USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 53
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Eliot's Indian Bible must forever remain a unique example of apostolic zeal, literary energy, and industrial enterprise. "The whole translation," says Dr. Cotton Mather, " he [Eliot] writ with but one pen." And what has become of the pen, - implement worthy of precedence even over that with which Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, illustrious modern son of Cambridge, testifies that he has nsed continuously in all his writing from the days of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table until now ? The title-page of the Bible was certainly enough to stagger even a Cambridge printer : -
Mamuffee Wunneetupanatamwe UP- BIBLUM GOD Naneefwe NUKKONE TESTAMENT kah wonk WUSKU TESTAMENT.
And what shall be said of a text which contains a word like this, in Mark i. 40, -
" Wutappesittukqussunnoohwehtunkquoh,"-
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a word long enough to try a compositor's patience, if not his case, and to test the skill of a proof- reader to the utmost ? The printing of such a book at such a time, with such resources, was certainly a typographic feat far more wonderful than the lightning edition of the Bible got out in England under Mr. Henry Stevens' direction at the time of the recent Caxton Celebration, or the micro- scopic edition of Dante which has appeared even more recently in Florence, in type so infinitesimally small that it can hardly be said to have appeared at all, inasmuch as a magnifying glass is needed to read it. History does not tell us how many eyes were spoiled, and how many jaws were broken, in Cambridge, in the course of printing John Eliot's Indian Bible; but doubtless Mr. Samuel Green and Mr. Marmaduke Johnson could have furnished materials for a record.
It was a " big job," indeed, in printers' parlance ; big for the press, big for the times, and big for the Indians ; and would not one like to see the actual press which did it? Franklin's press has been preserved ; why did not a like worthy honor befall the older and more illustrious press of Stephen Daye and Samuel Green ? All that is known of it now is, that, having been in constant use in Cam- bridge up to the close of the seventeenth century, it was probably sold, after Green's death in 1702, and removed elsewhere ; while, about 1800, relics of it are said to have been in existence, and, in- deed, still in use, in a printing-office at Windsor, Vermont.1 Is it too late, even at this day, for the craftsmen of Cambridge to identify, recover, and suitably install for permanent preservation the possibly surviving remains of the first printing- press used in the territory of the United States of America ?
The details of the printing of the Indian Bible are full of interest, though we must not tarry long over them here. Marmaduke Johnson, " an able printer," was sent over from England in 1660 by the Society for Propagating the Gospel amongst the Indians to aid Mr. Green in the undertaking. He proved a better workman than citizen, and managed to make a good deal of trouble in the town, in his private capacity, as Stephen Daye had done before him. The Old Testament was three years passing through the press, at the rate of about a sheet a week. Isaiah Thomas 2 calculated that "the whole expense attending the carrying through the press 1000 copies of the Bible, 500 1 Holmes. 2 History of Printing.
additional copies of the New Testament, an edition of Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, an edition of the Psalter, and two editions of Eliot's Catechism, all in the Indian language, including the cost of the types for printing the Bible, and the binding a part of them, and also the binding of a part of Baxter's Call, and the Psalters, amounted to a frac- tion more than £ 1200 sterling."
The Cambridge press was not an independent press. As we have already seen, it was responsible to powers above it, and furthermore it was under a censorship established by the General Court; and was even amenable to the court itself. In 1667 the court ordered " a more full revisall " of " a book that Imitates of Christ, or to that purpose, written by Thomas Kempis, a popish minister," then reprinting in the " Presse"; of which some suspicion was entertained, and work on whichi was stopped until the fuller revisal could be made.
Among the more important publications of the Cambridge press, under Green's administration, beside those already mentioned, were John Cot- ton's Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes in either England, 1656; The Dying Speeches of Several Indians, 1663 ; several pamphlets, essays, or tracts, by Rev. Thomas Shepard, bearing various dates ; Nathaniel Morton's New England's Memorial; or, a Brief Relation, etc .; a long list of sermons, tracts, etc., by the Mathers ; and the election ser- mons, year by year.
It may be mentioned, as a concluding item in the list of Cambridge contributions to the early devel- opment of printing in America, that Mr. Samuel Green was the progenitor of a long line of printing Greens, - sons, grandsons, great-grandsons, great- great-grandsons, and great-great-great-grandsons, - who during their generations have done much to spread the practice of the art throughout New England.
