KINGSTON AND ITS MANUSCRIPTS
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On a charming eminence at two crossroads, delicately dappled by fine elm
shade and clasped by an antique grapevine, rests the old Bradford house.
From the main road half a mile away you will see only the slanting roof,
half concealed by rolling pasture land, but if you will trouble to turn
off from the main road, and if you will not be daunted by the
unsavoriness of the immediate neighborhood, you will find it quite worth
your while. The house presents only a casual side to the street--one
fancies it does not take much interest in its upstart neighbors--but
imagination makes us believe that it regards with brooding tenderness
the lovely tidal river which winds away through the marshes to the sea.
Interesting as the house is for its architectural features and for its
delightful location--despite the nearness of the passing train--yet it
is on neither of these points that its fame rests.
In this house, built in 1674, and once belonging to Major John Bradford,
the grandson of the Governor, was preserved for many years one of the
most valuable American manuscripts in existence, and one fated to the
most romantic adventures in the annals of Lost and Found.
Bradford's "History of the Plymouth Plantation" is our sole source of
authentic information for the period 1606-46. It is the basis for all
historical study of the early life of the Pilgrims in this country, and
when we look at the quiet roof of the Bradford house to-day and realize
how narrowly the papers--for they remained in manuscript form for two
hundred years--escaped being lost forever, our minds travel again over
the often told story.
The manuscript, penned in Governor Bradford's fine old hand, in a folio
with a parchment back, and with some childish scribblings by little
Mercy Bradford on the cover, passed at the Governor's death to his son,
and at his death to his son. It reposed in the old house at which we are
now looking until 1728, doubtless regarded as something valuable, but
not in the least appreciated at its full and peculiar worth. When Major
John Bradford lent it to the Reverend Thomas Prince to assist him in his
"Chronological History of New England," he was merely doing what he had
done many times before. In these days of burglar-proof safes and fire
protection it makes us shiver to think of this priceless holograph
passed from hand to hand in such a casual manner. But it seems to have
escaped any mishap under Dr. Prince, who deposited it eventually in the
library of the Old South Church. Here it remained for half a century,
still in manuscript form and frequently referred to by scholars. Thomas
Hutchinson used it in compiling his "History of Massachusetts Bay," and
Mather used it also. At the time of the Revolution the Old South was
looted, and this document (along with many others) disappeared
absolutely. No trace whatever could be found of it: the most exhaustive
search was in vain, and scholars and historians mourned for a loss that
was irreparable. And then, after half a century, after the search had
been entirely abandoned, it was discovered, quite by chance, by one who
fortunately knew its value, tucked into the Library of Fulham Palace in
London. After due rejoicing on the American side and due deliberation on
the English side of the water, it was very properly and very politely
returned to this country in 1897. Now it rests after its career of
infinite hazard, in a case in the Boston State House, elaborately
protected from fire and theft, from any accidental or premeditated harm,
and Kingston must content itself with a copy in Pilgrim Hall at
Plymouth.
Kingston's history commences with a manuscript and continues in the same
form. If you would know the legends, the traditions, the events which
mark this ancient town, you will have to turn to records, diaries,
memoranda, memorial addresses and sermons, many of them never published.
It is rather odd that this serene old place, discovered only two or
three days after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, is so devoid
of a printed career. As soon as the Pilgrims had explored the spot, they
put themselves on record as having "a great liking to plant in it"
instead of in Plymouth. But they decided against it because it lay too
far from their fishing and was "so encompassed with woods," that they
feared danger from the savages. It was very soon settled, however, and
remained as the north end of Plymouth for a hundred and six years, until
1726. Governor Bradford writes, in regard to its colonization:
"Y^e people of y^e plantation begane to grow in their outward estate ...
and as their stocks increased and y^e increase vendible, ther was no
longer any holding them togeather, but now they must of necessitoe goe
to their great lots: they could not otherwise keep catle; and having
oxen grown they must have land for plowing and tillage. And no man now
thought he could live except he had catle and a great deal of ground to
keep them: all striving to increase their stocks. By which means they
were scattered all over y^e bay, quickly, and y^e towne, in which they
had lived compactly till now [1632] was left very thine, and in a short
time almost desolate."
Governor Bradford seems to deplore this moving out of Plymouth, but as a
matter of fact he was among the first to go, and his estate on Jones
River comprised such a goodly portion of what is now Kingston that when
he died he was the richest man in the Colony! A boulder marks the place
which he, with that unerring eye for a fine view which distinguished the
early settlers, chose for his estate. From here one catches a glimpse of
water, open fields, trees, the Myles Standish Monument to the left, the
sound of the passing automobiles behind. The distant smokestacks would
be unfamiliar to Governor Bradford's eye, but the fragrant Kingston air
which permeates it all would greet him as sweetly to-day as it did
three hundred years ago.
