It is now upwards of two centuries and a quarter since the despotic
sway of the English Sovereigns over the consciences of their
subjects, induced all who entertained different sentiments from those
of the established church, to turn their eyes towards the wilderness
of America, as an asylum from the unnatural persecutions of the
Mother Country.
With this in view, some of the principal men among those who had
already sought a refuge in Holland, commenced treating with the
Virginia Company, and at the same time took measures to ascertain
whether the King would grant them liberty of conscience should they
remove thither. They ultimately effected a satisfactory arrangement
with the Company, but from James they could obtain no public
recognition of religious liberty, but merely a promise, that if
they behaved peaceably he would not molest them on account of their
religious opinions.
On the 6th of September, 1620, a detachment from the Church at
Leyden set sail from Plymouth for the Virginia territory, but owing
to the treachery of the master,[2] they were landed at Cape Cod,
and ultimately at Plymouth, on the 11th day of December following.
Finding themselves without the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company,
they established a distinct government for themselves.
In the year 1624, the success of this plantation was so favorably
represented in the West of England, that the Rev. John White, a
distinguished minister in Dorchester, prevailed upon some merchants
and others to undertake another settlement in New England. Having
provided a common stock, they sent over several persons to begin a
plantation at Cape Ann, where they were joined by some disaffected
individuals from the Plymouth settlement. This project was soon
abandoned as unprofitable, and a portion of the settlers removed
westward within the territory of Naumkeag, which then included
what is now Manchester. By the intercession and great exertions
of Mr. White, the project of a settlement in that quarter was not
altogether relinquished, but a new company was soon afterwards
formed. One of this company, and the principal one to carry its
objects into immediate effect, was the subject of this Memoir. He
was in the _strictest_ sense of the word a _Puritan_,--one of a
sect composed, as an able foreign writer has said, of the "most
remarkable body of men which perhaps the world has ever produced.
They were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the
daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not
content with acknowledging in general terms an overruling Providence,
they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being
for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing
was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with
them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt the
ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the homage of
the soul. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they
looked down with contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a
more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language;
nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the
imposition of a mightier hand."
* * * * *
JOHN ENDECOTT, whose name is so intimately associated with the first
settlement of this country, and with whose early history his own is
so closely interwoven, that, in the language of the late Rev. Dr.
Bentley,[3] "above all others he deserved the name of _the_ FATHER OF
NEW ENGLAND," was born in Dorchester, Dorsetshire, England, in the
year 1588. He was a man of good intellectual endowments and mental
culture, and of a fearless and independent spirit, which well fitted
him for the various and trying duties he was destined to perform. Of
his early life, and private and domestic character, little is known;
neither are we much better informed as to his parentage, except
that his family was of respectable standing and moderate fortunes.
He belonged to that class in England called esquires, or gentlemen,
composed mostly at that period of the independent landholders of the
realm. With the exception, therefore, of a few leading incidents,
we are reluctantly obliged to pass over nearly the whole period of
Mr. Endecott's life, previous to his engaging in the enterprise for
the settlement of New England. History is almost silent upon the
subject, and the tradition of the family has been but imperfectly
transmitted and preserved. His letters, the only written productions
which are left us, furnish internal evidence that he was a man of
liberal education and cultivated mind. There are proofs of his
having been, at some period of his life, a surgeon;[4] yet, as he
is always alluded to, in the earliest records of the Massachusetts
Company, by the title of Captain, there can be no doubt whatever
that at some time previous to his emigration to this country, he had
held a commission in the army; and his subsequently passing through
the several military grades to that of Sergeant Major-General of
Massachusetts, justifies this conclusion, while the causes which led
to this change in his profession cannot now be ascertained.
