being in itself irrational and absurd. It may cover up the details of
wrong and folly; but it leaves an unlimited range to the most
unfriendly conjecture. We are compelled to imagine what we ought to be
allowed to know; and, in many particulars, our fancies may be worse
than the facts. But later times, and public bodies of greater
pretensions than "the inhabitants of Salem Village," have attempted,
and succeeded in perpetrating, this outrage upon history. In trying to
conceal their errors, men have sometimes destroyed the means of their
vindication. This may be the case with the story that is to be told of
"Salem Witchcraft." It has been the case in reference to wider fields
of history. The Parliamentary journals and other public records of the
period of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate were suppressed by the
infatuated stupidity of the Government of the Restoration. They
foolishly imagined that they were hiding the shame, while they were
obscuring the glory, of their country. Every Englishman, every
intelligent man, now knows, that, during that very period, all that has
made England great was done. The seeds of her naval and maritime
prosperity were planted: and she was pushed at once by wise measures of
policy, internal and external; by legislation developing her resources
and invigorating the power of her people; by a decisive and
comprehensive diplomacy that commanded the respect of foreign courts,
and secured to her a controlling influence upon the traffic of the
world; by developments of her military genius under[i.276] the greatest
of all the great generals of modern times; and by naval achievements
that snatched into her hands the balancing trident of the seas,—to the
place she still holds (how much longer she may hold it remains to be
seen) as the leading power of the world. If she has to relinquish that
position, it will only be to a power that is true to the spirit, and is
not ashamed of the name, of a republic. The nation that fully develops
the policy which pervaded the records of the English Commonwealth will
be the leader of the world. The suppression of those records has not
suppressed the spirit of popular liberty, or the progress of mankind in
the path of reform, freedom, equal rights, and a true civilization. It
has only cast a shadow, which can never wholly be dispelled, over what
otherwise would have been the brightest page in the annals of a great
people. We depend for our knowledge of the steps by which England then
made a most wonderful stride to prosperity and power, not upon official
and authoritative records, but upon the desultory and sometimes merely
gossiping memoirs of particular persons, and such other miscellaneous
materials as can be picked up. The only consequence of an attempt to
extinguish the memory of republicans, radicals, reformers, and
regicides has been, that the history of England's true glory can never
be adequately written.
The referees used the following language touching the point of the
ordination of Mr. Lawson: "If more than a mere major part should not
consent to it, we[i.277] should be loath to advise our brethren to
proceed." This, in connection with the other sentence I have quoted
from their communication recommending them "to desist at present" from
urging it, was fatal to the immediate movement in his favor; and, not
seeing any prospect of their "spirits becoming better quieted and
composed," and weary of the attempt to bring them to any comfortable
degree of unanimity, Mr. Lawson threw up his connection with them, and
removed back to Boston. We shall meet him again; but it is well to
despatch at this point what is to be said of his character and history.
It is evident that Deodat Lawson had received the best education of his
day. It is not easy to account for his not having left a more
distinguished mark in Old or New England. He had much learning and
great talents. Of his power in getting up pulpit performances in the
highest style of eloquence, of which that period afforded remarkable
specimens, I shall have occasion to speak. Among his other attainments,
he was, what cannot be said of learned and professional men generally
now any more than then, an admirable penman. The village parish adopted
the practice at the beginning, when paying the salaries of its
ministers from time to time, instead of taking receipts on detached and
loose pieces of paper, of having them write them out in their own hand
on the pages of the record-book, with their signatures. It is a luxury,
in looking over the old volume, to come upon the receipts of Deodat
Lawson, in his plain, round hand.[i.278] A specimen is given among the
autographs. His chirography is easy, free, graceful, clear, and clean.
It unites with wonderful taste the highest degrees of simplicity and
ornament. Each style is used, and both are blended, as occasion
required. During his ministry, the trouble about the old record-book
occurred. The first four pages of the new book are in his handwriting.
The ink has somewhat faded; the paper has become discolored, and,
around the margins and at the bottom of the leaves, lamentably worn and
broken. The first page exhibits Lawson's penmanship in its various
styles. It is artistically executed in several sizes of letters,
appropriate to the position of the clauses and the import and weight of
the matter. In each there is an elegant combination of ornament and
simplicity. His chirography was often had in requisition; and papers,
evidently from his pen, are on file in various cases, occurring in
court at the time, in which his friends were interested.
