USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume I > Part 21
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Why writers from 1700 down to the present should make so much of witchcraft in New England and overlook the vast amount of material to be found in the histories of the European countries of that time, is hard to understand. William Poole, in his chapter on Witchcraft in the "Memorial History of Boston," remarks that "A full and impartial ac- count of English and Scottish diabolism has never commended itself as a subject of historical investigation, to a modern English writer." He also points out that "While it (the witchcraft delusion) raged in Europe, 30,000 victims perished in the British Islands, 75,000 in France, 100,000 in Germany, and corresponding numbers in Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Sweden. Witchcraft in New England was of a sporadic type com- pared with its epidemic and protracted violence in the Old World; and yet the thirty-two executions in the New England colonies, for supposed confederation with devils, have filled a larger space in history and in public attention than the thirty thousand similar executions which oc- curred in the mother country. . . . The New England colonists had no views concerning witchcraft and diabolical agency which they did not bring from the Old World. The persecutions in England were never carried on with a blinder zeal and more fatal results than during the first twenty years after Governor Winthrop and his company landed in Boston."
The Four Victims of the Witchcraft Persecutions-It is hardly neces- sary to go far into the nauseous details of the witchcraft persecutions as found in the enormous' mass of literature concerning them which has come down to us. Executions for diabolism were but few in Boston; there were only four of which there are records. These occurred over a period of forty years, and three of them occurred before Increase Mather was seventeen. The first execution was that of Margaret Jones of Charlestown, June 15, 1648. Her crime seems to have been that she was
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strong minded, had a temper, talked too freely and to the point. A boy of the time, John Hale, with some of his neighbors visited her the day of her execution, and says of the incident : "The first (witch executed) was a woman of Charlestown, Anno 1647 or 1648. She was suspected, partly, because that, after some angry words passing between her and her neighbors, some mischief befell such neighbors in their creatures (cattle) or the like; partly because some things supposed to be bewitched, or have a charm upon them, being burned, she came to the fire and seemed concerned." She insisted to the end that she was free from witchcraft. Even after her death, her reputed diabolism clung to another, for her husband upon taking ship to leave Boston was thrown into prison, be- cause the vessel which was rolling at her wharf, stopped doing so when the man was ashore. This story is recounted with all seriousness in the Journal of Governor Winthrop.
Mary Parsons, of Springfield, was the second to be executed in Bos- ton, May 29, 1651. As she was indicted on two counts, the first being witchcraft and the second "for murdering her own child." She confessed to the second count, and was condemned for this, so this may fairly be eliminated from the executions in Boston for diabolism. The third vic- tim was Mrs. Ann Hibbins, widow of one of the leading merchants of Boston, and one of the most honored citizens of the colony. Wealthy in her own right, of high social standing, reputed to be the sister of the former Governor, Richard Bellingham, it seems strange that such a woman should have been put to so ignominious a death. And it is even more strange "that not a particle of contemporary evidence on which she was convicted has been preserved." If we may infer anything from tradition and conjectures, this was another case of an ill temper which aroused the wrath of the neighbors. Much money had been lost during the later years of her husband's life; the lady became crabbed and quar- relsome until her exasperated neighbors accused her of witchcraft. .
The Case of Goody Glover-The writer would not imply that the cases of witchcraft in New England were incidents of citizens trying to be rid of unpleasant neighbors, but it is rather odd that most of the charges of witchcraft were made against persons whose tempers made for them enemies of their associates. The last execution for witchcraft in Boston was that of Goody Glover, on November 16, 1688. Concern- ing this affair there is a large amount of detail given by the Mathers and other contemporaries. To quote a bit from Governor Hutchinson's ab- stract of the case: "Four children of John Goodwin . . . were gener- ally believed to be bewitched . . . The children were all remarkable for ingenuity of temper, had been religiously educated, and were thought to be without guile. The eldest was a girl of thirteen or fourteen years.
