USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Popular history of Boston > Part 4
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Imagine this old, gray-haired minister standing on the fatal drop, about to be launched into eternity, repeating, with tremulous voice, the simple but beautiful words of his own funeral service.
The witch-finder at last came to a miserable end. He was himself accused of being a wizard. He was seized one day and tied, just as his many victims had been, and dragged through a pond. Subjected to his own test, he sank, and that was the end of his long career of deception and wicked- ness.
These facts, which we gather from a curious article on Hop- kins, are more dark and cruel than anything that happened in Salem, although even there an innocent man was pressed to death with weights because he would not acknowledge himself to be a wizard.
In June (15th), 1648, the first execution for witchcraft took place in Boston. The victim was Margaret Jones. For her good offices in trying to heal the diseases of the people, she fell under suspicion and was hung. She was a doctor, and dealt in roots and herbs. We are told that her medicines " had extraordinary violent effects," not an uncommon re- sult of the use of botanic remedies. It was thought she had bewitched them. If she used lobelia or like plants freely in her prescriptions, as most "root and herb doctors " did in those days, we can easily see that the patients could hardly have believed that anything growing out of the earth could produce such surprising effects. We are further told that she would tell certain persons that they could never be healed, and these always grew worse. The same influence is quite noticeable to-day. Quacks succeed because they assure the
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WITCHCRAFT AT SALEM VILLAGE.
THE
h. with
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Margaret Fones.
1648.
patient of the cure. The imagination acting powerfully on the nervous system is one of the surest means of healing or destruction.
After she had been imprisoned, we are told that "a little child was seen to run from her into another room, and, being followed by an officer, vanished." But this foolish story was not all. At her trial she told the witnesses against her that they lied, - an awful instance of depravity. She was ad- judged a witch, of course. How could such witnesses lie ?
But the trouble that these foolish accusations made did not end with the victim. Her husband, disheartened at the loss of his wife, took passage for Barbadoes. The ship lay in the harbor. One day she began to "roll," in calm weather ; the effect of some undercurrent, perhaps. The sailors said that it was bewitched, and attributed it to the ghost of poor Mar- garet. The magistrates had Mr. Jones arrested and impris- oned, after which the ship was quiet. Margaret's ghost must have possessed wonderful physical power to cause a ship to " roll."
Most extraordinary things were believed of witches. They could do anything through the power of the devil, who was their servant. On the day of the execution of Margaret Jones in Boston, there was a tempest in Connecticut, a not uncommon thing in June, and this was attributed to either the wrath of the devil at the execution, or his joy at securing poor Margaret's soul.
If the reader will visit the Public Library and read Cotton Mather's " Magnalia," he will be amazed at the stories of gross superstition he will there find. How any man of intelligence could have for a moment credited such things as are there stated is a mystery hard to explain. To Mather's fancy un- seen evil spirits followed men like an army, and life was a deadly contest with dark inhabitants of the air.
From time to time a supposed example of witchcraft dis-
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Young Folks' History of Boston.
turbed the peace of the colonies. In 1692. the delusion known as the Salem witchcraft began, and spread like a dis- ease. Among the victims were a number of unfortunate peo- ple of Boston.
THE STORY OF OLD GOODY GLOVER.
In 1688 the children of Mr. John Goodwin began to be- have very strangely. Their bodies were drawn out of shape, as in a case of rickets. Their tongues were sometimes drawn in out of sight, and at other times thrust out of their mouths. They evidently suffered from some nervous disease that spreads by imitation.
They mewed like cats, and barked like dogs. We are told that they flew through the air like geese, which would indeed have seemed a proof of actual witchcraft if the statement had ended here. But it is added, " their toes barely touched the ground." They did touch the ground, you may be sure, and the flying part was all in the excited fancy of the witnesses.
The parents said, " The children are bewitched."
They called in excitable old Cotton Mather, whose love of the marvellous exceeded anything in colonial history. One of the children played a number of ungracious pranks upon him, as she found little difficulty in doing.
She would read the Prayer-Book, but could not be induced to read the Bible, as though the Prayer-Book were for the most part anything but the Bible rearranged for public service. This pleased Cotton Mather, who was violently opposed to Episcopalianism, for he thought it indicated the manner in which the devil regarded the two books, which was quite in accordance with his own views.
