MARCH MEETING, 1893.

beverly and the settlement at bass river.

The minute critical studies of those accomplished antiquaries, Henry FitzGilbert Waters and William P. Upham, have demonstrated the falsity of the tradition long believed, that the planters of Conant’s Colony built their first cottages far from the centre of the present city of Salem. There is no doubt that generally such of those fishermen, shoremen, and husbandmen as did not remain on Cape Ann side first built along a line nearly coincident with the middle portion of the present Essex Street in Salem, their lots running thence to the North and South Rivers. After the arrival of the new-comers under Endicott, an agreement was concluded between the two bands of colonists, in accordance with which some of the Old Planters exchanged their house-lots in Salem proper for farms at or near the head of Bass River, — the name given by them to the northernmost of several estuaries running inland from the harbor between what are now Beverly and Danvers and the city of Salem.

It requires no effort of imagination to picture the primitive beauty of the site chosen for this plantation; and a slight study of the topography of the neighborhood will suffice to show that for the purposes of agriculture and curing fish, for convenient mill privileges, for fuel, timber, abundance of pure water, and easy access at all seasons to the sea and to the prospective neighboring settlements, to be reached by canoes (then the common means of conveyance), nothing better could be desired.

All the planters on Cape Ann side, however, including such as had never settled at Naumkeag, became members of the church or congregation gathered at Salem proper and attending worship at the meeting-house which stood upon the site of the present First Church, to and from which, in fair and tempestuous weather alike, all were expected to pass every Lord’s day and lecture day.

As soon as paths were opened through the wilderness, it became possible to make these journeys overland, with some fording until bridges were built, by following a circuit of some eight or ten miles.

With the increase of population on Cape Ann side (which, in thirty years, had reached to not less than sixty families) their connection with the First Church became a burden so evident to all concerned, that upon their application, in 1650, “for the means of grace among themselves,” the church willingly consented that the brethren at Bass River, which name they applied to all the territory now included in Beverly, look out some able and approved teacher to be employed among them, they still holding communion with the old church. Some four years elapsed, it would seem, before a teacher was thus employed. The first teacher was probably Jeremiah Hobart, son of the Rev. Peter, of Hingham, who, since it is certain that he removed to Barbadoes in July, 1655, is more likely to have preceded than followed his brother Joshua, one of the two teachers successively employed before the Rev. John Hale began his labors, in 1664.

In 1657, under the lead of their teacher, Joshua Hobart, the brethren at Bass River applied for and obtained the unanimous consent of their fellow church-members at Salem to form a church by themselves, and thereupon, the same year, they built their first meeting-house, having probably worshipped previously either in some dwelling-house or other structure erected for secular uses.

Down to 1660, the steps in the organization of the First Church in Beverly are to be learned solely from the initial entry in their own church records. The records of the parent church at Salem were revised that year, and substantially nothing but the original covenant and the lists of members was transferred to the new book, now remaining. The old book was left in the custody of the elders, by whom it was preserved for many years, but has long since been given up as lost or destroyed. The difficulty of ascertaining the earlier history of the Beverly church is increased by the imperfection of the Salem town records prior to 1660; and this enhances the historical importance of the brief preliminary entry in the Beverly church records, which the Rev. John Hale is supposed to have made, — a supposition, however, somewhat shaken by the fact that his name is therein repeatedly written “Hailes,” a variation of the spelling which he is not known to have sanctioned in any other instance.

Thus far I have traced the efforts to obtain greater convenience in the exercise of religious worship. Parallel with these efforts, attempts were made from time to time to effect a separation of the two settlements in secular affairs. Thus, in June, 1647, the inhabitants of Mackerel Cove, on the seaboard further north, were released from their obligation to join in keeping the watch in Salem. The drawing up of the paper,50 a photo-lithograph of which I have had made to accompany this essay, is the next movement I have discovered looking to the establishment of a new town.

