USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lynnfield > History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant, 1629-1864 > Part 17
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Swampscott > History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant, 1629-1864 > Part 17
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lynn > History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant, 1629-1864 > Part 17
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Saugus > History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant, 1629-1864 > Part 17
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Nahant > History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant, 1629-1864 > Part 17
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).
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The dissensions in the churches at Salem and Lynn, and the scarcity of provisions, occasioned a fast to be proclaimed, which was observed on the 21st of February.
On the third of March, the Court enacted that each town should have power to regulate its own affairs; to set fines on offenders, not exceeding twenty shillings ; and to choose a num- ber of " prudential men," not exceeding seven, to order their municipal concerns. This was the legal origin' of those officers
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ANNALS OF LYNN-1636.
since called Selectmen ; though some of the towns had similar officers before. They were at first chosen for only three months ; and the town of Lynn continued to choose seven, until the year 1755, when the number was reduced to three. They also had a number of officers, called tythingmen, because each one was set over ten families, to observe their conduct, and to report any violation of the public order.
Mr. Timothy Tomlins was licensed as a retailer, "to draw wine for the town of Saugus." [He was also licensed to " keepe a house of intertainement."]
Mr. John Humfrey and Capt. Nathaniel Turner were appointed by the Court to lay out the bounds of Ipswich.
Mr. Humfrey built a windmill on the eastern mound of Saga- more Hill, which was thence called Windmill Hill.
A Court was established at Salem, to be held quarterly, for the benefit of that and the adjacent towns. The judges con- sisted of a magistrate, and several freemen, selected from each town, by the General Court. This year there were four, of whom Capt. Nathaniel Turner was one, [and Mr. Humfrey an- other.] The first session commenced on the 27th of June. A fine of ten shillings was imposed on Thomas Stanley, the con- stable of Lynn, for not appearing ; and a record, made in Sep- tember, says, "Now it is in corn, in William Wood's hands." [Captain Turner was also appointed one of a valuation com- mittee, raised preparatory to the levying of a tax on the several plantations.]
The Rev. SAMUEL WHITING arrived from England in June, and was installed pastor of the church at Lynn, on Tuesday, the 8th of November. The Council remained two days, and found much difficulty in organizing a church; which was composed of only six members, besides the minister. The following is a copy of the original church covenant transcribed by me from a leaf of a pocket Bible belonging to one of the ministers :
" The Covenant of the First Church of Christ in Lynn.
" We do give up ourselves to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as to the only true and living God; avouching God the Father to be our father; embracing the Lord Jesus Christ as our only Savior, in all his offices, prophet- ical, sacerdotal and regal ; depending on the blessed Spirit of Grace to be our Sanctifier, Teacher, Guide, and Comforter, and to make effectual application of the redemption purchased by Christ unto us ; promising by the assistance, and through the sanctifying influences of that Blessed Spirit, to cleave unto this one God and Mediator, as his covenant people. We believe the revelation God hath made of himself, and our duty, in his word, to be true ; and through grace strengthening, we promise to comply with the whole will of God, so far as he shall discover it to us. We promise, by the assistance of Divine Grace, to walk before God in our houses, in sincerity of heart; that we will uphold the worship of God therein ; endeavoring to bring up all under our inspection, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We shall endeavor the mortifica- tion of our own sins, and we covenant to reprove sin in others, as far as the rule requires ; promising in brotherly love to watch over one another, and to
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ANNALS OF LYNN-1636.
