April Meeting, 1944

A STATED Meeting of the Society was held, at the invitation of Mr. Augustus Peabody Loring, Jr., at No. 2 Gloucester Street, Boston, on Thursday, April 27, 1944, at a quarter before nine o’clock in the evening, the President, Kenneth Ballard Murdock, in the chair.

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

Mr. Carleton Sprague Smith, of New York City, was elected a Corresponding Member of the Society.

The chair appointed the following committees in anticipation of the Annual Meeting:

To nominate candidates for the several offices,—Messrs. Lawrence Shaw Mayo, Fred Norris Robinson and Elliott Perkins.

To examine the Treasurer’s accounts,—Messrs. Allston Burr and Hermann Frederick Clarke.

To arrange for the Annual Dinner,—Messrs. Augustus Peabody Loring, Jr., William Alexander Jackson and Allyn Bailey Forbes.

The President reported on the condition of the Increase Mather tomb in the Copps Hill Burying Ground, which was in a very bad state of repair. As one of the historical monuments of Boston it seemed appropriate that it should be restored, and the Council had voted to put the matter in charge of Mr. Robert Peabody Bellows. Mr. Bellows then reported that he had found the tomb, which is of the table type, in very bad condition. He proposed that a new top be placed on the tomb, in which the original inscription should be set.

Mr. Richard Mott Gummere read a paper entitled:

A Scottish Classicist in Colonial America

JOHN Witherspoon, one of the outstanding Scottish-born settlers who should be numbered among the Founding Fathers, cannot be described as a statesman of the first rank. He was not a great constitutional interpreter like Madison or his own countryman, James Wilson.1 He was not supreme in diplomacy, finance, or political philosophy, as were Franklin, Hamilton, and Jefferson respectively. The “Roman Senator” traits of Adams were not reflected in his personality. Nor did he exchange the gown for the uniform, as General Mühlenberg did in such dramatic fashion. But he deserves to be included in any group of colonial leaders as an all-round exponent of the three main ideas which reached their climax in 1776. He tempered a sincere religious creed with the current Common-Sense philosophy; he stood out solidly for the Anglo-Saxon tradition of freedom; and he utilized in the most distinctive way the cultural and educational background of Greece and Rome. For an earlier parallel the student of American history turns to Increase Mather, a college president who was equally at home in the pulpit and in the statehouse. His is an impressive record—a half-century in the ministry, twenty-six years as a college president and trainer of statesmen, and twelve years as an active member of Congress and of the Provincial legislature of New Jersey. He is the only clergyman whose name appears on the Declaration of Independence.

Funeral orations, except for those spoken by a Pericles or a Bossuet, are apt to grow dull with the passage of time. Perhaps that of the Reverend John Rodgers of New York is no exception; but in his memorial sermon on Witherspoon, “delivered at Princeton before the Board of Trustees of the College of New Jersey, May 6, 1795,” the good Doctor did history a service by pointing out the late President’s political distinction, besides “his literature, his superintendency, his example as a happy model of good writing, and the tone and taste which he gave to the literary pursuits of the College.”2 It is therefore of some interest to examine the record of a spiritual leader, an educator deeply enthusiastic about belles-lettres, and a man who practised his political theories instead of allowing them to evaporate in the classroom.

Perhaps a collateral but not a direct descendant of John Knox, Witherspoon was born February 5, 1723, at Yester, near Edinburgh. Schooled at Haddington, he entered Edinburgh University with the customary classical equipment at the age of fourteen. Here, with his friend Dr. Alexander Carlyle of Inverness,3 he followed the usual program of Humanities. Latin, Greek, and Euclid occupied the first year; logic and rhetoric were added in the second year, especially the Poetics of Aristotle and Longinus’s On The Sublime (two books which are frequently reflected in his later writings). Classics and mathematics, with natural and moral philosophy, made up the rest of his degree requirement. Carlyle speaks of Witherspoon as a good scholar, shrewd, but with “a flat voice and an awkward manner.” He overcame this handicap later, as did Cotton Mather, following the advice to practice slow speaking and use a “dilated vocabulary.” The testimony of his contemporaries indicates that this difficulty stemmed from an irascible and dominating father.4 In later life, replying to a visitor who remarked of his estate in Princeton: “You have an excellent garden but no flowers,” Witherspoon replied: “No, madam, neither in my garden nor in my discourse!”5

In 1739 Witherspoon took his degree at Edinburgh, with a Latin thesis, De Mentis Immortalitate, dedicated to the Marquis of Tweeddale. Licensed to preach at the age of twenty-one, and declining a position as assistant to his father, he occupied successively the parishes of Beith and Paisley. He refused calls to Dublin, Dundee, and Rotterdam. But when Benjamin Rush pressed him to accept the presidency of Nassau Hall, he finally capitulated despite an offer from a rich bachelor relative to become his heir and remain in Scotland. Rush, writing home to Philadelphia and describing his efforts on behalf of the Princeton trustees to secure his prize, called him homo factus ad unguem; when the Scotsman accepted, Rush hailed the occasion with the words redeunt Saturnia regna.6 Thus with a Horatian and a Vergilian invocation, the Scotch preacher began in 1768 a career which lasted until blindness and old age ended his presidency in 1794.

That the eighteenth century, especially in its third quarter, represented the climax of Greek and Roman influence is a truism beyond question. Witherspoon was no exception. His country place was named “Tusculum”; over the front entrance of Nassau Hall was a bust of Homer, the only external ornament. His first Commencement address indicated his platform and policy: “The remains of the ancients are still the standard of taste.” “Though a schoolmaster can scarcely speak without citing Vergil or Horace, he is to be indulged.” Witherspoon kept up a correspondence with his son David in Latin and French, reminding him in one of the letters that when he could read Horace and Vergil comfortably at sight, he would derive no less pleasure than from an English poem. He contributed to the Pennsylvania Magazine under the pseudonym of Epaminondas and tried editing a short-lived Spectator-like periodical of his own, The Druid. In the fifth number of this publication, discussing vulgarisms and errors in English speech, the editor opens with the statement that “A man is not, even at this time, called or considered as a scholar, unless he is acquainted in some degree with the ancient languages, particularly the Greek and Latin.”7

Of the three main phases in Witherspoon’s career—Biblical, political, classical—he felt strongly, as did Cotton Mather, that the common law and the writings of the ancients should both be subordinated to the scriptural message. Unlike Dell, Webster, and other anti-education writers of the seventeenth century, he admitted that the Christian is all the better fortified by classical precedents in presenting the Word as the primary instrument of virtue. Mather, however, admitted more of a partnership: he followed St. Augustine in claiming the Greeks and Romans as Christian property. The trivium and quadrivium of the ecclesiastical scheme went hand in hand with a college education in the colonies; and Mather welcomed science into a higher category than did Witherspoon.8

The Princeton president, in his clerical capacity, drew a sharper line of demarcation. In a sermon9 which reminds us of one of Seneca’s earliest essays, he declares it to be shameful that the Church Fathers and good Christians should be attacked and defamed by infidels while “the wise men of the heathen nations are suffered to possess, without contradiction, all the reputation which their countrymen in after-ages have thought fit to bestow upon them.”10 He is pursuing the same thought when he declares that the verse “Let your light so shine before men” was addressed to all good Christians rather than to the twelve apostles alone, so that they might refute “the Heathen philosophers and the Jewish teachers.” Again, “What an inconsistency, for a Christian minister to speak of the Lord Redeemer in such a style as naturally leads the hearers to put Him upon a level with Socrates or Plato or other uninspired teachers, who never pretended to be saviors!”11

A modern pagan is naturally abhorrent to Witherspoon. “A mechanic or peasant, instructed in the oracles of truth, has now more just and consistent notions of God, his perfections, his laws, his Providence, than the most renowned philosophers of ancient times.” It is a weakness to rely upon mere human nature, even when a heathen does so; but these pagans themselves acknowledged some higher power as approving their expeditions and undertakings—for example, the deus ex machina, the protecting Genius, amulets, and mystical incantations.12 This testifies all the more to the value of a Christian faith in God. It is not astonishing that Minos and Numa should pretend to the privilege of divine communication; but it is conclusive proof of the power of the Word, that it is found in Matthew the Publican and his associates.13 He defines the Stoic theory as an ignava ratio when contrasted with belief “in both the certainty of God’s purpose and the free agency of the creature.” Unlike Mather, he gives no credit to the early philosophers: “Natural knowledge was increased by religious light . . . all the theories of the ancients as to the formation and preservation of the earth and heaven, were childish and trifling . . . the latest discoveries in philosophy, including physics, have never shewn us anything but what is perfectly consistent with the Scripture doctrine and history.” Witherspoon admits, however, that all human science, in natural history, astronomy, and chronology, is not necessarily to be found in the Bible.14

There is no word in Greek or Latin, he declares, equivalent to the Christian humility: humilitas, mansuetudo, πραότης will not reproduce the English word. Heroism and magnanimity occur frequently in pagan literature, but never humility.15 Speaking clerically, he roundly denounces the younger Pliny for his report to Trajan concerning the Christians in Bithynia, forgetting the persecutions and cruelties in the church records of sixteenth-century Scotland.16 Some of them matched the gallery of wrongs available to the good Doctor in his reading of the ancients and in the pages of the historians Rollin and Goguet. At any rate, the ancients must be put in their proper place: Blackwell’s Sacred Classics proves that “there is no beauty in the classic authors in which they are not outdone by the sacred penman.” However, one understands this failing, due to polytheism and lack of revelation. The modern religious leaders should exercise the equivalent of the Roman censor’s function.17

Outside the church, however, Witherspoon welcomes the Greek and Roman writers. His really serious attacks are reserved for the Immaterialists, the current Moderates (as the Scotch called one of their groups), the modern sceptics. Hume, Voltaire, Herbert of Cherbury, Helvetius are the real infidels. While the Abbé Banier meant well, he was wrong when he tried to prove that Thales, Pythagoras, and heathen mythology “have a partial view of the Scripture history.”18 In this respect Witherspoon differs somewhat from Cotton Mather, and radically from William Penn, who ransacked ancient philosophy from Thales to Plotinus in order to prove the presence in every human being of the Indwelling Spirit.19 “I have,” declares the Scots preacher, “a much more lively idea of Jupiter and Juno, and many of their actions, from Homer and Vergil, though I do not believe that any of them ever existed, than I have of many things that I know happened within these few months.”20

The Moderates in the Scotch Kirk had always been the objects of Witherspoon’s scorn: he had denounced them in his Ecclesiastical Characteristics.21 They did not follow the Confession of Faith; they included in one benevolent embrace “the admirable heathens, Socrates, Plato, Marcus Antoninus, &c.”22 It is not true religion to “reckon Socrates and Plato to have been much greater men than any of the apostles.”23 The Moderates are like the eccentric artists in Horace’s opening lines of the Ars Poetica:

humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam iungere;

although they themselves regard such a monstrosity as a harmonious creation.24

These enemies of religion are like Julian the Apostate, whose method of suppressing the new creed was to encourage the philosophers and urge the pagan priests to steal a march on Christianity by a “mortified carriage.”25 Church Fathers should not be attacked by infidels while “the wise men of the heathen nations are suffered to possess, without contradiction, all the reputation which their countrymen in after ages have thought fit to bestow upon them.” Such modern infidels err “in following Nature,—the all-comprehensive rule of the ancients.” In satirizing these Moderates Witherspoon comes very near blasphemy: “I believe in the divinity of L. S---,26 the saintship of Marcus Antoninus, the perspicuity and sublimity of A-----e,27 and the perpetual duration of Mr. H------n’s28 works, notwithstanding their present tendency to oblivion.”29 Marcus Aurelius, he declares, and “Markii Medulla Theologiae” are two different matters.30 The ancients can be pardoned because they lived in darkness without revelation; but the Shaftesbury-Voltaire type of writer, appealing to Nature and relying on reason alone, is dangerous.

The fortress of Christianity is, therefore, in the eyes of Witherspoon, a home of revelation and inspiration. But for purposes of its defense one may call upon outside assistance: “The gospel has never been without enemies from without and within; and as it is usually by means of human learning that they make the attack, it is necessary that some should be ready to meet them and unravel the subtilty with which they lie in wait.”31 A classical parable illustrates this point of view: “An ancient artist, who, being employed to build a magnificent and elegant temple, had the ingenuity to inscribe upon it his own name, and so to incorporate it both with the ornaments and body of the structure, that it was impossible afterwards to efface the name, without at the same time destroying the fabrick. In the same manner, Christ dying for sin is engraven in such characters through the whole revealed will of God, that it is impossible to take it away without overturning the whole system.”32

In Witherspoon’s second phase, the “superintendency,” as Doctor Rodgers defined his presidency of the College of New Jersey, the Scottish-born leader applied all three of the fundamental elements to which reference has been made. When religion is the criterion, a clear distinction is set up for the students between “a knowledge of God natural in and by his works” (a process in which classical learning is essential) and “a knowledge supernatural out of the Word.” “Piety without literature is but little profitable, and learning without piety is pernicious to others and ruinous to the possessor.” The studies which, in his opinion, contribute most to theology are “Languages, Moral Philosophy, History sacred and profane, and Eloquence, including belles-lettres in general.” Cicero’s Archias is a model; for cultural pleasure is highly desirable.33 Greek and Latin should be read “both with pleasure and profit.” “So certain a truth is this, that one of the ancient authors34 gives it as a rule for moral conduct that men should always imagine themselves in the presence of such a man as Cato, renowned for gravity and virtue.” If a mortal can furnish such an example, how much more can God in His holiness accomplish!

