USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 54
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ROXBURY IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
from Roxbury to the Connecticut, and began the settlement of Spring- field, so called from the town in England where he formerly resided. He engaged extensively in the beaver trade, and continued in the magis- tracy until, in 1650, the publication of his Meritorious Price of our Redemp- tion, in opposition to the then prevalent view of the atonement, caused him to be deposed and his book to be burned in the market-place of Boston by order of the Court, who placed him under heavy bonds. Having condemned his book as " false, heretical, and erroneous," they ordered Rev. John Norton to answer it, and declared their purpose "to proceed with its author according to his demerits unless he retract the same, and give full satisfaction both here and by some second writing to be printed and dispersed in England." He was forced to explain or modify the obnoxious opinions, and, as he was supposed to be " in a hopeful way to give good satisfaction," the judgment of the Court was deferred until its next session in May, 1652. Before that time, Pynchon, disgusted with the intolerant spirit of those in authority, returned to England, published a new edition of his book with additions in 1655, and died there in October, 1661, aged 72.
Prominent among the early inhabitants of Roxbury were: Griffin Craft, father of the first white child born in Roxbury, and the holder of many offices, civil and military ; John Johnson, "Surveyor Gen. of all ye armyes," the first constable of the town, and for fourteen years its representative to the General Court; Captain Joseph Weld, a wealthy merchant, active in military affairs, brother of Rev. Thomas Welde; Robert Williams, founder of one of the most prolific as well as distinguished families of Roxbury, where many of his descendants still reside; John Pierpont, who in 1658 established the first fulling-mill in Roxbury, ancestor of Rev. John Pierpont, poet and clergyman, and of Edwards Pierrepont, late United States Minister to England; Elder Isaac Heath, the assistant of Eliot in his Indian labors, and William his brother, from whom General Heath of Revolutionary fame was descended ; William Curtis, from whom most of those bearing the name in the United States derive their origin, and whose homestead, a genuine relic of colonial days, is still preserved ; Elder John Bowles, “ prudent, gracious, and well-deserving," as he is called by the apostle Eliot; John Bowles, his son, Speaker of the House in 1690, and prominent in church and town affairs ; Deacon William Parke, "a man of pregnant understanding," one of the founders of the church, and a most useful and honored citizen; William Denison and his sons Edward, Captain George, and Daniel, the latter after- wards a major-general, and highly distinguished both in the civil and mili- tary history of New England ; John Gore, many years Clerk of the Writs, ancestor of Governor Christopher Gore ; John Grosvenor, the first to intro- duce the tanning industry into Roxbury, and whose coat-of-arms in the old cemetery identifies him with the noble family of which the present Duke of Westminster is the head ; George Alcock, first deacon of the Rox- bury Church, ancestor of the philosopher A. Bronson Alcott and Louisa
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
May Alcott, his gifted daughter; Joshua Hewes, a merchant of large enter- prise, and who held many responsible trusts, public and private; Daniel Gookin, the friend and companion of Eliot in his missionary work, after- wards major-general and superintendent of the Massachusetts Indians ; Phillip Eliot, brother of the apostle, "a right godly and diligent person," a deputy to the General Court, and who held many important offices ; Thomas Bell, the munificent benefactor of the Free School in Roxbury,
KILBURN
THE CURTIS HOMESTEAD.1
afterwards a wealthy merchant of London; Lieutenant Richard Morris, second commander of Castle William, a representative in 1635-36, and an- cestor of Commodore Charles Morris, a distinguished officer of the United States navy; and John Trumbull, founder of the prominent Connecticut family of that name. Such were the men-and the women were of the same exalted stamp-who planted strong and deep the foundations of the Puritan Commonwealth. Tough of fibre, earnest of purpose, consci- entious in word and deed, and, above all, deeply religious, they wrought after a new pattern a fabric which still serves as a model, and which will ever remain an enduring monument of their wisdom and virtue.
1 [There are other views of the Curtis house in the Life of Benjamin R. Curtis ; Whitefield's Homes of our Forefathers ; Scribner's Monthly, February, ISSo ; F. S. Drake's Town of Roxbury, P. 399, &c. The house is supposed to have been built in 1639, and stands on Lamartine Street, near
Boylston Station on the Providence Railroad. William Curtis's wife was a sister of Eliot, and the apostle has doubtless been often sheltered by this roof. A pair of deer's antlers kept in the house are said to have belonged to an animal shot from the house. - ED.]
