Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The graduates now number about six hundred and fifty, and the school is to be congratulated on the success which many of them have attained in professional and public life. In this Commonwealth, during the year just closed, the alumni counted among them members of the Governor's Council, State Senators, Mayors, District Attorneys, Registers of Probate, Representatives, and Clerks of Courts; while in some of the Western States graduates, though still young, wear judicial honors.

The many friends of the school suffered a great loss in the recent sudden death of Mr. John E. Wetherbee. At thirty years of age he had already earned for himself a substantial practice, and his constant application to the study of law, together with an easy and impressive delivery, gave his instruction at the school peculiar power. Some burden too heavy for him to bear brought his work to a sudden close. Those who were accustomed to meet him, and look for him, and listen to him, will find it hard to realize that they will see him no more. His work at the school is now in the hands of Mr. Albers, Mr. Smith, Mr. Jenney, and Mr. J. G. Thorp, Dr.

A course of lectures on Railroad Law is now being given, for the first time, by J. H. Benton, Jr., the counsel for the Old Colony Railroad Company; and the course on Real Property, which was but partially completed by Mr. Wetherbee, has been taken up by Christopher G. Tiedeman, now Professor of Law in the University of Missouri.

It is safe to say that everything that means, intelligence, experience, and hard work can suggest, to continue the school at its present high grade of excellence, will be afforded by those who are, and who will be, intrusted with the charge; and it is proper to add that the school has benefited greatly by the untiring efforts of Mr. Samuel C. Bennett (son of Judge Bennett), who is now Assistant Dean, and also one of the regular instructors, and who faithfully seconds the work of his father in the general direction of affairs.

The school already has a large and valuable library, and an annual appropriation is made by the University for its care and increase. The State Library, Boston Public Library, and Social Law Library, all of which are in the immediate neighborhood of the school, afford every possible facility for extra investigation.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Prof. Wm. Mathews, LL.D., in Bay State Monthly, November, 1885.

HON. EDMUND HATCH BENNETT.

From among the hills of Vermont and New Hampshire have sprung many renowned citizens, whose talents, industry, moral worth, and practical wisdom have been by no means unimportant factors in the prosperity and progress of the nation, and in the due discharge of its legislative, administrative, and judicial functions. The subject of this brief sketch, Hon. Edmund Hatch Bennett, was born in Manchester, Vt., April 6, 1824. He was educated in his native State,--first in the Manchester and Burlington academies, and then in the University of Vermont, at Burlington, where he graduated in the class of 1843. In 1873 his _alma mater_ bestowed upon him the well-merited degree of Doctor of Laws. The profession of the law, in which, by his industry, capacity, and character, he has been so successful, was not adopted without mature consideration. For some short time after graduation he taught a private school in Virginia; but, probably finding, subsequently, that his tastes, quite as much as his talents, might have fuller and fitter scope for their gratification and development in legal than in academical pursuits, he ultimately decided to enter upon a course of legal studies with a view to preparing himself for the discharge of forensic and judicial duties. His first practical knowledge of the law was acquired in the office of his father at Burlington, Vt., his father being at the time, and for many years previous, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont. He became a member of the Vermont bar in 1847; but early in 1848 he removed to Taunton, where he resided until 1884; and to whose social, educational, and religious advancement he has contributed in no small degree. In June, 1853, he married Sally, the second daughter of Hon. Samuel Crocker, of Taunton.

When the city was incorporated, in 1865, his fellow-citizens showed their high appreciation of his personal character and public spirit in a very pronounced manner by unanimously electing him the first chief magistrate of the newly incorporated community. To this honorable and influential post he was twice elected subsequently, viz., in 1866 and 1867.

Judge Bennett has put much hard and honest work into his profession; in this he is an example to younger men, which it would not be amiss for them to imitate. His first law connection in Taunton was with the late Nathaniel Morton, a brother of the present Chief-Justice of Massachusetts. Subsequently he formed a partnership with Hon. Henry Williams, and afterwards with Henry J. Fuller, Esq., of Taunton.

At the bar of his own county he took almost from the first a prominent place, and he has been able to turn the accumulated and well-digested results of his study and practice to good account in the instruction of others. During the years of 1870, 1871, and 1872 he occupied the position of lecturer at the Dane Law School of Harvard University, Cambridge. With the Law School of Boston University he has stood connected from its commencement in 1872, receiving at that time the honor of being selected as its Dean. He was not at the time able to serve in that capacity, but was a regular lecturer, and in 1876, on being again elected to the position, he accepted it. This relation to the school he sustains at present, having, during the decade which has passed since his assumption of the office, contributed in no small measure to the present efficient organization and very gratifying prosperity of the school. In May, 1858, he was appointed Judge of Probate and Insolvency for Bristol county, holding the office twenty-five years, and resigning in 1883.

