USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 27
USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 27
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 27
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PART III NORFOLK COUNTY
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CHAPTER XLVII "STERN TO INFLICT; STUBBORN TO ENDURE"
Norfolk County Came Within the Jurisdiction of the Puritan Ancestry -Early Trespassing Led to Exchange of Diplomatic Notes But Re- lations With Pilgrims Were Usually Friendly-Coming and Going of Roger Williams Who Founded Providence and Saved Colonists from Extinction-Ann Hutchinson and Others Banished by Religious Big- otry-Difficulties With Early Ministers-Quakers Flogged to Death -Captain Thomas Savage, and Repent, Believe and Tremble Gridley -"Plymouth Saddle on the Bay Horse."
Norfolk County differs from the other counties mentioned earlier in these volumes, inasmuch as it lies in the Puritan colony-not very far in but sufficiently to have been under the drippings, at least, of the Puri- tan sanctuary. Norfolk County towns are descended from the Puritans and proud of it. To many persons there was no difference, in their opin- ion, between the Pilgrims and Puritans. Usually the peculiarities of one have been laid to the other in popular opinion of the present day, among those who have not concerned themselves with historical matters, es- pecially related to consanguinity. But there was a difference and a dis- tinction. Volumes have been written about it. Congressman Louis A. Frothingham, of North Easton, speaking at the dedication of the Pil- grim Monument at Provincetown, in his capacity at that time of lieu- tenant-governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, put the dif- ference into few words. He said: "The Pilgrims left the Church of England; the Puritans stayed in and fought." The Puritans, in the first vessel of John Winthrop's fleet, the "Mary and John," under Captain Squeb, landed at Dorchester. Their coming bolstered up the arms of the Pilgrims. It has been said that "the Pilgrims were staunch and able colonists. The Puritans were good founders of a Commonwealth." After the Pilgrims had endured every privation and hardship, as a result of which a large percentage of the original number perished, at the end of a decade the Massachusetts Bay Colony of Puritans took possession of Boston and Salem and territory covered by many other towns which have received less credit but contributed just as much heroism, genius and patriotism. Among these were the towns of Norfolk County. Dor- chester was a part of Norfolk County until January 3, 1870, when it was annexed to Boston, and thus became a part of Suffolk County.
Out of Dorchester came Milton in 1662, Stoughton in 1726, part of Quincy in 1792, and other parts in 1814, 1819, and 1855, a part of Hyde
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Park in 1868. Dorchester's remnant was annexed to Boston in 1870 and Hyde Park was annexed to Boston in 1911.
The differences between Pilgrims and Puritans emphasize the hero- ism of the Plymouth Colony. The Puritans had been a very powerful political party in England. They came in far greater numbers than the Pilgrims, founded more settlements, and were more prosperous.
John Winthrop condensed in few words the Puritan reasons for com- ing to America, when he wrote: "It is not a place for civil and religious freedom but a community under a due form of government, supremacy of law, and the impartial administration of justice."
The coming of the Puritans was welcomed by the Pilgrims. There is in the record of Morton, the Plymouth secretary, a reference which reads :
This year (1630) it pleased God of his rich grace to Transport over into the Bay of the Massachusetts divers honorable Personages, and many worthy Christians, whereby the Lord began in a manifest manner and way to make known the great thoughts which He had of Planting the Gospel in this remote and Barberous Wilderness, and honouring His own Way of Instituted Worship.
There was some friction between the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Plymouth Colony and there is evidence that good reasons abounded in specific instances. A Massachusetts Bay shallop was wrecked on Brown's Island in Plymouth Harbor, showing that some of the Puri- tans surreptitiously traded with the Indians in the Pilgrim domains and underhandedly invaded Pilgrim territory for that purpose.
The Puritan colony was wealthy and powerful, according to the local standards and in comparison with the Plymouth settlement, but there was a principle at stake and Governor Bradford notified Governor Winthrop: "We will defend our rights, even to the spending of our lives." This diplomatic note carried a warning which was heeded by these people, who were self-accusing as well as overbearing and some- times acknowledged to themselves when they were in the wrong. Let it be remembered that Lieutenant-Governor William Stoughton said it when he uttered the words: "God sifted the grain of an entire nation when the Puritans were congregated."
