December Meeting, 1944

A STATED Meeting of the Society was held at the Club of Odd Volumes, No. 77 Mount Vernon Street, Boston, on Thursday, December 21, 1944, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the President, Kenneth Ballard Murdock, in the chair.

The records of the Annual Meeting in November were read and approved.

The President reported the receipt of letters from Mr. Samuel Williston, accepting election to Honorary Membership, and from Mr. Charles Dyer Childs and Mr. Norman Lewis Dodge, accepting election to Resident Membership in the Society.

Mr. Ralph Henry Gabriel, of New Haven, Connecticut, and Mr. Raymond Phineas Stearns, of Urbana, Illinois, were elected Corresponding Members of the Society.

Dr. Harold Bowditch read the following paper:

Early Water-Color Paintings of New England Coats of Arms

THE fashion of a general interest in heraldry waxes and wanes. Perhaps as good an index of this interest as any is the demand for books on the subject. Thomas Moule’s Bibliotheca Heraldica (London, 1822) lists, reign by reign and year by year, the books published in England which have heraldic interest. The reign of Queen Anne (March 8, 1702–August 1, 1714), seems to have been a barren period for literature on heraldry; there were books on the succession, on the genealogy of the House of Stuart, on titles and privileges and the like, all of which must have had more or less heraldic interest, but the only book devoted to the subject of heraldry was by a Scotsman, Alexander Nisbet, An Essay on Additional Figures and Marks of Cadency (1702). Seven years later the first edition of the Peerage of England by Arthur Collins made its appearance; of this an enlarged and corrected second edition came out in 1710, a second volume was added in 1711, and the third edition, in two parts issued in 1714, was followed by a supplementary volume in 1716. Obviously the book responded to a fairly widespread interest, but the great popular treatise on the subject of heraldry was John Guillim’s Display of Heraldry, which had first appeared a century before and had by Queen Anne’s time been through a number of editions. There was then no general armory, nor did one appear for another half-century or more. Then as now there was an erroneous popular belief that identity of name indicated identity of family, and, as a corollary, that all of one name had a right to the same arms. Hence, if a name were found in a book of heraldry, there was no hesitation on the part of those with the same (or with a similar) name in adopting as their own the arms which were given in the book.

The accession of George I (August 1, 1714) marked the beginning of a new dynasty, and there was a veritable flood of books on the Hanoverian genealogy, the orders of knighthood, politics, biography, ceremonials, titles, and the like, besides several works on the peerage and baronetage. Heraldry as a subject in itself is represented by Samuel Kent’s Grammar of Heraldry (1716, 1719, and 1724), Nisbet’s Ancient and Modern Use of Armories (1718) and System of Heraldry (1722), a new edition of Guillim’s Display of Heraldry (1724), James Coats’s A New Dictionary of Heraldry (1725), and Kent’s The Banner Display’d (1726–1728, reprinted in 1755).

As before, Guillim’s Display of Heraldry was the standard work on the subject. The first edition appeared in 1611, a small folio of 290 pages measuring about 11 by 7 inches and weighing less than half a pound. The book is a treatise on heraldry and not an armory, but the arms of individuals are used to illustrate the text, and a common form of statement is this example: “Hee beareth Azure, six Mullets; three, two, and one, Or, by the name of Welsh.” The work went through a number of editions, gradually increasing in size and contents and culminating in the so-called sixth edition of 1724, a tall folio of 854 pages measuring about 15½ by 9½ inches and weighing a little over ten pounds. The quotation just cited, as well as many others like it, is retained in this last edition.

Kent, in his Grammar of Heraldry, a small book, illustrates many family coats of arms, but there are many more in his two-volume The Banner Display’d. This he calls “an Abridgment of Guillim,” and Thomas Moule says of the work that Kent omits the philosophical digressions and inserts above three thousand coats. The publication of these works in the years 1724–1728 put into the hands of coach painters, funeral arms designers, engravers, and such people a large number of family arms which were not represented in the books on the peerage, and this access to new material is probably not unconnected with the fact, noted by a number of observers, that it was at about this time that the display of coats of arms became popular in New England. It is known that Guillim’s Display of Heraldry was in the hands of John Coles of Boston, a publisher and heraldry painter, and it can be shown that his copy was the edition of 1724; it has been thought that this book was his only source, but there is evidence that he also used Kent’s The Banner Display’d. Another copy of the 1724 edition of Guillim is thought to have been owned by George Searle, an arms painter of Newburyport, and is known to have been owned by his successor, Edward Bass; it is, in fact, still in the possession of Bass’s descendants.

At this period certain families had accumulated a good deal of wealth, and it seemed to them appropriate to have arms engraved on silver, chiseled on gravestones, embroidered on silk or other fabrics, and painted in oils for hatchments or in water colors as ornaments. The custom in England was to display on the front of the house whose owner had died his coat of arms painted on a square panel of wood or canvas, hung by a corner. This was called a hatchment, and a number survive in this country. After six months or more the hatchment was taken down and was sometimes preserved in the local church. The shape of the hatchment probably suggested the form which became common in embroideries and less so in water-color paintings; but these ornaments were not intended to be exposed to the weather and cannot properly be called hatchments.1

The fashion of having arms painted in water color seems to have begun a few years later. At any rate, the earliest date attributed to an American example is 1740 when the owner wrote an inscription on the back, although, of course, the work itself may be somewhat earlier. The paintings were produced, in a certain easily recognized type, for about a hundred years. Richard C. Lichtenstein says:

From 1750 to 1775 there was hardly a family of wealth or social distinction but could show its family arms engraved and used as a book-plate, or painted by some of the numerous herald-painters who flourished during that period . . . For several years after the Revolution, the use of Coats of Arms seems to have fallen slightly into disfavor, the period of 1780 to 1810 being a seemingly barren one. Cooper, in his “Notions of an American picked up by a Traveling Bachelor,” speaks of John Cadwalader, of New York, as having destroyed his arms, presumably on account of his intensely Republican sentiments.2

With regard to bookplates Lichtenstein may be presumed to be right; but the period from 1790 to 1830 was the period of mass production of painted arms in Boston. It seems not unlikely that the economic situation had something to do with it: after the war people were poor, and a water color would cost far less than an engraved bookplate. The Reverend William Bentley of Salem, in his Diary under the date of October 15, 1806, speaking of heraldry, says: “No study is so singular as this in the United States. The Revolution has extinguished even the wish to get money by drawing arms & selling them, as was done in a few instances before the revolutionary war.” By 1806 Samuel Blyth of Salem, portrait and heraldry painter, had been dead for eleven years, so it may be presumed that he had left no successor there; but 1806 falls in the period of activity of both the elder and the younger John Coles of Boston and of Edward Bass and Benjamin Johnston of Newburyport, and there was accordingly no lack of arms painters elsewhere than in Salem.

These paintings of family arms, now anywhere from one to two hundred years old, are highly prized as heirlooms, and many have served as models for heraldic bookplates and the like. Yet in themselves they have no authenticity. Some were made up from the whole cloth, and others are merely the arms, as given by Guillim or Kent, for the name in question or something like it, but without proof of any connection. It is hardly necessary to state that the mere use of the arms of a family of the same or of a similar name does not constitute a valid claim to a right to bear those arms. The late date of the paintings, too, takes from them any claim to authenticity, for by the period when they were painted, arms were being taken—from the books—right and left. Some, it is true, can be shown to be valid, but through evidence earlier than that of the production of these paintings.

In the case of any one of these early water colors two questions naturally arise: (1) Who painted it? (2) When was it painted?

As for the painters of arms, some few are known by name, for their signatures appear on their pictures. Names of heraldry painters may also be found in the early lists of inhabitants, though their work may not be known. The great majority of the paintings, however, are unsigned and undated, and it has therefore seemed worth while to bring together a group of signed or otherwise well-authenticated paintings in the hope that, from comparison of an anonymous painting with a signed example, the authorship of the unsigned work may be established with reasonable certainty.

Engravings of arms of a date earlier than paintings of arms have come down to us, probably because silver and copper are less perishable than paper and canvas and also more valuable intrinsically. The engravers and seal cutters would seem to be natural arms painters because the first step in making an engraving would, of course, be a design on paper which could then be easily colored and framed as an ornament. Hence a list of engravers may offer a clue to the author of some painting signed only by initials. Such lists of painters and engravers may be found in Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, George F. Dow’s Arts and Crafts in New England, Richard C. Lichtenstein’s list in E. de V. Vermont’s America Heraldica (supplement) and in The Curio, Charles Dexter Allen’s American Book Plates, and Louis F. Middlebrook’s “New England Engravers,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, lxii (1926), 359–363.

The approximate date of a painting of arms may be surmised by one of several pieces of evidence. If the design is like that of a signed example and the place is appropriate, the dates of birth and death of the artist, or the time when he is known to have worked, give a reasonably good clue. In the case of quartered arms the date when the latest quartering “came in” by marriage will give the earliest possible date; and in the case of impaled arms (the husband’s on the dexter and the wife’s on the sinister side) the date of their marriage, if it can be obtained, again gives the earliest possible date. In fact, in the latter case it seems not improbable that the arms were painted shortly after the marriage to hang in the house as an ornamental memorial of the event. In the case of paintings by Coles, who not infrequently used the national flag as a crest, the number of stars and stripes may lead to a conclusion concerning the date of the work.3 There were certain official rules governing the design of the flag, but, especially in the early years of the Republic, the rules were disregarded even in the case of flags actually used on government service. An instance in point is the flag flown by Commodore Perry in 1853, which showed twenty-nine stars instead of thirty-one. The official number of stripes was never larger than fifteen, but the original scheme of adding a stripe as well as a star for each new state led to curious flagmaking as late as 1818, in spite of official rules. How much more likely it is that such mistakes would be made in drawings and paintings.

Finally, the paper itself may offer some clue. Although wove paper was in use here as early as 1781, it did not become common until about 1800. Hence a painting on wove paper instead of laid paper suggests a date from 1800 on. If laid paper was used, as was commonly the case, it does not suggest any date, for it continued in use long after the introduction of wove paper. Watermarks might seem at first sight to be valuable clues, but there are serious pitfalls. In the first place, minor differences are legion. Again, a given watermark may be repeated for years, decades, even centuries. Furthermore, good pieces of paper were often laid aside for future use even as is done today. On the other hand, a collection of watermarks, with the dates when they were used, makes it possible in some cases to state that a certain watermark is appropriate to a certain period and place. Some paper is watermarked with the year of its manufacture, and, since paper was scarce and expensive, the probability is that it was used not long after being made. Yet in France a law was passed in 1741 that all paper made after January 1, 1742, must be watermarked “1742”; and this was literally carried out, in some cases even to the end of the century. Hence, French paper watermarked 1742 shows only that it is not earlier than that date.

