JANUARY MEETING, 1917

A Stated Meeting of the Society was held in the house of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston, on Thursday, 25 January, 1917, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the President, Fred Norris Robinson, Ph.D., in the chair.

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

The Corresponding Secretary reported that letters had been received from Mr. Edmund Burke Delabarre and Mr. William MacDonald, accepting Corresponding Membership.

Mr. E. B. Delabarre read the following paper:

MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY

During the earliest period of interest in Dighton Rock and its strange writing,86 there seem to have been some, as Professor Greenwood implied in 1730, who suspected that possibly its characters were Oriental. This belief was doubtless closely connected with the many current theories as to the origin of the American Indians, — a problem which aroused interested discussion from almost the very earliest days of the colonies.87 On the one hand, northwestern Europe was looked upon by some as the home-land of some at least of the Indian tribes. But even more widely accepted as parents of the aborigines were Orientals, either from the eastern parts of Asia, such as the Siberian Tartars, the Chinese, or the Japanese, or from its western borders, such as the Lost Tribes of Israel, the sea-faring Phœnicians, or even the exiled Trojans.88 It was natural that, when this rock became known, some of the advocates of one theory or another should find in its curious characters evidence in favor of their views. But up to this time no very definite theory concerning the origin of the inscription had taken shape. During the next following one hundred years after Greenwood, it became generally held that some ancient people of Oriental origin carved this monument, and several theories ascribing it to different Oriental sources were announced. Some of them went so far as to discover a definite meaning for nearly every line upon the rock. Yet there continued an undercurrent of opposition to such speculations, and a belief that either the American Indians, or even the action of natural forces alone, were responsible for the markings.

Drawing by John Winthrop, 1744; Opinions of William Douglass, 1747

Indeed, it was a theory of the latter sort that was the first one expressed. Greenwood’s contribution remained buried, as we have seen, for over fifty years, and Mather’s continued to be the only one in print. In 1744 or earlier John Winthrop, Greenwood’s successor in the Hollisian chair at Harvard, made a rough and incomplete sketch from the rock, as we learn from a letter which he wrote many years later. But he did not preserve this copy. So it was left for William Douglass to make the next contribution in print. Except historically, it is quite as unimportant as was Cotton Mather’s own. The one distorts and misrepresents the appearance of the inscription, the other tells us that there is no inscription there; and neither of these men, apparently, had made a personal inspection of the rock. Yet until 1781 their accounts remained all that there was in print on this subject, with the exception of Neal’s brief quotation from Mather.

The occasion of Douglass’s utterance seems to have been a desire to continue a quarrel begun with Cotton Mather years before,89 and to make further ridicule of his opinions. They had been at first on friendly terms. But in 1721 Mather warmly advocated the cause of inoculation for small-pox. “On September 25th Dr. William Douglass, the vociferous and determined opponent of Mather and Boylston [who performed the first inoculation in Boston], wrote from Boston to Alexander Stuart, M.D., F.R.S., in London, inquiring what English physicians thought of ‘this rash practice,’ expressing his own opposition to it, and describing Mather as’ a certain credulous Preacher of this place.’”90 Douglass continued the attack further, challenging Mather’s right to call himself a Fellow of the Royal Society, ridiculing his communications to that body, and speaking of him as “a Man of Whim and Credulity.” a “certain Gentleman, (who you know in times past has been troublesome to the R.S. with his trivial credulous Stories),” a “credulous vain preacher,” and the like. This rancor was long enduring, for in a passage first published in 1747 the same sneering depreciation of Mather is still evident, this time applied to the latter’s views concerning Dighton Rock. The passage is as follows:

They [the Indians] had no Characters, that is, Hieroglyphics, or letters; they had a few Symbols or Signatures, as if in a Heraldry way to distinguish Tribes, the principal were the Tortoise, the Bear, the Wolf. There was not the least Vestige of Letters in America; some Years since a certain credulous Person, and voluminous Author, imposed upon himself and others; he observed in a tiding River, a Rock, which, as it was not of an uniform Substance, the ebbing and flowing of the Tide made a Sort of vermoulure, Honey-combing or etching on its face; here he imagined, that he had discovered the American Indian Characters, and overjoy’d, remits some Lines of his imaginary Characters to the Royal Society in London: See Philosophical Transactions, No. 339. [Here Mather is quoted.] This may be supposed wrote Anno 1714: At present Anno 1747 by the continued ebbing and flowing the Honey-combing is so altered as not in the least to resemble his Draught of the Characters.91

It is true that the lower part of Mather’s drawing does not in the least resemble the characters on the rock.92 But the inference is not justified that this was due to a growing alteration effected by the tides. It seems probable that Douglass obtained his knowledge of the present state of the rock in 1747 from some one else. I know of no one who has actually seen the rock itself and afterward written about it, who believed that its markings were entirely due to natural processes alone; though this view is expressed from time to time by persons who were not themselves first-hand observers of it.

Ezra Stiles, 1767

The fact that Ezra Stiles expressed certain opinions concerning Dighton Rock in his Election Sermon of 1783 is well known. This, and the passages in his Diary in which he refers to the rock, will be discussed in their appropriate order later. But that he made three separate drawings of it in 1767, and another in 1788, is never mentioned in the literature of the subject. In surveying the earlier history of this interesting rock, we met with many curious examples of persistent error and with many strange omissions of discoverable fact, yet none of them was more surprising than is this almost complete ignoring of the important and repeated investigations by Dr. Stiles. The facts were known to many at the time; the drawings and the opinions that accompany them are fully as worthy of mention and preservation as are any of the others; they have always been readily accessible; and their author was an intelligent observer, a man of high position and a recognized authority at the time on this very subject of inscribed rocks.93 In 1767 he was minister at Newport. His Itinerary,94 preserved in the Library of Yale University, describes these visits to Dighton Rock, and contains some of the drawings that he made. With the courteous assistance of Professor Franklin B. Dexter I have examined the scattered passages which refer to this subject. I reproduce them not in the irregular order in which the field-notes were jotted down, but rearranged and to some degree condensed.

Attention has already been called to the fact that Dr. Stiles’s interest in the Rock was first excited when Mr. Checkley showed him a copy of the Mather Broadside in the fall of 1766.95 On May 27, 1767, he learned from Mr. Edward Shove of Assonet Neck that the “cyphered Stone” was situated half a mile from the latter’s house. On June 5th he rode from Taunton to Shove’s house, and they went together to the Writing Rock. “I began to take off some of the Characters, but without Chalking first. Next day I chalked the marks and took them more distinctly. . . . Spent the forenoon in Decyphering about Two Thirds the Inscription, which I take to be in phoenician Letters & 3000 years old.”

Plate xix

STILES’S DRAWING, JUNE 6, 1767

engraved for the colonial society of massachusetts from the original in the yale university libary

The Rock is a rusty Iron Coloured hard flinty Stone. The Letters or Lines are half to three Quarters of an Inch wide; & not a Tenth of an Inch deep — being picked in a hard reddish or tawny Crust of the Rock a quarter Inch thick. The Range of the face of the Rock is one p^t nearer East than NE — ie NE by E. Tide generally covers half its Height.96

On the north end (not the face) of the rock Dr. Stiles detected some further faint marks, “said to be done 30 years ago, some said 12.” He draws them as dotted lines, to indicate their faintness and uncertainty, making them look much like the letters “I HOWOO,” with three U-like curves underneath. These characters I have seen referred to by only one other observer of the rock.97 Yet they are still there, very faint, observable only in an exceptionally favorable light, marked rather by a slight difference in color than by indentation, but nevertheless as surely artificial as are the markings on the face. I saw them myself in the summer of 1915 without knowing that they had been discovered before, and copied them in a manner which closely resembles Stiles’s depiction, including all his lines and some additional ones. They seem to me, for reasons that I stated in my earlier paper,98 to supply the most decisive evidence we have in support of the belief that no great antiquity needs to be assumed for the characters on the face of the rock.

“No other stones within rods except a flat one on the shore within a few feet” of the Writing Rock. It has two marks in one corner, which Stiles shows as somewhat resembling an X and an R. This slab seems to have given rise to various tales of another elaborately carved rock near the Dighton Rock, which we shall find discussed and disposed of by Kendall, in 1807.99

A map of the road from Taunton,100 a few drawings of some separate figures on the rock, and a mention of the previously made drawings by Mather, Greenwood, and Berkeley,101 complete Stiles’s notes on this occasion. On the 15th of June he wrote a letter from Newport to Professor John Winthrop of Harvard, telling of this visit; asking for a copy of the Greenwood drawing; and expressing the following opinion: “It is not a Vermiculation or Lusus Naturae, but a Work of Art, and I believe of Great Antiquity, perhaps up to the Phoenician Ages: but I believe it never will be interpreted.”

On July 13 and 14, 1767, Dr. Stiles made another journey of 26 miles to the Writing Rock. On the 14th he arrived at Edward Shove’s, and visited the rock at 5.30 p. m. On July 15, —

at VI^h Morn^g I was at the Rock — Flood & 1 ft. high. So only washed & skrubbed the Rock with a Broom, & took off a few Characters. . . . From II^h to IV^h I chalked the Characters, & took off some in full Dimensions.102 Then struck the foot partition Lines — & try^g my cartridge paper was discouraged with my first Scheme. And perceiv^g the Tide return, I applyd myself & took the Copy on the other side [of the sheet on which he was writing, — the drawing of July 15 reproduced in Plate XX], which I did in about two Hours or before sunset. Next Morning I went & took another Copy on a larger Scale, but without Comparisons, or alteration upon Comparison. At X set out from Mr. Shoves for Home.

Besides one of the two drawings of the inscription, Stiles’s notes on this occasion include another map of the road from Taunton, a drawing showing the location of the cracks on the rock, and a chart of the shore and rocks in the vicinity of the Writing Rock.

It is worthy of note that on both of these visits Stiles followed the usual practice of first chalking the characters on the rock before making his drawing. In our later discussion of Kendall we shall find this practice condemned as a means of securing a truthful copy.103 In addition to the three drawings that he completed, he apparently was the first person who attempted to secure the characters “in full Dimensions,” using cartridge paper in some manner not specified, perhaps to obtain a direct impression. It is possible that his failure in this was what led him to induce Elisha Paddack to secure a copy in this manner a month later. Before describing that incident, however, we must first examine Stiles’s own drawings.

There are three of these, as his notes imply, besides some detached fragments. That of June 6th occupies four pages of the Itinerary, each measuring about 6⅛ by 7⅝ inches. Placed together, therefore, as Plate XIX shows it, the whole drawing measures about 7⅝ by 2½ The right and left halves are drawn on somewhat differing scales, and are evidently not designed to fit onto one another perfectly. They have lain folded against one another so long in the Itinerary that a few of the marks on each are merely blots derived from heavily inked portions of the other side. On them Stiles wrote a number of indications of dimensions, and a few descriptive remarks. Some of these are so faint in the reproduction that I transscribe them all in a footnote.104

The drawing of July 15 (Plate XX) is also in the Itinerary, where it covers two pages, and therefore measures about 7⅝ by 12¼ inches. It attempts to indicate the relative breadth of the lines; shows the position of a few of the natural cracks in the rock by dotted lines; and gives marginal indications of the dimensions in feet.

The drawing of July 16th (Plate XXI), being made on a larger scale, is not in the Itinerary. It is on two sheets of paper pasted together, measuring together 12⅞ by 31¼ inches, the drawing itself being about 9 by 23 inches. On the back is a carefully executed separate drawing (Plate XXI) of one of the groups of figures, 4 by 6½ inches in size. The main drawing, like that of the day before, indicates the breadth of the lines on the rock, but contains no marks of dimension. The separate figure, however, is divided by dotted lines into squares corresponding in numbering to the indications of dimensions in feet as given on the drawing of the 15th. In one corner of the face is written: “Characters on the Writing Rock, whose Incisions were obvious & unquestionable decyphered July 16, 1767. Given to Yale College Museum / Ezra Stiles / 1788;” and on the back: “Dighton Writing Rock said to consist of Punic or Carthaginian Characters.” The drawing is now in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The three drawings are in some respects so unlike as to show little indication of having been made by the same hand. Other features, however, especially the representations of human beings and the triangular figures, which are presented in an essentially like manner by nearly every one who has ever copied the inscription, are naturally nearly alike in these. The figure usually drawn as a quadruped bears no resemblance to its usual manner of depiction on the first drawing, but slight resemblance on the second, and is lacking on the third. In view of later importance attached to them, it is particularly interesting to compare together the two lines of characters near the centre of the inscription which contain some resemblance to letters of the alphabet. Besides irregular marks possessing no such resemblance, the upper line includes shapes somewhat like XXXIM on June 6, XXX only on July 15, XXXIN on July 16, and cXXXIM in the drawing on the back of the latter. Calling the diamond-shaped character an O, and neglecting irregular curves, the lower line can be best likened to O . . OX on June 6, y7X on July 15, and On∩X on July 16. As a whole, the June drawing is very dissimilar to the two of July; yet a distinct individuality of style is perceptible in them all. That of July 16 is very similar to the one of the day before, being based on the same chalking; but it contains fewer figures, the omissions being mainly, but not wholly, in the lower part. It appears more carefully and accurately drawn than the others, and impresses me as the best one that Stiles made, though not the most complete.

One significance of these drawings is that they are the earliest that show the entire sculptured surface of the rock in a serious manner. Danforth’s gave less than half. Mather’s “second line” was published upside-down, and hence has hitherto been valueless; and even in its correct position it is seen to be ill-drawn and badly distorted. Greenwood’s drawing went only a little beyond Danforth’s. These of 1767 show, as Stiles says, about two-thirds of the face of the rock; but this is, nevertheless, the whole surface so far as any artificial characters can be discovered on it. No one has ever given more than these drawings include, except perhaps for a few single figures that some have claimed to discover where others have seen little or nothing.

Elisha Paddack, 1767; Further concerning Dr. Stiles

That Stiles was not content with his drawings and still wished, after his own unsuccessful attempt, to secure a full-size direct impression of the characters themselves, is shown by a letter written to him on August 15, 1767, by Elisha Paddack of Swansey. The letter is preserved with the Stiles papers in the Yale Library, and has never before been mentioned in the literature of Dighton Rock. The letter describes the use of a new method, similar to the one adopted twenty-one years later by James Winthrop in making his well-known copy of the inscription.105 Paddack writes:

According to your desire I have been to the Phœnitian rock and taken off some of the figures as big as the life, I was obliged to go twice before I could finish it, when I first went there I attempted to take off one with a pencil, but I found the task so difficult to perform with any exactness that I was forced to give it over.

The next day I went again in company with one of the neighbours, M^r John Hudson, we took some Ink and flour, and stirred it together into a sort of past, with which we filled up all the marks we could discover belonging to a figure, we then laid on the paper and squeesed it till it had receiv’d the colure of the past [paste], by this means they are taken off in their full dimentions, but their situations being opposite to what they were on the rock, I prick’d them off again upon new paper which I have sent you. . . .106

One small figure from this copy, 3½ by 5½ inches, somewhat resembling a figure 8, is stitched into Stiles’s manuscript Itinerary. What appears to be the main drawing, about 26 by 42 inches, is in possession of the American Academy at Boston.107 On the 7th of January, 1768, Paddack wrote again to Stiles, and suggested that one of the figures at the south end of the rock (shown at the right end in all the drawings) was meant to represent the “Phenitian God Dagon that we read of in the old Testament,” whom the Rev. Mr. West had described to him as customarily drawn in the form of a half-man and half-fish.

When Du Simitière visited Dr. Stiles in Newport in 1768, the latter showed him one or more of the drawings made by himself and Paddack. In the unpublished manuscript that I quoted in my earlier discussions of Berkeley and of Smibert,108 Du Simitière remarks, of the characters on the rock as Mather depicted them: “They are also totally different from the copy taken by Dr. Stiles of New Port;” and he says further:

When I was in New Port, Rhode Island in June 1768,109 the rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles shewed me a copy of the above inscription taken with exactness of the same size of the original on several sheets of paper pasted together,110 as also the drawings of some more rocks which the D^r said, he had discovered in several parts of this Island, having unknown characters engraven on them, but not so many as on the rock at Taunton, this gentleman has been indefatigable in his enquiries, on those supposed inscriptions, which are by him thought to be of great antiquity, and to be composed of non alphabetical Characters mixed with hieroglyphics.111

This is the only mention, so far as I know, of these drawings by Stiles, except that occurring in his Diary (published in 1901) and in the notes by its editor; and the following by his son-in-law, Abiel Holmes,112 in a reference to the year 1766:113 “This year he copied, for the first time, the curious Inscription on a rock in Dighton, which has baffled the attempts of the Antiquarians of America, and of Europe, to decypher to entire satisfaction. It was his opinion, that the character is Punic.”114

It is interesting also to note that Du Simitière speaks of drawings of other inscribed rocks made by Stiles. It is well known that Dr. Stiles was greatly interested in all such inscriptions, and made drawings of several, in Rhode Island and elsewhere. His Itinerary records a number of such visits. Of a rock in Kent “on Housatunnuk River near Scattikuk,” he remarks: “The manner of Inscription is like that of the Dighton Rock” (October 8, 1789). He visited and copied “marked Rocks” in Tiverton and in Portsmouth, on Narragansett Bay, on June 17 and October 6, 1767, June 7, 1768, September 29 and October 6, 1788. The drawings of 1767 and 1768 are preserved in the Itinerary. The Portsmouth and Tiverton rocks were again pictured in 1835 by John R. Bartlett, aided by Thomas H. Webb, and their drawings were published in 1837 in the Antiquitates Americanæ. They differ considerably from the ones made by Stiles, as we would naturally expect after discovering how very unlike are the different drawings of Dighton Rock.

Stephen Sewall, 1768

We leave Dr. Stiles for the present, to consider other events that occurred before he again appears in our history. Stephen Sewall (or Sewell as he is known in all Dighton Rock literature, though not in the Harvard University official lists), Hancock Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental languages at Harvard College, appointed to that position in 1764, made a life-size drawing of the rock on September 13, 1768. The interest of members of the Royal Society seems to have been thoroughly aroused by Mather’s communication of 1712 and by Greenwood’s of 1730, although fully satisfied by neither. It was probably the same Mr. John Eames, F.R.S.,115 who had induced Greenwood to make the drawing of 1730, who was indirectly responsible for this new one by Sewall. These circumstances are most fully related by Lort,116 who found a brief abstract of them in the Minutes of the Royal Society for the year 1775, and then was “favored with a sight of the whole paper by Timothy Hollis, Esq.” Lort tells us that “some years since the late Mr. Eames applied to Mr. Timothy Hollis, to write to Mr. Winthrope . . . at the desire of a gentleman at Berlin . . . to procure a more accurate copy.” No answer was received at that time, but the matter was reopened in the summer of 1774, when “Mr. Winthrope” wrote to Mr. Hollis, and enclosed a copy of the drawing by Sewall.

He says that the original drawing is of the same size as the inscription itself, and “is now deposited in our Museum;” and that the copy sent was reduced from Sewall’s original. He believes that it is the “most exact copy” of the rock that was ever taken. This “Mr. Winthrope” was Professor John Winthrop, Greenwood’s successor at Harvard College. His own opinions of the rock, as further disclosed in this letter, will be reserved for later consideration.

Of the further details of the making of this drawing and of Sewall’s opinions concerning the inscription, we know through Professor Sewall himself. In 1781 he sent a copy to M. Court de Gebelin of Paris, accompanied by a letter which Gebelin reproduces in part in the eighth volume of his Monde Primitif, issued in 1781. I translate the letter from this source.

Plate xx

STILES’S DRAWING, JULY 15, 1767

engraved for the colonial society of massachusetts from the original in the yale university libary

On the 13th of September, 1768, Stephen Sewall and Thomas Danforth, assisted by William Baylies, Seth Williams, and David Cobb,117 made a copy of the Dighton Rock inscription. The rock is situated on the easterly bank of Taunton118 River, forty or fifty miles south of Boston. It is partly covered at high tide. It is eleven feet long, and four feet in height above the level of the water. The level of the beach seems to have risen and to have covered a considerable part of it. It is of a reddish color. Its plane face which contains the inscription is somewhat inclined toward the shore.119 The inscription has attracted the attention of the curious for half a century. The convenience of the roadstead and the facility of navigating the river up to this point encourage the belief that it is the work of Phœnicians who were driven hither from the shores of Europe. Others judge that the inscription is hieroglyphic rather than in alphabetical characters, and that thus it may have been due to Chinese or Japanese navigators. . . . The greater part of the inscription is effaced to such a degree that it is no longer possible to distinguish any characters in these portions of it.

The opinion that the Phœnicians were the carvers of the inscription we have found already recorded by Stiles in 1767. But Sewall’s mention of it seems to be the first that found its way into print. The two facts that he cites as arguments in its support are too completely trivial for such service; but we must assume that the adherents of the view were confident also that there were Phoenician characters among the markings on the rock. This opinion was a welcome support to Gebelin’s own speculations, and he adopted and elaborated it with minute detail. Sewall also seems to have been the first to speak of the existence of a theory that Chinese or Japanese were the authors of the writings. He does not say that he himself accepts either of the views that he mentions.

But besides this rather non-committal opinion written to Gebelin about 1781, we have two positive statements by Sewall which show that he was strongly inclined to attribute the inscription to the Indians. On the drawing itself, as we are about to see, he, or some one else using his words, wrote: “I imagine it to be the work of the Indians of North America, done rather for amusement than (for any serious purpose).” And in a letter of January 13th, 1769, now among the Stiles papers in the Yale Library, he wrote to Stiles as follows:

For my part, I confess I have no faith in the significancy of the characters. There is indeed in some of the figures an appearance of design: — I mean that some of the figures seem to be representations of some things that the engraver previously had in his mind; for instance, of human faces, & bodies, &c. But the strokes in general appear to me to be drawn at random: So that I cannot but think the whole to be a mere lusus Indorum.

Sewall’s was the first complete drawing of the characters which was published, and, with the possible exception of the unpreserved attempts by Stiles and by Paddack, the first one of the full size of the face of the rock. His original drawing is preserved in the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, and is here for the first time accurately reproduced.120 A label on the outside reads: “Transferred by a vote of the Corporation to the Peabody Museum. Delivered Ap. 23. 80. Justin Winsor.” To the face of the drawing is attached a paper containing the following remarks:

Inscription on Dighton Rock.

This copy of the inscription on Dighton Rock was made about the year 1768 by the learned Stephen Sewell, Librarian and Hancock Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages. It was put on cloth and framed, and was in the Mineral Room of Harvard Hall. It was a long time before I knew what became of it. My suspicions being excited at last, I took a lantern and with the college janitor went into the garret of Harvard Hall, where, after much searching among bottles, boxes, mineral cases, and trumpery, I found it mutilated, and with the frame broken, jammed away under the eaves. I sent it to Mr. Flattich, a German in Boston, who according to my instructions, put it into its present shape for four dollars and returned it 21 January 1860. This copy of the inscription is noticed in volume second, part second, p. 127, of the Memoirs of the Academy of Arts and Sciences.

John Langdon Sibley, Librarian.

Either in this restoration or in the earlier mounting, the drawing was cut into uniform rectangles measuring 12 by 18 inches, and mounted on cloth with narrow spaces between the sections. The original paper, now very old and fragile, was evidently approaching this condition in 1860, for in several places small pieces of paper were pasted over the original, to hold it together. One of these, in the upper right-hand corner, about half covers a rectangular space of about 6 by 7 inches, now stained a uniform black that shows no indication that there was ever any writing there. Yet this space once contained Professor Sewall’s own description, probably in the exact words already quoted as having been sent to Gebelin in 1781. From unpublished evidence it is possible to restore it practically in its entirety. In 1834 Dr. Thomas H. Webb wrote to Christopher Dunkin, instructor in Greek at Harvard College, as follows: “In the Hall of your University occupied by the Cabinet of Minerals, there is fastened over the entrance door a drawing of the Dighton Writing Rock taken some years since by the late Prof. Sewall. Of this I wish a copy on a reduced scale. . . . On one corner of Prof. S. drawing were written some remarks which are now illegible.” After some further correspondence, Mr. Dunkin sent the desired copy on November 17th, remarking that he had entrusted the commission to “one of our students a Mr. Hale.”121 The copy is carefully executed, and is accompanied by the following note:

The writing in the right hand corner is in many places so entirely obliterated by time, that it cannot be restored. The remainder, with a few necessary interpolations, will read as follows: —

. . . September 13^th 1768 . . . assisted by . . . David Cobb . . .

The Rock is situated on the eastern side of Taunton river, . . . The river covers it at high water. It is [six?] feet [deep?] & four feet high above the —. . . . It is of a scarlet hue, & has a plane face, . . . inclines a little from the perpendicular.

The inscription on this rock hath engaged the attention . . . for nearly a century past. . . . some imagine it to be . . . from Europe; others judge it to be rather hieroglyphical than literal [derived from] China or Japan! . . . [I] imagine it to be [the work of] the Indians of North America, done rather for amusement than . . . willing to be disabused of this opinion, if . . .122

Except for the last sentence, these statements are clearly exactly the same as those which were sent to Gebelin, and the passages which Hale found illegible in 1834 can be supplied from that source.

The first published reproduction of a copy of Sewall’s drawing was made in 1781 by Gebelin, who “caused it to be engraved with the greatest exactitude.”123 The copy sent over by Winthrop and preserved by the Royal Society was reproduced by Lort in 1787 in Archaeologia. From these two sources, probably, all later reproductions have been derived. Our plates reproduce, not only the original, but the two copies just mentioned, another made after Gebelin by Dammartin in 1838, the one by Rafn in Antiquitates Americanse, 1837, probably derived from Lort’s, and the more recent one by Mallery, derived from that by Rafn.124 These six presentations resemble one another closely, of course; but they also differ, each one from the others, in many individual particulars. The especial interest in exhibiting so many different forms of the same drawing lies partly in the fact that some of them were made the basis of particular theories whose aptness depended to some degree on the particular copy used; but even more in illustrating, as do also the variants of the Danforth, the Mather, and the Greenwood drawings, that no free-hand drawing can be made exactly like its original, that it diverges more in proportion to the lack of artistic skill, the want of a feeling for scientific accuracy, or the degree to which a theory of interpretation may exert a bias in the mind of the copyist. Doubtless other conclusions as to the psychology of copying will result from further study, just as many inferences as to the psychology of the different ways in which the same object is seen by different persons may be based on a comparison of the many differing original drawings. But these matters do not find an appropriate place, except as passing suggestions, in this historical survey.

There seems at first sight some disparity of statement as to where Sewall’s drawing was kept. Winthrop in 1774 speaks of it as in the “Museum;” Webb in 1834 as hanging over the entrance door in the “Hall occupied by the Cabinet of Minerals;” Sibley in 1860 as in the “Mineral Room of Harvard Hall.” Some, I think, have spoken of Sewall’s as well as of James Winthrop’s as being in the “Library;” and in 1880 it was transferred from the charge of the Librarian to the Peabody Museum. These apparently various localities, however, were doubtless actually one and the same, and identical with the “Musæum” established by vote of the Corporation on August 1, 1769:

6. Voted that the Apartment125 on the North side of the entrance to the Philosophy Chamber be a Musæum for the reception of Curiosities belonging to the College, to be in the care of the Librarian, who shall take a catalogue of them in a book and keep the Key; and no person shall be admitted there, but by the Librarian or his Substitute.126

A Room set apart for a Museum.

The Philosophy Chamber was in the present Harvard Hall, which stands on the site of the second Harvard College, burned in January, 1764. The catalogue referred to in the vote cannot now be discovered.

I surmise that it is this fact, that the drawing was kept “in the Mineral Room of Harvard Hall,” together with some later misstatements, which has led to the legend that there was a cast of the rock at Harvard. There is a “plaster contact facsimile” in the Gilbert Museum at Amherst College, made by Professor Lucien I. Blake in 1876. There are statements that one or two other casts were in existence. The first one that I have seen occurs in an unsigned review, written by J. Elliot Cabot in 1849: “There is a facsimile cast in the Geological collection at Cambridge.”127 In 1862 Daniel Wilson claimed128 that “at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held at Albany in 1856,” he “had an opportunity of inspecting a cast of the Dighton Rock;” and in his best humorous (or shall we rather say, flippant) manner proceeded to ridicule it. But apparently Wilson’s prejudiced eyes deceived him as much as he thought that the prejudiced eyes of the copyists of Dighton Rock had deceived them. What he saw was “some casts in plaster of a supposed Runic inscription, which appears upon a ledge of hornblende on the island of Monhegan, off the coast of Maine;” for these were exhibited at the meeting in question, and there is no evidence that any other casts were shown.129 It is doubtless from this mistaken source that was derived the statement, with an error in date, made by Justin Winsor in 1889,130 to the effect that a cast was shown at the Albany meeting of the A.A.A.S. in 1836. Cabot, therefore, remains sole authority for the existence of another cast than that at Amherst.131 Instead of a cast “in the geological collection,” it may well be that what was meant was either this drawing by Sewall “in the Mineral Hall” or “Museum,” or perhaps the paper-and-paint direct impression from the rock, made by James Winthrop in 1788, shortly to be described.

The probability that there was no actual cast there is strongly supported by the results of an inquiry kindly made for me by Professor Kittredge, who writes (on April 1, 1915): “The Geologists know nothing of any cast of the rock. They tell me that our Professor Webster had a lot of miscellaneous stuff which his successor (J. P. Cooke) dumped into the rubbish heap — and they fear this was among it. At all events, they have never seen any such cast.” There seems little question that Cabot’s remark, as well as Daniel Wilson’s bit of apparently supporting evidence, must take their place among the misstatements of fact of which we find so numerous examples in the literature of Dighton Rock.

Besides the opinion of John Winthrop, in 1774, that Sewall’s was the “most exact copy” ever taken, we find it characterized in 1807 by Edward A. Kendall, himself an artist of no mean ability and a close student of the rock itself, as “the most faithful, though not the best executed,”132 of all the copies known to him.

John Winthrop’s Letter, 1774

Reference has already been made to a letter by Professor John Winthrop written November 14, 1774, to Mr. Timothy Hollis, preserved in part in the Minutes of the Royal Society of 1775, but more fully quoted by Lort from the original. Besides speaking of Sewall’s drawing, Winthrop also expresses some observations and opinions of his own. He says that “above thirty years ago” he visited the rock and made “an imperfect copy;” mentions Mather’s account in the Philosophical Transactions; and describes the rock. “When I saw it last [in spring of 1774] the tide covered all but the upper part of it. According to the best of my remembrance, the characters do not appear so plain now as they did about thirty years ago.”133 Of the characters on the rock, he speaks only of the “four human figures, very rudely executed,” and “some semblance of a quadruped with horns.” He concludes: “Whether this was designed by the Indians as a memorial of any remarkable event, or was a mere lusus at their leisure hours, of which they have a great number, I cannot pretend to say. Tis certain it was done before the English settled in this country.”134

John Winthrop has not infrequently been confused with his son James Winthrop by writers on Dighton Rock; and the letters, drawing, and title of the one have been attributed to the other. John was a professor, James was Librarian, at Harvard. The former made the “imperfect copy” of about 1744, and wrote the letter of 1774 which was printed in Archaeologia in 1787. James made a paper-and-paint impression of the rock in 1788, and in the same year wrote a letter which was published in the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1804 — facts that will later receive fuller discussion.135

Phœnician Theory of Gebelin, 1781

The next event in our history was an important one, which had a far-reaching influence on subsequent opinion and discussion. In this respect it is comparable only to the announcement nearly sixty years later of the Norse theory by Professor Rafn. I refer to the publication in 1781 of a detailed Phoenician interpretation of the whole inscription by M. Court de Gebelin.136 We have seen that Professor Sewall wrote to Gebelin at about this time, suggesting (though contrary to his own opinion) that the inscription may have been Phœnician, and enclosing a copy of his drawing. Gebelin was already engaged in the publication of his elaborate treatise on the Monde Primitif, and he eagerly included in his eighth volume137 this new evidence in support of his belief that Phœnician navigators had sailed “boldly and gloriously” throughout the ancient world, even to America. He advanced many proofs of this view, which are of no particular interest in this discussion. But Dighton Rock supplied the most convincing one of them all.

Plate xxi

STILES’S DRAWING, JULY 16, 1767

STILES’S DRAWING, JULY 16, 1767, DORSE

engraved for the colonial society of massachusetts from the original in the possesion of the massachusetts historical society

His account is a long one, but many of his reflections and digressions can be omitted without detriment to an endeavor to follow in. detail the interpretation that he gives to each of the figures. His reproduction of Sewall’s drawing is given in Plate XXIII, and some of its figures are numbered, which will help in the identification of the parts under discussion. The following translation is not literal, since it condenses the original wherever feasible:

If we compare this remarkable monument with the inscriptions of Mount Horeb and of Mount Sinai, described by Kircher and by Pococke respectively, and with recently discovered Phœnician alphabets, we discover an astonishing resemblance which, added to other evidence at hand that the Natives in the vicinity of Boston at least are of Oriental race, makes it certain that the monument . . . was inscribed in very ancient times by Phœnicians, perhaps even by those of whom Diodorus speaks.

1. This monument is not the work of an American nation. The savants who sent us a copy believe that it was executed by a foreign nation, perhaps Chinese, Japanese, or even Phœnician.138 It follows that America offers nothing analogous in the pictures that the Indians make on trees and rocks. Moreover, the known Indian pictures include nothing that approaches these alphabetical characters, and the Indians possessed no such characters. Finally and decisively, the monument depicts objects unknown in America.

2. The monument is divided into three unmistakable scenes, one representing a past, another a present, and the third a future event.

First Scene. — At the right are four figures which turn their backs on the scene representing the present. They clearly relate to a past event. Their nature indicates that those who engraved them were Phœnician navigators, either from Tyre or from Carthage. The figure to the right of 15 is Priapus, god of fecundity, father of fruits. He cannot be mistaken. He indicates the country whence come these bold navigators, — a country of prosperity and abundance. The second figure (to the left of 15) is an owl, symbol of Minerva, Isis or Astarte, goddess of wisdom and of the arts. It indicates the superiority in the arts and the skill in navigation of the nation of these newly landed sailors. The next figure, a little to the left and lower down, is the head of a sparrow-hawk, with a kind of mantle over its shoulders. It symbolizes persons who have come by sea. Among the Egyptians and Phœnicians, the sparrow-hawk was an emblem of the winds, especially of the north wind, which is necessary in order to pass from Europe to America. Figure 14, which terminates this group, is unmistakably the little Telesphore, divinity of a happy outcome. He is wrapped in a sleeveless mantle, and covered with his hood. He shows that the voyage has met with the greatest success.

Second Scene. — This represents the present, and for this reason is placed in the middle of the picture. Its essential objects are two animals that face one another, armed with banners and streamers that float in the wind. One represents the foreign nation, the other the American. The former is a horse, at rest in a kneeling position; the other a beaver, recognizable by its long flat tail.139 Their good accord proves the intelligence of the two nations, and the favorable reception given to the strangers.

The horse, and particularly the head of this proud animal, was the symbol of Carthage, as a maritime city, situated in a fertile and fruitful land. The horse was also a symbol of Neptune, of navigation, and of ships. This horse moreover has the air of a sovereign, while the beaver has almost that of a suppliant, — vivid picture of the difference between the noble pride of science and of the arts, and the timid weakness of ignorance.

The upper part of this scene shows a large space enclosed on all sides, with three re-entrant gates facing north, east and south. It ends toward the west in a triangle within which is a cross. This is evidently a habitation divided into two parts, of which the larger was the dwelling of the natives, the smaller one that of the strangers, who placed a cross therein. It is known that the cross was in use in most remote antiquity among the Egyptians; and the Carthaginians were acquainted with it also, and used it as an instrument of punishment. Behind their dwelling is no. 8, their bark or ship, with stern, prow, mast, and rudder. From no. 11 to no. 9 is a band of alphabetical characters, reading from right to left. No. 11 may be an H or an A; no. 12, a B or an R. The next following characters cannot be deciphered. The band ends in three characters (no. 9), which may be three T’s, or more likely three X’s, indicating the number of the foreigners. No. 7 resembles a Phœnician Caph.

Third Scene. — This relatively empty scene represents the solitude of the future. No. 3 is a colossal bust, the Oracle who has just been consulted; his veil, no. 2, is already drawn. The question put to him was concerning the time of departure homeward; and the answer has been favorable. On the right arm of the Oracle is a butterfly (the right-hand figure within the bust), symbol of return, of resurrection. On the breast of the god is a character which, if hieroglyphical, is the trident of Neptune; if alphabetical, is the Phœnician M, initial of the Phœnician name for water, and thus again symbol of Neptune. No. 4 is a small statue or personage; no. 6 a person advancing hastily.140 Above no. 5 is the Q of the Syracusans, Corinthians and Carthaginians. It is the initial letter of the name Carthage, — another evidence that Carthaginian sailors, perhaps while on a voyage to or from England, were driven by some northerly tempest to the shores of America.

At the left extremity of this scene are three monograms, formed of characters that are incontestably Phœnician. No. 1 is formed of the two letters, Sh and N, and is the word Sh-Na, year. The lower ones indicate probably the month and the day of the month. These letters are drawn with more taste and skill than the other figures, which are very crude. This is natural, for the writer on the ship would be more skilful than the painter. Nevertheless, the distribution of the picture is made with much intelligence and unity of design.

It is a happy circumstance for us that this unique monument has been sent to us at the very moment when the fitting accomplishment of our work compelled us to develop our ideas on this subject.

It seems hardly necessary to say that the interest of Gebelin’s theory lies not in any possibility that it may be correct, but in its historical and psychological importance as an influence in shaping opinion and as a stage in the gradual development of scientifically sound views. From this point of view every fact, however trivial, every drawing, however distorted, and every theory, however mistaken, is an interesting exhibit, an indispensable factor in the dramatic sequence of events that make up, all taken together, the entire absorbing story. Considered simply as a rude scrawl of unknown meaning made by uncultured Indians, Dighton Rock would be worthy of but scanty notice. As the centre of interest around which has raged a storm of controversy; as the leading motif in a developing symphony that passes through many movements to a final clarity and harmony of many subordinate motifs; as the plot which has involved in an unfolding story a multitude of strange and varied actors; as a mystery which has led through crude and errant stages at last to a sound scientific understanding — Dighton Rock is unsurpassed in its appeal. Its history illustrates almost every variety of scientific error, almost every type of psychological process. As a study in the correct method and common errors in science, and as a subject for illustrating the natural psychology of perception and belief, there is nothing more instructive. My own art is inadequate to present the material in a manner that will exhibit all these features as they might be presented. But it may furnish the raw materials of actual fact, and some part of the machinery of fruitful suggestion, wherewith the reader may weave his own perfect fabric. Whoever will take each drawing and, giving free rein to his selective imagination, find it fully justified in the Burgess photograph, as can be done with practically every one of the originals; or, if a copy, find in it an illustration of definite and comprehensible laws of the copying process; and will further think himself sympathetically into the frame of mind and limitations of knowledge of each exponent of a theory, will derive from this study all of its possibilities of instruction and entertainment.

Gebelin, Harris, Hill, Magnusen, Rafn, Dammartin — devisers of detailed theories concerning this inscription — were of the type in whom the possession of a theory, the imagining of the presence of a particular figure, creates a blindness to all other possibilities. The type is common in early stages of scientific advance, and helpful to its development; and it is very common wherever the true lesson and method of science has not been grasped. Gebelin saw a Priapus, a horse, a habitation, a Phœnician letter, — and lo! the figures were indubitably designed by their authors to be just these and nothing else. He believed in the far-extended voyages of the Phœnicians; they might have landed at Dighton Rock, — a possibility which no one to-day would think of denying; and to him it followed that they unquestionably did land here and carve the rock. It is much more profitable and interesting sympathetically to appreciate the type, to welcome the example of a fitting stage in the unfolding drama of opinion, — to regard each new theory offered and each new figure seen as a precious find — than coldly to criticize the interpretation offered and dismiss it as false and unworthy of serious attention.

At least one other feature of psychological interest is present in Gebelin’s case. I refer to the occurrence at apt moments of fortunate coincidences. Examples of this have occurred more than once in the history of Dighton Rock. We have seen how Gebelin himself remarked on the happy coincidence of the arrival of a copy of this inscription in his hands just when it was most serviceable to him in the exposition of his theories. He did not himself know fully how remarkable the coincidence was. Not only was Sewall’s drawing helpful to him, but, if he really reproduced it as faithfully as he says he did, the particular copy of the drawing that was sent to him was, of all the copies of which we have knowledge, the best adapted for his purposes. On all of them he could have found most of his figures, but on no other could he have seen the horse which was most convincing proof of Carthaginian origin; and this seems to be true also of some other figures, such as the sparrow-hawk and the owl. The very copy providentially came to him which he most needed for his purposes. There is no chapter in the history of science that is more curious than that of coincidence. It is laden with suggestions of a beneficent Providence, and of all sorts of strange mental and spiritual forces. It is an elusive light, enticing men much more often into pathways of error than of truth. Yet it has played its part sometimes as an important and even indispensable element in the discovery of the latter.

Gebelin’s views naturally aroused much subsequent discussion. Many, like President Stiles, accepted them favorably. Others opposed them. Alexander von Humboldt,141 for instance, speaks of the “enthusiasm which is natural to him, but which is highly mischievous in discussions of this kind.” Lort142 remarked: “It would scarce be supposed he could be serious, by anyone that did not consider how far a man may be carried by attachment to a system.” Vallancey143 seems to have made an unwarranted statement which, since it has been quoted,144 needs correction. He calls Gebelin’s an “explanation repugnant to all history. Many letters passed between me ana Gebelin on this subject; at length he acknowledged his doubts; in short, tacitly gave up the point.” This “tacitly” is misleading, and does not justify its conclusion. Vallancey had quite as indefensible a theory of his own to advocate; and that he was naturally a prejudiced and unreliable theorizer we are shortly to discover. Sounder criticisms of Gebelin, however, were fully justified. While his theory was still a serious possibility, the attitude of critical discussion, advocacy or opposition, was the only one possible, instead of that which I have just been defending as desirable now. The question is no longer a genuine issue. Yet it is interesting to notice, in filially taking leave of Gebelin, that I have found — in sources, of course, that have no scientific importance whatever — two revivals of this old Phœnician theory as recently as 1890 and 1915.

Du Simitière; Stiles’s Election Sermon, 1783; Lort and Vallancey

In earlier discussions, I have quoted several times from an unpublished manuscript by Du Simitière. Everything of importance in it has been given, except its conclusion, which gives evidence that part of it, at least, was written shortly after the publication of Gebelin’s eighth volume in 1781.

It seems that the opinion of the learned of this day in New England, is, that, the above mentioned inscription or some other, in that part of the continent is really of the highest antiquity and it is like to make more noise now in the world than ever it did before; as will appear from the following paragraph, translated from the Journal politique ou Gazette des Gazettes [Bouillon, May 22, 1781, p. 65. The quoted passage mentions Gebelin’s theory and his forthcoming “memoir”]. N.B. the above mentioned intended memoir has been actually published at Paris in June 81. in the work entitled [here follows the unabridged title, in about seventy-five words, of the Monde Primitif], for an account of this work see Mercure de France N^o 28 for July 14, 1781 page 76.

Dr. Ezra Stiles, whose drawings of 1767 we have already discussed, continued his interest in Dighton Rock throughout his life. His only public reference to it that I can find occurs in his Election Sermon of 1783; but he mentions it several times in his Diary, both before and after that event. The Diary145 references are as follows:

May 1, 1782. — I wrote a Letter to Professor Williams of Harv. Coll. answer^g his upon M. Gibelins Opinion that the Inscription upon the Rock at Taunton is Punic or Phœnician. I doubt it, hav^g compared it with all the oriental Paleography. (III. 19–20.)

May 16, 1783.146 — Visited Dighton Rock charged with Inscriptions & Character which M. Gebelin of the Acad^y of Paris says is Phœnecian or Carthaginian. (III. 72.)

Oct. 3, 1788.147 — At Assonet employed in taking off the Inscription on Dighton Rock, which I formerly copied in 1766. (III. 330.) [The 1766 should have been 1767. His biographer, Abiel Holmes, follows the error.]

Sept. 16, 1790. Writ^g a Letter to Dr. Barton148 of Philad^a with Copies of Dighton Rock Inscriptions &c. upon his public^a of American Antiquities. (III. 402.)

The doubts that he expressed in 1782 concerning Gebelin’s theory seem to have wholly disappeared at the time of his Election Sermon in 1783. The occasion of this sermon is sufficiently indicated in its title.149 It was only a year and a half since Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown, and peace had not yet been formally ratified with England. Indian wars had ceased in New England; but to the country as a whole they yet presented a serious problem.

The future destiny of the new United States was uncertain, but Stiles saw for it an “elevation to glory and honor.” He based his certainty of this fortunate outcome on the prophecy in the ninth chapter of Genesis: “Cursed be Canaan; . . . God shall enlarge Japhet, and Canaan shall be his servant.” “We are to consider all the european settlements of America collectively,” he says, “as springing from, and transfused with the blood of Japhet. . . . I rather consider the American Indians as Canaanites of the expulsion of Joshua.” In proof of the latter contention, he cites the observations of Smibert, who saw in the Indians a resemblance to Siberian Tartars.150 From this and other unspecified data, “we may perceive, that all the Americans [i. e. Indians] are one people — that they came hither certainly from the north-east of Asia; probably also from the mediterranean; and if so that they are canaanites, tho’ arriving hither by different routs.” He concludes, therefore, from the Biblical prophecy, that the Indians “will eventually be, as the most of them have already become, servants unto Japhet” (“at least unto tribute,” as he says in another place); and that “the population of this land will probably become very great.”

Plate xxii

SEWALL’S DRAWING, 1768

from the original in the peabody museum, harvard university

LORT’S REPRODUCTION OF SEWALL’S DRAWING, 1768

from archaeologia 1787, viii, plate xix. engraved for the colonial society of massachusetts

In the course of this argument he makes mention of Dighton Rock, which he regards, apparently, as the work not of the Indians but of Phœnicians. Providence brought the Indians here, he says, long before the Europeans, and before Madoc in 1170,151 and before men from Norway in 1001, —

not to mention the visit of still greater antiquity by the Phœnicians, who charged the Dighton rock and other rocks in Narragansett-bay with Punic inscriptions, remaining to this day. Which last I myself have repeatedly seen and taken off at large, as did Professor Sewall. He has lately transmitted a copy of this inscription to M. Gebelin of the Parisian academy of sciences, who comparing them with the Punic paleography, judges them punic, and has interpreted them as denoting, that the ancient Carthaginians once visited these distant regions.

This sermon has been misrepresented as being a plea for rebellion, or as advocating the deliberate extermination of the Indians. Thus the reviewer of Lort, who had given a very fair and full abstract of Stiles in Archaeologia,152 says in the English Review for 1790153 that Stiles tortured the characters on the rock “into another system in favour of triumphant rebellion.” Daniel Wilson represents him as saying that the Indians were to be “displaced and rooted out by the European descendants of Japhet.”154 Gravier says that Stiles accepted Gebelin’s theory, “and made it the basis of an argument that the white men, sons of Japhet, should exterminate the Indians, sons of Ham.”155 I have seen other instances, but do not find them in my notes. It is clear that Stiles did not speak of, much less advocate, extermination; but simply predicted, on scriptural authority, that the Indians would become servants of the whites, “at least unto tribute.”

It was the sermon by Stiles, together with Gebelin’s discussion, that led the Rev. Michael Lort to search in 1786 for previous references to the rock. Most of the contents of the paper that he read before the Society of Antiquaries of London,156 the source of nearly all reports as to the earlier history of the case until now, have been presented in earlier connections. As to his own opinions, he was really non-committal at this time. “When I first saw it,” he says, “in M. Gebelin’s book, I own I could conceive of it as nothing more than the rude scrawls of some of the Indian tribes, commemorating their engagements, their marches, or their hunting parties, such as are to be seen in different accounts of these nations.” But he does not tell us whether he still holds to this opinion. After his paper and Vallancey’s, which follows it, had been criticized in the English Review,157 however, and the reviewer had told the story of Dean Berkeley’s visit to the rock and resulting belief that the marks were due to natural forces of erosion only, Lort wrote to Bishop Percy on April 16, 1790,158 saying: “I have reduced it to the lowest standard of human art, by supposing it the scrawl of Indian hunters;” but now, after learning of Berkeley’s view, “I am very much disposed to be of this [i.e. Berkeley’s] hypothesis.”

The next following paper in the same number of Archaeologia (page 302) was entitled: “Observations on the American Inscription. By Colonel Charles Vallancey, F.A.S. Read Febr. 9, 1786.” Supporting his views on the similarity existing between Danforth’s drawing and an inscription found on a rock in Siberia, described and figured by Strahlenburg, he concludes that Dighton Rock was certainly inscribed by Siberian Tartars. His imperfect sense of strict accuracy is exhibited at the very beginning of his paper, where he says that “the drawing of the inscription sent to M. Gebelin was taken by Dr. Greenwood in the year 1730,” instead of by Professor Sewall in 1768. Attention has been called also to his unwarranted distortion of facts concerning a change in Gebelin’s belief in consequence of a correspondence between the two. That some, at least, of Vallancey’s contemporaries had no high regard for him as a scientific observer is indicated in the following passages quoted from letters by the Rev. Edward Ledwich, who is described by Nichols159 as a “learned and industrious antiquary and typographer:”

Ledwich to Richard Gough, Esq., June 24, 1787. — I must take the liberty, entre nous, of cautioning you about Colonel Vallancey’s drawings. On reflection, I believe you will not adopt his whimsical, and, indeed, absurd explanations of the most common things. [Vallancey had tried to prove that an officer’s gorget of 100 to 150 years ago was exactly the same as the Urim and Thummim.] . . . All his other profound investigations are equally ridiculous, and at some future time will be ridiculed.

Ledwich to Bishop Percy, August 28, 1802. — [Speaks of] Vallancey’s ungentlemanlike treatment of every writer dissenting from him, and his monstrous absurdities.

James Winthrop, 1788

Every one who tries to make a free-hand drawing of the inscribed rock quickly realizes that, whatever his skill, his copy differs to some extent from the original. There was constant dissatisfaction with the copies already made, and a desire to obtain something more accurate. Before the introduction of photography, the most promising method of guaranteeing complete fidelity seemed to be to cover over the artificial characters with something like ink or paint, and then press paper firmly against the rock and thus take off the characters in exact form and size. Perhaps Stiles had attempted this in July, 1767; and certainly Paddack did in the following month. But these copies never became widely known, and Stiles’s has not been preserved. In 1788, however, James Winthrop160 made use of a similar method, and the life-sized impression which he obtained was long preserved in the Library of Harvard College,161 but seems now to have disappeared. Fortunately, however, an engraving162 of it, from a copy reduced by an accurate method, accompanied by a letter dated November 10, 1788, in which Winthrop describes his method and observations, was published in 1804.163 He says:

“At the lowest tides the water retires from the foot of it, but at high water it is commonly covered.” The face is natural, not smoothed by art; measures ten feet six by four feet two. “Tradition informs us, that in the last century it stood as much as four rods from the river, but the inhabitants by digging round it, upon the foolish expectation of finding money, gave a passage to the tide.” Speaks of Sewall’s copy, in the Museum of the University at Cambridge. “The lower part of the rock has been for a long time coated with moss and dirt, which concealed a considerable part of the inscription.” The shortness of its uncovering by the tides “will abundantly account for any deficiency or imperfection in the copy taken by Professor Sewell, whose habitual accuracy and attention are well known.”

“In the course of last August,164 upon the invitation of Judge Baylies,165 of Dighton, I went to view the rock, and take a copy of it. We were assisted by Rev. Mr. Samuel West and Col. Edward Pope, both of New Bedford, and Rev. Mr. Smith, of Dighton.166 We spent one day in clearing the face of the rock, tracing the character, and painting167 it black. . . . The next day [August 14, 1788], . . . after retracing the character with paint, . . . we applied the paper to the face of the rock, two of us managing the ends of the sheet, and the remainder, with towels, which we dipt into the river, pressing the paper upon the rock. . . . As soon as the paper was dry enough to be removed, we laid it upon the shore and completed the character with ink.” Afterward, at home, he traced the inscription with ink upon the other side of the paper. Having thus obtained a “positive,” he had a large “pentagraph” made, which would expand thirteen feet; and therewith made the reduced copy which was reproduced in the engraving.

