Chapter III: Part 3

The Weymouth church had now had three preachers in nine years, but the day of short pastorates was over. The Rev. Thomas Thacher was ordained as the successor of Mr. Newman in 1644, and there remained, beloved and respected of his people, for twenty years. Then marrying a second time, and his parish being unable to afford him a sufficient maintenance,[87] he moved to Boston, the home of his wife, and in him Weymouth lost at once its spiritual and its medical adviser, for Mr. Thacher was a skillful physician as well as a learned divine. Subsequently, in 1669, he became the first pastor of the Old South Church, in Boston, in which position he died, in 1678, leaving behind him a race of descendants whose names are familiar through a century of colonial annals.

To Mr. Thacher’s pastorate of twenty years succeeded the fifty-one years of the learned and exemplary Samuel Torrey, the trusted adviser of the magistrates of his day, the intimate friend of all its leading divines, thrice invited to preach the election sermon, twice called to the presidency of Harvard College. Mr. Torrey enjoyed a very remarkable gift of prayer, so that it is told of him that upon the occasion of a public fast, in 1696, after all the other exercises, he prayed for two hours, and that so acceptably that his auditors, when towards the close he hinted at some new and agreeable fields of thought, could not help wishing him to enlarge upon them.[88] He died deeply lamented, at the age of seventy-six, in the year 1707.

Peter Thacher succeeded Mr. Torrey in the year of the latter’s death, and continued in his ministry eleven years; being followed, in 1719, by Thomas Paine, whose connection with the church continued until dissolved, at his own request, in 1734. He then retired to Boston, where he ended his life, and his body was brought back to Weymouth for burial beside his children. He was the father and the grandfather of those Robert Treat Paines, the line of which is continued to the present day.

In 1734 the Rev. William Smith was settled as the eighth successive pastor of the first church, and so continued for forty-nine years, and until after the close of the colonial period. Mr. Smith was beloved and respected through his long ministry by his people, but to posterity he is chiefly known as the father of her who proved to be the most famous child of Weymouth. The familiar anecdote of Parson Smith’s sermons on the marriages of his two daughters does not need to be repeated here.[89] Whether the good old pastor did or did not prepare the wedding discourse for Abigail’s benefit from so very unsavory a text as that “John came neither eating nor drinking, and men say he hath a devil,” we cannot now tell; the anecdote rests on tradition alone. Let us hope, however, that he did, for he lived to see his daughter’s choice justified in the eyes of the most doubting of his parishioners; though he had himself already been thirteen years in his grave when, on the 8th of February, 1797, that daughter wrote to her husband in these solemn words, breathing the full spirit of the dead divine: “You have this day to declare yourself head of a nation. ‘And now, O Lord, my God, thou hast made thy servant ruler over the people. Give unto him an understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and come in before this great people; that he may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this thy so great a people?’... My thoughts and my meditation are with you, though personally absent; and my petitions to Heaven are, that ‘the things which make for peace may not be hidden from your eyes.’”[90]

But it is necessary to go back to the year 1765, when the long, monotonous quiet of over a century was to be broken for Weymouth and all her sister towns by the deep though distant mutterings of an impending war. The first notes of the struggle then break sharply in on the peaceful sameness of the town records like the blast of a trumpet. The Stamp Act had been passed, and the August riots had taken place in Boston. Mr. Oliver had been forced to resign his office, and the house of the Lieutenant-Governor had been sacked. The odious act was to take effect on the 1st of November, and a special session of the General Court had been called to take into consideration the course it was incumbent on the colony to pursue. The representative of Weymouth in those days was James Humphrey, Esq. Under these circumstances a meeting of the freemen was held on the 16th of October, at which Dr. Cotton Tufts was chosen Moderator, and a ringing address of instructions to Master Humphrey, as he was called, was voted and entered at length upon the records. The spirit of the ancient town was up, and its voice emitted no uncertain sound. Cotton Tufts was at that time thirty-four years of age. He was fully imbued with the patriotic spirit of the day, and was, in his own vicinage, a leading man. It is to his pen that the papers now entered on the town records are in all probability to be credited.[91]

Presently the government of the mother country somewhat receded from its position, and, during the loyal reaction which ensued, a draft of a measure indemnifying the sufferers in the August riots was submitted to the General Court. A special town meeting was held on September 1, 1766, and the town refused to give its assent to the payment of damages out of the public treasury. But another meeting was held on the 1st of December, when written instructions were entered at length on the records, again embodying the full rebel spirit of the day, but this time, and under strict conditions, authorizing Master Humphrey to vote for the proposed compensation.

In 1768 came the news that the British regiments were ordered to Boston. A committee of the Boston town meeting, called in consequence of this announcement, waited on Governor Bernard with a request, among other things, that the General Court should be convened. Meeting with a refusal, the Boston people took the matter into their own hands, and instructed their selectmen to invite, by circular letter, all the towns in the colony to send representatives to assemble in convention, at Boston, on the 22d of September. Over one hundred towns complied with this bold invitation, thus overriding the royal governor, and convening an assembly which, though it sat but four days, and carefully avoided any claim to a legal existence, was, in everything but in name, a house of representatives. In this convention sat James Humphrey, under instructions to be there from the town of Weymouth.

