JANUARY MEETING, 1916

A Stated Meeting of the Society was held at the house of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, No. 28 Newbury Street, Boston, on Thursday, 27 January, 1916, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the President, Frederick Jackson Turner, LL.D., in the chair.

The Records of the last Stated Meeting were read and, after slight correction, approved.

The Corresponding Secretary reported that letters had been received from Mr. Alfred Johnson and Mr. George Parker Winship, accepting Resident Membership.

Mr. Lawrence Shaw Mayo of Newton was elected a Resident Member.

On behalf of Mr. Lindsay Swift, the following paper was read:

USE OF MANUSCRIPTS IN PUBLIC AND QUASI-PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS

It is the general practice of libraries to permit any serious-minded person to see any printed book, however valuable, which he may wish to consult. Whether he may be allowed to turn over the pages of a Shakespeare folio, or the crumbling leaves of an early colonial newspaper, is a matter within the discretion of some responsible official; but he will in all probability be allowed a reasonable use of the work for which he asks.

The case of manuscripts, however, is not the same as that of printed books, and custom differs widely in the various institutions. Some are generous to a degree, and some are narrow and disposed to put difficult barriers between their manuscripts and archives and scholars who wish to use them. There seems to be a sort of vague feeling that a book has gone through the pangs of physical birth and therefore has a certain entitlement to existence and recognition, no matter how good or bad it may be, or how soon after birth it ceases to have the breath of life. Mortal or immortal, it was begotten and born, and is of record. Not so, however, with manuscripts. A certain cryptic essence seems to inhere in them, to the minds at least of some librarians and custodians of literary and historical treasures, if treasures they be. Never having been fathered and mothered by author and printing-press in lawful wedlock such possessions do not seem to have a very real existence, and may be said to dwell in a sort of limbo, as do the souls of unborn children. Whatever may be the cause, manuscript material appears in the minds of its custodians to stand as something apart and not easily available.

Is there any safe and sensible rule which all custodians might wisely follow in deciding when to permit the use of this material? A manuscript is always rare, and in this country generally unique. It is perishable, and somewhat injured by every exposure to air or human touch. The custodian has, I think, come to regard his unprinted collections with unnecessary devotion. All manuscripts are not valuable, though they be old and unique. It is not, I submit, an interesting or vital document which avouches that on July 22, 1662, one John Roby sold to Thomas Pettengill a pig for so many shillings and pence. I should not have the courage to destroy such a document myself, but I could stand by and see it perish without a pang. But if this old voucher happened to state that the pig was bewitched or otherwise under Satanic power, then we have something of interest on which the Kittredges and Matthewses of all time may delightedly feast.

An easily working rule would seem to be to permit no one, without the soundest of reasons, to ransack any collection of manuscripts. He should have a definite search in view or should be requested to cite particular letters or portions which he needs to see. But he should not be turned loose like a cow in a pasture. It may be entertaining for the cow, but hard for the pasture, especially when the pasture is held in trust for posterity, as are all such possessions as books and manuscripts.

The late Mellen Chamberlain used to say that he had no objection to permitting the use of his own valuable collection to any one who would fairly state just what was wanted, but that he did not propose that anybody should “bag the whole game.” I see no good reason for permitting a wholesale use of rich material to students and candidates for ordinary degrees. Much harm has already been done by inflaming the minds of youth with an unholy rage for “original sources.” A boy of thirteen once asked me to supply him with inedited matter on the Rye House Plot. No, it is fair to both sides to send the casual and accidental searcher to the best printed material, unless he can name a particular letter or letters. There he has a fair claim, especially in a public institution.

There ought, so it seems to me, after these exceptions are admitted, to be a reasonably generous attitude on the part of custodians toward all discreet and earnest seekers after manuscript material. There is, after all, no particular mystery about manuscripts. Many of them are practically worthless, from any point of view, historical or antiquarian, though I most profoundly hope that no reading committee in my day will ever be called upon to decide what it considers valuable and what worthless. There is enough settlement work going on in our libraries already without attacking manuscripts and archives in a socially helpful spirit. But I would have no mysterious gloom guarding the approach to those treasures, which for the most part remain in manuscript because the world has not needed them in book form badly enough to warrant the risk of printing them.

A spirit of generosity then, with a due seasoning of reserve and caution, will safely care for the problem. The fetich that there is any peculiar merit in a manuscript in and per se may safely be relegated to the bibliothecal cemetery, where some day I trust will rest the bones of the various mediocre tendencies that somewhat infest the libraries of our day.

I was largely moved to communicate these disjointed remarks by the recent experience of a friend who in the course of preparing a work of great historical value had occasion to ask permission to copy a few letters in the possession of a university which I am happy to say is not in or near Boston. There was no opposition to granting his reasonable request until a member of the faculty, on the committee to decide such matters, objected on the ground that these letters were valuable property of the university, and the request was refused.

Such narrowness and discourtesy usually get their “come-uppance,” and never could have existed unless an absurd and exaggerated appraisement of manuscripts as some sacrosanct and mystic possession had found lodgment in rather small heads.

Over-estimation of the relative worth of manuscripts is after all my text, but my sermon has already been preached.

Mr. Albert Matthews made the following remarks:

A contemporary account of the third celebration at Plymouth of Forefathers’ Day on December 23, 1771, stated that “The Old Colony song with a number of others was sung, after which the company withdrew.” Exactly what “the Old Colony song” was I had been unable a year ago to ascertain, but suggested that possibly it was “Our Forefather’s Song,” which I had found in print in 1791, in 1838, and in 1846.209 At that time my earliest allusion to it was in the Massachusetts Magazine for January, 1791, where we read:

To the Editors of the Massachusetts Magazine.

Gentlemen,

The following song is upwards of one hundred and sixty years old. The British are passionately attached to the remains of their ancient poetry. I wish to encourage a similar spirit in America.

Yours, J. F.210

New England’s annoyances you that would know them,

Pray ponder these verses which briefly doth shew them.

Our Forefather’s SONG.

Composed about the year 1630.

THE place where we live is a wilderness wood,

Where grass is much wanting that’s fruitful and good:

The song consists of six stanzas, each containing eight lines except the sixth, which has four lines only. Then follows this explanation:

* The above, was taken memoriter, from the lips of an old Lady, at the advanced period of 92. There is visibly a break in the sense, commencing at the 5th line of the 5th verse: We conceive that four lines have been lost; and are also of opinion that the four last lines of the 5th verse, and all of the 6th belong together. Perhaps some poetical antiquarian may favour us with a correcter edition.211

The song was next printed, so far as I have noted, in 1838 in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, where it is introduced by the following statement:

OUR FOREFATHER’S SONG.

[Composed about the year 1630, author unknown; taken memoriter, in 1785, from the lips of an old Lady, at the advanced period of 96. There is visibly a break in the sense, commencing at the 5th line of the 5th verse: and, through the failure of memory, four lines have been lost at the latter part of the 5th stanza.]212

The song is then reprinted exactly as it appeared in the Massachusetts Magazine, except that the fifth stanza consists of four lines and the sixth of eight lines. It was again printed in 1846, when, “In order to adapt it to music, a very few verbal alterations have been made, without, however, impairing its sense or force. . . . It was published originally in stanzas of eight lines, which have been separated into those of four lines, for the greater convenience of singing.” It appears under the following caption:

OUR FOREFATHERS’ SONG.

the hardships and fare of the first planters in new england.

Repeated by an old lady, aged 94 years, in 1767.

In the same volume is printed a letter written by Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse to Ephraim Spooner. This, dated Cambridge, December 15, 1817, reads as follows:

I here send you a curiosity, which I hope and believe will gratify your friends and townsmen at their approaching Anniversary of the landing of our Forefathers. It is a poetical description of the hard fare of our Progenitors soon after they landed on your renowned shore. Who the author was I know not; nor do I when it was written; neither have I been informed who the old lady was who repeated these verses in 1767, when 94 years of age. To me it is probable that they were taken down from her mouth, like the ancient poems of Ossian, in Scotland. This paper was given me by the late Madame Bowdoin, the worthy wife of my excellent and intimate friend Gov. Bowdoin.213 I send them to you as a pleasant relic, not merely because I regard you as the Father of the town where you reside, but as a mark of that respectful and steady friendship, so long existing between you and your kinsman.214

The old lady, it will be observed, was stated in 1791 to have been ninety-two, in 1838 to have been ninety-six in the year 1785, and by Waterhouse in 1817 to have been ninety-four in the year 1767. It does not appear what Waterhouse’s authority was for saying that the old lady repeated the verses in 1767. Recently in glancing through the Massachusetts Spy, I found the song in the issue of February 3, 1774; and, as it is short, as there has been so much uncertainty about it, and as that was perhaps its first appearance in print, it is here reproduced in full:

POETS CORNER.

For the MASSACHUSETTS SPY.

Mr. Thomas.

Please to give the following lines a place in Poets Corner, and you will oblige one who wishes we had no greater annoyances at this day. It is an old ballad composed and sung by some of the first settlers of New-England, called New-England’s annoyances, recollected and repeated lately, by an old lady of 92 years of age; it may serve to show, not the elegance of the Poet, but some of the hardships, fare and patience of the first settlers of this country.

NEW-England’s annoyances you that would know them

Pray ponder these verses which briefly do show them;

The place where we live is a wilderness wood,

Where grass is much wanting that’s fruitful and good:

Our mountains and hills and valleys below

Being commonly cover’d with ice and with snow,

And when the north-wester with violence blows

Then every man pulls his cap over his nose;

But if any are so hardy and will it withstand,

He forfeits a finger, a foot or a hand.

When the spring opens we then take the hoe

And make the ground ready to plant and to sow;

Our corn being planted and seed being sown,

The worms destroy much before it is grown;

And when it is growing, some spoil there is made,

By birds and by squirrels that pluck up the blade,

Even when it is grown to full corn in the ear,

It is often destroyed by racoons and deer.

And now our garments begin to grow thin,

And wool is much wanted to card and to spin;

If we can get a garment to cover without,

Our other in-garments are clout upon clout;

Our cloaths we brought with us are often much torn,

They need to be clouted before they are worn;

But clouting our garments they hinder us nothing,

Clouts double are warmer than single whole cloathing.

If flesh meat215 be wanting to fill up our dish,

We have carrets and pumkins and turnips and fish;

And when we have a mind for a delicate dish,

We repair to the clam-bank and there we catch fish.

Instead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies.

Our pumkins and parsnips are common supplies;

We have pumkin at morning, and pumkin at noon,

If it was not for pumkins we should be undoon.

If barley be wanting to make into malt,

We must be contented, and think it no fault,

For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips,

Of pumkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.

Now while some are going let others be coming,

For while liquor is boiling it must have a scumming,

But we will not blame them, for birds of a feather,

By seeking their fellows are flocking together.

But you who the LORD intends hither to bring,

Forsake not the honey for fear of the sting,

But bring both a quiet and contented mind

And all needful blessings you surely will find.216

Mr. Samuel E. Morison read the following paper, written by Mr. Arthur H. Buffinton of Williams College:

NEW ENGLAND AND THE WESTERN FUR TRADE, 1629–1675

The history of North American expansion might almost be written in terms of the fur trade. Europeans were early attracted to the North American coast by the hope of reaping profits from this trade, and after the beginning of settlement revenue from it was the principal means of sustenance to the early English, French, and Dutch colonies. As European settlement advanced across the continent, everywhere it was preceded by the fur trader, who by the very law of his being operated upon the frontier. Many a nameless trader, intent only upon his trade and caring nothing for the name of discoverer, has been the first white man to set foot upon lands credit for the discovery of which has gone to others. Indeed the fur trader did not care to advertise his discoveries, for the advance of settlement thrust back the Indian, destroyed the forest and the game, and drove the trader ever farther and farther into the continent. Before him was the wilderness; behind him, over paths he himself had made, poured in an ever advancing tide of settlement. Even to-day the Hudson Bay Company’s posts in northern Canada are the outposts of civilization on that last remnant of the American fur-trading frontier. Thus the fur trader has blazed the way across the continent.

The fur trade was not only important from an economic point of view; it was also one of the prime factors in colonial politics and diplomacy. First of his race, the trader encountered hitherto unknown Indian tribes, taught them the use of the white man’s gun and the white man’s liquor, and brought them within the scope of the white man’s policy. He became the colonial agent of his government, its diplomatic representative carving out new spheres of influence. On the frontier he met rivals of other white races and engaged with them in a struggle for supremacy the echoes of which could be heard in many a European capital. Considerations based upon the fur trade dictated the Indian and foreign policy of all the fur-trading colonies. The efforts of the northern colonies, especially New York, to control the policy of the Iroquois and to secure access to the western fur trade go far toward explaining the century-long struggle with New France. The fur trade was the life-blood of Canada; to divert it to Albany and to transfer the allegiance of the Indian tribes of the west from the French to the English would mean the ruin of that colony. Hence what began as a somewhat petty rivalry between the traders of Albany and Montreal for the western fur trade developed into a struggle for the hinterland and the mastery of the continent.

Importance and Early Development of the New England Fur Trade

New England was no exception to this general American law. From the days of the first Europeans who frequented its coast, furs together with fish formed the principal attraction. Doubtless the early French and Basque fishermen bartered for furs with the New England Indians. Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth all traded with the Indians, and Pring was aware that already the French were drawing immense quantities of furs from the region north of New England.217 It was the profit to be derived from the fisheries and fur trade which attracted Captain John Smith to the New England coast,218 and the fur trade was one of the principal sources of revenue to the Plymouth colony.219 The Massachusetts Bay Company was also interested in the fur trade and in 1629 declared it a monopoly of the Company, voting to devote the proceeds to the erection of forts and churches.220 Thomas Lechford, writing in 1640, speaks of the fur trade as one of the chief industries of Massachusetts.221 As in other parts of the country, the fur trader prepared the way for settlement.222 This was notably true of the first great American westward movement, that to the Connecticut valley. Knowledge of that region was undoubtedly derived from the enterprises of the Plymouth traders upon that river and from the overland journey of John Oldham in 1633.223 Springfield was originally settled to secure the trade of that same river.224 The fur trade was also a fruitful source of rivalry with the Dutch and French. Says Lechford, “Northward from the Bay, or Northeast, Iyeth the French plantation, who take up bever there . . . and south of New-England the Dutch take up the bever.”225 The first friction between New England and her neighbors grew out of the trading ventures of Plymouth upon the Kennebec and the Connecticut.

Important as was the fur trade in the early days of settlement, that importance was not enduring, primarily because New England was disadvantageously situated for carrying on the trade. The native supply of furs was not great, and New England was cut off from direct access to the principal sources of supply to the westward. The greatest fur-producing region south of the Hudson Bay country was the region about the Great Lakes. That territory was tapped by the St. Lawrence and Hudson-Mohawk river systems, both in the hands of rival nations whose settlements antedated the first permanent settlement in New England. Moreover, New England was cut off from this trade not only by rivals but also by the facts of her geography. Rivers were the highways of commerce, and the rivers of New England flow north and south, not east and west as the Council for New England seems to have supposed when it granted to the Massachusetts Bay Company its sea-to-sea charter for the region between the Charles and the Merrimac. To overcome this handicap and to secure direct access to the western sources of supply New England traders were led into enterprises which, although known for the most part in their main outlines, have hitherto been treated separately and with little recognition of their significance.

At first this handicap was not perceived and attention was directed to exploiting the resources of New England. The Pilgrim Fathers, coming with quite other objects in view than the fur trade, soon made the trade their mainstay. They were not, however, without competitors. In the region about Massachusetts Bay were several unattached traders, the most successful of whom was Thomas Morton of Merrymount. Morton hints that the breaking up of his settlement was caused less by abhorrence of his scandalous manner of life than by jealousy of his success as a trader. In all probability the real reasons were hostility to his methods of trade, which were considered unfair, and fear of the consequences of his sale of arms to the Indians.226 The Indian was not only an untutored savage whose ignorance of the real value of things might be traded upon, but a potential foe who must not be exploited to the point of danger.

Not content with such trade as the surrounding country afforded, some of the leading men of Plymouth began to look abroad. In 1625 Window and others took a boat-load of corn to the Kennebec and returned with 700 pounds of beaver. From that beginning the Pilgrims developed an extensive trade on the Kennebec and Penobscot which seriously encroached upon the French monopoly of the trade of that region. The success of these enterprises in Maine was due in large part to the use of wampum, which the traders of Plymouth learned from the Dutch. Gratitude for this favor, however, did not prevent them from extending their operations to the Connecticut also and challenging the Dutch control of trade upon that river.227 These trading ventures of the Plymouth colony mark the beginning of the history of New England’s foreign relations and were a prime cause of friction with the neighboring French and Dutch colonies. As always the fur trade proved a source of strife. Collisions resulted, and so convinced did the settlers of New England become of the undesirability of their neighbors that in 1634 or 1635 Edward Winslow, at that time in England as agent for Massachusetts and Plymouth, petitioned the Council for a free commission for “displacing” the French and Dutch.228

Rivalry with the French: the Laconia Company, 1629

Meantime an attempt had been made on the part of certain men interested in the colonization of New England to secure control of one of the main arteries of the fur trade. In 1628, England and France being at war, a company was formed to get possession of the St. Lawrence, and prominent among its members were Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason. This Canada Company undertook the conquest of Canada as a private venture under letters of marque from Charles I, and in 1629 sent out a fleet under the command of the Kirkes, which captured Quebec.229 For a brief period the fur trade of the St. Lawrence was in English hands, but Charles thought more of getting his French queen’s dowry than of retaining half a continent, and Canada was restored to France. Thus, as Parkman says, for a sum equal to about $240,000, Charles entailed on England and her colonies a century of bloody wars.230

Even before the restoration of Canada Gorges and Mason had taken steps to tap the trade of the interior by a new route. They were less influential in the Canada Company than the Kirkes and Sir William Alexander and could hope only for a share of its profits. Moreover they were joint proprietors, under grant from the Council for New England, of a princely territory between the Merrimac and Kennebec rivers, the resources of which they had as yet done little to develop. It would be much more profitable for them if they could discover a practicable route through their New England grant from the coast to the fur-producing region of the interior.

Knowledge of the interior and of the source of the supplies of peltry which found their way down the rivers to the coast was at best hazy, but there had existed, at least from the days of Captain John Smith, a tradition to the effect that most of the furs came from certain great lakes, out of which the New England rivers were supposed to flow.231 Persuaded of the truth of this tradition and identifying these mythical lakes with Lake Champlain, or the Lake of the Iroquois as it was then called, Gorges and Mason secured on November 17, 1629, eleven days after the return of the Kirkes from the conquest of Canada, a grant of all the region bordering upon the waters “commonly called or known by the Name of the River and Lake or Rivers and Lakes of the Irroquois,” to be known as the Province of Laconia. For the further development of the trade of Laconia the Council for New England granted the patentees a right of way up the rivers supposed to afford access to the region and 1000 acres of land on the seacoast for use as a harbor.232

The terms of the grant and the subsequent operations of the Company show plainly that this was an attempt to open a direct trade between the interior and the New England coast, in this case by ascending the Piscataqua river. Unfortunately the facts of New England’s geography stood in the way of success. In 1630 the Company sent out Captain Walter Neale as the first governor of Laconia with instructions to find a route to the Lake of the Iroquois. At least one such attempt was made, and Mason urged another, which was projected, but apparently never carried out.233 A few years later Morton of Merrymount, who since his expulsion from New England had attached himself to Gorges and Mason and other enemies of New England, interested George Cleaves in the possibilities of the Lake Champlain country and persuaded him to take out a commission to search for the lake. Morton also devoted a chapter of his New English Canaan to the attractions of that region;234 but nothing further was done, so far as we have record, by these English promoters of New England colonial enterprises and their agents. Subsequent attempts to develop a western fur trade had their origin among the actual settlers.

Rivalry with the Dutch: Attempts on the Delaware, 1640–1654

The activities of the Canada and Laconia companies were at the expense of the French; practically all the later attempts of the sort were at the expense of the Dutch. New Netherland lay at the very doors of New England, whose traders had long known about the Dutch trade on the Hudson and coveted it for themselves. Morton estimated the annual value of the Dutch beaver trade at £20,000. “And, therefore,” he remarks, “it would be adjudged an irreparable oversight to protract time, and suffer the Dutch, (who are but intruders upon his Majesties most hopefull Country of New England,) to possesse themselves of that so plesant and commodious Country of Erocoise before us.”235 Similarly an anonymous writer declared about 1635 that the Dutch were “a great hindrance to the English Colonies in their trade of Beaver, ffor that one River whereon they are setled yeilds as much (if not more) beaver then all the rest of New England planted by the English, and may be esteemed yearelie about tenn thousand pounds waight of beaver.”236 The appetite of New England for Dutch furs was further whetted by the clandestine trade, which, despite the attempts of the Dutch West India Company to prohibit it, was carried on between New Netherland and New England.237 A more direct access to the sources of Dutch supply was highly desirable.

The attempt of Plymouth to establish a trade upon the Connecticut has already been mentioned. Plymouth realized that her encroachment upon the Dutch monopoly of the trade of that river might lead to serious trouble and sought the co-operation of Massachusetts. The leaders of the Bay colony alleged various reasons for not participating in the enterprise, but their real reason seems to have been the hope that the fur-producing country which the Connecticut was supposed to tap — that same mythical Great Lake country which formed so important a part of the New England tradition of the geography of the interior — was also accessible from the headwaters of the Merrimac. If that were so, Massachusetts could divert the trade to Boston and would not have to share it with Plymouth.238

Despite Bradford’s naïve protestation that “they did the Dutch no wrong, for they took not a foote of any land they bought, but went to the place above them,” the Dutch were highly incensed at this encroachment, and actual bloodshed was narrowly averted. But the question of control of the Connecticut fur trade soon became an academic one for both the Dutch and Plymouth, for the migration of Hooker, Haynes, and their companions changed the lower Connecticut valley from a fur-trading frontier to an agricultural community. If the settlers of Connecticut had cherished the hope of engaging in a profitable fur trade, their hopes also were disappointed, for the establishment of Springfield the same year (1636) cut off the trade from above and gave Pynchon almost a monopoly of the trade of the river.239 This movement, however, preceded by fur-trading operations, and in the case of Springfield caused by them, must be regarded as the first encroachment of the English upon the Dutch fur trade and the first of a series of clashes with the Dutch which were to end in their expulsion from the North American seaboard. Rivalry over the fur trade must be reckoned as the earliest in time, and one of the most important, of the causes contributing to that end.

The establishment of the colony of New Haven in 1638 marks a further stage in New England rivalry with the Dutch for the fur trade of the interior. Almost from the first the new colony took a more aggressive attitude toward its western neighbors than its sister colonies, partly because it speedily became a commercial rival of the Dutch, partly because of vexing boundary disputes. One of the first causes of friction was the attempt of New Haven merchants to secure access to the fur trade of the interior by the Delaware river route. The trade of that river was at this time shared by the Dutch and Swedes, each too weak to drive out the other, and united only in their determination to exclude the English. It appears to have been George Lamberton, a New Haven merchant, who, sailing along the coast on a trading venture to Virginia in the winter of 1638–39, discovered that there was a profitable fur trade on the Delaware.240 This discovery resulted in the establishment at New Haven of a Delaware Company to exploit the trade of that region. Among the members of the Company were Lamberton, Governor Eaton, the Rev. John Davenport, and other leading men of New Haven. Indeed so closely was the Company identified with the colony that it assumes almost the aspect of a corporate enterprise.

In the spring of 1641 the Company sent Lamberton and Captain Nathaniel Turner to the Delaware to purchase land of the Indians and otherwise prepare the way for settlement, for, if the primary motive of the Company was the fur trade, a strong secondary motive was the desire to secure an outlet for the growing population of the colony. Regardless of the rights of the Dutch and Swedes, two large tracts of land were purchased in southern New Jersey and another tract on the future site of Philadelphia. The colony of New Haven extended its jurisdiction over this territory and lent the Company its full support. A settlement was made the same year at Varkens Kill (Salem, New Jersey), but as it was below the Dutch and Swedish posts and therefore unfavorably situated for the fur trade, a trading post was erected the next year near the mouth of the Schuylkill and above the rival posts.

So seriously did this new post interfere with trade that the Dutch, probably with the aid of the Swedes, destroyed the fort and took away the settlers to Manhattan. The settlement at Varkens Kill was not disturbed, but it amounted to little. Some of the settlers perished of disease, some straggled back to New Haven, and a few stayed on, submitting themselves to Swedish rule.241 So complete was the failure of this first English attempt to gain possession of the Delaware route to the interior, and so heavily did the losses of the Company bear upon the colony of New Haven, that murmurs were heard against the promoters. Davenport was accused of trying to conceal his share in the enterprise, and one Luke Atkinson was fined for saying that “Mr. Davenport’s name had bin very pretious, but now it was darkned.” The failure of the enterprise and the consequent recognition of the necessity for support from the other New England colonies probably had a good deal of influence in persuading New Haven to join the New England Confederation.242

Not only was the fur trade important in the history of American expansion; it was also an influential factor in the various attempts at colonial union. It was no accident that control of the fur trade was one of the subjects discussed at the Albany Congress in 1754. The only thing, down to the time of the outbreak of the struggle with Great Britain, which could induce the several colonies to lay aside their jealousies even temporarily was the occasional necessity for union against their Indian and foreign enemies. To control the fur trade, friendship with the Indian was necessary, but that control and that friendship could only be secured as the result of a successful struggle with foreign rivals. Here again the smaller world of New England was no exception to the rule. Perhaps the leading motive for the formation of the New England Confederation in 1643 was the fear of trouble with the Indians and the neighboring Dutch and French colonies, and the further realization that in the event of such trouble little help could be expected from the mother country, then on the eve of civil war. It is abundantly clear, from the above recital of events, that hostile collision had resulted in the past from rivalry over the fur trade and was likely to do so again. Thus, in a double sense the fur trade was a cause of the formation of the New England Confederation. On the one hand the necessity of a united effort to push the trade in the face of French and Dutch rivalry was recognized; on the other, the dangerous consequences which might ensue if any one colony attempted to push the trade alone.243

This becomes increasingly evident when we consider some of the early deliberations of the Confederation. In 1644 the United Commissioners proposed the formation of a joint stock company to carry on the Indian trade.244 The scheme was approved by Massachusetts and Connecticut, the colonies which at that time had the least interest in the fur trade, but was rejected by Plymouth. No record of any action by New Haven appears upon the pages of the published records of the colony.245 But although this attempt at joint prosecution of the trade fell through, the Confederation did give its moral support to New Haven in its efforts to secure a foothold upon the Delaware.

The negotiations between the Dutch and Swedes on the one hand and the Confederation on the other may be followed in the Acts of the Commissioners of the Confederation.246 They are chiefly interesting as showing how this attempt to get a share of the western fur trade brought the Confederation to the verge of war with the Dutch. For a time after 1643 New Haven seems to have been too exhausted by her previous failure to renew the enterprise, and when in 1649 the New Haven Commissioners again brought the matter to the attention of the United Commissioners that body showed its lack of interest by refusing to encourage another attempt at settlement.247 The necessary encouragement was supplied by the Treaty of Hartford in 1650, which was a sincere attempt, at least on the part of the Dutch, to adjust all matters in dispute between them and the New England colonies. The arbitrators chosen on that occasion were unable to arrive at a definite agreement concerning the rights of the respective parties upon the Delaware, but recommended that both, according to the status quo prius, be free to “Improve theire Just enterests at Delaware for planting or Trading as they shall see Cause; onely . . . that all ꝑseedings there as in other places may bee Carried on in love and peace tell the Right may bee further Considered and Justly Issued either in Europe or heere by the two States of England and Holland.”248

Despite this agreement, when a ship-load of fifty settlers for the Delaware set out the following spring from New Haven, Stuyvesant protested vigorously and by threats forced them to turn back. Incidentally it appears that this attempt at settlement was due quite as much to a desire on the part of some to escape from narrowing quarters as to a purpose to carry out the original plans of the Company. The petition of the aggrieved would-be settlers speaks of their being “streitened in the Respectiue plantations,” and lays stress upon the fact that there was no other opportunity within the limits of New England for expansion, saying that the Delaware was a “place fitt for the enlargment of the English Collonies at present and hopfull for posteritie.”249 The ever expanding population of the English colonies made them less successful in the fur trade than the French and Dutch, who with a smaller and less rapidly increasing population, were not so much troubled by the problem of reconciling the rival interests of the fur trader and the settler.

The patience of New Haven was completely exhausted by this new interference with her plans, and for once the Confederation, though still cautiously, prepared to support her. Eaton wrote to Edward Winslow, who was at this time looking after New England interests in London, and the United Commissioners followed his letter with another, asking him to sound Parliament and the Council of State upon their attitude toward the Delaware question, and to find out “how any engagement by the Collonies against the Duch vpon the formencioned occasion willbee Resented by the Parliament.”250 The question of war against the Dutch was, therefore, being discussed and doubtless New Haven was urging drastic action. The Commissioners were not prepared to go that far, but did agree that if the petitioners, with the approval of New Haven, would send within a year 100 or 150 well-armed men with a good vessel and plenty of ammunition to the Delaware, and if while behaving peaceably they were opposed by the Dutch or Swedes, the Confederation would support them by sending soldiers, provided the Company pay the charges of the expedition. They further sent a letter of protest to Stuyvesant charging him with being “the sole auther and cause of all such inconveniencies and Mischeifes as may follow thereupon.”251 The Company could not meet these many conditions and no further action was taken at this time.

A year and a half later, in the spring of 1653, all New England was stirred by reports that the Dutch were uniting the Indians in a great conspiracy to attack the English. These reports gave New Haven and Connecticut another opportunity to urge upon the Confederation a declaration of war against the Dutch. The time was further opportune because England and Holland were then at war. The Commissioners of the Confederation met in extraordinary session; all the old questions in dispute with the Dutch were once more discussed; the two western colonies urged war. Prominent in the list of fifteen grievances against the Dutch was the treatment of New Haven traders and settlers on the Delaware. The attitude of Plymouth and Massachusetts toward this particular class of grievances is instructive alike of the weakness of the Confederation and of its unwillingness to push matters to an open rupture with the Dutch. The Plymouth Commissioners protested that five or six of the grievances had to do with events which had occurred before the formation of the Confederation; while the Massachusetts elders, in their statement of the case which did so much to influence that colony to decide against war with the Dutch, gave it as their opinion that many of the grievances alleged by the two western colonies were awaiting diplomatic adjustment and therefore were not clear ground for war. The Delaware question would certainly fall within that category.252

How New Haven, blocked in her efforts to drag the Confederation into war with the Dutch, appealed to Cromwell, how Cromwell sent a fleet to capture New Amsterdam, and how the news of peace in Europe put an end to the undertaking, are matters which cannot be considered here. At the 1654 meeting of the Commissioners Eaton again pressed the Delaware business and there was talk of a large migration from New Haven to the Delaware, but the Dutch conquest of New Sweden, the death of Governor Eaton, and other events put a quietus upon the ambitions of New Haven to find an outlet for her surplus population and to break down the Dutch control of the western fur trade by establishing a colony upon the Delaware.253 Among the causes which brought the Confederation to the verge of war with the Dutch these ambitions had a foremost, although not a unique, place. But had New England, as New Haven so earnestly desired, made war upon New Netherland, it might truly have been said that no cause of friction was more fundamental than the successful Dutch opposition to the attempts of the English to wrest from them the control of the fur trade of the interior.

The other attempts, which we have to consider, to oust the French and Dutch from their privileged position in the fur trade had their origin in Massachusetts. That colony in its earlier days had not paid great attention to the fur trade. The resources of the immediate hinterland were steadily exploited, but until 1644 Massachusetts did not look abroad. Already she had developed that interest in the fisheries and in commerce which was to determine the whole course of her colonial history. The fur trade, however, was a profitable form of investment which could not help making its appeal to her enterprising merchants, and the activity of the New Haven Delaware Company, together with the proposition of the United Commissioners to establish a joint stock company to carry on that trade, seems to have turned their attention in that direction.

Perhaps even more influential in reviving interest in that trade was the persistence of the tradition of the Great Lake to the westward. The truth of that tradition seemed confirmed when in 1642 Darby Field, an adventurous Irishman, explored the White Mountains and returned with the report that from their summits “he saw some great waters in parts to the westward, which he judged to be the great lake which Canada river comes out of.”254 Two years later Massachusetts established a Delaware Company of her own. “Divers of the merchants of Boston,” says Winthrop, “being desirous to discover the great lake, supposing it to lie in the north-west part of our patent, and finding that the great trade of beaver, which came to all the eastern and southern parts, came from thence, petitioned the court to be a company for that design, and to have the trade which they should discover, to themselves for twenty-one years.”255 Though the General Court was loath to establish a monopoly, it yielded on perceiving that the adventurers would not proceed otherwise, and on March 7, 1644, voted that Valentine Hill, Captain Robert Sedgwick, William Tyng, Francis Norton, Thomas Clarke, Joshua Hewes, and William Aspinwall be “established a free company of adventurers” with power to admit new members and a monopoly for twenty-one years of “whatsoever trade they shall discover in those parts w^thin three yeares.”256 These men were among the most prominent in the colony.257

That same spring (1644), armed with letters to the Dutch and Swedish governors, the Company sent a pinnace to the Delaware commanded by William Aspinwall, “a good artist,” says Winthrop, “and one who had been in those parts.”258 A copy of Winthrop’s letter of introduction, written in Latin, has recently been found in the Royal Archives at Stockholm.259 The purpose of the expedition according to this letter was to explore the western parts of the colony, and the plan was for Aspinwall and his men to sail up the river as far as possible in the pinnace and then continue their explorations in boats or canoes, doubtless with the hope of finding that the Delaware issued from the mythical Great Lake supposed to lie in the western part of the Massachusetts patent. The cost of the expedition was to be met by trading with the Indians.