“The inscription comes within eight inches of the bottom of the rock, and runs off at the top and ends, which makes it highly probable, that it has suffered considerably since it was first wrought. The character is generally about half an inch wide and very shallow, appearing as if it was made by some pointed instrument.” As to his method of copying it, it “appears in practice to be simple and exact.”

The fallacy of Winthrop’s confidence in the accuracy of his method lies in the facts, first, that it does not insure a reliable distinction between natural and artificial markings; and secondly, that he and his party painted only what they personally believed to be inscription. We can have no confidence that their selection of characters as artificial was any more to be relied on than that of any one else who attempts to depict them. As I have previously suggested,168 any one who seeks to improve upon the actual vagueness and uncertainty of the inscription by showing it in a definite and detailed form, must infallibly be in error; and this is true whether he draws the characters as they appear to him, or makes a cast of them and then renders it legible by painting in his interpretation,169 or chalks the supposed characters on the rock itself and then either draws or photographs the result. It is, of course, true that the method is well calculated to present the size, proportions, and relative positions of the figures in an exact manner. But as to what artificial figures are actually there, comparison of this paint-and-paper impression with the Burgess photograph, the most trustworthy reproduction in existence, and with the many differing other original copies that have been made, from which it differs vastly more than they from one another, seems to justify the conviction that Winthrop’s result is the least trustworthy of any. It has rarely met with approval by any expert judge, and has often been justly criticized. Thus Kendall says: “Of all others the method of procuring a copy, described by Mr. Winthrop, is the one most infallibly adapted for producing a deceitful issue. . . . No such expedient can succeed. The greater part of the inscription is so much worn out, that the forms, of which it is composed, are wholly subject to the fancy; and in several places, where the figures are plain, they are made out, rather by difference of colour, than by difference of surface. Figures of the latter class can yield no impression; and those of the former will take any shape, into which the printers’ ink may be spread.”170 Elsewhere he says further: “It must be evident, that the accuracy of the impression eminently depended upon the accuracy with which the ink was applied. Now, the sculptures being in general very obscure, nothing could be more easy than to apply the ink erroneously.”171 Thomas H. Webb172 disapproves of Winthrop’s method, and of chalking the characters and then photographing them, “so that we have not a daguerreotype of the original, but of the part supposed to have been traced.” C. R. Hale173 is another critic who finds Winthrop’s copy defective. Both Kendall and Hale approve only of a drawing by a skilled artist, with the characters left purposely vague as on the original, such as were made by Kendall himself and by Seager; and, with the exception of a clear photograph made without any chalking or other selective brightening of the lines, I believe that they are right.

Washington, 1789; the Belknap Papers

It is said to have been this copy by James Winthrop that attracted the attention of George Washington in the autumn of 1789. The circumstances are related most fully and authoritatively by the Rev. Dr. John Lathrop, in a letter of August 10, 1809, to Judge John Davis.174 Dr. Lathrop, who was with Washington at the time of the latter’s visit to the Museum of Harvard College, told the latter of the belief that there were Oriental characters on the Rock, and that Phœnician navigators, “who as early as the days of Moses are said to have extended their navigation beyond the Pillars of Hercules.” had made the inscribed record.

After I had given the above account, the President smiled, and said he believed the learned Gentlemen whom I had mentioned were mistaken: and added, that in the younger part of his life, his business called him to be very much in the wilderness of Virginia, which gave him an opportunity to become acquainted with many of the customs and practices of the Indians. The Indians he said had a way of writing and recording their transactions, either in war or hunting. When they wished to make any such record, or leave an account of their exploits to any who might come after them, they scraped off the outer bark of a tree, and with a vegetable ink, or a little paint which they carried with them, on the smooth surface, they wrote, in a way that was generally understood by the people of their respective tribes. As he had so often examined the rude way of writing practised by the Indians of Virginia, and observed many of the characters on the inscription then before him, so nearly resembled the characters used by the Indians, he had no doubt the inscription was made, long ago, by some natives of America.

There are numerous references to both Stiles and Winthrop, and their dealings with Dighton Rock, in the correspondence between Dr. Jeremy Belknap and Ebenezer Hazard175 at about this time. Most of them are unimportant, but they infuse a gleam of humor into our subject, and add a little information. Hazard speaks of the rock in 1784 as a puzzle to Dr. Stiles. Belknap replies: “There is no end of conjectures when one’s imagination is warmed, as the Doctor’s apparently is with his system.” In 1788, Belknap writes: “Jemmy Winthrop has visited Dighton Rock, and taken off the inscription more perfectly than it was ever done before. But, how to translate it? Ay, there’s the rub. And perhaps, if it was translated, it might prove an unmeaning scrawl. But we are in the dark in that.” In reply, Hazard remarks prophetically: “Many a man may run his head against Dighton Rock before the meaning of the inscription on it will be known;” and Belknap, in return, criticizes Winthrop’s copy.

Before citing Belknap’s next letter to Hazard in which this subject is mentioned, brief notice may be given to the fact that John Pintard, writing to Belknap on August 26, 1789, speaks of James Winthrop, and says: “I wish to contribute my aid towards his decyphering the Dighton Rock, but I apprehend it impossible.”176

Plate xxiii

GEBELIN’S REPRODUCTION OF SEWALL’S DRAWING, 1768

from gebelin’s monde primtif, 1781, viii, planche i

DAMMARTIN’S REPRODUCTION OF GEBELIN’S REPRODUCTION OF SEWALL’S DRAWING 1768

from dammartin explication de la pierre de taunston 1838 planche i engarved for the colonial society of massachusetts

Baylies-Smith-West-Gooding-Baylies Drawing, 1789

In the final letter by Belknap referring to this matter, a new event is recorded. On the 20th of August, 1789, he writes to Hazard as follows:

We had nothing of any great consequence at the Academy. . . . We had, also, a third copy of the inscription on Dighton Rock. There is a bird added to the discoveries, which is said to bear some resemblance to the cassowary of the East Indies; and there are figures which resemble our Arabic numerals 18881. There is, also, a figure which seems to be compounded of two Roman capitals, thus, ɅA. What they will finally make of it, I know not. This communication was from Dr. Baylies, of Dighton, who lives in sight of the Rock.

The reference here is to a drawing which has been known wrongly as “Dr. Baylies and Mr. Goodwin’s Copy, 1790,” through errors in both name and date that were made early, and were continued in the name attached to its reproduction in the Antiquitates Americanse of 1837, the only published and well known version of it. But there are two drawings which are clearly variants of the same, in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. One of them, 7½ by 19 inches in size, bears the description: “Dighton Inscription copied in 1789 by Rev. Mr. Smith. Presented to the Society July 1, 1889, by W. P. U[pham].” On the other, 12 by 22 inches, is written: “Dighton Inscription Sent to Presid^t Stiles By Rev^d M^r Smith 1789.” To these I can add another original, measuring 7¼ by 20¾ inches, that was drawn by Joseph Gooding of Dighton. I have found in print no authoritative account of the authors and circumstances of this historically important version of the inscription. From various unpublished sources, however, that have never been brought together, we discover that it was made shortly before July 25, 1789; that several copies were drawn at the same time directly from the rock; that Joseph Gooding177 and another person, probably either Samuel Baylies or William Baylies, Jr., were the actual draughtsmen; that the rock, in preparation for the draught, had first been carefully studied and its artificial lines selected and chalked by the Rev. John Smith178 and the Hon. William Baylies of Dighton, the Rev. Samuel West179 of New Bedford, and “an engraver;” and that the Rev. Dr. Stiles, President of Yale College, not yet satisfied with the several copies he had made or of which he knew, was probably responsible for its making, having applied to the Rev. John Smith to secure a new drawing.

The fullest and earliest account of the affair is contained in a letter from the Rev. John Smith of Dighton to Dr. Stiles, preserved among the Stiles papers in the Yale Library; and it adds much to what has previously been known from other sources.

Dighton July 25. A D 1789.

Honorable much respected & D^r Sir,

My long delay in sending you a delineation of the characters of the Dighton Rock, be assured, is not to be imputed to my neglect or want of attention to your application. but to the very great difficulty of describing them with precision. You are sensible, Sir, that no two descriptions by any two Gentlemen, or any two taken by any one person, at different times, do agree with each other. And I am fully of the opinion there were originally more characters on the rock than we have been wont to imagine. Some characters are always evident; others are sometimes very distinguishable, & some others are commonly unobserved being by time almost obliterated. And the characters, in general less evident, on some days or rather hours in the day, are obvious, but are commonly almost imperceptible. Hence the reason of the dissimilitude of the several copies which have been heretofore taken. In the solution of those different appearances of the characters on the rock at different times you will, Sir, permit me to observe That the situation of the Sun with respect to the rock & the station of the observer or draughtman are both to be considered. When the Sun begins to incline to the west of the Rock, having passed his meridian so far as to cast his rays obliquely on the Rock which looks about N.W. leaving the ingraved characters in a partial shade, is, I think, the time to discover the most if not all the characters. The station and distance of the observer or delineator is also a very material circumstance; in one position and distance some characters are discernable but in another invisible. We find that a distant and oblique view in which the sight is the least injured by the refraction of the light, is the most favorable to the discovery of those character which in general are the least evident. It is a fact that some characters not discoverable in one station become evident by another; the station for some reasons, at the time, may be too near or too remote, too oblique or too direct with respect to the object to be discovered. To take off those characters, even tolerably, we have found to be a work of long observation and repeated labour.

With all drafts before us formerly taken & obtainable our own (Professor Sewalls and M^r Winthrop’s, the latter taken the last summer in the manner I formerly mentioned) the Rev^d Sam^ll West of Dartmouth & Honourable W^m Baylies A. A Socii180 assisting both of whom had formerly and the latter repeatedly of late attended us in compleating this business (with the assistance also of an engraver in the leading draft before this) and two draftmen181 who draw to the life attending from eight o,clock a.m. until 2. p.m., & examining minutely every character, wishing to visit the rock no more, and determining to do everything perfectly, was this copy of the Dighton Rock which we have presented you, drafted. It is the opinion of the gentlemen who attended, that this draft has never been equalled; nor do they conjecture that it can hereafter be much exceeded. It is indeed possible that a very curious hand who had no other object of attention might by visiting the rock daily, a number of weeks, amend that draft; but no man, can, I apprehend, by a few visits determine that the draft we have sent you is much defective. We are: however so diffident of its perfection that should it be ever made publick, it is our opinion, that y^e other draughts should be published with it; for though it may in general be more complete it may in a few strokes be less accurate than some of the other descriptions; and a general view of the whole, it is probable will manifest the more evident traits of the original.

We discovered a few strokes below the animal, but not sufficiently evident for delineation. The bird is supposed to be the Casuary peculiar to Asia; & it is conjectured that the animal is asiatic.

Was N. America once inhabited by a people from Asia who were skilled in hierogliphicks, who used the shield and helmet, who worshiped on high places & who gradually receeding before the more nothern tribes from Siberia settled themselves in the southern continent?

The Hon. W^m Baylies has applied to M^r Winthrop of Cambridge to present D^r Stiles with a copy of his delineation of the characters of the Dighton Rock — which he has probably already received.

To the Rev^d D^r Stiles President of Yale College, this description of the Dighton Rock is most humbly presented, in testimony of unfeigned respect and great esteem, by his most obedient and very humble servant

John Smith.

P. S. . . . The preceeding account of the Dighton has been read & approved by those gentlemen whose names are herein mentioned, desiring y^t I would add that the description being taken with a pen it is conjectured . . .182 is not exactly proportioned.

The proportion of one figure with another, must I conceive from the mode in which he made his draught, be more exactly impressed by M^r Wintworth, than could be made on sight by a draughtman tho very expert.

The copies I have sent you, Sir, were taken at the same time; which y^e most nearly resembles the original we can hardly determine. The delineations I have sent you are also somewhat defective in the relative distances of some of the characters.

Capt Walter Haley who has resided seven years in China, not knowing our conjectures, declared the bird to be the Casur or Casuar of China; one of which he saith he owned several years, & the figure answers well to the description which he gives of that bird.

In view of later conflicting statements as to who was the person chiefly responsible for this version in its several somewhat differing copies, and by whose name it should therefore be known, we could wish that the Rev. John Smith had been more explicit in regard to the several functions of the associates whose names he mentions. He himself, in all the literature of the subject, has never been given credit for it, although according to his own statement he was the leading figure in the enterprise. Another important feature that he fails to mention is that, as a preliminary to the actual drawing, the characters that were so carefully studied out were rendered clear and definite by means of chalk. This was a common practice as a preparation for drawing, resorted to earlier by both Greenwood and Stiles; as it is still the almost universal practice as a preliminary to photography. That it was resorted to in this case we learn from Kendall, who tells us that one of the drawings that he saw in 1807 “is in the possession of the Honourable Judge Baylies, of Dighton, under whose inspection it was made. In this instance, the supposed sculptures were chalked, and the chalked lines were copied. But this expedient . . . is deceitful in its promise of accuracy: I tried it myself, and found that I falsified the figures at every touch.”183

The drawing that was sent by Smith to President Stiles is no longer preserved with the letter, having wandered somehow to Boston, where I found it unexpectedly after I had become acquainted with the letter itself. It is clearly a version of the same drawing as that spoken of by Belknap as having been sent to the American Academy by Dr. Baylies. That the latter person disputed Smith’s claim to the honor of having superintended its making is revealed in the above passage from Kendall, and confirmed by Dr. Baylies himself. In the first volume of manuscript Papers of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston is an “Extract of a letter from William Baylies Esq, dated Dighton 27 July 1789, to James Winthrop Esq, with a copy of the Dighton inscription. Communicated by M^r Winthrop.” It is endorsed as “Read Aug. 19. 1789.” The drawing itself cannot be found, but it is naturally the same as that above mentioned as referred to by Belknap, and its essential identity with the others here discussed is evident. Dr. Baylies’ account, though much less circumstantial than Smith’s, nevertheless contains some further details, and is as follows:

I have within a few days, made another visit to the Rock. The Reverend Mess’rs West & Smith accompanied me. We endeavoured to be very exact. We viewed it at different distances, in different directions in the full blaze of light, & when shaded. I chalk’d most of the lines myself & I herewith send you a Copy of the Inscriptions as they were chalk’d, done in my Opinion tollerably well; I will not be answerable for the exactness of their magnitude & situation with respect to each other. You will observe that several caracters in this Copy differ from those which have been taken before. I was aware of this, & therefore examined them with the most scrupulous attention. The first Character on the right hand is certainly open at the bottom, and the three Xs are united by curv’d lines at top & bottom. The stroke running from the figure which is on the right of the left Hieroglyphick & seems to form the basis of it, is very plain on the rock. The Bird is entirely new: the head, crest, neck, legs the curv’d stroke behind them & the line of the Belly as far as the legs are all very evident & it is rather surprizing that we should hitherto have overlook’d it. The back is not so easily seen, more especially a little behind the O it is not to be distinguish’d from a number of straight oblique lines terminating in a bushy tail, wider I think, than the Copy gives it. I had no sooner chalk’d it, than it convey’d to me the Idea of a Cassaware, a representation of which I had somewhere seen a number of Years since. M^r West upon seeing it on paper join’d in Opinion with me. I shew’d it to M^r Healy, the Gentleman on whom you call’d when in Dighton to see some Eastern Curiosities, he at once pronounced it a Cassaware without any intimation of my Opinion. He told me that in the East Indies he was well acquainted with the Cassaware, having one in his possession for the space of six months, & he thought this to be a good likeness; the greatest difference was in the Crest; that of the Cassaware being solid, horny, & shap’d like the Comb of a Cock. I observ’d to him that I could not tell what to make of the bending stroke behind the legs. His reply was that the Cassaware, when tir’d of standing, eas’d himself down on his belly by resting his Wings on the ground, which being made as he express’d it of unfeather’d sticks, some being much longer than others, bent into that figure upon the Bird’s beginning to settle. Should this & the Quadrupede prove to be the Cassaware & Leopard, of which I am not in much doubt, we must go to Asia for the Engravers; & shall find perhaps simular figures in the Pagodas of the East, & finally trace its Origin to the Symbolic Worship of the Scythians. To the left & right of the Bird are several characters which are omitted: as they could not be traced with Accuracy, I thought it best to pass them by entirely. As I despair of obtaining a better, you may lay this Copy before the Academy, if you think it of any Utility.

We are not yet done with claimants to the honor of having produced this drawing. We find a new one in Joseph Gooding of Dighton, about whom we know most fully from an unpublished letter written by Miss Sophia F. Brown of Dighton to the Rev. Edward Everett Hale:184

Dighton Oct. 19th 1864. . . . It was made by Joseph Gooding of Dighton, the date as nearly as we can ascertain is 1790. Mr. Gooding who has been dead many years was an old man when he gave it to my mother, and he told her that he made it when he was a boy of fourteen at the same time that he made another copy for a party of gentlemen from Harvard. He said they appeared to be satisfied with the drawing and gave him a silver half dollar which was the largest sum of money he had ever owned. He had to scrape away the moss, he said, then, to obtain the figure of the bird in the lower part of the inscription.

The date given here is approximate only, and should be 1789, for no drawings so much alike as this and the one by the Rev. John Smith could have been made except from the same chalking. Gooding’s age should have been given as sixteen; and it is hardly correct to say that the drawing was made for “a party of gentlemen from Harvard.” The narrative as it comes to us, moreover, assigns to Gooding sole credit as maker of the drawing; but it is clear from Smith’s statement that he could have taken no other part in the enterprise than that of one of the two draughtsmen, though he may well have assisted also in the menial task of scraping away the moss and perhaps thus was even the discoverer of the “bird.” But the really critical feature, the selective chalking, must have been attended to for the most part, as Dr. Baylies says it was, by the older members of the party.

Some further facts appear in the following passage from the Independent Chronicle and Boston Patriot for May 18, 1819,185 quoted from the Newburyport Herald of May 4:

The writer of this article recollects about the year 1791 or 2, of seeing two copies of the writing on the Rock, taken by two gentlemen of Dighton, one by Dr. H. Baylies, the other by Mr. William Goodwin. Copies of the Doctor’s transcript were sent to several of the Universities in this country, and a copy of Mr. Goodwin’s was sent by the Rev. John Smith, the minister at Dighton, to the University of Edinburg; but it is not known that, at that period, any satisfactory result was returned as to the origin or meaning of these hieroglyphics. We are led to these observations at this time by observing the following paragraph in a late New Bedford Mercury:

“We are requested to mention that the Rev. Timothy Alden, President of Allegheny College, has lately received information from a gentleman in France, that the Hieroglyphics on Dighton Rock have been decyphered; and that it appears they were inscribed by an Asiatic in the year of the world 1902. We are promised a further account of them.”

The theory here referred to is that of Mathieu, which will receive attention later. The “William Goodwin” of this writer is doubtless Joseph Gooding, and the initial of Dr. Baylies is given wrongly. The Rev. Mr. Smith now becomes apparently a mere copyist from Gooding, while Gooding and Baylies are represented as makers of independent drawings. They both undoubtedly had copies of the drawing in their possession, as proved by the statements of Kendall and of Miss Brown; and each very likely regarded it as “his own” drawing.

Still another person seems to be introduced into this elusive group by the Rev. Dr. William Bentley of Salem, who, in his Diary on October 13, 1807, speaks of “figures from the two Baylies, who have been attentive to the Dighton rock & live not far from the spot on which it stands.”186 The second Baylies would naturally have been one of the Doctor’s three sons, Samuel, William, or Francis. Possibly one of them served as the second draughtsman.187 There is no other reference anywhere to either of them as having made or helped to make a drawing.

Plate xxiv

WINTHROP’S FULL SIZE IMPRESSION FROM DIGHTON ROCK, 1788

from memoirs of the academy of arts and sciences. 1804, ii, part ii, engraved for the colonial society of massachusetts

When Dr. Thomas H. Webb in 1830 was collecting materials for Professor Rafn’s great work on the Norsemen, he visited Dighton and there or elsewhere secured a copy of this drawing. If he obtained it from Joseph Gooding, who was still alive, and through him or others learned of Dr. Baylies’s connection with it, this would explain, except for the error in the name, why, on its publication in the Antiquitates Americanæ, it was called “Dr. Baylies and Mr. Goodwin’s 1790.”

The Rev. Charles Reuben Hale, Chaplain of the Naval Academy at Newport, who assisted in making the Seager drawings of 1864, tells us that this drawing was made “under the superintendence of Dr. Baylies.”188 This may be merely a repetition from Kendall. The Doctor’s son Francis, speaking to Yates and Moulton in 1824 about the bird and circle, told them that “he had formerly discovered them: they had also been seen by Dr. Baylies, and delineated by him on his map of the inscription.”189 This ends our list of the most important authorities who give evidence that Dr. Baylies claimed or was reputed to have made a drawing of his own. But Dr. Baylies had assisted in the making of Sewall’s drawing in 1768; Dr. Baylies, the Rev. John Smith, and the Rev. Samuel West all assisted James Winthrop in 1788; and these three together selected the lines, while Gooding and perhaps a younger Baylies executed the drawings, for this version of 1789. There is no evidence that any one of them ever had a part in the making of any other drawing. Each one of the five, with the exception of West, has been named as the maker, or co-maker with another, of this drawing; and until I had discovered all of these quoted sources, some of the most important of which have come to my notice last of all and very recently, the actual facts seemed very obscure and contradictory. This is not the only instance where I have met a similar confusion of statement as to authorship of a single reproduction. One of the best known photographs of the rock, taken in 1875, has been mentioned so often under different persons’ names, whether as maker, assistant, reproducer, or merely sender of it to some one else, that I had attributed either this or some other unknown photograph to nearly a dozen distinct persons before I succeeded in identifying it as one photograph only, and in being sure as to who it was that made it, and when it was done.

The drawing that accompanied the letter of the Rev. John Smith to President Stiles, the one which Dr. Baylies sent to the Academy and which cannot now be found, the Upham “Rev. Mr. Smith” of, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the “Baylies and Goodwin” of the Antiquitates Americanæ, and the “Gooding” of Miss Brown, all turn out to be variants from one original chalking of the rock, as indeed is evident on the face of it. Four of them are submitted here for comparison,190 as well as a later copy published by Mallery, derived from the one in Antiquitates.191 The comparison is instructive as illustrating again a fact which was appreciated by Mr. Smith, how markedly and inevitably free-hand copies by the same person, or by others from his original, differ from one another. They bear clear indications of having had a common source, of the same sort as that which compelled us to conclude that Cotton Mather copied from Danforth, and would have convinced us that Gebelin copied from Sewall even if we had not assurance of it from other sources. Yet with all their unmistakable resemblance, these five variants present differences that are worthy of attention. The Upham “Smith” is most markedly different from the others, particularly in the tail of the bird and the general proportions of the figures, which in it are flat and thin and somewhat differently shaped. It is clearly a poor drawing from the same original source. In the others the lines are firm and well drawn, and the differences between the four, though existent, are very slight. It is noticeable that a curved line below the body of the bird exists in the two “Smith” drawings only, though in other respects the Stiles “Smith” more closely resembles the Antiquitates “Baylies” and the “Gooding.” The Academy “Baylies,” we have seen, had the curve and the bushy tail in the bird, like the Upham “Smith.” The blot that appears on the “Gooding” is a discoloration of the paper due to age; and on the Upham “Smith” the rear part of the “quadruped” in front of the bird is defective, owing to the fact that a small bit of the paper has broken out on account of the corrosive action of the ink.

C. R. Hale, whose unpublished manuscript has been quoted, regarded this as “one of the best, and, in some respects, the most valuable of all the copies of the stone published.” One feature of its importance lies in the fact that it was the one used by Magnusen192 as the basis for his translation of the inscription as a record made by the Norsemen; and that it was the one on which was based the only detailed Indian reading of the writing that we have.193 Another interesting thing about it is that, whereas earlier drawings had introduced figures like I, X, M, W, O, which might be letters or might not, this one introduces in addition an unmistakable A joined into an apparent monogram with an M, and also an R preceded by a diamond shape. Both of these, supplemented by additions of later artists, were made of definite use in support of the Norse Theory. Finally, of all drawings, early or late, this is the only one showing the “bird.” Some have attributed its later absence to the wearing away of that part of the rock. Apart from the probability that there has been no appreciable erosion of the face of the rock in the last two hundred years, unless on this lowest part of it,194 this opinion is disposed of by the fact that some of the makers’ own contemporaries were unable to discover it, and the further fact that it is my belief that, with a liberal use of selective imagination, I saw most of it in 1915 as plainly, perhaps, as these men did in 1789, and that I can easily trace its faintly suggested lines in the Burgess photograph.195 As to the first of these two facts, we have the authority of Kendall:

Among the variations, observable in this [Kendall’s] drawing, from the drawings made before it, the most remarkable is the omission of the figure of a bird, apparently of the crane species, which is very conspicuous in the drawing made under the inspection of Judge Baylies. But, though I had the advantage of conversing with this gentleman on the subject, and though I visited the rock on six or seven days successively, I was never able to discover this figure. Gentlemen, also, by whom I was more than once accompanied; were equally unable with myself to make the discovery.196

Kendall was trying, and successfully, to produce a drawing that for the first time should be a faithful and reliable one; I, with no such responsibility to deter me, in the interest of psychological understanding rather than of archaeological accuracy, was willingly giving free rein to my picture-constructing fancy.

Ezra Stiles’s Memoir, 1790; Abiel Holmes, 1798

By far the most detailed and exhaustive treatment of this subject by Dr. Stiles was contained in a paper which he wrote on June 8, 1790, for presentation to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.197 It has never been published, although some of the non-speculative portions of it have been quoted.198 The manuscript is preserved among miscellaneous papers in the library of the Academy. It was first sent to Professor Stephen Sewall, together with a letter from which, in transmitting the memoir to the Academy on July 12, 1790, Sewall gives the following extract:199

I have prepared, & now forward to your care, the Memoir accompanying this, which I must ask you, in my name to present to the President of the Academy of Arts & Sciences. . . . I know I expose myself to be considered as carryed away into imagination and conjecture. But I am willing to risque this imputation, if I could stir up a general Inquiry & examination on Rocks & Stones &c. &c. illustrative of the Antiquities of America.

One of the two rocks described by Stiles in this memoir bore a Hebrew inscription, in connection with whose origin he discusses, among other possibilities, the theory as to the Indians being descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes.200 But most of the paper is devoted to a discussion of the rock at Scaticook in Connecticut, and its relation to the one at Dighton. After a minute description,201 in the course of which he says that the characters were made “most certainly with an Iron Tool, and that by Pecks or picking after the manner of the Dighton Rock,” he then continues:

One end of the Dighton Rock has prickt upon it I HOWOO;202 yet no one who ever saw it, believes that the rest of that very antique Inscription or Character was wrought by an Englishman. [It is of very remote antiquity.] There was a period previous to the Age of Atlas, when the maritime shores of Europe, on this side the pillars of Hercules, around up to the Baltic, were colonized by all the various languages of Scythia & Japhet, & some Phœnician Navigators of the Derivation of Shem. It was in this period I conjecture those navigated over to America who made these Inscriptions. Of these original Nations there might be some besides the Chinese & Egyptians, who, in their monumental writings for ages, made no use of Alphabetical letters. Of this description might be a ships crew from the Mediterranean or Europe, shipwreckt in Narraganset Bay; whose mode of writing might be characters for sentiment, but not for words — or possibly a mixture of both, as in the Egyptian Hieroglyphics. There seems to be a mixture of Phaznidan or antient Punic letters, with symbol, & perhaps ideal character, in the inscriptions at Narraganset. ATLAS, after the first discovery of his great insular Continent, sent over four ships of settlers to colonize upon it; which on their return, carried back the report, that the island was overwhelmed & submersa ponto. One of these Vessels of Atlas might have been shipwreckt at Narragansett.

The Dighton Rock & this at Scaticook may have been the reliquiae of some National character, whether Alphabetical or Ideal, in current & perhaps extensive usage on the other side of the Atlantic, ages before the punic settlement of Carthage, & yet of the period of the Phœnician Ages & of the memorable Atlantic war mentioned by Plato & Solon & Ælian & others, antecedent to the glory of Greece, of Carthage & of Rome, & probably antecedent to the Trojan war, 1300 Years before the Christian Æra. And tho’ this species of National Character should have lasted several centuries after, it might have grown into Desuetude, & have totally vanished from the whole world 2000 years ago. I have made great inquiry these 20 years past for similar inscriptions to those of the Dighton rock; but could never find accounts of any on the Litoral Tract, or Seacoast from Newfoundland to Florida; nor indeed in the interior parts of the Continent.

[He has heard of one at Lake Erie,203 and suspects it may be similar to those at Scaticook and Dighton.] In which case I should consider it a third specimen of the Dighton Rock Sculpture. All which would shew, that there once was a people, or the detachment of a People, which traveld on 40^th deg. of Latt. from Narragansett thro’ Scaticook to Lake Erie at least, if not beyond; & in their way charged a few rocks with a Character, antiently familiar to some Nation in Europe or Scythia, altho now lost for probably 3000 Years. [He mentions other reported rocks, Indian markings on trees, stone idols, etc.; and says the inscriptions should be collected.] Perhaps, tho’ never to be read, they may lead to Deductions of considerable moment, in tracing out the Dispersions and Originations of Nations.

It is very evident that Dr. Stiles was indeed liberally “carryed away into imagination and conjecture.” Like almost every one else at the time, he was convinced of the great age of the inscription, and was appealed to by the more speculative rather than the more conservative possibilities. This being true, there is nothing very extraordinary in his conjectures. They offer rather an illuminating exhibit of the limitations of knowledge and the kind of evidence widely accepted as valid in his day. Since then, the “general Inquiry” that he desired to stir up has taken place, in part perhaps as a result of his influence.

Abiel Holmes, in his Life of Ezra Stiles, published in 1798, gave a brief summary of opinions about the rock that were then held. After mentioning the copies by Stiles and Sewall, and the Carthaginian theory of Gebelin, accepted by Stiles, he continues:

Others suppose it rather an hieroglyphic inscription, than an alphabetical character, and that, therefore, it may be the work of the Chinese, or Japanese; while some seem inclined to conceive of it as nothing more than the rude scrawls of some of the Indian tribes, commemorating their military atchievements, or hunting parties.204

Samuel Harris’s Hebrew Theory, about 1807

Before the close of the eighteenth century a number of Oriental scholars had made a study of Dighton Rock, and it is probable that they sought eagerly and diligently to discover Oriental characters among the marks represented as engraven upon it. Of the Mr. La Croze from whom Greenwood expected so much, we hear nothing further. Gebelin was the only one thus far who seemed to have succeeded. It remained, apparently, a continued puzzle to Dr. Stiles, although he “compared it with all the oriental Paleography;” Kendall assures us, on the authority of Dr. Bentley, that “professor Sewell had seen nothing on the rock, which reminded him of any ancient alphabet;” and Sewall himself, as we have seen, regarded it as the work of Indians, although he later mentioned the Phœnician theory non-committally to Gebelin. The latter mentions in this connection the well-known story of Diodorus, to the effect that venturesome Phœnician sailors were driven by a tempest and came to an island many days’ sail westward, where they found navigable rivers, fertile soil, and many houses. Early in the nineteenth century a new and apparenly fruitful attempt was made to compare the old alphabets with the Dighton characters, and to wrest from the latter their hidden meaning. This was done by Samuel Harris, Jr., of Boston, who, if we may believe the enthusiastic praises of his contemporaries, must have been the most incredibly profound linguist of all times. He examined Winthrop’s copy of the inscription, probably about 1807, and found on it a number of Hebrew words written in the old Phœnician characters. Whether he believed that the rock was a confirmation of the theory concerning the Phœnician sailors, or of that connecting the Indians with the Ten Lost Tribes, we cannot be sure.

The first mention of Samuel Harris in this connection seems to occur in the Diary of William Bentley, under the date of October 13, 1807:

I had the company of Mr. Kendall, an English Gentleman visiting our country. He gave me the best view I had ever had of the Dighton Rock. . . . I shewed him Mr. Harris’ letter & the authority of the Palmyrine Characters to which the Marks were compared. Mr. Kendall saw no resemblance of the letters. I maintained that it always stood at the edge of the water from his account of the river near it, & the Ohio rocks with marks are in the same position & these rocks he intends to visit.205

Samuel Harris was born in Boston, May 12, 1783. He had a short career of great brilliance and promise; but was drowned while still a student at Harvard, on July 7, 1810. Dr. Bentley first makes mention of him in his Diary on September 18, 1805. Thereafter he speaks of him a number of times in the Diary.206 When he first knew of him, Harris was “a self taught young man,” an engraver “who has displayed taste in his profession.” “From his extraordinary attainments” he was “assisted in a public education.” “I expected in him the Greatest Orientalist our Country has ever produced. He was a modest, inquisitive, indefatigable man.” He also tells us that Mr. Harris furnished him with “many curious letters” (alphabetic characters); and this fact seems to make it finally clear that, in spite of the allusion to the Ohio rocks, Samuel was the Harris he spoke of in the passage quoted. This is of importance only in that it is the only indication as to the approximate date of Samuel Harris’s interest in Dighton Rock.

Plate xxv

BAYLIES-SMITH-WEST-GOODING-BAYLIES DRAWING, 1789, SMITH-STILES COPY

DRAWING OF 1789 SMITH-UPHAM COPY

engraved for the colonial society of massachusetts from the original in the possesion of the massachusetts historical society

We learn more concerning him in the laudatory notices which appeared on the occasion of his untimely death. Accounts of it are given in the Columbian Centinel of Boston,207 and in the Harvard Lyceum.208 It appears that he entered college at the age of twenty-five as a Junior Sophister in 1808, after only thirteen months of preparation.209 “His attachment to oriental literature began beyond his own remembrance. . . . He made notes of all curious facts. At the age of 16, he had amassed an incredible number of manuscripts.” He had read everything accessible in ten Asiatic languages, and had a moderate acquaintance with others; was perfect in Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and could read other European languages. He was “a philosophical linguist, an accurate philologist, a complete historian, a profound antiquary, a perfect mythologist.” As an antiquary, his “researches were almost unbounded and inconceivable.” He left behind an “immense mass of manuscripts. . . . Among his papers, there are some facts respecting American antiquities, which are peculiarly valuable, and whose loss would probably be irretrievable.”

It was this extraordinary being, too learned for full credence in his inconceivable attainments, who was to make luminous the long veiled mystery of the Dighton message. I am sorry to say that the result will disappoint us. All that has been reported of his actual views is given in the following passage from Kendall:

A Hebrew scholar, in Boston, has made a drawing from Mr. Winthrop’s drawing, (for the rock he has not seen,) in which he shows that one of the figures is a king; another, his throne and canopy; a third a priest; a fourth an idol, a fifth a foreign ambassador, &c. and, in the intervening parts, he points out Hebrew characters, composing words, which words explain the figures; as the king — the priest — the idol. . . . A single glance at the rock would have robbed him of all disposition to support the hypothesis.210

To this we can add only the statement made by Edward Everett, while Governor of Massachusetts, in a review of the Antiquitates Americanæ, to the effect that “the late Mr. Samuel Harris, of this city, a very learned Orientalist, thought he found the Hebrew word melek (king) in those characters, which the editor of the work before us regards as numerals signifying CXXXI.”211

In the Library of Harvard University are preserved all that are known of the manuscripts left by Harris. The papers on American antiquities, considered as so precious by the writer in the Lyceum, are not among them. There can be found only one sheet which offers any clue at all that might aid in the attempt to view the inscription through Harris’s eyes.212 We need not entertain any thought of a possibility that Harris’s theory is correct; and yet we cannot be content to leave it without doing our best sympathetically to understand it and to see what he thought he saw. Consequently I have studied this sheet with much care. It contains a column of characters that are labelled “American,” and that have been copied from such parts of Winthrop’s reproduction as might be thought to have an alphabetical value. It is evident that Harris regarded them as ancient Phœnician forms of Hebrew letters. At first sight the list does not give much promise of being serviceable to us; and I could make nothing of it until it occurred to me that it might be arranged in alphabetical order. In this case, the first character, resembling an x, would be Aleph; the last, presented in the two forms N and T, would be Tau. With this as a starting point, and assuming that wherever two or three forms are given together they are to be taken as variants of one letter, I assigned a plausible value to each of the characters in Harris’s list, by comparing it with tables of ancient forms of Hebrew letters given in a book nearly contemporary with Harris,213 and with such lists of Phœnician characters as Harris himself had compiled,214 two of which are “Palmyrine” and may possibly be the ones to which Bentley referred. Five letters of the Hebrew alphabet were of course left out, as the list is that much short of completeness. Then I looked into a Hebrew lexicon215 for equivalents of the words that Harris was reported to have found. Among: them, the following were given: for ambassador, ʽBD or ShLCh (to be sent); for idol, TzYR; for priest, KHN; for king, MLK. In my table of equivalents, the Y or yod is omitted, hence TzYR would become TzR; the B is like a figure 9; D like 4 and the other character with it on the list; H like the inverted F; K like 6; L like L or V (and also like inverted forms of these, in some of the variants given by Kopp); M like M; N like the next following character, an O with a vertical line above it, or a lower case d; ʽ(Ayin) has three forms, one an outline cross; Tz is somewhat like Y; R like the third character from the bottom, an O with a vertical line running downward from it; Sh like the trident; and Ch probably like the eighth character from the top, immediately above the 6.

If now we examine the Winthrop drawing, we shall find at its extreme left the cross form of Ayin; a little below and rightward, two curved lines that might be regarded as imperfectly formed 9’s, and thus two B’s; and to the right of them the two forms of the: letter D. If we assume that the ancient artists might write their words indifferently either right to left or left to right, this may be read. ʽBD, ʽBD, “ambassadors;” and the two human figures at the extreme right will doubtless be their portraits. The other name for ambassador may also be found, if one is good-natured enough to overlook its inexplicable dismemberment, in the trident (Sh) near the right-hand upper end, the L to the left of the head of the seated figure, and the character for Ch just below the L. The large human figure at’the left represents the idol; and leftward near its head we find unmistakably the letters TzR, “idol.” The small human figure at its feet is the priest. To the right of him is an O with a short vertical line considerably above it, which together may be an N; the inverted F is an H; and a 6 or K with triangular body can be separated out of the complex figure next to the right. Thus we may possibly have here a very poorly formed KHN, “the priest.” Near the centre of the drawing is a clear M; to its left, a sort of inverted V or L; and next leftwards, with its lines running on unnecessarily into other figures, a 6 with square body, or K. This is probably the word that Harris interpreted as meaning “Melek,” king. The human figure rightward from it is doubtless the king himself. Above his head is a combination of triangular figures, easily taken as representing the canopy; and lines running downward from it, terminating in a sort of seat, form the throne. The king appears to stand in front of the throne, under the canopy. If wide separation of letters counts for nothing, a much more satisfactory MLK can be found in the same M, an L below it, and a perfectly formed 6 much below that.

I find no other plausible combinations that might be taken as Hebrew words. What I have given are rudely drawn, and their interpretation far fetched. It may well be that, having no knowledge whatever on this subject except such as an unskilled amateur may readily glean from a very superficial examination of a Hebrew lexicon and a few lists of ancient characters, I may have failed to reproduce the vision of Samuel Harris. Nevertheless, I can find nothing else whatever on Winthrop’s representation that I can twist into any resemblance to Harris’s ideas; and I have found in a fairly plausible manner all the words that he is reported to have seen and all the symbolic figures that he is reported to have interpreted. I offer this, therefore, for what it may be worth, as a serious and detailed reconstruction of what Harris is said to have seen. With knowledge of so many other highly fanciful readings of the stone’s mysterious message that have been seriously advanced both before and after this one, I do not hesitate to believe that Harris would have been capable of advocating such a one as I have given. But we must agree, of course, with Kendall’s judgment that there is no soundness in it. It is merely a psychological curiosity, and as such deserves our best attempt at restoration. It is regrettable that Harris’s own exposition of it cannot be found, for that would be interesting reading.

Edward A. Kendall, 1807

In 1807 and the following year there travelled through the northern part of the United States an Englishman, Edward Augustus Kendall, whose intelligent observations on what he saw were embodied in a three-volume description of his travels. He was particularly interested in sculptured rocks, several of which he personally inspected; and to Dighton Rock he made several successive visits. His conclusions concerning them are given in a published letter that he wrote in 1807,216 and in the record of his Travels.217 In all the history of observation, depiction, and speculation concerning this subject, no one has surpassed and few have equalled this English traveller in freedom from ill-supported imaginings, in accuracy and detail of observation, in saneness of judgment and soundness of argument, in fulness of treatment and in correctness of feeling for what constitutes scientifically warranted hypothesis. Except that there is a much larger accumulation of pertinent facts at our service now, though these have not yet been brought together comprehensively and exhaustively, we might almost appeal to Kendall as a final authority to-day. Moreover, he was the first person to portray the lines of the rock with the faintness and uncertainty that characterize the originals; and consequently, in truthfulness and absence of unreliable personal interpretation and distortion, his picture is surpassed only by the Burgess photograph, secured by a method which was not available to him.

Nearly all of his discussion is still of importance; but the two accounts can be combined into one, and I will further condense it as much as I can. The rock, he says, is an insulated mass of finegrained gray granite or grunstein.218 Its foot, in front, is ten or twelve feet from low water mark, and its top is covered at extreme high water, to a depth of two or three feet or more. The face measures eleven feet seven inches at the base, five feet one inch in extreme height, and is inclined at an angle of about 60° to the horizon. The thickness increases from one inch at the top to about six feet at the base. The weight, he conjectures, is five to six tons.219 The base is sunk to a small depth, in some parts perhaps two feet, below the surface of the soil.220 The color externally varies from dark purple red above to lighter gray or green below, according to the duration of its exposure to the air; internally, it is light gray. The smooth face is due to nature, not to artificial smoothing and fashioning. The lines are pecked in by a pointed tool, harder and less brittle than the very hard and brittle rock (M 165–169, 189).221 In all probability, the tool was of no better material than stone222 (T iii 211). The depth of the lines never exceeds ⅓ inch, their breadth varies, from ½ to one inch. They are cut en creux, that is, hollowed not in triangular form as by a chisel, but in the form of a segment of a cylinder (M 170). They are “sufficiently conspicuous to attract notice, from the deck of a vessel sailing in the channel of the river” (T ii 223).223 The sculptures at the base, if such there were, are now entirely worn away. A little above, they discover themselves but faintly; while those at the summit are very perfect (T ii 222).

He does not believe that the level of the soil immediately surrounding the rock has materially altered, and shows the absurdity of James Winthrop’s claim that the people, by digging around it, had let in the tide upon the rock. “The rock obviously stands as it originally stood.” As a reason for its intermittently submerged position, he suggests that preference may have been given “deliberately to such, as were actually liable to be overflowed. . . . A river was the only highway; and a rock, placed out of the reach of the tide, would have been speedily overgrown” (M 178).224 As to the surface of the rock and the clearness of the inscription, he is convinced that “no material alteration, within the preceding century, has really taken place. The decay no doubt is continual; but it is very slow” (M 187).225 He believes, therefore, “that this is a monument of an antiquity antecedent to the settlement of Europeans on this continent; and I am of opinion, that it is of an antiquity considerably higher” (M 173; T ii 229).

Plate xxvi

DRAWING OF 1789 GOODING COPY

from the original in the possession of miss sophia f. brown

DRAWING OF 1789 WEBB COPY

from antiquitates americanae, 1837, tab. xii, no. viii. engraved for the colonial society of massachusetts

In discussing the artistic merit of the work, Kendall draws some conclusions that do not fully convince me, since I lack sufficient technical knowledge, and must leave the question to expert opinion. “The execution,” he says, “is nothing extraordinary; but it is not entirely unworkmanlike” (M 169). “The figures are less ill drawn, than they are uncouth and unaccountable. . . . The want of will is more certain, than the want of capacity. The curved lines have a freedom not to be equalled by every hand among ourselves.” But the existence of curved lines in sculpture, he believes, proceeds “from imitation of the other graphic arts, in which the material and the instrument used are of a nature to give less check to the suggestions of the fancy.” Hence he concludes that the design of this rock “has proceeded from an artist not unacquainted with pen or pencil; or at least from one, whose taste has been influenced . . . by the use of those instruments, in other hands than his.” The presence of pedestals for each of the three figures bearing human heads also argues for acquaintance with more perfect forms of art (M 171 f). “This artist was not the most accomplished workman of his tribe. I could even believe, that he was without the usual and convenient tools and instruments. I think that he was not unacquainted with works of art, of a better and higher character” (M 180 f).226

Of the particular figures in the inscription, Kendall discusses only one at length. This is the quadruped near the centre, which Gebelin called a beaver, and which has since then been variously interpreted as a deer, a bull, a lynx, a leopard, a map of the Atlantic coast of Europe, and the constellation Pegasus. Kendall’s opinion of it is interesting. “Its body is crossed, in nearly equal divisions, with bars or stripes. It is spotted. Its head is long and delicate. It wears horns. Its feet are paws. Already we see reason to suspect, that this is a creature of fancy, made up of members of different animals; and this must assuredly be the case, if the line above its back, and which is wanting in all the previous draughts, forms, as it strikes the eye, the wing of an insect” (M 183).

A number of legends having some bearing on the origin of the inscription were collected by Kendall, and are worthy of preservation. The first seems to be a variant of Danforth’s story of the “wooden house;” the others make their first appearance here. “As to traditions, there is, though but in a few mouths, an Indian tradition, which purports, that some ages past, a number of white men arrived in the river, in a bird; that the white men took Indians into the bird, as hostages; that they took fresh water for their consumption at a neighbouring spring; that the Indians fell upon and slaughtered the white men at the spring; that, during the affray, thunder and lightning issued from the bird; that the hostages escaped from the bird; and that a spring, now called White Spring, and from which there runs a brook, called White Man’s Brook, has its name from this event” (T ii 230; M 182). Kendall found the spring, about a quarter of a mile to the northeast of the rock, and the brook entering Taunton River a little above the rock.227 One neighbor told him that it was a hot spring; another, that it was intensely cold; while he found it of ordinary temperature. No one in the vicinity was acquainted with the legend of the bird, but another story was given him to account for the name, to the effect that a white hunter, being overheated, drank from the spring and died in consequence (T ii 230).

Respecting Asonet neck, on which the rock is seated, the tradition is, that it was a place of banishment among the Indians;228 but whether’ the practice of banishment was known to the subjects of King Philip, I leave to those, who are more conversant in Indian polity. . . . The tradition of the bird may have some foundation in the adventures of an early exploring voyage; with another relation, that a ship’s anchor, nearly eaten away by rust, was many years since discovered near this place; and with the still more obscure account of a ship’s ribs, which lay and rotted there (M 181 f).

According to some, one of the first English vessels that navigated these seas passed a winter at the anchorage near this spot; and the sculptures, as they say, are of the workmanship of the crew: or an English vessel (as the story is changed) was stranded here; and the rock was sculptured in memory of the disaster (T ii 224).

In our survey thus far, we have met with a number of more or less definite theories as to how the inscription originated. Douglass believed, Berkeley, according to the English Review, was told, Lort inclined to accept, and Greenwood denied, that it was the work of nature only. Samuel Harris seems to have believed, and Samuel Sewall may have entertained the thought, that it was due to the Indians as descendants of the Lost Tribes. Smibert, Stiles, and T. M. Harris held that some at least of the Indians were of Tartar origin; and Vallancey argued that as such they made the writing. Apart from views as to their origin, the Indians were held responsible for it by Cotton Mather, according to Douglass, by Lort at first, by Professor Sewall, and by George Washington; though none of them gave any detail to this view. Others who mentioned or denied this theory will be discussed below. Some view of Oriental origin was apparently held by Greenwood, and was doubtless entertained by many others; it was given definite form in the Carthaginian-Phœnician theory of Gebelin, suggested by Professor Sewall and accepted by Stiles. I have found no one who advocated the Chinese or Japanese as the artists, but the theory is mentioned by Professor Sewall, by Gebelin, and by Holmes. Prince Madoc is mentioned by Stiles, and must have been suggested by some as the author, because Kendall expressly rejects him. Early European sailors appear as possible claimants in the traditions enumerated by Kendall.

Several motives were assigned to the Indians for the sculpture, — though not every one who mentions them himself accepts the theory: that they did it in idle sport (Greenwood; Sewall; John Winthrop); in sharpening their arrows (Greenwood; Berkeley according to Du Simitière); as a memorial of some solemn occasion (Greenwood); as a record of hunting (Holmes) or of battle (John Winthrop; Holmes). Definite denials of the possibility that the Indians could have done it were based by Greenwood and by Gebelin on the arguments: that they were too lazy; that they left no other similar monuments; that they possessed no adequate tools; that it was beyond their skill; that they had no knowledge of its existence or nature; that it depicts objects unknown or unfamiliar to them.

To these many theories Kendall adds two that are new, though the first was vaguely suggested by James Winthrop’s tale of the search for treasure. “The unlearned believe that the rock was sculptured by the order of a pirate,229 either Captain Kyd or Captain Blackbeard, in order to mark the site of buried treasure; and the shore, for more than a hundred fathom on a side, has been dug, in the hope of a discovery” (T ii 223). “It is, I believe, acknowledged, that forty years ago much labour was expended in digging about the rock with the view described” (M 179). The second theory is this: “Some Mohawk Indians, having been shown, as it is said, a draught of the inscription, declared its meaning to be, that a dangerous animal, represented by the animal on the rock, had been killed at the place immortalized; that the human figures represent the persons, whom the animal killed; and that the others denote other parts of the affair.230 An objection to this interpretation will be perceived . . . in the trivial appearance and humble situation of the animal, which it is attempted to make the hero of the piece” (M 182).

Here is an extraordinary collection of theories clustering about the old rock like barnacles. Kendall proceeds to clear them all away as worthless, except the one acknowledging the Indians as the responsible parties. This view he develops and defends in much detail. “There is not, in reality, the smallest reason to doubt, that these sculptures are of Indian work” (T ii 224). “I am decidedly of opinion, that this monument is in no respect derivable from the opposite side of the Atlantic. I discern in it nothing of the alphabets, or the drawing, or the taste of Europe, or Asia, or Africa” (M 174). Moreover, the existence of other similar rocks in the interior of the country is fatal to this theory. If we look to a “nation more ancient and more cultivated, than the Indians, inhabitants of this country, . . . they have left nothing behind to give a tongue to their works” (M 180). “I am of opinion, that it was wrought on some solemn occasion, or for some solemn purpose, either civil, military, or religious. It may be a memorial, a monition, or an offering of piety” (M 173). “I confess myself but little sanguine, as to the prospect of interpreting, in any minute manner, this inscription” (M 190). This elaborate monument of an unknown transaction is unreadable, as are all historical representations or sculptures, without first knowing the story it is intended to portray. Any sculpture, representing, for example, the Death of Hercules, or the Judgment of Paris, “would be unintelligible, as to its historical part, if we were not previously acquainted with the action which it is intended to describe” (T iii 214). As the main support to his belief, he describes some simple sculptures on rocks at Bellows Falls. “It is to these sculptures that I appeal, as to conclusive evidence of the Indian origin of the Writing Rock. They are too rude, too insignificant, and too evidently without depth of meaning, to be attributed to Phœnicians or Carthaginians. No person will . . . contend, that there is anything, here, above the level of the Indian genius. But, if Indians were the authors of these sculptures, then Indians were the authors of the Writing Rock also. The style of drawing is the same; the style of sculpture is the same. . . . From these sculptures it appears, that . . . the ancient Indians had instruments with which they were able to cut even granite. . . . These sculptures, so obviously the work of idle hours, and for the accomplishment of which the rudest artist, once provided with a tool, must be allowed to be competent, supply us with the fact, that the Indians were able to sculpture rocks, and that when they did sculpture them, the sculpture resembled the sculpture of the Writing Rock” (T iii 205 f). Confirmatory evidence is found in the existence of a sculptured tree of known Indian origin, and in a list of thirteen Indian sculptures in America (T iii 207, 221).