Fig. 1. By Thomas Johnson of Boston 1740 or earlier

Fig. 2. Attributed to James Turner of Marblehead 1752 or later

Fig. 3. By John Gore of Boston c. 1750

Fig. 4. By James Ford of Salem 1757

Fig. 5. By Christian Remick of Boston 1772

Fig. 6. By Samuel Blyth of Salem

Fig. 7. By George Searle of Newburyport 1773

Fig. 8. By George Searle of Newburyport 1775

Fig. 9. By Edward Bass of Newburyport c. 1800

Fig. 10. By Benjamin Johnston of Newburyport c. 1804

Fig. 11. By John Coles, sen., of Boston 1790

Fig. 12. By John Coles, sen., of Boston 1800

Fig. 13. By John Coles, sen., of Boston 1801

Fig. 14. Probably by John Coles, jun., of Boston ? 1836–1837

Fig. 15. Probably by John Coles, jun., of Boston ? 1836–1837

Fig. 16. By William Southgate of Leicester 1800–1811

Fig. 17. By Isaac Child of Boston c. 1847

Fig. 18. Attributed to Thomas Johnson of Boston

Fig. 19. Attributed to James Turner of Marblehead

Fig. 20. Attributed to Christian Remick of Boston

Fig. 21. Attributed to Samuel Blyth of Salem

Fig. 22. Attributed to Samuel Blyth of Salem

Fig. 23. Attributed to John Coles, sen., of Boston, after Samuel Blyth of Salem

Fig. 24. Attributed to George Searle of Newburyport

Fig. 25. Attributed to George Searle of Newburyport

Fig. 26. Attributed to George Searle of Newburyport

Fig. 27. Influence of George Searle of Newburyport

Fig. 28. Attributed to John Coles, sen., of Boston

Fig. 29. Attributed to John Coles, sen., of Boston (Painted in oils on canvas)

Fig. 30. Attributed to John Coles, jun., of Boston

Fig. 31. By Jeremiah Harding of Lowell, after John Coles, sen., 1829

Figure 1

Arms of Lynde and others. “T Johnson fecit”4

This beautiful painting is quartered of six, showing the arms of Lynde, Newdigate, Digby, Browne, Curwen, and Smith. On the back is a paper stating that “The arms on the other side belong to Benj. Lynde Jr. of Salem, 1740.” This, then, is the latest date at which the arms could have been painted. In style this painting is far better than any of the others which follow. Although the shape of the shield is “Jacobean” and unlovely, its scrolled edges are logically carried out; and the crest-wreath, although it does not surround the helm as it should, is at least not straight like a barber’s pole. The mantling is really fine, and the motto-ribbon is occupied by the motto and not by the name of the bearer of the arms. At the lowermost corner there is a finial which matches well with the mantling, and hung from it is a small scarf, a type of ornament which is at least as early as about 1500. It may be the point of origin of the curious curtains later employed by Christian Remick and Nathaniel Hurd. In shape and placing this painting is like a hatchment, but the background is not black and it is a water-color painting on paper. A thoroughly inadequate and misleading woodcut illustration of this painting is given by William H. Whitmore in the Heraldic Journal5 and in his Elements of Heraldry (1866); but Whitmore was working more than eighty years ago when the woodcut was the only means of illustration. The painting measures about a foot square and is on buff-colored paper which was probably originally white.6

Thomas Johnson (whose name is frequently found spelled Johnston) was born in 1708. While best known today as the engraver of highly prized and now rare views of Boston and of Louisburg and a map of the Battle of Lake George, there are references to him as a japanner and a heraldry painter. The Record Commissioners’ Reports state: “1729 26 Feb. a shop at 9 Dock Square owned by the town leased to Thomas Johnson of Boston, Painter Stainer, for 7 years from 1 Jan. 1729, and, 1730 21 Aug. the above-mentioned shop, having been resigned by Mr. Thomas Johnson, was let to John Cravatt, feltmaker.” Presumably the same individual is meant in a later entry: “1747 2 March Petition of . . . Thomas Johnson for Liberty to Build a Shop on the Towns Land at the head of the Dock . . . to be considered 14 March. 16 March the Petition of Thomas Johnson praying for Liberty to Build a Shop on the North Side of Faneuil Hall Market was . . . pass’d in the Negative.” Between 1730 and 1747 there are records of four marriages or marriage intentions of Thomas Johnson (Johnston): June 22, 1730, to Rachel Thwing; March 30, 1733, to Rachiel Rebrooke (intentions); June 1, 1739, to Susanna Mackmillian; and August 6, 1747, to Bathsheba Thwing. Probably all of these did not refer to the same man, but the engraver’s will shows that his widow was named Bathsheba, and it seems not unlikely that she was his second wife, Rachel Thwing having been his first. Johnson died on May 8, 1767, aged fifty-nine years, and was buried in King’s Chapel Burying Ground. The inventory of his estate includes “glass arms, 4s” and a “Book of Heraldry, 48s.” This book may well have been the 1724 edition of Guillim; in fact, it may have been the very copy later owned by John Coles of Boston. In the Heraldic Journal, ii. 76, there is mention of an item in the accounts of the Honorable William Clark, merchant, 1742: “Paid Johnson for escutcheons and coat of arms and (stockⁿ for House)? £57.” The strange word might be “scochⁿ,” i.e., scutcheon, or hatchment.

Figure 2

Arms of Oliver and others. Unsigned7

This painting bears no artist’s signature; but below the middle fold of the motto-ribbon there is an erasure where the painter probably had signed his name. Why it should have been erased is unknown. Although the painting is anonymous, the circumstantial evidence strongly points to James Turner of Marblehead. The palm branches crossed below the shield, so familiar a feature of paintings of this sort, appear in this example. The arms are those of Oliver quartering Fitch and impaling Lynde. The match which is here memorialized is that of Andrew Oliver, Jr., and Mary Lynde, who were married on May 28, 1752, the earliest possible date for the painting. Only eighteen days before (May 10, 1752) William Lynde, the second of the two sons of Benjamin Lynde, Sr., and uncle of Mary Lynde, the bride, had died.

The honble Benj. Lynde Esq^re, Samuel Curwin, Esq^ṛ and Mr. Henry Gibbs, executors to the last Will & Testament of Mr. W^ṃ Lynde, dec^ḍ

To James Turner,		Dr.
1752 May 14.	To 8 escutcheons for ye Funeral of y^e Dec^d at 8s ap^s	£ 6.
	To an Inscription on ye Breastplate of y^e Coffin	,, 8.
June 6	To 9 Enamell Rings for do. wt 13 dwt. 23 gr	4 ,, 4.
	To fastening ditto at 9s 4 aps	4 ,, 4.
9	To adding a Crescent for Difference 2s ap^s.	11 ,, 0.
	to each of the escutcheons at
Marblehead, Sep. 2, 1752.8

Subsequently his executors received a bill from James Turner which shows that he was an engraver. Whether he was also a painter is not clear. Yet the fact that less than three weeks before Mary Lynde’s marriage he had been doing armorial engraving for her uncle’s funeral, and the presence of the Oliver-Lynde arms, suggest that he was. That the Lyndes took their heraldry seriously is shown by the fact that on the ninth of June, nearly four weeks after the funeral, they went to the trouble of having the crescent which indicated the second son added to the funeral escutcheons.

This painting, like the preceding, was badly illustrated by woodcut in Whitmore’s Elements of Heraldry (p. 74), where he called it “probably the work of Hurd,9 or of his contemporaries,” which is a pretty feeble statement. He reprinted the cut in the Heraldic Journal (iii. 31), stating that it “may be attributed to Nathaniel Hurd.” Hurd was of the right age, twenty-three years old in 1752, and the painting may be later. But no heraldic paintings from his hand are known, and there is nothing in this painting to suggest his well-known style. He lived in Boston, and James Turner, heraldic engraver, was closer at hand in Marblehead.

The style shows a distinct falling off from the work of Johnson in 1740. The curiously shaped shield, which was in the fashion of the time, develops two meaningless extensions at the lower sides, the crest-wreath lies upon the mantling above the helm, and the mantling is less skillfully turned than is Johnson’s. The palm branches, which are so commonly looked upon as the earmark of Coles’s work, have been mentioned. The artist had the grace to use the motto-ribbon for its real purpose. Note also the tulip-shaped finial at the foot of the shield, now introduced above the ribbon instead of below it. There is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston an unsigned painting of the Green arms (Fig. 19) which is closely affiliated with this work supposed to be James Turner’s. Joseph Green (1675–1715) lived in Salem and left seven or eight children, for one of whom this painting may have been made by the Marblehead heraldic engraver.

It is impossible to establish with any certainty the identity of this James Turner or the facts of his life. A person of this name, the son of Isaac and Mary Turner of Marblehead, was baptized in the First Church of Salem on March 4, 1722. If this was the engraver, he was thirty years old when the Oliver-Lynde arms were painted.10 Another record shows that on August 26, 1759, Priscilla, the infant daughter of James and Mary Turner, was baptized in Salem Middle Precinct (later South Danvers). If this James was the engraver, it would appear that by 1759 he had moved from Marblehead.11 I do not believe that James Turner of Marblehead was identical with James Turner of Boston, engraver, who is mentioned in many source books. Although the Boston man made and engraved silver for Richard Derby of Salem in 1746 and had been working at his art in Boston at least as early as 1745 he moved in 1758 or before to Philadelphia, where he died the next year.12 If he worked for the Lynde funeral in 1752, he would have had to make the following moves: Boston by 1745 and in 1746, Marblehead in 1752, Philadelphia by 1758. It seems to me more likely that there were two James Turners, silversmiths and engravers, one in Marblehead and the other in Boston and Philadelphia. A further argument in favor of the Marblehead man is the fact that the style of design used by Samuel Blyth of Salem at a later period (see Figure 6) was influenced by whoever produced the Oliver-Fitch-Lynde arms and the Green arms, and he would have been more likely to see the work of a Marbleheader than of a Bostonian.