While a resident in London, he married a lady of an influential
family, by the name of Anna Gouer, by whom, it is understood, he
had no children. She was cousin to Matthew Cradock, the Governor
of the Massachusetts Company in England. If tradition be correct,
the circumstances which brought about this connection were similar
to those which are related of John Alden and Miles Standish. Some
needle-work, wrought by this lady, is still preserved in the Museum
of the Salem East India Marine Society.[5] Mr. Endecott was also a
brother-in-law of Roger Ludlow, Assistant and Deputy Governor of
Massachusetts Colony, in the year 1634, and afterwards famous for the
distinguished part he took in the government of Connecticut.
But Mr. Endecott's highest claim to distinction rests upon the fact
that he was an intrepid and successful leader of the Pilgrims, and
the earliest pioneer of the Massachusetts settlement under the
Patent. His name is found enrolled among the very foremost of that
noble band, the fathers and founders of New England--those pious and
devout men, who, firm in the faith of the gospel, and trusting in
God, went fearlessly forward in the daring enterprise, and hewed
their homes and their altars out of the wild forest, where they
could worship "the God of their fathers agreeably to the dictates
of their own consciences." Such was the persecution to which the
Non-conformists in England were at this period subjected, that the
works of nature were the only safe witnesses of their devotions.
Deriving no honor, so far as we know, from illustrious ancestry, Mr.
Endecott was the architect of his own fame, and won the laurels which
encircle his name amid sacrifices, sufferings, and trials, better
suited to adorn an historical romance, than to accompany a plain tale
of real life.
Under the guidance and influence of the Rev. Mr. Skelton, he embraced
the principles of the Puritans; and in the beginning of the year
1628, associated himself with Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Young,
Simon Whetcomb, John Humphrey, and Thomas Southcoat, in the purchase
of a grant, "by a considerable sum of money," for the settlement
of the Massachusetts Bay, from the Plymouth Council in England.
This grant was subsequently confirmed by Patent from Charles I. Mr.
Endecott was one of the original patentees, and among the first of
that company who emigrated to this country.
Whatever may have been the objects of the first settlers generally
in colonizing New England, there can be no doubt that _his_ was the
establishment and enjoyment of the gospel and its ordinances, as he
supposed, in primitive purity, unmolested. With him it was wholly a
religious enterprise.
He sailed from Weymouth, in the ship Abigail, Henry Gauden, master,
on the 20th of June, 1628, and arrived in safety at Naumkeag, the
place of his destination, on the 6th of September following. The
company consisted of about one hundred planters.
The following extract from "Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence"
will illustrate the estimation in which he was held at this period.
"The much honored John Indicat came over with them, to governe; a
fit instrument to begin this Wildernesse-worke; of courage bold,
undaunted, yet sociable, and of a cheerfull spirit, loving and
austere, applying himselfe to either as occasion served. And now let
no man be offended at the Author's rude Verse, penned of purpose to
keepe in memory the Names of such worthies as Christ made strong for
himselfe, in this unwonted worke of his.
"_John Endicat, twice Governur of the English, inhabiting the
Mattachusets Bay in N. England._
"Strong valiant John, wilt thou march on, and take up station first,
Christ cal'd hath thee, his Souldier be, and faile not of thy trust;
Wilderness wants Christs grace supplants, then plant his Churches pure,
With Tongues gifted, and graces led, help thou to his procure;
Undaunted thou wilt not allow, Malignant men to wast:
Christs Vineyard heere, whose grace should cheer his well-beloved's tast.
Then honored be, thy Christ hath thee their General promoted:
To shew their love in place above, his people have thee voted.
Yet must thou fall, to grave with all the Nobles of the Earth.
Thou rotting worme to dust must turn, and worse but for new birth."
To this company, under Endecott, belongs the honor of having
formed the first permanent and legally recognized settlement of
the Massachusetts Colony. We do not say that they were the _first_
white men who ever trod the soil; for we know when Endecott landed
on these shores, he found here a few fishermen and others, the
remnant of a planting, trading, and fishing establishment, previously
commenced at Cape Ann, under the auspices of some gentlemen belonging
to Dorchester, his native place, but soon abandoned for want of
success. Their leader, the Rev. John Lyford, had already emigrated
to Virginia, and those of that company who removed their effects
to Salem, consisted at that time of some five or six persons, most
of whom were seceders from the settlement at Plymouth. They were,
however, only sojourners, disaffected with the place, and requiring
all the interest and entreaties of the Rev. John White, a noted
minister in Dorchester, to prevent them from forsaking it altogether,
and following Mr. Lyford to Virginia.[6] But higher motives and
deeper purposes fired the souls and stimulated the hearts of Mr.
