See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1760-1767.
MASON AND SLIDELL, The seizure of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (NOVEMBER).
MASORETES,
MASSORETES
MASORETIC.
When the Hebrew language had ceased to be a living language
"the so-called Masoretes, or Jewish scribes, in the sixth
century after the Christian era, invented a system of symbols
which should represent the pronunciation of the Hebrew of the
Old Testament as read, or rather chanted, at the time in the
great synagogue of Tiberias in Palestine. It is in accordance
with this Masoretic mode of pronunciation that Hebrew is now
taught."
_A. H. Sayce,
Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments,
chapter 3._
"Massora denotes, in general, tradition … ; but more
especially it denotes the tradition concerning the text of the
Bible. Hence those who made this special tradition their
object of study were called Massoretes. … As there was an
eastern and western, or Babylonian and Palestinian Talmud, so
likewise there developed itself a twofold Massora,—a
Babylonian, or eastern, and a Palestinian, or western: the
more important is the former. At Tiberias the study of the
Massora had been in a flourishing condition for a long time.
Here lived the famous Massorete, Aaron ben-Moses ben-Asher,
commonly called Ben-Asher, in the beginning of the tenth
century, who finally fixed the so-called Massoretic text."
_Shaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge._
{2097}
MASPIANS, The.
One of the tribes of the ancient Persians.
_M. Duncker,
History of Antiquity,
book 8, chapter 3._
MASSACHUSETTS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
----------MASSACHUSETTS: Start--------
MASSACHUSETTS:
The Name.
"The name Massachusetts, so far as I have observed, is first
mentioned by Captain Smith in his 'Description of New
England,' 1616. He spells the word variously, but he appears
to use the term Massachuset and Massachewset to denote the
country, while he adds a final's' when he is speaking of the
inhabitants. He speaks of Massachusets Mount and Massachusets
River, using the word also in its possessive form; while in
another place he calls the former 'the high mountain of
Massachusit.' To this mountain, on his map, he gives the
English name of 'Chevyot Hills.' Hutchinson (i. 460) supposes
the Blue Hills of Milton to be intended. He says that a small
hill near Squantum, the former seat of a great Indian sachem,
was called Massachusetts Hill, or Mount Massachusetts, down to
his time. Cotton, in his Indian vocabulary, says the word
means 'a hill in the form of an arrow's head.' See, also,
Neal's 'New England,' ii. 215, 216. In the Massachusetts
charter the name is spelled in three or four different ways,
to make sure of a description of the territory."
_C. Deane,
New England (Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 3, page 342, footnote)._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1602.
The Bay visited by Gosnold.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1602-1605.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1605.
The Bay visited by Champlain.
See CANADA: A. D. 1603-1605.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620.
The Pilgrim Fathers.
Whence and why they came to New England.
See INDEPENDENTS OR SEPARATISTS.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620.
The voyage of the Mayflower.
The landing of the Pilgrims.
The founding of Plymouth colony.
The congregation of John Robinson, at Leyden, having, after
long efforts, procured from the London Company for Virginia a
patent or grant of land which proved useless to them, and
having closed a hard bargain with certain merchants of London
who supplied to some limited extent the means necessary for
their emigration and settlement (see INDEPENDENTS, OR
SEPARATISTS: A. D. 1617-1620), were prepared, in the summer of
1620, to send forth the first pilgrims from their community,
across the ocean, seeking freedom in the worship of God. "The
means at command provided only for sending a portion of the
company; and 'those that stayed, being the greater number,
required the pastor to stay with them,' while Elder Brewster
accompanied, in the pastor's stead, the almost as numerous
minority who were to constitute a church by themselves; and in
every church, by Robinson's theories, the 'governing elder,'
next in rank to the pastor and the teacher, must be 'apt to
teach.' A small ship,—the 'Speedwell,'—of some 60 tons
burden, was bought and fitted out in Holland, and early in
July those who were ready for the formidable voyage, being
'the youngest and strongest part,' left Leyden for embarkation
at Delft-Haven, nearly 20 miles to the southward,—sad at the
parting, 'but,' says Bradford, 'they knew that they were
pilgrims.' About the middle of the second week of the month
the vessel sailed for Southampton, England. On the arrival
there they found the 'Mayflower,' a ship of about 180 tons
burden, which had been hired in London, awaiting them with
their fellow passengers,—partly laborers employed by the
merchants, partly Englishmen like-minded with themselves, who
were disposed to join the colony. Mr. Weston, also, was there,
to represent the merchants; but, when discussion arose about
the terms of the contract, he went off in anger, leaving the
contract unsigned, and the arrangements so incomplete that the
Pilgrims were forced to dispose of sixty pounds' worth of
their not abundant stock of provisions to meet absolutely
necessary charges. The ships, with perhaps 120 passengers, put
to sea about August 5/15, with hopes of the colony being well
settled before winter; but the 'Speedwell' was soon pronounced
too leaky to proceed without being overhauled, and so both ships
put in at Dartmouth, after eight days' sail. Repairs were
made, and before the end of another week they started again;
but when about a hundred leagues beyond Land's End, Reynolds,
the master of the' Speedwell,' declared her in imminent danger
of sinking, so that both ships again put about. On reaching
Plymouth Harbor it was decided to abandon the smaller vessel,
and thus to send back those of the company whom such a
succession of mishaps had disheartened. … It was not known
till later that the alarm over the 'Speedwell's' condition was
owing to deception practised by the master and crew. … At
length, on Wednesday, September 6/16, the Mayflower left
Plymouth, and nine weeks from the following day, on November
9/19, sighted the eastern coast of the flat, but at that time
well-wooded shores of Cape Cod. She took from Plymouth 102
passengers, besides the master and crew; on the voyage one
man-servant died and one child was born, making 102 (73 males
and 29 females) who reached their destination. Of these, the
colony proper consisted of 34 adult males, 18 of them
accompanied by their wives and 14 by minor children (20 boys
and 8 girls); besides these, there were 3 maid-servants and 19
men-servants, sailors, and craftsmen,—5 of them only
half-grown boys,—who were hired for temporary service. Of the
34 men who were the nucleus of the colony, more than half are
known to have come from Leyden; in fact, but 4 of the 34 are
certainly known to be of the Southampton accessions. … And
whither were they bound? As we have seen, a patent was secured
in 1619 in Mr. Wincob's name; but 'God so disposed as he never
went nor they ever made use of this patent,' says Bradford,—not
however making it clear when the intention of colonizing under
this instrument was abandoned.
{2098}
The 'merchant adventurers' while negotiating at Leyden seem to
have taken out another patent from the Virginia Company, in
February, 1620, in the names of John Peirce and of his
associates; and this was more probably the authority under
which the Mayflower voyage was undertaken. As the Pilgrims had
known before leaving Holland of an intended grant of the
northern parts of Virginia to a new company,—the Council for
New England,—when they found themselves off Cape Cod, 'the
patent they had being for Virginia and not for New England,
which belonged to another Government, with which the Virginia
Company had nothing to do,' they changed the ship's course,
with intent, says Bradford, 'to find some place about Hudson's
River for their habitation,' and so fulfil the conditions of
their patent; but difficulties of navigation and opposition
from the master and crew caused the exiles, after half a day's
voyage, to retrace their course and seek a resting-place on
the nearest shore. … Their radical change of destination
exposed the colonists to a new danger. As soon as it was
known, some of the hired laborers threatened to break loose
(upon landing) from their engagements, and to enjoy full
license, as a result of the loss of the authority delegated in
the Virginia Company's patent. The necessity of some mode of
civil government had been enjoined on the Pilgrims in the
farewell letter from their pastor, and was now availed of to
restrain these insurgents and to unite visibly the
well-affected. A compact, which has often been eulogized as
the first written constitution in the world, was drawn up. …
Of the 41 signers to this compact, 34 were the adults called
above the nucleus of the colony, and seven were servants or
hired workmen; the seven remaining adult males of the latter
sort were perhaps too ill to sign with the rest (all of them
soon died), or the list of signers may be imperfect. This
needful preliminary step was taken on Saturday, November
11/21, by which time the Mayflower had rounded the Cape and
found shelter in the quiet harbor on which now lies the
village of Provincetown; and probably on the same day they
'chose, or rather confirmed,' as Bradford has it, … Mr. John
Carver governor for the ensuing year. On the same day an armed
delegation visited the neighboring shore, finding no
inhabitants. There were no attractions, however, for a
permanent settlement, nor even accommodations for a
comfortable encampment while such a place was being sought."
