ANNUAL MEETING, NOVEMBER, 1906.
THE Annual Meeting was held at the University Club, 270 Beacon Street, Boston, on Wednesday, 21 November, 1906, at six o’clock in the afternoon, the President, George Lyman Kittredge, LL.D., in the chair.
The Records of the last Stated Meeting were read and approved.
The Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale of Boston and Mr. Arthur Lord of Plymouth were elected Resident Members.
The name of Mr. Denison Rogers Slade was transferred from the Roll of Resident Members to that of Corresponding Members, since his present residence is in Sandwich, New Hampshire.
The Annual Report of the Council was presented and read by the Rev. Dr. Edward H. Hall.
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL.
Since our last Annual Meeting, five Stated Meetings of the Society have been held. The most noteworthy of these meetings was that of January, which fell within eight days of the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin, and was appropriately devoted to his memory. It elicited, as our records will show, many interesting documents bearing upon Franklin and his ancestry.
As our Society is still without a local habitation, we have thrown ourselves again upon the hospitality of others, and have held all our meetings in the Unitarian Building on Beacon Street. It can not be said that the accommodations obtained in those crowded headquarters are altogether such as befit an established Society, or by any means conducive to a large attendance; but so long as we have to continue our vagrant life, we could not fare better than at the kind hands of the American Unitarian Association, to whom we acknowledge our great obligations.
The pamphlet just placed in the hands of our members constitutes Serial 2 of Volume X., and it will be noticed that with this issue the printed Transactions of the Society are brought up to date. The wise action of the Society two years ago in creating the office of Editor of Publications enables the Council to report great progress in the preparation of the voluminous material which has accumulated on our hands. In accordance with the scheme presented in the first Report of the Council, in November, 1893,716 Volumes II., IV., and IX. have been reserved for special Collections of this material, as distinct from the volumes of Transactions, though numbered with them. Volume II. is to contain the Royal Commissions and Instructions to the Governors of the Province; Volume IV., papers relating to the Land Bank prepared by Mr. Andrew McF. Davis, and two Bibliographies compiled by Mr. Worthington C. Ford; Volume IX., a Check-List of all Boston Newspapers from 1704 to 1780. The fulfilment of these elaborate plans is now fairly in sight. Since our April meeting Volume VIII. and the two Serials of Volume X. have been distributed, and Volumes IX. and X., in complete form, are promised with reasonable certainty in the course of the coming year. The materials for a fourth volume of Collections, not yet numbered, are also in hand.
The need of larger funds to carry on this work of editing and publishing, as well as to secure better accommodations for the Society and its accumulating documents, need hardly be urged upon our members.
The Society has lost from its ranks during the year one Resident Member, Professor James Mills Peirce; bearer of an honored name, to which his career has added fresh prestige; one of the most noted teachers of our generation, beloved of many pupils, and held in affectionate remembrance by hosts of friends.
We have lost also one Corresponding Member, General Joseph Wheeler; a graduate of West Point in 1859, who received from the Confederate Government the rank of Lieutenant-General, and later from the United States that of Brigadier-General; a member of Congress from Alabama from 1881 to 1899; author of several military works. He was of New England extraction, being a grandson of General William Hull, the story of whose temporary loss of military prestige and final vindication is told in the latest volume of our Records.717
From the Roll of our Honorary Members we have lost Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley, one of our most eminent scientific scholars, recipient of the highest honors at home and abroad, and for the last nineteen years Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
During the year the following Resident Members have been elected, —
- James Bourne Ayer,
- Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Jr.,
- James Willson Brooks,
- William Vail Kellen,
- Robert Dickson Weston,
- Henry Lefavour,
- Francis Randall Appleton,
- Herbert Parker;
and the following Corresponding Members, —
- William Logan Rodman Gifford,
- Robert Hallowell Gardiner,
- Franklin Carter,
the last by transfer from the Resident Roll.
The Treasurer submitted his Annual Report, as follows:
REPORT OF THE TREASURER.
In compliance with the requirements of the By-Laws, the Treasurer submits his Annual Report for the year ending 19 November, 1906.
receipts.
Balance, 16 November, 1905 |
$925.28 |
|||
Admission Fees |
$80.00 |
|||
Annual Assessments |
640.00 |
|||
Commutation of the Annual Assessment |
100.00 |
|||
Sales of the Society’s Publications |
72.15 |
|||
University Press: overcharge refunded |
102.79 |
|||
Interest |
2,463.95 |
|||
Mortgages paid |
3,100.00 |
|||
Editor’s Salary Fund |
1,250.00 |
7,808.89 |
||
$8,734.17 |
disbursements.
University Press, printing |
$81,785.75 |
|||
A. W. Elson & Co., photogravure plates and plate printing |
351.53 |
|||
Henry Mitchell, engraving |
30.50 |
|||
Julius F. Sachse, photography |
17.00 |
|||
Albert F. Hall, engrossing |
20.70 |
|||
Albert Matthews, salary as Editor of Publications |
1,000.00 |
|||
Clerk hire |
279.20 |
|||
Mary H. Rollins, indexing Volume VIII |
100.00 |
|||
William H. Hart, auditing |
5.00 |
|||
Library Bureau, index cards |
6.75 |
|||
Hill, Smith and Co., stationery |
6.75 |
|||
Boston Surburban Express and Parcel Company |
34.10 |
|||
Sawin’s Express |
43.66 |
|||
Boston Storage Warehouse Company |
24.00 |
|||
Miscellaneous incidentals |
350.98 |
|||
Deposited in Charlestown Five Cents Savings Bank |
350.00 |
|||
Mortgages on improved real estate in Boston |
3,750.00 |
|||
Interest in adjustment |
35.00 |
$8,190.92 |
||
Balance on deposit in State Street Trust Company, 19 November, 1906 |
543.25 |
|||
$8,734.17 |
The Funds of the Society are invested as follows:
$48,450.00 |
in First Mortgages, payable in gold coin, on improved property in Boston and Cambridge. |
550.00 |
deposited in Charlestown Five Cents Savings Bank. |
$49,000.00 |
debits.
Cash |
$543.25 |
|||
Mortgages |
$48,450.00 |
|||
Charlestown Five Cents Savings Bank |
550.00 |
49,000.00 |
||
$49,543.25 |
credits.
Income |
$543.25 |
|||
Editor’s Salary Fund |
$1,650.00 |
|||
Publication Fund |
2,500.00 |
|||
General Fund |
6,850.00 |
|||
Benjamin Apthorp Gould Memorial Fund |
10,000.00 |
|||
Edward Wheelwright Fund |
10,000.00 |
|||
Robert Charles Billings Fund |
10,000.00 |
|||
Robert Noxon Toppan Fund |
5,000.00 |
|||
Robert Charles Winthrop, Jr. Fund |
3,000.00 |
49,000.00 |
||
$49,543.25 |
Henry H. Edes,
Treasurer.
Boston, 19 November, 1906.
The Committee, consisting of Messrs. T. Jefferson Coolidge, Jr., and Walter Cabot Baylies, appointed to examine the accounts of the Treasurer for the year ending 19 November, 1906, reported that the accounts had been accurately kept and were properly vouched, that the Cash Balance had been verified, and that the evidences of the Investments had been examined.
The several Reports were accepted and referred to the Committee of Publication.
Mr. William Endicott, on behalf of the Committee appointed to nominate officers for the ensuing year, presented the following list of candidates; and, a ballot being taken, these gentlemen were unanimously elected:
president.
- GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE.
vice-presidents
- WILLIAM WATSON GOODWIN.
- MARCUS PERRIN KNOWLTON.
recording secretary.
- HENRY WINCHESTER CUNNINGHAM.
corresponding secretary.
- JOHN NOBLE.
treasurer.
- HENRY HERBERT EDES.
registrar.
- FREDERICK LEWIS GAY.
member of the council for three years.
- HENRY LEFAVOUR.
Mr. Henry H. Edes exhibited a photograph of the page of the Christ Church Registers, Philadelphia, on which Franklin’s burial is recorded.
Mr. Edes also made the following communication:
At our Stated Meeting in January, which was almost wholly devoted to a commemoration of the bicentennial of Franklin’s birth, a communication was received from Mr. Lane on Harvard College and Franklin. In it he gave the text of Franklin’s diploma from the College and of the vote of the Corporation conferring the degree. It is worth mentioning that the only other Honorary degree conferred by Harvard in 1753 was that of A.M., which was given to William Johnson, a Yale graduate of the Class of 1748. Johnson was admitted to this degree (ad eundem) at a meeting of the Board of Overseers held on Commencement Day, 18 July, 1753. The Franklin degree was voted by the Corporation five days after Commencement, — at a meeting held on the twenty-third of July at which no other action was taken, and was confirmed by a unanimous vote of the Overseers on the following day at a meeting at which no other business was transacted.718
Mr. William H. Tillinghast, the Assistant Librarian of the College, to whom I am indebted for these facts, has also called my attention to an interesting note in the Corporation Records, which appears just before an entry dated 18 September, 1753, which states that “all dates from henceforward are New Style.”719
Record of the Burial of Benjamin Franklin
Engraved for The Colonial Society of Massachusetts from the Register of Christ Church, Philadelphia
While in Philadelphia, in Easter Week, in attendance upon the Franklin celebration, Dr. I. Minis Hays, the Secretary of the American Philosophical Society, showed me two letters in its cabinet relating to Franklin’s election to fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.720 Dr. Hays subsequently sent me copies of these interesting documents, and I now have the pleasure of communicating them to the Society.
The text of the letters follows.
I
james bowdoin to benjamin franklin.721
Boston Janry. 11. 1781
My dear Friend
I had the honour of writing to you by Mr Guild722 some months ago.723 He probably acquainted you, there was a Bill then depending in our Assembly for incorporating a philosophical Society. It has been compleated, and the Society formed, under the name of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. They have had several Meetings: and at the last, several Gentlemen of distinguished characters were put in nomination. Among them is my much esteemed Friend, the Ambassador of the American United States to the Court of France: on whose election, I hope to have the pleasure, at that time, of felicitating the Academy. In the mean time, give me leave to present to you a specimen of its first fruit: which, though it be unripe & imperfect, and shews but an inferior power of vegetation in the particular stock, from whence it fell, it is hoped, will be the harbinger of maturer and better flavoured fruits from other stocks in the same plantation. I am with real affection and regard, in which Mrs. Bowdoin & Mrs Temple most cordially join, my dear Friend, Yr most obṭ hble serv.
James Bowdoin
The hoñble Benjṇ Franklin Esqṛ
II
joseph willard to benjamin franklin.
Sir,
The last May the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts incorporated a Society under the title of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which formed its statutes & elected its officers the latter part of last August. The Act of incorporation,724 a catalogue725 of the present officers and the President’s oration at his inauguration attend this letter.
By the direction of the Academy, I have now the honor of informing your Excellency, that Janrỵ 31st, 1781 you were elected a Member of that literary Body. The Society esteems itself dignified in having your name added to the catalogue; — a name, so much and so deservedly celebrated, not only through your native country, but also through Europe, and it flatters itself, that it will ever have your favor and encouragement. I hope, the Philadelphia Society,726 for which you are particularly interested, and this in Massachusetts, will be not only an honor to the United States of America, but also of extensive utility to the public, as they cannot fail of being, if the ends of their institution are properly pursued.
I have been directed by the American Academy to transmit the Act of incorporation to similar Institutions in Europe. I have sent a copy to the French Academy and to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris; but when I transmitted those copies, I forgot the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Letters. I have now written to Mr. d’Anville,727 Chief Geographer of the King, and a member of that Academy, and have enclosed the letter with this. I should be much obliged to your Excellency to take the care of it. I have also sent copies to the Royal and Antiquarian Society and to the Society of Arts and Commerce in London. These three copies are enclosed to Dr. Price.728 The letter to him I have committed to the care of Col. Laurens.729 I should esteem it a favor, if your Excellency would put the Col. in the way of conveying it with safety to London. I should have written to the Societies of Göttingen and Berlin, had I known of the failing of the Alliance earlier. As we have a communication with Göttenburg, in the way of Commerce, I shall endeavor to improve some opportunity in the Spring to send to the Societies of Stockholm and Petersburgh by that route.
If your Excellency’s important public business will allow you leisure, I should be greatly obliged to you, if you would inform me what publications of merit have appeared in France, within these five or six years, particularly in natural Philosophy, Mathematics and Astronomy.
With ardent wishes for, the continuance of your Excellency’s health and most important life, I beg leave to subscribe,
with the highest respect,
your Excellency’s most humble
and most obedient servṭ
Joseph Willard
His Excellency Benjamin Franklin
Esqr
Beverly Febry 9th 1781
III
A Catalogue of the Officers of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected August 31st 1780
The Honble James Bowdoin Esq’ of Boston President |
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The Kevd Samuel Cooper D D of Boston Vice President |
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Counsellors |
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The Houble Henry Gardner Esqṛ Boston |
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The Honble John Hancock Esqṛ Boston |
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The Revd Samuel Langdon D D Cambridge |
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John Lowell Esqr Boston |
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The Honble Robert Treat Payne Esqr Boston |
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The Revd Phillips Payson Chelsea |
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The Honble James Warren Esqr Plymouth |
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The Revd Ed: Wigglesworth Prof. Divinity Cambridge |
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The Revd Sam: Williams Prof. Math: Cambridge |
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Mr. Caleb Gannett Recording Secretary Cambridge |
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The Revd Joseph Willard Corresponding Secretary Beverly |
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Ebenezer Storer Esqr Treasurer Boston |
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Prof Sewall730 Vice Treasurer Cambridge |
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Mr. James Wiuthrop Cabinet Keeper Cambridge |
Mr. William C. Lane made the following remarks:
I bring to the Society for exhibition two letters, which are of no great historical importance, but possess a pleasant interest in connection with two distinguished public characters of the eighteenth century — one near the close of his career, the other standing at the beginning of his. The letters were written in 1762, by Edward Holyoke, President of Harvard College, to Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., of Lebanon, Connecticut. Trumbull’s record of pubbc service was as distinguished and as continuous as that of almost any man of his time. Early a member of the Connecticut Legislature and Speaker of the House of Representatives, he served in the American army during the Revolution as paymaster till 1780, and then as aide-de-camp and secretary to General Washington up to the time of the peace. He was a member of the first national Congress from 1789 to 1795, and Speaker of the House for four years. Elected United States Senator in 1795, he resigned the next year to become Lieutenant-Governor of Connecticut, 1796 to 1798, was elected Governor of Connecticut in 1798, and continued in that office until the day of his death, 7 August, 1809.
Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., his father Jonathan, one of his elder brothers, Joseph, and his younger brother, John, the painter, were all graduates of Harvard College. A member of the class of 1759, Jonathan, Jr., was about to return to Cambridge for his Master’s degree when President Holyoke invited him to deliver the valedictory oration at Commencement.
Cambridge May 6. 1762
Sr
This I write to desire you to give us (if you design to be down for yr Degree) a Valedictory Oration, this I very much desire in answering therefore my Request, you will very much gratify
Yr humble servt.
Edwd. Holyoke
A postscript conveys the writer’s compliments to the elder Trumbull; but a break in the paper has destroyed some of the words. Trumbull notes his answer at the foot of the page, as follows:
Revd Sir
You ll receive this in Answer to your [favor by] my Brother — have only to signify my thankfull compliance with your Desire — & am, with Dutifull Respects
Your obliged humble servt
J: Trdmble Jr
The second letter shows that, in the meantime, Trumbull had learned that a previous invitation had been given to another member of his class to deliver the oration, whereupon he had communicated to President Holyoke his desire to withdraw.
Cambridge June 28 1762
Sr
I very much Wonder at the Contents of yrs. of the 22d as if I shou’d be glad I cou’d have found any Body besides you, to give us an Oration; far from this, for [I] chose you shou’d do it before any Other, & the sole Reason of my asking Davies was because he was upon the Spot, & knew not how to come at you, but when I heard yr Bro was at Boston was exceedingly pleas’d, I had Oppoty to write you upon it, & was still much more pleas’d, when I recd yr Answer that you wou’d comply with my Desires, I hope therefore you will by no Means fail in the Affair which will be greatly to the Satisfaction of
Yr humble Servt
E. Holyoke
Pray give my hearty
Service to the Collo — &
Lady.
The “Questiones Discutiendae” of 1762 shows Trumbull’s name at the head of the list of candidates for the Master’s degree ready to defend their theses; he is prepared to maintain the negative of the question, whether elasticity is an essential and immutable property of air. The typography indicates that his thesis did not form part of the spoken exercises, but the valedictory oration at the close was doubtless spoken by him. In the same class are to be seen the names of Samuel A. Otis and Paine Wingate, who were afterwards delegates to the Continental Congress, and of Joseph Warren, who fell at Bunker Hill.
_______________
After the Meeting was dissolved, dinner was served. The guests of the Society were the Rev. Dr. James De Normandie, the Rev. William Wallace Fenn, the Rev. Charles Edwards Park, and Messrs. Charles John McIntire, Arthur Lord, and Winslow Warren. President Kittredge presided.
1 Publications, i. 388–451. 1
2 Johannes in Eremo, Boston (1695), p. 25; and see the Magnalia (1702), book iii. chap. iv. § 12, p. 56.
3 H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, p. 474.
4 1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, iii. 258.
5 Hill, History of the Old South Church, i. 94.
6 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, x. 58, 59.
7 Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, ii. 232.
8 Magnalia (1702), book iii. chap. iv. § 10, p. 55.
9 1 Proceedings, xx. 175–185, 206–209.
10 New English Canaan (Prince Society), pp. 103–105.
11 See the Publications of this Society, vi. 137–151.
12 I have seen copies dated Boston, 1827, 1829, Exeter, 1829, 1836, 1842, and Hartford, 1851. All of these were printed from the same plates, and the passage will be found at p. 178. Church’s book was also reprinted from the Stiles edition of 1772 in Samuel L. Knapp’s Library of American History, New York (1839), ii. 258, and in The People’s History of America, New York (1874), p. 703.
13 Colonial Records of Connecticut, v. 481, 482.
14 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xv. 307.
15 In S. Sewall’s History of Woburn (1868), p. 552.
16 In Shakspere’s King John, iv. iii. 158, are the words: “a thousand businesses are brief in hand.” Dr. Murray remarks: “The origin of this sense [of brief] is not clear: the Shaksp. quot. is generally cited as an example, but is by no means certain.” Schmidt explains the passage as meaning a thousand businesses “must be speedily dispatched.”
17 New English Canaan (1637), p. 181.
18 Itinerary (1617), part i. book i. p. 2.
19 History of the Plimoth Plantation (1896), p. 46. For a complete discussion of this point, see a paper on the Naming of Hull in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for April, 1905, lix. 177–186.
20 C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft (1867), ii. 187.
21 Cancelled in the original.
22 Suffolk Court Files, no. 162, 281.
23 Cancelled in the original.
24 Suffolk Court Files, no. 2700.
25 Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1692–1695, folios 34, 35.
26 Upham, Salem Witchcraft, ii. 141.
27 Ibid. ii. 128.
28 Ibid. ii. 140
29 Ibid. ii. 142.
30 Upham, Salem Witchcraft, ii. 472.
31 An Act to Reverse the Attainders of George Burroughs and others for Witchcraft, Private Act No. 26 (Massachusetts Province Laws, vi. 71, 72).
32 Interlined in the original.
33 Interlined in the original.
34 Suffolk Court Files, no. 47120:8. The original deposition is no. 46720:2. “Pastree Execx̣ of Hollard & English Admṛ of English, July 1738.” See also Record Superiour Court of Judicature for Suffolk County, 8 August, 1738, fol. 181.
35 Interlined in the original.
36 Interlined in the original.
37 Suffolk Court Files, no. 48343. See also no. 48342 (3 papers): “English Admr. & Pastree Execr. of Hollard Feb. 1738–9.”
38 History of New England (1853), ii. 326.
39 See Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts (1764), i. 187.
40 Memorial History of Boston, ii. 133–142 and notes; Paige, History of Cambridge, pp. 355, 595.
41 Records of the Court of Assistants (1901), i. 11.
42 Ibid. i. 33.
43 Ibid. i. 159.
44 Records of the Court of Assistants, i. 189, 190.
45 Ibid. i. 188, 189.
46 Ibid. i. 228, 229.
47 Ibid. i. 229, 233.
48 So in the original.
49 Some time after this meeting, Mr. Kittredge discovered in the British Museum a letter written by Samuel Sewall in 1690. Mr. Lee’s letter was originally inclosed in that of Judge Sewall’s. As Mr. Kittredge expects to communicate the Sewall letter at a subsequent meeting, the Lee letter is withheld for the present.
50 Privately printed under the title Five Straws gathered from Revolutionary Fields.
51 For a fuller account of the history of Commons and of the causes leading to the disorders of 1766, see Peirce’s History of Harvard University, pp. 217–223, and Quincy’s History of Harvard University, ii. 94–99.
In the old Harvard Hall, destroyed by fire 24 January, 1764, the Commons room was in the middle of the building on the first floor. During the interval before the new Hall was completed, “the two southern middle ground rooms of Hollis Hall, viz. Nos. 2 and 4” were assigned as dining rooms, and No. 1 was assigned to the Butler. In the new Harvard Hall occupied in the fall of 1765, the east end of the lower floor was used for Commons, the kitchen being directly beneath.
52 “Put out of Commons” means “erased from the list,” so that no charges are incurred.
53 See the Oxford Dictionary under hatch and kitchen.
54 College Book No. 7, pp. 139, 140. These Articles were incorporated, with slight verbal changes, in the copies of the Laws written out at this time for official use, as Chapter VI.
55 Sidney Willard says that when the time for Hancock’s triennial re-election as Tutor drew near in 1766, it had been intimated to him that he would not again be chosen.
