USA > Massachusetts > Chronicles of the first planters of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1623-1636 > Part 36
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driven hither and thither in the seas a great while, and had many dashes against the rocks. At length, past hopes of life, and wearied in body and spirits, I even gave over to nature ; and being ready to receive in the waters of death, I lifted up both my heart and hands to the God of heaven. For note, I had my senses remaining perfect with me all the time that I was under and in water, who at that instant lifted my head above the top of the water, that so I might breathe without any hindrance by the waters. I stood bolt upright, as if I had stood upon my feet ; but I felt no bottom, nor had any footing for to stand upon but the waters.
While I was thus above the water, I saw by me a piece of the mast, as I suppose, about three foot long, which I labored to catch into my arms. But suddenly I was overwhelmed with water, and driven to and fro again, and at last I felt the ground with my right foot. When immediately, whilst I was thus grovelling on my face, I presently recovering my feet, was in the water up to my breast, and through God's great mercy had my face unto the shore, and not to the sea. I made haste to get out ; but was thrown down on my hands with the waves, and so with safety crept to the dry shore. Where, blessing God, I turned about to look for my children and friends, but saw neither, nor any part of the pinnace, where I left them, as I supposed. But I saw my wife about a butt length from me, getting herself forth from amongst the timber of the broken bark ; but before I could get unto her, she was got- ten to the shore. I was in the water, after I was
492
ANTHONY THACHER'S
CHAP. washed from the rock, before I came to the shore, a XXIII. quarter of an hour at least.
1635. Aug.
15.
When we were come each to other, we went and sat under the bank. But fear of the seas roaring, and our coldness, would not suffer us there to remain. But we went up into the land, and sat us down under a cedar tree, which the wind had thrown down, where we sat about an hour, almost dead with cold. But now the storm was broken up, and the wind was calm ; but the sea remained rough and fearful to us. My legs were much bruised, and so was my head. Other hurt had I none, neither had I taken in much quantity of water. But my heart would not let me sit still any longer ; but I would go to see if any more were gotten to the land in safety, especially hoping to have met with some of my own poor child- ren ; but I could find none, neither dead, nor yet living.
You condole with me my miseries, who now began to consider of my losses. Now came to my remem- brance the time and manner how and when I last saw and left my children and friends. One was sev- ered from me sitting on the rock at my feet, the other three in the pinnace ; my little babe (ah, poor Peter !) sitting in his sister Edith's arms, who to the uttermost of her power sheltered him from the wa- ters ; my poor William standing close unto them, all three of them looking ruefully on me on the rock, their very countenances calling unto me to help them; whom I could not go unto, neither could they come at me, neither would the merciless waves afford me space or time to use any means at all, either to help them or myself. Oh I yet see their cheeks, poor
493
NARRATIVE OF HIS SHIPWRECK.
silent lambs, pleading pity and help at my hands. CHAP. XXIII. Then, on the other side, to consider the loss of my dear friends, with the spoiling and loss of all our goods and 1635. Aug. 15. provisions, myself cast upon an unknown land, in a wilderness, I knew not where, nor how to get thence. Then it came to my mind how I had occasioned the death of my children,1 who caused them to leave their native land, who might have left them there, yea, and might have sent some of them back again, and cost me nothing. These and such like thoughts do press down my heavy heart very much.
But I must let this pass, and will proceed on in the relation of God's goodness unto me in that deso- late island, on which I was cast. I and my wife were almost naked, both of us, and wet and cold even unto death. I found a snapsack cast on the shore, in which I had a steel, and flint, and powder- horn. Going further, I found a drowned goat ; then I found a hat, and my son William's coat, both which I put on.2 My wife found one of her petticoats, which she put on. I found also two cheeses and some butter, driven ashore. Thus the Lord sent us some clothes to put on, and food to sustain our new lives, which we had lately given unto us, and means also to make fire ; for in a horn I had some gunpow- der, which, to mine own, and since to other men's admiration, was dry. So taking a piece of my wife's neckcloth, which I dried in the sun, I struck fire, and so dried and warmed our wet bodies ; and then skinned the goat, and having found a small brass pot,
1 His children were four in num-
2 We may infer from this that ber, William, Mary, Edith, and his son William was a full-grown Peter.
youth.