Endecott and his friends to commence a settlement, and to form
new homes for themselves and their posterity in this wilderness,
before which the mere considerations of traffic and gain sink into
comparative insignificance. It was the love of religion implanted
deep in the heart, that gave impulse and permanency to the settlement
at Naumkeag, and the Massachusetts Colony generally; and the
commencement of this era was the arrival of Endecott with the first
detachment of those holy and devout men who valued earthly pursuits
only so far as they were consistent with religion. It was also at
this period that a sort of definite reality was imparted to this
region. Previously to this it had been viewed as a sort of _terra
incognita_, situated somewhere in the wilderness of America. But
the arrival of the Pilgrims at this time dispelled the uncertainty
in which it had before been wrapped, and at the same time threw
around it the warmest sympathies and most earnest solicitude of
large numbers who had now become deeply interested in its welfare.
We, therefore, consider the landing of Endecott at this place, as
emphatically the commencement of its permanent settlement, as an
asylum for the persecuted and oppressed of the Mother Country. All
previous visitors were comparatively adventurers, with motives and
purposes widely different from those of that little band who first
rested upon this spot on the 6th of September, 1628. On that day, so
to speak, was breathed into the settlement of Naumkeag the breath of
life, and it became as it were endued with a living soul, folding
within its embrace the dearest interests and most cherished rights of
humanity, unrivalled in the interest she will ever excite as the most
ancient town in the Massachusetts Patent.
On Mr. Endecott's arrival, he made known to the planters who preceded
him, that he and his associate patentees had purchased all the
property and privileges of the Dorchester partners, both here and at
Cape Ann. He shortly after removed from the latter place, for his own
private residence, the frame house, which a few years before had been
erected there by the Dorchester Company. It was a tasteful edifice,
of two stories high, and of the prevailing order of architecture at
that period, called the Elisabethean, which was but of slight remove
from the Gothic. Some of its hard oak frame may still be found in
the building at the corner of Washington and Church streets, Salem,
commonly known at this day as the "Endicott House."
The alteration which now took place in the affairs of the infant
colony did not meet with favor from the first planters, and for a
while prevented perfect harmony from prevailing in the settlement.
"One of the subjects of discord was the propriety of raising tobacco,
Mr. Endecott and his council believing such a production, except for
medicinal purposes, injurious both to health and morals." Besides
this, they probably viewed with no favorable eye the agreement
in sentiment between Mr. Endecott and the Plymouth Church as to
the propriety of abolishing the ritual forms of worship of the
Church of England; for an adherence to which they had already been
obliged to leave the Plymouth settlement. Mr. Endecott represented
these difficulties to the home government; and in answer to his
communication they say, "That it may appear as well to all the worlde
as to the old planters themselves, that we seke not to make them
slaves, as it seems by your letter some of them think themselves to
be become by means of our patent, they are allowed to be partakers
with us in all the privileges we have with so much labor and
intercession obtained from the King; to be incorporated into the
society, and enjoy not only those lands which formerly they have
manured, but such a further proportion as the civil authorities think
best." They were also allowed the _exclusive_ privilege of raising
their favorite weed--tobacco.
