History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 108

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III > Part 108

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" After these things Mr. Pinchen and several others planted betwixt Boston and Dorchester, which place was called Roxbury.

"Now, after all thie, the Indians' treachery being feared, It was judged meet the English should place their towns as bear together as could be, for which end Mr. Dudley and Mr. Broadstreete, with some others, went and built and planted between Charlestown and Watertown, who called it Newtown (which was afterwardla called Cambridge)

" Others went out to a place between Charlestown and Salemi, called Sangust (since ordered to be called Lynn).

" And thus, by reason of discouragements'and difficulties that strangers in a wilderness at first meet withal, though as to some things hut sup- posed, as in this case, people might have found water abundant in this towo and needed not to have perislied for want, or wandered to other places for relief, would they but have looked after it. But this, attended with other circumstances, the wisdom of God made use of as a means for spreading bis Gospel and peopling of this great and then terrible wil- derness, and this sudden spreading into several townships came to be of far better use for the entertainment of so many hundreds of people that come for several years following hither, in such multitudes from most. parts of old England, than if they had now remained altogether in this townl.

"But after their departure from this town to the peopling and plant- ing of the towns aforesaid, and in particular of the removal of the Gov- ernor and the greatest part of our new gathered church, with the Pas- tor, to Boston, the few inhabitants of this town remaining were con- strained for three years after generally to go to Boston on the Lord's day to hear the word and enjoy the sacraments before they could be other wise supplied."

Thus by the dispersion of the Colony into adjacent

-I60

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

territory the following towns were established before 1649 :

Boston, in 1630; Dorchester, 1630 ; Roxbury, 1630; Watertown, 1630; Medford, 1630; Ipswich, 1634; Concord, 1635; Lynn, 1637 ; Sudbury, 1639; Glou- cester, 1639; Haverhill, 1645; Manchester, 1645; Andover, 1646; Marblehead, 1649; Newbury, 1635; Rowley, 1639; Salisbury, 1640; Wenham, 1643; Woburn, 1642; Braintree, 1640; Dedham, 1636; Wey- mouth, 1635; Ilingham, 1635; Ilull, 1644. These, with Salem, settled in 1629, were all the towns within the limits of the Massachusetts Colony established before May 2, 1649, the date of the establishment of the town of Malden.

It was not long after the settlement of Charlestown that difficulties arose concerning town boundaries. These were finally settled by the General Court. In 1633 the Court established lines between Charlestown and Newtown or Cambridge by ordering that the land " impaled by Newton men, with the neck thereto ad- joining where Mr. Greaves dwelleth, shall belong to the said Newton." The Charlestown bonnds were to " end at a tree marked by the said pale and to pass by that tree in a straight line unto the meadowing be- tween the westermost part of the great lot of land grant- ed to John Winthrop and the nearest part thereto of the bounds of Watertown." The land granted to John Winthrop here mentioned included the acres of the Ten Hills farm. On the 2d of July 1633, the Court also granted to the town of Charlestown " Mistick Side," as it was called, ordering that " the ground lying betwixt the North river and the creek on the North side of Mr. Maverick's, and up into the country, shall belong to the inhabitants of Charlestown." On the 3d of March 1636, another order of Court was made providing that " Charlestown bounds shall run eight miles into the country from the meeting-house if not other bounds intercept, reserving the propriety of farms, granted to John Winthrop, Esq., John Nowell, Mr. Cradock, and Mr. Wilson to the owners thereof, as also free ingress and egress for the servants and cattle of the said gentlemen and common for their cattle, on the back side of Mr. Cradock's farm." No further grants were made to the town after 1640, and not much time elapsed after that date before its boundaries began to be broken by the formation of new towns.

In 1633 William Wood, the author of " New Eng . land's Prospect," gives the following description of Charlestown :

