USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 52
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II. RELIGIOUS BEGINNINGS. 1636 - 1637.
THE organization of Mr. Shepard's company into a church -the first permanent church of Cambridge - has already been alluded to, but deserves fuller notice as the first item in the history proper of " the newe towne," whose invest- ment with the rather more dignified and exact title of " Newtown " may be regarded as now complete. Of this transaction an account exists so complete and quaint and interesting, so full of the peculiar form and color of the time, as to belong to the reader in full : 1
" Mr. Shepherd, a godly minister, come lately out of England, and divers other good Christians, intending to raise a church body, came and ac- quainted the magistrates therewith, who gave their approbation. They also sent to all the neighbour- ing churches for their elders to give their assistance, at a certain day, at Newtown, where they should constitute their body. Accordingly, at this day,2 there met a great assembly, where the proceeding was as followeth :
" Mr. Shepherd and two others (who were after- ward to be chosen to office) sate together in the elder's seat. Then the elder of them began with prayer. After this Mr. Shepherd prayed with deep confession of sin, &c., and exercised out of Ephe- sians v. - that he might make it to himself a holy, &c .; and also opened the cause of their meeting, &c. Then the elder desired to know of the churches assembled, what number were needful to make a church, and how they ought to proceed in this action. Whereupon some of the ancient ministers, conferring shortly together, gave answer : That the Scripture did not set down any certain rule for the number. Three (they thought) were too few, because by Matt. xviii. an appeal was allowed from three; but that seven might be a fit uninber. And, for their proceeding, they advised, that such as were to join should make confession of their faith, and declare what work of grace the Lord had wrought in them; which accordingly they did, Mr. Shepherd first, then four others, then the elder, and one who was to be deacon (who had also prayed), and another member. Then the covenant was read, and they all gave a solemn assent to it. Then the elder desired of the churches, that, if they did approve them to be a church, they would give them the right hand of fellowship. Whereupon Mr. Cotton (upon short speech with
1 Savage's Winthrop. 2 February 1, 1635 - 36.
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some others near him), in the name of their churches, gave his hand to the elder, with a short speech of their assent, and desired the peace of the Lord Jesus to be with them. Then Mr. Shepherd made an exhortation to the rest of his body, about the nature of their covenant, and to stand firm to it, and commended them to the Lord in a most heavenly prayer. Then the elder told the assembly, that they were intended to choose Mr. Shepherd for their pastor, (by the name of the brother who had exercised,) and desired the churches, that, if they had anything to except against him, they would impart it to them before the day of ordina- tion. Then he gave the churches thanks for their assistance, and so left them to the Lord."
A pathetic incident formed the sequel to these interesting proceedings. Mrs. Shepard was lying at her house at this time in the last stages of con- sumption, and her reception into the new-formed church followed, as thus affectingly described in her husband's own words :-
" After the day was ended, we came to her chamber, she being unable to come unto us. And because we feared her end was not far off we did solemnly ask her if she was desirous to be a mem- ber with us; which she expressing, and so entering into covenant with us, we thereupon all took her by the hand and received her as become one with us, having had full trial and experience of her faith and life before. At this time and by this means the Lord did not only show us the worth of this ordi- nance, but gave us a seal of his accepting of us and of his presence with us that day ; for the Lord hereby filled her heart with such unspeakable joy and assurance of God's love, that she said to us she had now enough; and we were afraid hier feeble body would have at that time fallen under the weight of her joy. .... And thus, a fort- night almost before her death unto hier departure, in the midst of most bitter afflictions and anguishes, her peace continued." 1
The date of Mr. Shepard's ordination is not definitely known, but it could not have been long after the constitution of the church; and his emi- nent character must have had much to do with the part the church was called to take in an important proceeding which soon followed, of which the little meeting-house on Dunster Street was the scene, and in which all the churches around were the actors. This was nothing less than a synod composed of "teaching elders " and messengers from all the
1 Sermon by Cotton Mather, quoted by Paige.
churches of New England ; and the object of it was to put down the dangerous and disturbing doctrines of Mistress Anne Hutchinson.
