MARCH MEETING, 1898.

A Stated Meeting of the Society was held in the Hall of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on Wednesday, 16 March, 1898, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the President, Edward Wheelwright, in the chair.

The Records of the last Stated Meeting were read and approved.

On behalf of Mr. Denison Rogers Slade, who was unable to be present, Mr. Edes communicated the following letter, written by Lord Lyndhurst, when a young man of twenty-five, to Daniel Denison Rogers,1 a wealthy merchant of Boston, and the great-grandfather of Mr. Slade:—

[London], April 19 [1797] George st.2

My dear Sir,—Agreeably to promise in my last letter via N. York I forwarded by the first Vefsel to Boston the Deed signed by my father and mother3 in presence of two persons, Cap.ⁿ Lovett4 master of the Vessel and Cap^tn Henshaw5 Passenger who will prove the Signature upon their landing.

I do not very well recollect the Deed drawn by Lowell6 and can not therefore tell in what it was deficient, but sincerely hope that this will satisfy the parties.

It would perhaps have been better had they themselves sent the draught of a deed. Meſs^rṣ Mason7 & Otis8 were to procure a general release from Bulfînch9 & Scollay.10 You would much oblige me by reminding them of their promise & forwarding such releases to me.11

I scarcely know how to repeat my request respecting the trunk and dog which I left at M^rs Wheelwright’s.12 The trunk contains many things of value to me, chiefly books and papers; and the Dog13 is a particular favorite on account of the fair Donor. Any Vessel bound to London might bring them safe.

Any letters also which you may possess directed to me, you will be so kind as to enclose in a cover addressed to me at my father’s—

I find that besides the books for Judge Lincoln,14 there was a case forwarded by my father containing two prints representing the Death of Major Pierson which I was to have presented in my father’s name, one to Harvard College the other to the Academy of Arts15 at Boston of which he is a member. May I request you to present them in my place?

I must also entreat to be remembered particularly to Mrs Rogers, Mr & Mrs Pearson16 & Mrs Cabot17

I remain Dear Sir

Very sincerely yours

J. S. Coplet, J^ṛ.

The Rev. Edward G. Porter then said:—

Mr. President,—I am glad our attention has been turned to this famous picture of Copley’s, as it illustrates one of the most thrilling events in the history of the Channel Islands. I was in Jersey recently, and found that Pierson’s gallant achievement was kept fresh in the minds of the people by various memorials of him at St. Hélier, and by the observance of the anniversary of his death. The quaint little square in which he fell remains very much as it was on the sixth of January, 1781. The Court House with its cupola, the plain brick dwellings with their tiled roofs, the gilt statue of George II. in Roman military dress, and the steep hill overhanging the town, are all seen in Copley’s picture.

You remember the story. The French invaded the Island at dead of night and managed to get control of St. Hélier before the people were up, forcing the Lieutenant-Governor, Corbet, to sign a capitulation. When young Major Pierson, who was second in command, heard of this, he was indignant, and instantly refused to entertain the idea of a surrender. He rallied his troops about him, together with some of the Island militia, and rushed to the market-place where he made such an onslaught upon the invaders that they were completely routed with the loss of their commander; but Pierson fell in the moment of victory.18

With his usual sagacity Copley saw here the elements of a fine historical composition, and he spared no pains to make it as truthful and vivid as possible. It is considered by many his greatest effort, and it has happily found its proper place in the National Gallery.19

The engraving by Heath,20 to which allusion has been made, has long hung on the gallery-railing yonder,—as good a place as can be given it in this Hall; but it is in a poor light, and much too high to gain the attention it deserves.

To us the gem of the picture is the flight of the little group in the right hand corner, representing Mrs. Copley, with both hands upraised in terror, accompanied by her nurse with a babe in her arms, and the smart little Copley, Jr., running for dear life at her side.

I saw a copy of this painting, by Holyoake, in the Court House at St. Hélier, placed there in recent years. I found it a great help in reproducing the scene with all the accessories so near at hand. An inscription in the square marks the spot where Pierson fell. He was buried in the old Town Church near by.

I do not know whether others have observed in Trumbull’s early battle-pieces any resemblance in spirit and treatment to this masterpiece of Copley, but I have often thought that several of the details in the Bunker Hill seemed to show an acquaintance with The Battle of Jersey.21

Mr. Henry Williams, having been called upon by the President, spoke as follows:—

Mr. President and Gentlemen,—I offer for the acceptance of The Colonial Society of Massachusetts some leaves from the Charter Oak. I can vouch for their genuineness, for they were gathered for me sixty years ago last autumn, by my kinsman, Bishop John Williams, of Connecticut. I have taken a leaf from my old college herbarium in which they were preserved, and I have written underneath them the words which I wrote at the time on the opposite page:—

“Health to thee, ancient tree!

Hadst thou some spark of that garrulity

Belongs to ancient men!”

It stirs the imagination to think what chronicles the Oak might have given us if Mrs. Sigourney’s wish could have been realized; for its age when it fell has been estimated as high as eighteen hundred or two thousand years; while others have thought that it was, at that time, certainly one thousand years old. We may well believe this latter estimate. Mr. George B. Emerson, who classed this tree with the white oaks, says:—

“Those species of oak most analogous to our white oak, are known, in Europe, to continue to grow and flourish for centuries. There are oaks in Britain which are believed to have been old trees at the time of William the Conqueror. Some are known which are supposed to be one thousand years old.”22

Inasmuch as so well-known a writer as Professor Goldwin Smith23 has thought, incredible as it may seem, to transplant the old Oak from Hartford to Providence, R. I., it may not be unprofitable to recall some facts in its history, as well as in that of the ancient Charter of Connecticut which, according to tradition, was concealed in its hollow in the time of Andros. Tradition has it that George Wyllys,—who was one of the fathers of the Connecticut Colony, of which he was Deputy Governor in 1641, and Governor in 1642, and who settled at Hartford,—before emigrating to America, sent over his Steward to select for him a site for his home in the wilderness. On the ground chosen by him stood the Charter Oak, which was then hollow and very old. It was held in great veneration by the Indians, and when Mr. Wyllys’s agents were clearing the land for his residence, a deputation of the natives begged them to spare this aged tree. They said:—

“It has been the guide of our ancestors for centuries as to the time of our planting our corn. When the leaves are of the size of a mouse’s ear, then is the time to put the seed in the ground.”24

[Mr. Williams then recalled, briefly, the history of the Patent under which the Colony of Connecticut was planted, and described the events which led up to the successful effort to secure a new Charter.25 Continuing, he said:—]

There can be no surprise, therefore, that, at the period of the Restoration, the Connecticut Colony early took measures to secure from the King a Charter which should define their boundaries, and settle, once for all, their rights under their first Patent. In their Petition to King Charles they state, that the original copy of their Letters Patent “either by fire at a house where it had been sometimes kept, or some other accident, is now lost,”26 so that they were only able to furnish a copy of that document. Of all the noblemen named in these first Letters Patent, Lord Saye and Sele is said to have been one of only two or three survivors at the Restoration;27 accordingly, an earnest letter,28 dated 7 June, 1661, was addressed to him, invoking his good offices with His Majesty, Charles II., and his Parliament, in securing a Royal Charter which should protect them in the rights for which they had so long struggled. There were some circumstances at the time which seemed unfavorable to the success of their Petition. There was a hot pursuit of the Regicide Judges both in England and on tins side of the Atlantic. Goffe and Whalley and Dixwell at first appeared openly in the Massachusetts Colony, but they were afterwards obliged to go into hiding in Connecticut, where they were harbored by the Rev. John Davenport.29 It was known that they had fled thither, although they had successfully baffled their pursuers. This was made use of by the enemies of the Colony in England to prejudice their claims, but unsuccessfully, for Lord Saye and Sele was a stanch friend and a vigorous advocate in their behalf; and, fortunately for them, he had advocated Charles’s restoration, for which he had been made Lord Privy Seal.30 John Winthrop, who had been sent over to England as a special agent to urge the Petition of the Colony, was enabled, through the influence of Lord Saye and Sele, to enlist in their behalf the sympathy of the Earl of Manchester, who was Lord Chamberlain in His Majesty’s household.31 Under these circumstances the Petition of Connecticut was presented, and was received “with uncommon grace and favor,”32 and on the twenty-third of April, 1662, the famous Charter was granted by Letters Patent under the great seal of England.33 This Charter—

“continued in force to the time of the Revolution, and saved Connecticut from experiencing the fate to which Massachusetts was subjected, after the loss of its First Charter privileges, of a dependent province. It remained, in fact, the constitution of the State of Connecticut until 1818.”34

[Mr. Williams then sketched vividly the events which occurred after the accession of James II., referring especially to the loss of corporate charters—including that of the City of London—and to the proceedings against those of the New England colonies by writs of Quo Warranto and Scire Facias. He also gave a rapid review of the high-handed proceedings of Randolph and Andros, and recalled the tradition connected with the concealment of the Connecticut Charter.35 In closing, Mr. “Williams said:—]

In 1827, Charles Sprague, the poet, writing to Mr. Buckingham, the editor of The Boston Courier, says:—

“While in Hartford . . . I was guilty, for the first time, of paying my devotions to the ancient and venerable Charter Oak, from which ‘I piously stole’ three leaves and an acorn.”36

At that time and ten years later, in 1837, when these leaves were sent to me, the Oak was apparently flourishing; but during a violent storm, on Thursday, the twenty-first of August, 1856, the tree was blown down.37 There are several pictures of it,—one in Emerson’s Trees of Massachusetts,38 but it was taken before the days of kodaks and snap shots, and it does not give a correct idea of its great size. A few years before it fell, twenty-seven good-sized men are said to have stood in the hollow of its trunk. About the same time some boys built a fire in this cavity, and it was feared that this would be the end of the venerable tree; but, as great pains were taken to preserve it, it survived a few years longer, and when it was blown down fresh acorns were growing on many parts of it. There was a universal feeling of regret among the citizens of Hartford when the tidings spread that their ancient, historic tree had at last fallen. At noon Colt’s Armory Band played a dirge on the spot, and at sundown, throughout the city, the bells were tolled, to give expression to the common sorrow.

I do not know how it may be with others, Mr. President, but these visible, tangible memorials of the past,—such as the leather pouch of bullets which was found, long after the American Revolution, concealed among the rafters of an old church in Lincoln,—the sight of which would quicken the pulse of any antiquary, and which were brought here by our associate, Mr. Porter, to illustrate his graphic paper on the march to Lexington and Concord and the retreat to Boston, on the eighteenth and nineteenth of April, 1775,—touch me more nearly than many a page of the printed record. And so these faded leaves, which carry us back through all the struggles of the Connecticut Colony and to a dim and uncertain antiquity beyond,—long before the white man set his foot on these shores,—may find a place in our Cabinet, and have an interest in the future, which may make them worthy of the Society’s acceptance.

Mr. Henry H. Edes said that he had in his possession the original Search Warrant for the arrest of the Regicides, issued by the Connecticut authorities on the eleventh of May, 1661, and the original Third Writ of Quo Warranto against the Connecticut Charter; and that he should have been glad to bring them to this meeting for the inspection of the members, had he known beforehand the subject of Mr. Williams’s paper.

Mr. S. Lothrop Thoendike communicated the following early letter39 of Washington, hitherto unpublished:—

Dear Madam,—When I had the happiness to see you last, you express’d an Inclination to be informed of my safe arrival In camp with the charge that was entrusted to my care; But at the same time desired it might be communicated in a Letter to somebody of your acquaintance: This I took as a gentle rebuke, and polite manner of forbidding my corresponding with you; and conceive this opinion is not illy founded, when I reflect that I have hitherto found it impractacable to engage one moment of your attention. If I am right in this, I hope you will excuse the present presumption, and lay the imputation to elateness at my successful arrival: If on the Contrary these are fearful apprehensions only, how easy is it to remove my suspicions, enliven my spirits, and make me happier than the Day is long; by honouring me with a corrispondance which you did once partly promise to do.—please to make my Compliments to Miss Hannah, and to M^r. Bryan to whom I shall do myself the pleasure of writing, as soon as I hear he is returned from Westmoreland. I am Madam

Y^ṛ most Obed^t. yr most H^blẹ Serv^t.

G^ọ Washington

Fort Cumberland at Wills Creek
7th of June, 1755

Mr. Thorndike also communicated the following paper:—

Memorandum by Mrs. Burton N. Harrison.

Letter written by Col. George Washington to Mrs. Sarah Fairfax at Belvoir on the Potomac, adjoining Mt. Vernon,—the seat of Col. William Fairfax of Yorkshire, England, then President of the King’s Council in Virginia, and first cousin of the sixth Lord Fairfax of Greenway Court. Mrs. Fairfax, a beautiful and brilliant woman, was beloved by Washington in his boyhood—she being two years his senior—and, at eighteen,40 married George William Fairfax, eldest son of Col. William Fairfax of Belvoir and heir expectant of the Fairfax title, which, however, he died before inheriting,—the title passing from the sixth Lord to his brother Robert of Leeds Castle, seventh Lord, thence to Bryan Fairfax, youngest son of William of Belvoir, to whom it was confirmed by Parliament in 1800. Bryan’s great-grandson, John Contee Fairfax of Prince George County, Maryland, is the present and eleventh Lord Fairfax.

Sarah Fairfax was one of the four beautiful Miss Carys of Ceelys on the lower James, daughters of Col. Wilson Miles Cary, of whom Anne married Robert Carter Nicholas (their daughter married Edmund Randolph), Mary married Edward Ambler, and Elizabeth, the youngest, married Bryan, eighth Lord Fairfax.

A letter from Washington to his early love, dated Mount Vernon, May 16th, 1798, may be found in Sparks’s Washington’s Writings.41 With her husband, Mrs. Fairfax had gone to live in England, where George William Fairfax inherited his grandfather’s Yorkshire property. She died at Bath, England, [2 November,] 1811, [aged 81.] George William Fairfax having died there, in 1787, both are buried in Writhlington Church, near Bath.42

With this Washington letter of June 7, 1755, to Sarah Fairfax, was one addressed to Col. William Fairfax of Belvoir, announcing the young Colonel’s safe arrival in camp with the £4000 he had carried under guard from Williamsburg for the use of the troops.43 “Miss Hannah” was the youngest daughter of Col. Fairfax of Belvoir. She married Warner Washington.44

These facts are contributed to Mr. Thorndike by the great-grand-niece of Sally and Elizabeth Cary upon her father’s side, also great-granddaughter of Bryan, eighth Lord Fairfax,45 through her mother.

Constance Cary Harrison.

New York, February 18, 1889.

Mr. Henry H. Edes called attention to an article written by Mrs. Harrison in 1876,46 in which she speaks of Washington’s attachment for Sally Cary:—

“The chroniclers of the Fairfax family have always asserted positively that to this one of the Miss Carys, [Sally] la belle des belles, Washington offered his heart and hand, to be finally superseded by his friend and comrade, Fairfax of Belvoir.

“Irving gives a different version of this story, asserting that Washington’s tendresse was for the younger sister of Mrs. George William Fairfax, whom the bride brought back with her on a visit to Belvoir. Bishop Meade, quoting from a paper of the Ambler family, says that the sister whom Washington sought in marriage was Mary Cary, afterward married to the wealthy Edward Ambler, Collector of York River, and owner of Jamestown Island. In the face of this distinguished controversy, we can only continue the story of Washington’s wooing, as it has been handed down to us. When the young gentleman mustered up his courage at last to ask for the lady’s hand, Colonel Cary flew into a great rage, and answered that, if that was his business, he might as well ‘go away the same as he came’ (vide Sally’s diary), for his daughter had been accustomed to ride in a coach and four.”

In a footnote Mrs. Harrison adds the following interesting statement:—

“It is fair to say that papers which have never been given to the public set this question beyond a doubt. Mrs. George William Fairfax, the object of George Washington’s early and passionate love, lived to an advanced age in Bath, England, widowed, childless, and utterly infirm. Upon her death, at the age of 81, letters, still in possession of the Fairfax family, were found among her effects, showing that Washington had never forgotten the influence of his youthful disappointment.”

From a recent correspondence with Mrs. Harrison and her husband, it appears that she has modified her opinion, in some respects, as will be seen by the following extract from Mr. Harrison’s letter:

“There is no evidence that George Washington ever saw Sally Cary until after she had become the wife of his friend George William Fairfax who had himself, probably, met her in Williamsburg when he was a member of the House of Burgesses. There is no evidence that George Washington was in Williamsburg, or anywhere on the “Lower James,” prior to Sally’s marriage; and she, quite certainly, was never north of the Rappahannock River before she came to Belvoir as a bride. And, though my wife was once of the contrary opinion, she now asks me to say to you that she has come to believe she was then in error.”

There can be no doubt, however, of Washington’s attachment to Mrs. Fairfax, albeit it began after her marriage to his friend, and the letter which Mr. Thorndike has just read to us, to say nothing of those unpublished letters of later date of which Mrs. Harrison writes, bears eloquent testimony to the truth of this statement.

Mr. Edes then exhibited an original letter of Martha Washington to General Knox, and the General’s reply. They are as follows:—

M^rs Washington presents her compliment

=nts to General Knox and begs his

acceptance of two hair netts.—They

would have been sent long agoe but

for want of tape, which was necessary

to finish them, and which was not

obtained till yesterday.—

Newburgh March the 6^th 1783

General Knox, has the honor, to

present his most respectful compliments,

to M^rṣ Washington, and to assure her

he is deeply impressed with the sense of

her goodness, in the favor of the hair-nets,

for which he begs her to accept of his sincere thanks.

West point 8^th March ’83.

Mr. Appleton P. C. Griffin, whose official duties in Washington prevented his attendance, communicated, through Mr. Edes, a copy of a part of Washington’s Military Record, now in the War Department, giving the Muster Rolls of troops raised, in 1778, in the Counties of Berkshire, Worcester, and York, in the State of Massachusetts.47

Mr. Albert Matthews read the following paper:—

HIRED MAN AND HELP.

An English traveller, alluding to this country, remarked, in 1820:—

“There are also some expressions the original applications of which I have not been able to discover. These I must call Americanisms, and will subjoin some examples. . . . Hired Girl for Servant Girl. Hired Man for Servant Man.”48

More recently Dr. Fitzedward Hall, writing on the term “hired man,” said:—

“Of this expression, a strange seeming one, its meaning considered, what is the history? Ordinarily, I believe, it is regarded as a euphemism; and such it now is, unquestionably. It appears, however, to have been, with us, originally, something quite different. . . . I hardly doubt that [proof can be adduced] that hired women, hired boys, etc., also were somewhat as rife in the language of our colonial forefathers as they are in the language of their descendants. How such locutions found their way into our phraseology is a question which awaits solution.”49

Dr. Hall added that both Dr. Murray50 and Professor Wright51 were unable to lend him “any assistance, as regards quotations, in connection with the terms” he was discussing. An appeal on the part of the present writer to various philological, historical, and genealogical scholars has met with a similar result, no one being able to furnish him with a single quotation illustrative of American usage. By again calling attention to the term, it is hoped that other investigators may be able to adduce fresh evidence which shall confirm or modify the conclusions expressed in this paper.

The word “servant” appears to have, at the present day, in this country four meanings:—

(1) Legally, “a servant is one who is employed to render personal service to his employer otherwise than in the pursuit of an independent calling, and who in such service remains entirely under the control and direction of the latter.”52
(2) A public official of high standing may call himself “a servant of the people,” or “a public servant.”
(3) A religious man is called “a servant of the Lord.”
(4) The word is applied to a man or a woman in domestic service.

The first three meanings do not enter into common speech, so that practically it is the fourth meaning only which is employed in ordinary language. If, however, we turn to the Colonial period, we find a widely different state of affairs. Then the word was applied not only to domestic servants but also to laborers, mechanics, apprentices, schoolmasters, secretaries, clerks, articled students in a lawyer’s or doctor’s office, and to Indian, negro, and other slaves. The usual terms were “servant man” or “man servant” or “man,” “servant woman” or “woman servant,” “servant maid” or “maid servant” or “maid,”53 “servant girl” or “girl,”² “servant lad” or “lad,” “servant boy” or “boy.” Domestic servants were few throughout the Colonial period, and in the vast majority of cases those designated as servants were employed in other than domestic labor.54

It does not appear that any social stigma was implied in the use of the word servant. Mr. J. C. Ballagh, speaking of the white servant in Virginia, writes:—

“No odium attached to his condition or person as to the slave’s, and when he proved worthy of consideration he might enjoy many of the social privileges that would have been accorded him as a free man.”55

Professor Lucy M. Salmon, referring to the Colonial period at large, says: “No odium was in any way attached to the word.”56 In 1649 Roger Williams wrote:—

“I thankfully acknowledge your love concerning my daughter. . . . She, as my wife tells me, desires to spend some time in service, and liked much Mrs. Brenton, (who wanted).”57

As late as 1756 we find the Representatives of Pennsylvania thus expressing themselves:—

“We conceive that this Province could not possibly have furnished the great Numbers of Men and Quantity of Provisions it has done for the King’s Service, had it not been for our constant Practice of importing and purchasing Servants to assist us in our Labours. Many of these, when they become free, settle among us, raise Families, add to the Number of our People and cultivate more Land, and many others who do not so settle are ready and fit to take arms when the Crown calls for Soldiers.”58

Nor, did space permit, would it be difficult to show that men who came to this country as servants afterwards attained positions of importance in their local communities.59 The dislike to the word “servant,” now so pronounced, was presumably a manifestation of those profound social and political changes of which the passage of the Stamp Act was the beginning. The earliest allusion known to me to such a dislike occurs in the following passage, which, though apparently referring to a period before the Revolutionary War, yet may not have been written until after its close:—

“However, although I now call this man my servant, yet he himself never would have submitted to such an appellation, although he most readily performed every menial office, and indeed any service I could desire; yet such is the insolence, folly, and ridiculous pride of those ignorant backwoodsmen, that they would conceive it an indelible disgrace and infamy to be styled servants, even to his Majesty, notwithstanding they will gladly perform the lowest and most degrading services for hire.”60

But if, as has been stated, the word “servant” was, for a century and three quarters, used with a very wide latitude of meaning, and if now it is practically restricted to a single meaning, how, it is pertinent to ask, has so marked a change come about? Miss Salmon gives the following solution:—

“An indication of these various changes in the condition of domestic service during these different periods is seen in the history of the word ‘servant.’ As used in England and in law at the time of the settlement of the American colonies it signified any employee, and no odium was in any way attached to the word. But five things led to its temporary disuse: first, the reproach connected with the word through the character and social rank of the redemptioners; second, the fact that when the re-demptioners gave place at the South to negro slaves the word ‘servant’ was transferred to this class, and this alone was sufficient to prevent its application to whites;61 third, the levelling tendencies that always prevail in a new country; fourth, the literal interpretation of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence; and fifth, the new social and political theories resulting from the introduction of French philosophical ideas. At the North the word ‘help’ as applied especially to women superseded the word ‘servant,’ while at the South the term ‘servant’ was applied only to the negro. From the time of the Revolution, therefore, until about 1850 the word ‘servant’ does not seem to have been generally applied in either section to white persons of American birth. Since the introduction of foreign labor at the middle of the century, the word ‘servant’ has again come into general use as applied to white employees, not, however, as a survival of the old colonial word, but as a re-introduction from Europe of a term signifying one who performs so-called menial labor, and it is restricted in its use, except in a legal sense, to persons who perform domestic service. The present use of the word has come not only from the almost exclusive employment of foreigners in domestic service, but also because of the increase of wealth and consequent luxury in this country, the growing class divisions, and the adoption of many European habits of living and thinking and speaking.”62

During the Colonial period the word “servant” was applied to two altogether distinct classes,—to those who served for a term of years, and to those who served for life, or in other words to slaves. The former consisted of white persons of European blood; while the latter comprised Indians, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of mixed blood. Thus used by itself, the word “servant” was ambiguous; and where ambiguity might arise, we find the word qualified by the adjective “white,”—“white servants” being repeatedly alluded to in Colonial legislative acts and writings, though occasionally the phrases “English servants” and “Christian servants” occur. It is sometimes stated that felons and political offenders were transported to the American Colonies to be sold into slavery; but the idea that they were so sold appears to be a misapprehension. Before the middle of the seventeenth century, a writer remarked:—

“Malitious tongues hath impaired it much: For it hath beene a constant report amongst the ordinarie sort of people, That all those servants who are sent to Virginia, are sold as slaves: whereas the truth is, that the Merchants who send servants, and have no Plantations of their owne, doe ouely transferre their Time over to others, but the servants serve no longer then the time they themselves agreed for in England.”63

“THeir Servants,” wrote Robert Beverley, in 1705, “they distinguish by the Names of Slaves for Life, and Servants for a Time. Slaves are the Negroes, and their Posterity, following the condition of the Mother, according to the Maxim, partus sequitur ventrem. They are call’d Slaves, in respect of the time of their Servitude, because it is for Life. Servants, are those which serve only for a few years, according to the time of their Indenture, or the Custom of the Country. The Custom of the Country takes place upon such as have no Indentures.”64

And in 1724, the Rev. H. Jones, speaking of felons, “whose Room they had much rather have than their Company,” said:—

“Their being sent thither to work as Slaves for Punishment, is but a mere Notion, for few of them ever lived so well and so easily before, especially if they are good for anything.”65

But though only servants of mixed blood were slaves, yet white servants were not freemen.66 When the term of service of a white servant expired, he received a certificate of discharge and his “freedom dues;”67 the receipt of these constituted him a freeman, and thenceforth he was at his own disposal. An examination of the Colonial legislation relating to white servants seems clearly to show that a distinction was made between a “hired servant” and an “indented servant.” Indented servants served not for wages but by covenant or indenture, and were variously called “covenant servants,” “indentured servants,” or, usually, “indented servants.” On the other hand, servants who served for hire or wages were termed “hired servants.” Thus there were three classes of servants,—slaves, indented servants, and hired servants. Let us now turn to freemen. A freeman might be a planter doing his own work himself, with the aid of his family; or he might be the employer of labor; or he might hire himself out to another freeman. In this last case he became a “hired freeman” or a “hired man.” If, then, my interpretation of Colonial legislation is correct, the work of settling and of opening up this country, during the Colonial period, was performed by four classes of persons:—First, the freeman, who, when he hired himself out, was called a hired freeman or a hired man; Secondly, the servant who, when he served for a term of years for wages, was termed a hired servant; Thirdly, the servant who, when he served for a term of years by covenant or indenture, was called a covenant or indentured or indented servant; and Fourthly, the servant who, when he served for life, was termed a slave.

With the outbreak of the Revolutionary War the Colonial system of white servitude began to fall into decadence,68 and gradually there came to be but two classes—freemen and slaves. In the examples which follow it will be seen that before 1776 the term “hired man” was purely a descriptive one, there not being the slightest indication of its having been employed in a euphemistic sense; and in many of the examples between 1776 and 1863, the term is still merely a descriptive one, distinguishing the person so designated from a slave. When, as a consequence of the dislike to the word “servant,” a euphemistic substitute for the hated appellation was desired, the terms “hired man,” “hired woman,” “hired girl,” “hired boy,” etc., (of which—except the first—there is absolutely no trace before 1776) came into vogue, and have remained in use as survivals, even though, since 1863, they have lost all significance as descriptive terms.

The following extracts illustrate the use of the term “hired man”:—

American Examples.

“Memoranđ, the xxv^th of May, 1639: That Roᵬte Eldred, the hyred servant of Nicholas Sympkins for the terme of three yeares from about the of July next for 4^li ᵱ ann. & an ewe goat at tħend of his tyme. The said Nicholas Sympkins . . . hath, w^t and by the consent of the said Roᵬte Eldred, assigned & set ouer the said Route Eldred vnto the said M^r Thom̄ Prence, to serue him all the ramaynder of the said terme.”69

“Allways provided that if any such runnaway servants or hired freemen shall produce a certificate, wherein it appears that they are freed from their former masters service or from any such ingagement respectively, if afterwards it shall be proved that the said certificates are counterfeit then the retayner not to suffer according to the penalty of this act.”70

“It is Enacted by this present assembly That whosoever being a Servant by Indenture Shall Convey himself or herself out of the Service of his or her master, mistriss or Dame by running away or Departing privatly out of the s^ḍ Service, shall Double the time of his or their absence over and above the Damages and Cost to be ajudged by the Court . . . And any hired Servant so Departing from Service as afores^ḍ shall double the time of his or her unlawfull Departure & absence to his or her s^ḍ master or Dame, over & above the Damages and Costs . . . to be adjudged by the Court, . . . And any one which shall Transport any hired or Covenant Servant out of the Province shall pay Double Cost & Damage to the party Grieved for such Servants absence out of the Province, And every hired Servant or Apprentice that shall absent himself out of the Service of his or her master or Dame, & During such absence shall be resident within this Provinoe shall double the time of his or her absence of Service to his or her master or Dame.”71

“And bee itt enacted . . . That noe pson whatsoever shall trade Barter Comerce or Game w^tḥ any Serv^ṭ (except hired Serv^tṣ) w^tḥin this province w^tḥ out Lycence first had & obteyned from his or her M^ṛ M^rṣ Dame or Overseere, vnd^ṛ the penalty of Two Thousand pounds of Tobacco.”72

“. . . you are also required to take a list of the names of those young persons within the bounds of your Town, and all adjacent Farms though out of all Town bounds, who do live from under Family Government, viz. do not serve their Parents or Masters, as Children, Apprentices, hired Servants, or Journey men ought to do, and usually did in our Native Country, being subject to their commands and discipline.”73

“And be it further Enacted, . . . That no Person whatsoever, shall trade, barter, commerce, or any Way deal with any Servant, whether hired, or indented, or Slave, belonging or appertaining to any Inhabitant within this Province, without Leave or Licence first had and obtained from such Servant’s Master, Mistress, Dame or Overseer, for his so doing, under the Penalty of Two Thousand Pounds of Tobacco.”74

“And be it further Enacted . . . That if any Servant or hired Labourer shall lay violent Hands, or beat or strike his or her Master, Mistress or Overseer, and be convicted thereof by Confession or Evidence of his Fellow Servant, or otherwise, before any two Justices of the Peace in this Province, the said Justices of the Peace are hereby required and authorized to order such Servant or Labourer to serve his or her Master or Mistress, or their Assigns, any Time not exceeding Six Months without any Wages, after his or her Time by Indenture or otherwise is expired, or such corporal Punishment to be inflicted by the Hands of the Constable, or some other white Person, not exceeding Twenty one Stripes, as they shall in their Discretion think fitting, according to the Nature of the Crime.”75

“Be it therefore enacted . . . That every master of any outward bound ship or vessel that shall hereafter carry or transport out of this province any person under age, or bought or hired servant or apprentice, to any parts beyond the seas, without the consent of such master, parent or guardian, signified in writing, shall forfeit the sum of fifty pounds.”76

“RUN away the 9th Inst. from James Norrel of Oley in this County, an hired Servant Man named John Blowden, well set, of short Stature, black Hair, fair Complexion, and has a smooth Tongue . . . He pretends to be a Doctor, sometimes a Gentleman or a Merchant, and endeavours to cheat all he comes acquainted with.”77

“To Cap^t John Dyer Clerk for the Town of Plymouth. This may Informe that Cornelius Warren of Middleberough is a hired man with me on a fishing voyage and his family is now in Plymouth”

Yr humble servant

“John Bartlett”78

“There are also the surgeon and his wife, a shoemaker and spinstress; besides labourers and monthly hired servants: I think, in all, I have upwards of eighty . . . As for manuring more land than the hired servants and great boys can manage, it is impracticable without a few negroes. It will in no wise answer the expence.”79

“Run away, on the 8th instant, from Leonard Keffer, of Morris-county, in the Jerseys, an Irish hired man, named Robert Steward, can talk good English, of middle size, well-made.”80

“Why, then, will Americans purchase slaves? Because slaves may be kept as long as a man pleases, or has occasion for their labor; while hired men are constantly leaving their masters (often in the midst of his business) and setting up for themselves.”81

“Absented from the service of Peter Ten Eick, living upon Rariton river, in the Jerseys, a Dutch hired servant-man, nam’d John Engle, of middle stature, well set, red faced, and speaks bad English; he pretends to be a miller.”82

“The House being informed by Petition from the Masters, that a great Number of bought Servants are lately inlisted by the Recruiting Officers now in this Province, . . . we beg Leave to lay this Grievance before the Governor.83 We presume that no one Colony on the Continent has afforded more free Recruits to the King’s Forces than Pennsylvania. Men have been raised here in great numbers for Shirley’s and Pepperell’s Regiments, for Halket’s and Dunbar’s, for the New York and Carolina Independent Companies, for Nova Scotia, and even for the West India Islands. By this, and the Necessity we are under of keeping up a large Body of Men to defend our own extensive Frontiers, we are drained of our hired Labourers; and as this Province has but few Slaves we are now obliged to depend principally upon our Servants to assist us in tilling our Lands. If these are taken from us, we are at a Loss to conceive how the Provisions that may be expected out of this Province another year, for the Support of the King’s Armies, are to be raised.”84

“Slavery indeed is cancelled in the free country of Britain for several reasons; particularly because labour can be there performed by hired servants, apprentices and journeymen in such a populous place, much better and cheaper than in new plantations, where labourers are scarce and wages &c. very dear.”85

“Nor shall any hired or indented Servant or Apprentice, who has heretofore gained, or herafter shall gain any legal Settlement in Pennsylvania, gain any Settlement in this Colony, by Virtue of his or her being hired or bound as aforesaid, or assigned to any Person inhabiting in any such City, Town-corporate, or Township or Precinct, unless Notice be given in writing, within Ten Days after such Hiring or Binding as aforesaid, to the Overseers of the Poor of the City, Town-corporate, Township, or Precinct, where such Person shall come to reside, by the Person who shall take such Apprentice, hire such Servant, or purchase such indented Servant, or by the Person or Persons so hiring, binding, or indenting him or themselves, within Ten Days after every such Hiring, Binding, or Indenting as aforesaid.”86

“I visited (in Providence, R. I.) Jno. Angel, who told me he was born in Providence, Oct. 4, 1691, son of James Angel, son of Thomas Angel, who came from Salem with Roger Williams. . . . His grandfather he said was Mr. “Williams’ hired man at Salem, & came away with him; and the Angel family preserve many particulars respecting Mr. Williams.”87

“Voted To abate to ye Hired men that are not Inhabitants in Said Town the Sum Eight Shillings & Eight pence of their Poll Tax for the year 1772 on account of the Extraordinary Charge by Reason of Building & Repairing the Meeting House in Said Town.”88

“And be it further Enacted . . . That if any Person whatsoever, who shall be an Apprentice bound by Indenture to, or shall be an hired Servant to or with any Person whatsoever, who did come into and shall reside in any City, Parish, Town, or Place within this Colony, by Means or Licence of such Certificate as aforesaid and not afterwards having gained a legal Settlement in such City, Town, Parish, or Place; such Apprentice by Virtue of such Apprenticeship, Indenture, or Binding, and such Servant by being hired by or serving as a Servant as aforesaid to such Person, shall not gain or be adjudged to have any Settlement in such City, Parish, Town, or Place, by Reason of such Apprenticeship or Binding, or by Reason of such hiring or serving therein; but every such Apprentice and Servant shall have his or their Settlements in such Parish, Town, or Place, as if he or they had not been bound Apprentice or Apprentices, or had not been an hired Servant or Servants to such Person as aforesaid.”89

“Next again lives a Low Dutchman, who implicitly believes the rules laid down by the synod of Dort. He conceives no other idea of a clergyman than that of an hired man; if he does his work well he will pay him the stipulated sum; if not he will dismiss him, and do without his sermons, and let his church be shut up for years. . . . We entered into a large hall, where there was a long table full of victuals; at the lowest part sat his negroes, his hired men were next, then the family and myself; and at the head, the venerable father and his wife presided.”90

“Many of the Quakers have planted their tabernacles in that delightful valley which is washed by the Shenandore, beyond the first chain of mountains. They have no slaves; they employ negroes as hired servants, and have renounced the culture of tobacco.”91

“That part of the tradesmen and manufacturers, who live in the country, generally reside on small lots and farms, of one acre to twenty, and not a few upon farms of twenty to one hundred and fifty acres, which they cultivate at leisure times, with their own hands, their wives, children, servants, and apprentices, and sometimes by hired labourers, or by letting out fields, for a part of the produce, to some neighbour, who has time or farm hands not fully employed.”92

“He [Stiles] liberated his negro man-servant, Newport. . . . This excellent servant gave abundant proof of his faithfulness, during the life of his master. Such was his attachment to him and the family, that, a few years after their removal from Portsmouth, he followed them to New-Haven; and, as a hired servant, entered again into their service.”93

“When a rich man dies, an undertaker, or fashionable performer is ordered, who employs a sort of equipages, drawn by horses, which I mistook for baggage waggons, in one of which he puts the body, while several hired men, dressed fantastically in black, walk on each side, with not more unconcern than should be expected.”94

“There is no power given you, as master, to confine a hired servant by law: that is one part of their liberty and equality: nor is there any compulsion but the whip; and the white or hired man, had masters the power to use it, would not submit to that.”95

“On Sundays it would be difficult to discriminate betwixt the hired girl and the daughter in a genteel family, were drapery the sole criterion.”96

“There was something patriarchal in a family establishment formerly; the whole household were assembled at morning and evening prayers; the servants were not menials, and the children mixed freely with them. The dignity of the parent kept up a reserve that inspired awe, and restrained the confidences of his children. No very nice distinction was made in the kind of respect that was due from the children, on account of their youth, or that which was paid by the hired people, 011 account of their station. These latter were seldom born and seldom died servants; they served for a time, till their wages would enable them to begin clearing land for a farm.”97

“In the olden time all the hired women wore short gowns and linseywolsey or worsted petticoats. . . . Now all hired girls appear abroad in the same style of dress as their ladies.”98

“On the 3d of August, 1837, his little son, then a child of five years old, went out to a swamp in the vicinity of their dwelling [in Michigan] with a hired girl to gather whortleberries.”99

“John Boatman was regarded as a valuable servant, and was according held at a high price; but the money [for his redemption from slavery] was raised, and the master struck off something from the sum which he might have obtained. . . . Mr. Alexander kept them both as hired servants upon wages.”100

“Asa consequence of this shifting process, to which we have given but a glance, a very decidedly depressing element is now being rapidly introduced into New England farming life. The Irish girls have found their way into the farmer’s kitchen, and the Irish laborer has become the annual ‘hired man.’”101

“Abel had Revolutionary blood in his veins, and though he saw fit to ‘hire out,’ he could never stand the word ‘servant,’ or consider himself the inferior one of the two high contracting parties. . . . He may or may not figure again in this narrative, but as there must be some who confound the New-England hired man, native-born, with the seivant of foreign birth, and as there is the difference of two continents and two civilizations between them, it did not seem fair to let Abel bring round the Doctor’s mare and sulky without touching his features in half-shadow into our background.”102

“Kilburn was aided in his extraordinary defence of his home by a hired man whose name was Peak.”103

“To better his fortune when out of indenture at least two courses were open to him. He might remain with his master or some other person as a hired man or tenant upon his lands, or he might become an independent planter by taking up whatever unoccupied land in the community had proved too barren to be already patented by freemen, or by moving to the frontier where abundance of good land was to be had on the easiest terms.”104

“We paid our respects to two elderly gentlewomen, sisters of a dead canon, and drank slowly at the spring situated before the door of their stone cottage, their hired man coming and remaining to silently gaze upon us till we resumed our march.”105

“One of the hired men, a Swede, desired to drive to the country-seat for purposes of his own.”106

“In the end we have the machine as we know it, with a boss at its head, which virtually carries on the government; the representative system has shrunk to a form, and the members of the Legislature, though elected by the people, are really the boss’s hired men. . . . Platt announced several weeks ago that the charter was to be passed without amendment, and all his hired men had their minds made up for them when this decision was proclaimed.”107

“There is a sleigh and wagon shop a couple of miles out of the village, but the owner of this is also a farmer, and his only employee is also his hired farm man.”108

“Was the expression hired man” asked Dr. Hall, “brought over from East Anglia, or elsewhere, by Englishmen who colonized. America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries?”109 Are not the British examples110 of the term which follow far too few to enable us to generalize? And were not the social conditions in this country from 1607 to 1776 of themselves sufficient to cause the term to arise here? And if the term was brought from England, is it not strange that there should be no trace of it here until 1737—a hundred and thirty years after the settlement of this country?111

British Examples.