More than five years now passed away during which the controversy between the mother country and the colonies was continually approaching a crisis, but they left no mark on the records of Weymouth. Then arose the question as to the tax on tea. Early in December, 1773, the famous town meeting had been held in Faneuil Hall, at which the resolve was passed, “that if any person or persons shall hereafter import tea from Great Britain, or if any master or masters of any vessel or vessels in Great Britain shall take the same on board to be transported to this place, until the unrighteous act shall be repealed, he, or they, shall be deemed by this body an enemy to his country, and we will prevent the landing and sale of the same, and the payment of any duty thereon, and will effect the return thereof to the place from whence it shall come.”[92] Copies of this resolve were sent to all the sea-port towns in the Province. A few days later, on the night of December 16th, the celebrated tea-party took place in the Old South Church and on the wharves of Boston. In response to the resolve a special town meeting was held in Weymouth on Monday, January 3d, 1774, at which it was resolved by a very large majority, after some debate, that the inhabitants of the town would neither purchase nor make use of any teas, excepting such as they might happen then to have on hand, until Parliament repealed the odious duty upon it. On the 28th of September the town again met and chose a representative to the General Court, which convened at Salem on the 5th of October; no other instructions were given to him than those adopted by Boston for its own representatives, copies of which had been freely circulated.

A committee had been appointed at a town meeting held in July to procure signatures to the Joseph Warren “Solemn League and Covenant,” which had been sent forth by the Boston committee of correspondence on the 5th of June. This measure was subsequently adopted by the Congress then sitting at Philadelphia, and recommended under the name of a Continental Association. So, on the 23d of December, 1774, at the close of the evening lecture, the roll of the inhabitants of Weymouth was called, and each man voted yea or nay on the question of the approval of the association. The two precincts voted separately; in each one hundred and twenty-three names were called, beginning with the two clergymen; in the first precinct, one hundred and thirteen answered to their names, of whom one hundred and nine voted “yea”; in the second precinct, out of one hundred and three voting, not one responded “nay.” On the 30th of January the town again met and voted “To bare the constables of 1773 harmless in not carrying their money to Haryson Gray,” he being the royalist treasurer of the Province; and further directed that the funds on hand should be turned over to the town treasurer. On the 9th of March this vote was reconsidered, and the money was directed to be paid to Henry Gardner of Stow, who now represented the patriot exchequer. At this meeting, too, the question was agitated of raising a company of minute-men, but the motion to that effect was not then carried. On the 27th of the same month, however, another town meeting was held and the action of the previous meeting was reconsidered, the town voting to raise a company of fifty-three men, who were to receive one shilling a week each for four weeks, and were to be drilled two half days a week. Upon the 2d of May another town meeting was held, and upon the 9th yet another. The affairs at Lexington and Concord had now taken place, and the greatest anxiety prevailed through all the towns in the vicinity of Boston. They were ever looking for similar enterprises. So at the first of these two meetings provision was made for a military guard of fifteen men, and at the second a committee of correspondence was organized, at the head of which were placed Dr. Tufts and Colonel Lovell. Twelve days later, early on Sunday, the 21st of May, the news was brought to the town that three sloops and a cutter had, during the previous night, come down from Boston and had anchored at the mouth of the Fore River. A landing was momentarily expected, and it was even reported to have taken place, and that three hundred soldiers were advancing on the town. Three alarm guns were fired, the bells were rung and the drums beat to arms. The panic and confusion were very great and worth recording, for it is the only time in the long history of the town that Weymouth has ever had cause to fear that a civilized and disciplined foe was at her threshold. Every house below the present North Weymouth station was deserted by the women and children. Mr. Smith’s family fled from the old parsonage, and Dr. Tufts’ wife being ill at the time, had a bed thrown into a cart, and, putting herself upon it, was driven to Bridgewater as a place of security; and, indeed, tradition says that other ladies of Weymouth gave evidence that morning of an abundant vitality, and displayed truly remarkable powers of locomotion. Meanwhile Dr. Tufts himself was busy serving out rations and supplying ammunition to the minute-men, who poured rapidly in from Hingham and Randolph and Braintree and all the neighboring towns, until nearly 2,000 of them were on the ground. Then it was discovered that the enemy were only foraging, and were engaged in removing hay from Grape Island. By the time they had secured about three tons, the minute-men had brought a sloop and lighter round from Hingham on which they put out for the island, whereupon the enemy decamped.[93] It was a mere alarm in which no one was hurt, but it showed the spirit of the town even though it only resulted in the destruction of the hay, which doubtless Gen. Ward’s army needed, and which, had they been older soldiers, the minute-men would have brought away instead of burning.

Towards the middle of July again, a small party, among whom was Captain Goold of the Weymouth company, with twenty-five of his men, went out from the Moon Head and burned a house and a barn full of hay on Long Island. On this occasion they had a sharp skirmish, for the British men-of-war lying in the harbor sent out their cutters to intercept the party. They all, however, got back safely except one man of the covering force on Moon Head, who was killed by a cannon-ball. That night a sloop of war dropped down to the Fore River, but attempted nothing beyond creating another alarm. And this experience from time to time was repeated, until at last, in the spring of 1775, Boston was evacuated; and upon the 14th of June following, in consequence of military movements on the islands in the harbor, the last remnant of the British fleet put to sea, and the towns bordering on the bay were thereafter allowed to rest in peace.