Anne Hutchinson was the first strong-minded woman who made herself known in New England history. She had come over from England in 1634, bringing a mild and submissive husband with her. She was a woman " of a ready wit and a bold spirit." Connecting herself with the church in Boston, she at once made herself useful by various charitable offices. Being debarred from speaking in the ordinary meetings of the church, she gathered meetings of her own, and began to teach views which conflicted with those of the church. The novelty and vigor of her utterances attracted immediate attention. Parties were formed for and against her. Some espoused her doctrines ; others denounced them. Her sharp tongue spared nobody, but cut right and left. Whether in the right or in the wrong, she was a disturber of the peace, and the little town of Boston was in peril of being rent in twain.
What was to be done with Anne Hutchinson ?
To obtain an answer to this question the synod was called. Newtown was selected as the place, not alone, probably, because of the piety and learn- ing of its minister, but also because its people had not been infected with the alleged poison. The excitement in Boston had already risen to so high a pitch that it had been deemed advisable for the court to meet in Newtown, and at an election on the Common, Governor Vane, then in office, who had sided with Mrs. Hutchinson, was superseded by John Winthrop. Tradition runs that this elec- tion took place under an oak-tree on the north side of the Common, a little west of North Avenue ; and that on this stormy occasion Mr. Wilson, the minister of the afflicted church in Boston, a man upwards of fifty years old at the time, climbed the tree in his zeal, for the purpose of addressing the crowd. A sermon by Mr. Shepard, on this elec- tion day, undoubtedly contributed to its issues, and the synod followed.
The synod assembled on the 30th of August, 1637. We must picture to ourselves the scene presented by the little town and its meeting-house while in possession of the council. Though not large, the council was weighty. It began with the "emptying of private passions," continued three weeks, and ended " comfortably and cheerfully." Mr. Hooker of Hartford and Mr. Bulkeley of Concord presided as moderators; Mr. Shepard
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opened the services with a "heavenly prayer." " A most wonderful presence of Christ's spirit " was noted throughout the assembly. As an immediate result, cighty-two erroneous opinions were con- demned, among them those promulgated by Mrs. Hutchinson. As a later result Mrs. Hutchinson was arraigned before the General Court for persist- ing in her railing accusations and heretical teach- ings, and sentenced to be banished. Thus to Newtown fell the honor of accommodating the first general council of the New England churches, and such was the solemn atmosphere amid which its interior history, was begun.
III. THE FOUNDING OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 1636-1638.
THE event was now to occur which was to deter- mine " the newe towne's " destiny. The expected honor of being the capital of the colony it had lost, through no fault, however, of its own; but there was reserved for it the unexpected and higher honor of being the seat of the oldest, and what was to prove the amplest and noblest, institution of learning in the country.
On the 28th of October, 1636, the General Court had " agreed to give £400 towards a school or college, whereof £200 to be paid the next year, and £200 when the work is finished, and the next Court to appoint where and what building." The sum appropriated was equal to the whole colony tax for the year. In November, 1637, the Court selected " Newtowne " as the place for the college. And in May, 1638, the town granted two and two thirds acres of land, being the forefront of the present college yard towards the west, " for a pub- lic school or college," forever.
The foot of civilization was still struggling for a hold upon the shore of the New World ; frail human life was faced and threatened by hardship, toil, and peril ; fortifications remained to be com- pleted, and roads were waiting to be opened ; savage foes were in front, the seas behind, and political factions beyond the seas ; but a " public school or college " there must be.
At the time of this very important action there was living at Charlestown the Rev. John Harvard, a young dissenting minister of abont thirty, a graduate also of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England, who had become a freeman of the Mas- sachusetts colony in 1637. We may suppose that he knew the way by " the path to Watertowne "
as far as Newtown, and that he had some interest in the place itself, as well as in the project of planting a college there. For when he died, in September, 1638, it was found that he had be- queathed to the projected college the whole of his library, and the half of his other property, which latter in its entirety amounted to something like £1,500. In May, 1638, it had been ordered by the court " that Newetowne shall henceforward be called Cambridge "; and in March, 1639, the order followed, from the same authority, that the college agreed upon to be built there should be called by Harvard's name. Nothing certainly could have been more appropriate than to give the name of the university town of Old England to the univer- sity town of New England, and the name of the first benefactor of the institution to the institution itself.
