LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN [
 
 EZEKIEL CHEEVER * 
 
 HVIVS SCHOLAE PRAECEPTOR 
 
 PER ANNOS PROPE OCTO ET TRIGINTA 
 
 LONDINII-NATVS-A.D. MDCXIV- VIII -KAL. FEB. 
 
 IBI EDVCATVS IN SCHOLA CHRISTS HOSPITAL- DICTA 
 
 IN NVMERVM CIVIVM ACADEMICORVM COLLEGII 
 
 EMMANVEL-IN-VNIVERSITATE-CANTABRIG1ENSI 
 
 ASCITVS-A.D. MDCXXXII-PRIDIE-ID. IAN. 
 
 HANG PETI IT TER RAM A.D. MDCXXXVII 
 
 PR AEPOSITVS-HVIC- SCHOLAE -A.D. MDCLXX -VIll-ID. IAN. 
 
 OBIIT- A.D. MDCCVIII-XII-KAL. SEPT. 
 
 VIX1T PIE ANNIS LXXXXIV 
 
 COTTON MATHER DISCIPVLVS GRATVS HVIC 
 ^ OMNEM NOVAE -ANGLIAE- ERVDITIONEM ASCRIPSIT - 
 
 TABLET IN THE BOSTON LATIN SCHOOL
 
 Cbeevcr 
 Scboolm aeter 
 
 INTRODUCTION BY 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE, D.D. 
 
 The PALMER 
 COMPANY 
 
 50 BROMFIELD 
 ST., BOSTON 
 
 Elisabeth porter (Boulb 
 
 Author of "JOHN ADAMS AND DANIEL WEBSTER AS SCHOOLMASTERS;" 
 "THE BROWNINGS AND AMERICA;" "ANNE GILCHRIST AND WALT WHIT- 
 MAN; " " A PIONEER DOCTOR; " " ONE'S SELF I SING AND OTHER POEMS."
 
 COPYRIGHT 1904 
 
 BY 
 THE PALMER COMPANY 
 
 FIRST EDITION
 
 ITntcobuctton 
 
 WAS greatly pleased when I learned that 
 Miss Gould had consented to write the 
 life of Ezekiel Cheever, for I knew how 
 careful had been her study of the career 
 of this interesting man. She knew more 
 of him than anyone did ; and now that I have read this 
 valuable book, I need hardly say that I am delighted 
 with her success. 
 
 I thought I knew something of Cheever myself. In 
 one of the Prize Books, Mr. Benjamin A. Gould, the 
 head master of the Latin School after 1816, had given 
 a little sketch of Cheever' s career; and as schoolboys 
 in that old school we knew of his Accidence, and that 
 he was one of the heroes of the school. I graduated at 
 that school in 1835. The exhibition exercises of our 
 class marked the second centennial anniversary of the 
 school. In 1840 the Latin School Association was 
 formed, of which I have now the honor to be Presi- 
 dent. I was the first Secretary of that Society and I 
 edited its first catalogue. It thus became my pleasant 
 duty to find what I then could of Cheever' s life, and I 
 like to acknowledge here the help which I received 
 from that distinguished historian, Mr. Samuel Francis 
 Haven, the accomplished Librarian of the American 
 Antiquarian Society. 
 
 I say all this because it is with peculiar satisfaction, 
 I may even say surprise, that in reading Miss Gould's 
 book I see that she has found clues which we had not
 
 Introduction 
 
 suspected, and has so followed them back that she pre- 
 sents Cheever to us in our generation as a character 
 much more real than he was even to the Latin School 
 boys of fifty years ago. The history of New England 
 is much better known than it was sixty years ago ; and 
 whoever traces the annals, which are so interesting, of 
 the steps which made out of a trading corporation an 
 independent state in one hundred and fifty years, has to 
 consider among the initial agencies of that advance the 
 education freely given by the State. Miss Gould has 
 done me the honor to print at length in her Appendix 
 a paper of mine prepared for Education. I have said 
 in that paper that I do not believe that any other trading 
 village in the world in the eighteenth century gave to 
 one third of its boys and young men such instruction 
 in the Latin language as Boston did. Whether trade 
 carried them to Cadiz, to Lisbon, to Havana, to Brest, 
 or anywhere else in the world, they could speak in 
 the Latin language to the foreigner. No man can fol- 
 low the history of the American Revolution without 
 accounting for the make-up of such men as Sam Adams, 
 James Bowdoin, Henry Knox, Joseph Warren, John 
 Hancock. Four of these were pupils of the Boston 
 Latin School, and Warren would not have been Warren 
 but for its avail as a metropolitan school. 
 
 When one says this, he ought to know what made 
 a school like that. Mr. Emerson left to us no wiser 
 phrase than when he said, " It does not matter so much 
 what you study as with whom you study." Who gave 
 the Boston Latin School its repute ? Who set the stand-
 
 flntrofcuction 
 
 ard for the little village, which, at the common charge, 
 gave every boy the best training of which that time had 
 any idea ? 
 
 Simply it was EZEKIEL CHEEVER, in the years be- 
 tween 1639 and 1708. 
 
 A first-rate life of such a man makes a very important 
 addition to the history of New England. 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE.
 
 Cbeevet 
 Schoolmaster
 
 Cbeever 
 
 >HEN Agassiz requested to go down the 
 ages with no other name than " Teacher," 
 he not only appropriately crowned his 
 own life work, but stamped the vocation 
 of teaching with lasting honor. In this vocation, Eze- 
 kiel Cheever stands out especially clear. Born in 
 London January 25, 1614, in 1637, at the age of twenty- 
 three, he came to Boston, seven years after its settle- 
 ment. He did not remain there long, however, for the 
 following year he is in the Indian region of Quinnipiack 
 helping John Davenport, Theophilus Eaton and others 
 found what was afterwards called the New Haven Col- 
 ony. He was one of the famous little band who in 1639 
 in Mr. Newman's barn signed the compact for the 
 religious and civil government of the colony ; a " Fourth 
 Colony of New English Christians," which, as 
 Cotton Mather says in his Magnalia, was " under the 
 Conduct of as Holy and as Prudent and as Genteel 
 Persons as most that ever visited these Nooks of 
 America." Referring to Mr. Eaton, who was chosen 
 the first governor, he declares it was "the Admiration 
 of all Spectators to behold the Discretion, the Gravity, 
 the Equity," with which for about a score of years 
 until his death he, as the " Glory and Pillar" of the 
 colony, managed its public affairs. Doubtless the
 
 io Eefciei Cbeever 
 
 young Cheever heard him say what Mather says was a 
 favorite aphorism of his, " Some count it a great 
 matter to Die well, but I am sure 'tis a great matter to 
 Live well." 
 
 While Governor Eaton as the "Moses of the 
 Christian Colony" was particularly engaged in civil 
 affairs, John Davenport, as "the Aaron," was leading 
 in church affairs, his ministry, his discipline, his 
 government and his universal direction continuing, as 
 Mather says, for many years, even till after the resto- 
 ration of Charles II., when the Connecticut and New 
 Haven Colonies became one. He was a close student, 
 so much so that the Indian savages called him, " So 
 big study man." A graduate of Oxford University, he 
 naturally desired to have a classical school for the 
 youth of the new colony. Governor Eaton, who was a 
 companion of his in their English life, sympathized 
 with his idea. Who could better manage such than 
 the young Ezekiel Cheever, who had been educated at 
 an English university. He had married and settled 
 down among them in a home of his own. Having been 
 a student at Emmanuel College, " that Seminary of Pu- 
 ritans in Cambridge," as Cotton Mather called it, pos- 
 sibly he was better fitted for the work than if educated 
 at other colleges. But whether so or not, in the same 
 summer as the signing of the compact (1639) a school 
 for boys, for "boys only as were to be taught to make 
 Latin," was opened in New Haven in his own home, 
 said to have been at the corner of Grove and Church 
 Streets. Little Michael Wigglesworth, afterwards
 
 Schoolmaster 
 
 famous as the author of the Day of Doom, was one of 
 the pupils, his father being one of the townspeople. In 
 his Autobiography he tells of being sent to school to 
 Mr. Ezekiel Cheever, who " taught school in his own 
 house," and of profiting so much in a year or two, 
 "through ye blessing of God," that he began "to 
 make Latin and to get forward apace." The records 
 of the colony tell that this school was for the "better 
 training up of youth in the town, that through God's 
 blessing they may be fitted for public service hereafter 
 either in church or commonwealth." 
 
 For several years Mr. Cheever received for his teach- 
 ing twenty pounds a year, when, that " not proving a 
 competent maintenance," it was increased to thirty 
 pounds. A schoolhouse came later into being, said to 
 have been built on the Green near Elm Street, a little 
 west of Temple. (Blake.) Votes of both town and 
 colony are on record for the grade of the school to be 
 raised, and for Mr. Cheever' s salary to be increased 
 from the public treasury. 
 
 The young teacher was not blessed with riches. 
 In 1643 his name is sixth in the list of planters and 
 their estates, his estate being valued only at twenty 
 pounds. Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bacon, in his "Histori- 
 cal Discourse of New Haven in 1860," declared that he 
 was the " most picturesque character " in the history of 
 the New Haven Colony. Though he came from an 
 accomplished education in London, a contemporary of 
 Milton and other classically educated young men, he 
 did not, he said, " hesitate to apply himself to the small
 
 12 jesefeiel Cbeever 
 
 things of colony life." He noted the repeated indica- 
 tions of the esteem in which he was held, u not only for 
 his work's sake, but for his own. His pupils did not 
 caricature him on the blank pages of his Accidence, 
 and call him ' Old Cheever ' below their breath, as 
 long as they went to school to him." 
 
 While he was teaching the New Haven school, Mr. 
 Cheever was an efficient helper in other directions, be- 
 ing one of the twelve men chosen as ' ' fitt for the foun- 
 dacon worke of the church." He was a member of the 
 court for the plantation at its first session, and in 1646 
 was one of the deputies to the General Court. This 
 was an important position, since, there being no written 
 code of laws until later, the court then determined all 
 differences. As an educator, the young master was 
 doubtless interested in the order of the General Court of 
 the Massachusetts Colony in 1647 that there should be a 
 school for every township of fifty householders, and a 
 grammar school for every hundred. He must have 
 been conversant with the career of Roger Williams. 
 Massasoit, then in his old age, may even have told him of 
 the visit of the banished minister to his Rhode Island 
 home. Would we could know what he thought of 
 Harry Vane, of Anne Hutchinson and her independent 
 action ! But all is silence. 
 
 Although never ordained to the ministry, Mr. Cheever 
 occasionally preached. His Christian spirit is seen 
 when, being brought up before the church for dissenting 
 from its judgment concerning some cases of discipline, 
 he said, "I had rather suffer anything from men than
 
 Schoolmaster 13 
 
 make a shipwreck of a good conscience, or go against 
 my present light, though erroneous when discovered." 
 But while not wholly freeing himself from blame as to 
 his " want of wisdom and coolness in ordering and utter- 
 ing his speeches," yet he could not be convinced that 
 he deserved the censure which the church had inflicted 
 upon him ; and he could not look upon it as " dispensed 
 according to the rules of Christ." But he concluded 
 by saying that he could " wait upon God for the discov- 
 ery of Truth in his own time, either to myself or church ; 
 that what is amiss may be repented of and reformed ; 
 that His blessing and presence may be among them, and 
 upon His holy ordinances rightly dispensed, to His glory 
 and their present and everlasting comfort, which I 
 heartily pray for." 
 
 At this time (1649) he was afflicted by the death of 
 Mary, his wife. Six children Samuel, Mary, Ezekiel, 
 Elizabeth, Sarah and Hannah had been born to them, 
 Ezekiel dying in infancy. 
 
 A cherished hope of the founders of the New 
 Haven Colony was to found a college "for the good 
 of posterity." For this, even land was set apart 
 in the formation of the town; but circumstances 
 did not favor the desire. Disappointment, however, 
 only turned the attention of the people to Harvard Col- 
 lege, then struggling into life under President Dunster ; 
 and there a good number of the New Haven Colony 
 boys were sent to be educated. It speaks well for the 
 educational influences at work in that vicinity that of 
 the Harvard graduates, from its beginning to 1700, as
 
 i 4 Esekiel Cbeever 
 
 many as one in thirty came from New Haven.* 
 It is supposed that during his residence in New 
 Haven Ezekiel Cheever wrote his Accidence, a short 
 introduction to the Latin tongue for the use of schools. 
 This little book of less than one hundred pages was 
 called the "wonder of the age," and is said to have 
 been used as generally as any elementary work ever 
 known; indeed, it is thought to have done more "to 
 inspire young minds with the love of the study of the 
 Latin language than any other work of the kind since 
 the first settlement of the country." It passed through 
 eighteen editions before the Revolution, the last being 
 published in Boston in 1838.! 
 
 In a prospectus, containing commendations of the 
 work from many eminent men of learning, the Hon. 
 Josiah Quincy, LL.D., President of Harvard Col- 
 lege, said of it : " A work which was used for more 
 than a century in the schools of New England as the 
 first elementary book for learners of the Latin language ; 
 which held its place in some of the most eminent of 
 those schools, nearly, if not quite, to the end of the last 
 century ; which passed through at least twenty editions 
 in this country ; which was the subject of the successive 
 labor and improvement of a man who spent seventy 
 years in the business of instruction, and whose fame is 
 second to that of no schoolmaster New England has ever 
 
 * For some interesting details of this early colonial life, see 
 Stories of Old Neiu Haven , by Ernest H. Baldwin. 
 
 t Harvard College has several editions, the earliest being the 
 tenth, printed by Edes & Gill in Queen Street, in 1767.
 
 Scboolmaster 
 
 produced, requires no additional testimony to its worth 
 or its merits. It is distinguished for simplicity, compre- 
 hension and exactness." Mr. Quincy knew of what he 
 spoke, for from six to fourteen years of age he studied 
 the Accidence at the Phillips Academy at Andover, 
 Mass., where, he tells us, he was obliged with the rest 
 of his classmates, "to get by heart passages of a book 
 which he could not, from his years, possibly understand." 
 But by means of this Accidence, or in spite of it, as his 
 son Edmund says in his biography of him, he laid a 
 foundation of Latin knowledge which was a help and 
 delight to him to the end of life ; indeed, it became his 
 amusement in old age. 
 
 Other testimonies of its value have come down to us. 
 Samuel Walker, having had it in constant use for his 
 pupils for more than fifty years whenever it could be 
 obtained, found it to be the " best book for beginners in 
 the study of Latin " that had come to his knowledge, 
 " no work of its kind containing so much useful matter 
 in so small a compass." Another testimony (Rev. T. 
 M. Harris) declared there was " no elementary work 
 so well calculated for the beginners as Cheever's 
 Accidence pre-eminently perspicuous, concise and 
 comprehensive. ' ' 
 
 That Ezekiel Cheever also wrote on religious subjects 
 is seen in a little book containing three short essays, 
 under the title, Scripture Prophecies Explained. 
 The first one is " On the Restitution of all Things," the 
 second "On St. John's First Resurrection," and the third 
 "On the Personal Coming of Jesus Christ, as Com-
 
 16 Esefctel Cbccver 
 
 mencing at the Beginning of the Millennium described in 
 the Apocalypse." Although the book did not attain to 
 so many editions as the Accidence, it continued to be 
 issued after the death of Mr. Cheever; as late as 1757 
 an edition being printed by Green & Russell at their 
 printing office in Queen Street. (Found in the Boston 
 Athenseum.) 
 
 There are also in existence two manuscript books 
 which the schoolmaster owned : one of about four hun- 
 dred pages of Latin dissertations, with an occasional 
 mathematical figure drawn, now in possession of the 
 Massachusetts Historical Society, and one kept in the 
 safe of the Boston Athenaeum. One handles reverently 
 this little brown, leather-covered book of about one 
 hundred and twenty pages, on the first of which is the 
 year " 1631," and on the second, in his own handwrit- 
 ing, "Ezekiel Cheeuer, his booke." In it are nearly 
 fifty pages of Latin poems, besides two in Greek, copied 
 before the life in America began ; also a few shorthand 
 notes which have been deciphered as Scripture texts. 
 Printed in full for the first time, they formed an appen- 
 dix to one of Mr. John T. Hassam's valuable papers in 
 the New England Historical and Genealogical Reg- 
 ister (April, 1879). On the last page of this quaint 
 little treasure are written in English some verses, one of 
 which can be clearly read as, " Oh, first seek the kingdom 
 of God and his Righteousness, and all things else shall 
 be added unto you."* 
 
 * For further details see "The Cheever MSS." in the New 
 England Historical and Genealogical Register for January, 
 1903.
 
 Schoolmaster 17 
 
 After Mr. Cheever had taught in New Haven for 
 about twelve years, he left in 1650 to become master of 
 the grammar, or free, school in Ipswich, Mass. If 
 one can judge by salary received, the schoolmaster 
 was appreciated in New Haven, for the town was not 
 willing to pay his successor as u large a salary as it had 
 done to Mr. Cheever." The successor received only 
 ten pounds a year. 
 
 Ipswich (or Agawam) was then a town of less than 
 twenty years' experience. Within ten years of its settle- 
 ment its " renowned church," Mather tells us, consisted 
 mostly of " such illuminated Christians that their pastor 
 in the exercise of their ministry had not so much disci- 
 ples as judges." By petition of Zaccheus Gould and 
 others, that part of the village some seven miles to the 
 westward called "New Meadows" had that year 
 become incorporated as a town under the name of 
 Topsfield. Salem was not far away. Wenham and 
 Manchester were neighboring townships striving to 
 grow. In the Wenham church, founded six years 
 before, the Rev. John Fisk was doing faithful work, 
 content, as Cotton Mather says in his Ma.gna.lia, " with a 
 very mean salary, and consuming his own fair estate for 
 the welfare of the new plantation." Governor Endicott 
 owned land on the south side of the pretty river which 
 still winds its course through the village. Samuel 
 Appleton was a large landowner. Thomas Dudley, 
 Simon Bradstreet, Richard Saltonstall, and others, 
 whose descendants are well known to-day, were identi- 
 fied with the town. Governor Winthrop had not been
 
 is i63ektel Cbeever 
 
 long dead, while his son John, the founder of the town, 
 had special interest for the schoolmaster for his more or 
 less connection with the Connecticut and New Haven 
 life. 
 
