USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 2
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The ships, being ready to depart, were despatched the first week in June, and arrived in Naumkeag harbor on the last days of the same month. A copy of the charter and full instructions were sent to Governor Endicott for his information. The new plantation was now called Salem. A government with authority from the crown of England, having the amplest control over the governed, to all intents independent of the corporation in England, was thus established in the colony. Whoever might be governor in Old England, we regard En- dicott's title to be considered the first governor of the colony of Massachusetts Bay as indisputable. One was the creature of the other; but the cor- poration had conferred upon its creation all the powers of local self-government itself possessed.
At this stage of the affairs of the Company a most important proposal was submitted for its consideration by Governor Cradock. This was that the corporation and its charter should be transferred to New England. A number of gen- tlemen of condition and estate, among whom we mention John Winthrop, Thomas Dudley, and Isaac Johnson, signified their desire to emigrate to New England, provided the government were removed thither. The subject was debated; an injunction of secrecy placed upon the members ; and a committee appointed to take legal advice and make report. On the 29th of August, 1629, it was voted, by a show of hands, to transfer the
21
THE MASSACHUSETTS COMPANY.
government and patent to New England. No opposition being made by the crown, immediate steps were taken to carry this decision into effect.
The high importance attached by historians to this proceeding gives rise to a multitude of conjec- tures upon the indifference displayed by the king. Whatever reason may be assigned, it is evident that neither he nor his advisers foresaw the diffi- culties to which the removal was the prelude. As for the Company itself, the acts creating a local government for the plantation at Salem are, as Hutchinson remarks, in evidence that they inter- preted their charter privileges to mean that the body corporate should continue in England.
Agreeably to the new order of things, at a court held on the 20th of October a new choice was made of governor, deputy, and assistants, from among those who were to go to New England. John Winthrop was elected governor, John Hum- phrey deputy, Sir R. Saltonstall, Isaac Johnson, Thomas Dudley, John Endicott, Increase Nowell, William Vassall, William Pynchon, Samuel Sharp, Edward Rossiter, Thomas Sharp, John Revell, Matthew Cradock, Thomas Goff, Samuel Aldersey, John Venn, Nathaniel Wright, Theophilus Eaton, and Thomas Adams assistants. Some changes took place before the embarkation. Roger Lud- low was chosen in room of Samuel Sharp; Sir Bryan Jausen, William Coddington, aud Simon Bradstreet in place of Wright, Eaton, and Goff. Dudley was subsequently elected deputy instead of Humphrey, who remained, for the present, in England.
It is curious to read that the court of assistants, at its very next meeting, was called upon to take cognizance of an act of religious intolerance in the plantation. This was the case of Jolin and Sam- uel Browne, whose names appear among the pat- entees, who were members of Governor Endicott's council, and who had been especially recommended to him by the Company as valuable persons for the enterprise in hand. These men were expelled from the plantation by Endicott because they were dis- satisfied with the form of religious worship estab- lished there ; they now claimed redress from the Company for losses sustained by reason of their summary dismissal. Both were attached to the Church of England ; both had opposed the entire separation from that church which took place under Endicott's government. Our attention is called especially to this act for its significant re- lation to the form of religious worship first receiv-
ing the sanction of the colonial government, and as an example of the exercise of the absolute power conferred upon that government. It is not known what satisfaction, if any, the two banished men received ; the record is silent upon this subject.
After some discussion about the management of the joint stock affairs, the court adjourned until the 30th of November. It was then proposed that ten persons, five of whom should be "adventurers" and five planters, should take the joint stock at its real value, and assume its management, in consid- eration of which they should be entitled to half the beaver and other trade in furs, the making of salt, and the sole transportation of goods and passengers, at certain rates, for a term of seveif years. Upon investigation it appeared that the stock had depreciated to the amount of two thirds of all adventured. It was accordingly fixed at this value and taken up by the ten gentlemen whose names follow, and who were usually denomi- nated the " undertakers." It was also ordered that the undertakers should provide a sufficient number of ships, of good force, for transporting passengers at five pounds each and goods at four dollars the ton. These ships were to be ready to sail from London by the first of March, 1630. Governor Winthrop, Sir R. Saltonstall, Isaac Johnson, Thomas Dudley, John Revell, Matthew Cradock, Nathaniel Wright, Theophilus Eaton, Thomas Goff, aud James Young were the under- takers ; and thus was consummated Governor Cra- dock's idea.