Neither the Dutch nor the Swedes could afford to let the English cut off their trade by getting above them on the river, but Governor Printz of New Sweden, alarmed by the persistent attempts of the New Englanders to get a foothold upon the river, was anxious to avoid trouble. When Aspinwall’s pinnace appeared in the Delaware, she was stopped by a shot from the Swedish fort, but Printz agreed to let her pass on up the river if Aspinwall would promise not to trade with the Indians. Privately, however, he sent word to the Dutch fort above, urging them to refuse the English passage, and before Aspinwall had left the Swedish fort the Dutch factor, acting under orders from Governor Kieft, sent a message to the effect that under no circumstances would the English be permitted to ascend the river. Thus Aspinwall had to return to Boston with neither profit from the fur trade nor an increased knowledge of the western parts of the colony to show for his voyage. Indeed the Swedes had added insult to injury by compelling him, before his departure, to pay forty shillings for the shot which had been fired from the Swedish fort to halt his ship.260

The following winter certain merchants of Boston, probably the same Company, sent out a bark with seven men to trade on the Delaware. By spring they had accumulated 500 skins, trading on the Maryland side out of reach of the Dutch or Swedes. But the party was betrayed by their Indian interpreter to some Indians who rifled the bark, killed four men, and made off with the interpreter and a boy. Governor Printz, eager to ingratiate himself with the English, secured the persons of the interpreter and the boy and sent both to Boston, where his kindness was much appreciated.261 With this incident the attempts of the merchants of the Bay colony to gain access to the western fur trade by the Delaware route ended, although, as we have seen elsewhere, the New Haven Delaware Company was more persistent.

Rivalry with the Dutch: Attempts on the Hudson, 1645–1675

All attempts to penetrate the interior by the Delaware route having failed, the merchants of Massachusetts turned their attention to the direct overland route westward. The history of these efforts, which continued intermittently down to the time of King Philip’s War, begins with the establishment in 1645 of a second free company of adventurers. The members of this Company, Richard Saltonstall, Simon Bradstreet, Samuel Symonds, Richard Dummer, William Hubbard (father of the historian), William Hathorne, and William Paine, were even more distinguished than the members of the Delaware Company, as any one familiar with the early history of Massachusetts will recognize. Representing to the General Court that they had “thoughts of a discovery of the great lakes and other lakes that lye up in the countrye,” and of erecting a trading house, these men petitioned to be made a Company of Adventurers, with a monopoly for twenty years of all the trade they might discover within three years, and with the further right to regulate the trade and punish interlopers. They also requested letters of recommendation to the French and others, and “the use of a caravan to be advanced any way up in the country, as far as they shall see meete.” They promised to resign their monopoly if the joint stock company proposed by the United Commissioners were formed, and further agreed to erect no trading house within fifty miles of any English plantation. On these conditions, and with the proviso that this Company should not interfere with the Delaware Company, their petition was granted.262

We have no record of anything accomplished, or even undertaken by this Company, but fourteen years later, in 1659, two of its members, Hathorne and Paine, joined with Thomas Clarke and Francis Norton of the Delaware Company of 1644, Captain Thomas Savage, William Browne, Captain John Pynchon, George Corwin, John Richards, Thomas Lake, and Walter Price to form a new company to develop the western fur trade. These men were, for the most part, influential merchants of Salem and Boston. Pynchon, as the most prominent man in western Massachusetts, was fittingly included in the enterprise. In the early proceedings of the Company Hathorne played a leading part, and he must be regarded as the chief promoter of the undertaking. His activity, taken in connection with the interest of William Paine263 and later of his son John, makes it seem probable that this 1659 Company was only a reorganization of the Company of 1645, or possibly an amalgamation of the interests of the two western companies of 1644–1645.

The establishment of this Company coincided with a renewed interest in the fur trade in Massachusetts. In 1657 the General Court declared that “the trade of furrs w^th the Indians in this jurisdicc̄on doth properly belong to the com̄onwealth,” and appointed a committee to regulate the trade.264 The report of this committee, made in October, 1658, is of great value for the light it throws upon the condition of the fur trade in Massachusetts at that time. The committee farmed out the trade of the different localities where it was carried on to certain men or groups of men for sums varying from £2 to £25. The most valuable trade at this time was that of the Merrimac, for which certain men paid £25. Pynchon farmed the Springfield trade for £20.265 The other five places where there was an appreciable trade were Concord, Sudbury, Nashaway (Lancaster) and Groton, Whipsufferadge (Marlborough), and Cambridge. At this same session the Court agreed to respect Temple’s monopoly of the fur trade of Nova Scotia and Acadia.266

The real object of the Company of 1659 was concealed under the form of a grant to it by the General Court of a plantation ten miles square to be located 40 or 50 miles west of Springfield and about two-thirds of the way to “Fort Awrania.”267 This was in May. In August Hathorne and Pynchon appeared at Fort Orange to make a friendly arrangement with the Dutch, stating that it was their purpose to make a settlement about fifty miles east of the Hudson, providing that region did not lie within Dutch jurisdiction, and expressing a desire to supply Fort Orange with cattle. The local court had no power to act and referred them to Director-General Stuyvesant and the Council at New Amsterdam. Whether Hathorne and Pynchon went to Stuyvesant we do not know; probably they did not, for we hear nothing about any negotiations with him. Stuyvesant, however, heard of their proposal and was greatly alarmed, suspecting, as he said, that this was only another attempt on the part of the New Englanders “to get into our beaver-trade with their wampum and divert the trade.” Such was also the opinion of the West India Company, which instructed Stuyvesant by all means to prevent the English settlement lest their experience on the Connecticut be repeated on the Hudson.268

Having failed to secure their object by friendly negotiation and having succeeded only in arousing the opposition of the Dutch, the Company was forced into the open, and not only brought the matter to the attention of the Confederation but also appealed to the General Court for enlarged powers and official backing. The letter sent to Stuyvesant on behalf of the Company by the United Commissioners was still vague as to the purposes of the Company. It recited that the Massachusetts patent extended to the South or West Sea, that that colony had made a grant of certain lands near Fort Orange, and that it now desired free passage up the Hudson to the proposed settlement. It said furthermore that the Treaty of Hartford did not prejudice the claims of Massachusetts, because that treaty had only settled the boundary between the Dutch and New Haven and Connecticut. Stuyvesant replied cautiously to what he rightly termed a “dark request,” but did make clear that he considered the lands in question to lie within the territory of New Netherland, and that he believed the Treaty of Hartford to have settled the boundary question as far as all New England was concerned.269

Meantime the General Court of Massachusetts had voted “that a present claime be made of our just rights upon Hudsons River,” and commissioned Hathorne and John Richards to be the bearers of a letter to Stuyvesant, written in the name of both the General Court and the Company, asking free passage up the Hudson. At the same time the Court granted the Company a monopoly of the trade within fifteen miles of that river for twelve years and liberty to trade in commodities such as the Dutch usually sold.270 The real object of the Company, so carefully concealed hitherto, though shrewdly suspected by the Dutch, at last was openly avowed, — it was to share in the western fur trade and break the Dutch monopoly. The hard-headed merchants of Boston and Salem had no intention of establishing a settlement in an inaccessible spot half way between Springfield and Albany just to furnish Fort Orange with cattle.

The letter sent by the General Court offers a full explanation of the reasons why Massachusetts was led thus to assert her rights upon the Hudson. First among them is that “being now increased and wanting convenient places to settle our people, wee conceiue no reason can be imagined why we should not improue and make use of our just rights in all the lands granted us, especially those upon Hudsons riuer not being actually possessed by your nation, which is the onely thing that at present we intend.” With some reluctance it is admitted that the establishment of settlement on the Hudson might damage “the trade & profitt” of the Dutch, but the insulting suggestion is made, in the worst vein of Puritan religious casuistry, that for the Dutch to object on that score would be “so unbecom̄ing the professours of Christianity that those that doe but pretend to com̄on justice & honesty could never alleadge it seriously without blushing.”271

Thus in mid-seventeenth-century Massachusetts the desire for new lands for an expanding population, the quest for a more lucrative fur trade, and possibly an element of land speculation, were all forces operating to bring about a westward movement. It will be recalled that prominent among the reasons for the great migration to Connecticut was that “all towns in the bay began to be much straitened by their own nearness to one another, and their cattle being so much increased.”272 Among the forces giving an impetus to English expansion in America, land has undoubtedly played a more prominent part than the fur trade. In French Canada the contrary was true. In this particular case it seems probable that Massachusetts, like the representatives of the Company, was guilty of a subterfuge, and that desire to share in the Dutch fur trade rather than to make good her claims to territory on the Hudson or to establish a settlement so distant from the centre of population and authority around Massachusetts Bay, was the real reason for this enterprise.

It is interesting to speculate as to what might have been the result had not the Restoration in England suddenly placed Massachusetts in so critical a position that it was no longer possible to push an undertaking which would mean serious trouble with the Dutch. In the opinion of some there was serious danger of war in 1660. Stuyvesant’s reply to the letter of the General Court was a flat refusal to permit passage up the Hudson to the contemplated settlement.273 He could not decide otherwise. According to the report of John Davenport, who talked with Hathorne and Richards at New Haven on their way home from New Amsterdam, the Dutch traders threatened to cut off Stuyvesant’s head if he granted the request.274 “I perceive,” adds Davenport, “if that buisines proceedes, as Major Hawtherne thincks it will, all the Colonies are likely to be ingaged in a warr with the Dutch.” If the Restoration had not occurred at this time it is quite possible that the New England colonies, by their own unaided efforts, might have anticipated the conquest of 1664. In the crisis of 1653–1654 it had been the opposition of Massachusetts which frustrated the vehement desire of New Haven and Connecticut to rid themselves of Dutch rivalry. Now, with Massachusetts in sympathy with the other colonies, a united New England might have succeeded, and the whole history of New York and New England have been changed. The imagination kindles at the thought of the possible effect of a union of New York and New England upon the struggle with New France. With those two acting in harmony it may well be that the English colonies would have been spared the bloody “half century of conflict.”

Although Massachusetts could not, after the Restoration, press the matter against the determined opposition of the Dutch, the Company of 1659 did not, like the earlier Massachusetts companies, give up immediately. In October, 1660, the General Court empowered the Company to conduct through the colony a sufficient number of men to plant and possess the land and settle a trade with the natives, but stipulated that it must, within two years, erect a house upon its grant and settle there at least ten men.275 In 1662 the Company secured a further extension of two years’ time for making a settlement.276 Thereafter it disappears from view for ten years.

In the last two attempts by Massachusetts merchants to gain access to the western fur trade a new element appears, which makes them closely analogous to the New Haven Delaware Company. In both cases the colony is seen working with its merchants, supporting their schemes, and willing if need be to back them against the Dutch even to the point of war. In both cases the merchants were working to build up a profitable fur trade, the colony to secure an extension of territory and an outlet for surplus population. The two purposes were immediately, but not ultimately, compatible. In the case of Massachusetts the merchants realized by 1660 that their best chance to compete successfully with the Dutch for the western fur trade was to get a foothold upon the Hudson, and their purpose seemed legitimate and commanded the support of the colony because by the terms of her sea-to-sea charter Massachusetts had claims to the upper Hudson.

It is true there was in that charter a clause reserving the rights of other Christian princes and states, but the Dutch were persistently regarded both by the settlers of New England and by the English government as having encroached upon territory which, by virtue of the grant by James I to the London and Plymouth companies, rightfully belonged to the English.277 It is also true that a provisional settlement of the boundaries had been made at Hartford in 1650. Massachusetts, however, took the ground that in that treaty she was only acting the part of arbitrator, and that in any case the Treaty of Hartford had fixed the boundary only for a distance of twenty miles from the sea. Stuyvesant was on solid ground in maintaining that the Dutch had had possession of the territory in dispute long before the granting of the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company, and his contention that at the time of the Treaty of Hartford Massachusetts had put forward no claims to territory beyond the twenty-mile limit seems to be borne out by the clause of that treaty which provided that beyond that limit the boundary should be adjusted between the Dutch and New Haven.278 But whatever the truth of the matter may have been, Massachusetts had an arguable claim and 1659 was a good time to press it, for England could not interfere and the Dutch were not only inferior in strength to the English but conscious of their weakness and constantly in fear that the English would attempt to dispossess them.279

By 1672, when the third and last attempt of Massachusetts merchants to tap the Hudson River fur trade was made, conditions had changed. The Hudson valley was now in English hands, and what in 1660 had been an international affair sinks to the level of a colonial boundary dispute. The genesis of this last attempt is quite as obscure as that of the others. The leading figure in it is John Paine, son of that William Paine who had been a member of the companies of 1645 and 1659. For this reason it is likely that there was some sort of connection between this enterprise and those which had preceded it, although the exact nature of that connection is not clear. John Paine was probably consciously reviving an undertaking in which his father had been interested and which he regarded as part of his inheritance.280

In March, 1672, the Governor and Council of Massachusetts wrote to Governor Lovelace of New York laying claim to the country to the northward of the territory of the Duke of York. A new reason for this step was now advanced, namely, that the lands near the Hudson must be settled lest the French secure them and so endanger the safety of both Massachusetts and New York. The letter expressed the fear that Lovelace might not relish this proposal, but requested him to allow the bearer, John Paine, to explore the country for a place of settlement and to permit the use of the Hudson River for the transportation of goods and settlers. The address which Paine made to Lovelace does not increase our knowledge of the objects of the enterprise. “Now the mattathusetts true jntents herein,” Paine assured Lovelace, “Js the jmprouem^t of ther owne Rights Only, the jncreas off Plantations, and his majes^t Subjects, and ther defense against the jnvations or jntrutions of a fforain Nation and no unkeind or Pollitick deuise to Expand ther Line Or Possessions vppon anie part of his Highnes y^e Dukes Just Rights.” It will be noted that nothing is said about the fur trade in the course of this correspondence.281

Lovelace received Paine in friendly fashion and allowed him to prosecute his discoveries along the east bank of the Hudson and up the Hoosac River.282 His reply to Massachusetts was phrased in courteous but diplomatic language. While maintaining somewhat sarcastically that Massachusetts might better have revealed her design at the time of the late Commission (in 1664) which was instructed to settle boundary disputes, and assuring that colony that the present strict union of the crowns of England and France made uneasiness about French designs unnecessary, he informed them that he had permitted Paine to make explorations and had sent word of the plans of Massachusetts to his master, whose instruction he must await before giving a definite reply.283

Again the real purpose of the design comes out in the proceedings at Boston, and once more it appears that Massachusetts was guilty of concealing important considerations in her correspondence with the neighboring colony. After his return Paine petitioned the General Court for a grant of a tract of ten square miles and a free trade with the Indians for twenty-one years in such things as were allowed to be traded at Albany. Paine states in his petition that he was entrusted with the mission to New York by the Court of Assistants, and that the land he had discovered, though not very valuable for husbandry, might, if settled, be of value in keeping the New England Indians loyal and in winning over the Mohawks.284 We may conclude from this that the government of Massachusetts was pushing the affair with a view to a more effective control of Indian politics. The growing restlessness of the New England tribes and the increasing tendency of the Five Nations to push their enterprises to the eastward would make some such move seem imperative. It was becoming increasingly evident that the Five Nations controlled the Indian situation, and only by opening a trade with them could Massachusetts win their friendship and secure a share in influencing their policy. To attempt to use the Five Nations against hostile New England tribes was the policy of Massachusetts from King Philip’s War to Lieutenant-Governor Dummer’s War, an attempt which always failed because of the opposition of the Albany traders and the refusal of the government of New York to surrender its complete control over negotiations with that confederacy.285 If we are justified in seeing in this enterprise in 1672 the germ of that later policy, we must credit the government of Massachusetts with great foresight in realizing thus early that a successful handling of Indian politics in New England depended upon friendship with the Five Nations and ability to exercise a certain amount of control over their policy.

Again it would be interesting to speculate upon the results of success in such an enterprise. Would King Philip’s War ever have occurred, or, if it had, would it have been as destructive as it was? Might not Massachusetts have been able, with the aid of the Five Nations, to break earlier the resistance of the Indians of Maine and so expand into that region? Would an alliance between Massachusetts and the Five Nations have neutralized the Dutch Albany influence over them and made impossible the neutrality which after 1702 existed between Albany and Canada, a neutrality which was so fatal to the safety of the frontier towns of western Massachusetts? We cannot say. The enterprise had almost no chance of success and like former ones had to be abandoned. What does appear is that Indian politics and the fur trade were the moving impulses in the enterprise rather than desire for new lands or defence against the French, the reasons alleged in the negotiations with Lovelace. Paine’s report that the lands he had discovered were of little value for husbandry is significant of this. But to have put such reasons to the fore would have meant undoubted failure. The enterprise of 1672 differs from the others only in being based more upon considerations of public policy, although the General Court was encouraging private enterprise to undertake the work.

Paine’s petition was granted by the General Court. He and such as might join with him were given a tract of ten square miles on or near the Hudson and free trade with the natives for twenty-one years.286 The next spring, upon petition by Paine, Governor Leverett and John Pynchon were given power to regulate the affairs of the projected plantation, which “because a hill of a vast extent impedes the passag to that place” was to be twenty miles from the place originally intended, in a locality which could be reached by an overland passage.287 Apparently the idea of using the Hudson as a right of way to the new settlement had been abandoned. In the autumn of that year the Court empowered Paine to run the southern line of the colony to the Hudson, and from a letter which he wrote to Governor Leverett in the spring of 1674 we learn that he actually intended to do so.288 Here, however, record of Paine and his schemes deserts us. The failure of the plan to establish a settlement and trading post on the Hudson or in western Massachusetts can be readily accounted for by the Dutch occupation of New York in 1673–74 and the outbreak of King Philip’s War which soon followed. That war not only devastated Massachusetts, but strained friendly relations with New York to such an extent that any encroachment upon territory claimed by that province would have been very impolitic.

Here the history of the attempts of Massachusetts merchants to prosecute western enterprises might well be brought to a close were it not for the interesting, but puzzling and highly improbable, story which Dr. Daniel Coxe many years later reported that he heard from Joseph Dudley. It was to the effect that at some date not named a party of men started from western New York, descended the Ohio, and went up the Yellow River so far that they reached certain Spanish plantations with which they traded. On their return they reported their travels to the magistrates of Boston.289 No record of such a journey has ever been found, and there is a general disposition to doubt if it was ever made.290 The connection of the story with Boston warrants a reference to it in this account of the early relations of Massachusetts to the West. The writer would suggest that if such a trip was ever made it was made by New York traders and reported to Andros when he was Governor of the Territory and Dominion of New England with headquarters at Boston. The connection of Dudley with that government would explain how he came to know of it. Up to the present time, however, no evidence has been unearthed to corroborate Coxe’s story, and until such evidence is found it must remain in the class of tales which are interesting if true.

A single thread binds together all these enterprises: the effort of Massachusetts traders, handicapped by their situation, to secure direct access to the valuable fur trade which formed the basis of the prosperity of Albany and Canada. Access by overland routes was scarcely feasible, and all attempts to secure free navigation of the Hudson were blocked by the very natural opposition of the traders of New York and Albany. Moreover, the extension of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts to the Hudson meant a boundary dispute, first with the Dutch, and then with the scarcely more friendly colony of New York. Failure was all but inevitable, but the attempts are highly interesting as showing that under favorable circumstances the energies of Massachusetts might have been directed as much westward as seaward, and that we might have had in New England the development of just such a hunting, fur-trading frontier as was to be found later in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas.291

I

John Paine’s Journal, 1672292

Jn^o Paines Dierna^ƚƚ of a short discouery^e vp Albonj for a Plantation

After 8 dayes passag^e In Noyce Eijsons Sloop from N York wee Arriued at Albonij^e being y^e 29^th of Maij. 72. the 30^th daij haueing by the assistance of Cap^t Silvest^r Salsburij^e Gov^r of y^e s^d Place procured Garret tunison Cornelius Steuerson & Indian musquoij for Pilates, with Horses, provitions, and other necessaryes, wee Set forwards on o^r Jornj that nigh^t to m^r Rich^d van Ranslers Bowrij^e about 3 miles frō Albonj; where wee quartred & ffound y^e Keindnes of y^e house y^e .31. day erly in y^e morne wee Sett forwards to m^r Gosons Bowre about 4 miles fard^rther vppon his kein^d Invitation to a cup of strong bere wee made a little Stay thens Rod to y^e half moon thre miles fard^r, where the grass Invite^d vs for o^r horses accom̄odation to draw bitt about half an houre, thens jorny^d .6. miles furd^r vp s^d Riuor to affordable place of y^e same, ther baited & refresh^t or Selues and horses from eleven of the day til one, then passed the Riuor to y^e Easterne Side, and set or Corse east till y^e bettor p^t of or afternoons Jornj was past, through a troblesom wood & thiket, cheiflye of Pines then bore Northerly^e, mett with bettor Lands & woods not So troblesom for vnder wood, y^e afternoon well spen^t wee mett with a Small Riuor wher wee Catched yong^e wild duks, & In a Short Trauil After wee mett with y^e Riuor Hosick w^ch wee Set o^r corse for by Direction of o^r Indian Pilate and ther at nigh an howre before Son sett wee dismount^ed, and vnder a green tree vppon the Lovely banck of the pleasant Little Riuor Hosick wee took vp or lodgeing^e wher proffere^d to or vew a fair^e Rich flatt Landes w^ch the Riuor Hosick, & y^e other Small Riuor, Runes through; & at times Overflowes. & Adjoyneing ther to wee discover^d Plaine Lands partly also cleer of wood or trees, & partly. of bareing Pine trees &c, y^e flatt & Plaine Lands^e, wee Esteem at about fiue hundred Acors; about half thereof verij good & cleer for the Plough, the res^t much of it cleer but no^t durable for corne. y^es Lands^e Invironed with hills, and high Land^s, Partly pine Lands & Partly Oke, & Swamps, wi^th two or thre Small peces of medo Landse, which wee haueing^e thus far discovered to or incoridg^em^t that nigh^t & the next mor^ne, wee Sett or corse vppon the North side of hosik & ffolowed it vppon a westerly corse untill wee found wher it emptyed it self into Albonij^e Riuor, which alittle aboue i^t trends north east thereabou^ts to which wee jornijed from o^r Lodging^e at Hosick Riuor bank in neres^t foure houres; then vnbitted to refresh or horses, put on y^e Kittle with or provitions, & went to ffishing & w^th Succes. between one & two In y^e afternoon perceiueing a promiseing fall wi^th a faire prospect on y^e westerne Sid^e of albonj wee Attempte^d to ford y^e Riuor, mett with an vneuen bottom, & aboue y^e half way over adeep chanil between y^e Rocks, over whic^h with Some difficulty & Small Losse wee pas^t two of ou^r horsees takeing a fall vppon y^e Ragged Rocks, wher the water preserved them from much brooseing^e, although threatned to cariy them, downe the fall but beijond o^r expectation wee recouerd them with ther Skines & Shinēs somthing^e broken. then Rod vp the Riuor about a mile and half, found nothing inviteing but a deep almost still Riuor; w^ch by Relation of o^r Indian continued nigh thre score miles vp. Where vppon wee returned and traviled hard downe the Riuor, had Reasonable Rideing & came that night within ten miles of y^e half moon, & alittle short of a fordable place of Albonj Riuer wee took vp or Lodgeing for that night concludeing the first daij of June: the 2^d of June finding no place so accomodable to our horsees, nor delightf^ƚƚ to ourselues, wee forded the Riuor ouer to y^e Eas^t Side and took our corse North East & Easterly^e found good Rideing^e & vppon a leisurely^e wallke Sometimes picking^e of Strauberries & Ou^r horsees feeding ffell vppon the Southeas^t Corner of y^e Plaine adjoyneing to y^e fflatt Landes of the Little Riuor, and hosick Riuor; which wee bent our Corse vnto, & Is before described. and ther at or former Lodg^eing vppon the pleasant Bankes of hosick, past away^e the Remainder of the day^e butt (Intending Erly the next morne to make furd^r discoverij^e vp Hosick Riuor to the falles thereof) wee that daij towar^ds evening two of vs Rod ouer Hosick, & vpp the Riuor aboue half a mile wee assendeed a hill, and by our vew of the wildernes vp the Riuor, apprehended ou^r Indiaⁿ Pilate had giuen vs a true Relation of w^t wee Shoold find^e (vid) That the ffalles were a half dayes Jornȳ vp the Riuor, and no valuable Landes between w^t wee had discovered and the ffales, whereuppon Wee Returned to our companj^e att Our Lodgeing^e and vppon Consultation that night altre^d or Course Intended & Resolved In the morne to take vp the other Small Riuor w^ch accordingly wee did. y^t bareing^e away to y^e Southeast within about:2: miles and ahalf wee discovered a fall of about twentij foot perpendiculor, and a little aboue that another about:12. foot perpndiculo^r which haueing vewed, wee assended a great hill aboue them, and findeing acontinuation of mountino^s Lan^ds that gaue no incoridgem^t wee desended that hill againe and forded the Riuor aboue the Second ffalles. & ther took a Southerlij Course ouer great and wearisom hills of Pine, and Okeing Landes, ffortifid with vnderwood, Brambles, & Ruff shrubey Okes, So unkeind to vss, that theij woold hardly afford vs the Ligh^t of the Sonn^e, nor suffer vs to grope a passag^e through ther Territorie without Inforceing from vs the acknowledgem^t off our Raggs^e & our blood allso to wittnes ther Cruil vsag^e, which wearye of, wee held it not Reasonable longer to dispute with them, but altered or Corse to y^e westwar^d of the South for the Riuor Albanij^e, wher^abt wee frendly lee [?] pas^d by^e our Smal enimies & Imputeing it to y^r crooked natures met with Somthing^e a more generos Soyle that admitted vs to pass vppon easyer tearmes, and offered Some Ref^reshmen^t which (abou^t thre aclok in the afternoon June the Second) wee Imbrasced. and after a Short respit trougeed on to the Riuer which wee mett with alittle aboue y^e half moon, and ther forded over. which though late in the afternoon our horsees more Reviued with the Pleasantnes of the waij, that shoold conclude ther jorny^e then with y^e ffeed y^t ther were Reffresht with Strove which shoold outgo the other, vntil they brought vs to our journyes end at Albonj Late that nigh^t, wher wee were again^e Keindly Reseived by the Gove^r to home wee offer^d this acc^t of or discouerye to our presen^t Sattisfaction.

the first day Jornij May. 30th

the second day Jornȳ may y^e 31^th

the third days Jornj June y^e first

3^d days Jornj June y^e 1^st

4^th dajes Jornj June the 2^d–

the fifth days Jornj June y^e 3^d

[m]arked a tree & Sewed Pears by ye Riuors Bank–killed thre otters

Kiled two widgins & a Pattredge

Jn^O Paine

Gabet Tunison × his mark

Cornelis Steuerson

II

John Paine’s Petition, 1672293

To the Hon^rbe Gen^ƚƚ Cour^t Assemb^ld at Boston —

The humble Adress of Jn^o Paine

Whereas the s^d Paine hath form^rly been forward and Actiue with his Estate in Promoteing the mos^t Publiq Desighnes in Gen^ƚƚ which haue been Sett vppon for y^e improueing of P[ ] and indeauoringe y^e benifitt of the Collonie and hath paid [ ] of his Estate to Publiqȝ charges nere about fiftij pounds a yeer for many yeers together, and hath now in Prossecutı͞o of the trust Reposeed in him, by the Hon^rbe Court of Assistance with Some charges, made discouerie of Such a Tract of Land which though invalluable for a Towneship for husbandrie yett for y^e Accom̄odacions and Conveniancies of y^e Cituacion a Place which hee humbly Conceiues, may be improued to y^e great benefitt of this Collonie, As a meanes to Establish the Indians firme In ther adherence to this Gov^rm^t & in Peace one with another It lying^e between thes indians ou^r ffrien[ds] and y^e mohokes ther Enimyes, whome allso wee maij [ ] gain And as it will bee a defence against forain Intrusones, And an Accomodacion to y^e Settleing other Plantacions off ffar great^r Vallew for husbandrije and maij afford incoridgem^t to y^e vndertakers.

The s^d Paine hereuppon humblely offers to this hon^rbe Gen^ƚƚ Court If in ther great wisdom theij shall Judge fitt to favor him with that Preuiledg^e and trust. that he will Produce persons Qualifyed to y^e honr^d Cour^ts acceptance. Who with the said Paine Shall indeauor the Settlem^t of a Plantacion as aboues^d In as Short time as may bee, without anie Charge to y^e Collonie.

The honorb^le Gen^ƚƚ Cour^t Granting^e to s^d Paine & home hee shall make choyce of, being Persons Qualify^d to y^e honr^d Courts Acceptance, for y^r great Expence & Charge they mus^t be att by Reason of the distance and difficultyes hereof, The aboues^d Tract of Land with the Adjacent wildernes Land to the Contents of ten miles Square, as s^d Paine and Comp^a Shall find^e it most Accom̄odabl together with the Preuiledge of y^e Trade with y^e Natiues in these westerne parts of this Collonie, without Prohibition of anie Sort of goods things or w^teuor is necessarie & allow^d to be traded at Albanie The Land as an Inheritance foreuo^r. The trade free 21 yeers

& y^or Petion^r Shall Praij

Mr. Andrew McFarland Davis communicated a Memoir of Abner Cheney Goodell, which Mr. Davis had been requested to prepare for publication in the Transactions of the Society.

MEMOIR OF ABNER CHENEY GOODELL, A.M.

by ANDREW McFARLAND DAVIS

The skeleton of events which must furnish the frame for a memoir of Abner Cheney Goodell, or Abner Cheney Goodell, Junior, as he often signed his name, seems at first sight so free from adventure or exciting incidents as to make it seem incredible that with such means at hand, the bearer of the name should have been able to inscribe on the portals of fame a record which will compel recognition by all future students of Massachusetts history. Nearly all of Goodell’s life was passed in Salem, and while he held at the hands of his fellow citizens various official positions which testified to the popular appreciation of his character and capacity, it was not to this local reputation that he will owe his recognition in the future, but to the patient, persistent, accurate, and learned work which he bestowed on the publication of the Province Laws.

In the performance of this work he not only sought to bring forth a complete record of the laws themselves, but also to lay before the student, through copious annotations, copies of the General Court records, bearing on the subject under consideration; reproductions of papers taken from the archives illustrative of the causes for legislation; transcripts from papers filed in the Superior Court of Judicature of the Province, and in the Rolls Office in London, and of such other material, especially if the same were inconspicuous or not easy of access, as would help form an idea of the social and political conditions affected by the legislation to which these notes were appended.

It is then as a helper, one who lifts the veil from a historical period, which has not been adequately brought to light, that he will appeal through his work to those who may hereafter be tempted to explore the paths of our provincial history.

To us who knew him personally, who watched him as he ransacked the archives in search of contributory material; who noted the patient industry with which he pursued the clues suggested by the research upon which he was engaged; who saw him as he laboriously eliminated errors from the printers’ proofs submitted to him, until at last even his critical taste was satisfied, was also given the privilege of that individual touch with the man, which made so grateful to the visitor the cheery, affectionate greeting of this unobtrusive, erudite student.

The curious combination of an almost boyish look with the conspicuous signs of culture and study depicted upon his ruddy countenance, his bright hazel eye now sparkling with pleasure as he solved some hidden point in the work on which he was engaged, and anon flashing with quick impatience if he conceived that some person had wilfully interposed obstacles to the progress of the publication in which he was interested, all bring before us a picturesque personality utterly unlike what the dry-as-dust character of his work would naturally suggest.

Mr. Goodell’s life was practically spent in Essex County. He was born, it is true, in Cambridgeport, on the first day of October, 1831, but when he was a child of six years of age, his father moved to Salem, and thenceforward claimed Salem as his home. There Goodell received his education in the public schools, graduating from the High School at the head of a class in which he had as classmates the brothers William G. and Joseph H. Choate. The conspicuous careers of these classmates furnish an opportunity to measure the intellectual endowment of one who could surpass them in a boyhood competition.

After two years spent in his father’s machine shop, Goodell entered the law office of an uncle at Ipswich, and finally finished his study of the law in Salem in the office of Northend and Choate, being admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1852. It will be seen that at graduation from the Salem High School his career apparently parted from that of his friends and classmates, the Choates. They pursued their education by going to Harvard, while Goodell, though busily occupied in mechanical work, did not abandon his education at this point, but in private carried on certain of his studies. It is not to be supposed that this individual pursuit of learning was for him the full equivalent of a college course, but knowing the man as we do, it may at least be said that the gain that he derived from it was fully equivalent to the benefits acquired by many students from their collegiate career. The same year that he was admitted to the bar, the two Choates graduated at Harvard, the one the first scholar in the class, the other the fourth. What a triumph it would have been for the Salem High School, if the boy who had led those two scholars in that school, had carried the contest on to Harvard!