494
ANTHONY THACHER, OF YARMOUTH.
CHAP. we boiled some of her. Our drink was brackish XXIII. water. Bread we had none.
1635.
Aug.
17.
There we remained until the Monday following ; when, about three of the clock in the afternoon, in a boat that came that way, we went off that desolate island, which I named after my name, Thacher's Woe,1 and the rock, Avery his Fall,2 to the end that their fall and loss, and mine own, might be had in perpetual remembrance. In the isle lieth buried the body of my cousin's eldest daughter, whom I found dead on
18. the shore. On the Tuesday following, in the after- noon, we arrived at Marblehead.3
1 Now called Thacher's Island. It lies about two miles east of the south-east point of Cape Ann.
Now called Avery's Rock.
3 ANTHONY THACHER, the writer of this heart-rending Narrative, was a tailor, from Salisbury, in Wilt- shire, where his brother Peter was the rector of the church of St. Ed- mund as early as 1622. It was written in a letter to his brother, as Increase Mather says, "within a few days after that eminent provi- dence happened to him, when mat- ters were fresh in his memory." Anthony Thacher sailed from South- ampton in April, 1635, in the James, of London, and arrived at Boston June 3. With him came his bro- ther's son, Thomas, then a youth of fifteen, his parents intending soon to follow with the rest of the family ; which intention, however, was pre- vented by the death of his mother. Cotton Mather says that "a day or two before that fatal voyage from Newbury to Marblehead, our young Thacher had such a strong and sad impression upon his mind about the issue of the voyage, that he, with another, would needs go the journey by land, and so he escaped perish- ing with some of his pious and pre- cious friends by sea." He was ed- ucated for the ministry under the
Rev. Charles Chauncy, afterwards President of Harvard College, mar- ried, May 11, 1643, a daughter of the Rev. Ralph Partridge, of Dux- bury, was ordained pastor of the church at Weymouth Jan. 2, 1645, and installed the first pastor of the Third, or Old South Church, in Bos- ton, Feb. 16, 1670, 'where he con- tinued till he died, Oct. 16, 1678, aged 58. He was the progenitor of the long line of clergymen who have illustrated the name of Thacher, the last of whom was my young friend and parishioner, the Rev. William Vincent Thacher, the amiable and accomplished pastor of the Unitarian Church at Savannah, in Georgia, who died July 16, 1839, aged 24.
After this sad catastrophe, by which he lost all his children, An- thony Thacher resided at Marsh- field ; and "the General Court," says Winthrop, "gave him £26 13s. 4d. towards his losses, and di- vers good people gave him besides." In Jan. 1639, he removed to Yar- mouth, on Cape Cod, being one of the three original grantees of land in that town, where he resided till his death in 1668, aged about 80. He left two sons and one daughter, born after the disastrous shipwreck, John, Judah, and Bethiah, who, tra- dition says, were the children of a
495
THE THACHER FAMILY.
second wife, named Elizabeth Jones, said to have been saved from the CHAP. whom he married about six weeks shipwreck, are now in the possession XXIII. of Mr. Peter Thacher, and such is the veneration for these relics, that 1635. every child of Thacher families that has been baptized in Yarmouth, has been carried to the baptismal font enwrapped in them." See Increase Mather's Illustrious Providences, pages 2-14; Winthrop, i. 161, 165; Mather's Magnalia, i. 441-448 ; Mass. Hist. Coll. viii. 277, xxviii. 317, 319; N. Eng. Magazine, vii. 1-16. before he left England. A long line of descendants, the children of John, perpetuate the name at Yarmouth, Boston, and elsewhere. The late Dr. James Thacher, of Plymouth, was a descendant from Anthony in the sixth generation. Winthrop mentions among the articles saved from the wreck "a truss of bed- ding ;" and Dr. Thacher states that " a cradle coverlet, of scarlet broad- cloth, and some articles of clothing,
THOMAS SHEPARD'S
MEMOIR OF HIS OWN LIFE.