Figure 3

Arms of Stoddard and Evance. By John Gore

This illustration is made from a careful copy of one of the many paintings in a manuscript book known as the “Gore Roll of Arms.” For many years the original was lost to sight, and the arms were known only through a copy made by Isaac Child and now the property of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. From this copy Whitmore first described the arms, along with the others in the manuscript, in the Heraldic Journal, 1 (1865), 122, and he reprinted the list, with different numberings (having omitted such arms as were not American), in his Elements of Heraldry. The first Whitmore list and description were reprinted in the 1889 supplement of Vermont’s America Heraldica. About fifteen years ago the original “Gore Roll” came to light, and it was then found that Child’s copy was so inaccurate that a new description was called for.13 The “Roll” is simply a record of arms and crests, showing no helms, and consequently no mantlings, and no mottos. The names of the bearers are given (in this instance Simeon and Elizabeth [Evance] Stoddard of Boston), and most of the paintings bear dates, one as early as 1682, the others between 1701 and 1724. As these dates are too early for John Gore, whose name is given as the artist in a penciled inscription on the flyleaf of the book, it would seem that the “Roll” represents a gathering between two covers of such coats of arms as had attracted Gore’s attention, some coming presumably from the notes of an earlier heraldic painter in Boston.

The Gores were an old Roxbury and Boston family. Obadiah Gore, a carpenter, married Sarah Kilby. Their son John, the reputed painter of the “Roll,” was a coach painter in Boston. Born in 1718, he had Tory opinions at the time of the Revolution and fled to Halifax in 1776 and was formally banished two years later; however, he was pardoned and returned to Boston in 1787, and died in 1796. He had three sons: John; Samuel (1750/1–1831), who followed his father’s trade and worked in Newburyport; and Christopher, Governor of Massachusetts 1809–1810. Samuel Gore had three sons, two of whom, George and Christopher, became painters, the latter being in partnership with his father in 1806 or 1807. There were thus three generations of Gores who were painters.

The arms in the “Gore Roll” are not comparable with the usual run of ornamental paintings of arms of the period with which this article deals, but it is interesting to note that Gore used the type of shield which was popular in the seventeenth century instead of the elaborate “Jacobean” type which was the favorite of his contemporaries. This type is shown in an example preserved at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, a certificate from the College of Arms, dated 1709, showing the Emerson arms in color. Although no closely related New England example has come to light, it seems probable that our local painters were influenced by the style which was set by official circles in England. The work in the “Gore Roll” cannot be accurately dated, but it seems probable that it is the work of a younger rather than of an older man, and perhaps 1750 would not be far from the mark.

Figure 4

Arms of Bartlett. “James Ford fecit 1757”

This painting and a companion piece (the Carder arms) belong to the Marblehead Historical Society. In design they are practically identical except that in the Carder arms the helm is omitted. The date 1757 is on the Bartlett example only. The design surrounding the shield is a very elaborate cartouche, skillfully conceived and logically carried out, and quite different from the work of any other known painter. A third example of Ford’s work (the Chapman arms) is recorded in the supplement to Bolton’s American Armory; if its whereabouts could be ascertained, it would be interesting to learn whether in this case, too, he followed this design.

I have not discovered where or when James Ford was born. One record, now over a hundred years old, speaks of him as an Irishman, so he probably came from Ireland to Salem where he is listed as a member of Colonel Ichabod Plaisted’s Essex Regiment in the French and Indian War in 1755. The second record about him is this painting, dated 1757. In 1758 he drew a plan of Salem which is in the Essex Institute. He belonged to the Episcopal Church; and in 1761, when St. Peter’s Church in Salem was enlarged, he worked on it as a carpenter and made a money contribution as well. He is best known, however, as the master of the writing school in Salem. The earliest mention of him in this capacity that I have seen is in 1765, when he was apparently under criticism for his violent temper, which is also mentioned elsewhere. In that year Deacon Timothy Pickering wrote to the Salem school committee, mentioning objections against Ford because he was an Episcopalian and because of his temper, and pointing out that “if he was of a winning temper I don’t know but that he would Draw one half of the Boys to Church with Him.” Evidently this argument had weight, for the fact that at his death in 1781 he was spoken of as a schoolmaster suggests that the school committee decided to face the awful risk of the conversion of the youth of Salem. The fact that he was a writing master and a cartographer is consistent with his having made paintings of arms, though his curiously elaborate description of the Bartlett arms shows that he had no knowledge of heraldry and did not even copy correctly: “He Beareth Partiper Pale, first Partiper Fess Indenter Argent and Gules two Crescents Counterchanges Second Partiper Fess Indenter Gules and Argent two Crescents counterchanges: Crest a Pheasant Vert By the Name of Bartlett.” He would have saved himself trouble by saying simply: “Quarterly per fess indented Argent and Gules four crescents counterchanged.”

Figure 5

Arms of Pierce. “Chrisⁿ Remich14 Del:”

The painting from which this illustration is made is one of a pair, practically identical except for the arms and the crest, which were until recently in the hands of Goodspeed’s Book Shop15 in Boston, through whose courtesy the plate is lent. They are signed identically and both are dated 1772. The shield is of the shape of the period, but several new features appear. In the first place, flags, swords, cannon, etc., are introduced behind the shield, as seen in the so-called trophy bookplates of this era; in the second, trailing vines hang from the mantling, apparently related to the graceful garlands and sprays which appear in the bookplates of Nathaniel Hurd; and in the third, at the foot of the design there is a curtain which is perhaps developed from the scarf which appears in Thomas Johnson’s painting (Figure 1). A curtain is also a usual feature in Hurd’s work; and there is an example of the Smith arms painted, I am convinced, by John Coles, Sr., which shows a curtain copied exactly from Remick’s work, including the two supporting cupids bashfully turning their heads away. The mantling in Remick’s painting is sui generis: the folds have curious serrated edges and knoblike terminations which are unlike the mantling of any other herald painter. The use of the motto-ribbon for the name of the bearer of the arms is so strongly associated with the work of John Coles that it is of interest to see it in Remick’s painting, but an example presumably a good deal earlier is found in the anonymous Barton hatchment, at the Essex Institute (Fig. 18). This hatchment is in the style used by Thomas Johnson of Boston, and as Remick worked in Boston he may have picked up the idea from Johnson’s designs.

An interesting account is given in The Month at Goodspeed’s Book Shop for December, 1942, from which the following is condensed. Christian Remick was born in Eastham, Massachusetts, in 1726, the fourth generation of his family in America. He is best known for a water-color view, of which he made six known copies, of the landing of the British in Boston in October, 1768. In 1769 he advertised in the Massachusetts Gazette that he made many sorts of water-color paintings—“Sea Pieces, perspective views, Geographical Plans of Harbours”—and also coats of arms. He had then lately returned from Spain, for he was a master mariner, and in the Revolution he was a lieutenant aboard the brigantine Tyrannicide of the Massachusetts Navy and aboard the frigate La Hague. In 1777 he was taken prisoner and set ashore on the coast of Maine. The date of his death is not mentioned.

Figure 6

Arms of Pickman. “S Blyth Pinxt”16

The whole effect of this painting is poor: the shield is lopsided and its framework clumsy; the crest-wreath floats above the shield; the palm branches are angular and ungraceful. Below the shield is a small finial reminiscent of the handsome large example in Johnson’s painting (Figure 1), but much reduced in size. The motto-ribbon is empty. The late Walter Kendall Watkins wrote: “A coat of arms of the Pickman family by Samuel Blyth is at the Essex Institute, Salem, drawn in the manner of Coles, the cornstalks being broken or bent. . . . it is possible that the heraldic work by Blyth may have inspired Coles to continue it at a later time. The resemblance in design is certainly suggestive.”17 The connection was through Benjamin Blyth of Salem, son or nephew of Samuel, who became associated with Coles in Boston in the publication of engraved portraits of George and Martha Washington in 1782. The resemblance to the known work of Coles does not seem to me striking; on the other hand, there does seem to be an influence from the work of the painter of the Oliver arms (Figure 2) and of the Green arms in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Figure 19), which are thought to be the product of James Turner of Marblehead. In view of the locale this seems natural, and it adds to the likelihood that Figure 2 is the work of Turner.

About the members of the Blyth family there seems to be a good deal of confusion. According to one account Jonathan Blyth (or Bly) married in 1704 and had Samuel; Samuel was baptized in 1721, was a sailmaker, married Abigail Massey in 1743 and had another Samuel; this Samuel, baptized in 1744, was a painter, married twice, and died in 1795.18 According to another account19 the Samuel Blyth who married Abigail Massey and died in 1774 was a sailmaker and also a painter, and had sons Benjamin and William, no Samuel mentioned. If he died in 1774 how can one account for a bill of July, 1782, for painting and gilding E. H. Derby’s house made out by Samuel Blyth?20 It seems, therefore, that the first account is right, and that Samuel the father was the sailmaker and Samuel the son, the painter.

Figure 7

Arms of Cross. “G: Searle. pinx^t 1773”

This painting hangs in the rooms of the Historical Society of Old Newbury in Newburyport. It is evidently the work of a superior artist. Although the conventional type of shield is retained and the crest-wreath floats above the helm, the picture exhibits a certainty and a delicacy of touch better than anything in this series since the work of Thomas Johnson in or about 1740 (Figure 1). The mantling is carefully worked out, and from it depend, on turned and returned slender ribbons, two heavy tassels, a new feature in native work but found in the Emerson certificate of 1709 at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Below the shield and partly behind the motto-ribbon (which is empty) appears a dainty and elaborate finial. The palm branches are omitted altogether. Other paintings following the design of these Cross arms, but all unsigned, are: the Short arms in the Essex Institute (Figure 25); the Seymour arms shown in the Seymour Genealogy (Figure 24); and the Gardiner arms, painted on parchment, privately owned in Hartford, Connecticut (Figure 26). The Seymours and the Gardiners are from Connecticut; Cross, too, is a well-known Connecticut and Rhode Island name. George Searle, who painted the Cross arms, worked in Newburyport; but the occurrence of these other examples in the same style suggests that he may have worked in Connecticut as well, or perhaps that he copied the work of a Connecticut arms painter.

