee the erection of " two platformes and one small fortification to secure them bothe." In October the General Court confirmed the action of the town, and directed a house to be " built on the topp of the hill to defend the said plattforme." In the following March, 1634-35, the Court ordered it to be "fully perfected, the ordnance mounted," A later commander, in speaking of its early days, says this primitive structure was made "with mud walls, which stood divers years; " but Johnson assigns as a reason of the decay into which it soon fell, that the lime used in its construction was " what is burnt of oyster shels." The earliest captains of it were Nicholas Simpkins (to 1635), Edward Gibbons (to 1636), Richard Morris (to 1637) ; then, after an interval when private parties undertook to manage it, Robert Sedgwick in June, 1641. Fitful attempts were made to keep it in repair; it was finally rebuilt "with pine trees and earth," and in 1654 Johnson speaks of it as under the command of Captain Davenport, *' a man approved for his faithfulness, courage, and skill." The fort had then cost about four thousand pounds, and the barricade construction had given place to one of brick, with " three rooms in it, a dwelling-room below, a lodging-room over it, the gun-room over that, wherein stood six very good Saker guns, and over it on the top three lesser guns." In July, 1665, "God was pleased to send a grievous storm of thunder and lightening, which did some hurt in Boston, and struck dead here that worthy renowned Captain Richard Davenport ; upon which the General Court in Aug. loth following appointed another Captain." This was the narrator we quote, Roger Clap, who held the office till 1686; and he adds that " when danger grew on us by reason of the late wars with Holland, God permitted our castle to be burnt down, which was on the twenty-first day of March, 1672-73."^

The first town-house built in the market place at the head of State Street was undoubtedly an imposing edifice for its day, and gave character to the street. It was a wooden house " built upon pillars," and there seems to have been a sort of exchange for the merchants in the lower story with chambers above, where the monthly court held its sessions.^ It was built largely with money left for the purpose by Captain Robert Keayne, which was supplemented by later subscriptions from prominent and wealthy citizens.

The fact that Josselyn speaks of " three fair meeting-houses " shows that his account must have been written in 1671-72, after his return to England and not on his arrival here in 1663; for the "Old South," or the South meeting-house as it was then called, the third church in order built in the town, was only just completed at that date, having settled its first minister in 1670.

The other churches included in the account were the " Old North," the church of the Mathers, and the second in order of time, - a wooden building erected in Clark's Square (North Square) at the North End, about the year 1650, and the First Church before mentioned, - the rude little thatched building on State Street having been long since taken down, when a larger structure was built in 1640, on the site now occupied by Joy's Building on Washington Street'

The opinion which Shaw advanced, that most of the first settlers soon removed to the North End, or beyond the Mill Creek, was questioned by Dr. Snow, who found the names of only about thirty residents in that part of the town. He very properly says, however, that about 1650, some twenty years after the settlement of the town, '* An increase of business began to be perceived at the North End, and that removals began to be made into it which resulted in its becoming ' for many years the most populous and elegant part of the town.* " Snow's view is borne out by later study of the Book of Possessions. The maps which have been made from its descriptions do not show, however, that there were many, if any, house-lots farther west in the " New Field " than the line of Sudbury Street and the corner of Howard Street and Tremont Row. The allotments beyond were for tillage and mowing.

No clear notion of the early aspect of the town can well be obtained without an understanding of the number, direction, and condition of its

" Of. Neal's Ntjo England, ii. 225. [The thoroughly in the Sewall Papers, 5. 160. - Ed.) Town Records under date, "9: i: 56-57," - The first sermon was preached in it Aug.

highways. Unfortunately, no list of the streets as they existed during the colonial period is on record ; indeed, save in a few instances, they had not then been named, and we are therefore left for our information to such chance mention as can be gleaned from the Town Records, the Book of Possessions, and the written accounts of travellers. It must always be remembered, however, that previous to 1684 only a very few of the principal thoroughfares deserved the name of streets ; the rest were, for the most part, rather lanes and by-paths more or less worn and frequented according to their locality.

In May, 1708, there appears for the first time in the Town Records a list of the existing streets, lanes, and alleys, with their names and boundaries ; and of these it may be safe to assume that certain of the chief routes and thoroughfares, connecting old landmarks and important points of the town, were identical with those laid out and in use from the earliest days of the colony. A careful collation of the different entries in the town and county records bearing upon the point will help us in the study.^

Washington and Hanover streets were then as now the chief thoroughfares of their respective quarters of the town, - the former, laid out along the narrow stretch of level ground between the foot of Beacon Hill and the shore, wound away towards the south and was gradually extended across the Neck to Roxbury; the latter starting from the declivity of Cotton [Pemberton] Hill crossed the Mill Creek by a bridge and traversed the centre of the northern peninsula to the sea.

One may easily conceive that in the latter half of the seventeenth century Washington - then called simply the high or main street, and later by a multiplicity of names* - may have justly deserved Johnson's epithet "comely," bordered as it was on both sides, from the market place to Milk Street, and even farther south to Boylston and Essex, with substantial frame-houses, many of them large and handsome, surrounded by fine gardens, where dwelt some of the most solid men of the colony. Here lived John Winthrop, the doughty first governor; here uprose the steeple of the first " South Meeting-House ; " here upon the site of the *' old corner bookstore " dwelt Mistress Anne Hutchinson, whose keen wit and sharp tongue set the town at loggerheads ; here, later in the period, stood the famous Province House, soon to be described ; here farther north was built the second house of the First Church, as before mentioned ; here at the junction with State Street stood the Town House before noticed and undoubtedly the finest public building of its day, while across the way appeared the residence of Governor John Leverctt, who, in a varied experience, directed the war against King Philip, and served under Cromwell ; here, in fine, thronged,

1 See the collation of extracts showing the it was known, as far back as 1708, by four discourse of Washington Street, printed in the tinct names - Orange, Newbury, Marlborough, preface to the Report of the Committee oft and Cornhill - along the successive sections of Nomenclature of Streets, (City Documents, the way, until all were at length united under the 119^ 1379.) present name, after the visit of General Wasb- as occasion served, the cream of colonial social life, and for want of sidewalks, " except when driven on one side by carts and carriages, every one walked in the middle of the street where the pavement was the smoothest." * State Street early rivalled Washington Street in interest, and surpassed it in importance. In one of the early views of the next century the street appears paved witli pebbles and without sidewalks ; and so we may assume it to have been for some time previous to 1684. The buildings too, doubtless, more nearly answered Josselyn's description as standing " close together on each side of the street as in London, and are furnished with many fair shops." This was the busy bustling part of the town, the cen^tre of commerce and trade ; here at its head was the first market ; * here, in the market place, was subsequently built the Town House with the Merchants Exchange as above mentioned ; and not far from here was the first post-office, established in 1639 by the following order of the General Court: -

" For the preventing the miscarriage of letters, it is ordered, that notice bee given that Richard Fairbanks, his house in Boston, is tlie place appointed for all letters, which are brought from beyond seas or to be sent thither, are to be brought unto him, and he is to take care that they bee delivered or sent according to their directions ; provided that no man shall be compelled to bring his letters thither except hee please." '

Here, too, for nearly ten years succeeding the settlement, was the First Church where Wilson preached, and had for a colleague the Rev. John Cotton, sometime rector of St. Botolph's church in England, out of compliment to whom Boston is said to have been named,* - a man of excellent ability and unusual learning. And here, at last, before the very door of the sanctuary, perhaps to show that the Church and State went hand-in-hand in precept and penalty, stood the first whipping-post, - no unimportant adjunct of Puritan life.

The early street as thus described must not be judged by the present Much less in extent, not having yet been fully quadrupled in length by the building of Long Wharf, it was but a short way and by no means entirely given over to trade and public affairs. Many of the merchants lived over their shops, and it numbered among its residents several names well known in the history of the town. At the head of the street on the south-east corner lived Captain Robert Keayne, a rich merchant and public-minded citizen, and the first captain of the ** Ancient and Honorable Artillery," - all of which dignity however did not save him from being tried, convicted, and punished for making what was then thought an exorbitant profit upon his wares. The magnanimous Captain took an unusual but most worthy revenge upon his busy-body townsmen, by leaving them a handsome legacy wherewith to build their town house, in a will of nearly two hundred pages, - shops ; for the Town Records, 1645, show that but see Dr. Haven's chapter on the " Massathe widow Howin had a shop here which the au- chusetts Company.** - Ed.)

a large part of which was devoted to an elaborate defence of his mercantile honor, whereby he may be said to have had the last word in the dispute. In which respect, we may add, he came better off than in his famous controversy with the fair widow Shearman about the pig, which quarrel for a while set the whole town by the ears, and curiously enough is said to have resulted in the division of the General Court and the establishment of the Board of Deputies as a distinct body from the Magistrates, - the foundation of our present double legislative body.^

On the opposite corner of the street lived John Cogan, who has the distinction of being the father of Boston merchants ; and below him on the same side the Rev. John Wilson, the first pastor of the colony. Crooked Lane, which ran through his land from State Street to Dock Square, was afterwards called Wilson's Lane in his honor, and preserved its name until the street itself was lost in the extension of Devonshire Street.