In other directions, and by other methods than that of communicating oral instruction, Judge Bennett has exerted himself to develop the science and advance the practice of his profession. His legal works--written and edited alone, or in company with others--number more than a hundred volumes, the chief of which are: "English Law and Equity Reports;" an edition of Mr. Justice Story's works; "Leading Criminal Cases;" "Fire Insurance Cases;" "Digest of Massachusetts Reports;" American editions of the recent English works of "Goddard on Easements;" "Benjamin on Sales;" "Indermann on the Common Law;" and many others. For some considerable time he has been editorially connected with the _American Law Register_ of Philadelphia. His lecture on "Farm Law," delivered at Hingham in December, 1878, before the State Board of Agriculture, attracted very general attention at the time, and was republished in agricultural journals all over New England, as well as in the West.

In religious sympathy and work Judge Bennett is allied with the Protestant Episcopal Church. For some years he acted either in the capacity of warden or vestry-man of St. Thomas parish, Taunton, and several times as delegate represented the parish in the Diocesan Convention. In 1874, 1877, 1880, and 1883 he was appointed delegate from his diocese to the General Triennial Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country. He is now senior warden of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, of Boston.

THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

BY HON. EDWARD S. TOBEY.

I might well shrink from writing on a topic which has already engaged the pen and thought of the most able of Mr. Webster's contemporaries and biographers, were it not that, by opportunities wholly unsought, so much of reliable testimony, not previously published, has come to me tending to correct false opinions and impressions as to his private character, that a sense of justice which I could not conscientiously resist, led me on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of Mr. Webster's birthday, which was observed in this city (Boston) in 1882, under the auspices of the Alumni of Dartmouth College, to present, substantially, the facts and views which are now by request repeated. I may add, that I realized more fully an obligation and an interest to give currency to them from the fact of my former connection with Mr. Webster's Alma Mater, as one of its Board of Trustees, and also from having made the first contribution to the Webster professorship in that institution, which, through the liberality of others, has since been fully endowed.

While I would not enlarge on the subject of Mr. Webster's public services and extraordinary statesmanship already so well known throughout this and other countries, I may briefly refer to one especially eloquent speech of the many made by him to which it was my privilege to listen. After the death of President Harrison, and the accession to office of Vice-President John Tyler, all the members of the Cabinet, except Mr. Webster, resigned. He remained as Secretary of State, for the purpose of bringing to a successful conclusion a perplexing controversy between Great Britain and the United States as to the trial and release of Alexander McLeod, a British subject, then held as a prisoner in the State of New York for participating in an attack on the steamer "Caroline" within the waters of the United States. The British Government avowed the act as authorized, and imperatively demanded McLeod's release. It tasked to the utmost the extraordinary ability of Mr. Webster, as a mutual friend informed me, to find sufficient ground on which to comply with England's demand, and yet maintain the dignity of the Government of the United States, consistently with the relations between the Federal Government and that of the State of New York. The question seemed at one time to threaten the peaceful relations between England and America, of which the public were not aware. Under Mr. Webster's construction of the duty and obligations of our Government, McLeod was surrendered, and soon after Mr. Webster resigned. Having been unjustly criticised by certain political leaders, and his motives impugned for remaining so long in the Cabinet, he at once sought vindication in a speech delivered in Faneuil Hall, defining his position, in which he poured out a torrent of eloquence seldom equalled, and in which he clearly indicated the chagrin that even a great man may feel when he is made the subject of unjust suspicion and criticism.

While I have no claim whatever to be regarded as one of the great statesman's associates, I was favored with a very limited and casual acquaintance in the latter part of his life, and an opportunity to know something of his private life and his religious character, through his particular friends, of whom a few were also my personal friends. I may perhaps, therefore, properly speak of unquestionable facts which have, by force of circumstances, come to my knowledge at different times through a period of about forty years, tending to disprove the base rumor and slanders which have found an astonishing currency.

To these I never thought it proper to refer publicly, until the pages of one of our most respectable periodicals[B] reproduced the rumors, which were subsequently publicly refuted in the Boston _Herald_, by Mr. Webster's able biographer, George Ticknor Curtis. The friends of Mr. Webster would have been false to his memory and their own moral obligation had they failed to put forward the evidence in their possession to disprove the charges on which such rumors were fabricated, and which, until a few years ago, had not found a place, so far as I know, in any respectable publication.

The late Dr. John Jeffries, who was the physician of Mr. Webster, was also my family physician for twenty years. Not long after the close of the late civil war, an Episcopal clergyman of Charleston, S.C., became my guest. He being in need of medical advice, I introduced him to Dr. Jeffries. After his case had been disposed of he inquired of Dr. Jeffries: "Pray, sir, were the stories which we hear at the South concerning Mr. Webster's private character true?" The doctor replied: "Do you refer to his alleged drinking habits?"--"Yes, sir," said the clergyman. "No, sir," answered Dr. Jeffries; "they were not true." He added: "I was his physician for many years, and made the _post-mortem_ examination. He died from no such cause." To illustrate to what extent Mr. Webster was misunderstood and consequently maligned, the doctor related the following fact: "On a certain occasion when Mr. Webster was engaged to speak in Faneuil Hall, he had been for several days much reduced by medical treatment. Late in the afternoon I suggested that, in his reduced condition, a glass of wine would be useful. He replied: 'No, doctor, I prefer a plate of soup; and when His Honor the Mayor calls for me, perhaps you will accompany me.' I assented, and did accompany him. That evening, before Mr. Webster had closed his speech, a certain political rival left the hall and was met by a friend, who inquired, 'Is the meeting over?' The envious politician answered, 'No; I have come away disgusted. Webster is intoxicated.'" Who was the most reliable witness in this case,--his honest physician, an eye-witness, who spoke from knowledge, or the political rival, who spoke from false inference? This is but one of several similar instances of misapprehension and consequent cruel injustice which I might relate, did the time and occasion permit.

