the North River. He became a member of the First Church in Salem, and
was admitted a freeman in 1634. He soon removed to the Farms; and his
name appears among the rate-payers at the formation of the village
parish. For many years he was deputy from Salem to the General Court;
and after Beverly was set off, as his residence at the time was on that
side of the line, he was always in the General Court, as deputy from
the new town, when his other public employments permitted. No man was
ever more identified with the history of the Salem Farms. He
contributed to form the structure of its society, and the character of
its population, by all that[i.104] a wise and good man could do. During
his whole life in America, he was more or less engaged in the military
service, in arduous, difficult, and dangerous positions and operations;
acting sometimes against Indians, and sometimes against the French, or,
as was usually the case, against them both combined. He was
occasionally sent to distant posts; commanding expeditions to the
eastward as far as Acadia. He was at one time in charge of a force at
Port Royal, now Annapolis, Nova Scotia. Increase Mather calls him a
"godly and courageous commander." When the last decisive struggle with
King Philip was approaching, and aid was needed from the eastern part
of the colony to rescue the settlements on the Connecticut River from
utter destruction, the "Flower of Essex" was summoned to the field. It
was a choice body of efficient men, "all culled out of the towns
belonging to this county," numbering about one hundred men. Lothrop, of
course, was their captain. In August, 1675, they were on the ground at
Hadley, the place of rendezvous. On the 26th of that month, Captain
Lothrop, with his company, and Captain Beers, of Watertown, with his,
after a vigorous pursuit, attacked the Indians in a swamp, about ten
miles from Hatfield, at the foot of Sugar-Loaf Hill. Ten were killed on
the side of the English, and twenty-six on the side of the Indians, who
were driven from the swamp, and scattered in their flight; to fall, as
was their custom, upon detached settlements; and continuing to waste
and destroy, by fire and sword, with[i.105] hatchet, scalping-knife,
torch, and gun. On the 18th of September, Lothrop, with his company,
started from Deerfield, to convoy a train of eighteen wagons, loaded
with grain, and furniture of the inhabitants seeking refuge from
danger, with teamsters and others. Moseley, with his men, remained
behind, to scout the woods, and give notice of the approach of Indians;
but the stealthy savages succeeded in effecting a complete surprise,
and fell upon Lothrop as his wagons were crossing a stream. They poured
in a destructive fire from the woods, in all directions. They were
seven to one. A perfect carnage ensued. Lothrop fell early in the
unequal fight, and only seven or eight of his whole party were left to
tell the story of the fatal scene. The locality of this disastrous and
sanguinary tragedy has ever since been known as "Bloody Brook." In the
list of those who perished by bullet, tomahawk, or arrow, on that
fearful morning, we read the names of many village neighbors of the
brave and lamented commander,—Thomas Bayley, Edward Trask, Josiah
Dodge, Peter Woodbury, Joseph Balch, Thomas Buckley, Joseph King,
Robert Wilson, and James Tufts. One of Lothrop's sergeants, who was
among the slain, Thomas Smith, then of Newbury, originated in the
village. His family had grants of land, including the hill called by
their name.
Captain Lothrop was as remarkable for the benevolence of his spirit and
the tenderness of his nature as for his wisdom in council, energy in
command, or gallantry in battle. Indeed, his character in private
life[i.106] was so beautiful and lovable, that I cannot refrain from
leading you into the recesses of his domestic circle. It presents a
picture of rare attractiveness. He had no children. His wife was a kind
and amiable person. They longed for objects upon which to gratify the
yearnings of their affectionate hearts. He had a large estate. His
character became known to the neighbors and the country people around.
If there was an occurrence calling for commiseration anywhere in the
vicinity, it was managed to bring it to his notice. Orphan children
were received into his household, and brought up with parental care and
tenderness. Many were, in this way, the objects of his charity and
affections. Persons especially, who were in any degree connected with
his wife's family, naturally conceived the desire to have him adopt
their children. This was the case particularly with those who were in
straitened circumstances. Others, knowing his disposition, would bring
tales of distress and destitution to his ears. Some, perhaps, turned
out to be unworthy of his goodness. In one instance, at least, where he
had taken a child into his family in its infancy, touched by appeals
made to his compassion by the parents, brought it up carefully, watched
over its education, and become attached to it, when it had reached an
age to be serviceable, the parents claimed and insisted on their right
to it, and took it away, much against his will. But the good man's
benevolence was not impaired, nor the stream of his affectionate
charities checked, by the misconduct[i.107] or ingratitude of his wards
or of their friends. His plan was to do all the good in his power to
the children thus brought into his family, to prepare them for
usefulness, and start them favorably in life. In the case of boys, he
would get them apprenticed to worthy people in useful callings. At the
time of his death, there were two grown-up members of his family, who
appear to have been foisted upon his care in their earliest childhood.