George Searle, painter, of Newburyport (circa 1751–1796) was the nephew of John Gore, coach painter, of Boston (1718–1796), the reputed painter of the “Gore Roll of Arms” (Figure 3). John Gore’s sister, Katharine Gore, born in 1722, married in 1742 George Searle of Boston, and they were the parents of George Searle the painter. John Gore’s son, Samuel Gore (1750/1–1831), the first cousin of George Searle, was a chaise and carriage painter in Newburyport. Thus it seems that Searle may have acquired his interest in heraldry painting from his Gore connections.21

Joseph Dudley, Governor of Massachusetts, had a daughter, Mary Dudley, who married twice. Her first husband was Francis Wainwright; their child, Mary Wainwright, married Chambers Russell, who died without issue in 1766. Mary (Dudley) Wainwright’s second husband was Joseph Atkins; their child, Dudley Atkins, had a daughter, Mary Russell Atkins, who married George Searle, the painter, of Newburyport. Chambers Russell bequeathed to his “niece” (actually his wife’s half-brother’s daughter) “all his plate marked with the arms or crest of the Dudley family.”22 George Searle, then, must have been familiar with the Dudley arms on the silver left to his wife in 1766. Yet he owned (and Edward Bass after him) a small hand-stitched blankbook containing formulas for making paints, prices for painting chaises, etc., and an armory of eighty-five names and arms (not always both), chiefly of the local gentry, in which very different Dudley arms are given. This curious little roll of arms is owned by Mr. Charles C. Stockman, 2nd, of Newburyport, who has kindly lent it to me for examination. It is a strange fact that the Dudley arms are given as “Azure a chevron engrailed voided or” instead of as “Or a lion azure (or vert)” as they were used by the Massachusetts Dudleys. Searle’s blazon for Dudley is found in Guillim’s Display of Heraldry (1724 edition), and the volume which probably he and certainly his successor, Edward Bass, used is still in existence. Another reference to Searle mentions him as one of two shopkeepers in Newburyport having for sale in 1775 a view of the town from a drawing by Benjamin Johns(t)on.23 A search through the Essex Institute Historical Collections shows that between 1789 and 1795 George Searle was a part owner (in every intance but two a half owner) of no fewer than fourteen vessels ranging from sloops to brigs. A Kinsman coat of arms was painted by George Searle in 1773, but this has not been located.24

Figure 8

Arms of Clark. “G Searle pinx^ṭ 1775”

The original painting is in the Essex Institute. Were it not for the signatures, one would doubt that this and the preceding painting were by the same hand, and in spite of the dates the second has the earlier and more amateurish look. The poor mantling is in a way suggestive of Remick’s (see Figure 5), the narrow-throated helm is unfortunate, and—a new feature—the scrolls which continue the motto-ribbon cross the palm branches and terminate in perfectly meaningless eagles’ heads. In spite of the signature this painting has been included in a list of the work of John Coles.25 A painting of the White arms, in style identical with the Clark arms, is in the Haverhill Historical Society. In this instance there is an exception to the rule in the work by or attributed to Searle: “by the Name of White” is on the motto-ribbon, but it is in pale and very fine script and has the appearance of having been added.

Figure 9

Arms of Teel. “E. Bass”

The original painting is in the Historical Society of Old Newbury. So closely does it follow the design of Searle’s Clark arms (Figure 8) that were it not signed by Bass, anyone would be justified in attributing it to Searle. Since Bass was the younger man and Searle’s follower in his trade, he no doubt copied from Searle’s designs. The illustration does not bring out the fact that the motto-ribbon has been cut out and that the words “How Charming Friendship” are written on a piece of paper which underlies the painting.

Again we are indebted to Mr. Stockman for personal details. The Bass family came from Dorchester, Massachusetts. Bishop Edward Bass of Newburyport had a brother Joseph who is said to have gone to Annapolis, Nova Scotia, some time before the migration of the Loyalists, and thence to have come to Newburyport. His son Edward Bass, of Newburyport, was a house painter, and, as we see, a heraldry painter. The degree of association between him and George Searle during Searle’s lifetime is not known; but Searle’s manuscript book of painter’s recipes and coats of arms was in Bass’s possession and the latter part is thought to be in his hand. Bass is also known to have owned a copy of Guillim’s Heraldry (1724 edition) which has come down in the family; it is thought to have belonged earlier to Searle. Bass continued as a house painter through the first quarter of the nineteenth century and died in 1847 aged eighty-seven years, so the date of his birth was about 1760. Some painting such as the Clark arms by Searle (Figure 8) or the Teel arms by Bass (Figure 9) was apparently selected by Whitmore (Elements of Heraldry, 1866, p. 76) in order to illustrate what he looked upon as the typical work of John Coles, Sr., but he added the bearer’s name on the motto-ribbon just as Coles had it. In fairness it must be said that it is easier to study the subject now when so many of the paintings are in our local museums than it was in Whitmore’s day when they were in private hands.

Figure 10

Arms of Greenleaf. “B. Johnston del”

This painting is one of a pair, identical in style and signature, side by side in one frame, the mate representing the Newman arms. They are owned by Mr. Charles C. Stockman, 2nd, of Newburyport, who furnishes what is known of their history and of that of the artist. The style of the painting resembles in a general way that of the Clark arms by Searle (Figure 8) which is dated 1775, and its copy, the Teel arms by Bass (Figure 9), undated but probably circa 1800. The scrollwork round the shield is heavier and at the bottom there is a heavy scroll, of the usual type but greatly exaggerated in size. Below this is the flower-shaped finial, unattached to the shield, modified from the form familiar since the work of Thomas Johnson, circa 1740 (Figure 1). The crest-wreath is enormously exaggerated in size, showing that the artist had no conception of its true function. As in the work of Searle and Bass, the name of the bearer is not introduced on the motto-ribbon. A curious new feature lies in the fact that whereas Searle introduced little eagles’ heads as terminations of the ribbon, between the palm branches and the shield, Johnston has enlarged them, made them independent of the ribbon, and nestled them in the branches. In painting the ribbon, finial, etc., Johnston used white pigment which soaked into the surrounding paper, preserving its original whiteness, and contrasting with the rest of the time-darkened paper.

So far as is known there never was a Greenleaf-Newman marriage. Mary Greenleaf married William Stickney Dodge in 1804, and there is said to have been a painting of the Dodge arms, presumably also by Johnston; if so, the Dodge arms and the Greenleaf arms may have been painted to commemorate this alliance, the Dodge arms later removed, and the Newman arms substituted to fill the void. Only on some such theory can one assign the tentative date of 1804 to this painting. Benjamin Johnston was born about 1740 and died in 1818. In the Newbury burying ground are the stones erected over his grave and that of his wife, Ann Stickney, born 1742/3, died 1827. Between Mrs. Benjamin Johnston and Mary Greenleaf, whose arms Johnston painted, there was a remote connection: Ann (Stickney) Johnston was the first cousin of Abigail Stickney who married Thomas Dodge, and it was their son, William Stickney Dodge, who married Mary Greenleaf. In Currier’s History of Newburyport (1906, pp. 79 and 80), there is published an advertisement from the Essex Journal and New Hampshire Packet of the nineteenth of January, 1775:

Just Published (Price one Pistareen) and to be sold By Benjamin Johnson near the Rev. Mr. Tuc[k]er’s Meeting House, a North East View of the Town & Harbour of Newbury Port, taken just above the Powder house. Sold also by Edward Harris and George Searle. N. B. The above may be had at each place Framed, Glazed and Coloured.

This shows that Benjamin Johnston and George Searle, whose heraldic work has already been considered, were contemporary painters and shopkeepers in Newburyport; although Searle was about eleven years younger than Johnston he died twenty-two years before him. The spelling of Johnston’s name is variable. He signed himself Johnston and it reads this way on his and his wife’s gravestones. Nevertheless, his wife’s father in his will (1775) spelled it Johnson, and Benjamin and Ann Johnson figure among the heirs-at-law of her brother, John Stickney, in 1803. As seen above, the typesetter of the Essex Journal spelled it Johnson in 1775. Benjamin Johnston’s age and occupation bring up the possibility that he was a son of Thomas Johnson of Boston (see under Figure 1). Thomas signed his name Johnson, but there are a number of references to him as Thomas Johnston, and Dow publishes a record of the death in Barbados in 1772 of “William Johnston, portrait painter, formerly of Boston, son of the late Mr. Thomas Johnston, Japanner.”26 Whether Benjamin Johnston was an engraver as well as a draughtsman and a painter is not clear. He made the drawing of the town of Newburyport and sold the engraving, which is not marked as engraved by anybody else, so it seems probable that he was an engraver as well.

Figure 11

Arms of Lunt. “Boston 1790. Jn^o Col-—Pinxṭ̣”

This illustration is from a photostat kindly furnished to me by Mr. Walter Goodwin Davis of Portland, Maine, whose cousin owns the original. This painting is of interest for its date, the earliest dated authentic work of John Coles, Sr., which I have seen. Although he is said to have painted arms as early as about 1776, I think that there was confusion between Searle’s work and Coles’s. John Coles, painter, was taxed in Charlestown in 1791; his name first appears in the Boston Directory in 1796 where he is listed as a heraldry painter.27 This is the only example that I have seen where Coles signed his name on the painting, for his usual practice was to sign on a label pasted on the back of the panel which held the picture in the frame; of course the label was usually lost, though a number remain. The work in this example is coarse and amateurish, the whole effect being produced by short strokes of the brush, which is consistent with its being an early attempt. No crest is shown, suggesting that Coles had not yet hit upon the expedient, when in doubt, of introducing the national flag for a crest. A feature, apparently unique, is the little sitting lion which appears in the scroll at the foot of the shield. Although in style this example suggests Searle’s Clark arms (Figure 8), painted nearly a score of years earlier, rather than the Pickman arms by Blyth (Figure 6), it seems probable that Coles may have been started on his heraldic career through the influence of Benjamin Blyth of Salem, later of Boston, who appears to have been the nephew of Samuel Blyth. This painting presents two characteristics which run through all of this artist’s known works and are found in the pieces of no other painters except perhaps those of his son, John Coles, Jr. In the first place, the mantling is short, coming only to about the level of the upper corners of the shield, so that the whole composition may be divided into two levels, the upper containing helm, crest and mantling, and the lower the shield, palm branches and motto-ribbon. In the second, shading on the mantling is indicated by cross lines, white on the dark parts and dark on the white. In this example it is crude and coarse, but in Coles’s later work it is much finer. No other features, so far as I know, are peculiar to Coles; the palm branches are used by many others, the name on the motto-ribbon is found in the work of the painter of the Barton hatchment in Salem (Figure 18), as well as in Remick’s painting (Figure 5), and the general character of helm and shield are practically universal, though Coles’s shields are generally of a squatty type. The termination of the ribbon in eagles’ heads was borrowed from Searle (Figure 8). This Lunt coat of arms was evidently made from a description of the arms of Lund in Guillim’s Heraldry.