There were rumors of another sculptured rock close by the one under discussion. Several persons had heard that a little to the south and further out in the stream was a more fully inscribed rock. All persons agreed in naming as the author of this account a Mr. Perry, who for fifty years had visited all the rocks in the stream in search of oysters. But Mr. Perry had never seen such a rock, and on the score of his experience, he denied that any such rock was to be found. “It turned out, that no sculptured rock had been discovered; if we except a slab, which lies to the southeast of the former, within the distance of twenty feet. On the upper corner of this is a figure, resembling a cross, or the letter X, and one or two others” (M 183); the others being 00 (T ii 231).231

Kendall sharply and justly criticizes the earlier drawings of the inscription. “All the copies differ, in extraordinary particulars, from each other and from the original. . . . It must be inconceivable to those, who have never seen the rock, that these differences can appear in the draughts, without impeaching the veracity of the gentlemen, by whom they have been severally made. Nothing however is more possible. Some of the errors indeed are such, as can have proceeded only from haste and inattention; but a great majority are consistent with the most elaborate but ill directed endeavours.” When the supposed lines of the inscription are marked with printers’ ink, as James Winthrop did it, or with chalk, as was done for so many of the earlier drawings, and these lines are then copied, “it does not follow, that the figures are the same with those, engraved upon the rock. The chalker is in the situation of a restorer of ancient readings; he undertakes to connect and to supply; but the real antiquarian will prefer the original, with all its obscurities and chasms. An attempt at restoration is one thing, and may be valuable; but a true copy is another. I attempted the use of chalk myself; but I found that I completely confused the sculpture,232 and that the first thing necessary was to wash all the chalk away.233 The inscription is to be copied only with the pencil” (M 185 f). “The diversities of the copies . . . are not always to be attributed to the fault of the copyists, but often to the obscurity of the sculpture, in which every man will see something different from every other. Under these circumstances no perfect copy can ever be made” (M 189). “Another occasion of diversity in the drawings is the style of execution. Professor Sewall’s drawing . . . is performed with a feeble and hesitating hand, and therefore greatly injures the original, in which the lines are bold and determined. Mr. Winthrop’s impression . . . shows only a congeries of disjointed members; whereas, in the original, the whole is connected and complete. Judge Baylies’s drawing, on the other hand, is finished with all the graces of penmanship, and hence enhances the flow and freedom of the design, as well as the neatness of the execution” (T ii 227). The divergences in the copies cannot be due to the wearing away of some of the figures, for the decay of the rock is too slow, and, moreover, some figures are shown only in the later drawings, others are presented with greater distinctness in them, and still others are wanting in the intermediate drawings only (M 187).

He adopted an entirely new method in producing his own sketch, done in oil. It presents fewer and dissimilar figures, as compared with earlier draughts. This appearance is due in part to the fact that figures drawn in black upon a white ground appear fuller than in a finished picture; partly to his inability to discover all, that some gentlemen have seen. But it arises especially —

from my willingness to leave in indistinctness, obscurity, and invisibility, what is indistinct, obscure, and almost wholly invisible, on the rock. The figures, which are distinct in my transcript are distinct in the original. To these I have given definite forms; while in the other instances my chief care has been to depict the obscurity of the original. If you find yourself obliged to approach close to some of my figures, and can at last arrive at no certainty as to their outlines, I must beg you to remember, that this will always be your situation, when examining the rock itself. If, on the other hand, I have sometimes made definite that, which in the original is undefined; if I have rendered incapable of being seen in more than one form that, which on the rock may be seen in twenty, my excuse must be found in the extreme difficulty of the attempt to make a representation of any object, without giving it a shape. . . . My sketch contains many inaccuracies; some in the colouring; some in the outlines and fissures of the rock; and some in the figures themselves; but notwithstanding, I believe it to be free from important errors, such as might frustrate my design of conveying a faithful idea of the contents, style, execution, and, condition of the inscription (M 184 f).

Kendall was firmly convinced of the value of this monument and that it ought to be preserved. He strongly recommends its removal, or at least that of its sculptured face, into the care of some public establishment in Boston. Not many years later, both Yates and Moulton and the reviewer in the North American Review, who will receive attention shortly, also urged that steps be taken toward its securer preservation.

The engraving which accompanies the letter in the Memoirs, made “from Mr. Kendall’s painting, or representation in oil colours” (M 189), is bound in at the back of the volume, and measures 9½ by 23 inches. Like the painting as he describes it, it carries out his intention of leaving indistinct and obscure what is indistinct and obscure on the rock, and thus possesses a merit and reliability lacking in nearly all other reproductions. The possibilities of the photographic art, and the fortunate production of one photograph among them all without chalking of the rock, alone made it possible to improve upon his result. What appears to be the original painting, to which the engraving, probably, is very faithful, is preserved in the Peabody Museum at Harvard University.234 It conforms in every way to Kendall’s description, including the following feature: “The lower corner, on the left, being fractured, I have made use of the space, to introduce a reduced figure of the whole rock.”

Plate xxvii

HARRIS’S COPY, ABOUT 1807, OF THE ALPHABETIC CHARACTERS SHOWN ON WINTHROP’S DRAWING OF 1788

engraved for the colonial society of massachusetts from the original in the harvard college library

Both painting and engraving, reproduced by photogravure, are shown in Plates XXVIII and XXIX. With these should be compared the reproduction made by Rafn in the Antiquitates Americanæ in 1837, which unfortunately has been used instead of the engraving in the Memoirs as the basis of later reproductions. This one I do not show, but it is closely followed in the cut that appears as one of the nine in Mallery’s plate shown in Plate II of my earlier paper. Comparison of the latter with Plates XXVIII and XXIX will show how badly Kendall has been misrepresented to all modern readers. It is not Kendall, but Kendall interpreted and made clear, and therefore falsified. It will be noticed that it lacks the “insect’s wing” on the quadruped, which is one of the features that he particularly mentions; and is wholly untrue to the original in that it neglects his chief care, to leave the portrayal faithful to its original even in its indistinctness and ambiguity. Aside from his success in this, what is worthy of chief notice in Kendall’s version is the introduction of a fuller set of alphabetical characters in the middle portion, where later observers thought that they discovered the name of the Norse explorer, Thorfinn. Kendall renders it simply “ORINX.” Of thirty attempts known to me to depict this portion of the inscription, about 85 per cent agree with Kendall as to the diamond shape that I transcribe as an O; only 2 show an R, 3 others something similar, all the rest nothing like it; in the next position, no one has anything like an F, 14 have an I, 4 others some other character, and 6 have nothing; Kendall presents a misshapen N, and all the rest nothing like that letter; in the final place, all but one give an X. Opinion is almost unanimous that there is nothing there that resembles (Th)ORFINS, ORINX, or any other definite alphabetic characters.

John Davis, 1809

In the same volume with Kendall’s letter, Judge Davis,235 to whom the letter was written, attempts an even more definite and elaborate explanation of the rock as an Indian memorial. He believes it to be the representation of a hunting scene. From the uniform correspondence of the copies, there are some figures or characters, he says, which we may conclude to be exact. “Of this description are the large triangular figures, which appear on every copy of the inscription.” They are conspicuous and strongly marked. Moreover there are several human figures, and one representation of a quadruped, in which all the modern copies agree. Davis found a clue to the meaning of the triangles in a description of a gigantic trap used by Indians in hunting deer on a large scale, given in Champlain’s Voyages. “They inclose a part of a forest with stakes, interwoven with branches of trees, and leave but one narrow opening, where they lay snares.” This space is triangular; and beyond its angle they enclose another triangle. Then, with great noise and shouting, they drive the deer before them into this trap, where some are snared, and others shot at ease. Roger Williams, also, speaks236 of from twenty to three hundred Indians hunting deer in company, driving the woods before them. Hutchinson describes a similar practice: “Besides their bows, they had other devices to take their game; sometimes by double hedges a mile or two in length, and a mile wide at one end, and made narrow by degrees, until they came to a gap of about six feet, against which they lay hid to shoot the deer, as they came through, in the day time; and at night they set deer traps, being springs, made of young trees.”237 La Hontan describes such enclosures, made on an isthmus, between two lakes.

Across Assonet Neck a trap of this sort might be framed with the same advantages as in that delineated by La Hontan; and no portion of our country perhaps was more favorable for the amusement and exploits of the hunter. Deer were, and still are, abundant.

The river, neighbouring ponds, and forests abounding in game, would render this vicinity a desirable and favorite residence for the Indians. To such places, it appears from Roger Williams, they were in the habit of resorting in large companies for hunting, fishing, and fowling, at particular seasons of the year. During the intervals of leisure, incident to such occupations, as the art of designing was not unknown and not un-frequent among the Indians of this country,238 it seems altogether natural and probable, that some one or more among the companies, successively resorting to this spot, should be disposed to make a delineation, commemorative or indicative of their favorite employment. . . . I am induced to believe, that the very apparatus, described and sketched by Champlain, was designed to be expressed by those resembling figures on the rock. . . . If this be admitted, it gives a key to the whole. The quadruped (probably representing a deer), the bird,239 which many observers find there, and the arrow heads,240 all become consistent appendages. The human figures represent the hunters: and, without any extravagance of the imagination, I think we may trace a river, with wears across it, for the taking of fish.241 . . . I think I can see the sort of noose242^. . . and the log-trap243 [described in writings which he designates. He also mentions, as probably a spring-trap made of young trees, the large figure on the left of Mr. Winthrop’s copy, with interior appendages.244 The many small circles in Winthrop may possibly represent holes in the ground, which the Indians often made near pathways in order to attract attention and serve as reminders of important events.] Other marks of more irregular form I conceive to be merely the marks or signatures, appertaining to particular tribes, families, or distinguished individuals. . . . After the arrival of our ancestors and an intercourse with them, many of the Indians were fond of taking English names. Massasoit named his two sons Alexander and Philip. Those, who were able, would be proud to employ their English name, or at least the initial, when called upon to affix their signature. I have a deed given by Wanasittas, alias Alexander, in which he signs by affixing the letter A to the seal. This may help us to account for the Roman capitals, that appear on the rock, particularly in Mr. Kendal’s copy.245 On the whole, I cannot but think it highly probable that general Washington’s opinion246 of this inscription, given when he saw a copy of it in the college museum, is correct, and that it was the work of the native Indians of our country. It appears to me to have been designed to represent and commemorate exploits of hunting; and that the characteristic signatures of some of the principal actors were added.

This interpretation by Judge Davis is worthy of more than mere passing notice. Sewall, Washington, and Kendall were the only ones thus far who had adopted the unpopular view that the cuttings on the rock were made by Indians. In spite of the poetic appeal of theories that plausibly ascribe them to some people or other of long ago and far away, we have had to recognize repeatedly that accumulating evidence is removing more and more completely all objections urged against the Indian hypothesis, and that all competent archaeological authorities now agree that there are no sound reasons for rejecting it. We need not regret this loss of any special poetic appeal, for there is infinitely more poetry in the developing symphony of the total truth than in any little melody of a particular enticing but unfounded theory. But if the Indians were the sculptors, we are naturally eager to know what meaning, if any, they desired to convey. If we do not like to believe that the rock presents nothing more than idle and meaningless scribblings of various dates, then probably we must agree that Kendall was right in saying that without knowing the exact story in advance there is no possibility that the intended meaning can be restored. His Mohawk tale is too trivial and unappealing for acceptance. Chingwauk’s expert reading, already referred to but yet to be presented in full, interprets the inscription as a record of Indian battles. It is plausible enough, but in that respect it stands exactly on a par with nearly a score of rival readings; and it depends, moreover, for its acceptability on the false assumption that one particular drawing can be relied upon in all of its details. Davis’s references to the triangular traps and to Indian signatures depend only on features common to all of the drawings, and of all suggested interpretations are at least as ingenious and plausible as any. Yet again we must say, with Kendall, that if there is any meaning there we must first know the story before we can read it.

Von Humboldt, 1810; Job Gardner, 1812

Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt makes mention of Dighton Rock in his Vues des Cordilleres,247 published in 1810. The original not being easily accessible to me, I take my account of his remarks from an English translation.248 “In the immense extent of the new continent,” he says, “we see nations which have reached a certain degree of civilization; . . . but amid these marks of civilization, and this progressive perfection of language, it is remarkable, that no native people of America had attained that analysis of sounds, which leads to the most admirable, we might say the most miraculous of all inventions, an alphabet.”

In support of this statement he appeals, among other things, to Dighton Rock, which, though he does not expressly say so, he seems to regard as a work of the natives. His knowledge of it is drawn solely from the paper by Lort.249 He says he has carefully examined the four drawings exhibited by the latter, “so dissimilar, that it is difficult to recognize them as copies of the same original.” He speaks of Gebelin’s theory, promulgated “with that enthusiasm which is natural to him, but which is highly injurious in discussions of this kind;” and of its acceptance by “the learned Dr. Stiles.”

Far from recognizing a symmetrical arrangement of simple letters and syllabic characters, I discover a drawing scarcely traced, like those that have been found on the rocks of Norway, and in almost all the countries inhabited by the Scandinavian nations. . . . From the whole of these facts it results, that there exists no certain proof of the knowledge of an alphabet among the Americans. In researches of this kind we cannot be too careful not to confound what may be the effect of chance, or idle amusement, with letters or syllabic characters.

In 1812 a new drawing was made, by Job Gardner, a resident of Dighton.250 I have found no description of the circumstances of its production. It appears to have been first mentioned by Thomas H. Webb in a letter of 1830 to Professor Rafn, printed in Antiquitates Americanæ;251 and the drawing itself was reproduced in the same work. It appears, however, to have been previously lithographed.252 It is distinctly inferior to some of the drawings that had already been made; yet I find it chosen, without mention of its author, as the basis of the illustration of Dighton Rock used by Ira Hill253 in 1831, by Benson J. Lossing254 in 1859, and by Samuel Adams Drake255 in 1875.

“Prince of Atlantis” Theory of Mathieu, 1817

Our history is enlivened now with a weird new theory, advanced “with that enthusiasm which is so highly injurious in discussions of this kind,” and supported by no other evidence than the fact that “it might have been.” In 1817 or thereabout, Charles Leopold Mathieu published in Nancy a translation of a Chinese poem,256 and included with it a disquisition concerning the inhabitants of Atlantis, whom he regarded as the carvers of Dighton Rock and the founders of a dynasty in China. I have been unable as yet to discover a copy of the book itself. But it was reviewed in the American Monthly Magazine,257 where the passages concerning Dighton Rock seem to have been transcribed in full and in the original French. The reviewer says of it: “There are some fanciful speculations, on a point concerning our own country, contained in a note, that have a boldness that commends them to consideration, and are supported by a corresponding confidence of assertion. If they fail to convince, they will serve to amuse.” Mathieu’s story is somewhat as follows.

The characters used in Chinese numeration are the same as those on Dighton Rock, which was inscribed in the year of the world 1902 (B.C. 2102), “according to the translation which I have been enabled to make by means of the art of reading hieroglyphics which I discovered.” This numeration is the same as that of the Romans, who derived it from the Pelasgians, a people who came originally from Atlantis, where they inhabited the western coast of the island. It appears to have been carried to China by that In, son of Indios, King of Atlantis, mentioned in the American hieroglyphs as chief of the expedition which had come there to make a treaty of alliance and of commerce with the Americans. Another In was chief of the eighth of the hundred first families of China in the time of Yao, in the year 2296, forty-eight years after the Ogygian deluge during which Atlantis was submerged. The Chinese, who used these numerals in their most ancient books, could not have derived them from the Romans, who were never in China. History names no people from whom they could have received them. “The fact would have remained inexplicable, had it not been for my translation of this Atlantic hieroglyph of Dighton. . . . The two persons named In were of the same family, as I will shortly prove in a book that I am about to publish.” At the time of the first mentioned In, who inscribed the Rock, Atlantis was still in existence, and its inhabitants carried on an extensive intercourse with the four quarters of the globe, thus spreading everywhere a knowledge of their language and their numeration.

Although a detailed translation is here hinted at, yet it is not given in the review. It is very likely that Mathieu’s knowledge of the appearance of the inscription was derived from Gebelin’s reproduction, and that he found his numerals and his words in the line beginning with the three X’s, and in the short line immediately underneath that. Indeed, if we disregard some connected characters, it is easy to discover the name IN in either of these two lines. But this is as far as we can go in attempting to correlate Mathieu’s tale with the characters on the Rock, unless we can find it given with greater exactness in his book.

Rémusat, Yates and Moulton, Warden, Assall, 1823–1827

Edward Everett, in the North American Review for 1820258, made an unimportant reference to Dighton Rock, and said that “if some means be not speedily taken by the friends of American Antiquity to secure it from its present exposed situation, [it] will, before long, be quite worn away by the river.” For the year 1823, we find a hitherto unpublished letter in the possession of the American Antiquarian Society, written on February 4th by M. J. P. Abel Rémusat, Secretary of the Société Asiatique of Paris, to Dr. Benjamin B. Carter of New York. The writer regards the Dighton inscription, a copy of which Dr. Carter had sent him, as one of the greatest curiosities of the kind in his collection. But he entertains no expectation that it can be deciphered.

Those who have tried to discover in such figures either Phœnician letters or vestiges of Chinese writing, are really acquainted with neither. In my opinion it is very doubtful if any letters or regular symbolic signs occur there. I know nothing that resembles these American inscriptions so much as some sculptures similarly graven on rocks along the large rivers of Siberia and of northern Tartary. Some of them have recently been published in Russia, but no one pretends to read them. It would require an Œdipus to accomplish it.

In the following year, 1824, Yates and Moulton published their History of the State of New York259 in the first volume of which, on pages 84 to 86, they discuss the Dighton Rock, accepting it as Phœnician. They refer first to a number of previous discussions,260 and quote Mathieu’s account at some length, making the curious error of identifying as one person the two Ins to whom Mathieu refers as living nearly four hundred years apart. They continue:261

Plate xxviii

Kendall’s Painting in Oil, 1807

Engraved for The Colonial Society of Massachusetts from the original in the possession of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University

From a personal examination of this rock in October, 1824, and a comparison of its characters, with those delineated by judge Winthrop and by Dr. Baylies, and from the positive resemblance of some of these characters to those described by Dr. Clark as having been found in Cyprus (see his Travels, ii. 130–131), we are inclined to believe that the Dighton inscription is of Phœnician origin. It is a connected chain of hieroglyphics and rude letters of the ancient alphabet. Of the figures given by Clark, those which resemble very much the letters and figures P. W. X. 7. 9. and those of the triangle and trident (the synonymy of Neptune), are quite apparent. There are also letters like A. M. O. and several figured images. The bird, the ancient symbol of navigation, its head directed upwards, and the circle (the emblem of eternity, or it may indicate here the full period of a voyage), we did not observe, because of slime and mud covering this part of the inscription.

The copy taken by Mr. Kendall seems to have been imperfect; and the opinion which some visiters have expressed, that the inscription was the work of the native indians, if at least of any known race, seems to be very questionable. If it had been so, is it not probable that similar inscriptions would have been found throughout the country? The present one stands alone. The natives could not render any account of its origin, when the Europeans discovered the country.262 It is probably the most remarkable relick of antiquity in North America, and it ought to be secured, so that it may be perpetuated. [Here follow references to the story of Diodorus and to certain Phœnician inscriptions which had been enumerated by Dr. Bellerman.] At present, it stands like other vestiges of a remote people, covered with mystery and hieroglyphics.

David Bailie Warden wrote a paper on American antiquities in 1825, and devoted a page or two to Dighton Rock.263 He describes it; reproduces Winthrop’s copy and mentions Kendall’s oil-painting; quotes the opinions of Mathieu and of Yates and Moulton; and concludes: “It is difficult to discover, in these strange triangular figures, either human heads, Phœnician characters, or proofs of the origin of the American peoples.”

The first mention of our Rock in the German language of which I am aware was made in 1827 by F. W. Assall.264 He says:

What Winthrop wrote concerning the curious characters on Dighton Rock, over which so much fuss has been made among the would-be wise men of America and France, deserves no further notice. I have seen many of these so-called “Written Rocks” in the western part of America, and the lines scratched upon them have everywhere been taken by the ignorant for hieroglyphics. Their overhanging cliffs served in unfavorable weather as shelter for the aboriginal hunters, who whiled away the time by scratching on their roofs and walls, with arrows or other implements, the outlines of all sorts of living creatures, as well as they knew how. These figures faded to faint traces, others were made near them and over them. White hunters, French, German and English, added distorted writings, and these in turn were gradually obliterated, until the whole took on the appearance of “curious hieroglyphics.” There were tricksters, too, who played their part, and fooled the half-educated American hunters after hieroglyphics and antiquities.

Beginnings of the Norse Theory, 1829; the Rhode Island Historical Society

On June 15th, 1829, Professor Rafn, in behalf of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries of Denmark, addressed to various learned societies in the United States a request to inform him whether any vestiges of the Norse voyages to America could be discovered. The response of the Rhode Island Historical Society was especially complete and important. A committee appointed by it, headed by its secretary, Dr. Thomas H. Webb, made two new drawings of the Dighton Rock in 1834,265 and sent long and careful descriptions. These were published in 1837 in a sumptuous volume called Antiquitates Americanae. The inscription was given a detailed interpretation, and was used as a strong support to the belief that the Vinland of the Northmen was on the shores of Narragansett Bay. Our present account demands a mention of these incidents; but their further consideration will be a lengthy one, and must be reserved for a new chapter in our history.

Ira Hill’s Jews and Tyrians, 1831

Our next authority is one of whom we may say, with the reviewer of Mathieu, that if his speculations fail to convince, they will at least serve to amuse. He adds a picturesque touch to the variety of theory that serves to keep this Dighton narrative alive and kaleidoscopic. Gebelin and Mathieu had been bold and positive enough in making their “translations,” and the latter had even fixed the date of the inscription to the exact year. But our new translator surpasses this feat, by determining it to the very month, and equals Gebelin in assigning a definite meaning to almost every mark on the rock.

Ira Hill was one of those whose waking dreams are taken as realities. The type was characterized in our study of Gebelin. Such people see pictures in jumbles of lines, and instead of then proceeding to dismiss these and see others in their place, as they easily might, the very formation of the first, whether purely fortuitous or suggested by a theory that appeals to them, at once inhibits the alternatives from arising. So they develop a more or less consistent story, and are convinced that it alone is the story that the maker of the lines intended to relate. Though put forward as a serious scientific discovery, such an interpretation contributes nothing to genuine scientific understanding of the subject it pretends to elucidate. Yet it is itself not only deserving of scientific study as a theory, but is also a work of art, and as such sometimes entitled to a due appreciation. It is thus that our Dighton Rock attains so deeply rooted and widely varied interest. It invites our attention now as a subject of archaeological investigation, again through its historical development, then as an object lesson in psychology, and frequently as demanding, not scientific seriousness and criticism, but aesthetic enjoyment.

In 1831 Ira Hill gave a fine example of one of these word-pictures.266 The colors that he mingled on his canvas were drawn from “the Word of God,” from current speculations about the Indians, their origin, and their monuments, and from his own vivid imagination. The result he hung, as so many of his kind blunderingly do, in the Halls of Science instead of in the Galleries of Art. If we simply correct this unfortunate mistake in classification, which tempts us to criticize rather than to enjoy his creation, we can contemplate the result with as unqualified an admiration as we accord to a tale by H. G. Wells or to a detective story based on the very latest psychoanalytical investigations. Like a true impressionist, he seems never to revise his lines; hence his sentences are not always grammatical, and he is not always consistent with himself. Even the drawings accompanying his text were made with an artistic impatience that prevented him from pausing to compare them with the originals and with what he had written, and thus need revision. He copied his drawings, though he does not say so, from the Job Gardner version of the Dighton inscription. Since he omitted in a few cases some of the lines that are essential in order to follow his text understandingly, I have taken the liberty of replacing the omitted portions by dotted lines in my reproduction of the four cuts that accompany his chapter on Dighton Rock.267

We need to survey nearly the whole book, in order to appreciate the setting of his discussion of the inscription. It begins with a description of the world before the general deluge and an attempt to explain the causes of longevity, of the flood, and the like. After a brief discussion of the situation of mankind after the deluge, he devotes a chapter to the first settlement of America. Here he concludes that in days as ancient as those of the reign of Solomon, Phœnicians — a mixture of Tyrians and Jews — were driven to these shores and became the ancestors of Indians. Next he describes the Indians, and then the remains of antiquity in our country. These are all “but Fac Similes of what have been discovered in the central and northern parts of Asia.” But the conclusion is not that the Tartars or the Chinese crossed the Pacific and made these monuments; but that “all the nations of the earth migrated from the Western parts of Asia, where Noah and his family first cultivated the soil near where the Ark rested when the waters subsided. All then spoke the same language, and if any modes of writing were known, we must conclude all had the same characters.” The unprogressive Chinese retained the primitive characters. So also did the Phœnicians or Tyrians, the parent stock. Hence the resemblance. As a proof that the Indians of America are descendants of ancient Jews and Tyrians “we will give a simple explanation of the characters found, when our country was first discovered by Europeans, engraved on a rock” in Dighton. “Some have pretended that they are similar to those hieroglyphics used by the ancient Pelasgians. Some have traced them back to the early periods of the ancient Trogans. Others make them out of Carthaginian origin. Some have found them of ancient Egyptian descent, while others have made them nearly allied to the old Persian characters.”268

In the first book of Kings269 it is related that the Tyrians were skilled navigators, with knowledge of the seas, and that in company with Jews they made distant voyages in the service of king Solomon. It was a company of these who made on Dighton Rock a detailed record of their experiences. The characters must be read from right to left. The two figures on the right of the first engraving, or page of the record, are designed to represent the Jews and the Tyrians. The latter are the stouter, both in body and in skill in navigation. The Jews were under their leadership or guidance, as shown by the marks at the bottom and from the shoulder of the first figure, which are as trails indicating following after. The Tyrians were soldiers or officers, as well as mariners, as appears by the weapon affixed to the breast of the figure representing them. That they were in the service or pay of the Jews appears from the character extending from the head of the latter, and passing over the head of the former. The dots and cross mark at its end represent the time of service on which they had agreed, “which according to our interpretation was twelve years.” The long, crooked and crossing lines extending from the figure representing the Tyrians, were designed to show the long and intricate voyage which the same Tyrian crew had already performed, occupying two months or moons (two dots), begun at full moon (the upper circle), during the ninth year of the reign of Solomon (the 8 followed by the curved line).

The second engraving shows the wandering of the fleet after the new voyage began. Its upper end is the east end of the Mediterranean. Some of the party left the ship here at the point indicated by a short mark. The two long descending lines are the north and south coasts of the Mediterranean, and their meeting point below represents the Straits of Gibraltar.270 At the right of the upper end of the figure is a much branching line and a short detached line, and these represent the graves or green fields of Egypt, the last land they beheld in that part of the world. The curved line joining them to the main figure is the river Nile. At the left of the upper end of the figure is a small triangle representing a battle-axe; and the detached curve to the left of it is a serpent with head directed toward the axe, — showing that the crew met a hostile nation here. The two lines which cross the Mediterranean at this upper end show that they crossed the sea from north to south, and then returned to the north; the meeting point of the two lines representing one of the ancient cities, perhaps Carthage, which then adorned the southern coast. At the lower end of the figure, outside the Straits of Gibraltar, are many leaves, vines, or branches, indicative of a fertile and pleasant country. Those to the right represent the coast of Africa, where they tarried for one moon (one dot). To the left of the Straits is the coast of Europe, along which they sailed for two moons (two dots). The first detached line here represents the Canary Isles, which they visited. The curved lines to its right and above it are the coasts of Portugal, Spain, and France. The last detached line at the left is England. The cross just above shows their intention of crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and the circle is a sign that they set forth at full moon.

The third engraving shows their wanderings on the ocean in every direction, without a compass and with much suffering for five moons (the five dots scattered within). At the extreme left is the indication of their discovering land — a branch erect over characters which denote bonds of union and of joy; and they remained four moons where they first landed (four dots at the extreme left). Some of the characters here may possibly be Masonic.

In the fourth engraving, the detached figure to the right of the head (a branch with two leaves and a cross stroke) shows that after their toils and wanderings the two peoples, Jew and Tyrian, united into one nation. The time is indicated by the lower detached figure to the right — an 8 with two marks attached above, denoting ten, and two dots within — the second month of the tenth year of the reign of king Solomon. The human figure is their king. On his breast are three dots, which may represent his heart. A line representing a serpent is in his breast, and its head is inclined to and near the heart, which clearly shows that he was a wicked man. He reigned for three moons (the three dots above his head). Then, at the date indicated,271 this first American tyrant was slain for his cruelty by means of an arrow (shown entering his head from a bow at the left). “May the example of those who first set foot upon American soil, more than three thousand years ago, be remembered by every American, and that they will not suffer a tyrant to rule over them even till three moons have finished their courses.”

Hill’s book is rare now, and its theory, so far as I have discovered, has received but the barest mention, and by one or two writers only. This fact, as well as my desire to present fully every theory and interpretation of this strange and fertile rock that can be discovered, must be the excuse for devoting to it a space so disproportionate to its importance. We are not finished yet with such purely imaginative and thinly supported speculations, but must immediately consider another one, and will meet with further examples in later chapters. Rightly taken, they serve the double purpose of entertaining us as poetic fancies, and, as “horrid examples” of scientific intoxication, driving home forcefully the lesson so hard to learn of what to avoid in scientific method.

In the year 1836, there is mention in the American Monthly Magazine272 of a stone found in Sandwich, Massachusetts, in 1833, with characters thought to resemble those on Dighton Rock. The reviewer says, however, that this turned out to be the work of an insane man, who had been allowed to ramble about in the woods, and who cut meaningless figures upon rocks. In the same volume273 is a short paper entitled Antiquities of North America, signed by the initials J. S. The same paper appears again in 1837 in another magazine,274 signed this time in full by “John Stark, Esquire, of Galena, Illinois.” He believes in the view that America was peopled from Central Asia before the separation of the continents; and that later other hordes came by way of Behring’s Straits, drove the earlier inhabitants southwards before them, and gradually took possession of the country. He describes at length the skeleton found at Fall River about three years before, later made famous by Longfellow as the “Skeleton in Armor.” “That the body was not one of the Indians,” he says, “we think needs no argument.” It may have been of the Asiatic race. “But we rather incline to the belief that the remains belonged to one of the crew of a Phœnician vessel.” He then concludes:

The spot where they were found is on the sea-coast, and in the immediate neighborhood of “Dighton Rock,” famed for its hieroglyphic inscription, of which no sufficient explanation has yet been given; and near which rock brazen vessels have been found.275 If this latter [Phœnician] hypothesis be adopted, a part of it is, that these mariners — the unwilling and unfortunate discoverers of a new world — lived some time after they landed; and having written their names, perhaps their epitaphs, upon the rock at Dighton, died, and were buried by the natives

Plate xxix

Kendalls Engraving From his painting in Oil 1807

Engraved for The Colonial Society of Massachusetts from memories of the American Academy of Arts and Science

1809 III Fig.13

Egyptian Theory of Dammartin, 1838

There remains yet one more person whose interpretation may best be examined in this connection. His exposition appeared a year after the publication of the Antiquitates Americana?, with which event we propose to begin the next chapter in this history. But for many reasons it seems better to present it in connection with these earlier theories, which it resembles in principle, than in its exact chronological order. The reader may be already wearied with these detailed but groundless translations and think them sufficiently illustrated by the cases of Gebelin and of Hill. But mankind is prone to error, and error of this particular type is very prevalent in the world still. The only way in which such worthless reasonings can be deprived of their appeal is to exhibit them in repeated instances, to balance them against one another, to show that against each one that appeals can be brought up numberless others founded on the same essential grounds that are fully as plausible as it, and that therefore each is worthless except as an interesting imaginative exercise — as an exhibit in the Halls of Art instead of in the legitimate field of Science. We cannot escape the need, therefore, of a detailed presentation of this new theory; and we may hope that it may prove to the reader as well fitted to interest and to instruct as have the theories already dealt with.

We are now about to be informed with elaborate detail that the ancient stone was carved by Egyptians, that its puzzling characters have a sacred significance, and that they represent the position of the heavenly constellations as calculated for the time of the winter solstice, in celebration of the advent of a New Year. This view was advanced in 1838, by Moreau de Dammartin, who published it, though without the plates necessary for its comprehension, in the Journal de l’Institut Historique; and again separately, with the plates, as an undated “autotype Lithograph” — a fac-simile of his hand-written manuscript — probably at about the same time.276 Dammartin is apparently ignorant of all versions of the inscription except Sewall’s, and this he reproduces from Gebelin, with a new numbering of the figures designed to facilitate reference to them. In a second plate he gives illustrations explanatory of some of his interpretations. Both of these plates are reproduced herewith.277 In order to follow his exposition clearly and to judge of its value, we need the aid of some star-atlas; and probably that of Flamsteed will serve the purpose best, since we may assume that it was accessible to him.278 It will be well, in proceeding with his own narrative, to point out in footnotes any cases in which we find him seriously in error in claiming that a particular figure on the rock can be found in the constellation named if we join its stars together by means of appropriate imaginary lines. In all cases where this is not done, it may be assumed that he is at least approximately correct in claiming a correspondence. Unfortunately, on account of its minute descriptive details, it is impossible to condense his account as much as we might wish. The following is, however, a condensation and not a literal quotation. I have wished to give enough to make it possible to follow all of his details; but the reader who does not care to do this can gain a good general idea by reading the introductory paragraph and the first sentence under each of the six numbered groups.

The explanation that we shall give of this curious monument will show that it is the work of a nation foreign to America; and consequently that this land was visited long before Columbus by inhabitants of the Old World. The monument appears to us to be a fragment of the oriental celestial sphere, or an astronomical theme for a given moment, i. e., for December 25^th at midnight, epoch of the winter solstice. We are persuaded that, even if we are mistaken in some details, on account of the probable imperfection of the copy, which perhaps offers but a feeble and imperfect idea of this monument, which is in part destroyed or effaced, yet these errors will in no way affect the general truth of our explanation. We divide the figures of the inscription into six groups.

First Group: The central and highest portion of the monument, containing the constellations and parts of constellations near the pole of the ecliptic. — The most remarkable feature of this group is the two lines crossing at right angles (1, 2, 4, 5), whose common section forms the pole of the ecliptic, as this is indicated on the planispheres projected on the plane of the equator. One of them (1, 2) is the meridian that passes from the beginning of the tail of the Great Bear and by the nose of Pegasus, a fact which led us to recognize the Great Bear in the seven stars joined by a dotted line (3). The other line (4, 5) corresponds to the meridian which goes from the Club of Hercules to Taurus. It passes by the head of the Dragon (6), separating it from the body, whereas the first separates the part which forms a loop and which is called the second vertebra (7). The curve (8) near the head of the Dragon is formed of stars constituting the left thigh, arm and side of Hercules. We have indicated by dotted lines the disposition of the Dragon about the pole. The straight line (9) opposite the curve of the Dragon appears to be a part of the Milky Way, in which is found Cygnus, whose stars form a cross (10). Beyond this line is a rude square (11) which Gebelin took to be a Phœnician letter Kaph, and which, in our opinion, represents the Chair of Cassiopea, a constellation which, according to our explanation of the origin of alphabets, has been the origin of all the alphabetic and hieroglyphic Kaphs, ancient and modern. The point outside the figure appears to designate the star of the back of the chair, situated exactly on the upper western colure. The point or small circle accompanied by a short line, higher up (12) — the line being on the projection of a straight line leading from behind the ship Argo through the two superior stars, and directed toward the star near the equator, called the thirteenth of the Ship by Flamsteed, and toward the Polar Star — can represent nothing else than the star Castor, one of the Twins, tutelary deity of mariners. Ursa Minor also is figured on the monument near the pole star, by a kind of Kaph which recalls its quadrilateral portion (13).279 To the right of the Great Bear is seen a space enclosed by three lines (14), which we suppose to be a diagram of the stars of the left arm of Bootes, including that of the shoulder. The star 16 would then be that of the extremity of the hand, which is situated on the meridian passing through the eastern node; 17, the star of the head of Boötes; 18, his staff, whose end is divided into two parts because of the stars of his right hand; 19, the star of his right shoulder placed upon a meridian.280 The line which joins this point to the other figures is a portion of this meridian, i. e., the part between the star of the shoulder and the one a little higher up on the same meridian at the level of the star of the head. The long curved line (20) is a tracing which, starting from the star of the left shoulder of Hercules (Ingeniculus, Kneeler), nearest the tropic of Cancer, passes through his neck, then through his right hand, near which it ceases, interrupted by the circular group of stars of the head of the Serpent of Ophiucus (21); begins again on the opposite side, goes round the lower stars of Corona Borealis, and rises to the star of the neck of Bootes, passing through the upper star of the meridian of the right shoulder, of which we have spoken.281

We notice here that the figure in the form of a cross, outlined by figures 6, 7, 8, 14, greatly resembles an ancient monument in Sweden. It represents a serpent doubly folded back on itself (Planche 2, fig. 1), at the centre of which is found the outlined cross of the American monument. The serpent, symbol of the Dragon of the pole, as is proved by comparison with other runic funereal monuments (Pl. 2, figs. 2–6), commemorates the death of the sun and the birth of the new sun, and thus also death in general, and the passage to a new life.

Second Group: The lower portion at the left of the monument, containing the constellations whose rising on December 25^th announces the birth of the new sun: Argo, Virgo, Hydra, Bootes. At midnight of this date the sun is in Capricorn, and at the lower meridian. Aries and Pegasus are setting in the west; and the star Janus, the Genius who opens the new year, announces it by rising. This star is at the feet of Virgo, of which it forms a part.

The most remarkable figure here is the bust of a woman (22), representing Virgo. On her breast is a sort of ancient men, or trident, formed by the tracing of the nineteen stars of fifth and sixth magnitudes which command the star called Vindemiatrix, and whose arrangement is shown (Pl. 2, fig. 7). The figure resembling a little bird, below this men, is likewise formed by stars in the vicinity of Vindemiatrix (Pl. 2, fig. 8). Two free stars are indicated by the two points above the bird. The head of Virgo is covered by a long curved line (23, 24, 25), corresponding to Hydra. The circles described by this curve (24, 25) are the Cup and the head of Hydra.282 The point terminating the line recalls the star near the equator; for the head and neck of Hydra, including the three stars separated from the head by the equator, form the Arabic figure 2, exactly recalled in the monument. Near the bust of the Virgin is the figure of the little Horus, her son. A point, recalling probably the star Janus,283 which would be on the horizon and would form part of the constellation called Mons Menalus, would be indicated by figure 26, formed of five stars arranged in a circle and with a tail whose motive is given by the stars nearest to Janus and serving to identify it. Figure 27 represents a rude outline of Boötes,284 who is called the father and the foster-father of Horus. At the top of the drawing (28) is the ship Argo, three stars of which are indicated: (1) that of the rudder, or Canopus; (2) that of the top of the mast, Procyon, the thirteenth of the Ship, touching the equator; (3) in front, Sirius, similarly represented between the horns of the Cow in a boat in the circular Zodiac of Dendera.285

If one traces the stars of the head of Virgo in imitation of the Virgin of the monument, it leaves in the centre of the figure three stars, arranged in the form of eyes and mouth, and also three other stars forming the brow, of which one touches the meridian passing through Coma Berenices. We believe we see in these stars the origin of the fillet with which the heads of some Egyptian representations of Isis are ornamented (PI. 2, fig. 9).

Third Group: The lower centre, containing the constellations on the western horizon at the birth of the sun. — The first animal is Aries (28),286 characterized in a very singular manner, as is seen in Planche 2, figure 10. The little circle terminating this figure recalls the double star of the head, which is on the meridian separating Aries from Pisces. It is certainly a poor drawing, yet the tail is a faithful representation of the stars disposed in the form of an elongated V.287 The second animal (29) is Pegasus, easily recognizable by the four points alluding to the stars of the quadrilateral. The curved line rising from its withers appears to represent the wings that are usually given to it. It corresponds also through its horns to the horned horse of the Hebrews: it is thus that they depicted Pegasus. The lines going out from between the horns are the continuation of stars included in the river of Aquarius. In figure 30 it will be easy to recognize the foot of Aquarius, separated from his body by a portion of the ecliptic (31). The curved figure 32 is the outline of stars in the lower part of Capricorn, separated from the head, here invisible, by a portion of the equator. Figure 33 is Ephaptus;288 34, the Vase of Aquarius; 35, terminating the right hand upper part of the group, is a part of the bow of Sagittarius, of his arrow, and of the meridian which separates the latter from the bow, and on which are joined both the circle of the ecliptic and the tropic of Capricorn. The point where the lines cross at 36 being the western node of the sphere, the drawing below this can be nothing else than a crudely represented part of the Whale. Figure 37, detached from all the others, recalls the Fishes and the bands that bind them together.

Fourth Group: The three figures at the right lower end, not included among the constellations, but forming the three personified decans of the sign of Capricornus.—This part of the picture is of the greatest interest, supporting the above explanations, and serving to enlighten us as to the origin of the constellations, the first elements of astronomy, the personification of the spirits placed in the celestial sphere, the causes of their various attributes, and the numberless traditions to which they have given rise.

The first figure highest up (38) is very significant. It is the god Priapus, the Faun, the great Pan, etc., and, above all, Orion. It is the latter, because this constellation is represented in the Egyptian Zodiac of Kircher by a satyr or faun with goat’s feet, with a shepherd’s crook, and with a syrinx or flute of four tubes, represented with seven on certain monuments. If one draws lines joining together properly the stars of this constellation, including also the stars of the Hare, the result will be a figure exactly like that of the American monument (Pl. 2, fig. II).289

Behind the lower part of Orion there are eleven stars, which, joined two and two by perpendicular lines nearly parallel, form the flute of Pan, or the four-tubed syrinx, ending at the tail of the Hare. If now one joins by similar lines the stars of the body of the Hare (Pl. 2, fig. 12), one will obtain an instrument with seven tubes almost as regular as the first.290 Orion was represented in this decan, the third of the month of December, because the rising of his belt announces the beginning of the year.

The second decan (Pl. 1, fig. 39; Pl. 2, fig. 13) presents a diagram of the stars of the constellation Antinous, emblem of the new sun which he precedes in rising in the morning. The eagle placed above Antinous seems to bear him in its claws. Here it is the Dolphin, which is found indicated above the head of Antinous, as can be recognized by the disposition of its principal stars in the form of the letter N. The two characters joined to the head of this decan by a horizontal line (40) should be considered as designating the attributes of the personage. We see in them a type of Bootes reversed, and of the head of the serpent of Ophiucus (21); but here this type is considered as the symbol of writing, and pronounced em chai by the Egyptians. The little mark detached from one of these figures is the expression of a little group of stars situated in the Tropic of Cancer between Corona Borealis and the head of the serpent of Ophiucus, and related in direction to two stars of the right leg of Bootes. It served as type for the sacred nail of the Romans, which they attached each year to the walls of the temple of Minerva; and may be compared to the keys of Janus and of Cybele, indicating the opening of a new era.

Plate xxx

RAFN’S REPRODUCTION OF LITHOGRAPH BY JOB GARDNER, 1812

from antiquitates americanae, 1837, tab. xi. no. vii

Plate xxx

HILL’S PRESENTATION OF THE JOB GARDNER DRAWING OF 1812, WITH DOTTED LINES ADDED BY E. B. DELABARRE

from ira hill’s antiquities of america explained, 1831. engraved for the colonial society of massachusetts

The last two figures (41, 42) grouped together as emblems of the first, decan of December are the tracings of the stars of Canis Major and of Canis Minor. These two dogs were called the Barkers or Warners. They owe their use in this decan to their position opposite that of Capricorn; for their passage across the upper meridian indicates that of Capricorn and the sun across the lower meridian. These types, so original in form, appear at first sight to have little correspondence with the celestial Dogs. However, if we put on paper in their respective places (Pl 2, fig. 14) the stars of Canis Major, except those beyond the meridian passing through the head of Procyon, whose stars should occupy this place; add to them the three lower stars of the fore feet of the Unicorn, the star of the head of the Dove and those of the Olive Branch that it holds in its beak, and then the four stars of Argo nearest the Olive Branch; and then join them together properly, we will obtain a figure exactly like figure 41, without leaving any star unused. It will be the same with the stars of Procyon or of Canis Minor (Pl. 2, fig. 15), to which should be joined the six stars of the breast of the Unicorn, and the two small stars above the head of the Little Dog. The star at the extreme right in this figure is the thirteenth of the Ship, as in figure 12. The summit of the lower triangle recalls the stars alongside the equator, and the prolongation of its hypothenuse serves to discover a small star in front of the fore feet of Sirius and placed exactly on the first meridian, as is also the star of the eye of Columba in the picture of Canis Major.

Fifth Group: the hieroglyphic zone (43) in the centre of the monument, representing the Egyptian formula EM-CHAI-EN-NE-NOUTE, which may be rendered: Here are the portraits of the gods, the divine (sacred, celestial) writings. — The derivation of this meaning is expounded at some length on the second Plate (fig. 16). All of the letters of the alphabet were derived from the constellations, and the ones that are here used owe their forms and significations to this source.291

Sixth Group: the left end, containing three monograms which appear to indicate a date. — Figure 44 (Pl. 2, fig. 18) is the hieratic-hieroglyphic group rompe, the year; 45 (fig. 19) is the number ment, ten; 46 (fig. 20) is son, day of the month; and 47 (fig. 21) indicates the number of the month — possibly the fourth, whose thirtieth day corresponds to the solstice. Figure 17 of the second Plate is another Egyptian formula for a date, placed here for comparison.

What I have tried to do, and what I wish the reader to try to do, in examining the argument of each new advocate of a theory, is to consider it sympathetically, and to see that from his point of view the interpretation is justified. Only we must afterwards realize that numberless conflicting views are justified in exactly the same manner. Considered uncritically, it is no doubt true that, without too discouraging distortion, every identity claimed by Dammartin can be verified if each figure, or in many cases each small part of a figure, be taken independently, without regard to its relation to the rest. Sympathetically and not critically regarded, every feature of Dammartin’s interpretation can find a plausible excuse for its adoption. But the secret of such success as he actually attains is evidently due to the fact that any desired figure can be found in any constellation, especially if, in difficult cases, neighboring stars are brought in to make the task easier; and that symbolism is so elastic as to make it possible to assign almost any meaning to any figure. The outlines of figure 22 can be found readily in Virgo; but the trident and bird must be considered independently, for the picture does not give them in their true relation to Virgo as a whole. The upper triangular figure is the worst in this respect.292 If we start with 8, we find it represents well the portions of Hercules claimed for it, if we hold Flamsteed’s chart 8 with its left side down. The line that goes from 8 up to the right and curves around to 21 must now be found independently of 8. Letting it start at the lower end of 8, instead of the summit of its curve, where it belongs, and turning the book a little clock-wise, we rise from the shoulder of Hercules through neck and hand (but not through arm) around to the head of Serpens, in conformity with the drawing. Now we must turn our book to its regularly correct position, at right angles to the first, in order to curve from 21 around through Corona in correspondence with the curve of 20. When we reach the extreme right of 20, we turn the book again to its second position, in order to rise to the staff of Boötes (18), which is then correctly shown. Now we turn to chart 7 and hold it upside-down (which is upside-down for chart 8 also) in order to get the rest of Boötes (16 and 17) as the drawing, according to Dammartin, shows it. By such means we could find in the monument everything that Dammartin tells us is there. But by such means we could find any desired figure in any portion of the heavens chosen at random.

In order to illustrate the truth of this assertion, I decided that I would find his figure 39 on any chart in Flamsteed to which I might chance to open the book. By pure chance it opened at chart 20, and easily gave the figure desired.293 We have only to smooth it out now

a little, even less perhaps than our author did with his corresponding figure, to obtain a faithful duplicate of the drawing in the inscription. As to giving it appropriate symbolical meaning, we should find no difficulty in doing that, as we shall realize shortly. If one example of this sort is not enough, a convincing plentifulness of others will soon be given.

Dammartin’s theory has such magnificent possibilities of novelty and charm as an addition to our collection, that it is a real disappointment to find in him so much purely fanciful speculation, so naïvely arbitrary an assumption that the particular figures found by his active imagination are surely the ones intended by the inscriber without any alternative, such a careless, high-handed, slap-dash application of his theory without regard to accuracy and consistency, so complete an adoption of the methods of his delightful but unconvincing predecessors Gebelin and Hill. It would have been a satisfaction to discover that, however freely he used his vigorous imagination in discovering desired lines among the stars, he yet refrained from violently wrenching them from their places. Had he been a true magician, and his account of the rock a Word of Power that could compel the motions of the starry worlds in their distant orbs, the resulting disjunction of their harmomous relations would have led to an utter wreck of the universe and a tumbling of all the worlds into a tangled chaos. But luckily the heavenly bodies still hold their appointed places, and his incantations were but the idle fancies of a truth-distorting dream. His account must be taken piecemeal to give it any plausibility, and we must be prepared to accept any change in the relative directions and distances of the stars in order to force them into position in our figures, to draw numerous imaginary lines marked by no real stars, to disregard entirely the relative positions of constellations.

Worst of all, after we have the theory presented we find that its meaning is too trivial to be attractive. So elaborate a depiction of the constellations should commemorate something more important than the advent of a new year. It does not take much ingenuity to devise a much better theory than that of Dammartin, along similar lines of interpretation. I have entertained myself with an attempt to accomplish this, and it may not be uninstructive to record the result and demonstrate that it can be done. If worth doing at all, then we should select a theory that will be attractive in itself and will involve a wealth, consistency and appealingness of symbolically expressible meanings that may fit all the details of the inscription; and in applying it to the latter, keep each figure consistent with itself at least.

There is nothing in the world so rich in symbolism as is the expression of a religious faith, especially if it be of a mystical order; and the deeper mysticisms or esoteric forms of all religions are, for certain profound psychological reasons, everywhere and in all times essentially alike. We can assign to our rock no more important function than to serve either as a record of some remarkable historical event, or as a chart designed by the enlightened missionaries of some superior faith to aid them in teaching the difficult mysteries of their doctrine to a barbaric tribe. Let us assume that it was for the latter purpose that the rock was carved; that it was done by Egyptians nearly 5000 years ago; and that the esoteric teachings of their faith are correctly described in any convenient source that we may select. There are two small books, one by W. K. Adams and the other by S. G. P. Coryn,294 that will serve admirably for this purpose, and we need not concern ourselves as to whether they are in any respect right or wrong in the beliefs that they express. Let us allow the Egyptian formula of Dammartin to stand as correct, for it is probably as ingenious and defensible as any that we could devise. But the rest of the inscription will represent the Celestial Sphere, not for its own bare sake, but as an aid to teaching through symbols the deep mysteries of a religion. It will symbolize the Pathway of Initiation into the Divine Mysteries, and will have three scenes: (1) The ordinary worldly life of the Unregenerate, the Dweller in Darkness, the Soul not yet awakened to aspiration toward the Spiritual Light. This will be symbolized by the constellations grouped about the northern pole of the equator. (2) The Way of Initiation, whose successive stages will be represented by the twelve signs of the Zodiac. (3) The Scene of Judgment, and the attainment of the ultimate Union with the Divine Light. Our books tell us that this was the essence of the teaching of the Egyptian religion; and something of the sort is the teaching of all Mysticism. In what follows, we will condense from the books a sufficient account of the Egyptian belief, and of the stages of Initiation, to serve our purpose; and will combine it with our other assumptions.

Scene 1: The Worldly Life. — The visible creation is the counterpart of the unseen world. It traces out the path whereby the Just passes through Initiation, Illumination, and Perfection, necessary to fit him for endless union with Light, the Great Creator. The axis of the earth is for man the prime measure of space and the standard rule of the Depths. Hence the North Star is the simplest symbol of the Universe. But about 2700 B.C., Alpha Draconis, sometimes called the Life or Judge of Heaven, was less than 10′ from the exact northern pole.295 This star could be seen, by day as by night, from the bottom of the central passage of the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Ghizeh, in 30° of north latitude, as well as from the corresponding points in five other like structures. The central point of the double triangle on the rock will therefore symbolize this star, and thus fix the date of the inscription. The lines that pass through it will represent the meridians that pass through the four points of Solstice and of Equinox, and will thus symbolize the entire Heavens, the Universe, the Great Pyramid, the whole Life of the Soul, the Light of All. About it will be grouped the northern constellations in proper array; and we can actually fit them there without very great distortion.296 Our arrangement is certainly far more consistent than that of Dammartin. We obtain it for the most part from Flamsteed’s Chart 1, filling in some details from later charts. We follow Dammartin’s copy of the inscription, except in a few details. Our figure possesses a unity of composition and meaning, which his lacks: — it is the World, in truth a World of Light, but not yet so known to the as yet Unilluminated Soul. The deviations of the figure in the inscription from this faithful representation of the northern constellations, we may assume, are no greater than would have resulted naturally from any attempt to depict them on stone so long ago.

