USA > Massachusetts > Chronicles of the first planters of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1623-1636 > Part 22
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The foregoing paper is printed from the original edition of 1630, a copy of which is preserved among the books in Prince's New-England Library. It was probably publish- ed immediately after the sailing of Winthrop's fleet, in April. See Mather's Magnalia, i. 69-71 ; Prince's Annals, 282-307; Mass. Hist. Coll. xv. 126 ; Chronicles of Plymouth, pp. 416, 435.
1630.
DUDLEY'S LETTER
TO THE COUNTESS OF LINCOLN.
١
CHAPTER XVII.
DEPUTY GOVERNOR DUDLEY'S LETTER.
To the Right Honorable, my very good Lady, The Lady Bridget, Countess of Lincoln.1
MADAM,
YOUR letters (which are not common nor cheap,) following me hither into New-England, and bringing with them renewed testimonies of the accustomed favors you honored me with in the Old, have drawn from me this narrative retribution, which, (in respect of your proper interest in some persons of great note amongst us,)? was the thankfullest present I had to send over the seas. Therefore I humbly entreat
CHAP. XVII. 1631. March 12.
1 The wife of Theophilus, the Deputy Governor in England, Oct. fourth earl of Lincoln, and daughter of the Viscount Saye and Sele .- Dudley had been steward in the family. See note 3 on page 75 in the Chronicles of Plymouth.
2 The Lady Arbella, the wife of Isaac Johnson, who came over with Winthrop, was the sister of the Earl of Lincoln. The Lady Susan, an- other sister, was married to John Humphrey, who had been chosen
20, 1629, but did not come over till 1632. See pp. 106 and 127. This family had a more intimate connec- tion with the New-England settle- ments, and must have felt a deeper interest in their success, than any other noble house in England. Cot- ton Mather speaks of the family as "religious," and " the best family of any nobleman then in England." See Mather's Magnalia, i. 126.
-
304
THOMAS DUDLEY, OF ROXBURY.
CHAP. your Honor this be accepted as payment from him XVII. who neither hath nor is any more than
1631.
Your Honor's
March
Old thankful servant,
12.
T. D.1
Boston, in New-England, March 12th, 1630.2
FOR the satisfaction of your Honor and some friends, and for the use of such as shall hereafter
1 THOMAS DUDLEY, the author of this letter, and one of the leading planters of Massachusetts, was born at Northampton, in 1577, being the only son of Capt. Roger Dudley, who was killed in battle. Young Dudley was brought up in the fam- ily of the Earl of Northampton, and afterwards became a clerk to his maternal kinsman, Judge Nichols, and thus obtained some knowledge of the law, which proved of great service to him in his subsequent life. At the age of 20, he received a captain's commission from Queen Elizabeth, and commanded a com- pany of volunteers, under Henry IV. of France, at the siege of Amiens, in 1597. On the conclusion of peace the next year, he returned to Eng- land, and settled near Northampton, where he was in the neighbourhood of Dod, Hildersham, and other emi- nent Puritan divines, and became himself a Nonconformist. After this, he was for nine or ten years steward to Theophilus, the young Earl of Lincoln, who succeeded to his father's title Jan. 15, 1619. But becoming desirous of a more retired life, he removed to Boston, in Lincolnshire, where he enjoyed the acquaintance and ministry of the Rev. John Cotton. He was after- wards prevailed upon by the Earl of Lincoln to resume his place in his family, where he continued till the storm of persecution led him to join the company that were meditating a removal to New-England, He was
one of the signers of the Agreement at Cambridge, Aug. 29, 1629, and we find him present for the first time at the Company's courts, on the 16th of October. When Win- throp was chosen Governor, he was made an Assistant ; and on Hum- phrey's declining to go over with the Charter, he was elected Deputy Governor in his place. He was continued in the magistracy from the time of his arrival in New-Eng- land till his death, having been cho- sen Governor in 1634 and three times afterwards, and Deputy Governor thirteen times. In 1644 he was ap- pointed the first Major General of the Colony. . He was the principal founder of Newtown, now Cam- bridge, and was very desirous to have it made the metropolis. On Mr. Hooker's removal to Hartford in 1636, he removed to Ipswich, and afterwards to Roxbury, where he died July 31, 1653, in his 77th year. His son Joseph was Governor, and his grandson Paul Chief Justice, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay. His eldest son, Samuel, mar- ried Mary, daughter of Gov. Win- throp, and his daughter Ann, who was a poetess, was married to Gov. Bradstreet. See Mather's Magna- lia, i. 120-123 ; Hutchinson's Mass. i. 14, 183; Savage's Winthrop, i. 50; Morton's Memorial, p. 255 ; and note 3 on page 125.