When the credulous minister showed his "Food for Babes," a religious book that he highly commended, and of course immensely superior in his own view to the Book of Common
COTTON MATHER.
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The Story of Goody Glover.
1688.
Prayer, the child became silent. We do not wonder at this. The bewigged doctor was greatly pleased, and thought it an uncommon compliment, - did it not indicate the great displeasure of the devil with his " Food for Babes "?
The ministers of Boston and Charlestown held a fast at the house where the " bewitched " children lived, and one of the sufferers pretended to find relief from the occasion.
There was an infirm old woman in the town, called Goody Glover. She was a Catholic, and the Puritans regarded Cath- olics with as much disfavor as the Catholics were wont in earlier times of history to regard them.
This weak old woman had offended Dame Goodwin, and what more natural solution of the mystery could there be than that Goody Glover was a witch ?
"She used threatening language to me," said Dame Good- win.
Here was evidence indeed. Goody Glover was arrested.
She was taken to jail, and her house was searched.
They found dreadful things there, - those magistrates. There were images, or puppets, made of rags and covered with fur.
They brought these into the court-room.
She acknowledged that they were the implements of the devil. She said that she had only to stroke the fur on one of these rag babies, and something evil would happen.
She took up one of them, and drew her hand across it, and just then one of the children who was present, and who ex- pected something evil to happen, fell down in a fit.
Poor, weak, old woman ! They told her she was a witch, and she believed it. She confessed everything they wanted her to confess, even to an alliance with the Evil One.
" Have you any one standing by you now? " asked one of the magistrates.
" No," said she, peering into the air ; " he is gone."
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" Who is gone ? "
" My prince."
" What prince ?"
" The Evil One."
Witnesses can always be found to testify against one ac- cused of crime.
At the trial a witness appeared, by the name of Hughes. He testified that six years before Goody Glover had be- witched a woman to death.
He was asked how he knew.
" I have myself seen Goody Glover come down the chim- ney of the house where the woman lived."
Goody Glover received little pity for her gray hairs after such testimony as that. Mather says he prayed with her, and adds, " If it were a fault it was an excess of pity." We fear " an excess of pity " was not one of Dr. Mather's besetting sins.
Goody Glover was condemned and hung. We fancy we see her now, the poor old creature, followed by a jeering mob, and stretched up by her neck under the fair green leaves of the great tree on the Common. And this in our city only about two hundred years ago.
The children continued to suffer after Goody was buried. Mather took one of them home with him. He tells us that an invisible horse was brought to her, and that she would ride on it about the room, and on one occasion rode upstairs. Just how large a horse it could have been to have carried a child up a flight of stairs in an old-time house he does not state. It was, however, an invisible horse. Probably the child in her nervous paroxysms pretended to canter about, after the manner of children at play. And her motion sug- gested the horse to the Doctor's vivid imagination, when it became to him a horse indeed.
Cotton Mather regretted the part that he had acted in the witchcraft delusion before he died. But he said he was sincere
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MARTHA COREY AND HER PERSECUTORS.
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The Delusion brought to an End.
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in his belief at the time of his errors, and that he did what he thought to be his duty as a conscientious man.
During the prevalence of this moral disease, nineteen per- sons in the colony were hanged ; one was pressed to death ; one hundred and fifty were thrown into prison, and some two hundred accused.
One Martha Corey, when visited in prison by Mr. Parris and other clergymen, rebuked her persecutors in language of terrible sternness, and was excommunicated before being hanged. Mary Easty, who is said to have been a woman of deep piety, and of a very sweet disposition, conscious of her innocence, firmly denounced the cruelty and falseness of the testimony upon which she and others had been condemned to death, and petitioned her judges and the ministers to make further inquiry, not into her own case, but into those of the others, that no more innocent blood might be shed, for, said she, " I know you are in the wrong way."
You will ask, " What brought it to an end?"
In the beginning, only the poor, the infirm, and unfor- tunate were accused of witchcraft. As the delusion spread, people in better estate began to be accused. At last the governor's wife1 was accused. Every household then was filled with terror.
