USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 44
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
cede any amount of carelessness and credulity to the author, and still the fact remains that were the Magnalia and the Ratio Disciplinae blotted out of existence and of memory, the first generations of New England would be but dimly known to their children.
It must not be forgotten here that an important part of the service of this distinguished family to New England was put forth in reducing to rigid system, in describing and defending, the way of the churches. When Richard Mather landed here in the summer heats of 1635, it was scarcely as yet obvious what order existed. All was inchoate, tentative, and not being as yet clear enough to be described was incapable of being defended. Mr. Cotton is usually spoken of as the father of the New England polity. But his Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven was not issued until 1644; and although he had printed his thin pamphlet called the Doctrine of the Church more than a twelvemonth previously, it seems in reality to have been Richard Mather who, three or four years before (as early as 1639), in the composing of his Answer of the Elders, analyzed and stated the current doctrine with so much clearness and theoretic consistency as to render his book the most important of the early Principia of New England Congre- gationalism written on the soil. He printed further on the same subject in 1644, and again in 1647; and the fact that, in 1648, of the three drafts submitted to it, on its request, by Mr. Cotton, Mr. Partridge, and him- self, the Cambridge Synod " settled down substantially " upon his for the Platform, offers surely strong argument in proof that the place of first honor as an ecclesiastical organizer here of right belongs to him. I have, I venture to think, elsewhere 1 made it clear that this early Congregational- ism, as being Barrowism and not Brownism, was so constituted as to be inherently inconsistent, and therefore uneasy. And as the various processes of an expanding life and an enlarging experience more and more brought into sight this connate difficulty, the Mather family distinguished itself at least for assiduity in the endeavor to adjust all variances into peace. When the Synod of 1662 propounded the expedient of the half-way covenant, the venerable Dorchester pastor joined hands with "Matchless Mitchell," of Cambridge, in defending the conclusion reached. Increase, then a young man, with a young man's impetuosity and other traits, wrote on both sides of that controversy with equal zeal; and, as the years passed on, he and his son and grandson did some of their best work in the treatises already men- tioned, in which they diligently sought to clarify, rectify, and justify our Gospel Order.
It remains to refer, in the fewest words, to that more general influence as public men which was exerted over the community by these marvellous Mathers, - a department of the subject necessarily too vague for exact treatment. The Dorchester pioneer scored his mark upon his time mainly in his gown and bands and through his work as an Elder, "the Lord
1 The Congregationalism of the last Three Hundred Years, as seen in its Literature, etc., pp. 463, 695.
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THE MATHER FAMILY, AND ITS INFLUENCE.
making him an Eminent Blessing not only to Dorchester, but to all the Churches and Plantations round about, for the space of Four-and-thirty years."1 His son realized a more imperial mastery over his contemporaries, in the pulpit for more than half a century reigning supreme; over the col- lege for a third of that time he also ruled with vigor, dignity, and success. To this popularity he gradually added the repute of a man exceptionally learned, sagacious, energetic, and peerless among his fellows in the manage- ment of affairs; and throwing himself upon the people's side in the conflict with the Crown and its myrmidons, and standing before kings on the people's behalf, he gained still loftier distinction as a diplomatist. It is not, prob- ably, too much to say that for many years he was the first subject in the colony ; as Professor Tyler puts it,2 ___
" Born in America, bred in America, - a clean specimen of what America could do for itself in the way of keeping up the brave stock of its first imported citizens ; a man every way capable of filling any place in public leadership made vacant by the greatest of the Fathers ; probably not a whit behind the best of them in scholarship, in eloquence, in breadth of view, in knowledge of affairs, in every sort of efficiency."
To the full length and breadth of this, his father's fame and sway, Cotton Mather - although in some respects more gifted, and in some departments more learned - never succeeded. His lot fell upon different days. The old ways were in process of being changed. The ecclesiastical and civil powers no longer synonymized each other. He did his manifold utmost to stay the ebbing of the tide, but day by day could feel the acceleration of its subsidence. Still, with his big wig, his gleaming eyes, his grave yet comely face and scholarly dignity of bearing, as he walked about the streets of his native place, he had at least the port and bearing of a noble- man, if not, like his father, monarch of all he surveyed. And his manifest and controlling desire to be helpful, at whatever personal sacrifice and in whatever way, small or great, among even the deteriorating populace, made him, so long as he lived, one of the marked men of Boston, and, despite the great drawback of his obvious faults, caused his demise to be lamented as the loss and sorrow of the town and country. That he almost endured martyrdom in gallantly contending for that inoculative ante-treatment of that loathsome pest which every few years was then accustomed to decimate the community, which is now well-nigh universally conceded to be, in point of philosophy and in point of fact, one of the most useful of modern illus- trations of the ancient proverb that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," is now mainly forgotten ; while every graduate in a primer of history from the vast height of our "High Schools" of to-day voices a new sneer against his memory, as the " credulous " and " cruel " apostle and primate of the witchcraft mania and murders.