The Pilgrims were far more lenient in punishments than the Puri- tans. When John Billington, one of the signers of the Compact on the "Mayflower," but a member of the colony who had given much trouble, waylaid and shot John New-comin, with whom he had had a quarrel, the men of Plymouth conferred with Governor Winthrop before exe- cuting their first murderer. No one in the Pilgrim colony was ever hanged or even committed as a witch, although the Puritans hanged many in that madness. Two were accused in the Plymouth Colony, but nothing came of it.
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The Puritans had laws and severe punishments against certain ar- ticles of dress, but the Pilgrims had no sumptuary laws of that nature, although some of the ministers in those days, as now, preached against the mode of dress enjoyed by the women of their congregations.
The Pilgrims were moderate in their punishment, even of that hypo- critical, lying and traitorous clergyman of the Anglican Establishment, Rev. John Lyford, who arrived on the "Charity," "the agent of an ecclesiastical establishment allied with political government who had been deliberately sent among them, in malice, to undermine their cher- ished beliefs." Lyford offered to renounce his ordination and become a full-fledged Separatist. The Pilgrims replied: "Neither we nor any of ours in the confession of their faith renounce or in one word con- test with the Church of England."
Lyford sent untruthful statements concerning the Pilgrims to Eng- land, copies of which fell into the hands of Governor Bradford. Ly- ford conspired with John Oldham to disrupt the colony. Both de- parted for Nantasket and Lyford, who had a wife and four children, was given six months in which to move with them out of Plymouth. Ly- ford went to Cape Ann and later to Virginia. Oldham was banished but returned and defied the Plymouth men who made him run the gauntlet, receiving blows from their muskets as he hastened toward a vessel waiting to take him away. A storm at sea brought him back again and, upon his expressing contrition, he was forgiven and allowed to remain. Later, he had a controversy with an Indian who put an end to his turbulence by means of a firearm.
The Pilgrims feared a repetition of the experience which they had with Rev. John Lyford, with possible undermining of their faith, and did not encourage immigration. London financiers discouraged Eng- lish emigration to America. Consequently, in 1627, there were only one hundred and fifty-six landholders in Plymouth - a very slow growth for a progressive settlement which had made good by every other standard and test.
Governor Winthrop's Colony was in hard straits, facing famine, when the food-laden ship "Lion" arrived, February 5, 1631. On the same ship was a young man, graduated from Cambridge, who had been admitted to orders in the Church of England, but showed a marked tendency toward Separatism. He knew England was too narrow for the development of ideas which he had, but he evidently expected to find abundant room to develop them in the New World. Irving B. Richman says that Williams, finding instead, that he was face to face with the reactionary principle of theocracy, stood "perplexed, indig- nant, weapon-drawn, challenging it by every instinct of his nature and
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at every point. It was of the old and of the darkness; he was of the new and of the light, and there could be no parley between them." This man, Roger Williams, stirred both Puritan and Pilgrim colonies, was banished from them, and probably was the means of saving both from extinction by the murderous bands of the Indians.
In the summer of 1631, Williams moved to Plymouth, which seemed more liberal than Boston and Salem. There he was tried in religious ministrations, but was sent back with the endorsement: "Williams, the disputatious, not a comfortable man to have in one's neighborhood."
About a year afterward, Williams was settled as pastor of the Salem church, succeeding Rev. Mr. Skelton, who had died. Williams declared that "no one should be bound to worship or to maintain a worship against his consent." He had a new doctrine and became the earliest active exponent in America. James Bryce styled him "an orthodox Puritan gifted with a double portion of the dissidence of dissent and the first apostle in New England of the theory of absolute freedom for the individual in matters of religion." John Quincy Adams pro- nounced him a "conscientiously contentious man." He was evidently what was called in modern times a "conscientious objector" and ob- jected to many things. Among others, he objected to women appear- ing in public without being veiled.
The Puritan has been described as "Stern to inflict, stubborn to en- dure; he who smiled in death-the Puritan." He had his inning against the Episcopalians, Quakers, Baptists, and those whom he ac- cused of witchcraft and, judged by standards of our, not his, times there were no excuses for his intolerance and persecution. He flour- ished, however, in a time when the penal laws of England, under King James I, prescribed punishment by death for two hundred and thirty- three offenses. Capital punishment was in the Puritan laws to fit thirteen offenses, a great advance from the British standard in mercy and Christianity. There were only eleven actual enforcements of these punishments.