Some days were spent in exploring Cape Cod Bay, and the harbor
since known as Plymouth Bay was chosen for the settlement of
the colony. The exploring party landed, as is believed, at the
famous Rock, on Monday December 11/21. "Through an unfortunate
mistake, originating in the last century, the 22d has been
commonly adopted as the true date. … Tradition divides the
honor of being the first to step on Plymouth Rock between John
Alden and Mary Chilton, but the date of their landing must
have been subsequent to December 11 [N. S. 21]." It was not
till the end of the week, December 16/26, that the Mayflower
was anchored in the chosen haven. "The selection of a site and
the preparation of materials, in uncertain weather, delayed
till Monday, the 25th [January 4, N. S.] the beginning of 'the
first house for common use, to receive them and their goods.'
Before the new year, house-lots were assigned to families, and
by the middle of January most of the company had left the ship
for a home on land."
_F. B. Dexter,
The Pilgrim Church and Plymouth Colony
(Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 3, chapter 8, with foot-notes)._
"Before the Pilgrims landed, they by a solemn instrument
founded the Puritan republic. The tone of this instrument and
the success of its authors may afford a lesson to
revolutionists who sever the present from the past with the
guillotine, fling the illustrious dead out of their tombs, and
begin history again with the year one. These men had been
wronged as much as the Jacobins. 'In the name of God. Amen. We
whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread
Sovereign Lord King James, by the grace of God of Great
Britain and Ireland, defender of the faith, etc., having
undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the
Christian faith, and honour of our king and country, a voyage
to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia,
do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of
God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves
together into a civil body politic for our better ordering and
preservation, and for the furtherance of the ends aforesaid;
and by virtue hereof to exact, constitute, and frame such just
and equal laws, ordinances and acts, constitutions and
offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet for
the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due
submission and obedience.' And then follows the roll of
plebeian names, to which the Roll of Battle Abbey is a poor
record of nobility. There are points in history at which the
spirit which moves the whole shows itself more clearly through
the outward frame. This is one of them. Here we are passing
from the feudal age of privilege and force to the age of due
submission and obedience, to just and equal offices and laws,
for our better ordering and preservation. In this political
covenant of the Pilgrim fathers lies the American Declaration
of Independence. From the American Declaration of Independence
was borrowed the French Declaration of the Rights of Man.
France, rushing ill-prepared, though with overweening
confidence, on the great problems of the eighteenth century,
shattered not her own hopes alone, but nearly at the same
moment the Puritan Republic, breaking the last slight link
that bound it to feudal Europe, and placing modern society
firmly and tranquilly on its new foundation. To the free
States of America we owe our best assurance that the oldest,
the most famous, the most cherished of human institutions are
not the life, nor would their fall be the death, of social
man; that all which comes of Charlemagne, and all which comes
of Constantine, might go to the tombs of Charlemagne and
Constantine, and yet social duty and affection, religion and
worship, free obedience to good government, free reverence for
just laws, continue as before. They who have achieved this
have little need to talk of Bunker's Hill."
_Goldwin Smith,
On the Foundation of the American Colonies
(Lectures on the Study of History)._
ALSO IN:
_W. Bradford,
History of Plymouth Plantation
(Massachusetts Historical Society Collection,
4th series, volume 3), book 1._
_Mourt's Relation,
or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth;
edited by H. M. Dexter._
_J. S. Barry,
History of Massachusetts,
volume 1, chapter 3._
{2099}
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1621.
The first year of the Plymouth Colony and its sufferings.
The Pierce patent.
The naming of Plymouth.
"The labor of providing habitations had scarcely begun, when
sickness set in, the consequence of exposure and bad food.
Within four months it carried off nearly half their number.
Six died in December, eight in January, seventeen in February,
and thirteen in March. At one time during the winter, only six or
seven had strength enough left to nurse the dying and bury the
dead. Destitute of every provision, which the weakness and the
daintiness of the invalid require, the sick lay crowded in the
unwholesome vessel, or in half-built cabins heaped around with
snow-drifts. The rude sailors refused them even a share of
those coarse sea-stores which would have given a little
variety to their diet, till disease spread among the crew, and
the kind ministrations of those whom they had neglected and
affronted brought them to a better temper. The dead were
interred in a bluff by the water-side, the marks of burial
being carefully effaced, lest the natives should discover how
the colony had been weakened. … Meantime, courage and
fidelity never gave out. The well carried out the dead through
the cold and snow, and then hastened back from the burial to
wait on the sick; and as the sick began to recover, they took
the places of those whose strength had been exhausted." In
March, the first intercourse of the colonists with the few
natives of the region was opened, through Samoset, a friendly
Indian, who had learned from fishermen on the more eastern
coast to speak a little English. Soon afterwards, they made a
treaty of friendship and alliance with Massasoit, the chief of
the nearest tribe, which treaty remained in force for 54
years. On the 5th of April the Mayflower set sail on her
homeward voyage, "with scarcely more than half the crew which
had navigated her to America, the rest having fallen victims
to the epidemic of the winter. … She carried back not one of
the emigrants, dispiriting as were the hardships which they
had endured, and those they had still in prospect." Soon after
the departure of the Mayflower, Carver, the Governor, died.
"Bradford was chosen to the vacant office, with Isaac
Allerton, at his request, for his Assistant. Forty-six of the
colonists of the Mayflower were now dead,—28 out of the 48
adult men. Before the arrival of the second party of emigrants
in the autumn, the dead reached the number of 51, and only an
equal number survived the first miseries of the enterprise.
… Before the winter set in, tidings from England had come,
to relieve the long year's lonesomeness; and a welcome
addition was made to the sadly diminished number. The Fortune,
a vessel of 55 tons' burden, reached Plymouth after a passage
of four months, with Cushman and some 30 other emigrants. The
men who now arrived outnumbered those of their predecessors
who were still living. … Some were old friends of the
colonists, at Leyden. Others were persons who added to the
moral as well as to the numerical strength of the settlement.
But there were not wanting such as became subjects for anxiety
and coercion." The Fortune also brought to the colonists a
patent from the Council for New England, as it was commonly
known—the corporation into which the old Plymouth Company, or
North Virginia branch of the Virginia Company, had been
transformed (see NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620-1623). "Upon lands of
this corporation Bradford and his companions had sat down
without leave, and were of course liable to be summarily
expelled. Informed of their position by the return of the
Mayflower to England in the spring, their friends obtained
from the Council a patent which was brought by the Fortune. It
was taken out in the name of 'John Pierce, citizen and
cloth-worker of London, and his associates,' with the
understanding that it should be held in trust for the
Adventurers, of whom Pierce was one. It allowed 100 acres of
land to every colonist gone and to go to New England, at a
yearly rent of two shillings an acre after seven years. It
granted 1,500 acres for public uses, and liberty to 'hawk,
fish, and fowl'; to 'truck, trade, and traffic with the
savages'; to 'establish such laws and ordinances as are for
their better government, and the same, by such officer or
officers as they shall by most voices elect and choose, to put
in execution'; and 'to encounter, expulse, repel, and resist
by force of arms' all intruders. … The instrument was signed
for the Council by the Duke of Hamilton, the Duke of Lenox,
the Earl of Warwick, Lord Sheffield, and Sir Ferdinando
Gorges. … The precise time of the adoption of the name which
the settlement has borne since its first year is not known.
