Cambridge City (part 3 of 12)

Besides the liberality of the General Court for the foundation of the College and the legacy of John Harvard, gifts and benefits from individuals were not wanting, but it was "willing poverty" rather than wealth which gave. Among the gifts of the early days we read that the Rev. W. Allen sent two cows. Cotton cloth worth nine shillings was given by Richard Dana, the ancestor of another Richard Dana, who, nearly two hundred 3'ears later, when a student at Harvard, went for two years before the mast, and on his return gave the world a deHghtful book. The Rev. Mr. Latham, of Lancaster County, England, sent five pounds. Sir Richard Saltonstall, a man of large means, gave generously and his descendants, for generation after generation, have shown their love for Harvard by a continued bounty. Theophilus Gale, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, "a learned and industrious divine, as appears by his "Court of the Gentiles," and his "Vanity of Pagan Philosophy," bequeathed his library to the College. From the New England towns and villages, and even from distant settlements, contributions flowed in. Little Scarborough, awa}' to the north in Maine, sent two pounds nine shillings and six pence, while from the far-distant South, the people of Eleutheria in the Bahamas, "out of their poverty," sent one hundred and twentyfour pounds. Smaller gifts came in, such as a pewter flagon worth ten shillings, a bell, a fruit-dish, a sugar-spoon, a silver tipped jug, one great salt, and one small trencher salt.

One event in connection with the founding of the College was of equal importance to the town and to the Colony. In a letter dated at Salem, October 10th, 1638, Hugh Peters wrote, "We have a printerer here and think to go to work with some special things." This was a hand press with which, in the summer of 1638, Jose Glover and his wife started from England. Glover died on the voyage, but with him had started Stephen D a y e, his wife and two children, and his stepson William Boardman, ancestor of four successive stewards of Harvard College. In January, 163 9, Stephen Daye brought the press to Cambridge and set it up there. The first "special thing" printed was the "Freeman's Oath," then an almanac made for New England by "Mr. William Peirce Mariner," the founder of the family which has produced the most distinguished of American mathematicians. These two were pamphlets, and the first little book printed in America was a metrical version of the Book of Psalms for use in the worship of the New England congregation. The press became "an appendage to Harvard College," and its establishment at Cambridge founded there a business for which the town has been and still is famous. The great estaljlishments of the Riverside Press, the University Press, and the Athenaeum Press still make Cambridge the center of printing in America, and send the characteristic Cambridge product all over the world.

The arrival and installation in 1640 of Henry Dunster to be the first President was an event of large s i g nific a n c e. Dunster was born at Bur}% in Lancashire, on November 26th, 1609, so he was only thirty-one when he became President. He took his Bachelor's Degree at Cambridge, England, in 1630, and his Master's Degree in 1634. He was thus a contemporary at the University with John Har\^ard and John Milton. After leaving the University he appears to have engaged in teaching, though Cotton Mather speaks of his having "exercised his ministry" in England. He came to New England in the summer of 1640, and almost immediately upon his arrival he was invited to take charge of the Kttle college which had barely escaped infanticide at the hands of Eaton. He was at first the sole teacher, and he also acted as Treasurer and General Manager. It appears that Dunster gave instruction not only in Greek and Latin, but also in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac. At morning prayers his students were required to translate from the Hebrew scripture into Greek, and at evening prayers to retranslate the English text of the New Testament into Greek. As already noted Latin was the only language authorized on the college premises. Dunster also "exercised his gift" of preaching, both in Cambridge and in the neighboring churches, so that it is obvious that his varied qualities and resources were given plenty of exercise. He was untiring in industry and faithful to every duty. Though his salary was very small and irregularly paid, he gave to the college not only his learning and his skilled labor, but also practically all of his hmited estate, including one hundred acres of land in Shawsheen, which he had purchased on his arrival as an investment for the little fund he had brought with him. This liberality quickened that of his fellow citizens, but it was always the hardest kind of a struggle to maintain the institution. " I was and am willing," wrote Dunster to Winthrop in 164.3, "considering the profit of the country to descend to the lowest step. If there can be nothing comfortable allowed me, I will sit down appeased, desiring not more than what may supply me and mine with food and raiment to the furtherance of our labors for the good of the Church and the Commonwealth." It was Dunster, who thus joined with Harvard in laying the foundation, both educationally and materially, of the college.

"Nine bachelors commenced at Cambridge; they were young men of good hope and performed their acts so as gave good proof of their proficiency in the tongues and arts. The General Court had settled a government or superintendency over the College, viz., all the magistrates and elders over the six nearest churches and the president, or the greatest part of these. Most of them were now present at the first Commencement, and dined at the College with the scholars ordinary commons, which was done of purpose for the students' encouragement, and it gave good content to all."

A copy of the first Commencement programme, written in sonorous Latin, and dated September 26th, 1642, is still in existence. The titles of the theses in language, in rhetoric, in philosophy, justify Governor Winthrop's testimony to the proficiency of the young scholars. The names of the nine first graduates are significant not only of the loyalty of the leaders of the Colony, but also of the purpose for which their little College was founded. At the head of the list stands the name of Benjamin Woodbridge, the son of a prominent Puritan minister in England, who had already studied for several terms at Oxford. His brother. Rev. John Woodbridge, had come to Boston in 16.34, had married Mercy, daughter of Thomas Dudley, and was settled as minister at Andover, Mass. Benjamin Woodbridge returned to England and was minister at Newbury for nearly forty years; enjoying "a mighty reputation as a scholar, a preacher, and a Christian." Though silenced by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662, he evidently continued to preach until his death in 1684.

George Downing, whose name stands next, was a nephew of Governor Winthrop, the son of his sister Lucy. He came over with his parents in 1638 and the family settled at Salem under the ministry of Hugh Peters. Downing had a strange and romantic career. At first he was employed as a tutor at the College at a salary of £4 "to read to the junior pupils as the President shall see fit." Then he went to England by the way of the West Indies and next appears in the Parliamentary army, where he rose so fast that when not more than twentyfive years old he became a member of Cromwell's own staff and wrote the dispatch to Parliament announcing the victory at Worcester. He was Cromwell's agent sent to the Duke of Savoy to remonstrate against the persecution of the Waldenses in Piedmont, and was also a special ambassador to France. He became a member of Parliament and later minister to Holland. He changed sides at the Restora- tion and served Charles II as zealously as he had served the Commonwealth. His name appears often in Pepy's Diary, and he is described as "keen, bold, subtle, active and observant, but imperious and unscrupulous, actually preferring menace to persuasion, reckless of the means employed or the risks incurred in the pursuit of a proposed object." He was later Secretary of the Commissioners of the Treasury, and Downing Street, in London, where the Prime Minister lives, was named for him. He married Frances Howard, and so became allied with one of the noblest families of the English peerage. He died in 1648, leaving a reputation of a man of extraordinary' force but of doubtful character and merit.

John BuJMey, the third graduate, was the son of Rev. Peter Bulkley, who had come to New England in 1635 and was the first minister at Concord, Mass. Th< younger Bulkley served for a year or two with his classmate Downing as a tutor to the College and then he, too, went to England and settled in the ministry at Fordham in the county of Essex. He was ejected by the Act of Uniformit}- in 1662 and he died in London in 1689. This John Bulkley was one of the earliest benefactors of the College, for in 1635 he gave to the College a piece of land "situate and near adjoining to the College, and ordered the same to be for the use of the Fellows that should from time to time belong to and be resident at the said Society. The said Garden being commonly called and known by the name of the Fellows Orchard." This was a piece of ground lying to the east of the College building and stretching from what is now

The next name on the list of the Class of 1642 is that of William Hubbard, who later was settled in the ministry at Ipswich, Mass. He is remembered as the author of "A Narrative of the Trouble with the Indians," published in 1677, and of a "History of New England," finished in 1680. Hubbard kept up his connection with the College all his life, and we find him presiding at the Commencements of 1684 and of 1688. He is recorded as "the most eminent minister in the county of Essex, equal to any in the province for learning and candor and superior to all of his contemporaries - r- ^ as a writer."

The next is Samuel Bellingh a m , son of Richard Bellingham, a member of the Committee in charge of the College and the future Go\-crnor. This man also retumcd to England and later studied medicine at Leyden. He appears to have lived in or near London and ne\-er to ha\-c retmned to New England.

Then comes the name of John Wilson, the son of the Rev. John Wilson of the First Church in Boston. He became for a time an assistant to Rev. Richard Mather of Dorchester, and in Kiol was settled at Medfield, where he was minister for forty years, until his death in 1691.

Henry Saltonstall was the son of Sir Richard Saltonstall, one of the founders of the Colony. He returned to England and became a Fellow at Oxford.

graduates, Nathaniel Brewster, had an honorable career. He was a Puritan minister in England and later in Ireland, where he received the Degree of Bachelor of Theology from the University of Dublin. Ejected by the Act of Uniformity he returned to New Eng- 1 a n d and later settled as minister at Brookhaven, on Long Island, where his three sons lived. He continued his work there until his death in 1690 at the age of 70.