His services were at no time highly appreciated; but, not willing to be unceremoniously superseded, he made known his wishes to be re-elected, and his determination to resign afterwards. But his determination indeterminate was interpreted by the electors in a sense more restricted than was justified by the issue; for after being again chosen, lie deliberated a whole year before he carried his determination into effect (Memories of Youth and Manhood, i. 34, 35).
56 See the Publications of this Society, vii. 321–339.
57 See Willard, Memories of Youth and Manhood, i. 11.
58 Willard, Ibid. i. 39; Wyman, Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, i. 276.
59 Asa Dunbar, of the Class of 1767, was the son of Samuel and Melatiah (Hayward) Dunbar, and was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, 26 May, 1745 (Bridgewater Town Records). He entered the ministry after graduating, preached first at Bedford, Massachusetts, and then removed to Salem, where he was settled from 1772 to 1779. Retiring from the ministry, he took up the study of the law, and began practice in Keene, New Hampshire, in 1783, gaining the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens. He died 22 June, 1787.
His daughter Cynthia, born in 1787, married John Thoreau in 1812, and was the mother of Henry D. Thoreau. See Charles H. Bell, Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1894), p. 323; F. B. Sanborn, Henry D. Thoreau (1882), pp. 9, 18.
60 President Holyoke, John Winthrop, Edward Wigglesworth, Stephen Sewall, Belcher Hancock, Simeon Howard, Thomas Danforth, Andrew Eliot and Joseph Willard. It will be noticed that the writer names the President first, then the three Professors in order of seniority, then the four Tutors and the Librarian in the same order.
61 Down to 1769, the members of each class, toward the close of their Freshman year, were “placed” in an order of precedence corresponding to the social position of their fathers, and a common form of punishment was to degrade a student a certain number of places in his class. This aristocratic principle was applied for the last time in June, 1769, in the case of the Class which had entered in 1768 and was to graduate in 1772. It thus disappeared with the close of President Holyoke’s long term of office and with the inauguration of his successor, Samuel Locke. But in the Quinquennial Catalogue the names of the members of all classes down to 1772 preserve the order of their original “placing.” The democratic alphabetical arrangement begins with the class of 1773.
62 Prayers were conducted at this time in the new chapel in Harvard Hall. Holden Chapel, built in 1744, was used for religious services for only about twenty-one years. The College records and the historians of the College do not tell us why, on the rebuilding of Harvard Hall, a new chapel was provided in the west end of that building on the first floor, corresponding to the Commons room on the other side of the entrance. No explicit statement is made in the records when religious services were transferred from one place to the other, but there is little doubt that it was when the new Hall was first occupied in the fall of 1765. One bit of evidence in regard to this is to be found in the records. On 24 September, 1765, the records of the Corporation (College Book No. 7, p. 142) show that the several districts into which the College buildings were divided were settled. The first district comprised “Harvard Hall & the Chapel,” i. e. Holden Chapel. In the third volume of the Faculty Records, beginning 13 September, 1766, this distribution of districts is copied in on the first page as a memorandum; but here the first district is “Harvard Hall & the Chapels,” i. e. the new chapel in Harvard Hall and Holden, or the “old chapel,” as it is called in the Faculty Records of 26 September, 1766, quoted on p. 45, below.
63 Daniel Johnson, of the Senior Class, and Thomas Hodgson, of the same Class, a North Carolinian, who did not graduate. On 9 March, 1767, Hodgson and six others were rusticated, being guilty of “great and scandalous crimes,” according to the 8th law of the 4th chapter of the College Laws.
64 There is no verse 6 in the original.
65 Wadsworth House.
66 The Board of Overseers.
67 In the library of the New England Historic Genealogical Society there exists another manuscript of the Book of Harvard which was given to that library in 1879 by the late John Langdon Sibley, Librarian of Harvard College. This manuscript is substantially the same as that in the Harvard Library, but unimportant additions, omissions, and variations indicate that, as might be expected, many copies were probably made of what must have been considered at the time a clever parody, a bit of humor to be circulated and enjoyed in secret.
Doubtless the tale received additions and variations as it passed from hand to hand, and it would be difficult to say which of these two copies was derived from the other, or whether both came from a third. A few variations in the Genealogical Society’s copy are worth noting. In Chap. II. v. 5, read “Unless thou makest an humble Confession before all Harvard” in place of “unless thou repent.” After v. 11 add “And they ordered these Things to be written in a Book, and all Harvard signed every one his Name.” In v. 13 read “But the Sons of Harvard assembled in Unity Hall and went unto the House, etc.” In v. 17 the date is given as the sixth day of the month. At the end is inscribed “Joseph Cummings scripsit Jany 7th 1767.” This may, of course, mean that Joseph Cummings, who was a “Junior Sophister” at this time, was the author, but it is more likely that he was simply the writer of this copy.
68 In a copy of the College Laws written out at about this time (probably this very year) for official use, Chapter IV., Law xix., reads as follows:
If any Combination or Agreement to do any unlawful Act or to forbear a Compliance wtḥ any Injunction from lawful Authority in the College, shall be enter’d into by Undergraduates, or if any Enormity, Disorder or Act of Disobedience shall be perpetrated by any Undergraduates, agreeable to, or in consequence of such Combination or Agreement in both or either of such cases, such & so many of the Offenders shall upon due Conviction, be punish’d wtḥ Degradation, Rustication or Expulsion according to the circumstances of their Offences, as shall be judg’d necessary for the Preservation of good Order in the Society.
69 The substance of this Law is found in the fourth paragraph of the “Articles” printed on p. 36, above.
70 The full text, too long for reproduction here, will be found in the Faculty Records, iii. 7–16.
71 See the account of this in the students’ “Defence,” p. 51, below.
72 See the reference to the same subject in the students’ statement, and the agreement accepted by the Corporation, p. 51 note, below.
73 Professor Wigglesworth’s house stood next to the President’s house, about opposite the head of Holyoke Street, a site now occupied in part by Boylston Hall (Paige, History of Cambridge, p. 691).
74 Mr. Albert Matthews points out that the use of this word is interesting as showing how closely in touch the students and Faculty were with the political events of the day. Though known as early as 1743, the word unconstitutional first came into vogue in this country in connection with the Stamp Act. See the Nation, 24 December, 1896, lxiii. 472.
75 Faculty Records, iii. 15.
76 College Book No. 7, pp. 163, 164. 4
77 This refers to an agreement accepted by the Corporation, which it was expected would diminish the discontent that naturally attends the attempted abolition of an ancient and convenient practice. In the Faculty Records (iii. 6) we find the following entry:
The Following was an Agreemṭ of ye Corporc̄on when they met here on Sept. 29. 1766, who tho’t it not proper to make a formal Vote upon the Affair, wherefore it is not enter’d in the Corporation book.
It is agreed that when at the Calling over the Bill on Fryday Mornings, Answer shall be made by the Students as their Excuse for Absence, Ex Opido, non benè valui, Detentus à Nuntio Paterno or Ab Amicis, It shall be left to the Presdts Discretion to punish as he may at that Time think proper; But then, That such several Punishmts. shall, before They are carried to the Butler, be deliver’d to the Tutrs., in Order, That such as are so punish’d, may give their Reasons for Absence, if any They have, to their Respective Tutrs., Which if, upon inquiry, they find to be sufficient, They shall certify the same to the Presdt. in order to obtain a Remission of sd. Punishmt.
It must be remembered that punishments at this time consisted almost exclusively of what President Quincy calls “pecuniary mulcts,” and that the account of the fines imposed was kept by the Butler.
78 Chap. IV., Law xxiii., of the College Laws reads as follows:
No Scholar (or his Parent or Guardian in his behalf) shall exhibit to any other Authority yn that of the College, a Complaint against any of the Governors or resident Members thereof; for any Injury cognizable by the Authority of the College, before he has sought for Redress to the President, Professors & Tutors; & in case of their denying him Relief, to the Corporation & Overseers; & if any Scholar (or his Parent or Guardian for him) shall without such Application made or contrary to the Determination of the Corporation & Overseers, carry said Complaint to any other Authority, such Scholar shall forthwith be expell’d the College.
79 Bernard, Smith, Briggs, and Dunbar were Seniors, and their signatures follow in the same order in which the men had been “placed” in their Class. Green (whose name is spelled Greene in the Quinquennial Catalogue) was a Junior, Peabody was a Sophomore, and Cabot a Freshman. George Cabot does not appear in the Quinquennial Catalogue. He was born at Salem, but there is uncertainty as to the date of his birth. The date given in the biographical dictionaries is 3 December, 1751; by Mr. Lodge, 16 December, 1751. The Faculty Records (iii. 41) state that he was born 3 December, 1752, and that he was thirteen years and seven months old at the time of his admission to College in July, 1766. This statement is clearly wrong, as he was baptized 19 January, 1752 (Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, viii. 206). His birth is not entered, as Mr. George F. Dow kindly informs me, in the Salem Town Records. He was “placed” seventeenth in a class of forty-two, 26 March, 1767, and left College 19 March, 1768. For the reasons which caused him to leave College, see H. C. Lodge, Life and Letters of George Cabot, pp. 8, 9. In July, 1779, Cabot, who later became United States Senator from Massachusetts, was a delegate from Beverly to the State Convention which met at Concord to consider questions of the currency. This seems to have been the occasion of his receiving the degree of A.M. in that year from Harvard College.
80 Jonathan Hastings (H. C. 1768), a son of Jonathan Hastings of the Class of 1730, was appointed Postmaster of Cambridge 8 July, 1775, as the successor of James Winthrop (H. C. 1769), whose amusing letter of resignation is in Paige’s History of Cambridge, p. 700 note. Mr. Hastings later removed to Boston, became Postmaster of that town, and died 8 March, 1831.
81 I am indebted to Mr. Henry H. Edes for the following information. Jonathan Hastings, Steward of Harvard College from 1750 till 1779, graduated in the Class of 1730 with Chief-Justice Oliver. He was the eldest son of Jonathan and Sarah (Phipps) Hastings; born in Cambridge 1 January, 1708–9; purchased, in 1742, and occupied as his residence till his death the estate subsequently known as the Holmes Place; married, 31 October, 1750, Elizabeth Cotton, daughter of the Rev. John Cotton (H. C. 1710) of Newton; “was an ardent patriot in the War of the Revolution;” and died 16 February, 1783. His son Walter Hastings (H. C. 1771) was a surgeon in the Revolutionary Army and may have accompanied Dr. Joseph Warren to Bunker Hill on the afternoon of 17 June, 1775, from his father’s house in Cambridge whence Warren is known to have gone to the battlefield. Dr. Walter Hastings’s gold cuff-buttons, which he wore during the engagement at Bunker Hill while caring for the wounded, are still preserved as a precious heirloom in the family of his descendants. It was in memory of his father Walter Hastings (1778–1821), of Townsend, Massachusetts, a graduate of 1799, and of his grandfather the above-mentioned Dr. Walter Hastings (1752–1782) of Chelmsford, a graduate of 1771, that the late Walter Hastings (1814–1879), a Boston merchant, left to Harvard the large bequest which was used in part to build Walter Hastings Hall (Paige, History of Cambridge, pp. 575–577; Wyman, Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, i. 480, ii. 749; Vital Records of Newton, pp. 263, 303; Jackson, History of Newton, pp. 127, 128, 130; Frothingham, Life and Times of Joseph Warren, pp. 510–513; Boston City Records of Deaths).
82 The Hon. Joseph Hodges Choate.
83 Mr. Carter’s address was printed in the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for September, 1900, ix. 67–70.
84 Mr. Lea generously declined to accept a fee for this search, saying that he was glad to contribute this interesting will to the common knowledge concerning a prominent figure in the history of King’s Chapel and of Boston.
85 Bristol Journal, 3 November, 1792, No. 952, p. 3/5. Mr. Matthews found notices of Dr. Caner’s death in the following British magazines and newspapers: Scots Magazine, November, 1792, liv. 571; Gentleman’s Magazine, November, 1792, lxii. 1058; European Magazine, November, 1792, xxii. 400; Lloyd’s Evening-Post, 5–7 November, 1792, p. 446/3; St. James’s Chronicle, 3–6 November, 1792, p. 3/2; London Chronicle, 6–8 November, 1792, p. 443/2; Public Advertiser, 7 November, 1792, p. 3/4; Star, 7 November, 1792, p. 4/3. In all these notices Dr. Caner’s name is spelled “Conor,” except in the Scots Magazine, where it is disguised as “Canec.” In this form the name appears in Musgrave’s Obituary. To the keenness of Mr. Henry E. Woods I am indebted for recognizing our Dr. Caner under this form.
86 An examination of the King’s Chapel Registers, which were recovered from Dr. Caner’s heirs in 1805, reveals the name of Patience Murray, who appears to have been the mother of an illegitimate child baptized in July, 1749, and buried in the following September. She also appears among the sponsors at the baptism of several children between 1757 and 1774.
87 Thavies Inn.
88 Robert Hallowell was of the Boston family of that name, a younger son of Benjamin and Rebecca (Briggs) Hallowell, born in July, 1739. His father was a Boston merchant, and the Navy Agent of the Port. The son, —
after holding the post of Collector of Portsmouth [New Hampshire], succeeded his brother Benjamin in the Collectorship of Boston, when Benjamin became a Commissioner of Customs. His remarkable urbanity and gentleness of manners protected him from personal animosity, even in the discharge of this very obnoxious office, which he held at the time when the tea was destroyed in the harbor, and when the Port was closed by act of Parliament.
Sabine (Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, i. 508–511) and Snow (History of Boston, pp. 260, 384) have confused these brothers. It was Benjamin Hallowell whose house in Hanover Street was attacked by the mob which sacked Governor Hutchinson’s house, 26 August, 1765. The site of this house was subsequently occupied by Dr. Lyman Beecher’s church. It was on the south side of Hanover Street, its easterly boundary line being about twenty feet west of what is now Friend Street, and to-day is traversed, diagonally, by Washington Street, which was extended through the estate in 1873. The lot had a frontage of about 80 feet, and a uniform depth of 94 feet.
Robert Hallowell married Hannah Gardiner, a daughter of Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, at King’s Chapel, 7 January, 1772; was an Addresser of Gage 6 October, 1775; went with his family to Halifax in March, 1776; was proscribed and banished in 1778; went to England and settled in Bristol; returned to Boston in 1792 and resided in the family mansion in Batterymarch Street, built after the great fire of 1760; removed to Gardiner, Maine, in 1816; died there 23 April, 1818, and was buried 25 April, under Christ Church. Mr. Hallowell’s return to New England just before Dr. Caner’s death accounts for his failure to qualify as one of the executors of his will (Family Bible; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 107, xxx. 364; Suffolk Deeds, xciv. 205, cxxxiv. 60; Suffolk Probate Files, nos. 16794, 17663; 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xviii. 266, Second Series, x. 164, 174, 175; Province Laws, v. 913, 915, 1005, 1054; Collections of the Maine Historical Society, vii. 403–428; Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 147, 159, 312, 313, 591).
89 Dr. Caner’s “freehold at Boston” was the estate in Tremont Street, between the old Boston Museum and King’s Chapel Burial-ground, long owned and occupied by the Massachusetts Historical Society. It was confiscated at the Revolution and never recovered by Dr. Caner or his heirs. See Suffolk Probate Files, no. 16426; Suffolk Deeds, clxxvii. 82; 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, x. 162, 170; Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, i. 292; Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. passim.
90 Mrs. Sarah Gore was a daughter of Dr. Caner (Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 347–350).
91 Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Dodwell 12.
92 The date “1775” is written in pencil in a modern hand. The letter was written Thursday, 4 April, 1776, for on that day Washington left Boston for Providence (W. S. Baker, Itinerary of General Washington, 1892, p. 36).
93 Erased in the original.
94 Erased in the original.
95 Erased in the original.
96 Erased in the original.
97 The letter to which this was a reply was dated New York, 24 June, 1776, and related to the sale of ordnance stores captured by Capt. John Manly in October, 1775. Mr. Slade exhibited the original letter. The letter (wrongly dated 25 June, 1776) is printed in Force’s American Archives, Fourth Series, vi. 1067. Cf. Ibid. pp. 532, 1713; and see the Journals of Congress (1823), i. 204, 378. For notices of Captain Manly, see the Publications of this Society, v. 274 note 1, viii. 99 note.
98 Abraham Lott was in mercantile business in New York, occasionally officiated as Clerk of the Colonial Assembly, was subsequently appointed Treasurer of the Province, and died in 1795. See Thompson, History of Long Island (Second edition, 1843), ii. 469–472; T. Jones, History of New York during the Revolutionary War, i. 101; A. D Mellick, Jr., Story of an Old Farm, p. 475; G. W. Greene, Life of Nathanael Greene, i. 376, 377; Probate Records in the office of the Secretary of State at Trenton, New Jersey, xxxvi. 167.
99 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, ix. 205.
100 A copy of this engraving is in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Athenaeum.
101 Colonel Henry Bromfield.
102 The Bromfield-Phillips mansion in Beacon Street, of which a cut is given in the Memorial History of Boston, ii. 521.
103 In a previous communication (v. 210) it was erroneously stated that Mrs. Bromfield was the daughter of Thomas Fayerweather.
104 For information in regard to the various persons mentioned in these remarks and letters, see the Publications of this Society, v. 193–211, vi. 77 and note, 78 note, 217, 221 and note, viii. 289, 290; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 27, 238.
105 Johann Caspar Spurzheim, born in 1775 or 1776 near Treves, came to Boston from New York in August, 1832, and delivered many lectures here previous to the illness which proved fatal. For notices of him, and for accounts of his funeral, see the Boston Daily Advertiser, 12, 19 November, 1832, pp. 2/3, 2/2; Boston Evening Transcript, 12, 19 November, 1832, pp. 2/1, 2/1; Boston Daily Atlas, 12, 16 November, 1832, pp. 2/4, 2/3. See also N. Capen’s Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim and George Combe (1881), pp. 34–43, 88–91; C. Follen’s Funeral Oration (1832); and p. 79 note, below. The arrival of Spurzheim in Boston was noticed in the Boston Daily Atlas, 23 August, 1832, p. 2/5, and in the Boston Evening Transcript, 23 August, 1832, p. 2/1. In the Boston Daily Atlas of 20 November, 1832, William Pendleton advertised that he would publish immediately “a first rate Lithographic Print of this distinguished character, from a half length Painting by Mr. Fisher, representing him in the act of lecturing” (p. 3/2). The painting was on exhibition at Mr. Fisher’s rooms, 21 School Street.
106 Mrs. Sarah Le Cain or Lekain’s boarding-house was then at No. 3 Pearl Street. She appears in the Boston Directory as early as 1823 as residing in Pearl Street and as late as 1837, when her boarding-house was at Nos. 4 and 5 Pearl Street. No. 3 was the third door from Milk Street on the east or harbor side. Our associate Mr. Thomas Minns states that “up to 1840 or later the street was numbered 1 to 12 on the east side from Milk to High Streets and 13 to 22 on the west side, returning.” Mrs. Le Kain died 5 October, 1843, at the age of 87 (Boston City Records; Mt. Auburn Cemetery Records and Monument).
107 Charles Beck.
108 Charles Follen.
109 Jonathan Barber, M.D., was Instructor in Elocution at Harvard College, 1830–1835; the first Vice-President of the Boston Phrenological Society, organized 31 December, 1832; and Professor of Oratory at McGill University, Montreal, 1858–1864. The University Librarian, Mr. Charles Henry Gould, writes me that —
he was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of London. He practised homoeopathy in Montreal, being indeed, I believe, the first to introduce this practice in Montreal. One of his daughters married Mr. Christopher Dunkin who was a very well known judge and prominent citizen of the Province of Quebec, living in Knowlton. He also had another daughter who lived in Montreal until comparatively recently, unmarried.
Dr. Barber was the author of A Grammar of Elocution, New Haven, 1830; A Practical Treatise on Gesture, Cambridge, 1831; An Address before the Boston Phrenological Society on the Evening of its Organization at the Masonic Temple, 31 December, 1832, Boston, 1833; and An Introduction to the Grammar of Elocution, Boston, 1834. He was born in England in 1784 and died near Montreal, 11 May, 1864 (Boston Athenaeum Catalogue; manuscript letter of James Atkins Noyes). See Capen’s Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim, pp. 120, 175, 177.
110 Thomas Wren Ward was Treasurer of the Boston Athenaeum, 1828–1837. He was also Treasurer of Harvard College, 1830–1842, and in 1843 received from it the honorary degree of A.M. He was a son of William and Martha (Proctor) Ward; born in Salem, 20 November, 1786; married Lydia Gray, 13 November, 1810; and died in Boston, 4 March, 1858 (Quincy, History of the Boston Athenaeum, p. 139; Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, v. 212, 215; Boston City Records).
111 Nathaniel Bowditch, LL.D., father of the writer of the letter.
112 Seth Bass, M.D., was the eldest son of Seth and Mary (Jones) Bass of Quiney, and was born in 1780. He graduated in medicine at Dartmouth College in 1815; married Ann Lovett Harmon at Beverly 12 February, 1826; was Librarian of the Boston Athenaeum 1825–1846, and with his family occupied rooms in the Athenaeum building then located in Pearl Street; removed to Stow, Massachusetts, but did not practise his profession as he was nearly blind, and died there 30 December, 1867, at the age of 87 years and 6 months, although the Town Records of Stow erroneously give the date as 31 December (Bates, Records of the Town of Braintree, 1886, p. 882; Faxon, History of the Faxon Family, 1880, pp. 190, 267; General Catalogue of Dartmouth College, and the Associated Schools, 1900, p. 327; Quincy, History of the Boston Athenaeum, pp. 93, 173; Middlesex Probate Files, no. 19611 (Petition); Boston Evening Transcript of 3 January, 1868, p. 3/4; State House Returns of Deaths (Stow), cciii. 187).