submit ourselves to the government of Christ in this church, and to attend the orders thereof. We do likewise solemnly agree by all means to study and endeavor the peace of this church, and the maintenance of the purity of the worship of God therein; that so the blessing of God may be vouchsafed to this his heritage. We do also give up ourselves to one another in the Lord, solemnly binding ourselves to walk together in the ways of his worship, and to cleave to his ordinances, according to the rules of his word. . . T This you heartily comply with and consent to. . . " You are now members in full communion with this church, purchased by the blood of Christ; and you do now seriously, solemnly, deliberately, and forever, in the presence of God, by whom you expect shortly to be judged, and by whom you hope to be acquitted, in the presence of an innumerable company of elect angels, and in the presence of this assembly, give up yourselves to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; avouching the Lord Jehovah to be your God. You give up yourselves unto this church; submitting to the holy rule and ordinance of it; putting your- selves under the care and inspection of it; promising to embrace counsel and reproofs with humbleness and thankfulness ; and duly to attend the adminis- tration of the ordinances of the Gospel in this church ; so long as your oppor- tunities thereby to be edified in your holy faith shall be continued. . . " We, then, the church of the Lord, do receive you into our sacred fellowship, as those whom we trust Christ hath received; and we promise to admit you to all the ordinances of the Gospel in fellowship with us; to watch over you with a spirit of love and meekness, not for your halting but helping; to treat you with all that affection which your sacred relation to us now calleth for; and to continue our ardent prayers for you, to the Father of Light, that you may have grace to keep this solemn covenant, you have now, before God, angels, and men, entered into; that so the sure mercies of the everlasting covenant may be your portion forever. Amen."
To those persons who did not wholly unite with this church, but only assented to the covenant, for the privilege of having their children baptized, the following was read immediately after the words " consent to."
"You do now, in the presence of God, angels, and this assembly, avouch this one God in three persons to be your God; engaging to be his, only, con- stantly, and everlastingly. You do further promise to labor in preparing for the table of the Lord, that in due time you may make your approaches to God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord and Giver of eternal life, in all his ordi- nances and appointments ; that at last you may give up your account with joy unto Christ, the Judge of all."
[Mr. Lewis was no doubt mistaken in supposing this to be the original church covenant. The supplementary portion em- braces the " half-way " element, which was not known in New England till some time later. It is uncertain whether it was fully accepted in the Lynn church before 1768. It was adopted in different churches at different periods, and in some does not appear to have been known at all. To this half-way covenant, which was not the same in form in all the churches, such per- sons as desired, were admitted, if they sustained acceptable characters. The common way was for the candidates to pre- sent themselves before the congregation, on Sunday. And if they answered affirmatively the question which was in substance whether they believed the Bible to be the word of God, and
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ANNALS OF LYNN- 1637.
would promise to receive it as their rule of faith and practice, they were admitted to baptism for themselves or their children, though they might never become church members in full com- munion. The Lynn church, in 1768, voted " that none be allow- ed the privilege of baptism for their children, but such as are members of the church, without their personally owning the covenant." And hence that date is fixed on as the time when the half-way covenant was adopted. It does not seem to have been common among the churches here, in the earliest times, to adopt doctrinal covenants or confessions of faith, there being no essential disagreements in matters of doctrine. They rather entered into simple agreements to walk together, with the Bible as their rule of faith. The compact of the first church of Salem, may be taken as an example : "We covenant with our Lord and one with another, and we do bind ourselves in the presence of God, to walk together, in all his ways, according as he is pleased to reveal himself unto us." Had Mr. Lewis informed us which of the ministers the pocket Bible from which he copied the foregoing covenant of the church of Lynn belonged to, we might have been the better able to judge as to the time of its adoption; for it is evidently not the " original church cove- nant."]
Some of the Pequot Indians, having committed several mur- ders upon the whites, induced the people of Massachusetts to commence a war upon them. On the 16th of June, this year, Gov. Henry Vane ordered Lieut. Edward Howe to have his men in readiness ; and in August, four companies of volunteers were called out, one of which was commanded by Capt. Na- thaniel 'Turner, of Lynn. They were directed to demand the murderers, with a thousand fathom of wampum, and some of the Indian children, as hostages. At Block Island, they destroyed seven canoes, sixty wigwams, and many acres of corn, and killed one Indian. At New London, they burnt the canoes and wig- wams, killed thirteen Indians, and returned, 14 September.
