USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The site of Saint Paul's Cathedral, Boston, and its neighborhood > Part 5
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The Vergoose or Goose Family
A BOUT the year 1645, according to the Book of Possessions, Anthony Harker was the owner and occupant of an estate fronting on Newbury, now Washington Street, and extending westward 275 feet toward Tremont Street, including a large portion of the present Temple Place. Anthony Harker is be- lieved to have come over from England in the ship Griffin in 1633. He was an early member of the First Church in Boston and was described in its Record of Admissions as a man-servant of the venerable elder, Thomas Leverett. In legal documents he was styled
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a "yeoman" and was admitted to freedom in 1636.
In 1659 Anthony Harker sold for £30 to Peter Vergoose the northerly portion of his estate, includ- ing "his old dwelling-house, with the cleere moiety or halfe part of the yard, orchard and land thereto be- longing; bounded by the streete leading to Roxbury on the east, the land of Richard Carter on the west, the lands of Alexander Baker on the north, and the New House and other moiety of the said yard and orchard on the south." This lot, therefore, immedi- ately adjoined "Carter's Pasture" and the site of Saint Paul's Church, which occupied the space be- tween it and the Common.
Peter Vergoose or Goose, alias Vertigoose, the emi- grant, a ship-joiner, came to these shores about the year 1656. His descendants were among the largest land-owners in Boston, and in spite of the handicap of a somewhat peculiar surname, the members of the Goose family were prominent and of excellent repute in the community. The property above-mentioned remained in their possession until 1768, when it was sold to Jonathan Amory.
Isaac Goose (son of Peter), who was born in Eng- land about 1637, became an active and enterprising citizen of Boston and the owner of considerable real estate. Not long after coming of age, his father
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stated that he was "of competent stature either to go to prentice or to sea." He served as constable, and was wont to patrol the streets at night with Samuel Sewall, Captain of the South Company, and after- ward Chief Justice of the Superior Court, who lived opposite Isaac Goose on land now occupied by the main store of the Jordan-Marsh Company. Judge Sewall wrote in his Diary under date of March 12, 1685: "Watched with Isaac Goose and Sam Clark. Had a pleasant night. Gave each Watch twelve pence, to drink." And again, July 29, 1686: "I goe the Grand Rounds with Isaac Goose and Matthias Smith." The members of the night-watch were in- structed to enquire if there were warrantable cause for having lights burning after ten o'clock at night; and also to demand the reason for any noise or dis- order.
Isaac Goose married (first) about 1667, Mary, daughter of Jonathan Balston, a ship-builder and sea- captain. She died in 1690, leaving 10 children. He married (second) July 5, 1692, Elizabeth (daughter of William and Anne Foster of Charlestown). They had six children, of whom the eldest daughter, Eliza- beth, was married, June 8, 1715, to Thomas Fleet, the printer, by Rev. Cotton Mather. Isaac Goose died November 29, 1710. His "housen and land" were
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valued at £650.
Thomas Fleet (1685-1758) was a native of Shrop- shire, England, and in his youth served an apprentice- ship with a printer at Bristol. Owing to political troubles, he emigrated to the new world in 1712, and made his home in Boston, where he established a printing-office on Pudding Lane, now Devonshire Street. Children's books, ballads and pamphlets were the chief early products of his press. In 1713 he oc- cupied a more pretentious brick building at the corner of Water Street and Cornhill (then the lower part of Washington Street).
The sign of the "Heart and Crown" adorned the front of this building, which contained printing-of- fices and an auction-room, and served also as a domi- cile for the family.
Thomas Fleet's mother-in-law, Elizabeth Vergoose, was believed by many to have been the original "Mother Goose," whose name has long been a house- hold word in America.
Her lullabys and cradle-songs, as sung to her grandchildren, were said to have been collected and published by Mr. Fleet, as "Mother Goose's Melodies," in 1719.
These rhymes are to be distinguished from the Fairy Tales written by Charles Perrault, and pub-
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lished at Paris, France, in 1697. The latter form a classic work in the department of fairy lore, and bore the inscription "Tales of my Mother Goose." They included the well-known stories of "Little Red Riding- Hood," "Cinderella," "Blue Beard," and "Puss-in- Boots." The coincidence of titles appears to be purely accidental.
In the year 1729, Elizabeth, widow of Isaac Ver- goose, and executrix of his estate, quit-claimed to Thomas Fleet, his wife and children, three dwelling- houses, with the land appertaining thereto, lying in Newbury Street, Boston, and being the ancestral es- tate.