Plymouth had six capital offenses on her statute book and two or possibly three of these laws were enforced. The offenses punishable by death among the Pilgrims, had such offenses occurred, were: "trea- son, murder, diabolical communication, arson, rape, and unnatural crimes." The stocks and whipping post were most in vogue to keep the colonists straight. Two men who fought the first duel were pun- ished by having their heads and feet tied together.
Strange were some of the punishments meted out to offenders in Colonial times, but the so-called "blue laws" were never actually writ- ten or in force. They were results of the vulgar imagination and falsifying of a Tory parson who wrote them in England. There was
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an instance, however, when a man was hauled before the Boston court and fined for kissing his wife on the street. The offender was Captain Kemble, of a British man-of-war. He, in reprisal, lured the magis- trates to his vessel for a dinner. On its deck his authority was su- preme, and there was an active application of the cat-o-nine tails on the backs of the magistrates as they scurried across the deck, to the derisive accompaniment of shouts of the captain and crew.
Williams is Still Outlawed-Preaching against the feminine styles has, in our day, become a favorite indoor sport of clergymen, but at that time it was in its infancy. Nevertheless, it had its temptations and among those who fell was Rev. John Cotton, who believed all the wis- dom of the fathers "compactly stored in Calvin." He supplied the pul- pit of the church at Salem, and found the women veiled as Williams had told them was a token of modesty so becoming to them. Every veil was down.
Rev. Cotton declared the Scriptural words did not apply in the matter of veils and he carried every woman "captive after the triumphant chariot of his rhetoric." The veils went up. It was "probably the most astounding visible result from a single sermon within the memory of man."
The fiery Endicott met Cotton in fierce,debate and Governor Win- throp had to interfere to keep the peace.
In October, Roger Williams was banished from the State by the General Court which gave him six weeks in which to depart. John Haynes was governor of Massachusetts, a man of "large estate and larger affections; of heavenly mind and spotless life." Like Williams, he lived in a somewhat uncongenial age, but he managed to allow Wil- liams to remain at Salem until spring.
The General Court was furnished with evidence that Williams was preaching "dyvers newe and dangerous opinions against the autchor- itie of magistraites" in his own house, and Captain John Underhill was sent with a small sloop to take Williams before the Boston court, with the intention of sending him back to England. But Williams fled in the night and in four days' time visited Massasoit at Mount Hope. With him Williams had made friends while at Plymouth. Williams made an agreement with the Indians for land beyond the limits of Massa- chusetts. He became the founder of Rhode Island and planted Provi- dence, a "shelter for persons distressed for conscience." His wife and two children joined him there.
In 1645, Governor Winthrop advised the General Court to recall Roger Williams but his request was tabled. While the King Philip War was raging, Massachusetts made a conditional offer of temporary
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shelter, but Roger Williams did something better than that. He in- fluenced the Narragansett Indians to stay out of Philip's War and, by his influence, prevented the red men from exterminating the white men, as was their intention. Instead, the red men were practically ex- terminated by the white men, and Indian troubles in New England were of minor mention after the death of Philip.
Other attempts were made in 1676 and as late as 1700 to secure a re- vocation of the sentence against Williams, but the General Court de- cided that the petitioners should be given leave to withdraw, inasmuch as Roger Williams himself was not asking to return.
The fusion of the Pilgrim and Puritan colonies took place in 1690, since which time there has been no continuous history of the Pilgrims. The Puritans were in the majority, after the union of the colonies. The laws were the same and few people have taken the trouble to learn from which group originated individual laws. This has been one rea- son for the popular ignorance concerning what was strictly Puritanical and what was Pilgrimistic.
A leading American Roman Catholic dignitary has said: "The Puri- tans had faults which spring from intellectual narrowness and religious prejudices, but when I consider their qualities I know not where to find such men today."
From the first, the Puritan colony exercised its right "to possess its soil exclusively and to keep it clear of nuisances." Some students of history claim that, under the charter, only the commercial privileges of the colony were exclusive and that "provided he respected them, a British subject had the same right to dwell in Massachusetts as in any of the other dominions of the Crown."