Plymouth is the name recorded on Smith's map as having been
given to the spot by Prince Charles. It seems very likely that
the emigrants had with them this map, which had been much
circulated. … Morton (Memorial, 56) assigns as a reason for
adopting it that 'Plymouth in Old England was the last town
they left in their native country, and they received many
kindnesses from some Christians there.' In Mourt, 'Plymouth'
and 'the now well-defended town of New Plymouth' are used as
equivalent. Later, the name Plymouth came to be appropriated
to the town, and New Plymouth to the Colony."
_J. G. Palfrey,
History of New England,
volume 1, chapter 5, and foot-note._
ALSO IN:
_J. A. Goodwin,
The Pilgrim Republic,
chapters 9-16._
_F. Baylies,
Historical Memoir of the Colony of New Plymouth,
volume 1, chapters 5-6._
_A. Young,
Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1622-1628.
Weston at Wessagusset, Morton at Merrymount,
and other settlements.
"During the years immediately following the voyage of the
Mayflower, several attempts at settlement were made about the
shores of Massachusetts bay. One of the merchant adventurers,
Thomas Weston, took it into his head in 1622 to separate from
his partners and send out a colony of seventy men on his own
account. These men made a settlement at Wessagusset, some
twenty-five miles north of Plymouth. They were a disorderly,
thriftless rabble, picked up from the London streets, and soon
got into trouble with the Indians; after a year they were glad to
get back to England as best they could, and in this the
Plymouth settlers willingly aided them. In June of that same
year 1622 there arrived on the scene a picturesque but ill
understood personage, Thomas Morton, 'of Clifford's Inn,
Gent.,' as he tells on the title-page of his quaint and
delightful book, the 'New English Canaan.' Bradford
disparagingly says that he 'had been a kind of petiefogger of
Furnifell's Inn'; but the churchman Samuel Maverick declares
that he was a 'gentleman of good qualitie.'
{2100}
He was an agent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and came with some
thirty followers, to make the beginnings of a royalist and
Episcopal settlement in the Massachusetts bay, He was
naturally regarded with ill favour by the Pilgrims as well as
by the later Puritan settlers, and their accounts of him will
probably bear taking with a grain or two of salt. In 1625
there came one Captain Wollaston, with a gang of indented
white servants, and established himself on the site of the
present town of Quincy. Finding this system of industry ill
suited to northern agriculture, he carried most of his men off
to Virginia, where he sold them. Morton took possession of the
site of the settlement, which he called Merrymount. There,
according to Bradford, he set up a 'schoole of athisme,' and
his men did quaff strong waters and comport themselves 'as if
they had anew revived and celebrated the feasts of ye Roman
Goddes Flora, or the beastly practices of ye madd
Bachanalians.' Charges of atheism have been freely hurled
about in all ages. In Morton's case the accusation seems to
have been based upon the fact that he used the Book of Common
Prayer. His men so far maintained the ancient customs of merry
England as to plant a Maypole eighty feet high, about which
they frolicked with the redskins, while furthermore they
taught them the use of firearms and sold them muskets and rum.
This was positively dangerous, and in the summer of 1628 the
settlers at Merrymount were dispersed by Miles Standish.
Morton was sent to England, but returned the next year, and
presently again repaired to Merrymount. By this time other
settlements were dotted about the coast. There were a few
scattered cottages or cabins at Nantasket and at the mouth of
the Piscataqua, while Samuel Maverick had fortified himself on
Noddle's Island, and William Blackstone already lived upon the
Shawmut peninsula, since called Boston. These two gentlemen
were no friends to the Puritans; they were churchmen and
representatives of Sir Ferdinando Gorges."
_J. Fiske,
The Beginnings of New England,
chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_C. F. Adams, Jr.,
Old Planters about Boston Harbor
(Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, June, 1878)._
_C. F. Adams, Jr.,
Introduction to Morton's New English Canaan
(Prince Society, 1883)._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623.
Grant to Robert Gorges on the Bay.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629.
Plymouth Colony.
Land allotments.
Buying freedom from the adventurers at London.
The new patent.
"In 1623 the Ann and Little James, the former of 140 tons, and
the latter of 44 tons, arrived with 60 persons to be added to
the colony, and a number of others who had come at their own
charge and on their own account. … The passengers in the Ann
and Little James completed the list of those who are usually
called the first-comers. The Ann returned to England in
September, carrying Mr. Winslow to negotiate with the
merchants, for needful supplies, and the Little James remained
at Plymouth in the service of the company. … Up to that time
the company had worked together on the company lands, and,
each sharing in the fruits of another's labors, felt little of
that personal responsibility which was necessary to secure the
largest returns. … 'At length, after much debate of things,
the Governor (with the advise of the cheefest amongest them)
gave way that they should set corne every man for his owne
perticuler, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all
other things to goe on in the generall way as before. And so
assigned to every family a parcell of land, according to the
proportion of their number for that end. … This had very
good success; for it made all hands very industrious.' …
Such is the language of Bradford concerning a measure which
was adopted from motives of necessity, but which was, to a
certain extent, an infringement of the provisions of the
contract with the adventurers. Before the planting season of
the next year a more emphatic violation of the contract was
committed. 'They (the colony) begane now highly to prise corne
as more pretious then silver, and those that had some to spare
begane to trade one with another for smale things, by the
quarte, potle, & peck &C.: for money they had none, and if any
had, corne was prefered before it. That they might therfore
encrease their tillage to better advantage, they made suite to
the Governor to have some portion of land given them for
continuance, and not by yearly lotte. … Which being well
considered, their request was granted. And to every person was
given only one acre of land, to them and theirs, as nere the
towne as might be, and they had no more till the 7 years were
expired.' This experience gradually led the colony in the
right track, and the growing necessity for some other
circulating medium than silver secured abundant harvests."
Winslow returned from England in 1624, "bringing, besides a
good supply, '3 heifers & a bull the first begining of any
catle of that kind in the land.' At that time there were 180
persons in the colony, 'some cattle and goats, but many swine
and poultry and thirty-two dwelling houses.' In the latter
part of the year Winslow sailed again for England in the
Little James and returned in 1625. The news he brought was
discouraging to the colonists. The debt due to the adventurers
was £1,400, and the creditors had lost confidence in their
enterprise." On this intelligence, Capt. Standish was sent to
England, followed next year by Mr. Allerton, "to make a
composition with the adventurers," and obtain, if possible, a
release from the seven years contract under which the
colonists were bound. Allerton returned in 1627, having
concluded an agreement with the adventurers at London for the
purchase of all their rights and interests in the plantation,
for the sum of £1,800. The agreement was approved by the
colony, and Bradford, Standish, Allerton, Winslow, Brewster,
Howland, Alden, and others, assumed the debt of £1,800, the
trading privileges of the colony being assigned to them for
their security. "In accordance with this agreement these
gentlemen at once entered vigorously into the enterprise, and
by the use of wampum, as a circulating medium, carried on so
extensive a trade with the natives, in the purchase of furs
and other articles for export to England as within the
prescribed period [six years] to pay off the entire debt and
leave the colony in the undisputed possession of their lands.