 The free school to which Mr. Cheever came was not 
 a public school as we mean it today. A forerunner of 
 the academy, it was one endowed with grants of land 
 and bequests, in which Latin and Greek were taught, 
 supported in part by the parents' fees. We are told 
 that the schooling of Simon Bradstreet, when placed at 
 the "free school" in Ipswich by his father after his 
 removal to Andover, was " more chargeable." 
 
 In 1653, while Mr. Cheever taught in Ipswich, a phi- 
 lanthropic citizen, Robert Payne, gave to the town, in 
 addition to a schoolhouse, a dwelling house with two 
 acres of land for the use of the schoolmaster. This was 
 in line with the accepted idea that a house as well as a 
 school building should be provided for the teacher. 
 
 The school so prospered that neighboring towns sent 
 pupils to it. Nathaniel Saltonstall was there prepared 
 for Harvard, then under the presidency of Charles 
 Chauncy. In the class of 1659, Master Cheever must 
 have been especially interested, for it contained the name 
 of his son Samuel Samuel Cheverus. This firstborn 
 son seemed to be a favorite of his father. It was to him 
 he wrote the epistles in Latin now in the Massachu- 
 setts Historical Society which the Rev. William Bent- 
 ley, D.D., of Salem, Mass., said " were worthy of the 
 age of Erasmus and of the days of Ascham." We are 
 indebted to a descendant of this firstborn, Mr. John T.
 
 Scboolmaster 19 
 
 Hassam, for giving to the public for the first time in full 
 a facsimile of one of these Latin letters. Its history is 
 interesting. In 1879, failing to find what he wanted, Mr. 
 Hassam printed in one of his valuable articles on the 
 old schoolmaster a fragment of a letter in the hope it 
 might lead to the recovery of the whole. Some twelve 
 years later, at a sale of autograph letters and historical 
 documents collected by Prof. E. H. LefHngwell, of New 
 Haven, Conn., the city of Boston purchased some, among 
 them being the original letter in a good state of preser- 
 vation. (Appendix I.) Although the year is not on it, 
 Mr. Hassam thought that since it was dated November 
 24th {post festum), it must have been written on 
 Thanksgiving day of 1670, since, with a single excep- 
 tion during the colonial period, only in that year did 
 Thanksgiving come on that day of the month. The let- 
 ter, which begins with " Chare jili" and ends with " Tut 
 studiosissi pater, Ez. Cheever," reveals the father 
 going to Cambridge to negotiate as to the marriage of 
 Samuel with Ruth, daughter of Edmund Angier, and 
 granddaughter of the Rev. Dr. William Ames of Hol- 
 land University fame, whose portrait is in Memorial 
 Hall, Cambridge. (Appendix II.) Not finding the 
 father at home, he writes that he communicated with the 
 mother ; but she, not being willing to commit herself, 
 referred him to her husband and daughter. It was con- 
 ceded that the young lady was superior; indeed, was 
 hard to win. On the way back to Boston the master 
 says he met the father, who also was averse to commit- 
 ting himself. He referred all to the daughter. A year
 
 20 iBsefctel Cbeever 
 
 before this, the father had written a letter to the son from 
 Charlestown about the young woman, which Mr. Has- 
 sam has also printed in full. But it all came out right ; 
 for in June, 1671, the summer after the father's visit to 
 Cambridge, Samuel, then nearly thirty-two years of age, 
 is married to the Cambridge young lady. He was 
 then preaching in Marblehead as the first settled minis- 
 ter of the town. There, after a ministry of over fifty 
 years, he died and was buried. 
 
 During Master Cheever's eleven years of service in 
 Ipswich as schoolmaster, Thomas Dudley and John 
 Endicott were among the governors of the Massachu- 
 setts Colony then under its first charter and William 
 Bradford and Edward Winslow among those of the Ply- 
 mouth Colony. John Eliot had begun his monumental 
 work among the Indians; Louis XIV. was working 
 out his career in France ; and Oliver Cromwell was end- 
 ing his heroic struggle in England. If only the school- 
 master had jotted down his thoughts of the strange power 
 of this wonderful man of the people ! or, if he had 
 left on record some of the things he must have heard of 
 the " Tenth Muse," Anne Bradstreet, who, though then 
 living in Andover, had written most of her poems while 
 residing in Ipswich ! As they were published the year 
 of his arrival there, possibly he was familiar with them. 
 He may have discussed them with her. Who knows ? 
 She may have told him of one of her admirers, the Rev. 
 Nathaniel Ward, who a few years before had published 
 what was perhaps the most peculiar book of the colo- 
 nial era, " The Simple Cobbler of Aga warn ;" for, though
 
 Scboolmaster 21 
 
 now gone to England, he had been a neighbor of hers 
 while pastor of the Ipswich church. The school- 
 master must have known the Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, 
 who died while he taught in the town ; also Pastor Nor- 
 ton. One wonders if he ever met that " godly man of 
 Ipswich" of whom Cotton Mather tells, who, after Mr. 
 Norton was settled in Boston, where he went from 
 Ipswich, would travel on foot to that town, almost 
 thirty miles, " for nothing but the weekly lecture there." 
 He declared it was " worth a great journey to be a par- 
 taker in one of Mr. Norton's prayers." 
 
 But if the practical schoolmaster was not so much in- 
 terested in the prayers of the Rev. John Norton, he was 
 doubtless a reader of his Latin book, which he wrote in 
 1645 by order of the New England ministers, to answer 
 the question of divines in Zealand concerning the New 
 England church government. He may also have read 
 The Orthodox Evangelist, which he dedicated to his Ips- 
 wich church, and other of his treatises. {Magnalia.} 
 Would we had some of the opinions of this learned, re- 
 ligious schoolmaster concerning the books of that day ! 
 What did he think of the popular Day of Doom, which 
 his little pupil of years before published in his later 
 years? Did he enter into the spirit of the Bay Psalm 
 Book, which must have been known and used during 
 his Ipswich life? Did he enjoy the Ames's Almanacks, 
 with their literary and amusing quotations? Was he 
 conversant with Shakespeare and Cervantes, who had 
 been dead only a little over thirty years ? Had he ever 
 heard of Raphael, Michael Angelo and other great
 
 22 Esefciel Cbeever 
 
 painters? But if we do not know this, we do know 
 that he was interested in the village, for he planted an 
 orchard and built a barn on the land he owned ; all of 
 which, on his removal from the town, was purchased 
 by the Feoffers and added to the grammar school 
 property. We know, too, by an ancient petition signed 
 by him while teacher there (now owned by the Ipswich 
 Historical Society), that he prayed for a withholding of 
 an innholder's license from an unworthy innkeeper; 
 indeed, it is thought he wrote it. 
 
 We also know that while living in Ipswich he married 
 (1652) for his second wife, Ellen Lathrop, sister of 
 Captain Thomas Lathrop of Beverly, who, two years 
 before, had brought her from England with the promise 
 of being a father to her. Of the children born there, 
 Abigail, Ezekiel, Nathaniel and Thomas, Ezekiel ap- 
 pears in the annals of the village parish of Salem as late 
 as 1731 ; while Thomas, after graduating at Harvard in 
 1677, became a clergyman in Maiden, Mass., and later 
 at Rumney Marsh (afterwards Chelsea), where he died 
 at the age of ninety-one. His son Ezekiel became an 
 honored resident of Charlestown, to whom was granted 
 the building of the tomb on old "Burial Hill" (at the 
 end of Phipps Place) , where John Harvard was buried 
 the year after Master Cheever came to Boston. Stamped 
 with armorial bearings and the inscription " Ezekiel 
 Cheever, Esq. His Tomb, 1744," it has not only a 
 special interest to Cheever descendants, but to all inter- 
 ested in colonial affairs. 
 
 Today, a visitor to Ipswich sees on a granite monu-
 
 \ 
 
 
 IPSWICH MONUMENT
 
 Scboolmaster 23 
 
 ment erected in 1896 on the pretty green where he 
 taught and lived, the name of Schoolmaster Cheever 
 as one of the ever-to-be-remembered influences in the 
 development of the people. It has even been said that 
 his labors there were chiefly instrumental in placing 
 that town u in literature and population above all the 
 towns of Essex County." (Bentley.) In his address 
 upon the unveiling of the memorial (a gift of an 
 Appleton), Rev. T. Frank Waters, President of the 
 Ipswich Historical Society, said that "were those 
 eleven years in which he wrought the end of that fine 
 effort for advanced education in our midst, it would be 
 a luminous epoch in our annals. But the school con- 
 tinued when he was called to Charlestown. The town 
 granted for its support a great farm in Chebacco. 
 William Paine made gift of Little Neck, and the 
 revenue from these properties made helpful contribu- 
 tions to its support, as it does still to our High School. 
 Yonder corner," he declared, "is forever hallowed by 
 the memories of the prayers and toils of that one great 
 teacher." 
 
 After a record of eleven years in Ipswich, Mr. 
 Cheever removed to Charlestown (1661) to become 
 master of the school there at a salary of thirty pounds a 
 year. This salary seems small indeed; but when we 
 read that this faithful teacher was at last obliged to 
 petition the selectmen for even this small pay, " since 
 the constables were much behind with him," the situa- 
 tion becomes pathetic. He asked later that the school- 
 house be repaired. In 1669 he is again before the town,
 
 24 J63efcfel Cbeever 
 
 asking for a "piece of ground or house plott whereon 
 to build an house for his familie," which petition he 
 left for the townsmen to consider. They voted in favor 
 of the request, but as Mr. Cheever was called the fol- 
 lowing year to Boston, it is probable that his successor 
 had the benefit of it. 
 
 After teaching in Charlestown nine years, Mr. 
 Cheever accepted the invitation of Boston town to 
 become master of its Latin School. This was in Jan- 
 uary, 1671. He was then fifty-seven years old, and had 
 taught school over thirty years. He had seen the de- 
 velopment of his own land, and had doubtless felt the 
 pulse of his native England, where Milton, old and 
 blind, was still living. Perhaps he had read the Para- 
 dise Lost of his English contemporary, since it had 
 been published several years. He doubtless knew of 
 Dryden, who, two years before, under Charles II., had 
 become poet laureate. Alexander Pope was not born. 
 Louis XIV. was still ruling France. Richard Belling- 
 ham was Governor of the Massachusetts Colony, which, 
 before Master Cheever' s long service should end, would 
 become one with the Plymouth. 
 
 The Boston school to which Mr. Cheever now came 
 had been in existence thirty-five years. It remained for 
 a descendant of the old master, the Rev. Henry F. 
 Jenks, to give to the public in his " History of the 
 Latin School," an interesting account of the time- 
 honored institution. Founded by an agreement among 
 the first citizens of Boston led by Governor Win- 
 throp, it antedated even Harvard College. Dr. Edward
 
 Schoolmaster 25 
 
 Everett Hale, as President of the Boston Latin School 
 Association, has also told of its history. (Appendix 
 III.) A bronze tablet in the rear of King's Chapel 
 now marks the spot where the first schoolhouse stood ; 
 later it was across the street. The different names of 
 this street School-House Lane, South Latin Grammar 
 School, etc. were in 1708 by vote of the town, merged 
 into that of the one it bears to-day School Street. 
 Prominent men of the day lived near. Judge Sewall 
 was a familiar figure walking from his home, not far 
 away, to the meetinghouse on what is now Washington 
 Street. As a personal friend of Master Cheever, he 
 visited him in the schoolhouse. In his Diary (dated Sep- 
 tember 13, 1686) he says that as he went " in the morn 
 to hear Cotton Mather preach the Election Sermon for 
 the Artillery at Charlestown," he "had Sam to the 
 Latin school, which is the first time." He declares 
 that " Mr. Cheever received him gladly." Together he 
 and the master may have gone to hear the son, the Rev. 
 Samuel Cheever, preach the Artillery Election Sermon 
 (1684) from the text Hebrew ii. 10, "For it became 
 him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all 
 things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the 
 Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." 
 Or they may have gone together to the weekly Thursday 
 lecture, for which the school was dismissed at ten 
 o'clock; on other days it closed at eleven. With an 
 attendamus to a short prayer, it opened at seven in 
 the morning during summer and at eight in the winter. 
 All the year round it began at one in the afternoon, and,
 
 26 Eefctel Cbeever 
 
 with a deponite libros, closed at five. Here boys learned 
 their Latin Accidence, and went to Harvard, which for 
 two generations was the only college in New England. 
 In Greek they read mostly the New Testament. Cotton 
 Mather says it was noted that when " Scholars came to 
 be admitted into the College, they who came from 
 Cheeverian Education were generally the most unex- 
 ceptionable." Sibley tells us that an Ipswich pupil, 
 Simon Bradstreet, of Harvard, 1660, was not only noted 
 as defending the position, Omnes Artes Accidentur 
 Theologice, but, when he " went out Master of Arts" 
 in 1663, as defending the thesis, Discremen Boni et 
 mali Cognoscitur a lege Naturce. Another pupil, 
 John Leverett, of the Boston Latin School, was the 
 Latin salutatorian of his class of 1680. We are also 
 told {Historical Register} that when Nehemiah 
 Walter, who married a daughter of Increase Mather, 
 was taken to the "famous Mr. Cheever with a view to 
 his preparing him for college," Mr. Cheever returned 
 him to his father, after a "short examination and ex- 
 periment," with a "great encomium, pronouncing him 
 already well stocked with classic learning, and abun- 
 dantly finished to enter upon academical studies." Such 
 results would be natural from the fact which Mather 
 tells, that his " Master went thro' this Hard Work with 
 so much Delight in it, as a Work for God and Christ 
 and his People." 
 
 Besides their book knowledge, the old master had an 
 interest in his pupils' personal welfare. Possibly he was 
 reminded of his own young days, when, as a " Blue Coat
 
 Schoolmaster 27 
 
 Boy" in London, with the tails of his long blue coat 
 tucked up under his leather belt, he had played in the 
 open space of the school buildings in Newgate Street in 
 the same " Christ's Hospital" which we know today.* 
 Doubtless he told them of his annual Easter march with 
 the boys to the Mansion House, where the Lord Mayor 
 gave them buns, coins, etc., with elaborate ceremony; 
 a march taken by Charles Lamb, Coleridge, Leigh 
 Hunt, and so many other little Blue Coat Boys in the 
 many years since Edward VI., in 1552, founded the 
 school. However this may be, in his service now as 
 schoolmaster, this seven years' experience as a Blue 
 Coat Boy (1626-1633) must have allied him more 
 closely to a schoolmaster in the neighboring town of 
 Cambridge, Elijah Corlet, who, Waters tells us, was 
 also a Blue Coat Boy.f 
 
 For his service as Latin School master in u the Metrop- 
 olis of the English America" as the pastor of the 
 North Church called Boston Mr. Cheever received a 
 salary of sixty pounds a year. This was more than his 
 friend Elijah Corlet received ; for according to the town 
 records, only a few years before, Cambridge had voted 
 him an annual salary of twenty pounds so long as he 
 should continue to be schoolmaster in that place ; and 
 there seems to be no evidence that this man of " learn- 
 ing, piety and respectability," of "abilities, dexterity 
 and painfulnesse " in teaching youths for over forty 
 
 * The hospital was removed to Horsham, Sussex, in 1902. 
 
 t For further particulars of the Blue Coat Boys see Annals of 
 Chrisfs Hospital, by E. H. Pearce; also Trollope's History of 
 Chrisfs Hospital.
 
 28 jeefctel Cbeever 
 
 years as master of the grammar school by the side of 
 Harvard College, ever received more. But for his 
 4 * extraordinary paines" in teaching the Indians designed 
 for Harvard he received compensation from the Society 
 for Propagating the Gospel. 
 
 But if Master Cheever had the name of receiving a 
 salary of sixty pounds a year in Boston, as in Charles- 
 town, he had difficulty in getting it; for in 1687-1688 he 
 is sending the following petition to His Excellency Sir 
 Edmund Andros, "Knight, Governor, and Captain 
 General of His Majesty's Territories and Dominions in 
 New England," for the fifty-five pounds due him, 
 " having been near fifty years employed in the work and 
 office of a public Grammar Schoolmaster" : 
 
 " The humble peticon of Ezekiel Cheever of Boston, 
 Schoolmr. Sheweth that your poor peticoner hath 
 now fifty years been employed in ye work and office of 
 a publick Grammar-Schoolmr. in several places in this 
 Country, with what acceptance & success I submit to 
 the judgment of those that are able to testify. Now 
 seeing God is pleased, mercifully yet to continue my 
 wonted abilities of mind, health of body, vivacity of 
 spirit, delight in my work, which alone I am in any way 
 fit for, & capable of, & whereby I have my outward sub- 
 sistance. I most humbly entreat your Excellency, yet 
 according to your former kindness often manifested, I 
 may by your Excellencies favor, allowance, & encour- 
 agement still be continued in my present place. And 
 whereas there is due to me about fifty-five pounds for 
 my labours past & ye former way of that part of my 
 maintenance usually raised by a rate, is thought good to 
 be altered, I with all submission beseech your Excel-
 
 Scboolmaater 29 
 
 lency that you would be pleased to give order for my 
 due satisfaction, ye want of which would fall heavy 
 upon me in my old age, and my children also who are 
 otherwise poor enough. 
 
 " And your poor peticoner shall ever pray. 
 
 " I am Excellencies most humble servt. 
 
 EZEKIEL CHEEVER." 
 