“Sothli he . . . seyde, Hou many hirid men in my fadir hous, han plente of looues; forsothe I perische here thurʒ hungir.”112

“Paid expenses incurred on preparing the krayer [a sort of vessel] of Hethe, and in money delivered to the hired men going to sea with said krayer 26l. 10s. 8d.”113

“They forsake, for Christs love,

Travaile, hunger, thirst, and cold;

For they ben ordred over all above,

Out of youth till they ben old.

By the dore they goe not into the fold,

To helpe their sheep they nought travail;

Hired men all such I hold,

And all such false foule hem fall.”114

“For though the warre waxt colde in euery place,

And small experience were there to be seene,

Yet thought I not to parte in such disgrace,

Although I longed much to see our Queene:

For he that once a hyred man hath bene,

Must take his Maisters leaue before he goe,

Unlesse he meane to make his freend his foe.”115

“Item, I geve and bequeathe unto and amongste the hyred men of the company which I am of, which shalbe at the tyme of my decease, the some of fyve pounds of lawfull money of England, to be equally distributed amongste them.”116

“Also her hired men are in the midst of her, like fatted bullocks, for they also are turned backe, and are fled away together.”117

“O! you’ll anon proue his hyr’d man, I feare,

What has he giu’n you, for this message?”118

Closely connected with the term “hired man,” as illustrative of American social conditions, is the word “help.” This word, wrote Schele de Vere, “often considered a genuine Americanism, is only an extension of the original word from an instrument to a person.”119 “It is not certain,” wrote C. A. Bristed, “whether the term help for servant, often set down as a general Americanism, but in fact scarcely known in the middle states, is of western or New-England origin. It is generally used in both sections of the country.”120 We must, in the first place, distinguish between the Colonial use of this word and its present use. During the Colonial period the word was a generally descriptive one, designating any one who was called in to render assistance, while now it is specifically applied to a domestic servant.121 The citations before 1776, given below, show the accuracy of the statement made by Mr. Lowell in 1865:—

“The fewness and dearness of servants made it necessary to call in temporary assistance for extraordinary occasions, and hence arose the common use of the word help. As the majority kept no servants at all, and yet were liable to need them for work to which the family did not suffice, as, for instance, in harvest, the use of the word was naturally extended to all kinds of service. That it did not have its origin in any false shame at the condition itself, induced by democratic habits, is plain from the fact that it came into use while the word servant had a much wider application than now, and certainly implied no social stigma.”122

That the word had a certain vogue among the New England clergy alone proves that the term was not employed euphemistically. There is a gap in my quotations from the outbreak of the Revolutionary War until the present century. Meanwhile there had arisen the dislike to the word “servant” already commented upon, and on examining the examples of “help” throughout this centuiy one is at once struck with the facts that the word has passed from a general to a specific meaning, and that it is a euphemistic substitute for the hated word “servant.” With regard to the distribution of the word in this country, it is to be remarked that until 1800 the term appears to have been wholly confined, in its concrete sense, to New England; and that at present, as I am informed by Dr. E. Eggleston, who speaks from a large personal observation, “it hardly exists anywhere south of the belt of New England emigration,” and that “it is not yet a fixed colloquialism except in populations derived thence.” The early examples which follow are offered, not as proving that “help,” in its concrete sense, was brought over from England, but merely as showing how difficult it often is to draw an absolute line between the abstract and the concrete senses, and as indicating how readily the concrete use would come in when the occasion for it arose. And, as the following examples, both of noun and of verb, show, such occasion did early arise in New England.

Examples.

“‘Iasoun,’ quod she, ‘for ought I see or can,

As of this thing the which ye been aboute,

Ye han your-self y-put in moche doute.

For, who-so wol this aventure acheve,

He may nat wel asterten, as I leve,

With-outen deeth, but I his helpe be.’”123

“Att whiche tyme, soo God be my help, Pope Julie shewide me expresslie that . . . he shulde undoubtidlie within short space serve owdre your Grace or me or boithe as untreulie as he hade doon hym.”124

“Blessed is he that hath the God of Iacob for his helpe and whose hope is in the Lord hys God.”125

“You Gods that made me man, and sway in loue;

That haue enflamde desire in my breast,

To taste the fruite of yon celestiall tree,

(Or die in th’ aduenture) be my helpes,

As I am sonne and seruant to your will,

To compasse such a bondlesse happinesse.”126

“It. to the helpes in the kitchen iiij s. It. to the helpes in the buttrey ij s. . . . It. helpes in the kitchen iiij s. vj d. It. helpes in the buttrey xviij d. It. to other s’uants in yo^r LL. house that attended ij s.”127

“And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him an helpe meete for him.”128

“And God hath set some in the Church, first Apostles, secondarily Prophets, thirdly Teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helpes in gouernmēts, diuersities of tongues.”129

“That night he will take leave of his Ladie the Princesse by some window of a garden that lookes into her bed-chamber; by the which he hath spoken to her oft-times before, being a great meanes and helpe thereto, a certaine damzell which the Princesse trusts very much.”130

“Luc. God for thy mercy, they are loose againe.

Adr. And come with naked swords,

Let’s call more helpe to haue them bound againe.”131

“It is ordered, that M^r Patricke & M^r Vnd^rhill shall haue allowed them 6^ł 8^s in money, to buy them howseholde stuffe, & for helpe to washe, brewe, & bake, xx^s.”132

“Dayes of Humiliation. . . . Aprill. 7, 1636, in respect of p^rsent outward Scarcity & in respect of helpes in ministery, as also for the p^evention of Enemies. . . . June 22, 1637. Ffor Successe in warring against the Pequeuts, as alsoe for composing differences o^r Breathren in y^e Bey, & for helpe in y^e Ministerye in respect of our selves.”133

“Ther they haue gathered a Church, & doe intend to chuse officers shortely, & do desire better healpes in that kind, when the Lord is pleased to send them, & would gladly vse what meanes doth lye in vs to obtayne them.”134

“It is ordered, y^t James Penn shall have 20^s, to be disposed among such of his servants & helps as have bene implied about y^e dyet & attendance of y^s Co^rt, & y^e late meeting of y^e commission^rs; 10^s thereof to y^e ᵱsent cooke, y^e wife of Mills, & y^e rest to oth^r servants & helps.”135

“Because y^e harvest of hay, corne, flax, & hemp comes usually so neare togethe^r y^t much losse can hardly be avoyded, it is ordered & decreed by y^s Co^rte, y^t y^e cunstable of ev^ry towne, upon request made to y^m, shall require artific^rs or handicrafts men, meete to labo^r, to worke by y^e day for their neighbo^rs needing y^m, in mowing, reaping, & in̄ing thereof, & y^t those whom they help shall duely pay y^m for their worke, . . . ᵱvided no artificer, &c, shalbe compeled to worke for oth^rs whiles he is necessarily attending on like busines of his owne.”136

“A man and a boy, if their hands be not sleeping in their pockets, will feede as many Wormes as come of sixe or eight ounces of seed till they be past their foure first sicknesses, and within some 14 dayes of spinning: Indeed the last 14 dayes require a more extraordinary diligence and attendance, a more frequent and carefull feeding, . . . At this more particular season, there is necessity of adding the labour of three or foure helpes more (to which Women or Children are as proper as Men) which is an inconsiderable accession considering the gaine arising from it.”137

“It is ordred by this Court & the authoritie thereof, that whosoeuer shall henceforth any wayes cause or suffer any younge people or persons whatsoeuer, whether children, servants, apprintizes, schollers belonging to the colledge or any other Latine schoole, to spend any of theire time or estate, by night or day, in his or theire company, howse, shoppe, shippe, or other vessell, whether ordinary, taverne, victuallinge howse, cellar, or other place where they haue to doe, & shall not, from time to time, discharge & hasten all such youthes to theire seuerall imployments & places of abode or lodginge aforesd, if theire beinge in any such place be knowne to them, or any servant or other helpe in the family, or supplyinge the place of a servant, at sea or at land, that then such person, howseholder, shopkeep, shipmaster, ordinary keeper, taverno^r, victualler, or other, shall forfeit the sume of fortie shillinges, vppon legall conviction before any magistrate.”138

“I hope to see her [a saw-mill] goe in 2 or 3 daies; but my man is falne ill, John Lockwood is falne of, help is hard to get, the mill so remote, &c: will make all goe dull, but I intend to doe my vtmost indeauor by degrees. . . . I . . yet think rather then your worshipp shall to much sofer, to send him, if he be well & willing, though I hire help in his roome, which allso wilbe hard, now spring comes on. . . . The death & departure of such helps as God hath taken away is much to be bewailed. The Lord suply vs with meet helps. . . . Help is scarce & hard to gett, difficult to please, vncertaine, &c.; that I am redy to be discoridged least your worshipp should think that I am slack & negligent, vnthrifty, &c. Means runeth out & wages on, & I canot make choyce of my helpe, nor efect what I desire, so that I could gladly be excused or eased.”139

“The Select men nowe to be chosin are to see the worke to be done about takin the sorcomference of the land in ᵱvidinge help to cary the chaine &c.”140

“What next I bring shall please thee, be assur’d,

Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self,

Thy wish, exactly to thy hearts desire.”141

“As to the meeteings uppon this Iland [Martha’s Vineyard] there are two Church meeteings and three other. In all wch: there are generall church Members: this is besides what is Donne by Metark at his place & sometimes some other helpe.”142

“Whereas the present warr necessarily calls forth sundry men into the country” service whose imployment & livelyhood consists in husbandry, the proppogating whereof in our respective tounes for the raysing of corne and provissions is of great necessity for our subsistence, it is therefore ordered by this Court, that the selectmen of the respective tounes doe take effectuall care, and are hereby impowred, to impresse men for the mannagement and carrying on of the husbandry of such persons as are called of from the same into the service, who haue not sufficjent help of their oune left at home to mannage the same, who shall be allowed eighteen pence a day for their sajd worke, to be pajd by the respective persons for whom they worke.”143

“Charlestowne, . . . What is paid to the ministry, £100 per annum, in or as money, and 20^s per day for transient help.”144

“Voted this: Nov. 28. 93. At a meeting of the Church at my house unanimously y^t o^r Teacher Invite M^r Wadsworth to assist him constantly once a month or any other vacancy in Preaching, & any other help hee shall judge needfull.”145

“memorandu’—That since my Last great sicknes (for about a yeare) The Deacons provided Transient help to preach one part of the Day.—My weaknes being more than ordinary manifest This Last winter (1696)—somtyme in January—Divers both of the Church & Town came to-geather unto me. And asked If I were willing to have a setled helper? . . . Then agreed by the Brethren there present, That whereas They did formerly in the Yeare 1694 Novem^r 23 vote & Nominated m^r Ebenezer pemberton to be an Assistant to M^r Charles Morton as a settled help in the work of the Ministry—And wee are soe wel satisfyed in what They have Don herein as to com to a free and Jeneral vote with the Inhabitants at the Time appoynted by the Com̄ittee In order to a setled help to the Rev-rand m^r Charles Morton in the work of the Ministry among us.”146

“He or she that cannot do all these things, or hath not slaves that can, over and above all the common occupations of both sexes, will have but a bad time of it; for help is not to be had at any rate, every one having business enough of his own.”147

“Voted, that Mr. Waldron be supplied with constant help for six months next ensuing from this day. . . . Voted, that Mr. Waldron be supplied with help until the annual meeting in July next.”148

“Voted That the Select Men shall hire help to pull up the Barbary bushes that are in the Burying place.”149

“About the estate in lands he [G. Whitefield] never understood how the matter lies, and says that he and every one of the trust in England conceive of the matter as though you had a farm of one or two thousand acres, and were to make the best of it by building, and buying or hiring help, with the money in England, to improve it,—something like his estate in Georgia.”150

“The arrogance of domestics in this land of republican liberty and equality, is particularly calculated to excite the astonishment of strangers. To call persons of this description servants, or to speak of their master or mistress, is a grievous affront. Having called one day at the house of a gentleman of my acquaintance, on knocking at the door, it was opened by a servant-maid, whom I had never before seen, as she had not been long in his family. The following is the dialogue, word for word, which took place on this occasion:—‘Is your master at home?’—‘I have no master.’—‘Don’t you live here?’—‘I stay here.’—‘And who are you then?’—‘Why, I am Mr.——’s help. I’d have you to know, man, that I am no sarvant; none but negers are sarvants.’”151

“Help, n. Often used in New England instead of servants; and it generally means female servant: Ex. My help is very good; such a one is very good help. The word domestic is, however, more common.”152

“A great number of farmers have more land inclosed in fence than they can well manage: ask one of these the reason, he replies, ‘I want help.’ An assistant enables him to cultivate a portion of his land that would otherwise become overrun with weeds.”153

“There is no such relation as master and servant in the United States: indeed, the name is not permitted;—‘help’ is the designation of one who condescends to receive wages for service. This help is generally afforded by free blacks, and Irish; our natives seldom lowering the dignity of free-born republicans so much, as to enter a house in the capacity of servants.”154

“Hezekiah K——left his wife and his home at a mature age, to better his condition by a temporary absence. He came to Boston, to let himself for help; and, to express it in other words, entered into service in a gentleman’s family, and changed his place but once during this career. . . . I do not know in what capacity he originally entered these families; but he served, on occasion, as a double to every servant, from the coachman to the chambermaid. He could drive the horses, cook the dinner, sweep the apartments, and make the beds; and when he had nothing else to do, would sit down to sew; making his own clothes and mending his own stockings.”155

“The servant girls in New York assume the title of ‘Miss;’ their male visiting friends invariably making use of this term in inquiring for them. It is the general custom amongst a certain rank in life, and that by no means the lowest, to dine at the same table with their hired girls, or ‘helps,’ as they are occasionally styled.”156

“Help is the word by which servants reconcile their pride with their interest, or employment, as it denotes, that though the assistants, they are the equals of their employers.”157

“The greatest difficulty in organizing a family establishment in Ohio, is getting servants, or, as it is called there, ‘getting help,’ for it is more than petty treason to the Republic, to call a free citizen a servant.”158

“In the families of the rich you encounter no parti-coloured fops, with loads of lace and livery buttons; but yon meet with genteel, obliging, and respectable attendants, frequently from the continent of Europe; and in ordinary families or public hotels, &c. men of colour, i. e. Blacks, are the usual helps. From none did I ever receive an uncivil word or meet with a sulky look. I was civil to them, and they were at all times civil and serviceable to me. But we are told no man dares to call one of his attendants servant. Perhaps such a term might give offence: I know not. But let us think for a moment how rarely have we occasion, at home, to call Jack or Tom, by such a designation. The insidious and unreasonable prejudice which too generally prevails in America against unhappy Negroes, and a dread upon the part of those who are free, of being classed with their less fortunate brethren, contributes greatly to a dislike of the term servant in the States, which is there considered as nearly synonymous with slave.”159

“The inhabitants of New England are quite as willing to call their servants ‘helps,’ or ‘domestics,’ as the latter repudiate the title of ‘masters’ in their employers.”160

“I do not value much the antislavery feeling of a man who would not have been abolitionist even if no such abomination as American Slavery ever had existed. Such a one would come home from an anti-slavery meeting to be an unhired overseer of his wife and children and help (for I love our Yankee word, teaching, as it does, the true relation, and its being equally binding on master and servant), or he would make slaves of them that he might go to one.”161

“The great annoyance of which people complain in this pleasant land [Canada] is the difficulty of obtaining domestic servants, and the extraordinary specimens of humanity who go out in that capacity. It is difficult to obtain any, and those that are procured are solely Irish Roman Catholics, who think it a great hardship to wear shoes, and speak of their master as the ‘boss.’ At one house where I visited, the servant or ‘help,’ after condescending to bring in the dinner, took a book from the chiffonier, and sat down on the sofa to read it. On being remonstrated with for her conduct, she replied that she ‘would not remain an hour in a house where those she helped had an objection to a young lady’s improving her mind!’”162

“In consequence of the great difficulty which private families experience in procuring cooks and housemaids in a country where menial service is considered beneath the dignity of a native-born American, where service is called ‘help,’ to avoid wounding the susceptibilities of free citizens, and left almost exclusively to negroes and the newly-imported Irish, . . . the mistresses of families keeping houses on their own account lead but an uncomfortable life.”163

“One of the subjects on which the minds of men and women in the United States seem to be unanimously made up, is the admitted deficiency of help—the word which describes menial attendance in the aggregate—and the very little assistance which the ‘help’ affords the employer . . . In the first place they satisfy themselves that they are helps, not servants—that they are going to work with (not for) Mr. so and so, not going to service.”164

“The appetites of the mistress are commonly the same as those of her servant, but her society is commonly more select. The help may have some of her tenderloin, but she must eat it in the kitchen.”165

“The hired girl sat down to the table with David and his mother. . . . Susan Means had always been faithful, reliable help.”166

“We used to receive into the family as ‘help,’ as they used to be called, young men and young women from the country. . . . They did not like to be called servants, did not show great alacrity in answering the bell, the peremptory summons of which had something of command in its tone, which did not agree with the free-born American.”167

“I never thought that I should have to go out into the world as a lady-help! . . . But no matter; life is n’t all roses when you start out as a lady-help.”168

“The Executors of the late Wm. West, Esq., of Barcote, Faringdon, Berks, having to close the establishment, wish to recommend thoroughly Head Coachman, Carriage Groom, and Stable Help.”169

“Mother’s Help Wanted, to teach three little girls thorough English, music, &c. Good needlewoman.”170

“Useful Help.—Superior young person seeks Situation in private hotel or otherwise; quick and energetic, domesticated; abstainer, Protestant; no washing.”171

“Companion-Help wanted (30) for middle-aged lady. To make herself generally useful. Small remuneration.”172

“Widow Lady requires Lady-Help; servant kept; Roman Catholic; good health, domesticated, good needlewoman.”173

Not only do these extracts and references, to which so much space has been given, show the history of the terms under discussion, but they also throw much light on the social conditions which, at different times, have prevailed in this country. The early settlers naturally brought with them the social ideas in which they had been nurtured, and so deeply did those ideas take root here that they remained, with little change, until the period of the Stamp Act. On the other hand, the restlessness, the desire to improve one’s condition, the longing to set up for one’s self,—these were as typical of the American colonist as they are of the American citizen. Finally, the extracts enable us to see how the systems of slavery and of white servitude existed side by side for over a century and three-quarters; and how, as a result of the social and political upheaval of the last thirty years of the eighteenth century, the system of white servitude, clashing with the ideas of equality and national life, gradually crumbled to pieces, still leaving, however, the worse blot of slavery. It is characteristic of the rapidity with which changes take place, and of the ease with which people conform to new conditions, that few of the generation to which the present writer belongs have any realizing sense of slavery; and so completely have all traces of the system of white servitude disappeared, that the very existence of such a system is probably unknown except to those who have had occasion to inquire somewhat closely into our early history.

POSTSCRIPT.

Since the ahove Paper was written, several passages have come to light which seem worth recording. In a Town Meeting held at Providence, Rhode Island, 27 January, 1696–97, it was ordered that—

“in Case any Person Concerned in sd ffields doe faile of doeing his or theire part or parts of s^d fence . . . that then the men chosen to judge the sufficiencye of sd fences & to looke to the performance theire-of . . . are hereby impowred to imp^ly persons to make up the said defective fence; & then to repare to any one of the Majestrates & desire of them a warrant to a Const[ ]ble to destraine so much of the Estate of the defective person or persons & to deliver it to the sd men who are over seers of s^d fences who shall there with pay those whome the imply about y^e s^d worke & also to pay themselves for their Time the which wages shall be 2^s 3^d ⅌ day both for the overseers & also for the hired men.”174

“Whereas Reuben Stevens in Capt. Jacob Bayley’s Roll Received ten pounds as Bounty, & did not pass muster, & afterwards was Rec^d as a hired man in the Room of Nath^l Watts in the same company which Watts also Received Bounty, therefore

“Voted, That the Treasurer stop ten pounds out of the said Stevens Wages & give the Province Credit for the same.”175

The first of these extracts requires a slight modification of the statement made on page 241,—that the term “hired man” is not found in this country until 1737.

Looking beyond the borders of the American Continent, we find that on 7 October, 1652, a law was passed in Barbadoes of which one clause is as follows:—

“Item, whatsoever servant, or hired men, as Overseers, Fallers Assenego-men, or others whatsoever, shall imbezil, purloin, steal, wilfully waste, or make away any of his masters or Mistresses Fowls, Hogs. Sheep, Cattel, . . . shall upon conviction of every such offence before any Justice of the Peace of this Island, be adjudged to serve his said Master, or Mistress three years after his first time is expired, the said servant, or hired man to receive no sallary for the time so hereby appointed.”176

“And it is hereby declared and published, That the intent thereof is meant only to reach to Covenant-servant’s wages, hired-Servants, and hired-labourers, that are hired by the mouth, day, or year, and to all Artificers, whose whole debt and demand, exceeds not four-thousaud pounds of Muscovado Sugar.”177

“Be it enacted . . . That all and every Master or Mistress of Slaves, for the first Five working Slaves, shall be obliged to keep One white Man-servant, Oveerseer, or hired Man, for Three Months at least; and if the Number increase to Ten, Two; and for every Ten after the first, One, to be resident in the Plantation where the Negroes are employed. . . . That if any Servant or hired Labourer shall lay violent Hands upon his or her Employer, Overseer, or other Person put in Authority over him or her, such Servant or Labourer shall, for such Offence, serve his or her Employer without any Wages Twelve Months, by Order of any Justice of the Peace, on Conviction.”178

The occurrence of the term “hired man” as early as 1652 in the West Indies, where the social conditions appear to have been much the same as in Virginia and Maryland, makes it probable that the expression was also in use on the Continent earlier than my examples indicate.

Of the two extracts which follow in further illustration of the use in England of “help,” the first I owe to Professor Kittredge, while the second is taken from the Oxford English Dictionary.

“Blake seated himself by his side; the help who was to accompany them, got up behind. . . . I found Murdock’s ostler very drunk, but sober, compared with that rascally help whom we had been fools enough to take with us.”179

“There were 600 horses in the Serene stables—no less than twenty teams of princely carriage horses, eight to a team; sixteen coachmen; fourteen postilions; nineteen ostlers; thirteen helps, besides smiths, carriage-masters, horse-doctors, and other attendants of the stable.”180

There seems to be nothing in the evidence adduced in this Postscript which affects the conclusions expressed in the Paper itself.

April, 1900.

Mr. John Noble communicated a group of documents pertaining to “persons enemical to the States,” embodied in the following paper entitled—

SOME MASSACHUSETTS TORIES.

The Tories of Massachusetts have been thoroughly written up, but occasionally among the old papers of the Courts, here, as in many other instances, one comes upon scraps, or fragments, or detached memoranda, written at the time, or upon cases nearly or quite forgotten, which have rested there, possibly undisturbed for a hundred years or more. Perhaps it may be so with these presented to-day. This group of Revolutionary papers, touching “persons enemical to the States,” differing in character, but having a certain relation to each other through their time and subject-matter, illustrate in several phases the political and social conditions of the period, aside from any personal interest connected with those whose fates or fortunes were concerned therein. However slight they may be in themselves, they fall, for whatever they are worth, into the accumulating material for history as told by contemporaries.

One paper is an original Verdict, just as it was drawn up by the Jury to whose decision the issue was committed and by whom it was returned into Court and accepted. It is on a narrow strip of paper, with the lines of age upon its face, without date or signature, and astray from any other papers or proceedings of the case in which it was rendered, of which nothing else now remains. Its identification, however, can, without much difficulty, be made out. It is somewhat informal, and lacks the more imposing outward characteristics which belong to similar instruments to-day, but it contains all the essential elements, and, as history shows, was effective. The Verdict is as follows:—

I.

are of oppinion

“The Jurors upon their_˄Oath. say. that Edward Wentworth, since the 19^th April 1775 has been & now is Inimcaly disposed towards this & the other United States of America, That his further Residence, in this State is Dangerous to the Publick Peace & Safty.”

[Endorsed] Edward Wentworth

Verdict—

There is nothing upon the Verdict to show under what particular law the trial was held; but there was ample legislative provision for it. Mr. Goodell, in his Notes to the standard edition of the Province Laws, gives the full history of the proceedings and the enactments relating to persons suspected of being “dangerous to the State,” or “disaffected to the Cause of America,” in his account of the Court of Inquiry with a jurisdiction limited to Suffolk County, and of the General Acts of 1 May, 1776, ch. 21, of 9 May, 1777, ch. 45, and the Supplemental Act of 10 May, 1777, ch. 48. The latter, which by its terms was to be in force only till 1 January, 1778, provides for procuring evidence, preparing lists of suspected persons, for their apprehension, their trial by jury, their punishment on conviction, with sundry regulations as to the disposition of their property and estates.181

The Boston Town Records in the early days of the Revolution show the state of public feeling and also the various measures taken with regard to suspected or dangerous persons. For example:—There was an article in the Warrant for the Town Meeting of 10 March, 1777—

“To consider what Steps are necessary to prevent the Inconveniencies & Danger that may happen from persons resorting to, or residing in the Town, who are justly suspected of being innimical to the American States.”

The Committee appointed thereon reported—

“That a Committee of Twelve suitable persons, one in each Ward, be chosen to take the Names of all Persons, who have come to reside in Town, since the 19^th of April 1775 . . . the Names of all Refugees & other disaffected Persons & to take the Names of the Towns & States, from whence such Persons come, who are justly suspected of being inimical to the States of America; & make Report from time to time To the Committee of Correspondence, Inspection & Safety, to be used by them, as Occasion may require.”182

On the fifth of May, the draught of a Petition to the General Assembly, which had been voted on the third, was submitted, praying, among other things,—

“that effectual Measures be taken to secure us from our internal Enemies, which we apprehend cannot be accomplished, but by a total & instant Seperation; [and] that whenever it shall appear to such Persons as the Hon^ble Court shall please to appoint, that the Residence of any Person or Persons in this Town, is inconsistent with the public peace & safety, that they be appointed & impowered to remove immediately such Persons & their Families, to any place of the United States, and making their Return, without leave first obtained of the General Court, Treason against the State.”183

In the Warrant for the Town Meeting held on Saturday, 17 May, 1777, there was an Article under the first section of the Act of 10 May, 1777, ch. 48184—

“To chuse by Ballot some Person firmly attached to the American Cause, to procure Evidence that may be had of the inimical Dispositions, towards this, or any of the United States, of any inhabitants of this Town, who shall be charged by the Freeholders of being a Person whose Residence in this State is dangerous to the public peace or Safety . . . after long Debate a motion was made, that the Sense of the Town be taken, whether they will now come to the Choice of such a Person—the Motion being withdrawn, The Inhabitants were directed to bring in their Votes for a Person to procure Evidences &c agreable to a late Act of the Court. The Votes being bro’t in & Sorted, it appeared that William Tudor Esq. was chosen for the purpose aforesaid.”

At the adjournment of the Meeting, in the afternoon, it was—

“Voted, that the Selectmen be desired to retire & make a List of such Persons as they shall know, or believe to be inimical to the united States, and lay the same before the Town.”

This was done. Then followed a vote for—

“a Comitte to wait upon One of the Hon^ble Council of this State & desire that the Persons voted, by the Town to be inimical persons to these States, be immediately apprehended & confined.”

At the adjournment, on the following Monday, the Committee reported their compliance with their instructions,—

“But that they had received for Answer, that this could not be done by him without Advice of Council.

“The following List185 of such Persons belonging to this Town, as have been endeavouring since the 19^th of April 1775, to counteract the united Struggles of this & the neighbouring States, in the Opinion of a Majority of this Meeting is the List which the Town Clerk is to deliver to two or more Justices of the Peace for this County—Quorum Unus—agreable to a late Act of the General Assembly—Viz^t:—

Ebenezer Norwood	William Perry
Mather Byles, D. D.	D^r Samuel Danforth
Benjamin Phillips	George Lush
Dr James Lloyd	Edward Hutchinson186
Daniel Hubbard	Thomas Edwards
D^r Isaac Rand jun^r187	Hopestill Capen
John Tufts	Patrick Wall
Edward Wentworth188	Benjamin Davis
Benj^a Davis, Jun^r	Thomas Amory
David Parker	Charles Whiteworth
James Perkins	D^ṛ Thomas Kast
Nathaniel Cary189	John Erving Esq.
Richard Green	George Bethune
William Jackson	Dr. Miles Whitworth.”190
Samuel Broadstreet191

At a Town Meeting on Thursday, 22 May, 1777—

“Agreable to a Writ from Ezekiel Price Esq. Clerk of the Sessions &c—the following Persons were drawn out of the Jury Box, as Jurors for a special Court, to be held for the Tryal of such Persons as the Town have represented to be Inimical to these States and dangerous to the public Safety,—Viz’ Messrs Jeremiah Belknap, Edward Carnes, Samuel Dashwood, William Fallass, John Newell, John Ballard.”192

“At a Meeting of the Selectmen June 25, 1777. . . . The following were drawn Jurors for a special Court to be held at Boston for the tryal of suspected Persons 1^sṭ Tuesday July next—Viz^t Mess^rs Joseph Bradford Jun^r, John Setten, Joseph Loring, Edmund Hart, Joseph Child John Matchet.”193

All these proceedings show the vigor with which our forefathers acted, and none the less their rigid adherence to all the requirements of existing law.

Edward Wentworth, son of Edward and Keziah (Blackman) “Wentworth, was born in Stoughton, Massachusetts, 1 July, 1729. He married (1), 28 July, 1752, the widow Susanna (Winslow) Symmes, of Stoughton, born 6 October, 1724, daughter of Josiah and Sarah (Hayward) Winslow. She died in May, 1780.194 Wentworth married (2), 24 September, 1780, Mary Reed195 of Boston, who died there 24 March, 1800, aged 68. His name appears in the List of Loyalists,196 and also, in company with the Rev. Dr. Byles and other worthies, in the List given above. He is also of enough consequence to be accorded by Sabine a place in his Appendix.197 His residence, his apprehension, the Court where he was tried, and the time, appear clearly by the Town Records, above cited. The record of his trial is not to be found. Ten detached leaves are all that remain of the Records of the Court of Sessions from April, 1776, to July, 1780, and a part of these were discovered in the Miscellaneous Collection described in a previous communication, and restored to appropriate companionship. According to Sabine, he was one of the citizens of Boston arrested by order of the Council, in April, 1776. He appears to have been found guilty, at a special sitting of the General Sessions of the Peace, in June, 1777, and to have been sent on board the guardship.198 He died, in consequence of a broken leg, at the age of 65 years, and was buried in Boston, 9 July, 1794.199

Two other papers are the Records of two Trials found among the remnants just mentioned. They are for minor offences, but go to show that absolute loyalty to the new State was insisted upon, and that words no less than deeds were required to be above suspicion or question.

II.

“The Jurors upon their Oath present That Abraham Solomon of Boston in the County of Suffolk Yeoman at Boston aforesaid on sundry days & times between the fourth of March last and the twenty seventh day of the same month uttered in Company many malicious and seditious Expressions in favor of the present King of Great Britain, and against all the true Friends of America, as in the Indictment is particularly set forth. To which Indictment the said Abraham Solomon Plead not Guilty. A Jury was called and sworn to try the Issue Who Returned their Verdict on Oath and Say that the said Abraham Solomon is Guilty. The Court having considered of his Offence Order that the said Abraham Solomon Pay a Fine of Ten Pounds to be disposed of as the Law directs pay Costs of Prosecution & Stand Committed until Sentence is performed.”

III.

“The Jurors upon their Oaths Present That Jonathan Gibbs of Framingham in the County of Middlesex Gentleman at Boston in the County of Suffolk, on the twentieth day of February last Seditiously uttered Sundry words Contrary to a Law of this State as in the Presentment is particularly set forth. To this Presentment the said Jonathan Gibbs Plead Guilty.

“Continued for Judgment.”200

IV.

Another paper is an original Report of Joseph Otis,201 Deputy Gaoler, probably made in the regular course of his official duties, to the Court of General Sessions of the Peace. It gives the names of all persons held under his custody in the County Jail of Suffolk, in February, 1777, and includes, beside some held as Debtors and some under criminal charges, nine persons held for traitorous correspondence or as inimical to the States, and ten held as prisoners of war. This Report is as follows:—

“Boston Feb^ỵ̣ 18^th. 1777

A List of Prisoners in Boston Goal Doct^ṛ̣ Church for holding a Tratirus Correspondence with the Enemy
John Hill for being Enemical to the States
Tho^ṣ̣ Mews for ditto
Tho^ṣ̣ Edwards for ditto
Crean Brush for ditto
Benj^ạ̣ Davis for ditto
Hopestill Capen for ditto
Miss Hill & Daughter for attempting to Carry Intillegence to the Enemy
John Dean Whitworth A prisoner of War
Seven Men & two Women prisoners of War taken Near fort Cumberland202
Rich^ḍ̣ Luby for theft Sentens’d
Mary Young Sentens’d
Mary Noax [or Voax] Sentens’d
John Lovell for theft not had his trial
Five Debtors
- A Trew List of Prisoners
- Attest Joseph Otis Dep^y Goaler”203

The political prisoners whose names are found in this List vary much in the degree of their prominence in history. Some live in questionable distinction, and others, whatever their standing at the time, have been nearly or quite forgotten.

In his Diary, already referred to in this paper, Ezekiel Price says, under date of 20 April, 1776: “Several of the active Tories have been examined by the Court of Inquiry, and committed to jail for trial;” and, under date of Wednesday, 15 May, “Went to Boston. A number of Tories were examined before the Court of Inquiry.”204 Among these, doubtless, were some of the prisoners on the List now before us.

Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr., needs but brief mention, so much has been written as to his life and career, in their general features. A man of strongly marked character, of varied accomplishments, with ability both executive and administrative, talented, almost endowed with genius, full of energy and force, recognized as a man to lead men and to shape events, one of the earliest and most active in that remarkable body of Boston men that engineered the struggle of the Province against the mother country,—a patriot at the outset, and “the first traitor” to that cause, detected, convicted by Court Martial, examined and expelled by the Provincial Congress, exiled, and vanishing from sight in one of the unknown tragedies of the sea, his career and his fate are alike mysterious.

While the story of his defection and of the events that followed it has been told by many,205 much less has been said of the services which he rendered the American cause in the five years before the breaking out of the War.