The Company's Court in London, actuated by that true sense of
justice which ever marked its deliberations, were determined not to
trespass on any of the rights of the aborigines; and to this purpose
in their first two communications to Mr. Endecott, they desired
him to take especial care, "that no wrong or injury be offered by
any of our people to the natives there," and to satisfy every just
claim which might be made by them to the territory of Naumkeag and
the plantation generally. To this record the sons of the Pilgrims
have ever turned with peculiar pride and exultation. And, says
Felt, "From his well-known promptitude and high sense of equity,
there can be no doubt that Mr. Endecott fulfilled every iota of
such instructions." In his first letters to the home government, he
suggested various things to advance the interests of the Colony; such
as the manufacture of salt, cultivation of vineyards, sending over
fruit-stones and kernels, grain for seed, wheat, barley, and rye;
also certain domesticated animals; all of which were shortly after
transported to this country.
The answer to this letter bears the date of April 19, 1629, wherein
they inform him, that the Company "are much enlarged since his
departure out of England," and for strengthening their grant from
the Council at Plymouth, they had obtained a confirmation of it from
his Majesty by his Letters Patent, under the broad seal of England;
incorporating them into a body politic, with ample powers to govern
and rule all his Majesty's subjects that reside within the limits of
their plantation; and that, in prosecution of the good opinion they
have always entertained of him, they have confirmed him Governor
of the Colony. No adventitious circumstances of fortune or birth
aided him in his appointment to this, even then responsible office;
for although the Colony was at this time few in numbers and feeble
in effort, yet in its success were involved the most momentous
interests, and every thing depended upon the right impulse and
direction being given to its affairs. In the words of the Record,
"having taken into due consideration the _meritt_, _worth_, and _good
desert_ of Captain John Endecott, and others lately gone over from
hence, with purpose to resyde and continue there, wee have with full
consent and authoritie of this Court, and ereccon of hands, chosen
and elected the said Captain John Endecott to the place of present
Governour of said Plantation." They further speak of the confidence
they repose in him, in thus committing the affairs of the Colony into
his hands. Gov. Cradock also compliments him upon his motives and
conduct; and the Company inform him, that they are disappointed of
the provisions ordered to be sent for himself and Mrs. Endecott, but
(God willing,) they purpose to send them by the next vessel. It is
also believed that at this time Mr. Endecott ordered the fruit-trees,
which afterwards constituted his orchard upon the farm granted him in
1632, of which one venerable patriarch, the celebrated old pear-tree,
yet remains, having withstood the "peltings of pitiless storms" for
upwards of two hundred winters, and still dropping down its rich
fruit into the bosoms of his distant descendants.
In a second letter, dated the 28th of May following, the Company
remark: "Wee have sithence our last, and according as we there
advised, at a _full_ and _ample_ Court assembled _elected_ and
_established_ you, Captain John Endecott, to the place of present
Governour of our Plantation there, as also some others to be of the
Council with you, as more particularly you will perceive by an Act of
Court herewith sent, confirmed by us at a General Court and sealed
with our common seal."
The model of the Government established by this "Act of Court,"
consisted of a Governor, and twelve persons as a Council, styled "THE
GOVERNOUR AND COUNCIL OF LONDON'S PLANTATION IN THE MATTACHUSETTS
BAY IN NEW ENGLAND." They were to elect a Deputy-Governor, for
the time being, from among their number; were authorized also to
choose a Secretary and other needful officers. They were empowered
to fill vacancies in their body, occasioned by death or otherwise.
The Governor, or in his absence the Deputy, might call Courts at
pleasure, and they had power to establish any laws not at variance
with those of England; "to administer justice upon malefactors, and
inflict condign punishment upon all offenders." To make an act valid,
the Governor or his Deputy was always to vote with the majority. A
form of oath was sent over at this time to be administered to Mr.
Endecott as Governor, and one also for the other officers of the
government. He took the oath and was inducted into office. Here,
then, we conceive, is direct and incontrovertible testimony that
Endecott was appointed the _first_ Governor of Massachusetts under
its Colonial Charter from the King. It is so stated by Joselyn,
Hutchinson, and Prince. He received the Charter, and the documentary
evidence of his constitutional authority as Governor, both at the
same time. To Mr. Endecott was given, to act under it, all the powers
which his immediate successors ever exercised. They were conferred
upon him too, by the same body who subsequently elected Mr. Winthrop
to that office. The abolishment of the board of control in England,
and the transfer of "the government of the plantation to those that
shall inhabit there," and instead of choosing the Colonial Governors
in Old England by members of the Company there, to choose them by
members of the same Company who were in New England, could not weaken
the validity of his claim to be considered the _first_ Governor of
the Massachusetts Colony.