There can be no subject as to which the rule that a candid critic will put himself in the place of the man whom he criticises is more imperative than
1 Life, etc., p. 75.
2 History of American Literature, ii. 69.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
this. Of course it is not to be denied that Cotton Mather shared the faith of his generation in the reality of witchcraft. His nature was not gifted in the manner to make it as easy for him to be a reformer in that as in some other directions. Governor Hutchinson, who graduated from Harvard College the year before Mather died, makes it clear in his history, as many others have since done, not only that the very first lawyers of the old country believed in the reality of witchcraft as a punishable crime against God and man, but that more poor victims were put to death in a short time in a single county in England than suffered in all the colonies together.1 Believing in the supernatural character of the alleged events, Cotton Mather acted precisely as it was natural for a great and good man, so believing in that day, to act. But he did not originate the excitement. He was no more guilty in regard to it than Richard Baxter or Sir Matthew Hale at home, or than Sir William Phips or Lieut .- Governor Stoughton or Judge Sewall, or hundreds of others, here. And it is my firm conviction that the more scrupulously diligent a student may be in in- vestigating all related facts, and the more rigidly just in their interpretation, the more heartily he will come in the end into accord with the conclusion reached by an eminent and now venerable successor (emeritus) in Mather's pastoral charge : 2-
"That he [Cotton Mather] was under the influence of any bad motives, any sanguinary feelings ; that he did not verily think he was doing God service and the Devil injury ; that he would not gladly have prevented the disorderly proceedings of the courts, the application of unlawful tests, and everything unmerciful in the trials, and inhuman in their issue, - the most careful examination has failed to make me believe."
Looking, then, upon this sad (but not guilty) passage in Cotton Mather's life, and accrediting him duly with the pure motive which underlay his con- duct, even here I find no cause for non-concurrence with that ancient maxim which, as to other points of character and passages of life, would accord him noble praise.
- " Aut virtus nomen inane est, Aut decus et pretium recte petit experiens vir."
Seenvy martyn Dexter.
1 History of Massachusetts, ii. 22, 27.
2 Dr. Chandler Robbins, History of the Second Church, etc., p. III.
CHAPTER X.
CHARLESTOWN IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
BY HENRY HERBERT EDES.
T THE fall of the Colony charter; the assumption by Dudley of the Presi- dency of the Royal Province of New England; the arrival, adminis- tration, and overthrow of Andros, together with the remarkable career of " the evil genius of New England," - have been recounted in previous chapters. In these events the people of Charlestown were actively iden- tified with the opposition to the new regime; but there were a few - and among them persons of the highest social standing - who, while they may not have approved the proceedings of Sir Edmund and his vice- regal court, were unwilling to lift hand or voice against the legally com- missioned representatives of the Crown to which they had sworn allegiance ; nor could they recognize the provisional government soon established by the people as legitimate until it had received the royal sanction. This feeling was manifested immediately after the adjournment of the Conven- tion that assembled in Boston, May 22, 1689, which voted to resume the old charter, - a decision which this town ratified June 17, 1689, when it was voted that all town officers then chosen should continue in office only until the first day of the following March, "that the town might come to their former order in those matters." The Convention, by vote, further provided for the restoration to their places of all civil and military officers in power on May 12, 1686. In opposing the consummation of these acts of the Con- vention, Captain Laurence Hammond, -town clerk, selectman, clerk of the courts under Andros, and commander of one of the military companies,- and the Hon. Thomas Tho: Greaves Greaves 1 (H. C. 1656), -physician, and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas under Sir Edmund, - were the most prom- inent. With them were associated Deacon John Cutler, Sr., Captain Richard Sprague, and John Cutler, Jr., besides others of less note. For their con- tumacy Hammond, Sprague, and Cutler were deprived of their commands
1 He was son of Admiral Thomas Greaves, who died July 31, 1653.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