There is now living in this city a gentleman of the highest respectability, personally well-known to me for thirty-five years, who was for about twenty-five years intimately connected with Mr. Webster, at Marshfield, as the manager of his affairs, and consequently with him under all circumstances during his summer residence there. Mr. Webster regarded him with the affection of a father for a son. This gentleman has said to me more than once, with emotion and evident feelings of indignation: "No one has ever seen Mr. Webster at Marshfield unduly under the influence of stimulants." He adds: "I was with him on festive occasions here and in New Hampshire, when others were indulging in the customary habit of drinking; but I have never seen Mr. Webster, on those occasions, use stimulants to excess."

The late Judge Peleg Sprague, whom from family relationship it was my privilege to know intimately until the very last year of his life, a short time before his death, in conversation with me, refuted the charges of Mr. Webster's alleged excessive drinking habits in Washington. Judge Sprague was ten years in Congress, and was associated with Mr. Webster, under various circumstances, in public and social life.

I have thus offered the evidence of three witnesses, whose opportunity of knowledge and whose credibility, it cannot be denied, are to be accepted against rumors so easily put in circulation by reckless as well as by mistaken men, but which have beyond question been believed by very many good men who had not the opportunity, or perhaps the sense of obligation, to investigate the origin of them.

As to Mr. Webster's religious character and habits of mind, I can hardly express the great satisfaction afforded me by the testimony of his intimate friend, the Rev. Dr. Lothrop, who has in eloquent and unqualified language confirmed, and, indeed, more than confirmed, all that others have known of it.[C] Dr. Lothrop repeated his criticism on a prayer once offered by the chaplain of the United States Senate, in which Mr. Webster concurred, expressing at the same time his view of the nature and true object of prayer. This reminds me of the fact that the last sermon which Mr. Webster ever heard was on the subject of prayer, from the lips of the late Rev. Dr. Kirk, preached in the little Methodist church at Duxbury, about four miles from Marshfield. This was about six weeks before Mr. Webster's death. He was accompanied by Sir John Crampton, the British Minister, who at that time was at Marshfield negotiating a treaty on the fishery question, Mr. Webster then being Secretary of State. Through the mutual friendly relations of my esteemed friend and partner, the Hon. Seth Sprague, I had the privilege, with him and the Rev. Dr. Kirk, of dining with Mr. Webster the next day. It afforded an opportunity to listen to his entertaining and instructive anecdotes, of which I will relate one only. He said: "On a certain occasion, when President Kirkland, of Harvard University, was called upon by one of his familiar friends, a clergyman, he inquired as to the state of affairs in his parish; to which the clergyman replied, 'We are troubled by a good deal of controversy.'--'Ah! and pray what may the subject be?' inquired Dr. Kirkland. 'It is the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints which agitates the minds of my people,' said the clergyman. 'Well,' said President Kirkland, 'I, too, have a controversy among my people; but the topic is of a very different nature. What troubles me and them most is, the final perseverance of sinners.'"

I am sure, however, that his own statement of his Confession of Faith, written in 1807, and published in the Boston _Courier_ about twenty-two years since, taken together with his extraordinary plea in the famous Girard case, and his address at Plymouth in 1820, on the subject of its settlement by the Pilgrim fathers will be specially appreciated. The confession is as follows:--

I believe in the existence of Almighty God, who created and
governs the whole world. I am taught this by the works of
Nature and the word of Revelation.

I believe that God exists in three persons: this I learn from
Revelation alone. Nor is it any objection to this belief that I
cannot comprehend how _one_ can be _three_, or _three_ _one_. I
hold it my duty to believe, not what I can comprehend or
account for, but what my Maker teaches me.

I believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be
the will and word of God.

I believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God. The miracles which
He wrought establish in my mind His personal authority, and
render it proper for me to believe whatever He asserts; I
believe, therefore, all His declarations, as well when He
declares Himself the Son of God as when He declares any other
proposition. And I believe there is no other way of salvation
than through the merits of His atonement.

I believe that things past, present, and to come are all
equally present in the mind of the Deity; that with Him there
is no succession of time nor of ideas; that, therefore, the
relative terms past, present, and future, as used among men,
cannot, with strict propriety, be applied to Deity. I believe
in the doctrines of foreknowledge and predestination, as thus
expounded. I do not believe in those doctrines as imposing any
fatality or necessity on men's actions, or any way infringing
free agency.

I believe in the utter inability of any human being to work out
his own salvation without the constant aids of the Spirit of
all grace.

I believe in those great peculiarities of the Christian
religion,--a resurrection from the dead and a day of judgment.