The first four ministers of the village parish were excellent penmen.
Bayley's hand is more like the modern style than the rest. Burroughs's
is as legible as print, uniform in its character, open and upright. The
specimen among the autographs is from the record referred to at the top
of page 262. As it was written at the bottom of a page in the
record-book, where there was hardly sufficient room, it had to be in a
slanting line. I give it just as it there appears. Parris wrote three
different hands, all perfectly easy to read. The larger kind was used
when signing his[i.281] name to important papers, or in brief entries
of record. The specimen I give is from a receipt in the parish-book,
which Thomas Putnam, as clerk, made oath in court, that Parris wrote
and signed in his presence. His notes of examinations of persons
charged with witchcraft by the committing magistrate, many of which are
preserved, are in his smallest hand, very minute, but always legible.
In his church-records he uses sometimes a medium hand, and sometimes
the smallest. The autographs of Townsend Bishop and Thomas Putnam show
the handwriting that seems to have prevailed among well-educated people
in England at the time of the first settlement of this country. There
was often a profusion of flourishes that obscured the letters. The
initial capitals were quite complicated and very curious. The signature
of Thomas Putnam, Jr., exhibits his excellent handwriting.
[i.279]
autographs
[i.280]
autographs
I have adduced these facts and given these illustrations to show, that,
in this branch of education,—the value and desirableness of which
cannot be overrated,—it is at least an open question, whether we have
much ground to boast of being in advance of the first generations of
our ancestors in America. The early ministers of the Salem Village
parish certainly compare, in this particular, favorably with ministers
and professional men, and recording officers generally in public bodies
of all kinds, in later times.
Sergeant Thomas Putnam did not act as clerk of the parish from April,
1687, to April, 1694. A few entries are made by his hand; but the
record, very[i.282] meagre and fragmentary, is for the most part made
by others. This is much to be regretted, as the interval covers the
very period of our history. His time, probably, was taken up, and his
mind wholly engrossed, by an unhappy family difficulty, in which,
during that period, he was involved. Thomas Putnam Sr. died, as has
been stated, in 1686. It was thought, by the children of his first
wife, that the influence of the second wife had been unduly exercised
over him, in his last years, so as to induce him to make a will giving
to her, and her only child by him, Joseph, a very unfair proportion of
his estate. It was felt by them to be so unjust that they attempted to
break the will. The management of the case was confided to Sergeant
Thomas Putnam, as the eldest son of the family; and the affair, it may
be supposed, absorbed his thoughts to such a degree as to render it
necessary for him to abandon his services as clerk of the parish. The
attempt to set aside the will failed. The circumstances connected with
the subject disturbed very seriously—perhaps permanently—the happiness
of the whole family, and may have contributed to create the morbid
excitement which afterwards was so fearfully displayed by the wife of
the younger Thomas.
While Mr. Lawson was at the village, he lost his wife and daughter. In
1690, he was again married, to Deborah Allen. He was settled afterwards
over the Second Society in Scituate,—it is singular that our local
histories do not tell us when, but that we get all we know on the point
from a sentence written by the[i.283] pen on a leaf of one of the two
folio volumes of John Quick's "Synodicon in Gallia Reformata," in the
possession of a gentleman in this country, Henry M. Dexter, who says it
is evidently Quick's autograph. It is in these words: "For my reverend
and dear brother, Mr. Lawson, minister of the gospel, and pastor of the
church of Scituate, in the province of Massachusetts in New England;
from the publisher, John Quick, _honoris et amoris ergo_, Aug. 6,
1693." In 1696, Mr. Lawson went over to England, merely for a short
visit, as his people supposed. They heard from him no more. He never
asked a dismission, or communicated with them in any way. In 1698, an
ecclesiastical council declared them free to settle another minister,
which they did in due time. He was, no doubt, alive and in London when,
in 1704, his famous Salem Village sermon was reprinted there. But this
is the last glimpse we have of him. An inscrutable mystery covers the
rest of his history. His manner of leaving the Scituate parish shows
him to have been an eccentric person, leaves an unfavorable impression
of his character, and is as inexplicable as the only other reference to
him that has thus far been found. Calamy, in his "Continuation of the
Account of Ejected Ministers," published in 1727, has a notice of
Thomas Lawson, whom he describes as minister of Denton in the county of
Norfolk, educated at Katherine Hall in Cambridge, and afterwards chosen
"to a fellowship in St. John's. He was a man of parts, but had no good
utterance. He was the[i.284] father of the unhappy Mr. Deodat Lawson,
who came hither from New England." With all his abilities, learning,
and eloquence, he disappears, after the re-publication of his Salem
Village sermon in London, in the dark, impenetrable cloud of this
expression, "the unhappy Mr. Deodat Lawson." Of the melancholy fate
implied in the language of Calamy, I have not been able to obtain the
slightest information.
