USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume II > Part 21
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The origin of the naming of Essex County is quite obscure, but it is as good a guess as any to attribute it to the influence of Sir Ferdi- nando Gorges, a favorite of the Earl of Essex; for next to Sir Hum-
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phrey Gilbert, it is claimed that Sir Ferdinando Gorges stands out the most conspicuous in the history of northern colonization, a man who, "never yielding, and with untiring diligence and labor, collected from every source information respecting the geography, climate, produc- tions, and inhabitants of the new world." And it was this elder Gorges "who gained stimulation from earlier disasters in colonization to bolder views and more comprehensive measures."
The Bay Colony was originally formed as a private trading com- pany, and it remained a private trading company till its charter was revoked in 1684. The region about Cape Ann had been awarded earlier to Lord Sheffield.
The idea for the first colony at Cape Ann seems to have come from the Reverend John White, rector of Trinity Church of Dorches- ter, England, a famous Puritan preacher of his day, often called, in fact, the father of Massachusetts. He became interested in the founding of a settlement in New England, and got practical inspira- tion from the fact that forty or fifty fishing vessels from the West of England were fishing for cod and bartering for furs off the New England coast. As more men are needed to fish than are needed merely to sail a boat, he thought of leaving some of the men behind as a colony in America. These men were to raise food for themselves and for the fishermen, and build structures for the salting and curing of fish. When the fleet returned, they would go with the ships and help with the fishing. His own account, written in 1630 in his "Planter's Plea," says in part :
"That these merchants bethought themselves how they might bring that project to effect, and communicated their purpose to others, alleging the conveniency of compassing their project with a small charge, by the opportunity of their fishing trade, in which they are accustomed to double-man their ships, that, by the help of many hands, they might dis- patch their voyage and lade their ships with fish while the fish- ing season lasted; which could not be done with a base sailing company. Now it was conceived that, the fishing being ended, the spare men that were above their necessary sailors, might be left behind with provisions for a year; and when that ship returned the next year, they might assist them in fishing, as
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they had done the former year; and, in the mean time, might employ themselves in building, and planting corn, which with the provisions of fish, fowl and venison, that the land yielded, would afford them the chief of their food. This proposition of theirs took so well that it drew on divers persons to join with them in this project; the rather because it was con- ceived that not only their own fishermen, but the rest of our nation that went thither on the same errand, might be much advantaged, not only by fresh victual, which that Colony might spare them in time, but withal and more, by the bene- fit of their ministers' labors, which they might enjoy during the fishing season; whereas otherwise, being usually upon these voyages nine or ten months in the year, they were left all the while without any means of instruction at all. Com- passion towards the fishermen, and partly some expectation of gain, prevailed so far that for the planting of a Colony in New England there was raised a stock of more than £3,000, intended to be paid in five years, but afterwards disbursed in a shorter time."
Although the good John White stresses the "compassion towards the fishermen," we cannot help but suspect that in the minds of some of the stockholders there did lurk "the expectation of gain."
Winslow and his associates at Plymouth made over to White and his associates a site at Cape Ann for fishing and planting, and so in the spring of 1624 a small vessel of fifty tons was sent out with Thomas Gardner as overseer of the plantation, and John Tilley of the fishery, both engaged for one year. The members of the expe- dition were known as the Dorchester Adventurers.
But things went wrong from the very start. Delay in preparation of the vessel caused the Dorchester Adventurers to arrive at the fish- ing grounds four to six weeks after the opening of the fishing season, and being unable to obtain a full fare of fish at Monhegan, they sailed to Massachusetts Bay, where they were more successful. They secured a good cargo of fish, left fourteen men at Cape Ann, and sailed for Spain. Here again they struck bad luck, for the fishermen arrived in Spain too late for a good market, and so they sailed on to England.