The assistants held their last court in England on board the Arbella, at Southampton, the 18th of March, 1630. No other public business ap- pears to have been transacted except the substitu- tion of the persons to be assistants, which has al- ready been mentioned.
On the 29th of March, riding at Cowes, near the Isle of Wight, were the Arbella of three hun- dred and fifty tons, the Ambrose, the Jewel, and the Talbot. The ships all carried an armament, for England was at war with France and Spain. During the early morning Mr. Cradock, the stead- fast and sagacious friend of New England, came on board the Arbella, and, seeing that the wind was favorable, advised the emigrants to improve it. At ten o'clock the fleet weighed and made sail amid a salvo of artillery in honor of their late governor as he took leave of them. Then, run- ning up the Solent, it came to anchor off Yar- mouth.
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
Besides these vessels there were lying at Sonth- | fleet again got under sail, passed Hurst Castle, ampton, not quite ready for sea, the Mayflower,1 Whale, William and Francis, Trial, Charles, Suc- cess, and Hopewell. In these eleven ships were about seven hundred emigrants, with their cattle, merchandise, and household effects. Never before had so large an embarkation for New England occurred. Its numbers, preparation, and resources bespoke success; it carried its charter and gov- ernment along with it; and it seemed to possess within itself all the requisites of a patriarchal com- munity. In all things it offers a striking contrast to the unregarded departure of the Pilgrims from Plymouth ten years earlier.
On the 8th of April, at six in the morning, the
and stood out to sea. Before ten it had cleared the Needles, but losing the wind was obliged to anchor. During the night it again weighed, and by daybreak the next morning was off Portland. This day the colonists were thrown into alarm by descrying eight ships astern, apparently in chase. Every preparation was made for action ; but upon the two fleets closing the supposed enemy proved to be English. The fleet passed Plymouth, the Lizard, the Scilly Isles on the morning of the 10th. With a favoring gale to waft them on their course, and with emotions difficult to de- scribe, the emigrants bade adieu to Old England forever.
II.
THE LEADERS: THEIR RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL AIMS.
HAVING thus far confined our relation to the plainest facts concerning the organization of the body of colonists who were henceforth to make New England their home, it is becoming in us to ask, Who and what were these men ? In what way did personal character impress itself upon the various elements of which this new body politic was to be composed, and what was the principal cause which prompted more than a thousand souls 2 to seek voluntary exile in a wilderness ? Sir Fer- dinando Gorges tells us that in a very short time numbers of people "flocked thither in heaps," whereas he had hardly been able " for money to get any to reside there." We must first seek a knowl- edge of the men, afterward of their motives. They moulded the destinies of the future commonwealth ; and we look back across the centuries with an in- terest heightened by contemplating the victories she has achieved, a pride commensurate with her greatness of to-day.
Matthew Cradock, the first governor of the Mas- sachusetts Company, was a wealthy London mer- chant. Hutchinson tells us he was " more forward
in advancing out of his substance than any other, being generally the highest in all subscriptions." To him belongs the honor of the proposal made July 28, 1629, and adopted in the following month, to transfer the government to the settlement it- self. Though he never came to New England, Cradock continued to take an interest in the colony, and to seasonably befriend it at home when the char- ter was in peril. He had establishments at Mar- blehead, Medford, and Ipswich, where his agent employed his capital in fishing and trading. He also carried on the business of shipbuilding at Medford. Cradock was a member of the Long Parliament in 1640. He died in London, August 27,1641.
John Winthrop, who, with the commission of governor, brought over the Massachusetts charter in 1630, came of a family long seated at Groton in Suffolk, England. He was bred to the law, the profession of his father and grandfather, and was noted for wisdom, piety, and hospitality. Such was the gravity and steadiness of his character, that at eighteen he was made a justice of the peace. Chosen governor of Massachusetts at the age of forty-two, he converted his estate, worth £ 600 or £ 700 a year, into ready money, and embarking at Yarmouth April 7, 1630, landed June 12 at Salem, where the government was transferred to
1 The same that brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth.
2 When Rev. Francis Higzinson arrived at Naumkeng, June 29, 1629, he reported the old and new planters at abont 300, which, with the 700 brought by Winthrop's company, make up the above number. Indeed, the number emigrating in 1630 has been fixed as high as 1,500 souls.