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ROXBURY IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
"A note of ye estates and persons" of Roxbury in 1639-the earliest list of its inhabitants extant-gives the number of acres and the amount of tax of each of the following persons. The larger land-holders were: Thomas Dudley, Thomas Welde, Philip Eliot, Joshua Hewes, Joseph Weld, William Denison, John Stow, Elder Heath, George Alcock, Isaac Morell, John Gore, John Johnson, William Parke, Samuel Hagborne, George Holmes, Thomas Bell. Those owning less than forty aeres were: William Curtis, John Eliot, Thomas Lamb, John Watson, Griffin Craft, John Roberts, John Miller, Edward Porter, James Astwood, Daniel Brewer, John Evans, Robert Williams, William Perkins, Samuel Chapin, William Cheney, John Petit, Abraham Smith, John Perry, Robert Gamblin, William Chandler, Abraham Newell, Samuel Finch, Thomas Pigge, Thomas Waterman, Arthur Gary, John Curteis, Ralph Hemingway, Isaac Johnson, John Bowles, John Mathew, Abraham How, John Burwell, John Trumble, John Hall, Thomas Griggs, Robert Seaver, Thomas Rug- gles, Edward Bridge, William Webb, Edward Rigges, Richard Pepper, John Ruggles, Christopher Peake, Gavin Anderson, John Levins, Edward Bugby, Richard Peacock, Laurence Whittemore, Giles Pason, Martin Steb- bins, John Stonnard, John Totman, Edward Pason, - Sheafe, Thomas Freeman, Edward Sheffield, John Burckly.
Lands were originally allotted as follows: Each person who came over at his own cost was entitled to fifty acres ; each adventurer of fifty pounds in the common stock of the Company received two hundred acres, or in that proportion ; and those who brought over servants were allowed fifty acres for each. Each of the Roxbury settlers had a piece of marsh-land for the salt hay, -one aere of which was equal in value to ten of wood-land, or two of corn or pasture-land. " A Record of Houses and Lands," the Rox- bury Book of Possessions made by Edward Denison in 1654 to replace the original, destroyed at the same time as the town records, is still preserved.
Like other New England towns, Roxbury was a little republic of itself. Its selectmen and other officers were annually chosen ; and all town affairs were decided upon in general meetings of the inhabitants convened at stated periods, or whenever a dozen of them thought proper that one should be held. Political subjects of deep interest, as well as local affairs, were openly discussed, and decided according to the will of the majority. The earliest town records existing date from 1647. Prior to 1643 Thomas Lamb, Joseph Weld, John Johnson, William Perkins, and John Stow were selectmen. In 1649 it was voted that " ye five men shall have for y" pres- ent yere full power to make and execute such orders as they in their appre- hension shall think to be conducing to the best good of the town." They were also empowered " to order and dispose of all single persons and in- mates within the town who lived an idle and dissolute life to service or other- wise," - an admirable regulation, and one the re-enactment of which would be most salutary. In 1666 a " clarke" was first chosen to record and
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
transcribe the doings of the town, " unless such things as either are ridiklus or inconvenient." The endless contention over the question of cattle, swine, &c., running at large, and the numerous warnings out of the town of all strangers and visitors unless they gave sureties for good behavior, are among the matters recorded that strike us of the present day as partaking strongly of both these characteristics.
Careful regulations for preventing fires were made at a very early day, - each householder being obliged to furnish ladders reaching to the house-top. Owing to the scarcity of money, the town in 1667 voted that " Corn amongst ourselves shall pass current and be paid and received from man to man, corn 3 s. pr bushel; pease 2 s. ; barley and malt 4 s. 6 d .; rye 4 s."
The following act, passed in November, 1670, shows us how jealous our ancestors were of the purity of the ballot, and that even in those early days, when church-members only were voters, " decaite and corrupt practices " had been introduced into elections : --
" For the better regulating and maintaining order in our town elections for time to come," it was voted that "none but the selectmen in being and the constables shall take in voates for election of town officers ; and they may examine the persons that bring in voates for others, and if they see need they may look over every man's per- tikuler voates that so no decaite may be used for corrupting our elections."
Severe labor and great privations were the lot of the settlers during the first-year. Food was scarce, and the cold intense. There was much sick- ness, and many died, -among them Mrs. Pynchon, Mrs. Coddington, Mrs. Phillips, and Mrs. Alcock. So great were the discouragements that many returned; and, says Dudley, "glad were we so to be rid of them. The ships being gone, victuals wasting, and mortality increasing, we held divers fasts in our several congregations, and from April, 1630, until Dec. following there died 200 at least, so low hath the Lord brought us." Few emigrants arrived in 1631 ; but in 1632 and 1635 many came, and a season of prosperity ensued.