Scene 2: The Way of Initiation and Purification. — This will be represented on the monument by the signs of the Zodiac in orderly sequence from Scorpio to Capricornus, leaving Sagittarius for later use. It will take no long examination of the pages of Flamsteed to convince us that all the desired figures of the inscription can be found readily in the constellations assigned to them, and no drawings are necessary, therefore, to prove this.297 A properly trained (or, we may better say, unrestrained) imagination, as we have already recognized, can discover any desired figure in any sufficiently complex collection of stars; and our figures are there, with sufficient closeness, if we wish to find them. We may have to remark in a few cases, as did Dammartin: “It is certainly a poor drawing, yet it faithfully characterizes the constellation;” we can plausibly attribute all deficiencies to the unskilled makers of the rock-cuttings; and our results will be far more unified and consistent and full of meaning than those of Dammartin. As to the meanings of these eleven stages (the twelfth comes into the next scene) in the Path of Initiation, of Struggling toward the Light, the following features, gleaned from our chosen authorities, will suffice. Our choice of constellations to represent the stages is not derived from them. We must bear in mind that the true Mystic can find any desired symbolism in almost anything; and so we are at full liberty to select any Zodiacal sign we please to represent any mystical stage or meaning. Yet the choice is not wholly arbitrary, but conforms fairly well to meanings usually assigned to these signs in Universal Symbolism.

The Aspirant to Initiation must first earnestly feel the need of it, through catching a faint gleam of the Light that creates, sustains and illuminates the World; and this is implied as occurring at the end of his experience with the previous scene, where Light and Orderliness are symbolized, but not yet comprehended. He must then, as a first step on the Path, pass through preliminary exercises of meditation, self-mastery, and spiritual discipline, and become “dead to the flesh,” as he has been always thus far “dead to the Light.” This is rightly portrayed by Scorpio (46), always a symbol of Death, but also of coming Regeneration. Then he is buried for a time (the mystical period of Quiet, of Silence, of “watchful waiting”), as symbol of his death and nothingness; and thus prepared for the reception of Truth. This stage is well represented by Libra (45, 44), which symbolizes Justice, but also Equilibrium, Light, and Truth. In the third stage he is permitted a vision of the end of his pilgrimage, — of Isis, the Divine Love, the Perfection that is his far-off goal. Virgo (22) is the natural symbol here. He is now a new-born Soul, who (as the infant Horus, son of the Virgin Light and Love), with Divine Strength to sustain him (for which reason the inscription gives two separated figures here [26, 25], both represented by Leo), sets out on the adventures of his new life. The seven following constellations (27: Cancer; 28: Gemini; 29: Taurus, with parts of Orion; 36: Aries; 37: Pisces; 34, 30, 31: Aquarius; 33, 32: Capricornus) will represent the Wanderings of the Soul in the Underworld, the Path to Perfection, until he reaches the Judgment of Osiris. The reconstruction of the Inner Man must be effected, and this can be accomplished only through real and bitter conflict with all of his spiritual enemies. Only by arduous preparation and conflict of light and darkness does the soul become born at last into the Eternal Light. The enemies of spiritual progress are many and strong and persistent, are often disguised as Angels of Light; and each must be overcome in turn. Their number is not restricted to seven; but for the purpose of symbolization, this number may well be selected.

Scene 3: The Judgment of Osiris. — At last the end of the Wanderings is attained. The Wanderer has overcome his foes. He reaches the gates that lead into the fields of Aanru, the Heavenly Abode, the Union with Light. We see him standing at the portal (42). Here he meets Anubis (41), the jackal-headed Opener of the Ways, he who guards the heavenly secrets. The challenge of the latter being met, he enters the Judgment Hall, where sits Osiris on his Throne (39), and Thoth, the Recorder, the Eternal Wisdom, the Mind and Will of God (38). Before them he makes his eloquent plea of being worthy. But first his heart must be weighed in the balance against the feather of the Law; and this is portrayed in figure 40, which pictures well the heart, the balance, and the feather. It also, together with figure 35, represents Sagittarius, the final constellation of the Zodiac, — symbol of the Bowman who shoots straight to his goal; and symbol also of Temperance, Balance, Equilibrium attained. This ordeal passed, and his heart being declared of full weight, he is admitted into Aanru, and receives the Crown of Illumination (symbolized by of the inscription), and is permitted to know the secret Law of the Starry Orbs and of Human Lives, developing through all their trials and changes in harmonious progression according to the Divine Purpose. Thus he comprehends at last the true Meaning, Purpose and Justification of the Universe, from which he set out in darkness in Scene 1, as is implied by the direction of the arrow placed above these figures at the right end of the inscription. His conscious Union with the Eternal Light, which is The All, is complete.

Conclusion

There is, of course, no truth in this attractive and consistent interpretation, as an actual translation of the characters on Dighton Rock. But if it is not true, then certainly its many rivals, whether of earlier date and already considered, or yet to be advanced by Magnusen and Rafn and later translators, have no stronger claim to acceptance. A full score of more or less definite translations of the rock’s message have been offered; but not one of them is founded on arguments more sound than have been advanced for this one. They will be interesting to examine, as they come along. But we shall be prepared to realize that they are all based upon the same methods of interpretation which we have in this instance arbitrarily adopted, and thus have no better right to be accepted than this one has. In fact, no acceptable meaning has ever been assigned to any of the characters on the rock; and it is very possible that they never had any very definite or important meanings. If they were not mere idle scribblings, then probably they were made at various times, very likely, though not necessarily, after Europeans had supplied iron tools, and had meanings, if any at all, that were individual, trivial, and unregrettably impossible to translate. Except to satisfy a craving for insignificant detail, there would be then no need to ask for an explanation of the exact meaning, or idle meaningless origin, of any figure.

Plate xxxi

DAMMARTIN’S “SECOND PLATE,” EXPLANATORY OF HIS INTERPRETATION

from dammatin’s explication de le pierre de taunston, 1838, planche 2

RAFN’S REPRODUCTION OF SEWALL’S DRAWING, 1768

from antiouitates americanae, 1837, Tab. xi, no. iv. engraved for the colonial society of massachusetts

In considering Kendall, I summed up the theories which had been advanced up to his time to account for the inscription.298 Our further survey has added to them, besides his own and the two additional ones mentioned by him, only a few more. That it was unreadable, however originating, was claimed by Stiles, by Kendall, by Yates and Moulton, by Rémusat, and apparently by Warden. That there were believers in Trojans, Persians, and Egyptians as its originators, we are informed by Hill. The Pelasgian inhabitants of Atlantis are made responsible by Mathieu. The Phœnician theory is advocated in a changed form, making the sculptors not Carthaginians, but Tyrians and Jews, as Hill’s own view. Yates and Moulton also are inclined to attribute the inscription to Phœnicians, and argue that the Indians left no similar inscriptions and knew nothing as to the origin of this one.299 Dammartin assigns to it an Egyptian origin, and holds that it was a picture of the constellations, celebrating the advent of a new year. Davis believes that it portrays the Indian sport of hunting by wholesale, and contains also their marks or signatures. Von Humboldt calls attention to its resemblance to markings on rock made by Scandinavian peoples, and a Committee of the Rhode Island Historical Society opens the way by a new drawing to the promulgation of the celebrated theory that was destined to appear next in order, namely, that Thorfinn the Norseman made the record in the year 1008.

Besides this last named opinion, we have yet to meet the contention by Jomard in 1840 that the inscription was made by the ancient Libyans; another advocated in 1863 that it was the work of a Roman Catholic missionary at some time about 1520; still others by Onffroy de Thoron that it had a Phœnician origin, and by Lundy that it was due to Chinese travellers; and the development of a better comprehension of what the Indians themselves actually accomplished. These later periods of discussion will not be lacking in interest. They witness the hottest and most prolific controversies that the hoary rock has occasioned; the announcement by Rafn that aroused so tremendous an interest and so protracted a dispute, influencing belief strongly even down to the present day; and the making of numerous new reproductions, including the introduction of photography. These and other features will render the continuation of our narrative at least not less absorbing and instructive than it has been thus far.

List of Plates accompanying this Paper

XIX Stiles’s Drawing, June 6, 1767, from the original in the Yale University Library
XX Stiles’s Drawing, July 15, 1767, from the original in the Yale University Library
XXI Stiles’s Drawing, July 16, 1767, from the original in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society
XXI Stiles’s Drawing, July 16, 1767, dorse, from the original in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society
XXII Sewall’s Drawing, 1768, from the original in the Peabody Museum, Harvard University
XXII Lort’s Reproduction of Sewall’s Drawing, 1768, from Archaeologia, 1787, VIII, Plate XIX
XXIII Gebelin’s Reproduction of Sewall’s Drawing, 1768, from Gebelin’s Monde Primitif, 1781, VIII, Planche I
XXIII Dammartin’s Reproduction of Gebelin’s Reproduction of Sewall’s Drawing, 1768, from Dammartin’s Explication de la Pierre de Taunston, 1838, Planche 1
XXIV Winthrop’s Full Size Impression from Dighton Rock, 1788, as pantographically reduced by him, from Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1804, II, Part II
XXV Baylies-Smith-West-Gooding-Baylies Drawing, 1789, the Smith-Stiles copy, from the original in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society
XXV Drawing of 1789, the Smith-Upham copy, from the original in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society
XXVI Drawing of 1789, the Gooding copy, from the original in the possession of Miss Sophia F. Brown
XXVI Drawing of 1789, the Webb copy, from Antiquitates Americanæ, 1837, Tab. xii, No. viii
XXVII Harris’s Copy, about 1807, of the Alphabetic Characters shown on Winthrop’s Drawing of 1788, from the original in the Harvard College Library
XXVIII Kendall’s Painting in Oil, 1807, from the original in the Peabody Museum, Harvard University
XXIX Kendall’s Engraving from his Painting in Oil, 1807, from Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809, III, Fig. 13
XXX Rafn’s Reproduction of Lithograph by Job Gardner, 1812, from Antiquitates Americanæ, 1837, Tab. xi, No. vii
XXX Hill’s presentation of the Job Gardner Drawing of 1812, with dotted lines added by E. B. Delabarre in places where some of Gardner’s lines were omitted by Hill, from Ira Hill’s Antiquities of America Explained, 1831
XXXI Dammartin’s “Second Plate,” explanatory of his Interpretation, from Dammartin’s Explication de la Pierre de Taunston, 1838, Planche 2
XXXI Rafn’s Reproduction of Sewall’s Drawing, 1768, from Antiquitates Americanæ, 1837, Tab. XI, No. IV

Mr. Julius H. Tuttle communicated several documents, speaking as follows:

In his efforts to secure a new charter for Harvard College, Increase Mather had to meet many difficulties. The tendency during the later years of his presidency to deviate from the leadership of both Increase and Cotton Mather in religious ways led to much opposition to them, which they were determined to resist. The following letter of Increase Mather’s shows his purpose to follow closely and guide the consideration of the “Law for Incorporating Harvard-College:”

S^R

I do again Return you my humble Thanks for yours of Feb. 6. 1696, which was the Last from you that I have been favoured with. I know you have your Hands full of weighty Occasions; and therefore I would not take up any of your Time with Impertinences. But you will give me Leave to beg your Favour in an Affair, wherein the Welfare of all the Countrey is concerned. It is with Respect to y^e College. I suppose I had been with you before this; but that it is necessary, that the Governour should arrive before my Going to England, that so I may have his Countenance and Concurrence in what I am to sollicit for. Wee are the Last week assured of his being at Barbados, the Winter Norewest Winds have forced him from these Coasts.300

I leave only to entreat, that you would please to Improve your Interest at Court, that the Law for Incorporating Harvard-College, which was sent over this Winter, may not come under Consideration until such Time, as I can be with you, which I hope may be in July or August next. In y^e meane Time, if I can any way serve His Majesties Interest here, you may Command,

S^r

Yo^r Humble Servt.

Increase Mather

Boston March 28. 1698

[Indorsed]

Massachusetts Bay L’re from M^r Increase Mather to M^r Blathwayt, desiring yt the Act ab^t Harvard Colledge may not be considered till his arrival.

Dated,	28th March 1	1698
Rec^d	30^th of May
Read

28 March 1698

From M^r Mather.301

Two other letters relating to the history of New England shed further interesting light on the efforts of the Mathers to displace Joseph Dudley as Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and to procure a new charter for Harvard College. Their discontent with the management of affairs of state and of the College went back to the former unsatisfactory administration of Dudley, and to a falling out on a choice of two Fellows to the corporation at Cambridge which had much displeased the Mathers. Joseph Dudley found himself in the party opposed to them, and desirous at the same time to promote the best interests of the College. Yet Cotton Mather, when Dudley became Governor in June, 1702, expressed a friendly interest in his administration; and it was thought that Mather’s letter in favor of Dudley’s appointment may have had some influence. Notwithstanding this Dudley was frank in his opposition to the wishes of the Mathers, and especially stirred Cotton to relentless, but unsuccessful, efforts during the whole of Dudley’s governorship from 1702 to 1715 to secure the appointment of Sir Charles Hobby in his place as Governor.

Various published letters from the Winthrop papers, the Mather papers, and other collections bear out these statements, and show at the same time the prominent part which Sir Henry Ashurst took in the affair. Dudley wrote to Wait Winthrop on February 11, 1707–8, “every body is sensible how I am persued by M^r Mather,”302 and a view of his own methods is given in a letter from Ashurst to Increase Mather on February 17, 1709–10: “You cannot imagine, nor I dare write, y^e wayes y^t D— takes to keepe in y^e Governm^t. I have done with yr S^r Ch— .”303 Meantime the old charter for the College had been revived.

Sir Charles Hobby, whose love for gay social life and for military distinction is known, was a Boston boy, the son of William Hobby,304 a merchant here, and Ann his wife, and was born about 1665. Nothing is known of his early days; and he was knighted, according to Hutchinson, “as some said for fortitude and resolution at the time of the earthquake in Jamaica, others for the further consideration of £800 sterling.”305 The official reason is given in the London Gazette of July 9–12, 1705:

Windsor, July 9. This Day Her Majesty was pleased to confer the Honour of Knighthood upon Charles Hobby of New-England, Esq; in Consideration of his faithful Services to Her Majesty in the Plantations.306

Sewall, under date of October 9, 1701, records the marriage of Peter Sergeant to Lady Phips, and on October 10 first mentions Hobby: “Mr. Sergeant dwells at my Ladies house and Major Hobbie comes into his”307 — that is, into Sergeant’s house, which was afterwards the Province House. In October, 1702, Major Hobby bought a house and land at the corner of Marlboro Street, now Washington Street, and Rawson’s Lane, now Bromfield Street, on the northeast side as far as Province Street. Sewall records several interesting incidents connected with Sir Charles. He was close to the Governor on many occasions, and prominent as a Colonel of the Boston Regiment, and in the Artillery Company. In the inventory of his estate taken February 7, 1715, there is given the valuation of seven slaves, “Negro James,” “Cuffy, a boy,” “Morrat,” “Mushoon a Molatto,” “Jane a Woman,” “Lucy a Girle,” and “Nancy a Girle,” amounting in all to £300. He left also, besides many items of household goods, “eight small pictures” and the following “Library:”308

	£	s	d
4 Vol: of Baxters Works in folio	4
Flavells workes		15
Kebles Justice		12
2 Daltons Justice	1	4
Bonds Justice		8
Cooks Institutes 2 p^t old		15
Townsends Histor Collect		5
Burnetts History Reformat	1
2 Vol My Lord Clarendons History	2
Echards Roman History		4
Abridgem^t: of the Statutes 4 Vol	1
A plaine Leidger	1
20 small books	1
	14	3

One interest connected with the letters here given is the entry in Cotton Mather’s Diary following the date of November 21, 1703, where he tells of the preparation of his own letter: “About this time I endeavoured several Services to my Countrey, by writing Letters, to the Lord-president of the Queen’s Council, and the Earl of Nottingham, the Queen’s Principal Secretary of State, and some other Persons of Quality.”309 Hutchinson says that “some of the most pious ministers strongly urged, in their letters, that he [Hobby] might be appointed governor instead of Dudley;” and Savage comments: “Hutchinson does not say, that his connexions the two Mathers, were writers of those letters, of which there can be no doubt.” That Savage’s surmise was correct, the following two letters prove:

I

Boston New England

Nov. 26. 1703.

May it please Your Lordship

My Relation to a person who has been sometimes admitted unto the Honour of Waiting on Your Lordship and who perpetually celebrates the Goodness and Candour wherewith you alwayes received him emboldens me to a presumption, which I durst not have Committed, if I had not been so Related and Informed.

And the Consideration which my Countrey is pleased, on many occasions to express for me, Obliges me, and almost commissions me, to Address Your Lordship, with some Representation of my Countreyes Interests:

Indeed, the Generous Temper of Your L^p, towards the people of those Dispositions in Religion at home in England, which are professed by a small Nation in those parts of America, and the service you did unto England, Yea, the Justice you did unto Mankind, in the Influence, You had upon that Act of Parliament310 upon which they enjoy so much of Liberty as they do, invites all persons of my character to speak of Your Lordship with a profound Veneration: And Your Lordship will not wonder at it, if they who are not writing of other Business, yett count it Business enough to burden you with Letters of Thanks, and even stiffle you with the number of Roses which they cast upon you.

But it is another matter that procures unto Your Lordship the trouble of these Letters.

The Gentleman who leaves them, is Colonel Charles Hobby, a Gentleman whose Capacity and Affection for Her Majesties Service, are not of the smallest elevation.

If there be now in London, as doubtless there are, persons who knew any thing of Jamaica, at the Time of his Residing on that Island, They will Report unto Your Lordship, how zealously he there served the Crown, in several posts, for many years together: and they will mention some Instances of his peculiar Courage and Conduct, wherein he did that, for which a knighthood might have been thought but a small Reward.311

Tho’ he has within a few months, by certain disasters Lost an estate of Ten Thousand pounds value, he has a Considerable Estate yett left; And the putting of That into an agreeable Condition, was the whole and sole Intention, of the Voyage he has now undertaken.

But the best Friends of New England, upon the discourse of his Voyage applied themselves unto him, with their earnest sollicitations, That he would Wait upon Your Lordship, to see, whether the Government of this province, might not be obtained for him: Inasmuch as tis understood, That the Gentleman who is o^r present Governour has rendered himself so universally unacceptable, that there is a likelihood of his Removal.

My Lord

It is by persons of the most consummate prudence among us beleeved, That Colonel Hobby will not by an Imprudent and Improper Management, cause a fatal prejudice to Her Majesties Affayres in the province.

Colonel Hobby is One who worships God in the way of the Church of Engand; and tho’ they who do so in this Countrey, are One very Little Congregation yett he is of that Congregation.

But he has propounded unto himself Your Lordships Excellent exemple for his Imitation, and he is for treating the Non-Con^g with the Respects which are due to conscientious Christians.

His Carriage has been such (and particularly in the Command of no Little part of the Militia in this province,) that he is Beloved and esteemed by all parties among us, and he has a general Reputation throughout the Countrey; Even such an One, that Your Lordship will pardon me, if I freely offer my Thoughts, That it would be sensibly for the Queens Interest, to be served by a person of such a Reputation.

I will dare to assert for him, That the Queen has not a Truer Servant in America.

He will not irritate either the Councillors or the Representatives of o^r General Assemblies, by so disobliging a way of Trampling on them, as to render them Intractable. And yett he will, with an Inviolate Integrity pursue Her Majesties Gracious Intentions.

But I have given Your Lordship too tedious a Diversion. May the God of Heaven continue Your Lordship, as a Great Instrument of Good unto more than Three Kingdomes And may he multiply the Blessings of Heaven and Earth, on Your Noble Family.

Tis the Hearty Wish of,

My Lord

Your Lordships,

Most Humble & Obedient

Servant,

Cotton Mather.

[Addressed]

My Lord Nottingham312

II

My Lord

The kindness w^ch Yo^r Lordship was pleased to show to me (& to New England) when I was concerned in an Agency for this Province, has left indelible impressions in me, of gratitude. It was a sensible Joy to me when I understood that Your Lordship was returned to that high Station in the Court of England wherein you did w^th great Prudence and Integrity serve his Late Majesty & the Nation.

It may be Yo^r Lordship will Expect that I should acquaint you with the state of Affairs w^th us. I am sorry that I can give no better an account of them. The Generality of People throughout the Province have not the Love for the present Govern^r M^r Dudly that were to be desired. The old prejudices occasioned by his former mismanagements are revived. And his Conduct since his being Govern^r, has in divers Instances been very dissatisfactory to those that have been his best friends.

Prudent men with us cannot but think that it would conduce much for the Interest of her Majesties affairs in this Province, as well as be for the happiness of her Subjects here, might they have a Govern^r that should have the Love of the People, the Consideration whereof I humbly Leave with Yo^r Lordships wisdom.

My Lord. The Bearer hereof Coƚƚ. Charles Hobby is a person of real merit whom I can freely recomend to Yo^r Lordships favour. Hee is as to his principles in Religion a Protestant of the Church of England as by Law established, but of great moderation, having a respect for dissenters who are Good men & Loyal Subjects, as I know Yo^r Lordship also has.

If in any matter, I may serve her Majestyes Interest here, or Yo^r Lordships, please to Lay Yo^r Comands on,

My Lord

Yo^r Lordships humble Servant

Increase Mather.

Boston. December 8. 1703.

My Lord

If Yo^r Lordship shall be instrumental in procuring a charter for o^r Colledge you will bring this whole province under the greatest obligations with Gratitude.313

Mr. Henry H. Edes exhibited a cut of a satirical coat of arms of the Porcellian Club of Harvard College, speaking as follows:

At the meeting of the Society in February, 1906,314 1 communicated a letter written in 1799 by Amos Kent (H. C. 1795) to his brother, Moody Kent (H. C. 1801), which contained some interesting information concerning the early history of the Porcellian Club, of which both were among the early members.

Our associate, Dr. Franklin Bowditch Dexter, has recently edited for the Corporation of Yale University a volume called Itineraries and Correspondence of Ezra Stiles. On page 419 is a cut which reproduces a drawing found in the Itinerary for May, 1794. This drawing was made in 1793 by the Rev. Dr. William Jenks of the Class of 1797, while a Freshman, and was a satire on the Porcellian Club, then in the third year of its existence. The drawing fell into the hands of Miss Betsey Stiles while on a visit to her sister Mary, the first wife of the Rev. Dr. Abiel Holmes of Cambridge, and was sent by her to her father, President Stiles. Dr. Dexter very kindly permits me to communicate these facts to the Society for publication in our Transactions, together with a cut of the drawing. The ribbon bears the legend “The Arms of the Bloods of Harv^d College.” The arms are drawn in heraldic fashion, but with some inaccuracies, the bird, which forms the crest, for instance, facing the wrong way.

The three open books on the chevron were doubtless supposed to bear the word “Veritas” upon their pages, after the manner of one of the College seals. The College bell is probably the one depicted below the chevron, which is surmounted by a beehive and bees, and by two wine casks. The supporters of the shield appear to be Indians; and the motto above the crest, Dum vivimus vivamus, is the same as that found below the coat of arms of the Club in use to-day.

The Porcellian Club elected to its fellowship eleven men from the Harvard Class of 1797; but we do not find the name of William Jenks among them. Perhaps his satire may have spoiled his chance of preferment.

Mr. John W. Farwell exhibited a copy of La Nouvelle Testament, published at The Hague and Amsterdam in 1730, which bears on the title-page the autograph of Benjamin Franklin and on a fly-leaf the statement that it was bought at the sale of Franklin’s library in Philadelphia in 1805.

1 Read but not printed

2 Read but not printed

3 Read but not printed

4 The terms “1672 edition” and “1675 volume” are used advisedly, and require a word of explanation. The word “edition” is thus defined in the Oxford Dictionary:

3.a. One of the differing forms in which a literary work (or a collection of works) is published, either by the author himself, or by subsequent editors. b. An impression, or issue in print, of a book, pamphlet, etc.; the whole number of copies printed from the same set of types and issued at the same time.

As used by me the word “edition” in “1672 edition” has the meaning given it under b in the above definition.

The word “impression” is thus defined in the same dictionary:

3.c. The printing of that number of copies (of a book, etc.) which forms one issue of it; ‘one course of printing’ (Johnson); hence, the aggregate of copies thus printed; see Edition 3b.

Sometimes distinguished from ‘edition,’ as an unaltered reprint from standing type or plates; but often used as a more general term including both ‘edition’ and ‘reprint:’ cf. quot. 1891.

The quotation referred to is from the Preface (p. 5) to the Bibliographical Catalogue of Macmillan’s Publications, and reads as follows:

After careful consideration the Publishers decided to describe as an Edition an impression from type set up afresh either with or without alteration and read for press by a proof-reader. An impression from standing type or from Stereotype or Electrotype plates is described as a Reprint.

The word “reprint” is thus defined in the Oxford Dictionary:

1. A reproduction in print of any matter already printed; a new impression of a work previously printed, without alteration of the matter.

The word “reissue” is thus defined in the Oxford Dictionary:

A second or renewed issue; spec. in the book-trade, a republication at a different price or in a different form of part of an impression already placed on the market.

If my conclusions in regard to the 1675 volume of Massachusetts Laws are correct, that volume cannot properly be described either as an “edition” or as an “impression” or as a “reprint” or as a “reissue,” or apparently by any other bibliographical term; and hence I have taken refuge in the word “volume.”

5 Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 453.

6 Vol. iv. pt. ii. pp. 467–469.

7 Vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 488.

8 Vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 514.

9 Two other extracts from the Massachusetts Colony Records may be given, the first under date of May 15, 1672; the second under date of May 7, 1673:

In ans^r to the petition of John Vsher, the Court judgeth it meete to order, & be it by this Court ordered & enacted, that no printer shall print any more coppies then are agreed & pajd for by the ouner of the sajd coppie or coppies, nor shall he nor any other reprint or make sale of any of the same, w^thout the sajd owners consent, vpon the forfeiture and pœnalty of treble the whole charges of printing, & paper, &c, of the whole quantity payd for by the ouner of the coppie, to the sajd ouner or his assignes (vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 527).

M^r John Vsher hauing binn at the sole chardge of the impression of the booke of lawes, & presented the Goūno^r, magistrate, secretary, as also euery deputy, the clark of y^e deputjes on, & Capt̄ Dauis one, the Court judgeth it meete to order, that for at least this seven yeares, vnlesse he shall haue sold them all before that tyme, there shallbe no other or further impression made by any person thereof in this jurisdiction, vnder the pœnalty this Court shall see cause to lay on any that shall adventure in that kind, besides making ffull sattisfaction to the sajd M^r Jn^o Vsher or his assignes for his charge & damage therein. Voated by y^e whole Court met together (vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 559).

10 Of this issue, a single copy has been preserved in the New Hampshire Archives, which was printed in facsimile by Albert S. Batchellor in Laws of New Hampshire, 1904, i. 811–825. It consists of four leaves, the pages being numbered 3–10, but lacks the title and has no colophon. The heading on p. 3 reads as follows:

An Order for the Holding of Courts &c. / [Seal] / By the / President and Council of His Majesties / Territory And Dominion of New-England / in America. / An Order for the Holding of Courts And Execution of Justice. / Published the 10th of June 1686.

Collation: No Title; An Order for the Holding of Courts, pp. 3–9; An Order for the Encouragement of Surveyers of Ships and Vessels, p. 9; Bounds and Power of Towns, p. 10.

On August 25, 1686, it was “Ordered That the Military Lawes be printed, also the Order for the strict Observation of the Lords-day” (i. 135). If these laws were actually printed, they may have formed part of the above issue, but no copy is known to be in existence.

The above item has been described in detail because it escaped Mr. Ford and myself when we were compiling our Bibliography of the Massachusetts Laws. The same fate befell the Explanatory Charter of Massachusetts, printed at Boston in 1726: see Publications of this Society, xiv. 399–400 and notes.

11 “The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1672, with the Supplements through 1686” (1887); “The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, with the Supplements to 1672” (1889); “A Bibliographical Sketch of the Laws of the Massachusetts Colony from 1630 to 1686” (1890).

12 Brinley Catalogue (1877), i. 109.

13 Publications of this Society, iv. 302. The British Museum and the Yale University Library also own copies.

14 The British Museum Catalogue calls this “Another edition” of the 1672 edition; and gives its place of publication as “Cambridge, New England, 1675.”

15 Cf. p. 14 note 4, below. What became of this copy I do not know.

16 History of Printing in America (1810), i. 259–260.

17 Catalogue of Books in the Library of the American Antiquarian Society (1837), M, p. 13. For the exact title of the American Antiquarian Society copy, incorrectly given in this catalogue and by Haven, see p. 17, below.

18 In Thomas’s History of Printing in America (1874), ii. 320.

19 Dictionary of Books relating to America, xi. 334.

20 State Publications (1908), p. 58.

21 Bibliographical Collections and Notes, Third Series, p. 157.

22 Charlemagne Tower Collection of American Colonial Laws, p. 63.

23 Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1906 (1908), ii. 297.

24 Publications of this Society (1908), iv. 304.

25 American Bibliography, i. 38.

26 “An Abridgement of the Laws In Force and Use in Her Majesty’s Plantations; (Viz.) Of Virginia, Jamaica, Barbadoes, Maryland, New-England, New-York, Carolina, &c.,” was published in London in 1704. It is difficult to describe this curious volume, since it has at least three sets of pagination and two sets of signatures. Near the end of the volume is “An Abridgement of the Laws and Ordinances of New-England,” filling pp. 1–104, but pp. 86, 87, 92, 96, 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, are misnumbered 87, 88, 96, 92, 10, 104, 97, 103, 102, 100. This is apparently an abridgment of the edition of the General Laws of Massachusetts published in 1672. It will be observed that by “New-England” is meant Massachusetts only: cf. Publications of this Society, xiv. 360 note 1, xvii. 70 note, 72 note 2, 92 note 7, 116, 117.

27 Publications of this Society, iv. 355–356.

28 Mr. Evans kindly informs me that his title was copied from an auction sale catalogue, though he cannot recall what catalogue. No copy is listed in Livingston’s Auction Prices of Books (1905), nor in Jaggard’s Index to Book-Prices Current_(1901, 1909).

29 The verse number ought to be “2,” and is “2” in most of the copies I have seen; but in the copy described in the text it is plainly “8.” In some copies the figure is so blurred that it cannot be made out with certainty.

30 In his description of the Church copy of the 1672 edition, Mr. G. W. Cole says: “The verso of p. 161 is blank, and is omitted in the pagination, bringing the even pages on the recto from this point top. 170, when, by omitting to number the blank page following, the normal paging is resumed” (Church Catalogue, iii. 1400). But p. 170 is the last numbered page, hence the “normal paging” is not resumed, as the Summary is not paged.

31 The Summary, as is clear from the collation, is not paged; but for the sake of convenience I have placed within parentheses the numbers that the pages would have if they were numbered. It will be observed that pp. (25) and (27) have no signatures: but seep. 20 note 1, below.

32 That is, there are nine lines not counting the word “Errata” itself as a line.

33 That is, there are ten lines not counting the word “Errata” itself as a line.

34 This fact is noted, but not much reliance is to be placed upon it since the paper used in the 1672 edition was of various kinds, there being two or three different water-marks.

35 Dr. John W. Jordan writes me: “In our copy the book list follows the title page, but this is evidently an error on the part of the binder. Our copy is not rebound.”

36 The copy of the 1672 edition owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania lacks the Summary. But in some of the copies of the 1672 edition — for instance, in those owned by the Boston Athenæum and the Massachusetts State Library — page (25) of the Summary has the signature G.

37 Pages 168–170 constitute signature Rr (see p. 17, above). If the sheets were stored by Usher with the Summary on top, then signature Rr would have been the outer sheet, and it is easy to see how that sheet might have got injured. Or perhaps the shipment to Usher was in two packages, one containing the Summary, the other the text. In this case also signature Rr would have been the outer sheet, and in some copies this might have been ruined by water or otherwise injured, necessitating a reprinting of that signature in London.

38 See A Ghost-Book, Publications of this Society, xiv. 278, 278 note 3, 279, 280.

39 See p. 11 note 5, above.

40 Usher’s Letter Book, Massachusetts Historical Society, C. 102. 4. f. 76. Though this letter is not dated, it follows one dated October 2, 1674, and precedes one dated November 19, 1674: hence it was doubtless written between those two dates. Usher means that he sent to Chiswell a remainder of 190 copies of the edition printed in 1672.

41 On Samuel Davies, see Meade, Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, i. 429 ff; Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, iii. 140–146.

42 Rev. Henry Patillo (1726–1801): see Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, iii. 196–199.

43 Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) had been installed as President of Princeton College, February 16, 1758, in succession to his son-in-law, Aaron Burr.

44 Francis Fauquier, lieutenant-governor from 1758 to his death in 1768.

45 Robert Dinwiddie.

46 Louisburg was taken July 26, 1758.

47 John Forbes (1710–1759).

48 John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun (1705–1782), whose delay and general ineptitude led to his recall. Amherst was sent in his place.

49 The Nature and Extent of Christ’s Redemption, printed at Williamsburg, 1753.

50 From the Chamberlain Manuscripts (A. 5. 56) in the Boston Public Library.

51 Probably Margaret Mitchell, the widow successively of the Rev. Thomas Shepard and the Rev. Jonathan Mitchell.

52 Christopher Read.

53 John Greenland.

54 Probably Margaret Jackson, widow of John Jackson, a brother of Edward Jackson.

55 Probably Samuel Miles.

56 From the Chamberlain Manuscripts (A. 2. 36) in the Boston Public Library.

57 The value of this document lies in the itinerary of the travellers. Many of the places are mentioned in Cuthbert Potter’s Journal of a journey from Virginia to Boston and back in 1690 (printed in N. D. Mereness’s Travels in the American Colonies, 1916, pp. 3–11), and in Madam Sarah Knight’s Journal of a trip from Boston to New York and back in 1704–1705 (Albany, 1865). See also Sewall’s Diary, under dates of April 21, 1690, and September 12, 1699; Jenkins, Old Boston Post Road (1913); 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xiii. 249.

The earliest printed description of the route from Boston to New York is the following, taken from John Tulley’s Almanack for 1698 (Publications of this Society, xiii. 220):

A Description of the High Ways, & Roads.

From Boston to New-York 278 Miles, thus accounted.

FRom Boston to Dedham 10 miles, thence to Whites 6, to Billings 7, to Woodcocks 10. Or, from Dedham to Medfield 9, to Wrentham 10, to Woodcocks 4 (which is the smoother Road) to Providence 15, to the French Town 20, to Darby 24, to Pembertons 3, to Stonington 12, to New-London 15, to Say-Brook 18, to Killingsworth 12, to Guildford 10, to Branford 12, to New-Haven 10, to Mill-ford 10, to Stratford 4, to Fairfield 8, to Norwalk 12, to Standford 10, to Horseneck 7, to Rye 7, to Marineck 4, to New Rochel 4, to East-Chester 4, to Kings-bridge 6, to the Half-way-house 9, and from thence to New-York 9 mile.

From New-York to Philadelphia 96 mile, thus accounted.

FRom N-York to Elizabeth Town (by water) 20 m. to Woodbridge 8 m. to Piscattawa 8 m. to J[ ]inians 2 m. thence (the new Road) to Mill-stone-brook 14 m. to Assimpinks 4 m. to Croswicks-Bridge, over Doctors-brook 8 m. then to Burlington by the Mill 12 m. thence to Philadelphia 20 mile.

58 I believe this to have been Edward Randolph, whose official relations with Usher were close.

59 John Saffin appears to have removed from Boston to Bristol at some time between June 4, 1686, when he was described as “of Boston,” and August 14, 1689, when he was chosen deputy from Bristol (Plymouth Colony Records, vi. 189, 212; cf. Publications of this Society, i. 86 note). Edward Randolph’s first visit to New York was apparently in 1688. He left Boston late in July of that year, reached New York on August 11, was in Philadelphia on August 19, was again in New York on August 29, was at Fort Albany on September 12, and was once more in New York on October 2: see Edward Randolph (Prince Society), ii. 73–77, iv. 233, 235, 240, vi. 257, 258, 260; Publications of this Society, xvii. 9 note 4). Exactly when he returned from Fort Albany to New York cannot be ascertained, but it may well have been by September 20, on which date he is mentioned in the expense account.

60 Jeffries Family Papers, iv. 95.

61 Publications of this Society, xvii. 326, 331.

62 Mercury, June 16, 1795, p. 4/1. The ode was also printed in the Massachusetts Magazine for May, 1795, vii. 121. In Paine’s Works, published in 1812, it is stated that the ode was “Written for, and sung at the first Anniversary of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society, 1794” (p. 243), where the year is of course an error for 1795.

63 The preparation of a memoir of Mr. Williamson was assigned to his classmate, our late associate Samuel Lothrop Thorndike, who died before he had performed the labor. As Mr. Williamson’s papers afforded material for such a work, his daughter, Mrs. Edes, was persuaded to prepare this tribute to her father’s memory.

64 Two of the five new sloops of war ordered by vote of the General Court in 1776 for defence of the seacoast came from the yards of Cross and Greenleaf; in 1778 a 20-gun ship was ordered from them; and they owned and equipped many privateers during the years 1775 to 1778.

Ralph Cross was captain of the Militia in 1772, holding a commission from the Royal Governor. He was appointed Major by ballot from the House of Representatives of the Second Essex Regiment and signalized himself by his zeal in training his men. In 1776 he became Lieut.-Colonel of Col. Samuel Johnson’s Regiment, serving in the Northern Department from August to November, 1777. He joined camp at Stillwater 14 October, 1778, and early engaged in the battle which preceded the surrender of Burgoyne at which he was present. The musket which he carried is now in the possession of his great-great-grandson, Alfred Johnson. Ralph Cross continued in active service through 1782. In 1802 he was appointed Collector of Customs of the port of Newburyport and continued to hold the office until his death. (See C. Cushing, History of Newburyport; J. J. Currier, History of Newburyport; and Capt. Edward Johnson, by Alfred Johnson.)

65 Henry Blatchford Wheelwright (H. C. 1844).

66 For a perfect picture of Harvard Class Day from 1850 to 1855, see The Thinking Bayonet, by James Kendall Hosmer.

67 No person of this name is known to have been in college or in Cambridge in October, 1849. The reference is probably to Thomas Chase (H. C. 1848), a tutor 1850–1853, afterwards President of Haverford College, although Theodore Chase (H. C. 1853), then a Freshman, may have been the man.

68 Charles Russell Lowell (H. C. 1826) married Anna Cabot Jackson, who died 1874. They lived for many years in the house No. 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge, now occupied by Professor Farlow: see R. S. Rantoul, Personal Recollections (1916), pp. 62–66.

69 John Murray Forbes.

70 Charles Ellery Stedman (H. C. 1852).

71 President Jared Sparks.

72 Joseph Hodges Choate (H. C. 1852).

73 Rev. Convers Francis (H. C. 1815).

74 James Bradley Thayer. See Publications of this Society, vii. 296–318.

75 Francis James Child (H. C. 1846).

76 For a notice of Mr. Carter, see Publications of this Society, x. 60–67.

77 Melville Weston Fuller (1833–1910), afterward Chief Justice of the United States and an Honorary Member of this Society.

78 H. C. 1824.

79 Harvard Law School, 1861.

80 Mary Ann Smith Easton, daughter of Dr. Peter Easton of Nantucket.

81 He married, 29 April, 1863, Sarah Howland Ricketson, daughter of Benjamin Tucker Ricketson of New Bedford, and sister of John Howland Ricketson (H. C. 1859), a Corresponding Member of this Society.

82 Over the Teacups.

83 Publications, vii. 307.

84 New England Historical and Genealogical Register for October, 1903, lvii. 345–350.

85 A notice of Mr. Williamson appeared in the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for September, 1903, xii. 97–99.

86 See Early Interest in Dighton Rock, Publications of this Society, xviii. 235–299, 417.

87 See G. L. Kittredge, Letters of Samuel Lee and Samuel Sewall (Publications of this Society, xiv. 147, 166–171, 178 f).

88 This controversy about the original peopling of America is too intricate to receive discussion here, and I deal with it only in so far as it affects opinion concerning Dighton Rock. For more detailed information, the following sources, among others, may be consulted: S. F. Haven, Archæology of the United States, in Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge (1856), viii. chap. i, ii; Winsor, Pre-Columbian Explorations, in Narrative and Critical History of America, i; P. B. Watson, Bibliography of the Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America, in Library Journal (1881), vi. 227–244.

89 G. L. Kittredge, Cotton Mather’s Election into the Royal Society (Publications of this Society, xiv. 102–106).

90 xiv. 103.

91 Summary, etc., 1747, no. 11, pp. 170–171. This work was originally issued in numbers, each consisting of a half-title and sixteen pages of text. These original parts are rare, but the Harvard College Library owns the first seventeen, though the half-titles of only two (nos. 1 and 13) have been preserved. The passage quoted in the text must have appeared in no. 11. An advertisement in the Boston Evening Post of Monday, February 9, 1747, stated that “Saturday last was published, A Summary’ . . . By W. D. M. D. No. 1. To be continued” (p. 2/2). And the Boston News Letter of September 10, 1747, advertised “Just published, Number XI” (p. 4/2).

According to Drake’s Dictionary of American Biography (p. 278), William Douglass was a. physician and author, born in Scotland about 1691, settled. at Boston 1718, died there 1752. “He was a violent antagonist of Dr. Boylston, in his efforts to introduce inoculation. His learning was considerable; but his prejudices were strong, and he lacked judgment and taste. He wrote many political essays in the newspapers, which were generally filled with sarcastic remarks upon the magistrates, the clergy, the physicians, and the people of N. E. His ‘summary’ . . . is inaccurate, and records his private squabbles as well as public affairs.” See also A. McF. Davis, Colonial Currency Reprints (Prince Society), iii. 250–254.

92 In the supplementary note to my earlier paper, I showed that this was due partly to his lack of skill as a draughtsman, but much more to the fact that this part of his drawing was published upside-down.

93 Ezra Stiles was born December 10, 1727, at North Haven, Connecticut; graduated Yale, 1746; practised law 1753–1755; minister at Newport, 1755 to 1776. His congregation being dispersed by the war, but his pastoral relation not broken, he resided in Dighton from March 12, 1776, to May 22, 1777. He removed thence to preach at Portsmouth, N. H. In 1778, he was elected President of Yale College, and died May 12, 1795. See A. Holmes, Life of Ezra Stiles, 1798; also Stiles’s Literary Diary, 1901.

A clue to the existence of the drawings and unpublished materials is afforded by certain passages in the Diary and in the Election Sermon. It is through Professor Dexter that I located the material; and I am further under deep obligation to him for indispensable guidance in finding the pertinent passages. The two drawings in the Itinerary were photographed for me under the direction of the late Mr. J. C. Schwab, Librarian of Yale University; and a photostat of the other drawing was made for me by the Massachusetts Historical Society.

94 Last autumn Professor Dexter edited a volume entitled Itineraries and Correspondence of Ezra Stiles: see pp. 234–235 for Dighton Rock. The passages quoted in the text of this paper, most of which are not reproduced in this printed volume, are copied from the original manuscripts.

95 Publications of this Society, xviii. 264.

96 This paragraph and the one given below are not quoted in the exact order of words and sentences, but are compilations from scattered passages. This, and the fact that many statements are made by Stiles twice in slightly differing language, explains why the wording given here differs from that of corresponding passages in the published Itineraries.

97 Edward Everett Hale wrote in his Diary, under date of July 31, 1839: “There is an inscription on the North end of the rock made this or last year by some wanderer who hoped to deceive future antiquarians, I suppose. H and W figure in it.” I am indebted to Professor Edward E. Hale of Union College for this fact. Why Mr. Hale should have been so misinformed as to the recent origin of the marks is not clear. Possibly Dr. Stiles’s information may have been similarly untrustworthy. Cf. p. 95, below.

98 Publications of this Society, xviii. 239 note 1.

99 See p. 112, below.

100 On this map, the name Assonet as applied to the Neck (but not to the Bay or River) is spelled Wassonet. It is interesting to note that the same spelling occurs in the Old Proprietary Records of Taunton, Book 4, p. 230 (1683), and in the Land Records at Taunton, Book 3, p. 390 (1683 and 1691).

101 Portions of the letter and of the Itinerary were quoted in my earlier paper (p. 270), to show that Stiles learned of the visits of Greenwood and of Berkeley from Benjamin Jones, aged 70, owner of the Rock.

102 Now owned by the American Academy.

103 See pp. 112–113, cf. p. 80, below.

104 “Taken off June 6, 1767” (in the upper left-hand corner). “Here is taken above half but not Two Thirds of the Inscription.” “On a Rock eleven feet long & 4½ wide at Assonet on the East Bank or Shore of Taunton River 7 m. below Taunton, are these Inscriptions; which I took off June 6. 1767. I begun at A the SW End, & proceeded from right to left to B; continued on the other side from C to D the NE End. And as to Breadth I took about Two Thirds.” “Beginning.” “Continuation.” “End.” Twice the word “Deest.” In the upper right-hand corner, again the date, “June 6, 1767.” The “Deest” evidently means: “There is nothing here.” The dimensions indicated are these: of the left margin of the rock, “Two feet;” of the left-hand sheet, “Four feet this side;” of the right-hand sheet, “Six feet to here;” in the lower right-hand corner, “2½ feet high ie. here is taken off what fills 2½ feet breadth on the stone;” of the head of the human figure near the left end, “8 × 7 Ins;” of the tall figure in the middle of the right-hand sheet, “22 Inch by 7;” of the double triangular figure in the upper left-band corner of the right-hand sheet, with the letters c (above) and d (below) indicating its left vertical line, e and f its middle vertical, a and b its broken right vertical, and h and i its opening at the right end, “12 ab, 8 cd, 14 be, 12 ad, 9 ef, 2½ open^g hi.” The pages 275 and 277 of the Itinerary are also indicated.

105 On August 13, 1788: see pp. 77 ff, below.

106 Unquoted portions of the letter show that Paddack did not take an impression of all the figures.

107 It depicts the two human figures and the “N” at the right end of the rock, and the collection of triangular figures to the right of the centre. It is in a badly worn and torn condition.

108 Publications of this Society, xviii. 267, 272.

109 Stiles mentions this visit in his Itinerary under date of June 6, 1768.

110 This was doubtless the Paddack copy.

111 From the transcript of Du Simitière’s manuscript made for Mr. F. L. Gay.

112 Life of Ezra Stiles, 1798, p. 119.

113 This is an error for 1767; but it is an error that Stiles himself made in his Diary on Oct. 3, 1788.

114 This opinion was expressed by Stiles in his Itinerary in 1767, and in his Sermon of 1783, as we shall see; but he expressed doubts about it in his Diary in 1782.

115 See Publications of this Society, xviii. 283. Mr. Eames died in 1744. The “some years since” mentioned below must therefore have been at about the time when John Winthrop made his “imperfect copy.”

116 Rev. Michael Lort, in Archaeologia, 1787, viii. 295.

117 Of these men who assisted Sewall I gather the following facts, among others, mainly from Appletons’ Cyclopredia of American Biography:

Thomas Danforth was a grandson of the Rev. John Danforth of Dorchester (who made the first drawing of Dighton Rock). Born about 1742, graduated Harvard 1762; studied law and became a councillor in Charlestown; left for Halifax in 1776, and lat er lived in England, where he died 1820.

William Baylies, physician, born in Uxbridge November 24, 1743, graduated Harvard 1760; studied medicine, and settled in Dighton; held various political offices; one of the founders of the Massachusetts Medical Society; fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the Massachusetts Historical Society; died in Dighton 1826. For several years he was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the County of Bristol.

David Cobb, born 1748, graduated Harvard 1766; studied medicine in Boston, and practised in Taunton for many years; an army officer, judge, general of militia, congressman, lieutenant-governor, etc.; died at Taunton 1830.

118 Gebelin spells this name “Jaunston.”

119 “Sur le rivage.” Sewall’s own words, as written on his drawing (see below) were: “inclines a little from a perpendicular.” He also wrote “of a scarlet hue” instead of “d’une couleur rouge;” and “for nearly a century past,” instead of “depuis un demi-siècle.”

120 Plate XXII. On account of the large size of the original, it was first reproduced in three parts by Albert H. Moore, photographer at the Harvard College Library, in the form of photostatic negatives. The three parts were then skillfully joined, mounted on cloth, and photographed by Mr. E. A. Dean, an expert photographer of Providence. The resulting photograph of the complete photostatic negative was then used by Mr. Joseph W. McCoid, photostatist of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, for securing the photostatic positive from which this plate was made. I desire to express my obligations to these persons for their careful work, as well as to Mr. George Parker Winship, Librarian of the Harry Elkins Widener Collection, who assisted in this undertaking, and who has been helpful in many other ways in this research.

121 There were then in college two students named Hale – Horatio, who entered August 30, 1833, and graduated in 1837; and Nathan, who entered September 1, 1834, and graduated. in 1838. The latter’s younger brother, Edward Everett Hale, did not enter until 1835. Edward was later much interested in Dighton Rock; but his son informs me that there is no record that Nathan (if it was be who made the copy) ever gave any further attention to it. Though Horatio Hale did not, so far as is known, write on Dighton Rock, yet he was early interested in the Indians, and while yet an undergraduate was appointed philologist to the South Sea Exploring Expedition: cf. 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, ii. 67–68.

122 The letters and drawing can be found in vol. ii of Correspondence & Reports (MS), Rhode Island Historical Society, pages 22, 25, 27, 32, 23.

123 Monde Primitif, 1781, viii. 13. See Plate XXIII.

124 See Plates II (Mallery), XXII (Sewall), XXIII (Gebelin), XXII (Lort), XXIII (Dammartin), and XXXI (Rafn).

125 The exact position of this apartment about 1764 will be seen by consulting the “Plan of Harvard Hall built in 1764,” made by Du Simitière and reproduced facing p. 16 of vol. xiv of the Publications of this Society.

126 College Book viii. 191. I am indebted to Mr. Matthews for this transcript of the vote of the Corporation, as well as for material used in many of my notes.

127 Discovery of America by the Norsemen, Massachusetts Quarterly Review, 1849, ii. 209.

128 Prehistoric Man, ii. 177.

129 Dr. A. C. Hamlin, Supposed Runic Inscriptions, Proceedings A.A.A.S., 10th Meeting, Albany, August 1856, pp. 214–215.

130 Narrative and Critical History of America, i. 101 note. The first meeting of the A.A.A.S. was held in 1848.

131 Another was attempted, however. A writer in the North American Review, 1874, cxix. 175, says: “Dr. Hamlin endeavored to take a plaster cast of the Dighton Rock, and unfortunately failed.” Other evidence makes it probable that this incident occurred not long before 1870. In the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, October 21, 1867, p. 7, is a statement that “Prof. Wyman is about to take a plaster cast of the rock;” but if he ever tried to carry out this intention, as an enterprise distinct from the attempt by Hamlin, it too was a failure.

132 Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809, iii. 185.

133 I suspect that this statement belongs in the same class with those so commonly heard to the effect that the climate is growing milder. It is interesting to discover that similar opinions were current two hundred years ago, and probably have been expressed by aging people in all the intervening time; so that, if true, we ought by now to be living under decidedly tropical conditions. Samuel Sewall, writing on February 5, 1691, remarked: “’Twould be a vain thing to goe about to dissemble the severity of our Winters; only most ancient inhabitants judge there is an abatement of their former rigor” (Publications of this Society, xiv. 154). Remarks like Winthrop’s concerning the rock are still made to-day, and are probably not true except as psychological impressions (xviii. 238 f).

134 This last statement is, of course, a bare assertion of personal opinion, without evidential value.

135 Before I had straightened out in my own mind this confusion of the two persons, Mr. Albert Matthews, in a letter of February 6, 1915, set me right about it, and gave me some of the following details.

John Winthrop, b. 1714, was son of Chief Justice Adam Winthrop; graduated at Harvard 1732; Hollis Professor of Mathematics 1738–1779; Fellow of the Royal Society; died 1779. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography says that in the eighteenth century he was the foremost teacher of science in this country, and that his influence in determining the scientific spirit in America was great. See also Publications of this Society, vii. 321–328.

His son, James Winthrop, graduated Harvard 1769, was Librarian there 1772–1787; for several years was judge of the court of common pleas, and for a long time register of probate; died 1821. There is a sketch of him in A. C. Potter and C. K. Bolton’s Librarians of Harvard University (Library of Harvard University, Bibliographical Contributions, No. 52, 1897).