The troubles that covered the whole period, since the beginning of Mr.
Bayley's ministry, had led to the neglect and derangement of the entire
organization of the Village, and resulted in the loss of what little
opportunities for education might otherwise have been provided. So
great was this evil regarded, that the old town felt it necessary to
interpose; and we find it voted Jan. 24, 1682, that "Lieutenant John
Putnam is desired, and is hereby empowered, to take care that the law
relating to the catechising of children and youth be duly attended at
the Village." He is also "desired to have a diligent care that all the
families do carefully and constantly attend the due education of their
children and youth according to law." We cannot but feel that the man
who was ready to fight the "Topsfield men" in the woods—who, when they
asked him, "What, by violence?" answered, with axe in hand, "Ay, by
violence," and who figured in the manner described in the scene with
Mr. Burroughs—was a singular person to intrust with the charge of
"catechising the children and youth." But those were queer times, and
he was a queer character. He[i.285] had always been a church-member;
and, to the day of his death, church and prayer meetings were more
frequently held at his house than in any other. He was a rough man, but
he was no hypocrite. He was in the front of every encounter; but he was
tolerant, too, of difference of opinion. When, at one time, the
contests of the Village were at their height, and two committees were
raised representing the two conflicting parties, he was at the head of
one, and his eldest son (Jonathan) of the other. Their opposition does
not seem to have alienated them. While I have found it necessary to
hold him up, in some of his actions, for condemnation, there were many
good points about him; although he was not the sort of man that would
be likely, in our times, to be selected to execute the functions of a
Sunday-school teacher.
During all this period, there was a variety of minor controversies
among themselves, causing greater or less disturbance. Joseph
Hutchinson, who had given a site out of his homestead-grounds for the
meeting-house, had no patience with their perpetual wranglings. He
fenced up his lands around the meeting-house lot, leaving them an
entrance on the end towards the road. They went to court about it, and
he was called to account by the usual process of law. The plain, gruff
old farmer, who seems all along to have been a man of strong sense and
decided character, filed an answer, which is unsurpassed for bluntness
of expression. It has no language of ceremony, but goes to the point at
once. It has a general inter[i.286]est as showing, to how late a period
the inhabitants of this neighborhood were exposed to Indian attacks,
and what means of defence were resorted to by the Village worshippers.
The document manifests the contempt in which he held the complainants,
and it was all the satisfaction they got.
"Joseph Hutchinson his answer is as followeth:—
"First, as to the covenant they spoke of, I conceive it is neither
known of by me nor them, as will appear by records from the farmer's
book.
"Second, I conceive they have no cause to complain of me for fencing in
my own land; for I am sure I fenced in none of theirs. I wish they
would not pull down my fences. I am loath to complain, though I have
just cause.
"Third, for blocking up the meeting-house, it was they did it, and not
I, in the time of the Indian wars; and they made Salem pay for it. I
wish they would bring me my rocks they took to do it with; for I want
them to make fence with.
"Thus, hoping this honored Court will see that there was no just cause
to complain against me, and their cause will appear unjust in that they
would in an unjust way take away my land, I trust I shall have relief;
so I rest, your Honor's servant,
Joseph Hutchinson."
[Nov. 27, 1686.]
The next minister of Salem Village brought matters to a crisis. Samuel
Parris is stated to have been a son of Thomas Parris, of London, and
was born in 1653. He was, for a time, a member of Harvard College, but
did not finish the academic course, being[i.287] drawn to a commercial
life. He was engaged in the West-India business, and probably lived at
Barbadoes. After a while, he abandoned commerce, and prepared himself
for the ministry. There was at this time, and long subsequently, a very
particular mercantile connection between Salem and Barbadoes. The
former husband of the wife of Thomas Putnam, Sr.,—Nathaniel Veren,—as
has been stated, had property in that island, and was more or less
acquainted with its people. Perhaps it was through this channel that
the thoughts of the people of the Village were turned towards Mr.