Mr. Goodell entered practice at Lynn, where he is said to have established a good business during the five years that he remained there. He was, however, diverted from active practice by the appointment in 1856 as Register of the Court of Insolvency in Essex County, a court then newly established. To this office he was elected the next year, and after the consolidation of the Insolvency and Probate Courts in 1858, he was elected Register of the joint courts consecutively for twenty years. He served the City of Salem as alderman in 1865, having been elected to that position by a unanimous vote. He was actuated in seeking this office by a desire to aid in the establishment of a water system for the city.

In 1865 he was appointed one of a commission to prepare for publication a complete copy of the statutes and laws of the Province and State of Massachusetts Bay from the time of the Province charter to the adoption of the Constitution, including all sessions acts, private and public, general and special, temporary and perpetual, passed from time to time by the General Court, all incorporations of towns and parishes, and all other legislative acts of historical importance, appearing on the records of the General Court, with suitable marginal references to the statutes and decisions of the Province and Commonwealth, the orders of the king in council, and such other authorities as in the opinion of the commissioners might enhance the value and usefulness of the work, and to append to the same a complete index.

The commission appointed under this resolve, consisted of John H. Clifford, Ellis Ames, and Abner C. Goodell. The transcript copies of laws, records, and references prepared by them is now on deposit in the archives.

In 1867, the printing of one volume of the Laws was authorized, and Mr. Ames and Mr. Goodell were appointed a commission to supervise its progress. This step marks an epoch in the life of Goodell, for although he did not at once take on his shoulders the burdens of editorship, nor assume responsibility for procuring annually the legislation needed for the continuance of the work, still his interest was stimulated by the problems submitted to the commission, among which was the method of annotation to be adopted in the forthcoming volumes. Marginal references as suggested in the original resolve, were seen from the beginning to be inadequate, and with the acquiescence of the Governor of the State, the system of annotation was adopted which was made use of in all volumes of the series until 1896.

When this publication began, Goodell was still Register of Probate and Insolvency in Essex County, and in addition had in 1865 become President of the Salem and South Danvers Street Railway Company. This latter position he filled for nineteen years, and by judicious management converted a practically bankrupt road into a flourishing company of great earning capacity.

Beginning with 1879, Goodell is said to have made the editorship of the Province Laws his chief work. Up to that time he had received no salary for his services, and thereafter what he did receive was meagre and inadequate. He served not for the salary but from pure delight in the work itself.

The third volume of the series was issued in 1878, coincident with the close of his career in the Registry. His connection with the presidency of the Street Railway was terminated in 1884, and with the exception that he served as president of the New England Historic Genealogical Society from January, 1887, to June, 1892, he seems to have subordinated all other occupations to the work of preparing copy for the forthcoming volumes of the Province Laws and ransacking the records both in this country and in England for material in illustration of this legislation, and to the supervision of the publication of such material. The commission which had the work in charge was reorganized in 1890, and the oversight of the work was in 1896 put in the hands of the Governor and Council.

Up to the time that this latter action was taken, Mr. Goodell had remained in active association with the work, and during the last seventeen years his whole thought had been to place this edition of the Province Laws at the head of all similar publications, for the value of the illustrative material which it should contain. To effect this purpose all of his energies and activities were put forth, and during the latter part of the time he had no local or personal occupation which interfered with his movements.

The progress of the publication of the Province Laws had not been uniformly rapid during this long period of thirty years which measured his connection with the work. The State had not at its command buildings enough to house the various commissions that were created from time to time, and the orderly arrangement of the papers under consideration was interfered with no less than thirteen times by changes of the editorial staff from room to room, made at different intervals. Moreover, as time went on, opposition to the publication itself arose, based in the minds of some upon doubts as to the practical value of the work, while others insisted that undue time was being wasted in seeking for and perfecting the material used in the annotations. In fact, through this opposition there were delays in the passage of the necessary appropriations, and the continuity of the work at such times was maintained solely by the temporary assumption on the part of Mr. Goodell of responsibility for payment of clerical services.

He himself estimated that the various interruptions to the work on the Province Laws actually reduced the time given him to the preparation of those volumes to which his name is attached to less than nineteen years of actual work. However that may be, as time went on dissatisfaction with the slow progress of the work increased, criticism of the great expense of the publication accumulated, and opposition to its continuance had to be overcome each year when the necessary appropriations were sought for from the legislature.

In spite of the hostility to the copious system of annotation adopted by Mr. Goodell, appropriations were secured from year to year, adequate to carry on the work, until 1896, when the control of the publication was placed in the hands of the Governor and Council, and the amount left at the disposal of the Treasurer for application to this work was not large enough to meet the clerical services of the office force.

Up to this time the story of the vicissitudes of the Province Law publications contained the essentials for a life of Goodell, that is to say, for that portion of his life in which his mind was concentrated upon congenial work. He was responsible for the character of that work. His energy kept it in motion. His erudition made it of value. His phenomenal capacity gave it reputation. His hope for fame rested upon it.

His unyielding firmness on the question of completeness and accuracy had, it is true, alienated some friends who wished to see more rapid progress, but there were few who were prepared for the action of the Governor and Council, shortly after they took control, in revolutionizing the character of the work by ordering only marginal annotations thereafter, their order going even to the extent of requiring the destruction of the plates for forthcoming volumes which had already been cast, and substituting for notes simple references. This step was swiftly followed by the removal of Mr. Goodell from office in a manner which was intentionally discourteous. The causes for the irritation which led up to this discourtesy are to be found in the fact that the lodging of the control of the editorship of the Province Laws in the hands of the Governor and Council was in itself hostile to Mr. Goodell and a blow at his methods. Furthermore, the situation had been aggravated by certain correspondence between Mr. Goodell and the Governor and Council.

The sixth volume of the Province Laws had been reserved for the Private Acts. It was partly in type at this time, and of the one hundred and two Acts within its covers twenty-seven had been annotated and the notes thereto set up and stereotyped. In all probability Mr. Goodell cared more for the opportunity to collate authorities and expand information upon the subjects of some of the chapters in this volume than upon those contained in any other volume in the series. The evident interest with which in the fifth volume he had followed up the question of nominal adhesion to a consecutive legal form of government, through conventions, elections, and Congresses, at the time of the conversion of the government from Province to State, may perhaps cause this statement to be challenged, but a glance at the marginal references in the sixth volume will show the subjects that he wished particularly to develop. Students will especially regret that the notes to Chapter Sixteen on witchcraft were never elaborated.

Mr. Goodell’s separation from his editorial work was done in such a harsh and arbitrary manner that it did not seem possible that a chance should ever be offered him to renew his labors in that position. As a matter of fact, however, such an opportunity was placed at his service. In 1898, Governor Wolcott took up the subject of the publication of the Province Laws and appointed a committee to recommend some method for doing this work. This committee reported that, if possible, the services of Mr. Goodell should be secured, and in due course of time the committee was authorized to employ him to carry on the publication. However grateful it might have been for him to be thus re-instated in his position, he refrained, perhaps wisely, from accepting the trust.

We have seen that Goodell was at one time the president of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. He was also a vice-president of the Essex Institute, a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, of the Old Colony Historical Society, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was honored with the degree of A.M. by Amherst College and was an honorary member of the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. He was a corresponding member of the New York, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island Historical Societies.

He was married in 1866 and his widow and two sons survive him. The house in which he lived in Salem, was known as “the old jail.” He had, however, eliminated whatever might have suggested the former occupancy, and had added a room for his library. This large apartment had a balcony running around the inside of the room to give access to the books in the upper part. The light was obtained from above, and here, surrounded by his books, in the full enjoyment of the companionship of a devoted wife, he passed the latter years of his life.

He was by temperament fond of polemical discussion and participated in the celebrated controversy in the Massachusetts Historical Society concerning town governments in New England, took a hand in the dispute in the same society concerning the propriety of honoring Crispus Attucks, and nearer home he raised his voice in the attempts in the Essex Institute to determine whether the little building restored and protected by that society was in reality entitled to be called a church.

Court proceedings in provincial days and especially the subtleties of special pleading had a fascination for him, and the mysteries of witchcraft led him to accumulate many books in his library on the subject. The results of his careful study of these volumes would have been preserved if he had been permitted to publish the notes to the sixteenth chapter of Volume VI of the Laws, on which he was undoubtedly at work at the time when the system of annotation was changed.

The Colonial Society must ever be grateful to him for the active assistance that he gave us during the early days of our existence.

On the 19th of July, 1914, in the eighty-third year of his age, Mr. Goodell, notwithstanding the tender cares with which he was surrounded, yielded to the infirmities of the flesh. With his death there passed from the rolls of Massachusetts the most accomplished student of the history of the provincial period of the life of the Commonwealth, living within its borders, perhaps the most thoroughly equipped man on the subject that ever lived.

In the pages of this brief sketch we have had a glimpse of Goodell as the brilliant school-boy; we have learned that he served the county or the city in which he lived for years with satisfaction to his constituents; we have seen him presented as the successful lawyer and the efficient executive of a street railway company; and through the hasty and imperfect account given herein of the publication of the Province Laws, we have seen him engaged in the work for which of all others he was the best fitted, and in the performance of which he himself took great satisfaction, while at the same time he surprised historical students by his industry and erudition.

It has been given to others better qualified to speak thereon, to present the picture of his happy home, to show him in his declining years surrounded with affectionate attention, welcoming visitors and making them at ease through his genial manners and brilliant conversational powers. The esteem in which he was held by his fellow citizens was summarized in the sketch of his life published by George G. Putnam in the Bulletin of the Essex Institute, to which I am indebted for the main facts of his career in Salem, in the following words: “Mr. Goodell was a warm friend, a polished and courtly gentleman, and a loyal, public spirited, progressive citizen.”

1 Read but not printed

2 Read but not printed

3 Read but not printed

4 Mr. Gay died in office, 3 March, 1916

5 The title reads:

Éloge de M. Franklin, Lu à la séance publique de l’Académie des Sciences, le 13 Nov. 1790. Eripuit cœlo fulmen, mox sceptra Tyrannis. Turgot, 1775. A Paris, . . . 1791.

At a meeting of the American Academy held February 29, 1792, the gift of the Éloge from the “Consul of France” was acknowledged, and elsewhere in the Academy’s records it is stated to have been given by “M. De La Tombe.” The donation was also noted in the Columbian Centinel of March 3, 1792, p. 3/2.

6 Franklin was made a member of the Society of Arts in 1755 and of the Royal Society in 1756; in 1759 he received the degree of LL.D. from the University of St. Andrews, and by the corporation of Edinburgh was given the freedom of that city; in 1762 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford, his son William at the same time obtaining the degree of A.M.; and long before the outbreak of the Revolution he was in correspondence with the most distinguished scholars of England and Scotland. Clearly, therefore, Condorcet was under a misapprehension in supposing that there was any tardiness on the part of England in recognizing Franklin’s scientific work.

7 The epigram is, however, mentioned in Condorcet’s “Vie de M. Turgot, publiée en 1786,” where it appears in the same form as on the title-page of the Éloge de M. Franklin. (Œuvres de Condorcet publiées par A. Condorcet O’Connor, Paris, 1847, v. 162.)

8 In Turgot’s Œuvres, Paris, 1810, ix. 140, the epigram appears in the form “Eripuit Cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque Tyrannis.” The date 1775, assigned to the epigram on the title-page of Condorcet’s Éloge de M. Franklin, is doubtless incorrect, for Franklin did not reach Paris until December 21, 1776, and the earliest known allusion to the epigram is under date of April, 1778, where it reads as in Turgot’s Œuvres. For a full and interesting discussion of the epigram, see Charles Sumner’s “Monograph from an old Note-Book; with a Postscript. ‘Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis,’” in the Atlantic Monthly for November, 1863, xii. 648–662. It should be pointed out, however, that in a letter to Horace Walpole dated March 1, 1777, Madame du Deffand (Lettres de la Marquise du Deffand à Horace Walpole, 1912, iii. 308) says, “Voilà des vers pour mettre au bas de l’estampe de M. Franklin” — and then quotes four lines of which the first is identical with the first line of the verses in French written by Turgot (Œuvres, ix. 140). Possibly the original verses were in French and afterwards given a Latin form.

9 Works (ed. Bigelow), vi. 111–112.

10 Glenbervie Journals (1910), p. 95.

11 Bigelow, Life of Franklin, iii. 259 note.

12 Washington’s Writings (ed. Sparks), ix. 72.

13 In 1727 two editions appeared of Prince’s “Earthquakes the Works of God & Tokens of his just Displeasure. Two Sermons On Psal. xviii. 7. At the Particular Fast in Boston, Nov. 2. and the General Thanksgiving, Nov. 9.” In 1755 Prince published “Earthquakes the Works of God, and Tokens of His just Displeasure.” This was Sermon I of the 1727 edition, with an “Appendix Concerning the Operation of God in Earthquakes by Means of the Electrical Substance,” dated “Boston, Dec. 5. 1755.” The passage quoted in the text is from this Appendix. A controversy between Prince and Winthrop took place in the newspapers in 1755.

14 Franklin’s Works (ed. Sparks), v. 419.

15 Works (ed. Bigelow), ii. 253–254, 255.

16 Works (ed. Sparks), v. 337.

17 Publications, viii. 90–92, 104.

18 Publications, xii. 288–294. The following references may be added to those furnished by Mr. Matthews and Mr. Cunningham: William Douglass, Summary, Boston, 1749, i. 239 n; Sir Walter Scott’s note in his edition of Dryden, vi. 222 ff; Saintsbury’s Dryden, vi. 237; Addison, Spectator, No. 269, January 8, 1712, with C. N. Greenough’s note, Selections from the Writings of Joseph Addison, ed. by Wendell and Greenough, Boston, [1905,] (Athenæum Press Series), p. 325; Brand, Popular Antiquities, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, i. 221.

19 The manner of the Burning the Pope in Effigies in London On the 5th of November, 1678. With The manner of carrying him through several Streets, in progression to Temple-Bar, where at length he was decently burned. Also A Particular of several Bloody Massacres done by the Papists upon the Bodies of English, Irish, and French Protestants. With Allowance. London, Printed for D. M. 1678.

20 Pp. 3–6. The pagination of the original is given within square brackets.

21 History of Plymouth Plantation (ed. Ford), i. 333–334.

22 New England’s Memorial (1669), p. 51. The year is correctly given in the headline as 1623. Cf. J. A. Goodwin’s Pilgrim Republic (1888), pp. 249–250.

23 Cf. Boston Post Boy of April 20 (p. 3/3) and 27 (p. 4/3), 1772.

24 Publications, xiv. 268 note 2.

25 New England Palladium, January 14, 1803, p. 3/2. A reference to the proposals also appeared in the Boston Weekly Magazine of January 22, 1803, i. 55.

26 The following advertisement, evidently referring to the edition published by Allen Danforth at Plymouth in 1826, appeared in the Columbian Centinel of December 2 (p. 2/5), 9 (p. 4/4), and 16 (p. 1/3), 1826:

NEW ENGLAND MEMORIAL

JUST published, a new edition of the “NEW-ENGLAND’s MEMORIAL,” or a brief relation of the most remarkable passages of the providence of God, manifested to the Planters of New-England, with special reference to the Colony of Plymouth. By Nathaniel Morton, Secretary to the Court for the Jurisdiction of New-Plymouth. For sale by RICHARDSON & LORD.

27 This specimen of the page and type consists of Morton’s address to the “Christian Reader,” dated “Plymouth in New-England, January 13, 1680,” afterwards printed in Young’s Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers.

28 It is curious to find this statement at so early a period. In the Preface to his edition published in 1826, Judge Davis said that “The first edition of the Memorial was published in 1669. It was a small quarto volume, printed at Cambridge, by Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson” (p. iv). This latter statement is unquestionably correct: see Mr. Matthews’s paper called A Ghost-Book (Publications of this Society, xiv. 268–281).

29 Josiah Cotton.

30 Plymouth Church Records, lib. i. p. 45.

31 The letter is printed in Washington’s Writings (ed. Sparks), vii. 459.

32 Cf. Publications of this Society, vii. 127–181, 341–398, xvii. 161–205.

33 See p. 47 note 3, below.

34 John Fitzgerald.

35 Charles Simms.

36 Francis Conway, who married Elizabeth Fitzhugh.

37 Samuel Hanson was tutor to George Steptoe Washington (cf. p. 47 note 3, below), but failed to exercise due control over his ward: see Washington’s Writings (ed. Ford), xi. 263, 297, 372.

38 Born 1739, died 1795; of Cedar Park, Anne Arundel County, Maryland: see Maryland Historical Magazine, viii. 82.

39 David Humphreys (1752–1818).

40 George Augustine Washington, son of Charles Washington (brother of George Washington), married Frances Bassett, daughter of Col. Burwell Bassett.

41 The proceedings in detail are given in J. Pickell, New Chapter in the Early Life of Washington, p. 87. Much information about the Potomac Company will also be found in Corra Bacon-Foster, Early Chapters in the Development of the Patomac Route to the West (1912).

42 William Fitzhugh (b.1741): see Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, viii. 94. Ravensworth was the home of the Fitzhughs in Fairfax County, Virginia.

43 Dr. James Craik.

44 William Shaw, who had recently been Washington’s secretary.

45 Philip Richard Fendall.

46 Chevalier Mauduit Duplessis.

47 To intend, in the sense of “to start on a journey, to set out,” is marked “obsolete or archaic” in the Oxford English Dictionary, no extract from English prose being cited later than 1744. This use, however, was common in this country certainly until the nineteenth century.

48 See p. 47 note 2, below.

49 William Lyles & Co. supplied rum for the workers on the canal: see Pickell, p. 83.

50 Thomas Mifflin (1744–1800).

51 William Craik, son of Dr. James Craik, married Ann Fitzhugh, sister of Mrs. G. W. P. Custis. His eldest sister was Nancy Craik, who married Richard Harrison.

52 “Fore-bay, . . . ‘a reservoir or conductor between a mill-race and a waterwheel. The discharging end of a head or mill-race’” (Oxford English Dictionary, where the earliest extract is dated 1874).

53 Mrs. Daniel French.

54 Tobias Lear (H. C. 1783), Washington’s secretary.

55 * The ground at the ferry being stiff, breaking up in pretty large and heavy clods and the seed harrowed in with my lightest harrow, was not well covered & left the ground very rough & lumpy with hollows between the furrows that would prevent the grain from being well covered — and the Timothy seed still worse.

56 George Gilpin.

57 See p. 47 note 2, below.

58 Edmund Randolph (1753–1813) married Elizabeth Nicholas.

59 “Lea-land, lay-land. . . . Fallow land; land ‘laid down’ to grass” (Oxford English Dictionary).

60 Joseph Jones of Virginia.

61 Dr. David Stuart married Eleanor (Calvert) Custis, the widow of Martha Washington’s son, John Parke Custis. George Washington Parke Custis, Eleanor Parke Custis, Elizabeth Parke Custis, and Martha Parke Custis, were the children of John Parke Custis.

62 George Steptoe Washington, Harriott Washington, and Lawrence Washington were the children of Samuel Washington, a brother of George Washington.

63 Burwell Bassett (d. 1793).

64 See p. 47 note 2, above.

65 “Presley Thornton . . . was a British officer during our Revolution, but he would not fight against his country, and therefore went to Gibraltar, and was in Garrison there during its siege by the Spaniards, where it is said he distinguished himself by his gallant behavior” (Washington to C. C. Pinckney, March 31, 1799, in Washington’s Writings, xiv. 169). He was a first cousin of Mildred Thornton, who married Charles Washington (brother of George Washington).

66 See letter to Triplet in Washington’s Writings (ed. Ford), xi. 64.

67 The Sieur Oster is given in the Massachusetts Almanac for 1785 as the French Vice-Consul at Virginia.

68 His shop and residence were afterwards moved to Hanover Street, where he was a near neighbor and friend of Mr. Edes’s great-grandfather, Nathan Webb (1767–1853), who was a parishioner of Dr. Andrew Eliot. Mr. Edes informs me that this well-known Massachusetts name was at that time pronounced “Ellit.”

69 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, i. 502 note; Boston Transcript, June 4, 1869. The Doctor was quoting a review of the new Pharmacopœia in the Monthly Anthology.

70 The Easter term of the English law-courts lasted from the Wednesday fortnight after Easter to the Monday after Ascension Day. The last Wednesday in Easter term was, therefore, the day before Ascension Day, which always falls on a Thursday; and thirty-nine days after Easter Sunday. (John J. Bond, Handy-Book of Rules for Verifying Dates, 4th ed., p. 174.)

71 This term is first applied in the Colony Records (i. 194) to the Easter term meeting of 1637, and in Winthrop’s Journal (1853, ii. 157) to that of 1634.

72 It is referred to as “the yearly day of election” in an act of 1647 (Charters and General Laws of Massachusetts Bay, 1814, p. 105), and in several subsequent enactments of the General Court.

73 Dr. C. F. Bishop errs in stating, in his History of Elections in the American Colonies, p. 102, that “after 1632 the regular election took place on the second Wednesday in May.” I have compared the dates of the fifty-three courts of elections under the Colony Charter with the calendar, and find that only in one instance (1652) was Election Day held on a different date from the last Wednesday in Easter term. On that occasion (1652) it was held the day after.

74 Bishop, 128–32.

75 Bishop, 130–32; Winthrop, ii. 379. An act of October, 1680, following one of the unsuccessful attempts to abolish direct voting, prescribes that all freemen who have not voted by proxy appear “on the election day . . . at the court house by eight of the clock in the morning, to bring in their votes as aforesaid” (Charters and General Laws, 1814, p. 108).

76 See Mr. Swift’s article on Massachusetts Election Sermons (Publications of this Society, i. 388).

77 Charters and General Laws, p. 29; Publications of this Society, ii. 20. The Province Charter does not expressly require that the Councillors, and the Speaker and the Clerk of the House, be chosen on Election Day, but our associate Mr. Matthews has established, from the examination of Boston newspapers and other sources, that such was the practice. The election of Speaker on Election Day was made obligatory by the Explanatory Charter of 1725 (Publications of this Society, ii. 31). Councillors were chosen, it will be remembered, not by the Representatives (Deputies) alone, but by the entire General Court, consisting of Royal Governor, outgoing Council, and House of Representatives. In the newspapers of the Provincial period Election Day is also referred to as “The Anniversary Day for the Election of Counsellors” (e. g., Boston News Letter, June 4, 1711, and May 31, 1733; and cf. p. 59 note 2, below).

78 H. A. Hill, History of the Old South Church, i. 362.

79 This occurred in 1785, and in 1806 there was a prolonged contest in the General Court over counting the votes. (W. Burdick, Massachusetts Manual for 1814–15, pp. 26–28; 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xx. 12–21.)

80 The former Election Week, under the new title of Anniversary Week, continued to attract to Boston the annual swarms of longfaced, black-coated brethren from country pulpits that so annoyed Dr. Holmes, and suggested his poem “The Moral Bully.” Cf. 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xiii. 45–46.

81 The former Election Week, under the new title of Anniversary Week, continued to attract to Boston the annual swarms of longfaced, black-coated brethren from country pulpits that so annoyed Dr. Holmes, and suggested his poem “The Moral Bully.” Cf. 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xiii. 45–46.

82 Author not known. [E. E.’s note.]

83 “The game of Paw-paw, or props, was played with four small shells, known to naturalists as the Cyproea Moneta, and was one of the gambling games much practiced by the boys of Boston” (1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xiii. 46). Cf. Mary C. Crawford, Social Life in Old New England, p. 431; Oxford English Dictionary, under “Prop, sb.⁴.”

84 Cadets. [E. E.’s note.]

85 The Old Brick, which was the third meeting-house of the First Church, stood from 1713 to 1808 in Cornhill Square.

86 Noted for long sermons. [E. E.’s note.] The Rev. Thomas Frink (H. C. 1722), preached the Election Sermon of 1758. (Cf. Publications of this Society, i. 420.) This allusion fixes the approximate date of the poem.

87 P. 44, above.

88 Columbian Centinel, July 7, 1792, p. 2/4, where the toasts offered are printed.

89 The song was printed in the Massachusetts Mercury of May 24, 1799, p. 4/1, preceded by the following:

Messrs. Young & Minns,

The following, though far from perfect, may have sufficient merit to entitle it to publication. It was written at Surinam, a few days previous to the last anniversary of the Birth of the American Hero.

Yr’s.

A SEA CAPTAIN.

90 Publications, xiv. 199–201.

91 The allusion is to Congress, not to the Massachusetts Legislature. One of the toasts given at the celebration at Concert Hall, Boston, on the same day was this: “The Hon. Roger Griswold, and the fifty-two Gentlemen in Congress: — May their exertions to rid the National Legislature of a beastly character, be remembered by their constituents” (Columbian Centinel, February 24, 1798, p. 2/4). Matthew Lyon of Vermont had insulted Roger Griswold of Connecticut and had used an indecent expression. On February 12th a resolution for expelling Lyon was voted on, and “The Speaker then declared the Yeas to be 52 and the Nays 44, and as the Constitution requires two thirds of the Members present to expel a Member, the Resolution was not agreed to” (Columbian Centinel, February 21, p. 2/2). The Speaker of the House was Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey. For a reference to Lyon, see Publications of this Society, xvii. 311 note 1.

92 Columbian Centinel, February 24, 1798, pp. 2/3.

93 Thomas Jefferson was then Vice-President.

94 The Alien and Sedition Acts had been passed by Congress in 1798.

95 State Papers and Publick Documents of the United States (Wait, Boston), iii. 415. I am indebted to our associate Dr. Morison for this reference. Cf. Publications of this Society, xvii. 326. Pickering’s report was printed in the supplement to the Columbian Centinel of February 6, 1799.

96 Faculty Records, vii. 33, 34.

97 The only allusion to it known to me is in an article On Some Social Distinctions at Harvard and Yale before the Revolution (Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, October, 1893, ix. 34–59) by our associate Professor Franklin B. Dexter, whose attention was called to it by the late William H. Tillinghast.

98 For a notice of Joseph Williamson (1633–1701), who was knighted January 24, 1672, see the Dictionary of National Biography.

99 Report on the Manuscripts of J. M. Heathcote, Esq. of Conington Castle, Co. Hunts (1899), pp. 88–89, 144–147, 148–150, 150–152, 170–171, 191–192, 194–195.

100 “Many news letters were sent to Fanshawe by this indefatigable collector [Williamson], who, while gathering materials from far and wide for his Gazette was always willing to provide entertainment for his friends, and who gives many items of gossip not mentioned by either Pepys or Evelyn” (Report on the Manuscripts of J. M. Heathcote, p. xxiv).

101 Letters addressed from London to Sir Joseph Williamson while Plenipotentiary at the Congress of Cologne in the years 1673–1674 (Camden Society, 1874), ii. 161.

102 “There is a complete collection of his [Henry Muddiman’s] news letters from 29 April, 1667 to 12 October, 1689 in the Marquis of Bath’s library at Longleat. Their dates are on alternate days and they are contained in fourteen folio volumes, . . . This collection of some thousands of consecutive news letters by one person is quite unique, and considering his privileged position, should be of high value when calendared” (J. B. Williams, The Newsbooks and Letters of News of the Restoration, in the English Historical Review, 1908, xxiii. 275–276).

103 J. B. Williams, History of English Journalism to the foundation of the Gazette (1908), p. 3.

104 The pamphlet consists of twenty pages: title, 1 leaf; Treaty, pp. 3–19; advertisement, p. [20].

105 Allusions to the Treaty will be found in New York Colonial Documents, iii. 388–389, 465, 467, 468, 469, 487, 506, 511, 519, 520–523, 525, iv. 169, 210, 478, v. 620, ix. 370.

106 Cf. Publications of this Society, iii. 86–90.

107 H. C. 1772; died 1813.

108 Samuel Webber and the elder Henry Ware.

109 Observations on a Variety Of Subjects, Literary, Moral and Religious; In a Series of Original Letters, Written by a Gentleman of Foreign Extraction, who resided some Time in Philadelphia. Revised by a Friend, to whose Hands the Manuscript was committed for Publication. Philadelphia: Printed by John Dunlap. M,DCC,LXXIV.

110 This manuscript volume (in my possession) is but a fragment of the journal kept by Mr. Brooks on a European tour of some thirteen months. It covers the interval from April 9, 1834 (Florence), to December 13, 1834 (New York). The passage from Liverpool to New York, in the packet ship Virginian, took twenty-eight days, — a week less than the captain’s forecast. There were twenty-four cabin passengers.

111 1795–1872; H. C. 1816.

112 Willis’s account of his own first call upon Lady Blessington shortly before this date may be found in The New-York Mirror (reprinted in The American Ladies’ Magazine, April, 1835, viii. 215–219).

113 Publications, xii. 227.

114 Curwen Papers, v. 87.

115 Of these three endorsements, the second and third are in the same hand as the Articles above.

116 i. 15. The entry there reads: “Vial; dead 1729.” The name “Vial” is in the hand of Tutor Flynt, the rest of the entry having been inserted, of course at a much later date, by President Wadsworth. Viall was placed eleventh in a class of thirty-seven.

117 Cambridge Church Records, 1632–1830 (1906), p. 96.

118 Narragansett Historical Register, iii. 100, 106, 108–110; J. N. Arnold, Vital Record of Rhode Island, Bristol, p. 168. I am indebted to Mr. Matthews and to Mr. Gay for information about Viall.

119 Publications of this Society, ii. 27.

120 Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1702, No. 728.

121 Ibid. No. 780.

122 Ibid. No. 924.

123 Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1702, No. 966.

124 Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1702, No. 1046.

125 Ibid. No. 1131.

126 Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1702, No. 1135.

127 Ibid. 1702–1703, No. 30.

128 Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1702–1703, No. 315.

129 Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1702–1703, No. 319. The Governor of Jamaica was Thomas Handaside.

130 Ibid. No. 544.

131 Ibid. No. 673.

132 Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1702–1703, No. 1224.

133 Ibid. No. 996.

134 Ibid. No. 1071.

135 Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1702–1703, No. 1399.

136 Boston News Letter, July 24, 1704, No. 14, p. 2/1.

137 For permission to exhibit this document, I am indebted to Miss Mary A. Tenney, on behalf of her family, in whose possession it has been since Revolutionary days.

138 It is printed in the Postscript to the Massachusetts Spy of May 12, 1774. In the same paper of June 2 (p. 3/3) appeared the following:

Tell it in Gath, publish it in Askelon, that the Boston Port-Bill, in all its parts is now carrying into execution and that Boston is thereby put into greater distress, and is more insulted by an English armament than sheever was by a French or Spanish fleet in the hottest war, when left without one British ship for her protection. The town is become a spectacle to angels and men, G o d grant that it may not be intimidated by the present horrors to make a surrender of the rights of Americans; or in any respect to dishonour herself in this day of tryal and perplexity.

Business was finished at the custom-house at 12 o’clock yesterday noon, and this harbour is now shut against all vessels bound hither, and on the 15th instant none will be allowed to depart hence. Be it forever remembered, to thy grief and shame, O Britain!

139 Frothingham, Rise of the Republic of the United States, p. 336 note.

140 Wells, Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, ii. 172.

141 Copied from an original (two leaves, printed on inside pages) owned by the American Antiquarian Society. An extract from this letter is in Force’s American Archives, 4th Series, i. 397; but apparently the letter has not before been reprinted in full.

142 “William Cooper Clerk” is an autograph signature. Near the wax of the seal, still visible, are written a few words, apparently “S Jenison Or Town.” No doubt this was Samuel Jennison (1733–1790), later elected a member of the Provincial Congress from Douglas: see W. A. Emerson, History of Douglas, pp. 68–70; G. F. Daniels, History of Oxford, pp. 559–560; Vital Records of Oxford, p. 289.

The Massachusetts Historical Society owns two copies of this broadside.

One, with the wax of the seal still visible, is addressed “For the Committee of Correspondence for Salem.” The other ends with the words “We are, &c.;” after which is written in ink in Cooper’s hand:

June 8. 1774.

By Order of the Committee of Correspondence for Boston, William Cooper Clerk.

143 Form A is copied from the document exhibited to-day. It is a folded sheet which, opened, measures 13¾ inches in width by 20 in height. The covenant is printed on the first page. The alterations made in the Westford meeting of July 4 are indicated in footnotes, all the alterations being in ink.

Form B is copied from a broadside owned by the American Antiquarian Society. It measures 7½ inches in width by 12½ in height.

144 In the Westford document, the name “Westford” has been inserted.

145 The words “in the presence of God” are crossed out in the Westford document.

146 The words “and in good faith” are crossed out in the Westford document.

147 The word “full” is crossed out in the Westford document.

148 At the bottom of the broadside the words “This came from Sutton” are written in ink in the hand of Isaiah Thomas. I am greatly indebted to our associates Dr. Charles L. Nichols, for ascertaining what documents bearing on the subject are owned by the American Antiquarian Society, and Mr. Clarence S. Brigham, for sending the documents to Boston for my inspection.