The Records of the Town of Boston show how varied and conspicuous these services were, and how prominent a part he played in this stormy period. He is found in company with John Hancock, John and Samuel Adams, Dr. Warren, Josiah Quincy, and other leading citizens in the measures which the town adopted as the different exigencies of the occasion required. To name some of the important committees206 on which he served is enough: (1) 6 March, 1770, “to wait on his Honor the Lieu^t. Governor” after the Boston Massacre (p. 2); (2) the next year, 12 March, to consider of “some Suitable Method to perpetuate the memory of” it (p. 47), reporting later—

“That for the present the Town make choice of a proper Person to deliver an Oration . . . to commemorate the barbarous murder of five of our Fellow Citizens on that fatal Day, and to impress upon our minds the ruinous tendency of Standing Armies in Free Cities, and the necessity of such noble exertions in all future times, as the Inhabitants of the Town then made” (p. 48);

and (3) on the nineteenth of the same month to consider a Report submitted “to vindicate the Character of the Town Inhabitants grosly injured in . . . a Narrative of the Tryals &c. said to be printed by permission of the Hon^ble Court, and also in several anonimous publications” (p. 49); (4) On the sixth of May, 1772, “to draw up Instruction to the Four Gentlemen this Day chose to Represent the Town of Boston in the next General Assembly—Hon^ble Thomas Cushing, M^r Samuel Adams, the Hon^ble John Hancock Esq. and M^r William Phillips” (p. 80),—a most forcible Instruction (pp. 83–86), to which was added one touching the “salaries of the Judges of the Superior Court” (p. 88); (5) 28 October, 1772, with “Mr. Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren . . . to draw up an Address to the Governor” on the latter subject (p. 89), which, brief and sharp, “passed in the Affermative—Nem Con^t.” (p. 90); (6) 2 November, 1772, one of twenty-one persons appointed by the Town, on Motion of Samuel Adams, as “a Committee of Correspondence . . . to State the Rights of the Colonists and of this Province in particular, as Men, as Christians, and as Subjects” (p. 93), and one of a sub-committee to draught the letter “to the several Towns in this Province and to the World” (p. 94). The draught stating the Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men, as Christians, and as Subjects, is given in full under those heads in the Town Records (pp. 95–99), with the “List of Infringements & Violations of Rights” (pp. 99–106), and the Letter “to the other Towns” (pp. 106–108); (7) Several times upon the Committee to select the Fifth of March Orator. On the fifth of March, 1773, he was himself the Orator, “unanimously chosen,” and his “Eloquent and Spirited Oration [was] delivered . . . to a large and crowded Audience, and received by them with great applause . . . at the Old South Meeting House at ¾ past 12, O’Clock A:M:” (p. 109); (8) 23 March, 1773, he was on a Committee “to vindicate the Town from the gross misrepresentations and groundless charges in his Excellencies Messages to both Houses of the General Assembly respecting the proceedings of the Town at their last Meeting,” whose spirited Report, read by Samuel Adams, given in full (pp. 120–125), “was accepted by the Town nemine contradicente, and Ordered to be Recorded on the Towns Book, as the Sense of the Inhabitants of this Town” (p. 125); (9) 5 May, 1773, he was of the Committee to “give Instructions to the Representatives,—the Hon^ble Thomas Cushing Esq. M^r Samuel Adams, Hon^ble John Hancock Esq. William Phillips Esq.”—whose vigorous Instructions, given in full (pp. 132–134), were “unanimously . . . accepted” and ordered to be “printed in the Several News Papers” (p. 134); (10) 10 May, 1774, he was again upon a Committee to prepare Instructions to the Representatives, its Chairman, and associated with John Adams, Dr. Warren, Josiah Quincy, and other leading men (p. 169); (11) 19 July, 1774, on a Committee with Samuel and John Adams, Josiah Quincy, Dr. Warren, Thomas Cushing, John Hancock, Rev. Dr. Chauncy, Rev. Dr. Samuel Mather and others, “to consider & Report a Declaration to be made by this Town to Great Britain & all the World” (p. 183); (12) 25 September, 1774, he was again one of a Committee “to prepare Instructions for our Representatives,” and, with Dr. Warren and Mr. Nathaniel Appleton, was chosen a Member of the Provincial Congress (p. 191); (13) 3 November, 1774,—“At an Adjournment of the Port Bill Meeting”—he was put on the Committee which reported on “what are the proper Ways & Means to secure the Peace & good Order of the Town,”—touching mainly the presence of “Sundry Regiments of his Majesty’s Troops . . . contrary to Law, & to the great Annoyance & Detriment of his Majesty’s good Subjects of this Province, now stationed in the Town of Boston, in a Time of profound Peace,”—and on that to wait upon the Governor therewith (pp. 194–195); (14) “At a Meeting of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston ᵱ Adjournment of the Port Bill Meeting,” 7 December, 1774, he was chosen one of a Committee of sixty-two headed by “The Hon^ble Thomas Cushing Esq.” as “a Committee of Inspection, & to carry the Resolutions of the Continental Congress into Execution;” and one of a Committee of seven “to draught a Vote of Thanks” to the “Sister Colonies” for their “benevolent Assistance” (pp. 205–207); (15) 14 December, 1774, a Committee consisting of “M^r Samuel Adams, D^r Benjamin Church D^r Joseph Warren” was appointed to consider and report upon the “Answer to a Letter written to General Gage by the Hon^ble Peyton Randolph Esq. President of the late Continental Congress,” on the ground of its containing “diverse Gross Mistakes, to the Prejudice of this Town” (p. 207). Their Report, made 30 December, upon this answer of General Gage is given in full (pp. 209–211) and, “considered Paragraph by Paragraph,” was accepted, “Nem. Con.” (p. 211); (16) On the same day, with “The Hon^ble Thomas Cushing Esq. M^r Samuel Adams, Hon^ble John Hancock Esq. D^r Joseph Warren, M^r Oliver Wendell, M^r John Pitts,” he was chosen one of the “Seven Delegates for the intended Provincial Congress” (p. 211); (17) On the sixth of March, 1775, he was on the Committee to wait upon “Joseph Warren Esq.,” the Fifth of March Orator of that year, and “require of him a Copy of said Oration for the Press”; and he was also appointed on the Committee to select the Orator for the next year (pp. 215, 216). Thereafter, ominously, his name no longer appears upon the Records of the Town.

On the thirty-first of July, 1775, Dr. Church appears as a member of a Committee with Major Joseph Hawley and Mr. Joseph Wheeler “with such as the honorable Board shall join, to bring in a Bill for vacating the Commissions of all such Civil Officers as have been appointed by the Governor with the Advice of Council.”207

John Hill has left nothing behind him but the shadow of a name. Perhaps he was the son of Alexander and Thankful (Allen) Hill, who was born in Boston, 22 July, 1748.208

Thomas Edwards and Thomas Mewse are said by Sabine to have been arrested by order of the Council in April, 1776. Edwards is named in the List in the Town Records, previously given,209 of those who “have been endeavouring since the 19^th of April, 1775, to counteract the united Struggles of this & the neighbouring States;” and Mewse is included in the List of Loyalists.210

“Miss Hill & Daughter” are not identified, unless, perhaps, they were connected with the equally obscure John Hill.

John Dean Whitworth, according to Sabine (ii. 595), was a “Lieutenant in the Queen’s Rangers, Taken prisoner in 1776, sent to Boston, examined and put in jail by Order of the Government of Massachusetts.” He was a son of Dr. Miles Whitworth,211 and was born in Boston, 26 November, 1749.212

Benjamin Davis was a merchant of Boston; was one of those “proscribed as enemies of the new State;”213 and he is named in the List of the Loyalists.214 In the copy of the Broadside containing a List of the Protesters against the Solemn League and Covenant, and a List of the Addressers of Hutchinson, in 1774, reprinted by the Massachusetts Historical Society,215 Davis’s name appears in both Lists. He is described as of “Town Dock, Huckster.” He was also an Addresser of Gage, in 1775; and his name is included in the Act of 16 October, 1778, chap. 24, “to prevent the Return to this State, of certain persons . . . who have left this State . . . and joined the Enemies thereof.”216 The Letters of John Andrews under date of 7 October, 1774, mention that “Ben Davis has let his Store on the Dock for the use of the troops.”217 He left Boston with his family and went to Halifax; in his passage thence to New York he was captured in the ship “Peggy,” carried into Marblehead, sent to Boston, and there imprisoned. Ezekiel Price, in his Diary, thus refers to his arrival:—

“Monday, July 29. [1776]. “Brought to town Benjamin Davis and a number of other Tories, who were committed to jail. They were taken in a ship from Halifax to New York: she had a valuable cargo on board.”218

Davis seems to have had a hard time in jail, as appears by a letter to James Bowdoin, dated 10 October, 1776. He was a man of wealth and is said to have lost some £1000 sterling when he left Boston, besides £1500 sterling on his capture, as well as large amounts due him but never recovered. He was proscribed and banished in 1778, and is said to have been in New York at the close of the War.219

Hopestill Capen, the son of John and Elizabeth (Hall) Capen, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, 4 March, 1730–31.220 Like Davis, he was a merchant of Boston; and his place of business, at the North End, was the prototype of the Department Stores of the present generation. His name, too, like that of Davis, is found in the List of the Proscribed of the Loyalists, on the Town Records, and also in the Lists of the Addressers of Hutchinson,—where he appears as of Union Street, a “Carpenter, lately a shopkeeper,”—and of the “Protesters.” He does not appear to have found time for much service in the affairs of the Town, though he was chosen, 13 March, 1770, a “Scavinger” from Ward 5.

Capen was one of the pillars of the excellent and highly respected company of the Sandemanians, in behalf of whom, 7 April, 1773, accompanied by Edward Foster, he “attended and acquainted the Select Men that they had lately lost their House of Worship by Fire, and therefore praying that they might have the use of the North Lattin School upon Sabbaths.”221 Benjamin Davis was also of the same sect; indeed, the Sandemanians were mostly Loyalists, and caused the Patriots endless trouble.

According to Sabine (I. 293), Capen was arrested by order of the Council, in 1776, and committed to jail; and in October of that year a petition was started by his wife,222 backed by some eighty citizens of Boston, setting out the sufferings of herself and children in consequence of his arrest, and saying that he was an honest and peaceable citizen, and had rendered valuable service in trying to save the property of Absentees during the occupation of the town by the British. He, himself, in the following December, complained of the severity of his treatment and of his long and close imprisonment for nearly five months, in a written appeal to Sheriff Greenleaf, who, feeling himself personally aggrieved, laid it before the House of Representatives;—Capen also drew up a long application to the Court of Inquiry, which he expected to take up his case. Like several others whose names are included in the Town List of 17 May, 1777,223 he was in jail at that date, and that action of the Town must have looked both to the trial of those already confined, and to the apprehension of such others as had not then been arrested.

After the close of the war, Capen seems to have become reinstated as a safe citizen and of “good moral character,” since, on 26 July, 1786, at a meeting of the Selectmen, he was one of twelve “Persons . . . drawn Jurors for a Maritime Court on 9^th of August next,”—the name of “Paul Reveire Esq” being the one drawn immediately before Capen’s;224 and in 1795 he was living near the Market. He died in Boston on the morning of Monday, 2 March, 1807, at the age of 76.225

Crean Brush was a somewhat striking figure, and his life had in it no little of incident and adventure. He had a streak in his make-up of something quite alien to the ordinary New-England type of character of that day, and he stands out, in many points, in sharp contrast to his fellow prisoners. What has been written of him has given him a questionable notoriety, and he has not escaped unsparing judgment as well as some harsh epithets. The various accounts are substantially the same, and, to a considerable extent, seem to be repetitions one of another.226

Brush was born in Dublin and bred to the law. Beyond this little seems to be known of his career in Europe. He emigrated to America about 1762, and settled in New York, where he was admitted to practice and held office under the Provincial Secretary. He was a member of the Assembly of New York, where he gained some note and influence. He was Clerk and Surrogate of Cumberland County. In 1771 he removed to the “Hampshire Grants,” where he held some 50,000 acres, and in the controversies between the settlers of the Grants and New York he took an active part and was a strong partisan of New York. In the Grants he came across Ethan Allen, who married his step-daughter Frances.227 Brush came to Boston in the autumn of 1775, and soon found favor with General Gage, as he did later with General Howe. His energy, daring, and unscrupulousness made him an efficient agent, and ability like his could easily find a field of operations. Perhaps his unscrupulousness was not too obvious, considering that the duties committed to him pre-supposed integrity and rigid fidelity to a trust; or possibly, under the circumstances, it was not considered by any means a disqualification. The—

“Commission by his Excellency, the Hon. Thomas Gage, Capt. General, Governor-in-Chief &c &c To Crean Brush, Esquire:” issued 1 October, 1775, concerning “large Quantities of Goods, Wares and Merchandize, Chattels and Effects . . . left in the Town of Boston,”—issued in order “To quiet the Fears of the Inhabitants . . . and take all due care for the Preservation of such Goods” authorizes Brush “to take and receive . . . all such Goods . . . as may be voluntarily delivered . . . [he] giving Receipts for the Same . . . [and] to take all due care thereof . . . and to deliver said Goods when called upon . . .” with a memorandum at the foot that “proper Apartments in Fanueil Hall are provided for the Reception” of the same.228

Early in the following year Brush proposed to General Howe, and received authority, to raise a body of three hundred volunteers. Just before the Evacuation of Boston, the Proclamation issued by General Howe on 10 March, 1776, gave full scope to the pecular abilities of Brush, and under this he acted with his usual vigor, extending its operation somewhat beyond its original purport. Howe sets forth his expectation, that—

“as Linnen and Woolen Goods are Articles much wanted by the Rebels, and would aid and assist them in their Rebellion, . . . all good Subjects will use their utmost Endeavors to have all such Articles convey’d from this Place:” and directing that “Any who have not Opportunity to convey their Goods under their own Care, may deliver them on Board the Minerva . . . to Crean Brush, Esq . . . who will give a Certificate of the Delivery, and will oblige himself to return them to the Owners, all unavoidable Accidents accepted [sic.]” Coupled with this is the threat that “If after this Notice any Person secretes or keeps in his Possession such Articles, he will be treated as a Favourer of Rebels.”229

Armed with this authority Brush did not wait for voluntary delivery, but broke into dwelling-houses and shops, and carried off the spoils. Soldiers and sailors were not slow to follow his example, and “violence and pillage” were the rule. He took passage himself in the hrigantine Elizabeth, which was captured, as she followed the departing fleet, by Captain Manly, and brought back to Boston.230 The Diary of Ezekiel Price refers to this capture, under date of 6 April, 1776:—

“In the afternoon, Ed. Quincy stopped here. He came from Boston, and says that Captain Manley was in Boston, and told there that he had taken out of the fleet a brig laden with Tories and Tory goods, and other effects, which they plundered in Boston . . . It is said this was their richest vessel in [the] fleet: had eighteen thousand pounds sterling in cash, besides an exceedingly valuable cargo of European merchandize . . .” [And on Tuesday, 9 April:] “. . . At noon, a traveller from below says that he heard Captain Paddock and Captain Gore were among the Tories taken in the transport brig by Captain Manley. Afterwards several other travellers from below passed; but they did not hear of Paddock or Gore being in that vessel, and no other of note but Bill Jackson and Crane [sic] Brush.”231

Brush was thrown into the Boston jail, where he remained in close confinement for some nineteen months. His wife joined him there, and, besides having the solace of her company, he managed through her ingenuity and the use of some of her garments to effect his escape on the fifth of November, 1777. He started for New York, going first to Vermont to look after his large landed interests. His estate was afterward confiscated, and of all his great possessions only a small part was ever recovered by his heirs. Unfriended, redress refused by the British Commander, deserted alike by friends and foes, he shot himself, in May, 1778.

V.

Another paper is the Record of a case against this same Crean Brush, evidently growing out of his acts under General Howe’s Proclamation, which was tried while he was in jail—

“Upon the Presentment against Crean Brush for stealing sundry Goods from John Rowe Esq. the said Crean Brush filed certain pleas in order to Quash said Presentment, which are on file. The Court are of opinion that said Presentment ought to be quashed upon his first Plea.”232

There is also another case which may have originated in the same way. At the July Term, 1777, John Hill of Boston recovers judgment in a plea of the case against Crean Brush for £2. 8^s 10^d lawful money, and costs.233

The next papers among those presented are a group of five, found among the Early Court Files of Suffolk. They relate to a Suit brought in behalf of “the Government and People of the State of Massachusetts Bay” against Samuel Tarbell of Groton. It was brought in the name of Perez Morton, acting in the absence of Robert Treat Paine, Attorney General, on a Plea of Debt, upon a Bond given by the Defendant. The Bond was apparently given and the liability incurred thereon, under the provisions of the Act, already referred to, of 10 May, 1777, ch. 48,234 the first section of which impowers—

“the Selectmen of each town, or the Committee of each Plantation within this State [to call] a meeting . . . to chuse by ballot, some person who is firmly attached to the American Cause, to procure and lay before the Court hereafter described, the evidence that may be had of the inimical dispositions toward this or any of the United States, of any inhabitants of such town, who shall be charged . . . of being a person whose residence in this State is dangerous to the public peace or safety.”

It may, possibly, however, have been given under other circumstances and conditions outside of this special provision.

These papers include the original Writ sued out, the beginning of the proceeding, and the Return thereon of the officer serving it; the Bond sued upon; the Resolve of 23 April, 1778, impowering the institution and prosecution of the Suit; and the Bill of Costs, both the original and a copy. The Writ sets out the whole case and contains all the elements of the Declaration. The Return contains,—and in that respect is, for several reasons, valuable as well as interesting,—a description of the real estate owned by Tarbell, and a schedule, more or less complete, of the farm tools and implements of a “husbandman” of that day.

The Bond is the original obligation given, with all the signatures thereupon, and the little seal of red wax affixed at the time. The Resolve is a duly attested copy, produced in Court as the authority under which the proceeding was had. The Bill of Costs has some points of interest, as all such papers have, aside from its original operation.

In the Records of the Inferiour Court of Common Pleas are found the final disposition and record of the case. The entire Pleadings in the case are probably no longer in existence, but the substantial portions have been preserved, and these, with the Record, present the case with all the fulness necessary to an understanding of it.

VI.

“Suffolk ss. The Government and People of the Massachusetts-Bay in New England.

To the Sheriff of our County of Middlesex his Under-Sheriff, or Deputy, or to either of the Constables of the Town of Gorton [sic] in our same County Greeting.

We Command you to Attach the Goods or Estate of Samuel Tarbell of Groton aforesaid, Husbandman to the Value of Two thousand Pounds, and for want thereof to take the Body of the said Samuel (if he may be found in your Precinct) and him safely keep, so that you have him before our Justices of our Inferior Court of Common Pleas next to be holden at Boston within and for our said County of Suffolk on the second Tuesday of July next: Then and there in our said Court to Answer unto Perez Morton of Boston aforesaid Esq^ṛ who sues in behalf of the Government & People of the State of Massachusetts Bay, in a Plea of Debt, for that the said Samuel at said Boston on the fourth Day of December last, by his Obligation of that Date, duly executed, and in Court to be produced, bound himself to the said Government & People of said State in the sum of two thousand pounds, to be paid to the said Government & People on demand: Yet tho’ requested, the said Samuel hath never paid said sum to the said Government & People, nor to the said Morton for their use, but detains it To the Damage of the said Perez Morton, who sues as aforesaid as he saith the Sum of Two thousand & twenty Pounds, which shall then and there be made to appear, with other due Damages: And have you there this Writ, with your Doings therein. “Witness, Thomas Cushing Esq; at Boston this twenty fourth Day of April in the Year of our Lord, One Thousand seven Hundred and Seventy Eight.

Ezek^l Price Cler

“Mr. Officer

Attach to y^e Value commanded if to be found if not as much as can be found

P Morton

“midd^x̣ ss: Groton April 2 [ ]: 1778

I attacht four peices of land lying in Groton afores^ḍ̣ one peice thereof lyeth westerly from Groton meeting house where the within Named Sam^l. Dwelt Containing thirty five acres (more or less) bounded Easterly & Southerly by a town road Northerly & westerly by land of Henry Farwell with a Dwelling house Barn Corn Barn two out houses Cyder mill & press all standing on the same one other peice of land lying near tarbells fordway Containing twenty acres (more or less) Bounded westerly by Lan[cas]ter river (So Called) one other peice lyeth on the west side of said river & Contains six acres (more or less) bounded [eas]terly by said river & southerly by a town way also one other peice lying near ranglin swamp (so Called) Containing fifteen acres (more or less) as the same is Butted & bounded all the afores^ḍ peices of land was Claimed by the within named Samuels late father Tarbell dec^ḍ & now reputed to be the within Named Sam^lṣ Estate I also attacht one pair of oxen one Cart with Iron Bound wheels & Cart ladders also one pair of new Cart wheels one rideing Stay & the tacklin thereto belonging also about one thousand of White pine Boards about one Hundred of [oak] slitwork and Some pine timber Hewed and two Plows and about twelve acres of rie now standing & groing on the Ground all reputed to be the within Named Sam^lṣ Estate the Day aboves^ḍ left a Summons at the last and usual [place] of the within Named Sam^ls abode in Groton in said County

James Prescott Sheriff”235

Morton236
[Endorsed]	Writ
	Morton vs Tarbell	Travel £1. 5
	July 1778	Service - 6
NE237		1: 10 [sic]

VII.

“Know all men by these Presents That I Samuel Tarbell of Groton in the County of Middlesex & State of Massachusetts, Husbandman am holden & stand firmly bound & obliged unto the Government & People of said State, in the Sum of Two Thousand Pounds Lawful money of said State to be paid unto the said Government & People, to the which payment Well & Truly to be made I bind myself, my heirs Executors & admin” firmly by these Presents Seal’d with my Seal this fourth day of December 1777—

The Condition of the Above Obligation is such That whereas the Above bounden Tarbell is admitted as a witness on behalf of the Government & People of Said State, & any & all the New England States, when & wherever he may be wanted—And if the Above bounden Tarbell shall well & Truly from Time to Time & at all Times during y^e Several sessions of the Superior Court of Judicature Court of assize & Gen^ḷ Gaol Delivery in any & all the Countys within said State of Massachusetts, & During the Several sessions of the Superior Court of Judicature within & for the Several Countys within the State of New Hamp^rẹ and also Such Courts as he shall be Notified to appear at in the Other New England States—personally appear & attend all & every of the said Courts, & give Evidence in behalf of the Government & People of the State or states where any such Court or Courts shall be respectively held, of what he Doth or Shall Know relating to any Bill of indictment which hath been found or may from Time to Time be laid before y^e Grand Jurors of any County in either of said states, on behalf of the Government & People of any or either of said states, Concerning any Matter or Thing whatsoever against any person or persons whomsoever for & during the Term of Two years next Coming, & shall also during said Term of Two years to the utmost of his Power & abillity endeavour to discover, Disclose & and from time to time make Known to some person or persons Now in authority in y^e respective States afors^d as independant of Great Britain of all Plots, plans, Treasons, or Conspiraces of what name or nature that he Now Knows, or shall hereafter know to be against the united states of america any or either of them, & of all & every person & persons anywise Concernd in forging or Counterfiting or altering any Bills, Notes, or other Currency of the united states afor^ḍ any or either of them, or uttering the same & shall also in all matters & things, during said Term of Two years demean himself as a good & faithful Subject of the said United States & every of them—Then & in that Case y^e afore writen obligation shal be void & of no Effect but otherwise to remain in full force Power Strength & virtue

Sam^lḷ Tarbell

[and a red wax Seal]

Sign^d Seal^d & Deliv^ḍ

in presence of W^ṃ Dunsmoor

Nath^ḷ Peabody

Middlesex ss Dec^r 4t^h. 1777—

The above named Sam^ll Tarbell personally appeared and owned this Instrument to be his free act & Deed

Coram Oliver Prescott Just^e pacis.”238

VIII.

“State of Massachusetts Baye In Council April 23^ḍ 1778

Whereas Samuel Tarbell of Groton in the County of Middlesex, husbandman on the fourth Day of December last by his Bond became bound and obliged unto the Government & People of Said State in the Penal Sum of two thousand Pounds Conditioned that the Said Samuel Tarbell shall well and truly from Time to Time during the Several Sessions of the Superiour Court of Judicature &c in any and all the Counties within Said State and during the several Sessions of the Superiour Court of Judicature &c. within & for the Several Counties within the State of New Hampshire &c personally appear and attend all and every of the Said Courts and give Evidence in behalfe of the Government & People of either of said States. But the Said Tarbell has nevertheless absconded and failed of Appearing agreeable to the Conditions mentioned in the Bond aforesaid and there is great Danger of his disposing of the whole of his Estate and the Publick thereby be defrauded. And whereas the Honble Robert Treat Paine Esq Attorney General to this State being necessarily absent attending the Superiour Court. Therfore Resolved That Perez Morton attorney at Law be and hereby is impowered and directed to bring forward a Process upon the Bond given by Said Tarbell on the fourth Day of December last in Behalfe of the Government & People of the State of Massachusetts Bay and pursue the same to final Judgment & Execution any Law or Custom to the Contrary notwithstanding

Sent down for Concurrence

John Avery D^ey Sec^y

In the House of Representatives April 23^ḍ 1778

Read & Concurred

J Pitts Spk Pt.

Consented to by the Council

True Copy

Attest Jn^ọ Avery D^ey Sec^y”239

IX.

“Suf: ss Inf Ct Com Pleas July 1778

Morton for Gov^t & People vs Tarbell
W^ṭ̣ & summons	0: 1: 8
Declar͠on in W^ṭ̣ & sum^s	0: 7: 0
Sheffs fee	1: 10: 0
Pl^tṣ att 3 D^s	0: 9: 0
Court fees on Entry	0: 10: 0
Exam :^g & filing Papers	0: 2: 0
	2: 19: 8

Ezek: Price Cler”240

The action of the Court is thus set forth in the Records:—

“The Government & People of the Massachusetts Bay in New England.

Suffolk ss. At an Inferior Court of Common Pleas, begun and held at Boston, within and for the County of Suffolk, on the second Tuesday of July, (being the fourteenth day of said Month) Anno Domini, 1778.

Before the Hon. Thomas Cushing
Samuel Niles
Samuel Pemberton
Joseph Gardner

“Perez Morton of Boston in the County of Suffolk, Esquire, who sues in behalf of the Government and People of the Massachusetts Bay, plt vs Samuel Tarbell of Groton in the County of Middlesex, Husbandman, Dft, in a plea of Debt, as in the Writ dated the twenty fourth day of April last is fully set forth. And now the Defendant altho’ solemnly called to come into Court did not Appear but made Default.

“Its therefore Considered by the Court that the said Perez Morton who sues as aforesaid, recover against the said Samuel Tarbell the Sum of Two thousand Pounds, lawful money Debt being the penalty of the Bond sued on, and Costs of Suit, taxed at £ 2ʺ 19ʺ 8 Exon issued Nov. 6 1778.”241

Perez Morton, the nominal plaintiff in the Suit, was born at Plymouth, Massachusetts, 22 October, 1750.242 He was descended from George Morton, who came to Plymouth in the Ann, in 1623, and whose eldest son, Nathaniel, was Secretary of the Plymouth Colony for forty years (1645–1685) and the author of New England’s Memorial. The Secretary’s brother Ephraim—from whom Perez Morton descended—was also “a man of considerable distinction in the Colony. He was, for many successive years, a member of the Council of War, and, with John Bradford, represented the town of Plymouth, in the first General Court, holden at Boston, after the union with Massachusetts.”243 Joseph Morton,244 the father of Perez, settled in Boston, where he kept the White Horse Tavern, opposite Hayward Place.245 Perez Morton entered the Boston Latin School in 1760 and graduated from Harvard College in 1771. He stepped at once into public notice, and was soon made Deputy Secretary of the Council of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay,—an office which he held during the momentous years 1775 and 1776.246 He took a very prominent part in the affairs of the Town of Boston during the Revolutionary period as will be seen by the following extracts from the Town Records.

At the Town Meeting, 1 May, 1776, held “at the Old Brick Meeting House & adjourned to the Representatives Chamber,” he was chosen one of the “Committee of Correspondence, Safety & Inspection,” and served on it in 1776, 1777, and 1778.247 At the meeting 23 May, 1776, when it was “Passed in the Affirmative unanimously” that “If the Hon^ble Continental Congress” should declare for Independence, “the Inhabitants, will solemnly engage, with their Lives and Fortunes to support them in the Measure,” he was chosen upon the Committee to report Instructions to the Representatives,248 which were adopted in like manner; and again he appears on two similar Committees, 22 May, 1777,249 and 25 May, 1778;250 10 May, 1779, he was of the Committee to consider “the Article in the Warrant relative to a new Constitution or Form of Government”251 which reported in favor of a State Convention, under certain restrictions. 3 May, 1780, “The Address of the Convention” and “a Constitution or Form of Government, agreed upon by the Delegates of the People of this State in Convention begun and held at Cambridge on the first of September, 1779,” was submitted and, at the adjournment on the following day, taken up “Paragraph by Paragraph.” The importance of the occasion is recognized in the vote relating to the adjourned meeting, recommending—

“that all Buissiness be suspended by the Shutting up of Stores, Shops «Sec that there may be a full Attendance; . . . that the Ministers of the Gospel be requested to remind their respective Congregations the next Lords day, of this Adjournment, and of the importance of universally withdrawing themselves for a few hours from their ordinary Engagements, and devoting their Attention to a Matter so deeply interesting to themselves and their Posterity; [and] that a Copy of this Vote be sent to the Ministers of every Denomination.”

The Third Article in the Bill of Rights was “taken up at large” at the adjournment on the ninth of May, and seems to have given especial trouble, and on the same day “the further consideration of this whole Article” was referred to a Committee (of which Morton was one) which reported the next day252 when Morton was appointed Chairman of another Committee “to draw up the reasons for the proposed Alterations in some Articles of the Frame of a Constitution presented by the Convention,” which made an elaborate Report. This Committee was also “to draught Instructions to our Delegates in the said Convention.”253 On the fourth of December, 1782, he was appointed on a Committee—

“to draw up a Memorial to the General Court, in order to State the Reasons why the Law intitled an Act for the more effectual Observation of the Lords Day, Militates with the Constitution.”254

Three weeks later (27 December) their elaborate Report was made, and he was one of the Committee to present it to the General Court.255

These various Reports, with the action of the Town upon them, bring out the excited condition of affairs and the prevailing sentiments and views of the people at the time, as nothing else can. Beside their direct bearing upon the points in question, all the various records of the town proceedings—both the earlier and the later—are interesting and full of suggestion, as showing the attitude of the Town in its relation to the Province or the State, and to the Country at large. There is a shade of independence of either,—of self centred authority,—an implied assertion of co-ordinate powers in everthing pertaining to the Town not inferior to any possibly possessed by any outside body whatsoever,—the very essence of local self-government uncontrolled and unlimited, and of municipal freedom.

The prominence of Morton during this whole period, and the confidence shown in his ability, are quite remarkable in the case of so young a man. At the Town Meeting on the fifth of March, 1783, “The Town did not proceed as usual to the choice of a Committee to provide an Orator” for the next year, a “Motion256 having been made by the Town Clark,” William Cooper, looking to a change in the Anniversary. On the tenth of March this motion came up for consideration, “agreeable to the Article in Warrant,” and Morton took part in the proceedings. A Motion, premising that—

“since the Institution of this Anniversary . . . which has Answered excellent purposes, a Signal Revolution has been effected through the Favour of Heaven in the Government of our Country by the establishment of the Independance of these United States of America,”

proposed a change in the Day, and suggested various topics for the future Orators,—

“the Steps that lead to this great Revolution, the distinguished Carrecters imployed in effecting and maintaining it, the important & timely Aid [from France] . . . As also the superior Advantages of a Republican form of Government, well constituted and Administred . . . and the necessity of Virtue and good Manners & of an education that tends to promote them,” etc.

The Motion “passed in the Affirmitive,” and a Committee was voted, of which Morton was Chairman, “to consider this Matter at large & Report at the Adjournment.”257 On the twenty-fifth of March the Committee reported as follows:—

“Whereas the Annual Celebration of the Boston Massacre on the 5^th of March 1770, by the Institution of a Publick Oration has been found to be of eminent Advantage to the Cause of America in disseminating the Principles of Virtue and Patriotism among her Citizens; And whereas the immediate Motives which induced the commemoration of that day, do now no longer exist in their primitive force; while the Benefits resulting from the Institution to [sic], may and ought to be forever preserved, by exchanging that Anniversary for Another, the foundation of which will last as long as time endures. It is therefore Resolved, that the Celebration of the fifth of March from henceforwards shall cease; and that instead thereof the Anniversary of the 4^th day of July A. D. 1776 (a Day ever memorable in the Annals of this Country for the declaration of our Independance) shall be constantly celebrated by the Delivery of a Publick Oration, in such place as the Town shall determine to be most convenient for the purpose. In which the Orator shall consider the feelings, manners & principles which led to this great National Event as well as the important and happy Effects whether general or domestick, which already have, and will forever continue to flow from this Auspicious Epoch.”

This Report was accepted, and Morton was made Chairman of the Committee “to provide an Orator to deliver an Oration on the 4^th of July Next Agreeable to said report.”258

Early in his public career, on an occasion which appealed with peculiar interest to the feelings and memories of Boston, a duty was assigned to Morton where it might well have seemed hard to satisfy an exacting expectation and demand, but where he met and equalled both. On Easter Monday, the eighth of April, 1776, he delivered the Oration when General Warren’s body was removed from its hurried burial place on the field where he fell to the old Granary Burying Ground, so long associated with the history of the Town. The story of the impressive service in King’s Chapel is well told in the History of that ancient church, and a quotation from a letter of Mrs. Abigail Adams to her husband, written two days after, brings vividly before us the Oration and the Orator. The letter of Dr. Andrew Eliot, also, written to Isaac Smith the next day, speaks of the “spirited Oration, wherein he [Morton] publickly urged an intire disconnection with Great Britain,”—an early enunciation of a sentiment already felt and soon to become universal.259

Loring, after telling of the disinterment and burial, gives some account of the impressive solemnity in the Chapel, quotes from Mrs. Adams’s letter, and adds quotations from the Oration, among them,—“Like Harrington he wrote,—like Cicero he spoke,—like Hampden he lived,—and like Wolfe he died!” He also gives a brief statement of some events in Morton’s life, and extracts from a poem on Bunker Hill by Mrs. Morton.260

Daniel Dulaney Addison, in his Life and Times of Edward Bass (p. 152), speaks of the opening of King’s Chapel for this service, of which he gives a hrief account, referring to Morton’s “ingenious and spirited oration.” He mentions the closing of the Church thereupon till September, 1777, and its occupation from that time to 1783 by the Old South Congregation, while their Meeting-House was undergoing repairs in consequence of its use by the British Cavalry as a riding-school.261

Morton was one of the Proprietors of King’s Chapel in 1785, when, and for several succeeding years, he held the pew—No. 4, in the broad aisle—which had been occupied, before the Revolution, by the notorious Charles Paxton, one of the Commissioners of Customs.262 He was a Vestryman from 1783 to 1788, and perhaps longer.263 He also served, in 1785, upon the Committee which revised the old Liturgy and struck from it the doctrine of the Trinity.264 He seems, accordingly, to have had some share in the ecclesiastical, as well as in the public and legal affairs of the Town.

Morton’s active interest and concern in the stirring events of the Revolution and the times that led up to it, and the engrossing duties of so public a life,265 may have drawn him somewhat away from his profession for a time, but his later prominence as a lawyer and his part in the legal life of the Town are evidenced by the facts that he was the Attorney for Suffolk in 1779 and that he was made a Barrister266 in 1786; by The Record Book of the Suffolk Bar (1770–1805);267 and by the Records of the Courts.

After the Revolutionary War, Morton opened a law office in his own residence in State Street, which occupied the present site of the Union Safety Deposit Vaults, on the north-easterly corner of Exchange Street.

On the twenty-fourth of February, 1781,268 he married Sarah Apthorp, a daughter of James and Sarah (Wentworth) Apthorp, who was baptized at King’s Chapel, Boston, 29 August, 1759. This lovely woman, whom Paine called the “American Sappho,” was a prominent figure in the social life of Boston, and an authoress of repute. She was a granddaughter of Charles Apthorp, an eminent and opulent merchant of Boston; and her mother was of the Yorkshire family, of Wentworth Manor, to which belonged the Earl of Strafford.269 Mrs. Morton was a frequent contributor to the “Seat of the Muses” in the Massachusetts Magazine,270 where may be read a long poetical correspondence which she held—under the signature of “Philenia”—with Thomas Paine.271 She also wrote several volumes in prose and verse. Kettell says that she “occupied the first rank among the female writers of America in the early part of her life,” and that her verses, published in the Massachusetts Magazine, enjoyed a wide popularity.272 Mrs. Morton died at Quincy, Massachusetts, after a short illness, on the fourteenth of May, 1846.273 Her portrait was painted by Gilbert Stuart.274

Morton was always prominent in public affairs from his graduation at Harvard till his death. In politics he was a Democrat, and the leading spirit in the old Jacobin Club which met at the Green Dragon Tavern.275 He was Speaker of the House,276 1806–1808, 1810–1811, and Attorney-General of the Commonwealth, 1810–1832. In the latter capacity he was associated with Daniel Webster in the trial of the Knapps, at Salem, in 1830, for the murder of Captain Joseph White.

In 1811, the controversy over the land titles in certain parts of the District of Maine had assumed such proportions as to necessitate the interposition of the Legislature of the Commonwealth. Under an Order of the General Court of 27 February of that year, Governor Gerry appointed Perez Morton, Jonathan Smith, Jr., and Thomas B. Adams Commissioners to investigate thoroughly “the nature, causes, and state of the difficulties and grievances complained of” concerning the land titles in the County of Lincoln. The outcome of this investigation was the voluntary submission of all the conflicting claims to the determination of Commissioners—“three learned and able lawyers”—subsequently appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts, viz., Jeremiah Smith of Exeter, New Hampshire, the father of our honored associate of the same name, William H. Woodward, of Hanover, New Hampshire, and David Howell of Providence, Rhode Island. Morton, as Attorney General, also served on this Commission. The award of the Commissioners was made 26 January, 1813, and ended a long and hard-fought contest.277

Morton was a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention of 1820, in which he took an active part, having been Chairman of the Committee of the Whole “on the reports of the select committee on the judiciary power,” on the thirtieth of December. He sat in the Convention as a delegate from Dorchester,278 where he died on Saturday, 14 October, 1837, at the age of 87.279

The following Obituary appeared in the columns of The Atlas (VI. 91) of Tuesday morning, 17 October, 1837:—

“In Dorchester, on Saturday evening, The Hon. Perez Morton, aged 87.

“Mr. Morton, until within the last few years, has been much before the Public. At the age of 21, he was chosen Secretary of the Convention at Watertown, and he afterwards served in the revolutionary army. He was for some time speaker of the Legislature in this State, and for twenty years, until the situation was abolished, discharged with ability and honor the office of Attorney General of Massachusetts.

“Excellent and amiable in private life, his memory will be embalmed and cherished in the circle of his immediate friends and connexions. Upright as a professional man—unwavering in his political views—unwearied and unswerving in the discharge of his official duties—he has left behind him a name which will long be remembered and respected.

“His last hours exhibited a beautiful instance of the power of religion in bestowing fortitude and resignation in the midst of much suffering and weakness. He departed in the blessed hope of a joyful resurrection through the atonement of the Savior, and his end was peace.”

When we consider the ability of Morton as an orator, and his prominence alike in public affairs and in his profession, it is surprising that our historians and biographers who have spoken of him heretofore should have summed up the story of his life in a few lines,—and usually with great inaccuracy as to dates,—affording to the general reader little or no conception of his character or career.

Captain Samuel Tarbell, Jr., the Defendant, came of one of the old families of Groton. He was of the fifth generation from the Thomas Tarbell who, with his son, Thomas, was among the original proprietors, removing thither from Watertown, about 1663. His father, Captain Samuel Tarbell, Senior, was one of the ten children of Thomas Tarbell of the third generation, and a brother of the three children who find a place in history as having been carried into captivity by the Indians, 20 June, 1707, in one of those raids which so harassed the interior and frontier towns of Massachusetts in the early years of the eighteenth century, and from which Groton also suffered in King Philip’s War.