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She had charged a laundress with taking away some of the family linen. The mother of the laundress was one of the wild Irish, of bad character, and gave the girl harsh language; soon after which she fell into fits which were said to have something diabolical in them. One of her sis- ters and two of her brothers followed her example, it is said, and were tormented in some parts of their bodies at the same time, although kept in separate apartments . . , (omitting a description of the disorders). The ministers of Boston and Charlestown kept a day of fasting and prayer at the troubled house, after which the youngest child made no more complaints. The others persevered, and the magistrates then inter- posed, and the woman was apprehended; but upon examination would neither confess nor deny and appeared disordered in her senses. Upon the report of physicians that she was compos mentis, she was executed, declaring at her death that the children would not be relieved." The children were not relieved by her death. Cotton Mather wrote: "It came to pass accordingly, the three children continued in their furnace which grew seven times hotter than before, and they gave more sensible demonstrations of an enchantment, growing very far towards a posses- sion of evil spirits." The children eventually grew out of their indis- positions, and became thoroughly normal citizens.
Several other cases of witchcraft occurred in Boston in later years, mostly of the same character as the bewitchment of the Goodwin chil- dren. The Mather method of prayer and fasting was used in their treat- ment and seemingly was efficacious. Mather wrote: "All that I have now to publish is, that Prayer and Faith was the thing which drove the Devils from the children; and I am to bear this testimony unto the world; That the Lord is nigh to all them who call upon Him in truth, and that blessed are they that wait for Him." However much Mather may have been perplexed as to the nature of diabolical possession, he never wavered in his full belief in its reality, and in the efficacy of prayer in its cure. There is this which must be put large on the credit side of his sheet by those who would sit in judgment: he tried to keep private the names of those accused by those afflicted lest some "good person" might suffer "blemish." He seems to have had his doubts of the right- ness of "spectral evidence" as accepted by the Salem courts in proof of witchcraft. Naturally Cotton Mather was much sought by persons ac- cused of diabolism, and if he visited Salem at the height of the Delusion, it was to minister to those accused; "he never attended an examination or a trial."
The witchcraft delusion eventually went to such extremes that no one was safe from accusation. Even Mr. Willard, pastor of the Old South church, came under the ban, and the wife of the royal Governor, Lady Phips was named. The jails were filled, executions multiplied, everyone
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began to fear for his safety. Something had to be done and that immedi- ately or "the country would be devoured by the flames." It was Gov- ernor Phips who brought the proceedings to an end. The court insti- tuted for the prosecution of witches was summarily dismissed, and a general pardon issued to all those accused or convicted. The "witch- craft delusion" did not "explode" and disappear at this time, as some writers would have it; it simply ceased to be an important factor in the affairs of that period. Accusations were brought against individuals for many years afterward, but juries could not be found who would bring in a verdict of guilty. A few of the leading actors made public confession of wrong doing in the trials, Judge Samuel Sewall being the most not- able. The most of those concerned believed, as did Mather, that they had acted "according to the best light God had given them."
The witchcraft persecutions ceased and the end of the colonial period came within a few years of each other. The charter was lost in spite of the strenuous efforts made to keep it in force. Increase Mather, who had been in England representing the colony in the endeavor to have the ancient charter restored, returned beaten in this, but with Sir William Phips, his choice for Governor, if a royal province Massachusetts had to be. Mather was still president of Harvard College while abroad, and one of his efforts in England had been to secure a new charter for the col- lege, which would make it strictly a non-conformist institution. The King had other plans; at least Mather failed in this. His absence from the school had made it possible for those who were no friends of Mather to gain the balance of power on the board, so that eventually Increase Mather completely lost his hold upon the college. Later the son, Cotton, desired the executive chair at Cambridge, but John Leverett was chosen in his stead. To make matters worse, thirty-nine ministers enthusiastic- ally endorsed the election of Leverett. This was in 1707; Cotton Mather lived and labored for more than twenty years after this, but never re- gained the influence or the power he had held. The "dynasty of the Mathers" had another representative who carried it on until well after the Revolution, but its dominancy in the affairs of Boston had come to an end in the early part of the century.
