USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > St. Botolph's town; an account of old Boston in colonial days > Part 12
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The object of the preacher-president in all this matter of the new charter - which it is
MASSACHUSETTS HALL, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, BUILT DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF JOHN LEVERETT
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not worth our while here to follow in detail - was to make the college at Cambridge dis- tinctly the stamping-ground of his own par- ticular brand of dissent. The king, however, had an eye to the recognition of episcopacy at Cambridge, and so would not grant the kind of charter for which Mather yearned. More- over, during the absence abroad of the presi- dent, certain lay members, who were not en- slaved to him, gained power on the board. In spite of all that he could do, therefore, Mather gradually lost his hold upon the college.
The occasion but not the cause of his en- forced resignation was his refusal to live in Cambridge. For several years the legislature had been steadily passing resolutions requiring the president to go into residence, but these Mather, for the most part, blandly ignored. Then, in 1698, they voted the president the lib- eral salary, for that age, of two hundred pounds annually and appointed a committee to wait upon him. Judge Sewall describes the ensuing interview: " Mr. President expostu- lated with Mr. Speaker . about the votes being altered from 250. ... We urged his going all we could; I told him of his birth and education here; that he look'd at work rather than wages, all met in desiring him. . .. [He]
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Objected want of a house, bill for corporation not pass'd . .. must needs preach once every week, which he preferred before the gold and silver of the West Indies. I told him would preach twice a day to the students. He said that [exposition] was nothing like preaching."
The real reason why Mather fought off set- tling in Cambridge was however his lingering hope that he might still get the English mis- sion he so ardently desired. But the Massa- chusetts Assembly was about at the end of its patience, and on July 10, 1700, they voted Mather two hundred and twenty pounds a year, at the same time appointing a committee to obtain from him a categorical answer. This time the president apparently complied with the request of the authorities, and after a " suitable place . .. for his reception and en- tertainment " had been prepared at the public expense, he moved to Cambridge. By the last of October he was back in town again, however, professing to Stoughton that Cambridge did not suit his health and suggesting that another president be found.
To his great surprise the General Court " took him up " and resolved that " foras- much as the Constitution requires that the President reside at Cambridge, which is now
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altered by his removal from thence, and to the intent that a present necessary oversight be taken of the College, .. . in case of Mr. Math- er's refusal absence, sickness or death, that Mr. Samuel Willard be Vice-President." Stimulated by this Increase Mather managed to sustain residence in Cambridge for three months more. Then, in a characteristic note to Stoughton, who was then acting governor, he expressed his determination to "return to Boston the next week and no more to reside in Cambridge; for it is not reasonable to de- sire me to be (as out of respect to the public interest I have been six months within this twelve) any longer absent from my family. . .. I do therefore earnestly desire that the General Court would . . think of another president." " But,"' warns our reluctantly retiring official, " it would be fatal to the in- terest of religion, if a person disaffected to the order of the Gospel, professed and practiced in these churches, should preside over this so- ciety."
This letter proved Mather's undoing, for when he made it clear to the Court that he could " with no conveniency any longer reside at Cambridge and take care of the College there," a committee was promptly appointed
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" to wait upon the Rev. Samuel Willard and to desire him to accept the care and charge of the said College and to reside in Cambridge in order thereunto." The outcome of the whole matter was that Mather, who for years would neither reside nor resign, was succeeded at length by Mr. Samuel Willard, who prom- ised to stay at the college two days and nights a week. This appointing was made on Sep- tember 6, 1701, by the General Court Council of which Sewall was a member. That worthy had, therefore, to pay the price of the decision. The manner of this is amusingly told in his Diary :
" 1701, Oct. 20. Mr. Cotton Mather came to Mr. Wilkins's shop and there talked very sharply against me as if I had used his father worse than a neger; spake so loud that people in the street might hear him. . . . I had read in the morn Mr. Dod's saying; Sanctified af- flictions are good promotions. I found it now a cordial.
" Oct. 6. I sent Mr. Increase Mather a hanch of good venison; I hope in that I did not treat him as a negro.