With the completion of the building, the settlement of the first President and the graduation of thr first class, the founding of the College may be said to have been Soi.i.n i:-' .Mommkni and in 1650 the Charter was granted under which the College is still administered. By this Charter the College was made a corporation, consisting of the President, five Fellows and a Treasurer, to be called by the name of the President and Fellows of Harvard College . This Charter created Henry Drmster. President ; vSamuel Mather, Samuel Danforth, Jonathan Mitchell, Comfort Starr, and Samuel Eaton, the five Fellows, and Henry Belknap, Treasurer. The Charter liears the signature of "Thomas Dudley, Governor." It must have given Governor Dudley proc A Mill; I DUE Common. found satisfaction to sign the paper which thus gave permanent distinction to the town which he had done so much to plant.

The Colony

THE year 1041 is the year in which the adoption of the Great Remonstrance showed that the Long Parliament of England -understood its duty and could do it. "If the vote had been lost," said Cromwell, " I would have sold all I had and never have seen England more." That meant that he would have emigrated to Massachusetts. He would have arrived just in time for the first Commencement of Harvard College, just as the General Court was striking the name of King Charles I out of the oath of allegiance, and just as four of the New England colonies were planning their confederation. He would have found Massachusetts a well ordered, selfcontrolled community of more than twenty thousand people, with all the necessary institutions of government, education and religion in operation. He would have found churches, schools and college, rudely housed indeed, but with all the essential elements of efficiency provided, a code of law adopted by the will of the people and resolutely administered, a representative system of government working smoothly and successfully, and a people practicing all the industries required for their separate maintenance. He would have found, in short, the completed foundations of what is now the most prosperous democracy in the world.

Here, on a clear field, unoccupied by any organized society, with no pre-existent institutions to cumber the ground, the experiment of planting and constructing a civil and ecclesiastical government was being successfully worked out. No external power had been suffered to interfere, and no Old World precedents allowed to claim authority. No noble proprietor, nor commercial corporation, dictated the procedure. The whole plan of action was formulated without suggestions or influence from any outside quarter, by the people on the spot. They were a chosen people, intelligent, thoughtful, brave and devout. They were well acquainted with the ancient "and feudal forms of government but they applied none of them here. Having a new country to dwell in, they resolved to establish nothing but what their own experience should prove to be necessary or desirable. In this respect the New England colonies differed from most of the other American plantations. General Oglethorpe planned the social and political system of Georgia, John Locke drafted a contrivance of government for the Carolinas, Lord Baltimore superintended Maryland, William Penn planted and ruled Pennsylvania, and other proprietors and patrons controlled their several settlements. But the founders of Massachusetts tried every step for themselves, they held fast only to what thej- themselves discovered to be appropriate and efficient. By the consent and initiation of the people all the essential features of a stable commonwealth were stamped into the fabric of society in the first twenty years of the ColonJ^

This is no insignificant fact in the history of liberty. One hundred and forty-six years before the Declaration of Independence of the United States, Massachusetts was an independent government and continued so for more than half a century. It was more independent in this colonial period than it ever has been since. After the abolition of the first charter in 1684, Massachusetts became a royal province. Its governors were appointed by the king and the royal assent was needed to give validity to its laws. Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, Massachusetts has been in man}- respects and to a considerable extent subjects to the law adopted by Congress for the general welfare of the nation. During the first fifty-four years, however, the people of Massachusetts were as free to rule themselves as if they had lived on another planet. They chose all their own administrators, asked the approval of no authority for their laws, suffered no appeal to

The Colony

It is further significant that a more efficient government for the preservation of order and the promotion of the common welfare has never existed anywhere. Nothing can surpass the spirit, courage, ability and success with which the people of Massachusetts withstood and repelled all the demands or possible encroachments from the mother country. Local offences were rebuked and disorder suppressed b}' decisive measures. No rank nor station, no popular affection, no respect for particular persons, however eminent, could obstruct the course of an even-handed justice. The General Court in the exercise of its sovereignty treated all men alike, those of its own body as well as those without. The most distinguished men of the community were brought to the bar, when they offended, as promptly as the meanest. John Winthrop himself suffered the rebuke of his colleagues. Thomas Dudley was admonished. Sir Richard Saltonstall was fined. John Endicott was disqualified temporarily from holding office and committed for contempt of the court. The severities of the penal code adopted by the General Court have often been condemned by the historical writers of a more humane age, but it should be remembered that this code was far in advance of the habits of the most enlightened countries in the seventeenth century. More than one hundred years passed before England adopted a code so just and mild as the New England " Body of Liberties." If the Puritans based their penal laws upon the Old Testament, that was itself a standard far in advance of the common usage of their day. In fact they did not always follow the details of the Hebrew law. It was a gratification to them when they found confirmation of their principles in the Scriptures, and the}' often availed themselves of that support. Nevertheless, it is true that in their secular administration they sought, first, to put into practice the principles that can stand the test of all time. Rightly, as a well qualified critic has affirmed, "Our ancestors, instead of deducing all their laws from 'the Books of Moses, established, at the outset, a code of fundamental principles, which, taken as a whole, for wisdom, equity, adaptation to the wants of their community, and a liberality of sentiment superior to the age in which it was written, may fearlessly challenge comparison with any similar production, from Magna Charta itself to the latest Bill of Rights that has been put forth in Europe or America."

The geographical boundaries of the Colony and the frame-work of its government were outlined in the Charter granted to the Massachusetts Company by Charles the First. The liberal terms of this Charter plainly indicate that the King was not loath to have such turbulent subjects betake themselves across the Atlantic. He was quite ready to expedite their departure and to speed an enterprise which would take such sturdy opponents of his policies comfortably out of the way.

The Charter provided that the officers of the company should be a governor, a deputygovernor, and eighteen assistants, to be chosen annually. To the governor and assistants was given power and authority to choose "as many freemen as they shall think fit; to elect and constitute such officers as they shall deem requisite for the ordering, managing and despatching the affairs of the governor and company," and, in General Court assembled, " to make laws and ordinances for the good and welfare of the said Company and ordering of the said lands and plantation, and the people inhabiting and to inhabit the same, as to them from lime to time shall be thought meet; so that such laws and ordinances be not contrary or repugnant to the laws and statutes of this our realm of England," and further, "from time to time to make, ordain and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, laws, statutes and ordinances, directions and instructions, not contrary to the laws of this our realm of England, for the settling of the forms and ceremonies of government and magistracy there," and to name the officers they shall appoint, define their duties and prescribe the administering of oaths to them.

The Charter gave to the members of the Company the express and absolute right to admit new associates. The persons thus admitted became full partners and equal members of the Company and were called Freemen. Had the original members been actuated by selfish motives and retained their rights as a close corporation, the fortunes of the plantation and their own fame would have been brief and ignoble. They were, however, so generous and enlightened as to almost at once transfer their authority to the people of the Colony itself.

The steps by which the Massachusetts plantation became a self-governing and independent colony are very interesting to follow. They are closely associated with the historj' of Cambridge, for not only were Cambridge citizens among the foremost to promote the successive advances, but many of the important decisions were made upon Cambridge soil or had direct relation to Cambridge events.

The first session of the General Court for elections in the Colony was held at Boston, May IS, 1631. At this session, one hundred and sixteen persons took the oath and were admitted as Freemen. The further purpose of the Court to place all final power in the hands of the people themselves was indicated at the same meeting by a vote which gave authority to the Freemen to nominate candidates for assistants. It was ordered that "once in every 3'ear, at least, a General Court shall be holden, at which court it shall be lawful for the commons to propound any person or persons whom the}- shall desire to be chosen assistants, and if it be doubtful whether it be the greater part of the commons or not, it shall be put to the poll. The like course to be holden when the}^ the said commons, shall see cause for any defect or misbehavior, to remove any one or more of the assistants."

The next vital question about political matters was raised over an issue in which Cambridge was closely involved. As early as February, 1632, a warrant was sent out by the Court of Assistants to levy a tax of £()0 for the expense of building the stockade at Mewtowne. The minister and people of Watertown protested against the payment of their assessment and urged "that it was not safe to pay monies after that sort, for fear of bringing themselves and posterity into bondage." They insisted that the Court of Assistants had no right to levy taxes without authority from the people.

pointed out that no rights of the Freemen had been disregarded, that the Assistants could be elected only b}^ the Freemen, who had the right to remove them and elect others in their places, and that at every General Court the Freemen had the right to consider and propound anything regarding the government, and to declare their grievances freely. This explanation for the time satisfied the Watertown people, and they made a retraction of their plea, and were enjoined to read it in the assembly the next Lord's day.

Nevertheless, this question of the right of the Assistants to assess taxes upon the towns without the consent of the people, although temporarily disposed of, was a live issue and brought about the first significant alteration in the plan of government. At the session of the Court which was held in the succeeding May an order was passed, apparently by general consent, "that there should be two of every plantation appointed to confer with the Court about raising of a public stock," and the appointments were made at the session. The purpose of this order was to have a representation from the Freemen to advise with the Assistants in the la^'ing of taxes. It was a step towards the organization of two branches of the General Court.