No legal-tender scheme, in these later days, has been bolder
in its conception, or more successful in its career, than that
of the Pilgrim Fathers, which, with the shells of the shore,
relieved their community from debt, and established on a
permanent basis the wealth and prosperity of New England. …
{2101}
After the negotiations with the adventurers had been
completed, the colonists were anxious to obtain another patent
from the New England Company conferring larger powers and
defining their territorial limits. After three visits to
England, Allerton was sent a fourth time, in 1629, and secured
a patent dated January 13, 1629 (old style), and signed by the
Earl of Warwick on behalf of the Council of New England,
enlarging the original grant, and establishing the boundaries
of what has been since known as the Old Colony. It granted to
William Bradford and his associates 'all that part of New
England in America, the tract and tracts of land that lie
within or between a certain rivolet or rundlett, then commonly
caned Coahasset alias Conahasset, towards the north, and the
river commonly called Naraganset river towards the south, and
the great Western ocean towards the east," and between two
lines described as extending, severally, from the mouth of the
Naraganset and the mouth of the Coahasset, "up into the
mainland westward," "to the utmost limits and bounds of a
country or place in New England called Pokernacutt, alias
Puckenakick, alias Sawaamset."
_W. T. Davis,
Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth,
chapter 2._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629.
The Dorchester Company and the royal Charter to the Governor
and Company of Massachusetts Bay.
"While the people of Plymouth were struggling to establish
their colony, some of the English Puritans, restless under the
growing despotism of Charles, began to turn their eyes to New
England. Under the lead of the Rev. John White, the Dorchester
Company was formed for trading and fishing, and a station was
established at Cape Ann [A. D. 1623]; but the enterprise did
not prosper, the colonists were disorderly, and the Company
made an arrangement for Roger Conant and others, driven from
Plymouth by the rigid principles of the Separatists, to come
to Cape Ann. Still matters did not improve and the Company was
dissolved; but White held to his purpose, and Conant and a few
others moved to Naumkeag, and determined to settle there.
Conant induced his companions to persevere, and matters in
England led to a fresh attempt; for discontent grew rapidly as
Charles proceeded in his policy. A second Dorchester Company,
not this time a small affair for fishing and trading, but one
backed by men of wealth and influence, was formed, and a large
grant of lands [from three miles north of the Merrimac to
three miles south of the Charles, and to extend from the
Atlantic to the Western Ocean] was made by the Council for New
England to Sir Henry Roswell and five others [March, 1628].
One of the six patentees, John Endicott, went out during the
following summer with a small company, assumed the government
at Naumkeag, which was now called Salem, and sent out
exploring parties. The company thus formed in England was
merely a voluntary partnership, but it paved the way for
another and much larger scheme. Disaffection had become
wide-spread. The Puritans began to fear that religious and
political liberty alike were not only in danger but were
doomed to destruction, and a large portion of the party
resolved to combine for the preservation of all that was
dearest to them by removal to the New World. The Dorchester
Company was enlarged, and a royal charter was obtained
incorporating the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay,"
March 4, 1629.
_H. C. Lodge,
Short History of the English Colonies in America,
chapter 18._
"This [the royal charter named above] is the instrument under
which the Colony of Massachusetts continued to conduct its
affairs for 55 years. The patentees named in it were Roswell
and his five associates, with 20 other persons, of whom White
was not one. It gave power forever to the freemen of the
Company to elect annually, from their own number, a Governor,
Deputy-Governor, and 18 Assistants, on the last Wednesday of
Easter term, and to make laws and ordinances not repugnant to
the laws of England, for their own benefit and the government
of persons inhabiting their territory. Four meetings of the
Company were to be held in a year, and others might be
convened in a manner prescribed. Meetings of the Governor,
Deputy-Governor, and Assistants, were to be held once a month
or oftener. The Governor, Deputy-Governor, and any two
Assistants, were authorized, but not required, to administer
to freemen the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. The Company
might transport settlers not 'restrained by special name.'
They had authority to admit new associates, and establish the
terms of their admission, and elect and constitute such
officers as they should see fit for the ordering and managing
of their affairs. They were empowered to 'encounter, repulse,
repel, and resist by force of arms … all such person and
persons as should at any time thereafter attempt or enterprise
the destruction, invasion, detriment, or annoyance to the said
plantation or inhabitants.' Nothing was said of religious
liberty. The government may have relied upon its power to
restrain it, and the emigrants on their distance and obscurity
to protect it."
_J. G. Palfrey,
History of New England,
volume 1, chapter 8._
"In anticipation of a future want the grantees resisted the
insertion of any condition which should fix the government of
the Company in England. Winthrop explicitly states that the
advisers of the Crown had originally imposed such a condition,
but that the patentees succeeded, not without difficulty, in
freeing themselves from it. That fact is a full answer to
those who held that in transferring the government to America
the patentees broke faith with the Crown."
_J. A. Doyle,
The English in America: The Puritan Colonies,
volume 1, chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_Records of the Government and Company of Massachusetts Bay;
edited by N. B. Shurtleff,
volume 1 (containing the Charter)._
_S. F. Haven,
Origin of the Company
(Archœologia Americana, volume 3)._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1629-1630.
The immigration of the Governor and Company of
Massachusetts Bay, with their Royal Charter.
"Several persons, of considerable importance in the English
nation, were now enlisted among the adventurers, who, for the
unmolested enjoyment of their religion, were resolved to
remove into Massachusetts. Foreseeing, however, and dreading
the inconvenience of being governed by laws made for them
without their own consent, they judged it more reasonable that
the colony should be ruled by men residing in the plantation,
than by those dwelling at a distance of three thousand miles,
and over whom they should have no control. At a meeting of the
company on the 28th of July [1629], Matthew Cradock, the
governor, proposed that the charter should be transferred to
those of the freemen who should become inhabitants of the
colony, and the powers conferred by it be executed for the
future in New England.
{2102}
An agreement was accordingly made at Cambridge, in England, on
the 26th of August, between Sir Richard Saltonstall, Thomas
Dudley, Isaac Johnson, John Winthrop, and a few others, that,
on those conditions, they would be ready the ensuing March,
with their persons and families, to embark for New England,
for the purpose of settling in the country. The governor and
company, entirely disposed to promote the measure, called a
general court [at which, after a serious debate, adjourned
from one day to the next,] … it was decreed that the
government and the patent of the plantation should be
transferred from London to Massachusetts Bay. An order was
drawn up for that purpose, in pursuance of which a court was
holden on the 20th of October for a new election of officers,
who would be willing to remove with their families; and 'the
court having received extraordinary great commendation of Mr.
John Winthrop, both for his integrity and sufficiency, as
being one very well fitted for the place, with a full consent
chose him governor for the year ensuing.' … Preparations
were now made for the removal of a large number of colonists,
and in the spring of 1630 a fleet of 14 sail was got ready.
Mr. Winthrop having by the consent of all been chosen for
their leader, immediately set about making preparations for
his departure. He converted a fine estate of £600 or £700 per
annum into money and in March embarked on board the Arbella,
one of the principal ships. Before leaving Yarmouth, an
address to their fathers and brethren remaining in England was
drawn up, and subscribed on the 7th of April by Governor
Winthrop and others, breathing an affectionate farewell to the
Church of England and their native land. … In the same ship
with Governor Winthrop came Thomas Dudley, who had been chosen
deputy governor after the embarkation, and several other
gentlemen of wealth and quality; the fleet containing about
840 passengers, of various occupations, some of whom were from
the west of England, but most from the neighborhood of London.