113 Edward Wigglesworth (H. C. 1822).
114 Suffolk Probate Files, no. 30044. In all the proceedings in the Probate Court the intestate is described as “Gaspard Spurzheim; physician.” The net amount of the estate was $2,796.85, and this was decreed by the Court to be distributed equally to his sister, “Madam Marie Therèse Spurzheim widow of Mr. Nicholas Hermesdorf of Schweick in the Canton of the same name and District of Treves in the Grand Dutchy of the lower Rhine,” and his two brothers, “Willibrod Spurzheim of Oedenburg in Hungary, watchmaker,” and “Mr. Charles Theodore Henry Spurzheim of Vienna, Master Saddler.”
115 The earlier lectures were delivered in the Hall of the Boston Athenaeum in Pearl Street, but as it proved to be too small to accommodate the audience the later lectures were heard in the old Masonic Temple, which stood at the northeasterly corner of Tremont Street and Temple Place and is now occupied as a dry goods store by R. H. Stearns and Company.
116 William Grigg, M.D., son of John and Maria (Pell) Grigg, was born in New York 30 May, 1805; graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the City of New York in 1826; married in Boston, 5 October, 1827, Eunice Maria Faxon, daughter of Nathaniel and Eunice (Bass) Faxon and niece of Dr. Seth Bass; became a licentiate of the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1828; practised his profession in Boston, 1828–1836, residing with his father-in-law at No. 30 Atkinson (now Congress) Street; was of the committees to arrange for the funeral of Spurzheim, and to superintend a post-mortem examination and to procure a cast of his head; had some connection, not now determined, with the Boston Athenseum in 1835 and 1836; had a daughter, Mary Pell Grigg, born 31 May, 1834, baptized at the Church in Federal Street 5 October, 1834, whose name was changed by act of the Legislature, 17 March, 1841, to Mary Josephine Faxon, and who married in Boston 8 November, 1858, Edward William Forbush (H. C. 1854); and died in 1836 (Faxon, History of the Faxon Family, 1880, pp. 190, 267; Catalogue of the Alumni, Officers and Fellows of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the City of New York, Medical Department of Columbia College, 1807–1881; Massachusetts Medical Society, Catalogue of its Officers, Fellows and Licentiates, 1781–1893, p. 201; Boston Directory, 1828–1836; Records of the Church in Federal Street, Boston; Boston City Records, Marriages in 1858 no. 1722, Deaths in 1871 no. 508; Nahum Capen’s Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim, p. 36).
117 Dr. Winslow Lewis (H. C. 1819). Dr. James Jackson had charge of the case and Dr. John Ware and Dr. Jonathan Greely Stevenson were called in consultation several days before Dr. Spurzheim’s death (Capen, Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim, p. 30).
118 Dr. Spurzheim’s tomb, of which a picture will be found in Sketches of Boston, Past and Present (1851), part ii. p. 107, was erected at the expense of the Hon. William Sturgis (1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vii. 463). Dr. Spurzheim’s body was the second to be interred at Mt. Auburn. Dr. J. Collins Warren (H. C. 1863) writes me that Spurzheim’s brain was preserved, with his skull, many years in the Mastodon Room, No. 92 Chestnut Street, Boston, but in time the brain preparation became spoiled and the brain no longer exists. The skull is now in the Warren Museum at the Harvard Medical School. The elder Dr. John Collins Warren (H. C. 1797) performed a post-mortem examination of Spurzheim’s body (Edward Warren, Life of John Collins Warren, ii, 11, 12, 25; 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vii. 463; Capen, Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim, pp. 2, 36, 43–45).
119 See the Publications of this Society, v. 116–132.
120 First Essays at Banking in New England, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society for October, 1884, p. 268.
121 Tracts relating to the Currency of the Massachusetts Bay, p. 9.
122 The Fund was described by me in a paper read before the American Antiquarian Society, 29 April, 1903, and published in the Proceedings of that Society, pp. 368–384.
123 “Severals relating to the Fund” is the first tract in Tracts relating to the Currency of the Massachusetts Bay.
124 A phrase frequently used by the pamphleteers of the day, Lumber being intended for Lombard, the name of a well-known street in London, and the whole expression meaning simply a pledge of merchandise. The “deposit in Land” was, of course, a mortgage.
125 Tracts relating to the Currency of the Massachusetts Bay, p. 4.
126 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xiii. 272.
127 Substantially the same statement is made in the prospectus of the Bank, but the month is there given as July. (2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for December, 1903, xviii. 63–81.)
128 Massachusetts Archives, cxxvi. 103.
129 Our knowledge of Blackwell’s Bank rests upon documents in the Archives, described in Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay (ii. 75 et sq.), and upon a manuscript copy of a Prospectus of the Bank found in the Winthrop Papers, described in 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for December, 1903, xviii. 63–81.
130 Suffolk Deeds, xii.
131 The following is the language of the Act, taken from the Massachusetts Court Records, vi. 170, 171:
The forme of the Bill agreed upon
This Indented Bill of Twenty Shillings due from the Massachusetts Colony to the Possessor shall be in value equal to Money and shall be Accordingly Accepted by the Treasurer, and Receivers subordinate to him in all Publick Payments, and for any stock at any time in the Treasury Boston in New England Decemr 10th 1690.
By Order of the General Court.
|
|
132 The motto of the bill was to be Crescit Eundo and the form was as follows:
THIS INDENTED BILL OF CREDIT, Obliges Us and every of Us, and all, and every of our Partners of the Bank of Credit of Boston in New-England, to accept the same in Lieu of Twenty Shillings, in all Payments according to our Articles of Agreement; and that it shall be so accepted by our Receiver or Treasurer, for the Redemption of any Pawn or Mortgage in the said Bank.
Boston, November First, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Fourteen.
(Tracts Relating to the Currency of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, p. 79.)
133 The career of this Company is described in Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii. 102 et sq.; and in the Publications of this Society, v. 96–111. The following is a copy of one of the notes given in the former work (ii. 106):
Three Shillings. This Indebted bill of Three Shillings Due to the possessor thereof from the NEW LONDON Society United for Trade and Commerce in Connecticut in NEW-ENGLAND, shall be in Value Equal to Silver at Sixteen Shillings pr. Ounce, or to Bills of Publick Credit of this or the Neighboring Governments, and shall be Accordingly accepted by the Treasurer of said Society, and in all Payments in said Societv from time to time.
New-London, Aug. 1732. |
by Order of Said Society |
Comt. |
134 The Merchants’ Notes of 1733, in 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for April, 1903, xvii. 184–208.
135 The form of the note which was ultimately emitted was as follows:
Half a Crown |
No ( |
Half a Crown |
2=6 |
2=6 |
We JOYNTLY AND Severally Promise to pay to Richard Clarke of Boston Mercht. or Order, two Pennyweight, fifteen grains and One quarter, Troy weight, of Coin’d Silver, Sterling Alloy, or the Value in Coin’d Standard Gold, vizt three tenths parts thereof by Decemr 30th 1736, three tenths more by Decemr 30th 1739, and the other four tenths, by Decemr 30th 1743; and on each of the two first payments to renew our Bills accordingly; for Value Received. Boston New England, Novr 30th 1733.
Half a Crown |
Half a Crown |
2=6 |
2=6 |
Seal |
[Signed] H. Hall |
[A hand holding a pair of scales on an escutcheon having the motto Justitiæ ergo at the top] |
Edw Bromfield Jun. |
Edwn Hutchinson |
|
James Bowdoin |
|
Wn Foye |
(See facsimile of half-crown note, Plate 13, facing p. 192, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
136 The form of the proposed bill was as follows:
This Indented Bill of due from the Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England to the Possessor thereof shall be in value equal to silver coin after the rate of six shillings and eight pence the Ounce, or gold coin after the rate of four pounds sixteen shillings the ounce and shall be accordingly accepted in all payments: And the Trustees shall be obliged at any time after the day of to deliver to the possessor hereof one-half of the sum herein expressed in silver or gold coin at the rates before mentioned and the other half in new bills of the same form and tenor with this bill and in like manner to be exchang’d at the end of five years more.
By order of the Great and General Court or Assembly
Boston, the day of
A |
Committee |
|
B |
||
C |
(Massachusetts Archives, ci. 522.)
137 The following is a copy of one of the notes:
PROVINCE |
||
N. HAMPSHIRE |
||
7s |
No. |
7s |
We Promise jointly and severally to Pay to Hunking Wentworth Mercht of Portsmo or Order the Sum of Seven Shillings on the 25th day Decr wch will be in the year of our Lord one thousand Seven hundd and forty Six in Silver or Gold at ye then Currt price or in Passable Bills of Credt on ye Provs of N. Hampr Massachu Rhode Island or Connect. Cols, with Interest of one Ꝑ Cent Ꝑ Ann from the date hereof being for value Recd as Witness our hands 25th of Decr
A. D.1734 |
||
7s |
7s |
|
Seal |
[Signed] |
Geo. Jaffket |
[A Pine tree on an escutcheon with the motto Beneficio Commercii] |
Hen Sherburne |
|
Josh. Peirce |
(See Plate 14, facing p. 208, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
138 Massachusetts Province Laws, ii. 743.
139 This experiment is described in Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii. 125 et sq.
140 The following is a copy of the bill, which was known as the new tenor bill:
Eighty Pence |
Seal of the |
|
No ( ) |
[on an escutcheon] |
Province |
This Bill of Six Shillings and Eight Pence Due from the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England to the Possessor thereof shall be in Value equal to One Ounce of Coin’d Silver, Troy weight of Sterling Alloy, or Gold Coin at the Rate of Four Pounds eighteen Shillings p” Ounce, and shall be accordingly accepted by the Treasurer or Receivers subordinate to him in all Payments (ye Duties of Impost and Tunnags of Shipping and Incomes of the Light House only excepted) and for any Stock at any Time in the Treasury BOSTON 1736
Febr 4th By Order of the Great and General Court or Assembly
John Jeffries |
J. Wainwright Committee |
Wm Dudley |
(See Plate 8, facing p. 112, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
141 The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay, in Yale Review for November, 1898, p. 262.
142 Publications, iii. 2–40.
143 The following is a copy of the bill as originally printed in the broadside:
TWENTY SHILLINGS.
WE Promise for Our Selves and Partners to receive this Twenty Shilling Bill of Credit, as so much Lawful Money, in all Payments, Trade and Business and after ye Expiration of Twenty Years to pay ye Possessor ye Value thereof in Manufactures of this Province Boston &c
144 The following is a copy of one of the bills:
6d THE MANUFACTORY BILL 6d
WE, Joyntly & Severally, Promise (for ourselves & Partners) to take this Bill, as Sixpence lawfull Money, at Six Shillings & Eight Pence pr Ounce in all Payments Trade & Business, for Stock in our Treasury at any time, & after Twenty Years, to pay y same (at that estimate) on Demand to Mr Joseph Marion or order in the Produce or Manufactures enumerated in our Scheme for Value Received
BOSTON Septr 9th |
||||
No |
1740 |
585 |
||
6d |
6d |
|||
NEC PLURIBUS IMPAR [On a ribbon stretched across] |
||||
[Signed] |
||||
WM Stoddabd |
||||
Saml Watts |
||||
Saml Tkustt |
(See Plate 10, facing p. 144, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
145 The following is a copy of one of the bills:
|
|
A Crown |
A Crown |
We jointly and Severally promise to pay Isaac Winslow Mercht. or Order in Boston Five penny Wgt of Coind Silver Sterling Alloy Troy w’ by the 31 December 1755 value recd |
|
5 Boston N. E. |
Augt 1t 5 |
1740 |
|
Seal |
[Signed] |
[A sloop under sail on an escutcheon, the motto Fiat Justitia below] |
James Bowdoin And. Oliver Jas. Boltineau |
(See Plate 16, facing p. 210, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
146 The following is a copy of one of the bills:
THE BANK BILL
No. Two Shillings (520)
WE JOINTLY and SEVERALLY for our SELVES and PARTNERS Promise to take this Bill as Two Shillings, lawful money at Six Shillings and Eight Pence pr ounce, in all Payments, Trade and Business, and for Stock in our Treasury at any Time And to pay the same at that estimate on Demand to MR. JAMES EVELETH, or order, in the Produce or Manufactures enumerated in our Scheme; as recorded in the County of Essex’s Records, for Value recd. Dated at Ipswich, the First day of May, 1741.
2s |
2s |
|
Seal |
[Signed] |
|
[A wharf with a vessel and a row boat, the motto Justitia above Rediviva below, inverted] |
Jonathan Hale Robert Choatb John Brown Eben Stevens |
(See Plate 17, facing p. 256, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
147 The engraved bills of this emission were very elaborate. The form given below is copied from the Act of Emission:
No ( ) TWENTY SHILLINGS.
THIS bill of twenty shillings, due to the possessor thereof, from the province of Massachusetts Bay, shall be equal to three ounces of coined silver, Troy Weight, of sterling alloy, or gold coin at the rate of four pounds, eighteen shillings perounce; and shall be so accepted in all payments and in the Treasury.
Boston |
1741 |
By order of the |
|
general Court or assembly. |
|
Committee |
(Massachusetts Province Laws, ii. 1077.)
148 Massachusetts Province Laws, ii. 1081.
149 The form of the bill given in the Act was as follows:
No( ) Twenty Shillings.
This bill of Twenty Shillings, due to the possessor thereof from the province of the Massachusetts Bay, shall be equal to two ounces thirteen pennyweight and eight grains of coin’d silver, troy weight, of sterling alloy, or gold coin at the rate of five pounds ten shillings and three pence per ounce, and shall be so accepted in all payments in the treasury, agreeable to act of Assembly 1744
By order of the General Court or Assembly
Committee
(Massachusetts Province Laws, iii. 148.)
150 This was in 1744. The form submitted was as follows:
The province of the Massachusetts Bay Promise to pay the possessor hereof being an inhabitant of this province ________ lawful money by the ______ day of ___________ Anno Domini 17—
Dated 17—
Witness A. B. C. D. E. F. Committee for signing the bills.
(Massachusetts Archives, cii. 280, 281.)
151 See pp. 1–6, above.
152 See Monthly Bulletin of the Boston Public Library for October, 1902.
153 Publications, v. 167–186.
154 I am indebted to our associate the Hon. James Phinney Baxter for kindly examining his own manuscript copy of the York Court Records in the vain endeavor to get trace of this Proclamation.
155 Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 333.
156 Ibid. v. 333.
157 Ibid. v. 346.
158 Ibid. v. 346.
159 These Instructions may be read in Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 346–319.
160 History of New England, iii. 352.
161 Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 385–392.
162 Palfrey, History of New England, iii. 369 and note; Massachusetts Archives, cxxvii. 218; below, p. 112.
163 Collection of Original Papers (1769), p. 537 n.
164 See “An Answer to severall heads of enquiry concerning the present state of New England,” sent by Randolph, in the autumn of 1676, to the Lords of Trade, in Hutchinson’s Collection of Original Papers, pp. 477–513. See also Edward Randolph (Prince Society’s Publications), ii. 225–259.
165 Hutchinson’s Collection of Original Papers, pp. 531–533.
166 The allusion is to Capt. John Foye, who “commanded Vessels in the trade between Boston and the Thames” (Historical Catalogue of the Old South Church, 1883, p. 338). Sewall records his burial, 26 November, 1715 (Diary, iii. 68), and that of his widow Dorothy, 16 January, 1723–24, at the age of 74 (Ibid. iii. 328). Their son William Foye, born 6 March, 1680 (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 151), was Treasurer of the Province from 1736 till his death, 21 March, 1759, at the age of 78 (Heraldic Journal, iii. 151; Whitmore’s Massachusetts Civil List, p. 45). See Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, i. 372. 373.
167 On the eve of Randolph’s return to England, Danforth took leave of him in a characteristic and amusing letter, dated 2 April, 1683, still preserved in the Massachusetts Archives (lvii. 55). The good advice which it contains is fortified by citations from Scripture, — Genesis xxi. 24, 29; Exodus ix. 16, and Acts ix. 1–9. The letter is printed by Palfrey in his History of New England, iii. 375 n.
168 Hutchinson’s Collection of Original Papers, pp. 534–536.
169 Palfrey, History of New England, iii. 358.
170 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 494–503.
171 Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 377.
172 Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England, pp. 224, 225, 477.
173 History of the State of Maine, i. 571, 572.
174 See Massachusetts Province Laws, v. 1253–1255.
175 Massachusetts Province Laws, v. 669.
176 Resolves of the General Assembly (1776), p. 19.
177 Province Laws, v. 558.
178 Ibid. v. 669.
179 Resolves of the General Assembly (1776), p. 23.
180 Ibid. p. 32.
181 Resolves of the General Assembly (1776), p. 34.
182 Province Laws, v. 670.
183 Ibid. v. 583.
184 Ibid. v. 647.
185 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 253.
186 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 200.
187 Province Laws, v. 733.
188 Resolves of the General Assembly (1777), p. 21.
189 Province Laws, v. 810.
190 Ibid. y. 813.
191 Province Laws, v. 734.
192 Province Laws, v. 733, 734.
193 Ibid. v. 730, 738, 777, 922.
194 Ibid. v. 731.
195 Ibid. v. 1012.
196 Province Laws, v. 1017.
197 Ibid. v. 1019.
198 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxvi. 9.
199 Ibid. xxvi. 13.
200 Province Laws, v. 1016.
201 Province Laws, v. 924.
202 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxvi. 46.
203 Province Laws, v. 1073.
204 Province Laws, v. 1255.
205 Ibid. v. 1114.
206 See the issue of 15 July, 1779.
207 See the Boston Gazette of 2 August, 1779. 9
208 For an account of the carting out of town of several persons, under the direction of Joyce Junior, see the Publications of this Society, viii. 94–101.
209 Shattuck, History of Concord, p. 123.
210 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxvi. 98, 99.
211 Ibid. xxvi. 100, 101.
212 Province Laws, v. 1250.
213 Ibid. v. 1258.
214 Province Laws, v. 1261.
215 Ibid. v. 1264.
216 Province Laws, v. 1339.
217 The student will recognize from the references that the narrative portion of this paper rests upon the collation of authorities in Volume v. of the Massachusetts Province Laws. Some acknowledgment is due to our associate Mr. Goodell, the editor of that volume, for the great value to students of the notes relating to this period of our history which he has collated.
218 Congressional Globe, 27 January, 1865, p. 467.
219 Mr. Edes is indebted to our associate Mr. William Watson Goodwin and to Mr. George Francis Dow for data which enabled him fully to identify the owner of this silhouette. See Salem Town and City Records; Pickering Genealogy (1897), i. 84, 163–166, ii. 460; Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, iii. 94, 95, iv. 78, 79, vi. 252–254.
220 Salem Gazette, 12 March, 1813, p. 2/4.
221 Christopher Gore was the son of Capt. John Gore, who was an Addresser of Hutchinson 28 May, 1774, and of Gage 8 June, 1774, and 6 October, 1775. See Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, i. 483, 484; Publications of this Society, iii. 387, 395.
222 This was possibly John Robinson, Commissioner of the Customs, who on 5 September, 1769, committed an assault on James Otis. See the Boston Gazette, 11 September, 1769, No. 753, p. 2/3.
223 Though not recognized in the dictionaries, “Sail” appears to be a generic name for a negress, as Sambo is for a negro. In the Harvard Magazine for March, 1855, we read:
Mr. Smith lights his cigar, and swears at slaveholders; Mrs. Smith takes a cup of very sweet coffee, and drops several tears for the oppressed Ethiopian; Miss Smith makes cotton pincushions for the antislavery fair; and Master Smith thinks he should like to marry “Sally dear” (i. 114).
A poetical satire on Jefferson, printed in the Columbian Centinel of 26 February, 1803 (p. 4/1), contained this line:
To charm the lovely Sally’s eye.
224 Aurora (Philadelphia), 7 October, 1813, p. 2/5.
225 To these have been added the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the New York Historical Society. The Check-List is printed in volume ix. of our Publications.
226 See Records of the Court of Assistants, Index, under “Will.”
227 As far as time has been available for investigation, the development of the County Courts and of their jurisdiction over matters of probate appears to have been as follows, — all references being to the Massachusetts Colony Records.
1635–36, March 3. A law was passed establishing four courts to be kept every quarter, the first at Ipswich, to which Newbury should belong; the second at Salem, to which Saugus should belong; the third at Newtowne, to which Charlestown, Concord, Medford, and Watertown should belong; and the fourth at Boston, to which Roxbury, Dorchester, Weymouth, and Hingham should belong. Each court was composed of at least one magistrate with such associates as were chosen by the General Court from persons nominated by the several towns, so that there should be five members in all. These courts had civil jurisdiction up to ten pounds, and criminal jurisdiction not exceeding life, member, or banishment (i. 169). On 25 May, 1636, it was provided that three members of any of these courts, one at least being a magistrate, should constitute a quorum (i. 175).
1639, September 9. It was enacted that records be kept of all wills, administrations, and inventories; also of marriages, births, and deaths. At the same Court “Mr Steven Winthrope was chosen to record things” (i. 276).
1611, June 2. The Courts at Ipswich and Salem were given the same power both in civil and criminal cases as was exercised by the Court of Assistants at Boston, except as to trials for life, limb, or banishment (i. 325). Thenceforth the Courts at Ipswich and Salem exercised probate jurisdiction within their respective territories.
1643, May 10. The whole plantation within the jurisdiction was divided into four shires, to wit:
Essex: Salem, Lynn, Enon [Wenham], Ipswich, Rowley, Newbury, Gloucester, Coehichawick [Andover]. Middlesex: Charlestown, Cambridge, Watertown, Sudbury, Concord,
Woburn, Medford, Lynn Village, Reading. Suffolk: Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Dedham, Braintree, Weymouth,
Hingham, Nantasket. Norfolk: Salisbury, Hampton, Haverhill, Exeter, Dover, Strawberry Bank (ii. 38).
After this act, at first seldom but later more often, the courts created by the act of 3 March, 1635–36, are referred to in the statutes as the County Courts. In this way they acquired that name, as there does not appear to have been any statute specifically bestowing it upon them.