I believe in the universal providence of God; and leave to
Epicurus, and his more unreasonable followers in modern times,
the inconsistency of believing that God made a world which He
does not take the trouble of governing.

Although I have great respect for some other forms of worship,
I believe the Congregational mode, on the whole, to be
preferable to any other.

I believe religion to be a matter not of demonstration, but of
faith. God requires us to give credit to the truths which He
reveals, not because we can prove them, but because He declares
them. When the mind is reasonably convinced that the Bible is
the word of God, the only remaining duty is to receive its
doctrines with full confidence of their truth, and practise
them with a pure heart.

I believe that the Bible is to be understood and received in
the plain and obvious meaning of its passages, since I cannot
persuade myself that a book intended for the instruction and
conversion of the whole world should cover its true meaning in
such mystery and doubt that none but critics and philosophers
can discover it.

I believe that the experiments and subtleties of human wisdom
are more likely to obscure than to enlighten the revealed will
of God, and that he is the most accomplished Christian scholar
who has been educated at the feet of Jesus and in the College
of Fishermen.

I believe that all true religion consists in the heart and the
affections, and that therefore all creeds and confessions are
fallible and uncertain evidences of Evangelical piety.

These views he held at twenty-five, and in the main retained them in his later years, as is shown by his remarks before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts on the occasion of the death of his intimate associate, Jeremiah Mason, of which the following is an extract:--

But, sir, political eminence and professional fame fade away
and die with all things earthly. Nothing of character is really
permanent but virtue and personal worth. These remain. Whatever
of excellence is wrought into the soul itself belongs to both
worlds. Real goodness does not attach itself merely to this
life: it points to another world. Political or professional
reputation cannot last forever, but a conscience void of
offence before God and man is an inheritance for eternity.
Religion, therefore, is a necessary and indispensable element
in any great human character; there is no living without it.
Religion is the tie that connects man with his Creator, and
holds him to His throne. If that tie be all sundered, all
broken, he floats away,--a worthless atom in the universe; its
proper attraction all gone, its destiny thwarted, and its whole
future nothing but darkness, desolation, and death. A man with
no sense of religious duty is he whom the Scriptures describe
in such terse but terrific language, "Without God in the
world." Such a man is out of his proper being, out of the
circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all his
happiness, and away, far, far away, from the purposes of his
creation. A mind like Mr. Mason's, active, thoughtful,
penetrating, could not but meditate deeply on the condition of
man below, and feel its responsibilities. He could not look on
this mighty system,--

"This universal frame, thus wondrous fair,"--

without feeling that it was created and upheld by an
Intelligence to which all other intelligences must be
responsible. I am bound to say, that in the course of my life I
never met with an individual, in any profession or condition of
life, who always spoke and always thought with such awful
reverence of the power and presence of God. No irreverence, no
lightness, even no too familiar allusion to God and His
attributes, ever escaped his lips. The very motion of a Supreme
Being was, with him, made up of awe and solemnity, and filled
the whole of his great mind with the strongest emotions. A man
like him, with all his proper sentiments and sensibilities
alive in him, must in this state of existence have something to
believe, and something to hope for; or else, as life is
advancing to its close and parting, all is heart-sinking and
oppression Depend upon it, whatever may be the mind of an old
man, old age is only really happy when, on feeling the
enjoyments of this world pass away, it begins to lay a stronger
hold on those of another.

Mr. Webster then quotes, on the authority of another, the grounds of Mr. Mason's religious faith, thus:--

Mr. Mason was fully aware that his end was near; and in answer
to the question, "Can you now rest with firm faith upon the
merits of your Divine Redeemer?" he said, "I trust I do. Upon
what else can I rest?" At another time, in reply to a similar
question, he said, "_Of course_; I have no other ground of
hope."

Mr. Webster adds:--

Such, Mr. Chief-Justice, was the life and such the death of
Jeremiah Mason. For one I could pour out my heart like water at
the recollection of his virtues and his friendship, and in the
feeling of his loss. I would embalm his memory in my best
affections.

Again, in the following extract from a letter to his teacher, Mr. James Tappan, about two years before Mr. Webster's death, he writes:--

You have, indeed, lived a checkered life. I hope you have been
able to bear prosperity with meekness, and adversity with
patience. These things are all ordered for us far better than
we could order them for ourselves. We may pray for our daily
bread; we may pray for forgiveness of sins; we may pray to be
kept from temptation, and that the kingdom of God may come in
us, and in all men, and His will everywhere be done. Beyond
this we hardly know for what good to supplicate the Divine
Mercy. Our Heavenly Father knoweth what we have need of better
than we know ourselves, and we are assured that His eye and His
loving kindness are upon us and around us every moment.