Tremont Street, which along the southern part of its course was little more than a straggling cart-road across the Common,^ early became, north of its junction with School Street, a favorite place of residence.

On the slope of the hill which for a time was called in his honor, and near the easterly entrance to Pemberton Square, lived the Rev. John Cotton in the house previously occupied by that remarkable young man Harry Vane, and later by Hull the mint-master, who spoke of it " as greatly disadvantageous for trade," but being desirous of " a quiet life and not too much business, it was always best for me." After him it became the home of his son-in-law, who spoke of it as "considerably distant from other buildings and very bleake."* This was the famous Samuel Sewall, the first chief-justice of the colony; the same who sat in judgment upon the witches, and afterwards repented it; who refused to sell an inch of his broad acres to the hated Episcopalians to build a church upon ; who was one of the richest, most astute, sagacious, scholarly, bigoted, and influential men of his day ; who has left us in his Diary, recently published,* a transcript almost vivid in its conscientious faithfulness of that old-time life, where he tells us of the courts he held, the drams he drank, the sermons he heard, with the text of each, the funerals he attended, at some of which they had scarfs and gloves, at some of which they had none, the squabbles of the council-board, the petty affairs of his own household and neighborhood, the occasions where he advised with the governor touching matters of life and death, and where he gravely admonished a neighbor's son upon the sinfulness of cutting off his hair.

A little south of the Cotton- Vane place dwelt Governor Bellingham in a house which was standing, in a somewhat altered condition, a little more than fifty years ago.^

Two clergymen of note lived at different times upon this side of the street, - one, the Rev. John Davenport, the founder of the city of New Haven, Conn., and subsequently pastor of the First Church here, lived on an estate which long remained the property of his parish ; the other, the Rev. John Oxenbridge, also a pastor of the same church, and the fifth' in the notable succession of Johns who administered to that congregation within the first half-century of its existence, lived farther south near the present corner of Beacon Street, upon the spot previously occupied by Colonel Shrimpton.

High above all these worthy and distinguished folk, perched upon the brow of the hill, as it were the presiding genius of the place, dwelt Governor John Endicott, the most stern and uncompromising Puritan of them all, who, wc opine, never recovered from his chagrin that he could not make his darling Salem the capital of the colony, although he at length condescended to come to Boston and share the authority with Winthrop. He it was who packed all the Episcopalians home to England ; who cut the cross out of the flag in his insensate rage against the old faith ; who had a heated dispute with the Rev. John Cotton upon the vital question as to whether ladies should or should not wear veils over their faces ; who knew no fear of prince or potentate ; who dared do anything, or take ahy responsibility, for the good of the colony; and who was deservedly one of its most esteemed and respected leaders.

Farther around the northern base of the hill, beyond the entrance to Pemberton Square, lived Captain Cyprian Southack, who afterwards gained repute in the Indian wars under Church, and in honor of whom Howard Street was originally called Southack's Court.

Of the various cross streets leading between Tremont and Washington, beginning with Court Street, the northernmost, we shall find it known first as Prison Lane before it became Queen Street in the loyal provincial days. It was notable for containing the first prison of the colony, - a gloomy, massively-built old pile that stood upon or close to the spot now occupied by the County Court House, the sombre aspect of which latter building might well persuade "an extravagant and erring spirit " of those early days that he had fallen upon the veritable old-time home of colonial evil-doers. Here then, and in later days, were shut up the hapless witches and the notorious Kidd ; where, perhaps with less innocent victims, they may have shivered through the freezing winter nights in dungeon cells

" warmed only by a pan of charcoal." It had a considerable yard about it, as shown at a later day in Bonner's map, and as early as 1642 a "salt peter howse" was built in the yard, thirty by fourteen feet, "set upon posts seven foot high above the ground, with a covering of thatch, and the wall clapboarded tight from the injury of rayne and snow."^

School Street was early laid out ; at first known only as " the way leading up Gentry Hill," it was soon called Latin-School Street, from the first school-house built there during the early years of this period. This building, as we shall see, was subsequently taken down to make room for the enlargement of King's Chapel.

Beacon Street was at first curiously enough " the way leading to the Almshouse," that institution being for a time indeed the sole or principal building it contained. Built in 1662, it stood for twenty years on the corner of Beacon and Park streets, and having been burned in 1682, like so many other of the early public buildings, it was replaced a few years later by a structure of brick.^

Park, then called Gentry or Sentry Street, was at the time of which we write but a foot-path over the hill. West and Winter streets, although mentioned and defined in the list of 1708, thirty or forty years earlier were nothing but grass-grown by-ways, the latter of which was known variously as Blott's, Bannister's, and Willis's Lane; while Boylston Street was a short cross-way ending abruptly in the marsh, and was called, doubtless with good cause, " Frog Lane." It was not, as now, the southerly limit of the Gommon, for Robert Walker had a house and garden on the corner opposite the Hotel Pelham ; William Briscoe, a tailor, lived adjoining, where the deer park is; while on the site of the burialground Gotton Flacke, a laborer, had a lot granted him in 1640, which was occupied a few years later by William Blantaine ; John Serch had a lot still further west.

On the other side of the main street, the cross-ways leading south from State and east from Washington streets were cut short or turned aside from " the direct forthright " in many cases by the various marshes, creeks, and inlets there abounding. Starting at the southern end of Washington Street, and taking them in order, we find that Essex Street was a path towards the Windmill. Bedford, or as then known Pond, Street turned and followed nearly the line of Kingston Street to the shore, which it reached a little distance north-west of the United States Hotel. It passed a small pond known as the town's " watering place," almost opposite the old English and High School-house, where we may imagine the thirsty cattle stopping to drink at sundown, on their way home from the hilly pastures of the Fort Field. Summer Street, which in early times was known as " Ye Mylne street," appears in the list of 1 708 by its present name, where it is described as

Topography, Etc., Of The Colonial Period

" leading easterly from Doctor Okes his corner in Newberry Street,^ passing by the dweiiing-House of Cap' Tim** Clark extending to y* sea." It was one of the earliest of the old highways, having been laid out in 1644; but all that distinguishes the street, even the reputed residence of Sir Edmund Andros, belongs to a later day. In the colonial period it was so near the extreme south end of the town as to be socially out of the world.

High Street once led from Summer to the top of Fort Hill, and as long as the grassy hillside yielded abundant pasturage its old name of Cow Lane was doubtless a most apt one ; but to-day, when the last vestige of the old hill has been swept into the sea, its present has no more significance than its former name.'

One of the most important and interesting by-ways branching off from the main street was the ancient Fort, now Milk, Street, which led from Governor Winthrop's green (Old-South lot), and turning on the line of Batterymarch Street led by the shore to the old Sconce or South Battery ; but, as in the case of the other South-End highways above mentioned, the many interesting associations to which its name gives rise belong to a later page, and will be noticed in due order.

Of Spring Lane Drake has given a delightful picture. It recalls, he says, " the ancient Spring-gate, the natural fountain at which Winthrop and Johnson stooped to quench their thirst, and from which no doubt Madam Winthrop and Anne Hutchinson filled their flagons for domestic use. The gentlemen may have paused here for friendly chat, if the rigor of the Governor's opposition to the schismatic Anne did not forbid. The handmaid of Elder Thomas Oliver, Winthrop's next neighbor on the opposite corner of the Spring-gate, fetched her pitcher, like another Rebecca, from this well ; and grim Richard Brackett, the jailer, may have laid down his halberd to quaff a morning draught."

But in our hasty march through the street we have passed the most noted landmark of the period. Turning back *a few rods towards the south, on the opposite side of the way nearly fronting the head of Milk Street, we come upon the most interesting of all the colonial buildings which remained standing down to a very recent period, and is still freshly remembered by people now living, - the famous Province House. This fine old mansion was originally a private residence, built by Peter Sergeant, Esq., a wealthy merchant formerly of London, who bought the land in October, 1676, of Colonel Samuel Shrimpton, the great real-estate dealer of the day, for the handsome sum of ;f350, by which the Colonel doubtless turned a pretty penny, inasmuch as the land came into his hands shortly before very much encumbered on the death of worthy Thomas Millard, its previous owner.

^ One of the early names of Washington Gillom lived on the left, and on the right beyond Street Richard Gridley came John Harrison, likewise

Withdrawn from the street, raised above the level of the pavement, and standing in the midst of a well-kept green, the house formed a conspicuous feature of the neighborhood. It was built of brick imported from Holland, three stories in height, surmounted by a lofty cupola. Before the door was a handsome portico supported by wooden pillars, and crowned by a balcony formed by an iron balustrade of intricate pattern, into which, just over the entrance, were interwoven the owner's initials and the date of the building: " i6. P. S. 79." Leading down from the door was a flight of massive red freestone steps, while along the front of the lot, separating the garden from the road, stood an elaborate iron fence, at either end of which were small porters' lodges.