In accordance with this vote two persons were appointed from Watertown, Roxbury, Boston, Saugus, Newtowne, Charlestown, Salem and Dorchester, the eight towns which had been organized.

The next advance in the political methods of the little Colony was the adoption of a representative system. It was ordered, "That four General Courts be kept ever}' year; that the whole body of the Freemen should be present only at the Court of Election of Magistrates, and that, at the other three, every town should send their deputies, who should assist in making laws and disposing lands." These deputies began to sit as a separate house in 1644 and the framework of the government was then complete.

The most distinctive decision and the one which has not stood the test of time and experience, was the attempt to limit the franchise to church members, in the effort to secure a scrupulously moral and intelligent electorate.

As early as 1631 the General Court passed the following order: "To the end that the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men, it was likewise ordered and agreed that for time to come no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of the churches within the limits of the same."

This vote has often been derided or used to illustrate the fundamental narrowness of the Massachusetts men. Whatever we may think of its wisdom and expediency todaj' it was absolutely in accord with the clearly defined purposes of the Company.

The excellent and revered John White, of the English Dorchester, the original promoter of the Massachusetts Colony, in his "Planters' Plea," written in 1680, had well defined the necessary limitations of the enlistment for the enterprise. "The persons chosen out for this employment," he wrote, "ought to be willing, constant, industrious, obedient, frugal, lovers of the common good, or, at least, such as may be easily wrought to this temper; considering that works of this nature try the undertakers with man)' difficulties, and easily discourage minds of base and weak temper." With equal force and frankness, he described the persons who were not suitable:

"Men nourished up in idleness, unconstant and affecting novelties, unwilling, stubborn, inclined to faction, covetous, luxurious, prodigal and generally men habituated to any gross evil, are no fit members of a colony."

There has always been a widespread misunderstanding of the motives and purposes of the founders of Massachusetts. It is not uncommonly supposed that they carhe hither, to use the words of the most distinguished historian of New England, "to place a colony which should be a refuge for civil and religious freedom." Such a purpose, however, finds no expression in the words of the planters of Massachusetts themselves. Indeed, it may be justly said that they never achieved or desired any knowledge of what religious freedom, as we understand it, means. It is altogether probable that if it had been defined to them they would have rejected it with abhorrence. What they really sought is best set forth in the little treatise which John Winthrop wrote in the cabin of the Arbella in the course of the voyage. There we read that "the work we have in hand" is "to seek out a place of cohabitation and consortship under a due form of government both civil and ecclesiastical." It is a mistake to flatter the founders of Massachusetts by ascribing to them purposes which to us today seem peculiarly worthy and highminded, but which they never cherished. They do not need such defense or vindication. On the other hand it is an equal error to censure them upon the assumption that they came to America fleeing from religious persecution and then in turn became persecutors themselves. Both critics and defenders fail in justice because they assume a purpose which never existed. Not a single sentence can be quoted from any of their writings which justifies the contention that they sought or desired religious freedom for all men. It was entirely in accord with their ftmdamental motives that they restricted the rights of citizenship to those who accepted their religious covenants; that they punished the intruders whose ways and opinions offended them, and that they banished the people who raised strife or dissent.

It should also be remembered that the charter of the Company gave to the General Court "full and absolute power and authority to correct, punish, pardon and rule," all the people within the bounds of their jurisdiction, and that they had further power to repel and resist all interlopers or persons who were not in sympathy with their habits of thought and life. No power short of this would have secured the enlistment of the kind of people who made up the Massachusetts Company. They required the right of self-administration, the right of admitting those whom they pleased to be their associates, and the power to expel all who might threaten or annoy them in the progress of their great experiment of establishing "a due form of government both civil and ecclesiastical." Their enterprise was no haphazard adventure. It was undertaken with serious earnestness, with resolute purpose, and upon a far-seeing and comprehensive plan which was steadfastly adhered to through good report and ill. Through much toil and suffering they established a "body politic," all of whose usages and institutions were adapted

Two serious misgivings only were known to them, - that they themselves by fault or infirmity might fail of fidelity to their ideal, or that it should be brought into peril through the waywardness of those who by love of novelty or hope of gain might creep in among them. Against the first danger they sought security under their solemn religious covenants and by continuous exhortation to patience, courage and devotion to the standards of thought and conduct which they discovered in the Bible. Against the second peril they protected themselves by exercising their authority to thwart and drive out from amongst them those who were unsympathetic or of less earnest purpose than themselves. They gladly welcomed newcomers who were of spirit and purpose like their own, but they were keen and rigid in their scrtitinj- of those whose sincerity or whose moral character or whose adhesion to Puritan principles were doubtful. They especially distrusted the people who believed themselves favored with private and personal revelations in matters of theology. The}^ were beset by all sorts of crude and whimsical fanatics, men and women, who had come to the new world expecting to find an unsettled state of afTairs in which they would have free range for their eccentricities. These persons were, as a rule, blameless in character and they would probably pass unnoticed in the atmosphere and the thronging population of Massachusetts today. In the early days, however, they were a source of grave concern and the General Court disposed of them in a manner which, if it was severe and high-handed, was at the same time perfectly legal and actuated by a complete assurance that justice and right were alike being served. The magistrates did not feel themselves bound to give any reasons for warning off or expelling factious people save that they deemed them "unmeet to inhabit here." They insisted on their charter right to judge and act for themselves.

The first conspicuous subject of what is denounced as the intolerance of the Massachusetts Puritans was Roger Williams. Williams came to Massachusetts in the first year of the Colony, an ardent, restless, self-willed young prophet of "soul-liberty." He was not a member of the Company and never became a Freeman. He was a rigid Separatist and John Quincy Adams characterized him accurately when he said of him that he was "a conscientiously contentious man." The opinions and the public speech of Williams in the days of his youthful zeal and self-confidence were an affront to the most cherished Puritan principles. Though a man of uncommon ability and sincere piety he was belligerent, aggressive and obstinate. At one time, indeed, he htimbly confessed that he was in error and submitted to the judgment of the Court. That is, however, the only instance known to us in all his life of his yielding his own judgment, and in that instance he soon repented of his penitence and engaged again in acrimonious dispute. Finally, in 1635, by the judgment of the Court sitting at Cambridge he was required to "depart from the jurisdiction" and went on his way to the settlement of Providence. It is well to remember that as he grew older he mellowed. He was taught patience by having to deal in his own colony with just such rankling opponents as he had himself been in Massachusetts. He grew also to appreciate the personal kindnesses which he received from his former comrades, even those who in the exercise of their authority had had to deal with him as a dangerous and mischievous offender. Williams never felt any malice toward those who had "enlarged" him and he wrote in the terms of deepest respect for "that ever-honored Governor, Mr. Winthrop," who, he said, "advised him for many high and heavenly and public ends," to steer his course to Narragansett Bay.

The next occasion of discord had still more intimate connection with Cambridge, for the courts and synods that decided the case were held on the common or in the Cambridge meeting-house. Anne Hutchinson, with her husband, William Hutchinson, "a gentleman of good estate and reputation" had reached Boston in September, 1G34. They had been followers of John Cotton in the Lincolnshire Boston and wished to continue to enjoy his preaching. The first mention of Mrs. Hutchinson in John Winthrop's journal bears the date October 21, Kiod. He there describes her as

"a member of the church of Boston, a woman of ready wit and bold spirit," who was promulgating certain dangerous heresies. Her brotherin-law, a minister named Wheelwright, was her supporter, and it appeared that the Governor, young Henry Vane, at least two of the assistants and the majority of the Boston church shared her opinions. What those opinions were it is a little difficult to ascertain, or at least it is difficult in these days to understand why the declaration of them could have caused such a tumult. Apparently Mrs. Hutchinson maintained that good conduct was not a satisfactory evidence of piety, and the best evidence of spiritual attainment was the inner assurance. In the theological language her heresy consisted in insisting that "the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person," and that "no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification." In October, 1636, it was proposed that Mr. Wheelwright be invited to serve the Boston Church as its teacher to the practical exclusion of Mr. Wilson who had been prompt to disavow Mrs. Hutchinson's heresies, while his colleague, Mr. Cotton, was understood to be somewhat sympathetic with them. The tact of Winthrop secured a call for Mr. Wheelwright to the charge of a new church at Mount Wollaston, but the controversy went on and the excitement increased. The matter got into politics and at the General Court in March, 1636-37, contentions ran so high, that, although it had been so recently declared that " Boston is the fittest place for publique meetings of any place in the Bay," it was determined that the Court of Elections should not be held there. It was thereupon held in Newtowne, soon to be Cambridge, where, after scenes of tumult, Winthrop was again chosen Governor and Dudley Deputy-governor, while Vane, after a single year's service, was not even included among the Assistants. It was during this election that the first "Stump Speech" was made in this part of the world and by no less a person than the Rev. John Wilson. Mr. Wilson having " got up on the bough of a tree," made a speech which was said to have turned the scale against the " Antinomians," as Mrs. Hutchinson's party was called.

most critical occasion. The fate of the Colony hung in the balance. Judge Sewall wrote years afterwards, " My father has told me many a time that he and others went on foot, forty miles from Newbury to Cambridge, on purpose to be made freemen and help to strengthen Governor Winthrop's party." Two months after his defeat young Vane embarked for England and never returned to America. It should, however, be remembered to his credit, that in spite of his mortification, he afterwards, when he held important positions in Parliament and the government, was ever a wise and steadfast friend of New England.