The magistrates began to whisper among themselves, " Some of our families may be accused."
Then they began to doubt if, indeed, there were witches.
" What credit is to be given to the spectre testimony ? " was asked in the court one day, after the leading families began to be in danger.
" None whatever," said the judge.
If this had been the decision at the beginning, no one would have been sacrificed. It was spectre testimony that produced these evils, and nothing else.
1 Mrs. Phipps.
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When this spectre testimony began to threaten the homes of the magistrates, the executions for witchcraft ceased.
The sad story of witchcraft in New England shows that good men may entertain wrong opinions, and, if their opinions are wrong, their conduct will be wrong. Men of greater virtue than these magistrates never lived. Each of them would have sacrificed his life, rather than have done an act of dishonor. Like Saul, when persecuting the church, they thought they were maintaining truth.
In ancient times in the Hebrew nations there were witches. They dealt in poisons ; they had "familiar spirits ;" they en- gaged in dark plots ; were the accessaries of crime, and thus dangerous to the community. The Bible said to the Hebrews : "Suffer not a witch to live." Endicott and his followers attempted to govern the colony by the Levitical law. They misinterpreted the Scripture. They applied " Suffer not a witch to live " to any unfortunate old creature whom an enemy or child might accuse. They did it all to sustain a pure morality. It was a terrible error. Never do anything for the cause of virtue or religion, the influence of which is against virtue and religion, and if you must act severely for the sake of justice, be sure your opinions are correct.
THE OLD ELM ON BOSTON COMMON.
Among the historic trees in this country, perhaps none have had so great prominence as the Old Elm on Boston Com- mon, on which, it is supposed, condemned witches were hung. It was almost the only well-preserved living relic of early colonial times, and historically was as famous as the Royal Oak was in England. Boston Common, on which it stood, is, even apart from its historic associations, one of the most delightful places in New England.
THE OLD ELM.
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The Old Elm.
1631.
It is full of quiet beauties, with its shaded walks, play- ground, deer-park, fountains, birds, and grand old trees.
Some of these trees antedate the city's charter. They were planted by hands that long ago crumbled to dust ; and the Old Elm broke ground while Boston was yet Shawmut, an Indian village, situated on three bare hills, with the smoke- wreaths of its conical wigwams crowning their summits. This was the Great Tree, as it was called one hundred years ago, but was afterwards known as the Old Elm.
It grew green in spring, and golden in autumn, through all the green springs and golden autumns of New England's early history. The tree was the true American elm, so much ad- mired for its spreading shade, its massive foliage, and drooping, roof-like limbs. It was seventy-two feet high, and twenty-three feet six inches in circumference at the base.
This cherished relic stood nearly in the centre of the Com- mon, at the edge of the rising ground, where was placed the old Liberty Pole, of historic fame. It was surrounded by an iron fence, on the gate of which is the following inscrip- tion : -
" This tree has been standing here for an unknown period. It is believed to have existed before the settlement of Boston, being full grown in 1722. Exhibited marks of old age in 1792, and was nearly destroyed by a storm in 1832. Protected by an enclosure in 1854.
" J. V. C. SMITH, MAYOR."
Near where the Old Elm stood is the Frog Pond, also of historic fame. It does not look now as it did when the British soldiers were encamped in the vicinity, and the delegation of young Americans waited upon General Hal- dimand, and laid before him the story of their wrongs. It is now surrounded by a granite margin, and is shaded by young trees. In the pleasant summer and autumn weather a spreading fountain throws its sparkling jets of water far above
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its surface. But in winter it is still a skating pond, as in the old Revolutionary days.
On the rising ground near the Old Elm stood the old Powder-house. There also was fought the first duel in Bos- ton. The victim of the unfortunate combat was a young man, twenty years of age, whose grave may yet be seen in Granary Burying-ground, near the Tremont House. His antagonist fled to Rochelle, France, where he died of a broken heart.
The historical associations of the Old Elm would fill a volume, like that of Hawthorne's " Grandfather's Chair," and a very interesting volume it might be made.
Shawmut, the Indian name of the promontory on which a part of Boston stands, was very barren of trees. The Old Elm, being the most conspicuous tree in the time of our fore- fathers, was used for the purpose of executions. Tradition tells us that Indian prisoners were executed there.
