USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 67
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distinction of elders and the "practical working relation between the elders for ruling and the brotherhood," see Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, p. 238.
3 Lechford, Plain Dealing, 18.
Ibid. 18, 19.
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BOSTON IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
a shilling, some two shillings, half a crown, five shillings, according to their ability and good will; after this they conclude with a psalm." 1
Inasmuch as church membership was coincident with the right of suf- frage, the reception into the church was invested with much circumstance. Johnson has given a close account of the customary proceedings : -
" After this manner the person desirous to join with the church cometh to the Pastor and makes him acquainted therewith, declaring how the Lord hath been pleased to work his conversion ; who discerning hopes of the person's faith in Christ, although weak, yet if any appear, he is propounded to the church in general for their approbation touching his godly life and conversation, and then by the Pastor and some brethren heard again, who make report to the church of their charitable approv- ing of the person. But before they come to join with the church, all persons within the town have public notice of it ; then publicly he declares the manner of his conversion, and how the Lord hath been pleased, by the hearing of his Word preached and the work of his Spirit in the inward parts of his soul, to bring him out of that natural darkness which all men are by nature in and under, as also the measure of knowledge the Lord hath been pleased to indue him withal. And because some men cannot speak publicly to edification through bashfulness, the less is required of such ; and women speak not publicly at all." 2
The public occasions in Boston centred about the church. Besides Sun- days, the great gatherings were at lectures, thanksgivings, and fasts, attend- ance at which was nearly as obligatory as on Sunday services. Days of fasting were not annual or fixed, but appointed from time to time by the General Court, and by special churches, with more or less fulness of explanation as to their occasion. "To entreat the help of God," one order reads, " in the weighty matters that are at hand, and to divert any evil plot which may be intended, and to prepare the way of friends which we hope may be upon coming to us." "For want of rain and help of brethren in distress, . . . for the sad condition of our native country, .. . for drought and sickness at home and trouble in England," were others. Neither was Thanksgiving then set for annual observance at the end of harvest. June 13, 1632, one was ordered for " God's great mercy to the church in Germany and the Palatin- ate ; " in October, 1633, " for a bountiful harvest and the arrival of persons of special usc and quality," - that was when Cotton and Hooker and Haynes came over ; Sept. 8, 1637, " for success and safe return of the Pequot expe- dition, especially the success of the conference at New Town, and good news from Germany."
The Thursday Lecture is an old Boston institution which dates from this time. " Upon the weck days," writes Lechford, 1638-41, " there are I.cc- tures in divers towns and in Boston upon Thursdays, when Master Cotton teacheth out of the Revelation."3 The rage for lecture-going led people to
1 Two Voyages, 180.
2 Wonder-working Providence, bk. ii. ch. xxii. [Bacon, Historical Discourses, ch. v., describes early ecclesiastical forms and usages. See also Dr. Dexter's chapter on "Early New England
Congregationalism " in his Congregationalism as seen in its Literature. - ED.]
3 Plain Dealing, 19. [Cf. Dr. Frothingham's discourse on the Second Centennial of the Thurs- day Lecture, 1833, and Dr. Waterston's on re-
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
go from one town to another during the week, until the matter came to be so serious that the magistrates were at first disposed to interfere,1 but the elders advised against anything that looked like discouraging the people from going to meetings. The Court did, however, in 1633, make a regulation that no lec- ture should begin before one o'clock, to prevent too great interference with business, but the law was repealed in 1640. There is a single reference in Winthrop 2 to a regular Saturday evening service, and the old New England custom of reckoning Sunday from sunset of Saturday to sunset of Sunday, has an indefinite origin.3
The excitement of meetings and lectures stood to the stricter sort as a recreation from their work. They were by the hard custom of their own minds, and by a bitter hostility to anything that looked like license, per- petually endeavoring to put down all amusements in the population outside of their small compact body. They boasted that none of the holidays of England had survived the passage of the Atlantic; and, as Christmas lifted its head, they smote at it with a law. " For preventing disorders," reads the Record of General Court, May 11, 1659, " arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this Court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shillings as a fine to the county. And whereas not only at such times, but at several other times also, it is a custom too frequent in many places to expend time in unlawful games, as cards, dice, &c.," a pen- alty is imposed for that. It was plainly the intent of the Court to disgrace Christmas by associating it with lawless proceedings.4 Other laws against cards and dice were very early passed. Bowling about inns was forbidden, and so, as we have seen, was dancing prohibited. Football was not forbidden except in streets, lanes, or enclosures.5 This regulation, like the one against fast driving in the streets of Boston, which the General Court found it de- sirable to pass in 1662, were in the interest especially of old people and young children. In that day also the Common appeared on the lighter side of life. Josselyn, describing the town as it was between 1660 and 1670, says : " Their streets are many and large, paved with pebble stone, and the south side adorned with Gardens and orchards. The Town is rich and very popu- lous, much frequented by strangers; here is the dwelling of their Gover-
suming it, in 1844. It was given up a few years ago. - ED.]