1637.
On the 18th of April, 175 men were raised for a second expe- dition against the Pequots. Boston furnished 26, Lynn 21, (16 at first and 5 afterward,) Cambridge 19, Salem 18, Ipswich 17, Watertown 14, Dorchester 13, Charlestown 12, Roxbury 10, Newbury 8, Hingham 6, Weymouth 5, Marblehead 3, and Medford 3. The Connecticut troops attacked the Pequots on the 26th of May, a little before daybreak. Sassacus, the Pequot Sachem, had built a rude fort, surrounded by a palisade of trees. The soldiers came to the fort in silence, discharged their mus- kets on the slumbering natives, and then set fire to the camp. Stoughton, who commanded the expedition, says, of "six or
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ANNALS OF LYNN-1637.
seven hundred Indians," many of whom were women, and old men, and helpless children, only "about seven escaped." The soldiers from Lynn arrived three days after the massacre, and returned on the 26th of August. Sassacus, after this desolation of his tribe, fled to the Mohawks, where he was soon afterward murdered, as it was supposed, by an Indian of the Narragansett tribe, who were his enemies. Thus perished Sassacus, the last and bravest of the Pequots ; a chief, who in the annals of Greece would have received the fame of a hero - in the war of Ameri- can freedom, the praise of a patriot. [Under date 7 June, Mr. Humfrey writes to Gov. Winthrop, concerning the Pequot affairs, as follows :
" MUCH HONOURED :
"Hitherto the lord hath beene wth us, blessed forever be his ever blessed name. Our nation, the gospel, the blood of those murthered per- sons of ours scemes to triumph in the present successe. Now I only desire to suggest it to yor wise and deeper considerations whether it be not probable the confederates of the Pequotts will not be glad to purchase a secure and feareles condition to themselues, by delivering up those men, or their heads, who have wrought and brought so much miserie upon themselues and theirs. Or if not so, whither (if they give good assurance of hostages, &c.,) the blood shed by them may not sceme to be sufficiently expiated by so great an ine- qualitie on their sides. Hitherto the horror and terror of our people to all the natives is aboundantly vindicated and made good. If providence for our humbling (as in regard to my self I much feare) should flesh them so by some new cruelties upon anie of ours, how low wee may be laid both in their and the eyes of our confederate Indians, and to how great daunger to us, yea possi- blie our posterities, I leave to your graver thoughts, if it be worth the consid- eration ; only to my shallownes it scemes considerable. 1st., whither it were not safe pawsing to see what effect this will or may worke upon such a de- mand; 2dly, whither not best to rest in certaine victorie and honor acquired upon so small a losse ; 3dly, whither (if we carry away the greatest glory of these poore barbarous people in our triumphs over them,) the losse of 3 men more (if we should not exceede) may not be paraleld wth so manie hundreds more of theirs ; 4thly, whither wee must not be forced at last (and it may be in worse circumstances) to take this course unlesse divine iustice will miracu- lously shew it selfe in bringing them all into our net, wch according to reason is not likely ; 5thly, whither the dreadfulnes of our maine Battallios (as it were) be [not ?] better to be measured by their feares raised on this last, than to see, say, or think, that our former victorie was not so much by valor as accident, wch wee ourselves doe acknowledge providence; 6thly, whither if we refuse to give or take such conditions now, they may not be likely to hold us to worse, or necessitate us to a perpetual war if for our owne ease wee after seke them, and when they see us, (as they may) afraide in the like manner. Much more, and to as little purpose, might be saide. But if you continue yor resolutions to proceed according to former intentions you may please to consider whither these bottles to bee used granado wise may not be of some use ; and whither (if the fort be so difficulte as it is reported into wch they shall for their last refuge retire,) it were not [advisable ?] to prepare a petar or two to comaund entrance. Thus laying my low thoughts and my selfe at yor feete, to be kickd out or admitted as you see good, being glad to hope of the continuance of yor purpose to see us in yor way to Ipswich, wth my ser- vice to you and yours, I rest yet and ever.