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The fourteen men left at Cape Ann were the original settlers of Essex County. They proceeded to construct a house, salt works, and other structures required for curing fish. But difficulties sprang up at once. "The land men being ill-chosen and ill-commanded, com- menced falling into many disorders and did the company little serv- ice." And so a new management had to be called in to try to revive the colony. Accordingly, Roger Conant, "a religious, sober and prudent gentleman" was put in charge. Mr. Conant, whose brother had recommended him to Mr. White, was with some others at Nan- tasket, having "lately moved out of New Plymouth on account of their dislike of their principals of rigid separation." Conant brought with him the Reverend John Lyford to act as minister to the colony.
Conant and Lyford went to Cape Ann in the spring of 1625. Two vessels were sent over for fishing, but their catch was small. They left thirty-two men behind them at Cape Ann. The next year, 1626, three vessels were sent over, one with cattle and provisions for che plantation; but this expedition met with no success either. Part of the ill luck of the colony must be attributed to the unfertile soil for farming on Cape Ann, and part must be attributed to the fact that the time for planting was in the busiest part of the fishing season.
The Dorchester Company sold its vessels, but John White was not discouraged even yet, and it was at his suggestion that a number of these men stayed on under Roger Conant. Mr. Lyford, inci- dentally, refused to remain, but instead moved with his wife to Vir- ginia, "where he shortly died."
In the fall of 1626, therefore, Conant and a few followers removed to Naumkeag, later Salem, "a pleasant and fruitful neck of land." They moved to Salem because they felt that better planting would be found there; and with the promise of John White to help them, they set about building houses and preparing the land for cultivation.
In the meantime, back in England, John White was true to his word and set about to find help for the Cape Ann settlers. On March 19, 1628, the Plymouth Council granted to six men, including one John Endecott, all of New England between a line three miles north of the Merrimac River and a line three miles south of the Charles River. The territory extended from east to west from sea to sea-a grant which, if carried through, would have made the his-
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tory of Essex County a somewhat more involved one to study than it is even at present. Endecott, who came over as the new Governor, was a man admirably suited to the task of rebuilding the wreckage- a man "fearing God and hating bribes." He was parishioner in Dorchester of John White and known to him as an efficient business manager whose integrity and courage no one ever questioned. Like a good many Puritans, he was at times quite opinionated, stern, and pugnacious; but these were qualities which were probably necessary to the success of his new job. He was born at Chagford, Devonshire, England, in 1589, the son of Thomas and Alice Endecott. Little is known of his early life, but he seems to have been a respectable, middle class gentleman of liberal education and cultivated mind. He was married to Anna Gower, a cousin of Matthew Cradock, the Gov- ernor of the Massachusetts Company in England. The fact that he was known as Captain Endecott presupposes some previous military experiences of some sort or other.
Endecott, with about fifty men, landed at Naumkeag on Septem- ber 6, 1628, and was met by Conant and three men who waded into the water and bore their new Governor on their shoulders to the shore.
The Cape Ann settlers had suffered hardships and losses in the past year and were, naturally, disappointed that their settlement was to be absorbed and their authority superseded by that of the new government. Accordingly, the first few weeks after Endecott's arrival were not happy ones. But the Massachusetts Company seems from the first to have treated the earlier settlers fairly and with kindness ; and by the advice of Conant, a man of great tact and judgment, the old planters accepted the authority of Endecott and became an effi- cient part of his colony.
It was in commemoration of the happy settlement of all disputes between the old settlers and the new, incidentally, that the name of Naumkeag (Naumkek, Naemkeck, Naemkecke, or Naimkeck) was changed to Salem, meaning "peace"-"upon a fair ground in remem- brance of a peace settled upon a conference at a general meeting between them and their neighbors after expectance of some dan- gerous jar."