1 See Winthrop, i. 324, 325.
2 Ibid. i. 109.
3 [Cf. Savage's Winthrop's New England, i. 130. Cotton Mather says of John Cotton : "The Sabbath he began the evening before ; for which keeping of the Sabbath from even-
ing to evening, he wrote arguments before his coming to New England: and I suppose that 't was from his reason and practice that the Christians of New England have generally done so too."- ED. ]
* [See a curious instance in Bradford's Ply- mouth Plantation, p. 112. - ED. ]
5 Boston Town Records, 141, 157.
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BOSTON IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
nor. On the north-west and north-east two constant Fairs [ferries] are kept for daily Traffick thereunto. On the south there is a small but pleasant common where the Gallants a little before sunset walk with their marmalet madams, as we do in Morefields, &c., till the nine aclock bell rings them home to their respective habitations,1 when presently the Constables walk their rounds to see good orders kept, and to take up loose people." 2 The first positive enactment by which the Common became a fixed tract of land, substantially as we now have it, was in March, 1640, when it was " also agreed upon that henceforth there shall be no land granted either for house- plot or garden to any person out of the open ground or common field which is left between the Sentry Hill and Mr. Colbron's end ; except three or four lots to make up the street from Bro. Robert Walker's to the Round Marslı." 3 From that time onward there were frequent votes and orders in town-meet- ing, all looking to a cleanly and orderly use of the Common. It was used then, as now, for trainings; but the picture which Josselyn draws gives a better clew to the unfailing interest which the people have always taken in the Common.
It is very clear that in the judgment of the law-makers industry and not amusement was the business of the young. Long and serious orders appear in the records looking towards the morals of young people, and safeguards were found in regular employment and in education; perhaps it would be accurate to say that their idea of education included work as one of the primary methods of education. The state-and-church refused to delegate this instruction to families; it conceived it to be a part of its own business to be a guardian of the young, whether these were in families or not. A succession of orders, extending over a series of years, will best illustrate this attitude of the government toward families and children. On the 14th of June, 1642, we read : -
" This Court, taking into consideration the great neglect of many parents and masters in training up their children in learning and labor and other employments which may be profitable to the commonwealth, do hereupon order and decree that in every town the chosen men appointed for managing the prudential affairs of the same shall henceforth stand charged with the care of the redress of this evil, so as they shall be sufficiently punished by fines for the neglect thereof, upon presentation of the grand jury, or other information or complaint in any court within this jurisdiction ; and for this end they or the greater number of them shall have power to take account from time to time of all parents and masters, and of the children, concerning the calling and employment of the children, especially of their ability to read and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of this country, and to impose fines upon
1 [The nine-o'clock bell was instituted in 1649, and it remained a custom of the town till recent times. The morning bell at the same time was rung " half an hour after four." In 1664, an eleven-o'clock bell was ordered "for the more convenient and expeditions despatch of merchants' affairs."- F.D.]
2 Josselyn's Two l'oyages, 162. [This ac- count is also largely copied by Dunton, in his Letters. - En.]
3 [See Mr. Winthrop's and Mr. Bynner's chapters in this volume. These lots will be distinctly marked in the plans given in the Introduction to vol. ii. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
such as shall refuse to render such account to them when they shall be required. . . . They are to take care of such as are set to keep cattle, that they be set to some other employment withal as spinning upon the rock, knitting, weaving tape, &c., and that boys and girls be not suffered to converse together so as may occasion any wanton dishonor or immodest behavior ; and for the better performance of this trust commit- ted to them, they may divide the town amongst them, appointing to every of the said townsmen a certain number of families to have special oversight of. They are also to provide that a sufficient quantity of material as hemp, flax, &c., may be raised in their several towns, and tools and implements provided for working out the same."