During the year 1775 ten town meetings had been held in Weymouth, and seven were held in 1776. And now we enter on a new phase of the struggle for independence. For us, with our recollections of the war of the rebellion still fresh in our memories, it is most curious to read these ancient records,--to observe how closely history repeats itself. We well remember the fierce, self-sacrificing patriotism of 1861,--how the country was all alive with eagerness, how money was poured forth like water, and how regiments enlisted faster than they could be put into the field. We remember how this lasted through a short six months, and how we then began to realize what war meant. Then bounties began to be paid,--then enlistments grew more difficult just in proportion as the call for men became more pressing,--then values were unsettled, prices rose, the feverish glow of excitement faded away, and stern-visaged war gradually assumed her whole hateful front. We generally, too, are apt to imagine that the earlier days were less selfish, more self-sacrificing, more harmonious than our own. The records tell a different story. The declaration of Independence had only just been ventured upon,--it was not yet entered upon the records of Weymouth, “there to remain as a perpetual memorial,”--when on the 15th of July, 1776, a town meeting was held to secure the enlistment of ten men for the continental army, that being the quota of the town. It was voted to raise £130, in order to give each recruit a town bounty of £13 in addition to the state bounty of £7,--making a bounty of £20 to each man. It was also voted to allow the citizens of Weymouth two days in which to enlist, after which a committee of two was to go forth in search of recruits elsewhere. But before the 22d of the month eight men more were called for, and so at its adjourned meeting the town had to increase its appropriation to £234, a portion of which sum was borrowed of Captain James White for one year,--being the earliest record of a Weymouth town debt.[94]

To the Weymouth of that day these eighteen men were the equivalent of about one hundred and thirty now; and they were raised to take part in the unfortunate Canada campaign under Arnold and Montgomery. How many of them ever returned we cannot tell, but the weary sons of Weymouth in 1776 doubtless found final resting-places in the wilds of Maine or beneath the snows of Canada, as more recently they found them in the swamps of the Chickahominy or beneath the torrid sun of Louisiana. By December of that year twenty-two more men went into the continental service, under Lieutenant Kingman; and now the bounty was three pounds per month for three months.[95] It was shortly before this time that a Weymouth-born woman, writing from the next town of Braintree, thus described the aspect of affairs: “I am sorry to see a spirit so venal prevailing everywhere. When our men were drawn out for Canada a very large bounty was given them; and now another call is made upon us, no one will go without a large bounty, though only for two months, and each town seems to think its honor engaged out-bidding the others. The province pay is forty shillings. In addition to that this town voted to make it up six pounds. They then draw out the persons most unlikely to go, and they are obliged to give three pounds to hire a man. Some pay the whole fine, ten pounds. Forty men are now drafted from this town. More than one-half, from sixteen to fifty, are now in the service. This method of conducting will create a general uneasiness in the Continental army. I hardly think you can be sensible how much we are thinned in this province.”[96]

And now a new difficulty, with which our generation has been sadly familiar, was added to the heavy load under which the unfledged nationality was compelled to stagger. The value of its paper currency had hitherto been sustained; but at last, in the face of ever-increasing new issues, it began to depreciate, and by the close of the year 1776 it had fallen one-sixth in value. In vain does Congress enact that whoever pays or receives the currency at a rate less than its nominal value shall not only be accounted a public enemy, but shall forfeit the amount involved in such unpatriotic transaction. In defiance of law prices steadily rise. In January, 1777, the Legislature of Massachusetts went even further, and passed a measure entitled “An Act to prevent Monopoly and Oppression.” Under this the selectmen of Weymouth, aided by a committee of their townsmen, proceeded to fix a tariff of prices at which articles were to be sold. It is a sad record. The effort was, of course, a futile one, but it was made; and there it stands “as a perpetual memorial,” beginning with Indian corn and ending with cedar-posts, a monument of the wretched expedients to which sensible men will resort in troublous and unsettled times.

The call was now for three-year men, and the town bounty was eight pounds per annum. But some of the enlisted men had deserted, under the discouragement of the Long Island reverses, and none the less they claimed their bounties. The action of the town meeting seems to have been hardly consistent with the usually received ideas of military discipline, for it was voted to pay “those who deserted and came home before their times were up” four pounds apiece, on the report of a committee, to which the town added a further sum of forty shillings. But the whole story is told in the following extract from the record of May 21st, 1777: “Voted that Col. Solomon Lovell, Lieut. E. Cushing & Deaⁿ Samuel Blancher be a Committee to go out of Town to Hire men for the Contenential army for the Term of three years,--and that they be directed to git them as Cheep as they can,--and that noe one of them be allowed to give more than Thirty pounds for a man without the advise of another of the committee.”

Throughout the long war the people would not consent to a draft. They resorted to every expedient and makeshift, but they could not bring themselves to the one single expedient by which only can war be made decisive. In September, 1777, a draft was suggested,[97] but the idea met with no favor: again recourse was had to bounties, which were now £100 in lawful money, or forty shillings a month in produce at prices which ruled before the war.