But one house does not make a neighborhood; and despite his fine walls and fences, his greensward and jealously-guarded gates, we may imagine the aristocratic Londoner's occasional disgust at his surroundings, as standing upon his stately balcony he gazed over at honest Francis Lyle, the barber, his next-door neighbor on the north, sitting in the midst of a family group upon the door-step in the cool of the evening; or turned his eyes southward and beheld Goodman Grubb, the leather-dresser, his nearest neighbor in that direction, smoking an evening pipe in not very immaculate shirt-sleeves at the garden gate ; or, fleeing for consolation to the rear, found nothing more comforting than the cross-legged figure of Arthur Perry, the town drummer and tailor, straining his eyes to put the last stitches to the waistcoat or small-clothes of some impatient customer, by the waning light.

But Peter Sergeant in due time went the way of all the living, and was gathered in 1 714 to his fathers; his widow ^ married again and sold the grand old mansion to the State, whereupon it was fitted up for an ofiicial residence. These were the days of its glory and magnificence. Fain would we linger to lift the curtain upon the busy scene, to have a peep at the household economy of Shute, Burnet, Shirley, Pownall, Bernard, and the rest I But this, as well as Hawthorne's quaint description of the " old Governor's house " in its decay, belong to a later chapter.

On the opposite side of the way, a little to the south, down a narrow passage leading out from the main street, stood, towards the close of the period, another of the old taverns, - " The Blue Bell and Indian Queen." We may imagine its droll and gayly-colored sign, which doubtless protruded into Washington Street, and the queer appearance of the inn itself, hemmed into the narrow passage on both sides of which it was built.

We have now come again to the Market Place, where, directly facing us and standing in the middle of the street, is an old landmark not to be widowers suggested by Peter Sergeant's name widow, and lastly the widow of her third husis thus clearly unravelled by Shurtlcff : "He was band." - Topo^. and Hist. Desc. of Boston^ 595.

for he had three wives, his second having been volume and Mr. Savage's Gemalogical Dictiona widow twice before her third venture ; and his ary, - Ed.]

Topography, Etc., Of The Colonial Period

omitted. This is the Town Pump, the water of which does not come from a natural fountain as at the Spring-gate, but from a well, the first known to have been dug in the colony. The old pump stood a great many years, for as late as 1760 we find an order leaving to the discretion of the selectmen the question of repairing or discontinuing it. We are told that it became a nuisance ^ and gradually fell into disuse. It stood in the middle of Washington Street, a little north of the north-west corner of Court Street.

Continuing now our progress through the highways, and proceeding down State Street, we find branching off thence to the southward, instead of the three long streets lined with stately buildings of marble and stone of the present day, but three insignificant lanes which are quickly lost in the creek or marsh. Devonshire, Congress, and Kilby streets, known in early times as Pudding, Leverett's, and Mackerel lanes, had previous to 1684 no features of interest. The first, as has been said, " is suggestive of good cheer ; " but it is not clear to what it owes its name, as none of the famous inns with which the neighborhood of King Street afterward abounded seem to have properly belonged to it.

Congress Street was named in the first instance after Elder Thomas Leverett, the father of the governor, who owned the land thereabout, who was from the first one of the solid men of the colony, and had been a civic dignitary in old Boston in England. Kilby Street, known first by the unsavory name of Mackerel Lane, was very narrow, and indeed little more than an alley along the shore extending from State Street to Liberty Square, crossing the creek by a bridge.

On Uie opposite side of State Street, branching off northward, there was, besides Wilson's Lane already noticed. Exchange Street, a by-way once so narrow that a cat could almost have jumped across it in the days when it was known as Shrimpton's Lane, - so called from Colonel Samuel Shrimpton mentioned above ; while below this on the same side ran Merchants Row, one of the very few of the old streets which have retained their old-time names. It was once the front or water street, and followed the shore-line to the Town Dock.

This brings us to Dock Square. The very first entry in the Town Records, written in the hieroglyphic hand of Governor Winthrop, is an order appointing an overseer of this the town's chief landing-place, and directing the removal of timber, stones, and other obstructions about it* Here vessels were loaded and unloaded ; here was brought for awhile every- below Exchange Street, where William Davis, already existing there. - Ed.] Jr., lived; and near this pump, in 1653, William ' [A facsimile of this entry is given in Mr.

thing that came into or went out of the town, and it at once became one of the chief centres of interest It is hard for a modern citizen to realize the appearance of the old Town Dock. We have already described how the cove originally made in to the foot of Brattle Street and covered nearly all the district east of Union Street. But this early aspect of things soon changed when a swing-bridge was thrown across the dock, nearly in the line of Merchants Row, wharves were built on either side by private parties, and a market-place was set up.

In 1657 we find a committee appointed " to gaine liberty in writing of Mr. Seaborne Cotton and his mother to bring water down from their hill to the conduit intended to be erected." This conduit was a reservoir of water, with raised and sloping sides and covered top, which stood in the midst of the market; and originally built for use in case of fire, it seems to have served little other purpose than to afford a counter or trafficking place for the merchants upon market days.* The building of the conduit was doubtless occasioned by the ** great fire*' as it is called of 1654, concerning which, strangely enough, not much is known save that it was very destructive.* There had been previously several small fires which had caused no great alarm, but the extensive damage done by this first "great fire" seems to have created general concern, as is evidenced by entries in the Town Records, and precautions taken against the like danger in the future. Ladders, swabs, and a fire-engine were ordered, and measures taken to have the buildings of less combustible material.* Two other '* great fires " occurred during the colonial period, - one in 1676, "which began an hour before day, continuing three or four; in which time it burned down to the ground forty-six dwelling houses, besides other buildings, together with a meeting-house of considerable bigness." This was the Mather church, the Old North. It burned Mather's house as well as his church, but spared his library. It would seem that Cotton Mather came naturally enough by the ** bee in his bonnet," when we read that the Rev. Increase had had a premonition "that a fire was coming which would make a deplorable desolation."*

The other "great fire" in 1679 was even more terrible in its ravage. " It began," says Hutchinson, " at one Gross's house, the sign of the Three Mariners, near the Dock. All the warehouses and a great number of dwelling houses, with the vessels then in the dock, were consumed, - the most woful desolation that Boston had ever seen." " Fourscore of thy dwelling-houses and seventy of thy warehouses in a ruinous heap " is the estimate of loss made by the Rev. Cotton Mather in an apostrophe to Boston in the Magnalia}

233 of this volume. 640; Snow, Boston^ 165. Mr. William H. Whits See Winthrop. Papers in 4 Mass, Hist, more printed in 1872 an Hisiorical Summary 0/

But to return to the conduit ; from this point branched off Elm, Union, and North streets, the latter of which was, along a short part of its course, once known as Conduit Street The Mill Creek, as before described, connected the Mill Cove with the Town Dock. From the list of 1708 we learn that later, if not at this time, the Fish Market was " The way from Mr. Antram's corner nigh the s** Conduit, leading from thence North-East'^ by y* side of y* Dock as far as Mr. Winsor's warehouse ; " and Drake says : *' All the north side of the Dock seems to have been known at one time as the Fish Market." Corn Market and Corn Court were on the south side.

Facing Dock Square at the corner of North Street stood until a few years ago (i860) one of the most remarkable buildings in the town, known variously as the "Old Feather Store," the " Old Cocked Hat," &c. Luckily there was no doubt as to its age, for it bore the date of its construction, 1680, imprinted in the rough-cast wall of its western gable. The building was of wood, covered with a kind of cement stuck thickly with coarse gravel, bits of broken glass, old junk bottles, &c. The lower story was rather contracted after a usual fashion of the time, and it may have been owing, perhaps, in this case to the limitations of the lot, which on the south and south-west abutted upon the dock ; but above this were jetties, that is, projecting stories, and a roof whose gables gave it the fancied resemblance to an old cocked hat. The house was designed for two tene-

1 [This cut follows a picture painted in 181 7, ously represented by engravings. There is one given to the Historical Society by Mr. William in Snow's Boston^ and nearly all the later books H. Whitmore. The old building has been vari- describing Boston give it. - Ed.]

ments, and had separate entrances. It was used for many purposes in its long career.^ At one time there was kept here the principal apothecary's shop of the town, while from 1806 for a long series of years it was occupied as a feather store ; hence one of its names.

These were the principal streets in the more southerly parts of the town ; north of the Mill Creek we shall find many others of interest and importance. There can be no question that during the last years of this period the North End deserved for many reasons to be, as Josselyn calls it, ** the most elegant and populous part of the town; '* and it must always be regretted that this portion of the peninsula - so beautifully situated, so admirably adapted for fine residences, with its easy slopes, its commanding view both seaward and landward, and its naturally-guarded precincts - should have been the soonest deserted by fashion and given over in large part to poverty, squalor, and decay.

Hanover Street, which has been twice widened, until now it forms one of the finest thoroughfares in the city, was in colonial days little more than a narrow lane. It is described in provincial times, in the list of 1708, as ** the street from between Houchen's corner and y* Sign of y* Orange-tree. Leading Northerly to y' Mill-bridge." Houchen's, or Houchin's, was the southerly corner of Hanover and Court streets, named for a worthy tanner who had his pits in the neighborhood. The "Orange-tree" was an old hostelry on the opposite corner, where early in the next century the first public coach ever known in Boston Wcis set up. Thence traversing the narrow neck across which, as Johnson says, the Mill Creek "was cut through by industry," Hanover Street extended northward to the water, forming the highway to the Winnisimmet Ferry.