Other gifts to the college followed, both of money and of books. Mr. Nathaniel Eaton had been chosen " Professor " in 1637, and to him by name, in time, was made the town grant of land. To him also was assigned the care of donations for the college and of disbursements for the building ; and under him was begun the instruction of the first class in 1638. Mr. Eaton was a scholar, but he was hardly a gentleman ; and he was not a success either as a teacher or an administrator. His abuses led to his ignominious discharge from office, and Rev. Henry Dunster, who succeeded him in 1640, was really the first president of the college. Under him was graduated, in 1642, the first class, of nine: "young men of good hope," who "performed their acts so as gave good proof of their pro- ficiency in the tongues and arts." There were " Latine and Greeke Orations, and Declamations, and Hebrew Analasis, Grammaticall, Logical, and Rhetoricall of the Psalms"; and " answers and dis- putations in Logicall, Ethicall, Physicall, and Meta- physicall questions "; and the young men were presented by the president to the magistrates and ministers, and by him, upon their approbation, solemnly admitted unto "their degree," and " a booke of arts delivered into each of their hands, and the power given them to read lectures in the hall upon any of the arts, when they shall be there- unto called, and a liberty of studying in the li- brary."1 Most of the members of the Court were present at this first Commencement, " and dined at the college with the scholars ordinary commons," reads Governor Winthrop's journal, " which was
1 New England's First Fruits.
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done of purpose for the students encouragement, and it gave good content to all."
A description of the college's outward appear- ance at this time is fortunately preserved in the same tract from which we have quoted the account of the Commencement above, which was dated at Boston in 1642 :-
" The edifice is very faire and comely within and without, having in it a spacious hall ; where they daily meet at commons, lectures, and exercises; and a large library with some bookes to it, the gifts of diverse of our friends, their chambers and studies also fitted for, and possessed by the students, and all other roomes of office necessary and convenient with all needful offices thereto belonging : And by the side of the Colledge a faire Grammar Schoole for the training up of young scholars and fitting them for Academical learning, that still as they are judged ripe, they may be received into the Colledge of this Schoole : Master Corlet is the Mr.," etc.
This first college building was of wood. The same year which saw the first Commencement saw also the creation of a board of overseers for the infant college, consisting of the governor, deputy-governor, and magistrates of the jurisdic- tion, er-officio, and the teaching elders of Cam- bridge, Watertown, Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury, and Dorchester. In the overseers were vested the funds and general management of the institution. In 1650 the court granted the college a charter, under which it became a corporation with the title of " The President and Fellows of Harvard College." And so the foundation was completed. This was nearly half a century before the founding of the next oldest college in the English colonies in North America, -that of William and Mary in Virginia, whose date is 1693. How deep down the foundations lie in the history of the past ! Shakespeare had been dead barely a score of years; " Rare Ben Jonson " had but just died ; Massinger was yet alive; so were Rubens and Van Dyke; Isaac Newton was not yet born; Charles I. was still on the British throne; and Cromwell's Com- monwealth was only a castle in the air.
The founding of Harvard College was the su- preme event in the early history of the young town, and under its perceptible influence the town life flowed along. The histories of town and church and college were henceforth for years to be knitted closely together. The college gave an impulse to the town; the church gave its im- press to the college : here was a spiritual tri-
mountainism which made of Cambridge another Shawmut in its outline against the heavens. Each fibre in the triple strand waxed bigger and stronger. The town grew ; the ministry of the godly Mr. Shepard towered forth commandingly to all the region round about; the college drew to itself a steady stream of gifts. Cambridge had already been made one of the four towns in which the judicial courts were held ; presently, on the division into counties, it was made the shire-town of Middlesex County. The building of a jail and of a court- house followed in time, though not immediately. The ferry across Charles River at Charlestown was made to yield a profit for the college, and gifts of lumber, live-stock, and labor swelled the institu- tion's schedule of receipts. But the church was not supplanted in the public attention by these incidents of civil and educational progress, as our glimpse of the synod of 1637 has shown.
Cambridge was not only the scene of the first New England synod and the seat of the first college in the colonies, but within its limits, and in connection with that college, was set up the first printing-press in what is now the territory of the United States. The history of this press, in its origin and products, is, however, so important as to demand a separate chapter.
IV. THE CAMBRIDGE PRESS. 1638-1674.
UPON the earliest records of Harvard College appears this item : " Mr. Joss Glover gave to the college a font of printing letters, and some gentle- men of Amsterdam gave towards furnishing of a printing-press with letters forty-nine pounds, and something more."