For purposes of Moral Philosophy, the classics are regarded as essential. In the lecturer’s estimation, Cicero and Plato rank high, the latter frequently conveyed through the medium of Cudworth. While the Socratic “know thyself” is often mentioned, one is surprised that there is no reference to the Politicus,35 where Plato describes the cycles through which man has passed in this order: 1. a state of innocence and prosperity under divine direction; 2. the Fall; 3. still deeper decline into barbarism; 4. restoration of man by partial interference of God and the natural growth of arts and civilization. For in this passage Plato is a true Calvinist. Solomon’s prayer for an “understanding heart” is compared to that which Socrates taught Alcibiades, beseeching “the Supreme God to give him what was good for him, though he should not ask it, and to withhold from him whatever would be hurtful, though he should be so foolish as to pray for it.”36 Nor need one think too closely about any comparison with the Symposium, when, in a sermon on “A View of the Glory of God humbling to the Soul,” the preacher uses such a sentence as: “Any piece of deformity appears more hideous and shocking when compared with perfect beauty.”37 Cicero is approved on the lower level as a person of dignity and high standards: if only the De Natura Deorum were possessed of revelation, it would rank with any piece of literature extant.

In the second class come Xenophon, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca, who “contain many moral sentiments but little or nothing of the principles of morals.” Most highly praised is the Tablet of Cebes, the dialogue which sets moral worth above erudition as an element of education. These ancients, however, are all aids and an effective background for the church as well as for the study. They furnish models of conduct: “It is a well-known saying of a heathen philosopher, that a great man, suffering with invincible patience under a weight of misfortunes, is a sight, which even the gods must behold with admiration.”38

This classical atmosphere follows Witherspoon in all his academic relations. When Hugh Henry Brackenridge on entering Princeton complained to his President that he had had a hard and poverty-dominated youth, quoting Juvenal:

Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat

Res angusta domi;

Witherspoon retorted: “There you are wrong, young man! It is only your res angusta domi men that do emerge.”39 In his Seasonable Advice to Young Persons40 he declares it easier to ridicule and expose folly than to “reason with justice and propriety.” Even Socrates, “the wisest and best man of all the heathens . . . [was] successfully turned into ridicule by a person [presumably Aristophanes] whose writings . . . are to the last degree mean and contemptible.”41 Addressing the senior class on Sunday, September 23, 1775, he warns them42 of the close relationship between covetousness and profusion, quoting Sallust’s description of Catiline: alieni appetens, sui profusus. But he defends all those who feel a consciousness of rectitude in the face of attacks by the words magna est veritas et praevalebit. In a sermon preached in New York in May, 1789, On the Religious Education of Children,43 he urges the importance of a good example, quoting “the Roman Satyrist” [Juvenal]:

Nil dictu fœdum visuque hæc limina tangat

Intra quae puer est,

as well as the other famous phrase of the same author:

Maxima debetur puero reverential.44

In his Letters on Marriage45 he ridicules the current fashion of naming Venus and Minerva as allegorical compliments to young people in love.46 “I wish every Strephon and Daphne heartily well, and that the exalted and rapturous phrases of Arcadia may be soon brought down to the composed discourse of a quiet man and wife in Philadelphia.”47

These letters are clear; they read easily. The speaker understands young people. He compares the play of children with the futile pursuits of many of their elders: “Schemes of ambition, . . . political struggles, . . . contests for power . . . are often as great trifles as the playthings of children, only that they are the playthings of men.”48

Among undesirable playthings, in the preacher’s opinion, is the theatre. A Serious Inquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Stage49 reflects the current idea that the spoken drama was not yet emancipated into respectability. Others, he declares, “have made it undeniably appear that the theatre was opposed and condemned by the best and wisest men, both heathens and Christians, in every age.” Tertullian and Augustine50 are called to witness for proof of the infamy of the scenici. But Witherspoon is only half right when he makes the statement that “Particularly at Athens both tragedy and comedy were soon abolished on public authority; and among the Romans they did not permit any public theatre to continue above a certain number of days.”51 The theatre of Scaurus was soon taken down, and the first permanent one, that of Pompey, was not built until 55 b.c. Roman Law is quoted to show that actors were classed as infames; and the words of Seneca are invoked, although they apply rather to the amphitheatre than to the drama: nihil tam damnosum bonis moribus quam in aliquo spectaculo sedere.52 Plutarch is appealed to as frowning on Menander’s plays,53 and Witherspoon brands much of Aristophanes as puerilities. (So, however, did Arnold of Rugby.) Finally, the typical old Spartan answered an Athenian who spoke to him of the excellent lessons to be found in the Attic tragedies: “I think I could learn virtue much better from our own rules of truth and justice than by hearing your lies!” One also wonders why Witherspoon did not draw on Plato’s Republic for support of his views. Admitting, with Samuel Werenfels,54 that good school plays are sometimes worth while, and perhaps having in mind those of Westminster or the British universities or the Inns of Court, he concludes that the professional public stage is to be “viewed with abhorrence.” A Roscius, a Molière, a Shakespeare may “overcome the prepossession”; nevertheless, the Roman tribune was right when he said to Nero that he began to hate him when he became “a charioteer, a comedian, and a buffoon.” Aristotle may have been a perfect critic of the dramatic art, but the improvement of the art did not mean an improvement of the morals.

Witherspoon’s Lectures on Eloquence55 are the climax of his interest in the classical authors. They are Johnsonian rather than Addisonian in style. Like many of the eighteenth-century writers, he uses words with meanings closer to their Latin derivation than they are today. With him radical means “fundamental.” Denounce means “report unfavorably.” Ascertain signifies “make sure” rather than “discover.” When Witherspoon says incumbent, the meaning is “weighing heavily upon.” Police equals “civil government.” Discussing the value of a national capital, he suggests that it be “unfixed and ambulatory.” Obviate occurs in the sense of “go to meet” or “forestall.” Object (as a verb) is equivalent to “throw in the teeth of.” Notify implies that the thing is made known to the person rather than that the person is informed of the thing. And so in many other cases which need not be catalogued further.

These lectures will bear reading today; we can even now appreciate the gusto with which the President heard and criticized every senior at the delivery of his weekly oration. He follows and acknowledges Quintilian56 in recommending “for the complete orator a combination of natural talents and acquired skill.” Pericles, Demosthenes, and Cicero should be studied, and the rhetorical works of Cicero and Quintilian should be mastered. The trite story of his physical handicap brings the great Greek orator especially to Witherspoon’s attention because he himself had very nearly despaired of success as a speaker on account of his slowness of enunciation. The orator also, as all the ancient experts recommend, should be in hard training, live simply, and concentrate on his task.

A sound writer and speaker should, first, be thoroughly familiar with his own language, plus Latin and Greek. He should be master of syntax and forms: Latin gives “muscle” and Greek gives grace. What a difference exists between the Latin and modern Italian! Emphasizing the proper use of figures of speech, with illustrations from the classical and vernacular languages, and recommending frequent practice in style, the lecturer runs the whole gamut of suggestions for good writing and speaking. For example, personification is exemplified by the dialogue between Cicero and his beloved Italy. Euphemism is found in Cicero’s comment on the slaughter of Clodius by Milo’s servants: “They did that which every good man would want his servants to do in like circumstances.”57 Propriety avoids extravagance: it would be absurd to quote the passage from Homer where Jupiter brags that he could hang all the other gods on a chain and toss them up as easily as a ball, or (as Longinus also felt) the Hesiod episode which includes a disgusting description of the Goddess of Darkness.

The proper use of clausulae in sentence rhythm (for which he gives examples from Cicero) and the correct divisions of an oration should form the base of style. Proverbial advice, of the traditional type, is frequent: scribendum quam plurimum; nocturna versate manu, versate diurna; reddere auditorem attentum, benevolum, docilem; denique sit quodvis, simplex dumtaxat et unum.58

Livy should be studied for straightforwardness, Xenophon’s Cyropaedia for directness. Address different audiences in different ways: Seneca’s genus dicendi mutatur per publicos mores59 is very much to the point. Select from the short and “dry” method the elegant and ornate or the diffuse. The “pointed style” is compared with the brief and epigrammatic sentences of the English Gentleman Instructed. One must be cognizant of the five ingredients that are important for the leader who aims to convince—elevation, feeling, figures, nobility of language, and arrangement of words. Most vital of all are sales (wit), eutrapelia (appropriate manner), and urbanitas. That is why Lucian’s dialogues possess such charm, following Horace’s dictum:

et prodesse volunt et delectare poetae.60

All this is, to be sure, old-fashioned stuff for these modern days; but when one thinks of the results, in the shape of the men trained in this school of writing and thinking, one realizes the truth of the proverb so popular with the President himself: abeunt studia in mores. And Witherspoon was the first to admit that eloquence does not accomplish everything. He explains that when Caesar had it in mind to condemn Ligarius and was ultimately led to pardon him, it was accomplished not so much by the persuasive tongue of Cicero as by Caesar’s own habit of making friends by forgiving enemies, as well as by his desire to flatter and win over Cicero.61 It is anyhow a large-scale problem; and Cicero’s own Archias points the way: omnes artes quae ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam commune vinculum.62

The third phase of Witherspoon’s activity is the most impressive—his preparation of young men for political life and his own participation in national affairs. He established graduate courses “to fit young gentlemen for serving their country in public stations.”63 In Scotland he had taken a modest part in local affairs; but in the colonies he believed that a clergyman should apply his morals and learning to national matters. As a member of the Continental Congress, he objected to the clause in the constitution of Georgia which forbade a minister to serve in the legislature. It was a duty. In a sermon On Nature under Sin, he explained his idea: “I have in view the sages and legislators of antiquity, who acquired so much renown by establishing systems of policy and government for different states. What was this else but taming the savage, and restraining the profligate part of their fellow-creatures?”64 What Witherspoon desired was the σπουδαιότης of the classical writers, directed efficiently to modern statecraft. Guidance is vital: “Some states are formed to subsist by sobriety and parsimony, as the Lacedaemonians. . . . Public spirit in others, as in Greece, ancient Rome, and Britain. . . . Sometimes [public spirit] is a passion for acquiring glory and dominion, as in Rome, and sometimes for preserving liberty, as in Greece and Britain.”65 By such illustrations he oriented the minds of his students. He believed earnestly in the future of America. Ancient systems may have been founded “by caprice or accident, by the influence of prevailing parties, or particular persons, or prescribed by a conqueror”; but America was settled on a large and cooperative scale. In some details his statements may be inaccurate; but his main aim was the building of a great republic.

“Nature” and “Natural Rights” were of course ingredients of many articles and speeches by Witherspoon. Beginning with Winthrop’s “liberty natural and liberty civil,” they had occupied colonial pamphleteers. Provided Nature, with all its implications of human inadequacy, is not used in a religious sense, as in the opinions of the deists and the Moderates, it is a good weapon for American rights. And so, when the lecturer remarks: “Separate and independent states are, with regard to one another, in a state of natural liberty, or as man to man before the commencement of civil society,”66 we can hear the voice of both Cicero and Samuel Adams. Fortified by ancient testimony, as well as by reading in modern political economists, Witherspoon marched in the vanguard, with Ulpian and the Stoics, toward the Declaration of Independence.67

This “State of Nature” is, in the President’s opinion, only the prelude to a properly balanced social order. He stands half-way between the Winthrops and the Cottons (who shuddered at Nature in this sense) and keen practical politicians like Dulany and Sam Adams, who felt that the colonies were free from Great Britain and therefore were “in a state of Nature.”68 He commends “imperfect natural rights,”—such as gratitude, and mutual good offices. These, he tells us, are what the Stoics called “advantages.” But in the social stage which follows the natural stage, liberty should be continued, and the mixed form of government (here he agrees with Winthrop) should be maintained. He follows Aristotle and Polybius. The doctrine is stamped with the seal of Montesquieu, and approved by such statesmen as Daniel Dulany of Maryland and James Madison.

The “compact” is a vital thing. “In migrations and the planting of colonies, we see evident traces of an original contract and consent taken to the principles of union.”69 In this way natural liberty is corrected by the Law of Nature and Nations, with the “law of general Reason” overall. Because of this belief, when Article 17 of the Confederation was being discussed, Witherspoon opposed Franklin, holding out for one vote for each state, instancing the fate of the Helots in Sparta and the Roman provincials.70 In the Continental Congress, he pressed for the “information” (i.e., development) of the original confederation, and for more control by the Federal government.71 He belonged to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, fought paper currency, and wrote An Essay on Money.72 The main point of the Essay is the undesirability of debasing the medium of exchange; and of course the author spoke feelingly. In comparison with his fellow-countryman Adam Smith, the learned Doctor is not profound; he cites President Goguet’s “Rise and Progress of the Laws, Arts, and Sciences,” explaining the derivation of pecunia, discoursing on the money of Servius Tullius, which was stamped with likenesses of sheep and oxen, and commenting on the bronze weapons of the Homeric heroes. It is much less interesting than the congressional debates in which the author took a prominent part.

A speech in Congress on the convention with General Burgoyne contains a warning to his countrymen that they (the Americans) should live up to their agreements and not give the British just cause for complaint that the articles of surrender were not being carried out. He illustrates the situation by the behavior of the Romans when their army was captured at the Caudine Forks;73 the Romans sent the defeated consul back to the Samnites rather than approve the terms of peace. Rome broke the league agreement and sent an army against the enemy, in spite of the courteous behavior of the Samnites toward the consul. The Samnites, he concludes, were not wise, and the Romans were not honorable.