" Oct. 22, 1701. I, with Major Walley and Capt. Saml. Checkly, speak with Mr. Cotton Mather at Mr. Wilkins's. ... I told him of
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his book of the Law of Kindness for the Tongue, whether this were corresponding with that. Whether correspondent with Christ's rule: He said, having spoken to me before there was no need to speak to me again; and so justified his reviling me behind my back. Charg'd the council with lying, hypocrisy, tricks and I know not what all . . . and then show'd my share which was in my speech in council; viz. If Mr. Mather should goe to Cam- bridge again to reside there with a resolution not to read the Scriptures and expound in the Hall: I fear the example of it will do more hurt than his going thither will doe good. This speech I owned. ... I ask'd him if I should supose he had done something amiss in his church as an officer; whether it would be well for me to exclaim against him in the street for it." Samuel Sewall, a mere layman, thus re- buking the impeccable Mathers must certainly have been a spectacle for gods and men!
The truth is, however, that, in this matter of the college, Cotton Mather put himself, on this occasion and again on a later one, hope- lessly in the wrong. For the thing did not end with the defeat of his father for president. He himself soon began to look with covetous eyes on the executive chair at Cambridge. And
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when, after the death of Willard in 1707, John Leverett, the right-hand man of Governor Jo- seph Dudley, was elected to the office, the wrath of the younger Mather knew no bounds. The fact that thirty-nine ministers, presumably as interested in the welfare of the college as even he could be, had enthusiastically endorsed Dudley's choice of Leverett, counted for noth- ing as against his wounded pride.
Sewall describes with unction Dudley's inau- guration of his friend: " The govr. prepar'd a Latin speech for instalment of the president. Then took the president by the hand and led him down into the hall. ... The govr. sat with his back against a noble fire. ... Then the govr. read his speech ... and mov'd the books in token of their delivery. Then presi- dent made a short Latin speech, importing the difficulties discouraging and yet he did accept : Clos'd with the hymn to the Trinity. Had a very good dinner upon 3 or 4 tables. .. Got home very well. Laus Deo."
The Mathers were now thoroughly beaten, but they could not seem to understand that a man might honestly fail in appreciation of them, and they proceeded to charge Dudley with all manner of bribery, hypocrisy and cor- ruption. Their letters to the governor at this
GOVERNOR JOSEPH DUDLEY
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time seem to me so pitiful an exhibition of narrowness that I will not reproduce them. For I still feel that both father and son were sincere, and that to bury them beneath such adjectives as " dastardly " and " venomous " -after the manner of many writers -is not to reproduce faithfully this interesting conten- tion. Dudley, however, was an able man, even if his political career had not, in every par- ticular, been above reproach. And this time he happened to be right. So we cannot do bet- ter than close our chapter with his admirably dignified answer to the accusations of the Mathers, a reply which is also, as it seems to me, a deserved rebuke to the claims of the the- ocracy as regards the college.
" GENTLEMEN, Yours of the 20th instant re- ceived; and the contents, both as to the matter and manner, astonish me to the last degree. I must think you have extremely forgot your own station, as well as my character; other- wise it had been impossible to have made such an open breach upon all the laws of decency, honour, justice and Christianity, as you have done in treating me with an air of superiority and contempt, which would have been greatly culpable towards a Christian of lowest order,
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and is insufferably rude toward one whom di- vine Providence has honoured with the charac- ter of your governour.
" Why, gentlemen, have you been so long silent ? and suffered sin to lie upon me years after years? You cannot pretend any new in- formation as to the main of your charge; for you have privately given your tongues a loose upon these heads, I am well assured, when you thought you could serve yourselves by expo- sing me. Surely murder, robberies and other such flaming immoralities were as reprovable then as now.
" Really, gentlemen, conscience and religion are things too solemn, venerable or sacred, to be played with, or made a covering for actions so disagreeable to the gospel, as these your endeavours to expose me and my most faith- ful services to contempt; nay, to unhinge the government. .
" I desire you will keep your station, and let fifty or sixty good ministers, your equals in the province, have a share in the govern- ment of the college, and advise thereabouts as well as yourselves, and I hope all will be well. . . . I am your humble servant,
" J. DUDLEY.
" To the Reverend Doctors Mathers."
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XI
THE BOSTON OF FRANKLIN'S BOYHOOD
THE Boston over which the Mathers reluc- tantly relinquished ascendency was, in its out- ward aspect, pretty much that which Franklin has described for all time in his matchless Autobiography. Their reign had covered a period of many changes. When Increase Mather had been at the height of his power the taxable polls of the town numbered a little less than nine hundred and the estates were valued (in 1680) at about £23,877. By 1722 there were more than eighteen thousand in- habitants in Boston.