2 That is, old style, the new year beginning on the 25th of March. See note 4 on page 138.
305
CHICKATALBOT, OF NEPONSET.
intend to increase our Plantation in New-England, I CHAP. have, in the throng of domestic, and not altogether XVII. free from public business,1 thought fit to commit to 1631. memory our present condition, and what hath befal- March 12. len us since our arrival here ; which I will do short- ly, after my usual manner, and must do rudely, hav- ing yet no table, nor other room to write in than by the fireside upon my knee, in this sharp winter ; to which my family must have leave to resort, though they break good manners, and make me many times forget what I would say, and say what I would not.
* *2 sachim in New-England, whom I saw the
last summer. Upon the river of Naponset,3 near to the Mattachusetts fields, 4 dwelleth Chickatalbott,5 who hath between fifty and sixty subjects. This man least favoreth the English of any sagamore (for so are the kings with us called, as they are sachims southwards,) we are acquainted with, by reason of the old quarrel between him and those of Plymouth, wherein he lost seven of his best men;6 yet he lodg- ed one night the last winter at my house in friendly
1 Dudley, it will be recollected, was at this time Deputy Governor of the Colony. See page 127.
2 A part of the MS. is here miss- ing, probably, however, only a few lines, which may have contained a description of the bays and rivers, followed by a brief notice of the In- dian tribes living on them.
3 The Neponset river separates Dorchester from Quincy and Milton. 4 "Three miles to the north of Wessaguscus, (Weymouth,) is Mount Wollaston, (in Quincy.) - This place is called Massachusetts Fields, where the greatest sagamore in the country lived, before the page 339.
plague, who caused it to be cleared for himself." Wood's New-Eng- land's Prospect, part i. ch. 10.
5 This, no doubt, is the sagamore mentioned in the preceding note. His residence, according to Wood's map, made in 1633, was on the east- ern bank of the Neponset, in Quin- cy, probably not far from Squantum. He died in November, 1633, with many of his people, of the small pox. See Savage's Winthrop, i. 48, 115 ; Drake's Book of the Indians, book ii. 43 ; and Chronicles of Plymouth, note 4 on page 226.
6 See Chronicles of Plymouth,
20
306
THE INDIANS OF NEW-ENGLAND.
CHAP. manner. About seventy or eighty miles westward XVII.
from these are seated the Nipnett1 men, whose
1631. sagamore we know not, but we hear their numbers March 12. exceed any but the Pecoates2 and the Narragan- sets,3 and they are the only people we yet hear of in the inland country. Upon the river of Mistick is seated sagamore John,4 and upon the river of Saugus
1 The Nipnets, or Nipmucks, dwelt chiefly about the great ponds in Webster, Massachusetts ; but their territory extended southward into Connecticut more than twenty miles. They were partly tributary to the Narragansetts, and partly to the Massachusetts Indians. The Blackstone river was originally the Nipmuck river. See the map of New-England in Hubbard's Indian Wars, printed in 1677, which was copied and prefixed to Judge Da- vis's edition of Morton's Memorial ; Trumbull's Connecticut, i. 43; Hutchinson's Massachusetts, i. 459; Mass. Hist. Coll. i. 147, 148, 185, 189-194.