Under the pseudonym of “Aristides” Witherspoon discusses Paine’s Common Sense and attacks the author of Plain Truth.74 He is against all forms of communism: Sparta had a system somewhat like it, and a breakdown resulted. When enlarging on the evils and horrors of civil war, he draws lessons from Marius and Sulla.75 Rulers should conduct themselves, at any rate, like Philip of Macedon, who “heard reproofs not only with patience but with pleasure.” In all history, Cicero appeals to Witherspoon as the only man who behaved better in a prosperous than in an afflicted state: he was at least dignified in prosperity, while abject in adversity, perhaps because pride was his ruling passion. A worthy example for all statesmen is the self-sacrifice of Fabius: when his rash colleague engaged the enemy contrary to orders, Fabius made himself responsible for the defeat, and thus won a great victory. This story illustrates the quality of magnanimity.76

A satire or squib77 entitled The Supplication of J. R------contains an attack on “Hortensius,” the Tory governor of New Jersey. Witherspoon represents Rivington as saying: “I have served many of the British officers in a most honorable station and character, of which the great Pandarus of Troy was the most ancient example.” This mock-plea for protection on the departure of the British was addressed to Henry Laurens, President of Congress, and is full of Latin proverbs like the slogan nemo me impune lacessit and egomet sum proximus mihi. The writer also puts into his mouth a phrase indicating the danger of offending Scotchmen: Buchanan’s perfervidum est Scotorum ingenium.

The titles of senior theses and Latin orations by Witherspoon’s students at Princeton reveal the usual number of topics chosen on the theme of resistance to the mother country. In 1771 Freneau and Brackenridge had composed jointly a poetical dialogue on The Rising Glory of America, and Witherspoon’s son James had defended in a 1770 Latin oration the same theme which Samuel Adams had selected at Harvard in 1743—that subjects were justified in resistance if the government were tyrannical. In 1774 T. H. McCaule delivered a Latin salutatory, Bellum Servituti Anteponendum.78 Some of these eloquent thrusts seem far-fetched, as in the case of a boy orator in 1783 who, in the presence of Washington himself, in the course of an impassioned speech on the removal of Caesar by Brutus, caused a British officer named Michaelis (who was on parole and in the audience) to wonder regarding the appropriateness of the allusion. But he had probably forgotten that a parallel between Caesar and George III had originally been suggested by Patrick Henry, and was now presumably a cry of triumph rather than a reference to George Washington.79

The result of this training did not end in the classroom or on the platform. The practical politics to which it introduced so many of Witherspoon’s pupils is his crowning glory. We may amend upwards the figures given in the tribute of Doctor Rodgers, who stated that more than thirty congressmen had received this hallmark. President Madison heads the list. Aaron Burr, whose disgrace the old man was lucky enough to have pre-deceased, was probably the most brilliant student of them all. Ten Cabinet officers, thirty-nine congressmen, twenty-one United States senators, twelve governors, thirty judges (three on the Federal Supreme Court), and over fifty state legislators make up an astonishing number.80 While there was much duplication, and while in those days leadership in public affairs was held as a rule by college-bred men of property, and granting that the Presbyterian tradition was strongest in the Middle States, the sum total is still impressive.

We may conclude that in Witherspoon we find a character remarkably close to all the problems of colonial life. Besides his familiarity with contemporary conditions, the classical heritage was expressed by him in terms that every church-goer or student or politician could understand. In his system, the policies were all workable; they were not mere abstractions. His Justice, Temperance, Prudence, and Fortitude, with the Greek ideal of ἐγκράτεια, or Self-Restraint, translated themselves not only into discourses but into the lives of his pupils and the measures debated on the floor of Congress. One recognizes Cicero, Aristotle, and Montesquieu, blending with the common-sense philosophy of an earnest churchman, and resulting in a constructive Americanism. The often-asked question: “Can the procedures of a large state or nation be conducted like those of the ancient Greek city-state, where every free citizen had a vote?” was a frequent subject of debate by John Witherspoon and his colleagues. They only made a beginning of the solution. The uphill struggle still continues.

1 This chapter is a summary, with additions, of my article “Early Measles Epidemics in America,” Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, xv (March, 1943), 531–556. Fuller sources are given in the original article.

2 Archæologica Americana. Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society, iii. 147, 181; Winthrop MSS., Massachusetts Historical Society; Eva L. Butler’s abstracts from Winthrop’s “Medical Records” (MS., Conn. State Library).

3 Boston News-Letter, February 8, March 15, 1714.

4 Cotton Mather, Hezekiah (Boston, 1713), 21; A Perfect Recovery (Boston, 1714), 47.

5 “Burials within the Town of Boston,” Boston News-Letter, March 15, 1714

6 Id., April 5, 1714.

7 Id., June 7, 1714.

8 Cotton Mather, Victorina (Boston, 1717), 71–72.

9 Clifford K. Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, vi (Boston, 1942), 19.

10 Peter Cutler to Rowland Cotton, March 6, 1713/4; John Legg to Rowland Cotton, March 1, 1715/6 (Misc. MSS., Bound, M.H.S.).

11 F. M. Caulkins, “Necrology of New London,” 28 (MS., Conn. State Library).

12 Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, vi. 19.

13 New-England Courant, January 22, 1722.

14 Boston News-Letter, April 6, 1719; Boston Gazette, March 11, 1723.

15 Jeremiah B. Munger, The Munger Book (New Haven, 1915), 5. Vital Records of Lynn, ii. 497 (Adam Hawkes).

16 I. N. P. Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909 (New York, 1922), iv. 975.

17 Diary of Zaccheus Collins (MS., Essex Institute), i (November, 1739).

18 Vital Records of Natick, 210.

19 Parkman Diary (MS., American Antiquarian Society).

20 Jeremy Belknap, History of New Hampshire (Dover, 1812), iii. 181: three measles deaths in Hampton between 1745 and 1754 (presumably 1747, 1748, or 749).

21 Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., F. E. Oliver, Editor (Boston, 1880), 167.

22 In addition to the references in my earlier article, see Vital Records of Medford, 377, 391, 421, 455, 458 (Gill, Hawks, Reeves, Warren, White); Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., 187 (for Boston); Lionel Chalmers, An Account of the Weather and Diseases of South Carolina (London, 1776), ii. 161. Parkman Diary (MS., American Antiquarian Society) for epidemics in various towns in Worcester County between February and July, 1759.

23 Diaries of George Washington, John C. Fitzpatrick, Editor (Boston, 1925), i. 107, 108, iii, 123.

24 Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, vi. 285.

25 John H. Lockwood, Westfield and Its Historic Influences, 1669–1919 (n.p., 1922), i. 388. Westfield at the time had a population of 800.

26 In addition to the references in my earlier article see Journals of the Rev. Thomas Smith and the Rev. Samuel Deane, William Willis, Editor (Portland, 1849), 222; Memoirs of the Reverend John Wiswall (MS., Maine Hist. Soc), 4; Middletown First Society Records (MS., Conn. State Library); William and Mary College Quarterly, xiv (July, 1905), 41 (diary of Colonel Landon Carter); Wyndham B. Blanton, Medicine in Virginia in the Eighteenth Century (Richmond, 1931), 157. “We hear from Dedham, that 335 Persons have lately had the Measles, in the Rev. Mr. Haven’s Parish, and not one has died; but are all recovered to a good Measure of Health again. Some of almost every Age, between 60 Years and one Month, have had the Distemper.” New London Gazette, May 7, 1773.

27 3 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., ii. 474 (diary of Dr. Cotton Tufts).

28 Essex Gazette, November 3, 1772.

29 Boston Evening Post, January 18, 1773.

30 Essex Gazette, October 20, 1772; January 5, 1773; January 4, 1774.

31 Vital Records of Ipswich, ii. 655, 544 (Procter, Dodge).

32 Vital Records of Chelmsford, 437.

33 New London Gazette, September 25, 1772. Essex Gazette, November 10, 1772.

34 Charles Creighton, A History of Epidemics in Britain, ii (Cambridge, 1894), 634.

35 The figures for the Marlborough epidemic in 1759 (no deaths out of 500 cases), and for the Dedham epidemic in 1773 (no deaths out of 335 cases) were unusual else they would not have been newsworthy. The figures for the Bridgewater epidemic in 1772 (four deaths out of 721 cases) concern only the North Parish and are therefore incomplete.

36 Benjamin Wadsworth, Christian Advice to the Sick and Well (Boston, 1714), 3. It is difficult to determine whether “the Feaver” was an entirely separate disease or a measles complication.

37 Middletown First Society Records, August 25–November 30, 1783.

38 For a bibliography of diphtheria in America up to 1740, and particularly for a detailed account of this epidemic, see my A True History of the Terrible Epidemic Vulgarly Called the Throat Distemper (New Haven, 1939).

39 Boston Gazette, May 26, 1740 (Long family in Newbury, five deaths); Concord, Massachusetts, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1635–1850, 144 (Hartwell family, five deaths); Lexington, Mass., Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 204 (Stone family, two deaths); Diary of Zaccheus Collins of Lynn, September-October; Vital Records of Lynn, ii. 433–439 (Breed family, four deaths), 513–518 (Johnson family, two deaths); Vital Records of Sudbury, 298 (Brintnal family, two deaths), 303 (Estabrook family, three deaths), 315 (Maynard family, two deaths), 330 (Whelor family, three deaths), 331 (Woodward family, two deaths).

40 David Hall Diary. (MS., Massachusetts Historical Society.)

41 For Greenland and Stratham, see New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxix. 38–39, xxx. 427–428, xxxii. 48–49; A Journal for the Years 1739–1803 by Samuel Lane, of Stratham, Charles L. Hanson, Editor (Concord, 1937), 65, 105. The Greenland records (partly destroyed) show two deaths in 1742 in the Cate family, and in 1743 three deaths in the Foss family and three in the Weeks family. In Stratham “throat ail” caused ninety-five deaths, eighty in five months (the 1735 epidemic caused eighteen deaths). From August, 1742, to January, 1743, there were six deaths in both the Calley and Stockbridge families, five in the Walter Wiggins family, four each in the William Chase, Hills, Speed, and Veazey families, three each in the Abbott, Palmer, Thurston, and Tuftin Wiggins families, and two each in the Jonathan Chase, Jr., Jewet, Jones, Mason, Merrill, Norris, Rollings, Smith, and Stevens families. Belknap, in his History of New Hampshire (iii. 238, 243, 247), gives figures showing epidemics in Hampton, Newmarket, and East Kingston, although no cause is given in the case of the last two. The Reverend Thomas Smith identifies the disease in Exeter, Kingston, and Stratham. Journals of the Rev. Thomas Smith and the Rev. Samuel Deane, 116 (November 14, 1744). There were numerous deaths from the “awful throat distemper” in Hampton. New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., lviii. 29–36.

42 “We hear that the Throat Distemper prevails and proves mortal in several Towns at the Eastward, particularly at Rye in New-Hampshire, where in one Family of five desirable Children, the Parents have been bereav’d of them all, in a short Time of one another.” Boston Gazette, August 28, 1753. There were ten deaths in Exeter. Diary of the Reverend Daniel Rogers (MS., Maine Hist. Soc). Samuel Lane of Stratham records fifty-seven deaths there, although the cause is not stated. Journal, 70. According to Belknap, throat distemper in 1754 and 1755 “produced a great mortality in several parts of New-Hampshire, and the neighbouring parts of Massachusetts.” History of New Hampshire, ii, 96. He also gives figures showing epidemics, from unstated causes, in Hampton and East Kingston. Id., iii. 178, 186. Other data for the epidemic in Hampton show that in 1754–1755 there were five deaths in the Jonathan Moulton family, three each in the Josiah Moulton, Amos Towls, Elisha Towls, and Joseph Towls families, two each in the Worthy Moulton, Philbrick, and Nathaniel Towls families, and one in the Ezekiel Moulton family. New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., lviii. 139–140. For the epidemic in Kingston, see Boston Evening Journal (Supplement), February 19, 26, 1881.

43 Vital Records of Andover, ii. 388–389 (Nathaniel and Stephen Barnard families, two deaths each), 487 (Kimbol family, two deaths), 488 (Kittredge family, two deaths), 517–520 (Parker family, two deaths); Vital Records of Billerica, 398 (Stickney family, four deaths); Vital Records of Bradford, 312–313 (Gage family, four deaths), 325 (Hardy family, one death, “throat distemper”); Vital Records of Haverhill, ii. 446–447 (Mitchell family, six deaths); Lexington, Mass., Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 210–211 (Winship family, four deaths); Vital Reccords of Marblehead, ii. 679 (Swan family, two deaths); Vital Records of Newbury, ii. 549 (Berry family, four deaths); Vital Records of Rowley, 509 (Pingree family, two deaths), 520–521 (Smith family, two deaths) 5 Vital Records of Salisbury, 577 (Hook family, two deaths); Vital Records of Topsfield, i. 202 (Averell family, two deaths), 222–225 (Daniel Gould family, three deaths, Thomas Gould family, two deaths), 238–244 (Perkins family, four deaths); Vital Records of Wenham, 209 (Kimball family, two deaths, “throat distemper”), 223 (Waldron family, four deaths). There were more multiple deaths in some of these towns between August and November, but dysentery cannot be excluded as a cause. There was also some smallpox at Beverly, Salem, and Wenham during January, 1747.