It was well for Mr. Endecott that he possessed an ardent and sanguine
temperament, which nothing could daunt, otherwise the innumerable
discouraging circumstances which met him in this, his new abode, in
every form, amid sickness, death, and privations of every kind, well
suited to appal the stoutest hearts, would no doubt have wrought
their effects upon him, to the prejudice of the whole plantation.
But such was the energy and firmness of his character, aided, no
doubt, by a religious enthusiasm, which induced the belief that it
was the purpose of God to give them the land of the heathen as an
inheritance, that neither his faith nor confidence in the ultimate
success of the undertaking ever for a moment forsook him. In every
crisis, this little band looked to him, as the weather-beaten and
tempest-tossed mariner looks to his commander, next to God, for
encouragement and support; and they did not look in vain. Such was
the great mortality among them, during the first winter after their
arrival, arising from exposure to the rigors of an untried climate,
and their being badly fed and badly lodged, that there were scarcely
found in the settlement well persons enough to nurse and console
the sick. To enhance their distress, they were destitute of any
regular medical assistance. In this painful dilemma a messenger
was despatched by Mr. Endecott to Gov. Bradford, of the Plymouth
settlement, to procure the necessary aid; and Doctor Samuel Fuller,
the physician, who was a prominent member and deacon of the Plymouth
Church, was sent among them. During his visit, Mr. Endecott was
called by Divine Providence to suffer one of the heaviest of earthly
afflictions, in the death of his wife, the partner of all his
sorrows, who had forsaken home, kindred, and the sympathy of friends,
and consented to share with him the cares and privations incident to
a new settlement. Surrounded by savages, and from the circumstances
of the case, placed in a great degree beyond the pale of civilized
society, her sympathy and counsel must necessarily have been very
dear to him. She must have entwined herself about his affections, as
the tender ivy winds itself round the lordly oak. Her slender and
delicate frame was not proof against the rigors of a New England
climate. Born and nurtured in the midst of luxury and ease, she could
not withstand the privations and hardships of her new home, and she
fell a victim to her self-sacrificing disposition. Painful indeed
must have been the parting, and severe the trial to Mr. Endecott.
Under the influence of the feelings which this affliction produced,
he wrote the following letter to Gov. Bradford:--
"RIGHT WORSHIPFULLE SIR,--
"It is a thing not usual that servants of one Master, and of
the same household, should be strangers. I assure you I desire
it not; Nay, to speak more plainly, I _cannot_ be so to _you_.
God's people are all marked with one and the same mark, and have
for the main one and the same heart, guided by one and the same
spirit of truth; and where this is there can be no discord,
nay, here must needs be a sweet harmony; and the same request
with you, I make unto the Lord, that we as Christian brethren
be united by an heavenly and unfeigned love, binding all our
hearts and forces in furthering a work beyond our strength with
reverence and fear, fastening our eyes always on Him that is only
able to direct and prosper all our ways. I acknowledge myself
much bound to you, for your kind love and care in sending Mr.
Fuller amongst us, and rejoice much that I am by him satisfied,
touching your judgment of the outward form of God's worship:
It is as far as I can gather no other than is warranted by the
evidence of truth, and the same which I have professed and
maintained ever since the Lord in mercy revealed himself unto
mee, being far from the common report that hath been spread of
you in that particular; but God's people must not look for less
here below, and it is a great mercy of God that he strengtheneth
them to go through it. I shall not need at this time to enlarge
unto you for (God willing) I propose to see your face shortly; in
the mean tyme, I humbly take my leave of you, committing you to
the Lord's blessing and protection, and rest.
Your assured loving friend,
JO: ENDECOTT.