pursuits of a farmer and a tanner. He was a sturdy old Englishman, who,
while probably holding the theological sentiments that prevailed in his
day, abhorred the spirit of persecution, and was unwilling to live
where it was allowed to bear sway. He does not appear to have been a
Quaker, but sympathized with all who suffered wrong. In 1658, he went
off in their company to Rhode Island, sharing their banishment. But his
conscience would not let him rest in voluntary flight. He came[i.152]
back in 1661, to bear his testimony against oppression. He was brought
before the Court, as an abettor and shelterer of Quakers. He told the
justices that they were robbers and destroyers of the widows and
fatherless, that their priests divined for money, and that their
worship was not the worship of God. They commanded him to keep silent.
He commanded them to keep silent. They thought it best to bring the
colloquy to a close by ordering him to the stocks. They finally
concluded, upon the whole, to let him alone; and he remained here the
rest of his life. His descendants are through a daughter (who married
William Osborne) and his son Isaac. They are numerous, under both
names. Isaac was an active and respectable citizen of the village, and
a farmer of enterprise and energy. He carried on, under a lease,
Governor Endicott's farm of over five hundred acres on Ipswich River,
and had lands of his own. In subsequent generations, this family
branched off in various directions to Connecticut, Vermont, and
elsewhere. One detachment of them went to Wilton, N.H., where the
family still remains on the original homestead. The late Warren Burton,
who was born in Wilton,—a graduate of Harvard College in the class of
1821, and well known for his invaluable services in the cause of
education, philanthropy, and letters,—was a direct descendant of John
Burton, and as true to the rights of conscience as the old tanner, who
bearded the lion of persecution in the day of his utmost wrath, and in
his very den.[i.153]
Henry Herrick, who, as has been stated, purchased the Cherry-Hill farm
of Alford, was the fifth son of Sir William Herrick, of Beau Manor
Park, in the parish of Loughborough, in the county of Leicester,
England. He came first to Virginia, and then to Salem. He was
accompanied to America by another emigrant from Loughborough, named
Cleaveland. Herrick became a member of the First Church at Salem in
1629, and his wife Edith about the same time. Their fifth son, Joseph,
baptized Aug. 6, 1645, owned and occupied Cherry Hill in 1692. He
married Sarah, daughter of Richard Leach, Feb. 7, 1667. He was a man of
great firmness and dignity of character, and, in addition to the care
and management of his large farm, was engaged in foreign commerce. As
he bore the title of Governor, he had probably been at some time in
command of a military post or district, or perhaps of a West-India
colony. His descendants are numerous, and have occupied distinguished
stations, often exhibiting a transmitted military stamp. Joseph Herrick
was in the Narragansett fight. It illustrates the state of things at
that time, that this eminent citizen, a large landholder, engaged in
prosperous mercantile affairs, and who had been abroad, was, in 1692,
when forty-seven years of age, a corporal in the village company. He
was the acting constable of the place, and, as such, concerned in the
early proceedings connected with the witchcraft prosecutions. For a
while he was under the influence of the delusion; but his strong and
enlightened mind soon led him out of it. He was one of[i.154] the
petitioners in behalf of an accused person, when intercession, by any
for any, was highly dangerous; and he was a leader in the party that
rose against the fanaticism, and vindicated the characters of its
victims. He inherited a repugnance to oppression, and sympathy for the
persecuted. His father and mother appear, by a record of Court, to have
been fined "for aiding and comforting an excommunicated person,
contrary to order."
William Nichols, in 1651, bought two hundred acres, which had been
granted to Henry Bartholomew, partly in the village, but mostly beyond
the "six-mile extent," and consequently set off to Topsfield. He had
several other lots of land. He distributed nearly all his real estate,
during his lifetime, to his son John; his adopted son, Isaac Burton;
his daughters, the wives of Thomas Wilkins and Thomas Cave; and his
grand-daughter, the wife of Humphrey Case. His only son John had
several sons, and from them the name has been widely dispersed. In a
deposition dated May 14, 1694, William Nichols declares himself "aged
upwards of one hundred years." As his will was offered for Probate Feb.