44 Vital Records of Bedford, 113–115 (Bacon family, three deaths), 119–121 (Fitch family, three deaths), 125 (Hutchinson family, three deaths), 140 (Whitmore family, four deaths); Vital Records of Billerica, 355 (Daves family, two deaths), 357 (Dutton family, two deaths), 376 (Lewis family, two deaths), 398 (William Stickney family, three deaths, Daniel Stickney family, two deaths). The deaths given in the Byfield parish records show seventeen from throat distemper between January, 1749, and August, 1750. Essex Antiquarian, vii. 145–146. (Some of the names are duplicated in Vital Records of Newbury.) Vital Records of Chelmsford, 366–367 (Blodget family, three deaths), 399 (Harris family, two deaths). At least two of the seven Spaulding children who died in Chelmsford between August 18 and November 20 had throat distemper. Id., 443–447. At least thirty-eight died from this disease in Tewksbury between April and December, 1749, most of them in August. See, for instance, Vital Records of Tewksbury, 201 (Coggin family, two deaths), 209–211 (Frost family, three deaths), 214–215 (Haseltine family, two deaths), 219 (Kidder family, three deaths), 220–223 (Isaac Kittredge family, four deaths, Joseph and William Kittredge families, two deaths each), 227–228 (Manning family, five deaths), 233 (Peacock family, two deaths). There were seventeen deaths in Wakefield between April and November. Vital Records of Wakefield.

45 Belknap reports that there was throat distemper in the “neighboring parts of Massachusetts” during 1754–1755. History of New Hampshire, ii. 96. There were six deaths from it in Byfield in May, 1753. Essex Antiquarian, vii. 146. See also Concord, Mass., Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 183 (Blood family, three deaths, Holdin family, two deaths, Meriam family, two deaths). There was also “a good deal” of throat distemper in March, 1756, in Chelmsford. Wilson Waters, History of Chelmsford (Lowell, 1917), 786.

46 Between December, 1762, and September, 1764, there were in Andover three deaths in the Abbott family, four in the Bachellor family, three in the Frazier family, six in the Ingals family, three in the Joseph Martain family, and two in the Nathaniel Martain family. The causes are not stated. Vital Records of Andover, ii. 370–374, 380, 443, 476–477, 501. In Byfield there were nine deaths from throat distemper between June and August, 1761. Essex Antiquarian, VII. 149. Between May and December, 1762, there were in Boxford three deaths in the Barker family, two in the Burbank family, two in the Carlton family, three in the Cole family, two in the Robinson family, and two in the Spafford family. No causes are given. Vital Records of Boxford, 223–224, 227, 228, 230–231, 260–261, 264. For throat distemper deaths in Bradford, see Vital Records of Bradford, 293 (Atwood family, one), 319–325 (Hardy family, two), 348–351 (Parker family, three). There were also two deaths in the Balch family and two in the Lindall family, causes unspecified. Id., 295–296, 340. For the epidemic in Haverhill, see Vital Records of Haverhill, ii. 391 (Eatton family, three deaths), 393–397 (Emerson family, four deaths), 424 (Hunkins family, two deaths), 470 (Shapard family, two deaths), 484–488 (Webster family, three deaths); “An Historical Sketch of Haverhill,” 2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., iv. 134. In Groton between June, 1765, and January, 1766, there were four deaths in the Hobart family, one in the Nutting family, four in the Pierce family, one in the Benjamin Prescott family, two in the James Prescott family, and three in the Oliver Prescott family. Vital Records of Groton, ii. 232, 248, 255, 256–257.

47 Vital Records of Middleton, 138 (Smith family, two deaths), 139 (Thomas family, two deaths), 140 (Upton family, four deaths), 140–142 (Wilkins family, two deaths).

48 Vital Records of Bridgewater, ii. 423–427 (Alden family, three deaths), 434 (Bass family, three deaths), 436 (Beal family, three deaths), 440–441 (Brett family, three deaths), 441–442 (Brown family, four deaths), 458–459 (Dunbar family, two deaths), 481–483 (Ebenezer Haward family, four deaths, Seth Haward family, two deaths), 508–509 (Kingman family, three deaths), 532–535 (Packard family, three deaths), 553–555 (Shaw family, two deaths), 569–576 (Cornelius Washburn family, three deaths, Ziporah Washburn family, two deaths), 577–579 (Whitman family, four deaths). Most of these deaths, for which no causes are stated, occurred in 1747. Between February and April, 1752, there were six deaths from “canker” in the Packard family. Id., 532–535. For East Bridgewater, see Vital Records of East Bridgewater, 335 (Angier family, four deaths), 357 (Hayward family, three deaths), 367–368 (Kingman family, three deaths). No causes are given, but in the case of the Angier children it is known from another source that they had throat distemper. Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, vi. 370. For Scituate, see the records of the Second Church (New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., lx. 62), which state that three Palmer children had throat distemper in 1747. For Cohasset, see Vital Records of Cohasset, 229 (Stodder family, three deaths). The Boston Weekly News-Letter of June 22, 1749, contains a report of five deaths from throat distemper within four days in the family of Ephraim Jones, Jr., of Braintree. For the epidemic in Halifax between April and October, 1747, see Vital Records of Halifax, 2, 3 (Andrew Bars family, two deaths, Austin Bars family, three deaths, Croade family, two deaths, Harris family, three deaths, Sears family, two deaths, Barnabas Tomson family, four deaths, Jacob Tomson, Jr., family, two deaths, Water man family, two deaths).

49 Independent Advertiser, January 11, 1748. For further data about the epidemic in Kingston, see 2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., iii. 216; Vital Records of Kingston, 319–322 (Bradford family, five deaths), 335–337 (Jonathan Cushman family, three deaths, Robert Cushman family, three deaths, Thomas Cushman family, five deaths), 373 (Ring family, two deaths), 375 (Rogers family, two deaths).

50 In Abington there were sixty deaths, mostly of children. Benjamin Hobart, History of the Town of Abington (Boston, 1866), 263. See also Mayflower Descendant, viii (January, 1906), ii; Vital Records of Abington, ii. 255 (Blancher family, three deaths), 279 (Forde family, three deaths), 350–356 (Shaw family, four deaths), 361 (Stockbridge family, three deaths), 370–371 (Vining family, four deaths). For Attleborough, see Vital Records of Attleborough, 645–649 (Elisha Carpenter family, four deaths, Stephen Carpenter family, five deaths), 667–668 (Everett family, two deaths), 671 (Follett family, two deaths), 712–714 (Robinson family, two deaths). The causes of the deaths are not stated. For Hanover, see L. Vernon Briggs, History and Records of the First Congregational Church, Hanover, Massachusetts, i (Boston, 1895), 185 (Bray family, two deaths, Cobb family, five deaths, Wing family, two deaths). The Reverend William Smith gives in his diary a detailed account of the epidemic in Weymouth for the period July 12–November 21, 1751. Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xlii. 458–462. See also History of Weymouth, Massachusetts (n.p., 1923), ii. 565; Vital Records of Weymouth, ii. 233–239 (Bates family, five deaths), 240–241 (Beal family, two deaths), 242–244 (Bicknell family, two deaths), 278–282 (Holbrook family, two deaths), 282–283 (Hollis family, two deaths), 347–351 (Tirrell family, two deaths), 357–358 (Turner family, four deaths), 360–361 (Vinson family, two deaths), 370–372 (Whitman family, three deaths).

51 Vital Records of Weymouth, ii. 257–258.

52 For Westminster, see Vital Records of Westminster, 213 (Bemis family, two deaths), 216 (Calf family, four deaths), 229 (Hoar family, two deaths), 249 (Stedman family, three deaths), 253 (Whitney family, four deaths). The causes of death are not given. For Athol, see Vital Records of Athol, 185 (Biglow family, two deaths), 189 (Commins family, two deaths), 192 (Dunton family, three deaths), 195 (Foster family, three deaths), 218 (Sanders family, two deaths), 221 (Stockwell family, two deaths, Stone family, two deaths). No causes are stated. For Princeton, see Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy, February 16, 1786; Vital Records of Princeton, 167 (Harrington family, six deaths), 176 (Mathews family, four deaths). For Winchendon, see Vital Records of Winchendon, 191–192 (Evans family, two deaths in 1786, two in 1795), 192–193 (Flint family, two deaths), 197–198 (Heywood family, two deaths), 214–215 (Stoddard family, four deaths). No causes are given. For Royalston, see Lilley B. Caswell, History of the Town of Royalston, Massachusetts ([Athol], 1917), 459; Diary and Journal (1755–1807) of Seth Metcalf (Boston, W.P.A. Historical Record Survey, 1939), 21; Vital Records of Royalston, 162 (Bachelor family, two deaths), 164–165 (Bliss family, two deaths), 172 (Estey family, two deaths), 173 (Faulkner family, two deaths), 177–178 (Heywood family, five deaths), 182–183 (Metcalf family, two deaths), 184 (Nichols family, two deaths), 193–194 (Wheeler family, five deaths), 194 (White family, five deaths).

53 Essex Gazette, October 17, 1769, January 9, 1770; Vital Records of Oxford, 268 (Ballard family, three deaths), 269 (Barton family, two deaths), 270 (Bogle family, two deaths), 272–273 (Campbell family, two deaths), 274 (Claflin family, two deaths), 280–281 (Eddy family, two deaths), 282 (Fuller family, three deaths), 284–285 (Harris family, five deaths), 287–288 (Benjamin Hudson family, three deaths, Joseph Hudson family, four deaths), 288 (Humphrey family, two deaths), 290–291 (Lamb family, four deaths), 292–293 (Learned family, three deaths), 297–298 (Moore family, seven deaths), 301 (Phillips family, two deaths), 302–303 (Pratt family, two deaths), 306–307 (Shumway family, four deaths), 313 (Watson family, two deaths).

54 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 156; 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 446, 507.

55 William Douglass, A Summary, Historical and Political, of the First Planting, Progressive Improvement, and Present State of the British Settlements in North-America (Boston, 1753), ii. 396.

56 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 507.

57 It has been called “the first adequate clinical description of scarlet fever in English.”

58 Caulfield, Throat Distemper, passim.

59 Observations on the Throat-Distemper, 3.

60 Journals of the Rev. Thomas Smith and the Rev. Samuel Deane, 151.

61 Chalmers, Account of the Weather and Diseases of South Carolina, ii. 207.

62 Essex Gazette, July 16, 1771.

63 Vital Records of Duxbury, 420–424, 430–433; Stephen Dodd, East Haven Register (New Haven, 1910), 88.

64 John N. Hutchins, Hutchin’s Improved: Being an Almanack and Ephemeris for 1775 (New York, 1774), [28].

65 Medical Papers Communicated to the Massachusetts Medical Society (Boston, 1790), i. 41; Webster, Pestilential Diseases, i. 260; Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, xx (January, 1897), 506 (diary of Lieutenant Francis Nichols).

66 Massachusetts Spy, February 9, 1786.

67 Benjamin Rush, Medical Inquiries and Observations (Philadelphia, 1789), 101, 109; American Museum, vii. 119.

68 Joseph A. Gallup, Sketches of Epidemic Diseases in the State of Vermont (Boston, 1815), 34.

69 Medical Repository, iv (2d ed., New York, 1808), 340; Pestilential Diseases, i. 273.

70 Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, i (Boston, 1785), 550.

71 Israel Allen, A Treatise on the Scarlatina Anginosa, and Dysentery; and Sketches on Febrile Spasm, as produced by Plogiston (Leominster, 1796), 36 (Sterling). The other epidemics are mentioned in Webster, Pestilential Diseases, i. 273, or Medical Repository, iv (2nd ed., New York, 1808), 343.

72 [Hall Jackson], Observations and Remarks on the Putrid Malignant Sore-Throat, which has mortally raged for many years past. By a Gentleman of the Faculty (Portsmouth, 1786), passim.

73 Medical Papers Communicated to the Massachusetts Medical Society (Boston, 1790), Number 1, 41–48.

74 American Museum, ix. 119–120.

75 In passing, it is worth mentioning that both William Baylies and Willett Taylor, Jr., observed generalized edema as a complication in some of the relatively mild cases.

76 An Inaugural Dissertation on the Scarlet Fever (Philadelphia, 1793).

77 An Inaugural Dissertation on the Scarlatina Anginosa, As It Prevailed in This City (New York, 1793).

78 An Account of the Bilious Remitting Yellow Fever (Edinburgh, 1796), 14.

79 The Record of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown, N.J., ii (August, 1881), 159.

80 Webster, Pestilential Diseases, i. 298.

81 One death is recorded in Branford. “Burials in Branford South Society” (MS., Conn. Historical Society). There were two deaths in December in Middletown from “Disorder of the Times, Scarlet Fever, cold &c.” Middletown First Society Records. The Stonington First Congregational Church Records (MS., Conn. State Library) list seven deaths from February to October. For Preston, see First Church in Preston, 1900, 167 (Bailey ii).

82 Connecticut Courant, April 14, July 21, September 1, 1794; Webster, Pestilential Diseases, i. 298–310; Dodd, East Haven Register, 99 (nine deaths from “canker rash”); “Bolton Church Records,” New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., lvi. 162, 347 (seven deaths); The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, Franklin B. Dexter, Editor (New York, 1901), in. 514–520; Thaddeus Clark, A Treatise on the Scarlatina Anginosa (Norwich, 1795), 44; Lebanon First Society Records (MS., Conn. State Library: six deaths from “canker rash” between August, 1794, and April, 1795).

83 A Treatise on the Scarlatina Anginosa (Norwich, 1795), 40, 44.

84 Ashburnham, Beverly (McKeen family, three deaths, Rimmons family, two deaths, Thomson family, three deaths), Boston, Groton, Harvard, Ipswich, Kingston, Leominster, Marblehead, Spencer, Sterling, Sturbridge, Sutton, Topsfield (Cree family, three deaths), Weymouth, and Woburn.

