USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > History of Boston, the metropolis of Massachusetts, from its origin to the present period; with some account of the environs > Part 14
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loyalty, to cleave to him and to one another in him, to cleave to God in Christ as our sov- ereign good, and to the Lord Jesus Christ as the only mediator and surety of the covenant, as our only high priest and atonement to satisfy for us and to save us, and as our only prophet to guide and teach us, and as our only king and lawgiver to reign over us : as also to attend upon him and the service of his holy will, by walking together as a congrega- tion and church of Christ in all the ways of his worship and of mutual love and special watchfulness one over another, according to his will which is revealed to us by his word ; subjecting ourselves in the Lord to all his holy administrations in his church, beseeching him to own us for his people, and to delight to dwell in the midst of us, that his kingdom and grace may be advanced by us.
Which sacred covenant that we may observe and all the branches of it inviolate forever we desire to deny ourselves, and to depend alone upon the promise of his spirit and grace, and upon the merits and inercies of the Lord Jesus Christ for assistance and for acceptance.' for healing and forgiving mercy for his own sake.
* [There is access by ferries, from Charlestown and Winnesimet .!
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set forth with Brick, Tile, Stone Slate, and orderly placed with comly streets, whose continuall inlargement presages some sumptuous City. The wonder of this modern Age, that a few yeares should bring forth such great matters by so meane a handfull, and they so far from- being inriched by the spoiles of other Nations, that the states of many of them have been spoiled by the Lordly Prelacy, whose Lands must as- suredly make Restitutions. But now behold the admirable Acts of Christ, at this his peoples landing, the hideous Thick- ets in this place were such, that the Wolfes and Beares nurst up their young from the eyes of all beholders, in those very places where the streets are full of Girles and Boys sporting up and downe, with a continued concourse of people. Good store of Shipping is here yearly built, and some very faire ones : both Tar and Mastes the Countrey affords from its own soile ; also store of Victuall both for their own and Forrein- ers-ships, who resort hither for that end : this Town is the very Mart of the Land, French, Portugalls and Dutch, come hither for traffique.'
Respecting the second church, which he makes the thirtieth in the colony, he says (Book iii. ch. 7.) ' the north-east part of the town being separated from the other with a narrow stream cut through a neck of land by industry, whereby that part is become an island, it was thought meet that the people inhabiting the same should gather into a church body, and build a meeting-house for their assembly, the which they have already done, but not as yet called any one to office.'
Several of the distinguished ministers of that period, who were officers in other churches, but likely to remove from their places, were invited unsuccessfully to take charge of this congregation. For a few years, therefore, one of the brethren, Michael Powell, conducted the worship, and to such satisfaction that he would have been ordained teacher, had it not been for the interference of the General Court, who ' would not suffer one that was illiterate, as to academical ed- ucation, to be called to the teaching office in such a place as Boston.' There was a law in existence that no minister should be called into office, in any church in this jurisdiction, without the approbation and allowance of some of the ma- gistrates. Mr. Powell was a man of sense and good charac- ter ; the objection to him was not that he was a layman, but that he was wanting in learning, and they would not suffer him to be a publick teacher, lest occasion should be given to introduce such more generally, if allowed in a particular in- stance. The court recommended Mr. Reyner from Plymouth.
After four years passed in this condition, Mr. John Mayo, who on account of some difficulties and discouragements had Jeft his people at Nosset, (Eastham?) was called to the pastoral
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office here, and ordained the 9th of November, 1655. At the same time, Mr. Powell was ordained as ruling elder of the church. Mr. M. administered the seals, and Mr. P. continu- ed to preach publickly in a constant way.
We are told that 'the gathering of this church was evidently very much to the disadvantage of Mr. Cotton, in many of his interests ; but he was a JOHN, who reckoned his joy fulfilled if in his own decrease he could see the interests of his Master advance; and therefore, with exemplary self-denial, he en- couraged its foundation :' he had not the happiness, however, to live to see it established under any other instructions than those of Mr. Powell.
CHAPTER XXIII.
" his reverend lockes In comelye curles did wave, And on his aged temples grewe The blossomes of the grave."