 It is thought that Mr. Cheever lived in the school 
 building, since besides his salary he was to have 
 " possession and use of ye schoole-house." But after a 
 while the selectmen were making arrangements for a 
 house to be built for him, in accordance with the vote 
 of the town (March, 1701) that a " House be built for 
 Old Mr. Eze'k Cheever, the Latin School-Master," and 
 that the " Selectmen Take Care about the Building of 
 it." The following details of the agreement made with 
 Captain John Barnet concerning the house as found in 
 the old records are suggestive indeed : 
 
 " That the said Barnet shall erect a House on the Land 
 where Mr. Ezekiel Cheever Lately dwelt, of forty foot 
 Long Twenty foot wide and Twenty foot stud with 
 four foot Rise in the Roof, to make a cellar floor under 
 one half of S d house and to build a Kitchen of Sixteen 
 foot in Length and twelve foot in breadth with a 
 Chamber therein, and to Lay the floors flush through 
 out the maine house and to make three paire of Stayers 
 in y e main house and one paire in the Kitchen and to 
 Inclose s d house and to do and complete all carpenters 
 worke and to find all timber boards clapboards nayles 
 glass and Glaziers worke and Iron worke and to make 
 one Cellar door and to finde one Lock for the Outer 
 door of said House, and also to make the Casements for
 
 30 Esefctel Cbeever 
 
 S d house, and perform S d worke and to finish S d build- 
 ing by the first day of August next. In consideration 
 whereof the Selectmen do agree that the S d Capt. 
 Barnet shall have the Old Timber boards Iron worke 
 and glass of the Old house now Standing on S d Land 
 and to pay unto him the Sum of one hundred and thirty 
 pounds money, that is to say forty pounds down in 
 hand and the rest as the worke goes on." 
 
 Then follows the agreement for the " masons' worke " 
 in all its details. Later on, in March, 1702, there is 
 some discussion as to how far back from the street the 
 house should be placed. But in June of that year the 
 house is up, for the worthy dignitaries order that " Capt. 
 John Barnard do provide a Raysing Dinner for the Rays- 
 ing the Schoolmasters House at the Charge of the town not 
 exceeding the Sum of Three pounds." This was done, 
 for later they order the " noat for three pounds, ex- 
 pended by him for a dinner at Raysing the School- 
 masters House," be paid him. 
 
 After Mr. Cheever's house had received all this pains- 
 taking attention, the town voted that a " New School 
 House be built instead of the Old School House in 
 which Mr. Ezekiel Cheever Teacheth, and it is Left 
 with the Selectmen to get the same accomplished." 
 The particulars of this work are given with as much 
 detail in the Selectmen's Minutes of July 24, 1704, as 
 those of the House : 
 
 "Agreed w ft M r John Barnerd as followeth, he to 
 build a new School House of forty foot Long Twenty 
 five foot wide and Eleven foot Stud, with eight win- 
 dows below and five in the Roofe, with wooden Case-
 
 Schoolmaster 31 
 
 ments to the eight Windows, to Lay the lower floor 
 with Sleepers & double boards So far as needful, and 
 the Chamber floor with Single boards, to board below 
 the plate inside & inside and out, to Clapboard the Outside 
 and Shingle the Roof, to make a place to hang the Bell 
 in, to make a paire of Staires up to the Chamber, and 
 from thence a Ladder to the bell, to make one door next 
 the Street, and a petition Cross the house below, and to 
 make three rows of benches for the boyes on each Side 
 of the room, to find all Timber, boards, Clapboards 
 shingles nayles hinges. In consideration whereof the 
 s d M r John Barnerd is to be paid One hundred pounds, 
 and to have the Timber, Boards, and Iron worke of the 
 Old School House." 
 
 Would we had :oday the names of the boys, some- 
 times over a hundred at a time, who sat on these 
 benches, as well as a record of the daily events ! If 
 we have not these, we have the schoolmaster and the 
 school, as pictured by Hawthorne in his 4t Grandfather's 
 Chair," where on a winter's day he takes a peep into 
 the schoolroom "a large, dingy room, with a sanded 
 floor, lighted by windows that turn on hinges and have 
 little diamond-shaped panes of glass." From the large 
 fireplace at one end of the room a bright blaze went 
 leaping up the chimney from the great logs of wood. 
 Every few moments a cloud of smoke is puffed into the 
 room, sailing " slowly over the heads of the scholars 
 until it gradually settles upon the walls and ceiling, 
 already blackened with the smoke of years." On long 
 benches with desks before them sit the pupils before 
 the "venerable schoolmaster, severe in aspect, with a 
 black skull cap on his head, like the ancient Puritan,
 
 32 Esefctel Cbeever 
 
 and the snow of his white beard drifting down to his 
 very girdle. ... A rod of birch is hanging over the 
 fireplace, and a heavy ferule lies on the master's desk. 
 . . . Buz ! buz ! buz ! Amid just such a murmur has 
 Master Cheever spent above sixty years ; and long habit 
 has made it as pleasant to him as the hum of a bee-hive 
 when the insects are busy in the sunshine. . . . Now a 
 class in Latin is called to recite. Forth steps a row of 
 queer-looking little fellows wearing square-skirted coats 
 and small-clothes, with buttons at the knee. They look 
 like so many grandfathers in their second childhood. 
 These lads are to be sent to Cambridge and educated for 
 the learned professions. Old Master Cheever has lived 
 so long, and seen so many generations of schoolboys 
 grow up to be men, that now he can almost prophesy 
 what sort of a man each boy will be. One urchin shall 
 hereafter be a doctor, and administer pills and potions, 
 and stalk gravely through life, perfumed with assafcetida. 
 Another shall wrangle at the bar, and fight his way to 
 wealth and honors, and, in his declining age, shall be a 
 worshipful member of His Majesty's Council. A third 
 and he the master's favorite shall be a worthy suc- 
 cessor to the old Puritan ministers now in their graves ; 
 he shall preach with great unction and effect, and leave 
 volumes of sermons in print and manuscript for the 
 benefit of future generations. But, as they are merely 
 schoolboys now, their business is to construe Virgil. 
 Poor Virgil, whose verses, which he took so much pains 
 to polish, have been mis-scanned, and mis-parsed, and 
 mis-interpreted by so many generations of idle school-
 
 33 
 
 boys ! There, sit down, ye Latinists. Two or three of 
 you I fear are doomed to feel the master's ferule. . . . 
 Next comes a class in arithmetic. These boys are to 
 be merchants, shop-keepers and mechanics of a future 
 period. Hitherto they have traded only in marbles and 
 apples. Hereafter some will send vessels to England 
 for broadcloths, and all sorts of manufactured wares, 
 and to the West Indies for sugar and rum and coffee. 
 Others will stand behind counters and measure tape and 
 ribbon and cambric by the yard. Others will upheave the 
 blacksmith's hammer or take the lapstone and the awl 
 and learn the trade of shoemaking. Many will follow the 
 sea, and become bold, rough sea-captains. This class 
 of boys, in short, must supply the world with those 
 active, skilful hands, and clear, sagacious heads without 
 which the affairs of life would be thrown into confusion 
 by the theories of studious and visionary men. Where- 
 fore, teach them their multiplication table, good Master 
 Cheever, and whip them well when they deserve it ; for 
 much of the country's welfare depends on these boys. 
 But, alas ! while we have been thinking of other matters 
 Master Cheever' s watchful eye has caught two boys at 
 play. Now we shall see awful times. Master Cheever 
 has taken down that terrible birch rod ! Short is the 
 trial the sentence quickly passed and now the judge 
 prepares to execute it in person. Thwack ! Thwack ! 
 Thwack! In these good old times a schoolmaster's 
 blows were well laid on. See ! the birch rod has lost 
 several of its twigs. Mercy on us, what a bellowing 
 the urchins make! My ears are almost deafened,
 
 34 jesefciel Cbeever 
 
 though the clamor comes through the far length of a 
 hundred and fifty years. There, go to your seats, poor 
 boys ; and do not cry, sweet little Alice, for they have 
 ceased to feel the pain a long time since. And thus the 
 forenoon passes away. Now it is twelve o'clock. The 
 master looks at his great silver watch, and then, with 
 tiresome deliberation, puts the ferule into his desk. 
 The little multitude await the word of dismissal with 
 almost irrepressible impatience. 
 
 "'You are dismissed,' says Master Cheever. The 
 boys retire, treading softly until they have passed the 
 threshold ; but fairly out of the schoolroom, lo, what a 
 joyous shout ! what a scampering and tramping of feet ! 
 what a sense of recovered freedom expressed in the 
 merry uproar of all their voices ! What care they for 
 the ferule and birch rod now? Were boys created 
 merely to study Latin and arithmetic? No. Happy 
 boys ! Enjoy your playtime now, and come again to 
 study and to feel the birch rod and the ferule to-morrow ; 
 not till to-morrow ; for today is Thursday-lecture, and 
 ever since the settlement of Massachusetts there has been 
 no school on Thursday afternoons. 
 
 "Now the master has set everything to rights, and is 
 ready to go home to dinner. Yet he goes reluctantly. 
 The old man has spent so much of his life in the smoky, 
 noisy, buzzing schoolroom, that when he has a holiday 
 he feels as if his place were lost, and himself a stranger 
 in the world. But forth he goes and then stands our 
 old chair vacant and solitary." 
 
 This is the school as seen by the eye of genius. But
 
 Schoolmaster 35 
 
 what is even better, there are some reminiscences pre- 
 served by old pupils. Cotton Mather, recalling these 
 days of his master to his son Samuel in a manuscript 
 left him {Paterna), tells how at the age of a little more 
 than eleven years he had composed many Latin exer- 
 cises, both in prose and verse, and could speak Latin so 
 readily that he could write in it notes of sermons of the 
 English preacher. He also declares that he had con- 
 versed with Cato, Corderius, Terence, Tully, Ovid, and 
 Virgil ; had made epistles and themes, presenting his 
 first theme to his master without his requiring or expect- 
 ing any such thing of him. For this he had been com- 
 plimented by the master with, Laudabilis diligentia 
 tua (Your diligence is praiseworthy). Besides going 
 through a great part of the New Testament in Greek, 
 he had read considerable in Socrates and Homer, and 
 had made some entrance in Hebrew grammar. And all 
 this " laudable proficiency," as his son calls it in his 
 biography of him, was made under the "famous Mr. 
 Ezekiel Cheever," whom he calls "a very learned, 
 pious man, and an excellent Schoolmaster." Cotton 
 Mather still further tells how his loved master prayed 
 with them every day, and catechised them every week ; 
 how he "let faL such Holy Counsels" upon them, 
 took so many occasions to make speeches unto them 
 "that should make them afraid of sin, and incurring 
 the fearful judgments of God by sin," that he felt 
 impelled "to propose him for Imitation." Out of 
 the school he said he was " A Christian of the Old 
 Fashion ; An Old new English Christian . . . well
 
 36 jesefciel Cbeever 
 
 Studied in the Body of Divinity ; an able Defender of 
 the Faith and Order of the Gospel ; notably Conversant 
 and Acquainted with the Scriptural Prophecies ... as 
 Venerable a Sight as the World since the Days of Prim- 
 itive Christianity has ever looked upon." 
 
 Another pupil, Rev. John Barnard, of Marblehead, 
 in his Autobiography (now in the Massachusetts His- 
 torical Society) tells of having been sent as a boy "to 
 the Grammar school, under the tuition of the aged, 
 venerable, and justly famous, Mr. Ezekiel Cheever." 
 " Once in making a piece of Latin," he says, " my 
 Master found fault with the syntax of one word which 
 was not so used by me heedlessly, but designedly, and 
 therefore I told him there was a plain grammar rule for 
 it." He angrily replied there was no such rule. I took 
 the grammar and showed the rule to him. Then he 
 smiling said: "Thou art a brave boy. I had forgot 
 it." "And no wonder," Mr. Barnard lovingly adds, 
 "for he was then above eighty years old." A Latin 
 School boy of this latter day (Phillips Brooks) calls this 
 incident, after letting the "serious face of the school- 
 master pass smiling out of our sight," the " very hero- 
 ism of school-teaching." Mr. Barnard also refers to 
 the turning of sEsop' s Fables into Latin verse as one 
 of the " exercises Master put our Class upon." 
 
 Not only as a pupil, however, but as a colleague of 
 his son Samuel in the Marblehead church did Mr. 
 Barnard have special remembrance of the old school- 
 master. It was he who preached the funeral sermon of 
 Samuel his predecessor to whom, years after the
 
 Scboolmaster 37 
 
 father had been laid to rest, he refers in his Sketch of 
 Eminent Ministers as "of great classick learning, a 
 good preacher, a thorough Christian and a prudent man." 
 (Appendix IV.) 
 
 In his Literary Diary (April 25, 1772) Ezra Stiles, 
 President of Yale College, tells of seeing in the rev- 
 erend and aged Mr. Samuel Maxwell, of Warren, R. I., 
 a man who had been acquainted with one of the " origi- 
 nal and first settlers of New England, now a rarity," 
 who told him that he well knew the famous grammar 
 schoolteacher Mr. Ezekiel Cheever, of Boston, author of 
 the Accidence', that he wore a long white beard termi- 
 nating in a point ; that when he stroked his beard to the 
 point, it was a sign for the boys to stand clear. 
 
 With increase of pupils, Mr. Cheever began to hire 
 an assistant at his own expense. But in March, 1699, 
 at a public meeting of the inhabitants of Boston, it 
 was voted that the selectmen arrange for such. Thus 
 it happened that not long after, Mr. Ezekiel Lewis, a 
 grandson of the old master then eighty-five years old, 
 became his assistant, at a salary of forty pounds a year. 
 This, however, not proving sufficient, his request later 
 (1701) for forty-five pounds a year was granted. Two 
 years after this, the town is paying Mr. Nathaniel Wil- 
 liams, the assistant who took his place, eighty pounds 
 a year. This Boston boy had been a pupil of the school 
 and of Harvard. In the funeral oration which the 
 pastor of the Old South, Rev. Thomas Prince, de- 
 livered at the time of his death years after (1738), he 
 declared that in this " laborious and important service "
 
 38 Esefctel Cbeever 
 
 as colleague and successor of Master Cheever, "by an 
 agreeable mixture of majesty and sweetness, both in his 
 Voice and countenance, with a mild and steady conduct, 
 he happily ruled and was generally both reverenced and 
 beloved." He referred to the Latin School as being 
 then " the only Publick and Free Grammar School of 
 the Great Town, the Principal School of the British 
 Colonies, if not of all America." 
 
 The last two years of Mr. Cheever' s life were made 
 more lonely by the death of his wife. But he had the 
 loving care of his youngest daughter, Susannah, who 
 had married, in 1693, Mr. Joseph Russell. He had 
 also faithful friends. Judge Sewall gave him his 
 affection to the end. In his Diary he tells of his 
 visiting him when he had entered his eighty-eighth year, 
 being the oldest man in town. At another time he 
 says: "Master Cheever, his coming to me last Satur- 
 day, January 31, on purpose to tell me he blessed 
 God that I had stood up for the Truth is more com- 
 fort to me than Mr. Borland's unhandsomeness is dis- 
 comfort." Again he speaks of him as being a bearer 
 several times at funerals, where at one he, with 
 others, received a scarf and ring which "were given 
 at the House after coming from the Grave." He 
 refers to a peculiarity of the venerable schoolmaster 
 when he says : ' ' Mr. Wadsworth appears at Lecture 
 in his Perriwig; Mr. Cheever is grieved at it." Mr. 
 Cheever, however, was not the only one who was 
 opposed to periwigs. The apostle Eliot preached and 
 prayed against them. Even Judge Sewall himself
 
 JUDGE SEWALL 
 (As copied from portrait in Massachusetts Historical Society Rooms)
 
 Schoolmaster 39 
 
 had a religious abhorrence of such, being frank and posi- 
 tive in his denunciations to friends who wore them. He 
 took special pains to copy some reasons he saw against 
 " mens wearing of Perewigs made of Womens hair, as 
 the custom now is, deduced from Scripture & Reason." 
 In his Journal of 1699 he refers to going to lecture 
 wearing his black cap, and we see him today in the 
 Massachusetts Historical Society rooms, painted by Smy- 
 bert, in a black skullcap crowning his white locks. 
 But if in his old age Master Cheever was grieved at 
 the use of periwigs, he was doubtless pleased with the 
 work of his children ; for his son Samuel, besides being 
 one of the ministers consulted concerning the witchcraft 
 trials in Salem, was one of those who petitioned the 
 General Court in 1 703 in behalf of the witchcraft suffer- 
 ers. Had the father lived a few years longer he would 
 probably have been an eager listener to the election 
 sermon this son preached in the Old South Meeting- 
 house, the first one preached in that building. (Ap- 
 pendix IV.) 
 
 Then the master must have congratulated his grand- 
 son, Ames, the son of Samuel, upon his graduation from 
 Harvard in 1707. He certainly would have given him 
 his blessing had he lived to see him become the first 
 settled minister of Manchester, Mass., where he died 
 and was buried. (Appendix V.) 
 
 But the old schoolmaster could not go on teaching for- 
 ever. He had taught seventy years when his last illness 
 came upon him. In the following touching account in 
 his Diary, Judge Sewall says of his friend :
 
 4 o jesefctel Cbeever 
 
 "Aug. 12, 1708. Mr. Chiever is abroad & hears 
 Mr. Cotton Mather preach. This is the last of his 
 going abroad. Was taken very sick, like to die with a 
 Flux. Aug. 13. I go to see him, went in with his son 
 Thomas and Mr. Lewis. His Son spake to him and he 
 knew him not ; I spake to him and he bid me speak 
 again; then he said, Now I know you, and speaking 
 cheerily mentioned my name. I ask'd his Blessing for 
 me and my family ; He said I was Bless' d, and it could 
 not be Reversed. Yet at my going away He pray'd for 
 a Blessing for me. 
 
 " Aug. 19. I visited Mr. Chiever again, just before 
 Lecture ; Thank' d him for his kindness to me and mine ; 
 desired his prayers for me, my family, Boston, Salem, 
 the Province. He rec'd me with abundance of 
 Affection, taking me by the hand several times. He 
 said, The Afflictions of God's people, God by them did 
 as a Goldsmith, knock, knock, knock ; knock, knock, 
 knock, to finish the plate ; It was to perfect them not to 
 punish them. I went and told Mr. Pemberton (the Pas- 
 tor of Old South) who preached. 
 