in the militia, and Captain Sprague was also expelled from the General Court; but later he was repeatedly rechosen to that body. Hammond John Culfor Ponios JORn Guter June removed to Boston July 10, 1692, and died July 25, 1699. Mr. Frothingham devotes much space in his excellent History of Charlestown to this period, and nar- rates with much detail the story of Judge Greaves's protest against the holding of a Court appointed by the Hon. James Russell at Cambridge on the first Tuesday of October fol- lowing the Revolution; the trouble in the military company arising from Cap- James Russell tain Hammond's refusal to declare under which of his two commissions as captain he would continue to act, -the Colony's or Sir Edmund's; the riots be- tween the citizens and the crews of the "Kingfisher " and the " Rose " frigate; and the people's oppression by arbitrary taxes and the exaction of fees. He also refers at length to the seizure by the royal Governor of common lands in Charlestown, which he subsequently confirmed by patent (August 10, 1687) to Colonel Charles Lidgett, who was arrested and imprisoned with Andros two years later. Carl's Lideit Sewall notes in his Diary that in May, 1687, a May-pole which had been set up in Charlestown was cut down; and he intimates that Mr. Samuel Phipps (H. C., 1671), one of the selectmen, "bid or encouraged the Watch " to commit the deed. A larger May-pole was immediately substituted, however, and a garland placed upon it. There was also trouble growing out of the action of one Joseph Phipps, who at the burial of a soldier stood with his hat on while the Episcopal clergyman read the burial service. On May 9, 1688, Andros caused "Mr. Bantam, His Majesty's Governor of the fort or block- house at Boston," to " carry away the great guns (from the battery in this town), viz., three Sakers, and three Cutts with a whole culverin, they being all iron guns, with a quantity of shot appertaining to them." These guns were subsequently returned, the last of them in 1696, on petition of the selectmen.1 These and other irritating proceedings on the part of the Government aroused the people to a full appreciation of their wrongs. The Rev. Charles Morton, of whom more is to be said presently, was then the minister of this town. He was patriotic and eloquent, and he em- braced the opportunity which the Friday lecture afforded to speak upon
1 In 1730 a commission appointed by Gover- nor Belcher to inspect the fortifications reported that the works at the Battery in Charlestown were "entirely laid waste;" and recommended that they be rebuilt. The General Court subse-
quently appropriated {250 for this purpose; and July 12, 1742, the town voted to receive the money. A committee of the town recommended the erection of "a breastwork and platform of one hundred and twenty-four feet front."
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CHARLESTOWN IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
the measures and matters of a public nature which were then uppermost in men's minds. For his utterances on Sept. 2, 1687, containing " several sedi- tious expressions," he was summoned before Andros and his Council, and obeyed Nov. 24, 1687.1 Mr. Morton was bound over in £500 to appear at the next session of the Superior Court. He was tried and acquitted. This act of the Andros Government unquestionably added much to Morton's reputation, and insured him a high place in the affections of the people. Upon the rising of the Colony on April 18, 1689, when Andros " found himself in the lock-up," Captain Richard Sprague led his company of Charlestown men to Boston.2
During the Inter-Charter period 3 several events occurred, of which Sewall gives us some account in his Diary : -
June 8, 1685. "Asaph Eliot comes in and tells me the . . . doleful news of Mr. Shepard, of Charlestown, his being dead. ... Was taken on Friday night ; yet, being to preach and administer the Lord's Supper on Sabbath Day, forebore Physick, at least at first. ... Charlestown was to have had a great bussle in Training on Tuesday with Horse and Foot, Captain Hammond engaging some of Boston to be there ; but now 'tis like to be turned into the Funeral of their Pastor : he dying full and corpulent."
June 9. "The Reverend Mr. Thomas Shepard buried : Governor, Deputy- Governor, and magistrates there. Mr. Bulkely dined with us, and was there. Bearers, - Mr. Mather, Mr Simes, Mr. Willard, Mr. Hubbard, of Cambridge, Mr. Nathaniel Gookin, Mr. Cotton Mather : the two last preached at Charlestown the last Sabbath Day. It seems there were some verses, but none pinned on the Hearse. Scholars went before the Hearse. A pretty number of Troopers there. Captain Blackwell and Councillor Bond there."
Dec. 30. " Fast at Charlestown this day. Mr. Cotton Mather preaches forenoon ; mentions the notion Mede has about America's Peopling. Mr. Moody preaches after- noon excellently."