THE death of Mr. Cotton took place towards the close of the year 1652. In the course of the fall, he had been urgently desired to visit the college at Cambridge and preach a sermon to the students. He was exposed to the wet, in his passage across the ferry for that purpose, and took cold, which was followed with an inflammation of the lungs, attended with asthmatick affections and other symptoms of alarming charac- ter. He preached occasionally afterwards, and his last ser- mon was on the Lord's day Nov. 21, from John i. 14. We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. His impressions of his near approach to the grave were so strong, that at the preceding Thursday lecture he had basten- ed to close his exposition of the second of Timothy, and dwelt with increased emphasis on the last words, GRACE BE WITH YOU ALL : thus, as it were, he bade his people farewell, and his appearance on this sabbath was both to him and to them, like a visit from the unseen world. He spent the succeeding day in private devotion, and on quitting his study at night, said to his wife, I shall go into that room no more !- The event prov- ed the correctness of his forebodings: from that time he went no more out.
While he thus lay sick, the magistrates, and the ministers of the country, and christians of all ranks, resorted to him as to a publick father, full of sad apprehensions for the loss
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they were about to sustain. A short time before his death he desired to be left alone, that he might fix his thoughts, without interruption, on his great and last change. So, lying speech- less a few hours, he expired about noon, on Thursday the 23d of December, having just completed his sixty-seventh year .*
Strange and alarming signs appeared in the heavens, while his body lay, according to the custom of the times, till the Tuesday following, ' when it was most honourably interred, with a most numerous concourse of people, and the most grievous and solemn funeral, that was ever known, perhaps, upon the American strand ; and the lectures in his church, the whole winter, were but so many funeral sermons upon the death and worth of this extraordinary person.'
Mr. Cotton's memory did not receive so much attention from his cotemporaries without his well deserving it : for in the language of the ' Old Men's Tears' he was in his life, light and learning, the brightest and most shining star in their firmament. He was born at Derby, December 4, 1585. His father, Mr. Roland Cotton, was a lawyer, a man of piety and respectability, and his mother a pious woman. Without a great property to encourage them, they resolved on giving their son a learned as well as religious education. He was accordingly qualified for the university, and at the age of thirteen was admitted into Trinity college, Cambridge. His proficiency in his studies excited admiration, and procured him an invitation to Emmanuel college, where he was soon elected to a fellowship, and afterwards became head-lecturer, dean, and catechist. He acquired so exact a knowledge of the Hebrew as to be able to converse in it, was perfectly fa- miliar with the Greek, and wrote the Latin language with Ciceronian elegance.
In his twenty-eighth year he removed from Cambridge and settled at Boston in Lincolnshire. There his labours and his usefulness were immense, and he was exceedingly belov- ed by the best, and reverenced by the worst of his hearers. Through all the times of trouble, which visited the non-con- formists, he was maintained in his place by the unanimity of his people. But after the government of the church fell into the hands of Bishop Laud, divisions arose among the parish- ioners of Mr. Cotton. An information was lodged against him, (by a dissolute fellow, who thought in that way to revenge himself on some of Mr. C's friends, for a restraint they had put upon him,) and being cited to appear before the high-com- mission court, he thought it more prudent to flee his country, than to expose himself to perpetual imprisonment. He was
* Magnalia, Emerson. The town Register of deaths says 15th Dec. 1659.
1
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hesitating whether to choose Holland, Barbadoes or New- England for the place of his retreat, when his mind was de- termined by letters received from Gov. Winthrop, inviting him in the name of the church to come to Boston. He arriv- ed here in 1633, which was the forty-eighth year of his age, and immediately commenced the career of usefulness, which ended only with his life. Nineteen years and odd months he spent in this place, doing good publickly and privately to all sorts of men.
Mr. Cotton's personal appearance was strikingly impressive. His complexion was clear and fair, and his countenance florid : in size he was rather short and inclining to corpulent, but in the whole of an agreeable mediocrity. In his youth, his hair was brown, but as he advanced in life it became as white as the driven snow. The colour of his eye his 'proso- pographer' omitted ; but we know its glance flashed the keen- est rebuke on every appearance of evil, and smiled the heart- iest approbation on every worthy action. He had a clear, neat and audible voice, which easily filled the largest halls. His delivery was not noisy and thundering, yet it had in it a very awful majesty, set off with a natural and becoming mo- tion of his right hand. His style of preaching was plain, de- signed to be understood by the nieanest capacity, while his more discerning hearers could perceive from it that he was a man of more than ordinary abilities and research.