Boston as the Capital of a Province-The provincial period, with its ten or a dozen royal Governors, produced very few outstanding Bostoni- ans. Or more correctly, the first half of this period developed none, since it covers the years which saw the rise of those notables who began and led the revolt which separated the English colonies of America from Great Britain. One might include Samuel Sewall, "the Pepys of the Puritans," but this famous jurist and diarist was a contemporary of Cotton Mather and survived him but two years. Possibly he was the
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most typical citizen of Boston, his pen pictures of the town and its life are the clearest and best of his day. He served both town and State in many capacities, and he was a most remarkable person. But he was, after all, one of the old school, thoroughly orthodox, a believer in the retention of the ancient things, and as such must be considered with the Mathers, although in later years he was none too friendly with Cotton.
The royal Governors were undistinguished as a whole, possibly for the very good reason that the office was one of multitudinous troubles and uncertain and limited salary. It was not a happy position for a gentleman to be placed as ruler over a people who hated the character of the rule, and to receive such pay as this same people cared to give him. Not many sought the place, and those who were appointed, without ex- ception, rued the day they began their magistracy. Some of the Gov- ernors may have been greater men than such records as we have of them seem to indicate. The provincial period was one of war, as far as the province was concerned. The strife between England and France was repeated on this side of the ocean, and expedition after expedition was sent to various parts of Canada, until the power of France was definitely and forever broken in America. Much of the war in this country was carried out under the directions of the royal Governors, some of whom were utter failures as military men ; a few showed some of the essentials to leadership.
Religious and Social Changes-This was also an era of expansion for Boston, commercially and socially, and it might be added, religiously. Not only did the rise of denominations that knew not Puritanism mark the period, but within the Puritan church a new spirit had entered. There was less unanimity of opinion, differences in faith, and wide changes made in polity. Meanwhile the Episcopal, Baptist, Quaker, Presby- terian and Methodist churches had congregations in Boston, were build- ing their separate meeting-houses, and were carrying on an active propa- ganda. Religion was becoming a matter of choice rather than of poli -. tics, and was the better for it. When Whitefield came with his message, he was agreeably surprised to receive a ready hearing, although some- what disappointed in the lack of permanent results.
Social changes were going on as great as those in religion. The royal government brought a different class of folk in their train, one accus- tomed to social graces, to ease of living, to seeking the pleasures of life. There were many in the colony who had become prosperous, and when public opinion allowed, as it did under the governors, began to spread their wings and seek other diversions than hard work. Naturally Bos- ton, as the capital and principal town of the province, became the center to which these came. Boston not only grew rapidly in population,
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but took on metropolitan airs and provided the attractions which a me- tropolis must supply if it is to attract and hold those of the province and the newcomers from abroad. Business was stimulated, shops multiplied, money or its equivalent was plentiful and circulated easily. Peter Fan- euil, Huguenot merchant and public benefactor, gave to the town the hall that bears his name; there was a town house, a province house, ten church buildings, four schools and one hundred and sixty warehouses, all this in 1740. A Mr. Bennett, visiting Boston about this time, wrote a history of New England and recounted the impression gained during his travels. Of Boston society he wrote :
Boston Society in 1740-"When the ladies ride out to take the air, it is generally in a chaise or chair, and then but a single horse; and they have a negro servant to drive them. (Ten per cent of the population of Boston at this time was colored). The gentlemen ride out here as in England, some in chairs, some on horseback, with their negroes to attend them. They travel much in the same manner on business as for pleasure, and are attended in both by their black equipages. . . . For their do- mestic amusements, every afternoon, after drinking tea, the gentlemen and ladies walk the Mall, and from thence adjourn to one another's houses to spend the evening-those that are not disposed to attend the evening lecture, which they may do, if they please, six nights in the seven the year round." Was it at this time that Bostonians learned to place lectures among the pleasures of life, and acquired the lecture habit? Bennett, after describing how the wealthy amused themselves, goes on to note that "The Government being in the hand of the dissenters, they don't admit of plays or music-houses; but of late they have set up an assembly, to which some of the ladies resort. . But notwithstanding plays and such like diversions do not obtain here, they don't seem to be dispirited, nor moped for want of them, for both ladies and men dress and appear as gay, in common, as courtiers in England on a coronation or birthday." The picture drawn by Bennett gives many other details, but the portraits by Copley, Blackburn, Smibert, and Pelham hang in Boston's galleries, and give the best impressions one may receive of the characteristics of those of wealth and social position of that day. It is, of course, to be realized that the bulk of the inhabitants of the town were of the artisan and hard working sort, to whom life was a serious matter, and who frowned upon the levity of the idle, the educated and the rich.