*In the math side of Charles River is Charlestown, which is another neck of land on where north side rons Mistick River. This town from all things may be well paralelled with her neighbor, Boston, being in the mme fulnen with her bare neck and constrained to borrow con- Ventonces from tir mein and to provide for themselves farma in the country for their better anbei fonce. At this town there is kept a ferry- lot to carry fungere over Charles River, which between the two towne lan quarter of a male over, being a very deep channel. Here may ride forty whipant & the. Ip higher it isa broad bay, being about two miles between the shore 4 thte which runs Stony River and Muddy River. Towards the southwest, in the middle of the bay, ian great oyster bank Towards the north west of this bay is a great creek, upon whose shore is

situated the valley of Medford, a very fertile and pleasant place and tit for more inhabitants than are yet in it. This town is a mile aud a balf from Charlestown." "The next town is Mistick, which is three miles from Charlestown hy land and a league and a half by water. It is seated by the water side very pleasantly ; there be not many houses as yet. At the head of thie river are great and spacious ponde whither the Alewives press to spawn. 'This being a noted place for that kind of fisb, the English resort hither to take them. On the west side of this river the Governor hath a farm where he keeps most of bis cattle. On the east side is Mister Cradock's plantation, where he hath impaled a park where he keeps bie cattle till he can store it with deer. llere, likewise, he is at charges of building ships. The last year one was upon the stocks of a hundred ton ; that being finished, they are to build one twice her burden. Ships without either ballast or loading may float down this river ; otherwise the oyster bank would binder them which crosseth the channel."

After the departure of Rev. Mr. Bright from Charlestown, in 1630, whose ministrations were not over an organized church, the first church of Boston was organized July 30, 1630. John Wilson was chosen teacher; Increase Nowell, ruling elder ; Wil- liam Gager and William Aspinwall, deacons. This was the fourth church in New England. The Plym- outh Church was the first, the Salem Church the second, the Dorchester Church, organized in Eng- land, the third, and the Boston Church the fourth.

This church was first gathered in Charlestown, and at the end of three months removed to Boston. During the two following years the people of both Boston and Charlestown attended this church. On the 5th of June, 1632, Rev. Thomas James arrived at Charlestown, and immediate steps were taken to form a church in that town. On the 14th of October thirty-five per- sons were dismissed from the Boston church, and on the 2Ist of that month the first publie services were held. The new church was formed November 2, 1632, and Mr. James was chosen pastor. The thirty-five persons forming the church were Inerease and Parnel Nowell, Thomas and Christian Beecher, Abraham and Grace Palmer, Ralph and Jane Sprague, Edward and Sarah Convers, Nicholas and Amy Stowers, Ezekiel and Susan Richeson, Henry and Elizabeth Harwood, Robert and Jane Hale, George and Margaret Hlucheson, Thomas and Eliza- beth James, William and Ann Frothingham, Ralph and Alice Mousall, Richard and Arnold Cole, Rich- ard and Mary Sprague, John and Bethiah Haule, William Dade, Thomas Minor and Thomas Squire.

In 1633 the relations between Mr. James and his people became so nnpleasant that a division of the church was threatened. This division, however, was healed when Rev. Zechariah Symmes arrived in Charlestown and became pastor, as the successor of Mr. James. During the pastorate of Mr. Symmes the town of Malden was established. In 1638 the town of Charlestown voted that a large part of the grant of land which afterwards included Malden should be reserved " for such desirable persons as should be received in," or for " such as may come with another minister." The part so reserved was described as lying "at the head of the five acre lots and running in a straight line from Powder 11orn Hill to the head

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MALDEN.

of North River, together with three hundred acres above ('radock's farm." Before 1640 a few settlers had found their way from Charlestown to the Mistick side, but before the establishment of the town of Malden no church had been organized within that territory. Forming an exception to the general rule, the town preceded the church, and was not its creation. But though no organized church existed, the distance from the parent church at Charlestown rendered it necessary to establish independent re- ligous services, and employ some minister to officiate. It is recorded that at that time, Mr. Sargeant, "a Godly Christian," and some young students from the college broke the seals to the people. As the settle- ment on the Mistick side grew, the desire soon sprang up in the minds of the people to form both an independent town and an organized independent church. On the 1st of January, 1649, a committee of men living on the Charlestown side of the river was chosen " to meet three chosen brethren on Mis- tick side," to agree upon the terms of a separation and the boundaries of a new town. The committee reported that, "to the end the work of Christ and the things of his house there in hand may be more comfortably carried on, it is agreed as followeth : that the Mistick side men should be a town by themselves." In accordance with the report of the committee, and in consequence of the assent of the Charlestown men to the formation of the new town, the Court of Assistants, on the 2d of May, 1649, old style, or the 12th of May, new style, " upon the peti- tion of Mistick side men, they are granted to be a distinct towne, and the name thereof to be called Maulden.'