May 10, 1686. "Went to Charlestown and wished Mr. Cotton Mather joy ; was married last Tuesday." 4
1 On the 19th of August preceding he had prominent citizen, was the youngest son of Col. preached a sermon which Sewall regarded as Phillips, who was Captain of the Ancient and "very seasonable," considering "the exercise that town [Charlestown] is under respecting the Common, part of which was laid out and bounded John Shillinge to particular persons." Cf. Palfrey, History of New England, iii. 497, 546, 547.
2 Byfield tells us that on that occasion " there were twenty companies in Boston, besides a great many that appeared in Charlestown, that could not get over. - some say fifteen hundred."
8 The Andros Tracts, in three volumes, pub- lished by the Prince Society, contain many facts concerning the part which citizens of Charles- town played in public affairs during this period.
4 Cotton Mather married Abigail Phillips, daughter of Colonel John Phillips, of Charles- town; and it was to his house that Dr. Increase Mather fled in March, 1688 (see next page). Captain Henry Phillips, a wealthy merchant and
Honorable Artillery Company, Colonel of the Militia, Representative (1683-86), one of the Committee of Safety (1689), named in the Char- ter of 1691 a member of the Council in which he was continued by annual election till 1714, Treasurer of the Province, and Judge of the County Court. Colonel Phillips mar- ried as his second wife the widow of the Hon. Thomas Greaves (H. C. 1656).
VOL. II. - 40.
.314
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Sept. 13. "Mr. Cotton Mather preaches the Election Sermon for the Artillery at Charlestown, from Ps. cxliv. i. Made a very good discourse. President and Deputy- President there. . . . The Artillery Company had like to have been broken up, -the ani- mosity so high between Charlestown and Cambridge men about the place of training."
March 30, 1688. "I am told Mr. [Increase ] Mather left his house and the Town " and went to Captain Phillips's, at Charlestown."
Sept. 11. "Two-and-thirty men are pressed in Boston, and six from Charlestown, and sent away to the Eastward ; and a Post despatched to acquaint the Governor at Albany."
1 Oct. 27. " The ' Rose ' Frigot comes up, and his Excellency [Andros] goes off to Charlestown and so to Dunstable : At both which firing." 1
Oct. 14, 1690. " Fast at Roxbury. I go thither on foot. Lady Phips there ; is come to town again it seems, the Small Pocks being at Charlestown." 2
Dec. 17. " A day of Prayer is kept at the Town-house. .
"Tis so cold and so much Ice in Charlestown River, that neither Deputy-Governor, Treasurer, Mr. Morton, nor Charlestown Deputies could get over. Mr. [James] Russell hath the Small Pocks, which stays him."
The Diary of Captain Laurence Hammond, preserved in the cabinet of the Historical Society, also contains some items of interest relating to this period. Under date of March 9, 1687-88, he tells us the measles " pre- vailed exceedingly ;" that the distemper began in this town " the beginning of winter," visiting almost every family, although but few died in conse- quence. Feb. 12, 1689-90, he records the removal of the General Court " this day " from Boston to Charlestown on account of the spreading of the small-pox in Boston. On June 25 and 26, 1694, he tells us there was a General Training at Charlestown.
When, on May 14, 1692, Phips arrived with the new charter, Sewall tells us that two Charlestown companies made a part of the escort which, on the sixteenth, guarded him and his councillors to the town house. It has been told in another chapter how the new Government entered upon its unhappy course regarding the trial of witches. . A solitary victim was found in Charlestown, - Elizabeth Cary. Her husband, Nathaniel Cary, was in early life a mariner in the ship "Elizabeth," Nath et fary and later commanded the "Owner's Adven- ture." Upon retiring from the sea he was chosen into the Board of Selectmen, and sub- sequently represented the town in the General Court. His narrative of the arraignment, examination, and treatment of his wife, and of her escape from the prison in Cambridge to Rhode Island and New York, has been printed at length.3 Mrs. Cary outlived her troubles, and died here Aug. 30, 1722. Her husband survived her ten years.4
1 Mr. Frothingham (History of Charlestown, p. 236, note) says : "In 1687, Feb. 25, Andros visited this town, on which occasion there was a military display, -' an extraordinary meeting of the militia,' -when the Government paid 'for beer and cider given to the drummer and sol- diers ' of the town."
2 This would imply that the lady was, for a time at least, a resident of Charlestown.
8 Cf. History of Charlestown, pp. 237-39; and Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, ii. 47, 48. 4 Mr. Poole's chapter reveals an earlier case in Charlestown, - that of Margaret Jones, in 1648. Cf. History of Charlestown, pp. 116-117.