Yours (if anie thing) to serve you, June 7th, 1637."
Jo : HUMFREY.
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ANNALS OF LYNN-1637.
[A fast was held in all the churches, 20 June, on account of the Indian war and antinomian disturbances, occasioned by Ann Hutchinson. Among her advocates, were Gov. Vane and Rev. Messrs. Cotton and Wheelwright; and among her opponents, Gov. Winthrop and Rev. John Wilson.]
On the 23d of June, Gov. Winthrop visited Lynn, and was escorted by the inhabitants to Salem. He returned on the 28th, traveling in the night, in consequence of the heat, which was so excessive that many persons died.
Graham says there were at this time but thirty-seven ploughs in the colony, most of which were at Lynn.
The members of the Quarterly Court, this year, were John Humfrey and Edward Howe.
In a tax of £400, the proportion of Lynn was £28.16.
The General Court ordered that no person should make any cakes or buns, " except for burials, marriages, and such like special occasions."
[The Court ordered that corn should be received as legal tender, at five shillings the bushel.]
This year a large number of people removed from Lynn, and commenced a new settlement at Sandwich. The grant of the town was made on the 3d of April, by the colony of Plymouth. " It is ordered, that these ten men of Saugus, namely, Edmund Freeman, Henry Feake, Thomas Dexter, Edward Dillingham, William Wood, John Carman, Richard Chadwell, William Almy, Thomas Tupper, and George Knott, shall have liberty to view a place to sit down on, and have land sufficient for three score families, upon the conditions propounded to them by the Gov- ernor and Mr. Winslow." Thomas Dexter did not remove, but the rest of the above named went, with forty-six other men from Lynn.
The Rev. THOMAS COBBET arrived from England, on the 26th of May, and was soon after installed in the ministry, as a col- league with Mr. Whiting. The two ministers continued together eighteen years. Mr. Whiting was styled pastor, and Mr. Cobbet teacher.
This year the name of the town was changed from SAUGUS to 1 LYNN. The record of the General Court, on the 15th of No- vember, consists of only four words :
" SAUGUST IS CALLED LIN."
This relates merely to the change of the name, the town having been incorporated in 1630. [See page 134.] The name was given in compliment to Mr. Whiting, who came from old Lynn, in Norfolk county, England. [Mr. Lewis makes a slight mistake in the first date. The order changing the name of the town was passed 20 November, corresponding with 30 November of the present style. And in the word LIN the N has a line 0
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ANNALS OF LYNN - 1637.
over it, denoting that it should be doubled. So the true spell. ing was LINN. But the orthography soon went through all the mutations possible, in which the sound could be preserved, and finally settled down on LYNN. Swampscot is just now being teased in regard to the spelling of her name; some doub- ling the final letter, others not. I believe the act of incorpora- tion spells it with two t8; but I have followed Mr. Lewis, in using but one, it seeming more simple and more in accordance with the style of the Indian language from which the name comes. As to the time when the town was incorporated, it is not certain that he is entirely right on principle, when he claims that the recognition of her representatives in the General Court was a constructive incorporation. If I mistake not Dane does not allow such a rule. Yet, it may be asked, if Lynn was not incor- porated in 1630, when was she ?]
Old Lynn, in England, was called Lynn Regis, or King's Lynn. It was patronized by King John, who, in 1215, received great service from that town in his war against France. "He granted them a mayor, and gave them his own sword to be carried be- fore him, with a silver gilt cup, which they have to this day." (Camden's Britannia.) The ancient Britons gave it the name of Lhyn, a word signifying a lake or sheet of water. Camden says, it was " so named from its spreading waters." Speed, in his Chronicles of England, calls the waters before the old town, " the Washes of Linne." [Others affirm that the true name was Len, from the Saxon word len, a farm or tenure in fee ; though the Saxons sometimes used the word to signify church lands. In Doomsday Book, (1086,) it is called Lenne. It was about 1607 that it was called Bishop's Linne, it then belonging to the Bish- op of Norwich. When the revenues of the bishopric came into the hands of the king, those of Linne among the rest, it began to be called Lynn Regis, or King's Lynn. And by that name or simply as Lynn, it has been known to this day.]
