History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 25

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 25

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

That Puritanism was not, in all its parts, so grim as we sometimes imagine was shown by the love the people of Salem bore to Roger Williams. It was made still more apparent that it was not without tenderness of heart and susceptibility to change of thought when the great " Antinomian Controversy "

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

came. In 1637 Anne Hutchinson, a great-hearted woman, nearly overturned both church and state. By her liberal ideas and impassioned eloquence she car- ried with her Henry Vane, the Governor, and a major- ity of the people of Boston, the ministers almost unanimously opposing her. She was, as even her enemies admitted, a woman of wonderful power and attractiveness. Her philosophical ideas were not un- like those of modern Transcendentalism, and in many ways she only anticipated the thoughts which two hundred years later Emerson was to make familiar to sympathetic audiences in Lyceum Hall. The dis- pute was carried into everything, interfering with the course of government, even down to the conduct of town affairs. It made it more difficult for John Endi- cott to carry on the Pequot War. The reaction from Antinomianism brought back into power Winthrop, Endicott and the other old settlers-the " fathers and founders"-who were already, because of their seni- ority, becoming "distinguished townsmen." Mrs. Hutchinson found little open sympathy in Salem, because Hugh Peter was then at the full tide of his remarkable success, and he, with Governor Endicott, severely punished all who rebelled. They gave Gov- ernor Winthrop their hearty support, and helped him back into power, thus re-establishing Puritan rule in Massachusetts. Still, before her tragical death at the hands of the Indians, in 1643, this remarkable woman had made an ineffaceable mark on the institutions of Massachusetts and Rhode Island and greatly strength- ened the impulse to grant, as well as claim, liberty of conscience.

From this time on there are two parties in church and state, representing Puritanism and Puritanism ameliorated. They go on in Salem together until the cruel policy of Governor Endicott, together with the absurd notions of demoniacal influence then cur- rent, bear their proper fruit in the " Witchcraft De- lusion." Then Puritanism begins to relax its arbi- trary and merciless tyranny and milder counsels pre- vail. Meanwhile, we shall see the two in conflict and shall see how a false theory of duty can, in the name of righteousness, drive humane men to the most inhuman deeds.

But the townsmen of Salem during this eventful seventeenth century were not solely given up to re- ligious contention. They had many other interests, some of them very absorbing. Their lives were not stagnant or dull. To have in rapid succession two such ministers as Roger Williams and Hugh Peter, and to trace with intelligent interest as they did their subsequent career, the one founding a colony, the other going to the scaffold to expiate the death of a king, was enough to sharpen the wits of the dullest and give him a lively interest in the affairs of two continents. The great events of the rebellion, the Com- mon wealth, the restoration of the Stuarts and the Revo- lution all passed within the limits of a single lifetime,

and every change in the fortunes of England was felt in the homes of Salem. Each man felt a responsibility for the issue of the battle over the seas, and when the commonwealth of England fell, the Common- wealth of Massachusetts was accounted its lawful heir.

But at home were many and engrossing occupa- tions and interests, some good and some to modern consciences, as much to be condemned as any of their religious excesses. Commerce began its beneficent career, and was for a hundred and fifty years a source of good things innumerable. It kept the in- tellect alert, gave knowledge of other nations and gradually liberalized the minds of all who were en- gaged in it. It produced a remarkable breed of men, to whom in time the burdens of ecclesiasticism became insupportable, and the Puritan spirit was at last trans- formed and a broad catholicity took the place of bigotry. But as yet we see only the beginnings, and we see them marred by many an evil practice. The distillery arose in the colony and began to pour its poisoned stream into all the homes of savagery. Tbe ships which went out laden with New England rum returned sometimes freighted with African slaves, and tender consciences did not seem to be hurt by the transaction. It is recorded that negroes were brought to Salem as early as 1638. The laws of na- tions were not well defined in those days, and a war with any natiou, or a war among unfriendly nations, gave excuse for privateering, which easily slipped into piracy. Pirates who preyed upon their own commerce were punished when caught, but those who only molested unfriendly nations were winked at, and it was not a thing unknown for a pirate to sail into Salem harbor and sell his plunder to the townsmen, who asked no questions so long as they got good bargains. Indeed, it is now quite impossible to tell the true story of those times without doing injustice to them, so greatly has our moral standard in many things been elevated. One can easily see, however, that there were many compensations for the Puritan. His world was not so colorless as it seems to us when we think only of his religion, and imagine that to have been his only absorbing interest.