Roxbury is fortunate in the possession of the diary and records of Eliot, from which, and from those of Sewall, Winthrop, Danforth, and others, the following items of interest in her annals have been gleaned : 1 -
1631, April 14. - " We began a court of guard upon the Neck between Roxbury and Boston, whereupon should be always resident an officer and six men." The gate of this primitive barrier stood at the narrowest part of the Neck, near Dover Street. The Roxbury Gate stood where an upright stone marks the old boundary-line between Roxbury and Boston.
1636, Oct. 7 .- The General Court met at Roxbury, having adjourned from Cambridge on account of the small-pox.
1 [The records of the First Church, begun by Eliot, are deposited with the New England Historic, Genealogical Society, and portions of them have been printed in the .V. E. Hist. and Geneal. Register, January, 1879, &c ; those of
Danforth, Eliot's colleague, 1650-74, are begun in the Register, January, ISSo. Some of the early entries were printed by J. W. Thornton in 18 50, in his Lives of Heath, Bowles, and Eliot. Cf. C. M. Ellis's History of Roxbury. - En.]
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ROXBURY IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
1645. - "Towards the end of the Ist month (March) there happened by Gods providence a very dreadful fire in Roxbury street. None knoweth how it was kindled, but being a fierce wind it suddenly prevailed. And in this mans house (John Johnson's) was a good part of ye county magazine of powder of 17 or 18 barrels, which awed ye people that none durst come to save ye house or goods till it was blown up, and by that time the fire had taken ye barns and outhouses (which were many and great) so that none were saved. In this fire were strong observations of God's providence to ye neighbors and towne, for ye wind at first stood to carry ye fire to other houses but suddenly turned it from them. And it was a fierce wind and thereby drave ye elements back from ye neighbors houses, which in a calm time would by ye great heat have been set on fire." Winthrop says the explosion shook the houses in Boston and Cambridge, " so as men thought it had been an earthquake, and carried great pieces of timber a good way off." By this fire the early records of the town were destroyed, - an irreparable loss.
- Dec. - "The first week in the moth month. This was the most mortal week that ever Roxbury saw, to have five dy in one week and many more lay sick about the towne."
1646. - "This year about the end of the 5th month, upon a suddaine innumer- able armys of caterpillars filled the country devouring the grasse, oats, corne, wheat, and barley. They would crosse highways by thousands. Much prayer was made to God about it, and fasting in divers places, and the Lord heard and on a suddaine took them all away in all parts of the country to the wonderment of all men. It was the Lord, for it was done suddainly." Danforth says: "They marched thorow our fields like armed men and spoyled much corn."
-"Capt. Joseph Weld being dead, the young men of the town agreed together to choose one George Denison a young soldier come lately out of the wars in Eng- land, but the ancient and chief men of the town chose one Mr. Prichard, whereupon much discontent and murmuring arose in the town." The court decided against Young America, and in favor of Prichard.
- Nov. 4. - "John Scarborrow was slaine charging a great gunne."
1646-47. - "This winter was one of the mildest that .ever we had, no snow all winter long nor sharp weather, but they had long floods at Connecticut which was much spoyle to ye corne in ye meadows. We never had a bad day to goe preach to the Indians all this winter, praised be the Lord !"
1647. - " A great sicknesse epidemical did the Lord lay upon us that the greatest part of the town was sick at once. Few died, but of these were the choycest flowers and most gracious saints."
1661, May 28. - " Judah Browne and Peter Pierson, Quakers, tied to a carts tail and whipt through the town with 10 stripes after receiving 20 at Boston, and again Io stripes at Dedham."
1667, March 25. - "Samuel Ruggles going up the meeting hill was struck by lightning, his two oxen and horse killed, a chest in the cart with goods in it burnt in sundry places, himself coming off the cart carried 20 feet from it, yet no abiding hurt."
1670, Oct. - " An Indian was hanged for killing his wife, lodging at an English- mans house in Roxbury. He threw her out of a chamber window and broke her neck."
1681, July 12. - " Mr Lambs negro in a discontent set her masters house on fire VOL. I .- 52.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
in the dead of night and also Mr Swans. One girl was burned and all the rest had much ado to escape with their lives." Sept. 22d the incendiary, a woman, was publicly burned to death in Boston, - the first to suffer such a penalty in New England.