One of the first things that Endecott did was to go down to Merrymount (Quincy) "in the purifying spirit of authority." Merry-
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mount was the settlement founded by Captain Wollaston and Thomas Morton in 1625. Wollaston soon tired of the venture and left for Virginia, taking many of his servants with him to sell as slaves. Mor- ton remained, however, and banded the remaining servants together in a company that sold firewater and firearms to the Indians. The most colorful of the Merrymount escapades was the erection of a May pole, eighty feet high, "on which he and his associates posted scurrilous notices, attacking the other settlers and those in authority, together with obscene and vulgar jokes and rhymes." And it was at this "idle or idoll May-polle" that the early settlers of Quincy could be found "drinking and dancing about it many days togeather, inviting the Indean women for their consorts, dancing and frisking togither (like so many fairies or furies rather) and worse prac- tises." This "licentious . . , and dissolute life, powering out them selves into all profaneness," of course, soon attracted into one settle- ment all the undesirables of New England. The Plymouth Planta- tion, disturbed by attacks on its morality, and more disturbed by fear of an Indian armed inside with firewater and outside with firearms, sent Miles Standish down to Merrymount in the June before Ende- cott's arrival to arrest Morton. This was effected, and in August, 1629, Morton was shipped back to England-deported as an unde- sirable alien. Morton, incidentally, returned to New England in 1643, was fined one hundred pounds, which he could not pay, and imprisoned for a year. He then went to Aganeticus, where he died in 1645 or 1646.
Endecott's attitude at Merrymount, "rebuking the inhabitants for their profaneness and admonishing them to see to it that there should be better walking," was probably quite wise and quite justified. His cutting down of the May pole was not the act of a repressed Puritan, repressing innocent merrymaking. It was the act of a good leader, breaking up a nest of irresponsible persons, and thereby insuring greater safety to the greater majority of his colonists.
Endecott's first winter was a hard one. He himself lost his wife, and the settlement suffered terribly from sickness and death. Scurvy and fever, contracted on board ship, was brought ashore and spread. There were hardly enough untouched to nurse the sick and bury the dead, and to add to the difficulty, Salem was without competent medical advice.
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Accordingly, Endecott wrote to Governor Bradford at Plymouth, with whom he had already established diplomatic good will, and asked for aid. Governor Bradford replied by sending Dr. Samuel Fuller, a prominent member and deacon of the Plymouth Church, as well as a man of considerable medical skill, who stayed at Salem for six months. Dr. Fuller's visit to Salem has political significance in that it was probably due to his influence that Endecott and the colonists at Salem, formerly the type of Puritans who represented what might be called merely the left wing of the English Church, became complete separatists and were converted to the congregational form of worship.
Meanwhile, back in England, John White was strengthening the organization of the trading company. In 1629 Charles I granted a new charter, adding twenty names to the original six. Matthew Cra- dock was named governor of the company in England, and John Ende- cott, on April 30, 1629, was elected resident-governor by the company. Endecott's council of assistants, elected by the company, consisted of thirteen persons, "resydent upon the said plantation."
The electors were the stockholders, or freemen, who received two hundred acres of land in return for fifty pounds ventured in the com- mon stock of the company. Later the number of freemen was enlarged, but jealously; and membership was restricted to Church members. Thus the colonial government of Massachusetts was kept in the hands of a property-owning, enlightened, Puritan, and, on many occasions, a high-handed minority.
In the spring of 1629 six vessels sailed from England to Salem, marking the beginning of a ten-year period of tremendous emigra- tion. Among the passengers were the Reverend Francis Higginson, of Leicester, and the Reverend Samuel Skelton, of Lincolnshire, who were to be the ministers at Salem. These men were paid by the com- pany, and it may be noted here that they had no direct political authority. Indirectly, however, as with all Puritan ministers in the Colony, their political influence was great; for in those days of no newspapers, few books, little time for reading, and great pulpit ora- tory, the settlers naturally looked to their ministers, men usually of strong personalities, for guidance in all things, temporal quite as much as spiritual.
The year 1629 in Salem was marked by the events of the new government getting started, devising necessary legislation, and by the
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organization of the First Church of the Colony. The members of the church elected Mr. Higginson to be teacher, and Mr. Skelton to be pastor. Mr. Higginson died in 1629, and it was to fill his place that Roger Williams was brought to Salem.