Parris. From a deposition made by him a few years afterwards in a suit
at law between him and his parishioners, we learn some interesting
facts relating to the negotiations that led to his settlement.
It appears from his statement that a committee, consisting of "Captain
John Putnam, Mr. Joshua Rea, Sr., and Francis Nurse," was appointed, on
the 15th of November, 1688, to treat with him "about taking ministerial
office." On the 25th of November, "after the services in the afternoon,
the audience was stayed, and, by a general vote, requested Mr. Parris
to take office." He hung back for a while, and exercised the skill and
adroitness acquired in his mercantile life in making as sharp a bargain
as he could.
At that time, there appeared to be a degree of harmony among the
people, such as they had never known before. There was a disposition on
all sides to come together, and avail themselves of the occasion
of[i.288] settling a new minister, to bury their past animosities, and
forget their grievances; and there is every reason to believe, if Mr.
Parris had promptly closed with their terms, he might have enjoyed a
peaceful ministry, and a happy oblivion have covered for ever his name
and the history of the village. But he withheld response to the call.
The people were impatient, and felt that the golden opportunity might
be lost, and the old feuds revive. On the 10th of December, another
committee was raised, consisting of Lieutenant Nathaniel Putnam,
Sergeant Fuller, Mr. Joshua Rea, Sr., and Sergeant Ingersoll, as
"messengers, to know whether Mr. Parris would accept of office." His
answer was, "the work was weighty; they should know in due time." They
were thus kept in suspense during the whole winter, getting no reply
from him. On the 29th of April, 1689, "Deacons Nathaniel Ingersoll and
Edward Putnam, Daniel Rea, Thomas Fuller, Jr., and John Tarbell, came
to Mr. Parris from the meeting-house," where there had been a general
meeting of the inhabitants, and said, "Being the aged men had had the
matter of Mr. Parris's settlement so long in hand, and effected
nothing, they were desirous to try what the younger could do." Deacon
Ingersoll was about fifty-five years of age; but his spirit and
character kept him in sympathy with the progressive impulses of younger
men. Deacon Putnam was thirty-four years of age. Daniel Rea was the son
of Joshua; Thomas Fuller, Jr., the son of Sergeant Fuller; and John
Tarbell, the son-in-law of Francis Nurse.[i.289]
This is the first appearance, I believe, in our history, of that
notorious and most pretentious personage who has figured so largely in
all our affairs ever since, "Young America." The sequel shows, that, in
this instance at least, no benefit arose from discarding the caution
and experience of years. The "younger men" were determined to "go
ahead." They said they were desirous of a speedy answer. Finding them
in a temper to "finish the thing up," at any rate, and seeing that they
were ambitious to get the credit of "effecting something," and, for
that end, predisposed to come to his terms, he disclosed them. They had
offered him a salary of sixty pounds per annum,—one third in money, the
rest in provisions, at certain specified rates. He agreed to accept the
call on the foregoing terms, with certain additional conditions thus
described by himself: "First, when money shall be more plenteous, the
money part to be paid me shall accordingly be increased. Second, though
corn or like provisions should arise to a higher price than you have
set, yet, for my own family use, I shall have what is needful at the
price now stated, and so if it fall lower. Third, the whole sixty
pounds to be only from our inhabitants that are dwelling in our bounds,
proportionable to what lands they have within the same. Fourth, no
provision to be brought in without first asking whether needed, and
myself to make choice of what, unless the person is unable to pay in
any sort but one. Fifth, firewood to be given in yearly, freely. Sixth,
two men to be chosen yearly to see that due payments be made.[i.290]
Seventh, contributions each sabbath in papers; and only such as are in
papers, and dwelling within our bounds, to be accounted a part of the
sixty pounds. Eighth, as God shall please to bless the place so as to
be able to rise higher than the sixty pounds, that then a
proportionable increase be made. If God shall please, for our sins, to
diminish the substance of said place, I will endeavor accordingly to
bear such losses, by proportionable abatements of such as shall
reasonably desire it."
