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JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 IN 
 
 HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History is past Politics and Politics present History. Freeman 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 LOCAL INSTITUTIONS 
 
 PUBUSHKD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF TIIK JoHNS HOPKINS L'KIVKRSITT 
 N. MURKAY, PUBLICATION AOKXT 
 
 BALTIMOK E 
 
 1 88 :t 
 
JOHN MURPHY A CO., TRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 I. An Introduction to American Institutional History. By Edward 
 A. Freeman, D. C. L., LL. D. With an Account of Mr. 
 Freeman's Visit to Baltimore. By the Editor. 
 
 II. The Germanic Origin of New England Towns. "With Notes on 
 Co-operation in University Work. By Herbert B. Adams, 
 Ph. D., Associate Professor of History, Johns Hopkins Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 III. Local Government in Illinois. By Albert Shaw, A. B. Local 
 
 Government in Pennsylvania. By E. li. L. Gould, A. B., 
 Fellow in History, Johns Hopkins University. 
 
 IV. Saxon Tithingmen in America. By Herbert B. Adams. 
 
 V. Local Government in Michigan and the Northwest. By Edward 
 W. Bemis, A. B., Scholar in History, Johns Hopkins Univer.Mty. 
 
 VI. Parish Institutions of Maryland. With Illustrations from Pariah 
 Kecords. By Edward Ingle, A. B. 
 
 VII. Old Maryland Manors. With the Kecords of a Court Leet and 
 a Court Baron. By John Johnson, A. B. 
 
 VIII. Norman Constables in America. By Herbert B. Adams. 
 IX-X. Village Communities of Cape Anne and Salem. By Herbert B. 
 Adams. 
 
 XL The Genesis of a New England State. By Alexander Johnston, 
 Professor of Political Economy and Jurisprudence, Princeton 
 College. 
 XII. Local Government and Free Schools in South Carolina. By B. 
 J. Ramage, A. B., Scholar in History, Johns Hopkins Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 iii 
 
INDEX TO FIRST VOLUME 
 
 OF 
 
 Johns Hopkins University Studies 
 
 IX 
 
 HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 Abbeville county, XII. 20. 
 
 Abbott, Michael, VII. 34. 
 
 Acts of Assembly, Maryland, VI. 5, 
 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 21, 23, 26, 
 26, 29, 31, 32, 39. 
 
 Adair, Kob't, VI. 40. 
 
 Adams, H. B., Freeman's visit to 
 Baltimore, I. 5-12 ; the Germanic 
 Origin of New England Towns, 
 II.; Saxon Tithingmen in Amer- 
 ica, IV. ; Norman Constables in 
 America, VIII. ; Village Com- 
 munities of Cape Anne and Salem, 
 1X-X.; Alex., VI. 9; Henry, II. 
 41. 
 
 Adamites, XT. 21. 
 
 Addison, John, VI. 14. 
 
 Adultery, VI. 20, 33, 35. 
 
 Afferors, VII. 14, 15. 
 
 Aldis, W. S., II. 15; IX-X. 55. 
 
 Ale tasters, VII. 14. 
 
 Alfred, IV. 16. 
 
 Alienation, recorded in court baron, 
 VII. 38. 
 
 Allen, Rev. Dr. E., history of Cov- 
 entry parish, VI. 8; history of 
 St. Paul's parish, 48; W. F., pa- 
 per in the " Nation," II. 40. 
 
 All Saints parish, extracts from rec- 
 ords of, VI. 42-49. 
 
 Aims-House Farm, IX-X. 60. 
 
 America, Spanish conquest of, I. 15; 
 English settlements in, 10; Eng- 
 lishmen of, 2:!. 
 
 American Constitution, I. 38; XI. 
 14,15; democracy, II. 6 j revolu- 
 tion, VI. 23,24. 
 
 Andrews, M., VI. 46. 
 
 Andross, Gov., III. 24, 25. 
 
 Annapolis, I. 9; VI. 17, 30. 
 
 Appenzell, I. 38. 
 
 Arms for manorial tenants, VII. 20. 
 
 Aristocracy, Calvert's plan for, in 
 Md., Vll. 7. 
 
 Aristotle, I. 9. 
 
 Askew, .Michael, VI. 45. 
 
 Assembly, (Connecticut), XI. 14,15; 
 (Maryland), see Acts, VI. 14: 
 (Pennsylvania), members of, paid 
 from county rate, III. L'7 ; return 
 of county rate made to, 29. 
 
 Assessment, 111.22,23; by court of 
 sessions and grand jury, 27 ; board 
 of, 27, 28. 
 
 Assessors, (Maryland), V I 
 (Pennsylvania), 111. U7, 28; i 
 tion of, 33 ; dimes of, 3 I. 
 
 Assistants, XI. 20. 
 
 Athens, I. 14. 
 
 Atlantis I. 1 1. 
 
 Attaway, Tims., VII 37. 
 
 Auditor, (county . Ill 33 ; 1 1< 
 ship), :;.'i ; election uf, :;). 
 
 Austin, John, VI. 45. 
 
 41 ; 
 
 j.v- 
 
VI 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Awsbury, Henry, VII. 87. 
 
 B 
 
 Bachelors taxed, VI. 21, 36. 
 Bacon, VI. 5, B, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, 
 
 19, 21, 22, 37. 
 Bagby, Levine, VI. 48. 
 Bailiff of manor, VII. 13, 31-36. 
 Baker, Michael, VI. 32, 36. 
 Ball, Jno, VII. 37. 
 Baltimore, Lord, VI. 5, 80 ; county, 
 
 26, 87, 38; city, 26, 27; gentle- 
 men of, assist in printing records, 
 
 29. 
 Bancroft, III. 37; XI. 8. 
 Bankers, vestry as, VI. 23, 35. 
 Bankes, Geo., VII. 34. 
 Barefoot, Jno., VII. 37. 
 Barnwell county, XII. 38. 
 Baronies in Md., Bill for, VII. 7. 
 Bartholomew county, XII. 20. 
 Bartlett, Walter, VII. 33. 
 Beall, Geo,, VI. 31, 32; James, 82; 
 
 Josiah, 36 ; Alex., 36 ; William, 
 
 36; Samuel, 36. 
 Beaufort, school, XII. 14 ; district, 
 
 20. 
 Bell, John, VI. 34. 
 Bellowes, Francis, VII. 34. 
 Bemis, Edward W., on Local Gov- 
 ernment in Michigan and the 
 
 Northwest, V. 
 Bentlev, Rev. W., history of Salem, 
 
 IX-X. 27 ; North and South Fields 
 
 of Salem, 38. 
 Benton, Wm., VII. 34. 
 Beresford, R., XII. 35. 
 Berkley, eountv, XII. 20. 
 Birckhead, S., VI. 42. 
 Bishop, Whittingham, VI. 5 ; of 
 
 London, 7, 9, 30 ; of diocese, 27. 
 Blackistone, Jno., VII. 35, 36, 37; 
 
 Nehemiah, 38. 
 Blackstone on constable, VIII. 6. 
 Blake, Rich., VI. 45. 
 Blay, Col., VI. 21. 
 Block, H. A., VIII. 30. 
 Books and libraries, Freeman '8 views 
 
 on, I. 8; in Maryland, VI. 8, 11, 
 
 15, 16,24,25,31,43,44. 
 Boston, XI. 12; fire, VI. 22. 
 Boucher, Rev. Jonathan, his epistle, 
 
 VI. 17; life and writings, 24. 
 
 Bourbourg, Brasseur de, his Sunday 
 
 experience in Boston, IV. 4. 
 Bourdillon, Rev. M , VI. 37. 
 Bowditch, N., IX-X. 30. 
 Boyce, Roger, VI. 40, 44. 
 Bradbourne, Edw., VII. 37. 
 Braddock's defeat, VI. 21. 
 Bradford, Gov., II. 29; Jno., VI. 30. 
 Brandford, XI. 22, 23, 27. 
 Bray, Rev. Thos., VI. 10, 11. 
 Brenson, Gerett, VII. 34, 35. 
 lirent, Giles, VII. 8; Margaret, 19. 
 Bricks, VI. 17, 37, 38, 39. 
 British government in North west,V. 
 
 9 ; museum, I. 8. 
 Brodhead, J. R., V. 29. 
 Brooke, Rev. Clement,VI. 37; Lord, 
 
 XI 7. 
 Brooklyn, I. 35. 
 Brown, Geo. W., I. 9. 
 Bruce, Wm., VI. 14. 
 Bryce, James, I. 9. 
 Bullock, John, VII. 35, 36, 37. 
 Burgesses, XI. 21, 23. 
 Burial Hill, a natural acropolis, 
 
 VIII. 17. 
 Burlington, V. 11. 
 Burnes, James, VI. 37. 
 Butler, Rev. Edw., VI. 15. 
 By-laws, VII. 14. 
 
 Caesars, I. 11. 
 
 California schools, V. 21 ; townships, 
 22. 
 
 Calvert county, VI. 14, 42, 43; 
 Charles, 30; Leonard, VII. 6. 
 
 Camden district, XII. 20. 
 
 Campbell, J. V*, on feudalism in 
 Michigan, V. 8, 9, 12; James,VI. 
 20, 21. 
 
 Cape Ann, legal basis for settlement 
 of, IX-X. 4; fisher plantation a 
 failure, 4, 5; failure of Dorchester 
 men, 12. 
 
 Cape Cod, VIII. 17. 
 
 Carnall, Chris , VII. 31, 33. 
 
 Carre, Sir Robert, III. 24. 
 
 Carroll, Peter, VI. 40; Charles, of 
 Carrollton, VII. 6. 
 
 Carver, John,' governor of Ply- 
 mouth, II. 25; VIII. 19. 
 
 Casey, Thos., VII. 35. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Vll 
 
 Cass, Oov., influence on local gov- 
 ernment in Michigan, V. 12, 13. 
 
 Caswell, Rich., VI. 14, 37. 
 
 Catline, Thos., VII. 35, 37, 38. 
 
 Centralization, French, V. 8, 9 ; ten- 
 dency in the United Estates, 25. 
 
 Chapels of parish, VI. 16, 29, 37 ; on 
 manors, Vli. 10. 
 
 Charity schools, VI. 22. 
 
 Charles II., XI. 7, 25, 26, 29. 
 
 Charleston, XII. 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 18, 
 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 32, 33, 34, 
 36, 37; district divided, XII. 20. 
 
 Charlestown, VI. 9. 
 
 Chauntry, J no., VII. 35. 
 
 Cheptico Indians, VII. 33; King 
 of, 34. 
 
 Cheraws, district of divided, XII. 20. 
 
 Cheshire, Wm., VII. 35, 37. 
 
 Chester county, XII. 20. 
 
 Chesterfield county, XII. 20. 
 
 Chew, Joseph, VI. 29, 33. 
 
 Childs, James, XII. 35. 
 
 Childsbury, free school of, XII. 14, 
 35. 
 
 Chillman, Rich., VII. 37. 
 
 Choate, R., on beginning of N. Eng. 
 institutions, II. 27; VIII. 21. 
 
 Christ Church parish, VI. 14. 
 
 Chrysoloras, I. 11. 
 
 Church, parochial, III. 23 ; built by 
 order of court of sessions, 25 ; 
 penal laws of Maryland read in, 
 VI. 9, 21 ; description of, IB, 17, 
 18,24; wardens, III. 22, 23,25; 
 VI. (see wardens); XII. 11; 
 church members in Conn., XI. 22, 
 23, 24 ; church and state in Conn., 
 15, 17, 21. 
 
 Circuits, judicial, XII. 27. 
 
 City, a corporate town, I. 37 ; organ- 
 ization in III., III. 18. 
 
 Claggett, John, VI. 35, 36, 46. 
 
 Claims, territorial, of Conn., XI. 
 7-10. 
 
 Clark, Rev. J. S., his theory of town 
 corporation, II. 27. 
 
 Claremont, XII. 20. 
 
 Clarendon county, XII. 20. 
 
 Clergy, deficiency of, III. 23; (see 
 ministers). 
 
 Clerk of county, III. 29; of town- 
 ship, 33; of parish, VI. 8, 12, 17, 
 32 ; of vestry, 16, 18, 32, 33, 36, 37, 
 89, 41, 43, 44; commissary's, 17. 
 
 Climate, effects of, on South Caro- 
 lina, XII. 6. 
 Cockshutt, Thos., VI. 42,43. 
 Coke on constable, VIII. 6. 
 Cole, Robt., VII. 34, 35, 37. 
 Collections in Penna., law of, III. 
 
 22, 28, 29. 
 
 Collectors, how appointed, III. 23, 
 34 ; duties of, 34. 
 
 College royal in Virginia, VI. 12. 
 
 Colletin county, XII. 20. 
 
 Colony, laws of, Mass., VIII. 28-30; 
 Connecticut, XI. 13-21; New 
 Haven, 17, 21-25. 
 
 Colonization of Connecticut, XI. 
 10-13. 
 
 Colorado schools, V. 21 ; townships 
 in, 21 ; woman suffrage in, 24, 25. 
 
 Combes, Abraham, VII. 37. 
 
 Comegys, Wm., VI. 21. 
 
 Commissaries, appointment and du- 
 ties, VI, 13, 15, 17. 
 
 Commissioners, (county), III. 33; 
 XII. 26; duties and powers of, 
 III. 33-36; XII. 26. 
 
 Common lands, II. 22; of New 
 Castle, III. 25; fields stinted, 
 common pasturage, IX-X. 48, 49. 
 
 Commonable ground, II. 20. 
 
 Commoners, Salem, IX-X. 70. 
 
 Communal interests, Saxon influ- 
 ence of, II. 38. 
 
 " Compromise system " of local gov- 
 ernment in Ohio and Indiana, 
 III, 11. 
 
 Compton, Bishop, III. 23. 
 
 Conant, K., IX-X. 7. 
 
 Congregations, VI. 26; XI. 11. 
 
 Congregationalists, XI. 17. 
 
 Congress, XI. 6, 7, 14, 15. 
 
 Connecticut, governor of, I. 35; lo- 
 cal institutions, II. 30; women 
 eligible on school board, V. 25; 
 territorial claims of, XI. 7-10; 
 river, 9, 10, 11, 15; colonization 
 of towns, 12; colony, 13-21 : state 
 of, 14; church and slate in, 15, 17, 
 2 1 , 22, 23, 24 ; charter, 26 ; county 
 system of, 28. 
 
 Constables (in 111.) III. 12; (Penna.) 
 III. 21 ; official term of, 21 ; laws 
 framed by, 21 ; general duties, 22, 
 
 23, 24, 25, 28 ; how chosen, 21, 27 ; 
 ecclesiastical duties of, 22; court 
 of, 25; (Md.), VI. 8, 19,20; VII. 
 
Vlll 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 14, 36, 38; oath of, 16; (New 
 England), derivation of term, 
 Vlll. 6^ 7-; origin of, 8; an elec- 
 tive officer, 13; Indian, 25; sun- 
 day duties of, 27; power of, 82, 
 83 ; documents concerning duty 
 of, 36-88; duty in harvest time, 
 IX-X. 45; (Conn.), XI. 19,22,24., 
 
 Constantinople, I. 11. 
 
 Constitution of towns framed hy 
 constables and overseers, III. 21, 
 24; first American, XI. 14, 15; 
 Locke's fundamental, XII. 7. 
 
 Convention, federal, XI. 16. 
 
 Convery, (Conoray), Edw., VII. 35, 
 36, 87. 
 
 Conway, M. D., IV. 4. 
 
 Cook, Prof. A. S., II. 41. 
 
 Cooke, John, VI. 86; Miles, VII. 
 26. 
 
 Cooley, Judge, decision of, V. 15; 
 opinion of, 18. 
 
 Cooper, Robert, VII. 34, 35; An- 
 thony Ashley, XII. 7. 
 
 Corinth, I. 22. 
 
 Coroner excused from vestry, VI. 
 14, 37. 
 
 Council of Plymouth, XI. 7, 8, 10, 16. 
 
 Counters of tobacco, VI. 19, 32, 41, 
 44, 45. 
 
 County in New England, III. 7 ; in 
 Mich., V. 10: Illinois, 18; Mas- 
 sachusetts, 18; Michigan, 18; 
 Minnesota, 18; New York, 18; 
 "Wisconsin, 18; Connecticut, XI. 
 28; origin of in South Carolina, 
 XII. 2U ; court in Virginia, III. 
 7; commissioners in 111. under 
 constitution of 1818, 10 ; under 
 present laws, 15; government, 
 (Illinois), 111. 16,16^17; (Penn- 
 sylvania), 23, 27, 33 ; board in Illi- 
 nois, III. 15, 16 ; clerk, 16 ; super- 
 intendent of schools, 16; judge, 
 16; officers in Penna., see asses- 
 sors, clerks, commissioners, audi- 
 tors, treasurers, etc. ; (Michigan) 
 supervisors, V. 13; aid to schools, 
 18; divided into parishes, VI. 6, 
 16; court, 6, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 25, 
 33, 34, 36, 38, 44 ; Somerset, 8, 10 ; 
 Calvert, 14, 42, 43; Anne Arun- 
 del, 16; Charles, 14, 47; Balti- 
 more, 26, 27, 38 ; Prince George, 
 7, 30, 31, 33, 36, 46: government 
 in South Carolina, XII. 24-28. 
 
 Court Leet, I. 18; in Maryland, 
 VII. 7; procedure, 13; deodand 
 levied by, 14; election of manorial 
 officers in, 14, 36, 38; jurisdiction 
 over Indians, 16; origin of, 17; 
 records of court leet, St. Clem- 
 ent's manor, 31-38; jurisdiction 
 of, VIII. 14; court baron in 
 Maryland, VII. 7; seizin given 
 in court, 12; procedure in, 16; 
 origin of, 18; swearing of fealty 
 in, 38 ; alienation recorded in, 38 ; 
 records of court baron, St. Clem- 
 ent's manor, 31-38. 
 
 Courtney, Mayor, XII. 36. 
 
 Courts, English origin of in Amer- 
 ica, I. 25; ( Pennsylvania), courts 
 in the 17th century, III. 20; 
 under duke of York, 21 ; court 
 sessions, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 
 35; town court, origin of, 22; of 
 Chester county, 22; of New Cas- 
 tle, 23, 25: of Delaware, 24; of 
 Upland, 25, 26 ; constables, 25 ; of 
 Whore Hill, 25; county courts, 
 VI. 6, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 25, 33, 34, 
 36,38,44; XI. 28; XI 1. 20,27, 
 ecclesiastical, VI. 13 ; English, 8 ; 
 general court, XI. 11, 14, 16, 16; 
 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 2ft, 26, 
 27, 28; particular, 17; held at 
 Charleston, XII. 18, 19. 
 
 Coventrv parish, VI. 8. 
 
 Cowan, A., VI. 41, 42. 
 
 Crofts, Mr., XII. 87. 
 
 Crook, Joseph, VI. 40. 
 
 Curate, VI. 8, 37. 
 
 Currency, depreciation of in 1779, 
 III. 32. 
 
 Cushman, R., IX-X. 3. 
 
 Customs, parish, VI. 9, 10, 15, 16; 
 of manors recognized by Mary- 
 land court of appeals, VII. 19. 
 
 D 
 
 Dakota school districts, V. 19; local 
 government in, 20; woman suf- 
 frage in, 24. 
 
 Dallam, Wm, VI. 38. 
 
 DalmatiH, 1. 11. 
 
 Darlington county, XII. 20. 
 
 Darrumple, Wm., VI. 42. 
 
 Dash, John, VII. 86, 37. 
 
 Dates, change of, VI. 30. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 IX 
 
 Davis, W. T., IX-X. 30. 
 
 Dav, Edw., VI. 39; John, 39, 41. 
 
 Deans, Rev. Hugh, VI. 40, 46, 
 
 Deed, VII. 38. 
 
 Delahay, Arthur, VII. 33, 34. 
 
 Delaware, III. 23,24,25; English 
 laws in, 24. 
 
 Demosthenes, I. 36. 
 
 Deodand, VII. 14. 
 
 Deputies, XI. 15, 16, 19, 23, 26. 
 
 Detroit, V. 9, 10. 
 
 Dexter, Rev. H. M., II. 25. 
 
 Dickinson, J., of Hatfield, Mass., 
 privilege of removing his house 
 into town, II. 29. 
 
 Diggs, Wm, VI. 34. 
 
 Diocese of Maryland, VI. 5, 26. 
 
 Diocletian, 1. 11. 
 
 Districts, school, in Dakota, V. 19; 
 beginning of in South Carolina, 
 XII. 17; abolition of, 24. 
 
 Dixy, W., IX-X. 17. 
 
 Doctor excused from office of war- 
 den, VI. 14. 
 
 Dollovan, Derby, VII. 37, 38. 
 
 Dorchester, XI. 11, 13; free school 
 established in, XI I. 14, 35. 
 
 Doreimr, Naomy, VI. 43. 
 
 Douglas, Senator, V. 19 ; XI. 12. 
 
 Downe, Abraham, VI. 43. 
 
 Duckiiii; stool, VII. 36. 
 
 Duke of York, III. 20; extent of 
 possessions in America, 21 ; his 
 " Book of Laws," 21 ; adminis- 
 tration of, 21, 24, 27. 
 
 Dutch, III. 24; XL 10, 20,23. 
 
 Dwiggin, Koger, VII. 35, 37. 
 
 Dwight, Rev. T., II. 28; XL 8. 
 
 E 
 
 Eastern question, I. 10. 
 Easthampton, L. 1., XI. 20. 
 Ecclesiastical court, VI. 13. 
 Edgar, order for tithingmen, VIII. 
 
 10. 
 Edgefield county, XII. 20. 
 Edmonds, James, VII. 35, 37. 
 Edmondscn, John, VII. 26. 
 Education, modern plan of, II. 46; 
 
 parochial, XII. 13, 14; county, 
 
 26; see also "Schools." 
 Edward the Confessor, I. 25; IV. 
 
 ^0; Edward III., VIII. 11. 
 
 2 
 
 Egypt, I. 11. 
 
 Election of vestry and wardens VI. 
 14, 15,29, 31, 39. 
 
 Elizabeth, (^ueen, IV. 3. 
 
 Elseburgh, constables court in, III. 
 25. 
 
 Endicott, Gov., IV. 11; VIII. 28; 
 IX-X. 20, 35. 
 
 England, American minister to, 1.21 ; 
 municipal election, I. 37 ; commu- 
 nity of pasturage in, I 2); origin 
 of local institutions in, VIII. 10, 
 11; VI. 5, 7,21,25,44; emigrants 
 from, XL 11, 12, 13; restoration 
 in, 25, 26. 
 
 English people in their three homes, 
 I. 31 ; kernel of in America, 31 ; 
 constitution, 39; II. 23; law, I. 
 25; XL 10, 20; VI. 7, 8. 
 
 Epidauros, I. 11. 
 
 Episcopal church established in 
 South Carolina, XII. 9, 10. 
 
 Erdmnnnsdoerffer, Rrof. } II. 40. 
 
 Escheat, VII. 18, 19. 
 
 Estrays, VII. 38. 
 
 Evans, A., I. 12. 
 
 Evelin, Capt. Geo., VII. 7. 
 
 Essex Institute, 11. 36; IX-X. 41. 
 
 P. 
 
 Fairfield, XL 20, 28; XII. 20. 
 
 Farniington, Conn.. XI. 18,20. 
 
 Farrer, Robert, VII. 35. 
 
 Fealty sworn in court baron, VI I. 
 17,38; fine for neglect. 33. 
 
 Federal constitution, XI. 15; con- 
 vention, 15. 
 
 Felstead, Wm., VII. 35,37. 
 
 Felt, J., IX-X. 40. 
 
 Fen wick, George, XI. 7, 11, 12. 
 
 Fines, VI. 6, 10, 15, 16, 20,21,44. 
 
 Finn, Francis, VI. 35. 
 
 Fletchall, Thos. VI. 32. 
 
 Flint. John, VI. 29, 35. 
 
 Florence, 1. 28. 
 
 Forfeiture, VII. 19. 
 
 Form of induction, VL 30; of in- 
 denture, 46; of resignation, 47. 
 
 Foster, Richard, VII. 33, :'.4, 35, 33, 
 
 Fowler, Sam'l, VI. 43 ; Joseph, V II. 
 
 35, 37. 
 France, I. 7. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Frank-pledge and tithingmen, their 
 
 relation, IV. 1 "> 
 Frazer, Bishop, V. 19; Rev. John, 
 
 VI. 29. 
 Freeman, E. A., An Introduction to 
 
 American Institutional History, 
 . I.; II. 62; IV. 19. 
 Free negroes at the South, I. 7. 
 Freeholder*, VI. 6, 7, 13, 29, 81, 34, 
 
 86, 42. 
 Free schools, VI. 11, 12; XII. 13, 
 
 26-28, 29-40. 
 French towns, I. 18; in northwest 
 
 territory, V. 8, 9. 
 Fulham, parish records, VIIT. 11. 
 Fundamental constitutions, Xll. 7. 
 
 G 
 
 Gabriel's war, I. 6. 
 
 Galpin, V. 6. 
 
 Gambrall, Rev. Theo. C , VI. 15. 
 
 Game protected, VII. 35. 
 
 Gardiner, Capt. Luke, VII. 33,34, 
 35, 36, 37. 
 
 Garfield, I. 20. 
 
 Gaylard, James, VII. 35, 36. 
 
 Gemistus, Georsjius, I. 11. 
 
 General court, XI. 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 
 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 
 27, 28. 
 
 Genesis of a New England State, 
 Study VI. By Alexander Johns- 
 ton. 
 
 Germanic Origin of New England 
 Towns, Study II. By H. B. 
 Adams. 
 
 Georgia, I. 7. 
 
 George III., I. 21 ; George I., VI. 
 14. 
 
 George's, "Wm., VII. 35. 
 
 Georgetown, VI. 37; district di- 
 vided, XII. 20. 
 
 Gerard, Justinian, VII. 35, 36, 37. 
 
 Germany, I. 7. 27. 
 
 German league, I. 18. 
 
 German villages, description of, II. 
 14. 
 
 Gildersleeve, Prof. B. L., note on 
 Virginia dialects, I. 14. 
 
 Giles, John, VI. 39. 
 
 Gilman, Pres. D. C., II. 43. 
 
 Gittings, Thos., VI. 39; James, 41. 
 
 Gladstone, I. 20. 
 
 Glebe land, VI. 9, 34, 40, 41, 42. 
 
 Gofte, XI. 25. 
 
 Goldsmith, VII. 33. 
 
 Gould, E. R. L., on Local Govern- 
 ments Pennsylvania, III. 20-37. 
 
 Governor, appoints justices of peace 
 in Va., III. 7, 22, 23, 25, >'.) 
 Gov. Lonir, II. 7; VI. 7, 8, 10, 11, 
 18, 14, 19, 21, 22, 30, 37; Stuyve- 
 sant, XL 13; election of, 15; du- 
 ties, 16, 23, 24 ; Winthrop, 26, 20 ; 
 deputv, 26, 29. 
 
 Grain, VI. 25, 42. 
 
 Granville, Rev. Bevil, VI. 47; 
 county, XII. 20. 
 
 Graves, T. 1X-X. 15. 
 
 Gray, Alex., VI. 42. 
 
 Great Britain, I. 6, 32; XL 28. 
 
 Green, J., on the origin of English 
 townships, I. 9; S. A. Green, IV. 
 12; James, VII. 35,37. 
 
 Greenwich, XL 23. 
 
 Griitli, I. 18. 
 
 Guilford, Conn., XL 22, 23, 25, 27. 
 
 H 
 
 Haines, E. M., on local government, 
 
 V. 6. 
 Hale, Chief Justice, VIII. 15. 
 Hall, Joseph, VI. 42. 
 Hallam, III. 25. 
 Hamilton, John, VII. 37; marquis 
 
 of, XL 9. 
 Hamor, C., VII. 32. 
 Hanson, VI. 18, 21, 25; Edmond, 
 
 VII. 34. 
 Harbin, Wm., VI. 29, 31; Edw. 
 
 Villers, 37. 
 Harding, John, VI. 31. 
 Harris^urg, I. 34. 
 Harrison, Wm., VII. 37. 
 Hart, Rich., VII. 37. 
 Hartford, XL 10, 11, 14, 18, 28; 
 
 treaty of, 13, 23. 
 Hatfield side-meeting, II. 32. 
 Hayward, IX-X. 47, 48. 
 Haywood, Raphael, VII. 34. 
 Heighe, James, VI. 42, 43, 45. 
 Hengest, I. 15. 
 Herzegovinia, I. 12. 
 Hewes, Thos., leader of Dorchester 
 
 employes, IX-X. 7. 
 Hickman, Wm., VI. 45. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 XI 
 
 Higginson, Rev. F., on attractions 
 of Salem, IX-X. 23,24. 
 
 Highway commissioners in 111., III. 
 12, 13; how controlled in bouth 
 Carolina, XII. 26. 
 
 Hillry, Thos., VI. 43. 
 
 Hilton county, XII. 20. 
 
 Historical society Maryland, I. 9, 
 10. 
 
 History, progress of English insti- 
 tutional, VIII. 4. 
 
 Hog-reeves, functions and elections 
 of, VIII. 34, 35. 
 
 Holland, I 17; Wm., VI. 44. 
 
 Hollister, XI. 8. 
 
 Holmea(r)d, James, VI. 29, 31. 
 
 Holmes, Wm., XI. 10. 
 
 Homoselle, story of Gabriel's war 
 I. 6. 
 
 Hoskins, Jno., VII. 35, 37. 
 
 House of Commons, I. 32; II. 19; 
 house of representatives, of lords, 
 I 32 
 
 Howard, G. E., II. 41; J. B., VI. 
 41 ; T. G., 41. 
 
 Howison's history of Virginia, I. 6. 
 
 Hubbard, Bela, V. 8 ; on Capt. 
 Standisb, IX-X. 7, 8. 
 
 Hue and cry, VII. 15. 
 
 Hull, Gov. V. 10. 
 
 Humboldt, II. 48. 
 
 Humphrey, J., VIII. 5. 
 
 Hundreds in Pennsylvania, III. 26 ; 
 in Maryland, relation of parish 
 to, VI. 6, 32; constable of, 8; 
 counters in, 32, 41 ; in South Car- 
 olina, new parishes settled on the 
 basis of, XII. 14, 15. 
 
 Hundredmen, institution of, IV. 17. 
 
 Huntington, XI. 20, 23; shire, II. 
 19. 
 
 Hutchens, Nich., VI. 40. 
 
 Huxlev's method of teaching, II. 48. 
 
 Idaho schools, V. 21. 
 
 Illinois, New England and Virginia 
 systems of local government in, 
 III. 7; part of original Virginia 
 grant, III. 8; French occupation 
 and early French settlements of, 
 8;' taken by Virginians in revo- 
 lutionary war, 8; organized as a 
 
 Virginia county, 8; ceded to IT. 
 S., 8; first territorial trrant, '.< ; 
 admission to Union and first con- 
 stitution respecting local institu- 
 tions, 9, 10; constitution of 1847, 
 11 ; adoption of township system, 
 11-18; town officers and" func- 
 tions, 13; V. 14, 16; school?, III. 
 14, 15; county government, 15, 
 16; taxes, 16, 17; village organi- 
 zation, 17, 18; chy do., 18; V. 7, 
 25; XI. 5. 
 
 Illvrian emperors and their land, I. 
 11 : letters, 12. 
 
 "Impressions of America," Free- 
 man's, I. 19. 
 
 Indenture, form of, VI. 46. 
 
 Independence, War of, I. 18, '21,22, 
 
 Indiana, local government of. V. 22. 
 
 Indians in Plymouth colony, IV. 9; 
 in Maryland, VII. 15, 16; under 
 jurisdiction of court leet, 33; XI. 
 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 28. 
 
 Induction of minister, VI. 7, 30; 
 form of, 30. 
 
 Ingram, Hannah, VI. 42. 
 
 Ingle, Edward, Parish Institutions 
 of Maryland, VI. 
 
 Innkeeper, excused from vestrv, VI. 
 39. 
 
 Inspectors of tobacco, VI. 19, 36, 45, 
 
 Institutions, American, I. 15-17; 
 parochial and manorial, VIII. 14 ; 
 of Maryland, VI.; VII. 
 
 Institutional history, study of. I. 
 13, 14; a science of modern ori- 
 gin, IV. 17. 
 
 Interest, rate of, VI. 23, 35. 
 
 Introduction to American Institu- 
 tional History, Study I. By K. 
 A. Freeman. 
 
 Iowa, local government in, V. 22. 
 
 Italy, I. 11, 19. 
 
 Ithaca, I. 10. 
 
 Jackson, Wm., VI. 29, 
 
 Jacob, 38; Thos., VII 
 
 James I ., Sunday Act, 1 V 
 
 .James, Michael" VII. 31 
 
 Jefferson, Thos., his conn 
 
 the ordinance of 17*7, 
 
 local government, V. - 
 
 50, 
 
 ',i, ; 
 
 3; 
 
 XI 
 
 ctii 
 
 II w 
 
 III 
 
 N j 
 
Ml 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Jesuits' estates in Maryland, VII. 
 20. 
 
 Johns, Rich., VI. 41. 
 
 Johnson, John, I. 13 ; on Old Mary- 
 land Manors, VII.; Rev. Thos , 
 VI. 37. 
 
 Johnston, Dr. Chris., Jr., VII 29; 
 Alexander, The Genesis of a Now 
 England State (Connecticut). X 1. 
 
 Joppa, VI. 37, 40, 41, 42; VII. 6. 
 
 Jordan, Thos., VII. 87. 
 
 Judd, H , his MS. collection, II. 30. 
 
 Judges of Michigan, V 11. 
 
 Judicial system of Illinois, III. 16. 
 
 Justices of peace in Virginia, III. 
 7 ; in Illinois, It, 13, 14 : in Penn- 
 sylvania, 23, 27; in Maryland, 
 VI. 5, 14, 33,36. 
 
 Jury, under Duke of York's admin- 
 istration, III. 21, 22; grand, VI. 
 13, 89; XI. 28; trial by, XI. 17. 
 
 Kallikratidas, I. 20. 
 
 Kansas, schools, V. 21 ; townships, 
 
 22 ; woman suffrage, 24, 25. 
 Keith, George, VII. 35. 
 Kemble on Frith borgas, IV. 16. 
 Kentucky, local government in, V. 
 
 23 ; woman suffrage, 24. 
 
 Kent county, VII. 8; Fort Manor, 
 8 ; Island, early courts on, 24. 
 
 King, XI. 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 20, 25, 
 26, 27, 29. 
 
 Kingsley, C, II. 42. 
 
 Kingston-on-Thames, parish records 
 of, VIII. 11; county, XII. 20. 
 
 Knape, John, VII. 34. 
 
 Knott, Francis, VII. 37. 
 
 Korkyra, I. 22. 
 
 Kovalevsky, Prof. M., II. 52, 53, 54. 
 
 Kyrene, I. 23. 
 
 Lamar, Thos., VI. 32. 
 
 Lambard, W., extract from, IV. 12, 
 
 13; VIII. 3; on constables and 
 
 tithingmen, 13. 
 Lancaster county, XII. 20. 
 Lands, town, XI. 16. 
 Lanman, Prof. C. R., II. 46. 
 
 Lannum, Ralph, VI. 83. 
 
 Lathrop, Capi., massacre of his men 
 at Bloody Brook, IX-X. 46. 
 
 Latrobo, J. H. B.. I. 8. 
 
 Laurens county, XII. 20. 
 
 Law, English, "XI. 10; parish, VI. 
 7; penal, 9, 27. 
 
 Lawson, Anthony, parliament held 
 at house of, XII. 8. 
 
 Leatherbury, John, VI. 38. 
 
 Leckv on French centralization, V. 
 8. " 
 
 Lee, J. W. M., I. 8; Joshua, VII. 
 35, 37; John, 37. 
 
 Lefebur. Capt. Peter, VII. 35, 37. 
 
 Lefevre's letter to the Times on 
 "Commons," II. 22. 
 
 Legislatures in New England, rep- 
 resentatives from towns, III. 6; 
 how corrupted, V. 7. 
 
 Leipzig, I. 28. 
 
 Lendrum, Andrew, VI. 46 
 
 Leslie, Copt., invasion of " North 
 Fields," IX-X. 39, 40. 
 
 Lewger, John, VII. 29. 
 
 Lewis, Lawrence, Jr., III. 20; 
 
 Lewisburgh county, XII. 20. 
 
 Lexington county, XII. 20. 
 
 Liberty county, XII. 20. 
 
 Libraries. Whittingham, VI. 5, 12 ; 
 parish, 10. 11, 44. 
 
 Liddiard, Thos., VII. 37. 
 
 Lincoln county, XII. 20. 
 
 Lingan. Thos., VI. 43. 
 
 Local Government in Illinois and 
 Pennsylvania, Study III. By 
 Albert Shaw and E. R. L. Gould. 
 
 Local Government in Michigan and 
 the Northwest, Study V. By 
 Edward W. Bemis. 
 
 Local Government and Free Schools 
 in South Carolina, Study XII. 
 By B. J. Ramage. 
 
 Local institutions of U. S., I. 5 ; 
 V. 22 ; the basis of national, II, 
 49; importance of. III. 20; devel- 
 opment of, 20; V. 23. 24; how 
 to be studied, III. 20 ; govern- 
 ment in Pennsylvania; III; not 
 changed by revolution, 28, 37 ; 
 compromise between northern 
 and southern, 32; characteristic 
 features, 32, 33, 37 ; ignorance of, 
 V. 5; advantages of, 7; meaning 
 of, 6 ; genesis of in northwest, 11 ; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 -Mil 
 
 character of in Michigan, 15; in 
 south, 23, 24; in west, 24; in 
 general, 25; in South Carolina, 
 early methods of, XII. 8, 9 ; pres- 
 ent need of, 27, 28. 
 
 Locke, John, his constitution for 
 Carolina, XTI. 7 
 
 London. I. 28 ; Bishop of, VI. 7, 9, 
 30 ; merchant of, 33. 
 
 Long Island, III. 26; XI, 9, 12; 
 towns, 20. 
 
 Lord, Rev. Jos., XII. 35. 
 
 Lord's waste, assignment of, IT. 21. 
 
 Lotteries to open roads, III. 29 ; to 
 build churches, III. 29. 
 
 Louisiana, I. 18; women eligible to 
 school offices, V. 24. 
 
 Lowell Institute, I. 1. 
 
 Lucas, Thos., VI. 31,32. 
 
 Ludlam, Rev. Mr., XII, 34. 
 
 Lutton, Caleb, VI. 29, 31. 
 
 M 
 
 Maeaulay, I. 33. 
 
 Mace, Clove, VII. 34; Kowland, 
 31, 32. 
 
 MacPherson, Rev. Mr., VI. 21. 
 
 Macy, Prof., of Iowa College, 11.50. 
 
 Magistrates, XL, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 
 21, 22, 23, 26, 27. 
 
 Magruder, Alex., VI. 32, 36; Sam- 
 uel, 35; Ninnian, 35. 
 
 Manchester guardian, I. 12. 
 
 Maine, I. 26. 
 
 Mantield, Vincent, VII. 37. 
 
 Mannyng, Thos., VII. 34. 
 
 Manor, mode of erecting in Mary- 
 land, VII. 7; E-velinton, 7; Bo- 
 hemia, 8: Doughoregan. 8; Great 
 Oak, 8 ; Kent Fort, 8 ; My Lady's, 
 8; Nanticoke, 8; Queen Anne's, 
 8; Susquehanna, 8; buildings and 
 grounds, 9; St. Gabriel's, 12; St. 
 Michael's, 19: Newtown, 20; 
 Cooke's Hope, -26; courts of, (see 
 court leet and court baron.) 
 
 Manorial system of England, VII. 
 7. 
 
 Manors in Pennsylvania, III. 26; 
 in Maryland. 26; in New York, 
 26; 
 
 Mansell, John, VII. 31, 32. 
 
 Mansfield, John, VII. 33. 
 
 Manual labor-schools, VI. 12. 
 Marblehead, IX-X. 32. 
 Marim county, XII. 20. 
 Marlborough county, XII. 20. 
 
 Marriage, VI. 10,*18, 38. 39, 45, 
 
 46. 
 Marsh, Rich., VII. 35. 
 
 Marshall, W., IX-X. 59. 
 
 Maryland, laws of, I. 8; historical 
 society, 9; institutions, 13, 16; 
 parishes of, VI ; diocese of, 5, 26 ; 
 manuscripts, 12; convention of, 
 25; manors, VII; planters, first 
 generation of, 6. 
 
 Massachusetts, institutions, I. 13; 
 customs, 14; governor, 35; his- 
 torical society.' IV. 12, VIII. 3; 
 laws in Michigan, V. 10; women 
 suffrage in, 24, 25; need of 
 county supervisor of schools, 18; 
 power of town in. 15, 16; fish- 
 eries, first colonial enterprise, 
 IX-X. 9; general court, IX-X. 
 43, 44, 68; colonial harvest law, 
 45; aristocratic feeling in col- 
 ony, 47; towns, XI. 5, 11, 13; 
 boundary, 10, 13, 26; traders, 
 11; congregations, 11, 12, 29; 
 bav, 13; magistrates, 13. 
 
 Mass"alia, I. 23. 
 
 Mattabezeck (Middletown), XI. 19. 
 
 Mayflower, I. 15. 
 
 Mediaeval agricultural communities 
 of England, the survival of the 
 Teutonic village, II. 21. 
 
 Mendip, I. 12. 
 
 Methodism, VI. 25. 
 
 Michigan settled by New Eng- 
 enders and New Yorkers, V . 12 ; 
 power of the governor, 13; 
 woman suffrage in. 24,25; local 
 government in, 10-20. 
 
 Middletown, XI. 20. 
 
 Midlemore, Josias, VI. 46. 
 
 Migration of the modern scholar, 
 II. 44, 45; <>n parallels of lati- 
 tude illustrated in the colonization 
 of Illinois, III. 5, 6. 
 
 Milan, I. 11. 
 
 Miles, Manuel, VII. 35, 37. 
 
 Milford, XI. 22, 23. 25, 27. 
 
 Miller, Wm., VI. 15. 
 
 Milner, Isaac, VI. 33. 
 
 Ministers in Maryland, V I. 5; in- 
 ducted by governor, 7; nominees 
 
XIV 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 of Bishop of London, 7 ; life of, 9, 
 10; employment of, 12: character 
 of, 12, IS; admonish bad livers, 
 20; salaries reduced, 23 ; standing 
 at the revolution, 24, 2"), 29, SO, 
 32, 84, 35, 37. 40, 41, 42, 44, 47, 
 48 ; see also Clergy. 
 
 Minnesota, history of local govern- 
 ment in, V. 16 ; woman suffrage 
 in, 24. 25; town meetings in, 1(5 
 
 Missouri. I. 18; compromise bill of 
 1820, III. 11; immigration after 
 1820, 11; local -government in, 
 V. 22. 
 
 Mondeford, Francis, VII. 35. 
 
 Monroe, James, I. 6. 
 
 Montesquieu, on origin of English 
 constitution, II. 11. 
 
 Morgan, L. H., II. 5, 6. 
 
 Mosby, Wm., I. 6. 
 
 Mourt's Relation, II. 24, 25. 
 
 Mundell, Root., VI. 36. 
 
 Murdock, Rev. Geo., VI. 30, 31, 
 32,34; William, 35. 
 
 N 
 
 Narragansett river, XI. 9, 12, 26. 
 
 Narrative and critical history of the 
 U. S.,IL 80. 
 
 Nasse, on mediaeval agricultural 
 communities in England, II. 18, 19. 
 
 Nation, The, I. 9, 10, 11, 12. 
 
 Naumkeag, first settlement of, IX- 
 X. 13; farming prospects of, 14. 
 
 Nebraska, schools of, V. 21 ; woman 
 suffrage in, 24. 
 
 Negroes in Maryland, the Church's 
 treatment of, VI. 22. 
 
 Netherlands, Dutch, I. 17 ; New, I. 
 17; XI. 10. 
 
 Nevada, schools of, V. 21 ; town- 
 ships in, 21. 
 
 Newberry county, XII. 20. 
 
 New England town meeting. I. 16; 
 history, 29; the birth place of 
 American institutions, II. 5, 6; 
 character of its towns, 6 ; local 
 institutions, 8; towns, 8,28; III.. 
 6,7; survival of "common fence," 
 II. 32; origin of institutions, 
 VIII. 12; landing of armed men 
 in, 16; State, genesis of a, XI; 
 colony, 9; union, 12, 13, 26. 
 
 New Hampshire, woman suffrage in, 
 
 V. 24, 25. 
 New Jersev, women eligible to school 
 
 offices, V. 25. 
 New Haven, I. 10; origin of, XI. 
 
 12; colony, 17; town founded, 21 ; 
 
 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 ; boundaries, 
 
 28. 
 New London, XI. 18, 20, 28. 
 Newtown, XL 11, 13, 14. 
 New York, governor of, I. 34: III. 
 
 26; woman suffrage in. V. 24; 
 
 town meeting, 16; local irovern- 
 
 mcnt, 16, 17,^18: XL 5, 18, 20. 
 Nichols. Simon, VI. 37. 
 Nekomedeia, I. 11. 
 Ninety-six, XII. 14. 
 Norman conquest, I. 15; John Nor- 
 man, VII. 31, 33, 35, 36, 37. 
 Norman Constables in America, 
 
 Study VIII. By H. B. Adams. 
 Norris, Sam., VII. 33. 
 North and South, contrast between, 
 
 VII. 5. 
 Northwestern territory, III 8, 9; 
 
 local government in, V. 8-20. 
 Norwalk, XL 18, 19, 20. 
 
 
 
 Oakley, Thos., VII. 35. 
 
 Oaths, VI. 13, 14, 29, 31 ; constab- 
 ulary, VIII. 25. 
 
 Oderic, I. 28. 
 
 Ogden, Neh., VI. 32. 
 
 Ohio gives laws to Michigan, V. 10 ; 
 township officers, 14; local gov- 
 ernment in, 22. 
 
 Old Maryland Manors, Study VII. 
 By John Johnson. 
 
 Orange county, XII. 20. 
 
 Orangeburgh district, XII. 20. 
 
 Ordinance of 1787, its fundamental 
 principles, III. 8, 9. 
 
 Oregon, schools of, V. 21 ; woman 
 suffrage in, 24. 
 
 Overseers of poor in Illinois, III. 
 13, 14; in Pennsylvania, 21 ; offi- 
 cial term of, 21 ; duties of, 21, 22, 
 24, 81, 34, 36; of highways, 25, 
 27 ; duties, 30, 34 ; election of, 33 ; 
 how appointed, 29. 
 
 Oxford, I. 26. 
 
 Oyster Bay, XL 13. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 XV 
 
 Paca, John, VI. 39. 
 
 Page, Bingle, VI. 32, 34. 
 
 Palatine, rights, I. 16; South Caro- 
 lina erected into, XII. 7, 8. 
 
 Paler, John, VII. 35, 37. 
 
 Palfrey on the word "town," II. 
 26, 27. 
 
 Parish Institutions of Maryland, 
 Study VI. By Edward Ingle. 
 
 Parishes in Pennsylvania, 111. 21, 
 22, 23, 24 ; named after Saxon 
 Ton, IV. 20; institutions of 
 Maryland, VI ; histories, 5, 8, 48; 
 origin of, 6; poor, 6, 22; relation 
 to hundreds, 6, 32; laws, 7; Prince 
 George's, 7,29-37; Coventry, 8; 
 clerk, 8, 12, 17, 32; extent of, 9, 
 
 10, 17; customs, 9, 10, 15, Hi; 
 Stepney, 10; libraries, 10, 11; 
 Piscataway, 14; Christ Clmrch, 
 14; St. James', 15, 41, 42; St. 
 Ann's, 18, 21 ; St. John's, 18, 19, 
 29-42; divided, into precincts, 19, 
 44; St. Thomas', 21, 40; opposi- 
 tion to. system, 23; state of at 
 revolution, 24 ; do. at present, 26 ; 
 St. Paul's, 26, 40, 48; records, 
 27-48; All Saints, 42-47; Wil- 
 liam and Mary, 47 ; a civil insti- 
 tution, V11I. 24: creation of in 
 South Carolina, XII. 10; duties 
 of officers, 11 ; different from those 
 of Louisiana, 16. 
 
 Parker, Prof., on the word " town," 
 
 11. 26 ; on local government, V. 
 6; Gabriel, VI. 44. 
 
 Parliament, 1. 32; XI. 15, 29. 
 
 Patrol, organization of, XII. 15-16. 
 
 Paupers in Illinois, III. 13, 14 ; (see 
 also Poor). 
 
 Peabody Institute, I. 5, 10 ; George, 
 founder of, II. 56. 
 
 Pearson's historical maps of Eng- 
 land, IV. 19; VIII. 14. 
 
 Peloponnesos, I. 23. 
 
 Penal laws read in church, VI. 9, 21. 
 
 Penance, VI. 20, 21. 
 
 Pendleton, Henry, introduces the 
 Virginia county system, XII. 29. 
 
 Penn,"\Villiam, III. 26; his attitude 
 towards local government. 37. 
 
 Pennsylvania laws in Michigan, V. 
 10; women eligible to school of- 
 fices in, 25. 
 
 Perry, Benj., VI. 34; governor, his 
 message to convention of 1805, 
 XII. 23, 24. 
 
 Pequots, XI. 11, 14. 
 
 Peters, XI. 8. 
 
 Pews, VI. 17, 18, 31, 32, 34,39, 43. 
 44, 46. 
 
 Philadelphia, I. 10, 34, 35. 
 
 Phillips, VI. 42; Bart., VII. 34, 
 35, 37. 
 
 Philosophy, Platonic, I. 11. 
 
 Phippen, on old planters of Salem, 
 IX-X. -8. 
 
 Pilgrims build their first town, II. 
 26. 
 
 Pillory, VII. 36. 
 
 Pinokneysville, XII. 35. 
 
 Piscataway parish, VI. 14. 
 
 Plan of parish church, VI. 48. 
 
 Plantation system in the south, 
 III. 7. 
 
 Planters, first generation of Mary- 
 land, vii. <>: 
 
 Plymouth settled upon agrarian 
 principles, II. 24, 33; XI. 6; 
 council of, 7, 8, 10, 13, 15. 
 
 Polfe, William, VI I. 37. 
 
 Politics, Comparative, I. 14. 
 
 Poll-tax in Illinois, III. 13. 
 
 Poor in Pennsylvania, III. 20,23, 
 25; exempt from taxation, 23 ; tux 
 to have preference, 30; measures 
 against imposition, 30; record of, 
 kept, 31, 36; measures against 
 growth of, 31, 32; a township 
 charge, 35; county regulations 
 regarding, 36; township do., 36; 
 in Michigan, V. 10; of parish in 
 Maryland, VI. 6, 22 ; not taxable, 
 6 ; (see Paupers). 
 
 Porter, Henry, VII. 35, 37. 
 
 Poulter, Henry, VII. 37. 
 
 Powell, John] VI. 29, 31; Mary 
 Ann, 32. 
 
 Pratt, E., II. 66: J., VIII. 22. 
 
 Precinct of parish, VI. 19, 44. 
 
 Price, Koht., VI. 40. 
 
 Prices in Maryland, VI. 10. 23,31, 
 32. 33, 34, 36, 38, 40. 43, 11 
 
 Prichard, John, V I. 35. 
 
 "Prime Ancient Society," XI. 17. 
 
 Prince George's parish, VI. 7, 29- 
 37 ; county, 30, 31, :;:;, ::;, 46. 
 
 Pritchett, John, V I. 2'.<. 
 
 Private schools in Maryland, VI. 12. 
 
 Probate judge, XII. 27. 
 
XVI 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Proprietors, VI. 7, 30; charter of, 
 
 XII. 7. 
 Providence, I. 10. 
 Public schools in Maryland, VI. 22, 
 
 46, 47. 
 Punishments VI. 16, 20; VII. 34, 
 
 86; XI. 21, 22, 23; (see Fines). 
 Puritans against intemperance, IV. 
 
 6. 
 
 Q 
 
 Quakers, XI. 21. 
 Quinnipiack, XI. 21. 
 
 R 
 
 Ragusa, I. 11, 12, 19. 
 
 Ramage, B. J., on free neeroes at 
 
 South, I. 7; on Local Govern- 
 ment and Free Schools in South 
 
 Carolina, XII. 
 Ranters, XI. 21. 
 Rasiera, de, II. 29. 
 Kates and levies, III. 20; town, 22, 
 
 23 ; public, 22 ; how collected, 22 ; 
 
 county, 25; how expended, 27; 
 
 basis of, 27, 29. 34; township, how 
 
 applied, 34; limit of. 34, 35. 
 Rawlings, Daniel, VI. 45. 
 Reader, VI. 18. 
 Records, extracts from parish, VI. 
 
 29-48 ; of court baron and court 
 
 leet, VII. 31-38. 
 Rectors, privileges of, XII. 10, 11 ; 
 
 (see Ministers). 
 Register of vestry, VI. 16, 27, 29, 
 
 30, 32, 41, 43, 46. 
 Representatives, house of, XI. 14. 
 Republicans, I 36. 
 Restoration, XI. 25. 
 Revolution, American, VI. 23, 24 ; 
 
 XI. 29. 
 Rhode Island, I. 16, 31, 34: women 
 
 eligible to school offices in, V. 25; 
 
 XI. 6, 13; charter of, 16,29. 
 Richland county, XII. 20. 
 Richmond, I. 5. 
 Rider, S. S., I. 40: Simon, VII. 
 
 35, 37. 
 Ridings, III. 21, 22, 23. 
 Ringgold. Major James, VII. 8. 
 Riot in Joppa, VI. 40. 
 
 Ritter, C, II. 48. 
 
 Rives, Thomas, VII. 36. 37. 
 
 Roads in Illinois, III. 13; and 
 bridges in Pennsylvania. 20, 25, 
 26 : laid out by order of governor 
 and council, 29; by grand jury, 
 29; people work on, 26, 80, 35; 
 viewers of, 29, 35 ; damages, how 
 awarded. 35; in Michigan, V. 10; 
 parish, XII. 12; county, 26. 
 
 Roberts, John, VI. 40. 
 
 Robertson, Sam'l, VI 45. 
 
 Rome, Old and New, I. 11. 
 
 Rookes, Chas., VII. 37. 
 
 Roswoll, William, VII. S3, 34; 
 John, 37. 
 
 Rovce, Dr., II. 44. 
 
 Ruck, John, II. 10. 
 
 Rumsey, B.. VI. 41. 
 
 Kunsdall, Edw., VII. 34. 
 
 s. 
 
 Sabbath breakers, VI. 6, 15, 21; 
 Act for observance of, XII. 9. 
 
 Sage, James, VI. 38. 
 
 Saxon Tithinscmen in America, 
 Study IV. By H. B. Adams 
 
 St. Clement's island, VII.. 29; 
 manor, records of court leet of, 
 31-38. 
 
 St. James' parish, VI. 15, 41, 42; 
 (Santee) school in, XII. 14; 
 Ames, VI. 18, 21 ; Thomas', 21, 
 40 ; school, XII. 14; Paul's, VI. 
 26, 40, 48; John's, 18, 29-42. 
 
 St. Louis, I. 10. 
 
 St. Mary's city, VII. 5; county, 7. 
 
 St. Patrick's creek, VII. 29. 
 
 Salaries in Maryland, VI. 5, 8, 9, 
 10, 18, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32, 34, 
 38, 39. 40,41, 42,43. 
 
 Salem,, its communal domain. II. 
 36; town records, IV. 2, IX-X. 
 72; origin of name, IX-X. 16; 
 ministers of, 21; commercial 
 record, 26; house-lots, 31, 32; 
 land grants, 33; maids' lots, 35; 
 common fields, 38, 48; do. 
 meadows, 52, 53; do. woodlands, 
 54; do. pastures, 55-58; town- 
 herds, 58 ; cattle-range, 63 ; agra- 
 rian laws, 64; cottage rights, 65: 
 cottagers, 66 ; old commoners con- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 XVII 
 
 trol town meetings, 69; town 
 common, origin of, 72; reserva- 
 tion of public lands, 73, 74; 
 division of commons, 75, 76; 
 great pastures, 76, 77 ; survival of 
 archaic customs, 77-79. 
 
 Salisbury, great council of, I. 26. 
 
 Salley, Benj.,VIL 35, 37. 
 
 Samson, Robt., VII. 37. 
 
 Sandwich records, 11.35. 
 
 Saunders, John, VII. 35. 
 
 Saunderson, Rich., VII. 35, 37. 
 
 Say, XL 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15. 
 
 Savbrook, (Seabrook), XI. 11, 12, 
 20. 
 
 Schmid, R., on frankpledge, IV. 15. 
 
 School lands, the basis of local 
 government, III. 10; organiza- 
 tion in Illinois, 14,15; funds, 15; 
 relation of to local government, 
 
 V. 18, 19; district in Dakota, 19; 
 government in Michigan, 19, 20; 
 Montana, Idaho, Washington 
 Ter., Oregon, Wyoming Ter., 
 Colorado, California, Nebraska, 
 Kansas, Nevada, 21; South Car- 
 olina, Tennessee, Virginia, West 
 Virginia, 23; in Maryland, free, 
 
 VI, 11, 12; private, 12; manual 
 labor, 12; charity, 22; public, 
 22, 46, 47; commisioners in South 
 Carolina, XII. 26; free in do. 
 29-40; normal, 40. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, II. 21; Han- 
 nah, VI. 39. 
 
 Seager, Thos., VI. 42, 43. 
 
 Sectionalism in Illinois, XII. 11. 
 
 Sele, XL 7, 8, 11, 12, 15. 
 
 Senate, L 32, 33, XL 14, 16. 
 
 Serfdom, Indian, IV. 10. 
 
 Setauket, XL 20. 
 
 Sexton, VI. 18, 39, 42, 43, 45. 
 
 Shadock, Henry, VII. 35, 37. 
 
 Shaftsbury, Earl of, one of the pro- 
 prietors of South Carolina, XII. 7. 
 
 Shankes, Jno., VII. 34, 35, 36, 37. 
 
 Sharpe, Gov., VI. 7, 21, 22. 
 
 Shaw, A., II. 50; on Local Govern- 
 ment in Illinois, III. 5-19. 
 
 Sheffield, Lord, patent to Plymouth 
 colony, IX-X. 3. 
 
 Shepherd, Henrv, E., I. 8. 
 
 Sheredine. Thos", VI. 39. 
 
 Sheriff, 111. 21, 22, 24, 25, VI. 8, 
 21, 33, 39, 40, 44, 45. 
 
 Shirlev, J., letter of to Bradford, 
 
 IX-X. 5. 
 Shrewsberry county, XII. 20. 
 Sidesman, duties of, VIII. 2:'>. 
 Sirnp.-.in, William, VII. 35, 37; 
 
 Marmaduke, 37. 
 Sinclair, ,S't/- John, II. 19. 
 Skinner, John, VI. 45. 
 Slavery, effect on manorial svstem, 
 VII. 21. 
 ! Sligh, Thos., VI. 39. 
 j Slv, Kob't, VII. 34, 35; Gerard, 37. 
 ! Smith, T., IV. 19; VIII. 14; John, 
 VI. 42, 43: Wm., 43; Richard, 
 43; VII. 33; Nicholas, 37; Sir 
 Thomas, VIII. 14; CW. John, 
 IX-X. 7. 
 Society, manorial, type of, VII. 8. 
 Pollers, B., on Palatinate of Dur- 
 ham, I. 16 ; Sabrit, V 1. 4:;. 
 : " Somerleaze," I. 12. 
 i Somerset, I. 8, 10; county, VI. 8, 10. 
 1 South field proprietarv, Salem, rec- 
 ords of, IX-X. 46, 4*7. 
 ' Southampton, XL 19, 20. 
 | Soutbold, XL 20, 22, 24, 25. 
 ; Spain, I. 23. 
 
 Spalato, I. 11. 
 I Spanish conquest, I. 15. 
 ', Spartanburgh, XII. 20. 
 
 Spelman, IV. 21. 
 I Sports in colonial Maryland, VII. 11. 
 j Sprigg, John, VII. 37. 
 ! "Squatter Sovereignty," XI. 12. 
 j Staliinges, Rich., VI.* 44, 45, 46. 
 Stamford, XL 17, 22, 2:'., 24, 25. 
 j Standish, Capt. Miles, VIII. 16. 
 
 Stanlev, Jno., VII. ',!. 
 ; StarbuVk, Mary, IX-X. 34. 
 ; State government in Virginia, III. 
 7; genesis of a New England 
 State, XI: Church and Stat.' in 
 Connecticut, 15, 17, 21, 22, 2:1, 
 24; reconstruction of, in South 
 Carolina, XII. 22, 23. 
 Stepney parish, VI. 10. 
 | Steward of manor, VII. 12, 31, 33, 
 34, 35, 36. 
 Stirling, earl of, XI. 9, 12, 20. 
 Stockbridge, peaceful Indians of, 
 
 IX-X. 17. 
 Stocks, VII. 36; (spc Punishments ) 
 Stone, F. I'., HI- 26. 
 Stoughton, T., Vlll. 27. 
 Stratford, XL 20. 
 
XV111 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Stringham, Dr., II. 44. 
 
 Stubbs, I. 26, 27, III. 25, IV. 14, 
 
 19, VIII. 9. 
 'Studies in Historical and Political 
 
 Science," I. 12, 11. 8ft 
 Stuyvesant, Governor, XI. 13. 
 Suffrage, conditions as to sex, V. 
 
 24; as to age, in Michigan, 
 
 14. 
 Sumnar, Robt., VI, 46. 
 Supervisors', board of, in Michigan, 
 
 V. 15, 17, 18; in Wisconsin, 17, 
 
 18; in Minnesota, 17, 18; in New 
 
 York, 18. 
 Supreme court, I. 25. 
 Survey of public lands, effect on 
 
 local institutions, III. 10. 
 Surveyor of county, III. 33. 
 Suttle* Jno., VII. 87. 
 Sutton, Francis, VII. 31. 
 Switzerland, I. 16, 18, 19, 29. 
 Sydesman, (see Sidesman). 
 Syracuse, I. 22. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tacitus, I. 28, 31 ; on German vil- 
 lages, II. 12; on lands, 16. 
 
 Talbot, George, VII. 8. 
 
 Tax, assessor in Illinois, III. 12, 14, 
 16, 17; collector, 12, 14, 16; paid 
 in kind in Pennsylvania, 23; poll, 
 25, 27, 28; levied for one year 
 only, 27; on bachelors, VI. 21. 
 
 Taxables in Maryland, VI. 6, 8, 21, 
 44. 
 
 Taxation in Illinois, III. 17 ; ex- 
 emptions from, 23, 28; appeals 
 from, how tried, 27, 28, 34; sub- 
 jects of, 29; in Michigan, V. 10, 
 14, 16; ip New York, 16. 
 
 Tenants on manors, VII. 10. 
 
 Tennessee, local government in, V. 
 23. 
 
 Tennison. Jno., VII. 36, 37. 
 
 "Terra Mariae." I. 16. 
 
 Territorial claims of Connecticut, 
 XI. 7-10. 
 
 Teutonic race,T. 11,13,15; councils, 
 the seeds of modern institutions, 
 II. 13. 
 
 Texas, XI. 5, 6. 
 
 Thomas, Rev. Samuel, XII. 33. 
 
 Thomlinson, Grove, VI. 31, 32. 
 
 Thompson, Gov., advocates local 
 support of free schools, XII. 27 ; 
 :'.!, 40. 
 
 "Three-field system," II. 16, 17. 
 
 Tit'rnan's, Mrs., novel " Homoselle," 
 
 I. 6. 
 
 Tilden, Marmaduke, VII. 7. 
 
 Tipstaff, emblem of constabulary 
 office, IV. 1 ; do. of royal author- 
 ity. V11I. 81. 
 
 Tithing, probable origin of, IV. 
 18; with Saxon ending ton identi- 
 cal with parish, IV. 20. 
 
 Tithingman, a kind of Sunday 
 constable, IV. 1, 2; functions of, 
 
 IV. 5,6: authority of, extended to 
 family, 7; origin of, 8; and petty 
 constable, IV. 20; an elective offi- 
 cer, 21,22; patriarchal office of, 22. 
 
 Tobacco in Maryland, VI. 6. 8, 10, 
 
 15, 16, 19, 29,' 30, 32, 33, 39, 40, 
 43, 44, 45. 
 
 Tocqueville, on New England, III. 
 
 G. 
 Tolley, Walter, VI. 38, 39, 40, 41. 
 Town, applied to collection of houses, 
 
 I I. 28 ; how applied in New Eng- 
 land, 28; in Pennsylvania, offi- 
 cers, how chosen, 111. 21 ; by-laws 
 of, 21 ; court of, 22, 23, 24 ; status 
 of, under proprietary government, 
 27; meeting, I. 13; III. 6; in 
 Illinois, 12, 13 ; importance of, V. 
 6; in Michigan, 10, 11, 14, 15; 
 in Wisconsin. Minnesota, New 
 York, 16 ; in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, 
 22; land, II. 22; XI. 16; brook, 
 25 ; neck of Cape Cod, survival of 
 land community, 34 ; Sunday pas- 
 tures of do., 1X-X. 69; officers in 
 Illinois, III. 12 ; clerk, 12, 13, 14 ; 
 supervisor, 12, 13; auditors, 14; 
 board of health, in Massachusetts, 
 
 V. 15, 16; XI. 5, 11, 13; in 
 Maryland, Charles, VI. 9; An- 
 napolis, 17, 19, 21, 23; George, 
 37; Joppa, 37, 40, 41,42,46; in 
 Connecticut, XI. 14 ; magistrates, 
 14, 16, 17. 19, 21. 22, 23 ; commis- 
 sioners, 16, 19, 27 ; local affairs of, 
 
 16, 17, 23; incorporated. 18, 19; 
 rates, 19. 20, 24; of Long Island, 
 20; burgesses of, 21, 23. 
 
 Townships, the town's landed do- 
 main, II. 28; in New England, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 XIX 
 
 III. 6, 7; in Illinois, 11, 12; in 
 Pennsylvania, officers of, (see As- 
 sessors, clerk, overseers,) manage- 
 ment of roads vested in, 30, 35; 
 road-tax of, 30; poor-tax of, 31; 
 in Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, 
 Indiana, V. 17 ; in New York, 
 18; in Nevada, Nebraska, Iowa, 
 Kansas, Missouri, 22; XI. 6, 11. 
 
 Tramps, law against, VJLI1. 26. 
 
 Trask, W. B., VIII. 5. 
 
 Traske, Jas., VII. 37. 
 
 Treasurer, of county, III. 28, 33; 
 of township, 33. 
 
 Treat, Rev. Mr., on Indian institu- 
 tions, IV. 9, 10. 
 
 Trier, I. 11. 
 
 Trumbull, XI. 8. 
 
 Trustee of township in Ohio and 
 Indiana, V. 17. 
 
 " Tun," its identity with "Town," 
 II. 31. 
 
 Turk, I. 11. 
 
 Turner, Ed., VII. 33-; Jno., 35. 
 
 Tyson, John, VI. 36. 
 
 IT. 
 
 Union, New England, XI. 12, 13; 
 
 of towns, 22; of Connecticut and 
 
 New Haven, 25-29; county, XII. 
 
 20. 
 United States, best historical field 
 
 for Americans, I. 10; English 
 
 kernel of, XI. 6. 
 Unity of English people, I. 20. 
 University, Johns Hopkins, I. 7, 8, 
 
 16, 13, 14; Cornell, 7,29; Yale, 
 
 29; Harvard, 29; Studies, II. 52. 
 Upgate, Rich., VII. 35, 37; John, 
 
 37. 
 Upham, W. P., on the first houses 
 
 in Salem, IX-X. 28; C. W., on 
 
 Salem common lands, IX-X. 39. 
 Uri, I. 16, 39. 
 Utah, woman suffrage in, V. 25. 
 
 Venice, The Subject and Neighbor 
 
 Lands of, I. 11. 
 Vermont, woman suffrage in, V. 
 
 24,25; XI. 6. 
 
 Vestry, origin of select, VI. 6, 7 ; 
 duties of/8, 11, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 
 21, 22,25,26, 27, ::0, 31, 32, 36, 
 37, 38, 39,40,41. XII. 11; man- 
 ner of electing, VI. 13, 14, 25, 
 26, 27. XII. 11; qualifications of, 
 VI. 14; foreman of, 14; house, 
 15, 31, 32, 38, 41 ; meeting, 15, 27, 
 29-45; clerk of, 16. 18, 32, 33, 36, 
 37, 39, 41, 43, 44; number of, 
 XII. 11. 
 
 Village community system, 1. 14; 
 organization in Illinois, 111. 17, 
 18 ; in Michigan, V. 15. 
 
 Virginia, I. 5, 6, 7, 16, 17, 18; 
 Saxon dialects in, II. 42 ; planta- 
 tion system, III. 7; laws in 
 Michigan, V. 10; fleet, VI. 10; 
 College Koval in, 12; clergy, 24; 
 XII. 17, 20. 
 
 Voltaire's opinion of Montesquieu's 
 teutonic predilections, II. 11. 
 
 Von Hoist, on local government, 
 V. 16. 
 
 w. 
 
 Wads worth, VI. 43. 
 
 Wages, (see Salarv). 
 
 Wait/., G., IV. 14. 
 
 Wallace, on lands in Russia, II. 18. 
 
 Ward, derivation of, VIII. 23. 
 
 Warden, church, duties of, VI. 9, 
 13, 15, 25, 27. 32, 33, 40; election 
 of, 14, 15, 29, 31, 37 ; qualifica- 
 tions of, 14, 15. 
 
 Warwick, Earl of, XI. 7, 8, 9, 10, 15. 
 
 Washington, I. 18, 20; territory, 
 schools in, V. 21 ; woman sutfrage 
 in, 24; county, XII. 20. 
 
 AVaters, H. F., communication to 
 Salem gazette, IX X. 79-81. 
 
 Watertown, XI. 11, 13, 14. 
 
 Watts, Win., VII. 35, 36, 37. 
 [ Wells, Martin, VI. 44. 
 | Welsh barony, III. 26. 
 
 Wenham,town and common, IX-X. 
 51,52. 
 
 West, Win.. VII. 35, 37. 
 
 West Virginia, local government 
 in, V. 28. 
 
 Wethersford, XI. 11, 14, 17, 18. 
 
 Whallev, XI. 25. 
 I Wheatland, Dr. 11., IX-X. 77. 
 
XX 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 White, J., character and career of, 
 
 IX-X. 19; Planters' plea, IX-X. 
 
 66. 
 "Whittingham, Bishop, his legacy to 
 
 the diocese of Maryland, VI. 5; 
 
 library of, 5, 12. 
 Wickham, Nath., VI. 29, 31. 
 "Wickocomacoe Indians, VII. 33. 
 Wilkinson, Rev. Mr., VI. 20; Jos., 
 
 44; Win., VII. 37. 
 "William the Conqueror, I. 1, 35; 
 
 III, VI. 14; and Mary parish, 47. 
 Williams, Michael, VII. 37; Ed., 
 
 87; R., IX-X. 6; H. L., 40. 
 Williamson, Rev. Alex., VI. 8, 15 ; 
 
 Rev. James, 44, 46. 
 Willey, Humphrey, VII. 37. 
 Wilmott, Rich., VI. 40. 
 Winchester, statute of, VIII. 9. 
 Windson.XI. 10, 11, 18. 
 Winslow, E., IX-X. 3. 
 Winsor, J., II. 40. 
 Winter Island, reservation on, 
 
 IX-X. 74. 
 
 Winthrop, A., VIII. 3; R. 0., 3; 
 
 governor, XI. 25, 26. 
 Winton county, XII. 20. 
 Wingan county, XII. 20. 
 Williamsburg county, XII. 20. 
 Wisconsin, I. 6, 18; women eligible 
 
 to school offices in, V. 25. 
 Woman suffrage in U. S., V. 24. 
 Wood, Francis, VII. 37; W., 
 
 sketch of Salem, IX-X. 24, 25. 
 Woodbury, J., VIII. 27. 
 Worsley, Rev. Geo. H., VI. 41, 42. 
 Worthington, Charity, VI. 43. 
 Wyoming, schools, V. 21 ; woman 
 
 suffrage in, 24, 25. 
 
 Y. 
 
 York, I. 11; Duke of, XI. 20; 
 county, XII. 20. 
 
 Zealand, I. 17. 
 
AN INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 American Institutional History 
 
"The local annals of Maryland or of any other State are something more than 
 mere local history, something more than part of the history of the United States 
 or of the whole English-speaking people. They are really contributions to the gen- 
 eral science of politics no less than the lessons which we should have had if 
 Aristotle's comments on the kindred commonwealths of old Greece had been spared 
 to us." Freeman. 
 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 IN 
 
 Historical and Political Science 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History is past Politics and Politics present History. Freeman 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 American Institutional History 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THIS SERIES 
 
 By EDWARD A. FREEMAN, D.C.L., LL.D. 
 
 PuBI.JSHlU) BY THK .lolINS Hoi'KINS UNIVERSITY 
 B A L T Uio R !: 
 
 1882 
 
JOHN MURPHY A CO., PRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
MR. FREEMAN'S VISIT TO BALTIMORE. 
 
 By the Editor. 
 
 Mr. Freeman came to America in the fall of 1881, on the joint invita- 
 tion of the Lowell Institute in Boston and of the Peabody Institute in 
 Baltimore. The united influence of these two local institutions, repre- 
 senting the intellectual union of Northern and Southern cities, was 
 seconded by two other influences of a local character: first, by Mr. 
 Freeman's natural desire to visit his own son, who married in Baltimore 
 and who now lives upon a plantation in Virginia ; secondly, by an ardent 
 longing to see with his own eyes a New England Town Meeting, which, 
 in the genealogy of local institutions, is a long-lost child of Old England 
 and a grandchild of the Fatherland. The historian of " The English 
 People in their Three Homes " regards the local institutions of the 
 United States, North and South, as the historic offspring of England and 
 Germany, as truly as his own name, once applied to all freemen of the 
 English Colonies in America, is directly perpetuated by children and 
 grandchildren in the Old Dominion, where he indulged what he pleas- 
 antly calls " oldfatherly emotions towards the last-born bairn's bairn," 
 and where, true to historical impulses, he began a " Virginia Domesday " 
 in the old forms : " Freeman tenet ; Bell tenuit Ante Ouerratn. Valebnt 
 . . . dollar io s ; modo . . , Waste fuit." AVith the grim humor of Wil- 
 liam the Conqueror, who, when he fell to the earth upon landing at 
 Pevcnsey, grasped the soil and thus took seizin of England, Mr. Freeman 
 describes his son's territorial conquest upon the shore of the Rapidan, 
 " Potuit ire quo voluit aim ista terra, for the soil of the Old Dominion 
 sticketh to the boots and is carried about hither and thither ! " 
 
 This extract from a letter dated Somerleaze, Rapid Ann Depot, Cul- 
 peper County, Virginia, December 2oth, 1881, needs no better com- 
 mentary than the following extract from the Inquisitio Eliensis, Domes- 
 day, iii, 497 (or Stubbs' Select Charters, 8G) : " Deinde quomodo vocatur 
 mansio, quis tenuit earn tempore Regis Eadwai-di ; quia modo tenet ; . . . 
 quantum valebat totum simul ; et quantum modo; . . ." The suggestion 
 of Domesday-forms came to Mr. Freeman not only from the history of 
 Virginia land-tenure, but from Professor William F. Allen's paper on 
 "The English Cottagers of the Middle Ages," a paper which had been 
 sent Mr. Freeman in answer to his query "about a man in Wisconsin, 
 who has written something about villainage what a long way oil ;> 
 know about such things how can I get it? " And after receiving the 
 
 5 
 
6 Mr. Freeman's Visit to Baltimore. 
 
 tborfe paper, Mr. Freeman inquired with manifest surprise, " Are his 
 cottagers the cotarU t>t' l>. mesday '.'" The historian of the Normun Con- 
 quest whs reminded of items in Domesday by the "Afri" of the South, 
 who still survive in emancipated forms. The negroes of the Old Do- 
 minion are no longer " servi," but their varying economic condition 
 might justify their enumeration in some such classes as appear in the 
 Norman census: "villani," " cotarii," " sochemani" " liberi homines." 
 It brings the historiun of " The English People in their Three Homes " 
 to the very heart of both North and South to think of him as spending 
 Christmas with his American children upon a Virginia Plantation, culled 
 after the Old Home in England, " Somerleaze," where, resting from lec- 
 ture- and labors, he indulges "oldfatherly emotions " towards his Ameri- 
 can grandchild. It is pleasant to think of the Nestor historian "among 
 the hills, enjoying the air, with the Blue Ridge right in front," and 
 reading a novel about the Old Dominion written by a Virginia lady now 
 living in Baltimore. He writes to this city for information touching the 
 plot of the historical novel. " Was there not an negro revolt once here- 
 abouts called Gabriel's War? I was reading a pretty story called 
 Homoselle, where it comes in, and I seem to have heard of it before ; 
 but nobody here can tell me. If the chronology of the story be right, 
 it must have been between 1837 and 1861." And later he returns to the 
 point : " I knew I had heard something of that Gabriel's War, but Mrs. 
 Tiernan must have altered the date. You say it was early in this cen- 
 tury ; but Homoselle lies in the time 1837-1801. For, on the one hand, 
 Victoria reigns in Great Britain ; on the other, Peace and Slavery reign 
 in Virginia.* I want to know another thing. Homoselle speaks of a 
 
 Gabriel's War, a negro insurrection headed by a slave of uncommon ability, known as 
 " General Gabriel," occurred in the year 1S00. The uprising was planned with great skill 
 ami secrecy, and embraced about one thousand slaves. The plan was to make a night 
 attack upon Richmond, massacre the male inhabitants, spoil the city, seize arms, and create 
 a general panic among whites throughout the State, whereupon, it was thought, a general 
 insurrection could be kindled among the slave population. On the night of the proposed 
 attack there was a furious rain-storm; but the slaves, undaunted, advanced with their 
 scythe-blades and axes. The attack was frustrated by two unforeseen events, the rapid 
 rising of a creek before Richmond, and the betrayal of the plot by a faithful servant of 
 William Mosby a slave named Pharaoh who swam the creek at the risk of his life 
 ami gave the alarm in Richmond. The town was at once put under arms, and the slaves, 
 finding that their plot was discovered, rapidly dispersed. James Munroe was at that time 
 Governor of Virginia and he offered a reward of three hundred dollars for the arrest of 
 Gabriel, who was finally taken and executed. Many other conspirators were found out 
 and were duly tried and convicted by the court of "Oyer and Terminer," made up of 
 county justices. The Court Records of Henrico County contain evidence upon this mat- 
 ter, see Howison's History of Virginia, ii, 392-3. This insurrection naturally created the 
 greatest horror throughout all Virginia, and the story of Gabriel's War was repeated until 
 it became a household tale. The authoress of Homoselle AiA not need to consult the written 
 history of Virginia for information, for the oft-told story was stamped upon every child's 
 imagination. Mrs. Tiernan never saw llowisoirs account of Gabriel's War until after 
 her story was written, the scene of which she purposely laid in later times of which she 
 herself had personal knowledge. Without regard to the exact chronology of Gabriel's 
 War, Mrs. Tiernan utilized a popular tradition for literary purposes, which is not only 
 an artistic but a |tcrfectly legitimate method in Culturgeschichte. H. B. A. 
 
Mr. Freeman's Visit to Baltimore. 7 
 
 free negro in Virginia. Another story speaks of free negroes as for- 
 bidden to dwell there. Some of your students of State laws will know 
 the date of that hit of legislation."* 
 
 Mr. Freeman's visit to Baltimore occured before his visit to Virginia. 
 He lectured first in Boston, then at Cornell University, and immediately 
 afterwards in Baltimoreat the Peabody Institute, beginning November 
 15 and continuing until November 25. Both Cornell and Johns 
 Hopkins Universities availed themselves of Mr. Freeman's visit to 
 America to engage him for short courses of lectures before their students. 
 On arriving in Baltimore, the first place Mr. Freeman visited was the 
 University-Library. Although the historian professes " to hate libraries 
 as well as schools," his professions should not be taken quite literally. 
 He evidently enjoyed what some peoplecall the "Johns Hopkins School," 
 and he stayed one entire forenoon, and came again the next day. Ib- 
 found some things tha-t he had never before seen, and he manifested con- 
 siderable interest in the so-called " New Book Department " an arrange- 
 ment for securing the most recent scientific literature from England, 
 France, and Germany. Mr. Freeman saw at once the cosmopolitan rela- 
 tions and practical value of this department and also of the University 
 system of " exchanges " with tin; proceedings of academies and other 
 learned societies of the old world. He even intimated that his own 
 
 *Free negroes were " permitted by the court of any county or corporation to remain 
 in this State " (Code of Va., 1849, 460, Code, 1860, 520) ; but the law against emancipated 
 negroes abiding in the State or Colony was of very ancient standing. According to the 
 Act of 1091, no person could set free a slave, without paying for his transportation out of 
 the country within six months after setting him free. The Act. of January '/5, lSoO, was 
 fundamental to all Virginia legislation during the present century touching the condi- 
 tion of freedmen ; it was provided that if any slave thereafter emancipated should 
 remain within the State more than twelve months after his right to freedom accrued, 
 lie should forfeit such right and might be sold for the benefit of the poor of the county or 
 corporation. Cf. Acts 1815-16, Code 1819, Acts 1SJ0-7, 1830-1, 18:j0-7. By an Act of 
 1840-1, "No free negro shall migrate into this State." By the Va. Const of 18.M, which 
 was in force in 18G0, "Slaves hereafter emancipated shall forfeit their freedom by remain- 
 ing in the commonwealth more than twelve months after they become actually free, and 
 shall be reduced to slavery as may be prescribed by law/' The letter of the law was 
 probably more severe than the spirit of its execution. In point of fact, both free and 
 emancipated negroes were always allowed in Virginia by permission of the justices ol 
 a county court. In fact, the law alio wed 'free negroes" to " In- registered and num- 
 bered" every live years by the clerk of the county court (Codes of 1SI9, lSi! I). Kree, 
 negroes were even allowed to own slaves of a certain kind, for example, a lice negro 
 could own his wife and children, and their descent, also his own parents. Vnd con- 
 versely, a free negro wife might own her husband, children, and parents. 
 
 A student from South Carolina, Mr. 15. ,1. Uamage, says it was no uniiMial thing before 
 the war for free negroes to own considerable property, both real estate ami -law-, lie 
 calls attention to an interesting item in the Baltimore /'<(//, September 27, lss_' " Henry 
 
 Todd, who lives in Darien, is tie' wealthiest colored man i rgia. Win n a youth, his 
 
 master died ami left him his freedom. When tie- Confederacy fell, lie lost twenty sla\> 
 and some Confederate bonds. After the war, he ( inner! larmiiu; operation- and en- 
 gaged in the lumber business, lie is now li.l years old and is worth >l"". in : I 
 
 investments."' It. 1>. A. 
 
8 Mr. Freeman's Visit to Baltimore. 
 
 retired life at his country-home in Somerset cut him off in some degree 
 from the main stream of contemporary literature, to which members of 
 the Jonns Hopkins have constant access. This frank confession is not at 
 all inconsistent with Mr. Freeman's well-known answer to the American 
 professor who asked him where ho wrote his books : " In my own house, 
 to be sure, where else should 1 ?" Although the historian of the Norman 
 Conquest declares that he has never in his life consulted the library of 
 the British Museum, yet he himself admits that, " There are times for 
 which the library of the British Museum, or any other public library 
 must be invaluable; but these times are not the eleventh and twelfth 
 centuries," The point is, that for a man's own special study, it is possi- 
 ble to have, in some cases, all necessary original materials around him. 
 That point Mr. Freeman saw illustrated again and again in the special 
 department-collections of the Johns Hopkins Universitas Studiorum. 
 But it would be strange indeed if the great and rushing stream of nine- 
 teenth century literature did nc impress the English historian of politics 
 even more profoundly than it does those who are borne upon the current. 
 He feels keenly enough the utter hopelessness of keeping up with the 
 ever-growing mass of German books, and yet more with the vaster mass 
 of treatises which are hidden away in German periodicals and local 
 transactions. Of all of these every German scholar expects us to be 
 masters, while to most of us they are practically as inaccessible as if they 
 were shut up in the archives of the Vatican." 
 
 The continuity of human history is the life principle of Mr. Free- 
 man's philosophy. This principle he found already transplanted to 
 American shores. He found it germinating in the Public Schools of 
 Baltimore through the influence of his friend the Superintendent of 
 Public Instruction, Henry E. Shepherd, formerly a student at the Uni- 
 versity of Virginia, now President of Charleston College, South Carolina. 
 He found this principle bearing fruit in the Johns Hopkins University. 
 The English historian became interested at once in the studies of His- 
 torical and Political Science, which were there in active progress. He 
 met students in private and in public. He visited their special libraries 
 and work-shops, where he lent his master-hand in aid of apprentice 
 tasks. "With Bacon's folio edition of the Laws of Maryland before him, 
 he pointed out to Maryland young men graduates of the Johns Hopkins 
 University, the City College, and the Public Schools the continuity of 
 Old English institutions in their native State. He went with a member 
 of the University to the Library of the Maryland Historical Society, 
 where in the company of Mr. John H. B. Latrobe, the President, Mr. 
 J. W. M. Lee, the Librarian, and other members of that institution, he 
 examined some of the manuscript records of Colonial Maryland. And, 
 before leaving Baltimore, he penned the following letter which was 
 intended by him to quicken public as well as individual interest in the 
 collection and publication of the Maryland State Papers : 
 
Mr. Freeman's Visit to Baltimore. 
 
 11 Mount Vernon Hotel, Baltimore, November 21th 1881. 
 
 " I cannot leave Baltimore without saying a word or two about the Stale 
 records of Maryland, of which you were good enough to give me a 
 glimpse both in the University Library and in that of the Historical 
 Society. I did not see much, but I saw enough to get some notion of 
 their great interest and importance. But the few things which I saw 
 either in print or in manuscript must, I fancy, be mere fragments from 
 far greater stores at Annapolis or elsewhere A systematic publication 
 would be a very great gain, and the State Legislature would surely not 
 refuse its help, if the matter were pressed upon it by influential persona 
 and societies in the State. During the short time that I have been in 
 America, I have been more and more impressed by the deep interest of 
 the early history of all these lands, first as provinces, then as independent 
 States. Each State has in the most marked way its own character, and 
 gives some special kind of instruction in comparative political history. 
 The local annals of Maryland or of any other State are something more 
 than mere local history, something more than part of the history of the 
 United States or of the whole English-speaking people. They are really 
 contributions to the general science of politics no less than the lessons 
 which we should have had if Aristotle's comments on the kindred com- 
 monwealths of old Greece had been spared to us " 
 
 This letter, shown to influential men, and read to the Historical Society 
 by the Hon. George William Brown, in connection with a similar letter 
 written by James Bryce, M. P., who was in Baltimore at the same time 
 with Mr. Freeman, has at last resulted, through the combined action of 
 the Society and of the State Legislature, in the transfer of the mass of 
 Colonial and Revolutionary Archives from Annapolis to Baltimore, 
 where, in a well-lighted but fire-proof vault lately constructed by private 
 subscription, the manuscript records can be used to the best advantage by 
 students of Maryland History. The State has also provided for the 
 gradual but systematic publication of these Archives under the auspices 
 of the Maryland Historical Society. Thus by the institution of an 
 honorable Record Commission,.a purely scientific undertaking is removed 
 from all political influences. These results are the direct historic out- 
 growth of Mr. Freeman's letter, supported by personal and corporate 
 power. The letter was first published in the New York Nation,* immedi- 
 
 *Note in the Nation, December 22, 1881, in connection with a review el' the "Calendar 
 of Virginia State Papers;" cf. article in the Baltimore American, December 21, lssi ; 
 editorial in the Sun, December 20, 1SS1 ; New York Times, December 29, lssi. An 
 account of the Archives themselves and of the provisions of the Bill which passed the 
 Maryland Senate March 10 and the House of Delegates. March 12, Issj, may ! found in 
 the Nation " Notes," March ISO, 1882; also, in the same number, an account of the "St, vens 
 Index of Maryland Documents in the State Taper Ottice, London," which Index, 
 containing descriptions and abstracts of l,72!i Maryland documents now preserved in 
 
 2 
 
10 Mr. Freeman' 8 Visit to Baltimore. 
 
 ately afterwards in Baltimore newspapers, and a copy of it was sent to 
 every member of the Maryland Legislature. The letter is reproduced 
 above in a more complete form than heretofore, for the sake of its per- 
 manent preservation as a contribution to the Science of Maryland 
 History. 
 