To be sure this estimate of the earlier date followed closely two pretty serious fires. That of November, 1676, was thus described by a contemporary writer: "It pleased God to alarm the town of Boston, and in them the whole country, by a sad fire, accidentally kin- dled by the carelessness of an apprentice that sat up too late over night, as was conceived
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[the lad was rising before daylight to go to his work and fell asleep while dressing, the result being that his candle set the house on fire]; the fire continued three or four hours in which time it burned down to the ground forty-six dwelling houses, besides other buildings, to- gether with a meeting-house of considerable bigness." This meeting-house of " consider- able bigness " was the Second Church, the church of the Mathers, the first sermon in which had been preached in June, 1650. Re- built on its old site immediately after this fire, the edifice stood at the head of North Square until the British soldiers, in 1775, pulled it down for firewood. Mr. Mather's dwelling was destroyed in the same fire which deprived him of his parish church, " but not an hundred of his books from above a thousand " were lost. The town did not yet possess any fire- engine, but this great conflagration hastened the acquiring of one, and, two years later, Bos- ton had its first organized fire company.
Then, on August 7, 1680, there came another " terrible fire," which raged about twelve hours. Capt. John Hull, who kept a Diary, records that this fire began " about midnight in an alehouse, which by sunrise consumed the body of the trading part of the Towne; from
.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 235
the Mill creek to Mr. Oliver's house, not one house nor warehouse left; and went from my warehouse to Mrs. Leveret's hence to Mr. Hez. Usher's, thence to Mrs. Thacher's thence to Thomas Fitch's." Another contemporary manuscript account adds that "the number of houses burnt was 77 and of ware houses 35." This fire was believed to have been of incen- diary origin, and one Peter Lorphelin, who was suspected of having set it, was sent to jail and then " sentenced to stand two hours in the Pillory, have both ears cut off, give bond of £500 (with two sureties), pay charges of prosecution, fees of Court, and to stand com- mitted till the sentence be performed."
After this fire the burnt district was rebuilt with such rapidity that lumber could not be had fast enough for the purpose and an at- tempt was made to prohibit, temporarily, its exportation. One of the buildings then erected survived until 1860 and was long known as the Old Feather store. It stood in Dock (now Adams) Square so close, in early days, to tide- water that the prows of vessels moored in the dock almost touched it. The frame was of hewn oak and the outside walls were finished in rough-cast cement, with broken glass so firmly imbedded in it that time produced no
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effect. The date 1680 was placed upon the principal gable of the westerly front. For many years the store on the ground floor was used for the sale of feathers, though, from the building's peculiar shape, it was quite as often called The Old Cocked Hat as The Old Feather Store.
The menace of fire had come to be a very serious one in a town having so many wooden buildings. Accordingly in the June, 1693, term of the General Court there was passed an " Act for building of stone or brick in the town of Boston and preventing fire." It was here ordained that " hence forth no dwelling house, shop, warehouse, barn, stable, or any other housing of more than eight feet in length or breadth, and seven feet in height, shall be erected and set up in Boston but of stone or brick and covered with slate or tyle," except in particular cases and then not without license from the proper authorities. Six years later the possible exceptions were greatly curtailed.
Yet in October, 1711, there was another shocking fire which "reduced Cornhill into miserable ruins and made its impression into King's street [now State street], into Queen's street [now Court street] and a great part of Pudding-lane [Devonshire street]. Among
ARTIN L.HALL & CO)
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CLOTHING
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LIAN W.ALLEN, BOOTS & SHOES
CLOTHING WARE HOL SE
CHARLES J.LOVEJOY.
THE OLD FEATHER STORE
The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 237
these ruins were two spacious Edifices, which until now, made a most considerable figure, because of the public relations to our greatest solemnities in which they had stood from the days of our Fathers. The one was the Town- house; the other the Old Meeting-house. The number of houses, and some of them very spa- cious buildings, which went into the fire with these, is computed near about a hundred." Those not burned out in the fire contributed about seven hundred pounds through the churches of Boston to the families that had suffered loss. The immediate effect of this conflagration was the appointment of ten of- ficers called Fire wards in the various parts of the town who were " to have a proper badge assigned to distinguish them in their office, namely a staff of five feet in length, coloured red, and headed with a bright brass spire of six inches long." These functionaries had full power to command all persons at fires, to pull down or blow up houses and to protect goods.