On each side of this main thoroughfare, called from its position Middle Street, Fore and Back streets branched off to the right and left like the fingers upon a man's hand. All three streets bore at different times other names, frequently being called variously along different parts of their course. Thus Hanover was dubbed Middle Street in one place and North in another; Back, now Salem, Street was once known as Green Lane ; while Fore Street, which, as its name signifies, was originally laid out along the water front, and was wharfed out as the town grew and need required, soon lost this early name, and in the. list of 1708 we find it called as follows: Ann Street being "the way from the Conduit in Union Street Leading Northerly over y* Bridge to Elliston's corner at y* lower end of Cross Street ; " Fish Street being " the street from Mountjoy's corner at the Lower end of Cross Street leading Northerly to y* sign of the Swan by Scarlett's Wharfe ; " and Ship Street being "the street Leading Northerly from Everton's corner nigh Scarlett's wharfe to the North Battry," - all together forming the one continuous highway now known to us as North Street.

^ See for a list of its various occupants, and for a more detailed account, Shurtleff, Desc. tj Boston^ ch. liii ; Drake, Landmarks^ p. 133.

Topography, Etc, Of The Colonial Period

rious cross streets which date back to the earliest times. Union Street, described later as " the way Leading from Platt*s Corner North-westerly passing by the Green Dragon to y Mill Pond," was from the first an important and much-frequented street; the presence in it of "The Green Dragon," perhaps the most famous of all the old-time taverns, and of Franklin's boyhood home and disputed birthplace are enough to invest it with lasting historic interest. Of these two places we shall in due order make further mention. Cross Street, as its name indicates, was a " way Leading from the Mill Pond South-easterly by y' late Deacon Phillips's stone house extending down to y* sea." This old house alone seems to have given the street character and importance ; it was a gloomy, massive building of rough stone undoubtedly dating back to the colonial period, as it is estimated to have been nearly two centuries old when it was taken down in 1864. The singularity of its construction and the uncertainty as to its origin and purpose have surrounded it with peculiar interest. There are suggestions that it may have been in early times a jail or a watch-house, as mention is made of loop-holes found in the walls. It is described as consisting " of two wings of uniform size, joining each other and forming a right angle. Each wing was forty feet long, twenty feet wide, and two stories high, the wings fronting the south and west. There was one door in the end of each wing on the first story, and a single circular window in the second story over the doors; there were also two circular windows in each story of each wing in front, but neither door nor window in either wing in the rear. The foundation walls were four feet thick or more ; the walls above ground were two feet in thickness, and built entirely of small quarried stones unlike anything to be seen in this neighborhood, and were probably brought as ballast from some part of Europe." ^

"The Street Leading North-westerly from Morrell's corner in Middle Street pass-in by Mr. David Norton's, Extending to y* salt water at Ferryway," was Prince Street, which with Hanover still curiously retains the name once given it out of compliment to royalty. It was formerly called Black Horse Lane from the old " Black Horse " inn, which was destined to become notorious in after years as a refuge for British deserters. Charter, Snow- Hill, and Lynn streets, if existing, had attained no prominence in colonial times. Hull Street ran from Snow Hill to Salem Street, and formed the southern boundary of the burying-ground. It was laid out through the field of old John Hull, whose name it bears, and whose daughter, wife of Judge Sewall, conveyed it to the town. This is no other than that Mistress Hannah Hull who upon her marriage with Samuel Sewall is said to have received for a dowry her own weight in pine-tree shillings. It was her father who coined these famous shillings ; and whether the story be true or not, it is certain that worthy John Hull, who was a man of substance, might easily have indulged himself in the whim if he had chosen.^ He was a silversmith, and set up at his own house in. Sheafe Street the first mint in the colony, where he and his assistant bound themselves with an oath to make all their money "of the just alloy of the English cojne; that every shilling should be of due weight, namely, three-penny troj weight, and all other pieces proportionably, so neere as they could."

But it was in and around^ a little open space hedged about with substantial-looking buildings, lying upon the south-east declivity of Copp's Hill, that our interest with regard to the North End centres in these early cplonial days, and in fact for a long time subsequent. Here was a spot which rivalled the famous precincts of Washington and State streets as a social centre. This was Clark's Square, afterwards, as we shall find, to be known by other names. But before entering the Square the early colonist beheld, fronting him on the corner of North ancl Richmond streets, a substantial brick building, which was a well known resort of the choice spirits of two centuries ago. This was the old ** Red Lyon Inn," kept in the middle of the seventeenth century by mine host Nicholas Upsall, who seems to have been one of the solid men of the town, for he owned a wharf just below his ordinary, besides considerable real estate. But, alas ! poor man, he was a Quaker, and was persecuted along with his fellows, at length dying a martyr to his faith and his philanthropy ; his first recorded offence was that of trying to bribe the jailer to feed a couple of starving Quakeresses in his custody.^ Here, facing the square, stood the " Old North," put up in 1650, burned in 1676, ^nd at once replaced. This was the church of the Mathers, and all three lived hard by, - Increase in North Street, Cotton in Hanover, and Samuel on the corner of Moon Street Court.

We can scarcely realize as we look upon the little circumscribed triangular enclosure now known as North Square, with its narrow entrance, how large a part it once played in colonial life ; that here and closely hereabout lived the men of wealth and consequence who directed publip policy and had the conduct of affairs. Yet it is evident that even at this day it retains something of its old look. Drake ^ has given a graphic and spirited description of the whole neighborhood, from which we make rpom for a short extract : -

" Standing before an entrance still narrow, the relics of demolished walls on our right show that the original opening was once even more cramped than now, and scarce permitted the passage of a vehicle. The point made by North Street reached considerably beyond the present curbstone some distance into the street, both sides of which were cut off when the widening took place. This headland of brick and mortar jutting out into old Fish Street, as a bulwark to protect the aristocratic residents of the square, was long known as ' Mountford's Comer ' from the family owning and occupying it.

1 [See. Dr. Ellis's chapter on "The Puritan spell his name Upshall, but hb own signature Commonwealth " and Mr. Whittier's Poem, in gives it as in the text. - Ed.] the present volume. The Quaker historians * Landmarks, 157.

some extremely ruinous, with shattered panes and leaky roofs, while others, improved upon to suit more modem tenants, have the jaunty air of an old beau in modem habiliments. One patriarch stands at the comer of Sun Court and Moon Street. Its upper story projects after the fashion of the last century ; the timbers, which tradition says were cut in the neighborhood, are of prodigious thickness, while the clapboards are fastened with wrought nails."

A visitor to the neighborhood may still find a number of buildings and parts of buildings of undoubted antiquity, concerning which, however, it cannot now be ascertained which, if any, date back to the period we are discussing.

One old house, which until a few years ago (1866) stood upon the corner of North and Clark streets, happily does not belong to this category : we mean the old Ship Tavern, or "Noah's Ark," as it was often called from the rough representation of a ship over the door. This old house is supposed to have been built previous to 1650; its first known owner was Captain Thomas Hawkins, a busy, restless ship-builder, who owned a ship-yard near his house, made many voyages, was cast away three times, and at length, as if determined to show that he was not born to be hanged, lost his life by shipwreck. In the apportionment of his estate ** his brick house and lands " were set out to his widow, from whom indirectly it passed to one John Viall, or Vyal, by whom it was kept as an inn or ordinary as far back as 1655. It was in a room in this inn that Sir Robert Carr, the royal commissioner, assaulted the constable and wrote the defiant letter to Governor Leverett.^ The house was built of English brick, laid in the English bond ; it had deep, projecting jetties, Lutheran attic windows, and floor timbers of the antique triangular shape ; it was originally only two stories high, but a third story had been added by a later occupant. A large crack in the front wall was supposed to have been caused by the earthquake of 1663, "which made all New England tremble."*

Besides these various streets and highways there remain certain other important topographical features of Boston still to be described, the first and principal of which is the Common. No street, section, or neighborhood of the city is so intimately connected with its life, so closely associated with all that is most sacred and glorious, humiliating and painful, in its history as this fifty acres of green-sward in its midst. While no quarter of the town has changed less perhaps in outward appearance (the same hills and valleys, the same slopes and curves appearing now as aforetime upon its surface), there is yet a vast difference between the beautiful park of to-day - with its arching elms and flowering lindens, with its fountains, its statues, its malls, and mimic lake - and the uninclosed waste, the stubbly cow-pasture, the bleak hill-side of two hundred years ago, when the wild roses bloomed upon its summit and the frogs croaked in the marshes at its base.

Yet the Common is the Common still. The park of the nineteenth century is as much the heritage and property of the people as was the cow pasture of the seventeenth ; and though we may no more drive our cattle * to feed upon its herbage, we may feast our eyes upon its verdure, we may escape from the hot and dusty streets and wander among its shady and fragrant paths, and our sons may still coast down its glassy sides in winter, to the imminent peril of their own necks and to the terror of every passer-by.