The Indian war of 1675-76-" Philip's War," as it is called -was the severest ordeal through which New England was ever called upon to pass. Of Roxbury's share in this contest, so destructive to the colonists, Eliot says, in his diary : "John Dresser dyed in the wars and was there buryed. We had many slaine in the warr, no towne for bigness lost more, if any so many." The intrepid Captain Isaac Johnson, of Roxbury, with five other captains, was killed while storming the Narragansett stronghold, when that fierce tribe was destroyed at the famous ' Fort Fight,' Dec. 19, 1675. The only entrance to the fort was over a felled tree, bridging the swamp, over which but one man could pass at a time, and this narrow pathway was pro- tected by a block-house. The brave Roxbury captain - who was the son of John Johnson, the surveyor-general - was shot dead on this bridge, over which he was leading his men. The roll of his company, which also embraces. men from the adjacent towns, includes these of Roxbury: Onesiphorous Stanley, Henry Bowen, Isaac Morill, William Lincolne, Thomas Baker, John Watson, John Corbin, Thomas Cheney, Joseph Goad, Abiel Lamb, Samuel Gardiner, John Scot, Nathaniel Wilson, John Newell, John Hubbard, William Danforth. Some who escaped from this sanguinary engagement were less fortunate in the Sudbury fight, in the following April, in which Thomas Baker, Jr., Samuel Gardiner, John Roberts, Jr., Nathaniel Seaver, Thomas Hawley, Sr., William Cleaves, Joseph Pepper, John Sharpe, and Thomas Hopkins, of Roxbury, were slain. Their families, consisting of thirty-six persons, were among the recipients of the Irish charity sent to New England in 1676. This timely donation-amounting to near one thousand pounds, which was returned with interest during the Irish famine of 1848 - was secured through the instrumentality of Rev. Nathaniel Mather, of Dublin, and was distributed among six hundred families, - sufferers by the Indian war.
The immunity from interference with its charter privileges by the mother country which New England had so long enjoyed ceased on the accession of Charles II. Thenceforth, for a quarter of a century, and until the abro- gation of the Charter in 1684, there was a constant struggle for the pres- ervation of that precious guaranty of colonial rights. Among the petitions to the General Court, praying it to be firm in its resolution "to adhere to the patent and the privileges thereof," is one dated October 28, 1665, signed by John Eliot, John Bowles, Philip Torrey, Robert Pepper, Samuel Williams, Samuel Searborrow, Samuel May, William Lion, Moses Craffts, Samuel Ruggles, Isaac Curtis, and many other inhabitants of Roxbury, requesting the honored Court to "stand fast in our present libertys," and assuring them they will " pray the Lord to assist them to stere right in these shaking times." The General Court endeavored to propitiate the English government, by removing causes of offence. It modified its severe laws
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ROXBURY IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
against the Quakers, and condemned Eliot's Christian Commonwealth, - a book in which he had defended the principles of popular freedom. Eliot was forced to suppress the work and make public acknowledgment of his error.
In the summer of 1632, the first meeting-house (a " rude and unbeau- tified " structure, with a thatched roof, destitute of shingles or plaster, and without gallery, pew, or spire) was built on Meeting-house Hill, - the site of the present house of worship of the First Religious Society. Here town meetings were held, and matters either secular or religious determined, - town and church being but two names for one and the same constitu- ency; here, for near a century, all marriages, baptisms, and funerals were solemnized ; and here the apostle Eliot preached for nearly sixty years. It is this ministry inseparably connected with his beneficent missionary labors for the Indians, which extended the fame of the grand old apostle to the Indians throughout Christendom, that constitutes the crowning glory of the Roxbury Church.
For two years the people of Roxbury had been assessed for the support of the Charlestown Church, and, under the charge of Deacon George Alcock, had joined themselves to that of Dorchester, "until such time as God should give them opportunity to be a church among themselves." This First Religious Society of Roxbury, destined to become large and influ- ential, was the sixth in the order of time in New England, -those of Ply- mouth (1620), Salem (1629), Dorchester (1630), Boston, and Watertown (1632) having alone preceded it. Its founders were William Pynchon, George Alcock, William Parke, John Johnson, Thomas Lamb, William Denison, Thomas Rawlings, Robert Cole, William Chase, Thomas Welde, Robert Gamlin, Richard Lyman, Richard Bugby, Jehu Burr, Gregorie Bax- ter, Francis Smith, John Perrie, John Leavens, and Samuel Wakeman. When the " opportunity " came, through the large accessions made to their number in the summer of 1632, Mr. Thomas Welde was ordained teacher, and John Eliot pastor, of the church and society. Welde's engagement is thus quaintly described : -
" After many imparlances and days of humiliation by those of Roxbury to seek the Lord for Mr Welde his disposing, and the advice of those of Plymouth being taken, he resolved to sit down with those of Roxbury, the diligent people thereof early preventing their brethren of other churches by calling him to be their pastor."