Henry M. Dexter, for many years editor of the "Congregationalist," at Boston, a clergyman of that denomination and a distinguished his- torian, claimed that the Massachusetts Puritans had as much right to do as they did in way of expulsion "as a lodge of Free Masons, going on an excursion into the Adirondack woods, would have to say distinctly that tickets will be issued to none but members of the order, their fam- ilies and invited guests."
Henry Martyn Dexter was born in Plympton, Massachusetts, in 1821, and died in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1890. His opinion is in- teresting in this connection, as he was a writer and investigator in our own vicinity and a leading Congregationalist of the country.
Martyrdom of Early Feminist-Whether the Puritans had the "right" or not, they had the "power," and the fullness of religious toleration had not arrived. So, when Ann Hutchinson, wife of Edward Hutch- inson, dared to oppose the iron-clad teachings of the Puritan clergy,
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she was called by Rev. Thomas Welde of Roxbury, a "Jezebel"; and Rev. Cotton Mather, supposed to be the wisest of all wise men of that time, said that vipers were hatched in the virago's house. Some took his words as statements of physical facts. She taught "Enter the thought world, and climb higher than the materialist; sanctification gives justification." Such an utterance was to the Puritan "proud and pestilent, laden with blasphemous and familistical opinion."
Every minister in the Colony, with the exception of Rev. John Cot- ton, was arrayed against this woman so far ahead of her time. The trial was at Cambridge and was a mockery. During its progress Rev. John Cotton, whom she had ardently supported as her pastor who "worked for the Lord under a Covenant of Grace," changed front and joined her accusers. Whether the cock crew, as it had on the historic occasion when Peter denied his Lord, history does not record.
Ann Hutchinson was read out of the church in these words:
Therefore in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the name of the church, I do not only pronounce you worthy to be cast out, but I do cast you out, and in the name of Christ I do deliver you up to Satan that you may learn no more to blaspheme, to seduce, and to lie, and I do account you from this time forth to be a heathen and a Publican and so to be held of all the brethren and sisters of this congregation and of others; therefore I command you in the name of Christ Jesus and of this church as a leper to withdraw yourself out of this congregation.
And they called her blasphemous !
The words quoted are said to be those of Rev. John Wilson, the first Puritan minister in Boston, who followed each point leading to her banishment. It was this same Wilson who climbed a tree on Cam- bridge Common and harangued the people, influencing them to restore ex-Governor Winthrop in place of Sir Harry Vane, who was governor of the colony in 1636. Vane espoused the cause of Ann Hutchinson. He was an ardent defender of civil liberty and advocate of free thought in religion. He returned to England and twenty years later was put to death by Charles II. He was given a chance to make an apologetic recantation, but answered the profligate king's sentence: "One thousand deaths for me, ere I will stain the purity of my conscience."
Governor Winthrop said to Mrs. Hutchinson after her trial: "Mrs. Hutchinson, the sentence of the court you hear is that you are ban- ished from out of our jurisdiction as being a women not fit for our so- ciety, and are to be imprisoned 'til the court shall send you away."
She asked him why she was banished and received the reply : "Say no more; the court knows wherefore, and is satisfied."
Rev. John Welde, brother of Rev. Thomas Welde, of Roxbury, who had called Mrs. Hutchinson a "Jezebel," became her insulting and sneer- ing jailer. When allowed to go, she fled to Rhode Island and then into
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New Netherland. New York City, on the Splitting Rock road at Pel- ham Manor, was where she lived and where she and all her children, save one, were murdered by the Indians.
John Wheelwright, of Braintree, was one of the "silenced" ministers who would not remain silenced. He married Ann Hutchinson's hus- band's sister. The General Court declared him guilty of contempt and sedition. He was "disfranchized & banished, haveing 14 dayes to settle his affaires." He became the founder of Exeter, New Hampshire.
The Puritans who had banished Mrs. Hutchinson and given her over to the devil could not understand why the Lord's lightning did not strike her. According to Mr. Richman, "But now God had at last done his full duty by his church."