Thomas Fleet advertised in the Boston News-Let- ter, March 7, 1731, as follows:
"This is to give Notice to all Gentlemen, Merchants, Shopkeepers and others, that Thomas Fleet of Boston, Printer (who formerly kept his Printing House in Pudding Lane, but is now removed into Cornhill at the sign of the Heart and Crown, near the lower end of School Street), is willing to undertake the Sale of Books, Household Goods, Wearing Apparel, or any other Merchandize, by Vendue or Auction. The said Fleet, having a large and commodious Front Cham- ber, fit for this business, and a Talent well-known and approved, doubts not of giving entire Satisfaction to such as may employ him in it; he is hereby engaging
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to make it appear that this Service may be performed with more Convenience and less Charge at a private House, well situated, than at a Tavern. And for farther Encouragement, said Fleet promises to make up Accompts with the owners of the Goods Sold by him, in a few days after the sale thereof."
In 1736 Isaac Goose, Junior, was enrolled as a mem- ber of the "Prison Engine Company," under com- mand of Captain Bartholomew Sutton. This was the pioneer Fire Engine of Boston, and its station was removed in 1744 from Prison Lane, now Court Street, to a shed in the rear of the old South Church. At that period there were seven of these engines in the Town. They were then called "Water Engines." Each was drawn by one horse and they were said to be capable of throwing a considerable stream of water to a height of twelve feet. Isaac Goose, Junior, served the town as a "Viewer of Boards and Shin- gles" for twenty-five years. The Boston family of Goose has been practically extinct since the beginning of the nineteenth century, although the name again appears in recent Directories.
The late William H. Whitmore maintained emphat- ically that the Boston "Mother Goose" was a myth. It would be as absurd, wrote he, to place her among the eminent women of our country, as it would be to
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put Jack-the-Giant-Killer in a list of famous Amer- ican Generals. This may be a rude shock to many imaginative people and children, who cherish the name of "Mother Goose," and hold fast to the tradi- tion that that illustrious woman was a veritable per- sonage who once lived in Boston, then a village by the sea, and that she was the author of those celebrated rhymes and jingles.
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Ten-Foot Strip
I NASMUCH as the width of the Osborn lot was deemed insufficient, the Building Committee of Saint Paul's Church voted, June 23, 1819, to pur- chase for $3,172, a strip of land, 10 feet wide and 2II feet in depth, adjoining the Osborn estate on the south, according to an agreement already made. This strip corresponds in part with the present covered passage-way leading from Tremont Street to the Shepard Norwell Company's store. One third part of the strip, its rear portion, is within the limits of the former possessions of Richard Carter, one of the early Townsmen. His lot was called "Carter's Pasture," and extended southerly as far as West Street. It included about an acre of land, and was conveyed to the said Carter by William Parsons, a "sley-maker," in 1646, by an absolute Deed, acknowl- edged before Governor John Winthrop.
William Parsons, Emigrant
W ILLIAM PARSONS (1620-1702), of Salis- bury, England, was one of a goodly company of emigrants, who "shipt themselves at the towne of
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Hampton in the James, of London," during the month of April, 1635. In the Custom-House clearance he was described as a "tayler," but when admitted to the Church in Boston nine years afterward, he was called a joiner. Mr. Parsons was admitted a townsman, March 31, 1645, and became a member of the Artil- lery Company soon after. He was one of the early land-owners of Boston, his name appearing in the Book of Possessions. His residence was on the pres- ent Spring Lane, very near the ancient Spring-Gate or Common Spring, one of the chief sources of fresh water supply for the colonists. The spring was sur- rounded by a fence, and was approached through a gate; hence its name. After some years William Parsons revisited England, and during the Protector- ate of Oliver Cromwell he became associated with a small band of fanatics and would-be reformers, led by a misguided zealot named Thomas Venner, a wine- cooper of Boston. These men desired to abolish existing laws and institutions, and to substitute a sim- pler code, founded upon the law of Moses. At first they were adherents of Cromwell, but later turned against him. In furtherance of their purpose, they started a small rebellion in England, rallying about a banner which bore the motto, "For the Lord God and Gideon." This little band was defeated in Lon-
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. don January 6, 1661, by soldiers of the Horse-Guards and Train-Bands. Almost all of them were either killed or taken prisoners, but Parsons managed to escape. It is on record in the Diary of Samuel Sewall that he "slipt away in the crowd." Returning to Bos- ton, he made his abode there for more than forty years, serving as Clerk of the Market in 1669. He was licensed by the Selectmen in 1681 to sell wine and strong liquors out-of-doors, and the same privilege .was enjoyed by him in later years. Such is a part of the strange history of one of the early owners of the Cathedral land.1
Hezekiah Usher, Bookseller
[N 1679 Mary Cowell, wife of Joseph Cowell of Boston, cooper, and daughter of Richard Carter, by virtue of a Power of Attorney from her husband, sold this pasture lot to Hezekiah Usher, the younger, of Boston.