Meanwhile more organization, resulting in more confusion to later historians, was taking place in England. Matthew Cradock, who by this time creates the impression along with John White of being as busy as a bee behind the scenes, off stage, where he seems almost a mythical figure, was able to persuade more and more influ- ential men of property to emigrate. Accordingly, he suggested that the management of the company be transferred from England to the Colony, and in 1630 John Winthrop sailed for Salem, the new Gov- ernor to replace Endecott, and along with him a Deputy Governor, Thomas Dudley. With them, also, was an Elizabeth Hauchins, who on August 18, 1630, became the new and very young wife of John Endecott.
The new settlers were received cordially; but fresh from the luxuries of Old England, they viewed askance a Salem again dis- couraged after another hard winter. Accordingly, the new settlers, after a brief stop in Essex County, moved on to the mouth of the Charles-and so on out of the confines of this present history. Some of them, of course, notably Simon Bradstreet, thought better of it later and returned to be included in the records of the most historic county in the United States. .
The next episode of real political importance in Essex County- now that the seat of the Commonwealth has been removed to New- towne (Cambridge), where Winthrop and Dudley started their petty feuds, and thence to Boston -- is the arrival in Salem of Roger Wil- liams, in November, 1633.
Roger Williams, born in the early years of the seventeenth cen- tury, was a graduate of Sutton's Hospital, a part of Charter House, London, and a graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, from which he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1627. After gradua- tion from Cambridge he became private chaplain for Sir William Masham of Otes, County of Essex. He fell madly in love with his patroness' cousin, but was turned down by her. In reply to her rejec- tion he warned his lady love that some day she may cast her eyes up toward heaven-"and what a gnawing worm it will be to see so
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many branches in the bosom of Christ and your stock rejected." He further eased his feelings by falling in love with some one else, and with her as his wife he sailed for New England on December 1, 1630.
Williams from the first was more radical than most of the Puritan ministers who, as has been pointed out, were really merely left wing members of the Established Church. Williams, however, was a com- plete separatist and a congregationalist. He was immediately offered the position of minister to the First Church of Boston, but refused to go until they separated completely from the Established Church and begged forgiveness of God and of himself for not having done so beforehand. The First Church of Boston refused, however, and so Williams washed his hands of them and went directly to the more congenial atmosphere of Plymouth. (At this time, 1631, incidentally, he seems to have gone to Salem to replace Mr. Higginson, but his stay there was short. Why he left is not known, but he evidently left with no ill will, for he was asked back two years later. )
He was received cordially at Plymouth and did notable good work among the Indians. In fact, it was with the Indians that Williams did his best work. He was interested in them and sympathetic with them, and in his two years at Plymouth he took the trouble to learn their language. They, in turn, liked him, for he seemed to exhibit a patience with the savages that he was quite incapable of in his dealings with those weaker mortals of his own race.
But even at Plymouth, where he was among brethren, he caused enough ill feeling so that they welcomed his departure when he was called to Salem in the fall of 1633. He was naturally a contentious person, loving a hot argument, and convinced of his own infallibility. His nature is shown by one of his squabbles at Plymouth, where he objected to the greeting "Goodman." He quoted Jesus, "Why call- est thou me good ? There is none good but one, that is God." Wil- liams stirred up so much controversy about it that the Colony was divided, until Governor Winthrop sensibly pointed out that the mat- ter was hardly worth arguing about. And so the matter was dropped.
Roger Williams was in Salem for two years. To follow his actions one by one would be tedious. Suffice it to say that for two years he stirred up trouble.
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In the first place he supported Skelton's objection to the fort- nightly meetings of the ministers about Boston. These meetings, actually, were harmless enough gatherings, where the clergymen got together to discuss theological points. The meetings were probably very good in providing intellectual stimulus, as a matter of fact; but Williams objected to them lest they might prejudice the liberties of the individual churches.
Shortly after that he sent a treatise to the Governor and his Coun- cil in which he disputed their rights to the lands here under the King's grant. For, said Williams, the land belongs to the Indians, and how could the King give away that which was not his in the first place ? As a matter of fact, the company had taken steps in 1628 to settle any equitable claims which were presented by the Indians, but it may be imagined that not a great deal was done in that direction. Roger Williams, no doubt, stood on good moral grounds in this, but the newly settled white owners of the land, who had worked hard to cul- tivate it, were peculiarly sensitive about their rights of ownership.