The year 1779 must, however, have been much the gloomiest year of all to Weymouth, for it was in this year that the State of Massachusetts undertook the unfortunate Penobscot expedition. The land forces were commanded by the brave and popular Solomon Lovell, and naturally must have numbered in their ranks many Weymouth men. It encountered only disaster and loss, and added heavily to the already grievous burdens of the war. The commander of the naval contingent was court-martialled, but no question was made as to General Lovell’s conduct. Meanwhile prices were rising, and now $4,500 was voted, wherewith to raise nine men. It had also become very evident that the tariff of prices fixed by the selectmen and the committee of the town, two years and a half before, was somewhat out of date, as, its provisions to the contrary notwithstanding, butcher’s meat was now a dollar a pound, corn twenty-five dollars per bushel and labor eight dollars per day. Still the good people were not discouraged, but a new committee was set to work, and again, by a large majority, a tariff of prices was established; but at the same town meeting which adopted it $9,000 was voted to procure recruits. Indeed, the figures now become colossal, and in September, 1780, the town votes £5,000 for the support of schools and £15,000 “to pay the three months men, if wanted for that purpose, if not, for other town charges.” Nor was this all. The new State government was now organized, and John Hancock had been elected Governor, receiving, in Weymouth, twenty-nine votes to eleven for James Bowdoin; but one of the first acts of the Legislature was to allot among the various towns a quota of beef to be supplied as well as men, so the year 1780 closes with these two melancholy entries in the records of this poor little town, casting forty votes at the annual election:--

* * * * *

“_Voted_ to raise one hundred and thirty thousand dollars of the old currency to procure the beef set on the town by the General Court.”

“_Voted_ to give fifty hard dollars a year for any one or more men that shall engage for this town for three year in the Continental Servis.”

“Gen. Lovell, Capᵗ Nash, Capt. Whitman & Lt Vinson chosen a Comᵉᵉ to hire the Nineteen men set on this town.”

* * * * *

Of course the Continental currency was now almost wholly discredited, having fallen to seventy-five for one, and Weymouth instructed its representative to use his influence “that the act called the Tender Act should be repealed.” But its repeal was of little consequence; the country had gotten back to hard money by the radical course of rendering all other money worthless. In 1781 Weymouth had also returned to the old tax figures, raising £60 for the support of schools and £160 for all other expenses; but the burden of recruiting grew heavier and heavier, and in October, 1781, it was “Voted to give the committee for hiring soldiers discretionary power to hire them upon the best terms they can,” and $2,500, “hard dollars,” were appropriated for the purpose.

Fortunately the long trial now drew near its close. The towns of Massachusetts were thoroughly exhausted and neither men nor money could be procured. In spite of the large sums offered, recruits were no longer forthcoming, and finally Weymouth as one of many delinquent towns, became liable to a heavy fine. The wonder, however, was not that the towns were delinquent, but rather where they found so many able-bodied men as they then supplied. Weymouth, at that time, could not well have mustered over two hundred men of the age of military service. The record would seem to establish the fact that more than one-tenth of these were annually called for. Such a strain could not long have been sustained; but the dogged tenacity of the people was equal to the burden they were called upon to bear, and it is pleasant to find, almost before the struggle was over, the process of recuperation begun, and the town on the 20th of November, 1782, voting £300 for the purpose of partly paying its debts.

* * * * *

With the close of the long struggle for independence ends the second period in the history of Weymouth. More than ninety years have since passed away, carrying with them three generations of the children of the soil. They have been years of great development and of healthy growth,--not such development nor such growth as is often seen in this country,--nothing, indeed, which in our age may be called remarkable, for almost any active and bustling railroad centre in the Western States can boast of greater census figures; but the growth of Weymouth has been that of a thrifty, industrious New England town, and when, after the long lapse of ages, the final account is rendered, who shall say that the former growth will be found better than the latter?

In 1782 Weymouth was still an agricultural community,--its people were scattered over its wide territory and it scarcely contained within its limits any cluster of houses worthy of the name of village. In the state election of that year fifty-one votes were cast, and the sum raised by taxation to defray the annual expenses of the town was the equivalent of $1,230. It contains now four separate villages within its limits, each one far more populous and more wealthy than the entire town then was; its annual levy exceeds $85,000, and at its elections it casts 1,200 votes.

It is now fifty years since the learned editor of Governor Winthrop’s History of New England remarked that “a careful history of Weymouth is much needed.”[98] The want is still felt. To me the preparation of this hasty sketch of the earlier days has been a work of great enjoyment. I have had to deal with Mount Wollaston and with Weymouth, those twin settlements in the first infancy of New England life, and in the history of each I could not do otherwise than take a deep hereditary interest. It was at Mount Wollaston, close to the spot where once stood the May-pole of the wild Morton, that John Quincy lived and died,--it was in the old parsonage of Weymouth, almost within a stone’s throw of the site of Weston’s plantation, that John Adams was married to the grand-daughter of that John Quincy. Nevertheless, no degree of personal interest can convert a hurried sketch into a careful history, and Weymouth deserves no less. Nor should the story of later development remain untold. It necessarily lacks, indeed, those elements of strangeness, of remoteness and of mystery, which lend their charm to the earlier periods which we have considered to-day, but the record is none the less of sufficing interest.