24, 1696, he must have been one hundred and two years of age at his
death.
William Cantlebury was a large landholder, having purchased
three-quarters of the Corwin grant. He died June 1, 1663. His name died
with him, as he had no male issue. His property went to his daughters,
who were represented, in 1692, under the names of Small, Sibley, and
Buxton. The Flints, Popes,[i.155] Uptons, Princes, Phillipses,
Needhams, and Walcotts, had valuable farms, and appear, from the
records and documents, to have been respectable, energetic, and
intelligent people. Daniel Andrew was one of the strong men of the
village; had been a deputy to the General Court, and acted a prominent
part before and after the witchcraft convulsion. But the great family
of the village—greater in numbers and in aggregate wealth than any
other, and eminently conspicuous on both sides in the witchcraft
proceedings—remains to be mentioned.
John Putnam had a grant of one hundred acres, Jan. 20, 1641. With his
wife Priscilla, he came from Buckinghamshire, England, and was probably
about fifty years of age on his arrival in this country. He was a man
of great energy and industry, and acquired a large estate. He died in
1662, leaving three sons,—Thomas, born in 1616; Nathaniel, in 1620; and
John, in 1628. For a more convenient classification, I shall, in
speaking of this family, refer, not to the original John at all, but to
the sons as its three heads.
Thomas, the eldest, inherited a double share of his father's lands. He
was of age when he came to America, and had received a good education.
He appears to have settled, in the first instance, in Lynn, where for
several years he acted as a magistrate, holding local courts, by
appointment of the General Court. Upon removing to Salem, he was
chosen, as the town-records show, to the office of constable. This was
considered at that time as quite a distinguished position,
carrying[i.156] with it a high authority, covering the whole executive
local administration. Thomas Putnam was the first clerk of Salem
Village, and acted prominently in military, ecclesiastical, and
municipal affairs. He seems to have been a person of a quieter
temperament than his younger brothers, and led a somewhat less stirring
life. Possessing a large property by inheritance, he was not quite so
active in increasing it; but, enjoying the society and friendship of
the leading men, lived a more retired life. At the same time, he was
always ready to serve the community if called for, as he often was,
when occasion arose for the aid of his superior intelligence and
personal influence. He married first, while in Lynn, Ann, daughter of
Edward Holyoke, great-grandfather of the President of Harvard College
of that name whose son, the venerable centenarian, Dr. Edward Augustus
Holyoke, is remembered as a true Christian philosopher by the
generation still lingering on the stage. Having lost his wife on the
1st of September, 1665, he married, on the 14th of November, 1666,
Mary, widow of Nathaniel Veren; coming, through her, into possession of
property in Jamaica and Barbadoes, in which places Veren had resided,
more or less, in the prosecution of commercial business. His homestead,
as shown on the map, was occupied by his widow in 1692, and, after her
death, by her son Joseph, the father of General Israel Putnam. He had
also a town residence on the north side of Essex Street, extending back
to[i.157] the North River. Its front on Essex Street embraced the
western part of the grounds now occupied by the North Church, and
extended to a point beyond the head of Cambridge Street. He left the
eastern half of this property to his son Thomas, and the western half
to his son Joseph. To his son Edward he left another estate in the
town, on the western side of St. Peter's Street, to the north of
Federal Street.
Thomas Putnam died on the 5th of May, 1686. He left large estates in
the village to each of his children, and a valuable piece of meadow
land, of fifteen acres, to a faithful servant.
Nathaniel Putnam married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Hutchinson,
and, besides what he received from his father, came, through his wife,
into possession of seventy-five acres. On that tract he built his house
and passed his life. The property has remained uninterruptedly in his
family. One of them, the late Judge Samuel Putnam, of the Supreme Court
of Massachusetts, enjoyed it as a country residence, and it is still
held by his children. Nathaniel Putnam was a deputy to the General
Court, and constantly connected with all the interests of the
community. He had great business activity and ability, and was a person
of extraordinary powers of mind, of great energy and skill in the
management of affairs, and of singular sagacity, acumen, and quickness
of perception. He died July 23, 1700, leaving a numerous family and a
large estate.