An old British legend of 1360, asserts that the "Friar of Linn," by magic art, went to the North Pole, and came to Ameri- ca. There is a very beautiful ballad, of an early date, entitled " The Heire of Linne." I have only room for two stanzas :
" The bonnie heire, the weel faured heire, And the weary heire of Linne, Yonder he stands at his father's gate, And naebody bids him come in. * " Then he did spy a little wee lock, And the key gied linking in, And he gat goud and money therein, To pay the lands o' Linne."
[The first burial in the Old Burying Ground, at the west end of the Common, so far as is certainly known, took place this year.
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ANNALS OF LYNN- 1638.
The remains interred were those of John Bancroft, the same individual spoken of on page 118, as ancestor of George Ban- croft the distinguished historian.]
A town meeting was held this year, in which Daniel Howe, Richard Walker, and Henry Collins, were chosen a committee to divide the lands ; or, as it was expressed in the record, " To lay out ffarmes." The land was laid out in those parts of the town best adapted to cultivation; and the woodlands were reserved as common property, and called the "town common," not being divided until sixty-nine years after.
1638.
The committee appointed by the town to divide the lands, completed their task, and a book was provided, in which the names of the proprietors, with the number of acres allotted to each, were recorded. That book is lost ; but a copy of the first three pages has been preserved in the files of the Quarterly Court, at Salem, from which the following is transcribed. I have taken the justifiable liberty, in this instance, to spell the words correctly, and to supply a few omissions, which are in- cluded in brackets. The word "ten," which is added to many of the allotments, implies that a separate lot of ten acres was granted. [The first allotment, it will be seen, was to Lord Brook. And the Court, 13 March, 1639, empower Edward Holyoke to manage the estate of his lordship, " vntill the Lord Brooke do otherwise dispose of it.]
PAGE I.
These lands following were given to the inhabitants of the town of Lynn, Anno Domini 1638.
To the Right Honorable the Lord Brook, 800 acres, as it is esti- mated.
To Mr. Thomas Willis, upland and meadow, 500 acres, as it is esti- mated.
Mr. Edward Holyoke, upland and meadow, 500 acres, as it is esti- mated.
Henry Collins, upland and meadow, 80 acres, and ten.
Mr. [Joseph] Floyd, upland and mea- dow, 60 acres, and ten.
Edmund and Francis Ingalls, upland and meadow, 120 acres. Widow Bancroft, 100 acres.
Widow Hammond, 60 acres. George Burrill, 200 acres. John Wood, 100 acres. Thomas Talmage, 200. Nicholas Brown, 200.
William Cowdrey, 60.
Thomas Laighton, 60.
John Cooper, 200. Allen Breed, 200. John Pool, 200.
Edward Howe, 200 and ten.
Thomas Sayre, 60.
Job Sayre, 60. Thomas Chadwell, 60.
William Walton, 60.
Christopher Foster, 60.
William Ballard, 60.
Josias Stanbury, 100.
Edmund Farrington, 200.
Nicholas Potter, 60. William Knight, 60.
Edward Tomlins, 200, and twenty. [" Mr." ] South, 100.
Boniface Burton, 60.
John Smith, 60.
Mr. Edward Howell, 500.
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ANNALS OF LYNN-1638.
PAGE Il.
To Nicholas Batter, 60. Mr. [Richard] Sadler, 200, and the rock by his house. Joseph Armitage, 60. Godfrey Armitage, 60. To Matthew West, upland and mea- dow, 30, and ten.
George Farr, 30, and ten.
James Boutwell, 60 acres.
Zachary Fitch, 30, and ten.