The Defendant, one of nine children and the only son, was born 4 April, 1746. Very little is to be learned of him in the local histories. The fullest account of both him and his father is that given by Dr. Samuel A. Green, the highest authority on all matters connected with that ancient town, in his various historical works upon Groton.280

The Bond, if given under the terms of the Act already referred to, as is presumably the case, would go to show that in 1777 he was regarded as “firmly attached to the American Cause,” or as one who could be looked to for efficient assistance to it. There is nothing to explain his defection. He entered his Majesty’s service as an officer, and died in his native place 4 March, 1796. It seems to have been hitherto assumed that Captain Samuel Tarbell, the elder, was the obligor in the Bond, and the one against whom the suit was brought. The inferences drawn from the material then at hand, and leading to this conclusion, are all clearly erroneous, and the death of Captain Samuel Tarbell, the elder, nearly two years before the date of the Bond, settles the matter beyond question.

The additional documents now to be presented, upon examination, at once raised a question as to the correctness of that assumption. One hesitated to differ from an authority so eminent and recognized as Dr. Green, or even to question his opinion upon any historical matter pertaining to Groton, but in the documents quoted by him there was internal evidence which seemed wholly at variance with his conclusion and raised a doubt. Dr. Green, in his account of Captain Samuel Tarbell, the elder,281 speaks of a Petition,282 which he says “refers to the estate mentioned in Resolve CLIII.”283 He also refers to Hill’s History of Mason, N. H.,284—where the same error as to identity is made,—“for an allusion to him,” and mentions “the decease of his son, Captain Samuel Tarbell . . . announced, under Deaths, at the end of this Number (page 114),”—an extract taken from the Columbian Centinel of 12 March, 1796,—

“At Groton, the 4^th inst. Capt. Samuel Tarbell, late an officer in his Britannic Majesty’s American Dragoons.”

Dr. Green also reprints Resolve LXXXIX,—the one authorizing this Suit, and which has been already given.285

Now, the Petition first mentioned is the Petition of Amos Lawrence of Groton to the General Court, 16 February, 1781, setting forth—

“that Capt Samuel Tarbell late of said Groton Deceased died seized of a Farm containing about one hundred acres of Land, that after his Death the same was divided into nine Shares two whereof has been set off to his Son Samuel Tarbell now a Refugee in New York, that the same two shares have been since taken in execution for a Debt Due to the Government, and your Petitioner having purchased the other Shares, it hath become necessary in order to his making a proper improvement of the same that he should have the two Shares aforesaid, Wherefore he Humbly prays Your Honours . . . to suffer him to purchase the same . . .”;

to which is appended a Certificate of the sale of the other shares, for £60 a share, to Lawrence by Henry Farwell and Samuel Reed, two sons-in-law of the elder Samuel Tarbell.286 Then follows the Resolve of the Legislature of 3 March, 1781,—

“that the Committee who are appointed to sell Confiscated Estates in the County of Middlesex . . . are . . . impowered to Sell at publick or private sale . . . the above mentioned Two ninths of the Farm which the above said Cap? Samuel Tarbell Deceased, died seized of, & was set of [sic] to his son Samuel Tarbell & make & Execute a good & legal deed or deeds of the same . . .”—(Massachusetts Archives, ccxxxi. 451.)

It was evident, on the face of the Petition, that this Farm of one hundred acres was not the four pieces amounting to seventy-six acres “attacht” on the writ in this Suit. The land “attacht” had been taken upon the execution. It had become the property of the Government, and the title had passed out of the original owner, whoever he was. It could not have descended to his heirs and become the subject of a partition among them. Moreover, it appeared by the Petition itself that seven ninths had been already sold by the heirs, without question by the Government, and that the “two ninths” in question, falling by inheritance to the son, “a refugee,” was regarded as the property of the Government by confiscation, and that an application for its sale, under the usual order of procedure, was necessary in order to obtain possession of it. The father’s interest in any lands had been undisturbed; the son’s title to any had been confiscated to the Government. Resolve CLIIL, dated 10 April, 1780, refers to “a judgment of Court against Samuel Tarbell, then of Groton (since fled to the enemy),” and, besides, sets out distinctly that the State had “levied execution” on the lands therein referred to, that they had “become the property of this State, and no person authorized to take care of the same,” and therefore provides for leasing them “for one year”; all of which would be inconsistent with the Petition.

A further difficulty presented itself in the fact that the father would have been eighty years old at the time the Bond was given, in 1777, and a person not likely to be selected for the arduous duties required by the Bond, or one who might reasonably be expected to prove an efficient agent under the provisions of the Statute. All these facts raised a doubt as to the identity of “Capt. Samuel Tarbell.” That doubt was increased by the original papers since found and included in this communication,—papers the existence of which was probably unknown when that account was published. As the Sheriff’s Return upon the Writ has it: “all the afores^d peices of land was Claimed by the within named Samuel’s late father Tarbell dec^d & now reputed to be the within Named Sam^ls estate.” The elder Samuel’s father died in 1715, and after the lapse of sixty years such a description seemed somewhat unusual. There was no question that the father “Tarbell was dead in the early part of 1781;” but how was it on 4 December, 1777, when the Bond was given? The Probate Records of the County of Middlesex make the whole case clear, and prove, conclusively, that the Defendant in this case was not Captain Samuel Tarbell the father, but Captain Samuel Tarbell, the son, who was born in 1746, and whose death was chronicled in 1796. The original papers on file in the Probate Office at Cambridge show the appointment of an administrator on the “Estate of Capt. Samuel Tarbell” on 15 July, 1776,—fixing the date of his death a year and a half, at least, before the date of the Bond in suit.

The name of Lydia Tarbell, widow, and the names in the list of heirs,—Edes, Moors, Phelps, Boynton, Reed, etc.,—together with that of the administrator, Isaac Farnsworth,287 make the identity of the intestate unquestionable.288

The Loyalists whose names appear in the papers herein described, are a few of those obscurer men who, alike with their more famous brethren in the times of trial which transformed a Province into a State, bore the obnoxious name of Tory. Saving an exception or two, they seem to have been of those—severely judged then and not always leniently regarded to-day—who, with little prospect of preferment and in the face of obloquy, held with the sturdiness of English blood and New England breeding to their idea of duty, and sided with the Cause which they believed to be right.289

The Rev. Edward G. Porter then said:—

Me. President: The mention of Hopestill Capen’s name brings me again to my feet. I have generally thought of him less as a Tory than as a great dry-goods dealer on Union Street both before and after the Revolution. Of course he came from Dorchester, where other Hopestills preceded him. The portrait of Count Rumford which hangs here before us reminds me that when that distinguished savant was plain Ben Thompson of Woburn, he was apprenticed to Mr. Capen; and so, I have been told, was Samuel Parkman, the eminent merchant.

The Capen store—or shop, as it was called in his day—is still standing on the corner of Union and Marshall Streets. For the last two generations it has been known as Atwood’s Oyster House. In its prime, it was considered the most fashionable shopping place for ladies in Boston. The finest goods could be had here, and the fair purchasers came in chariots, chaises, and on horseback from all the country round.

Our noted shop-keeper was one of the Artillery Company, and I think he held several minor offices in the Town Government.290 He was buried at Copp’s Hill.291 It is worth mentioning that in the attic of Capen’s building Isaiah Thomas started the Massachusetts Spy, a few years before the Revolution. Foreseeing the disturbances of ’75, he shrewdly removed his newspaper, with all its belongings, to Worcester, where it has since been published as the Worcester Spy.

Mr. James Bradstreet Greenough of Cambridge was elected a Resident Member; the Hon. Joseph Williamson, Litt.D., of Belfast, Maine, the Hon. Simeon Eben Baldwin, LL.D., of New Haven, Connecticut, and Messrs. John Franklin Jameson, Ph.D., of Brown University, and Edward Singleton Holden, LL.D., of Washington, D. C., were elected Corresponding Members; and Simon Newcomb, F.R.S., of Washington, D. C., was elected an Honorary Member.

1 In January, 1897. Publications, iii. 317–326.

2 Suffolk Court Files (Essex), No. 134,242.

3 Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1740–1742, xiv. 11.

4 Ibid. 1740–1745, xv. 89.

5 Ibid. 1740–1742, xiv. 206.

6 The Records for this Term are lost,—probably they were consumed in the Fire of 1747,—but the Judgment and Record with some of the other papers are in Suffolk Court Files, ccclxii. 57,045.

7 Suffolk Court Files, ccclxvii. 57,842.

8 Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1743–1747, xvi. 79.

		Group No.
Suffolk Court Files,	cccxliv.	53,460
“	cccxlix.	54,532
“	cccliii.	55,352
“	ccclxii.	57,015
	ccclxvii.	57,842
“	ccclxxv.	59,625
“	ccclxxxiii.	61,196

10 Records of the Supreme Judicial Court, June, 1791, xiii. 163.

11 Records of the Supreme Judicial Court, November, 1791, xiii. 311.

12 Suffolk Court Files, ccclxxxiii. 61,196.

13 “And now Mr. Andrew Henshaw being present in Court, is appointed Clerk of said Court and he is sworn accordingly.” (Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1775–1778, xxxiii. 212.)

14 The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Suffolk ss.

At the Supreme Judicial Court, of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, begun and held at Boston, within and for the County of Suffolk, on the third Tuesday of February (being the 20^tḥ day of said Month) Anno Domini 1781.

And now Commissions under the seal of the Commonwealth, appointing William Cushing, Esq^r. Chief Justice, and Nathaniel Peaslee Sargeant, David Sewall and James Sullivan Esq^ṟs̱ Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court of this Commonwealth, were read and published in Court, and the Court thereupon appointed M^ṛ Andrew Henshaw, Clerk of the late Superiour Court of Judicature &c. to be Clerk of the said Supreme Judicial Court.

By the Hon^blẹ William Cushing, Chief Justice

Nath^l. Peaslee Sargeant

David Sewall, and

James Sullivan, Esq^rs. Justices

(Records of the Supreme Judicial Court, 1781–1782, i. 1.)

15 The exact date does not appear, but the appointment is in the following words:—

“And now Charles Cushing Esq^r. is appointed a Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court, in the room of Mr. Oliver Peabody who has resigned, and he is sworn accordingly.”

Then follows the closing paragraph of the Record of this Term—adjourning the Court—which is dated 6 March, 1781. (Ibid. i. 11.)

16 Sewall’s Diary, iii. 213.

17 To Samuel Tyley, Jun^r. & Benjamin Rolfe Gent^m.

Whereas you are appointed Clerks of the Superiour Court of Judicature Court of Assize and General Goal Delivery within this Province with full power to Act Joyntly or Severally. You Swear by the Everliving God that you will well & truly Grant all Writs Warrants and Executions, not delaying Justice, That you will make true Entrys and keep fair Records of the Courts proceedings, and faithfully & safely keep all Books files and papers com̄itted to your care. And Generally you shall deal seriously faithfully and Impartially in all things proper to your office and shall well and truly Execute the same without any Sinister respects of favour or displeasure taking no other than lawful Fees. So help you God.

Samuel Tyley Jun^e.

Benj^a Rolfe

Council Chamber in Boston

February 26^tḥ 1718.

Signed & Sworne Cor: Nobis

Sam^l. Sewall

Benj^ạ Lynde

Addington Davenport

Paul Dudley

Edm^ḍ Quincey.

Justices of the Superiour Court.

Entred & Examined

⅌ Samuel Tyley Cler—

Benjamin Rolfe Cler.

(Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1715–1721, iv. 1.)

Previous to 1718 the Clerks of this Court had been, successively,—

(1) Jonathan Elatson, appointed 20 December, 1692. (Council Records, ii, 211.)
(2) Addington Davenport, appointed 7 November, 1695.

Upon the motion of Jonathan Elatson Clerke of the Court to be discharged of his Office being by some important Affaires of his owne obliged to take a Voyage to the West Indies, and thereupon praying a Clerke may be appointed to receive the records of this Court.—

The Court do appoint M^ṛ Addington Davenport to be Clerke of the Superiour Court, and that he be accordingly Sworne. The s^d Addington Davenport was accordingly Sworne the Seventh day of Novemb^ṛ. 1695, to which day the Court was adjourned.

The Court do order the s^ḍ Jonathan Elatson to deliver up all the Records in his Custody unto the s^d. Addington Davenport he giving him a receipt for the same whereupon he is discharged.

Attest. Jon^a̱ Elatson, Cler

(Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1692–1695, i. 226.)

(3) Elisha Cooke Jr.

Boston October 24 1698

Mr Elisha Cooke was admitted and sworne Clerk of the Superiour Court of this Province;

Sworne before Me Sam^ll Sewall, one of the Justices of s^d Court at the House, and in the presence of Elisha Cooke Esq^r his Father Annoq. Domini 1698. (Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1696–1700, ii. 199.)

Cooke’s appointment was subsequently continued as will be seen by the following extract from the Court Records:—

Middlesex ss: Charlestown Jan^ṟy̱ 29^ṯẖ. 1716.

The Court being opened. The Judges being all present and their Respective Comissions published they were pleased to Continue & Appoint Elisha Cooke Esq^ṛ to be Clerk of the said Court to which Office he was Sworn Accordingly As

Attest^ṛ P. Dudley Att. Gen^ḻḻ.

(Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, iv. 105.)

18 In General Council May 8^th. 1776.

Ordered, That the Justices of the Superiour Court of Judicature &c. be Arranged in the following manner viz.

Hon^blẹ John Adams, Esq.

W^ṃ Cushing, Esq.

James Warren, Esq.

Jed^h Foster, Esq.

James Sullivan, Esq.

A true Copy from the Minutes

John Lowell Dp^y Sec^v P.T.

In the House of Representatives May 10^th 1776.

Whereas some doubts may arise about the appointment of a Clerk of the Superiour Court of Judicature Court of Assize and General Goal Delivery out of Term Time.

It is therefore Resolved that the Justices of said Court or any three of them be and they hereby are authorized and Empowered out of Term Time to Appoint a Clerk to said Court which Clerk when so appointed and being duly sworn to the faithful discharge of said office by Either of the said Justices shall have all the powers to a Clerk of said Court belonging any Law or usage to the Contrary notwithstanding

Sent up for Concurrence

Sam^l. Freeman Speak^r P.T

In Council May 10^th. 1776

Read and concurred.

Perez Morton D. Secry

Consented to

W. Spooner	J Prescott
Caleb Cushing	Eldad Taylor
J Winthrop	J Palmer
B Chadbourn	M Farley
John Whetcomb	B White
T Cushing	Jed^ḥ Foster
	Moses Gill
	S Holten
	Ja Fisher

A true Copy

Attest

John Lowell Dp^y Sec^y P.T.

Colony of the Massachusetts Bay May the 10^th A. D. 1776.

“We the Subscribers Justices of the Superiour Court of Judicature, Court of Assize & General Gaol Delivery in & for said Colony hereby appoint Samuel Winthrop of Boston in the County of Suffolk Esq^ṛ Clerk of the same Court

W^ṃ Cushing

Jed^ḥ Foster

Ja Sullivan

May the 30^ṯẖ 1776—Then the ^sd Winthrop made oath for the faithful discharge of his duty & office as Clerk of said Court, before me

W^m Cushing a Justice of s^d Court.

(Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1775–1778, xxxiii., page 3 of a fold of small sheets at the beginning of the book.)

19 For a long period Ezekiel Goldthwait was active in all town affairs. He was elected Town Clerk (see his autograph in Memorial History of Boston, ii. 537) in 1741, and held the office continuously by annual election, and often by a unanimous vote, until 9 March, 1761, when he retired, and it was “Voted, unanimously, that the thanks of the Town be and hereby are given to Ezekiel Goldthwait, Esq., for his faithfull services many years past as Town Clerk” (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xvi. 46). Though advanced in years as the Revolution drew on, he served on many Committees,—to wait upon the Lieutenant Governor after the affair of the Fifth of March; to visit the Schools, associated with the leading citizens; superintending various municipal interests and concerns,—and he was often Moderator of the Town Meeting. (Reports of the Record Commissioners, xviii., xx., xxiii., and xxv., passim)

He also filled many County offices:—(1) Notary Public, 24 June, 1741 to 1770; (2) Justice of the Peace, 12 August, 1749, and (3) made of the Quorum, 5 November, 1761 (Whitmore’s Civil List); (4) Clerk of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace (see “account of Ezekiel Goldthwait and Middlecott Cooke, Clerks,” etc., against the County of Suffolk “for making Warrants for County Tax,” etc., 11 February, 1754, and their “Memorial” for services after the Fire of 1747, given, post’, p. 25; Suffolk Court Files, ccccvi. 65414, ccccxliv. 72364, and also Boston Town Records as late as 1774); (5) Clerk of the Inferiour Court of Common Pleas for many years (see Records, xxxviii., in which he attests many entries, although there is no attestation for the Terms, except in a single instance, where he affixed his signature, and the writs are signed by him. The Records of this Court from 1752 to 1776 are missing, “supposed to have been carried off by the Tories in 1776”). The two Clerks of this Court were divided in political opinion at the Revolution,—Goldthwait siding with the Tories and Ezekiel Price with the Whigs. (Cf. Footnote on pages 61, 62, post.) (6) Register of Deeds from 1740 till 1776. A Deposition appears in the case Fletcher v. Vassall, 11 February, 1752, by “Ezekiel Goldthwait, Register of Deeds and Conveyances of Houses & Lands within the County of Suffolk” (Suffolk Court Files, ccccxxxiii. 70118:15). In 1771, he was chosen, by a heavy majority, over Samuel Adams, and on the counting of the votes in the Court of Sessions,—having received 1123 out of 1590 cast,—he was declared by the Court “to be duly elected, and he was, accordingly, sworn into office.” (Minute Books of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, No 5 (Suffolk) 1769–1773, under date of 16 May, 1771.) “Ezekiel Goldthwait Esq^r having made a Present to this County of his Majesty’s Arms Carved, Gilt & Painted in a handsome Manner, in order to be placed in the County Court Room, The Justices of this Court Thanked Mr. Goldthwait for the same in open Court, and ordered that a Record thereof be made.” (Ibid.—Session of first Tuesday of October, 1771). He seems to have been somewhat of a patron of Letters, as his name is found in the List of Prince’s Subscribers in 1730 (Memorial History of Boston, ii. 561). He figures, too, in the List of-Loyalists (Ibid. iii. 176), in that of the Addressers of Hutchinson,—“Ezekiel Goldthwait, County Register & Clerk of the Inferiour Court”—(I Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for October, 1870, xi. 393), and also as a Protester against the Solemn League and Covenant (Ibid. xi. 391).

20 Suffolk Court Files, June Term (York), 1762, No. 137,143.

21 This deed is printed in Willis’s History of Portland (1865), p. 885.

22 Suffolk Court Files, No. 137,143, July Term (York), 1766. Suit of Haskell v. Waldo.

23 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 70.

24 Ibid. i. 73.

25 Wonder-Working Providence (Poole’s edition), p. 37.

26 Memorial History of Boston, i. 237.

27 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 74.

28 Ibid. i. 75.

29 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 78.

30 Ibid. i. 81.

31 Winthrop’s History of New England (edition of 1853), i. 158.

32 Plain Dealing (Trumbull’s edition), p. 64.

33 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 275.

34 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ii. 94.

35 Suffolk Probate Files, No. 171; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, x. 1.

36 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ii. 132.

37 Ibid. ii. 134.

38 Among the Suffolk Court Files (xxvii. 2233) is a collection of papers, forty-six in number, relating to Capt. Keayne’s estate, his family, etc. Among them is an Inventory of the contents of his house, at his death, from attic to cellar, room by room. There is also a copy of a Record of the Court of Assistants, 1 March, 1658, of the divorce suit of his daughter. This is curious as bearing the certification “A true copy taken out of the Court’s booke of Records (being therewith compared).” This copy is attested by Edward Rawson; again attested as copied by Addington; Addington’s copy attested by Rawson again; and that again by Addington; thus showing successive copies of the original and its copy. It proves the existence of a first volume of Records, which has been missing since before the memory of man.

39 Mr. William H. Whitmore, in his Address at the Re-dedication of the Old State House, 11 July, 1882, with elaborate and exhaustive Appendices, wherein he has set forth about all that is known on the subject, with copious authorities cited for every material point,—a work giving another illustration that a gleaner after him in any field will find few heads of grain left to be gathered up.

40 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 327.

41 Re-dedication of the Old State House, Boston, 1882 (Fifth edition, 1889), p. 31.

42 Cf. Publications of this Society, iii. 71–77.

43 Re-dedication, etc., p. 133.

44 Re-dedication, etc., p. 135.

45 Whitmore, in Re-dedication, etc., p. 49.

46 Ibid. p. 173. In confirmation of this opinion see ante, p. 7, and post, p. 25.

47 The History of New England. Containing an Impartial Account of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Affairs of the Country to the year of our Lord 1700. To which is added The Present State of New England, London, MDCCXX, ii. 587.

48 This is referred to by Whitmore, in Re-dedication, etc., p. 52. The whole proceeding is given in Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xiii. 9.

49 Re-dedication, etc., p. 59.

50 There are numerous papers relating to the building of this Court House in the Suffolk Court Files, ccccvi. 65,414; dxv. 88,991.

Edmund Quincy, John Avery, and Samuel Pemberton, three of the Justices of the Court of Sessions, were appointed a Committee to audit the account of the Building Committee of the New Court House, in 1769. Their Report approves the accounts and gives the cost, including the compensation to the Building Committee, £45,—£2418. 19. 10¾, Lawful Money. (Minute Books of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, No. 5 (Suffolk), 1769–1773, Session of 1 May, 1770.)

Much interesting information concerning “The Court House, The Jail, and The City Hall” has been brought together by Mr. Whitmore in Appendix L in Re-dedication, etc. which also contains a reproduction of the Plans by Osgood Carleton, in 1800, and John G. Hales, in 1814, of the Square bounded by Court, Washington, School, and Tremont Streets, showing these public buildings.

51 Quoted in the Re-dedication, etc., Appendix M, p. 189.

52 Inaugural Addresses of the Mayors of Boston, i. 147.

53 Re-dedication, etc., pp. 191, 192.

54 The corner stone was laid 28 September, 1833, and the Building was completed 20 December, 1836. It occupies, substantially, the site of the Court House of 1765–1769, above mentioned.

55 See Minute Books of the Superiour Court of Judicature, Nos. 91, 96, 99, 100, 101, 102; and Catalogue of Records and Files in the office of the Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court for the County of Suffolk, Boston, 1890, p. 94.

56 Province Laws, 1775–76, ch. 4, v. 420.

57 Ibid. 1775–76, ch. 22, v. 484, 538.

58 For a copy of the Order, etc., see ante, p. 12, note.

59 Province Laws, 1775–76, ch. 12, v. 455, 526.

60 Province Laws 1776–77, ch. 19, v. 593, 677.

61 One such volume still (1897) remains unbound.

62 The Boston Weekly News Letter of 10 December, the Boston Evening Post of 14 December, and the Boston Gazette or Weekly Journal of 15 December, 1747. (Re-dedication, etc., pp. 57, 58, 169.)

63 Suffolk Court Files, ccccvi. 65,414.

64 Hutchinson’s History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, iii. 212.

65 Re-dedication, etc., p. 91.

66 Publications of this Society, iii. 317–326.

67 At a Stated Meeting of the Council, held in Boston, 6 December, 1897, it was—

Resolved, That it is with great regret that the Council of The Colonial Society of Massachusetts accedes to the wish of Andrew McFarland Davis to retire from the Committee of Publication where, for five years, with ability and success, he has filled the position of Chairman, and of which his good taste, his independence of opinion and judgment, his acute criticism, his wide and various information, his many-sided knowledge and his indefatigable discharge of laborious duties, have made him an invaluable member whose place can scarcely be filled.

Voted, That the Council enter upon its Records an expression of its appreciation of Mr. Davis’s services, and—not only for itself, but also on behalf of the Society which owes him so much—a vote of cordial thanks.

1 His name, by the way, was Edward Thoroton Gould, not Thornton, as it is sometimes printed. Mr. Scull speaks of him and his fellow officers in The Evelyns in America.

2 Miss Dana states that Miss Daggett’s call was upon only one of General Burbeck’s daughters,—Miss Charlotte Augusta Burbeck.

3 William Burbeck, son of Edward and Martha Burbeck, was born in Boston 22 July, 1716 (Boston Town Records); baptized at King’s Chapel 4 October, 1721; married Jerusha Glover, of Boston, 7 October, 1749 (King’s Chapel Registers); and had seven children baptized at Christ Church, among them Henry Burbeck, 9 June, 1754 (Christ Church Registers). See Foote’s Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 167, 168, 600; and New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1849, iii. 101, and for 1858, xii. 351.

4 The name of Clement Skerrett was also scrawled on the Diary. Pie was an American officer of the same regiment as Willmott and also from Maryland. He afterward belonged to the Maryland Society of the Cincinnati.

5 General Barker has the Admiral’s portrait, painted by an American artist whose name he does not remember.

6 A genealogical Society called the Society of Descendants of Walter Allen was incorporated 16 July, 1897. Among the declared purposes of the Society were those of “furthering historical and genealogical research.”

The Raynham Public Library was incorporated 22 October, 1897. To the general functions of a Library were added, in the list of purposes of the corporation, “promoting antiquarian, historical and literary purposes among the inhabitants of said Raynham.”

Among the religious Societies incorporated in 1897, is The Spiritualists’ Progressive Union Church, which received its Certificate of incorporation 11 May, 1897. The purposes of this Corporation not only comprehend those ordinarily to be found in similar organizations, but add thereto “encouraging religious, art, literary, musical, historical, and scientific education.”

7 In December, 1893. Publications, i. 166, 167.

8 After Mr. Eames had given to Mr. Goodell the copy of Franklin’s letter which he communicated at this Meeting the document was printed in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library, i. 244.

9 Eliphalet Pond, of Dedham, “farmer,” was subsequently an Addresser of Hutchinson. He was one of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace, appointed 4 January, 1748–49, and was made a Justice of the Quorum, 4 February, 1762.

Col. Joseph Williams was one of the wealthiest and most eminent citizens of Roxbury in his day, active in town affairs, many years a Selectman, Representative in the General Court, Clerk of the First Parish nearly fifty years, and one of the foremost in the various measures adopted on the eve of the Revolution. He was the Moderator of the Town Meeting, 7 December, 1767, where it was resolved to “take all proper and legall measures to encourage the produce and manufactures of this Province, and to lessen the use of Superfluities imported from abroad,” and, with Capt. Mayo and others, upon the Committee to solicit subscriptions. He was one of a Committee appointed 8 March, 1770, to wait on Governor Hutchinson with the petition of Roxbury citizens praying for the removal of all troops out of Boston, and desiring “in a peculiar manner” to express “astonishment, grief and indignation at the horrid and barbarous action committed there last Monday evening by a party of those troops.” On the sixteenth of November, 1772, at a meeting held to consider “the late alarming report that the Judges were to receive their salaries direct from the Crown,” he was made one of a Committee,—again in company with Major Mayo,—to draw up instructions to their Representative, Capt. William Heath, which, on 23 November, reported an Instruction to propose an Act for the Support of the Judges independent of the Crown, and providing for the power of removal by the Legislature; and again, on this later date, he was one of a Committee to consider and report upon a letter from the town of Boston, inviting a communication of sentiments “on our common danger.” This Committee, reporting 14 December, “made great uneasiness in the meeting.” It was divided in its Report,—the majority seeing nothing new in the premises, in view of the Instruction already given and the “probability” that the various officials “are to receive their support from the revenues of America,” and finding no need of further action; and the minority, whose Report was accepted, setting out the grievances, and resolving that they “view these infringements and innovations as insupportable burdens to which they cannot submit.” At a Meeting, 3 December, 1773,—which voted to pass over in silence the soldiers “about the streets of this town, with their arms, equipt in a warlike posture,”—he was appointed upon a Committee to draw Resolutions on the Tea Act, which declared “that the disposal of our own property is the inherent right of free men; . . . that the claim of Parliament to tax America is, in other words, a claim of right to levy contributions on us at pleasure; [and that] a virtuous and steady opposition to this plan of governing America is absolutely necessary to preserve even the shadow of liberty, and is a duty every free man owes to his country.” On the twenty-sixth of December, 1774, at a Town Meeting held to adopt measures to “carry into execution the agreement and association of the late Continental Congress,” various votes were passed for raising its quota of Minute-Men, and Col. Williams was chosen one of a Committee of three, with Col. William Heath and Lieut. Robert Pierpont, to “draw up the Articles of Inlistment for the said Company of Minutemen.” In a letter of General Heath to Harrison Gray Otis, 21 April, 1798, which is quoted by Drake, this is spoken of as “the first company of minute-men raised in America in 1775.”

Williams had been a Colonel in the old French wars, serving in the Campaigns of 1758–1760 in Canada, and at Lake George and in the Mohawk region. He was one of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace, appointed 26 June, 1755, and again 5 November, 1761; and 1 October, 1772, he was made a Justice of the Quorum. He was born in Roxbury, 10 April, 1708, the son of Joseph and Abigail Williams, and died 26 May, 1798, at the age of 90. (Roxbury Town Records; Drake’s The Town of Roxbury, and his chapter (xi.) on Roxbury in the Provincial Period in the Memorial History of Boston, vol. ii.)

Ebenezer Miller had long held a commission as one of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace, his appointment dating from 11 January, 1758.

Ezekiel Price seems to have been a man in general request in all Town affairs, and most active, efficient, and prominent wherever the interests of Boston were concerned. He was for many years Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, and served on innumerable committees of importance, often with Hancock, Adams, Warren, and other leading citizens. (Reports of the Boston Record Commissioners, xvi, xviii, xxv and xxvi passim.) He was a member of the Committees of Correspondence and Safety. He seems to have been especially relied on in financial concerns of the town, and this quality is recognized in the Acts of the General Court. (Province Laws, v. 735, 741, 961.) He was a Notary Public, from 19 June, 1753, to 18 January, 1764 (Whitmore’s Civil List, p. 163), and had his office on the first floor of the Old State House. Resigning the position of Crier of the Court of Sessions, he was appointed and sworn as Clerk of that Court, 14 April, 1771, “Mr. Middlecott Cooke, one of the Clerks of this Court having lately dyed.” (Minute Book of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, No. 5 (Suffolk), 1769–1773.) He was also one of the two Clerks of the Inferiour Court of Common Pleas. In his Diary (p. 205), referred to below, he says: “Tuesday Aug. 22, [1775]. . . . met Mr. Joseph Otis, jun., on the road, who informed me that Benjamin Gridley was appointed one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, and that Mr. Goldthwait, as clerk of that court, officiated, and did business in court; that several actions were defaulted, two against Mr. Hancock; also that Gridley moved in the sessions that my office be broke open to get the Session’s Book, &c, out of it; but some of the other members of the court opposed it, so that it could not be carried; but that Mr. Goldthwait was very angry at my leaving the town, and not delivering the Court Book.” At the April Term, 1776, for Suffolk, held at Braintree, “Messrs. Ezekiel Price and Daniel Bell are appointed Joint Clerks of this Court, and were each sworn to the faithfull Discharge of their Duty in said Office.” (Records of the Inferiour Court of Common Pleas, xxxix. 1.) At the October Term, Bell asked “to be discharged” from further duty, and “Ezekiel Price is to continue sole Clerk until this Court shall otherwise Order” (Ibid., p. 29); and thereafter the Records are attested by him. As Clerk of these Courts he served some twenty years. Before the Revolution he was the Confidential Secretary of several Provincial Governors. He was chosen into the Massachusetts Historical Society, 30 April, 1793, and died 15 July, 1802, at the age of 74. (1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 85.) He left Boston with his family in May, 1775, and went to Stoughton, where he was all the time alert as to events in Boston. He afterward took a house in Dorchester, where he remained till it was safe to return, keeping up daily visits to town. A Diary kept by him from 23 May, 1775, to 18 August, 1776, contains much interesting matter relating to affairs at that time. It is printed in 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for November, 1863, vii. 185–262. Many of his papers are in the Boston Athenaeum. See Appendix to the Librarian’s Annual Report for 1896, pp. 6, 7.

10 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiii. 73, et al.

11 Minute Book, No. 5 (Suffolk), 1769–1773, passim.

12 Minute Book, No. 5 (Suffolk), 1769–1773, passim.

13 Drake’s The Town of Roxbury, pp. 20–28; Memorial History of Boston, ii. 236.

14 Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1770, xxix. 55.

15 Drake’s The Town of Roxbury, p. 441.

16 The authority for this date is a manuscript in the Library of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, entitled “Town and Parish Records copied appertaining to the Families of Child with others connected by marriage, 1847,” p. 42, where it is also stated that Mayo’s wife was Esther Kenrick, born 26 August, 1726, to whom he was married 14 November, 1745, and that she died 26 August, 1775. The compiler states that these facts were copied “from a memorandum borrowed of Mrs. Elizabeth Child.”

Administration on Joseph Mayo’s estate was granted, 4 March, 1776, to Joseph Mayo of Warwick, in the county of Hampshire (Suffolk Probate Files, No. 15,837).

17 Cf. The Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., under date of 14 March, 1770, p. 194; and Hutchinson’s History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, iii. 285, 286.

The Boston Town Records bring out many points as to the Riot itself, the temper of the people, and the Trials. See Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii, passim.

18 History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, iii. 285, 286, and his Letter in the Remembrancer for 1775, p. 181. See also Life and Works of John Adams, i. 103; and the Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., p. 194.

Hutchinson is in error in his statement as to the adjournment of the Court as the following extracts from the Minute Book (No. 91) clearly show:—

The March Term in Suffolk began 13 March, 1770, as already stated.

“April 20^th. The Court is adjourn’d to Tuesday the 29^th of May next, at 10 ^oClock a. m.

“Tuesday May 29^th The Court is further adjourn’d by “Writ under the hands & Seals of two of the Justices of the Court to thursday next May 31^s̱ṯ at 10 o/Clock a. m.

“Thursday May 31^st. The Court meets according to the adjournment.

. . . . . . . . . . .

“Boston May 31^st 1770.

“Judgment is enter’d up according to the Verdicts, and the Court is adjourn’d without Day.

“Att.

Sam Winthrop, Cler.”

19 There is also in the Chamberlain Collection a Plan of the Scene of the Riot, said to have been made by Paul Revere, probably by order of the Court, and to have been used at the Trial. It is on a sheet of linen paper 13 × 8 inches. A copy of it is in Judge Chamberlain’s chapter (i.) on The Revolution Impending,—in the Narrative and Critical History of America, vi. 48.

The Brief of John Adams is also preserved in the Public Library. It is described in the Memorial History of Boston (iii. 38), and is printed in Kidder’s History of the Boston Massacre (p. 10).

A bibliography of the various Reports of the Trial of the Soldiers may be found in the Memorial History of Boston, iii. 38–40, notes; and in the Narrative and Critical History of America, vi. 85–88 and notes.

20 Captain Preston’s Trial began on Wednesday, the twenty-fourth of October, at eight o’clock in the morning, and ended on the thirtieth; the Soldiers’ Trial began on Tuesday, the twenty-seventh of November, and continued till the fifth of December. (The Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lyude, Jr., pp. 194–200.) See Postscript, post, p. 82.

There is a very misleading error in Kidder’s History of the Boston Massacre wherein it is stated (pp. 125, 135) that the Trial of the Soldiers began on Saturday, 27 November, 1770, which date actually fell on Tuesday. After mentioning that it was impossible to go through the Trial in one day and that, by consent of counsel, the Court adjourned “over night,” Kidder states that on “Wednesday, nine o’clock, the Court met according to adjournment.” This error occurred in the original edition of the “Trial” printed by John Fleming in Boston, 1770, and Kidder blindly perpetuated it. I am indebted to Miss Elizabeth H. Connolly for calling my attention to this blunder.

21 The Indictment was drawn by the Attorney General, Jonathan Sewall, but he did not appear,—“disappeared,” as John Adams said. See an interesting letter concerning the Trial in the Life and Works of John Adams, x. 211.

There is a narrow strip of paper slipped into Minute Book No. 91 of the Superiour Court of Judicature, covering the August Term (Suffolk), 1770, evidently made by the Clerk at the trial of Capt. Preston, and placed where it has remained securely tucked away for more than a century. It reads as follows:—

Cap^t Preston in his Trial challenged peremptorily nineteen Jurors viz. 15 of the Country’s Jury, & four talis men; he also challenged two other of the Country’s Jurors, but by agreement of the Council for the Crown they were not considered as peremptory Challenges, by reason that s^d Preston had not the names of the s^d two Jurors before he was brot to Trial

N. B.

several Talis men were returned by the Sherif who were excused by the Court for reasons by them offer’d viz Henry Bromfleld Esq^r., he having a Comission for the peace; and William Boardman he having been on the Jury of Inquest & . . . . . Procter he declaring himself under Biass

22 See Quincy’s Massachusetts Reports, p. 383. A note by Samuel Miller Quincy, the learned Editor, speaks of a list of “Tryals by Jury cont’d for several Days,” found among the papers of Judge Trowbridge, which it is suggested—

“may have been drawn up for this case, and which comprises the trials of John Lilburne, 2 Hargr. St. Tr. 19 & 7 Ib. 534; Peter Cook, 4 Ib. 738; Capt. Kidd, 5 Ib. 287, and quotes from the trial of Elizabeth Canning, as follows: ‘Emlyn in his Opinion says y^e Law will not allow a Jury to go at Large in a Criminal Case while y^e Tyral is depending. . . . Perhaps . . . may be Cause for arresting Judgm’t. 10 Vol. State Tryal, 407.’”

The note also contains an interesting letter from Judge Oliver to Governor Hutchinson during the trial taken from Massachusetts Archives, xxv. 414.

23 Judge Andrew Oliver, Jr. (H. C. 1749), one of the Founders of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, married Mary Lynde, a daughter of the Second Chief Justice Benjamin Lynde, who presided at the Trials of Preston and the Soldiers. In a letter to Judge Lynde, written the day after the Riot, Oliver describes it and the excited state of the people. Referring to Preston he says that he “bears the most amiable character of any one in the Army, and it is said he endeavored to prevent the exasperated Soldiers from firing, even at the Risque of his own Life.” (The Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., pp. 226–228.)