How entirely in harmony are these religious views of Mr. Webster with similar utterances on several public occasions, to which allusion has already been made; and especially with that extraordinary dramatic scene so vividly described by his biographer, Mr. Harvey, who was an eye-witness and participator in it, when, in the solitary farm-house of John Colby,[D] in New Hampshire, Mr. Webster, at the request of Mr. Colby, led in prayer. Whatever else of unfriendly criticism has been made on the character of Mr. Webster, he has never been charged with hypocrisy, or of parading his religious opinions; least of all in that remote hamlet of John Colby, whither he had gone to visit him for the first time in twenty-five years, because he had heard of Mr. Colby's remarkable conversion late in life. Can there be the remotest suspicion that other than the most pure and noble of all motives could have governed him, as he then sought communion with God in prayer? And, as Mr. Harvey remarked to the writer, "It was indeed a prayer."

About one year before the death of Mr. Webster I casually met Professor Stuart, of Andover, on his return from a visit to Mr. Webster, at Marshfield, when, in the course of conversation relating to his religious habits, the professor remarked, "Mr. Webster has arrived at that period in life when he feels more than ever his moral accountability;" and added, "He has resumed family worship." I inquired, "What evidence have you of this?" He answered, "Clergymen who have recently visited in his family have so informed me." This, of course, implied that family worship had once been his custom, but that it had been temporarily suspended,--perhaps attributable to unusual pressure on his time by reason of his always arduous public duties.

I am glad to have the opportunity, in these columns, of repeating such testimony as I am able to offer, and to which much more might be added, as to the worth and private character of America's greatest statesman, whose record of distinguished public service will adorn the pages of his country's history with unfading lustre long after the unjust aspersions on his character shall have passed into oblivion forever.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] The _Atlantic Monthly_.

[C] Speech at Dartmouth Webster Centennial Dinner, Boston, 1882.

[D] John Colby was the husband of Mr. Webster's eldest sister, who died many years before the visit here referred to. He was known as a great sceptic in religious matters in early life, and hence Mr. Webster's earnest desire to visit him soon after he heard of Mr. Colby's conversion.

FORTY YEARS OF FRONTIER LIFE IN THE POCOMTUCK VALLEY.

BY HON. GEORGE SHELDON.

One result of John Eliot's attempt to civilize the Massachusetts Indians was, that in 1663 the General Court granted to the town of Dedham eight thousand acres of wilderness, as compensation for the territory taken by the apostle for his settlement at Natick. After an examination of various localities, Dedham selected a tract upon the far away lands of the Pocomtucks, bought out the rights of the Indians who claimed it, and in 1665 laid out the grant there. This land was divided into five hundred and twenty-three shares, or rights, called "cow-commons," and held by each freeholder of Dedham, according to his interest in the undivided land in the old township; and it was paid for by a general town tax. Fractions of a cow-common were called sheep-commons, five of which equalled a cow-common. These shares were offered for sale to such men as Dedham should approve. The required standard of character does not appear, but this regulation was no dead letter, as the town records testify; and picked men only were allowed a foothold on this new possession. We may therefore suppose that it was a goodly body of men which gathered, about 1671-5, on the virgin soil in the lower valley of the Pocomtuck River. Here were the headquarters of the Pocomtuck Indians, whose chieftains were at the head of the confederate clans in the Connecticut valley. In 1663, the date of the grant, the Pocomtucks were engaged in a successful campaign against the powerful Mohawks; but, before the compass and chain of the surveyor had been called into requisition to lay out the bounds of the grant, the majority of this tribe had been swept off by a retaliatory invasion of their western enemies. This was doubtless considered a special interposition of Providence in behalf the projected settlement, and a manifestation of Divine indignation against the heathen, who were popularly considered subjects of the devil, seeking to establish his kingdom "in these uttermost parts of the earth." However this may be, the first English settlers here found the power of native rule broken, and a remnant of the Pocomtucks gathered for protection near the centre of a triangle formed by the settlements at Hadley, Hatfield, and Northampton.

The early comers had no fear of the natives, and danger there was none. They were welcomed by the crushed tribe as another bulwark against the Mohawks. There is no hint of any hostile feeling on the part of the red men, or of any anticipation of it on the part of the whites, until the breaking out of Philip's War. The primal cause of this outbreak is not far to seek. Whenever and wherever, on our shifting frontier, our so-called civilization has come in contact with the barbarism of the aborigines, similar results have followed. And nowhere was this effect more certain than when our Puritan ancestors, with their inflexible ideas of duty, confronted the New England savage in his native wilds.

It should have been early apparent to our rulers that these two races, essentially so different, could not live side by side in fellowship and harmony, and subject to the same rules and regulations. Eliot realized this, and planned the isolated community at Natick, which, as we have seen, resulted in the English settlement at Pocomtuck.

The policy of the whites was, by fair means or foul, to induce the natives, as soon as possible, to acknowledge allegiance to the English; this being accomplished, the laws of the Puritans were strictly enforced upon these free children of the forest, and their violation punished by fine, imprisonment, and stripes. It does not appear that any particular effort was made in the Connecticut Valley to teach the savages the precepts of Christ, but they were held accountable to the laws of Moses, as interpreted by the rulers, even to being punished for travelling on Sunday.