Our title to the Common is easily traced ; it originally formed part of the possessions of William Blackstone, the first white settler, whose ownership was acknowledged and confirmed by an entry in the Town Records as early as 1633, by which it was " agreed that William Blackstone shall have fifty acres set out for him near his house in Boston to enjoy forever." The next year, 1634, Blackstone sold the whole parcel of land to the town, excepting only six acres immediately adjoining his house.* The land thus coming into the possession of the town as public property was directly committed (Dec. 18, 1634) to the care of Winthrop and others to divide, and to leave *' such portions in common for y* use of newe comers and y* further benefitt of y* towne, as in theire best discretions they shall think fitt;" and six years later we find its alienation or appropriation to other purposes guarded against by an order passed March 36, 1640, to the following effect: -

" Also agreed upon y* henceforth there shalbe no land granted eyther for houseplott or garden to any pson out of y- open ground or Coition ffeild w^ is left betweene y* Gentry Hill and Mr. Colbron's end ; except 3 or 4 lotts to make vp y* street from bro. Robt Walker's to y* Round Marsh." «

Upon Bonner's map, which, although published in the next century, affords the earliest satisfactory view of the town, there appear but three trees on the Common, - two of medium size at the upper or northern end, and the Great Elm so well remembered by all of this generation.^

Standing in tlie midst of the " Gentry," or " Gentury," or " Training Field," as the Common was variously called, the Great Elm was unquestion-^ ably the most conspicuous feature in the field, and the rallying point upon all occasions of pubHc business and pleasure. Here Winthrop may have paused in the shade that August day in 1630, when he came over from Charlestown at the bidding of Blackstone to explore the spot ; here John Wilson may have preached his first sermon upon the peninsula ; here the dusky ancestors of Obbatinewat and the Squaw Sachem may have held many a savage feast and solemn pow-wow ; here, we have reason to believe, swinging from the sturdy branches, early culprits suffered the stern penalty of the law, and the hapless victims of bigotry met with a cruel martyrdom.*

The area of the Common has been both enlarged and curtailed since the first purchase from Blackstone. In June, 1757, on the petition of various citizens showing the need of a place of interment at the South End, the town bought the land covered by the burying-ground - since diminished by taking off the Boylston Street Mall - from Andrew Oliver, who held it in the right of his wife, a daughter of Colonel Thomes Fitch. In October, 1787, one William Foster conveyed to the town " a certain tract of land containing two acres and one eighth of an acre, situated, lying, and being near the Common, and bounded E. on the highway 324 ft. ; North on the Common

^ The price paid by the town for the land as * These three or four lots reserved were bewell as the fact of its purchase are suflFiciently tween the Common and Frog Lane or Boylston shown by the following extracts from the Town Street, as explained in an earlier note to this Records : " The io'*» daye of the ^^ mo. 1634. chapter.

'Will'"- Cheesbrough the constable, shall make & '* Flora of Boston." - Ed.] assesse all these rates, viz** a rate of £y> to Mr. * It is supposed that all the early execu-

29s ft. 5 in. ; W. on the new burial-ground 302 ft. 3 in ; S. on Pleasant St. 281 ft. 9 inches," which embraces the land now used for the deer-park.^

On the other hand, the ancient Gentry Field once extended as far north as Beacon and as far east as Mason Street, the Granary Burying-Ground and Park Street having been taken from it on the one side, while a goodly slice was shorn off to form Tremont Street on the other. North-west of it a high ridge - the West Hill described in the early part of this chapter, subsequently cut down to form Charles Street - extended from near the junction of Beacon and Spruce streets, till it sloped to the beach near Cambridge Street. The lower part of the Common bordered upon the water; and a part of the parade ground and all the Public Garden was nothing but a marsh, where in the next century extensive rope-walks were laid out.

Other piinor features are necessary to complete our picture of the early Training Field. There was Flagstaff Hill, which offered a vantage point to the British artillery during the Revolution, now crowned by the Soldiers' Monument; there were the three ponds, Frog, Cow, and Sheehan ponds, - the last two, and very likely the first, nothing but marshes which have long since disappeared, which, however, were once sufficient to furnish a watering place for the cattle; there, too, was the Wishing Stone, near the junction of Beacon-Street Mall and the path leading to Joy Street, and, we are told, " the young folks of by-gone days used to walk nine times around this stone, and then standing or sitting upon it silently make their wishes." ^

That the town was, from the first, jealous of any abuse of the right of commonage by the inhal^itants, and watchful that the public domain should be kept in decent order and condition, appears from several entries in the Town Records. An order was passed in May, 1646, that all the inhabitants should have equal right of commonage, while at the same time it was voted that no one coming into the town subsequently to this date should be entitled to this privilege. Milch kine to the number of seventy were allowed pasturage, but " no dry cattill, younge cattill, or horse shalbe free to go on y* comon this year ; but one horse for Elder Oliver."

It was also strictly forbidden to throw any stones, trash, or other offensive matter upon the field ; and that these various orders were effectual in accomplishing the desired end is evident from the account of Josselyn.*

Other open spaces devoted to public use were the burying-grounds, of which previous to 1687 there were three, - the " Chapel," the " Granary," and ** Copp's Hill." The former was the first place of interment used in the town, and its origin and history may be called coeval with those of Boston. Here, we are told by Chief-Justice Sewall, was buried Mr. Isaac Johnson, perhaps the most important man in the infant colony. The story goes, that, after the peninsula had been determined upon as a place of settlement, Mr. Johnson selected for himself the land now occupied by the grave-yard ;

' [The Common seems to have had boulders * [See this quoted in Mr. Scudder's chapand ledges of rock cropping out here and there, ter in the present volume. - Ed] and on his death, which took place in Charlestown, Sept. 30, 1 630, he was naturally buried in his own lot. Others dying subsequently requested to be buried near him; and so the place came to be a common burying-ground.

Many doubts attach to this story, inasmuch as the Diary of Chief-Justice Sewall, where it is told, was not written until many years afterwards, and there is no existing account of the burial of Johnson, which in the case of so prominent a man is somewhat remarkable, the rather that on the death in the following February of one Captain Weldon, a young and comparatively unimportant person, both Winthrop and Dudley give particulars of his interment. However that may be, there is no doubt that this was the earliest, and for thirty years indeed the sole, burying-ground in the town. After the building of the Chapel it was used chiefly for those belonging to the faith of the Church of England ; but previous to that some of the sternest and most noted of the old Puritans found here their resting place. Here were laid John Winthrop, his son and grandson, all governors ; Parsons Cotton, Davenport, Oxenbridge, and Bridge of the First Church, all buried in the tomb of Elder Thomas Oliver, which became afterwards the property of the Church; Lady Andros, wife of the hated Sir Edmund ; Governor Shirley, Captain Roger Clap, Dr. Benjamin Church, and a host of others of the early and later periods less known to fame.

" Copp's Hill," at first called the " Old North Burying-Ground," comes next in point of time, the original parcel comprising the north-eastern part of the present lot having been bought by the town in 1659-60. This was the extent of the ground in the colonial period ; other parcels have since been added. In 171 1 Samuel Sewall and his wife Hannah conveyed a part of what had once been the pasture of old John Hull the mint master; in their deed there was a reservation of " one rodd square in which Mrs. Mary Thatcher now lyeth buried," which " rodd square " had previously (in 1708-9) been conveyed by them "with no right of way except across the old burying-place," to Joshua Gee, - so that now, strangely enough, there exists a small parcel of private estate in the very midst of the ground upon which for all restrictions to the contrary the owners might erect a light-house or a cider-mill 1 Situated upon the summit of one of the ancient hills, this cemetery occupies one of the most commanding and delightful spots in the town. The oldest inscription it contains is dated Aug. 15, 1662; those purporting to commemorate the death of John Thwing in 1620, and of Grace Berry in 1625, both some years before the founding of the colony, are thought to have been altered by a mischievous youth with his jack-knife. Of the many interesting associations that cluster around this cemetery and of the famous folk, not a few, buried within it, none belong to the colonial period. Of the humbler sort Drake gives the following droll list in his Landmarks of Boston : -

" The singular juxtaposition of names strikes the reader of the headstones in Copp's Hill. Here repose the ashes of Mr. John Milk and Mr. William Beer ; of Samuel Mower and Theodocia Hay ; Timothy Gay and Daniel Graves ; of Elizabeth Tout

" The Granary," ^ known in colonial times as the South Burying-Ground, was nearly contemporaneous in origin with the " Old North," having been established in 1660. It was originally, as has been said, a part of the Common, from which it was very soon shut off by the erection along the line of Park Street of a row of public buildings, - the Bridewell, the Almshouse, and House of Correction already mentioned, to which afterwards the Granary was added, from which it took its present name. In early times the ground, like the Common, was bare of foliage, the trees within the inclosure, as well as the more celebrated elms of the Mall, having been set out long years afterward. The oldest stone in the yard bears date 1667, and like the Old North all its more noted monuments belong to a later day. The most distinguished persons buried there previous to 1684 were John Hull, the mint master, and Governor Richard Bellingham. An incident connected with the Bellingham tomb would seem to prove that in early times the place was ill-chosen for a cemetery. The Bellingham family having become extinct, the tomb was given to Governor James Sullivan, who, on going to repair it, found it partly filled with water, " and the coffin and remains of the old governor floating around in the ancient vault," - and this after being buried nearly a century.