149 The word “fully” is crossed out in the Westford document.

150 The words “imported from Great Britain” are here interlined in the Westford document.

151 The last two letters in “June” have been crossed out and “ly” written above, and “4th” has been inserted in the blank space.

152 E. R. Hodgman, History of the Town of Westford, p. 95. The town clerk of Westford at that time was John Abbot (1713–1791).

153 Most of the signers are mentioned in the genealogical section of Hodgman’s History of the Town of Westford, pp. 435–486.

154 On July 10, 1775, “Chose Doctor Asaph Fletcher to represent this town in the great and general Court to be held at Watertown” (Hodgman, History of Westford, p. 113).

155 It is impossible to decipher this surname.

156 This Christian name is badly blotted.

157 This surname is doubtful.

158 In a town meeting held at Westminster August 3 it was “voted that the Inhabitants would sign a Covenant that might be Drawn up and laid before the Town;” a committee was chosen to prepare one, and on August 19 the town voted “almost unanimously” to accept the proposed covenant. Though not entered on the town records, the original document has been found and is printed, together with the names of forty-seven signers, in W. S. Heywood’s History of Westminster, pp. 152–153. It differs materially from forms A and B. Heywood says:

The document is complete as far as it goes, and with the signature fills the two pages of a half sheet of foolscap paper. There are indications tending to show that the other half has been torn from the one preserved, and it may be presumed that there were upon it names of other well-known residents, who would be likely to take the same self-sacrificing and heroic stand in behalf of their own and their country’s liberties (p. 153).

Is it not probable that the missing half-sheet contained the printed covenant — either form A or form B, Westminster being in Worcester County?

159 Copied from a broadside owned by the American Antiquarian Society. It measures 6⅝ inches in width by 9 in height. The Massachusetts Historical Society owns two copies of this broadside: one measures 7¼ inches in width by 9¾ in height; the other measures 9 inches in width by 15 in height.

160 “William Cooper Clerk” is an autograph signature.

161 Worcester Town Records (Collections of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, iv. 206). The Worcester covenant was adopted at a town meeting held June 20 (iv. 230–233). A protest, signed by fifty-two persons, was immediately drawn up and entered in the town records. It was also printed in the Boston News Letter of June 30, p. 2/1, and in the Boston Post Boy of July 4, p. 1/2, where it was preceded by the following note:

Messi’rs Printers,

If you please you may give the following Protestation, &c. of us a few friends of truth, peace and order, a place in your paper: For it is believed that we, and many others thro’ the province, have too long already, held our peace.

Then comes the protest, with the “Attest, Clark Chandler, Town Clerk,” and the names of the signers. At a town meeting held August 24, the town clerk was severely censured and ordered to erase the record of protest (Worcester Town Records, iv. 236–239). A facsimile of an erased page is given in Celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Worcester (1876), p. 113.

It is stated in the History of Worcester County (Boston, 1879, ii. 578, 579) that “‘The American Political Society’ was formed Dec. 27, 1773;” and that “At the monthly meeting of the Political Society in June [1774], it was voted to sign a covenant not to purchase any English goods until the port of Boston was opened, and to discontinue intercourse with those declining to subscribe.” The American Antiquarian Society (Worcester Papers, i. 20) owns an undated draft of a covenant which accords in sentiment, but not in wording (being still more drastic), with the Boston covenant. At the end is written: “It is thought best not to sign any agreement yet, as it is expected we shall have the plan of a General one from Boston very soon. Yours W^m Henshaw. Please return this to the bearer M^r Timothy Bigelow.”

162 Copied from a broadside owned by the American Antiquarian Society. It measures 7½ inches in width by 10 in height.

163 “W^m Young” is an autograph signature. The broadside was no doubt printed in Boston, as the type is apparently the same and the paper has the same watermark as form A of the covenant. At all events, it certainly was not printed at Worcester, as sometimes stated, since Thomas himself said that “The first Thing ever printed in Worcester” was the Massachusetts Spy of May 3, 1775 (Nichols, Bibliography of Worcester, pp. vii, 2; Nichols, Isaiah Thomas: Printer, Writer & Collector, p. 57).

164 American Archives, 4th Series, i. 397–398.

165 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 177.

166 xviii. 177–178.

167 xviii. 178.

168 Letters and Diary, pp. 276–277.

169 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, viii. 331.

170 Boston Evening Post, July 4, p. 2/2–3. What Andrews called “The declaration” was also printed in the Boston Post Boy of July 4, p. 2/2, but it there precedes (not follows) the two protests.

171 At a town meeting held at Braintree on June 27 a committee was appointed “to prepare a draught of a covenant to be laid before the Town;” the draught offered by the committee the same day was “Voted accepted, and was then proposed the same should be offer^d to the Members of the s^d Town for signing &c.” The meeting then adjourned to July 25, when “The above said covenant having had some exceptions made, so it was offer^d to the Town for amendment which was accordingly done, and then almost every one Present sign^d the same, and it was then order^d by the Town to the Members of the Town in the several Precincts that were not Present at the Meeting for signing and then to be lodg^d with the clerk of s^d Town” (Braintree Records, p. 449).

172 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, ii. 481–482.

173 It is printed in 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, ii. 482–483. When a copy of the covenant reached Dover, on June 28 Jeremy Belknap wrote a vigorous protest, which doubtless had its effect, for on July 4 “The Selectmen & Committee of Correspondence of this Town met & agreed to suspend this matter till they shall hear what is the Result of the approaching Congress, upon the Subject” (ibid. ii. 484–486).

174 Pickering Papers, xxxix. 57.

175 Pickering Papers, xxxiii. 96.

176 Narrative and Critical History of America, vi. 96–97. The misapprehension is due to confusion between the Provincial Committee of Correspondence and the Boston Committee of Correspondence. The General Court met in Boston on May 25, was adjourned on May 28 to meet at Salem on June 7, and was dissolved on June 17. On May 26 it was ordered in the House of Representatives that “the Committee of Correspondence be, and they are hereby directed to Write to the Committees of Correspondence of all the British Colonies on this Continent; inclosing a Copy of the unprecedented Act of the British Parliament for shutting up the Port of Boston, and otherwise punishing the Inhabitants of said Town: And desire their immediate Attention to an Act, design’d to suppress the Spirit of Liberty in America” (House Journal, p. 9). The only action taken with respect to non-importation was on June 17, when, nine days after the Boston Committee of Correspondence had sent out the Solemn League and Covenant, —

Upon a Motion made, the House pass’d the following Resolve, viz.

Whereas this and his Majesty’s other Colonies in North-America, have long been struggling under the heavy Hand of Power; and our dutiful Petitions for the Redress of our intolerable Grievances, have not only been disregarded and frown’d upon, but the Design totally to alter the free Constitutions of Civil Government in British America, and establish arbitrary Governments and reduce the Inhabitants to Slavery, appears more and more to be fixed and determined: It is therefore strongly recommended by this House to the Inhabitants of this Province, that they renounce altogether the Consumption of India Teas, and as far as in them lies, discontinue the Use of all Goods and Manufactures whatsoever, that shall be Imported from the East Indies and Great-Britain, until the publick Grievances of America shall be radically and totally redressed. And it is further recommended to all, that they give all possible Encouragement to the Manufactures of America. And it is moreover strongly recommended to the Inhabitants aforesaid, that they use their utmost Endeavours to suppress Pedlars and Petty-Chapmen (who are of late become a very great Nuisance) by putting in Execution the good and wholesome Laws of this Province for that Purpose (House Journal, p. 46).

177 See E. S. Steams, History of Ashburnham, pp. 133–134; W. Barry, History of Framingham, pp. 90–91; J. H. Temple, History of Framingham, p. 267; J. G. Metcalf, Annals of Mendon, pp. 320–321; J. R. Trumbull, History of Northampton, ii. 343–344; and cf. pp. 110, 111 note 3, 113 note 1, 117, 118 note, above. The Massachusetts Spy of June 30, 1774, said that on June 20 the people of Charlton “generally signed a covenant, obliging themselves, to withdraw all commercial intercourse with the Island of Great Britain; and not to purchase, or use any goods imported from thence, from and after the last day of August next, or till the Port of Boston be opened, and all our charter and constitutional rights are fully restored; but a few individuals refused to sign” (p. 3/1). On June 29 Governor Gage issued “A Proclamation For discouraging certain illegal Combinations,” which was printed in the contemporary Boston newspapers; also in 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xii. 45–48. Cf. ibid. xi. 392–394; Moore, Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution, p. 65.

178 The Term Indian Summer, read before this Society in December, 1901 (Publication, vii. 241–244); printed in Monthly Weather Review for January and February, 1902, xxx. 19–28, 69–79, and also in a separate pamphlet.

179 The Old Farmer and his Almanack, 1904, pp. 191–198.

180 Robert Temperley, The Merchant Shipping Acts, London, 1907, pp. 710–711.

181 Monthly Weather Review, January, 1915, xliii. 44–45.

182 A Collection of Poems, on American Affairs, . . . Written between the year 1797 and the Present Time, i. 97–98. In 1902–1907 was published in three volumes The Poems of Philip Freneau, edited by Fred Lewis Pattee.

183 Illustrated Poems (1849), pp. 141–142. In the preface, dated October 1, 1848, Mrs. Sigourney says: “The edition now presented to the public comprises selections from previous volumes, poems that have appeared only in a fugitive form, and others that have never before been indebted to the ministry of the press.”

184 This appears to be the same tradition as that recounted by Charles Brockden Brown in a note in his translation of Volney, View of the Soil and Climate of the United States (Philadelphia, 1804), p. 210. If the tradition has a basis of fact, Brown’s is undoubtedly the more correct version.

185 “Having,” she herself wrote late in life, “become an enthusiast about our aborigines, the first tune that I was permitted to choose for my own performance was that sweetly plaintive melody of the ‘Indian Chief’s Death-Song.’” And again, referring to her Traits of the Aborigines of America — the poem of four thousand lines filling pp. 3–131, while the Notes fill pp. 133–284 — she said:

This was composed two years before my marriage, but its publication was delayed for some time, . . . An early acquaintance with the Mohegan tribe of Indians, who resided a few miles from Norwich, and a taste for searching out the historic legends of our forest-people, deepened my interest in their native lineaments of character, and my sympathy for their degraded condition. In the notes of the volume much information is concentrated respecting them, derived from various sources, in the revision of which I gratefully received the aid of the acute and discriminating mind of my husband (Letters of Life, 1866, pp. 53, 327).

186 Jesuits in North America (1880), p. lxxv. Though not found in this passage, Parkman elsewhere employs the term Indian summer: see Mr. Matthews’s monograph.

187 Lettres d’un Cultivateur Américain . . . depuis l’Année 1770 jusqu’en 1786, par M. St. John de Crevecoeur, Traduites de l’Anglois, Paris, 1787, i. 294. The description fills pp. 289–314.

188 In his Letters of an American Farmer, published in London in 1782, Crevecœur does not mention the Indian summer. My attention was called to the passage in the text by Mr. Franklin B. Sanborn’s paper on “St. John de Crèvecœur, the American Farmer (1735–1813),” printed in 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xx. 32–83. Mr. Sanborn shows that Crevecœur was often inaccurate, remarking in one place: “But dates were never St. John’s forte. He misstated the ages of his children by two years, and dedicated the French edition of his ‘Lettres d’un Cultivateur Américain’ to Lafayette from ‘Albany, 17 Mai 1781,’ though at that date he was in England” (p. 34 note: cf. pp. 36, 37 note, 45, 52–53, 73–74).

189 See Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, p. 400.

190 Bradford, History (1856), p. 9.

191 Bradford, History, p. 11.

192 Bradford, History, p. 13.

193 P. 15.

194 Dexter, The England and Holland of the Pilgrims, pp. 467–468.

195 Bradford, History, pp. 53–54.

196 Bradford, History, p. 17.

197 Book of the General Laws (1672), p. 2.

198 Bradford, History, pp. 59–60.

199 Bradford, History, pp. 66–67.

200 Bradford, History, pp. 59–60.

201 Bradford, History, p. 198.

202 Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, p. 368.

203 Plymouth Colony Records, xi. 101.

204 iv. 85, 86.

205 Bradford, History, p. 135.

206 Plymouth Colony Records, xi. 6.

207 Plymouth Colony Records, xi. 50.

208 Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, p. 496.

209 Publications of this Society, xvii. 302 and note.

210 Could this have been the Rev. James Freeman, minister of King’s Chapel?

211 Massachusetts Magazine, iii. 52–53.

212 Third Series, vii. 29–30.

213 James Bowdoin married Elizabeth, daughter of John Erving.

214 In Airs of the Pilgrims, pp. 1–3, appended to W. S. Russell’s Guide to Plymouth (1846).

215 In the later versions this is printed “fresh meat.”

216 Massachusetts Spy, February 3, 1774, p. 4/1.

217 Early English and French Voyages (Original Narratives of Early American History), pp. 337, 347, 350, 371.

218 Travels and Works of Captain John Smith (edited by A. G. Bradley, 1910), pp. 194–200, 267.

219 These facts and others concerning the New England fur trade will be found in C. H. McIlwain’s Introduction to Wraxall’s Abridgment, chap. i. note A. This is the best account of the New England fur trade at present available.

220 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 55; Young, Chronicles of Massachusetts Bay (1846), p. 148.

221 Plain Dealing (1867), pp. 109–111.

222 F. J. Turner, Publications of this Society, xvii. 254.

223 Winthrop’s Journal (1908), i. 103, 108; McIlwain, p. xxxi.

224 Johnson, Wonder-working Providence (1910), p. 237.

225 Plain Dealing, p. 108.

226 New English Canaan (Prince Society, 1883), pp. 282–283, and Introduction, pp. 19 ff.

227 These facts are well summarized by McIlwain, pp. xxix–xxxi.

228 This petition appears in one form in 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 131–134, and in a somewhat different form in Bradford’s History (1908), p. 314. It is calendared in the Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1574–1660, p. 157, where it is dated 1632, obviously a mistake.

229 Cf. Publications of this Society, xii. 101–113, 191–203.

230 The operations of this Canada Company are best described by H. P. Biggar, Early Trading Companies of New France, chapters viii and ix. See also H. Kirke, The First English Conquest of Canada (1908), and Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, chap. xvi. For the interest of Gorges and Mason in this Company, see J. W. Dean’s Introduction to Captain John Mason (Prince Society), pp. 53–54.

231 Works of Captain John Smith, pp. 192, 237.

232 The Laconia charter is printed in Captain John Mason, pp. 189 ff. For an account of the Laconia Company, see J. W. Dean’s Introduction to this work, pp. 53 ff. Dean relied for his information largely upon a work on the Isles of Shoals by John S. Jenness (1875). See also a note by Charles Deane in 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, vi. 376–380; and cf. Publications of this Society, xii. 372.

233 Captain John Mason, pp. 72–74, 331, 335; Gorges, Brief Description of Laconia, in Collections Maine Historical Society, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 67–68; Morton, New English Canaan, p. 237. The best secondary account of the explorations of the Laconia Company is that of Amandus Johnson, Swedish Settlements on the Delaware, i. 392 ff.

234 Winthrop’s Journal, i. 224; Morton, pp. 234 ff. and Introduction, pp. 77–78.

235 New English Canaan, pp. 238, 240.

236 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xl. 70. The contributor of this document, Dr. Charles E. Banks, believes that the writer was Walter Neale, first governor of Laconia.

237 Winthrop speaks of trading with the Dutch for beaver and estimates their total trade at nine or ten thousand skins a year (Journal, i. 131). See also McIlwain, p. xxxii; Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, i. 126. McIlwain errs, however, in citing Weeden (i. 131) to the effect that this illicit trade amounted to from ten to fifteen thousand skins a year. What Weeden does say is that the Dutch, previous to the loss of their Connecticut trade, had drawn that number of skins yearly from New England — quite a different matter.

238 McIlwain, pp. xxx–xxxi; Bradford, pp. 299–302; Winthrop’s Journal, i. 103, 109–110.

239 See an interesting note by Mr. H. A. Wright (Outlook, May 5, 1915, cx. 47) on the size of Pynchon’s trade. His success at Springfield was a source of great annoyance to the Dutch, and was one of the grievances against the English which Stuyvesant brought forward at the time of the treaty of Hartford in 1650 (Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 172, 176, 178).

240 C. H. Levermore, Republic of New Haven, p. 90.

241 No attempt is here made to describe this episode in full. Amandus Johnson (Swedish Settlements on the Delaware, i. 208–217) gives a detailed account with references to the sources. His account supersedes that of Levermore (Republic of New Haven, pp. 90 ff), which is condensed and uncritical and has minor inaccuracies.

242 Levermore, p. 95.

243 See McIlwain, p. xxxi.

244 Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 22–23.

245 Weeden, i. 42; Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 86; Connecticut Colonial Records, i. 113; Plymouth Colony Records, ii. 82. J. A. James (English Institutions and the American Indian, Johns Hopkins University Studies, 12th Series, x. 25–26) makes the mistake of supposing that this proposed company went into operation. The references which he cites in proof of his statement refer to the activities of the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians.

246 Plymouth Colony Records, ix and x. Johnson gives an account of the efforts of the English to get a foothold upon the Delaware from 1643 to 1653 with full references to sources (vol. i. chap, xxxvi). Levermore must be relied upon for the rest of the history of the New Haven Delaware Company (pp. 98–99).

247 Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 140–141.

248 ix. 189.

249 Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 210–212; Johnson, i. 402.

250 Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 199.

251 ix. 213–215.

252 Plymouth Colony Records, x. 13, 14, 15, 32–33, 56.

253 x. 127; Levermore, pp. 98–99.

254 Johnson, i. 394; Winthrop’s Journal, ii. 62–63.

255 Winthrop’s Journal, ii. 164.

256 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 60.

257 Of the members of this Company, Tyng was Treasurer of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Valentine Hill was a prominent merchant of Boston, a selectman, and at different times a deputy to the General Court (Savage, Genealogical Dictionary; Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 259, 340). A later entry in the Colony Records shows him engaged with Tyng in a trading venture to the Azores, Madeiras, and West Indies (ii. 247–249). Sedgwick was at this time a deputy and later was commander, with Leverett, of the expedition which was intended to attack New Amsterdam, but conquered Acadia instead. A good account of Sedgwick will be found in Publications of this Society, iii. 156–173. Norton was a lieutenant for Charlestown and deputy (Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 166, 186). Hewes was also a lieutenant (ii. 163) and a prominent merchant. There is a good account of Hewes and his commercial ventures by Eben Putnam, Lieutenant Joshua Hewes and Some of his Descendants (1913). Pages 66–69 describe this Company of Adventurers and his connection with it, but without adding anything new. For Aspinwall see the next note.

258 Journal, ii. 164. William Aspinwall came over, probably with Winthrop, in 1630, and was prominent in the colony until the time of his banishment, in 1637, for being a supporter of Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson. With others of his fellow sufferers he joined in establishing a colony in Rhode Island, and became its first Secretary. Here also he got into trouble, “being a suspected person for sedition against the State.” The scanty notices we have of him from 1637 to 1642 show him engaged in trading. In the latter year he was restored to his rights and citizenship in Massachusetts, and speedily became Recorder and Notary Public. His connection with the Delaware Company was apparently the result of his trading ventures in 1637–1642. In 1651 he was suspended from his office as Recorder “for chardging the Courte and Jury to goe against lawe and conscience,” and the next year he lost his position as Notary Public. We know little about him after 1652 except that he was alive in England in 1662. The above account is taken from that of John T. Hassam printed in 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xii. 211–219, Suffolk Deeds, x. 15–24, and Aspinwall Notarial Records (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxxii). I am indebted to Mr. S. E. Morison for this reference.

259 Johnson (i. 396) prints a photographic facsimile.

260 Winthrop’s Journal, ii. 181, 190; Johnson, i. 394–397.

261 Winthrop’s Journal, ii. 210, 246; Johnson, i. 398.

262 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 138, iii. 53.

263 William Paine was one of the wealthiest men in the colony. He came over in 1635 and settled at Watertown, but removed in 1639 to Ipswich. He owned a five-sixths interest in the fulling and grist mill at Watertown and a three-fourths interest in both the Lynn and the Braintree Iron Works. He and Thomas Clarke, a member of this Company, were interested with the younger Winthrop in the New Haven Iron Works and the black lead mines at Sturbridge. Some of his letters to Winthrop, which throw light upon their business relations, are printed in 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vii. Paine was also a landowner on a large scale and at the time of his death was part owner of five vessels and had investments in ventures in England and Jamaica. The extent of his interests discloses the many-sided activities of what we may fairly term the capitalist class in Massachusetts at this time. The fur trade was only one of the forms of investment, perhaps the most speculative form, open to enterprising men of Paine’s generation. For an account of Paine and his undertakings, see Albert W. Paine, Paine Genealogy, Ipswich Branch (Bangor, Maine, 1881), pp. 57–73. Mr. S. E. Morison first called my attention to this Genealogy.

264 Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. iv. pt. i. 291.

265 Johnson states in his Wonder-working Providence (p. 237) that at the time he was writing, about 1651, the competition at Springfield had become so keen that there was little profit in the trade, and many of the settlers had turned to agriculture.

266 Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. iv. pt. i. 354, 355.

267 Ibid. p. 374. The secondary writers who treat this episode are Brodhead, History of New York, i. 655, 671–674; O’Callaghan, History of New Netherland, ii. 402–406; Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts (1795), i. 150 note.

268 New York Colonial Documents, xiii. 101, 107, 126, 129, 150.

269 Plymouth Colony Records, x. 220, 443.

270 Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. iv. pt. i. 395.

271 Plymouth Colony Records, x. 445–446.

272 Winthrop’s Journal, i. 151.

273 New York Colonial Documents, xiv. 465.

274 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vii. 512.

275 Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. iv. pt. i. 438. It is here stated that in October, 1659, the General Court had granted the company a tract of land on the Hudson above Fort Orange, but nothing is said about such a grant in the only passage in the Records of that date which refers to the company (p. 395). There is, however, little reason to doubt that such a grant was made.

276 Vol. iv. pt. ii. 51. According to Weeden (i. 161, citing Felt’s Annals of Salem, i. 227), the company reported in 1662 an expenditure of £250 in running lines and £150 for a land journey and other expenses. Several members of the company, including Hathorne, were Salem men.

277 For the official attitude at different times, see Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1574–1660, pp. 26 and 154; New York Colonial Documents, iii. 6–8; Thurloe, State Papers (1742), v. 81. Bradford in 1627 challenged the right of the Dutch to the country (1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, iii. 52, 53), as did Gorges and Mason in 1632 (Captain John Mason, pp. 293, 296). Morton’s opinion has already been quoted (New English Canaan, p. 240). Even after the Treaty of Hartford, the United Commissioners asserted in 1653 the priority of the English claims (Plymouth Colony Records, x. 13). I can find no justification for the statement of J. A. Stevens (Narrative and Critical History of America, iii. 386) that Cromwell in the treaty of 1654 formally recognized the Dutch title to New Netherland. An examination of the treaty (printed in Dumont, Corps Universel Diplomatique, vol. vi. pt. ii. 74–79) does not bear out his contention. It should be said, however, that after that peace Cromwell took the position that the Dutch could not be removed except by friendly agreement (Letter of William Leete to Samuel Disborow, October 10, 1654, in British Museum, Egerton MSS. 2519, fol. 10. I am here relying upon a transcript in the Library of Congress).

278 The correspondence about the rival claims will be found partly in Plymouth Colony Records, x. 220, 443–446, partly in New York Colonial Documents, xiv. 446, 465. See also 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vii. 512. The Hartford treaty is printed in Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 188–190.

279 Compare Stuyvesant’s statement: “New-England does not need her [England’s] interference and assistance in this matter, for she is conscious that her power overbalances ours ten times and it is to be apprehended, that they will in this matter make an attempt so much sooner, as they see and trust that during the present monstrous condition of the English government no countermanding order will be issued from that side; but we will willingly submit our speculations to wiser judgments and hope the best” (New York Colonial Documents, xiii. 162).

280 John Paine was born in 1632 and upon his father’s death in 1660 inherited the bulk of his property and interests. He engaged in mercantile enterprises in Boston and Portsmouth and was interested in various land speculations. Little is known about him except for this episode and another which is closely connected with it. At the time of his marriage he had received as a gift from his father-in-law, Richard Parker, 700 acres of land upon Prudence Island in Narragansett Bay. Learning at the time of his visit to New York in 1672 (A. W. Paine is apparently mistaken in having him go to New York in 1671) that the Duke of York, who had purchased the rights of the Earl of Stirling to Long Island and the adjacent islands, claimed jurisdiction over Prudence Island also, Paine got from Governor Lovelace a grant of the whole island to be held in fee simple for a yearly quit-rent of “two Barrels of Syder and six Couple of Capons,” to be known as Sophy Manor. The story that Paine won the favor of Lovelace by contributing liberally toward the repair of Fort James comes from Arnold, the historian of Rhode Island, and I have been unable to discover the source of his information. Paine’s action involved him in a lawsuit with the colony of Rhode Island for attempting to introduce a foreign jurisdiction, but before it was decided the matter was allowed to drop, probably because Paine gave up the contention that the island belonged to the Duke of York. Paine died shortly afterward, in 1675, having, it is said, before his death lost much of the property inherited from his father. Paltsits mistakenly attempts to identify him with a certain John Paine who came to New York as a soldier in 1664 (Minutes of the Executive Council of New York, i. 142 note 4). See A. W. Paine, Paine Genealogy, pp. 78–92; Arnold, History of Rhode Island, i. 362–364; Brodhead, ii. 188–189; Minutes of the Executive Council of New York, ii. 725–736; 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xvii. 85.

281 These documents, together with Lovelace’s reply, are printed in Minutes of the Executive Council of New York, ii. 662–666. Two of them are printed in New York Colonial Documents, xiv. 664, 673. A brief account of the episode will be found in Brodhead, ii. 188. The original of Paine’s address to Lovelace is to be found in New York Colonial Manuscripts, xxii. 137, and of Lovelace’s reply to Massachusetts in the Massachusetts Archives, cxii. 225. See also Minutes of the Executive Council of New York, i. 121, 142.

282 His journal is printed below, pp. 188–191.

283 Minutes of the Executive Council of New York, ii. 664; New York Colonial Documents, xiv. 673.

284 The petition is printed below, pp. 191–192.

285 These statements are based upon extensive study by the writer of New York’s Indian policy. A few references will suffice to illustrate their truth. As early as 1662 an attack by the Mohawks upon an English trading house on the Kennebec was the subject of negotiations between Massachusetts and the Dutch (Brodhead, i. 704; New York Colonial Documents, xiii. 224–227, 240, 297, 355, 378). Complaints of depredations by the Mohawks in Hampshire County were considered by the General Court in 1667 (Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. iv. pt. ii. 359). The attempt of Connecticut and Massachusetts to get aid from the Mohawks at the time of King Philip’s War and the attitude of New York at that time may be traced in Connecticut Colonial Records, ii. 397, 407, 414, 419, 426, 436, and F. B. Hough, Easton’s Narrative and other Documents relating to King Philip’s War (1858), pp. 155–159. The attitude of New York during Lt.-Gov. Dummer’s War is sufficiently illustrated in the notes printed by McIlwain, Wraxall’s Abridgment, pp. xlix, xciv.

286 Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. iv. pt. ii. 548.

287 Ibid. 558.

288 Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. iv. pt. ii. 570; Massachusetts Archives, iii. 25.

289 Alvord and Bidgood, First Explorations of the Trans-Allegheny Region by the Virginians, 1650–1674, p. 244.

290 But see the opinion of F. E. Melvin in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, i. 260–262. Melvin believes that Coxe was less credulous than has been generally supposed.

291 I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. S. E. Morison for his suggestions and criticisms, which have been of great assistance to me in the preparation of this paper.

292 Massachusetts Archives, cxii. 222–224.

293 Massachusetts Archives, cxii. 221.

294 The poem was communicated in February, 1915 (see p. 27, above), but its publication has been delayed until the text could be collated with the manuscript in Dublin.

295 Publications, xiii. 254–259.

296 One in John Lloyd’s Short Tour (1780); the second in O’Looney’s Clare Bards (1863); and the third in Father Dinneen’s edition of Tadag Gaolach O’Sullivan (1893).

297 Published in The Nation (Dublin, 1858), N. S., ix. 731, 763.

298 Dublin (1913), p. 217.

299 Irish MS. No. IX.

300 MS. ²³/_B37.

301 London (1906), pp. 13–14.

302 bhúr, O’C; do, MS. R. I. A

303 tréith, MS. R. I. A.; faon, O’C.

304 So O’C; mar cruadann a coiléir (an coiléir), MS. R. I. A.

305 Dr. Hyde is not quite sure that the MS. has scolta; possibly the reading should be seolta, “guided,” “taught.” In either case the reference would be to the poor Gaelic people.

306 do throideadh, O’C; do throideann, MS. R. I. A.

307 Laoisigh, O’C; laoirce, MS. R. I. A.

308 lease, O’C; leighis, MS. R. I. A.

309 nuair, O’C; tan, MS. R. I. A.

310 chíos, O’C; chuing, MS. R. I. A.

311 Os doigh linn na mairid, O’C; Os dóthchus na maireann, MS. R. I. A.

312 is le fíoch, O’C; agus fíoch, MS. R. I. A.

313 Inis Eilge, “Island of Elg,” is an old poetic name for Ireland of uncertain origin. Compare Kuno Meyer, in the Berlin Sitzungsberichte, 1913, p. 446.

314 “Brother O’Leary” is the Reverend Arthur O’Leary, a Capuchin friar, who labored conspicuously to keep the Irish Catholics loyal to the British throne. By so doing, O’Meehan declares, he tightened the yoke (literally, the collar) for the man who is wandering. It seems safest to interpret this phrase as a general reference to the wretchedness of the poor Gaels, though a more particular application to the fortunes of the young Pretender is also possible. In O’Meehan’s other poem on Washington, it may be recalled, the name of “the innocent Charles Stuart” was linked with those of Louis of France and the American leader, and at the time when the second song was written the condition of Charles Edward was certainly that of a discredited wanderer. Still the figure of “tightening the yoke” seems to apply best to the oppression of the people. The last couplet of the stanza doubtless means, as Dr. Hyde suggests, that O’Leary was making a profit out of bribes, while the wretched Gaels got nothing but “leave to talk.” O’Leary is known to have been in receipt of a government pension, for his loyal writings, before 1784. The “lad of gold” has not been identified, unless the name applies also to O’Leary. The order of the passage seems at first to favor the view that some other character is referred to. But this is by no means certain, and the epithet would have been a natural one for O’Meehan to apply to O’Leary. It might be interpreted as a general term of praise, here ironically employed with reference to the popular and prosperous clergyman; or one might even see in the phrase a double meaning which anticipates the later reference to bribes.

315 At Harvard the degree of Master of Arts, which from 1645 to 1869 was given in course — that is, at the end of the third year after obtaining the degree of Bachelor of Arts — has been granted since 1869 on examination only. Hence, previous to 1870, no date follows the A.M. degree, unless it was granted more than three years after graduation.

In the 1830 Harvard Triennial the names of those who received honorary degrees were for the first time placed by themselves at the end, each under the year when the degree was conferred. Previous to 1830 the practice was confusing, for the name of each recipient was placed under the class in which he graduated A.B. in some other college; or, if he was not a college graduate, in the class to which he presumably would have belonged had he gone to college; and a dash separated the names of those who graduated A.B. from those who received honorary degrees, the date when the latter were conferred being also given. Thus the first degrees conferred on Franklin and on Washington were respectively A.M. in 1753 and LL.D. in 1776, both from Harvard. In the 1754 Triennial the name of Franklin appears under the class of 1724, and in the 1776 Triennial that of Washington under the class of 1749. That is, it was assumed that if Franklin and Washington had gone to college they would have graduated in those years respectively.

The early practice at Yale was still more confusing, since no dash separated the names of those graduating A.B. from those receiving honorary degrees, and no date was attached to the names of the latter.

316 That is, the entry so stood as regards the date of the conferring of the degree. In the 1772 and 1775 Yale Triennials Mather’s Harvard class is misprinted 1725. Innumerable differences in typography, in arrangement, and in details occur in the different editions of both the Yale and the Harvard Triennials and Quinquennials.

317 Diary of Cotton Mather, ii. 805, 758–759, 762–763.

318 Our associate Professor Franklin B. Dexter, to whom I am indebted for information about the 1742–1745 and 1751 Triennials, writes: “In 1868 the change to 1725 was made, unhappily, on the theory that if given in 1724 it would have been entered in the Catalogue of that year, and also because, although other instances could be found where in those early days a Master’s degree was given two years after a Bachelor’s degree, no other instance occurs of a Master’s degree after an interval of one year.”