His next step was most serious. He charged King James with a "solemn public lie" in stating that he was the first Christian Prince to have discovered New England and in calling Europe Christendom. And not satisfied with that, he proceeded to apply three uncompli- mentary passages in "Revelations" to King Charles. Unfortunately -most unfortunately-for posterity's enlightenment, the identity of these passages has been lost. We do know, however, that the Governor and his Council squirmed a bit on reading them and finally decided that the passages were "not as dangerous as had been sup- posed." Williams retracted these charges when the General Court wrote Endecott to have him do so, and furthermore, he promised to be good in the future-a promise, of course, which it was not in the nature of the man to be able to keep.
In the meantime other political factors combined to bring the Williams episode to a head. Three of the undesirable aliens whom New England had deported, among them Morton of Merrymount, had made serious charges in England against the colonists, claiming that the colonists were villifying the Church and State. Friends of the colonists defended them, but it did not help the cause at all to have Williams starting up again in Salem, preaching against things as they were. Affairs finally reached such serious proportions that
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the King sent orders to Cradock that the Massachusetts patent be given up and threatened to send troops over to enforce a new organ- ization of things. The colonists, naturally, were disturbed. They feared not only loss of land, but also they feared that their churches would be subject to the rule of two archbishops of the Established Church, sent over for that purpose. They even went so far as to vote appropriations for fortifications and defense. Luckily, however, they managed to stall on a legal technicality and the whole series of threats and counter threats was forgotten-and the Battle of Lexington was postponed for one hundred and fifty years.
During all this uneasiness it may be imagined that Williams was not only not helping the colonists very much, but, indeed, was making himself decidedly unpopular with a good many of them.
It was right at this time, too, that the incident of Ye Redde Crosse Knight occurred. The incident was that a man in Salem took out his sword and proceeded to cut out the Red Cross from the King's colors -an act which the Massachusetts government lost no time in explain- ing and apologizing for to the King. It seems that Ye Knight had done it, not to deface the King's colors, but to purge them. For the Red Cross in the King's colors was a gift from the Pope and smacked of Roman Catholicism. Now, Ye Redde Crosse Knight turned out to be John Endecott (whose family possess the offending sword to this day). John Endecott was severely censured by the General Court, and as punishment for his crime, he was forbidden to hold any public office for one year-a punishment which was in reality a light one because the court held that "he did it out of tenderness of conscience, and not of any evil intent."
The action of Endecott reflected sharply upon Williams, for since the death of Skelton on August 2, 1634, Williams had been pastor of the First Church of Salem, and Endecott was not only a parishioner of Williams, but also one of his staunchest defenders. It was gen- erally considered, therefore, that when Endecott played the part of Ye Knight, he was merely and completely reflecting the opinion of and under the influence of his spiritual leader.
One of the reforms that Williams effected during his pastorate was to have the women of his congregation come to church veiled. Never content with a narrow and confining victory, Williams hoped to convert the whole world to his way of thinking on this matter-or
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if not the whole world, at least a goodly part of Massachusetts. Needless to say, Williams' sphere of influence in this case, as in many others, was held within the bounds of his own parish.
By the late spring of 1635 matters were coming pretty much to a head. Williams was teaching that magistrates had no right to administer oaths to unregenerate men, for it caused them to take the name of God in vain. Entirely aside from the morals of this latest idea, its execution would most decidedly have embarrassed the admin- istration of justice in Massachusetts, and the magistrates decided to ignore the Quixotic advice. In August, however, Williams resolved within himself to attack another windmill. He advised that a man ought not to pray with an unregenerate person, "even though his wife or child." This theory might have proved embarrassing to family life and domestic harmony in Massachusetts; and the colonists, no doubt realizing their duty to posterity to preserve that family life which was to be the greatness of the Gilded Age of the nineteenth century and the foundation of the Republican party, rejected this theory, also. They rejected it vehemently and took action.
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