The Usher family was prominent in Massachusetts during the Colonial period. Hezekiah Usher, Senior
1 Affixed to the wall of a building on the north side of Spring Lane, near Washington Street, is a tablet inscribed as follows : "Here was the Great Spring, which for more than two Centuries gave water to the people of Boston." The Bostonian Society has set this tablet. 1907.
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(b. in England, 1615), became a wealthy merchant, whose residence in 1638 was at the corner of Dunster and Winthrop Streets in Cambridge. He removed to Boston as early as 1645, and his name is to be found in the Book of Possessions as an owner of land within the Town limits at that time. In the Aspinwall No- tarial Records, under date of December 3, 1646, occurs the following: "Hezekiah Usher granted a gener11 Realease unto Robert Saundrs for all accounts touching theire Copartnershipp &c from the begin- ning of the world unto the date thereof." Mr. Usher lived in a dwelling on the north side of King Street, now State Street, and opposite the Market Place, which was later the site of the Town House, and afterward of the Old State House. He was a public- spirited citizen, and as evidence of this fact we find his name in a list of donors to a fund for the erection of a new Town House, in 1657. Hezekiah Usher agreed to pay for this object "twentye poundes in Englishe goods or equivalent; proviso: yt ye market house bee erected in ye markett place, & a cunditt." The conduit was doubtless intended as a reservoir for water, but none was built at that time.
Mr. Usher had the distinction of being the first bookseller in North America. The lower story of his domicile served as a shop, and the book-trade not
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being very brisk at that time, he dealt also in beef, furs, fish, grain, lumber and West Indian products. The first books made in this country were printed for him, and among the many which he published later was one entitled: "Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes in either England," by John Cotton, 1656. Hezekiah Usher was one of the Founders and an influential member of the Old South Church, and his name ap- pears often in the Society's records. The Elders were wont at times to hold their meetings at his house. He was a Representative to the General Court, and served the Town as Selectman eighteen years. Joining the Artillery Company at the age of twenty-three, he at- tained the rank of Ensign. Mr. Usher was the agent of the "Corporation in England for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Indians in New England." 1 In 1658 he went to London as agent for the Commis- sioners of the United Colonies, and there bought a press, type and general printing outfit. The new press was set up in the following year, and was used by Samuel Green of Cambridge to print the Apostle Eliot's Great Indian Bible, which was finished in 1663. Hezekiah Usher died in 1676.
As pertaining to the title of Carter's pasture, we quote from the Middlesex Probate Records, Volume 1 George E. Littlefield. Early Boston Booksellers.
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. 28, page 97: "these premises, heretofore the estate of Hezekiah Usher, were conveyed by him, March 9, 1686, to Samuel Sewall of Boston, merchant, and Daniel Quincey, goldsmith, since deceased, by a con- ditional deed. And for the condition broken, pos- session of the said estate was recovered by law at the suit of the said Samuel Sewall and Anna Quincey, executrix of Daniel Quincey, and afterwards quit- claimed by them unto the said Bridget Usher."
Hezekiah Usher the younger (eldest child of the bookseller), who became the owner of Carter's pas- ture in 1679, was born in Cambridge June 6, 1639. He early developed a taste for land speculation, in- vesting chiefly in mining properties which proved to be of little value. At the age of twenty-seven he married Bridget (Lisle) Hoar, widow of Dr. Leonard Hoar, President of Harvard College. She was a brilliant and fascinating. woman. Her father, John Lisle, was one of the judges at the trial of King Charles I, a member of Cromwell's House of Lords, and a man of distinction under the Commonwealth. Her mother, Lady Alicia Lisle, was convicted of har- boring partizans of the Duke of Monmouth after the battle of Sedgemoor, and was executed at Winches- ter in September, 1685, at the behest of the brutal Judge Jeffreys. The marriage was an unhappy one.
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Mr. Usher accused his wife of gross worldliness and extravagance, and she averred that he was not suffi- ciently orthodox in his religious belief. They sepa- rated in 1687, and she went to England, where she made her home for ten years. After her husband's death, she returned to Boston, and was a conspicuous figure in the social life of the Town for a quarter of a century thereafter.