Such oppressive acts by narrow-minded good men were supplemented by the knavery of unscrupulous bad men. The Indian trader, in accordance with the teachings of the times, not only looked upon the savages as the offspring of Satan, but also as fair objects of spoil; consequently, the simplicity, moral honesty, and ignorance if these Canaanites and Amalekites were made the most of financially. Ignorant of the benefits of wise restraint, and unused to such wiles as were practised upon them by the traders, the unsophisticated natives had a hard time indeed between the two.

Demoralized by the white man's fire-water, they were cheated while under its influence. Though the sale of rum to the Indians was forbidden by law, and illicit traders were prosecuted, "conviction in liquor cases" was no easier then than now. The word of a heathen had small weight against the oath of a Christian, and fear of the traders often prevented the victims from pressing their complaints.

Before the advent of the whites the natives seem to have been thrifty and provident, laying up stores for contingencies. With English implements and weapons, their facilities for planting and hunting were greatly increased, and their products should have been correspondingly larger. The unlimited demand for furs should have stimulated the chase, and their sale should have added to their comforts in food and shelter. By their contact with the whites, their lives should have been changed for the better. Was this the effect? The contrary is notoriously true. The increased income was squandered in liquors. Like thousands to-day, they would give their most costly possessions to gratify their appetite for strong drink. When the corn crop was short, and gave out in the spring, or had been squandered for rum, they borrowed of the traders, paying two hundred per cent for it at harvest. They became poor, shiftless, and dependent. They even pledged their children as security, to be held as slaves in default of contract. They knew they were debased, and despised by the superior race, and felt their degradation. To this condition had come the remnant of the Pocomtucks; a power which within a generation had humbled the fierce Mohawks, and scattered in battle the armies of Uncas the Mohegan.

To the natives, the English fur-trader was the representative of his race; and as they gradually found themselves no match for his methods or his morals, their simple faith in the white man's honesty, their debasing fear of his prowess, their reverence for him as a superhuman being, little by little died out. They saw themselves wronged, despoiled, and abused, with less and less power to assert their rights and maintain their independence; and their hearts became more and more filled with a sullen desire for revenge. In the ethics of the North American Indian, there was but one mode of gratifying this feeling. Nothing would suffice but the blood of the offender. This fearful code, with all its horrors, was felt alike by the innocent and the guilty, when Philip and the hour came.

Meanwhile the plantation at Pocomtuck was increasing in strength and prosperity. The rich soil of the meadows yielded an abundance of Indian corn, wheat, rye, barley, beans, and flax. Game of every kind was plenty and easily secured. Flocks of turkeys, pigeons, geese, and ducks were all about them in the woods and waters. The forest also furnished condiments, in the form of sugar from the sap of the maple tree, and honey from the heart of the "bee tree." The rivers teemed with choice fish; herds of deer were so common as to impress the name of "Deerfield" permanently upon the settlement. Peace and plenty smiled on all, and the foundations of the little community seemed firmly established. The planters had come to stay. In 1673, a minister had been secured in the person of Samuel Mather, a Harvard graduate of 1671. In 1675, they had already "a little house for a meeting-house, yt they meete in," and were building a dwelling for the minister. None dreamed that the horrors of an Indian war were so soon to overwhelm them and change the whole aspect of nature and of human affairs in this quiet valley. The news of the outbreak at far-off Plymouth, in June, 1675, raised no fears in them. The attack on Brookfield, August 2, opened their eyes, and preparations for defence were pushed with vigor. The swamp fight under the shadow of Wequamps brought the war to their very doors; and, on the first of September, the settlers were called upon to defend their homes against the attack of those who had hitherto been considered trusty friends.

The days of peace and plenty were over for this unhappy people. On the slaughter of Lothrop and the "Flower of Essex," at Bloody Brook, September 18, this chosen land was deserted and given back to the wilderness.

After seven years of wandering, such of the survivors as had courage enough returned to the desolate scene of their former prosperity; but the progress of resettlement was slow and painful. Fortifications were built, old and young trained for soldiers, watch and ward kept night and day, scouts ranged the surrounding forests, and all were constantly on the alert. All hunting or fishing, all labor in forest or field, all journeying, was at the imminent risk of life or liberty. From the nearest swamp or thicket, from behind some fence, stump, or clump of brake, at any moment might appear the flash of the musket or gleam of the scalping-knife. Never ending toil under these conditions, and unceasing vigilance, were the price of existence, and the stern realities of life closed in upon them on every side. Labor they must, or starvation was at the door; for their sustenance must be drawn from their own acres. They could not look back for aid, as the towns below were in the same condition. Women and children were not exempt from laborious toil. Of relaxation there was little, and recreation was unthought of. Even parental love was constrained and formal. Children were born into a cold and cheerless atmosphere, and it is not to be wondered at that they grew up hard and austere men and women, whose chief or only solace was the hope of an eternity of rest and psalm-singing, in a heaven earned by the endurance of trials with piety, patience, and faith that all their sufferings would in some way redound to the glory of God.