32
CHAPTER XXIV.
THOMAS SHEPARD'S MEMOIR OF HIMSELF.
T. MY BIRTH AND LIFE. S.
IN the year of Christ 1604,1 upon the 5th day of CHAP. November, called the Powder Treason day, and that XXIV. very hour of the day wherein the Parliament should 1604. Nov. 5. have been blown up by Popish priests, I was then born ; which occasioned my father to give me this name, Thomas ; because, he said, I would hardly believe2 that ever any such wickedness should be attempted by men against so religious and good [a] Parliament.
My father's name was William Shepard, born in a little poor town in Northamptonshire, called Fosse- cut, near Towcester; and being a 'prentice to one Mr. Bland, a grocer, he married one of his daugh- ters, of whom he begat many children, three sons, John, William, and Thomas, and six daughters, Ann, Margaret, Mary, Elizabeth, Hester, Sarah ; of all
1 This is a singular anachronism, antedating the Powder Plot a whole year. It is well known that it was in 1605 that this plot was contrived.
2 An allusion to the skepticism of the Apostle Thomas, recorded in the Gospel of John, xx. 25.
500
SHEPARD'S PARENTAGE AND FAMILY.
CHAP. which only John, Thomas, Anna, and Margaret, are XXIV.
still living in the town where I was born, viz. Tow- cester,1 in Northamptonshire, six miles distant from the town of Northampton, in Old England.
I do well remember my father, and have some little remembrance of my mother. My father was a wise, prudent man, the peacemaker of the place ; and toward his latter end much blessed of God in his estate and in his soul. For there being no good min- istry in the town, he was resolved to go and live at Banbury,2 in Oxfordshire, under a stirring ministry, having bought a house there for that end. My mo- ther was a woman much afflicted in conscience, some- times even unto distraction of mind ; yet was sweetly recovered again before she died. I being the young- est, she did bear exceeding great love to me, and made many prayers for me; but she died when I was 1608. about four years old, and my father lived,. and mar- ried a second wife, now dwelling in the same town, of whom he begat two children, Samuel and Eliza- 1614. beth, and died when I was about ten years of age.
But while my father and mother lived, when I was 1607. about three years old, there was a great plague in the town of Towcester, which swept away many in my father's family, both sisters and servants. I being the youngest, and best beloved of my mother, was sent away the day the plague brake out, to live with my aged grandfather and grandmother in Fossecut, a most blind town and corner, and those I lived with also being very well to live, yet very ignorant. And
1 Towcester is a market town, eight miles from Northampton. Po- pulation in 1841, 2749.
2 Banbury is a borough and mar- ket town, 69 miles northwest from London. Population in 1841, 7366.
501
HE IS SENT TO SCHOOL.
there was I put to keep geese, and other such country CHAP. work, all that time much neglected of them; and af- XXIV. terward sent from them unto Adthrop, a little blind 1607. town adjoining, to my uncle, where I had more con- tent, but did learn to sing and sport, as children do in those parts, and dance at their Whitson Ales ;1 until the plague was removed, and my dear mother dead, who died not of the plague, but of some other disease, after it. And being come home, my sister Ann married to one Mr. Farmer, and my sister Mar- garet loved me much, who afterward married to my father's 'prentice, viz. Mr. Mapler, and my father married again to another woman, who did let me see the difference between my own mother and a step- mother. She did seem not to love me, but incens- ed my father often against me; it may be that it was justly also, for my childishness. And having lived thus for a time, my father sent me to school to a Welshman, one Mr. Rice, who kept the free school in the town of Towcester. But he was exceeding curst2 and cruel, and would deal roughly with me, and so discouraged me wholly from desire of learn- ing, that I remember I wished oftentimes myself in any condition, to keep hogs or beasts, rather than to go to school and learn.