On June 20, 1679, Mr. Usher bought of Mary Wil- lard (widow of Major Simon Willard) about 400 acres at a place called Nonacoicus, in that part of Groton now within the limits of Ayer. One-quarter of this farm was sold by him May II, 1687, to Jona- than Tyng of Dunstable, together with all the "gar- dens, orchards, yards, lands, pastures, meadows, swamps, woods, underwoods, waters, watercourses, fishings, floodings, trees and ways thereto belonging." (Middlesex Registry of Deeds. X. page 49.) Mr. Usher was living on this farm when King William's War began. Much uneasiness prevailed in Groton and other frontier towns on account of the Indians. On August 10, 1689, the Governor and Council or- dered Captain James Parker, of the Groton Foot Company, to reenforce Hezekiah Usher's garrison at Nonacoicus with three extra men for its defense.
On May 25, 1681, Mr. Usher bought another farm
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at a place called Cold Spring, in the northern part of Groton, "with all the mines and minerals of one kind or other, that may be found there." He was given liberty to dig, delve and make use of said land at his pleasure, and to pass and repass thereover on foot or horseback or with carts and teams of any kind.
Dr. Samuel A. Green, the historian of Groton, has stated that the chief mineral found in that locality is marcasite, a form of iron pyrites, which has a lustrous appearance when polished, and was formerly used in the manufacture of articles for personal adornment. In later years Mr. Usher was accused of witchcraft and narrowly escaped imprisonment. He died at Lynn July II, 1697. His Will, which was dated Au- gust 17, 1689, at Nonacoicus, is an interesting and unique document. A brief extract shows that it was written under the stress of bitter feeling:
"One had better have a wife that had not been worth a groat than to have one that hath no love for him. .. . I do not excuse myself altogether, but my love to my wife and admiring of her genteel carriage occasioned her and her complices to usurp that power over me, whereby I have been cunningly overreached and abused several ways."
John Usher, a brother of Hezekiah, Junior, suc-
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ceeded his father in business as a bookseller in Corn- hill. He was Colonel of the Boston regiment, Judge of the Court of Pleas and Sessions, and Treasurer of the Colony under Sir Edmund Andros during the inter-charter period.
Afterward removing to Portsmouth, he served as Lieutenant-Governor of New Hampshire for five years.
In 1715 he made his home in Medford, where he owned and occupied the historic mansion later known as the Royall house.
John West, Secretary
I N the Spring of 1688 the Usher mansion was rented to John West, who occupied it for less than a year. He was an English merchant, and a former resident of New York, who had held various posi- tions of responsibility. At that time he was serving as Secretary to Governor Sir Edmund Andros, and as Assistant Register of the Suffolk Probate Court. The rule of Andros had become obnoxious to the peo- ple of Massachusetts, and both he and his subordi- nates were extremely unpopular with them, and were regarded as a "crew of abject persons." What es- pecially caused resentment was the fact that most of
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these officials had been brought here from other Col- onies. It was the Governor's policy "to break down the power of the Puritan oligarchies in New England, and to weld them into one strongly governed State, which should be able to show a firm front to the en- croachments of the French."
On the eighteenth of April, 1689, the populace in and around Boston rose in arms, and great excite- ment prevailed. Men and boys were seen running through the streets, brandishing weapons, and en- couraging each other to free themselves of an arbi- trary and tyrannical government. Andros and his followers were disarmed and imprisoned. The Gov- ernor was placed under guard in the house of John Usher, and later removed to the Castle, on the site of Fort Independence. John West and others were confined in the Town prison, and afterwards they too were removed to the Castle, there to remain in the custody of Captain Fairweather, subject to the King's pleasure.
Finally, in obedience to an order from King Wil- liam, Andros and a number of his subordinates, in- .cluding John West, were sent to England, sailing February 10, 1690.
As an illustration of the popular feeling at that period, we quote from a Declaration of the Gentle-
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men, Merchants and Inhabitants of Boston and the Country Adjacent, April, 1689. It was stated therein that under the Government of Andros care was taken to load Preferments principally upon such Men as were Strangers to and Haters of the People. It was moreover plainly affirmed both by some in open Coun- cil, and by the same in private Converse, that the people of New England were all Slaves, and the only difference between them and negro Slaves was the fact that the New England people were not bought and sold as chattels in the market. And it was a maxim expressed in open Court by one of the Council, "that we must not think that the Priviledges of Eng- lishmen would follow us to the End of the World. We were every day told that no Man was the owner of a Foot of Land in the Colony."1
Major-General Waitstill Winthrop
OON after John West's imprisonment, the Usher S house was rented to Wait-Still Winthrop (1642- 1717), who occupied it about eight years. He was a son of Governor John Winthrop of Connecticut, and a grandson of John Winthrop, Governor of Massa-
' An Account of the Late Revolution in New England, by Mr. Nathaniel Byfield, a Merchant of Bristol.