There was little desire or opportunity for cultivating the mind. A dense ignorance of letters was the rule. Hardly a woman born of the generation preceding Queen Anne's War could write her name, and many of the most active and useful men could do no better. The people lived wholly off the land. Their clothing and bedding were either from flax, raised, pulled, rotted, broken, and swingled by the men; and hatchelled, carded, spun, and woven into cloth, and cut, and made up by the women; or else of wool sheared from the flocks, carded and spun by hand, and knit into stockings, or woven into blankets or rugs, or into flannel, to be fulled for men's wear; or into linsey-woolsey, for the women and children. To the material for men's garments must be added buckskin for breeches and leggins. Shoes were often made of untanned hide, moccasin fashion, a method borrowed from the Indians. Thorns took the place of pins in woman's gear, and thongs did duty for buttons, with men. If the maiden did have "genuine bear's oil" for her hair, for lack of a mirror her head must be dressed by the pool or placid spring.

The imports were the metals for the smith, guns, swords, lead, powder, rum, salt, sickles, razors, jack-knives, scissors, needles. There was seen occasionally, in the most forehanded families, a show of red shag cotton, calico, or Manchester. Very rarely some ambitious woman would appear with a silk wimple, scarf, or ribbon. In such extreme cases, be she dame or maiden, the stern hand of the law fell heavily upon the culprit, and certainly with more weight if she wore the unseemly and offending article "in a flaunting manner."

They had neither tea nor coffee. Their drink beside water was cider or malt beer. Spirituous liquors were a luxury, used principally in sickness, at weddings, funerals, or other special occasions. Indian corn and wheat were staple articles of diet; the former eaten as hulled corn, or beaten in a mortar into samp or hominy; and probably wheat was prepared in the same manner. Their dishes were of wood or pewter; gourd-shells answered for dippers and vessels of various use; and clam-shells made acceptable spoons. The household utensils were largely home-made.

Artisans were few. The wood-work of their carts, ploughs, yokes, and other farm implements, was generally made at home. The cart-irons, ploughshares, chains, axes, billhooks, scythes, and other cutting instruments, were hammered out on the anvil of the village blacksmith; and the work turned out by them is unequalled by any of the craft to-day.

With all their hardships and poverty, with all their distress and danger, the people were strict in the observance of all the established rites of their faith. The meeting-house burned in Philip's War was at once replaced on the second settlement. Within a score of years this had been outgrown, and a third edifice erected. It was two stories, square, with the roof rising from each of the sides to the turret in the centre. Of the interior finish a little is known. There were no pews; the worshippers were "seated" in fixed places, according to rules established in town-meeting, where the "dignity" of each rude bench was formally discussed and declared by vote. The women sat on the right of the minister, and the men on the left. The boys and girls were stored away somewhere in nooks and corners, under the eye of the tythingmen. On each side of the entrance places were reserved where, on entering, the men could deposit their loaded guns under the care of an appointed guard. While the faithful pastor was warning his devout hearers against the wiles of the tempter within, the sentinel, stationed in the turret above, watched all approaches, to guard against surprisal by an enemy without.

The communities of this period are often referred to as pure democracies, where each man was ranked equal to every other. This is far from the fact. There were real aristocratic distinctions in every town, nowhere more apparent than in meetings for religious worship. The truth appears to be that the settlers were still bound by the fetters of habit and custom brought from the mother-land. Emancipation from its aristocratic practices and social distinctions came only with the slow growth of democratic ideas and the overthrow of kingly rule.

DWELLINGS.

The first houses of the settlers were doubtless of logs, one story high, "daubed" with clay. A common form was eighteen feet square, with seven feet stud, stone fireplaces, with catted chimney, and a hip-roof covered with thatch. These structures generally gave way in a few years to large frame houses, covered with "clo'boards" and shingles, having fireplace and chimney of brick, which was laid in clay mortar, except the part above the roof, where lime was used. Of these houses, two styles prevailed; one represented by the "Old Indian House," the other, less elaborate, by the house now standing on the Smead lot. This house is thirty feet square, two stories, with pitch roof, facing the street westerly. It is covered with cloveboards, apparently the original, with no signs of paint. It has four windows in front, and five at each end. The front door, a little south of the centre, opens directly into the south front room, which is sixteen by eighteen feet. On the north of this, is a huge chimney which rises through the ridge, and the north front room, twelve by thirteen feet. North of the chimney is a large, dark closet. East of it is the kitchen, eleven by twenty feet, south of which is the buttery. Stairs to cellar and chambers occupy the southeast corner. The space over the kitchen is unfinished. The southwest chamber is fifteen by fifteen, the northwest twelve by thirteen. Each story is seven and a half feet stud. The frame is of hewn timber, generally nine by fourteen inches. The plates are nine by sixteen; those at the ends in the upper story project twelve inches over the walls, supported by the side plates, and studs on the inner edge. The rafters are sawed, four by four inches, and supported by purlins which are framed into heavy beam rafters at the middle and each end of the roof. The whole building is of pine. There was no lath and plaster; the walls were made of matched boards. The ceiling was finished by the joists and underside of the floor above being planed; the floors were double or of matched boards.