136 He is described in Hoefer’s Nouvelle Biographie Générale (xii. 216) as a “célèbre réudit francais,” b. 1725. He was the son of Antoine Court, but assumed the name Court de Gebelin in accordance with a common practice among Protestants of the time as a protection against persecution. His great work, defending the view that the practices of agriculture were the basis of mythology, was: Le Monde Primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne, 9 vols., Paris, 1775–1784. He died under the care of Mesmer in 1784, with his work still unfinished.

137 1781, viii. 58, 59, 560–568; and Planche I.

138 We have already seen that Sewall, who sent the copy, merely quoted but did not accept these opinions, and did believe that it was executed by Indians.

139 Gebelin does not mention the numbers on the drawing which identify these two animals. It is clear that the beaver is no. 10. The horse is much more; difficult to see. Some have denied its existence, and that of some other figures, except in the imagination of Gebelin (see, for example, Gabriel Gravier, Notice sur le roc de Dighton, Nancy, 1875, p. 8). But a sympathetic exercise of the faculty which discovers camels and whales in the clouds, can detect the rudely drawn animal of Gebelin’s fancy. I think its head is to be found directly above the number 11, with blunt curved muzzle, eye in the highest dot above and to the right of 11, and ears represented by the triangle next to the right of that; the fore legs go down to the head of the beaver; the curved line above the fattest dot near-by is the rump, from which one hind leg descends to the unnumbered figure just in front of the beaver, and the other stretches out behind just above the number 13, and terminates in a half-formed hoof. I confess, however, that I shall not resent correction in this identification.

140 One of these, apparently, is regarded by Gebelin as a priest, of whom he says merely that he is “ready” (deja pret). Probably therefore it is no. 4.

141 Vues des Cordillères, i. 180; Researches, etc., London edition, 1814, i. 151–153.

142 Archaeologia, 1787, viii. 300.

143 Ibid. viii. 302.

144 For example: Gabriel Gravier, Notice sur le roc de Dighton, 1875, p. 9.

145 Literary Diary.

146 The Itinerary mentions this visit, giving no fuller information.

147 This visit is somewhat more fully recorded in the Itinerary. The drawing is not preserved there, and was probably an unsatisfactory one to Stiles himself. He worked on it for about an hour and a quarter, and then “I desisted with an unfinished Drawg, discouraged” for some reason whose brief record is illegnble.

148 In 1787 (?) Benjamin Smith Barton, M.D., had published: “Observations on some parts of natural history: to which is prefixed an account of several remarkable vestiges of an ancient date which have been discovered in different parts of North America.” It bears no date, but is supposed to have been issued in 1787, an assumption confirmed by the fact that it was reviewed in the Gentleman’s Magazine for November, 1787 (lvii. 992–993). It was printed as Part I of a larger work, but no more was published. It contains no reference to Dighton Rock. It is now rare, but a copy of it can be found in the Library of Congress.

149 The United States elevated to Glory and Honor. A Sermon, Preached before His Excellency Jonathan Trumbull, Esq L.L.D. Governor and Commander in Chief, And the Honorable The General Assembly of The State of Connecticut, Convened at Hartford, At the Anniversary Election, May 8th, 1783, New-Haven, 1783, pp. 99. See pp. 9–14.

I do not know whether this sermon was given in full as printed. If it was, I calculate, after timing the reading of several pages at a fairly rapid rate, that it must have taken upwards of two hours and a half to deliver. It is amusing, therefore, to notice that on p. 94 he says “But I trespass upon your patience,” and then continues preaching for five pages more.

150 See Publications of this Society, xviii. 274.

151 This date is misprinted 1001.

152 1787, viii. 290, 291 note.

153 xv. 180.

154 Prehistoric Man, 1862, ii. 173.

155 Notice sur le roc de Dighton, 1875, p. 10 f.

156 Account of an antient Inscription in North America, Archaeologia, 1787, viii. 290–301. Read November 23, 1786.

157 xv. 180–182. See pp. 268, 269, of my former paper for fuller notice of this and the following reference.

158 J. B. Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, 1848, viii. 504–506.

159 Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, 1848, vii. 809. The letters quoted are in this same volume, pp. 824, 847.

160 For an account of James Winthrop, and the need of distinguishing between him and his father, John Winthrop, see page 66, above.

161 See memoir by Rev. Dr. N. L. Frothingham, in 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ii. 142; and Kendall, Travels, ii. 221. Other accounts, however, say it was in the Museum. Probably, therefore, it was in the same room in Harvard Hall, in which Sewall’s drawing was kept (see p. 63, above).

162 The engraving measures, in its printed part, about 7¼ by 20½ inches. It is “a reduced representation of Mr. Winthrop’s original draft; accurately traced under his inspection.” It is reproduced from a photostatic copy in Plate XXIV. Compare with Mallery’s reproduction, Plate II, originating in Rafn’s non-photographic reproduction in Antiquitates Americanæ, 1837, and therefore presenting some difference from the original.

163 Account of an Inscribed Rock, at Dighton, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, accompanied with a copy of the Inscription, Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1804, vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 126–129.

164 Dr. Stiles, in his Itinerary (p. 251, October 3, 1788) gives the date as August 21; but Winthrop’s own account makes it August 13.

165 Dr. William Baylies: see p. 58 note 3, above.

166 Rev. Dr. Frothingham, in the memoir just referred to, says that Mr. Thaddeus Mason Harris also “accompanied and assisted him. I have heard him describe the pantographic process by which it was done.” Winthrop’s own statement, corroborated by a similar statement in Stiles’s Itinerary, makes it clear that Harris was not one of the party. It is probable, however, that he later, in Cambridge, assisted Winthrop in making a reduced copy; for it was the copy, not the original, that was made in the manner alluded to. I cannot discover that T. M. Harris ever recorded his opinion of Dighton Rock, although he was greatly interested in Indian remains and described some of the mounds in Ohio. He believed that the Indians who made these mounds were of Siberian Tartar origin, and were driven southward into Mexico by the northern tribes of Indians, who came originally from northwestern Europe. This belief evidently would not commit him to acceptance of the Tartar theory concerning the rock. See his Journal of a Tour into Ohio in 1803 (1808), pp. 147 ff.

167 The “paint” used is said by Stiles (in his Itinerary) and by Kendall (in his Travels) to have been printers’ ink.

168 Previous paper, xviii. 236. This paper, p. 52, above.

169 This was done in the case of the only cast known to have been made, that in the Gilbert Museum at Amherst College.

170 Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809, iii. 186.

171 Travels, ii. 226.

172 Unpublished Letter to John Ordronaux, May 9 and 27, 1854; in the collection of the Old Colony Historical Society, Taunton.

173 Unpublished manuscript, 1865, in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society.

174 Printed in full in 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, x. 114–116. Washington’s visit was made October 29, 1789. The Massachusetts Centinel of Saturday, October 31, said:

On Thursday morning, at eight o’clock, The PRESIDENT of the United States sat out from his residence in Court-Street, on his journey eastward, . . . At Cambridge he was received in the Philosophy-Room of the University, by the President and Corporation, and after breakfasting he viewed the Library, Museum, &c. He then continued his journey (p. 2/3).

Washington’s own account, under date of October 29, is as follows:

Left Boston about 8 o’clock. Passed over the Bridge at Charles-Town, and went to see that at Malden, but proceeded to the College at Cambridge, attended by the Vice-President [John Adams], Mr. Bowdoin, and a great number of Gentlemen.

At this place I was shown by Mr. Willard, the President, the Philosophical aparatus, and amongst others Pope’s Orary (a curious piece of Mechanism for shewing the revolutions of the Sun, Earth, and many others of the Planets), the library, (containing 13.000 volumes,) and a Museum (Diary, ed. Lossing, 1860, p. 38).

175 Belknap Papers, i. 343, 353, 361, ii. 76, 77, 81, 160.

176 Belknap Papers, iii. 447. A footnote on p. 446 tells who this John Pintard was.

177 Joseph Gooding, Jr., was born March 6, 1773, in Dighton; developed remarkable mechanical genius, and before he was 21 commenced the manufacture of brass clocks at his home; later enlarged the business and made tall mahogany-cased clocks; was town clerk in the short-lived Wellington, and in Dighton 1806 to 1809; made watches in Troy (Fall River) 1826 to 1838, but returned to Dighton; was a skilful designer, engraver and die-cutter; died November 11, 1853, at the age of 80 years and 8 months. See Hurd’s History of Bristol County (1883), pp. 238n, 261, 264. Dates of birth and death were supplied by the Town Clerk of Dighton, who secured them from present members of the Gooding family.

178 Minister at Dighton; successor to the Rev. Nathaniel Fisher, whom he assisted for five years before the latter’s death in 1777. Graduated Princeton 1770. The following sketch of him appears in S. D. Alexander’s Princeton College during the Eighteenth Century (1872), pp. 137–138:

John Smith was a native of Plainfield, Connecticut. He became a Congregational minister, and on the 22d of April, 1772, was settled at Dighton, Massachusetts. In 1802, he became a Missionary in the neighborhood of Canandaigua, New York. He gave a deed of six thousand acres of land to form a seminary of learning in Canandaigua. Afterwards, Mr. Smith removed to Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, where he remained till 1812, when he removed to Nelson County, Kentucky, acting as a Missionary in both places. He died in Kentucky in 1820. Mr. Smith was the grandfather of Professor Henry B. Smith of the Union Theological Seminary, New York.

That the 6000 acres here mentioned were a grant from the State of New York for educational purposes is made probable by an unquoted portion of Smith’s letter to Stiles.

179 Minister at Acushnet in Dartmouth, now New Bedford; born Yarmouth, Mass., March 3, 1730; Harvard 1754; ordained June 3, 1761; a prominent Whig; member of conventions for framing the constitution of Massachusetts and of the United States; member of the American Philosophical Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; D.D. Harvard 1793; died Tiverton, R. I., September 24, 1807. “A man of superior abilities and education for that period. . . . A man of considerable erudition; and in his personal appearance, as well as his remarkable eccentricities of character, is thought to have resembled the great Dr. Johnson.” See Ricketson’s History of New Bedford (1858), pp. 276, 318 f. Another Samuel West graduated at Harvard in 1761, was a Boston minister, died 1808. The two are often confused.

180 This means that the two gentlemen were Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

181 Here “draughtmen” is written above the line.

182 Here “they” is written and crossed out, and no word substituted.

183 Travels, ii. 226. The “Judge” Baylies of whom he speaks was Dr. William Baylies.

184 Presented by Mr. Hale, together with a copy of the drawing made for him by Miss Brown in January, 1862, to the American Antiquarian Society, in whose collection it is now preserved. Miss Brown still had in her possession the original drawing by Gooding of which she speaks, up to the time of her recent death in Providence, and kindly loaned it to me for reproduction.

185 P. 1/3. I am indebted to Mr. Albert Matthews for this discovery.

186 Diary, 1911, iii. 322.

187 Francis, author of the Historical Memoir of the Colony of New Plymouth (1830), would have been too young, having been born in 1783. But his older brothers, Samuel, born June 22, 1774, and William, born September 15, 1776, were of about the same age as Gooding, the other draughtsman. See Hurd’s History of Bristol County (1883), pp. 234 f.

188 Unpublished manuscript on Dighton Rock, 1865, in the possession of the American Antiquarian Society.

189 John V. N. Yates and Joseph W. Moulton, History of the State of New York, 1824, i. 84–86.

190 Plates XXV and XXVI.

191 For the latter, see Plate II in Publications of this Society, xviii.

192 In Antiquitates Americanæ, 1837.

193 By Chingwauk, in 1839. See Schoolcraft’s History of the Indian Tribes, 1851, i. 108–120.

194 See my previous paper, p. 238.

195 See Plate I and p. 236 of my previous paper.

196 Travels, ii. 228.

197 The paper consists of 13 closely written pages, followed by several pages of drawings, not including any of Dighton Rock. It is entitled: “An Account of two Inscriptions upon Rocks in Kent and Washington in the Western part of the State of Connecticutt, taken off 1789 by Ezra Stiles, and by him communicated to the Acad^y of Arts & Sciences;” is addressed “To his Excellency James Bowdoin Esq. LL.D. President of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston 1790;” is dated “Yale College June 8, 1790;” and is endorsed: “Dr. Stiles Memoir, read Aug. 25, 1790.”

198 By Thomas H. Webb, in a letter of September 22, 1830, to Professor Rafn, published in Antiquitates Americanæ, 1837, pp. 359 f. The main memoir is accompanied by another much briefer one of the same date, describing a “stone bust supposed to have been an Indian god;” and this latter was published in 1809 in the Memoirs of the Academy, vol. iii. pt. i. pp. 192–194.

199 Preserved in the first Letter-book (1780–1791) of the Academy.

200 This portion of the paper, with its discussion of various theories and final acceptance of the view that the Hebrew characters were cut in the rock by recent Jewish searchers after mines, is quoted at length by Kendall in his Travels, i. 242–246. Incidentally, Kendall remarks that among his countrymen Dr. Stiles “has some reputation for credulity.”

201 Fully quoted by Webb, loc. cit.

202 The two O’s here are dotted by Stiles: cf. p. 51, above. The passages in brackets, which follow in the text, are condensations from Stiles’s statements.

203 The descriptions of this rock and of those mentioned later are quoted by Webb, loc. cit., p. 360.

204 P. 119. In connection with the last mentioned view, he refers to the Monthly Review, May, 1784, p. 424. There is nothing on this page pertinent to the subject. But on p. 350 (vol. lxx. 1784) is a description by William Bray of the “Indian Method of Picture Writing” on a tree. This is probably what is intended, although it makes no mention of Dighton Rock.

205 iii. 322–323. There is apparently allusion here both to Samuel Harris and to Thaddeus Mason Harris. It was the latter who saw the Ohio rocks in 1803, and described them in the Journal of his Tour. It was probably the former who compared the “Palmyrine Characters” with the marks on Dighton Rock; for he must have reached his conclusions at just about this time by some such comparison.

206 iii. 191, 194, 322, 530, 532.

207 July 11, 1810, p. 2/3–4.

208 For July 28, 1810, pp. 33–41. The quoted passages below are taken from this source.

209 The following entry, under date of October 3, 1808, is taken from the Faculty Records:

Samuel Harris of Boston, aged 25 years May 12, 1808, having been examined as a candidate for the Junior Class,

Voted, that the said Harris be accepted for the said Class; and that he be required to pay into the College Treasury $120 for advanced standing (viii. 155).

210 Travels, ii. 219 ff.

211 North American Review, 1838, xlvi. 188.

212 See Plate XXVII. Professor Kittredge searched among the papers and discovered this one for me. It is numbered “MS Am 747 F.”

213 Kopp’s Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit, 1821, ii. 377–398.

214 These were found for me by Professor Kittredge. He describes and comments upon them as follows:

In Vol. II of the Harris MSS (H. C. Library, MS Am 746 F, II) there are eleven such alphabets. I append a list:

(1) Fol. 16. Column headed “Phenician Hebr &c which are not in my lists ut credo Astle” [i. e. Thos. Astle, The Origin and Progress of Writing, London, 1803, Tab. I, opp. p. 64. Astle heads the list of symbols (which H. hasn’t copied entire): “Phœnicium Hebr̃: antiq: sive Samaritanum.”]

(2) Fol. 16. Column headed “Punic.” [Source not given, — but the alphabet is practically identical with the column headed “Punicum” in the plate of Astle just referred to. Astle is certainly the source.]

(3) Fol. 18. Column headed “Palmyran Barthelemi.” [I.e. the celebrated Academician l’abbé Jean Jacques Barthélemy, author of Le Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis. This alphabet occurs (1) in Barthélemy’s paper “Réflexions sur l’alphabet et sur la langue dont on se servoit autrefois a Palmyre,” Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, XXVI, pl. 1, opp. p. 596; (2) from Barthélemy in the French Encyelopédie, Recueil de Planches, II, pt. i, 1763, plate V (6). Of the first of these, the essay is republished in his Œuvres, Paris, 1821, IV. 19 ff, and the alphabet is in the Atlas des Œuvres Complétes de J. J. Barthélemy, Paris, 1822, pi. 2.]

(4) Fol. 18. Column headed “Phœnician or Ionic Duret.” [This is from a plate on p. 336 of Claude Duret’s Thresor de l’Histoire des Langves de cest Vnivers, Iverdon, 1619.]

(5) Fol. 18. Column headed “Phœnician . . . Spanheim.” At the foot of the column H. has written “See Postellus.” [I haven’t found this alphabet in any work of either of the well-known Spanheims. The same thing, however, is found in Guillaume Postel’s De Poenicorum Literis, Paris, 1552, first plate. The book was in H. C. Library in Harris’s day, having been given to us by Thos. Hollis in the 18th century.]

(6) Fol. 18. Column headed “Phœnician frō inscrip in Malta & medals Barthelemy.” [This is either from Barthélemy’s pi. IV (1) in his paper “Réflexions sur quelques monumens phéniciens, et sur les alphabets qui en résultent,” Mém. Acad, des Inscriptions, xxx. 405–427 (also in Œuvres, IV, 40 ff., and in Atlas, pl. 8 (1)), or from the copy of his alphabet in Encyclopédie, as above, plate V (2) — I think from the latter.]

(7) Fol. 18. Column headed “Phœnician from Sicilian coins . . . Barthelemy.” [Either from same monograph, plate IV (2) — see also Atlas, plate 8 (2) — or from the reproduction in Encyclopédie, as above, pl. V (3).]

(8) Fol. 18. Column headed “From inscription in Cyprus Pocock Fr Encyclo.” [This might be from same monograph of Barthélemy, pi. IV (3) — see also Atlas, plate 8 (3) — or from Encyclopédie, as above, pl. V (4), but H. credits it to the latter.]

(9) Fol. 18. Column headed “from an inscrip lately at Malta Ency Franc.” [From Encyclopédic, as above, pl. V (5) — see also Atlas, plate 22.]

(10) Fol. 18. Column headed “By Rev^d S. Henley from coins &ca.” [From Samuel Henley’s Observations on the Subject of the Fourth Eclogue, the Allegory in the Third Georgie, and the Primary Design of the Aeneid of Virgil: with incidental Remarks on some Coins of the Jews, London, 1788.]

(11) Fol. 24. Column headed “Palmyrene” and credited to “Universal Magazine july 1755.”

Barthélemy’s two memoirs were accessible to Harris, for vols. 26 and 30 are in a set given us by Jasper Mauduit of London in 1768. The set of the Encyclopédic referred to was given to us by Thos. Lee of Cambridge, Mass., in 1784. I am not sure that Duret was in our library in Harris’s time. Harris must also have had access to the Rev. John Swinton’s papers on Phœnician in Philosophical Transactions, vols. 50 and 54, for these volumes were given to us by Thos. Hollis in the 18th century.

215 An English-Hebrew Lexicon, being a complete verbal Index to Gesenius’ Hebrew Lexicon as translated by Prof. Edward Robinson, D.D., Prepared by J. L. Potter, A.M., 1872.

216 Account of the Writing-Rock in Taunton River; in a letter to the Hon. John Davis, Esq., Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809, iii. 165–191. The letter is dated Hallowell, October 29, 1807.

217 Travels through the Northern Parts of the United States, in the years 1807 and 1808 (1809), ii. 219–232, iii. 205–222.

218 These terms are both of them erroneous. Recent geologists have frequently called it graywacke, which, I am informed, is correct so far as it goes, but is too vague and elastic a term to be definite. The rock is really a gray sandstone, medium to coarse grained, of about medium toughness and hardness; and can be accurately characterized not by any one term but only by a rather lengthy description.

219 Elisha Slade of Somerset (quoted by R. D. Anderson in America not discovered by Columbus, p. 21) gives the following measurements in 1875: Angle of inscribed face to horizon, 47°; of surface sloping toward the shore, 25°; mean height on face above ground, 1.293 metres (4 ft. 2.9″); mean length on its surface (not face), 1.768 metres (5′ 9.6″); mean width of face, 3.384 metres (11′ 1.2″); contents above ground, 3.871 cu. metres (137 cu. feet); weight, 9071.023 kilograms (nearly ten tons). Viewing the rock, one looks about S.S.E. by the compass, whose variation here is 11° 03′ west of north. See also Stiles, p. 53, above.

220 In the summer of 1915, I dug to the extreme base. At the northerly end, the lower edge of the face is above the beach. It thence slopes gradually downward, dipping under the beach at a distance of about three feet, and at its southerly end reaches its greatest depth, which is slightly less than one foot vertically below the beach level.

221 An M indicates that the preceding statement or statements are taken from the paper in the Memoirs; a T, from the Travels.

222 E. G. Squier supports this view in the British Ethnological Journal for December, 1848, quoted in the National Intelligencer, March 27, 1849, p. 2. He compares the Dighton inscription with others on rocks upon the Guyandotte and Ohio rivers. In these latter occur iron seams, which were too hard for the instruments used for pecking, — hence not iron tools. The tools of the Indians, he says, “though rude, are, nevertheless, adequate to the chipping of nearly every variety of rock to the slight depth required in these rude memorials. The tough syenite hatchets which they used previous to European intercourse with them, and for some time thereafter, cut sandstone readily, and with little injury to the instruments themselves; and it is very likely that the graywacke of the Dighton Rock would yield more readily than is generally supposed to their continued application.”

If Squier’s opinion is not sufficient, the following cannot fail to convince (from a paper on Weather and Civilizations, by Ellsworth Huntington, in the Bulletin of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia, 1916, xiv. 17): “The greatest ruins of the Western Hemisphere are located in Guatemala and Yucatan. . . . Consider the degree of ability shown by these monuments. Of course the figures appear to us somewhat crude. Yet one who examines them closely will find that they display high artistic merit. They show a people who were original and inventive, a people who did not hesitate to attempt big things. Remember that the Mayas who built these monuments and the numerous great buildings associated with them had no iron tools, and must have used stone implements.”

223 I have not tested the accuracy of this statement, but I have serious doubts as to its being true. It may be that in some lights and from some near-by positions it might be possible.

224 Squier, in the paper just quoted, and others have called attention to the number of inscribed rocks that occur in positions which make them subject to being sometimes submerged.

225 In this I agree, though contrary opinions have very frequently been expressed. This fact, however, does not necessitate accepting Kendall’s conclusion as to the antiquity of the inscription, since very shallow markings made subsequent to the coming of the whites would have presented an identical appearance. I have discussed this question in an earlier connection (Publications of this Society, xviii. 238, 239).

226 If Kendall was justified in these conclusions, they would seem to be one of the best arguments against his belief in the antiquity of the work, and in favor of the view that it was executed some time between 1600 and 1680.

227 So far as I can learn, there is no name now attached to either the brook or the spring. I can discover no one who ever heard of the names here given, though they seem to have been familiar in Kendall’s day.

228 See Publications of this Society, xviii. 244 ff.

229 Although the fact doubtless has no bearing on the truth of these legends, yet it is not without interest to note that there was a genuine pirate indirectly associated with Assonet Neck, — Thomas Tew of Newport, who “in point of gallantry was inferior to none” (Capt. Charles Johnson, History of the Pirates, London, 1814). John O. Austin (Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, p. 394f; 160 Allied Families, pp. 236–240) thinks that “perhaps” he was a brother of Henry Tew of Newport, who in 1688 purchased two of the six lots on Assonet Neck from the original proprietors (Bristol County, Northern District, Land Records, Book 1, pp. 70, 71).

230 I have been unable to trace this story to its source. One other, and a very detailed, reading of the inscription by an Indian expert is on record, — that by Chingwauk in 1839, described by Schoolcraft in his Indian Tribes, i. 108. Kendall attempted to secure an interpretation by Indians, but without much success: “Indians themselves, even of the same language and country as those by whom it was probably executed, are unable to offer any explanation of its meaning. From such Indians, I have in some instances obtained conjectures as to particular parts, but never any satisfactory glimpse of the whole” (T iii. 214).

231 This prostrate slab, lying apparently flat on the beach and projecting only three or four inches above it, is in reality a flat-surfaced boulder. I dug down along its side in the summer of 1915 to a depth of about three feet without reaching its base, further work being rendered impossible by water seeping in. It is a curious fact that it is of the same material as Dighton Rock, and its surface, in shape and dimensions, is closely similar to the inscribed face of the latter. It is not impossible that the two formed originally one boulder that later split apart.

This same slab, we have seen, was described in 1767 by Dr. Stiles, who drew its characters in a manner somewhat resembling XR.

232 “that I falsified the figures at every touch” (T ii. 226).

233 These remarks are especially pertinent criticisms of all the modern representations of the rock by means of photography. The Burgess photograph is the only faithful one that I know, because for all the others the rock was first prepared by chalking.

234 I am informed that about 1848 the American Academy donated the contents of its “Cabinet” to the Peabody Museum; and probably the Kendall painting was included.

235 An Attempt to Explain the Inscription on the Dighton Rock, Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809, iii. 197–205.

236 Massachusetts Historical Collections, iii. 233.

237 History of Massachusetts (London, 1765), i. 471.

238 He cites several instances and authorities in evidence of this.

239 There is one suggested in the Winthrop copy near the top, as well as the one in the Baylies-Smith-Gooding drawing.

240 Several can be imagined in both of the drawings just mentioned.

241 Probably the shaded figure (not so reproduced by Rafn, Mallery, etc.) just above the M near the centre in Winthrop.

242 Many such are discoverable in Winthrop.

243 Just to the right of the head of the left-most human figure in Winthrop.

244 The shaded figure with two circles and free lines running upward?

245 I have collected a considerable number of Indian “marks” or signatures affixed to deeds; many of them from the published Plymouth Colony Records. There are six such “marks” affixed to a paper testifying that Assonet Neck was owned by Piowant in 1673 (xii. 242). Alexander, and Philip, and some or all of these six, would be among those whose initials we should expect to discover, if any. It is very easy to find, or to imagine, their presence there. But it is manifestly impossible in the case of any one of them to be sure that it has such a source.

246 Communicated to Davis by the Rev. Dr. Lathrop, who was with Washington in visiting the college. See pp. 81–82, above.

247 Vues dea Cordilléres et monuments des peuples indigenes de l’Amérique, i. 180.

248 Researches, concerning the Institutions and Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America, with Descriptions and Views of some of the most Striking Scenes in the Cordilleras. Written in French by Alexander de Humboldt, & Translated into English by Helen Maria Williams, London, 1814, pp. 149–154. The Introduction by von Humboldt is dated Paris, April the 12th, 1813.

249 Archaeologia. See p. 76, above.

250 See Plate XXX. I learn nothing concerning this Job Gardner, except that a present resident of Dighton, born in 1830, when he was a boy knew Gardner as a maker of globes in an old shop on the river-front.

251 Antiquitates Americanæ, 1837, p. 358.

252 According to Webb, in Antiquitates Americanaæ, p. 358.

253 Antiquities of America Explained, pp. 71 ff.

254 Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, pp. 633–635.

255 Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast, p. 416.

256 Le Printemps, premier chant du Poeme Chinois, Des Saisons, traduit en vers Français, et mêlé d’allusions au Regne de Louis XVIII. 28 pages.

257 American Monthly Magazine and Critical Review, 1817, i. 257.

258 x. 227.

259 “Mr. Moulton is in fact the sole author of this scarce book,” according to Sabin (xii. 440).

260 One of these, to “Col. Duane’s speculations on this subject,” I have been unable to discover.

261 I condense the account, without indicating omissions and other changes made for the purpose.

262 The invalidity of this opinion as to Kendall’s drawing, and of these arguments concerning the Indians, have already received attention.

263 Recherches sur les Antiquites des États-Unis de L’Amérique septentrional; in Recueil de Voyages et de Mémoires, publié par la Société de Geographie, 1825, ii. 438, 439: Monument curieux qui a fait croire à quelques auteurs que les Phéniciens ont visité l’Amérique. Planche XII.

264 Nachrichten über die fruheren Einwohner von Nordamerika und ihre Denkmäler, gesammelt von Friedrich Wilhelm Assail, Berghauptmann des Staates Pennsylvanien. Herausgegeben mit einem Vorberichte von Franz Joseph Mone ord. Prof. der Geschichte und Statistik zu Heidelberg. Mit einem Atlas von 12 Steintafeln: Heidelberg, 1827, pp. 71 ff.

265 There are two universally accepted errors concerning these drawings. One is that they were made in 1830, as Rafn mistakenly asserted. The second and more serious error is that the “View of the Assonet Inscription Rock; J. R. Bartlett delineavit” and “The Rhode Island Historical Society’s 1830” drawing as published in Antiquitates Americanæ are rightly so named. What the Society actually sent to Professor Rafn was importantly different in both cases. To the original drawings he added in both cases conjectural lines of his own. In the case of the “View” he gave no indication of this. On the other drawing, however, he made it possible to distinguish his own additions; but even so it ceased to be “The Rhode Island Historical Society’s” drawing, and became Rafn’s own. Some writers have recognized the fact of the additions. But many omit the peculiarities of marking that serve to distinguish them, and mistakenly call the whole the “Society’s” drawing, giving a seriously misleading impression as to what was actually found on the Rock. This is the case in the reproduction shown on Plate II of my previous paper. In a later paper the originals, photographed for me in Denmark, and Rafn’s reproductions from them will be shown side by side.

266 Ira Hill, A.M., Antiquities of America Explained. Hagers-Town [Md.], 1831. Pp. ix. 131.

Ira Hill is mentioned as an A.M. of the class of 1808 of the University of Vermont, in its General Catalogue. He was tutor there 1809–1810; teacher in Maryland; died 1838. I find no further information concerning him. His book is mentioned as “a very curious and VERY SCARCE volume” in the Brinley Catalogue, 1881, iii. 95.

267 See Plate XXX.

268 I have found in the literature of the subject no other allusions to some of these theories. The Pelasgian reference may be to Mathieu’s speculations. The Egyptians are not named, to my knowledge, before 1838. The “Trogans” and Persians are entirely new to me.

269 I Kings, Chapter 9:

26. And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom.

27. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon.

28. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon.

10 : 22. For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.

270 Both Kendall (Travels, ii. 223) and Lathrop (see above, p. 81) speak of the Pillars of Hercules in connection with the sculptures on the rock.

271 Hill inconsistently counts fifteen moons from the time of departure from Asia to the time of union of the peoples, and assigns the date to this event. But his own enumeration of the dots (dark or new moons) proves that he is reckoning from the time of leaving the Straits of Gibraltar to the death of the king.

272 N. S., i. 315 n.

273 i. 67.

274 American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, Boston, 1837, iii. 433.

275 Stark gives no authority for this statement, and I find no one else making such a claim. It may have been a variant of Kendall’s story about a ship’s anchor having been found there.

276 Moreau de Dammartin, La Pierre de Taunston, in Journal de l’Institut Historique, 1838, ix. 145–154.

Explication de la Pierre de Taunston, Par Moreau de Dammartin (Seine et Marne), membre de l’Institut historique. Passage Molière No. 5. Paris (n. d.). 28 pp. fold. pl. 8^o.

277 Plates XXIII and XXXI. It should be noted that all of the figures on the second Plate are mirror-wise reversed.

278 I made use of the following:

Richard Hinckley Allen, Star-Names and their Meanings, 1899.

J. Fortin, Atlas Céleste de Flamsteed, 2nd edition, Paris, 1776. Probably a later edition would be preferable; and a discovery of the edition that Dammartin himself used would be indispensable, if there were any occasion to take his argument seriously. Brunet (Manuel du Libraire, 1861, ii. 1280) records a third edition, Paris, 1795. There is a copy of this edition in the Boston Public Library, the title reading in part, “Atlas Céleste de Flamsteed, publié en 1776, Par J. Fortin, . . . Troisième Édition, Revue, corrigée & augmentée par les Citoyens Lalande & Mechain. A Paris, . . . M.DCC.XCV.”

Richard Schurig, Tabulae Celestes, 2te Auflage, 1909.

279 The figure does not resemble the constellation.

280 The most arbitrary drawing of lines through this constellation fails to give the figure called for.

281 The stars arranged as here called for do not take at all the outline shown on the figure of the inscription referred to, as will be more definitely shown in criticizing Dammartin’s results as a whole.

282 The proportions and directions are very imperfect, and utterly wrong in their relations to Virgo and Horus. The Arabic figure 2 is very good as described. There is no constellation Horus mentioned in our books. But the stars between Virgo and Corvus could be arranged easily to form this figure; and Allen (p. 462) speaks of Isis, the equivalent of Virgo, as being sometimes represented as “clasping in her arms the young Horus.”

283 No star of this name is mentioned in the books consulted. From the description, it would appear that probably 16 Librae is meant.

284 See previous note on Boötes.

285 Allen, p. 123: “Great prominence is given to Sirius on the square Zodiac of Denderah, where it is figured as a cow recumbent in a boat with head surmounted by a star.”

286 It will be noticed that the number 28 occurs twice; but the one intended in each case is easily recognizable. There is no number 15.

287 The author’s own diagram in Planche 2 is the best comment on the absurdity of this identification.

288 I do not find this constellation mentioned, either in the books cited or in the dictionary of Larousse.

289 This result is fairly exact, except that Flamsteed shows no such arrangement for the stars of the head, some internal stars are neglected, and some lying outside of the picture of Orion in Flamsteed are used.

290 The seven-tubed syrinx cannot be formed out of the stars of Lepus as figured in Flamsteed, though by using stars outside its picture, a vague approximation to it can be made. It is no easier if one uses all the stars of Lepus in Schurig, whichever way they are turned.

291 This fact is demonstrated by the author (to his own satisfaction) at length; but his detailed exposition may be dispensed with here, as irrelevant to our purpose.

292 See Figures 1 and 2. Figure 1 is the portion of the inscription under discussion, as drawn in Dammartin’s Plate. Figure 2 shows the actual arrangement of the stars mentioned by him, as reduced by pantograph with fair accuracy from Schurig. Complete accuracy is not essential for the argument, in this or the following figures. Consequently, having first made them for my own satisfaction only, I have not revised them for publication.

293 See Figure 3.

294 W. K. Adams, The Book of the Master; or, the Egyptian Doctrine of the Light Born of the Virgin Mother, 1898.

S. G. P. Coryn, The Faith of Ancient Egypt, 1913.

295 Allen, loc. cit., p. 206.

296 See Fig. 4. This figure was reduced by pantograph from Schurig. Free-hand drawing from Flamsteed gave a figure somewhat nearer to that of the rock, but not so accurate. It is the latter drawing, however, that is assumed in the text.

297 I have verified this statement, of course, by actually making the drawings.

298 See pp. 109–110, above.

299 Stark is another believer in the Phœnicians.

300 Bellomont left Barbados March 9 and reached New York April 2, 1698, but did not come to Boston until May 26, 1699 (Publications of this Society, xvii. 49, 49 note).

301 From the Frederick Lewis Gay Transcripts (State Papers, ix. 28) in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

302 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, v. 163. Cf. Sewall’s Diary, ii. 31*–131.*

303 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, v. 214.

304 Cf. Publications of this Society, vi. 86–89, 91; Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, ii. 437; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxiv. 110 note.

305 History of Massachusetts, ii. 153. For the earthquake, which occurred June 7, 1692, see Calendars of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1692–1693, pp. 651–652, 711–712.

306 P. 4/1. Cf. Shaw, Knights of England, ii. 274; 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, viii. 213.

307 Diary, ii. 42, 43.

308 Suffolk Probate Files, xix. 103.

309 Diary, i. 500.

310 Toleration Act (1689), which was introduced by Daniel Finch, second Earl of Nottingham, to whom Mather’s letter was addressed.

311 Allusions to Hobby will be found in the Calendars of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1697–1698, p. 596; 1700, p. 52; 1701, p. 269; 1702, p. 434; 1702–1703, pp. 38, 168, 609, 641, 649, 678; 1704–1705, pp. 19, 514, 589, 602, 604; 1706–1708, nos. 511, 656, 1186 ii. On October 19, 1698, and on February 1, 1700, Hobby was described as “a merchant of Port Royal.” On the latter date Governor Sir William Beeston included Hobby in a list of persons recommended for the Council for Jamaica, but added: “though 20 years since, when there were many Gentlemen here, none of these would have been thought fitting.” On May 30, 1701, Beeston spoke of Hobby as “since gone off.”

312 Gay Transcripts (Miscellaneous Papers, i. 102–106: British Museum, Add. MSS. 29, 5 49. ff. 109–110 b).

313 Gay Transcripts (Miscellaneous Papers, i. 106–108: British Museum, Add. MSS. 29, 5 49. f. 111).

314 Publications, x. 247–252.

315 Cord Cordis married (for his second wife) Hannah Jones (widow of Elnathan Jones), October 2, 1740; and died at Concord, aged 63, July 29, 1772. His widow died in London in 1779. (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 214; Wyman, Genealogies and Estate of Charlestown, i. 240; Boston Nem Letter, August 6, 1772.)

316 It is more than likely that the Club was behind the movement of 1761 to oppose the writs of assistance and to break down the whole vice-admiralty system in Boston. Two of its members, Harrison Gray, treasurer of the province, and John Erving, one of the council, were plaintiffs in suits before the common law courts against vice-admiralty officials, which were designed, as Governor Bernard said, “to destroy the court of admiralty and with it the custom house which cannot subsist without it.” (Colonial Office, 5:891, Ll 67, 68; Beer, British Colonial Policy, 1754–1765, pp. 119–123.)

317 In the original document the year is not given, and there is no mention of the founding of the Society in contemporary newspapers or diaries, but as John Hammock, Jr., one of the signers, died January 7, 1764 (Boston Gazette, January 16, 1764), and John Simpson, another of the signers, died June 30, 1764, while on his way from Fayal to Philadelphia (ibid. July 30, 1764), the year must be 1763. Furthermore the object of the Society was to prevent the renewal of the Molasses Act, and we have records of its activity in December, 1763.

318 In another hand.

319 In another hand.

320 Crossed out in the original.

321 Crossed out in the original, with a marginal note “not passed.”

322 In another hand.

323 In another hand.

324 Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, a collection of papers originating with the Society for the Promotion of Trade and Commerce and gathered by Edward Payne, secretary of its Standing Committee.

325 Drake, Old Boston Taverns, pp. 33–38, 38–39, 55, and Appendix.

326 Rowe, Diary, March 25, 1767.

327 William Molineux was one of the chief offenders: see Rowe, February 11, 1768, and Drake, pp. 41–43, for a Molineux-Otis anecdote. Molineux was known and disliked as an agitator.

328 Thomas Gray and Edward Payne had been instructed to draft a state of the trade in 1763, and to make every effort possible to prevent a renewal of the Molasses Act. In doing so, they incurred considerable expense, for which under the rules of the Society they should have been reimbursed. That this was not done appears from their statement to the Committee in January, 1766, that even “if the Society that remains should pay them half a dollar each for the purpose aforesaid there would even then be a deficit” (Massachusetts Historical Society, O2517).

329 Boston Evening Post, May 14, 1764: “The annual meeting of the Society for encouraging Trade and Commerce will be held this evening at the British Coffee House. The members are desired to give their attendance.”

330 Massachusetts Historical Society, Broadsides.

331 Such as that of March 1, 1768, to correspond with merchants in other trading towns and provinces and consisting of John Hancock, John Rowe, Edward Payne, William Phillips, Thomas Boylston, Arnold Welles, Melatiah Bourne, Henderson Inches, and John Erving, Jr. A committee was also appointed to prepare a list of those articles which it might be thought necessary to import, and there were doubtless many others.

332 This diary was first published, with some omissions, in 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, x. 60–108; later in a separate volume (called Letters and Diary) edited by Mrs. Cunningham, in more complete form. I have been carefully over the original manuscript and obtained therefrom much additional information regarding the meetings and those who were present at them.

333 The New York merchants were equally active at this time. In February, 1764, they assembled in the Long Room of Burn’s tavern, which as a merchants’ meeting place corresponded to the British Coffee House in Boston, and appointed a committee to prepare a memorial to the assembly of the province, representing the decline of trade and the distresses of the merchants and traders of the city. This committee, which may be the same as that noted below, p. 174 note 2, wrote to Philadelphia advising the merchants there of their intention of “heartily joining the eastern governments in soliciting a discontinuance of the most unjust of all laws, the Sugar Act,” and of requesting the assembly to instruct the agent in England “to go hand in hand with the other governments.” Apparently the merchants of Rhode Island did the same, for the assembly there in February, 1764, ordered a memorial regarding the duties on sugar, molasses, etc., “to be sent to Mr. Agent Sherwood” (Boston Gazette, February 13, 1764; Boston Evening Post, March 26, 1764). It would be interesting to know more about this early instance of cooperation among the merchants. I owe these references to Miss Viola F. Barnes, who made the search for me.

334 Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, no. 17. Memorial of Merchants and Traders of Boston, “That a certain Act of Parliament in the sixth year of his late Majesty’s reign, generally known by the name of the Sugar Act [Molasses Act], being near Expiring, they have the greatest reason to expect that the W. Indian planters will use their utmost endeavours to procure the renewal of it” (Massachusetts Archives, Court Records, xxv. 100. Memorial of Merchants and Traders of Plymouth, xxv. 100; of Marblehead, xxv. 109; of Salem, xxv. 114). Unfortunately the General Court proceedings, from December 21, 1763, to January 24, 1764, with all supplemental papers, were burnt in the fire which destroyed Harvard Hall on the night of January 24, 1764, where the assembly was sitting on account of the epidemic of small-pox in Boston. These letters and memorials were among the papers lost. But the committee was instructed to recover what it could, to prepare a letter to Mauduit during the recess of the assembly, and to place it in the hands of the Secretary for despatch (xxv. 143, 152–153, 194).

335 The text of the “State” probably contained the following sections:

One principal branch of the trade of this province is the fishing carried on to the Banks; in this branch there is upwards of 300 vessels employed, besides a great number of small boats in the Bay, and in the Mackrel Fishing about 90, the Fish these vessels cure, with the pickled Fish and Liver Oyl amounts to upwards of £160,000 stg. per annum; — about ⅖ of this Bank Fish turns out merchantable and is sent to Spain, Portugal, and Italy, the net proceeds of which with the freight is remitted to Great Britain; the other ⅗ being such as is oversalted, sunburnt, and broken, and thereby rendered unfit for any market in Europe is sent to the Islands in the West Indies, first to the English Islands, which cant consume more than ⅕ the remaining ⅖ is sent to the French foreign islands, in return for which we receive Molasses and a small proportion of ordinary sugars. This valuable branch of trade and nursery of seamen almost if not wholly depends on our trade to the foreign islands in the West Indies (as we cannot cure fish for the European market separate from the other sort sent to the West Indies) and as we have no other Market for what is made by the Bankers, it will be lost if not sent to the foreign islands in the West Indies and this loss must infallibly destroy the whole bank fishing.

Another considerable branch of our trade is lumber of all kinds which is sent to the West Indies, also provisions, horses, onions, and many other articles suitable for the West Indies, in which trade there is upwards of 300 vessels employed in this province. Most of these vessels call first at the English islands (who consume but a small proportion of what we export). When they are supplied, the remainder is carried to the foreign islands.

Some oak timber and staves are sent to Ireland, some to Madeira and the Western Islands to purchase wines, and some few cargoes are sent to Spain, Portugal, and England, but none to any foreign port to the N^o of Cape Finisterre; as the first cost of these cargoes of lumber is very small, the whole profits are no more than a freight for the vessel, but this freight is a great encouragement to shipbuilding, a very considerable branch of trade in this province, where there has been upwards of—built in a year, before the late embarrassments were laid on our trade since w^ch this number has been reduced ⅓.

Some of these ships with fish, oyl, potash and naval stores are sent direct to Europe, but chiefly to the West Indies with lumber, fish, and other articles of our produce, the proceeds of which with the freight to England, together with the vessel, are remitted to Great Britain to pay for the goods we receive from thence, and by having timber plenty and building so many vessels we become carriers for all other parts of America besides the trade to the West Indies. Many of our ships go to Virginia, N^o and S^o Carolina, where they carry large quantities of rum and other northern produce to purchase rice, tobacco, and naval stores, and take in freight for Great Britain where the Proceeds of the whole and indeed of all our trade centers (Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517).

I have not had access to a copy of the “State” of 1763, if such exists. Probably that sent to the General Assembly was lost in the fire. The figures given above correspond to those furnished by Marblehead and Salem, and the statement above, though containing a reference to the Sugar Act of 1764, and so actually written after that date, is likely to be nothing more than the earlier one adapted to a new need. Many such “States” were drafted between 1763 and 1769 and the same wording appears throughout. New “States” are simply old “States” added to. A copy of the “State” has recently been found: see pp. 379–390, below.

336 In studying the grievances of the New England merchants we must remember that New England had four particular forms of economic activity — agriculture, fishing, commerce, and manufactures, in the last three of which she was the rival of Great Britain. The southern colonies and the West Indies had neither manufactures, commerce, nor fisheries. See American Husbandry, i. 434–435, ii. 236–245.

James Bowdoin wrote to Alexander Mackay, November 29, 1770: “What is remitted to England is by a circuitous trade, and principally from Spain & Portugal, all which added to the numerous articles of their own and foreign produce sent by them to Britain is scarcely sufficient to pay for what they import from thence. Whatever, therefore, is taken from them as revenue not only so far prevents the paying the debt due to Britain, but operates to the discouragement and lessening of their general trade, upon which their ability to pay that debt and continue that importation depends” (6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 242).

Franklin wrote to Peter Collinson, April 30, 1764: “We are in your hands as Clay in the Hands of the Potter and so in more particulars than is generally considered, for as the Potter cannot waste or spoil his Clay without injuring himself so I think there is scarce anything you can do that may be hurtful to us, but what will be as much or more so to you. Does anybody see that if you confine us in America to your own Sugar Islands for that commodity, it must raise the price of it in England. Just so much as the price advances, so much is every Englishman tax’d to the West Indies” (British Museum, Add. MSS. 37021, f. 21).

337 William Barrell proposed to ship sugar from St. Croix to Boston, consigned to his brother Joseph Barrell. The latter warned him that the duties must be paid (“if you ship anything it must undoubtedly pay the duty”), and said that he would have to get the permission of the governor of the Danish island “which he had never refused to give” (April 12, 1709, Barrell Papers, Library of Congress). In a letter written to Jasper Mauduit, Nov. 24, 1764, and later sent to Richard Jackson, an unknown correspondent (the Society?) emphasizes the fact that the duties levied by the act of 1764 were a heavy drain on the colony, particularly in the matter of molasses, because the French would suffer none to trade without permits and these permits were very costly; the business had to be transacted by such a person as they appointed, “who was allowed ten per cent for doing it, and he charged the molasses as he pleased and no questions must be asked” (Massachusetts Historical Society, Massachusetts Papers, no. 1: not in the printed collection). Barrell had great trouble with the Danish governor and finally failed to get permission. The Society laid a great deal of stress on these points in its statements. Compare my Anglo-French Commercial Rivalry (American Historical Review, July, 1915, xx. 763 note 6).

338 The sending of flaxseed to Ireland was a very important aspect of New York and New England commerce at this time. The merchants said that the trade was worth £40,000 a year. See Commerce of Rhode Island, i. passim.

339 The object of this bond was to prevent smuggling. Until 1765, the Isle of Man had been controlled by private lords and in consequence smuggling had gone on to such an extent as to call for governmental interference. The custom-house books of western Scottish ports, notably those of Ayr, show the extent of this clandestine running of rum to Great Britain. In 1765 parliament bought out the governmental rights of the proprietaries, the Duke of Atholl and others, for £70,000, and immediately passed acts regulating the trade of the island. Under these acts the colonists were forbidden to carry rum to the Isle of Man and were required to give a bond not to do so. (5 George III, cc. 26, 39 sections 5, 6, c. 43.)

340 It is difficult to disentangle and classify these various drafts framed by the Standing Committee. No. 26 seems to be of date 1764, with additions of 1767; no. 27 must be of date later than 1766; no. 54 is the first draft of no. 39, which was probably that sent to De Berdt; while nos. 52, 53, 58–60, 65–67, 74, were probably notes used in making up no. 39, the last part of which is contained in nos. 55 and 56. No. 31 is apparently the latest of all, and was completed toward the end of the year 1768, as it embodies all the claims made since 1763. Nos. 68–70 may be the original draft of no. 31.

341 Thomas-Cushing to Dennys De Berdt, June 28, 1766 (Massachusetts Papers, Seventy-Six Society Publications, no. 3, p. 15).

342 Massachusetts Papers, Seventy-Six Society Publications, no. 3, p. 29.

343 American Husbandry, ii. 245.

344 11 William III, c. 25.

345 Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial, vi. § 704. Cf. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1704–1705, § 116; representation of the Board of Trade, April 29, 1765, Colonial Office, 195: 9, pp. 397–424; and the additional instructions to Palliser of May 6, 1765, ibid. pp. 434–436. Some of these orders are in the Book of Orders and Proclamations by Governors of Newfoundland, Public Record Office, Admiralty, Greenwich Hospital, Miscellanea, Various, 121.

346 Palliser arrived, for the second time, on April 3, 1766, and began to issue rules, orders, and regulations to be observed on the coast of Labrador. Under these rules no New Englander was to take cod in the straits of Belle Isle or off the coast of Labrador.

347 Massachusetts Historical Society, O2517, nos. 55, 56. See also Massachusetts Papers, p. 40, where additional grievances regarding the fishery may be found. In Massachusetts Historical Society, O2517, no. 65, is the following: “Mr. Palliser posted an order in the Town House and sent for the masters of all the vessels belonging to the plantations, forbidding [them] to tarry at St. John’s or any of the other harbours after the last day of October [1766], and if any presum’d to tarry after that time they were to have their rudders taken off and their sails carried into the Fort, and likewise sail masters to give bonds with sureties not to bring away any passengers. By which we are entirely excluded from the Cod fishery.” Cf. no. 74.

348 The letter was addressed to James Otis, Benjamin Faneuil, Henry Lloyd, John Rowe, Samuel Hughes, and Stephen Greenleaf, and was signed by John Cruger, John Alsop, James Jauncy, Walter Franklin, Henry White, Richard Yates, Isaac Sears, Robert Murray, Gerard Beekman, David Van Home, and Elias Desbrosses (Massachusetts Historical Society, O2517, no. 30). For the general situation in New York and for comments on the petition, see Becker, History of Political Parties in the Province of New York, 1760–1776, pp. 28–39.

349 Massachusetts Historical Society, O2517, no. 74.

350 Ibid. nos. 34, 35. Printed in Letters of Dennys De Berdt, 1757–1770 (Publications of this Society, xiii. 451–452).

351 The fees exacted at the custom houses everywhere at this period were a distinct grievance to the merchants. There were two forms of protest, one against excessive fees, and the other against fees that were illegal or were not authorized at all. On July 31, 1769, fifty-one of the leading merchants of Newport entered into an agreement not to pay higher custom-house fees than the law allowed and to guard strangers against the exactions of the custom-house officials (New Hampshire Gazette, October 13, 1769). The same question came up in Connecticut, when in October, 1769, memorials were presented to the assembly, which disclose the antagonism existing between the merchants and the customs officials (Connecticut Archives, Maritime and Trading Affairs, ii. nos. 90, 91). The protest had been made in the colonies as early as 1764 and was continued till 1770. It was emphatic in Philadelphia and Charles Town.

352 The colonial grievances against the courts of vice-admiralty at this period reached their climax in the case of Henry Laurens in Charles Town, who had three vessels seized and condemned. Laurens’s comments on this event can be found in his pamphlets, for the titles of which see Wallace, Life of Laurens. Some of his views, as given in his Letter Books, are even more expressive. He speaks of “the tyranny of custom house officers . . . the losses from their unjust exactions and from the rigorous, artful, and illegal decisions in the American courts of vice-admiralty . . . the vast extent of jurisdiction and powers given to a single man who may be a fool or a knave or both . . . those rapacious, haughty, insolent and overbearing men, such as our collector was during his short six months residence here, are great troublers of quiet minds . . . such men are the greatest enemies to Britain of any men in America and as one vile priest does more injury to the cause of religion than two rakes, so does one such officer or man in power more prejudice to the interest of Britain in America than twenty mouthing Liberty Boys” (Laurens, Letter Book, iv. 31, 168, 192, 329, 353, 355, 370, 374, South Carolina Historical Society).

353 Adams, Cushing, Otis, and Gray wrote to Dennys De Berdt, December 20, 1765: “We find that attempts have been made to raise a jealousy in the nation that the colonists are struggling for independence, than which nothing can be more injurious. It is neither their interest, nor have they ever shown the least disposition to be independent of Great Britain. They have always prided themselves on being British subjects” (Adams, Writings, i. 70–71).