But there was no blame to be attached to them in the premises; and they
were regarded by him with much affection. There were no relations of
his own in this country in need of charitable aid or without adequate
parental protection; and it was not strange that several of his wife's
connections should have availed themselves of the benefit of his
generous disposition. She herself gives a very interesting account of
an instance of this sort, in a deposition found wrapped up among some
old papers in the county court-house. The object of the statement was
to explain how a connection of hers became domesticated in the family.
"When the child's mother was dead, my husband being with me at my
cousin's burial, and seeing our friends in so sad a condition, the poor
babe having lost its mother, and the woman that nursed it being fallen
sick, I then did say to some of my friends, that, if my husband would
give me leave, I could be very willing to take my cousin's little one
for a while, till he could better dispose of it; whereupon the child's
father did move it to my husband. My dear husband, considering my
weakness, and the incumbrance I had in the family,[i.108] was pleased
to return this answer,—that he did not see how it was possible for his
wife to undergo such a burden. The next day there came a friend to our
house, a woman which gave suck, and she understanding how the poor babe
was left, being intreated, was willing to take it to nurse, and
forthwith it was brought to her: but it had not been with her three
weeks before it pleased the Lord to visit that nurse with sickness
also; and the nurse's mother came to me desiring I would take the child
from her daughter, and then my dear husband, observing the providence
of God, was freely willing to receive her into his house."
At the time when this addition was made to his family, there was
certainly already in it another of his wife's connections, who had been
brought there when an infant in a manner perhaps equally singular, and
who had grown up to maturity. The particular "incumbrance," however,
spoken of by her, related to another matter. She was an only daughter.
Her father had died many years before, at quite an advanced age. Her
mother, who was sickly and infirm as well as aged, was taken
immediately into her family, and remained under her roof until her
death. In her weak and helpless condition, much care and exertion were
thrown upon her daughter. The only objection the captain seemed to have
to increasing the burden of the household, by receiving into it this
additional child with its nurse, resulted from conjugal tenderness and
considerateness. It must be confessed that there are some indications
of well-arranged management in the foregoing account. The friend who
happened to[i.109] call at the house the "next day," and who was able
to supply what the "poor babe" needed, certainly came very opportunely;
and there was altogether a remarkable concurrence and sequence of
circumstances. But all that he saw was a case of suffering, helpless
innocence, and an opportunity for benevolence and charity; and in
these, with a true theology, he read "a providence of God." That child
continued, to the hour when he took his last farewell of his family,
beneath his roof, and was an object of affectionate care, and in her
amiable qualities a source of happiness to him and his good wife. It is
stated that the children, thus from time to time domesticated in the
family, called him father, and that he addressed them as his children.
While they were infants, he was "a tender nursing father" to them. When
fondling them in his arms, in the presence of his wife, he would
solemnly take notice of the providence of God that had "disposed of
them from one place to another" until they had been brought to him; and
"would present them in his desires to God, and implore a blessing upon
them."
The picture presented in the foregoing details is worth rescuing from
oblivion. Such instances of actual life, exhibited in the most private
spheres, constitute a branch of history more valuable, in some
respects, than the public acts of official dignitaries. History has
been too exclusively confined, in its materials, to the movements of
states and of armies. It ought to paint the portraits of individual men
and[i.110] women in their common lives; it ought to lead us into the
interior of society, and introduce us to the family circles and home
experiences of the past. It cannot but do us good to know Thomas
Lothrop, not only as an early counsellor among the legislators of the
colony, and as having immortalized by his blood a memorable field of
battle and slaughter, but as the centre of a happy and virtuous
household on a New England farm. He made that home happy by his
benignant virtue. Although denied the blessing of children of his own,
his fireside was enlivened with the prattle and gayeties of the young.
Joy and hope and growth were within his walls. He was not a parent; but
his heart was kept warm with parental affections. He had a home where
dear ones waited for him, and rushed out to meet and cling round him
with loving arms, and welcome him with merry voices, when he returned
from the sessions of the General Court, or from campaigns against the
French and Indians.
Besides these offices of beneficence in the domestic sphere, we find
traces, in the local records, of constant usefulness and kindness among
his rural neighbors. He was called, on all occasions, to advise and
assist. As a judicious friend, he was relied upon and sought at the
bedside of the sick and dying, and in families bereaved of their head.
His name appears as a witness to wills, appraiser of estates, trustee
and guardian of the young. He was the friend of all. I know not where
to find a more perfect union of the hero and[i.111] the Christian; of
all that is manly and chivalrous with all that is tender, benevolent,
and devout.