 " Aug. 20. I visited Mr. Chiever who was now 
 grown much weaker, and his speech very low. He 
 call'd Daughter! When his daughter Russel came, He 
 ask'd if the family were composed; They apprehended 
 He was uneasy because there had not been Prayer that 
 morn ; and solicited me to Pray ; I was loth and advised 
 them to send for Mr. Williams, as most natural, homo- 
 geneous ; They declin'd it, and I went to Prayer. 
 After, I told him, The last enemy was Death, and God 
 hath made that a friend too ; He put his hand out of the 
 Bed, and held it up, to signify his Assent. Observing 
 he suck'd a piece of an Orange, put it orderly into his 
 mouth and chew'd it, and then took out the core. After 
 dinner I carried a few of the best Figs I could get and a 
 dish Marmalet. I spake not to him now.
 
 Schoolmaster 41 
 
 '''Aug. 21. Mr. Edward Oakes tells me Mr. Chiever 
 died this last night." 
 
 Then in a note he tells the chief facts in his life, 
 which he closes with : 
 
 " So that he has Laboured in that calling (teaching) 
 skilfully, diligently, constantly, Religiously, Seventy 
 years. A rare Instance of Piety, Health, Strength, Ser- 
 viceableness. The Wellfare of the Province was much 
 upon his spirit. He abominated Perriwiggs." 
 
 Thus the old schoolmaster died in the harness, teach- 
 ing up to his last illness, when almost ninety-four years 
 of age. 
 
 His funeral was from the schoolhouse, when ac- 
 cording to Judge Sewall the governor, councilors, 
 ministers, justices and gentlemen were present. Mr. 
 Nathaniel Williams, his successor as master of the 
 school, " made a handsome Latin oration in his Honor." 
 After naming the bearers, the judge adds that he was 
 earnestly solicited after the funeral " to speak to a place 
 of Scripture, at the private Quarter Meeting in the room 
 of Mr. Cheever." It seemed to be a joy to him that 
 the old schoolmaster began and ended his "American 
 Race in Boston;" that his "holy, useful life was a 
 married life ; he married and then fell to keeping 
 school." He evidently was pleased with his earthly 
 habitations, for in writing to Increase Mather of the 
 town expenses, he refers to the u very good school- 
 house and dwelling-house" which had been built for 
 him, adding " Our late excellent master, Mr. Ezekiel 
 Cheever, went to his heavenly mansion from a very 
 pleasant Earthly Situation." {Letter Book.)
 
 42 jesefctel Cbeever 
 
 At the time of his death, Joseph Dudley was governor 
 of the colony, and Queen Anne ruled in England. 
 During his thirty-eight years' service in Boston, the old 
 schoolmaster had seen the administrations of Governors 
 Bellingham, Leverett, Simon Bradstreet, Sir Edmund 
 Andros, and other prominent men. He had been a 
 friend of the Boston pastors. But the most stirring 
 days of America's struggle had not arrived. Washing- 
 ton, John Adams, Jefferson, Paul Revere, John Han- 
 cock and other leaders were not born. Franklin had 
 been baptized in the Old South Meeting House only 
 two years before. But enough had been acted to arouse 
 the attention and interest of the successful master. The 
 troubles and sorrows of the Indians had been revealed in 
 King Philip' s War (1675-1676.) The fanaticism and 
 horror of the Salem witchcraft of 1692 had shocked 
 the finest minds, and the career of George Fox and the 
 Quakers was claiming attention. 
 
 Governor Hutchinson in his History of Massachusetts 
 refers to his departed master as ' ' venerable, not merely 
 for his great age, ninety-four, but for having been the 
 schoolmaster of most of the principal gentlemen in 
 Boston who were then upon the stage." His young 
 Harvard Latin salutatorian, John Leverett, was then 
 president of the college at a salary of one hundred and 
 fifty pounds a year. Another pupil, Cotton Mather, 
 who felt sure he had " as much Reason to appear for 
 Him as ever Crito for his Master Socrates," preached 
 his funeral sermon. Printed in Boston in 1708, and 
 later in 1774, its title page called him the " Ancient and
 
 Scboolmaster 43 
 
 Honorable Master of the Free School in Boston, who 
 left off but when Mortality took him off in August, 1708." 
 
 The "Historical Introduction" to the sermon, in 
 giving the main facts of his life, closed by saying that 
 He had been a Skillful, Painful, Faithful School- 
 master for Seventy years, and had the singular favour 
 of Heaven that tho' he had Usefully spent his Life 
 among Children, yet he was not become Twice a child 
 but held his Abilities with his Usefulness, in an unusual 
 degree to the very last." 
 
 In the sermon proper he testified to the intellectual 
 force of his master, which was " as little abated as his 
 natural." He exemplified the fulfillment of that word, 
 ** As thy days so shall thy strength be." Before clos- 
 ing with a Latin epitaph, he gave an essay in rhyme, 
 to the memory of his " Venerable Master," which he 
 hoped might " in any measure animate the Gratitude of 
 any Scholars to their Well-deserving Tutors." 
 
 It began as follows : 
 
 " You that are Men, and Thoughts of Manhood know, 
 
 Be just now to the Man that made you so. 
 
 Martyred by Scholars, the stabbed Cassian dies, 
 
 And falls to cursed Lads a sacrifice. 
 
 Not so my Cheever, not by scholars slain, 
 
 But Praised and Loved and Wished to Life again. 
 
 A Mighty Tribe of Well-instructed Youth 
 
 Tell what they owe to him, and Tell the Truth ; 
 
 All the Eight parts of Speech he taught to them 
 
 They now Employ to Trumpet his Esteem. 
 
 With interjections they break off at last, 
 But Ah, is all they use, Wo, and Alas !"
 
 44 
 
 Cbcever 
 
 In over 200 lines the memorial rhyme goes on. 
 
 14 Do but name Cheever and the Echo, straight 
 Upon that name, Good Latin will Repeat. 
 
 And in our School a Miracle is wrought, 
 For the Dead Languages to Life are brought. 
 
 How oft we saw him tread the Milky Way 
 Which to the glorious Throne of Mercy lay ! 
 Come from the Mount he shone with ancient Grace, 
 Awful the splendor of his Aged Face. 
 
 His Work he loved ; Oh had we done the same ! 
 Our Play-Dayes still to him ungrateful came ; 
 And yet so well our Work adjusted Lay, 
 We came to Work as if we came to Play. 
 
 'Tis Corlet's pains & Cheever's we must own, 
 That thou, New England, art not Scythia grown. 
 You that in t'other Hemisphere do dwell 
 Do of Old Age your dismal stories tell. 
 
 To weak Old Age you say there must belong 
 
 A trembling Palsey both of Limb and Tongue. 
 
 Dayes all decrepit ; and a Bending Back, 
 
 Propt by a Staff, in Hands that ever shake. 
 
 Nay, Syrs, our Cheever shall confute you all, 
 
 On Whom there did none of these Mischiefs fall. 
 
 He lived and to vast Age no Illness knew, 
 
 Till Time's Scythe waiting for him Rusty grew. 
 
 He Lived and Wrought ; His Labours were Immense, 
 
 But ne'er Declined to Praeter perfect Tense. 
 
 Death gently cut the stalk and kindly laid 
 Him, where our God his Granary has made." 
 (Appendix VI.)
 
 Schoolmaster 45 
 
 "The muse was never more modish and self-con- 
 scious," declared Phillips Brooks in referring to this 
 essay in rhyme; "poetry never labored under such 
 mountain-weight of pedantry ; conceits never so turned 
 and returned and doubled on themselves ; the flowers 
 of rhetoric never so ran to seed, as in these marvelous 
 verses in which this minister of the North Church did 
 obituary honor to the Master of the Latin School." 
 " And yet it shows," he concluded, " that the reality of 
 his pupil's tribute to his greatness pierced through all 
 his absurd exaggerations, and made him walk grandly 
 even in these preposterous clothes." 
 
 The delivery of this essay in rhyme evidently brought 
 to mind other elegies which had been written in honor 
 of the faithful ; for there was published upon the death 
 of Master Cheever one which his immediate predecessor 
 as master of the school, Benjamin Tompson* had writ- 
 
 * Benjamin Tompson, schoolmaster, physician and poet, the 
 son of Rev. William Tompson of Braintree, was born July 14, 
 1642 ; graduated at Harvard College, 1662. In the Eustis Street 
 burying-ground in Roxbury, where he lies buried, is the follow- 
 ing inscription to his memory : 
 
 SUB SPE IMMORTALI YE 
 
 HERSE OF M r BENJ THOMPS ON Y* 
 
 LEARNED SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 e 
 
 & PHYSICIAN & Y 
 
 RENOUNED POET OF N : ENGL : 
 
 OBIIT APRILIS 13 ANNO DOM 
 
 1714 & ^ETATIS SU^E, 72. 
 MORTUUS, SED IMMORTALIS 
 
 HE THAT WOULD TRY 
 WHAT IS TRUE HAPPINE SS INDEED 
 MUST DIE
 
 46 jesefctel Cbeever 
 
 ten upon the death of another schoolmaster, John Wood- 
 mancy. Dr. Samuel A. Green, of the Massachusetts 
 Historical Society, in his contribution of the elegy to 
 the Proceedings of the Society (Second Series, Volume 
 V.), thinks that without doubt Mr. Woodmancy was a 
 master in the Latin School, though he had been unable 
 to connect him either with Robert Woodmansey, head 
 master of the school, who died in 1667, or with John 
 Woodmancy, merchant, who died in 1684. At least 
 the subject of this elegy was a schoolmaster in Boston, 
 as told by the title: "The Grammarian's Funeral, an 
 Elegy composed upon the Death of Mr. John Wood- 
 mancy, formerly a schoolmaster in Boston ; But now 
 Published upon the Death of the Venerable Mr. Ezekiel 
 Chevers the late and famous schoolmaster of Boston in 
 New England ; who Departed this Life the twenty-first 
 of August 1708, Early in the Morning, In the ninety- 
 fourth year of his age." That Mr. Woodmancy taught 
 Latin is evident from the tenor of the lines themselves. 
 How could otherwise such a personification of Latin 
 speech have come into being? 
 
 " Eight Parts of Speech this day wear Mourning Gowns, 
 
 Declined Verbs, Pronouns, Participles, Nouns. 
 
 And not declined, Adverbs and Conjunctions 
 
 In Lillies Torch they stand to do their functions 
 
 With Preposition ; but the most affection 
 
 Was still observed in the Interjection. 
 
 The Substantive seeming the limbed best 
 
 Would set an hand to bear him to his Rest. 
 
 The Adjective with very grief did say, 
 
 Hold me by strength, or I shall faint away.
 
 Scboolmaetcr 47 
 
 The Ponds of Tears did over-cast their faces, 
 
 Yea, all were in most lamentable Cases. 
 
 The five Declensions did the Work decline, 
 
 And Told the Pronoun Tu, The work is thine ; 
 
 But in this case those have no call to go 
 
 That want the Vocative and can't say O ! 
 
 The Pronouns said that if the Nouns were there, 
 
 There was no need of them, they might them spare. 
 
 But for the sake of Emphasis they would 
 
 In their Discretion do what ere they could. 
 
 Great honor was conferred on Conjugations, 
 
 They were to follow next to the Relations. 
 
 Amo did love him best, and Doceo might 
 
 Alledge he was his Glory and Delight, 
 
 But Lego said by me he got his skill, 
 
 And therefore next the Herse I follow will. 
 
 Audio said little, hearing them so hot, 
 
 Yet knew by him much learning he had got. 
 
 O Verbs the Active were, Or Passive sure, 
 
 Sum to be Neuter could not well endure. 
 
 But this was common to them all to moan 
 
 Their load of grief they could not soon Depone. 
 
 A doleful day for Verbs, they look so moody, 
 
 They drove Spectators to a mournful study. 
 
 The Verbs irregular, 'twas thought by some, 
 
 Would break no rule, if they were pleased to come. 
 
 Gaudeo could not be found ; fearing disgrace 
 
 He had with-drawn, sent Mceceo in his Place. 
 
 Possum did to the utmost he was able, 
 
 And bore as Stout as if he'd been A Table. 
 
 Volo was willing, Nolo somewhat stout, 
 
 But Malo rather chose not to stand out. 
 
 Possum and Volo wished all might afford 
 
 Their help, but had not an Imperative Word. 
 
 Edo from service would by no means swerve ; 
 
 Rather than fail, he thought the Cakes to Serve.
 
 48 jesefciel Cbeever 
 
 Fio was taken in a fit and said 
 By him a mournful POEM should be made. 
 Fero was willing for to bear a part, 
 Altho' he did it with an aking heart. 
 Feror excused, with grief he was so Torn, 
 He could not bear, he needed to be born. 
 Such Nouns and Verbs as we defective find, 
 No Grammar Rule did their attendance bind. 
 They were excepted, and exempted hence, 
 But Supines, all did blame for negligence. 
 Verbs' Offspring, Participles, hand-in-hand, 
 Follow, and by the same direction stand ; 
 The rest Promiscuously did croud and cumber 
 Such multitudes of each, they wanted Number. 
 Next to the Corps to make the attendance even. 
 Jove, Mercury, Apollo came from heaven, 
 And Virgil, Cato, gods, men, Rivers, Winds 
 With Elegies, Tears, Sighs, came in their kinds. 
 Ovid from Pontus hast's apparelled thus 
 In Exile-weeds bringing De Tristibus : 
 And Homer sure had been among the Rout, 
 But that the Stories say his Eyes were out. 
 Queens, Cities, Countries, Islands, Come, 
 All Trees, Birds, Fishes and each Word in Um, 
 What Syntax here can you expect to find, 
 Where each one bears such discomposed mind ? 
 Figures of Diction and Construction 
 Do little ; Yet stand sadly looking on, 
 That such a Train may in their notion chord 
 Prosodia gives the measure Word for Word. 
 Sic Mcestus Cecinit. 
 
 BENJ. TOMPSON." 
 
 It is possible that Mr. Tompson wrote these lines 
 while little Cotton Mather was his pupil in the Latin 
 School ; for we are told by his biographer-son that
 
 Schoolmaster 49 
 
 before he was " under the famous Mr. Ezekiel Cheever," 
 whom he calls a " very learned, pious man, and an ex- 
 cellent schoolmaster," he had been, "first, under the 
 care of Mr. Benjamin Tompson, who," he says, "was 
 a man of great learning and Wit, well acquainted with 
 Roman and Greek writers, and a good poet." 
 
 The reference in the Essay in Rhyme to Master Chee- 
 ver' s being "kindly laid where our God his Granary 
 has laid" seems to be confirmed by a small stone, 
 marked "Mr. Ezekiel Cheuer," seen today in the Old 
 Granary burying-ground, Boston, near the stone of his 
 daughter, Susanna Russell.* 
 
 His will, written in 1705, a short time before his wife 
 whom he mentions, died, as seen today in the Suffolk 
 Probate Office, Boston, was offered by this daughter Su- 
 sanna and the son Thomas, a few days after his death. 
 In his clear handwriting it reads : 
 
 " The Last will and Testament of Ezekiel Cheever : 
 In Nomine Domini Amen. I Ezekiel Cheever of 
 the towne of Boston in the County of Suffolk in New 
 England, Schoolmaster, being through great mercy in 
 good health & understanding wonderfull in my age, do 
 make & ordain this my last will & Testament : as fol- 
 loweth. First. I give up my Soule to God my Father 
 in Jesus Christ, my body to the earth to be buried in 
 a decent manner according to my desire in hope of a 
 blessed part in the first resurrection & glorious kingdom 
 
 * In a most extensive research, I find no proof whatever 
 for the statement that has been publicly made that he was buried 
 in the Roxbury burying-ground, or that afterwards he was 
 removed from there to the Cheever tomb in Phipps place on 
 Burial Hill, Charlestown.
 
 50 J63efctel Cbcever 
 
 of Christ on earth a thousand years. As for my out- 
 ward Estate I thus dispose of it. First, I give to my dear 
 wife all my household goods & of my plate the two-ear' d 
 cup, my least tankard, porringer, a spoon. It : I give 
 my son Thomas all my books saving what Ezekiel may 
 need & what godly books my wife may desire. It : I 
 give to Mary Philips ten pounds. It : I give to my 
 grandchild Ezekiel Russell twenty pounds. Item : I 
 divide all the rest of my estate into three Parts ; one third 
 I give to my dear wife Ellen Cheever, the other two 
 thirds to my other children, Samuel, Mary, Elizabeth, 
 Ezekiel, Thomas, Susanna, equally part just alike the 
 Legacies, debts, & funeral expenses deducted & dis- 
 charged. Marie's portion I give to her children as she 
 shall dispose. The Land Elizabeth purchased with my 
 money I give to her and to her children forever. If my 
 wife dies before me, all given her shall be given to 
 my six children equally. If any of my children die, 
 their portion I give to their children equally. It : I give 
 to the poor five pounds as part of my funeral charges. 
 It : I make and appoint my dear wife, Ellen Cheever, 
 & my two children Thomas and Susanna joint executors 
 of this my last will. In witness whereof, I have here- 
 unto set my hand and Seal this Sixteenth Day of Febr. 
 1705-6. Signed, sealed, declared in presence of Eze- 
 kiel Cheever. 
 
 BENJAMIN DYER, 
 HENRY BRIDGHAM, 
 
 HENRY BRIDGHAM. 
 
 HERE. 
 
 The estate, appraised at 837, 195. 6d., consisted of 
 Purse & apparel (46) Household Goods (165, 
 135. 8d.), Plate (nearly 35), Cash (245, 95. 8d.), 
 Feasable Bonds (over 400), Debts received (nearly 
 25).
 