From the General Court records it was always known that such a petition was presented; but I am not aware that the existence of the petition itself has been mentioned in any publication. No copy of it is to be found in the folios of the State archives, nor is it indexed therein. It was accidentally discovered while searching, in the course of the work which I am editing for the State, for a report to the Legislature in 1703 of a committee appointed to ascertain what encroachments had been made on the highway laid out in 1640 from Rowley to Beverly. It was my good fortune to discover both these papers, which I had copied forthwith; but recently, on again applying for them, for the purpose of critically collating them with the copies, they could not be found until, by order of the Secretary, they were re-discovered, after special and thorough search. This experience suggested the propriety of having the older and more interesting document reproduced in fac-simile. Below I give it in type: —

Nothing in the Salem town records relative to the setting off of Beverly has been discovered prior to the following entry: —

Felt seems to assume that this vote was responsive to the order of the General Court passed nearly nine years before, and that upon it was based the ordinance incorporating Beverly. This, however, does not appear to be such a “speedy” compliance as the Legislature required in their order upon the above petition of 1659. And moreover that the inhabitants of Bass River applied anew to the town of Salem in the spring of 1668, the following further considerations seem to show conclusively: First, the town records of Beverly assert that “after many agitations in publique meetings,” the inhabitants of Bass River and Cape Ann side chose a committee to prepare a petition (which they sent deputies to the General Court to prosecute) to the Governor and Magistrates, to be invested “with a power to choose yearly a fitt number of persons who might have power within themselves, as selectmen have in other places, & so to act in the behalfe of the place by the imploying others, officers or persons as the affairs of the place may occasion.” Second, the record continues by asserting that the action of the General Court in October, 1668, hereafter mentioned, was in answer to this petition for a quasi-corporation. Third, the above record of the vote of consent by the town of Salem seems to imply that the erecting the inhabitants of Cape Ann side into a township was a better expedient than the privilege they had prayed for in the petition then under consideration, whereas in the petition of 1659 they had prayed to be made a township without limit or qualification. Fourth, and the strongest indication that the application now made to the General Court was not a renewal of the petition of 1659 but an entirely new proceeding, is the recital in the following conditional order thereon by the General Court at the session begun and held 27 May, 1668, which precisely agrees with the vote of Beverly as described in the town records: —

Taken together, these facts seem to leave no reasonable doubt of the nature and purport of the proceeding by which the inhabitants of Beyerly again brought up the project of their independence of Salem. Having failed in their application, nine years before, to be made a separate township, they modified their request to the General Court by asking simply for authority for local self-government as a precinct of Salem, whereupon they were agreeably disappointed by the action of the Legislature, with the concurrence of the town of Salem, in yielding to their wishes as originally expressed and in incorporating them as a township by the name of Beverly. No vote of the town of Salem upon the subject, other than the above vote of the tenth of March, appears on record; and it was probably in substantial compliance with that vote that Edmund Batter made the following return to the General Court sitting 7 November, 1668, upon the order of notice, which the Court had served upon the town of Salem: —

Upon this the General Court immediately passed the following decree: —

While the secular or political status of the inhabitants of Bass River was thus assuming the full proportions of a distinct municipality, their ecclesiastical affairs were keeping pace.

I have briefly traced the progress of the church down to 1660, and have incidentally mentioned that Rev. John Hale, who was a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1657, began his labors as teacher in the church at Beverly in 1664. The next year he was settled, on an annual salary of £70 and his firewood; and the house, which had been previously built for the accommodation of the minister, was fitted up for his use, and conditionally settled upon him and his family. Their first step of independence left the brethren at Bass River, though a separate congregation with a teacher of their own, still members and communicants of the old church at Salem. In the winter of 1666–67, they applied to their brethren at Salem to be set off as an entirely separate church, with Mr. Hale for pastor, be having been among them nearly three years. On the last of February, a day of fasting was observed by both churches, to invoke divine guidance. On the twenty-third of June, a formal petition to the Salem church was prepared. This, on the fourth of July, was seriously considered by the parent church, which, on the twenty-first, signified its consent. On the twenty-eighth of August, the formal call to the pastorate was made to Mr. Hale, who accepted. The installation ceremonies were appointed for the twentieth of September, which the brethren of the Salem church, who were notified on the ninth, attended in a body, uniting with messengers from the churches of Ipswich and Wenham. The exercises seem to have been conducted with perfect love and harmony, thus beautifully contrasting with the implacable spirit of hatred and discord so often unhappily prevalent on such occasions in the history of New England.

john saffin and his slave adam.