He generally devoted twelve hours in a day to his studies, and composed his written sermons with great care, though he sometimes preached without any preparation. It was his practice to expound, both from the old and new testaments, in course, and to draw from each subject a series of ' doctrines and uses.' In this manner he went through the whole bible once, and had proceeded some ways a second time, when he was cut off by the hand of death.
The political and religious opinions of so influential a per- sonage were matters of importance to the infant plantation. The scope of both may be gleaned from his writings, and they are substantially apparent in many of our customs and laws at the present day. The Magnalia tells us that upon Mr. Cotton's arrival, the points of church order were revived with more of exactness, and received by the churches already formed, and the same were adopted by such as rose after- wards.
'It was an uncommonly interesting epoch to the Boston church. A fraternity was to be formed of discordant materi- als. Many of those who composed the church had been edu- cated Episcopalians, and were therefore disinclined to vary from established forms. Others had come to New-England rather as adventurers than as christians, and could hardly be
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·subjected to any ecclesiastical or political rules. But the sa- gacity and ever-watchful discipline of Mr. Cotton was aston- ishingly efficacious towards conforming all descriptions of characters to habits of obedience and order.'
He prepared a book which was published in 1644 with the title of The keys of the kingdom of heaven, in which the princi- ples of Congregational church government are explained and defended. This work was long a standard reference and guide to the New England congregationalists.
On doctrinal points Mr. C. was a calvinist. He used to say to his private friends, that he knew of no difficult place in the bible which he had not studied somewhat to satisfaction, and that he always loved to sweeten his mouth with a piece of Calvin before he went to sleep.
His political writings show him to have been friendly to an elective government, administered on the principles of the Mo- saic laws. In a communication to Lord Say and Seal, in 1636, he expresses himself thus : 'Democracy I do not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit government, either for church or commonwealth. As for monarchy and aristocracy, they are both of them clearly approved and directed in Scripture, yet so as referreth the sovereignty to himself, and setteth up the- ocracy in both.' But he says in another place, ' the authority of the father is no where communicated with his honours to all his posterity : if God should not delight to furnish some of them with gifts for magistracy, we should expose them rather to reproach and prejudice, and the commonwealth with them, if we should call them forth to publick authority.'
One instance of Mr. Cotton's conduct in a political affair is worthy to be repeated. 'It was moved in caucus by a man of some influence, that two of their deputies of long standing, who had fallen into low circumstances should be dropped from office. Mr. C. hearing of the project, took occasion on the next lecture day, pointedly, though prudently, to condemn it. He taught that if old and faithful officers had grown poor in the publick service, they should be maintained at the pub- lick expense. The reproof was clearly understood, and pun- gently felt : for the motion was never renewed.'
Mr. C.'s private virtues and domestick life were equally exemplary. His control over his own passions was almost perfect, and his family government was strict, while his cor- rections were cool and deliberate. He was liberal of his own property, and, when the necessities of any required his exer- tions, would apply to the hearts of others for their assistance. On one occasion he thus collected £200 from the members of his own church, for the relief of a persecuted minister and his people. He lost his first wife a few years before his re- moval to this country. His second, whose name was Sarah,
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accompanied him to Boston. They had three sons and three daughters. The oldest daughter and the youngest son died during their father's lifetime, both of them near together, of the small-pox, which was then (1649) for the first time raging in Boston. Of the other four, the elder daughter (and her only child) died within a few years : the youngest became the wife of Increase Mather : Seaborn, the elder son, was set- tled in Hampton, and John, the younger, in Plymouth, both ministers of the gospel.
Mr. Cotton left a will, in which he provided, that on cer- tain contingencies the one half of his estate should revert to Harvard College and the other half to the support of the free school in Boston. Those contingencies never happened. He gave the church a piece of silver plate to be used in com- munion service, which may have been the first they had, for at one time they made use of wooden chalices.