Meanwhile, the political issues disposed of, the theological questions were debated by a synod or conference that sat for three weeks at Cambridge. Mrs. Hutchinson was interrogated and defended her opinions with remarkable ability and skill, but she was finally excommunicated and forced to leave the Colony. Wheelwright was banished. Six years afterwards he sotight pardon for "the vehement and censorious spirit which he had shown," and his sentence was recalled. The victorjof those who believed in preserving inviolate the orthodoxy of the colonists was complete.

The proceedings of the courts and synods in this case are not commended or approved by the more liberal judgment of later generations but it is certain that the Massachusetts rulers had no conception that the methods which they emploj'ed and which are now justly seen to have been harsh and arbitrary were in the least blameworth)^ Their acts are candidly entered upon the records and never apologized for. It is not necessary now to palliate the severities or even to assent to the wisdom or expediency of the measures employed. It is not necessary to vindicate the Puritans or to approve of their theories or to endorse all their acts, but justice requires us to look not only at the actions but also at the motives of those who, in the exercise of their rightful authority, did what they believed to be their duty.

In 1638 the colony was called on to confront a peremptory demand from the Lords Commissioners in England for the surrender of the charter, coupled with the threat of sending over a General Governor from England. But, happily, diplomatic delays were interposed and the direct issue was "avoided and protracted" by the discreet management of Governor Winthrop, until the King and his ministers became too much engrossed with their own condition at home to think more about their colonies. The charter was saved for another half century.

The year 1641 was rendered memorable by the adoption of a code of laws, a hundred in number, and known as " the Body of Liberties." It had been prepared by Nathaniel Ward, pastor of the Ipswich Church, who had been bred to the law in his youth. This code is purely a Puritan product but its spirit is nevertheless curiously modem. The law of England at that time enumerated some thirty crimes and misdemeanors that were punishable by death. The New England law reduced this number to twelve. The spirit of the code is disclosed in the opening paragraph where we read, "No man's life shall be taken away; no man's honor or good name shall be stained; no man's person shall be arrested, restrained, punished, dismembered, nor in any ways damaged; no man shall be deprived of his wife or children; no man's goods or estate shall be taken away nor in any way endangered under cover of law, unless it be by virtue or equity of some expressed law of the country warranting the same, established by the General Court and squarely published, or, in case of a defect of the law in any particular case, by the word of God."

This code was very carefully debated and altered by the General Court, then sent into all the towns for consideration, revised and amended by the General Court, and then adopted.

As the Body of Liberties set forth the civic and legal principles of the Massachusetts people, so the "Cambridge Platform" set forth the principles of church organization. The first synod or general counsel of the churches was held at Cambridge in connection with the antinomian controversy. This assembly was called by the General Court and the traveling expenses of the ministers and delegates who came from a distance were paid from the colonial treasury. The synod began at Cambridge, on August 30, 1G37, and was held in the meeting-house. It was composed of "all the teaching elders through the country and some new come out of England not called to any place here." There were about twenty-five ministers thus gathered and with them sat the Massachusetts magistrates who took part in the debates but not in the voting. There were also a number of deputies from the lay members of the churches who both spoke and voted. The synod was thus distinctly representative of the churches and it emphasized the growing sense of community and responsibility. The result of this synod was to uphold the action of the Court in the case of Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends. It was in session for nearly a month and the results were so satisfactory that Governor Winthrop proposed that such synods should be annually held, but this suggestion was disapproved.

A second convention was held at Cambridge in September, 1643, with John Cotton and Thomas Hooker for its moderators, and this gathering approved Winthrop's suggestion and urged that a new General Council be called to give to the churches "one uniform order of discipline." It took some time to carry out this decision, but on May 15, 1646, the General Court invited the churches of the four federated colonies to send their ministers and delegates to meet at Cambridge on the first of September "there to discuss, dispute and clear up, by the word of God, such questions of church government and discipline as they shall think needful and meet." It was this synod which adopted the Cambridge Platform as an ecclesiastical constitution in seventeen chapters. The draft of this celebrated document was made by the Rev. Richard Mather of Dorchester, and it was furnished with a preface by John Cotton. The Platform was duly published and after some time approved by the General Court, and it continued the recognized standard of theology and government in the New England churches throughout the colonial period.

A still greater event of 1641, and one of the most significant events in the early history of the country, was the final formation of that New England Confederation or Union, by written articles of agreement, which is the original example and pattern of whatever unions or confederations have since been pro- posed or established on the American continent. This agreement was adopted by the four Colonies, - Massachusetts and Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven, - the four which were afterwards consolidated into two. It was formed by those who were "desirous of union and studious of peace," and it embodied principles, and recognized rights, and established precedents which have entered largely into the composition of all articles of confederation or instruments of union. It had been proposed as early as 16.37, and Governor Winthrop had labored unceasingly to accomplish it for six years. He was recognized as its principal promoter by Thomas Hooker in a remarkable letter, thanking him for the

"speciall prudence" with which he had labored "to settled a foundation of safety and prosperity in succeeding ages," and for laying, with his faithful assistants, "the first stone of the foundation of this combynation of peace." The little congress of commissioners was held and organized in Boston on the 7th (17th) of September, 1643, and Winthrop was elected the first president. The same day of the same month, nearly a hundred and fifty years later, was to mark the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, in which it is not difficult to discern some provisions which may have owed their origin to the Articles of the New England Confederation.

THE characteristic feature of New England from the beginning was the fact that its inhabitants dwelt together in towns. This peculiarity was fruitful in its political and social consequences. It differentiated the social structure of the New England colonies from their neighbors to the south, where, as in Virginia, the large land owners lived apart from one another on considerable estates. One obvious cause of this difference was the character of the soil and its products, but another and more potent reason was the ecclesiastical system of the New England people. The town was an organization for united worship as well as for the conduct of secular affairs. The inhabitants placed their houses as near as possible to the meeting-house. To the meeting-house all the people went twice on Sunday, and it was the center of the whole community life. In addition to their houselots, most of the people, as we have seen in the account of the settling of Cambridge, secured grants of wood lots and pasture lands and a considerable section of each town was set aside for commons. Each town was a little commonwealth, having its officers chosen by popular vote and its own deliberative assembly, where public measures of local interest were discussed and determined. In these village parliaments the democratic idea in its original form was realized. The executive authorities of each town were the constable, the selectmen or townsmen, the town clerk and various minor officers.

The boundaries of the original Newtowne were very limited. Its territory was, however, soon enlarged by a large grant of land south of the river, and at the General Court held in March, 1630, it was agreed that the bounds of the town should extend eight miles into the country northward from the meetinghouse, thus including half of the present town of Lexington. In 1641, 1642 and 1644, the town received additional grants, consisting mainly of the territory then called Shawshin. which carried the northern boundary nearly to the Merrimac. At this period of its greatest size the town thus extended in a curiously irregular line, more than thirty miles in length, from a point several miles to the south of the Charles, almost to the Merrimac, and included the greater part, if not the whole, of Brighton, Newton, Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Billerica and portions of Belmont and Winchester. It should be remembered that the land near Mount Auburn at this time belonged to Watertown, and that where East Cambridge and Cambridgeport now are, was then an uninhabited region of marsh, meadow and tangled forest growth. On May 29, 1655, with the consent of Cambridge, the Shawshin grant became the township of Billerica. On August 27, 1679, Cambridge Village, as it was called, was organized as a separate town, which later received the name of Newton, and on March 20, 1713, "Cambridge Farms" was set off and organized as Lexington. Little Cambridge and Menotomy (Brighton and Arlington) remained a part of the town for nearly another century.

The records of the town and of the selectmen of Cambridge from 1630 to 1703 have been carefully collected and printed, and graphically illustrate the diligence of the local administrators. The chief business in the early years was the allotment of land to the inhabitants, and as the land was taken up the records abound in votes about the care of the sheep and cattle, the cutting of timber on the common, the adjustment of disputes about boundaries, the surveying of lots and farms, and the ordering of the highways. The great events of the village history find due mention, the building of the new meeting-house in 1649, and of the parsonage in 1669, the successive settlement of the ministers of the town, and the building of the "Great Bridge," in 1660- 1664. This latter undertaking was no small enterprise. A causeway had to be constructed across the marsh at the foot of what is now Boylston Street, and a bridge built which would stand the crush of the ice as it moved and down the river with the tides. The cost of the undertaking fell heavily on the settlement, but citizens of neighboring towns helped with private subscriptions, and the General Court later required the other towns of Middlesex County that used the bridge as much as Cambridge to contribute to the cost of maintenance.