Governor Bradford, who was Governor for thirty-seven years, was a man of
remarkable erudition. Cotton Mather says of him: "The Dutch tongue was
become almost as vernacular to him as the English; the French tongue he
could also manage; the Latin and the Greek he had mastered; but the
Hebrew he most of all studied." Therefore if the curious spelling of his
history strikes us as unscholarly, we must remember that at that time
there was no fixed standard for English orthography. Queen Elizabeth
employed seven different spellings for the word "sovereign" and
Leicester rendered his own name in eight different ways. It was by no
means a mark of illiteracy to spell not only unlike your neighbor, but
unlike yourself on the line previous.
But it is more than quaint diction and fantastic spelling which
fascinates us as we turn over, not only the leaves of Bradford's famous
history, but the pile of fading records of various kinds of this once
prosperous shipbuilding town. The records of Kingston are valuable, not
only because they tell the tale of this particular spot, but because
they are delightfully typical of all the South Shore towns. The
yellowing diaries mention crude offenses, crude chastisements; give
scraps of genealogies as broken as the families themselves are now
broken and scattered; lament over one daughter of the Puritans who took
the veil in a Roman Catholic convent; sternly relate, in Rabelaisian
frankness, dark sins, punished with mediæval justice. In fact, these
righteous early colonists seemed to find a genuine satisfaction in
devising punishments, and in putting them into practice. We read that
the stocks (also called "bilbaos" because they were formerly
manufactured in Bilbao, in Spain) were first occupied by the man who had
made them, as the court decided that his charge for the work was
excessive! There were wooden cages in which criminals were confined and
exposed to public view; whipping-posts; cleft sticks for profane
tongues. Drunkenness was punished by disfranchisement; the blasphemer
and the heretics were branded with a hot iron.
Let us look at some of these old records, not all of them as ferocious
as this, but interesting for the minutiæ which they preserve and which
makes it possible for us to reconstruct something of that atmosphere of
the past. It was ninety-six years after the settlement at Plymouth that
Kingston made its first request for a separation. It was not granted for
almost a decade, but from then on the ecclesiastical records furnish us
with a great deal of intimate and chatty material. For instance, we
learn in 1719 that Isaac Holmes was to have "20 shillings for sweeping,
opening and shutting of the doors and casements of the meeting house for
1 year," which throws some light upon sextons' salaries!
The minute directions as to the placing of the pews in the meeting-house
(1720) contain a pungent element of personality. Major John Bradford is
"next to the pulpit stairs"; Elisha Bradford on the left "as you go in";
Benjamin Eaton's place is "between minister's stairs and west door";
while Peter West is ingloriously, and for what reason we know not,
relegated to the gallery "in the front, next to the stairs, behind the
women."
It is significant to note (1728) that seats are built at each end above
the galleries for the Indians and negroes.
Fish laws, rewards for killing wild cats, bickerings with the minister,
and brief mention of the death of many women at an early age--after
having given birth to an incredible number of children--fill up pages
and pages.
The eye rests upon a resolution passed (1771) to "allow Benjamin Cook
the sum of 8 shillings for a coffin, and liquor at the funeral of James
Howland." They might not believe in prayers for the dead in those days,
but there was evidently no reason why the living should not receive some
cheer!
How is this for the minister's salary? The Reverend Doctor Willis (1780)
is to receive eighty pounds a year, to be paid partly in Indian corn,
rye, pork, and beef. Ten cords of wood yearly are allowed him "until he
have a family, then twenty cords, are to be allowed, the said wood to
be delivered at his door."
Mr. Levi Bradford agrees to make the whipping-post and stocks for nine
shillings, if the town will find the iron (1790).
The wage paid for a day's labor on the highway (1791) was as follows:
For a day's labor by a man, 2 shillings, 8 pence; for a yoke of oxen, 2
shillings; for a horse, 1 shilling, 6 pence; for a cart, 1 shilling, 4
pence. One notes the prices are for an eight-hour day.
However, the high cost of living began to make itself felt even then.
How else account for the statement (1796) that Mr. Parris, the
schoolmaster, has been allowed fifty shillings in addition to his salary
"considering the increase in the price of provisions"?
There seems to have been a great celebration on the occasion of raising
the second meetinghouse in Kingston (1798). One old account reads:
"Booths were erected on the field opposite, and all kinds of liquor and
refreshment were sold freely." After the frame was up a procession was
formed of those who were employed in the raising, consisting of
carpenters, sailors, blacksmiths, etc., each taking some implement of
his trade such as axes, rules, squares, tackles and ropes. They walked
to the Great Bridge and back to the temporary building that had been
used for worship (the Quail Trap) while the new one was being planned.
Here they all had punch and an "hour or so of jollity."