Somewhere about the year 1650, after he had been married a considerable
time, he revisited his native country. A sister, Ellen, had, in the
mean while, grown up from early childhood; and he found her all that a
fond brother could have hoped for. With much persuasion, he besought
his mother to allow her to return with him to America. He stated that
he had no children; that he would be a father to her, and watch over
and care for her as for his own child. At length the mother yielded,
and committed her daughter to his custody, not without great
reluctance, trusting to his fraternal affection and plighted promise.
He brought her over with him to his American home. She was worthy of
his love, and he was true to his sacred and precious trust.
Ellen Lothrop became the wife of Ezekiel Cheever, the great
schoolmaster; and I should consider myself false to all good learning,
if I allowed the name of this famous old man to slip by, without
pausing to pay homage to it. His record, as a teacher of a Latin
Grammar School, is unrivalled. Twelve years at New Haven, eleven at
Ipswich, nine at Charlestown, and more than thirty-eight at
Boston,—more than seventy in all,—may it not be safely said that he was
one of the very greatest benefactors of America? With Elijah Corlett,
who taught a similar school at Cambridge for more than forty years, he
bridged over the wide chasm between the education brought with
them[i.112] by the fathers from the old country, and the education that
was reared in the new. They fed and kept alive the lamp of learning
through the dark age of our history. All the scholars raised here were
trained by them. One of Cotton Mather's most characteristic productions
is the tribute to his venerated master. It flows from a heart warm with
gratitude. "Although he had usefully spent his life among children, yet
he was not become twice a child," but held his faculties to the last.
"In this great work of bringing our sons to be men, he was my master
seven and thirty years ago, was master to my betters no less than
seventy years ago; so long ago, that I must even mention my father's
tutor for one of them. He was a Christian of the old fashion,—an old
New England Christian; and I may tell you, that was as venerable a
sight, as the world, since the days of primitive Christianity, has ever
looked upon. He lived, as a master, the term which has been, for above
three thousand years, assigned for the life of a man." Mather
celebrated his praises in a poetical effusion:—
"He lived, and to vast age no illness knew,
Till Time's scythe, waiting for him, rusty grew.
He lived and wrought; his labors were immense,
But ne'er declined to preterperfect tense.
* * * * *
'Tis Corlett's pains, and Cheever's, we must own,
That thou, New England, art not Scythia grown."
To our early schoolmasters, as Mather says, and the later too, I may
add, it is owing, that the whole country did not become another
Scythia.[i.113]
Ezekiel Cheever was in this country as early as 1637. He was then in
New Haven, sharing in the work of the first settlement of that colony,
teaching school as his ordinary employment, but sometimes preaching,
and in other ways helping to lay the foundations of church and
commonwealth. While there, he had a family of several children. The
first-born, Samuel, became the minister of Marblehead. In 1650, he was
keeping a school at Ipswich. About this time, he lost his wife. On the
18th of November, 1652, he married Ellen, the sister whom Captain
Lothrop had brought with him from England. They had several children;
one of them, Thomas, was ordained first at Malden, and afterwards at
Chelsea. The old schoolmaster died on the 21st of August, 1708, aged
ninety-three years and seven months. His son Thomas reached the same
age. Samuel, the minister at Marblehead, was eighty-five years old at
his death. The name of Ezekiel, jr., appears on the rate-list of the
village parish as late as 1731, so that he must have reached the age of
at least seventy-seven years.
The antiquarians have been sorely perplexed in determining the
relationship of the Cheevers and Reas, as they appear to be connected
together as heirs of the Lothrop property, in an order of the General
Court of the 11th of June, 1681.
The facts are these: Captain Lothrop married Bethia, daughter of Daniel
Rea. He died without issue, and had made no will. As he was killed in
battle, his widow undertook to set up a nuncupative[i.114] will. A
snow-storm, on the day appointed to act upon the matter, so blocked up
the roads, that neither Ezekiel Cheever nor his son Thomas, who had
charge of his mother's rights, could get to Salem; and the court
granted administration to the widow. The Cheevers demanded a rehearing:
it was granted; and quite an interesting and pertinacious law-suit
arose, which was finally carried up to the General Court, who decided
it in 1681. The widow does not appear to have been actuated by merely
selfish motives, but sought to divert a portion of the landed estate
from the only legal heir, Ellen, the wife of Ezekiel Cheever, to other
parties, in favor of whom her feelings were much enlisted. There is no
indication of any unfriendliness between her and her "sister Cheever."