The children of Weymouth, during the present century, have gone forth in peace and in war, and are now scattered all over the common country, and, indeed, over the civilized world. Her children, too, remaining at home, have altered and diversified the old town until the fathers would know it no longer. It must be for others to recount these changes of the later years. I prefer to leave the narrative on the threshold of the new era and before the old order of things had yet begun to pass away,--while a fresher and a purer air still hung around the Great Hill, and while a certain fragrance of the primeval forest gathered about Whitman’s pond. I prefer to leave it while Joshua Bates, newly come back from the continental army, a colonel of artillery at twenty-eight, was meditating those busy enterprises which were destined to infuse a new life into his native town; and I shall not seek to follow that other Joshua Bates, then unborn, whose destiny it was to migrate back to the mother country, and there in fullness of time to die at the head of the first commercial firm of London or the world. We leave Weymouth just emerging, weak but alive yet, from the long ordeal of an eight years’ war, and entering on a more prosperous career; we leave it while brave old Brigadier Lovell yet viewed his broad acres from the summit of King-Oak Hill,--while Dr. Cotton Tufts still served the town whether at the bedsides of the sick or in the councils of the State, and ere yet the grass had grown over the new-made grave of the good old Parson Smith. Two centuries and a half of municipal life are now completed, and in celebrating the event of to-day may we not fitly close with the earnest hope that the succeeding years may be as blessed as those which are past,--that unity, virtue and good-will may long find their abode within the limits of the ancient town, and that, even more in the future than in the past, “may peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces.”

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Winslow’s Good Newes; Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 291.

[2] Phinehas Pratt’s Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, p. 478.

[3] Pratt’s Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, pp. 478, 487.

[4] Bradford; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 3, p. 107.

[5] Levett’s Voyage; III. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 8, p. 190.

[6] “So base in condition (for yᵉ most parte) as in all apearance not fitt for an honest mans company.” _Letter of John Peirce in Bradford_ (p. 123). Thomas Morton describes them as “men made choice of at all adventures.” _The New English Canaan_ (p. 72), _Force’s Hist. Tracts_ (v. 2). In the preface to his Good Newes, Winslow speaks of them as “a disorderly colony, ... who were a stain to Old England that bred them in respect of their lives and manners amongst the Indians.” _Young, C. of P._ (p. 276). Weston himself speaks of them as “rude fellows,” and proposes to reclaim them “from that profanenes that may scandalise yᵉ vioago,” etc. _Bradford_ (p. 120). Robert Cushman in a letter to Governor Bradford, gives the following hint: “if they borrow anything of you let them leave a good pawne.” _Ib._ (p. 122).

I have stated that Thomas Morton came over as one of Weston’s company. This has been denied, _Young’s C. of P._ (p. 334, n.), but Morton himself twice states in the New English Canaan, that he came to New England in 1622, and in one of the two cases fixes the time as in June of that year. _The New English Canaan_ (pp. 15, 41), _Force’s Hist. Tracts_ (v. 2). Winslow states that the Charity and Swan arrived “in the end of June or beginning of July,” 1622. _Young’s C. of P._ (p. 296). Now no other ships from England came to Plymouth that year, and no company such as Morton describes his to have been, except Weston’s, arrived in Massachusetts between 1622 and Wollaston’s arrival in 1625. Morton, however, not only positively says that he arrived at the very time the Weston company arrived, but he shows throughout his book a remarkable familiarity not only with the events which occurred in the Weston settlement, but with the people composing it. A connection with that settlement was not a thing which Morton would have been likely to boast of in subsequent years; but, judging by internal evidence, I should feel inclined not only to venture a surmise that Morton was one of Weston’s colony, but also that it was Morton himself who proposed to the Wessagusset “Parliament” the vicarious execution presently to be described. The whole tone of his account of that affair is highly suggestive of a close connection with it, and of great sympathy with the real culprit and his ingenious counsel.

My explanation of Morton’s statement as to his arrival is, that in it, with his usual recklessness as to facts, he confounded two events which occurred at different dates. He says, _The New English Canaan_ (p. 41), “In the Moneth of Iune, Anno Salutis: 1622. It was my chaunce to arrive in the parts of New England with 30. Servants, and provision of all sorts fit for a plantation.” Here are two facts distinctly stated;--one as to the date of his arrival, exactly coinciding with that of the Weston company;--the other as to the number of “servants,” etc., answering to the description of Wollaston’s company. Morton, I think, therefore, came out with Weston’s company, and left Wessagusset in March, 1623, with them; he then, more than two years later, returned there with Wollaston, probably acting as his guide. When, seven years later, he printed his book, desiring to make his American experience date as far back as possible, he simply confused his two arrivals, and quietly ignored his connection with the Weston company, which had left a very unsavory reputation behind it as being made up of the refuse of mankind.

[7] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 297.

[8] “A correspondent in Quincy thus describes the place: ‘It is about three miles south-east of the granite church in Quincy, at a place locally called Old Spain.’ Weston’s colony sailed up Fore River, which separates Quincy from Weymouth, and then entered Phillips Creek, and commenced operations on its north bank.” _Russell’s Guide to Plymouth_ (p. 106, n.).

[9] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 299. Bradford, p. 130.

[10] Bradford, p. 128.

[11] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 302.

[12] Bradford, p. 130.

[13] Pratt’s Petition; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, pp. 486, 7. Bradford, p. 130. Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 332.

[14] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 328.

[15] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 329.

[16] Pratt’s Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, pp. 479, 489. New English Canaan, p. 18; Force’s Tracts, v. 2.

[17] Winslow, in his Relation, states that Pratt told them of this execution on his arrival at Plymouth. _Young’s C. of P._ (p. 332); _see, also, Bradford_ (p. 130). But Pratt, in his own Narrative, distinctly says that “we kep him (the malefactor) bound som few days,” but does not mention the execution. _IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._ (v. 4, p. 482). In his Relation by Mather, however, he states that the real delinquent was put to death. _Ib._ (p. 491).

[18] The New English Canaan, p. 74.

[19] Hudibras, Part II, Canto II, ll. 409-36.