2 The Pequods, the most warlike and formidable tribe of Indians in New-England, dwelt between the Thames and Pawcatuck rivers, in Connecticut, their chief seats and forts being at New-London, Groton, and the head of Mystick river. In 1637, they were completely subdued and nearly exterminated by the Con- necticut and Massachusetts forces under the command of Captains John Mason, John Underhill, and Israel Stoughton. There are four contemporaneous Narratives of the Pequot War, written by Mason, Underhill, Lion Gardiner, and P. Vincent, which are contained in the Mass. Hist. Coll. xviii. 120-153, xxiii. 131-161, xxvi. 1-13. But the best History of it, with an illus- trative map, will be found in the Rev. George E. Ellis's Life of Capt. John Mason, in Sparks's Am. Biog. xiii. 340-405. See also Hubbard's
Indian Wars, p. 116 ; Trumbull's Connecticut, i. 41 ; Mass. Hist. Coll. i. 147.
3 The Narragansetts, a numerous and powerful body of Indians, dwelt between Pawcatuck river, along the coast from Stonington round Point Judith, and on the bay in Rhode Island called by their name. On the north their territory was bound- ed by the Quinebaug and Nipmuck countries. See Hutchinson's Mass. i. 457 ; Potter's Early Hist. of Nar- ragansett, pp. 1-11; Mass. Hist. Coll. v. 239, xviii. 122, xxi. 210.
His Indian name was Wonoha- quaham. He lived upon the neck of land in Malden, which lies be- tween Malden river and the creek that separates the neck from Chel- sea ; but his territory also included Winesemett, afterwards called Rum- ney Marsh, and now Chelsea. He died Dec. 5, 1633, of the small pox, and almost all his people, more than thirty of whom were buried in one day by Mr. Maverick, who lived at Noddle's Island, now East Boston. The Charlestown Records speak of him as " of a gentle and good dis- position," that he "loved the Eng- lish, and gave them permission to settle here." He left one son, whom he commended to the care of the Rev. Mr. Wilson, of Boston. See Lewis's Lynn, pp. 16, 17; Felt's Salem, i. 13, 16; Hutchin- son's Mass. i. 461 ; Savage's Win- throp, i. 49, 119, 120 ; New-Eng- land's First Fruits, p. 2; and the map in Wood's New-England's Prospect, made in 1633, which is
307
THE SAGAMORES OF NEW-ENGLAND.
sagamore James,1 his brother, both so named by the CHAP. English. The elder brother, John, is a handsome XVII. young man, [one line missing] conversant with us, 1631. affecting English apparel and houses, and speaking March 12. well of our God. His brother James is of a far worse disposition, yet repaireth often to us. Both these brothers command not above thirty or forty men, for aught I can learn. Near to Salem dwelleth two or three families,2 subject to the sagamore of Agawam, whose name3 he told me, but I have forgotten it. This sagamore hath but few subjects, and them and himself tributary to sagamore James, having been before the last year (in James's minority) tributary to Chickatalbott. Upon the river Merrimack is seat- ed sagamore Passaconaway,4 having under his com- mand four or five hundred men, being esteemed by his countrymen a false fellow, and by us a witch. For any more northerly, I know not, but leave it to after Relations.
Having thus briefly and disorderly, especially in my description of the bays and rivers, set down what is come to hand touching the [one line missing.]
Now concerning the English that are planted
copied and inserted in a subsequent part of this volume.
1 His Indian name was Monto- wompate. His territory included the towns of Saugus, Lynn, and Marblehead. He also died in Dec. 1633, of the small pox, " and most of his folks." Consult the map and references in the preceding note.
2 The Rev. John Higginson says, that when he came over with his father in 1629, " the Indian town of wigwams was on the north side of the North river, not far from Si- monds's, and then both the north
and south side of that river was to- gether called Naumkeke." See Felt's Salem, i. 14.
3 His name was Masconnomo, or Masconnomet. He came on board Winthrop's ship the day after his arrival at Salem ; and by a deed dated June 28, 1638, he sold to John Winthrop, jr. for £20, all the lands lying around the bay of Aga- wam, or Ipswich. See Savage's Winthrop, i. 27 ; and Felt's Histo- ry of Ipswich, pp. 3 and 8.
4 See Chronicles of Plymouth, note 2 on page 366.
308
THE COLONY OF NEW PLYMOUTH.