The Cambridge settlers, like all the New England people, were remarkably homogeneous in race and in spirit. They were of pure English stock. Their traditions, their religious convictions, their ideas about forms of government and the administration of justice were practically identical. There were very few social distinctions. Some of the pioneers had been in England substantial country gentlemen and others had been merchants of considerable means, but in New England there were no large landed estates and there was no law of entail. The magistrates, who were generally chosen from the most respected families, and on account of their own worth, were held in a certain honor. The military offices in the several towns were also posts of honor and the regular days for military drill were occasions of importance. It was also the custom to allot the seats of the congregation in the meeting-house with regard to the dignity of its members, an order of precedence which was carefully determined. Nevertheless, as in all pioneer communities, all the people labored, debated and worshipped together. Trial bj' jury was early established in the Massachusetts Colony. There were town courts and county courts, and above them the Court of Assistants, and the General Court, to which appeal might be carried in important cases. The decision of the magistrates was final. There was never any recognition of the control of the common law of England, and any effort to take appeals to an English court or king was sure to fail.

The military force of the Massachusetts Colony was a militia in which all the men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were enrolled. They were required to furnish their own arms, which consisted of pikes, muskets and swords. The muskets had matchlocks or flintlocks, and to each one there was "a pair of bandoleers, or pouches, for powder and bullets," and a stick called a rest, for use in taking aim. The pikes were ten feet in length, besides the spear at the end. For defensive armor corselets were worn, and coats quilted with cotton.

The unit of the militia was the train-band of each to^vn, consisting usually of from fifty to two hundred men. The commissioned officers of each train-band were a captain, a lieutenant and an ensign. Company trainings took place, at first, every Saturday; and later once a month. They were begun and closed with prayer. The only martial music was that of the drum. In 1644 Massachusetts had twentysix train-bands, and "a very gallant horse troop." The companies were gathered into regiments, which generally represented a county. There was, thus, a Suffolk, a Middlesex and an Essex regiment. Over the whole force of the Colony was a major-general, subordinate only to the governor.

Cambridge citizens had a very active part in all these military matters. Thomas Dudley was the first major-general, John Haynes was the colonel of the Middlesex regiment, and Roger Harlakenden the lieutenant-colonel. The Cambridge train-band was commanded by George Cooke, afterwards one of Cromwell's colonels, and its ensign was Samuel Shepard who also later served as a major in the Parliamentary army. Joseph Cooke succeeded his brother as captain, but was soon relieved by Daniel Gookin, who retained the office for forty years, rising meanwhile to the command of all the Middlesex militia, and in 16S1 to be major-general.

Houses of public entertainment were naturally established early in the Massachusetts towns, but great caution was taken in the licensing of "grave and responsible citizens." On September 8, 1636, Thomas Chesholm, deacon of the First Church, got a license to "keep a house of entertainment at Newtown," and four years later he was licensed "to draw wine at Cambridge." His tavern stood on Dunster Street, just back of the meetinghouse, and he apparently kept it until his death in 1071. Meanwhile, another deacon of the church, Nathaniel Sparhawk, was "permitted to draw wine and strong water in Cambridge." His house was on the easterly side of Boylston Street, one-half way between Harvard Square and Mt. Auburn Street. In 1652 we find the first record of the famous Blue Anchor Tavern. In that year "the townsmen granted liberty to Andrew Belcher to sell beer and provide entertainment for strangers," and two years later the County Court granted him a license "to keep a house of public entertainment at Cambridge." Mr. Belcher was a highly-respected man. His son, Andrew Belcher, Jr., became a member of the Provincial Council, and his grandson, Jonathan Belcher, became governor of Massachusetts. The sign of the Blue Anchor was displayed on the northeast comer of Boylston and Mt. Auburn Streets, and the Belcher family continued to be innholders until 1705. The building continued to be a tavern up to 1737, when the sign of the Blue Anchor was transferred across the street and there continued for nearly a centurs'.

It is not difficult to reconstruct a rough picture of the Cambridge of the last half of the seventeenth century. The original loghouses were gradually replaced b}' substantial two-story dwellings. These houses were closely grouped together in the settled part of the town, and eastward and northward stretched the cultivated lands, diversified by the marshes and gently sloping hills. Most of the houses were reasonably commodious. The lower floor, as a rule, contained a hall, a living-room and a kitchen, and the upper story, four chambers. The furniture was mostly homemade, for it was almost impossible to import in the small sailing vessels of the time, any considerable amount of household furniture from England. Furniture, with the exception of beds and mattresses, is seldom mentioned as an asset in the wills of the period, showing that it must have been of small value. A good many families had silver heirlooms, which were transmitted from generation to generation. Of musical instruments there is no trace whatever.

that Winthrop censured because its interior panelling and general finish were "too fine for the wilderness." It stood at what is now the comer of Dunster and South Streets, on the first rise of land above the salt marshes that bordered the river. When Dudley removed to Ipswich his Cambridge estate was purchased by Roger Harlakenden who was the chief layman of Cambridge until his untimely death in 1638, at the age of twenty-seven. He was selectman, an assistant, and lieutenantcolonel of the Middlesex regiment. His children went back to England with their stepfather in 16-1:9. Harlakenden's widow married Herbert Pelham, who came to Cambridge a widower in 1638. He was an English countrj^ gentleman of good family and substantial means who at once took a place of leadership in the community and Colony. He took up his residence in the Dudley-Harlakenden house, and soon became the largest landed proprietor in Cambridge. He cleared and developed large farms south of the river, on the Harlakenden property in Lexington and Bedford, and on the rising ground, long known as Pelham's Island, in what is now the most thickly-settled part of Cambridgeport. He was successively selectman, assistant and commissioner of the United Colonies, and he was the first treasurer of Harvard College. In 1()49 he returned to England with his family, became a member of Parliament, and there rendered frequent and important services to Massachusetts and the sister colonies. Mr. Pelham not only owned the Dudley homestead, but also the house originally built by Simon Bradstreet, which stood on the east side of Boylston Street, near Harvard Square.

The next most important houses in the village were those originally built by Governor Haynes and by Thomas Hooker. These were occupied after their departure respectively by President Dunster of the College, and by the minister, Thomas Shepard, who married Hooker's daughter. The Haynes-Dunster house stood on the west side of the marketplace, which is now Winthrop Square, and the Hooker-Shepard house stood next the college building about where Boylston Hall now stands in the College Yard.

The Community

Joseph Cooke, who ran the ferry at the foot of Dunster Street, had an estate of some five acres on the eastern side of Holyoke Street below Mt. Auburn Street, and was a large land owner in other parts of the town. He was for many years selectman, town clerk for five years and representative for six years. He returned to England in 1658, but his descendants are numerous in the community. It is noticeable that Mr. Cooke and his brother, George Cooke, who came over with Thomas Shepard and Roger Harlakenden in 1635, were, in the list of the ship's company, called "servants to Mr. Harlakenden," but this was evidently a disguise to get them safely out of England. Both the brothers were among the foremost of the Cambridge settlers, and were evidently men of comparative wealth. George Cooke besides being selectman, deputy, speaker of the house and commissioner of the United Colonies, was conspicuous in military affairs. He was the first captain of the Cambridge train-band, and later captain of the artillery. He lived at the other end of the village from his brother Joseph, his estate extending along the northern side of what is now Eliot Street. In 1645, George Cooke returned to England, became a colonel in Cromwell's army, and was killed in battle in Ireland, in 1652.

Another serviceable citizen was Edward Gofle, who also came over with Shepard and Harlakenden and broke out of the wilderness a large farm at the extreme eastern edge of the village. His land stretched from Shepard's house, next the college building, eastward to Dana Hill, and he built his dwelling about at the comer of Quincy and Harvard Streets. He was a magistrate, a representative, for sixteen years a selectman, and he apparently paid a larger tax than any Cambridge man except Mr. Pelham. His descendants were prominent in town affairs until the revolution.

Among the other Cambridge families of the earliest generation, two are deserving of special remembrance. Edmund Angier was one of the earliest settlers, and built, in 1636, a dwelling opposite the meeting-house, or on the northwest comer of Dunster and Mt. Auburn Streets. He soon began to keep what we should now call a general or variety store, on the comer diagonally across from the homestead. Dunster Street, with the ferry at its foot, was thus the main street of the village. When the visitor landed at the ferry and climbed the sloping bank of the river he came first to the mansion of Mr. Pelham, the only citizen whose name always had "Esquire" written after it. Then on the left, he came to Deacon Chesholm's inn, and then to the meeting-house, with Angler's store facing it across Dunster Street, and Angler's house across Mt. Auburn Street, or as it was then called. Spring Street. There were three dwellings on the eastern side between the Angier house and the "Printery," at the corner of Dunster Street and Harvard Square. Turning there a little to the right, the visitor would come to the college building and the house of Rev. Thomas Shepard.