[20] Hist. of Mass., v. 1, p. 6, n.;--for a curious traditionary account of this execution see, also, _Uring’s Voyages_ (pp. 116-18), and _Proceedings of Mass. Hist. Soc. for 1871_ (p. 59).

[21] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 336.

[22] _Pratt’s Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._ (v. 4, pp. 483-7), can be accepted as authority only with very decided limitations. Prepared for a specific purpose, long subsequent to the occurrence of the events to which it relates, it is neither consistent with itself nor with the Plymouth authorities. He dwells at length on the apprehension of an attack by the Indians felt by the Weston colony, and the precautions they took against it (pp. 482-3). Standish, on the contrary, reported that he found them living in reckless disregard of every precaution. _Winslow, in Young’s C. of P._ (p. 336.) Pecksuot’s famous speech to Standish, which Pratt must often have heard discussed at Plymouth, finds a place in his narrative as having been made to him long previously (p. 481). Finally, if the terror at Wessagusset was such as he asserts it to have been, the settlers there could have gone on board the Swan and sailed to Plymouth in search of aid, quite as well as Standish could come to them or they go subsequently to the eastward. Pratt himself was unquestionably both alarmed and hungry, but he probably fled to Plymouth as a refugee. When he got there, having doubtless encountered enough of danger and hardship on the way, he found Standish already starting for Wessagusset. His own sense of the dangers he had run and the heroism he had displayed, both before and during his flight, probably grew with each succeeding year. I have adopted only such of his statements as are corroborated by others, or seem to wear an aspect of inherent probability.

[23] The whole number of Indians in that vicinity was not computed at over fifty. _Young’s Chron. of Mass._ (p. 305). _Winslow; Young’s C. of P._ (p. 310).

[24] The Courtship of Miles Standish, Part VII. See also Pratt’s Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, p. 481, and Young’s C. of P., p. 338.

[25] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 331. Bradford, p. 164.

[26] Bradford, p. 132.

[27] Pratt’s Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, p. 486. New English Canaan, p. 76; Force’s Tracts, v. 2. Young’s C. of P., p. 344.

[28] Bradford, p. 164.

[29] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 344. The New English Canaan, p. 73.

[30] Young’s C. of P., p. 477, n.

[31] Bradford, p. 148.

[32] Bradford, p. 154.

[33] Ecclesiastical History of Massachusetts; I. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 9, p. 6.

[34] Both poem and translation are to be found in I. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 1, p. 125.

[35] Bradford, p. 154.

[36] The New English Canaan, p. 84.

[37] Records of Mass., v. 1, p. 366.

[38] Savage’s Winthrop, v. 1, p. 91.

[39] Wood’s New England’s Prospect; Young’s Chron. of Mass., p. 395.

[40] Records of Mass., v. 1, pp. 174-9.

[41] Hazard’s Hist. Coll., v. 1, p. 391.

[42] As respects Blackstone, see _Young’s Chron. of Mass._ (p. 169), but the best account of this singular and interesting man is found in Bliss’ History of Rehoboth. It is another point of some importance as identifying Blackstone with the Gorges settlement, that he had received Episcopal ordination in England. _II. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._ (v. 9, p. 174.) Now the Gorges settlement was a distinct and the only attempt to plant Episcopacy in early Massachusetts. Morell and Blackstone were both educated and studious men of somewhat similar cast of minds and thought. The obvious and natural explanation of their presence in the wilderness would be that they came there together, influenced by the same inducements.

[43] A statement to this effect has crept into the generally accepted accounts of the settlement of Weymouth, on the high authority of Prince’s Annals. _Emery Memorial_ (p. 88). The entry in Prince is at the close of 1624, and reads as follows:--“This Year comes some Addition to the few inhabitants of Wessagusset, from Weymouth in England; who are another sort of people than the Former (_mst_) [and on whose account I conclude the Town is since called Weymouth.]” To this entry the compiler appended the following foot-note: “They have the Rev. Mr. Barnard their first Non-conformist Minister, who dies among them: But whether He comes before or after 1630, or when He Dies is yet unknown (_mst_) nor do I anywhere find the least Hint of Him, but in the Manuscript Letters, taken from some of the oldest People at Weymouth.” _Annals_ (p. 150).

Prince compiled his work more than a century after the events here alleged to have taken place. He carefully gives his authority, as was his custom, for his statement, and himself discredits it. It seems, so far as the date was concerned, to have been a mere “oldest inhabitant” tradition, which wholly lacked corroboration by the contemporaneous authorities. The party from Weymouth, in England, settled at Dorchester in July, 1633. _Prince_; _II. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._ (v. 7, p. 96). In 1635, Massachiel Barnard, an elder not a minister, came out with the party mentioned by Winthrop and in the Records of Massachusetts as being placed at Weymouth. This party included not only the Rev. Mr. Hull, but the original bearers of several of the names now most common in Weymouth, such as Bicknell, Lovell, Pool, Upham, Porter, &c. See _N. E. Gen. Reg._ (v. 25, p. 13). It is safe to say that the date of 1624 given in Prince is wholly erroneous. If the permanent settlement of Weymouth does not belong to 1623, no precise date for it can be assigned; but I cannot see any room for doubt as to September, 1623.