Laurens wrote in 1767: “As to our European-American affairs I am under no dread about them, there may possibly be some disagreeable work, but even such work must be soon at an end and produce an establishment of union to endure for ages. There are mistaken men on both sides, the eyes of the nation will be opened and men on either part who do not want wisdom and who can see the compatibility of freedom and subordination will arise with healing under their wings and build an everlasting bridge from Britain to British America. God grant it may be so” (Letter Book, iv. 52).

354 William Allason wrote to his brother, September 6, 1765: “We may expect a good collection next spring unless the Stamp Duty should have the same bad consequences that is generally apprehended from it. By all accounts it will drain the country in a few years of all the money in circulation and entirely put it out of the power of people in trade to recover their small debts by the charge of the sheriffs that will be necessary in the prosecution of a suit for a trifling sum, of which most of our debts consist.” He further adds that in case of a suit “the plaintiff cannot recover the Stamp Duty as he can the other costs, since it is not so provided by Parliament” (Allason Papers, Virginia State Library).

355 Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1714–1719, p. 157. In 1765 Van Cortlandt wrote, “I would order tobacco could part of the duty be saved, but a penny sterl^g Duty will not answer” (Letter Book, New York Public Library). It was reported from Charles Town in 1770 that the “Kings duties” were paid in silver, and this term probably included the plantation duty (South Carolina Gazette, May 31, 1770). For the quitrents, see Bond, The Quit Rent System in the American Colonies (American Historical Review, April, 1912, xvii. 508–510).

There was probably no hard money to speak of in the interior towns of any of the colonies, certainly not in New England, where scarcity in the cities, due to trade and the fisheries, would involve the country districts, which were entirely dependent on the mercantile centres for cash. For example, Enfield even at this period was making all authorized grants for schools, ministers, and town expenses “to be paid in the produce of the earth” (Allen, History of Enfield, i. 432–443, and passim). A similar condition prevailed in all the agricultural communities of New England.

356 “Distress and poverty stalks among us equal to anything among our neighbours” (Letter from New Bern, N. C., June 10, 1768, New Hampshire Gazette, July 22, 1768). The Boston Gazette of November 2, 1767, speaks of “the present alarming scarcity of money and consequent stagnation of trade, and the almost universally increasing complaints of debt and poverty.” A Providence town meeting, after listening to the report of its committee on December 4, 1767, stated as a reason for its vote that the colony was heavily in debt, its inhabitants subject to burdensome taxation, trade, which for some years had been on the decline, was suffering under great embarrassments, medium very scarce, and the balance of trade very unfavorable (Providence Gazette, December 12, 1767). Newport made the same statement, December 4 (Boston Gazette, December 14). In 1764, times in New Jersey and Pennsylvania were considered bad by all writers, and failures were not uncommon. On April 5, 1769, Washington wrote to George Mason, “That many families [in Virginia] are reduced almost, if not quite, to penury and want by the low ebb of their fortunes, and that estates are daily selling for the discharge of debts, the public papers furnish too many melancholy proofs” (Life and Correspondence of George Mason, i. 140); and in October, 1769, an address was sent to Gov. Franklin of New Jersey on the “Deplorable State of the Province, arising partly from the excessive scarcity of money and decay of trade, but chiefly from the multiplicity of lawsuits, mostly for debt” (New Jersey Archives, xxvi. 529). This petition led to the passage of the New Jersey Act “For the Relief of Insolvent Debtors.” John Watts of New York wrote to Gov. Monckton in 1765, “The illboding aspect of things, cramping of trade, suppression of paper money, duties, courts of admiralty, appeals, internal taxes, etc., have rendered people so poor, cross, and desperate that they don’t seem to care who are their masters or indeed for any master” (4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, x. 587, December 30, 1765). See also a letter from J. W. Watts to the same, February 4, 1769, on the situation (Chalmers Papers, iii., New York Public Library).

357 William Dunterfield of Imlay’s Town, Pa., did this in 1767, and Nathaniel Barrell, whose financial troubles split the Sandemanian Church in New Hampshire, locked himself in his house for six weeks in 1766.

358 As the point here made is an important one, I should like to substantiate it by quoting a part of the evidence upon which it is based, drawn not from the newspapers but from the merchants’ letter-books of the period.

Thomas Browning of Georgetown, Maryland, wrote to Stephen Collins in 1762: “Collections in the Cuntry is I can say with truth the worst I ever knew them (March 15).” “The Farmers are not making more than half crops of wheat and not more in proportion of Indian corn. I can only say that two thirds of our farmers when I call on them for their account say that if we pay you off our children must suffer for bread” (June 15: Collins Papers).

The Allason letters of 1763 are full of references to suits to recover money from debtors in Annapolis, Philadelphia, North Carolina, and the up country. “I believe there never were so many suits depending in this country [Virginia] as there is at this time. Scarcely a prison is allowed to stand [empty] in some counties” (W. Allason to his brother, June 24, 1764, Allason Papers).

John Schaw, writing to Allason on February 9, 1763, said: “I have left above £1500 debts behind me [in Annapolis] and I shall go over about the last of March to make a collection,” with the result that “I made a very unsuccessful journey of it myself, I mean in collecting my debts, which gives me great uneasiness. The people there had nothing in short to pay me” (Letter of April 1, 1763). His journey included the Eastern Shore also.

Ezra Collins to Stephen Collins, March, 1763: “Thy old friends Dan^l King, W. Vane, J^no Nutting of Salem failed thousands worse than nothing.”

Scott & Gill wrote to Collins from Boston, April 18, 1763: “There is scarce any other money than gold passing here and a rare thing to see a dollar.”

Collins threatened one Thomas Barber of Piles Grove, New Jersey, with an execution until he paid or gave security, and couched his letter “in an angry style.” Barber replied that going to prison would not pay the debt.

John Kirkpatrick wrote from Alexandria, November 26, 1764: “I have been abroad these three weeks in quest of money but never met so great disappointment in collection. I had a great dependence on Col. Philip Lee, but in vain. There is £28 due from Col. W^m Fitzhugh in Stafford which I sued for.” Parrish wrote from Accomac in 1764: “Times is hard and money hard to collect, at least I find it so” (May 29, 1764), and he calls 1765 “that fatal year,” not because of the Stamp Act but because of his business troubles.

The letters from Joseph Barrell to his brother William emphasize constantly his difficulties in raising money, April 15, June 15, 1763. That of April 22 mentions the matter three times.

On May 4, 1765, Peter Schmuck of Hardwick, New Jersey, wrote Collins: “I received thy letter yesterday by which I understand thy uneasiness which I am sorry for and should have come to Town before now if I could got my money in which I have been trying ever since Last Fall but all in vain and now I began to sue and it seems to be all one. Of twenty fife person which I suit at one time I got my money only of four and the rest I must get it by execution, which it seems to go very hard. For such times never was known among people for there is never a week but there are some vendues of the sheriffs and constables.” In 1767 Collins sold up Schmuck, who wrote him a scornful letter, September 23. Collins in commenting on the situation said, May 21, 1768: “Sheriff, coroner, and I think Schmuck are all dependent on each others Lenity, either having executions against each other or debts due.”

Jacob Isaac to Collins: “I am schmd to come without the money becust it has been so long standen” (February 23, 1766). John Milhause to Collins, April 26, 1766, says much the same, and later, November 18, adds that he has enough owing him to pay many bonds but that it is impossible to get it quickly by suing, as the law allows three months in small debts and three courts in large ones. John Sheppard to Collins, June 19, 1765: “I have as much more money owing to me as I owe, but I cannot command it at this time by Rason of the great Scarcity of money.” Michael Hessler appealed to him in two letters from “Reading Gaol,” August 25, September 2, 1765. Jonathan Bowen of Cohansey, September 5: “I am getting in the money for you as fast as possible.” John Long to Collins, Burlington, New Jersey, November 25, 1766: “I rec^d your letter leding me no the Scarcity of money and indeed I put no Dout in it for I can get none at all.”

In 1767, William Barrell of Portsmouth was down to bed-rock in the matter of cash. “I havent 5 dollars in the world,” he wrote, April 15, 1767.

John Rodermel to Collins, “Richmont townsib, Barks County,” Pa., May 2, 1768: “I bake of you dow dwade me six monds lonker Deng will bay you ac whidoud fale den id unbasble for me to bay id sowner. Den I hobe you vont but me in ane chust [jail] dou it is ware hards time to gad money.”

In February, 1769, William Allason had twenty-six cases in Fredericksburg County court against Shenandoah debtors, among whom were Daniel Morgan, the Ashbys, and others. His suits, 1762–1764, against persons owing him either on bond or on account numbered 126, as follows: Frederick county 38, Stafford 30, Fauquier 24, Culpcper 16, etc. In 1768–1770, the total number was 94, covering fourteen counties and the general court. Allason kept a list of his lawyers (Allason Day Book and Suit Book).

The financial difficulties do not appear to have been as serious in New York as in Pennsylvania, though Philip Van Cortlandt said in 1764 that trade was “almost intirely stopt by the severity of the customs officers and men of war,” and his letter-books show that he had considerable sums owing him in Virginia, which he could not get except at serious loss. “I could wish the gentlemen of Virginia had been as punctual in payments as I have been in answering their requests,” he writes, and his correspondence is as spicy as is that of Collins. He had to go to law in some cases and to threaten to do so in others. As to his own business, he says, “I do but little more than pay the expence of my works at present,” and in December, 1765, speaks of “these dull times, the distressed situation, little business done, no law in force, a terable time.” “Most of the sugar houses are stopt since last Fall,” he writes in March, 1765, a situation due of course to the Sugar Act, the scarcity of raw sugar, and the watchfulness of the custom house officers and men of war. In 1768, he reported sugar again as low and other sugar houses as “stopt in the city.” From John Van Cortlandt’s ledgers may be obtained figures regarding the suits against Roscoe Sweny and Col. Tucker of Virginia, and Abraham Maers of North Carolina, as well as ample additional evidence of debts due all the way from New Haven to Hampton, Virginia.

359 Book debts play a very important part in colonial business and were the subject of legislation in a majority of the colonies. They occupy much space in ledgers after 1758, but comparative estimates are difficult to reach, on account of the scarcity of evidence. John Glassford, a well-known Scottish merchant, with a string of stores along the Potomac and near-by waters, enters in one of his ledgers a list of 250 customers with debit and credit items (October 1, 1760). The customers owed him £125 stg, 1613 lbs tobacco, and £975 Virginia currency; he owed them £15 stg, 3426 lbs tobacco, and £54 Virginia currency (Firm Accounts, Maryland and Virginia, v. Library of Congress). The entering of debts in a merchant’s ledger is no sign of specially bad times, but the following in ledgers of the period under consideration may be noted: “Debts deemed Desperate,” “Insolvent Debts,” “Dead and no Effects,” “Denies the Debt,” “Sued,” “Run to Virginia” (many), “Lunatick and no Effects,” “No such man can be found,” “Lost by Judgment.” It should be noticed that “Desperate Debts” was the customary term for bad debts (Mair, Bookkeeping Modernized, p. 516).

360 Freeman & Osland wrote April 28, 1763, saying that “the failure of remittances from America rendered it impossible for them to fill his orders.” Collins wrote to Neate, Pigon & Booth, “I shall be very cautious of ordering any more Goods than I can pay for to your satisfaction” (April 30, 1767).

361 He made a strenuous effort to collect money. Patrick Riley, Bound Brook, September 21, 1763, wrote, “I rec^d thine of the 8^mo 4, 1763, which Required in the most strickest manner thy money.” John Goldy, New Mills, March 6, 1764, “As an Acknowledgement for thy Extrornery favor and patience in Waiting so long for thy Money,” etc.

362 The account between William Allason of Falmouth, Virginia, and his brother in Glasgow ran as follows:

December	1760	Debit	£2129	Balance	1342
“	1762	“	1342	“	1392a
“	1763	“	1657b	“	1258
“	1764	“	1595b	“	904
“	1765	“	1021b	“	603
“	1766	“	1048b	“	697
“	1767	“	717b	“	362
“	1768	“	388c	“	182

a Including £50 interest with no credit allowance.

b Principal and interest.

c Principal and interest and postage.

The letters from Henry Cruger to Aaron Lopez of Newport, Rhode Island, show a similar situation. In March, 1768, the indebtedness of Lopez to Cruger was £11,000 stg, with a prospect of a reduction to £9000. In 1767 it was £10,514 (Commerce of Rhode Island, i. 189, 229).

363 The Charles Town merchants generally had balances to their credit in England, so that the drain of specie in that direction was trifling as compared with the North. But there was a drain of specie northward, because of the large amounts of potatoes, onions, flour, and other staples imported from the northern colonies, for which there was only a little rice to give in return. Few provisions were raised on the plantations of South Carolina, and no Irish potatoes for export till 1768 (South Carolina Gazette, June 27, 1768). It was estimated in 1770, that specie was drawn from the colony in three ways: (1) by the payment of the king’s duties in silver; (2) by the trade with the northern colonies, “who take a very inconsiderable quantity of our produce in payment for their goods;” (3) by sea voyages to the same colonies for health, pleasure, change of air, or education. Thirty-two people are mentioned as going in that year to Rhode Island, Philadelphia, New York, or Boston, and taking with them 3500 guineas, chiefly in half joes and dollars. See an interesting letter in the Georgia Gazette on this subject, October 18, 1764.

364 “Oil without Vinegar and Dignity without Pride, or British, American, and West India Interests Considered, Together with a Chart showing the Rise and Fall of the Trade between the Two Countries, By Macall Medford,” 2d edition, London, 1807.

365 This subject will bear further investigation. The author of American Husbandry deems it a “hackneyed argument” to say that the money of the northern colonies was “laid out in merchandize with Britain” (ii. 242). But the colonists believed profoundly that it was so. Samuel Adams said, “The Dutys upon the goods imported from [England] and consumed here, together with those which are laid upon almost every Branch of our Trade all of which center in dry Cash in her Coffers amounts to a very great sum” (Writings, i. 42–43, 62, 114).

366 The following is taken from the Annual Abstracts of the Receiver General, 1746–1780 (Public Record Office, Treasury 38:357):

1762	Plantation duty		£721
1763	“ “		1326
1764	“ “		1031
1765		Plantation duty	£2959
1766		“ “	7378
1767		Plantation duty	3910
		By 4 George III	29,685
		“6 George II	10
		“ 6 George III	272
		Fines and Forfeitures	684
1768		Plantation duty	517
		By 4 George III	14,802
		“ 6 George III	8765
		“ 7 George III	86
		Fines and Forfeitures	119
1769		Plantation duty	1075
		By 6 George II	75
		“ 4 George III	6047
		“ 6 George III	2655
		“ 7 George III	708
		Fines and Forfeitures	1217
		Seizures by Ships of War (per 4 George III, c. 15) .	597

367 See the grievances of the Boston merchants, p. 169 and note 1, above. Even in 1763, Van Cortlandt could say, “Here [New York] the men of warr and customs officials search every vessel and have seized several,” “Several vessels have been seized this week past, therefore be careful of contraband goods.”

368 Boston Gazette, May 22, 1769.

369 Pennsylvania Chronicle, July 18, 1769.

370 Boston Gazette, July 11, 1768.

371 This letter is not signed and there is no clue to its authorship. Its content is similar to the first part of that sent by Otis, Cushing, Gray, Adams, and Sheafe to Dennys De Berdt in December, 1765 (Massachusetts Papers, pp. 6–7), but it differs from the latter in containing the non-consumption clause and omitting the constitutional arguments that occupy so large a space in the latter document. As it was also sent to Richard Jackson in the spring of 1766, after the Otis letter had been sent to De Berdt and as the merchants at this time paid little attention to the constitutional claim, it is possible that the Society had something to do with it, particularly as Otis, Cushing, and Gray were all members of the Merchants’ Club (Rowe’s Diary, manuscript, December 14, 20, 24, 31, January 9, 10, 11, 1764–1765). This letter is not included in the printed Massachusetts Papers, but will be found in the manuscript collection.

Drake mentions a non-importation and non-consumption agreement of August, 1764 (History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 679), but I have been entirely unable to find contemporary evidence for it. It is certain that no non-importation agreement was made at that time, and had a non-consumption agreement been entered into in any formal way, it would surely be recorded in the newspapers.

372 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xvi. 221–224; Boston Gazette November 2, 1767. This meeting did not adopt a non-importation resolution as is frequently stated.

373 The town meeting met on November 25, and appointed a committee, which reported on December 2, at which time the resolution was adopted (Proiddence Town Records, November 25, December 2, 1767; Providence Gazette, December 12, 1767; Massachusetts Historical Society, Broadsides, December 9, 1767).

374 Memorial History of Boston, ii. 338.

375 The following towns may be listed, but the number could be greatly increased. Falmouth, Scarborough, Pepperellborough, Biddeford, Wells, Kittery, Old York, Arundel, Newburyport, Billerica, Medfield, Abington, Wellsboro, Ashburnham, Salem, Lexington, Grafton, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Sandwich, Truro. For Connecticut towns, see Lamed, History of Windham County, ii.118f1–161[1]. The proceedings in Boston and the northern colonies were printed with approval in both the South Carolina and Georgia Gazettes, but I cannot find that any formal action was taken. New Jersey sent Massachusetts her congratulations on the economy resolutions, and Virginia, April 5, 1768, said she was anxiously expecting that some resolves of frugality and industry would be entered into by the merchants of Philadelphia, as the influence of so large a place would be extensive and the lesser towns would be ambitious to follow her example (Boston Gazette, May 9, 1768). All of the non-importation agreements contain non-consumption clauses.

376 On September 21, 1769, there was held at Taunton “a Spinning Match: (or what is call’d in the Country a Bee)” (Boston Gazette, October 16, 1769).

377 Boston Gazette, November 2, 1767, October 16, 1769; New London Gazette, April 25, 1766.

378 One newspaper querist desired to know whether it would not be more probable that “we should soon have more profitable times among us, if the gentlemen’s oeconomy or prudence were half equal to that of the ladies” (Boston Gazette, June 6, 1768); and a lady wrote to the South Carolina Gazette upbraiding the men for lack of self-denial, going to club or tavern, gaming, horse-racing, and cock-fighting (October 5, 1769). The South Carolina maidens were not satisfied with a change of clothes, they wanted a change of habits also. New London recommended abstention from the use of spirituous liquors (Boston Gazette, February 1, 1768).

379 At Gloucester the spinning was followed by the singing of an anthem (Essex Gazette, December 27, 1768).

380 Hyperion or Labrador tea was a decoction of the leaves of the common “red root” and is described as “something like wild rosemary,” with a “very physical taste, of a deep brown color, and generally disliked by those who taste it.” It was afterwards advertised as “very wholesome and good for the rheumatism, spleen, and many other disorders and pains.” A writer of New Bern, North Carolina, June 10, 1768, noting that Hyperion tea was used in the North “as a succedaneum to that most pernicious and destructive plant Bohea, which annually drains America of thousands,” recommended to the people of North Carolina, “with due deference to the refined taste of the ladies, the use of Yeopann Tea.” “This plant,” the writer adds, “is much used among the lower sort, is of great efficacy, when taken physically, being a powerful sudorific; is no exotic but a domestic of almost every sandy plantation in this province. We hope, therefore, soon to have the pleasure of informing the public that at a meeting of the ladies on such and such a day at such a place, such a number of threads were spun, after which they regaled with Yeopann Tea” (New Hampshire Gazette, July 22, 1768). The yapon (yopon) shrub and “tea” are well known in the South.

381 Larned, Windham County, ii. 117; Caulkins, History of Norwich, p. 367.

382 Newport Mercury, February 13, 1769; South Carolina Gazette, November 23, 1769.

383 Newport Mercury, January 30, 1768.

384 The making of shoes at Lynn had been a New England industry for some years and was now considerably increased to relieve the people of buying the poorer varieties of shoes from England. The better varieties, such as callamanco shoes, the uppers of which were covered with a flowered or striped cloth imported from Flanders, were not made in America at this time. Cheap shoes in the South were made for sale by negro shoemakers on the plantations, and the business brought in considerable revenue to the slave owners. Lynn shoes were exported to Philadelphia and elsewhere.

385 Boston Gazette, January 4, 1768.

386 At Brown, the president also wore homespun (John Carter Brown Library, Broadside). The senior class at Yale announced their decision early “that their parents and friends [might] have sufficient time to be providing homespun cloaths for them that none of them [might] be obliged to the hard necessity of unfashionable singularity by wearing imported cloth” (New Hampshire Gazette, January 20, 1767). Madison wrote to his father from Nassau Hall (Princeton) that all the 115 students in the college and the 22 in the grammar school were wearing American cloth, July 23, 1770 (Writings, 1900, i. 7). For extracts from the Harvard “College Books,” referring to the wearing of homespun, see our Publications, xviii. 351–352.

387 Boston Gazette, March 27, 1767. How widespread the actual abstention from the use of British goods and tea-drinking was at this time it is difficult to say. The writer of the Journal of Occurrences, reprinted in the New London Gazette, January 6, 1769, said that the disuse of tea was universal and that retailers reported a falling off in its sale of four fifths; that many towns had entered into formal agreements to stop consumption; and that applications had been made from Georgia and another province for some articles of American manufacture. There was none, he added, available for export, but he knew that the manufacture of linen, cotton, and woollen had greatly increased since the Stamp Act, that almost every house was a manufactory, and that some towns had more looms than houses. So zealous was the spirit, he continued, and so helpful the new artisans brought over that already the country people everywhere were clothing themselves, and in time New England would have a surplus. Probably one must read such statements cautiously. The newspaper writers were very sanguine and often overstated their case, when it came to the expression of a hope or an expectation. As to this particular correspondent, we may well heed Thomas Hutchinson’s criticism in his letter to Israel Williams, “Nine tenths of what you read of the Journal of Occurrences in Boston is either absolutely false or grossly misrepresented” (Williams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, January 26, 1769). There was plenty of tea-drinking in Salem in 1769–1770: see the Holyoke Diaries, 1709–1856.

Patriotic zeal and a proneness to exaggeration must be reckoned with in all these accounts. Lancaster in 1770 was reported to have manufactured 30,000 yards of linen and woollen homespun, and to have in town 50 looms and 700 spinning wheels. Elizabeth went a step further and reported 100,000 yards spun and woven. Yet Gov. Franklin said in 1768 that there was no great increase in the raising of sheep in New Jersey and that there was not wool enough to provide each family with stockings (Pennsylvania Gazette, July 5, 1770; New Jersey Archives, x. 30–31).

There was a noteworthy effort at this time to bring skilled workmen from abroad, and efforts in that direction were successfully made. Wages were higher in the colonies than in England and complaints of artisans leaving England for America were not infrequent. Providence advertised in 1768 for “tradesmen in the mechanick arts,” and Boston in 1769 mentioned several persons “lately arrived from abroad” (Providence Gazette, February 13, 1768; Staples, Annals of Providence, pp. 217–218; Boston Record Commissioners Reports, xvi. 275. Cf. Boston Chronicle, February 13, 1769, for English complaints).

388 Boston continued to have elaborate funerals, as in the case of Jeremiah Gridley, 1767, when the parade and show were not at all to Rowe’s liking. The most costly funeral that Boston ever had was probably that of Andrew Faneuil in 1738, though that of Gov. Leverett in 1680 was certainly the most unique. (Memoir biographical and genealogical of Sir John Leverett, Knt., Governor of Massachusetts, Boston, 1856.)

389 South Carolina Gazette, March 2, 1769: “Our greatest friend to homespun cloth, Christ. Gadsden, Esq., buried his wife yesterday morning. The town was searched throughout for some of that manufactory to follow as a mourner, but none could be bought and he was obliged to follow in blue cloth. The whole expence of the funeral of the manufacture of England did not amount to more than £3.10 our currency” (equal to 10 sh. sterling). The funeral of Lord Botetourt at Williamsburg in Virginia, 1770, though not as grand as that of Lovelace in New York a century before, showed little restraint in matters of expense. The coffin had eight silver handles and sixteen escutcheons; thirty-two escutcheons ornamented the hearse and the church, where the reading desk, pulpit, and communion table were hung with superfine cloth. There were twenty-eight streamers for the horses. The total bill must have been considerably over £500 (Botetourt Accounts, Library of Congress).

390 Pennsylvania Chronicle, February 13, 1769; Boston Record Commissioners Reports, xvi. 240, 289.

391 New London Gazette, December 18, 1767.

392 New Hampshire Gazette, September 30, 1769.

393 Boston Gazette, November 23, 1767.

394 The Harvard College Theses of 1768 have at the bottom of the sheet the words, “In Papyrum Miltoni in Nov-Angliâ confectam” (Massachusetts Historical Society, Broadsides). As early as May 2, 1765, the Boston News-Letter was printed on paper manufactured at Milton. The New Hampshire Gazette, January 6, 1769, appeared in a sheet much reduced in size, and the printers in explaining the fact said that for some time they had been using paper not only made in New England but made of rags collected in Portsmouth. The Maryland Gazette apologized in like manner to its readers (Scharf, History of Maryland, i. 114). One man writing to another said, “My paper is poor but ’tis American made which I hope will give you patience in reading and pleasure in reflection.” The making of paper in Connecticut was begun in Norwich in 1766 (Caulkins, History of Norwich, p. 367).

395 To prevent manufacturing in the colonies was one of the main objects of British policy. “Nothing, certainly would create greater heart burning and discontent in Great Britain than her colonies going into manufactures” (An Essay on Trade and Commerce. . . . Together with Some interesting Reflections on the Importance of our Trade to America. [By J. Cunningham.] London, 1770, p. 197).

396 Boston Gazette, November 9, 16, 23, 30, 1767; Providence Gazette, December 12, 1767.

397 Massachusetts Historical Society, O2517, nos. 36, 50, 51 (canvas), 73, 74, 80–95 (linen); Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xvi. 222, 226–227, 230–232, 239, 240–250, 275 (condition of the poor), xviii. 71, 73. For New York, cf. Becker, op. cit., p. 71.

398 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 243.

399 Boston Gazette, November 11, 18, 1765; New York Colonial Documents, vii. 800; Becker, op. cit., p. 30.

400 New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, January 27, 1766.

401 Boston Gazette, November 25, 1765; Massachusetts Papers (Massachusetts Historical Society). This document is not in the printed collection. The committee appointed to see that this agreement was carried out consisted of Thomas Willing, Samuel Mifflin, Thomas Montgomery, Samuel Howell, Samuel Wharton, John Rhea, William Fisher, Joshua Fisher, Peter Chevalier, Benjamin Fuller, and Abel James.

402 Boston Gazette, December 2, 9, 16, 1765. The credit of originating the plan of non-importation has been given to Samuel Adams, but even if we could believe that one man, and he not a merchant, could have conceived the idea, the evidence is not sufficient to warrant the assertion. There is nothing whatever in Adams’s writings to show that non-importation was in his mind at this time. The sentence printed in Wells, Life of Adams, i. 80–82, at best refers to non-consumption and not to non-importation, and probably was not written by Adams at all. Cushing does not include the instruction in which the sentence occurs in his edition of Adams’s Writings. It is not until the merchants had had their meeting of March 1, 1768, that Adams comes out with a statement which might possibly be construed as referring to non-importation. The plan, by whomsoever broached, did not have its rise in Boston.

403 James Bowdoin as a subscriber to the agreement refused to import a set of Boydell’s engravings (6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 84–85).

404 As illustrating the interest taken in the non-importation situation, attention may be called to the appearance of the following subject among the Quaestiones, announced for debate at the coming Commencement of Harvard College, in July, 1768:

IX. An contractus mercatorii, ad perniciem publicam tendentes, obligant.

405 Massachusetts Papers (MS.), no. 87. This document is printed, not quite accurately, in Massachusetts Papers, p. 58. Also see Rowe’s Diary, under dates given.

406 Memorial History of New York, iv. 516.

407 New York Gazette and the Weekly Mercury, April 18, 1768.

408 “Gentlemen: You are called together to consider what answer shall be returned to the Brethren of Boston and New York, who desire to know whether we will unite with them in stopping the importation of goods from Great Britain until certain acts are repealed.”

The speaker then recounted the special grievances of Pennsylvania:

1. The law against steel and steel furnaces.
2. The law against plating and slitting mills.
3. The law against carrying wool freely from one colony to another.
4. The prohibition against sending logwood to foreign markets.
5. The obligation to carry Portuguese and Spanish wines to England.
6. The duty on Madeira wines.
7. The emptying of British jails upon the province.
8. The restrictions upon the fisheries and the duties on foreign molasses and sugars.
9. The necessity of supplying themselves with goods through England at 20 per cent and even 40 per cent increase.
10. The Stamp Act, Declaratory Act, and Townshend Act (Massachusetts Historical Society, Broadsides).

409 Becker, op. cit., p. 62. The Pennsylvania Chronicle, July 23, 1768, contains a list of fourteen queries proposed to the committee of the Philadelphia merchants, “now sitting,” for consideration, each raising the question as to the wisdom of the New York agreement. The writer asks “Whether precipitate combination, at the time of great distress in England, to import no British manufactures would not be a means of irritating and making enemies of the inhabitants of Great Britain at the same time distressing ourselves.” The writer urges patience and reasonableness, manufacturing and getting on without the taxed goods, and says that what may be prudent in the eastern governments (New York and New England) may be imprudent in the middle and southern, “seeing we widely differ in many circumstances.”

410 The following is the Gloucester agreement:

“We whose names are underwritten are of opinion that every legal measure for freeing the country from the present embarrassments should be adopted, and among others the stopping the importation of goods from Great Britain. We promise that we will not for one year from the above date [May 2, 1768] write for any goods, except such as are absolutely necessary for the carrying on the Fishery and that we will not take any English goods to sell on commission and we further promise that we will write to our correspondents and desire their interest and influence to put a stop to growing evils of offices that are multiplying among us.” Epes Sargent, Nathaniel Allen, Daniel Sargent, Winthrop Sargent, William Ellery, Jr. (Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, no. 38).

411 Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, no. 71.

412 Boston Gazette, August 15, 1768.

413 Rowe, Diary, August 1, 1768. The proceedings and agreement are given in full in the Boston Chronicle, May 1, 1769, and the agreement is printed in John Mein’s pamphlet to be mentioned later.

414 Rowe, Diary, August 2 and 8, 1768.

415 The situation in Salem was aggravated by the division in the town between Rescinders and Non Rescinders. Four of the Salem merchants were among the seventeen members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives who voted to rescind the resolutions upon which the letter of February 11th was based, and they had to defend themselves against the attack of their fellow townsmen (Boston Gazette, July 25, August 1, 1768).

416 As at Norwich: “We give this public testimony of our hearty and unanimous approbation of the resolutions the merchants have entered into to stop the importation of British goods; we will frown upon all who endeavour to frustrate these good designs, and avoid all correspondence with those merchants who shall dare to violate these obligations” (January 29, 1770, Caulkins, History of Norwich, p. 369).

417 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, September 12, 1768. Printed also in a supplement to the Boston Gazette, September 19, 1768.

418 Professor Becker says in commenting on these resolutions: “If the provision making the agreement effective in part from August 16 was designed to meet the charge of monopoly, the provision regarding the Dutch trade was probably designed to prevent, in part at least, the smuggling from Holland. Thus early the two-fold weakness of the non-importation policy was manifest: if sufficiently comprehensive it gave a monopoly to those who inaugurated it; if limited to England, it enriched the smuggler” (op. cit., p. 63). The distinction here made seems to me too precise. There is ample evidence to show that the richer merchants, certainly in Boston and Philadelphia, suffered heavily for their self-denial. Take the case of John Barrett & Sons of Boston, who countermanded their English orders two months before the agreement was signed, and that of the merchants of Philadelphia mentioned in Drinker’s letter (Pennsylvania Magazine, xiv. 43) who felt the “present stagnation the most severely.” While it may be that the retailers depended on smuggling for their profits, I have seen no sufficient evidence to prove the point, nor does Professor Becker furnish such.

419 “The Hon^ble Thomas Cushing, Esq. communicated to the Town a letter lately received from a Committee of Merchants in the City of New York, acquainting him with their Agreement relative to a Non-Importation of British Goods. Whereupon the Town by a Vote expressed their high satisfaction therein” (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xvi. 264).

420 One is reminded of Pitt’s famous characterization of traders and merchants, as “Little, paltry, peddling fellows, venders of two penny wares and falsehoods, who under the idea of trade, sell everything in their power — honour, truth, conscience,” etc. In Charles Town, South Carolina, a wholesale dealer was respectable but a retail dealer was not, and even a wholesale or commission merchant must deal in indigo and rice and not in other things.

421 Collins Papers.

422 Pennsylvania Journal, February 9, 1769. Printed in full in the Boston Chronicle, February 13, 1769, where it occupies three and a half columns.

423 There were four memorials from the merchants of Philadelphia: those of November, 1765; November, 1768; February 6, 1769; and March 10, 1769. The last was sent only to the merchants of London.

424 The petition of the New York assembly to the House of Lords is printed in the New York Gazette, April 17, 1768, and in the Pennsylvania Journal, April 20, 1768.

425 “Had a petition come over from your merchants on the principle of inexpediency instead of from your assembly denying the right, the law would ere now have been repealed” (Letter from London, Pennsylvania Chronicle, April 3, 1769). The advice to stick to the non-consumption and non-importation agreements and avoid riots, mobs, and such illegal measures, and lay less stress upon constitutional rights, came from men who were certain to lose by the process and so were based on honest conviction. That there was less sympathy for the American cause among the British merchants in 1769 than there had been in 1765 is unmistakable, and there is nothing to account for it except the advance in the American claims. Thomas Hutchinson, who represented conservative opinion, wrote to Israel Williams of Hatfield, May 9, 1769: “If we could be prudent, I think I may say only silent, we might save the country and retain the rights we contend for or which is the same thing might rest assured that parliament would not exercise the right of taxing which they claim, and we may be assured will not give up, but if we will go on denying the right and asserting our independence the nation will by force compell us to acknowledge it. I wish this force may be kept off as long as you and I live” (Williams Papers).

426 I have not been able to find a copy of the Philadelphia resolutions. That such were drawn up at the meetings mentioned above is clear from later allusions. For example, certain shipments were declared contrary “to the agreements entered into by the merchants and traders of this city on February 6 and March 10” (Pennsylvania Chronicle, July 24, 1769). On August 2, the merchants of Philadelphia met at the Coffee House and resolved “that the committee shall not be at liberty to receive and store any goods consigned after the agreement of the merchants here not to import was known in Great Britain nor such as were ordered after the 6th of February last” (ibid. August 7, 1769). On June 5, 1770, a meeting was held in Philadelphia at which it was voted to adhere to the agreement entered into March 10, 1769, “almost unanimously” (Pennsylvania Gazette, June 14, 1770). Drinker speaks definitely of the “agreement formed on the 10 of March” (Pennsylvania Magazine, xiv. 42). Stephen Collins gives the date of the first agreement as “2^mo 1 1769.” This may be an error for February 6, or it may be that the first agreement was drafted on the 1st and ratified on the 6th.

427 South Carolina Gazette, October 12, 1769.

428 The following additional information is given by the newspaper:

We hear that a number of the principal freeholders of the said County, assembled at Christiana-Bridge, on Saturday last, in pursuance of notice given for that purpose, when the occasion of their meeting, the grievances complained of by North-Americans, and the most probable methods of obtaining redress, were opened, and fully explained, and the above compact was read, approved, and signed by all present. It is said that it will soon be signed by every freeholder and freeman in the country, and that the other counties in that government will immediately follow the example.

Some resolutions were made, nemine contradicente, in favour of persons, not inhabitants of the county, who should be so weak as to import any goods there contrary to the agreement; particularly, that they should be stored, effectually secured, and taken care of, until the obnoxious acts of parliament were repealed, except the same should be prevented by the imprudence of the owners.

429 Albany acted very much under the influence of New York, but the merchants there wished to include among the exempted commodities such Indian goods as blankets, strouds, penistones, gimps, linens, vermilions, and brass kettles. The New York merchants would not agree to this and compelled them to adopt the New York plan. There is some uncertainty as to the date, but it was before July, 1769. Some of the Albany merchants were restless under this agreement, as the increasing scarcity of Indian goods not only interfered with trade, but also rendered less cordial the relations with the Indians, who suspected a conspiracy against themselves and could not understand why the traffic in furs stopped and presents were no longer given. See p. 240, below. Albany undoubtedly broke the agreement early, by importing what she wanted through Quebec and Montreal.

430 Pennsylvania Chronicle, July 31, 1769; Boston Gazette, August 6, 1770. The New Haven agreement was signed by all at the meeting and was distributed to all in the town and the adjoining neighborhood.

431 Connecticut Colonial Records, xiii. 236 note.

432 New Jersey Archives, xxvi. 546.

433 Providence Gazette, October 14, 21, 1769. Staples gives the date October 24. The meeting of the 10th was probably that of the merchants.

434 Newport Mercury, November 6, 1769; Newport Historical Magazine, iii. 253–257.

435 Wethersfield Town Records, under date, printed in Stiles, Ancient Wethersfield, i. 419–420.

436 Middletown Town Records, under date.

437 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 8.

438 Boston Gazette, June 9, 1770. Text in full.

439 Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News Letter, July 5, 1770.

440 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, July 20, 1769; Boston Gazette, July 31, 1769. One of the most remarkable series of resolutions is that of Abington, Mass. Section 9 reads: “Voted as the opinion of this town that the agreement of the merchants and traders of the Town of Boston relative to non-importation has a natural and righteous tendency to frustrate the scheme of the enemies of the constitution, and to render ineffectual the said unconstitutional and unrighteous acts, and is a superlative instance of self-denial and public virtue, which we hope will be handed down to posterity, even to the latest generation, to their immortal honour” (Essex Gazette, April 3, 1770). These resolves gave the New York brethren “infinite pleasure.” “How many ages hence,” they said, “in unborn states and with accents yet unknown, shall these manly and noble resolves be recited” (ibid. May 5, 1770).

441 The Portsmouth merchants were summoned to meet at the house of John Stavers, September 12, 1768, but want of accord led to the postponement of the meeting to the 16th, then to the 23d, and then indefinitely (New Hampshire Gazette, September 9, 1768). See pp. 233 note 1, 239, below.

442 Printed in the Boston Chronicle, June 8, 1769, and in Burk, History of Virginia, iii. 345–349.

443 “The Proceedings of the Committee appointed to examine into the Importation of Goods by the Brigandine Good Intent Capt. Errington, from London in February, 1770,” Annapolis, 1770. Reprinted in the Maryland Magazine, iii. nos. 2, 3, 4. See also the Eden-Hillsborough correspondence (ibid. ii. 228–229, 234, 239, 244). The resolutions are printed in this pamphlet (Maryland Magazine, iii. 144–147); Maryland Gazette, June 29, 1769; Boston Chronicle, July 10, 1769; and Scharf, History of Maryland, i. 111–114.

444 South Carolina Gazette, June 29, July 6, 27, 1769. The early history of the South Carolina draft is confusing. John Gordon wrote that the resolutions of July 22 were the seventh form of agreement and the fifth to be subscribed, and though he was one of the first to coöperate, he was tired of being bandied about from resolution to resolution (South Carolina Gazette, September 14, 1769).

445 Georgia Gazette, October 26, 1769.

446 Georgia Gazette, September 13, 20, 1769.

447 “It was agreed, That the late acts so fully and unanimously remonstrated against by the Northern Colonies were in themselves unconstitutional and the mode of taxation was entirely inconsistent with the abilities of the people.

“At a time when we believe that healing measures and a redress of grievances will be effectually pursued at the next meeting of Parliament, we think it unnecessary to enumerate the whole, further than that, in general, and as far as we know, we approve of and agree in sentiment with the other provinces.

“It was agreed respecting this province in particular that the mode of payment of such duties is a great additional grievance. The sterling current money of this province, which was by Act of Assembly assented to by his Majesty and declared equal in value to the sterling money of Great Britain and a lawful tender in all payments, being refused in payment of such duties, tends greatly to depreciate its value; a circumstance greatly affecting every person anywise interested in this province; after having wisely excluded us [from] the Spanish trade, the only channel through which specie could possibly be procured, and then, by subsequent acts imposing duties on us payable in gold and silver, shews that they are entirely ignorant of our internal police, and know little of what is beneficial to the colonies, and thereby prevents our having it even in our power to give a regular and constitutional aid to the mother country, if such was demanded.

“We therefore resolve, That any person or persons whatever, importing any of the articles subject to such duties, after having it in their power to prevent it, ought not only to be treated with the utmost contempt, but deemed enemies to their country, it being a circumstance that would need only to be mentioned to any person, inspired with the least sense of liberty that it may be detested and abhorred” (Georgia Gazette, September 20, 1769; Tobler, South Carolina and Georgia Almanack, for 1770).

448 Revolutionary Records of Georgia, i. 8–11. The list of exemptions was somewhat different, including in addition osnaburgs, certain varieties of flannels, linen, hose, cottons, checks, felt hats, shoes, hardware of all sorts (probably the same as “plantation and workman’s tools, nails, and fishhooks” which are in the South Carolina list and omitted from that of Georgia), paper, and Indian goods. The list omits also salt and bar-steel.

449 South Carolina Gazette, December 8, 1769; Connor, North Carolina Booklet, viii. 21–26; Connor, Cornelius Harnett, pp. 53–57.

450 For the case of Adonijah Thomas of West Haven, see the New London Gazette, September 20, 1769; for cases in Boston, Rowe, Diary, October 28, 1769, May 18, 1770, March 9, 1775. Tar and feathers were kept on hand in New Jersey (New Jersey Archives, xxvii. 217; see also the Holyoke Diaries, p. 69). Two New York “revolters,” who went to New Brunswick, N. J., were stopped and “genteely ducked” at Woodbridge (New York Journal, August 9, 1770; New Jersey Archives, xxvii. 218, 220).

451 “Resolved, That every subscriber who shall presume directly or indirectly to purchase from or sell for any violator of the general resolutions, shall be looked upon in the same odious light as a violator himself, shunned as a pestilence and held in the utmost abhorrence and contempt” (South Carolina Gazette, June 28, 1770). For illustration, see Letters of James Murray, Loyalist, p. 179.

The following is a good specimen of the language used in denouncing violators: “Gibetted (in Fame) to rot and stink under the noses of their countrymen, as a mark of public infamy and warning to those who shall endeavour to counteract the designs of society in favour of Liberty. If oppression, according to Solomon, maketh a wise man mad, what a pity ’tis that it cannot teach fools wisdom.”

452 The case of David Hill of Massachusetts, whose barrels of goods were seized by a mob in New York and burnt. This action called out a protest and denunciation from the committee of inspection (New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, July 9, 1770). Hill brought suit against the committee of merchants, Isaac Low and others, and was awarded £280 damages in March, 1772.

453 This is the impression one gets from a study of the Laurens Papers and from the report of the Wilmington meeting of the Sons of Liberty, July 5, 1770, when many of the merchants refused to sign the agreement (Cape Fear Mercury, July 11, 1770). A Charles Town merchant writing to his correspondent in England said that those who got up the agreement there were men without credit in England.

454 Stiles, Wethersfield, i. 418–419.

455 The cases of Gov. Hutchinson’s sons in Boston (Massachusetts Papers, pp. 131–132) and Peter Frye and others in Salem (Essex Gazette, October 2, 1770).

456 Above, p. 222 note 3.

457 A writer to the New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, August 27, 1770, said that in Newport and Boston every store had two doors, which made it easy to keep the agreement. He said also that the stores were often open and that many thousands of dollars were taken from Connecticut and adjacent counties in the night time. Newport denied vehemently that there were “back doors to the public stores.”

Illustrations could be given of goods stored or returned in every colony. The most active towns were Charles Town, Annapolis, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. In Charles Town there was a committee of inspection that covered the coast from Georgetown (Winyah) to Beaufort, and in Maryland and Virginia there were committees of inspection for each county. Some of the best known cases are: Boston, Capt. Scott, Capt. Bryant (the Wolf); Providence, Capt. Shand (the Tristram); New York, Capt. Speir (the Sharpe), Capt. Munds (the Brittania); Middletown, Conn., Capt. Butler; Philadelphia, Capt. Strickland (the Speedwell); Baltimore, Capt. Johnson (the Lord Cambden); Annapolis, Capt. Bryson (the Betsey), Capt. Carter (the Flora), Capt. Errington (the Good Intent). From Georgetown various colonial vessels were sent back, and from Charles Town, vessels from Boston, New York, and Jamaica, and those importing goods for Saxby, Gillon, Benjamin and Ann Matthews, Stukes, and Tidyman. There is much in the Collins Papers about the ship Commerce from Hull to New York and Philadelphia. Many cases are recorded in which the names are not given, as when Maryland compelled an owner to reship twenty pipes of wine, and Philadelphia prevented a cargo from being landed, which was to have been got ashore in small parcels and in different parts. Ample evidence exists for a study of these and other cases, but they cannot be considered further here.

458 To Peter Frye and other Gentlemen of the Committee of Merchants, Salem, Jan. 19, 1769: “Being informed by letters from Salem that some persons there who signed the agreement for the non-importation of goods have, contrary to said agreement, sent their Spring orders and others are preparing to do the same, alledging that Marblehead and Cape Ann havent come into the agreement, and that in case other towns did not and any in Salem should not conform to it others were not held,” the committee said that this conduct had caused great uneasiness, and they wished to inform Salem that Marblehead and Cape Ann had come in, New York was holding fast, Boston was more determined than ever, and their best friends in England approved (Massachusetts Historical Society, O2517, no. 63).

459 The sea captains and masters made considerable trouble. In South Carolina it was found that “the Resolutions had been in some measure defeated by masters of vessels and other transient persons being at liberty to dispose of goods they imported if they could find purchasers, several persons having availed themselves of this opening and clandestinely disposed of and purchased, and others refused to store or reship goods thus imported.” On this account the Body of Merchants entered into a new agreement designed to put a stop to this evil. This agreement was repeated in March, 1770 (South Carolina Gazette, February 1, March 8, 1770).

460 Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, nos. 40, 43, 63.

461 Rowe, Diary, July 24, 1769; Boston Chronicle, July 27, 1769; Boston Gazette, July 31, 1769.

462 Boston Gazette, August 14, 1769. The Boston town meeting aided the merchants by entering these names on the records of its session of October 4 (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xvi. 298).

463 For the sufferings of Henry Barnes, see the letter from Mrs. Barnes, June, 1770, printed in Letters of James Murray, Loyalist, pp. 175–177.

464 Boston Gazette, November 20, December 25, 1769. Colburn Barrell, who had subscribed, said afterwards that he was bullied into the agreement “by the threatening and cajoling conduct of some of their committee men.” He did not wish to have trouble with the merchants, desiring to live quietly and at peace with his fellow townsmen. He was willing to reship, if the merchants would meet all charges for insurance and freight and would recompense him for damage incurred in returning the goods (compare the same proposition made by James Dick in the Good Intent case, Maryland Magazine, iii. 356). The committee replied, but Barrell said that the reply was insufficient and he proceeded to make remarks at some length, calling his submission unlawful and the meeting that asked for it unlawful. In consequence, he considered himself freed from his engagement. At a meeting of the merchants, held on December 7, this letter was commented upon severely. Barrell replied that there were many non-subscribing merchants in Boston and those who yielded to threats were cowards. Barrell showed a good deal of courage. He had been a merchant of Newmarket, N. H., and a member of the Sandemanian church of Portsmouth (Sandeman-Barrell Papers), and was a brother of William, Joseph, and Walter Barrell. He had a shop just north of the Mill-bridge (Boston Chronicle, October 9, December 7, 1769).

The New Yorkers about this time advertised one Simeon Cooley, a jeweller, who having joined the merchants later defied them, and broke the agreement. The subscribers called on the people to boycott him as “the most insolent, impertinent, and daring of any former aggressor.” Cooley eventually submitted (New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, July 24, 1769). Similarly Thomas Richardson, jeweller, was compelled to retract (New York Journal, September 21, 1769). Jewellers seem to have been particularly obstinate. Philip Tidyman of Charles Town was a jeweller (South Carolina Gazette, November 1, 1770).

465 See Mr. Bolton’s article in Publications of this Society, xi. 196–200, and notes on p. 200, also p. 6 note 4. The facts of Mein’s career are well known and need not be rehearsed here, but extracts will be given from his memorial to the Treasury, which has never been used.

466 Mein said that before 1769 he “carried on in his various occupations of bookseller, stationer, and printer, the most extensive trade of any person on the American Continent” and “possessed the confidence of the Principal People.” His paper had a subscription list of fourteen hundred and his bookstore netted him £40, £60, and £80 a week, while his stock in trade amounted to six or seven thousand pounds sterling (Public Record Office, Treasury 1: 478, f. 478).

467 “The speaker of the House of Representatives, and many others, the Heads of the Faction, harrassed him daily for months, first with entreaties, urging as strong motive the great encouragement he had received among them, and afterwards employed threats, in order to induce him to accede to their combination. He was even told that the Crisis was now arrived, in which Neutrality was criminal, but he remained uniform in his refusal, a Sense of Duty being more prevalent with him than either the continuance or the increased favour of the public, which he was led to expect, or their highest displeasure, with which he was threatened” (ibid.).

468 Mein was aroused by the report of the committee stating that but few importations had taken place, and by the decision of the Body to print the names of delinquents. In his own paper (August 17, 1769) he left blank the space where the names should have been. He began to print the manifests of importations, since January 1, 1769, on August 21 and continued them on the 24, 28, 31, September 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, etc., to October 19, with a running commentary. On December 11, 14, 1 8, he added the manifest of the ship John, owned by John Hancock, and manifests of other vessels owned by Boston merchants, and he continued publishing the manifests in January and February, 1770, issuing fifty-five in all. Furthermore he gave a list of forty non-signers, who made heavy importations during the year. As stated above, he issued these manifests in a pamphlet entitled “A State of the Importations from Great Britain into the Port of Boston from the Beginning of January, 1769, to August 17, 1769,” with an Appendix of importations to January 1, 1770. The other side of the controversy can be followed in the Boston Gazette and in Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, no. 65. On September 10, the merchants took his case into consideration and voted that he had endeavored to frustrate the good intentions of the signers of the agreement, by maliciously insinuating to the public that the agreement had not been generally complied with and that the committee’s report was false and intended to deceive the public, and further that he had treated “the inspectors, the committee, and the whole body of merchants and traders in the most haughty, imperious, and insulting manner.”

The influence of the facts Mein presented can hardly be overestimated, while in temper and good manners he distinctly had the best of his opponents. There is certainly nothing “scurrilous,” “scandalous,” “impudent,” or “contemptible” in what Mein wrote in his paper, and the language used by the patriotic party and their laudation of themselves and their motives and characters arouse the suspicion that Mein’s disclosures struck a tender spot. The weakness of the defence lies in its scurrility, its anonymity, its refusal to give names, and its concealment of the places where the goods were stored. It is curious how unwilling the upholders of non-importation were to sign their names to their articles. Conceding that anonymity was a fashion of the time, we must feel that the refusal to acknowledge authorship was a confession of weakness or worse. Hutchinson once said that such articles were the production of people “who if they would sign their names need do nothing more to blast the credit of everything they say” (Hutchinson to Williams, September 18, 1769, Williams Papers).

If Mein’s facts are correct, then the merchants of Boston and Salem, and notably John Hancock, were doing a fairly prosperous freighting business in goods made contraband by the merchants. The explanations given by the latter are not convincing, and that they were not convincing to the merchants of New York and Philadelphia, the sequel was to prove. The latter frequently quoted Mein’s sheets and pamphlet. In the face of the facts given, it is hardly a sufficient defence of Hancock to say that his “name will shine in the records of fame when infamous Jacobites and Tories will sink in oblivion,” however true that statement may be as a prophecy (Boston Gazette, October 9, 1769). Mein was the first active opponent of the non-importation movement in America, and the information that he furnished did much to bring about its failure, for, as he says himself, “The Rupture between the Boston Faction and the combining colonies of N. York and Philadelphia will be evinced from their own advertisements; for the accusations brought by the latter against the former could be drawn from no other source than the publications of your Memorialist” (Public Record Office, Treasury 1: 478, f. 480).

469 The acrostic containing the line

M ean is the man, M–n is his name

is printed in our Publications, xi. 198; and the “Description of the Pope, 1769,” of which the acrostic forms a part, was printed in full in the Boston Chronicle, November 9, 1769, and also in a broadside. The following additional lines may be quoted:

Here stands the Devil for a Show,

With the I–p–rs in a row,

All bound to Hell, and that we know.