Others of the first settlers were about this time paying the debt of nature. Capt. Stanley is mentioned in April, 1649, as having left a lot of land in his will to the school's use. The widow Mary Hudson bequeathed ten pounds to the same purpose. William Paddy left something to the town in 1658, and Mr. Henry Webb in 1660 demised £100 to be appropri- ated either for the use of the school, or the building some neat house for the relief of the poor, or supplying them with need- ful articles, as the selectmen might deem best. Capt. Keayne died on the 23d of March, 1656 : he also remembered Boston in his will. This unparalleled document occupies 157 folio pages of the Probate records, and besides providing hand- somely for his relatives and his idol, the Great Artillery, for Harvard college, and his revered pastor and teacher, and the poor of the church, he bequeaths to the town about £500 worth towards the erection of a market place and town house, and granary for the benefit of the poor, a conduit for security against fire, and the foundation of a library, and £50 for the free school ; appropriating a portion withal for his own decent and civil burial, which he desired might be performed in a military way. His whole estate which he enjoined should be appraised at its fair value, not at half price as the custom of some was, amounted to £2843 19s. 3d. The estate of WVm. Tyng who died about the same time was valued at £2774 14s. 4d. each about 15000 dollars. The amount of Mr. Cotton's inventory was £1038 4s. We add a fac simile of his writing.
You hearsich in the forest & Cotton
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INSTORY OF BOSTON.
CHAPTER XXIV.
" I'll tear her to pieces ! And dissecting her heart, find the witchery there."
ACCORDING to usage formally established, by a vote in 1646, appointing eight o'clock A. M. 'of the second second day of the first month, in every year,' as the time to meet for the choice of town officers, the inhabitants assembled in general meeting on Monday the fourteenth of March, 1653, when the town government was organized as follows :
Deputies to General Court.
Capts. John Leverett, Thos. Clarke.
Selectmen.
Ensigns Edw. Hutchinson,
Jere. Houchin,
Messrs. Wm. Brenton, Sam. Cole,
Cornet Peter Oliver, James Oliver, Thos. Marshall.
Commissioner to carry in votes fur Magistrates. Mr. Nath. Duncan.
Constables for town.
Mr. Joseph Rock, Henry Bridgham, Barth. Chevers, Wm. Wenborn.
For Romney Marsh. John Doolittle.
For Muddy River. Peter Aspenwal.
Clerks of the Market.
Thomas Buttalls,
Corporal Henry Pounding.
Sealers of Leather. Wm. Courser, Robert Reade.
Surveyors of high ways. 1
Matthew Barnes, Richard Bennet, Thos. Wiburne, James Pemert [?] at Rom. M.
Packers of flesh and fish. Serjeant John Barrell, Wm. Dinsdale. and Isaac Collimor 心 is chosen to look to carriages and wheels of the Great Artillery and to be paid by the Selectmen.
These offices had been established from time to time as the exigencies of affairs demanded : usually there was some vote of the court sanctioning or recommending them, and confer- ring or limiting their powers.
In June, 1650, a petition had been presented from Boston, that they might become a corporation, which was granted, provided the articles and terms, privileges and immunities asked, may be such as rationally should appear, (respecting the mean 18
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condition of the country) fit for the court to grant, and that they shall be ready for examination at the next session of the court. The records of that session show nothing that was donc upon the subject. Suits at law, however, grew more frequent, and many crimes were committed especially in the town of Boston, by reason of the great concourse of people and the increase of trade .* On this account,
'At a sessions of the general court in October, 1651, an act or order was passed, empowering the town of Boston to choose seven commissioners, to be presented to the court of assist- ants ; and, being authorized by them and sworn before them, or before the governour, they or any five of them, or any three together with one magistrate, might hear and determine all civil actions not exceeding ten pounds in value, and all criminal actions where the penalty or fine should not exceed forty shillings, the parties being such as were inhabitants of Boston neck or Noddle's island, or such as did not belong to the jurisdiction ; and the county court was not to take cog- nizance of any such actions. This law was made for onc year for trial.'
The commissoners were authorised to appoint their own clerk, and ordered to keep a book of records for the entry of all causes, evidences and testimonies, sentences and judg- ments as the law provided in like cases.
At the second election under this order in October, 1652, Messrs. John Leverett, Nathaniel Duncan, Anthony Stoddard, William and Edward Tyng, T. Savage and T. Clark were chosen for the year ensuing. The first five had served the year before. These gentlemen, together with those in the foregoing list of town officers, probably comprised the most active and influential part of the citizens in the year 1653.