 Schoolmaster 51 
 
 The words of Cotton Mather in his memorable sermon 
 concerning schoolmasters and the "Blessed Cheever," 
 are as true today as when they were uttered. "'Tis 
 a justice to them," he said, " that they should be had in 
 everlasting Remembrance: and a Place and a Name 
 among these Just men does particularly belong to that 
 Ancient and Honorable Man, a Master in our 
 Israel." He felt that having under him " Learnt an 
 Oration made by Tully in praise of his own master, 
 namely, that Pro Archia Poeta" they should not be 
 outdone by a u Pagan in our gratitude to our master." 
 "Neither as an example should the famous Christian in 
 the Primitive Times, who wrote a whole Book in praise 
 of his Master Hierotheus" be forgotten. Indeed he 
 wished more even a statue to his Master. " Verrius, 
 the Master to the Nephews of Augustus" he was proud 
 to say, " had a Statue Erected for him; and Antoninus 
 obtained from the Senate a Statue for his Master Pronto. 
 I am sorry that Mine has none." But he comforted 
 himself with the thought that " Cato counted it more 
 glorious than any Statue to have it asked, Why has he 
 none?" He felt that in the " grateful Memories of his 
 Scholars" there had been, and would be, " Hundreds 
 erected for him." And as with the old Romans, so 
 with the new Americans ; grateful memories of Boston 
 Latin School scholars for Master Cheever have come 
 down the years. Nearly one hundred and eighty years 
 after his death, his faithful service was recalled by them 
 on the occasion of the two hundred and fiftieth anniver- 
 sary of the Latin School, when Dr. Edward Everett Hale
 
 52 Esefctel Cbeever 
 
 presided, and its historian, the Rev. Henry F. Jenks, 
 John T. Hassam, Henry W. Haynes, Grenville H. Nor- 
 cross and others were moving spirits. Robert Grant, as 
 poet of the occasion, offered the following tribute : 
 
 " Ezekiel Cheever ! would that we knew more 
 Of him who lived to teach at ninety-four 
 Beside a senile but historic knee 
 The fathers of the men who made us free. 
 Perpetuated by a Mather's pen 
 His pious learning prompts his countrymen 
 To cast a backward glance on history's page, 
 And reverence the Nestor of his age. 
 Within the sacred shade the chapel flings, 
 Called ' Stone ' by patriots, and by Tories ' King's,' 
 He reared his scholars on the deeds of Rome 
 To emulate antiquity at home, 
 And drew for salary, as the Records say, 
 The rental of Deer Island down the Bay. 
 When Death had taken Cheever to himself, 
 Nathaniel Williams had his place and pelf." 
 
 But this was not enough. The orator of the occasion, 
 Phillips Brooks, desired more, even a visible remem- 
 brance ; he could not but remember what Cotton Mather 
 had said, that when scholars saw what Quirimis put on 
 his Monument for his Master, " Invisunt Locum Stud- 
 tost Juvenes frequenter, ut hoc Exemplo Edocti, 
 quantum, Discipuli ipsi prceceptoribus suis debeant, 
 perpetuo meminisse veHni," they learnt from the 
 sight what " acknowledgments were due from Scholars 
 to their Masters." So he dared hope that the time 
 would come when "some poetic brain would figure to 
 itself, and some hands alert with historical imagination
 
 Scboolmaster 53 
 
 perhaps the same which had bidden John Harvard live 
 in immortal youth in Cambridge would shape out of 
 vital bronze what sort of man the first great school- 
 master Ezekiel Cheever was." He felt it would be 
 well worth doing, and not be hard for genius to do for 
 "whoever knows the seventeenth century, will see 
 start into life its typical man, the man of prayer, the 
 man of faith, the man of duty, the man of God." He 
 might well have added the inscription appropriate for 
 such which Mather told of being on the monument 
 Aristotle set up for his Master Plato "He was one 
 whom all good men ought to imitate as well as to 
 celebrate." 
 
 The days went by. No genius took up the work. 
 But in 1899, nearly two hundred years after Master 
 Cheever ceased his labors on earth, the Boston Latin 
 School Association, of the same school he honored with 
 his service, placed in its building on Warren Avenue 
 through the generosity of Mr. Grenville H. Norcross, a 
 tablet inscribed as follows : 
 
 EZEKIEL CHEEVER 
 
 HVIVS SCHOLAE PRAECEPTOR 
 
 PER ANNOS PROPE OCTO KT TRIGINTA 
 
 LONDINII NATVS A. D. MDCXIV VIII KAL FEB. 
 
 IBI EDVCATVS IN SCHOLA CHRISTS HOSPITAL DICTA 
 
 IN NVMERVM CIVIVM ACADEMICORVM COLLEGII 
 
 EMMANVEL IN VNIVERSITATE CANTABRIGIENSI 
 
 ASCITVS A. D. MDCXXXII PRIDIE ID IAN 
 
 HANC PETIIT TERRAM A. D. MDCLXXVIII ID IAN 
 
 PRAEPOSITVS HVIC SCHOLAE A. D. MDCXXXVII 
 
 OBIT A. D. MDCCVIH XII KAL SEPT. 
 
 VIXIT PIE ANNIS LXXXXIV 
 
 COTTON MATHER DISCIPVLVS GRATVS HVIC 
 
 OMNEM NOVAE ANGLIAE ERVDITIONEM ASCRIPSIT.
 
 54 jEsefctel Cbeever 
 
 And today it is gratifying to see in the city of New 
 Haven, where Master Cheever not only began his voca- 
 tion as teacher but which he helped to found, a large 
 brick schoolhouse on the corner of Lombard and Fil- 
 more Streets, bearing on its front since its opening in 
 1897, the honored name, Ezekiel Cheever.
 
 EppenM*
 
 BppenMi 
 i. 
 
 Latin letters of Ezekiel Cheever to his son, the Rev. 
 Samuel Cheever, of Marblehead : 
 
 BOSTONIJ Nov. 24 hora 10* vesp. 
 
 CHARE FILI : Accepi ab hospite epistolium tuum 24 Nov. 
 post festum, ex quo priores firas te salutasse literas, interci- 
 dentibus nullis, cognosce, Optatum iter hora instituta perfeci. 
 Cant, ad patrem profectus sum. Quern verb k fronte quaerebam, 
 a tergo Bostonij inscius reliqui. Ne tamen iter ex toto infelix 
 et invitum esset, visum est negotium cum matre comunicare ; 
 quam etiam si rem totam celassem, subverebar ne ipsam aliena 
 et minus amicam haberem. Ex colloquio intellexi duos prius 
 tibi significatos virginem petijsse, quoru neutr. vel addicta, vel 
 facilis ee videtur. Ista objecit in illis, uno saltern, quae in te 
 non competunt. Mater nihil impedimenti praestruxit, sed via 
 apertam, et aditum liberum ut sperem, induxit. Totum tamen 
 negotium marito et filiae comittendum censuit. Valedicens 
 tandem domum redeo. In reditu ecce, obviam venit quern 
 quaerebam, ffelix interpretabar auspicium occursum ejus. Virum 
 aggressus sum, comiter salutavi, paucis itineris causam dixi, et 
 quicquid in rem visum est, de fortunis tuis narro, interna ali- 
 orum judicio et testimonio mandans. Amice me tractavit vir 
 prudens vultu et voce. Ne verbum quidem alienum et adversum. 
 Sed totum consilium ad filiae sententiam referebat. Hoc tamen 
 mihi exoranti concessit, ut ipse Bost. revertens (quod fore sub 
 mediam septimanam credebat) me domi meae conveniret, et de 
 toto negotio certiorem faceret. Ex quo ipsum non vidi, nee 
 quicqua audiva ; sed in horas singulas expecto. Quid quaeris ? 
 Si me audis, quae apparent invitare videntur omnia. Successus 
 est penes Deum. Prudens futuri temporis exitum caliginosa
 
 58 HppenMi 
 
 nocte premit deus. Qui jubet, et melius, quam tu tibi, consulat, 
 opto. Si quid interea clarius eluxerit, modo nuncius contingat, 
 tibi praemittam. Haec caenatus et dormitans scripsi. Vale. 
 Nos adventu tuu maturum et jucundu expectamus. 
 
 Tui studiosissi : pater 
 Ez : CHEEVER. 
 
 This other letter, dated Charlestown, Dec. 3ist, 1669, 
 was found after the death of the Rev. John Eliot, D.D., 
 of Boston (to whom it was given by a descendant of the 
 schoolmaster, the Rev. Isaac Mansfield of Marblehead), 
 and, later, presented to the Massachusetts Historical 
 Society ; 
 
 DULCE CAPUT : Redditae mihi sunt pridie quae ad me dedisti 
 hospiti literae, ex quibus judicium et consilium tuum facile 
 perspexi, nee contemnendum esse puto. Hiberna itinera sunt 
 semper injucunda, plerum autem gravia, et molesta, viatori 
 praecipue molli et inexperto. In magnis negotijs salubris est 
 cautela, mora tamen periculosa, saepe lethalis. Cavendum est, 
 ne praeda, quam secteris, in alienos incidat casses. Num virgo 
 sic procorum expers, et nulli obnoxia, me quidem praeterit. 
 Nee res est tuli indagini matura. Hoc unicum accepi. Multi 
 illam petifire, ilia aversata petentes. Causam vero repudij 
 prorsus ignore. Prior morum et virtutis fama novis ornatur 
 testimonijs, et receptae fidei authoribus. Laudum tamen splen- 
 dor hac nubecula obumbratur, ipsa scilicet, (asserente quadam 
 vicina) parca nimis et tenax esse videtur. Quod vitium fallit 
 specie virtutis et umbra. D Hamond inter sermones de te, et 
 tuo conjugio ortos, quos cum hospite vestra apud se pernoctante 
 habuit, exconjecturS. temere affirmavit, te domi, non foras spon- 
 sam reperturum. Quod dictum vestra silentio excepit. Nihil 
 praeter auditum habeo, sed ipse vir, audiente uxore, hanc fabulam 
 recitavit. Divino, consilio te totum trade, et coelestis provi-
 
 BppenMi 59 
 
 dentiae vestigijs inhaere, et ad optatum exitum pervenies. Nihil 
 aliud, quod scribam, occurrit. Tui omnes valent, et te ex 
 animo salutant. Plura coram, et otiosus. Vale. 
 
 Dat : Dec : ultimo. 69. 
 
 CAROLOTONIA. Tui amantissimus Pater 
 
 Ez : CHEEVER. 
 
 Hospiti tuae me omnino excusatu habe, quod ilia in equo 
 transeuntem, et me comiter appellante, in aedes ne quidem in- 
 vitavi, putavi n. ipsa Bost ; euntem ne descensura, instante 
 nocte, et reverb uxore condelis condendis occupata, nee ipsa erat 
 visu facilis, nee domus hospitio idonea. 
 
 These 
 
 For his dear son Samuel 
 Cheever 
 
 at Marblehead. 
 II. 
 
 Dr. William Ernes 
 
 Dr. William Ames (1576-1633), or Amesius, as the Dutch call 
 him, was for years a valued professor in the Franeker University 
 in Friesland, which, dating from 1585, and closed by Napoleon 
 in 1811, was noted for its enthusiastic recognition of the Ameri- 
 cans in their struggle for liberty. The theological writings of 
 this Cambridge graduate in various editions are still read in the 
 Netherlands. Cotton Mather, in his Magnalia, refers to his 
 controversies with John Robinson, when, in his "younger time," 
 he published treatises, and made no scruple to call the incom- 
 parable Dr. Ames himself Dr. Amiss for opposing such a degree 
 of separation as he then advocated. Being later convinced, how- 
 ever, by this " learned antagonist," he came to retract what his 
 mistaken zeal had advocated. Mather also refers to Dr. Ames' 
 friendship with Thomas Hooker, a founder of the Hartford 
 Colony, and tells that when Mr. Hooker was called to Rotter- 
 dam, he the "more heartily and readily accepted," because it
 
 60 HppenMi 
 
 renewed his acquaintance with his invaluable Dr. Ames, who 
 had newly left his place in the Frisian University. With him 
 he spent the residue of his time in Holland, and assisted him in 
 composing some of his discourses, which are, " His Fresh Suit 
 Against the Ceremonies" ; for such was the regard which Dr. 
 Ames had for him, that, notwithstanding his vast ability and 
 experience, yet when it came to the " narrow of any question 
 about the instituted worship of God," he would still profess him- 
 self conquered by Mr. Hooker's reason, declaring that though 
 he had been acquainted -with many scholars of divers nations, 
 yet he never met with Mr. Hooker's equal, either for preaching 
 or for disputing. And such was the regard which on the other 
 side he had for Dr. Ames, that he would say, " If a scholar was 
 but well studied in Dr. Ames, his Medulla Theologiae and Casus 
 Conscientias, so as to understand them thoroughly, they would 
 make him (supposing him versed in the scriptures) a good 
 divine, though he had no more books in the world." After this 
 Mr. Hooker went to Boston. Dr. Ames had a design to follow, 
 but death prevented; or, as Cotton Mather says, he was "on 
 the wing for this American desert, but God then took him to 
 the heavenly Canaan." But his widow and three children 
 William, John and Ruth came to New England, where, "having 
 her house burnt, and being reduced into much poverty and afflic- 
 tion, the charitable heart of Mr. Hooker, and others who joined 
 with him, upon advice thereof, comfortably provided for them." 
 (Book III, Magnalia.') The General Court of Massachusetts 
 gave forty pounds to her, " the widow of Dr. Ames of famous 
 memory." She had also a grant of land that year (1637) in 
 Salem, where she lived ere moving to Cambridge. Motley tells 
 us that the family library was used in the education of American 
 youth. This recognition of the widow of a man who never 
 stepped on American soil argues to the feeling felt for him. 
 Cotton Mather calls him the " Phoenix of his age." He recalls 
 the farewell words to him of Mr. Paul Bayne when he was about 
 leaving his native England for Holland. Perceiving him to be 
 a man of extraordinary parts, he said: "Beware of a strong
 
 Bppenbtx 61 
 
 head and a cold heart. It is rare for a scholastical wit to be 
 joined with an heart warm in religion." He was forced to 
 declare, however, that this was not the case with him. 
 
 III. 
 
 Boston Xatin Scbool 
 
 ( From Education of June, 1903.) 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE, D.D., BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 The graduates of this School, if they know anything about it, 
 are in the habit of saying that their School is the oldest School 
 in the United States. By this they mean that no other School 
 organization now existing in America can trace its existence, 
 from year to year, back to a period so early as the I3th day of 
 February, 1635, when at a meeting of the more intelligent people 
 in Boston, this School was established. Philemon Pormort or 
 Portmort, Pormont, Portmont, Permont, Purmount, was ap- 
 pointed as Master. The official spelling, as the School Cata- 
 logue shows it, is Pormort. He seems himself to have spelled 
 the name in various ways. He was one of the conscientious men 
 whom we rejected in the ecclesiastical fury which was aroused 
 by the preaching of Anne Hutchinson and other intelligent and 
 unintelligent assistants of hers. In the frenzy which led to this 
 banishment of some of the best citizens of Boston, Pormort 
 shared the fate of many excellent men. 
 
 I am at the present time, 1903, President of the Boston Latin 
 School Association, which is made up from the graduates of the 
 School. I received a letter not long since from a gentleman in- 
 terested in the oldest school in Albany. He challenged our 
 right to say that we were the oldest school in America, and cited 
 the authorities which show that the founders of Albany had 
 established a school before 1635. To which I replied that I did 
 not doubt this ; that there were undoubtedly schools in Virginia 
 or in Plymouth before 1635 ; that I supposed there were schools
 
 62 Hppenfctr 
 
 in St. Augustine and Santa Fe" long before that. But I said that 
 neither at Albany, in Virginia, in Florida, or in New Mexico had 
 any one shown the existence of a school in those early periods 
 which has been continually carried on from those times to this 
 time. 
 
 Much closer to us is the Town of Dorchester, which is now a 
 part of the municipality of Boston. The people of Dorchester 
 in the year 1639, passed a vote taxing the owners of Thompson's 
 Island which was part of their territory "for the maintenance 
 of a School in Dorchester." The antiquarians of that town say 
 that this is the earliest record of public taxation for education. 
 Our Pormort money was raised by subscription and not by taxa- 
 tion. All the same our School seems to have been managed by 
 the town meeting from the beginning. 
 
 It is evident from the Dorchester and from the Boston records 
 that the hope and wish of the leaders was, that certain special 
 properties, like Deer Island and Thompson's Island, should be 
 set apart as the " foundation " of these schools. But this system, 
 borrowed from the old country, soon gave way, and all the 
 schools were supported by taxation. As late as 1652, Rev. John 
 Cotton of the First Church left half of his estate to the support 
 of a Free School in Boston, under conditions named by him. 
 
 What we of the Boston Latin School say to our Dorchester 
 friends is that they have not in Dorchester any list of the Mas- 
 ters of their school from that day to this day, such as we have, 
 and they cannot name to us any one of the Dorchester public 
 Schools which, as our Episcopal friends would say, can show an 
 unbroken Pedagogical Succession. 
 
 The name of Philemon Pormort does not appear in the cata- 
 logue of either Oxford or the English Cambridge. His immedi- 
 ate successor in the School was Daniel Maude, who was a Master 
 of Arts of Emanuel in Cambridge ; and after him in rapid suc- 
 cession came John Woodbridge, who was of Oxford, Robert 
 Woodmansey, Benjamin Tompson, a poet of his day, a Harvard 
 graduate of 1662, Ezekiel Cheever, who learned his Latin at 
 Christ's Hospital in England. With Tompson and Cheever the
 
 Hppenfcix 6 3 
 
 history of the School connects itself with the lives of the leaders 
 of the Colony. 
 