The Massachusetts Gazette for Monday, 10 December, 1770, contains the information that “His Majesty’s Ship Glasgow sailed Wednesday for England: In her went Passengers . . . Capt. Preston of the 29th Regiment.”

24 Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1770, xxix. 52.

25 Ibid. xxix. 55.

26 Quincy’s Massachusetts Reports, p. 382, et seq.

27 Minute Book No. 91 of the Superiour Court of Judicature,—the last entry in the August Term (Suffolk), 1770.

28 The Act of 1692 (chap. 9), dividing the powers of the old County Courts under the Colonial Charter, gave civil causes to the Courts of Common Pleas, which were called “the County Courts or inferiour Courts of Common Pleas,” and the inferior criminal causes to the General Sessions of the Peace, “this act to continue untill other provision be made by the general court or assembly.”

This was followed by the fuller Act of 1692 (chap. 33) establishing “Judicatories and Courts of Justice within this Province.” This provided for Justices’ Courts, Courts of Quarter Sessions of the Peace, Inferiour Courts of Common Pleas, and “a Superiour Court of Judicature over this whole Province.” This Act was disallowed by the Privy Council, 22 August, 1695, as not providing for the appeal of real actions to the King in Council; as was likewise the Act, chap. 9.

The Act of 1697 (chap. 9) touching the same Courts was likewise disallowed, 24 November, 1698, as being too broad in one of its provisions for a trial by jury.

The Acts of 1699 (chap. 1, 2, 3), providing for the same Courts, stood. (Province Laws, i. 37, 72, 283, 367, 417, note.)

By various statutes, authority in many civil matters was given to the Court of Sessions, and in its civil capacity it had charge of houses of correction, licenses to innholders, highways, the general financial concerns of the County, and many of the present duties of County Commissioners. “The Justices of the Peace of the same County, or so many of them as are or shall be limited in the commission of the peace” constituted the Court (Province Laws, i. 367).

29 Quincy’s Massachusetts Reports, pp. 384, 385. The “four Gentlemen” who argued were the two Quincys, James Otis and John Adams.—Life and Works of John Adams (Diary), ii. 263.

30 A part of Judge Lynde’s Charge to the Jury at the Trial of the Soldiers is printed in The Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., pp. 228–230. Cf. Ibid. p. 200, note 2.

31 The Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature for 1770 (xxix) give all the Trials in full. A full account of the Trials may be found in the Life and Works of John Adams, ii. 229–236, and references to it in i. 98, 104, 110; and ix. 617. Hutchinson, too, gives an account of the Riot and the Trials in his History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, iii. 270–280, 285–289, 327–330. See also Gordon’s History of the American Revolution (edition of 1788), i. 282–300; Edward G. Porter’s chapter (i.) on The Beginning of the Revolution, in the Memorial History of Boston, vol. iii., and Winsor’s Bibliographical Note thereto (pp. 38–40), which refers to the Report of the Trials published in Boston, 1770, 12 mo. pp. 217, containing the evidence and arguments; reprinted in London in three editions the same year, and in Boston in 1807, 1824, and again in Kidder’s History of the Boston Massacre, Boston, 1870. There is also an account of the Riot in the Narrative and Critical History of America, vi. 49–52, 85–89. Various accounts of it were sent “to our friends in England,”—among others, to “Hon^ble. Isaac Barree, Esq. Thomas Pownal, Esq. Dennis Deberdt, Esq. D^r. Benjamin Franklyn Esq. William Bollan, Esq. Barlow Trecothick, Esq.” (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 10, 15, etc.) See Postscript, post, p. 82.

32 His commission as Chief-Justice was dated 21 March, 1771, and published on the fifth of April following.

33 This date is taken from his gravestone in Salem. It is elsewhere stated that he died on the ninth of October.

34 See a notice of Judge Cushing in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for January, 1854, viii. 44.

35 This matter of the payment of salaries was taken up at a Town Meeting in Boston, 28 October, 1772, upon “The several Petitions relative to a Report that Stipends are affixed by order of the Crown,” etc., and a Committee—Mr. Samuel Adams, Dr. Joseph Warren and Dr. Benjamin Church—was appointed “to draw up an Address to the Governor.” The Draught submitted in the afternoon sets out “that a Report has prevailed, which they have reason to apprehend is well grounded, that Stipends are affixed to the Offices of the Judges of the Superior Court of Judicature of this Province, whereby they are become Independents of the Grants of the General Assembly for their support, contrary to antient and invariable usage,” and refers to the “alarm among all considerate Persons . . . in Town and Country [it] being view’d as tending rapidly to compleat the System of their Slavery;” that “this Establishment appears big with fatal evils,” and requests information from his Excellency as to the fact. The Draught was approved. On the thirtieth the Committee reported his Excellency’s Reply “delivered to them in Writing,” wherein he declines to answer their question. A Committee—“The Hon^ble James Otis Esq., Mr. Samuel Adams and The Hon^ble Thomas Gushing Esq.”—was then appointed to “prepare a Petition to his Excellency,” relative to the meeting of the General Court. The draught of this Petition, at once reported, again reverts to this matter, setting forth that “Such an Establishment is contrary not only to the plain and obvious sense of the Charter of this Province, but also some of the fundamental Principles of the Common Law,” and entering at length into the subject. The Reply of the Governor, presented 2 November, refers only to the meeting of the General Assembly. The action on this Reply is vigorous and spirited.

On the twenty-third of March, 1773, the matter again came up, and the Report of Samuel Adams is an elaborate discussion of the whole subject, and of the right of petition, generally. The “Report was accepted by the Town nemine contradicente, and Ordered to be Recorded on the Towns Book, as the sense of the Inhabitants of this Town;” and also to “be printed in the several News Papers,” and transmitted “to such Towns and Districts as they have or may Correspond with.”

The matter again appears in a Town Meeting, 26 July, 1774, when a Committee—Josiah Quincy, Esq., Mr. Samuel Adams (afterward excused), Joseph Greenleaf, Esq., and William Phillips, Esq.—appointed “forthwith to draw up & report . . . a Letter to be sent to the other Towns, relative to the Two Bills for Altering the Constitution of this Province, . . . Reported a Draught, which was accepted Paragraph by Paragraph,” one of which read: “When we consider the Conduct of our late worthy House of Representatives, relative to our Superior Court Judges, & their Impeachment of the Hon^ble Peter Oliver Esq. for his accepting a Salary from the Crown, in his Office of Chief Justice, & when we consider the uniform Spirit and Conduct of the several Grand Jurors thro’ the Province, Touching the same Grievances since that Impeachment; we cannot but suppose the aforementioned Acts will bring on a most important & decisive Trial.” (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 89–93, 120–125, 186, 187.)

36 As to Oliver’s Impeachment, etc., see Narrative and Critical History of America, vi. 95, and the authorities there cited; Life and Works of John Adams, i. 138; iii. 513; and Hutchinson’s History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, iii. 443–445. Hutchinson refers at length to the attitude of the Judges—and especially of Trowbridge—on the question of Salary. Ibid. iii. 442.

37 Court Records at the State House, xxx. 160; Catalogue of Records and Files in the Office of the Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court, p. 93.

38 As some confusion exists in the several records at the State House concerning the dates of this Term of the Court and the adjournments thereof, the following extracts from the archives of the Superior Court of Judicature are here printed:—

“Tuesday Feb^ry 15th the Court met and adjourn’d to Tuesd^y February 22.^nd” (Marginal entry in Minute Book No. 98 (Suffolk), 1773, 1774.)

“Tuesday Feb^y 22^nḍ The Court met & adjourn’d to the first Tuesday of June next at 10 o’clock a. m. having first affirmed Judgm’ on the above Complaints, except No. 21, 22 & 73.” (Ibid.)

June 7th 1774. The Court met according to adjournment, and on the same day adjourned without day. (Ibid.)

39 Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1773–1774, xxxii. 181–238.

40 Ibid. 1775–1778, xxxiii. 1; Catalogue of Records and Files, etc., p. 94, and the Minute Books therein cited.

41 For an account of the controversy as to the method of filling this office by appointment or election, and the proceedings in 1749, see Mr. Goodell’s Complete List of the Attorneys General and Solicitors General of Massachusetts, 1686–1780, in 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for June, 1895, x. 285–291.

42 This date, usually given in the published accounts of Judge Trowbridge as that of his birth, is taken from the Newton Town Records which give only the year, with a note referring to “Cambridge record.” This may indicate that Judge Trowbridge was born in Cambridge, or that this date is taken from the guardianship papers, now at East Cambridge, issued 7 March, 1725, after the death of his father, in New London, Conn., in 1724, in which Edmund is said to have been then “in his sixteenth year.” As Thomas Trowbridge and Mary Goffe were married 3 March, 1709, it is not improbable that 1710 is the actual date of Judge Trowbridge’s birth. Unfortunately the Records of the First Church in Newton, which may have preserved the facts concerning Trowbridge’s baptism, have perished.

43 Cf. Publications of this Society, iii. 451; and Paige’s History of Cambridge, pp. 173, 215, 561.

44 Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts, pp. 308, 309.

45 The Bench and Bar in Boston, in the Memorial History of Boston, iv. 580.

46 Ibid. iv. 580. John Adams calls him, indiscriminately, by either,—Goffe, Works, ii. 196, 200, 201, 204, 282, 284; and Trowbridge, ii. 195, 284, 301, 331,—and so in various other places; and a note on p. 196 states that he changed his name. Sabine quotes Adams.

47 Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, July Term (Middlesex), 1726, vi. 72.

48 See manuscript in Harvard College Library. See also Province Laws, v. 1057–1064, Notes to chap. 50, Act of 1 May, 1779, on the Memorial of . . . “Inhabitants of the First Parrish in Cambride Living on the North side of Charles River in s^d Town . . . Owners of Considerable Tracts . . . on South side,” afterward incorporated as the town of Brighton, as to setting off the South Precinct in Cambridge,—an Act “for the greater conveniency of attending the public worship of God and the promotion of the Christian religion;” and Paige’s History of Cambridge, pp. 133, 214, 292, 375, 460, 461, 465, 467, 562, and 671 and note.

49 (1) An Execution in favor of “Edmund Goffe al^s Trowbridge of Cambridge, Middlesex County, gent.” against James Lowdon, in September, 1735; and receipt thereon signed “Edm^d Goffe al^s Trowbridge” in his own handwriting.

(2) Execution, Hdbere Facias Possessionem, in favor of “Edmund Goffe alias Trowbridge of Cambridge, Middlesex County, Adm^r &c” v. Buckminster, 1737.

(3) An Execution in favor of “Edmund Trowbridge of Cambridge &c. Esq. otherwise called Edmund Goffe al^s Trowbridge, gent. Adm^r &c.,” 1740; and receipt thereon signed “Edmund Trowbridge” in his own handwriting.

(4) A Deposition of Nathaniel Gamage, in Church v. Crackbone, mentions “Mr. Goffe” also “M’ Edmund Trowbridge, (within called Goffe),” January, 1740–41.

The Record of the case first above referred to also runs: “Edmund Goffe alias Trowbridge &c” v. Lowdon. (Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, x. 237. See also Suffolk Court Files, cclxxviii. 40890; ccxcv. 44136; cccxli. 52932, 52957.)

There are also numerous papers where his name appears at this same period as Trowbridge,—a joinder of issue in a case, signed by him as Counsel for plaintiff, powers of attorney, letters, pleadings, cases, etc. (Suffolk Court Files, cccxlvi. 53944; cccliv. 55486; ccclvi. 55963; ecccxii. 66300; ccccxci. 83181.) He also appears as Trowbridge in Whitmore’s Civil List, and in Goodell’s List of Attorneys General, already referred to.

The following testimony upon this point, from the pen of one of his associates at the Council Board and upon the Bench is of interest:—

“1766. May 28th. Election; I sent a resignation of my seat at Council Board. The Lieut. Gov^r., Secretary Oliver, Judge Oliver and the Attorney General Goffe, left out. . . . I was 28 yrs. a Counsellor.”

“1767. May 13th. Edmund Goffe, alias Trowbridge, Esq., sat as a Judge at Barnstable Superiour Court, being appointed in Judge Russel’s room in March last.” (The Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., p. 191.)

50 For a fragment of the Diary of Samuel Quincy, Solicitor-General of the Province, kept in London, in 1776, and an appreciative and discriminating notice of the author, see 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for January, 1882, xix. 211–223.

51 See 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 638.

52 In a letter recently received from Thomas Preston, Esq., F. S. A., Clerk of the Privy Council, referring to Cabinet Councils, he says: “I believe Queen Anne was the last of our Sovereigns who attended them in person.” Mr. Preston also remarks upon the frequency with which historical writers confound Cabinet Councils with sessions of the Privy Council.

53 The following is extracted from a contemporary announcement of the Queen’s death:—

“London, August 1. [Sunday.]

“This Day, at half an Hour past Seven in the Morning, died our late most Gracious Sovereign Queen Anne, in the Fiftieth Year of Her Age, and the Thirteenth of Her Reign; a Princess of exemplary Piety and Virtue. Her Majesty complain’d on Thursday last of a Pain in Her Head: The next Day She was siezed with Convulsion Fits, and for some time lost the use of Her Speech and Senses, which, tho’ She afterwards recovered upon the Application of proper Remedies, She continued in a very weak and languishing Condition till She expired.”—(The London Gazette, No. 5247, From Saturday, July 31, to Tuesday, August 3, 1714.)

54 The King landed at Greenwich, on the eighteenth of September, 1714. The news of Anne’s death reached Boston on Wednesday, 15 September (Boston News-Letter, No. 544). The obsequies of the Queen were celebrated on the morning of Wednesday, the twenty-second, by the discharge of minute-guns at Castle William. At eleven o’clock Governor Dudley came hither from Roxbury, with a military escort, and was met at the Town House by Lieutenant Governor Tailer, members of the Council, and a great number of prominent citizens and merchants, “besides a very great concourse of People. . . . The Regiment of the Town, and another Regiment of Foot, being drawn up under Arms on the Parade in Kings-Street, before the Town-House. The Balcony of the Council-Chamber being Hung with Scarlet Cloth, at 12 a Clock His Majesty was . . . Proclaimed with loud acclamations.” This was followed by the discharge of three volleys by the troops of horse and foot, and three rounds of artillery from the Castle, the Batteries, and the Ships in the harbor, amid the ringing of bells. At two o’clock a public Dinner was served to the Governor and the vice-regal Court, who returned in the evening to the Council Chamber, where healths were drunk to the King and the Royal family. “The Town-house, and several Principal Streets [were] finely Illuminated beyond what ever was known in the English America.” On the twenty-third, in accordance with an order of the Governor and Council, Cotton Mather preached, at the Thursday Lecture, “a very good sermon” from Isaiah vi. 1, appropriate to the “Solemn Occasion” of the Queen’s death. The Governor and Council then went into mourning. On the evening of the same day (Thursday) Jonathan Belcher, afterward Governor of the Province, “made a very Splendid Entertainment for His Excellency the Governour and Council, with a great many other Gentlemen, at his House in Hanover Street, where were drunk His Majesties Health, the Prince, Royal Family, &c. the House being all over very finely Illuminated.” (Ibid. No. 545.) This house occupied a part of the site of the present American House. Here, formerly, lived Judge John Saflin (see ante, i. 87, note) who, with wife Rebecca (Lee), for £350 “in current money of New England,” sold the estate, then said to contain three quarters of an acre, to Francis Foxcroft, 24 September, 1691 (Suffolk Deeds, xix. 237). Foxcroft sold to Jonathan Belcher, 31 December, 1705, the consideration named in the deed being £600 “in current money of New England” (Ibid. xxii. 389). While occupying the Executive Chair of the Province Belcher sold this property, for £3,600, “in good publick Bills of Credit of the province,” to Joseph Green, 15 March, 1734 (Ibid. 1. 113).

55 Sir Matthew Dudley was of the Clapton, Northamptonshire family. His father, William Dudley, was created a Baronet 1 August, 1660. Matthew, his eldest son and successor, was baptized 6 October, 1661; married Lady Mary O’Brien, youngest daughter of the Earl of Thomond; was several times returned to Parliament, at one time representing the County of Huntingdon; appointed a Commissioner of the Customs in 1706, turned out in 1712, but was reinstated by George I.; and died in office and in London, 13 April, 1721. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society to which he was admitted 26 January, 1703–4. To the Society’s Transactions (Vol. XXIV.) he contributed, in February, 1705, a paper giving An Account of Insects in the Barks of Decaying Elms and Ashes. (Bnrke’s Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies; Province Laws, vii. 50–52, 308, 434, 685.)

56 The Great Revolution in England. The Prince of Orange landed at Torbay, 5 November, 1688.

57 The original Indictment is preserved in the Suffolk Court Files, dxciv. 101,788. See ante, pp. 60–70.

58 This extract from the last letter that Governor Russell wrote to his wife is taken from the Memorial Address delivered by Professor Charles Eliot Norton at the invitation of the City of Cambridge. This is published in the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for December, 1896, v. 177–194.

1 Since this paper was read to the Society another impression of this plate has been discovered in the collection of our associate Mr. Denison Rogers Slade. The inscription on Mr. Slade’s copy is identical with that on my own except that Mr. Slade’s print bears the following additional words,—in the space between the names of Smibert and Pelham: “Sold by J: Buck in Queen street Boston.”

2 Provincial Banks: Land and Silver, communicated at the Stated Meeting in January, 1895, Publications, iii. 1–40.

3 Currency Discussion in Massachusetts in the Eighteenth Century. Quarterly Journal of Economics for October 1896, and January 1897, xi. 70–91, 186–160.

4 A Model for Erecting a Bank of Credit: With a Discourse In Explanation thereof. Adapted to the Use of any Trading Countrey, where there is a Scarcity of Moneys: More Especially for his Majesties Plantations in America. Quò Communiùs eò Melius. London, Printed by J. A. for Thomas Cockeril at the Three Leggs in the Poultrey, over against the Stocks-Market, 1688.

Hutchinson refers to this pamphlet as having been printed in 1684, and the evidence is conclusive that it was in possession of the person who prepared the Scheme for the proposed Bank of 1686. It was reprinted in Boston in 1714. See ante, iii. 6, note.

5 Colonial Records of Connecticut, vii. 390.

6 History of New London, by Frances Manwaring Caulkins (edition of 1852), pp. 242, 243.

7 Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, iv. 270.

8 Colonial Records of Connecticut, vii. 410.

9 Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, iv. 268, 269.

10 Ibid. iv. 269, 270.

11 Colonial Records of Connecticut, vii. 421.

12 Colonial Records of Connecticut, vii. 422.

13 Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, iv. 279.

14 As Public Printer, Green printed the public bills of credit. It is not much of an assumption to say that he must have printed the bills of the New London Society. His conclusion that there had been about Fifteen Thousand Pounds printed may therefore be regarded as authoritative. See Memorial History of Boston, ii. 406, note.

15 Colonial Records of Connecticut, vii. 422.

16 The Governor and Company of Connecticut.

17 Colonial Records of Connecticut, vii. 449.

18 Colonial Records of Connecticut, vii. 450–452.

19 Ibid. vii. 453. This proceeding may have been the basis for Miss Caulkins’s statement that loans upon mortgage were obtained from the public treasury and the capital employed in trade.

20 Colonial Records of Connecticut, vii. 560; viii. 69.

21 Ibid. viii. 234.

22 In addition to “the losses at sea & disappointments at home” which had absorbed a great part of their stock, Miss Caulkins gives references to one or two special ventures.

23 Colonial Records of Connecticut, viii. 24.

24 Colonial Records of Connecticut, vii. 491, 492.

25 Ibid. ix. 309, 438, 445, 490.

26 Ibid. vii. 478.

27 Colonial Records of Connecticut, vii. 508

28 A Discourse Concerning the Currencies of the British Plantations in America. Especially with Regard to their Paper Money: More Particularly, In Relation to the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England. Boston. S. Kneeland & T. Green, 1740, p. 13.

29 Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society for October, 1884, New Series, iii. 302, Note D.

30 Historical Account of the Connecticut Currency, by Henry Bronson, M. D., in Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, Vol. I. See Notes, pp. 42, 43, of Dr. Bronson’s monograph.

31 Patent Roll 13 George I., part 4, no. 3, dorso. The reference to this Commission in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for October, 1872, xxvi. 402, is to the incomplete draught in the Journals of the Lords of Trade. The enrolment of the Patent Mr. Sainsbury, apparently, failed to discover. A second Commission to Gibson, 1 George II. (29 April, 1728), is printed in Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, v. 849.

32 The full Latin text of the Patent will be found in Volume II. of this Society’s Publications, which contains the Commissions and Instructions of the Royal Governors of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay.

33 See Mr. Noble’s communication at the November Meeting, ante, pp. 5–26.

34 Suffolk Court Files, dliv. 98, 506^a.

35 Publications, iii. 207.

36 The bracketed references in broad-faced type throughout this document are to the printed volumes of the Massachusetts Colony Records.

37 So in the original.

38 Repeated in the original.

39 The name Walderne would seem be an error in the original record for Walker. The name of Richard Walker appears in the lists on pp. 117, 131; Walderne or Waldron appears as a Deputy in neither. See also Secretary Nowell’s record, Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 265.

40 This appears to have been first written 20 and changed to 10.

41 These six entries and the entries in the margin against them, except the first, are in the handwriting of William Torrey.

42 Cf. post, p. 132.

43 These two paragraphs and one marginal entry are in Torrey’s hand.

44 Spegall?

45 Probably May 11, 1649.

46 So in the original.

47 Written over “Capt.”

48 This entry is in the handwriting of Governor John Endicott. Cf. ante, p. 122,—the sixth paragraph, which records a different disposition of the Winthrop grant.

49 This name appears to be in a different, though ancient, hand.

50 So entered and starred in the margin of the original.

51 This appears to be cancelled in the original.

52 An Address delivered in the Old South Meeting-House in Boston, November 27, 1895, before the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in commemoration of the Six hundredth Anniversary of the First Summoning of Citizens and Burgesses to the Parliament of England, wherein the History of the House of Commons is sketched and a comparison made of the development of the Legislatures of Great Britain and of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, pp. 25–27.

53 In February, 1896. Publications, iii. 205–207.

54 At the Stated Meeting in April, 1895, ante, iii. 101–103.

55 At the Stated Meeting in February, 1896, ante, iii. 205–207.

56 See the sixth paragraph on page [6], the seventh paragraph on page [11] and the fourth paragraph on page [14], ante, pp. 122, 128, and 130.

57 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 178.

58 Massachusetts Colony Laws of 1660 (Whitmore’s edition), p. 148 (original p. 26). See also p. 76 and note, where the important vote of the General Court of November, 1647,—relating to the manner of printing the Laws and the discretion given to the Committee—is reprinted from the Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 209.

59 Massachusetts Archives, xlvii. 11.

60 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part 1) 116.

61 Ibid. Volume ii.

62 Ibid. iii. 157.

63 Richard Bellingham and Increase Nowell. Captain William Tyng and Captain Hugh Prichard were the members appointed by the House.

64 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 161. See also, Ibid. ii. 274, and the Vote as it appears in the Fragment, page [6], ante, p. 122.

65 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 226, and iv. (Part 1) 44.

66 Ibid. iv. (Part 1) 35.

67 The Governor’s marriage settlement with Mrs. Coytemore, dated 20 (10) 1647, may be read in the Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 232–236. After Winthrop’s death she married John Coggan, whom she survived, and after mourning the lack of suitors for her hand in a fourth marriage she committed suicide (John Davenport’s letter to John Winthrop, Jr., in 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, x. 45).

68 Records of First Church in Boston; Life and Letters of John Winthrop, ii. 381, note; and Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 29.

69 Life and Letters of John Winthrop, i. 177, 246; ii. 369; Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of New England, iv. 606–614; and New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1877, xxxi. 117.

70 Boston Town Records; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 34.

71 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 381. There is also a record of this action in Ibid. iv. (Part 1), 232.

72 See Whitmore’s Bibliographical Sketch of the Laws of the Massachusetts Colony from 1630 to 1680 (Boston, 1890), pp. vii., 79, 127. For an extended notice of Joseph Hills and his connection with the publication of the early Laws, see Corey’s History of Maiden, pp. 165–185.

73 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 48.

74 A Bibliographical Sketch of the Laws of the Massachusetts Colony from 1630 to 1686 (Boston, 1890), p. ix.

75 Massachusetts Archives, xlviii. 20.

76 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 259.

77 Ibid. ii. 260.

78 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 260.

79 Ibid. ii. 260.

80 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 209, note.

81 Massachusetts Archives, xlvii. 11, 15.

82 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 61, 83; ii. 167, 185.

83 See Suffolk Court Files, Nos. 90^b and 90^c (1647); No. 111 (1650); and Nos. 220 and 221 (1655).

84 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 158.

85 Ibid. ii. 266.

86 Ibid. iii. 28.

87 Ibid. iii. 422.

88 Suffolk Court Files, No. 1379, 1^sṭ paper, and No. 1380, 1^sṭ and 2^ḍ papers. The printed volumes containing the Records cited are numbered V. and IV., respectively.

89 See the Order for the payment of Torrey, 8 May, 1649, and the Order appointing Rawson Clerk in 1645, mentioned above; also the grant to Torrey of Slate Island in November, 1659. (Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part 1) 407.)

90 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part 1) 324.

91 Ibid. iv. (Part 1) 324–327.

92 Bibliographical Sketch, etc., pp. 84, 103–114.

93 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 339; ii. 150.

94 Bibliographical Sketch, etc., p. 103.

95 Massachusetts Archives, xlvii. 15.

96 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 242.

97 See Massachusetts Colony Laws (edition of 1660), pp. 43–45.

98 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 150.

99 Ibid. iv. (Part 1) 257, 305.

100 See also Massachusetts Colony Laws of 1660, p. 38.

101 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 242.

102 The citation (Lib. 1, p. 27) in the printed volume is an error of the press.

103 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 246.

104 Ibid. ii. 212.

105 Ibid. iv. (Part 1) 185.

106 Ibid. iv. (Part 1) 309.

107 Ibid. iv. (Part 1) 247.

108 See Massachusetts Colony Laws (edition of 1660), p. 72.

109 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part 1) 83, 103, 293.

110 Ibid. iv. (Part 1) 103, 256, 293.

111 Ibid. ii. 211.

112 Ibid. ii. 286.

113 Ibid. ii. 286.

114 Ibid. iv. (Part 1) 101.

115 Ibid. iv. (Part 1) 203.

116 Ibid. iv. (Part 1) 152.

117 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 211.

118 Ibid. iv. (Part 1) 121.

119 Ibid. i. 157.

120 Ibid. i. 196, 241.

121 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part 1) 33, 407. The Island lies ofi the mouth of Weymouth Back River.

122 The wording in this grant indicates that in November, 1659, the Deputies had but one “booke of coppies.”

123 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part 1) 3.

124 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part 1) 3.

125 This line is wholly in the handwriting of John Davis.

126 The following extract from the York Court Records is of interest in this connection:—

“At a Generall Assembly houlden at Yorke June 28th: 1682: An order of the President for a sermon Annually on thursday, being the second day after the Meeting of ye Generall Assembly,

It being the Hons^e: [? Hono^r] as well as the duty of Civill Magestrates, to Incorage the Ministrey & worship under y^e jurisdiction, which by reason of the absence of the Cheefe Magestrate of this Province and y^e remoatness of the Ministers habitations, y^r is a want of oportunity for the knowledg of them,

It is y^rfore ordered by y^e President & Councill, that upon y^e second day of the Meeteing of this Generall Court Annually some one of y^e Reverend Elders or Ministers bee desired to preach a sermon to y^e Generall Court, for the better promoteing of an acquantance between the Government & Ministers & that o^r Civill transactions may be Sanctified by the word and prayer, the Anual Choyse to be made by the President, orin case of falure to bee seasonably supplyd & done by the Deputy President & Councill, June 29: 82: Mr. Dummer was nominated for y^e next yeare 1683.”

This extract was communicated by Mr. Nathaniel Jones Herrick, of Alfred, Maine, to the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for January, 1874, xxviii. 86. An examination of Mr. Baxter’s copy of the York Court Records failed to reveal this entry. It should be noted, however, that the lack of chronological sequence in the entries in these Records may account for the inability of my correspondent to secure a citation of the volume and page where this Order appears.

The first printed broadside of a Thanksgiving Proclamation in Massachusetts appeared in June, 1676. The only known copy is in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. It was reproduced by Dr. Love in his Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England (facing p. 200).

127 The Rev. Henry Otis Thayer, who made for me more than one examination of Mr. Baxter’s indexed copy of the York Court Records (1636–1686), could discover no reference whatever to the Proclamation in the text, or to the event to which it relates, but he found the following Orders for the issue of two other Proclamations,—one for a Fast, the other for a Day of Thanksgiving—both during the administration of John Davis, to whose influence or suggestion it is not improbable that these State Papers owe their origin:—

“Considering the many frowneing providences of god w^ch daly hang over o^r heads as signall tokens of gods great displeasure the certen aeffects of o^r sins y^t have turned his smiles into frow̄s—upon us—for diverting w^r/of & for y^e obtayneing of his wonted kindness If it bee his blessed Will Its y^rfore ordered by this Court y^r bee a day of Solleme humiliation keept throughout y^s Province upon the 3d Weddensday being the eighteenth day of May next Insewing w^ch all Ministers & such who feare y^e Lord are required to observe, & all other p^r/sons are prohibited from doing any scervile labour upon that day as they will avoyd the Courts displeasure.” (Court of Pleas held at York, 6 April, 1681, iv. 84).

II.

“Day of thanks giving

W^r/as this Court is Informed that the life of his Majesty hath been in great Hazard made by some disaffected p^rsons against his Majestys Roy all person and Dignity—and some other additionall fau^ors: of priuiledges and peace yet Contined to us.

These things Considered, this Court Judgeth meete to appoynt a solleme day of thankesgiuing throughout the province to bee keept by all his Majestys good subjects—the Inhabitants y^r/of upon the last Weddensday of this Instant October, who are hereby p’hibited from all servile labour on y^t day w^ch is to bee set apart and Deuoated wholly to render prayses unto god for his great goodness & mercys towards us therein.” (Court of Sessions held at Wells, 9 October, 1683, iv. 297, 298.)

In connection with this Proclamation we find the following entry, which suggests the possibility of some public feeling of disfavor which caused the postponement of this public Thanksgiving for nearly a year.

“An Order about a day of

thankesgiveiug—

This Court ordereth y^t y^e day of thankesgiveiug formerly appoynted by authority & suspended upon some mature Considerations is now by y^s Court determined to be keept in Yorke, Kittery & Wells upon the first Weddensday in Sept^ebr next Insewing according to the former order.” (Court of Sessions held at Wells, 20 November, 1683, iv. 303.)

I am indebted to Mr. James Phinney Baxter for permission to consult this valuable manuscript, and throughout this paper my citations by volume and page from these Records are from Mr. Baxter’s copy.

The Fifth Volume of York Deeds, Part II. of which is devoted to a transcript of a later portion of the Court Records of the Province, contains the following entries which are of present interest:—

At a Court of Pleas, held at York, 25 February, 1690–91,—the last Court which John Davis is known to have attended as Deputy-President,—

“A Day of publick humiliation appointed to be kept the third Wednesday in March next & all servile labour is forbidden on that Day” (p. 9).

At a Court of Sessions, held at York, 6 October, 1691, shortly after Davis’s death,—

“It is ordered that there be a Day of publick thanksgiueing kept on the fift Day of November next & all servile Worke on that Day is hereby prohibited” (p. 12).

128 A very brief sketch of Davis, filling less than a dozen lines, is in William Durkee Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, i. 671.

129 Palfrey’s History of New England, i. 205, 397, note, 400, note, and 402, note.

130 See the Petition of Edward Godfrey, the founder of York, to the General Court of Massachusetts, in Massachusetts Archives, iii. 235. The document is not dated, but the Order thereon, signed by Edward Rawson, bears date “30 octobe^r 54.”

131 The full text of this document is in Sullivan’s History of the District of Maine, pp. 397–408, and Hazard’s State Papers, i. 442. Cf. Palfrey’s History of New England, i. 402, note 1.

132 Palfrey’s History of New England, iii. 312 and notes, 399–402 and notes.

133 Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, i. 558, 562.

134 York Court Records, iii. 383. Cf. York Deeds, iii. (Preface) 9, note 5.

135 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 286; York Court Records, iii. 383. Danforth held the office until the arrival of the Second Charter, in 1692, except during the administrations of Dudley and Andros. For notices of Thomas Danforth, see New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1853, vii. 315–321; Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, i. 673; Palfrey’s History of New England, ii. 514; iii. passim; and Paige’s History of Cambridge, p. 530.

136 York Court Records, iii. 384.

137 Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, i. 565.

138 Ibid. i. 563, 564, 686. His will, dated at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 9 August, 1677, was proved 5 April, 1681. (Maine Wills, pp. 59–61; and York Deeds, v. (Part I.) 5).

It is a curious fact that although Pendleton was the first incumbent of this office, and as such presided at the Courts held at Kittery, in April, and at Wells, in June, 1680 (York Court Records, iv. 59, 203), Davis is designated as Deputy-President in the List of persons “chosen & Deputed” by the authorities of the Bay to constitute the “Court & Counsell” which were to administer the Province during the first year. Pendleton’s name follows that of Davis,—apparently as senior member of the Standing Council. The Record proceeds:—

“These severall Gentlemen . . . are Commissionated for the yeare Insewing untill others bee by them chosen & sworne in there roume & stead who have all taken y^r oaths of Allegiance to his Majesty & their oaths as Magestrates & Just^s of the pea: before the Honorable Thomas Danforth, prsd^t.” (York Court Records, under date of 17 March 1679–80, iii. 383.)

Davis was elected to the Deputy-Presidency at a second election at York, held 30 June, 1681. (Ibid. iii. 397.)

139 Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, i. 558, note, 671.

140 Nowhere do I find a record of Hooke’s appointment or election to this office, but that he held it there can be no doubt. See York Deeds, v. (Part I.) 72, (Part II.) 11, 12.

141 Belknap’s History of New Hampshire (edition of 1784), i. 264; and 1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, iii. 8.

142 York Deeds, iii. 125.

143 York Deeds, iii. 56,—two instruments. Knowlton’s Power of Attorney to Davis and Sayward, in the form of a personal letter, is recorded (Ibid.) with this instrument. It is historically interesting, and reveals his whilom purpose to remove from Ipswich to York and its subsequent abandonment; and the fact that he had built a house in York on land given him by his much respected friend Captain John Davis “vpon my settleing there.” He adds, “w^t Cap^t Davess his Accopt Cometh to I purpose to giue in wⁿ hee comes to this Town,”—i. e. Ipswich. Cf. post, p. 174.

144 Ipswich Court Records, i. 138 (original); i. 390, 391 (copy). These Records are in the Essex Registry of Deeds, at Salem.

145 Felt’s History of Ipswich, Essex, and Hamilton, p. 323.

146 Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 540; and New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1849, iii. 246.

147 The Essex Probate Files (No. 16,075) contain “An Inventory of the estate of Jn^ọ Knoulton of Ipswich: deceased Octob^r 8th 84,” which foots £13.03.9; and a List of Debts due from the estate amounting to £101.18.00, which includes this item: “good wife Davis £5.00.00.”

148 The parish of Chebacco (now the town of Essex) is here referred to.

149 Ipswich Court Records (in Essex Registry of Deeds), i. 59 (original); i. 190–192 (copy). No wife joins in this deed, which is signed by a mark. There is a brief notice of Davis in the Hammatt Papers (1854), p. 70, but Ilammatt appears to have known nothing of his antecedents or of his career after 1648.

There is also in the Ipswich Court Records (i. 166, 167, original; i. 461–463, copy) another deed, dated 10 April, 1655, from John Davis of Ipswich whose occupation is not mentioned, “with the consent of my wife,” Alice, who also joins, to Daniel Rindge of thirty-five acres of land, in two parcels, with the buildings thereon, in Ipswich. Both of these grantors sign by a mark. This John Davis, doubtless, was identical with the grantor in the deed of 8 February, 1647–48, but I believe that the conveyance of 1655 was made after Davis had taken up his abode in York. It is by no means improbable that he left his wife in Ipswich until he could establish himself in his new home, and that about the time of the sale of this property to Rindge she had joined her husband. That Capt. John Davis of York was in the habit of visiting Ipswich, there would seem to be no doubt. (Cf. ante p. 173, note 3.) I find no other conveyances by John Davis of Ipswich, in either the Ipswich Court Records, the old Norfolk Records, or the Essex Deeds.

150 John Endicott. While a resident of Ipswich, John Davis, as we have seen, lived at Chebacco and held land north of the river, at Heartbreak Hill from the summit of which, on a clear day, may be seen the top of Mount Agamenticus. Our associate, Mr. Abner C. Goodell, Jr., calls my attention to the fact that from this neighborhood it is possible to proceed to Gloucester (Cape Ann) by way of Annisquam, and that, in all probability, Endicott took this route, in 1642, when accompanied by Davis, instead of going by way of Cape Ann side (i.e. Beverly and Manchester) along shore all the way.

151 A comparison of the List of early inhabitants of Ipswich in Felt’s History of the Town (pp. 10–13) with the Lists of Freemen sworn at Agamenticus, Wells, Saco and Cape Porpoise, in 1652 and 1653, reveals the fact that the names of John Baker, John Davis, Joseph Emerson, John Saunders, and John West appear in both, and suggests the probability that these men, or their sons of the same names, removed permanently—or temporarily, as did John Knowlton—from Ipswich to the Province of Maine. Emerson, we know, was in Wells as early as 4 July, 1653, and minister of the First Church in Wells from 1664 till 1667; and Felt says that he preached in York 1648 and 1663. (Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 129, 158, 162, 164, (Part II.) 84; Bourne’s History of Wells and Kennebunk, Maine, pp. 25, 103, 104; and Felt’s Ecclesiastical History of New England, i. 548; ii. 118, 320, 389. See also New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1849, iii. 193; and Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of New England, i. 96; ii. 18, 118; iii. 614; iv. 20, 21, 487, 488.)