The "Old Indian House," built by John Sheldon, about 1698, stood at the north end of the training-field, facing the south. Its frame was largely of oak. It was twenty-one by forty-two feet, two stories, with a steep pitch roof. In front, the second story projected about two feet, the ends of the cross-beams being supported by ornamental oak brackets, two of which are preserved in Memorial Hall. A lean-to thirteen and a-half feet wide ran the whole length of the north side, its roof being a continuation of that on the main building.

The ground floor was thus thirty-four and a-half by forty-two feet. From the centre rose the chimney, about ten feet square at the base, with fireplaces on the sides and rear. South of it was the front entry, which, including the stairway, was eight by twelve feet. The lower floor was laid under the sill, which, projecting beyond the wall, formed a ledge around the bottom of the rooms wide enough for the children to sit upon. Stepping over the sill into the front entry, doors are seen on either hand opening into the front rooms; stairs on the right, lead, by two square landings and two turns to the left, to a passage over the entry, from which, at the right and left, doors lead to the chambers. In the rear of the chimney is a small, dark room, with stairs to the garret. Including the garret, there were five rooms in the main structure, each of them lighted by two windows with diamond panes set in lead.

In the centre of the lean-to was the kitchen, with windows in the rear; east of this was a bedroom, and west, the buttery and back entry. The fireplace was a deep cavern, the jambs and back at right angles to each other and the floor.

At the sides, hanging on spikes driven into pieces of wood built into the structure for the purpose, were the long-handled frying-pan, the pot-hook, the boring iron, the branding iron, the long iron peel, the roasting hook, the fire-pan, the scoop-shaped fire-shovel, with a trivet or two. The stout slice and tongs lean against the jambs in front.

In one end was the oven, its mouth flush with the back of the fireplace. In this nook, when the oven was not in use, stood a wooden bench on which the children could sit and study the catechism and spelling-book by firelight, or watch the stars through the square tower above their heads, the view interrupted only by the black, shiny lug-pole, and its great trammels; or in the season, its burden of hams and flitches of pork or venison, hanging to be cured in the smoke. The mantle-tree was a huge beam of oak, protected from the blaze only by the current of cold air constantly ascending. The preparation of fuel was no light task, and "building a fire" was no misnomer. The foundation was a "back-log," two or three feet in diameter; in front of this the "fore-stick," considerably smaller, both lying on the ashes; on them lay the "top-stick," half as big as the back-log. All these were usually of green wood. In front of this pile was a stack of split wood, branches, chips, and cobs, or, if cob-irons were present, the smaller wood was laid horizontally across these. The logs would last several days, and be renewed when necessary, but the fire was not allowed to go out. Should this happen, the fire-pan was sent to a neighbor for coals, or the tin lantern with a candle for a light. In default of neighbors, the tinder-box, or flint-lock musket with a wad of tow were used to evoke a spark. "Tending fire" meant renewing the lighter parts of the fuel; for this purpose, there was, in prudent families, a generous pile of dry cord-wood in the kitchen. With these appliances, considerable warmth was felt in the room; the larger part of the heat, however, was lost up the huge chimney. Fresh air rushed in at every crack and cranny to supply this great draft; and, although the windows were small, and the walls lined with brick, there was no lack of ventilation. In this condition of things, the high-backed settle in front of the blazing fire was a cozy seat. It was the place of honor for the heads of the family and distinguished guests. Sometimes the settle was placed permanently on one side of the fireplace, the seat hung on leather hinges, under which was the "pot-hole," where smaller pots, spiders, skillets, and kettles were stored.

The fireplaces in the front rooms were of the same pattern, but smaller than that in the kitchen. Fires were seldom built there except at weddings, funerals, or on state occasions. The furniture, for the most part home-made, rude and unpainted, was scanty--a few stools, benches, and split-bottomed chairs; a table or two, plain chests, rude, low bedsteads, with home-made ticks filled with straw or pine needles. The best room may have had a carved oak chest, brought from England, a tent or field bedstead, with green baize, or white dimity curtains, and generous feather bed. The stout tick for this, the snow-white sheets, the warm flannel blankets, and heavy woollen rugs, woven in checks of black, or red, and white, or the lighter harperlet, were all the products of domestic wheel and loom. There were no carpets. The floors were sprinkled with fine, white sand, which, on particular occasions, was brushed into fanciful patterns with a birch broom, or bundle of twigs. The style of painting floors called "marbling," hardly yet extinct, was a survival of this custom.

The finishing of the "Indian House" was more elaborate than that of the Smead house; but there was no lath and plaster, the ceiling being the same. The partitions and walls were of wainscot-work, with mouldings about the doors and windows. These mouldings were all cut by hand from solid wood. In some cases the oak summer-tree was smoothed and left bare, with a capital cut on the supporting posts; generally, hereabouts, it was covered with plain boards,--it may be, in the best room, with panels. No finer lumber is found than that with which these old houses were finished.

Their massive frames, each stout tenon fitted to its shapely mortise by the try rule, whose foundations were laid by our sires so long ago that the unsubdued savage still roamed in the forest where its timbers were hewn, stand as firmly as when the master-builder dismissed the tired neighbors, who had heaved up the huge beams, and pinned the last rafter to its mate (for there were no ridgepoles) at the raising.

AN EVENING AT HOME.