The fleet sailed early in April; and the Arbella arrived off
Cape Ann on Friday, the 11th of June, and on the following day
entered the harbor of Salem. A few days after their arrival,
the governor, and several of the principal persons of the
colony, made an excursion some 20 miles along the bay, for the
purpose of selecting a convenient site for a town. They
finally pitched down on the north side of Charles river
(Charlestown), and took lodgings in the great house built
there the preceding year; the rest of the company erected
cottages, booths, and tents, for present accommodation, about
the town hill. Their place of assembling for divine service
was under a spreading tree. On the 8th of July, a day of
thanksgiving was kept for the safe arrival of the fleet. On
the 30th of the same month, after a day of solemn prayer and
fasting, the foundation of a church was laid at Charlestown,
afterwards the first church of Boston, and Governor Winthrop,
Deputy Governor Dudley, and the Rev. Mr. Wilson, entered into
church covenant. The first court of assistants was held at
Charlestown, on the 23d of August, and the first question
proposed was a suitable provision for the support of the
gospel. Towards the close of autumn, Governor Winthrop and
most of the assistants removed to the peninsula of Shawmut
(Boston), and lived there the first winter, intending in the
spring to build a fortified town, but undetermined as to its
situation. On the 6th of December they resolved to fortify the
isthmus of that peninsula; but, changing their minds before
the month expired, they agreed upon a place about three miles
above Charlestown, which they called first Newtown, and
afterwards Cambridge, where they engaged to build houses the
ensuing spring. The rest of the winter they suffered much by
the severity of the season, and were obliged to live upon
acorns, groundnuts, and shell-fish. … They had appointed the
6th of February for a fast, in consequence of their alarm for
the safety of a ship which had been sent to Ireland for
provisions; but fortunately the vessel arrived on the 5th, and
they ordered a public thanksgiving instead thereof."
_J. B. Moore,
Lives of the Governors of New Plymouth
and Massachusetts Bay;
part 2: Winthrop._
ALSO IN:
_R. C. Winthrop,
Life and Letters of John Winthrop,
volume 1, chapters 15-19,
and volume 2, chapters 1-4._
_A. Young,
Chronicles of the first Planters of Massachusetts Bay,
chapters 14-19._
_J. S. Barry,
History of Massachusetts,
volume 1, chapter 7._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1630.
The founding of Boston.
"The English people who came with Governor Winthrop first
located upon the peninsula of Mishawum, which they called
Charlestown. … They found here a single white man named
Thomas Walford, living very peaceably and contentedly among
the Indians. They also discovered that the peninsula of
Shawmut had one solitary white inhabitant whose name was
William Blackstone. They could see every day the smoke curling
above this man's lonely cabin. He, too, was a Puritan
clergyman, like many of those who had now come to make a home
in the New World, free from the tyranny of the English
bishops. Still another Englishman, Samuel Maverick by name,
had built a house, and with the help of David Thompson, a fort
which mounted four small cannon, truly called 'murtherers,'
and was living very comfortably on the island that is now East
Boston. And again, by looking across the bay, to the south,
the smoke of an English cottage, on Thompson's Island, was
probably seen stealing upward to the sky. So that we certainly
know these people were the first settlers of Boston. But
scarcity of water, and sickness, which soon broke out among
them, made the settlers at Charlestown very discontented. They
began to scatter. Indeed this peninsula was too small properly
to accommodate all of them with their cattle. Therefore good
William Blackstone, with true hospitality, came in their
distress to tell them there was a fine spring of pure water at
Shawmut, and to invite them there. Probably his account
induced quite a number to remove at once; while others,
wishing to make farms, looked out homes along the shores of
the mainland, at Medford, Newtown (Cambridge), Watertown and
Roxbury. A separate company of colonists also settled at
Mattapan, or Dorchester. The dissatisfaction with Charlestown
was so general that at last only a few of the original
settlers remained there. … While those in chief authority
were still undecided, Isaac Johnson, one of the most
influential and honored men among the colonists, began, with
others, in earnest, the settlement of Boston. He chose for
himself the square of land now enclosed by Tremont, Court,
Washington and School Streets.
{2103}
Unfortunately this gentleman, who was much beloved, died
before the removal to Boston became general. … Although the
chief men of the colony continued for some time yet to favor
the plan of a fortified town farther inland, Boston had now
become too firmly rooted, and the people too unwilling, to
make a second change of location practicable, or even
desirable. So this project was abandoned, though not before
high words passed between Winthrop and Dudley about it. The
governor then removed the frame of his new house from
Cambridge, or Newtown, to Boston, setting it up on the land
between Milk Street, Spring Lane, and Washington Street. One
of the finest springs being upon his lot, the name Spring Lane
is easily traced. The people first located themselves within
the space now comprised between Milk, Bromfield, Tremont, and
Hanover Streets, and the water, or, in general terms, upon the
southeasterly slope of Beacon Hill. Pemberton Hill soon became
a favorite locality. The North End, including that portion of
the town north of Union Street, was soon built up by the new
emigrants coming in, or by removals from the South End, as all
the town south of this district was called. In time a third
district on the north side of Beacon Hill grew up, and was
called the West End. And in the old city these general
divisions continue to-day. Shawmut, we remember, was the first
name Boston had. Now the settlers at Charlestown, seeing
always before them a high hill topped with three little peaks,
had already, and very aptly too, we think, named Shawmut
Trimountain [the origin of the name Tremont in Boston]. But
when they began to remove there they called it Boston, after a
place of that name in England, and because they had determined
beforehand to give to their chief town this name. So says the
second highest person among them, Deputy Governor Thomas
Dudley. The settlers built their first church on the ground
now covered by Brazer's Building, in State Street. …
Directly in front of the meeting-house was the town
market-place. Where Quincy Market is was the principal
landing-place. The Common was set apart as a pasture-ground
and training-field. … A beacon was set up on the summit of
Trimountain and a fort upon the southernmost hill of the town.
From this time these hills took the names of Windmill, Beacon,
and Fort Hills."
_S. A. Drake,
Around the Hub,
chapter 2._
"The order of the Court of Assistants,—Governor Winthrop
presiding,—'That Trimontaine shall be called Boston,' was
passed on the 7th of September, old style, or, as we now count
it, the 17th of September, 1630. The name of Boston was
specially dear to the Massachusetts colonists, from its
association with the old St. Botolphs' town, or Boston, of
Lincolnshire, England, from which the Lady Arbella Johnson and
her husband had come, and where John Cotton was still
preaching in its noble parish church. But the precise date of
the removal of the Governor and Company to the peninsula is
nowhere given."
_R. C. Winthrop,
Boston Founded
(Memorial History of Boston;
edited by J. Winsor,
volume 1), pages 116-117._
ALSO IN:
_C. F. Adams, Jr.,
Earliest Exploration and Settlement of Boston Harbor
(Mem. History, pages 63-86)._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1631-1636.
The Puritan Theocracy and its intolerance.
"The charter of the Massachusetts Company had prescribed no
condition of investment with its franchise,—or with what
under the circumstances which had arisen was the same thing,
the prerogatives of citizenship in the plantation,—except the
will and vote of those who were already freemen. At the first
Cisatlantic General Court for election, 'to the end the body
of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men,' it
was 'ordered and agreed, that, for the time to come, no man
shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but
such as are members of some of the churches within the limits
of the same." The men who laid this singular foundation for
the commonwealth which they were instituting, had been
accustomed to feel responsibility, and to act upon
well-considered reasons. By charter from the English crown,
the land was theirs as against all other civilized people, and
they had a right to choose according to their own rules the
associates who should help them to occupy and govern it.
Exercising this right, they determined that magistracy and
citizenship should belong only to Christian men, ascertained
to be such by the best test which they knew how to apply. They
established a kind of aristocracy hitherto unknown."
_J. G. Palfrey,
History of New England,
volume 1, chapter 9._
"The aim of Winthrop and his friends in coming to
Massachusetts was the construction of a theocratic state which
should be to Christians, under the New Testament dispensation,
all that the theocracy of Moses and Joshua and Samuel had been
to the Jews in Old Testament days. They should be to all
intents and purposes freed from the jurisdiction of the Stuart
king, and so far as possible the text of the Holy Scriptures
should be their guide both in weighty matters of general
legislation and in the shaping of the smallest details of
daily life. In such a scheme there was no room for religious
liberty as we understand it."