The York Court Records (i. 137, 138) show that John Davis witnessed a deed of land from John Lander and John Billin of “Pascataquack,” to Joseph Milles, 28 February, 1639–40; and (i. 180) that certain claims of Francis Champernown v. John Tomson and of John Tomson v. Thomas Withers, for £40 and £50, respectively, were referred to Nicholas Shapleigh, William Hilton, John Alcock and John Davis, as arbitrators, 25 October, 1650. John Davis also witnessed a deed from George Cleaves and Richard Tucker of Casco Bay to John Moses “now of Piscataq River,” 6 April, 1646 (York Deeds, i. (Part I.) 109). These entries indicate that Davis was at York before settling at Ipswich, and that he returned, temporarily, to York before making it his permanent place of abode about 1652. The second entry also shows that the friendship between Davis and Champernown, which ended only with the latter’s death, extended over nearly forty years. Cf. post, p. 183.

The Index of Volumes I.–IX. of the First Series of the Collections of the Maine Historical Society (p. 72) erroneously calls the Deputy-President son of Isaac Davis of Stroudwater (Falmouth, now Deering), Maine, whose eldest son John, born in 1660, was living, with his younger brother Samuel, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1733 (1 Collections of the Maine Historical Society, i. (edition of 1865) 309; and Babson’s History of the Town of Gloucester, Cape Ann, p. 255). Babson, in another place (Ibid. p. 333), says:—

“In 1715, a John Davis, with his wife and family, from Ipswich, moved into town. He may have been the person of the same name, son of Isaac of Falmouth, who, in 1734, was living in Gloucester, about seventy-four years old [hence born in 1660]; and the ‘old Mr. John Davis’ of Sandy Bay, who, in 1748 and for several preceding years, received assistance from the town.”

Babson also refers (p. 75) to a John Davis of an earlier generation who “bought of Richard Window, in 1656, his house, barn, orchard and land . . . [and] after a residence of several years in town . . . removed to Ipswich.” Whence he came, Babson does not record.

It will be remembered, that the names of Davis, Knowlton, and Sargent, all of which are found early in the County of York, were early names at Cape Ann as well as in Ipswich, and that on the back side of the Cape the Ipswich and Gloucester (Squam and Sandy Bay) families were neighbors; the probability of kinship, therefore, is very strong. As stated in the text, John Davis of Ipswich attended the Deputy-Governor to Cape Ann, in 1642, but on what business the record fails to show. That there was some connection between the Davis families of Ipswich, Gloucester, York and Falmouth there can be no doubt, but precisely what it was can be determined, probably, only by a critical collation of many original public records in several of the towns and counties of Maine and Massachusetts. Cf. Suffolk Court Files (1733–1755), Nos. 35,127, 37,168, 49,942, 50,317, 50,479 and 74,333.

152 This man is not known to have been of kin to the Executive; and his age forbids the assumption that he was his son. I believe that he was identical with John Davis of Saco, and that he resided, at different times, in Saco, Agamenticus and Cape Porpoise, and in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In this view I appear to be confirmed by Mr. James Phinney Baxter,—in his note on John Davis of Saco, on page 329 of The Trelawney Papers, where he states that John of Saco was admitted Freeman in 1652. If that be true, he must have been then resident at York and have been admitted simultaneously with the future Deputy-President of the Province, as only two persons of that name were admitted to citizenship at that time or before 1666. Baxter, quoting Folsom, believes John Davis of Saco to have been a smith, because of a contemporary reference to a forge belonging to him. Confirmation of this belief and of my own opinion as to the identity of John Davis of Saco and the second John Davis of York is found in three documents recorded with the York Deeds.

(i) The first instrument is a conveyance by which “John Davis, Sen^r late of Capeporpoise [Arundel, now Kennebunkport], in y^e County of York, Blacksmith,” for £23.10, sells, “with y^e Consent of Katherine my wife & my Son John Davis,” his half of certain marsh lands at Cape Porpoise and land at Batson’s Neck. The deed is dated at Portsmouth, 10 January, 1675–76. (York Deeds, viii. 198, 199.)

(ii) The second paper is given in full, as follows:—

“March 10^th 1679:

whereas there was some troubles like to arise between Major Clarke & Mr. Rishworth, by reason of John Dauess the Smyths deniyng the Sale of a little Poynt of Land on Mr. Gorges Cricke, Where the Saw Mills standeth, & vpon Consideration to Preuent any further trouble, Wee the Selectmen of the Town of Yorke, do Confirme the sd Parcell of Land to Mr. Edw: Rishworth, puided y^r bee no former Grant to any other Person

John Dauess

Richd Banks

John Twisden

Vera Copia, of this Confirmation

or grant transcribed & with

originall Compared this

12^th day of March 168⅔

⅌ Edw: Rishworth Re Cor:” (Ibid. iii. 120.)

(iii) On the thirty-first of March, 1699, a man of this name, styling himself of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, “smith,” sold to James Plaisted of York, who was its Town Clerk, one of its Selectmen, and, in 1701, its Representative to the General Court in Boston,—

“all y^e Right, title, or Interest I have, euer had, or ought to have either by Town grant, Purchase, Possession, by privilege of Landing place, Hay Yard or by any other ways or meanes whatever, To a certain tract of land lying in York afores^d in the place called y^e New Mill creek between y^e Land of Thomas Moulton & the land of M^r Edward Rishworth be it more or less as by any means may be made to Appear.” (Ibid. iv. 154.)

In the acknowledgment, the grantor is described as “Docter John Davis.” The words which are here italicised may have been inserted in consequence of the action of the Selectmen of York, 10 March, 1679, quoted above. (Ibid. vi. 82, 152; and Province Laws, Massachusetts, vii. 284.)

Baxter says (Trelawny Papers, p. 329, note) that John Davis of Saco lived near the Falls, and that his name is perpetuated in a brook near by. He was of the Jury of Trials, in 1650, and later of the Grand Jury; and in 1653, he had grant of a saw mill. These facts show the impossibility of his having been son of Isaac Davis of Stroudwater, as has been also stated, since John Davis, son of Isaac of Stroudwater, was not born until 1660. (1 Collections of the Maine Historical Society, i. (edition of 1865) 309.) Cf. ante, p. 176, note.

On the thirteenth of August, 1668, John Davis, aged forty-one years (consequently born about 1627), deposed, before Bryan Pendleton, as to his own action, pursuant to Pendleton’s order, in the Saco Meeting-house, “after evening exercise” on the “Sabbath-day night next after Yorke Court for the Massachusetts,” in warning “the millitary men in our towne” to assemble in the training-place on the following day to hear and see the orders that had come from Boston concerning the future government of the Province of Maine, and also as to the action of Major William Phillips in challenging the authority of Major Pendleton who had been appointed to supersede him in office. (Massachusetts Archives, cvi. 193–198, where also may be read similar Depositions by Robert Booth aged 66, Richard Hitchcock aged 60, John Sergeant aged “near 36,” and Roger Hill aged 33,—all sworn to at Saco before Pendleton, 13 August, 1668—and other documents in this case, which see.) A long letter concerning this controversy between the appointees of the King’s Commissioners and the authorities of the Bay, written by Bryan Pendleton from Winter Harbor (Saco), 21 August, 1668, to Major General Leverett, is in Ibid. cvi. 196.

John Davis of Saco, beyond question, was a man of scandalous life. The York Court Records (i. 271), under date of 28 June, 1655, contain proceedings involving the honor of John Davis of Winter Harbor (Saco) and Mary, wife of Jonas Clay (cf. 1 Collections of the Maine Historical Society, i. (edition of 1865) 372); and 28 June, 1682, having been elected a Deputy to the General Assembly, he was “disaccepted as a scandelous p^rson.” (York Court Records, iv. 16.)

Mr. William P. Upham calls my attention to the fact, that in the Suffolk Court Files (No. 26,163) is a Deposition by John Davis, aged about 52 years, as to his “father Black” and Captain Caleb Preble talking about a suit with “Mr. Woodbridge . . . about twenty-two years ago.” The paper is without date and appears to have been written subsequent to 1700. It is not improbable that the Deponent was the. son of John Davis the smith. Cf. Ibid. (1736–1755), Nos. 41,643, 43,984, 43,994 and 74,333.

In the Massachusetts Archives (xxxviii b. 148, 149) are two Depositions by John Davis in which he describes himself as “aged aboute thirtie foure yeares.” As they were sworn to, before Bryan Pendleton, 18 April, 1654, it would appear that the Deponent was born in or about 1620. Whether he was Deputy-President John Davis of York, who, according to another Deposition, appears to have been born in 1613, or John Davis of Saco, from whose Deposition, in 1668, it appears that he was born in 1627,—or, possibly, a third, and hitherto unknown, John Davis, I am unable to determine. See The Baxter Manuscripts (2 Collections of the Maine Historical Society, iv. 103.)

153 See Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, i. 278; Maine Wills, 5, 6; post, p. 183; and Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of New England, ii. 20, 392; iii. 419.

154 Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, i. 566, 671.

155 George Puddington and three others were chosen, 19 June, 1640, by the inhabitants of Agamenticus, Deputies to appear and act for them at the General Assembly, on summons by Richard Vines, Steward to Sir Ferdinando Gorges. Puddington attended the first General Assembly which convened at Saco, 25 June, 1640 (York Court Records, i. 65; 1 Maine Historical Collections, i. (edition of 1865) 367; and 1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 101.) On the sixth of August, following, he was indicted by the whole bench for “speaking words:—we hold that the power of our combinac̄on is stronger than the power of the King.” (York Court Records, i. 91.) He was also named one of the first Board of Aldermen of the city of Gorgeana in the First Charter granted by Gorges, 10 April, 1641 (Hazard’s State Papers, i. 470–474.) George Puddington appears to have been a son of Robert Puddington, the elder, of Tiverton, in Devonshire, whose will, “expressed” 10 February, 1630–31, is recorded in the Prerogative Court, Canterbury, St. John, quire 49. George Puddington, the son, renounced the executorship 25 April, 1631, and administration was granted, 16 May following, to Anne, the relict, and George Puddington the elder,—a brother of the deceased (Putnam’s Historical Magazine for 1899, New Series, vii. 47–53, 140–144, 191–198.) Puddington’s wife had borne an unsavory reputation, and was indicted by the whole bench, 8 September, 1640, for impropriety (which she subsequently confessed) with George Burdett, “who had fled from Exeter and had resided at Accomenticus in the character of a preacher.” (1 Maine Historical Collections, i. (edition of 1865) 304–366; and Sullivan’s History of the District of Maine, p. 309. As to Burdett and his evil deeds, see also York Deeds, iii. (Preface) 8; Winthrop’s History of New England (edition of 1853), pp. 11, 12, and notes; Belknap’s History of New Hampshire (edition of 1784), i. 33–36; and Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, i. 270, 271.) Puddington was living as late as 3 July, 1647, when he made Deposition (York Deeds, i. (Part II.) 13.) His will, dated 25 June, 1647, for some unaccountable reason, was not recorded till 18 January, 1695–96, when it was entered with Ibid. v. (Part I.) 120, 121. It is also printed in Maine Wills, pp. 99–101. In it he mentions his wife Mary as the mother of his five children,—all under twenty-one years of age,—and names her as executrix; gives to elder son John and younger son Elias, land, etc., “where I now dwell in Gorgeana”; to eldest daughter Mary, second daughter Frances, and youngest daughter Rebecca, other property; mentions brother, Robert Puddington, and appoints him, with Mr. Edward Johnson, Mr. Abraham Preble, and Mr. John Alcock, supervisor of his estate.

A reminder of Puddington and his wife which proves that his death occurred between 3 July, 1647, and 5 June, 1649, is found in a List of Debts owing to the estate of Isaac Grosse of Boston, brewer, in 1649:—

“Widdowe Puddington, of Aggamenticus, for moneys owinge by her husband beffore his deceas, 22 lb.” (New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1853, vii. 228.)

This paper has since disappeared from the Suffolk Probate Files.

Of John Puddington, or Purrington, as the record reads, we find that 2 November, 1674, he executed a deed, “with the consent of his Mother Mis Mary Davess,” of half an acre of land in York to his “loueing brother in law, John Penwill,” mariner. (York Deeds, ii. 160.)

156 York Deeds, i. 119,—two instruments.

157 The will of Mary Weare, made 21 January, 1718–19, and proved 7 April, 1719, is printed in Maine Wills, pp. 213, 214. Administration on her husband’s estate had been granted to her at a Court of Sessions held at York, 1 November, 1092, when she gave Bond in £462 (York Deeds, v. (Part II.) 15), and swore to an Inventory of the estate of her husband, “lately deceased,” dated at York 18 April, 1692, amounting to £231.13.0. (Ibid. v. (Part I.) 80.)

On the twenty-ninth of May, 1704, the Probate Court granted—

“Administration to Mrs. Mary Weare, of York, on the estate of her brother-in-law Mr. Joseph Penewell, of York, deceased, intestate, the relict widow of sd Penewell being non compos mentis.” (York Probate Records, i. 92.)

See Maine Historical and Genealogical Recorder, iii. 133; and York Deeds, ii. 160, 164.

158 Peter Weare was also Town Clerk and a Selectman of York, Recorder of the County and, later, an Associate. In 1660, he was a Deputy to the General Court, at Boston, from Kittery, although a resident of York. (York Deeds, ii. (Preface) 7, 8, which contain a sketch of Weare; and Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 449.)

159 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 128–132.

160 This fact was animadverted upon many years after by Dr. Benjamin Bullivant, an ardent supporter of the Andros regime, who suffered imprisonment at the uprising of the people on the eighteenth of April, 1689:—

“One Davis, a common Alehouse keeper, proposed to be Deputy President of the Province of Maine with the title of Major; the people refuse him obedience.” (Bullivant’s Journal, under date of 19 February, 1689–90, in Public Record Office, London, Board of Trade Papers, v. 32.)

I am indebted to Charles E. Banks, M.D., a descendant of the Deputy-President, for this extract. Cf. 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xvi. 103, 108.

161 2 Collections of the Maine Historical Society (The Baxter Manuscripts), iv. 33, 64. Davis’s promotion in the militia followed in due course. He was Ensign in 1654, Lieutenant in 1659, Captain in 1665, Sergeant-Major in 1680, and Major in 1683. (York Court Records; Massachusetts Colony Records; and York Deeds, iii. 125.)

162 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 402.

163 1 Collections of the Maine Historical Society, i. (edition of 1865) 392–395; 2 Collections of the Maine Historical Society (The Baxter Manuscripts), iv. 141; and Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, i. 389, note.

164 2 Collections of the Maine Historical Society (The Baxter Manuscripts), iv. 148. Many documents relating to the contest for jurisdiction in the Province of Maine are described in Sainsbury’s Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, passim.

165 York Court Records, i. 314, 349.

166 Ibid. i. 302. Davis took the oath of office on the third of October.

167 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 130.

168 Ibid. iv. (Part II.) 252.

169 2 Collections of the Maine Historical Society (The Baxter Manuscripts), iv. 211–214. Our associate, Mr. Albert Matthews, calls my attention to a similar episode, in 1685, described in New Hampshire Provincial Papers, i. 578–582, showing how violent men were in those days. The parties to it were Thomas Wiggin, Robert Mason, and Walter Barefoot. Wiggin threw Mason into the fire, from which he was rescued by Barefoot; whereupon Wiggin threw Barefoot (whose sister he had married) into the fire, but was pulled off by Mason.

170 Maine Wills, pp. 5, 6.

171 Ibid. 121–123. Cf. ante, p. 176, note.

172 York Deeds, i. 130; ii. 74; iii. 120; and 2 Collections of the Maine Historical Society (The Baxter Manuscripts), iv. 369, 370. On the twenty-sixth of July, 1684, President Danforth executed a deed to Major John Davis, Mr. Edward Rishworth, Captain Job Alcock, and Lieutenant Abraham Preble, as Trustees, on behalf of the Inhabitants of the Town of York, confirming to them the grant of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The existence of this deed was long doubted. It is printed, from a copy in the Society’s Cabinet, in 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 433–435.

173 York Court Records, passim.

174 Ibid. iv. 223.

175 Ibid. iv. 163.

176 York Deeds, iv. 30. Mr. William P. Upham sends me a memorandum of a paper in the Suffolk Court Files (No. 1806). It is a copy, certified by William Pepperrell, Clerk, of a Grant to Capt. John Daves, dated 7 June, 1673, of fifty acres on the north-east side of Robert Sowdon’s land, “being part of y^e sd Daves’s former divident,” signed by Edward Rishworth.

177 Belknap’s History of New Hampshire (edition of 1784), i. Appendix xlv. pp. lxxix–lxxxi; and New Hampshire Provincial Papers, i. 588, 589.

178 York Deeds, v. (Part II.) 8.

179 Ibid. v. (Part II.) 10.

180 Ibid. v. (Part II.) 11.

181 Ibid. v. (Part II.) 11, 12. Hooke also attended, in the same capacity, a Court of Pleas held at York on the following day; and the Inventory of Shubael Dummer’s estate was sworn to by George Snell, at Kittery, 19 March, 1691–92, before Francis Hooke, Deputy-President, and John Wincoll, Justice of the Peace (Ibid. v. (Part I.) 72).

182 The spelling of Davis’s name in the contemporary original records shows many curious variations.

183 York Deeds, v. (Part II.) 11.

184 Ibid. vi. 96.

185 York Court Records, i. 208; ii. 40, 331, 386, 389, 409. While the evidence afforded by the entries here cited fully sustains the statement in the text, it has not seemed desirable to transfer to print the details of sanguinary altercations, inebriety, and other offences for which Davis incurred heavy fines and penalties imposed by the Courts.

186 It thus appears that Davis had early imbibed Quaker doctrines which at that time were causing the banishment of many Massachusetts families to the Eastward as well as to the South. It is possible that we have here the reason for his removal from Ipswich to York, especially when we remember that General Daniel Denison, the foremost citizen of Ipswich, was severe in his opinions and actions against the Quakers. See Publications of this Society, i. 127, 139; Plymouth Colony Records, x. 180, 181; and Felt’s History of Ipswich, pp. 105, 224.

187 See Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, i. 539, 540, 563.

1 See Mr. William H. Whitmore’s paper on The Early Painters and Engravers of New England in 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for May, 1866, ix. 197–216, which contains much interesting matter concerning Henry Pelham and John Singleton Copley. See also Mr. Whitmore’s letter describing Copley’s portrait of Peter Pelham, Ibid, for February, 1878, xvi. 37; and Martha Babcock Amory’s Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R. A., passim.

2 Charles Pelham, successively of Boston, Medford, and Newton, was a merchant, and later a schoolmaster. He married, 6 December, 1766, Mary, daughter of Andrew Tyler, and niece of Sir William Pepperrell. (1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for May, 1866, ix. 208.)

3 Boston Town Records; and Trinity Church Registers.

4 She is said to have died, unmarried, at Boothbay, Maine.

5 See William H. Whitmore’s communications to the Heraldic Journal, iv. 175–182; and the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for October, 1872, xxvi. 399–401. Mr. Whitmore has since come into possession of much further information respecting Peter Pelham’s descendants by his second marriage which he is intending to publish.

6 Administration on the estate of Richard Copley, “tobacconist,” was granted to his widow, Mary Copley, 2 May, 1748, on which day she gave Bond to the Judge of Probate in £100,—the Sureties being Peter Pelham, “gentleman,” and Robert Skinner, “perukemaker,” both of Boston. The Inventory of the estate, taken 6 May, following, by Thomas Waite, Ebenezer Lowell, and William McIlvaine, amounted to £97. 3. 6. It was presented to the Court by the widow and administratrix 18 May, 1748,—four days only before she became the wife of Peter Pelham. (Suffolk Probate Files, No. 8979.)

7 Trinity Church Registers, which, under date of 25 May, 1752, record the burial of Maria Pelham who, probably, was identical with this child.

8 Two letters written by her to her brother Peter, the Emigrant, are printed in 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for May, 1866, ix. 202, 206, 207.

9 These papers are here printed for the first time through the courtesy of Charles Pelham Greenough, Esq.

10 Copley was born in Boston, 3 July, 1737, and died in London, 9 September, 1815. He was buried in the Hutchinson family tomb, in the church of St. John the Baptist at Croydon, in Surrey. There, also, are interesting monuments to several of the Archbishops of Canterbury who, for several centuries after the Conquest, had a residence at Croydon where, in 1573, Archbishop Parker entertained Queen Elizabeth and her Court for several days.

11 Trinity Church Registers. Administration on the estate of Peter Pelham, “schoolmaster,” was granted to his widow, Mary Pelham, 23 June, 1752, when she gave Bond in £200, her sureties being William McIlvaine, “trader,” and Charles Pelham, “merchant,” both of Boston. (Suffolk Probate Files, No. 10,085.)

12 This house probably stood on one of the two lots making the corners of what is now Exchange Place and Congress Street, formerly known as Leverett’s Lane, and later as Quaker Lane, because of the fact that the Quaker Meeting House stood where Monks Building now is. On the fifteenth of November, 1742, the Selectmen on Peter Pelham’s petition granted him liberty “to dig up the Pavement & open the Ground in Leverett’s Lane in Order to repair the Drain running from the House wherein he Dwells into the Common Shore.” (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xv. 367.) The Boston Evening Post, No. 674, of Monday, 11 July, 1748, contains a notice that “Mrs. Mary Pelham (formerly the Widow Copley on the Long Wharf, Tobacconist) is remov’d into Lindel’s Row, against the Quaker’s Meeting House, near the upper End of King Street. Boston,” etc. Cf. Shurtleff’s Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (Third edition), pp. 230–233.

13 An engraving of this picture may be seen in the Memorial History of Boston, iv. 388. Pelham was educated at the Boston Latin School in the same Class (1758) with Gen. Henry Knox, Lieut.-Gov. William Phillips and Ward Nicholas Boylston.

14 Susannah-Farnum, daughter of Richard Clarke and Elizabeth his wife, was born in Boston, 20 May, 1745 (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 255.) She married Copley on Thursday evening, 16 November, 1769.

(The Massachusetts Gazette, Extraordinary—Draper’s—of Friday, 17 November, 1769; and The Boston Evening Post, No. 1782, of Monday, 20 November, 1769.) The Boston Gazette and Country Journal, No. 763, of Monday, 20 November, 1769, announces the marriage as having occurred “last Wednesday evening,”—i.e., 15 November, which is probably an error. The Town and Church Records fail to show this marriage, but the Intention of Marriage was entered 23 October, 1769. (Boston Town Records.)

15 Richard Clarke was one of the consignees of the Tea destroyed in 1773. Copley’s large canvas portraying a group of Richard Clarke’s family is now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It is fully described in Mrs. Amory’s Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R.A., pp. 77–80.

16 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for January, 1873, xii. 325. Cf. Trumbull’s Autobiography, Reminiscences and Letters, p. 11.

17 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for January, 1873, xii. 325, in a Memoir of Copley by the late Augustus Thorndike Perkins.

18 See a letter of John Singleton Copley, Jr., post, p. 212. Lord Lyndhurst died in London, on the morning of 12 October, 1863. (Martin’s Life of Lord Lyndhurst, p. 513.) Mrs. Amory (page 39) gives this date as 11 October.

19 Mrs. Blanchard was born 10 November, 1787. She married, 30 May, 1825, the Rev. Ira Henry Thomas Blanchard (H. C. 1817), minister of the First Unitarian Church in Harvard. (Nourse’s History of Harvard, pp. 231, 232. See post, pp. 202–208, and notes; and The Bromfields,—a pamphlet of nineteen pages, by the late Daniel Denison Slade, containing much valuable information concerning this family, privately reprinted, with additions, from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1871, 1872,—Volumes xxv., xxvi.

20 Other relics of Henry Pelham are an Edinburgh edition (Alexander Donaldson, 1768) of William Shenstone’s Works, and a framed mezzotint (colored) of “Painting,” both of which belonged to Miss Bromfield.

21 It is not improbable that this reference is to Lucy Clarke, a daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Clarke, who was born in Boston 19 May, 1752. She was a younger sister of Isaac Winslow Clarke, who was born in Boston 27 October, 1746 (Boston Town Records); was a Loyalist; became Commissary-General of Lower Canada; and died, in 1822, on his passage to England. See post, p. 201, note.

22 This was Charles Startin, of Boston and New York, and, apparently, of Salem also. He was a merchant having his address at No. 11 Wall Street, New York, in 1790–1793, and at No. 44 Wall Street, in 1794, while in 1795–1799 his address was No. 225 Broadway. In 1802 his widow (post, p. 208, and note 2) was living at No. 231 Broadway (New York City Directory, 1790–1802.) Mr. Startin’s death is thus recorded in The Daily Advertiser (New York) of Friday, 2 August,1799:—

“On the 26th ult. as Mr. Charles Starlin, of this city, was bathing at the public baths, he was, unfortunately, drowned. The body was found the next day, and decently interred in Trinity Church burying ground. He was a good and honest man.”

His will, dated 18 March, 1778, with a codicil, signed 24 September, 1798,—both wholly in the handwriting of the testator,—was admitted to probate 8 August, 1799, and is recorded in the Surrogate’s office, xliii. 25–27. Startin therein describes himself as “of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick,” England. The witnesses were William Startin, John Simcox, and Bathshuba Simcox. The codicil was not witnessed, and is chiefly explanatory of business matters; it mentions, however, the testator’s “brother-in-law, I. W. Clarke of Montreal,” where his daughter, Mrs. Margaret Coffin, is still living. See ante, p. 200, note. [She died there 9 January, 1899. See Obituary in the Boston Evening Transcript of Tuesday, 31 January, 1899 (First edition), p. 3.] The will and codicil were proved, before the then Surrogate, David Gelston, by Joshua Edwards, “merchant,” and James Boyd, “gentleman,” both of New York, who testified, under oath, to the handwriting of both documents and “declared that they and each of them verily believed that William Startin, John Simcox, and Bathshuba Simcox, the subscribing witnesses to the said will, do actually reside in the Kingdom of Great Britain or in parts beyond sea, and that . . . [they] nor either of them are not nor ever have been in the United States of America.” The present Surrogate states that “there have been no proceedings in this court in the estate of Charles Startin, deceased, since the probate of the will.” See post, p. 208, note 2. Cf. 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for July, 1865, viii. 339, where, in a letter of John Andrews, dated 10 August, 1774, he is referred to as Charles Starlin,—an error, doubtless, of either the transcriber or printer.

This note has been furnished by our associate, Mr. Henry H. Edes.

23 Dexter’s Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, i. 427; Fowler’s Memorials of the Chaunceys, p. 203.

24 Colonel Henry Bromfield was born in Boston, 12 November, 1727. He was a prominent citizen of Harvard, Massachusetts, where he died, of pneumonia, 9 February, 1820, at the age of 92 years. He was buried in the family tomb in King’s Chapel Burial Ground, Boston. (Nourse’s History of Harvard, pp. 132–135; Obituary in the Columbian Centinel, No. 3743, of Wednesday, 23 February, 1820.) The Town Records of Harvard give the date of Colonel Bromfield’s death as 10 February, 1820. The Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Thayer, of Lancaster, preached a Funeral Sermon, 16 February, 1820, from Acts xi. 24,—“He was a good man.” The sermon was printed at Andover. It contains a discriminating notice of Colonel Bromfield’s strong and lovable character, and some biographical data by which it appears that he was a son of Edward Bromfield, an eminent merchant of Boston, and that “he was a lineal descendant of the fourth generation from the Rev. John Wilson, the first minister of Boston.” See post, p. 210, note; and New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1872, xxvi. 38. The will of William Bromfield of Stoke Newington, Middlesex, England, 1564, the earliest known ancestor of the American Bromfields, with interesting notes on the family, may be read in Ibid, for 1899, liii. 9, 10. A sketch of Colonel Bromfield, entitled A New England Country Gentleman, written by the late Daniel Denison Slade, M.D., appeared in the New England Magazine for March, 1890, New Series, ii. 3–20.

25 The Bromfield School, at Harvard, was built, to perpetuate there the Bromfield name, with funds bequeathed by Mrs. Blanchard. These funds, for the most part, had come to her from her Bromfield kinsfolk. The ancient family portraits in Mrs. Blanchard’s possession at the time of her death adorn the walls of the building. See Memoir of Dr. Daniel Denison Slade in the Transactions of this Society for April, 1899.

26 Mrs. Amory’s Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R. A., pp. 68, 69.

27 Jeremy Belknap to Ebenezer Hazard. (1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for June, 1875, xiv. 94.) This Plan is described in the Memorial History of Boston, iii. pp. ii, iii, and reproduced there,—between pp. vi and vii. There is a better reproduction of it in the Siege and Evacuation Memorial, 1876. It is sometimes known as Urquhart’s map. Cf. Shurtleff’s Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (Third edition), pp. 96, 119.

28 This letter is printed in Mrs. Amory’s Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R.A., pp. 129–131.

29 No. 104, for October, 1851, First Series, iv. 306. We copy the following passages which refer to Henry Pelham:—

“The print (same size as the original) is a mezzotint, ten inches by seven inches and a half, and has under it the following inscription:

Catherine Fitzgerald (the long-lived) Countess of Desmond, from an original Family Picture of the same size, painted on Board, in the possession of the Right Honorable Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight of Kerry, &c. &c. &c., to whom this plate is most respectfully dedicated by her very obedient and much obliged humble servant, Henry Pelham.

This illustrious lady was born about the year 1464, and was married in the reign of Edward IV., lived during the reigns of Edward V., Richard III., Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, and died in the latter end of James I., or beginning of Charles I.’s reign, at the great age (as is generally supposed) of 162 years. Published as the Act directs, at Bear Island, June 4, 1806. By Henry Pelham, Esq.”

The following paragraph furnishes some facts concerning Pelham which we have not met with elsewhere:—

“Of the Mr. Pelham who published the print I have described, there are some particulars which may interest your readers. He will be found among the correspondents of the late General Vallancey, whose interest in Irish antiquities is well known. Mr. Pelham was an ingenious gentleman, who came to Kerry in the end of the last century, in the character of agent to the Marquis of Lansdowne; which engagement, after a few years, he resigned, but continued in the county, a zealous studier of its antiquities, and intending, as I have heard, either a new County History, or a reprint of Smith’s work. He was a good civil engineer, and executed a great part of a large county and baronial map, afterwards finished by another hand. Mr. Pelham, who perished prematurely by sudden death, in his boat, while superintending the building of a Martello tower on Bear Island, in the River Kenmare, in the very year he published this print, is said to have been an uncle by half-blood to the present Lord Lyndhurst, whose grandmother, Sarah [Mary] Singleton, is said to have married to her second husband,———Pelham, an American—Henry Pelham being the only issue of her second marriage, as John Singleton Copley, father to the ex-chancellor, was of her first.” Cf. ante, p. 194.

30 Burke’s Landed Gentry (edition of 1894), ii. 1849.

31 Miss Bromfield was born 1 May, 1757. and died 10 February, 1831. (Records of the First Unitarian Church in Harvard.)

32 Mrs. Daniel Denison Rogers. See post, p. 210, note 2.

33 Richard Clarke,—Mrs. Copley’s father.

34 Hayley the poet (1745–1820). Southey wrote that Hayley was, “in his time, by popular election, King of the English poets;” but, in a letter to Coleridge, he adds, “everything about that man is good except his poetry.”

35 The Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Pearson was the son of David Pearson, Jr. (born 22 August, 1728) and Sarah Danforth, of Bradford, to whom he was married 6 November, 1750, and by whom he had at least four children besides Eliphalet. Dr. Pearson was born in Byfield, Massachusetts, 11 June, 1752 Old Style (Coffin’s History of Newbury, p. 356). He was baptized on Sunday, 14 June, 1752, by the Rev. Moses Parsons (Byfield Congregational Church Records). The Faculty Records of Harvard College (iii. 169) state that he was born 22 June, 1752. As this date is in the List of Freshmen who entered in July, 1769, it was, doubtless, made to conform, to New Style (adopted in the year of Dr. Pearson’s birth) by adding the requisite eleven days. This is confirmed by the inscription on the brass plate on the iron fence surrounding his solitary grave near the entrance to the cemetery in Greenland, New Hampshire. The date of 11 January, 1752, which Dr. Samuel A. Green finds in Mr. Sibley’s materials for future volumes of his Harvard Graduates, is erroneous.

Dr. Pearson was prepared for college at Dummer Academy. Graduating at Harvard College, in 1773—the first year in which the names of the graduates were alphabetically arranged in the Triennial Catalogue—he taught a grammar school in Andover, before the Revolution; was the first Principal of Phillips Academy, Andover (1778–1786), in the establishment of which he was active; and, in 1802, on the death of Lieutenant Governor Phillips, he succeeded him as President of its Board of Trustees. He was called to Cambridge to fill the Hancock Professorship of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages. This position he held from 1786 till 1806. In 1800 he was elected a member of the Corporation to succeed James Bowdoin (H. C. 1771). On the death of President Willard, whom he aspired to succeed, Dr. Pearson was appointed Acting President of the College. A Calvinist, he was a minority of one in the Corporation and strongly opposed the election of Henry Ware, in 1805, to the Hollis Professorship of Divinity. When, therefore, in the following year, Professor Webber, also a Unitarian, was preferred to himself for the Presidency of the College, Dr. Pearson resigned both his Professorship and his seat in the Corporation. His active interest in the establishment of the Theological Seminary at Andover, in which he was the first Professor of Sacred Literature, in 1808, is well known. In 1802 he received the degree of LL.D. from Yale and the College of New Jersey. He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of which he was Corresponding Secretary. During his official residence in Cambridge he occupied, for a time, the house now numbered 30 in Holyoke Street, at the north-easterly corner of Holyoke Place, formerly the home of President Holyoke and, later, of his widow. In 1702, Dr. Pearson bought and occupied the Holmes Place. (Middlesex Deeds, cvii. 318.) His first wife was Priscilla, a daughter of President Holyoke, whom he married, at Andover, 17 July, 1780 (Andover Town Records). She died at Andover 29 March, 1782. As his second wife he married Miss Bromfield, at Harvard, 29 September, 1785. Dr. Pearson died 12 September, 1826, while absent from his home in Harvard, on a visit to the Rev. Ephraim Abbot, the minister of the church in Greenland, New Hampshire, who had married his daughter. Dr. Pearson’s portrait, painted, in 1818, by Samuel Finley Breese Morse, hangs in the Library of the Theological Seminary at Andover. There is a more lifelike portrait in the Hall of Phillips Academy, Andover. (Sprague’s Annals of the American Pulpit, ii. 126, 131; Willard’s Memories of Youth and Manhood, i. 158, 193–195, 290–298, and ii. 173–179; and Nourse’s History of Harvard, pp. 136, 504.) Cf. ante, iii. 177–179; and Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, iii. 60. See also Professor Edwards A. Park’s Address on Dr. Pearson in The Congregationalist (newspaper), of Wednesday 3 July, 1878, xxx. 211; Eliphalet Pearson at Andover, in The Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine for August, 1878, x. 193 et seq.; and Dr. Cecil F. P. Bancroft’s article on The Grave of Dr. Pearson in the Andover Townsman (newspaper), No. 49, of 14 September, 1888, which contains much that is interesting concerning this remarkable man.

I am indebted for this note to our associate, Mr. Henry H. Edes.

36 Much that is interesting concerning Mrs. Greene, after her marriage, may be read in her daughter Mrs. Amory’s Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R.A.

37 Edward King, F.R.S., F.S. A. (c. 1735–1807), a miscellaneous writer in prose and verse, and a member of Lincoln’s Inn, who was called to the Bar in 1763, probably was the author of these lines.

38 See Letter of John Singleton Copley, Jr., and Mr. Porter’s Remarks thereon at the Stated Meeting in March, 1898, post, pp. 212–215.

39 See post, p. 210, note 2.

40 Mrs. Startin was Sarah Clarke, a daughter of Richard Clarke and sister of Mrs. Copley. She was born in Boston 9 April, 1750 (Boston Town Records), and was married to Charles Startin (ante, p. 200) 25 April, 1771 (Records of the Church in Brattle Square), their Intention of Marriage having been published on the thirteenth of March, preceding (Boston Town Records). Mr. Augustus T. Perkins, in A Sketch of the Life and a List of some of the Works of John Singleton Copley (p. 109) describes Copley’s unfinished portrait of Mrs. Startin, whom he erroneously calls “Sarah Copley, a sister of the artist.” This error is corrected, however, in the supplement to Mr. Perkins’s book (p. 14) which was subsequently issued separately. In Mrs. Amory’s Life of Copley (p. 240) is a reference, under date of 1 March, 1803, to a drawing of Mr. Startin, and to a portrait of him which Copley was about to paint from it. A letter to Mrs. Startin, dated 20 July, 1797, from her nephew, John Singleton Copley, Jr., afterwards Lord Lyndhurst, is printed at length in Mrs. Amory’s Life of Copley (pp. 170, 171), and is referred to in A Life of Lord Lyndhurst, by Sir Theodore Martin, p. 68.

41 Her death and funeral were thus announced in the Boston Gazette, No. 1804, of Monday, 4 May, 1789:—

“Died.] On Wednesday laft, Mrs. Mary Pelham, widow of Mr Peter Pelham, late of this town, and mother to Mr. Copley. Her funeral will he attended this afternoon, at Four o’clock, from her dwelling house, at New-Boston, when and where her, Mr. Copley’s, and the family’s friends and acquaintance are desired to grace the procession.”

The Trinity Church Register of Burials contains this entry:—

“1789, May 4. Mrs. Mary Pelham, 79.”

Mrs. Pelham’s Will, dated 21 August, 1787, was proved 11 May, 1789. Her Executor was her step-son, Charles Pelham whom she charged to take care of the real estate in Boston belonging to her son Copley. Legacies were left to her Executor, to his daughter Harriot.—“my god-daughter,”—to “my good friend Mercy Scollay,” and to John Allen of Boston, tailor. The residue of the estate was equally divided between her sons John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham, “both now resident in Europe.” (Suffolk Probate Files, No. 19, 268.)

42 This was Miss Mercy Scollay, whose gift of Henry Pelham’s Maps of Ireland to the Historical Society was reported at a meeting held 17 August, 1796. (1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, i. 87.) Cf. Mrs. Amory’s Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R.A., p. 3.

Miss Scollay was the only unmarried daughter of John and Mary (Green-leaf) Scollay. She was born in Boston, 11 September, 1741 (Town Records), and died at Medfield, Massachusetts, 8 January, 1826, at the age of 84 years (Records of the Church in Brattle Square, Boston; and gravestone at Medfield). Miss Scollay was betrothed to General Joseph Warren at the time of his death at Bunker Hill; and his two younger children were afterwards placed in her father’s family under her “particular care . . ., at her most earnest request,” during their minority. Miss Scollay’s niece, Anna Wroe Scollay, married Charles Pelham Curtis (H. C. 1811), a grandson of Charles Pelham, the writer of the letter in our text. See letter of Samuel Adams in Frothingham’s Life and Times of Joseph Warren, pp. 543, 544.