PUBLIC LINDARY
The Arbella in Mid-Ocean.
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THIE LEADERS : THEIR RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL AIMS.
him by Endicott. He was twelve times chosen governor, dying in office, at Boston, March 26, 1649. Winthrop spent his whole estate in the public service. His election by the Company to the office of governor, at its reorganization, suffi- ciently emphasizes the confidence reposed in him, as it also does the general estimate of his greater fitness for the weighty undertaking in which the corporation had embarked than others who had been earlier identified with it. In the colony his long service as chief magistrate confirms the wis- dom of that judgment ; for it is evident that, not- withstanding his mistakes, and in disregard of his controlling idea that the people onght to have little share in government, Winthrop continued, by the force of his personal character, his abilities, and his sincere, unselfish devotion to the public welfare, to command the unshaken trust of the majority. In cases where his own opinions dif- fered from theirs Winthrop had great tact in con- forming himself with the expressed wishes of the people. We look in vain among his associates for another man so capable of bringing the infant state through the succession of trials which beset Winthrop's early administration of its affairs.
Thomas Dudley, one of the most eminent of the Puritan settlers of New England, was the son of Captain Roger Dudley, who was "slaine in the wars." Bronght up a page in the family of the Earl of Northampton, he was afterwards a clerk in the office of Judge Nichols, a kinsman of his mother, thns obtaining a knowledge of the law which was of great service to him in his after career. He very early exhibited unusual intelligence, courage, and prudence, qualities which procured for him, at the age of twenty-one, the command of an English company, which he led at the siege of Amiens, under the heroic Henry of Navarre. He was afterwards intrusted with the stewardship of the estate of the Earl of Lincoln, which by judicious management was freed from a heavy load of debt. With a few others, although he was then fifty years of age, he undertook the settlement of the Massachusetts Colony, and came over as deputy- governor in 1630. In 1644, at the age of sixty- eight, Dudley was chosen sergeant-major-general, the highest military office in the colony. He was governor in 1634, 1640, 1645, and 1650, deputy- governor or assistant in the intervening years, and from the time of his arrival till his death, which took place at his house in Roxbury July 31, 1653, in his seventy-seventh year, was constantly
in the service of the colony. Dudley was a man of sound judgment, integrity, and piety, but he was also strongly imbued with the intolerance and bigotry of his age.
Sir Richard Saltonstall, the first assistant or magistrate named in the royal charter for the col- ony, came with his family in the fleet of Winthrop, but returned to England in the following spring. He was a nephew of Sir Richard, Lord-Mayor of London in Queen Elizabeth's time, and was born at the family seat, at Hipperholme, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1586. Saltonstall was a bountiful contributor to the company's resources, and actively befriended them in England. With Rev. George Phillips he was a principal founder of Watertown, Mass. With Lords Brooke, Say and Sele, and other Puritans, he aided in the first set- tlement of Connecticut. In a letter to Cotton and Wilson, written in 1653, he reproved the tyranny and persecutions in New England, such as fining, whipping, and imprisoning men "for their con- sciences." His death occurred in England about the year 1658.
Isaac Johnson, esteemed the richest of the emi- grants, a landholder in three counties, and called " the greatest furtherer of this plantation," was born about the year 1600. He inherited an estate of £ 20,000 from his grandfather, Robert, of North Luffenham, who became archdeacon of Leicester in 1584. With his wife Arbella, daughter of Thomas, third Earl of Lincoln, the head in that day of the now ducal house of Newcastle, to whom he seems to have been clandestinely united, he came over in Winthrop's ship, the Eagle, which in his wife's honor was rechristened the Arbella. Johnson was one of the founders of the church at Charlestown, and was one of the first to favor Blackstone's proposal to remove from that place to Boston. The Lady Arbella died at Salem a few weeks after her arrival. Her hus- band, who survived her only a month, was interred at the upper end of his lot in Boston, in what is now known as the King's Chapel Burying-Ground, the first place of interment in Boston.