319 There has been much uncertainty in regard to degrees, honorary or otherwise, conferred on Harvard graduates by foreign universities previous to 1731, and different editions of the Triennials and Quinquennials vary in this respect. The following list is compiled from the 1915 Quinquennial:

1642 Benjamin Woodbridge, A.M. Oxford 1648
1642 Henry Saltonstall, M.D. Padua 1649
1645 James Ward, A.M. Oxford 1648, M.B. Oxford 1649
1650 William Stoughton, A.M. Oxford 1653
1650 John Glover, M.D. Aberd. 1654
1650 Leonard Hoar, M.D. Cambr. 1671
1651 Isaac Chauncy, M.D.
1651 Ichabod Chauncy, M.D.
1653 Joshua Ambrose, A.M. Oxford 1656
1656 Increase Mather, A.M. Dublin 1658
1656 John Haynes, A.M. Cambr. 1660
1674 Edmund Davie, M.D. Padua
1678 Cotton Mather, S.T.D. Glasgow 1710
1684 Samuel Myles, A.M. Oxford 1693
1693 William Vesey, A.M. Oxford 1697
1699 Jeremiah Dummer, Ph.D. Utrecht 1703
1701 Timothy Cutler, S.T.D. Oxford 1723, Cambr. 1723
1710 Edward Wigglesworth, S.T.D. Edinburgh 1730
1722 Ebenezer Miller, A.M. also Oxford 1726.

It is not known when or from what university the Chauncys received their degrees, nor when Davie obtained his. It may be added that George Stirk, who graduated in 1646 and later changed his name to Starkey, presumably also received the degree of M.D., though again when and from what university is unknown.

320 The bestowal of an honorary degree on a Harvard man by a foreign university was usually, if not always, noted in the Boston newspapers of the eighteenth century. Thus Cutler’s degree from Oxford was noted in the New England Courant of July 22, 1723, p. 2/1; and Wigglesworth’s degree from Edinburgh was noted in the Boston News Letter of August 27, 1730, p. 2/1.

321 New England Weekly Journal, November 8, 1731, p. 2/2. The same notice appeared in the Boston News Letter of November 4.

322 In College Book III. 137–170 are entered twenty-five diplomas for honorary degrees, most of which were received by Harvard graduates from other universities or conferred by Harvard College. A list of these was given by Mr. William C. Lane in our Publications, x. 230 note 2.

323 Mather employed the title in books published in 1728 and 1732: see pp. 223, 224, below. The New England Weekly Journal of Monday, January 31, 1732, said that “On Friday last the Old North Church in this Place made Choice of Mr. Samuel Mather, Chaplain at His Majesties Castle William, to succeed his Renowned Father in the Pastoral Office among them” (p. 2/2. A similar item appeared in the Boston News Letter of February 3, p. 2/2). And the Weekly Rehearsal of February 28 stated that “The Rev. Mr. Samuel Mather, lately Chaplain of Castle William has accepted the Choice to succeed his Father in the Pastoral Charge of the Old North Church” (p. 2/2. A similar item appeared in the Boston News Letter of March 2, p. 2/2). The date “January 28, 1730–31,” given in Cotton Mather’s Diary (ii. 818), should be January 28, 1731–32. Samuel Mather was ordained colleague pastor June 21st: see New England Weekly Journal, June 19, p. 2/1, June 26, p. 2/1; Weekly Rehearsal, June 26, p. 2/2.

It appears, then, that Samuel Mather was Chaplain from 1728 (or earlier) to 1732, when he resigned after being chosen colleague pastor with the Rev. Joshua Gee. His resignation of the chaplaincy clears up a matter which puzzled the editors of the Belcher Papers. On August 12, 1732, Governor Belcher wrote to his son Jonathan Belcher, Jr. (H.C. 1728):

M^r Warren shall know your concern (and my readiness) to serve him. But Coll^ll Tailer (before his death) had fix’d a successor to M^r Mather, M^r Moseley (whom you knew at College, being, I think, next class to yours) (Belcher Papers, i. 164).

The reference is to the Rev. Samuel Moseley (H.C. 1729), and the editors remark: “Apparently he had been designated by Lieutenant-Governor Tailer for some civil employment.” Tailer died March 1, 1732, and evidently the allusion in Belcher’s letter was to the chaplaincy of the Castle.

324 This statement is slightly inaccurate, as Mather’s Aberdeen degree is not in the 1895 Quinquennial: see p. 217, below.

325 I am indebted to Mr. C. Chester Lane, the present editor of the Quinquennial, for information in regard to this correspondence and for a reference to Scottish Notes and Queries.

326 Cotton Mather was three times married: first, May 4, 1686, to Abigail Phillips; second, August 18, 1703, to Elizabeth (Clark) Hubbard; third, July 5, 1715, to Lydia (Lee) George. By his first wife there were, disregarding daughters, three sons: Joseph, born March 28, 1693, died April 1, 1693; Increase, born July 9, 1699, drowned at sea in September, 1724; and Samuel, born December 13, 1700, died February 7, 1701. By his second wife there were, also disregarding daughters, three sons: Samuel, born October 30, 1706, H.C. 1723, died June 27, 1785; Nathaniel, born May 16, 1709, died November 24, 1709; and Eleazar, born October 30, 1713, died November 17–18, 1713. There were no children by his third marriage. The above dates, often wrongly given, are taken (of course with the exception of the date of death of Samuel Mather of H.C. 1723) from Cotton Mather’s Diary. In 1726 Samuel Mather called himself the “only Brother” of his sister, and in 1728 the “only Son of” his father: see pp. 220 note 2, 221, below.

327 See F. B. Dexter’s Yale Biographies and Annals, i. 627–628.

328 In books printed between 1761 and 1773, Mather used only the degree A.M. (or M.A.): see p. 225, below.

329 Literary Diary, ii. 169.

330 P. 3/1. “A Poem On Occasion of the Death of Dr. Thomas Mather, . . . By a young Gentleman intimately acquainted with the late Doctor,” was printed in the Boston Evening Post of January 24, 1763, p. 1/2. In a letter (owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society) to Thomas Hollis dated December 11, 1762, Samuel Mather mentions the death of his son. On July 15, 1761, the Corporation took the following action:

At the same Meeting The Rev M^r Sam Mather of Boston desird the Corporation to grant to his Son, who is in the Practice of Physic, a Degree of Master of Arts, the Corporac͞on in Consideration, That his s^d Son had never been at any College & not being satifyed in his Qualifications in Classic Learning, or his fitness in any other Regard for the s^d Degree, & there being no Time for his Examination (w^ch yet his Father consented he shou’d submitt to, if it was requir’d) for the s^d Reasons the above Request was deny’d unanimously (College Book vii. 90–91).

331 Overseers’ Records, ii. 153.

332 College Book vii. 184.

333 Boston Gazette, May 15, 1769, p. 2/1. “The Subject was exposing the Idolatry of the Church of Rome, &c.”

334 College Book vii. 260.

335 Boston Gazette, July 26, 1773, p. 3/1.

336 President Langdon’s only honorary degree was that of D.D. from Aberdeen in 1762, and that he must have received his diploma at the time stated in the text is shown by the following title: “The Duty and Honor of A Minister of Christ. A Sermon Preached at Windham, near Casco-Bay, at the Ordination Of the Reverend Mr. Peter Thacher Smith, To the Work of the Gospel Ministry, and the Pastoral Care of the Church there, September 22, 1762. By Samuel Langdon, D.D. Pastor of the First Church in Portsmouth. . . . Portsmouth, . . . 1763.”

337 Publications of this Society, xiv. 285 and note.

338 In the Boston News Letter of September 15, 1726, appeared this advertisement:

JUst Published, An Essay to bespeak & engage Early Piety; Occasioned by the Early Departure of Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper, by her Father, Dr. Mather, with an Elegy by her only Brother. Sold by John Phillips on the South Side of the Town House Boston (p. 2/2).

The exact title of the sermon is: “Pietas Matutina. One Essay more, To Bespeak and Engage Early Piety; Made On an Occasion taken from the Early Departure of Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper, At the Age of Twenty-two August 7 1726. By her Father. . . . Boston: Printed for J. Phillips, MDCCXXVI.” Samuel Mather’s elegy, printed on the last two pages of the pamphlet, consists of fourteen stanzas of four lines each, and is entitled: “Thoughts, Produced by the Death of Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper, In the Sorrowful Mind of her only Brother.” The first stanza is as follows:

Say, Mournful Song, what gloomy grief

Invades my mind, untunes my Soul!

And try to bring me some relief,

To stay the winds, and waves controul.

For information about the pamphlet itself, which is rare, I am indebted to the officials of the Library of Congress.

339 The title, somewhat misleadingly given by Sabin, is as follows:

The State of Religion in New-England, Since the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Arrival there. In a letter from a Gentleman in New-England to his Friend in Glasgow. To which is subjoined an Appendix, containing Attestations of the principal Facts in the Letter, By The Reverend Mr. Chauncy, . . . Mr. John Caldwell, Mr. John Barnard . . . Mr. Turell, Mr. Jonathan Parsons . . . and Dr. Benjamin Colman . . . Glasgow, . . . mdccxlii.

340 The only copy I have seen of the second edition lacks the title-page. The card catalogue of the Boston Public Library gives 1742 as the date of this edition, but doubtless Sabin is correct in stating that it was published in 1743.

341 It was advertised as “This Day Published” in the Boston Evening Post of February 8, 1783, p. 3/2, and in the Boston Gazette of February 10, p. 3/2; and as “Just Published” in the Boston Gazette of February 17, p. 1/3, March 3, Supplement, p. 2/3, March 17, Supplement, p. 2/2, and in the Independent Chronicle of February 20, p. 1/2. On March 13, 1783, the Rev. John Eliot wrote: “P. S. Matheetes Archaios is too despicable to have anything said about it” (Belknap Papers, iii. 250). Mr. Evans writes me that he cannot recall his authority for the attribution to Mather. Professor Dexter makes the suggestion, confirmed by Mr. Evans, that this was the Brinley Catalogue, where an entry reads: “Serious Letter to the Young People of Boston, . . to guard them against Error, etc. By Matheetes Archaios [S. Mather?] Boston, 1783” (no. 6397, iv. 49). Mr. Dexter adds: “We bought this volume at the Brinley sale, and the title-page has ‘S. Mather?’ written in it in ink, in a not-modern hand. In cataloguing this copy, some thirty years ago, I considered this attribution; but decided that it was not very probable.” As the volume came from the library of the Rev. Dr. Joseph McKean, perhaps the query is in his hand.

342 The funeral discourses which were customarily delivered at that time on the death of a prominent person sometimes contain valuable information. That no funeral discourse or sermon was preached after Mather’s death was due to his own desire. He died June 27 and was buried June 30, 1785: see the Massachusetts Centinel of June 29, p. 3/2; and the Independent Chronicle of June 30, p. 3/2, which prints extracts from his will. In the Boston Magazine for June we read:

30. On Monday morning last, departed this life, and entered into rest, Doctor SAMUEL MATHER, of this town, in the 79th year of his age. He left positive orders that his interment should be private, and without any ceremony: he has also signified his desire, that he may not have any funeral encomiums from any quarter. On Thursday he was interred, without the least ceremony, at 5 minutes past sun setting, followed by six persons, without pall bearers, in conformity to his will, and laid in the family tomb (ii. 237).

343 The Harvard College Library owns an interesting copy of a book entitled:

An Abridgment of the Life Of the late Reverend and Learned Dr. Cotton Mather, of Boston in New-England. Taken from the Account of him published by his Son, the Reverend Mr. Samuel Mather. . . . By David Jennings. Recommended by I. Watts, D.D. . . . London: . . . 1744.

This is a presentation copy from Watts to Mather and from Mather to the College, and a note on the College book-plate says that “This book belonged to the Library before the fire Jan. 24. 1764.” Watts’s Recommendation is dated “Newington near London, Aug. 13. 1743;” and in the Preface Mr. Jennings says that from Samuel Mather “I have received a very civil and obliging Letter, with full Leave and Liberty to make such an Abridgment of his Book as is here attempted. I hope he will not be displeased with my prefixing his License to this Work, without which I should not have undertaken it.” Then follows Mather’s letter.

344 Not before attributed to Mather. It is a reply to Dr. William Douglass’s “A Dissertation concerning Inoculation of the Small-Pox. . . . Boston, N.E. . . . M.DCC.XXX.” My authority for the attribution of the Letter to Mather is a note on the fly-leaf of a volume owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society containing various pamphlets, among them Douglass’s Dissertation and the Letter. This note reads:

Dissertation on Inoculation.

By Dr. Duglas.

Remarks on it by Sa^m. Mather

This note may or may not be correct, but is given for what it is worth. As Mather appears to have written on inoculation in 1722, he might well have returned to the subject in 1730: see p. 220, above. Mather’s interest in the subject is attested by a copy, now in the Boston Athenaeum, of Dr. James Jurin’s “An Account Of the Success of Inoculating the Small Pox in Great Britain. . . . The Second Edition. London: . . . 1724.” This has marginal notes apparently in the hand of Mather, and on the title-page are written in ink these inscriptions: “Sam. Mathers 1727” and “The Gift of the Author.”

345 The dedication was perhaps an afterthought, due to the receipt of the diploma, for this advertisement appeared on October 18, 1731:

SUbscriptions towards Printing an Essay concerning Gratitude, by Mr. Samuel Mather, are taken in by Thomas Hancock, Bookseller (Weekly Rehearsal, p.2/2).

Though bearing the date 1732 on the title-page, this Essay was published late in 1731, as appears from an advertisement on December 27, 1731:

THIS may inform the Gentlemen who Subscribed to Mr. Samuel Mather’s Essay concerning GRATITUDE, that the Books are now ready to be delivered to their Order.

N.B. Some Books will remain to be Sold after the Subscribers are supply’d, by Tho. Hancock (Weekly Rehearsal, p. 2/2).

It is perhaps worth while to call attention to this early instance of the practice, now so common among publishers, of placing the following year on the title-pages of books issued in the closing weeks or months of a year.

346 Haven, Sabin, and Evans enter the book under “Rock-man, Constant,” without attempting to identify the author. They also state that the date on the title-page is misprinted mdcclviii. In the only copies I have seen the date is correctly given. In 1885 the late William Cushing wrote in his Initials and Pseudonyms:

Rock-man, Constant, M.A. Rev. Nicholas Bowes. Modest account concerning the salutations and kissings in ancient times. . . . B. 1768 (p. 252).

Bowes, Rev. Nicholas, M.A., — 1755. Constant Rock-man. An American Cong, minister; Harv. Univ., 1725; pastor at Bedford, Mass. (p. 361).

The Rev. Nicholas Bowes, son of Nicholas and Dorcas (Champney) Bowes, was born in Boston, November 4, 1706; married Lucy Hancock of Lexington; and died in 1755. Obviously, therefore, he could not have been the author of a book written in 1768. Mr. Cushing was perhaps led astray by two entries in pencil on the title-page of a copy of the Modest Account owned by Harvard College. One reads: “Was not this from & the answer to it written by Nicholas Bowes, for whom they were published?” The other reads: “See the Kiss of Charity.” This refers to a pamphlet (usually attributed to Shippie Townsend) advertised as “This Day Published” in the Boston Gazette of July 11, 1768, p. 1/3, and entitled:

An Inquiry Whether the Scriptures enjoin the Kiss of Charity, as the Duty of the Disciples of Christ, in their Church-Fellowship in all Ages. — Or, only allowed it to the first Disciples, in Consequence of the Customs that then prevailed. Occasioned by a Letter lately published by Constant Rockman, M.A. Intitled, “a Modest Account concerning the Salutations and Kissings in ancient Times,” &c. Containing some Remarks thereupon. . . . Boston: New-England. Printed by Kneeland and Adams, for Nicholas Bowes, opposite the Old Brick Meeting-House, in Corn-Hill. MDCCLXVIII.

Nicholas Bowes the bookseller was presumably that son of the Rev. Nicholas Bowes who was born October 20, 1737. The bookseller married Rebecca Wendell November 26, 1767, and died in Boston in April, 1790. (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 40, xxx. 48; Bedford Vital Records, p. 13; Paige, History of Cambridge, p. 494; Massachusetts Centinel, April 10, 1790, p. 3/1; Suffolk Probate Files, No. 19481. The accounts of the Bowes family in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, x. 82, and in the Heraldic Journal, i. 109, contain inaccuracies.) Mr. Cushing confused the father with the son.

The Modest Account was advertised as “This Day Published” in the Boston Gazette of May 23, 1768, p. 3/1. In his Annals of the American Pulpit (1857, i. 373), Sprague vaguely enters in his list of Mather’s works: “A modest account of the salutations in ancient times (anonymous,) 1768.” A copy owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society bears the signature “Ezra Stiles Junij 25. 1768;” and under the name of Rock-man is written, in Stiles’s hand, “The Reverend Samuel Mather of Boston.” That this ascription is correct is proved by a letter (owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society) written to Thomas Hollis on May 17, 1768, in which Mather himself says:

I beg leave now to put into your Hands [Accipe, sed Facilis] a Letter obtained from me thro’ Importunity from D^r Chauncey, my Friend and Neighbour, and some others: which I have publish’d under a fictitious Name, [‘Rockman versus Sandeman’] lest some Offence might be given by my writing on such a Subject; tho’, I think, there is not any Thing justly exceptionable in it.

This letter was received in October by Hollis, who made this endorsement: “A modest account concerning the Salutations & Kissings in ancient times; in a Letter to a Friend, . . . By Constant Rockman, M.A. Boston, in N.E. 1768, in oct.”

347 Some copies of this pamphlet lack the bastard-title. The recto of this reads: “America Known to the Ancients.” On the verso is printed a letter dated “Bost. N.E. Dec. 31. 1772,” and signed “S.MATHER.”

348 This was in reply to a pamphlet entitled:

Salvation for all Men, illustrated and vindicated as A Scripture Doctrine, in Numerous Extracts from a Variety of Pious and Learned Men, who have purposely writ upon the Subject. Together with their Answer to the Objections urged against it. By One who wishes well to all Mankind. . . . Boston: . . . 1782.

The authorship of this pamphlet, usually attributed either to the Rev. Dr. Charles Chauncy (H.C. 1721) or to the Rev. Dr. John Clarke (H.C. 1774), raises an intricate problem which will be discussed on another occasion.

349 The pamphlet “Salvation for All Men,” advertised as “Just Published” in the Boston Gazette of September 2, 1782 (p. 4/2), caused a heated controversy. Mather’s “All Men will not be saved forever” was advertised in the same paper of Monday, November 4, as “Now in the Press, and on Thursday next will be Published” (p. 3/2). The same paper of November 25 (p. 3/2) announced for sale “A Letter to Dr. Mather. Occasioned by his disingenuous Reflexions upon a certain Pamphlet, entitled, Salvation for All Men,” presumably written by the Rev. Dr. John Clarke. In the Independent Chronicle of January 9, 1783, was advertised as “This Day published, And to be sold at EDES’s Printing-Office, in Corn-hill (price 4d.) A LETTER, to the Author of a Letter to Dr. Mather” (p. 2/2). This last is the pamphlet mentioned in the text, where it is inserted because usually ascribed to Mather; but I doubt very much whether it was written by him.

350 In 1792 began to be printed (1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 256) an article headed “The following Account of the first settlement of Boston, was written in the year 1784, by the late Dr. Samuel Mather.” At that time the Collections of the Historical Society were printed serially, and this article happened to begin on the last page of a serial. At the bottom of the page is the catchword “But,” yet no more was ever printed. The reason is thus stated in the next serial at the bottom of p. 257:

☞ Doctor Mather’s account of the first settlement of Boston, which was continued from our last sheet has been mislaid; and as another copy cannot be obtained, we are obliged to leave it incomplete.

The Boston Public Library owns a broadside dated “Worcester, January 12th, 1789,” which reads in part as follows:

Proposal For Printing by Subscription, A Disquisition on the Most Holy Deity. In which it is endeavoured to communicate the Scriptural Doctrine concerning God, And his Manifestation to his Intelligent Creatures. By the late Samuel Mather, D.D. Pastor of a Church in Boston. Contents. The Preface. The Prologue. Chap. I. . . . Chap. XI. . . . [The manuscript of this valuable Essay was found, ready prepared for the Press, among the papers of the late author, after his death, and is now proposed to be printed at the request of a number of the clergy, and others, in this State, who have perused it.] Conditions of Publication. . . . V. The work to be put to Press as soon as 500 Copies are subscribed for . . . Subscriptions are received by I. Thomas, the intended Publisher, at his Bookstore in Worcester; . . .

It is not unlikely that this was the work (now owned by the American Antiquarian Society) which, as we learn from some amusing letters owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society, Mather had endeavored, through the joint efforts of Thomas Hollis, the Rev. Nathaniel Lardner, and Ralph Griffiths (publisher of the Monthly Review), to get published in London a quarter of a century earlier. Writing to Hollis on December 11, 1762, Mather said:

Within this current Year I have been busily emploied in writing some Disquisitions on very important and interesting Subjects. One of These I beg to enclose to you and inscribe to your Name, if it be thôt worthy to be communicated to the Public. As I am diffident of my own Composures, I commonly offer them to select Friends to read, before I think of sending them abroad. Accordingly I have desired the learned D^r Lardner in Hoxton Square London to give it an attentive Reading; and, if he approve of it and will signifie by a few Prefatory Lines, that it deserves Consideration, I am willing, that it should be made public: And, since you kindly signified to me, that Mr Griffiths in the Strand would print for me; I desire, that you would offer it, with my Compliments, unto Him. I hope, that your Modesty will not make You unwilling to receive my Dedication; especially since my Gratitude to your excellent great Uncle, as well Respect to yourself, is intended in it.

This appeal was not relished by Hollis, who replied on May 19, 1763:

Inclosed is a parcel from Dr Lardner. It contains the Mss which you desired me to lay before him, and a letter.

I likewise forward to You the dedication to that Mss. Dedications I never have accepted nor ever will accept, and I am utterly below them. I return you, however, my humble thanks for the honor You intended me, as well as for two curious publications.

What Griffiths said to me was, not “that he would print for you,” but “that the Reviewers should take notice of your dissertation in the Review, and would, probably, do the same by any other which You might send them.” And yet no notice was taken of it in the Review. As matters of this kind are out of my way, I beg the favor of You to dispense me from them in the future.

351 Proceedings, April, 1903, xv. 296–298.

352 There is a copy of this Catalogue in the Boston Athenæum.

353 David I. Bushnell, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, in a letter of October 21, 1915, to the writer of this paper, expresses well the opinion that he shares with all recent authorities, as follows:

There is of course absolutely no reason to attribute the origin of the pictographs appearing on the Rock to any but the North American Indian, as he was known to the colonists. The many and varied theories which have from time to time been presented, some regarding it as of Norse origin, appear to be without the slightest foundation or reason. The figures represented on the Rock do not differ essentially from those found over a wide extent of territory extending to the Ohio river and beyond. Therefore to select this one example as being distinctly of different origin is without justification.

354 Plate I. This photograph, measuring 9 by 13 inches, was presented to the Massachusetts Historical Society by George C. Burgess of Dighton, December 24, 1868. A stereoscopic photograph, taken by Augustine H. Folsom, a photographer of Roxbury and Boston, was also presented to the Society by Burgess on February 10, 1869. Eight other photographs, taken at various times between 1853 and 1913, are known to the writer of this paper. In every case the supposed lines were first chalked over on the rock, in order to render them more distinct. But the two Burgess photographs were evidently taken, either without any preliminary chalking, or at most with the faintest trace of it, — probably with none at all.

355 See, for example, E. G. Squier, in National Intelligencer, March 27, 1849, p. 2/1–3, extracted from the British Ethnological Journal, December, 1848; Garrick Mallery, Picture-Writing of the American Indians, 10th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1888–9, pp. 88 ff. The following is an almost exact quotation from Mallery, describing the ledges at the Pipestone quarry in Minnesota but adapted so that it becomes possibly applicable to the Assonet rock: “It was formerly a custom for each Indian who came to the vicinity to secure game or fish, to transcribe his totem upon the rock. This was done by pecking out the stone with some sharp pointed instrument or by the use of pieces of quartzite. The figures are of different sizes and dates. The excavation of the surface is often very slight, in many cases not exceeding ¹/₁₆ of an inch, and sometimes only enough to leave a mere tracing of the designed form. The hardness of the rock was a barrier to deep sculpturing with the imperfect tools of the aborigines; but the tenacity with which it retains impressions will warrant the assignment of any date to these inscriptions that may be called for within the human period. Yet it is probable that they date back to no very great antiquity.”

356 One of the most convincing evidences is the fact that on another part of the same rock is a group of characters so faint that they have apparently been seen and described by only one previous observer. Dr. Stiles made them out dimly in 1767, as he relates in his unpublished Itinerary, and was told by neighbors that they had been made not more than thirty years before. Without knowledge of their having been previously discovered, I saw them in 1915, and made a drawing in close agreement with that of Dr. Stiles. These figures, at least, must have been thinly carved in order to become difficult to discern within thirty years, and to have been overlooked by everyone else; and the wear of the rock must have been very slow indeed, since they are still discoverable after another 150 years.

357 The principal objections that have been urged against this conclusion are these: (1) The Indians were too lazy; (2) they had no adequate tools; (3) they left no other similar monuments. The replies to all these claims are adequate and convincing. (1) Among others, E. G. Squier, in the paper already referred to, says that the labor expended on some other inscriptions of known Indian origin is vastly greater than that required to make the Dighton Rock inscription; that the work on some single ones of their tools was probably little less; and that they had abundant leisure. (2) Very many trustworthy authorities have claimed that the stone implements of the Indians sufficed for the work. But besides stone, they also possessed copper tools. Moreover, for nearly a century before there occurs any mention of the rock, they obtained from traders an abundance of iron and steel as well as copper implements. How abundant and varied these were has been shown best very recently through the uncovering of about sixty Indian interments on Burr’s Hill, in Warren, Rhode Island. The collection is of the greatest historical value, and is preserved in the George Haile Free Library at Warren. It has not yet been adequately described, but some idea of it can be gained from the Providence Sunday Journal of August 24, 1913, section 5, p. 1, and November 30, 1913, section 5, p. 2. (3) A great number of Indian petroglyphs are now known and have been described by Schoolcraft (History, etc., of Indian Tribes, 1851), Squier (paper above cited; also Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, 1847), Mallery (10th Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1893), and others. Of examples on Narragansett Bay, six were pictured in Antiquitates Americanæ, 1837, and another by W. J. Miller in the Wampanoag Tribe of Indians, 1880. These and others have been described also by other writers. In the collection of the Old Colony Historical Society at Taunton is a headstone supposed to be that of a “praying Indian,” with an inscription that is supposed to have been made during the ministry of the Rev. Samuel Danforth. In the collection of the George Haile Free Library at Warren, is a small stone implement with an inscription, whose authenticity, however, has not yet been satisfactorily determined. Though they did not do it extensively, yet the Indians about Narragansett Bay did unquestionably make some rock-carvings.

358 Thomas H. Webb, quoted in Antiquitates Americanæ, 1837, pp. 356 ff.

359 Yates and Moulton, History of the State of New York, 1824, i. 86.

360 Rasmus D. Anderson, America not discovered by Columbus, 2nd ed., 1877, pp. 82 ff.

361 Prof. Elton, D.D., Report of the 18th meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1848, part ii. p. 94.

362 See pp. 251, 289, 291, below.

363 See pp. 267, 270, 290, below.

364 Indian names in Plymouth County, 1909, p. 42.

365 E. W. Peirce (Collections Old Colony Historical Society, 1885, No. 3, p. 113), who says that the name means either “what is most desirable or most noticeable” or “the place of stones,” thinks that the place alluded to is Joshua’s Mountain, near the village of Assonet, several miles from Dighton Rock. Dr. P. W. Leland, in a paper on Algonquin place-names read in 1858 (ibid. p. 89), is of the same opinion. The History of Freetown, 1902, gives still another interpretation, “a song of praise.” J. H. Trumbull (Collections Connecticut Historical Society, 1870, ii. 19) says hassun is never used in composition except in an adjectival sense, and consequently hassun-et could mean only “at a stony place.” It is not without interest in this connection to notice Rafn’s derivation (1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, 1865, viii. 175) from the Icelandic Esiones, from esia, a marshy district.

366 Plymouth Colony Records, i. 142: dated March 3, 1639–40.

367 ii. 58.

368 William Bradford’s Confirmatory Deed, Plymouth Colony Records of Deeds, v. 459.

369 Agreement as to Division of Land on Assonet Neck, Bristol County, Massachusetts, N. District, Land Records, Book 3, p. 287.

370 Plymouth Colony Records, i. 143.

371 250th Anniversary of the Founding of Taunton, 1889, p. 256.

372 Old Proprietary Records, Taunton, Book 4, pp. 185, 188, 189, 192; Book 5, pp. 155, 156, 158, 159; etc.

373 Called Asonate Cove in a deed of 1768 (Bristol County, Massachusetts, N. District, Land Records, Book 57, p. 41).

374 Collections Old Colony Historical Society, No. 3, 1885, p. 113.

375 Walter D. Nichols, in Hurd’s History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, 1883, p. 181.

376 See p. 289, below.

377 Mourt’s Relation (ed. Dexter, 1865), pp. 104–105.

378 Francis Baylies (Historical Memoir of the Colony of New Plymouth, 1830, i. 283) says that the territory of Taunton, including Berkley, was claimed by the sachem of Tetiquet, but was desolate and depopulated, owing to the ravages of the plague. But the whole country had been thickly populated. In another place (iii. 3) he says: “The lands of Mt. Hope and Poppesquash and, probably Assonet and Shewamit, were held by the Wampanoags. The last were uninhabited.”

379 Plymouth Colony Records, ii. 58.

380 In a letter to the Hon. John Davis, dated October 29, 1807, published as an “Account of the Writing-Rock in Taunton River” in Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809, iii. 165–191. The statement quoted is on p. 181; and is again made by Kendall in his Travels, 1809, ii. 231.

381 Bristol County, Massachusetts, N. District, Land Records, Book 3, p. 198: 20 July, 1670. I am indebted to Charles R. Carr of Warren, Rhode Island, for this important reference.

382 The two names do not seem to be Anglicized Indian designations, but more probably terms applied by the English because of incidents known to them and hence occurring after their arrival. If so, our choice among known incidents is very limited, and the most likely occasion for their origin seems to have been furnished by the events of the period between 1642 and 1645. There were “conspiracies” by Corbitant and the Namaskets in 1621, and by other Indians in 1623; but apparently they had nothing to do with this locality. In 1632 Massasoit was attacked by the Narragansett Canonicus, and successfully defended by the English. Nothing connects this conflict with the region in question. From 1634 to 1637 occurred the Pequot troubles, ending in the extermination of this tribe. Many Indians were taken captive and distributed among the allies; and some of these were afterward shipped away to be sold as slaves. Several persons have suggested to me that some of these may have been held for a time on Assonet Neck. But this region was still a remote, almost unknown, unsettled wilderness. Moreover, Plymouth took no part in the Pequot War, and had no share in the captives. The names must have arisen later, in all probability. The evidence as to the disposal of the Pequot captives is fully discussed by A. W. Lauber in his History of Slavery in Colonial Times (Columbia University Studies in History, 1913, liv. 374–376). A few years after this war, however, the Narragansetts did for many years actively “conspire” against both the Mohegans and the English; some of their plottings were conducted not far away, at least, from the Taunton River; and they held for a time a number of Mohegan captives.

The known and unknown earlier rivals to this last named period are, therefore, merely unsupported possibilities. In its own favor, however, are a number of definite considerations. (1) “The Narigansets, after the subduing of the Pequents, thought to have ruled over all the Indeans.aboute them. . . . By reason of [their] plottings, the Indeans were drawne into a generall conspiracie against the English in all parts” (Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 1912, ii. 363, 353). They planned, according to Lion Gardener, to let the English alone until they had destroyed Uncas, “and then they, with [other tribes], would easily destroy us.” The plot was an extended one; for, endeavoring to enlist the aid of Indians on Long Island, Miantonomoh told them: “We are all the sachems from east to west, both Moquekues and Mohauks joining with us, and we are all resolved to fall upon them all [i.e., the English], at one appointed day” (Gardener’s Narrative, in Orr’s History of the Pequot War, pp. 138–142). These “Moquekues and Mohauks” were probably not two separate tribes; for the name of the Mohawks was known in two forms, each spelled in many ways, of which Moquawes, Mackwaes, Mawques, Maquas, are some that I have noticed. “All the sachems [of Long Island] hadd accepted and promised assistants and soe hadd all the Sachems from the Dutche to the Bay” (3 Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, iii. 162). Some writers (e.g., S. G. Drake, Book of the Indiana; G. W. Ellis, King Philip’s War, pp. 26–35) blame Uncas and defend the Narragansetts; but “the belief was general that there was a widespread conspiracy among the Indians, with Miantunomo as their leader” (Bradford, ii. 354 n). Palfrey (History of New England, ii. 127 n) rightly insists that the reality of the alarm is shown by the record of public proceedings in all the colonies. (2) The Pocassets, living close to Assonet Neck, perhaps actually making use of it, may very likely have joined in these conspiracies; for their sachems, Corbitant and his successor Weetamoe, were always hostile to the English. “Ther was a Sachem called Corbitant, alyed to Massassoyte, but never any good freind to the English to this day” (Bradford, i. 225). (3) “Miantonomoh had, in some way, obtained possession of a portion of Massasoit’s domains,” which the English in 1643 endeavored to make him restore (Sylvester, Indian Wars of New England, i. 120 n. For confirmation, see Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 15). (4) In 1645, the Narragansetts occupied with hostile intent some place in this region. I find no definite indication as to just what place it was. However, the following statements are pertinent. The Commissioners of the United Colonies “sent to Plimoth to send forth their 40 men with all speed, to lye at Seacunke, least any deanger should befalle it, before the rest were ready, it lying next the enemie” (Bradford, ii. 380). “Forces were sent out of Plymouth under the command of Capt. Standish, and marched as far as Rehoboth, that being near the borders of the Enemy” (Increase Mather, Early History of New England, Drake’s edition, p. 195). This makes Assonet Neck, or the Pocasset country just south of it, a distinct possibility as the seat of the main body of the hostile Indians; for Seacunke alias Rehoboth, which Massasoit had sold to the English in 1641, extended nearly to the Taunton River. The southern extremity of Assonet Neck, with its wide outlook over protecting rivers, would perhaps have been the most favorable place in the region for their purpose. The following, from Edward Winslow’s Hypocrisie Unmasked (London, 1646, p. 85), seems at first sight to argue against this assumption: “And for Captaine Standish, this I heard him relate, that being at the place of Rendezvouzc, before the Massachusets Forces came, observing that some of the Inhabitants of Providence received the Indians into their houses familiarly, who had put themselves also into a posture of Armes, and the place within a mile of Secunck or Rehoboth where Captaine Standish lay; he sent to Providence and required them to lay aside their neutrality, and either declare themselves on the one side or other.” Yet this is not conclusive, for these may have been wandering individual Indians, or other bands, and not the main body of the enemy. (5) By this time the Narragansetts held many Mohegan captives; for one condition of peace with them was that they should “restore unto Uncass, the Mohegan sagamore, all shuch captives, whether men, or women, or children, and all shuch canoowes, as they or any of their men have taken” (Bradford, ii. 384). If they “conspired” on Assonet Neck, they doubtless guarded their “banished” prisoners near-by — and no other meaning for “banishment” is supported by anything that we know about Indian practices. As late as 1649, Uncas complained that these captives and canoes had not been returned to him (Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 144).