The duties of the Selectmen were very solemnly detailed in a power which was drawn up by a committee appointed for the purpose, in this form :
' 24, 1 mo. 1651 .- Directions for the selectmen of Boston commended unto them from the town.
Having chosen you for orderinge of towne affaires, this year ensuing, though we doubt not to confide in your wisdom, fidel- ity, and care, in sceking and promoting the good and welfaire of the towne, yet according to court we commend unto you the instructions following.
First, in generall we require your special care that the good and wholesome orders already made, which you have the records of, be observed and duly executed, and what other acts and orders, shall be established for future benefit
* Colony records.
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of the towne, that you allsoe cause them to be published and put in execution, and further according to power given, and several lawes of the country to be found in the book of print- ed lawes, under these titles, Townships, Ecclesiastick, Free- men, High-ways, small Causes, Indians, Corn-fields, Masters and Servants, Pipe Staves, Swyne, Weights, Measures, and any other order in force which concerne your place to regu- late yourselves and carry on your worke, and where you finde defect of power to bring your desires to a good issue for well ordering the town, you may draw some good orders in forme to be approved by the towne, and so to be presented to the Generall Court, and our Deputyes for consideration.
Secondly, there are some particulars necessary to be con- sidered of and ordered by you-as first about accepting and entertaining new inhabitants into the towne and herein,
First, it is required that you make some effectuall orders, with such penalty as you have powers to impose, that nonc transplant themselves from other parts of the country to in- habit here without giving you notice thereof.
Secondly, to inquire of such as so present themselves for in- habitants, what calling or employment they will undertake, and if they will live under other men's roofs as inmates, then to deal with them, according to the order of such persons, comprehended under the title of Towneshipes.
Thirdly, if such persons were poor and impotent, such as had reliefe in the district whence they came, then to deal with them according to the ordering of settling poore people under that title of poor.'
These instructions were continued in force by an annual vote of the people for many years.
Before the year 1637 the townsmen served without com- pensation, (as the fashion now is) and defrayed incidental ex- penses. In that year it was agreed that their charges at their meetings be borne by the town in general. And in 1641 we find a charge of two pounds eighteen shillings for a select- men's dinner. The number of the Selectmen (who used to be chosen twice a year,) varied in different years, from eleven to seven, till 1647, after which seven continued for a long time to be the number.
The year 1653 is rendered memorable by the first great fire .* Neither the part of the town nor of the year in which it occur- red, is precisely ascertained by us. We infer that it was near Cornhill, from some expressions in Capt. Keayne's will, where he recommends having a conduit, as ' a good help in danger of
* 'A most terrible fire happened iu Charlestown, in 1650, in the depth of winter, which by a violent wind was blown from one house to another to the consuming of the fairest houses in the town.' W. W. P. ith 9.
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fire, the want of which we have found by sad and costly ex- perience, not only in other parts of the town, where possibly they have better supply of water, but in the heart of the town about the market place-and many fair buildings there be round about it.' We also date it before the 14th of March, for on that day we find a body of regulations adopted for the better preservation of the town from fire. Before this a man was liable to 10s. fine, if he suffered his chimney to become so foul as to take fire and blaze out at the top. Now every house was to be provided with a ladder to reach to the ridge thereof, and a pole about 12 feet long with a good large swabb at the end of it, to reach to the roof of the house. Six good and long ladders were to be furnished by the selectmen and kept at the meeting houses, and four strong iron crooks with chains and ropes fitted to them, and this crook fastened on a good strong pole. No person was to recover damage for his house, if pulled down to stop the progress of fire ; but no house should be so pulled down without the consent of the major part of the magistrates, or commissioners and selectmen present. No fire was to be allowed on board any vessel or near any warehouse after nine o'clock. Bell men are ap- pointed to go about during the night. Fire buckets are men- tioned soon after, and the selectmen are authorized to agree with Joseph Jenks for an engine to carry water in case of fire. Chimney sweepers were also appointed 'with liberty to cry "about the streets, that they may be known :' Robert Wyatt and William Lane had the honour to receive the first appoint- ments. In these ordinances we trace the rudiments of our present system for the management of fires.
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