John Endicott was born in Dorchester, Dorset- shire, England, in 1588. He was one of the six original purchasers of the grant for the settlement of Massachusetts, and led the party that arrived at Naumkeag September 6, 1628. In April, 1629, the company chose him governor of the plantation, in which office he was succeeded by Winthrop when the charter was transferred to New England.
26
HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
In 1636 he led an expedition against the Pequots. In the same year the military commissioners adopted his view that the cross in the king's colors savored of popery, and ordered it to be left out. lle was deputy-governor in 1641-43; governor in 1644, and from 1649 until his death, March 15, 1665, except in 1650 and 1654, when he was again deputy-governor. In 1645 he was made sergeant- major-general of the colony. In 1658 he was president of the colonial commissioners. He was well educated, brave, talented, self-reliant, and pa- triotie, but intolerant. He displayed wisdom and prudence in secular affairs, and the colony flourished under his administration.
William Pynchon, one of the assistants who came over with Winthrop, was the principal found- er of the town of Roxbury, and the first in the formation of its church. In 1636 he led a party to the Connecticut and began the settlement of Springfield, so named from the town in England where he formerly resided. Here he was largely concerned in the beaver-trade, and was for many years a magistrate. This " gentleman of learning and religion " had the temerity to dissent from the Dissenters, and the publication of his " Meritorious Price of our Redemption," in opposition to the then prevalent view of the atonement, caused his depo- sition from the magistracy and the burning of his book in the market-place of Boston by order of the court, which cited him before it and placed him under heavy bonds for future good behavior. He was forced to explain or modify the obnoxious opinions, and as he was supposed to be " in a hope- ful way to give good satisfaction," the judgment of the court was deferred until the next session, in May, 1652. Before that time Pynchon, disgusted with the persecuting and intolerant spirit of those in authority, returned to England, published a new edition of his book with additions in 1655, and died there in October, 1662, at the age of seventy- two.
Simon Bradstreet, sometimes called the "Nes- tor" of New England, was born at Horbling, Lincolnshire, England, in March, 1603. Ile was the son of a Non-conformist clergyman, was bred in the family of the Earl of Lincoln, and after spending a year at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, became steward to the Countess of Warwick. Ilaving married Thomas Dudley's daughter Anne, afterwards celebrated as a poet, he was persuaded to engage in the settlement of Massachusetts, and arrived at Salem in the summer of 1630. He was
one of the founders of Cambridge in 1631, became secretary of the colony, and as a commissioner of the United Colonies in 1653 successfully opposed mak- ing war on the Dutch in New York and on the Indians. In 1662 he was sent to England to act as agent for the colony. He was an assistant from 1630 to 1679; governor from 1679 to 1686 and from 1689 to 1692. At the age of eighty-nine he became first councillor, having been in the public service sixty-two years. He was a popular magistrate, and exhibited his good judgment in opposing the witchcraft delusion of 1692, in rec- ommending the surrender of the Massachusetts charter, and on many other important occasions. Governor Bradstreet died at Salem March 27, 1697, aged ninety-four.
Theophilus Eaton, governor of the New Haven Colony from 1639 to his death, January 7, 1658, was born at Stony Stratford, Bucks County, Eng- land. He was bred a merchant ; was deputy-gov- ernor of the East land of the Baltic Company in London, and the agent of King James at the court of Denmark. He was one of the patentees of the Massachusetts Colony, and when in 1637 his inti- mate friend, Rev. John Davenport, was compelled to quit England, Eaton accompanied him to Boston, and soon afterwards to New Haven, of which he was a founder in 1638. As one of the commis- sioners of the United Colonies he exerted himself efficiently for the welfare of New England. These quaint, lines are inscribed upon his monument in New Haven : -
" Eaton, so meek, so famed, so just, The Phoenix of our world, here hides his dust. This name forget, New England never must."