Such in brief was the outward physical aspect of the town of Boston in the colonial period. Such were its streets and buildings, in so far as our harrow limits give us scope to set them forth. The men were not yet born, the events had not yet come to pass, by association wherewith many of them were to become in after years illustrious. Wanting all these interesting details, which belong to succeeding epochs, we must rest content with such meagre descriptions as are to be found in the earlier writers, and rely upon an awakened imagination to fill out the picture.

And yet we trust enough has been said to bring to mind a tolerably clear impression of the busy, thriving town of two hundred years ago with its windmills and batteries, its crowded meeting-houses, its bustling dock and market place, its stately mansions, its gloomy prison, its queer old taverns, its curious hanging signs, its crooked streets paved with pebble, its beacon, its whipping-post, - all the outward features of a town *' whose continuall inlargement presages some sumptuous city: the wonder of this moderne age that a few years should bring forth such great matters by so meane a handfuU."*

By William H. Whitmore

IT Will, of course, be understood that the first settlers of Boston were animated by the current opinions of their time in regard to social distinctions. New England was constructed socially on the same system as Old England, with the fortunate exception that it lacked both extremes of the scale. We had here neither royal personages nor members of the titled aristocracy of England as colonists ; we were equally free from any considerable admixture of that poorest and most ignorant class which then tilled the fields of the mother country, and which is even yet but a few degrees above the serfs of other lands. The expense of emigration at that date, to say nothing of the comparative enterprise of mind and soul required to create a willingfness to emigrate, was enough to prevent any undesirable elements from intermingling. On the other hand, there was no inducement held out for the members of the aristocracy to come hither. There were no laurels to be gained by war, no garnered wealth to repay . the freebooter, no possibility of a life of ease amid tropical Edens. Life here was to be a constant toil, removed from the splendors of a court or the charms of civilization. The dangers were constant, but ignoble; the rewards scanty and prospective.

We may, therefore, accept as a fact that our colonists resembled tht best elements of the country parishes of England. The squire, the minister, the yeomen, were the three representative portions of society there and here. Two of these classes, removed from a chance of a renewal here, remained constant during the whole Colonial period. Our gentry were the descendants of the few who came with the first colonists, as our great body of citizens was of those who were yeomen when they left England. The distinction was felt, though not offensively; and precisely as in England the aristocracy is constantly renewed from the commoners, while its younger branches steadily revert to that lower class, so here a constant intermingling of these two ranks occurred. Able men here, in each generation, rose to

It is a strange fact that no attempt has been made to prepare any record of the families of the settlers at Boston. The first and most flourishing genealogical society in the country was founded here, and for thirty-four years it has published a magazine here; but, as yet, few Boston families have been traced, even in special histories. Our town records are, indeed, very imperfect, but an earnest and quite successful effort is now making to supply the deficiencies from church records. But since the field has remained unexplored so long, it is very difficult for any one to attempt to select with certainty all of the leading men or leading families of any century of our history. It can be safely said that those of our colonists who were of the gentry at home, kept to the traditions of their class here, in a measure. They lived in better style than the others, they held most of the offices, and they intermarried so as to constitute an allied section of the community. The clergy and other graduates of Harvard were generally admitted to the same circle, and naturally the richest part of the merchant class could not be excluded.

This tendency towards a local aristocracy increased during the eighteenth century, and just prior to the Revolution SQcial affairs here were probably as they are to-day in the English colonies. The Governor was an Englishman ; his council was made up from the local gentry, and all eyes were turned to the mother country as the source of honor. Officers of the army and navy stationed here contracted marriages with our native damsels; capital was increasing, and was seeking the truly British form of investment in land.

All these developments were stopped by the Revolution, when the great portion of our leading citizens, in a social sense, emigrated. That part of the story must be postponed to another volume, but it adds to the difficulty of reproducing the history of the early days of Boston, that its chief personages have left no descendants here to preserve the tradition of ancestral glories.

It is proposed, therefore, to place before the reader certain authentic sources of information in regard to the settlers here, with such fragmentary notes as contain the writer's estimate of the more prominent families. As it is a first attempt by any one to deal with the subject, omissions at least will not be surprising.

An important source of information is the Book of Possessions, compiled about A.D. 164s, and containing the names of the owners of land at the time. It has been published by the City, being the second report of the Record Commissioners. The following alphabetical list of the proprietors will be sufficient for our present purpose: -

Boston Families Prior To A.D.

Of the Assistants we can claim also Atherton Hough, John Winthrop, Jr., William Hibbens, Edward Gibbons, Humphrey Davy, John Richards, John Hull, Thomas Savage, Elisha Cooke, Elisha Hutchinson, Samuel Sewall, Isaac Addington, John Walley.

The Boston REPRESENTATIVES to the General Court were, during 1630-40: William Hutchinson, John Coggeshall, William Brenton, William Colbron, Henry Vane, William Coddington, Atherton Hough, William Aspinwall, John Oliver, John Newdigate, Robert Keayne, Edward Gibbons, William Tyng, Edmund Quincy, John Underbill, Richard Bellingham.

Boston Families Prior To A.D. 1700. 56 1

During 1680-1700: The new names are those of Elisha Hutchinson, Elisha Cooke, John Fairweather, John Saffin, Isaac Addington, Timothy Prout, Adam Winthrop, Thomas Oakes, Penn Townsend, Theophilus Frary, Dr. John Clarke, John Eyre, James Taylor, Timothy Thornton, Edward Bromfield, Nathaniel Oliver, Nathaniel Byfield, Samuel Legg, John White, Andrew Belcher, David Allen, and Joseph Bridgham.*

The Selectmen of the town, as the uniform custom of New England witnesseth, were chosen from the citizens of the highest repute. They exercised very considerable powers. They were chosen by the free vote of the governed, and it is evident from many sources that they were the recognized leaders of the community. As no list of them is elsewhere available, it seems judicious to print one here.

1 See 2 M41SS, Hist, Coll. z. 33-29, for detailed possible to make of all holding office under the lists. [Mr. Whitmore*s Massachusetts Civil List, Charter, or local government, during the Colonial Albany, 1870^ is as complete a record as it is and Provincial periods, 1630-1774. - Ed.]

Boston Families Prior To A.D.

Prior to the date when the seven selectmen became regular officers, similar officials had served. The earliest entry preserved in the Town Records is dated Sept. 1, 1634. We cannot, therefore, learn when the custom began of choosing selectmen, or townsmen. We find at that date, however, a board of ten citizens in office, - John Winthrop, William Coddington, John Underbill, Thomas Oliver, Thomas Leverett, Giles Firmin, John Coggeshall, William Peirce, Robert Harding, and William Brenton.

Sept. 16, 1636. - Hutchinson, Oliver, Leverett, Colbom, Coggeshall, Sanford, Brenton, and Balston re-elected, and two new men added, - Robert Keayne and John Newgate.

April 29, 1639. - Nine chosen : Oliver, Leverett, Keayne, Colbom, Harding, and Eliot ; Pen dropped ; Edward Gibbons, William Tyng, and John Cogan added.

Dec. 16, 1639. - Nine chosen: Colbom, Harding, Eliot, Gibbons, Tyng, and Cogan re-elected ; Gov. John Wintlirop, Richard Bellingham, and William Hibbens, new members.

Sept. 28, 1640. - Nine chosen for the next six months: Colbom, Eliot, Gibbons, Tyng, Winthrop, Bellingham, and Hibbens, old members ; with John Newgate and Atherton Hough added.

Dec. 26, 1645. - Winthrop, Hibbens, Gibbons, Colbom, Hill, Eliot, and Pen re-elected ; Oliver and E. Tyng dropped ; Robert Keayne and Thomas Fowle added.

No election is recorded in 1646, though all but Fowle were serving Feb. 25, 1646-47. Probably some change had taken place about this time, as March 13, 1646-47, we find a board of seven acting, and the same seven were chosen five days later at a ** general town's meeting warned from

Old South Church

The fact that church- membership was long a necessary preliminary to recognition as a citizen makes it very desirable for us to know who were the early members of our First Church in Boston. The list is often referred to by Savage and others, but has not been printed. We therefore present all of the record of admissions prior to A.D. 1640, believing that no more valuable document can be offered to the genealogist. We prefix numbers to the names for convenience.

" Wee whose names are hereunder written, being by His most wise and good Providence brought together into this part of America in the Bay of Massachusetts, and desirous to unite ourselves into one Congregation, or Church, under the Lord Jesus Christ our Head, in such sort as becometh all those whom He hath Redeemed, and Sanctified to Himselfe, doe hereby solemnly and religiously (as in His most holy

Proesance) Promisse and bind o' selves to walke in all our wayes according to the Rule of the Gospell, and in all sincere Confonnity to His holy Ordinances, and in mutuall love and respect each to other, so neere as God shall give us grace.