John Putnam had the same indefatigable activity as[i.158] Nathaniel. He
was often deputy to the General Court, and accumulated a very great
landed property. He married Rebecca Prince, step-daughter of John
Gedney, and died on the 7th of April, 1710. He was buried with military
honors. He left a large family of sons and daughters. We shall often
meet him in our narrative, and gather the materials, as we go along, to
form an opinion of his character. The earliest rate-list in the parish
record book is for 1681. At that time the three brothers were all
living; the aggregate sum assessed upon ninety-four names was two
hundred pounds. The rate of Thomas was £10. 6_s._ 3_d._; that of
Nathaniel, £9. 10_s._; that of John, £8. No other person paid as much
as either of them.
These brothers, as well as many others of the large landholders in the
village, adopted the practice of giving to their sons and sons-in-law,
outright, by deed, good farms, as soon as they became heads of
families; so that, as the fathers advanced in life, their own estates
were gradually diminished; and, when unable any longer to take an
active part in managing their lands, they divided up their whole
remaining real estate, making careful contracts with their children for
an adequate maintenance, to the extent of their personal wants and
comfort. Joseph Houlton did this: so did the widow Margery Scruggs, old
William Nichols, Francis Nurse, and many others. In his last years,
John Putnam was on the rate-list for five shillings only, while all his
sons and daughters were assessed severally in large sums. In this way
they had the satisfac[i.159]tion of making their children independent,
and of seeing them take their places among the heads of the community.
Where this practice was followed, there were few quarrels in families
over the graves of parents, and controversies seldom arose about the
provisions of wills. In some cases no wills were needed to be made. It
is apparent, that, in many respects, this was a wise and good practice.
It was, moreover, a strictly just one. As the sons were growing to an
adult age, they added, by their labors, to the value of lands,—inserted
a property into them that was truly their own; and their title was duly
recognized. In a new country, land has but little value in itself; the
value is imparted by the labor that clears it and prepares it to yield
its products. In 1686, Nathaniel Putnam testified that for more than
forty years he had lived in the village, and that in the early part of
that time unimproved land brought only a shilling an acre, while a cow
was worth five pounds. In 1672, the rate of taxation on unimproved land
was a half penny per acre, and, for land on which labor had been
expended, a penny per acre. In 1685 it was taxed at the rates of three
shillings for a hundred acres of wild land, and one penny an acre for
"land within fence." The relative value of improved land constantly
increased with the length of time it had been under culture. It may be
said that labor added two-thirds to the value of land, and that he who
by the sweat of his brow added those two-thirds, to that extent owned
the land. An industrious young man went out into his[i.160] father's
woods, cut down the trees, cleared the ground, fenced it in, and
prepared it for cultivation. All that was thus added to its value was
his creation, and he its rightful owner. The right was recognized, and
full possession given him, by deed, as soon as he had opened a farm,
and built a house, and brought a wife into it.
The effect of this was to anchor a family, from generation to
generation, fast to its ancestral acres. It strengthened the ties that
bound them to their native fields. Its moral effect was beyond
calculation. When a young man was thus enabled to start in life on an
independent footing, it made a man of him while he was young. It
invested him with the dignity of a citizen by making him feel his share
of responsibility for the security and welfare of society. It gave
scope for enterprise, and inspiration to industry, at home. It led to
early marriages, under circumstances that justified them. Joseph
Putnam, the youngest son of Thomas, at the age of twenty years and
seven months, took as his bride Elizabeth, daughter of Israel Porter,
and grand-daughter of William Hathorne, when she was sixteen years and
six months old. We shall see what a valuable citizen he became; and she
was worthy of him. A large and noble family of children grew up to
honor them, one of the youngest of whom was Israel Putnam, of
illustrious Revolutionary fame.
Though there were descendants of this family in every company of
emigrants that went forth from[i.161] Salem Village, in all directions,
in every generation, to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine,
and all parts of the New England, Middle, Western, and Pacific States,
there is about as large a proportionate representation of the name
within the precincts of Salem Village to-day, as there ever was. Fifty
Putnams are at present voters in Danvers, on a list of eight hundred
names,—one-sixteenth of the whole number. The rate-schedule of 1712
shows almost precisely the same proportion.