John Coles has engaged the attention of several writers. A correspondent signing himself B. H. D. first called attention to his work in 186528 and was followed by William H. Whitmore in the same volume (pp. 108, 109) and in his Elements of Heraldry (1866, pp. 75–77). The greatest amount of biographical information is furnished by Walter Kendall Watkins.29

B. H. D.’s words are:

Stott, an English engraver, living in Boston about 1840, told me that the first of these [heraldic paintings] were the work of an Englishman in Boston, who was succeeded in the trade (certainly not the art) by his son, who had then been dead he believed for half a century or more. He said they painted the helmets, shields and ornaments at their leisure, and filled them up when called for.

He goes on to say that he has a painting of this type which can be dated as not later than 1776. Stott, an Englishman himself, would probably be right in identifying Coles as an Englishman; but with regard to the painting of 1776 or before, it seems to me much more probable that it was the work of Searle or perhaps another of his time, for the reasons stated above.

Whitmore’s contribution is disappointing. He says that John Coles, heraldry painter, figures in the Boston Directory from 1800 to 1813 “and perhaps later”; that after 1806 there is found as well John Coles, Jr., miniature and portrait painter; and that neither is found after 1826. Of Coles, Whitmore says that his work is “easily recognized by the form of the shield, the mantlings, and palm branches” and in his illustration he shows as well the name on the motto-ribbon. He quotes the statement of the Reverend Dr. Jenks of Boston that he knew Coles in his early life, and that he made little or no genealogical research. The Reverend William Jenks, Harvard A.B. 1797, A.M. 1800, moved to Bath, Maine, in 1806, where he was as late as 1814 and perhaps later (Bentley’s Diary, May 15, 1814); he died in 1866, so was living when Whitmore quoted his words. Bentley, in his Diary under October 15, 1806, mentions the Reverend Dr. Jenks’s interest in heraldry, and it was no doubt before this date that he was in touch with John Coles. Whitmore’s statement about the dates in the Boston Directory leaves something to be desired. The easy recognition of a Coles painting is not helped by the example presented by Whitmore in a woodcut, which bears but little resemblance to the known work of Coles and a good deal to that of Searle or Bass. Whitmore’s bland statement and the illustration that he used have brought it about that all unsigned (and at least one otherwise signed) heraldic paintings with palm branches are simply attributed to Coles without further question, thus greatly extending the supposed period of his work. Some call the branches cornstalks and some call them leeks; but whatever they are they are not the invention of the New England painters with whom they were such a favorite form of decoration, for they are found in La Science Heroique by Marc Vulson sieur de la Colombière (1644), who uses them in a design for the arms of a French queen. They are found as well, in pretty general use, in Ségoing’s Armorial Universel (1660), so they seem to have no special significance. Palm branches appear on the bookplate of Edward Bysshe, illustrated in English Book Plates by Egerton Castle, who tells us that this plate was in use before 1655. Palm branches enclosing a design, such as G R crowned, must have been familiar to our colonists from watermarks in paper used as early as 1711, and at least as late as 1775.

Watkins evidently made a careful search for material about Coles, and has given us far more in his article than did his predecessors. He says that in 1782 Coles published, in Boston, portraits of George and Martha Washington designed by Benjamin Blyth, a pastel portrait artist born in Salem in 1746, and engraved by John Norman. Coles was called a painter when he was sued by Samuel Blyth of Salem, painter, the father [uncle?] of Benjamin Blyth, for nonpayment of a promissory note dated June 1, 1782. In 1785 Coles and Norman published a map in Boston. In 1788 Anna, the wife of John Coles, painter, bought a house in Charlestown, and he was taxed there in 1791. In 1796 his name appears in the Boston Directory as a heraldry painter. He died in Boston in 1809 aged fifty-nine, so he must have been born about 1749; but his name continues in the Boston Directory until 1816. With regard to his nationality, Watkins points out that a John Cole (not Coles), son of Thomas and Elizabeth, was born in Boston December 21, 1748. Watkins was familiar with the Pickman arms by Samuel Blyth (Figure 6) and suggests that the Blyth connection may have led Coles into heraldic painting.

Note that in 1782 Coles was a publisher and at about the same time is called a printer, and in 1785 a publisher; not until 1788 is he called a painter and not until 1796, a heraldry painter. It may well be that he lived for a time in Charlestown and kept a shop in Boston; also, that his son John, who is not listed as a heraldry painter but as a painter of portraits and miniatures, kept his father’s name in the directory for business reasons. The statement of John Stott, an Englishman, that John Coles was an Englishman seems conclusive, so that the birth of a John Cole in Boston at the proper time may be taken as a coincidence. On the other hand, if John Coles’s father and mother were both English, he himself might be, in the opinion of Stott, spoken of as an Englishman, so perhaps the record of the birth of John Cole in 1748 may refer to him. The difference between the two names, Cole and Coles, is not significant; Coles is the less common, and would be likely to become Cole at the hands of a recorder. As a matter of fact John Coles himself is listed as John Cole in the Boston Directory in 1796. However, the name Coles was known in Boston before the time of our publisher-printer-painter, for in the Reports of the Boston Record Commissioners (xiv. 81, xvii. 152) there is mention of a John Coles who was a constable in 1745–1746. Was this man possibly an Englishman, and the father of the heraldry painter?

Figure 12

Arms of Hacket. “Jn^ọ Coles, Her^ỵ P.” 1800

This is taken from a painting owned in Newburyport. It may be said to be a typical John Coles, Sr., piece of work. The mantling is composed of feeble little curled strokes which suggest feathers shaken from a pillow; it does not come down as far as the angles of the shield so that the composition falls into two levels, and we see the shading produced by cross-strokes mentioned previously. In this instance Coles used more white pigment than usual; in fact, he started to paint the white parts of the mantling on the upper dexter fold and gave it up, presumably because the white paint did not tell on the white paper. Time has darkened the paper now, and the white area stands out prominently. This painting is authenticated by the usual label pasted on the back of the panel, and is stated to display the arms of Sir Andrew Hacket of Moxhull in Warwickshire, Knight, one of the Masters of the High and Honourable Court of Chancery. The attestation reads: “Boston 18th Feb^ry 1800. Copy from Heraldry attest Jn^ọ Coles Her^ỵ P.,” i.e., Heraldry Painter. The passage is taken from Guillim’s Heraldry, 1724 edition.

Figure 13

Arms of Osgood. “Jn^ọ Coles Sen^ṛ H:P.” 1801

The original painting belongs to the Historical Society of Old Newbury in Newburyport. This, again, is a typical example, strikingly like the Hacket arms (Figure 12). The crest, however, is the national flag (a common feature in this painter’s work) showing fifteen stars and fifteen stripes. This was officially correct from May 1, 1795, to July 4, 1818, covering the period when the painting was made. The label on the back reads:

He Beareth azure, three Garbs, in a double Tressure, flory counter flory Argent. By the Name of Osgood. Granted to Benjamin Osgood of the Blue Regt of Train’d Bands in the City of London, and descends to that Name. Boston 30th June, 1801. Copy from Heraldry Attest Jn^ọ Coles Sen^ṛ H:P.

This passage is not found in Guillim, but comes from Kent’s Banner Display’d, “and descends to that Name” being Coles’s accommodating addition. Kent, however, included the crest in his description, and it seems strange that Coles or his patron chose to substitute the flag. Another curious feature is the shape of the tressure. A tressure should follow the outlines of the shield, but Coles has drawn it as though it were on a rectangular shield with a “braced” base. The illustration in Kent’s book does show a rectangular shield, but the base is not “braced” but shaped more like that in Figure 3.

In Old-Time New England, January, 1931, there is another illustration of a typical Coles piece, showing the arms of Adams and Cook impaled. The label reads:

He Beareth Gules, on a Bend Or, between two Globes, three Martlets Sable, Granted to William Adams, of Middle Temple London Councillor at Law, the 14th of March, 1639. The Field is Party p^r Pail Ruby and Saphir, three Eagles Displayed Pearl, Granted to Sir Edward Cook Knight Sometime Lord Chief Justice of his Majesty’s Court of King’s Bench. Boston 2^ḍ Oct^ṛ 1799. A True Copy from Heraldry Attest Jn^ọ Coles, Her^ỵ Painter.

Both coats appear in the 1724 edition of Guillim, but the Adams arms do not appear in the next earlier edition of 1679. This shows that Coles was using the 1724 edition of Guillim, as well as Kent’s Banner Display’d. The crest is again the national flag, with fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, as seen in the Osgood arms (Figure 13). In the same issue of Old-Time New England there is a cut of the Bowers arms and a statement that it is the work of John Coles, but the evidence is not presented. Although the general design follows Coles’s, there are certain discrepancies. The shield is lopsided; the dexter palm branch is curiously distorted; the helm is set over the sinister half of the shield although the crest-wreath is over the middle; the handling of the mantling is unlike Coles’s style and the crosslines for shading are absent. In my opinion it is a copy, perhaps a fairly early one.

Somewhere there is, or there was in 1883, a Coles painting of the Simmons arms dated as late as 1805, for a facsimile hangs in the library of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Printed above the painting is: “A Specimen Fraud of John Coles, Sen’r.” Printed under the painting is: “Copy of Certificate. ‘He Beareth Party per Pale, Or and Sable, three Roses Counter-Changed, by the Name of Simmons, and Descends to the Name and Family. Boston, Sept. 6th, 1805. Copy from Heraldry. Attest (signed) Jno. Coles Sen’r., Herald Painter’.” On the back is a label: “Fac simile of the original painted for John Coffin Jones Brown, Boston, Nov. 1883.” The painted arms do not follow the above blazon at all, but are: Per fess sable and gold a pale counterchanged, three roses gold. In the 1724 Guillim these arms are described with cinqfoils, not roses, but not illustrated; so apparently Coles mislaid his “copy from Heraldry” and did not bother to look it up again, but tried his own hand at it. The crest is the flag with fifteen stripes, but instead of the fifteen stars which were right for the period, Coles introduced an eagle surrounded by fourteen stars. Mr. John Coffin Jones Brown was a member of the Committee on Heraldry of the New England Historic Genealogical Society from 1881 to 1890, and its chairman from 1888 to 1890. The above records show that so far as ascertained Coles first used “senior” after his name in 1801, presumably showing the time when John, Jr., began his activity as a herald painter—or “H. P.” as Coles has it, as though it were equivalent to a college degree.