Lothrop's wife had become much attached to one of her connections, who
had been brought into the family. Her husband, having been fond of
children, had often expressed great affection for those of her brother,
Joshua Rea. He had also sometimes, in expressing his interest in the
Beverly Church, evinced a disposition to leave to it "his ten acre lot
and his house upon the same," as a parsonage. Perhaps, if he had not
been suddenly called away, he might have done something, particularly
for the latter object. It appeared in evidence, from her statements and
from others, that he had been importuned to make a will, and that it
was much on his mind, particularly when recovering from a long and
dangerous sickness the winter before his death; but he never could
be[i.115] brought to do it. There was no evidence that he had ever
absolutely determined on any thing positively or specifically. His
widow, who seems to have been a perfectly honest and truthful woman,
testified to a conversation that passed between them on the subject, as
they were riding "together towards Wenham, the last spring, in the week
before the Court of election." In passing by particular pieces of
property owned by him, he indulged in some speculations as to what
disposal he should make of this or that pasture or plain or woodland.
But she did not represent that his expressions were absolute and
determinate, but rather indicative of the then inclination of his mind.
In another part of her statement, she said, "I did desire him to make
his will, which, when he was sick, I did more than once or twice; and
his answer to me was, that he did look upon it as that which was very
requisite and fit should be done. But, dear wife, thou hast no cause to
be troubled; if I should die and not make a will, it would be never the
worse for thee; thyself would have the more." It is not difficult to
understand the case as it probably stood in the mind of Captain
Lothrop. Whenever the subject of making a will, and doing kind things
for the Beverly parish, and the individuals in whose behalf his wife
was so anxious, was brought up, he felt the force, as he expressed it,
"of the duty which God required of a master of a family to set his
house in order;" and he was no doubt strongly moved, and sometimes
almost resolved, to gratify her wishes: but he remembered the[i.116]
solemn promise he had made to his mother, as he parted from her for
ever, and received his sister from her hands, and every sentiment of
honor, and of filial and fraternal love, restrained him; and his mind
settled into a conviction that it was his duty to allow his sister the
benefit of the final inheritance of his property. As the particular
persons to whom his wife wished him to make bequests were her
relatives, and the law would give her an ample allowance in the use,
for life, of his large landed property, she would be able to provide
for them after his death, as he had been in the habit of doing.
The General Court took a just view of the case, and decided that she
should have the whole movable estate for her own "use and dispose," and
the "use and benefit" for life of the houses and lands, "making no
strip nor waste;" after her death, the same to go to Ellen, the wife of
Ezekiel Cheever. The widow was to pay all debts due from the estate,
and also twenty pounds to the children of her brother, Joshua Rea. The
Court seemed to think, that, if any expectations had been excited in
that quarter, she was fully as responsible for it as her late husband;
and, as the Cheevers were to get nothing, while she lived, out of the
estate, the Court required her to pay the sum just named to her nephews
and nieces. They ordered Ezekiel Cheever to pay five pounds as costs
for their hearing the case, which he did on the spot.
It may be mentioned, by the way, that the widow of Captain Lothrop was
married again within eight[i.117] months of his death; but that was
quite usual in those days. She and her new husband concluded that it
would be troublesome to take care of Captain Lothrop's several farms.
They preferred to live in the town. She was probably over sixty years
of age. The conclusion of the whole matter was, that, in consideration
of sixty pounds paid down, they surrendered all claim whatever to the
"houseing and lands" left by Captain Lothrop, to Cheever and his wife.
They conveyed them "free and clear of and from all debts owing from the
estate of said Lothrop, and gifts or bequests pretended to be made by
him, or by any ways or means to be had, claimed, or challenged
therefrom by any person or persons whomsoever." The relict of Captain
Lothrop died in 1688.
Ezekiel Cheever and his wife, having thus become possessed of all her
brother's real estate, conveyed the lands belonging to it in Salem
Village to their son, Ezekiel Cheever, Jr. He had, for some years, been
living in the town of Salem, carrying on the business of a tailor. He
was a member of the First Church, and appears to have been a
respectable person. His dwelling-house stood on the lot in Washington
Street occupied by the late Robert Brookhouse. He sold it to the Rev.
Nicholas Noyes, on the 14th of April, 1684, removed to the village,
took possession of the Lothrop farm, and was there in time to bear a
share in the witchcraft delusion.
In 1636, a grant of land was made to Thomas Gardner of one hundred
acres. He came to this[i.118] country as early as 1624, and resided at
Cape Ann. Subsequently he removed to Salem, and, with his wife, was
admitted to the church. He was deputy to the General Court in 1637. His
grant was in the western part of the township, and embraced land
included within the limits of Salem Village. The name still remains on
the same territory. His sons became proprietors of several additional
tracts in the neighborhood. One of them, Joseph, is connected, in the
most conspicuous and interesting manner, with our military history.