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· chusetts, and had been active in helping to bring about the overthrow and deportation of Andros and his as- sociates. He entered Harvard College, but left the Institution before graduating, to engage in military service, and had a command in King Philip's War. In 1689 he became a member of the Council for the Safety of the people and Conservation of the Peace, and served for thirty years as Commander-in-chief of the Provincial Forces, with the rank of Major-Gen- eral. He was also Chief Justice of the Superior Court, and Judge of Admiralty. General Winthrop married (first) Mary, daughter of Hon. William Browne of Salem. He was a widower for many years. In Sewall's Diary, August 12, 1698, is this item :
" "Tis told all about the Town that Major Generall (Winthrop) courts Mary Howard."
He did not marry again, however, until 1707, when Katharine, daughter of Captain Thomas Brattle, and the widow of John Eyre, became his wife. . .. Wait Winthrop inherited a marked taste for the science of therapeutics, in which he was well versed; and practised Medicine without recompense among his poorer neighbors long before the existence of free Dispensaries. To quote once more from the Diary of Judge Sewall :
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"Wait Winthrop was the great stay and ornament of the Council; a very pious, prudent, courageous New England man." In 1716 he joined a company of Boston merchants, to whom the General Court had granted the monopoly of making salt. Their works were alongside of the Neck, towards Roxbury.
Following is the translation of a portion of a curi- ous Latin epitaph. An old manuscript, believed to be in the hand-writing of Governor Winthrop, refers to its having been inscribed upon the Winthrop tomb:
WAIT WINTHROP, ESQUIRE
He was, alas! he was
Of New England the Glory and Defence;
The Light and Stay;
Major-General of Massachusetts Colony;
Of a noble yet peaceful disposition ;
And who for his Country and for peace could die;
President of the Council for the Province;
Whose chiefest care it always was that the Common- wealth might receive no damage;
· Chief Judge, who paid an equal regard to Jus- tice and Clemency. .. He was skilful in Physick;
And being possessed of Golden Secrets,
Indeed more valuable than Gold itself.
And having obtained universal remedies, which Hip-
pocrates and Helmont never knew,
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All that were sick, wherever he came, He freely restored to Health;
And made almost his whole study of Nature sub- servient to Medicine.
Francis Wainwright
F RANCIS WAINWRIGHT of Boston, a son of John and Elizabeth Wainwright of Ipswich, was the next owner of the Carter lot, having bought it of Bridget (Lisle) Usher, May 31, 1714, for £1,000. His emigrant ancestor, Francis Wainwright of Chelmsford, England, was one of the earliest settlers of Ipswich, Massachusetts. He distinguished him- self greatly during the war against the Pequot In- dians in 1637. On one occasion he pursued a band of the savages until his ammunition gave out, and then slew two of them with the butt of his musket, carry- ing away their heads as trophies of his valor. In later years, "by his diligence and sagacity in business, he became a wealthy, useful and respectable citizen."1 Francis Wainwright of Boston was a graduate of Harvard, Class of 1707, and a merchant. He served as constable in 1714, one of his duties being to col- lect assessments from the townspeople "for the sup- 1 J. B. Felt. History of Ipswich.
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.port of the Watch." His wife was Mary, the fourth daughter of Governor Joseph Dudley.
Addington Davenport
M R. WAINWRIGHT mortgaged the Carter lot, December 28, 1720, to Addington Davenport, Thomas and Edward Hutchinson, et al., who were trustees of a fund of £50,000, belonging to the Prov- ince, which was to be loaned to the inhabitants at five per cent Interest. Judge Addington Davenport was a son of Captain Eleazar Davenport, a mariner, whose wife was Rebecca Addington. His grandfather, Captain Richard Davenport, came over from Eng- land in the Abigail in 1628. He was ensign of the Salem train-band. When Governor John Endicott cut the Cross of St. George from the English flag, Captain Davenport gave the name of "True-Cross" to a daughter born that year. He was a promi- nent military man in the earliest years of the Colony, and was wounded in the Pequot war. He joined the Artillery Company in 1639. The first settlers built a fort of mud in Boston Harbor. This was on the site of the present Fort Independence. In 1643 it was rebuilt of pine trees and earth, and placed in charge of Captain Davenport. Later a small brick
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