 I used to encourage the belief among our boys that Cheever 
 and Milton were fellow-students in St. Paul's School in London. 
 I went so far as to make an unfortunate offer to give some prize, 
 I forget what, to anybody who could prove that Ezekiel Cheever 
 blacked John Milton's boots, or in any way served him as fag at 
 school. But it proved that the two boys did not even go to the 
 same school. I have been more shy of my historical prizes from 
 that day to this. Would it have been better perhaps to have 
 doubt than certainty? However this may have been, Cheever 
 came to this country as early as 1637. He was in Davenport's 
 Seven Pillared State at New Haven. The New Haven people are 
 proud of him as we are. Perhaps through Davenport's influence, 
 when he came from New Haven, at the eager request of our First 
 Church in Boston, Cheever also removed from Connecticut to 
 Massachusetts, and here " the dear old man," as they called him, 
 lived to a great age. He was first a teacher at Ipswich and 
 Charlestown, and then was invited to take charge of our Boston 
 School. Judge Sewall was one of his friends, and in a modest 
 way intimates that he and some of the rest of them contributed 
 a sort of old age pension to the decline of the old man's years. 
 
 Following him as a Master for twenty-six years, was Nathaniel 
 Williams, whose name, like that of Tompson's, will be found 
 among the earlier poets, so-called, of the infant State. He also 
 lived to a good old age. He had but little more than six months 
 in which to teach Franklin Latin. And Franklin speaks of him 
 somewhere with respect. Franklin was himself withdrawn from 
 this School to that other university known as a tallow chandler's 
 shop, in which he went on with all the practical learning which 
 made him of so much use for nearly a century. His statue now 
 stands in what was the school yard at the time when Franklin 
 played marbles, and it is, according to me, the best of the bronze 
 statues in public places in Boston. 
 
 Nathaniel Williams was immediately succeeded in the office of 
 Head Master by John Lovell. John Lovell, for the last years of
 
 his administration, had as his principal assistant his own son 
 James Lovell. When the American Revolution approached, in 
 the times which tried men's souls, John Lovell held to his King 
 and to the gentlemen who represented his King in the local gov- 
 ernment of the State, not yet new born, while James Lovell, the 
 son, was on the Patriot side. Harrison Gray Otis, afterwards 
 Senator of the United States, told me in 1840, how he himself, a 
 little boy of nine years old, entered the schoolroom in School 
 Street, on the igth of April, 1775, just in time to hear old Lovell 
 say, "War's begun and School's done, defonite libros." This 
 shows that they still used the Latin language in the work of the 
 School. It also shows a certain fear on LovelFs side that the 
 pupils would not have understood if Lovell had said, " Initium 
 belli, scholce finis" 
 
 At all events, he did not say that. Otis went home and did 
 not go to school again till the Evacuation of Boston, March, 
 1776. Samuel Hunt, the Master of the North Grammar School, 
 was then ordered to take charge of our School, and he remained 
 in office till 1805. After his death William Biglow reigned, 
 whose name is still recollected as the author of some good Maca- 
 ronic poetry. Then came Benjamin Apthorp Gould, Frederic 
 Percival Leverett, Charles Knapp Dillaway, Epes Sargent Dix- 
 well, Francis Gardner, Augustine Milton Gay, Moses Merrill, 
 and Arthur I. Fiske, who have been the Head Masters of the 
 School. In many of these cases the Head Master has continued 
 his direction of the School for a large part of his life. 
 
 It has had at times almost a national reputation. Boys were 
 sent from a distance, even from other provinces, to have the ad- 
 vantage of its discipline. It is one of our boasts at the School 
 that five of the forty-five signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence were our boys. These were Benjamin Franklin, Samuel 
 Adams, Robert Treat Paine, John Hancock, and William Hooper, 
 of North Carolina. 
 
 The founders of this School in the seventeenth century were 
 educated English gentlemen. Under the lead of the same men, 
 and men like them, the General Court of the Colony established
 
 HppenMx 6 5 
 
 the Public School system of Massachusetts, which is, I suppose, 
 the first Public School system established by law in the world 
 after the decay of the schools in Sybaris and the other Greek 
 cities of Southern Italy and of Sicily. Of the State of Thurii, 
 planted on the foundations of Sybaris, it is recorded that under 
 the laws of Charondas, "All citizens should be instructed in 
 letters, the city paying the salaries of the teachers. For he held 
 that the poor, not being able to pay their teachers from their 
 own property, would be deprived of the most valuable discipline." 
 I have met with no similar record of Legislation till the act of 
 the General Court to which I refer. The founders of the Latin 
 School undoubtedly had in mind the English Grammar Schools 
 of their own time ; and where they speak of the Free Schools of 
 those days, they do not mean necessarily schools in which the 
 pupils paid no scot to the teacher or to the government of the 
 school. The English term Free School meant then and means 
 now, a school to which any boy might be sent on equal terms 
 with any other boy. That is to say, the English Free School, 
 so called, corresponded and corresponds with any "academy" 
 in New England. The word means that it was not a school for 
 the cutlers' guild, or the shoemakers' guild, or any other guild, 
 nor was it a school under the patronage of this or that college or 
 church, but it was a school "free" for any person who wished 
 to send his son there, subject to the conditions of the establish- 
 ment. In a Democratic colony like Massachusetts, which was 
 in fact a Democratic State from the very beginning, a Free 
 School soon came to mean a school which was supported at the 
 public charge. But in the beginning the pupils themselves or 
 their parents paid more or less toward the cost of the conduct of 
 the school. Well down in the eighteenth century, the parents 
 were assessed for the wood which was burned in the school fires, 
 and to a period comparatively recent, the boys themselves were 
 expected to make the fires, to sweep out the schoolroom and to 
 do other similar services. So far removed were they from the 
 customs of our times where it has been truly said of one of our 
 larger cities, that the janitors of the Public Schools have more
 
 66 Bppenfcti 
 
 to do with their management than the School Committee has. 
 On the other hand, every boy in Massachusetts might present 
 himself at the town school. Ours was at first the only public 
 school in the town. As population increased, and the demand 
 increased, another free grammar school was opened at the North 
 End, so that the two were designated as the North Free Gram- 
 mar School and the South Free Grammar School ; the word 
 grammar implying not that English Grammar was taught, for 
 it was not, but that Latin and Greek were taught, and the boys 
 obtained a considerable facility in the use of the ancient languages. 
 Indeed the requisition of the Colonial law, which is so often 
 cited, is a requisition for such schools as prepare boys for col- 
 lege ; the primitive notion being that Satan could be resisted by 
 a proper knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages in which 
 were contained the weapons for the fight against him. In study- 
 ing the lives and histories of the men who made the American 
 Revolution, and who afterwards carried the commerce of America 
 into every seaport of the world, you will get a glimpse every now 
 and then of the result of the early education in such a Grammar 
 School. I mean by this, that there is more evidence of an ac- 
 quaintance with the Latin and Greek classics in the writings of 
 those men than there is in the writings of an equal number of 
 men of affairs today. Governor Hancock, who signed the Dec- 
 laration of Independence, as Governor of Massachusetts main- 
 tained a fine hospitality, and received at his house the French 
 officers of D'Estaing's Fleet, when that Fleet lay in Boston Har- 
 bor. But Hancock could not speak French, and there are anec- 
 dotes on record which intimate that he did speak Latin with the 
 gentlemen whom he met there. There was in that century un- 
 doubtedly, more occasion for maintaining a colloquial knowledge 
 of the language than there is now. And while Franklin never 
 makes a quotation from the Latin or the Greek, and while he 
 speaks of the few months at our Latin School as containing all 
 his school education in such matters, it has seemed to me that 
 there is evidence that he was acquainted with the Latin Classics. 
 I think he knew what the famous epigram meant which says of
 
 HppenMi 6 7 
 
 him, " Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis" He did not 
 object to the Latin inscriptions on the Continental Medals. 
 
 Ezekiel Cheever wrote and printed, " The Accidence," a Latin 
 Grammar which was used in our schools nearly to the end of the 
 century in which he died. There were one or two traces of such 
 books in Adam's Latin Grammar, which in Mr. Gould's edition 
 of it was the book put into the hands of schoolboys as late as 
 1830 ; a book without any philological value, but to this hour not 
 a bad monument of what was the scholastic treatment of the 
 Latin language. It would seem as if the boys of the eighteenth 
 century carried their Latin reading before entering college quite 
 as far as such reading is carried now. 
 
 Even a rough computation of the population of Boston and the 
 pupils in the two Latin Schools, shows that some knowledge of 
 the classical languages must, on the whole, have been an accom- 
 plishment much more general in 1750 than now in any com- 
 mercial city of America. That is to say, in a town of fifteen 
 thousand people, there were at any given moment more than two 
 hundred boys in attendance at these schools. Now, the whole of 
 what we call the school population of Boston, if we speak of 
 boys only, would have been fifteen hundred boys of all ages from 
 five to sixteen. Of the ages from ten to sixteen, when they 
 would have attended Latin Schools, there can hardly have been 
 more than seven hundred boys in the town. Now in fact, it 
 seems that two hundred of these boys were studying the Latin 
 language. They had enough knowledge of it, at least, to put 
 away their books when John Lovell used to say, " Deponite 
 libros.'" They had so much knowledge of it that a member of 
 the Legislature would not have been afraid to make a quotation 
 in the Latin language. On the other hand I think no one would 
 say today that one third of such boys of Boston or New York 
 have had training in Latin or in Greek. Perhaps this knowledge, 
 even superficial, of the Latin shows its result in the literature of 
 the time. I have thought that one detected Latin idioms in the 
 English of the Revolution which he would not find in the lead- 
 ing editorials of today.
 
 68 HppenMr 
 
 From 1776, when the two Latin Schools were united, in the 
 extreme stringency of the times, to the year 1816, when Benjamin 
 Apthorp Gould was made the Head Master of the School, is the 
 period when the record of the School as a force in the public edu- 
 cation is comparatively poor. I have wondered whether the 
 eager and strenuous mercantile life of the town, turning from 
 being a ship building town with some interest in the Fisheries, 
 into a rich and commercial city, did not for the moment show 
 itself in a diminishing interest in classical study. But with 
 wealth and commerce with all the world, the interest of the larg- 
 est education asserted itself. The School Committee of Boston 
 adopted measures to " give an additional impulse to the school." 
 The most important of the changes made was a regulation " re- 
 newing the ancient usage of the school," that boys should be 
 admitted only once a year. This regulation has been retained 
 to this time. The greatest credit is due to the executive ability 
 and to the careful learning of Benjamin Apthorp Gould, who at 
 the age of twenty-seven was appointed the Head Master of the 
 School, and after the new arrangement was made, he placed 
 it at once at the very head of classical instruction in New 
 England. 
 
 Mr. Gould's five essays, published in five successive annual 
 numbers of what is known as the Prize Book, are dignified dis- 
 cussions of methods of education, and, in especial, of the prog- 
 ress of what is called Classical Education. The title of the book 
 itself indicates the renewal of interest in the careful school work. 
 Some prizes had been instituted, in the fashion of the day, for 
 the best work done in the school. The essays or translations 
 which the boys made were printed, or some of them were, as 
 indication to the world of Boston of what their boys could do. 
 It is interesting now to find the names of Robert C. Winthrop, 
 Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, and James Freeman Clarke 
 put in print for the first time as they appeared at the ages of 
 thirteen or fourteen among the competitors for School Prizes. 
 Mr. Sumner received two prizes in 1824 ; one for a translation 
 from Sallust and one for a translation from Ovid. In printing
 
 HppenMi 6 9 
 
 these essays, Mr. Gould would make a handsome book with the 
 results of his own studies on what we now call the higher educa- 
 tion. The dignity and prestige which the School had at that 
 time was not easily lost. The school authorities of the city have 
 always been proud of it, and have maintained a line of teachers 
 whose work is well known among the people who take any inter- 
 est in the history of American schools. Mr. Frederic Percival 
 Leverett was the accomplished and accurate author of a Latin 
 Lexicon which in one form or another still holds a place among 
 the working books of Latin Schools. Francis Gardner, who 
 was foi forty years head master of the School, abridged this 
 Lexicon so that it might be used more conveniently, and his 
 work held its place in use till quite recently. Mr. Leverett's im- 
 mediate successor was Charles Knapp Dillaway. I was one of 
 his pupils, and it happened to me, therefore, to be called to assist 
 in the services at his funeral. He died in 1889. He had been a 
 schoolboy in this very school, when he was nine years old, and 
 his connection with the Public Schools of Boston had been un- 
 interrupted except by the four years that he spent in Harvaid 
 College, from the time when he was nine years old till the time 
 when he died. That is to say, in the two hundred and forty-nine 
 years of the history of Boston, this gentleman had been more or 
 less closely connected with our education here for more than a 
 quarter of the time. He was then the working member of the 
 Trustees of the Roxbury Latin School. So recent is what we 
 call our ancient history. 
 
 Mr. Dillaway was followed in his charge by Epes Sargent Dix- 
 well, a grandson of Hunt, who was one of the earlier teachers. 
 Mr. Dixwell had every qualification for such a post. He was 
 intelligently enthusiastic about the Latin language and its litera- 
 ture. He is the only old man whom I remember, who till after 
 he had passed four score years wrote on any fit occasion his little 
 Horatian ode in the Latin language. Some unfortunate disa- 
 greement with some committee now forgotten led him to resign 
 his place and to establish a private school for precisely the pur- 
 pose of the Boston Latin School, which has led the way in several
 
 70 HppenMi 
 
 private schools which have maintained the standard of scholar- 
 ship which Mr. Gould and Mr. Leverett had fixed at our School. 
 Mr. DixwelPs immediate successor was Francis Gardner. I 
 speak of him with regard, not to say tenderness, because I was a 
 pupil under him, and like all of his other pupils I had a great 
 respect, not simply for his knowledge of the Classics, but for 
 the moral standard of life which he held before us. I have often 
 said in public addresses that at the time when I was a schoolboy, 
 there was no boy in school that would have dared to tell a lie. 
 The moral tone of the School was so high that any liar would 
 have been sent to Coventry, and a boy who had transgressed 
 would have compelled his father to take him away from the igno- 
 miny which awaited him in the school room. Mr. Gardner him- 
 self was severe in his dealings with laziness or with anything 
 which offended his sense of morals. But as the schoolboys say, 
 he was "fair," and every boy under his rather strict administra- 
 tion recognized the fact that the law was the same for one as for 
 another, and that Gardner's favor was to be won simply by in- 
 dustry and purity of life. He had no veneration for the person 
 whose success was simply in working out the difference between 
 the Subjunctive and the Optative. On Mr. Gardner's death, for 
 a few months only Mr. Augustine Milton Gay was the Head Mas- 
 ter. Mr. Moses Merrill, the sub-master, succeeded him as Head 
 Master, and on his resignation, the present principal, a sub- 
 master, was promoted in the same way. The School has noth- 
 ing to fear in his administration of it. 
 
 Such are the condensed annals of the oldest school in America. 
 Unfortunately, its catalogues from 1635 to 1730 were not pre- 
 served. It is due to the diligent affection of the alumni of the 
 last generation that there have been collected from the family 
 traditions and the histories of Massachusetts the names of some 
 of the boys who were trained there. That list begins with John 
 Hull, the goldsmith who stamped the silver of Massachusetts 
 when she assumed that royal prerogative in 1652. On the same 
 list is the name of Benjamin Franklin, who has made an affec- 
 tionate allusion to the School in his Autobiography.
 
 HppenMi 71 
 
 As soon as John Lovell was made the Master, the regular 
 catalogue of the School began, which lasted all through his dy- 
 nasty. The earlier a boy presented himself at LovelPs house 
 for examination, the better was his chance for a good seat in the 
 schoolroom, so that the little fellows rose early on that morning 
 and reported there just below the schoolhouse in hope of obtain- 
 ing this privilege. On the catalogue of Harvard College for the 
 same year, the boys were rated according to the social rank of 
 their parents. But under the more democratic system of the 
 Town of Boston, the boy who rose earliest in the morning and 
 washed his face earliest and arrived at Lovell's house earliest, is 
 first upon the list. This list fortunately was preserved by Lovell 
 and his son. It breaks off with the American Revolution, and 
 again the complete catalogue list of the School is broken. But 
 with Mr. Gould's more accurate history it begins again, and we 
 have the names of thousands upon thousands of the alumni of 
 the School, for many of whom it was the only University. They 
 have extended a knowledge of it to all parts of the country. The 
 boys of the School to this day are proud of course that five of 
 their own number were among the forty-five signers of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence. Indeed, we are fond of saying that 
 what the old writing masters used to call " the Boston style of 
 writing" may be traced among the signatures of the nation's 
 charter. 
 
 The Hall of Fame in New York has twenty-nine names agreed 
 upon by ninety-seven judges. It does not include any person 
 who had died after 1890. Of the twenty-nine names who received 
 the majority of votes, three or four were Latin School boys, 
 Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, perhaps Samuel 
 Breese Morse, and Henry Ward Beecher. And William Ellery 
 Channing was on our school Committee in the days of Gould. 
 These five names are in a list of Heroes which can afford to omit 
 our Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Charles Sumner.
 
 72 Hppen&U 
 
 IV. 
 
 funeral Sermon of 1Re\?* ?obn 3Barnaro on 
 1Re\>. Samuel Cbeever 
 
 The funeral sermon Rev. John Barnard preached on 
 that "aged and faithful servant of God," the Rev. 
 Samuel Cheever, of Marblehead, under the title, 
 "Elijah's Mantle," was printed in Boston by " S. 
 Gerrish near the Brick Meeting-House in Cornhill 1724." 
 (Found in the Boston Public Library.) 
 
 After generalizing somewhat on the text, II. Kings 
 ii. 14, he finishes the sermon as follows : 
 
 And this leads me into the mournful Theme which this day 
 calls for, occasioned by the removal of that Man of God, the 
 aged Reverend Mr. Samuel Cheever, from among us. It pleased 
 God, from whom comes down every good and perfect Gift, to 
 furnish him for the work of the Ministry, with no small Abili- 
 ties, both natural and acquired, being owner of a solid Judgment, 
 a copious Invention, and a tenacious Memory, which were im- 
 proved in him, by a due application of himself to Reading, 
 Meditation and Prayer. 
 
 God brought him among you some time in November, 1668, 
 from which Time, those of you that are advanced in Years, 
 know how much he has been a common Father to the whole 
 Town, in the many temporal Advantages which you have 
 received from him ; he truly went about doing good, and serving 
 you in all your Interests. 
 