Jarrett Spenser, 30 acres.
Thomas Halsye, 100.
Jenkin Davis, 30, and ten.
George Taylor, 30, and ten.
[William] Thorn, 30, and ten.
Thomas Townsend, 60.
Robert Driver, 20.
Thomas Parker, 30, and ten.
Joseph Rednap, 40.
[John] Deacon, 20.
Philip Kertland, senior, 10.
PAGE III.
To Philip Kertland, junior, 10. [Goodman] Crosse, 10.
Hugh Burt, 60. [Goodman] Wathin, 10.
Richard Brooks, 10.
Thomas Talmage, junior, 20.
Francis Godson, 30.
Thomas Coldam, 60.
George Welbye, -
Adam Hawkes, upland, 100.
Thomas Dexter, 350.
Richard Wells, 10.
[Joseph] Pell, 10.
John White, 20.
Ephraim Howe, next to the land of his father, upland, 10.
James Axey, 40.
[Thomas] Ivory, 10.
William Edmonds, 10.
Timothy Cooper, 10.
Edward Ireson, 10.
Samuel Hutchinson, 10, by estimation.
Jeremy Howe, 20.
Mr. Samuel Whiting, the pastor, 200. Mr. Thomas Cobbet, the teacher, 200.
These three pages were taken out of the Town Book of the Records of Lynn, the 10th 1 mo. Anno Domini, 59, 60, [March 10, 1660,] by me, ANDREW MANSFIELD, Town Recorder.
The "Lord Brook" to whom the grant of 800 acres was made, " was one of those patriots," says Ricraft, " who so ar- dently longed for liberty, that he determined to seek it in America." He was shot with a musket ball, through the visor of his helmet, in the civil war of 1642, while storming the cathe- dral of Litchfield. Sir Walter Scott alludes to this sacrilege, in Marmion.
" When fanatic Brook The fair cathedral stormed and took : But thanks to heaven and good St. Chad, A guerdon meet the spoiler had."
William George, 20.
Nathaniel Whiteridge, 10.
George Frail, 10. Edmund Bridges, 10.
Richard Longley, 40.
William Partridge, upland, 10 acres. Henry Gains, 40.
Daniel Howe, upland and meadow, 60,
Richard Walker, upland and meadow, 200.
Edward Baker, 40.
Edward Burcham, 30, and ten.
Anthony Newhall, 30. Thomas Newhall, 30.
Thomas Marshall, 30, and ten. Michael Spenser, 30.
Timothy Tomlins, 80.
[William] Harcher, 20. Richard Roolton, 60.
[Nathaniel] Handforth, 20.
Thomas Hudson, 60.
Samuel Bennett, 20. John Elderkin, 20.
Abraham Belknap, 40.
Francis Lightfoot, 30, and ten. Richard Johnson, 30, and ten.
Robert Parsons, 30, and ten.
173
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ANNALS OF LYNN-1638.
" He was killed by a shot fired from St. Chad's Cathedral, on St. Chad's day, and received his death wound in the very eye with which he had said he hoped to see the ruin of all the cathedrals in England."
[In the foregoing list of distributees are a few whose names appear nowhere else in Mr. Lewis's pages. Concerning some of these I have been able to collect interesting facts. And of some of the others, a few matters, deemed worthy of note will be added. They will be distinguished by italics.
[William Walton. This was probably Rev. William Walton, who, as Farmer says, was minister at Marblehead nearly thirty years, though not ordained ; having gone there in 1639. He could have been at Lynn but a short time, as nothing is found of him here before 1635 or after 1638. He seems to have been a man of enterprise and worth. And he was well educated, having taken his degrees at Emanuel college. We find him at Hingham, in 1635; and he was admitted a freeman in 1636. He became interested in the settlement of Manchester; and it seems not improbable, went there, more or less, every year, to teach. The passage from Marblehead to Manchester, by water, it will be observed, is short and safe. He died in September, 1668. Mather misnames him Waltham.
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