 Mr. Freeman's visit to Baltimore has a certain historical value, which 
 will become more and more apparent when the influence which he 
 exerted here upon the Historical Society and upon the Johns Hopkins 
 University goes forth into the State of Maryland and into the country at 
 large. The English lecturer made an impression wherever he went in 
 this country, in Boston, Ithaca, New Haven, Providence, New York, 
 Philadelphia, St. Louis, and other places; but it is the writer's belief, 
 based upon careful inquiry, that the impression produced upon the stu- 
 dents of the Johns Hopkins University, the young life of Baltimore, 
 was the best, the strongest, and the most abiding of all. While his 
 public lectures at the Peabody Institute and elsewhere excited much 
 attention and remark at the time they were given, yet these popular 
 addresses, tested by the comparative method, were everywhere less quick- 
 ening and less permanent in their historic influence than the half dozen 
 informal "talks " given to a company of advanced students, meeting in 
 Hopkins Hall upon the afternoons of days alternating with Mr. Free- 
 man's public lectures at the Peabody Institute. In a room of small size, 
 before a strictly University audience, without a sheet of paper between 
 him and his hearers, with no lyceum-apparatus save a pointer and one or 
 two outline-maps prepared for the illustration of special matters, Mr. 
 Freeman in plain English, vigorous, and eloquent set forth " the 
 Eternal Eastern Question " in the light of past Politics and present His- 
 tory. He spoke of the Roman Power in the East: the Saracens and the 
 Slavs; the final Division of the East and the West; the Turks, Franks, 
 and Venetians; the Ottomans and the Beginnings of Deliverance. 
 Probably no such telling, inspiring course was anywhere given by the 
 English historian in his American tour. 
 
 Circumstances contributed to make Mr. Freeman's lectures at the 
 Johns Hopkins University a peculiar and remarkable success. In the first 
 place, the President of the University had insisted upon it that Mr. 
 Freeman should talk to the students upon some special theme instead 
 of reading one of his two general ^courses of written lectures. The 
 informality of these " talks " which Mr. Freeman was at first very reluc- 
 tant to give, was made doubly pleasing by the fact that the historian 
 proved a good extempore speaker. The author of the Norman Conquest 
 has " stumped " the County of Somersetand knows how to make a good 
 
 England, was presented to the Maryland Historical Society by George Peabody, and thus 
 supplements the Annapolis collection. These Nation "Notes" of March 30, 1882, were 
 reprinted in the Johns Hopkins University Circular, May, 1882. 
 
Mr. Freeman's Visit to Baltimore. 1 1 
 
 off-hand speech. .In the second place, the natural orator was doubtless 
 tired by the enthusiasm of his student-hearers and bv the presence and 
 applause of another historian and politician, his friend James Brvee 
 M. P., whos.e remarkable lectures upon English Polities followed close 
 upon Mr. Freeman, upon the same platform, and upon the same days. 
 . But what most of all contributed to Mr. Freeman's success at the Uni- 
 versity was the unimpeded rush of his own thought and feeling into the 
 historic fields of South-Eastern Europe, on which political interest was 
 then centering anew. 
 
 Mr. Freeman had come to America directly from Dalmatia without 
 tarrying in England. He had come from the historic border-ground 
 between the Aryan and the Turk, between Venice and the Ottoman 
 Power, between Old and New Rome. He had come to the Western 
 Empire of the English People, which, expanding with the great Teutonic 
 race from local centres, is repeating in the continental island of Atlantis 
 and in the continent of Asia, with Egypt and Ocean between, the experi- 
 ment of the Roman People upon a grander and nobler scale. He came 
 from ancient municipal centres of Grecian culture and Roman do- 
 minion, from Ragusa, upon the rocks of the Dalmatian coast, a city 
 of refuge for the Grecian colony of Epidauros, * as Home was a city of 
 refuge for the village communities of Italy, from Spalato in Dalmatia, 
 once a city of refuge for a Roman Emperor, Diocletian, who. born in this 
 lllyrian border-land, was the first to propose the institution of two 
 Caesars and of Roman capitals wherever Emperors took up their abode, 
 whether at Spalato, Nikomedeia, Milan, Trier, or York. 
 
 The English historian of " The lllyrian Emperors and their Land" 
 came to a new York and to other capitals of a westward-moving English 
 Empire. Like an historical ambassador from the East, such as Emanuel 
 Chrysoloras, who came from Constantinople to Rome in 1300 in the 
 interest of the Eastern Empire and tarried in Italy three years to teach 
 Greek; or as Georgius Gemistus (Pletho) who came in the interest of the 
 Greek Church to attend the Council of Florence in 143!) and remained 
 in that city for many years to lecture upon Platonic Philosophy, even so 
 the historian of " The English People in their Three Homes," coming to 
 Boston and Baltimore with a message upon his lips that invited national 
 belief in the civic kinship and religious unity of England and America, 
 came also with another message from the East. He came representing the 
 history of an older Eastern Empire than that of England in Egypt 
 and India. He came with a book in pros upon "The Subject and 
 Neighbor Lands of Venice "f (Spalato, Ragusa, and other Dalmatian 
 
 *Kpidauros in Dalmatia is now known as Kaj;usa Verchia. <'un<>ii*l> en 
 mother-town ha* taken its daughter's name. It is as tlemgli Knglaiui tdmuld .1 
 name, Old America. 
 
 f Reviewed in the Nation, February '', lsv-'. 
 
1 2 Mr. Freeman's Vhit to Baltimore. 
 
 cities) and before that book was published in America, Mr. Freeman bad 
 told students in Baltimore the story of the Republic of Ragusa, " the one 
 spot along that whole coast from the Croatian border to Cape Tainarcs 
 itself, which never came under the dominion either of the Venetian or of 
 the Turk," that city upon the rocks which ' has always sat on a little ledge 
 of civilization .... with a measureless background of barbarism behind 
 her." Before Mr. Freeman's article on "The Revolt in Dalmatia" was 
 published in the Nation (February 16, 1882), the latest dispatches upon 
 which that article was based, had been made known in Baltimore. The 
 letters and telegrams from Ragusa to the Manchester Ouardianby Arthur 
 Evans,* Mr. Freeman's son-in-law, "were almost the only trustworthy 
 sources of information in England regarding affairs in Dalmatia. Mr. 
 Freeman left Ragusa in June, 1881, when, as he says in the Nation, "the 
 storm was beginning." From that time on, Mr. Evans kept him 
 informed as to the progress of the Revolution, and those manuscript 
 letters from Ragusa were shown to students in Baltimore. 
 
 In such ways, through living, winged words, eirea nrepdevra, young 
 men in America were made to realize that contemporary Politics is 
 only History in the making. And they will use a motto from Mr. Free- 
 man History is past Politics and Politics present History f not 
 only upon the wall of their class-room, but upon their published 
 "Studies in Historical and Political Science," to which the Historian of 
 Politics kindly offers an Introduction, which he wrote after his return to 
 England, to his own Home at "Somerleaze." There in the South-West 
 of England, in his own library, looking out upon his own land and trees, 
 with his face toward the low-lying hills of Mendip, the historian of 
 the Norman Conquest meditates upon the relation of Past and Present. 
 That his thoughts occasionally go out from the old country to the new, 
 is evident not only from his voluntary contribution to American past 
 Politics, but from his sending to Baltimore, to the Seminary of Historical 
 and Political Science, his most recent contributions to English magazines 
 and newspapers, sources of present History. 
 
 Mr. Evans has been for some years an authority upon affairs in South-Eastern Europe. 
 His letters to the Manchester Guardian during the year 1877 have been published in book- 
 form under the title of "Ulyrian Letters A revised selection of correspondence from 
 the Ulyrian provinces of Bosnia, Herzegovina, etc." (London, 1878.) An earlier work 
 by, Mr. Evans is entitled " Through Bosnia and the Herzegovina on foot during the 
 insurrection, August and September, 1875" (Second edition, London, 1877;. 
 
 fThis motto is the pith of a sentence in Mr. Freeman's address in Birmingham, Nov- 
 ember 18, 1880, "On the Study of History," printed in the Fortnightly Jleview, March, 1881, 
 p. 320, where he says it is "a highly practical truth that history is simply past politics 
 and that politics are simply present history;" cf. p. 329. Another origina'l form of the 
 aphorism is: " History is the politics of the past, politics are the history of the present." 
 Note also the same idea in Mr. Freeman'* Lectures to American Audiences, p. >7: 
 "Now the position for which I have always striven is this, that history is past 'politics! 
 that ]K)litics are present history." 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 AMERICAN INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 The study of the local institutions of the states, counties, 
 towns, and the like, through the United States, and indeed 
 through America generally, is, to my mind, a matter of a good 
 deal more than local interest. Its immediate attraction of course 
 is strongest for those to whom it is a matter of local interest ; 
 but its importance goes a great deal further. Whenever institu- 
 tions have grown up of themselves, as they largely have done in 
 at least the Eastern States of the Union, they become a matter 
 of scientific study. The institutions of Massachusetts or Mary- 
 land, such at least among them as have been handed down from 
 the foundation of those colonies, are not simply the institutions 
 of Massachusetts and Maryland. They are part of the general 
 institutions of the English people, as those are again part of the 
 general institutions of the Teutonic race, and those are again 
 part of the general institutions of the whole Aryan family. 
 There I must stop; some of my friends are able to go further; 
 and, if they can prove that something which I am satisfied with 
 showing to be English, Teutonic, Aryan, is really common to all 
 mankind, they do me no wrong. The history, in short, of a 
 Massachusetts township or a Maryland manor * becomes, if looked 
 at in a scientific spirit, part of the general history of the world. 
 Of course I assume that they are studied in a scientific spirit. 
 
 * The subject of Old Maryland Manors has been investigated by John 
 Johnson, a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University. Interest in this 
 research was heightened by the examination, in the Library of the Mary- 
 land Historical Society, of the records of an actual Court Leet, held 
 upon St. Clement's Manor, in St. Mary's County. Tin' Court Leet, the 
 existence of which in Maryland has long been denied, was a popular 
 institution, a kind of Town Meeting on the Lord's Manor. Such a man- 
 orial survival is, like the old Town Pasture at Annapolis, a connecting 
 link between Province Marvland and Early England. 11. it. a. 
 
14 An Introduction to 
 
 Even the researches of the dullest local antiquary have their use; 
 that is, they may be turned to some use by a more intelligent 
 inquirer, by one who sees in them a value which the original col- 
 lector fails to see. The scientific view of such matters consists 
 mainly in dealing with them by the comparative method. To say 
 that a certain custom exists in Massachusetts now and to say that 
 a certain custom existed at Athens ages ago are both of them 
 pieces of knowledge which, if they go no further, are of no great 
 value or interest. But, if you can bring the Massachusetts cus- 
 tom and the Athenian custom into some kind of relation towards 
 one another if you can show that, among much of unlikeness in 
 detail, the likeness of a general leading idea runs through both 
 if you can show that the likeness is not the work of mere chance 
 but that it can be explained by common derivation from a com- 
 mon source if again you can show that the points of unlikeness 
 are not mere chance either, but that they can be explained by 
 differences in time, place, and circumstance if you can do all 
 this, you have indeed done something for the scientific study of 
 Comparative Politics.* 
 
 * Three or four years ago, at a suggestion from Professor B. L. Gilder- 
 sleeve, the editor of this series began to collect materials illustrating 
 the local institutions of the ancient Greeks, with the view of ultimately 
 drawing certain historical parallels between their Village Community 
 system and that of the Teutonic race, especially of its New England 
 branch. The agrarian customs, the local assemblies, market places, 
 village elders, the predominance of kinship in the village constitution, 
 the sanctity of house and home, the reverence for ancient landmarks and 
 the bounds of the village, the branching out of hew communities from 
 the parent stock, and the association of kindred villages in a larger 
 municipal commonwealth, these and other features of Greek and Teu- 
 tonic local life are strikingly similar and illustrate the fact that the old 
 Aryan tree has been budding and blossoming in much the same wy for 
 three or more thousand years. The Grecian branch of institutional 
 genealogy is assuming fresh interest from year to year in the light of 
 German monographs and revisions of earlier standard works. In view 
 of this fact and of the increasing importance of, Grecian Village Com- 
 munities in the comparative study of local institutions, it has been 
 thought best to intrust the Grecian topic to Dr. John Franklin Jameson, 
 instructor in classic history at the Johns Hopkins University, who from 
 the nature of his present pursuits, will have special opportunities for 
 investigating the above subject. H. B. A. 
 
American Institutional History. 1 5 
 
 But, coming nearer our own concerns, the institutions of the 
 American States form a natural and important part of the insti- 
 tutions of the Teutonic race, and specially of the English branch 
 of it. The institutions of England are the general institutions 
 of the Teutonic race, modified as they could not fail to be, by 
 settlement in a great European island, and by the events which 
 have taken place since that settlement. The institutions of the 
 American States are the institutions of England, modified, as 
 they could not fail to be, by settlement in a greater American 
 continent, and by the events which have taken place since that 
 settlement. We do not rightly understand the history of our 
 people on either side of Ocean, unless we take in the close 
 analogy notwithstanding many points of unlikeness between 
 the English settlements in Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries, 
 and the English settlements in America in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. The likeness comes out most strongly if we contrast either 
 with the Norman Conquest in England or with the Spanish con- 
 quests in America. These again differ greatly from one another; 
 but they agree in the comparatively short time in which the work 
 was done. In both of them settlement took the form of conquest, 
 and of conquest on a great scale. But those who came in the three 
 keels of Hengest and those who came in the Mayflower were 
 both of them in a different position. They settled in small com- 
 panies and won the land bit by bit. They brought with them the 
 institutions of their elder country, such of them at least as suited 
 the condition of their new country ; they planted them afresh, 
 and what they planted grew up with such changes as were 
 wrought by the nature of the new soil in which it was planted. 
 The most notable thing of all, yet surely the most natural thing 
 of all, is that the New England settlers of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury largely reproduced English institutions in an older shape 
 than they bore in the England of the seventeenth century. They 
 gave a new life to many things which in their older home had well 
 nigh died out. The necessary smallness of scale in the original 
 settlements was the root of the whole matter. It, so to speak, 
 drove them back for several centuries: it caused them to repro- 
 duce, in not a few points, not the England of their own day, but 
 the England of a far earlier time. It led them to reproduce in 
 many points the state of things in old Greece and in mediaeval 
 
1 G An Introduction to 
 
 Switzerland. Such a state as Rhode Island is as essentially 
 ancient as Uri itself; that is, a new Rhode Island could no more 
 come into being now than a new Uri. A New England town- 
 meeting is essentially the same thing as the Homerica dyo<r/ n the 
 Athenian ixxfyfria, the Roman comitia, the Swiss Landesge- 
 meinde, the English folk-moot. The circumstances of New 
 England called the primitive assembly again into being when in 
 the older Englaand it was well nigh forgotten. What in Switzer- 
 land is a survival was in New England rather a revival. But 
 the causes alike of the survival and of the revival are part of the 
 general history of the institutions of the Teutonic race. 
 
 But New England does not make up the whole of the English 
 settlements in America. We have further to compare the points 
 of likeness and unlikeness, and the causes of the likeness and 
 unlikeness, between the New England states, which so largely 
 came of themselves and other states which arose under other 
 influences. We mark a difference between the proprietary colo- 
 nies, and those which were practically independent common- 
 wealths from the beginning. Maryland reproduced English 
 institutions no less than Massachusetts; but Massachusetts and 
 Maryland did not reproduce exactly the same English institu- 
 tions. But it is plain that the more popular institutions were 
 more at home on the soil of the New World. A lord pro- 
 prietor whose rights were measured by these of the Bishop of 
 Durham was an anomaly in a newly settled land. Greater local 
 independence, closer connexion with the Government of the 
 mother country, were either of them more natural states. Mary- 
 land, therefore, advanced in the direction of Massachusetts; 
 Massachusetts did not advance in the direction of Maryland.* 
 
 I noticed in Virginia, the only one of the Southern States of 
 which I have seen anything, that I heard the word county at least a 
 
 *The Palatinate of Durham, after which the proprietary powers of 
 Lord Baltimore were modelled in the charter of Terra Mariae, has been 
 made the subject of careful investigation by Mr. Basil Sollers, a graduate 
 of the City College, Baltimore, and a member of the University- 
 Seminary of Historical and Political Science. Although Palatine rights 
 were granted to the Lord Proprietor, yet practically, from the very out- 
 set, the government of Maryland was a government by the people. 
 
 H. B. A. 
 
American Institutional History. 17 
 
 hundred times for once that I heard it in New England. The 
 merest glance at the two countries shows that, setting aside the 
 results of late events, the whole political organization of the two 
 countries is different. Both have reproduced English institutions ; 
 but they have not reproduced the same English institutions. I 
 suppose that Virginia and New England must be the most 
 strictly English parts of the United States ; the mixture of any 
 foreign element in the original settlement must have Been very 
 small in either. But the two lands represent two different sides 
 of England. Virginia more nearly reproduced the England of 
 the time of the settlement. New England more nearly repro- 
 duced the England of an earlier time. The causes of this differ- 
 ence, causes inherent in the different circumstances of the two 
 settlements, again take their place in the general course of 
 English and of Teutonic history. 
 
 Thus far one has had to speak wholly of reproductions of 
 strictly English institutions. In some of the other States we find 
 materials for study of another kind. The State of New York, 
 once New Netherlands, affords us the remarkable phenomenon of 
 a land settled by one body of Teutonic settlers and afterwards by 
 the accidents of warfare transferred to another. The two sets of 
 colonists were both of the same original stock and the same origi- 
 nal speech ; but the circumstances of their several histories had 
 made them practically strangers to each other. On the Nether- 
 Dutch of Holland and Zealand transplanted to the new world 
 came in the Nether-Dutch of England. The two elements have 
 been fused together into one whole, but not without leaving 
 memories and signs of the old distinction. Here is a held of 
 special interest. We have not only, as in New England, to com- 
 pare a newer England with an older ; we have also to compare 
 an older and a newer Holland ; and to study the changes wrought 
 in it by the infusion of an element really kindred though out- 
 wardly foreign. And again another question is raised. The 
 same elements which were brought together in the State of New 
 York have been more lately brought together at the Cape of 
 Good Hope. But the results have been widely different in the 
 two cases. I do not profess to have worked out the causes of 
 the difference; but the question is one which is well worth 
 searching into. 
 3 
 
18 An Introduction to 
 
 In other parts of the Union my favourite talk about Old, 
 Middle, and New England ceases locally to apply. I see with 
 pleasure that one of the subjects set down for research is French 
 Towns in Wisconsin. I have not myself seen anything of the 
 State of Wisconsin. But at St. Louis I was strongly impressed 
 With a line of thought which comes out much more forcibly in 
 Missouri than it can come out in Wisconsin. We cannot call 
 Wisconsin a colony of the English people in the same sense as 
 Massachusetts and Virginia, though both Wisconsin and Missouri 
 may be called colonies of the English people in a wider sense. 
 Wisconsin was for a while a possession of the British crown, and 
 changed its allegiance as a result of the War of Independence. 
 But when I crossed the Father of Waters, and found myself at 
 St. Louis, my first feeling was that I had got altogether out of the 
 historic range of which Massachusetts and Virginia form parts. 
 Here was a land which was no colony of the English people, no 
 possession of the British crown, which the War of Independence 
 in no way touched, which had no part or lot in Washington or 
 his fellows, but which was bought for money by the United States, 
 after they had become the United States, and after Washington 
 was no more. Yet I found myself in an English-speaking land, 
 a land in which traditions and memories common to the whole 
 Union were as strong as anywhei'e else. I know that traces of 
 the elder state of things have by no means wholly vanished ; but 
 they do not strike the visitor on the surface. I was at once 
 struck with the outward analogy between those parts of the 
 American Union which formed part of the old Louisiana and 
 those parts of the Swiss Union which formed no part of the old 
 German League. The Romance Cantons of Switzerland have 
 absolutely nothing to do with the history, rich and legendary, of 
 the original Three Lands. Yet the history of the Three Lands, 
 real and legendary, has been thoroughly adopted by the Romance 
 Cantons ; Tell and the Three Men of Griitli may be seen at 
 Geneva and at Lugano no less than at Altdorf itself. Here a 
 wholly distinct people has adopted the history and legend of the 
 body into which it has been itself adopted. In the American 
 case, though the land of the old Louisiana has nothing to do with 
 the War of Independence and its worthies, yet the mass of its 
 inhabitants have the same right in them as the inhabitants of 
 
American Institutional History. 19 
 
 other parts of the Union. That is to say, the Romance lands of 
 Switzerland have adopted the traditions of their Teutonic neigh- 
 boars while still retaining Romance; the Romance lands of 
 America have adopted the traditions of their Teutonic neigh- 
 bours by the more eifectual process of receiving their Teutonic 
 neighbours within their borders. 
 
 I have gone off a good way from the subject on which I origi- 
 nally meant to say a few words. But my very wanderings may 
 help to show how easily the study of the local institutions of the 
 American States connects itself with the general study of Euro- 
 pean history, and with the study of the general history of insti- 
 tutions, above all with the institutions of the Teutonic race and 
 specially of its English branch. 
 
 * Doubtless I visited America under circumstances which were 
 likely to make me dwell on likenesses rather than on unlikenesses. 
 It might haply have been otherwise if I had known nothing 
 of the continent of Europe, or if I had entered America, as some 
 have done, on its western side. But I came to America from 
 the east, and that as a somewhat old stager in continental 
 Europe. I came as one fresh from Italy, Greece, and Dalraatia, 
 as one who had used his own house in England as an inn on the 
 road between Ragusa and Boston. Among a people of the same 
 tongue, of essentially the same laws and manners, I naturally 
 found myself at home, after tarrying in lands which were altogether 
 foreign. But I have no doubt that deeper causes than this would 
 naturally lead me to seize on the most English side of everything 
 American. To me the English-speaking commonwealth on the 
 
 * It has been thought not inappropriate to reprint in connection with 
 this Introduction, which was prepared by Mr. Freeman expressly for this 
 University Series, the following extracts from his " Impressions of Amer- 
 ica," recently published in the Fortnight!)/ Review (August and September, 
 1882), articles touching American Institutions and dwelling upon the 
 importance of studying them in the ligbt of Kurope.m hi-!' r;. oid of 
 the comparative method. u. is. a. 
 
20 An Introduction to 
 
 American mainland is simply one part of the great English folk, 
 as the English-speaking kingdom in the p]uropean island is another 
 part. My whole line of thought and study leads me to think, 
 more perhaps than most men, of the everlasting ties of blood and 
 speech, and less of the accidental separation wrought by political 
 and geographical causes. To me the English folk, wherever they 
 may dwell, whatever may be their form of government, are still 
 one people. It may be that the habit of constantly studying and 
 comparing the history of England with the History of old Greece, 
 makes it easier for me to grasp the idea of a people, divided 
 politically and geographically, but still forming in the higher 
 sense one people. The tie that bound Greek to Greek was dearer 
 to Kallikratidas than the advancement of Spartan interests by 
 barbarian help. And so, to my mind at least, the thought of 
 the true unity of the scattered English folk is a thought higher 
 and dearer than any thought of a British Empire to the vast 
 majority of whose subjects the common speech of Chatham and 
 Washington, of Gladstone and GarGeld, is an unknown tongue. 
 It may be more important to ask how far the doctrine of the 
 essential unity of the divided branches of the English people is re- 
 ceived by those whom it concerns on the other side of the Ocean. 
 This is a subject on which I rather distrust my own judgment. I feel 
 that it is a subject on which I am an enthusiast, and that my enthusi- 
 asm may possibly bias and color any report that I may try to make. 
 And, of course, I can give only the impressions which I have drawn 
 from certain classes of people, impressions which may be widely 
 different from those which another man may have drawn from 
 other classes of people. As far as I can speak of my American 
 acquaintances, I should say that with most of them the essential 
 unity of the English folk is one of those facts which everybody in 
 a sense knows, but of which few people really carry their knowledge 
 about with them. The main facts of the case are so plain that 
 they cannot fail to be known to every man among a people 
 who know their own immediate and recent history so well as the 
 Americans do. That the older American states were in the 
 beginning English colonies, that the great mass of their inhabitants 
 are still of English descent, that, though the infusion of foreign 
 elements has been large, yet it is the English kernel which has 
 assimilated these foreigu elements that the German in America, 
 
American Institutional History. 21 
 
 for instance, learns to speak English, while the American of 
 English descent does not learn to speak German ail these are 
 plain facts which every decently taught man in the United States 
 cannot fail in a certain sense to know. That is, if he were exam- 
 ined on the subject, he could not fail to give the right answers. 
 But the facts do not seem to be to him living things, constantly 
 in his mind. Those Americans with whom I have spoken, all of 
 them without a single exception, readily and gladly accepted the 
 statement of what I may call their EnglUhry. when it was set 
 before them. Once or twice indeed I have known the statement 
 come from the American side. But, though the acceptance of 
 the doctrine was ready and glad, it seemed to be the acceptance 
 of a doctrine which could not be denied when it was stated, but 
 which he who accepted it had not habitually carried about in his 
 daily thoughts. And when the statement came from the Ameri- 
 can side, it came, not as an obvious truth, but rather as the result 
 of the speaker's own observation, as a fact which he had noticed, 
 but which might have escaped the notice of others. I will illus- 
 trate my meaning by an incident which happened to myself. At 
 a college dinner to which I was asked, one gentleman proposed 
 my health in words which in everything else were most kind and 
 flattering, but in which I was spoken of as a man of " a foreign 
 nationality." In my answer I thanked the proposer of the toast 
 for everything else that he had said, but begged him to withdraw 
 one word : I was not of a foreign nationality, but of the same 
 nationality as himself. My answer was warmly cheered, and 
 several other speakers took up the same line. The unity of Old 
 and New England was in every mouth ; one gentleman who had 
 been American Minister in England told how exactly the same 
 thing had happened to him at a Lord Mayor's dinner in London, 
 how he had been spoken of as a foreigner, and how he had 
 
 refused the name, just as I had done 
 
 In the broad fact of the War of Independence there is really 
 nothing of which either side need be ashamed. Each side acted 
 as it was natural for each side to act. We can now see that 
 both King George and the British nation were quite wrong ; hut 
 for them to have acted otherwise than they did would have needed 
 a superhuman measure of wisdom, which few kings and few 
 nations ever had. The later American war within the present 
 
22 An Introduction to 
 
 century, a war which, one would think, could have been so easily 
 avoided on either side, is a far uglier memory than the War of 
 Independence. Still the War of Independence must be, on the 
 American side, a formidable historic barrier in the way of perfect 
 brotherhood. A war of that kind is something quite unlike an 
 ordinary war between two nations which are already thoroughly 
 formed. Two nations in that case can soon afford to forget, they 
 can almost afford to smile over, their past differences. It is other- 
 wise when one nation dates its national being in the political 
 sense of the word " nation " from the defeat and humiliation of 
 the other. If the American nation had parted off peacefully 
 from the British nation, there would be no difficulty on either side 
 in looking on the two English-speaking nations as simply severed 
 branches of the same stock. The independent colony would, in 
 such a case, have far less difficulty in feeling itself to be, though 
 independent, still a colony, far less difficulty in feeling that all the 
 common memories and associations of the common stock belong 
 to the colony no less than to the mother-country. In such a case 
 the new England might have been to the old what Syracuse, not 
 what Korkyra, was to their common mother Corinth. But when 
 independence was won in arms, and that by the help of foreign 
 allies, when the very being of the new power was a badge of 
 triumph over the old, it is not wonderful that the natural self- 
 assertion of a new-born people often took the form of putting the 
 past, the dependent past, as far as might be out of sight. Parents 
 and brethren had become enemies ; strangers had acted as friends ; 
 it was not wonderful if it was thqught a point of honor to snap 
 the old ties as far as might be ; to take up in everything, as far as 
 might be, the position of a new nation, rather than that of a 
 severed branch of an old nation. I can understand that the 
 Englishman of America may be tempted to see something of 
 sacrifice, something like surrender of his national position, when 
 he is called on to admit himself simply to be an Englishman of 
 America. The Englishman of Britain has no such difficulties. 
 To his eye the kindred lies on the surface, plain to be seen of all 
 men. But it is not wonderful if the eye of the Englishman of 
 America is a degree less clear-sighted. He may be pardoned if 
 to him the kindred does not lie so visibly on the surface ; if it is 
 to him something which he gladly acknowledges when it is 
 
American Institutional History. 23 
 
 pointed out, but which he needs to have pointed out before lie 
 
 acknowledges it 
 
 The ideal after which I would fain strive would be for all mem- 
 bers. of the scattered English folk to feel at least us close a tie to 
 one another as was felt of old by all members of the scattered 
 Hellenic folk. Geographical distance, political separation, fierce 
 rivalry, cruel warfare, never snapped the enduring tie which 
 bound every Greek to every other Greek. So the Englishman of 
 Britain, of America, of Africa, of Australia, should be each to 
 his distant brother as were the Greek of Massalia, the Greek of 
 Kyrene, and the Greek of Cherson. I have no doubt that it is a 
 piece of pedantry to hint at the fact, but the fact is none the less 
 true and practical, that, in order to compass this end, the scat- 
 tered branches of the common stock must have a common name. 
 This the old Greeks had. The Hellen remained a Hellen where- 
 ever he settled himself, and wherever he settled himself the land 
 on which he settled became Hellas. The Greek of Attica or 
 Peloponnesos did not distinguish himself from the Greek of Spain 
 by calling himself a Greek and his distant kinsman a Spaniard. 
 But it is hard to find a name fitted in modern usage to take in nil 
 the scattered branches of the English folk. A certain class of 
 orators on both sides of Ocean would seem to have dived into 
 the charters of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and to have 
 hence fished up the antiquated name of " Anglo-Saxon." We 
 hear much big talk about the "Anglo-Saxon race," somewhat to 
 the wrong of that greater Teutonic body of which Angles and 
 Saxons are fellow-members with many others. But those who 
 use the name probably attach no particular meaning to it ; to 
 them it goes along with such modern creations as Anglo-Nor- 
 mans, Anglo-Indians, Anglo-Catholics. The very narrow his- 
 torical sense of the word "Anglo-Saxon " is never thought of. It 
 is not remembered that its use was to mark the union of Angles 
 and Saxons under one king, a use which naturally was forgotten 
 as the distinctions between Angles and Saxons was forgotten. 
 Anyhow the name is antiquated and affected; it is not the name 
 which most naturally springs to any man's lips: it is a name 
 artificially devised to answer a certain purpose. For the English- 
 man of Britain and the Englishman of America to greet one 
 another as " Anglo-Saxons is very much as if the Greek ol 
 
24 An Introduction to 
 
 Peloponnesos and the Greek of Spain had greeted one another, 
 not as Hellenes, but as Danaans or Pelasgians. Yet there cer- 
 tainly is a difficulty, such as the Greek never felt, in their greeting 
 one another by their true name of Knglishraen 
 
 In England I have ever preached the lesson "antiquam ex- 
 quirite niatrem," while in America I have, at the expense of meter, 
 preached it in the shape of " antiquiorem exquirite matrem." I am 
 not likely to forget that if the English settlements in America are 
 colonies of the English settlements in Britain, so the English 
 settlements in Britain are themselves colonies of the older 
 English land on the European mainland. In the wider history 
 of the three Englands no fact is of greater moment ; it is in fact 
 the kernel, almost the essence, of their whole history. Still the 
 constant acknowledgment and carrying about of that fact is a 
 kind of counsel of perfection which every one cannot be expected 
 to bear in mind. The analogy between the European and Ameri- 
 can settlements is real, but it is hidden. The points of unlikeness 
 lie on the surface. The far longer time of separation between 
 the first England and the second, the consequences following on 
 that longer separation, above all the far wider break in the 
 matter of language and institutions to say nothing of the wide 
 diversity in date and circumstances between the settlements of the 
 sixth century and the settlements of the seventeenth all these 
 things join together to make the relations between the first 
 England and the second altogether unlike the relations between 
 the second England and the third. The oldest England on the 
 European continent should never be forgotten by the men of the 
 middle England in the isle of Britain. But it never can be to 
 them all that the middle England in the isle of Britain surely 
 ought to be to the men of the newest England on the mainland 
 of America. 
 
 The main ties between the motherland and her great colony 
 are the two main results of community of stock ; that is, commu- 
 nity of language and community of law It is pleasant 
 
 to see an American law library, with English and American books 
 side by side. It is pleasant to hear an American legal pleading, 
 in which the older English legislation, the older English decisions, 
 are dealt with as no less binding than the legislation and decisions 
 of the local courts and assemblies, and where the English legisla- 
 
American Institutional History. 25 
 
 tion and decisions of later times are held to be, though not 
 formally binding, yet entitled to no small respect. As to out- 
 ward appearances indeed, most of the American courts have lost 
 the pomp and circumstances with which we are accustomed to 
 clothe the administration of the higher justice at home. It is 
 only in that great tribunal which can sit in judgment on the legis- 
 lation of a nation, in the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 that any trace is left of the outward majesty of the law as it is 
 understood in England. But look at any American Court, in 
 such States at least as I have visited, and we see that the real 
 life of English law and English justice is there. All the essential 
 principles, all the essential forms, are there. The very cry of 
 oyez, meaningless most likely in the mouth of the crier who utters 
 it, not only tells us that it is the law of England which is adminis- 
 tering, but reminds us how largely the older law of England was 
 recast not more than recast at the hands of the Norman and 
 the Angevin. We feel that the law which is laid down by the 
 banks of the Hudson or the Potomac is still the law of King 
 Edward with the amendments of King William. Sometimes 
 indeed, when we find the newer England cleaving to cumbrous 
 tradition which the elder England has cast away, we feel that 
 a few further amendments of later days would not be out of 
 
 place 
 
 I am not forgetful that the laws of different States are very far 
 from being everywhere the same, and that the legislation of some 
 States has brought in some startling differences from the legisla- 
 tion both of England and of other States. But we may still 
 carry on our eleventh century formula. The law is not a new 
 law; it is the old law, with certain perhaps very considerable 
 amendments. Even if it be held that a new superstructure hns 
 been built up, it has been built up upon an old groundwork. 
 Here there is a tie, not only to the mother-country, but to an old 
 side of the mother-country. A real American lawyer must be an 
 English lawyer too. He cannot fail to know something of the 
 history of the land whose laws it becomes his duty to master ; he 
 may know at least as much as the English lawyer himself conde- 
 scends to know. And I can witness that there are American 
 lawyers who go somewhat further than the ordinary English law- 
 yer thinks it his business to go. If a good many are still floun- 
 4 
 
26 An Introduction to 
 
 doring in the quag-mire of Blackstone, there are some who have 
 in m!c their way to the firm ground of Stubbs and Maine. 
 
 The nature of Blackstone suggests a state of mind which I 
 certainly cannot call an American peculiarity, which it may be 
 going too far to call even an American characteristic. For the 
 state of mind of which I speak, though it was brought forcibly to 
 my notice on the other side of Ocean, is only too common in 
 England also, and in many parts besides. I remember years ago 
 acting as Examiner at Oxford with a man who, whatever may 
 have been his attainments as a lawyer, had certainly made a good 
 deal of money at the bar. He made the men who were examined 
 say that the Conqueror introduced the feudal system at the Great 
 Council of Salisbury. I implored him to say nothing of the 
 kind, and explained to him that the legislation of Salisbury was 
 the exact opposite to what he fancied. My colleague refused to 
 hearkeu ; he had to examine in law ; Blackstone was the great 
 oracle of the law ; Blackstone put the matter as he put it, and 
 he could not go beyond Blackstone. This is an extreme case of 
 a man who cannot get beyond his modern book, and to whom the 
 notion of an original authority is something which never came 
 into his head. I believe there is in all parts of the world a large 
 class of people into whose heads it never does come that history 
 is written from original sources. I have had talks with people, 
 and have received letters from people, who clearly thought that I 
 or auy other writer of history did it all from some kind of intui- 
 tion or revelation, who had no idea that we got our knowledge 
 by turning over this book and that. And I have known others 
 who have got beyond this stage, who know that we get our know- 
 ledge from earlier writings, but who fancy that these earlier 
 writings are something altogether strange and rare, the exclusive 
 possession of a certain class, and placed altogether out of the 
 reach of any but members of that class. They are amazed if 
 you tell them that for large parts of history, for all those parts 
 with which I am mainly concerned, the sources lie open to every 
 man, and that the only advantage which the professed historian 
 has is the greater skill which long practice may be supposed to 
 have given him in the art of using the sources. Now this state 
 of mind, one which practically does not know that there are any 
 sources, common enough in England, is commoner still in America. 
 
American Institutional History. 27 
 
 There, if we except a small body of scholars of the first rank, 
 original sources seem to be practically unknown. It struck me 
 that, with regard to reading and knowledge at least in those 
 branches of which I can judge America stands to England very 
 much as England stands to Germany. I conceive that in Ger- 
 many the proportion of those who know something is smaller 
 than it is in England, while the proportion of those who know a 
 great deal is certainly larger. Anyhow this distinction is per- 
 fectly true between England and America. There is a mysterious 
 being called the " general reader," of whom some editors seem to 
 live in deadly fear. Now I had long suspected that the "general 
 reader" was not *so great a fool as the editors seemed to think, 
 and my American experience has confirmed that suspicion. 
 America strikes me as the land of the "general reader;" and, 
 if so, I am not at all disposed to think scorn of the "general 
 reader." It seemed to me that in America the reading class, the 
 class of those who read widely, who read, as far as they go, intel- 
 ligently, but who do not read deeply the class of those who, 
 without being professed scholars, read enough and know enough 
 to be quite worth talking to form a larger proportion of man- 
 kind in America than they do in England. On the other hand, 
 the class of those who read really deeply, the class of professed 
 scholars, is certainly much smaller in proportion in America than 
 it is in England. The class exists; it numbers some who have 
 done thoroughly good work, and others from whom thoroughly 
 good work maybe looked for; but it sometimes fails to show 
 itself where one might most have expected to find it. Men from 
 whose position one might have expected something more seem 
 hardly to have grasped the conception of original authorities. 
 One sees college library after college library which docs not con- 
 tain a volume of the Chronicles and Memorials, where the exist- 
 ence of that great series seems to be unknown. I met men who 
 admired Dr. Stubbs as they ought to do, who had read his Con- 
 stitutional History carefully, but who had never so much as heard 
 of those wonderful prefaces, those living pictures of men and 
 times, on which, even more than on the Constitutional History, 
 the fame of the great Professor must rest. How little some men, 
 even in the chair of the teacher, have grasped the nature of the 
 materials for historic study came out in a curious dialogue which 
 
28 An Introduction to 
 
 I had with an American professor, I think a professor of history. 
 He asked me, " Where do you write your works t n " In my own 
 house, to be sure," I answered, "where else should I ?" " O but 
 you can't do them in your own house ; you can't have the rare 
 books and the curious manuscripts ; you must be always going to 
 the British Museum." He was a good deal amazed when I 
 explained to him that all the important books for my period were 
 printed, that I had them all around me in my own not wonder- 
 fully large library, that it was the rarest thing for me in writing 
 ray history to need a book that was not in my library, that I had 
 never in ray life made use of the British Museum library, and not 
 very often of the Bodleian itself that, for a few unprinted manu- 
 scripts which I knew would be of use to me the British Museum 
 would give me no help, as they did not happen to be there that, 
 as a mere affair of the pocket, it was cheaper as well as more 
 convenient to buy books for oneself than to take long journeys in 
 order to read other people's books elsewhere. All this seemed 
 altogether a new light to my friend. Of course a student of some 
 other periods could not have made the same answer that I did. 
 There are times for which the library of the British Museum or 
 any other public library, must be invaluable, but those times are 
 not the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But it is plain that to 
 my professor all centuries were much alike ; he knew that there 
 were such things as original sources, but they seemed to him to 
 be something strange, mysterious, and inaccessible, something of 
 which a private man could not hope to be the owner. That a 
 man could have the Chronicles and Florence and Oderic lying on 
 his table as naturally as he might have Caesar and Tacitus had 
 never come into his head. I heard a good deal in America of 
 the difficulty of getting books, which I did not quite understand. 
 It is surely as easy to get a book, whether from London or from 
 Leipzig, in America as it is in England ; the book simply takes 
 somewhat longer to come. But I can understand that American 
 scholars may keenly feel one difficulty which I feel very keenly 
 too. This is the utter hopelessness of keeping up with the ever- 
 growing mass of German books, and yet more with the vaster 
 mass of treatises which are hidden in German periodicals and 
 local transactions. Of all of these every German scholar expects 
 us all to be masters, while to most of us they are practically as 
 
American Institutional History. 29 
 
 inaccessible as if they were shut up in the archives of the Vatican. 
 When a German, and yet more when a Swiss, scholar gets any 
 fresh light, his first impulse is carefully to hide it under a bushel, 
 and then he expects all mankind to enter in and see the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 I think I may fairly say that the state of things of which I 
 speak, not so much mere ignorance of original sources as failure 
 to grasp the existence and the nature of original sources, while 
 sadly rife in England, is yet more rife in America. But I need 
 hardly say that America has men of sound learning in various 
 branches of knowledge of whom no land need be ashamed. At 
 Harvard, at Yale, at Cornell, the most fastidious in the choice of 
 intellectual society may be well satisfied with his companions. 
 And there is a younger school of American scholarship growing 
 up, of which, and of its researches, I cannot help saying a few 
 words more directly. Students of early English history and lan- 
 guage have had of late to acknowledge much valuable help in 
 several shapes from the western branch of their people. But the 
 school of which I have to speak is one which, among its other 
 merits, has the special merit of being distinctively American, of 
 being the natural and wholesome fruit of American soil. Its 
 researches have taken that special direction which one might say 
 that American research was called upon to take before all others. 
 The new school is the natural complement of an elder school which 
 has been useful in its time, but which could at the utmost serve 
 only as the pioneer toward something higher. 
 
 Even from the days before independence, the English colonies 
 in America have never lacked local historians. Every State, 
 every district, almost every township, has found its chronicler. 
 And worthily so; for every State, every district, every township, 
 has its history. In New England above all, the history of even 
 the smallest community has some political instruction to give us. 
 The history of New England is a history of exactly the same 
 kind as the history of old Greece or of mediaeval Switzerland, 
 the history of a great number of small communities, each full of 
 political life, most of them reproducing ancient forms of Teutonic 
 political life, which have died out in the elder England and which 
 live only among the lakes and mountains of the elder Switzer- 
 land. The institutions of anv community in the Thirteen Colo- 
 
30 An Introduction to 
 
 nies, above all of any community in New England, are more than 
 a mere object of local interest and curiosity. They show us the 
 institutions of the elder England, neither slavishly carried on nor 
 scornfully cast aside, but reproduced with such changes as changed 
 circumstances called for, and those for the most part changes in 
 the direction of earlier times. As many of the best reforms in 
 our own land have been often unwittingly, and when unwit- 
 tingly all the better simply falling back on the laws and customs 
 of earlier times, so it has specially been with the reforms which 
 were needed when the New England arose on the western shore 
 of Ocean. The old Teutonic assembly, rather the old Aryan 
 assembly, which had not long died out in the Frisian sea-lands, 
 which still lived on in the Swabian mountain-lands, rose again to 
 full life in the New England town-meeting. Here we have, sup- 
 plied by the New England States, a direct contribution, and one 
 of the most valuable of contributions, to the general history of 
 Teutonic political life, and thereby to the general history of 
 common Aryan political life. And other parts of the Union also, 
 though their contributions are on the whole of less interest than 
 those of New England, have something to add to the common 
 stock. Each of the colonies reproduced some features of English 
 life ; but different colonies reproduced different sides and, so to 
 speak, different dates of English life. All these points in the 
 local history of the colonies need to be put in their right relation 
 to one another and to other English, other Teutonic, other Aryan 
 institutions. This would seem to be a study to which the 
 scholars of the United States are specially called. The study of 
 institutions, the scientific exposition of what America has to teach 
 us on that head, has been taken up by those who have come in the 
 wake of the older school of American inquirers. On the more 
 homely researches of the local chronicler there naturally follows a 
 newer and more advanced class of inquirers, men who not only 
 collect facts, but who know how to put the facts which they col- 
 lect into their proper place in the general history of mankind. 
 I have hitherto abstained from mentioning names ; it is often 
 invidious to pick and choose, and some of those whom I have had 
 in my eye may claim the benefit of the proverb that good wine 
 needs no bush. But a young and growing school, which still has 
 difficulties to struggle against, may be glad of a good word on 
 
American Institutional History. 31 
 
 either side of Ocean. I cannot help mentioning the school which 
 is now devoting itself to the special study of local institutions, a 
 school which is spread over various parts of the Union, but wliicli 
 seems to have its special home in the Johns Hopkins University 
 at Baltimore, .... 
 
 To trace out the local institutions, and generally the local history 
 of their own land, to compare them with the history and institutions 
 of elder lands, to show that it is only on the surface that their own 
 land lacks the charm of antiquity, is the work which seems chalked 
 out for the inquirers of this school, and a noble and patriotic work 
 it is. An eye accustomed to trace the likenesses and unlikenesses 
 of history will rejoice to see the Germans of Tacitus live once 
 more in the popular gatherings of New England to see in the 
 strong life of Rhode Island a new Appenzell beyond the Ocean 
 to see the Great City of Arcadia rise again in the federal capital 
 by the Potomac. North and South, and the older West also, 
 has each its help to give, and materials to furnish. Viewed 
 rightly, with the eye of general history, it is no mean place in the 
 annals of the world that falls to the lot of the two great common- 
 wealths between which the earliest, and till our own days the 
 greatest presidencies of the American Union were so unequally 
 divided 
 
 I said before that it is a witness to the life and strength of the 
 true English kernel in the United States that, notwithstanding 
 the lavish admission of men of all kinds to citizenship, that English 
 kernel still remains the kernel round which everything grows and 
 to which everything else assimilates itself. There is that kind 
 of difference between the English in Britain and the English in 
 America which could not fail to be under the different circumstances 
 of the two branches. Each of them is the common forefather of 
 earlier times modified as the several positions of his several de- 
 scendants could not fail to modify him. In constitutional matters 
 the closeness with which the daughter has, wherever it was possible, 
 reproduced the parent is shown perhaps in the most remarkable 
 way in the prevalence alike in the Union, in the Slates, and in 
 many at least of the cities, of the system of two houses in a legis- 
 lative body. We are so familiar with that system from its repetition 
 in countless later constitutions that we are apt to forget that, when 
 the Federal constitution of the United States was drawn up, that 
 
32 An Introduction to 
 
 system was by no means the rule, and that its adoption in the 
 United States was a very remarkable instance of cleaving to the 
 institutions of the mother country. Though the United States 
 Senate, the representative of the separate being and the political 
 equality of the States, has some functions quite different from those 
 of the House of Lords, yet it would hardly have come into the 
 heads of constitution- makers who were not familiar with the House 
 of Lords. I may here quote the remark of an acute American 
 friend that the Senate is as superior to the House of Lords as the 
 House of Representatives is inferior to the House of Commons. 
 A neat epigram of this kind is seldom literally true ; but this one 
 undoubtedly has some truth in it. It follows almost necessarily 
 from the difference between the British and American constitutions 
 that in the American Congress the Upper House should be, in 
 character and public estimation, really the Upper House. In 
 Great Britain no statesman of the first rank and in the vigor of 
 life has any temptation to exchange the House of Commons for the 
 House of Lords. By so doing he would leave an assembly of 
 greater practical authority for one of much less. But in the 
 United States such a statesman has every temptation to leave the 
 House of Representatives for the Senate as soon as he can. As 
 neither House can directly overthrow a Government in the way 
 that the House of Commons can in England, while the Senate 
 has a share in various acts of the executive power with which the 
 House of Representatives has nothing to do, the Senate is really 
 the assembly of greater authority. Its members, chosen for six 
 years by the State Legislatures, while the Representatives are 
 chosen by the people for two years, have every advantage as to 
 the tenure of their seats, and it is not wonderful to find that re- 
 election is far more the rule in the Senate than in the House. I 
 had to explain more than once that it was a rare thing in Eng- 
 land for a member of Parliament to lose his seat, unless he had 
 given some offense to his own party or unless the other party had 
 grown strong enough to bring in a man of its own. In America, 
 it seems, it is not uncommon for a Representative to be dismissed 
 by his constituents of his own party, simply because it is thought 
 that he has sat long enough and because another man would like 
 the place. Here the difference between paid and unpaid mem- 
 bers comes in: where members are paid, there will naturally be a 
 
American Institutional History. 33 
 
 larger stock of candidates to choose from. I was present at sit- 
 tings of both Houses, and there was certainly a most marked 
 difference in point of order and decorum between the two. The 
 Senate seemed to be truly a Senate ; the House of Representa- 
 tives struck me as a scene of mere hubbub rather than of real 
 debate. One incident specially struck me as illustrating the con- 
 stitutional provision which shuts out the Ministers of the Presi- 
 dent from Congress. One Representative made a fierce attack 
 on the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Navy 
 was not there to defend himself. Generally I should say, the 
 House of Representatives and the Legislative bodies which 
 answer to it in the several States, illustrate Lord Macaulay'a 
 saying about the necessity of a Ministry to keep a Parliament in 
 order. One result is the far larger powers which in these assem- 
 blies are given to the Speaker. And these are again attended 
 by the danger of turning the Speaker himself into the instrument 
 of a party. 
 
 The differences of procedure between our Houses of Parlia- 
 ment and the American assemblies, Federal and State, are very 
 curious and interesting, specially just now when the question of 
 Parliamentary procedure has taken to itself so much attention. 
 But I must hasten on to give my impression of other matters, 
 rather than attempt to enlarge on a point which I cannot say that 
 I have specially studied. The State legislatures are the features 
 of American political life which are most distinctive of the federal 
 system, and to which there cannot be anything exactly answering 
 among ourselves. It must always be remembered that a State 
 legislature does not answer to a town council or a court of quar- 
 ter sessions. It is essentially a parliament, though a parliament 
 with limited functions and which can never be called on to deal 
 with the highest questions of all. Still the range of the State 
 legislatures is positively very wide, and takes in most things which 
 concern the daily affairs of mankind. A large part of their bus- 
 iness seems commonly to consist in the passing of private bills, 
 acts of incorporation and the like. Some Stat es seem to have found 
 that constant legislation on such matters was not needed, and 
 have therefore thought good that their legislatures should meet 
 only every other year. In Pennsylvania, therefore, where I had 
 good opportunities of studying some other matters, 1 had no 
 5 
 
34 An Introduction to 
 
 opportunities of studying the working of a State legislature. 
 When I was there, municipal life was in full vigor in Philadelphia, 
 but State life was dead at Harrisburg. But I came in for a sight 
 of the legislature of New York at the time of the " dead lock " 
 early this year. For week after week the Lower House found it 
 impossible to elect a Speaker. And this was not the result of 
 absolute equality between' the two great parties. It was because 
 a very small body of men, who had no chance of carrying a 
 candidate from among themselves, thought fit, in ballot after 
 ballot, to hinder the election of the acknowledged candidate of 
 either side. This illustrates the result of the rule which requires 
 an absolute majority. I pointed out to several friends on the 
 spot that no such dead lock could have happened in the British 
 House of Commons. I know not how far the existence of a 
 regular Ministry and Opposition would hinder the possibility of 
 this particular kind of scandal ; but it is hard to conceive the 
 existence of a ministry in our sense in a State constitution. Even 
 in our still dependent colonies the reproduction of our system of 
 ministries going in and out in consequence of a parliamentary 
 vote, may be thought to be somewhat out of place. Still the 
 Governor, named by an external power, has much of the position 
 of a king, and his relations to his ministry and his parliament 
 can in a manner reproduce those of the sovereign in the mother- 
 country. But it is hard to conceive an elective Governor, above 
 all the Governor of such a state as Rhode Island or Delaware, work- 
 ing through the conventionalities of a responsible ministry. 
 Indeed even in such a state as New York there is still something 
 patriarchal about the office of Governor. While I was in the 
 Capitol at Albany, the friends of a condemned criminal came to 
 plead with the Governor in person for the exercise of his preroga- 
 tive of mercy. Now the population of the State of New York, 
 swelled by one overgrown city, is greater than that of Ireland ; 
 even in its natural state, it would be much greater than that of 
 Scotland. I thought of the days when the King did sit in the 
 gate. 
 
 The personal heads of the Union, the State, and the City, the 
 President, the Governor, the Mayor, all come from English tra- 
 dition. If we study the commonwealths of other ages and coun- 
 tries, we shall see that this great position given to a single man, 
 
American Institutional History. :)") 
 
 though by no means without precedent, is by no moans the 
 rule. The title of Governor especially is directly handed on 
 from the days before independence. It would hardly have 
 suggested itself to the founders of commonwealths which had 
 not been used to the Governor sent by the King. The pow- 
 ers of the Governor and the duration of his office differ widely 
 in different States, even in neighboring and closely kindred 
 States. The Governor of Massachusetts still keeps up a good 
 deal of dignity, while the Governor of Connecticut is a much 
 smaller person. Yet the Governor of Connecticut holds office 
 for a longer time than his brother of Massachusetts. The 
 Mayor too does not hold exactly the same place in every city. 
 At Brooklyn, when I was there, a great point in the way of 
 reform was held to have been won by greatly enlarging the 
 powers of the Mayor. Men who could well judge held that 
 purity of administration was best attained by vesting large pow- 
 ers in single persons, elective, responsible, acting under the eve 
 of the public. And I was told that, even in the worst casus, 
 better results come from the election of single officers than from 
 the election of larger numbers. The popular election of Judges, 
 which has been introduced into many States, is one of the things 
 which British opinion would be most united in condemning. We 
 should all agree in wishing that both the Federal courts and 
 the courts of those States which, like Massachusetts, cleave to 
 older modes of appointment may stay as they are. But, from 
 what I could hear both in New York and other States which 
 have adopted the elective system, the results are better than 
 might have been expected. Each party, it is said, makes it a 
 point of honor to name fairly competent candidates for the judi- 
 cial office. So again the municipal administration of New York 
 city was for years a by-word, and the name of Alderman was 
 anything but a name of honor. But even in the worst times, 
 the post of Mayor was almost always respectably filled. Even, 
 so I was told, in one case where the previous record of the 
 elected Mayor was notoriously bad, his conduct in office was not 
 
 to be blamed 
 
 I was greatly interested in the municipal election which I saw 
 at Philadelphia early this year. The municipal administration of 
 that city has, like that of 2s'ew York, long had a bad name. 
 
36 An Introduction to 
 
 Corruption, jobbery, the rule of rings and " bosses," and above 
 all, what to us sounds odd, the corrupt administration of the Gas 
 Trust, were loudly complained of. And I certainly am greatly 
 deceived if what I saw and studied was anything but a vigorous 
 and honest effort to bring in a better state of things. Repub- 
 licans and Democrats brought themselves to forget their party 
 differences ; or rather party names, and to work together for the 
 welfare and honor of their common city. The movement was 
 described to me in a way at which I have already hinted, as an 
 union of honest men of both parties against the rogues of both 
 parties. And such, as far as I could judge, it really was. I did 
 indeed hear it whispered that such fits of virtue were not uncom- 
 mon, both in Philadelphia and elsewhere, that they wrought some 
 small measure of reform for a year or two, but that in order to 
 keep the ground that had been gained, a continuous effort was 
 needed which men were not willing to make, and that things fell 
 back into their old corrupt state. And it is certainly plain that 
 the man who gains by maintaining corruption is likely to make 
 great habitual efforts to keep up a corrupt system, while the man 
 who opposes it, who gains nothing by opposing it, but who gives 
 up his time, his quiet, and his ordinary business, for the public 
 good, is tempted at every moment to relax his efforts. This failure 
 of continued energy is just what Demosthenes complains of in the 
 Athenians of his day; and experience does seem to show that 
 here is a weak side of democratic government. To keep up 
 under a popular, system an administration at once pure and 
 vigorous, does call for constant efforts on the part of each citizen 
 which it needs some self-sacrifice to make. The old saying that 
 what is everybody's business is nobody's business becomes true as 
 regards the sounder part of the community. But it follows next 
 that what is everybody's business becomes specially the business 
 of those whose business one would least wish it to be. Yet my 
 Philadelphian friends assured me that they had been steadily at 
 work for ten years, that they had made some way every year, but 
 that this year they had made more way than they had ever made 
 before. The immediate business was to dislodge " bosses " and 
 other corrupt persons from the municipal councils, and to put in 
 their stead men of character and ability, whether Republican or 
 Democratic in politics. And this object, surely one much to be 
 
American Institutional History. 37 
 
 sought for, was, as far as I could see, largely accomplished. I 
 did indeed hear the murmurs of one or two stern Republicans, 
 who could not understand supporting a list which contained any 
 Democratic names. But the other view seemed to be the popular 
 one. I read much of the fugitive election literature, and attended 
 one of the chief ward-meetings. I was greatly struck by the 
 general hearty enthusiasm in what was not a party struggle, but 
 an honest effort for something above party. The speaking was 
 vigorous, straightforward, often in its way eloquent, It was 
 somewhat more personal than we are used to in England, even at 
 an election. But here again my comparison is perhaps not a fair 
 one. As I before said, I know nothing of English municipal 
 elections, and the Philadelphian reformers had to deal with evils 
 which have no parallel in the broader walks of English political 
 life. Whatever may be our side in politics, we have no reason to 
 suspect our opponents of directly filling their pockets at the 
 public cost. 
 
 A municipal election is of more importance in America than 
 it is in England, because of the large powers, amounting to 
 powers of local legislation, which are vested in the cities. This 
 would seem to be the natural tendency of a Federal system. It 
 would indeed be inaccurate to say that the City is to the State 
 what the State is to the Union. For the powers of the city may 
 of course be modified by an act of the State Legislature, just as 
 the powers of an English municipal corporation may be modified 
 by an Act of Parliament, while no mere act of Congress, nothing 
 short of a constitutional amendment, can touch the powers of a 
 Sovereign State. But it is natural for a member of an Union, 
 keeping independent powers by right, to allow to the members 
 of its own body a large amount of local independence, held not 
 of right but of grant. An American city is more thoroughly a 
 commonwealth, it has more of the feelings of a commonwealth, 
 than an English city has. As for the use of the name, we must 
 remember that in the United States every corporate town is called 
 a "city," while, in some States at least, what we should call 11 
 market-town bears the legal style of "village." In New Eng- 
 land the cities are interlopers. They have largely obscured the 
 older constitution of the towns. The word town in New Kng- 
 land does not, as with us, mean a collection of houses, perhaps 
 
38 An Introduction to 
 
 forming a political community, perhaps not. It means a certain 
 space of the earth's surface, which may or may not contain a 
 town in our sense, but whose inhabitants form* a political com- 
 munity in either case. Its assembly is the town meeting, the 
 survival, or rather revival, of the old Teutonic assembly on the 
 soil of the third England. This primitive institution best keeps 
 its ancient character in the country districts and among the smal- 
 ler towns in our sense of the word. Where a " city " has been 
 incorporated, the ancient constitution has lost much of its impor- 
 tance. It has not been abolished. In some cases at least the 
 two constitutions, of town and city, the Teutonic primary assem- 
 bly and the later system of representative bodies, go on side 
 by side in the same place. Each has its own range of subjects; 
 but it is the tendeucy of the newer institution to overshadow 
 the older. I deeply regret that I left America without seeing 
 a New England town-meeting with my own eyes. It was a 
 thing which I had specially wished to see, if only in order to 
 compare it with what I had seen in past years in Uri and 
 Appenzell. But when I was first in New England, it was the 
 wrong time of the year, and my second visit was very short. I 
 thus unavoidably lost a very favorable chance of seeing what 
 I conceive that the English parish vestry ought to be but is 
 
 not 
 
 One of the points on which I have always tried to insist most 
 strongly is the true historic connection between the constitutions 
 of England and of the United States. It might be a good test of 
 those who have and those who have not made comparative politics 
 a scientific study to see whether they are most struck by the 
 likenesses or the unlikenesses in the two systems. The close 
 analogy in the apportionment of power among the elements of 
 the state is a point of likeness of far more moment even than the 
 difference in the form of the Executive, much more than that of 
 the different constitution of the upper House. The American 
 constitution, as I have rather made it my business to preach, is 
 the English constitution with such changes very great and I 
 important changes beyond doubt as change of circumstances 
 made needful. But as those circumstances have certainly not been 
 changed back again, it is at least not likely that the constitu- 
 tion of America will ever be brought nearer than it now is to 
 
American Institutional History. 39 
 
 the constitution of England, however likely it may be that the 
 constitution of England may some day be brought nearer to the 
 
 constitution of America 
 
 To me the past history and the present condition of the United 
 States is, before all things, a part of the general history of the 
 Teutonic race, and specially of its English branch. Of that his- 
 tory the destiny, as far as it has already been worked out, of the 
 American commonwealths forms no unimportant part. And their 
 future destiny is undoubtedly the greatest problem in the long 
 story of our race. The union on American soil of so much that is 
 new and so much that is old, above all the unwitting preservation 
 in the new land of so much that is really of the hoariest antiquity 
 in the older world, the transfer of an old people with old institutions 
 to an altogether new world, and that practically a boundless world, 
 supply subjects for speculation deeper perhaps than any earlier 
 stage of the history of our race could have supplied. Like all 
 other human institutions, the political and social condition of the 
 United States has its fair and its dark side; the Union, like all 
 other human communities, must look for its trials, its ups and 
 downs, iu the course of its historic life. It has indeed had its 
 full share of them already. The other members of the great 
 family may well be proud that the newest, and in extent the 
 vastest, among the independent settlements of their race, has 
 borne, as it has borne, a strain as hard as any community of men 
 was ever called on to go through. And we of the motherland 
 may watch with special interest the fortunes of that branch of 
 our own people on whom so great a calling has been laid. And 
 truly we may rejoice that, with so much to draw them in other ways, 
 that great people still remains in all essential points an English 
 people, more English very often than they themselves know, 
 more English, it may be, sometimes than the kinsfolk whom they 
 left behind in their older home. 
 
II 
 
 THE GERMANIC ORIGIN 
 
 NEW ENGLAND TOWNS 
 
"Si Ton veut lire l'admirable ouvrage de Tacite sur les moeurs des Germains, on 
 verra que c'est d'eux que les Anglois ont tir<j l'idee de leur gouvernement politique. 
 Ce beau systeiue a 6t6 trouvfi dans les bois." Montesquieu. 
 
 "Das Studiuru des Gemeindewesens in Amerika, dem Sie sich jetzt widmen, wird 
 sicher sehr fruchtbar werden. In der Gemeinde ist die grosse Mehre der Burger mehr 
 als im State veranlasst, an offentlichen Aneelegenlieiten und gemeinsamen Interessen 
 zu betheiligen. Die Gemeinde ist iiberdem auch die Vorschule fiir den Stat. Der Bau 
 der Republiken hat seine Grundlage in der Selbstandigkeit der Gemeinden." Bluntschli. 
 
 "AH New England is an aggregate of organized democracies. He that will under- 
 stand the political character of New England must study the constitution of its towns, 
 its schools, and its militia." Bancroft. 
 
 "If you wish to see Old England, you must go to New England." Freeman. 
 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 IN 
 
 Historical and Political Science 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History is past Politics and Politics present History. Freeman 
 
 II 
 
 THE GERMANIC ORIGIN 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW ENGLAND TOWNS 
 
 Read before the Harvard Historical Society, May 9, 1881 
 
 By HERBERT B. ADAMS, Ph. D. 
 
 With. Notes on Cooperation in University \N orlc 
 
 Published by the Johns Hopkins L'nivkksitv 
 B A L T I M It K 
 
 1882 
 
JOHN MURPHY A CO., PRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
THE GERMANIC ORIGIN 
 
 O F 
 
 NEW ENGLAND TOWNS. 
 
 The reproduction of the town and parish systems of Old 
 England under colonial conditions in America is one of the 
 most curious and suggestive phenomena of American history. 
 The process was so quiet, so unobtrusive, so gradual, so like 
 the growth of vegetation in spring time in short, so natural, 
 that it seems to have escaped the notice of many historians of 
 the larger colonial life. They have dealt with questions of 
 church and state, with patents and charters, Pilgrims and 
 Puritans, Baptists, Quakers, wars, witches, colonial unions 
 and struggles for national independence, but the origin and 
 growth of that smaller communal life within the colonics has 
 been somewhat neglected. And yet these little communes 
 were the germs of our state and national life. They gave the 
 colonies all the strength which they ever enjoyed. It was the 
 towns, parishes and counties that furnished life-blood for 
 church and state, for school and college, for war and peace. 
 In New England especially, towns were the primordial cells 
 of the body politic. In all the colonies, civic communities 
 were the organic tissues, without which the colonial body 
 would have been but a lifeless mass. 
 
 At the opening meeting of the American Association for 
 the Advancement of Science, which met in Boston August 2fi, 
 1880, Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, in his inaugural address, paid 
 the following tribute to the towns of New England : " Your 
 Excellency, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 
 
 5 
 
6 The Germanic Orif/in of 
 
 without intending to depart from the proprieties of the occa- 
 sion, it may be proper to say that those of us who come from 
 beyond the Hudson can but feel that in entering New 
 England we reach the birthplace of American institutions. 
 To some of us it is the land of our fathers, and we cannot 
 approach the precincts of their departed presence without the 
 sentiment of filial veneration. Here they laid broad and 
 deep the foundations of American freedom, without which 
 American science would have been an infant in leading-strings 
 to-day. Here was developed the township, with its local self- 
 government, the basis and central element of our political 
 system. Upon the township was formed the county, composed 
 of several towns similarly organized ; the State composed of 
 several counties, and, finally, the United States, composed of 
 several states; each organization a body politic, with definite 
 governing powers in a subordinate series. But the greatest 
 of all, in intrinsic importance, was the township, because it 
 was and is the unit of organization, and embodies the great 
 principle of local self-government. It is at once the greatest 
 and the most important of American institutions, because it 
 determines the character of the State and National Govern- 
 ment. It is also historically significant because it shows that 
 American Democracy may justly claim to be the daughter of 
 that Athenian Democracy which generated and produced the 
 most signal outburst of genius and intellect in the entire 
 history of the human race. Nor is this presage of the future 
 without its own significance. What was achieved for philos- 
 ophy and art under the free institutions of Athens may yet be 
 achieved for science in the evolution of the same forces in 
 America." * 
 
 Mr. Morgan's recognition of the historic significance of 
 New England towns, in their relation to science and national 
 growth, addressed as this recognition was to the chief magis- 
 trate of Massachusetts, recalled to mind the words of Gov- 
 
 * Report in Boston Journal, August 26, 1880. 
 
New England Towns. 7 
 
 ernor Long himself in an oration delivered in June, 1877, on 
 the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of 
 the founding of the town of Hanover, Massachusetts. His 
 words give an inner view of the life and character of New 
 England towns, a subject which Mr. Morgan viewed chiefly 
 in its external relation to history and science. " I believe in 
 our towns," said Mr. Long. " I believe in their decency and 
 simple ways. I believe in their politics, in their form and 
 administration of government, in their school and church 
 influences, in their democratic society, in their temperance 
 organizations, in their neighborly charities, in their proud 
 lineage and history, and in the opportunities they offer. I 
 know that our fathers who founded them and put their 
 money and labor, and their hopes into the institutions 
 and character of these towns, did not mean they should 
 decay ; that they should be abandoned, that any native born 
 in them should turn his back upon them, or be prouder of a 
 home elsewhere than in them. Their worth is not more in 
 the things that are seen, than in the things that are not seen ; 
 not more in the farm and shop and academy and railroad, 
 that in the mellow, pious, soft, refining influences of charac- 
 ter which pervades them like an atmosphere, and exhibits to 
 you in humble cottages men and women plain in manner and 
 dress, but of rare intelligence and refinement ; men who think 
 and read and are scholars and gentlemen, however humble 
 their occupation ; women who are poets and sisters of charity ; 
 where else do you find the like?" * 
 
 It would be easy to multiply eulogies of New England 
 towns, but difficult to voice more clearly their intrinsic worth 
 and far-reaching historic significance than have the men whose 
 words have been quoted. Seen from within, these New Eng- 
 land towns and villages are as full to-day of youthful fresh- 
 ness, quiet beauty, and energetic life as the denies of Grecian 
 Attika, in the spring-time of the world ; seen from without 
 
 Report in Old Colony Memorial, Plymouth, Muss., June 21, is; 
 
8 The Germanic Origin, of 
 
 as an organic^ deeply rooted, wide-expanding growth, New 
 England's Jocal institutions are like the tree Jgdrasil, of 
 Scandinavian mythology, for the principle of local self-gov- 
 ernment which they embody, takes hold upon all the past 
 and upholds the future in its spreading branches. 
 
 The importance of towns in the social and political struc- 
 ture of New England has been recognized in passing by 
 discerning travelers like Lafayette and Tocqueville, and, 
 indeed, by certain New England publicists and historians; 
 but most of these notices have been extremely cursory and 
 more or less inaccurate. There is also a vast number of local 
 histories, but they generally avoid the one important question, 
 the genesis of the town as an institution. Most writers, espe- 
 cially local historians, assume that New England towns are 
 either the offspring of Puritan virtue and of the Congrega- 
 tional church, or else that they are the product of this rocky 
 soil, which is supposed to produce free institutions spontane- 
 ously, as it does the arbutus and the oak, or fair women and 
 brave men. But the science of Biology no longer favors the 
 theory of spontaneous generation. -Wherever organic life 
 occurs there must have been some seed for that life. History 
 should not be content with describing effects when it can 
 explain causes. It is just as improbable that free local insti- 
 tutions should spring up without a germ along American 
 shores as that English wheat should have grown here without 
 planting. Town institutions were propagated in New Eng- 
 land by old English and Germanic ideas, brought over by 
 Pilgrims and Puritans, and as ready to take root in the free 
 soil of America as would Egyptian grain which had been 
 drying in a mummy-case for thousands of years. 
 
 The town and village life of New England is as truly 
 the reproduction of Old English types as those again are 
 reproductions of the village community system of the ancient 
 Germans. Investigators into American Institutional History 
 will turn as naturally to the mother country as the historians 
 of England turn toward their older home beyond the German 
 
New England Towns. 9 
 
 Ocean. "For the fatherland of the English race," says 
 Green in his History of the English People, " we must look 
 far away from England itself. In the fifth century after the 
 birth of Christ the one country which we know to have borne 
 the name of Angeln or England lay within the district which 
 is now called Sleswick,a district in the heart of the peninsula 
 that parts the Baltic from the Northern seas. Its pleasant 
 pastures, its black-timbered homesteads, its prim little town- 
 ships looking down on inlets of purple water, were then but 
 a wild waste of heather and sand, girt along the coast with a 
 sunless woodland, broken here and there by meadows that 
 crept down to the marshes and the sea. ... Of the temper 
 and life of the folk in this older England we know little. But 
 from the glimpses that we catch of it when conquest had 
 brought them to the shores of Britain their political and social 
 organization must have been that of the German race to 
 which they belonged. In their villages lay ready formed the 
 social and political life which is round us in England to-day. 
 A belt of forest or waste parted each from its fellow villages, 
 and within this boundary or mark the ' township,' as the 
 village was then called from the 'tun' or rough fence and 
 trench * that served as its simple fortification, formed a com- 
 plete and independent body, though linked by ties which 
 were strengthening every day to the townships about it and 
 the tribe of which it formed a part. . . . 
 
 "The woodland and pasture-land of an English village 
 were still undivided, and every free villager had the right of 
 turning into it his cattle and swine. The meadow-land lay 
 in like manner open and undivided from hay-harvest to 
 spring. It was only when grass began to grow afresh that 
 the common meadow was fenced off into grass-fields, one for 
 each household in the village; and when hay-harvest was 
 
 According to the laws of the Colony of Massachusetts Hay, the boun- 
 darics of Massachusetts Towns were to be " a greatc heapc t>f stones, or a 
 trench, of six foote long & two foote broade." Mass. Col. Kec, ii, 210. 
 
10 Ihe Germanic Origin of 
 
 over fence and division were at an end again. The plow-land 
 alone was permanently allotted in equal shares both of corn- 
 land and fallow-land, to the families of the freemen, though 
 even the plow-land was subject to fresh division as the num- 
 ber of claimants grew greater or less. . . . The life, the sover- 
 eignty of the settlement resided solely in the body of the 
 freemen whose holdings lay round the moot-hill or the sacred 
 tree where the community met from time to time to deal out 
 its own justice and to make its own laws. Here new settlers 
 were admitted to the freedom of the township, and by-laws 
 framed and headmen and tithing-man chosen for its gover- 
 nance. Here plow-land and meadow-land were shared in 
 due lot among the villagers, and field and homestead passed 
 from man to man by the delivery of a turf* cut from its soil. 
 Here strife of farmer with farmer was settled according to the 
 f customs ' of the township as its elder men stated them, and 
 four men were chosen to follow headman or ealdorman to 
 hundred- court or war. It is with reverence such as is stirred 
 by the sight of the head-waters of some mighty river that one 
 looks back to these village moots of Friesland or Sleswick. 
 It was here that England learned to be a ' mother of Parlia- 
 ments.' It was in these tiny knots of farmers that the men 
 from whom Englishmen were to spring learned the worth of 
 public opinion. . . . The *talk ; of the village moot ... is 
 the groundwork of English history."'!' 
 
 Thus, English historians, Green, Freeman and Stubbs, 
 recognize their older fatherland. The origin of the English 
 Constitution, as Montesquieu long ago declared, is found in 
 
 * The custom of conveying land by turf and twig, ramo et cespite, 
 according to mediaeval usage, was once known in Salem. In 1695, John 
 Kuck granted a homestead to his son Thomas before witnesses, and, as 
 part of the act of conveyancing, took hold of a twig in the garden, saying, 
 " Here, son Thomas, I do, before these two men, give you possession of 
 this land by turffe and twigg." Felt, Annals of Salem, i, 187. Cf. Lav- 
 eleye, Primitive Property, 121, note 3. 
 
 f Green, History of the English People, vol. i, ch. 1. 
 
New England Towns. 11 
 
 the forests of Germany. If we read, said this illustrious 
 Frenchman, who was as fervent an admirer of England as 
 Tocqueville was of America, if we read the admirable work 
 of Tacitus concerning the manners and customs of the Teu- 
 tons, we shall find that it was from them that the English 
 derived their political system.* Voltaire was accustomed to 
 ridicule Montesquieu for his Teutonic predilections, hut the 
 researches of Palgrave, Kemhle, Stuhbs and Sir Henry Maine 
 have established the truth of this Germanic view. The tree 
 of English liberty certainly roots in German soil. Proofs of 
 this fact were first made fully apparent to English historians 
 by the labors of those patient German specialists, Von Maurer, 
 Hanssen, Meitzen, Nasse and George Waitz, who have shown 
 in the early Constitutional History of Germany the same or- 
 ganizing power as Canon Stubbs has exercised in writing the 
 Constitutional History of England. The amount of valuable 
 details which German specialists in Institutional History have 
 dug up from the rich soil of mediaeval Germany is something 
 marvellous to contemplate. To attempt even a resume in a 
 sketch of this character would be to attempt the impossible. 
 But along the lines of this pioneer work, through guiding 
 vistas of light now made in the German forests bv years of 
 German toil, the American student may wander at will, 
 noting such points as may prove of suggestive interest to the 
 younger Germany and the newer England beyond the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 The student has only to cross the river Neckar from Hei- 
 delberg to find himself in the Odenwald, or forest of Wodan, 
 the most classic as well as the most primitive region in all 
 Germany. The student has only to travel a few hours south- 
 ward from the Odenwald and the Bergstrasse to reach the 
 heart of the Black Forest. In either of these parts of Ger- 
 many he can discover surviving features of the ancient village 
 community system as described by Tacitus. With the Ger- 
 
 Montesquieu, Esprit dcs Lois, Livre \i, i-h. f> 
 
12 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 mania for a guide-book, let us follow the student through a 
 Teutonic village. It is very generally known, says Tacitus, 
 that the Germans do not live in cities, and also that they 
 have no fondness for joining their plantations together. They 
 settle apart in different places, according as spring, or open 
 field, or woodland attracts their fancy. Villages they plant, 
 not according to our fashion, with closely connected or adjoin- 
 ing buildings, but every man surrounds his own house with 
 a fence, either for security against accident by fire, or because 
 they are such bungling architects.* 
 
 There are two facts in this statement by Tacitus, which 
 deserve special attention. The first fact is, that by the 
 expression, "they settle apart in different places," colunt 
 discreli ac diversi, is meant the individual farm or patriarchal 
 hamlet, what the Germans call a Hof; the second fact is that 
 by the expression, " villages they plant," vicos locant, is 
 meant the village community, what the Germans call a Dorf. 
 Tacitus probably saw what every stranger sees to this day on 
 visiting the country villages of South Germany, namely, 
 compact settlements, but with separate buildings and home 
 lots, exactly like those of a New England farming town. 
 Straggling hamlets, or isolated farms, there also must have 
 been in the days of Tacitus as in the days of our Puritan fore- 
 fathers. Doubtless many of these German hamlets grew into 
 villages, just as the hamlets or villages of New England have 
 in many cases grown into towns. The ending helm in many 
 village names along the Bergstrasse, like Dossenheim, Wein- 
 heim, is clear indication of the original patriarchal character 
 of such places. The German heim is the same as the English 
 home, Saxon ham, which appears in the names of so many 
 old English places like Doddingham, Billingham, Petersham, 
 Hampton) (or Hometown), and the like. The distinction 
 between the hamlet and the village is perhaps one of degree 
 rather than one of kind. The Hof became the Dorf by a 
 
 Tacitus, Germania, cap. xvi, (Baumstark's edition for Students, 68.) 
 
New England Towns. 13 
 
 natural process of development. No one can say where the 
 hamlet ends and the village begins. 
 
 But let us proceed upon our tour of observation. The 
 traveler of to-day will find in the interior of the Odenwald far 
 more primitive villages than in the Black Forest. The latter 
 is now traversed by government roads in every direction, and 
 even a railroad has been constructed in these latter days, so 
 that hurrying travelers can behold the scenery from the cars! 
 Things are no longer what they were when Auerbach wrote 
 his Black Forest Tales for children. But there is still much 
 left to amuse and instruct the students who tramp through 
 the Forest every Whitsuntide vacation (Pfingstcn) from Hei- 
 delberg, Freiburg and other German universities. The Oden- 
 wald is also visited, but not so frequently because it is more 
 difficult in that primitive region to obtain food and drink, 
 except upon one or two main routes. Traversing either the 
 government chauss6es or the common dirt roads through the 
 Odenwald or Black Forest, the student may explore the 
 numerous valleys and forest villages, which are to this day 
 skirted with evergreen forests, dimly suggesting to his fancy 
 the ambuscades into which the Roman legions fell when they 
 penetrated the Teutoburger Wald. In such forests liberty 
 was nurtured. Here dwelt the people Rome never could 
 'conquer. In these wild retreats the ancient Teutons met in 
 council upon tribal matters of war and peace. Upon the 
 forest hill-tops they worshipped Wodan, the All Father; in 
 the forest valleys they talked over, in village-moot, the lowly 
 affairs of husbandry and the management of their common 
 fields. Here were planted the seeds of Parliamentary or 
 Self-Government, of Commons and Congresses. Here lav the 
 germs of religious reformations and of popular revolutions, 
 the ideas which have formed Germany and Holland, England 
 and New England, the United States in the broadest sense of 
 that old Germanic institution. 
 
 What now are the external characteristics of one of these 
 primitive forest-villages? Emerging from the wood or rocky 
 
14 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 defile, the traveller comes suddenly upon a snug little settle- 
 ment perched upon the sunny hillside or nestling in some 
 broadening meadow. Surrounded by forest, this settlement 
 is indeed a Mark, or, as Americans would say, a "clearing." 
 Basdeke is here better than Tacitus, and you will discover 
 that the place is called perhaps Schoenwald, or Beautiful 
 Forest, or possibly Schoenau, or Beautiful Meadow. Such 
 villages are usually planted near a brook or some constant 
 stream, and frequently bear a name like Rohrbach or Lauter- 
 bach, either of which terms would signify the same as Roaring 
 Brook, so familiar in New England. An ancient part of 
 Salem, (that part which was the home of George Peabody, the 
 philanthropist), was once known .as Brooksby. These Ger- 
 man villages are made up of little houses, separate from one 
 another, but withal tolerably compact, with outlying fields 
 divided into narrow strips, as shown by the growing crops. 
 Let us enter one of these villages and see how the houses are 
 constructed. The first impression is that they are rather 
 rude and bungling. That is exactly what Tacitus thought 
 when he saw their prototypes. Low-roofed and thatched with 
 straw, which is held down perhaps by stones, with wide 
 spreading eaves and rude wooden frame-work, filled in often- 
 times with rough stones plastered together, these huts alto- 
 gether remind the modern traveller of Swiss chalets. The 
 inhabitants appear to live in the upper part of these one 
 storied buildings, for there is a stone stair-case outside leading 
 up to an elevated doorway, and underneath there is often a 
 stable for cattle, although in some houses calves and children 
 may be seen growing up together. Underneath the projecting 
 roof at the gable ends of the houses are beehives of wicker 
 work, upheld by a beam or shelf. If a stranger enters one of 
 these forest villages on a day in June, he will hear nothing 
 but the humming of the bees; for men, women and children 
 are all in the hay-fields. 
 
 And this brings us. to a consideration of that old system of 
 co-operative husbandry and common fields, which are the 
 
New England Towns. 15 
 
 most peculiar features of a German village community. In 
 the haying season, to this day, in many parts of* Germany, the 
 villagers may be seen gathering the grass-crop together. To 
 this day, in some localities, the fallow and stubble lands are 
 used in common by the whole village for the pasturage of 
 cattle and the feeding of swine. A r illage cow-herds, swine- 
 herds and goose-herds are still employed in many parts of 
 Germany. To this day the arable land of the Mark is tilled 
 under certain communal laws. The time of harvesting and 
 the time of allowing the cattle and swine of the village to 
 enter upon the stubble lands is still determined by agreement 
 among the inhabitants. The narrow, un fenced strips of land 
 stretching up the hillsides to the forest-border, bear striking 
 evidence that they were originally formed by the allotment 
 of some ancient common field. 
 
 In the Contemporary Review, July, 1881, there is a pleasant 
 picture of village customs in the Thuringian forest by Pro- 
 fessor "W. Stead man Aldis, in an article entitled, "Notes from 
 a German Vill-age." The village described is Gross Tabarz, 
 where the Professor spent a summer vacation with his family. 
 " The economic state of the village, which is only a type of 
 many others in the district, is decidedly primitive. Every 
 well-to-do family has its little strip of ground, or sometimes 
 several such strips have been accumulated in one family by 
 inheritances or intermarriages. The village butcher, with 
 whose family ours was soon on tolerably intimate terms, was 
 the owner, or at least the cultivator with perpetual rights, of 
 many little fields situated in almost as many parishes. . . . 
 During the spring and summer, while the grass in the 
 meadows is allowed to grow for hay, or for Grummet, as 
 the second crop is called, the cows and geese are alike ban- 
 ished from the private land, and are taken under the charge 
 of a Hirt on to the common land, the borders of the roads, 
 or the small bits of mountain meadow among the forests not 
 allotted by the Gemeinde to private owners. . . . After the 
 second crop of hay has been all gathered in, which is supposed 
 
16 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 to be achieved by the beginning of September, and for the 
 gathering of which the village schools have a special holiday, 
 the meadows are open to the cattle and geese of all the inhab- 
 itants, and the Hirts have no longer such an arduous task. 
 The pasture land becomes again for the time the property of 
 the Commune, the 'common land' which it originally was, 
 and is dotted with red oxen or snow-white geese. During 
 the months of July and August, the whole population, male 
 and female, is for the most part occupied in getting in the 
 crops of different kinds, which seem to form a continuous 
 series, beginning with the first crop of hay, at the beginning 
 of July, and ending with the Grummet, or second crop, early 
 in September." 
 
 Let us now glance at our guide-book and see what Tacitus 
 says concerning the customs of the ancient Germans in the 
 matter of land holdings. Lands, he says, are taken up peri- 
 odically by the whole body of cultivators in proportion to 
 their number. These lands they afterwards divide up among 
 themselves according to their dignity or title. The wide extent 
 of open space renders the division of fields an easy matter. 
 The situation of the plough-lands they change every year, 
 and there is land enough left over. They do not attempt to 
 improve by labor so vast and fertile a tract of ground, for the 
 sake of planting orchards, laying out grass-plots, and irriga- 
 ting gardens ; the only crop they want is wheat or barley.* 
 
 In the custom, mentioned by Tacitus, of shifting the situa- 
 tion of the ploughed lands every year, we may perhaps see a 
 germ of the famous Three Field System, which is of some 
 importance in tracing the historical connection between the 
 agrarian customs of England and those of ancient Germany. 
 The system was probably perfected before the Saxon conquest 
 of Britain, and has survived in, both countries until our own 
 times. 
 
 On the exposition of cap. xxvi of Tacitus' Gerniania, cf. Baumstark's 
 edition, Nasse's Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages (Appendix), 
 and Dr. Den man W. Koss' "Studies," i, 23; ii, 12. 
 
New England Towns. 17 
 
 Imagine a river valley, like that of the Neckar, which 
 skirts the Odenwald, and a little stream flowing down from 
 the hillside forest into the river below. In the Odenwald 
 many villages are built along the line of such streams or 
 brooklets, which serve as a kind of water main-street for the 
 villagers living along the bank. The houses lie apart, as 
 Tacitus says in his description of a German village, and every 
 villager has his own houselot and enclosure. The whole 
 village domain is the Mark, or clearing. It belonged orig- 
 inally and belongs still to the village community as an organ- 
 ized body, as a civic unit. Certain parts, of course the best, 
 were originally set off for tillage; other parts remained 
 common for wood, pasture, and meadow, Wald, Weide, and 
 Wiese. The Three Field System relates, however, not to the 
 latter divisions, but to the arable land and to that only. 
 
 The land used for tillage was divided up into three great 
 fields, first, second, and third. Each villager had one or more 
 lots in each great field, but the peculiarity of the system lies 
 in the fact that every villager was obliged to plant his lot or 
 lots in each great field, according as the whole village should 
 determine. For example, if the proprietors, in village-mote 
 assembled, should resolve by a majority to plant the first 
 great field with wheat, an individual proprietor would have 
 no alternative; he must do as his neighbors agree. And so 
 of the second great field, which, perhaps, the villagers would 
 vote to plant with oats or barley; and likewise of the third 
 field, which must lie fallow for one. year. A rude system of 
 rotation of crops was customary in all Teutonic farming com- 
 munities. The fallow land of one year was cultivated the 
 year succeeding; and the spring crop of one field gave place 
 to a winter crop, or else lay fallow in turn. The most inter- 
 esting fact about this Three Field System is that it indicates 
 a communal spirit even in the management of lands allotted 
 and perhaps owned in severalty; it shows that the arable 
 land as well as the pasture, meadow, and woodland, was under 
 the control of the village community ami subject to communal 
 
 a 
 
18 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 decrees. There is reason to believe, from the passage in Taci- 
 tus above quoted, that the situation of the ploughed lands 
 was changed from time to time, and that land devoted to 
 tillage was afterwards turned into pasture or grass land, and 
 other portions of the village domain were allotted for plough- 
 ing in severalty. The custom of re-distributing farming 
 lands, after a certain term of years, was very general, not 
 only in Teutonic, but in all Aryan villages. The term varied 
 with different nations and in different communities. Origi- 
 nally, with the Germans, a fresh distribution was probably 
 made every year, but as the Three Field System developed, 
 the term became longer. In Russia, as Wallace has shown 
 in his interesting work, lands were once re-distributed every 
 thirteen years. The field meetings of Teutonic farmers for 
 the distribution of lands and the regulation of crops w.ere the 
 germs of English parish meetings and of New England town 
 meetings. The village elders, still so called in Russia, although 
 young men are frequently elected to the office, are the proto- 
 type of the English Reeve and Four, and of the New Eng- 
 land Town Constable and Board of Selectmen. 
 