It is well known that charges of conspiracy were made against Alexander in 1662 (G. W. Ellis, King Philip’s War, 1906, p. 37), and against Philip as early as 1667 (p. 38). It may have been on one of these occasions that the island received its name, but there were no incidents in either of them suggestive of banishment. Again, in 1669, there was a “rumored Indian plot,” of which Ninigret was supposed to be the head, and in which some Indians from Pocasset were apparently involved (Connecticut Colony Records, ii. 548–551; Rhode Island Colony Records, ii. 264–286). There is given no indication, however, that any of its plottings took place outside of Ninigret’s own country. There may have been many other local and unrecorded “conspiracies,” by Indians or others, besides those here noticed. If the two names, “Conspiracy” and “Banished Indians,” originated together in connection with one series of events, then among incidents known to us those of the period from 1642 to 1645 appear to be the only ones offering a plausible explanation of them. But it is equally possible that they arose on separate occasions, and if so, that “Conspiracy” at least was of later origin. There is one other peculiar name applied to some place near-by, on the Freetown side of Assonet River, as to whose meaning it seems vain to speculate. This is a piece of salt meadow, “at a place called Behinde Noon, in a Cove” (Bristol County, Massachusetts, No. District, Land Evidences, Book 4, p. 492; record of 1705). It seems interesting and mysterious enough to be worthy of mention.

383 Plymouth Colony Records, xii. 242.

384 I have no desire to appear as possessed of any real knowledge as to the derivation of Indian names. But an amateurish attempt to see what could be made of the two here mentioned led to interesting results. I made use of Trumbull’s paper cited above, and of his Natick Dictionary (Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 25, 1903). The name Mastucksett is derived, as I judge from Trumbull’s manner of explaining similar names, either from maskhet-ock-set, “near the meadow land,” or from massa-tuk-set, “near the big tidal river” (i.e., the Assonet River). Either of these would be appropriate for Stacy’s Creek. The name Chippascutt is of more interest. It was without question applied to some place in or near Smith’s Cove, or to the Cove itself. This is a considerable widening of Taunton River opposite the village of Dighton, where the river is divided into two by Grassy Island. Dighton Rock stands on the shore of this Smith’s Cove. In the paper cited (p. 10), Trumbull says that peske-tuk means “a divided river;” and in his Natick Dictionary he gives the meaning of chippe as “(it is) separated, apart,” or divided. Thus chippe-peske-tuk or chip-peske-ut would be “at the dividing of the river.” But an alternative meaning seems warranted by the Natiek Dictionary. In it, there is no indication given of peske or anything similar meaning “river.” But -pisk means “rock;” chepisq or chippipsk means “a detached or separated rock.” According to this, chepisq-ut would imply “at the rock that stands apart,” and thus perhaps Dighton Rock. But again, the meaning “division” as well as “apartness” is justified by Trumbull’s examples (see the word “divide” in the Dictionary), and hence the word may signify “at the cleft rock.” Now a Cleft of Rocks — a narrow cleft about six inches wide and perhaps thirty feet deep in the massive conglomerate of Hospital Hill, at the northern end of Assonet Neck and at the head of the meadows bordering on Smith’s Cove — is a natural curiosity of the region, and is mentioned as a boundary mark in the original Assonet Neck deed of 1677, and in another deed of 1687 (Book 5 of Land Evidences at Taunton, p. 367). It may be this that is referred to in the name.

385 Plymouth Colony Records, v. 191 (10 March 1675–6), 240 (July 13, 1677).

386 Plymouth Colony Records of Deeds, Book 5, p. 199.

387 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxix. 318; Indian History, etc., 1878, p. 254.

388 I have had photostats made of this deed. It bears the signatures of Constant Southworth, Treasurer of Plymouth Colony, of Josiah Winslow, Governor, and of Nathaniel Morton, Secretary. Its seal is in fair preservation, and is a different one from that shown on The Book of the General Laws Of the Inhabitants of the Jurisdiction of New-Plimouth, Boston, 1685. The “V” of the word “PLIMOVTH” in the latter, is lacking in this; and there are other differences. The possession of two seals by the Colony appears not to have been known heretofore.

389 An Early Account of Dighton Rock, American Anthropologist, 1908, x. 251–254.

390 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1887, xli. 414.

391 Collections Old Colony Historical Society, 1889, No. 4, p. 16. Mr. Baxter in this paper expressly disclaims any pretension to critical accuracy and completeness, and is rather to be congratulated on the real discovery that he made than criticized for not having taken ampler notes.

392 The source of these quotations is discussed fully in a later part of this paper.

393 These biographical facts concerning the Danforths can be confirmed and extended from Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 88, ii. 369, 507, iii. 171, 243; and from J. J. May’s Danforth Genealogy, 1902. I am myself indebted to Mr. Albert Matthews for them.

394 Assonet Neck was made a part of Taunton in 1682, of Taunton South Precinct in 1709, of Dighton in 1712, and of Berkley in 1799.

395 Now in possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Mrs. Eliza Howard, who presented it in 1796, wrote to the Rev. Jeremy Belknap concerning Samuel Danforth: “He was very zealous for promoting religion among the Indians.” The Vocabulary is in manuscript, and is not complete.

396 I take the liberty of quoting from a letter by Mr. Albert Matthews, written April 11, 1915, shortly after I had told him of my discovery of the real facts, to show that others shared the above opinion: “As I run over in my mind the reasons that led you, Mr. Gay, and myself to conclude that it was Samuel and not John Danforth who made the first copy, I fail to see how we could have reached any other decision from the available facts.” Samuel F. Haven (Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, October 21, 1864, p. 41) arrived at the same conclusion: “probably the Rev. Samuel Danforth of Taunton, though he must at that time have been quite a young man.”

397 A facsimile reproduction of the entire letter is given in Plates XII to XVI. It is more fully discussed below (pp. 280–291), where it is called the “Greenwood Letter B.”

398 So the writer is informed by Mr. Bushnell in a private letter.

399 The material is presented, however, in an entirely different manner. In the first letter it was quoted in part in the body of the letter, and then further information was added in a postscript. In the second letter the same quotation is given in the body, but there is enclosed also an entirely separate slip of paper containing all the facts, in place of the postscript. Later in this paper (p. 284, below), I present reasons for believing that this enclosed slip may have been written by Danforth himself, and that the accompanying drawing also may have been Danforth’s own.

400 See Plates XI, XV, and III. The version by Lort is from Archaeologia, London, 1787, vol. viii, plate xviii.

401 Thomas H. Webb, sending a copy of Danforth to Professor Rafn in 1834, says: “This is not sent with any idea that it will prove serviceable in your present enquiry, but simply to shew what strange things have been conjured up by travellers, and sent to Europe for examination” (Antiquitates Americanæ, 1837, p. 371).

Professor C. C. Rafn (in the same volume, p. 377) says: “Danforth’s drawing merits no confidence.”

Karl H. Hermes (Die Entdeckung von America durch die Islander, 1844, p. 123) calls it “eine rohe Abbildung.”

Daniel Wilson (Prehistoric Man, 1862, ii. 172–178): “As early as 1680, Dr. Danforth executed what he characterizes as a ‘faithful and accurate representation of the inscription.’” This statement is one of several errors of which Wilson is guilty.

Rev. Charles R. Hale, in an unpublished manuscript discussion of Dighton Rock (in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society; written in 1865), repeats this last statement, without reference to its source, adding that only a very vivid imagination could so describe it. He says further: “Danforth’s drawing is quite too incorrect to be the basis of any accurate reasoning.”

None of these critics, of course, had the advantage of acquaintance with the genuine original of Danforth; though that would probably have made little difference in their opinion. Hale had Seager’s cautious drawing in mind as his ideal.

402 Though perhaps the word “Mister” does not express the exact significance of “Dominus,” yet it seems to be the nearest English equivalent that we have; and is the equivalent that Greenwood used when referring to these persons in English.

403 Account of an antient Inscription in North America, Archaeologia, viii. 290–301.

404 Antiquitates Americanæ, Hafniæ, 1837.

405 The earliest mention of it in the subsequent literature of Dighton Rock that I have taken note of is by Samuel G. Drake in his edition of F. Baylies’s Historical Memoir of the Colony of New Plymouth, 1866, pt. v. p. 22.

406 A copy in the Prince Library (Boston Public Library) has on a fly-leaf the signature “Mary Thacher Her Book Anno Domini 1689,” indicating that the sermon was published before March 25, 1690. For this information, as well as for various references to Boston newspapers cited later, I am indebted to Mr. Matthews. There was a second edition of this book published in 1703 (Sabin, xi. 450).

407 Plate II.

408 Narrative and Critical History of America, 1889, i. 103. This is a reproduction of seven of them, from a plate in Antiquitates Americanæ.

409 Picture-Writing of the American Indians, Bureau of American Ethnology, 10th Annual Report, 1888–’89 (1893), plate liv, p. 762.

410 Plate VI.

411 Cotton Mather’s Election into the Royal Society, Publications of this Society, xiv. 82.

412 There are many later cases where there are differences between original and copy in the representations of this inscription. The degree of difference naturally grows less, as we approach modern times. Sewall’s original of 1768 was several times copied, and always with large variations. Many versions of the drawing of 1789 exist; and they differ. The copies of Kendall’s 1807 original are in important respects very different from it. The 1830 drawings by Bartlett and by a Committee of the Rhode Island Historical Society, and the Gardner photograph of 1875, have been more frequently reproduced than any others; and always with some points of difference, except when copied by a photographic process.

413 John Danforth was ordained at Dorchester, June 28, 1682.

414 Letter-Book, i. 116. Mr. Clarence S. Brigham, Librarian of the American Antiquarian Society, aided me in the discovery of this passage.

415 Jews in America, or, Probabilities that the Americans are of that Race, London, 1650. New edition with additions, 1660.

416 Archæology of the United States, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 1856, viii. 5.

417 i. 122, 192, ii. 155, 163.

418 The United States elevated to Glory and Honor. A Sermon, Preached . . . At the Anniversary Election, May 8th, 1783.

419 Observations on the American Inscription. Read February 9, 1786. Archæologia, viii. 302.

420 First referred to by Edward A. Kendall, in Travels, 1809, ii. 224; and in the Diary (1911, iii. 322–323) of William Bentley under date of October 13, 1807.

421 To this, Professor Kittredge adds the following footnote: “No. 339 of the Philosophical Transactions has the colophon, ‘London, Printed for W. Innys, at, the Princes’-Arms in St. Paul’s Church-yard. 1714.’ It was afterwards assembled with other numbers to make up ‘Vol. XXIX. For the Years 1714, 1715, 1716,’ which was issued as a whole in 1717. The excerpts are on pp. 62–71. They bear the title, ‘An Extract of several Letters from Cotton Mather, D.D. to John Woodward, M.D. and Richard Waller, Esq.; S. R. Secr.’ The Letter-Book of the Royal Society (M. 2. 34) contains this article (as printed in the Transactions) in MS., prepared for the press (Gay MS., fols. 151–168).”

422 In further explanation, Professor Kittredge has kindly written to me as follows: “This is Mather’s communication, addressed to Richard Waller, Sec’y of the Royal Society, preserved in the Society’s Letter-Book M. 2. 21. 32 (written Nov. 28, 1712). My copy is from a transcript made from the Letter-Book for F. L. Gay of Brookline. It was from this letter that the report in Phil. Trans. No. 339 (for Apl.–June, 1714), vol. xxix, was made. At the end of this letter in the Letter-Book a part of the page is cut away. This cut-off bit obviously contained the inscription reproduced as Fig. 8 in the plate in Phil. Trans. . . . It does not appear that he ever made any further communication to the Royal S. on the subject. I have studied his subsequent communications (unprinted) very carefully, and have found nothing about the Rock. These communications were continued, at intervals, for several years. The latest were sent in 1724.”

423 There are at least two abridgments of the early numbers of the Philosophical Transactions. The one by Hutton, Shaw and Pearson, 1809, vi. 85, gives portions of Mather’s contributions, but omits altogether the reference to Dighton Rock. Philosophical Transactions, abridged by Henry Jones, volume v, 1700–1720, part ii, published in 1721, gives Mather’s letters more fully. His text concerning the rock is on p. 165; and his drawing of the inscription is given in Figure 72, on Plate VIII, opposite p. 190. The text is almost, but not quite identical, with that of the original in No. 339.

In case there should be any interest in comparing Mather’s actual letter with the Philosophical Transactions, we present the latter’s statement in full:

In the next place, he gives an account of a strange Inscription found on a Rock, in these Words. At Taunton, by the side of a Tiding River, part in part out of the River, there is a large Rock, on the perpendicular side of which, next to the Stream, are 7 or 8 Lines, about 7 or 8 Foot long, and about a Foot wide, each of them ingraven with unaccountable Characters, not like any known Character. He has not yet been able to procure the whole, which he hopes to be Master of before long, and has herewith sent a Copy of two of them, promising the rest; they are as is represented, Fig. 8 (No. 339, xxix. 70–71.)

Jones’s Abridgment, p. 165, repeats this with some differences of capitalization, etc. It also omits the phrase “which he hopes to be Master of before long;” changes “and has herewith sent” into “but has sent;” omits “promising the rest;” and changes “they are as represented, Fig. 8” into “represented in Figure 72.”

The “first line” is about 3⅛ inches long in the 1714 cut; the “second line” about ¼ inch longer; and the width of the two together about 1⅝ inches. The cut in the Jones Abridgment is of approximately the same dimensions.

424 See note on p. 417, below.

425 Mather’s drawing has often been characterized by other writers possessing a first-hand knowledge of the rock, and always unfavorably. I give such examples as my notes afford.

Edward A. Kendall (Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809, iii. 188): “In the Doctor’s second line we are not able to discover a single figure resembling those on the rock, . . . though that part of the rock is at this day filled with figures the most distinct. . . . Dr. Mather, like his successors, toiled in the maze of conjecture;” he “substitutes for figures, at this day as plain as if they had been yesterday inscribed, others, of which it is impossible to recognize a single feature” (pp. 185–186).

Hon. John Davis (same volume, p. 197): “Mather’s copy is imperfect, and of little or no use.”

Samuel F. Haven (Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 1856, viii. 28): “very rude and inaccurate.”

Rev. Charles R. Hale (unpublished manuscript on Dighton Rock, 1865, in possession of American Antiquarian Society): “It is hardly possible to conceive of a more incorrect drawing than Dr. Mather, or the draughtsman employed by him, has given us.”

George A. Shove (in Hurd’s History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, 1883, p. 250 f): “It bears not the slightest resemblance to the sculptured characters, but appears as if executed by a person having the St. Vitus dance or the delirium tremens.”

426 Diary, ii. 85–86.

427 William Checkley (H. C. 1756) was an officer of the Customs in Providence, and died July 18, 1780. His widow married Dr. Stiles in 1782. He was son of the Rev. Samuel Checkley (H. C. 1715), first minister of the New South Church in Boston. See Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, i. 58 note; and Providence Gazette Deaths.

428 Plate V. The “first line” of the other is shown in Plate VI.

429 Broadsides are known of a date earlier than this. See, for example: List of Early American Broadsides, 1680–1800 (Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, N. S., xi. 455–516); Weeks and Bacon, Historical Digest of the Provincial Press, 1911, i. 15, 16, 99 n, 219.

430 History of New England, ii. 593.

431 For my first acquaintance with Du Simitière’s manuscript I am indebted to Mr. Frederick L. Gay, who sent me his transcript of it. But he inadvertently omitted to give me also its author and source. A reference in the narrative to a visit by the author to the Rev. Dr. Stiles of Newport in 1768 led me to apply to Mr. Franklin B. Dexter, editor of Stiles’s Diary, for help; and he kindly suggested that I enquire of the Library Company of Philadelphia to see if Simitière might be the author sought. His surmise was correct, and the manuscript is No. 1412 Quarto in possession of the Library Company.

In Drake’s Dictionary of American Biography is the following brief account of the writer: “Pierre Eugène du Simitière, painter and antiquary, b. Geneva; d. Phila. 1788. A.M. of N. J. Coll. 1781. . . . He was an ardent patriot and a well-informed man, and collected materials for a Hist. of the Amer. Revolution.”

432 This date is evidently inaccurate, since Berkeley left America in 1731.

433 The valley known as the Wady Mukatteb, near Mount Sinai in Arabia, is lined with rocks and cliffs “engraved with ancient unknown characters.” These were called the “written mountains,” and were arousing interest and speculation in England analogous to that devoted to Dighton Rock, during the period under discussion. Among the earliest writers who mention them, according to Léon de Laborde (Journey through Arabia Petraea to Mount Sinai, 2nd ed., 1838, p. 259), were Belon, Neitzchitz, Monconys and Kirscha; but they attracted little attention. In 1706, however, Montfaucon published a French translation of the Topographia Christiana of Cosmas Indicopleustes, a writer of the sixth century, who believed that the children of Israel, during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness, made these inscriptions, “which have been preserved to this present time, as I suppose, for the sake of unbelievers.” In 1722 they were seen by the prefect of the Franciscan monastery at Cairo, who thought it probable that “these unknown characters contain some very secret mysteries, and that they were engraved either by the Chaldeans, or some other persons long before the coming of Christ.” His manuscript Journey from Grand Cairo to Mount Sinai was translated into English in 1753 by Robert Clayton, Bishop of Clogher, who was so confident that confirmation of the truth of the Biblical narrative of the Exodus would be derived from this source that he offered the sum of £500 toward defraying the expenses of anyone who would visit and copy them.

Such expectations were gradually abandoned, however, as the inscriptions became better known. They were visited, and some of them described and pictured, by Dr. Richard Pococke (Description of the East, 1743, i. 148), and by the eccentric Edward Wortley Montagu (Philosophical Transactions, 1766, lvi. 40–57; Gentleman’s Magazine, 1767, xxxvii. 374, 401: cf. Nichols’s Illustrations, 1812, iv. 625–656). The Rev. Thomas Harmer contributed to the discussion in his Observations on Divers Passages of Scripture, 2nd ed., 1776, ii. 142–153. Karsten Niebuhr went to the place in 1762, “although convinced that the wonderful part of the story of that mountain was perfectly imaginary,” and reported: “The marvelous part of this discovery by degrees disappeared; and the sanguine hopes which had been built upon it, vanished. . . . Those who examined them the most accurately, concluded . . . that they related nothing more than the names of travellers, and the dates of their journies” (Reisebeschreibung von Arabien, 1772; English translation 1792, i. 200–207).

This opinion seems to have been generally accepted. The writers in the English Review and in the Gentleman’s Magazine who reviewed Lort’s paper of 1787, were both so impressed by the commonplace outcome of these wonder-tales, that they regarded Dighton Rock as an empty marvel of the same kind. The latter says: “After the disappointment at the written mountain, one would not have thought the learned would have run after any more mountain scrawls” (1787, lvii. 699).

It was not until much later that the “unknown characters” were actually deciphered, and the opinion confirmed that their content was utterly trivial. The first success in this was due to Eduard Friedrich Ferdinand Beer (Inscriptiones . . . ad Montem Sinai, 1840). Suggestions as to later research and discussion can be found in the Princeton Review, 1870, xlii. 533, in Biblical encyclopaedias under the heading of “Sinaitic Inscriptions,” and in numerous books of travel.

434 These remarks refer to theories which in 1790 had recently been promulgated by President Stiles, Court de Gebelin, Vallancey and others.

435 English Review, xv. 180–182.

436 J. B. Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, 1848, vii. 504–506. Professor Kittredge gave me this reference and it was the clue to my discovery of the English Review.

437 Life and Letters of George Berkeley, 1871, p. 161. But compare what Fraser says later: “It is not to be supposed, however, that Berkeley travelled extensively in America, his knowledge of that country from personal observation was limited to a narrow region” (p. 162).

438 Biographia Britannica, vol. vi. pt. ii. 1766, Supplement, p. 16, Note I: “He was indefatigable in pastoral labours throughout New England.”

439 Bristol County, Massachusetts, N. District, Land Records, Book 13, p. 258.

440 Ibid. Probate Records, Book 20, p. 396.

441 In the Stiles Collection, Library of Yale University.

442 All authorities agree as to the date of Berkeley’s arrival at Newport. Dr. Fraser, however, his chief biographer, incorrectly names the Boston newspaper in which this event was announced. Benjamin Rand (Berkeley and Percival, 1914, p. 37) corrects the error, stating that both the Boston Gazette of January 27, 1729, and the New England Weekly Journal of February 3, 1729, make mention of the fact. The latter speaks of him as “Dean Barkley of Londonderry.” It is interesting to note that the pronunciation of his name thus indicated persisted for some time in New England. In 1750 an inventory was filed in Taunton, of an estate in Berkley, a neighboring town that had been named in honor of the Dean. The original instrument spells the name correctly; but the clerk who copied it into the Probate Records (Book 12, p. 158) gives it as “Bartley.”

The date of Berkeley’s departure for England has not yet found its way into his biographies. Even Rand fails to give it. Previous approximations have been based on a statement by Berkeley, in a letter dated September 7, 1731, that “I am now on the point of setting out for Boston, in order to embark for England” (Life and Letters, 1871, p. 188). Mr. Matthews has recently discovered that the exact day of sailing is shown by an entry in the Weekly Rehearsal of Monday, September 27: “Last Tuesday the Rev. Dean Berkley embark’d in Curling for London” (p. 4/2). The discovery seems to have been first made, however, by Mr. William E. Foster of Providence. In a paper on Some Rhode Island Contributions to the Intellectual Life of the Last Century, read before the American Antiquarian Society in April, 1892, he says: “The exact date, only roughly conjectured hitherto, even in the biography by Dr. Fraser, is found to have been September 21, 1731, through an entry under that date in an unpublished diary of Benjamin Walker. This manuscript is in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society” (Proceedings, viii. 103–132, 123 n). The entry in the Diary reads: “Dean Barclay saild in Curlin for London wi^th family.”

443 For the birth-dates and names of his children, see Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 205, 209, 214, 218. Two of these records are inexact, as indicated in later footnotes. For the main facts known concerning John Smibert, see especially W. Dunlap, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, 1834, i. 27–31. Horace Walpole (Anecdotes of Painting in England, 1771) says that Smibert was born in Edinburgh about 1684, and died in March, 1751, leaving a widow and two children. The date of death was actually April 2, 1751, as is proved by obituary notices in the Boston News Letter for April 4, and in the Boston Evening Post for April 8, 1751. Another item of interest which seems to have escaped the notice of the biographers of Smibert is the following advertisement, which appeared in the Boston News Letter of October 17, 1734:

John Smibert, Painter,

SELLS all Sorts of Colours, dry or ground, with Oils and Brushes, Fanns of & several Sorts, the best Metzotinto, Italian, French, Dutch and English Prints, in Frames and Glasses, or without, by Wholesale or Retail, at Reasonable Rates; at his House in Queen-Street, between the Town-House and the Orange-Tree, Boston (p. 2/2).

Queen Street is the present Court Street. The Orange Tree stood on the northerly corner of Hanover and Court Streets: see Memorial History of Boston, i. 548, vol. ii. pp. xiv (Plan B, no. 30), xvii, 452. For the site of Smibert’s house, see ibid. vol. ii. pp. xiv (Plan B, no. 33), xviii.

444 Suffolk Probate Files, No. 9822.

445 His death, on January 18, 1774, was noticed in all the Boston newspapers. The Boston Records give the date of his birth as January 29, 1732; but this is probably incorrect, for his sister Allison was born only eight and a half months before. He apparently entered the Boston Public Latin School in 1743, and its Catalogue (1886) discussed his name (which is commonly given as William) and his birth-date as follows: “The record [on the Town Records] is plainly Jan., but the date of baptism at the Old South, 2 July, renders it possible that the copyist has mistaken u for a, and that it should read Jun. The record of baptism gives the name as Williams, which being the family name of his mother, is very likely correct” (p. 62 note 10). See also Suffolk Probate Files, No. 15549.

446 These facts are taken, and can be amplified, from Nathaniel I. Bowditch’s manuscript Records of Land Titles, in possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Liber 14, pp. 257, 258. See also 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, ix. 208; Suffolk Probate Files, No. 16410.

447 The date of Nathaniel Smibert’s birth is always given as January 20, 1734. But inasmuch as a brother was born November 24, 1733, this date must be Old Style, and Nathaniel’s birth was in 1735. For the few facts known concerning his life, see: W. Dunlap, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, i. 31; Scribner’s Cyclopedia of Painters and Painting, 1887, iv. 192; and the next note.

448 “Yesterday Afternoon died here in the 22d Year of his Age Mr. Nathaniel Smibert, an ingenious young Gentleman, greatly esteemed by all that knew him” (Boston News Letter, November 4, 1756, p. 2/2). This passage corrects the usually given date of his death (November 8), as well as supporting the above correction as to his date of birth. Long obituary notices appeared in the Boston Gazette of November 8, p. 2/2; and in the Boston News Letter of November 11, p. 3/2.

449 As there is a bare possibility that the drawing may have been left in the studio and shared the fate of the other drawings and paintings that were there, I cite a few items that I have noted. In the work above referred to, Dunlap says on p. 351 that John Trumbull, when painting in Boston between 1777 and 1779, occupied the room which had been built by Smibert, in which remained many of his works. See also John Trumbull’s Autobiography, 1841, p. 49; Suffolk Probate Records, lxxxiv. 554–556. Mr. Charles H. Hart of New York informs me that some of Smibert’s paintings were still in the studio as late as the first decade of the last century. For further hints as to the use of Smibert’a studio or of the site on which it stood, and thus possibly as to the fate of its contents, see Memorial History of Boston, iv. 384; S. A. Drake’s Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of Boston, 1873, 72–74.

450 The United States elevated to Glory and Honor, New Haven, 1783.

451 Medical Repository, 1811, Third Hexade, ii. 176. Dr. Mitchill mentions the incident again in Archæologia Americana, 1820, i. 327.

452 “A Catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the British Museum hitherto undescribed: consisting of five thousand volumes, including the collections of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart. the Rev. Thomas Birch D.D. and about Five Hundred Volumes bequeathed, presented, or purchased at various Times,” London, 1782. I owe the facts concerning this Catalogue to Professor Kittredge, who explains further: “From Ayscough’s Preface (i. p. iv.) it appears that nos. 4101–4478 in his Catalogue are from the collections of Birch. Only nos. 1–4100 are Sloane MSS. In the present numeration in the British Museum, the Add’l MSS. begin with 4101. . . . 4432 (the Catalogue’s number for Greenwood) is the number of the MS. (now called Add’l. MS. 4432); 55 is the number of the article or division of the MS. Ayscough makes 86 divisions or articles (1–86) in this MS. 4432.” In connection with statements made below, it should be noted that this no. 4432 (now Add. MSS. 4432) is in the collection of Birch, not of Sloane. We shall later identify this reference with two letters of different dates by Isaac Greenwood, still in the British Museum, catalogued under slightly different numbers; and shall see that the “James” Greenwood was an error due to the fact that the letters were signed “Is.” and “I.” Greenwood, respectively.

453 Account of an antient Inscription in North America. Read November 23, 1786. In Archæologia, viii. 290–301. The same or a similar letter was later published in full by Bushnell, as discussed below.

454 F. Madden, “Index to the Additional Manuscripts, with those of the Egerton Collection, preserved in the British Museum, and acquired in the years 1783–1835,” 1849. This might prove to be a correct reference for the time when it was made, though incorrect now, on account of a change in the folio numbers.

455 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1887, xli. 414; Early Voyages to America, Collections Old Colony Historical Society, No. 4, 1889, p. 16.

456 Edward J. L. Scott, Index to the Sloane MSS. in the British Museum, 1904.

457 Charles M. Andrews and Frances G. Davenport, Guide to the manuscript material for the History of the United States to 1783 in the British Museum, p. 73. The reference is correct, but the folio number has been changed.

458 An Early Account of Dighton Rock, American Anthropologist, x. 251–254.

459 The person referred to was doubtless the Rev. Dr. Villers, and he was not Professor Greenwood’s correspondent. His identity seems to be conclusively established by the following notes, which I owe to the courtesy of Mr. Matthews:

Tothillfields is in Westminster, and St. John the Evangelist is in Smith Square, Westminster. In the Historical Register, 1736, xxi, Chronological Diary, p. 19, is the following: “Dy’d, . . . The Rev. Dr. Villers, Rector of St. John the Evangelist, Westminster.” This is under February, though no day is specified. On p. 15, under “Preferments,” is this: “Dr. Willis, Dean of Lincoln, to the Rectory of St. John, Milbank, Westminster, in the Room of Dr. Villers, deceas’d.” Millbank Street runs between Smith Square and the Thames, being connected with Smith Square by Church Street.

Even with these definite contemporary statements, however, it seems that the name under discussion must undergo yet another transformation. In a letter dated February 24, 1916, the Ven. Basil Wilberforce, Archdeacon of Westminster, forwards to me the following results of an inquiry made by Mr. J. E. Smith, “who is the antiquary expert of Westminster:” “There was never a Rector of St. John’s named Villiers, Villan or Viller. There was, however, a John Villa, who held the rectory for some years, including (so far as I remember) the particular years you mention. In the ‘Parochial Memorials of St. John’ you will find a reproduction of his signature obtained from the parochial receipts which the Rectors at that time used to give in respect of an allowance secured to them under the local Act. At the time the above mentioned Memorials were compiled every possible source of information was referred to with reference to the Rectors in succession of the Parish, but it happened that the John Villa in question afforded less information in the research than any one of the other Rectors. Such as could be gleaned, however, was incorporated with the Memorials. It was so sparse that I employed an expert to endeavor to render it more complete, but without success.”

Since there is a question as to whether the contemporary printed sources or the Parochial Memorials furnish the more reliable version of the name, I retain the spelling of the former in the text.

460 See first paragraph of Greenwood’s letter of 1730.

461 Reproduced in Plates VIII to XI.

462 See Letter C.

463 Reproduced in Plates XII to XVI.

464 Reproduced in Plates XVII and XVIII.

465 Neither Viller, nor Villan, nor any similar name beginning with a V or a W appears on the membership lists of either of the two societies in 1732 or thereabout. Cf. p. 279 note.

466 The Dictionary of National Biography speaks of John Eames as a “dissenting tutor.” “His reputation as a tutor, especially in natural science, was very great.” Dr. Isaac Watts considered him the most learned man of his acquaintance; and he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society through the influence of Sir Isaac Newton. He died in 1744.

467 The approximate measurements of these papers are as follows:

Letter A (6402.106, 107)	8 × 12
Combined Drawing (6402.47)	8 × 12¾
Letter B (4432.185, 189)	7½ × 9 +
Greenwood Drawing (4432.186)	3½ × 9½
Danforth Drawing (4432.187)	2¾ × 7¾
Danforth Slip (4432.188)	2½ × 6¼
Letter C (4432.190)	8½ × 11

468 Note particularly the difference in the capital “R” and in the manner of writing “y^e.” Note also that the slip calls the river “Assonet” or “Asonet.” Greenwood knew that its name was “Taunton;” but, quoting the slip, he wrote: “Assoonet (as this was then called),” — meaning, perhaps, at the time the slip was written. The error in name is clearly due, not to Greenwood, but to the writer of the slip.