The internal arrangements of the colony at Salem were for many years matters of constant and grave concern. Things which seem to us trivial were then of great importance. The public lands were at first held by the government, and the towns, as agents of the colony, distributed them among their inhabitants. A law restricting this power of distribution to the towns was passed (as William P. Upham, Esq., in- forms us) in 1635. The land was granted in small building-lots and planting-fields to those who were admitted to the privileges of the town. There could be no speculation in town lots. Only the occupiers could hold them. The rights of forest, field and shore were common, and to the householders pertained cer-

SALEM.

tain privileges of pasturage and other rights peculiar to the proprietors. A man was made a freeman by the General Court, and when he desired to settle, asked to be " admitted an inhabitant," and, if his re- quest was granted, became a member of a corpora- tion consisting of certain named persous and such others as they chose.

Land was given to any one who became an inhabit- ant. At first there was no difficulty. But the ques- tion which arose when the late-comers were numer- ous, and insisted upon their full share of these privi- leges, became troublesome. Among the old settlers there were at least three distinctions of social rank attaching to freemen, non-freemen and servants. These were increased by an additional line drawn be- tween the cottagers and commoners, -those who had a share in the original common rights and those who had not been admitted to such rights. The cottagers had great advantages, and for many years clung to their privileges. They even held meetings separate from the town. The contention at times must have been much more exciting than the news of a change of government in England, or the loss of the colo- nial charter, because it affected the fortunes of every householder in a direct way. It was not until the eighteenth century came in that the dispute was closed. In 1660 the general government passed a law that those who then had cottages or houses built should have rights in common land. About a gen- eration later it was a serious question what rights they should have (then a large number) who were not included under that law. The cottagers were those who held under the law ; the commoners were those who claimed a right, not by virtue of the act of 1660, but by right of habitation. In 1702 the town passed a vote settling this difference and admitting to a right in the commons all houses then built. In 1713 the commoners, which term then included both com- moners and cottagers, organized under the province law, and are to this day represented by the "Great Pasture Corporation." These various measures were not agreed upon without great friction and excite- ment, and even the famous " witchcraft year," which came when the dispute was at its hottest, could only postpone the excitement over a matter which affected the fortunes of every townsman. The commoners at last voted to give up to the town the highways, burying- places, the common lands which lay within the town, bridge and the block-houses, with the training- grounds and various other relinquishments, which brought the affairs of the town on to a modern footing. Hospitality was not a characteristic of those days. People were suspicious and jealous of new- comers and required of them proofs that they would be safe and agreeable neighbors before they admitted them to a share of the common property. For tempo- rary purposes they granted them cottage rights and garden spots, but not every new-comer was welcome.

Strolling adventurers were promptly arrested and re- quired to give an account of themselves. For a hundred years these internal relations of the com- munity were very important and influential. They have now nearly passed out of the memory of all but the students of antiquity. But they were important then, and in the various attempts made to adjust differences and find out that which was for the com- mon welfare, the community was being compacted and trained to common action in a way which made all its strength available in its great days when it covered the sea with privateers and merchantmen.

But before we take leave of the seventeenth century there are still some grievous things to be noted. The Friend is to us au emblem and suggestion of peace. But in 1657 he was to the people of Salem a creature to be abhorred and, by force if necessary, expelled from the community. It must be remembered that during all this century any, even the most innocent, trespasser was there illegally if he was not permitted by the authorities to make his home there. No mat- ter what his business, if he was forbidden to dwell there, and still persisted in opposition to the proprie- tors, he was regarded as being as much outside of his rights as a poacher or a burglar. There was not even a sidewalk where he could claim to be on public soil, or on the "King's highway." Every inch of soil belonged to the town and the proprietors. When undesirable persons, therefore, were present and re- fused to go away when warned, it was easy and alto- gether too natural for those in authority to begin with threats and then proceed to force, which became at last cruel much beyond the original intention. When Massachusetts decreed that Quakers remaining within her bounds must die, it was hoped and believed that the threat of death would be effectual. When it was discovered that martyrdom had its charms, and that for every Quaker hung there would be five more ready for hanging, the brief madness of the magis- trates yielded to the excited protests of all tender- hearted people, and the shameful law was repealed, but not until it had caused such deeds of cruelty in the colony, especially in Boston, as no good man can now contemplate without horror. The only plea to be offered in mitigation is that the magistrates feared overmuch a popular revolution and were driven to excess by overplus of official zeal. Still, we must remember that it was a century of perils and of fears. Safety lay in concert of action. The Jesuits, the Anabaptists, the Quakers, if permitted to come and proselyte, might bring in all kinds of political trouble and danger from foreign nations, The Dutch and Indians were near and dangerous, and the whole community lived in such fear of unseen perils as we can scarcely imagine. For all that, we cannot be reconciled to the whipping of women at the cart-tail nor the offering to sell Quakers to be taken as slaves to the Barbadoes.

IIISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

But the latter days of the century approach with many fears, some prosperity and great distraction of mind and purpose. John Endicott had moved to Boston and died there in 1665. The race of great merchants had begun with Hollingworth and others. Philip English, the famous Episcopalian, was dazzling the eyes of his neighbors with his enterprise and the magnificent style of his living. His house and offices were full of "bound servants," and he evidently paid little attention to the strait ways of Puritanism. The "founders " who came to old age all died before the century was out. There were among them Major Hathorne and Captain Curwen, the Hon. W. Browne, who, coming over before 1638, lived half a century in Salem, and were regarded as "distinguished towns- men " when they died. There was much wealth accumulating already and life began to go on with considerable stateliness and dignity. Even those who did not for themselves expect to arrive at any station of especial honor still easily lent themselves to the general mode of life and assisted in creating a public sentiment favorable to the production of men of grave manners, weighty ideas and comprehensive plans of public and private advancement. With this outward gravity, and not altogether consistent with it, there were many grotesque and extravagant notions con- cerning both nature and the supernatural. At a time when men knew so little of the world and its natural products as to expect to find lions in the American wilderness, and when the loadstone was supposed to have some magical power of indicating the place of the precious metals, when devils and demons, both in their own form and as possessing human beings, were supposed to be as common as bats and owls, at any time events might happen which would break the outward calm and throw the community into a fever of curiosity or of apprehension.

At the end of the seventeenth century the town was, in many ways, in an unnatural condition. There had been numerous alarms and the real dangers were many. At any time enemies at home might trouble them, and against an irruption of foreign enemies there was no protection which was trustworthy. The more wealthy the community became the greater the danger that the ships of an enemy might sail into the ill-defended harbor and lay waste the town. Many losses had been incurred and the people were sore with apprehension, restless and ready for a panic of any sort. The occasion came, and Salem won an unpleasant and ill-deserved fame as the scene of the " Witchcraft Delusion." The sad tale will be hon- estly told in the narrative to follow. It is only necessary to say here that in our time men forget the multitudes who have been burned in Europe as witches and remember the score who went to an unhappy death on the scaffold in Salem, as if there were something peculiar in Salem witchcraft to dis- tinguish it from the common experience in such

matters of the rest of the civilized world. When the Zuni Indians came to Salem, a few years since, one of them, speaking in Plummer Hall, told the people that he heard that they put their witches to death. He told them that they did right; the Zunis did the same. It was the only way to deal with them. The Indian had a face like Dante's, and his opinions were only the same as were held by all the civilized world down to the time when in Salem the long delusion of the ages finally gave way to the humaneness of modern feeling. In Northern Europe, as Topelius testifies, witches were slain by the hundred. This eruption in Salem was the last infamous outbreak of Puritan fanaticism, and it cleared the air for all the generations since.

To do anything like justice to the people of those days we must remember that they were at the same time more happy and, in many ways, more cheerful than we are apt to think, and that they also were more hard and insensible to certain forms of human suffering than we are, and that, moreover, great sensi- bility could be a trait of the character in which were qualities which, to us, seem quite incompatible with it. We must also remember that many things which to us seem like acts of their free will did not seem so to them. To be obliged to whip an Anabaptist or a Quaker seemed to many a tender-hearted Puritan as necessary and as grievous as to us seem the unavoid- able sufferings which come by "act of God." That a certain brutality was cultivated by such theories is certain. The best argument against the whipping- post is that whatever the crimes of the culprit who suffers at one end of the whip, there will always be a brute at the other end of it-probably the worse brute of the two. When Hugh Peter died in England for his political offenses we have a picture of the times which it is now difficult to contemplate without a shudder. As he waited for his turn at the gallows he was compelled to see his friend Cooke cut down and quartered. "How like you this ?" asked the execu- tioner, rubbing his bloody hands. When such things were going on it is hard for us to remember that the sun shone as brightly then as now over the lovely shores and bays of Salem; that in summer the east wind was fresh and cool as it swept over the sparkling water, where the fisher boats floated and the fisher boys sang their ancient ballads or shouted to each other in careless jollity ; that there was a merry sound from the herdsmen's horns as the kine came in fresh from the pastures in June, and that for any one life was easy and careless and happy. But it was so, and many a legend, tradition and reminiscence of those early days show that sailors danced and were jolly, that rustics were as light-hearted at times, and even more content and satisfied than now. Society went on, as society must, with love-making and marriage, the love of children and the association of friends; and what men could not prevent, or thought they

SALEM.

could not, that they contrived to shut out and forget. In the days of the witcheraft excitement, however, there was no possibility of shutting out or forgetting the grizzly horror which might look in at any window and elaim any victim. Whether one believed in all the possibilities of demoniacal possession or only feared the passion of enemies and the mania of the populace, the danger and the fear were inevitable and oppressive.

But those unhappy days passed. The common sense and good feeling of the community reasserted themselves, and the humaneness which had never been able to justify itself assumed an authority it had never had before. The modern period may be said to begin with the eighteenth century, although many a lapse and "many a backward streaming eurve " show that progress then, as now, was not a regular progres- sion from evil to good or from good to better things in publie and private life.