From that day to this uninterrupted harmony has prevailed, if we except the period of the Antinomian Controversy, so called, which in 1637 disturbed the community and seriously threatened the peace of the churches. The leaders of this movement, which was a struggle for intel- lectual freedom against the authority of the clergy, - Anne Hutchinson, John Wheelwright, and others, - were exiled, and their adherents who had signed a petition to the Court affirming Wheelwright's innocence, which was stig- matized as a " seditious libel," were disarmed. "The Church at Roxbury,"
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
says Winthrop, " dealt with divers of their members there who had their names to the petition, and spent many days in public meetings to have brought them to see the sin in that, as also in the corrupt opinions which they held, but could not prevail with them; so they pronounced to two or three admonitions, and when all was in vain they cast them out of the church." The Roxbury men disarmed were William and Edward Denison, Richard Morris, Richard Bulgar, and Phillip Sherman. Of those exiled, two - John Coggeshall and Henry Bull-were afterwards governors of Rhode Island, while a third, Phillip Sherman, became a founder and a distinguished citizen of that Colony.
So efficacious a method of promoting the religious education of their children, and at the same time of building up their church, as the establish- ment of Sunday-schools, was by no means overlooked by the pious founders of New England. "This day" (Dec. 6, 1674,) says the church record, "we restored our primitive practice for the training up our youth. First, our male youth in fitting season after the evening services in the public meeting-house, where the elders will examine their remembrance that day and any fit point of catechism. Second, that our female youth should meet in one place where the elders may examine their remembrance of yester- day and about catechise, or what else may be convenient."
When, in 1658, the first house was plastered, shingled, and otherwise "repayred for the warmth and comfort of the people," the puritanic plain- ness of the old structure was so far departed from that a " pinakle " was set upon each of its ends. For this improvement Lieutenant John Remington was to be paid £22,-" more if the work deserveth more, lesse if the work cleserveth lesse."
In 1674, " after much debate with love and condescending one to an- other," a new and more comfortable house was built, the people of Brook. line contributing and worshipping therein, as they had previously done, until the erection of their own church in 1715, - one-fifth part of the church being allotted to them, they contributing in that proportion towards the parish expenses. In 1693 liberty was given to " meet persons to build pues around the meeting-house eccept where the boys do sit," the officers of the church and the selectmen to seat the people in accordance with their age and estate.
Before this time the people sat on plain benches, the men and women on opposite sides of the house, the boys separate from both, with a tithing man to keep them in order. The singing, which was congregational and without accompaniment, was from the "Bay Psalm Book." Rising in their seats, the people stood facing the pastor and sung in unison each line as it was " deaconed off," or " lined out." Few congregations could sing more than five tunes. The town was taxed for the support of the minister. The dissenter from the Congregational order was not only a heretic but was poli- tically an alien, members of the church being the only freemen and voters until 1685.
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ROXBURY IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
Perhaps no people ever enjoyed greater religious advantages than those of Roxbury under the able, zealous, and faithful ministrations of Eliot, Welde, and Danforth. To this cause is to be attributed the steadiness of their at- tachment to the principles of the Puritan fathers for a period of two hundred years. A reaction from their too rigid principles was, however, inevitable, and that Roxbury was in some degree affected by it is evident from the fact that both Eliot and Danforth, in their later days, recognized and publicly deplored the decline in vital godliness and in the churches.
Rev. Thomas Welde, the first pastor of the Roxbury Church, a native of Tirling in Essex, England, was educated at the University of Cambridge, and then settled in the ministry in his native place. Incurring the penalties of the laws against Nonconformists, he was obliged to fly for safety to New England. Just before his departure, and while standing in jeopardy from the persecutions of Laud, then Bishop of London, Welde and Rev. Thomas Shepard " consulted together whether it was best to let such a swine root up God's plants in Essex and not give him some check." Arriving at Boston in the " William and Francis," June 5, 1632, he was ordained pastor in July, Eliot being soon after settled with him as teacher. In 1639 he assisted Eliot and Richard Mather in making the New England version of the Psalms, known as the " Bay Psalm Book," which remained in use for more than a century. Sent in 1641 to England as agent for the Colony, he never re- turned, but obtained a living at Gateshead, near Newcastle, and died in Lon- don, March 23, 1661.
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