But my father at last was visited with sickness, having taken some cold upon some pills he took, and so had the hickets3 with his sickness a week together ;
1 These were the sports and dances usual in the country at Whit- suntide. They were attended with ludicrous gestures and acts of foole- ry and buffoonery, and commonly ended in drunkenness and debauch- ery ; and of course were discounte- nanced by the grave Puritans. See
the description of them in Brand's Popular Antiquities, i. 157, (Ellis's edit. 1841) ; Hone's Every-Day Book, i. 685; Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, pp. 358, 367.
2 Crusty, peevish, snarling.
3 Hickups, hiccoughs.
502
HE RESOLVES TO BE A SCHOLAR.
1614.
CHAP. in which time I do remember I did pray very strongly XXIV. and heartily for the life of my father, and made some covenant, if God would do it, to serve Him the bet- ter, as knowing I should be left alone if he was gone. Yet the Lord took him away by death, and so I was left fatherless and motherless, when I was about ten years old ; and was committed to my stepmother to be educated, who therefore had my portion, which was a £100, which my father left me. But she neg- lecting my education very much, my brother John, who was my only brother alive, desired to have me out of her hands, and to have me with him, and he would bring me up for the use of my portion ; and so at last it was granted. And so I lived with this my eldest brother, who showed much love unto me, and unto whom I owe much ; for him God made to be both father and mother unto me. And it happen- ed that the cruel schoolmaster died, and another came into his room, to be a preacher also in the town ; who was an eminent preacher in those days, and accounted holy, but afterward turned a great apostate, and enemy to all righteousness, and I fear did commit the unpardonable sin. Yet it so fell out, by God's good providence, that this man stirred up in my heart a love and desire of the honor of learn- ing, and therefore I told my friends I would be a scholar ; and so the Lord blessed me in my studies, and gave me some knowledge of the Latin and Greek tongues, but much ungrounded in both. But I was studious, because I was ambitious of learning and be- ing a scholar ; and hence when I could not take notes of the sermon, I remember I was troubled at it, and prayed the Lord earnestly that he would help me to
503
HE ENTERS EMMANUEL COLLEGE.
note sermons ; and I see cause of wondering at the CHAP. Lord's providence therein ; for as soon as ever I had XXIV. prayed (after my best fashion) Him for it, I presently, the next Sabbath, was able to take notes, who the precedent Sabbath could do nothing at all that way.
So I continued till I was about fifteen years of age, 1619. and then was conceived to be ripe for the University; and it pleased the Lord to put it into my brother's heart to provide and to seek to prepare a place for me there ; which was done in this manner. One Mr. Cockerill, Fellow of Emmanuel College in Cam- bridge, being a Northamptonshire man, came down into the country to Northampton, and so sent for me ; who, upon examination of me, gave my brother encouragement to send me up to Cambridge. And so I came up; and though I was very raw and young, yet it pleased God to open the hearts of others to admit me into the College a pensioner ; and so Mr. Cockerill became my tutor. But I do here wonder, and, I hope, shall bless the Lord forever in heaven, that the Lord did so graciously provide for me ; for I have oft thought what a woful estate I had been left in, if the Lord had left me in that profane, igno- rant town of Towcester, where I was born ; that the Lord should pluck me out of that sink and Sodom, who was the least in my father's house, forsaken of father and mother, yet that the Lord should fetch me out from thence, by such a secret hand.
The first two years I spent in Cambridge was in 1620. studying, and in much neglect of God and private prayer, which I had sometime used ; and I did not regard the Lord at all, unless it were at some fits. The third year, wherein I was Sophister, I began to 1621.
504
HE HEARS DOCTOR CHADDERTON.