Nearly a hundred years before this a handbook of devotion and instruction had been printed in Mexico for the use of Roman Catholic priests in their missions among the natives; but the Cam- bridge press was the first press known in the Eng- lish colonies of North America. Thus early was laid the foundation of what has proved the town's distinguishing industry, her skill in which has helped to give her a world-wide fame.
The Rev. Josse Glover was an English Dissen- ter, who had become actively interested in the settlement of Massachusetts. The project of a printing-press for the young colony and its college, if it did not originate with him, was peculiarly his charge; and in 1638, having engaged one Stephen Daye for a printer, he embarked in the ship John,
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with his family, to come to New England. Daye and his family, and one or two others, took pas- sage in the same vessel. Mr. Glover died on the voyage; but the rest of the company arrived at Cambridge, with the materials for the press, in the autumn. And there the "printery," as Hugh Peters of Salem called it, was set up, the time be- ing toward the end of 1638, or early in 1639. It was nearly forty years before the printing-press was at work anywhere else in New England, and from 1640 to 1675 Cambridge did all the printing for America.
At the outset this Cambridge press was a college institution. It was "set up" in President Dun- ster's house, which was probably on Holyoke Street, nearly opposite to the spot where Wilson's Press lately stood ; and it was " run " more or less under the president's supervision. Daye was hardly an accomplished printer, if, indeed, he was not a lock- smith by trade rather than a printer at all, though he is believed to have served an apprenticeship at the case in London, and it is not likely that he would have been brought over by Mr. Glover if he had not possessed some knowledge of the craft. In 1641 President Dunster married the Widow Glover, so taking her as well as the press into his own house. By 1647 Daye's incompetence - he was probably a better pressman than compositor - cost him his place, and he was succeeded by his son, Matthew Daye, who in turn was followed by Samuel Green in 1649. Green had arrived in New England with Governor Winthrop in 1630, when he was but sixteen years of age, and had evidently lived in "the newe towne " nearly, if not quite, from the beginning. Though un- known as a printer till 1649, he was destined to manage the Cambridge press for the rest of the century, and to found a long and honorable line of craftsmen.
An absolutely complete and accurate list of the publications of the Cambridge press prior to 1650 is not now probably within the limits of possibil- ity ; the following is believed to include all known existing materials, doubt applying only to one or two titles : -
1. The Freeman's Oath. Printed by S. Daye. 1639. [On the face of a half-sheet of small paper.]
2. An Almanac for 1639. Compiled by William Pierce, Mariner. [The year begins with March.]
3. An Almanac for 1640. 1640.
4. The | Whole | Booke of Psalmes | Faithfully | Trans- lated into English | Metre. | Whereunto is prefixed a dis- course de- | claring not only the lawfullnes, but also | the |
necessity of the heavenly Ordinance | of singing Scripture Psalmes in | the Churches of | God. 1640.
5. An Almanac for 1641. 1641.
6. A Catechism agreed upon by the Elders at the Desire of the General Court. 1641.
7. The Body of Liberties. Folio. [?] 1641.
8. The Capital Laws of the Massachusetts Bay, with the Freeman's Oath. 1642.
9. Theses, etc. of the first graduates of Harvard College. 1642.
10. A | DECLARATION OF FORMER | Passages and Pro- ceedings betwixt the English | and the Narrowgansets, with their Confederates, Wherein | the grounds and ius- tice of the ensuing warre are opened | and cleared. | Pub- lislied, by order of the Commissioners for the united Colo- nies. 1645.
11. An almanac for 1646. [Only one copy known, the title page of which is missing. Believed with a good degree of certainty to have been printed by Stephen Daye.] 1646.
12. An | Almanack | for the Year of our | Lord | 1647 | - | Calculated for the Longitude of 315 | degr. and Elevation of the Pole Ar- | ctick 42 degr. & 30 min. and may ge- | nerally serve for the most part | of New England. | By Samuel Danforth of Harvard Colledge | Philomathemat. pp. 16. Matthew Daye. 1647.
13. The Psalms in Metre, etc. 2d ed. 1647.
14. An | Almanack | for the Year of Our | Lord | 1648 | - | Calculated [etc.] [Probably printed by Mat- thew Daye, though no name appears in the imprint.] 1648.