The name of the town is due to the fact that some of the settlers came from the town in Eng- land bearing that name. It was largely the cus- tom, not only among the Puritans of Massachu- setts, who had only recently left the scenes of their old English homes, but also of the Pilgrims of Plymouth, who had long been weaned from loving associations of English life, to give to New England towns, and even to hamlets and outlying districts and farms and hills and plains, the names with which they were familiar in the land from which they had come. The writer of this sketch owes to some of these names on the estates of early Plymouth settlers the discovery of the spot of their birth, or that from which they had migrated to the New World. Malden in England lies in the county of Essex, about thirty-eight miles from London, and is supposed to be the ancient Camalodunum, once the capital of Cuno- beline, an old British King; and the seat of the first Roman Colony in Great Britain. Cunobeline or Cymbeline flourished in the year + of the Christian era. Not many years later the Emperor Claudius, after his invasion of Britain, established at Malden a | Roman colony, and it is said, made it a place of magnifi- cence and beauty. It was written Maeldune by the

Saxons, being composed of two words-Mael, a cross, and dune, a hill. In the time of the Conqueror it was called Meldone, and subsequently Meaudon, Mauden, Maldon and Malden.

The early records of the town of Malden are lost and therefore no list of its earliest settlers has been pre- served. It is known, however, that among them were Joseph Hills, Ralph Sprague, Edward Carrington, Thomas Squire, John Wayte, James Greene, Abra- ham Hill, Thomas Osborne, John Lewis and Thomas Caule. Of many of these men little is known. Jos- eph Ifills came with his wife Rose from Malden in England. In 1647 he was the Speaker of the House of Deputies and edited the revision of Massachusetts laws printed in 1648, which was the first code of laws established by authority in New England. It was undoubtedly in honor of him that the town was named. He removed to Newbury in 1665.

Ralph Sprague was the oldest of three brothers, all of whom came to Charlestown. The two others, Richard and William, have been already referred to. They were the sons of Edward Sprague, a fuller, of Upway, in Dorsetshire, England. Ralph was about twenty-five years of age when he arrived. In 1630 he was chosen constable and made freeman, and, in 1632, was one of the founders of the Charlestown church, He was a selectman and representative, and a member of the artillery company. He died in 1650, leaving four sons-John and Richard, horn in England; Samuel, born in J631, and Phineas-and a daughter, Mary, who married Daniel Edmands. His widow, Joanna Sprague, married Edward Converse, and died in 1680.

Thomas Squire was a freeman in 1634, and, in 1636, a member of the artillery company.

After the organization of the town Joseph Hills was chosen its first deputy to the General Court, John Wayte, the first town clerk, and Thomas Squire, William Brackenbury, John Upham, John Wayte and Thomas Caule, selectmen, and Richard Adams, constable.

In 1650 Rev. Marmaduke Matthews was invited to settle as pastor over the church in Malden, which until that time had no ordained minister. Mr. Mat- thews was born in Swansey, in Glamorganshire, in Wales, in 1605. It is known that in 1623 he was a scholar in All Souls' College, Oxford. lle arrived in Boston from Barnstable, England, September 21, 1638, and was first settled over the church in Yar- mouth, in the Colony of Plymouth, where he went with its earliest settlers. Nathaniel Mortin, in " New England's Memorial," speaks of him as one "of the Godly and able Gospel Preachers with which the Lord was pleased of his great goodness richly to ar- complish and adorn the Plymouth Colony." Ile left Yarmouth about the year 1647, and removed into the Massachusetts Colony.

Previous to the invitation extended to Mr. Mat- thews to settle in Malden, invitations were sent to