The mention of the "Printery" recalls the chief Cambridge industry of the earlier days and its fortunes. Stephen Day, his son Matthew Day, and his wife's son by a former marriage, William Boardman, came over together and set up the press on the Dunster Street comer. The younger Day did the printing, and after his death, in 1649, Samuel Green came to run the press and had charge of it for nearly fifty years. He lived in a house across Dunster Street from the press, and about where Holyoke House now stands. Meanwhile William Boardman inherited the estate where the press was located, and later added to it the lot adjoining it on the west, so that he owned the whole frontage of Harvard Square between Dunster and Boylston Streets. Mr. Boardman was early made steward of Harvard College and retained that office till his death in 1685. He was succeeded successively by his sons Andrew and Aaron, and by his grandson and great grandson, who bore the name of Andrew, making four generations of one family who thus served the College for a period covering a whole century. The second Andrew kept a store on Harvard Square, was for thirty-one years town clerk, for forty-six years town treasurer, and for eighteen years selectman. The third Andrew did not long retain the stewardship of the College, but he succeeded his father as town clerk, an office he held for thirty-nine years, and as town treas- urer, where he served twenty-three years. He was for twenty-two years the town's representative in the General Court, and for seventeen years a judge of the Court of Common Pleas.

If it is not difficult to reconstruct in imagination the outward appearance of Cambridge in the colonial period, neither is it hard to imagine the daily habit of the people. It was a life of steady hard work and of no little variety of employment. In the first place all the people worked at breaking and cultivating the land. The soil was not rich, but it was productive. The settler found that his patch of land would produce Indian com year after year in undiminished quantities. A patch of three acres worked chiefly with the hoe and manured with the small fish that abounded in the streams and creeks, would yield enough for the yearly maintenance of a famil}'. The Indian com was both hardy and nutritioiis and the planters soon reconciled themselves to it as a substitute for wheat, to which the soil and temperature were less propitious. The native grasses were coarse, but it took only a few seasons to cover the open lands with a growth of hay from imported seed. Barley, rye, oats and pease were successfully cultivated, and most of the garden fmits and vegetables common in the mother country. Squashes, pumpkins and beans were indigenous to the soil. The apple, the pear, the cherr>', the plum, and the quince were found to take kindly to their new home. Poiiltry and swine could be fed at little cost, and so multiplied in great abundance, and as pasturage was extended and improved, goats in the first place, and then sheep, horses and cattle became numerous. Between 1635 and 1640 cattle breeding was the most lucrative form of trade in Massachusetts, with the single exception of fishing. The increase of tillage caused a regular demand for oxen, and there was a brisk export trade in cattle with the West Indies. Sheep did not do so well, and the General Court, in 1654, found it necessary to forbid the exportation of sheep and the killing of lambs. There was abundant pasturage, and horse-breeding was profitable. It is impossible to discover just when wheel carriages began to be used, but the condition

The townspeople, as in most pioneer communities, were obliged to practice all trades. A citizen of Cambridge lived mainly upon the product of his land, but his house and most of his belongings were the work of his own hand. He was farmer, carpenter, blacksmith, shoemaker and trader, all in one. Cambridge was too far from the sea to have any large part in the chief industry of the Colony, - fishing, - but the bank of the river was a convenient place for ship-building, and several small vessels, "shallops" and "ketches," were early constructed and launched at the mouth of the creek.

There was very little currency in the Colony, and an early enactment of the General Court provided that com should be legal tender. Taxes were received in com, rated at six shillings a bushel. A certain amount of trade with the Indians gave a fictitious value to wampum and this was legal tender in Massachusetts for many ^-ears, up to the value of ten pounds. In 1652, Massachusetts established a mint of its own and coined silver in shilling, six pence and three pence pieces.

Manufactures of necessarj^ articles were early undertaken with some success. The spinning and knitting of thread and yam by the women at their homes was followed by the weaving of woolen and cotton fabrics, introduced by a few families who came from Yorkshire and built up a town at Rowley, adjoining Ipswich. The great demand for salt was promptly and profitably met, so easy was the process of obtaining it from sea-water. From the beginning of the settlements there was ample employment and good pay for the brickmaker, the mason, the carpenter, the tanner, the currier, the cordwainer, the sawyer and the smith.

The woods were a source of wealth. Boards, clapboards, shingles and staves and hoops for barrels, cost nothing but labor, and commanded a ready sale. The pine forests yielded turpentine, pitch and tar. Furs obtained from the Indians by barter for provisions and for articles of European manufacture, were yet another resource for the export trade.

In matters of dress the statute book shows that the magistrates tried to make the outward man conform to the serious purpose of the community. Seeking first the kingdom of God, they took to heart the injunction not to have much concern for the body what it should put on. They passed laws forbidding extremes of fashion and undue luxury in dress. They remonstrated against the superfluities which tended "to little use or benefit, but to the nourishment of pride and exhausting of men's estate and also of evil example to others." The dress of the majority of the people must needs have been plain, for the supply of homespun woollen cloth and "linen fustian dimities" was not abundant, and we read that use was commonly made of " cordovan, deer, seal and moose skins."

The necessity for keeping the flocks of sheep for wool, and of preserving cattle for draught and for milk, restricted the use of meat, and there is no record of a butcher's shop in Cambridge until well along in the century. Game and fish at first supplied, to a considerable extent, the want of animal food, and later chickens and pigs multiplied. In the earliest time, wheaten bread was not so uncommon as it afterwards became; but various preparations of Indian com soon came into use. Brown bread, a mixture of two parts of the meal of this grain with one part of rye, long continued to be the bread of the great body of the people. Hasty pudding, consisting of the boiled meal of this grain or of rye, and eaten with molasses and milk, was a common article of diet. Succotash, composed of beans boiled with Indian com in milk, was a dish adopted from the Indians, as were other preparations of com, named samp and hominy. Indian com meal, boiled or baked, and sweetened with molasses, as soon as molasses began to come from the West Indies, was Indian pudding in its primitive condition. The dish called baked beans commemorates the time when it was worth while to make the most of the commonest vegetable, by flavoring it with the flesh of the commonest animal. For considerabl)^ more than a century the people of Cambridge, ignorant of tea and coffee, lived chiefly on boiled Indian meal and milk, or on porridge or broth, made of pease or beans, and seasoned by being boiled with salted beef or pork. The regular dinner on Saturdays (not on Friday, which would have been Popish) was salt codfish. Beer, which was brewed in the household, was accounted scarcely less than a necessary of life, and the orchards soon yielded an ample provision of cider.

The interest of the New England people in education was a marked characteristic from the earliest days. Schools were at once set up in all the considerable towns, and in 1647, the law of Massachusetts required that a school should be supported in every town having fifty householders, and that a grammar school should be established where a boy could be fitted for Harvard College in every place where the householders numbered one hundred. At Cambridge the school was kept by Mr. Elijah Corlet. Our first notice of it is contained in the tract already quoted, "New England's First Emits," printed in England in 1643. There we read after the description of the College, that there is "by the side of the Colledge a faire Grammar Schoole, for the training up of j^oung scholars, and fitting of them for Academical Learning, that still as they are judged ripe, they may be received into the Colledge. Master Corlet is the Mr. who has very well approved himselfe for his abilities, dexterity and painfulnesse in teaching." The school-house stood on a lot opposite the college building, and on the westerly side of Holyoke Street. It was apparently built not by the town, but by the public spirit of President Dunster and Mr. Edward Goffe. This house lasted until 1669, when it was taken down and the foundation stones used for the cellar of the parsonage. The new school-house on the same lot served for thirty years more. Mr. Corlet, in spite of many difficulties and privations, persevered in his work for more than half a century until his death in 1678.

We have seen that the ministers exercised extraordinary influence in the Massachusetts communities. They were the leaders not only in the religious life of the community, but often in secular affairs as well. Many of them possessed some medical knowledge, and as there were but few trained physicians in the colonies, this was employed for the common good. There were practically no professional lawyers in Massachusetts, and the ministers were often consulted by the magistrates about the framing of the laws and the adjustment of disputes. They came also naturally to practically control the organization and management of the schools of ever\- grade. Yet the deference paid to them was self-respecting. The laymen understood their rights, and their constant participation in the proceedings of the town and church accustomed them to the exercise of an independent judgment. No charge is more baseless than that which represents early New England as "priest-ridden." On the contrary, a jealous public sentiment expressly excluded the ministers from political office, and kept the ultimate control both of the churches and of the state in the hands of the General Court. It was the General Court, and not the ministers, that banished Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. It was the General Court, a body of laymen, that called the Cambridge Synod that gave definite written form to the church polity of New England.