In 1646: " If any child or children above sixteen years old, and of suf- ficient understanding, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he or she shall be put to death, unless the parents have been unchristianly negligent or provoking by extreme and cruel correction." An incorrigible son could be presented by his parents and put to death, but the law re- mained, so far as evidence appears, a mere brutum fulmen. A more genial treatment of such cases is suggested by the order of August 22, 1654: " Magistrates have authority to whip divers children and servants who be- have themselves disrespectfully, disobediently, and disorderly toward their parents, masters, and governors." The selectmen again in 1668 are "re- quired to see that all children and youth under family government be taught to read perfectly the English tongue, have knowledge in the capital laws, and be taught some orthodox catechism, and that they be brought up to some honest employment."
Marriage, as performed in Boston, was made by the law of 1646 an act of the civil magistrate, "or such other as the General Court, or Court of Assistants, shall authorize in such place where no magistrate is near." 1 Mr. Savage could discover no "record of a marriage performed by a clergyman prior to 1686, except in Gorges' Province, by a clergyman of the Church of England."2 The minister, if he were present, was sometimes called upon to "improve the occasion." The old English custom of announcing the banns was retained, and on occasion of important pro- spective marriages the minister preached a sermon. Trumbull, in his notes to Lechford's Plain Dealing, instances such an occasion in 1640, when the minister gave a practical and pointed discourse from Ephesians, vi. IO, II, applying the text "to teach us that the state of marriage is a warfaring condition." 3
Finally, when the Boston man of the colonial period came to be buried, he went to his grave with all the uncircumstanced solemnity which he re- garded in life. He had stripped life of its decorations, and sought the solid uncompromising reality ; he asked for nothing else at death. There was no
1 Charter and General Laws of Massachusetts Bay, p. 152.
2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1858-60, p. 283.
8 [Preaching was allowed at the solemnity called a "Contraction," a little before the rite
of marriage took place; but custom forbade a sermon at the espousals. Dr. Dexter corrects Mr. Savage in his confounding these two cere- monies. - Congregationalism as seen in its Lit- erature, p. 458. - En.]
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BOSTON IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
necessity to advertise, " Friends are requested not to send flowers." Lech- ford's account has a real dignity in its brief statement : " At Burials nothing is read, nor any funeral sermon made; but all the neighborhood, or a good company of them, come together by tolling of the bell, and carry the dead solemnly to his grave, and there stand by him while he is buried. The ministers are most commonly present." 1
REBECCA RAWSON.2
1 Pluin Dealing, 39.
2 [Notwithstanding the statement of the text that Savage could find no record of a marriage by a clergyman prior to 1686, the accounts of the sad romance connected with the name of Rebecca Rawson fix her marriage, July 1, 1679, " by a minister of the gospel, in the presence of near forty witnesses." This lady was the daugh- ter of Secretary Rawson, and was born May 23, 1656, and was brought up with care in the higher social circles of the town One Thomas Rumsey, who came to Boston under the pretence
of being a nephew of Lord Chief-Justice Ilale, and calling himself Sir Thomas Hale, gained her affections. Being married, the young pair went to England. Upon landing, the scamp man- aged to secure the contents of her trunks, and escape. It was ascertained by the lady's friends in England that the fellow had already a wife in Canterbury. Pride kept the deserted woman in England for thirteen years, where, declining the assistance of her friends, she supported herself and child by painting on glass, and by the exer- cise of her other accomplishments. At length
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
We began this chapter with a reference to Governor Winthrop's death, for it is of Boston at that time that we have especially written. We may properly close with his funeral. "His body," we are told, "was, with great solemnity and honor buried at Boston, in New England, the third of April, 1649."} The only intimation of the ceremony above the ordinary silent entombment is in the order of the General Court sanctioning the action of the Surveyor General, who lent, on his own responsibility, a barrel and a half of powder to the artillery company to expend in solemnizing the funeral. 2
she took passage in a ship belonging to an uncle, to return to Boston ; but the vessel, making the voyage by way of Jamaica, was swallowed up at Port Royal, with passengers and crew, in the earthquake of June 9, 1692. Rebecca Rawson and her father, the Secretary, figure in Whittier's Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal. See The Rawson Family, by Sullivan S. Rawson, Boston, 1849, and N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg. Oct. 1849 .- ED.]