Two paintings which though unsigned are in my opinion undoubtedly by John Coles, Sr., deserve mention here. One shows the arms of Smith, and beneath the whole design the painter has introduced a legend placed on a curtain supported by two cupids, their heads turned away from the spectator; this design is a close copy from the work of Christian Remick (see Figure 5). The other, the Gardner arms, is unique in my experience: it is painted on canvas in oil colors (see Figure 29).

Figures 14, 15

Arms of Erskine. Anonymous

Arms of Sturtevant. Anonymous

So far as I know no authenticated armorial painting by John Coles, Jr., has come to light; the cut presented by Whitmore in his Elements of Heraldry (1866), p. 76, as probably the work of this man is to my mind indistinguishable from that of his father; and the situation is complicated by the fact, already mentioned, that Whitmore’s illustration of the father’s work appears to be that of Searle. The son seems to have begun his heraldic career between February 18, 1800 (when his father signed the Hacket arms, Figure 12, without adding “senior” to his name) and June 30, 1801 (when he signed the Osgood arms, Figure 13, with this addition). Watkins gives 1854 as the apparent date of his death; “John Coles of Charlestown married in April, 1809, Nancy Decoster of Charlestown. He died there Sept. 6, 1854, aged seventy-eight years.”30 Considering the fact that John Coles, Sr., lived in Charlestown there seems to be no reason to doubt that this statement refers to his son. Therefore the only way to identify his work would seem to be by its general style—that of the Coles mill—and by a date after 1809 when the father died. Since the Erskine and the Sturtevant arms, both at the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, satisfy these conditions, I believe that they are the work of John Coles, Jr. Except for the charges on the shields, and for the crests, they are practically identical.

Figure 13, the Erskine coat of arms, is clearly a product of the Coles shop unless it is a poor copy; but as it is obviously old it is pretty safe to say that it is original. Its condition is poor, for it is badly faded and somewhat damp-stained; it has been pasted for preservation directly upon the wooden panel which is framed under glass and this probably accounts for the fading. There is no paper over the back and no trace of a label of attestation. In minor details it differs from the work of John Coles, Sr. The mantling follows the father’s general style but it is, if possible, even worse with more of the appearance of chickens’ feathers, and it comes a little below the corners of the shield; it shows the Coles, Sr., method of shading with crosslines, which show better in the Sturtevant example. The ornamental border of the shield is heavier than in the father’s work, and on the bottom scroll there is, instead of the usual crosshatched ellipse, a rectangle with concave sides. The helm has a very narrow neck and the part which covers the chin merges with crosshatching, so that no outline is visible. The palm branches are quite different from those painted by the elder Coles, being rather regular, with leaves branching in opposite pairs. Eagles’ heads are as usual introduced between the branches and the shield, but they are independent of the motto-ribbon. A striking feature of this pair of paintings is their asymmetry, the same in both; the upper part of the shield bends to the sinister side, the rectangle on the lowermost scroll is not under the middle of the base and is well to the dexter of the crossing of the palm branches. On the other hand, the helm is set on the middle of the shield. As individual features, there is a small lozenge, set horizontally between the shield and the motto-ribbon, and between the crossed ends of the palm branches there is a little ornament which suggests a fuchsia flower.

The crest in the Erskine example is important: it is the national flag, showing twenty-five stars (actually circles) and twenty-five stripes. From this one may deduce that the painting was made when there were twenty-five states in the Union, and this would be between June 15, 1836, and January 26, 1837. It would be interesting to try to confirm this by discovering the date of an Erskine-Sturtevant marriage, for it is presumable that this pair of paintings memorializes such an event.

No vestige of color remains on the field of the Erskine shield; the charges are three sheaves of gold, with a crescent gules for difference. Any peerage of the period would contain the statement that the first quartering in the arms of Erskine Earl of Buchan was Azure three sheaves gold; and if Coles’s client happened to be the second son, that would account for the crescent. It is safe to say that the field was originally blue, a fugitive color, which has now completely vanished. In the flag there is still a little, more in the “stars” than on the field, for the white pigment has absorbed and retained some of it.

The sources of information about John Coles, Jr., are the same as those given in the sketch of his father. If the death record above quoted refers to him, as it apparently does, he was born about 1776. In 1788 his mother bought a house in Charlestown, so he apparently went there to live at the age of twelve. Boston Marriages lists the fact that John Cole (not Coles) married Mary Dunbar, September 7, 1798; he would then be twenty-two years old. In 1800 or 1801, at the age of about twenty-four or -five, when his father began to use “senior” after his signature, the implication is that he himself began heraldic painting. Beginning in 1803 his name appears in the Boston Directory as a miniature and portrait painter. He appears to have continued to live in Charlestown and to have had a shop in Boston, and to have lost his first wife; for in April, 1809 (when he would be about thirty-three years old), we find that John Coles of Charlestown married Nancy Decoster of Charlestown. His name does not appear in the Boston Directory after 1826; but he seems to have lived for many years more, for on the sixth of September, 1854, John Coles died in Charlestown, aged seventy-eight.

Figure 16

Arms of Henshaw and Houghton. William Southgate

This painting is in the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, and my thanks are due to the librarian, Mr. Clifford K. Shipton, for all of my information about the artist and the painting. It is painted on satin and framed; on the back of the frame, in an old hand, was inscribed: “Ruthy Henshaw Bascom of Ashby to Harriet Elizabeth Henshaw of Leicester. Painting by Wm. Southgate, Leicester, Mass.” Written below the painting is the following:

Henshaw beareth, Argent a cheveron Sable betwen thee Moor Hens proper; quarterly with Hougton, being Sable, thee Bars Argent and for the Creson, a wreath Argent and Sable a Falcon with bells, or beaked and memberd Sable, alighting upon a wing Silver, crested Gules as is above depicted.

This faulty blazon betrays the artist’s ignorance of heraldry, for he fell into the usual error of thinking that “or” was a conjunction and not the name of the metal gold; and the “wing Silver, crested Gules” represents his rendition of what in modern textbook blazon is called “argent guttée de sang.” Perhaps the less said about his heraldic art the better; there may be a suggestion from Searle’s work in the introduction of tassels hanging by thin ribbons; what serves for mantling looks like wind-blown autumn leaves. Note, too, that in the Houghton quarter he does not follow his own blazon.

Ellery B. Crane’s History of Worcester County, i. 255, contains the following mention of the artist:

John Southgate, son of Steward Southgate, married Eleanor Sargent, daughter of Jonathan Sargent, 1776, and their children were: Sally, born 1777, died unmarried; John, born 1778, died 1804, unmarried, as related in this work; William, born 1782, died 1811, unmarried. He was rather a skillful and talented painter, he had cultivated his taste under several masters, among others, Ralph Earle, to whom he was remotely related, and Gilbert Stuart. The department of art to which he devoted his attention was that of portraits, in which he would have probably attained a distinguished reputation had he diligently devoted himself to it as a profession. Harriet, born 1792, died 1841, unmarried; Eliza, born 1796, married Jacob Bigelow, then of Montreal, where she died, leaving one son, Dr. George F. Bigelow, of Boston. George W., born 1800. Mrs. Southgate died in 1825.

Since the artist was only twenty-nine years old when he died, this painting may be fairly closely dated—say between 1800 and 1811.

Figure 17

Arms of Stoddard and Evance. By Isaac Child

In the library of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston there is an old manuscript book from which this illustration has been redrawn. It purports to contain a copy of the “Gore Roll of Arms,” from which (original) an illustration of the same arms has been given as Figure 3. In this book the copyist has entered this:

The 100 Armorial Bearings commencing on page 129 . . . were copied about 30 years since, and are the “Coats-of-Arms” of 100 of the Aristocracy and Gentry of New England before the American Revolution, and were copied from the drawings of John Gore, brother or kinsman of Christopher Gore, an Ex Govr. of Massachusetts. June 21, 1877.

This gives the date of Child’s paintings as about 1847. For this collection the Stoddard-Evance arms have been selected as a type of Child’s work, for comparison with Gore’s originals as seen in Figure 3. Instead of reproducing Gore’s good, simple shield Child attempted something which he, no doubt, thought superior and more fashionable, so that his work has a certain value in showing what was then in use. It is unnecessary to particularize further than to point out that Child apparently drew the stars in the Stoddard coat without thought for the border, and then had to add it, cutting two of the stars. The original “Gore Roll” being lost, Child’s copy served in its stead when Whitmore wrote his description in 1865 (Heraldic Journal, i). There are so many discrepancies between this description and the Child copy as it now stands that it is evident that somebody has tampered with it. From Whitmore’s description Child copied certain items into his manuscript, so it is possible that he made the changes himself. On the other hand, the use of what appears to be aluminum paint for silver suggests that someone in the Genealogical Society made the alterations, after Child’s death. Figure 17, being merely one of a long series of paintings of arms and crests in a roll of arms, is in no way comparable to the heraldic paintings which were made to be hung on the wall for decoration, and it is useful only as showing to what a low point heraldic illustration had fallen by the middle of the nineteenth century in New England.

Isaac Child came from Roxbury, Massachusetts. He was born in 1792, and as a young man worked in a shop in Boston. When the War of 1812 brought business to a standstill, he passed his time in making an exquisitely fine copy of the Irish Compendium, in which it is hard to tell the work of the quill pen from an engraving. His copy of the “Gore Roll” was not made, as stated, until about 1847. By 1865 when Whitmore wrote, the original “Gore Roll” had disappeared, and it did not reappear until 1934, when comparison first became possible. Isaac Child died December 23, 1885, therefore at the age of ninety-three; and on the first of March, 1886, his manuscript book was given to the Historic Genealogical Society.