85 Columbian Centinel, January 18, 1797.

86 Medical Repository, ii (3d ed., New York, 1805), 141.

87 New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., x. 38.

88 Medical Records (MS., M.H.S.).

89 Trans. & Coll. A.A.S., in. 190.

90 New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxiv. 87.

91 MS., M.H.S.

92 Diary of Joshua Hempstead (Collections of the New London County Historical Society), i. 338.

93 Chalmers, Account of the Weather and Diseases of South Carolina, ii. 161.

94 L. Vernon Briggs, History and Records of the First Congregational Church, Hanover, Mass., i (Boston, 1895), 184.

95 Various churches in Philadelphia published their births and burials as broadsides at the close of each year. The Library Company of Philadelphia has a fairly complete file beginning with Christ Church Parish for 1747. After 1763 the figures for Christ Church and St. Peter’s were combined. The full title for 1768, for example, reads: An Account of the Births and Burials in the United Churches of Christ-Church and St. Peter’s, in Philadelphia, from December 25, 1767, to December 25, 1768. By Caleb Cash, and William Young, Clerks, and James Weyley, and George Stokes, Sextons.

96 The Record of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown, N.J., i (March, 1880) 23, (June, 1880) 47, (December, 1880) 95; ii (February, 1881) iii, (April, 1881) 127, (July, 1881) 151.

97 American Museum, x. 59.

98 Boston Evening-Post, July 8, 1765.

99 Vital Records of Medford, 440–449; Charles Brooks, History of Medford (Boston, 1855), 450.

100 Essex Gazette, June 19, 1770, January 1, 1771.

101 Vital Records of East Bridgewater (Edson); Vital Records of Sutton (Hutchinson); Middletown First Society Records (Richardson); Vital Records of Ipswich (Burnham).

102 Nathaniel W. Appleton to Edward A. Holyoke (MS., Essex Institute).

103 Medical Papers Communicated to the Massachusetts Medical Society (Boston, 1790), Number 1, 24, 25.

104 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, i. 153. Winthrop mentioned a case of “mumpes” in 1657, but since mumps can be easily mistaken for other conditions it is necessary to have evidence of an epidemic before that diagnosis can be accepted without question.

105 Clifford K. Shipton, personal communication.

106 Account of the Weather and Diseases of South Carolina, ii. 99.

107 Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, Adelaide L. Fries, Editor, iii (Raleigh, 1926), 1148.

108 Id., 1152, 1411.

109 Medical Inquiries and Observations, 109; Account of the Bilious remitting Yellow Fever, 13.

110 Parkman diary (MS., American Antiquarian Society), January 9, 1755.

111 An Account of the Births and Burials in the United Churches of Christ Church and St. Peter’s [Philadelphia, 1783].

112 Ola E. Winslow, Jonathan Edwards (New York, 1940), 50.

113 “Chicken or Swine Pox” was mentioned in the Boston News-Letter, July 24, 1721. Chicken pox was also mentioned by William Douglass in a letter to Colden, May 1, 1722; and in the Lynde diaries, June 2, 1733. “Swine Pox” (probably meaning chicken pox) occurs in John Ballantine’s diary, April 7, 1761.

114 Summary, ii. 400.

115 The Holyoke Diaries, 1709–1856, George F. Dow, Editor (Salem, 1911), 60.

116 Cases and Observations by the Medical Society of New-Haven County (New Haven, 1788), 67.

117 Records of the North Society of Preston (MS., Conn. Historical Society).

118 Alexander Brown, The First Republic in America (Boston and New York, 1898), 282.

119 New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxx. 416n.

120 Penn. Mag. Hist. & Biog., xxxvii (July, 1913), 330.

121 Boston Gazette, August 28, 1732.

122 Penn. Mag. Hist. & Biog., lvi (January, 1932), 12.

123 Boston Gazette, January 22, 1739.

124 Gottlieb Mittelberger’s Journey to Pennsylvania in the Year 1750 (Philadelphia, 1898).

125 Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes (Glasgow, 1906), xix. 133; Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, i. 159, 162–163.

126 “And of the people who came over with us, from the time of their setting sail from England, in April 1630 until December following, there dyed by estimation about two hundred at the least . . . (of which mortality it may be said of us almost as of the Egyptians, that there is not an house where there is not one dead, and in some houses many) the natural causes seem to be, the want of warm lodging, and good dyet, to which English men are habituated at home; and in the sudden increase of heat, which they endure that are landed here in summer . . .” Thomas Dudley to the Countess of Lincoln, March 12, 1630/1, i Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 41, 43.

“and Peple her ar subgecte to deicesesse for her haue deyeid of the skurueye and of the bur[n]inge feuer too hundreid and ode beseides maney leyethe lame and all sudberey men ar ded but thre and thee woomen and sume cheilldren.”——Pond to William Pond, letter, March 15, 1630/1, Winthrop Papers, iii. 18.

127 Henry R. Viets, A Brief History of Medicine in Massachusetts (Boston, 1930), 37.

128 Trans. & Coll. A.A.S., iii. 181.

129 Letters of John Davenport, Isabel M. Calder, Editor (New Haven, 1937), 125.

130 Claude E. Heaton, in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, xvii (January, 1945), 19.

131 New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxiv. 300.

132 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xiii. 403; 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 337.

133 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 443; Webster, Pestilential Diseases, i. 211.

134 Records of Holy Trinity (Old Swedes) Church, Wilmington (Wilmington, 1890), 76.

135 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 148. See also Cotton Mather’s Diary, 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 365.

136 For the Newark epidemic, see 6 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., iii. 272; for that in Boston, see 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 105; for that in South Carolina, see Boston News-Letter, July 18, 1715; for that in New London, see Hempstead Diary, Collections of the New London County Historical Society, i, 125–126; for that in New York, see American Weekly Mercury, September 30, 1731; for that in Virginia, see William Byrd, A Journey to the Land, of Eden and Other Papers, Mark Van Doren, Editor (New York, 1928), 322.

137 William Douglass, writing to Cadwallader Colden on February 17, 1735/36, said that a medical society had been “lately” formed in Boston, and that a series of five articles, constituting the first number of “Medical Memoirs,” was “now ready for the press.” One article was entitled “A History of the Dysentery Epidemical in Boston in 1734.” 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., ii. 188. Since Medical Memoirs is not mentioned in the standard bibliographies, some historians assume that it was never published.

The society published other medical items in the Boston newspapers: a questionnaire about “Angina Ulcusculosa frequently attended with an Eruptive Miliary Fever, Epidemical in New-England” (Boston Weekly Post-Boy, February 16, 1736; Boston News-Letter, February 19, 1736); an account of six children poisoned from eating thornapple seeds (Boston Gazette, October 2, 1738); and an account of an operation in Boston on a child suffering from stone in the bladder (id., November 10, 1741). From their style these articles appear to have been written by Douglass. There are some interesting notes about the meetings of this “Physical Club” at the Sun Tavern during 1744 in Hamilton’s Itinerarium, Albert B. Hart, Editor (St. Louis, 1907), 140, 142, 167.

The “Club of Physicians” mentioned at the time of the inoculation controversy (Boston News-Letter, August 28, 1721; Boston Gazette, September 4, 1721) was probably not a medical society in the true sense, but merely a group of “Anti-Inoculators” temporarily united for one specific purpose.

Dr. Harward’s “Account of, and Observations on the reigning Flux” was mentioned in the Boston Gazette of September 16, 1734, as having been published in the previous issue. No copy of the issue of September 9, 1734, is now known to be in existence.

138 Dodd, East Haven Register, 80.

139 New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, xxxiv (October, 1903), 252.

140 Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc., lxvii. 330.

141 Webster, Pestilential Diseases, i. 239.

142 MS., A.A.S. See also Vital Records of Shrewsbury (multiple deaths in the Bragg, Davenport, Hapgood, Herrington, and Keyes families).

143 Benedict and Tracy, History of Sutton, 70.

144 Henry S. Nourse, History of the Town of Harvard, Massachusetts (Harvard, 1894), 116. No cause is stated.

145 Coll. New London Hist. Soc., i. 487.

146 J. H., Lamentation on Occasion of the Sickness and Mortality in East-Guilford, Anno Domini, 1751 (New London, 1752, broadside in N.Y.H.S.).

147 New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., lxx. 311.

148 Webster, Pestilential Diseases, i. 241–242, II, 23–27; New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xii. 124.

149 Black Rock, Seaport of Old Fairfield, Conn., 1644–1870, Cornelia P. Lathrop, Editor (New Haven, 1930), 25; Coll. New London Hist. Soc., i. 612–616.

150 Mayflower Descendant, i (January, 1899), 38.

151 Colonial Captivities, Marches and Journeys, Isabel M. Calder, Editor (New York, 1935), 183–188.

152 The Writings of George Washington, John C. Fitzpatrick, Editor, i (Washing ton, 1931), 152.

153 Benedict and Tracy, History of Sutton, 80.

154 A Discourse . . . at the West Parish in Lancaster: on Occasion of the Late Mortality in That and the Neighbouring Places (Boston, 1757).

155 Id., 2–3, 30–31.

156 Nourse, History of Harvard, 119.

157 Journals of the Rev. Thomas Smith and the Rev. Samuel Deane, 169.

158 Boston Evening-Post, September 21, 1767.

159 Burges Letters (photostats, Conn. Historical Society); Guilford Vital Records (MS. in Conn. State Library: Leete family, four deaths, Starr family, two deaths); Webster, Pestilential Diseases, ii. 27; New York Gazette, September 11, 1769 (quotes Pennsylvania Gazette, August 31, 1769).

160 Boston Post-Boy, October 9, 1769; William Whitwell, A Discourse Occasioned by the Loss of a Number of Vessels, with Their Mariners, Belonging to the Town of Marblehead (Salem, 1770), 7; Essex Gazette, January 2, 1770.

161 Boston News-Letter, September 17, October 8, 1772; Boston Evening Post, September 27, 1773.

162 Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, xxxiv. 23; Holyoke MSS. (Essex Institute), 45; Webster, Pestilential Diseases, i. 260, ii. 25; Dodd, East Haven Register, 88.

163 Fries, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, ii. 819; Massachusetts Gazette, November 17, 1774. For short accounts of bloody flux in Maryland and Virginia during 1774, see Journals & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773–1774, Hunter D. Farish, Editor (Williamsburg, 1945), passim.

164 Philip Vickers Fithian: Journal, 1775–1776, Robert G. Albion and Leonidas Dodson, Editors (Princeton, 1934), 32, 94.

165 Massachusetts Spy, July 19, 1775.

166 Id., August 16, 1775.

167 Id., August 23, 1775.

168 Id., August 30, 1775.

169 Louis C. Duncan, Medical Men in the American Revolution, 1775–1783 (Carlisle Barracks, Pa., 1931), passim. Unless otherwise stated, subsequent references to army camps have been taken from this source. Duncan interprets “camp distemper” to mean typhus fever, but the following quotation from Breck Parkman’s diary shows that camp distemper, bloody flux, and dysentery were synonymous: “[1775] July 16. we hear of a number of our Soldiers being Sick of the bloody Flux in Camp . . . August 13. it is a very sickly time with us. the Feaver and Bloody flux prevails Exceedingly. 3 funerals last Week . . . August 20. it is a very sickly time with us. the Camp distemper prevails . . . September 26. The dissentery yet prevails . . . October 22. N.B. the Sickness which rag’d so much is Considerably abated tho there is a number now sick in Town. Capt Wheelocks little child buried yesterday and another lies very low.” (MS., American Antiquarian Society.)

170 Vital Records of Newbury, ii, 684.

171 Vital Records of Sutton, 466.

172 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xii. 87.

173 Dedham Historical Register, ii (January, 1891), 22. The dates given on the Daniels tombstone show that the seven deaths in that family occurred between August 31 and September 12, 1775.

174 Charles F. Adams, Letters of Mrs. Adams (Boston, 1841), li, 69.

175 Charles Hudson, History of the Town of Marlborough (Boston, 1862), 186, 252; Vital Records of Marlborough. There were multiple deaths in the Brigham, Hunting, Weeks, and Williams families.

176 Dedham Historical Register, iii (July, 1892), 130.

177 The Groton vital records show that there were multiple deaths in the Champney, Hazen, Keys, Moors, Patch, Quailes, and Stone families, but only one death in the town at this time (that of Abigail Kinrick on September 5) is expressly attributed to dysentery. The Medford vital records mention deaths from dysentery in the Angier, Blanchard, Brooks, Calf, Faulkner, Hall, Vitent, Wade, and Winship families. There were also two deaths at this time in the Fullton family and four in the Tufts family, but the causes are not stated. See also Brooks, History of Medford, 450. The Sutton vital records show camp distemper deaths in the Allen, Bruce, Cordwell, Daggett, Gibbs, Goold, Haden, Lilly, Marble, Sibley, Stone, Walker, Whipple, and Woodberry families.

178 Vital Records of Bellingham, 189–190 (Hill family, two deaths), 190–194 (Eliphalet Holbrook family, three deaths, Luke Holbrook family, two deaths), 209–210 (Scott family, four deaths). In Brimfield there were three deaths in the Bacon family, two in the Moffatt family, and two in the Sherman family. For Brimfield, see Historical Celebration of the Town of Brimfield (Springfield, 1879), 90, 369, 453; Vital Records of Brimfield, 308. For Chelmsford, see Waters, History of Chelmsford, 721 et passim; Vital Records of Chelmsford, 371–373 (Butterfield family, three deaths), 374 (Campbell family, two deaths), 376–377 (Chamberlin family, two deaths), 419–420 (Isaac and Philip Parker families, two deaths each), 431 (Proctor family, two deaths), 436 (Robins family, two deaths). For Medway, see Vital Records of Medway, 283–288 (Adams family, five deaths), 312 (Hammond family, two deaths). For Plympton, see Vital Records of Plympton, 443 (Boney family, four deaths), 458–459 (Churchil family, four deaths). For Sharon, see Vital Records of Sharon, 152 (Clifford Belcher family, five deaths, Jeremiah Belcher family, four deaths), 154 (Bird family, two deaths), 159 (Coney family, two deaths), 184–186 (Richards family, five deaths), 192–193 (Withington family, two deaths). For Westford, see Vital Records of Westford, 275 (Dutton family, two deaths), 293–294 (Keyes family, four deaths), 307–309 (Read family, two deaths), 312 (Robinson family, three deaths), 313–314 (Smith family, two deaths), 321–325 (Ephraim Wright family, four deaths, Thomas Wright family, two deaths).