Edward Putnam, whom we shall meet again, was baptized July 4, 1654.
After serving as deacon of the church from its organization, a period
of forty years, he resigned on account of advancing age; and in 1733,
as he was entering on his eightieth year, gave this account of his
family: "From the three brothers proceeded twelve males; from these
twelve males, forty males; and from these forty males, eighty-two
males: there were none of the name of Putnam in New England but those
from this family." With respect to their situation in life, he remarks:
"I can say with the Psalmist, I have been young, and now am old; yet I
have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor their seed begging bread
except of God, who provides for all. For God hath given to the
generation of my fathers a generous portion, neither poverty nor
riches." When the infirmities of age prevented his longer partaking in
the worship of the Lord's Day, this good old man relinquished his
residence near the church, and removed to his original homestead,
in[i.162] the neighborhood of his children, which had then been
included in the new town of Middleton. His will is dated March 11,
1731. It was offered in Probate, April 11, 1748. After making every
reasonable deduction, in view of his share of responsibility for the
earlier proceedings in the witchcraft prosecutions, we may participate
in the affection and veneration with which this amiable and
gentle-hearted man was regarded by his contemporaries.
The provisions of his will contain items which so strikingly illustrate
his character, and give us such an insight of the domestic life of the
times, that a few of them will be presented. According to the prevalent
custom, he had given good farms to his several children when they
became heads of families. In his will, he distributes the residue of
his real estate among them with carefulness and an equal hand,
describing the metes and bounds of the various tracts with great
minuteness, so as to prevent all questions of controversy among them.
He gives legacies in money to his daughters, ten pounds each; and, to
his grand-daughters, five pounds each. To one of his five sons, he
gives his "cross-cut saw." This was used to saw large logs crosswise,
having two handles worked by two persons, and distinguished from the
"pit saw," which was used to saw logs lengthwise. All his other tools
were to be divided among his sons, to one of whom he also gives his
cane; to another, his "Great Bible;" to another, "Mr. Jeremiah
Burroughs's Works;" to another, "Mr. Flavel's Works;" and, to the
other, his[i.163] "girdle and sword." To one of them he gives his desk,
and "that box wherein are so many writings;" to another, his "share in
the iron-works;" and to another, his share "in the great timber chain."
This, with other evidence, shows that there was a boom, and
arrangements on a large scale for the lumbering business, at that time,
on Ipswich River. The provisions for his wife were very considerate,
exact, and minute, so as to prevent all possibility of there being any
difficulty in reference to her rights, or of her ever suffering want or
neglect. He gives to her, absolutely and for her own disposal, the
residue of his books and all his "movable estate" in the house and out
of it, including all "cattle, sheep, swine," the whole stock of the
homestead farm, agricultural implements, and carriages. He makes it the
duty of one of his sons to furnish her with all the "firewood" she may
want, with ten bushels of corn-meal, two bushels of English meal, four
bushels of ground malt, four barrels of good cider,—he to find the
barrels—as many apples "as she shall see cause," and nine or ten score
weight of good pork, annually: he was to "keep for her two cows, winter
and summer," and generally to provide all "things needful." The will
specifies, apartment by apartment, from cellar to garret, one-half of
the house, to be for her accommodation, use, and exclusive control, and
half of the garden. The sons were to pay, in specified proportions, all
his funeral charges. One of the sons was to pay her forthwith four
pounds in money; and they were severally to deliver to her
annu[i.164]ally, in proportions expressly stated, ten pounds for pocket
money. When the relative value of money at that time is considered, and
the other particulars above named taken into account, it will be
allowed that he was faithful and wise in caring for the wife of his
youth and the companion of his long life. There is no better criterion
of the good sense and good feeling of a person than his last will and
testament. The result of a quite extensive examination is a conviction
that the application of this test to the early inhabitants of Salem
Village is most creditable to them, particularly in the tender but
judicious and effectual manner in which the rights, comfort,
independence, and security of their wives were provided for.