Go M–n lade deep with curses on thy head,

To some dark Corner of the World repair,

Where the bright Sun no pleasant Beams can shed,

And spend thy Life in Horror and Despair.

At the head of the broadside is a rough woodcut, in which Mein’s effigy, substituted for that of the Pope, appears standing under a gallows on a four-wheeled wagon, with the Devil behind, and before and after various smaller devils and tomcods. These are defined as “M–n, his Servant, &c. A Bunch of Tom-Cods.” The following also is printed on the sheet:

“See the Informer, how he stands. If any one now takes his Part, An Enemy to all the Land, He’ll go to Hell without a cart.”

470 Rowe, Diary, October 28, 1769; our Publications, xi. 198–200, where Mr. Bolton gives information regarding Mein’s financial troubles, drawn from letters in private hands. His account should be studied in connection with Mein’s remarks in his Memorial about justice in Massachusetts. There is a paper in the Dartmouth collection at Patshull House, containing information which Mein furnished John Pownall, under secretary of state for the colonies, but I have been unable to get a copy of it, because Patshull House is at present a military hospital. For the attack on Mein, see Hutchinson to Secretary Hillsborough, November 11, 1769, Colonial Office, 5:758, p. 445; Andrew Oliver to Sir Francis Bernard, same date, British Museum, Egertori, 2670, f. 28; and the London Chronicle, December 19, 1769. In the Letters of James Murray, Loyalist, pp. 168–174, are many references to Mein, whom Murray assisted. John Rowe notes the presence of “Mr. Murray of Cape Fear” at the Merchants’ Club, May 27, 1765, and we may not doubt that he was in attendance at other times also.

471 Massachusetts Papers, pp. 128–130; Boston Gazette, November 20, 1769; Letters of Dennys De Berdt, our Publications, xiii. 398–399. De Berdt wrote to Thomas McKean, February 15, 1770: “The condisinal orders (if these acts are repel’d) arose from the Quakers in Phil^a, who grew impatient of the restraints on tread, and came into this new agreement which they communicated to Boston & Boston has done the same.”

472 Boston Gazette, November 20, 1769; Massachusetts Historical Society, Broadsides, December 6, 1769. A considerable enlargement was made in the list of exempted articles. The additional articles in the new list are here italicized:

Coals, salt, fishhooks and lines, hemp and duck, bar-lead, shot, wool-cards and card wire, clothier’s shears, tin plates, drugs and medicines, dyestuffs, alum and copperas, gunpowder, grindstones, chalk, sheet-copper, German steel, schoolbooks, as also “the article of Bayze for the supply of the fishing.” The influence of the lists adopted by other colonies is clearly seen.

473 Joseph Rotch & Son to Aaron Lopez, November 29, 1769: “We are now well assured that all the Agreements in the world will not prevent the Boston purchasers from exceeding the limits agreed on,” and they want to know whether the “manufacturers of Newport intend altering their agreement or not” (Commerce of Rhode Island, i. 288. See also Boston Gazette, December 11, 1769).

474 The Hutchinson and Sheafe affairs especially, for which see Massachusetts Papers, pp. 131–132, and Drake, History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 775.

475 Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517; Broadsides, January 16, 1770.

476 Rowe, Diary under dates; Broadside, January 23, 1770. The broadside further says: “The friends of liberty and their country’s cause are desired to paste this up over the Chimney Piece of every Public House and on every other proper place, in every Town in this and every other Colony, there to. remain as a Monument of the Remembrance of the Detestable Names above mentioned.” Another vote at the meeting was to this effect, “That the committee of inspection be directed to use their endeavours to discover the owner or owners of such goods upon their arrival, and being thus discovered, we will not sell or buy of, or have any dealings or social intercourse whatever with such persons for the space of two years, from the time of the arrival of such goods, and that the committee of inspection are desired to publish this vote, together with the names of the owners of such goods for the space of two years from the time of their arrival.”

An example of such publication, relating to William Jackson, was given in our Publications, viii. 99 note.

Nathaniel Rogers in May, 1770, left Boston and went to New York, where the Sons of Liberty carried his effigy through the streets. Leaving New York, he went to Shelter Island, and there, word from New York having been received in advance, his effigy was placed on a pole, with the label “Nat. Rogers one of the infamous importers,” and after being paraded through the town was hung by the neck before the door of the house where he was staying. The next day he embarked for Rhode Island, eventually returning to Boston, where he was again posted, and finally in June applied for readmission. He died suddenly in August of the same year.

James and Patrick McMasters were particularly offensive to the merchants. In 1770 Patrick was carted through the streets of Boston for persisting in his refusal to join the merchants, and this punishment was so roughly administered that, we are told, a woman viewing it died of fright (Essex Gazette, February 5, 1771). “I received a letter from Miss Cummings,” wrote Mrs. Barnes, “which was far from being a cordial to my drooping spirits. She writes me word that one of the McMasters had been carted out of town at noonday in a most ignominious manner, and that the other two brothers had fled for their lives” (Letters of James Murray, Loyalist, pp. 177–178). The McMasters and others, finding public opinion against them in Boston, fled to Portsmouth, an event which roused a good deal of excitement there, and may have had something to do with Portsmouth’s continued unwillingness to adopt non-importation.

477 Committee to De Berdt, January 30, 1770, giving their version of the matter (Massachusetts Papers, pp. 132–135).

478 “The True Sons of Liberty and supporters of non-importation are determined to resent any the least insult or menace offer’d to any one or more of the several committees appointed by the Body at Faneuil Hall, and chastise any one or more of them as they truly deserve; and will also support the printers in anything the committees shall desire them to print. ☞ As a warning to any one that shall affront as aforesaid, upon some information given, one of these Advertisements will be posted up at the Door or Dwelling House of the offender” (January, 1770, Massachusetts Historical Society, Broadsides).

479 Remarks by Mr. Pierce in his introduction to John Rowe’s Diary (2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, x. 57–58). The act mentioned empowered the selectmen of Boston to appoint thirty watchmen from among the inhabitants of the town, one of whom in each division was to be head or constable, and to keep an account of what was going on and to report to the selectmen once a week. The watchmen were to walk the rounds to prevent danger from fires and see that good order was kept. Any one resisting a watchman was to be fined not more than £5 or less than 40 shillings. The watchmen were authorized to call on any citizen for assistance, who in case of refusal was liable to a 40 shilling fine. The act was to be in force until 1770.

480 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 12–13, 16, 20. The meeting expressed the hope “that the Patriotick Spirit so widely diffused, and so nobly ardent, uniting all parts of the Province and disposing them with Alacrity to aid one another upon all Occasions in the common cause, a Spirit not confined to [this colony] but extending to all the Colonies, will ensure by the blessing of Heaven the Prosperity of the whole, and soon produce a thorough, effectual, and permanent relief from our great and common Grievances” (March 16, 1770).

481 He says this of the proceedings at the meetings of April 20 and 26. I have not been able to find the votes in question, but the call for the meeting on April 20 is as follows:

“To receive the report of the committee of inspection relative to the most unaccountable and extraordinary conduct of several persons who have imported goods contrary to agreement, particularly a Quantity of Tea; and to consider and determine upon some legal and spirited measures to prevent the nonimportation agreement being rendered abortive,” etc. (Massachusetts Historical Society, Broadsides, April 20, 1770).

It will be noticed that the wording is the same as that of January 16th, except that the offence stated is different. Probably the meeting voted to deal more severely than ever with the offenders, who may be the same as those entered on the records of the town meeting of March 16th, and afterwards published by the merchants in the newspapers. See p. 244 note 1, below.

482 Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, no. 73. The following articles were exempted: paper, glass, painters’ colors, tacks, brads, nails of all sorts under 10 pennies, all kinds of utensils for carrying on any manufactures, lead, copper, “allum,” grindstones, salt, coals, tinplates, hooks, lines, and other necessaries for the fishery, baize, duffils, hemp, duck, “ozenbrigs,” fruit, oil, and all other kind of goods of the product and manufacture of any foreign ports in Europe usually imported from Great Britain, except any articles of luxury. This is a very different list from that of August 1, 1768.

483 Essex Gazette, May 8, 1770. The agreement is given in full in the Boston Gazette, October 8, 1770.

484 New London Gazette, June 1, 1770.

485 Boston Gazette, October 9, 1769.

486 On the Jews in Newport, see Kohler, “The Jews in Newport” (Publicatioins American Jewish Historical Society, 1897, no. 6, p. 69; no. 10, p. 11), where the number is given. See also Stiles, Literary Diary, i. 11; Itineraries and Correspondence, pp. 52–53. There was a Jewish Social Club in Newport in 1761 (Publications American Jewish Historical Society, iv. 58–60).

487 Boston Gazette, May 28, 1770.

488 New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, May 28, 1770; Pennsylvania Chronicle, May 28, 1770; Pennsylvania Gazette, May 24, 1770; Boston Gazette, June 4, 1770. A Newport ship, Capt. Whitman, master, arrived in Philadelphia with a cargo, but was sent back.

489 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, May 28, June 4, 1770.

490 New London Gazette, June 15, 1770. The same paper contains an elaborate account of four Connecticut traders, two from Hartford and two from Windham, who started immediately for Newport to take advantage of the leak.

491 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, June 11, August 13, 1770; Boston Gazette, June 25, 1770; Cape Fear Mercury, July 11, 1770; South Carolina Gazette, June 28, July 5, 1770. Ships were sent back from all these places.

The resolutions adopted at a meeting of the inhabitants of Charles Town “at Liberty Tree,” June 22, 1770, though too long to be printed here, are worthy of reproduction in part. They describe the Rhode Islanders as “dead to every feeling but a criminal attachment to their private interest,” “betrayers of American Liberty,” and guilty of “heinous duplicity of conduct.” They class together the people of Georgia and Rhode Island as “deluded people” deserving “to be amputated from the rest of their Bretheren, as a rotten Part that might spread a dangerous Infection” (South Carolina Gazette, June 28, 1770).

Stephen Collins wrote to N. & R. Denison, June 8, 1770: “The people of Rhode Island have broaken through their agreement which I think they must resume again very soon, as the whole Continent are rais’d in just indignation against them, their produce being but little, their merchants depend on foreign trade chiefly and their vessels are almost every day drove out of one port or another on the Continent and not suffer’d to trade but carry their cargo back, so that I think where they gain a penny in the trade of dry goods, they will stand a chance of loosing a pound for want of their trade with the other colonies” (Collins Papers).

492 News from Philadelphia, June 14 (South Carolina Gazette, July 12, 1770).

493 Providence Gazette, May 26, June 30, 1770; Newport Mercury, June 4, 1770; New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, June 18, 1770; Staples, Annals of Providence, pp. 225–227. On September 5, 1770, Boston voted “That it appears to this Body that the town of Providence hath faithfully adhered to the non-importation agreement, and that all reports to the contrary are without foundation.”

494 South Carolina Gazette, June 28, 1770.

495 South Carolina Gazette, July 12, 1770. Letter from Portsmouth to Boston, May 28, 1770, quoted in the South Carolina Gazette: “The merchants here have received a letter from merchants in Boston on the affair of non-importation, but have not yet come to a final resolution. Happy should we be had we a generous Hancock to lead the way. . . . The inhabitants are friends to liberty but need powerful leaders.”

496 Rowe, Diary, June 19, 1770; Massachusetts Gazette, July 5, 1770; Adams, Annals of Portsmouth, pp. 226–227.

497 New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, August 20, November 8, 1770; New York Journal, August 23, 1770.

498 Letters to Stephen Collins from Benj. & John Bowers, Manchester, February 1, 1770; William Neate, London, February 7, March 6, 26, 1770; Harford & Powell, February 28, 1770; Williams, Bellamy & Williams, London, March 1, 1770; Nath. & Robert Denison, Nottingham, March 8, 1770; and the many letters from Samuel Elam of Hull. Benj. & John Bowers wrote that they would be “very great sufferers,” as “the greatest part of their fortune was expended in manufactures designed for the American market” (Collins Papers).

499 Henry Drinker to Abel James, 1769–1770 (Pennsylvania Magazine, xiv. 43). See the letter of “Plebarius,” in the Pennsylvania Gazette, May 24, 1770, suggesting a general subscription for the sufferers.

500 Drinker wrote, May 26, 1770, that “notwithstanding the little dirty colony of Rhode Island had shamefully broken faith,” yet this “flagrant violation and breach of their plighted honour” had not “staggered the merchants of New York or this place.” In May “A Tradesman” wrote to the Pennsylvania Chronicle urging his brethren to enter into Resolutions denying their custom to any “who should dare an infraction of the mercantile resolutions.”

501 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, July 2, 1770; New London Gazette, June 15, 1770.

502 The Hartford meeting was held on June 1, so that there must have been an earlier letter, but I have not been able to trace it. It appears to have been written as early as May 16. There was a New York merchants’ meeting on the 18th, but that was called to discuss non-importation, and deferred action, hoping the duty would be repealed (New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, May 21, 1 770). An earlier letter from Connecticut was sent on May 19, replying to that from New York, and signed by Matthew Talcott, Richard Alsop, and Silas Deane (ibid. July 23, 1770).

503 Boston Gazette, June 11, 1770; New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, June 25, 1770. The names are printed in a supplement to the Boston Gazette, June 18, 1770. They are John Gillespie, John Bernard, James McMasters, Patrick McMasters, Nathaniel Rogers, William Jackson, Theophilus Lillie, John Taylor, Ame and Elizabeth Cuming, Israel Williams & Son of Hatfield, and Henry Barnes of Marlborough. These firms had already been publicly entered in the town records on March 19, and may have been acted upon at the merchants’ meeting of April 20, but I find no earlier publication in the newspapers.

504 New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, June 18, 1770. The members of the merchants’ committee were Isaac Low, chairman, Henry Remsen, Jr., Jacob Walton, and J. H. Cruger. Isaac Low advertised in the Post Boy, November 26, 1770, that he had imported and that he had a right to do so and that he had certain goods for sale and hoped people would buy of him. A curious advertisement.

505 A letter to the Boston Gazette, June 25, 1770, gives the anti-merchants’ point of view.

506 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, July 9, 16, 1770. See a very informing letter sent by Alexander Colden, postmaster, to Anthony Todd, secretary to the postmasters general in London, July 11, 1770 (New York Colonial Documents, viii. 218–221).

507 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, July 23, 1770. In a supplement to the paper appears a complete list of “alterers,” returned by the ward committees to the committee of inspection. It distinguishes between “Importers,” “Those zealous for Importing,” and “Shop-keepers,” and was printed to show that only about 800 were for importing, whereas there were probably 3000 whose votes ought to have been taken. In the list is the name of John Glover, Samuel Elam’s agent in New York, whose letters throw light on the situation in the city at this time.

508 Becker, op. cit., p. 93.

509 The protest is printed in the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, August 6, 1770.

510 New Jersey Archives, xxvii. 202, 204, 206–207, 215, 218–219.

511 Madison to his father, July 23, 1770 (Writings, 1900, i. 7; New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, July 16, 1770). At the Princeton Commencement Exercises, September 26, 1770, “Mr. Ogden defended this Proposition. The Non-Importation Agreement reflects a Glory on the American Merchants, and was a noble Exertion of Self denial and public Spirit. He was opposed by Mr. Horton, to whom Mr. John Smith replied.” At the same exercises, “Mr. Frelinghuysen pronounced an Oration on the Utility of American Manufactures,” and “In the Afternoon Mr. Wilson began an Oration on Commerce” (New Jersey Archives, xxvii. 268, 269).

512 Rowe, Diary, July 24, 1770; Massachusetts Gazette, July 26, 1770; Boston Gazette, July 30, August 20, 27, September 4, 1770; New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, August 17, 1770; New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, August 27, September 10, 24, 1770; Essex Gazette, August 28, 1770; Pennsylvania Gazette, September 20, 1770; Newport Historical Magazine, iii. 256.

513 Boston Gazette, August 13, 20, 1770. “The gentleman-merchants of the committee in Connecticut, met at Hartford, Aug. 4, declared their abhorrence of New York, issued a card calling for a closing of all accounts with the merchants there, and on the 7th authorized the publishing of five names, William Bowes, Rufus Greene, Edward Church, Nathaniel Cary, and William Coffin, Jr.” Their resolution declared that New York’s act was “in downright violation of the solemn agreement of this colony and of the neighbouring provinces . . . an infamous breach of their public faith plighted to her sister colonies not to import, and is a practice so destructive to the natural and civil rights and liberties of the people of America, that we must hold New York . . . in the utmost detestation and abhorrence.” This quotation illustrates the almost universal tendency to identify non-importation, at this time, with the constitutional claims.

514 “The Plea of New Haven for Non-Importation,” July 26, 1770, is printed from the Emmet Papers in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library, i. 184. It speaks of “our backsliding Brethren of New York, who have meanly prostituted the Common Cause to the present sordid prospect of a little Pelf.” The meeting was presided over by Roger Sherman.

515 Representatives from these five towns met at Mansfield and took action.

516 Scharf, History of Maryland, i. 118–119, where the resolutions are given.

517 The Association of June 22, 1770, is differently worded in its preamble from that of May 18, 1769. It is less rhetorical and more businesslike in tone. The articles run about the same, except that the list of goods not to be imported is considerably altered. The Association is signed by Peyton Randolph for the burgesses and Andrew Sprowle of Gosport for the merchants (Virginia Gazette, June 28, 1770; New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, July 23, 1770; Boston Gazette, July 23, 1770).

518 Cape Fear Mercury, July 11, 1770; South Carolina Gazette, July 5, 26, August 9, 1770; New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, August 13, 1770. In reply to a letter from Charles Town, addressed to the Sons of Liberty of North Carolina, a committee, composed of members from Wilmington, New Hanover county, Bladen county, Duplin county, Onslow county, and Cumberland county, met at Wilmington. It took the members a long time to get together, as “the gentlemen lived long distances apart.” Many of the merchants reused to sign the renewal.

519 To the Sons of Liberty of Charles Town the New Yorkers were “traitors to their country, themselves, and ages yet unborn, who, no doubt, when groaning under a British yoke will forever curse the traitors” (South Carolina Gazette, August 16, 23, 1770; New Jersey Archives, xxvii. 293).

520 Connecticut Courant, September 17, 1770. Just where Connecticut intended to purchase English goods is not clear. The merchants had broken with Boston, and now they broke with New York. New Haven, in its earlier non-importation agreement, voted to trade with Philadelphia and Boston, and probably in this case a return to the Boston connection was designed. “A Connecticut Farmer,” writing to the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, August 27, 1770, urges the cutting loose from all connections and the opening up of direct trade with England. He wanted Connecticut to have her own trade just as the New Jersey towns were hoping to do. This cutting of new channels of trade was in the minds of the freeholders and inhabitants of Sussex county, New Jersey, a region of wheat, and iron and steel furnaces, who, in voting non-intercourse with New york, declared that they would send their wheat and iron by the “more natural and easy water carriage down the River Delaware to our friends at Trenton and Philadelphia.” As early as 1738, Gov. Morris of New Jersey wrote to the Board of Trade: “They [the people] have warm desires and are big with hopes of carrying on a trade directly with Great Britain, instead of receiving European commodities from their neighbors of Boston, New York, and Pennsylvania” (Colonial Office, 5: 973, F 31).

521 New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, October 15, 1770. New York said: “Can Carolina, Philadelphia, Albany, New Brunswick, Woodbridge, or New Haven, etc, still retain a desire to hold a union with these gentlemen [of Boston], though they promise ever so great a Union in Deceit? Can you still resolve and protest against the merchants in New York, who maintained their agreement inviolate, untill they were convinced of the propriety of an Alteration, and then acted bold and upright, publickly declaring their Intentions to the world— like Honest Men” (Massachusetts Gazette, October 4, 1770, supplement). For a Boston statement, see ibid. September 6, 1770, and note the following as a specimen of language used in Boston: “At this juncture, when the merchants of New York have shamefully violated the agreement and forsaken the cause of this country, — when those who wish to have the chains fastened upon us are assiduous in their endeavours to scatter the seeds of discord among the other colonies, when they are casting the most malicious aspersions on the merchants of this town and province, and are artfully endeavouring to render them particularly odious in the eyes of the world, —when we feel the hand of oppression and tyranny daily growing more and more heavy upon us, — when the enemies of America, destitute of shame or remorse, insolently begin to laugh at her struggles for Freedom, and already flatter themselves that in a little time despotic power shall gain a complete triumph in a land of Liberty, — at such a time and under such circumstances everyone will judge it is the duty of each Individual in the community who loves his country to attend the public meetings — There to deliberate and consult with candor, to determine with wisdom, and to execute with that undaunted fortitude which becomes those only who are resolved to be free.” This statement was made at a meeting held in Faneuil Hall, and we are not surprised that it had to be adjourned because so few were present When the next meeting was held on September 5, a letter was voted to be sent to say that all the New York charges against Boston were “without foundation” (Massachusetts Gazette, September 20, 1770).

522 Pennsylvania Gazette, June 14, 1770.

523 New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, August 27, 1770.

524 Letters to Samuel Elam and William Neate, November 24, 1770, and to John Glover, November 20, 1770 (Collins Papers).

525 Pennsylvania Gazette, October 4, 1770.

526 Pennsylvania Gazette, October 4, 1770; New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, October 1, 1770. Capt. Bosley wrote to Collins: “Last Thursday was a meeting of the subscribers to the non-importation agreement at Davenport’s. J. Gibson spoke much and I am told very well against the trade being opened; W. West spoke strainously on the other side and gained the point. They are now making out their orders to go by the London packet, Capt. Cook” (Collins Papers).

527 Many London merchants had sent goods to Philadelphia in August and September, hoping the trade would be opened. Samuel Elam of Hull loaded the ship Commerce in August with bales for both New York and Philadelphia, and consigned them to John Glover, New York. Glover had a great deal of trouble with this consignment, for it was not until November that Philadelphia merchants dared receive their bales. Some of the Philadelphia consignees were Geo. Emlin, Abraham Usher, Joseph Swift, Benj. Wynkoop, Isaac & Joseph Paschall, Jacob Winey, James & Drinker, William Wisher, Richard Parker, Thomas Clifford & Son, John & Clem Biddle, Matthias Aspden, John Steinmetz, Caleb & Amos Foulke, and Stephen Collins. All wrote Glover in November to forward by the Bordentown stage, to be deposited at the Crooked Billet tavern. “I believe none will hinder their coming,” wrote Parker. “Do not apprehend there will be any difficulty in receiving of them,” wrote the Cliffords. As it happened, the Commerce was wrecked off the Maryland coast, November 11, and though 400 bales were saved they were so much damaged that they had to be sold at public vendue in New York (Collins Papers; New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, December 3, 1770).

528 “Goods are dayley arriving here from New York,” wrote C. & A. Foulke, November 15; “I find great quantities of goods are coming here from Maryland,” B. Wynkoop, November 10; “I have an assortment of broadcloths coming by way of Maryland, which will be sufficient for my spring sale,” Abraham Usher, November 29 (Letters to John Glover).

529 This is inferred from the names of the members present (Rowe, Letters and Diary, pp. 206–207.)

530 A meeting was held in Salem in September to denounce the “infamous conduct” of the four importers (p. 235, above) who had signed the agreement of May 2, 1770, and on September 22 had broken it by taking their goods out of storage, “breaking open the stores with force and violence, armed with a process of law, and assisted by the under-sheriff.” The meeting voted to boycott the stores and shops of the four, and even the truckman who handled the goods. A narrative of the circumstances, a terrible piece of thunder, is given in the Essex Gazette, October 2, 1770. Peter Frye, one of the offenders, wrote a letter defending himself, and saying that there were so many leaks everywhere, at Marblehead, Portsmouth, and Boston, that he was justified in seizing his property and offering it for sale. In the Essex Gazette of the 9th are published the names of three persons who had purchased goods of the four (Boston Gazette, October 8, 1770; Essex Gazette, October 2, 9, 1770).

531 Essex Gazette, November 20, 1770.

532 Denison Bros. to Collins, January 10, 1771.

533 Boston Gazette, December 24, 1770; 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 284.

534 Virginia was one of the last, if not the very last, to give in. Perkins, Buchanan & Brown wrote to Thomas Adams, April 9, 1770: “The duty on Tea is yet retained, the repealing the other three articles certainly does not redress the grievance North America complained of. This being the case surely your resolution of May 18 should be strictly observed” (Virginia Historical Society, File 5). Just when action was taken I have not discovered, but it was not until after June 1, 1771, for on that date Jefferson wrote from Monticello to Adams, “The day appointed for the meeting of the associates is not yet arrived, but it seems certain that the restrictions will be taken off everything but the dutied articles” (Jefferson, Writings, i. 387).

535 Regarding the situation in North Carolina, James Iredell wrote in October, 1771, “All mobbing is at an end here and we are once more at peace” (McRee, Life of Iredell, i. 93).

536 South Carolina Gazette, December 13, 27, 1770.

537 Ames’s Diary, Dedham Historical Register, i. 12; Faculty Records, ii. 85.

538 Rev. William Symmes (H. C. 1750), Tutor 1755–1758. He was succeeded by the Rev. Joseph Jackson (H. C. 1753), Tutor 1758–1760.

539 Robert Dodsley’s Preceptor, first published in 1748, went through several editions.

540 William Kneeland (H. C. 1751), Tutor 1754–1763.

541 A William Hook was born October 19, 1718 (Vital Records of Cambridge, i. 370). On November 5, 1731, a guardian was appointed for a William Hook, a minor, aged about fourteen (Suffolk Probate Files, No. 6158). The dates indicate that perhaps these two William Hooks were one and the same.

542 Faculty Records, ii. 117, 118–119, 137.

543 October 2–3, 1711.

544 Rev. George Curwin (H. C. 1701).

545 Rev. John Emerson (H. C. 1675), who died March 10, 1712.

546 Hobart’s wife was Sarah, daughter of Edward Jackson: she died February 23, 1712. The letter is owned by the American Antiquarian Society.

547 Cf. Publications of this Society, xvii, 120–122.

548 Quincy, History of the Boston Athenaeum, p. 190.

549 P. 261, above.

550 Dedham Historical Register, i. 113, 114.

551 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 29, 30, 49, 396: cf. i. 197. Among those “entertained” by the company in 1629 was Lambert Wilson, who was to “serve this Companie and the other planters that liue in the plantac͞on for 3 yeares, and in that time apply himselfe to cure not only of such as came from hence for the gen̄all and p̄ticuler accompts, but also for the Indian as from tyme to tyme hee shalbe directed,” and who was also “to educate & instruct in his art one or more youths, such as yo^w and the said councell shall appoint, that may bee helpful to him, and, if occasion serve, succeed him in the plantac͞on.” Savage says of Wilson: “my doubt is strong, whether he continued half the time.”

552 In Shepard’s Clear Sun-shine of the Gospel breaking forth upon the Indians of New-England, London, 1648, pp. 25–26.

553 See the previous note.

554 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, iv. 57.

555 Memorial History of Boston (1881), iv. 530. In 1884 Dr. Green repeated his statement, with slight variations in language; and further said: “It is very likely that Cambridge was the place where Giles Firmin had ‘read upon’ or lectured on his skeleton” (2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, i. 46, 47). In 1901 Dr. Francis R. Packard said: “A skeleton was formerly called an anatomy, hence it would appear that demonstrations of the bones were made by Firmin” (History of Medicine in the United States, p. 34).

556 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 201.

557 Wonder-working Providence, p. 165.

558 Connecticut Colonial Records, i. 396. Dr. Green printed two editions of his Centennial Address, one at Groton, the other at Boston, which differ in pagination and slightly in text, and to the Boston edition was added an Appendix (pp. 129–131) in which the 1663 case is mentioned.

559 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, vi. 205.

560 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, vi. 181. In his Account of Two Voyages to New-England, 1674, John Josselyn said: “There was in the Countrey not long since . . . a young maid that was troubled with a sore pricking at her heart, . . . it so fell out that the maid dyed; her friends desirous to discover the cause of the distemper of her heart, had her open’d, and found two crooked bones growing upon the top of the heart” (p. 186), but did not state when or where this autopsy was held. Josselyn added: “At Cape-Porpus lived an honest poor planter of middle-age, . . . at last he dyed in Anno 1668 as I think, or thereabouts. Some Chirurgeons there were that proffered to open him, but his wife would not assent to it, and so his disease was hidden in the Grave.”

561 S. A. Green, Centennial Address (Groton, 1881), pp. 49–50. This autopsy was made by Zerobabel Endecott. Cf. G. F. Dow, preface to Endecott’s Synopsis Medicinae, or A Compendium of Galenical and Chymical Physick (Essex Tracts, 1914), p. 5.

562 Diary, i. 21.

563 S. A. Green, Centennial Address (Groton), p. 50. The extracts thus far quoted are well known, all having been noted by Dr. Green; those which follow are mostly new.

564 Diary, i. 65. In April, 1693, the body of Cotton Mather’s son Joseph, who lived only four days, was “opened” (i. 163–164). For these references I am indebted to Mr. John H. Edmonds.

565 New York Colonial Documents, iii. 794. “A post mortem examination of the body was ordered” on the day of his death (Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1689–1692, p. 510: cf. pp. 511, 513, 520).

566 P. 2/2. For this reference I am indebted to Mr. John H. Edmonds.

567 Colonial Currency Reprints (Prince Society), i. 329, 330.

568 G. L. Kittredge, Cotton Mather’s Scientific Communications to the Royal Society (Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, 1916, xxvi. 40–41). For this reference I am indebted to Mr. Kittredge.

569 Quoted in Dr. Packard’s History of Medicine in the United States, 1901, pp. 164–165.

570 Boston News Letter, February 22, 1733, p. 2/1. Cf. March 1, p. 2/1; March 8, p. 2/1; March 22, p. 2/1.

571 Dr. Packard says that in 1750 “a criminal named Hermanus Carroll was cexecuted for murder in New York City, and his body was dissected by Dr. John Bard and Dr. Peter Middleton for the instruction of the young men then engaged in the study of medicine. This is the first essay made in the colonies for the purpose of acquiring medical knowledge by dissection, of which we have any record’” (History of Medicine in the United States, p. 165). From whom this passage is quoted is not stated, but the extracts given in our text show that earlier dissections were made.

572 These two references came to-me from our late associate Mr. Gay.

573 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ii, 189. This Medical Society in Boston was referred to in the Boston News Letter of January 5, 1738 (not 1737, as misprinted), and of November 13, 1741, after which allusions to it have not been found.

574 John Chandler (d 1762).

575 P. 101.

576 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, i. 45–46. Attention was first called to the passage by George H. Moore, who spoke of the unnamed and unknown Bostonian as “the first promoter of medical education in America” (1 ibid. xix. 249–250).

577 Suffolk Probate Records, xl. 331–332. The inventory, as here recorded (the original being missing), clearly reads as printed in the text; but it seems likely that “Anat:” is an error for “Art:” — that is, “arteries.” See text, under 1750.

578 H. C. 1733.

579 H. C. 1745. William Davis, the physician, and Hannah Winslow were married January 26, 1715 (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 57); a son William was born March 17, 1726 (xxiv. 175); and letters of administration were granted to Hannah Davis, widow, on March 28, 1746 (Suffolk Probate Files, no. 8489). The Faculty Records (i. 165) state that the William Davis who graduated in 1745 was born December 25, 1727, and that his residence at entrance was Boston. Presumably the son of the physician and the Harvard graduate were one and the same, the dates given in the Faculty Records being sometimes those of baptism.

580 Francis Archibald, a Boston physician, and Huldah Rainsford were married November 18, 1714; a son Edward (H. C. 1736) was born March 24, 1716; a son Francis was born February 5, 1724; and on October 25, 1746, letters of administration were granted to Huldah Archibald, widow, and Francis Archibald, merchant. (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 111, 163, xxviii, 49; Suffolk Probate Files, no. 8589). Hence the donor of the skeleton doubtless in herite dit from his father. The name is variously spelled Archbald, Archbold, and Archibald: I follow the form given in the Harvard Quinquennial Catalogue.

581 College Book, iv. 315–316.

582 Suffolk Probate Records, xlviii. 326.

583 Scharf and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, ii. 1581, 1582; J. J. Levick, early Physicians of Philadelphia (1886), p. 11 note; F. R. Packard, History of Medicine in the United States, p. 165. Apparently Philadelphians have come to believe this statement by dint of repeating it, for I have been unable to find any evidence in its support. That at least one medical lecture was delivered in 1750 is proved by the following advertisement which appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette of November 29, p. 2/2:

Next Week will be published,

A DISCOURSE on the Preparation of the Body for the Small-Pox: And the Manner of receiving the Infection. As it was delivered in the publick Hall of the Academy, before the Trustees, and others, on Wednesday, the 21st of November, 1750.

By ADAM THOMSON, Physician in Philadelphia . . .

The Philadelphia Academy, of whose trustees Franklin was then president, is the present University of Pennsylvania. Cf. the same paper, December 18 (presumably a misprint for 20), p. 2/1–2.

Dr. R. F. Stone says that Cadwalader’s Iliac Passion, or Colica Pictonum, “was written in 1743, and was one of the first publications on a medical subject in America. He is said, however, to have written a paper on ‘Inoculation Variola’ (1730) which antedates this and all other contributions to American medical literature” (Biography of Eminent American Physicians and Surgeons, pp. 71–72). It is hardly necessary to say that this statement is quite erroneous, as there had been many medical publications before 1730, the earliest known being the Rev. Thomas Thacher’s A Brief Rule To guide the Common-People of New-England How to order themselves and theirs in the Small Pocks, or Measels, a broadside printed at Boston in 1678. It is dated January 21, 1678.

584 American Medical Biography (1828), i. 304–305.

585 Boston evening Post, January 20, 1755, p. 2/2; January 27, p. 3/2; February 3, p. 2/2.

586 Copley-Pelham Letters, p. 305 note.

587 Boston evening Post, January 30, 1764, p. 2/2.

588 Boston News Letter, December 20, 1770, p. 3/2. Hersey graduated in 1728. The bequest was received on November 9, 1772, and the vote of the Corporation of that date was printed in the Boston News Letter of November 12, 1772, p. 2/3; where it is also stated: “We are informed likewise, that His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor [Andrew Oliver] hath presented to HARVARD—COLLEGE a Number of curious Anatomical Preparations, from London, in Aid to the before mentioned laudable Design.”

589 2 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 109–110. There were at that time several physicians named Josiah Bartlett. A sketch of this one (born 1759, died 1820) will be found in 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, i. 323–330.

590 Oration occasioned by the Death of John Warren, M.D. (1815), p. 5.

591 Eulogy of the Character of John Warren, M.D. (1815), p. 9.

592 E. Warren, Life of John Warren, M.D. (1874), p. 12.

593 Ibid. pp. 226–227.

594 E. Warren, Life of John Warren, M.D. (1874), pp. 25, 26.

595 Ibid. p. 23.

596 Ibid. p. 227.

597 E. Warren, Life of John Warren, M.D. (1874), pp. 228–229. The persons mentioned in this letter were: Dr. Benjamin Church (H. C. 1754); Dr. John Clarke (H. C. 1772); Dr. John Jeffries (H. C. 1763); Dr. James Lloyd (1728–1810); Dr. Jonathan Norwood (H. C. 1771); Rev. Samuel Stillman (1738–1807); Dr. David Townsend (H. C. 170).

598 P. 2/3. On the same day John Rowe wrote: “Levi Ames was hanged this afternoon — many Thousand Spectators attended the execution” (Letters and Diary, p. 252). cr. 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xv. 343; Memorial History of Boston, ii. 486–487.

599 “Christ sent to heal the Broken Hearted. A Sermon, Preached at the Thursday Lecture in Boston, On October 21st. 1773. When Levi Ames . . . Was present to hear the Discourse” (1773).

600 “Christ’s Promise to the penitent Thief. A Sermon Preached the Lord’s Day before the Execution of Levi Ames, . . . N.B. This discourse was delivered at the desire of the Prisoner, who was present when it was delivered” (1773).

601 “Two Sermons: The First . . . . Delivered the Lord’s Day before the Execution of Levi Ames . . . This Discourse was preached at the Desire of the Criminal, who also attended on the Occasion. The Second . . . Preached the Lords-Day after his Execution” (1773).

602 A society called the S— G— was founded September 6, 1770, and on September 11 John Warren was admitted a member. This was the Speaking Club, now the Institute of 1770, the records of which are preserved in the College Library. Sone of theearly pages are either gone or mutilated, making it impossible to say with certainty whether Eustis and Norwood were members, but their names do not occur in the pages remaining. Warren spoke on October 9, November 21, December 18, 1770, and March 4, April 2, May 14, 1771. Some of the pieces may have been original, but probably most if not all were selections. Cr. Publications of this Society, viii. 291 note 4, 292 note 2.

603 Independent Chronicle, January 4, 1781, p. 3/3; January 11, p. 4/2; January 18, p. 4/1.

604 Independent Chronicle, December 6, 1781, p. 2/1; December 14, p. 4/3; December 20, p. 4/3. On December 20 the advertisement contained this addition: “N.B. Gentlemen of whatever profession may be admitted.” This course was in response to a vote of the Boston Medical Society on November 3, 1781, “That Dr. John Warren be desired to demonstrate a course of Anatomical Lectures the ensuing winter” (T. F. Harrington, Harvard Medical School, i. 80, 259).

605 Harrington, Harvard Medical School, i. 84.

606 See p. 262, above. On January 5, 1762, Ames wrote in his Diary that a student “that was expell from College for Breaking Doct. Kneelands Windows some time since Commen^t is now rec^d again upon application to the Overseers of Colls” (Dedham Historical Register, i. 146).

607 Harrington says that Kneeland, after his graduation from Harvard in 1751, “took up the study of medicine with an eminent physician, and while pursuing his studies cultivated various branches of science, and was noted as a scholar in logic and metaphysics. He was Tutor . . . from the year 1754 to 1763, after which he began the practice of medicine in Cambridge” (Harvard Medical School, i. 170).

608 In 1733 a curious case arose. Ebenezer Hartshorn entered in the class of 1732 and was duly placed at some time between September 30 and November 26, 1728, but against his name is written “left College” (Faculty Records, i. 20). In June, 1733, his petition for a Bachelor’s degree was dismissed because he “declin’d offering himself to such an Examination” as the Corporation insisted upon. Hartshorn’s own declaration was “yt he knew nothing of Hebrew, not so much as y^e Letters; yt he had never read any system of natural or moral Phylosophy, yt he was unacquainted with Mathematicks, & could not pretend to answer in Logick; . . . and all yt he consented to be examined in, was Latin Classick Authors, y^e Greek Testament & his profession of Physick” (College Book, iv. 167). That a student should have offered himself for examination in medicine as early as 1733 is worth notice.

609 Mr. Matthews, who has furnished the notes for this document, finds that Ephraim Eliot omitted two of his classmates — John Barrett and James Delaney. Barrett’s name does not occur in the list of those admitted August 8, 9, September 13, 25, 1776, in the Faculty Records (iv. 37), but was interlined later as follows:

Barrett John Springfield. State of Vermont. 23 Aug^t 16 1779

from Dart: Aug^t 1779

That is, he was born August 16, 1756, he was admitted from Dartmouth College in August, 1779, and his place of residence at entrance was Springfield, Vermont. He was admitted to the honorary degree of A.M. at Dartmouth in 1780, but his name does not appear in the list of non-graduates in the General Catalogue of Dartmouth College (1911).

Delaney’s name is thus entered in the Faculty Records (iv. 37):

Delaney James S^t Christophers 17 Nov^r 5

On July 15, 1777, the Faculty voted “That James Delaney have Leave of Absence to go to S^t Christophors agreable to his Father’s Desire, & to return to this Society as soon as his Affairs may permit” (iv. 67). Apparently he never returned.

610 Bradshaw was over twenty-five at entrance, having been born March 8, 1751 (Faculty Records, iv. 37).

611 Brown, “Sophomore at Providence College,” was admitted August 29, 1779, “His Age 15. Sep^t 22. 1776” (Faculty Records, iv. 64–65). See General Catalogue of Brown University (1914).

612 Crane, the only clergyman in the class, a “Freshman at Providence College,” was admitted May 15, 1777. “N. B. He is from Norton — Age 21. March 26, 1777” (Faculty Records, iv. 58). See General Catalogue of Brown University (1914). He was minister at Northbridge — not Northfield, as Eliot has it.

613 Croswell, “Son of the Rev^d M^r [Andrew] Croswell of Boston, aged 16 Years July 1776,” was admitted March 13, 1777 (Faculty Records, iv. 53).

614 Draper had a varied career. In the list of those admitted in 1775 to the class of 1779, he is thus entered (Faculty Records, iv. 15):

Draper Philip (N. B. Rusticated) Dedham 18 March 2

The words “(N. B. Rusticated)” are interlined and were of course added later. On October 3, 1777, he was admonished in that he “did grosly & cruelly beat” another student; on October 6 he was degraded six places for theft; on November 3 he had leave to go to New York; on December 12–14, 1777, he was restored to his former place; on June 5, 1779, he was rusticated; on July 21 his petition to the Corporation for reversal of his rustication was denied; on June 23, 1780, his petition to the Faculty for readmission was deferred, and on July 10 was denied; but on July 19, 1780, his petition to the Corporation for a degree was granted. (Faculty Records, iv. 15, 69, 71, 72–73, 96, 125–127, 151; College Book, viii. 29, 56–57.)

T. W. M. Draper says that “Mr. Draper received his M.D. from Harvard University in 1780, and was a practising physician in the South Parish of Dedham until his death” (Draper Family in America, 1892, pp. 176–177). The former statement is of course incorrect, and if the latter is not also the fact escaped Dr. T. F. Harrington, who does not mention him in his Harvard Medical School. Draper’s brother Ichabod graduated in the class of 1783, while his two sons Jeremiah and Moses graduated in the class of 1808.

615 Flynt’s name is not found in Dr. Harrington’s Harvard Medical School.

616 James Hughes was admitted to college July 18, 1780, and was granted his degree the next day. The case is so extraordinary that it is worth giving the Faculty vote in full:

At the Meeting of the President Professors & Tutors.

James Hughes of Boston, who was designed to be a member of this College at the time when the war broke out, but was prevented by being shut up in Boston in that Town by the British Troops, and was afterwards discouraged by many difficulties, now offering himself to examination, for admission into the present Senior Class, to be with them a Candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts; And he being recommended by several respectable Gentlemen of education, as a person of unexceptionable moral character, and that he has pursued the course of Studies, usual in this University, and made such advances in the several branches of Literature as render him worthy of a first degree — Agreed that he be admitted to examination — He was accordingly examined, in the Learned Languages, in Geography, Logic, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy & Astronomy, and found to have made good proficiency in those branches of Literature

Whereupon it was voted — That the aforesaid James Hughes, upon his paying the Sum of Ninety pounds in Spanish Milled Dollars, or Continental Bills equivalent, to the Satisfaction of the Treasurer, be admitted a Member of the present Senior Class, and stand candidate with them for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Faculty Records, iv. 153–154).

617 On June 27, 1777, “Daniel Jenckes of Providence College,” a Junior Sophister, applied for admission to the Sophomore Class, was examined, found deficient, yet was admitted “on Conditions” (Faculty Records, iv. 61). See General Catalogue of Brown University (1914).

618 Samuel Moody, H. C. 1746; preceptor of Dummer Academy, 1763–1790; died 1795.

619 On July 24, 1779, “Nehemiah Mason of Stonington aged 22 Years 10^th April last, producing a Certificate from President Stiles of his regular standing in Yale College; & Jacob White of Mansfield, aged 21 Years 30th of July last, who had, as appears by the Testimony of Mason, a Certificate of like Tenor, which thro inadvertence he left at Home, desiring Admission into the Senior Sophister Class” (Faculty Records, iv. 112–113), were duly admitted.

620 Plympton’s name does not occur in the list of those admitted in 1776, but was interlined later as follows (Faculty Records, iv. 37):

Plympton Sylvanus Medfield 21 Nov^r 7 1778 from Dart: Aug^t 1779

His name is not found in the General Catalogue of Dartmouth College (1911).

621 Election day in 1785 was May 25, while Commencement Day was July 20. The following notice appeared in the Independent Chronicle of July 21, 1785:

Yesterday died, greatly lamented, Mr. Thomas Walley Russell, son of Mr. Joseph Russell, of this town, in the 24th year of his age. His remains are to be entombed to-morrow afternoon, at six o’clock, from his father’s house in Long-Lane, where his friends and relations are desired to attend. An attempt to do justice to his memory, might, by the eye of the uncandid and stranger, be viewed as adulation, and add fresh poignancy to the grief his disease has already occasioned his numerous friends and acquaintance (p. 3/3).

622 The commonplace book contains at another place further particulars regarding the mysterious disappearance of Jesse Thomas.

623 “Fortescue Vernon of Boston, aged 15 y^rs Nov^r 9 1776,” was admitted February 18, 1777 (Faculty Records, iv. 51). He was the son of William Vernon who, though born in Boston June 27, 1740, described himself in his will (dated October 15, 1787, proved December 28, 1789) as “of the Colony of Esscquibo, Planter,” and stated that he had sold his “plantation called Boston in Essequibo.” William Vernon was the son of Capt. Fortescue and Jane (Cowell) Vernon. In Capt. Vernon’s will (dated June 23, 1778, and proved January 8, 1779) are these clauses: “Item I give to my Son William Vernon, the Farm at Newton . . For and During his natural Life only, & upon the Decease of my said Son Will^m Vernon, I give & Devise the same unto his son by his first Wife namely my Grandson Fortesque Vernon. . . . Item I give & bequeath to my Grandson Fortesque Vernon . . . seven thousand Dollars in Continental Securities with the Interest thereon that may be Due at the Time of my Decease, and that the Interest that may become Due on them after, I will may be paid to him yearly as it becomes due for his Maintenance at Colledge and Pocket Expences at his own Discretion.” Capt. Vernon died December 21, 1778, as appears from the following notice: “Last Monday evening departed this Life, Captain Fortesque Vernon, aged 63. His funeral will be this afternoon, from his mansion-house (in Charter-Street) at half past 3 o’clock — where his Friends and Acquaintance are desired to attend” (Independent Chronicle, Thursday, December 24, 1778, p. 3/2).

On January 29, 1779, Professor Stephen Sewall was appointed “guardian unto Fortesque Vernon a Minor above fourteen years of Age Grandson of Capt. Fortesque Vernon late of Boston deceased;” and in the account he rendered September 29, 1783, is this item: “pd the President & Fellows of Harvard College 3.2.1.” While in college, Vernon was admonished on May 10–16, 1780, and again on December 15, 1780 (Faculty Records, iv. 145–146, 183–185), showing that he was in residence for at least a while after graduation, though apparently he did not remain for his A.M. He died intestate in March, 1790, and on April 13 administration on his estate was granted to Stephen Bruce. The Massachusetts Centinel of April 14 said: “DIED] — At Demarara, Mr. Fortescue Vernon” (xiii. 35/2). See Suffolk Probate Files, nos. 16804, 16831, 18955, 19344, 19476; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 242, 251, 268, 272, xxviii, 230; Massachusetts Magazine, i. 64, ii. 256; T. Bridgman, Epitaphs from Copp’s Hill Burial Ground, 1851, p. 48; Boston Gazette, January 31, 1780, p. 3/1; Independent Chronicle, February 5, 1789, p. 3/3.

624 Jacob (not James) White was admitted from Yale July 24, 1779: see p. 293, note 2, above.

625 Winthrop was admitted from Yale April 30, 1779. “N. B. Winthrop belongs to New-London — Aged 19. March 6. 1779” (Faculty Records, iv. 104).

626 New Hampshire State Papers, viii. 2–4; Adams, Annals of Portsmouth, p. 262.

627 New Hampshire State Papers, viii. 12, 15, 33, 6 7.

628 New Hampshire Town Papers, xii. 68.

629 New Hampshire State Papers, viii. 16.

630 Account Book (1722–1759) of Christ Church.

631 Christ Church files; from copy of original letter.

632 Account Book.

633 Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, i. 323.

634 All extracts from the Vestry Records are from the first Record Book, 1724–1802.

635 Annals of King’s Chapel, i. 400.

636 Edmund Gibson.

637 W. S. Perry, Historical Collections relating to the American Colonial Church, iii. 270.

638 Henry Newman, H. C. 1687, Librarian 1690–1693: see our Publications, xiv. 135–136.

639 Belcher Papers, i. 59.

640 Belcher Papers, i. 65–66.

641 i. 66–67.

642 Belcher Papers, i. 73–74.

643 Belcher Papers, i. 75.

644 Thomas Sandford, merchant in London and agent of the congregation of King’s Chapel (Annals of King’s Chapel, i. 352, 381–382).

645 Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers, 1731–1734, p. 379.

646 Andrew Belcher (H. C. 1724), oldest son of Governor Belcher, and a Boston merchant.

647 Filleted, “marked or decorated with a fillet.” Fillet, “a plain line impressed on the cover of a book” (Oxford English Dictionary).

648 Employed in the now obsolete sense of a covering for the Altar. The Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical agreed upon by Bishops and Clergy in their Synod (1603) provide that the Communion Table shall be “covered in time of Divine Service with a Carpet of Silk or other decent Stuff, thought meet by the Ordinary of the place, if any question be made of it, and with a fair linen cloth at the time of the Ministration, as becometh that Table, and so stand, saving when the holy Communion is to be administered.”

649 Belcher Papers, i. 389–390.

650 Lady Day, the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary; also, under Old Style, the first day of the new year.

651 Perry, Historical Collections of the American Colonial Church, iii. 270.

652 iii. 271.

653 Belcher Papers, i. 72.

654 i. 460.

655 ii. 175.

656 Belcher Papers, ii. 175.

657 ii. 176.

658 Annals of King’s Chapel, i. 377 note.

659 Vestry Records, June 9, 1727.

660 Trinity Church, Boston, also set apart a pew for the use of the Governor, after the receipt, in 1742, of a gift of Communion plate, Bible and Prayer Books from the King through Governor Shirley. At a vestry meeting held August 27, 1742, it was voted: “that a pew be fitted up for his Excel^eys accomodation when he pleases to come to this Church, that the two pews N^o 69 & N^o 70 be made into square pews one for to accomodate his Excel^cy the other for the Wardens” (Addison, Life and Times of Edward Bass, p. 111).

661 Cocket, a “document sealed by the officers of the custom-house, and delivered to merchants as a certificate that their merchandise has been duly entered and has paid duty” (Oxford English Dictionary).

662 Primage, “a customary allowance formerly made by the shipper to the master and crew of a vessel for the loading and care of the cargo; also called hat money” (Oxford English Dictionary).

663 See p. 312, above, where a charge of two shillings for hooks for the Altar piece is recorded under date of September 10, 1733.

664 This inscription is copied from the chalice. The style of the inscription on the flagons is varied slightly in two words: “Excell^ncy Govern^r.”

665 The imprint on the title-page to the New Testament portion is dated 1716.

666 The title at the top of the first column on the page where the major part of the twentieth chapter of St. Luke is printed reads: “The parable of the vinegar,” instead of “The parable of the vineyard.”

667 Account Book.

668 A copy of the Vinegar Bible recently offered in the catalogue of an English antiquarian bookseller is described as follows: “The Holy Bible, with frontispiece and vignettes by Vander Gucht, ruled in red, 2 vols. roy. folio, Large Paper Copy, specially bound for King George I, in full dark green morocco, broad tooled ornamental borders, back panels containing his monogram, G.R., surmounted by Crown, royal arms stamped in gold on covers, silk ties, with tassels of gold wire (some defective), very fine copy. Oxford, J. Basket t, 1717.”

669 Francis Beteilhe was chosen clerk of the vestry January 15, 1733, and filled the position for some six years, the latest entry in the Records in his handwriting and over his signature being under date of July 30, 1739. On March 19, 1733, the vestry, “perceiving the irregular Order in keeping Records of our Meetings (as it too plainly appears by the foregoing pages) It is now Voted That all the Subscriptions Books & Papers be deliver^d to Said Fr Beteilhe To make a faithfull & Exact Copy of all our Votes and Also make a Sett of Books of Accompts that we and our Successors might for the future transact & manage the Church Affairs with more Ease, Satisfaction and evident benefit to Christ Church.” As a result of this vote all the earliest records of Christ Church, as they appear in the first books of Vestry Records, Proprietors Records, and Account Books, are in Beteilhe’s characteristic and legible handwriting. Many, if not all, of the originals from which the transcripts were made are preserved, neatly docketed, among the church’s files. Beteilhe was also active in the early days of Free Masonry in Boston. I am indebted to Mr. Melvin M. Johnson, Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, for the following account. The Provincial Grand Lodge was founded on July 30, 1733, “receiving on the same evening a petition for the organization of a particular Lodge which original petition is still in our archives. Francis Beteilhe joined the Lodge on July 24, 1734. Just when he became Grand Secretary of the Provincial Grand Lodge we do not know, but it was prior to June 24, 1737. We know also that in 1736 he was Secretary of the First Lodge in Boston, and we have his original records during his incumbency of that office.” He continued as secretary of the Grand Lodge until August 7, 1739, and of the First Lodge until December 26, 1739. Cf. Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts for the years: 1871, p. 288; 1883, pp. 158, 159; 1899, p. 72; also Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xlix, 289.