(dead since) Henry Gosnall and ***> Mary his wife James Penne and Katherine his wife John Milles and Susan his wife « Willm. Waterbury and Alice his wife Frances, y« wife of John Ruggle Willm. Baulstone and Elizabeth his wife

Mary Coddington, y« wife of Willm. Coddington Anne Newgate, y« wife of John Newgate >-- Thomas Grubbe and Anne his wife Richard Turner Anne Walden Mabell Marport

'** John Cotton, and on that day Sarah his wife Robert Tumor, our brother Edward Bendall's man-servant Grace Lodge, our Pastor John Wilson^ s

Joan Wilkes, y wife of Willm. Wilkes Willm. Wardall, one of our brother Edmund Quinsey's servants Waters Merry, Ship carpenter -* John Webbe, a single man

Anne Shelley, his maid-servant, were this day received members upon letters of dismission from our sister Church of Rocksburie, and upon their owne open confessions and p'fesslon of faith in y« Lord Jesus Christ

Boston Families Prior To A.D.

Nicholis Willys and Willm. Townsend, his servant Joan Drake, widdowe --- John Gayle, servant to our brother John Button, d. Marie Bonner, maidservant to our brother Willm. Hutchinson Faith Hutchinson, one of his daughters Anne Freiston, one of his kinswomen Henry Elkin, a Taylor Alice Willey, wife of Our brother Allen

Thomas Matson, formerly received by Communion of Churches, but now as a member upon y« confession of his fo3rth and repentance and pfessed subiection to y* Lord Jesus Christ according to y« Covenant of the Gospell

Willyam Stickney, a husbandman, and Elizabeth his wife Margarett Crosse, a widdowe ^^ Michael! Hopkinson, servant to our brother Jacob Elyott, and Richard Swanne, a husbandman

John Spoure, a Husbandman, and Elizabeth his wife ^ Sarah Tarne, y« wife of one Myles Tarne, a Letherdresser, and Priscilla Dause, maid-servant to our Elder M' Thomas Oliver

Boston Families Prior To A.D.

* The admissions after 1640 arc not so A copy of these records will now be found frequent as before. The First Church records at the office of the City Registrar, City Hall, also mention quite a number of dismissions. Boston.

Many or most of them already belonged to the First Church, but none except substantial men would be named in such an enterprise. Most of them resided at what was then the South End. Our Essex and Boykton streets were the limit of the town, except such few houses as were on the high-road to Roxbury, i.e. Washington Street.

Having thus laid before our readers the main facts upon which an opinion is to be based, we will essay to point out certain persons or families as among the most noteworthy. The object has been to give an outline of the families, without specific dates. For most of the births, deaths, and marriages, the reader is referred to Savage's Gmealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, the scope of which includes all of this period. It must also be remembered that Boston was by no means the chief seat of our gentry. In all the counties besides Suffolk there were gentlemen of birth, education, and fortune. Even in our neighborhood, Roxbury, Charlestown, Cambridge, Medford, Dedham, and other towns were the homes of councillors, assistants, and judges. Boston had a share of the dignitaries, but not a very large one; and our list, based on this calculation, is not very large. Undoubtedly, in the next century, the tendency was more towards centralization, but the capital never had a monopoly.

I. Governor John Winthrop confessedly stands at the head of the settlement at Boston, - by birth, fortune, and services, the leader of the colony.* His son John settled first at Ipswich, but in 1635 removed to Connecticut; his sons Fitz-John and Wait-Still were often connected with our affairs. Of his daughters, Elizabeth married Antipas Newman, and secondly Zerubbabel Endecott; Martha married Richard Wharton; and Anne married John Richards.

Adam Winthrop, son of the elder Governor John, married first Elizabeth Glover, of Cambridge, and secondly Elizabeth, daughter of Captain Thomas Hawkins. His only son, Adam, was a representative from Boston, and left a son, Adam, here (chief-justice of the Court of Common Pleas) and a daughter, Mary, who married Captain John Ballentine.

Deane Winthrop, the sixth son of Governor John, lived at Rumney Marsh, then part of Boston, since called Chelsea and Winthrop.^ His only son, Jose, died s. p,, aged 36 years. His four sons-in-law were Jotham Grover, Captain Samuel Kent, Eliab Adams, and Atherton Hough.

Mary Winthrop, only daughter of Governor John, married Rev. Samuel Dudley of Exeter, son of Governor Thomas Dudley. This branch of the family seems never to have resided in Boston.

The Winthrops thus kept up a fitful connection with Boston for the first century. The descendants of Adam remained in Cambridge, and the Connecticut branch flourished at New London. About 1785 Thomas-

2. Governor Richard Bellingham was one of the most influential men here from 1634 until his death in 1672. He married here, for a second wife, Penelope Pelham, who long survived him.* The family, however, made little impression on our history. His oldest son, Samuel, lived at London most of his life, after graduating at Harvard.^ Another son, John, was of Harvard in 1661, but disappears so entirely that the time of his death is unrecorded in the College catalogue.

3. Governor Endicott's descendants, through his son Zerubbabel, remained in Essex County ; but his son John was of Boston, where he married Elizabeth, daughter of Jeremy Houchin in 1653, and died without issue in 1668. His widow married Rev. James Allen.*

4. The Leveretts spring from Thomas Leverett, an alderman in Old Boston before his removal hither, an elder here, who died in 1650.* His daughter Anne married Isaac Addington, and his son John became governor of the colony.® Governor John Leverett married first Hannah Hudson, and secondly Sarah Sedgwick. Of his children, Hudson was "but an indifferent character;" but he was the father of John Leverett, President of Harvard College. Of the Governor's daughters, Elizabeth married ^ Dr. Elisha Cooke; Anne married John Hub- Y^ bard; Mary married first Paul Dudley (son ^^^^ Xf^iTU^nt of Governor Thomas Dudley), and secondly Colonel Penn Townsend; Hannah married Thomas Davis; Rebecca married James Lloyd; and Sarah married Colonel Nathaniel Byfield.

' [The pedigree of the Winthrops is traced by Mr. Whitinore in the N. E. Hist, and GeneaL Register^ April, i86.|, based chiefly upon the Hon. R. C. Winthrop's Life of John Winthrop, to which it forms a "genealogical index." Cf. Drake's Boston^ p. 72. There is an account in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc, Feb. 14, 1 861, of the discovery of a large numl>er of the family papers at New London, many of which have since been printed in the Collections of that Society. - En.]

* [The lady, as Winthrop relates in his journal, Nov. 9, 1641, was snatched from another, and the Governor married himself, much to the scandal of the magistrates. She was the sister of Herbert Pelham, a prominent citizen of whom and his family there are accounts in the N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Register, July, 1879, and Heraldic Journal, iii. 84. Sewall (Papers, ii. 56) records the widow's death May 28, 1702: "At 5 p. M. Madam Bellingham dies, a vertuous Gentlewoman, antiquis tnoribus, pri sea fide, who has lived a widow just al>out thirty years." The governor's will led to some disputes, - Sewall Papers, ii. 197. In the same work, i. 58-62, it is stated that the old house on the slope of Cotton Hill, which stood till 1828, described by Snow, Boston, p. 75, as "the oldest house in the city," was not, as Snow affirms, the house which Vane gave to Cotton, but the one occupied by Bellingham. The Governor also had a house and lot, according to the Book of Possessions, about where Washington Street now crosses Cornhill and Brattle Street, and he may at one time have lived there. If we may believe Johnson's limping verse (IVonder^vorking Providence), he was "slow of speech," and had a "stern look." J. B. Moore, Governors of New Plymouth and Afass. Bay, p. 335. See the note to Mr. Deane's chapter. - Ed.|

Knight Leverett, son of Thomas Hudson Leverett, and nephew of President John, was a goldsmith of Boston. He married, in 1726, Abigail Buttolph, and at that date was the only male of the name here. His greatgrandson, Francis P. Leverett, was the master of the Boston Latin School, - an admirable scholar, who died in 1836.^

Isaac Addington

5. Governor Simon Bradstreet, bred at Emanuel College, Cambridge, came herewith Winthrop, was chosen an Assistant in 1630, and was annually re-chosen for forty-eight years. He married first Anne Dudley, our first poet, daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, and had a large family. His second wife was widow Anne Gardner, daughter of Kmanucl Downing, and niece of Governor John Winthrop. His children seem to have dispersed, but I [See note to Dr. Hale's chapter, on "Philip's War," in the present volume. - Ed.| their descendants are numerous, as are those of Humphrey Bradstreet.^ We may here note the Downing connections of the VVinthrops. Emanuel Downing married Lucy Winthrop, sister of (iovcrnor John. Mis son George went to England, and rose to great wealth and position ; his daughter Anne married first Captain Joseph Gardner, and secondly Governor Simon Bradstreet ; his daughter Mary married Anthony Stoddard, of Boston.

6. Atherton Hough, or Haugh, had been an alderman in Old Boston, before coming here with Rev. John Cotton. His only son was Rev. Samuel Hough, of Reading, who married Sarah, daughter" of Rev. Zechariah Symmes, and died at Boston in 1662. His son Samuel, of Boston, married Ann Rainsford about 1675, and had two sons who died before middle age.^

* [Drake, Boston^ p. 512, gives the Bradstreet lot and house on the southerly corner of School pedigree. Cf. N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg.^ and Washington Streets, where he probably 1854, 1855. - Ed.] lived; and another on Milk Street, just below

7. William Hibbens, an assistant from 1643 till his death in 1654, left a widow, Ann, who was executed for witchcraft in 1656. There were no children to bear the burden of the name.^

9. Humphrey Davy, or Davie, was son of Sir John Davie, Bart., of Greedy, co. Devon. He was a leading man here, though of the later immigration, - 1662. His son by his first wife was John, - H. C. 1681, - who went to Hartford and married his step-sister, Elizabeth, daughter of James Richards. He succeeded to the estate and title of his grandfather, and returned to England. Humphrey, the father, married, here, Sarah, widow of James Richards, and had Humphrey and William, the former of whom moved to Hartford.