CHAP. here, I find that about the year 1620, certain English XVII. set out from Leyden, in Holland, intending their course 1620. for Hudson's river, the mouth whereof lieth south of the river1 of the Pecoates, but ariseth, as I am in- formed, northwards in about 43º, and so a good part of it within the compass of our patent. These, being much weather-beaten and wearied with seeking the river,2 after a most tedious voyage3 arrived at length in a small bay lying north-east4 from Cape Cod ; Dec. where landing about the month of December, by the 11. favor of a calm winter, such as was never seen here since, begun to build their dwellings in that place which now is called New Plymouth ; where, after much sickness, famine, poverty, and great mortality, (through all which God by an unwonted providence carried them,) they are now grown up to a people healthful, wealthy, politic and religious ; such things doth the Lord for those that wait for his mercies. These of Plymouth came with patents from King James,5 and have since obtained others from our sovereign, King Charles,6 having a governor and council of their own.
1622.
There was about the same time one Mr. Weston, an English merchant, who sent divers men to plant and trade, who sat down by the river of Wesaguscus.
1 The Thames, in Connecticut, running from Norwich to New Lon- don, and emptying into Long Island Sound.
2 From his silence on the point, it would seem that Dudley had never heard of the alleged treachery of the captain of the Mayflower in carrying the Pilgrims north of Hudson's riv- er. See Chronicles of Plymouth, p. 101, note 2.
3 The voyage was 64 days long. See Chronicles of Plymouth, p. 105.
Plymouth harbour lies due west from Cape Cod.
5 Not so. They had only a pa- tent from the Virginia Company. See Chronicles of Plymouth, pages 74 and 383.
Another mistake. This second patent was not from the King, but from the Council for New-England. See Prince's Annals, pp. 268-270 ; Chalmers's Political Annals of the United Colonies, p. 97.
309
ORIGIN OF THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY.
But these coming not for so' good ends as those of CHAP. Plymouth, sped not so well; for the most of them XVII. dying and languishing away, they who survived were rescued by those of Plymouth out of the hands of 1623. Chickatalbott and his Indians, who oppressed these weak English, and intended to have destroyed them, and the Plymotheans also, as is set down in a tract written by Mr. Winslow, of Plymouth.1
Also, since, one Captain Wollaston, with some 1625. thirty with him, came near to the same place, and built on a hill which he named Mount Wollaston.2 But being not supplied with renewed provisions, they vanished away, as the former did. 1626.
Also, divers merchants of Bristow, and some other places, have yearly for these eight years, or there- 1623- abouts,3 sent ships hither at the fishing times to trade 1631. for beaver ; where their factors dishonestly, for their gains, have furnished the Indians with guns, swords, powder and shot.4
- Touching the Plantation which we here have be- 1627. gun, it fell out thus. About the year 1627, some friends being together in Lincolnshire,5 fell into dis- course about New-England, and the planting of the Gospel there ; and after some deliberation we6 im- parted our reasons, by letters and messages, to some in London7 and the west country ;8 where it was likewise deliberately thought upon, and at length with often negotiation so ripened, that in the year 16289 1628.
1 See Chronicles of Plymouth, pp. 296-312, 327-345.
2 In Quincy. Sec Hubbard, p. 102, and Prince, pp. 231 and 240.
3 See note 2 on page 5.
4 See note 4 on page 84.
5 Sce note 3 on page 48.
6 Of course the writer, Dudley, was one of them.
7 See pages 12 and 29.
See pages 5, 21, 22, 29.
9 The Charter from the King is dated March 4, 1628, that is, 1629, new style.
310
ENDICOTT SENT OVER.
CHAP. we procured a patent from his Majesty for our XVII. planting between the Mattachusetts Bay and Charles 1628. river on the south, and the river of Merrimack on the north, and three miles on either side of those rivers and bay ; as also for the government of those who did or should inhabit within that compass. June 20. And the same year we sent Mr. John Endecott,1 and some with him, to begin a Plantation, and to strength- en such as he should find there, which we sent thither from Dorchester2 and some places adjoining. From whom the same year receiving hopeful news, 1629. the next year, 1629, we sent divers ships over, with April and about three hundred people,3 and some cows, goats. May. and horses,4 many of which arrived safely.