1647, November 11. A law providing for the preservation of records, wills, births, etc., ordered that by direction of the Auditor General “a strong presse [be] made of very firme oake planks . . . about 6 foote high, 5 foote long, [and] 3 foote broad . . . wth 3 strong locks.” The Governor was to have one key, the Secretary one, and the Recorder one. It was further ordered that wherever any court of record was kept, some like provision be made by direction of the judge or president or elder judge of said court, with two locks, one key to remain in the hands of the elder judge of said court, the other in the hands of the secretary or recorder there (ii. 208). I am informed by Mr. Walter K. Watkins that at the time of this statute a similar practice in regard to the keeping by the incumbent and two churchwardens of the keys of the presses in which parish records were kept had for about a century prevailed in England. This statute is cited as being of incidental interest.
1647–48, March. The magistrates were authorized to choose gentlemen of worth as their associates for keeping a court in the County of Norfolk (ii. 226).
1649, May 2. A law providing that the Court of Assistants should take cognizance of no case triable in any County Court, unless by way of appeal; and that no debt or action proper to the cognizance of any one magistrate, or of any three commissioners for trial of cases under forty shillings, should be entertained by any County Court or Court of Assistants but by appeal from such magistrate or commissioner as aforesaid (ii. 279).
1649, May 2. A law that where any husband died intestate the County Court was empowered to assign to the widow such part of his personal estate as it should conceive just and equal; and to assign to the children or other heirs their several portions (ii. 281).
1649, October 17. A law providing that if any executor shall not at the next Court of the County which shall be about thirty days after the decease of the party make probate of his will, or shall not cause the same to be recorded by the recorder of the county where deceased dwelt or shall not within the same time take administration, if none had been already granted, of such goods as he had meddled with of anyone deceased, etc., every such person shall be bound to pay all such debts as the deceased party owed; with forfeit also to the Commonwealth proportioned to the delay in proving the will or taking of administration. There is further provision that the Court of the County shall take such action as it deems meet in case executorship is renounced or administration is not applied for (ii. 287).
This last statute evidently invested the County Courts with all such power to prove wills and grant administrations as they may not already have possessed. It would appear that thereafter the Court of Assistants had no original but only appellate jurisdiction of these matters. See the statute of 2 May, 1619, cited above.
228 Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, i. (Plymouth Colony Records, ix.) 137.
229 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 164, under date of 14 May, 1649.
230 Colonial Records of Connecticut, i. 179, under date of 14 March, 1648–49.
231 Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, i. (Plymouth Colony Records, ix.) 24, under date of September, 1644.
232 Colonial Records of Connecticut, i. 113, under date of 25 October, 1644.
233 The following from Blackstone’s Commentaries (delivered in 1753–1766), tells how the probate of wills and administrations of estates came to be placed under the jurisdiction of the clergy:
In case a person made no disposition of such of his goods as were testable, whether that were only part or the whole of them, he was, and is, said to die intestate; and in such cases it is said, that by the old law the King was entitled to seize upon his goods, as the parens patriae, and general trustee of the kingdom. This prerogative the king continued to exercise for some time by his own ministers of justice, and probably in the county court where matters of all kinds were determined; and it was granted as a franchise to many lords of manors, and others, who have to this day a prescriptive right to grant administration to their intestate tenants and suitors, in their own courts baron, and other courts, or to have their wills there proved, in case they made any disposition. Afterwards, the crown, in favour of the church, invested the prelates with this branch of the prerogative; which was done, saith Perkins, because it was intended by the law, that spiritual men are of better conscience than laymen, and that they had more knowledge what things would conduce to the benefit of the soul of the deceased. The goods, therefore, of intestates were given to the ordinary by the crown; and he might seize them, and keep them without wasting, and also might give, aliene, or sell them at his will, and dispose of the money in pios usus; and, if he did otherwise, he broke the confidence which the law reposed in him. So that, properly, the whole interest and power which were granted to the ordinary, were only those of being the king’s almoner within his diocese; in trust to distribute the intestate’s goods in charity to the poor, or in such superstitions uses as the mistaken zeal of the times had denominated pious. And, as he had thus the disposition of intestates’ effects, the probate of wills of course followed: for it was thought just and natural, that the will of the deceased should be proved to the satisfaction of the prelate, whose right of distributing his chattels for the good of his soul was effectually superseded thereby.
The goods of the intestate being thus vested in the ordinary upon the most solemn and conscientious trust, the reverend prelates were, therefore, not accountable to any, but to God and themselves, for their conduct. . . . And to what length of iniquity this abuse was carried, most evidently appears from a gloss of Pope Innocent IV, written about the year 1250, wherein he lays it down for established canon law, that “in Britannia tertia pars bonorum descendentium ah intestato in opus ecclesiae et pauperum dispensanda est.” Thus, the popish clergy took to themselves (under the name of the church and poor) the whole residue of the deceased’s estate; after the partes rationabiles, or two-thirds, of the wife and children were deducted; without paying even his lawful debts, or other charges thereon. For which reason it was enacted by the statute of Westm. 2, that the ordinary shall be bound to pay the debts of the intestate so far as his goods will extend, in the same manner that executors were bound in case the deceased had left a will: a use more truly pious, than any requiem, or mass for his soul. This was the first check given to that exorbitant power, which the law had intrusted with ordinaries. But, though they were now made liable to the creditors of the intestate for their just and lawful demands; yet the residuum, after the payment of debts, remained still in their hands, to be applied to whatever purposes the conscience of the ordinary should approve. The flagrant abuses of which power occasioned the legislature again to interpose, in order to prevent the ordinaries from keeping any longer the administration in their own hands, or those of their immediate dependents; and therefore the statute 31 Edw. Ill, c. 11 provides, that, in case of intestacy, the ordinary shall depute the nearest and most lawful friends of the deceased to administer his goods; which administrators are put upon the same footing, with regard to suits and to accounting, as executors appointed by will. This is the original of administrators, as they at present stand, who are only the officers of the ordinary, appointed by him in pursuance of this statute, which singles out the next and most lawful friend of the intestate; who is interpreted to be the next of blood that is under no legal disabilities. The statute of 21 Hen. VIII, c. 5, enlarges a little more the power of the ecclesiastical judge; and permits him to grant administration either to the widow, or the next of kin, or to both of them, at his own discretion; and where two or more persons are in the same degree of kindred, gives the ordinary his election to accept whichever he pleases. (Commentaries, Book ii., Chapter xxxii., Of Title by Testament and Administration.)
234 Washburn, Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts, p. 95.
235 History of New England, iii. 522.
236 See Mr. A. C. Goodell’s paper on the Seals of the Colonial and Provincial Courts of Justice in Massachusetts, in 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xx. 157–170.
237 This message may be found in Quincy’s Massachusetts Reports, Appendix iii. p. 573.
238 This volume, lettered Probate Records, 1761–1784, is in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth.
239 Wales v. Willard, 2 Massachusetts Reports, 119–123.
240 See Publications of this Society, vii. 285 and note; Memorial History of Boston, i. 519 note 2; Winthrop, History of New England (1853). ii. 382.
241 T. Lechford, Plain Dealing, p. 39; Memorial History of Boston, i. 518, 519.
242 Palfrey, History of New England, ii. 39.
243 C. W. Upham, Records of Massachusetts under its First Charter, in Early History of Massachusetts (1869), p. 250, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society; Palfrey, History of New England, i. 384.
244 The Massachusetts Province Charter granted by William and Mary provided that there should be a liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians (“Except Papists”) inhabiting or which should inhabit or be resident within the province. Was it ever held that the King and Queen established a theocracy by this Charter?
245 This Commission may be found in Hubbard’s History of New England (1815), p. 264; and also, in Latin, in E. Hazard’s Historical Collections (1792), i. 344. It is directed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and ten others, and gives to them, or any five or more of them, power of protection and government over English Colonies then planted, or thereafter to be planted; also power to make laws and constitutions concerning either the state public of the Colonies, “or utility of private persons, and their lands, goods, debts, and succession,” for the relief and support of the clergy, etc., and for consigning maintenance unto them by tithes, oblations, and other profits according to their good discretion, with the advice of two or three of the bishops they may advise with touching matters ecclesiastical; also power to remove all governors of Colonies for cause, and to appoint others; to ordain judges and officers for courts ecclesiastical, and to establish courts of justice, both ecclesiastical and civil. Authority was also given to take measures in certain contingencies looking to the revocation of any of the Letters Patent granted by the King or his predecessor. The laws, etc., however, were not to be put in execution until Royal assent had been obtained.
246 Washburn, Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts, pp. 192, 193; Mason A. Green, History of Springfield, pp. 228–258; Massachusetts House Journals, 1735, pp. 101–172.
247 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. i. 328.
248 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. i. 417.
249 In regard to the subject of education, it is evident that the colonists provided for it not only because they wanted their children to read the Bible, not only for its advantages on general principles, but in addition because the republic they were establishing could not exist a day unless its officers and servants and those of its towns, had education sufficient for their duties. As pertinent to the subject of this paper, consider how absolutely essential it was that all persons administering matters of probate, or having duties regarding the same, should have at least such education as was given in the schools of the Colony.
250 The letter is printed in John Adams’s Works, x. 35, 36.
251 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ii. (Third edition), part i. 22; part ii. 26, 27, 107.
252 Ibid.; Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. i. 338; Suffolk Probate Files, nos. 420,460; New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1864, xviii. 154, 156. Mrs. Ward’s Petition to the General Court contains interesting domestic particulars.
253 Bodge, Soldiers in King Philip’s War (1896), pp. 154, 156.
254 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 95.
255 Genealogical Memoir of the Newcomb Family (1874), pp. 13, 14.
256 Suffolk Probate Files, no. 1692.
257 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 178.
258 Ibid, xxviii. 26.
259 Boston Town Records. See Suffolk Probate Files, no. 3685.
260 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 94. Their intentions of marriage were entered 17 August, 1715.
261 Boston Town Records.
262 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 89.
263 Ibid, xxviii. 210.
264 Concerning her ancestry, see J. D. Butler, Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, or Genealogical Notes concerning Mary Butler and her Descendants (1888), pp. 34, 35; Daniels, History of the Town of Oxford, Massachusetts (1892), p. 417. I am indebted to both these volumes, which also contain many facts of interest beyond the scope of this memoir. See also New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1847, i. 167–170.
265 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 235.
266 Ibid, xxviii. 236.
267 Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, p. 33.
268 Ibid. p. 33; and 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xviii. 266, where his name is misprinted “Butter.” See Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, ii. 490.
269 Cf. Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, pp. 33, 34; Daniels, History of Oxford, p. 417. He may have been identical with the James Butler who is said to have died in Boston in 1776 aged 63 (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, i. 169).
270 Catalogue of the Boston Public Latin School (1886), p. 69 and note.
271 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxx. 44.
272 Mary Sigourney, of French Huguenot descent, daughter of Anthony and Mary (Waters) Sigourney, was born in Boston 23 March, 1741–42 (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 244), and died in Oxford, Massachusetts, 14 April, 1823 (Vital Records of Oxford, 1905, p. 272). She is described as a woman of “remarkable ability and force of character” (History of Oxford, p. 417). A brief sketch of her by the Rev. Abiel Holmes is in 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ii. 76–79. See Genealogy of the Sigourney Family (1857), pp. 10, 26.
273 Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, pp. 37, 38.
274 Ibid. pp. 39, 40. Butler and his wife were earnest supporters of the Patriot cause. His father, as we have already seen, was a Tory.
275 Vital Records of Oxford, p. 272; Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, p. 40.
276 Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, p. 36.
277 Ibid. p. 52.
278 Oxford Vital Records, p. 140. Their intentions of marriage were entered 21 September, 1800.
279 Ibid. p. 272.
280 Ibid. p. 22.
281 J. E. Morris, The Felt Genealogy (1893), p. 153. She was the daughter of John Cleaveland and Nancy (Felt) Proctor, and was married to Mr. Butler in Boston, 5 September, 1843 (Boston City Records of Marriages).
282 Boston City Records of Births; Vital Records of Oxford, p. 87; Daniels, History of Oxford, pp. 419, 420, 635, 636.
283 A view of this house is in Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, facing p. 68.
284 Mr. George E. Littlefield states that the first edition was published in 1740 (Early Schools and School-Books of New England, p. 120).
285 This Benjamin Franklin came to Boston about 1716 and resided with his brother Josiah until the marriage of his own son Samuel, with whom he lived until his death on 17 March, 1727. He is mentioned by Dr. Franklin in his Autobiography, who says that his uncle “left behind him two quarto volumes of manuscripts, of his own poetry, consisting of fugitive pieces addressed to his friends.” Dr. Franklin’s sister Mrs. Jane Mecom, in a letter written 8 November, 1765, declared that “with all my own art, and good uncle Benjamin’s memorandums, I can’t make them good colors.” See New England Weekly Journal, 27 March, 1727, p. 2/2; Sparks’s edition of Franklin’s Works, i. 5, 6, 540–542, 545, 546, vii. 533; J. Parton, Life and Times of Franklin, i. 17, 23–26, 32–38, 41–43, 402, 522, 523; S. G. Drake, History and Antiquities of Boston, pp. 573, 574; Letters to Benjamin Franklin, from his Family and Friends (1859), p. 31.
286 The original pagination is indicated within square brackets. At the top of each page occurs the word “Memorand.” The origitial is owned by Dr. Edward A. Whiston of Newtonville, Massachusetts, who has kindly allowed a copy to be made.
287 Sir George Byng (1663–1733), Viscount Torrington.
288 Port Mahon, Minorca, which at that time belonged to England.
289 The Boston News-Letter.
290 James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766), the Old Pretender.
291 La Coruña, Spain.
292 James Butler, second Duke of Ormonde, the leader of the Jacobites.
293 The Boston News-Letter.
294 This is an autograph signature, doubtless that of Samuel Franklin (17211775), grandson of the writer. See p. 205 note 2, below.
295 Bayonne, France.
296 Salee or Sallee, Morocco, formerly a noted pirate headquarters.
297 Peter the Great.
298 George Seton, fifth Earl of Winton, was taken prisoner at the battle of Preston in 1715, found guilty of high treason, condemned to death, but escaped out of the Tower of London, and died at Rome in 1749.
299 James Maule, fourth Earl of Panmure, was captured in 1715, and attainted, but made his escape and died at Paris in 1723.
300 The early numbers of the Boston Gazette were printed by the writer’s nephew James Franklin, an older brother of Dr. Franklin.
301 The Rev. Benjamin Colman.
302 The Rev. Thomas Prince. The letters following Prince’s name are perhaps an abbreviation for “Teacher.”
303 Sir Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham, captured Vigo in 1719.
304 For an account of these pirates, and for extracts from the Boston News Letter, see Sewall’s Diary, iii. 335 and note.
305 Robert Scarlett (1499–1594) was long the sexton of Peterborough Cathedral. The two queens buried in the cathedral were Catharine of Aragon in 1535 and Mary Queen of Scots in 1586. The inscription is not over the gate of King’s College, Cambridge, but on a portrait of Scarlett which hangs on the north side of the great west door of Peterborough Cathedral. See Dictionary of National Biography, 1. 405; Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northamptonshire and Rutland (1878), p. 71.
306 This will of course at once be recognized as the inscription on the stone above Shakspere’s grave in the chancel of Stratford Church.
307 These lines, not quite accurately quoted, are from Crashaw’s famous Epitaph upon Mr. Ashton, a conformable Citizen.
308 Born in 1654, Hannah Franklin married John Morris. Elsewhere she is stated to have died in 1716 (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xi. 17; Sparks’s edition of Franklin’s Works, i. 546).
309 At a town meeting held 22 September, 1701, it was —
Voted that the Select men of this Town are impowered to Assign and affix Names unto the Severall streets & Lanes within this Town, so as they shall judg meet and convenient (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, viii. 17).
On 3 May, 1708, it was —
Ordered that the Streets, Lanes, and Alleys of this Town as they are now named & bounded, be accordingly recorded in the Town Book (Ibid. xi. 72; cf. viii. 49–54).
In 1708 a broadside was issued bearing the following heading and imprint:
The Names of the STREETS, Lanes & Alleys,
Within the Town of Boston, in New-England.
BOSTON: Printed by Bartholomew Green, in Newbury Street: Sold by the Booksellers, 1708. Price 3d.
In this broadside the streets are numbered — beginning with Orange Street (1) and ending with White Bread Alley (110) — and descriptions are given. A single example will suffice:
45. The Alley leading Easterly from the Common, on the North side of Madam Ushers House. Turn Again Alley
A comparison between the broadside and Franklin’s list printed in the text shows a few trifling differences, the only one worth noting being that what Franklin calls “Swinge lane” is in the broadside called “Swingbridge Lane.”
The original broadside is in the Boston Public Library. A reduced facsimile was published in 1900 by Dr. Samuel A. Green in his Ten Fac-simile Reproductions Relating to New England, pp. 31, 32.
310 No later instance than 1616 of the use of the noun decore, meaning “grace, honour, beauty, adornment,” is given in the Oxford Dictionary.
311 These verses, doubtless written by some English author, were printed in the Boston Magazine for December, 1784, i. 623. There are some slight variations between the lines as there given and as printed in our text, the only important difference being that the word “fangles” (in the fourth line of the second stanza) is in the Boston Magazine “fancies.” At the bottom of the page in the Boston Magazine some one has written, “Vous avez raison.”
312 It was in this church, it will be remembered, that our associate Mr. Joseph H. Choate recently erected a memorial window to John Harvard. See the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for September, 1905, xiv. 198–202.
313 Louis XIV. (1638–1715). This Epitaph is in the Somers Tracts, iii. 176.
314 The allusions are to the Peace of Ryswick (1697), the Peace of Utrecht (1713), and the War of the Spanish Succession.
315 The renunciation of her rights to Spain by the Infanta Maria Theresa on her marriage to Louis XIV. in 1660.
316 The demolition of the fortifications of Dunkirk was carried out by Louis XIV. in accordance with the Peace of Utrecht.
317 Landau was fortified by Vauban, as was also Dunkirk, near which is Mardyk.
318 Louis XIV. died 1 September, 1715, — or 21 August in England.
319 “Good sister” means sister-in-law. Philip (1640–1701), Duke of Orleans, the only brother of Louis XIV., married (1) Henrietta Anne, daughter of Charles I. of England, and (2) Elizabeth Charlotte (1652–1721), daughter of Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine. Henrietta Anne and Philip were married 30 March, 1661. On the afternoon of 29 June, 1670, Henrietta Anne was seized with a sudden illness and died the next day. Saint Simon asserts that she was poisoned, with the connivance of her husband, by his squire. She was buried with great magnificence on 21 August at St. Denis, Bossuet pronouncing the funeral oration.
320 Louis XIV. had favored the Turks on account of his hostility to Austria.
321 Doubtless either the town of Bar-le-Duc or the Duchy of Bar, which was a kind of secondary possession of the Duke of Lorraine, who is mentioned a little later. On the conclusion of the Peace of Utrecht, the Pretender was obliged to leave France and for a time lived at Bar-le-Duc.
322 The Tories were opposed to Marlborough and to a continuation of the war with France.
323 Probably either John Robartes (1606–1685), first Earl of Radnor, or his grandson Charles Bodville Robartes (1660–1723), second Earl of Radnor.
324 See p. 192 note 1, above.
325 Claude Louis Hector, Duc de Villars.
326 Henry Saint-John (1678–1751), first Viscount Bolingbroke.
327 Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, who in 1685 married Louis XIV., founded a home for the daughters of poor gentlemen at St.-Cyr, where she herself died.
328 Charles XII.
329 Doubtless Francesco Morosini (1618–1694), who on account of his conquest of nearly all the Morea in 1687 was surnamed II Peloponnesiaco. Later, he became Doge of Venice.
330 Philip V.
331 Leopold Joseph.
332 Clement XL
333 William Lloyd, Bishop of Worcester.
334 Samuel Franklin, born 15 October, 1684. See p. 205, below.
335 Josiah Franklin, the father of Dr. Franklin.
336 William Wood (not Woodward) secured a patent for Ireland for a cash payment of £10,000 to the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress of George I. The scandal drew from Swift the famous Drapier’s Letters, and the patent was surrendered in 1725. See Dictionary of National Biography, lxii. 378, 379; G. Harris, Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, i. 149–160; S. S. Crosby, Early Coins of America, pp. 145–168.
337 For a notice of the Rev. Samuel Wells, see Dictionary of National Biography, lx. 231.
338 Samuel Franklin came to Boston before his father. On 13 August, 1719, he married Hannah Kellineck, by whom he had one son Samuel. The son Samuel was born 21 October, 1721, married Eunice Greenleaf 22 January, 1756, and died 21 February, 1775. Five letters written by Dr. Franklin to this Samuel Franklin, who was a cutler, are printed by Sparks. See Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 150, xxviii. 81, xxx. 17,377; Massachusetts Spy, 2 March, 1775, p. 3/2; Sparks’s edition of Franklin’s Works, vii. 347, 479, 533, 559, viii. 73; Suffolk Probate Files, no. 15760. The following advertisement appeared in the Boston Chronicle of 2 January, 1769, No. 55 (ii. 4/3):
Just imported in the Ship Thames, Captain Watt, from London, by
Samuel Franklin,
At the Sign of the Crown and Razor, South-End
Boston.
BEST Razors, Pen-knives, scissars, shears, shoe-knives, shoe tacks and stampt awl blades, teeth instruments, lancets, white and yellow swords, and sword belts; case-knives and forks; ink powder and sealing-wax, files and rasps; horse fleams; hones and curling tongs; brass ink-pots, horn and ivory combs; white, yellow and steel shoe and knee buckles; gilt, lackered and plated coat and breast buttons, snuff boxes, and a few second hand hats, &c. all very cheap.
N. B. Razors, penknives and scissars ground, scabbards made for swords and bayonets, caseknife and fork blades made.
339 For this information about Alexis, as well as for other assistance in preparing these notes, the Editor is indebted to President Kittredge. The collations, enclosed within square brackets, are also due to Mr. Kittredge. There is a copy of Warde’s translations in the Harvard College Library.