Among the small boys interested, as boys have ever been, in the havoc wrought by this fire of 1711, there would very likely have been found the five-year-old son of Josiah Franklin, tallow-chandler. Franklin had been a dyer in England but, upon reaching Boston, had set
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up in the business of chandlery and soap boil- ing. In 1691 he had built-near the south meeting-house - on what is now Milk street, a dwelling for his family, and there on Sunday, January 17, 1706, his child Benjamin was born. Soon afterwards, Josiah Franklin removed to a house at the corner of Hanover and Union streets where he lived the rest of his life. Here he hung out, as a sign of his trade, the blue ball, about the size of a cocoanut, which now reposes in the old State House, Boston.
Although there were so many children swarming in that little house on Hanover street, with its parlour and dining room close behind the shop, it was not a bit too crowded. Franklin in his Autobiography records that he well remembers "thirteen sitting at one time at his father's table who all grew up to be men and women and married." There were many visitors, too, in the living-room back of the shop, because Josiah Franklin had sturdy common sense and so was sought out by " lead- ing people who consulted him for his opinion in the affairs of the town or the church he belonged to and showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and advise."
The life led by the Franklins we may well enough take to be a type of that lived in hun-
FRANKLIN'S BIRTHPLACE
The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 239
dreds of self-respecting families of that day. There was a great deal of work, a great deal of church-going and considerable hardship of a healthy kind. But there were pleasures, too, chief among them being that of hospitality: " My father," Franklin tells us, " liked to have at his table, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbour to converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our attention to what was good, just and prudent in the conduct of life; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the victuals on the table, . . . so that I was brought up in such a perfect inat- tention to those matters as to be quite indif- ferent what kind of food was set before me, and so unobservant of it to this day, that if I am asked I can scarce tell a few hours after dinner what I dined upon." We can the more readily, after reading this, accept as authentic an anecdote told by the grandson of Franklin to the effect that, one day, after the winter's provision of salt fish had been prepared, Ben- jamin observed, " I think, father, if you were to say grace over the whole cask once for all, it would be a vast saving of time."
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Josiah Franklin, like every other good Christian of his day, wished to give at least one son to the order of the sacred ministry, and Benjamin, being his tenth child, was sin- gled out for this distinction. The boy was, therefore, sent at the age of eight to the gram- mar school, where in less than a year he had risen gradually from the middle of the class in which he entered to the head of the class above. But business at the sign of the blue ball was now less brisk than heretofore and Father Franklin began reluctantly to confess that he could see no chance of providing a col- lege training for the boy. A commercial edu- cation would bring quicker returns than that provided by the grammar school. Accord- ingly, the lad was placed in an institution es- pecially designed for the teaching of writing and arithmetic. Here Franklin " acquired fair writing pretty soon " but failed in arith- metic. So, since the family fortunes would not permit of his being a clergyman and failure in arithmetic made it impossible for him to be a clerk, Benjamin was " taken home at ten to assist in the business." This occupation he utterly loathed and, in truth, cutting candle- wicks and filling candle-molds with tallow must
The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 241
have been sad drudgery to this imaginative book-loving lad of twelve.
Besides, he longed to run away to sea. Born and bred in a seafaring town, and accustomed from earliest childhood to rowing and sailing, nothing delighted him so much as adventures smacking of the salt water. One Franklin boy already had run away to sea, however, and been cut off, as a result, from the family home and hearth. Josiah Franklin determined that, if he could help it, he would not lose his young- est son in the same way. Accordingly, when he found that nothing would make the lad rec- onciled to soap-making, he set about fitting him to another calling.
After a round had been made of the various shops, it was settled that Ben be apprenticed as a printer to his elder brother James, who had then (1717) just returned from learning this trade in London. With this idea Benja- min fell in the more readily by reason of his already great fondness for books.
" From a child," he tells us in the Auto- biography, " I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the ' Pil- grim's Progress,' my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little vol-
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umes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's historical collections. They were small chapmen's books, and cheap, forty or fifty in all. ... Plutarch's 'Lives ' there was, in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage.
" This bookish inclination at last deter- mined my father to make me a printer ... . I stood out some time, but at last was per- suaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother.
" I now had access to better books. An ac- quaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted.
" And after some time an ingenious trades- man, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me
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