670 As a matter of accuracy it should be stated that a slip of paper has been pasted over the major part of the imprint in the volume which is shown in the. vestry room, with the obvious intention of covering the Royal arms, which were employed after the manner of a printer’s device above the imprint.

671 The Rev. Henry Burroughs in his address on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, December 29, 1873, and the Rev. Charles W. Duane in a similar address on the one hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary, December 29, 1898, refer briefly to the adaptation of the Prayer Books to the American Liturgy.

672 W. S. Perry, Journals of General Conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, iii. 101–103.

673 “Since the War two Clergymen have settled in this State, Revd. Mr. Lewis, who was Chaplain in Burgoyne’s Regiment of light Dragoons, left that Service and came to this Town in 1778 and settled at Christ’s Church; The other, the Revd. Mr. Fisher, who came from Annapolis in Nova Scotia in 1780 and settled in Salem” (Rev. Samuel Parker, Rector of Trinity Church, Boston, to the Rev. William White of Philadelphia, June 21, 1784, ibid. iii. 57).

674 “These alterations were introduced into the services of Trinity Church by the Rev. Mr. Parker on the first Sunday in August, 1786” (W. McGarvey, Liturgiae Americanae, or the Book of Common Prayer as used in the United States of America, 1895, p. xxii). This statement was apparently made on the authority of a letter written January 28, 1788, to Bishop Seabury of Connecticut by the Rev. Samuel Parker of Trinity Church (Journals of General Conventions, iii. 365). I am, however, indebted to Mr. Robert Treat Paine, Clerk of Trinity Church, for the information that on July 27, 1786, the vestry voted to adopt the alterations in the Liturgy as proposed by the Boston Convention. On July 30 the Proprietors of Trinity also voted to adopt the alterations and provided that the service should “be performed conformable thereto on the second Sunday in August.” Cf. Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 309. More than four years later at a meeting of the vestry of Trinity Church, November 30, 1790, it was voted that in order that the congregation should have an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the new form of Prayer agreed upon by the General Convention at Philadelphia in October, 1789, it should be used in the church on Sundays and Holy-days from December 12, 1790, to January 3, 1791, when the Proprietors were to hold a meeting. At the Proprietors’ meeting held on January 16, 1791 (adjourned from January 3), “The Proprietors also expressed their Approbation of the Constitution & form of Prayer framed & revised by the general Convention holden at Philadelphia Octor. 1789.”

675 The Pennsylvania Gazette for Wednesday, September 8, 1790, contains an advertisement of the Book of Common Prayer as “Just published, and now Selling, at W. and D. Hall’s Book-store, in Market-Street.” A certificate of the Clerk of the District of Pennsylvania which appears in the advertisement recites, “that on the Seventh Day of August in the Fifteenth Year of the Independence . . . William Hall, of the said District hath deposited in this Office the Title of a Book, the Rights Whereof he claims as Proprietor, in the Words following, to wit: . . .” Then follows the detailed title of the Prayer Book. This advertisement appears again three times each, in September and October, and also on November 3.

676 Proprietors’ Records (1724–1806).

677 For convenience in description the several Prayer Books (with the exception of the large paper copy) are indicated as Folios 1, 2, 3, and 4, the numbering being based on the probable order of alteration. The large paper copy is called Folio 5.

678 The Bonum est confiteri and Benedic, anima mea, which were neither in the English Prayer Book nor in the Proposed Book, but are in the American Book of 1790 and subsequent editions.

679 This inscription is found in Folios 1 and 4. The inscription “For the Use of His Excellency the Governor A.D. 1733” is in Folio 2.

680 Neither the English Book nor the Proposed Book has the second form of the Absolution which appears in all editions of the American Book both in Morning and Evening Prayer.

681 It is not unlikely that these changes were made by the Rev. William Montague, Rector of Christ Church 1786–1792. A comparison of the handwriting in the volume with several manuscript sermons written at about this time by Mr. Montague, kindly provided for inspection by his grandson, Mr. Henry W. Montague of Boston, shows a marked similarity, although the evidence is not sufficiently clear to warrant a positive conclusion.

682 The Gun-powder Treason, King Charles the Martyr, King’s Restoration, and the accession of George II.

683 The Pennsylvania Gazette of Wednesday, December 28, 1791, has the following advertisement of the second edition: “Philadelphia, December 20, 1791. This Day is Published, and now Selling, At W. and D. Hall’s Book-store, In Market-Street, No. 51, (Price 4/9 the single Book, 4/2 by the Dozen, 3/9 by the Hundred, bound, or 2/6 in Sheets,) A Neat Edition of the Book of Common Prayer, . . .” The advertisement then continues with the wording of the advertisement of September 8, 1790, including the certificate as to the copyright. It is repeated twice in January, 1792, and in February; once each in March and April, and three times in May. It is possible that it first appeared in the issue of December 21, 1791, but there is no copy of this issue, nor of January 4, 1792, in the files of the American Antiquarian Society.

684 The General Convention of 1789 had instructed the Committee appointed to superintend the printing of the Prayer Book; “besides a full and complete edition of the said book, printed in folio or octavo, or in both, to have an edition published, to contain only the parts in general use and the Collects of the day, with references to the Epistles and Gospels” (Journals of General Conventions, i. 112).

685 The Rev. Dr. Frederick Gibson in his Bibliographical Sketch of the Standard Editions of the American Prayer Book (in Liturgiae Americanae, p. lxi) mentions folio copies of English Prayer Books, altered, by insertion of printed matter, to conform to the American Liturgy, in St. John’s Parish, Baltimore and Harford Counties, Md. (now in the Mary land Diocesan Library, Baltimore), St. John’s Church, Portsmouth, N. H., Christ Church, Cambridge, Mass., and Christ Church, Boston. Both the Maryland Diocesan Library copy (London, 1718) and the Christ Church Cambridge copy (London, 1766) were altered by the insertion of the partial folio of 1792. The Cambridge church also has a folio Prayer Book (Cambridge, England, 1757) in which alterations were made by hand in the Morning and Evening Prayer and Litany, although, curiously enough, the State Prayers were left untouched in the first two services.

686 For use “Yearly on the First Thursday in November, or on such other Day as shall be appointed by the Civil Authority.”

687 The hymns were six in number; two each for Christmas and Easter Day; one each for Good Friday and Whitsunday.

688 Liturgiae Americanae, p. lxi.

689 Through the courtesy of the Rev. Appleton Grannis, Rector of St. Anne’s Church, Lowell, I have been able to examine this copy which is still preserved in the Rectory library. It is a tall copy, 9⅜ by 15¾ inches, in perfect condition. On the fly-leaf is written “Maria Parkers 1840” and in a different handwriting “Partial Edition of 1790.” “Maria Parkers 1840” is also written on the inside of the back cover. The Rectory library was mainly formed by the late Rev. Dr. Theodore Edson when Rector of St. Anne’s Church. Mrs. Edson (Rebecca Parker) and Maria Parker were daughters of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Parker, Rector of Trinity Church, Boston (later the second Bishop of Massachusetts), and it can be safely assumed that this copy came from Dr. Parker.

690 These two copies appear to be identical, textually and typographically, except that in the quarto the Table of Lessons is printed horizontally on the pages instead of vertically, and the verso of Q2 has four hymns only instead of six as in the folio. The uncompleted date in the folio copy may be accounted for on the supposition that the notes in the volume were inserted at the time when Thomas presented his library to the Antiquarian Society in 1812, or later, and that his recollection as to the time of publication was not sufficiently exact to warrant his completing the date.

691 The reason for Dr. Parker’s activities and interest in the printing of the Prayer Book is clearly shown by the following extracts. At a convention in Boston, January 26, 1791, it was “Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Convention, that it is expedient that there be printed an edition of the alterations in the Service of the Church, contained in the Form of Prayer set forth by the General Convention;” and “Resolved, That the Committee chosen yesterday, be requested to procure the same to be printed, and to forward one copy to.” A few months later at a Convention held in Boston, May 24, 1 791, it was “Resolved, That the Form of Prayer set forth by the General Convention, be adopted and used in this Church.” “Resolved, That the Rev. Dr. Bass, Rev. Dr. Parker, and Rev. Mr. Fisher, be a Committee to confer with any Printers on the printing of an edition of the Common Prayer, this day adopted by the Convention; and, in case any Printer shall undertake it, the said Committee is requested to inspect the Press” (Journals of the Conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the Diocese of Massachusetts, from the Year 1784 to the Year 1828 inclusive, Printed by order of the Convention of 1848, pp. 29, 3 2, 3 3). Dr. Bass was settled at Newburyport, Mr. Fisher at Salem, And it seems probable that the active supervision of the work would have fallen to the lot of Dr. Parker of Boston.

692 I am indebted to the American Antiquarian Society for permission to print these letters from the Isaiah Thomas Papers in the Society’s library; to our associate Dr. Charles L. Nichols of Worcester for his assistance; and to Mrs. Mary R. Reynolds of the Antiquarian Society, whose interest and assiduous research in the files of the Thomas correspondence have resulted in the fact of the publishers and place of imprint being established.

693 The advertisement, which also appeared in the Columbian Centinel of July 4, 18, and 25, is as follows:

Episcopal Prayer Book.

Just published, in Quarto, on a large type, and to be sold by THOMAS and ANDREWS, Faust’s statue, No. 45, Newbury-Street,

THE Morning and Evening Service, Litany, Occasional Prayers, Communion Service, and selections of Psalms, with the Table of Lessons, and Calendar of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as revised and set forth by the General Convention of said Church, held at Philadelphia, in October, 1789, and now used by the Churches of that denomination in this Commonwealth. Also,

A few sets of the same, in Folio, price Three Shilling s and Nine Pence, by which the old Prayer Book, of that size, may be made to answer to the revised form.

June 27, 1792.

694 The text-page of the partial folio, 1792, measures roughly 6½ by 11¼ inches: the text-page of the full folio, 1795, 7⅞ by 13¾ inches.

695 That is, the first edition of the Prayer Book, both the issues of 1790 and 1791, as differentiated from the first Standard Prayer-Book of 1793. The peculiarities referred to are in the Apostles Creed where the words “[He descended into Hell]” are italicized and placed between brackets. This was corrected by the General Convention of 1792. Also in the Communion Service in the Prayer of Oblation which has the words “which we now offer unto thee” in small capitals; and in the Invocation in the phrase “thy Word and Holy Spirit” where “word” is spelled without the initial capital. In the 1793 Standard the situation is exactly reversed; the phrase in the Oblation being entirely in lower case, and “word” being spelled generally, though not invariably, with an initial capital. Also in the first petition in the Litany, “O God the Father, in Heaven,” the 1790 book has a comma after “Father,” while in the 1793 Standard the comma is placed after the word “God.” There are also several minor points of difference which are not sufficiently important to be noted in detail.

696 The differences, if any, in eleven of the prayers are slight, the spirit and purport being unchanged. The prayer in the standard American Book “In Time of Great Sickness and Mortality” and the prayer of thanksgiving “For Deliverance from great Sickness and Mortality” are materially different in wording from the corresponding prayers in the English Book. The latter are headed respectively, “In the time of any common Plague or Sickness” and “For Deliverance from the Plague, or other common Sickness.” As the English Book of Common Prayer was established, substantially in its present form, by the Act of Uniformity in 1662 the reason for the specific reference to the Plague is obvious. Why the thirteen prayers should have been omitted in the partial edition cannot be explained.

697 The terminology employed by the Rev. Dr. Gibson in his Bibliographical Sketch of the Prayer Book is followed here. The Book authorized by the General Convention of 1789, and ordered to be in force after October 1, 1790, is referred to as the first edition, including both the 1790 and 1791 issues. The Prayer Book authorized by the General Convention of 1792, and published in 1793, was the first Standard Book, and was so established by the Third Canon passed in the General Convention of 1801. The Book in use at the present time is the seventh Standard and eighth edition of the authorized American Prayer Book.

698 Thomas & Andrews published a complete edition of the Prayer Book in 1794. It was advertised in the Columbian Centinel of Wednesday, April 23, 1794, as “Just Published, In large 12mo. on a new fair type, price 5s 3 single, and 4s 6 by the dozen.” There is a copy of this edition in the library of the American Antiquarian Society, and also of the Thomas & Andrews edition of 1800.

The following chronological list will prove useful:

1785 Sept.–Oct. Proposed Book prepared by General Convention at Philadelphia.
1786 Proposed Book published by Hall & Sellers, Philadelphia, 12 mo.
1789 Proposed Book reprinted for J. Debrett, London, 12mo. (The Proposed Book was not generally accepted and apparently was very little used.)
1789 Sept.–Oct. The English Liturgy revised for the use of the American Church by General Convention at Philadelphia.
1790 Sept. First edition of the American Prayer Book published by Hall & Sellers, Philadelphia, 12mo.
1791 Dec. Second issue of First Prayer Book published by Hall & Sellers, I Philadelphia, 12mo.
1792 June. Reprint of “parts in general use” in folio and quarto by Thomas & Andrews, Boston.
1792 Sept. Prayer Book revised by General Convention at New York.
1793 First Standard Prayer Book published by Hugh Gaine, New York, 8vo. Also an edition published by Gaine in 12mo.
1794 April Prayer Book published by Thomas & Andrews, Boston, 12mo. Also a few copies advertised in 8vo.
1794 Another edition of Prayer Book published by Hugh Gaine, New York, 12mo.
1795 First full folio American Prayer Book published by Hugh Gaine, New York.

699 Through the courtesy of Mr. Horace G. Wadlin I have been able to examine the copy of the 1795 folio in the collection of the late Josiah H. Benton, which enabled me to verify absolutely these portions inserted in Folio 3 as being part of the 1795 issue.

700 Including the same subject matter (the Table of Lessons, Baptismal Services, and Thanksgiving Day Service being excluded) the signatures in Folio 2 are B–1, K–L1, M–Q; in Folio 3, A-D, verso T2–U, X, Gg2–Ii, Kk1.

701 One variation from the Occasional Prayers in the 1790, 1791, and 1792 editions, as well as in the present Standard Book may be noted here. The prayer “For Malefactors after Condemnation” is headed “For a Malefactor after Condemnation” in the 1795 folio, and it is worded throughout in the singular instead of plural form. This seems to be peculiar to the 1795 folio. It is not found in Gaine’s 8vo edition of 1793 and 12mo edition of 1794, nor in the Thomas & Andrews 1794 edition.

702 The “Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving for the Fruits of the Earth” was not inserted in Folio 3, doubtless due to an oversight, as it is found in Folio 4 and Folio 5.

703 The Family Prayers in the Benton copy begin on the verso of Ff2 and end on the verso of Gg.

704 There are no textual variations between the ten Selections of Psalms and the Portions of Psalms to be used in place of the Venite as found in the 1792 and 1795 folio editions. They can however easily be distinguished both by the typographical differences and by the signatures; also the six hymns which follow the Portions of Psalms in the 1792 edition do not appear in the 1795 edition.

705 The Rev. Peter and Mary (Prince) Thacher had nine children, of whom the following are mentioned in the Diary; (1) Mary; (2) Mercy, who married Nathaniel Foster of Plymouth; (3) Rev. Peter (H. C. 1737); (4) Samuel; (5) Susanna.

706 Capt. Joseph Prince went from Sandwich, Mass., to Stratford, Ct., in 1736, and in 1743 joined the Episcopal Church: see S. Orcutt, History of Stratford and Bridgeport, i. 350, 352, ii. 1274.

707 “We hear from Rattan, that the Rev. Mr. Nathan Prince died at that Island the 25th of July last” (Boston News Letter, October 6, 1748, p. 2/1).

708 “On Friday Night last died here in the 27th Year of his Age, of a consumptive Illness, Thomas Prince, jun. M. A. only Son of the Rev. Mr. Thomas Prince of this Town. His Death is very much lamented by his Relations and Friends. His Corpse was inter’d Yesterday with great Respect” (Boston News Letter, October 6, 1748, p. 2/1).

709 See the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, v. 375–384.

710 C. C. Denny, Denny Genealogy, pp. 20–21, 79.

711 Peter Thacher (H. C. 1696) and Peter Thacher (H. C. 1706) were cousins; while Peter Thacher (H. C. 1737) was the son of Peter Thacher (H. C. 1706) of Middle borough.

712 Nehemiah Walter was the father of Nathaniel Walter.

713 Prince employs many abbreviations, some of which are obvious, while others are not. A list is given:

a	=	A. M.
à	=	from
b	=	be
BS	=	Brattle Street Church
CH	=	First Church (Old Brick Church)
d	=	day
d	= de =	concerning
e	=	evening
è	=	out
G L	=	General Lecture
LS	=	Lecture Sacramental
m	=	noon
NCh	=	North Church (Second Church)
NS	=	New South Church
P	=	P. M.
r	=	are
R	=	Rev.
SCh	=	Old South Church
T P	=	Thomas Prince
WCh	=	West Church

The abbreviations used for the Boston churches are all obvious except “C.H.” Allusions on March 31st to the Rev. Mr. Foxcroft, and on August 4th to a Quaker wedding, make it certain that the letters indicate the First Church: see pp. 342, 353 note 1, below. Mr. Prince may have chosen the letters because they were also the initial letters of the Rev. Mr. Chauncy, one of the pastors of that church; but more probably, as Mr. Tuttle suggests, they stand merely for “Church” — the First Church, as the oldest in Boston, being the Church.

714 Hugh Hall (H. C. 1713): see New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xlii. 300–307.

715 For a notice of James Gooch (born 1693), see our Publications, vi. 91. The name was spelled Gooch or Gouge indifferently.

716 John Darrel (d 1746).

717 Thomas Hubbard (H. C. 1721). He was the son of Joseph Hubbard (1676–1761), and married Mary Jackson, daughter of Jonathan Jackson and Mary (Salter) Jackson. Edward Jackson (H. C. 1726), a brother of Mrs. Thomas Hubbard, is mentioned later. Cf. Publications of this Society, viii. 251 note, 253–254 notes.

718 Rev. Thomas Foxcroft: see p. 333, above.

719 This account in the Boston News Letter of January 6, p. 2/1, is as follows:

Monday last in the Afternoon, a New Congregational Church was gather’d in the Westerly Part of this Town. And because the Method of gathering such Churches here, may not be known abroad; we shall give the Publick a brief Account of this particular Transaction:

A Number of Christians belonging to several Congregations in this Town judging it convenient to build a House for publick Worship in the Westerly Part thereof, and having carried on the Building to a considerable Forwardness; 13 of their Number, being Brethren in full Communion with 5 several Churches here, and 1 in full Communion with the First Church at Cambridge, having applied to their respective Churches, obtain’d Letters of Dismission to incorporate into a new Church by themselves: Three others who have not been in full Communion with any of our Churches, offering to join them, and there being no Objection either on the Account of Doctrine or Conversation, but being known and agreable to them, the others accepted their offer; and consulting with several Ministers to whom they belong’d, prepared a Covenant of Incorporation in which they could all agree: and then applied to some of those who had been their Pastors to assist them in the Solemnity of their Confederation. Accordingly on said Monday at 3 in the Afternoon, being the Time appointed, 2 of those Pastors, viz. the Rev. Mr. Prince and Foxcroft, met with the said 17 Persons; and having receiv’d the Evidence of the said Dismissions, made some Enquiries of the 3 proposed Members, and the others testifying their Acceptance of them; Mr. Prince the Moderator, beginning with a Premonition concerning the Solemnity of this Transaction, then proceeded to Pray. Mr. Foxcroft then Discoursed from Matth. XVIII. 20. Then all the Company standing up, the Moderator deliberately read their Covenant which they had written fairly in their Church Record; to which at his Proposal, all the Seventeen lift up their Hands in Token of their Consent, and then subscribed their Names. The Moderator then addressing them in such Terms as These, We must now own you to be a true Church of CHRIST, and invested with all the Privileges belonging to such a One: And we pray You may have Grace to keep this Holy Covenant, and that You and Your Offspring may enjoy the Blessings of it. Mr. Foxcroft then made the closing Prayer, and the Moderator pronounc’d the Blessing.

720 For Rev. William Hooper, see p. 334, above. An interesting letter on the high cost of living, written by a Boston clergyman, was printed in the New England Weekly Journal of May 17, 1737. A postscript reads in part as follows:

I may here observe that . . . the New Church lately Gather’d in the West Part of the Town have at their first setting out highly Honoured themselves in giving Mr. Hooper a greater Allowance even at Present, than any other Congregational Minister in Town, tho’ he has only Himself to maintain (p. 1/3).

721 1, above.

722 See pp. 332–333, above.

723 Jonathan Belcher (H. C. 1699).

724 Jonathan Remington (H. C. 1696).

725 “Last Wednesday Night about Ten o’Clock the Dwelling House of Leonard Vassal, Esq; in Summer street catch’d on Fire in the Garret (occasion’d as ’tis thought) by a Negro Boy’s carrying up a Candle, the Blaze of which catch’d some Cloaths which hung at the Top of the Stairs; but through the Goodness of God, and the Care and Endeavours of those that assisted, the House was saved, when in the utmost Hazard, tho’ very much damaged” (New England Weekly Journal, January 11, p. 2/2–3). On Vassall’s death, the house was bought by Thomas Hubbard (H. C. 1721).

726 Throughout the Diary Prince indicates the days of the week not by their names but by their signs, as has been done in the text for the first week. These signs are now dropped, and abbreviations substituted, as follows:

☉ = Su	♂ = Tu	♃ = Th	♄ = Sa
☽ = M	☿ = W	♀ = F

727 William Brattle (H. C. 1722).

728 Rev. Charles Chauncy: see p. 333, above.

729 Prince’s Chronological History of New-England bears the date M DCCXXXVI on the title-page. The dedication to Gov. Belcher, Lt.-Gov. Phips, the Council, and the Representatives, is dated November 24, 1736. It was advertised as “Published, and ready to be deliver’d to Subscribers” in the Boston Evening Post of January 31, 1737, p. 2/2. The presentation noted by Mr. Prince is thus recorded in the Massachusetts House Journal on January 12, 1737:

The House being informed the Rev. Mr. Thomas Prince was at the Door and desired Admittance, Ordered, That Mr. Prince be admitted into the House, and coming up to the Table, he addressed himself to Mr. Speaker and the House in the following manner, viz.

Mr. Speaker, I most humbly present to your Honour and this Honourable House, the first Volume of my Chronological History of New England, which, at no small Expence and Pains, I have composed and published for the Instruction and Good of my Country.

And then he made a Compliment of one of the Books to Mr. Speaker by presenting it to him, and another he presented to and for the Use of the Members of the House of Representatives, and laid it on the Table, and then withdrew (p. 107).

The Speaker was John Quincy (H. C. 1708).

730 Rev. John Webb: see p. 334, above.

731 Rev. Joseph Sewall: see p. 334, above. His wife, mentioned later, was Elizabeth Walley.

732 John Cushing’s death was noted in the New England Weekly Journal of January 25, p. 2/1, and a long obituary notice appeared in the Boston News Letter of February 3, p. 2/1. He was a brother of Thomas Cushing (1663–1740), the father of Thomas Cushing (H. C. 1711).

733 Rev. Israel Loring: see p. 334, above.

734 Rev. William Cooper: see p. 333, above.

735 Thomas Prince (H. C. 1740).

736 Lt.-Gov. Spencer Phips (H. C. 1703).

737 Rev. Daniel Rogers (H. C. 1725; d 1785), Tutor; Stephen Sewall (H. C. 1721), Tutor; Henry Flynt (H. C. 1693), Tutor and Fellow; Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth, see p. 334, above.

738 Moses Prince: see p. 332, above.

739 His death was noted in the New Weekly Journal of February 1, p. 2/2.

740 Rev. Samuel Checkley: see p. 333, above, and our Publications, xii. 270–306, where his Diary for 1735 is printed.

741 “Last Saturday Evening, about Seven a Clock, was discovered in the W.S.W. a strange Meteor in the Heavens, appearing as a faint Stream or Blaze of Light: It was also seen on Monday & Tuesday Evenings, it being then fair Weather, and causes various Conjectures. It is tho’t by most to be a Comet or Blazing Star, and that the vast Distance of it, at its first Appearance, occasions the dimness of its Light as to us” (Boston News Letter, February 10, p. 2/2).

742 “Last Lord’s day between Four and Five o’Clock in the Afternoon, a considerable Shock of an Earthquake was perciev’d in this Town; . . .” (New England Weekly Journal, February 8, p. 2/2).

743 Rev. William Welsteed: see p. 334, above.

744 Rev. Benjamin Stevens, John Barnard, Samuel Gay. John Barnard was the son of the Rev. John Barnard (H. C. 1709) of Andover, and died before graduation on October 5, 1739: cf. Publications of this Society, xvii. 276, 279.

745 Ebenezer Sever, who died February 14, was a brother of Abigail Sever, wife of George Hews, and a son of Shubael Sever: see New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxvi, 306–307.

746 See p. 334, above.

747 See p. 333, above.

748 Rev. Samuel Mather: see p. 334, above.

749 Rev. John Brown: see p. 333, above.

750 “On Friday Morning last about Four o’Clock in the Morning, a Fire broke out in the Shop of Mr. John Brocas, Cabinet-maker in Union-Street, which consumed the same, with what was therein, to a considerable Value: Mr. Brocas’s Dwelling House took Fire, but by a wonderful Interposition of Providence, and the Skill and Industry of those who came to the Help of the exposed, the same was soon Extinguished, and thereby the whole Neighbourhood were wonderfully preserved” (New England Weekly Journal, March 8, p. 2/2). The same paper of March 22 advertised a “Sermon preach’d by the Rev. Dr. Colman at the Friday-Lecture in Brattle-Street, March 4th. 1736, 7. . . . After a most merciful and wonderful Preservation of the Town from being consumed by Fire, which broke out in Union-Street about Four that Morning” (p. 2/3).

751 Nathan Prince: see p. 332, above.

752 Peter Thacher (H. C. 1737); see p. 332 note 1, above.

753 See p. 335 note 1, above.

754 Rev. Mather Byles: see p. 333, above.

755 Rev. Nicholas Sever (H. C. 1701).

756 Rev. Benjamin Colman: see p. 333, above.

757 An account was printed in the New England Weekly Journal of March 22, p. 2/1–2; and another, written by the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, in the same paper of April 5, p. 2/1–2.

758 Rev. Edward Wigglesworth (H. C. 1710).

759 “Oratio Funebris in Obitum Reverendi Domini Benjamanis Wadsworth, . . . Habita in Aula Academiae. Ab Henrico Flynt. . . . Bostoni . . . Mdccxxxvii.”

760 Rev. Peter Thacher (H. C. 1696): see p. 334, above.

761 “When the Godly cease, and Faithful fail; we must seek to God for Help. A Sermon Preach’d at Cambridge, Upon the Death of the Reverend Mr. Benjamin Wadsworth, . . . By Joseph Sewall, D.D. . . . Boston: . . . Mdccxxxvii.”

762 Rev. Joshua Gee: see p. 333, above.

763 Josiah Willard, whose wife is mentioned later. This was his second wife, Hannah (Appleton) Clarke, widow of William Clarke: cf. our Publications, xii. 163–166.

764 Elisha Cooke (H. C. 1697), whose death is recorded on August 24.

765 Samuel Denny: see p. 333, above.

766 These letters are perfectly clear but their meaning eludes me.

767 Rev. Nathaniel Appleton: see p. 333, above.

768 Mrs. Hannah (Waldo) Fayerweather was the widow of Thomas Fayerweather. On her death in 1755, Mr. Prince preached a funeral sermon.

769 This society is again mentioned on September 29, but no clue is given as to exactly what it was.

770 Oxenbridge Thacher (H. C. 1698) and his son Oxenbridge Thacher (H. C. 1738).

771 His death was noted in the New England Weekly Journal of April 12, p. 2/2.

772 His arrival was noted in the New England Weekly Journal of April 12, p. 2/2, together with the news he brought. I have been unable to identify this Capt. Joseph Prince.

773 See p. 332, above.

774 Joseph Prince: see p. 332, above.

775 Capt. Isaac Dupee, mentioned later, married Sarah Bromfield, daughter of Edward Bromfield (d 1734), while Mary Bromfield, a sister, married Thomas Cushing (H. C. 1711). On the death of their brother Edward Bromfield in 1756, Mr. Prince preached a funeral sermon.

776 Ellis Huske: cf. our Publications, ix. 465–466.

777 Doubtless this should read: “Proceed to the election of a President.” “The Question was put whether the Corporation be counselled & advised to come to the Choice of a president next Wednesday come Sevenight in the afternoon and it passed in the affirmative” (Overseers’ Records, April 26, i. 153).

778 The New England Weekly Journal of May 17, 1737, contained this advertisement:

THERE is to be prepared for the Press, and e’er long will be published, a Book in Octavo, entitled An Apology for the Liberties of the Churches in New-England: . . . By Samuel Mather, M.A. (p. 2/3).

It was not published until 1738: cf. our Publications, xviii. 224.

779 Daniel Henchman (d 1761).

780 Daughters of Mr. Prince: see p. 333, above.

781 Perhaps “I. Hunt’s.”

782 “Last Friday dyed much Lamented, Mrs. Elizabeth Chauncy, the vertuous Consort of the Rev. Mr. Charles Chauncy, one of the Pastors of the first Church in this Town, and was decently Interred the last Night” (New England Weekly Journal, May 17, p. 2/1). She was the daughter of Grove Hirst, and was Chauncy’s first wife. The death of her sister, Mrs. Jane Davenport, is noted on September 6.

783 A complicated relationship existed between the Glovers and the Princes. Nathaniel Glover (1631–1657) married Mary Smith, by whom he had Nathaniel (d 1724) and Anne. Anne married William Rawson, a son of Secretary Edward Rawson; and their son David (1683–1752) married Mary Gulliver, a daughter of Capt. John Gulliver of Milton. (The death at Milton of Capt. John Gulliver on July 3 was noted in the New England Weekly Journal of July 5, 1737, p. 2/1.) On the death of her first husband, Nathaniel Glover, Mary Smith married Gov. Thomas Hinckley; and among their children were Mercy, who, as already stated (p. 332, above), married Samuel Prince (father of the Rev. Thomas Prince), and Thankful, who married the Rev. Experience Mayhew. But Mary Smith was Gov. Hinckley’s second wife, and by his first wife, Mary Richards, he had a daughter Hannah, who married the Nathaniel Glover who died in 1724. The “cousin Thomas Glover” and the “cousin Widow Glover,” mentioned in the text, were presumably related to this Nathaniel Glover, but exactly how I have not determined. “Culliver” and “Gulliver” are variants of the same name.

784 Rev. Jonathan Bowman: see p. 333, above.

785 Rev. Joseph Baxter: see p. 333, above. A notice of the convention was printed in the Boston News Letter of May 26, p. 2/2.

786 Rev. Peter Reynolds: see p. 334, above.

787 Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton: see p. 334, above.

788 Thomas Cushing (H. C. 1711). On his death in 1746, Mr. Prince preached a funeral sermon. He married Mary Bromfield, a daughter of Edward Bromfield (d 1734): see p. 343 note 8, above.

789 Daughter of the Rev. Peter Thatcher (H. C. 1706): see p 332 note 1, above.

790 A long account of the storm appeared in the New England Weekly Journal of June 7, p. 2/1–2, where it is stated that “Capt. Caleb Pitman at Salem, standing with 5 other Persons in a large Entry, was struck Dead.” In the Lynde Diaries (p. 148) the name is given as Caleb Pickman.

791 See p. 333, above.

792 “Yesterday Morning Died after a few Days Illness, Timothy Clarke, Esq; one of His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for the County of Suffolk” (New England Weekly Journal, June 14, p. 2/2). A long notice of him appeared in the same paper of June 21, p. 2/2.

793 Nathan Prince.

794 “Yesterday died at Wilmington after a few Days Illness, Samuel Dummer, Esq; . . . Brother to the Honourable William Dummer, Esq;” (New England Weekly Journal, February 7, 1738, p. 2/2).

795 “Yesterday Morning died at his Seat in this Town, Leonard Vassal, Esq; aged about Sixty Years” (New England Weekly Journal, June 21, 1737, p. 2/2).

796 See our Publications, xviii. 372–373.

797 The Rev. Joshua Gee married Sarah Rogers, daughter of the Rev. Nathaniel Rogers (H. C. 1687) of Portsmouth. Her brother George Rogers was without doubt, I think, the “G. Rogers” who was a temporary student at Harvard College in the class of 1723 or thereabouts: cf. our Publications, xvii. 275, 283. He died late in 1747 or early in 1748, as his estate was advertised in the Boston Evening Post of January 18, 1748, p. 4/2.

798 Mr. Prince’s daughters.

799 Children of the Rev. Peter Thacher (H. C. 1706): see p. 332 note 1, above.

800 Nathaniel and Mercy (Thacher) Foster: see p. 332 note 1, above.

801 Benjamin Lynde (H. C. 1718).

802 Rev. William Williams: see p. 334, above.

803 Anthony Stoddard (H. C. 1697; d 1748): cf. our Publications, xii. 282 note 2. On the death in 1748 of his wife Martha, a sister of Gov. Belcher, Mr. Prince preached a funeral sermon.

804 See p. 333, above.

805 See p. 333, above.

806 Andrew Belcher (H. C. 1724) and Jonathan Belcher (H. C. 1728).

807 According to the New England Weekly Journal of August 9, p. 2/1, this marriage, which is not recorded in the Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, took place in “the old brick Church:” cf. p. 334 note 3, above.

“Thursday last Mr. Benjamin Bagnal Jun. eldest Son of Mr. Benjamin Bagnal, Merchant, was married to Mrs. Anne Hawdan, eldest Daughter of Mr. James Hawdan, Shopkeeper, both the Parents wealthy and eminent Quakers of this Town. There was the greatest Concourse of People assembled that was ever known in New England before on the like Occasion.” The marriage was to have taken place in the Quaker meeting-house, but that was so crowded when the bride and groom arrived that they could not get in, the galleries began “to crack and give way,” and so “the Friends . . . applied to some of the Proprietors of the Brick Meeting House in Cornhill, for leave to meet there, who readily and generously granted their Request, . . . Mr. Hawdan had not only his own House (which is very large) but also another House adjoining filled with Guests, to the Number of several Hundreds, and such a prodigious Quantity of the best Sorts of Provision were prepared, as surprized the Beholders, the like having never been seen among us before: . . .” (Boston Evening Post, August 8, p. 2/1).

808 Rev. Ames Cheever: see p. 333, above.

809 Rev. William Hobby: see p. 333, above. He married Lucy Remington.

810 Rev. Daniel Perkins: see p. 334, above.

811 Paul Dudley (H. C. 1690).

812 This “Greek nobleman” was Greek by religion only, not by nationality. The following notice appeared in the Boston Evening Post of July 25, p. 2/1:

On Wednesday last arrived here in Capt. Jones from Bristol, a Gentleman of Distinction, named Schick Sidi: The Place of his Residence when at Home, was Barut, near Mount Libanus in Syria, from whence he was driven by the Persecution of the Turks some Years since on Account of his Religion, he being a Greek by Profession. He was kindly entertain’d by the Empress of Russia, and recommended by her to the Nobility in England, where he has been generously supported for 3 or 4 Years, and has receiv’d particular Marks of Favour and Generosity from his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Robert Walpole, and other Gentlemen of Distinction, as appears by Credentials they have sign’d, recommending him as a fit Object of Charity and Compassion to well disposed Christians, he being an unfortunate Gentleman. His Retenue consists of an Interpreter, and two other Domesticks. He is about 45 Years old, and wears the Turkish Habit, which makes him much gazed at by the Americans when he goes abroad, which is but seldom. He is extream stately in Walking, never moving his Head or Eyes to the right Hand or the left. He is of a swarthy Complexion, and as all other Eastern People of Fashion are, very grand and majestick in his Mein and Behaviour. ’Tis said he does not like this Place very well, and intends to return to Europe in a short Time, without visiting any other Places in America (p. 2/1).

This intention was later altered and he made a tour of the country: sets p. 355 note 2, below.

813 “Rhode Island, August 12. Last Night there was here a very Bright Aurora Borealis, which lasted the greatest part of the Night with the usual Variations and Appearances. What was extraordinary was that about Eleven o’Clock, there was a most Beautiful Bow extending from East to West, somewhat Broader and about the colour of a Rain-bow of the Moon, the Arch was perfect only the Western Leg most Luminous, there was a considerable distance between the Bow and the Northern Light, the most amusing [amazing?] Appearance continued near an Hour, and died away by Degrees” (New England Weekly Journal, August 16, p. 2/1). In the same paper of September 27 was printed a long letter on the aurora dated “Cambridge Sept. 26. 1737” and signed “N. P.” — perhaps Nathan Prince.

814 “Schick Sidi the Christian from Barut near Mount Libanus in Syria, whose Arrival here from Bristol, we gave an account of a few Weeks past, set out from this Town for Newport last Tuesday, with his Attendants, from whence we are told that he purposes to go to New-York and Philadelphia, and from thence take his Passage to Jamaica, and after that to return back to London” (New England Weekly Journal, August 23, p. 2/2).

“Rhode Island, Sept. 9. Schick Sidi the Christian from Barut, near Mount Libanus in Syria, with his Attendants, took his Passage from hence in one of Capt. Robert Griffin’s Sloops, on Monday Morning last, with a fair Wind bound for New-York, the Gentlemen of this Town were very kind and generous to the aforesaid Gentleman” (ibid. September 13, p. 1/2).

“Philadelphia, Dec. 15. On Friday last Scheck Sibet, the eastern Nobleman (who came to America last July) with his Attendants, embark’d here on board the Brigantine Joseph, Capt. Loftus, for Barbados” (Boston News Letter, January 12, 1738, p. 2/1).

“We are inform’d by a Letter from Philadelphia, That the Eastern Nobleman Shich Sibi, before he sail’d from thence for Barbadoes, was very handsomely entertain’d there, and had 300 Pistoles bestowed upon him” (ibid. January 12, 1738, p. 2/2).

815 Rev. Hull Abbot: see p. 333, above.

816 Edward Bromfield (d 1756): see p. 343 note 8, above.

817 Edward Winslow.

818 “On Tuesday last died, and on Friday was Interred, Mrs. Jane Davenport, the vertuous Consort of the Rev. Mr. Addington Davenport, and was the youngest Daughter of Grove Hirst, Esq; Aged about twenty eight Years” (New England Weekly Journal, September 13, p. 2/2). The same paper of April 26, stated that Mr. Davenport (H. C. 1719) succeeded “the late Dr. Harward in King’s Chapel in Boston, and Mr. Cutler, Son of the Rev. Dr. Cutler, is to succeed Mr. Davenport at Scituate” (p. 2/2). Cf. p. 345 note 4, above.

819 See p. 333, above.

820 This word is difficult to read and may not be correctly interpreted; besides which a word — probably “copied” — has apparently been inadvertently omitted. The meaning is that the “Laws by being continually copied by divers persons, are generally and more and more corrupted every year.”

821 Rev. Jonathan Mills: see p. 334, above.

822 See p. 335 note 1, above.

823 Probably Eunice Willard, a daughter of the Rev. Samuel Willard (H. C. 1659).

824 An account of the inauguration in the Boston Evening Post of October 3, p. 2/2, stated that “In the Evening the Windows of the Three Colleges were finely illuminated, while the Chambers rang with melodious Joy and Singing.”

825 This was in School Street, the Rev. Andrew Le Mercier being pastor.

826 The Boston News Letter of December 1, p. 2/1, stated that on the previous Wednesday the Rev. Joseph Seccombe “was Install’d into the Pastoral Office at Kingston in the Province of New Hampshire” (p. 2/1).

827 Rev. Timothy Ruggles: see p. 334,. above.

828 Rev. Nathaniel Clap: see p. 333, above.

829 Though not mentioned by Mr. Prince, the following extracts relating to a bell for the West Church are worth quoting:

A fine Bell is bro’t hither from London in Capt. Cary, for the Meeting House in the West Part of the Town, whereof the Rev. Mr. Hooper is Minister: ’Tis said to be the largest Bell in New England, weighing Eleven Hundred Weight (New England Weekly Journal, November 8, p. 2/1).

On Saturday last the large Bell mentioned in some of our News Papers, was Raised, and placed in the Steple of the West Church in this Town, whereof the Rev. Mr. Hooper is Pastor; and by good Judges is allowed to have the loudest and most melodious Sound of any Bell in the Country; and we are inform’d was the generous Present of Francis Wilks, Esq; and some of his Friends, who are well Wishers to the Dissenting Protestant Interest. The Bell weighs, without the Clapper, twelve hundred and forty six Pounds (ibid. November 15, p. 2/2).

830 Rev. Nathaniel Williams (H. C. 1693). The following obituary notice appeared in the Boston News Letter of January 12, 1738:

Last Tuesday in the Afternoon died here the Reverend and Learned Mr. Nathanael Williams, a Gentleman who has been a faithful and upright Servant to his Generation; being for many Years Master of the South Grammar School in this Town, which difficult and important Business he discharg’d with great Industry and Fidelity: And as he was, by the Blessing of GOD, a very skilful and successful Physician, so he was very much imployed and approved among us. As his Life has been very extensively serviceable, so his Death is esteemed as a publick Loss (p. 2/1).

On his death, Mr. Prince preached a funeral sermon.

831 Edmund Quincy (H. C. 1699).

832 An advertisement, signed “Jonas Clarke, Proprietor’s Clerk,” “to Notify the Proprietors of RUTLAND (the Settlers part excepted) that their Meeting is adjourned to Wednesday the 23d Currant, to be held at the Exchange Tavern in this Town at Three o’Clock Afternoon.” etc., was printed in the Boston Evening Post of November 21, p. 2/2.

833 The following advertisements appeared in the New England Weekly Journal:

TO be sold at publick Vendue by Ephraim Baker at the Crown Tavern at the Head of Scarlett’a Wharff the North End of Boston, on Wednesday next the 30th Instant.

A Choice and Valuable Collection of Books in Folios, Quartoes, and Octavoes, the Folioes will be Sold separate, the others in Lots or Parcels; the Sale will begin at Three o’Clock Afternoon: Catalogues will be given gratis, at the Place of Sale any Time before the Sale begins. . . . (November 29, p. 2/3).

THE remaining and most valuable Parcel of BOOKS as Advertis’d in our last, to be Sold at the Crown Tavern, the North End Boston, at publick Vendue by Ephraim Baker, are to be sold at publick Vandue, by said Baker at the Place afore mentioned, with a large variety of English Goods, . . .

N.B. The Sale will begin Wednesday the 7th Current at Three o’Clock Afternoon, and will be continued Three Days successively (December 6, p. 2/3).

834 Isaac Greenwood (H. C. 1721), the first Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, was dismissed for intemperance in 1738.

835 Sir Thomas Pelham-Holles, first Duke of Newcastle; William Stanhope, first Earl of Harrington; Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington; Samuel Holden (d 1740), whose widow and children built Holden Chapel; Rev. William Harris (1675–1740); Rev. Isaac Watts (1674–1748); Rev. John Guyse (1680–1761); Rev. Daniel Neal (1678–1743).

836 There is much about the earthquake in the Boston News Letter of December 8, 1737, p. 2/1; December 22, pp. 1/2, 2/1; December 29, p. 2/1; January 12, 1738, p. 2/1.

837 Rev. James Allen: see p. 333, above.

838 Rev. Experience Mayhew (d 1758): see p. 346 note, above.

839 Early in 1740 Mr. Hooper again gave offence: see The West Church and its Ministers (1856), pp. 63–77; Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, v. 122126.

840 Our Publications, vi. 87, 89.

841 Parsons, Life of Sir William Pepperrell (3rd ed., 1856), pp. 158 ff, 189–190.

842 Magnalia (1820), i. 253.

843 There is a statement of his loyalty in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, v. 69. Some account of him is in Wise, The Kingdome of Accawmacke (1911).

844 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, iv. 65.

845 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xliii. 4–16.

846 Samuel Pease.

847 This last letter is only signed by Custis.

848 Suffolk Probate Records, lxviii. 181, 183.

849 Thomas, History of Printing (Albany, 1874), ii. 225.

850 At a meeting of the Council held 1 November, 1917, the following minute was unanimously adopted:

It is with deep sorrow that the Council has learned of the death, on the eighteenth of October, of its associate, George Vasmer Leverett. Long a member of the Society, and thrice a member of this Board, Mr. Leverett was constant in attendance, wise and judicious in counsel, and generous in aiding our every undertaking. His character, eminent ability, unaffected modesty and rarely sympathetic personality endeared him to all who were privileged to enjoy his friendship, and cause his death to be deeply lamented. His munificence enabled the Society to publish the volume containing the Royal Commissions, and his noble bequest of Twenty Thousand Dollars, to be added to our Publication Funds, will make it possible to print companion volumes containing the Instructions to the Royal Governors of the Province, — an undertaking he had authorized and had much at heart.

Much that President Quincy wrote, long ago, of his noble predecessor, John Leverett, might be said to-day with equal truth of our late associate:

“The abilities of Leverett seem to have been of a superior order, which the events of his life had enabled him to improve and refine by an extensive intercourse with books and mankind. His talents were eminently practical. He knew better than most men what course to shape in difficult times. . . . In all his official relations, his industry, vigor and fidelity were conspicuous and exemplary. He was a man more actuated by a sense of duty than by desire of fame. . . . In the character of Leverett there was no obtrusive display. . . . He studied not to gratify vanity, but to enable himself better to perform his duty. His labors were practical, and . . . he prepared himself for the various and important stations to which he was called. . . . A perfect fulfillment of whatever he undertook was the object to which he limited his endeavors. At this he aimed; in this he succeeded.”

We shall miss his presence, instinct with good-will and kindliness; we shall cherish his memory and the example he has left us of faithfulness in friendship, breadth of interest, and loyalty to every trust and every duty.

851 The exercises are printed below, pp. 413–435.

852 Pp. 159–259, above.

853 Connecticut Archives, Revolutionary War, vol. i, no. 1.

854 “U.S. Great, small generals: The general charges furnished respectively (a) by the owner of a fishing vessel, e. g. wood, water, knives, lights, salt, bait, etc.; (b) by the crew, e. g. provisions, lines, hooks, etc.” (Oxford English Dictionary.)

855 Barvels are fishermen’s large leather aprons. The use of the word here is interesting. The earliest extract in the Oxford English Dictionary is of the year 1878, but the term must have been in common use among fishermen in England early in the seventeenth century, since it is there found in 1629 (Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 404) and was employed along the Maine coast in 1639 (Documentary History of the State of Maine, 1884, iii. 171, 192, 297).

856 The “State” ends at this point. The paragraph that follows has been added as a kind of postscript in another hand.

857 Connecticut Archives, Revolutionary War, vol. i, no. 2. These documents will appear in the Governor Thomas Fitch Papers, now in press, in Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society.

858 They will appear as vols. xv and xvi of our Publications.

859 The First Church in Boston was founded by Governor John Winthrop in 1630. The eminent men and women connected with it who have already received mural commemoration include eight governors of Massachusetts, three presidents of Harvard College, several envoys to England and other foreign courts, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, justices of the Supreme Court, cabinet officers, and a president of the United States, besides Fellows of the Royal Society, London, scientists, historians, diplomatists, philosophers, and poets. A life-size recumbent portrait statue of John Cotton by the late Bela Lyon Pratt is in a recess in the south wall of the nave, and rests upon a marble base inclosing tracery from the walls of St. Botolph’s Church, of which Cotton was vicar for twenty-one years. The tablet to Sir Henry Vane in the south transept was given by his descendant the Rt. Hon. Henry de Vere Vane, Lord Barnard of Raby Castle. Near it is another tablet to Isaac Johnson (grandson of William Chadderton, Bishop of Chester and Lincoln), who married and brought hither the Lady Arbella, sister of the fourth Earl of Lincoln. Charles Francis Adams, John Quincy Adams, George Bancroft, Anne Bradstreet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Endicott, Edward Everett, Benjamin Apthorp Gould, Thomas Hutchinson, John Leverett, Robert Treat Paine, and John Winthrop are a few of the illustrious parishioners whose names and careers are recorded on the walls of the church.

860 Thomas Hutchinson was born in Boston September 9, 1711; graduated at Harvard College in 1727; received the degree of Doctor of the Civil Law from Oxford University in 1776; and died in London June 3, 1780. He held the following offices: Selectman of Boston, 1737; Representative, 1735–1740, 1742–1748; Boundary Commissioner at various times between 1740 and 1773; Envoy to England, 1740; Speaker of the House, 1746–1748; Councillor, 1749–1766; Indian Treaty Commissioner, 1750; Judge of the Common Pleas, 1752–1758; Judge of Probate, 1752–1769; Delegate to the Albany Congress, 1754; Lieutenant-Governor, 1758–1771; Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, 1760–1769; Governor, 1771–1774.

861 The committee consisted of Messrs. Henry Herbert Edes, Charles Edwards Park, and Fred Norris Robinson.

862 In a second letter, dated November 23rd, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice wrote:

I have now received from the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford the original text of the message from the Hebdomadal Council of the University to the Colonial Society of Massachusetts on the occasion of the Dedication of the Memorial to Thomas Hutchinson at the First Church, Boston, on the 5th instant — the text of which, as received by telegraph, was communicated to you on October 26th. I daresay the Colonial Society will be glad to preserve this document in their archives, and so I send it to you herewith.

863 “It is by no means an easy task to do justice to the character of one towards whom a feeling of such bitter hostility prevailed, as towards Governor Hutchinson. Whoever should be able to separate his character as a judge from that as a politician, would do much to rescue his name from the odium in which it has come down to us, and help to do justice to the memory of a man who unhappily for his own fame, was permitted to reach the summit of his loftiest ambition. Few who sat upon the bench in the last century, were more deserving commendation than Judge Hutchinson. His character, in this capacity, was irreproachable. His learning, even in the science of the law, was highly respectable, and, when we consider his early education, was indeed remarkable. He possessed great clearness of thought, and excelled in that most difficult property of a good judge, a clear and intelligible statement of the case upon which he was to pass. It is a traditionary anecdote, that after listening to the charges given by his associates, juries were in the habit of remarking, when Hutchinson rose to address them, that ‘now we shall have something which we can understand’”. (Judicial History of Massachusetts, p. 306.)

864 Quincy’s Reports, Appendix I, pp. 395 ff.

865 Otis.

866 Mr. Richard Clipston Sturgis.

The stately doorway leads from the south transept of the church to the vestry. It is of walnut, elaborately carved by hand. The general character of the work is late Gothic, in keeping with the architecture of the church. The symbolism is distinctly American, conspicuously seen in the use of Indian corn and the large leaves of the tobacco plant, which admirably lend themselves to such decoration. The grape-vine and its fruit, with the corn, symbolize the ecclesiastical feature of the memorial. At the keystone of the arch are the Hutchinson arms. In the spandrel at the left is the Royal British shield of George III; opposite, on the right, in another spandrel, is the shield of the United States. On the flanking buttresses are the insignia of the colonies of Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay, the shield of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Pine Tree flag of the Revolution, and the seals of the Superior Court of Judicature of which Hutchinson was Chief Justice, and of the Probate Court for the County of Suffolk, of which he was the Judge. The arms and shields are painted in their appropriate heraldic tinctures, the flag in its appropriate colors, and the seals in black and silver. The inscriptions are in gold upon scrolls on panels on the splays of the arch. Gold and colors have been used with fine effect in picking out and tinting the delicately wrought ornament. At the base, on the right, carved in relief in the natural wood, is the seal of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.

867 Mr. George Lyman Kittredge.

868 Miss Mary Rivers, who occupies the Hutchinson estate at Milton, sent a wreath of leaves and greenery which grew in the Governor’s garden. It was placed on the Anne Hutchinson tablet, which is next to the doorway commemorating the Governor.