A letter written by John Danforth in 1698 is in possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society. It presents a great variety in the manner of forming the letters. Thus there are three forms of r; three of e; two of h, etc. Capitals T, H, S, and W are very like those of the slip. I noticed three cases of the occurrence of the word “y^e;” in every case, the lower curve of the y is to the right, exactly as in the slip, although every other y in the whole letter, so far as I observed, even in “y^r,” has the curve turned to the left. The e also being alike in the two, the whole “y^e” becomes a strongly characteristic indication of identity. The spelling “neer” for “near” is reminiscent of the “meer” of the slip. This letter, therefore, although its very closely written page and variety of style give it at first sight an appearance very different from that of the slip, rather supports the assumption that the latter was written by Danforth.

469 This word is given in three different forms on the backs of the originals in the Museum: “dorse,” “dors,” and “dorso.”

470 Plate XVIII.

471 See C. W. Ernst, The Postal Service in Boston, in Professional and Industrial History of Suffolk County, 1894, ii. 443–504.

The British Post-Office Act of 1710, 9th Anne, Chapter 10, established a legal route and legal rates for mails from Boston, via New York, to London; the rate being 2 shillings per sheet, or 8 shillings for one ounce. But New York had no mail packets until 1755–56. Letters from Boston went by private ship, as so-called ship letters, instead of being sent by the legal route at the legal rates. If for London delivery and not carried personally to their destination by the ship’s captain, they were handed over to the “penny post” — not the Post Office, but a concern for handling local letters, whose charge for delivery was one penny.

Thus the above suggestion about the meaning of the “I N 5” does not seem to be warranted. Mr. Ernst, to whom I have submitted the problem, tells me that the “5–IV” indicates that the penny post received the letter on June 5th; and that the other marks indicate the receiving office. But if the penny post delivered for one penny irrespective of weight, what is the reason for the weight being indicated? Greenwood’s letter of three sheets and three smaller enclosures must actually have weighed not far from “1 oz.” “It is conceivable,” writes Mr. Ernst, “that your ship letter on arriving in London was gobbled by the postal authorities; but they could not lawfully collect more than a few pence.” The latest discussions of this subject of which I know are J. C. Hemmeon’s History of the British Post-Office, 1912, and a paper on The Colonial Post-Office, by William Smith, in the American Historical Review for January, 1916 (xxi. 258–275). They do not help to enlighten me as to the meaning of the I N 5, or whatever else is there written; and so I leave the solution of this question uncertain.

472 Evidence is not wholly lacking, however. The following mingling of surmise and fact is interesting and may be true; and it seems worth while to record a consistent and plausible speculation. On the Danforth drawing of Letter A (6402 f. 47), which is unquestionably a copy by Greenwood, underneath the first figure at the left is a character like a B lying on its side, thus: . It is not in keeping with the rest of the drawing, and looks almost as if it did not belong there. Yet Lort and all his successors accepted it as real and made it conform to the rest of the drawing. So also did Cotton Mather in 1690, though he made it look like a 9, not a B. But on this “original” Danforth drawing of Letter B (4432) it is much fainter than on the copy that Mather made and on the other copy that Greenwood made for Letter A. Moreover, it is not merely a B, but apparently a BI, and it clearly is not a part of the drawing itself, but an extraneous mark. Now it is a curious coincidence that these very initials are cut on another stone on the same property within half a mile from Dighton Rock. The owner of the rock at the time of Danforth’s visit in 1680, and again when Cotton Mather obtained his first drawing about 1689, was James Walker, a prominent man in Taunton, one of the original purchasers of Assonet Neck in 1677. In 1690, he deeded his property there to two daughters (see Bristol County, Massachusetts, N. District Land Records, Book 2, p. 242), one of whom in 1695 became the wife of Benjamin Jones (Memorial of the Walkers of Old Plymouth Colony, 1861, p. 421). The property was divided, and the part containing the Rock came into the ownership of this Benjamin Jones, who already dwelt there, the division line being marked by boundary stones on one side of which were “marked or engraven” the initials B:I: (loc. cit. Book 7, p. 720). In 1720, Hannah, widow relict of this Benjamin, deeded the property to her son Benjamin (loc. cit. Book 13, p. 258), who, since he lived until 1768 (Bristol County Probate Records, Book 20, p. 396), was dwelling on the place in 1730. He had personal knowledge of Greenwood’s visit at that time (see p. 270, above). It is barely possible that John Danforth visited in Taunton shortly after graduating from Harvard College; went to the Rock in company with its owner, James Walker; gave to the latter his original drawing, or one of them, and perhaps also the descriptive “slip” now in 4432 f. 188 to go with it; that later, possibly after Walker’s death (1691 or 1692), his daughter Hannah had these papers, and through her marriage they came into possession of Benjamin Jones; that he or his son Benjamin placed these initials on the drawing, and that it was from the latter that Greenwood secured the papers in 1730. My correspondent tells me that the paper of the two drawings, 186 and 187, seems different from the body of the letter, and smoother, especially 186. The two drawings, therefore, are apparently on differing paper, and 186 looks more handled than 187. As to the “slip,” 188, it is difficult to judge, because it is pasted onto modern paper of the British Museum. It is not probable that it was written by Greenwood at the same time that he composed his letter, because in such case he would have incorporated it into the letter. He already had it, as a descriptive companion to the drawing. Its handwriting may not be Greenwood’s and may be Danforth’s. It looks as if Greenwood had added to it not only the “No. 2,” but also the inserted “n” which corrects the previous spelling of the word “Tanton;” and other reasons have been given on an earlier page for the belief that the slip was not written by Greenwood. These considerations do not prove that the drawing and slip were by Danforth himself, nor that the initials on the drawing were put there by Benjamin Jones, father or son; they do not explain how Mather in 1689 happened to put another character in the corresponding position on his drawing; but they indicate interesting possibilities.

473 For B, see Plate XIV; for A, Plate XI; and for Lort, Plate VII.

474 Nathaniel Fisher was born about 1686; Harvard College, 1706; ordained in 1710; first minister of Taunton South Precinct, which, together with Assonet Neck, became the township of Dighton in 1712; continued in office until his death at the age of 91, August 30, 1777.

475 This is the end of the first page, except that the word “Time” is added at the bottom, to indicate the first word on the following page.

476 There is no evidence that any part of Taunton River was ever called Assonet. Its Indian name was Titicut, Tetiquet, or Tecticutt. Plymouth and Taunton records refer to it always as “down the river,” the “great river,” “Taunton Great River,” or later “Taunton River.” Assonet Bay and Assonet River are on the other side of Assonet Neck, and empty into Taunton River two miles below Dighton Rock. They are called by these names very frequently in the Proprietors’ Records between 1648 and 1669.

477 This word ends the second page of the letter.

478 Probably Mathurin Veyssière de Lacroze, who, according to Larousse’s Grand Dictionaire (xv. 973), was an “érudit et orientaliste français, né 1661, mort 1739.”

479 The words “that wch is under, with what is above Ground;” are here written in and crossed out.

480 This is an error made by Danforth: see pp. 284 note 1, 289 note 3, above.

481 The New England Weekly Journal of May 1, 1732, has the following entry: “Custom House, Boston, April 29. . . . Clear-Out, . . . Winslow & Scott for London” (p. 2/1). We have already seen that the letter was sent “Per Capt. Winslow.” This was doubtless the “Edw. Winslow” who “Entred Inwards” on the preceding 4th of March (ibid. March 6, p. 4/2).

482 MS. Minutes S. A. L., ii. 2.

483 The reason probably was that the drawings were not considered sufficiently complete and accurate. For we learn that before 1744 Eames sought to obtain a “more accurate copy” through Professor John Winthrop. See Archaeologia, viii. 295.

484 Archaeologia, viii. 292.

485 Letter of Frank O. Wales, town clerk, February 17, 1916.

486 Whitney’s error was reproduced by Anson Titus, Jr., in Charlton Historical Sketches (p. 21), but George F. Daniels in his History of the Town of Oxford (p. 40) and John Haven in his Historical Address (p. 7) give the date January 10, 1755. So also do each of the two histories of Worcester County published respectively in 1879 (i. 374) and 1889 (i. 746).

487 The petition is in the Archives, cxvi. 586.

488 cxvi. 764.

489 xx. 327.

490 Province Laws, vol. i. p. xxv.

491 Province Laws, iii. 781.

492 Province Laws, iii. 70–72.

493 College Book, i. 43.

494 Henry Saltonstall (1642) was a son, but not the eldest son, of a knight (Sir Richard Saltonstall). The only eldest son of a knight known to have been a student at Harvard was William Mildmay (1647), whose parentage has long been in dispute. It can now be stated, though the story is too long to be given in detail here, that he was not (as alleged by Savage and others) a son of Sir Henry Mildmay of Graces, Little Baddow, Essex, but was the eldest son of Sir Henry Mildmay of Wanstead, Essex. These two Sir Henry Mildmays were second cousins, both great-grandsons of Thomas Mildmay of Chelmsford, Essex. The Harvard graduate was a great-grandson of Sir Walter Mildmay, founder of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

495 The latest instance I have noted is an allusion to “Sir Ballard, a resident Graduate” under date of December 2, 1801 (College Book, viii. 408). Cf. Publications of this Society, viii. 295 note.

496 There are numerous instances where graduates, even after taking; their A.M., remained in residence. I have nowhere seen any allusion to this fact, and, though many were no doubt studying theology, it is difficult to know exactly what they were doing. Thus Daniel Rogers (1706–1782) was still in residence on September 8, 1729; while Daniel Rogers (1707–1785) remained in residence as late as April 11, 1732 — or seven years after graduation.

497 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxxiii. 423.

498 Of the fifty-nine dates given by Mr. Dean, eight (1643, 1646–1650, 1682, 1689) are certainly wrong, one (1642) is probably wrong, while two (1644, 1645) are doubtful.

499 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, x. 194–205, 360; xii. 72–73, 285–286.

500 1646, 1648, 1673, 1677, 1683, 1691, 1693, 1695, 1696, 1698–1700. The present paper cites contemporary records for all these dates except two — 1648 and 1673.

501 Magnalia (1702), bk. iv. p. 131.

502 On July 4, 1688, Sewall wrote: “Com̄encement managed wholly by Mr. W^m Hubbard; compared Sir William [Phips], in his Oration, to Jason fetching the Golden Fleece. Masters proceeded, no Batchelours” (Diary, ii. 219). Yet elsewhere he wrote under date of June 30, 1688: “Writt to . . . Brother . . . Stephen; . . . In Brother Stephen’s I inclosed the Com̄encers Theses” (Letter-Book, i. 85). Perhaps this entry was made some days after June 30 and Sewall inadvertently wrote “Com̄encers Theses” instead of “Quaestiones.”

503 1642, 1645, 1649–1652, 1654–1669, 1671, 1673–1677, 1679–1681, 1683–1686, 1690, 1692, 1694–1707, 1709, 1710, 1712–1716, 1718, 1724, 1728, 1729, 1736, 1752, 1757, 1764, 1774, and 1775. The Theses for 1642 were printed at Cambridge, but no copies are extant. Presumably they were dated, but if so the date was omitted when the Theses were reprinted in London in 1643 in New Englands First Fruits (pp. 18–20). Sewall mentions the Theses for 1707: see p. 335 note 2, below. President Stiles once owned the Theses for 1713, but his copy cannot now be located. Theses were printed in 1728 and 1729: see p. 338 note 3, below.

504 1687, 1689, 1721, 1727, 1730–1735, 1737–1739.

505 See pp. 332, 351, 352, below.

506 The year-date on the Theses for 1761 is also misprinted — “M,DCC,XLI.” instead of “M,DCC,LXI.” — but that misprint carries its own refutation. For another misprint in the year-date in 1808, see p. 366, below.

507 There were no public Commencements in 1752, 1757, 1764, 1774–1780. No Quaestiones are extant for any of those years, and no Theses for 1752, 1757, 1764, 1774, and 1775. But as Theses were printed in 1776–1780, there seems to be no reason why they may not have been printed in the other years as well, and also the Quaestiones for each of those years. At all events, simply because no copies are extant we cannot assume that none were printed. What were known as “private Commencements” were held in 1727–1735, but Quaestiones were printed in each of those years, as were also Theses (though those for 1728 and 1729 are not extant: cf. note 1, above).

508 Magnalia, bk. iv. p. 131.

509 1645, 1646, 1648–1650, 1652, 1654, 1661, 1662, 1667, 1670, 1672, 1673, 1677, 1683, 1706, 1721, 1752, 1757, 1764, 1774–1780, 1782, and 1783.

510 1722, 1727, 1730–1739, 1741.

511 It is not necessary to give here the Theses and Quaestiones that are fully dated, since they are all noted in the list on pp. 378–384, below.

512 See p. 332, below.

513 It will be observed that many more Quaestiones than Theses have been preserved. No doubt Mr. Lane’s conjecture is correct: “It is likely that the fire of 1764 was the cause of the destruction of many of the earlier Theses for it is to be noted that of the 21 sheets extant between 1642 and 1726 (85 years) the College Library has only four, while of the 58 extant Quaestiones falling within the same period, the College has 56. From this date down the file of both sheets in the College Library is fairly continuous. It is reasonable to conclude therefore that while the College file of Quaestiones escaped destruction in some way in 1764, the file of Theses perished.” Mr. Lane’s exhaustive and very useful article on Early Harvard Broadsides will be found in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society for October, 1914, xxiv. 264–304.

514 In describing in 1907 a file of the Boston News Letter owned by the Boston Athenaeum, I wrote: “In a communication to this Society made in October, 1864, on ‘Catalogues of Harvard University,’ Sibley, speaking of the Triennial Catalogues, said: ‘A few years since, I found an excellent copy of the one for 1715, bound near the middle of a volume of the “Boston News Letter” of that year, which is in the Library of the Boston Athenaeum. Being of the same size as the newspaper, it had till then escaped observation’ (1 Proceedings, viii. 31). This catalogue is no longer in the volume” (3 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, i. 205). When Mr. Lane was preparing his paper on Early Harvard Broadsides, he asked me whether the missing Triennial had since turned up, and I was obliged to report that it had not; but recently I found it bound in a volume of broadsides to which it had been removed.

515 This statement is based on an examination of every known copy of every Boston newspaper of the proper date from 1704 to 1728, my thanks being due to the librarians of the American Antiquarian Society, the Connecticut Historical Society, the New York Historical Society, and the State Historical Society of Wisconsin for information about certain issues. Of a few issues of the right date, no copies are known.

516 Nevertheless the dates of two Commencements before 1728, did we not know them from other sources, could be recovered from newspapers. The following notice is from the Boston News Letter of July 24, 1704: “Mr. Thomas Weld, a pious Youth, Son to the Reverend Mr. Thomas Weld, Minister of Dunslable, who took his Second Degree at Cambridge on the 5th Instant, Sickened on the Fryday following, Dyed the 21st Currant at Braintrey, and Buried at Roxbury the 22d” (p. 4/1). For the other instance, see p. 339, below.

517 “The Rev^d m^r Urian Oakes was Installed Presid^t of Harvard College by Govern. Bradstreet in the College-Hall on the Com̄encm^t day. August 1680” (College Book, iii. 72). “Com̄encm^t Day at the Presid^ts House 1712” (iv. 43). “At a meeting of the Presid^t and Fellows of Harvard College in the Library on the Com̄encm^t Day 1718” (iv. 62).

518 “At an Overseer’s Meeting in the College Hall, 7° Iuly. 1714” (College Book, iv. 53). “At a Meeting of the Presid^t and Fellows of Harvard College at the Presid^ts House in Cambridge Iune 28, 1721” (iv. 72).

519 On June 17, 1729, the Corporation “Voted, yt y^e Commencement for this year, be upon Friday, y^e twenty-seventh of this Jnstant June” (College Book, iv. 138). The record of this meeting, in the hand of President Wadsworth, is immediately followed by a “Memorandum, on Commencement day, Jun. 28. 1729,” also written by President Wadsworth. In his Diary (p. 68), Wadsworth correctly dates the entry, “Commencement. Jun. 27. 1729.” “A Stated meeting of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College was held on Commencement day, the twenty seventh of June, A.D. 1870, at nine o’clock in the forenoon in Gore Hall, in Cambridge” (Overseers Records, x. 412): but Commencement Day in 1870 was June 28, not 27.

520 College Book, i. 93.

521 Overseers’ Records, i. 34.

522 College Book, iv. 39.

523 The dates in the Steward’s Account Book of Thomas Chesholme must be used with great caution.

524 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, iii. 374. The entry may have been made as late as 1745.

525 New England Historical and Genealogical Registry, xiii. 305–306.

526 Edward Holyoke’s Almanack for 1715 gives August 31 as Commencement, while Nathaniel Whittemore’s Almanack for 1715 gives July 6: the correct date was August 31. Other errors in almanacs are as follows. John Tulley’s Almanack for 1689 gives July 3 as Commencement: the correct date was September 11. Whittemore’s Almanack for 1721 gives July 5 as Commencement: the correct date was June 28. Nathan Bowen’s New-England Diary for 1727 gives July 7 as Commencement: the correct date was June 30. Nathaniel Ames’s Astronomical Diary for 1740 gives July 2 as Commencement: the correct date was August 27. Ames’s Astronomical Diary for 1749 gives July 5 as Commencement: the correct date was July 18. George Wheten’s Astronomical Diary for 1753 gives July 4 as Commencement: the correct date was July 18.

527 History of Harvard University, p. 9.

528 Collection of College Words and Customs, p. 55.

529 See p. 310, above.

530 Harvard the First American University, pp. 55–56.

531 Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, xx. 46, 250. In 1875 Edmund Quincy remarked: “Mr. Sibley finds himself unable to fix the precise day of the Commencement of 1642, but probably it was in August” (Harvard Book, ii. 152).

532 Life and Letters of John Winthrop, ii. 301.

533 Harvard Graduates, i. 15.

534 Attention may be called to a curious error that has crept into the Century Dictionary. In its academic sense the word “act” is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “a thesis publicly maintained by a candidate for a degree, or to show a student’s proficiency,” and in the Century Dictionary as “a public disputation or lecture required of a candidate for a degree of master;” but the latter definition is incorrect and both definitions are imperfect, since the word also means (as in the passage quoted in the text) the occasion or ceremony of keeping acts. On May 6, 1650, the Overseers ordered that such as “expect to proceed masters of Art” were “to exhibit their Synopses of Arts required by y^e Lawes of y^e Colledge” (College Book, i. 44), the reference being to the 19th of the College Laws of 1642–1646, which reads:

Every Scholar that giveth up in writing a Synopsis or summa of Logicke, Naturall & morall Philosophy, Arithmeticke, Geometry; & Astronomy, & is ready to defend his theses or positions, . . . at any publike act after triall hee shall bee capable of y^e 2^d degree of Master of Arts (i. 44).

The order of May 6, 1650, was printed in Quincy’s History of Harvard University (i. 518), but the words “their Synopses of Arts” were misread by the copyist employed by Quincy and in the History are misprinted “their synopsis of acts.” The expression “synopsis of acts” obviously has no meaning at all; yet the above passage from Quincy’s History was quoted by B. H. Hall in his Collection of College Words and Customs (1851, p. 3), and also duly appears in the Century Dictionary under “act.”

It will be observed that in 1642 the students kept two “solemne Acts for their Commencement.” Mr. Lane suggests that the ceremony consisted of two parts: first, orations, etc.; second, defence of theses.

535 New Englands First Fruits, pp. 16–17.

536 History (1853), ii. 91–105. It is possible that the original manuscript of Winthrop’s History, if in existence, would throw some further light on the date of these passages; but unfortunately, as Mr. Tuttle informs me, the second volume of the manuscript (which contained the passages in question) was loaned to James Savage on October 27, 1825, and was destroyed by fire on the 10th of November following.

537 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 28. Cf. Love, Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England, pp. 156, 178.

538 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 31.

539 Cf. Winthrop, History, ii. 55; Publications of this Society, xvii. 215.

540 On November 20, 1637, the Court appointed the following committee “to take order for a colledge at Newetowne:” Richard Bellingham (Treasurer), Rev. John Cotton, Rev. John Davenport, Thomas Dudley (Deputy-Governor), Roger Harlakenden, John Humfrey, Rev. Hugh Peters, Rev. Thomas Shepard, Israel Stoughton, Rev. Thomas Weld, Rev. John Wilson, John Winthrop (Governor). These names — except that John Endicott (then Deputy-Governor) takes the place of Roger Harlakenden (who died in 1638) — are printed on the 1642 Theses (New Englands First Fruits, 1643, p. 18). Mr. Gay conjectures that “at the first Commencement only six were probably present, viz. Winthrop, Endicott, Bellingham, Cotton, Wilson, Shepard. Of the other members, Weld, Peter, and Humphrey were then in England, Stoughton was apparently on the way thither, and Davenport had gone to New Haven in 1638” (Publications of this Society, xvii. 125). Mr. Gay has apparently overlooked Dudley. By “most of them,” Winthrop appears to refer to the members of the board as it was constituted on September 27.

541 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 30.

542 Referring to the years 1672–1673, Dr. Green says: “During this period the customary way of giving the date of Commencement on the college programme was changed, and the Roman system adopted.” As a matter of fact the Roman system was employed in 1647, though no system was adhered to consistently. Some dates are given in the text under 1643, 1646, 1653, 1675, 1676, 1682, 1684, 1723, 1768, 1772, 1774–1780. A few others follow, Q and T indicating the Quaestiones and the Theses:

1647	T	Cantabrigiæ Nov: Ang: 6 Calend. Sextilis. 1647.
1655	Q	Decimoquarto Die Sextilis 1655.
1670	T	Cantabrigiæ Nov-Angliæ die nono Sextilis Anno	M. DC. LXX.
1674	Q	Tertio Idus Sextiles M.DC.LXXIV.
1678	T	Cantabrigiæ Nov-Anglorum Idibus Sextilibus: MDCLXXVIII.
1687	T	Cantabrigiæ Nov-Anglorum. Anno à, Christo nato. MDC.LXXXVII.
1690	Q	Sexto Nonas Quintilis. M,DC,XC.
1691	T	Cantabrigiæ Nov-Anglorum Calendis Julii. M. DC. XCI.
1692	Q	Die Sexto Quintilis M DC XCII.
1696	Q	Kalendas Quintilis. M DC XC VI.
1698	Q	Die Sexto Quintilis. M DC XC VIII.
1708	T	Habita in Comitijs Cantabrigiæ Nov-Anglorum, Die Septimo Quintilis. MDCCVIII.
1713	Q	Calendis Quintilibus. M DCC XIII.
1717	T	Habita in Comitiis Cantabrigiæ Nov-Anglorum, Quinto Nonarum Quintilis. MDCCXVII.
1740	T	Habita in Comitiis Academicis Cantabrigiæ Nov-Anglorum, Sexto Calendas Septembris, Anno MDCCXL.

Other dates will be found in Mr. Lane’s article on Early Harvard Broadsides.

543 Cf. p. 207 note, above.

544 In an almanac (the only known copy of which lacks the title-page) for 1646 compiled by Samuel Danforth, Commencement Day is given as July 28. Danforth may have given July 28 because in 1645 Commencement had been July 29; or the last Tuesday in July may have been fixed upon at some Corporation or Overseers’ meeting between the summer of 1645 and the end of that year, when the almanac was presumably printed.

545 P. 1. The copy owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society fills sixteen pages, but has no title. It was not printed until 1709, for on September 17 of that year Sewall wrote: “Mr. Green finishes printing Mr. Whiting’s Oration” (Diary, ii. 263). Presumably the date was taken from the original manuscript.

546 Sibley, Harvard Graduates, i. 548. Dr. Green quotes the extracts in the text and also the date “30–5–50” and the words “Commencment Chardge” against the name of William Stoughton, who graduated in 1650 (Sibley, i. 549). But, as already stated (p. 315 note 4, above), the entries in Chesholme’s book must be used with great caution, and no date found in it can be accepted as Commencement Day unless the day is specifically stated to be Commencement Day. Thus against the name of Urian Oakes is the date “10–7–52” and the words “his Commencement Chardges” (i. 548); against the name of John Collins is the date “10–7–52” and the words “his Commencment Chardges” (i. 549); against the name of John Glover is the date “12–7–51” and the words “by his Commencmente Chardges” (Chesholme’s Account Book, p. 142); against the name of Leonard Hoar is the date “10–7–53” and the words “by Commencment Charges” (Sibley, i. 550). There is no reason for supposing that Commencement came on September 10 in 1652, and we know with certainty that it did not come on September 12 in 1651 or on September 10 in 1653. The Commencement charge was often paid not on Commencement Day, but on quarter day; and presumably the above dates were quarter days. This point is clearly brought out by the original entry under Mildmay’s name, which in Chesholme’s Account Book (fol. 3) reads: “13–7–50 by m^r Willyam Mildmay his Commencment Chardges 003–02–06;” but above the date is written “quarter day,” while below the date is written “Commencment day 30 of July befor this quarter day.” Many other instances where Commencement charges are entered against a quarter day occur in Chesholme’s book. The practice of granting degrees before College dues were paid, though surprising, apparently continued for over half a century. On June 11, 1694, the Corporation ordered “That Such as Stand for their Degrees Shall ten days at least before the Com̄encm^t clear their Accounts with y^e Colledge Steward” (College Book, iv. 9). As late as 1721 the Steward found it “exceeding Difficult to get in the Tuition money as well as other College dues” (iv. 70); and on June 2, 1725, the Corporation felt it necessary to vote “That the Tut^rs be desired to Notify those who Stand for their degrees that they pay all College Dues to the Stew^d in order to their regularly receiving their degrees and that the Stew^d Exhibit to the Tut^rs a List of the Commencers Names the day before Commencment to signify how far this Order is complyed w^th” (iv. 102)

547 Ill Newes from New-England, pp. 10, 11.

548 Wonder-Working Providence, p. 166.

549 Early Harvard Broadsides, pp. 275–279, where the problem is discussed at length.

550 See p. 323 note 2, above.

551 Chesholme’s Account Book, p. 54; Sibley, i. 552.

552 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 8. It is pleasant to find that on September 20 Adams “came to Cambridge again with my uncle N. A.,” and that on the next day he was “admitted into Colledge” — his uncle Nathaniel no doubt furnishing the “pecunia.”

553 Ibid. i. 13.

554 Ibid. i. 17.

555 In the second of two volumes of manuscripts (preserved in the College archives) labelled “President Leverett’s Discourses.” This title is a misnomer, since, though all the discourses are unmistakably in the hand of Leverett, he was certainly not the author of some of them. The second volume contains “Oratio Comitiis Cantabr. Nov-Anglor̄ habita Anno Domini, 1652. ꝑ orataqȝ à Rev^do Nath. Rogers. Ecclesiæ Ipsvicensis Pastore Eximio, in Aulâ Scil. Harvardinâ” (pp. 93–98); an oration delivered in 1686 (pp. 99–104); “Oratio Salutatoria Comitiis Academicis habita Anno Dom̄. 1703” (pp. 104–114: was this by Spencer Phips?); an oration in 1708 (pp. 114–123) and another in 1709 (pp. 124–125), presumably by Leverett himself; and orations delivered by Oakes in 1672 (pp. 1–9), 1675 (pp. 10–29), 1677 (pp. 29–52), and 1678 (pp. 52–77); and various other discourses. Presumably the dates were copied from the original manuscripts.

556 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xiii. 350.

557 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 21. The dates in Adams’s Diary are somewhat hard to follow, and Sibley (Harvard Graduates, ii. 384) wrongly assigns the extract quoted in the text to “Aug. 10. 1674.” The year “1674” is Sibley’s interpolation. The extract itself shows that it must have been written in 1675. First, Commencement in 1674 was on August 11, not 10. Second, President Hoar of course presided in 1674; but on March 15, 1675, “D^r Leonard Hoar made a resignac̄on of his Presid^tship of the College” (College Book, iii. 67: see also p. 369, below). The entry corrects an error in the Quinquennial, where it is stated that Adams took his A.M. in 1674.

558 President Leverett’s Discourses, ii: see note 1, above.

559 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xiii. 369.

560 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxxiv. 103.

561 The manuscript of this portion of the Diary itself is not in existence. It is greatly to be regretted that Sewall’s Diary, upon which so much reliance is placed for exact dates, should have been so carelessly printed. Marginal entries (which often are essential to the text) have not been printed at all, words have been misread, and various errors of commission and omission occur. Cf. Publications of this Society, xvii. 53 note, 63 note 2. In 1701 the printed Diary (ii. 38) wrongly gives Commencement as July 1 instead of July 2: see p. 330, below. And in 1704 the printed Diary twice (ii. 111, 112) gives Commencement as July 15 instead of July 5, the original Diary showing that Sewall wrote “July, 5” in each case, the comma having been turned into the figure 1.

562 President Leverett’s Discourses, ii: see p. 326 note 1, above.

563 See p. 313, above.

564 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vii. 56. It is to be regretted that the person who deciphered Russell’s Diary was unable to read his writing, as the printed Diary contains several palpable errors. Nor was Russell, as alleged by the editor, a Tutor, but, as stated in the text, a resident graduate.

565 There is still another contemporary record for this year. In a letter to Increase Mather dated Stamford, September 16, 1682, the Rev. John Bishop said: “I lately received . . . a Catalogue of Harvard’s sons” (4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 311). This can refer only to the 1682 Triennial. Had Commencement come on September 13th, Bishop would have received his catalogue not “lately,” but only a day or two before he wrote his letter — if, indeed, he could have received it at all before September 16th.

How many days before Commencement were the programmes printed? In 1671 Commencement was August 8, and on August 2 William Adams noted in his Diary: “Was printed our theses for y^e commencemt” (4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 13). Of the extant Theses and Quaestiones for the years 1727–1735 only two are fully dated: the Quaestiones for 1728 and 1729. On June 17, 1728, Commencement was appointed to be “on Friday, y^e 28^th of this Jnstant June” (College Book, iv. 131); and on June 17, 1729, Commencement was appointed to be “upon Friday, y^e twenty-seventh of this Jnstant June” (iv. 139) Hence in those two years the Quaestiones could not have been printed more than eleven or ten days in advance. That the programmes would have been printed two or three weeks before Commencement is unlikely in the extreme.

566 There is no name on the title-page, but on the title-page of a copy of the almanac owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society Judge Sewall has written, “By Mr. Cotton Mather.”

567 College Book, i. 89.

568 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 521–522.

569 College Book, iii. 85. The only entry relating to the matter in Increase Mather’s manuscript Diary (owned by the American Antiquarian Society) is under date of January 3, 1684: “O[v]erseers of ye Colledge mett, & voted yt Com̄ent sd for ye future be on ye 1 Wednesday in July.”

570 On January 12, 1684, Russell says in his Diary, “I went to Cambridge to carry my Almanack to ye Press;” and on January 26, “My Almanack was printed” (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vii. 59).

571 College Book, i. 93, iii. 85.

572 See p. 316 note 2, above.

573 John Nelson.

574 Isaac Addington, Secretary of the Province.

575 Increase Mather.

576 This entry, though it begins June 30, obviously could not have been written before July 2. In the printed Diary (ii. 37–38) the figure “2.” which of course means July 2, appears as a semicolon, thus making it appear that Commencement was July 1.

577 John Leverett.

578 College Book, iv. 53. Cf. Sewall, Diary, iii. 9. See p. 316 note 2, above.

579 College Book, iv. 58.

580 Overseers’ Records, i. 19. A similar entry is in Leverett’s Diary, p. 198.

581 P. 199. No meeting is recorded in the Overseers’ Records on June 28. The Corporation met that day, but the fact that it was Commencement is not stated: see p. 314 note 4, above.

582 See pp. 312, 312 note 4, 313, 313 note 4, above.

583 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xiv. 28.

584 xv. 199.

585 Overseers’ Records, i. 52.

586 The date should have been “Quinto Nonas Quintilis.” According to the Roman calendar, the Calends were the first day in any month; the Ides were the 15th of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th of the other months; the Nones were the ninth day before the Ides (counting both days), i.e. the 7th of March, May, July, and October, and the 5th of the other months; and the Romans reckoned the days forward to the Calends, Nones, or Ides next following. The fact that Commencement happened to come on July 3 may have caused the authorities inadvertently to write “Tertio” instead of “Quinto.” On the other hand, Professor Albert A. Howard of Harvard University, to whom I am indebted for help, tells me that the authorities may have used printed tables for converting Christian dates into Roman dates. If so, since the programmes were no doubt prepared and printed in June, it would have been easy for the authorities to look at the June column instead of the July column, for the 3d of June would have been “Tertio Nonas Junias.”

In 1663 Commencement was August 11, the Quaestiones being dated “UNDECIMO DIE SEXTILIS M.DC.LXIII.” There has been preserved in manuscript a set of burlesque Theses, dated “Quinto Idùs Augusti An^o Magni Iubilæi MDCLXIII.” — that is, Sunday, August 9. “This discrepancy as to the date,” writes Mr. Edes, “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 portion of this paper was written.” (See Publications of this Society, v. 322–339.) It thus appears, to borrow Jowett’s phrase, that in 1663, as now, “not even the youngest” were infallible.

587 See p. 321, above.

588 See p. 318, above.

589 Massachusetts or The first Planters of New-England (Boston, 1696), p. 20.

590 New-Englands Plantation (Essex Book and Print Club, 1908), p. 30.

591 College Book, iii. 27.

592 iii. 73.

593 iii. 73.