Back of the changing social conditions was the rising tide of com- merce and business which threatened to submerge both church and State. Gone were the days when the town struggled to merely keep alive. Wealth had been brought in by the early settlers, and while the stream of emigration had dwindled to a mere thread, it still brought money or the
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things money could buy. As indicated, the royal governors and their satellites introduced an element which had means and tastes which re- quired the spending of them. And one must not forget that it was the policy of the English government to make its colonies not only econom- ically self-sufficient, but a producer of a surplus for export. If Boston failed to develop its prosperity along the lines intended by Great Britain and became wholly independent of the mother country, it is none the less true that England's "mercantile system" in its effects upon Boston did much to make it the leading town in America, the busiest and the wealthiest.
Rural Boston Becomes Urban-Boston had been the usual agricul- tural settlement of the pioneer years. Like the Massachusetts colony as a whole, the land had been apportioned out in small parcels, and the development of agriculture did not take the same direction as that of the "plantation" colonies to the south where broad acres made up the farm and required the introduction of a servant or slave class for their suc- cessful tilling. With a rocky soil, and unfavorable climate, and small divisions of land, the New Englander had to turn his attention to more than farming if he would gain a livelihood. He soon learned to not only grow food and cattle but to make his own clothing, furniture and tools. Some of the tillers of the soil found greater profits in the side lines, and then began specializing. Farms were often neglected, so that the owner could give his time to the more profitable trades of weaving, shoemaking, iron working, tool making, sawmilling and shipbuilding. The colonial farm was the first industrial school in Massachusetts, and by the open- ing of the eighteenth century had laid the foundation for the manufactur- ing industry. The farm was the technical school from which the skilled labor of the future was to be drawn. The conditions reacted upon Bos- ton relatively early to make the town a manufacturing place, if the crude productions of 1700 may be called manufactures, and Boston became the center of trade, the port from which what the colony had, was sent abroad for what was needed. As the middleman, Boston became import- ant and wealthy. The shipbuilding industry in the town started with Winthrop's building of the "Blessing of the Bay." In 1738, according to Burke, there were built at Boston "forty-one topsail vessels of 6,324 tons in all." It was the same Burke who dubbed the New England people the "Dutch of North America" for they were the carriers for all the colonies, and built their own ships to do it. Boston had sixteen "large" ship-yards in the early years of 1700, and no one knows how many small ones, all this in a place of about 15,000 people.
All this was only a part of the change and growth of Boston. The merchant marine of her own construction brought a vast variety of
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saleable goods, and the merchants of the day, and they were more than shop-keepers, became an important and leader class. They financed the triangular voyages of their ships, sending the naval stores and fish to the West Indies of the Mediterranean countries; from thence with the pro- ductions of the port in which they had entered they sailed to England, where the cargo was exchanged for whatever was thought would prove desirable in Boston.