 In the year 1871 was published, in England, under the 
 auspices of the Cobden club, a translation of a little German 
 treatise, by Professor Nasse,* of the University of Bonn, on 
 the agricultural community of the middle ages and inclosures 
 of the sixteenth century in England. It was a work which 
 may be called epoch-making in the history of real property 
 and of communal institutions in Great Britain. It awakened 
 English lawyers to a consciousness of the survival in their 
 very midst of a system of local land tenure older than the 
 Feudal system and dating back at least to the time of the 
 Saxon conquest of Britain. Ever since the days of Black- 
 stone, lawyers had puzzled themselves to account for certain 
 
 * First mentioned to American readers by Professor William F. Allen 
 in The Nation, September 22, 1870, from a notice in Sybel's Hisiorische 
 Zeitachrift. 
 
New England Toions. 19 
 
 extraordinary customs of village land holding in England 
 for certain phenomena of joint ownership in commons, like 
 the lammas lands, which were common to an entire village 
 for pasturage, after the 13th of August, old style, or like the 
 so-called " shack lands," which, after the above date, were 
 common to the owners or possessors, but not to the whole 
 village. Lawyers had found no solution to the problem of 
 the origin of such communal practice, except in special privi- 
 leges granted to tenants by the lord of the manor, or else iu 
 immemorial custom. 
 
 Professor Nasse derived his facts concerning the existence 
 of such communal land-holdings in England, from a report 
 of a Select Committee on Commons Inelosure, instituted in 
 order to frame laws for the dissolution of common holdings, 
 by order of the House of Commons, 1844, and from the 
 reports of the Board of Agriculture, about the beginning of 
 the present century, under charge of Sir John Sinclair. These 
 latter reports were abridged by Mr. Marshall, a man often 
 referred to by Sir Henry Maine. It appears that Marshall at 
 this very early period was strongly impressed by the mere 
 facts concerning the vast extent of communal land-holdings 
 in England, and had come to the conclusion that once "the 
 soil of nearly the whole of England was more or less in a 
 commonable state."* 
 
 The reports above mentioned revealed some most remarka- 
 ble facts concerning the survival of communal land hold intra 
 in parishes where the Feudal system was supposed to have 
 centralised all forms of folkland, and to have destroyed all free 
 peasant proprietaries. In Huntingtonshire, out of 2 10,000 
 acres, 130,000 were found to be held in common, that is, by 
 no individual owners in particular, but by village or fanning 
 communities, under the supremacy of some manorial lord. 
 
 * Nasse on the Agricultural Community of the Middle A^'- and Inclo- 
 sures of the Sixteenth Century in England. London: Maemillan & C<>., 
 1871. 
 
20 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 In Wiltshire, by far the largest part of the land was thus 
 held; in Berkshire, one-half the county; in Warwickshire, 
 50,000 acres; and in Oxfordshire, over one hundred parishes 
 held lands on the communal system ; and in Northampton- 
 shire eighty-nine parishes perpetuated this ancient type of 
 village land holding. Nasse says, "in by far the greater 
 part of England the old English peasantry . . . held the 
 land in common, precisely as the present villagers of the 
 greater part of middle Europe hold theirs." * 
 
 There were found to be three sorts of commonable ground. 
 I, arable; 2, meadow; and 3, pasture land. The arable 
 land was found very generally to be subject to certain com- 
 munal laws, in regard to the rotation or harvesting of crops. 
 The Three Field System, as already described, was frequently 
 discovered in English parishes, and it was also noticed that 
 the three great divisions of arable land were often separated 
 from one another by broad strips of grass land, which were 
 kept common, in order to eke out the pasture in the fall of 
 the year after the crops had been gathered and the stubble 
 lands thrown open to the village cattle. The meadow lands 
 were either held wholly in common, or by a system of shifting 
 severalties, whereby grass-lots were assigned for the season to 
 individuals, and were then again made common for pas- 
 turage and subject to a fresh distribution."}* Community of 
 pasturage was found to be of very general occurrence in 
 the rural districts of England. There were two sorts, 
 stinted pasturage, i. e., where villagers were limited as to 
 
 * Nasse, 6, 9, cf. extract from Marshall, p. 100: "Each parish and 
 township (at least in the more central and northern districts) comprised 
 different descriptions of land, having been subjected during successive 
 ages to specified modes of occupancy under ancient and strict regulations, 
 which time had converted into law. These parochial arrangements, 
 however, varied somewhat in the different districts, but in the more cen- 
 tral, and greater part of the kingdom, not widely." 
 
 f This custom was maintained for years in the farming communities 
 of Plymouth and Salem, Massachusetts. 
 
New England Towns. 21 
 
 the number of cattle tliey could pasture in the common 
 field, (for example, it was often the rule that no one should 
 pasture in commons more stock than he could keep through 
 the winter); and unstinted pasturage, where there was no 
 such limit. 
 
 Such phenomena as these had been frequently observed in 
 England and Scotland. Sir Walter Scott remarked such 
 agricultural customs in the Orkney and Shetland islands, but 
 was unable to explain them satisfactorily to himself. It was, 
 as Sir Henry Maine says, by using Von Maurer's results as a 
 key, that Nasse was able to decipher the whole system. The 
 English Agricultural Community, of the Middle Ages, which 
 survived the crushing weight of feudalism and has perpetu- 
 ated itself down to our own times, stands forth as the historic 
 survival of the Teutonic village with its Three Field System. 
 Under the very heel of the Norman conqueror, the old com- 
 munal spirit of the Saxons endured. It endured in the 
 townships and parishes of England. It has endured upon 
 almost every Lord's manor, where there was almost invariably 
 a large tract of land known as the Common or Lord's Waste. 
 Upon this tract, landless tenants preserved certain immemorial 
 common rights, for example, to wood and turf, to grass and 
 pasture. These rights were only vestiges of the ancient rights 
 of Saxon villagers, but these rights to commonage serve as a 
 connecting link between the manorial system of Mediaeval 
 England and the Village Community system of Ancient 
 Germany. The periodical assignment of portions of the 
 Lord's Waste for cultivation by the peasants was in the Court 
 Leet (German Leute, people) or popular court of the Manor, 
 in which court all minor matters relating to tenants were 
 adjusted. In the customs of the Court Leet and of the old 
 English Parish meeting, which is but the ecclesiastical out- 
 come of old Saxon self-governing assemblies, is to be found 
 the prototype of New England town meetings. 
 
 Nasse has truly observed that "agrarian relations have a 
 tendency to a more lasting duration than other human insti- 
 
22 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 tutions." * The extent of Common Lands in England, which 
 have survived, not Only Feudalism, but Parliamentary Acts 
 for Commons Enclosure, is something enormous. The report 
 of landowners prepared by the Local Government Board a 
 few years ago, shows that there are still over a million and 
 a half acres of Common Land, f and the report of the 
 Commons Preservation Society says that "five million acres 
 of Common Land have been enclosed since Queen Anne's 
 reign." Much of the land remaining unenclosed is called 
 "Town Land" or "Commons;" it consists of great open 
 spaces and public fields or heaths, upon which villagers pas- 
 ture their cattle and boys play ball. Societies have been 
 formed for the preservation of these tracts, especially when, 
 like Hampstead Heath, they are in the vicinity of large cities. 
 Essays on the advantage of " Open Spaces," and on the 
 " Future of Our Commons," have appeared in the English 
 reviews. Mr. Lefevre, in a letter to the Times, quoted by 
 Octavia Hill, says : " The right of the public to use and enjoy 
 Commons, (which they have for centuries exercised), it must 
 be admitted, is not distinctly recognised by law, though there 
 is a remarkable absence of adverse testimony on the subject. 
 The law, however, most fully recognises the right of the 
 village to its green, and allows the establishment of such right 
 by evidence as to playing games, &c, but it has failed as yet 
 to recognise the analogy between the great town and its 
 Common, and the village and its green, however complete the 
 analogy may be. But some of these rights of Common, which 
 are now so prized as a means of keeping Commons open, had, 
 if legal theory is correct, their origin centuries ago in custom. 
 For long they had no legal existence, but the courts of law at 
 last learned to recognise custom as conferring rights. The 
 custom has altered in kind ; in lieu of cattle, sheep, and pigs 
 turned out to pasture on the Commons, human beings have 
 
 *Nassc, 13. 
 
 f Octavia Hill, "Our Common Land," 8. 
 
New England Towns. 23 
 
 taken their place, and wear down the turf instead of eating 
 it." 
 
 We have seen how the Saxons transferred from ancient 
 Germany to the eastern part of England the village commu- 
 nity system and agrarian customs of their forefathers; let us 
 now see how the dominant or communal idea of these villages 
 and some of these old Teutonic practices in the matter of 
 land-holding, were transferred across another and broader sea 
 than the German ocean, and took root in the eastern parts of 
 New- England. States are not founded upon shipboard, though 
 the vessel be as staunch as the Mayflower, and constitutions 
 cannot be framed upon paper, though it be the Pilgrims' 
 compact. 
 
 A band of Saxon pirates tossing upon the waves of the 
 North Sea and preparing to descend upon the coasts of Britain 
 could not constitute a State, in passage, however excel hut 
 their discipline, however faithful their allegiance to the 
 authority of Hengist and Horsa. But those Saxon pi rates 
 bore with them a knowledge of self-government, which, when 
 rooted in the soil of Britain, grew into Saxon England and 
 the law of the land. Magna Carta and the Bill of Bights 
 are only the development of those germs of liberty first planted 
 in the communal customs of our Saxon forefathers. The 
 Constitution of England is not written at all; it is simply a 
 rich but sturdy growth of popular institutions, derived orig- 
 inally from the forests of Germany, and transplanted across 
 the sea. What is thus maintained and acknowledged con- 
 cerning our Saxon forefathers, may likewise be urged con- 
 cerning the Pilgrim fathers. They were merely one branch 
 of the great Teutonic race, a single offshoot from the tree of 
 liberty which takes deep hold upon all the past. This offshoot 
 was transplanted to Plymouth, and it grew up, not like Leb- 
 anon, filling the whole earth, but, to all appearances, like the 
 first Saxon settlements of* England and like other tortus of 
 local self-government, budding, spreading, and propagating 
 after its kind. 
 
24 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 The importance of the territorial factor in the constitution 
 of Plymouth Colony has never been sufficiently emphasized. 
 The personal factor, i. e., the character, the virtues, and the 
 religious zeal of the Pilgrims do not need to be further 
 extolled. Americans are in no danger of forgetting the faith 
 and heroism of those men and women who made their flight 
 in winter across a barren sea to preserve the rights of con- 
 science, the rights of Englishmen, and good old English ways, 
 but Americans, in their enthusiasm for men, have failed to 
 notice certain important and fundamental things in the origin 
 of Plymouth. Underneath all the phenomena of Pilgrim 
 zeal and suffering, more enduring than the Pilgrims' noble 
 compact, unnoticed like the upholding power of earth, lies the 
 primordial fact of the local settlement of the Pilgrims in a 
 form of civic community older than Saxon England, older 
 than the primitive church, and older than the classic states of 
 antiquity. That form of civil community was based upon 
 land. 
 
 The elements of permanence and continuity in all civil 
 society are based upon the soil and the material interests 
 connected with it. Generations of men are born and pass 
 away, but an abiding relation to some fixed territory keeps 
 civil society together and constitutes a state in the true sense 
 of that term. Government may exist upon shipboard or 
 among wandering tribes of Indians, but no state or body 
 politic can possibly endure unless it be grounded upon terri- 
 torial interests of a stable and lasting character. No state 
 without a people, and no state without land. These are the 
 axioms of political science. 
 
 Let us now inquire into the exact nature of the common- 
 wealth which the Pilgrims actually founded. Mourt's rela- 
 tion, (so called from George Morton, who published it in 
 England in 1622), a journal of the beginnings and proceed- 
 ings of the English plantation settled at Plymouth in New 
 England, a journal written, says Mr. Dexter, from day to day 
 on the ground, gives us the best contemporary account of the 
 
New England Towns. 25 
 
 mode in which the first village republic in New England was 
 planted. None of the so-called colony records go back to the 
 foundation of the colony itself. But Mourt tells the whole 
 story from the first landing, down to the town meeting of 
 April 2, 1621, when Mr. John Carver was re-elected governor, 
 being a man well approved. 
 
 "After our landing and viewing of the places as well as we 
 could, we came to a conclusion, [December 30] by most 
 voyces, to set on the maine Land, in the first place on a high 
 ground where there is a great deale of Land cleared and hath 
 beene planted with Corne three or four years agoe, and there 
 is a very sweet brooke runnes vnder the hillside and many 
 delicate springs of as good water as can be drunlce, . . . 
 Thursday, the 28. of December, [January 7, N. S.] so many 
 as could went to worke on the hill where we purposed to 
 build our platforme for our Ordinance, and which doth com- 
 mand all the plaine and the Bay, and from whence we may 
 see farre into the sea, and might be easier impayled, having 
 two rowes of houses and a faire street. So in the afternoon we 
 went to measure out the grounds, and first, we tooke notice 
 how many Families they were, willing all single men that 
 had no wiues to ioyne with some Fa mi lie, as they thought 
 fit, that so we might build fewer houses, which was done, and 
 we reduced them to 19. Families; to greater Families we 
 allotted larger plots, to euery person halfe a pole in breadth, 
 and three in length, and so Lots were cast where euery man 
 should lie, which was done, and staked out." [Mourt's Rela- 
 tion, edited by H. M. Dexter, 64, 67, 68.] 
 
 On this tract of cleared land, or the village Mark, on the 
 north side of the " very sweet brooke," which, like the springs 
 spoken of by Tacitus, still attracted Teutonic fancy, and which 
 is known to this day as the Town Brook, arose the first town 
 or village community in New England. The first work was 
 the construction of the so-called Common House, "about 
 twenty foot square," says Bradford, "for their common use, 
 to receive them and their goods." The land was taken pos- 
 4 
 
26 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 session of as a communal domain, and the first labor bestowed 
 upon it was communal labor. But the Pilgrims, like the 
 ancient Teutons, knew well that a principle of individuality 
 must enter into the development of communal life. Like the 
 Teutons, the Pilgrims regarded the family as the unit of social 
 order, and gave scope for family interests in the division of 
 house-lots and in the construction of private dwellings. Like 
 the Teutons again, the Pilgrims took up land in proportion 
 to their number and immediate wants. Speaking of the size 
 of the family allotments, the Journal says, " we thought this 
 proportion was large enough at the first, for houses and 
 gardens, to impale them around, considering the weaknes of 
 our people," etc. Here, too, by a curious chance, an old 
 Teutonic idea appears in the notion of fencing and impaling. 
 The radical idea of a town (from Tun, Zun, modern German 
 Zaun, a hedge) is that of a place hedged-in, for the sake of 
 protection. 
 
 "Tuesday the 9. January," [19th N. S.] continues the 
 Journal, " was a reasonable faire day, and wee went to labour 
 that day in the building of our towne, in two rowes of houses 
 for more safety: we divided by lott the plot of ground 
 whereon to build our Towne." 
 
 Professor Parker, in his paper read before the Massachu- 
 setts Historical Society on " The Origin, Organization, and 
 Influence of the Towns of New England,"* was condemning 
 original sources when he criticised Mr. Baylies for using the 
 word "Town" in his Historical Memoirs of New Plymouth 
 as descriptive of the Plantation made in 1620. Baylies only 
 paraphrased the quotation above made when he said the 
 emigrants found " a high hill which could be fortified in a 
 manner so as to command the surrounding country," and 
 resolved " to lay out a town." 
 
 Palfrey, in his history of New England, says " the name 
 town first occurs in the record of the second colonial meeting 
 
 Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc., Jan., 1866. 
 
New England Toicns. 27 
 
 of the Court of Assistants, in connection with the naming (in 
 1630) of Boston, Charlestown, and VVatertown." * This state- 
 ment may have been intended to apply solely to the Massa- 
 chusetts colony, but inasmuch as the author is calling attention 
 to the "early origin" of New England Towns, it is but fair 
 to note that the name "Town" occurs ten years earlier than 
 1G30, and that in the first records of Plymouth. And the 
 word is frequently used in Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers and in Plymouth Colony Records in such a clear 
 sense that no one can possibly doubt but that Plymouth vil- 
 lage communities had not only the name of "Town" but the 
 actual thing, yes, the old Scandinavian 'Thing, the Saxon Tun 
 Gemot, in their frequent Town Meetings. "There already 
 ay, in the Mayflower's cabin, before they set foot on shore," 
 said Rufus Choate, "was representative government. . . . 
 there already was the legalized and organized toicn, that sem- 
 inary and central point, and exemplification of elementary 
 democracy. . . . There was reverence of law,"f and upon 
 this ancient Saxon basis, the Devonian rock of England, were 
 founded the institutions of a new world. J 
 
 The original idea of New England Towns, like that of 
 their Old English and Germanic prototypes, was that of a 
 village community of allied families, settled in close proximity 
 
 * Palfrey, History of New England, i. 380. 
 
 f Life and Writings of Rufus Choate, i. 285. 
 
 Jin a monograph upon Plymouth Plantations will he shown the influ- 
 ence of English precedent upon Plymouth law and institutions. The 
 ecclesiastical theory that "The Town corporation is the offspring of 
 Puritan Congregationalism," asserted strangely enough in reference to 
 Plymouth Colony (which was not Puritan but Separatist) by Dr. Joseph 
 S. Clark, in his Historical Sketch of the Congregational Churches of 
 Massachusetts, (p. 56), is entirely untenable, and so likewise is the theory 
 of Professor Parker, Frothingham and other writers, that the Town 
 system is peculiarly the product of New England and not based upon 
 precedent. There is scarcely a feature of New England Town Life which 
 has not its prototype in the municipal history of the mother country. 
 Studies illustrating this view have been made of the leading Town Insti- 
 tutions of Massachusetts. 
 
28 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 for good neighborhood and defense, with homes and home lots 
 fenced in and owned in severalty, but with a common Town 
 Street and a Village Green or Home Pasture, and with common 
 fields, allotted outside the Town for individual mowing and 
 tillage but fenced in common, together with a vast surround- 
 ing tract of absolutely common and undivided land, used for 
 pasture and woodland under communal regulations. It is 
 important to observe that, historically speaking, the word 
 "Town" applies more particularly to the village itself, and 
 that the word "Township," which is of very common occur- 
 rence in the early local annals of New England, better char- 
 acterizes the Town's landed domain. It is true that the 
 latter term has fallen into disuse in New England, and for- 
 tunately so, for with the definite legal idea now attached to 
 this word Township in the Western States, as a tract of land 
 six miles square, the term no longer characterizes our Towns, 
 which are far from being of any definite size or of any regular 
 pattern. The word "Town" is now almost universally 
 employed in New England to characterize the whole extent 
 of the Town's domain, and properly, for almost everywhere 
 population has swarmed from its old village-hive, and houses 
 are now built from one end of the Town to the other. But 
 it is curious to see how popular usage still clings to the old 
 idea, when, for example, persons living at the " ends of the 
 Town," talk about going " into Town," " into the village," 
 or to the "centre." The idea of a Town is like that of the 
 Greek tiozv in distinction from the tzoXcz; or the Latin urbs 
 in distinction from civitas. This historical view is borne out 
 by the definition of a " Town " given by President Dwight 
 in his famous Travels in New England and New York, begun 
 at the close of the last century, when he wrote, "You must 
 remember that by a Town I all along intend a collection of 
 houses in the original village, and not those of the township." 
 Let us turn now to an early description of the Town of 
 Plymouth, written by Isaack de Rasieres, a French Protest- 
 ant in the service of the Dutch West India Company as 
 
New England Towns. 29 
 
 Chief Commissary of New Netherlands (New York), who 
 visited Plymouth in 1627 upon an embassy, and whom Gov- 
 ernor Bradford called "a man of fair and genteel behavior." 
 De Rasieres wrote concerning New Plymouth an interesting 
 letter, which was discovered some years ago in the archives 
 at the Hague* by John Romeyn Brodhead, Secretary of the 
 American Legation at London. The letter was first printed 
 in the Collections of the New York Historical Society. The 
 following is a brief extract: 
 
 "New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill stretching east 
 towards the sea-coast, with a broad street about a cannon shot 
 of eight hundred [yards] long, leading down the hill, with a 
 [street] crossing in the middle, northwards to the rivulet, 
 and southwards to the land. The houses are constructed of 
 hewn planks, with gardens also enclosed behind and at the 
 sides with hewn planks, so that their houses and court-yards 
 are arranged in very good order, with a stockade against 
 sudden attack ; and at the ends of the streets there are three 
 wooden gates." f 
 
 Town gates and stockades were very common in early New 
 England villages, where they served not only for defence, 
 but for agrarian and pastoral purposes. Upon the frontier, 
 for example in the Connecticut valley, palisaded Towns were 
 at one time a military necessity. The original idea of a Town 
 reappears in the local records of Northampton, Hatfield, 
 Deerfield, and Greenfield; for example, John Dickinson of 
 Hatfield was allowed, by vote March 6, 1690, " liberty to 
 remove his house into town " and retain his lot outside pro- 
 vided he do his share of fortifying and build again upon his 
 lot when he could do so without fear of the Indians. " Kor 
 many several years," says Judd in his manuscript collections 
 
 * The use of the article in the name of this Town, the Hague, (Ji-rman 
 der Haag, French la Haye, is extremely interesting as an historical sur- 
 vival. Here is a developed Teutonic village called to this day The lh >, , 
 just as the English word Town perpetuates the idea of the Saxon Tun. 
 
 f Collections of the JS'cw York Historical Society, New Serir-, vol. ii. 
 
30 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 on Hatfield, " the inhabitants were cooped up within these 
 limits. Many had huts or houses in the street."* In 
 Greenfield it was voted on September 10, 1754 "to picquet 
 three houses in this district immediately." Individual houses 
 were frequently thus impaled, and it is not improbable that 
 the use of picket fences to this day for separate inclosures in 
 the rural districts may be a remote survival of that old Saxon 
 
 *Judd, MS., Hadley and Hatfield, i, 148. The late Sylvester Judd, 
 author of the History of Hadley, one of the best local histories ever 
 "written in New England, left behind him an extensive manuscript col- 
 lection, in many bound volumes, of materials relating to the history of 
 the Connecticut Valley, particularly of Northampton and of the towns 
 in that environment. It is unfortunate for this latter Town, one of the 
 richest and rarest in New England for historical interest, that so capable 
 a man as Mr. Judd was never in position, by reason of his pressing 
 duties as editor of a country paper, to write a history of the valley. But 
 his manuscript treasures have now been purchased by public-spirited 
 citizens, and it is to be hoped that this collection, which is really the 
 corner-stone of Northampton history, may be the first acquisition of the 
 Forbes Library, that recent munificent endowment of over two hun- 
 dred thousand dollars by a late citizen of the Town for a free public 
 library composed "of works of science and the arts, in their broadest 
 acceptation, of ancient and modern history, and of the literatures of our 
 own and other nations." (Extract from the Will of Judge Forbes). The 
 Forbes Library, the Clark Institute, Smith College and the Smith Chari- 
 ties are noble institutions, and yet they sprang, historically, from seed 
 sown by those simple agrarian communities, Northampton and Hatfield, 
 which are worthy of more than passing attention. The Town Records 
 of Northampton, are of remarkable interest and full of cases of "sur- 
 vival." Secluded from association with the Bay Towns as were these 
 inland communities of the Connecticut Valley, some of them like Wind- 
 sor, Springfield and the Towns above, are really more interesting than 
 many that lie further to the eastward. These Valley Towns are not only 
 quite as ancient as the average of seventeenth century Towns, but on the 
 whole rather more conservative, less influenced even by Puritan innova- 
 tions. 
 
 To the courtesy of the Judd family and of Mr. J. R. Trumbull, the 
 writer of this monograph has been indebted for the use of the Judd 
 manuscripts at various intervals and for various purposes ; also to Mr. 
 Billings, Register of Deeds in the County of Hampshire, for access to 
 early records of the county court and for copious extracts from the Town 
 Records of Hatfield. 
 
New England Towns. 31 
 
 instinct for palisading every individual home and house-lot, 
 as we have already seen in trie case of Plymouth. 
 
 An interesting commentary on the relation of the indi- 
 vidual home and hamlet to the Town or village community 
 similarly enclosed, is given in Nasse's Agricultural Commu- 
 nity in the Middle Ages (15), where he says, " The names of 
 places shows that, among the Saxons, only the dwelling- 
 place that is, house and homestead was inclosed; the 
 arable land and the pastures being open and unfenced. Out 
 of 1,200 names of places which Leo collected from the first 
 volume of Kemble's 'Codex Diplomat. iEvi Saxonici,' 187 
 were formed with tun. This word, it is well known, is iden- 
 tical with the modern 'town/ the Dutch tuin (garden), and 
 the German zaun, and was, as R. Schmid remarks, less used 
 by the Anglo-Saxons to signify 'that wherewith a space is 
 inclosed, than the inclosed space itself.' We may, however, 
 see very plainly that it was principally house and homestead 
 which bore this name; for instance, in the laws of Alfred I. 
 2, in cyninges tune; 13, on eorles tune. Even at the 
 present day the courtyard in the country in England is signi- 
 fied by the word town. Apparently, as was also the ease in 
 Germany, not only the individual homesteads, but also sev- 
 eral situated near each other, were surrounded by an inelo- 
 sure; which explains the reason why not only the homestead, 
 but also the whole village was called ' tun.' In many places 
 for example in the laws of Athelstan II. Fr. 2, where an 
 expiatory fine is to be divided among the poor; as well as in 
 Edgar IV. c. 8 the word 'tun' cannot be intended to be 
 used for individual homesteads, but only for places, a signifi- 
 cation which later became the ruling one." Nasse, in a foot- 
 note, 3, page 16, says, "the old Jute law prescribes (from 
 1240 A. D.) iii, chap. 57, van thunen tho makende (on making 
 hedges) 'that every village shall be inclosed by a hedge,' 
 and gives detailed rules for the duty of every villager to put 
 up his part of the common fence which enclosed the whole 
 village as well as single farmsteads." 
 
32 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 A chapter might be written upon the survival in New 
 England of this ancient institution known as the "Common 
 Fence." The local records of every old New England Town 
 are full of such references. Take the following from the MS. 
 Records of Hatfield Side, January 14, 1660: "Agreed and 
 voted at a side meeting [another case of Old English survival !] 
 that there shall he a common fence made from Goodman 
 Fellows to the landing place, every man fencing the end of 
 his lot, and Isaac Graves to fence his part next to Goodman 
 Bool's meadow lot, the rest to be done in common." May 
 11, 1663, "Agreed at a side meeting that every man shall set 
 down a stake with the two first letters of his name by every 
 parcel of fence by the 13th of this month." It would be 
 difficult to say which is the more curious, the survival of " old 
 Jute law," or this revival of old English usage. It has taken 
 some time for hedgerows to find root again in New England, 
 but Hay wards, (not from hay, but from the Saxon Hege, 
 wardens of the hedges,) Fence Viewers and Field Drivers, 
 were offices that our ancestors had probably filled in the old 
 country, and they revived them here at once. Hatfield Side 
 voted, May 7, 1662, "that the South Meadow should be 
 cleared of cattle and Horses by Friday next, any cattle with- 
 out Keeper, or with keeper on mowing ground shall pay 1 
 shilling each to him that brings them to the pound and 4 
 pence to the Pound Keeper." The Village Pound, which 
 Sir Henry Maine * says is probably older than the Kingdom, 
 was instituted at Hatfield before the Church, before the Town 
 itself, when Hatfield was not yet a Parish of Hadley. This 
 simple enclosure, the Cattle Tun, represents a communal idea 
 which was growing in that little hamlet on the west side of 
 the Connecticut river. Already while only the Pound, 
 
 * Maine, Early History of Institutions, 263. He says, u there is no 
 more ancient institution in the country than the Village Pound ; it is 
 older than the King's Bench and probably older than the kingdom." 
 The name " Pound " is derived from the Saxon pyndan, to pen or enclose. 
 
New England Towns. 33 
 
 Common Meadows and Fences occupied the village mind it 
 was voted "at side meeting that when there is a meeting 
 legally warned, whoever shall not come shall forieit 1 shil- 
 ling, whoever shall come a half hour late, 6 pence, whoever 
 shall depart before the close, 6 pence." Verily here was a 
 budding Tun within a Town. 
 
 The most striking indication of historic connection between 
 the village communities of New England and those of the 
 Old World lies in the sovereignty of the people, particularly 
 in its agrarian laws. 
 
 Plymouth was not settled upon the principle of squatter 
 sovereignty every man for himself, but upon communal 
 principles of the strictest character. These were not adopted 
 simply because of the co-partnership of the Pilgrims with 
 London merchants or chiefly through the influence of a spirit 
 of Christian communism, though doubtless both of these 
 motives had considerable weight in the early management of 
 the colony. There are features of communal administration 
 in the matter of landed property too peculiar and too closely 
 resembling those elsewhere considered, in the case of the 
 historical village community, to permit of any other satisfac- 
 tory explanation than that of inherited Saxon customs. Land 
 community was maintained too long at Plymouth and in the 
 towns which were planted around Plymouth on the same 
 communal principles, to be accounted for on any theory of a 
 temporary partnership of seven years or on religious grounds. 
 
 Vestiges of the old Germanic system of common fields are 
 to be found in almost every ancient town in New England. 
 In the town of Plymouth there are to this day some two 
 hundred acres of Commons known as Town Lands. This tract 
 is largely forest, where villagers sometimes help themselves 
 to fuel in good old Teutonic fashion. Jn studying the terri- 
 torial history of the Plymouth plantation, I have gathered 
 many interesting materials concerning the perpetuation of 
 land community in that region. It is impossible in this con- 
 nection to enter into details. One or two concrete facts like 
 5 
 
34 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 the following will illustrate the survival of land community 
 in the region of Plymouth colony. 
 
 In the old town of Sandwich, upon Cape Cod, at the 
 point where the ship canal was projected in 1880, there is a 
 little parcel of land of 130 acres known as the Town Neck. 
 This is owned by a company of twenty-four proprietors, the 
 descendants or heirs of the first settlers of the town, and this 
 tract is managed to this day as a common field. Originally the 
 Town Neck, with other common lands, belonged to the whole 
 town. In the MS. Town Records of Sandwich I find, under 
 the date May 22, 1658, this vote: "If any inhabytant want- 
 eth land to plant, hee may have some in the Towne Neck, or 
 in the Common for six yeare and noe longer." Later in 1678, 
 April 6, townsmen are given liberty to improve Neck Lands 
 " noe longer than ten yeares, . . . and then to be at the 
 townsmen's ordering againe." In the year 1695, the use of 
 the Town Neck was restricted to the heirs of original proprie- 
 tors, and the land was staked out into thirty-eight lots. The 
 lots were not fenced off, and the whole tract continued to lie 
 as a common field, under the authority of the entire body of 
 proprietors, like the arable lands of a German village com- 
 munity. In 1696, April 4, it was agreed that the Town 
 Neck should be improved for the future by planting and 
 sowing as a common field, until the major part of those inter- 
 ested should see cause otherwise to dispose or improve the 
 same. The common fence was to be made up and a gate to 
 be provided by the 1st of May. A field-driver or hayward 
 was to keep the Town Neck clear of creatures and to impound 
 for trespass. In 1700 it was voted that the Neck be cleared 
 of creatures by the 16th of April, and that no part of the land 
 be improved for tillage other than by sowing. 
 
 And thus from the latter half of the seventeenth century 
 down to the present day have the proprietors of Sandwich 
 Town Neck regulated the use of this old common field. 
 Every year they have met together in the springtime to deter- 
 mine when the fences should be set up and how the pasture 
 
New England Towns. 35 
 
 should be stinted. The old Commoners' Records arc for the 
 most part still in existence as far back as the year 1093, and 
 before this time the Town Records are full of agrarian legis- 
 lation, for the Town Neck was then virtually town property. 
 There arose in Sandwich and in every New England village 
 community the same strife between old residents and new 
 comers as that between the patricians and plebeians of ancient 
 Rome; the old settlers claimed a monopoly of the public land 
 and the new comers demanded a share. In most old New 
 England towns, the heirs of original settlers or of citizens 
 living in the community at a specified date retained a mon- 
 opoly of the common lands for many years until finally com- 
 pelled by. force or public opinion to cede their claims to the 
 town. Jn Sandwich, however, a vestige of the old system 
 has survived to this day. Every spring, for many years, has 
 appeared a public notice (I last saw one in the Seaside L J ress, 
 May 8, 1880) calling together the proprietors of the Town 
 Neck at some store in the village, to choose a moderator and 
 a clerk, and to regulate the letting of cow rights for the ensu- 
 ing year. I came on the track of this curious old common 
 field one summer vacation in Provincetown, at the land's 
 end of Cape Cod, where also and at Truro I found some 
 interesting bits of fossil land tenure. I met in Provincetown 
 a man who said he was taxed for one-sixth of a cow right in 
 Sandwich, which he had inherited from his grandfather. I 
 knew that a cow right meant a vestige of common pasture and 
 so investigated the matter. In Sandwich I found the old 
 Commoners' records extending back for nearly two centuries, 
 in the possession of a farmer in whose family the clerkship 
 had been for several generations. lie said nobody had ever 
 asked to see those records before, and with Arcadian simplicity 
 allowed rae to take the whole collection to my hotel for 
 examination. I created quite an excitement in the place by 
 reason of my inquiries, for it happened that just about that 
 time the Ship Canal was under discussion in Sandwich, and 
 the villagers concluded that I was examining into the title ot 
 
36 The Germanic Origin of 
 
 the proprietors to the Town Neck with a view to land specu- 
 lation. 
 
 In the town of Salem also I have discovered very inter- 
 esting survivals of the old English system of common fields. 
 Originally, the whole region round about the first settlement 
 was common land. The region of North Danvers and of the 
 town of Peabody was once a part of "Salem's communal 
 domain. Winter Island long was, and Salem Neck still is, 
 more or less common land. The outlying portions of Salem 
 were gradually granted out to individuals with important 
 reservations by the town* in the interest of parish churches, 
 for the poor and for the encouragement of certain public 
 works, like the manufacture of glass, which was very early 
 attempted by the thrifty Puritans as a business enterprise, 
 like the manufacture of New England rum, although with 
 less profit. There were for many years in the town of Salem 
 certain common fields owned by associated proprietors just as 
 in the case of the Sandwich Town Neck. Such were the 
 North and South Fields in Salem. The old Commoners' 
 records of the South Field are still preserved in the library of 
 the Essex Institute, and date back as far as 1680. Under the 
 date of October 14 of that year, I find the following: Voted, 
 that the proprietors have liberty to put in cattle for herbage 
 that is to say, 6 cows, 4 oxen, 3 horses or yearlings, or 24 
 calves, to 10 acres of land, and so in proportion to greater or 
 lesser quantities of land ; and no person shall cut or strip 
 their Indian corn stalks after they have gathered their corn, 
 on penalty of forfeiting herbage." These old common fields 
 have long since disappeared, for they are now built over by 
 the city of Salem; but there still survives, at a little distance 
 from the heart of the town, an example of the same sort of 
 land tenure upon quite a large scale. The so-called Great 
 Pastures of Salem, some three hundred acres, are, to this day, 
 owned and managed by a small company of proprietors in 
 common, of whom Dr. Wheatland, of the Essex Institute, has 
 been, for many years, the clerk. He has in his possession the 
 
New England Towns. 37 
 
 records of the proprietary, extending back for manv genera- 
 tions. These records are full of old time regulations in regard 
 to common fencing, common pasturage, cow commons, sheep 
 commons, and the like. The votes are much the same from 
 year to year. We can hardly expect much variety in the 
 administration of common fields during the short period of 
 New England history since the system endured for so many 
 centuries in Europe without any appreciable modification.* 
 
 The life principle enduring in these apparently dead forms 
 of land tenure is the sovereignty of the community over its 
 individual or associate members. Although inheriting defi- 
 nite rights in the common land, shareholders are subject to 
 the will of the majority. Communal sovereignty over lands 
 exists even where individual landed rights appear most abso- 
 lute. The other day a newspaper scrap was sent me from the 
 South concerning a Mississippi planter who wanted to turn 
 his plantation into a stock farm. His neighbors who were in 
 the habit of planting cotton remonstrated and carried the case 
 into public court, praying for an injunction to prevent the 
 man from sowing grass seed, on the ground that the grass 
 would spread over adjoining plantations and unfit them for 
 raising cotton. The injunction was granted by the court and 
 illustrates how, in a quarter of our country where individu- 
 alism is supposed to be most rampant, the sovereignty of the 
 community over land is recognized by law, even in the matter 
 of what farmers plant. 
 
 Traces of the old system of agrarian community are crop- 
 ping out in many different States of the American Union, 
 which itself is based, as a permanent and necessary institu- 
 tion, upon the idea of territorial commonwealth, with self 
 governing States gradually organized out of the Common 
 
 *The village community of early Salem is one of the most remarkable 
 cases of historic survival in New England. An attempt to point out 
 some of the most striking features of that old plantation has been made in 
 a monograph upon "Cape Ann and Salem Plantations," now in press at 
 the Essex Institute, and to be republished in this University series. 
 
38 The Germanic Origin of New England Towns. 
 
 Land of the nation, * as New England Towns were organized 
 out of village folk-land. Wherever in this common Saxon 
 land the student may care to institute researches into the 
 beginnings' of civic life, there he will find, if he digs deeply- 
 enough, the old Saxon principle of land community uniting 
 men together upon a common basis and around a common 
 centre.. Whether that centre be the Town Commons of the 
 North or the Court Greens of the South, the Common Pas- 
 tures of Massachusetts or the Common Pastures of South 
 Carolina; the folk-land of a ville, parish, township, state, or 
 nation, it is after all much the same in principle, for these 
 communal interests are all derived from a common Saxon 
 source. There is much to learn by a study of the local 
 beginnings, agrarian and economic, of these United States. 
 There is surely a common country of historic worth yet to be 
 discovered, for mere surface mining, here and there, in vari- 
 ous quarters, indicates a vast and wide-reaching common- 
 wealth below. It is the commonwealth of law and custom, of 
 race and kinship, historic mines that can never be exhausted, 
 for they extend not only underneath all imaginary sections 
 of our land, but under the dividing sea of .Revolutionary 
 History itself, uniting the New World inseparably to the 
 Old. 
 
 * Maryland's influence in founding a National Commonwealth, Fund 
 Publication No. 11, Maryland Historical Society, 1877. By H. B. Adams. 
 In this monograph there is evidence showing not only that the in- 
 fluence of Maryland predominated in securing the great land cessions 
 to the United States, but that the common relation of the English Colo- 
 nies in America to these western lands, won by the blood and treasure of 
 all, was in itself a most substantial ground for permanent and necessary 
 Union. After the Revolution, the loosely confederated States would have 
 broken apart if it had not been for their common interest in the western 
 territory as a potential means of paying off State debts and rewarding 
 soldier-veterans. Moreover the great West afforded field for republican 
 expansion upon necessarily federal principles. 
 
COOPERATION IN UNIVERSITY WORK. 
 
 By The Editor. 
 
 [These explanatory remarks were made November 17, 18S2, before the Historical and 
 Political Science Association of the Johns Hopkins University for the sake of developing 
 still further, on the part of its members, that cooperative spirit which is the motive power 
 of this University Series. H. B. a.] 
 
 The need of some channel for the systematic publication of Johns 
 Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 
 gave rise to the idea of a series of monographs, each complete in 
 itself, but all contributing toward a common end, the development 
 of American Institutional and American Economic History. The 
 idea of a serial publication of numbered monographs, one paper 
 sustaining another, was already current in Holtzendorff's Deutsche 
 Zeit und Streit Fragen ; in Virchow's and Holtzendorff's Samni- 
 lung gemeinverstiindlicher wissenschaftlicher Vortrilge ; in Con- 
 rad's Sammlung nationalokonomischer und statistischer Abhand- 
 lungen des staatswissenschaftlichen Seminars zu Halle; and in 
 Schmoller's Staats- und socialwissenschaftliche Forschungen. But 
 the special impulse to this University Series was the Giessener 
 Studien auf dera Gebiet der Geschichte, instituted in 1881 by 
 Wilhelm Chicken, editor of the Monograph-History of the World, 
 (Allgemeine Geschichte der Welt in Einzeldarstellungen,) a serial 
 work which has been in progress since 1878, through the coopera- 
 tion of historical specialists, a work which has an earlier parallel 
 in the political held in Bluntschli's Staatsworterbueh (1S.">7). and 
 a later parallel in the economic field in Schoenberg's Haudbuch 
 des politischen Oekononomie (1882), both composed by special- 
 ists upon the sound economic principles of division of labor and 
 scientific cooperation. 
 
 The impulse received, in the first instance, from Germany was 
 strengthened by a knowledge of the efficient workings of the 
 cooperative method of writing municipal and national history in 
 
40 Cooperation in University Work. 
 
 America, under the direction of Professor Justin Winsor of Har- 
 vard University ; also by observation of the cooperative method 
 in the conduct of the American Journals of Mathematics, Phi- 
 lology, Chemistry, the Studies from the Biological Laboratory, 
 and the Journal of Physiology, the latter edited by an English 
 scholar with the cooperation of English and American special- 
 ists, but published in this country under the auspices of the 
 Johns Hopkins University ; still further by acquaintance with 
 the Peabody Fund Publications of the Maryland Historical So- 
 ciety; and by practical suggestions from Mr. Sidney S. Rider, 
 publisher of the Rhode Island Historical Tracts. 
 
 The idea of studying American Institutional and American 
 Economic History, upon cooperative principles, beginning with 
 local institutions, and extending ultimately to national institu- 
 tions, developed gradually from an interest in municipal history, 
 first awakened in the Seminary of Professor Erdmannsdoerffer at 
 the University of Heidelberg, where, in 1875, while reading the 
 Gesta Friderici Imperatoris, by Otto of Freising, seminary-dis- 
 cussion turned upon the Communes of Lombardy and the question 
 of the Roman or Germanic origin of city government in mediaeval 
 Italy. This awakened interest, quickened by the reading of Carl 
 Hegel, Arnold, Von Maurer, Fustel de Coulanges, was ultimately 
 directed toward England and New England by a suggestion upon 
 the last page of Sir Henry Maine's Village Communities, where, 
 quoting Palfrey's History of New England (ii, 13, 14) and certain 
 remarks in The Nation (No. 273)* upon the passage by Professor 
 William F. Allen of the University of Wisconsin, Sir Henry calls 
 attention to the survival of Village Communities in America. 
 This suggestive idea, verified in all essential details with reference 
 to Nantucket, Plymouth Plantations, Cape Anne, Salem and the 
 oldest towns in New England, has been extended gradually to a 
 
 * Professor Allen's communication was published in The Nation, Sep- 
 tember 22, 1870, as a " Note " upon Maine's "Ancient Law," before his 
 "Village Communities " appeared (1871). Professor W. F. Allen was 
 the first to verify Sir Henry Maine's agrarian theory in America by inde- 
 pendent research in the island of Nantucket, "a study published in The 
 Nation, January 10, 1878, under the title, "A Survival of Land Community 
 in New England." Cf. Nation, Nov. 10, 1881. 
 
Cooperation in University Work. 41 
 
 cooperative study of American local institutions in all the older 
 States and throughout the North-west, where, in Wisconsin, Pro- 
 fessor Allen, the original pioneer, has joined in the work, sup- 
 ported by his Seminary of advanced students. The idea is 
 represented in the distant University of Nebraska, at Lincoln, by 
 Professor George E. Howard, who, trained at German Universi- 
 ties, is this year teaching " Institutional History " by the compara- 
 tive method, with Maine, Hearn, Laveleye, Fustel de Coulanges, 
 and Lewis H. Morgan for suggestive guides. 
 
 It is interesting to see the knowledge of Aryan institutions thus 
 advancing westward. The science of English Institutional History 
 is represented in the University of California by Albert S. Cook, 
 the newly appointed Professor of English, who, while Associate 
 at the Johns Hopkins University, cooperated most efficiently with 
 the Historical Seminary in teaching its members Anglo-Saxon 
 and in publishing for their use "Extracts from the Anglo-Saxon 
 Laws" (Henry Holt, 1880), illustrating the early "institutions 
 and manners of the English people." This work was the direct 
 outgrowth of Seminary needs, for Stubbs ; Select Charters con- 
 tained but few extracts from Anglo-Saxon Law and these only in 
 the English translation by Thorpe. Mr. Cook's edition was made 
 very serviceable to students by constant reference to Stubbs' Con- 
 stitutional History and to the Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law by 
 Professor Henry Adams, formerly of Harvard College, and by 
 his pupils, Henry Cabot Lodge, Ernest Young, and J. Laurence 
 Laughlin, who, advancing from German and English ground, were 
 among the first to give a decided impetus to the study of historical 
 jurisprudence in America. 
 
 The career of Mr. Cook well illustrates the way in which mod- 
 ern science is conveyed in personal forms from one country or one 
 University-centre to another. Graduating from Rutgers College 
 in 1872, he taught and studied for a few years in this country, 
 and then went to Goettingen, afterward to Leipzig. In l*"'.) lie 
 was called to Baltimore to teach Early English, of which in 
 America and in Germany he had made a specialty. In 1881 he 
 went to England to study with Professor Sweet, then back again 
 to Germany, where, at Jena, in the summer of 1S82 he took his 
 Doctor of Philosophy, with a thesis on the Northumbrian Dialect, 
 approved by Professor Sievers. It is probable that his previous 
 6 
 
42 Cooperation in University Work. 
 
 University connections with Baltimore, together with other influ- 
 ences proceeding from English and German experience, had some 
 bearing upon his immediate call to a professorship in the Univer- 
 sity of California. Thus from the region of Saxe-Weimar, or as 
 Freeman says, "that make-believe Saxony which is really Sla- 
 vonic," a knowledge of Early English was borne across real Saxon 
 land, across the Ocean, across a Continent, to the most western 
 home of the English people, a home which Charles Kingsley 
 called "a New World beyond a New World." Saxon Studies, 
 like Saxon Conquests, have pushed westward as well as eastward, 
 beyond Old Saxon and Old English frontiers. It is interesting 
 to see scientific Markgrafen, like Cook and Sievers, stationed 
 upon the modern borders. " What Saxon is Cook studying at 
 Jena? Why go so far?" writes Freeman. "They talk a fine 
 West-Saxon in Virginia,* with their ea and eo well turned out, 
 almost as on Sumormetan, only on Sumorsaetan they distinguish 
 
 * Mr. Freeman knows Virginian in onjy one of its varieties. Tide- 
 water, Piedmont, Valley, Southwest all present marked differences. The 
 " Tuckahoe " is bewrayed by his speech as soon as he crosses the Blue 
 Kidge. The broad a, in a host of words, in which it is unknown to tbe 
 dictionaries, belongs to the older settlements and persists in certain 
 primitives even after they have been transplanted to the foot of the 
 mountains. The first a in Chamberlayne is pronounced in three or four 
 different ways, all Virginian and so all right. The notorious slurring of 
 the medial r, common in large belts of English speech, is observable 
 everywhere in Virginia, but much less in some sections than in otbers, 
 and the volatilization of the final r is not so marked in the Piedmont as 
 it is in the Tide-water section, while the Lower Valley bas a guttural r 
 final, due to German influence. Scotch-Irish has told on the dialect of the 
 Upper Valley and the Southwest. Clipping of final consonants is noto- 
 riously Scotch, and easy theorists have exaggerated the African influence. 
 But this is not a subject for any one except a trained and unprejudiced 
 observer. Almost everybody notices differences of pronunciation, but 
 very few can register them with precision and reproduce them with accu- 
 racy. It is high time that linguistic students should enter upon this field 
 of research before the outlying districts of the South are brought into the 
 quicker life of the other States. The Southern shibboleths will in time be 
 lost, and I have myself heard from Southern lips such pronunciations as 
 " Noo-Yark," "Toosday," and " dooty," which used to wound the Southern 
 ear almost as much as the gasping of the Cockney, which we call " drop- 
 ping the A." B. L. Q. 
 
Cooperation in University Work. 43 
 
 janua* and dama which on Magdslande sound alike." But it 
 takes a West-Saxon thus to recognize West-Saxon. Old Eng- 
 land explains New England. Schleswig and Switzerland reveal 
 Early England to the English historian. A knowledge of Old 
 World science is absolutely indispensable to scientific discov- 
 ery in the New World. The local dialects of America can 
 never be studied with an understanding mind until American 
 students study the local dialects of England, as Dr. Cook has 
 studied the Northumbrian dialect. There is, perhaps, a certain 
 historic fitness in the fact that Old English is so well taught in 
 Germany, the oldest of the three homes of the English people ; 
 and it is surely very natural that Saxon studies should traverse 
 and re-traverse the old lines of Teutonic migration. 
 
 There is nothing in the wandering of peoples or in the history 
 of the Errantes Scholares of the Middle Ages which rivals the 
 migrations of the modern scholar. In 1875, the year President 
 Oilman came eastward to Baltimore from the University of Cali- 
 fornia, whither he had been called in 1872 from a professorship 
 in Yale College, a student who that year graduated from Berkeley 
 came eastward by the advice of his teachers and wandered, like a 
 veritable fahrender Schiller, from one institution to another until 
 he reached the University of Leipzig, upon the historic border 
 between the Teuton and the Slave. At the same time, the newly 
 appointed President of the Johns Hopkins University was wan- 
 dering over Europe, visiting the chief educational institutions of 
 
 * Readers who happen not to be familiar with the peculiar pronunciation 
 of Piedmont Virginia (Magdsland), and who therefore fail to apprehend 
 Mr. Freeman's allusion, may now enjoy what the President of the Del- 
 phian Club thought the crowning felicity of human existence "a joke 
 well explained." In the region referred to, the final r is usually silent; 
 and thus door [janua) and doe [dama) are pronounced exactly alike. The 
 writer remembers to have met with an indigenous ballad, set to music, 
 and much in favor with the fair sex, in which " store," " sure," and " so " 
 were made to rhyme with each other. It represented the reasonable irri- 
 tation of a maiden at the timidity of a bashful lover, who could not screw 
 his courage to the proposing-point ; and in one stanza she complains: 
 
 "I know liis love is constant, 
 Affectionate and pure: |>yo] 
 What ails the bashful fellow 
 That he cannot tell uic so?" W. H. H. 
 
44 Cooperation in University Work. 
 
 Germany, France, and England, with a view to the transmigration 
 of ideas from the Old World to the New. In 1876 the American 
 student, quickened by European travel and experience, returned 
 to his native land to enter upon a philosophical Fellowship at the 
 new University, the President of which had been inaugurated in 
 the Monumental City on the 22nd of February of that year. The 
 University, like the ideas of its President and like the culture of 
 the returning student, was neither German nor French nor English, 
 but American and cosmopolitan. This country and all its insti- 
 tutions, though they adopt the best which the Old World can 
 teach, will constitute a New World still by natural selection, and 
 by independent organization in harmony with a new environment. 
 The California student, who had been schooled in German Uni- 
 versities for one year, studied for two more years at the Johns 
 Hopkins University and then took his degree of Doctor of Phi- 
 losophy, with this significant thesis, "The Interdependence of the 
 Principles of Human Knowledge." He was then called across 
 the Continent, to his Alma Mater, to become an Assistant Pro- 
 fessor in literature and philosophy. From that frontier-post, his 
 contributions to the Galifornian, the Berkeley Quarterly, and 
 the Journal of Speculative Philosophy came migrating east- 
 ward. "Mind-stuff" and other "Realities" pushed across the 
 sea, marched into England from the West, and effected a certain 
 intellectual conquest in self restricted Saxon ways by publication 
 in a very special philosophical journal known as ''The Mind," 
 (July, 1881; Jan., 1882). And now Dr. Royce himself has again 
 migrated eastward, having been invited to a position as lecturer 
 upon Philosophy in Harvard College, as substitute for Professor 
 James, who has again wandered to Europe. 
 
 At the same time Dr. Royce was returning eastward, Dr. * 
 Stringham, a graduate of Harvard College and afterward a 
 Fellow of the Johns Hopkins University, then travelling Fellow 
 of Harvard, was returning westward from the University of 
 Leipzig to his old home in Kansas, to push on thence to his new 
 western home in the University of California, where he has ac- 
 cepted a professorship in Mathematics. And now a student from 
 California, bearing letters from the faculty of the institution at 
 Berkeley, has come eastward to Baltimore, leaving an associate 
 editorship of the San Francisco Bulletin, for the sake of discover- 
 
Cooperation in University Work. 45 
 
 ing, for himself, an old world of science. And already in the 
 light of Institutional studies he is investigating the municipal 
 history of St. Louis, and is preparing to develop a veritable mine 
 in the study of frontier law and of the wonderful evolution of 
 self-government in California mining-camps, where old Saxon 
 forms of associated families of men sprang full armed into life 
 and law. A student from Professor Howard's Seminary in 
 Nebraska has also come eastward to continue his western studies. 
 He represents, moreover, a comity of scientific associations first 
 established at German Universities between his American instruc- 
 tors. And with the student from Nebraska comes a Regent of 
 the Nebraska University, a graduate of Amherst College, who, 
 although a man of middle age, has entered the same Seminarium 
 with his western protege. 
 
 Such facts illustrate not only the remarkable migrations of the 
 modern scholar, but that curious system of intercollegiate exchange 
 which has developed so rapidly of late in America. Within the 
 space of the last six years, a graduate of Harvard College has 
 held in Baltimore a Johns Hopkins University Fellowship, one of 
 the Harvard "travelling" Fellowships at Leipzig and Bonn, a 
 tutorship at Harvard, a professorship at Bowdoin College, and 
 a professorship in the University of Virginia, where he, a New 
 England man, succeeded a Virginian who had been called north 
 to Columbia College. There are signs of a new era in the educa- 
 tional history of this country. A graduate student from South 
 Carolina comes to Baltimore and, through association with a 
 graduate of Brown University, obtains the Prineipalship of a 
 High School in a Connecticut Town. A graduate of Columbia 
 College lectures in Baltimore and Ithaca. A graduate of Iowa 
 College in 1874, afterwards a student at Andover Theological 
 Seminary, held a Fellowship in Political Science for two years in 
 Baltimore, took his degree of Ph. D.,* studied one year at Ueidel- 
 
 * Dr. Henry C. Adams' graduating thesis for the. Doctor's degree at the 
 Johns Hopkins University, taken in 1878 alter special examination in 
 History by Mr. George Bancroft and in Political Economy by Professor 
 Francis A. Walker, was published in the Tubingener Zeitschrift fur die 
 gesammte Staatswissenschaft, 1879, under the title Zur (Jesehichte der 
 JBesteuerung in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika in der L'eriode von 
 1789-1816. The paper should be republished and the subject continued 
 in America. 
 
46 Cooperation in University Work. 
 
 berg under Knies and Bluntschli and at Berlin under Wagner and 
 Engel,.then, after his return to America, lectured in quick succes- 
 sion at three different institutions, at Michigan, Cornell, and Johns 
 Hopkins Universities. C. R. Lanman, a Doctor of Philosophy 
 from Yale College, who afterward studied two years in Germany, 
 advanced in four years from a Fellowship and an Associateship 
 in the Johns Hopkins to a professorship in Harvard College. 
 He was succeeded by a former pupil in Baltimore, who, born in 
 Austria, migrated to America, entered the University of Chicago, 
 graduated in 1877 at Furman College, South Carolina, from the 
 instruction of Professor Toy, studied under Professor Whitney in 
 New Haven one year, took his Ph. D. in Baltimore in one year 
 more, and then studied a year longer in Germany before returning 
 to the Johns Hopkins. A Harvard Lecturer and a Michigan 
 University Professor spend half their time in Baltimore. College 
 training and professorial experience are no longer local and pro- 
 vincial. Stronger currents of influence are already arising: col- 
 legiate reciprocity, the exchange of thought, methods, and men ; 
 university education in the Old World and in the New; special 
 qualifications for special work; character born of good training 
 at home, and developed by school, college, university, and the 
 world, these are ideas which must prevail. 
 
 Among the most encouraging sigus of the times are the cordial 
 relations subsisting between the higher institutions of learning, 
 and especially in that growing brotherhood of scholars which is 
 to be found in every real University centre. At the Johns Hopkins 
 during the past year there have met, upon the common ground of 
 science, representative graduates from fifty-two different Colleges 
 and Universities, students from twenty-one different States of the 
 American Union, and from various foreign countries. If to this 
 record should be added a full account of the various College and 
 University connectionsthat, at onetimeoranother, have been enjoyed 
 by the ninety-four Fellows, by the eighty-six different Instructors, 
 Lecturers, Associates, and Professors who have been connected 
 with the Johns Hopkins, it would certainly appear that the leading 
 institutions of Europe and America had met in Baltimore by rep- 
 resentation. The College and University system of the world 
 would appear in microcosm. Without special knowledge of or 
 inquiry into the subject, one might enumerate the following Euro- 
 
Cooperation in University Work. 47 
 
 pean centres of learning which have afforded instruction and 
 scientific training to members of the Johns Hopkins University 
 staff: Oxford, Cambridge, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig, 
 Munich, Goettingen, Tubingen, Heidelberg, Strassburg, and other 
 German Universities, the round of two or three of which is always 
 made by American as well as by German students. Lecturers 
 from Oxford, Cambridge, the University of London, Freiburg ira 
 Breisgau, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Cornell, Michigan, Wisconsin, 
 Virginia, and Tennessee have appeared in Baltimore. More than 
 one hundred students and instructors have gone forth from the 
 Johns Hopkins University to lecture or teach elsewhere. Fifty 
 different institutions of collegiate or university grade have had 
 instructors from Baltimore. 
 
 It is interesting to view geographically the migration of influ- 
 ence from this University centre into the South, the South-West, 
 the West, across the Continent, and around the world. The Johns 
 Hopkins has sent professors or teachers to University of Virginia, 
 University of North Carolina, two Colleges and a Theological 
 Seminary in South Carolina, University of Louisiana, Universities 
 in Tennessee and Kentucky, three Colleges and a University in 
 Pennsylvania, two Colleges and a University in Ohio, University 
 of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, University of California, 
 University of Tokio, and University of Bonn. Baltimore specialists 
 have continued work in Universities of Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, 
 Jena, Munich, Heidelberg, Strassburg, Bonn, Goettingen, Paris, 
 London, Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh. Harvard and eight 
 of the higher institutions of learning in New England, (including 
 those at Amherst, Northampton, and Williamstown), Cornell, 
 Princeton, Western Maryland College, and various institutions in 
 the City of Baltimore, have seen fit to employ the services of 
 Johns Hopkins men as lecturers or instructors. 
 
 It is, to some extent, upon the historic basis of such connections 
 as these that the Johns Hopkins University is gradually widening 
 its lines of practical influence and efficient cooperation. Such 
 connections afford a vantage-ground for the up-building of Science, 
 for the extension of new methods in America, for the local estab- 
 lishment of new ideas. The present plan for the cooperative study 
 of Historical and Political Science is for advanced students, 
 whether teachers or pupils, here or elsewhere, to investigate in a 
 
48 Cooperation in University Work. . 
 
 systematic way the Institutional or Economic History of their own 
 section or locality. Young men, with slight experience in scien- 
 tific research, will see an obvious advantage in beginning work 
 upon familiar ground and upon limited areas. It is not necessary 
 to re-write the History of the " Constitution " or to grapple with 
 the giant of American Finance in order to learn how to deal with 
 historic and economic questions. History and Economy begin at 
 home. The family, the hamlet, or neighborhood, the school or 
 parish, the village, town, city, county, and state are historically 
 the ways by which men have approached national and international 
 life. It was a preliminary study of the geography of Frankfort 
 on the Main that led Carl Ritter to study the physical structure 
 of Europe and Asia, and thus to establish the new science of 
 Comparative Geography. He says, " Whoever has wandered 
 through the valleys and woods, and over the hills and mountains 
 of his own State, will be the one capable of following a Herodotus 
 in his wanderings over the globe." And we may say as Ritter 
 said of the science of geography, the first step in History is to 
 know thoroughly the district where we live. In America, Guyot 
 has represented for many years this method of teaching geog- 
 raphy. Huxley in his Physiography has introduced pupils to a 
 study of Nature in its entirety by calling attention to the physical 
 features of the Thames valley and the wide range of natural 
 phenomena that may be observed in any English Parish. Hum- 
 boldt long ago said in his Cosmos, "Every little nook and 
 shaded corner is but a reflection of the whole of Nature." There 
 is something very suggestive and very quickening in such a phil- 
 osophy of Nature and History as regards every spot of the earth's 
 surface, every pebble, every form of organic life, from the lowest 
 mollusk to the highest phase of human society, as a perfect micro- 
 cosm, perhaps an undiscovered world of suggestive truth. But it 
 is important to remember that all these things should be studied 
 in their widest relations. Natural history is of no significance if 
 viewed apart from Man. Human history is without foundation 
 if separated from Nature. The deeds of men, the genealogy of 
 families, the annals of quiet neighborhoods, the records of towns, 
 states and nations are per se of little consequence to history unless, 
 in some way, these isolated things are brought into vital connec- 
 tion with the progress and science of the world. To establish 
 
Cooperation in University Work. 49 
 
 such connections is sometimes like the discovery of unknown 
 lauds, the exploration of new countries, and the widening of the 
 world's horizon. 
 
 American local history should first be studied as a contribution 
 to national history. This country will yet be viewed and reviewed 
 as an organism of historic growth, developing from minute germs, 
 from the very protoplasm of state-life. And some day this country 
 will be studied in its international relations, as an organic part of 
 a larger organism now vaguely called the World State, but as 
 surely developing through the operation of economic, legal, social, 
 and scientific forces as the American Union, the German and 
 British Empires are evolving into higher forms. But American 
 History in its widest relations is not to be written by any one man 
 or by any one generation of men. Our History will grow with the 
 Nation and with its developing consciousness of internationality. 
 The present possibilities for the real progress of historic and eco- 
 nomic science lie, first and foremost, in the development of a gen- 
 eration of economists and practical historians, who realize that 
 History is past Politics and Politics present History ; secondly, 
 in the expansion of the local consciousness into a fuller sense of 
 its historic worth and dignity, of the cosmopolitan relations of 
 modern local life, and of its own wholesome conservative power 
 in these days of growing centralization. National and interna- 
 tional life can best develop upon the constitutional basis of Local 
 Self Government in Church and State. 
 
 The work of developing a generation of specialists has already 
 begun in the College and the University. The evolution of local 
 consciousness can perhaps be best effected through the Common 
 School. It is a suggestive local fact that the School Committee 
 of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, lately voted (Berkshire. 
 Courier, September 6, 1882) to introduce into their village High 
 School,* in the hands of an Amherst graduate, in connection with 
 Nordhoff's " Politics for Young Americans" and Jevons' "Primer 
 of Political Economy," the article upon "The Germanic Origin 
 of New England Towns," which was once read in part before 
 
 *The catalogue of the Great Barrington High Sc1i.mi1 (1882) shows that 
 the study of History and Politics is there founded, as it should be, upon 
 a geographical basis. 
 
50 Cooperation in University Work. 
 
 the Village Improvement Society of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 
 August 24, 1881, and published in the Pittsfield Evening Jour- 
 nal of that day. Local demand really occasioned a University 
 supply of the article in question. The possible connection between 
 the College and the Common School is still better illustrated by 
 the case of Professor Macy, of Iowa College, Grinnell, who is one 
 of the most active pioneers in teaching "the real, homely facts of 
 government," and who in 1881 published a little tract on Civil 
 Government in Iowa, which is now used by teachers throughout 
 that entire State in preparing their oral instructions for young 
 pupils, beginning with the township and the county, the institu- 
 tions that are "nearest and most easily learned." A special 
 pupil of Professor Macy's, Albert Shaw, A. B., Iowa College, 
 1879, is now writing a similar treatise on Civil Government in 
 Illinois for school use in that State. There should be such a 
 manual for every State in the Union. 
 
 It is curious to see how influences act and interact. In 1881, 
 Mr. Shaw came to the Johns Hopkins University, leaving the 
 conduct of a Grinnell newspaper in the hands of an associate 
 editor. Here in Baltimore, the young man from Iowa joined the 
 Historical Seminary and wrote a paper upon " Local Government 
 in Illinois," which won high praise from James Bryce, M. P., and 
 was, at the latter's request, published in the Fortnightly Review, 
 October, 1882, and will soon be republished in this University 
 Series. From such influences and such connections, local and 
 metropolitan, Mr. Shaw is now advancing to a study of the City 
 Government of Chicago, in connection with other workers in the 
 municipal field, which at present perhaps is the most important in 
 American Politics. 
 
 Studies in Historical and Political Science in connection with 
 the Johns Hopkins University will advance upon municipal lines 
 towards the scientific investigation of State and National Insti- 
 tutions, political, economic, and educational. By combination of 
 strength and by continual reinforcement, American History and 
 American Economics may finally advance in lines both long and 
 firm, as seen, for example, in the "Narrative and Critical His- 
 tory of the United States," which is the joint work of specialists 
 in various parts of the country. Extensive tracts of historic and 
 economic ground have been already preempted, but enough 
 
Cooperation in University Work. 51 
 
 remains for student immigration throughout the coming genera- 
 tion. The beauty of Science is that there are always New Worlds 
 to discover. And at the present moment, there await the student 
 pioneer vast tracts of American Institutional and Economic His- 
 tory almost as unbroken as were once the forests of America, her 
 coal measures and prairies, her mines of iron, silver and gold. 
 Individual and local effort will almost everywhere meet with quick 
 recognition and grateful returns. But scientific and cosmopolitan 
 relations with College and University centres, together with the 
 generous co-operation o'f all explorers in the same field, will cer- 
 tainly yield the most satisfactory results both to the individual 
 and to the community which he represents. 
 
 It is highly important that isolated students should avail them- 
 selves of the existing machinery of local libraries, the local press, 
 local societies, and local clubs. If such things do not exist, the 
 most needful should be created. No community is too small for 
 a Book Club and for an Association of some sort. Local studies 
 should always be connected in some way with the life of the 
 community and should always be used to quicken that life to 
 higher conciousness. A student, a teacher, who prepares a paper 
 on local history or some social question, should read it before the 
 Village Lyceum or some literary club or an association of teachers. 
 If encouraged to believe his work of any general interest or per- 
 manent value, he should print it in the local paper or in a local 
 magazine, perhaps an educational journal, without aspiring to the 
 highest popular monthlies, which will certainly reject all purely 
 local contributions by unknown contributors. It is far more 
 practicable to publish by local aid in pamphlet form or in the 
 proceedings of Associations and learned Societies, before which 
 such papers may sometimes be read. 
 
 It is highly desirable that every paper which appears in con- 
 nection with the Johns Hopkins University Studies should bear 
 the stamp of corporate recognition by some worthy local organi- 
 zation. Such approval and especially such preliminary publica- 
 tion, will introduce an unknown student to science with credentials 
 from a local constituency. Every paper which is to be printed in 
 this University Series has some such endorsement. In cases where 
 it is impracticable to secure preliminary publication or local recog- 
 nition, papers may be submitted to the Editor of this Series for 
 
52 Cooperation in University Work. 
 
 reference to a special committee and for ultimate report to the 
 Johns Hopkins Historical and Political Science Association, 
 which, with its tributary Seminaries of American Institutional 
 and Economic History is at present the main and not inadequate 
 supply for this University publication upon the present basis. 
 
 This experiment of a University Series in the field of Historical 
 and Political Science, like many other experiments in connection 
 with the educational policy of the Johns Hopkins, is "tentative." 
 It is primarily an attempt to meet a felt want on the part of grad- 
 uate students of History and Politics at this institution. It is 
 secondarily a means of efficient cooperation between graduates 
 here and friends of Historical and Political Science elsewhere, 
 along lines of inquiry that have been already opened in American 
 Institutional and Economic History. The plan is upon a very 
 safe footing and will not outrun the range of actual experience. 
 Every step thus far has been experimental. Every paper upon 
 the published list has relations established with some local clientage, 
 some learned society, magazine, or journal, or else with the Johns 
 Hopkins University. The foundations of the enterprise are thus 
 historical and economic. 
 
 Encouragement has been given to the undertaking by the Presi- 
 dent and Trustees of the Johns Hopkins University, by the His- 
 torical Societies of Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina; by 
 the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, by the 
 Essex Institute, the Magazine of American History, by the Penn- 
 sylvania Magazine of History and Biography, by the American 
 Antiquarian Society, the American Social Science Association, 
 and by the Fortnightly Review. Aside from such corporate 
 recognition, three eminent specialists in the field of History and 
 Politics have expressed their hearty approval of this project: Mr. 
 Edward A. Freeman, who stands as godfather to the series by a 
 contribution to its first number; James Bryce, M. P., who re- 
 quested one of the Studies for publication in an English Review ; 
 Maxime Kovalevsky, Professor of History and Politics in the 
 University of Moscow, who last summer came to this country to 
 investigate our agrarian history and the germ-life of American 
 Institutions, which subjects he found already in process of inves- 
 tigation at the Johns Hopkins University. 
 
 The international comity of Science is well illustrated in the 
 visit of this Russian Professor, the friend of Turgeuieff, who intro- 
 
Cooperation in University Work. 53 
 
 duced him to this country through Henry Holt, of New York. 
 After visiting Harvard University, Professor Kovalevsky came to 
 Baltimore with letters of introduction to members of the Johns 
 Hopkins, with some of whom he had already indirect acquaintance 
 through the cosmopolitan associations of German Universities. 
 On his way to Baltimore he visited the library of the Pennsylvania 
 Historical Society in Philadelphia and asked Mr. Stone, the libra- 
 rian and editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and 
 Biography, if he had any materials upon the subject of Local Self 
 Government in that State. "Nothing except proof-sheets," was 
 the response, and Mr. Stone handed Professor Kovalevsky an 
 article which Mr. E. R. L. Gould had lately read before the 
 Pennsylvania Historical Society and which was about to be printed 
 in the Magazine. The Professor continued his journey to Balti- 
 more and sought out Mr. Gould, as well as the scientific resources 
 of the Seminary, which, together with those of the Maryland 
 Historical Society, were placed entirely at his command. He 
 gathered much in a few days, chiefly documents, touching the 
 history of our Public Lands and the mode of settling and organ- 
 izing the Great West. He requested the cooperation of the 
 Seminary in making known to Russia the Institutional and Eco- 
 nomic History of the United States. He made arrangements for 
 the sending to Moscow of all monographs in this Series as soon as 
 published, and even secured proof sheets of Mr. Gould's article 
 and other University papers in their first form of publication. 
 But he gave the Seminary far more than he received. He held 
 long conferences with individual members ; he put them upon 
 the track of old world monographs that had escaped American 
 notice; he put individuals in communication with European 
 scholars; he gave many useful suggestions as to the best methods 
 of exploiting Old English Institutional and Economic History, 
 upon which subjects he himself has worked for many years. 
 
 Professor Kovalevsky is the leading Russian authority in the 
 field of economic and institutional history, wherein there have 
 been and are so many co-workers in various countries, among 
 whom are George and Konrad Von Maurer, Hanssen, Meit/.en, 
 Thun, Nasse, Knies, Roscher, Biicher, Held, Inama-Sternegg, 
 Brentano, Colin, Ochenkowski, Miaskowsky, Laveleye, Kustel de 
 Coulanges, Rogers, Sir Henry Maine, Mr. Scebolim, Henry Adams, 
 
54 Cooperation in University Work. 
 
 H. C. Lodge, Ernest Young, J. Laurence Laughlin, W. F. Allen, 
 and D. W. Ross. In the Revue Historique, the French rival of 
 the Hislorische Zeitnchrift, is an appreciative Review, May and 
 June, 1882, of Kovalevsky's labors in the history of communal 
 institutions. In speaking of his two most recent works, written 
 in Russian, one on Communal Property (I. Moscow, 1879) and 
 the other on the Social Organization of England at the close of 
 the Middle Ages (Moscow, 1880), it is said, " Ce sont les ouvrages 
 les plus importants et les plus solides qui aient vu le jour en Russie 
 dans ces deux dernieres annees." The first work, not yet com- 
 pleted, concerns communal property among the native races of 
 America, the agrarian policy of Spain in the East Indies, com- 
 munal property in India, modifications of the land tenure in India 
 by Mohammedan and English dominion, land tenure in Algiers 
 and the agrarian policy of France. Kovalevsky has also written 
 an Umriss einer Gesehichte der Zerstiickelung der Feldgemein- 
 schaft im Kanton Waadt (Zurich, 1877), and various other works, 
 in French and Russian. 
 
 The advice and encouragement of such a cosmopolite in Sci- 
 ence, who is equally at home in Paris, London, Berlin, and 
 Moscow, who has investigated the social and economic history of 
 countries as wide apart as India and America, who studies the 
 Landesgemeinde of Switzerland, the Town Meeting of New 
 England, and the Russian Mir as kindred institutions, who views 
 the American Prairies of the Great West and the Russian Steppes 
 of the Great East in the same economic light, who represents in 
 his political philosophy the wide horizon of internationality as 
 well as nation, state, and narrow commune, the advice and 
 encouragement of such a man cannot but quicken American 
 youth who are beginners in Science. There is no danger of their 
 studies being lost or absorbed in such a master mind. On the 
 contrary, through such influences, through such connections with 
 European scholars and European journals, good local work in 
 America will pass into higher international forms and yet remain 
 distinctively American. 
 
 European scholars are only too glad to accept and recognize as 
 authoritative the special work of American students investigating 
 upon their own ground, with all the advantages of local acquaint- 
 ance, local observation, local libraries, (private and public), local 
 
Cooperation in University Work. 55 
 
 societies, local sympathy, and local cooperation. Foreign scholars, 
 who travel through this country in a hurried way, know well that 
 their knowledge of the land is superficial and their experience 
 necessarily limited. Observers of American Democracy like 
 Tocqueville, Kovalevsky, Freeman, Bryce, and Herbert Spencer 
 may ascend the very citadel of scientific privilege; they may view 
 the country with their own eyes, through newspapers, or through 
 books, but they can never command the American situation. Nor 
 is this their ambition. Their primary object is to sketch America 
 for the benefit of their own countrymen ; and they are always glad 
 to carry home suggestive ideas for the completion of their sketches. 
 Professor Kovalevsky would have been delighted to find in Bal- 
 timore articles on the Local Self-Government of every State in 
 the Union. Mr. Bryce would have been pleased to find some 
 scientific account of the origin and course of that municipal rev- 
 olution in Philadelphia, where, in classic speech, Mr. Freeman 
 described the overthrow of one-man power as procumbit humi 
 bos ! 
 
 American students are beginning to find out the scientific sig- 
 nificance of contemporary Municipal and National Politics in 
 America. They are beginning to see what wide-reaching eco- 
 nomic, institutional, administrative, educational, political, and 
 international problems may be investigated at home without going 
 abroad for original material. Old world science and old world 
 methods have been introduced into this country in a liberal way 
 during the past few decades, and from this scientific vantage- 
 ground it would seem to be most advisable for American students 
 of History and Politics to enter fields for which there are in this 
 country very superior advantages. While recognizing the unity 
 of all Science, we must nevertheless admit that there are limita- 
 tions and varying conditions for the successful prosecution of 
 certain branches. It would obviously be very poor economy for 
 an American, living in this country, to attempt to write the mu- 
 nicipal or economic history of any English Town, German Free 
 City, or French Commune, for which work the best, if not the 
 only, materials are upon the other side of the Ocean. On the 
 other hand, not even Deutscher Fleiss, or a German University, 
 or the British Museum, can amass and control the materials, 
 manuscript and printed, relating to a single American city or one 
 
56 Cooperation in University Work. 
 
 of the older New England Towns. And yet such resources can 
 easily he commanded by Americans at home, through the media- 
 tion of State Historical Societies, or through connection with 
 American antiquarians and local historians. Why should Amer- 
 icans attempt to write the history of foreign governments, foreign 
 institutions, old world economies, when there is so much to do 
 upon home-ground ? The results of European investigations lie 
 before our very doors, and can be employed in a thousand legiti- 
 mate ways for the upbuilding of American Institutional and 
 American Economic History. Pioneer work and fresh discoveries 
 are everywhere possible in this country; but this cannot be said 
 so emphatically of the Old World. All the benefit of scientific 
 method and scholarly training that could be derived from travers- 
 ing and re-traversing the archaeological fields of Europe, may be 
 enjoyed in America, with the additional advantage of finding new 
 truth in independent ways. 
 
 No country has such scientific possibilities as America, where 
 in a College Town of 12,000 inhabitants, like Northampton, Mas- 
 sachusetts, one individual, Judge Forbes, leaves a bequest of over 
 two hundred thousand dollars for a free public library " of science 
 and the arts in their broadest acceptation, of ancient and modern 
 history, and of the literature of our own and other nations ; " or 
 where, as in the city of Baltimore, another individual, George 
 Peabody, endows with $1,250,000 an institute, comprising, (in 
 addition to lecture courses, a conservatory of music, and an art 
 gallery), "an extensive library, to be well furnished in every 
 department, to satisfy the researches of students who may be en- 
 gaged in the pursuit of knowledge not ordinarily attainable in the 
 private libraries of the country;" and where another individual, 
 Enoch Pratt, endows another public library with over a million 
 dollars; and where still another philanthropist endows a Univer- 
 sity and a Hospital upon a scientific basis with a total fund of 
 $7,000,000. And if such generous foundations are not enough to 
 gratify the growing wants of young Americans, there is the 
 expanding Library of Congress, the Library of the State Depart- 
 ment, with its manuscript treasures, the Smithsonian Institute, 
 and the scientific resources of the National Government, which, 
 through proper channels, may be commanded by the poorest 
 student. 
 
Cooperation in University Work. 57 
 
 And yet even these prospects, my hearers, are not the widest 
 which are opening to view. Through University cooperation in 
 Baltimore, the individual scholar may now command the latest 
 results of scientific inquiry, even before it takes permanent form 
 in printed volumes and in the great libraries of Town, City, and 
 Nation. Through our University Journals, the teacher of science, 
 and the special student, even though removed from scientific cen- 
 tres, may learn of the progress of his department in this country 
 and in Europe. Through a system of scientific exchanges, now 
 developing in Baltimore, the Proceedings of learned societies, the 
 most recent discoveries in foreign laboratories of science are 
 quickly made known to American students. Through a New 
 Book Department, the freshest monographs and the newest books, 
 French, German, and English, are brought to student-notice 
 immediately upon publication, so that Americans in Baltimore 
 are more sure of seeing these things than is possible in the smaller 
 German University towns, where such library organization is 
 unknown. 
 
 By organized, cooperative effort, American students earn estab- 
 lish organic relations with Europeau Universities, Old World 
 Societies, foreign magazines of a special character, scientific appli- 
 ances for publication, both in this country and in Europe, in 
 fact with the whole complex of Modern Science, into which no 
 individual student can possibly find his way without scientific 
 associations. Fellowship in Science will always afford the indi- 
 vidual greater strength than he can acquire alone. A connection 
 with learned societies, special libraries, special journals, is highly 
 advantageous. Cooperation in University work and the organi- 
 zation of scientific results are very important for American 
 students, who wish to advance the cause of special education in 
 this country, and thereby the cause of American Science. 
 
Ill 
 
 Local Government in Illinois 
 
 Local Government in Pennsylvania 
 
"It is not creditable to us as an educated people that while our students are well 
 acquainted with the state machinery of Athens and Rome, they should be ignorant of 
 the corresponding institutions of our own forefathers: institutions that possess a living 
 interest for every nation that realises its identity, and have exercised on the well-being 
 of the civilised world an influence not inferior certainly to that of the Classical 
 nations. " Stubbs, Select Charters. 
 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 1 N 
 
 Historical and Political Science 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History is past Politics and Politics present History.- Freeman 
 
 III 
 
 Local Government in Illinois 
 
 By ALBERT SHAW, A. B. 
 
 Kepriiitecl from tlie Fortnightly Review 
 ANI> 
 
 Local Government in Pennsylvania 
 
 By E. R. L. GOULD, A. B. 
 
 Head before the Pennsylvania Historical Society, May I, ISS2 
 
 P. A LT I M (i i: K 
 
 Publishkd by Tin'. Johns Hopkins Inivkusiiv 
 
 JANUARY, 18 8.5. 
 
JOHN MOKPHY & CO., PRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN ILLINOIS. 
 
 It is difficult to approach the study of the political systems 
 to-day iu operation in the new Western States without a 
 feeling that they are wholly artificial and superimposed in- 
 ventions rather than growths. Such preconceptions must in 
 good measure yield before a study of the simple facts. Arti- 
 ficial and mathematical as is that checker- board system of 
 local geography which a township map of Illinois depicts, it 
 nevertheless furnishes metes and bounds for local govern- 
 ments which are neither novel nor experimental, hut arc 
 transplanted scions from older growths of Anglo-Saxon com- 
 munal life, which have already taken firm root in prairie 
 soil and have easily adapted themselves to the modifying 
 influences of the new environment. It must he remembered 
 that the prairie farmer is descended from people who for cen- 
 turies have had the habit of attending to their own local 
 affairs ; and that with all bis fondness for paper constitutions 
 and minute written laws, he is but re enacting, under modi- 
 fied forms, the social arrangements under which the Auglo- 
 Saxon usually insists upon living, wherever yon transplant 
 him. The safeguards and maxims of the common law ari- 
 as truly the heritage of the young Anglo-Saxon in the Mis. 
 sissippi Valley as of his cousin on the Severn or the Thames. 
 
 The precise forms under which the people of Illinois are 
 to-day governing themselves have been largely shaped by 
 certain facts in the history of the State, and will be best un- 
 derstood in the light of a preliminary historical sketch. 
 
 Migration from the Atlantic States to (lie interior and 
 Western States has always followed the parallels of latitude. 
 
 A 
 
t> Local Government in Illinois. 
 
 Illinois is a remarkable illustration of this tendency. A 
 glance at the map will show that the State's greatest length 
 (nearly four hundred miles) is from north to south ; and that 
 the parallels which mark its northern and southern limits 
 include the sea-board States from New Hampshire to North 
 Carolina. Natural^', then, Southern Illinois derived its 
 population from Virginia and other Southern States, while 
 Northern Illinois was chiefly settled from Massachusetts and 
 other New England States. The inquiry into the habits and 
 opinions of government which these people brought with 
 them to their new homes must carry us a step further back. 
 
 M. de Tocqueville, who made his survey of American 
 institutions at. a time when the migratory tide was setting 
 strongly toward Illinois, and when her institutions were in a 
 formative stage, says that " two branches may be distin- 
 guished in the Anglo-American family, which have grown 
 up without entirely commingling the one in the north, the 
 other in the south." New England had been colonized by 
 men who were, in the language of the same writer, u neither 
 lords nor common people, neither rich nor poor." A people 
 so similar in education, so agreed in religious beliefs, and so 
 equal in property and in social rank, formed the best material 
 for a pure democracy that the world had ever seen. Gradu- 
 ally they covered New England with a congeries of small 
 self-governing agricultural communities, each with a strongly 
 individual character, and bearing some striking resemblances 
 to the ancient Teutonic "mark." Qualifications for the ex- 
 ercise of political privileges were not onerous, and the whole 
 body of qualified citizens were accustomed to assemble in 
 u town meetings," where they elected officers, discussed 
 neighborhood interests, made laws, and voted taxes. Even 
 when, after the separation from England, the State govern- 
 ments had become firmly established, the towns were still 
 permitted to make and administer most of those laws which 
 were of immediate concern to them. The legislature of the 
 State was composed of representatives from the towns, and 
 made laws which affected the towns only in matters of com- 
 mon interest. Such State laws, furthermore, were executed 
 
Local Government in Illinois. 7 
 
 by the town officers within their respective jurisdictions. 
 The New England county was an aggregation of towns to 
 constitute a judicial district, wherein might be maintained 
 a judiciary establishment midway between the justices' 
 courts of the towns and the superior court of the State. The 
 county had no very distinct political character. As a whole, 
 the New England system was one highly localized both in 
 administration and in authority. 
 
 In Virginia the structure of society was radically dif- 
 ferent. Opposed to the small freeholds of New England, we 
 find from the beginning a tendency to mass the land in large 
 estates. The institution of slavery, which always dishonors 
 and degrades free labor, forbade the growth of a strong 
 middle class. The wealthy planter had no interest in com- 
 mon with his tenants and servants. The communal life of 
 village or neighborhood could not develop under such an 
 industrial system. The planter was a sort of feudal lord on 
 his own domain, and local self-rule by majorities found no 
 place. We find territorial divisions, but chiefly for con- 
 venience in limiting the jurisdiction of courts, collecting 
 State taxes, and holding State elections. The State Govern- 
 ment was the centre both of authority and administration. 
 The Governor appointed all justices of the peace throughout 
 the State. The justices residing in any county constituted 
 a county court, which, in addition to judicial functions, was 
 intrusted with the management of all the county Imsiness. 
 This court co-operated with the Governor in appointing 
 sheriff and coroner. It appointed constables and road com- 
 missioners, levied taxes, and when the State had made some 
 provision for schools, the county court appointed the board 
 of school commissioners. A landed aristocracy thus became 
 the State's fiscal agents, the local magistrates, and the sole 
 managers of county affairs. The subdivisions of the county 
 for elections, schools, and care of paupers, were mere parti- 
 tions of territory, without political significance. 
 
 These two diverse systems of New Kngland and Virginia 
 were destined to meet and to strive for supremacy in Nlinois. 
 
 Though Illinois forms a part of the vast territory claimed 
 
8 Local Government in Illinois. 
 
 by the British Crown in virtue of Cabot's voyage of 1498, 
 and was, in part, included in the original Virginia grant, it 
 nevertheless was in possession of the French until finally 
 ceded to England at the close of the "French and Indian 
 War," in 1763. French peasants to the number of three 
 thousand had formed village settlements in the southern part 
 of the State, on the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. For 
 fifteen years they maintained a military government, with 
 headquarters at the French village of Kaskaskia. In 1778, 
 during the Revolutionary War, the State of Virginia sent 
 out a little force of men, who made their way through the 
 wilderness, took Kaskaskia, and readily persuaded all the 
 French villagers to swear allegiance to Virginia. That en- 
 terprising commonwealth proceeded to organize Illinois as a 
 Virginia county, including under that name the entire coun- 
 try north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi. Although 
 before a decade had elapsed Virginia and the other individual 
 States had ceded their western territories to the United 
 States, Illinois had already received some impress of Vir- 
 ginian forms of government. 
 
 Under the famous "Ordinance of 1787," Congress estab. 
 lished a provisional government for the country north of the 
 Ohio, which now took the name of the "Northwestern Ter- 
 ritory." This charter did not provide for municipal corpo- 
 rations. It allowed the people a representative assembly, 
 and exacted a very low property qualification from electors. 
 While the Legislature was permitted to make all needful 
 laws, the Governor, himself appointed by Congress, was au- 
 thorized by the ordinance to appoint all minor officers 
 throughout the territory. This, manifestly, was after the 
 Virginian pattern, and was, in fact, the work of no less a Vir- 
 ginian statesman than Mr. Jefferson. But, while the ordi- 
 nance made no provision for the immediate exercise of local 
 self-government, it did establish principles which formed a 
 basis for the healthy municipal life of a later period. It or. 
 dained free trade in land, and the law of partible inheritance 
 by which all the children of an intestate were equal heirs. 
 Add to these two the provision forever excluding slavery, 
 
Local Government in Illinois. ( j 
 
 and a landed aristocracy becomes impossible a citizenship 
 of small freeholders is infallibly guaranteed. Among other 
 rights forever confirmed to the people by this enlightened 
 Charter of 1787, we find freedom of opinion and worship, 
 trial by jury, the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus, the 
 _ judicial methods of the common law, and proportionate repre- 
 sentation. 
 