A contribution-box was either handed around by the deacons, before the
congregation was dismissed, or attached permanently near the porch or
door. Rate-payers would inclose their money in papers, with their
names, and drop them in. When the box was opened, the sums inclosed
would be entered to their credit on the rate-schedule. There was always
a considerable number of stated worshippers in the congregation who
lived without the bounds of the village, and often transient visitors
or strangers happened to be at meeting. It was a point that had not
been determined, whether moneys collected from the above descriptions
of persons should go into the general treasury of the parish, to be
used in meeting their contract to pay the minister's salary, or be kept
as a separate surplus.
The terms, as thus described by Mr. Parris, show that he had profited
by his experience in trade, and knew how to make a shrewd bargain. It
was quite certain that a farming community in a new country, with
fields continually reclaimed from the wilderness and[i.291] added to
culture, would increase in substance: if so, his annual stipend would
increase. If the place should decline, he was to abate the tax of
individuals, if desired by them personally, so far as he should judge
their petition to that effect reasonable. If "strangers' money," or
contributions from "outsiders," were not to go to make up his sixty
pounds, it was quite probable that it would come into his pocket as an
extra allowance, or perquisite.
He says that the committee accepted these terms, and agreed to them,
expressing their belief that the people also would. No record appears
on the parish-books of the appointment of this committee of the
"younger men," or of the action of the society on their report, or of
any report having been made at that time. In the mean while, Mr. Parris
continued to preach and act as the minister of the society until his
ordination, near the close of the year. There was a meeting on the 21st
of May; but the record consists of but a single entry,—the appointment
of a committee "as overseers for the year ensuing, to take care of our
meeting-house and other public charges, and to make return according to
law." The next entry is of a general meeting of the inhabitants, on the
18th of June, 1689. The choice of the regular standing committee for
the year is recorded. Immediately following this entry, are these
words:—
"At the same meeting,—the 18th of June, 1689,—it was agreed and voted
by general concurrence, that, for Mr. Parris, his encouragement and
settlement in the work of the[i.292] ministry amongst us, we will give
him sixty six pounds for his yearly salary,—one-third paid in money,
the other two-third parts for provisions, &c.; and Mr. Parris to find
himself firewood, and Mr. Parris to keep the ministry-house in good
repair; and that Mr. Parris shall also have the use of the
ministry-pasture, and the inhabitants to keep the fence in repair; and
that we will keep up our contributions, and our inhabitants to put
their money in papers, and this to continue so long as Mr. Parris
continues in the work of the ministry amongst us, and all productions
to be good and merchantable. And, if it please God to bless the
inhabitants, we shall be willing to give more; and to expect, that if
God shall diminish the estates of the people, that then Mr. Parris do
abate of his salary according to proportion."
Comparing this record with the account given by Mr. Parris of the eight
conditions upon which he agreed, in conference with the committee of
the "younger" sort, on the 29th of April, to accept the call of the
parish, the difference is not very essential. The matter of firewood
was arranged, according to his account, by mutual agreement, they to
add six pounds to his salary, and he to find his own wood. The rates of
"the inhabitants" were to be paid "in papers." The only point of
difference, touching this matter, is that the record is silent about
contributions by outsiders and strangers; whereas he says it was
agreed, on the 29th of April, that they should not go towards making up
his salary. The idea of his salary rising with the growth and sinking
with the decline of the society is expressed in the record[i.293]
substantially as it is by him, only it is made exact; and, in case of a
decline in the means of the people, a corresponding decline is to be in
the aggregate of his salary, and not by abatements made by him in
individual cases. The variations are nearly, if not quite, all
unimportant in their nature, and such as a regard to mutual convenience
would suggest. Yet there was something in the above record which highly
exasperated Mr. Parris.
In his deposition he states, that, at a meeting held on the 17th of
May, of which there is no record in the parish book, he was sent for
and was present. He says that there was "much agitation" at the
meeting. He says that objection was made by the people to two of his
"eight" conditions, the fifth and seventh. But there is nothing in the
record of the 18th of June in conflict with what he says was finally
agreed upon, except the disposition that should be made of "strangers'
money." The question then recurs, What was the cause of the "much
agitation" at that meeting? What was it in the language of that record
which always so excited Mr. Parris's wrath?