_J. Fiske,
The Beginnings of New England,
chapter 4._
"The projected religious commonwealth was to be founded and
administered by the Bible, the whole Bible, not by the New
Testament alone. … They revered and used and treated the
Holy Book as one whole. A single sentence from any part of it
was an oracle to them: it was as a slice or crumb from any
part of a loaf of bread, all of the same consistency. God, as
King, had been the Lawgiver of Israel: he should be their
Lawgiver too. … The Church should fashion the State and be
identical with it. Only experienced and covenanted Christian
believers, pledged by their profession to accordance of
opinion and purpose with the original proprietors and exiles,
should be admitted as freemen, or full citizens of the
commonwealth. They would restrain and limit their own liberty
of conscience, as well as their own freedom of action, within
Bible rules. In fact,—in spirit even more than in the
letter,—they did adopt all of the Jewish code which was in
any way practicable for them. The leading minister of the
colony was formally appointed by the General Court to adapt
the Jewish law to their case [1636]; and it was enacted that,
till that work was really done, 'Moses, his Judicials,' should
be in full force. Mr. Cotton in due time presented the results
of his labor in a code of laws illustrated by Scripture texts.
This code was not formally adopted by the Court; but the spirit
of it, soon rewrought into another body, had full sway. …
{2104}
That frankly avowed and practically applied purpose of the
Fathers, of establishing here a Bible Commonwealth, 'under a
due form of government, both civil and ecclesiastical,'
furnishes the key to, the explanation of, all dark things and
all the bright things in their early history. The young people
educated among us ought to read our history by that simple,
plain interpretation. The consciences of our Fathers were not
free in our sense of that word. They were held under rigid
subjection to what they regarded as God's Holy Word, through
and through in every sentence of it, just as the consciences
of their Fathers were held, under the sway of the Pope and the
Roman Church. The Bible was to them supreme. Their church was
based on it, modelled by it, governed by it; and they intended
their State should be also."
_G. E. Ellis,
Lowell Institute Lectures
on the Early History of Massachusetts,
pages 50-55._
"Though communicants were not necessarily voters, no one could
be a voter who was not a communicant; therefore the
town-meeting was nothing but the church meeting, possibly
somewhat attenuated, and called by a different name. By this
insidious statute the clergy seized the temporal power, which
they held till the charter fell. The minister stood at the
head of the congregation and moulded it to suit his purposes
and to do his will. … Common men could not have kept this
hold upon the inhabitants of New England, but the clergy were
learned, resolute, and able, and their strong but narrow minds
burned with fanaticism and love of power; with their beliefs
and under their temptations persecution seemed to them not
only their most potent weapon, but a duty they owed to
Christ—and that duty they unflinchingly performed."
_B. Adams,
The Emancipation of Massachusetts,
chapter 1._
ALSO IN:
_J. S. Barry,
History of Massachusetts,
volume 1, chapter 10._
_P. Oliver,
The Puritan Commonwealth,
chapter 2, part 1._
_D. Campbell,
The Puritan in Holland, England, and America,
chapter 22 (volume 2)._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1633-1635.
Hostilities between the Plymouth Colony and
the French on the Maine coast.
See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1621-1668.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1634-1637.
Threatening movements in England.
The Charter demanded.
"That the government of Charles I. should view with a hostile
eye the growth of a Puritan state in New England is not at all
surprising. The only fit ground for wonder would seem to be
that Charles should have been willing at the outset to grant a
charter to the able and influential Puritans who organized the
Company of Massachusetts Bay. Probably, however, the king
thought at first it would relieve him at home if a few dozen
of the Puritan leaders could be allowed to concentrate their
minds upon a project of colonization in America. It might
divert attention for a moment from his own despotic schemes.
Very likely the scheme would prove a failure and the
Massachusetts colony incur a fate like that of Roanoke Island;
and at all events the wealth of the Puritans might better be
sunk in a remote and perilous enterprise than employed at home
in organizing resistance to the crown. Such, very likely, may
have been the king's motive in granting the Massachusetts
charter two days after turning his Parliament out of doors.
But the events of the last half-dozen years had come to
present the case in a new light. The young colony was not
languishing. It was full of sturdy life; it had wrought
mischief to the schemes of Gorges; and what was more, it had
begun to take unheard-of liberties with things ecclesiastical
and political. Its example was getting to be a dangerous one.
It was evidently worth while to put a strong curb upon
Massachusetts. Any promise made to his subjects Charles
regarded as a promise made under duress which he was quite
justified in breaking whenever it suited his purpose to do so.
Enemies of Massachusetts were busy in England. Schismatics
from Salem and revellers from Merrymount were ready with their
tales of woe, and now Gorges and Mason were vigorously
pressing their territorial claims."
_J. Fiske,
The Beginnings of New England,
chapter 3._
In April, 1634, "the superintendence of the colonies was …
removed from the privy council to an arbitrary special
commission, of which William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury,
and the archbishop of York, were the chief. These, with ten of
the highest officers of State, were invested with full power
to make laws and orders, … to appoint judges and magistrates
and establish courts for civil and ecclesiastical affairs, …
to revoke all charters and patents which had been
surreptitiously obtained, or which conceded liberties
prejudicial to the royal prerogative. Cradock, who had been
governor of the corporation in England before the transfer of
the charter of Massachusetts, was strictly charged to deliver
it up; and he wrote to the governor and council to send it
home. Upon receipt of his letter, they resolved 'not to return
any answer or excuse at that time.' In September, a copy of
the commission to Archbishop Laud and his associates was
brought to Boston; and it was at the same time rumored that
the colonists were to be compelled by force to accept a new
governor, the discipline of the church of England, and the
laws of the commissioners. The intelligence awakened 'the
magistrates and deputies to discover their minds each to
other, and to hasten their fortifications,' towards which,
poor as was the colony, £600 were raised. In January, 1635,
all the ministers assembled at Boston; and they unanimously
declared against the reception of a general governor, saying:
'We ought to defend our lawful possessions, if we are able; if
not, to avoid and protract.' In the month before this
declaration, it is not strange that Laud and his associates
should have esteemed the inhabitants of Massachusetts to be
men of refractory humors. … Restraints were placed upon
emigration; no one above the rank of a serving man might
remove to the colony without the special leave of Laud and his
associates. … Willingly as these acts were enforced by
religious bigotry, they were promoted by another cause. A
change had come over the character of the great Plymouth
council for the colonization of New England," which now
schemed and bargained with the English court to surrender its
general charter, on the condition that the vast territory
which it had already ceded to the Massachusetts Company and
others should be reclaimed by the king and granted anew, in
severalty, to its members (see NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1635). "At
the Trinity term of the court of king's bench, a quo warranto
was brought against the Company of the Massachusetts bay. At
the ensuing Michaelmas, several of its members who resided in
England made their appearance, and judgment was pronounced
against them individually; the rest of the patentees stood
outlawed, but no judgment was entered against them.
{2105}
The unexpected death of Mason, the proprietary of New
Hampshire, in December, 1635, removed the chief instigator of
these aggressions. In July, 1637, the king, professing 'to
redress the mischiefs that had arisen out of the many
different humours,' took the government of New England into
his own hands, and appointed over it Sir Ferdinando Gorges as
governor-general. … But the measure was feeble and
ineffectual." Gorges "never left England, and was hardly heard
of except by petitions to its government." Troubles had
thickened about king Charles and his creature Laud until they
no longer had time or disposition to bestow more of their
thoughts on Massachusetts. A long-suffering nation was making
ready to put an end to their malignant activities, and the
Puritans of New England and Old England were alike delivered.