CHAP. . XXIV. be foolish and proud, and to show myself in the Pub- lic Schools, and there to be a disputer about things which now I see I did not know then at all, but only prated about them. And toward the end of this year, when I was most vile, (after I had been next unto the gates of death by the small pox the year before,) the Lord began to call me home to the fel- lowship of his grace ; which was in this manner.
1. I do remember that I had many good affections, but blind and unconstant, oft cast into me since my father's sickness, by the spirit of God wrestling with me ; and hence I would pray in secret, and hence, when I was at Cambridge, I heard old Doctor Chad- derton,1 the master of the College when I came. 1619. And the first year I was there, to hear him, upon a sacrament day, my heart was much affected ; but I did break loose from the Lord again. And half a 1620. year after, I heard Mr. Dickinson common-place in the Chapel upon those words, "I will not destroy it for ten's sake," and then again was much affected ; but I shook this off also, and fell from God to loose and lewd company, to lust, and pride, and gaming,
Gen. xviii.32.
1 Laurence Chadderton was born at Chadderton, in Lancashire, in 1537, of an ancient and wealthy family. His parents, who were Papists, intended him for the Law, and sent him to the Inns of Court. But he soon became a Protestant, forsook the study of the Law, and entered Christ's College, Cam- bridge, in 1564, of which he was chosen a Fellow three years after- wards. In 1584, when Sir Walter Mildmay founded Emmanuel Col- lege, he was chosen by him its first Master, in which office he continued thirty-eight years, till 1622. In 1603 he was one of the four Puritan divines selected by James I. to at-
tend the Conference at Hampton Court, and was also appointed by him the same year one of the Trans- lators of the Bible He was a man of great abilities and learning, a de- cided but moderate Puritan, and " a grave, pious, and excellent preach- er." He lived to see three succes- sors in the mastership of his Col- lege, and died Nov. 13, 1640, in the 103d year of his age. See Vita Chaddertoni, a Gul. Dillinghamo ; Samuel Clarke's Lives, p. 145, (fol. 1677) ; Fuller's Worthies, i. 550 ; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, ii. 445 ; Dyer's Hist. of Univ. of Cam- bridge, ii. 351.
505
HE BECOMES DISSIPATED.
and bowling, and drinking. And yet the Lord left CHAP· me not ; but a godly scholar, walking with me, fell XXIV. to discourse about the misery of every man out of 1620. Christ, viz. that whatever they did was sin; and this did much affect me. And, at another time, when I did light in godly company, I heard them discourse about the wrath of God, and the terror of it, and how intolerable it was ; which they did present by fire, how intolerable the torment of that was for a time ; what then would eternity be ? And this did much awaken me, and I began to pray again. But then, by loose company, I came to dispute in the Schools, and there to join to loose scholars of other Colleges, and was fearfully left of God, and fell to drink with them. And I drank so much one day, that I was dead drunk, and that upon a Saturday night ; and so was carried from the place I had drinked at and did feast at, unto a scholar's chamber, one Bassett, of Christ's College, and knew not where I was until I awakened late on that Sabbath, and sick with my beastly carriage. And when I awakened, I went from him in shame and confusion, and went out into the fields, and there spent that Sabbath lying hid in the cornfields ; where the Lord, who might justly have cut me off in the midst of my sin, did meet me with much sadness of heart, and troubled my soul for this and other my sins, which then I had cause and leisure to think of. And note, when I was worst, He began to be best unto me, and made me resolve to set upon a course of daily meditation about the evil of sin and my own ways. Yet although I was troubled for this sin, I did not know my sinful nature all this while.
506
SAMUEL STONE, OF HARTFORD.
CHAP. XXIV.
1622.