594 Dr. Green quotes these lines and asks: “Do they have reference to the drinking habits of that period?” The answer must obviously be in the affirmative. Our associate Mr. Merritt calls my attention to an interesting passage in a letter from the Rev. Nathan Prince to the Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The controversy of Prince, for many years Tutor and Fellow, with the Corporation was a cause célèbre in the history of the College. Writing on August 29, 1745, he said: “It has been represented that ‘I was expelled the Independent College in this Country for Immorality.’ There is something, Sir, more gross than Intemperance itself suggested to the mind, when ’tis said that a Person is condemned for Immoralities: Whereas I never was charged before the Government of that College with any thing immoral, but only with one or two Acts of Intemperance during fifteen years’ run of their lascivious Commencements and other publick Entertainments” (W. S. Perry, Historical Collections relating to the American Colonial Church, iii. 393).

595 College Book, iv. 7. On July 8, 1707, Sewall recorded that he “gave Mr. Stoddard for Madam Stoddard two half pounds of Chockalat, instead of Com̄encment Cake; and a Thesis” (Diary, ii. 192).

596 Diary, ii. 189–190.

597 By “Fellows of the House” axe meant the Tutors.

598 College Book, iv. 69–70.

599 iv. 78.

600 iv. 118.

601 Here a marginal entry reads: “N.B. The overseers at y^r meeting. Apr. 11. 1727. added ys clause, viz: And y^t these Rules be observed till further order.”

602 College Book, iv. 121–122.

603 iv. 122–123.

604 Here a marginal entry reads: “Reforming y^e Commencements Ys Act was consented to by y^e Overseers, published in the Hall. Jun. 19. 1727. and ordered to be set up in y^e Hall.”

605 College Book, iv. 123.

606 iv. 124. An advertisement about Commencement was printed in the Boston News Letter of May 18, 1727.

607 This does not mean that Commencement was never mentioned before 1728. It has already been pointed out (p. 314 note 2, above) that the Commencement of 1704 was casually referred to in a Boston paper, and advertisements about Commencement were occasionally inserted by the College authorities. Also, there was printed in the New England Weekly Journal of July 3, 1727, a poem of 155 lines called “The Sequel of Commencement,” introduced as follows:

Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero

Pulsanda tellus —— —— Hor.

WHILE I was preparing an Entertainment for the Publick, I was diverted from my Subject, with the Seasonable Conclusion of a Poem, enclosed in the following Letter to our Society.

Gentlemen,

‘You may please to remember, that the Poem on Commencement that was published the last Year, concluded at the College with a Complement to the Members of that learned Society. I have presumed to march off the prodigious Swarm that were then left at Cambridge, and conduct them thro’ their various Pastimes & Divertisements, down to their several Districts and Habitations; promising my self your Protection, and candid Examination of the Performance.

I am

Gentlemen

Your Obliged Servant.

608 The word “author” formerly meant editor or publisher.

609 No copies of the Theses for 1728 or 1729 have been preserved; but that they were duly printed is proved by the passage in the text and by this extract from the same paper of June 30, 1729 (p. 2/2):

On Fryday last the 27th Currant, was the Annual Commencement at Cambridge for this Year, (it being the Third in order of the more Private Commencements.) when the following Persons, had their Degrees given them, after they had held their Publick Disputations in the Church of that Town, as they are in the Printed Theses and Questions, viz. . . .

610 P. 2/1. Then follow the names of those who received degrees. It is pertinent to point out that the names of those receiving degrees printed in the newspapers furnish important evidence which has not as yet been used by the Editor of the Quinquennial. Thus the 1915 Quinquennial records that thirty-eight members of the class of 1725 and twenty-eight members of the class of 1726 received their second degree (A.M.) in course — that is, in 1728 and 1729 respectively. But the newspapers cited in the text and in the preceding note record only thirty-six in 1728 and twenty-seven in 1729. It is to be hoped that this source of information will some day be utilized. A case in point may be specified. Stephen and William Fessenden were both in the class of 1737 and so would have taken their A.M. in course in 1740. On July 1, 1741, the Corporation voted (College Book, iv. 231) that “Mr. Fessenden who was a Candidate the last year, be allow’d the Same Privilege” — that is, be allowed his second degree. The vote clearly indicates that one of the Fessendens received his A.M. in 1740, and from the Boston News Letter of August 28, 1740, we learn that it was “Gulielmus Fessenden.” Hence it was Stephen who received his A.M. out of course in 1741, thus correcting an error in the Quinquennial, where it is stated that both Fessendens received their A.M. in 1741.

A curious fact to which, apparently, attention is now called for the first time is that the Quinquennial contains the names of several men who never received the A.B. degree at all. Three instances may be given. Ebenezer Hartshorn entered in the class of 1732, left College, in 1737 was given an A.M., and his name is printed under his class (1732). George Erving entered in the class of 1757, left College, in 1762 obtained an A.M. from Glasgow University, was admitted to the same degree ad eundem at Harvard in 1762, and his name is printed under his class (1757). Amos Windship entered in the class of 1771, left College, in 1790 was given both an A.M. and an M.B., and his name is printed under his class (1771). On August 19, 1830, the Corporation “Voted — That in the present number of Colleges in the United States, & variety of studies required in them, that it is inexpedient to grant generally, degrees ad eundem” (Corporation Records, p. 186).

611 The advertisements in the newspapers informing the candidates for their second degree when to appear in Cambridge gave a clue. A glance at the list of Commencement Days (pp. 378–384, below) shows that during the nine years (1727–1735) when these private celebrations obtained, Commencement ranged from June 23 to July 5 and that the day was always Friday, except in 1730 when it was Wednesday.

612 College Book, iv. 145.

613 iv. 166.

614 Boston News Letter, July 5, 1733, p. 2/1. An account in the New England Weekly Journal of July 2 reads in part as follows:

Cambridge, June 30. 1733.

Yesterday was the Commencement, at which His Excellency the Governour [Belcher] was present, being attended by a number of the King’s Officers, and Col. Hatch’s Troop of Horse Guards; His Excellency brought with Him in his Chariot the Honourable Mr. George Townshend Son to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Townshend, and Nephew to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole (p. 2/1).

George Townshend, later Admiral, was then a youth of eighteen, and was serving under Captain Thomas Durell on the Scarborough. To the Commencement of 1711 Governor Dudley brought General John Hill — brother of Queen Anne’s favorite Abigail Hill, Lady Masham, and the “Jack” Hill depicted by Thackeray and others — and Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker, who were in command of the land and sea forces in the disastrous expedition against Quebec. But for the intercession of Dudley, Hill, and Walker, John Wainwright, who “stood Convict of being . . . in a Riot late in the night,” would have lost his degree. (College Book, iv. 39–40.) In 1744 some Mohawk chiefs, then visiting Boston, were brought to Commencement by Governor Shirley and dined in the College Hall (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xiv. 257). So far as I have observed, the presence of distinguished guests (except, of course, the Governors and Lieutenant-Governors) was first noted on the Commencement programmes in 1868.

615 College Book, iv. 173.

616 Overseers’ Records, i. 145.

617 i. 148.

618 i. 149.

619 College Book, iv. 189.

620 Overseers’ Records, i. 150.

621 On June 10, 1741, the Overseers took the following action:

Upon a Motion made & Seconded and a Considerable debate thereupon — The Question was put whether it shal be recommended to the Corporation to make an Order for suspending for this present year the Laws relating to the Commencemt so far as they may be thought inconsistent with a more private manner of giving the degrees and also that it be recommended to the said Corporation that thereupon the degrees be given in as private a way as may be — wch passed in the Negative (Overseers’ Records, i. 191).

622 College Book, iv. 222–223.

623 The President and the Steward were the Rev. Edward Holyoke and Andrew Boardman (d 1747). On July 3 Holyoke noted: “The Com[mence]ment put by on account of the throat distemper” (Holyoke Diaries, p. 6). In July Paul Dudley wrote: “The Commencement put by this year by reason of the Throat Distemper at Cambridge. The President’s Lady died of it the latter end of June” (Diary, in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxxv. 30). This was Holyoke’s second wife, Margaret Appleton, who died June 25 (Holyoke Diaries, p. 6).

624 College Book, iv. 222–223.

625 iv. 223.

626 College Book, iv. 298–299.

627 Overseers’ Records, ii. 14, 15.

628 College Book, iv. 300.

629 College Book, vii. 13. Approved by the Overseers on June 10, 1752 (Overseers’ Records, ii. 26).

630 College Book, vii. 22.

631 College Book, vii. 22–23. There was no meeting of the Corporation between August 27 and September 18, 1752; but between those meetings President Holyoke has written: “Mem^o All the after Dates are according to the Kalendar as it hath been corrected by Act of Parliament” (vii. 16). The Act of Parliament, passed in 1751, decreed that the following first day of January should be New Year’s Day (instead of, as formerly, March 25th), and that in September, 1752, the 3rd should be reckoned the 14th.

632 Overseers’ Records, ii. 30.

633 College Book, vii. 32. No action was taken by the Corporation at its meeting held on April 30, and no meeting was recorded between April 30 and May 27.

634 College Book, vii. 59.

635 The meeting-house in Cambridge was then being rebuilt: cf. p. 377 note 1, below.

636 College Book, vii. 59–60.

637 Overseers’ Records, ii. 47.

638 College Book, vii. 60.

639 Overseers’ Records, ii. 47–49.

640 By “English grain” is meant wheat.

641 College Book, vii. 60–62. On May 28, 1759, the Corporation voted “That it shall be deemed no Offence, if any Scholar shall at the Com̄encem^t make & entertain any of the Guests at his Chamber, w^th Punch, any Law Usage or Custom to the contrary notwithstanding” (vii. 75).

642 In the form of the diploma entered in College Book, iv. 61, the date is left blank: “Subscribo —— —— Anno ——.” Neither the Boston News Letter of July 14 nor the Boston Evening Post of July 18 mentioned the day. But in the Boston Gazette (the only other paper published in Boston at that time) of Monday, July 18, was a paragraph beginning, “The following young Gentlemen received their Degrees as Bachelors of Arts by a Diploma last Wednesday, viz. . . .” (p. 2/1) — that is, July 13.

643 College Book, vii. 80.

644 Overseers’ Records, ii. 65.

645 College Book, vii. 84.

646 Overseers’ Records, ii. 70.

647 Harvard Hall was burned January 24th: see Publications of this Society, xiv. 2–43.

648 College Book, vii. 117–118. The reference is to vii. 13, where the form for 1752 is entered.

649 Overseers’ Records, ii. 163–167.

650 College Book, vii. 118–119.

651 College Book, vii. 119–120.

652 Overseers’ Records, ii. 170.

653 College Book, vii. 121.

654 Overseers’ Records, ii. 174. The following is taken from their meeting of July 18 (ii. 177–178):

The form of Presentation — with the Governor’s Placet, added in y^e Psence & at y^e Desire of y^e Overseers. . . .

Placetne?	Placet
Cantabrigiæ Julij. 17^mo	Fra. Bernard
1764.	Bostoni Julij 18^mo 1764.

655 The square brackets are in the original.

656 College Book, vii. 181. The Overseers’ Records are silent regarding this matter.

657 College Book, vii. 273. Approved by the Overseers June 2 (Overseers’ Records, iii. 73). A notice that there would be no public Commencement appeared in the Boston Gazette of June 6, p. 1/1.

658 College Book, vii. 290–291. Approved by the Overseers July 31 (Overseers’ Records, iii. 80).

659 College Book, vii. 293.

660 College Book, vii. 303. Approved by the Overseers July 2 (Overseers’ Records, iii. 94). The diploma is recorded in College Book, vii. 306–307.

661 College Book, vii. 323. Approved by the Overseers June 19 (Overseers’ Records, iii. 109). The diploma is recorded in College Book, vii. 327–328.

662 Rev. Samuel Langdon.

663 The result of Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga, October 17, 1777.

664 College Book, viii. 2–3. Approved by the Overseers June 10 (Overseers’ Records, iii. 131–132). The diploma is recorded in College Book, viii. 5–6.

665 Overseers’ Records, iii. 156.

666 Overseers’ Records, iii. 156.

667 College Book, viii. 24. Approved by the Overseers May 20 (Overseers’ Records, iii. 157–158).

668 College Book, viii. 27.

669 viii. 27.

670 viii. 29.

671 Harvard College Papers, ii. 138. The petition is signed by all of the thirty-students in the graduating class except John Barrett, Nathaniel Bethune, Philip Draper, and James Hughes. The absence of these four names was perhaps due to rustication.

672 Overseers’ Records, iii. 195.

673 iii. 196.

674 College Book, viii. 54.

675 viii. 56.

676 The beginning of this notice, together with the names of those receiving degrees, was also printed in the Independent Chronicle of July 27, p. 3/3; but the omission of the statement that the degrees were granted by a general diploma and of the diploma itself, tends to convey the impression that the Commencement was a public one.

677 See p. 357, above.

678 Harvard College Papers, ii. 156. The petition has attached to it the names of all the members of the class except Isaac Bayley, Elisha Doane, Isaiah Lewis Green, and Elijah Paine. In a Calendar prepared some years ago, the late William G. Brown said: “The class of 1781 in the Quinquennial numbers twenty-seven & included all the signers of the above except Atkins.” Mr. Brown overlooked the fact that Dudley Atkins afterwards changed his name to Dudley Atkins Tyng: hence all the signers duly received their degrees

679 College Book, viii. 84.

680 Overseers’ Records, iii. 216.

681 iii. 217. The petition to the Overseers has not been preserved.

682 College Book, viii. 95. On July 18 the Corporation voted “That the Law respecting the dress of the Candidates for degrees be suspended for this day” (viii. 98).

683 John Hancock.

684 Thomas Cushing (H.C. 1744).

685 Rev. Dr. Edward Wigglesworth (H.C. 1749).

686 On July 31 the Rev. John Eliot, then an Overseer, wrote to Jeremy Belknap: “We somewhat expected you down at Commencement. A truly academical day it was. Wigglesworth exceeded y^e expectation of his warmest friends, and did honour to himself & the Society. The young gentlemen behaved to a charm. . . . Old Mother Harvard is a good old dame enough, & will nourish many likely children who are yet to come. Your friend here was very set against a public Commencement, thinking that the consequences would be rather bad as to rioting & wantonness, and that the Prœses pro tem. would be no advantage to the performances. I am glad to be disappointed, and rejoice that my motion was overruled” (Belknap Papers, iii. 212–213).

687 College Book, viii. 233. This petition has not been preserved.

688 College Book, viii. 234–235.

689 In May Hancock was re-elected Governor.

690 Diary, in H. Adams’s Historical Essays (1891), pp. 90–91.

691 Overseers’ Records, iii. 343.

692 iii. 344.

693 Gov. Caleb Strong (H.C. 1764), Dr. Josiah Bartlett (d 1820), Rev. Joseph Eckley, Rev. John Eliot (H.C. 1772), Rev. Jedidiah Morse, Rev. Peter Thacher (H.C. 1769), Rev. John Thornton Kirkland (H.C. 1789).

694 Overseers’ Records, iv. 326.

695 Oliver Wendell (H.C. 1753), John Lowell (H.C. 1760), Rev. Simeon Howard (H.C. 1758), Rev. John Lathrop (d 1816), Ebenezer Storer (H.C. 1747).

696 College Book, viii. 482.

697 Rev. Joseph Willard.

698 Rev. Eliphalet Pearson.

699 College Book, viii. 486.

700 Overseers’ Records, iv. 341.

701 College Book, viii. 490.

702 Overseers’ Records, iv. 345.

703 For the reasons which brought about this change, see Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, 1911, xx. 221–222, 250–254.

704 “The usual exercises of Commencement at Harvard University will take place to-day, according to the programme already published. The Banks of this city and the Custom House will be closed” (Boston Courier, July 18, 1849, p 2/1).

705 Boston Transcript, August 29, 1832, p. 2/1. The same paper June 27, 1871, said: “Cambridge Commencement is not what it was, say chronic sympathizers with the past given to decrying the present, and wanting the prophetic eye of the future. . . . The metropolitan banks are not closed as of old and the day is no longer the distinguished holiday it once was; indeed in no sense is it a holiday at all, except in the social greetings of classmates of several generations of ‘Sons’” (p. 2/1). I am indebted to Mr. Charles A. Ruggles of the Boston Clearing House for the information that “the last time the banks were closed on account of Commencement Day was in 1870.” With regard to the Custom House, Mr. E. Perry writes me that “a great many of the old records were destroyed in a fire in 1894 and a search of such as are available has not disclosed any data bearing on the subject.”

706 For the game of props, see p. 61 note 1, above.

707 An error for the last Wednesday in August.

708 Boston Courier, July 19, 1849, p. 2/2.

709 College Book, ix. 43.

710 Crimson, viii. 109.

711 Punch was prohibited in the spring of 1894: see Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, iii. 79.

712 The dinner was served for the last time in 1904: cf. p. 378, below. In 1845, as no doubt at every previous dinner, wine was served (cf. 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 247); but in 1846, the first under the presidency of Edward Everett, “The entertainment was conducted on the plan of total abstinence from all drinkables except water and lemonade” (Boston Advertiser, August 27, 1846, p. 2/2), and wine was never again reverted to.

713 The 1910 Quinquennial contains a list of “Persons appointed to preside at Commencement during Vacancies in the President’s Office” (p. 10 note); but only four years (1681, 1724, 1737, 1769) are given, and the statement about 1737 is incorrect.

714 From the resignation of President Mather on September 6, 1701, to the inauguration of President Leverett on January 14, 1708, there was no President. But Samuel Willard was Vice-President from July 12, 1700, to August 14, 1707, and his name is on the Quaestiones for 1702–1705 and 1707, the sheet for 1706 not being extant.

715 There was also a vacancy in 1774, but, as there was no public Commencement in that year, perhaps there were no exercises. The general diploma was signed by Nathaniel Appleton, John Winthrop, Andrew Eliot, Samuel Cooper, John Wadsworth, “Socii,” and John Hancock, “Thesaurarius.”

716 President Holyoke was elected May 30, 1737, but was not inaugurated until September 28. President Eliot was elected and assumed office on May 19, 1869, but was not inaugurated until October 19. For President Rogers, see p. 371, below.

717 See p. 325, above.

718 College Book, iii. 67.

719 iii. 68.

720 iii. 70.

721 i. 82, iii. 71, 72.

722 See p. 327, above.

723 The date of his death is given in College Book, iii. 72, and by Mather (Magnalia, bk. iv. p. 129) as July 25; but by Sewall (Diary, ii. 14*), by W. Adams (4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 22), and by John Hull (Transactions and Collections American Antiquarian Society, iii. 249) as July 24. The Quaestiones for 1681 are surrounded by a black border.

724 College Book, iii. 72.

725 iii. 73.

726 The following entries occur in Increase Mather’s Diary under the dates of July 26, August 7, and August 8, 1681: “At mr. Oakes’s Funeral, whe ov^rseers of ye colledge, desired mee to modte ye mrs disputations on y^e ensuing Com̄enct, but I did absolutely & peremptorily decline it, also to mr Gookin in private I manifested my resolution not to meddle in yt matter. . . . Rode to Cambridge, wh pryd; & visited Mr. Sherman. . . . Spent in preptions for ye Commencement.”

727 Diary, i. 26. In calling his father “President,” Cotton Mather merely meant that he was the presiding officer. Increase Mather was elected President in 1681, the precise date not being recorded in College Book, i. 82, iii. 74. The choice was approved by the Overseers on September 8, 1681 (Massachusetts Archives, lviii. 109, 109 a).

728 Noadiah Russell stated that Rogers came to Cambridge on May 23, 1683, and was inaugurated August 14 (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vii. 59). On August 14 Increase Mather wrote in his manuscript Diary (owned by the American Antiquarian Society): “Rode to Cambridge w^he m^r Rogers was Installed p^rsident Returned about sunset.” But an entry (in the hand of Thomas Danforth) in College Book, iii. 84, reads: “Aug. 12. 1683. m^r John Rogers was solemnly inaugurated into the place of President.”

729 See p. 328, above.

730 College Book, i. 93, iii. 85.

731 Cf. Publications of this Society, xiv. 143–144.

732 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 502.

733 Warham Mather graduated in the class of 1685, in which year Commencement was for the first time held on the first Wednesday in July: yet, within three years, Warham Mather spoke of “the usual time.”

734 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 671.

735 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 83. This order is interesting as being the only known one of the sort, the presiding officer on all other occasions having been appointed by the Corporation or the Overseers.

736 Diary, i. 322.

737 College Book, iv. 96.

738 College Book, iv. 198.

739 iv. 198.

740 It is possible that there may be some omissions in this list.

741 Publications of this Society, iii. 420.

742 New Englands First Fruits, p. 12.

743 See p. 321, above. By “the college,” Winthrop unquestionably meant the first Harvard College. Previous to 1718, every building was called a “college;” in 1718 the word “hall” was introduced; from 1718 to 1781, when the original Stoughton College was taken down, the words “college” and “hall” were employed indifferently; after 1781, “college” disappeared as an official designation, though remaining in colloquial use. See Dialect Notes, ii. 91–114.

744 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 403. An earlier writer had also stated that “In this house,” that is, in the first meeting-house, “in 1642 were held the first College commencement exercises” (Harvard Register, 1881, iii. 81).

745 T. Hutchinson, Collection of Original Papers (1769), p. 501.

746 It will perhaps be thought that Randolph wrote not “the 2d of August,” but “the 2d Tuesday of August.” His narrative is no longer in the Massachusetts Archives, where presumably it was in Hutchinson’s day. No doubt the original is in the Public Record Office, London, and this reads: “their commencement is kept yearly on August 2nd in the meeting-house at Cambridge” (Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1675–1676, p. 467).

747 Owing to the ruinous condition of the first Harvard College and the unfinished state of the second Harvard College, it is quite possible that in 1676 the exercises were held in the meeting-house; but if so, that fact does not affect previous Commencements.

748 See p. 323, above.

749 See p. 326 note 1, above.

750 Diary, i. 15. This was the building burned in 1764.

751 Massachusetts Archives, lviii. 92.

752 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, vi. 340.

753 General History of New England, p. 610. Though not printed until 1815, on June 11, 1680, a committee was appointed “to pervse the same, & make returne of their opinion thereof to the next session, that the Court may then, as they shall then judge meet, take order for the impression thereof;” and on October 11, 1682, the Court made a grant of £50 to Hubbard, he transcribing his history “fairely into a booke, that it may be the more easely pervsed” (Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 279, 378).

754 See p. 314 note 3, above.

755 Diary, ii. 181.

756 Diary, ii. 111. On July 2, 1707, Sewall wrote: “Com̄encement Day is fair and pleasant. . . . Got Joseph a Table, and Bread, which he wanted before. Went into the Meetinghouse about 11. . . . My Son held the first Question in the Afternoon; . . . My Son was the first that had a Degree given him in the New Meetinghouse” (ii. 190).

On July 5, 1704, Sewall went on to say: “Waited on the Gov^r from Dinner Time till the last Question: Then follow’d the Govr in. Mr. Gibbs was holding the last Question. Dr. Dum̄er rose up and in very fluent good Latin ask’d Leave, and made an op̄osition; and then took Leave again with Com̄endation of the Respondent” (Diary, ii. 111). Probably it was unusual for those not candidates to take part in the exercises, as Jeremiah Dummer (H.C. 1699; Ph.D. Utrecht 1703) did on the above occasion; but two years earlier a more noted person was moved to do so and was prevented only by lack of time. Having recently renounced Quakerism George Keith came to New England as an Anglican missionary, arriving in the same vessel with Governor Dudley and Lieutenant-Governor Povey, as stated in his Journal of Travels (1706, pp. 1–5). The story of his appearance at Commencement is more fully told in a letter to Lewis Morris dated July 27, 1702: “I prevailed with Mr. Keith to stay here til our commenc^nt was over, where the good man met with very little university Breeding, and with less learning, the last Thesis disputed by the masters was, Immutabilitas Decreti divini non tollit Libertatem crœture.” This met with Mr. Keith’s hearty disapproval, as did also two propositions which “the opponents urged, and both the President Mr. Willard, and the Respondent assented to: . . . and their manner of urging hereupon did clearly evince their opinion to be that the bad as good actions of men were necessarily determined; the day being far spent was the main reason why M^r Keith did not publickly oppose them, but when he returned to Boston he drew up in Latin an answer to the President’s arguing of a full sheet of Paper wh^h he transcribed ready to be sent to M^r. President upon M^r. Keith’s return” (W. S. Perry, Historical Collections relating to the American Church, iii. 72). Thereupon a pamphlet war took place between Willard and Keith.

757 Previous to 1833, the First Church had no fewer than four meeting-houses. The first (1632–1650) was in Dunster Street; the second (1650–1706) was on watch-house hill; the third (1706–1756) was on or near the site occupied by the second; and the fourth (1756–1833) was also on or near the same site, within the present College Yard, near Dane Hall. In 1833 the fourth house was removed, the land on which it stood was sold to Harvard College, and the First Church (Unitarian) erected a new meeting-house in Harvard Square, at the corner of Church Street, opposite Massachusetts Hall. (Paige, History of Cambridge, pp. 246 note, 259, 259 note, 287, 293, 304.)

758 See Paige, History of Cambridge, pp. 299–302. The First Church (Congregational) was in 1829 incorporated as the Shepard Congregational Society.

759 Harvard Alumni Bulletin, May 3, 1916, xviii. 574–575.

760 Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, xx. 75, 254.

761 The statements in this sentence are believed to be correct. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the dinner was, for special reasons, sometimes omitted. For its omission in 1905 and subsequently, see Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, xiii. 72, 627, 764, xiv. 44. Memorial Hall was dedicated on June 23, 1874, the day before Commencement.

762 In the eighteenth century, bad commons provoked several rebellions. But the Commencement dinner by no means escaped criticism, and complaints were of long standing before it was abolished. Thus the Boston Post of July 18, 1850, said:

The College Dinner. — It is said that the college dinner at Cambridge yesterday partook largely of the character of an “indignation meeting.” A “come-outer” states that some of the poultry was very lively, and in the course of the muss escaped out of the windows (p. 2/3).

763 An italic Q or T indicates that the Quaestiones or Theses for that year are extant, but unavailable as evidence owing to errors in date (1723, 1768, 1772: see pp. 332, 351, 352, above) or because not fully dated (see pp. 312, 313, above). All extant Quaestiones and Theses are in the Harvard College Library — chiefly originals, but a few in facsimile. The list printed by Mr. Lane in his Early Harvard Broadsides shows what libraries own original programmes.

764 An italic Q or T indicates that the Quaestiones or Theses for that year are extant, but unavailable as evidence owing to errors in date (1723, 1768, 1772: see pp. 332, 351, 352, above) or because not fully dated (see pp. 312, 313, above). All extant Quaestiones and Theses are in the Harvard College Library — chiefly originals, but a few in facsimile. The list printed by Mr. Lane in his Early Harvard Broadsides shows what libraries own original programmes.

765 Before September 26.

766 Day of month not known.

767 No Commencement.

768 i. 548.

769 4 Series, i. 8 (W. Adams).

770 4 Series, i. 13 (W. Adams).

771 4 Series, i. 17 (W. Adams).

772 4 Series, i. 21 (W. Adams).

773 2 Series, xiii. 250 (I. Mather).

774 2 Series, xiii. 369 (I. Mather).

775 7 Series, vii. 26 (C. Mather).

776 5 Series, v. 85 (S. Sewall).

777 xiii. 255 (J. Pierpont).

778 5 Series, v. 181 (S. Sewall).

779 5 Series, v. 219 (S. Sewall).

780 xiii. 256 (J. Pierpont).

781 5 Series, v. 323–324 (S. Sewall).

782 7 Series, vii. 166 (C. Mather).

783 xx. 157 (J. Baxter).

784 5 Series, v. 390 (S. Sewall).

785 xx. 157 (J. Baxter).

786 5 Series, v. 456 (S. Sewall).

787 5 Series, vi. 37–38 (S. Sewall).

788 5 Series, vi. 81 (S. Sewall).

789 5 Series, vi. 111–112 (S. Sewall).

790 5 Series, vi. 133 (S. Sewall).

791 “July 3. I carried my mother to Charlestown, and then to Commencement” (Diary of Rev. Joseph Green, H.C. 1695, in Essex Institute Historical Collections, vol. x. pt. i. p. 74).

792 5 Series, vi. 190 (S. Sewall).

793 5 Series, vi. 227 (S. Sewall).

794 5 Series, vi. 282 (S. Sewall).

795 5 Series, vi. 318 (S. Sewall).

796 5 Series, vi. 354 (S. Sewall).

797 5 Series, vi. 390 (S. Sewall).

798 5 Series, vii. 8–9 (S. Sewall).

799 5 Series, vii. 90 (S. Sewall).

800 5 Series, vii. 134 (S. Sewall).

801 5 Series, vii. 187 (S. Sewall).

802 5 Series, vii. 222 (S. Sewall).

803 5 Series, vii. 258 (S. Sewall).

804 xv. 202 (J. Bumstead).

805 5 Series, vii. 378 (S. Sewall). Only official documents are cited after this date.

806 No public Commencement, but the general diploma is dated July 1.

807 No public Commencement, but the general diploma is dated July 13.

808 The year-date on the Theses for 1761 is misprinted 1741: see p. 312 note 4, above.

809 No public Commencement, but the general diploma is dated July 18.

810 No public Commencements from 1774 to 1779, both included, but the general diplomas are dated as given in the text.

811 No public Commencements from 1774 to 1779, both included, but the general diplomas are dated as given in the text.

812 No public Commencement. The degrees were granted July 19, but the general diploma is dated July 22: see pp. 359–360, above.

813 The Order of the Exercises of Commencement was printed as a broadside from 1791 to 1810, both included. *

814 The Quaestiones were not printed after 1791.

815 The year-date on the Order of the Exercises for 1808 is misprinted 1308: see p. 366, above.

816 The Order of the Exercises of Commencement and the Theses were printed as broadsides for the last time in 1810. After 1810 the dates have been obtained from the Commencement programmes and Boston newspapers.

817 The Commencement programme is wrongly dated: see p. 366, above.

From 1642 to 1916, both included, is a period of 275 years. There was no Commencement in 1644 (see p. 322, above), but there were two Commencements in 1653 (see p. 324, above): consequently the number of Commencement Days exactly corresponds with the number of years that have elapsed since 1642. According to months, Commencement has occurred as follows:

June:	1721, 1727–1733, 1749, 1869–1916	57
July:	1646–1650, 1684–1688, 1690–1714, 1716–1720, 1722–1726, 1734–1739, 1741–1748, 1750–1774, 1777–1801, 1849–1868	129
August:	1651–1682, 1715, 1740, 1776, 1802–1848	83
September:	1683, 1689	2
October:	1643 (day unknown), 1775	2
Unknown:	1642 (probably September), 1645	2
		275

818 The Principal from October, 1701, to September, 1727, was John Stirling (Innes, Munimenta Alme Universitatis Glasguensis, vol. i. p. xci).

819 The volume contains the label “BRINLEY. 1189:” (see Brinley Catalogue, i. 161).

820 Publications, i. 21–71.

821 Publications, i. 157–158, 182–183, 266, 266–268, 386; iii. 1–2, 243–246, 404–405, 471–474; v. 55–56, 318–319; vi. 212–213, 454–455; vii. 228–230.

822 The location of each society, if not indicated in the title, is given in a footnote.

823 Boston.

824 Cf. Publications of this Society, iii. 244.

825 Cf. Publications of this Society, i. 48 note.

826 Boston. Cf. Publications of this Society, i. 62.

827 Cf. Publications of this Society, i. 44–45.

828 New Bedford.

829 Taunton.

830 Cf. Publications of this Society, iii. 245.

831 Westfield.

832 Cf. Publications of this Society, iii. 85.

833 Edgartown.

834 Rutland.

835 Spencer.

836 Boston.

837 Boston.

838 Tisbury.

839 This society has no fixed location.

840 Dedham.

841 Scituate.

842 Boston.

843 Boston.

844 Boston.

845 Boston.

846 Boston.

847 Medford.

848 Boston.

849 Lowell.

850 Taunton.

851 Haverhill.

852 Boston.

853 Boston.

854 Salem.

855 Stoughton.

856 Easthampton.

857 Danvers.

858 Boston.

859 Lowell.

860 Concord.

861 Farm of Henry Bullard, Holliston.

862 Boston.

863 Boston.

864 Boston.

865 Fall River.

866 Plymouth.

867 Boston.

868 Chicopee.

869 Boston.

870 Rowley.

871 Plymouth.

872 Boston.

873 Boston.

874 Boston.

875 Boston.

876 Boston.

877 Boston.

878 Boston.

879 Boston.

880 Boston.

881 Boston.

882 New Bedford.

883 Boston.

884 Chelsea

885 Boston.

886 Worcester.

887 Sandwich.

888 Expired October 1, 1914.

889 Salem.

890 Boston.

891 Expired December 31, 1915.

892 Boston.

893 Billerica.

894 Worcester.

895 Letters from New England (Prince Society), p. 75.

896 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vii. 57.

897 Quincy, History of Harvard University, i. 513.

898 Mather’s list has the following indorsement, not reproduced in the facsimile:

Catalogue of Books
bought by D^r Cotton
Mather of Harvard
College.
22.
Presented by Mrs. Crocker.

899 See p. 262, line 10, above.