These, by their too large commendations of the country and the commodities thereof,5 invited us so strongly to go on, that Mr. Winthrop, of Suffolk, (who was well known in his own country, and well approved here for his piety, liberality, wisdom, and gravity,) coming in to us, we came to such resolu- 1630. tion, that in April, 1630, we set sail from Old Eng- land with four good ships.6 And in May following
April 8.
1 See pages 13, 30.
2 See pages 23-29.
3 Higginson's company. See pages 14, 215-238.
4 Prince, page 257, quoting the Company's Records, says 140 head of cattle, and adds, that Dudley seems too short in his statement. See note 2 on page 66.
He probably alludes to Higgin- son's and Graves's description of the country and its advantages. See pages 243 and 264.
Cowes, March 28, 1630," says, " We have only four ships ready. The rest of our fleet, being seven ships, will not be ready this sen'- night. We are, in all our eleven ships, about seven hundred persons, passengers, and two hundred and forty cows, and about sixty horses. The ship which went from Ply- mouth [the Mary & John] carried about one hundred and forty persons, and the ship which goes from Bris- towe [the Lion] carrieth about eighty persons." The whole num- ber in these thirteen vessels then was 920 persons ; and as the Hand-
6 The Arbella, the Talbot, the Ambrose, and the Jewel. ' Win- throp, writing to his wife " from aboard the Arbella, riding at the maid brought about sixty passen-
311
GOVERNOR WINTHROP'S FLEET.
eight more followed; two having gone before in CHAP. February and March,1 and two more following in XVII. June and August, besides another set out by a pri- 1630.
vate merchant. These seventeen ships arrived all safe in New-England,2 for the increase of the Planta- tion here this year 1630, but made a long, a trouble- some, and costly voyage, being all wind-bound long in England,3 and hindered with contrary winds after they set sail, and so scattered with mists and tem- pests that few of them arrived together. Our four ships which set out in April arrived here in June June and July, where we found the Colony in a sad and and July. unexpected condition, above eighty of them being dead the winter before; and many of those alive weak and sick; all the corn and bread amongst them all hardly sufficient to feed them a fortnight, inso-
gers, the emigrants amounted cer- tainly to 980. See note 2 on page 127, and Savage's Winthrop, i. 37, 368.
1 The Lion, Capt. William Peirce, from Bristol, and the Mary & John, Capt. Squeb, from Plymouth.
2 We are indebted to Prince for the following table :
A list of Ships which arrived in New-England this year.
No.
Names.
Whence set sail.
When set sail. | When arrived.
Where arrived.
1
Lion
2
Mary & John
England. Bristol, Plymouth,
1630. Feb. March 20, April 8,
1630. May, May 30, June 12,
New-England. Salem. Nantasket.
3
Arbella
4
Jewel
5
Ambrose
at the Isle of Wight,
66
18,
6
Talbot
7
Mayflower
Southampton,
May,
=
1,
Charlestown.
8
Whale
9
Hopewell
10
William & Francis.
11
Trial .
S Charlestown.
12
Charles
13
Success
« 6, Aug. 20,
[Salem. ] Charlestown.
14
Gift
15
Another
June,
Oct. 29,
Plymouth.
S Another set out by
17
a private merchant
-
3,
[Salem.]
5,
¿ Salem.
16
Handmaid
Yarmouth,
13,
Salem.
July 2,
3 See pages 125-127, and Savage's Winthrop, i. 1-5.
312
REMOVAL TO CHARLESTOWN.
CHAP. much that the remainder of a hundred and eighty XVII. servants we had the two years before sent over, 1630. coming to us for victuals to sustain them, we found June. ourselves wholly unable to feed them, by reason that the provisions shipped for them were taken out of the ship they were put in, and they who were trusted to ship them in another failed us and left them behind ; whereupon necessity enforced us, to our extreme loss, to give them all liberty, who had cost us about £16 or £20 a person, furnishing and sending over.