If the women's lives were conspicuously short, it was not so with the
men. Ebenezer Cobb, who died in 1801 in the one hundred and eighth year
of his age, had lived in no less than three centuries, having seen six
years in the seventeenth, the whole of the eighteenth, and a year of the
nineteenth.
The minister's tax is separated from the other town taxes in 1812--thus
even in this little village is reflected the great movement of
separation of Church and State. In 1851 when we read of a Unitarian
church being built we realize that the Puritan régime is over in New
England.
Thus with the assistance of the Pelegs and Hezekiahs, the Zadocks,
Ichabods, and Zenases--names which for some absurd and irreverent reason
suggest a picture puzzle--we manage to piece together scraps of the
Kingston of long ago.
We must confess to some relief at the inevitable conclusion that such
study brings--namely, that the early settlers were not the unblemished
prigs and paragons tradition has so fondly branded them. They seem to
have been human enough--erring enough, if we take these records penned
by themselves. However, for any such iconoclastic observation it is
reassuring to have the judgment of so careful a historian as Charles
Francis Adams. He says:
"That the earlier generations of Massachusetts were either more
law-abiding or more self-restrained than the later is a proposition
which accords neither with tradition nor with the reason of things. The
habits of those days were simpler than those of the present: they were
also essentially grosser...."
He then gives a dozen pages or so of hitherto unpublished church
records, gathered from as many typical Massachusetts towns, which throw
an undeniable and unflattering light on the social habits of that early
period. As explicit and public confession before the church congregation
was enforced, these church records contain startlingly graphic
statements of drunkenness, blasphemy, stealing, and immorality in all
its various phases.
There are countless church records which duplicate this one of the
ordination of a Massachusetts pastor in 1729: "6 Barrels and a half of
Cyder, 28 gallons of wine, 2 gallons of Brandy, and 4 of rum, loaf
sugar, lime juice and pipes," all, presumably, consumed at the time and
on the spot of the ordination. Even the most pessimistic must admit that
long before our prohibition era we had traveled far beyond such
practices.
The immorality seems to have been the natural reaction from morbid
spiritual excitement induced by religious revivals. Poor Governor
Bradford never grasped this, and we find him lamenting (1642):
"Marvilous it may be to see and consider how some kind of wickedness did
grow and break forth here in a land where the same was much witnessed
against, and so narrowly looked on and severely punished when it was
known."
We hear the same plaint from Jonathan Edwards a century later.
It is well to honor the Pilgrims for their many stanch and admirable
qualities, but it is only fair to recall that the morbidity of their
religion made them less healthy-minded than we, and that many of their
practices, such as the well-recognized custom of "bundling," were
indications of a people holding far lower moral standards than ours.
The old sermons, diaries, biographies, and records lie on dusty shelves
now, and few pause to read them, and in Kingston no one yet has gathered
them into a local history. There are other records traced, not in sand,
but on the soil that may also be read by any who pass. Some remnants of
the trenches and terraces dug by the quota of Arcadian refugees who
fell to Kingston's share after the pathetic flight from Nova Scotia may
still be seen--claimed by some to be the first irrigation attempt in
America.
The old "Massachusetts Payth" which follows the road more or less
closely beyond Kingston is traced with difficulty and uncertainty in
Kingston itself, but there is another highway as clear to-day as it was
three hundred years ago. And this is the lovely tidal river, named after
the master of the Mayflower, up which used to come and go not only many
ships of commerce, but, in the evenings after life had become less
austere, boatloads of merry-makers from Plymouth and Duxbury to attend
the balls given at what was originally the King's Town.
It has carried much traffic in its day, that river which now winds so
gracefully down to the sea, and which we see so well from the yard of
the old Bradford house. Down it floated the vessels made by Kingston
men, and out of it was dug much bog iron for the use of Washington's
artillery.
Monk's Hill--which the old records call Mont's Hill Chase, a name
supposed to have been applied to a hunt in England--could tell a story
too, if one had ears to hear. The highest land in Kingston, during the
Revolution it was one of the points where a beacon fire was lighted to
alarm the town in case of invasion by the enemy.
Kingston is not without history, although its manuscripts lie long
untouched upon library shelves, and its historic soil is tramped over by
unheeding feet. That the famous manuscript which was its greatest
historical contribution has been taken away from it, is no loss in the
truest sense of the word, for this monumental work, which belongs to no
one place, but to the country as a whole, is properly preserved at the
State House.
Kingston seems amenable to this arrangement, just as she seems entirely
willing that Plymouth should claim the first century of her career. When
one is sure of one's heritage and beauty, one does not clamor for
recognition; one does not even demand a printed history. It is quality,
not quantity, that counts, and even if nothing more is ever written in
or about this dear old town, Kingston will have made a distinguished
contribution to American history and literature.
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