The discovery, in 1870, of the names of those who came out with Mr. Hull, in 1635, is very important in the genealogy of Weymouth. It is singular to study in the several lists of names which have at various times been made out, the fate of the families which bore them. Some, the Kings and Kingmans for instance, have never increased, but are still perpetuated by single families in Weymouth; others like Jeffries and Bursley have disappeared; while yet others, like the Bicknells, Frenches and Lovells have increased amazingly. Lists of names found in the town at various epochs are printed in the Appendix to the Address, with indications and figures shewing the apparent increase or disappearance of the families.

[44] New English Canaan, pp. 84, 86.

[45] Hubbard, p. 428.

[46] This was the Rev. John Lyford. A detailed account of the somewhat high handed proceedings of the Plymouth authorities in regard to this individual and John Oldham is found in Bradford’s History. The ceremonial of Oldham’s expulsion from Plymouth was formal but peculiar. Morton gives the following account of it: “A lane of Musketiers was made, and hee compelled in scorne to passe along betweene, & to receave a bob upon the bumme be every musketier, and then a board a shallop, and so convayed to Wessaguscus shoare & staid at Massachussets, to whome Iohn Layford and some few more did resort, where Master Layford freely executed his office and preached every Lords day, and yet maintained his wife & children foure or five, upon his industry there, with the blessing of God, and the plenty of the Land, without the helpe of his auditory, in an honest and laudable manner, till hee was wearied, and made to leave the Country.” _New English Canaan_ (p. 81); _see also Bradford_ (p. 190). This took place early in 1625, but the Oldham and Lyford settlement was at Hull, not at Wessagusset, and lasted but little over a year; _note to Bradford_ (p. 195).

[47] Wood’s New-England’s Prospect; Young’s Chron. of Mass., p. 395.

[48] Bradford’s Letter Book; I. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 3, p. 61.

[49] New English Canaan, p. 93.

[50] Bradford, p. 241.

[51] This apportionment is derived from Governor Bradford’s Letter-Book. See _I. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._ (v. 3, p. 63). In his History (p. 241) he speaks of “Weesagascusett” as being one of the plantations concerned, but the apportionment is made as “From Mr. Jeffrey and Mr. Burslem.” These names have given the antiquarians a great deal of trouble, and they have generally assigned them to Cape Ann; _Savage’s Winthrop_ (v. 1, p. 44, n.); _Young’s Chron. of Mass._ (p. 171, n.), or even to the Isle of Shoals; _Drake’s Boston_ (p. 50). They all confound William Jeffries of Weymouth with Thomas Jeffrey of Ipswich. Dr. Young does this in a most extraordinary manner, confusing them even while giving the correct name of one in his text, and of the other in the running title of the same page. _Chron. of Mass._ (p. 171). When Savage prepared his notes to Winthrop the MS. of Bradford had not been recovered, and he had not examined the New English Canaan carefully in reference to Weymouth. He seems to have been satisfied that the second settlement at Weymouth had been wholly broken up in 1624, _Notes to Winthrop_ (pp. 43, 93), and sought to place Jeffries and Burslem elsewhere. There cannot be the slightest doubt that they lived at Wessagusset from before 1628. Both names are now extinct at Weymouth, though I find in the Records of the town a Jeffery in 1651 (see p. 70), and also a mention of one John Jeffers (Aug. 18, 1777), as a soldier who enlisted in Arnold’s Canada campaign during the Revolution. Both were made freemen at early dates:--Burslem was a deputy from the town in 1636, and it was to Jeffries that Morton wrote as to his “good gossip,” in 1634. It was to him and to Blackstone that John Gorges wrote in 1629, in regard to putting Oldham in possession of the Gorges grant. _Young’s Chron. of Mass._ (pp. 51, 147, 169).

[52] Savage’s Winthrop, v. 1, p. 192.

[53] In 1633 Wessagusset was thus described: “This as yet is but a small village; yet it is very pleasant, and healthful, very good ground, and is well timbered, and hath good store of hay-ground. It hath a very spacious harbour for shipping before the town, the salt water being navigable for boats and pinnaces two leagues. Here the inhabitants have good store of fish of all sorts, and swine, having acorns and clams at the time of year. Here is likewise an ale-wife river.” _Wood’s New-England’s Prospect; Young’s Chron. of Mass._ (p. 394).

[54] This man is mentioned as “late servant of John Burslyn.” _Records of Mass._ (p. 121).

[55] Savage’s Winthrop, v. 1, p. 163; Records of Mass., pp. 156-7.

[56] Proceedings of Mass. Hist. Soc., 1873, p. 396.

[57] Records of Mass., v. 1, p. 179.

[58] Palfrey, v. 2, p. 5.

[59] See the sketch of the town of Weymouth, written by Dr. Cotton Tufts, and printed in 1785 in _Topographical Descriptions of the Towns in the County of Suffolk, and of Charlestown in the County of Middlesex_. A manuscript copy of this sketch was very kindly placed at my disposal in the preparation of this address by J. J. Loud, Esq., of Weymouth, with other material for a history of Weymouth, which it is to be regretted Mr. Loud does not himself propose to prepare. A copy of the compilation of which Cotton Tufts’ sketch was a part is in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, bound with other documents under the title of “_Gookin and Geography_.”

[60] See, also, a similar order of January 1, 1685.

[61] There were thirteen Weymouth men in Captain Johnson’s company employed against the Indians in October, 1675. _Vinton Memorial_ (p. 50, n.).