In the third generation, the three Putnam families began to give their
sons to the general service of the country in conspicuous public
stations, and in the professional walks of life. Their names appear on
the page of history and in the catalogues of colleges. Major-General
Israel Putnam was a grandson of the first Thomas. On the 14th of May,
1718, Archelaus, a grandson of John, and son of James, died at
Cambridge, while an undergraduate. Benjamin, a son of Nathaniel, in his
will, presented for Probate, April 25, 1715, says, "I give my son
Daniel one hundred and fifty pounds for his learning." Daniel lived and
died in the ministry, at North Reading. His name heads the list of more
than thirty—all, it is probable, of this family—in the last Triennial
Catalogue of Harvard University.[i.165]
The brightest name in the annals of Salem Village, though frequently
referred to, has not yet been presented for your contemplation. I shall
hold it up and keep it in your view by a somewhat detailed description,
not only because it is necessary to a full understanding of our
subject, but because it is good to gaze upon a life of virtue; to pause
while beholding a portrait beaming with beneficence, and radiant with
all excellent, beautiful, and attractive affections.
Nathaniel Ingersoll was about eleven years old at the death of his
father. His mother married John Knights, of Newbury, who became the
head of her household, and continued to carry on the Townsend Bishop
farm for several years. Governor Endicott, the friend and neighbor of
Richard Ingersoll, took Nathaniel, while still a lad, into his family.
In a deposition made in Court, June 24, 1701, Nathaniel Ingersoll says,
"I went to live with Governor Endicott as his servant four years, on
the Orchard Farm." At that time, the term "servant" had no derogatory
sense connected with it. It merely implied the relations between an
employer and the employed, without the least tint of the feeling which
we associate with the condition of servility. Here was a youth, who, by
his father's will, was the owner of a valuable estate of seventy-five
acres in the immediate neighborhood, voluntarily seeking the privilege
of entering the service of his father's friend, because he thereby
would be better qualified, when old enough, to enter upon his own
estate. Governor Endicott's political duties were[i.166] not then
regarded as requiring him to live in Boston; and his usual residence
was at the Orchard Farm, where he was making improvements and
conducting agricultural operations upon so large a scale that it was
the best school of instruction anywhere to be found for a young person
intending to make that his pursuit in life. Young John Putnam, as has
been stated, was there for the same purpose, under similar
circumstances.
Having built a house and barn, and provided the necessary stock and
materials, Nathaniel Ingersoll went upon his farm when about nineteen
years of age. Soon after, probably, he married Hannah Collins of Lynn,
who, during their long lives, proved a worthy helpmeet. His house was
on a larger scale than was usual at that time. One of its rooms is
spoken of as very large; and the uses to which his establishment was
put, from time to time, prove that it must have had capacious
apartments. Its site is shown on the map. The road from Salem to
Andover passed it, not at an angle as now, but by a curve. The present
parsonage of Danvers Centre stands on the lot. But Ingersoll's house
was a little in the rear of the site occupied by the present parsonage.
It faced south. In front was an open space, or lawn, called Ingersoll's
Common. Here he lived nearly seventy years. During that long period,
his doors were ever open to hospitality and benevolence. His house was
the centre of good neighborhood and of all movements for the public
welfare. His latch-string was always out[i.167] for friend or stranger.
In a military sense, and every other sense, it was the head-quarters of
the village. On his land, a few rods to the north-east, stood the
block-house where watch was kept against Indian attacks. There a
sentinel was posted day and night, under his supervision. The spot was
central to the several farming settlements; and all meetings of every
kind took place there. To accommodate the public, he was licensed to
keep a victualling-house; also to sell beer and cider by the quart "on
the Lord's Day." This last provision was for the benefit of those who
came great distances to meeting, and had to find refreshment somewhere
between the services. To meet the occasions arising out of this
business, he probably had a separate building. Indeed, the evidence, in
the language used in reference to it, is quite decisive that there was
an "ordinary," distinct from the dwelling-house. The location was
thought to render such an establishment necessary, and his character
secured its orderly maintenance.