340 The original is also owned by Dr. Whiston, to whom we are again indebted for permitting a copy to be made.
341 On the cover of coarse brown paper are the words “Dying & Coloring,” in the hand of the writer of the treatise. Then follow the words —
Samu Franklin
1762.
This is no doubt the signature of Samuel Franklin (1721–1775), the writer’s grandson. See Mrs. Meeom’s statement about her uncle’s recipes, p. 191 note 1, above.
342 To searce is to sift through a searce or sieve.
343 Edward Cocker (1631–1675).
344 The Herbal of the Rev. William Turner, Dean of Wells, is said to have marked the start of the science of botany in England. The portion called The Names of Herbes, originally printed in 1548, was republished in 1881 by the English Dialect Society, edited by James Britten.
345 The treatise here comes to an abrupt end. The next page of the original is blank. The final page is probably in the same hand, but written at a later period.
346 Publications, viii. 245, 246. 15
347 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xi. 10, 20, xxxiii. 26–31; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 247, xxiv. 181; Records of the Church in Brattle Square (1902), p. 149.
348 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 180, xxviii. 106, 136, 191; Records of the Church in Brattle Square (1902), p. 152. Robert Charles Billings, a benefactor of this Society, was also baptized at this Church 6 June, 1819; and his parents, Ebenezer Billings and Elizabeth Cleverley, were married there 8 October, 1811, by the Rev. Joseph Stevens Buckminster (Records of the Church in Brattle Square, 1902, pp. 219, 271). It is not improbable that there was kinship between our benefactor and Sarah (Billings) Davenport.
349 In a manuscript genealogy of the Davenports in the library of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Sarah (Billings) Davenport’s husband
350 E. L. Clark, A Record of the Inscriptions on the Tablets and Grave-Stones in the Burial-Grounds of Christ Church, Philadelphia (1861), p. 52; and seeis called Josiah Franklin Davenport (p. 50), and in another place (p. 74) he is referred to as “Jos. F.” In the Journal of the New Jersey Provincial Congress, under date of 29 June, 1776, is an entry stating that —
Mr. Josiah Franklin Davenport handed to Congress an Account, in the words following:
The Account is for boarding Gov. William Franklin and his servant (Force,. American Archives, Fourth Series, vi. 1633). In the Town Record of his birth, (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 181), however, and in the record of his baptism (Records of the Church in Brattle Square, 1902, p. 149), his name appears as Josiah Davenport. In the Christ Church, Philadelphia, Register of Burials is this entry, under date of 1 April, 1751:
Sarah Wife of Josiah Davenport.
See a discussion of Mr. Davenport’s name in the American Historical Record (1877), iii. 84, 226, 275, wherein he is confounded with his son Senator Franklin Davenport. He was County Clerk of Gloucester, 1774–1776 (New Jersey Archives, Second Series, i. 91, 94, 551 and note).
Diagram between pp. 32 and 33. I am indebted to Mr. Albert Matthews for this reference and also for an examination of the original Registers of Christ Church.
351 Ann Annis, daughter of William and Patience Annis, was baptized at Christ Church 16 December, 1736, at the age of ten months (Registers). It is interesting to inquire whether Ann Annis was of kin to the family of that name long settled at Newbury, Massachusetts, or to those persons bearing the name who were connected with the Church in Brattle Square, Boston,—John Annis, who married 3 March, 1795, Miss Sally Cleverley, and their two children, John, baptized 12 May, 1799, and William, baptized 24 May, 1801 (Coffin, History of Newbury, p. 293; Essex Antiquarian, 1899, iii. 184–187; Records of the Church in Brattle Square, pp. 203, 206, 263). See also p. 226 note 2, above.
352 See New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxxii. 90.
353 See pp. 358–365, below.
354 This letter is owned by Mr. Charles W. Prescott of Concord, through whose courtesy it was exhibited. The letter is printed in Dr. William Darlington’s Memorials of John Bartram and of Humphry Marshall (1849), pp. 517, 518, and also in the Protectionist for March, 1905, xvi. 614.
355 See Darlington, Memorials of John Bartram and of H. Marshall, pp. 485–493. The first word of the title of Marshall’s book, doubtless through a typographical error, is printed “Arbustrum.”
356 Under date of 2 May, 1740, William Seward, while in Philadelphia, wrote: “Call’d at Mr. Franklin’s the Printer’s” (Journal of a Voyage, London, 1740, p. 22).
357 See the Columbian Centinel, 22 January, 1803, p. 4/1; 21 January, 1804, p. 4/1; 19 January, 1805, p. 4/1.
358 The following is taken from a communication by Mr. Aleck Abrahams of London to Notes and Queries of 3 June, 1905, Tenth Series, iii. 433:
No. 6 of ‘Pen-and-ink Sketches of London,’ by J. B., appearing in The Lady’s Newspaper, 22 March, 1851, provides an interesting sketch of these premises in illustration of a description of Great Queen Street:
The house selected for engraving is, however, that to which the most lasting importance will be attached, from its having been the place of humble labour of the afterwards great statesman and philosopher, Benjamin Franklin. . . .
Referring to the press at which Franklin worked, the writer continues:
The sum of money received for this relic is now appropriated to the relief of one unfortunate, called the ‘Franklin Pensioner,’ to which a disabled person of any country is eligible if there is a vacancy.
359 Samuel Holten (1738–1816), of Danvers, Massachusetts.
360 See a letter on the same subject written by Franklin 27 June, 1780, in Sparks’s edition of Franklin’s Works, viii. 476, 477.
361 The original of this letter is also owned by Dr. Edward A. Whiston.
362 College Book No. 7, p. 26.
363 The list of these diplomas may be of some interest.
Jeremiah Dummer |
Ph. D. |
1703 |
Utrecht. |
Cotton Mather |
S. T. D. |
1710 |
Glasgow. |
Edward Wigqlesworth |
S. T. D. |
1730 |
Edinburgh. |
Benjamin Colman |
S. T. D. |
1731 |
Glasgow. |
Joseph Sewall |
S. T. D. |
1731 |
Glasgow. |
Samuel Mather |
M. A. |
1731 |
Glasgow. |
Charles Chaunct |
S. T. D. |
1742 |
Edinburgh. |
Jonathan Mathew |
S. T. D. |
1749 |
Aberdeen. |
Ebenezer Miller |
S. T. D. |
1747 |
Oxford. |
Benjamin Franklin |
A. M. |
1753 |
Harvard. |
Thomas Bulfinch |
M. D. |
1757 |
Edinburgh. |
Mather Byles |
S. T. D. |
1765 |
Aberdeen. |
364 The letter is printed in full in Smyth’s edition of Franklin’s Works (1905), iii. 285–286, but under John Hancock’s name as the recipient. The superscription of the letter is “Thomas Hancock Esquire, Boston.”
365 Publii Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, Georgiea, et Æneis. Birminghamiae: typis Johannis Baskerville. 1757. 4o. Franklin subscribed for six copies. The copy sent to the Harvard Library is still to be seen there, handsomely bound and inscribed with the name of the donor on the binding.
366 Harvard College Papers, i. 95.
367 Professor Winthrop’s second wife was Mrs. Hannah Tolman, daughter of Thomas Fayerweather.
368 James Bowdoin writes to Franklin, 2 July, 1764:
When I last saw Mr. Winthrop I inquired of him after Æpinus. He told me he sent it to Mr. Stiles of Newport, who would convey it to you (6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 21).
369 The College Library had been destroyed by fire 24 January, 1764.
370 The Rev. Dr. Charles Chauncy (H. C. 1721).
371 The Rev. Dr. Andrew Eliot (H. C. 1737).
372 The Rev. Samuel Cooper (H. C. 1743).
373 Samuel Danforth (H. C. 1758).
374 This bust, a plaster cast, still adorns the Reading Room of the College Library.
375 Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia in America, by Benjamin Franklin, L. L. D. and F. R. S. To which are added, Letters and Papers on Philosophical Subjects. . . . London. 1769. 4o.
376 Harvard College Papers, ii. 17.
377 A Dissertation on the Use of the Negative Sign in Algebra . . . By Francis Maseres, M. A., Fellow of Clare-Hall, Cambridge. London. 1758. 4o.
Elements of Plane Trigonometry. In which is introduced a dissertation on The nature and Use of Logarithms. By Francis Maseres, M.A. of Clare-Hall, Cambridge. London. 1760. 8o.
378 Doctrina particularum linguae Graecae auctore et editore Henrico Hoogeveen. E typographeo Dammeano. 1769. 4o. 2 vol.
379 In the Donation Book, this is described as “his own effigies in mezzotinto.” It is without doubt the mezzotint engraved by Fisher in 1771 from Chamberlin’s portrait, which has hung for many years in the Librarian’s office in the College Library. A copy of the original painting, made by Leslie, was presented to the University by Joshua Bates in 1855, and hangs in Memorial Hall. The original painting is in the possession of Victor van de Weyer, of London, a grandson of Joshua Bates.
380 The History and Present State of Discoveries relating to Vision, Light, and Colours. By Joseph Priestley, LL.D. F.R.S. London. 1772. 4o.
381 Œuvres de M. Franklin, Docteur es Loix. Traduites de Panglois sur la quatrième Edition. Par M. Barbeu Dubourg. Avec des additions nouvelles. 2 tom. Paris. 1773. 4o.
382 Le Droit des Gens, ou Principes de la Loi Naturelle, appliqués à la Conduite & aux Affaires des Nations & des Souverains. Par M. de Vattel. Nouvelle Édition augmentée, revue & corrigée. Amsterdam. Chez E van Harrevelt. 1775. 2 vols. 4o.
383 James Bowdoin writing to Franklin 19 August, 1776, acknowledges the receipt of the Vattel and promises to send it “to the President of Harvard College as a present to the Library from you” (6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 400).
384 The medallion is depicted in Franklin in France (1887), by E. E. Hale and E. E. Hale, Jr., facing p. 140.
385 Under date of 12 January, 1777, Franklin wrote a letter to Mrs. Mary Hewson which begins as follows:
Figure to yourself an old man with gray hair appearing under a martin fur cap, among the powdered heads of Paris. It is this odd figure that salutes yon, with handfulg of blessings on you and your dear little ones (Works, 1888, vi. 53).
386 Mrs. Rogers’s full sister Sarah Bromfield, who became the second wife of the Rev. Eliphalet Pearson, and her half sister Elizabeth Bromfield, who became the second wife of Mr. Daniel D. Rogers. These ladies were the daughters of Col. Henry Bromfield (1727–1820). See New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxvi. 38, 39; Publications of this Society, v. 210 note, viii. 290.
387 Ralph Izard married his niece Alice De Lancey, daughter of Peter De Lancey.
388 The first wife of Samuel Quincy (H. C. 1754) was Hannah Hill.
389 On 31 October, 1781, Franklin wrote a letter to M. de Marignac introducing Mrs. Montgomery (W. C. Ford’s List of the Benjamin Franklin Papers in the Library of Congress, 1905, p. 113). To Dr. I. Minis Hays of the American Philosophical Society I am indebted for the information that Mrs. Montgomery’s Christian name was Dorcas and that M. de Marignac was a schoolmaster in Geneva, where Mrs. Montgomery placed her son in company with young Benjamin Franklin Bache.
390 Henry Bromfield (1751–1837).
391 The writer’s step-mother, Hannah (Clarke) Bromfield, the second wife of Col. Henry Bromfield.
392 Suffolk Deeds, viii. 58, xxiii. 109.
393 Suffolk Deeds, xxiii. 147. This small estate, the front portion of which is now numbered 339–341 in Washington Street, on the westerly side, was a part of the original possession of Thomas Grubb the northerly line of which abutted on the Province House estate. The lot adjoining this locus on the north, — between it and the Province House estate, had been bought 26 April, 1706, by the said Thomas Creese of David Hitchcock of Springfield and Elizabeth Hitchcock his wife, who had been the widow of Paul Batt, Junior, and was daughter of Thomas and Bethulia Mighell (Ibid, xxiii. 109, 110). That part of Thomas Grubb’s possession which comprised these two lots passed to Christopher Batt by an unrecorded deed, and thence to his son Paul Batt, Senior, and the latter’s two children, Paul, Junior, and Sarah, wife of Micajah Torrey. See Suffolk Probate Files, nos. 274, 702, 970, 2857; Suffolk Deeds, viii. 58; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 2, 10.
394 Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, pp. 594–597.
395 Wonder-working Providence, p. 110. Cf. Publications of this Society, v. 134, 150, 151, 166.
396 General Wheeler was a grandson of Gen. William Hull. See two pamphlets by Samuel Curtis Clarke: Records of Some of the Descendants of Richard Hull (1869), pp. 12, 16,17; Records of Some of the Descendants of John Fuller (1869), pp. 11, 12; and pp. 365–369, below.
397 Publications, vi. 151–155, where some account of Professor McKean will be found.
398 The account in the Harvard Magazine (1864), x. 270, 271, is amusing but improbable.
399 Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit (1866), ii. 417.
400 Extended notices of these brothers are in Gov. Bell’s Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1894), pp. 466, 467, 469, 470; and Briggs’s Genealogies of the Different Families Bearing the Name of Kent in the United States (1898), pp. 257, 262, 270, 272, — to both of which I acknowledge my indebtedness for many of the facts in my brief sketch in the text.
401 Abel Moore was an innholder in Boston several years, and afterward kept a tavern at the corner of North (now Massachusetts) Avenue and Holmes Place. He died 2 January, 1794, aged 39 (Paige, History of Cambridge, p. 612).
402 Joseph Kent of Newbury port was born 20 May, 1741, and died 19 July, 1802. He was the father of Amos and Moody Kent
403 Charles Chauncy Parsons (II. C. 1801).
404 Publications, vii. 328, 329.
405 Ibid. vii. 328 note.
406 Remembrancer for the Year 1776, iii. 260, 261.
407 Publications, viii. 272, 273.
408 It was printed, under the title of War and Washington, in Sewall’s Miscellaneous Poems (1801), pp. 52, 53, and also in S. Kettell’s Specimens of American Poetry (1829), i. 199, 200. There are some slight variations in the version as printed by Sewall and Kettell and as printed by us. A song to the air of War and Washington was printed in the Boston Gazette of 29 December, 1777, p. 4/1.
409 Remembrancer for the Year 1781, xi. 286–288.
410 Publications, viii. 275–287.
411 Inflependent Ledger, 18 February, 1782, p. 3/2.
412 Ibid.16 February, 1784, p. 3/2.
413 Independent Chronicle, 10 February, 1785, p. 3/2.
414 Massachusetts Centinel, 12 February, 1785, p. 3/1.
415 Seth Warner (1743–1784).
416 A constitutional convention was held at Manchester, Vermont, in June and July, 1786. See Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, i. 84, iii. 110 note.
417 Richard Price (1723–1791).
418 Massachusetts Centinel, 5 March, 1785, p. 3/2.
419 Massachusetts Centinel, 15 February, 1786, p. 3/1.
420 Mr. Henry H. Edes informs me that this building stood in Scollay Square between the headhousewof the East Boston tunnel and the subway station the entrance to which covers a portion of the site. A schoolhouse was on or very near this site as early as 1684, when John Cole was engaged “to keepe a Free Schoole to teach ye Children of the Towne to read & write;” and in 1698 it was mentioned as “the New School house at Cotton Hill” (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, vii. 171, 226, 227, 232). It was enlarged in 1715; and in 1720 a committee was charged by the Selectmen with fencing in the yard, digging a well, and placing a pump therein (Ibid. viii. 110, 113, xiii. 74). The well, long disused, was discovered in the winter of 1904 by workmen who were digging for the foundations of the beadhouse. See an article on the Old School House and Well in Scollay Square, in the Boston Sunday Globe of 28 February, 1904, p. 20/3; and a Plan showing the site of the building and well in the office of the Surveying Division of the Street Department of the City of Boston.
421 Massachusetts Centinel, 16 February, 1788, viii. 177/2.
422 Massachusetts Centinel, 28 February, 1789, x. 193/1.
423 Columbian Centinel, 12 February, 1791, xiv. 175/3. The day was celebrated at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1792; at Hallowell, Maine, in 1793; at Salem and Hingham in 1793; and in Virginia in 1795.
424 Columbian Centinel, 11 February, 1792, xvi. 174/4.
425 Ibid. 23 February, 1793, p. 3/1.
426 Ibid. 11 February, 1795, p. 2/4.
427 In the margin are these words: “A new hereditary Dignity proposed in the British Plantations; for the Benefit of Improvments there” (i. 474). This allusion escaped the late Mr. Toppan’s search; see his paper on the Failure to Establish an Hereditary Political Aristocracy in the Colonies, in the Publications of this Society, iii. 407–411.
428 It is described by C. H. Hart in his Catalogue of the Engraved Portraits of Washington (1904), No. 7S6, p. 332.
429 It is described by W. S. Baker in his Engraved Portraits of Washington (1880), No. 407, p. 192.
430 It is described by Baker (Ibid. No. 9, pp. 20, 21), who inclines “to the opinion that the lettering is incorrect, and that it is really after one of Charles Willson Peale’s later portraits.”
431 This medal was issued in gold, silver, and tin. In gold, it is declared by Baker to be “excessively rare.” Baker states that the die for it was executed by Jacob Perkins of Newburyport, and asserts that the medal “is said to have been struck for, and worn in, the . . . Masonic demonstration [at Boston] of February 11, 1800, attended by sixteen hundred brethren” (Medallic Portraits of Washington, 1885, No. 165, pp. 77, 79). For sketches of Jacob Perkins, see Mrs. E. Vale Smith’s History of Newburyport (1854), pp. 378–380; W. S. Baker American Engravers and their Works (1875), pp. 129–135.
432 Presumably Suffolk, Nansemond County, Virginia.
433 “Me Franciscū Doughty De Dorcestria in N. A. plantator’ tener’ &c. Henriço Webb in quingentis libris &c. Dat 29. 5. 1639. Coram Joħe Winthrop gub. & meipō” (T. Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 137).
434 The will of Alderman Doughty mentions, besides son Francis and daughter Elizabeth, Spencer Achley, son of daughter Frances; John Dauyes, son of daughter Margaret; and Mary, Francis, and Eliah [Elias], children of son Francis (H. F. Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, i. 820). Alderman Doughty had also a son Jacob, who died about 1634 (Lechford’s Note-Book, 1867, p. 110), and a brother Robert Doughty who died not later than 1637, leaving a widow Margaret (Ibid. p. 88). There was a John Doughty at Bristol, successively sheriff (1606), alderman, mayor, and member of Parliament (1628), who was probably the John Doughty, one of the patentees of the London and Bristol Adventurers for Colonizing Newfoundland (1610). This man, presumably a relative, died in 1628 or 1629. Doughty or Doughtie was not a Gloucestershire family. It is asserted in Bolton’s History of the County of Westchester, New York, that the refugee was descended from “the Doughtys or Douteys of Easher Surrey, and Boston, Lincolnshire, England, descended from an English Saxon house of Dohteg, before the conquest” (ii. 414). Mr. Bolton is not critical in such matters. The family names would perhaps point to descent from Doughtys of Hanworth, County Norfolk; it is clearly not a Gloucestershire family.
435 “A farme called Hamsted farme . . . worth 2000 ɫ at the least” (Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 111). There is Oldbury-on-the-Hill on the east border of Gloucestershire, and Oldbury-on-Severn, each with its Roman camp.
436 It is not expressly stated that Elizabeth Cole’s “sister” is her sister-in-law and her brother Francis’ wife, but so it seems.
437 Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 110.
438 W. F. Hook, Church Dictionary (1846), p. 121.
439 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1635–1630, p. 471.
440 Ibid. p. 479.
441 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1635–1636, p. 487.
442 Ibid. p. 496.
443 Ibid. p. 505.
444 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1636–1637, p. 557.
445 There were three Sodburys, close together: Little Sodbury, where the incumbent was a rector; Chipping Sodbury; and Old Sodbury, where the clergymen were vicars. Old Sodbury seems more likely to have been meant by the word Sodbury.
446 On 12 January, 1635–36, Henry Doughty, clerk, vicar of Meriden, County Warwick, was before the High Commission on some charge not named (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1635–1636, pp. 468, 472).
447 S. H. Emery, Ministry of Taunton i. 18, 37.
448 For a general statement of Mrs. Cole’s claim in this first case against her brother, see Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 110.
449 Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 173.
450 “The Answere & Complaint” of Mrs. Cole, “Boston (4). 25. 1640,” are in Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 150. Mr. Doughty’s brief letter to Governor Winthrop asking what to do about it, is in 5 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 308. For a general account of the trial and result, see Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 205–207. See also Records of the Court of Assistants (1906), iii. 5 note.
451 Plain Dealing, J. H. Trumbull’s edition (1867), pp. 90–92.
452 Cohasset (Indian name Quonahassit or Conohasset), formerly part of Hingham, was incorporated into a district 26 April, 1770 (Manual of the General Court, 1905, p. 154).
453 History of the State of New York (1853), i. 333.
454 History of the City of New York (1877), i. 104, 105. Mr. B. F. Thompson, in the second edition of his History of Long Island (1843), seems to have started this “Cohasset” preacher, who has ever since been confusing the New Yorker and confounding the New Englander, in spite of the careful accountof Mr. Doughty given by the learned and accurate Mr. Riker in his Annals of Newtown (1852), pp. 17–25. Mr. Thompson does not mention Mr. Doughty or the Mespat settlement in his first edition, but has acquired abundant misinformation for the second edition, a part of which is as follows:
Francis Doughty . . . came to Long Island in 1644, and was the first minister of Flushing, probably abaptist, but afterwards turned Quaker. . . . This was the same Francis Doughty who was at Cohasset in 1642, and mentioned by Leechford in his “News from New England,” as being dragged out of a public assembly, for asserting that Abraham’s children should have been baptized (ii. 70 and note).