179 Massachusetts Spy, November 17, 1775.

180 Pestilential Diseases, i. 263; ii. 23.

181 The records of the Middletown First Society show twenty-four dysentery deaths between August 11 and November 19, two from “Dysentery & Throat Distemper.”

182 For Wintonbury, see New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., lxxi. 304–305. For Coventry, see Susan W. Dimock, Births, Marriages, Baptisms and Deaths in Coventry (New York, 1897), 177, 178–179, 187, 222 (Ames family, two deaths, Brigham family, two deaths, Carpenter family, two deaths, Colman family, three deaths, Curtiss family, three deaths, Cushman family, four deaths, Jones family, two deaths, Mead family, three deaths).

183 The Greatness and Sovereignty of God, Sufficient Reason to Silence Man’s Complaints of his Providence (Norwich, 1777), 24.

184 Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, i. 542; Cases and Observations, 68.

185 Penn. Mag. Hist. & Biog., xxiii (October, 1899), 394.

186 Theron W. Crissey, History of Norfolk, Litchfield County, Connecticut (Everett, 1900), 105–116.

187 Vital Records of Chester shows multiple deaths in the Blackman, Ellis, French, Geers, and Johnson families between August 7 and October 2, 1776.

188 West Hartford Bill of Mortality (MS., Conn. State Library).

189 The Record of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown, N.J., i (July, 1880), 55.

190 Gallup, Epidemic Diseases in Vermont, 33.

191 In Athol there were multiple deaths in the Drury, Haven, Hill, and Hudson families. Vital Records of Athol. In Conway there were multiple deaths in the Isaac Amsden, Elisha Amsden, Bancroft, Billings, Catlin, Collings, Daniels, Dickinson, Farnsworth, French, Maynard, Rice, Tobey, and Wells families. Vital Records of Conway. In Greenfield there were multiple deaths in the Arms, Graves, Grenell, Lemuel Hastings, Medad Hastings, Mcheard, and Smead families. Vital Records of Greenfield. In Royalston there were multiple deaths in the Bragg, Metcalf, Richardson, Tytes, and Woodbury families. Vital Records of Royalston. See also Caswell, History of Royalston, 459.

192 In Granville there were deaths (in some instances multiple deaths) from camp distemper in the Allen, Bancroft, Barlow, Coe, Cooley, Forbs, Foster, Fullington, How, Monson, Peters, Pratt, Root, Rose, Rowley, Seward, Strickland, and Williams families. Vital Records of Granville.

193 Norfolk Centennial (Hartford, 1876), 40. There were numerous instances of multiple deaths in the town. Baptisms, Marriages, Burials and List of Members Taken from the Church Records of the Reverend Ammi Ruhamah Robbins, first Minister of Norfolk, Connecticut (n.p., 1910), 86–89. In Litchfield there were multiple deaths in the Farnam, Johnson, and Russell families. George C. Woodruff, A Genealogical Register of the Inhabitants of the Town of Litchfield (Hartford, 1900), 76, 115, 186. See also Webster, Pestilential Diseases, ii. 24. For Fairfield, see New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., lxx. 42.

194 Waters, History of Chelmsford, 721 et passim; Vital Records of Chelmsford, 370 (Burge family, two deaths), 376 (Chamberlain family, two deaths), 389–393 (Fletcher family, five deaths). For Dunstable, see Vital Records of Dunstable, 215–216 (Jonathan and Robert Fletcher families, two deaths each), 220–221 (Kendall family, two deaths), 227 (Read family, two deaths), 237–238 (Woodward family, five deaths), 238 (Wright family, three deaths). For Harvard, see Nourse, History of Harvard, 530–531. For Lexington, see Lexington, Mass., Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 167 (Bridge family, three deaths), 170 (Childs family, six deaths), 200–202 (Smith family, three deaths).

195 Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, i. 546.

196 American Magazine (October, 1788), 766.

197 James Blundell, An Inaugural Dissertation on the Dysentery (Philadelphia, 1791) 13; Allen, Treatise on the Scarlatina Anginosa, and Dysentery, 36; Worcester Magazine, iii. 288 (quoting the Norfolk and Portsmouth Journal); Gallup, Epidemic Diseases in Vermont, 36; Dr. Appleton to Dr. Holyoke, Boston, September 30, 1789 (MS., Essex Institute); American Museum, x. 59, 112.

198 Webster, Pestilential Diseases, i. 300; Rush, Account of the Bilious Remitting Yellow Fever, 14, 108, 127; Mrs. Charles P. Noyes, A Family History in Letters and Documents (St. Paul, 1919), i. 202–203.

199 Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, iii. 534; Stratfield Deaths (MS., Conn. State Library); Black Rock, Conn., 1644–1870, 61.

200 Dodd, East Haven Register, lists eighteen deaths. The Branford Congregational Church Records (MS., Conn. Historical Society) list fourteen deaths. See also Colin Mackenzie (of Baltimore), An Inaugural Dissertation on the Dysentery (Philadelphia, 1797). Other epidemics at this time are mentioned in Webster, Pestilential Diseases, and Allen, Treatise on the Scarlatina Anginosa and Dysentery.

201 Gallup, Epidemic Diseases in Vermont, 36, 43; William Buel, in Medical Repository, 1 (2d ed., New York, 1800), 439; William Lincoln, History of Worcester (Worcester, 1862), 260.

202 Medical Repository, i. 241; Webster, Pestilential Diseases, i. 327.

203 The substance of this paper was included in Mr. Bowen’s book, Rhode Island Colonial Money and its Counterfeiting, 1647–1726, which was published by the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations on December 30, 1942.

1 John Russell Bartlett, Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New England (Providence, 1860), v. 22–24, 76–78.

2 (Providence, 1883), 37.

3 The eight rolls of microfilm and the typewritten transcription of selected cases are now in the Harvard Law School Library.

4 Durfee, Gleanings from The Judicial History of Rhode Island, 15–21.

5 Suffolk County Court Records: 1671–1680, S. E. Morison and Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Editors (in our Publications, xxix–xxx), i. xx–xxi.

6 Taylor v. Place, 4 R. I. 324 (1856).

7 Durfee, op. cit., 34–46.

8 Suffolk County Court Records, i. xxi–xxiii.

9 In recent years, only judges and law lords sit in the House of Lords when it acts as a court.

10 Bartlett, op. cit., iv. 430. This statute of October 1729 was repealed at the next session.

11 Durfee, op. cit., 34–39.

12 Bartlett, op. cit., v. 22–23.

13 The Privy Council in London has power to reverse or modify the decisions of colonial courts. It now exercises this power through its Judicial Committee composed of judges, but the situation was otherwise in the eighteenth century. Sir William Holdsworth, History of English Law (London, 1938), i. 516–517; xi. 68.

14 Bartlett, op. cit., iii. 550.

15 Id., 543–549.

16 Murray, A New English Dictionary (Oxford, 1897), iii, Part 2. 262.

17 See the passages about the General Assembly quoted earlier from Durfee, op. cit., iv. 34–39.

18 Cowley v. Taylor, Reel vii. The writ describes a cause of action for specific performance of a contract to sell land, but names an ad damnum of £200. The final judgment was for £50 and costs.

19 Suffolk County Court Records., i. l–lvi.

20 Durfee, op. cit., 23–24. On “chancering” bonds in ordinary colonial courts, see Suffolk County Court Records, i. li–lii.

21 Bartlett, op. cit., iv. 253–255.

22 Durfee, op. cit., 45.

23 Proceedings of the Court of Chancery of Maryland, 1669–1679, J. Hall Pleasants, Editor, in Archives of Maryland, li (Baltimore, 1934).

24 My statements about the judges have been compiled through the indexes in Bartlett, op. cit., iv and v. Since this information must eventually be corrected and expanded by the use of genealogies and other sources, references to pages in Bartlett are here omitted.

25 Wilkins Updike, Memoirs of the Rhode-Island Bar (Boston, 1842), 55, 294–295.

26 Updike, op. cit., 55.

27 See Wiener, “Notes on the Rhode Island Admiralty, 1727–1790,” Harvard Law Review, xlvi. 44, 70, which contains information on the subsequent careers of Honyman, Aplin and M. Robinson. Honyman appears frequently (see index) in Records of the Vice-Admiralty Court of Rhode Island, 1716–1752, Dorothy S. Towle, Editor (Washington: American Historical Association, 1936), reviewed by Wiener in Harvard Law Review, L. 1213.

28 Metcalf v. Aplin, Reel iii.

29 Randall v. Metcalf, Reel ii. The provision for money payment to the apprentice is unusual in colonial indentures. See Richard B. Morris, Government and Labor in Early America (New York, 1946), 383–384, 393–399.

30 On supervision of apprentices in New York, see Morris, Select Cases of the Mayor’s Court of New York City, 1674–1784 (New York, 1935), 27.

31 Davidson v. Cox, Reel vi. The subject of enticement or privating of servants was always important in the colonies. See Morris, Government and Labor in Early America, 414–434. Rhode Island legislation running back to 1647 subjected any person detaining a servant not lawfully dismissed to a penalty of £5, recoverable in an action of debt [Morris, 417]. But Cox did not rely on this legislation; his was an action on the case.

32 Isaacs v. Dyre, Reel viii.

33 See transcription of Minute Book, 152.

34 Brett v. Banister, Reel iv.

35 Bartlett, op. cit., v. 38.

36 Dictionary of American Biography, v. 407–408.

37 Wickes v. Coker, Reel iv.

38 Wilkinson v. Keith, Reel vii; Updike, op. cit., 292–293.

39 The file papers contain the bond and some interesting material on intercolonial legal formalities.

40 A copy of the Instructions is in the file papers.

41 Rous v. Haszard et als., Reel vii.

42 Clark v. Beauchamp, Reel ii.

43 Manning v. Almy, Reel iv.

44 Records of the Vice-Admiralty Court of Rhode Island, 154–160.

45 Power v. Vanbrough and Carpenter, Reel vii. John Brown, one of the drawees in this case, should not be confused with John Brown of the well-known mercantile family in Providence. Professor James B. Hedges has kindly aided my search for the co-owner of the Victory by writing: “Apparently there were two business men in Newport in 1742 by the name of John Brown. One of these was a first cousin of the father of the four brothers in Providence and, of course, a first cousin of Obadiah, the uncle of the four brothers. He died in Newport in 1764. This information I find in The Chad Brown Memorial. The other John Brown of Newport is referred to in George Mason’s Annals of Trinity Church. A note on page 131 says ‘he was a merchant engaged in commercial pursuits, and with Godfrey Malbone and George Wanton fitted out privateers in the second Spanish war.’ The Browns of Providence had some business relations with ‘John Brown’ of Newport, but I have never been able to determine whether he was their distant cousin or the John Brown referred to by George Mason. I see no way by which one can be certain of the identity of these two men.”

46 We must assume that George worked for Coddington and that George’s bitch was identical with Coddington’s bitch.

47 Not to be confused with John Bennett in whose pasture the sheep were killed.

48 Rhode Island Acts and Laws (Newport, 1767), 75.

49 West v. Coddington and Bennett, Reel vi.

50 Mayhew v. Nicholls, Reel viii.

51 Nichols v. Carr, Reel viii.

52 Suffolk County Court Records, i. lxxxii.

53 Heffernan v. Cooper, Reel vi.

54 Rhode Island General Laws (Providence, 1938), Chap. 559.

55 Cuff v. Taylor, Reel vii.

56 Bartlett, op. cit., v. 72–73.

57 Id., 38.

58 A comparison of the handwriting of the body of the petition with the signatures might throw light on this problem. Since the petition is transcribed by Lauterstein and Migdal, I assumed that it is among the Records of the Court of Equity and on the microfilm.

59 Bartlett, op. cit., v. 76–78.

1 The principal authority for this essay is John Langdon Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University (Cambridge, 1873–1885), covering in volumes i–iii the classes of 1642–1689; continued by Clifford K. Shipton in volumes iv–vii (Cambridge and Boston, 1933–1945), for the classes of 1690–1725. To keep footnotes within bounds citations to this work will be omitted. References will generally be to works supplementing or amending the Sketches.

2 Dictionary of American Biography (hereafter cited as D.A.B.), under Henry Dunster; Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Editor (Boston, 1855–1861), ix. 82.

3 Records of the Colony and Plantation of New Haven, from 1638 to 1649, Charles J. Hoadly, Editor (Hartford, 1857), 318.

4 Plymouth Col. Recs., ix. 95.

5 Dates so placed refer to the year of graduation from Harvard.

6 For the above students see Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, early series, 1500–1714 (Oxford, 1891–1892); John and John A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, part I, to 1751 (Cambridge, 1922–1927); and Samuel Eliot Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1936), hereafter abbreviated as H. C. in 17 C, 299–300.

7 R. W. Innes-Smith, English-Speaking Students of Medicine at the University of Leyden (Edinburgh, 1932), 203; Leverett Saltonstall, Ancestry and Descendants of Sir Richard Saltonstall (Cambridge, 1897), 112.