 But as preaching is peculiarly the Minister's Work, so he was 
 well fitted herefor by an uncommon Knowledge in the Holy- 
 Scripture, being an excellent Text-man, and carrying a Body of 
 Divinity in his Head, which he would often say to me, it was 
 good for a Divine to be well furnished withal.
 
 Hppenfcfi 73 
 
 In his publick Discourses to you he endeavored to preserve 
 the truth, purity and simplicity of the Gospel, teaching you the 
 Truth as it is in Jesus. He made it his great care to shew you 
 your Sin and Danger, and where your only Remedy lies ; that 
 you might be directed to flee from the wrath to come, and lay 
 hold on the Hope set before you. And as he aimed at the 
 winning of Soals to his great Master, so he sought not to please 
 your Fancy and tickle your ears with studied Elocution and 
 formal Periods, but delivered the Mind of God to you with such 
 plainness and urgency of Argument and Persuasion as becomes 
 the Gospel of Christ ; and he shunned not to declare unto you 
 the whole Counsel of God. 
 
 And how fervent was he in treating with your immortal 
 Souls, delivering himself to you with that flame and heart, that 
 earnestness, and vigour which shewed his sincere Zeal in his 
 Master's Service, and his hearty desire that you all might be 
 saved. He plainly shewed the lively Impressions of the Truths 
 he preached to you upon his own Heart, while the fervency of 
 his Voice pierced your ears, that the united Light and Heat 
 might strike the more forcibly upon your Minds, and gain the 
 more ready Compliance with the great Truths that were delivered 
 to you. 
 
 And he was as constant and assiduous, as fervent and zealous 
 a Preacher of the Word of God among you ; so that, if I mistake 
 not, from his first coming among you until the time that Age 
 had worn him out, you never were, more than once, without the 
 constant Entertainments of your Sabbaths, your stated Feasts 
 and your New Moons, tho' he was alone for about 48 Years : 
 God so graciously confirmed his Health that for more than 50 
 Years he never was hindered from coming to you in the Name 
 of the Lord by any Sickness. 
 
 Indeed, the infirmities of Age obliged him to take leave of his 
 publick stated Exercises in October, 1719, which he did, from 
 those Words of our Saviour, John ix. 4, " I must work the works 
 of him that sent me while it is day ; the night cometh when no 
 man can work." And yet, about a Year after this, upon a special
 
 74 Hppenbtx 
 
 Occasion, he entertained us with a short but plain and fervent 
 Excitement, to be Zealous of Good Works. 
 
 While his strength and vigour continued he was a very just 
 and methodical Preacher (and doubtless had he been fixed in a 
 politer Place he would have made a brighter Figure), tho' in his 
 latter days he gave more into an expository way of treating the 
 several Texts that occurred in his preaching ; and to the last he 
 could make no publick use of Notes, but delivered all memoriter. 
 
 And yet, after Age had laid him aside from publick Labour, 
 he was still at his Work, and his Mind so intensely set upon it, 
 that I scarce ever came into his Company at any time without 
 finding him at his Study, or his Mind taken up with the publick 
 Duties of the Sabbath ; and he would be continually expressing 
 his concern lest he should not be able to do anything of it, and 
 desiring me to prepare for all the Day, lest he should not be able 
 to come out, which plainly shewed the hearty Delight he took 
 in his Work. 
 
 He was a Man of Peace, of a Catholick Mind, and extensive 
 Philanthropy and good Will to all Men, without confining 
 Religion to a particular Sect; a great Peace-maker among his 
 contending Neighbors, and never made, or excited Parties, or so 
 much as joined himself to any (that I can learn) but those that 
 were for God and Religion, against Vice and Immorality. 
 
 His Conversation was grave, yet pleasant, suitable to a steady 
 composure of Mind, which he usually enjoyed, though at proper 
 Seasons he knew how to be warm. 
 
 His life among you has been the life of a Christian, and the 
 whole tenor of it a manifesting an entire Submission to and 
 Satisfaction in the disposing Providence of God ; and you your- 
 selves are Witnesses how holily and unblameably he hath 
 behaved himself, walking before you in the paths of serious 
 Godliness, a plain and a humble Man. 
 
 When you called me to the pastoral Office with him, a few 
 Years ago, tho' his own Delight in the work of the Lord among 
 you made him not so forward as some might have expected, to 
 have an Assistant joined with him, yet he evidenced to you an
 
 HppenfcU 75 
 
 entire Satisfaction in your Proceedings ; and I have cause to 
 acknowledge the goodness of God to me herein, that as a Son 
 with a Father, so he received me, repeating the Words of good 
 old Simeon upon his return to his House from my publick Or- 
 dination, " Now, Lord, lettest thou thy Servant depart in Peace." 
 
 It was a signal and uncommon Favour of God to him, that 
 tho' he lived to the Age of fourscore and almost five, yet he had 
 so settled a Constitution and firm a Health as to be able to say, 
 that he never was Sick in all his Life ; a day's Indisposition and 
 some small touches of the Sciatica, he has sometimes known. 
 And as his Health was firm, so at upwards of fourscore he could 
 read without the help of Spectacles, and had his Hearing quick 
 as Youth to the last week of his Life ; but the Powers of his 
 Mind, for some few Years before he died, failed, especially his 
 memory, whereby he was greatly unfitted even for common Con- 
 versation ; and yet his constant Family Prayers were orderly 
 and regular ; so did Grace shine in the decays of Nature. 
 
 And while the decays of Age laid him by from publick Serv- 
 ice, how exemplarily Patient was he under such a Rebuke ? He 
 would often say to me : "Age is too heavy for me, but I must 
 bear it. I can't die when I would. I must patiently wait God's 
 Time ; my Times are in His Hands ; I rejoice to see that God 
 has provided for His People before I go. God has satisfied me 
 with long life." 
 
 Thus continued he at Work, and patiently submitting to the 
 Will of God, till a few days ago his senses wholly left him, and 
 the Night before last he died, and truly died ; his Lamp of Life 
 fairly burning out, without being put out ; for he felt no Sick- 
 ness nor Pain to the last, nor shewed any the least tokens of 
 them even in his expiring moments. 
 
 So, while by the Grace of Christ in him, he was secured 
 against the Terrours of the second Death, thro' the Favour of 
 God to him, he knew nothing of the usual ghastly Harbingers, 
 nor the shocking Terrours of a Natural Death ; but as he was 
 always calm and easy, in the possession of a comfortable Hope, 
 without strong emotions of Joy, or the distress of anxious Tears,
 
 76 HppenMi 
 
 so he quietly fell asleep in Jesus, and is gone to receive the Re- 
 wards of his long and faithful Services. 
 
 I will only add, that the little Time I have had will sufficiently 
 apologize, that I have given no better Account of this aged and 
 faithful Servant of Jesus Christ ; and yet, such as it is, I know 
 his humble, modest Tho'ts of himself would not have been easily 
 prevailed upon to have allowed it ; for I well remember, that 
 about a Month or two ago, upon my asking him a Question, 
 which he happened to misunderstand, he replied to me, with 
 some warmth, " Prithee, don't go about to natter me ; 'tis eno' 
 that I stand to my own Master ; my greatest care is to be ac- 
 cepted of him." 
 
 And now may the God of all Grace and Consolation afford 
 his most compassionate Regards unto the devout and meek 
 Hand-maid of the Lord, who has been the Companion of his 
 Days for about fifty-four Years ; comfort her under her Sorrows, 
 and give unto her an happy and endless meeting with him in Glory. 
 
 May God be a Father unto the mourning Children, and more 
 abundantly enrich them with the Blessings of Goodness, and 
 return into their Bosome the many Prayers their ascended 
 Father hath laid out for them. 
 
 May God take care of this bereaved Town and Flock of His, 
 and always shower down of the Gifts and Graces of His Spirit 
 upon it ; and especially may I take hold of Elijah's Mantle, and 
 say, Let a double portion of his Spirit rest upon me. 
 
 My Brethren, call to Mind the Things which you have here- 
 tofore heard and learned from your deceased Pastor ; and so let 
 aged Samuel, now dead, yet speak unto you ; and be you follow- 
 ers of him wherein he followed Christ. And may God reward 
 your Kindness and the good Will of the Town, in the Support 
 which, to their Honour, they have continued to afford to him, 
 notwithstanding his being called off from Publick Usefulness 
 for some Years past. 
 
 Now make your earnest and daily Prayers for your surviving 
 Pastor, that he may be strengthened to his Work, and succeeded 
 therein.
 
 Hppenfcti 77 
 
 And let it be the care of us all so to live, that we may die in 
 Peace, like him that is now gone before us ; that when our Dust 
 returns to its Dust, our Spirits may ascend to the Lord God of 
 Elijah ; that we and our departed Father, may have a happy 
 meeting at the Right Hand of Christ, that we may be a Crown 
 of Rejoicing to him in the Day of the Lord, and he may be able 
 to say concerning us, Behold I, and the children -which God has 
 graciously given to me; and we may mutually be employed in 
 the everlasting Services of the Redeemer, and be together un- 
 speakably and forever happy in the possession of the Crown of 
 Glory, which fadeth not away. 
 
 The Election Sermon Mr. Cheever preached, May 28, 
 1712, which Drake's History of Boston says was the 
 first one preached in the Old South Church, the others 
 having been preached in the First Church, was titled 
 thus: " God's Sovereign Government Among the Na- 
 tions Asserted in a Sermon Preached before His Excel- 
 lency the Governor, the Honourable Council, and 
 Representations of the Province of the Massachusetts 
 Bay in New Rngland on May 28, 1712, being the 
 day for Election of His Majesty's Council for that 
 Province. By Samuel Cheever, Pastor of the Church 
 in Marblehead. Psal. xcv. 3, 6 (Text in full) ; Psal. 
 ii. 12. (Text in full). Boston: Printed by B. Green. 
 Sold at the Booksellers Shops. 1712." 
 
 At a Council held at the Council Chamber in Boston, 
 June 23, 1713, it was voted to pay " Five pounds, two 
 shillings and ten pence for printing Mr. Cheever's Elec- 
 tion Sermon and making it up." 
 
 In his Autobiography Mr. Barnard refers to Mr. 
 Cheever as wholly a "memoriter preacher."
 
 78 HppenMr 
 
 V. 
 
 Through the marriage of the Rev. Ames Cheever to Sarah 
 Choate, of Ipswich the daughter of " Gov." Thomas Choate, 
 of Hog (now Choate) Island these two prominent pioneer 
 families of Essex County were allied. Their descendants have 
 filled important positions in the world, as have those of the Rev. 
 Thomas Cheever and others of the schoolmaster's children, as 
 seen in records given by John T. Hassam, of Boston, Deloraine 
 P. Corey, of Maiden, Elisha D. EldrSdge, of Boston, Dr. David 
 B. Cheever, of Boston, Mr. Ezekiel Cheever Whitman (who 
 changed his name to Ezekiel Cheever), and others who might be 
 mentioned. Nor should we forget descendants of Susanna Rus- 
 sell, the daughter who ministered to the venerable master in his 
 last days. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Bn BSSHE on tbe flDemors of ms IDenerable 
 flDaster, Esefcfel Cbeever 
 
 BY COTTON MATHER 
 
 Augusta perstringere Carmine Laudes. 
 
 Quas nulla Eloquij vis Celebrare queat. 
 You that are men & thoughts of manhood know, 
 Be Just now to the Man that made you so. 
 Martyred by Scholars the stabb'd Cassian dies, 
 And falls to cursed Lads a Sacrifice. 
 Not so my Cheever ; Not by Scholars slain, 
 But Prais'd and Lov'd, and wish'd to Life again. 
 A mighty Tribe of Well-instructed Youth 
 Tell what they owe to him, and Tell the Truth. 
 All the Eight parts of Speech he taught to them 
 They now Employ to Trumpet his Esteem, 
 They fill Fames Trumpet, and they spread a Fame 
 To last till the Last Trumpet drown the same.
 
 HppenMi 79 
 
 Magister pleased them well, because 'twas he ; 
 They saw that Bonus did with it agree. 
 While they said Amo, they the Hint improve 
 Him for to make the Object of their Love, 
 No Concord so Inviolate they knew 
 As to pay Honours to their Master due. 
 With Interjections they break off at last, 
 But, Ah, is all they use, Wo, and Alas I 
 We Learnt Prosodia, but with that Design 
 Our Master's Name should in our Verses shine. 
 Our Weeping Ovid but instructed us 
 To write upon his Death, De Tristibus. 
 Tully we read, but still with this Intent, 
 That in his praise we might be Eloquent, 
 Our Stately Virgil made us but Contrive 
 As our Anchises to keep him Alive. 
 When P/icenix, to Achilles was assign'd 
 A Master, then we thought not Homer blind : 
 A Phoenix, which Oh ! might his Ashes shew ! 
 So rare a Thing we thought our master too. 
 And if we made a Theme, 'twas with Regret 
 We might not on his Worth show all our Wit. 
 
 Go on, ye Grateful Scholars to proclame 
 To late Posterity your Master's Name. 
 Let it as many Languages declare 
 As on Z,oretto-Ta.b\e do appear. 
 
 Too much to be by any one exprest : 
 
 I'll tell my share, and you shall tell the rest. 
 
 Ink is too vile a Liquor ; Liquid Gold 
 
 Should fill the Pen, by which such things are told. 
 
 The Book should Amyctntfius-Paper be 
 
 All writ with Gold, from all corruption free. 
 
 A Learned Master of the Languages 
 
 Which to Rich Stores of Learning are the Keyes ;
 
 so HppenMi 
 
 He taught us first Good Sense to understand 
 
 And put the Golden Keys into our hand. 
 
 We but for him had been for Learning Dumb, 
 
 And had a sort of Turkish Mutes become. 
 
 Were Grammar quite Extinct, yet at his Brain 
 
 The Candle might have well been lit again. 
 
 If Rhet'rick had been stript of all her Pride 
 
 She from his Wardrobe might have been supply'd. 
 
 Do but Name Cheever, and the Echo straight 
 
 Upon that name, Good Latin, will Repeat. 
 
 A Christian Terence, master of the File 
 
 That arms the Curious to Reform their Style. 
 
 Now Rome and Athens from their Ashes rise ; 
 
 See their Platonick Tear with vast surprize : 
 
 And in our Schools. Miracle is wrought ; 
 
 For the Dead Languages to Life are brought. 
 
 His Work he Lov'd : Oh ! had we done the same I 
 
 Our Play-dayes still to him ungrateful came. 
 
 And yet so well our Work adjusted Lay, 
 
 We came to Work, as if we came to Play. 
 
 Our Lads had been, but for his wondrous Cares, 
 
 Boyes of my Lady Mores unquiet Pray'rs. 
 
 Sure were it not for such informing Schools, 
 
 Our Lafran too would soon be fill'd with Owles. 
 
 'Tis Corlefs pains, and Chcever's we must own, 
 
 That thou, Ne-w England, art not Scythia grown. 
 
 The Isles of Silly had o'er-run this Day 
 
 The Continent of our America. 
 
 Grammar he taught, which 'twas his work to do ; 
 
 But he would Hagar have her place to know. 
 
 The Bible is the sacred Grammar, where 
 The Rules of speaking ivell, contained are. 
 He taught us Lilly, and he Gospel taught ; 
 And us poor Children to our Saviour brought. 
 Master of Sentences, he gave us more
 
 HppenMi si 
 
 Than we in our Sententiae had before. 
 
 We Learn't Good Things in Tullies Offices ; 
 
 But we from him Learn't Better things than these. 
 
 With Gate's he to us the Higher gave. 
 
 Lessons of Jesus, that our Souls do save. 
 
 We Constru'd Ovid's Metamorphosis, 
 
 But on ourselves charg'd, not a change to miss. 
 
 Young Austin wept, when he saw Dido dead, 
 
 Tho' not a Tear for a Lost Soul he had ; 
 
 Our Master would not let us be so vain, 
 
 But us from Virgil did to David train, 
 
 Textors Epistles would not Cloathe our Souls ; 
 
 Pauls too we heard ; we -went to School at Pauls. 
 
 Syrs, Do you not Remember well the Times, 
 
 When us he warn'd against our Youthful Crimes ; 
 
 What Honey dropt from our old Nestors mouth 
 
 When with his counsels he Reform'd our Youth ; 
 
 How much he did to make us Wise and Good ; 
 
 And with what Prayers, his work he did conclude. 
 
 Concern'd that when from him we Learning had, 
 
 It might not Armed Wickedness be made ! 
 
 The Sun shall first the Zodiac forsake, 
 
 And Stones unto the Stars their Flight shall make ; 
 
 First shall the Summer bring large drifts of Snow, 
 
 And beauteous Cherries in December grow; 
 
 Ere of those Charges we Forgetful are 
 
 Which we, O man of God, from thee did hear. 
 
 Such Tutors to the Little Ones would be. 
 Such that in Flesh we should their Angels see ; 
 Ezekiel should not be the Name of such; 
 We'd Agathangelus not think too much. 
 
 Who Serv'd the School, the Church did not forget ; 
 But Thought, and Pray'd, and often wept for it.
 
 82 HppenMi 
 
 Mighty in Prayer: How did he wield thee, Pray'r! 
 
 Thou Reverst Thunder : Christ's-Sides-piercing spear? 
 
 Soaring we saw the Bird of Paradise: 
 
 So Wing'd by Thee, for Flights beyond the Skies. 
 
 How oft we saw him tread the Milky Way, 
 
 Which to the Glorious Throne of Mercy lay ! 
 
 Come from the Mount, he shone with ancient Grace, 
 
 Awful the Splendor of his Aged Face. 
 
 Cloatk'din the Good Old Way, his Garb did wage 
 
 A War with the Vain Fashions of the Age, 
 
 Fearful of nothing more than hateful Sin ; 
 
 'Twas that from which he laboured all to win, 
 
 Zealous ; And in Truths Cause ne'r known to trim ; 
 
 No Neuter Gender there allow'd by him. 
 