Among the lovely things remembered of good Samuel Sewall, nothing has more redounded to his praise than the little sheet in which, under the title of “The Selling of Joseph,”54 he offered the first public plea for the emancipation of the negro.

Whether or not Sewall’s denunciation of the wrong of slave-holding was induced by some of the incidents recounted in the narratives which follow, is not positively certain,55 although the inference that he intended to animadvert upon the conduct of his contemporary, John Saffin,56 receives some support from the manner in which the latter in his published reply to Sewall not only undertook to defend the institution of slavery, but to vindicate his conduct toward his slave Adam.

Saffin’s pamphlet appeared with a long title, the leading lines of which were, “A Brief and Candid Answer to a late Printed Sheet entituled, The Selling of Joseph,” etc.57

Although the text of this rarest of rare tracts was given to the public by the late learned George H. Moore, LL. D., in his Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts, he failed to include the appendix.58 The reason for this omission can only be surmised. It may have been the inability to determine how much that was important was lost with the missing pages, and the hope of supplying the lost portions by the discovery of a perfect copy. Or, what is more likely, the narrative containing obscurities to which there was no known key, an attempt to elucidate it might have seemed impracticable, or so difficult as not to be justified by the probable importance of the subject. I am not aware that it has ever been reprinted. My purpose now is to offer it for publication in the Transactions of this Society. I have reason to believe, and I think it will presently appear, that it is substantially complete. With it I offer such extracts from the records of the Provincial Courts59 as are necessary fully to elucidate Saffin’s version of the relations between him and his servant. At the same time I propose to give a sufficiently clear account of the legal proceedings which resulted in Adam’s emancipation. These proceedings are rendered more interesting by the view they afford of a leaning in favor of liberty on the part of the highest judicial court of the Province, and of the flexibility of the common law, as administered by this tribunal, in adapting old, or providing new and peculiar, remedies in extraordinary emergencies.

The contention between Saffin and his negro slave grew out of the following instrument: —

This writing Adam seems to have regarded as an effectual manumission after the expiration of the seven years therein limited. Hence he felt justified, as a free man, in acting toward his former master in the independent manner which the latter in his complaint described as “turbulent, outrageous and insolent.”

According to Saffin, Adam had not fulfilled the condition upon which his liberty was promised; and being at Boston, in March, 1701, and ordered by his master to meet him at Bristol, and to proceed thence to Swanzey in the service of another, to whom Saffin had engaged him, he not only refused to go, but improved the opportunity which his master’s absence afforded to leave Saffin’s house in Boston, furtively taking with him his clothing, and going about town at pleasure.

Saffin, upon his return, received from his former slave, instead of the deference and submission he claimed, a notice, haughtily delivered, that he must appear before Mr. Justice Sewall. Saffin accordingly waited upon the judge, whom he found in conference with Mr. Secretary Addington. Sewall severely animadverted on his conduct, and produced the deed of manumission. The due execution of this instrument Saffin acknowledged; upon which the two magistrates concurred in advising him to give the negro his liberty. They intimated that Adam’s performance had been substantially according to the terms stated in the instrument, which, as “liberty was a thing of great value, even next to life,” should be liberally construed, especially in this case, and that a perfect compliance should not be expected, since “there was much to be allowed to the behaviour of Negroes, who are so ignorant, rude and bruitish.”

Saffin, nevertheless, persisted in his determination to hold the negro; and the next day he induced Lieutenant-Colonel Penn Townsend, a member of the Council, to accompany him to Sewall’s house, professing to believe that his servant could be lawfully coerced into submission by the joint determination of two magistrates. Though the magistrates did not concur with Saffin, Townsend consented to bind Adam over (he being present) to answer to a complaint for an offence the nature of which appears in the record of proceedings of the court, given below.