Growth of the Urbanities of Life The natural isolation of Boston was overcome; with wider interests came a broadening of the vision, and enlargement of needs and desires. Shops multiplied on its streets, not only those handling utilities, but those which had to do with leisure, culture and education. John Dutton, who came to Massachusetts to make books, and stayed to write them, found little competition in his business. Had he delayed his trip until the early seventeen hundreds, he would have found not only there were book stores in number, but print- ing plants making books and newspapers. There is even a "public library" mentioned, although what it was and where is not known. To quote excerpts from another visitor, Bennett, of 1739, "At the bottom of the bay there is a fine wharf about half a mile in length, on the north side of which are built many warehouses for the storing of merchants' goods ; this is called Long Wharf. .. . From the east of Long Wharf the buildings rise gradually in an easy ascent westward about a mile. There are a great many good houses and fine streets, little inferior to the best in London, the principal of which is King's. . .. And there are likewise walks for merchants, where they meet every day at five o'clock in imitation of the Royal Exchange. Round this there are several book sellers shops, and four or five printing houses. . . . This town was not built after a regular plan, but has been enlarged from time to time as the inhabitants increased ; and is now from north to south, something more than two miles in length, and in the widest part about one mile and a half in breadth. . . There are sixty streets, forty-one lanes, and eighteen alleys, besides courts, squares, etc."
Boston had evidently become quite a town during the early years of the royal governors. The changes and growth had been more than phys- ical. The growth of commerce and the extension of the market of the town had broken down its isolation and self-content. Bostonians were becoming acquainted with the world, and were showing an increased taste for the things of the world. The Puritan religion prevailed in the traditions and customs of the citizens, but it was no longer the predom- inating influence in their lives. Two strains of life had been combined in the birth of Boston, the religious and the commercial. For sixty years religion had throbbed through the veins of the town with diminishing
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vigor but with dominant force; for the next sixty years commerce be- came increasingly in control and despite all its Puritan exterior in the middle of the eighteenth century, Boston was really a shop-keeper eager for expansion and resentful and rebellious against limitations of control. The traditions of the elders were being steadily left behind, business and politics were the fields of mental activity and interest replacing theology. Already there were signs of the rebellion which was to transfer the rule from the crown to the State. Near the close of the century, Revolt had lifted its head in resistance to Andros and his government. It was not religion which was the mainspring of the uprising that imprisoned this representative of the King; it was fear of impoverishment, or, at least, of a reduction of the prosperity which the colony was enjoying. Andros interfered with the Puritan church, but it was when he threw all land titles in the discard by one of his legal rulings, and planned to tax and restrain commerce, that the people arose in wrath and cast him out. The constant bickerings which characterized the rule of the royal governors were inspired as much by a desire to grow unrestrainedly along com- mercial and business lines, as for the assurance of religious, or perhaps, civil liberty. The times had changed and men wanted freedom to do as they pleased in contradistinction to freedom of worship.
The Pre-Revolutionary Period-The history of old Boston reached its apogee in pre-Revolutionary times, if we include under this term the fifteen years which preceded the outbreak of actual warfare. The town had gone ahead with its affairs in spite of a series of governors whose interests had become more and more opposed to those of the place. War with the French in Canada had been brought to a successful conclusion, and much of the honor of the struggle had come to Boston. But now the bill was to be presented to the very folk who had done their full share in saving a vast domain for England. Boston felt that it had already paid enough, and wanted greatly to be left alone to attend to its own affairs. Great Britain, somewhat impoverished by war, thought it was time for her growing son to contribute to the support of his mother. By re- strictive laws touching commerce, by direct taxes, by the sending of troops to be quartered upon the towns of America, England sought to recuperate her losses and repress the self-sufficiency and independence of her largest colony. The prolonged war resulting from the violent meeting of the two opposed ideals is a matter of National history; its local history has been outlined elsewhere at length.
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