Brodhead follows in 1853, and the Rev. G. II. Mandeville in his Flushing, Past and Present (1860), has improved on Mr. Thompson thus:
Francis Doughty . . . seemes to have preached at Tannton, Mass., and “for declaring that Abraham ought to have been baptised,” he was by order of the Magistrates dragged by the Constables out of the public assembly and soon after was compelled to leave with his children. He also preached at Linn, Mass., where he denied baptism to infants. This doctrine could not be tolerated in that puritanical atmosphere (pp. 105, 106).
Mrs. Lamb follows in 1877, and in 1885 G. W; Schuyler tells of this same “minister at Cohasset” and “preacher at Cohasset” as “torn from his pulpit” and “rudely expelled,” “because of some doubtful expressions in his sermon” or “because of some expressions which sounded like heresy” (Colonial New-York, ii. 29, 91). And still the tale goes on. Mr. B. Tuckerman in 1893 speaks of “Francis Doughty, expelled from Cohasset for preaching that Abraham’s children should have been baptized” (Peter Stuyvesant, p. 30). And in 1896 we still read of this “Cohasset” victim of New England intolerance, that “his chief heresy was the assertion that Abraham’s children should have received the rite of baptism” (Miss Martha B. Flint, Early Long Island, p. 163 and note).
Mr. Doughty’s contention was, of course, as Lechford clearly stated, that the children of all baptized Christians ought to be baptized; that baplism should not be refused to those whose parents had neither of them been admitted to membership (“full covenant relation”) in a local church organization on the Congregational model. And the occasion of his protest was the organization of the Cohannet church, at which a “covenant” was to be adopted. Doughty wished to have this restriction excluded, or possibly to have an express provision for the baptism of the children of all Christians inserted. The mention of “Abraham’s children” was a theological argument and illustration in favor of his contention, then easily understood by every one, — compare Galatians, iii. 27–29.
455 Plymouth Colony Records, ii. 8. And after he was settled in Mespat. We find that at the General Court at Plymouth held 6 June, 1043,—
John Gilbert, Jnr, compɫus agst Mr Francis Doughty, in an action of trespas vpon the case, to the dam̃ xxs [omission in record] bushells of corne attached by the constable of Taunton; the deffent̃ made no answere. The Court awards the corne to the pɫtiff, onely Thomas Gilbert promiseth to make it good if the debt be not proued (Ibid. vii. 35).
456 Plymouth Colony Records, ii. 17, xi. 37.
457 Lechford, Plain Dealing, p. 92 note.
458 Lechford, writing of the Island of Aquedney, says:
The place where the Church was, is called Newport, but that Church, I heare, is now dissolved; . . . At the other end of the Island there is another town called Portsmouth, but no Church: there is a meeting of some men, who there teach one another, and call it Prophesie;
and in the Massachusetts Historical Society Manuscript quoted by Trumbull in a note:
There is Mr. Lenthall a minister out of office and imployment, and lives very poorly. Mr. Doughty also is come to this Island. . . . He [Lenthall] stood upon his ministrie and against the Church Covenant in the Bay, and diverse joyneing to choose him their minister at Weymouth, by subscribing to a paper for that end, he was censured in the generall Court at Boston, and so were they that joyned in that election, and one of them named Brittaine for words saying that some of the Ministers in the Bay were Brownists, and that they would not [sic] till it came to the swords point, was whipt, and had eleven stripes (Plain Dealing, p. 94 and note).
In fact, I take it, Doughty and Lenthall were Presbyterian Nonconformists, or inclined to that opinion, and that Doughty tried at Taunton to do very much what Lenthall succeeded in carrying somewhat further at Weymouth. Lenthall returned to England in 1642, the same year that Doughty went to Long Island, and is probably the same Robert Leynthall who was “of Oxon, cler. fil. Oriel Coll., matric. 17 Oct., 1611, aged 14; B. A. from All Souls’ Coll. 8 July, 1619, rector of Aston Sandford, Bucks, 1627, and of Great Hampden, Bucks, 1643 “(J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, iii. 902).
459 “In area ua continentem sex millia sexcenta sexaginta sex jugera Hollandica, aut circiter ignographice inclusum,” etc. (Riker, Annals of Newtown, p. 413). A Dutch acre is said to be a little less than two English acres, and this patent “embraced nearly the whole of the present town of Newtown” (Ibid. p. 17). The Indian name for Newtown, sometimes written Mespachtes by the Dutch, was usually shortened to Mespat, and in modern days has been corrupted to Maspeth (Ibid. p. 13 note).
460 Soon corrupted, as now, to Gravesend.
461 Mr. Doughty’s affairs became of much consequence in New Netherland and of some importance in Holland. We have three sources of information: (1) Remonstrance of New Netherland, 28 July, 1649; (2) The answer made by Stuyvesant’s Secretary to this attack on him; (3) Some court records. The court records are meagre so far as they are found in print. The Remonstrance and reply are, as is to be expected, largely contradictory. The leader of the men who took over the Remonstrance was Adriaen van der Donck, a man of education far beyond most of the colonists and of excellent character and understanding. He had married Mary Doughty 22 October, 1645, and was thoroughly informed in all the matters concerned. He is supposed to have written the Remonstrance. While he cannot be considered unbiassed, he was yet under no compulsion to make any statements or bring forward any matter he did not wish, while Stuyvesant’s agent had to answer point by point, and that was not easy. Where there is contradiction the presumption then seems in favor of the correctness of the Remonstrance. The Remonstrance was for relief from the tyranny of the Directors General. Kieft had been a “grafter,” a fool and a tyrant; Stuyvesant, honest and no fool, was a tyrant and not scrupulous. Doughty’s experiences were related as one instance of a manwho had suffered from both Directors, and the object of the answer was to deny the charges, or at all events to discredit him. All that is alleged against him is his alleged poverty when he first came, which is probably exaggerated, his alleged debt to the Company — given as a reason for not allowing him to go away, — and the assertion that he had no rights in the Mespat patent except to a farm, — which seems clearly false. He and his associates unnamed in the patent appear to have had equal rights. For the Remonstrance of New Netherland, the Short Digest of the Excesses and highly injurious Neglect, the Answer of the West India Company to the Remonstrance, and Secretary van Tienhoven’s Answer to the Remonstrance, see Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, particularly, i. 305, 310, 311, 334, 335, 341, 426, 427. For au account of van der Donck by O’Callaghan, see Ibid. i. 532 note.
462 Richard Denton of Wethersfield and Stamford, Connecticut, and about 1644 of Hempstead, Long Island.
463 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 74.
464 Ibid. ii. 191; iii. 138, 139.
465 Ibid. ii. 205–207.
466 Ibid. ii. 257.
467 Ibid. ii. 272.
468 Ibid iii. 190. Mrs. Cole’s name appears again on these records three times. On 16 October, 1650, “being visited with longe & sore sicknes, & hauing spent all her estate,” she petitions for help and is granted £20 (Ibid. iii. 217). On 14 October, 1651, John Lewes petitions for fifty shillings expended for her “mayntenance” and it is granted, “it beinge the last the country is like to pay for her, whose extremity was such as deserued pitty” (Ibid. iii. 256). And last there is in May, 1652, a grant to pay a final physician’s bill (Ibid. iii. 276).
469 H. Onderdonk, Queens County in Olden Times, p. 9.
470 Records of New Amsterdam, i. 143, ii. 4.
471 Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, i. 311; cf. i. 305, 310, 332, 334, 341, 426, 427.
472 Plymouth Colony Records, x. 45, 46. It seems worth noting that Mrs. van der Donck could speak “very good Indian.”
473 Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, ii. 93.
474 “Van der Doncx’ widow will enter again into possession of Nipperha. She claims also laud in Mespadt” (Van Ruyven to Stuyvesant, 1666, in Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, ii. 473). O’Callaghan speaks of “the tract of land called Nepperhaem, but now known as Yonkers “(History of New Netherland, i. 382, 383). It does not appear what became of Mrs. O’Neal and her children or of the Yonkers property. The O’Neals or Neales appear to have been birds of passage in Maryland. Capt. James O’Neal was made a member of the Council in 1638–39, was absent with his family for some years, and was Lord Baltimore’s attorney in Holland in the dispute about the Dutch settlements on the Delaware. He returned and was again of the Council in 1661. Capt. Hugh Neale was put in command of a company in Charles County in 1661–62; and in 1674 there was some curious legislation about his importation of horses.
475 Mr. Doughty’s brother-in-law, William Stone, an early settler in Accomack (Northampton) County, Virginia, was by commission of Lord Baltimore in 1648 made Governor of Maryland. He was a Protestant and clearly chosen on that account, and in accordance with previous agreement brought in the Puritan emigration from Virginia; he was, however, deposed by the Puritan Commissioners, then reinstated, then wounded in the battle of the Severn and condemned to be shot but respited and imprisoned and his Maryland property confiscated. He was in prison or recently released when Doughty went to Maryland.
476 Virginia Magazine, v. 130.
477 E. D. Neill, Virginia Carolorum, p. 407.
478 Magnalia (1S53), ii. 10.
479 Virginia Magazine, v. 288, 289.
480 Ibid. pp. 289.
481 Second Annual Report of the State Historian of the State of New York (1897), pp. 352, 353, 357. This suit first appears on the calendar 28 September, 1665. Under date of 1666, Onderdonk writes:
Mr. Francis Doughty was minister at Flushing, at 100 guilders a year. His contract for salary was burnt one year before his trial [1665?] by Wm. Lawrence’s wife, who put it under a pye in an oven. . . . Underhill had ordered the church door shut up because Doughty preached against the Government. Thereafter Doughty was discharged. His son recovered 600 guilders; each party to pay their own costs. The defence was, that Gov. Stuyvesant, by calling each person into his room separately, had forced the town to sign a call to said Doughty (Queens County in Olden Times, p. 6).
482 Mr. Doughty’s two sons Francis and Elias, who came with him from England, married and remained in the Province of New York. Mrs. Bunker in her Long Island Genealogies seems possibly to have mistaken grandchildren for children in the list she gives of his sons.
483 See Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 29 April, 1903, pp. 368–384.
484 The following is an extract from the letters patent in the form of an edict establishing the Company of the West:
Nous voulons que les fonds de cette Compagnie soient partagez en Actions de Cinqcens livres chacune, . . . & lorsqu’ il Nous sera representé par les Directeurs de ladite Compagnie, qu’il aura esté délivré des Actions pour faire un fonds suffisant, Nous ferons fermer les Livres de la Compagnie (Du Hautcharap, Histoire du Système, etc., 1739, v.106).
485 Recueil d’Arrests et autres pièces pour l’établissement de la Compagnie d’Occident, Amsterdam, 1720, § 14, pp. 34, 35. On the subject of coupons on shares, see also Du Hautchamp, Histoire du Système, etc., v. 235, vi. 66.
486 The idea that a government might bear the load of a permanent debt was not then conceived in France.
487 See Adam Anderson, Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce, London, 1764, ii. 292–295. Doubtless these various titles were selected on account of their apparent absurdity, yet if we examine them we can see that our cold storage systems serve the purpose of the “Fish Pool” perhaps too well. The fishers for wrecks on the Irish coast were probably after wrecks of the Armada. Divers overhauled one of them last year off the coast of Scotland. The condensation of fresh water from ocean water is not only practicable but its entire feasibility on a large scale is of great value to our ocean steamers. The production of opium from English poppies was possible even in those days. Finally, the discovery of radium has caused a renewal of the speculations as to the transmutation of metals.
488 Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 291.
489 Peere Williams’s Reports, pp. 153, 157. See also Viner’s Abridgment, xiii. 543. Viner thus contemptuously alludes to the transaction: “Money paid upon a bubble in the year 1720,” etc.
490 The Assignment of the patent evidently carried with it the equity in the land. This idea of associating solid landed security with a preposterous patent was evidently a favorite method of the day. “Aaron Hill’s case” is referred to in Colt v. Woolaston and Arnold. Hill had a patent for extracting oil out of beech which was also divided into shares, and to quote from the report: “A security agreed to be made of lands which came out to be terra incognita betwixt the degrees 50 and 57.” The Colt project and the Aaron Hill project are both mentioned by Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 294.
491 Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 291. Even this joke of the satirists of the stock-market is punctured by the industrial needs of our day — compressed sawdust having actually been made use of for some purposes.
492 These contracts of Law were generally spoken of by writers upon the System as if they were invented by him.
493 Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 296.
494 J. Trenchard, A Comparison between the Proposals of the Bank and the South Sea Company (1720), in A Collection of Tracts, by the late John Trenchard, Esq; and Thomas Gordon Esq; London, 1751, i. 221.
495 Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 225.
496 Works, London, 1754, iii. 151.
497 United States Magazine and Democratic Review, 1846, xviii. 83.
498 Reprinted in the Banker’s Magazine, iv. 645 et seq.
499 Reprinted in the Banker’s Magazine, v. 151 et seq. A correspondent of Notes and Queries quotes from Anatomy of Exchange Alley (1719), and says those who buy Exchange Alley bargains are styled “buyers of Bear-Skins” (Fifth Series, vi. 118). He infers that the present expression “Bears,” for one who depresses stocks, is here foreshadowed. The word “bear,” however, is found as early as 1709. See the Oxford Dictionary.
500 Introduction to Essays upon Several Projects.
501 This publication was of service to Macaulay in the compilation of a list of Companies (History of England, Boston, 1856, iv. 258). Anderson gives an abridgment of the pamphlet in his History of Commerce, ii. 209.
502 The Volunteers or the Stock-Jobbers — as it is acted by their Majesties Servants at the Theatre Royal. Written by Tho. Shadwell, Esq. late Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal. Being his last play. London, 1693.
503 The papers were afterwards collected and published under the following title: Husbandry and Trade Improved, etc., by John Houghton, F.R.S. Now revised, corrected and published with a preface and useful Indexes by Richard Bradley, F.R.S. and Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge. In three Volumes. London, 1727. I find among my notes the following memorandum in the handwriting of the late Professor Charles F. Dunbar:
The passage cited by Macaulay from Houghton’s Collection for Husbandry and Trade occurs in vol. ii. no. 33, for Mar. 17, 1692–93, in the original folio edition in the British Museum.
November, 1691, Houghton issued his prospectus, with a testimonial signed (inter alia) by John Eveliu, Samuel Pepys, Hans Sloane, Hugh Chamberlen, Richard Waller, Edm. H alley.
One of his objects stated to be to give “an account of the value of the Actions of the East India” and other companies.
504 The word “Action” as used by Houghton evidently corresponds in meaning with the same word in French. Burnet used the word in a similar way when in 1688 he speaks of “Actions of the Company” (History of His Own Times, Oxford, 1833, iii. 208), but in another place he speaks of buying and selling, in Cromwell’s time, “of the Actions of money so advanced.” In this latter case “the Actions of money” must be the evidence of the debt whether simply a tally or a written obligation.
505 For some graphic contemporary descriptions of these coffee-houses, see Publications of this Society, vii. 120, 121.
506 Husbandry and Trade Improved, No. 102, 13 July, 1694.
507 History of England, iv. 256.
508 Journals of the House of Commons, xi. 123, 128, 132, 535, 541, 765.
509 The legislation on this subject from the time of Sir John Barnard’s “Act to prevent the infamous practice of Stock-Jobbing” which was passed in 1734, down to the present time, is fully discussed in A Treatise on Contracts for Future Delivery and Commercial Wagers, by T. Henry Dewey, New York, 1886. The author does not go behind the Act of 1734. For the purposes of his treatise there was perhaps no necessity for him to go back of Sir John Barnard’s Act and trace the legislation from 1697 to 1734. It is evident from An Essay on the Practice of Stock-Jobbing, etc., by Thomas Gordon, 1724 (A Collection of Tracts by the late John Trenchard, Esq. and Thomas Gordon, Esq., London, 1751, ii. 83 et seq.), that legislation on this subject during this period was of no avail. The author after speaking of the “Modern practice of stock-jobbing.” defines his meaning to be “those guileful Acts and unjust attempts which are used to raise and sink the public stocks of this nation,” then alludes to “the making of fictitious contracts and bargains,” and afterward says such laws “as heretofore have been enacted by our ancestors to rectify the irregular use of money . . . are either disused as exceedingly old and out of date, or being temporary and limited to a particular time are now expired.”
510 History of His Own Times, iii. 208.
511 History of Commerce, ii. 77, 78. The date of the publication is given as 1676. It was reprinted by Professor Charles F. Dunbar in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, ii. 251–262.
512 Macaulay has collated (History of England, iv. 108) a number of quotations of East India stock, the oldest being 1664.
513 Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 199. Regulated Companies are defined by Anderson, i. 420.
514 Memoirs, London, 1819, i. 257.
515 The Dawn of British Trade to the East Indies, London, 1886, p. 111.
516 Ibid. p. 177.
517 Ibid. p. 113.
518 Ibid. p. 161. See also p. 220.
519 A. Brown’s Genesis of the United States, i. 236.
520 Ibid. ii. 627.
521 Ibid. ii. 680.
522 Ibid. ii. 777.
523 The well known reference to “the still-vex’d Bermoothes” in the Tempest and the mention of Mexico as one of Antonio’s ventures associate Shakespeare’s name with these explorations. Jonson’s reference to “Pokahontas” in the Staple of News brings him in touch with Smith’s Generall Historie of Virginia. Jonson’s name is also associated with those of Marston and Chapman in the authorship of Eastwaid Ho! a play in which Virginia figures extensively. A reference to Pocahontas by Richard Brathwaite occurs in some verses prefixed to Capt. John Smith’s True Travels, Adventures, and Observations (1630).
524 It will be noted, however, that Shadwell says his patent was divided into “shares,” thus making it conform to the conditions of the market. Moreover the traditional value of the “patent” for speculative purposes is shown in the suits referred to in which the projections were based upon patents.
525 History of England, Boston, 1854, iii. 174. Hume cites D’Ewes as the source of his information. The list which he quotes is to be found in The Journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Elizabeth, collected by Sir Simonds d’Ewes, Revised and published by Paul Bowes, London, 1682, p. 648. A list of monopolies or grants reported by a Parliamentary Committee will be found at p. 650. In a speech by Secretary Cecil, promising the revocation or suspension of the grants, they are reviewed by title, pp. 652, 653. These grants seem to be in the character of monopolies and scarcely the subjects of speculation.
526 Anderson, History of Commerce, i. 498. See also Rymer’s Fœdera, xvii. 102, to which Anderson refers.
527 Anderson, History of Commerce, i. 499; Rymer’s Fœdera, xvii. 121.
528 Anderson relied almost exclusively upon Rymer for information as to the grants of this period. His descriptions of the patents are couched in the language of the originals as far as was possible. If we turn to the Fœdera we can see the documents in full. Some of these patents may perhaps suggest the use of steam as a power, though they lack details on this point. On 6 April, 1627, a patent was granted to William Brouncker and others “to put in use an Instrument or device for earing and Plowing of land without either Horses or Oxen” (Fœdera, xviii. 992). On 26 December, 1627, William Parham and others were granted a patent for an engine “that shall inforce all Manner of Mills of what Nature or Kind soever to grind and perform their wonted Labour without help of either Horse, Wind or Water” (Ibid, xviii. 992). In 1630 David Ramsey turns up again as a patentee. This time he secures a patent for raising “water from low pits by fire;” for making “any sort of Mills to go on standing waters by continual motion, without the help of wind, height or horse;” for making tapestry “without any weaving Loome or Wail ever yet in use in this Kingdome;” for making “Boats, Ships and Barges to go against strong wind & tide;” for raising “water from low mines & Coal pits by a way never yet in use” (Ibid. xix. 239–242). In 1632 Thomas Grent, a doctor in physick, was granted a patent for “An Instrument” which he said could be called the Wind-Mate which was “very profitable when common winds do fail for a more speedie passage of calmed Shippes or other Vessels upon the Sea or Great Rivers” (Ibid. xix. 371). In 1632 a patent was granted for a “Fishe-call, or a Looking-glasse for Fishes in the sea, very usefull for Fishermen to call all kinds of Fish to their netts or Hookes;” for a “Water-Bowl for the more speedy Preservation of Houses on Land or Ships at Sea from Fire;” and for a “Building Mould or Stone Press, very requisite for the building of Churches or great houses . . . without hewing, cutting, sawing, carving or engraving” (Ibid. xix. 371).
529 Mr. Lindsay Swift calls my attention to a broadside which partakes “somewhat of the character of a” newspaper. It bears this imprint:
London, Printed by J. Dawks, Re-printed at Bofton, in N. E. by B, Green, & J. Allen. 1697.
The heading is as follows:
London Septemb. 27.
Yefterday Morning arrived Three Holland Mails,
which bring the following Advices.
Vienna, September 18.
The original is in the Boston Public Library, and is reproduced in facsimile in the Boston Public Library Bulletin for October, 1893, xii. 215. The lines are printed across the page.
530 Andros Tracts, ii. 15 note, 18 note.
531 Memorial History of Boston, ii. 387 note.
532 New Jersey Archives, vol. xii. p. cxxix.
533 Ten Fac-simile Reproductions Relating to Old Boston and Neighborhood, p. 3.
534 Ten Fac-simile Reproductions Relating to Various Subjects, p. 17.
535 Development of Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts (Harvard Historical Studies), p. 68 note.
536 Massachusetts Magazine for October, 1789, i. 642. The passage quoted in the text is followed in the Massachusetts Magazine by a reprint of the sheet of 1689.
537 Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, i. 252–255, viii. 258–260.
538 Andros Tracts, ii. 15–18.
539 In Thomas, History of Printing in America (1874), ii. 12 note.
540 To the kindness of Mr. Shillaber I am indebted for a copy of one of these facsimile reproductions.
541 American Bibliography, i. 81. In spite of this statement, Mr. Evans labels the sheet “Broadside, fol.” Mr. Evans goes on to quote a remark made by the late J. Hammond Trumbull, but without stating where Trumbull made it. In reply to a letter of inquiry, Mr. Evans courteously writes as follows:
In a copy of Dr. S. F. Haven’s “Catalogue of ante-Revolutionary Publications” prepared for the American Antiquarian Society’s new edition of Thomas’s History of Printing, formerly belonging to Dr. Trumbull, he has written against the entry of “The Present State of the New-English Affairs. Boston, 1689” the following:
- “Boston” does not appear in the imprint, and it is in the highest degree improbable — indeed, it is impossible that such a tract was printed at the Boston press. After careful inspection of the typography and make up, I incline to the belief that it came from Bradford’s press.