This series of reproductions sets before the reader for the first time the work of twelve New England heraldic artists between about 1740 and about 1847. Nine are fully identified; John Gore’s identification rests on a pencilled note in his book which there is no reason to doubt. John Coles, Jr.’s rests on circumstantial evidence which seems to be excellent. Only James Turner remains a shadowy figure, and it is hoped that something will be brought to light to clinch the matter. The purpose of publishing the series is to illustrate the style of a number of known men in the expectation that some conclusions may be reached in the case of heretofore doubtful assignations, though a warning is in order: one artist may adopt two different styles, as did George Searle in Figures 7 and 8; and one artist may make a close copy of the work of another, as is shown in Bass’s Figure 9, which is so close to Searle’s Figure 8. Even if this hope is not realized, the series will show that every early armorial painting showing palm branches and the bearer’s name on the motto-ribbon is not the work of John Coles. A set of known points of departure having been established, it is of interest to see whether they can be used.

Figure 18

This painting on canvas in oils has a black background and appears to have been intended as a funeral hatchment; it shows the Barton arms and was given by a descendant to the Essex Institute in Salem where the Barton family lived. Comparison with Figure 1, a water-color painting by Thomas Johnson of Boston, shows that in spite of differences of size and of media, the designs are much the same, so close, indeed, that it seems highly probable that they are by the same skillful hand. Figure I was painted, we know, at least as early as 1740, and it is painted in the form always used for hatchments, suggesting that Johnson was employed for work of this sort. Family tradition, as usual, says that the Barton hatchment was brought from England by the immigrant ancestor, Dr. John Barton, of Marblehead in 1672 and of Salem in 1676. However, Dr. John Barton’s grandson, another John Barton, died unmarried in Salem in 1744, which fits exactly the period of Thomas Johnson of Boston. If Johnson made this hatchment, it suggests that there was no one near Salem at that time who did this work; and as far as I know this was the case. Of special interest is the misuse of the motto-ribbon for the name, which is seen in the later work of several other arms painters.

Figure 19

This painting of the Green arms has been given to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Compared with Figure 2, which is attributed to James Turner of Marblehead, a similarity is seen in the disposition of the folds of the mantling, and in both the motto-ribbon is in five folds. In details they differ, yet the suggestion is there that they are by the same hand. There is, perhaps, an affinity with the work of Blyth (Figure 6); but Blyth’s work is messy and this picture was painted by a more practiced hand. It is also my belief that Blyth was influenced by the painter of Figure 2; if this was Turner of Marblehead, such an influence was most natural, for Blyth painted in Salem. There was a Joseph Green in Salem who died in 1715; he left a large family and it seems not improbable that these arms were painted by Turner for someone of this family.

Figure 20

In the American Antiquarian Society’s building in Worcester hangs this representation of the How arms, and another is the well-known painting celebrated by Longfellow in his “Tales of a Wayside Inn” and illustrated by a photograph by Samuel Chamberlain in his “Longfellow’s Wayside Inn—A Camera Impression.” They are almost exactly alike except that the Wayside Inn example looks brighter and fresher and that in it the areas of gold and silver, which are flaking off in the Worcester example, are produced by bits of metallic paper cut out and pasted on. In every detail these paintings coincide with the Pierce and the James arms produced by Christian Remick of Boston in 1772 (see Figure 5), and, since Remick is known to have copied his own work again and again, it seems safe to assign both of these examples of the How arms to his brush. Even the handwritings are consistent, and the idiosyncracies of spelling and use of words, such as “bunch Arow’s” in the James arms and “perced through ^e_y mouth w^tḥ arow” in both of the How examples.

Figure 21

The Bacon arms, in the Essex Institute in Salem, are consistent in design, coloring and lettering with Figure 6, signed by Samuel Blyth.

Figure 22

The Morgan arms, also in the Essex Institute, are consistent in design and coloring but not in lettering with Figure 6, so perhaps Blyth employed someone else on the lettering.

Figure 23

This cut is made from a photograph in the files of the Committee on Heraldry; the original is said to have been preserved in Marshfield. The general design seems to have been taken from some painting by Blyth (see Figures 6, 21, and 22); but there are characteristics which seem to me inseparable from the work of John Coles, Sr. (see Figures 11, 12, and 13), such as the disintegrated mantling, the white crosslines to indicate high light, and the good Roman letters on the motto-ribbon. It looks as though Coles had been commissioned to copy a design by Blyth, whom he outlived by a few years, but could not help showing his own characteristic technique. In the files of the Committee on Heraldry there is a photostat of a Smith coat of arms which has every appearance of being the work of John Coles, Sr., but at the bottom there is a curtain supported by cupids exactly as in the Pierce arms and the James arms by Christian Remick (see Figure 5). Remick and Coles both worked in Boston some twenty years apart, so there is excellent reason for supposing that Coles added this feature to his painting after observing some work of Remick’s.

Figure 24

This illustration is from a photograph of the Seymour arms, kindly supplied by the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford which owns the original painting. Its close correspondence to the design of the Cross arms by George Searle (Figure 7) suggests strongly that he painted it; but Searle worked in Newburyport and the Seymours are a Connecticut family.

Figure 25

The Short arms, in the Essex Institute, are also in the style of Figure 7 by George Searle.

Figure 26

Another example of the style used by Searle in the case of the Cross arms (Figure 7) is the beautiful painting, privately owned, of the arms of Gardiner, apparently, like the Seymour example, of Connecticut origin. It is sometimes stated, on what grounds I do not know, that some of the arms painters were itinerant, and these examples of Searle’s work seem to give the belief some justification.

Figure 27

This cut of the Fairfield arms is made from a print from a negative in the Essex Institute, nothing being recorded of the original. The disposition of the mantling and the tasseled ribbons is close to the design of George Searle in his Cross arms (Figure 7), and the pattern of the scrollwork round the shield is at least not inconsistent; but the palm branches are not like those used by Searle in his Clark arms (Figure 8) and his White arms in Haverhill. In these White arms the name on the motto-ribbon has the appearance of an addition, so that its presence on these Fairfield arms is not a Searle characteristic. The safest ground to take is to say that the Fairfield painting shows the influence of Searle but cannot be said to be his work, but this alone gives us something because it suggests an Essex County provenance and a date late in the eighteenth century. In the seventeenth century there were Fairfields in Ipswich and in Wenham.

Figure 28

Paintings which are obviously the work of John Coles, Sr., are so numerous that one—the Francis and Bulkley arms—will serve as an example for comparison with Figures 12 and 13. This is in private hands.

Figure 29

The Gardner arms, also privately owned, appear to be the undoubted work of John Coles, Sr., but are unique in my experience in that they are executed in oil colors on canvas. The painter’s lack of experience with this medium is obvious. The provenance is Nantucket. Cf. Figures 12, 13.

Figure 30

This picture of the White arms is one of a number in the rooms of the Committee on Heraldry of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, which are all much alike. They are painted on large sheets of paper in rather garish colors and have the appearance of crude lithography. On comparing them with the Erskine and the Sturtevant arms (Figures 14 and 15) it seems clear that they are by the same hand, supposedly that of John Coles, Jr., whose work is otherwise unknown. Note particularly the curious angular shape of the chinpiece of the helm; in the other three examples (Bittle, George, and Blanchard) the chinpiece runs back in three right-angled steps; also the meaningless little lozenge, laid on its side, crowded in just under the shield. The principal distinction between this group of four and the Erskine and Sturtevant arms lies in the coloring; in the four unframed examples it is bright and fresh, but in the framed pictures it has almost wholly disappeared. This is to be attributed, I think, not to age, but to the fact that the Erskine and the Sturtevant paintings have both been pasted directly to the panel of pine wood. A piece of pine always stains paper laid against it, and in these cases seems to have destroyed almost all of the color. It seems to me pretty safe to say that these White, Bittle, George, and Blanchard arms are the work of the younger Coles.

Paintings of arms by other artists—such as Joseph Badger, David Mason, and Benjamin Hurd—are recorded, and it is hoped that they will come to light. The writer will be grateful for information which will extend the field of usefulness of this first attempt to bring together for comparison illustrations of these early New England examples of heraldic art.

Postscript

Since the foregoing notes were written, another signed painting has come to light:

Figure 31

Arms: Azure a chevron between three swans with raised wings argent.
Crest: A dove with an olive branch.
Legend: By the Name of Swan.
Signed: Harding pinxt Lowell 1829.

This was executed for Joshua Swan of Lowell, born 1788, died 1867, and has descended to his granddaughter, the present owner, Mrs. Alfred E. Hammer of Branford, Connecticut, who made the photograph from which the illustration is copied.

Mr. Frederick W. Coburn of Lowell has kindly furnished the following facts about the painter.

Mr. Thomas Bayley Lawson (1807–1888), a portrait painter of Newburyport, came to Lowell in 1842. In a scrapbook which he left, now owned by Mr. Coburn, is a newspaper clipping of about 1879 ⁱⁿ which Mr. Lawson states that Jeremiah Harding was a sign and fancy painter with a shop on Central Street, Lowell; that a sign over a shop in Lowell was painted by him about 1827; that he died of consumption about 1830 and was buried in the Livermore graveyard in Lowell (no longer existing). Mr. Coburn records a portrait in Tyngsboro (adjoining Lowell) signed by J. Harding, and adds the curious information that Jeremiah Pearson Hardy, portrait painter, was born in Pelham, New Hampshire (very near Lowell), and moved to Bangor, Maine, where he also painted signs. These two men, living in the same period, and both with Lowell connections, might readily be confused; and in addition to this, the celebrated portrait painter Chester Harding was working in Boston from 1826 to 1830, so that the simple signature “Harding” suggests his authorship.

A glance at Figures 12 and 13 shows that Harding was copying the work of John Coles, Sr., but his technique and workmanship were far superior to anything achieved by Coles. The reason for making a copy might lie in the fact that the original Coles painting, made at least twenty years earlier, had gone into another branch of the family, or it might have been damaged in some way. The name Swan is not found in any of the three books to which Coles appears to have had access, and the arms as painted are not found under the name of Swan; but, with the small alteration of making the chevron ermine instead of argent, they are Swan arms. Since Coles did not find them in a book, he presumably copied from some pre-existing illustration; if this was a seal he might have overlooked ermine-spots on the chevron—or perhaps they were not there—or Coles may have put them in and Harding may have omitted them. In any event, the whole situation suggests that the Swan family, then of Lowell but earlier of Methuen where Joshua Swan was born, owned some family armorial piece from which Coles made his painting.