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision),
part 1, chapter 17 (volume 1)._
_ALSO IN:
T. Hutchinson,
History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay,
volume 1, pages 51 and 86-89._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1635-1636.
The founding of Boston Latin School and Harvard College.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1635; and 1636.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1635-1637.
The migration to Connecticut.
See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1634-1637.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1636.
The banishment of Roger Williams.
"The intolerance of England had established the New England
colonies. The time was at hand when those colonies should in
their turn alienate from them their own children, and be the
unwilling parents of a fresh state. In 1631, there arrived at
Boston a young minister, Roger Williams, 'godly and zealous,
having precious gifts.' … His theological doctrines seem to
have been those generally received among the Puritans, but in
questions of church discipline he went far beyond most of his
sect. He was a rigid separatist, and carried the doctrine of
toleration, or, as perhaps it might be more properly called,
state indifference, to its fullest length. Accordingly it was
impossible to employ him as a minister at Boston. He went to
Salem, which was then without a preacher, and was appointed to
the vacant office. But a message from Winthrop and the
assistants compelled the church of Salem to retract its
choice, and the young enthusiast withdrew to Plymouth," where
he remained two years, until August, 1633, when he returned to
Salem. "In 1634, he incurred the displeasure of some of his
congregation by putting forward the doctrine that no tenure of
land could be valid which had not the sanction of the natives.
His doctrine was censured by the court at Boston, but on his
satisfying the court of his 'loyalty,' the matter passed over.
But before long he put forward doctrines, in the opinion of
the government, yet more dangerous. He advocated complete
separation from the Church of England, and denounced
compulsory worship and a compulsory church establishment.
Carrying the doctrine of individual liberty to its fullest
extent, he asserted that the magistrate was only the agent of
the people, and had no right to protect the people against
itself; that his power extends only as far as such cases as
disturb the public peace. … On the 8th of August, 1635,
Williams was summoned before the general court; his opinions
were denounced as 'erroneous and very dangerous,' and notice
was given to the church at Salem that, unless it could explain
the matter to the satisfaction of the court, Williams must be
dismissed. In October, Williams was again brought before the
court, and after a 'disputation' with Mr. Hooker, which failed
to reduce him from any of his errors, he was sentenced to
depart out of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts in six weeks.
The church of Salem acquiesced in the condemnation of their
pastor. Their own experience might have taught the fathers of
New England that the best way to strengthen heresy is to
oppose it. The natural result followed; the people were 'much
taken with the apprehension of Williams 'godliness,' and a
large congregation, including 'many devout women,' gathered
round him. Since they had failed to check the evil, the
Massachusetts government resolved to exterminate it and to
ship Williams for England. The crew of a pinnace was sent to
arrest him, but, fortunately for the future of New England, he
had escaped. … He had set out [January, 1636] for the territory
of Narragansett, and there founded the village of Providence."
_A. Doyle,
The American Colonies,
chapter 2._
"His [Roger Williams'] own statement is, it was 'only for the
holy truth of Christ Jesus that he was denied the common air
to breathe in, and a civil cohabitation upon the same common
earth.' But the facts of the case seem to show that it was
because his opinions differed from the opinions of those among
whom he lived, and were considered by them as dangerous and
seditious, tending to the utter destruction of their
community, that he was a sacrifice to honest convictions of
truth and duty. … The sentence of banishment, however, was
not passed without reluctance. Governor Winthrop remained his
friend to the day of his death, and even proposed, in view of
his services in the Pequot war, that his sentence should be
revoked. Governor Haynes, of Connecticut, who pronounced his
sentence, afterwards regretted it. Governor Winslow, of
Plymouth, who had no hand in his expulsion, 'put a piece of
gold in the hands of his wife,' to relieve his necessities,
and though Mr. Cotton hardly clears himself from the charge of
having procured his sentence, there was no private feud
between them. Cotton Mather concedes that 'many judicious
persons judged him to have had the root of the matter in him.'
Later writers declare him, 'from the whole course and tenor of
his life and conduct, to have been one of the most
disinterested men that ever lived, a most pious and
heavenly-minded soul.' And the magnanimous exile himself says,
'I did ever from my soul honor and love them, even when their
judgment led them to afflict me.'"
_J. S. Barry,
History of Massachusetts,
volume 1, chapter 9._
ALSO IN:
_J. D. Knowles,
Memoir of Roger Williams,
chapters 3-5._
_E. B. Underhill,
introduction to Williams' 'Bloudy Tenent of Persecution'
(Hansard Knollys Society)._
_G. E. Ellis,
The Puritan Age and Rule,
chapter 8._
See, also, RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636.
{2106}
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1636-1638.
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian troubles.
"The agitation and strife connected with the Antinomian
controversy, opened by Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, came dangerously
near to bringing the fortunes of the young Massachusetts
colony to a most disastrous ruin. … The peril overhung at a
time when the proprietary colonists had the most reasonable
and fearful forebodings of the loss of their charter by the
interference of a Privy Council Commission. … Ominously
enough, too, Mrs. Hutchinson arrived here, September 18, 1634,
in the vessel which brought the copy of that commission.
Winthrop describes her as a woman of a 'ready wit and bold
spirit.' Strongly gifted herself, she had a gentle and weak
husband, who was guided by her. She had at home enjoyed no
ministrations so much as those of Cotton, and her
brother-in-law, Mr. Wheelwright. She came here to put herself
again under the preaching of the former. … She had been here
for two years, known as a ready, kindly, and most serviceable
woman, especially to her own sex in their straits and
sicknesses. But she anticipated the introduction of 'the woman
question' among the colonists in a more troublesome form than
it has yet assumed for us. Joined by her brother-in-law, who
was also admitted to the church, after those two quiet years
she soon made her influence felt for trouble, as he did
likewise. … The male members of the Boston Church had a
weekly meeting, in which they discussed the ministrations of
Cotton and Wilson. Mrs. Hutchinson organized and presided over
one, held soon twice in a week, for her own sex, attended by
nearly a hundred of the principal women on the peninsula and
in the neighborhood. It was easy to foresee what would come of
it, through one so able and earnest as herself, even if she
had no novel or disjointed or disproportioned doctrine to
inculcate; which, however, it proved that she had. Antinomian
means a denying, or, at least, a weakening, of the obligation
to observe the moral law, and to comply with the external
duties; to do the works associated with the idea of internal,
spiritual righteousness. It was a false or disproportioned
construction of St. Paul's great doctrine of justification by
faith, without the works of the law. … Mrs. Hutchinson, was
understood to teach, that one who was graciously justified by
a spiritual assurance, need not be greatly concerned for
outward sanctification by works. She judged and approved, or
censured and discredited, the preachers whom she heard,
according as they favored or repudiated that view. Her
admirers accepted her opinions. … Word soon went forth that
Mrs. Hutchinson had pronounced in her meetings, that Mr.
Cotton and her brother-in-law Wheelwright, alone of all the
ministers in the colony, were under 'a covenant of grace,' the
rest being 'legalists,' or under 'a covenant of works.' These
reports, which soon became more than opinions, were blazing
brands that it would be impossible to keep from reaching
inflammable material. … As the contention extended it
involved all the principal persons of the colony. Cotton and
all but five members of the Boston Church—though one of these
five was Winthrop, and another was Wilson—proved to be
sympathizers with Mrs. Hutchinson; while the ministers and
leading people outside in the other hamlets were strongly
opposed to her. She had a partisan, moreover, of transcending
influence in the young Governor, Sir Henry Vane," who had come
over from England the year before, and who had been chosen at
the next election for Governor, with Winthrop as deputy.