John Humphrey, "a gentleman of special parts, of learning and activity, and a godly man," deserving of especial remembrance for his services in promot- ing the settlement of Massachusetts, was a native of Dorsetshire, England, a son-in-law of Thomas, third Earl of Lincoln, and was bred to the law, a profession in which he acquired both wealth and reputation. He was one of the six persons who, in 1628, purchased Massachusetts from the Council of Plymouth, and was treasurer of the Company, at whose second meeting he was chosen deputy- governor. He did not come over until July, 1634, when, accompanied by his wife and children, he brought over money, goods, and cattle for the colo- nists. He settled first in Lynn, afterward in Salem ; and was an assistant from 1632 to 1641. In Octo- ber of the last-named year he returned with his wife
27
THE LEADERS: THEIR RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL AIMS.
to England, and died there in 1661. Humphrey's interest in Lord Say's scheme of colonizing the Bahamas had been secured by the promise of an appointment as governor ; but he was prevented from going with the expedition that sailed from Boston to take possession at New Providence, where the English found themselves forestalled by the Spaniards.
William Coddington, a native of Lincolnshire, England, and a founder of Rhode Island, came over with Winthrop. He was a prominent merchant of Boston, and for a time treasurer of the colony. He sided with Mrs. Hutchinson against Winthrop and the clerical party, upon whose triumph he removed in April, 1638, with eighteen others to Aquidneck, now Rhode Island, where he was chosen judge, with a council of three elders who were enjoined by a vote of the freemen to be " guided by God's laws." He was governor from 1640 to 1647, when a charter was obtained and the island in- corporated with the Providence plantation. After visiting England he returned in 1651 with a new charter, and was again for a short period governor of the colony. Re-chosen in 1674, he died in office November 1, 1678, aged seventy-seven. Late in life he became a Quaker, and practised that tol- erance toward others he had formerly been unable to secure for his own opinions.
William Vassall, one of the original patentees, was the son of John Vassall, an alderman of Lon- don, who fitted out and commanded two ships of war with which he joined the royal navy to oppose the Spanish Armada in 1588. He came over with Winthrop, but returned a month later, revisiting New England in 1635, at which time he was forty- two years of age. After a brief residence in Rox- bury he settled at Scituate with others who were dissatisfied with the ecclesiastical policy of the colony. Removing to Jamaica after its capture from the Spaniards, he there laid the foundation of the large estate afterwards enjoyed by his descend- ants, and died there in 1655. Samuel, his brother, also one of the original patentees of Massachusetts, was an alderman of London, and a member of Parliament in 1640-41. He was the first that refused to pay the tax on tonnage and poundage, levied by Charles I., and suffered an imprisonment of sixteen years for his contumacy.
Increase Nowell, a nephew of Alexander Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's in Elizabeth's reign, was chosen an assistant in 1629, came over with Winthrop, and continued in the public service until his death,
| November 1, 1655. He was a founder of the first church, and a ruling elder until 1632, when he became a founder of the church at Charlestown, then separated from that at Boston. Succeeding Bradstreet as secretary of the colony in 1636, he continued in that office until 1650.
It is assumed that the emigration under the auspices of the Massachusetts Company was a re- ligious movement. Nearly all historians concur in assigning to it this character. Such an assump- tion, however true in the main, must be taken with allowance. That it was not a concerted movement, like that of the Pilgrims, is sustained by estab- lished facts : still, there was a spontaneousness about it which, being taken in connection with the subsequent acts of a majority of the colonists, or of the most influential part, allows of the con- struction generally given to it. It is not possible to clear away all doubts, but it is possible to place what is known in a light where it may be advan- tageously reviewed from an impartial standpoint.
The Pilgrims, it will be remembered, were hunted and driven from the kingdom after having formed their congregation. They were wholly separated from the Established Church : they maintained their own organization in Holland. Gain had, therefore, little to do with their history up to this time. They were a band of religious exiles. Except the Dorchester emigrants, who united in a congrega- tion just before sailing for New England, there is not known to have been any organized body of Puritans in the great movement of 1628 - 30. As the leaders in this movement expressly disclaimed having separated from the Church of England, such a purpose can hardly be claimed for them. Their departure from the country was a voluntary act.
If the movement was concerted, whence the con- fusion in regard to the form of worship the colo- nists meant to adopt when they reached New England ? If it were a concerted movement of Puritans to escape from the tyranny of the Church of England, is it probable the state would have looked upon the emigration with the indif- ference it did ? These two questions being clearly answered, determine whether the emigration is to be considered one of a united body of co-religion- ists, or whether it was composed of the usual mixed constituents in which there was general agreement of religious views.
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