The next Court of Sessions for Suffolk was to be held in July, but the stated Assizes were held at Boston two months earlier; so, in order to bring the complaint (which involved the question of Adam’s enfranchisement) to a speedy issue, he was required to appear and answer at the May term of the Superior Court, and Dick, a free negro, was accepted as surety in his recognizance. Accordingly, when the court sat the complainant and respondent appeared; but though papers were read and the case debated, the matter was put over, or, as Saffin states it, “transmitted to the next Superiour Court to be held at Bristol.” The complaint was not entered of record; and though the reason assigned by Saffin for the court’s declining to proceed with the trial was that witnesses were not present to support by their oaths the depositions they had previously made in writing, it seems more likely that the case was thought to be properly triable in Bristol County, where, if Saffin had any case, both parties were domiciled.

Between the term at Suffolk and the term at Bristol, Saffin by some means succeeded in getting promoted from the bench of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas to that of the Superior Court of Judicature;61 and on the ninth of September he sat with his associates at the stated term in Bristol, during which upon his complaint Adam was tried at the suit of the king.

From the depositions on file it is clear that though at the trial there was conflicting testimony upon the main issue, the preponderance of evidence as to character was in Adam’s favor. Some of the depositions for the complainant were mainly hearsay, and one at least was rejected by the court, probably for this reason and also because the prisoner was not present when it was taken. The complainant was allowed to put in the following document in proof of his charges against the accused: —

The character of the accused as given in this paper was not only insufficiently shown by the joint deposition of Shepherd and his wife, but Wilkins, to whom Adam was bound out by Shepherd, testified to his sobriety and fidelity; and there were several other witnesses to his general good conduct. Nevertheless, the jury found him guilty. The court continued the case, under advisement, “until the next Superior Court to be holden for this county” (that is, for one year), and in the mean time remanded Adam to the custody of his master.

From Sewall’s memoranda it appears that the court were in doubt on the question whether or not Saffin’s interest in the issue was such as to disqualify him from sitting in the case. It would seem also, from the same authority, that besides the manifest impropriety of sitting as judge in a case in which he was so directly concerned, Saffin had been guilty of other equally grave and more insidious irregularities in the management of this case. Sewall declares that he had tampered with the foreman of the jury by whose verdict Adam was convicted, and had connived at placing upon the panel James Smith, one of his tenants; which conduct was apparently proved to the satisfaction of his associates. Saffin avers that upon his motion that judgment be entered according to the verdict his brother judges assented, and agreed that he should have the custody of his negro upon his promising “not to send him out of the Country,” but that the suspension of judgment for further advisement was a subsequent determination made without his privity or consent, whereupon he claimed he was released from his promise.

As soon as the form of the judgment had been finally settled, Saffin in open court ordered Adam, of whom the decree of the court had given him control, to proceed forthwith to Boston, and to resume work on Castle Island under Captain Timothy Clarke.63 About a month later the unfortunate negro got into fresh trouble by violently resisting Captain Clarke, who, in attempting to discipline him for disobedience and incivility, knocked his pipe from his mouth, and struck him with his stick. Saffin seized upon this incident as a pretext for ordering his incorrigible servant to be transported out of the province; but this scheme failed on account of a caution given by Addington, who was consulted as to the legality of the proceeding. The Secretary, however, so far gratified Saffin as to order the commitment of Adam to answer at the Quarter Sessions for his violence. The loss of the records of the Court of Sessions leaves it doubtful what disposition the court made of this case. It is certain that the event did not interfere with the earlier proceedings instituted by Saffin.

Before the next term of the court in Bristol, Dudley had arrived with the commission of governor. Though the new governor’s principles were extremely loose in regard to taking gratuities for service rendered in an executive capacity, and notwithstanding his career as chief justice in New York shows that he did not scruple to follow the worst precedents of judicial tyranny, he had never been known to excuse in a judge such offences as Saffin was charged with. Possibly this may account for the fact that Saffin was not among the judges of the Superior Court selected and commissioned by Dudley.