List of Heraldic Painters

Badger, Joseph: fl. ca. 1750; d. 1765; Boston. See Dow’s Arts and Crafts.
Bass, Edward: ca. 1760–1847; Newburyport. See Fig. 9.
Blyth, Samuel: ? 1744–1795; Salem. See Fig. 6.
Breslaw: see under Hopps.
Child, Isaac: 1792–1885; Boston. See Fig. 17.
Coles, John, Sr.: ? 1748–? 1809; Boston. See Figs. 11 to 13.
Coles, John, Jr.: ? 1776–? 1854; Boston. See Figs. 14, 15.
Doig, George: Portsmouth, N. H., 1775; from London. (Adv., N. H. Gazette.)
Ford, James: fl. 1757; d. 1781; Salem. See Fig. 4.
Garden, Francis: fl. 1745; Boston. See Heraldic Journal, iv. 192.
Gore, John: 1718–1796; Boston. See Fig. 3.
Harding, Jeremiah: died ca. 1830; Lowell. See Fig. 31.
Hopps, Charles: under “Fancy Painters” in Boston Almanac 1849, not 1845; Hopps and Breslaw in same 1850, not 1852 and 1853. See Heraldic Journal, iv. 192.
Hurd, Benjamin: 1739–1781; Boston. See Heraldic Journal, iv. 192.
Johnson, Thomas: 1708–1767; Boston. See Fig. 1.
Johnston, Benjamin: ca. 1740–1818; Newburyport. See Fig. 10.
Mason, David: fl. 1750; Boston. See Dow’s Arts and Crafts.
Remick, Christian: 1726–; Boston. See Fig. 5.
Searle, George: ca. 1751–1796; Newburyport. See Figs. 7, 8.
Southgate, William: 1782–1811; Leicester. See Fig. 16.
Stott, John: fl. ca. 1850; Boston. See Heraldic Journal, iv. 192.
? Turner, James: fl. 1752; Marblehead. See Fig. 2.
Warren, Thomas: fl. 1775; Boston. (Adv., N. H. Gazette.)

List of Illustrations

(The writer wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the friendly cooperation of the many individuals who have made possible the illustration of this paper.)

Fig.	Arms	Painter	Date	Owner
1	Lynde, Newdigate, Digby, Browne, Curwen, and Smith	Thomas Johnson	? 1740	Mr. W. H. P. Oliver, Morristown, N. J.
2	Oliver, Fitch and Lynde	? James Turner	? 1752	Mr. W. H. P. Oliver, Morristown, N. J.
3	Stoddard and Evance	John Gore	? ca. 1750	Harold Bowditch, Brookline, Mass.
4	Bartlett	James Ford	1757	Marblehead Historical Society
5	Pierce	Christian Remick	1772	Farnsworth Gallery, Rockland, Maine
6	Pickman	Samuel Blyth		Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
7	Cross	George Searle	1773	Historical Society of Old Newbury
8	Clark	George Searle	1775	Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
9	Teel	Edward Bass		Historical Society of Old Newbury
10	Greenleaf	Benjamin Johnston		Mr. C. C. Stockman, 2nd, Newburyport, Mass.
11	Lunt	John Coles, Sr.	1790	Mr. Franklin Q. Brown, Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.
12	Hacket	John Coles, Sr.	1800	Mr. C. C. Stockman, 2nd, Newburyport, Mass.
13	Osgood	John Coles, Sr.	1801	Historical Society of Old Newbury
14	Erskine	? John Coles, Jr.	? 1836/7	Society for the Preservation of N. E. Antiquities, Boston, Mass.
15	Sturtevant	? John Coles, Jr.	? 1836/7	The same
16	Henshaw and Houghton	William Southgate	Before 1811	American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
17	Stoddard and Evance	Isaac Child	ca. 1847	N. E. Hist. Gen. Society, Boston, Mass.
18	Barton	? Thomas Johnston	? 1744	Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
19	Green	? James Turner		Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Mass.
20	How	? Christian Remick		American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
21	Bacon	? Samuel Blyth		Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
22	Morgan	? Samuel Blyth		Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
23	Little	? John Coles, Sr., after Samuel Blyth	? after 1795	Unknown; in Marshfield, Mass.?
24	Seymour	? George Searle		Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Conn.
25	Short	? George Searle		Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
26	Gardiner	? George Searle		Mr. Newton C. Brainard, Hartford, Conn.
27	Fairfleld	? Influence of George Searle		Unknown
28	Francis and Bulkley	? John Coles, Sr.		Mr. Newton C. Brainard, Hartford, Conn.
29	Gardner	? John Coles, Sr.		Mrs. Ralph S. Bryden, Brookline, Mass.
30	White	? John Coles, Jr.		N. E. Hist. Gen. Society, Boston, Mass.
31	Swan	Jeremiah Harding, after John Coles, Sr.		Mrs. Alfred E. Hammer, Branford, Conn.

Publications Consulted

Allen, Charles Dexter. American Book Plates. 1895.

Belknap, Henry Wyckoff. Artists and Craftsmen of Essex County, Massachusetts. Essex Institute, Salem. 1927.

Bentley, the Rev. William, of Salem, Massachusetts—The Diary of, 1783–1819. 4 vols. Essex Institute, Salem. 1905–1914.

Bolton, Charles Knowles. Bolton’s American Armory. 1927.

Bolton, Charles Knowles. “Coats of Arms Painted by John Coles and his Sons.” Old-Time New England, January, 1931.

Boston Almanac, v.d.

Boston, Massachusetts, Reports of the Record Commissioners of. 39 vols.

Bowditch, Harold. “The Gore Roll of Arms.” Rhode Island Historical Society Collections, January, 1936, to July, 1938.

Burke, Sir Bernard. The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. 1884.

Castle, Egerton. English Book Plates. 1894.

Dow, George Francis. The Arts and Crafts in New England, 1704–1775. 1927.

Essex Institute Historical Collections, Salem, Massachusetts. 85 vols.

Fielding, Mantle. Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers. ? 1926.

French, Hollis. Jacob Hurd and his Sons Nathaniel and Benjamin, Silversmiths, 1702–1781. 1939.

Goodspeed’s Book Shop, The Month at. December, 1942.

Guillim, John. A Display of Heraldry. 1610/11–1724.

Harvard University Quinquennial Catalogue. 1910.

Heraldic Journal, The. 4 vols. 1865–1868.

Jantz, Harold S. Journal of English and German Philology. January, 1942.

Kent, Samuel. The Banner Display’d. 1755 reprint of 1726 and 1728 editions. 2 vols.

Kent, Samuel. A Grammar of Heraldry. 1716.

Lichtenstein, Richard C. “American Book Plates and their Engravers.” The Curio. September, 1887.

Middlebrook, Louis F. “A Few of the New England Engravers.” Essex Institute Historical Collections, October, 1926.

Moule, Thomas. Bibliotheca Heraldica. 1822.

Owen, Davis and Debrett. Peerage of England, Scotland and Ireland. 1791.

Perley, Sidney. The Essex Antiquarian. 13 vols. 1897–1909.

Perley, Sidney. The History of Salem, 1626–1716. 3 vols. 1924–1928.

Preble, George Henry, and Asnis, Charles Edward. Origin and History of the American Flag. 2 vols. 1917.

Ségoing, Charles. Armorial Universel. 1660.

Vermont, E. de V. America Heraldica. 1887; Supplement 1889.

Vulson, Marc, Sieur de la Colombière. La Science Heroique. 1644.

Watkins, Walter Kendall. “Boston Folks’ Coats of Arms.” Boston Globe. February 7, 1915.

Watkins, Walter Kendall. “John Coles, Heraldry Painter.” Old-Time New England. January, 1931.

Whitmore, William H., and Appkton, William Sumner, editors. The Heraldic Journal, q.v.

Whitmore, William H. Elements of Heraldry. 1866.

Appendix

The national flag of June 14, 1777, had thirteen stars and thirteen stripes to represent the thirteen original colonies; on May 1, 1795, Vermont and Kentucky having been admitted, the official design was changed to fifteen stars and fifteen stripes. The next change was on the fourth of July, 1818, when the present rule was established: that on the fourth of July following the admission of a new state a new star be added to the flag, but that the number of stripes be kept at thirteen. Thus the official flag of that date, there being then twenty states (Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi having been admitted), showed twenty stars and thirteen stripes.

Official Ruling

		Stars	Stripes	Constitution ratified
1777	June 14	13	13	1. Delaware	1787	Dec. 7
				2. Pennsylvania		Dec. 12
				3. New Jersey		Dec. 18
				4. Georgia	1788	Jan. 2
				5. Connecticut		Jan. 9
				6. Massachusetts		Feb. 6
				7. Maryland		Apr. 28
				8. South Carolina		May 23
				9. New Hampshire		June 21
				10. Virginia		June 26
				11. New York		July 26
				12. North Carolina	1789	Nov. 21
				13. Rhode Island	1790	May 29
		Stars	Stripes	Admitted to the Union
		13	13	14. Vermont	1791	Mar. 4
1795	May 1	15	15	15. Kentucky	1792	June 1
				16. Tennessee	1796	June 1
				17. Ohio	1803	Feb. 19
				18. Louisiana	1812	Apr. 30
				19. Indiana	1816	Dec. 11
1818	July 4	20	13	20. Mississippi	1817	Dec. 10
1819	July 4	21	13	21. Illinois	1818	Dec. 3
				22. Alabama	1819	Dec. 14
1820	July 4	23	13	23. Maine	1820	Mar. 15
1822	July 4	24	13	24. Missouri	1821	Aug. 10
1836	July 4	25	13	25. Arkansas	1836	June 15
1837	July 4	26	13	26. Michigan	1837	Jan. 26
1845	July 4	27	13	27. Florida	1845	Mar. 3
1846	July 4	28	13	28. Texas	1845	Dec. 29
1847	July 4	29	13	29. Iowa	1846	Dec. 28
1848	July 4	30	13	30. Wisconsin	1848	May 29
1851	July 4	31	13	31. California	1850	Sept. 9

Since 1851 takes us beyond the period of the paintings in question, there is no need of carrying the list further; but it may be stated that one new star was added on the fourth of July, 1858, 1859, 1861, 1863, 1865, 1867, 1877, respectively; five in 1890; one in 1891, 1897, 1908, and two in 1912, bringing the total to forty-eight as at present.

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.