43 Boston Town Records. Colonel Bromfield’s second wife was Hannah Clarke, daughter of Richard Clarke, merchant of Boston, whom he married, 23 September, 1762 (Records of the Church in Brattle Square). Their daughter Elizabeth Bromfield, born 19 August, 1763, was married, in Cambridge, by the Rev. Abiel Holmes, 18 January, 1796, to Daniel Denison Rogers of Boston, the grandfather of the late Dr. Daniel Denison Slade (Boston Town Records; and Cambridge Town Records). John Singleton Copley, Jr., afterwards Lord Lyndhurst, was present at this marriage which was solemnized in the southwest parlor of the Holmes house then occupied by Professor Eliphalet Pearson.

Daniel Denison Rogers was born in Exeter, N. H., 11 May, 1751; married (1), 15 October, 1781, Abigail (born 11 April, 1753), daughter of Henry Bromfield (by his first wife), who died 7 October, 1791, without issue; married (2) her half-sister, Elizabeth Bromfield, as above stated. Copley painted a miniature of Mrs. Abigail (Bromfield) Rogers which is reproduced in the New England Magazine for March, 1890, New Series, ii. 12. Mr. Rogers died 25 March 1825, aged 74 years. (New-England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1851, v. 330; and for 1872, xxvi. 38, 39.)

44 New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1872, xxvi. 141.

45 There can be little doubt that some of the canvases which, heretofore, have been classed as “early Copleys” are, in reality, the work of Henry Pelham. Pelham, however, was too young to have painted this portrait of Mrs. Bromfield.

An interesting letter written by Henry Pelham to Paul Revere, 29 March, 1770, accusing Revere of “dishonorable Actions” in copying Pelham’s engraved plate of the so called “Boston Massacre,” is printed in 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for May, 1893, viii. 227.

46 See ante, p. 204, note 1.

1 Mr. Rogers was connected by marriage with Copley through his wife’s family—the Clarkes. See ante, pp. 197, 198, 202 and 210, and notes.

2 After his father’s death, in 1815, Lord Lyndhurst continued to occupy the house in George Street, Hanover Square, until his own death, in 1863.

3 This instrument was dated 17 April, 1797, and is recorded with Suffolk Deeds, cxci. 168. On his visit to Boston,—where he arrived on 2 January, 1796,—the son brought with him a full power of attorney (not acknowledged) from his father, imperfectly dated—October, 1795. It is recorded Ibid, clxxxii. 182.

4 Captain Jonathan Herrick Lovett, the son of Captain John, 4th, and Elizabeth (Herrick) Lovett, was born 24 February, 1772, at Beverly, where he died 20 March, 1844. He married, 6 October, 1796, Nancy Lovett, by whom he had eleven children. He was an energetic and influential citizen of Beverly, where, having retired from the sea, he enjoyed the titles of Colonel and Deacon. Later in life he was an officer of the Customs, connected with the Port of Salem, and stationed in Beverly. (Beverly Town Records; and Augustus A. Galloupe.)

5 Joshua Henshaw.

6 John Lowell.

7 Jonathan Mason.

8 Harrison Gray Otis.

9 Charles Bulfinch.

10 William Scollay.

11 An interesting account of Copley’s title to some twenty acres of land on Beacon Hill, of his sale of the property to Jonathan Mason and Harrison Gray Otis, and of the litigation which followed, may be read in the “Gleaner” articles, written by the late Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch, and reprinted in the Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, v. 193–203 (Second edition.) See ante, p. 203.

12 The identity of this woman has not been established. She may have been some connection of Jeremiah Wheelwright, Esq., whose land abutted on that of Copley. In The Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R. A., Mrs. Amory devotes two chapters (viii. and ix.) to an account of young Copley’s visit to Boston in the hope of recovering his father’s estate on Beacon Hill, and his travels in America, in 1796. She mentions his attachment to a daughter of Bishop White, and prints many of his letters written during his sojourn in this country, whence he returned to London early in 1797.

13 See Mrs. Amory’s Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R. A., p. 138.

14 Probably Levi Lincoln (H. C. 1772.)

15 The announcement of this gift, and of its receipt, was made at a meeting of the Academy held on the twenty-third of August, 1797, when a vote of thanks to Copley was passed.

16 Eliphalet and Sally (Bromfield) Pearson. See ante, p. 205, and note 4.

17 Mrs. Samuel Cabot, young Copley’s cousin, is here referred to. She was baptized, at the New North Church, Boston, 13 March, 1703,—the daughter of Samuel Barrett (H. C. 1757), LL.D., and Mary, daughter of Richard Clarke, whose Intention of Marriage was published in Boston, 25 August, 1761 (Town Records.) Samuel Cabot and Sarah Barrett were married, at the New North Church, by the Rev. John Eliot, 27 November, 1781.

18 It is said that at this critical point the troops began to waver, but soon recovered when they saw Philip Dumaresq, a well-known lieutenant in the Jersey militia, spring to the post of danger. Thereupon they closed up and charged with such fury as to compel the speedy submission of the French.

A branch of this Dumaresq family has acquired distinction in our Boston annals. See New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1863, xvii. 317–320; Heraldic Journal, iii. 97–104; and Foote’s Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 147, note, 362, 363.

19 The canvas was painted in 1783 for Alderman Boydell’s gallery, and was bought by the Nation, in 1864, for 1600 guineas.

20 An excellent engraving by Crew, with text, appears in Pictures and Royal Portraits Illustrative of English and Scottish History, by Thomas Archer, 1884, ii. 93, 94. A still smaller engraving by Warren adorns the title-page of a History of England by Hughes, 1835, vol. xvi. To accommodate his plate to the narrow space at his disposal the artist has, unfortunately, cut off the figure of Mrs. Copley on the right and several of the soldiers on the left.

21 As the Death of Pierson was painted in 1783, and the Death of Warren and the Death of Montgomery only two years later, it is quite possible that Trumbull found inspiration in Copley, though he was a pupil of West, and actually painted these great Revolutionary subjects in West’s studio.

22 Report on the Trees and Shrubs growing naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts, Boston, 1846, p. 124.

23 The United States: An Outline of Political History, 1492–1871 (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1893), p. 34.

24 Hollister’s History of Connecticut, i. 323.

25 There is an excellent account of the planting of Connecticut, and of the first Patent, in Palfrey’s History of New England, i. 450 et seq. The text of the Patent may be read in Trumbull’s History of Connecticut (i. 495, 496), where also may be found (i. 497 et seq.) the text of other original papers pertaining to the settlement and early government of the Colony.

26 Trumbull’s History of Connecticut, i. 511.

27 Palfrey’s History of New England, iii. 538.

28 This Letter is printed in Trumbull’s History of Connecticut, i. 511, 512.

29 Much interesting matter relating to the Regicides, consisting of letters, papers, and biographical notices of the Regicides themselves and of their correspondents, is contained in the Mather Papers (4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 122–225 and notes.) Dr. Palfrey has given a full and accurate account of the three Regicides who fled to these shores, and of their life here (History of New England, ii. 495–509, and notes.) See also Stiles’s History of the Three Judges.

30 A full account of William Fiennes, first Viscount Saye and Sele (1582–1662), and of his remarkable career is to be found in Leslie Stephen’s Dictionary of National Biography, xviii. 433–436.

31 Edward Montagu, second Earl of Manchester (1602–1671), was a conspicuous figure in the history of his time. Early in his career he inclined to the Puritan side, and, for a time, co-operated with Cromwell. He opposed the Trial of Charles, however, and although summoned by the Protector to the Upper House he refused attendance, and retired from public life during the Commonwealth. He “took an active part in bringing about the Restoration, and, as Speaker of the Lords welcomed the King on his arrival” in London, 29 May, 1600. In the following October he took part in the Trial of the Regicides; and at the Coronation of Charles II., 23 April, 1661, he bore the Sword of State. The Earl was the recipient of many and great honors; having been made a Privy Councillor, Knight of the Garter, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of the Royal Society. (Ibid. xxxviii. 230.)

32 Trumbull’s History of Connecticut, i. 248.

33 The full text of the Charter is in Hazard’s State Papers, ii. 597–605.

34 Charles Wentworth Upham, in his Lecture delivered in a course before the Lowell Institute, in 1869, by members of the Massachusetts Historical Society, p. 241.

35 The story of the visit of Andros to Hartford for the purpose of assuming the Government of Connecticut, in October, 1687, and of the mysterious disappearance of the Charter and its concealment in the Charter Oak, are fully related and discussed by Dr. Palfrey in his History of New England, iii. 542–545, and notes, where it is erroneously stated, however, that the Tree fell on the twentieth of August.

36 Joseph T. Buckingham’s Personal Memoirs and Recollections of Editorial Life, i. 194.

37 The tree fell at 12.50 o’clock in the morning. (Connecticut Courant, Hartford, No. 4779, of Saturday, 23 August, 1856, which contains a full account of the public expressions of sorrow.)

38 A Report on the Trees and Shrubs growing naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts, originally published agreeably to an order of the Legislature by the Committee of Zoölogical and Botanical Survey of the State (Second edition, 1875), i. facing 148.

39 In The Ladies’ Home Journal (Philadelphia) for March, 1806, xiii. 2, 30, is an extract from a letter from Washington to Mrs. George William Fairfax of the same date as that in our text, but in some places quite different in forms of expression.

40 They were married 17 December, 1748.

41 Sparks’s Life and Writings of Washington, xi. 232.

42 Fairfax died 3 April, 1787 (Neill’s Fairfaxes of England and America, p. 212.) The church at Writhlington, Somersetshire, is dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen. Fairfax was born in the Bahamas, in 1724.

43 This letter is printed, Ibid. ii. 77; see also i. 63.

44 Warner Washington, eldest son of John, the eldest son of Lawrence Washington, was cousin-german to George Washington, who was son of Augustine and grandson of Lawrence Washington. (Sparks’s Life and Writings of Washington, i. 548, 549; ii. 53, note.)

45 For an account of the Fairfax family see Sparks’s Life and Writings of Washington, i. 12 et seq.; ii. 51–54, notes, 182, note; and Neill’s Fairfaxes of England and America.

46 A Little Centennial Lady, by Constance Cary Harrison, in Scribner’s Monthly Magazine for July, 1876, xii. 309, 310. Mrs. Harrison contributed another interesting article on Sally Cary, entitled A True Colonial Dame, to The Ladies’ Home Journal for March, 1896, xiii. 2, 30. Cf. Conway’s Barons of the Potomack and the Rappahannock, pp. 91–95, 270, 271.

47 This valuable communication is reserved for publication in a volume of the Society’s Collections.

48 J. Flint’s Letters from America, 1822, p. 264.

49 The Nation, 20 February, 16 April, 1896, Ixii. 157, 306.

50 Editor-in-chief of The Oxford English Dictionary.

51 Editor of The English Dialect Dictionary.

52 The American and English Cyclopædia of Law, 1890, xiv. 745.

53 Though now employed euphemistically, “maid” and “girl” appear to have been, during the Colonial period, merely shortened forms of “maid servant” and “servant girl,” respectively. See, under dates of 1649, 1665, 1724, 1735, 1752, 1753, 1754, the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1849, iii. 182; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, 1881, vi. 202; the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1862, xvi. 65; New Jersey Archives, 1894, xi. 425; J. J. Babson’s Notes and Additions to the History of Gloucester, Part II., 1891, pp. 27, 29, 31, 35.

54 Such advertisements as the three which follow were common in the Colonial newspapers:—

“Just arrived from Aberdeen. A Parcel of likely Scotch Servant Men, some Tradesmen, but all accustomed to Husbandry and Country Work; whose Times are to be disposed of by Alexander Gordon.” (Pennsylvania Gazette, 21–28 October, 1736, p. 4/1.)

“Just arrived . . . Servant Boys and Girls, . . . among which are Hatters, Taylors, House Carpenters, Joyners, Barbers, &c.” (Ibid., 6 October, 1768, p. 3/3.)

“Arrived from Ireland, The Ship King of Prussia, Arthur Darley, Master:—Has on board Thirty SERVANTS, some Tradesmen, as Taylors, Shoemakers, Smiths, Weavers, &c. the remainder Country Lads that understand Farming Business.” (Massachusetts Gazette, 5 October, 1769, p. 4/1.)

The following extracts, relating to Schoolmasters, are both curious and interesting:—

Abstract of the will of J. Carter, dated 3 January, 1669: “. . . my son Robert, in his minority is to be well educated for the use of his estate, and he is to have a man or youth servant bought for him, that hath been brought up in the Latin School, and that he (the servant) shall constantly tend upon him, not only to teach him his books, either in English or Latin, according to his capacity (for my will is that he shall learn both Latin and English, and to write), and also to preserve him from harm and from doing evil.” (Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1894, ii. 236.)

In an account drawn up, in 1750, by the Trustees of the Philadelphia Academy (now the University of Pennsylvania), we read:—

“The Benefits expected from this Institution, are: . . . 3. That a Number of the poorer Sort will hereby be qualified to act as Schoolmasters in the Country, to teach Children Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and the Grammar of their Mother Tongue; and being of good morals and known character, may be recommended from the Academy to Country Schools for that purpose; The Country suffering at present very much for want of good Schoolmasters, and obligd frequently to employ in their Schools, vicious imported Servants, or concealed Papists, who by their bad Examples and Instructions often deprave the Morals or corrupt the Principles of the Children under their Care.” (Minutes of the Common Council of the City of Philadelphia, 1847, pp. 527, 528.)

In a sermon preached in 1773, the Rev. Jonathan Boucher said:—

“What is still less credible is, that at least two thirds of the little education we receive are derived from instructors, who are either indented servants, or transported felons. . . . When I said that two thirds of the persons now employed in Maryland in the instruction of youth were either indented servants or convicts, the assertion was not made quite at random, nor without as much previous authentic information as the nature of the case would admit of.” (A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution, 1797, pp. 183, 184, 189.)

In 1841, the Rev. J. W. Alexander wrote:—

“It was customary in Virginia for white men to indenture themselves to the captains, for four years. My grandfather used to go to Baltimore and buy such. Two of my father’s early schoolmasters were well educated Englishmen of this class.” (Forty Years’ Familiar Letters, 1860, i. 325.)

55 White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, 1895, p. 71. (Johns Hopkins University Studies, xiii.)

56 Domestic Service, 1897, p. 69. In a letter to the present writer, Miss Salmon says:—

“I have felt very strongly convinced, both from the negative and the positive evidence, that the word ‘servant,’ applied both to men and to women, carried with it no odium until the last quarter of the eighteenth century.”

57 Letters, 1874, p. 189. (Publications of the Narragansett Club, vi.)

58 Pennsylvania Colonial Records, 1851, vii. 37, 38.

59 See, on this point, the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1869, xxiii. 150–153; E. D. Neill’s Virginia Carolorum, 1886, pp. 278, 279; L. G. Tyler, in William and Mary College Quarterly, 1892, i. 22, note; P. A. Bruce’s Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, 1896, i. 573–575; J. Fiske’s Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, 1897, ii. 186, note; A. Brown’s The First Republic in America, 1898, p. 618, note; P. Force’s Tracts and Other Papers, iii., No. 15, p. 16.

60 J. F. D. Smyth’s Tour in the United States of America, 1784, i. 350. The person referred to by Smyth was apparently a North Carolinian freeman, and if so he might naturally have objected to being classed among white servants.

61 It should be remembered, however, that from the earliest days of slavery the word “servant” was applied equally to white persons and to negro slaves, and that the identification of “servant” and “slave” did not take place until white servants as a class began to disappear.

62 Domestic Service, 1897, pp. 69–72. In a letter to the present writer, Miss Salmon adds:—

“With the sudden burst of new political life that came as a result of the Declaration of Independence and the economic changes that came through the substitution at the South of black slaves for white redemptioners, the word ‘servant’ fell into disuse. It is at this time, subsequent to the Declaration of Indepeudence, that the words ‘help,’ ‘hired girl,’ ‘hired man,’ come into use. They are used as substitutes for the word ‘servant’—an incongruous term in the face of a declared equality of all men, and an obnoxious term in view of the service performed at the South by negro slaves.”

63 W. Bullock’s Virginia Impartially Examined, 1649, pp. 13, 14.

64 History of Virginia, 1705, book iv., chapter x., p. 35.

65 Present State of Virginia, 1724, pp. 53–54. Compare, also, the following, under date of 1740:—

“The Case of Felons transported by Acts of Parliament may differ from Apprentices and Servants in some Things; Felons are bound to serve by the Justices where they are convicted for such a Term of years as the Act directs; other Servants are obliged to serve for no longer time than they contract; but both are equally the Property of their Masters during the Time they have to serve (as we are informed), if an Act of Parliament can make them so.” (Pennsylvania Colonial Records, 1851, iv. 456.)

66 In some Colonies a man, in order to vote or hold office, had to be made a Freeman, and in order to become a Freeman he must produce evidence that he was a member of some Congregational church. I do not use the word “Freeman” in this restricted sense, but by it mean merely a man who is free.

67 These consisted sometimes of land or money, but generally of clothes and farming implements.

68 As late as 1817 we find S. Breck writing, presumably from Philadelphia:—

“Being a long time dissatisfied with some of my servants, I went on board the ship John from Amsterdam, lately arrived with four hundred passengers, to see if I could find one for Mrs. Ross and two for myself. I saw the remains of a very fine cargo, consisting of healthy, good-looking men, women and children, and I purchased one German Swiss for Mrs. Ross and two French Swiss for myself.” (Recollections, 1877, pp. 296, 297.)

69 1639, Plymouth Colony Records, 1855, i. 122.

70 1643, Virginia Statutes at Large, 1823, i. 254. Similar Acts were passed in Virginia in 1658, 1662, 1666, 1669, and 1670, the term “hired freeman” occurring in those of 1658, 1662, and 1669. They are the only examples of the term known to me. Mr. P. A. Bruce writes me:—

“A ‘hired freeman’ I take to have been one who had been a servant or had always been free. ‘Freeman’ is a term used in contradistinction to ‘servant.’ It means a man who is free now, irrespective of his former condition.”

71 1654, Archives of Maryland, Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1638–1664, 1883, pp. 348, 349.

72 1663, Ibid. p. 500.

73 1668, Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1889, p. 260.

74 1715, T. Bacon’s Laws of Maryland at Large, 1765, chapter xliv. § 10.

75 1717, N. Trott’s Laws of the Province of South Carolina, 1736, i. 313, 314.

76 1718, Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1874, ii. 119.

77 Pennsylvania Gazette, 13–20 November, 1735, p. 4/1.

78 1737, Plymouth Town Records, 1892, ii. 321.

79 1741, G. Whitefield, Works, 1771, iii. 434, 435.

80 1748, New Jersey Archives, 1895, xii. 507, 508.

81 1751, B. Franklin, Works, 1887, ii. 227. Cited by Dr. Hall. The dearness of labor, the difficulty of obtaining servants, and the eagerness shown by servants, upon the expiration of their time, to set up for themselves, were constant complaints throughout the Colonial period. See J. Winthrop, 1645, History of New England, 1853, ii. 219, 220; J. Winthrop, Jr., 1660, in 5 Massachusetts Historical Collections, 1882, viii. 67; Sir E. Andros, 1678, in Documentary History of the State of New York, 1850, i. 61; 1717, Official Letters of A. Spotswood, 1885, ii. 227; C. Colden, 1723, in Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, 1855, v. 688; Sir H. Moore, 1767, in Ibid. 1856, vii. 888, 889.

82 1754, New Jersey Archives, 1897, xix. 396, 397.

83 The Southern Colonies complained bitterly during the century of the enlisting of white servants.

84 1756, Pennsylvania Colonial Records, 1851, vii. 37

85 The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies, May, 1758, p. 401/1.

86 1758, S. Nevill’s Acts of the General Assembly of the Province of New Jersey, 1761, ii. 218.

87 1771, November 17, E. Stiles, Diary, in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1860, xiv. 31. As to Angel or Angell, Savage says:—

“Angell, . . . Thomas, Providence, one of the earliest sett, with Roger Williams, one of the freem. 1655, and constable, . . . He came from London, as serv. or apprent. of Roger Williams, as one tradit. has it, but ano. tradit. says, of Richard Waterman.” (Genealogical Dictionary of New England, 1860, i. 57.)

Apparently, therefore, Angell belonged to the class of servants; but probably Stiles had no knowledge of Angell’s exacts position.

88 1772, Muddy River and Brookline Records, 1875, p. 236. With this compare the following, 1777, p. 272, of the same volume:—

“On a Question, whether the Town will abate the Taxes of David Damon for the year 1776, in consideration of his having paid Taxes in Sudbury his Native place, tho’ resident on hire in this Town, that Year—voted in the negative.”

89 1773, P. Van Schaack’s Laws of New-York, 1774, i. 753.

90 J. Hector St. John’s Letters from an American Farmer, 1782, pp. 61, 249. The reference in the second extract is to the botanist, J. Bartram.

91 Translation of J. P. Brissot’s New Travels in the United States, 1792, p. 400.

92 T. Coxe’s View of the United States, 1794, p. 442.

93 A. Holmes’s Life of Ezra Stiles, 1798, p. 249.

94 1802, W. Austin’s Letters from London, 1804, p. 54.

95 R. Parkinson’s Tour in America, 1805, ii. 422.

96 1818, J. Flint’s Letters from America, 1822, p. 39.

97 W. Tudor’s Letters on the Eastern States, 1820, p. 340.

98 1842, J. F. Watson’s Annals of Philadelphia, 1857, i. 176.

99 1845, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1862, xvi. 247.

100 J. W. Alexander’s Life of Archibald Alexander, 1854, p. 281.

101 The Atlantic Monthly, August, 1858, ii. 341/1.

102 1860, O. W. Holmes’s Elsie Venner, 1891, pp. 136, 137. Dr. Holmes’s restriction of the term to those of American birth is probably either local or altogether a mistake.

103 E. Hitchcock’s Reminiscences of Amherst College, 1863, p. 258.

104 J. C. Ballagh’s White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, 1895, p. 84.

105 A. F. Jaccaci’s On the Trail of Don Quixote, 1896, p. 202.

106 S. Crane, in Maclure’s Magazine, August, 1896, p. 223/1.

107 The Nation, 14 May, 1896, 18 March, 1897, lxii. 381, lxiv. 194.

108 A. F. Sanborn, in The Atlantic Monthly, May, 1897, lxxix. 589/2.

109 The Nation, 16 April, 1896, lxii. 306.

110 Dr. Hall referred to the use of the term by Wyclif and in the Bible; the extracts dated 1420–21 and 1605, I owe to the kindness of Professor J. M. Manly, of Brown University [now (1899) of the University of Chicago]; while for the remaining examples, as well as for other aid, I am indebted to our associate Professor G. L. Kittredge, of Harvard University.

111 It may be pointed out that the participial adjective “hired,” qualifying various nouns, was common certainly after the middle of the sixteenth century. In addition to the “hired hyne” of Wyclif, and the “hired servant” of the different versions of the Bible, we find, before 1700, such expressions as “hired soldiers,” 1551; “hired enemy,” 1567; “hired servants,” 1603; “hired house,” 1611; “hired mule,” 1612; “hired knife,” “hired harm,” 1623; “hired messenger,” 1649; “hired valor,” 1651; “hired ship,” 1664; “hired service,” 1669; “hired evidence,” 1691. Moreover, it was customary, in this country, to speak of “hiring” a clergyman, of “hiring” a man to serve in one’s place as town officer, of “hiring” men to serve in the Continental army. Finally, allusion may be made to the terms “hireman,” a male servant who works for wages or hire, and “hirewoman,” a maid servant, employed in Scotland. For examples, see J. Jamieson’s Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808, vol. i.; F. J. Child’s English and Scottish Ballads, 1858, viii. 234; F. J. Child’s English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1890, iv. 202. See Postscript, post, p. 255.

112 1380, St. Luke, xv. 17, Wycliffite Versions of the Holy Bible, 1850, iv. 199/1.

113 1420–1421, The Manuscripts of the Corporation of New Romney, in the Fifth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 1876, p. 540 a.

114 The Complaint of the Ploughman, in T. Wright’s Political Poems and Songs relating to English History, Composed during the Period from the Accession of Edw. III. to that of Ric. III., 1859, i. 316.

115 c. 1575, G. Gascoigne’s The fruites of Warre, stanza 113, Poems, 1869, i. 174.

116 1605, Will of Augustine Phillips, in J. P. Collier’s Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare, 1846, p. 86.

117 The Holy Bible, 1611, Jeremiah, xlvi. 21.

118 1616, B. Jonson’s Devil is an Ass, Act ii., Scene ii., Works, 1640, ii. 116.

119 Americanisms, 1872, p. 487. De Vere adds: “Pepys already writes, March 18, 1662: ‘What a help he was to us!’” There is, however, an error in the reference, for no such sentence occurs in the Diary under the date assigned. De Vere’s further statement, that in New England “perfect social equality has prevailed from the oldest times,” is so obviously erroneous as scarcely to require refutation; but attention may be called to several facts. Down to 1767 at Yale, and down to 1773 at Harvard, the students were “placed” in then-classes, not alphabetically, but in accordance with the supposed social position of their parents. The “seating” of a New England meeting-house was according to the wealth, the social position, and the public services of the parishoners. In an Order passed in 1651, it is stated that—

“we cannot but accoumpt it o^r duty . . . to declare o^r vtter detestation & dislike that men or women of meane condition, educations, & callinges should take vppon them the garbe of gentlemen, by the wearinge of gold or siluer lace, or buttons, or poynts at theire knees, to walke in greate bootes; or women of the same ranke to weare silke or tiffany hoodes or scarfes, which though allowable to persons of greater estates, or more liberall education, yet we cannot but judge it intollerable in psons of such like condition.” (Massachusetts Colony Records, 1851, iii. 243.)

See, also, the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1858, xii. 289; 1860, xiv. 194.

120 The English Language in America, in Cambridge Essays, 1855, p. 72

121 It is also used in other senses, though this is its common meaning,—“Help. The common name in New England for servants, and for the opera tives in a cotton or woollen factory.” (J. R. Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms, 1848, p. 175.) See also The Century, Webster’s International, and the Standard Dictionaries.

122 Prose Works, 1890, ii. 43, 44.

123 1385, Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women, lines 1611–1616, Works, 1894, iii. 138.

124 1514, Cardinal Bainbridge, in H. Ellis’s Original Letters, Second Series, 1827, i. 229.

125 T. Matthew’s The Byble, 1537, Psalms, cxlvi. 5.

126 Shakespeare’s Pericles, 1609, A 3; Act I., Scene i., lines 19–24.

127 1596, 1601, The Expenses of the Judges of Assize riding the Western and Oxford Circuits, Temp. Elizabeth, 1596–1601, 1858, pp. 18, 47. (Camden Miscellany, iv.) This extract I owe to Professor Kittredge.

128 The Holy Bible, 1611, Genesis, ii. 18. In the version by T. Matthew, 1537, this passage reads: “And the Lorde God sayde: It is not good that man shuld be alone I will make him an helper to beare hym cōpany.”

129 The Holy Bible, 1611, 1 Corinthians, xii. 28. The Imperial Bible-Dictionary, 1891, iii. 86, says: “HELPS, the designation employed for a class of official ministrations in the primitive church, 1 Co. xii. 28; but the precise nature of which is nowhere particularly described, and has been variously understood.” Hence it may not be uninteresting to compare several renderings. They are: “helpyngis.” 1380; “helpers,” 1534; “helpers,” 1539; “helpers,” 1557; “helpes,” 1582. (See The English Hexapla, 1841.) In T. Matthew’s version, 1537, the reading is “helpers.”

130 1612, T. Shelton’s Don Quixote, 1896, i. 190.

131 Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, 1623, p. 96a, Comedy of Errors, Act iv., Scene iv., line 149.

132 1630, Massachusetts Colony Records, 1853, i. 76, 77.

133 1636, 1637, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1856, x. 37.

134 1639, W. Coddington, in 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, 1865, vii. 278.

135 1645, Massachusetts Colony Records, 1853, ii. 139.

136 1646, Ibid. ii. 180, 181. For similar uses of the verb, in 1675, 1676, 1702, 1752, 1763, see Massachusetts Colony Records, 1854, v. 65; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1862, xvi. 61; J. J. Babson’s Notes and Additions to the History of Gloucester, Part II., 1891, pp. 2, 17, 56.

137 E. Williams’s Virgo Trivmphans: or, Virginia richly and truly valued; more especially the South part thereof, 1650, p. 24.

138 1651, Massachusetts Colony Records, 1854, iii. 242. My attention was called to this passage by Dr. E. Eggleston. The law was in force in 1660. (Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1889, p. 137.)

139 1659, 1660, J. Tinker, in 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, 1865, vii. 238, 239, 241, 245.

140 1664, Dedham Records, 1894, iv. 76.

141 Milton’s Paradise Lost, 1667, Book vii., lines 1086–1088. (Modern editions, Book viii., lines 449–451.)

142 1671, T. Mayhew, in The New England Company, 1896, p. 40.

143 1676, Massachusetts Colony Records, 1851, v. 78.

144 1680, New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 1851, v. 172.

145 1693, in A. B. Ellis’s History of the First Church, Boston, 1881, p. 149, note.

146 1697, First Record-Book of the First Church in Charlestown, in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1871, xxv. 64, 65.

147 1711, J. Urmstone, in F. L. Hawks’s History of North Carolina, 1858, ii. 215.

148 1725, 1726, in C. Robbins’s History of the Second Church in Boston, 1852, p. 310.

149 1762, Muddy River and Brookline Records, 1875, p. 204.

150 1770, N. Whitaker, ill F. Chase’s History of Dartmouth College, 1891, i. 242.

151 C. W. Janson’s The Stranger in America, 1807, p. 87.

152 J. Pickering, in Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1815, iii. 485.

153 J. Bradbury’s Travels in the Interior of America, 1817, p. 318.

154 J. Bristed’s Resources of the United States of America, 1818, p. 460. The same book was published in London with the title, America and her Resources.

155 W. Tudor’s Letters on the Eastern States, 1820, p. 349.

156 P. Neilson’s Recollections of a Six Years’ Residence in the United States of America, 1830, p. 28.

157 S. G. Goodrich’s System of Universal Geography, 1832, p. 104.

158 Mrs. Trollope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans, 1832, i. 73, cited by Miss Salmon.

159 A. Fergusson’s Practical Notes made during a Tour in Canada, and a Portion of the United States, 1833, pp. 233, 234.

160 F. J. Grund’s The Americans, 1837, ii. 66, cited by Miss Salmon.

161 1846, J. E. Lowell’s Letters, 1894, i. 105.

162 Miss Bird’s The Englishwoman in America, 1856, p. 214, cited by Miss Salmon.

163 C. Mackay’s Life and Liberty in America, 1859, i. 42, cited by Miss Salmon.

164 T. C. Grattan’s Civilized America, 1859, i. 256, 259, cited by Miss Salmon.

165 1859, H. D. Thoreau’s Autumn, 1894, p. 66.

166 Miss M. E. Wilkins’s Humble Romance, 1887, p. 64.

167 c 1894, O. W. Holmes, in Life and Letters, 1896, i. 34.

168 J. S. Winter’s My Geoff, 7th edition, 1897, pp. 1, 39.

169 London Times, 12 October, 1897, p. 16/2.

170 London Daily Telegraph, 12 October, 1897, p. 15/1.

171 London Daily Chronicle, 12 October, 1897, p. 11/7.

172 London Daily News, 12 October, 1897, p. 10/4.

173 London Evening Standard, 29 September, 1897, p. 2/4. Dr. Hall writes me:

“The English use of helps to which you refer has, I think, come up in very recent years. Its appearance here is largely owing, if not altogether, to American precedent. Apparently it has two senses. In lady helps it is pretty clearly euphemistic, while, in stable helps, general helps, mother helps, etc., it is equivalent to servants; in the first instance named it meaning, however, inferior servants. I would not be quite sure, though. In conversation I have never heard it used in any sense.”

174 Early Records of the Town of Providence, xi. 29.

175 1758, New Hampshire Provincial Papers, vi. 653.

176 Acts and Statutes Of the Island of Barbados, p. 18. This work is without date, but it was compiled by John Jennings and was published in 1654.

177 1661, R. Hall’s Acts, Passed in the Island of Barbados, 1764, p. 39.

178 1681, Acts of Assembly Passed in the Island of Jamaica, London, 1756, pp. 1, 2.

179 T. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, Boston, 1861, i. 83, 94.

180 1861, W. M. Thackeray, The Four Georges, 1869, p. 16.

181 Province Laws, v. 479, 537, 641, 648, 722, 724. See also pp. 615, 644, 770, 838. These Acts, which were expressly of limited duration, were renewed from time to time, in the Acts of 20 June, 1778, ch. 10, of 23 June, 1779, ch. 5, and of 22 June, 1780, ch. 7. (Ibid., v. 884, 1072, 1397.) See also Ibid., v. 882, 984, 1240, 1440.

182 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 275–277.

183 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 279, corrected by the original Record.

184 Province Laws, v. 648, 724–726.

185 With the exception of those of John Tufts, Patrick Wall, Benjamin Davis, Jr., David Parker, Charles Whiteworth, and Dr. Thomas Kast, all the names in this List appear in Sabine’s Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (edition of 1864),—several of them finding a place in the “Fragments,” printed at the end of Volume II.,—which see.

Eleven of the persons named in this List appear in Mr. Foote’s Annals of King’s Chapel, namely:—Mather Byles (i. 482; ii. 483), Benjamin Phillips (ii. 296), Dr. James Lloyd (ii. 155, 387, 390, 619), Daniel Hubbard (ii. 307), Dr. Isaac Rand, Jr. (ii. 291, 325), William Perry (ii. 296), Richard Green (ii. 205), Thomas Amory (ii. 295, 480), Dr. Thomas Kast (ii. 170, 338, 361, 608), John Erving (ii. 129, 160, 170, 210, 226, 588), and George Bethune (ii. 72).

Dr. James Thacher’s American Medical Biography contains appreciative notices of Dr. James Lloyd (i. 359–376), Dr. Isaac Rand (ii. 13–16), Dr. Samuel Danforth (ii. 233–238), and Dr. Thomas Kast (i. 344, 345.)

Several of the names in this List are to be found among the Addressers of Hutchinson and the Protesters against the Solemn League and Covenant, printed in 1 Massachusetts Historical Society’s Proceedings for October, 1870, xi. 392–395. See also Ibid, for December, 1880, xviii. 266–268.

186 Edward Hutchinson is believed to have been a cousin of the Governor. If so he was a son of the Hon. Edward Hutchinson (1678–1752), Judge of Probate in the County of Suffolk, who was succeeded by his nephew the Governor; born in Boston, 18 December, 1729; graduated at Harvard College in 1748; an Addresser of Gage in 1775; and died in 1806. (New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1865, xix. 13–20; Whitmore’s Civil List, p. 80; and Sabine’s Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (edition of 1864), ii. 535.)

187 Dr. Isaac Rand, Jr., a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1761 was of the Charlestown family. See Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, ii. 786; and Thacher’s American Medical Biography, ii. 13–16.

188 See post, p. 262.

189 Nathaniel Cary was a Boston merchant, at the Town Dock, an Addresser of Hutchinson and Gage, and a Protester against the Solemn League and Covenant. (Memorial History of Boston, iii. 153, 176; and 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for October, 1870, xi. 392–395.)

190 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 280–283. In his Diary, under date of 20 April, 1776, Ezekiel Price states that—

“Dr. Whitworth and son were yesterday on their examination, and afterwards ordered to give bail. It is said the justices have evidence of the doctor’s not having acted the part of an honest surgeon in his practice on the late unfortunate Colonel Parker; and that his limb was unnecessarily taken off, and a cruel neglect of attendance on him, by which means he lost his life.”

(1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for November, 1863, vii. 252, 253.) Dr. Whitworth was an Addresser of Hutchinson, and his name appears in the List as a Surgeon, of Wing’s Lane. (Ibid, for October, 1870, xi. 394.)

191 Samuel Bradstreet—or Broadstreet, as the name was formerly pronounced, and sometimes spelled—was probably the merchant of that name of Boston and Charlestown, a son of Samuel Bradstreet, born 6 (baptized 8) May, 1743, at Charlestown, who died, a bachelor, 14 July, 1810. He was a grandson of the Hon. Richard Foster, Jr., Sheriff of Middlesex, 1731–1764, and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, 1764–1771. (Family Record; and Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, i. 115, 116, 363.)

192 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 284.

193 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxv. 42.

194 The Registers of Trinity Church, Boston, record the burial of “Mrs. Wentworth, wife of Mr. Edward Wentworth, 55” years, on 27 May, 1780; and the marriage of Edward Wentworth and Mary Reid, 24 September, 1780.

195 Thomas Hanford Wentworth, grandson of Edward Wentworth, says:—“Mrs. Mary Reed, of Boston, Mass., only daughter of Lawrence and Martha Payne, was born in London, England, and came to this country in 1740. . . . She married (1)——Downs . . .; probably married (2) Capt.——Reed.”

(The Wentworth Genealogy: English and American (edition of 1878), i. 341, 342.)

196 Memorial History of Boston, iii. 175–180.

197 Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (edition of 1864), ii. 594.

198 The author of The Wentworth Genealogy (i. 342) says:—“He was arrested as sympathizing with the British Government in 1777, but promised support to the Revolutionary Government and was released.”

199 Christ Church Registers and Massachusetts Magazine for July, 1794, iv. 448.

200 Records of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, vol. [7],—ten detached leaves, sundry Terms 1776 and 1777, leaves v. and vi. April Term, 1777, held at Boston 15 April, 1777.

201 For a notice of Joseph Otis see ante, pp. 61–63.

202 Probably the fort on Chignecto Bay at the head of the Bay of Fundy, on the northwest coast of Nova Scotia, in the county of Cumberland, somewhat known in the campaigns of 1758–1760. (Province Laws, iv. 128, 242, 348.) There was also a Fort Cumberland in Maryland.

203 Suffolk Court Files, dxxviii. 92478.

204 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for November, 1863, vii. 252, 255.