 Stars but a Thousand did the Ancients know ; 
 
 On later Globes they Nineteen hundred grow ; 
 
 Now such a Cheever added to the Sphere 
 
 Makes an Addition to the Lustre there. 
 
 Meantime America a Wonder saw ; 
 
 A Youth in Age, forbid by Nature 's Law. 
 
 You that in t'other Hemisphere do dwell, 
 Do of Old Age your dismal Stories tell. 
 You tell of Snowy Heads and Rheumy Eyes 
 And things that make a man himself despise, 
 You say a. frozen Liquor chills the Veins, 
 And scarce the Shadow of a man remains, 
 Winter of Life, that Sapless Age you call, 
 And of all Maladies the Hospital ; 
 The Second Nonage of the Soul ; the Brain 
 Cover 'd with Cloud ; the Body all in pain, 
 To weak Old Age, you say, there must belong, 
 Trembling Palsey both of Limb and Tongue ; 
 Dayes all Decrepit ; and a Bending Back, 
 Propt by a Staff, in Hands that ever shake.
 
 HppenMr 
 
 Nay, Syrs, our Cheever shall confute you all. 
 
 On whom there did none of these Mischefs fall, 
 
 He Liv'd and to vast Age no Illness knew ; 
 
 Till Times Scythe waiting for him Rusty grew. 
 
 He Liv'd and Wrought ; his Labours were immense ; 
 
 But ne'er Declined to Procter perfect Tense. 
 
 A Blooming Youth in him at Ninety-Four 
 
 We saw ; But Oh ! when such a sight before ! 
 
 At Wondrous Age he did his Youth resume, 
 
 As when the Eagle mews his Aged plume. 
 
 With Faculties of Reason still so bright, 
 
 And at Good Services so Exquisite ; 
 
 Sure our sound Chiliast, we wondering, thought, 
 
 To the First Resurrection is not brought ! 
 
 No, He for That was waiting at the Gate, 
 
 In the Pure Things that fit a Candidate. 
 
 He in Good Actions did his Life Employ, 
 
 And to make others Good, he made his Joy, 
 
 Thus well-appris'd now of the Life to Come, 
 
 To Live here was to him a Martyrdom, 
 
 Our brave Macrobius Long'd to see the Day 
 
 Which others dread, of being CalVd away, 
 
 So, Ripe with Age, he does invite the Hook, 
 
 Which watchful does for its large Harvest look ; 
 
 Death gently cut the Stalk, and kindly laid 
 
 Him, where our God His Granary has made. 
 
 Who at New-Haven first began to Teach, 
 Dying UnshipivrecKd, does White-Haven reach. 
 At that Fair-Haven they all Storms forget ; 
 He there his Davenport with Love does meet. 
 The Luminous Robe, the Loss whereof with Shame 
 Our Parents wept, when Naked they became ; 
 Those Lovely Spirits wear it, and therein 
 Serve God with Priestly Glory, free from Sin. 
 
 But in his Paradisian Rest above 
 
 To Us does the Blest Shade retain his Love.
 
 With Rip'ned Thoughts Above concern 'd for Us, 
 We can't but hear him dart his Wishes, thus. 
 1 Tutors, Be Strict ; But jet be Gentle too, 
 ' Don't by fierce Cruelties fair Hopes undo, 
 ' Dream not, that they who are to Learning slow, 
 ' Will mend by Arguments in Ferio, 
 ' Who keeps the Golden Fleece, Oh, let him not 
 ' A Dragon be, tho' he Three Tongues have got. 
 ' Why can you not to Learning find the way, 
 ' But thro' the Province of Severia? 
 ' 'Twas Moderatus, who taught Origen ; 
 ' A Youth which prov'd one of the Best of men. 
 ' The Lads with Honour first and Reason Rule ; 
 ' Blo-wes are but for the Refractory Fool. 
 ' But, Oh ! First Teach them their Great God to fear \ 
 ' That you like me, with joy may meet them here.' 
 
 H' has said! 
 
 Adieu a little while, Dear Saint, Adieu ; 
 Your Scholar won't be long, Sir, after you. 
 In the mean time, with Gratitude I must 
 Engrave an Epitaph upon your Dust. 
 'Tis true, Excessive Merits rarely safe ; 
 Such an Excess forfeits an Epitaph ; 
 But if Base men the Rules of Justice break, 
 The Stories (at least upon the Tombs) will speak. 
 
 Et Tumulum facite, et Tumulo superaddite carmen. 
 (Virg. in Daphn.). 
 
 EPITAPHIUM 
 EZEKIEL CHEEVERUS ; 
 
 Ludi-magister ; 
 Primo Neo-portensis ; 
 
 Dinde, Ipsuicensis 
 
 Postea, Carolotenensis 
 
 Postremo, Bostonensis : 
 
 cujus
 
 HppenMi s 5 
 
 Doctrinam ac Virtutem 
 N&sti si Sis Nov-Anglus, 
 Colis, si non Barbarus ; 
 
 Grammaticus, 
 a Quo, non pure tantum, sed et pie, 
 
 Loqui 
 
 Rhetoricus 
 
 a Quo non tantum, Ornate dicere 
 
 coram Hominibus, 
 
 Sed et Orationes coram Deo fundere 
 
 Efficacissimas ; 
 
 Poeta, 
 a Quo non tantum Carmina pangere, 
 
 Sed et 
 Caelestes Hymnos, Odasq : Angelicas, 
 
 canere, 
 
 Didicerunt, 
 
 Qui discere voluerunt : 
 
 Lucerna, 
 
 ad Quam accensa sunt, 
 
 Quis queat numerare, 
 
 Quot Ecclesiarum Lumina? 
 
 Et 
 Qui secum Corpus Theologiae abstulit, 
 
 Peritissimus Theologus, 
 Corpus hie suum sibi minus Charum 
 
 deposuit. 
 
 Vixit Annos, XCIV. 
 
 Docuit, Annos LXX. 
 
 Obiit, A. D. M. DCC.VIII ; 
 
 Et quod Mori potuit, 
 
 Heic 
 
 Expectat Exoptatq : 
 Primam Sanctorum Resurrectionem 
 
 ad Immortalitem. 
 Exuvijs debetur Honos.
 
 flnfcei 8 7 
 
 A. 
 
 Accidence, Cheever's . . . .12, 14, 15, 16, 26, 37, 67 
 
 Adams, John .42 
 
 Adams, Samuel ........ 64, 71 
 
 Agassiz .......... 9 
 
 Agawatn . 17 
 
 Ames, Almanack . . . . . . . . 21 
 
 Ames, Dr. William ....... 19, 59 
 
 Andover ......... 18, 20 
 
 Andros, Sir Edmund ....... 28, 42 
 
 Angier, Edmund 19 
 
 Angier, Ruth ......... 19 
 
 Anne, Queen 42 
 
 Appleton, Samuel ........ 17 
 
 Artillery Election Sermon ....... 25 
 
 Ascham 18 
 
 Athenaeum, Boston . 16 
 
 Autograph, Cheever 16 
 
 B. 
 
 Bacon, Leonard Woolsey n 
 
 Baldwin, Ernest H. 14 
 
 Barnard, Rev. John 36, 72, 77 
 
 Barnett, John ......... 29 
 
 Bay Psalm Book ........ 21 
 
 Bellingham, Richard 24, 42 
 
 Bentley, Wm., D.D 18 
 
 Biglow, William ........ 64 
 
 Blue Coat Boys 27 
 
 Boston 14, 19, 24, 42, 49 
 
 Boston Latin School ... 24, 26, 38, 45, 46, 48, 51, 61 
 Boston Latin School Association .... 25, 53, 61 
 
 Bradford, William 20 
 
 Bradstreet, Anne 20 
 
 Bradstreet, Simon 17, 1 8, 26, 42
 
 88 flnfcei 
 
 Brooks, Phillips 36, 45, 52 
 
 "Burial Hill," Char lestown 22,49 
 
 C. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass 19, 27, 60 
 
 Cambridge University, England .... 10, 62 
 
 Channing, W. E. 71 
 
 Charlestown, Mass. . . . 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 38, 49, 58 
 
 Charles II 10, 24 
 
 Chauncy, Charles . . . . . . . . 18 
 
 Chebacco 23 
 
 Cheever, Abigail ........ 22 
 
 Cheever, Ames . . . . . . . 39, 78 
 
 Cheever, Dr. David B 78 
 
 Cheever, Elizabeth ....... 13, 50 
 
 Cheever, Ezekiel, of Salem ...... 22 
 
 Cheever, Ezekiel, Schoolmaster, 
 
 9, 10, ii, 19, 23, 25, 35, 38, 46, 53, 54 
 
 Cheever, Ezekiel, of Charlestown 22 
 
 Cheever, Hannah ........ 13 
 
 Cheever, Mary ......... 13 
 
 Cheever, Nathaniel 22 
 
 Cheever, Samuel . . 13, 18, 19, 20, 25, 36, 50, 57, 72 
 
 Cheever, Sarah ......... 13 
 
 Cheever, Susannah 38, 49, 50 
 
 Cheever, Thomas . . . . . .22, 49, 50, 78 
 
 Choate Island 78 
 
 Choate, Sarah 78 
 
 Choate, Thomas 78 
 
 Christ's Hospital, London 27, 62 
 
 Church Street, New Haven ...... 10 
 
 Clarke, James Freeman 68 
 
 Corey, Deloraine P 78 
 
 Corlet, Elijah 27 
 
 Cotton, Rev. John 62 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver ........ 20
 
 s 9 fnfcei 
 
 D. 
 
 " Day of Doom " 11,21 
 
 Davenport, John 9, 10 
 
 Deer Island . . 52, 62 
 
 Diary, SewalPs 25, 38, 39 
 
 Dillaway, Charles Knapp ...... 64, 69 
 
 Diary, Stiles' 37 
 
 Dixwell, Epes Sargent 64, 69 
 
 Dorchester, Mass 62 
 
 Dryden 24 
 
 Dudley, Joseph ......... 42 
 
 Dudley, Thomas 17, 20 
 
 Dunster, President of Harvard College .... 13 
 
 E. 
 
 Eaton, Theophilus 9, 10 
 
 Eldridge, Elisha D 78 
 
 Election Sermon in Old South Church .... 77 
 
 Eliot, John 20, 38, 58 
 
 Elm Street, New Haven n 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 71 
 
 Emmanuel College 10 
 
 Endicott, John 17, 20 
 
 Erasmus . . 18 
 
 " Essay in Rhyme" 43,44,49,78 
 
 Eustis Street Burying Ground, Roxbury ... 45, 49 
 
 P. 
 
 Feoffers 22 
 
 Fox, George 42 
 
 Fiske, Arthur 1 64 
 
 Fisk, Rev. John 17 
 
 Franeker University 59 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin 42, 63, 64, 66, 71 
 
 Free School 17, 18, 43, 62, 65 
 
 Funeral Sermon of Rev. John Barnard ... 36, 72
 
 90 Unfcer 
 
 G. 
 
 Gardner Francis 64, 69, 70 
 
 Gay, A. M. 64, 70 
 
 General Court 12, 13, 39, 60, 64, 65 
 
 Gould, Benjamin Apthorp .... 64, 68, 70, 71 
 
 Gould, Zaccheus 17 
 
 " Grammarian's Funeral " Tompson . . .46, 47, 48 
 Granary Burying Ground ....... 49 
 
 " Grandfather's Chair " 31 
 
 Grant, Robert 52 
 
 Greek . . . 16, 26, 35 
 
 Green, Dr. Samuel A. . 46 
 
 Green and Russell, Printers 16 
 
 Grove Street, New Haven 10 
 
 n. 
 
 Hale, Edward Everett 24, 25, 51, 61 
 
 Hall of Fame, New York . . . . . . . 71 
 
 Hancock, John 42,64,66,71 
 
 Harris, T. M 15 
 
 Harvard, John . . . . . . . . 22,53 
 
 Harvard University . . 13, 14, 18, 24, 26, 28, 39, 45, 69 
 
 Hassam, John T. 16, 18, 52, 78 
 
 Haynes, Henry W 52 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 31 
 
 Holland University 19 
 
 Hooker, Thomas 59, 60 
 
 Hooper, William 64 
 
 Hull, John 70 
 
 Hunt, Samuel 64 
 
 Hutchinson, Anne 12, 61 
 
 Hutchinson, Governor . 42 
 
 I. 
 
 Ipswich, Mass 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 38, 78 
 
 Ipswich Historical Society 22, 23
 
 j. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas ........ 42 
 
 Jenks, Rev. Henry F. 24 
 
 E. 
 
 King's Chapel ....25 
 
 King Philip's War 42 
 
 L. 
 
 Lathrop, Ellen 22, 50 
 
 Lathrop, Thomas ........22 
 
 Latin Epistles 18 
 
 Latin Epitaph 85 
 
 Latin Letters 57, 58, 59 
 
 Leffingwell, E. H. . . 19 
 
 Leverett, F. P 64, 69 
 
 Leverett, Governor .42 
 
 Leverett, John 26, 42 
 
 Lewis, Ezekiel 37 , 40 
 
 Lombard Street, New Haven 54 
 
 Lovell, John 63, 67, 71 
 
 M. 
 
 Magnalia, Cotton Mather 9, 17, 21, 59, 60 
 
 Manchester, Mass 17, 39 
 
 Mansfield, Isaac, Rev. 58 
 
 Marblehead . 20, 36 
 
 Massachusetts Colony . . . . . . . 12, 20 
 
 Massachusetts Historical Society . . 16, 18, 36, 39, 46, 58 
 
 Massasoit 12 
 
 Mather, Cotton .... 26,35,42,48,51,53,59,78 
 
 Mather, Increase 26, 41 
 
 Mather, Samuel 35 
 
 Maude, Daniel 62 
 
 Maxwell, Samuel 37 
 
 Memorial Hall, Cambridge 19
 
 92 Hnt>er 
 
 Merrill, Moses 64, 70 
 
 Milton, John n, 24, 63 
 
 Monument in Ipswich 23 
 
 N. 
 
 New Haven . . . . 9, 10, n, 13, 14, 17, 18, 54 
 
 ' ' New Meadows " . . . . . . . . 17 
 
 Newman's Barn 9 
 
 Norcross, Grenville H 52, 53 
 
 Norton, Pastor 21 
 
 Oakes, Edward ......... 41 
 
 Old South Meeting-house .... 37, 39, 40, 42 
 
 Otis, Harrison Gray ........ 64 
 
 Oxford University . . . . . . . . 10, 62 
 
 "Paterna" 35 
 
 Paradise Lost, Milton ....... 24 
 
 Paine, Robert Treat 64 
 
 Payne, Robert 18 
 
 Pemberton (Rev.) 40 
 
 Phillips Academy 15 
 
 Phillips, Wendell 68 
 
 Philips, Mary 50 
 
 Plymouth Colony 20, 24 
 
 Pope, Alexander . 24 
 
 Pormort, Philemon 61, 62 
 
 Prince, Thomas 37 
 
 Queen Street, Boston 14 
 
 Quincy, Edmund . 15 
 
 Quincy, Josiah 14, 15 
 
 Quinnipiack 9
 
 93 
 
 R. 
 
 Register, Historical and Genealogical . . 16 
 
 Revere, Paul .... ..... 42 
 
 Rogers, Nathaniel ........ 21 
 
 Rumney Marsh ........ 22 
 
 Russell, Ezekiel ......... 50 
 
 Russell, Joseph ......... 38 
 
 Russell, Susannah ..... 38, 40, 49, 50, 78 
 
 8. 
 Salem, Mass ........ 17, 18, 22, 42 
 
 Saltonstall, Nathaniel ....... 18 
 
 Saltonstall, Richard ........ 17 
 
 School, South Latin Grammar . ..... 25 
 
 School Street, Boston ....... 25, 64 
 
 School-house, Ezekiel Cheever ..... 54 
 
 School-House Lane ........ 25 
 
 " Scripture Prophecies Explained " ..... 15 
 
 Sewall, Judge ........ 25, 38, 41 
 
 Smybert .......... 39 
 
 Stiles, Ezra, President Yale College ..... 37 
 
 St. Paul's School, London ...... 63 
 
 Sumner, Charles ........ 68, 71 
 
 T. 
 
 Tablet of Ezekiel Cheever ...... 53 
 
 Temple Street ......... 1 1 
 
 " The Simple Cobbler of Agawam " ..... 20 
 
 Thursday Lecture ...... . . 25, 34 
 
 Tomb of Ezekiel Cheever, Esq., on Burial Hill, Charles- 
 
 town .......... 22, 49 
 
 Tompson, Benjamin ....... 45, 49, 62 
 
 Topsfield .......... 17 
 
 W. 
 
 Wadsworth, Mr ..... * ..... 38 
 Walker, Samuel ......... 15
 
 94 Infcei 
 
 Walter, Nehemiah 26 
 
 Ward, Nathaniel 20 
 
 Warren Avenue, Boston 53 
 
 Washington, George .... ... 42 
 
 Waters, Rev. T. Frank 23 
 
 Wenham, Mass 17 
 
 Whitman, Ezekiel Cheever 78 
 
 Wigglesworth, Michael .10 
 
 Will, Ezekiel Cheever's 49 
 
 Williams, Nathaniel 39, 40, 41, 52, 63 
 
 Williams, Roger 12 
 
 Winthrop, John 17, 24 
 
 Winthrop, John, Jr 18 
 
 Winthrop, Robert C 68 
 
 Win slow, Edward 20 
 
 Witchcraft, Salem . . 42 
 
 Woodbridge, John 62 
 
 Woodmancy, John .46 
 
 Woodmansey, Robert 46, 62 
 
 Z. 
 Zealand 21
 
 f|THIS BOOK WAS PRINTED IN 
 THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED 
 AND FOUR AT THE OFFICE OF 
 FRANK WOOD, BOSTON & ILLUS- 
 TRATIONS BY AMERICAN EN- 
 GRAVING COMPANY 9 COVER 
 DESIGN BY EMMA E. BROWN
 
 23489
 
 A 000677818 7