 One by one Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana were carved from 
 the Northwestern Territory, till, in 1800, Illinois was erected 
 into a territorial government under its present name. In 
 1818 it was allowed to form a State constitution, and passed 
 from its political wardship to the status of a self-controlling 
 commonwealth. Meantime, immigration had been almost 
 exclusively directed to the southern part of the State. The 
 early French settlements, and Virginia's temporary connec- 
 tion with them, seem to have been the determining influences 
 in producing a fact which is the key to much of the legisla- 
 tive history of the State, viz., that the southern half of the 
 State was settled earliest, and that these pioneers were from 
 Virginia, Kentucky, and the Carolinas. It was they who 
 formed the Constitution of 1818, and the instrument hears 
 witness to the origin of its authors. It is true that these 
 sturdy frontier-men were not from aristocratic ranks of 
 Southern society. They may be said to represent that re- 
 vival of democracy and of the old Anglo-Saxon spirit which 
 the second war with England awakened in the lower classes 
 of the South; and their exodus to the free soil of the wilder- 
 ness may be characterized as a protest against the semi-feud- 
 alism that was crushing them in Virginia. Nevertheless. 
 they were Southern men, accustomed to Southern forms of 
 government, and intensely prejudiced against anything that 
 savored of Xew England. 
 
 At the time of its admission to the Union, Illinois was di- 
 vided into fifteen large counties. The Constitution of 1818, 
 and laws made pursuant to it, placed the entire business 
 management of each count}' in the hands of a court of three 
 County Commissioners. We have here a reproduction of the 
 Virginia Court, with two important differences, however: 
 
10 Local Government in Illinois. 
 
 First, these Commissioners were elected by the people of the 
 county; and, second, by a process of differentiation, this Illi- 
 nois Court had no judical functions, the county judiciary 
 being made a distinct tribunal. The people also chose in 
 every county ;i sheriff, coroner, clerk, treasurer, surveyor, and 
 recorder. The Commissioners appointed election judges, road 
 supervisors, and overseers of the poor, dividing the county 
 into districts for these purposes. Every election precinct was 
 entitled to two justices of the peace, who were appointed by 
 the Governor of the State. After 1826, however, the people 
 of each precinct were allowed to elect their justices. The 
 Commissioners had a narrow range of discretionary power, 
 but there was no power given to communities to control 
 local affairs, or to enact by-laws in promotion of neighbor- 
 hood interests. 
 
 But even at this time there had been planted in Illinois, 
 and throughout the whole West, a germ capable, under right 
 conditions, of developing a highly organized township system. 
 In dividing and designating the public domain, the Congress 
 of the United States had early adopted the system of survey 
 into bodies six miles, square, and had given these divisions 
 the New-England name of toicnships. For purposes of record 
 and sale, each township was divided into thirty-six sections 
 a mile square, and these were further subdivided. Every 
 man held his land by a deed which reminded him that his 
 freehold was part of a township, and there is much even in a 
 name. But further than this, the United States had given to 
 the people of every township a mile of land, the proceeds of. 
 which should be a permanent township school-fund. To 
 give effect to this liberal provision, the State enacted a law 
 making the township a body corporate and politic for school 
 purposes, and authorizing the inhabitants to elect school 
 officers and maintain free schools. Here, then, was a rudi- 
 ment of local government. As New-England township life 
 grew up around the church, so western localism finds its 
 nucleus in the school system. What more natural than that 
 the county election district should soon be made to coincide 
 with the school township, with a school-house for the voting- 
 
Local Government in Illinois. 11 
 
 place? or, that justices of the peace, constables, road super- 
 visors, and overseers of the poor, should have their' jurisdic- 
 tions' determined by those same township lines? 
 
 The admission of Missouri to the Union as a slave State. 
 under the " Compromise Bill" of 1820, seems to have turned 
 the tide of southern migration toward that quarter; while 
 from that time the free State of Illinois began to receive con- 
 stant and strong accessions from New England and New 
 York. The northern counties particularly were filled with 
 swarms from the eastern hive. There resulted a sectional 
 bitterness and strife in legislative councils, northern ideas 
 gradually hecoming dominant. The struggle culminated in 
 the convention which met in 1847 to revise the constitution, 
 and in good measure ceased with the adoption of the revised 
 instrument the following year. This constitution met the 
 question of local government with a compromise. It provided 
 that the Legislature should enact a general law for the poli- 
 tical organization of townships, under which any county 
 might act whenever a majority of its voters should so deter- 
 mine. Under the Act accordingly passed by the General 
 Assembly, all the northern counties proceeded promptly to 
 adopt township organization, while the southern counties 
 retained their old county system described above. This was 
 one of those happy, but unusual, compromises whereby both 
 parties gain their principle. It was rendered possible by 
 the distinctly sectional line of demarcation which separated 
 the two elements of population. In Ohio and Indiana the 
 same diverse elements of population had been more thor- 
 oughly commingled; and their "compromise system"' was 
 the outcome of mutual concession a hybrid affair, in which 
 township organization was very limited and imperfect. 
 
 The form of township government adopted by the Illinois 
 Legislature was a modification of the New England system, 
 changes being made to meet western conditions. It may be 
 regarded as the model system of the Union. One by one the 
 southern counties of the State have become converted to it, 
 until at the present time only about one-fifth of the one 
 hundred and two counties in Illinois cling to the old county 
 
12 Local Government in Illinois. 
 
 system. "Without comment on the minute changes made in 
 the course of thirty years' legislation, we may pass to a view 
 of the local institutions as they are now in operation. 
 
 When the people of a county have voted to adopt the 
 township system, the commissioners proceed to divide the 
 county into towns, making them conform with the congres- 
 sional or school townships, except in special cases. Every 
 town is invested with corporate capacity to be a party in 
 legal suits, to own and control property, and to make con- 
 tracts. The annual town-meeting of the whole voting popu- 
 lation, held on the first Tuesday in April for the election of 
 town officers and the transaction of miscellaneous business, 
 is the central fact in the town government. The following 
 is a summary of what the people may do in town-meeting: 
 They may make any orders concerning the acquisition, use, 
 or sale of town property ; direct officers in the exercise of 
 their duties; vote taxes for roads and bridges, and for other 
 lawful purposes; vote to institute or defend suits at law; 
 legislate on the subject of noxious weeds, and offer rewards 
 to encourage the extermination of noxious plants and ver- 
 min ; regulate the running at large of cattle and other ani- 
 mals ; establish pounds, and provide for the impounding and 
 sale of stray and trespassing animals; provide public wells 
 and watering-places; enact by-laws and rules to carry their 
 powers into effect ; impose fines and penalties, and apply 
 such fines in any manner conducive to the interests of the 
 town. 
 
 The town officers are a supervisor, who is ex-offieio over- 
 seer of the poor, a clerk, an assessor, and a collector, all of 
 whom are chosen annually; three commissioners of high- 
 ways elected for three years, one retiring every year; and 
 two justices of the peace and two constables, who hold office 
 for four years. 
 
 On the morning appointed for the town-meeting, the voters 
 assemble, and proceed to choose a moderator, who presides 
 for the day. Balloting for town officers at once begins, the 
 supervisor, collector, and assessor acting as election judges. 
 Every male citizen of the United States who is twenty-one 
 
Local Government in Illinois. 13 
 
 years old, who has resided in the State a year, in the county 
 ninety days, and in the township thirt}- days, is entitled to 
 vote at town-meeting; but a year's residence in the town is 
 required for eligibility to office. At two o'clock, the mode- 
 rator calls the meeting to order for the consideration of busi- 
 ness pertaining to those subjects already enumerated. Every- 
 thing is done by the usual rules and methods of parliamentary 
 bodies. The clerk of the town is secretary of the meeting, 
 and preserves a record of all the proceedings. Special town- 
 meetings may be held whenever the supervisor, clerk, and 
 justices, or any two of them, together with fifteen voters, 
 shall have filed with the clerk a statement that a meeting is 
 necessary, for objects which they specify. The clerk then 
 gives public notice in a prescribed way. Such special meet- 
 ings act only upon the subjects named in the call. 
 
 The supervisor is both a town and a county officer. If' is 
 general manager of town business, and is also a member of 
 the County Board, which is composed of the supervisors of 
 the several towns, and which has general control of the 
 county business. As a town officer, he receives and pays 
 out all town money, excepting the highway and school 
 funds. His financial report is presented by the clerk at 
 town-meeting. The latter officer is the custodian of the 
 town's records, books, and papers. 
 
 The highway commissioners, in their oversight of roads 
 and bridges, are controlled by a large body of statute law. 
 and by the enactments of the town-meeting. Highways are 
 maintained by taxes levied on real and personal property, 
 and by a poll tax of two dollars, exacted from every able- 
 bodied citizen between the ages of twenty-one and fifty. It 
 may be paid in money, or in labor under the direction of 
 the commissioners. One of the commissioners is constituted 
 Treasurer, and he receives and pays out all road moneys. 
 
 The supervisor acts as overseer of tin 1 poor. The law 
 leaves it to be determined by the people of a county whether 
 the separate towns or the county at large shall assume the 
 care of paupers. When the town has tin- matter in charge, 
 the overseer generally provides for the indigent by a system 
 
14 Local Government in Illinois. 
 
 of out-door relief. If the county supports the poor, the 
 County Board is authorized to establish a poor-house and 
 farm for the permanent care of the destitute, and temporary 
 relief is afforded by the overseers in their respective towns, 
 at the county's expense. 
 
 The Board of Town Auditors, composed of the super- 
 visor, the clerk, and the justices, examine all accounts of 
 the supervisor, overseer of poor, and highway commission- 
 ers; pass upon all claims and charges against the town, and 
 audit all bills for compensation presented by town officers. 
 The accounts thus audited are kept on tile by the clerk for 
 public inspection, and are reported at the next town meeting. 
 
 The supervisor, assessor, and clerk constitute a Board of 
 Health. The clerk records their doings, and reports them at 
 the meeting of the town. 
 
 ~Ho stated salaries are paid to town officers. They are 
 compensated according to a schedule of fixed fees for specific 
 services, or else receive certain per diem wages for time ac- 
 tually employed in official duties. The tax-collector's emo- 
 lument is a percentage. 
 
 The Justices of the Peace have jurisdiction in minor 
 criminal cases, in civil suits, when the amount in controversy 
 does not exceed the value of two hundred dollars, and in all 
 actions brought for violation of city- or town ordinances. 
 
 For school purposes, the township is made a separate and 
 distinct corporation, with the legal style, " Trustees of 
 Schools of Township , Range ," according to the num- 
 ber by which the township is designated in the Congressional 
 Survey. The School Trustees, three in number, are usually 
 elected with the officers of the civil township at town-meet- 
 ing, and hold office for three years. They organize by 
 choosing one of their number President, and by selecting 
 some fourth person for School Treasurer, who shall also be, 
 ex-officio, their secretary. They have authority to divide the 
 township into school districts. It must be remembered that 
 the township is exactly six miles square. It is the custom 
 to divide it into nine districts two miles square, and to erect 
 a school-house near the centre of each. As the county roads 
 
Local Government in Illinois. 15 
 
 are in most instances constructed on the section lines and 
 therefore run north and south, east and west, at intervals of 
 a mile the traveller expects to find a school-house at every 
 alternate crossing. The people who live in these suit-dis- 
 tricts elect three school directors, who control the school in 
 their neighborhood. They are obliged to maintain a free 
 school for not less than five nor more than nine months in 
 every year, are empowered to build and furnish school- 
 houses, hire teachers, and fix their salaries, and determine 
 what studies shall be taught. They may levy taxes on all 
 the taxable property in their district, but are forbidden to 
 exceed a rate of two per cent, for educational or three per 
 cent, for building purposes. They certify to the township 
 school treasurer the amount they require, and it is collected 
 as hereafter described. This last-named officer holds all 
 school funds belonging to the township, and pays out on the 
 order of the Directors of the several districts. 
 
 The township funds for the support of schools arise from 
 three sources. (1) The proceeds of the school lands given 
 by the United States Government, the interest from which 
 alone may be expended. (2) The State annually levies on 
 all property a tax of one fifth of one per cent., which con- 
 stitutes a State school fund, and is divided among the coun- 
 ties in the ratio of their school population, and is further 
 distributed among the townships in the same ratio. (3) Any 
 amount needed in addition to these sums is raised by taxa- 
 tion in the districts under authority of the directors. 
 
 All persons between the ages of six and twenty-one years 
 are entitled to free-school privileges. Women are eligible 
 to every school office in the State, and are frequently chosen 
 directors. 
 
 The average Illinois county contains sixteen townships. 
 The county government is established at some place desig- 
 nated by the voters, and called the "county seat.'' The 
 corporate powers of the county are exercised by the County 
 Board, which in counties under township organization is 
 composed of the several town supervisors, while in other 
 counties it consists of three commissioners elected by the 
 
16 Local Government in Illinois. 
 
 people of the whole county. The Board manage all county 
 property, funds, and business ; erect a court-house, jail, poor- 
 house, and any necessary buildings; levy county taxes, audit 
 all accounts and claims against the county, and, in counties 
 not under township organization, have general oversight of 
 highways and paupers. Even in counties which have given 
 the care of highways to the townships, the County Board 
 may appropriate funds to aid in constructing the more im- 
 portant roads and expensive bridges. The proceedings of 
 the Board are recorded by the County Clerk, who also draws 
 orders on the Treasurer for all claims which they have 
 audited and allowed. In his office, official bonds and other 
 important papers are filed and recorded. 
 
 The treasurer, sheriff, coroner, and surveyor are county 
 functionaries, who perform the duties usually pertaining to 
 their offices. The County Superintendent of Schools has 
 oversight of all educational matters, advises town trustees 
 and district directors, and collects complete school statistics, 
 which he reports to the County Board, and transmits to the 
 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 
 
 Every county elects a judge, who has full probate juris- 
 diction, and appoints administrators, executors, and guar- 
 dians. He also has jurisdiction in civil suits at law involv- 
 ing not more than $1,000, in such minor criminal cases as 
 are cognizable by a justice of the peace, and may entertain 
 appeals from justices' or police courts. The State is divided 
 into thirteen judicial districts, in each of which the people 
 elect three judges, who constitute a Circuit Court. The tri- 
 bunal holds two or more sessions annually in each county 
 within the circuit, and is attended at every term by a grand 
 and a petit jury. It has a general original jurisdiction, and 
 hears appeals from the County Judge and from Justices' 
 Courts. To complete the judicial system of the State, there 
 are four Appellate Courts and one Supreme Court of last 
 resort. 
 
 Taxes, whether for State, county, or town purposes, are 
 computed on the basis of the assessment made by the 
 Town Assessoi, and are collected by the Town Collector. 
 
Local Government in Illinois. 17 
 
 The assessor views and values all real estate, and requires 
 from all persons a true list of their personal property. The 
 assessor, clerk, and supervisor constitute a Town Equalizing 
 Board, to hear complaints, and to adjust and correct the 
 assessment. The assessors' books from all the towns then 
 go before the County Board, who make such corrections as 
 shall cause valuations in one town to bear just relation to 
 valuations in the others. The County Clerk transmits an 
 abstract of the corrected assessment of the county to the 
 Auditor of State, who places it in the hands of a State 
 Board of Equalization. This board adjusts valuations be- 
 tween counties. All taxes are estimated and collected on 
 this finally corrected assessment. The State authorities, the 
 county board, the town supervisors, the highway commis- 
 sioners, the township school trustees, and the proper offi- 
 cers of incorporated cities and villages, all certify to the 
 county clerk a statement of the amount they require for 
 their several purposes. The clerk prepares a collection book 
 for each town, explaining therein the sum to be raised for 
 each purpose. Having collected the total amount, the col- 
 lector disburses to each proper authority its respective quota. 
 
 In all elections, whether for President of the United 
 States, representatives of Congress, State officers, or county 
 officers, the township constitutes an election precinct, and 
 the supervisor, assessor, and collector sit as the election 
 judges. 
 
 The words "town" and "township," as they occur in this 
 article, signify a territorial division of the county, incorpo- 
 rated for purposes of local government. There remains to he 
 mentioned a very numerous class of municipal corporations- 
 known in Illinois statutes as "villages" and "cities." A 
 minimum population of three hundred, occupying territory 
 not more than two square miles in extent, may, by popular 
 vote, become incorporated as a " village," under provisions 
 of the general law. Six village trustees arc chosen, and they 
 make one of their number president", thereby conferring on 
 him the general duties of a mayor. At their discretion, the 
 trustees appoint a clerk, a treasurer, a street commissioner, a 
 
18 Local Government in Illinois. 
 
 village constable, and other officers, as they deem necessary. 
 The people may elect a police magistrate, whose jurisdiction 
 is equal to that of a justice of the peace. When a territory 
 not more than four square miles in extent contains at least 
 one thousand inhabitants, the general law provides for or- 
 ganization and incorporation as a u city." Its government 
 will consist of a mayor and aldermen, who constitute the 
 city council. Cities whose population does not exceed three 
 thousand, are divided into three wards, each ward electing 
 two aldermen. The number of wards and aldermen increases 
 in the ratio of population. Mayor and aldermen are elected 
 for two years. The mayor has a veto on the ordinances of 
 the council, though he may be overruled by a two-thirds vote. 
 The council controls a wide range of subjects, which are spe- 
 cified in the statutes of the State. They manage the city's 
 finances, appropriating money, levying taxes, and borrowing 
 money though the city's total indebtedness may never ex- 
 ceed five per cent, of its assessed .valuation. Their authority 
 extends to streets, gas and water supply, parks, harbors, 
 markets, cemeteries, public amusements, the liquor traffic, 
 police and police courts, jails and workhouses, the fire de- 
 partment, and numerous other city interests. They have 
 power to make ordinances, and affix penalties, not exceeding 
 six months' imprisonment, or a fine of two hundred dollars. 
 Other city officers vary with the population, and need not be 
 enumerated. 
 
 These incorporated villages and cities remain parts of the 
 civil township, and share in the burdens and privileges of 
 town government. They also remain parts of the school 
 township, and are' subject to the general provisions of the 
 school law, excepting that in school districts containing 
 more than two thousand inhabitants the three district direc- 
 tors are superseded by a board of education consisting of six 
 members, and of three additional members for every ten 
 thousand of additional population. Such districts must 
 support schools from six to ten months in the year, may be 
 divided into sub-districts, and may employ a superintendent 
 of schools. 
 
Local Government in Illinois. 19 
 
 Such is a synopsis of local self-government in Illinois; 
 and such, with more or les^ important differences, are the 
 minor political institutions of nearly every State in the 
 Union. Without a high conception of their influence no 
 just estimate of the American character is possible. They 
 have been the training-school for popular rule and represent- 
 ative institutions. They have acquainted the masses with 
 principles of practical politics, and have given them that 
 " habit of political debating and acting which is essential to 
 the training of intelligent and useful citizens." The town- 
 ship system, Old England's best gift to the nation, has always 
 been the groundwork and basis of democracy in America. 
 
LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Few perhaps fully realize the importance of a comprehen- 
 sive study of local institutions. The centralizing tendencies 
 of the present time are so strong, that the attention of the 
 student of political science is apt to he concentrated upon 
 federal rather than on local authority. He is prone to over- 
 look the fact that the nation is a highly composite organism 
 of which the state, the county, and the township, are sub- 
 ordinate, but very essential members. He is liable to forget 
 that an inadequate or improper performance of functions by 
 the latter is attended by an infusion of disorder, which in- 
 terrupts the harmonious workings of the whole. 
 
 The scope of the present paper will not extend beyond a 
 sketch of those three departments of local management 
 embraced under the heads of Rates and Levies, Roads and 
 Bridges, and the Poor. The early administration of colonial 
 justice has already been treated in an excellent essay on the 
 "Courts of Pennsylvania in the 17th Century," by Mr. Law- 
 rence Lewis, Jr., while the question of Public Schools will 
 be reserved for future discussion. 
 
 Before proceeding to give a minute description of Local 
 Self-Government as at present administered in the Quaker 
 State, we shall briefly consider its institutional development. 
 Institutions are not the creations of a single mind nor the 
 products of a separate age. They represent a growth, an 
 evolutionary process. They are the great unities of history. 
 They progress as the social order changes, and we must dili- 
 gently study their varying stages of development to intelli- 
 gently comprehend their present character. 
 
 In the first place, we shall portray the method of local 
 administration which obtained when the Duke of York 
 possessed the territory which now comprises the States of 
 20 
 
Local Self-Government in Pennsylvania. 
 
 21 
 
 New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and part of New Jersey. 
 We venture to do so because of the interest such a sketch 
 will afford from an historical point of view, and also because 
 it will furnish an excellent parallel to the later system of 
 Pennsylvania under Proprietary government. Moreover, the 
 Duke's "Book of Lawes," with few exceptions, formed the 
 legal basis of the proceedings of the courts upon the Dela- 
 ware after the year 1G7G. 1 We shall speak more particularly 
 of these courts in relation to their legislative character in a 
 subsequent part of the present paper. They claim our atten- 
 tion because they possessed not only judicial functions, but 
 exercised in addition an important control over local affairs, 
 during the years which immediately preceded the arrival of 
 William Perm. 
 
 The administration of the Duke of York was a close 
 imitation of the English system. It recognized the old 
 municipal divisions of ridings, towns, and parishes. The 
 chief officer of the former was a High Sheriff, while the 
 interests of the latter were presided over by a Constable, and 
 a Board of Overseers, at first eight, but afterwards four in 
 number. The sheriff was selected yearly by the governor from 
 three nominees presented to him by the justices of the last 
 sessions. The town officers were directly the choice of the 
 people. The constable was chosen for one year; the overseers 
 for two, one-half of them retiring annually. Under this 
 primary colonial regime the principal unit of local govern- 
 ment was the town or parish. Each town bad its own peculiar 
 constitution and by-laws, which, when sanctioned by the 
 court of sessions, became the basis of its own administration. 
 Such constitution and laws were framed by the constable and 
 a majority of the overseers, and local observance became 
 binding upon local inhabitants. Every town had likewise 
 
 1 That these enactments were in force in 10TG is clear by the following. 
 Tt was one of the provisions of the " Hook of Lawes" that, " no jury shall 
 exceed the number of seaven nor be under six unless in special causes upon 
 Life and Death." This year, at Whorekill, in a suit about some tobacco, "the 
 president of the court and six. of seven of the jury, acknowledged their pro- 
 ceedings to be erroneous, etc." Hazard, Annals of Pennsylvania, p. 425. 
 
 15 
 
22 Local Self- Government in Pennsylvania. 
 
 its own court, 1 held at convenient intervals, whore small cases 
 were heard and decided by its officers. The constable and 
 overseers were also, cx-qfficio, church-wardens, and in this 
 capacity were the ecclesiastical governors and moral guar- 
 dians of the parish. They not only made provision in the 
 rates for the support of the church and minister, but it w -as 
 their further duty to make known to the semi-annual court 
 of sessions all unpunished transgressions of the moral code. 2 
 There were two taxes, the public charge, the proceeds of 
 which were applied to the maintenance of the general civil, 
 military, and ecclesiastical authority ; and the town rate, 
 which went to the support of purely local government. 
 Both were levied and collected in exactly the same manner. 
 Upon the receipt of a " precept" from the sheriff of the riding, 
 the constable and overseers of the various towns made out a 
 list of taxable persons and appraised all real and personal 
 property. These statements were returned to the sheriff, who, 
 having examined and certified them, transmitted them to the 
 governor. If any inhabitant thought he had been unfairly 
 dealt with in his assessment, he could make complaint to the 
 court of sessions, and there have his grievance redressed. 
 The law which governed collections reads as follows: "The 
 constable shall appoint a day and place and give reasonable 
 warning to the inhabitants to bring in their proportions, 
 upon which every man so warned shall duely attend to bring 
 in his rates, etc." 3 Constables were held responsible for the 
 
 1 The "Towne Court" of the Duke's Laws is a very ancient institution. 
 It is the court of the tithing or township transformed. It represents the 
 survival of the Anglo-Saxon ' tun-gemot." The establishment of these 
 local self-governing communities in the English colonies of America, is sim- 
 ply a repetition of the course pursued by our Saxon forefathers, in their set- 
 tlement of Britain. 
 
 2 This kind of censorship was exercised, during the first few years of Pro- 
 prietary rule, by the Grand Jury. For an example, see Watson, Annals of 
 Philadelphia, vol. ii. p. 91. 
 
 The following presentment at the Chester Co. Court, in 1683, though of a 
 quite different character, is somewhat amusing: "The Grand Jury present 
 want of rings to the snouts of swine." 
 
 3 Duke of York's Laws, pp. 49, 50. 
 
Loccll Self- Government in Pennsylvania. 23 
 
 collection of the rates, and were empowered to recover arrear- 
 ages by process of law, even after their term of oiiice had 
 expired. When the full amount of the levy could not he 
 obtained, the deficiency was supplied by an extra assessment. 
 Produce was received instead of money, in payment of the 
 town and public taxes. Xone were exempt from taxation 
 except justices of the peace and indigent persons, and even 
 the justices were subsequently made liable for the town levy. 
 Local taxation was designed chiefly for the support of the 
 poor and for the maintenance of parochial churches. 1 The 
 needy and the helpless of every parish were the especial 
 charge of the church wardens. They were doubtless con- 
 sidered more in the light of an ecclesiastical than a civil re- 
 sponsibility. Under this regime, we see that county govern- 
 ment in the form we now know it, did not practically exist. 
 The riding, it is true, came in as a division between the town 
 and the province, but it had little or no significance as a 
 political factor. It simply represented an aggregation of 
 towns or parishes, and possessed no organized system of 
 municipal government. That such was the case is shown by 
 the following law regarding lunatics. "That in regard the 
 conditions of distracted persons may bee both xevy charge- 
 able and troublesome, and so will [trove too great a burthen 
 for one towne alone to bearc, each towne in the rideing where 
 such person or persons shall happen to bee, are to contribute 
 
 1 "Churches shall bee built within three years after this assize, to which 
 end a Towne Kate may bee made, to begin with thisyea.ro." Duke of York's 
 Laws, p. 63. 
 
 Upon the Delaware, ministers seem to have been supported by voluntary 
 subscriptions. The petition of the Court of New Castle to the <rovernor in 
 KITS was to the effect that he would " grant leave and permission to obtain 
 and have an orthodox minister, to bo maintained by the gilt of the free ami 
 willing givers.' - Hazard. Annals, p. 4f>.">. This rcquosl wasp-anted. /'</',/. 
 p. 458. 
 
 Ministers who were supported out of the " Towne Hate." elsewhere in the 
 Duke's dominions, could not always have been in the established chunh. 
 since, according to the report ot Hishop Compton in KJSI). there were at 
 that time on\y four clergymen of the Church of Kugland in North America. 
 Hazard. Annals, p. 409. 
 
24 Local Self-Governmtnt in Pennsylvania. 
 
 towards the charge which may arise upon such occasions." 1 
 Each town, therefore, helped to bear the burden, but the con- 
 tributions were made distinctly and separately, and not as 
 individual quotas to a permanent county rate. The town or 
 parish was of much greater importance than in later times. 
 It dealt with the leading questions of local government, and 
 its constable and overseers formed a legislative body whose 
 acts, as we have already seen, could only be disallowed by 
 judicial negation. 2 
 
 After the conquest of the Dutch settlements upon the 
 Delaware by Sir Robert Carre, in 1664, it was agreed that 
 the magistrates then in power should be continued, for a time 
 at least, in the enjoyment of their civil jurisdiction. In 
 1668 we have the record of the constitution of a court, con- 
 sisting of a schout and five counsellors, appointed tor two 
 years. 3 English laws were not immediately imposed upon 
 the people, but it was ordained that the Duke's enactments 
 "be showed and frequently communicated to the said coun- 
 sellors, and all others, to the end that being therewith ac- 
 quainted, the practice of them also in convenient time be 
 established." 4 The result thus gradually aimed at was finally 
 consummated by the precept of 1672, which declared "Eng- 
 lish laws to be established in the town and river. The office 
 of schout to be converted into sheriff for the corporation and 
 river, to be chosen annually." 8 In 1676 a proclamation from 
 Governor Andross set forth that the Duke's "Book of Lawes," 
 with the exception of the enactments regarding constables' 
 
 1 Duke of York's Laws, p. 64. 
 
 2 "The Constable by and with the consent of five at least of the overseers 
 for the time being, have power to drdaine such and so many peculier Con- 
 stitutions as are necessary to the welfare and improvement of their Towne 
 and if any inhabitants shall neglect or refuse to observe them, the Constable 
 and overseers shall have power to Levie (such) fines by distress; Provided 
 that they (the constitutions) bee not of a Criminall Nature and that every 
 such peculier Constitution be confirmed by the Court of Sessions within four 
 months (later by the next Court) after the making thereof." pp. 50, 51. 
 
 3 Hazard, Annals, p. 371. * Ibid. p. 372. 
 6 Ibid. p. 397. 
 
Local Self- Government in Pennsylvania. 25 
 
 courts, 1 county rates, and a few other matters which pertained 
 particularly to Long Island, should form the basis of civil 
 administration along the Delaware. There were at this time 
 three general courts in operation : one at Xew Castle, one at 
 Upland, and one at Whorekill. These establishments were not 
 only of a judicial nature, but were also endowed with legis- 
 lative authority. They could enact "all necessary by-laws 
 or orders (not repugnant to the laws of the governor), to be 
 binding for the space of one whole year," 2 for the adminis- 
 tration of local matters within their respective districts. 
 They ha'd power to make " fitting rates for highways, poor, 
 and other necessaries.'' 3 This levy, on account of convenience, 
 generally took the form of a poll-tax ; 4 the constables making 
 out the list of "tydables." 5 It was the duty of the sheriff to 
 make collections. 6 No rates could be laid until the sanction 
 of the governor had been obtained. 7 For the better manage- 
 ment of roads and bridges, the court appointed yearly a 
 number of men to be overseers of highways and viewers of 
 fences. 8 
 
 The court also ordered the building and repair of churches 9 
 and selected the church wardens. 10 No mention is made of 
 the manner in which the poor were taken care of, but it is 
 altogether likely that they were the charge of the church 
 
 1 It is reasonably certain, that, notwithstanding Gov. Andross' proclama- 
 tion, constables' courts were in full operation upon the Delaware. One had 
 been established at New Castle in 1672 (Hazard, Annals, p. 39G-7), and 
 we have no record showing that it ceased to exercise its powers after the 
 above-mentioned ordinance was promulgated. On the contrary, the order 
 issued in 1G77, that the commons were to be regulated by the town, shows 
 that NewCastle still had some kind of separate government. In 1078, 
 permission was given to Elseburgh, a place within the jurisdiction of the 
 justices of New Castle, to have a constable's court. (Hazard, Annals, p. 
 458-9.) The record of the establishment of these courts in America fur- 
 nishes one more example of the reproduction of English institutions upon 
 colonial soil. The evidence of their survival is a point of some historical 
 interest, as it makes against the idea of Stubbs and llallam, who are inclined 
 to deny that the petty constable ever possessed judicial authority. 
 
 2 Hazard, Annals, p. 427. 3 Ibid p. 441. ' Ibid. p. 447. 
 5 Ibid. p. 442. 6 Ibid. p. 4 17. 7 Ibid. p. 428. 
 8 Ibid. p. 480. 9 Ibid. p. 407. ,0 Ibid. p. 401. 
 
26 Local Self-Govamment in Pennsylvania. 
 
 wardens, as in New York. Though the court had the power 
 to lay a road-tax, we find no record that such a course was 
 pursued. It was the survival of an old feudal custom in 
 England which compelled all the inhabitants of a particu- 
 lar district to work upon the highways or else to suffer 
 certain pecuniary penalties in case they failed to fulfil the 
 requirement. This system was in vogue in the time of 
 Charles II., 1 and we have evidence that it also obtained in 
 Pennsylvania. " The imposition of a fine of 25 gilders, for 
 neglecting to work on the roads, was among the last acts of 
 Upland Court under the Duke's government." 2 
 
 The tenth section of the charter to William Penn gave 
 him the power to divide " the country and islands into towns, 
 hundreds 3 and counties." By a subsequent clause he also re- 
 ceived authority to erect manors, 4 and to introduce thereon 
 
 1 See Statutes of the Realm, 22 Charles II., ch. 12, 10, for fines imposed. 
 In case the labor required by statute was not sufficient to complete all neces- 
 sary repairs, a tax could be imposed to defray the expense of finishing the 
 remaining work. Ibid. 11. 
 
 2 Smith, History of Delaware Co., p. 124. 
 
 3 We have not been able to find any evidence to show that hundreds ever 
 existed as local divisions in Pennsylvania, although they were common in 
 Maryland and Delaware. 
 
 4 Mr. F. D. Stone, Librarian of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, has 
 called our attention to what may have been a manor in full operation upon 
 a similar basis to those in England. It is cited in Dr. George Smith's 
 History of Delaware County. It bore the name of the Welsh Barony, and 
 consisted of a tract of land comprising about 40,000 acres. The settlers 
 were Welsh Quakers, and amongst other immunities granted to them by their 
 charter, was the privilege to have " our bounds and limits by ourselves, 
 within the which all causes, Quarrels, crimes, and titles [shall be] tryed and 
 wholly determined by officers, magistrates [and] jurors of our own language, 
 which are our equals." 
 
 Tradition has it that a certain stone building situated upon the manor of 
 Moreland, was used in early times as a prison-house for the refractory 
 tenants and servants of the first Chief Justice. The whole subject is an 
 exceedingly interesting one, and will claim the attention of the writer in a 
 future paper. The subject of the Manorial System of Maryland is under 
 investigation by Mr. John Johnson, a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 
 versity. Mrs. Martha J. Lamb has undertaken the "Historic Manors of 
 New York." 
 
Local Self-Government in Pennsylvania. 27 
 
 the English system of manorial government. We have seen 
 that the tendency of the Duke of York's laws was to centre 
 local government in the towns. Under the Proprietary ad- 
 ministration a totally different order of things was instituted. 
 The county now became the element of primal importance. 
 In fact it may be safely asserted, that, during nearly the entire 
 portion of the first half-century of the government of Penn 
 and his descendants, the town had little or no significance 
 as a political division. The county court of general sessions 
 was the real centre of authority, and all local affairs were 
 administered by officers which it commissioned. 1 Though 
 the town was afterwards admitted to a share of municipal 
 government, it has never quite regained the position it held 
 previous to 1682. We shall further notice, in passing, how 
 some matters were gradually handed over, conditionally, to 
 township control. 
 
 By an act passed in 1682, which was subsequently declared 
 a fundamental law, it was enjoined that no separate tax at 
 any time should continue longer than one year. The objects 
 for which county taxes were raised, were " for the support of 
 the Poor, building of prisons, or repairing them, paying the 
 salary of members belonging to the assembly, paying for 
 Wolf's Heads, expence of Judges, with many other necessary 
 charges." 2 It was the duty of the justices of the court of 
 sessions, with the assistance of the grand jury, to estimate 
 the general county expenses, and to make an assessment, upon 
 the basis of the provincial tax, to defray them. The enact- 
 ment of 1696 inaugurated a much more convenient system. 
 It provided that six assessors should be annually chosen for 
 each county, to act in conjunction with the justices and 
 grand jury, in determining public charges. This body could 
 levy a rate of one penny in the pound, and six shillings />, r 
 caput upon all freemen between 16 and 60 years of age. The 
 
 1 "The court about this time (IG8.">) appointed the justices, constables, 
 road overseers, etc." Watson, Annals of Philadelphia, vol. i. p. .'int. Seven 
 years later, in one county at least, the road overseers were elected by the 
 people. See Records of Chester Co. Court for lu'Xl. 
 
 2 Laws of the Province of Penna., 1G82-1700, p. -33. 
 
28 Local Self- Government in Pennsylvania. 
 
 assessors heard and decided all appeals. The Proprietary 
 and his deputies were alone exempt from taxation. It was 
 the duty of the various constables to bring the assessors ;i 
 list of the taxable inhabitants of their districts, together with 
 an accurate valuation of property liable to taxation. The 
 assessment board determined, the required number of collec- 
 tors and appointed them. The county treasurer was also an 
 appointee of this body. It seems that the above method for 
 raising county rates did not prove satisfactory, since nume- 
 rous supplemental acts were passed to make provision for the 
 collection of arrearages. 
 
 In 1724 a new system was introduced, which, though not 
 unlike the former in its essential features, yet prescribed a 
 mode of procedure somewhat different from that recognized 
 by previous law. It provided for the election of three com- 
 missioners to perform the functions which had hitherto be- 
 longed to the court of sessions, with a few additional duties. 
 The commissioners issued the " precepts" to the constables, 
 constituted a tribunal for trying appeals, inaugurated pro- 
 ceedings against delinquent collectors, and imposed pecuniary 
 penalties upon the county treasurer, and the assessors for 
 neglect of duty. To facilitate the collection of rates, each 
 county was divided into a definite number of districts. The 
 limit to the assessment provided for by this enactment, was 
 fixed at three pence in the pound, and a nine shillings poll- 
 tax. 
 
 The Revolution did not change the form of local govern- 
 ment, which had obtained immediately before the year 1776. 
 There was no distinct difference between the administration 
 of the province and of the commonwealth. But in relation 
 to the topic at present under consideration, an advance was 
 made towards the present system in 1779. In that year the 
 assessment board, consisting of the three commissioners and 
 six county assessors, appointed 1 two assistant assessors for each 
 township, to discharge the duties which had hitherto devolved 
 upon the constables, in making the returns of taxable inhabit' 
 
 1 These officers were afterwards elected by the people. 
 
Local Self -Government in Pennsylvania. 29 
 
 ants and property. By this act stringent measures were also 
 adopted for collecting unpaid rates. If settlement was not 
 made within thirty days, the delinquent's goods could be sold ; 
 and if, after three months' time, his obligations had not been 
 met, bis real estate could be seized and disposed of by the 
 commissioners to satisfy the claim. The office of clerk of the 
 commissioners, or county clerk, which still exists, was first 
 inaugurated at this time. Supplemental legislation this same 
 year- enacted, that the owners and not the occupiers of real 
 estate should be taxed. Afterwards a proviso was introduced 
 which caused all local rates to be assessed upon the basis of 
 the last State tax. The principle of the division of labor was 
 carried out in making the assessment, each county assessor, 
 with the two assistants, instead of the whole board, perform- 
 ing this duty for every separate district. Collectors were 
 now appointed by the commissioners alone. A return of all 
 county levies was required to be made annually to the general 
 assembly. 
 
 In early colonial times the management of roads and 
 bridges was vested in the county. All public highways 
 were laid out by order of the governor and council, 1 while 
 private roads, connecting with them, and cart-ways leading 
 to landing-places, were opened-up at the instance of the court 
 of quarter sessions, 2 if the viewers had previously made a 
 favorable report upon the projected enterprise. Roads and 
 bridges were made at the expense of the county; but it was 
 not unusual for a lottery 3 to be established to liquidate the 
 cost of the undertakings. The court named the overseers. 
 
 1 Colonial Records, vol. i. p. 163. 
 
 2 The court gave the order to proceed with the work, after the grand jury 
 had presented the need of a new road. Smith (Hist. Del. Co., ]>. 1(13) quotes 
 from the Chester County Court records the following : " The mad from Darby 
 to Haverford to be laid out by the grand jury and other neighbors." In 
 1699, six viewers were appointed to do work of this kind ; or rather to make 
 a report upon proposals regarding new roads. 
 
 3 Lotteries were often made use of to raise funds to open mads, construct 
 bridges, and build churches. For legislation authorizing these establish- 
 ments, see Laws of Pennsylvania. 
 
30 Local Self-Government in Pennsylvania. 
 
 and these officers were responsible for the good repair of all 
 highways within their territorial limit. Every freeholder 
 was compelled when summoned to work upon the roads, 
 under penalty of a line if he refused to obey. Later enact- 
 ments transferred highways from county to township super- 
 vision, directing tlmt the latter should assume all financial 
 burdens entailed in their management. The overseers or 
 supervisors were thenceforth township officers, and two were 
 elected annually for each municipality. They were em- 
 powered to levy a road tax, within certain limits, after 
 having obtained the requisite permission from two justices 
 of the peace. They could also hire laborers to repair high- 
 ways and bridges if they thought fit, instead of summoning 
 the inhabitants to do the work as heretofore. 
 
 The Poor question has occupied the attention of the law- 
 makers of Pennsylvania to a considerable extent; and much 
 legislation is to be found upon the subject among the acts of 
 the general assembly. In early times numerous experiments 
 were tried, but the law of 1771 seems to have been the one, 
 which, on the whole, yielded the most satisfactory results. 
 It does not difler very materially from the present poor law 
 of the State. At an earlier period charity had been dispensed 
 at the instance and discretion of the county court; the funds 
 being supplied out of the regular county rate. The poor tax 
 had preference over all others, and was first paid in the dis- 
 bursement of the moneys. A curious expedient was resorted 
 to to prevent undeserving persons from receiving public sup- 
 port. Every recipient of relief was obliged to wear a badge 
 "with a large Roman (P) together with the first Letter of 
 the name of the county, city, or place, whereof such poor 
 person is an inhabitant, cut either in red or blue cloth." 1 
 
 1 It was customary in England, in addition to the ordinary punishment, to 
 mark criminals with the initial letter of the crime for which they had been 
 convicted. This proceeding was also followed in Pennsylvania. A part of 
 the sentence against Long Finne, for his rebellious acts, was that he should 
 be " branded on the face with the letter R." Hazard, Annals, p. 378. See 
 also Records of Chester Court, January 1, 1693, for the punishment accorded 
 to a woman who had been found guilty of fornication. 
 
Local Self- Governm en t in Pen n sylva n la. 3 1 
 
 The act of 1771 provided for the appointment of two over- 
 seers in each township, by the justices of the peace, at a yearly 
 meeting specially convened for the purpose. These officers 
 could, with the authority of two justiecs, levy a three-pennv 
 rate on property, and a six shillings poll-tax as often as was 
 thought advisable. The amount thus -raised was employed 
 to provide subsistence, shelter, and employment for all those 
 whom misfortune had made a burden to society. The tax 
 was recoverable by ordinary process of law, and was levied 
 on the same basis as the county dues. T)ie overseers were 
 responsible for the collection of the amount assessed, and if 
 they refused to pay over moneys in their possession, they 
 were deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and punished with 
 imprisonment. They were required to keep an account of all 
 receipts and expenditures, and their books were audited by 
 three freeholders annually chosen by the people. A list of 
 the poor was kept on record, and an order From a justice of 
 the peace was necessary for the inscription of new names 
 therein. Strongly protective measures were adopted against 
 the growth of pauperism, as for example, the requirements 
 for gaining a legal settlement in a township, and the restric- 
 tions attached to the removal of the poor from one district to 
 another. ]S T ew-comers had to bring with them certificates, 
 and householders must give notice of the arrivals of guests 
 coming from any place outside of the province, except Europe. 
 Any one, to become legally settled, must have been an office- 
 holder for one year, or must have resided in the same locality 
 at least two years, and contributed to the poor fund. Widows 
 were deemed settled in the same place as their former hus- 
 bands, and indented servants must have performed one year 
 of service in some particular locality to fulfil the required 
 conditions of residence. All having near relatives who were 
 paupers, were compelled by the province to support them, it 
 in a position to do so. Notwithstanding all this defensive 
 legislation, and despite the influence of these well-timed 
 measures, it would appear that the demands upon public 
 charity were augmented instead of diminished. Complaints 
 were made from time to time that the means tor supporting 
 
32 Local Self-Government in Pennsylvania. 
 
 the poor were entirely inadequate, and in 1779, an act was 
 passed limiting the rate at seven shillings and six pence in 
 the pound, and at not more than six pounds, and not less 
 than three pounds per poll. 1 
 
 The Present System. 
 
 Local self-government in Pennsylvania at the present time 
 affords a peculiarly interesting study, representing as it does 
 a condition of affairs in which neither the town polity of 
 New England nor the county administration of the South, 
 forms the decidedly predominating element. It occupies the 
 middle-ground between these two opposing phases of local 
 life. In the Southern States the county is the more impor- 
 tant factor, and its subdivisions are such only in name, exer- 
 cising but little control over their own affairs. In New 
 England, on the contrary, the highest political vitality is to 
 be found in the town. The system of Pennsylvania aims at 
 a partition of powers. The officers of the township assume 
 the management of local roads and highways, and in some 
 counties provide also for the support of the pauper popula- 
 tion. But while they have the power to impose a tax for 
 these purposes, rates can only be levied upon the basis of the 
 last adjusted county assessment, and the law prescribes certain 
 limits beyond which they cannot go. Furthermore, no pro- 
 
 ' An explanation of this seemingly high rate is to be found in the fact, 
 that the continental currency had that year reached a very low state of 
 depreciation. There has been preserved in the Library of the Pennsylvania 
 Historical Society, a copy of a publication called the United States Maga- 
 zine, bearing the date of 1779, for which the subscription rates were $3.00 
 per copy or $24.00 a year! It is possible that the apparently high price 
 charged for this periodical may have been due, in some degree, to its wide- 
 spread popularity, and to the extraordinary demand indicated by the follow- 
 ing lines, taken from the dedicatory ode : 
 
 "Statesmen of assembly great ; 
 Soldiers that on danger wait ; 
 Farmers that subdue the plain ; 
 Merchants that attempt the main ; 
 Tradesmen who their labors ply ; 
 These shall court thy company; 
 These shall say, with placid mien, 
 Have you read the magazine?" 
 
Local Self-Government in Pennsylvania. 33 
 
 vision is made for any such democratic institution as a town- 
 meeting, where the people nun - come together to vote appro- 
 priations, and to frame by-laws for their own government. 
 Xeither is the township represented by a supervisor upon the 
 county board, as in Xew York, Michigan, Illinois, and other 
 of the Northern and Xorth- Western States. The count v is 
 the leading local unit, and, under the commonwealth, may 
 be said to w T ield the largest share of political [tower. It 
 regulates affairs directly, and its officers are responsible to 
 the people for the exercise of administrative control. The 
 chief authority is vested in three commissioners, who are 
 elected for a term of three years. In addition to duties 
 which will be subsequently mentioned, this board is required 
 to transact the county business, to keep a record of its pro- 
 ceedings, to publish annually a correct account of all receipts 
 and expenditures of the previous year, to make an annual 
 statement to the secretary of the commonwealth of all sums 
 paid for the support and maintenance of justice, and to 
 have charge of the erection and control of the county public 
 buildings. Each county has also a treasurer, a surveyor, and 
 three auditors. It is not necessary to define the duties of these 
 functionaries. We do not include in this enumeration those 
 offices which pertain to the administration of justice, as it is 
 our intention to confine this discussion to purely municipal 
 matters. 
 
 A board of supervisors, generally two or three in number 
 constitutes the highest township authority. But this nume- 
 rical limit is not absolute, since the law provides for an in- 
 crease at the pleasure of the electors. The term of office of 
 this governing board extends over a period of three years. 
 There are also an assessor, two assistant assessors (in triennial 
 years), a town-clerk, a treasurer, three auditors, and two over- 
 seers of the poor, where the poor are a township charge. 
 Under a constitutional provision, the election of township 
 officers takes place annually on the third Tuesday of Feb- 
 ruary. 
 
 The county rates and levies are made in the following 
 manner. Every third year the board of commissioners issues 
 
34 Local Self- Government in Pennsylvania. 
 
 a notice to the assessors of the different townships, requiring 
 them to return, within a certain specified time, a correct list 
 of the names of all taxable persons residing within their ter- 
 ritorial jurisdiction. The assessors and their assistants im- 
 mediately proceed to make out the required statement, and 
 to furnish also an accurate valuation of such real and personal 
 property as the law directs. Upon this basis, the commis- 
 sioners levy a certain rate per centum, which rate is uniform, 
 throughout the different townships. The commissioners 
 cause transcripts of the assessments to be prepared and fur- 
 nished to each assessor, together with the rate per centum of 
 the amount levied. They also fix a day on which appeals 
 shall be heard. The assessor is then required to give notice, 
 either written or printed, to every taxable inhabitant in 
 the township, of the amount for which he stands rated, and 
 to inform him also of the day set for hearing appeals. All 
 objections raised to the assessment are decided by the com- 
 missioners ; but if any inhabitant takes exception to their 
 ruling, he may present his case for final judgment before the 
 court of common pleas. The taxes thus levied are collected 
 by a collector for each township, appointed by the board of 
 commissioners. The selection is usually made in accordance 
 with the recommendation of the various assessors, though the 
 range of choice is not necessarily limited to such nominees. 
 
 The State taxes are furnished through the medium of the 
 several counties, and the commissioners perform the same 
 duties in relation to their levy and collection, and the same 
 proceedings are had regarding appeals, as in the case of 
 county rates. 
 
 The township has the power to lay certain rates indepen- 
 dently of county authority or jurisdiction. For instance, 
 the supervisors are authorized to assess the taxables of their 
 township for a sum not exceeding one cent on the dollar upon 
 the valuation of their property, to keep the roads, highways, 
 and bridges in good order. It is also the duty of the over- 
 seers of the poor, where the poor are in the charge of the 
 township, to make a similar provision for the support of the 
 indigent and helpless, having first obtained the consent of 
 
Local Self-Government in Pennsylvania. &") 
 
 two justices of the peace. These rates can only he laid in 
 accordance with the last adjusted county valuation. The 
 township assessor aids in fixing the assessment, and collection 
 is made by persons designated hy the supervisors and over- 
 seers, in a meeting convened for the purpose. 
 
 Roads and highways lying within the boundaries of a 
 township are under its management. They are controlled 
 hy the Supervisors, and the expense of their good keeping is 
 borne out of the fund raised by the above-mentioned assess- 
 ment. It is allowable for any person to work out his road- 
 tax instead of paying it in money. This is usually done. 
 With this fact in view, and with the poor more generally 
 in the care of the county, it will be seen that the tendency 
 is to reduce purel}* township rates to a minimum. The super- 
 visors are also responsible for the repair and renewal of all 
 causeways and small bridges situated on township highways. 
 If a road forms the dividing line between two townships, 
 the expense of its good keeping is shared equally by the two 
 districts. When a number of inhabitants think it is advisa- 
 ble that a new highway should be opened up, they send a 
 petition to that effect to the court of quarter sessions. This 
 judicial body at once appoints viewers, who proceed to in- 
 spect the locality through which it is proposed the road shall 
 run. They make their report to the court, and if a favorable 
 view is entertained, the road is confirmed and viewed to 
 be opened. Damages, to be paid by the county, may be 
 awarded for any injury to property, even though the owners 
 were petitioners in behalf of the project. Bridges over 
 large rivers or streams, which would entail more expense in 
 construction than it is reasonable should be borne by one or 
 two townships, are built at the cost of the county. Pro- 
 ceedings are instituted at the order of the court of quarter 
 sessions, who act upon the representation of the township 
 supervisors, or a petition of interested inhabitants. 
 
 The poor are legally a township charge: though their 
 care is generally placed in the hands of the county commis- 
 sioners. In the latter event, the commissioners, with tin; 
 approval of the court of quarter sessions, select suitable real 
 estate, and erect thereon a building called a -House lor the 
 
36 Local Self- Government in Pennsylvania. 
 
 Destitute." This establishment is used for tlie accommoda- 
 tion of all poor persons who have gained the required legal 
 settlement. Three citizens, one of whom is chosen every 
 year, constitute a board of directors. This body manages 
 the internal economy of the institution. It also has authority 
 to bind oijjt children as apprentices and to provide employ- 
 ment for the able-bodied poor. The directors furnish a 
 yearly financial estimate to the commissioners, so that due 
 provision may be made for a poor-fund in levying the 
 county rate. The board is further empowered to make 
 any suggestions which they may deem expedient, for im- 
 provements or alterations in the institution. It may grant 
 relief, to a limited extent, to needy persons who are not in- 
 habitants of the almshouse. The judges of the various courts 
 of the county, and ministers of the gospel of all denomina- 
 tions are, ex officio, visitors of the institution. In this capacity 
 they are entitled to examine into its general condition, and 
 to scrutinize the books of the hoard of directors. As soon as 
 the poor become the charge of the county, the office of over- 
 seer in the different townships is abolished. 
 
 When the poor are under the control of the township, their 
 care is entrusted to two overseers, and their maintenance 
 provided for by means of a small tax. The overseers are 
 obliged to furnish relief to all applicants for assistance, who 
 have gained a legal settlement in the township. Aid must 
 also be given to those who have not a legal settlement, until 
 they can be removed to their former place of residence. The 
 duties of the overseers in relation to binding out children as 
 apprentices, and finding suitable work for those capable of 
 active employment, are similar to those devolving upon the 
 county directors. No one is entitled to be placed upon the 
 poor-book without an order from two justices of the peace. 
 Every house-keeper receiving a transient poor person is re- 
 quired to give notice to the overseers within ten days after 
 such reception, or, in case of default, to become responsible 
 for all further maintenance. 
 
 A few isolated and comparatively unimportant exceptions 
 may occur to the method of local administration as set forth 
 in the preceding pages. These need not demand our present 
 
Local Self- Government in Pennsylvania. 37 
 
 consideration. A general likeness pervades the municipal 
 organization of the State, and the foregoing sketch repre- 
 sents, as accurately as possible, that system which prevails 
 throughout the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Passing in rapid review the facts which have just claimed 
 our attention, we cannot help noticing the liberal methods 
 which, from the very first, existed in the administration of 
 local affairs. The control over matters pertaining to self- 
 government was not given to individual isolated commu- 
 nities, as in New England; nor was it concentrated in the 
 larger unit, the county, as in Virginia and Maryland. And 
 yet the system of Pennsylvania was quite as democratic as 
 the one, and as healthfully centralized as the other. The 
 power to make by-laws for municipal management, as well 
 as the authority to legislate for the entire province, was, from 
 the beginning, in the hands of the people or their delegates. 
 All public officers were either elected directly, or chosen by 
 those who were. Penn himself could not appoint even a 
 justice of the peace. The words of the historian Bancroft are 
 strictly true: "But for the hereditary office of Proprietary, 
 Pennsylvania had been a representative democracy." 
 
 The present system of local self-government does not belong 
 entirely, nor even largely, to the period of the commonwealth. 
 It has, of course, been improved and modified by enactments 
 since 1776, but, as a whole, it is simply the continuation of 
 provincial beginnings. The central idea upon which it is 
 based has been the same throughout. That idea is the in- 
 alienable right of the people to a control over their own 
 affairs, and may, doubtless, to some extent, be considered as 
 the practical realization of the words of Tenn: " if the people 
 want anything which will make them happy, 1 shall readily 
 grant it." The great principle of popular sovereignty was 
 virtually recognized by the illustrious founder of this State 
 in every department of its provincial administration; and 
 upon this foundation principle the political superstructure of 
 Pennsylvania has slowly and surely risen, until now it may 
 well be called the keystone of the arch of American Liberty. 
 
 Johns Hopkins Univkrsity, 
 
 Mav. 1882. c 
 
IV 
 
 SAXON TITHINGMEN 
 
 IN AMERICA 
 
" Iraposuerunt justiciaries super quosque x frithborgos, quos decanos possumus dicere, 
 Anglice autem tyenthe-heved vocati sunt, hoc est caput x." Law of Edward the Confessor. 
 
 " Praesit autem singulis hominum novenis decimus." Law of Henry I. 
 
 "A Tything-man in each Manor, a Constable in each Hundred." Bacon, Lines of 
 Maryland, 16S8. 
 
 "See to it that there bee one man appointed to inspect the ten families of his neigh- 
 bours, which tything man or men .... haue power, in the absence of the constable to 
 apprehend . . . . " Colonial Law of Massachusetts, 1677. 
 
 Tithing-Men are still annually chosen in the Town-Meetings of Northampton, 
 Massachusetts. Town Records, 1882. 
 
 "The History of Institutions .... abounds in examples of that continuity of life, 
 the realisation of which is necessary to give the reader a personal hold on the past and 
 a right judgment of the present. For the roots of the present lie deep in the past, and 
 nothing in the past is dead to the man who would'learn how the present comes to be 
 what it is." Sltibbs. Constitutional History of England. 
 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 I X 
 
 Historical and Political Science 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History is past Politics and Politics present-History. Freeman 
 
 IV 
 
 SAXON TITHING-MEN 
 
 IN AMERICA 
 
 Read before the American Antiquarian Society, October 21, 1881 
 
 By HERBERT B. ADAMS, Ph. D. 
 
 B A LT I MO K K 
 
 Published by tiik Johns Hopkins Inivkkmm 
 
 February, l s ^ 
 
JOHN MURPHY A CO., PRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
T I T H I N G M E N 
 
 By Hkubeut B. Adams. 
 
 The office of Tithingman has never been satisfactorily ex- 
 plained. New England traditions describe this institution 
 only in its later ecclesiastical form, which was by no means 
 its primitive character even in this country. The oldest 
 people in Xew England remember the Tithingman as a kind 
 of Sunday Constable, whose special duty it was, in the old 
 parish meeting-house, to quiet the restlessness of youth and 
 to disturb the slumbers of age. Many are the tales which 
 grandfathers can tell concerning this ancient watchman of the 
 congregation, who saw to it that all persons were attentive 
 except himself, and who occasionally broke the peace by 
 sharply rapping with his tune-book and pointing at some 
 whispering boy, or else by patrolling the aisles to arouse 
 sleeping saints by means of his black pole, tipped at one 
 end with brass. 1 In some churches there were two or three 
 
 1 This was the old English Tipstaffe, an emblem of the constabulary 
 office, and representing the person of the Kinic- We shall consider tlie 
 subject of the Tipstaffe or Black Rod more particularly in a paper on 
 " Constables." By the Province laws of Massachusetts (I. 1 .">.". :52'.t) 
 Tithingmcn were required to "have a black static of tun feel lonsr. 
 tipped at one end with brass about three inches, as a badffe of their 
 office." We find these black staves mentioned in local town records. , . 
 g., in the town records of Salem, in Kill!, i. 147; in t he town record- of 
 Groton. edited by Dr. Green, i. 11), Item, -toe black static." three shil- 
 lings sixpence. Survivals of these black wands have been seen In the 
 writer in actual use by special constables at Amherst College Commence- 
 ments, winch are still held in the old parish church. The use of wand-, 
 with ribbon tips, by ushers, is only an aesthetic transformation <>f the 
 ancient Tipstaffe. It is said that in some early New Kmrland parishes, 
 the Tithinjjman's rod was tipped at one en I. not with brass, but with a 
 squirrel's tail. This end was used in awakening women. The other 
 end was a deer's hoof, which carried sharp conviction to men and boys. 
 
 1 
 
Tithingmen. 
 
 of those grim, vigilant Tithinjraien. It is said that one or 
 two of them sometimes sat under the very shadow of the 
 pulpit, facing the congregation. 1 But more usually one 
 Tithingman sat at each door of the meeting-house to keep 
 out dogs, and one often sat in the gallery to keep in 
 boys. 2 
 
 From original town records it appears that it was the duty 
 of the early New England Tithingman, not merely to pre- 
 serve order in the meeting-house, but to see to it that every 
 one went to church. The Tithingman was a kind of eccle- 
 siastical "whipper-in." After looking over the congrega- 
 tion to find if any seats were vacant, the Tithingmen would 
 steal out and explore the horse-sheds, the adjoining fields 
 and orchards, the inns and ordinaries, and even the houses 
 of the village, in order to search out skulkers from divine 
 service. According to the town records of Salem, it is clear 
 that as early as 1644, in that village at. least, two men were 
 " appointed euery Lord's day to walke forth in the time of 
 God's worshippe, to take notice of such as either lye about 
 the meeting-howse wthout attending to the word or ordi- 
 nances, or that lye at home or in the fields, w'thout giuing 
 good account thereof,, and to take the names of such persons 
 & to present them to the Magistrate, whereby they may be 
 accordinglie proceeded against." 3 
 
 A study of the statutes of the mother country, of the 
 period immediately preceding the Puritan migration, shows 
 that the custom of enforcing attendance upon church services 
 
 1 Blood. History of Temple, N. II., p. 87. 
 
 * In the town of Salem, the Tithingmen or Constables, used to see to 
 it that no boys escaped from church and that no dogs slunk in. The 
 " Dog Whipper" was a regular institution in certain old English towns, 
 notably in Exeter and Congleton (in Chester). Mr. Edward A. Free- 
 man has called our attention to a curious law of Edgar (see Thorpe's 
 Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, ii. 251), whereby parish priests 
 were to see to it that no dog should enter church, nor yet' more a swine, 
 if it could possibly be prevented ! 
 
 3 Town Records of Salem, 131, part 1, 1634-1659, published in the 
 Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, second series, Vol. I. 
 
Tlthhvjntvn. 
 
 was by no means original with the settlers of Now England. 
 By an Act 1 passed in the reign of James I., all people were 
 obliged by law to " repaire every Sunday" to church, under 
 penalty of twelve pence for every absence. Upon sufficient 
 information, given of course by the Parish Constable or 
 Tithingman, the justice of the peace issued a warrant to the 
 church warden to distrain goods, if necessary, in collecting 
 such parish tines. All servants, sojourners, and strangers 
 within a man's gates were brought under the operation of 
 this law, so that the custom of Sunday inspection of every 
 household must have been in vogue in Old England, long 
 before it was revived at Salem. These laws requiring church 
 attendance are of very ancient standing. By the first Act 
 of Elizabeth's reign, " every person and persons inhabiting 
 within this Realme shall diligentlye and faithefully, having 
 no lawfull or reasonable Excuse to be absent, endevour them- 
 selves to resortc to theyr Parishe Churehe or Chapped 
 accustomed upon every Sondaye and other dayes ordeined 
 and used to bee kept as Holy days, and ther tabvde or- 
 derlye and soberly during the tyme of the Common Prayer. 
 Preachinges and other Service of God upon payne flf 
 punishment by the Censures of the Churehe, and also upon 
 payne that every person so offending shall forfeite for every 
 suche offence twelve pens, to be levied by the Churche- 
 wardens of the Parishe to thuse of the Poore." s The 
 Church of England and its Puritan reformers can claim no 
 monopoly in this kind of legislation, for it roots far back in 
 the middle ages in the earliest Catholic laws of England 
 against irregular attendance upon conventicles contrary to 
 the Catholic faith, especially against the meetings of Lol- 
 lards. 3 
 
 In early New England, the execution of the laws for the 
 
 1 Statutes of tho Realm, 4 Jac. I. c. v. 
 
 2 Statutes of the Realm. 1 Eli/, e. 2. III.; c-f. 2:! Eliz. c. i. 
 Eli/. <- i. 
 
 * Rolls of Parliament, III., 4ti7, ">*;.; IV.. 24. 
 
TitltilHJIIK'll. 
 
 observance of the Sabbath in other ways than church-going 
 was intrusted to the local Tithingmen. Travel on that day 
 was strictly forbidden. There arc many persons still living 
 who can remember that the parish Tithingman once dis- 
 charged the pious function of stopping all unnecessary riding 
 and driving on Sunday. An amusing story is told of the 
 writer's grandfather, who was Tithingman for his parish in 
 Amherst, Massachusetts, and notoriously strict in the dis- 
 charge of his office both in church and out. Early one 
 Sabbat!) morning he saw a man driving past his house, with 
 a little hair-trunk in the back end of his wagon. Sus- 
 pecting that the man was upon a journey, the Tithingman 
 hailed him : " Sir, do you know that travel on Sunday is 
 forbidden by law?" " Yes. sir," said the stranger in a 
 somewhat melancholy tone. The Tithingman caught the 
 idea. " Of course," he said, "in case of sipkness or death, 
 a Sabbath journey is sometimes permitted." The traveller 
 replied in a subdued manner, " my wife is lying dead in the 
 town just above here." " Oh, well," said the Tithingman, 
 " you can drive on." The man drove on a safe distance, 
 then looked back and called out : ' ' She has been lying dead 
 for twenty years ! " 
 
 The law against Sunday travel has been rigidly enforced, 
 in one way or another, by Tithingmen, Constables, local 
 police, or local opinion, down to the present da}' in many 
 parts of New England. The late Brasseur de Bourbourg, 
 who made Mexican antiquities his life study, once told the 
 writer of an unhappy experience in Boston forty years ago, 
 in trying to procure a carriage on the Sabbath, for the sake 
 of visiting some Catholic dignitary. But neither Catholic 
 nor Protestant England has set Puritan New England a liberal 
 example in the matter of Sunday laws. Moncure D. Con- 
 way, in a recent letter to the Cincinnati Commercial, nar- 
 rates the serious difficulty encountered by three American 
 travellers in attempting to procure a Sunday dinner in Lon- 
 don, and that after attending church. Not only are Sunday 
 
 4 
 
T.ithingmen. 
 
 accommodations for travellers very much restricted to this 
 day in many parts of old England, but travelling itself on 
 the Sabbath has been more or less restrained by law, ever 
 since the time of the Saxon kings, in whose good Catholic- 
 reigns Sunday used to begin on Saturday at sunset, and 
 close Sunday evening. 1 The statutes of England at the 
 time the Puritans came over, are full of legislation against 
 breach of the Sabbath by travellers, traders, drovers, 
 butchers, laborers, boatmen, wagoners, and by conveyances 
 of every description. 
 
 From the colonial laws of Massachusetts it appears that 
 the functions of the Tithingman were not restricted to the 
 arrest of " all Saboath breakers," but extended to the in- 
 spection of licensed inns for the sake of discovering " dis- 
 orderly ti piers " on the evening of that, day or " at any 
 other time" during the week. He could carry offenders 
 before any magistrate and commit them to prison " as any 
 constable may doe." For Sunday offenders was reserved 
 the special disgrace of imprisonment in the town "cage*' 
 which was " set up in the market place." 2 Even by such 
 links as these are the towns of Xew England bound to 
 old English parish life. :t The expression jail-bird has some 
 significance in the light of the evolution of prisons from 
 cages. The use of the pillory and the stocks in punishment 
 for drunkenness are similar links of parish habit. The 
 very liquors that Xew England Tithingnien were instructed 
 to seek out in unlicensed houses or to obtain a satisfactory 
 account of in regular inns, afford as suggestive a comment- 
 ary upon the English origin of intemperance in New Eng- 
 land as docs the mention of beer in the Noise sagas of 
 Vineland upon the Teutonic origin of the first white settlers 
 
 1 Lingard. History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church. I., 
 309- 1 1 . 
 
 - Records of Massachusetts, v. 1 .">:!. 
 
 :! Palgrave, English Commonwealth. Anrlo Saxon IVriod. Vol. ii.. p. 
 clxvi. 
 
Tithingmep. 
 
 of America. " Strong beere, ale, eider, perry, 1 matheglin, 2 
 ramme, brandy,'' 3 these things all have a very English 
 smack. Legislation against the excessive use of these 
 drinks did not be<rin in New England. The Puritans of 
 Massachusetts struggled against intemperance as did their 
 English fathers before them, and in precisely the same way, 
 by fines and penalties, by laws executed through " Con- 
 stables, Churchwardens, Headborough.es, Tithingmen, Ale- 
 cunners and Sydemen," as described in the act of the fourth 
 year of King James I.* 
 
 It is perhaps not generally known that the office of 
 Tithingman in early New England was very like that of a 
 parish constable, of which office, indeed, the former is the 
 historical prototype. In Massachusetts, and elsewhere in 
 New England, the two institutions long continued to exist 
 side by side, although as far as local and colonial records 
 give any decisive evidence, Constables were appointed long 
 before Tithingmen. But the latter is by far the more 
 ancient office in the mother country, and it may have been 
 revived by local hamlets in New England, years before it 
 was formally recognized in town or colony records. The 
 Tithingmen had many functions in common with Constables. 
 Both endeavored to repress tippling, gaming, night-walk- 
 ing, strolling, begging, roaming streets or fields, and idle- 
 ness in general. They were to see to it that every man 
 was about some lawful and useful business. They restrain- 
 
 1 A liquor prepared from the juice of pears, like cider from apples. 
 
 2 A fermented liquor made of honey and water boiled together. The 
 name Metheglin is Welsh and is derived from medd (mead) and llyn 
 (liquor). It is one of those familiar household terms which have come 
 down to us from that " exterminated " race, the Kelts. Words like dad, 
 babe, lad, lass, gown, flannel, clout, crock, cabin, basket, bran, flask, 
 mattock, are collectively stronger evidence of Keltic influences surviv- 
 ing in Saxon homes than even the above home-made drink. 
 
 3 Records of Massachusetts, v. 240. 
 
 * Statutes of the Realm, 4 Jac. I. c. v. Cf. I. Jac. I. c. 9. 
 
 <; 
 
Tithingmen. 
 
 ed butchers and drovers from cruelty to animals, and kept 
 boys and " all persons from swimming in the water." ' 
 
 The Tithingman may be distinguished from the Constable 
 by the fact that the former's duties related more especially 
 to the control of family life and of the morals of his neigh- 
 borhood. The Tithingman's power came nearer home than 
 did that of the Constable ; it reached over the threshold of 
 every family in the hamlet; it was patriarchal, fatherly, 
 neighborly, in the strictest sense. The Tithingmen visited 
 ("otters to see if they kept Saturday night. The Tithing- 
 man saw to it that family government was maintained ; that 
 all single persons were joined to some family ; that children 
 and servants were properly taught and trained at home ; 
 that the same were kept from all disorderly, profligate, idle, 
 uncivil and rude practices abroad ; in short, that the whole 
 community grew up as one united family in the nurture and 
 admonition of the law. 2 The Tithingman was the father of 
 the hamlet ; he felt himself personally responsible for the 
 character and conduct of all households in his neighborhood. 
 In point of fact, the Tithingman was held strictly to account 
 by the Selectmen, or Townsmen, for the presence of any 
 new-comer into his hamlet. By a town order of Dor- 
 chester, in the year 1(378, it was required "that the tithing- 
 men in their seuerall presincts should inspect all inmats 
 that doe come into each of their presincts, either single per- 
 sons or famelies, and to giue spedy information therof vnto 
 the Select men from time to time or to some of them that 
 order may be taken about them."'' 
 
 1 Sec references to next paragraph. 
 
 * Records of Massachusetts, v., 241. Acts and Resolves of the Pro- 
 vince of Massachusetts nay, i., 58, 59, CO. Hudson's History of Lexing- 
 ton, <;!>. 
 
 3 Fourth report of the Record Commissioners of Boston. Dorchester 
 Town Records, 22;$. Compare the duty of constables as stated in the 
 statute of Winchester (12.S5) to present all such as do lod.ire stranirers 
 in uplandish towns, for whom they will not answer." Statutes of the 
 Realm, i.. ".is. 
 
riiltingmen. 
 
 The Tithingmen were not appointed by the Selectmen, 
 and possibly they were not originally chosen in town moot- 
 ing, but elected by neighborhoods or hamlets. 1 By an Act 
 of the General Court of Massachusetts in 1079 " the select- 
 men of each touue take care that ty thing men be annually 
 chosen in their seuerall precincts of their most prudent & 
 discreet inhabitants, & sworne to the faithful I dischardge of 
 their trust." * Tithingmen were empowered, like Constables, 
 to assist one another in their several precincts, " and to act 
 in one anothers jlrecincts w'th as full power as in their 
 oune, and yet to reteyne their speciall charges w'thin their 
 ouue bounds." 3 It is a very remarkable fact, which, as far 
 as we know, has entirely escaped attention as regards its 
 historical significance, that the Tithingman of Massachusetts 
 was originally the head man of a neighborhood of at least 
 ten families. This was the revival in all its purity of the 
 Saxon Tithing, an institution more ancient than towns or 
 parishes, a patriarchal institution underlying all local forms 
 of Saxon self-government. It was the unit of the Hundred, 
 which archaic type of organization is still known in Dela- 
 ware and remembered in Maryland, a subject which we 
 shall soon investigate. In 1(538 a bill was introduced into 
 the General Assembly of Maryland providing for ' ' a Ty th- 
 ingman in each Manor" and "a Constable in each Hundred." * 
 There can be no doubt as to the perpetuation of the Saxon 
 Tithing in New England, although in the South it does not 
 appear to have been so common as the Hundred. By an 
 Act of the Massachusetts Colony as late as 1(577 the select- 
 men of every town then existing in Massachusetts were 
 ordered " to see to it that there bee one man appointed to 
 inspect the ten families of his neighbours." b Such was the 
 
 1 In later times, Tithingmen were always elected in town meeting. See 
 Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, L, 155, 328. 
 
 2 Records of Massachusetts, v., 240. 
 
 3 Ibid. 155. 
 
 4 Bacon, Laws of Maryland, 1638, ch. ii., 12. 
 4 Records of Massachusetts, v., 133. 
 
Tithingmen. 
 
 original character of the Tithingman's office in Xevv Eng- 
 land as well as in Old England. Arnold has probably none 
 wrong in his History of Rhode Island 1 in connecting the 
 duty of Tithingmen with that of collecting tithes. The cor- 
 respondence of names was purely accidental. In this view, 
 we are supported by Mr. Edward A. Freeman, who says 
 there is no historic connection between Tithes and Tithing- 
 men. 
 
 In Plymouth Colony, the Saxon Tithing was reinstated 
 for the government, of the Indians. It was ordered that in 
 each town where Indians dwelt that every tenth Indian 
 should be appointed Tithingman by the Court of Assistants. 
 His duty Avas to have the care and oversight of his nine 
 men and to present their faults and misdemeanors to a so- 
 called " overseer," who received his commission from the 
 governor. 2 This was precisely like the duty of the Tithing- 
 men of Old England at the time the Pilgrims came over. 
 English Tithingmen were required by law to report to 
 the justice of the peace the names of all rogues and vaga- 
 bonds apprehended, punished or sent to the house of cor- 
 rection. Courts of law were actually introduced among the 
 Indians of Plymouth Colony, the white settlers considering, 
 very wisely, that such a course would have i% a g<*od tend- 
 encye to the ciuilliseingof the said Indians." 1 In a letter of 
 the Reverend .Mr. Treat, of Eastham, to the Reverend 
 Increase Mather, this good missionary remarks, that there 
 are five hundred Indians in his township. " They have four 
 distinct assemblies, in four villages, in which they have 
 four teachers of their own choice. . . . There are also six jus- 
 tices of the peace, or magistrates in these villages, who 
 regulate their civil affairs, and punish criminals and trans- 
 gressors of the civil law. They have three stated courts, 
 and other inferior officers." 4 These were probably Tithing- 
 
 1 Arnold. History of Rhode Island, ii.. Mil. 
 
 2 Plymouth Colony Laws, 2.">::. 
 a Ibid. 2,-W. 
 
 4 Pratt. History of Kastham. Wollflcel and Orleans, :'.>. 
 
Ttthmgmen. 
 
 meth Indians, like white men, were strictly watched on 
 the Sabbath. They were forbidden to hunt or fish, to 
 plant or hoe corn, to carry burdens, or * to doe any seruill 
 worke on the Lord's day." ' 
 
 There are some rather curious facts concerning this con- 
 dition of practical Indian serfdom in the towns of Plymouth 
 Colony. By a system bf courts and Tithingmen, the Indians 
 were brought as completely under the subjection of the 
 whites as were ever the subdued Britains under the Saxons, 
 or the conquered Saxons under the heel of their Norman 
 lords. And it is very interesting to observe that, in all 
 three instances, the servile population was held down by 
 the very same means. Indians were not only restrained 
 from their natural freedom by these Tithingmen, but were 
 to a great extent reduced to "seruill worke" and the 
 "carrying of burthens," at first, probably, by a kind of 
 voluntary enthrallment for the sake of protection, like 
 the Saxon freemen, then by the slowly increasing pressure 
 of the law. The following extract from the Plymouth 
 records is very interesting in the light of comparative 
 jurisprudence, particularly in the light of the Fugitive 
 Slave law, " if any Indian whoe is a servant to the Eng- 
 lish shaH run away amongst any Indians, such Indians 
 whither such a runaway Indian is come, shall forthwith giue 
 notice of the said Runaway to the Indian Constable [or the 
 Tithingman] whoe shall immediately apprehend such 
 Indian servant, and carry him or her before the Ouerseer 
 or next Majestrate, whoe shall cause such servants to be 
 whipt and sent home by the Constable to his or her 
 
 master, whoe shall pay said Constable for his service ." 2 
 
 It is also worthy of note that Indian captives, taken in war, 
 were sent South and sold as slaves to the Bermudas. s 
 Indians were also sold for debt or theft, at public auction, 
 
 1 Plymouth Colony Laws, 60. 
 
 2 Ibid., 255. 
 
 3 Ibid. 242. King Philip's son was sold into slavery in the Bermudas. 
 
 10 
 
Tithingmen. 
 
 by the Constable of Plymouth towns. 1 We have in New Eng- 
 land an interesting survival of this old Saxon custom in the 
 practice of farming out the labor of the town's poor to the 
 highest bidder. Convict labor, southern chain-gangs, and 
 Delaware whipping-posts, all repose upon the same solid 
 Saxon ground, servitude to the laic. It is folly to heap re- 
 proaches upon the Pilgrim Fathers or upon any generation 
 of men. We Americans, whether in the North or at the 
 South, are of the same English blood; we have inherited 
 kindred institutions, with much the same virtues and about 
 the same vices. 
 
 Tithings and Tithingmen were no development of New 
 England Puritanism. These institutions for the strict and 
 wholesome government of neighborhoods were transmitted 
 to us from the mother country. We may perhaps discover 
 the first step of the transmission process in the instructions 
 given to Governor Endicott, in 1(525), by the Massachusetts 
 Company while they were yet in England. This business 
 association of honorable and enterprising Englishmen, who, 
 according to their own accounts, provided for New England. 
 " Ministers, men skylfull in making of pitch, of salt. Yyne 
 Planters, Wheat, rye, barley, oates, stones, of all sorts 
 of fruites," 2 this thoughtful Company provided also the seeds 
 of English self-government in Towns and Tithings. They 
 said to Endicott by letter, " wee hope vow will f'vnde many 
 religious, discreete, and well ordered persons, well vow 
 must sett over the rest devyding them into famylies, placing 
 some wth the ministers, and others under such as, beeing 
 honest men (and of their owne calling as neere as may bee) 
 may haue care to see them well educated in their general! 
 callings as Christians, and particuler according to their seuer- 
 all trades or fitness in disposition to learne a trade." 3 To 
 any one familiar with the English law of that period con- 
 
 1 Plymouth Colony Laws. '!:'<',. 
 
 Records of Massachusetts, i.. 21 
 
 J Ibid. :{!);{; cl". :'.'.7. loo. lit:.. 
 
 1 1 
 
Tit It I iii/men. 
 
 cerning the training of servants and apprentices, the above 
 instructions to Endicott, which are repeated over and over 
 again, will appear to he only the natural outgrowth of the 
 family regulations of the mother country. 
 
 In the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society at 
 Boston is preserved a curious little volume in old English 
 black-letter, on " The Dvties of Constables, Borsholders, 
 Tythingmen, and such other lowe and Lay Ministers of the 
 Peace, by William Lambard, of Lincolnes Inne, Gent, 
 London, 1614." Published before either Pilgrims or Puri- 
 tans came over and possibly brought to this country by one 
 of the first settlers (for another of the writings of this same 
 William Lambard was owned by Adam Winthrop and w 7 as 
 brought over by his son, Governor John Winthrop, together 
 with the Charter of Massachusetts) , the above treatise must 
 be an important and trustworthy source of information as to 
 the exact nature of these offices in Old England at the 
 period of their transmission to the New World. It appears 
 that there w r ere many variations of the name of Tithingman 
 in the mother country, just as in the Town Records of 
 Groton, carefully edited according to the original spelling, 
 by Dr. Samuel A. Green, we find a great variety of terms, 
 from Tidingman and Tighing man to Tiethengman and 
 Tiethenman. J In Saxon Law we find Tineman, Tynmanna, 
 Teothungman, Teothungmannus. In mediaeval Latin occur 
 Decanus, Decimus, Decimalis Homo. We also find Head- 
 Borough, Head-Boroughman, Borough Elder, Borsholder 
 (Borhs-Ealdor) or the Elder of the Pledge, Chief of the 
 Pledge, Capitalis, Princeps Plegii, and the like. These 
 names we have gathered from many different sources, but 
 they are all intelligible in the light of the following extract 
 from Lambard's Constable : ' ' Now whereas every of these 
 tithings or boroughs did use to make choice of one man 
 amongst themselves, to speak, and to do, in the name of 
 
 1 Green. The early Records of Groton, Massachusetts, 101, 108, 112, 
 116, 125. 
 
 12 
 
Tidiingmen. 
 
 them all ; ho was therefore in some places called the Tything- 
 man, in other places the Borough's elder (whom we now 
 call Bors-holder) , in other places the Boro-head or Head- 
 borough, and in some other places the Chief-pledge; which 
 last name doth plainly expound the other three that are next 
 before it; for Head or Elder of the Boroughs, and Chief of 
 the Pledges, be all one." 
 
 This extract from Lambard we have taken from Touhnin 
 Smith's work on the Parish (280), showing that Lambard is 
 recognized as good authority by one of the best modern 
 writers upon the subject of English local institutions. Black- 
 stone based his account of "Constables" and "Justices of 
 the Peace " upon Lambard, and scarcely ever went back of the 
 hitter's authority. But Lambard while trustworthy in mat- 
 ters belonging to his own time, is to be read with great cau- 
 tion and in the light of modern research as regards all ((no- 
 tions of Saxon antiquities. The following extracts from 
 Lambard we have made from the edition of the Duties of 
 Constables, now preserved in-the library of the .Massachu- 
 setts Historical Society. He says, " In some of the West- 
 erne parts of England where there lie many Tythinginen in 
 one parish, there only one of them is a Constable for the 
 King, and the rest do serue but as the ancient Tithingmen 
 did." Lambard also says, "In some shires, where euerie 
 Third borow hath a Constable, there the officers of the 
 other two be called Third borowcs." The latter office is the 
 same as that of Tithingman. Although not everywhere 
 taking the name of Petty Constable, which was a term 
 introduced by the Normans, the Saxon Tithingman acquired 
 under the Norman regime certain constabulary functions, 
 and these we have partly noticed in our account of the 
 New England Tithingman. Lambard says the Tithingman 
 really combined two offices " the one being his ancient and 
 first office, and the other his later made office." l'pon the 
 basis of original records and of an unpublished manuscript 
 account of constabulary duties, which was brought over to 
 
Tithinginen. 
 
 this country by one of the early settlers of Dorchester, we 
 shall treat of the office of " Constables " in a special mono- 
 graph, to be published by the New England TTintorin flnm, 
 alogical Society. 1 We are here concerned with the ancient 
 Tithingman, who was the father of the Norman petty con- 
 stable and the irrandfather of New England selectmen. 
 
 According to Lambard, the ancient office of Tithingman 
 was headship of the Frank-pledge. This is not the whole 
 truth, for the institutions of Tithing and Tithinginen are 
 older than that of Frank-pledge. Canon Stubbs 2 and 
 George Waitz 3 , the most recent authorities upon English 
 and German constitutional history respectively, maintain 
 that, before the Norman conquest, there is no positive 
 proof of the existence of collective responsibility for crime 
 committed within a Tithing. On the other hand, Palgrave 4 
 and the older authorities are inclined to discover germs of 
 the system of Frank-pledge even in Anglo Saxon times. 
 By a law of Canute, every freeman who desired to enjoy 
 the privilege of exculpation by the oath of his friends or 
 the protection of Wer-geld (money payment for injury) 
 was to be enrolled in a Hundred and in a Tithing ; he was 
 to be brought under pledge or " Borh," and this was to 
 hold him to right. The term Frank-pledge is a vulgar cor- 
 ruption of the Saxon Frith-borh or peace-pledge. Whether 
 or no the outgrowth of Saxon beginnings, this institution in 
 Norman times was certainly the collective personal pledge 
 of ten or more men to their lord. The idea of associate re- 
 
 1 Historical and Genealogical Register, April and July, 1882. 
 * Stubbs' Constitutional History of England, i., 87. 
 
 3 Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, i., 458 (ed. 18G5.) Waitz 
 takes strong ground: " Es gab keine (jesannntbiirgerschaft unter den 
 Angelsachsen, weder fiir das Wergeld noch in irgend welcheni andern 
 Sinn, weder vor noch nach Aelfreds Zeiten." 
 
 4 Palgrave, English Commonwealth, part ii., exxiii. " The S3 r stem was 
 developed between the accession of Canute and the demise of the Con- 
 queror ; and it is not improbable that the Normans completed what the 
 Danes had begun." 
 
 14 
 
Till I ilKJUK-ll . 
 
 sponsibility is here of* more importance than the mere num- 
 ber, for as many as eighty men were sometimes admitted 
 into one Tithing. Ten was the least number allowed in 
 Frank-pledge. 1 Probably the Normans infused greater 
 energy into the Saxon Tithing and gave to the idea of 
 Frith-Borh a more strictly collective sense, jis a better 
 surety for the preservation of the peace.'-' The old Saxon 
 Tithingman certainly became the Borhs-Ealdor (the Bors- 
 holder of Lambard) which signifies the same as the Elder 
 or Chief of the Pledge. 
 
 The custom of Frank-pledge and the relation of Tithing- 
 man to the same are well described in the laws of Henry I. 
 and also in those of Edward the Confessor, both of which 
 collections, however, belong to a period later than the time 
 of the kings whose names they bear. In the laws of Henry 
 there is an ordinance relating to the Hundred, giving special 
 authority, if necessary, to all freemen, whether retainers or 
 men having their own hearthstone (heorthfest), to convene 
 twice a year in their own Hundred, for the purpose of 
 ascertaining whether the Tithings are full, whether any 
 have withdrawn, if so, how and why, and whether any have 
 been added. It was enjoined, moreover, that a Tithing- 
 man (decimus) preside over every nine men. and one of the 
 better sort over every Hundred, who should be called an 
 Alderman ( aldremannus )* and take diligent care to pro- 
 mote the execution of law, whether human or divine. 4 
 
 1 Palgrave, ii.. cxxv. 
 
 2 Dr. Reinhold Schmid, in his edition of the (Jeset/.e der Angelsaehseii 
 (ed. of Is.YS, ]>. (54!)) culls attention to the fact that we have no evidence 
 of the Normans possessing any sueli institution a- l-'rank-pledire in 
 Normandy and says : ' So we.it unsere Ivunde von dem Verhaeltniss bis 
 jetzt reicht, blcibt daher der angelsaechsische I rsprunir der Zehnt- 
 buergersehaft das Wahrscheinlicherc." To this conclusion we had 
 already come before discovering Schmid'- note upon Kechtshnerg- 
 schaft,'' but we gladly rest our results upon hi- solid ant hority. 
 
 3 " Vocabantur elderenian, non propter seiiectuten scd propter 
 sapientiain." Law of Ed. Con. (Thorpe i.. I."i>. i 
 
 4 Ancient Laws and Institutes of Kngland. i., ">1"< : also in Stubbs' 
 Select Charters, lot;. 
 
 15 
 
Tithingmen. 
 