I have never seen the copy in the Massachusetts State Library, and can pass no criticism upon his judgment. From its author’s absence in London, and Trumbull’s statement, I am inclined to agree that it was not printed in Boston; but my judgment refuses to follow him when he ascribes it to Bradford’s press at Philadelphia.
Trumbull’s blunder in asserting that “Boston” does not appear in the imprint is extraordinary.
After reading the remarks printed in the text, Mr. Evans wrote me an interesting letter from which the following passage is extracted:
Your statement that the broadside bears the printed colophon of Samuel Green, settles the place of printing definitely. It is not open to question, any more than any other book bearing his imprint would be.
The position you maintain regarding the publication being a broadside is also correct. Bibliographieally speaking, the term broadside is used in the same way, and for the same purpose that folio, quarto, octavo, etc., are used — to convey to the mind some idea of form. It always indicates that the printed matter is on the face of the sheet, only. When the matter runs over to the other side it becomes a broadsheet, and is bibliographically described as: “pp. (2) folio.” When the single sheet is folded it then becomes a “tract,” and its bibliographical description becomes, when so folded, “pp. 16, 16 mo.;” when there are two or more sheets requiring to be sewn together the publication becomas a “pamphlet;” and, after five sheets, becomes a “book.” The way in which the printed matter is displayed makes no difference whatever. Broadside Proclamations usually are composed across the face of the sheet. College “Theses” are usually in two columns. Elegies appear in one, two, or more columns according to length.
Strictly speaking, “The Present State of the New-English Affairs” is not a newspaper; but in its ephemeral purpose to convey intelligence and mould public opinion it partakes of the nature of one in those particulars.
542 Ten Fac-simile Reproductions Relating to Various Subjects. Though some, if not all, of the previous reprints were doubtless known to Dr. Green, he does not mention them.
543 The Historical Magazine is meant.
544 It was not Isaiah Thomas, but Joel Munsell, who wrote the words quoted by Mr. Sargent. See p. 312, above, and pp. 319, 320, below.
545 Boston Evening Transcript, 29 April, 1903, p. 19/1. An article on the same subject by the present writer was printed in the same paper of 27 May, 1903, p. 21/3.
546 Several of the supplements to the Boston newspapers issued in the eighteenth century were broadsides.
547 Publick Occurrences was reprinted by Dr. Samuel A. Green in the Historical Magazine for August, 1857, i. 228–231; by F. Hudson in his Journalism in the United States, from 1690 to 1872 (1873), pp. 44–48; and again, this time in facsimile, by Dr. Green in his Ten Fac-simile Reproductions Relating to Old Boston and Neighborhood (1901).
548 Massachusetts Archives, xxxv. 78.
549 History of Printing in America (1810), ii. 191.
550 See p. 312, above.
551 In a work just published, Professor Duniway remarks:
When the government found it necessary to enlighten the people on the course of public affairs, it authorized Samuel Green to publish a broadside entitled “The Present State of the New-English Affairs,” and bearing the indorsement “This is Published to prevent False Reports” (Development of Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts, p. 68).
552 The Hall in Harvard Hall. Mr. William C. Lane writes me that —
The entrance to Harvard Hall was always, I believe, in the same position as at present, namely, in the middle of the South side. The dining hall was at the East end of the building, that is, on the right of the entrance: and the “entrance of the hall” must have been, I should think, the door from the hallway into the Commons room, that is to say, the Governor would face the West.
553 The Rev. Jacob Foster was born in Holliston, Massachusetts, 10 March, 1732, graduated at Harvard College in 1754, married to Hepzibah Prentiss of Cambridge, 1756, ordained at Berwick, Maine, 1756, dismissed at his own request and entered the Continental Army as Chaplain of Col. James Scammon’s Regiment, 1775, installed at Packevsfield (now Nelson), New Hampshire, 1781, and retained the pastorate ten years. He died at Packersfield 3 December, 1798 (E. J. Forster, The Pedigree and Descendants of Jacob Forster, Senior, of Charlestown, 1870, pp. 7, 8). He also appears to have served in Col. Edmund Phinny’s Regiment at Fort George in 1776. See Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, v. 875, 904; Paige, History of Cambridge, pp. 630, 631.
It appears by the Executive Council Records that Hancock did not consider favorably the recommendation of President Willard, since the Rev. Thomas Cushing Thacher (H. C. 1790) was nominated by the Governor 28 January, 1792, “as Chaplain to the Garrison at Castle Island,” and that the appointment was consented to. Mr. Thacher held the post but little over a year, as Mr. Jacob Emerson (H. C. 1756) was appointed and confirmed as his successor 26 March, 1793.
554 The Rev. Samuel Cooper, a member of the Corporation and minister of the Church in Brattle Square, Boston, where Hancock worshipped.
555 Harvard College Papers, ii. 40.
556 College book No. 8, p. 195.
557 Ibid. p. 117.
558 See p. 239, above.
559 See p. 230, above.
560 Lettres d’un Cultivateur Américain, ii.314–380.
561 Magazine of American History, ii.724–733. See also Étienne Charavay, Le Général La Fayette (1898), pp. 106–115.
562 Massachusetts Centinel, 20 October, 1784, p. 2/3.
563 Recollections (1877), p. 260.
564 According to the Quinquennial Catalogue, the only degrees received by Lafayette during the eighteenth century were from Harvard College in 1784, from the University of Pennsylvania in 1787, and from the College of New Jersey in 1790.
565 The address was written by President Kittredge and engrossed on parchment, measuring 17 by 22 inches, by Mr. Albert F. Hall, the initial letter being illuminated in blue and gold. The seal was pendant on a scarlet grosgrain silk ribbon.
566 Professor Peirce was born 1 May, 1834, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he died 21 March, 1906.
567 New-England Weekly Journal, 8 March, 1731, p. 2/2.
568 County Court Record, Salem, June, 1658, pp. 19, 51.
569 Plymouth Colony Records, iii. 176.
570 Ibid. in. 178.
571 Ibid. iii. 184.
572 Massachusetts Archives, x. 265. The endorsement is in the handwriting of Edward Rawson, Secretary of the Court of Assistants.
573 History of New England, ii. 480.
574 12: 25?
575 Publications, viii.72–74.
576 An interesting account of Christopher Holder and his connection with the persecution of the Quakers in Massachusetts is to be found in the published proceedings at the Dedication of the Holder Memorial Building of the Clinton Historical Society, 20 September, 1905, pp. 5 et seq., 58 et seq.
577 1660–61.
578 See Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. i. 433.
579 For the groundwork and most of the material of this paper, I am indebted to the exhaustive researches of Mr. William P. Upham, my late coadjutor in the exploration of original sources, documents, and records.
580 This Bibliography will be printed in volume iv. of our Publications.
581 These documents were found by Mr. Ford in a file of the Boston News-Letter owned by the Boston Athenæum. They were bound between Nos. 565 and 566, the issues of 14 and 21 February, 1714–15, respectively. The printed portion of the first document measures 106/16 by 6 inches, while the printed portion of the second document measures 11 by 66/16 inches. Each of the documents is a folio sheet, printed on both sides.
582 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 75.
583 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 207, iv.i.9. This charter is in the Massachusetts Archives, cxii. 26–35. It was printed by J. B. Felt in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for July, 1857, xi. 206–210, but without specific reference.
584 See, besides the authorities cited in the notes to the present remarks, J. Quincy, Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, pp. 16,17; S. G. Drake, History and Antiquities of Boston, pp. 535, 599; A. Gilman, Story of Boston, pp. 419–421; C. C. Smith, Boston and the Colony, in Memorial History of Boston, i. 219; J. M. Bugbee, Boston under the Mayors, Ibid. iii. 219; J. M. Bugbee, The City Government of Boston, pp. 8–22, in Johns Hopkins University Studies, v. 80–94; H. H. Sprague, City Government in Boston, pp. 8–10.
585 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. i. 368. Mr. Smith says:
It is curious to notice how little trace of these applications has been left on the town records. There is not a single entry in them near the date of the orders of the Court which can be directly connected with these petitions for a charter; and the only votes of the town which can be supposed to have even a remote reference to the matter were in October, 1652, and October, 1658 (Memorial History of Boston, i. 219).
The passages referred to by Mr. Smith are as follows:
21st of the 8th mo. . . . Att the sam meetting thear was Chosen, Mr Ed. Hutchinson, Capt. Robert Keyn, for to draw up and present a petition to the Genirale Court (Boston Records Commissioners’ Reports, ii. 112).
15:8:58. Att a publick meeting of the freemen Itt was voted that the Gen. Court bee desired to make a law against publick houses entertainment of any inhabitants to drink on the night after the Sabbath is ended (Ibid. ii. 148).
The nature of the petition mentioned in the first extract is not stated, and it is difficult to see how the second extract can refer to the subject of incorporation.
586 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. ii. 26, 27. The entry is as follows:
In ansr to the petic͠on of senerall the inhabitants of Boston, the Court, hauing received three petitions of the like nature, & haue giuen answer thereto, judg that the sajd answer maybe to the sattisfaction of the ꝑsent petic͠oners, to wch they are referred.
Presumably the references are to 30 May, 21 June, 1650, and 11 May, 1659 (Ibid. iii. 207, iv. i. 9, 368).
587 Ibid. iv. ii. 56. A committee was appointed “to pervse the charter now in Court.” If by the “charter now in Court” is meant the charter of 1650, it will be found, as already stated, in the Massachusetts Archives, cxii. 26–35; but if a new charter was drawn, a search in the Archives has failed to disclose it.
588 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. ii. 99. Again a committee was appointed “to pervse the charter now in Court.” The comment made in the preceding note may be repeated.
589 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, vii. 111. Quincy states that “as early as 1667, among the instructions given by the town to its representatives, there was inserted the endeavor to obtain a law ‘making the town a corporation, or making it a county by itself’” (Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, p. 16). No such instructions are found in the Town Records for 1667, and presumably Quincy’s date is a typographical error for 1677, when it was agreed “That this towne may be a Corporation or made & towne & countie.”
It may be added that attempts to make Boston a county were made in 1721 and 1735 (Ibid. xii, 112, 114–118, xiii. 82, 276, 282).
590 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, viii. 55, 56, 58, 59, xi. 83, 84. Judge Sewall was one of the committee, and allusions to its meetings will be found in his Diary, ii. 247, 248, 250.
591 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xvi. 67, xix. 182. This attempt was overlooked by Mr. Bugbee and by Quincy. The latter says that “in May, 1744, the subject was again revived, in a form, as was probably supposed, less exceptionable” (Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, p. 17). At that time the town asked that —
their power may be now by an Act of the General Court increased, so as to make By Laws with the Consent of the Court of Sessions with a Penalty not exceeding Forty Shillings. That the Selectmen for the time being or the Major part of them be Constituted a Court of Record & Vested with Powers Sufficient to try & determined all Offences against the By Laws of the Town (Boston Record Commissioners’ Report, xiv. 45, 49, 50).
592 Ibid. xxv. 245, 246, xxxi. 25, 89–93.
593 The Council Records, the Court Records, the Massachusetts Archives, and the Boston Town Records have been searched in vain for allusions to this attempt. Writing in 1764 Hutchinson said:
There was a disposition fifty years ago in most of the principal inhabitants of Boston to be made a corporation. A plan was formed in order to be laid before the general court of the province, which by the charter is impowered to make corporations. When the heads of it were presented at a town-meeting a demagogue called out, “It is a whelp now, it will be a lion by and by, knock it in the head. Mr. moderator put the question.” The people were prepared and it was rejected by a great majority (History of Massachusetts, i. 175 note).
On the face of it, this would seem to be an allusion to the attempt made in 1714. But that attempt never reached the town meeting held in March, 1714–15, and it seems probable that Hutchinson referred to the attempt made in 1708–09, which did come before the town meeting and was rejected.
594 Boston News-Letter, 20 September, 1714, No. 544, p. 2/2. A copy of the London Gazette of 3 August, 1714, is bound between Nos. 544 and 545 of the Boston News-Letter in the Boston Athenæum. The funeral obsequies of Queen Anne were celebrated and King George was proclaimed at Boston on 22 September, at Salem on 23 September, and at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on 23 September (Ibid. 27 September, 1714, No. 545, p. 2). See also Publications of this Society, v. 79 note, 80 note.
595 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xi. 218, 219, 223.
596 Publications, viii. 202, 203.
597 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 258, 259; Hotten’s Original Lists (1874), p. 59.
598 Genealogical Dictionary of New England, ii. 280.
599 Pioneers of Massachusetts, p. 193.
600 An abstract of this will is also printed in Waters’s Genealogical Gleanings in England, ii. 956, 957.
601 The reference is probably to John Dillingham of Boston, afterward of Ipswich, Massachusetts, whose relations with Richard Saltonstall were intimate, although it may possibly have been to his brother Edward Dillingham of Lynn and later of Sandwich, Massachusetts. Cf. Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 177, 193; Hammatt Papers (18S0), pp. 41 n., 45 n., 77, 78; 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vi. 40b, 54, 55, 496, 498, vii. 253; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vii. 225, 226; Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, ii. 50; Jewett, Memorial of Samuel Appleton (1850), pp. 11, 84, 85.
602 Emanuel Downing.
603 The Rev. Dr. Robert Warren (or Wareyn), after holding the living of Long Melford for twenty-five years, was sequestered from his benefice and parsonage in 1643, but, at the age of ninety-six, was restored in 1660. See E. L. Conder, Church of the Holy Trinity, Long Melford, Suffolk (1887), pp. 14, 15; J. Gage, History and Antiquities of Suffolk, Thingoe Hundred (1838), pp. 89, 90; W. A. Copinger, Suffolk Records & MSS, iv. 116, 117; J. and S. C. Venn, Admissions to Gonville and Caius College in the University of Cambridge (1887), p. 51.
604 The reference is to Long Melford in the hundred of Babergh and county of Suffolk, England, a rectory in the archdeaconry of Sudbury and diocese of Norwich, three miles north from Sudbury.
605 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vi. 563, 564.
606 Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for March, 1906, xiv 571, 572.
607 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 300, xxx. 34, 326, 419, 448. The marriage is not recorded in the Boston Town or Church Records.
608 Publications, x. 225–227.
609 Mr. William Nelson, the Corresponding Secretary of the New Jersey Historical Society, to whom I am indebted for much of the new material used in this sketch of General Davenport, sends me the following memoranda concerning the appointments of his father, Josiah Davenport, or Josiah Franklin Davenport as he was sometimes called (see p. 227 note, above), to various public offices:
1773 |
|
Jany. 8 |
Davenport, Josiah Franklin, Register and Clerk in Chancery (Book of Commissions AB, p. 121). |
Feb. 11 |
Davenport, Josiah Franklin, Cursitor in Chancery (Ibid. AB, p. 121). |
Feb. 25 |
Davenport, Josiah Franklin, Naval Officer for New Jersey (Ibid. AB, p. 122). |
Feb. 25 |
Davenport, Josiah Franklin, Justice of the Peace for Burlington County (Ibid. 3A, p. 436). |
1774 |
|
Oct. 3 |
Davenport, Josiah F., Clerk, Gloucester County (Ibid. AB, p. 168). |
1776 |
|
Sept. 11 |
Davenport, Josiah F., Justice of the Peace for Burlington County (Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey in Joint Meeting, 30 August, 1776–May, 1780, p. 7). |
Mr. Nelson adds:
In the Minutes of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey (p. 483), it is noted that on June 29, 1776, Josiah Franklin Davenport presented a bill “To board and lodging Governor Franklin, his servant, &c. one week £3,” which was ordered paid. Josiah Franklin Davenport’s several appointments to office were made by his cousin Governor Franklin. No doubt he gave the Governor full value for the £3 which he charged the State for his board.
Mr. Nelson also calls attention to the fact that there was a Francis Davenport of Salem and Burlington Counties who held many public offices, 1684–1716, and a family of Devenports in Morris County, who came from Kingston, New York, in 1704, none of whom were related to the Gloucester County Davenports, although they are sometimes confounded by writers who are not aware of the lack of kinship.
610 Nearly all the facts contained in this notice of General Davenport are embodied in an article on the editorial page of the Constitution and Farmers and Mechanics’ Advertiser, published at Woodbury, New Jersey, in its issue of Wednesday, 11 July, 1906, p. 2/4.
611 Registers of Christ Church, in which no later record of this family is found. From this fact and the abseuce of any record of General Davenport’s birth in Philadelphia, the inference is reasonable that soon after their marriage his parents removed to New Jersey, and that he was born there, perhaps at Woodbury.
612 National Cyclopædia of American Biography, ii. 8; Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, ii. 82; Lamb, Biographical Dictionary of the United States, ii. 348.
613 A Biographical Congressional Dictionary, 1774–1903 (Washington, 1903), p. 489.
614 Lamb, Biographical Dictionary of the United States, ii. 348.
615 Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey in Joint Meeting, 30 August, 1776–May, 1780, p. 9. I am indebted to Mr. Henry C. Buchanan, Librarian of the New Jersey State Library, for the facts drawn from the Minutes of the General Assembly and also from the Minutes of the Joint Meeting. My thanks are also due to the Hon. S. D. Dickinson, Secretary of State, and Mr. William Riker, Jr., Clerk of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, for their courteous replies to my inquiries for information which I sought in their respective offices.
616 Franklin Davenport had previously been appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Regiment, Gloucester, 5 June, 1793 (Ibid. 23 May–5 June, 1793, p. 29).
617 It is to be remarked that General Davenport’s appointment as Major-General of the First Division of the Militia of New Jersey appears under the subsequent date of 9 December, 1823 (Ibid. 31 October–9 December, 1823, p. 31). General Breintnall’s attention having been called to this discrepancy, he replied as follows:
I have your letter . . . relative to the appointment of General Franklin Davenport as Major General of the First Division of the Militia of New Jersey. The date I sent you — November 12, 1823 — is of record, but December 9, 1823, is the correct date. I am glad you called my attention to this fact that I might have the privilege of making the correction.
You are further informed that Franklin Davenport was a Captain commanding a Battery of Artillery attached to Colonel Joseph Ellis’ Second Battalion, Gloucester County Militia, in the brigade commanded by Brigadier General Silas Newcomb, at the battle of Red Bank, New Jersey, October 22, 1777, Revolutionary War.
618 See New Jersey Archives (1901), vol. xxiii. pp. lxviii-lxx, lxxii, lxxxii, lxxxiii. General Davenport held this office until 1798, when he resigned it and was succeeded (26 December) by Elisha Clark. Twenty-five years later he was once more a candidate for this office but was defeated, 31 October, 1823, by Jacob Glover, with whom he again unsuccessfully contested the office, 31 October, 1828. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for the office of Clerk of the Pleas in Gloucester County, 28 October, 1825 (Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly in Joint Meeting, 31 October–9 December, 1823, p. 5; 1825, p. 10; and 1828, 1829, p. 5).
619 Minutes of the General Assembly of the State of New Jersey, 1787, 1788, 1789.
620 Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly in Joint Meeting, 29 October–30 November, 1792, p. 42; and 1812, p. 259.
621 Journals of the United States Senate; A Biographical Congressional Dictionary, 1774–1903, pp. 33, 489; 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, x. folding table between pp. 8 and 9.
622 Journals of the United States House of Representatives; A Biographical Congressional Dictionary, 1774–1903, p. 37; National Cyclopædia of American Biography, ii. 8.
623 Memorandum attached to the back cover of the volume containing the Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly in Joint Meeting, 1776–1799; General Index of Masters and Examiners in Chancery, Chancery Office, Trenton, New Jersey.
624 Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly in Joint Meeting, 29 October–6 November, 1812, p. 261.
625 Proceedings and Address of the Convention of Delegates to the People of New Jersey, n. p., n. d., 8vo., pp. 20.
626 Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly in Joint Meeting, 1828, 1829, pp. 15, 16.
627 The Intelligencer, and Weekly Advertiser, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, of Tuesday, 22 May, 1804, p. 3/3.
628 Trenton Federalist of Monday, 28 May, 1804.
629 It would be interesting to know who this relative was, but as my New Jersey correspondents inform me that no gravestone to General Davenport’s memory can be found, it is impossible to identify this person.
630 Emporium and True American, Trenton, New Jersey, of 4 August, 1832. This notice, doubtless, was copied from one in the same form which appeared in Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia, of 31 July. The Daily Chronicle, Philadelphia, of Tuesday, 31 July, merely announces General Davenport’s death in two lines as having occurred on the 27th instant at Woodbury, which is only eight or ten miles from Philadelphia. The Newark Daily Advertiser of 2 August also prints a two-line announcement of the death, which it states occurred “on the morning of the 28th instant,”—undoubtedly a double typographical error. Adjutant-General Breintnall informs me that the records in his office state that General Davenport died at Woodbury 27 July, 1832, at the age of seventy-seven years.
631 Thomas Cushing and Charles Sheppard, History of the Counties of Gloucester, Salem and Cumberland, New Jersey, with Biographical Sketches of their prominent citizens (1883), pp. 129, 130.
632 Our late associate, General Joseph Wheeler, U. S. A., a grandson of General Hull, had been engaged for several years in collecting from the public archives of England, Canada, and the United States the materials for a complete vindication of General Hull from the aspersions cast upon him by rivals who, in consequence of his downfall, rose to place and power which they abused by preventing him from obtaining for several years copies of official documents for which he had repeatedly applied in vain. See above, p. 247 and note.