15. MDCXLIX. [ An | Almanack | for the Year of | our Lord | 1649 | - | Calculated [etc.] [Undoubtedly printed by Samuel Green, though no name appears in the imprint ; and the first work known to be his.] 1649.
16. The Book of the General Lawes and Libertyes con- cerning the Inhabitants of the Massachusetts, collected Out of the Records of the General Court for the several years wherein they were made and Established. And now revised by the same Court, and disposed into an Alphahet- ical order, and published by the same Anthority in the General Court holden at. Boston, in May 1649. 1648 or 1649.
17. Samuel Whiting, Oratio quam Comitijs Canta- brigiensibus Americanis peroravit, Anno MDCXLIX. 8º pp. 16. No date in imprint. 1649 [?].
18. A | PLATFORM OF | CHURCH-DISCIPLINE | gathered out of the Word of God : ] and agreed upon by the Elders : and Messengers of the Churches | assembled at the Synod at Cambridge | in New England | To be presented to the Churches and Generall Court | for their consideration and acceptance, | in the Lord | 4° S. G[reen]. 1649.
To the Freeman's Oath (No. 1) belongs, then, the distinction of being the first work printed in what are now the United States of America. No. 4 was the famous Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in this country, and the circum- stance should be enough to cause the name of Stephen Daye to be held in everlasting remem- brance. At this time the churches were commonly
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using the metrical version of the Psalms, by Stern- hold and Hopkins, set forth nearly a hundred years before ; but there was growing dissatisfaction with it, and a new version had been now undertaken by the New England fathers. The leaders in the work were Thomas Welde and John Eliot of Roxbury, and Richard Mather of Dorchester. They labored at their task under the inspiration of such exhorta- tion as this from Rev. Thomas Shepard, the minis- ter of Cambridge : -
" Ye Roxbury pocts, keep clear of the crime Of missing to give us very good rhyme : And you of Dorchester your verses lengthen, But with the texts own words you will them strengthen."
The work of the Roxbury and Dorchester " poets " was better than the exhortation, as wit- ness these lines from their version of the Twenty- third Psalm : -
" The Lord to mee a Shepheard is, want therefore shall not I. Hee in the folds of tender-grasse doth cause mee downe to lie. To waters calme me gently leads Restore my soule doth hee : he doth in pathis of righteousnes for his names sake lead me."
When the new version was finished, it was sent over to the Cambridge press to be printed. It was afterwards revised by President Dunster, and in course of years passed through many editions, serving the purpose of some of the New England churches on into the times of the Revolution, and after.
Of the other publications mentioned in this list, it is by no means certain that No. 7 was a publi- cation at all, there being some reason for believ- ing that the compilation was kept in manuscript. No. S was ordered to be printed in the year named. No 13 was a second edition of the Bay Psalm Book. Nos. 12 and 14 are evidently the handi- work of the same printer, Matthew Daye. The printing of No. 16 was begun, at least, in 1648. No. 18 was the first edition of the famous Cam- bridge Platform.
Matthew Daye was the first steward of the college, as well as its second printer. He died in 1649, leaving 20 s. to his minister, and " a table- cloth and napkins not yet made up" to his minis- ter's wife. To the college he gave, jointly with Mr. John Buckley, its first Master of Arts, a garden lot of something over an acre, for the use of the Fellows. This lot stood east of the college yard, fronting on Harvard Street, and was known there-
after as " the Fellows' Orchard." Gore Hall stands on what was its northerly end.
At least a hundred works bear the full Cam- bridge imprint of date prior to 1700. The chief of all were Eliot's Indian Bible and his other translations into the Indian language. The print- ing of the Indian Bible was a stupendous achieve- ment, considering the circumstances, and brings the highest honors to Samuel Green, in the early years of whose management of the press it was effected. Before 1656 a second press, with furni- ture and type to suit, had made its appearance in Cambridge, sent out from England by the " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England"; and the enlarged estab- lishment was presently put in possession of the brick building which had been previously erected near the other college halls for the service of the Indian mission, but which was now no longer in use for that purpose. The endowment of the press was increased by grants from the General Court, and its large fonts of type had Hebrew and Greek letters. From this press in the wilderness was issued, in 1661, the first edition of The New Tes- tament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Translated into the Indian Language ; and in 1663 the first edition of The Holy Bible: con- taining the Old Testament and the New, trans- lated into the same. A second edition appeared in 1685.
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