The eighteenth century opened with renewed pros- perity. Commerce was establishing itself, and with many and wide relations with the foreign world, Sa- lem was becoming what it has always been since that time-remarkable for the number of its inhabitants who were cosmopolitan in their tastes and habits. The influence of a few men fostered a habit which, in time, produced a very peculiar and remarkable race of sailors and traders. Abandoning the ponderous methods of the older merehants, who built huge ships and founded permanent colonies, or occupied posts in foreign lands and carried on operations involving great expense and requiring to be protected by costly convoys and garrisons, the fishermen and traders of Salem learned to skirmish all along the border-lines of the eivilized world, and prepared themselves for the brilliant exploits of later years. But it took a hundred years to train the whole population and compact it so that when the time came, whether for privateering or commerce, every varied need could be quickly, naturally and cheaply provided for at home. For these purposes there were needed on the spot men of universal knowledge of the known world, able also to make a shrewd guess as to what lay out of sight in the undiscovered parts of the world. They needed trusty agents as intelligent, if not as far-see- ing, as themselves-men who could obey orders of a comprehensive character, with wit enough to modify them when new conditions arose. With them must go sailors who were bold, trusty, enterprising and in- telligent, coming out of families whose interests were identical with those of the merchants and traders. About these there must be a homogeneous and inter- ested population ready and skillful in all the trades and handierafts needed by the main business of the place. We shall see, by and by, how all these con- ditions were prepared and what a mark Salem made on the business of the world. For the present we only note the fact that the process was beginning. The 1₺

fishing-boats and coasters, the trading smacks and larger craft plying between the West Indies and Sa- lem, and the ships which were slowly extending the European commeree of the colony, were training such a hardy, brave and intelligent seafaring population as ean now be found in no city or town of any size any- where in the world.

From this time on religious matters are less en - grossing and less distracting. Education, business and politics elaim an increasing share of their atten- tion, and a town is slowly built up of a homogeneous population, prosperous, well edueated, capable of taking an intelligent interest in all the affairs of the town and the Commonwealth. But the colonies, provinees now under royal Governors who are inclined to hanghty ways and the exercise of irresponsible au- thority, are still small, isolated and feeble. The set- tlements are still scattered. Communication is infre- quent. Horses are few, and, until the beginning of the seventeenth century, carriages were almost unknown, while turnpikes and stage-coaches were yet to be in- trodneed as the novel appliances of a new civilization. Roads everywhere were bad, bridges were few, and the obstruction to publie travel, except by a very few main highways, was so great that each separate community was nearly reduced to dependence upon its own resources, excepting such supplies as might come by water, the great common highway of com- meree. The water-ways were still used for most kinds of transportation, even among neighbors in Salem. For, as the town grew along the water's edge, with the front doors of the houses opening towards the harbor or the various rivers, while the lanes, ont-houses and swine pens were behind, where the principal streets now are, it was more easy to convey all bulky articles a long distance hy water than to carry them but a little way on land. The settlements spread along the bays and rivers, and even little creeks were useful to the farmer who sought a market for his surplus produce in exchange for needed supplies. With all their increased wealth and comfort, we ninst still think of them as a " feeble folk," scattered and few, too few to live up to the independent ideas they have now been nourishing for a century. Money was searee, even when comfort abounded, and stores could be provided at any time in a given place only by transporting them in kind. Virginia could not give a thousand bushels of wheat to Boston by send- ing a bill of exchange, as we might do to-day if a fam- ine oeeurred in Asia Minor, but must laboriously col- leet the grain from her own seattered wheat-fields and transport it from Virginia to Boston.

With the fall of the colonial government and the coming of the royal Governors, new problems of the mnost perplexing kinds rolled in upon them. From the beginning of the century the American Revolu- tion was preparing itself. It took seventy-five years to breed the ideas, train the men and make it possi-

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

sible to provide the supplies which were at last to come to their highest uses and expression in the repub- lic. During these years attention was more and more called to what were to become national problems. Provincial governors, however bad, served an excel- lent purpose when they turned the attention of the colonists away from the idiosyncrasies of religionists (good and bad alike), and concentrated the energies of the people in defense of their common rights and privileges. From the time that Sir Edmund Andros said to Mr. Higginson, in Salem, "Either you are subjects or you are rebels" it was certain that rebel- lion would come. It was already prepared for in the mind of every Salem householder who believed that his tenure was independent of the King. Even then it was claimed by Mr. Higginson that the lands of New England belonged not to the King, but to the people who occupied and paid for them. There might be doubt as to who were the rightful proprietors of the town lots and "common lands" of Salem, but there was no doubt that the King was not one of them. In the "great pastures" even the "swineherds " would have resisted his claim to the feeding of a pig so long as he was not a "householder " in Salem.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 25

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1 Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1538

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538