 The law of Frank-pledge, or Frith-Borg, ascribed to Ivl- 
 ward the Confessor, was not framed until the twelfth 
 century. Weadopl Kcmble's translation : "Another peace, 
 the greatest of all, there is whereby all are maintained in 
 tinner state, to wit in the establishment of a guarantee, 
 which the English call Frithborgas, with the exception of 
 the men of York, who call it Tenmannetale, that is, the 
 number often men. And it consists in this, that in all the 
 vills throughout the kingdom, all men are bound to be in a 
 guarantee by tens, so that if any one of the ten men offend 
 the other nine may hold him to right." ' The custom of 
 viewing Frank-pledge in the court leet or popular court of 
 the man >r, for the purpose of seeing that the tenantry are 
 properly enrolled in Tithings, is said to prevail in York- 
 shire to this day. 2 
 
 The origin of Tithings, and of their multiple the Hun- 
 dred, is one of the most obscure questions in the early 
 history of English institutions. Blackstone and the earlier 
 writers dispose of the question very summarily by ascribing 
 the above types of local organization to Alfred : "to him," 
 says Blackstone, " we owe that masterpiece of judicial 
 polity, the subdivision of England into tithings and hun- 
 dreds, if not into counties." The monkish testimony of 
 Ingulph, upon which this widely accepted statement rests, 
 is utterly worthless upon this point. It was customary in 
 the Middle Ages to ascribe every good institution either to 
 Alfred or to Edward the Confessor. If pious monks and 
 popular opinion are to be followed in institutional history, 
 then we must ascribe to King Alfred the origin of trial by 
 jury. As an able critic, presumably Palgrave, said years 
 ago in the Edinburgh Review, 3 if Alfred was really the 
 
 1 Ancient Laws and Institutes, i., 450. Kemble, Saxons in England, i., 
 249-50. 
 
 2 Stubbs' Constitutional History of England, i., 88, note 4. 
 
 3 Edinburgh Review (Feb. 1822), p. 289; cf. Hallam, Middle Ages, 
 note vi. to ch. viii,, part II. 
 
 16 
 
Titkingmen. 
 
 originator of Hundreds and Tithings, and shires, " he must 
 also have been the creator of the common law itself, which 
 only proceeds in conjunction with these divisions." The 
 fact is, Blackstone and the older writers, Coke, Littleton, 
 Bracton, knew really very little about the origin of English 
 institutions. The whole science of institutional history is 
 one of modern growth and can be pursued only in the light 
 of comparative politics and of comparative jurisprudence, 
 along lines of inquiry opened up by such pioneer investi- 
 gators as Von Maurer, Hanssen, Nasse, AVaitz, (ineist, 
 Stubbs, Freeman, Maine, and specialists in Anglo-Saxon 
 law. The study of Saxon institutions was not possible 
 before the labors of Palgrave, Kemble, Thorpe, and Rein- 
 hold Schmid in classifying materials and editing statutes 
 and codices. But with all these modern facilities, it is not 
 easy to trace out to one's entire, satisfaction the origin of 
 England's early institutions of law and government. 
 
 We find Tithings mentioned in the law of Canute already 
 cited. AVe can trace back the institution through several 
 Saxon reigns, but finally we lose all trace of it. Among 
 the laws of Edgar, in the ordinance relating to the Hundred 
 it is ordered that if a thief is to be pursued, the fact is to be 
 made known to the Hundrcdman and he is to inform the 
 Tithingman, and all are to "go forth to where God may 
 direct them," so that they "do justice on the thief, as it 
 was formerly the enactment of Edmund." 1 Here, if we 
 mistake not, we arc upon the historic track of the old Saxon 
 Hue and Cry. AVe note from the laws of Edgar that " if 
 the hundred pursue a track into another hundred," 2 warning 
 is to be given to the Hundrcdman there, so that lie may 
 join in the chase. Following a track from one Hundred 
 into another would seem to imply territorial limits. In the 
 laws of Edgar, it is also prescribed that no one shall take pos- 
 session of unknown cattle without the testimonies of the men 
 
 1 Ancient Laws and Statutes of Knirland. i.. L'.V.t. 
 " Ibid. 201. 
 
 C 17 
 
Tithingmtn. 
 
 of the Hundred, or of the Tithingman." ' In the laws of 
 Athelstan, among the so-called Judicia Civitatia Lundonim 
 it is ordered that, in tracing or pursuing 8 criminal, every 
 man shall render aid, l< SO long as the trtiek is known ; and 
 after the track has failed him, that one man be found [from 
 one Tithing] where there is a large population, as well as 
 from one Tithing where a less population is, either to ride 
 or to go (unless there be need of more.)" 2 This appears 
 to imply a territorial seat even for the Tithing, as an in- 
 tegral part of the Hundred, as well as a varying number of 
 inhabitants within the Tithing itself. 
 
 Probably the Saxon Tithing had its origin in the personal 
 association of warriors by tens and hundreds. Such a 
 decimal system of military organization existed among 
 various early Teutonic peoples, if not throughout the whole 
 Aryan family of nations. Even the Jews fought by tens, 
 and fifties, and hundreds. Undoubtedly kinship had origin- 
 ally something to do with the marshalling of hosts. The 
 Homeric w r arriors fought under patriarchal chiefs. The 
 ancient Germans, according to Tacitus, were arrayed by 
 families and near kinsmen (familiae et propinquitates). 3 
 And it is not at all. unlikely that, after the conquest of 
 Britain, the Saxons settled down in Tithings and Hundreds 
 upon somewhat clannish principles. . Of course the com- 
 position of the host, when levied, would vary from time to 
 time, but a certain idea of territorial permanence would 
 soon attach itself to the local Tithings and Hundreds from 
 the very fact of the allotment of lands. 
 
 There seems to be great reluctance on the part of German 
 
 1 Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, i., 261. 
 
 2 Ibid. 233, cf. ii., 499 and Schinid, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 161. 
 
 3 Tacitus, Germania, cap. 7. Prof. W. F. Allen, in a note upon this 
 passage, in his edition of the Germania, calls attention to the parallel 
 passage in Caesar, de hello Gallico, vi., 22, where it is stated that land 
 was assigned gentibus cognationibusque hominum. "From the two 
 passages, it appears that the divisions of laud, and military divisions, 
 were alike founded upon Kinship." 
 
 18 
 
Tithhiymen. 
 
 specialists like Gneist and Schmid to admit thai tin; Saxon 
 Tithing ever became territorial before the Norman conquest, 
 after which time Schmid, 1 at least, concedes the existence 
 of the territorial Tithing, although he, like the rest of the 
 German critics, continues to distinguish very sharply 
 between the local Saxon Tithing and the purely personal 
 Frank-pledge. Stubbs, the best English authority upon 
 the subject of Saxon institutions, says that Tithings of a 
 territorial character exist to this day in the western counties 
 of Somersetshire, 2 Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Worces- 
 tershire, and in all counties south of the Thames, except 
 Cornwall and Kent. Stubbs, who follows Pearson upon 
 this point, says the Tithings of some counties answer to the 
 townships of others. This statement and the researches of 
 Pearson, in the text of his Historical Maps of England 
 during the first thirteen centuries, 3 uncover a secret which 
 none of the German writers appear to have discovered. 
 They deny the existence of a territorial Tithing among tin* 
 Saxons, because the name does not occur in the Domesday 
 Book. 4 Toulmin Smith read the secret of the Tithing in his 
 researches into the history of the English Parish and it will 
 be as clear as daylight to anyone reflecting upon the natural 
 relation of the personal Tithing to its landed domain. A 
 group of at least ten families, a Tithing of inhabitants, 
 constituted a Saxon Township, which is the secular basis ot 
 the ecclesiastical Parish. 
 
 We cannot enter in this connection upon the subject of 
 
 1 Schmid, Die (Jesetzc der Anjjelsachsen, ills. 
 
 2 Mr. Kdwunl A. Freeman says lie lives in the Tithini: of litirrott. 
 Soinerleaze, Wells. County of Somerset, which Tithini:. before the 
 recent rtisjhway Act of the Poor Law. used to meet ami tax it-elf for 
 local purposes. Notices of the tnectim;' of the Tithing n-nl to he 
 posted, like the notices of a New Knylaiid Town Meeting. 
 
 :i Pearson Historical Maps. ,")<) :>_'. 
 
 4 (i neist. Das KiiLdische Verwalttin.nsreclil . i.. "> I. In den uneiidlielien 
 Kan/.elheiten. welclie das norinaunisehc l)omesda\ hook uieht. Loimnen 
 die Worte tlcniniit, decenna, ti'Wihuj. hjihimj audi nielit ein ein/.iues 
 Mai vor. 
 
 l'.i 
 
Tithing men. 
 
 the transformations of Tithing, Township, and Parish, but 
 shall one day do so more fully in papers upon the Origin of 
 Northern Towns and Southern Boroughs. We call atten- 
 tion, however, to a few important and fundamental facts. 
 
 1. Many modern places in England, that are recognized 
 as Tithings, end in the Saxon word Ton, meaning Town, 
 e. g., the Tithing of Alkington, in Berkeley Parish. 
 
 2.' Many Tithings are geographically identical with 
 Parishes, although many Parishes often include several 
 Tithings. 
 
 3. Many names of English Parishes end in the Saxon 
 Ton and correspond territorially with old Saxon Towns. 
 
 4. ' In the later part of the Middle Ages, taxation in 
 England was levied upon Tithings, Towns, and Parishes; 
 the existence of ten householders in a township or parish 
 was the criterion of local liability to taxation. 
 
 5. The Tithingman, and his historic kinsmen, the Town 
 Reeve, and the Parish Constable, assessed and collected 
 taxes. 
 
 6. The Saxon Tithingman became the Norman Petty 
 Constable. It is a principle of the common law that 
 wherever there is -a Petty Constable, there is a Parish. 
 
 The following extract from the Laws of Edward the Con- 
 fessor (Thorpe I., 454), throws considerable light upon the 
 functions of the English Tithingman in the Middle Ages: 
 Cum autem viderunt quod aliqui stulti libenter foriftfa- 
 ciebant erga vicinos stios, sapientiores cepei*unt consilium 
 inter se, quomodo eos reprimerent, et sic impomerunt 
 justiciarios super qiiosque x. frithborgos, quos decanos 
 possumus dicere, Anglice autem tyenthe-heved, vocati sunt, 
 hoc est caput x. Isti autem inter villas, inter vicinos tracta- 
 bant causas, et secundum quod forisfavturo3 erant, emenda- 
 tiones et ordinationes faciebant, videlicet de pascuis, de 
 pratis, de messibus, de certationibus inter vicinos, et de 
 multis Jiujusmodi quce frequenter insurgunt. Compare 
 
 20 
 
Tithingmen. 
 
 
 
 Kemble, Saxons in England, I., 253. Spelman (Works 
 II., 51) says, " every hundred was divided into many 
 Freeborgs or Tithings consisting of ten men. which stood 
 all bound one to the other, and did amongst themselves 
 punish small matters in their court for that purpose, called 
 the Lcet, which was sometimes granted over to the Lord 
 of Manours, and sometimes exercised by peculiar officers. 
 But the greater things were also carried from thence into 
 the Hundred Courts; so that both the streams of Civil 
 justice and of Criminal did there meet, and were decided by 
 the Hundreds as by superior judges both to the Court 
 Baron and Court Leet also." Then commenting on the 
 above law, Spelman continues, " Edward the Confessor 
 (LI., cap. 32) saith, that there were justices over every 
 ten Freeborgs, called Deans, or Tienheovod (that is. head 
 often) which among their neighbours in Towns compounded 
 matters of trespasses done in pastures, meadows, corn, and 
 other strife, rising among them. But the greater matters, 
 saith he, were referred to superior justices appointed over 
 every ten 'of them, whom we call Centurions, Centenaries, 
 or Hundredors, because they judged over an hundred 
 Freeborgs." 
 
 In the face of this testimony, it is difficult to understand 
 how German critics and even Ha Ham (Middle Ages, eh. 
 VIII., part 1) and Stubbs (Const. Hist. I., DO) can doubt 
 that the Tithingman settled small causes between man and 
 man. The Selectmen of early New England Towns and 
 the Parish Officers of Maryland had similar judicial func- 
 tions. Upon the question of village-judgeship, Stubbs 
 makes a ve-v prudent modification of his first statement : 
 " The Tithingman is of course an elective officer. The idea 
 that he was a sort of village-magistrate is without basis; 
 although in a simple community of peasants the office of 
 Constable, for such seems to have been the position of the 
 Tithingman, was held in more honour than it is now." Pear- 
 son, in his History of England ( I.. 252) savs, The only 
 
r rillt!n<imen. 
 
 t 
 
 popular magistrates ill the country were the Tithing and 
 Hundred Reeves j (he former were always, the latter 
 mostly, elected by their respective communes. The smaller 
 questions of debt and police were probably decided by 
 these met! ill their respective courts; the freemen of the 
 Tithing would meet as occasion required; the Hundred 
 Court was summoned once a month." In the court of 
 the. Tithing we may discover the germ of vestry meeting 
 and town meeting, and in Tithingmen, the origin of Select- 
 vestrymen and Selectmen. 
 
 The Saxon Tithingman was the Selectman of the Tithing. 
 He was an elected officer, like the Petty Constable, who 
 succeeded him. The mediaeval Tithingman's functions were 
 patriarchial and authoritative. He was the Town Father in 
 the true and original sense of that term. His relations were 
 with families, as in early New England. He watched over 
 his hamlet as the New England Tithingman watched over his 
 neighborhood and the congregation. He kept the public 
 peace ; he was arbiter between neighbors and kinsmen ; he 
 regulated the division of lands, the use of pastures and 
 meadows ; he announced the time of harvest and when 
 enclosures were to be removed or fences put up. He was 
 a man having authority in a small neighborly way. He 
 foreshadowed the Petty Constable and the easy-going' Select- 
 men of our modern New England Towns. But the main 
 idea of his office was the same as that perpetuated in the 
 original Tithingmen of New England, viz : elective, patri- 
 archal headship over a neighborhood of at least ten families. 
 This is the original, fundamental character of the office, 
 considered as a local institution. 
 
 We have found the heart of our subject. We have 
 stripped off' the ecclesiastical tissue, which in later times 
 enshrouded the New England Tithingman, who is now 
 undoubtedly dead. We have dissected away the outer 
 layer of constabulary duties, and have found, in the patri- 
 archal control of a Tithing, the real mechanism which for 
 
 22 
 
Tithingmen. 
 
 many centuries gave such energetic life to the Tithingrnnn. 
 The biologists in Baltimore have recently succeeded in 
 isolating the mammalian heart, and in keeping it alive, by 
 a transfusion of foreign blood, for hours after the rest of the 
 body is entirely dead. Possibly by some such method of 
 procedure, in the case of a live subject like the modern 
 Constable or Selectman, we may derive a more intimate 
 knowledge of that older institution, whose life is now beating 
 on in kindred forms. 
 
 23 
 
V 
 
 Local Government 
 
 Michigan and the Northwest 
 
[Extracts from the Ordinance cf May 20, 1785, for ascertaining tbe mode of disposing of 
 Lands in the Western Territory.] 
 
 " Be it ordained by the United States in Congress assembled, that the territory ceded 
 by individual States to the United States, which has been purchased of the Indian 
 inhabitants, shall be disposed of in the following manner: 
 
 "The surveyors .... shall proceed to divide the said territory into townships of 
 six miles square, by lines running due north and south, and others crossing these at 
 right angles, as near as may be, 
 
 "There shall be reserved the Lot No. 16, of every township, for the maintenance of 
 public schools within the said township." 
 
 [Extract from the Ordinance of July 13, 1787, for the Government of the Territory of the 
 United 8tates, north-west of the river Ohio.] 
 
 "Keligion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the 
 happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." 
 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 I N 
 
 Historical and Political Science 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History is past Politics and Politics present History. Freeman 
 
 V 
 
 Local Government 
 
 Michigan and the Northwest 
 
 Read before the American Social Science Association, September 7, 1 SS2 
 
 By EDWARD W. BEMIS, A. B. 
 
 B A LT IMOll K 
 
 Published by the Johns Hopkins Usivkksitv 
 
 MARCH, 188:5. 
 
JOHN MURPHY A CO., PRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORK. 
 
LOCAL GOVERNMENT 
 
 IN 
 
 MICHIGAN AND THE NORTHWEST. 
 
 Not long ago, at a college in a neighboring State, a professor 
 proposed for debate, " Resolved, That the New England town- 
 meeting should be abolished." In a class of nearly one hundred, 
 not ten could be found willing to discuss the subject, and only one 
 showed a comprehension of its general bearings. this in a New 
 England college. So great ignorance, probably, does not prevail 
 among those New England citizens whose duty at the polls has taught 
 them something of the government of their town or city. Yet it 
 is undeniable that few persons have any accurate knowledge of the 
 local political institutions of other parts of the country than their 
 own. For instance, in a recent conversation, a judge of acknowl- 
 edged reputation for legal wisdom, in a State east of New York, a 
 man even of legislative experience, said he was entirely unac- 
 quainted with the county government of the Empire State. A 
 member of the supreme bench of one of the northwestern States 
 confessed to much the same ignorance respecting Ohio. 
 
 Nor is the reason for this ignorance far to seek. The import- 
 ance of the subject is hardly yet realized. We seldom value or 
 study what we share with all around us. If money for schools, 
 for roads, or for the poor is raised in the same manner in our town 
 and the next, in our county and beyond, we assume it is so with 
 our State and its neighbor, with the East and the West, with 
 Pennsylvania and Illinois, with New York and Missouri, or. if we 
 learn of a difference, we imagine that ours must be the better. 1 1' 
 we go to our libraries for information, we return no wiser than we 
 went. As the old method of writing history was to narrate the 
 exploits of kings and their armies, so the study of politics is still 
 mostly confined to the doings of Reichstag. Parliament, Congress, 
 State Legislatures and Common Councils. 
 
 Previous to 1872, when E. M. Haines, of Illinois, read a valua- 
 ble paper before the Social Science Association, on the "Growth 
 
6 Local Government in 
 
 of Township Organization in the West," scarcely anything on the 
 subject of local government, save Professor Parker's paper in the 
 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society on the Towns 
 of New England, had been written in this country. With the ex- 
 ception of a brief article by Galpin, in Walker's Statistical Atlas 
 in 1874, only two or three short articles have since appeared, al- 
 though such writers as Bancroft and Freeman have borne testimony 
 to the need of information upon this subject. Several men at the 
 Johns Hopkins University are now pursuing their investigations in 
 this direction and their results will be published in a regular series 
 of University Studies in Historical and Political Science. 
 
 Now what is meant by local government, and why is its treatment 
 so important? The government of the United States consists of 
 four distinct centres of political power : the central power, with 
 its seat at Washington ; the State, with its important legislative 
 powers ; the county, the seat of many judicial powers ; and, lastly, 
 cities and villages, and those small incorporations, rareby more 
 than thirty-six square miles in area, into which more than half the 
 States of our Union are divided, and which, in the East, are usually 
 called towns, and, in the West, townships. The assembling of the 
 electors together in these small civil divisions, at. annual or special 
 meeting, for determining, not only what officers shall manage the 
 affairs of the township, but, as in many States, how such affairs 
 shall be managed, what taxes shall be raised for schools, roads, 
 bridges, parks, commons, cemeteries, public buildings, and other 
 subjects of local concern, determining, too, what by-laws the}' will 
 have for their regulation, and, in short, how the prudential affairs 
 of the townshio shall be managed in the manner most conducive 
 to its peace, welfare and good order ; all this has an influence upon 
 the people, the importance of which cannot be over-estimated. Of 
 all the means of political education, none perhaps has been so 
 effective in creating an interest in republican institutions as well 
 as in calling forth the intelligence necessary for their preservation, 
 as the town-meeting. 
 
 It is not, however, to the town-meeting alone that we refer when 
 we speak of local government, but to all agencies by which matters 
 purely local in character, are taken from federal or State juris- 
 diction and placed in the hands of the local authorities. Counts' 
 legislation and county powers, in so far as related to subjects of 
 exclusively county interest, are just as much parts of local self- 
 
Michigan and the Northwest. 7 
 
 government, as the government of town, village, or city. Indeed, 
 the increasing tendency to transfer power from the State to the 
 county is very marked in some sections and deserving of careful 
 study. It needs but the slightest acquaintance with the workings 
 of onr State legislatures to convince any one that much of the 
 corruption, the "log-rolling," and worse, which disgrace American 
 politics, results from the control which is given to our legislatures 
 over purely local matters by means of special legislation. Authority 
 for building a bridge or house of refuge, erecting a town hall or a 
 prison, is sought in the legislature, although only the one member 
 from the district affected knows anything of the merits of the bill. 
 If that member has already sold his vote none of his associates are 
 sufficiently acquainted with the measure to defeat it, but pass the 
 bill out of courtesy, wiiile individual responsibility for the corrup- 
 tion or misjudgment is lost in the numbers voting. Not so when 
 these questions are brought before the local district which alone is 
 interested. Every member of a county or township-board is 
 acquainted with the measure under discussion, and popular con- 
 demnation follows close upon abuse of trust. The worst class of 
 men seek to enter our legislatures because of the profitable meas- 
 ures requiring their approval, but which might better be adjusted 
 in local assemblies. Illinois, fourteen years ago, by passing an 
 act forbidding local bills and special acts of incorporation, and 
 relegating all that was necessary to the local bodies, diminished 
 her pages of statute laws from three thousand to two hundred. 
 Understanding, then, the importance of local government, both 
 for political education and pure administration of public affairs, it 
 becomes of great interest to study our various systems of local 
 self-government, both in their development, present condition, and 
 probable future. 
 
 Although from the same stock, and subjects of the same laws, 
 the settlers along the northern and southern portions of our Atlan- 
 tic coast were led by circumstances, which we need not here dis- 
 cuss, to adopt very different systems of local government. At the 
 beginning, the parish of South Carolina resembled the New Kng- 
 land town, as a student from the Palmetto State has shown ; but, 
 by 1850, nearly all power in the South was concentrated in the 
 State and county, while in New England the local unit endured. 
 But town and parish were survivals of the old English and 
 German village community. The theory of State lights was 
 
8 Local Government in 
 
 a favorite one at the South, but decentralization of power, or 
 local self-government, was much greater at the North. 
 
 We might study simple town government in New England, or 
 its modified form in New York. But it would be as interesting, 
 and more instructive, to any one investigating the ultimate effect 
 of these institutions and their relative merits, if we could find some 
 large area of country where the two systems of centralized and 
 decentralized power have been brought together on a new field ; 
 and especially interesting would it be if any one method of gov- 
 ernment had gained the ascendency after a fair trial of strength. 
 Such a country is that which was originally called the Northwest 
 Territory, or that beyond the Ohio, land that is now divided into 
 the five States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wis- 
 consin. 
 
 The French, 1 the early settlers of Michigan, and of a few places 
 to the South and West, were never given local rights, but were 
 under military and personal government. Land was granted on 
 feudal conditions, 2 while trade was in the hands of a close corpora- 
 tion. One great trouble with the French settlements and a chief 
 cause of their decline, was their entire lack of local government. 
 "The progress of France," says Lecky, 3 "in more distant quar- 
 ters [than Europe] has been restricted by an incurable incapacity 
 for successful colonization, due principally to the French passion 
 for centralization and over administration." French colonization 
 in this county was contemporaneous with the increasing centrali- 
 zation of French institutions under Louis XIV. Everything must 
 be done for the people, nothing by them. Modern French history 
 is a sufficient commentary on such a system. With all local offi- 
 cers appointed at the capital, Paris was the most powerful corpora- 
 tion in the State. If the Parisians favored kingdom or republic, 
 this was the government of France. The present stability of the 
 French Republic is partly due to the powerful and awakened con- 
 servative influence of the peasantry, who are allowed far more local 
 government than eight}" years ago. 
 
 'For a very interesting account of French customs, character, mode of life, 
 education, etc., see paper on The Early Colonization of Detroit, by Bela 
 Hubbard, Michigan Pioneer Collections, Vol. I, pp. 347-368. 
 
 2 This is well described in the early chapters of J. Campbell's valuable 
 work, " The Political History of Michigan." 
 
 'History of England in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. I, p. 358. 
 
Michigan and the Northwest. 9 
 
 The evils of centralized government increase directly with the 
 separation of the governing and the governed. The effect is well 
 described by Judge Campbell in a recent paper. 1 "A system of 
 personal oversight," he says, "was maintained over every man 
 who came into the country, and there is no instance recorded, and 
 probably none existed, where any one ever settled down in the 
 wilderness as a squatter or pioneer and cleared a farm for himself. 
 There were no farming settlements except under restricted and 
 lixed regulations, and every one who went into the country went 
 as a roving adventurer, and not as a settler." Complete centrali- 
 zation left no room for independence.- The natural result was 
 seen when invasion came. As long as the feudal lords were honest 
 and patriotic, resistance to conquest was strong ; but when those in 
 authorit}' proved false, the colonists fell helpless before the English, 
 instead of resisting as did the settlers of the Atlantic coast in 1770. 
 
 Under British control there was still no local government in the 
 Northwest. The governor and council had almost absolute power. 
 There were less than four hundred Englishmen, and the idea that 
 Frenchmen were entitled to representation, or even to the right 
 of habeas corpus, was deemed preposterous. Tartly in consequence 
 of such facts, few settlers were attracted to this region, and popu- 
 lation increased slowly. 3 
 
 On the evacuation of the territory, in 1788, the country assumed 
 the name of the Northwest Territory, and was organized in accord- 
 
 'Early French Settlements in Michigan. Pioneer ('oil., Vol. If, p. t>G. 
 
 *" Simple and frugal in their habits, contented with their lot, they renewed 
 in their forest recesses of the new world, the life of the old. They were free 
 from ambition and its cares, and without aims. While they enjoyed much 
 personal license, they had no conception of municipal freedom ami of self- 
 government of liberty regulated by law, originating from the Mill of tin: 
 governed themselves. They received with equal and unquestioning subinis. 
 siveness their law from the king and his subordinates, and their religion from 
 their priests." 'the Northwest during the Revolution, by (.'has. I. Walker. 
 Mich. Pioneer Coll., Vol. J 1 1, p. It. 
 
 3 Many went to St. Louis, Arkansas and New Orleans. "Detroit, which 
 had probably numbered more than (100 inhabitants in I7(>.'>, had hut about liOO 
 at the commencement of the Revolution. The whole Detroit settlement did 
 not then exceed 700 or SOU, in the place of 2500, as estimated by Rogers in 
 
 17(i0 No new settlements had been formed, ami I am satisfied 
 
 that at the commencement of the Revolution, exclusive of officers and sol- 
 diers and their families, the entire white population of the Northwest did net 
 exceed .3,000 souls." Mich. Coll. Vol. Ill, p. 15. 
 
10 Local Government in 
 
 ance with the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787, the importance 
 of which can scarcely be exaggerated. It secured freedom, educa- 
 tion and political development to what are now five great States, 
 Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. We cannot 
 trace the growth of these individual States. It will answer our 
 purpose to sketch as briefly as possible the growth of local powers 
 in that one of the five which first adopted the town-meeting, and 
 by its success induced man) - other States, west and south, to make 
 the same attempt with as marked success. 
 
 Counties were established in Michigan by Gov. Hull, in 1805, 
 and for the same object as the counties of old Virginia, for judi- 
 cial purposes. Indeed, one-fourth of the laws of Micnigan at 
 that time were taken from Virginia and the rest from Ohio, Massa- 
 chusetts and New York, in about equal proportions. 1 As the Ohio 
 legislation was in part a copy of Virginia and Pennsylvania laws, 
 the influence of the two different systems of local government, 
 centralized and decentralized, was about equal. The French pre- 
 ferred central control, but most of the new settlers were from 
 New York and New England where local power was most devel- 
 oped. In 181 5, - before a sign of local government was visible in 
 the rural districts, an act reincorporating Detroit allowed the 
 electors in town-meeting to levy taxes for such purposes as they 
 saw fit. The same power was granted to Prairie du Chien in 1821. 
 
 The growth of local power outside of the cities was somewhat 
 as follows: Gov. Hull, before 1813, appointed commissioners to 
 supervise the highways and bridges in the as yet unincorporated 
 townships or divisions of territoiy six miles square, into which all 
 western land is divided by the governmont surveyor. Then these 
 commissioners in 1820 were given the relief of the poor. Soon' 
 after, in the same year, by vote of the governor and judges, it 
 became the duty as well as privilege of the governor to appoint 
 three county commissioners, with somewhat enlarged powers. 
 
 In 1825, Congress gave power to the governor and council of 
 Michigan to incorporate townships and provide for the election of 
 county and township officers. This may be considered as the 
 foundation of local government in Michigan, establishing, as it did, 
 local elections for all local officers ; but the powers of the county 
 
 lr This statement is based on an analysis of the Territorial Laws, published 
 in one volume. 
 
 2 See Territorial Laws. Acts of 1815. 
 
Michigan and the Northwest. 11 
 
 still vastly exceeded those of the town. From a law of 1x27 we 
 judge that the town-meeting could only appropriate money for the 
 destruction of noxious weeds, birds and animals, and for the main- 
 tenance of the township poor. Another and important power was, 
 however, conferred upon the township that year, namely, raising 
 money for schools. From that time until the present, the powers 
 of the township have slowly but continuously increased. 
 
 The genesis of local government in Western hamlets is very 
 simple. First comes the settler, who, axe in hand, clears the 
 ground for his humble dwelling and plants whatever seed he has 
 brought with him. Then comes another settler and another, until, 
 perhaps, a dozen families are established near. Two wants are 
 now felt : roads, or at least paths, from house to house, from ham- 
 let to market town, and a school-house for the multiplying children. 
 There is no strong central authority to provide these things, but 
 the settlers meet and voluntarily vote to tax themselves. The 
 services of a supervisor, collector, clerk, constable, and justice of 
 the peace are required. Mam- a township record begins like that 
 of Burlington. 1 " Was organized in 1837, and held its first town- 
 ship meeting, April 3d, of that year, electing Justus Goodwin, 
 supervisor; (). ('. Freeman, town clerk; Justus Goodwin, Gihesia 
 Sanders and Moses S. Gleason, justices of the peace; Levi 
 Haughtailing, constable and collector. Established six road dis- 
 tricts ; voted, $100 to build a bridge across the St. Joseph river, 
 and 850 for bridging the Nottawa creek. Voted, .">() for common 
 schools and $o bounty for wolf scalps." The township would 
 naturally assume other powers in due time with the increased 
 community of interests. 
 
 The local institutions of the Fast were transplanted to a new 
 soil, losing in the journey none of their pristine vigor, but casting 
 oil' such portions as were found unsuited to a change of circum- 
 stance and time. Of the four supreme court judges of .Michigan, 
 Ihree are of New York or New Fngland birth. The same is true, 
 of fifteen of the twenty-four State circuit judges. Five of the latter 
 are of Michigan birth, and three of Ohio.- Probably no State 
 can rival Michigan in number of sons from New York and New 
 England. Of the 49G members of the Michigan Pioneer Associa- 
 
 'Rccortls of Burlin-ton, Calhoun Co. Mich. Coll., Vol. II., p. 21 I. 
 ^Michigan Manual lor 1 S.S 1 , pp. 41 J? 42:!. 
 
12 Local Government in 
 
 tion in 1881, 407 are from these sections. 1 From such a fact alone 
 we might expect an aptitude for local government ; but apart 
 from this, the kindrei fact of participating in the organization of 
 communities and new governments, has had much to do with the 
 easy transplanting of local institutions, and with the energy and 
 force of character displayed by the settlers. " There is something 
 so staid, so stereotyped, so entirely finished in those old settle- 
 ments," [of the East] remarks a recent speaker, 2 "that there is 
 small opportunity for development; but let the persons that are 
 there struggling for an existence amid those old fossilized, stereo- 
 typed institutions, start out into a new country, and they can get 
 into a position in the organization of society, the organization of 
 States, the organization of counties, the organization of towns, 
 the organization of villages, the establishment of schools and 
 churches ; and thus it is by being brought into contact with this 
 necessity the opportunity is afforded to develop into a higher type, 
 and a greater vigor of life, than is possible in the old country." 
 
 A marked feature of the political development of Michigan, is 
 the influence of the governors and judges of the territory. Their 
 legislation, in the words of Judge Campbell, was " rather a first 
 preparation for popular government than the result of popular dis- 
 content." From 1813 to 1831, Governor Cass was a great 
 power in the territoiy. He was thoroughly imbued with New 
 England ideas of local government, under which he was born and 
 brought up. He it was, more than any one else, who instituted 
 county and town government in Michigan. He gradually abandoned 
 the appointment of county and township officers, and urged, nay 
 required the people to elect them. He evinced his far-reaching 
 discernment and foresight in the following words : " In proportion 
 as government recedes from the people, they become liable to abuse. 
 Whatever authority can be conveniently exercised in primary 
 assemblies, ma}' be deposited there with safety. They furnish 
 practical schools for the consideration of political subjects, and no 
 one can revert to the history of our revolutionary struggle without 
 being sensible that to their operation we are indebted for much of 
 the energy, unanimity and intelligence which was displayed by our 
 
 Michigan Pioneer Collection, Vol. I, p. 92; Vol. II, p. 186; Vol. Ill, p. 
 2(J8. 
 
 2 See Michigan Pioneer Collection, Vol. II, p. 398. 
 
Michigan and the Norlliwest. 13 
 
 government and people at that important crisis." 1 And in this he 
 voices the sentiments of Jefferson, who says : ; ' These wards, 
 called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their 
 governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention 
 ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self- 
 government and for its preservation. "- 
 
 In the constitution which Michigan adopted on becoming a State, 
 in 1837, the governor had important powers. "With the consent 
 of the senate, he could appoint the judges and all State oflieers : 
 could adjourn the legislature if he thought lit, and could remove 
 from office not only State officers, but even those of the county 
 and township if he thought them incompetent. Internal improve- 
 ments also were sanctioned. All this is now changed. Uv the 
 constitution of 1850 the power of the governor was greatly re- 
 stricted. Nearly all offices, ministerial as well as county and 
 town, were made elective ; while mismanagement of the finances 
 in making internal improvements had so displeased the people, that 
 the power was taken away. Exclusive control was given to the 
 count}' board of supervisors in the settlement of claims against 
 counties,'' and the express provision was inserted that the legisla- 
 ture might confer upon politically organized or incorporated town- 
 ships, incorporated villages and cities, and upon the boards of 
 supervisors of the several counties, 4i such powers of a local legis- 
 lative and administrative character as they may deem proper." 4 
 The county seat cannot be removed without vote of the electors, 
 and when, in 1870, the constitutional amendment was submitted 
 to popular vote, allowing county supervisors to raise 82.000 for 
 public buildings, highways, bridges, etc., without vote of the 
 county, instead of 81,000 as at present, the adinendment was de- 
 feated, 01,1)0-4 to ;3J,1.S0. 
 
 'Life of Cass by W. G. L. Smith, p. 181. 
 
 He also says : "Those institutions have elsewhere produced the most ben- 
 eficial (.'fleets upon the character of communities, and upon thu general course 
 of public measures. They embrace within their scope those questions ot 
 local police which are necessary to every citizen, and which every citizen is 
 competent to discuss and determine. In the more extensive concerns ot" a 
 country the necessary regulations for these subordinate matters cannot he 
 adopted and enforced " [ by the central authorities ]. 
 
 -Letter of .Jefferson to Samuel Kerchival, duly 1L\ ISO!. Writings, Vol. 
 VII. p. 13. 
 
 'Constitution of 1S.V), Art. X. Sec. 10. 
 
 'Article IV. Sec. 38. 
 
14 Local Government in 
 
 Michigan was the first State in the West to adopt the town- 
 meeting. She has been followed in this by Wisconsin, Minnesota 
 and Illinois. The three States Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, were 
 settled more largely bj- people from Pennsylvania, Kentucky and 
 Virginia, than were Michigan and Wisconsin. As a natural con- 
 sequence they have adopted a compromise system similar in many 
 respects to that of Pennsylvania. Ohio 1 and Indiana 2 have town- 
 ship officers elected by the people, but few questions of an admin- 
 istrative or legislative character are submitted to the voters. In 
 Illinois, 3 however, in 1848, a law was passed 4 b}* which a vote of a 
 majority of the legal voters allows a county to adopt township organ- 
 ization w r ith power lodged in the town-meeting, as in Michigan and 
 Wisconsin. Seventy-five of the one hundred and two counties 
 have already so voted ; seven since 1870, and there is no doubt 
 but that the others will follow. 
 
 The town meeting in Michigan 5 is thus conducted : The first 
 Monday in April of each year, every citizen of the United States, 
 twenty-one years of age and upwards, who has resided in the 
 State six months and in the township the ten days preceding, has 
 the right of attending and participating in the meeting. The 
 supervisor, the chief executive officer of the township, presides, 
 and, with the justice of the peace, whose term of office soonest 
 expires, and the township clerk, constitute the inspectors of elec- 
 tion. After the choice of officers for the ensuing year the electors 
 proceed, from twelve to one or three, as the case ma}' require, to 
 the discussion of town business. Complaint is perhaps made 
 that the cattle in a certain part of the township are doing damage 
 by running at large ; a by-law is passed, forbidding the same 
 under penalty not exceeding ten dollars. A bridge ma}- be wanted 
 in another part of the township, but the inhabitants of that road 
 district cannot bear the expense ; the town-meeting votes the 
 necessary amount, not exceeding the limits of law, for the laws 
 restricting the amount of taxation and indebtedness are very par- 
 ticular in their provisions. The electors may regulate the keeping 
 and sale of gunpowder, the licensing of clogs, and the maintenance 
 
 Revised Statutes of Ohio, 1880, Part I, Titles X and XI. 
 
 2 " " of Indiana, 1881, Chap. 90, Article 32. 
 
 3 " " of Illinois, 1880, Chap. 139. 
 
 4 For law as amended, see Illinois; L, 1831, pp. 216-218. 
 5 IIowells' Annotated Statutes of Mich, 1882, G69-717. 
 
Michigan and the Northwest. 1,"> 
 
 of hospitals, and may order the vaccination of all inhabitants. 
 
 The voters in town-meeting are also to decide how mneli of the 
 one-mill-tax on every dollar of the valuation shall lie applied to the 
 purchase of books for the township library, the residue going to 
 schools. The annual reports of the various township ollieers 
 charged with the disbursement of public moneys also report at this 
 time. In slu.rt, whatever is local in character and affecting the 
 township only, is subject to the control of the people assembled in 
 town meeting. 1 Yet we may notice some minor differences be- 
 tween the New England town-meeting and its sister in Michigan. 
 Jn the latter, the by-laws and regulations art' less varied in 
 character. This is <A\w, to the fact that in the West, that part of 
 the township where the inhabitants are most numerous, the village, 
 and for whose regulation many laws are necessary, is set oil' as an 
 incorporated village, just as in nearly all the central and western 
 states. These villages have the privilege, either directly in village 
 meeting, or more often through a council of live or more trustees, 
 of managing their own local affairs, their police, lire department, 
 streets and water works. 2 In some States, however, they are con- 
 sidered pa,rts of the township, and as such vote in town-meeting 
 on all questions touching township roads, bridges, the poor and 
 schools. 
 
 'The voters may order the raising of any sum within certain limits which 
 they may consider necessary or proper for the ordinary expenses of township 
 government or for special local purposes. [See Upton v. Kennedy, 'it! 
 Michigan, 220.] 
 
 The extreme local self-government of Michigan is nowhere more strongly 
 defined than in a decision of .Indue Cooley and associates on the supremo 
 bench, in Kobbins v. Barron, .">."> Mich, I2<!: The hoard of supervisors [of 
 the county] do not originate township or school taxes, hut they take the cer- 
 tificate of the township clerk of the several amounts which the proper author- 
 ities have voted for those purposes and direct the amounts specified, it' they 
 appear to he authorized by law, to he spread upon the tax-roll of the town- 
 ships. The supervisors have no discretion in the premises: they have only 
 to see that the sums are authorized hy law and then their duty to l;i*c the 
 proper direction is imperative. If they should wrongfully refuse to u:i\e it, 
 they might he compelled by mandamus to do so. lint we also think that if 
 the township authorities should proceed to levy the taxes \\ liich had been law- 
 fully voted, their action would he perfectly valid whether the proper direction 
 had been given by the supervisors or not. . . . The action of the super- 
 visors is not, we apprehend, required to give the local ollieers power in the 
 premises, but rather to insure the duty being surely and regularly performed.*' 
 
 -Towns may now, in Massachusetts, authorize districts to maintain street 
 
16 Local Government in 
 
 Similar powers are lodged in the town-meeting in Wisconsin, 3 
 Minnesota, 4 and Illinois f Minnesota, as a territory, had the county 
 system, there "being no incorporated townships. On becoming a 
 State in 1858, the Illinois system was adopted bodily, and changed 
 again at the end of two years for the county system ; but soon the 
 New England settlers compelled a return to the township system. 
 In some important respects the New York town meeting 6 has less 
 power than further west, as witness the provision allowing the 
 town highway commissioner to expend $250 a year without vote 
 of the town. 7 The electors as a body are not usually called upon 
 in New York to determine directly, at the polls, questions of local 
 management and expenditure, and even when so consulted their 
 vote is more frequently considered advisory than binding, for local 
 government in New York finds its greatest development in the 
 county board. 
 
 An}- stud}' of town goverment would be incomplete without an 
 examination of the powers and duties of town officers. "The 
 capacity for self government," says Von Hoist, 8 " shows itself to a 
 very essential degree in the moderate self limitation by the people 
 of their direct political activity and a correct perception of the 
 things which they can better accomplish b}' their delegates." In 
 the early days of the New England town the number of officers 
 was proportioned to the variety of duties required of them. De 
 Tocqueville, fifty 3-ears ago, mentions nearly twenty town officers 
 as the usual number. But the tendency now is toward consoli- 
 dation. 
 
 In Massachusetts 9 the three selectmen are usually assessors, 
 overseers of the poor, of public health and roads, besides carrying 
 out the orders of the town-meeting and managing most of the 
 
 lamps, libraries, sidewalks, police, and a fire department. [See Public Stat- 
 utes of Mass. 1882. Chap. 27, Sec. 37.] 
 
 3 Rev. Stat Wis. 1878, Chap. XXXVIII. 
 
 4 Rev. Stat. Minn. 1878, Chap. X, Sees. 1-35. 
 
 5 Hev. Stat. 111. 1880, Chap 139, Sees. 1-83. 
 
 6 Kev. Stat. N. Y., 7ed., Chap. XI, Title II, Article 1. and Title VI. L, 
 1847, Chap. 197. L, 1872, Chap. 513. L, 1873, Chap. 46. 
 
 7 Rev. Stat., 7ed, Chap. XVI, Title I, Article I, Sec. 4 ; L, 1832, Chap. 274, 
 and L, 1857, Chap. 615. 
 
 ^Constitutional History of the United States. Vol. Ill, p. 155. 
 
 9 Pub. Stat, of Mass., 1882, Chap. 27, Sec. 101 ; Chap. 52, Sees. 3, 4 : Chap. 
 80, Sec. 3 ; Chap. 102, Sec. 90, etc. 
 
Michigan and the Northwest , 17 
 
 town business. Michigan, following the example of Xew York, 
 has but one important local officer a supervisor, 1 whose duties 
 are rather executive and clerical than administrative. As assessor 
 he takes the valuation and submits it to the county board for re- 
 vision. Receiving again the valuation as corrected, and from the 
 township clerk a statement of the amount to be raised, he appor- 
 tions the tax among the inhabitants, and delivers the list to the 
 treasurer for collection. He is required to take the State census 
 every ten years, to report violations of the liquor law. to inspect 
 dams and see to the maintenance of shutes for lish. lie provides 
 temporary relief for the poor of the township, and represents his 
 township in the transaction of all legal business. Michigan town- 
 ships have but one supervisor, yet there is always a township 
 board, 1 ' composed of the supervisor, township clerk, and those two 
 of the four justices of the peace whose terms of office soonest 
 expire. This board exercise many of the powers of the Massa- 
 chusetts selectmen. They may remove school district officers for 
 illegal use of money; they are the court of appeal for all dissatis- 
 fied with the decisions of the highway commissioner: they yearlv 
 examine and audit the accounts of the township treasurer, and of 
 all others charged with the disbursement of the public moiiev : 
 they determine the bond of the clerk, preserve town rccoids, call 
 special town-meetings, till vacancies in town officers, may raise 
 money for necessary purposes when the town has neglected to do 
 so. and exercise other powers of a similar nature, while as a board 
 of health they possess other important powers. Wisconsin 1 has 
 three supervisors who correspond to the New Kngland selectmen. 
 The assessor is a separate officer elected by the people. Minnesota 
 is still more like Massachusetts, for the three supervisors have 
 charge of the roads and bridges also, and review t ;e assess i:ent 
 list. In Ohio there are three township trustees who have the entire 
 charge of local affairs, being, with the clerk and treasurer, the 
 only township officers. In Indiana, with but one township trustee 
 
 'See Oreon. Township Laws <it' Michigan. 1ST!'. 
 
 '-Ibid; and Howell's Annotated Stat., Sees. 711 ;.">". 
 
 I'lider tlie Revised Statute-; of ls:',s. p, CI, See. In, tlie township hoard was 
 authorized to raise money, independently of any vote o1 the electors, to pay 
 claims audited. Tins power was not mentioned in the |{e\ied Statutes of 
 184C, and in is p.), March :I, Art. 200, tlie hoard \\a- prohibited from voting 
 any sum for any purpose other than ordinary town>hip cxpeiws. 
 
 :, Kev. Slat. Wis. 1S78, Sees. Sli> 827, and Chap. ">:'. etc. 
 
18 Local Government in 
 
 and no township board ? more power must be given to the count}', 
 and uo taxes are there levied without the advice and consent of 
 the county commissioners. The same is true of New York. The 
 town supervisor is largely controlled b} T the county board. The 
 duties of the other township officers, the clerk, treasurer, high- 
 way commissioner, constables and justices of the peace are 
 sufficiently indicated by their titles. 
 
 Inasmuch as many of the thousand or more townships of a State 
 lack the political education and conservatism necessary for perfect 
 self-control ; since also many through lack of means cannot 
 raise sufficient money for roads, bridges, schools and the poor, a 
 higher authority is needed, with the power of equalizing the valu- 
 ation of several contiguous towns, of taxing the whole number 
 for the benefit of the poorer, and of exercising a general oversight 
 over township expenses. This power resides in all States, to a 
 more or less degree, in a county board. In New. York, where no 
 tax can be raised save for schools or a town hall, and no bridge 
 rebuilt, in town or village, without the approval of the county, it 
 may be well to have the board composed as there of the super- 
 visors of every town in the county ; but where the powers of the 
 county are not as great, e. g. in New England and much of the 
 West, three commissioners elected by the whole county or its dis- 
 tricts are better. In Michigan, for instance, which has borrowed 
 the organization of the count}' board from New York, and its 
 powers from Massachusetts, the board is too large. Judge Cooley, 
 in a recent letter, sharply criticises it. There is so little responsi- 
 bility in a board of 16 to 24 members, that there is a likelihood of 
 illegal and unwarranted action. Matters of local concern are con- 
 trolled by combinations in the board. Illinois has the Michigan 
 system. Wisconsin has a board composed of men chosen from 
 two or more towns. Minnesota has three county commissioners 
 with little power. Further west the county renders valuable aid 
 in raising money for schools, for the tax from the richer towns aids 
 the schools of the poorer. 
 
 The importance of this power is not fully appreciated. For 
 lack of similar provision in Massachusetts, there is ^scarcely any 
 State or county aid or control of schools. Every town is left to 
 its own resources with poor results. All educators earnestly advo- 
 cate county and State control of schools, that there may bs uni- 
 formity of methods, and that the country districts, the nurseries 
 
Michigan and the Northwest. lit 
 
 of our great men in the past, may not degenerate. Bui two 
 influences oppose : the fear of centralization on the part of the 
 small towns which need it most, and the dislike of the rich cities 
 to tax themselves for the country districts. 
 
 We have reserved until now the consideration of the relations 
 of local government to public education. A government like ours, 
 resting on public opinion, must educate the voters. Convinced 
 of this, the intelligent and far-sighted statesmen of the last 
 century passed the ordinance of May 20. 17*.~>. which gave one 
 section of land a mile square in ever}' township in new States and 
 territories for school purposes, to be kept as an inalienable fund. 
 In accordance with this ordinance and that of 184s, introduced by 
 Senator Douglas, which gives two sections instead of one. there 
 have been given to nineteen States and eight territories for 
 school education, over 106,000 square miles, or nearly ;i> much as 
 all New England and New York.' A wiser provision was never 
 math' by government, but its value is not confined, as is usually 
 supposed, to its direct effects on public school education. Local 
 self-government." says a recent English writer, Bishop l'razer, 
 " is the mainspring of the American school system 
 
 As the immigrants singed westward, from Ireland and from 
 Germany, from the Connecticut and the Susquehanna, they found 
 a vast educational fund awaiting them, but to secure its benefits 
 local organization of school districts and local taxation were neces- 
 sary. The public fund alone was not suflicient. but it acted as a 
 great stimulus. Now what has been the result? Dakota has 
 already 400 school districts where the voters meet at annual and 
 spe: ial meeting to dis -uss and vote local taxes for everything re- 
 lating to school purposes, in short the district meeting is modelled 
 after the town-meeting for which it is the fitting school. 
 
 In Michigan, the voters in district meeting direct the purchase 
 of a site and the building of a scIioo1-1ioum\ the amount of Un- 
 tax, however, being strictly limited by law.- They also may \olc 
 
 '40th Congress, :>d session House of Hep Kx. Dec 17. Tart I. ]]>. L'^'5 L':'.l. 
 or Report of I'. S. Com. of Kducution, Issu, pp. XXVII. XXX IV. 
 
 -Act No. K'.t, I,, b. of ISS1 (if 27), Chip. II. See. L'n. The voters have 
 power '" Sixth, to vote such tax as the 1 1 n , t i 1 1 _ r shall ih em -utlieii nt. to pur- 
 chase or lease a site or sites, or to build, hire or purchase a -chonl-l e or 
 
 houses; but the amount of (axes t > he raised in an\ district f>r the purpose 
 of purchiisiii.i! or building a school-house or lioii-r- in the -.en. \ > ar that anv 
 bonded indebtedness is incurred, shall not exceed in districts containing los 
 
20 Local Government in 
 
 to repair the school-house, to provide the necessary school appar- 
 atus, direct the sale of school property and the management of 
 suits at law. They also determine the length of school terms, 
 while the district board of three elected officers estimate and vote 
 the tax for the entire support of schools over and above what is 
 voted by the electors. 3 
 
 When, however, we speak of the school district meeting as a 
 preparation for the town-meeting, we are not ignorant of the many 
 injurious effects attending the district system in the older States. 
 It caused, and continues to do so in some States, such subdivision 
 of school moneys, and such local strife, as to injure greatly the 
 efficiency of the schools. 
 
 In some States, notabby Massachusetts, the town system has 
 been substituted with good results. Under this latter system, all 
 the money for the school districts of a town is voted in one sum 
 at the town-meeting, and afterwards applied at the discretion of 
 the public school committee. 4 But where township government 
 does not exist, and the people are too scattered to have similar 
 interests, the school district system is the only one practicable, 
 and its effect in promoting local government is manifest. 
 
 In 1880, some 35,000 of the 100,000 people in Southern Dakota 
 were from Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and other 
 States which have complete local government, and the town-meet- 
 ing has alread}* been introduced by popular vote in the more 
 thickly settled counties. 5 
 
 than ten children between the ages of five and twenty years, $250 ; in districts 
 having between ten and thirty children of like age, it shall not exceed .$500; 
 and in districts having between thirty and fifty children of like age, it shall 
 not exceed $1,C00." 
 
 3 Districts, with eight hundred children between five and twenty, must main- 
 tain a school nine months in the year, and not less than five months where 
 there are from thirty to five hundred children, and at least three months for 
 smaller neighborhoods, on pain of forfeiture of their share of the one-mill tax 
 and primary school interest fundi But if this is not provided for at the annual 
 district meeting, the district board must make provision for it. 
 
 4 Pub. Stat. Mass. 1882, Chap. 44, Sec. 28, 46-48. 
 
 5 R. F. Pettigrew, Congressional delegate from Dakota, writes as follows : 
 " Dakota Territory, at least that portion south of the 46th parallel, has been 
 settled very largely by people from Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, 
 Illinois and Indiana. In 1880 there were 100,000 people in Southern Dakota; 
 10,000 of whom were born in Wisconsin, 6,000 in Minnesota, 5,000 in Iowa, 
 4,000 in Illinois, and 4,000 in Michigan, over 2,000 in New York, and many 
 
Jfichtqan and iJte JYorf/ttretif. 
 
 21 
 
 Montana, equal in size to Dakota, lias too small a population as 
 yet (only 40,000) for township organization : bill here. too. over 
 an area three times as large as Pennsylvania, we find school dis- 
 tricts, 105 in number, with local powers.' 1 
 
 The same, may be said of Idaho', Washington Territory", Ore- 
 gon 8 , Wyoming. Colorado, Nevada. California. Kansas and Ne- 
 braska. 1 " In some, as p, tj. in Idaho and Washington Territory, 
 the people do not have tli3 entire management of their s -ho >'.s in 
 school district meeting, for the county commission ts. usually three 
 in number, assess a tax of from one to eight mills on a dollar in 
 addition to funds arising from the sale of public lands, but tin- 
 voters are called upon to elect district trustees, to vote yes or n<< 
 on the question of some specified sum which these trustees may 
 propose as a local tax. and also to decide in district meeting 
 all questions relating to building, repairing or removing a school- 
 house. 
 
 The township six miles square is impossible in Colorado, where 
 the people live in the mountains and valleys, along the banks of 
 streams, or in long narrow belts on the plains, where the land can 
 be irrigated. Nevada has begun township organization, although 
 
 were horn in the New Falkland States. The township organization N adopted 
 as each county becomes sufficiently settled to maintain it. It is adopted by 
 the whole county by the votes ol' the people. ( Inly the older counties now 
 have the township organizations. The o'her counties are adopting tlii--\-- 
 teni a- fast as they obtain sufficient wealth and population. TIm 
 tion but what within a \ cry short time every county in Dakota will posi > 
 the township system similar to New Falkland. This system will spread into 
 all tin' territories of the Northwest. It is the bulwark and l'oiin laiion of 
 institutions, and is the school in which men are tauidit the science of self- 
 government more than any other 
 
 See also Ucv. Stat. 1 S 7 7 . Chap. L':'.. 
 
 "Report for 1S7S !l of Hon. \V. F.u'bert Smith. Ter. Supt. of I'ublie Instruc- 
 tion, of Montana. 
 
 In 1.SS0, N'.t school districts, an increase of ."..". in o;i i; 
 
 Ter. Sii|it. of Kducatiou. 1S7!I so, p. ;; (( . 
 
 "In lssi, ::>(; school districts. While in I-;: 1 . :': n-p rt. ' 1,'ep. IVr. 
 Supt. l.ss] . pp. \\, lo. 
 
 " \ population of less than -i\ to the square mile rend. ; - tow i 
 tion impossible. Nearly all of the L'li counties ha\c each an :in-:i n|ii:il t" 
 Delaware and Rhode I-dand united, but bete al-o we lir.d \ n v 
 of local (axes in the lin>7 school districts. 
 
 '"Consult the School Laws and Kdiicatinnal Reports of the I d and 
 
 State Supts., or the summary given in the Report of the I S I 
 of Kducatiou for 1 S7'. and for IsSii. 
 
Local Government in 
 
 most of the power resides in the county commissioners. Township 
 organization, similar to that of Indiana, has just been provided for 
 in the Constitution of California. Kansas has 999 townships, 
 similar to those of Indiana, with township officers but without the 
 town-meeting. Provision was made for township organization in 
 Nebraska, in the Constitution of 1877, and two acts in accordance 
 with it have since been passed, but failed to become law ; the first 
 act being declared unconstitutional, and the second, in 1881, being 
 vetoed by the governor because of its many defects. But another 
 attempt will soon be made. In Ohio, and Indiana, and Iowa, the 
 voters are required to approve the expenditure of money for 
 school buildings and a few other purposes, though nearly all other 
 local expenditures are left to the discretion of the township and 
 county officers. Missouri adopted optional township organization 
 in 1879, and already thirteen of the 114 counties have voted it. 
 As might be expected, the great trouble 1 has been in securing the 
 large number of competent officers requisite for township adminis- 
 tration. Such a change as that from county to township govern- 
 ment cannot be made in one year or five j-ears. It is only of the 
 tendencj* we are speaking. In Missouri much power is lodged in 
 the voters in district meeting, but, as elsewhere, subject to strict 
 limitations in the amount which they can raise. Thus we have 
 found that the increase of local powers has been unprecedented 
 during the last decade, and seems destined to continue until all 
 the great West and Northwest have experienced its benefits. The 
 following table, compiled from the census of 1880, gives some of 
 the more important facts concerning local self-government in those 
 States where it is most complete : 
 
 
 No. 
 Townships. 
 
 No. 
 Counties. 
 
 Population 
 
 Maine, 
 
 455 
 
 16 
 
 648,936 
 
 New Hampshire, 
 
 230 
 
 10 
 
 346,991 
 
 Vermont, . 
 
 239 
 
 14 
 
 332.286 
 
 Massachusetts, 
 
 320 
 
 14 
 
 1,783,085 
 
 Connecticut, 
 
 1G6 
 
 8 
 
 622,700 
 
 Rhode Island, . 
 
 3-4 
 
 5 
 
 275,531 
 
 All New England, 
 
 1,450 
 
 67 
 
 4,009,529 
 
 New York, 
 
 937 
 
 60 
 
 5,082,871 
 
 New Jersey, 
 
 236 
 
 21 
 
 1.131,116 
 
 Illinois, 
 
 1,008 
 
 75 
 
 2,649, 841 a 
 
 Michigan, 
 
 1,054 
 
 77 
 
 1,636.937 
 
 Wisconsin, 
 
 891 
 
 62 
 
 1,314,497 
 
 Minnesota, 
 
 1,100 
 
 72 
 
 780,773 
 
 6,676 434 16,605,564 
 
 'Letter from State Supt. Public Instruction, July 23d, 1882. 
 'Only three fourths of the State have as yet adopted township organization. 
 
Michigan and the Northwest. 2.) 
 
 While emphasizing the important bearings of school district 
 organization upon the development of local government in the 
 new Northwest, Ave cannot forbear a brief reference to a similar 
 and noteworthy movement in an older section of our I'nion. 
 
 Now that the large plantations of the South are being divided 
 and manifold industries are taking their place, the mechanic and 
 the artisan appear at the cross-roads and form the nucleus of a 
 village, instead of finding employment on the lands of wealthy 
 planters ; and with the village hamlet comes the fust beginning 
 of local self-government. A few towns in South Carolina 
 have recently incorporated themselves for local taxation for 
 school purposes, and the movement is spreading.' Thanks to the 
 increasing agitation of prominent Southern educators, the people 
 already have this right of local taxation for school purposes in 
 Kentucky, Tennessee, 2 Virginia, 3 and West Virginia ; 4 while in 
 Alabama,"' by recent enactment, the school ofllcers are required to 
 call meetings of the patrons of the schools and consult with them 
 concerning school matters. These movements toward local govern- 
 ment are very recent and will doubtless increase if the national 
 government, in giving money to public education, as is proposed. 
 shall couple it with the condition that an equal amount shall 1 e 
 raised by local taxation. Some of the Northwestern States have 
 long done this, withholding aid from districts which failed to main- 
 tain schools for a certain number of months in the year. We are 
 again reminded of the words of Jefferson when writing of this very 
 subject local incorporation for schools he remarks: Where 
 every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward-republic [< . </. 
 school district or township] or of some of the higher ones, and 
 feels thai lie is a participator in the government of affairs, not 
 merely at an election one day in the year, but every day: when 
 there shall not be a man in the State who will not be a member of 
 some one of its councils, great or small, he will let the In-art he 
 torn out of his body sooner than [allow ] his power [ to ] be wrested 
 
 'Report State Supt. of S. ('., 1MS1, pp. 11, 1."., advocate- it -tmnulv. 
 
 2 1 n cities ami incorporate towns by ad of legislature in Issi, -> < Iicpuri 
 State Supt. Tennessee, ISSI, p. (. 
 
 :l See School Laws, anil Report of I'. S. Com. of K lueatioii. 1 ss ! . 
 
 U.lem. 
 
 'School Law-, ed. of Issi, pp. \r,. Hi. 
 
 "Letter to Joseph C. Cabell. Ks<j., Feb. J.l, Islfi. Writing, \1. VI . p. 
 .Ml. 
 
24 Local Government in 
 
 from him by a Cresar or a Bonaparte. How powerfully did we 
 feel the energy of this organization in the case of the embargo. I 
 felt the foundations of the government shaken under my feet by 
 the New England townships. There was not an individual in their 
 States whose body was not thrown with all its momentum into 
 action ; and although the whole of the other States were known to 
 be in favor of the measure, yet the organization of this little selfish 
 minority enabled it to overrule the Union. What would the un- 
 wieldy counties of the middle, the south and the west do? Call a 
 county meeting, and the drunken loungers at and about the court 
 houses would have collected, the distances being too great for the 
 good people and the industrious generally to attend. The character 
 of those who really met would have been the measure of the weight 
 they would have had in the scale of public opinion. As Cato. then, 
 concluded ever} T speech with the words, '-Carthago dele/ida est,' 
 so do I every opinion, with the injunction, 'divide the counties 
 into wards.' Begin them onty for a single purpose ; the}' will soon 
 show for what others they are the best instruments." 
 
 The wish of Jefferson seems destined to be fulfilled. As the 
 New England town was built up about the church, so the Western 
 and Southern town is centering its political activity about the school. 
 It is also noteworthy that it is in the local government of the 
 school district that woman Suffrage is being tried. Says United 
 States Commissioner of Education, John Eaton, in his last report r 1 
 "Women's opportunities to influence education as voters and 
 school officers have been greatly enlarged [during 1880-1881]. 
 They may vote at school meetings in Kansas, Nebraska, New 
 Hampshire, Vermont, Dakota, and Wyoming ; at school elections 
 in Colorado and Minnesota ; and for members of school com- 
 mittees in Massachusetts. They can vote at school meetings in 
 Michigan and New York if they are tax-payers ; in Washington 
 Territory if they are liable to taxation. Widows and unmarried 
 women in Idaho may vote as to special district taxes if they hold 
 taxable property. In Oregon, widows having children and taxable 
 property, may vote at school meetings. In Indiana, ' women not 
 married nor minors, who pay taxes and are listed as parents, 
 guardians, or heads of families, may vote at school meetings.' 
 In Kentucky, any white widow having a child of school age, is a 
 qualified school voter ; if she has no child, but is a taxpayer, she 
 
 'Kcport of U. S. Com. Ed., 1880, p. XXV. 
 
Michigan and the Xorthwest, 
 
 2;> 
 
 may vote on the question of tuxes. Women are eligible t school 
 offices generally in Illinois, Iowa. Kansas. Louisiana, Massa- 
 chusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania. Vermont and 
 Wyoming; to school district oil ices in Colorado; to anv office 
 except State Superintendent in Wisconsin. They may serve on 
 school committer in New Hampshire and Rhode Island, as school 
 trustees in New Jersey, and as school visitors in Connecticut. 
 Some ofliees are open to them in .Maine, and all ollices in Califor- 
 nia, unless specially forbidden by the constitution. In I tali, no 
 discrimination on the ground of sex is made as to voting in 
 general." 
 
 If society be an organism wherein the good of each member is 
 the good of the whole, then the importance of local self-govern- 
 ment is established. For does not this system of self-government 
 bring to the masses that self-respect and feeling of equality before 
 the law which is a prime condition of progress? Docs it not also 
 compel, for the sake of self-protection on the part of the more 
 cultured, such attention to public education as will give the 
 humblest citizen the means of determining what is for his true 
 interest and or that of society? History gives but one answer. 
 We note a growing tendency to give the general government more 
 control over vast public interests, such as railroads and telegraph- : 
 and with the improvement of the civil service this form of central- 
 ization will be rapidly developed. We also note a corresponding 
 increase of local power over matters of purely local interest. 
 Centralization of national interests, in so far as we can properly 
 speak of centralization under a republican government, and decen- 
 tralization of local interests, are principles not contradictory but 
 harmonious, and they are coming into prominence with every 
 decade of our history. Methods may change, but progress is 
 still the watchword, and the nation still lives in the strength and 
 devotion of eiti/ens whose powers have been developed, whose 
 self-respect lias been aroused under the American principle ol 
 local self-gevernment . 
 
VI 
 
 PARISH INSTITUTIONS 
 
 MARYLAND 
 
"The Parish, as we see it in Western Christendom, owes its origin to several causes, 
 and is the final result of several earlier forms. The TTapoucia of early days was neither 
 a parsjh nor a diocese, but the community of Christians living within a city or a dis- 
 trict, regarded in relation to the non-Christian population which surrounded it. Every 
 such community seems to have had a complete organization, and there is no trace of 
 the dependence of any one community upon any other." Hatch, Organization of the 
 Early Christian Churches (Bampton Lectures, 1880.) 
 
 "The limits of parishes were probably, in almost all cases, fixed by the previously 
 existing organization. Where the Roman organization prevailed, the Parish was the 
 pagus, vicus, or castellum, with its surrounding territorium. Where, as in Euglaud, the 
 Roman organization had been almost completely swept away, the Parish was identical 
 with the township or the manor. . . . Between Parishes, as between townships, were 
 frequently tracts of more or less unsettled or common laud, on which chapels might 
 be erected without trenching on any parochial right." Hatch," Parish" in Smith's Dic- 
 tionary of Christian Antiquities. 
 
 I 
 
 " As the kingdom and shire were the natural sphere of the bishop, so was the town- 
 ship of the single priest; and the parish was but the township or cluster of townships 
 to which that priest ministered. . . . The parish and the township, have existed for more 
 than a thousand years side by side, identical in area and administered by the same 
 persons, and yet separate in character and machinery. . . . The parish, then, is the 
 ancient vicus or tun-scipe regarded ecclesiastically." Stubbs, Constitutional History of 
 England. 
 
 "The earliest records which we have of the proceedings of Parliament, find Parishes 
 treated as the known and established integral subdivisions of the hundred. ... It is 
 decisive of the point as to the identity of the Parish, as an Institution, with the 'lylhing 
 of freemen and their tythingman, that the existence of a separate constable is an 
 unquestionable criterion of the separate recognition of a Parish." Toulmin Smith, The 
 Parish. 
 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 1 s 
 
 Historical and Political S c i e n c e 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History is past Politics and Politics present History. FYreman 
 
 VI 
 
 PARISH INSTITUTIONS 
 
 MARYLAND 
 
 With Illustrations from Parish Records 
 
 By EDWARD INGLE, A. B. 
 
 i: a i.t r m o k i: 
 
 Pum.lsiiKU my Tin: .Johns Hopkins I'mvuimtv 
 
 a run., iks:i. 
 
JOHN MURPHY A CO., PRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
PARISH INSTITUTIONS 
 
 O K 
 
 MARYLAND.* 
 
 Before the last years of the seventeenth century hut few 
 Church of England ministers had been attracted to the colony 
 planted by Lord Baltimore on the shores of the Chesapeake. 
 Those who had ventured to take up an abode (here were 
 supported mainly by voluntary contributions, with now and 
 then a legacy, or by the produce of their farms. Frequent 
 complaints were made to England of the low state of morality 
 and religion in the Province. Movements were started with 
 a view of checking these evils, and the result was the passing 
 in 1G92 of an "Act for the Service of Almighty God and the 
 Establishment of the Protestant Religion" in Maryland. t 
 Agreeably to such provisions the justices and freeholders of 
 
 *In the library left by the late Bishop "Whittingham to the Diocese of 
 Maryland, there is a rare collection of materials illustrating the social, 
 civil and religious history of the Province and State of Maryland. Copies 
 of manuscripts found in English libraries, original parish records, parish 
 histories, a remarkable collection of Maryland laws and documents, tie- 
 diaries, letters and sermons of early Maryland clergy- the-e, if properly 
 handled, could be made fresh and interesting source- of knowledge upon 
 many point.- of our history. From such materials in part has been drawn 
 the following paper upon the Parish Institution- of Maryland. Bacon'* 
 "Laws" have been the basis; but. inasmuch a- one mu.-t ret believe that 
 measures succeeded, simply because enactment- favoring them are t" he 
 found in tin; statute books, every point made in this >keteh has been veri- 
 fied, it is believed, by concrete examples. 
 
 f Bacon, lu'JU, Chap. II. 
 
6 Parish Institutions of Maryland. 
 
 each of the ten counties divided their respective counties into 
 parishes, varying in size according to their number of taxa- 
 bles.* A fine of one hundred pounds of tobacco was imposed 
 upon Sabbath-breakers, and was to be used for the benefit of 
 the poor of the " Parish, City or borough " where the offence 
 should be committed. 
 
 In the newly settled country, a meeting of all the inhabi- 
 tants of a parish in Vestry was well nigh impossible. This 
 probably was a reason for the adoption of the representative 
 system of Select Vestries, a usage that had already sprung up 
 
 All males and all female slaves of the age of sixteen years and over 
 were taxables, except the clergy of the Church of England, who had 
 benefices in the Province, paupers, and disabled slaves. Bacon, 1715, 
 Chap. XV, 5. 
 
 "Within four years the counties had been divided into thirty-one par- 
 ishes, (Historical Collections of the American Colonial Church. Maryland, 
 p. 13). At first the parishes were contained within the limits of the 
 county ; but later, as the number of counties and parishes increased, some 
 parishes lay in parts of two and even three counties. The hundreds were 
 not of necessity integral parts of the parish, although they were made the 
 basis of the new division. It is probable that the hundreds had been laid 
 out according to natural boundaries, i. e., the rivers and their tributaries, 
 and the parishes were subject to the same idea, as may be seen from such 
 of their names as Herring Creek, Middle Neck, South River, &c. In the 
 Records of Baltimore County Court, 1692, fol. 338, is the following: " We 
 do think fit to order that one parish be in Spesutia? hundred and another in 
 Gunpowder river hundred." In the same, 1693, fol. 126: "We, the vestry- 
 men for Patapsco hundred, met together at the house of Maj. John Thomas." 
 The word "hundred " was used here not for "parish " but simply to des- 
 ignate the parish until a proper title had been given. Thus in the June 
 Court, 1693, fol. 115, it is shown that "the vestrymen of this parish of 
 Gunpowder hundred " had agreed to build a church on Elk Neck, Gun- 
 powder river, and to call the parish Copley (later St. John's). As popu- 
 lation became denser, the number of hundreds in the county, without regard 
 to parish bounds, became greater, so that frequently one hundred was in 
 two parishes. So much confusion resulted from this, that finally the 
 County Courts were empowered to lay out anew the hundreds in such a 
 manner that no hundred should lie in more than one parish. When a 
 new parish was to be erected in an old one, the consent of the incumbent 
 was obtained, and then a petition was sent to the Assembly for an Act 
 enabling the new parish to be made. 
 
Parish Institutions of Maryland. 7 
 
 from other causes in England. * ]5y Vestry was usually 
 meant the house or room where parish meeting- were held; 
 hut the term was frequently used to denote not only the place 
 of meeting, but also the assembly itself, and the members 
 taken collectively. The freeholders chose the Vestry, which 
 was a corporate body for the holding and disposal of church 
 property and the acceptance of bequests. f The Act of 1692 
 with some later ones had the effect of organizing Vestries, of 
 building more churches, and of bringing a number of clergy 
 into the colony, but there was still felt a need of further leg- 
 islation in regard to ecclesiastical matters. Accordingly, in 
 1702, another Act became the law, by which the Church of 
 England was more firmly established in the Province.* 
 
 As an institution of Englishmen the parish system of Mary- 
 land was based upon the parish laws and customs of the 
 mother-land, but there were various modifications to suit the 
 new conditions. The materials for a reconstruction of this 
 system are meagre, but the laws on the subject tell what had 
 to be done, and various parish records show what really was 
 done. 
 
 The Governor, for the Proprietor, inducted a Minister into 
 a parish. He usually made appointments from nominees of 
 the Bishop of London, and a Vestry was obliged to accept 
 whomsoever the Governor sent. Occasionally he consulted the 
 wishes of parishioners. In the record book of Prince George's 
 parish is a cony of a letter from Gov. Sharpe to Mr. Alex. 
 
 * For a condensed statement of the duties and capacities of English 
 Vestries, consult "A Compilation containing t In Con>titulion and Canons 
 of the 1'. K. Church in the Diocese of Maryland, A. ," pp. "d -*". The 
 subject is treated at length by Toulmin Smith in "The I'ari-h,'' and by 
 J. F. Archb'dd in "Shaw's Parish Law." 
 
 [The name Vestry is derived through the French from the Latin rs- 
 tiaritun, from vextis, a garment. 
 
 + Bacon, 1701 2, Chap. I. In 1700 an Act had bee, pu<-ed and sent to 
 the King in Council. It was not approved in all it- part-, but, having 
 been omitted from the general repeal, was ,-ent back with amendment.- In 
 .Maryland. Tins former Act amended was the Act "t 1701-1.'. 
 
8 Pariah Institutions of Maryland. 
 
 Williamson, whom he had licensed "to act as curate" until 
 another rector might be appointed, " which step," the letter 
 states, " I conceive would be more agreeable to the Parish- 
 ioners than if I were immediately to induct that gentlemen." 
 The people thought they ought to have the privilege of 
 choosing their own rector, as they were the ones who con- 
 tributed towards building churches, and paid the salaries of 
 incumbents. In 1768 one of the parishes refused to receive 
 ministers presented by Lord Baltimore through his Governor, 
 and upon an appeal to English Courts, a decision was given 
 in favor of the parish.* But as a rule Vestries accepted the 
 Governor's appointee, and, when they had done this, they 
 could not rid themselves of him unless he chose to resign. 
 There are, however, accounts of unpopular ministers having 
 been mobbed and locked out of church. In one parish after 
 the death of the incumbent, the long dissatisfied parishioners 
 requested the Governor not to induct another rector so disa- 
 greeable to them. 
 
 For the support of the clergy, forty pounds of tobacco were 
 levied each year upon every taxable. The Constable of the 
 hundred made a list of the names of all taxables and gave it 
 to the Sheriff. He, after collecting the tobacco and deducting 
 five per cent, as a fee, paid the remainder to the incumbents 
 of the parishes in the county. As there was not an over 
 abundance of prayer-books in use among congregations, every 
 minister had to keep a clerk who acted for the congregation. 
 One can almost see him in his desk below the pulpit, and 
 
 Coventry Parish, Somerset County. This parish had been contending 
 for its rights for a long time. In 1749 the Vestry had indicted a newly 
 presented rector for breaking into the parish church, the doors of which 
 had been closed against him. The minister was acquitted only by the 
 vote of the chief justice. One of the ministers appointed to the parish 
 declared that he had been threatened with a ducking in a mill pond, and 
 that armed resistance had been made against him. A full history of the 
 troubles is given in Dr. E. Allen's manuscript " History of Coventry 
 Parish." 
 
Parish Institutions of Maryland. <) 
 
 hear him making the responses in sonorous tones, or lining 
 out the hymns. It is, perhaps, a warm June morning, and 
 while the elders are peacefully dozing, the youths east lowing 
 glances through doors or windows towards their sleek steeds* 
 fastened in a shady spot convenient to the "upping block,*' 
 or they watch with interest the efforts ofa Church Warden 
 to drive some stray dog from the church. Those who are 
 not overcome by the general drowsiness, join in the singing, 
 or patiently hearken to the delivery of the usually prosy 
 sermon, or to the reading of the penal laws of the Province. 
 Service over, the congregation breaks up into groups, some 
 reading the notices posted at the church door, others discussing 
 the latest bits of news, the prospects of a fine tobacco-crop, 
 and others exchanging friendly greetings. At last the few 
 stragglers disappear and the rector wends his wav to the 
 ''glebe." In many parishes there were glebe-lands, which 
 the incumbent either occupied or rented. Glebes were gen- 
 erally donated to the parish, but when there was no minister, 
 and the church property needed no repairs, the parish funds 
 could be expended in buying and stocking a glebe. The 
 incumbent did not always insist upon everybody's paying the 
 tax for his support. In 1712. the rector of the parish where 
 Charles-town had been recently laid out, declared that all 
 persons taking up their abode in the new town should be free 
 from such a tax.f lie must have been either a man of means, 
 or settled in a wealthy parish. Many of the clergy wen; 
 poorly compensated for the labor and trouble they were com- 
 pelled to undergo. | The parishes were very large, and the 
 
 * " Thoy arc nil sjroal horsemen iuitl have so much v : 1 1 1 n (r the -mid If, 
 tliat nilhiT than walk to church five miles, they will l'" ei^ht '> catch 
 their horses and riile there, so that you would think the churches looked 
 like the outside skirts .!' u country horsefnir." "Itinerant Observations 
 in America," Lond. Maer. 1 745-0. Reprinted in Coll. (Jeor^ia Hist Soc 
 
 : Huron, 174.', Chap. XXIII, 18. 
 
 + Kxtracts from a letter written in 1711 by Ah \ Adam- to the liishop 
 of London, [lli-l. Coll. Amer. Col. Ch. Mil , p. f,:>) : "For the-e four 
 ) 
 
10 Parish Institutions of Maryland. 
 
 parishioners lived scattered in every direction. The minister 
 was, therefore, obliged to travel about on horseback in order 
 faithfully to discharge his duties to his congregation. The 
 clergy, however, enjoyed certain immunities and small emolu- 
 ments. They were not taxed and were exempt from militia 
 service. It was quite usual for them to receive a fee for 
 delivering a sermon at the funeral of a wealthy parishioner. 
 If a minister was in the parish, a lay magistrate, who dared 
 perform the marriage ceremony was liable to a heavy fine of 
 tobacco. Banns were published in the parish to which the 
 prospective bride belonged, and her rector received the fee. 
 If there was no incumbent, the Governor granted a license 
 and then any minister could officiate at the wedding. 
 
 An Act was passed in 1704* to secure the parishes in the 
 possession of their libraries, which the Rev. Dr. Bray had 
 
 years I alone have served, as a Presbyter of the Church of England, the 
 whole County of Somerset, consisting of four parishes, so that six Con- 
 gregations are supplied by me, which obliges me to travel 200 miles per 
 month, besides my pastoral charge in my own parish (Stepney), which 
 has a church and chapel, and is near 30 miles in length, and some 16 or 
 18 miles in breadth, which possibly is a labour that few in America un- 
 dergo : yet, my Lord, 1 can't subsist without some assistance, for Tobacco, 
 our money, is worth nothing, and not a Shirt to be had for Tobacco this 
 year in all our County: and poor ten shillings is all the money I have 
 received by my Ministry and perquisites since October last." 
 
 11 1 humbly desire your Lordship to send me a Letter to be chaplain to 
 some man-of-war that comes to convey the Virginia Fleet next year, and 
 after 1 have got some money by being chaplain aboard to pay my Debts 
 (which are not very considerable as yet), I assure your Lordship I am 
 resolved to return to my Parish as soon as times amend, and I can com- 
 fortably subsist among them." 
 
 " Our Cloathing, household furniture, Malt, beer, sugar, spice, Coffee, 
 Tea, and such Things generally come from England, and are sold by y e 
 mereh t8 here at above one hundred ^ cent. The expense of living here 
 is generally valued doubl. w^ it is in England." (Ibid. p. 138). Many 
 of the clergy were for a long time without surplices, and some were com- 
 pelled to teach in order to gain a livelihood. 
 
 * Bacon, 1704, Chap. LVI. Papers of the Rev. Dr. Bray, Lond. 1699, 
 p. 32. For a life of Dr. Bray, see Hawks, " P. E. Church, U. S.," Vol. 
 II, pp. 83-114, and Todd's "Life and Designs of Dr. Bray," London, 
 1808. 
 
Parish Institutions of Maryland. 1 1 
 
 suggested, and at considerable expense, had procured for "the 
 Incouragement and Promoting of Religion and Learning in 
 the Foreign Plantations, and to Induce such of the Clergy 
 of this Kingdom as are Persons of Sobriety and Abilities to 
 accept of a Mission into those Parts." Two-thirds of the 
 books sent to America were bestowed upon the parishes in 
 Maryland. The parish library belonged to the incumbent, 
 who was held accountable for the books to the Governor and 
 Council, and to the Vestry, and had to pay triple co.it for any 
 damages. When he removed, he had to deliver to the Vestry 
 the library in as good a condition as possible. As the books 
 were " for the sole Use of the Minister," they were mostly 
 theological and classical works. Put at least one collection, 
 it seems, provided against temporal as well a< spiritual foes. 
 In it were contained, besides "Catechetical Lectures," "The 
 Lawfulness of Common Prayer," and "The Whole Duty of 
 Man," a book on "Martial Discipline," one on Articles of 
 War, a perspective glass, a pocket compass, and a dark 
 lantern. 
 
 The Vestries were required to inspect twice a year the parish 
 libraries, but they must have neglected their duty in this 
 respect, for few if any of the books are known to exist.* 
 
 Dr. Bray wrote in 1700 that the Governor of Maryland 
 had caused an Act to be passed whereby free schools were to 
 be established for the propagation of the Gospel, and the 
 
 *Tlie following extract from "Notes and Queries, " Oct. 7, IsS'J, may 
 in some degree explain their disappearance!: "1 can well remember in 
 1852 paying my lirst visit to Beverly and inspecting tin* noble perpen- 
 dicular of St. Mary in that town In one of the vestries in the 
 
 north transept was a small library, consisting mainly "I goodly folios, 
 chiefly theological, covered with dust, in a most dilapidated condition, 
 and I \v:i< then informed, the tires in the church had uualiy been lighted 
 from this literary source for some time. Thirteen years afterward .... 
 a second visit was paid to the same church, then undergoing nMoratiori. 
 The pew- had gone and also the small collection in the library had become 
 ' line by degrees, ami beautifully le>-,' for it was apparently reduo 1 to 
 one book, a copy of the Hcxnpla. .John I'ickford, M . A." 
 
12 Parish Institutions of Maryland. 
 
 education of the youth in the Province. These schools were 
 to be for the "instruction of youth in Arithmetic, Navigation 
 and all useful learning, but chiefly for the fitting such as are 
 disposed to study divinity, to be further educated at his Ma- 
 jesty's College Royal in Virginia."* In an Act of J723,f 
 it is stated that youths were to be educated, so that they might 
 the better serve Church and State. It is probable that for 
 the purpose of looking after the interests of the Church, one 
 minister was a member of the board of seven school visitors 
 in his county. The minister may have occupied this position 
 by reason of his attainments, for there were talented men 
 among the Maryland clergy. One found enjoyment in com- 
 piling the laws of the Province, and superintending a manual 
 labor school, another was clerk of the upper House of the 
 Assembly, while not a few kept private schools. Such con- 
 scientious laborers were, however, comparatively rare. It was 
 no unusual thing for ministers, who had been disgraced at 
 home,! to be sent to .America to reform. Reformation did 
 not always take place. Many, removed from the restraints 
 of ecclesiastical superiors, became careless in the performance 
 of their duties, and some, indeed, acquired a bad reputation 
 for scandalous living. Drunkenness was their chief failing, 
 but more heinous crimes were committed by them. One, who 
 had enjoyed his parish during thirty years, had become dis- 
 abled by age. Refusing the assistance of neighboring clergy- 
 men, he authorized his clerk, a convicted felon, to read the 
 
 *Md. MSS. in the Whittingham Library, p. 32. 
 
 f Bacon, 1723, Chap. XIX. 
 
 jln the Hist. Coll. Amer. Col. Gh. Md., pp. 128-129, is a list of the 
 clergy in Maryland in 1722. This was evidently prepared by a "Whig. 
 The following are some of the descriptions: "A stickler for the present 
 happy establishment," "A Whig & an excellent scholar & good liver," 
 "An Idiot & Tory," "A Grand Tory & a Bake," "A Whig & a good 
 Christian," "A Whig of the first rank, and reputed a good liver, but a 
 horrid preacher," "Tried for his life in Virginia for shooting a man. 
 Keformed." The story of the notorious Bennett Allen is not worth 
 repeating. 
 
Parish Institutions of Maryland. 13 
 
 whole service, and generally neglected his other parochial 
 work. The Vestry much aggrieved complained of his conduct, 
 and also accused him of drinking, quarreling, and fighting.* 
 To check evils of this kind "Commissaries" were appointed, 
 one for each " shore. " These held visitations from time to 
 time, and investigated complaints from parishes. As thev 
 were somewhat ignorant of their powers, thev were hindered 
 in their work, and accomplished little good either in correcting 
 abuses, or in reconciling the people in general to the existing 
 Establishment. f The Assembly passed several acts unfavor- 
 able to the clergy, and in J 771 J an especially stringent one, 
 by which every minister appointed to a parish was compelled 
 to swear that he had no "simoniacal contract for his benefice." 
 li he were absent from his parish one month at a time, or 
 two months during the year, he was subject to a fine of ten 
 shillings; if a Vestry or the Church Wardens should complain 
 of a minister, the Grand Jury was to investigate the charges, 
 and if these were sustained the offender was to be tried bv a 
 court consisting of three clergymen, three laymen, and the 
 Governor, or, if he was not a member of the Church of Knir- 
 land, by the first person on the list of the Council, who was 
 a Churchman. This last provision was most obnoxious to 
 the clergy, who thought that a court composed in part ot 
 laymen smacked of I'resbvtcrianism, and should, therelbre, 
 be abolished. 
 
 But the greatest historical interest centres in the Vestrv of 
 which the Minister was "Principal." In every parish six 
 select Vestrymen were chosen by the freeholders. Kvcry 
 Vestryman subscribed the test, took the special oath <>l his 
 ollice, and the general oaths of allegiance, abjuration and a-so- 
 
 *llist. Cll. Amer. Col. Ch. Mil., pp. l-'H) KM. 
 
 | Tin? Commissaries were opposed on all Miles. In "lie 
 minister \vln> was preparing to sue the Commis-arv It ilmna^'"-, w;i- 
 prisventeil I'll .in mi doing liy falling in a ilrunk'ii li" ii 
 Inirning to death. See Sprague's Annul-, pp. :{! ".7. ILiwU.- \' II 
 lis L'iO, Hist. Coll. Amer. ('..]. Cli. Mil., pp. Hi) I I. ai.d .1- wli 
 
 I lluiisoii, 1771, Chap. XXXI. 
 
14 Parish Institutions of Maryland. 
 
 ciation,* which were administered at the first election by a 
 Justice of the Peace, afterward by the " Principal." The 
 legal time for elections was every Easter Monday, when the 
 two Vestrymen who had served longest, were dismissed, and 
 others appointed in their place. No one could serve as Ves- 
 tryman more than one year in three. This law was strangely 
 misconstrued by some, for, in one parish, some members of 
 the Vestry were elected for a period of three years, and actu- 
 ally obeyed the decree of the parishioners, and that too in 
 a town where the law should have been best understood, for 
 County Court was held there. The only qualifications neces- 
 sary for a Vestryman were, that he should be "sober and 
 discreet" and not a member of the Romish Church. Keepers of 
 ordinaries were excused from acting, and a certain Mr. Caswell 
 was prevented from continuing in a Vestry by reason of his 
 being coroner. Some Vestrymen were not even open pro- 
 lessors of religion. They were generally men well known 
 and of good report in the parish. For instance, the inhabi- 
 tants of Piscataway Parish elected as foreman of the Vestry, 
 Mr. John Addison, who was at the time a member of the 
 Governor's Council and Chief Justice of Charles County. In 
 the same Vestry were other prominent men. These were not 
 chosen, it should be remembered, with a view of connecting 
 their civil functions with those of Vestrymen, but because it 
 was believed they would not abuse the confidence reposed in 
 them. Occasionally accidents prevented the holding of elec- 
 tions at the proper time, in which case the old Vestry con- 
 tinued in office, and its acts were approved by the Assembly.f 
 Two Church Wardens were elected annually in the same 
 manner as the Vestry, but were always reeligible.| Their 
 
 * The oath of association was taken during William's reign ; the oaths 
 of allegiance and abjuration were used after the accession of George 1. 
 
 f Bacon, 1760, Chap. VI. 
 