The Cambridge ministers continued to be prominent in the Colony. Mr. Shepard died in August, 1649, when he was but forty-three years old. Almost a year passed between his death and the settlement of his successor. In the meantime, the town decided to build a new meeting-house. The old one had stood for less than twenty years, but it must have been hurriedly and poorly constructed, for already it was falling into decay ; besides, it had never been quite large enough for the congregation. Accordingly, five of the leading citizens, including Edward Goffe and Thomas Danforth, were appointed in March, 1650, a committee to build a new house, and alocation was selected on what was known as the Watch House Hill, which was a slight elevation on what is now the southwest comer of the college yard, where Dane Hall stands. The next year Jonathan Mitchell was ordained the second minister of the church. He was a graduate of the college in the class of 1647, and was, therefore, well known to the members of the community. He had begun his preaching at Hartford, and was invited to settle there as Hooker's successor, but upon receiving the invitation from Cambridge he declined the call to Hartford and was ordained at Cambridge, August 21st,

1 6.50. For eighteen years he served the congre - gation and by the testimony of his contemporaries was distinguished for learning and eloquence. Cotton Mather describes him as "the matchless Mitchell." Shortly after his coming to Cambridge he married Mrs. Shepard, the young widow of his predecessor, and went to live in the house which had sheltered both Hooker and Shepard.

The deplorable episode of President Dunster's heresy fell within the ministry of Mr. Mitchell. There is abundant testimony that President Dunster was faithful and judicious in the discharge of all his duties. He was held in high favor in the communit}'. His scholarship was of the best and his neighbors treated him with marked reverence. His theological opinions appear, however, to have undergone a gradual change. He came to feel that the practice of the baptism of children was not in accordance with the Scriptures. Accordingly he failed to present for baptism a child bom to him in 1653. The debates which arose over this stand have no interest for us today, but one cannot but admire the unflinching way in which Dunster stood by his opinions. A conference between Dunster and nine of the leading ministers produced no result and a resolution of the General Court advising the overseers of the College not to employ any who have "manifested themselves unsound in faith" led to Dunster's resignation, which, after being once rejected, was finall}- accepted on October 25, 1654. Dunster continued to occupy the President's house until the next spring and then removed to Scituate where he died four years later. He was buried in the Cambridge graveyard.

It required rare firmness and courage on the part of Mr. Mitchell when it became necessary for him as minister of the church to admonish his chief parishioner and the greatly-respected president of the college jfrom which he had recently graduated. It is also greatly to Mr. Mitchell's credit that he did this without losing President Dunster's friendship. Dunster made Mitchell one of the executors of his estate. It is a curious coincidence, if the suggestion of Dr. Palfrey, supported b}- Dr. Paige, the historian of Cambridge, is correct, and that the monument erected in honor of Dunster in

The next heretic in the Cambridge church was more troublesome than the gentle Dunster. The court record shows that on the 19th of June, 165(5, Benanuel Bower was admonished for absenting himself from the ordinance of baptism. This Bower, or Bowers, had married a cousin of President Dunster, and evidently shared Dunster's belief about infant baptism. He lived on the Menotomy Road, and later moved into what is now Somerville, but his relations continued with the Cambridge church and community. He became a Quaker and was called to account almost every year and subjected to fine and imprisonment for the absenting of himself and family from public worship, and for maintaining the obnoxious principles of the Quaker fraternity. In spite of persecution he remained stalwart in his independency and repeatedly petitioned the County Court and the General Court for relief. He gave vent to his indignation at his treatment not only by repeated remonstrances, but also in doggerel verses, and it was his practice as soon as he was released from imprisonment to interrupt the public worship of the Cambridge church and insist upon being permitted to describe his grievances. He was certainly a vigorous independent, and continued to be such until his death in 1698. His wife seems to have been tolerated during her old age, for there is a record of the court, dated December 26, 1693, which declares that Mrs. Bowers "being a Quaker took no oath." It is also suggestive of growing tolerance in the community that the three witnesses to Mr. Bowers' will were three Orthodox ministers.

Shortly after Mr. Mitchell's death in 1668, the town decided that the time had come to build a house for the minister at public expense. The selectmen and deacons and three others were, therefore, appointed a committee to build "a convenient house for the entertainment of the minister that the Lord may please to send us to make up the breach that an afflicting Providence hath made in this office." This new house, which was for many years tlje parsonage of the church, stood next to the house which the former ministers had occupied, that is, on the northerly side of Massachusetts

For three years the pulpit had no regular occupant, but was supplied for the most part by the distinguished clergyman who had succeeded Dunster in the presidency of the college. Charles Chauncy was inaugurated on November 29, 1654, and remained in office for seventeen years. He was a scholar of much renown. He had been successively professor of Hebrew and professor of Greek at the English Cambridge, and was profoundly learned in both classical and oriental languages. He had suffered much persecution in England, and, finally, deprived of his living, emigrated to Plymouth in the spring of 1638. Here he was heartily welcomed and employed as the associate minister of the Plymouth church. After three years there, he became minister of the church at Scituate and was there re-ordained to the ministry, indicating that his original Episcopal ordination was, in his judgment, invalid. During his stay at Scituate the Revolution in England had been completed and the people of the English parish which he had formerly served, holding him in affectionate remembrance, invited him to return and minister to them. He was just on the point of embarking when he was invited to accept the presidency of Harvard College.

In his service at Cambridge he fully sustained the reputation which led to his choice. He continued to be an indefatigable student. He is spoken of as having " conveyed all the liberal arts" to his pupils, and we have no record of any associate teacher. He "moderated their disputations and other exercises" in person, wittily, as Cotton Mather says. He gave his instruction, for the most part, in Latin. The Hebrew Scriptures were still read in the hall every morning, and the Greek in the evening, followed by a learned exposition by the president, who on Sunday mornings extended it to nearly twice the normal length of a modern sermon. He was greatly prized as a preacher, and justly so; for, as Mather tells us, "he was an exceeding plain preacher." The discipline and management of the College went on very much as in Dunster's time. Nor does there seem to have been any abatement of interest in the College on the part of the community, or any decline of the president's popularity and influence with his decUning years. The last class that graduated under him was the largest since the foundation; and though it numbered but eleven, those eleven probably bore a greater ratio to the population of the Colony than all the graduates of our colleges for the present year will bear to the population of the State.

Dr. Chauncy was succeeded in the presidency by Leonard Hoar, the first graduate of the College to assume this office. He had a brief and troubled experience, and was succeeded in 1675, by Urian Oakes, who was already the minister of the Cambridge church in succession to Mitchell. The pastorate of the church and the presidency of the college were thus united in one man. Mr. Oakes, after graduating at Harvard, had returned to England and was settled there, and the Cambridge church sent repeated invitations to him and waited three years for his coming. It is an^ evidence both of the importance of securing just the right minister and also of the comparative wealth of the community that the church was able to offer to Mr. Oakes a larger salary than most ministers of the time received, and to pay the entire cost of the transportation of his family from England. Like his predecessors, Mr. Oakes died when he was still comparatively a young man, his service terminating in 1681. The next year, Nathaniel Gookin became the minister and served for ten years. In 1680 the town reported one hundred and twenty-one families living within its boundaries, and a total of one hundred and sixty-nine citizens. This probably meant a total population of between six hundred and eight hundred.

The two leading laymen of Cambridge during the last half of the seventeenth century were Thomas Danforth and Daniel Gookin. Daniel Gookin apparently came to Cambridge about 1647, and lived at first on the easterly side of Holyoke Street between Harvard and Mt. Auburn Streets. Later he built the mansion, afterwards familiar as the Winthrop estate, on the southerly side of Arrow Street, which is still standing. He was at once prominent in the military service and was elected captain of the Cambridge train-band as early as 1652. In 1676 he became major of the Middlesex regiment and was very active throughout the troubles of King Philip's War. In IGSl, he was appointed major-general of all the military affairs of the Colony, and was the last who held that office under the old charter. For twelve years he was a selectman of Cambridge, repeatedly a representative in the General Court, and for thirty-three years an assistant. He was twice employed upon public service in England and was trusted by Oliver Cromwell as a confidential agent. It was upon his return from his last visit to England that he had for his fellow-passengers the two regicides, Goffe and Whalley, and they accompanied him to Cambridge. General Gookin stood side by side with Judge Danforth in the fight for the Massachusetts charter, and he is also to be remembered not only as the military commander who fought the hostile Indians in King Philip's War, but also as the dauntless friend of the so-called "praying Indians." He was John Eliot's chief helper, and for many years general superintendent of Indian affairs.

The whole history of the relation of the Cambridge people with the Indians is a creditable one. There were very few Indians in the neighborhood when the first settlers arrived. These were under the general control of the widow of the Chief Nanepashemet. She was known as the Squaw-sachem. The Cambridge and Watertown territory was purchased of this Squaw-sachem and Cambridge further agreed "to give the Squaw-sachem a coate every winter while she liveth." It was within the bounds of Cambridge that John Eliot began his famous mission among the Indians. He labored long and hard to acquire a competent knowledge of the Indian dialects, and began his difficult labors among them on October 28, 164:6, when he gathered some wandering Indians at the wigwam of Waban on the Nonantum hillside south of the river, in what is now the city of Newton. Thomas Shepard, the Cambridge minister, was one of Eliot's most active assistants in his missionary labors. In Shepard's tract entitled "The Clear Sunlight of the Gospel breaking forth upon the Indians in New England," which was printed in London in 1648, he said, "as soon as ever the fierceness of the winter was past, March 3, 1647, I went out to Nonantum to the Indian lecture where Mr. Wilson, Mr. Allen of Dedham, Mr. Dunster, besides many others were present." Eliot's great work, "The Translation of the Bible into the Indian Tongue," was the most important book issued from the Cambridge "Printery."