V. A BUSY DECADE. 1640-1650.
THE printing of Eliot's Indian Bible- a feat which, by reason of its important relation to the separate history of the early press in Cambridge, has been fully noted above, a little out of proper chronological order - was only a part, and an after part, of a general missionary work among the In- dians around Massachusetts Bay; a work the glory of which Cambridge may justly share with Roxbury, and in which Rev. Thomas Shepard stood shoulder to shoulder with that true apostle, Rev.
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John Eliot. As has been eloquently said by one of Mr. Shepard's successors,1 " Let it be remem- bered, to the honor of our fathers, that the first Protestant mission to the heathen in modern times began in Cambridge; the first Protestant sermon in a heathen tongue was preached here; the first translation of the Bible by an Englishman into a heathen tongne was printed here; the first Prot- estant tract in a heathen language was written and printed here." When as yet the settlers of "the newe towne " had "scarce houses to shelter them- selves, and no doores to hinder the Indians accesse to all they had in them,"2 the dusky men of the forest had entered into familiar relations with the strangers. An old name for the Cambridge pen- insula was " Wigwam Neck." The Charles River was the boundary between two hostile tribes. The tribe which frequented the Newtown settlement lived up Menotomy way. Their chief, Nanepash- emet, was dead, and his wife, known as Squaw Sa- chem, reigned in his stead. From her the settlers took full legal title to their lands, paying a sum down in cash, and obligating themselves to give her " a coate every winter while shee liveth." These and other just and generous measures induced Squaw Sachem and some other chiefs, in 1614, to put themselves under the Massachusetts jurisdiction.
Such were the favorable circumstances under which John Eliot, in 1646, began his mission. He held his first conference with the Indians near Watertown Mill, on the south side of the Charles River, within the present limits of Newton, then called Nonantum, and within the then limits of Cambridge. " As soone as ever the fiercenesse of the winter was past, March 3, 1647," writes Mr. Shepard,3 "I went out to Noonenantum to the Indian Lecture, where Mr. Wilson, Mr. Allen of Dedham, Mr. Dunster, beside many other Chris- tians, were present." Mr. Dunster's presence may be taken as a very practical evidence of the interest felt for the evangelization of the Indians by the young college over which he presided. A later helper of John Eliot in these godly labors was Daniel Gookin, who had moved to Cambridge from Virginia in 1644, attracted by the religious privi- leges here to be enjoyed. He became Eliot's " constant, pious, and persevering companion," and a most valuable and highly respected citizen and public servant. He was made, by turns, captain,
1 MeKenzie. 2 Wonder-Working Providence.
8 The Clear Sunshine of the Gospel, etc.
major, and major-general of the militia ; represent- ative, magistrate, and licenser of the public press; general superintendent of all the Indians within the jurisdiction of the colony ; and was author of His- torical Collections of the Indians.
In the midst of all these interesting movements was the beginning also of the public school system of Cambridge. Mr. Elijah Corlet, before men- tioned, was the town's first schoolmaster. Just when he began his work we do not know, but he was a graduate of Lincoln College, Oxford, Eng- land, and he had taught long enough in Cambridge before 1643 to have " well approved himselfe for his abilities, dexterity, and painfulnesse."1 Mr. Corlet lived on the easterly side of Dunster Street, between Mount Auburn and Winthrop streets. The house in which he appears first to have taught the " young ideas " of Cambridge was on the wes- terly side of Holyoke Street, between Harvard and Mount Auburn streets, just about where Wilson's Press lately stood. In 1647 a stone school-house was built here by President Dunster and Edward Goffe. Mr. Goffe was a large landholder in the town, wealthy, and a selectman for many years. Mr. Dunster seems to have been prominent in the enterprise, and to have made a large outlay for it, which was afterwards assumed by the town. This school-house was rebuilt about 1670, and replaced in 1700. Midway between these dates, however, Mr. Corlet died, after a good and faithful service of nearly if not quite half a century. " Memorable old schoolmaster in Cambridge," Mather calls him, " from whose education our colledge and country have received so many of its worthy men."2 Master Corlet had at one time as many as five "Indian youthes " in his "lattin schoole," fitting for Har- vard; one of whom, Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, a native of Martha's Vineyard, graduated in 1665; but the number of his pupils was never very large, nor was his work self-supporting. An occasional tax upon the town, or a grant or sale of public lands, was of necessity resorted to "for his en- couragement " to remain.