The story of the Indian wars does not form a part of the history of Boston. The town was never attacked by the Indians. But the people were often terrified by the massacres of the settlers by the Indians in other places, and in neighboring towns. Hostile Indians were sometimes believed to be approaching, but such reports were false alarms.
But while Boston did not suffer from the Indians, many noted Indians were brought here for execution. Philip's great warrior, Annawon, was one of these.
We have no space to tell all of the interesting historical traditions of the Indian troubles which are associated with the old tree. The stories of old Matoonas, of Sagamore Sam, and the Sagamore Quabaog, are among the most interesting of an early date.
The story of old Jethro is, perhaps, less known than most of the others that have been related in connection with the ancient elm. This Indian was among the first to attach him-
A FALSE ALARM.
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1674.
The Story of Old Jethro.
self to the interests of the English at Boston. He possessed more than ordinary intelligence. Under the teaching of the English, he professed to have embraced Christianity, and associated himself with the praying men of his tribe. His Indian name, Tantamous, was changed by the colonists after he became associated with them.
In 1674 he was appointed missionary to the Nipmucks, living at Weshakin, since Sterling.
On Sunday, Aug. 22, 1675, the colony was startled by the murder of a family, consisting of a man, his wife, and two children, at Lancaster. It was evident that the deed had been done by Indians ; and the praying Indians, of whom old Jethro was one, fell under suspicion. Captain Mosely, their principal accuser, found "much suspicion against them for singing, dancing, and having much powder and many bullets and slugs hid in their baskets."
For this offence, eleven of them, among whom was old Jethro, were sent to Boston to be tried.
Captain Mosely seems to have been a stern man, who used relentlessly the ordinary modes of torture common in those days. One of the Indians, named David, he bound to a tree. Then guns were levelled at him, and his life was threatened, unless he made a full confession. The Indian, to save his life, accused the "praying Indians" of the murder, and among them was old Jethro.
There is an island near Boston, dividing the sea as it flows into the harbor, called Deer Island, and to this the ac- cused Indians were sent. A short time after the real per- petrator of the Lancaster murder was discovered, and the complete innocence of the "praying Indians" proved. They were released, and it will hardly accord with our modern ideas of penalty when we state that David, who had made the false confession to save his life, was sold into slavery as a punishment for the act.
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About a year afterward the Indian hostilities were resumed, and the English resolved to send the "praying Indians," among the most prominent of whom was old Jethro, to Deer Island, both for their own security and to keep them away from any temptation to join the enemy. The men who were sent to take them to the island were very overbearing in their con- duct, and so insulted old Jethro that he escaped while on the way, and fled into his native wilds. His hiding-place was at last discovered to the English by his own son, Peter Jethro, an act which caused Increase Mather to say, "that abomi- nable Indian, Peter Jethro, betrayed his own father unto death."
Old Jethro was captured and brought to Boston. He was tried and sentenced to be hanged.
It was Sept. 26, 1676, when the first colorings of au- tumn were on the leaves. The Old Elm then stood at the " end of the town," near the waters of the Charles River, whose marshes, covered deep with earth, are now occupied by costly houses. The tree was in its full strength and beauty then, and we can imagine its low branches, with their tinged leaves, spreading themselves over the lonely hollow. Here old Jethro was hanged, according to tradition.
During the Revolution effigies of Tories were hanged upon the branches of the tree. A young tree has been planted on the spot where the Old Elm stood, and stands in the same enclosure.
It is not certain that all the executions that old-time stories associate with the tree actually took place there. Other trees may have been used for such a purpose, and there seems to have been a gallows erected there during the colonial period. Of this we shall give a sad story in another chapter.
1
INCREASE MATHER.
" HERE rest the great and good, - here they repose After their generous toil. A sacred band, They take their sleep together, while the year Comes with its early flowers to deck their graves, And gathers them again, as winter frowns. Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre, - green sods Are all their monument ; and yet it tells A nobler history than pillared piles, Or the eternal pyramids. They need No statue nor inscription to reveal Their greatness It is round them; and the joy With which their children tread the hallowed ground That holds their venerated bones, the peace That smiles on all they fought for, and the wealth That clothes the land they rescued, - these, though mute As feeling ever is when deepest, - these Are monuments more lasting than the fanes Reared to the kings and demigods of old."