When the case of Dom. Rex64 v. Adam came up for consideration by the court in September, 1702, it appearing that the negro was sick with the small-pox, it was again put over, — this time to the November term, in Suffolk. Sewall65 records that the “Court were of Opinion that Adam’s Freedom could not be Tryed by Mr. Saffin’s complaint,” — evidently upon the ground that, though the suit was brought in the name of the king, Baffin was the real party in interest, — the virtual plaintiff.

The complaint against him having thus failed, Adam, at the same term, “preferred a petition for his Enfranchisement” (which unique and interesting paper, undoubtedly prepared by Newton, has not been found), at the same time exhibiting to the court the instrument of emancipation executed by Saffin. The court thereupon assigned Thomas Newton and Joseph Hearne,66 two of the ablest lawyers in the province, as his counsel, “in order to his Regular proceeding in the affair.” The record of the case concludes: “This Court Judging it proper for the Petitioner first to be heard at the Inferiour Court of Common pleas next to be holden for this County and that the Petitioner in the meantime be in peace untill the Coming of the Justices.”67

In compliance with this decision and intimation from the court, Adam brought suit against Saffin in the Common Pleas as follows: —

Upon which writ the sheriff of Bristol made the following return: —

The record shows that this writ abated, probably because it was held that the court for Bristol County had exclusive jurisdiction of the parties. The judgment of the court was as follows: —

The justices present were Elisha Hutchinson, John Foster, Penn Townsend, and Jeremiah Dummer.

From this judgment the plaintiff appealed, but the court refused71 to allow the appeal.

Saffin, it seems, now renewed his threat to consign Adam to some one living out of the province, or who would remove him from Massachusetts; whereupon Mr. Newton invoked the protection of the Superior Court for his client in the following petition: —

The following is the record of the judgment or decree of the court upon this petition, all the justices being present: —

This petition was read in the House on the first of June. It was read again on the third. Whereupon the proceedings set forth in the following extracts from the legislative records of the Council and from the State Archives took place: —

When the petition was before the Council, Newton appeared in behalf of Adam,76 and entered the following plea: —

At the Court of Sessions held by adjournment in Suffolk in August the case was tried, as ordered by the Assembly, and Adam was again convicted, and once more appealed, as shown by the following copy of the record: —

The defendant’s reasons of appeal, prepared by Adam’s attorney and given below, sufficiently show the course of the proceedings and the grounds upon which he based his claim to freedom: —

The above reasons were received into the clerk’s office 26 October, 1703, and were argued at the term begun on the second of November, at which term, by the verdict of the jury and the judgment of the court, Adam secured his liberty. The record is as follows: —

After this there was little hope for Saffin of gaining his ends. Still he resolutely presented his grievances to the Legislature at the third session, in the following petition: —

This petition was read in the House on the fifteenth, and on the nineteenth the representatives passed an order “that the petitioner have a review at the next Superior Court held at Boston and in the mean time the negro be of bonds with sureties for the peace and good behavior,” which order was sent to the Council for concurrence. On the first of December, this petition and order being read in the Council, it was “not concurred” in, but the Council voted that “the petitioner is referred to the law.”

That Saffin found no further satisfaction is evident from the following entry in the Records of the Selectmen of Boston,82 which shows that as late as 18 June, 1711, Adam was recognized as free by the town authorities: —

His name is second in the list, but several others followed. The name occurs again, in town affairs, upon a paper signed probably for him and four other negroes, in which they offer to be bound for Madam Leblond, a negro woman, to save the town from being chargeable in case of her “sickness or any disaster.” This offer was rejected by the Selectmen83 23 March, 1713–14.

The following are the titlepage of Saffin’s pamphlet and the appended narrative.84 The lines in the title and in the caption of the narrative, and the enumeration of the pages in the last, conform to the original.

A

Brief and Candid Answer to a late

Printed Sheet, Entituled,

The Selling of

JOSEPH

Whereunto is annexed,

A True and Particular Narrative by way of Vindication of the Author’s Dealing with and Prosecution of his Negro Man servant for his vile and exorbitant Behaviour towards his Master, and his Tenant Thomas. Shepard; which hath been wrongfully Represented to their Pejudice and Defamation.

By John Saffin, Esqr.