Before Cambridge was a dozen years old, then, its character was fixed; it had its church, its school, its college, its printing-press, its mission to the Indians, and had taken its first turn at a synod of all New England ; and it is interesting to note that these features - the religious, the educational, the literary, the philanthropic, the controversial ---
1 New England's First Fruits.
2 Magnalia.
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have distinguished its growth ever since, and | from which the people of God had often heard the determine its position and influence at the present day.
The ten years from 1640 to 1650 were filled up with a variety of events contributive in one way or another to the development of the town, includ- ing some hardships and trials, but marking, as a whole, considerable progress. About the begin- ning of the decade an effort seems to have been made to procure Rev. John Phillips as "teacher " of the church. Mr. Phillips was an English cler- gyman, who had come to Cambridge from Salem in 1639 and built him a house "anent Charles- towne lane," now Kirkland Street, in the ox-pas- ture on its northwesterly side, not far from where the Lawrence Scientific School now stands. He declined the proposal, and removed to Dedham, and his house afterwards passed into the possession of Deputy-Governor Thomas Danforth.
In 1647 the townsmen took a census and appraisal of the inhabitants and their estates, the showing of which was: 135 ratable persons ; 90 houses, valued at £2,537; 776 acres of broken land, valued at £5 an acre; 1,084 acres of un- broken land, at 108. an acre; 500 acres of marsh, at 10s. an acre ; 258 acres of " ffarr medowes," at 6s. an acre; 208 cows, at £ 5 each ; 131 oxen, at £6 per head; 20 horses, at £7 each; 37 sheep, at £1 10s. each; 62 swine, at £1 each; 58 goats, at 8s. each ; and some other cattle.
In 1648 the town witnessed the assembling of another synod, which was even a more momentous affair than that of 1637. The solid men of New England, ministers and messengers of the churches, were all here. They gave solemn assent to the Westminster Confession of Faith, and set forth an elaborate system of church polity, which has passed into history as the "Cambridge Platform." 'This document, which still underlies the Congre- gational denomination as the charter of its outward form and order, is in seventeen chapters, each of several sections, and is a massive framework. It may be described as a declaration of all known opposites to the ecclesiastical principles of that Church of England which had been left behind, and which it was proposed to keep from following. The synod of 1648, like the former, was held in the little meeting-house on Dunster Street.
In 1649 Mr. Shepard died, to the great grief of his people. " Returning home from a council at Rowley, he fell into a quinsie, with a symptomati- cal fever, which suddenly stopped a silver trumpet,
joyful sound."1 He was in his forty-fourth year. Rev. Jonathan Mitchell was chosen to succeed him. Mr. Mitchell was a native of Yorkshire, England ; had been brought to New England by his father in 1635; had entered Harvard College in 1645; had become religiously and devoutly disposed under the ministry of Mr. Shepard ; had developed un- usual talents of mind and graces of character ; and had been invited to Hartford, Connecticut, with a view to his becoming Mr. Hooker's successor in the church there. But Mr. Shepard's eye had been already upon him, and he had promised to return to Cambridge free. This he did ; preached to Mr. Shepard's people in August, 1649, and succeeded him a year later. Meanwhile, the old first meeting-house on Dunster Street having worn out, or proving insufficient for a growing congregation, the wants of multiplying synods, and the like, it was voted by the town to build a new house about forty fcet square, and the "watch- house hill" was selected as the site. "Watch- house liill " was at the southwesterly corner of the college yard, near the present building of the Law School.