[62] Paul Torrey’s curious efforts at versification were printed in 1811, in the appendix to a discourse of the Rev. Jacob Norton. The author tells us that they were designed “to preserve the memory of these remarkable things to future posterity.”

[63] Sketch of Weymouth, by Dr. Cotton Tufts. The usual death-rate was sixteen a year.

[64] New English Canaan, p. 41.

[65] “Whoever shall presume to fell or kill or top any tree or trees (after publication hereof or notice given) which growes before his owne or his neighbours Dore, or that stands in any place upon the commons or high-wayes which may be for the shaddow either of man or beast or shelter to any house or otherwise for any public use every person so offending shall be lyable to pay for every such tree so feld, topt, or kild 20s. to the Town’s use.” _Records, February 1st, 1867 (?)._

[66] Sketch of Weymouth, by Dr. Cotton Tufts.

[67] This and some other facts I state on the authority of Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, of Weymouth, who very kindly furnished me with much local information which has not heretofore found its way into print.

[68] Mrs. Chapman’s MS.; and see Savage’s Winthrop, v. 1, p. 286.

[69] “The distance by land from Boston to the confines of the town is 14 miles.” _Sketch by Dr. Cotton Tufts._

[70] “At a Generall Town Meeting of the inhabitants of Weymouth the 24th of June, 1689.”

“The Town past a vote that William Chard is to serve as Town Clerk.”

“At a meeting of the Selectmen upon the first day of July 1689 Agreed with Mr. Chard to Ring the Bell & Sweep the Meeting-house to begin the 6th daye of July, and for the time that he performs that work he is to have after the rate of forty shillings a year in money or three pounds in town pay.”

“At a Meeting of the freeholders of the town of Weymouth the 13th day of July 1694.”

“The Towne past a vote they will have a publique School-master.”

“At a meeting legally warned for the Inhabitants of the town of Weymouth upon the first of October 1694 to treat concerning a School-master, and it was voted that Mr. Chard should serve as School-master from the date abovesaid till the last of March next ensuing the date hereof, & provided Mr. Chard doe faithfully perform the office of School-master, that is to teach & instruct all children & youth belonging to the town in reading & writing & casting of accounts according to the capacitie of those that are sent to him, and according to his own abillitie: under this consideration the town have past a vote upon the aforesaid first of October that Mr. Chard shall have for his sallary for the half year above expressed six pounds in or as money to be levied upon the severall Inhabitants according to proportion by a town rate.”

The next year (1695), William Chard was again engaged at five shillings a week, but in 1696 an arrangement was made with Mr. John Copp at £30 a year. The salary of the pastor at this time was “£108 16s. in goods alias money £68” (about $225).

[71] Records, 10th March, 1760; John Adams’ Works, vol. 2, p. 118.

[72] Records, p. 56.

[73] Records, 26th November, 1651.

[74] The “mutifariousness” of such meetings “occacions the neglect of appearance of many whereby things [are] many times carried on by a few in which many or all are concerned which often makes the legality of such proceedings to be questioned.” It was therefore voted to thereafter have two regular town meetings in each year in March and November. _Records_, 1650, p. 56.

[75] “At a meeting of the Town the 26th of the 9th moᵗʰ (November) 1651.

“The power that the Towne of Weymouth committeth into the hands of the Selectmen for this present year ensueing 1651.

“First. Wee give them power to make such orders as may be for the preservation of our intrests in lands & corne & grass & Wood & Timber, that none be transported out of the Towns Commons.

“Secondly. They shall have power to see that all orders made by the Generall Court shall be observed and also all such orders that are or shal be made which the Towne shall not repeale at their meetinge in the first month.

“Thirdly. It shal be lawful for them to take course that dry Cattle be hearded in the woods except calves & Yearlings & that they provide Bulls both for the Cowes & dry Cattle.

“Fourthly. They may issue out all such rates as the Towns occasions shall require & see that they be gathred, that a due account may be given of them.

“Fifthly. They may satisfy all graunts provided they satisfy them in due order, and not within two miles of the Meeting-house.

“Sixthly. Wee willingly grant they shall have their Dynners uppon the Towns charge when they meete about the Towns affayres.” _Records._

[76] March 7, 1698. “Voted that John Torrey, Tanner, for the encouragement of his trade shall have twelve pole of land joining to his fathers land out of the towns commons for a tanyard so long as there shall be use for it for that trade in this Town.”

March 7, 1715. “At the said Meeting John Torrey, James Humphrey, Joseph Torrey, Ezra Whitmarsh, Enoch Lovell, Ebenezer Pratt & divers others their partners who had agreed to begin a fishing trade to Cape-sables, requested of the town that they might have that piece or parcel of land at the mouth of the fore river in the northerly part of Weymouth called and known by the name of Hunts Hill and the low land and Beach adjoining thereunto, that is so much as they shall need for the management of said fishing trade. The Town after consideration thereof Voted that they should have the said land and Beach to manage their fishing trade.”

March 13, 1727. “Voted at the aforesaid meeting whether the Town will give to Doctor White five acres of Land below ---- Hill that was formerly granted to John Vinson provided the said Doctor White continues in the town of Weymouth and in practice of physick, & in case he shall remove out of town said White to purchase said land or to return it to the Town again. It passed in the affirmative.”

[77] Mrs. Chapman’s MS. And see Records, 1st March, 1731.

[78] See Records, 3d March, 1712.

[79] Letters of Mrs. Adams (ed. 1848), p. xxxvi.