1 Davis's Morton, p. 243.
2 [See Mr. Winthrop's chapter. When, in 1670, Deputy-Governor Francis Willoughby died and was buried, we are told there were eleven full companies in attendance, and that "with the doleful noise of trumpets and drums, in their mourning posture, three thundering volleys of shot [were] discharged, answered with the loud waring of the great guns, rending the heavens with noise at the loss of so great a man." - N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., xxx 67-78. - ED.]
CHAPTER XIX.
TOPOGRAPHY AND LANDMARKS OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
BY EDWIN L. BYNNER.
Nº 0 picture, map, or satisfactory account of the ancient peninsula of Shawmut, as it appeared to Winthrop and his colonists, has been discovered; but from the abundant descriptions of later times there needs no great effort of the imagination to bring it clearly to mind.
From Captain John Smith we might fairly have expected a chance word of description, were it not for a reasonable doubt as to whether the great navigator ever penetrated our inner harbor, or otherwise came within view of the peninsula.1 The visit of Miles Standish's exploring party, sent out from Plymouth in 1621, was, as appears in an earlier chapter,2 scarcely more fruitful in result. The man, moreover, of all others, who was best fitted to speak with authority upon this pre-colonial period has left us nothing. William Blaxton, or Blackstone, the first white settler upon the peninsula, that doughty recluse who left his retreat upon the sunny slope of Beacon Hill, as he boldly avowed, to escape from the intolerant atmosphere of " the Lords Brethren," no doubt left much interesting matter touching his own history and his wilderness home among the papers which were de- stroyed by the burnings and ravagings of Philip's war.
Failing all these sources of information, it is curious that we are left to the early impressions of "a romping girl" for our first description of the peninsula as it looked in its virgin wildness, which, although but an old lady's recollection of the scenes of her youth, recorded after the lapse of almost a century, is too graphic to be forgotten. Anne Pollard,3 the impulsive young woman who was the foremost to leap ashore from the first boat-load of colonists as they passed over from Charlestown and touched at the North End, has described her girlish impression as of a place " very uneven, abounding in small hollows and swamps, covered with blueberries and other bushes."
1 [The question of Smith's entrance into the harbor is examined in Mr. Winsor's chapter on "The Cartography of Massachusetts Bay."-ED.] 2 [ By Mr. C. F. Adams, Jr. - ED.] VOL. I. -- 66.
8 She lived to the extraordinary age of one hundred and five years; her portrait, taken just before she died (in 1725), is preserved in the gal- lery of the Historical Society.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
This has a characteristic New England flavor, and is undoubtedly truc to life so far as it goes; but, topographically, the peninsula in those days must have had other and more prominent features to distinguish it from the surrounding country or the islands in the harbor, of which, but for the interposition of human hands, it would doubtless long since have swelled the number.
Flung boldly out from the mainland, like a restraining arm to hold back the too cager rushing of the rivers Charles and Mystic to the sca, it formed an admirable natural barrier, and commanded the entrance to the rich and smiling country beyond. With no more symmetry of form than a splash of molten lead dropped into the cooling waters, it minst neverthe- less have presented - with its lofty hills, with its deep coves and smaller inlets, with its bristling headlands and its bold unwooded outline - striking and picturesque features to the eye.