Bright light as Mr. Shepard was in the Cam- bridge candlestick, Mr. Mitchell, it would seem, outshone him. There is odd reflection of his rays in the descriptions given by Cotton Mather and other writers of the time. As a preacher, " he ordinarily meddled with no points but what he managed with such an extraordinary invention, cu- rious disposition, and copious application, as if he would leave no material thing to be said of it by any that should come after him. .... The colledge was nearer unto his heart than it was to his house, though next adjoining to it. . ... He loved a scholar dearly ; but his heart was fervently set upon hav- ing the land all over illuminated with the spirit of a learned education. .... His utterance had such a becoming tunableness and vivacity to set it off as was indeed inimitable. . ... Though he were all along in his preaching as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, yet, as he drew near to the close of his exercises, his comely fervency would rise to a marvellous measure of energy. He would speak with such a transcendent majesty and liveli- ness, that the people would often shake under his dispensations, as if they had heard the sound of the trumpet from the burning mountain, and yet they would mourn to think that they were going
1 Mather's Magnalia.
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presently to be dismissed from such an heaven upon earth."
This prodigy of the Cambridge pulpit, having been parted, by her " immature death," from the daughter of Rev. Jolin Cotton, to which " hopeful young gentlewoman " he was engaged to be mar- ried, was left at liberty to strengthen the tie which bound him to his new people by marrying the widow of his predecessor, which he did in Novem- ber, 1650, amid the acclamations of the town, the students included. But his course, thus happily begun, was not destined to be exempt from the trials which are said to be the usual lot of the minister. Early in his pastorate there set in an agitation for a division of the church, whereby such of its members as lived south of the river might set up worship and ordinances for them- selves. The seam thus opened, though it spread but slowly, ended in the separation of Newton into a distinct town. A trial much more serious was the defection of President Dunster.
When, about 1640, Mr. Dunster had been re- ceived into the church, he had signified liis assent to its doctrine and practice of infant baptism. He now began to take open ground in opposition thereto, and carried it so far ou one occasion as to interrupt Mr. Mitchell in the administration of the ordinance by a public protest. Such contumacy was not to be borne by men who had got their feet firmly planted ou the Cambridge Platform. The anabaptistical Mr. Dunster was first labored with by the minister, then indicted by the Grand Jury, and finally reprimanded in public and required to give a bond for his good behavior. But he was not the sort of man to suppress his convictions at anybody's bidding, and the requirement having been set forth by the General Court that persons unsound in the faith should not be allowed to teach "in the college, Mr. Dunster presently re- signed his office, and retired to Scituate, where he died in 1659. Scituate also furnished his succes- sor, President Charles Chauncy. It is to be men- tioned to the credit of the principal parties to this controversy, that the good feeling between them was not by it impaired. Mr. Mitchell delivered a sincere and appreciative elegy over Mr. Dunster, and Mr. Dunster bequeathed books from his li- brary to bothı Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Chauncy, styling them alike his " trusty friends and breth- ren."
-
Under the administration of President Dunster, the school which had been planted in Mr. Eaton's
time had advanced to true collegiate proportions, and its solidifying growth proceeded as steadily as could be expected, and was measurably unvexed by disputes in church and state. The very first class it graduated had taken up the work of additional endowment, as witnessed by a deed to the institu- tion from John Bulkley, a member of the class, of about an acre of valuable land nearly in the cen- tre of the town. It is the earliest conveyance on the college records, and is in Latin. But the in- crease of funds was naturally slow, and at the time of President Chauncy's accession to office the in- stitution was in some straits. The one building which then served the common purpose was badly out of repair. Not less than £100 was needed to " recover " it, and put it otherwise in decent and usable condition. The actnal college revenue was only about £27 a year, of which more than half was for scholarships. The income derived from the press and the ferry was small and uncertain.
The college at this time, it must be remembered, was quite as much a theological as a literary insti- tution. Biblical study entered largely into the course, and the students lived under a monastic code of rules. Their place of worship on the Sab- bath was in the meeting-house near by. Corpo- ral punishment was in force, and the instructors inflicted it at discretion in the form of "boxing." There was also a system of fines for the better preservation of order. The town watch was given full jurisdiction over the college precinct. The main end of the student's life was "to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life." He was to read the Scriptures twice a day. He was not " to pragmatically intrude or intermeddle in other men's affairs." He was not to "buy, sell, or exchange anything, to the value of sixpence," without the permission of parents, guardians, or tutors. He was never to use his mother tongue, except in such public exercises as he should be required to make in English. Without the leave of the president and his tutor he was to attend no public civil meeting in the town of any kind, dur- ing college hours. He was not to " take tobacco," nuless by permission of the president and approval of parents and guardians, or by valid prescription of a physician, and then only " in a sober and pri- vate manner."