 X " William Bruce, Churchwarden Elect for Christ Church Parish in 
 Calvert County, appeared, & alleged he was exempted from the Office of 
 Churchwarden, being a Practitioner of Pbysick, and was excused." (Hist. 
 Coll. Amer. Col. Ch. Md., p. 95). 
 
Parish Institutions of Maryland. 15 
 
 special duties were to take care of the church linen, " pewter 
 or plate," and to provide bread and wine for the communion. 
 Expenses incurred in procuring the elements were defrayed 
 by parish funds. Sometimes the rector took charge of these 
 matters. An entry in one parisli record book states that the 
 Rev. Edw. Butler had given up the "communion furniture.'' 
 In another we read that the Rev. Alex. Williamson was paid 
 "five pounds five shillings for finding wine for the parish n-e 
 for over a year." In 1765 the Vestry of St. -lames' Parish 
 ordered that "persons intruding into other persons' pews 
 should be taken out by force and put in the stocks." The 
 Church Wardens probably executed this order, for they had 
 to preserve " order in and around the church." When the 
 "Commissary" held a visitation, the Wardens met him, and 
 gave an account of the state of their parishes. At the onlv 
 two visitations which, it is known, the Wardens attended, thev 
 were required upon oath to report at the next visitation the 
 conduct and character of the incumbents, the condition of the 
 parish property, and any infringements of the laws relating 
 to Sabbath-breaking, and other immoralities. Vestrymen 
 and Church Wardens who refused to serve without good 
 excuse were fined one thousand pounds of tobacco. 
 
 The "Principal" summoned the Vestry meeting, but, that 
 "nothing might be done unawares," the first Tuesday in each 
 month was Vestry day. At "eleven of the clock, forenoon," 
 the Vestry met, and three constituted a quorum. In some 
 large parishes it was the custom, for convenience, to meet after 
 service on Sundays. Usually there was a small Vestry-house, 
 either adjoining or close by the church. Absent members 
 could be fined. Some Vestrymen, for lack of something 
 better to do, spent their time at meeting in fining their absent 
 
 * An Historical Sketch of Anne Arundel County. By lev. Tbeo. ('. 
 GarnbrHll, I87ti. Under the tobacco Act of 17'JS. the Clmr.h Warden- 
 were ordered to summon a Vestry meeting to till vaeaneio.- in the number 
 of counters. 
 
16 Parish Institutions of Maryland. 
 
 brethren. As a rule such fines were remitted at the next 
 meeting. 
 
 After a long ride through the wilderness, the Vestrymen 
 did full justice, no doubt, to the provisions for their refresh- 
 ment. In one parish "a quart of rum and sugar equivalent" 
 and "as much diet as would give the vestry a dinner" was 
 prepared by the sexton, at the expense of the parish. As this 
 custom caused after a time "great scandal," it was abolished, 
 and each Vestryman was required to furnish his own dinner. 
 
 The proceedings of the Vestry were recorded in a book by 
 the clerk or register, chosen and paid by the Vestrymen. The 
 register kept also an account of all births, marriages and fu- 
 nerals in the parish. Any one failing to give notice of such 
 occurrences in his family, was liable to be fined. Refusal to 
 make an official entry in the register book was punishable by 
 a fine. A small fee was given the clerk for searching a record, 
 or for giving a certificate. Notices of Vestry meetings, or 
 concerning other parish matters, were sent by the clerk, who 
 also presented at court the pleas of the Vestry. 
 
 Vestrymen were the guardians of parish property and the 
 censors of parish morals. If the church buildings needed 
 repairs or additions, the Vestry contracted for improvements. 
 If the Vestry had not sufficient means to pay parish charges, 
 it petitioned the County Court to levy a tax. This tax could 
 not exceed yearly ten pounds of tobacco per poll. As a parish 
 became more thickly settled, or if the church was not conve- 
 nient to all parishioners, the Vestry summoned them to decide 
 whether a chapel of ease should be built, and if so, where. 
 If a chapel was desired, a petition was sent to the Assembly 
 for an Act authorizing the parish to erect one. Voluntary 
 subscriptions or taxes imposed by the County Court paid for 
 the building of churches and chapels. The sites selected for 
 these edifices were generally near springs or wells, in order to 
 save the trouble of carrying water. The land was, perhaps, 
 given outright by some piously disposed parishioner, and if 
 there was a doubt as to how much had been given, two acres 
 
Parish Institutions of Maryland. 17 
 
 were surveyed and appropriated for the purpose.* Sometimes 
 the Vestry bought the land. In the laying out of Maryland 
 towns, places were left for a "church, chapel, market-house, 
 or other public buildings." In Annapolis three lots were 
 reserved, one for the use of tiie minister, one lor the sexton 
 and parish clerk, and the remaining one for the Vestry's clerk 
 and the Commissary's clerk. 
 
 Before the churches were erected services were held in the 
 court-houses or in private residences. Even when there was 
 a parish church, such places were used for worship, in order 
 to reach every parishioner. The churches were usually built 
 of wood, but some were of bricks or stone. The church at 
 Annapolis, as early as 1704, had a belfry and a bell, but 
 most churches were plain structures devoid of such luxuries.! 
 Besides, in a parish containing at least thirty square miles, a 
 bell would have been of little use for calling together the 
 congregation. The interiors wen; equally free from orna- 
 mentation. For some time many churches were without 
 flooring save the bare earth, and they were not even plastered 
 or glazed. As the parish prospered, floors were made of wood, 
 bricks, or tiles. The pulpit was at one side and the chancel 
 at one end. There were also a reading desk, or " pew," and 
 "a place for the dark to sit in." 
 
 The pews were high-backed, with seats around three sides, 
 and sonietimes had doors which were locked against intruders. 
 
 * Bacon, 1701, Chap. XXXVIII, and 1722, Chap. IV. 
 f Tin; Rev. Joniitliiin Boucher wrote in 1771 tin epistle from the "1<1 
 church lit Annapolis. Jt appeared in tho Md. Gazette, and the following 
 is an abstract : 
 
 "And often have I heard ii said 
 Thill some \ntoA people are afraid 
 Lest I should lunihle, on (heir hind, 
 
 Of which, indeed, this seems n |< I', 
 
 They seldom come heneuth my roof. 
 
 While I alone, not worth your can' 
 Am lell your sad neglect to hear ; 
 Here in Annapolis, alone, 
 <om| has the mi am -I house in I \\ i 
 
18 Paiish Institutions of Maryland. 
 
 The pews were either "built" by individuals, who had ob- 
 tained the sanction of the Vestry, or bought from the Vestry 
 at public auction or private sale. As they were very large, 
 some of them seven feet by five, few could be built in the 
 church, but, as the congregation grew, galleries were erected, 
 and in them bench pews were placed. In 1774, an Act 
 allowed the Vestry of St. Ann's Parish to build a new church.* 
 By this Act, it was ordered that pews should be made to 
 accommodate the Provincial officers and Assemblymen, stran- 
 gers, the incumbent, Vestrymen, and Church Wardens. Those 
 who subscribed most towards the building-fund were to have 
 the preference in the choice of pews, and no one subscribing 
 less than twenty pounds sterling was entitled to a choice. 
 No person could have more than one pew. Galleries were to 
 be built, one for the use of parishioners in general, one for 
 servants, and one for slaves. It was the duty of the sexton 
 to keep in good order the church and churchyard, and some- 
 times to hang the greens in the church at Christmas, Easter 
 and Whitsuntide. He also attended to the digging of the 
 graves, and, if a married man, undertook to keep the church 
 linen clean. One sexton employed himself in teaching school 
 in the Vestry-house. It was not a rare event for a woman 
 to be sexton. 
 
 In every parish church in Maryland, the Vestry was obliged 
 to set up a table of forbidden marriages, and to do all that 
 was possible to prevent infringements of such laws. The 
 Vestry of St. John's Parish, Baltimore County, cited one man 
 to appear and explain his marriage with his deceased wife's 
 sister. Another was summoned for uniting himself in mat- 
 rimony with his late wife's niece. Both failed to justify 
 themselves, so the clerk was ordered to present them to the 
 County Court. Where there was no rector, the Vestry chose 
 a reader, and paid him from the proceeds of the clergy-tax. 
 A coramiltee, consisting of the "principal Vestryman [here 
 
 Hanson, 1774, Chap. XL 
 
Parish Institutions of Maryland. 19 
 
 the oldest] and four of his brethren of longest standing," had 
 to render to the Governor an account of all expenditure- of 
 the poll tax during a vacancy in their parish, but this law 
 was not unfrequently neglected. The committee was no doubt 
 suggested by the Reeve and four best men who represented 
 the old English town or parish.* 
 
 In the year 1728, an Act was passed restricting the exces- 
 sive production of tobacco. f Although it was disallowed, its 
 provisions were carried out for a space of three years. Each 
 Vestry, having divided its parish into "precincts," appointed 
 for each, two counters, or tellers, of tobacco plants. The 
 counters appeared and signified to the Vestry their acceptance, 
 and the names of those who refused to serve, without good 
 reason, were presented by the register to the County Court. 
 Previous to 1728, the Vestry had been connected in another 
 capacity with the tobacco interest, for Vestrymen and Church 
 Wardens were included among the officers who could arrest 
 persons attempting to "run" tobacco from the Province.]; 
 Some years later Vestries nominated inspectors of the staple. 
 From these nominees, who had to be "able and sufficient 
 planters well skilled in tobacco," the Governor made his 
 appointments. No inspector could vote at the choosing of 
 his successor. |j It is obvious why 'the Vestries were con- 
 cerned in this question. Their main source of revenue was 
 the tobacco, and it was to their interests to see that it did not 
 become depreciated. 
 
 *See "Constables." By It. B. Adams, ]>. 11. 
 
 f Bacon, 17l'S, Chap. II. As this Act was disapproved it is not i;iven 
 in full in Bacon's Laws, but it may be seen in the Hist. Coll. Anier. Col. 
 Ch. Md., pp. 270-280. 
 
 + Bacon, 1722, Chap. XVI. 
 
 \ An interesting review of the inspection laws of Colonial Maryland 
 is to ho found in the Brief of Charles J. M. Gwinn in the ca-c of Turner 
 vs. State of Maryland, U. S. Supreme Court, October Term, 18*2. Seo 
 Note in University Circulars, February, 188J. 
 
 " Bacon, 1708, Chap. XVHI. 
 
20 Parish Institutions of Maryland. 
 
 In the young colony inhabited by all kinds of characters, 
 it is not surprising to learn that immorality was prevalent. 
 But means were at hand to restrain workers of iniquity. 
 Persons suspected of immoral conduct were summoned before 
 the Vestry, " to show cause why they should not be prose- 
 cuted." Some would promise to marry, others to separate. 
 It is curious to note that a month's time was frequently 
 allowed, in which such arrangements were to be consum- 
 mated. This may be explained by the fact that, in many 
 instances, the offender was a bachelor with his housekeeper, 
 and, in case of separation, he had to provide himself with 
 a substitute. If the Vestry's summons was disregarded, the 
 guilty parties were admonished by the Minister, or by a 
 deputation from the Vestry. If the evil practices were still 
 continued, information of such a state of affairs was sent to 
 the clerk of indictment at the County Court, where the fact 
 of admonition already given was sufficient evidence to convict 
 offenders. Adulterers and the like were fined, or, in default 
 of fine, could be whipped till the blood ran, but, after 1749, 
 corporal punishment for these offences was abolished. Persons 
 who swore in the presence of a Minister, Vestryman, or Church 
 Warden, were subject to a fine. Any of these officers could 
 commit to the stocks for an hour such an offender who did 
 not pay his penalty, or could appoint, in the absence of a 
 Constable, a deputy Constable to whip the aforesaid. The 
 lashes could not exceed thirty-nine at one whipping. 
 
 For certain misdemeanors, penance was done. The Rev. 
 Mr. Wilkinson wrote in 1724, "It has been owned by many 
 that there was a visible reformation on our shore, the sight 
 of one person perform ing penance struck a greater terror upon 
 all offenders than all the pecuniary and corporeal punishments 
 which the secular courts inflict, as some of 'em have publickly 
 acknowledged."* The following is an account of such a per- 
 formance: "The fifth day of July last came James Campbell 
 
 * Jtliet. Coll. Amer. Col. Ch. Md., p. 244. 
 
Parish Institutions of Maryland. 21 
 
 to ye Communion table and asked pardon of Col. Blav and 
 Mr. William Comegys for calling them murderers of yc parish : 
 at ye same place the aforesaid Campbell did condescend to pav 
 what Charge should Increw upon the writ that was served 
 upon him for his fault."* The Vestry of St. Thomas' Parish 
 cited men lor running their mills on Sundays. The eccle- 
 siastical censure neither injured the offender in property or 
 person, nor relieved him from further prosecution by the civil 
 authorities. That the excuse of ignorance might not be made, 
 every Minister was required to read from the chancel four 
 times a year the penal laws of the colony. 
 
 Alter Braddock's defeat it was thought necessary to take 
 special measures of defence against the Indians, who in roving 
 bands had come very near the settlements. Accordingly, to 
 pay for an increase in the militia, taxes were laid upon some 
 additional items, among these, " batchelors." The Vestrv 
 prepared every year a list of all such delinquents in the 
 parish, who were over twenty-five years old. This list was 
 then fastened upon the church-door, (which, in Maryland, was 
 the usual place for advertising parish business), and when 
 revised and corrected was sent to the Sheriff of the eountv.f 
 Among the " taxed bachelors" in 17G0 were Gov. Sharpe, 
 Messrs. Husband and Love, and the Rev. Mr. Mael'herson, 
 rector of St. Ann's, Annapolis. Although the clergy were not 
 legally taxable, yet a number of them appear to have suffered 
 from this imposition upon poor, lone bachelors. The Act 
 continued in force for eight years when it ceased by limitation. 
 
 *<>](! Kent. By Hanson, p. 35"). Penance is -till dune in Krc_'land: 
 "An extraordinary scene was witnessed on Sunday evening .Inly 'M), at 
 All Saints' Church, East Clevedon, when a man named Uw-'llyn Harm-is 
 did public nominee for the seduction of a servant girl, wh>> imw awaits 
 her trial fur manslaughter. The church was crowded and tin- vicar I 
 delivered an address on Church discipline, Hartree cniife>-ed hi- -in and 
 promi.-ed to take his place in the Assize Court next to the unfortunate 
 girl upon her trial at Wells." P. 126, ' Note* and Queries," An-;. 12, 1--'.'. 
 ; Bacon, 175(1, Chap. V. Mills were also u.-ed a.- plat - - for :id\< rti.-ing 
 Mich matters. 
 
22 Parish Institutions of Maryland. 
 
 Many Marylanders no doubt owe their existence to this tax, 
 for it was, to say the least, an incentive to matrimony. Many 
 names appear but once in the list, and it is to be presumed 
 that their owners had resolved to choose the less of two 
 evils. It was perhaps because " misery loves company," 
 or possibly from the belief that "in* union is strength" that 
 this persecuted class sought refuge at church in "bachelors' 
 pews." 
 
 As regards the parish poor, colonial laws and local records 
 afford comparatively little information. Legacies were occa- 
 sionally left to the Vestry for the benefit of the poor, by whom 
 were no doubt meant needy ones connected immediately with 
 the parish church. Where there were endowed public schools, 
 the parish had generally the right of sending a certain num- 
 ber of " charity scholars." It was the law that masters of 
 these schools were to be licensed by the ordinary, and were 
 to teach their scholars the Catechism, and were to bring them 
 to church on Sundays and Holydays. The "Charity School" 
 founded by the indefatigable efforts of the Rev. Thomas Bacon 
 was aided in some measure by "collections at the Offertory on 
 Sacrament Sundays." To this school negroes could be sent 
 and taught to " .Read and Write and instructed in the Know- 
 ledge and fear of the Lord, gratis ; but maintained at the 
 Expence of their respective Owners."* After a great fire 
 in Boston (1760) appeals for help were made to Maryland. 
 Gov. Sharpe ordered collections to be made in all the churches, 
 and his proclamation met with a liberal response. Of the 
 amount raised, members of the Established Church contrib- 
 uted five-sixths. These are examples of the church charities 
 of early times, and they differed little in principle from those 
 of the present. The Vestrymen were also the bankers of 
 
 * Bacon's " Sermon, &c," Lond., 1751. The negroes were not neglected 
 in spiritual concerns. As often as was convenient in some parishes they 
 were instructed and catechised, and baptized. Many were communicants 
 in the churches. , 
 
Parish Institutions of Maryland. 23 
 
 the parish and lent money at the rate of four per cent. 
 interest.* 
 
 Tims parish life went on, and the parishioners were in- 
 structed in the school of liberty by exercising what little 
 local government they possessed and in the interchange of 
 opinions at the Easter elections or in the closer assembly of 
 the Vestry. But, from its beginning, the Established Church 
 in Maryland met with opposition. Romanists and Dissenters 
 very justly considered that it was an injustice for them to be 
 called upon to contribute towards the support of an alien 
 ecclesiastical system, whose evils but not whose goods, they 
 were accustomed to share. Intelligent observers perceived 
 that the clergy were likely to become demoralized by their 
 connection with the civil authority. The ill-feeling was ex- 
 pressed in many ways. In 1763, the salary of the Minister 
 was reduced one-quarter .f This was done under an Act for 
 improving tobacco. Inasmuch as many planters had been 
 wont to reserve the worst of their tobacco for paying the 
 clergy-tax, it is to be hoped that a reduction of the Min- 
 ister's salary was a premium upon giving him better tobacco. 
 Efforts were made to increase the number of the parishes, 
 and thereby to decrease still further each incumbent's stipend. 
 Then were passed the laws of 1771 already mentioned. 
 
 The underlying cause of this discontent was the strong sen- 
 timent of the people that the existing parish system was an 
 infringement of their rights as freemen; and this feeling, 
 without doubt, helped to strengthen that opposition to the 
 mother country, which resulted in the American Revolution. 
 The parish had aided the cause of independence in two par- 
 
 *ln the 'Annuls of Annapolis" it is stated tlmt in \Ci'.U) Mnj<r Kdw. 
 Dorsey reported that there was in lianck, f'>r building theclmrrh at Annap- 
 olis, 4-">8 pounds sterling. 
 
 f In 1730 it had been decreed that one-quarter of the M ini-t<-r's salary 
 should be paid in grain or other commodities. The ] rospi-rity of the 
 colony, however, had rendered this law in-operative in reducing the viiluf 
 of the livings. 
 
24 Parish Institutions of Maryland. 
 
 ticulars. It had preserved for its adherents the memories of 
 their old English liberties, and by its manifest evils, had 
 taught its opponents to view with jealousy any attempts of 
 England to interfere with the local affairs of the colonies. 
 Having accomplished these things, it had done its best work, 
 and was no longer needed. 
 
 A fair idea of the state of the parishes at the outbreak of 
 the great struggle, can be obtained from a perusal of the fol- 
 lowing extracts from the writings of a clergyman of Mary- 
 land:* "Our churches in general are ordinary and mean 
 buildings, composed of wood without spires or towers or stee- 
 ples or bells, and placed for the most part (like those of our 
 remotest ancestors in Great Britain) no longer perhaps in the 
 depths of forests, yet still in retired and solitary spots and 
 contiguous to springs or wells. ... In both Maryland and 
 Virginia there are not six organs; the psalmody is every- 
 where ordinary and mean and in not a few places there is 
 none ... at present most of our parishes have two churches 
 in which duty is alternately performed ... in several par- 
 ishes there are three. Between the list of taxables as set 
 down in the sheriff's book, and what the incumbent actually 
 receives it is well known there is a wide difference. . . . We 
 have but fourty-four clergy. . . . The utmost that the most 
 able and careful of the clergy in Maryland can expect is to 
 live decently in a private way, and to educate their children 
 in such a manner as that by their own industry and a small 
 portion they may be able to live above contempt when we are 
 gone." 
 
 The lack of entries in many record books during the next 
 three or four years, serves to show the blank which then 
 existed in parish life. During the Revolution the Church in 
 
 * " A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolu- 
 tion, &c." By Rev. Jonathan Boucher. London, 1797, pp. 232-234. 
 Mr. Boucher was a loyalist and received harsh treatment at the hands of 
 his parishioners. A short sketch of his life is given in Neill's " Notes on 
 the Va. Col. Clergy," p. 29. 
 
Parish Institutions of Maryland. 25 
 
 Maryland lost considerable ground for various reasons. Manv 
 of the clergy considered that they were still hound hv their 
 oath to the English government. These, and others from 
 choice, adhered to the royal cause and endeavored to induce 
 their congregations to do the same. Consequently great 
 numbers left the Church, and attached themselves to Metho- 
 dism, which was just beginning to thrive in America. In 
 the "Declaration of Rights," adopted in the Maryland ('< in- 
 vention of 1 77(3, it was ordained that no County Court should 
 thereafter levy a tax upon application of a Vestry, or of Church 
 Wardens. The legislature might, however, impose a general 
 tax for the support of tiie Christian religion, but each person 
 could denote lor what denomination his quota should be ex- 
 pended. The property of the Church of England remained 
 in the possession of the parishes, but even those who stood bv 
 the Church were too much occupied with the more momentous 
 questions of the time to give much heed to parish matters. 
 The loyal clergy vacated their livings, and the churches thus 
 deprived of their rectors began to decay. The Ministers who 
 remained, being without an assured salary, had to make great 
 shifts to support themselves. 
 
 The attention of the Assembly was called to this sad state 
 of affairs, and it passed a new Vestry Act. In a " (/aural 
 meeting,'' the legal voters of a parish, who had paid pari-h 
 charges, elected seven Vestrymen "for the preservation of the 
 church, care of the glebe, and for the happinc-s and welliirc 
 of the state."' Their civic duties wen; taken away, although 
 the Wardens kept the peace in churches, and could eject from 
 them anv disorderly persons.* The names of many of the 
 old members now reappear in the record books, but the titles 
 of " ( 'olonel," " Major," eVc, have been added, flic members 
 of the Vestry now chose their Minister, and paid him by the 
 subscriptions of the parishioners. Grain was the principal 
 commodity used in payment of such debt-. Thi> was eol- 
 
 * Hanson. 177'', Chap. IX. 
 
26 Parish Institutions of Maryland. 
 
 lected through personal application by the Vestrymen. The 
 Minister controlled the glebe (which was vested in the Vestry) 
 during his incumbency. When any improvements were made, 
 some parishioners contributed material, others their services. 
 Sometimes the glebe was rented, in which case the lessee agreed 
 generally to improve it. 
 
 In 1798,* another Act became the law upon which is based 
 the present existing Vestry system of Maryland ; for, later 
 laws referring to the incorporation of religious bodies have 
 the proviso that nothing therein contained shall affect the 
 election of Vestries according to the usages of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church. Although this Act is easy of access, it 
 may be well to mention the most important features. Eight 
 Vestrymen were elected, the former Vestrymen being the 
 judges of election. All Vestrymen and Church Wardens took 
 the oath of fidelity to the Government, professed belief in the 
 Christian religion, and subscribed to the oath of office. The 
 first Monday in February, May, August, and November was 
 the legal Vestry day. Four members constituted a quorum. 
 The Minister was chairman and collected the votes. If there 
 was a tie he had the deciding voice, unless he was personally 
 interested in the. result. The Vestrymen chose the Church 
 Wardens, and " called " their rector. The Vestry was a cor- 
 porate body, but could dispose of no church property without 
 the consent of both of the Wardens. 
 
 At present Vestries are governed by the provisions of their 
 charters, if they have any, which conform generally to the 
 Constitution and Canons of the Diocesan Convention. Par- 
 ishes still exist as geographical divisions, and there are also 
 "separate congregations" whose Trustees are called Vestry- 
 men. For example, St. Paul's Parish is Baltimore City and 
 a part of Baltimore County. But within this parish are more 
 than two dozen congregations. The power of constituting, 
 
 * " A Compilation containing the Constitution and Canons of the P. E. 
 Church in the Diocese of Md., &c," pp. 73-104. 
 
Parish Institutions of Maryland. 27 
 
 dividing and uniting parishes is vested in the Convention of 
 the Diocese. Many of the old glebes have been sold, and in 
 some parishes the proceeds have been converted into stocks 
 or bonds. Where there is a glebe, the Minister sometimes 
 farms it, for the country clergy are not the best rewarded 
 individuals. There are eight Vestrymen, four of whom are 
 voted out and their places filled at congregational meeting on 
 Easter Monday in each year. Vestrymen are rceligible and 
 are generally continued in office. Very often the meeting of 
 the congregation consists of the members of the old Veslrv, 
 who solemnly reelect themselves. It is on record that at one 
 meeting in Baltimore the only persons present were the two 
 Wardens, who appointed each other chairman and secretary, 
 respectively, and elected the Vestry. The Vestry elects two 
 Church Wardens either from their own body or from the con- 
 gregation. The Wardens, if they arc not also Vestrymen, 
 cannot vote in Vestry meeting, but can take part in discus- 
 sions. In city churches, one of the Wardens makes prepara- 
 tions for the celebration of the communion, but in the countrv 
 it is a matter of convenience as to which of the officers of 
 the church shall attend to such matters. The Wardens may 
 assist at the offertory. They notify the Bishop of the election 
 of a new Minister, and may also certify the election of lav 
 delegates to the Convention, but the Register of the Vestry 
 generally does this. Although the powers of officers of the 
 peace were taken from the Wardens in 1802, nevertheless 
 as representatives of the Vestry, they still have the ancient 
 right of keeping order in church, and are objects ol terror to 
 small boys or other disturbers of public service. The \\ aniens 
 are also the custodians of the church property. 
 
 The parish of Maryland, which was originated here for 
 religious purposes, but which, as an institution by Knglish 
 people, naturally possessed some of the historical features ot 
 the old English parish, gradually severed its connection with 
 civil matters, until to-day it exists tor the furtherance ol' 
 ecclesiastical objects alone. 
 
EXTRACTS 
 
 K K M T I! K 
 
 PARISH RECORDS OF MARYLAX 
 
 Prince George's Parish. 
 
 Whereas at the Request of the Inhabitants of tin- Eastern, Branch and 
 Hock Creek, The Reverend M* John Frazer did appoint this |v<-f-ont day 
 being the 18 th day of September 1719, For the said Inhabitants to meet 
 in order to make Choice of a proper place for building a Chappel, and 
 Contributing towards building the same. 
 
 And forasmuch as very few of the Inhabitants are met on tin- Occasion, 
 those therefore present, to prevent delays have thought lilt to Subscribe 
 their Name-, and what Sums they are willing to give, and have Nomi- 
 nated the place they think most proper, Leaving Room in said Collum 
 for other of the Inhabitants to Name what place they think more Conve- 
 nient, that so a proper place may be pitch 'd upon by the Majority. 
 Benefactors Names | \ a | Tob'-' in s | Proper place for build. 
 
 December the :>' 17-ti 
 
 Then mei the freeholders of Prince Georges Pari.-h at the Parish 
 Church at Rock Creek, As is directed by Act of Assembly to Choose 
 Vestry Men. and other Parish Officers, And accordingly tiny made Choice 
 of the following Gentlemen to be Vestry Men, (viz') M r N'ath- Wiekham 
 .lun-M'Mohn Powell, M' James Holmeard, M- John Flint, M- .Joseph 
 Chew, and M r John Pritchett. And for Church Wardens M r ("abb 
 Lutton, and M r W'" Harbin; and they Qualified thcin-elv.-s for their 
 Place.-, by taking the Several Oaths as the Act of AsM-mbly direct- for 
 Such Officers to take. 
 
 After the Election was over, the Gentlemen of the Vestry met, and 
 
 made Choice of Will'" Jackson, for their Register, and appoint. .1 to n i 
 
 again on Frvdav the lu'-' December 1 7 1-' ' ; . 
 
 Those I'xtriu-lH from Msirylauil Parish Ko.or.ls have In .-n piihli-l h. k i ml 
 
 Ci >r>]rat ion <[' K''iil i.iocii in Hnllini.uo, an<l, it is Impel, n-i.-t to 
 
 hrini; ahout ;i mure neaoral movement towards tin 1 pti " : .1>> ,i> inn 
 
 parish records, hill also of' many other ancient ilocmii.iits, w he li ii n ' "ill 
 .-mill eriiiuhle to pieces. 
 
30 Extracts from the 
 
 Fryday December the 16^ 1726 
 The Gentlemen of the Vestry met according to appointment (all present) 
 and agreed to allow W' u Jackson Eight hundred pound of Tobacco *$ 
 Annum for being Register, and likewise ordered that a Letter Should be 
 forthwith Sent to M r . John Bradford desiring the favour of him to meet 
 them at the Parish Church, on the 3 d day of January 172f about the land 
 the Parish Church Stands on, to make it over. 
 
 Tuesday the 10 th January 172f* 
 The Gentlemen of the Vestry according to appointment met all present. 
 And Invested M* George Murdoch as Rector of this Parish, he behaving 
 himself well and doing his duty, duely, and truely, as an Incumbent 
 ought to do. 
 
 His Induction from his Excellency to the 
 Gentlemen of the Vestry 
 Maryland ss- 
 
 Charles Calvert Esq' Governour of 
 Maryland, and Commander in Chief &c. 
 To the Gentlemen of the Vestry of Prince 
 Georges Parish, in Prince Georges County 
 Greeting. 
 "Whereas the Reverend M r George Murdoch an Orthodox Minister of 
 the Church of England, was sent and Recommended by the Lord Bishop 
 of London and Diocesan of this Province to officiate as such in Virginia 
 or Maryland, I do therefore Recommend and appoint the said George 
 Murdoch to be Rector of your Parish, and direct you to Recieve him as 
 Incumbent thereof, and will you to be aiding and assisting to him, in all 
 things becoming, to the end he may Recieve the full benefits and Perqui- 
 sites of his Office appertaining, together with the fourty "$ Poll arising 
 within the Parish aforesaid. 
 
 Given at the City of Annapolis this 29 th Day of December in the thir- 
 teenth Year of the Dominion of the Right Hon 1 Charles Lord Baron of 
 Baltemore, Absolute Lord Proprietor of the Province of Maryland, and 
 Avalon &c. Annoque Domini 1726. And in the thirteenth Year of his 
 Majesties Reigne 
 
 Cha Calvert. 
 
 Until 1752, the 25th of March was observed in England as the beginning of the year. 
 Most European nations had already adopted the reform calendar of Gregory XIII. (1572). 
 The English, always slow to accept outside innovations, had retained the Old Style, 
 but, for convenience in foreign trade, were accustomed to use both the Old and the New 
 Styles between January 1st and March 25th. So January, 172|, means that it was in the 
 year 1726, Old Style, but in 1727, New Style. For further information in regard to the 
 change see the article "Calendar" Ency. Brit,, Hening's Statutes, "Vol. I, p. 393, Ac, Mag. 
 Amer. Hist., Vol. VIII, p. 223, also a pamphlet entitled "What New Doctrine is This?" 
 and the Providence "Monthly Reference List" for October, 1882. 
 
Parish Records of Maryland. 31 
 
 The following is a Copy of M^ George Bealls 
 Obligation for his performance of the building the 
 Vestry House. 
 Know nil Men by these p'sents, that I George Beall of Prime Georges 
 County in tho Province of Maryland have agreed with the; Gentlemen of 
 the Vestry of Prince Georges Parish, to build a Vestry House It; Foot 
 long, 12 Foot wide overjetted, an Inside Chimney, the House t<> he y Foot 
 pitch'd plank'd above and below, a plank dour to the House, with Lock 
 and key, and Iron hinges, the boards to beall drawn a Small plank Table, 
 the House to be fram'd, and to find All Necessaries whatsoever, and to 
 have it compleatcd workman like by Easter Sunday it being tie- 2' 1 day of 
 April next ensuing the Date hereof, and to have for doing the Same, Two 
 Thousand five hundred pound of Tobacco, if not Compleatcd and finished 
 according to Agreement, to forfeit Five Thousand pound of Tobacco; 
 dust Causes to the Contrary Excepted, As Witness my hand this 10 l ' day 
 of Janry 1725 
 
 Signed before the Vestry Geo. Beall 
 
 Witness 
 W. Jackson Reg r 
 
 April the ".'' 1727. Being Easter Monday the freeholders of the Parish 
 met. According as the Act of Assembly directs 'to put out two of the 
 Gentlemen of the Vestry, and to Choose two others in their Booms and 
 likewise two Church Wardens, They thought litt to put of the Ve>try 
 Ml Nath 1 Whickham Jun r and M? John Powell, and Elected \l r WiH m 
 Harbin and >[' Thomas Lucas in their Kooms, and likewise Chose M* John 
 Harding, and M.' Grove Thomlinson Church Wardens for the En.-uing 
 year, in the Kootn of M Will"' Harbin, and M' Caleb Lutton. And tin y 
 Qualified themselves for their places by taking the Several Oaths aa is 
 Directed by Act of Assembly for Such Officers to take. 
 
 At the same time the Gentlemen of the Ve.-try C"ii->nted that M r 
 M urdoch should preach to the upper inhabitants of the Parish, every third 
 Sunday, in some Convenient place, they shall appoint. 
 
 Sunday tho 28"' May 1727. After Divine Service the C.-ntletm-n i 
 Vestry met At>out Sending for Books for the I'se of the Church; M r 
 dam" Hoi moard offered to Send for them if the K.-t of the (o-ntleiuen 
 thought lit, ami they accordingly accepted his oiler, ami 
 send for the following Books, (viz 1 ) One Large folio Church Bilde, Two 
 Large folio Common Prayer Books, and he Should be paid in Tobaou al 
 1 ~f' pound. 
 
 Tuesday the 15-" August 1V_'7. 
 The Gentlemen of Ve.-try according to nppointtm nl n 
 to treat with workman about Erecting Pew.- in ti.e ( huuh, and they 
 
32 Extracts from the 
 
 Agreed with M* Mingeldo Pgge to Erect fourteen Pews, and to alter the 
 Desk, and to make it less, and to make a place for the Clark to Sit in ... . 
 and to pay him Five Thousand Pounds of Tobacco for Doing the Said 
 work. 
 
 And likewise agreed to pay M' George Beall Three hundred pounds 
 of Tobacco, for puting up two new Girders in the Church. 
 
 And likewise to pay M r Nehemiah Ogden Three hundred Pounds of 
 Tobacco for Iron work for the said Girders. 
 
 And likewise to pay M r f Mary Ann Powell Two hundred and fifty 
 Pounds of Tobacco, for a Dyaper Cloth, and two Napkins, for the Com- 
 munion Table. 
 
 And likewise to pay William Jackson One hundred, Sixty Eight Pounds 
 of Tobacco, for a book to Kecord, the Several proceedings of the Vestry. 
 
 Tuesday the 21** November 1727. 
 
 At the same time they agreed to pay MT Grove Thomlinson Church 
 "Warden Two Hundred and Sixteen Pounds of Tobacco for Wine for the 
 Sacrament, due from Easter to this time. 
 
 And likewise to pay Owen Read Three Hundred Pounds of Tobacco, 
 for Digging a Well, and making a back in the Vestry House. 
 
 And likewise The Keverend M' George Murdoch agreed to pay the Gen- 
 tlemen of the Vestry, for the Use of the Parish, Two Thousand Pounds 
 of Tobacco upon Condition that he might Recieve the fourty ^ Poll, for 
 the whole Year, when but Eleven Months his due, which amounts to the 
 said Sume ^ Month, which they agreed too. 
 
 May the 10 1729 
 
 The Gentlemen of the Vestry, and the Church Wardens of the Parish 
 met, pursuant to an Act of Assembly, to Nominate, and appoint Counters 
 to Count Tobacco Hills &c* in the Several Hundreds in this Parish 
 
 And accordingly they N ominated, and appointed, M* Thomas Fletchall, 
 and M' Alexander Magruder to be Counters for Potomack and Minocezsy 
 Hundreds. 
 
 And Likewise M* James Beall, and M* Nicholas Baker for the Eastern 
 Branch Hundred 
 
 And M* Thomas Lucas, and M' Thomas Lamar,forEock Creek Hundred 
 
 At the same time Orderd that William John Jackson be paid Eight 
 Hundred pounds of Tob for a Years Salary for being Register, and finding 
 paper &c* for the use of the Parish. 
 
 And Likewise Order'd that Grove Thomlinson Church Warden be paid 
 One Hundred, and fourty pounds of Tobacco for Wine for the Sacrament, 
 & his Extraordinary Trouble in fetching it. 
 
 And Order'd that no Churchwarden hereafter be paid anything for 
 their Trouble &c- 
 
Parish Records of Maryland. 33 
 
 June 29 th 17:! 1 
 Order'd that the threes Hogsheads of Tohacco Rec'ced of the Sheriff on 
 the Parish accompt Bo Shipt to M* Isaac Milner Merchant in London on 
 the Parish Risque and that the following Goods be Sent for, (for the 
 Produce of the Said Tohacco) for the Use of the Parish Church. 
 Five Casements three inches long, and Seven Inches Wide 
 Five lights Thirty Inches Long and Seventeen Inches Wide 
 Ten lights Twenty one Inches long and Seventeen Inches Wide 
 Two lights Twenty Inches long and Eleven Inches Wide. 
 And a Surplice. 
 
 Order'd that Ralph Lannum he Paid Fifty pound of Tobacco for Rolling 
 one of the Said Hogsheads. 
 
 Febry the 7 173 
 
 .... Order'd that Summons be Issued for Nehemiah and W 
 
 to appear before the said Vestry on Easter .Monday. . . . 
 
 Easter Munday March y e 2G th 17:;:! 
 
 . . . Also Nehemiah and Mary not Appearing According 
 
 to Appointment to Clear themselves of the Suspition of Fornication were 
 Order'd to Seperate &c. 
 
 March y e .'{1 th 173:5 
 Then Benj" Murdoch Clark of the Vestry Pursuent to the Abovesaid 
 
 Orders Concerning Nehemiah & Mary & William 
 
 & Grace did Serve them fcc. 
 
 On Whitsun Munday May y" 14 th 17:13 
 Also Neh. Appear'd & Said he was Maried to the Woman that 
 
 he is Accus'd of Living in Fornication with but could Shew no Certificate 
 nor any other Proof hut Said Since the Vestry was not Satisfi'd he was 
 willing to he publish'd Ami Mari'd Over Again which the Vestry thought 
 litt to Consider Upon it that providing that the Woman would (Joe in A 
 Short Time and swear before a Magistrate that She knows nothing of her 
 Husband being alive. It should be done otherwise to proceed according 
 to Law. 
 
 A Coppy of Mary Oath. 
 
 Prince Georges County Aug' s 1 ' 17-::! 
 
 Then came Mary before me one of his Lordships .Justices of (he 
 
 County Court A; made Oath on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God 
 that She had not Seen or heard from her Husband William Hither 
 
 by Letter or l'roxsey for this Eight or Nine Year- bygone A: doth not at 
 
 this Time Believe he the Said William is Alive Swornr before 
 
 me Date Above Written 
 
 Jos: Chew 
 
 ft 
 
34 Extracts from the 
 
 On Munday November the 5 th 
 
 Then it was Agreed that Nehemiah & Mary should bo 
 
 Presented the Court Ensuing if he be not Married before that Time. 
 
 Easter Monday April y e 7 th 1735. 
 Also Agreed with M r John Bell Churchwarding To Alow him foure 
 hundred & fifty lb of Tobacco for finding Bread & Wine for the Sacra- 
 ment & taking Care of the Linning and Vessels for the year Ensuing. 
 
 May y e 6 th 
 1735 
 Then Agreed with Bingle Page and Benjamin Perry to Build a Gallery 
 fitting it with Seats as Maney as is convenant and to be done workman 
 like likewise to put Eight good Substantial new Blocks of Locas or Chest- 
 nut well Season'd to the Said Church and also to put Six good blocks to 
 the Vestrey house in the roome of those that are alredey there qualefied 
 as the other before mentiond and to have for the Same Six Thousand 
 pounds of Tobacco (makeing good the Wether hording of the Church and 
 the West dore) to have it Compleatly finished by the twenty fifth of De- 
 cember Next on the penalty of Nie Thousand pounds of Tobacco. 
 
 Oct r 7 e 14 th 
 1735. 
 Then it was agreed with the Kev . George Murdock that he Should pay 
 for two years Quit-Rent for the Glebe-land (Viz) Eight Shilings Sterling 
 to M r William Diggs and be Deducted out of what he owes to the Parish. 
 
 Nov 1 7 e 5 th 
 1735 
 Likewise that Notis Should be given to the freeholders &c And Notes 
 Set up that on the first Tuesday in Dec r the Vestrey to meete to agree 
 about the Sale of the Pewes. 
 
 Sept 7 e 23 
 
 1740 
 
 At the Same time the Rev d - George Murdock Brought In 
 
 the following Account (Viz) ' 
 
 < s 
 
 To 10| Ells of Holland for a Surplice \ 
 
 at 14 Shilings ^ Ell J 
 
 To Making 1 10 
 
 To Thomas Willson for survaying 1 .. 
 
 the Chap- Land / 
 
 To George Murdock for Commone Truble 1 
 
 10 19 
 
Parish Records of Maryland. .'35 
 
 which was agreed that lie Should have an order on William Murdock 
 Late Shriefi" and Accordingly had one for the Sd Sum (Viz 10 jiound 
 Nineteen Shilings 
 
 Nov'y' 18 th 
 17 jo 
 
 . . . and at the Same time ^S\ T - Francis Finn brought a Letter from M r 
 John 1'rieliard with this Subscription 
 
 For the Lay Gentlemen of y* Vestrey of Prince Georges Parish. 
 Which was orderd to be Recorded & is as followeth 
 Gentlemen 
 
 I Reced a Letter from John Flint who stiles himself Clerk of y e Vestrey 
 and by Your Order requires me to Attend y e Vestry to Morrow to clear 
 Myself of a supition of my living in Adultery I look upon my Answer 
 in writing to he as Sufficient and as clear as. if I was before You. And 
 therefore deny tin; charge, If I could Possibly leave my sickly Negro 
 family and with convenience be absent from my buisness In Attending 
 my Store I would however wait Upon you Gentlemen of the Laity. 
 
 But whilst your Hector is there; 1 hope to be Excus'd for that 1 look 
 upon the Censure to proceed from his malice and Vexatious temper, in 
 the intervales of his want of y right use of bis sences the deprivation of 
 which at some times he is Deem'd to be under in the opinion of Severall 
 of his Brother Clergymen and Severall Gentlemen in this A: the Neigh- 
 bouring County Therefore I do not think proper to Attend Your Sutnons 
 whilst he is present. 
 
 1 am with due Kespect Your most 
 hum Serv- 
 Nov'y 17 1740 Jn" Prichard 
 
 And the Vestrey thought fit to Refer their opinion whilst the third 
 tusday in December. 
 
 June y e 7 
 
 174:5 
 
 Likewise agreed to lend Samuel magroiider y c :)' Twenty live pound at 
 4 ~r' Cent Y' A iiimm. 
 
 And Ninnian Maugrouder Six pound at 4 "(' Cent 
 
 And John Flint Six pound at 4 "(-' cent ~r' Annum 
 
 And John Claggett thirty two pound at 4 "(-' r ''" 1 
 
 And all oil' them to give Security for the payment of the Same to the 
 Said Vestrey with the Intrest due thereon according to their >c\erall 
 Sum* and time. 
 
 Oetol/y" l"' 
 
 17-1- 
 Then the Gentlemen of the Vestrey met Present .... 
 
36 Extracts from the 
 
 And did Nominate and Recommend for Inspectors At I r George 
 Gordon 8 warehouse at the mouth of Kock Creek The following Gen' men 
 (Viz) 
 
 Cap' Alexander Maugrouder 
 Mess Josiah Beall 
 John Clagget 
 
 Alexander Beall Son of Will m Beall 
 Likewise for Bladenshurg 
 ICeM Samuel Beall Jun* 
 N icholas Baker. 
 Mar y 8 
 27 1749 
 
 Then came the folowing Certifiecation 
 
 Prince Georges County Decern y e 5 th 1748 
 Mary Land ss' 
 
 I Hereby Certifie that this day Came before me The Subscriber one of 
 his Lordships Justices for the County aforesaid Alex' Beall and Qualified 
 himself by takeing the severall oathes to the Goverment as Alsoe the oath 
 of Inspector and Declard the test & Subscrib'd the same and the oath of 
 Abjuration 
 
 Sworne before Jn Cooke 
 To the Vestrymen & Church "I 
 "Wardens of Prince Georges Parish J 
 
 May y e 12 
 
 1751 
 
 And at the Same time Orderd that I Should Acquaint his Excellence 
 with the Death of Alex' Maugrouder one of the Inspectors for Rock-Creek 
 Inspecting house and who was the Next Nominated for Inspectors 
 
 Likewise to set up notes to Acquaint all the freeholders to meet the 
 Vestrey the first Tusday in June for to Chuse one for a Vestrey man in 
 the Rome of Alex' Maugrouder being Dead, and for any Carpinters that 
 will undertake the Raileing of the Chappel yard and the Chancel to meet 
 at the Same time And place. 
 
 July y e 20 
 1756 
 
 Then the Gentmen of the Vestrey met pressent 
 
 And after taking the Oath Appointed for that Purpose did Nominate 
 the Batchelors in the Said Parish aged Twenty five years and upwards 
 with the place of abode and Value of there Estate 
 
 April y e 18 th 
 1757 
 Memorandum that John Tyson Bought a Botle Screw of M r Rob' Mun- 
 dell on y e Parish ace' price on Shiling. 
 
Pariah Records of Maryland. 87 
 
 Tusdaj December 4 t! ' 1759 
 .... at Which time the Keverend M r Clement Brooke Informed the 
 Vestery that the Reverend M r George M unlock had Imployed him the 
 Said Brooke as his Currate to Olliciate in his the Said M unlock- Parrish. 
 The Vestery not being fully Satisfied Concearning the Matter In Dispute 
 between the Keverend M r Thomas Johnson and the Reven M r Clement 
 Brooke Thought Proper to Adjorn to the Keverend M r George Murdocks 
 house; on Saterday the Eight Instant In Order to Take Moore fuller In- 
 structions from him the Said Murdock lie being very Ancient and Incu- 
 pible of Attending the Vestery. 
 
 June '27 th 1768 Att Kereek Chaple 
 
 .... att the same Time the Vestry agrees that Mes> r . James Burm-* and 
 Edward Villers Harbin do meet at Geo. Town Un the 25' day of duly in 
 Order to Exspose the Parish Tobacco to Publiok Sale and that Simon 
 Nicholls Advertise the Same. 
 
 Tusday March 24 1707 
 Order that Simon Nicholls Purchas at the Cost of the Parish One of 
 the Kev M r Bacons Body of Law for the use of Said Purish. 
 
 St. John's Parish, Baltimore County.* 
 
 [July 30, 1730.] 
 
 Then did the Keverend M. Bourdillon infirm this Vestry that it was 
 his Excellency the Govenors pleasure to Call him to Affiliate in Another 
 parrish ami that he did resign Up to his Excellency this parrish. . . . 
 
 [July 8, 1740] 
 
 M* Kichard Caswell being Elected a Vestry man last Kaster Munday 
 for this Parrish hut he being Corroner is not ohlidged to Serve in said 
 Office Therefore it is now ordered that the Clerk putt up notes for the 
 Parritioners of said Parrish to nieett in the Town of ,Io]>pa on the tlrst 
 Tuesday in August Ensuing in order to Chuse a Church Warden. 
 
 [May, 1742 1 
 
 Ordered notes be put up to employ any person that will undertake t" 
 make and bring To Joppa Twelue Thousand bricks j 
 
 In the extracts from the l>ooks (if St. John's and All Saint-' l\iri-h., th-- dates in 
 brackels are merely fur the sake of reference and arc not :i part of l lie ! L-in.iI n < op I. 
 
 fMnny of the old churches in Maryland were Imill of brick- liroiirfht.il i- >ai<l 
 England. But all bricks used iu the I'rovince were not impoi -ted, a- ihc bdl.-wiiirf fads 
 
38 Extracts from the 
 
 [June, 1742.] 
 
 M* William Dallam agreed with the vestry to deliver Twelve thousand 
 bricks at Joppa Town in the parrish Church yard & to be viewed by Two 
 of the Vestrymen who shall be At that time quallitied According to Law 
 & if s- Bricks be Approved of by the Two Vestrymen as Afors*? to be good 
 & Sufficient then the Vestrymen do agree to pay the said M* Dallam thirty 
 Shillings Currant money "ty thousand. 
 
 [Oct. 4, 1743.] 
 
 The Vestry agrees that Superscription should be offered to the Inhabi- 
 tants of this Parrish in order to Raise as much Money as will Build an 
 Addition to the North-side of the church. 
 
 [Apr. 3, 1744.] 
 
 Ordered that Summons Issue for Jacob Jackson and bis present wife 
 who was Neace to his Deceased wife to show cause if any why they shall 
 not be prosecuted According to Law, for Marrying contrary to the Table 
 of Mariage. 
 
 [May 1, 1744.] 
 
 Jacob Jackson and his wife appearing According to a summons ISsued 
 from the last Vestry returnable here now, and haveing no Legall Defence 
 to make and it fully appearing that they have Married contrary to the 
 Table of Marrage it's ordered that there be an Information made thereof 
 to the Next county Court to be held for Baltimore. 
 
 John Leatherbury agrees to do the Brick work of a Vestry house for 
 which he is to have Thirteen shillings ^3 Thousand for Laying the Brick 
 and to find himself Diet and Lodging he is to Begin the said work by the 
 Twentieth of June & have it finished with all expedition 
 
 [May 5, 1747.] 
 
 The vestry have agreed with M* Walter Tolley to make Twenty thou- 
 sand bricks to Be merchantable and delivered in the church yard at or 
 upon the Twentieth Day of July next for which he is to be paid thirty 
 Shillings currant money ^ Thousand. 
 
 [June 2, 1747.] 
 
 The vestry here present have agreed with James Sage to lay about 
 twenty thousand bricks in Two porches by way of buttments to the church 
 for which they are to Allow him at the Rate of Ten Shillings ^ Thousand 
 the vestry finding him Accommodations and Attendance the Work to 
 
 clearly prove. As early as 1694, a contract was undertaken by a resident of Kent Island 
 to make a certain number of bricks for building a church. Of course these bricks were in 
 quality inferior to the imported ones, but the people were not so ignorant of the resources 
 beneath their feet as some suppose. However, bricks were valuable and the total disap- 
 pearance of certain old tpwns may be explained by the fact that, when all the townsfolk 
 sought a more favorable site, they carried the bricks of their houses with them. 
 
Parish Records of Maryland. 3ii 
 
 begin so soon as the bricks Shall be burned and ready the .-aid .la...' - to 
 be paid fur .-aid Work three, months after finished. 
 
 [August, 1747.] 
 
 M r Jolin Day son of Edw: Appears & declares ho keeps a puhlick house 
 is therefore Exempt from the office of a vestryman and is from tlii.- day 
 by the vestry here Present discharged from said office. 
 
 [April II, 1748.] 
 
 M r : Thomas (Sittings is by the majority of y e parrishioners here present 
 chosen As a vestryman to Serve in said Office three year's from tlii- date 
 According To Act of Assembly. 
 
 [duly. 1748.] 
 
 Ordr': 1 that the clerk put up notes to Advertise that the ground in tie- 
 new Addition to the church Whereon may he built Ten pews 7 feet deep 
 te 5 feet wide is to be sold at said parrisb church on the lir-t tue.-dav in 
 August next at three clock in the Afternoon by Way of puhlick vandue 
 to the highest bidder or bidders for curr- or Sterling money. 
 
 [April 3, 1750.] 
 
 Ordered that puhlick notice lie given that no person presume to hr.-ak 
 any of the Church ground on any pretents whatever before Applying to 
 the Sexton. 
 
 [dune I, 1751.] 
 
 Robert Price lias an Order on M* Thomas Shoredine high Sherrilf of 
 Baltimore county for the (Quantity of live hundred pound- of Tub" being 
 for his Acting as Sexton for this parish One Year. 
 
 [Aug. 4. 1752 ] 
 
 Then was Five thousand seven hundred & ninety Four pound- of Tub? 
 charged to Mess' Tho* Sligh Walter Tolley and John Paca .Inn- The.\ 
 being the surities of \\ r Thomas Sheredine in relation To his due perfor- 
 mance in hi- Sherritls Office. 
 
 '[Sept. I, 1752.] 
 
 Tile vestry have agr i that no seat< in the Addition -hall ho \ 
 
 ated hut all held in common for This reason beeau-e their bargain with . 
 M' Walter Tolley relating thereto has not been complyid in l>\ him 
 therefore its agreed what was disbursted by said Tolley mi Account of the 
 said work Shall be refuned to him with Interest by the - M ;d Ve-try. 
 
 Jolin (Jiles Appeared According to his summon- from the V. 
 marrying Ilannah'Scott sister to His late wile Deceased, aid heme. Ad- 
 Hum i shed to put In t away ha- refused to do it therefore the V i - 
 Orders the Clk. to make Presentment to the gran 1 .1 in n a - -l the 
 (tiles A; said Hannah Scott, a- having Offended again-l the \ ' ' A 
 hly in that ea-e made and provided. 
 
40 Extracts from the 
 
 [March 6, 1753.] 
 
 A Dispute ariseing about the boundery between Saint Pauls and Saint 
 Johns parrish, The Vestry have Taken the same into consideration and 
 have Appointed Mess* "Walter Tolley and Rich*? Wilmott to meet Two 
 parrishoners of Saint Thomas's Parrish to Enquire Into the said bound- 
 dery and to report the state of the case on or before the first Tuesday in 
 June Next to the said Vestry of Saint Johns, parrish. 
 
 [Aug., 1753.] 
 
 Then the vestry agreed with M' Roger Boyce to cause to be made Ten 
 or Twelve Benches Ten Or twelve feet lenth One and a quarter Inch thick 
 Fourteen or fifteen Inches broad of white Oak or popler, the said benches 
 to be placed at Nicho 8 - Hutchens and to be by him Kept From the weather 
 for which the vestry have agreed to Allow the said Hutchens One hundred 
 Pounds of Tob for Every time Church is There Kept, .... 
 
 [May 2, 1758.] 
 
 The vestry having been informed that Joseph Crook Vestryman of this 
 Parish Aiding Abeted in a Certain Riot commited in the Town of Joppa 
 Easter Monday last & was In church Neither Easterda.y nor nionday. 
 Therefore the Vestry are of Opinion that the Said Jos. Crook Be no longer 
 a member of the said Vestry and hereby Impower the Rector to Call upon 
 him & give Notice hereof to the Parishioners to Ghuse a New member 
 In his Room, * 
 
 [Oct. 2, 1759.] 
 
 "Whereas, the Reverend M' Deans Complained to the Vestry that Peter 
 Carroll and Rob' Price Tenants on the Glebeland have committed great 
 wast on the said lands And have Also Subsett the said lands, And whereas, 
 the said Carroll and Price & The Reverend M* Deans, have Left to the 
 Vestry for Remediing the same And they having Viewed the said ldnds 
 Therefore are of Opion that All the former Leasses shall be Revoked and 
 New ones, Granted in their Stead Upon the Terms of the former Leases, 
 Subsetting and was Being Especially Barred. 
 
 It is also the Opinion of the Vestry That one Vestryman & the Two 
 "Wardens Shall Yearly Examine weather any further Wast or Subsetting 
 shall Be Done on the Glebe lands. 
 
 [Sept. 2, 1766.] 
 
 Jn Roberts had an Order from the vestry on Rob' Adair Esq' Sherr. 
 for five Pounds One shilling and tenpence half penny Curr y Being for 
 
 *Easter occurred this year on the 26th of March. In the absence of any other record 
 of the "riot," it may not be amiss to suggest that it was probably the accompaniment of 
 the Vestry election. At that time there were no "primaries," and consequently riotous 
 spirits had to find vent in parish elections. As the voting was viva voce, it was easy to 
 detect one's opponent. 
 
Parish Records of Maryland, 41 
 
 some wood for the Parish use unci his Acting as Clk of the vestrv one 
 Year Ending July the Fourth. 
 
 [Sept. 6, 1768-1 
 
 Ordered Jn" Beale Howard Be paid what Cost he is at on Acct. of An 
 Attachment Laid in his hands as a vestryman by Rich'! Johns, if not 
 Recovered of said R- Johns. 
 
 [Aug., 177:..] 
 
 Ordered that the Register procure from the Assessors of the several 
 Hundreds in this Parish a List of the Parrishioners Names. That for the 
 future the Vestry meet at the Vestry House to do Busini --. 
 
 [Feb., 1780.] 
 
 M r Worsley Requests the Favour of the Vestry to Collect the last years 
 Sallary due 1' March & to take such Methods as they think proper fur 
 this year. 
 
 M' Rumsey Agreed to take his Hundred. M r Cowan Agreed to Collect 
 all near him, M r Jn'; Beale Howard to Collect all he could. M r T. G How- 
 ard D. M* Tolley being disordered in his feet could not go about. 
 
 M r Worsley proposes that the Gentlemen who are so kind t<> take this 
 trouble will at the same time make Memorandums how & what each Sub- 
 scriber will pay for this Year in Cash or produce 
 
 The Vestry Agreed with M' Worsley to Continue Minister, who in- 
 formed them he had let the Glebe for this Year. 
 
 N. B. The following Memorandum was made upon Paper in May last 
 & lest it sho- be lost is now transcribed into the Vestry Book 
 
 A Letter from S c - James's Parish was delivered by two Vestrymen of 
 the s. Parish, to B. Rumsey & J. B. Howard Esq, & afterwards shewn t > 
 the rest of tin; Vestry, who thinking it a Matter which concerned the 
 whole Congregation, as much as themselves, desired M r Wor.-ley to nii<r* 
 it in the Church & take the Sentiments of the whole Parish, that no 
 Umbrage might be given; the Purport of which as appear.- hy tic- Let- 
 ter, was to request the Attendance of the Mini-ter of this Parish one 
 Sunday in tie- .Month, at S- James's Church. It was accordingly done, 
 in a full Congregation & every Person present was unanimous in agreeing 
 thereto; & no Vestry meeting, the Gentlemen of the Vestry were waited 
 
 upon by M' Worsley t<> know if they agr 1 with the Congregation \- B. 
 
 Rumsey, Esq, Col. A. Cowan, J. 15. Howard K-q, T << Howard K-.|, 
 Major Ja" Gittings & M r John Day, severally declared their A.--ent 
 thereto; M r Worsley therefore proposed the following Regulations for 
 Divine Service 
 
 Monthly Quod Atte-tor Romans 
 
 The first Sunday at Joppa Geo II Wor.-hy. 
 
 The second Sunday at M T - Hunters in Joppa Parish 
 (i 
 
42 Extracts from the 
 
 The third Sunday at Joppa 
 
 The fourth Sunday at S' James's Church 
 
 The fifth Sunday at Joppa. 
 
 Joppa Dec' 11. 1780 
 Rec^ of the Rev*? M* G. H. Worsley Orders for Twenty One Bushels of 
 "Wheat being in full for my Sallary from March 1780 to March 1781 
 f me 
 
 Alexander Gray. 
 Mess 1 ? 
 
 10 A. Cowan 
 7 S. Birckhead 
 4 W. Mashers 
 
 21 
 
 [Dec. 24, 1781.] 
 
 Hannah Ingram the Sexton appeared and informed the Vestry M* Phil- 
 lips protested the Order for seven Bushells of "Wheat part of her Sallery 
 due for the Year 1780 and also prayed Payment for the Year 1781. 
 
 [June 3, 1782.] 
 
 The Register is ordered to write to the Tennants on the Gleib to come 
 and Settle their Accounts at the next meeting of the Vestry. 
 
 All Saints' Parish, Calvert County. 
 
 Ann? 1704 
 Viz 
 
 July y e 2* This day y e Vestry meett M' Thomas Cocksutt 
 Then y e Vistry agreed with Tho. Seager M' James Heigh 
 to be sexton for to take care & look after M' W m Dar rumple 
 y* Church & also to sweep itt & Open y e M' Joseph Hall 
 Church doors and Windows & to secure M* Jn Smith att Cocktown 
 them againe & in y e Winter time to make M* Jn Smith att Hallerick 
 fire in y 9 Vestry & also to cleare y e Spring & doe all things fitting for 
 y e Said place & in consideration thereof they agree to allow him one halfe 
 of y e profitts old "W m y e Duchman y e Other halfe & after y* to have 
 y e whole proffits ariseing theirefrom 
 
 y e Vestry Adjd till y e next 
 meeting 
 Jan 1 ? 5 th 1710 
 
 Resolved that Those p'sons that take up Pews & not freeholders, haue 
 the pews no longer then they Continue in the parish, & "When they 
 
Parish Records of Maryland. 43 
 
 remoue, or dye, the pew to belong to the parish, to be disposed of by tl.e 
 Vestry. 
 
 Or' 1 ! 1 y'. M' Wadsworth pay to M* W- Smith Two hand- pound of 
 Tobaco, due from him to the parish for his part of the pew in the porch. 
 
 [Nov. 15, 1711 ] 
 
 .... ordred that Tho- Seager burn the Leaues Round tho Church and 
 Church y- and at all Times To "fTformo his office of Sexton as formerly 
 Takeing noe Notice of What Tho" Hillry forewarneing him to Digg 
 Graues. 
 
 [May 8, 1721.] 
 
 At a Vestrey met and held at All S* Parish Church Caluert County 
 the Eight day of .May One Thoussand Seven Hundred Twenty one, by 
 the Vestrey men thereunto appointed and authorised being "p' r,i ''"t 
 
 MT Thomas Cockshutt 
 M? James Heighe 
 M r John Smith 
 M r Abraham Downe 
 Ordered that the Clerk of the Vestrey do Enter the Deposition- of Charity 
 Whittington, and Naomy Doreing in the Register of All Saints Parish 
 and also to Register the birth of Leuine Bagby who was born in tie- year 
 of our Lord lt>77 as appears by an Old bible, now in the Clerks hands and 
 presented to this Vestrey. 
 
 Ordered that Samuel ffowler Sen 1 - be allowed one Thousand pound of 
 Tobacco for his being Sexton and Looking after the Church this Knsueing 
 year. 
 
 The Vestrey Ajourns till the 15 th of this Instant. 
 
 [Oct. 9, 1722.] 
 
 It is agreed on by the Vestry that M* Thomas Lingan A: partners hauo 
 their Choice of the pews in the New porch in Consideration that the pulpit 
 be Removed into their Few '' 27. 
 
 [Oct 30. 1722.] 
 
 Order'd that Samuel Howler Sexton Wash and Clean the Church and 
 Clear the Church Yard as soon as possible if he doth ii"t Comply he is to 
 be mulct of his wages. 
 
 Order'. I that M' Richard Smith Merch' hauo the fourth part of the 
 Ministers pew he paying to the Vestry two hundred pounds id' Tobacco 
 for it. 
 
 [May ",, 1721.] 
 
 Order'd that Coll. John Smith and M r Sah*S '1 :- hauo Liborty to 
 hauo a Small Narrow Window made with an Arch'd Top ouer Kaeh of 
 
44 Extracts from the 
 
 their Pews prouided that it doth not Damnify the Church and they to 
 haue it done on their own Cost. 
 
 [Nov. 14, 1725.] 
 
 The Vestry orders Richard Stallinges Clk. of the Vestry to go to Court 
 to desire the Court to Leuy three pounds of Tobacco *$' poll on y e Taxa- 
 ble persons of the parish to pay the parish Charges. 
 
 [Apr. 11, 1726.] 
 
 The Vestry agrees with Martin Wells Carpenter to mend the Upping 
 Block on the South Side of the Church and to put in a good Locust piece 
 at Each Porch door and the Vestry house Door to fend off the water and 
 agrees to pay him two Hundred pounds of Tobacco. 
 
 [May 15, 1729] 
 
 Then the Vestry Laid out the S* Parish into nine precincts and Chose 
 two persons in Each precinct to be Counters of Tobacco &c according to 
 the Act of Assembly 
 
 Ordered that R*? Stallinges Clk. of the Vestry giue to Each and E%'ery 
 of the Counters a Copy of the Order for their being Chosen by the Vestry 
 and a Copy of their Precincts. 
 
 [July 4, 1734.] 
 
 Ordered that the Necessaries for the parish use that Cap' Joseph Wil- 
 kinson was to Send to England for, that the Reverend M-, James Wil- 
 liamson doth agree with the Vestry to Send for, and to Charge but Twenty 
 five 'ffi- Cent Sterling on them from the first purchase of them and to 
 haue Tobacco for the Same at a penny p* pound Sterling Viz- a purple 
 Velvet Cushion a yard Long for the Pulpit with Gold fring, a Large 
 Church Prayer Book, a new Surplice, for a man of midle Stature, a Spade, 
 and a Decent free Stone font for the Church, Ordered that the Reverend 
 M* James Williamson haue an order on MT.Gabriel Parker late Sherf for 
 the Ballance that is in his hand due to All S 1 - 8 Parish in part of pay for 
 the above Necessaries. 
 
 The Vestry fines M? William Holland Vestry man and Mr. Roger 
 Boyce Church Warden for their not attending at this Vestry the Sum of 
 fifty pounds of Tob" Each. 
 
 [Dec. 8, 1734.] 
 
 The Vestry Adjourns for one Hour, then to meet at the House of the 
 Reverend M-. James Williamson to View the Library &c. 
 
 Then the Vestry did View the Library and found all in order according 
 to the Cattulogue except two Books which were wanting [Viz.] the Prac- 
 tical Believer in 8Vo: and Doctor Hornecks Delight and Judgment. 
 
Parish liecords of Maryland. 45 
 
 [Nov. 30, 1736] 
 
 This day M* Richard Blake Vestryman Reported to this Vestry that 
 
 himself and Ml James Heighe Church Warden forewarn'd George 
 
 and Mary not to Cohabit together for the future upon their Pen- 
 alty as the Law in that Case Provides. 
 
 [Nov 2, 1742.] 
 
 Old- that R'- Stallinges Reg' Set up Advertisement at x" Church Diir 
 to acquaint y e parishoners of S- parish that they come forthwith to S J 
 Reg' & haue all former & futur Births, Marriages and Burial- put on the 
 Parish Records or they will be prosecuted as the Law Directs. 
 
 [May 19, 1747 ] 
 
 Order'd that R'! Stallinges Clk. of the Vestry go to M' John Skinner 
 & know if he will undertake the Tarring and find the tarr and workman 
 to Tarr y e Roof and weather boards of the Church and to know hi- Lowest 
 price and when he Can haue it done. 
 
 [Apr. 11, 1748 ] 
 
 Order'd that the Vestry Clk: draws orders on M' Daniel Rawlings Slur. 
 to pay unto Michall Askew Sexton 10OO lb Tob and to Richard Stallinges 
 Vestry Clk 1000 D 
 
 Order'd that the Clk: Sett up Advertisements to sjivo notice that the 
 vestry will Dispose oft* 7000 and odd pounds of Tobacco in the Shcr" 
 hands for Cur- money to the highest Bidder at All b'* Parish Church on 
 the first tuesday in June next, 
 
 [Mar. (i, 1749.] 
 
 Order'd that tin; Absent (lent, of the Vestry appear at the next Wtry 
 to Show Cause why they did not attend at this Vestry and that the Clk 
 of the Vestry giue notice to them. 
 
 [Apr. lti, 1750.] 
 
 Then the Vestry Chose Mes" Sam" Austin and Sam- Robertson for 
 Inspectors in the Room of M- W" Miller dun- Deceased to he transmitted 
 to his Excellency with all Convenient Speed 
 
 M \V Hickman Discharg'd from being a, Vestryman on ace if being 
 an Inspector. 
 
 [Nov. r,, 17.11.1 
 
 Orderd That y c Clerk Give Notice to M r John Skinner Sh.rritV f. 'ive 
 an Aeco: of y" Insolvenccs by Name, and also the Dividend "f llie Vcstr\ 's 
 part of Tobacco. 
 
46 Extracts from the 
 
 Addenda. 
 
 [1J 
 Sir: 
 
 I should be much obliged to you if you would please to call at M. 
 Andrews before you leave Town this afternoon as a young man & young 
 [woman] are there waiting for you in great Need of your Assistance 
 I am Sir 
 Sunday Your most Ob' 
 
 April 28, 65 * * * * 
 
 [2] 
 Rev! Sir/ 
 
 Your & Mistr 8 Deans Company is Desired at the funeral of Doctor 
 Josias Midlemore next thursday being the 20 th Instant. It is to hold at 
 S k Georges Church. 
 
 If you will be So good as to give notice to Your Congregation that 
 those who are Inclined to Come may know the day & that there will be 
 a Sermon will very much oblige Your's 
 
 by order from Mis- And Lendrum 
 
 Midlemore 
 
 Saturday 16^ 1755. 
 
 [3] 
 
 To the Gentlemen of the Vestrey of All S t8 Parish. 
 
 This is to Certifio you That I Assign ouer all my Right and Title of my 
 part of the pew N 6, which is in partnership with William Wood, unto 
 Thomas Haruey of S* Parish and his Heirs for Euer, and pray that the 
 same may be Recorded in the Records of All S' s Parish, I hauing receiued 
 full Satisfaction for the Same as Witness my hand this 9' b day of May 1720 
 
 Testes Robert Sumnar. 
 
 Rich. Stallinges. 
 
 [4] 
 
 This Indenture made this Eleventh day of October In the Year of Our 
 Lord One thousand Seven hundred and Sixty four Between John Clagett 
 of Frederick County and Province of Maryland of the one part Gentle- 
 man And The Reverend M- Alexander Williamson Rector of Prince 
 Georges Parish in the County and Province aforesaid of the other part 
 Witnesseth That th.e said John Clagett being sensible, how much neces- 
 sity there is for having a Publick Schooll in the Parish aforesaid, for the 
 
Parish Records of Maryland. 47 
 
 Instruction of Youth ; and one Corner of his Land having been deemed 
 Convenient for Erecting the said house upon : He therefore out of Senti- 
 ments of Tenderness and Regard for the rising Generation, Hath, given 
 granted aliened Infeoffed and confirmed and by these presents doth freely 
 and clearly give grant alien Infeoff and confirm unto the .-aid M* Alex- 
 ander Williamson and his Successors for the use of a Publick School for 
 ever All that part of a Tract of Land being part of a Tract of Land 
 
 called Clagetts purchase lying in the Parish and County aforesaid 
 
 Signed Sealed and Delivered John Clagett. 
 
 in the Presence of 
 
 Clui'1 Jones 
 
 Andrew Heigh. 
 
 [5] 
 Maryland ss. 
 
 In the name of God Amen I Bevill Granville Rector of the parish of 
 William & Mary in charles County in the province aforesaid do by these 
 presents resign and give up to the Right Honorable the Lord Proprietary 
 all my right title & interest in the said living of William &, Mary in the 
 County aforesaid & to all perquisites benefits & advantages thereto 
 belonging. "Witness my hand this '2~> day of January 1732 
 
 Witness. Bevill Granville 
 
48 Extracts from the Parish Records of Maryland. 
 
 WEST DOOR. 
 
 GROUND PLAN 
 
 OLD PARISH CHURCH 
 
 ST. PAUL'S, KENT ISLAND. 
 
 From the Rev. Dr. Allen's Manuscript History. 
 
VII 
 
 OLD MARYLAND MANORS 
 
"Keep leets and law-days and in sessions sit." Othello. 
 
 " You would present her at the leet because she brought stone jugs and no sealed 
 quarts." Taming of the Shreu: 
 
 "I know my remedy; I must go fetch the third borough" [Tithingman]. Taming of 
 the Shrew. 
 
 "A Ty thing-man in each Manor, a Constable in each Hundred." Bacon, Laws of Mary- 
 land, 1638. 
 
 " Proces in Court Baron est Summons, Attachement & Dislres, que est proces al commo 
 Ley." Le Court Leele et Court Baron, John Kilchin. London, 1C23. 
 
 " And By-laws for the common weale may be made in a Leet." Antiquity, Authority, and 
 Uses of Leets, Robert Powell. London, 1641. 
 
 "We also, by these Presents do give and grant licence to the same Baron of Baltimore 
 and to his heirs, to erect any parcels of land within the Province aforesaid into manors, 
 and in every of those manors to have and hold a Court Baron .... and view of Frank- 
 Pledge, for the conservation of the peace and better government of those parts." Charter 
 of Maryland, Art. 19. 
 
 "And We do ... . authorize you that every two thousand acres .... so to he passed 
 
 .... be erected and created into a mannor And we do hereby further authorize 
 
 you that you cause to be granted unto every of the said Adventurers within every of their 
 said manors respectively, .... a Court Barron and Court Leet, to be from time to time 
 held " Instructions from Lord Baltimore to Governor Calvert, 1636. 
 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 I N 
 
 Historical and Political Science 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History is past Politics and Politics present History. Freeman 
 
 VII 
 
 OLD MARYLAND MANORS 
 
 With the Records of a Court Leet and a Court Barou 
 
 By JOHN JOHNSON, A. B. 
 
 B A LTIMO R K 
 
 Pt'iiListiKD Kv tiik .Johns Hopkins I'nivi.umiv 
 
 MAY, 1883. 
 
JOHN MURPHY & CO., PRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
OLD MARYLAND MANORS. 
 
 A striking contrast between the North and the South is 
 presented by the small landholders of* the former and the 
 great estates of the latter. Tracts of thousands of acres wen; 
 not at all uncommon in colonial Maryland, and sometimes 
 land-grants included even tens of thousands. These irreat 
 estates had a strong shaping influence on the life of early 
 Maryland. Separating their owners by wide intervals, they 
 prevented that association of interests and feelings that was 
 strong in the towns of the northern colonies. The man who 
 lived in the center of a tract of ten thousand acres must 
 necessarily have been thrown largely upon his own resources for 
 amusement and for culture. The cooperation which makes 
 schools and libraries of easy attainment in a thickly settled 
 community was absent among such people. Consequently edu- 
 cation could be obtained only at great cost and inconvenience. 
 The planter who was determined to have his children well 
 taught had to send them abroad, as was done in the case of 
 Charles Carroll of Carrollton. 
 
 There were some towns founded in Maryland, it is true, in 
 the earliest days. The vanished city of St. Mary's, the lost 
 Joppa, and others that have disappeared as completely as 
 the "cities of the plain," furnished a stimulus to civiliza- 
 tion in some parts of the colony. But in spite of these in- 
 stances, it is true that most of the life of Maryland in the lat- 
 ter half of the seventeenth and the whole of the eighteenth 
 century, was country lite. And it was a country life that pre- 
 sented many analogies to tli,e country lite of Englishmen 
 during the same period. 
 
 5 
 
6 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 The first generation of Maryland planters led that sort of 
 hand-to-mouth, happy-go-lucky existence that marked the 
 beginning of all the colonies. Until means became adapted 
 to ends, but little comfort and still less culture, were to be 
 found. Many of the earliest settlers of high consideration 
 made their cross-mark on titles, deeds and conveyances. Their 
 ignorance, however, was the knowledge of the class from 
 which the best born of them sprang the English country 
 gentry of the seventeenth century. 
 
 The share of Maryland planters in the conveniences of life 
 does not appear to have been large at first, though even then 
 they made an attempt at good living. In the inventory 
 accompanying the will of Governor Leonard Calvert, the item 
 of a silver sack-cup follows that of two pairs of socks. Sack 
 probably occupied far more personal attention than did wear- 
 ing apparel. Indeed, one of our historians ventures the state- 
 ment that this potent liquor is oftener mentioned in the records 
 of Maryland than in the pages of Shakespeare. Beds in the 
 early days were lamentably lacking. Travellers either deprived 
 the host of his, or slept upon deer skins or fodder piled upon 
 the floor. All the appointments of a household were necessa- 
 rily meagre. 
 
 But after this early period had passed and Marylanders had 
 learned for good and all of what their soil and their climate 
 were capable, a settled order of things began, which continued 
 into the present century. The life of the Maryland planter of 
 this second period was such as left few traces in the written 
 accounts that have come down to us. In the few letters and 
 journals of the colonial epoch few, because so rarely the colo- 
 nists had the knowledge, and more rarely still the taste to write 
 either letters or journals in these few are to be found histor- 
 rical suggestions. Of the famous estates of the colonial era, a 
 small number are still in the hands of the descendants of col- 
 onial families. An idea of the former condition of things can 
 be obtained by visiting these localities. There are still found 
 the ancient houses, the chapels, the out-buildings, that have 
 
Old Maryland Manors. 7 
 
 remained from colonial times. There, more clearly than else- 
 where, we may see the vestiges of the old aristocratic spirit 
 which has almost disappeared under the democratic' attrition 
 of more than a century. These traces will not last much 
 longer, and if any record of this old system is to he kept, it 
 should be made at once. 
 
 The (Adverts desired to found in Maryland a new landed 
 aristocracy. Though the "Bill for Baronies" never passed 
 the Assembly, the Proprietor was able to establish manors, 
 and to give to the manorial lords rights of jurisdiction over 
 their tenants. The lord of the manor thus became a person 
 of prime importance. "While his wealth as a large land- 
 holder gave him one element of consideration, his judicial 
 dignity gave him another. 
 
 The reason the settlers consented to the introduction of this 
 system is not hard to find. Our Maryland ancestors, follow- 
 ing the example of certain great proprietors, proposed to live 
 in scattered, rural ways, on large estates. The manorial sys- 
 tem, which had been used for a like purpose in the old coun- 
 try, lay ready to their hands and they adopted it. Similarly, 
 the men of Xew England, proposing to live in close com- 
 munities, adopted the township system. Once taken up, tie 
 manorial system became general, so that English manors, 
 English halls, English lords of the manor were scattered all 
 over our State. 
 
 In accordance with his charter right,* the Proprietary, in 
 1636, issued instructions that every two thousand acres given 
 to any adventurer should be erected into a manor, with " a 
 Court Barron and a Court Leet, to be from time to time held 
 within every such mannor respectively/' f These instructions 
 were repeated many times, and the records are filled with 
 such grants. Capt. George Evelin, Lord of the Manor of 
 Eveliiiton, in St. Mary's county; Marmadukc Tilden, Lord 
 
 * Sec Charter of Maryland, Art. 1'.'. 
 
 f Kilty, p. 31. Conditions of Plantation, lGuli. 
 
8 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 of Great Oak Manor, and Major James Ringgold, Lord of 
 the Manor on Eastern Neck, both in Kent; Giles Brent, Lord 
 of Kent Fort, on Kent Island ; George Talbot, of Susque- 
 hanna Manor, in Cecil county; these are a few names picked 
 at random. In the Library of the Maryland Historical 
 Society is to be found a conveyance dated 1734 for a parcel 
 of land to be held "as of the Manor of Nanticoke." In the 
 same collection are preserved the rent-roll of Queen Anne's 
 Manor, and a statement of the sale, in 1767, of twenty-seven 
 manors, embracing one hundred thousand acres. In 1776, 
 there were still unsold seventy thousand acres of proprietary 
 manors lying in nine counties. * In the Maryland Reports f 
 is to be found a notable law suit over Anne Arundel Manor. 
 The Proprietor, Lord Frederick Calvert, sought by means of 
 a common recovery to break the entail upon the manor, and 
 thus prevent its passing into the hands of a natural son of the 
 former Proprietor. 
 
 At the present day we find many estates called manors. 
 Those that have attracted most notice are My Lady's Manor 
 and Bohemia Manor. At the beautiful and historic seat of the 
 Hon. John Lee Carroll, Doughoregan Manor, the name, the 
 mansion, the chapel, the grounds, all still show surviving evi- 
 dences of the original state of affairs. But it is with the 
 social side of this system that we are here concerned. Its 
 civic aspect will be treated in a subsequent part of this paper. 
 It is, however, rather the patriarchal than the feudal type of 
 society that is presented at the period we have materials for 
 describing. It is not easy to picture the combined elegance 
 and simplicity of those old homesteads the appearance they 
 presented of aristocratic state mingled with republican good- 
 fellowship. The entrance to the place was, perhaps, through 
 a wood of old oaks and chestnuts, that had passed their sapling 
 growth a century before George Calvert, first Baron of Balti- 
 
 * Scharf II., p. 104. 
 
 f 2 Harris & McHenry, p. 279. 
 
Old Maryland Manors. 9 
 
 more, appeared as a stripling in the English Court. Emerg- 
 ing from the wood, the road was lined with a double colonnade 
 of locusts or beeches with footpaths between. Xearing the 
 mansion, pines and firs replaced the deciduous trees, and the 
 evergreen branches formed a symbol of the ever fresh hospi- 
 tality awaiting the approaching guest. 
 
 Before the door stood the old elms, planted by the founder 
 of the family, and the lawn was terraced in the English style. 
 The turf a peculiar pride of the master of the house was 
 so thick and close that it would be hard to find a finger's 
 breadth of earth without its blade of grass. Conifers stood 
 at intervals over the half dozen acres forming the lawn, and 
 at either end of a terrace a catalpa with a trunk of Califor- 
 nian proportions shaded a rustic seat. 
 
 The house itself was in most cases a long, low structure of 
 brick. The finest residences were remarkable for their large 
 size and striking appearance. * The rooms of the old houses 
 were grouped about a large hall-way in which some of the 
 family usually sat. The walls everywhere were wainseotted 
 to the ceiling. Sometimes the woodwork was finely carved 
 and of rare material. Upon the walls hung the portraits of 
 the ancestors of the family, often as far back as six or seven 
 generations. A side-board in the dining-room displayed a 
 portion of the plate, bearing the family crest. Flanking the 
 plate stood a great array of glasses and decanters. For in the 
 early days the proper discharge of the sacred duty of' hospital- 
 ity involved various strong potations. Even now the visitor 
 to the Maryland country house is almost always invited to 
 take something to drink on entering or leaving tin' dwelling. 
 
 Various oflices stood around the mansion. Notable among 
 them was the stone smoke-house. The quarters of mast-fed 
 hogs hung from the roof, and the fires in the pit below were 
 tended by superannuated negroes, their faces greasy with lard 
 and begrimed with soot beyond their natural blackness. 
 
 * Eddis'a Letters. 
 
 
10 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 In some places the family chapel stood close by the house. 
 On one side of the main aisle sat the slaves, on the other the 
 free white tenants; and no considerations of comfort could 
 induce the freemen to cross the interval that served as a 
 boundary between them and the despised race. Beneath the 
 brick floor of the chapel and marked by a marble slab, were 
 the graves of dead members of the family of the lord of the 
 manor. Any one attaining special distinction was buried by 
 the side of the chancel and, within the chancel rails, let into 
 the wall was a tablet to his memory. If the family belonged 
 to the ancient church, frescoes and oil paintings, occasionally 
 copies of considerable beauty, adorned the place. 
 
 The mode of burial curiously illustrated the prevalent feel- 
 ing of class distinction, and at the same time preserved an 
 ancient custom of the mother country. While the lord's 
 family lay buried beneath the floor in the chapel, the tenants' 
 graves were at a distance hidden among the trees. At some 
 of these graves stood a neat slab of stone with a pious inscrip- 
 tion. Still farther removed, with only a board as a memorial . 
 of each, were the graves of the slaves. Not even death could 
 unite what God had put asunder. 
 
 At a considerable distance from the great house was the 
 dwelling of the overseer. Around him in numbers sufficient 
 to people a small town, lived the negroes whose labor pro- 
 duced the wheat and tobacco upon which the fabric of society 
 rested. Out of the number of these dependents a few of the 
 likeliest went to the mansion as domestic servants. 
 
 Scattered at intervals over the estate, wherever their farms 
 lay, were the houses of the free white tenants. The tenant 
 farms were frequently several hundred acres in extent, and 
 were held on leases of twenty-one years. The rent was low 
 and was usually paid in kind, not in money. The system had 
 some of the evils incident to English land tenure of the pres- 
 ent day, and has now given way to short leases, or has dis- 
 appeared entirely by the breaking up of the estates on which 
 it was practised. 
 
Old Maryland Manors. 11 
 
 In various ways on those estates the traditional sports of 
 the mother country were kept up. One of the patriarchs of 
 colonial Maryland, when importuned by his relatives to break 
 the entail upon his estate, replied : " If one of you inherit the 
 whole, 1 shall be responsible for the production of one fox- 
 hunter. If I divide it, I shall make as many fox-hunters as 
 I make heirs." Fox-hunting was a pursuit in which Marv- 
 landers delighted. In no characteristic is the Englishry of 
 the settlers (to use Mr. Freeman's term) more clearly shown 
 than in this. On horses that seemed almost tireless, and with 
 dogs like the horses, they sometimes chased Reynard across 
 the eastern peninsula, from the Chesapeake to the Atlantic. 
 The return journey and the stops at hospitable mansions on 
 the way took more time than the pursuit of the fox, and the 
 whole expedition sometimes lasted a week. 
 
 Aside from the social aspect of these old estates, they are 
 also worthy of notice from a civic point of view. The history 
 of Maryland owes its interest not so much to striking events 
 as to the continuity of old English institutions and ancient 
 habits of local self-government. When the early colonists 
 came to Maryland they invented no administrative or judicial 
 methods. The old institutions of England were transplanted 
 to Maryland and acclimatized. In the new soil they were 
 modified and destroyed, or they were modified and perpetu- 
 ated, lint in either case there is perfect continuity between 
 the institutions of colonial Maryland and those of the older 
 country. For our new institutions, like new species, were 
 not created; they grew from the old. Lord Baltimore 
 modeled his colony alter the Palatinate of Durham, and the 
 details of local administration were what they had been at 
 home. Old methods were adapted to new conditions. 
 
 The manor was the land on which the lord and his tenants 
 lived, and bound up with tin; land were also the rights ol gov- 
 ernment which the lord posse.-sed over tin 1 tenants, ami they 
 over one another. For the owner-hip of' the manorial estate 
 carried with it the right to hold two courts, in which dis- 
 
12 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 putes could be decided and tenant titles established and 
 recorded ; and in which, also, residents on the estate exercised 
 a limited legislative power. These manorial jurisdictions have 
 descended from a time previous to the accession of Edward 
 the Confessor, and their reproduction and continuance in 
 Maryland form a striking instance of the permanence of 
 ancient English customs. 
 
 A tradition has come down in Maryland that these courts 
 were held occasionally by members of the Proprietary family 
 owning manors.* In a court baron, held on St. Gabriel's 
 Manor, in 1649, the steward gave a tenant seizin by the rod, 
 each party, according to ancient custom, retaining as evidence 
 of the transfer a part of a twig broken in the ceremony, f In 
 the library of the Maryland Historical Society are preserved 
 the records of a court baron and a court leet of St. Clement's 
 Manor, in St. Mary's county, held at intervals between 1G59 
 and 1672. | We can hardly believe that these records are the 
 only ones of their kind that were kept in the Province. For 
 a single one that has been preserved there must have been 
 many lost. When we consider that so many documents 
 belonging to the government of the colony, and for whose 
 preservation great precautions were once taken, have never- 
 theless been destroyed, it will appear but natural that papers 
 left entirely in private hands, and of but little value or inter- 
 est to their possessors should have entirely disappeared. 
 Moreover, as will presently be shown in detail, the profits of 
 the manorial courts were not inconsiderable. Consequently, 
 they would not soon be relinquished. Nor is it likely, where 
 every owner of two thousand acres could obtain these rights 
 of jurisdiction, that only two persons in the whole Province 
 
 * Kilty, p. 93. 
 
 f Bozman, vol. 2, note, p. 372. The same old English custom obtained 
 in early New England. 
 
 % See Appendix for a copy of these records, furnished by the kindness 
 of the Librarian of the Maryland Historical Society, J. W. M. Lee. 
 
Old Maryland Manors. 13 
 
 would exorcise tliem. It seems probable that in the early 
 period of the existence of the colony manorial courts were not 
 uncommon. 
 