"Though pure and devout, and ardent in zeal, he had not then
the practical wisdom for which Milton afterwards praised him
in his noble sonnet:—'Vane, young in years, but in sage
counsels old.' … With his strong support, and that of two
other prominent magistrates, and of so overwhelming a
majority of the Boston Church, Mrs. Hutchinson naturally felt
emboldened." But in the end her Church and party were overcome
by the ministers and their supporters in the other parts of
the colony; she was excommunicated and banished (November,
1637, and March, 1638), going forth to perish six years later
at the hands of the Indians, while living on the shore of Long
Island Sound, at a place now known as Pelham Neck, near New
Rochelle. "As the summing up of the strife, 76 persons were
disarmed; two were disfranchised and fined; 2 more were fined;
8 more were disfranchised; 3 were banished; and 11 who had
asked permission to remove had leave, in the form of a
limitation of time within which they must do it. The more
estimable and considerable of them apologized and were
received back."
_G. E. Ellis,
Lowell Institute Lectures on the
Early History of Massachusetts,
pages 95-100._
ALSO IN:
_B. Adams,
The Emancipation of Massachusetts,
chapter 2._
_Ecclesiastical History of New England
(Massachusetts Historical Society Collection,
series 1, volume 9)._
_G. E. Ellis,
Life of Anne Hutchinson
(Library of American Biographies,
new series, volume 6)._
_J. Anderson,
Memorable Women of Puritan Times,
volume 1, pages 185-220._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1637.
The Pequot War.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1637.
The first Synod of the Churches and its dealings with Heresy.
The election of Sir Harry Vane to be Governor of the colony,
in place of John Winthrop, "took place in the open air upon
what is now Cambridge Common on the 27th day of May [1637].
Four months later it was followed by the gathering of the
first Synod of Massachusetts churches; which again, meeting
here in Cambridge, doubtless held its sessions in the original
meeting-house standing on what is now called Mount Auburn
Street. The Synod sat through twenty-four days, during which
it busied itself unearthing heterodox opinions and making the
situation uncomfortable for those suspected of heresy, until
it had spread upon its record no less than eighty-two such
'opinions, some blasphemous, others erroneous, and all
unsafe,' besides 'nine unwholesome expressions,' all alleged
to be rife in the infant community. Having performed this
feat, it broke up amid general congratulations 'that matters
had been carried on so peaceably, and concluded so comfortably
in all love.' … As the twig is bent, the tree inclines. The
Massachusetts twig was here and then bent; and, as it was
bent, it during hard upon two centuries inclined. The question
of Religious Toleration was, so far as Massachusetts could
decide it, decided in 1637 in the negative. … The turning
point in the history of early Massachusetts was the Cambridge
Synod of September, 1637, … which succeeded in spreading on
its record, as then prevailing in the infant settlement,
eighty-two 'opinions, some blasphemous, others erroneous and
all unsafe,' besides 'nine unwholesome expressions,' the whole
mighty mass of which was then incontinently dismissed, in the
language of one of the leading divines who figured in that
Assembly, 'to the devil of hell, from whence they came.'
{2107}
The mere enumeration of this long list of heresies as then
somewhere prevailing is strong evidence of intellectual
activity in early Massachusetts,—an activity which found
ready expression through such men as Roger Williams, John
Cotton, John Wheelwright and Sir Henry Vane, to say nothing of
Mrs. Hutchinson, while the receptive condition of the mental
soil is likewise seen in the hold the new opinions took. It
was plainly a period of intellectual quickening,—a dawn of
promise. Of this there can no doubt exist. It was freely
acknowledged at the time; it has been stated as one of the
conditions of that period by all writers on it since. The body
of those who listened to him stood by Roger Williams; and the
magistrates drove him away for that reason. Anne Hutchinson so
held the ear of the whole Boston community that she had 'some
of all sorts and quality, in all places to defend and
patronize' her opinions; 'some of the magistrates, some
gentlemen, some scholars and men of learning, some Burgesses
of our General Court, some of our captains and soldiers, some
chief men in towns, and some men eminent for religion, parts
and wit.' These words of a leader of the clerical
faction,—one of those most active in the work of
repression,—describe to the life an active-minded,
intelligent community quick to receive and ready to assimilate
that which is new. Then came the Synod. It was a premonition.
It was as if the fresh new sap,—the young budding leaves,—
the possible, incipient flowers, had felt the chill of an
approaching glacier. And that was exactly what it was;—a
theological glacier then slowly settled down upon
Massachusetts,—a glacier lasting through a period of nearly
one hundred and fifty years."
_C. F. Adams,
Massachusetts: Its Historians and its History,
pages 10-59._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1638-1641.
Introduction of Slavery.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1638-1781.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1639.
The first printing press set up.
See PRINTING: A. D. 1535-1709.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1640-1644.
The end of the Puritan exodus.
Numerical growth and political development.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1644.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1641.
Jurisdiction extended over New Hampshire.
See NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1641-1679.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1642.
The first Public School law.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1642-1732.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1643.
The Confederation of the Colonies.
The growth of Plymouth.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1643.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1643-1654.
Interest in Acadia and temporary conquest of the Province.
See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1621-1668.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1646-1651.
The Presbyterian Cabal and the Cambridge Platform.
"There had now come to be many persons in Massachusetts who
disapproved of the provision which restricted the suffrage to
members of the Independent or Congregational churches of New
England, and in 1646 the views of these people were presented
in a petition to the General Court. … The leading signers of
this menacing petition were William Vassall, Samuel Maverick,
and Dr. Robert Child. … Their request would seem at first
sight reasonable enough. At a superficial glance it seems
conceived in a modern spirit of liberalism. In reality it was
nothing of the sort. In England it was just the critical
moment of the struggle between Presbyterians and Independents
which had come in to complicate the issues of the great civil
war. Vassall, Child, and Maverick seem to have been the
leading spirits in a cabal for the establishment of
Presbyterianism in New England, and in their petition they
simply took advantage of the discontent of the disfranchised
citizens in Massachusetts in order to put in an entering
wedge. This was thoroughly understood by the legislature of
Massachusetts, and accordingly the petition was dismissed and
the petitioners were roundly fined. Just as Child was about to
start for England with his grievances, the magistrates
overhauled his papers and discovered a petition to the
parliamentary Board of Commissioners, suggesting that
Presbyterianism should be established in New England, and that
a viceroy or governor-general should be appointed to rule
there. To the men of Massachusetts this last suggestion was a
crowning horror. It seemed scarcely less than treason. The
signers of this petition were the same who had signed the
petition to the General Court. They were now fined still more
heavily and imprisoned for six months. By and by they found
their way, one after another, to London, while the colonists
sent Edward Winslow, of Plymouth, as an advocate to thwart
their schemes. … The cabal accomplished nothing because of
the decisive defeat of Presbyterianism in England. 'Pride's
Purge' settled all that. The petition of Vassall and his
friends was the occasion for the meeting of a synod of
churches at Cambridge, in order to complete the organization
of Congregationalism. In 1648 the work of the synod was
embodied in the famous Cambridge Platform, which adopted the
Westminster Confession as its creed, carefully defined the
powers of the clergy, and declared it to be the duty of
magistrates to suppress heresy. In 1649 the General Court laid
this platform before the congregations; in 1651 it was
adopted; and this event may be regarded as completing the
theocratic organization of the Puritan commonwealth in
Massachusetts. It was immediately preceded and followed by the
deaths of the two foremost men in that commonwealth. John
Winthrop died in 1649 and John Cotton in 1652."
_J. Fiske,
The Beginnings of New England,
chapter 4._
ALSO IN:
_C. Mather,
Magnalia Christi Americana,
book 5, part 2._
_B. Adams,
The Emancipation of Massachusetts,
chapter 3._
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1649-1651.
Under Cromwell and the Commonwealth of England.