633 The dinner was given on Monday, 30 May, 1825, at the Exchange Coffee House. Two hundred persons were present. The Hon. William Sullivan was president of the day, introduced the guests to General Hull, made him a formal address, to which Hull replied, and presided at the dinner. See the Columbian Centinel of Wednesday, 1 June, 1825, p. 2/3, in which the two Addresses are printed at length.
634 Columbian Centinel of Wednesday, 30 November, 1825, p. 2/4; Jackson, History of Newton, p. 312; Vital Records of Newton, p. 465; Dexter, Yale Biographies and Annals, iii. 444–148; S. C. Clarke, Records of Some of the Descendants of Richard Hull (Boston, 1869), pp. 7–17, and Records of Some of the Descendants of John Fuller (Boston, 1869), pp. 8–12; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xlvii. 141–153, 305–314; Report of the Trial of Brig. General William Hull, commanding the North-Western Army of the United States, by a Court Martial held at Albany on Monday, 3d January, 1814, and succeeding days, New York, 1814; Defence of Brigadier General W. Hull . . . With an Address to the Citizens of the United States, Boston, 1814; W. Hull, Memoirs of the Campaign of the North Western Army of the United States, A. D. 1812, Boston, 1824; Maria Campbell and J. F. Clarke, Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull . . . with the History of the Campaign of 1812, and the Surrender of the Post of Detroit, New York, 1848.
635 The Columbian Centinel of Wednesday, 28 March, 1825, p. 2/2, announced that General Hull had received “a letter from Gen. Lafayette, dated at Charleston, South Carolina, the 9th instant,” — doubtless in reply to Hull’s letter in our text.
636 There are, in fact, three rough draughts of this letter. What is apparently the final form of the letter is printed in the text.
637 This house was numbered 3 in Winthrop Place. It was subsequently the home of Rufus Choate. Isaac McLellan, of Portland, Maine, had married, 13 March, 1805, General Hull’s daughter Eliza. See S. C. Clarke, Records of Some of the Descendants of Richard Hull, pp. 11, 13, 14.
638 Her son, Mr. Charles French Read, is the efficient Clerk of the Bostonian Society.
639 Anna Maria Campbell Hickman, born at Detroit, 23 July, 1809, was the elder daughter of Capt. Harris Hampden Hickman, U. S. A., and Ann Binney Hull, his wife, a daughter of General Hull. She married (1) George Alexander Otis, Jr., of Boston, (2) the Rev. Zachariah Mead (Y. C. 1825), and (3) David Chalmers, of Halifax County, Virginia (S. C. Clarke, Records of Some of the Descendants of Richard Hull, pp. 9, 11, 14; Heitman, Historical Register of the United States Army, 1789–1889; A Biographical Sketch, Anna Maria Mead Chalmers, In Memoriam, 1893, in which the meeting of Lafayette and General Hull is briefly described, p. 21).
640 Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, iv. 89, 40.
641 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ii., vii., passim.
642 Ibid. ii. (third edition), part 2 (Book of Possessions), pp. 14, 88, 97. Cf. the Publications of this Society, vi. 93, 94.
643 Records of the First Church in Boston, 19 (3) 1639.
644 Ibid.; Hill, History of the Old South Church in Boston, i. 12, 113, 116 and notes, and passim; An Historical Catalogue of the Old South Church in Boston (1883), pp. 5, 219, 220.
645 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 137.
646 O. A. Roberts, History of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, i. 152, 153.
647 Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, iv. 40; Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 304, iv. i. 146.
648 See the Publications of this Society, vi. 86–89.
649 See Ibid. vi. 39.
650 Benjamin Blakeman’s name was and is often misspelled Blackman. See notices of him in Sibley, Harvard Graduates, ii. 140–144; Williamson, History of the State of Maine (1832), i. 664, 665.
651 For notices of Thomas Scottow see Sibley, Harvard Graduates, ii. 522–524; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 692. He was left a double portion in his father’s will (Suffolk Probate Files, no. 2432), dated 23 June, 1696, but he died soon after, as Sibley says he was starred in the Triennial of 1700.
652 W. Willis, in A History of the Law, the Courts and the Lawyers of Maine (1863), pp. 55, 56, gives lists of the Judges and Registers of Probate in which the Scottows, father and son, appear to have held their respective offices from 1687 till 1693. The son had already received a similar appointment at the hands of Andros’s predecessor. Mr. James J. Tracy has been so kind as to send me a memorandum stating that the Council Records during Dudley’s Presidency show that on 18 June, 1686, Thomas Scottow, designated “Sworn Clerk of the Province of Maine,” was empowered to demand and receive the records from Mr. Rush worth, “late Registrar of the Province” (ii. 44); and, under date of 20 July, 1686, that an order was passed that a letter be drawn up and directed to Mr. Edward Rushworth to comply with the order for delivering the records to Thomas Scottow, “now appointed” Recorder of the Province, and designating a committee to advise Scottow as to a suitable place in Wells for keeping the records and to fix his time of attendance at his office (ii. 54).
653 York Court Records, ii. 223. I am again indebted to our associate the Hon. James Phinney Baxter for the use of his copy of these Records, which is cited in this and subsequent notes to this communication. See also Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 666, 667.
654 W. S. Southgate, History of Scarborough, in Collections of the Maine Historical Society (1853), iii. 116. A notice of Scottow is in Ibid. iii. 115–126, 131–133. The lands embraced in the Cammock Patent, some 1500 acres, and the 750 acres contiguous thereto, were sold in 1728 by Scottow’s executor and son-in-law, Capt. Samuel Checkley, for £1500, to Timothy Prout of Boston, merchant, who had married Lydia Savage, daughter of Lieut.-Col. Thomas Savage (1640–1705) and grand-daughter of Captain Scottow. The locality has since become known as Prout’s Neck (York Deeds, xii. 276; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 392, 692; Suffolk Deeds, xxiv. 99; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 20).
655 York Court Records, iii. 251.
656 Ibid. iii. 268.
657 Ibid. iii. 320, 337.
658 Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 556. Scottow’s associates were Joseph Dudley, Richard Waldron, Edward Rishworth, John Wincoln and Samuel Wheelwright. See also York Court Records, 1 July, 1679, iii. 363, 371.
659 Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 558, 565; Publications of this Society, i. 287 n.
660 Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 593.
661 York Court Records, iii. 383.
662 Ibid. iv. 118.
663 Ibid. iv. 157.
664 Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 692.
665 York Court Records, iv. 37; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 572 n., 573 n.
666 Williamson, History of the State of Maine, ii. 16; p. 371 and note 2, above.
667 York Court Records, passim.
668 History of the State of Maine, i. 392 note, 566 note.
669 Old Mens Tears for their own Declensions, etc., Boston, 1691; and A Narrative of the planting of the Massachusetts Colony, Anno 1628, etc., Boston, 1694. The full titles of these and other tracts by Scottow are in Sabin, Dictionary of Books relating to America, xix. 159–161.
670 Diary, i. 467. The absence of Scottow’s minister, the Rev. Samuel Willard, was doubtless owing to illness, as well as to the “extream cold,” which prevented him from preaching in his own pulpit on the following Sunday, — the next day.
671 The inscription on the grave-stone and some account of its discovery in the Meeting House tower may be read in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1851, v. 78.
There is a very brief notice of Scottow in Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, i. 692, and another in 2 Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, iv. 100–104. See also Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. ii. 208, 209, 218, 517; Collections of the Maine Historical Society (Documentary History of Maine, Baxter Manuscripts), Second Series, iv., v., vi., passim.
672 See Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 102.
673 See Publications of this Society, v. 176 note 185; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 693.
674 See Publications of this Society, i. 275 and note, 276, 279, 283–286, 287 note, v. 177 note, 178 note, 182, 183 note, 185; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 691.
675 Col. Samuel Wheelwright was a son of the Rev. John Wheelwright and occupied many positions of trust and honor in the Colony of the Bay and in the Province of Maine. He died 13 May, 1700. See Publications of this Society, i. 277 note, 280, 282, 283, 285, 287 and note, 288, 290, 292, 293, 302, v. 184, viii. 128, 129; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, ii. 76.
676 Black Point was a part of Scarborough, Maine, where Scottow’s Hill perpetuates the name and memory of one of her most serviceable and public spirited, although at times much abused, citizens.
677 The allusion is probably to the massacre by the Indians, in the autumn of 1675, of Robert Nichols and his wife at their house on the upper part of Blue Point, near Dunstan, in Scarborough, and the brothers Andrew and Arthur Alger at their garrison-house near the Landing, which was at some distance from the two principal settlements at Black Point and Blue Point. It was charged that Scottow refused to send for the protection of the Dunstan planters any of the soldiers who had been sent by the Massachusetts Government for the defence of the settlements at Scarborough and placed under his command. From this charge, as we shall presently see (in the next note), he was acquitted by the General Court. Subsequently, he was maliciously charged with the murder of his fellow-townsman Nathan Bedford, the keeper of the first ordinary in Scarborough, who came to his death by drowning, as appears by the verdict of the Coroner’s jury rendered 24 August, 1681, which was further inquired into by the Court of Sessions, 27 September, and accepted by it, 30 May, 1682, an entry in the margin of the record reading “Scottow Cleared” (Southgate, History of Scarborough, in Collections of the Maine Historical Society, 1853, iii. 78–80, 104–106, 125; York Court Records, iv. 104, 113, 232). See also Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, i. 152.
678 The Court’s decision was as follows:
This Court, having hearc the complaint of Mr Rishworth exhibbeted against Captaine Scottow for improoving the countrys souldjers on his oune particcular occasions, & neglecting the service of the country, & thereby endeavoring to put the charge of these souldjers vpon Capt̄ Scottow, vppon a full hearing of both partjes, see no reason for the aforesajd complaint, and doe judge, that the sajd Capt̄ Scottow (for ought doth appeare) hath faithfully dischardged his trust, and is therefore acquitted from the chardge endeavored to be put on him, but that the same be borne by the county [of York], and that Mr Rushworth doe pay Capt Scottow his costs & damage. The Conrt granted & determined the costs to be nine pounds thirteen shillings & eight pence (Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 121). See also Ibid. v. 129, 182.
679 The surrender of Black Point occurred 14 October, 1676. It is described by Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 540, 541.
680 The second attack on Scottow’s garrison, which was repulsed, was made 16 May, 1677, when Mugg, the powerful Indian chief, was slain (Ibid. i. 519, 550).
681 Cancelled in the original.
682 In the Suffolk Court Files (xxi. 106–115, no. 1828: 18) is a deposition by Thomas Cousens, aged about thirty years, sworn to 16 January, 1679–80, before Samuel Wheelwright, Commissioner, which was used in this case. It reflects severely upon Scottow’s management of the forces at Black Point during th e Indian troubles and probably furni shed the occasion for the legal proceedings which he instituted in the Provincial Courts immediately on his return home after the General Court had refused (11 June, 1680) the hearing requested in th e petition in our text. The York Court Records (iv. 76) under date of 30 June, 1680, show action “upon Complaynts exhibited by Capt. Josua Scottow against Thomas Cussons upon suspition of periury;” and under date of 6 April, 1681, the case is “transmitted unto the next Generall Assembly houlden for this province” (iv, 87).
683 The Boston Athenæum has long had in its possession the original manuscript folio volume of some seven hundred pages which contains the Records of the County Court at Boston covering the decade 1671–1680. These Records are now being printed by the Registry Department of the City of Boston. The following entry records the decision of the Court in the case of Scottow against Shapleigh et al.:
At a County Court held at Boston
27o̱̣ January Aọ 1679. @
Captn Joshua Scottow of Boston, plaint, contạ m Nicholas Shapleigh of Kittery, mṛ Edwḍ Rishworth of Yorke, mṛ Samuel Wheelewright of Wells or any of them. Defendṭs in an accon̄. of the case of defamation, for Slaundering the plaint, by divers false charges of falsifying his trust drawn up against him under pretence of reasons Signed by them all contained in a writing and exhibited to the Honrḍ Genlḷ. Court upon the 9th of august 1676. and managed against the sḍ plaint, by the sd Rishworth before the sḍ Court at their Session on the 11th of Octobṛ. 1676. as by the sḍ. writings more fully doth appeare wc̣h hath been to the plaints very great damage with all other due damages; mṛ Samuel Wheelewright appeared as Defenḍt The Attachmt and Evidences in the case produced being read & com̄itted to the Jury wc̣h are on file. The Jury brought in their verdict they found for the Defendt costs of Court. The plaint, appealed from this Judgemt. unto the next Court of Assistants and put in security for prosecution thereof to Effect (Records of the County Court at Boston, 1671–1680, p. 622).
Scottow cont. Shapleigh
The decision of the Court of Assistants follows:
Att A Court of Assistants held at Boston 2d day of march 1679.
Joshua Scottow plaintiff agt Samuel wheelewright defendt in an Annon of Appeal from the Judgment of the County Court in Boston After the Attachment Courts Judgement reasons of Appeale & euidences in th e Case pr oduced were read Comitted to the Jury & are on file wth the records of this Court the Jury brought in their virdict they found for the deffendant Confirmatiou of the formr Judgment & Costs of Courts fiue pounds fiueteen shillings & ten pence (Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1901, i. 152).
The Suffolk Court Files contain twenty-five papers connected with this case. These include the attachment of Wheelwright, Scottow’s account, his declaration and reasons of appeal, Wheelwright’s answers to both, an order of the General Court and a petition to it, certificates, declarations, depositions, and bill of costs (xix, 70, no. 1641; xxi. 106–115, no. 1828; mccxii. 9, no. 162, 190).
684 The official record of this decision, under date of 11 June, 1680, is in the following words:
In ansr to the petition of Capt̄ Joshua Scottow, the Court judgeth it not convenient to grant the peticoner a hearing, since the petic̄oner & the partjes concerned are now, by late transactions, put vnder a distinct government vpon the place, i. e., the Prouince of Mayne, to which authority, if he be vnder any sufferings, he ought to apply himself, it being inconvenient & vnsafe for this Court to com̄and any thenc to be judged here (Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 282). See York Court Records, iv. 31.
685 The names of Messrs. Saltonstall, Russell, Brattle, Appleton, Wayte, Torrey, and Rawson, appended to this document, are autograph signatures. The Petition, which is not dated, is wholly in Scottow’s handwriting; the decision of the Court is in another hand.
686 In the original there are here two or three words, which cannot be deciphered, in the hand of Edward Rawson.
687 W. Douglass, Summary (1749), i. 483–485.
688 E. Washburn, Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts (1840), pp 172–186.
689 J. Noble, in Publications of this Society, viii. 150–185.
690 Province Laws, vii. 514, 515.
691 Printed in 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, volume v., which constitutes Part VI. of the Winthrop Papers. In the Preface to this volume (pp. xiii.–xxi.) will be found an interesting sketch of Wait Winthrop.
692 The commission enclosed in this letter is engrossed on parchment with an engraved heading in which are depicted a crowned lion rampant, an eagle, a serpent, and various birds, etc.; and in the upper left-hand corner is a portrait of William III. It is of considerable length, and is wholly in Latin. The jurisdiction of the court extended over the Colonies of Massachusetts Bay, New York, and New Hampshire. The Commission is dated 2 May, 1699. On the back of it is an entry by the Register of the Admiralty Office in New York.
693 Washburn draws the character of Byfield in a manner far from flattering. He was long the friend and supporter of Joseph Dudley, who endeavored to have him appointed Lieutenant-Governor at the time he (Dudley) was made Governor of the Province. By false accusations against Wait Winthrop, who had been proposed by Sir Henry Ashuist, Dudley had prevented his appointment to this office; but he failed to secure it for Byfield. Thomas Povey was appointed 11 April, 1702 (Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts, pp. 178–183; 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, v. 109, 110; Whitmore, Massachusetts Civil List, p. 44). See also Publications of this Society, iii. 76, vi. 267 note, 269 note; Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, i. 325, 326; F. Baylies, Historical Memoir of the Colony of New Plymouth, ii. part iv. pp. 53–57, which contains a sketch of Byfield.
694 William Atwood was appointed Chief-Justice of New York in June, 1700. He was a violent partizan, and was finally arrested, but made his escape. See New York Colonial Documents, vol. iv. passim.
695 O. A. Roberts, History of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, i. 253, 254.
696 Province Laws, vii. 104, 148, 164, 180.
697 Ibid. vii. 164, 568, 595; Whitmore, Massachusetts Civil List, p. 125.
698 Publications of the Harleian Society, xvii. 23; Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, i. 115, ii. 1363, 1376, 1378, 1380, 1394.
699 Massachusetts Council Records, v. 243.
700 Whitmore, Massachusetts Civil List, pp. 99, 102. See also Ibid. pp. 47, 48, 50–53, 64–66, 71, 72, 78; 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, v. 39, 40, 50, 90, 91, 159.
701 The appearance of the manuscript clearly indicates that it was originally prepared for the subscription of Judge Winthrop only, and that it was subsequently utilized when other Crown officials qualified. The assumption that these were subordinate officers of the Court of Vice-Admiralty is not unreasonable.
702 James Davis, and others, subscribed a similar Oath, Declaration and Association in Boston 27 May, 1702 (1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, iv. 256, 257).
703 Timothy Hilliard was of Hampton and Dover, New Hampshire. See Ibid. xvi. 265; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxvii. 364–367; Collections of the Dover (New Hampshire) Historical Society, i. 115.
704 There was a family of Blackden in Rochester, Dover, and Durham, New Hampshire (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxix. 265, 267, xxxiii. 347).
705 Major William Vaughan of Dover and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was a member of the Executive Council of that Province and later Chief-Justice of its Superior Court, 1708–1716. He died 12 November, 1719. See Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, iv. 368; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, v. 245; Sewall’s Diary, i. 312; Sewall’s Letter Book, ii. 9; 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xiv. 124 note, 128 note, 140, xvi. 257, 262, 261, 266, 275, xvii. 106, 107 and note, 226, 228; Bell, Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1891), pp. 10, 11.
706 A sketch of Mr. Weisse is in Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, vi. 423. His school in Roxbury was on the northwesterly side of Hawthorne Street, on an estate subsequently owned by Roland Worthington. John Chandler Bancroft (H. C. 1854) and the Rev. Dr. Alfred Porter Putnam (B. U. 1848) were also pupils of Mr. Weisse between 1840 and 1847. Nicholas Weisse, Sr., of Roxbury was his brother. Mr. John A. Weisse married, 27 June, 1841, Jane Lee, daughter of William Hunt (H. C. 1768), of Watertown, Massachusetts, and his wife Jane, daughter of George and Mary (Faneuil) Bethune, of Boston. Mrs. Weisse compiled: Records, Genealogical Charts, and Traditions of the Families of Bethune and Faneuil, New York, 1866; Records and Traditions of the Families of Hunt and Weisse, New York, 1866; and A History of the Bethune Family, Together with a Sketch of the Faneuil Family, New York, 1884. See also W. L. G. Hunt, Genealogy of the Name and Family of Hunt (1863), p. 322; Bond, Genealogies and History of Watertown, pp. 174, 304; Roxbury, Massachusetts, Town Records of Births, 1843, 1845; Baptismal Register of the First Religious Society in Roxbury, 1844, 1847.
707 Reminiscences of Foreign Travel. A Fragment of Autobiography. Privately printed, 1894, pp. 104.
708 Memoir of Robert C. Winthrop (1897), p. 64.
709 Mr. Winthrop was also a member of the Institute of 1770, and of the M. O. F. Club, the latter long since disbanded.
710 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xix. 301, 302.
711 Katharine Winthrop, born 26 September, 1664, was a daughter of Thomas Brattle, the richest merchant of his day in New England, and widow of John Eyre of Boston at the time of her marriage to Chief-Justice Wait Still Winthrop, 13 November, 1707. She died 2 August, 1725 (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 91, xxviii. 17; Sewall’s Diary, iii. 363; Paige, History of Cambridge, p. 499).
712 Proceedings, 1884–1885, p. 379.
713 This reference to Mr. Adams was doubtless prompted by his Oration, entitled “A College Fetich,” — a term by which he characterized the traditional study of Greek, delivered in June, 1883, before the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.
714 Publications, iii. 86–90.
715 Ibid., vii. 68–80, 325 note.
716 Publications, i. 148, 149.
717 Publications, x. 365–369.
718 Corporation Records, vii. 26; Records of the Board of Overseers, ii. 28. Yale conferred the M.A. degree on Franklin, 12 September, 1753. See Howard Payson Arnold’s Historic Side-Lights (1899), pp. 66–72.
I am indebted to Mr. Albert Matthews for the following extract from the Boston Gazette of Tuesday, 31 July, 1753 (p. 3/1):
On Monday last the Corporation of Harvard-College met at Cambridge, and taking into Consideration the great Genius of Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia, Esq; for Learning, the high Advances he has made in Natural Philosophy, more especially in the Doctrine and Experiments of Electricity, whereby he has rendered himself justly famous in the Learned World, unanimonsly voted him a Degree of Master of Arts, which Vote was the Day following as fully confirmed by the Overseers of that Society, and on Friday the President presented him a Diploma therefor.
719 See Province Laws, iii. 662, 663.
720 The Diploma which the Academy sent to Franklin to testify to his election to fellowship in 1781, has been reproduced for this volume and appears above, between pages 242 and 243.
721 For the draught of this letter, which varies slightly from this text, see 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 449.
722 Benjamin Guild (H. C. 1769).
723 Printed in 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, viii. 290.
724 The Act, Chap. 46 of the Acts of 1779–80, passed 4 May, 1780, is printed in Province Laws, v. 1194–1196. See also the Note by the Editor, ibid. v. 1369, 1370.
725 The Catalogue immediately follows this letter.
726 American Philosophical Society.
727 Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’ Anville (1697–1782).
728 Richard Price (1723–1791). “He was the intimate friend of Franklin; . . . and in the winter of 1778 he was actually invited by Congress to transfer himself to America, and assist in the financial administration of the insurgent states” (Dictionary of National Biography, xlvi. 335).
729 Col. Henry Laurens.
730 Stephen Sewall (H. C. 1761), Hancock Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages for twenty-one years, and also Librarian of Harvard College.