 The popular court of the manor was the court leet or 
 court of the people. When the grant of the leet included the 
 view of frankpledge, as in the Maryland manors, that cere- 
 mony took place at the leet, though in the records no mention 
 of the view is made. At the opening of the leet, the steward, 
 who was the judge, having taken his place, the bailiff made 
 proclamation with three "Oyez,"and commanded all to draw 
 near and answer to their names upon "pain and perill." 
 Then followed the empanelling of a jury from the assembled 
 residents on the manor, all of whom between the ages of 
 twelve years and sixty were required to be present. The 
 duties of a leet jury seem to have been those of both grand and 
 petty juries. All felonies and lesser offenses were enquirable. 
 The statute, 18 Edw. II., names the following persons as 
 proper to be investigated at a leet: 
 
 "Such as have double measure and buy by the great and 
 sell by the less. . . . Such as haunt taverns and no man 
 knoweth whereon they do live. . . . Such as sleep by day 
 and watch by night, and fare well and have nothing, " a set 
 that need watching. The leet had also a general supervision 
 of trade, fixed the price of bread and ale, * and set its hands 
 on butchers that sold "corrupt victual." The game laws also 
 were enforced by the leet. At the leet held at St. Clement's, 
 in St. Mary's county, Robert Cooper was fined for fowling 
 without license on St. Clement's Island. The notion that 
 hunting was for the rich alone showed itself in another way. 
 Of the chase or park of the English manors, some traces may 
 be found in Maryland. A writer in "A Description of the 
 Province of New Albion," which adjoined Maryland on the 
 cast, speaks of " storing his Parks with Elks and fallow 1 >eor," 
 probably following a Maryland example. On the Bohemia 
 
 * Seo Appendix fur instances. 
 
14 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 Manor, the remains of tlie walls of a deer park were pointed 
 out as late as 1859.* That any necessity existed for a park 
 is not to be believed. Venison was so common a food that 
 Hammond, in Leah and Rachel, says "that venison is 
 accounted a tiresome meat." An aping of aristocratic man- 
 ners may, perhaps, have induced some of the settlers to enclose 
 a wood for a park, but nothing else could have done so. 
 
 Another important function of the court leet, was the levy- 
 ing of a deodand or fine upon the cause of any accident to life 
 or limb. A reckless driver running over a child or a careless 
 woodman felling a tree and killing a passer-by, was mulcted 
 by the jury of the leet. Before the period of Maryland man- 
 ors, the cart or the tree causing the injury became the prop- 
 erty of the lord, the idea being that he would expend its 
 value in masses for the soul of the deceased. In this is prob- 
 ably to be found the origin of the name given to the payment, 
 deodand. f In actual fact, however, the soul of the departed 
 was not of sufficient importance in the eyes of most lords to 
 compel the loss of a piece of property so easily acquired as the 
 forfeited article. 
 
 The leet could enact by-laws regulating the intercourse of 
 residents with each other, and the regulations had all the force 
 of a town ordinance. In the leet also constables, ale-tasters, 
 affeerors and bailiffs were elected; and interference with the 
 exercise of their duties, as breaking into the pound, taking 
 away impounded cattle, or resisting distraint for rent was 
 punishable by the leet. | The fines imposed went to the lord 
 
 *Scharf, vol. 1, p. 430. 
 
 J- See interesting remarks on this topic in lectures on the Common Law 
 by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 
 
 + Manorial courts are still held in some parts of Great Britain. In 
 Notes and Queries, October 21, 1882, it is stated that on October 3, 1882, 
 a court leet. for the manors of Williton Regis, Williton Hadley and West 
 Fulford was held. Appointments of inspectors of weights and measures, 
 of bailiff, and of hay ward were made. The leet for the town of Watchit 
 was held also, and appointed a port-reeve, ale-tasters, a crier, a stock 
 driver and an inspector. Leets were also held the same month on the 
 estates of the Duke of Buccleugh. (N. & Q., November 4, 1882.) 
 
Old Maryland Manors. ] 5 
 
 and were often profitable. Besides fines, other punishments 
 were used. In 1670 the jury of St. Clement's leet ordered 
 the erection of <l a pair of Stocks, pillory and Ducking 
 Stoole." * 
 
 The presence of irresponsible strangers seems to have been 
 peculiarly distasteful to our ancestors. By a law of Edward 
 the Confessor, a man was forbidden to entertain a stranger 
 above two nights unless he would hold his guest to ri^ht. 
 So the constable on the manor anciently took security of all 
 heads of families for the keeping of the peace by strangers in 
 their houses. Curiously enough, the leet at St. Clement's 
 presented John Mansell for "entertayning Benjamin Ilamon 
 tv, Cybil, his wife, Inmates," and ordered him " to remove 
 his inmates or give security;" a proceeding that would have 
 been in perfect keeping a thousand years ago. 
 
 The Maryland county justices were required to appoint 
 constables in every hundred, who swore on taking office to 
 "levy hue and cry and cause" refractory criminals to be 
 taken.f The hue and cry carries us back to remote Anglo- 
 Saxon times, when all the population went to hunt the thief. 
 The duties of the manorial constable were doubtless the same 
 in the manor as those of the constables of the hundred in 
 their districts. 
 
 The afl'cerors, mentioned above, were sworn oflicers chosen 
 from the residents. Their duty was to revise the fines 
 imposed by the leet jury, and to temper justice with mercy. 
 They are mentioned several times in the records of St. Clem- 
 ent's, in one case reducing to two hundred pounds an amerce- 
 ment of two thousand pounds of tobacco imposed on a certain 
 Gardiner, who had taken wild hogs belonging to the lord.| 
 
 The Maryland Indians were very early reduced to a depen- 
 dent condition, and it became the dutv of the leet to include 
 
 * Sec Appendix. 
 
 f Park,, Laws of Maryland 1708, p. 99. 
 
 + Sec Appendix. 
 
16 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 i 
 them in its policejurisdietion. * There is an account in the St. 
 Clement records of the fining of two Indian boys for some 
 thievish pranks. Moreover, " the King of Chaptico" him- 
 self is presented for stealing a sow and her pigs and having 
 " raised a stock of them." This was apparently too weighty 
 a' matter for the simple jury of the tenants, so it was referred 
 to "ye hon ble , ye Gov'." The matter of losing hogs seems to 
 have been a great grievance for the tenants, and the jury 
 accordingly reported that they "conceive that Indians ought 
 not to keepe hoggs, for under pretence of them they may 
 destroy all ye hoggs belonging to the man*, and therefore 
 they ought to be warned now to destroy them, else to be 
 fyned att the next court." The conquered Britons were 
 treated in a spirit almost as liberal. 
 
 The elasticity of an old institution like the leet in being 
 thus adapted to the government of savages is worthy of note. 
 It is a striking illustration, also, of the principle that impels 
 men to adapt old forms to new conditions, and it deserves to 
 be placed by the side of the institution of tithing men among 
 the Indians of Plymouth. f Doubtless other methods of police 
 and government for the Indians were adopted in various 
 places by the colonists, and curious survivals of old forms like 
 the above might be noted by the investigator. 
 
 In the court baron of the freeholders the freehold ten- 
 ants acted as both jury and judges. A freeholder could be 
 tried only before his peers. So that if the freeholders fell 
 below two in number the court could no longer be held. 
 Before this court were brought points in dispute between the 
 lord and his tenants as to rents, forfeitures, escheats, trespass 
 and the like. Besides these matters, actions of debt between 
 tenants and transfers of land took place in the court baron. 
 Here, also, the tenant did fealty for his land, swearing, % 
 
 *See Appendix. 
 
 f" Studies," IV. Saxon Tithingmen in America, p. 10. 
 
 % Gurdon, p. 615. See Appendix for instances of swearing fealty. 
 
Old Maryland Manors. 17 
 
 "Hear you, my lord, that I, A. B., shall be to you both true 
 and faithful, and shall owe my Fidelity to you for the Land I 
 hold of you, and lawfully shall do and perforin such Customs 
 and Services as my Duty is to you, at the terms assigned, so 
 help me God and all his saints." * 
 
 * Tlie origin of manorial courts is very obscure and goes back to nn 
 early period. Among the Anglo-Saxons, as early, perhaps, as the eighth 
 century, conquest, purchase, grant and commendation had given ri-e to 
 great estates. By this means all the arable land in some neighborhoods 
 became the property of a wealthy lord. Consequently, the hitherto inde- 
 pendent village community of owners of arable land became a dependent 
 community of tenants. At the same time hunting, fishing, pasture, 
 wood cutting, all the rights to the use of common wild land, rights that 
 had formerly run with the ownership of a share of arable hind, became 
 rights of the lord, to be exercised and enjoyed by the tenant only by the 
 sufferance of the lord. Thus, it appears, originated the title of the lord 
 to the waste and to the game inhabiting it. 
 
 Contemporaneously with these agrarian changes went on as great a 
 judicial change. Among the Anglo-Saxons jurisdiction belonged t<> the 
 state, not to the king. Hut jurisdiction and the profits of jurisdiction 
 were separate. While justice was a public trust, the profits of justice were 
 merely a source of royal revenue. So it came about, as early as the ninth 
 century, that the tines of the hundred courts, lines for which every offenco 
 might be commuted, were often granted by the king t" any neighboring 
 magnate. This grant of profits was very different from a i^rant id' juris- 
 diction. The date at which private jurisdiction originated is unknown. 
 Tin; earliest grants of it date from the rei^n of Kdward the Confessor, 
 but private courts existed before his time. Though he and his Norman 
 advisers were the lir-t to regard jurisdiction as royal property, to bo 
 granted away, a revolution had already taken place in the customs of the 
 people, who had abandoned the ancient judicial system, for the loose 
 administration of the popular courts no longer satisfied the needs of an 
 advancing civilization. 
 
 So clumsy and slow was the machinery of the hundred court that suits 
 
 were al st always compromised. A favorite method of settlement was 
 
 arbitration. The most natural arbitrator between tenants was the lord, 
 and only a contract between the parties was needed to give him the powers 
 of the hundred court. While the lord's decision was binding in law 
 < > i 1 V as the result of a contract, yet his private authority anions his 
 tenants was e; r ,. a t enough to enforce the settlement. Here, then, seems 
 to he an origin, and a Saxon origin, f.fr the jurisdiction of a manorial 
 lold. 
 
18 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 Some of the feudal incidents of the manorial tenure may be 
 found mentioned in the records of the Maryland Land Office. 
 Here is an example quoted in the Land-holder's Assistant:* 
 "Whereas certain lands and tenements holding of the manors 
 hereunder named have ceased for these three years last past to 
 pay the rent due. . . . These are therefore to summon the said 
 several tenants to pay the said rent and arrears and charges of 
 this process unto the lord of the manor .... or else to be at 
 the court .... to show cause why the said land should not 
 
 So much for the origin of private jurisdiction in general. An expla- 
 nation of the specific origin of the three courts, the leet, the common 
 law court baron and the customary court baron, brings us to a contro- 
 versy. Professor Stubbs, on the authority of Ordericus, derives the courts 
 of the manor from the tun-gemot. (Hist. I., p. 399.) Henry Adams 
 denies the existence of the tun-gemot (Essays in A. S. Law, p. 22), and 
 derives both the court baron and the court leet from the hundred court. 
 As to the customary court he is silent. Professor W. F. Allen has still a 
 third view, the court baron, according to him, being of feudal origin, and 
 not being found earlier than the end of the eleventh century. He makes 
 the non-existent tun-gemot of Professor Adams the germ of the customary 
 court. All these views are so ably supported that it would be highly 
 desirable to reconcile them, though it is probably impossible. 
 
 Adams appears to have proved that all manorial jurisdiction was orig- 
 inally obtained by the lords' assuming the powers of the hundred court. 
 This may have been done by prescription, the tenants agreeing, or per- 
 haps by actual royal grant of jurisdiction following on grants of profits. 
 
 But Allen's conclusions have a direct bearing here. He maintains, 
 with great force, that the freeholders, the suitors and judges of the court 
 baron, took their rise in the feudal period. No freeholders, in our sense, 
 are to be found, he says, earlier than the end of the twelfth century. He 
 thinks that in the interval between Domesday and this period, certain of 
 the members of the class of villeins were advanced to the dignity of free- 
 holders, while all the other original holders lost their earlier rights and 
 fell into copyhold tenure. The court baron was established on a French 
 model for the use of these promoted tenants. The Saxon manorial court, 
 which Allen derives from the court of the township, and Adams from the 
 hundred court, became the customary court of the copyholders. As they 
 had fallen in status, so did it, and all important business of the estate was 
 transacted in the court baron or the court leet. (See Allen's Origin of 
 Freeholders in Proceedings of the Wisconsin Academy.) 
 
 * Kilty, p. 103. 
 
Old Maryland Manors. lij 
 
 e.cheat to tlie Lord of the Manor. ... In the Manor of St. 
 Michaels: One tenement of 100 acres .... yearly rent 2 
 barrels of corn and 2 capons arrear, ') years. . . ." In 
 the manors of St. Gabriel and Trinity like claims were made. 
 These are apparently the only instances on record of claims 
 to escheats by manor lords. "At a court held at St. Mairies, 
 7th December, 1 (348, came Mrs. Margaret Brent and required 
 the opinion of the court concerning . . . the tenements apper- 
 taining to the rebels within his Manors, whether or no their 
 forfeitures belonged to the Lord of the Manors. The resolu- 
 tion of the court was that the said forfeitures did of right 
 belong to the Lord of the Manors by virtue of his Lordship's 
 Conditions of Plantation. . . ." * While this interests us as 
 the record of a feudal forfeiture in Maryland, it has an added 
 attraction, due to the fact that this is probably the first mention 
 of a female attorney. Another fact showing how the manorial 
 tenure entered into the life of the people, is a decision of the 
 Maryland Court of Appeals, made as late as 1835. In this 
 casef it was held that a tenant on a manor was entitled on 
 giving up his lease to the benefit of those manorial customs 
 that were commonly recognized as good by the tenants, and 
 that had been observed by the tenants during an indefinite 
 time. 
 
 The manorial grants were originally used to promote emi- 
 gration to the colony. To this purpose was soon added 
 another, namely, that of military defence. Jt seems to have 
 been the desire of the Proprietor to introduce a body of culti- 
 vators that could at any time be turned into militia. Accord- 
 ingly, in 1(541, he issued the following "Conditions of Plan- 
 tion:" " Whatsoever person .... shall be at the charge to 
 transport into the Province .... any number of able men 
 . . . . provided and furnished with arms and ammunition 
 according to a particular hereunder exprest . . . , shall be 
 
 * Quoted by Kilty, p. 104. 
 
 j- Dor soy vs. Kuglo, 7 Gill and Johnson, 321. 
 
20 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 granted unto every such adventurer for every twenty persons 
 lie shall so transport .... two thousand acres .... which 
 said land shall he erected into a Mannor .... with all such 
 Royalties and Privileges as are usually belonging to Mannors 
 in England. . . . 
 
 "A particular of such arms and ammunition .... for 
 every man .... which shall be transported thither. 
 
 "Imprimis One Musket or Bastard-Musket with a snap- 
 hance Lock. 
 
 " Item Ten pound of Powder. 
 
 "Item Fourty pound of lead Bulletts, Pistoll and Goose 
 Shot, each sort some. 
 
 "Kern One Sword-and Belt. 
 
 "Item One Bandelier and Flask." 
 
 Such legislation bears an analogy to the Assize of Arms, 
 under Henry I., and to parts of the Statute of Winchester, 
 under Edward I. The idea of military defence by the mass 
 of the people is common to these instances of English legis- 
 lation of the middle ages, and to this regulation of the Mary- 
 aud Proprietary of the seventeenth century. 
 
 In addition to these grants to private persons, manors 
 were given to the Church. Newtown Manor, formerly an 
 estate of the Proprietary, is to this day in the hands of the 
 Jesuits. In Charles and St. Mary's counties, large estates, 
 still bearing the title of manors, are at present owned by that 
 society. All efforts have been unavailing to obtain access to 
 any documents relating to these lands. If search were per- 
 mitted in the archives of the order, much interesting material 
 might be discovered. 
 
 It should not be thought that the aristocratic character of 
 the manor was injurious to the growth of liberal ideas. The 
 manor was a self-governing community. The manor officers 
 were elected by the tenants, and juries were drawn from 
 among the same body. By-laws for their own government 
 were adopted by most voices. So there was ample scope for 
 individuality to show itself. The extinction of the manorial 
 
Old Maryland Manors. 21 
 
 system was probably not due to any democratic feeling of 
 opposition to it as a relic of feudalism, but to another cause. 
 The early introduction of slavery must soon have made it 
 more profitable for the lord to cultivate all his estate than to 
 rent it to tenants, unless the estate were of immense size. 
 The very large estates, however, were quickly sub-divided 
 when population increased. Consequently, the relations which 
 made a manor possible soon ceased to exist. At the same 
 time the necessity for a system of private jurisdiction passed 
 away. The manorial courts were adapted to a state of society 
 in which law-abiding men lived far apart, and surrounded bv 
 unquiet neighbors; a society in which bloodshed was fre- 
 quent and property insecure. In such circumstances it was 
 needful to have in each community a person uniting in him- 
 self the influence of wealth and the majesty of law. When 
 higher civilization made violence rare, and when better means 
 of communication made it easy to reach the public courts, 
 private authority was no longer needed. The feudal society 
 of the manor reverted to the patriarchal society of the plan- 
 tation. Serfs or slaves now replaced the free tenants of 
 former times. The rights of these villeins en r/ros were 
 entirely at the will of the owner of the estate. Controversies 
 between them never reached the dignity of legal adjudication. 
 Between them and their owners controversy was in the nature 
 of things impossible. Here there was no scope for manorial 
 courts. Controversies between master and master went, as 
 before, to a public tribunal. The court baron and the court 
 leet, having served their turn, were cast aside. J f they played 
 no great part in the history of the State, they are interesting 
 as an extinct species, an institutional fossil, connecting the life 
 of the present with the life of the past. 
 
EDITORIAL NOTES. 
 
 The historical significance of the St. Clement records is that they prove 
 incontestably the existence of a Court Leet in Maryland. These Records 
 are the first of their kind that have been utilized by students of Mary- 
 land History. McMahon does not appear to have noticed any such Records. 
 Bozman, in his History of Maryland, vol. ii. 39, says, " although the power 
 and right of holding courts-baron and courts-leet might have been inserted 
 in some or all of those grants of manors, yet we are told from good authority, 
 that no memorial appears on the records of the province, of any practical 
 use of either of those kinds of courts." Soharf, i. 12:!, quotes this passage 
 as final.* The '-good authority" upon whom Bozman relied was Kilty, 
 who, in his Land-Holder's Assistant, 93, says, " no memorial appears on 
 record " of the practical use of the privileges of Court Baron and Court 
 Leet in those "inferior Manors " erected by the Conditions of Plantation, 
 issued in 1630. But Kilty, as quoted by Bozman in the above passage, 
 was not speaking of all manors, but only of those which assumed the name. 
 Upon the very same page, 93, Kilty states that in some manors, namely, 
 in those erected by special order of the Proprietary, "ami more especially 
 in those held by the Proprietary in his own name, it is understood that 
 the privileges attached to them were actually exercised.'' But even Kilty 
 mentions no concrete examples or existing records, of a Court Baron and 
 a Court Lett. 
 
 Bozman, however, after having unfortunately quoted Kilty in such a 
 partial way as to lead to the now current notion that there never was 
 any case of Court Leet in Maryland, appears to have come upon certain 
 indications of the existence of such an institution. He says in a foot mite 
 to page 39, " But 1 find in the Council Proceedings from l(>3f> to lt;."i7, p. 
 2:'., a commission there recorded, for holding a court-leet in the isle of 
 Kent directed 'to Robert Philpot, William Cox, Thomas Allen, of the 
 isle of Kent, gentlemen, to be justices of the peace within the said island, 
 to hold a court-leet in all civil actions not exceeding 1200 lbs. tobacco; 
 and to hear and determine all offences criminal, within the said Maud, 
 which may be determined by any justice of the peace in Kngland, not 
 extending to the loss of life or member. Given at St. Mary's, February 
 9th, Ib37. Witness, Leonard Calvert.' A- proceedings,'' continues 
 Bozman, '' most probably took [dace under this <-ommi>.-ion, there mu-t, 
 of consequence, have been some written memorials of those proceedings 
 
 'I'Ih' existence of manorial curt'* in Maryland is, huwuvi-r, rccuguuetl |.\ Scliurf in 
 a later volume, ii, 50. 
 
 23 
 
24 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 onco existing, though probably now lost. As the business of Courts-lect 
 in England has long ago been gradually absorbed by the courts of quarter 
 sessions for the shire or county, so with us, it is probable, that if any courts- 
 leet or courts-baron were ever held in the province, the county-courts, 
 at a very early period, swallowed up their jurisdictions. To trace these 
 transfers of judicial power, would at this day be unneccessary, if it were 
 a possible task, except it be to throw some light on the history of those 
 times." 
 
 If a Court Leet was actually instituted upon Kent Island, then it was 
 probably one of the oldest authorized local courts in Maryland, for the 
 first county court in this province was not opened until about the 
 middle of February, 1638, judicial power having been hitherto retained 
 by the governor and his council and the General Assembly of Freemen, 
 or the Colonial Parliament. Authority, however, to hold a local court 
 in Kent Island had been granted to Captain George Evelyn on the 30th 
 of December, 1037. He was authorized "to elect and choose six of 
 the inhabitants of Kent for his council," a local court of seven men. 
 Bozman states in his Notes and Illustrations, 580, that the Court Leet, 
 that was authorized the following year but soon superceded by the " Com- 
 rminder" [High Constable, cf. Bozman, ii, 138] of Kent, was more like a 
 county court than a manorial court. "The court held under the commis- 
 sion before stated [Bozman, ii, 39] Ho certain justices of the peace on the 
 isle of Kent to hold a court leet ' there, seems to have partaken more of the 
 nature of what was subsequently called a county court, than a court 
 pertaining to a manor ; and ' the manor of Kent fort,' the only manor ever 
 erected on the isle of Kent, was not then granted." The conclusion, then, 
 is by Bozman, as regards the Kent Island case, that it was no Court Leet 
 at all, in the technical sense of the term. 
 
 But Bozman thereupon, in his Notes and Illustrations, ii. 581, begins 
 to approach the real truth touching the actual existence of manorial courts, 
 a truth which Mr. John Johnson has only elucidated in its fulness in the 
 foregoing monograph. "However, it does appear," says Mr. Bozman, 
 " that at subsequent periods of time, one or two rare instances occurred of 
 the holding both courts baron and courts leet in two distinct manors. 
 4 A court baron was held at the manor of St. Gabriel, on the 7th of March, 
 1650, by the steward of the lady of the manor, when one Martin Kirke 
 took of the lady of the manor in full court, by delivery of the said steward, 
 by the rod, according to the custom of the said manor, one messuage, having 
 done fealty to the lady, was thereby admitted tenant ' (MS. Extracts from 
 therecords). "This," continues Bozman, "seems to have been conformable 
 to the ancient practice of courts baron in England, on the admission of 
 any tenant of a manor. The steward thereof, taking hold of one end of a 
 rod and the tenant of the other, the former repeats to him : ' The lord of 
 of this manor by me his steward doth deliver you seisin by the rod, and 
 admit you tenant to the premises,' &c. (See the Practice of Courts Leet 
 
Old Maryland Manors. 25 
 
 and Courts Baron, by Chief Justice Scroggs)." Here, then, is instanced by 
 Bozman himself a concrete case of a manorial court, the records of which 
 Mr. Bozman appears to have seen. 
 
 But now follows mention of a Court Leet upon the identical manor, the 
 records of which Mr. Bozman had not seen but which arc now first pub- 
 lished. Bozman came upon the traces of manorial courts at St. Clement's, 
 not from local records, but from public records. lie says, ii, 581 : " Also, 
 in October, 1661, Thomas Gerrard petitioned to the provincial court, stating, 
 that at a court leet and court baron, held for the manor of St. Clement's, on 
 the 27th of October, 1(159, Robert Cole was fined, for marking one of the 
 Lord of the manor's hogs, and prayed to have satisfaction for the unlawful 
 marking and killing such hog, as the laws of the province provided.'* The 
 grant of this manor, which lay in St. Mary's county, was made to Thomas 
 Gerrard in the year 1639, and appears to be one of the oldest grants of a 
 manor now extant on the records of the province. It contained a clause 
 of power to Thomas Gerrard to hold a court baron and court leet. The 
 last mentioned case, which occurred in this manor, seems to have been ono 
 of those petty misdemeanors, which would have been properly cognizable 
 by a court leet in England ; but, as the lord of a manor could not judge 
 in his own case, for a trespass to himself, (See 2 Bacon's Abridgement, 
 505,) this principle probably occasions his application, as above, to the 
 provincial court." 
 
 The local Becords of the Manor of St. Clement's, herewith published, 
 indicate that a Court Leet was there held for at least a considerable period, 
 namely from 1659 to 1672. The Records are defective and may originally 
 have covered a much longer time. The manuscript is well preserved, 
 what there is of it, and is written in the quaint old English hand, char- 
 acteristic of English clerks of the seventeenth century wherever found, 
 whether among the Pilgrim Fathersor among the Pilgrimsof St. Mary's. 
 The manuscript was presented to the Maryland Historical Society many 
 years ago by a Catholic gentleman, Colonel B. U. Campbell, who died 
 April 28, 1855, aged sixty, and who was buried with great honors, after 
 a celebration of High Mass in the Cathedral, in the presence of the Arch- 
 bishop and ''all the Roman Catholic clergy " (See contemporary newspaper 
 accounts, e. g. The. American, May 1, 1855) Colonel Campbell was u 
 partner in the Baltimore branch of the well known English bankers, 
 Brown and Company of London, and he is spoken of in the resolutions of 
 the Maryland Historical Society, Mny 3, 1855, as "one of its earliest and 
 most valuable members. " The manuscript Records of the Catholic Manor 
 of St. Clement's, presented to the Society by Colonel Campbell, together 
 with other documents relating to the History of Maryland, is preserved 
 in Portfolio No. 6, Document I, and is described in the Catalogue of the 
 Manuscripts of the Society, printed in 1854. under the supervision of 
 
 * The above is not the exact text of Gemini's petition, but conveys its substance. 11. Ii. A. 
 
26 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 Lewis Mayer, Esq., assistant librarian, as "Manuscript Records of Courts 
 Baron and Courts Leet, held in St. Clement's Manor, at several times, 
 from 1659 to 1672, folio." Mr. Gatchell, the present assistant librarian 
 of the Society, has put the Editor in possession of these facts touching the 
 original records of St. Clement's and concerning Mr. B. U. Campbell, 
 who presented them to the Society. 
 
 The existence of these Records was, in fact, well known to gentlemen 
 who are familiar with the library resources of the Maryland Historical 
 Society, but Mr. Johnson is the first to make known tho historical signifi- 
 cance of Court Leet in Maryland. Not until his inquiries touching tho 
 origin and character of Old Maryland Manors were well advanced did he 
 obtain knowledge of the existence of these Records. His inquiries of Mr. 
 George Johnston, author of the History of Cecil County, as to the possible 
 survival of the old English Court Leet upon Maryland Manors led that 
 gentleman to a conference with Mr. J. W. M. Lee, librarian of the Mary- 
 land Historical Society and to the examination of the long catalogued but 
 never utilized Records of the Manor of St. Clement's. Mr. Lee kindly 
 undertook the task of making an exact transcript of the Records and thanks 
 are due to him for supervising their accurate reproduction by the printer. 
 
 The survival upon one of the Maryland Manors, of a Court Leet (Ger- 
 man Leute, people), or thatold English popular court of manorial tenants, 
 is interesting and important as showing the continuity in Terra Marine 
 of that ancient Germanic institution of village folcmote, which has evolved 
 into modern Parish and Vestry-Meetings, and also into Town-Meetings 
 and City Councils. 
 
 The Editor of this series takes great pleasure in publishing the following 
 note touching Cooke's Hope Manor in Talbot County, communicated by 
 the eminent antiquary and local historian, Dr. Samuel A. Harrison, of 
 Easton, Maryland. "A Manor of one thousand acres granted to Miles 
 Cooke by patent dated Jan 17 th 1659, under the great seal of Caecilius, 
 Lord Baltimore, lying north of Great Choptank river, on the north side 
 of the east branch of a creek of the said river called Tredavon. This 
 manor is mentioned in a deed from Mr. Saml. Cooke, through his 
 attorneys, to Mr. John Edmondson, dated Apr. 17 th 1683. The following 
 is an extract from this deed of the attorneys of S. C. to J. E. recorded in 
 Liber No. 4, p. 195, of the Land Records of Talbot County, Maryland. 
 
 "... Containing and Laid out for One thousand Acres (more or less) 
 together with all Royalties & Priviledges (Royal mines excepted) most 
 usually belonging to Mannors in Enghtnd, to have and to hold ye same 
 unto him ye s d Miles Cooke his heirs and assigns for ever to be holden as 
 of ye Honour [?] of St. Marey's in free and Comon Soccage by fealty 
 only for all services under ye yearly rent of Twentie [? Seventie] Shill- 
 ings Sterling in silver or Gold or ye full value thereof in such comodaties 
 as ye s d Lord Proprietary or his heirs should accept thereof, and ye s d Lord 
 Proprietary did by his Letters Pattent Erect ye s d Thousand Acres into a 
 
Old Maryland Manors. 27 
 
 Mannorby ye name of yc Mannor of Cookes Hope Together with Court 
 Baron and all things thereunto Belonging by ye Law or Custome of 
 England, as by ye s d Letters Pattents Relation thereunto had doth and 
 may more at large appearc." 
 
 The following note upon manorial Tithingman in Maryland is thought 
 by the Editor to be of sufficient interest to justify it- reprint from Bozman, 
 ii, 1:18, who quotes it from the manuscript Bill of 1638, folio 21. The 
 motto relating to Tithingmen, printed upon the reverse of the bastard-title 
 of this paper, was taken from Bacon's printed Laws of Maryland, which 
 only gives the heading of the Bill. The following is an extract from the 
 text : " The lord of every manor within this province, (after any manor 
 shall be erected), shall yearly at the first court baron held after M ichaelmas 
 in any year nominate and appoint some inhabitant of the manor, (not 
 being in the council), to be tithing-man of that manor, to have the same 
 power as a tithing-man in England." Bozman adds, "The duties of a 
 tithing-man in England were, at this time, nearly the same as those of a 
 petly constable. They were usually chosen by the jury at the court-leet, 
 a criminal court appertaining to a manor." 
 
NOTE ON THOMAS GERRARD 
 
 LORD OF ST. CLEMENT'S MANOR. 
 
 Thomas Gerrard, Surgeon, was a brother-in-law of Marmnduke Snow, 
 and came into the province about the year 1638. On the 29th of October, 
 1G.'}9, " Thomas Gorrard Gent, demandeth Land of the Lord Proprietary 
 due him by conditions of Plantation for transporting; himself with liveable 
 men servants in the years of our Lord 1(>'>8 and li:!!." The five able 
 men servants were John Longworth, Peter Hay ward, Samuel Barrett, 
 Thomas Knight and Robert Brassington. The following day (Oct. 30th) 
 an order was issued to the Surveyor to lay out for Mr. Thomas Gerrard, 
 1000 acres of land including St. Clement's Island. The laud was surveyed 
 Nov. 2, and the Surveyor's report is as follows : " Set forth for Thomas 
 Gerrard Gent, a neck of land lveing over against St. Clements Island, 
 bounding on the South with Pot.owmack River, on the north east with a 
 Creek running westward out of St. Clement-; Bay, Called St. Patrick's 
 Creek, on the east with the said Clement's bay, on the northwest with a 
 Creek running out Mattapanient bay called St. Catherines Creek on the 
 west and south west with part of the said Bay and Potowmack River, the 
 said neck containing in the whole nine hundred and fiftie acres or thereabouts. 
 Likewise set forth for the said Thomas Gerrard, the Island over against 
 the said neck called St. Clements Island, and Containing four score acres 
 or thereabouts. (Signed) .John Lewger Surveyor." 
 
 On the following day (Nov. 3), a patent was issued to Thomas Gerrard 
 of the above tract, constituting it a Manor by the name of St. Clement's 
 Manor, and giving him, his heirs and assigns authority to hold Courts 
 Baron and Courts Leet upon the said Manor. Tims. Gerrard was com- 
 missioned Privy Councilor September 18, 1644, and being several times 
 reappointed, held this position until 1658. He himself was a Roman 
 Catholic, but his wife, Susan, was a Protestant. (See trial of Fitzherbert, 
 in Davis' Day Star). In 1642 he was accused before the council of dis- 
 turbing the worship of the Protestant inhabitants by taking away the; 
 Key of their Chapel and carrying away their books. He was found guilt v 
 and sentenced to pay a line 500 pounds of tobacco. He was .-till alive in 
 1666, and had children. The approximate date of his death and the names 
 of his children could be learned from his will which i? no doubt on record 
 at Annapolis. 
 
 Christopher Johnston, Jk., M. A., M. D. 
 
 29 
 
RECORDS* 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COURT LEET AND COURT BARON 
 
 op 
 
 st. Clement's manor, 
 
 1659-72. 
 
 S! Clkmknts ) _ A Co irt I>et & Court Baron of Thomas Gerard 
 
 th 
 
 Clkmknts ) A 
 
 > ss 
 Manour > Esq! there held on Thursday the xxvii 1 " of October 
 
 1G59 by Jn" Ryves gent Steward there. 
 
 Constablk : Richard (foster Sworne. 
 
 Rksiants: Arthur Delahay : Robt e : Cooper: Seth Tinsley: "Willm: at 
 Robt e Coles : J u7 Gee Jn? Green Benjamin Hamon Jn" Mattant. 
 
 ffrkkhold" 8 Robt e Sly, gent: Willm : Barton c;ent: Robt'Cole: Luke: 
 Gardiner: Barthollomew: Phillips Christopher Carnall : Jn'! Norman: 
 Jn" Goldsmith. 
 
 Lkaseholdkrs Thomas Jackson : Rowland Mace: Jn" Shankes Richard 
 ffoster: Samuell Harris: John Mansell : Edward Turner: ffrancis 
 Sutton with: Jn" Tennison : 
 
 Jury am> "l Jn" Mansell ~| Jn" Tennison 
 
 Homages J Burtholl: Phillips Jn" Goldsmith I 
 
 .1 ii '' Shankes Jn" Mattant 
 
 J. Sworne ,, Sworne 
 
 I n" Goo Sam : Harris 
 
 Edward Turner Jn" Norman 
 
 Seth Tinsley J xolVr Carnall J 
 
 Mj thank* art: due- to the Maryland Historical Society for |ii-niiisloii to print (hose 
 records. 1 am also under obligation id Mr. .). U . M. }., I.il.rariau i.f the Sx lely, ft-r 
 kind and c tin iini aid in dr< ij>liri nir and transcribing them ; ami to Mr. tieo. JuLusluu, 
 ol L'lWton, for calliug ruv attention to theuj in the lir^t instance. -J. J. 
 
 31 
 
32 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 Ord t Ag t Sam : Wee the aboue named Jurors doe p'sent to the Cou r that 
 Harris wee finde how about the 3 day of oetob r 1659 that: 
 
 Jmprimis weep'sent that about the third of October 1659 that Sam- 
 
 uell Harris broke the peace w th a Stick and that there was bloudshed 
 
 comitted by Samuell Harris on the body of John Mansell for w oh hee i9 
 
 fined 40 1 tob w ch is remitted de gratia dni. 
 
 Wee doe find that Samuell Harris hath a licence fro' the Gou'no* & 
 
 wee conceive him not fitt to bee p r sented. 
 
 Ord r ao t Rout* Jtem wee p r sent Robert Cole for marking one of the 
 Cole. Lord of the Manno" hoggs for w c hee is fined 2000 
 
 Tohco affered to 1000 1 . 
 
 Jtem wee p r sent Luke Gardyner for catching two wild hoggs & not 
 restouringe the one halfe to the Lord of the Manno r w CJ he ought to 
 haue done & for his contempt therein is fined 2000 1 Tobco afferred to 
 200 1 of Tobco. 
 
 Jtem we p r sent that Cove Mace about Easter last 1659 came to the 
 house of John Shancks one of the Lord of the Manno tenants being 
 bloudy & said that Robin Coox & his wife were both vpon him & the 
 said John Shancks desired John Gee to goe w th him to Clove Maces 
 house & when they the s d John Shancks & John Gee came to the said 
 Cloves his house in the night & knocked att the dore asking how they 
 did what they roplyed then the s' 1 John Shancks & John Gee haue for- 
 gotten But the s John Shancks asked h,er to come to her husband & 
 shee replyed that hee had abused Robin & her and the said John Shancks 
 gott her consent to come the next morning & Robin vp to bee freinds 
 w th her husband & as John Shancks taketh shee fell downe on her knees 
 to bee freinds w l her s husband but hee would not bee freinds w th her 
 but the next night following they were freinds and Bartholomew Phil- 
 lipps saith that shee related before that her husband threatened to beate 
 her & said if hee did shee would cutt his throat or poyson him or make 
 him away & said if ever Jo: Hart should come in agayne shee would 
 gett John to bee revenged on him & beate him & hee heared the said 
 William Asiter say th' shee dranke healths to the Confusion of her 
 husband and said shee would shooe her horse round & hee the said Bar- 
 tholomew Phillips heard the said Robin say if ever hee left the house 
 Cloves should never goe w l a whole face. Jt is ordered that this busi- 
 nesse bee transferred to the next County Co M according to Law. 
 
 Also wee present John Mansell fore entertayning Beniamyn Hamon 
 & Cybill his wife as Jnmates Jt is therefore ordered that the s d Man- 
 sell doe either remove his Jnmate or give security to save the pish 
 [parish] harmlesse by the next Co rt vnder payne of 1000 1 Tobco r . 
 
 Also wee p r sent Samuell Harris for the same and the same order is 
 on him that is on John Mansell. 
 
Old Maryland Manors. 33 
 
 Also wee present the Freeholders that have made default in their 
 appearing to forfeit 100 1 Tobco apeice. 
 
 Wee doe further p r sent that our Bounds are at this p'esent unpfect 
 & very obscure. Wherefore w' the consent of the Lord of the 
 Manno* Wee doe order that every mans land shall bee bounded marked 
 and layed out betweene this & the next Co rt by the p'sent Jury w th the 
 assistance of the Lord vpon payne of 200 Tob'coe for every man that 
 shall make default. 
 
 S T . Clkmknts \ 88 t At a Court Leot & Co r Baron of ThOms Gerard 
 Masno" ' Esq r there held on thursday the 26 th of Aprill 16G0 
 
 by John Ryves Steward there 
 
 Constable Richard fibster 
 
 Resiants Robert Cowx William Roswell John Gee John Greene Benia- 
 min Uamon 
 
 Freeholders: Robert Sly gent Will'm Barton gent Robt Cole Luke 
 Gardiner Christopher Carnall John Norman John Goldsmith. 
 
 Leaseholders Thorn's Jackson Richard fibster Samuell Norris John 
 Mansfeild Edward Turner John Shancks Arthur Delahay 
 Clove Mace John Tennison 
 
 Jury and "I Christopher Carnall ~) Richard Smith ^ 
 Homage / John Tennison 
 
 John Gee 
 Edward Turner 
 Beniamvn llamon 
 
 John Norman 
 John Love 
 George Harris 
 Willm Roswell 
 
 r 
 
 John Greene J Walter Bartlett J 
 
 Wee the above named Jurors doe p r sent to the Co n Luke Gardiner 
 for not doeing his Fealty to the Lord of the Manno r Jt is ordered 
 therefore that hee is fined 1000 1 of Tobcoo 
 
 Wee p'sent fower Jndians viz 
 
 for breakinge into the Lord of the Manm" orchard whereof three of 
 them were taken <te one ran away & they are fyned '20 arms length of 
 Roneoke. 
 
 Wee p'sent also two Jndian boyes for being taken w ' hoggs flesh & 
 running away fro' it & they are fined 40 arms length. 
 
 Wee )i r sent also a Cheptico Jndian for entringe into Edward Turners 
 house fe stealinge a shirt fro' thence & hee is lined 20 arms length if he 
 can be knowne 
 
 Wee p T 8ent also Wickocomacoe Jndians for takeinge away Christo- 
 pher Carnalls Cannowe fro' his landing & they are fyned 20 arms 
 length if they bee found 
 
 5 
 
34 
 
 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 Wee p'sont also the King of Cheptico for killing a wild sow & took 
 her piggs & raysed a stock of them referred to the ho e the Gouno . 
 
 Wee concieve that Jndians ought not to keepe hoggs for vnder 
 p'tence of them they may destroy all the hoggs belonginge to the Man- 
 no' & therefore they ought to bee warned now to destroy them else to 
 bee fyned att the next Court Referred to the hO ble the Gou'no* 
 
 Wee reduce Luke Gardiners fyne to 50 1 of Tobcoe 
 
 We am'ce the fower Jndians to 50 arms Length of Roneoke & the 
 Jndian that had his gun taken fro' him to bee restored agayne to the 
 owner thereof 
 
 The Jndian boyes wee am'ce 40 arms Length of Roneoke as they are 
 above am'ced 
 
 Wee am'ce the Cheptico Jndian for stealing Edward Turners shirt 
 to 20 arms length of Roneoke 
 
 Wee am'ce also Wickocomacoe Jndians for takeinge away Christo- 
 pher Carnalls Cannowe to 20 arms Length of Roneoke 
 
 Memorand that John Mansfeild sonne of Mansfeild deceased 
 
 came into this Co did atturne tent to the Lord of this Manno r 
 
 S T Clements ") A Court Leet & Court Baron of Thomas Gerrard esquire 
 Manno 8 / there held on Wednesday the Three & Twentieth of 
 October 1661. by Thomas Mannyng Gent Steward there for this tyme 
 
 Bailiff William Barton Gent. 
 
 Constable Raphael Haywood Gent 
 
 Resiants M r Edmond Hanson George Bankes ffrancis Bellowes Tho : 
 James John Gee Michael Abbott. 
 
 ffrekholders Robt Sly Gent Will Barton Gent Luke Gardiner Gent, 
 absent Robt. Cole Gent. Raphael Haywood Gent Bartho Phillips Gent. 
 
 Jury Rich : ffoster 
 
 Edward Conoray 
 Edward Runsdall 
 John Shankes 
 John Knape 
 Gerett Brenson 
 Clove Mace 
 Robt Cooper 
 Arthur De La huy 
 John Tenison 
 
 Jury and 
 Homage 
 
 Robt Cole 
 Bartho Philips 
 Edward Conovay 
 Edward Ransdell 
 Gerett Brenton 
 Clobe Mace 
 Edmond Hanson 
 Robt Cooper 
 Arthur De La hay 
 Wm Rosewell 
 Tho: James 
 Mich. James. 
 
 [Several leaves of the record missing.] 
 
Old Maryland Ifanors. 35 
 
 The Court adiorned till two of the Clocke in the afternoono. 
 
 John Gee and Rich, foster sworne 
 
 The Jury presents that Bartho: Phillips his Landes not marked and 
 Bounded Hound 
 
 The Jury Lykewise present that the Land belonging to Robt Cooper 
 and Gerett Breden is not marked and bounded Round 
 
 The Jury Presents Robt Cooper for Cutting of sedge on S* Clements 
 Jsland and fowling w th out Licence for \v he is Amerced 10 of Tob. 
 A tiered to 10 1 of Tob. 
 
 The Jury Present that Edward Conoray while ho was Rich fosters 
 servant did by accident worray or Lugg w tl doggs on of the L d of the 
 manno Hoggs and at another tyme Edward Conoray going to shoot 
 at ducks the dog did Run at somebodys Hoggs but we know not whose 
 they were and did Lugg them for w cl the Jury doe Amerce Rich: 
 lloster 60 l of Tob Aflered to 20 1 of Tob. 
 
 The Jury presents M r Luke Gardiner for not appearing at the Lords 
 Court Leet if he had sufficient warning 
 
 S T Clemknts"! A Court Leet of Thomas Gerard Esq r . there held on 
 
 Mano" / Thursday the eighth day of September 1070. by 
 James Gaylard gent, steward there. 
 
 Essoixks: Benjamin Salley gent James Edmonds Rich Vpgato Cap' 
 Peter Lefebur these are essoined by reason they are sick and cannot 
 attend to do their suit. 
 
 FKkkkhoi.dkks: Justinian Gerard gent, Robt Sly gent, Thorn Notley 
 gent, Capt Luke Gardiner, Benjamin Bailey gent, Robert Cole, Bar- 
 tholomew Phillipps, Jn . Bullock W Watts, James Edmonds, Richard 
 Vpgate, Simon Rider, Jn'- Tenison, Rich 11 - llbster, Edward Connory, 
 J no" Shankes, Jn"- Blackiston, 
 
 Lkas.kiioi.dkks: Robte Cowper Capt Peter Lefebur, Henry Shadock, 
 Rich'- Saunderson Jn" Hoskins, Thomas Catline. 
 
 Rksiants: Rich d Marsh, Joseph ffowler Roger Dwiggin Thom Casev, 
 Jn Saunders, Henry Porter, fl'rancis Mondcford \Y '." Simpson W" 
 
 George.- George B es VV-" West, W Clieshire, Jn" Paler, Robto 
 
 fl'arrer George Keith, Joshua Lee James Green, Thorn oakely, Jn? 
 Turner, Maunce .Miles, Jn" Dash W'" fl'elatead Jn'-' Chauntry : 
 
 Jurv Rich d ll'oster ) Jn" Blackiston ] 
 
 J n" Tenison Jn" Stanley 
 
 Edward Connory ' . Kieh d Saunderson ( , 
 
 .. . r Sworne ,.,.,, , . s \sorne 
 
 Robte Cowper Jn" Bullock 
 
 Tiiom Catiline Thorn oakely 
 
 W? Watts J Jn': Paler ' J 
 
36 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 Bayliff Jn Shankes & Sworne. 
 
 Prksentm": Wee p'sent that Barthollomew Phillips his land wa9 not 
 layd out according to order of Court formerly made wherefore he is 
 lined one hundred pounds of tobacco & caske to the Lord. 
 
 "We p r sent John Tenison for suffering his horses to destroy John 
 Blakiston's Corne field. 
 
 We p r sent that Jn Stanly and Henry Neale killed three marked 
 hogs vpon the Lords Mano* w"! 1 Capt Gardiner received w c : hogs were 
 not of Capt Gardiner's proper marke which is transferred to the next 
 Provinciall Court, there to be determined according to the Law of the 
 Province. 
 
 We p r sent that Edward Connery killed or caused to be killed five 
 wild hogs vpon the Lords Mano* this was done by the Lords order and 
 License 
 
 We p r sent that the Lord of the Manno' hath not provided a paire of 
 stocks, pillory, and Ducking Stoole Ordered that these Jnstrum ts of 
 Justice be provided by the next Court by a generall contribution 
 throughout the Mano* 
 
 We p r sent That Edward Convery's land is not bounded in 
 
 We p r sent That Thomas Rives hath fallen five or sixe timber trees 
 vpon Eichard fibsters land within this Mano* referred till view may be 
 had of Rives his Lease 
 
 We p r sent That Robert Cowper's land is not bounded according to a 
 former order for which he is fined 100 1 tobco. 
 
 We p r sent That Jn'l Blackiston hunted Jn? Tenisons horses out of 
 the s d Blackistons corne field fence which fence is proved to be insuffi- 
 cient by the oathes of Jn Hoskins and Daniell White 
 
 We p r sent Richard fibster to be Constable for this Mano T for the 
 yeare ensuing who is sworne accordingly. 
 
 We p r sent that Jn Bullocks land is not bounded. 
 
 We p r sent M r Thomas Notly, M r Justinian Gerard & Capt Luke 
 Gardiner, ffreeholders of this Mano r : for not a appearing' to do their 
 suit at the Lords Court wherefore they are amerced each man 60 1 of 
 tobacco to the lord 
 
 Jt is ordered That every mans land w th in this Manno r whose bounds 
 are vncertein be layd out before the next Co r ' in p r sence of the greatest 
 part of this Jury according to their soverall Grants vnder penalty of 
 100 1 tobcO for every one that shall make default. 
 
 Affeir Thomas Catline -> 
 
 Willm Watts } Sworne - 
 
 S* Clements | gs A Court Leet & Court Baron of Thomas Gerard 
 Mano r J Esq' there held on Monday the 28 th of October 1072 
 by James Gaylard gent Steward there, 
 
Old Maryland Manors. 37 
 
 ESSONIES 
 
 FFREKHOI.DERS. Justinian Gerard gent Gerard Sly gent Thomas Notley 
 gent Boiijamine Sally gent Capt Luke Gardiner Robt" Cole Bartholo- 
 mew Philips Jn" Bullock. W Watts James Edmunds Richard Vpgate 
 Simon Rider John Ten nison Richard fibster Edward Connory Jn" Shankes 
 Jn Blackiston Thomas Jourdaine. 
 
 Leaseholders Capt Peter Lefebur Henry Shaddock Richard Saunderson 
 Jn" Hoskins Thomas Catline 
 
 Resiants Joseph flbwler Roger Dwiggin Henry Porter W Simpson 
 "William Georges W"' West W Cheshire Jn" Paler Joshua Lee Maurice 
 Wiles Jn" Dash W m ffelstead Richard Chillman Robte Samson Henry 
 Awsbury Jn" Hammilton W Wilkinson Abraham Combos Willm 
 Harrison J n Rosewell Vincent Mansfeild Edward Williams Marma- 
 duke Simson Nicholas Smith Humphry Willey James Traske Derby 
 Dollovan Jn Vpgate Thomas Rives Michaell Williams Jn* Sprigg 
 Charles Rookes fl'rancis Knott Richard Hart Willm Polfe Thomas 
 Attaway James Green Jn" Ball Thomas Liddiard Edward Bradbourne 
 Jn" Suttle Jn Lee Jn Barefoot ffrancis Wood. 
 
 Jury W' m Watts Jn Bullock 
 
 Jn" Ten nison Thorn oakly 
 
 Jn Rosewell J. Sworne. Thorn Jorden Sworne. 
 
 Jn" Stanly Jn" Hoskins 
 
 Richard Saunderson I Jn" Paler 
 
 fl'rancis Knott. ^ Vincent Mansfeild 
 
 Edward Bradbourne complaineth agt Jn" Tennison that lie unjustly 
 deteineth from him 2<M> tobco to the contrary whereof the s d Ter.nison 
 having in this Coart taken his oath the s Bradbourne is nonsuited. 
 
 'We p'sent Jn" Dash for keeping hoggs <k cattle upon this Manno' 
 for wh ch he is fined 1000 1 tobco. 
 
 We p sent Henry Poulter for keeping of hoggs to the annoyance of 
 the lord of the Mano r . Ordered that ho remove them within 12 days 
 under paine of 4(H( tobco & caske. 
 
 We p r seiit the s Henry Poulter for keeping a .Mare & foale upon this 
 Mano r to the annoyance of Jn" Stanly ordered that he remove the -' 1 
 mare & foale w l in 12 daies vnder paine of 1< h l of tobco & caske 
 
 We p'svnt Joshua Lee for injuring Jn" Hoskins hi> hoggs by setting 
 his doggs on them & tearing their eares & other hurts for which he is 
 lined KM) 1 of tobco iV caske 
 
 We p'sent Humphry Willy for keeping a tipling house & selling his 
 drink without u License at unlawful] rates fur w' ' he is lined according 
 to act of assembly in that case made & provided 
 
38 Old Maryland Manors. 
 
 We p r sent Derby Dollovan for committing an Affray and Shedding 
 blood in the house of the s d Humphry "Willy Ordered that the s d 
 Dolovan give suretys for the peace. 
 
 We p'sent W Simpson for bringing hoggs into this Mano r for 
 which he is fined 3 1 of tobeO And ordered that he remove them in 10 
 days vnder paine of 300 1 of tobco & caske 
 
 We p r sent Kobte Samson & Henry Awsbury for selling drinke at 
 unlawfull rates for which they are each of them fined according to act 
 of Assembly. 
 
 We p r sent [Simon Rider for keeping an under tenant contrary to the 
 teno r of his Deed referred till view may be had of the s d Deed. 
 
 We p'sent that Raphaell Haywood hath aliened his ffreehold to Simon 
 Rider upon w oh alienacon there is a reliefe due to the lord 
 
 We p'sent an alienacOn from James Edmonds to Thomas Oakely 
 upon w ch there is a Reliefe due to the lord and Oakely hath sworne 
 fealty. 
 
 We p r sent that upon the death of M r Robte Sly there is a Releife 
 due to the lord & that. M r Gerard Sly is his next heire who hath sworne 
 fealty accordingly 
 
 We p r sent an alienacon from Thomas Catline to Anne Vpgate 
 
 We p r sent that upon the death of Richard Vpgate there is a Releife 
 due to the lord & [Anne] Vpgate his relict is next heire 
 
 We p'sent M r Hehemiah Blackiston tenant to the land formerly in 
 possession of Robert Cowper M r Blackiston hath sworne fealty accord- 
 ingly 
 
 We p r sent an alienacon from W m Barton to Benjamine Sally gent 
 upon w ch there is a Releife due to the lord & M r Sally hath sworne 
 fealty to the lord. 
 
 We p r sent an alienacon from Richard ffoster of p of his ffreehold to 
 Jn Blackiston upon which there is a Releife due to the lord 
 
 We p r sent a Stray horse taken upon this Mano' and delivered to the 
 lord 
 
 We p r sent Robte Cole for not making his appearance at this Court 
 for which he is amerced 10 1 of tobco affeired to 6 1 of tobco. 
 
 We p r sent Edward nder to be Constable for this yeare ensuing 
 
 Sworne accordingly. 
 
 Akfeiro rs W m Watts 1 Sworne 
 Ja- Bullock / 
 
VIII 
 
 NORMAN CONSTABLES 
 
 A M E R I C A 
 
(Enter Dogberry, Verges, and Sexton, in gowns; and the Watch, with Conrade and 
 Korachio). 
 
 Doy. Is our whole dissembly appeared ? 
 
 Verg. 0, a stool and a cushion for the sexton 
 
 Sex. But which are the offenders that are to be examined? Let them come before 
 master constable. 
 
 Doy. Yea, marry, let them come before me. ... I am a wise fellow ; and, which is 
 more, an officer; and, which is more, a householder; and, which is more, as pretty a 
 piece of flesh as any in Messina ; and one that knows the law, go to ; and a rich fellow 
 enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses; and one that hath two gowns, and 
 everything handsome about him. SJiakespeare. 
 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 I N 
 
 Historical and Political Science 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History is j.;i>l Politics and Politics present History. Freenuin 
 
 VIII 
 
 NORMAN CONSTABLES 
 
 I N 
 
 A M E RICA 
 
 Read before the New England Historic, Genealogical Society. February I, I8S2 
 
 By HERBERT B. ADAMS, PH. D. 
 
 H A LT I M I) K E 
 
 l'uiii.isnKD by tii k Johns Hoi-kins I'nivumiv 
 
 J INK, 1883. 
 
JOHN MURPHY A CO., PRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
CONSTABLES. 
 
[Reprinted from the N. E. Historical and Genealogical Reoister for April, 1882 J 
 
 CONSTABLES.- 
 
 By Herbert B. Adams. 
 
 IX the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society there is ;i 
 small black letter volume, bearing the imprint of London, LG14, 
 and entitled "The Dvties of Constables, Borsholders, Tythingmen, 
 and such other lovve and lay Ministers of the Peace by William 
 Lambard of Lincolnes Inne, Gent." By the same author and in the 
 same library there is another work imprinted in London, 159b', and 
 entitled "A Perambulation of Kent: Conteining the Description, 
 Ilystories, and Customer of that Shyre," written originally in the 
 year 1570 and first published in 1576. The latter work bears upon 
 the reverse of the fly-leaf the name of Adam Winthrop, and upon 
 the reverse of the title-page a Latin ode by Winthrop in praise of 
 Lambard. f Scattered through the work are many annotations and 
 curious scraps of writing in Winthrop's hand. This very book was 
 brought to America by the first governor of Massachusetts, who was 
 well read in the laws of England, like his father and like his schol- 
 arly descendant, the Hon. Robert C Winthrop, who presented the 
 above volume to the Historical Society, of which for many years he 
 has been the honored president. \ Through John Winthrop it is 
 
 * This paper was read before t lie New England Historic, Genealogical Society, Feb. 1, 
 1882. 
 
 t Adam Winthrop speaks of Lambard as a "student of the common I.awe Iwirrister 
 wise, learned ami religious, as appereth by tins booke." A few years a<*o, from a kind of in- 
 herited family interest in Lambard, the Hon. Robert ('. Winthrop, when visiting Seven 
 Oaks, County Kent, noted the existence of a monument to " the old perambulator of Kent, 
 and 'the father of County Historians.' " (Sec Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical 
 Society, 1S7-1-I!, 1!'7.) Liniburd died at Greenwich near the seat of that ancient feudal ma- 
 nor, so famous in Kuglisti colonial charters, which describe how lauds are to be held of his 
 Majesty, " as of his manor of Kast Greenwich in the County of Kent in tree and Common 
 Soccage and not in Capite nor by Ivnightes service." (See Plymouth Laws. jr>. Compare 
 with Records of Massachusetts, i. 4.) In the Nouvelle liiographie Utiurale there i- an ac- 
 count of Lambard, based upon Nieliol's Life of Lambarde and Bridgmun's fci/ai Hihiiix/ra- 
 phy. From this account it appears that our author was born in 1/otidon in I ">.')'>, and died, 
 Aug. 19, 1601. He was a justice of the peace in the county of Kent, 1579, and, by reason 
 of his speeial knowledge of legal antiquities, finally became Ma.-tcr of the Rolis, or kee| cr 
 of the archives of Knvlaml, through the favor of Queen Kli/.abeth He compiled various 
 learned works, some of which we hive found in Baltimore: a eolleetion of Saxon law.* en- 
 titled Archaionomi;\ sivc de priseis Anglorum legibus libri (Peabndy I.ibr.); Kin naivha, 
 or Duties of Justices of the Peace (Mass. Hist. Soc.) ; Paiuh eta Botulinum ; Atcheion (or 
 High (Joints of Justice in Kngland, to lie found in the Mil. Kpiscopal Lihr.) ; Peramhula- 
 tion of Kent. The latter work i- the corner stone of the local history of I'.ngland. Lam- 
 hard was collecting materials tor the upbuilding of this work when he heard that Camden 
 was engaged upon the same great task. Li in bard discontinued hi- own ic*carelus, liui 
 they weie afterward il"-'i'M published as a Dietionariuiu Anglne Topi graphieuin ct Ili-to- 
 riciini, which is a truly monumental treatise, although incomplete. Lambard deceives 
 ' great reverence, for he was the founder of the modern science of local hi-ion which has 
 grown to such grand proportions in Knglish Town and County Histories, and in Winsor's 
 Memorial History ol Boston. Local history is the best Inundation tor national historv. 
 Mr. Kdward A. Freeman, in mi address to the Somerset-hire Areha-ologieal and Natural 
 History Society (Proceedings, ISS'i, vol. xxvi.), -aid "the proper way of studying loeal 
 history " was "a- a eontrilmtion in general history." 
 
 I The lion. Robert ('. Winthrop, in the lir-t Voluuii I the 1 -. of Jolui 
 
 Winthrop, II-:*, dc-cribes this v.iluaHe work with parti ular ret'ert nc. to tin niami 
 notes by his am estor. A copy of this book was broicrht ovi r to thi country by one 
 
not improbable that the influence of William Lambard crept into the 
 early local legislation of Massachusetts. At all events, this latter 
 treatise which describes the freest of English Counties or the customs 
 of Kent, whence the freehold land tenure of almost every English 
 colony in America was derived, and the former essay on Constables, 
 which describes the parish institutions of the mother country at the 
 time the Puritans came over, are both historical monuments deserv- 
 ing not only watchful guardianship, but scientific attention. 
 
 The writings of William Lambard represent the most advanced 
 state of English knowledge in the sixteenth century concerning the 
 origin of municipal institutions. The work contains many errors 
 and numerous incorrect etymologies, but these are faults of the time 
 rather than of the man. Practically Lambard was the transmitter 
 if not one of the fathers of English Institutional History. After 
 him, in the reign of James I., came Lords Bacon and Coke and the 
 now forgotten Dr. Cowell, commenting on the laws and Institutes 
 of England, as handed down by Granville, Bracton, Britton, Fleta, 
 Fortescue, Littleton and others. In the reign of Charles II. ap- 
 peared Sir Matthew Hale, with the first regular History of the Com- 
 mon Law. For a century after Hale there was no really monu- 
 mental treatise on English institutions, with the exception perhaps 
 of Spelman's works and Dr. Wood's Institutes, until the year of the 
 American Stamp Act (1765) when Blackstone's Commentaries were 
 first published. Like all his predecessors, Blackstone was practi- 
 cally and necessarily a compiler. Whatever he had to say regard- 
 ing the municipal institutions of England, concerning Constables, 
 Tithingmen and Justices of the Peace, he extracted from older wri- 
 ters like Dr. Burns and William Lambard. Thus our monumental 
 author of the sixteenth century has been built into the very founda- 
 tions of English Institutional History. Since Blackstone there 
 has been reared upon the basis of his work and that of his pre- 
 decessors, a History of English Law by Reeves, the publication 
 of whose treatise began the year American independence was 
 acknowledged by Great Britain (1783). During the present cen- 
 tury, the Institutional History of England has been greatly advanced 
 by the writings of Palgrave, Kemble, Thorpe, Sir Henry Maine, 
 Stubbs and Freeman, all of whom owe much of their inspiration to 
 the historical science of Germany. From impulses proceeding from 
 German scholars and from the new school of English historians, have 
 sprung the recent American studies in historical jurisprudence, the 
 essays in Anglo-Saxon Law by Henry Adams, Heniy Cabot Lodge, 
 Ernest Young and J. Laurence Laughlin, the Placita Anglo-Nor- 
 mannica, by Melville M. Bigelow, and the recent lectures by O. W. 
 Holmes, Jr., on The Common Law. 
 
 early settlers of Patuxet (Plymouth), who appears to have removed to Rhode Island. This 
 copy, through the courtesy of Mr. Winsor, was borrowed Ijv the writer of this paper from 
 tliu Library of Harvard College, and led to the discovery in Baltimore bv Mr. Albert S. 
 Cook of a third copy of the self-same edition (1596), which through the generosity of Mr. 
 Cook is uow in our possession. 
 
Along this line of march, over old roads into new fields, American 
 Institutional History will one day advance. It is the purpose of a 
 little company of graduate students at the Johns Hopkins University 
 to reconnoitre the ground.* They are now studying upon cooper- 
 ative and. to some extent, upon representative principles, the local 
 institutions of their respective states or sections of country. A few 
 students represent Maryland ; others Virginia, the Carolinas, Ken- 
 tucky, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. 
 One man has entered the field of Ohio ; others, that of Michigan 
 and the Northwest, where English institutions were planted upon 
 French soil. A student from Canada will investigate the Anglo- 
 French institutions of his Province. The writer of this monograph 
 is studying the origin of the town institutions of New England, and 
 presents the following research upon Constables as a contribution to 
 the main subject. 
 
 The importance of the Petty Constable as a connecting link be- 
 tween New England Towns and Old English Parishes has never yet 
 been recognized. To trace the origin and development of the con- 
 stabulary office and to show its exact process of transition from the 
 old country to the new is the object of this paper. Besides Lambard 
 and the old time authorities, we have utilized the resources of mod- 
 ern historical science, the Statutes of the Realm and of the English 
 Colonies, together with certain hitherto unpublished manuscripts 
 brought over to New England by Jonas Humphrey, who settled in 
 the parish-town of Dorchester, Massachusetts. According to the 
 traditions of his family, he was a constable in Wendover, County 
 Bucks, in England. An official warrant and a list of constabulary 
 duties, preserved by this faithful officer, are the best possible sources 
 of information as to the character of the constable's office at the time 
 of the Puritan migration. 
 
 We are indebted for copies of the above-mentioned documents to 
 the eminent antiquary of Dorchester, who lately prepared for pub- 
 lication the Suffolk Deeds (Boston, 1880), Mr. William B. Trask, 
 a descendant of Capt. William Trask, one of the old planters of 
 Salem. While utilizing in the body of this monograph many facts 
 derived from the Humphrey manuscripts, we shall append the same 
 in full, as they are likely to prove an interesting contribution to the 
 history of our local institutions. Mr. Trask's letter, giving a brii f 
 account of Jonas Humphrey and of the manuscripts themselves, 
 will constitute the best preface to their separate perusal. Tin >e 
 documents will clearly show that the duties of constable were not 
 only more honorable, but also far better understood in Humphrey's 
 day than in the time of Blackstone. 
 
 The latter, in his very inadequate account of constables, says : 
 
 * Richard Frothinghiun, in his work on tho Rise of the Republic of the United States, 
 20, say-, " I have not met with a volume, or even an csav, mi ihe growth of the munici- 
 pal system in the United State-." 
 
" Considering what manner of men are for the most part put into these 
 offices, it is perhaps very well that they are generally kept in igno- 
 rance" of the extent of their powers.* This observation, which 
 has been quoted over and over again, as though it were an infallible 
 precept of the Common Law, and which even finds honorable men- 
 tion in the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in the article 
 on "Constables," may perhaps account in some measure for the gene- 
 ral disrepute and comparative obscurity into which this ancient office, 
 once dignified and well known, has now fallen. Time was when 
 the best men of an English parish held in rotation the office of Pa- 
 rish Constable. No one was permitted to decline the responsibility 
 of village headship, except women, who were allowed to furnish 
 substitutes. In an old book entitled w English Liberties," published 
 in London, 1719, it is said, "The Petty Constable is chosen by the 
 people of the Parish. . . . The Petty Constables ought to be hon- 
 est and able Men both in Body and Estate, and not of the meaner 
 Sort ; and therefore it hath been held that they ought not to be cho- 
 sen by the House or Custom, if not fit to execute the Office. But 
 'tis now ruled, That a Custom for the Inhabitants to serve by Turns 
 is good ; so if it happen on a Woman she must provide one to serve 
 the Office."f 
 
 In attempting to reconstruct the historical idea of the office of con- 
 stable, we cannot rely with any degree of confidence on Blackstone, 
 for the constabulary office had evidently begun to degenerate even 
 in his day ; and, as we have already implied, the learned judge him- 
 self, in his enumeration of constabulary duties, merely quoted from 
 older writers like Lambard, who were better informed. Neither can 
 we rely implicitly upon Lambard or Lord Coke, for both of these 
 early authorities fail to explain even the origin of the constable's 
 name. Coke in his Institutes, following Lambard, says, "Consta- 
 ble or cunstable is compounded of the Saxon words cuninge per con- 
 tractionem kinge, and stable, id est columen, quasi columen regis, 
 anciently written cuningstable."J In other words, Lord Coke seri- 
 ously maintains that the Constable, etymologically considered, is the 
 support or mainstay of the King. Such an unwarrantable deriva- 
 tion of the name constable represents the fantastic, unscientific phi- 
 lology of the sixteenth century, inherited from the mediaeval monks, 
 who explained the origin of words with even more originality than 
 did Home Tooke or Noah Webster. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the term constable was introduced into Eng- 
 land through the Norman-French Connetable, old French Conesta- 
 ble or Cunestable. The word is derived from the Low Latin Con- 
 
 * Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (Judge Cooley's eel.), i. 3o5. 
 
 t English Liberties or the Free-born Subject's Inheritance, containing Magna Charta, 
 Charta tie Foresta, &c Lastly, of Justices of the Peace, Coronors', Constables, Church- 
 wardens, Overseers of the Poor, Surveyors of the Highways, &c. Compiled first by Henry 
 Care. .. In the Savoy, 1719. ^ 
 
 X Coke, Institutes, Part iv. cap. xvii. 
 
stabulus (comes stabuli, or count of the stable). It is a word 
 common to all the Romance languages, although in somewhat vary- 
 ing forms. Jt appears in the Provencal, in Italian, in Spanish and 
 in Portuguese. Both the Latin and the French forms were early 
 imported into England. In Magna Carta we have Constabularius. 
 In the Rolls of Parliament frequently occurs the form Conestable. 
 The institution itself, as understood by the Normans and the peo- 
 ples of Southern Europe, was akin to the Byzantine comes stabuli 
 and the classic Master-of-Horse. Undoubtedly the office had its 
 origin in menial service in. connection with the royal stable. Pri- 
 marily a constable was a hostler. The constabulary office belongs 
 to a nexus of court institutions, like those of chamberlain, cup- 
 bearer and steward, which arc of immemorial antiquity and common 
 to both Aryan and Shemitic monarchies. 
 
 We shall discuss the whole subject of the institutions of the Royal 
 Household in a special paper on the Origin of the Modern Ministe- 
 rial System, but, in this connection, would merely remark that the 
 name constable suggests a certain Byzantine influence surviving in 
 the office itself, as the name of Caesar survives in the Russian Czar,* 
 and the German Kaiser, or as the idea of the classic Imperator sur- 
 vives in modern emperors. Undoubtedly at a very early date Teutonic 
 kings and dukes had their ministerial officers, their hostlers of high 
 degree. The Franks had their Marschalk (from Mar, a horse, and 
 Schalk, a knave or servant), an institution surviving in France to this 
 day, in two forms, (1) Marechal de France, (2) Marechal fer- 
 rant, or slioer of horses. The Lombard kings and dukes had their 
 Marpahis. The Saxons had their Ilorsethegn or Staller. Of neces- 
 sity such offices would exist in the equine establishment of every 
 Teutonic chieftain. It is highly probable that an old Germanic in- 
 stitution was baptized by a Latin name, Constabulus, just as a Ger- 
 man military leader becomes a dux or duke. Classic titles, Byzan- 
 tine trappings and court usages were introduced into the royal house- 
 holds of almost every Teutonic king or count; but while thus clothed 
 upon with a Latin name and oriental dignity, mediaeval consta- 
 bles owe their historic origin to menial service. In the South Ger- 
 man town of Heidelberg there stands in a good state of preserva- 
 tion an ancient feudal stable, built of old red sand-stone, and known 
 as the JMarstall. It is now used as a riding-school for University 
 students ; but it is a good surviving type of the original horse-stalls 
 whence the Marshals of Saxony and of Fiance, the Fail Marshals 
 and Lord High Constables of England, rode forth to glory and 
 honor. 
 
 * Tlic notion Mint the won! Tzar was a corruption of ('a>sar. wis formerly unquestioned, 
 but Creasy, in liis Platform of International Law, Vila, ami in his History of tin" Ottoman 
 Turks, i. 311, says it is an Oriental, |Hssil)ly a Tartar word, meaning sovereign ruler. 
 Hi- thinks the Russians acquired it through the Sclavonic translation of the Uihle. Hut Mr. 
 Kdward A. Fireman, in his recent lectures Iwforc the students of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 
 versity, on the Historical Geography of South-Kustern Kurope, came to the rescue of the 
 old etymology, saying that he had been assured by a Slavonic friend of undoubted author- 
 ity, that the old derivation is the correct one. 
 
8 
 
 The office of the Lord High Constable ( Constabularius totius 
 Anglice) came into prominence as an hereditary office in the person 
 of Miles of Gloucester in the reign of Stephen (1135-1154), al- 
 though probably long before this constables had existed in every 
 royal town and castle, in every earldom and upon every great mano- 
 rial estate. Of course the office diminished in dignity the nearer it 
 approached the common people. Among the subject Saxons existed 
 a lowly office known by various names, as Tithingman, Borhs- 
 Ealdor, Elder of the Pledge, Head-Borough, or Borough-Reeve, 
 upon whom the shadow of the Norman name of constable was soon 
 to fall, as the umbra nominis Homani had fallen upon many old 
 Teutonic institutions. We cannot dwell at length in this connec- 
 tion upon the office of the Lord High Constable; suffice it to say, 
 he was the representative of the King in all matters pertaining to 
 armies and castles. He provided for all the King's horses and all 
 the King's men. He mustered the royal forces and saw to it that 
 every vassal sent his proper quota of armed men and horse. If an 
 expedition was to be undertaken into foreign parts, the Lord High 
 Constable provided means of transportation and served as kind of 
 Inspector-General. He, in conjunction with the Earl Marshal, took 
 cognizance of all offences committed during the foreign campaign, 
 and decided all questions relating to the disposition of prisoners and 
 booty. From the exercise of such functions arose Courts Martial 
 and Martial Law. 
 
 According to Lambard and Blackstone the lower constabulary 
 office was drawn from that of the Lord High Constable, " as it were 
 a very finger from that hand." Blackstone differentiates the lower 
 office into the High Constable of the Hundred and the Petty Con- 
 stable of the town or parish. On the authority of Spelman, he says 
 Petty Constables were " first instituted about the reign of Edward 
 III.* We have looked through the statutes belonging to this reign 
 and fail to find any sufficient ground for the above statement. It is at 
 best rather a loose way of describing the origin of an institution to 
 refer it to " about the reign " of a King who reigned for fifty years 
 (1327-77). As to the origin of High Constables, Blackstone is more 
 precise. He ascribes this institution to the Statute of Winchester, 
 13 Edward I. (1285), when it was enacted that M in every hundred 
 and franchise two constables shall be chosen to make the view of 
 armour." f Although Blackstone and all the host who follow him 
 are wrong on this point also, for the Constable of the Hundred is 
 much older than the Statute of Winchester, yet in this connection it 
 is interesting to observe that the latter office appears to be intimate- 
 ly related to the militia system of which the Lord High Constable 
 was the administrative head. By the Statute of Winchester, every 
 man in England was to " have in his house harness for to keep the 
 
 * Blackstone, 855. Compare Lambard. 
 t Stubbs, Select Charters, 474. 
 
peace." All men from fifteen to sixty years of age were to possess 
 anus and armor according to their estate, the highest requirements 
 being "an hauherke, an lielme of iron, a sword, a knife, and a 
 horse;'' and the lowest, simply a how and arrows. The Constables 
 were to make a r ' view of tumour" twice a year, and report all de- 
 linquents to some justice of the peace, who in turn reported them to 
 the King in Parliament. This mode of procedure has its exact 
 counterpart in the presentment of delinquents in arms and armor 
 before the Plymouth and Massachusetts General Courts. 
 
 Other curious parallels between constables of old England in the 
 thirteenth and of New England in the seventeenth centuries are the 
 requirements in the Statute of Winchester that the above local offi- 
 cers shall report defaults in the highways, in watch and ward, and in 
 bringing matters to justice ; but the following is especially note- 
 worthy : Constables "shall present all such as do lodge strangers in 
 uplandish towns for whom they will not answer." The records of 
 Plymouth and Massachusetts colonics arc full of such enactments ; 
 for example in Massachusetts it was ordered "that the cunstables 
 should inform of new comers, if any be admitted without license." 
 It had been enjoined by the General Court that "no towne or person 
 shall receive any stranger" without the allowance of magistrates.* It 
 was ordained bv the town of Newbury, Mass., that no one should 
 be admitted as an inhabitant without the consent and approbation of 
 the body of freemen resilient in that town.f It has been thought 
 that such restrictions upon new comers were marks of Puritan intol- 
 erance. They were simply revivals of old English law. J The Stat- 
 ute of Winchester is said by Canon Stubbs to be "a monument of 
 the persistence of primitive institutions working their way through 
 the substratum of feudalism and gaining strength in the process. " 
 
 For earlier outcroppings of the institutions of the Constable of the 
 Hundred, and the Constable of the town or parish, we have only to 
 turn back to the Assize of Arms,|| 36 Henry III. (1252), whereby 
 in every township one or two constables, according to the number of 
 inhabitants, and in every hundred one chief constable {capital is 
 conxUtbularius) were to be appointed. At the summons of the lat- 
 ter all men sworn to arms wire to muster from their respective hun- 
 
 Mass. Col. Roc. i. 19(1,241. 
 
 t Collin, History of Newbury, '2-',. 
 
 I Besides the evidence on this point in the Statute of Winchester, see also the Writ of 
 1233 for the conservation of the peace (Tie forma pads consorvamla) : Item uulliis bospi- 
 tctur aliqueui extraneum ulna imam noeteiii nisi possit invenive plegins de tidelitate ct quod 
 nullum damnum eveniet per cum, ct res[>ondeat pro eo sieut pro uuo do f.iniilia sua. 
 Stubbs, Select Charters 3<>2. 
 
 Compart* with the aliovc the following extract from the MS. Town Records of Plymouth, 
 Oct. 29, 1(1(58 : "Ordered !>y the Town, that the Selectmen shall henceforth have power to 
 require any that shall receive any strangers, so as to entertain them in t ^ > their houses, to 
 give security unto them to save the Town harmless from any damage that may accrue unto 
 them hy their entertainment of such as aforesaid." It was likewise agreed that John 
 Even-on lie forthwith warned to depart the town with all convenient speed ! 
 
 { Stubbs, Select Charters, 47". 
 
 || Stubbs, Select Charters, 372. 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 drcds and follow his behests in whatever related to the preservation 
 of the King's peace. Whoever were found under arms and not 
 deputed for the above purpose were to be arrested. If they refused 
 to allow themselves to be arrested, then the constables of the hundreds 
 and of the towns were to levy the Hue and Cry upon the offenders 
 and pursue them from town to town (de villa in villain) until they 
 were finally taken. We are here very evidently on the historic track 
 of ancient Saxon customs. We are at once reminded of a law dat- 
 ing back as far as the time of King Edgar (957-975) concerning 
 the pursuit of a thief: "If there be present need, let it be made 
 known to the hundred-man, and let him [make it known] to the 
 tithing-men ; and let all go forth to where God may direct them to 
 go : let them do justice on the thief, as it was formerly the enact- 
 ment of Edmund. We have also ordained : if the hundred pursue 
 a track into another hundred, that notice be given to the hundred- 
 man, and that he then go with them."* There appears to be some 
 connection between the Hundredman of the days of King Edgar and 
 King Edmund (941-946) and the Constable of the Hundred in the 
 day 8 of Henry III. There surely is some relation between the 
 Saxon Tithingman above mentioned and the Norman Petty Consta- 
 ble. Although there is a gap of three hundred years, yet the bridge 
 between these Saxon and Norman institutions is natural and un- 
 broken . 
 
 When the Normans made the conquest of Saxon England they 
 found the country self-governed. The whole land was minutely 
 subdivided into so-called Hundreds, or Wapentakes, and Tithings. 
 The origin of these local divisions is of very great antiquity. They 
 root in the military institutions of the ancient Teutons, whereby kin- 
 dred warriors were mustered by tens and hundreds. The Hundred 
 was the institutional multiple of the Tithing. But in many cases 
 the Hundred was the long Hundred of six score, and it appears that 
 the Tithing was sometimes known as Dozeine (Dizaine-10), for ex- 
 ample in the Year Books of Edward III. It seems probable that 
 the Hundred may have frequently contained twelve Tithings, and that 
 there was some connection between these twelve local units and the 
 judicial representation of the Hundred by twelve men, although in 
 the Shiremoot and Hundredmoot the Tithing, Town, or Parish was 
 represented directly by its Reeve, or Constable, and four best men. 
 Undoubtedly both the Tithing and the Hundred were originally per- 
 sonal in their composition. Ten or more warriors made a Tithing, 
 and ten or more Tithings constituted the Hundred, of which possi- 
 bly a type survives in the militia company of one hundred men, for 
 there is no break between the military institutions of Medvheal and 
 Modern England. When a Teutonic Host, or army, settled down 
 by kith and kin in local precincts bearing the names of families, then 
 
 * Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, i. 259, 261. 
 
11 
 
 Tithings and Hundreds gradually became territorial in character, 
 varying in size according to the amount of land occupied. In the 
 more thickly settled parts of England Tithings and Hundreds are 
 much .smaller than in the more sparsely settled regions. Naturally 
 with increasing population the numerical divisions would not re- 
 main constant. There are cases known where a Tithing contained 
 as many as eighty men. The point was that there must be at least 
 ten heads of families in order to constitute a Tithing, Town, or 
 Parish. 
 
 Doubtless for a long period the Saxon Tithings and Hundreds 
 sent their full quota to the muster of the Host, but gradually public 
 demands diminished until finally, in the reign of Edward III., only 
 one man-at-arms, equipped and furnished for sixty days, was re- 
 quired from each parish, although, if occasion demanded, the quota 
 was increased. The requirement was always made of the Reeve 
 and four best men, as representative of the town or parish. It is 
 interesting to note that, down to modern times, English parishes 
 kept each their suit of "town armour," usually in the parish church, 
 for which reason the arms were sometimes called " church armour,' 
 or "church harness." in the parish records of Kingston-on-Thames, 
 is an item of thirteen shillings, four pence, paid in 1603 "To James 
 Allison and four others, for carrying the armour at the coronation." 
 Here is perhaps the idea of military representation of the town by 
 Iteevc and Four. In the parish records of Fulham, Middlesex, 
 there is the following inventory of parish armor : " Anno 1583. Note 
 of the armour for the parish of Fulham, viz. Fulham side only. 
 First, a corslet, with a pyke, sworde, and daiger, furnished in all 
 points, a gyrdle only excepted. Item, two hargobushes [arque- 
 buses, German hahenbuechse , or gun with a hook, or forked restj, 
 with flaskes ami touch boxes to the same ; two morrvons [helmets 
 without visors] ; two swords, and two daigers, and two hanglesses 
 unto two swords : which are all for Fulhamc side only. All which 
 arinore are, and do remayne, in the possession and appointment ot 
 John l'ulton or Xorthend, being constable of Fulham-syde the yerc 
 above wryttcn." 
 
 The local institutions of England developed from military germs 
 implanted in the village community system of immemorial antiquity. 
 The above example ot' town armor in the keeping of the constable 
 is onlv a historical survival, s u direst in <j- the original martial charae- 
 ter of the entire community. We must regard the local settlement 
 of our Saxon forefathers as tin; permanent encampment of a Teu- 
 tonic Host, by Hundreds and Tithings, or by companies and squads, 
 under the command of Hundredmen and Tithingmen, who mustered 
 their respective quotas from local precincts, and who, in the midst 
 of agrarian pursuits, served as watchful sentinels, ever ready to 
 arouse a peaceful population to arms. With the Saxons the ob- 
 ject of wars and forays was to secure a better footing lor peace. 
 
12 
 
 When the war or expedition was over, it remained the duty of the 
 Hundrcdmen and Tithingmen, as local watchmen and police magis- 
 trates, to keep the peace. Hence arose the civil functions of officers 
 once purely military. The Saxon system of Watch and Ward, 
 which is the germ of our modern police system, the Courts of the 
 Tithing and of the Hundred, which are germs of the town meetings 
 and General Courts of New England, these institutions, together 
 with Petty Constables and Justices of the Peace, were all the out- 
 growths of military beginnings. The ancient Tithingman became 
 the Parish Constable, the keeper of the village peace and of the town 
 armor, whose chief duty, as late as the time of the Tudors, was " to 
 prepare the muster of his district, which the constable of the shire 
 would embody in the array of the county, to be in tui-n marshalled, 
 in the army of the realm by the high constable of England."* Pal- 
 grave says the mailed leader of the Hundred became a rustic peace 
 officer. f But constables and their developed type, the modern 
 policemen, are more interesting historically than justices of the 
 peace, for the former represent the actual survival of a more or less 
 military power in the midst of civil society. Constables may be 
 plain men in civic garb, but let these quiet sentinels of slumbering 
 towns and villages but give the alarm of approaching danger. The 
 whole community springs at once to arms. The entire town, if 
 necessary, becomes a constable's watch. The alarm will quickly 
 spread from hamlet to hamlet, and from shire to shire, until the 
 whole people becomes again an armed host, a Landsturm sweeping 
 peril from its borders. The American Revolution sprang from 
 town meetings in the North and parish meetings in the South, both 
 warned by constables. The great armies levied by both sections of 
 country during our late civil war, were but the uprising of the old 
 militia spirit still lurking in our local institutions. And even the 
 military system of Germany, with its power to draft the entire male 
 population, must be regarded only as a more perfect development 
 of primitive Teutonic institutions of a martial character. 
 
 The Normans reconstructed England upon the basis of existing 
 local institutions. The Hundred and the Tithing: were both retain- 
 ed, the latter, however, under the name of innumerable Townships 
 and Parishes into which ancient Tithings had grown. The- fact that 
 Tithings are not distinctly mentioned under that name in the Domes- 
 day Book is not of such importance as GneistJ and other writers 
 have alleged, for an original Tithing of inhabitants very natu- 
 rally adopted some local name derived either from a leading family 
 
 * The Parish in History, 29. By a hereditary High Churchman. London, 1871. 
 
 t 1'algrave, English Commonwealth, i. 201. 
 
 t Oneist, Verwaltungsrecht, i. 51, 59. But compare Palgrave, English Commonwealth 
 ii. exxi., where he shows that territorial Tithings existed in the reign of Henry III. (1216- 
 72), and, indeed, as early as the reign of Athelstan (925-941). In the Rolls of the Itinerary 
 of Devonshire, 23 Henry III., occur such entries as " Thedinga de Herticumbe," spoken 
 of as synonymous with the " Villa de Herticumbe." 
 
13 
 
 or from geographical surroundings. But the old name of Tithing 
 lingered on, in connection with local names, in very many English 
 counties, in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, and " in all coun- 
 ties south of the Thames (except Kent and Cornwall) where they 
 answer to the townships of other counties."* Tithings still exist in 
 the south-west of England, in Somersetshire and Wiltshire. Mr. 
 Edward A. Freeman, the English historian, during his recent visit 
 to Baltimore, informed us that he lived in the Tithing of Burcott, 
 Wells, County Somerset, which Tithing used to tax itself for local 
 purposes before the recent Poor Law and Highway Act. 
 
 There can be no doubt as to the substantial identity of the insti- 
 tutions of Saxon Tithingman and Norman Petty Constable. In 
 the Polls of Parliament belonging to the rime of Henry VI. ( 1 422 
 61), these officers are spoken of synonymous, " Chescnn Conestable, 
 Tithingman, ou chief Plegge, de ehescun Yille on Hamell.'' The 
 coexistence of the old and new names may be thus explained. The 
 head-men of the more important Tithings became known as Pettv 
 Constables, whereas in the villa and hamlets of less importance, 
 although in the same neighborhood, the old Saxon Tithingmen re- 
 mained. In some places they were called Chief Pledges, Elders of 
 the Pledge or Borhs-Ealdors (corrupted in Lambard's time into 
 Bondholders), Head-Boroughs, Borough-Peeves, Third-Boroughs 
 and the like. 'In some shires," says Lambard, '' where enerie 
 Third Borow hath a Constable, there the officers of the other two 
 be called Third-borowes."f In a special treatise on the duties of 
 the Justice of the Peace, Lambard says: "To be short, euerv Con- 
 stable, petie Constable, Tithingman and Borowhead, be Conserva- 
 tors of the Peace by their offices within the limits of their Hundreds, 
 Towns, Tithings and Boroughs. And by the same reason our Bors- 
 holders in Kent and their Third horow in Warwickshire be Conser- 
 vators also within their Boroughs. For Borowhead. Borsholder, 
 Tythingnian be three seuerall names of one selfesame oilier, and doe 
 signitie, the ehiefe man of the free pledges within the Borow or 
 Tything."| Free Pledge or Frank Pledge is only a corruption of 
 the Saxon Frith-Borh or Pence-Pledge. It was the personal Tith- 
 ing, the Tenmannetale of Yorkshire, or ten men who were bound 
 together, unde' 1 the authority of the Tithingman, to keep the peace. 
 
 The Saxon Tithingman and the Norman Petty Constable were 
 both elective officers. They were the Selectmen of their neighbor- 
 hoods. The Betty Constable, so called to distinguish him from the 
 High Constable of the Hundred, continued to be elected by his Tith- 
 ing, \ ill, or Parish, down to recent times. lie was elected in one 
 of two ways, either in the Vestry-Meeting of the Parish or in the 
 Court Led (German LwAc) or popular Court of the Manor. The 
 Tithingman, Gerefa, lfeeve, or Constable, appears to have acted as 
 
 * Stuhhs, Constitutional History of England, i. 80. 
 r I.ainbanl, Duties of Constables, S. 
 I Laiiibanl, Kiietiaiclia, It. 
 