2. The Lord therefore sent Dr. Preston1 to be Master of the College ; and Mr. Stone? and others commending his preaching to be most spiritual and excellent, I began to listen unto what he said. The first sermon he preached was Romans xii. " Be re- newed in the spirit of your mind." In opening which point, viz. the change of heart in a Christian, the Lord so bored my ears, as that I understood what he spake, and the secrets of my soul were laid open be- fore me, the hypocrisy of all my good things I thought I had in me ; as if one had told him of all that ever I did, of all the turnings and deceits of my heart ; insomuch as that I thought he was the most searching preacher in the world, and I began to love
1 John Preston was born at Hey-' ford, in Northamptonshire, in 1587, and was admitted to King's College, Cambridge, in 1604, and in 1609 was chosen a Fellow of Queen's. At this time he was a very ambi- tious and aspiring student ; but hear- ing a sermon preached at St. Mary's by our John Cotton, of Boston, he was seriously impressed, and direct- ed all his studies to a preparation for the ministry. He was appointed chaplain to the Prince of Wales, and preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and on the resignation of Dr. Chadder- ton in 1622 was chosen Master of Emmanuel College. He was in great favor with the Duke of Buck- ingham, and might have had the bishoprick of Gloucester, but he pre- ferred the Lectureship of Trinity Church, Cambridge. On the acces- sion of Charles I. the Duke offered him the Great Seal, which he pru- dently declined, though he had abil- ities enough to manage it. He died July 20, 1628, being only 41 years of age. Fuller, who classes him among the learned writers of Queen's College, says " he was all judgment and gravity, an excellent preacher,
a subtle disputant, and a perfect pol- itician." Echard styles him "the most celebrated of the Puritans." See page 422 ; his Life by Thomas Ball in Clarke's Lives, pp. 75-114 ; Fuller's Worthies, il. 171, Hist. Cambridge, pp. 121, 206, Church Hist. iii. 355 ; Brook's Puritans, ii. 352 ; Neal's Puritans, ii. 219 ; Ech- ard's Hist. of Eng. ii. 72.
2 Samuel Stone was born at Hert- ford, in Hertfordshire, and was edu- cated at Emmanuel College, where he took the degree of A. B. in 1623, and of A. M. in 1627. To escape persecution, he came over to New- England in Sept. 1633, in the same ship with Cotton and Hooker, was settled as colleague with the latter at Cambridge Oct. 11, 1633, and in 1636 removed with him to Hart- ford, on Connecticut river, which received its name from his birth- place. He died July 20, 1663, be- ing probably about 60 years old. He accompanied Mason's expedition in the Pequot War, as chaplain. See Mather's Magnalia, i. 392; Winthrop, i. 108 ; Morton's Memo- rial, p. 301 ; Mass. Hist. Coll. xviii. 134, xxviii. 248.
1
507
SHEPARD'S SKEPTICISM.
him much, and to bless God I did see my frame, and CHAP. my hypocrisy, and self and secret sins, although I XXIV. found a hard heart, and could not be affected with 1624. them.
3. I did therefore set more constantly upon the May work of daily meditation, sometimes every morning, 3. but constantly every evening before supper ; and my chief meditation was about the evil of sin, the terror of God's wrath, day of death, beauty of Christ, the deceitfulness of the heart, &c. But principally I found this my misery ; sin was not my greatest evil, did lie light upon me as yet; yet I was much afraid of death and the flames of God's wrath. And this I remember, I never went out to meditate in the fields but I did find the Lord teaching me somewhat of my- self, or Himself, or the vanity of the world, I never saw before. And hence I took out a little book I have every day into the fields, and writ down what God taught me, lest I should forget them; and so the Lord encouraged me, and I grew much. But, in my observation of myself, I did see my atheism. I questioned whether there were a God, and my unbe- lief whether Christ was the Messiah ; whether the Scriptures were God's word, or no. I felt all man- ner of temptations to all kind of religions, not know- ing which I should choose ; whether education might not make me believe what I had believed, and whether, if I had been educated up among the Pa- pists, I should not have been as verily persuaded that Popery is the truth, or Turcisme is the truth. And at last I heard of Grindleton, and I did ques- tion whether that glorious estate of perfection might not be the truth, and whether old Mr. Rogers's Seven
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