205 Memorial History of Boston, ii. 563, iii. 111, 145, and 175, and authorities cited; Narrative and Critical History of America, vi. 145, and authorities cited; Frothingham’s Life and Times of Joseph Warren, p. 225; Frothingham’s History of the Siege of Boston, p. 258; Loring’s Hundred Boston Orators (Second edition), p. 39; Massachusetts Archives, cxxxviii. 326; New England Historical and Genealogical Register for April, 1857, xi. 123; Sabine’s Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (edition of 1864), i. 313; Gordon’s History of the American Revolution (London, 1788), ii. 134–136; Thaeher’s Military Journal during the American Revolutionary War (edition of 1823), pp. 38, 39 and note; Moore’s Diary of the American Revolution, i. 34; Lossing’s Field Book of the Revolution, i. 568; Siege and Evacuation Memorial, p. 151; and Province Laws, v. 912, 915.

206 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii., passim (corrected by the original Record.)

207 House Journal, p. 26; Province Laws, v. 511.

208 Boston Town Records. Cf. post, p. 275; Shurtleff’s Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (Third edition), pp. 135, 236; Memorial History of Boston, ii. 496; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xvi. 115, 119, 123, 125, 127, 136, 137; and xx. 63; and Sabine’s Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (edition of 1864), i. 535.

209 See ante, pp. 260, 261.

210 Memorial History of Boston, iii. 175.

211 See ante, p. 261, note 3.

212 Boston Town Records.

213 Memorial History of Boston, ii. 563.

214 Ibid. iii. 176.

215 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for October, 1870, xi. 392–395.

216 Province Laws, v. 912, 1004–1009.

217 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, for July, 1865, viii. 374

218 Ibid, for November, 1863, vii. 261.

219 Sabine’s Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, (edition of 1864), i. 359, 360.

220 Dorchester Town Records.

221 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiii. 171. The sites of all the places of worship of the Sandemanian Society in Boston are identified and described by our associate Mr. Henry H. Edes in a communication, illustrated by Plans, made to the Society at its Stated Meeting in March, 1899. See post, vi. 109–130.

222 See post, p. 298, note 2.

223 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 281, 282.

224 Ibid. xxv. 317.

225 Columbian Centinel, No. 2394, of Wednesday, 4 March, 1807, which states That the funeral will take place on Thursday afternoon “from his late house, N^o. 47 Hanover Street.” His intestate estate was administered by Thomas Capen of Boston, merchant, in whose account, settled 19 October, 1807, is a charge for gravestones and another for setting them. (Suffolk Probate Files, No. 22, 861.) See post, p. 298, note 2.

226 Sabine’s Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (edition of 1864), i. 270–272; Narrative and Critical History of America, vi. 205, and authorities cited; Memorial History of Boston, iii. 97, and authorities cited; Siege and Evacuation Memorial, p. 164–166; and Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, ii. 201.

227 Mrs. Frances Buchanan, who has been described as a “dashing” young widow, was born 4 April, 1760. She was married to Allen, as his second wife, at Westminster, Vermont, 9 February, 1784 (Willard S. Allen’s Genealogy of Samuel Allen of Windsor, Connecticut, and Some of his Descendants, p. 6.) Cf. Allen’s American Biographical Dictionary (Third edition), pp. 18–20.

228 A printed copy of this Commission, in the form of a Broadside, is in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and is reprinted in the Siege and Evacuation Memorial, p. 164.

229 A facsimile of one of the original Broadsides, in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is in the Memorial History of Boston, iii. 97.

230 Captain John Manly was commissioned by Washington, 24 October, 1775. Besides this capture he had already, in November, 1775, taken ordnance and military stores. He died in his house at the North End, Boston, 12 February, 1793, at the age of 60 years. (Columbian Centinel, No. 930, of Saturday, 16 February, 1793, which contains a long obituary notice of Captain Manly; and the Massachusetts Magazine for February, 1793, v. 128.) The Trinity Church Registers contain this entry:—

“1786, August 26, Mrs. Hannah Manly, wife of Jn^o Manly, Esq^r 56.”

231 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for November, 1863, vii. 249, 250. This passage is quoted somewhat incorrectly in the Siege and Evacuation Memorial, p. 186.

232 Records of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, vol. [7],—ten detached leaves, sundry Terms in 1776 and 1777—leaf iv., last part of January Term, 1777. What the plea was does not appear; it may have been the authority given by the Commission. All else save this brief record has been lost.

233 Records of the Inferiour Court of Common Pleas (1776), xxxix. 53. Cf. ante, p. 269.

234 Province Laws, v. 648, 724–726.

235 Suffolk Court Files, dxxix. 92,695:1.

236 This name is here written cornerwise. The writs at this period usually bear, somewhere upon the back, the signature of the plaintiff’s attorney. Morton’s autograph is almost invariably written, in manner and place, as above.

237 N. E., as here used, stands for New Entry.

238 Suffolk Court Files, dxxix. 92,695:2

239 Suffolk Court Files, dxxix. 92,695:3. This Resolve has already appeared in print in Green’s Groton Historical Series (iii. 110) but is here reprinted, inasmuch as this is a Copy taken from the Records and duly authenticated by the proper State official, and was used at the trial, and also because the former reprint contains some slight variations and one or two evident typographical errors.

240 Suffolk Court Files, dxxix. 92,695: 5. Paper No. 4 is an attested copy of the same.

241 Records of the Inferiour Court of Common Pleas (1776), xxxix. 87.

242 The Wentworth Genealogy (edition of 1878), i. 521, which see for many facts concerning Perez Morton and his accomplished wife and her family connections, drawn from family records and papers furnished the author by Mr. Morton’s descendants. I have been unable to find any contemporary record of Mr. Morton’s birth. His name, however, is in the List of Freshmen admitted to Harvard College in July, 1767. It is there stated that he was then a resident of Boston; that his birthday was 2 November, 1751; and that his age at admission was sixteen years and eight months (Faculty Records, iii. 86). Loring, in his Hundred Boston Orators (Second edition, p. 129), says that he was born in Plymouth, 13 November, 1751. It will be observed that between the date in the Faculty Records and that given by Loring there is a difference of just eleven days,—the number requisite to reconcile Old Style with New Style. It will also be seen that between the date furnished by the family (22 October, 1750) and that found in the Faculty Records there is a difference of a year and eleven days. The fact that Morton’s age is given as eighty-seven years at the time of his death,—14 October, 1837,—strengthens the assumption that the date in our text is the correct one; nevertheless, the College record has strong claims to precedence, especially when it is remembered that it was probably made upon Morton’s own statement; that Old Style had gone out in 1752,—just after Morton’s advent; and that, in 1767, in all probability, the date of his birth would have been expressed according to New Style; but even on this assumption the difference of exactly a year between these dates is yet to be accounted for. It seems clear, however, that Morton was born 22 October, Old Style, or 2 November, New Style, 1750 or 1751, and that Loring, erroneously assuming that 2 November represented Old Style, added eleven days to translate the date, as he supposed, to New Style. (Cf. ante, p. 205 note 4.)

I am indebted to our associate, Mr. Henry H. Edes, for this note, in the preparation of which our associate, Mr. William Coolidge Lane, and his obliging assistant, Mr. William Garrott Brown, in charge of the College Archives, have rendered invaluable assistance in dealing with the vexed question of the date of Mr. Morton’s birth. I am also indebted to Mr. Edes for the notes on Joseph Morton and the White Horse Tavern which follow, on pp. 283, 284.

243 Preface to Judge Davis’s edition of Morton’s Memorial, p. iii. See also Province Laws, vii. 6. For the pedigree of Perez Morton, see Josiah Granville Leach’s Morton Memoranda, p. 30, and Davis’s Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth, pp. 188–190.

244 Joseph Morton, son of Joseph and Mary Morton, was born in Plymouth 25 October, 1711 (Plymouth Town Records, i. 67.) His purpose of marriage with Annah (not Amiah) Bullock, of Rehoboth, was published 2 August, 1738, at Plymouth, and 26 August, at Rehoboth, where they were married, 4 September, 1738, by the Rev. David Turner (Rehoboth Town Records, ii. 153, the published copy of which erroneously prints this name Martin; Records of the Newman Church, East Province Centre, R. I.) Their first child, Perez, born at Plymouth 3 February, 1739 (Plymouth Town Records, i. 180)—the only one whose birth appears of record—died in early childhood. Joseph Morton was among those members of the First Parish in Plymouth who, in December, 1743, withdrew, during the Great Awakening, because of their disapproval of Whitefield’s preaching and methods, formed the Third Parish, and built a Meeting-house in Middle Street (Precinct Book 1719–1813, p. 36.) The two Parishes re-united in 1784. The Records of the Third Parish contain the following entry, which has been furnished by Arthur Lord, Esq.:—

“April 21, 1754. I baptf Diman and Perez the sons—Anne & Hannah the daughters of Joseph Morton—upon her, his wives, account.”

Mrs. Morton died 3 April, 1759, and Mr. Morton married, as his second wife, Abigail Hersey, who died 9 May, 1791. He died 26 July, 1793. (The Went-worth Genealogy (edition of 1878), i. 521, note.) The Columbian Centiuel (xix. 41) of Wednesday, 31 July, 1793, and The Independent Chronicle (No. 1292) of Thursday, 1 August, 1793, record this death in these words:—

“At Groton, Mr. Joseph Morton of this town, Æt. 82.”

The Massachusetts Magazine for August, 1793, also records Mr. Morton’s death at Groton, but likewise without date. His will, dated 31 March, 1787, was proved 8 October, 1793. It names his son Perez Executor and is replete with valuable genealogical data. (Suffolk Probate Files, No. 20,211.) Cf. Davis’s Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth, p. 190.

245 The White Horse Tavern estate had a frontage on Newbury (now Washington) Street, opposite Hayward Place, of 114 feet (including Fayette Court, 11 feet wide, which almost evenly divides it), and a depth of 308 feet from Washington Street nearly, if not quite, back to what is now Head Place. The site was intersected by the laying out of Haymarket Place, in 1806. The front portion of the estate is now numbered 597 to 611 Washington Street; and the Tremont Theatre occupies a part of the rear of the lot.

The hostelry was called the White Horse Inn as early as 27 April, 1700 (Deed from William Paine et als. to Thomas Powell in Suffolk Deeds, six. 347.) William Bowdoin conveyed the estate to Joseph Morton 20 March, 1765 (Ibid. civ. 89); and Morton conveyed it to his son Perez 3 May, 1791 (Ibid, clxix. 224.)

246 Province Laws, v. 509, 513, 516, 517, 662, 709, 710.

247 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 233, 270; xxvi. 4.

248 Ibid, xviii. 235. The Instructions are given in full on pp. 236–238.

249 Ibid, xviii. 283–286.

250 Ibid. xxvi. 22–24.

251 Ibid. xxvi. 63.

252 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxvi. 125–130.

253 Ibid. xxvi. 131–135.

254 Ibid. xxvi. 277.

255 Ibid. xxvi. 280–285.

256 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxvi. 291. This Motion is also printed in Loring’s Hundred Boston Orators (Second edition), p. 156.

257 Ibid. xxvi. 294, 295.

258 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxvi. 304, 305. Dr. John Warren, a younger brother of General Joseph Warren, was selected by the Committee to deliver the first Fourth of July Oration in Boston. It was delivered in the Church in Brattle Square. (Ibid. xxvi. 321—323.) See also Loring’s Hundred Boston Orators (Second edition), pp. 156–107, for an account of the occasion, the oration, and the orator.

259 Foote’s Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 294, 318–320, 330. The Editor, Mr. Edes, also refers to Dr. John C. Warren’s Genealogy of Warren, p. 47; Frothingham’s Life and Times of Joseph Warren, pp. 517–526; Loring’s Hundred Boston Orators (Second edition), pp. 127–129; and Shurtleffs Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (Third edition), pp. 226, 251, for further particulars; and, for the full text of the Oration, to the volume of Fifth of March Orations, printed by Peter Edes, 1785.

The obsequies in King’s Chapel, by leave of the House of Representatives, were in charge of the Masonic fraternity, of which Warren was Grand Master at the time of his death, and Morton a prominent member. The following is extracted from the Journals of the House, under date of 4 April, 1776:—

“In the House of Representatives—The committee appointed to take under consideration the Erecting a Monument to the Memory of the Honorable Major General Warren beg leave to report, that they have attended that service—and find that the place where his body was buried is discovered, and that the Lodge of Freemasons in this Colony, whereof he was late Grand Master, are desirous of taking up the said deceased remains, and in the Usual Solemnities of that Society to decently inter the same, and that his Friends are consenting thereto—Wherefore yonr committee are of opinion that the said Lodge have leave to put their said intentions into Execution in such manner as that the Government of this Colony may hereafter have an opertunity to Erect a Monument to the Memory of that Worthy Valiaut & patriotic American.—

“James Sullivan pr. Order.

“Read and accepted, and the said Lodge has leave to put their intentions as aforesaid, into Execution accordingly—

“In Council read and concurred

“Consented to by 15 of the Council.”

The marginal note against this entry reads as follows:—

“Resolve giving liberty to St. Andrew’s Lodge to raise the body of Gen. Warren & inter him in Boston.”

I am indebted to Mr. C. B. Tillinghast for the text of this interesting extract from the House Journals.

260 Hundred Boston Orators (Second edition), pp. 69, 127–130, 172, 278.

261 See also Foote’s Annals of King’s Chapel (chapters xix. and xxi.), ii. 330–370, 378–406; and Hill’s History of the Old South Church (chapter v.), ii. 184–270.

262 See Foote’s Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 310, 311, 321, 324, 329, 588.

263 Ibid. ii. 608, and note.

264 Ibid. ii. 381 et seq.

265 On the twenty-eighth of April, 1779, with fifty-one others, he petitioned the General Court for authority to raise, by means of a Lottery, the funds needed by the Proprietors of Boston Pier, or Long Wharf, to put their property in repair. The authority was granted by Chap. 4 of the Acts of 1779–1780 (Province Laws, v. 1071, 1072, 1238, 1239.) He was also one of the Trustees of the Boston Theatre, erected in 1794 (Columbian Centinel of 22 February, 1794, No. 1036, p. 3/3.)

266 He was one of the last two survivors of those who held this rank.

267 This volume is printed in 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, for December, 1881, xix. p. 147 et seq.

268 Trinity Church (Boston) Registers. The record says, “in Church.” Loring’s Hundred Boston Orators (Second edition, p. 129) and other works give the date of this marriage, erroneously, as 1778.

269 Foote’s Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 143. See also Ibid. ii. 331. Mrs. Morton’s father, James Apthorp, married Sarah Wentworth, daughter of Samuel Wentworth (H. C. 1728), and grand-daughter of Lieutenant-Governor John Weutworth of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (The Wentworth Genealogy (edition of 1878), i. 178, 316; 519–521, which also contains an extended account of the Apthorp family; and 522–524, where may be found a full account of Perez Morton’s descendants.)

270 Duyckinck’s Cyclopaedia of American Literature, i. 633. Duyckinck (i. 483) also gives a sketch of Mrs. Morton, and a list of her principal works. Allibone’s Dictionary of Authors (ii. 1377) and Josiah Granville Leach in his Morton Memoranda (p. 30) also enumerate her publications.

271 Not the author of Common Sense, but the Thomas Paine who changed his name to Robert Treat Paine (H. C. 1792).

272 Samuel Kettell’s Specimens of American Poetry (Boston, mdcccxxix), ii. 75, contains a brief notice of Mrs. Morton and the text of her poem entitled The African Chief.

273 In the records of her baptism and marriage, her name appears as Sarah Apthorp. (King’s Chapel Registers.) She subsequently added her mother’s family name, and in the notice of her death she appears as “Madam Sarah Wentworth Morton, relict of the late Hon. Perez Morton, 80.” (Boston Evening Transcript of 15 May, 1846.)

274 Leach’s Morton Memoranda, p. 30.

275 Loring’s Hundred Boston Orators (Second edition), p. 130, where also may be read some satirical verses addressed to him by one of the political writers of that day.

276 Morton sat in the House for Boston, in 1794, and for Dorchester from 1800 till 1811. His appointment as Attorney General was confirmed by the Council, 7 September, 1810; and he resigned his seat in the House, 23 January, 1811, when a new Speaker—Joseph Story—was chosen. (Council Records; and House Journals.)

277 Order of Both Branches of the Legislature of Massachusetts, to appoint Commissioners to investigate the causes of the difficulties in the County of Lincoln; and the Report of the Commissioners thereon, with the Documents in support thereof. Boston, 1811, 8vo. pp. 174; Governor Gerry’s Message of 10 June, 1811, and Resolve No. xxxiv. passed 20 June, 1811 (Resolves of the General Court, 1811, pp. 218–241); and Award of the Commissioners, 20 January, 1813, and accompanying documents, and several Resolves passed 25 and 27 February, 1813 (Ibid. 1813, pp. 181–209.) Cf. Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, ii. 623–625.

278 For an interesting account of the two houses occupied by Mr. Morton after his removal from Boston, see The Old Morton and Taylor Estates in Dorchester, Massachusetts, by David Clapp, Boston, 1892, reprinted from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1892, xlvi. 78–84.

279 Boston Morning Post (No. 118) of Wednesday, 18 October, 1837; and The Wentworth Genealogy (edition of 1878), i. 521. The Dorchester Town Eecords erroneously give the date of Mr. Morton’s death as 18 October, 1837.

280 Groton Historical Series, iii. 109, 376; Groton Church Records, p. 25; Groton Epitaphs, pp. 255–258. See also Butler’s History of Groton, pp. 440, 441.

281 Groton Historical Series, iii. 109.

282 The Petition is printed Ibid. ii. 491.

283 This Resolve is reprinted Ibid. iii. 110.

284 In the List of Settlers to 1790, we find, under date of 1743,—“Tarbell, Capt. Samuel . . . Tory. His Estate was confiscated. He left town, and died in poverty and wretchedness, at Groton, his native place” (p. 220.)

285 See ante, pp. 279, 280 and note.

286 The original Petition is in the Massachusetts Archives, ccxxxi. 452.

287 He, probably, was that Isaac Farnsworth who was a nephew of the widow,—a representative man in Groton, and, later, its Representative in the General Court.

288 Pedigree of Captain Samuel Tarbell, Junior.

1. Thomas Tarbell, the progenitor, settled in Groton in 1663; removed, after the destruction of Groton during Philip’s War, to Charlestown and there died, of small pox, 11 June, 1678.
2. Thomas Tarbell, married, 30 June, 1666, Hannah Longley; removed, with his father and family, to Charlestown where he died, of small pox, 26 April, 1678.
3. Thomas Tarbell, born 16 July, 1667; married, 1 December, 1686, Elizabeth Woods, daughter of Samuel Woods of Cambridge and Groton; died in Lexington, 8 October, 1715 (grave stone.)
4. Captain Samuel Tarbell, Senior, born 14 October, 1697; married, 29 December, 1725, Lydia Farnsworth; died in Groton, 23 May, 1776. They had issue (1727–1753):—(i) Lydia, married Henry Farwell; (ii) Anna, married (1) Moses Haskell, (2) Peter Edes; (iii) Sybil, married Jonathan Moors; (iv) Deborah, married George Pierce; (v) Martha, married Edward Phelps; (vi) Sarah, married Lieutenant Joseph Boynton; (vii) Mary, married Samuel Reed, Junior; (ix) Eunice; besides (viii),
5. Captain Samuel Tarbell, Junior, the obligor in the Bond, born 4 April, 1746; died in Groton 4 March, 1796.

For the materials for this Pedigree I am indebted to our associate Mr. Henry E. Woods, who is allied by blood to the Tarbells and several related families. See Butler’s History of Groton, passim; and Laurence Hammond’s Diary, printed in 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for January, 1892, vii. 170, and note. Cf. Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates of Charles-town, ii. 932.

289 See Josiah Phillips Quincy’s Remarks concerning the Loyalists, when communicating a fragment of the Diary of Samuel Quincy, in 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for January, 1882, xix. 211–214.

290 See Record Commissioners’ Reports, xvi. 108, 233; and xviii. 11.

291 In the Copp’s Hill Burial Ground are headstones and footstones to the memory of Mr. Capen, to that of his wife, Patience Capen, who died 19 January, 1791, aged 57 years, and to that of their second son, John Capen, who died 19 February, 1770, at the age of seven years.

Capen’s wife was Patience Stoddard, to whom he was published 12 June, 1760 (Boston Town Records). She was born in Boston, 24 February, 1733–34,—the daughter of Thomas and Tabitha (Hodgden) Stoddard (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 218; xxviii. 115).

Of the five or more children of Hopestill and Patience (Stoddard) Capen, the births of four are found on the Boston Town Records. (Ibid. xxiv. 318, 321, 323, 325.) See ante, p. 271 and note 5.

1 Publications, iii. 41–46.

2 Ibid. iii. 329–336.

3 Rev. John White Chadwick, in the New York Evening Post of Monday, 21 March, 1898.

4 The Statesman and the Man. A Discourse on occasion of the death of Hon. John Quincy Adams, delivered in Washington, Feb. 27, 1848, by Joseph Henry Allen, Pastor of the Unitarian Church. Washington, 1848, 8vo. pp. 23.

5 Mr. Adams died 23 February, 1848.

6 The Mexican War, which Mr. Adams had always opposed, was ending.

7 Sermon on Great Principles and Small Duties, in Endeavors after the Christian Life (Boston, 1876), p. 22.

8 Publications, iv. 3.

9 Publications, iii. 11, 12.

10 These two important documents are reserved for publication in Volume iv. of our Publications.

11 Publications, iii. 25.

12 Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous, Boston, 1790, pp. 181, 182. These lines, addressed to Mrs. Montagu, are dated Plymouth, 10 July, 1790.

13 See an interesting paper on the Subjects for Master’s Degree in Harvard College from 1655 to 1791, by the Reverend Edward J. Young, D.D., in 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for June, 1880, xviii. 119–151.

14 Magnalia (1702), Book iv. p. 128.

15 Ibid. Book iv. p. 131.

16 Our associate Mr. William Coolidge Lane, raises the question whether Mather’s expression “particular character” did not refer to the kind of type used rather than to the cross or the index hand. Mr. Lane also writes:—

“The Latin list of theses began at same time to be supplemented by an English ‘Order of Exercises,’ of which our earliest example is for 1791. In this year the two subjects of the theses distinguished by the pointing hand and by small caps appeared on the English Order of Exercises as ‘disputations,’ in which several students took part. The theses for 1792 are the last in which any distinction of type of this kind is made. In 1810 the broadside form comes to an end, and in 1811 the folded quarto begins. The printing of theses continues down to and including 1820, since which time the Commencement programme has consisted simply of the list of names and order of exercises.”

17 The Reverend Timothy Woodbridge (H. C. 1675), long a prominent figure in academic, ecclesiastical, and political circles in Connecticut, was a younger brother of John Woodbridge of Killingworth. See ante, pp. 77, 78.

18 Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of New England, i. 236.

19 The full text of this letter may be read in 1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vi. 100–108.

20 These letters presumably stand for donant dicant dedicantque. On the use of letters at the end of the Dedication of the Commencement Programme, see Note on pp. 334, 335, post.

21 See post, p. 332, note.

22 In writing this word in the original, the scribe employed the mediæval characters used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by both scriveners and printers to express the Greek letters ον and ος.

23 Sacrilega may have been intended, but the word is plainly written Saligia in the original.

24 This date, 9 August, 1663, which fell on Sunday, does not agree with the date of Commencement that year, which occurred on 11 August,—the second Tuesday. (See p. 339, post.) This discrepancy as to the date can be accounted for by assuming that the author or authors forgot that the Ides of August fell on the thirteenth of the month instead of the fifteenth as in July when, probably, no inconsiderable part of this paper was written.

25 I am indebted to our associate Professor George Lyman Kittredge, and to Mr. William P. Upham for valuable suggestions and aid in making this translation. Furthermore, without Mr. Upham’s expert assistance, it would have been impossible to present in type a complete decipherment of the worn and faded manuscript of which a photogravured facsimile is herewith presented.

26 I am indebted to the Hon. William Everett for the following note:—

“Antæci, periæci, and amphiscius are Greek words, belonging to the theoretical geography of former days. Antæci are those who live in another polar hemisphere but on our meridian, and in an equally numbered (south) latitude. Periæci are those who live on our parallel, half way round the globe. Amphiscius is said of a dweller in the tropics who casts his shadow both ways. Disparata evidently has a peculiar meaning; according to the scholastic logic or rhetoric. In classical Latin, it means the same as Contraria.”

27 See Theses of 1642: logicas, 1,—Universalia non sunt extra intellectum; also physicas, 11,—Non dantur orbes in cælo. (1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for March, 1860, iv. 442, 443; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 19, 20.)

28 See Theses of 1643: ethic, x,—Honor sequentem fugit, fugientem sequitur. (1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for March, 1860, iv. 445; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 76.)

29 See ante, p. 329, note.

30 An herb having the power to reconcile or to produce reciprocal affection.

31 The Revelation of St. John, ii. 1, 8, 12, 18; iii. 1, 7, 14.

32 As to the spelling of Mitchell’s name, cf. Mather’s Magnalia (1702) Book iv. pp. 162, 166, where both Increase and Cotton Mather use a single final “1”; and Paige’s History of Cambridge, p. 268, note, where the orthography is discussed.

33 These documents were printed, with notes by Mr. Edes, in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1868 and 1869, xxii. 345–348 and xxiii. 169–171.

34 Mr. Toppan discussed this subject in a note to his Edward Randolph (Publications of the Prince Society), iv. 138. See also Ibid. v. 24, 32. The following letter gives some further particulars which are of value:—

Highland Street,

Cambridge, 24 May, 1898.

My Dear Mr. Edes,—The problem about the date on the First and Second writs of Quo Warranto against Connecticut has finally been solved by the trouble taken by our associate Professor Ames and the information given by Professor Langdell, who said that certain writs from the King’s Bench had to be dated in term time and were, therefore, dated back, sometimes, in order to have legal effect. By examining Bond’s Handy-Book for verifying dates,¹ I find that in 1685, Easter day was the Nineteenth of April and that Trinity Term began that year on the Nineteenth of June and ended on the Eighth of July. The writs were, therefore, dated back to the last day of the term.

Yours truly,

R. N. Toppan.

Mr. Henry H. Edes.

¹Handy-Book of Rules and Tables for Verifying Dates with the Christian Era. By John J. Bond, Fourth edition London, 1889, pp. 178, 424.

1 At a Stated Meeting of the Council held in Boston, on Monday, 7 November, 1898, the President announced the death, on the First of May, of Philip H. Sears, a member of the Council, and on motion of Mr. Noble, the following Minute, offered by the President, was adopted, unanimously, and by a rising vote:—

The Council of The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, at its first Meeting since the death of Philip Howes Sears, a Resident Member of the Society and one of the Council, desire to place on record their high appreciation of his character as a man and of his interest in the Society.

Mr. Sears was elected a Resident Member 15 February, 1893, and, on 16 February, 1897, a member of the Council to fill the vacancy caused by the elevation of one of that body to the Presidency of the Society.

He was a frequent, and always interested, attendant at our monthly meetings, though the delicate state of his health, especially in the last year of his life, often prevented him from being present during the inclement winter months. He took part in the Memorial Meeting in honor of our late President, Dr. Gould, and paid a touching tribute to the memory of his friend and classmate, interspersed with delightful reminiscences of their college days. His last act in connection with this Society, shortly before his death, was to send to the Treasurer his check for a generous subscription to the Gould Memorial Fund.

With modest and unassuming manners he had a genuine geniality of disposition and was most courteous in his social intercourse, while his clear intellect, his naturally judicial mind, and his broad culture, gave weight to his opinions. In him the Society has lost a most valuable member,—one upon whom, barring his impaired health, the highest position in its gift might have been worthily bestowed.

2 John Ford Tyler, in the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for September, 1898, vii. 127.

1 The Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts (second edition), pp. 73, 99–104.

2 The Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts (second edition), p. 104.

3 Ibid. pp. 99–104.

4 An Essay For the Recording Of Illustrious Providences: Wherein, An Account is given of many Remarkable and very Memorable Events, which have happened in this last Age; Especially in New-England. By Increase Mather, Teacher of a Church at Boston in New-England. [Quotations from the Psalms cvii. 5; cxlv. 4.] Printed at Boston in New-England, and are to be sold by George Calvert at the Sign of the Half-moon in Pauls Church-yard, London, 1684, pp. 315–347. The tale was repeated, eighteen years later, by Cotton Mather, in the Magnalia (edition of 1702), Book vii. chap. iv. p. 26. Jonathan Dunham, alias Singleterry, is referred to by Mather, with his usual inaccuracy, as “Dunen.” Cf. Henry Martyn Dexter’s As to Roger Williams (Boston, 1876), p. 135; and Hallowell’s Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts, p. 73.

5 Plymouth Colony Records (July, 1683), vi. 113, 114.

6 This account of Thomas Harris’s misfortunes is from the Diary of James Iddings, an accepted minister and in his day a preacher of much reputation among Friends. The Diary is a hasty private record of an extended preaching tour in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. In 1872, I copied the original manuscript, then in the possession of the late Rev. Charles Augustus Iddings, of Montgomery County, Maryland, the writer’s grandson and my uncle. It may be of interest to add the following, as showing in what estimation the Quakers in general and the writer in particular were held in Richmond. On the third day after his stay with Friend Harris he writes:—

“Afternoon rode 26 Miles to the City of Richmond, had Meeting there next Day which was 4^t͟h of the Mo. & 1^s͟t of the Week: we met with a great Multitude of the Inhabitants in the common Court Room: but just as we took Seats a Message came from the Parson of the Place informing, although he had appointed to Preach in the Capitol (a large Room under the same Roof where the General Assembly met) he inclined to give it up to Friends, this was a very large and elegant Hall, well adapted as to Galleries, Seats, &c., was very crowded, many stood, all behaved pretty well; . . . the Governor, great Men & some thought near all the Inhabitants of the Town were there.”

Though not germane to the subject, I may add that Iddings was a strong anti-slavery man, and on this journey had trouble on one occasion from yielding to the conviction that it was his “Duty to speak plain on the Subject of Slave keeping.” He is said to have kept a regular station of the “Underground Railroad.”

In a versified geography of his, printed by William Black, at Wilmington, Delaware, in 1804, are these rather good couplets on the subject:—

“If pardonable in any case,

Thus to enslave the human race,

The greatest pardon those will know,

Who now the greatest mercy show.”

7 Gov. Hopkins’s bounty is similarly enjoyed, to this day, by New Haven, Connecticut, and by Hadley and Cambridge in this Commonwealth, as well as by Harvard College. Mr. Bowditch has printed, in a pamphlet of 88 pages, An Account of the Trust administered by The Trustees of the Charity of Edward Hopkins, of which Board he is Secretary and Treasurer. The Appendix preserves much additional matter of interest and value, including the text of Governor Hopkins’s Will, and Lists of the Trustees, Officers, and Beneficiaries under the Trust.

8 Some account of Usher and his work on the Indian Bible may be read in Thomas’s History of Printing in America (edition of 1874), i. 54–57, 69. The abstract of Usher’s Account which there appears (p. 57) furnishes but few of the particulars found in our text. Cf. Plymouth Colony Records, x. 313–318, 322.

9 This volume was printed in quarto.

10 Coke’s Institutes, ii. c. ix. N. (1).

11 Mirrour, c. 1. § 3; c. 2. § 6.

12 Glanville, li. 14. c. 3.

13 Bracton, l. 3 fol. 121.

14 Britton, fol. 19, 20; Fleta, lib. 1 ca. 24.

15 Coke’s Institutes, iii. ch. 52.

16 Commentaries on the Laws of England, book iv. c. 21. 4.

17 This work is supposed by Coke to have been written, much of it, before the Conquest, and is referred to by Reeves in his History of the English Law as “compiled by Horne, under Edw. II. from some work of that kind, and legal documents in the Anglo-Saxon times” (Kent’s Commentaries, i. 560, note g).

18 Mirroir Des Justices vel Speculum Justiciariorum factum per Andream Horne, London, Gray’s Inn Gate, 1642.

“Ordeine fuit que chescun del Age de xiiii Ans & outtre se apprettat de mortelle pecheors occire en lour peches notaries, ou de les ensuier d’ ville en ville a huy et cry,” etc. (C. I. § 3. 15).

The Mirrour of Justices, Ed. Andrew Horne, London, M.DCCLXVTII. Translated into English by W. H. [William Hughes] of Gray’s Inn, Esq. (chap. i. sect. 3. p. 10).

19 Ibid. chap. i. sect. 13. p. 44, Of the office of the Coroners.

20 The Mirrour of Justices, etc., chap. i. sect. 17. p. 52, Of views of Frankpledges.

21 Ibid. chap. ii. sect. 6. p. 66, Of Attachments.

22 Glanville (Beames’s edition, 1812), book 14. chap. 3. pp. 354–357.

23 De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ. Tractatus Secundus Libri Tertii. De Corona, chap. i. f. 115, 116, “a dño rege & consilio suo sit ᵱvisum, quod omnes tam milites, quam alii etc” (Twiss’s edition, London, 1879), ii. 235–237.

24 De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ, etc., chap. x. f. 124—ii. 304.

25 Britton, liv. i. c. xiii. 2. fol. 20,—De Forbaniz, Of Outlaws (Oxford edition, 1865), i. 49, 50. From the first printed edition of Britton, in Black Letter, but without date or place of publication on the title-page, I make this extract from the French text:—

“De Bannys. . . . et volons pur la pees meyntener: que toutz soient prestes de les felons suer et arester soloncqz les estatutes de Wyncester,” etc.

26 Ibid. liv. i. c. vi. 4. fol. 14 b.

27 Fleta (editio secunda, Londini, 1685): De Pacis conservatione, cap. 24. p. 34; De Fugitivis, cap. 27. p. 40; De Appellis homicidii, cap. 31. p. 47; De defensione Appelli, cap. 34. p. 49.

28 Burn’s Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, ii. p. 1306.

29 Brunner, D. R. G. (1887 et seq.), ii. 482, is referred to as to the various Cries.

30 Pollock and Maitland’s History of English Law, ii. 578, 579.

31 This and the two preceding paragraphs of the text constitute a condensed summary of Reeves’s account of the process, partly in his own words, but mainly in my own. See his History of the English Law (Finlason’s edition), especially i. chap. viii. 468; ii. chap. x. 121–123; and iii. chap. xxxiv. 712 et seq.

32 Hale’s Pleas of the Crown, ii. 98–104.

33 Ibid. i. 588.

34 East’s Pleas of the Crown, i. 298, 299.

35 Rex v. Jackson et al., Newgate, Lent Vac. 26 Car. II. as cited in East’s P. C. i. 298 and in Hale’s P. C. ii. 99. Lent Vacation, anno Car. II. 26.

36 Bracton’s Note Book—A collection of Cases decided in the King’s Courts during the reign of Henry III. (Maitland’s edition, London, 1887), Nos. 662, 1474, 1697, 1711.

37 Underhill v. Manchester, 45 New Hampshire Reports, 221.

38 Hawkins’s Pleas of the Crown, ii. chap. 12 § 5, c. 15 § 41; Stephen’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, iv. 348; Broom and Hadley’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (American edition), ii. 581; Comyns’s Digest (London), 1822, iv. 465–480; Bacon’s Abridgment (1852), iv. 691–720; Brooke’s Abridgment, La Sec. Part 59, b.; Wood’s Institutes, book iii. c. 1, 380–383, book iv. c. 5, 638; Dalton’s Countrey Justice (London, MDCXC), chap. liv. v. 28. p. 114, chap, lxxxiv. v. 48. p. 214, and chap, clxii. v. 109. p. 402; Fitz. Coron.; Cro. Eliz. 654; Crompt. 178.

39 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 182.

40 Suffolk Court Files, iii. no. 374.

41 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 418. As to the illusive character of these marginal dates, see Mr. Upham’s remarks, ante, p. 148.

42 The authority and duties of these Commissioners appear in an Order of the Commissioners of the General Court for settling the government of Saco, under date of 7 September, 1653:—

“three men approoved by the County Courte, from yeere to yeere, to end smale cawses, as other the touneshipps in the jurisdicc͠on hath where no magistrate is, according to lawe. . . . any two of them, are and shallbe impowred and invested with full power and anthoritje, as a magistrates, to keepe the peace, . . . to examine offendors, to com̃itt to prison, vnlesse bajle be given . . . to bjude offenders to the peace or good behavior . . . to administer oathes . . . Also marrjage shallbe solemnized by any of the com̃issioners, according to lawe.” (Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 162, 163.)

43 Richard Hitchcock was an active man in his own town, one of the inhabitants acknowledging themselves subject to the Government of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, and made a freeman at Saco, 5 July, 1653. He was “appointed and authorized as a sarjant, to exercise the souldjery at Saco,” and was also a Deputy from Saco, in 1660 (Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 162, 163, 417.)

44 Suffolk Court Files, ii. No. 217.

45 Thomas Warner of Cape Porpus was made a freeman at Wells 5 July, 1653, when Cape Porpus was made “a touneship by itselfe.” (Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 164.)

46 John Bush was one of several inhabitants of Wells who, apparently with some reluctance, acknowledged themselves subject to the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay, and were made freemen 5 July, 1653, on which day Wells was made “a touneship by itselfe.” (Ibid. pp. 158, 159.)

47 Joseph Bolles was of those who, “Att Wells, 4th of July 1653,” acknowledged themselves subject in like manner and were “granted to be freemen.” He “was appointed clarke of the writts,” at the same time. (Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 158, 160.)

48 Robert Booth, made a freeman at Saco 5 July, 1653, was evidently a man of versatility as well as of substance. He was a Selectman, a Commissioner on various occasions of public concern, and one of the three Commissioners “to end all smale causes.” He was also invested with another special and conspicuous function,—Saco being “destitute of a good minister, . . . in the meane tjme that theire peace maybe preserved . . . Robert Booth shall haue libertje to excercise his guifts for the ædefficatjon of the people there.” He was a Deputy from Saco in 1659. (Ibid. pp. 162, 163, 214, 233, 365, 421.)

49 Thomas Reading was made a freeman at Saco 5 July, 1653, when Saco was made “a touneship by itselfe.” (Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 162.)

50 West was made a freeman at Saco, 5 July, 1653, and was appointed a Commissioner “to end all smale causes” and one of the Selectmen (Ibid. pp. 162, 163).

51 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.) 245.

52 Ibid. p. 251.

53 Ibid. p. 253.

54 Province Laws (Standard edition), Acts 1692–3, ch. 18 § 6, i. 53.