J. G. PERCIVAL.
CHAPTER VIII.
WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE COLONY BECAME A PROVINCE.
THE picture on the next page represents one of the most popular governors under the charter that the colony ever had, -- John Leverett. He was governor from 1673 to 1678, and he rendered efficient aid to Plymouth Colony in the strug- gle with the Indians, known as King Philip's War. He, too, was born in Old Boston, and was one of the congregation of St. Botolph's. He returned to England for a time during the Commonwealth, and was on intimate terms with Cromwell. His house stood at the corner of Court and Washington Streets, where the Sears Building now stands.
In 1679 there was a great fire in Boston. Eighty dwelling- houses and seventy warehouses were consumed. The peo- ple now began to build of brick. Some of these brick houses at the North End may still be seen.
Perhaps you would like a view of some of the houses of Boston during the early colonial period. Here is the old Feather Store, built in 1680, and taken down in 1860. It stood in Dock Square.
There is a very ancient wooden house in Salem Street, which at the time we write (1881) may still be seen.
About the year 1676, just one hundred years before the Declaration of Independence, the people of Massachusetts Bay Colony began to be alarmed at the prospect of losing their charter, and with it their liberties.
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Charles II. was now on the throne. He had been pro- claimed king in Boston in 1661 with much public ceremony. A writer of the times thus describes the scene : " After our
GOVERNOR LEVERETT.
ordinary lecture, the soldiers being all in arms, viz., our four companies and the country troop, the magistrates mounted on horseback, the ministers being present, and a great num- ber of people, King Charles II. was proclaimed by Edward
MARTIN
L.LIAM. WALLEN.BOOTSUSHOES
CHARLES.U.LOVEJOY
THE OLD FEATHER STORE.
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Charles II.
1661.
Rawson, secretary of state, all standing with uncovered heads, and ending with 'God save the king.' The guns in the castle, fort, and on the ships were fired, and the chief officers feasted that night at the charge of the country."
CHARLES II.
The people under the charter were very independent. They elected their own governor and members to the General Court, and the government of the colony was but little differ-
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ent from that of the state to-day. The colonists were sub- jects of the English Crown in name, but in reality were the masters of their own public affairs.
Under the reign of Charles II. an attempt was made to impose the English laws of trade upon the colony. The magistrates resisted. They said : "Such acts are an invasion of the colony's rights, since we are not represented in par- liament." Thus was begun the resistance to a government without representation, which in one hundred years resulted in the independence of the colonies.
In 1680 King Charles gave the province of Maine to Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The government of Massachusetts soon afterwards purchased it of Gorges, thus exercising the right of an independent power. This brought the colony under the displeasure of the king.
About this time there appeared a man in the colony whom the people came to hate. Hawthorne has given a very dark picture of him in the "Legends of the Province House." Perhaps you may like to take down from your library shelf " Twice Told Tales," and read in this connection " Edward Randolph's Portrait."
Randolph has been called " the evil genius of New Eng- land." He was an enemy to the Puritan idea of government, a firm friend of King Charles, and he crossed the ocean again and again, bearing evil reports to the king, and making mis- chief as often as he came and went. Randolph made many complaints to the king, but some of them were reasonable. He said the Puritans tolerated no religion but their own, and that they had even enacted a law against the observance of Christmas.
The controversy was a long one. The colonists would not surrender their rights under the charter. Said Increase Mather, one of the principal men of the colony : "If we make a submission, we fall into the hands of men ; but if we
SIR EDMUND ANDROS.
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How the Colony became a Province.
1685.
do not, we still keep ourselves in the hand of God." The king sent commissioners to the colony, but their authority was ignored. In his remonstrance against the treatment of his commissioners, the king said : " In opposition to our au- thority, it was proclaimed by the sound of the trumpet within the town of Boston that the General Court was the Supreme Judicature in that Province." It was, certainly, the wish of the colony that the General Court, or Legislature, should be the governing power.
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