When John Oldham was driven out of Plymouth, he received as a parting gift from each man of Plymouth "a thump on the brich with the butt end of his musket" and was told to "goe and mende his man- ers." He became a restless adventurer and in July, 1636, John Gal- lop says he saw a vessel crowded with Indians and drifting helplessly out to sea. According to Gallop, he boarded the vessel with one man and two boys and attacked the Indians, completely subduing them. Anyhow, Gallop returned with the rescued ship and John Oldham's corpse, and seems to have been victorious in what Avery calls "the first naval engagement on the New England coast."
In June, 1629, six vessels, one of which was the "Mayflower," brought to Salem four hundred and six persons, including a "plentiful provision of godly ministers," and several families of the Pilgrim church on their way from Leyden to Plymouth; one hundred and forty head of cattle and forty goats, together with provisions, arms, tools, and other things needed in a new colony.
A few years before this, one cow in Plymouth had thirteen quasi- owners who stood around at milking time to see that there was no encroachment.
Ralph Smith, a Separatist minister, was among the "plentiful pro- vision of godly ministers" who arrived at Salem in June, 1629. He had gotten his goods on board "before he understood of his difference in judgment in some things from our ministers." He was required to promise that he would not exercise his ministry within the limits of the patent without the express leave of the governor. He went to Plymouth and was the first chosen into the ministry. He resigned his pastorate after five or six years. Governor Bradford recorded it, "partly of his own willingness, as thinking it too heavy a burden, and partly at the desire and by the persuasion of others."
When Captain Myles Standish crossed the Great Divide on his Dux- bury farm, October 3, 1656, at the age of eighty-three or thereabouts,
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he left instructions to his family regarding his burial place and it was these instructions which enabled Rev. E. J. V. Huiginn, some thirty- five years ago, to locate his probable grave, now marked by cannon and granite memorials.
The inventory of Myles Standish's effects shows that his livestock consisted of two mares, two colts, one young horse with equipments ; two saddles, one pillion and one bridle; four oxen, six cows, three heifers, one calf, eight sheep, two rams, one wether, and fourteen swine.
Intolerance Rewarded by Deliverance-Rev. John Robinson, in his farewell advice to the people of his congregation as they embarked for the New World, admonished them to look for "more light to break out of the Divine Word." Later, he expressed much regret when he heard of the exploit of Captain Myles Standish and others, who slew the Indians at Weymouth, that they had not "converted some before they slew any." It seems a great pity that Rev. John Robinson did not ac- company the Pilgrims. Rather they were sent into the unknown wil- derness, unaccustomed to the toil in which they were obliged to engage with every ounce of their strength, surrounded by unnamable and un- known dangers and fears, without a regular minister to guide and di- rect their spiritual affairs, in the days when a regular minister was considered something quite apart from the regular run of humanity. As a matter of fact the Pilgrims had to defend themselves against the ministers who were among the early arrivals instead of looking to them for spiritual guidance, as in the case of Rev. John Lyford and others.
The Pilgrims may have been looking for "more light to break out of the Divine Word" but they were not ready for the light which Roger Williams glimpsed and attempted to shed abroad. Neither were they patient to investigate the possible light that might have been con- tained in the convictions and teachings of the Quakers, and were in- directly responsible for the harrowing fate of the Southwicks. These Quakers and others were sentenced by the men of Plymouth to leave that town before June 8, 1659. They fled to Salem-a sort of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire proceeding-as thence they were deported to the "House of Refuge" in Boston.
It remained for the Puritans to do the Pilgrims one better in fe- rocity and downright cruelty, as they always did. They first cast Lawrence Southwick; Cassandra, his wife; Josiah, his son; Samuel Shattuck, called "The Devil;" and Joshua Buffum, another Quaker, into the jail. Their presence became known to Rev. Charles Chaun- cey, the second president of Harvard College, and it inspired him with
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a topic for his Thursday lecture. In that holy hour he demanded from his pulpit: "Having six wolves in a trap, shall you allow them to escape alive?"
His Puritan followers took the hint. Flogging and starvation on Deer Island ended the life of persecution for Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, the elderly pair. Their son, Josiah, was flogged to death, although it required six hundred and fifty stripes vigorously applied by the strong right arm of the Puritan executioner. There was a sea- son of prayer before and after, as was the custom when the birch rod was applied with great frequency and force at Harvard College and wherever the Puritans did their duty as they saw it in the service of God.
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