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

Mr. Miller, of Rowley, Mr. Blenman, John Wilson (son of the Boston minister), Samuel Mather, Ezekiel Cheever and several others. But difficulties, soon after the settlement of Mr. Matthews, arose in the church. In 1649 the people of Hull, where Mr. Mat- thews had preached, asked the General Court for " encouragement " to him to return to them. At that time the Court assisted feeble churches, and the en- couragement asked for was financial aid from the Colonial treasury. The Court replied-"that it in no way judged it meet to grant the inhabitants of Hull their desire," and further said that they found several erroneous expressions, "others weak, inconve- nient and safe," for which it judged it proper to order that Mr. Matthews should be admonished by the Governor in the name of the Court. It was true that the preaching of Mr. Matthews was peculiar, and his doctrinal opinions were different from those of other New England ministers. Before his settlement in Malden the churches of Charlestown and Roxbury remonstrated with their Malden brethren against his ordination. In 1650 Mr. Matthews asked of the Court the privilege of explaining his language to which exceptions had been taken, and, on the 22d of May, the Court ordered that he should have a hearing at the house of Mr. Philips, of Boston, before the elders of Boston, Charlestown, Roxbury and Dor- chester. The explanation at the conference was not satisfactory, and at the General Court held on the 7th of May, 1651, a bill was presented complaining of the " former and later miscarriages " of Mr. Matthews, and he was ordered to appear and make answer. After a hearing it was determined that he "had for- merly given much offense to magistrates, elders and many brethren by unsafe and unsound expressions in his public teaching; that he had failed to give sat- isfaction to those magistrates and elders who had been appointed for the purpose at his request; that he had since delivered other unsafe and offensive ex- pressions ; that magistrates, ministers and churches had written to the church in Malden to give infor- mation of these offences, and to advise against pro- ceeding to ordain him; and that yet, contrary to all advier and the rule of God's Word, as also to the peace of the churches, the church of Malden hath proceeded to the ordination of Mr. Matthews; there- fore, taking into consideration the premises and the dangerous consequences and effects that may follow such proceedings, it orders that all the offences touch- ing doctrinal points shall be duly considered by a committee of nine of the magistrates and Deputies." The committee was authorized to call to its aid the reverend elders, and was directed to report at the next session of the Court. The Malden church was also ordered to appear and answer to the complaint of ordaining their minister under such circumstances. The nine magistrates sitting in the case were, Simon Bradstreet, Samuel Simonds, William Hawthorne, Edward Johnson, John Glover, Eleazer Lusher, Dan-

iel Gookin, Richard Brown and Humphrey Atherton. Mr. Matthews was required to appear on the 11th of June, 1651, and on the 15th he submitted the follow- ing so-called confession to the council :

"To ye Honored Committee of ye Generall Court, appointed to examine some doctrinall pointe delivered att Hull and since yt time at Malden, by M. M.

Honored of God and of hie people :

" Having given you an account of my eence and of my faith in ye couclusions, wich were accused before you (or others) should count that faith a fausie, and that seuce to be non-sence, I desire yt God may forgive them : I doe, concesviag yt ench doe not yet soe well know what they doe, se they shall know hereafter.

" Yet, in case yt this should reach any satisfaction to such as art (yett unsatisfied with my expressions, for to know that I doe acknowledge yt there be eundrie defecte in eundry pointe yt I have delivered; I doe hereby signifie yt through mercy I cannot but see and also iugenu- ously confesse yt some of my sayings are not safe nor sound in the super- lative degree, to-wit: they are not most safe, nor yett eyther sound or safe in a comparative degree ; for I easily yeald yt not only wiser uien probably would, but also I my self possiblie mought have made out x's mind and my owu meaning in terms more sound and more safe than I have doue had I not been too much wanting, both to his sacred majesty whose unworthy messenger I was, and also to my hearers, and to my self, for wch I desire to be humbled, and of which I desire to be healed by ye author of both. As I do not doubt but yt conscientious and char- itable-hearted Christiane (whose property nod practice it is to put uppon doubtfull positions not ye woret construction hut ye hest) will discerne as I doe, yt there is a degree of soundoess in what I doe own, though but a positive degree.

" !Towever it is and (1 trust) forever shall he my case to be more cir- cumspect than I have hitherto been io avoyding all appearances yt way for ye time to come yt sve I may ye better approve my self, through ye grace of Christ and to ye glory of God, euch a workman as need not be ashamed. To ye interim I remayne amongst hie unworthy servante ye most unworthy, and :-- Your accused and condemned

fellow-creature to commend in ye things of Christ.

" MARMADUKE MATTHEWES.

" Boston, this 13th of ye 4 month, 1651."

The above confession was not held to be satisfac- tory, and the marshal was ordered to levy on his effects to pay the fine which was imposed upon him. As no effects could be found beside his library, it was ordered that the execution be "respited until other goods appear besides books." In the mean time he remained with the Malden Church, retaining its con- fidence and esteem. On the 28th of October, 1651, the following petition, signed by the women of his church, was sent to the General Court :

" To the lon'd Court :

" The petition of many inhabitants of Malden and Charlestown of Mistick side humbly sheweth .