Provision was early made by the president and fellows of Harvard College for the education of the Indian youth. A modest building, known as the Indian College, was built to the north of the original college building, and several students were enrolled. Only one Indian name is, however, carried on the list of graduates of the College. In the list of the class of 1665, we read the name of "Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, Indus."

In King Philip's War, the converted Indians, who had been gathered by Eliot into a village at Natick and other places, naturally fell under suspicion. They were removed to a safer residence on' one of the islands m Boston Harbor. General Gookin fell for a time into disfavor in the Colony because of his earnest and disinterested efforts to protect these unfortunate Indians. He even failed of election in 1676 as one of the Assistants, but next year the tide of feeling changed in his favor and he was re-instated in his former honors.

Gookin 's connection with the coming of the regicides to Cambridge is part of a romantic story. Edmund Whalley had been a distinguished soldier in Cromwell's army, one of the major-generals, and a member of Parliament. William Goffe was his son-in-law, also a member of Parliament, and a major-general of the Parliamentary army. Both of them were members of the court which condemned Charles I to death. When Charles II entered London in May, 1660, these two men fled from the vengeance which they knew was in store for them if they remained in England. They crossed the Atlantic with Daniel Gookin, and came with him to his house in Cambridge. They were proscribed fugitives, but they were welcomed to Cambridge with open and hearty hospitality. The high rank which they had sustained in the Puritan party in England, together with the dignity of their own manners, secured for them general respect. They went abroad freely, and were made welcome in the Cambridge meeting-house, as well as in the homes of the people. They remained in Cambridge until the 21st of February, 1661, when they privately went on their way to New Haven where they were kindly received. The pursuit of them later grew hot, and they went into retirement and concealment in the minister's house at Hadley. This friendly minister was John Russell, a Cambridge man and a Harvard graduate. In spite of the hospitable reception which the regicides in New England received, it should be remembered that all the New England colonies carefully abstained from any public approval or disapproval of events in the home country. The New Englanders doubtless approved the execution of Charles I, but they never gave formal expression to that approval. When the Puritan Parliament came into power in England, Massachusetts never formally admitted its authority, and even when Oliver Cromwell became protector, Massachusetts still remained silent. When Charles II was restored, no proclamation of that event was made in Boston for more than a year. These facts indicate the settled policy of the founders of New England to lay the foundations of what was practically an independent state.

Thomas Danforth was the most useful and prominent citizen of Cambridge in the second generation. He was the son of Nicholas Danforth who came to Cambridge as early as 1635 and built a house about where Massachusetts Avenue now runs. Beck Hall and the Baptist church now stand on the land that was part of the Danforth farm. This Nicholas Danforth was evidently a good citizen, for he was immediately elected a selectman and served for two years as a deputy of the General Court, and died in 1638. His son Thomas inherited the homestead, but sold it in 1642, and bought a house originally built by Rev. John Phillips, on the north side of Kirkland Street, near Oxford Street. His estate ultimately covered the whole territory, from the Somerville and Charlestown line to where the college library now stands. It included, that is, all the northeasterly part of the college yard and the land bordering on Oxford Street for its entire length. This property was after- wards well known as the Foxcroft estate. Mr. Danforth throughout his long life was a most energetic citizen of the town and of the Colony. He was for twenty-seven years a selectman of Cambridge, twenty-four years town clerk, twenty years a magistrate and assistant, and for nine years deputygovernor of the Colony. Except for the prolonged life of the venerable governor, Simon Bradstreet, he would certainly) have been governor. Later Mr. Danforth was a member of the Provincial Council and judge of the Supreme Court. He was one of the members of the governing board of the United Colonies from 1662 to 1678, and he was for nineteen years the treasurer at Harvard College. This extraordinary record of public service indicates the confidence of the community and attests the wisdom and integrity with which he despatched these varied public functions. He was probably the most active citizen of Massachusetts during the last half of the century, and he was

Honourable Samuel Sewall

Chief Justice of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Born in 28. 1652. Came to New England in 1661. Member of the Council under tht Provincial charter. 1692-1725. One of the Assistants under the Colonial charter and ex officio a Judge of the Supreme Court. Appointed Judge of Superior Court in 1692. and Chief Justice in 1718. Chosen in 1699 one of the Commissioners ol the Society in England for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England. Sometime Resident Fellow, afterwards one of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College

The attacks upon the Massachusetts charter had been not infrequent from the earliest days. After the restoration of the Stuarts, there was constant efTort to deprive the New England Colonies of their liberties. In 1678 the Crown lawyers gave a legal opinion that the Charter of Massachusetts had been justly forfeited by the of?ences committed b y the colonial government under it. The authorities of the colonies, under the leadership of Thomas Danforth, of Cambridge, and Increase Mather, of Boston, did everything in their power, by petition and remonstrance, to ward off the catastrophe, but in 1684 the Charter was finally declared to be null and void, and soon after, a royal governor arrived to take over the control of what was no longer the Colony, but now the royal Province of Massachusetts Bay. With the loss of the Charter ends the colonial period of New England history.

The Village

AFTER the withdrawal of the Massachusetts charter a change came over the Ufe of the community. The new generation lacked something of the heroic impulses of the founders. The proportion of educated men and of natural leaders was not so high as in the first generation. Life was easier than in the colonial period, but it was more material. The village of Cambridge grew more comfortable to live in, and the houses were better built and better furnished. The prosperity of the community steadily increased, but the physical changes were few; the population remained nearly stationary for more than a hundred years, and plain living and steady toil were still the lot of the inhabitants. More and more the woods were cut off and the pasture land was broken by the plow, but the wildness of the region outside of the village itself may be judged by the fact that the town records show rewards paid for the killing of wild animals within the limits of the town almost down to the Revolution. In the one year 1690 there is a record of fifty-two wolves killed in Cambridge and six years later rewards were paid for the killing of seventytwo wolves. A bear was shot in what is now East Cambridge, as late as 1754.

The story of the first half of the eighteenth century, though it abounds in political and industrial interest, is still in its central elements a continued chapter of religious history. Its hopes and heroisms were still those of the religious life; its controversies and dissensions were still those of the theologians. Life was still measured in terms of moral rectitude and the subtle temptations of luxury and ease were far in the distance. The College and the Meeting-house remained the centers of Cambridge interest. Harvard College was founded for the specific purpose of training ministers, or, as the first appeal declared, "that the Commonwealth may be furnished with knowing and understanding men, and the churches with an able ministry." In the first list of college regulations - called, as now seems curious, "the liberties" of the College, - the first rules are these: "Every scholar shall consider the main end of his life and study to know God and Jesus Christ. Every one shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day, that they be ready to give an account of their proficiency. And all sophisters and bachelors shall publicly repeat sermons in the hall whenever they are called forth." The institution was founded by men in whom the sense of God was the controlling impulse, and to whom his glory was the end of education, and when the families of the Colony brought out of their poverty their offerings to the College, - the one of five shillings, and the other of a few sheep, and the other the fourth part of a bushel of com, or "something equivalent thereto," - it was not as an offering to culture, but as an offering to religion.

For more than two hundred years, in its disciphne and courses of study, the College followed mainly the lines traced by its founders. Its influence did more than any other, perhaps more than all others, to make New England what it is. During the one hundred and forty years preceding the War of Independence it supplied the schools of the greater part of New England with teachers. What was even more important, it sent to every parish in Massachusetts one man, - the minister, - with a certain amount of scholarship, a belief in culture, and a considerable collection of books, by no means wholly theological. "Simple and godly men were they," said Mr. Lowell in his oration at the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the College, "receiving much, sometimes all, of their scanty salary in kind, and eking it out by the drudgery of a crossgrained farm where the soil seems all backbone. They contrived to save enough to send their sons in turn through college, to portion their daughters, - decently trained in English literature of the more serious kind, and perfect in the duties of household and dairy, - and make modest provision for their widows, if they should leave any. With all this, they gave their two sermons every Sunday of the year, and of a measure that would seem ruinously liberal to these less stalwart days, when scarce ten parsons together could lift the stones of Diomed which they hurled at Satan with the easy precision of lifelong practice. Their one great holiday was the College Commencement, which they punctually attended. They shared the many toils and the rare festivals, the joys and the sorrows of their townsmen as bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh, for all were of one blood and of one faith. They dwelt on the same brotherly level with them as men, yet apart from and above them by their sacred office. Preaching the most terrible doctrines, as most of them did, they were humane and cheerful men, and when they came down from the pulpit seemed to have been merely twisting their 'cast-iron logic' of despair, as Coleridge said of Donne, 'into true-love-knots.' Men of authority, wise in counsel, independent (for their settlement was a life-tenure), they were living lessons of piety, industry, frugality, temperance, and, with the magistrates, were a recognized aristocracy. Surely, never was an aristocracy so simple, so harmless, so exemplary, and so fit to rule."