10. John Richards, major, speaker, assistant, councillor, and judge, was certainly one of the local gentry. He married first Elizabeth (Hawkins), widow of Adam Winthrop ; secondly Anne, daughter of Governor John Winthrop of Connecticut, but had no children.

James Richards, presumed to be brother of John, of Boston and Hartford, was very wealthy, and held high rank in Connecticut. His wife was Sarah, only child of William Gibbons of Hartford, who married secondly Humphrey Davie, and thirdly Colonel Jonathan Tyng. James Richards had an only son, Thomas, and the following daughters: Sarah, wife of Captain Benjamin Davis; Mary, married to Benjamin Alford, both of Boston; Jerusha, wife of Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall ; and Elizabeth, married first to John Davie, and secondly to Jonathan Taylor.

Benjamin Richards, of Boston, merchant, a third brother, married Hannah, daughter of William Hudson, Jr., but died s, p. His widow married Richard Crispe.

1 1. The founder of the Savage family was Major Thomas Savage, representative, speaker, and assistant, noted as a stanch soldier. He married first Faith, daughter of William Hutchinson, by whom he had six children ; and secondly Mary, daughter of Rev. Zechariah Symmes, by whom he had eleven. His widow married Anthony Stoddard. Of his children, Hannah married first Benjamin Gillam, and secondly Giles Sylvester; Mary married Thomas Thatcher; Dyonisia married Samuel Ravenscroft; and Sarah married John Higginson of Salem. Of his sons, Ebenezer married Martha, daughter of Bozoun Allen, and died s. p. Ephraim married first Mary, daughter of Edmund Quincy; second, Sarah, daughter of Rev. Samuel Hough; third, Elizabeth (Norton), widow of Timothy Symmes; fourth, Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Butler, and widow of Abraham Brown.

Boston Families Prior To A.D. 1700

We may note that the daughters of Rev. Zachariah Symmes ^ of Charlestown married, respectively, Rev. Samuel Hough, Thomas Savage (Mrs. Savage married also Anthony Stoddard), Hezekiah Usher, William Davis, Humphrey Booth, Timothy Prout, and Edward Willis.

12. Dr. Elisha Cooke, only son of Richard Cooke, a tailor of Boston, was of H. C. 1657.' He was prominent in politics, - speaker, assistant, of the Council of Safety, agent to lingl.ind, and judge. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Governor Leverett, and had Elisha, also a leader in politics, who married Jane, daughter of Richard Middlecot. The only daughter of this last was Mary, wife of Judge Richard Saltonstall, whose descendant, Leverett Saltonstall, still represents the family in Boston.'

13. The Hutchinsons have filled as large a space in popular estimation as any family that has resided here. The emigrant was William Hutchinson, grandson of John II., mayor of Lincoln, and he had a brother Richard of London, whose son, Eliakim, settled at Boston also. His wife was the too-famous Anne Hutchinson, exiled for her opinions. Their son Edward, of Boston, had a daughter, Elizabeth, married daughter of Captain Thomas Hawkins, and secondly Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Clarke, and widow of John Freke. His sons were Thomas and Edward, who married after 1700; and his daughters married Dr. John Clarke, John Ruck, and Colonel John Foster.

(The Saltonstalls were a Watertown family, New England, and its connection with the Maraud an elaborate memoir of the line is in Bond's burys and Drydcns," by Colonel Chester, in N, IVatertmvn. See /frraldic Jimrnal, i. 161, and E. Hist, and GeneaL Reg,, Oct. 1866. Heraldic G. D. Phippen*s tabular i)edigree, 1857. - Ed | Journal^ ii. 171. William Hutchinson had grant-

< (The Hutchinson family has l)ccn the sul>- ed to him, probably not long after his arrival in jcct of several genealogical css.iys, beginning with 1634, the lot now known as the "Old Corner a privately printed tract by Peter O. Ilutchinson, Bookstore,** but which then extended up School of England, a descendant of Governor Hutchin- Street to the City Hall lot ; and here he and his son, who made a Tour into the County of Lin- unfortunate wife lived. After his removal in coin for the Purpose of Hunting up Memoriqls tA 1638 to Rhode Island, his son Edward was althe English ancestry of Thomas Hutchinson, the lowed, in 1639, to sell the lot to Richard Hutchemigrant ancestor of Boston. Mr. William H. inson of London, linen-draper. Shurtleff, /?/jr. Whitmore reprinted from the N. E. Hist, and of Boston, p. 674. In 1870 Mr. Perley Derby Gefteal, Reg., 1865, A Brief Genealogy of the De- printed The Hutchinson Family, giving 1404 deseendants of William Hutchinson and Thomas scendants of another emigrant, Richard Hutch- Oliver. Colonel J. L. Chester made some special inson of Salem. - Ed.]

14. Elder Thomas Oliver came here an old man» with adult children.^ His son John married Elizabeth, daughter of John Newdigate; Peter, another son, married her sister Sarah; James, the third son, was long a selectman. John Oliver, Jr., married Susanna Sweet, and his brother Thomas married daughter of Thomas Brattle; James married Mercy, daughter of Samuel Bradstreet; and Daniel married Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew Belcher. Andrew, son of the last-named, was lieutenant-governor, and brother-in-law of Governor Hutchinson.* .

15. John Hull, the well-known mint-master, deserves notice as an assistant, though he was a trader, and not one of the gentry. His only child married Samuel Sewall, the chief-justice, who was of a Newbury family of similar social position.'

16. Captain Thomas Brattle, merchant, of Boston, who died in 1683, was one of the wealthiest men of his day.* He married Elizabeth, daughter

Suffolk. The second son was Rev. William Brattle, whose son William was the only heir of the name. Edward Brattle, third son, married Mary Legg, of Marblehead, but died x. /. Of the daughters, Elizabeth married Nathaniel Oliver; Katherine married, first, John Eyre, and had two daughters, - one the wife of David Jeffries, the other of John Wallcy ; and the widow Eyre married secondly Wait- Still Winthrop. Bethiah Brattle married Joseph Parsons, and her sister Mary married John Mico. The family continued at Cambridge, and in female lines in Boston, in the next century.

« [See the Oliver genealogy by Mr. Whitmore in the N. E. Hist, and dneal. AVy., April, 1865, and a tabular pedigree in Drake's Boston^ p. 293. - Ed.]

* [Drake, Boston^ p. 586, gives the Sewall pedigree ; but a much more extended account is prefixed to the first volume of Se wall's Diary ^ whereof the third volume is to be issued in 1880 by the Mass. Historical Society. Hull himself had married Judeth, a daughter of Edmund Quincy, the emigrant ancestor of that family, and he b^towed his wife's name upon a headland in the Narragansett country (where he owned lands) which is not of good omen to passengers by the Sound to New York in these days. See note to Mr. Deane't chapter, - Ed.)

* [The Heraldic Journal^ iii. 42, puts his estate at nearly ^"8,000^ - thought to be the largest in New England at that time. Edward D. Harris prmted, in 1867, An Account of some of the Desceftdants of Captain Thomas Brattle, - Ed.)

» [William Tyng lived on Washington Street, where, a few years ago, it turned into Dock Square, covering the foot of firattle Street, now Adams Square. Here he had what was described as ** one house, one 'dose, one garden, one greate yard, and one little yard before the hall windowe." Edward Tyng lived on what was then the lower lot on the north side of State Street, near the corner of Merchants' Row, with his front "wharfed out." Here he had ''one house and yard, and warehouse and brewhoose.** He was admitted a townsman in 1639. - EaJ daughter of Rowland Coytemore, and had Eh'zabeth, wife of Thomas Prattle ; Anne, wife of Rev. Thomas Shcpard ; Bethiah, who married Richard Wharton; and Mercy, who married Samuel Bradstrcct. He had sons, - Edward and Jonathan ; and daughters, - Hannah, Qv -

Jonathan Tyng, son of the first Edward, was also of Dunstable, Mass., where he held a large estate. He married first Sarah, daughter of Hezekiah Usher; secondly, Sarah (Gibbons), widow of Humphrey Davie ; thirdly, Judith, daughter of Rev. John Reyner, and widow of Rev. Jabez Fox. The name long remained at Dunstable, and has been revived in a female branch.

18. William Alford, a member of the Skinners' Company, of London, was a merchant here. His daughter Mary married first Peter Butler, and secondly Hezekiah Usher; and Elizabeth married Nathaniel Hudson. Benjamin Alford - probably his son - married Mary, daughter of James Richards, of Hartford, and had a son John, who died s, /., but founded at Harvard the Professorship of Natural Theology which perpetuates his name.

19. Captain Samuel Scarlet, of Boston (from Kersey, co. Suffolk), died 5. p. in 1675, leaving a good estate. His brother John had two daughters, - Thomasine Taylor and Fryer.