"That the Almighty Gud, in great mercie to our souls, as we trust, hatb, after many prayers, eudenvors and long waiting, brought Mr. Matthews among usand put him into the work of the ministry ; by whose pions life and labors the Lord hath afforded ue msuy saving convictions, directions, reproofs and consolations ; whose continuance in the service of Christ, if it were the good pleasure of God, we much desire ; and it is our humble request to the honored Court that you would please to pass by some personal and particular failings (which may, us we humbly conceive, be your glory, and Do grief of heart to yon in time to conie), and to permit him to employ those talents God hath furnished him withal; 80 shall we, your humble petitioners, with many others, he honil to pray, &c., 28-8-51.

" Mrs. Sorgeant. Juan Sprague. Jane Learned. Elizabeth Carrington.

Margaret Pementer.

Han. Whitemore. Eliz. Green.

Mary Rust.

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MALDEN.

Bridget Squire. Mary Wayte. Sarah Hills. An Bibble.

Eliz. Grover.

Han. Barret.

Eliz. Mirrable.

Sarah Osbourn.

Eliz. Green.

An. Hett.

Wid. Blancher.

Mary Pratt.

Eliz. Adams. Rebec. Hills.

Eliz. Green.

Joan Chadwicke.

Sarah Bucknam.

Margaret Green.

Thankland Sheppie.

Helen Lnddington.

Susan Wellington.

Fran. Cooke. Eliz. Knowker. Bridget Dexter.

Joana Call.

Rachel Attwood.

Lydia Greenland.

Marge Welding."

But notwithstanding this petition and a subsequent further confession of Mr. Matthews, the Court refused to remit the fine, and in October, 1651, arraigned the Malden Church for persisting in the ordination of their minister. In their answer to the arraignment the church said, " We know of no law of Christ or of the country that binds any church of Christ not to ordain their own officers without advice of magistrates and churches. We freely acknowledge ourselves en- gaged to any that in love atford any advice unto us. But we conceive a church is not bound to such advice, any farther than God commends it to their understand- ing and conscience. Our laws allow every church free liberty of all the ordinances of God according to the rule of the Scripture ; and in particular, free liberty of election and ordination of all their officers from time to time, provided they be picus, able and ortho- dox, and that no injunction shall be put upon any church officer or member in point of doctrine or dis- cipline, whether for substance or circumstance be- sides the institutions of the Lord."

The answer was of no avail, and on the 31st of Oc- tober, 1651, a fine of fifty pounds was levied on the estates of three of the members of the church, who were required to assess the sum on the remainder of the offending brethren. Finally the fine of the ten pounds against Mr. Matthews was remitted, and ten pounds of the fine levied on the church members were re- mitted, and in the course of the ten following years the remaining forty pounds were paid.

In 1652, Mr. Matthews left Malden, and after preaching a short time in Lynn, returned to England, where he became vicar of the St. John Church in his native town of Swanzey. After the accession of Charles the Second to the throne, under the Act of Uniformity, passed in 1662, he gave up his living rather than yield to the requirements of the law. Af- ter twenty years, during which, as he said, he was "comfortably maintained by the children of flod, by his own children and by the children of the world," he died in 1683.

Though it is no part of the writer's plan to present in this chapter anything more than an outline of the ecclesiastical history of Malden, leaving to the pen of another the delineation of its details, the experience of the Malden church in its earliest pastoral relations is here included as essential to a correct portrayal of

the methods and principles of the government by which Massachusetts Colony was controlled, and under which the various towns came into being.

In the Plymouth Colony it was different. While the Puritans of Massachusetts brought with them the narrow spirit against which they had contended in the Old World, the Pilgrims of Plymouth, almost for- getful of the persecutions from which they had suf- ered, weaned during their residence in Holland from the ties which had once bound them to their English home, and chastened by their long exile into a new life in which old resentments had no place, per- mitted in their little communities the freest scope to individual freedom of opinion on matters pertaining to the church. So long as the spirit of the Pilgrims prevailed in the Plymouth Colony, it had never failed to exert an influence in mellowing and softening the asperities of its more rigid neighbor. But in later years, when the tide of population had flowed in from Massachusetts to settle its towns and control its legis- ation, then and not till then were laws, betraying a narrow and persecuting spirit, copied from the Massa- chusetts Code and placed on its statute-books.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 108

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1278

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278