8 H. C. in 17 C., 300n, 394–395.

9 William Munk, The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London (London, 1878), i. 303.

10 Samuel Eliot Morison, The Founding of Harvard College (Cambridge, 1935), 143 and n.

11 Innes-Smith, 64.

12 P. J. Anderson, Studies in the History and Development of the University of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, 1906), 308.

13 Munk, i. 334, 345.

14 See Proc. Am. Antiq. Soc., liii. 377–379.

15 See Dictionary of National Biography, hereafter abbreviated as D.N.B.; George L. Kittredge, “George Stirk, Minister,” our Publications, xiii. 16; H. C. in 17 C., 235; introduction by William R. Parker to G. S., The Dignity of Kingship Asserted (New York: Facsimile Text Society, 1942).

16 Anthony Wood, “Fasti Oxonienses” (appended to his Alumni Oxonienses) (London, 1721), 100; Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay, Lawrence Shaw Mayo, Editor (Cambridge, 1936), i. 97n; Alumni Oxonienses; Joseph Foster, The Register of Admissions to Gray’s Inn, 1521–1889 (London, 1889), 286. There appears to be no Harvard record of Eyton.

17 The Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., F. E. Oliver, Editor (Boston, 1880), x.

18 E. Alfred Jones, American Members of the Inns of Court (London, 1924), 14, 66–67. There is nothing to this effect in Sibley.

19 D.N.B.; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1654, 194, 450 (hereafter abbreviated as Cal. S. P. Dom.).

20 Cal. S. P. Dom., 1659–1660, 151.

21 Alumni Oxonienses; Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (Hartford, 1853–1855), ii. 43–44; Arnold G. Matthews, Calamy Revised: being a Revision of Edmund Calamy’s Account of the Ministers and Others Ejected and Silenced, 1660–2 (Oxford, 1934.), 344.

22 Morison, Founding of Harvard, 382; Frank Penny, The Church in Madras (London, 1904), i. 48, 662–663.

23 Matthews, 112, 269; A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, Thomas Birch, Editor (London, 1742), i. 564; iii. 559.

24 D.N.B.; St. John D. Seymour, The Puritans in Ireland (Oxford, 1921), 223. For Henry Cromwell’s efforts to induce President Dunster to move to Dublin, and the invitations extended to other New Englanders to settle in Ireland, see Morison, H. C. in 17 C, 317; Seymour, 103, 224.

25 Kenneth Ballard Murdock, Increase Mather, the Foremost American Puritan (Cambridge, 1925), 62.

26 C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait, Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660 (London, 1911), ii. 968 ff.

27 Matthews, lxxii, 344, 460.

28 Id., 404; Cal. S. P. Dom., 1661–1662, 39, 48.

29 Matthews, 9.

30 Alumni Cantabrigienses.

31 Id.; Alumni Oxonienses.

32 For the clergymen in this and the preceding paragraph, see Matthews, passim.

33 Id., xiv, 543; Historical Manuscripts Commission, 14th Report, Appendix, part ii, vol. iii (1894), 348.

34 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 618; Ichabod Chauncy, Innocence Vindicated by a Narrative of the Proceedings of the Court of Sessions in Bristol against I. C., Physician (London, 1684); D.N.B.

35 Matthews, 93, 191, 274.

36 Mather, i. 475; Munk, i. 354–355, 415–416.

37 Matthews, 6.

38 Id., 112, 344, 460.

39 Justin Winsor, The Memorial History of Boston (Boston, 1880–1881), i. 398; cf. Henry Wilder Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel (Boston, 1882–1896), 98–99, and John Clement, “Clergymen Licensed Overseas by the Bishops of London, 1696–1710 and 1715–1716,” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, xvi. 346 and n.

40 John Dunton’s Letters from New England, W. H. Whitmore, Editor (Publications of the Prince Society, Boston, 1867), 76.

41 Ebenezer Turell, Life and Character of the Reverend Benjamin Colman (Boston, 1749), 31.

42 See his autobiography, 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 199.

43 See Winthrop Papers, v (Boston, 1947), passim.

44 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 364.

45 Thomas Prince, The Character of Caleb (1756), 20.

46 D.A.B.; 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 208, 212, 213. For Samuel Sewall’s attempts to lure Higginson to New England, see 6 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 216, 250, 256.

47 Id., i. 348.

48 Sibley is confused on the Whittinghams. See New England Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxii. 234. Richard Whittingham was for many years Collector or Receiver of Lincolnshire: id., xxxiii. 20.

49 See D.A.B.; Mather, i. 197–202; 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 140n; 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 255.

50 Sibley, v. 178, under Peleg Wiswall.

51 D.A.B.; Alfred Claghorn Potter and Charles Knowles Bolton, “The Librarians of Harvard College, 1667–1877,” Library of Harvard University, Bibliographical Contributions, Justin Winsor, Editor, IV (Cambridge, 1897), no. 52; W. O. B. Allen and Edmund McClure, Two Hundred Years: the History of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1698–1898 (London, 1898), 229 ff.

52 Hermann F. Clarke and Henry W. Foote, Jeremiah Dummer, Colonial Craftsman and Merchant, 1645–1718 (Boston, 1935), 48; cf. New England Hist. Gen. Reg., viii. 213.

53 See 6 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 305n.

54 See Hutchinson, ii. 139–140; Everett Kimball, The Public Career of Joseph Dudley (London, 1911), 192n.

55 I Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 118.

56 Anne Stokely Pratt, “The Books Sent from England by Jeremiah Dummer to Yale College,” Papers in Honor of Andrew Keogh (New Haven, 1938), 7. This essay gives a detailed account of Dummer’s generosity to Yale; see also Louise May Bryant and Mary Patterson, “The List of Books Sent by Jeremiah Dummer,” also in the Papers, 423 ff.

57 See 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, ii. 173 ff.; for a detailed account of Dudley, see Kimball.

58 See Rae Blanchard, The Correspondence of Richard Steele (London, 1941), 9n, and, for Dudley’s connection with Steele, 89n.

59 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Henry B. Wheatley, Editor (New York: Random House, n.d.), i. 385, 387. For a full account of Downing see John Beresford, The Godfather of Downing Street: Sir George Downing, 1623–1684 (London, 1925); and see also D.N.B.

60 Andrew Marvell, A Seasonable Argument to Persuade All the Grand Juries of England to Petition for a New Parliament (1677), 14.

61 John Dennis, Original Letters, Familiar, Moral, and Critical (London, 1721), i. 49. On Crowne’s career see also Arthur Franklin White’s John Crowne, His Life and Dramatic Works (Cleveland, 1922) and his “John Crowne and America,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, xxxv. 447 ff.; D.A.B.; D.N.B.

62 James Maidment and W. H. Logan, The Dramatic Works of John Crowne (Edinburgh, 1873–1874), iv. 349.

63 See Barnard’s autobiography, 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 197 ff., and Turell. Samuel Sewall also gives an interesting account of his stay in England in his diary, 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 246 ff.

64 Thomas Prince, A Chronological History of New England in the Form of Annals, in Edward Arber, An English Garner: Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (Westminster, 1895–1896), ii. 297.

65 Our Publications, xx. 97; 6 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. xvi, 176.

66 Id., ii. 82.

67 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 210.

68 6 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 348.

69 Thomas Goddard Wright, Literary Culture in Early New England, 1620–1730 (New Haven, 1920), 184; Pratt, 13.

70 H. C. in 17 C., 290, 391–392, 394, 440.

71 Bryant and Patterson, 441–443.

72 H.C. in 17 C., 378, 652.

73 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 216.

74 Id., v. 208.

75 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1693–96, 224, 261.

76 Murdock, 279; D.N.B.; Allen and McClure, 257.

77 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 200.

78 Congregational Quarterly, i. 10; Joseph Sewall, The Duty, Character, and Reward (Boston, 1758), 14.

79 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 358.

80 Wright, 197; Turell, 149–150.

81 Raymond Phineas Stearns, “Colonial Fellows of the Royal Society of London, 1661–1788,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d series, iii. 231–232.

82 Id., 229; Samuel Eliot Morison, “The Harvard School of Astronomy in the Seventeenth Century,” New England Quarterly, vii. 23.

83 H. C. in 17 C., 394–395, 644–646.

1 R. M. Gummere, “Classical Precedents in the Writing’s of James Wilson,” our Publications, xxxii. 525–538. Also “John Adams Togatus,” Philological Quarterly, xiii. 203–210.

2 The Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon, d.d., ll.d. (2d ed., Philadelphia: William W. Woodward, 1802), i. 30.

3 V. L. Collins, President Witherspoon, a Biography (Princeton, 1925), i. 16.

4 W. T. Read, Life of George Read (Philadelphia, 1870), 433. George Read was a “co-signer” of the Declaration of Independence.

5 Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence, John Sanderson, Editor, v (Philadelphia, 1824.), 178–179.

6 April 30, 1767. Collins, op. cit., i. 84, 89.

7 Witherspoon, Works, iv. 458.

8 Perry Miller, The New England Mind: the Seventeenth Century (New York, 1939), especially 85–95. K. B. Murdock, Selections from Cotton Mather (New York, 1926), xlix.

9 The Charge of Sedition and Faction against good Men, especially faithful Ministers, considered and accounted for, preached in the Abbey Church of Paisley on September 7, 1758, reprinted in Witherspoon, Works, ii. 415–440.

10 Works, ii. 426–427. See Seneca, Quare aliqua incommoda bonis viris accidant.

11 Works, i. 530–531; ii. 516.

12 Works, i. 80.

13 Witherspoon, Miscellaneous Works (Philadelphia: William W. Woodward, 1803), 50, 91.

14 Works, iv. 53.

15 Miscellaneous Works, 31.

16 Works, ii. 428.

17 Works, iv. 55. Miscellaneous Works, 40–42, 29. See W. E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe.

18 Miscellaneous Works, 24–25.

19 R. M. Gummere, “Apollo on Locust Street,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, lvi. 68–92.

20 Works, iii. 377.

21 Ecclesiastical Characteristics: or, The Arcana of Church Policy, reprinted in Works, iii. 199–261.

22 Works, iii. 217.

23 Works, iii. 223.

24 Works, iii. 224.

25 Works, iii. 29.

26 Lord Shaftesbury or Lucius Seneca?

27 Aristotle.

28 Francis Hutcheson.

29 Works, iii. 229, 234, and Miscellaneous Works, 27.

30 Works, iii. 260.

31 Works, iv. 16.

32 Works, i. 336. The story, which is quoted in Christ’s Death a Proper Atonement for Sin [reprinted in Works, i. 331–348], refers to Phidias and the shield of Athena Parthenos.

33 Works, iv. 16–20.

34 Seneca, Epistles, xi. 10 and xxv. 6. Works, ii. 140.

35 271–274.

36 Works, ii. 226. Plato, Alcibiades, ii. 142–143.

37 Works, ii. 140.

38 Works, iii. 92. See Seneca, Espistulae morales, lxvi. 50–51.

39 Collins, op. cit., i. 141. Juvenal, Satires, iii. 164–165.

40 A sermon preached at the Laigh Church of Paisley on February 21, 1762, reprinted in Works, ii. 479–507.

41 Works, ii. 499.

42 Works, iii. 110

43 Works, ii. 249–263.

44 Works, ii. 258–262. Juvenal, Satires, xiv. 44–47.

45 Works, iv. 161–183.

46 Id., 164.

47 Id., 431.

48 Works, i. 423. Seneca, Epistulae morales, iv. 2: xxiv. 12–13.

49 Works, iii. 121–190.

50 Tertullian, De spectaculis, 22, and Augustine, De civitate dei, ii. 14.

51 Works, iii. 127n.

52 Seneca, Epistulae morales, vii. 2.

53 De glor. Athen., 5. Sympos., book vii, question 8.

54 Oratio de comoedis, published in English translation as The usefulness of dramatic interludes in the education of youth: an oration . . . (London, 1744).

55 Works, iii. 475–592.

56 Instit. Orat., especially book i.

57 Cicero, Pro Milone, x. 29.

58 Horace, Ars Poetica, 268–269, 23. The other two phrases are found, in nearly uniform language, in Cicero, Quintilian, and later rhetorical writers.

59 Epistulae morales, cxiv. 2. The correct text is genus dicendi imitatur publicos mores.

60 Ars Poetica, 333.

61 Cicero, Pro Ligario.

62 Pro Archia Poeta, i. 2.

63 Collins, op. cit., i. 112.

64 Works, i. 277.

65 Works, iii. 450. See also his Address to the Natives of Scotland residing in America, ib., 50 ff.

66 Ib., 439.

67 Digest, 50, 17, 32. “By natural right all men are free.”

68 Works, ii. 164–165; iii. 416 ff.

69 Works, iii. 419.

70 Collins, op. cit., ii. 8.

71 See E. C. Burnett, The Continental Congress (New York, 1941), and Letters of Members of the Continental Congress (Washington, 1921). Also Francis Wharton, The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (Washington, 1889) and Letters of R. H. Lee, J. C. Ballagh, Editor, i (New York, 1911), 241.

72 Works, iv. 203–244.

73 Miscellaneous Works, 275. Livy, Ab urbe condita, ix. 7–12.

74 Works, iv. 309–316.

75 Works, ii. 74, 225, etc.

76 Works, iii. 60.

77 Miscellaneous Works, 359–368.

78 Collins, op. cit., i. 133–134, 140, etc.

79 For a full description of this scene, taken from the British officer’s letter, see D. W. Woods, Jr., John Witherspoon (New York, 1906), 128–130.

80 Collins, op. cit., i. 207–209; ii. 44, 87, 90, etc.

1 Howard M. Chapin, “Colonial Hatchments,” Antiques, xvi (October, 1929), 300–302.

2 The Curio, September, 1887, 15–16.

3 See the table in the Appendix.

4 Owned by William H. P. Oliver, Esq., of Morristown, N. J., to whom my thanks are due for photographs of this and Figure 2.