- But bearing these things as we might, we began
to consult of the place of our sitting down ; for Sa- lem, where we landed, pleased us not.1 And to that 17. purpose, some were sent to the Bay,2 to search up the rivers for a convenient place ; who, upon their return, reported to have found a good place upon Mistick ;3 but some other of us, seconding these, to approve or dislike of their judgment, we found a place [that] liked us better, three leagues up Charles river ;4 and thereupon unshipped our goods into other vessels, and with much cost and labor brought July. them in July to Charlestown. But there receiving
1 "For the capital town," says Prince, p. 308.
2 Massachusetts Bay, that is, Boston harbour, " made," as Wood says, " by a great company of isl- ands, whose high cliffs shoulder out the boisterous seas." See note 1 on page 4, and N. E. Prospect, ch. 1. 3 " We went up Mistick river about six miles," says Winthrop, i. 27.
4 Probably at the place afterwards called Newtown and Cambridge, and not Watertown, as Prince, p. 308, suggests ; for Watertown is after- wards mentioned as a place distinct from this. The reckoning must have been from Conant's or Gov-
ernor's island, and even then the distance up the river would hardly be three leagues. But distances at this time were computed, not meas- ured, and of course could not be very exact. Dr. Fuller, of Ply- mouth, in a letter to Gov. Bradford, written from Charlestown, June 28, says, " The gentlemen here lately come over are resolved to sit down at the head of Charles river, and they of Matapan (Dorchester) pur- pose to go and plant with them. I have been at Matapan, at the request of Mr. Warham, and let some twen- ty of these people blood." See Mass. Hist. Coll. iii. 74.
313
THE SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON.
advertisements, by some of the late arrived ships, CHAP. XVII.
from London and Amsterdam, of some French pre- - parations against us, (many of our people brought 1630. with us being sick of fevers and the scurvy, and we Aug. thereby unable to carry up our ordnance and bag- gage so far,) we were forced to change counsel, and for our present shelter to plant dispersedly, some at Charlestown,1 which standeth on the north side of the mouth of Charles river ; some2 on the south side thereof, which place we named BOSTON,3 (as we in - tended to have done the place we first resolved on;) some of us upon Mistick, which we named Medford ; 4 some5 of us westwards on Charles river, four miles from Charlestown, which place we named Water- town ;6 others of us two miles from Boston, in a place
1 At the head of whom was In- crease Nowell. See note 2 on page 262.
2 Among whom were Winthrop, Johnson, Coddington, and Wilson.
3 At " a Court of Assistants hold- en at Charlton, the 7th of Septem- ber, 1630, it is ordered that Tri- mountain shall be called Boston, Mattapan Dorchester, and the town upon Charles river Waterton."- " Thus this remarkable Peninsula, about two miles in length and one in breadth, in those times appearing at high water in the form of two islands, whose Indian name was Shawmut, but I suppose on account of three contiguous hills appear- ing in a range to those at Charles- town, by the English called at first Trimountain, now receives the name of Boston." Prince's An- nals, p. 315. See note 3 on p. 48 ; Wood's N. E. Prospect, part i. ch. 10 ; and Snow's Hist. of Bos- ton, p. 32.
4 This was where Cradock's men had commenced a plantation, on the north side of Mystick river, in the
present town of Malden, and a dif- ferent location from the present town of Medford. See Wood's N. E. Prospect, part i. ch. 10; Hutch- inson's Mass. i. 22; and the very thorough note on pp. 89-93 of Frothingham's History of Charles- town.
5 The chief of whom were Sir Richard Saltonstall and the Rev. George Phillips.
6 Hubbard says, p. 135, " The reason of the name was not left upon record, nor is it easy to find ; most of the other Plantations being well watered, though none of them plant- ed on so large a fresh stream as that was." Farmer says, "It seems highly probable that it was derived from Waterton, a small place in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and not far from Halifax, the residence of Gilbert Saltonstall, the ancestor of Sir Richard Saltonstall, who was one of the principal settlers of our Watertown, and who might, from some local attachment or other cir- cumstance, have given this name to the tract 'westwards on Charles
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