But we are not left long to imagination or surmise. The first visitor to the new colony who has given us a record of his impressions was William Wood, an intelligent young Englishman, who came over before 1630, and was in Boston so shortly after the settlement of the town that little or no change could have taken place in its general features. " Boston," he says, " is two miles North-east from Roxberry : His situation is very pleasant, being a Peninsula, hem'd in on the Sonth-side with the Bay of Roxberry, on the North-side with Charles-river, the Marshes on the backe-side, being not halfe a quarter of a mile over; so that a little fencing will secure their cattle from the Woolues. Their greatest wants be Wood and Medow-ground which never were in that place; being constrayned to fetch their building timber and fire-wood from the Ilands in Boates, and their Hay in Loyters. It being a Necke and bare of wood, they are not troubled with three great annoyances of Woolves, Rattlesnakes, and Musketoes." 1
In a note upon this passage Shaw disputes the statement that there never was any wood upon the peninsula, and asserts - npon what anthority does not appear-that it had been cleared by the Indians for planting corn. He adds : "There were, however, many large clumps left, sufficient for fuel and timber. The growth was probably similar to that of the islands." There was undoubtedly some wood growing upon the Neck proper, for we find several entries relating to it in the carly records ; but that there never was a great deal, and by no means "sufficient for fuel and timber," is evident from a passage in one of Winthrop's letters to his son in 1637: " We at Boston were almost ready to brake up for want of wood."
The natural advantages of its position would seem to have been reason enough for the selection of the peninsula for a settlement ; but Roger Clap, who came over shortly before Winthrop, and was present at the latter's arrival, intimates in his Memoirs that the spot was chosen because it was already cleared. "Governor Winthrop," he says, "purposed to set down
1 Wood, New England's Prospect. Cf. Lechford's Plaine Dealing, p. III.
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TOPOGRAPHY, ETC., OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
his Station about Cambridge or somewhere on the river; but viewing the place liked that PLAIN neck which was called then Blackstone's Neck."
Most of the carly writers, however, attribute the choice to the abundance of good water on the peninsula, and the want of it at Charlestown; and Prince, following the Charlestown Records, describes Mr. Blackstone coming over and informing " the Governor of an excellent spring there, withall inviting and soliciting him thither. [Upon which it seems that Mr. Johnson, with several others, soon remove and begin to settle on that side of the river.]"1 Dr. Snow adds plausibility to this theory by giving as the mean- ing of the Indian name Shawmut, -" living fountains," which etymology, be it said, is disputed by excellent authorities.2
Before proceeding to record the rapid changes which took place in the outward aspect of the peninsula, and of the infant town that lay nestled among its hills, it may be well to review its physical characteristics, by which the better to note the effect of those vast modifications which in the course of years have changed it almost beyond recognition.
And first, of its position with regard to the surrounding country, we have two early pictures, which can hardly be improved. In his Two Voy- ages,3 Josselyn says : -
"On the North-side of Boston flows Charles-River, which is about six fathom deep. Many small Islands lye to the Bayward, and hills on either side the River ; a very good harbour, here may forty Ships ride ; the passage from Boston to Charles- towem is by a Ferry, worth forty or fifty pounds a year, and is a quarter of a mile over."
Equally graphic is the description of the harbor given in the New Eng- land's Prospect, which still remains good after the lapse of nearly two centuries and a half: -
"This Harbour is made by a great company of Ilands, whose high Cliffes shoulder out the boistrous Seas, yet may easily deceiue any unskilfull Pilote, presenting many faire openings and broad sounds which afford too shallow water for any Ships, though navigable for Boates and small Pinnaces.
" It is a safe and pleasant Harbour within, having but one common and safe
1 The "excellent spring" referred to was soon to be mentioned. [Shurtleff, Desc. of Bos- doubtless the "great spring" in Spring Lane, lon, ch. xxix , gives an account of the springs originally found in the peninsula. They are marked by a blue cross in the map in this vol- ume, See Wheildon, Sentry or Beacon Hill, ch. xi., on " Beacon llill Springs." There seems to have been a spring or other source of water sup- ply on Cotton Ilill (Pemberton Ilill), as will appear from a vole of the town later quoted in the text. - ED.] near which Governor Winthrop built his house. It is the best known and oftenest mentioned of all the original fountains. It was long ago filled up and a pump placed in its stead, which was standing within the memory of people still living. It is supposed to have been the waters of this same spring that bubbled up when they were making excavations for the new l'ost Office in 1869, in which building the water is still used. 2 [Cf. Dr. Trumbull's comments in his chap- ter of the present volume. - ED.] Another noted spring was in Louisburg Square, by some thought to have been Blackstone's own, 3 [Besides being reprinted separately, this necessary authority on early Boston is re- and still another where the Howard Athena um now stands, - all these besides the Town Pump, printed in 3 Mass. Ilist. Coll., iii. - ED.]
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