5 William H. Whitmore, “Early Paintings of Coat-Armour,” The Heraldic Journal, iii (1867), 33.

6 For another example of the same design, see Figure 18, below.

7 Owned by William H. P. Oliver, Esq.

8 Heraldic Journal, ii (1866), 94.

9 I.e., Nathaniel Hurd, 1729–1777.

10 Henry Wheatland, “Baptisms of the First Church in Salem,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, vii. 231.

11 Henry Wheatland, “Baptisms by Rev. Messrs. Prescott and Holt of Salem,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, vii. 41.

12 Boston Evening-Post, December 10, 1759.

13 Such a list was published by Harold Bowditch, “The Gore Roll of Arms,” The Rhode Island Historical Society Collections, xxix. 11–30, 51–64, 92–96, 121–128; xxx. 28–32, 54–64, 88–96, 116–128; xxxi. 24–32, 56–64, 90–96, 124–128.

14 Remick here adopted the spelling of his name used by his immigrant ancestor, who may have been German. More commonly, as in the advertisement of 1769 mentioned below, he called himself Remick.

15 They are now in the Farnsworth Gallery, Rockland, Maine.

16 The original painting is owned by the Essex Institute.

17 Walter Kendall Watkins, “John Coles, Heraldic Painter,” Old-Time New England, xi (January, 1931), 135.

18 Sidney Perley, History of Salem, 1626–1716 (1924–1928), iii. 369.

19 Henry Wyckoff Belknap, Artists and Craftsmen of Essex County, Massachusetts (Salem, Essex Institute, 1927), 6.

20 Essex Institute Historical Collections, lxxvi. 45.

21 To Mr. Charles C. Stockman, 2nd, of Newburyport, I am indebted for the biographical statements about George Searle, which he obtained from Whitmore’s Genealogy of the Payne and. Gore Families (1875), Atkins’s Joseph Atkins, the Story of a Family (1891), and the Vital Records of Boston and Newburyport.

22 Heraldic Journal, iv. 108.

23 John J. Currier, History of Newburyport (1906), i. 79, 80.

24 Heraldic Journal, iv. 192.

25 Old-Time New England, xxi. 143.

26 Later note: Frederick W. Coburn, Essex Institute Historical Collections, lxxxiii. 357, says that Benjamin Johnston (1740–1818), “one of the five artist sons of Thomas Johnston, artist, of Boston, was long a notable personage of Newburyport, builder of organs and organist as well as painter of portraits.”

27 Old-Time New England, xxi. 134.

28 Heraldic Journal, i. 95, 96.

29 Old-Time New England, xxi. 132–138.

30 Old-Time New England, xxi. 138.

1 The will of Laurence Whittamore is not among Suffolk Wills, but reference to his property is made in an act of the General Court of 1670, reprinted in these documents under that year.

2 For the Reverend John Eliot’s account of this fire, which destroyed the original records of the Roxbury Latin School, see rcr, 188.

3 The variant reading “severall” is obviously incorrect with the context.

4 January, 1666, Old Style is January, 1667, by the present Gregorian New Style calendar.

5 The two who died were Edward Denison and William Cheney. This, with one exception in 1771, was the last election by the feoffees. All subsequent elections of feoffees were made by the donors.

6 See agreement of 1645 for names signed here as compared with the list of original donors. To these should be added: Gratis John Gorton John Griggs William Hopkins Frizall.

7 This refers to a vote of May 21, to make a way to the Great Lots.

8 Given to the Elliot School, not to Roxbury Latin.

9 Later appointments of masters differ chiefly in amounts paid, a salary being stated after 1712, when the schoolmaster stopped collecting the “donations” for himself and was paid a fixed salary.

10 Also referred to in Dillaway, 57, which reprints portions of a writ of the feoffees against Samuel Stevens of which this is part: . . . And further, the Plaintiffs in fact say, that afterwards, by an agreement or general consent, as well of the Feoffees as the subscribers and their successors, the several subscriptions . . . were abated . . . the one half . . .

1 Further details of Wigglesworth’s biography may be found in the Dictionary of American Biography and in John W. Dean, Memoir of the Reverend Michael Wigglesworth (Albany, 1871).

2 Thomas Hooker, The Application of Redemption (London, 1659), p. 684.

3 John Cotton, The Way of Life (London, 1641), p. 91; Christ the Fountaine of Life (London, 1651), pp. 33–34.

4 Perry Miller, The New England Mind. The Seventeenth Century (New York, 1939), pp. 365–491.

5 Records of the Middlesex County Court, Cambridge, Mass., folder 28, group 5 (manuscript).

6 Thomas Hooker, The Application of Redemption (London, 1659), pp. 53–54.

7 Urian Oakes, A Seasonable Discourse (Cambridge, Mass., 1682), p. 27.

8 Richard Mather, Farewell Exhortation (Cambridge, Mass., 1657), p. 20.

9 From John Hull’s manuscript notes of sermons in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

10 Tachygraphy. The Most exact and compendious methode of short and swift writing that hath euer yet beene published by any. Composed by Thomas Shelton. Author and professor of the said Art. Approved by both Vniversities. London. Printed for Samuel Cartwright. 1641.

1 John Haynes, son of Governor John Haynes, graduated from Harvard in 1656 and returned to England, where in 1668 he became rector of the church at Swansey in Essex.

2 By “the society” Wigglesworth probably means Harvard College.

3 John Stone, possibly the son of the Reverend Samuel Stone of Hartford, graduated from Harvard in 1653 and shortly thereafter returned to England.

4 Henry Dunster was president of Harvard from 1640 to 1654. He was forced to resign when he abandoned the orthodox Congregational belief in infant baptism.

5 The fire destroyed eight houses and was afterward known as “the great fire” until the fire of 1676 superseded it for that distinction. See the letter of John Endecott to John Winthrop, Jr., in Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 4th series, VI, 155.

6 Jonathan Mitchel graduated from Harvard in 1647 and the three years later succeeded Thomas Shepard as pastor of the church in Cambridge.

7 At this time Wigglesworth was preparing to assume the ministry of a church. Apparently he had considered a proposal from the Salem church at the same time that he was negotiating with the church in Cambridge.

8 John Sherman, educated at Cambridge University, came to New England in 1634 and in 1647 became minister of Watertown.

9 A journey to New Haven (see p. 331).

10 New London.

11 William Hooke preached at New Haven from 1644 to 1656, at which time he returned to England and became a domestic chaplain to Cromwell.

12 John Davenport was one of the founders of the New Haven Colony and pastor of the church there until 1667. In that year he accepted a call to the First Church at Boston in circumstances that occasioned a schism in the First Church and the founding of the Third Church.

13 Settlement as minister of a church.

14 See pp. 421–426.

15 Martha’s Vineyard.

16 The Puritan sabbath began at sundown on Saturday night, hence “light and vain carriage” at this time was a breach of the sabbath.

17 John Collins graduated from Harvard in 1649, joined the church at Cambridge (see his “relation” below, p. ??), taught at Harvard and preached for a time. In 1653 he went to England where he became famous as pastor of a church in London.

18 Possibly William Mildmay, son of Sir Henry Mildmay of Graces in Essex, who was sent over from England to be educated at Harvard and who graduated with the class of 1647.

19 Probably Seaborn Cotton, oldest son of the Reverend John Cotton of Boston, who was born at sea on the way to New England in 1633. He graduated from Harvard in 1651, in the same class with Wigglesworth, and became minister of the church at Hampton, New Hampshire. The use of the title “Sir” with the surname indicates that at the time of which Wigglesworth was speaking Cotton had received his bachelor’s degree but was continuing at the college in order to become a Master of Arts.

20 This word is abbreviated throughout the manuscript thus: gô.

21 It is not clear from the diary what the elder Wigglesworth’s counsel may have been, but “Mr. Stones motion” was evidently the offer of a position as assistant or possibly as a colleague in the church at Hartford, where Samuel Stone was minister. This offer is again referred to on page 363 as “Harford motion.”

22 See note 21.

23 The sermon which was delivered at the annual election of officers in the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company.

24 Zechariah Symmes, a graduate of Cambridge University, was pastor of the church at Charlestown from 1635 to 1671.

25 Robert Sedgwick was one of the founders of the Artillery Company and a leading figure in the colony.

26 Peter Bulkeley, one of the founders of Concord, was minister of the church there.

27 Roger Bancroft, William Wilcock, Thomas Brigham, and Christopher Cane were all members of the church in Cambridge and freemen of the colony. Bancroft and Brigham had served as selectmen and in other town offices.

28 This may have been Thomas Danforth, then treasurer of Harvard College and later Deputy-Governor of Massachusetts; or it may have been Samuel Danforth, who graduated from Harvard in 1643 and worked with John Eliot as missionary to the Indians.

29 The laws of the college at this time required the members to converse in Latin.

30 The logic of Petrus Ramus was followed by all New England theologians. Alexander Richardson, a tutor at Queen’s College, Cambridge, was the author of a popular commentary on Ramus. Wigglesworth seems to have been arguing that Ramus’ original organization of the subject was better than the slight modification of Richardson. See Perry Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (New York, 1939), chapter v.

31 Urian Oakes graduated from Harvard in 1649 and became a teaching fellow there. He went to England in 1654 and did not return until 1671, when he became pastor of the church in Cambridge. From 1675 until his death in 1681 he was also President of Harvard College. The phrase “in his use” refers to the section of the sermon known as the “use,” in which the preacher drew practical applications from the doctrines which he had expounded in the earlier part of the sermon.

32 Thomas Shepard, one of the most famous of the early New England divines, was minister of the church at Cambridge from 1636 until his death in 1649.

33 Probably John Butler of Boston, said to have been a physician, who later moved to Connecticut, or Henry Butler of Dorchester, who graduated from Harvard in 1651, taught for a while in Dorchester and subsequently settled in England as a nonconformist minister.

34 Nehemiah Ambrose (called Junior because there was another, older student, Joshua Ambrose, in the same class at Harvard) graduated in 1653, went to England and became minister at Kirkby in Lancashire.

35 Apparently a decision to get married. Perhaps Wigglesworth had intended to use the preceding blank page to describe a proposal, probably to his cousin, Mary Reyner of Rowley, whom he later married. See below, p. 406.

36 John Winthrop, Jr., son of Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, and himself one of the leading figures in Connecticut, was a man of wide interests, whose advice on a variety of subjects was much sought after. John Alcock, a nephew of Thomas Hooker, graduated from Harvard in 1646 and practiced medicine, first at Roxbury and later at Boston. John Rogers graduated from Harvard in 1649 and preached at Ipswich for a time but devoted a large proportion of his time to the practice of medicine. He was president of Harvard College from 1683 to 1684, the year of his death.

37 Mary Reyner of Rowley, whom he later married.

38 John Latimer figures largely in the early records of Weathersfield. At the time of his death in 1662 he was one of its wealthiest inhabitants, possessor of two slaves.

39 The records give no indication of any Warner in Weathersfield at this time, but this may have been Andrew Warner of Hartford, one of the first settlers there, who later participated in the founding of Hadley.

40 Roger Newton was minister at Farmington, Connecticut.

41 Samuel Stow, of Middletown, Connecticut, graduated from Harvard in 1645, served as minister for a time at Middletown and later at Simsbury but was never permanently settled at any church.

42 The word intended here is obviously gonorrhea, but I have thought it best not to expand the abbreviation, because former accounts of Wigglesworth’s life have professed to be mystified with regard to the disease of which Wigglesworth so frequently complains. It seems indisputable from the symptoms described and from this direct statement that Wigglesworth thought that he had gonorrhea. Whether his disease was actually gonorrhea, of course, no one can say.

43 Theophilus Eaton, one of the original patentees of the Massachusetts Bay Company, was the founder with John Davenport of the New Haven Colony. He was governor of the colony, re-elected annually, until his death.

44 Large congregations usually had two ministers, one called pastor and the other teacher. When one man served both functions, he did “double work.”

45 Probably the Reverend John Reyner.

46 Samuel Phillips, son of the Reverend George Phillips of Watertown, graduated from Harvard in 1650 and in 1651 joined Ezekiel Rogers as minister of Rowley.

47 Joseph Hills was the first representative of the town of Maiden in the General Court of Massachusetts and later was speaker of the House of Deputies. He created a scandal in the colony by following the earlier example of Governor Bellingham in presiding at his own wedding (see below, p. 418). He had also been one of the supporters of Marmaduke Mathews, the previous minister of Maiden, who had been chosen without approval of the General Court and who was consequently ousted.

48 Jeremiah Peck, a student at Harvard from 1653 to 1656, was schoolmaster at Guilford, Connecticut, from 1656 to 1660 and later a minister.

49 Henry Scudder, The Christians Daily Walke in Holy Securitie and. Peace (Lon don, 1627).

50 Samuel Newman, educated at Oxford, came to New England in the 1630’s and eventually became minister at Rehoboth.

51 Henry Flint came to New England in 1635 and became minister at Braintree.

52 See note 17.

53 Thomas Hooker, The Soules Preparation for Christ (London, 1632). Thomas Hooker, the founder of Connecticut, was one of the most popular preachers of the time and author of books which were widely read in old England as well as New.

54 So numerous were the John Greens of Maiden and Cambridge that this one is impossible to identify.

55 I have been unable to find any record of the John French referred to here.

56 Joseph Champney, of Cambridge, was made a freeman in 1654, probably shortly after this relation. He died two years later.

57 John Wilson, the famous first minister of Boston, was educated at Cambridge and came to Boston in 1630 with the first great wave of settlers.