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CHARLESTOWN IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
In Hammond's Diary there is a glimpse of the political contests waged two centuries ago. One entry is so full of interest that it is copied entire :
" 1692, June I. The freeholders of Charlestown met to choose assemblymen. Major Phillips chosen moderator. It was proposed by Mr. Graves to enquire who had a right in voting, and that a list of their names might be taken ; but that was not approved. They were not willing to question any present.
" The manner of voting being discoursed, Mr. Graves proposed by polling, accord- ing to the way of England ; but voting by papers was preferred before it. Mr. Morton, being the chief speaker, did with great vehemency (and as little prudence) inveigh against the manner of choosing parliament men in England, calling it prophane and wicked, etc.
" They carried it by a vote to choose by papers ; and the minor part of the voters present chose Jacob Green, Senior, and Samuel Phipps ; about 40 voters present voted not at Jacob greene: all, many of whom refused to vote only because they carried it in that way. Divers freeholders we find were not warned to the meet- ing, so that it is judged an illegal choice." 1
Throughout the troubles of the Inter-Charter period the pastor of the church in Charlestown was a prominent figure. The. Rev Charles Morton Char Les Morton was born in Pendevy, Cornwall, in 1626; the eldest son of the Rev. Nicholas Morton. Bred at Wadham College, Oxford, he was settled at Blisland in his native county, whence he was ejected, in 1662, for his Puritanism. Remov- ing to London he taught successfully in a private academy at Newington Green, where he had many pupils who afterward became distinguished, - among them Daniel Defoe, and Chief-Justice Samuel Penhallow of New Hampshire. With a view to becoming President of Harvard College Morton came to New England, arriving here in July, 1686; but, being po- litically obnoxious to Dudley and Andros, the plan for placing him at the head of the College miscarried. He was, however, made vice-president, - the office being created with a view to his filling it. On the fifth of Novem- ber following his arrival here he was installed as pastor of the Charlestown Church; and by his objection to, and refusal of a re-ordination by the im- position of hands, " he set the example of a method which has since been known among Congregationalists in the resettlement of a minister previ- ously ordained, as an installation." Morton's scholarship- was remark- able; and in this regard he unquestionably outranked all the ministers who have ever been connected with this venerable church. He was the first clergyman in this place to solemnize marriages, which previously to 1686 were performed only by civil magistrates.2 Morton's abilities
1 I find no record of this meeting in the pronounced." In 1696-97 the town voted that Town Records.
2 The banns of matrimony were published by the town clerk or his deputy on Sunday, "after the blessing to the evening exercise was
publishments should be made "on Lecture Days or any other public times, and not re- strained to Sabbath Days only." Publishments had to be made on three separate occasions.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and pulpit eloquence were such that his Friday lecture 1 was frequently attended by distinguished men of other places. Judge Sewall came often; 2 and he tells us that on June 8, 1688, Sir William Phips made one of the congregation. He also relates (Oct. 9, 1691) that he went to hear Mr. Baily preach the lecture at Charlestown, after which he dined with Mr. Morton in his new house; and that "My Lady Phips," the Governor's wife, was among the guests. From the Judge's Diary we also learn that it was probably owing to the opposition of Dr. Thomas Greaves (H. C. 1656) that no assistant, or colleague, to Mr. Morton was ever settled. Jan. 16, 1694-95, he writes : " Lieut .- Governor, Mr. Cook, Mr. Secretary, and S. S. went over to Charlestown and visited Mr. Morton and Mr. Graves, to see if could bring over Mr. Graves, etc., that so another minister and God's ordinances might be settled there in peace; but see little likelihood as yet." The church had, in the previous November, chosen Mr. Ebenezer Pem- berton (H. C. 1691) as colleague to Mr. Morton; but he declined the call, and was afterward settled over the South Church Simm Bradstreet. in Boston. March 12, 1696-97, Mr. Simon Brad- street (H. C. 1693) was chosen assistant to Mr. Morton; but he also declined the office, for reasons which do not now clearly appear. Mr. Morton died April 11, 1698, aged seventy-two. He was buried on the fourteenth, when Sewall writes: "Go to the funeral of Mr. Morton. President [of Harvard College], Mr. Allen, Willard, Brattle, Bradstreet, Wadsworth, - Bearers. Lieut .- Governor and about twelve of the Council there. Had gloves, and so had the ministers. Scholars went before the Hearse." 3
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