Such were the features of life within the college at this juncture. Outside, the life of the little town was slowly expanding, and branching out in new directions. The opening of the college
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
precinct had given an impulse to its growth in | made it prudent for them to move on, which they that quarter. Harvard Square was beginning to did, with horses and a guide, toward New Haven. take form out of the fields and pastures around. The streets were getting widened and trodden. There was a noticeable improvement in the style of building. The new meeting-house, with its " 4-square roofe and covered with shingle," em- phasized the advancing tastes and enlarged resources of the people. A second house of publie enter- tainment had been opened on the northeast corner of Brighton and Mount Auburn streets, from which was hung out later the sign of the Blue
Anehor. Orchards were beginning to display their bloom. and yield their fruit. The ferry at the foot of Brighton Street, the use of which was attended by growing inconvenience and peril, was replaced by a " Great Bridge," which cost at least £200, and which was by far the largest and finest yet built in the colony. Homesteads began to be laid out, down along the neck, and farms up in Menotomy and beyond. A convenient horse- block and causeway were ordered by the towns- men to be provided at the meeting-house door for mounting and dismounting of such of the congre- gation as rode to and from meeting. As yet few wheels rumbled in the streets of Cambridge.
VI. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CENTURY. 1650 - 1750.
IN 1660 two strangers arrived in Cambridge and took up a temporary residence there, whose coming, had it been in a time when news travelled faster and thought acted more promptly, would have created an immense sensation. These were Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, William Goffe, the English regicides. On the restoration of the Stuarts they fled to America, and, landing at Bos- ton in July, reported themselves to Governor Endi- cott, who received them courteously. A companion of their voyage was Daniel Gookin, of whom men- tion has been made before; at whose invitation it was that the fugitives established themselves at Cambridge, and indeed under his own roof. An Edward Goffe was already a resident of the town, but there is no evidence of any relationship between him and William. The Lord's Day after their arrival they attended the ministration of Mr. Mitchell ; later, they supped with Mr. "Chancey," who made himself their comforter. They remained in Cambridge until February following, when a movement in Boston looking to their detention
In July, 1668, the talented Mitchell died, and his successor, Urian Oakes, was not ordained till 1671. In the mean time the pulpit was supplied by President Chauney and others, and the catechiz- ing of the youths of the town was systematically carried forward by the lay members of the church, the families being assigned among them. A few godless and profane fellows, who had got into the way of absenting themselves from public worship, were handed over to the constable to look after. " Mistris" Mitchell was provided for by an an- nuity ; and, by way of expediting, perhaps, the work of getting a new minister, order was taken by the church for the building of a parsonage. This was in 1669. The selectmen and deacons, with three others, were appointed a committee for the same, and the cost was met by the sale of the church's farm at " Bilrica." A parsonage lot of four acres, on the northerly side of Harvard Street, nearly opposite Holyoke, was bought of the Widow Beale, and " in the yeare 1670 theare was a house earected upon the sayd land of 36 foote long and 30 foote broad; this house to remayne the churchis and to be the dwelling-place of such a minister and officer as the Lord shall be pleased to supply." The following is the bill of " the chargis layd out for the purchas of the land and building of the house and barne, inclosing the orchyard and other accomodations to it," - the first parsonage of Cambridge : -
The purchas of the land in cash The building and finishing the house The building the barne, 42
£ 40 0s. 0d. 263 5 6
The inclosing the orchyard and yards, repayering the fencis, building an office-house, and plauting the orchyard with trees, and scaling some 22 1 10
0 0
part of the house and laying a duble floore on sume part of it.
The picture of this old parsonage, on page 325, taken from Rev. Alexander McKenzie's First Church in Cambridge, gives what must be one of the oldest views extant of the architecture of the town. And a very respectable-looking house it is ; of two sto- ries, or a story and a half, sharp-roofed, with an L, and with irregular windows, provided with a massive stack of chimneys, fronted with some graceful trees, and well fenced in.
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