14 
 
 the a^ent of the Lord of the Manor, or of the Town, in regulating 
 the Tithing and keeping the Peace-Pledge of the little community, 
 but " he seems," says Palgrave, " to have been usually nominated 
 or elected by the tenantry, who chose him by the presentment of 
 the Leet Jury ; at least, such was the general custom after the Con- 
 quest, a custom which was recognized as a part of the traditionary 
 Common Law, and to which we may assign the same antiquity as 
 to the other portions of the system."* Sir Thomas Smith, an old 
 English writer contemporary with the fathers of New England, says, 
 " Constables are commonly made and sworn at the Leets, chosen 
 thereto by the homage : and they keep that office [though usually 
 an annual one in England] sometimes two, three, or four years, 
 more or less, as the Parish doth agree. "f The connection between 
 Parish and Manorial institutions is very close and sometimes confus- 
 ing. The Court Leet appears to have been a kind of popular po- 
 lice court for the town or parish over which a Lord had jurisdiction. 
 The Leet was the common people sitting in judgment upon itself; 
 it was a judicial survival of the primitive Tun Gemot or Town 
 Meeting of the Saxon Tithing. The Vestry, or Parish Meeting, is 
 only another civic form in which this ancient local institution has 
 perpetuated its vitality. In some Parishes the Petty Constable was 
 chosen at the Vestry Meeting instead of at the Court Leet, but what- 
 ever the local custom in regard to the election of the constable, he 
 was required to warn and be present at all Parish Meetings, and, 
 before the time of Archbishop Laud, frequently presided over Parish 
 deliberations. "The Parish makes the Constable," said Selden, 
 " and when the Constable is made, he governs the Parish. "J There 
 can be no doubt but that the Petty Constable, like the ancient Sax- 
 on Tithingman, was once the chief man of his neighborhood. 
 Toulmin Smith says the Constable " formerly took precedence of the 
 Churchwardens in Parish affairs. He long ranked as the first man 
 of the Parish. " 
 
 We must regard the Parish and the Manor as institutions super- 
 imposed upon primitive Village Communities, Tithings, Townships, 
 Hamlets (or Vills) of the Saxons. Mr. Pearson is inclined to be- 
 lieve that " the Tithing in many parts of England was the basis of 
 the manor, the lord becoming the natural president of the Tithing 
 Court, as he bought up the hind or received the service of the free- 
 holders by voluntary transfer."! The Church, too, built upon ex- 
 isting foundations. Pagan villages like Totteridge (the ridge of 
 Tuisco or Tuto), Wednesbury (the borough ofWodan), Torring- 
 ton (the town of Thor), became Christian Parishes.! Mr. Pearson, 
 
 * Palsrave, English Commonwealth, i. 67, 81, 82, 124. 
 
 f Sir Thomas Smith, Commonwealth of England (1621), Book ii. cap. 25, quoted in Toul- 
 min Smith's " Parish," 123. 
 + Selden, Table Talk, " People." 
 S Toulmin Smith, The Parish, 121. 
 \ Pearson, Historical Maps of England, 52. 
 IT " The Parish in History," 6. 
 
15 
 
 in the preface to his Historical Mnps, says the priests adopted the 
 secular divisions which they found ready to their hands. lie has 
 shown in his maps the territorial identity of many ancient Saxon Tith- 
 ings with modern English Parishes and Townships. He says, "Ten 
 families constituted a tithing, the self-governing unit of the state, 
 which is now represented among us by the parish, and ten tithings 
 were a hundred, whose court administered justice among the little 
 communities themselves."* Pearson has shown that the Hundreds 
 of Devonshire contain on the average about ten Parishes each, a 
 strong argument for the historical identity of these civic units with 
 the original territorial Tithings in Devonshire of which Palgrave 
 speaks. 
 
 Most important for this line of inquiry is a principle of the Com- 
 mon Law which has been repeatedly enunciated in England, to the 
 effect that wherever there is a Constable there is a Parish or a Town- 
 ship, f " A separate Constable," says Touhnin Smith, "is an un- 
 questioned criterion of the separate recognition of a Parish. The 
 fact of having a Constable has always been the necessary incident of 
 a Parish or Vill. "J Chief Justice Hale observed on this point: 
 " One Parish may contain three vills : the Parish A may contain 
 the vills A, 1$, C; that is, when there are distinct Constables in 
 every one of them : but if the Constable of A doth run through 
 the whole, then is the whole but one vill in law." The term Vill is 
 the Norman equivalent of the Saxon Tun, Town, or Tithing. 
 Blackstone says, " Tithings, towns or vills arc of the same signifi- 
 cation in law. "|| The Parish often embraced several of these petty 
 local divisions. In the time of Edward IV. some Parishes in Corn- 
 wall are said to have prospered so much as to have become divided 
 into as many as twelve or fifteen parts, each treated as a \ ill by it- 
 self. Doubtless an original Tithing of inhabitants took up more 
 and more waste land as circumstances required, and, doubtless, witli 
 an increasing population, colonial hamlets sprang up, electing their 
 own Tithingmen, becoming independent, or remaining more or less 
 united under the comprehensive name of some one leading Tithing, 
 Town, Parish or Manor, like the Villcs or Parishes composing a 
 New England Town. If 
 
 It is an interesting fact, which has never yet been emphasized, 
 that the origin of New England towns is closely connected with 
 military and constabulary institutions. As the Saxon Tithings and 
 Hundreds began in the local settlement of armed bands, keeping 
 corporate watch and ward, so originated the first " Wards" of IMy- 
 
 * Pearson, Hist, of Kngland during the early Middle Aires, i- '-'"" ) - 
 
 t fineist. Self-Government in Pngland, 8t; Fischel, The Kngli>h Constitution, 323. 
 
 + Touhnin Smith, The Parish, 16, 120. 
 
 I With Iron v. Rosearriot, 1 Modern Hep., 78, quoted liy Touhnin Smith, 120. 
 
 || Blackstone, Commentaries, i. 111. 
 
 il The multiplication of Villes or Parishes within original town limits may he seen in a 
 ease like Newton, now a city, l>ut once a town embracing Newton Outre, Ncwtouvillo, 
 West Newton, Newton Upper Falls, Newton Lower Palls, Auburndalc, Newton Come;-, \r. 
 
1G 
 
 mouth Colony. It should not be ignored that the first landing in 
 New England was not that of missionaries or defenceless exiles upon 
 Plymouth Hock, but of armed men exploring Cape Cod, "with 
 every man his musket, sword, and corslet, under the conduct of 
 Captain Miles Standish." Undoubtedly the motives of the invaders 
 were peaceful, but they came with arms in their hands, actually 
 equipped with " armor" and " coats of malle," with " curtlaxes and 
 short swords." There are repeated references in the Pilgrim Jour- 
 nal to the "armor" which they wore. They say, " We marched 
 through boughs and bushes which tore our very armor in pieces." 
 When the explorers came upon a heap of buried Indian corn, the 
 record says " we set our men sentinels in a round ring, all but two 
 or three, which digged up the corn," of which the company took 
 away as much as they could carry, " for we were so laden with ar- 
 mor that we could carry no more." This corn the Pilgrims after- 
 ward paid for when they found the owners, but their original pro- 
 cedure is very remarkable. The setting of a cordon of sentinels for 
 three men to dig corn was a state of armed peace worthy of the an- 
 cient Saxons. When the explorers thought they were approaching 
 an Indian village, they confess " we lighted our matches [match- 
 locks] and prepared ourselves." Of course they did. They were 
 Englishmen believing in self-defence. Every step of their advance 
 was marked by cautious military measures. One night a great 
 noise was heard. The sentinels called, "Arm! Arm!" The Pil- 
 grims bestirred themselves and shot off a couple of muskets and the 
 noise ceased. The next day a real attack was made by the Indians. 
 Again the little company flew to arms. Captain Standish had a 
 flint-lock ready, and " made a shot," and after him another. He 
 told the rest "not to shoote till they could take full aime." Some of 
 the company ran out from the barricade " with coats of malle on, & 
 cutlesses in their hands," to get their guns from the shallop, which 
 secured they "letflye" among the Indians "and quickly stopped 
 their violence." Thus "it pleased God to vanquish our enemies and 
 give us deliverance."* 
 
 * These details and many more of a similar character may be found in Young's Chron- 
 icles of the Pilgrims (or Dcxter's Mourt's Relation) and in Bradford's History of Plymouth. 
 Plantation. 
 
[Reprinted from the N. E. Historical and Genealogical Register for July, 1882.] 
 
 CONSTABLES. 
 
 Iiv Herbert 13. Adams. 
 
 I^IIE first landing at Plymouth, on "Forefathers' Day," was 
 . by one of these exploring parties. They found there a good 
 harbor for shipping, and they " inarched also into the land," and 
 found divers Indian cornfields, a deserted Village .Mark, with run- 
 ning brooks, altogether "a place very good for situation." So the 
 explorers, who had been ranging up and down Cape Cod for more 
 than a month, returned to the Mayflower which had been anchored 
 all this time in the harbor at Cape Cod, but which sailed into Ply- 
 mouth harbor on the 2(>th of December. On the 28th another 
 exploring party " went a land " and "marched along the coast for 
 some seven or eight miles." Two days afterward, on the 30th of 
 December, which should be forever memorable as the founders' day 
 of Plymouth Town and Colony, the Pilgrims, "after landing and 
 viewing the places came to a conclusion by most voices, to set 
 on a high ground, where there is a great deal of land cleared." 
 There above the open Mark rose the "great hill" upon which the 
 Pilgrims proposed to plant their "ordinance," so as to command 
 the surrounding country. Fort Hill, now called Burial Hill, was a 
 natural acropolis, chosen for the defence of the "town," which was 
 to be built beneath its shelter. The; whole locality they thought 
 could be easily "impaled." This was the very idea of a Saxon 
 Town, from Tun or Zun, a place hedged in. Plymouth Rock well 
 symbolizes, in the popular mind, the landing of the Pilgrims in the 
 place of their settlement, although the final disembarkatiou did not 
 3 
 
18 
 
 occur, perhaps, until March 31, 1621 ;* but on Dec. 30th, 1620, the 
 real corner-stone of Plymouth and of New England was laid in the 
 "conclusion by most voices to set on a high ground," on the sea- 
 ward slope of Fort Hill, which symbolizes the Town-idea of our 
 Forefathers, a self-guarded village community, keeping watch and 
 ward, and maintaining peace within its borders. There upon that 
 acropolis was afterward builte a fort with good timber, both 
 strong and comly, which was of good defence, made with a flate 
 rofe & batllments, on which their ordnance were mounted, and wher 
 they kepte constante watch, espetially in time of danger. It served 
 them allso for a meeting house, and was fitted accordingly for that 
 
 use."t 
 
 It is a noteworthy fact that after the assertion of the democratic 
 principle of "most voices," or a majority vote in the choice of a site 
 for settlement and for the building of a Town, the first institution 
 actually planted was of a military character. Before any Church Meet- 
 ing or regular Town Meeting on shore, before the Common House 
 which first sheltered both was built, the Pilgrims instituted what 
 they called "the court of guard. "J This was a night watch set by 
 those on shore, Monday, January 4, 1621, from fear of the Indians, 
 and for the protection of the products of the Pilgrims' first day's 
 labor in felling timber and providing stuff for building. On the fol- 
 lowing day all able-bodied men came ashore and resumed their labor, 
 but they returned to the ship that night leaving " some twenty to 
 keep the court of guard." Thus, ever on the alert, the Pilgrims 
 proceeded to build their town " in two rows of houses for more 
 
 * 1621, March 21 (31), " a fine warm day. This day with much ado, we got our carpen- 
 ter, that had been long sick of the scurvy, to fit our shallop to fetch all from aboard." 
 Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, 190. 
 
 It may be that this passage refers solely to movable goods, and not at all to passengers 
 yet on board ; but the Journal of Jan. 29 (Feb. 8) says on that day, " Both the lonsr-boat 
 and the shallop brought our common goods on shore" (see Young, 170). And yet after 
 this date we find Pilgrims still on board, for the Journal of Feb. 4 (14) says, " though we 
 rid in a very good harbor, yet we were in danger, because nur ship was light, the goods 
 taken out and she unballasted." It is probable that some of the pilgrim band did not land 
 as early as is commonly supposed, for Bradford (92) speaks of " schuch ot ye passengers as 
 were yet abord," who showed great kindness to the sailors when they in their turn began 
 to fall ill. When the thatch of the Common House was destroyed by fire on the 24th of 
 January, Bradford (100) says " some were faine to retire abord for shilter." There was a 
 constant going to and fro between ship and shore throughout the winter, the men remain- 
 ing on board for days during stormy weather. Probably there never was any general dis- 
 embarkation upon Plymouth Rock at any one time, whether on the 21st of December, 
 when the Mayflower was far away at Cape Cod, or on the 4th of January, according to the 
 view advanced by S. H. Gay, in his article in the Atlantic Monthly, November, 1881, 
 " When did the Pilgrim Fathers land at Plymouth ?" 
 
 t Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 126. It is very interesting that the Ply- 
 mouth Church was first sheltered in the Common House and afterward in a Fort surmounted 
 by six cannon. So fully were the Pilgrims imbued with the martial spirit that they actually 
 marched to church, assembling " by beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front 
 of the captain's door." They marched up Fort Hill three abreast. " Behind comes the Gover- 
 nor, in a long robe; beside him, on the right hand, comes the preacher with his cloak on, 
 and on the left the captain with his side-arms and cloak on, and with a small cane in his 
 hand, and so they march in good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they 
 are constantly on their guard night and day." Letter of De Rasieres, a Dutch officer from 
 New Netherlands, who visited New Plymouth in 1627. See Collections of New York Hist. 
 Society, New Series, i. 362, or Russell's Pilgrim Memorials, 143. 
 
 J Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, 169. 
 
19 
 
 safety." But their first building was a Common House for a "gen- 
 erall randevoze." Here the first Church .Meeting on land was 
 held January 31, 1G21. Here was held the first regular Town 
 Meeting in New England, February 27, " for the establishing of 
 military orders." Miles Standish was chosen Captain, and was given 
 "authority of command in affairs."* This was the first strictly local 
 election in New England. It occurred more than a month before 
 the election of Carver as Governor of Plymouth. To be sure Car- 
 ver had been "confirmed" Governor on board the Mayflower in 
 the harbor at Cape Cod, November 21, 1G20, immediately after the 
 signing of the Compact, but Governors and Assistants had been 
 chosen for each ship " to order ye people by ye way, "J before the 
 Colony set sail from Southampton. It is true John Carver was actu- 
 ally Governor when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth ; but it is also 
 true that Miles Standish was at that time Captain, and had long been 
 recognized as such in the conduct of explorations. The point is, that, 
 in the actual foundation of the Colony at Plymouth, the choice of a 
 military officer to command in affairs antedated the choice of civil 
 officers, just as the "court of guard" antedated the General Court 
 or Town Meeting, in the strictest meaning of those terms, although 
 of course the "common sense of most" was the actual basis even 
 of these martial institutions for defence. The salus publica was 
 the foundation principle of Plymouth as of all civil society. 
 
 Immediately after the election of Standish, the popular assembly 
 was broken up by the appearance of two savages on Strawberry Hill 
 or Watson's Hill. The Townsmen armed at once and sent their 
 headman, Captain Standish, accompanied by Stephen Hopkins, 
 across the intervening Town Brook to parley with the Indians. 
 From this time on, for many years, Captain Standish served as Chief 
 Messenger for the Town Meeting, General Court or Folkmoot of 
 Plymouth. He was chief spokesman in parleys with the Indians. 
 He demanded of the fishermen at Cape Ann the restoration of Ply- 
 mouth property. lie arrested Morton at Merry Mount, and levied 
 the expense of sending the rogue back to England upon Cape Ann 
 and other local plantations then existing in New England. He ar- 
 rested Indians and kept them in custody. lie protected the lite of 
 one Indian siniplv because he was "a messenger," it being against 
 " the hni' <>f units in Europe to lay violent hands on any such." 
 He exercised the right of life and death over Indians beyond Ply- 
 mouth borders, for in Massachusetts, at Mr. Weston's feeble planta- 
 tion, where certain treacherous savages were plotting the destruction 
 of all the settlements, Standish and his men shut up the leaders in a 
 cabin and there killed them, " striving to the last." Other Indians 
 were killed or hanged by his orders. He returned home to Ply- 
 mouth, says the Pilgrim record, " in safety, blessed be God! and 
 
 * Young's Clironich-softlic Pilgrims, 180. 
 t Bradford, Hist, of Plymouth Plantation, r>8. 
 
20 
 
 brought the head of Wituwamat with him," which was "brought to 
 the fort and there set up." There is something old English about 
 this method of procedure. It looks like primitive martial law. 
 During the absence of Standish an Indian had come into Town who 
 was suspected of being a spy. By order of the Governor he was 
 arrested, taken to the Fort, " locked in a chain to a staple in the 
 court of guard, and there kept," being told that he must remain con- 
 tent "till the return of Captain Standish from Massachusetts."* 
 
 What shall we call this Captain of Plymouth's Guard, this Keep- 
 er of the Town's Fort or Castle, this leader of expeditions, this or- 
 ganizer of militia by "squadrons or companies," appointing his own 
 officers, holding " a general muster or training,"! this Captain-Gen- 
 eral who became in 1645 the head of a military commission appoint- 
 ed by the four United Colonies of New England, but who still " con- 
 descended" J to review the local militia of Plymouth, this Marshal 
 exercising the right of life and death in the conduct of Indian cam- 
 paigns, this Martinet of a little village, where the first offence was 
 John Billington's " contempt of the Captain's lawful command with 
 opprobrious speeches," the offender being therefor " convented be- 
 fore the whole company and adjudged to have his neck and heels 
 tied together"? What shall we call the man under whose direc- 
 tion all such penalties must have been executed in early Plymouth? 
 Surely not a mere Petty Constable, not simply a Captain of the local 
 Militia, for he had also authority of command in public affairs. He 
 was a colonial officer of the martial type, sometimes carrying the 
 law in his own person like an ancient Roman prastor, an Earl 
 Marshal or a Lord High Constable of England. Let us call Miles 
 Standish the first martial representative in New England, as Miles 
 of Gloucester was the first representative in Old England, of the 
 iron hand of sovereign constabulary power, whence the " lower con- 
 Btableship was drawn and fetched, as it were, a very finger of that 
 hand." 
 
 In the year 1632 it was ordered by the General Court " in re- 
 gard of our dispersion so far asunder, and the inconveniency that 
 may befall," that every inhabitant provide himself a sufficient musket 
 or other serviceable piece for war, also with ammunition. || Such 
 
 * Standish's Expedition against the Indians of "Wessagusset, in Young's Chronicles of 
 the Pilgrims, 336-45. The above details have been gathered from Moun's Relation and 
 from Bradford's History of the Plymouth Plantation. 
 
 t Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, 284. 
 
 J Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Second Series, vol. x. 60, " Notes 
 on Duxbury." 
 
 $ Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, 199. This being "the first offence " committed 
 in Plymouth, it was pardoned upon the culprit humbling himself; but soon after two ser- 
 vants, who had fought a duel, were adjudged to the above Old English penalty, which was 
 duly inflicted. John Billington was afterward, in 1630, hung for murder, being tried and 
 executed by due forms of law. See Hutchinson, Hist, of Massachusetts, vol. ii. 413. The 
 execution must have been under the supervision of Captain Miles Standish, for there was, 
 at that time, no other High Sheriff or Constable in PIvmouth Colony. The first differentia- 
 tion of these offices did not occur until 1634. 
 
 || Plymouth Col. Records, i. 6; Laws, 14, 31. For "Public Armcs," see Laws, 51, 1C5; 
 " Jowncs Armes," 181. Town Armor ! 
 
21 
 
 requirements, involving constabulary inspections and the evolution 
 of a system of penalties for default in armor, carry us back to the 
 ancient Statute of Winchester, whereby every man in the kingdom 
 was obliged to have in his house defensive armor for keeping the 
 peace; or, to the still earlier Assize of Arms (1181 ) whereby the 
 freemen of every community were to have each a doublet of mail, 
 a head-piece of iron, and a spear.* New England is linked to Old 
 England by an iron chain of martial habits and martial institutions. 
 Captain Miles Stnndish and the Town Constables of Plymouth Col- 
 ony are as much links in this chain connecting the beginnings of our 
 Towns with the Parishes of the mother country as if these men had 
 come over to New England with the Town Armor and Parish Rec- 
 ords of their native hamlets. In fact, the Pilgrims entered New 
 England in coats of mail, armed also with the Town idea and the 
 Common Law. "There already ay in the Mayflower's cabin," 
 said Rufus Choate, "was representative government. There already 
 was the legalized and organized town, that seminary and central 
 point and exemplification of elementary democracy. "f 
 
 By the law of England, the criterion of the existence of a Parish 
 or Township is the presence of a local Constable. It is worth while 
 to apply this criterion to a study of the genesis of Towns and Par- 
 ishes in New England. We do not suppose that this has always been 
 a conscious standard for legislative action in the recognition of towns 
 or for the actual determination of Town or Parish units, but we 
 claim that without a Constable, or some power representing the cor- 
 porate responsibility of the community for the preservation of the 
 local peace, a Town would be an impossibility. There have been 
 Towns in New England without Selectmen, without Ministers, with- 
 out a Church or a Common School, but theie never was a Town 
 without a Constable, lie is the sine qua non of an organized Par- 
 ish or Township, and that by the authority of the Common Law, 
 than which there is no greater authority in the history of English 
 institutions. Miles Standish was practically the first Constable of 
 Plymouth. lb; was the first officer chosen with "command in 
 affairs." There is no evidence of the existence of anv other Consta- 
 ble at Plymouth until flan. 1, Ki.*54, when Joshua Pratt was "cho- 
 sen to the office of messenger and constable tor Plvmouth, and sworne 
 to faithfulnes in the same. "J The Constable of Plymouth in his ca- 
 pacity of Messenger, appears to have been a kind of High Sheriff". In 
 l(i.">7 we find a Plymouth man sworn Messenger for the whole Gov- 
 ernment and Constable for the Town of Plvmouth. The duties of 
 Messenger, according to the earliest law upon the subject, were to be 
 ready at the Governor's command or anv of the As>i.tants' warning, 
 to doe such service as shall be appointed for the good of the seve- 
 
 * Stul.hs's SHi'ct Charters, l.'i-t. 
 
 t LilV anil Writiturs ot'Riifii* Clioati', i. :)>'>. 
 
 I t'lyiitouth Col. Itecurds, ; 21. 
 
22 
 
 ral Colonies,* within this Government," and to be esteemed a pub- 
 lic officer for the execution of warrants in any part thereof. The 
 use of the plural form " Colonies " as synonymous with Towns or 
 Plantations within the Government of Plymouth, is curious and sug- 
 gestive. As Constable for the special " ward " of Plymouth, this 
 officer was to have charge of the region from Jones's River south- 
 ward, as far as any inhabit. He was to serve as " Jaylor to 
 keep such as shall be committed." He was to execute punishment 
 and penalties, and to give warning of marriages approved by civil 
 authority. He was furthermore to act as Sealer of Weights and 
 Measures, and as Surveyor of land, according to government orders. 
 In his oath the Meesenger swore loyalty to the King, and promised 
 to promote " the welfare of the severall Colonies w ,h in this Gov- 
 ernment of New Plymouth," and as "Constable in the ward of 
 New Plymouth," to see that his Majesty's peace be not broken. f 
 Here, therefore, in the hands of one local officer, we see a bundle of 
 powers derived from the Petty Constable of the English Parish, the 
 High Constable of the Hundred, and the High Sheriff of the 
 County. 
 
 On the very day Joshua Pratt was chosen Constable and Messen- 
 ger for Plymouth, Christopher Wads worth was "chosen constable for 
 the ward of bownded between Jones River & Green's Harbour, and 
 to seme the King in that office for the space of one whole yeare & 
 to enter upon the place with the Gov r elect. "J In like manner and 
 at the same time, Anthony Amiable was chosen Constable for the 
 Ward of Scituate. The omission of the name Duxbury in the first 
 instance is interesting, for the omission implies that the locality 
 bounded by Jones's River and Green's Harbor was literally a Ward 
 of Plymouth, although there can be no doubt as to the identity of 
 the place with Duxbury, which name, according to Justin Winsor, 
 was bestowed in compliment to Standish, who settled in the above 
 region, and whose ancestral acres in England were known as Dukes- 
 berry. M As early as 1630," says Winsor, "for facilities of pastur- 
 age and better planting, lands had been occupied in Duxbury, the 
 people returning- to Plymouth in the winter for better housing and 
 ease of attending worship. ' In the Plymouth Colony Records, 
 under the date 1632, we find a formal agreement on the part of 
 Captain Standish, John Alden, Jonathan Brewster and Thomas 
 Prince, to move back into Plymouth for the winter time, in order 
 that they may the better repair to the worship of God.j| In 1634 
 " a palisade was ordered to be made beyond the creek at Eagle's 
 Nest, where Standish, Brewster and Pay body lived, "1[ and that same 
 year a Constable's Ward was instituted in the above district. 
 
 * Plvmouth Laws, 18. f Ibid, 19. 
 
 t Plymouth Col. Records, i. 21. 
 
 Winsor, Historical Account of Plymouth Colony and County. 5, in Plymouth County 
 Atlas, G. H. Walker & Co., Boston, 1878. 
 i| Plymouth Col. Records, Book of Deeds, 6. 
 <ft Collections of Mass. Hist. Soc, Second Series, x. 68. 
 
23 
 
 The term "Ward," first used in designating Duxbury as a civic 
 unit, is a very important connecting link between the Parish insti- 
 tutions of Old and New England. Wards are familiar enough in 
 modern city politics, but historically City Wards were derived from 
 Hundreds, each Ward being under a Hundredes Euldor of Alder- 
 mannus Ihmdreti, and each Ward having subdivisions called 
 Tithings or Precincts."* But Old English Parishes had also their 
 Wards and Precincts, which were often synonymous with Villa or 
 Townships. The Parish Ward was simply a Constable's Beat or 
 District. The term Ward is derived from the Saxon Weard or 
 Guard, and is closely connected with the ancient system of Watch 
 and Ward, from which our modern police system has evolved. Both 
 Watch and Ward were under the direction of a local Tithingman 
 or Constable. The Ward was kept by day and the Watch by night. 
 By the Assize of Arms (1"2")2), for enforcing Watch and Ward, 
 there were to be appointed in every Vill or Parish four or six men, 
 according to the size of the place, who should watch throughout the 
 night from sunset to sunrise, and if any stranger attempted to pass 
 them, they were to arrest and detain him until the morning, when, 
 if he could give a good account of himself, he was set free, but if 
 he proved a suspicious character, he was handed over to the Tun 
 Gerefa or Town Constable. Jf strangers would not allow them- 
 selves to be arrested, the aforesaid watchman levied the Hue and 
 Cry upon them, that is, they raised the Town and pursued the fugi- 
 tives with shouts and cries from Parish to Parish, until they were 
 finally captured, cum clamore et hutesio (Hue and Cry) de cilia 
 in villain, donee capiantur.\ 
 
 The ancient Plymouth records contain frequent allusion to "those 
 on Duxborrough Side." In old English usage, a '' >\^\v " was 
 something more than the name would seem to imply : it was ;i dis- 
 trict, an outlying quarter of the Town or Parish, but frequently an 
 organic part of the same, like Fulham Syde of Fill ham Parish. The 
 Syde hail its Sydcinan,^ whose duties were much the same as those 
 of a Tithingman or Petty Constable. A Syde without a local officer 
 was only a geographical idea. A Sydeman made the place a civic 
 community. The term Side is not uncommon in the Towns of New 
 England ; for example, East Side in the Town of Woburn. The name 
 frequently occurs as the designation of a particular neighborhood as 
 lying on this or that side of the Town, just as we say " North End" 
 or " North Part." Vills, like Sides in New England, are frequently 
 
 * Pnl^rnvc, Knslisli Commonwealth, i. 200 ; Thorpe, Ancient Law- and Institutes of 
 England, ii., Glossary, " Hundredes l-'.aldor." According to Stul.hs, u< tin North of V.wf.- 
 lanil ' the shire:* arc divided int.. Wards, and to the south into Hundreds." Const. Hist, 
 i. 96. 
 
 t Stubhs's S ( let-t Charters, .".71 . See also Statute of Winchester. l'JSo, for similar regula- 
 lations conecmiiif: Watch and Ward, Stuidis's Select Charters, 47-1-4. 
 
 I In the 4 .lac. I., cap. v., we find penalties prescribed lor lie repression of drunkenness, 
 and the presentment of offenders is made one of the duties of " CuUst.ddcs, Churchward- 
 ens, HeuUboroughs, Tithingmen, Aleeunners and Sydcmcii." 
 
24 
 
 mere localities without any organic life, although the Vill is usually 
 more personal, for example, Iiellogg\'\l\e, whereas the Side is more 
 geographical, taking its name usually from some point of compass. 
 But a Side or a Vill without a Constable has no civic existence in 
 the Common Law. 
 
 We must regard Duxbury Side as a Vill or Parish of Plymouth 
 until June 7, 1637, when it was recognized as art independent, self- 
 governing " township "* by the General Court. A church, or chapel 
 of easement, was established on Duxbury Side as early as 1632, but 
 the existence of a Church does not constitute a Parish according to 
 the Common Law. The Parish is a civil institution both in origin 
 and history. The only fact which gave Duxbury, in 1634, a legal 
 existence as a Vill or Parish within the Town or larger Parish of 
 Plymouth was the election in a Plymouth Town Meeting of a Con- 
 stable for that Ward. As a Church-society Duxbury enjoyed nei- 
 ther unity nor pastoral headship for several years after her first set- 
 tlement. Many of her leading citizens continued to attend church 
 at Plymouth, and there was no regular minister in Duxbury until 
 1636.f But the presence or settlement of a minister does not make 
 a Parish. In point of law and in point of fact, however, Duxbury 
 was a Parish unit from the moment Christopher Wadsworth was cho- 
 sen Constable for a Ward J of Plymouth bounded by Jones .River 
 and Green's Harbor. 
 
 For several years after 1634 Constables for the Wards of Duxbury 
 and Scituate continued to be chosen in Plymouth Town Meeting. 
 For instance, it was agreed January 1, 1635, that Christopher 
 Wadsworth and Anthony Annable, Constables of Duxbury and Scit- 
 uate, should continue in their places another year. The practice 
 of electing Constables in the presence of all the freemen of the colo- 
 ny appears to have gone on lor several years after the recognition 
 of Duxbury and Scituate as independent self-governing Towns, but 
 we are inclined to suspect that, from the very beginning of constab- 
 ulary elections, the candidate was nominated by the neighborhood 
 or precinct which he was appointed to govern. In 1645 we find 
 " constables chosen by the severall townships and presented to this 
 court and sworn. "|| Plymouth and Scituate then had two Consta-. 
 bles each; Duxbury, Sandwich, Marshfield, Barnstable, Yarmouth, 
 
 * Plymouth Col. Records, i. 62. Cf. ii. 31, for an interesting case where " eich side of the 
 towne, viz. the Eele Kiuer and Joames Riuer shall for eich side bring six musketts w th 
 shott, pouder, and the towne of Plymouth other six euery Lord's day to the meeting with 
 their swords and furniture to euery piece, ready for service if need require." 
 
 t Clark, Historical Sketch of the Congregational Churches in Massachusetts, 15. Win- 
 sor, History of Duxbury, 171. 
 
 J '1 he use of the term " Ward " for a germinant town was very general throughout Ply- 
 mouth Colony. Constables were always sworn to serve in such and such a Ward (Laws, 
 10), always corresponding to a local settlement or Plantation ; for example, "the ward of 
 Barnstable (Plym. Col. rtec, i. 137) One of the most interesting cases is the " Ward of the 
 River Kcnnebecke " (iii. .59), the Pilgrim trading-post. This ward was something like the- 
 Constables' Beats along the rivers of Alabama. 
 
 Plymouth Col. Records, i. 32. || Ibid, ii. 83. 
 
25 
 
 Taunton, Rehoboth, each one Constable. In 1052 the Constables 
 of Sandwich, Yarmouth and Eastham were allowed "to be sworne 
 at home."* Thus gradually the Towns of Plymouth Colony settled 
 back into old English Parish usages of electing and qualifying their 
 own Petty Constables, just as these same towns gradually became 
 known under good old English names, although for the most part 
 planted in old Indian localities, and at first designated as such. 
 
 The process of reproducing the Parish institutions of the mother 
 country could not have been entirely an unconscious one with the 
 settlers of Plymouth Colony. Constabulary oaths expressing loy- 
 alty to the King prove that the colonists still felt themselves Eng- 
 lish subjects and under the sovereignty of English law. The cor- 
 respondences between the local institutions of Plymouth and those of 
 old England, are too striking to admit of other interpretation than 
 conscious imitation. In the prefaces to their Law books, the Ply- 
 mouth legislators confess that they did not reject such of the laws of 
 their native country "as would conduce vnto the good and grouth of 
 soe weak a begining as any Impartial! eye Not forstaled with pre- 
 judice may ezely deserne."'!' The Plymouth lawgivers even re-insti- 
 tuted Tithings for the government of the Indians by a system of 
 Frank Pledge. As the conquered Saxons, living under Norman 
 lords, were held to right in their own villages by a system of Ten- 
 mentale under their own elected Tithingmen, so the Indian villagers 
 were bound to keep the peace in groups of ten, each group under 
 the charge of an Indian Tithingman, whose duty it was to " take 
 the inspection, care, and oversight of his nine men and present theire 
 faults [and] Misdemenors to the overseer, "| who was appointed by 
 the Governor. The white overseer and the Indian Tithingmen ap- 
 pointed Indian Constables, holding office for a year, whose duty it 
 was to attend the courts kept among the Indians for the purpose of 
 " ciuilliseing " them, and to execute the warrants of the Overseer. If 
 an Indian servant of a white man ran away into an Indian neigh- 
 borhood, the Indians with whom he took refuge were bound by law 
 to give immediate "notice of the said Runaway to the Indian Con- 
 stable who shall imediatly apprehend such Indian servant ; and 
 cany him or her before the Overseer or next Majestrate, whoe shall 
 cause such servants to be whipt ; and sent home by the Constable to 
 his or her master whoe shall pay said Constable for his service." || 
 
 It was required by law that " in every Constableriek there be a 
 paire of stocks and a whipping post erected. Also a cage wn, shall 
 be of competent strength to detainc a prisoner. & these to be erected 
 in such places as shall be thought meet by the severall neighbor 
 hoods where they concerne, vpon the penalty of X s. lor any towne- 
 
 Plymouth Col. Records, iii. 8. f Ibid, Laws, 72. 
 
 + IM<1. 253. 
 
 $ Ibid, '2.'}'.t. Courts were held also among the Indians of Massachusetts. Mas.-. Col. 
 Hoc, ii. KS8. 
 || Ibid, 2.55. 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 ship w ch shalbe defectiue herein."* Such local institutions as the 
 Town Cage,t the Parish Stocks, the Whipping Post, and a Consta- 
 ble to superintend whippings, cannot be explained as indigenous to 
 New England, for they are the common inheritance of all English 
 colonies in America. One Parish custom in particular clearly allies 
 the Towns of Plymouth Colony with Old English Parishes, and that 
 is the method of dealing with Tramps. By a law of 1661, reenacted 
 in 1663, it was ordered by the General Court of Plymouth, that 
 " if any person or persons shall come into this Gouvernment, that 
 according to the law of England may justly be accounted vaga- 
 bonds ; the Marshall or the Constable of the Towne wherevnto they 
 come, shall apprehend him or them ; and vpon examination soe ap- 
 peering ; hee shall whip them or cause them to be whipt with rodds ; 
 soe as it exceed not fifteen stripes ; and to give him or them a passe 
 to depart the Gouvernment, and if any such person or persons shal- 
 bee found without theire passe ; or not acteing according therevnto 
 they shalbee punished again as formerly. "$ 
 
 The above regulation was first revived at Plymouth, not by Stat- 
 ute but as a part of English law, for as early as 1641 we find that 
 Jonathan Hatch was taken as a vagrant, and for his misdemeanors 
 was censured to be whipt, & sent from constable to constable to 
 Leiftennant Davenport at Salem. " How minutely this procedure 
 corresponded with old English Parish usage may be seen by exam- 
 ination of Lambard's Duties of Constables, where it is said to be 
 incumbent upon the Constable, Headborough, or Tithingman of the 
 Hundred, Parish or Tithing, to arrest every Rogue and publicly 
 whip him upon the bare back until it be bloody, and then send him 
 from Parish to Parish, by the officers of the same, until the Rogue 
 come to the place where he was born ; but if that place is not known, 
 then to the Parish where the Rogue last dwelt for a whole year ; 
 and if that also is unknown, then to the Parish through which the 
 Rogue last passed without receiving a flogging. || Such a vigorous 
 policy would probably exterminate the modern Tramp. 
 
 The law against vagabonds was applied with considerable severity 
 to strolling Indians. It was enacted by the General Court that no 
 Indian should remove from one place or " plantation " to another 
 without a permit in writing from his " overseer," declaring whither 
 he was going, for what reason, and how long he was going to stay. 
 If any Indian was found without his pass, he was arrested by the 
 Constable of the place into which he came, taken before "the next 
 overseer," who made the Indian pay a fine of five shillings " or be 
 
 * Plymouth Col. Records, Laws, p. 11, 95 circa 1636. 
 
 t Cages were set up in the market places of the larger towns in Massachusetts. Mass. 
 Rec, v. 133. 
 
 t Plymouth Col. Records, Laws, 206. 
 
 $ Plymouth Col. Records, ii. 36. 
 
 || Lambard, Duties of Constables, 45-6. Compare with Lambard's Eirenarcha, 204. The 
 English Statutes are full of legislation regarding Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars, 
 e. g. 7 James I. cap. 4. 
 
27 
 
 whipt and sent home to his owne place." If there was no local 
 "overseer" of Indians in the place whither the vagabond came, then 
 "the English Constable in that Towne " discharged the above office.* 
 If Indians were found drunk in any "Township," they were taken 
 by " the Constable of the Towne and sett in the stockes."f By ano- 
 ther law, the penalty for the first offence was five shillings " or be 
 whipt;" for the second, ten shillings "or be whipt; and soe for 
 euery time any of them shalbe convicted of drunkenes before any 
 Court, Majestrate, ouerseer, tithingman or English Constable. "J 
 The judicial functions of old English Parish officers are here revived. 
 It is noteworthy that the first Selectmen of Plymouth Colony had 
 judicial duties. 
 
 The close connection between Petty Constables and Tithingmen 
 in Plymouth Colony is evident from the coexistence of these institu- 
 tions in the regulation of Indian Tithings and Indian villages, and 
 from the fact that, in early Plymouth Towns, Constables discharged 
 the Sunday duties, which, in later times, were usually associated 
 with the office of Tithingman, although, as we have elsewhere 
 shown, the Tithingman in early New England was by no means 
 a mere Sunday Constable or ecclesiastical whipper-in, but the 
 head- man of a neighborhood of at least ten families, as in Saxon 
 England. From the laws of Plymouth Colony we learn that great 
 abuses had arisen in sundry Towns by reason of certain persons be- 
 having themselves profanely on the Lord's day, staying out of 
 Meeting, playing, Jesting, and sleeping in the vicinity of the Meet- 
 ing House. The Constables were instructed to take notice of such 
 persons and to "sett them in the stockes." The Constables were also 
 to prevent " vnessesary violent ryding on the Lord's day."j| All 
 these peculiar customs originated, not with the Pilgrims or Puri- 
 tans, but in the Parishes of Old England. 
 
 The reproduction of constabulary institutions in the Massachusetts 
 Colony we cannot notice in detail, but the process was immediate, 
 and even more perfect than in Plymouth Colony. At the third 
 Court of Assistants held at ( 'liarlestown September 2*. K>30, John 
 "Woodbury was chosen Constable of Salem, and Thomas Stoughton 
 Constable of Dorchester. At a Court held three weeks later, Con- 
 stables were appointed for Charlestown, Roxburv and Watertown.^T 
 It is not likely that these colonial appointments were anything more 
 than the confirmation of existing officers and of candidates presented 
 
 * Plymouth Col. Records. Laws, 254. 
 
 t Ibid, ML t Ihiil, 2-j.J. 
 
 $ " Tithiugiiien," Proceedings of American Antiquarian Society, Now Ser., vol. i. Part 3. 
 
 || Fly mouth Col. Records, Law;,, 214, 'J'.'t. Compare the Sunday duties of Plymouth 
 Constables with tho<e of the Salem Constables, see extract from MS. Town Records, 1 67*, 
 in Osgood and Ihitchelder, Sketch of Salem, 17: " three constables are to lie at the three 
 great doors of the meeting-house and allow none to go out till all the exercises are Mulshed. 
 All the hoj - are to sit on the three pair of stairs in the meeting-house, inelmliiig those of the 
 pulpit. One constable is t,. keep tin doe- ..lit of the meeting-house." This otlleu reminds 
 us of the I)oj;-\Vliipper in Knglisli Parishes. 
 
 l Mass. Col. Ree.,i. 7i. 1'J. 
 
28 
 
 by a local constituency. John Woodbury, who "did now [in 1630] 
 take the oath of a constable," was the old planter who had been 
 sent as messenger to England in 1626 by Roger Conant and his 
 companions. In 1628, before Captain Endicott came over, old 
 Naumkeag had levied a local tax* of 1 10 shillings, in payment 
 of an assessment made by Plymouth colony for the expenses incur- 
 red by Captain Miles Standish in arresting Morton at Merry Mount 
 and in sending the rogue back to England. Who more likely to 
 have collected and paid over this tax than faithful John Woodbury ? 
 In 1629 Gov. Endicott received orders from the Massachusetts 
 Company to " appoint a carefull and dilligent overseer to each fami- 
 ly, "f With the adoption of this system, which is the first approach 
 in New England to the old English system of Tithingmen, it is 
 highly probable that some one family overseer should have had su- 
 perior authority over all the rest, just as did the " overseer " appoint- 
 ed by the Governor of Plymouth colony, over the Indian Tithing- 
 men throughout Plymouth towns. Governor Endicott was distinctly 
 instructed! by the Massachusetts Company to look into the work- 
 ings of his government by families, and, if need be, to make an 
 example of offenders ; " otherwise," said the Company, " your 
 government wilbe esteemed as a scarcrow." Correction, they 
 added, was ordained for the fool's back. As a wholesome warning 
 to offenders, " a house of correction " was to be instituted. Endi- 
 cott had authority to inflict punishment according to the nature of 
 the offence and the laws of England. Public whippings and com- 
 mitment to a lock-up or house of correction imply the existence of a 
 Constable. When, therefore, we find Captain Endicott at the Court 
 of Assistants, September 28, 1630, nominating John Woodbury as 
 Constable for Salem, we are inclined to think it was merely for the 
 sake of confirmation under the new government, and that John 
 Woodbury was already quite familiar with constabulary duty. 
 
 Let us now sum up in brief the more important functions of Petty 
 Constables as reinstituted in New England. The following enu- 
 meration is drawn from the laws of the Massachusetts Colony, but 
 what was true of the local institutions of that Colony is true to a great 
 extent of other New England Colonies. Every one of the following 
 duties has its Old English prototype : a Constable had power to 
 " whipp & punish " or to provide for the same ; to send or convey 
 persons " from connstable to connstable ; " to " speede away all hues 
 & crys " against thieves, robbers, murderers, manslayers, peacebreak- 
 ers, on penalty of forty shillings in capital cases ; to apprehend with- 
 out warrant all persons " overtaken with drincke," all profane 
 swearers, Sabbath breakers, vagrants, night-walkers ; to search, for 
 
 Morton, New England's Memorial (ed. 1826), 142; Gov. Bradford's Letter Book, 1624- 
 30, in Collections of Mass. Hist. Soc., 1st series, vol. 3, p. 63. 
 t Mass. Col. Rec., i. 400. 
 t Massachusetts Col. Records, i. 393, 397, 400, 401, 405. 
 
20 
 
 such persons in suspected or disorderly places and in houses licensed 
 to sell beer or wine ; not to apprehend by order of magistrate with- 
 out a warrant ; to warn any person to assist him, and none to refuse 
 on penalty of ten shillings ; to " carry his black stafFe " in execution 
 of his office that none may plead ignorance ; to take notice of " com- 
 mon coasters, vnprofitable fowlers, & other idle persons, & tobacco 
 takers and of such as harbor any young people, children, servants, 
 apprentices, students or schollers," without hastening them to their 
 respective employments ; to aid custom house officers in the search 
 for wines, by breaking open cellars, &c. ; to levy all fines and 
 " gather all toune rates ; ; ' to clear accounts with the " countrje Tre- 
 surer ;" to register in a book all lost goods or strays and to cry the 
 same at " three generall toune meetings or lectures ; " to present the 
 names of all persons refusing " to watch & ward ;" to begin " the 
 constables watch " annually on the first of May and not give over 
 nntil the last of September : to see that the watch be of " sufficient 
 able men, & not youths; " to secure or commit K any inhabitant or 
 stranger after tenne of the clocke at night, behaving themselves de- 
 boist,"* and not giving a good account of themselves to "ye con- 
 stable or watchman," the Constable to carry them before a maixis- 
 trate the next morning ; to provide " at the tonnes charge " all 
 weights and measures required by law for "toune standards," and, 
 upon warrant from the " toune sealer " to warn all inhabitants to 
 bring in their weights and measures to be tried and sealed ; to serve 
 all attachments as may be directed in any civil case ; to " warne the 
 freemen of theire toune in the 2d week of March annually to mete 
 together ; " to make return under their hand of the names of depu- 
 ties ; to pay the Marshal General three pence out of every attachment 
 that may be served ; to execute warrants for the choice of jurymen, 
 and to warn the persons chosen ; in case of the untimely or unnatu- 
 ral death of any person, to "summon a jury of twelve discrcetc 
 men " to inquire into the cause and manner of the death ; to give 
 warning unto the inhabitants of their town of husbands living 
 apart from their wives ; not to refuse the office of a Constable being 
 orderly chosen thereto under penalty! of five pounds, and if in 
 Boston, ten pounds : "incase; of any servants running from theire 
 master, or inhabitants going privily away, with suspition of the in- 
 tention, in ye absence of a magistrate, the connstable and two of the 
 clieife inhabitants is to presse men, boates and pinnaces, at the puh- 
 lique charge, to pursue such persons by sea or land, <& bring them 
 
 Dohoist, perhaps from tin' past participle of "dcliosh," an old English corruption of 
 debauch, tn he found in Beaumont ami Fletcher. 
 
 fin Old England penalties were ever) where in vogue for refusing local offices. I.ani- 
 hard gives abundant examples. It was regarded a- a duty I'm- the best men in the Parish to 
 serve in the office of ("on -table, ami that by a system of rotation, not indeed for the sake of 
 spoil, but in order that the burden of the office might be shared by all We have a> yet 
 found no English precedent for the town policy of A-hbv, M i->.. which from 1811 to ls;C>. 
 sold the office of Constable to the highest bidder. See Drake. S. A., Hist, of Middlesex 
 Countv, i. 2'2o. And yet military offices used to be sold in Englund. 
 
30 
 
 bncke by force of armes ; " to inform the Court of all new comers 
 who settle themselves without license.* 
 
 This remarkable list of duties, which we have given in the very 
 language of the original laws, comprises, together with the control of 
 Highways nnd Bridges, the chief substance of constabulary duty in 
 early New England. By comparing this list with that given in the 
 Humphrey manuscript-warrants of constabulary duty issued in Old 
 England, it will be seen that the early English institution was repro- 
 duced in every essential detail. f The original object of Massachu- 
 setts in proclaiming its constabulary law was that " each connsta- 
 ble may vnderstand his duty." The object of the English warrants 
 was to give the " Articles to be diligently enquired of by the Petty 
 Constable & Tithingmen in euery parish, town, & hamlet." This 
 spirit is very different from the degenerate conception of Constables 
 entertained by Blackstone, who says of constabulary power, " con- 
 sidering what manner of men are for the most part put into these 
 offices, it is perhaps well that they are generally kept in ignorance." 
 Our Forefathers in England and New England made their best men 
 Constables and Captains of Militia, and clothed both offices with 
 dignity and honor. Historically the one office is as honorable as 
 the other, for Constables and Commanders of the Militia were in 
 ancient times one and the same. Militia Captains represent more 
 fully perhaps the survival of the original constabulary spirit, the 
 idea of armed force, which is the foundation and defence of all civil 
 institutions. 
 
 But Constables, in their civil capacity, are also cases of historic 
 survival. Every one of the powers enumerated above, however 
 ignorant the modern Petty Constable may be of their full signifi- 
 cance, links the communal life of to-day to its Old English be- 
 ginnings. Every item of constabulary duty is an assertion of a fun- 
 damental principle in civil society, the sovereignty of the communi- 
 ty, of the salus publica, over the individual. The Constable rep- 
 resents the organized force of the State or Commonwealth. The 
 
 * Mass. Col. Records, iv. Part 1., 324-27. Cf. ii. 150-1. See also Laws of the Colony and 
 Province of Massachusetts Bay ( 1814), 82-81, and the recent edition of the Acts and Re- 
 solves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, under " Constables." Public Statutes of 
 Massachusetts (1882), "Constable." We have examined the Colonial Records of Con- 
 necticut, the New Haven Colonial Records, and the Records of the Colony of Rhode Isl- 
 and and Providence Plantations, as well as those of Plymouth Colony, but have no where 
 found so complete an exhibition of constabulary duty as that given in the first citation of 
 the Col. Records of Massachusetts. In the last edition of the Public Statutes of the Com- 
 monwealth of Massachusetts (1882) may be found certain cases of survival, such as the 
 power of requiring aid in cases of escape (217,239), and the duty of enforcing the law 
 against Sabbath-breaking and profane swearing. 
 
 t For other means of comparison between constabulary duty in New England and Old 
 England, see Lambard's " Duties of Constables," and Wilcox's " Office of Constable, com- 
 prising the laws relating to High, Perty and Special Constables, Head boroughs, Tithing- 
 men, Borsholdera and Watchmen, with an account of their institutions and appointment." 
 This is an English book, based upon Lambard and published about 18 17, republished in 
 Philadelphia, in 1840, by John S. Littell, in the so-called " Law Library." There are some 
 interesting remarks upon Constables in The Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1881, by Henry A. 
 Blake, on "The Irish Police." He says, " Everything in Ireland, from the muzzling of a 
 dog to the suppression of a rebellion, is done by the Irish constabulary." 
 
31 
 
 entire strength of the People, the whole weight of the Common Law, 
 the accumulated force of civic experience and institutional history, may 
 be brought to bear in the restraint of violence and in the keeping of 
 the public peace by constabulary power. Consider what was rep- 
 resented by the "black staffe " which the Constables of early New 
 England carried in the execution of their office, that none might 
 plead ignorance. It was a black staff, "about five foote, or five & 
 a halfe foote long, tiped at ye upper end, about five or six inches, 
 with bras.se."* This Tipstaffe was something like the Black Rod 
 still borne by the Gentleman Usher of the English Parliament, when 
 he taps at the door of the House of Commons and summons them 
 to the bar of the House of Lords. The black staff of the New Eng- 
 land Constable was " provided by ye towne " as a symbol or badge 
 of office. AVe find mention of the Black Staff in the Town Records 
 of Salem and Groton.f What did this emblem signify historically? 
 It meant the approach of royal authority or of the sovereignty of the 
 Commonwealth. Among the East Saxons it was customary, once 
 a year, to carry the Wardstaff of the King, which represented his 
 person, from Hundred to Hundred, from Manor to Manor, and from 
 Parish to Parish, as a token of the entrance of the King's peace. 
 Wherever the Staff came, borne by the Bailiff of Ongar Hundred, 
 tenants and land-owners kept watch with the sacred emblem over 
 night "until the sunne arrising," so that "the King be harmless and 
 the countree scatheless." In the morning the Lord of the Town or 
 Manor repaired to the Wardstaff, and, in the presence of all the 
 Watch, scored thereon a notch as a token of loyal service done that 
 year. Then the Staff was delivered again to the Bailiff and sent on 
 to the Lord of the next Town or Manor, with a message in verse 
 'called the "Tale of the Wardstaffe," ending with these words : 
 
 " Sir, by leave, take this Staffe, 
 
 This is the Tale of the AYardstafic.'' 
 And thus through all the Towns and Hundreds of Essex, the 
 willow staff was borne until it came to Atte Wode, where it was 
 thrown into the sea. J "With some such ceremony perhaps the Con- 
 stable's Tipstaffe was early associated as symbolizing the presence 
 of the King. Possibly the local keepers of tjie King's peace simply 
 touched the Wardstaff with their own staves, thus deriving a certain 
 measure of royal authority. It was certainly the custom in the Hun- 
 dreds or Wapentakes of the North of Lngland for the chief men of 
 the district to recognize the authority of the Ilundredman by touching 
 
 * Mass. Records, ii. 1.51 ; iv. Part T. 32.5. Constables "acting from their mine authority " 
 were required liy law to take witli them their lilaek staves in the execution of their office ; 
 but when armed with a warrant, they might carry their Tipstaffe or not, as they pleased, 
 see v. 29. Items concerning the use of this ancient emblem may also be found in the Acts 
 and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Hay. c. g. i. 1 ">'. 
 
 t Salem Town Records (Historical Collections of iv-scx Institute, Second .Series, vol. i. 
 147: "two hlaekstauesof sixc foot long or thereabout be provided for ye Constables, & Kd: 
 Batter to speak to (Iran: Perrv to banc them made." S. A. Green, Kailv Records u! tiro- 
 ton, 19 : Item " toe black stall; 3 (>." 
 
 I Palgrave, English Commonwealth, ii. clviii.-clxii., " Tale of the Wardstaff." 
 
32 
 
 his lance with their own weapons in a public assembly.* If we may- 
 believe Herbert Spencer, the idea of royal sceptres developed from 
 the chieftain's spear, and " the spears borne by subordinates, sym- 
 bolizing their deputed authority, gradually changed into staves of 
 office, batons of command, and wands. "f The Old English Tip- 
 staffe was the legal badge of office for both Constables and Tithing- 
 men in the Massachusetts Colony. In the Plymouth Towns every 
 Constable was required by law to have " a constables staffe " to distin- 
 guish him in the discharge of his office, and to be delivered to his 
 successor as a symbol of the transfer of power .J These Tipstaves 
 have continued in use in many New England Towns down to a very 
 recent date. We remember to have seen within a few years at Am- 
 herst College Commencements, held in the old Parish Meeting 
 House, a force of special Constables employed to seat the " congre- 
 gation," and bearing black staves as an emblem of their official au- 
 thority. An aesthetic transformation of ancient custom may be seen 
 at Smith College Commencements, Northampton, where young 
 ladies acting as ushers carry tasteful wands, tipped, not with brass, 
 but with ribbon, and where the only vestige of constabulary duty 
 is a male professor, who stands on guard. 
 
 Perhaps the most remarkable feature of ancient constabulary power 
 as perpetuated in New England down to the present day, is the pow- 
 er to "speede away all hues & crys" against thieves, robbers, mur- 
 derers, and breakers of the public peace. This power connects New 
 England Towns most intimately, not only with Old English Parishes 
 but with Saxon Village Communities. In the early middle ages 
 the Hue and Cry was a terrible means of executing justice. It let 
 loose an entire village, like a pack of wolves, in pursuit of an out- 
 
 * Laws of Edward the Confessor, xxx. (Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of Eng- 
 land, i. 455). Everwichescire, Nicholescire, Notingeharascire, Leicestrescire, Norhamtun- 
 escire, et usque ad Watlingestrete, et viii. milliaria ultra Watlingestrete, sub lege An- 
 glorum. Et quod alii vocant hundredum, supradicti comitatus vocant wapentagium, et 
 hoc non sine causa: cum enim aliquis accipiebat prefecturara wapentagii, die constituto, 
 conveniebant omnes majores contra eum in loco uhi soliti erant congregari, et, descendente 
 eo de equo suo, omnes assurgebant contra eum, et ipse erigebat lanceam suam in altum, et 
 omnes de lanceis suis tangebant hastam ejus, et sic confirmabant se sibi. Et de armis, quia 
 arma vocant wappa, et taccare, quod est confirmare. 
 
 t Herbert Spencer, Ceremonial Institutions, 177. In Hazlitt's edition of Blount's Ten- 
 ures of Land and Customs of Manors, p. 80, is a very curious allusion to the Tithingman's 
 wand. "The Tithingman of Combe Keynes is obliged to do suit at Winfrith-court ; and 
 after repeating the following incoherent lines, pays threepence, and goes out without say- 
 ing another word : 
 
 With my white rod, 
 And I am a fourth post, 
 That threepence makes three, 
 God bless the King and the lord of the franchise ; 
 Our weights and our measures are lawful and true, 
 Good-morrow, Mr. Steward ; I have no more to say to you. 
 On default of any of these particulars the court leet of Combe is forfeited." 
 % Plymouth Colony Records, Laws, 122 ; Brigham's edition of Plymouth, Laws 
 (1836), 266. "Every Constable shall have a Black Staffe tipped with Brasse, as a 
 Badge of his office, which as he hath opportunity, he shall take with him when he 
 goeth to discharge any part of his office, yet notwithstanding, the want of his staffe shall 
 not hinder him from executing his office in any kinde, if occasionally he be without it, nor 
 exempt any from assisting him therein that may know him to be the Constable." 
 Mass. Col. Records, iv. Part I. 324. 
 
33 
 
 law or fugitive. Every man called upon by the Reeve or Tithing- 
 man was obliged to leave work or repose and join the human hunt. 
 When the Hue and Cry reached the next village, the head man of 
 that place was obliged by the law of the Saxons to summon his 
 villagers and speed away. The whole Hundred and the whole Shire 
 were thus quickly aroused, and woe then to the wretched outlaw. 
 The country was filled with human hounds thirsting for his blood. 
 It is fearfully significant of the immense power invested in the early 
 New England Constable that he too could raise the old Saxon Hue 
 and Cry, "by foote, & if need be, by horse,"* in hot pursuit of all 
 capital offenders. In the King's name the Constable could raise the 
 Town and compel all men to join him in the pursuit of a criminal. 
 Not even the Selectmen could refuse his call for aid, under penalty 
 of the law.f And to this day the Petty Constables of New 
 England have the same old power. Should it become necessary, 
 the lowly officer of any obscure hamlet could assert, like the High 
 Sheriff^ of a County, the authority of the Commonwealth and com- 
 mand all the men in his neighborhood to join him in the preservation 
 of the peace. Petty Constables have the power of the State behind 
 them, and rely upon it. We have seen a crowd of men called upon 
 by a Parish Constable to aid him in arrest. The familiar cry of " Stop 
 Thief! " if raised by a Petty Constable, converts all persons who 
 hoar it into a constabulary band, or regular Hue and Cry to chase the 
 offender. With a warrant issued in due form, a Petty Constable 
 may pursue a criminal by foot or by horse, by railroad or tele- 
 graph, from Town to Town, from County to County, and may "ap- 
 prehend him in any place in the Common wealth. " 
 
 In these modern times of civic order and well-regulated peace, the 
 iron hand of Law is seldom laid with its full force upon a transgressor. 
 Constables occasionally serve a writ, or arrest a vagabond "overtaken 
 with drincke," but the chief duty of their office now appears to be 
 that of attending to their own private concerns and ignoring the 
 pranks of small boys. The Constable may be a quiet, unobtrusive 
 man, but Ik; still represents the majesty of Law. There is latent 
 power in the constabulary office, as in all our homely local insti- 
 tutions. The authority of the Townsmen sometimes sleeps, but it 
 is a lion sleeping before the gate of a citadel. The young lions of 
 liberty play fearlessly within the reach of Law, and still the lion 
 sleeps. But let an enemy approach from without, or a traitor come 
 forth from within. Lehold, a lion stands in the way. There is 
 a lion in the street. 
 
 * Mas. Col. Records, ii. 182. t Ibid, ii. 150. 
 
 X Public Stiitutes of M;i*v. ( IK82). *J i 7 . '-!.'$'.>. 
 
 } Ilcnick, Town Otliecr (IMV), Ml. Public Statutes of Mass. (ISS'2), J3.I. 
 
34 
 
 Addendum. 
 Hog-Reeves or Hog-Constables. 
 
 In many old Towns in New England, for example in the ancient 
 Town of Plymouth, there is a surviving type of a local officer, 
 which is more primitive than the office of Tithingman or Petty Con- 
 stable. Before there were keepers of the village-peace in the Sax- 
 on sense, there were keepers of swine which roamed tribal domains. 
 Before nomad chieftains had stables and hostlers, they had their 
 flocks and herds and droves of swine, all with appointed herdsmen. 
 Although doubtless every chief had his servants trained for tribal 
 defence, as did Abraham his three hundred and eighteen men,* yet 
 pastoral institutions, like the herdsmen of Gerar who strove with 
 Isaac's herdsmen, f carry us back to a more rudimentary stage of soci- 
 ety than a numerically organized martial Host, like the Hundreds 
 and Tithings of the Saxons when they occupied Britain. In fact 
 the invading Saxons brought with them, in all probability, ideas of 
 older institutions than Hundredmen and Tithingmen, in short primi- 
 tive, more or less servile institutions, inherited by their ancestors from 
 the high pasture-lands of Asia, and connecting our Aryan race with 
 all pastoral peoples, if not with primitive savagery. Among those 
 institutions was that one of which Scott has given us a graphic de- 
 scription in the person of Gurth,J the Saxon Swine-Herd, who in 
 the upland pastures of the West Riding of Yorkshire represented not 
 merely the survival of primitive Saxon speech, but the survival of a 
 primitive pastoral office. In fact Scott calls him a second Eumauis, 
 who was the S wine-Herd of Odysseus. In Saxon England Swine- 
 Herds were a very necessary institution. Swine were so numerous in 
 the days of King Edgar that he was obliged to proclaim a law to the 
 effect that no animal of this species should be allowed to enter Church 
 if it could possibly be hindered. Hog-Reeves and Dog-Whippers 
 were stationed at cathedral doors in time of service to prevent pro- 
 fane intrusion. The function of dog-whipping was handed on to 
 New England Tithingmen and Constables, who sat at the doors of 
 the Meeting- House to keep out dogs and keep in boys. Hogreeves 
 were almost everywhere instituted in our early Towns. 
 
 In New England the very first liberties specifically granted to 
 Towns were concerning the herding of cattle and swine, and the reg- 
 ulation of fences and common fields. In the colonial records of 
 
 * Genesis, xiv. 14. f Ibid, xxvi. 20; cf. xiii. 7. 
 
 % Scott, Ivanhoe, chap. i. " One part of his dress . . . was a brass ring resembling 
 a dog's collar soldered fast around his neck, so loose as to form no impediment to his 
 breathing, yet so tight as to be incapable of being removed, excepting by the use of the 
 file. On this singular gorget was engraved in Saxon characters, an inscription of the fol- 
 lowing purport: ' Gurtb, the son of Beowulph, is the born thrall of Cedric of Rother- 
 wood.' " Rotherwood is an old name designating a place for Rother-beasts (from the 
 Saxon hrudher, mod. Ger. Rind). The term was usually applied to cows and oxen. Rother- 
 beasts are mentioned in the 3 and 4 Edward VI. Rother-beasts were brought over to New 
 England, see White's Planter's Plea, in Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts. 
 
 $ Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, ii. 251. 
 
35 
 
 Massachusetts we find resolutions like the following : " Euery towne 
 shall haue liberty to make such orders aboute swine as they shall 
 judge best for themselues."* Towns were ordered to choose yearly 
 " 6ome one discreet person, who shalbee called the hogreeve, "J who 
 had power to seize all " wild swine," going without a keeper, with- 
 out yoke or tethering line, or some means of restraint. Swine were 
 often allowed to run at large if properly yoked or ringed. | It is 
 rather surprising to one familiar with the open lawns and beautiful 
 streets of Stockbridge, the model town of Berkshire, to find in its 
 original Town Records repeated entries like the following : " Voted, 
 that the hoggs be yoked and run at large by the 15th of April next." 
 In Stockbridge the llogreeves, as indeed all Town Officers, with the 
 exception of Moderator and Town Clerk, were originally Indians. 
 The Town Records are full of strange, uncouth Indian names, which 
 appear all the stranger from their combination with Old Testament 
 or Christian names ; for example, Jehoiakim Xau-naum-pe-tonk, 
 Constable ; David Xau-nau-nee-ke-nuk, Tithingman ; Jacob Nau- 
 nauqhtaunk, Hogreeve ; Solomon Waunaupaugus, Peter Popgun- 
 aupeet, and John Konkapot, Selectmen. We find " hog constibls 
 and lens uewers " in the Early Records of Groton, recently edited 
 by J)r. Samuel A. Green with careful reference to historical ortho- 
 graphy. The variety of ways in which Groton Town-Clerks con- 
 trived to spell || the same office is marvellous to behold. Evidently, 
 like General Jackson, they despised a man who could spell a word 
 in only one way. 
 
 The election of llogreeves is still kept up in many old New Eng- 
 land Towns. The conferment of that office at the annual Town- 
 Meeting is now regarded as a kind of municipal joke. Almost in- 
 variably the honor is given to persons who are least likely to appre- 
 ciate it, for example to newly married men. In the town of Ply- 
 mouth a rising young lawyer and a Harvard graduate, soon after his 
 marriage, was dignified by his fellow townsmen with the venerable 
 office of Hogreeve. Jn a Western Massachusetts Town we have 
 heard of a popular minister who was elected Hogreeve by the unani- 
 mous vote of his parishioners. He retaliated in a little speech, say- 
 ing that he had always supposed that he had been invited to that 
 town as a shepherd of the sheep, but he was now surprised to learn 
 that it was really as keeper of quite a different sort of animals. 
 
 * Muss. Records, i. 11!); of. i. Ill), 86, 87 ; Plymouth Col. Records, Laws, 15, 'J-'). '27, '!-!. 
 
 t Mass. Records, i. 1S2. In (iroton, Mas-., there were Swine-Herds and Overseers of 
 the Swine. See Green, Kaiiv Records, 111, 11"), "Swinerd." 
 
 { Green, Early Records of Groton, IN, 108; Town Record.- of Salem, 64,08, So, 130, 143, 
 152. 
 
 jS MS. Town Records of Stockbridge, March 15, 1748. 
 
 || Green, Kurly Records of Groton, SS; cf. DU, " Constibll; " 98, " Constabclle ;" 'A 
 " cunstabell;" 10S, "feucfuer;" 115, " fence ueers," llfi, "fene newer." 
 
36 
 
 Documents defining the Duties of Constables. 
 
 18 Somerset Street, Boston, Mass., 
 Sept. 15, 1881. 
 H. B. Adams, Esq., 
 
 Dear Sir : Jonas Humfrey,* of Dorchester, the ancestor of the family 
 (Humphrey or Humphreys) in that town, arrived in " 1637," on " the 
 9 th of September."! The next clay, as appears by the Dorchester Town 
 Records, he bought the house, home lot, and other lands of William Han- 
 num.t This home lot has been in possession of the family to the present 
 time, and is now owned and occupied by Deacon Henry Humphreys, of the 
 seventh generation in descent from Jonas,who was, according to tradition, a 
 constable in Wendover, co. Bucks, England, before coming to this country. 
 Tradition further states that he brought with him two original papers in 
 which the duties of a constable are set forth very explicitly, in twelve arti- 
 cles. The first document sent you with this, I carefully copied from one 
 of those papers. The second was transcribed from a manuscript copy. 
 The original of the latter $. saw and made a fac-simile of more than thirty 
 years ago. I am sorry to say that both the original and the fac-simile are 
 now missing. Yours truly, 
 
 William B. Trask. 
 
 To the Constables of Wendouer Burrough cum fforence|| and to eu'y of 
 them 
 
 These are in his Ma t8 : name to will & require yo w to giue notice of these 
 Articles hereunto annexed to the Church wardens & ou'seers of y e poore of 
 yo r pish and that both you and the said Church wardens & ou'seers doe 
 bringe vnto his Ma u : Justices at the Red Lyon in Wendouer on Wednes- 
 day the 27 th . of this Instant Moneth of June by Eight of the Clock in the 
 forenoone their Presentm'*: according to each Articles as they shall be- 
 longe to their seu'all offices And farther that Yo w : doe certifye to his 
 Ma 18 Justices exactly w l : Alehouses are licensed and W l : vnlicensed w th in 
 yo r lib'ties Strictly enioyning all the said Alehouse keepers licensed and 
 vnlicensed not to fayle to be before his Ma ts : Justices at the same tyme and 
 that w th the aduice of the minister & some three o r fower of the most Sub- . 
 stantiall Inhabitants yo w doe certifye vnto them what number of Alehouses 
 are fit to be licensed in you r pish and what psons are fittest to keepe them 
 and alsoe that you certifye to them what psons there are that doe vsually 
 vent & sell Tobacco by retayle in yo r towne & of their fitnesse soe to doe, 
 together w th the names of such othe r psons as you shall thinke fitt to be 
 admitted to vse that trade together with the trade w ch they now vse And 
 farther that you keepe a diligent and strict Warden by daye & Wacth by 
 night and that you doe vpon Tewsdaye the 26 th of this Instant June take 
 
 * See History of Dorchester, 101, 124. 
 
 t Manuscript of the late Deacon James Humphreys, who died in Dorchester, July 13, 
 1845, aged 92 years. 
 
 t See Fourth Report of the Record Commissioners, Boston, 1880, page 24. 
 
 } Clapp Memorial, xvii., 274, 275. 
 
 i| " The parish of Wendover includes the Borough and the Forrens, the latter being tha t 
 portion, within the limits of the township, which was not entitled to burgage privileges." 
 Ibid, xvii. 
 
37 
 
 w th you sufficient ayde and make a priuate & dilygent search w lh in yo r lib- 
 ertyes fo r Rogues vagabonds and idle persons & that yo w bringe before his 
 Ma' 8 : Justices to the place aforesaid on the sayd 27 th day of June all such 
 of them as shall seeme stuidve dangerous and incorrigible and that yo w : doe 
 punish & send away accordinge to law all such as are not dangerous & in- 
 corrigible and that yo w : be then & there p r sent to giue a strict accoirrpt of 
 the due execution hereof fayle not dated this 20 th day of June 1632 : 
 Ifrom S' Leonards p me W"' Gkaunge 
 
 You and the Church wardens remember to pay the q'teridge fo r the kings 
 bench Marshalseys and inayned souldyers to me on the Day abouesayd at 
 yo r towne. 
 
 Warrant Bucks. 
 
 Articles to be diligently enquired of and distinctly & particulary an- 
 swered unto in writing by the high Constables within every hundred, and 
 by the petty Constables & Tithing men in euery parish, town & hamlet, at 
 the assises to be holden for the Countye of Bucks. 
 
 1. You shall enquire of and truely report the name of all Popish recu- 
 sants in your parish who do forbeare to repaire to the Church according to 
 the law. The names of men & women or dame of the Who do not 
 familye, The names of the servants by their surnames I ordinarily 
 
 & names of baptisms, the names of all Schollmasters resort 
 
 And you shall certifye the names of all such persons, as to the Church 
 make or resort unto any pryvate Conventicles, or meetings, under colour of 
 exercise of religion. 
 
 2. You shall present the names of all such, as doe not resort to devine 
 service every Sunday according to the law, & Certifye. whether the 12 d for- 
 feyted be required & received and duely imployed for the poore ; of whom it 
 hath been levied & of whom neglected. 
 
 .'5. You shall certifye, what felonyes have been comited within your 
 towne & parish, which have come to your knowledge : against whome, of 
 what kind & nature. & who hath prosecuted the same ; & if any robbe- 
 ry es since the assises last past have been committed, you certifie whether 
 hue and cry have been made, and the same have been duely pursued by 
 horsemen & footmen, or in whose default, or by whose negligence the 
 same hath fay led to be duely pursued, & also whether watches have been 
 duely kept for the apprehension of fellions or vagrants, or by whose default 
 the same have been neglected. 
 
 1. You shall Certify'', what, vagrant persons have been apprehended 
 within your parish since the tynie aforesaid, and what lett pass not, appre- 
 hended, or not punished ; who have been sent to the house of correc- 
 tion, when &, how they have been delivered from thence ; & liv whose neg- 
 ligence same hath happened, & who have relieved such vagrants with meat, 
 drink, or lodging. 
 
 5. You shall enquire & certifye what cottages erected, by whom, & by 
 whose mealies contrary to the statute of 3 d Kli/. & what inmates intertayn- 
 ed, & by whom. 
 
 b. You shall certifye how many tavernes, innes, alehouses, it typling 
 houses their arc in the parish, who keep the same, how long they have kept 
 them. & which of these alehouses are licensed, and which not, & in what 
 
38 
 
 places their houses stand, & whether they sell ale or beere according to 
 the assise or not; which of these innes intertayne neighbours as alehouses ; 
 who hath been drunk within the parish since the last assise, & in what inne 
 or alehouse, the same hath hapned, & who have mayntayned any urdawful 
 games their. 
 
 7. You shall enquire who are or have been since the tyme aforesaid in- 
 grossers, forestalled, regrators, of corn within said county, or any other 
 county, who dwell or reside within your precinct, what kind of corne or 
 grain & of what quantitye they have been ingrossers, & forestallers, or re- 
 grators ; & who are maltsters within your parish to sell there mault againe, 
 & who use brew houses for ale or beere within your parish, & who of them 
 6ell to any unlicensed alehouse. 
 
 8. You shall certifie the names of all the petty Constables in your towne 
 & parish, & their abilyties, & by whom they have been made, nominated, 
 or chosen to the end that men of abilytie & good discretion maybe choseu 
 to these places. 
 
 9. You shall enquire, & certifye, what servants have been put out of 
 service, or have put themselves out of service, & their termes not expired, 
 where this hath hapned, & what is become of such servants; & what un- 
 married persons of able bodye live out of service, whether they have meanes 
 to live without labor ; if they doe labor, who sett them on worke. 
 
 10. You shall enquire what bridges, or high waves are in decay in your 
 parish, & through whose default the same hath hapned. 
 
 11. You shall enquire and certifie what causes are provided in your 
 parish for setting the poore on worke, or how or by what meanes the 
 poore are sett on worke in your parish ; & what apprentices have been 
 placed, or bound forth in your parish, & who refused to receive & keep any 
 apprentice soe offered to be put forth by the Justices of peace ; what bas- 
 tard hath been born within your parish, who the mother, who the reputed 
 father, how they have been punished, & how the bastard provided for. 
 
 12. You shall enquire & certifie what ryotts have beene committed in 
 your parish, within the time aforesayd, by whome, when & how the same 
 hath beene punished. 
 
 High Constable of the hundred shall call the petty constables before him, 
 a weeke before the Assises, & receive their answers in writing, to every one 
 of these 1 2 articles. 
 
 And, the High Constable & every of the petty Constables shall affirme 
 the truth of their Certificates upon their Oath, on or before the Assises, be- 
 fore one of the Justices of the peace, a week before the assises or at the 
 monthly meetings of the Justices of that division. 
 
 You are to returne answer Jo. Heath 
 
 in writing to euery of Fv s Haynes 
 
 these 12 articles to me 
 at Wendouer the 27 th 
 of June alsoe. 
 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 IN 
 
 Historical and Political Science 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History is past Politics and Politics present History. Freeman 
 
 IX-X 
 
 VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 
 
 CAPE ANNE AND SALEM 
 
 From the Historical Collections of the Essex Institute 
 
 By HERBERT B. ADAMS, Ph. D. 
 
 BALTIMORE 
 
 Published ry tiik Johns Hopkins University 
 
 JULY AND AUGUST, 1883. 
 
JOHN MURPHY & CO., PRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
IX-X 
 
 VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 
 
 CAPE ANNE AND SALEM 
 
"The nature of everything is best seen in its smallest portions." Aristotle. 
 
 " The doctrine of the sovereignty of the people came out of the townships and took 
 possession of the states. Political life had its origin in the townships ; and it may almost 
 be said that each of them formed an independent nation." Be Tocqueville. 
 
 " By Cape Anne there is a plantation a beginning by the Dorchester [England] men, 
 which they hold of those of New Plimoth." Captain John Smith. 
 
 "In planting the colony at Cape Ann, the stock was consumed, but a foundation was 
 laid on which now rests one of the leading States of -a great nation." Babson, Hist, of 
 Gloucester. 
 
 "There are in all of us, both old and new planters, about three hundred, whereof 
 two hundred of them are settled at Nehum-kek, now called Salem, and the rest have 
 planted themselves at Masathulets Bay, beginning to build a town there, which we do 
 call Cherton or Charles town." Higginson. 
 
 "Some native merchant of the East, they say, 
 (Whether Canton, Calcutta or Bombay), 
 Had in his counting-room a map, whereon 
 Across the field in capitals was drawn 
 The name of SALEM, meant to represent 
 That Salem was the Western Continent, 
 While in an upper corner was put down 
 A dot named Boston, SALEM'S leading town." Rev. Charles T. Brooks. 
 
THE 
 
 FISHER-PLANTATION 
 
 AT 
 
 CAPE ANNE 
 
 Br Hkkuekt B. Adams. 
 
 Early in the year 1(524 Robert Cushman, the chief bus- 
 iness agent of the Pilgrim fathers, wrote Governor Brad- 
 ford from England: "We have tooke a patente for Cape 
 Anne." 1 This patent, which may be seen in the library of 
 the Essex Institute at Salem, was issued by Lord Sheffeild, 
 a member of the Council for New England, to the asso- 
 ciates of Robert Cushman and Edward Winslow, the latter 
 having been sent to England in 1623 in the interests of 
 Plymouth Colony. The patent gave "free liberty, to rb'sh, 
 fowle, hawke, and hunt, truck and trade" in the region of 
 Cape Anne. Five hundred acres of land were to be re- 
 served "for puhlig vscs, as for the building of a Towne, 
 Scholes, Churches, Ilospitalls" and for the maintenance of 
 such ministers, magistrates, and other local officers as 
 might be chosen by the corporation. Thirty acres of land 
 
 1 Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation. MO. 
 
 (3) 
 
were to be allotted to every person, young or old, who 
 should come and dwell at Cape Anne within the next 
 seven years. These allotments were to be made "in one 
 entire place, and not singling indyvers or remote parcells." 
 The whole grant was not to exceed one and a half miles 
 in length along the water front. A yearly rent of twelve 
 pence were to be paid Lord Sheffeild for every thirty acres 
 occupied. Authority was given to make laws and ordi- 
 nances for the government of the plantation and to repel 
 intruders by force of arms. 
 
 Such was the legal basis for the settlement and defence 
 of an English town upon Cape Anne, where Gloucester 
 was afterwards built. In these provisions for local gov- 
 ernment, schools, churches, hospitals, freehold land tenure, 
 and commons for public use, we recognize the leading in- 
 stitutions which have entered into the town -life of New 
 England. The idea of all these institutions originated in 
 Old England, and ancient statutes of the realm are full of 
 legislation regarding them. Even the Yankee disposition 
 to truck and trade, to hunt and fish, was inherited from 
 a nation of traders and adventurers, and by them from 
 their Germanic forefathers. English commerce and Eng- 
 lish colonies sprang primarily from the amber-dealing 
 tribes of the Baltic and sea-roving, colonizing bands of 
 Northmen. The spirit of Saxon and Norman enterprise 
 dawned upon New England from shores beyond the 
 ocean. 
 
 But the Fisher Plantation at Cape Anne proved for the 
 Pilgrims a failure, partly because, as Bradford says, 
 "they made so pore a bussines of their fishing ;" 2 and 
 partly because of the exorbitant charges by English mer- 
 chants for advancing colonial goods. Bradford says, 
 
 * Bradford, 197. 
 
"they put 40 in ye hundred upon them, for profite and 
 adventure, outward bound ; and because of ye venture 
 of ye paiment homeward, they would have 30 in ye hun- 
 dred more, which was in all 70 per cent !" 3 The audacity 
 of these shop-keepers who wrote their "loving friends" 
 about " ye glorie of God and the furthrance of our coun- 
 trie-men" is, however, less amazing than the fearless en- 
 terprise of the colonists who dared to assume such finan- 
 cial burdens, and actually succeeded, in a few years, in 
 paying oil" a debt of 2,400. They did it by an extensive 
 fur-trade with the Indians, whom they paid in wampum, 
 the value of which the Pilgrims had learned from Dutch 
 traders, and the art of manufacturing which from qua- 
 haugs and periwinkles, they probably acquired from the 
 Narragansetts. 4 
 
 * Bradford, 201. James Shirley, one of the English capitalists, writing to Gov- 
 ernor Bradford, says: ''It is true (as you write) that your ingagments are great, 
 not only the purchass, but you are yet necessitated to take up y stock you work 
 upon ; and that not at 6 or 8 per cent, as it is here let out, hut at 30. 40, and some 
 at 00 per cent, which, were not your gaiuos great, and God's blessing on your honest 
 indeaours more then ordinarie, it could not be y< you should longe subei6te in 
 y maintaining of, & upholding of your worldly affaires" (Bradford, 228-9). Such 
 facts are very solid testimony in favor of the business energy of the Pilgrim 
 fathers. 
 
 4 "That which turned most to their profite," says Bradford (234) "was an 
 entrance into the trade of Wampampeake" (wompam and peag). They learned 
 the value of this kind of currency from the Dutch who " tould them how vendable 
 it was at their forte Orania" (Fort Orange, or Albany). The Pilgrims bought 
 50 worth of this shell money from the Dutch, and introduced it in payment for 
 beaver and other peltry, among the inland tribes of New England, and at the 
 Plymouth trading post on the Kennebec. "At first", says Bradford, very naively, 
 " it stuck, & it was 2 years before they, [i. e. the Plymouth people] could put of 
 this small quantity, till y* inland people knew of it; and afterward they could 
 scarce ever y<tt enough for them, for many years togeatlicr." We have been told 
 by a local antiquary in Plymouth that the Pilgrims established a manufactory of 
 fiat wampum upon Plymouth beach. Probably they got the idea from the Ithode 
 Island Indians, "for," as Bradford says, "ye Narigansets doe geather ye shells of 
 which yey make it from their shors" (235). Compare Hubbard's History of New 
 Kngland, to 100; Wheildon's Curiosities of History, 32; Arnold's Ithode Island, 
 i, 81 ; Collections of Rhode Island Hist. Soc., iii. 20 et scq. There appear to have 
 been two sorts of shell-money ; 'the black or dark-purple, which was made from 
 quahaugs or round clams, ami the white, which was made from the stem of 
 periwinkles. J. Hammond Trumbull says " wompam was the name of the white 
 
6 
 
 English speculators were not slow to realize the pos- 
 sible advantages which might accrue from an occupation 
 of the stern and rock-bound coast of New England. 
 Even before the issue of the Cape Anne patent to men of 
 Plymouth, certain merchants from the west of England, 
 especially of Dorchester, 6 had sent their agents to catch 
 fish off the promontory of Cape Anne, which in 1614 had 
 been named "Tragabizanda " by Captain John Smith "for 
 the sake of a lady from whom he received much favor 
 while he was a prisoner amongst the Turks," 6 but which 
 soon gracefully yielded to the baptismal name of the con- 
 sort of King James. In 1624, encouraged by the fame of 
 New Plymouth and by the Rev. John White of Dorches- 
 ter, the merchants of that neighborhood sent over sundry 
 persons to carry on a regular plantation at Cape Anne, 
 "conceiving that planting on the laud might go on equally 
 with fishing on the sea." John Tylly was appointed 
 overseer of the fisheries and Thomas Gardener, of the 
 plantation, at least for one year. At the end of that time, 
 
 beads collectively; when strung or wrought in girdles, they constituted waumpeg 
 .... The English called all peag, or strung beads, by the name of the white, 
 wampom," see pp. 140, 175-7, of his edition of Roger Williams, " Key into the 
 language of America," Publications of the Narragansett Club, vol. i. This remark- 
 able treatise by Roger Williams, which may also be found in the Collections of 
 the Rhode Island Hist. Soc. vol. 17-163, contains a chapter on Indian Money 
 or " Coyne," which is, perhaps, the most authentic source of original information 
 concerning this subject. Other notices may be found in Wood's New England's 
 Prospect ii, cap. 3; Lechford's Plaine Dealing, (Trumbull's ed. 1867) 116; and 
 Josselyn's Account of Two Voyages to New England (ed. 1865) 110-11. The latter 
 says the Indians work out their money " so cunningly that neither Jew nor devil 
 can counterfeit." 
 
 'Hubbard, General History of New England, 105. 
 
 'Ibid. Compare Capt. John Smith's description of New England (ed. 1865) 17, 
 where we find "Cape Trabigzanda" given as the old name of "Cape Anne." Else- 
 where, 44, he speaks of " the faire headland Tragabigzanda." However the Turkish 
 beauty would have spelled her name if she had had a chance, it is quite certain 
 that Princess Anne of Denmark (1589-1619), daughter of Frederic II, spelled hers 
 with an "e." The Patent was for "Cape Anne" and the older writers all have 
 it so. Thornton also adopts this, the true historic form. Although Cape Ann is 
 now sanctioned by popular usage, it is nevertheless a kind of slipshod vulgarism, 
 like Rapidan for Rapid Ann, Mary Ann for Marianne or Mariana. 
 
Roger Conant was made governor. The little colony 
 appears to have sheltered itself under the protection of 
 the Plymouth patent. 7 Captain John Smith, in his Gen- 
 erall Historie, which was published in 1624, with an ab- 
 stract of Mourt's Relation, says "by Cape Anne there is a 
 plantation a beginning by the Dorchester men, which 
 they hold of those of New Plimoth, who also I)}' them 
 have set up a fishing worko." 8 
 
 A quarrel soon broke out between the two parties. In 
 the absence of the Plymouth fishermen, some Dorchester 
 employes, under the command of one Mr. Hewes, came 
 over to Cape Anne and took possession of a fishing stage 
 built by Plymouth people the year before. Captain 
 Stand ish and his men came up and peremptorily de- 
 manded the restoration of the staging. The occupants 
 barricaded themselves upon it with hogsheads, while the 
 Captain's party stood threatening upon shore. The dis- 
 pute grew hot, says Hubbard, and high words passed be- 
 tween the opposing parties. The affair might have ended 
 in blood and slaughter, if it had not been for the prudence 
 and moderation of Governor Conant, who promised the 
 Plymouth men that another staging should be built for 
 them. Hubbard's pious condemnation of Standish, who 
 undoubtedly had justice on his side, is an unconscious 
 satire upon "the unco guid " spirit which pervades early 
 New England history. " Captain Standish had been bred 
 a soldier in the Low Countries, and had never entered the 
 school of our Savior Christ, or of John the Baptist, his 
 harbinger, or, if he was ever there, had forgot his first 
 lessons, to oiler violence to no man, and to part with the 
 
 'Thornton, Landing at Cape Anne, for text of Patent ami interesting observa- 
 tions thereon, 31-47. 
 
 Smith, General! Historic, 247. Cf. Bradford, Hist, or Plymouth Plantation, 
 note by Mr. Deane, 1G9. 
 
8 
 
 cloak rather than needlessly contend for the coat, though 
 taken away without order. A little chimney is soon 
 fired ; so was the Plymouth captain, a man of very 
 little stature, yet of very hot and angry temper. The 
 fire of his passion soon kindled and blown up into a 
 flame by hot words, might easily have consumed all, had 
 it not been seasonably quenched." 9 The conduct of Stand- 
 ish, instead of being reprehensible, appears to have been, 
 on the whole, remarkably forbearing. 
 
 Hubbard also speaks in rather contemptuous terms of 
 the Plymouth title to Cape Anne as "a useless Patent." 10 
 It was the only legal basis that the Cape Anne colony 
 ever had, but it is truly remarkable that the Dorchester 
 intruders should have asserted the right of defence, which 
 the patent gave the Plymouth people and their associates, 
 against the real owners of the soil and have finally 
 expelled them altogether. This was the virtual conclu- 
 sion of the whole matter : the Plymouth people went off 
 to the Kennebec in 1625, 11 and the Dorchester men re- 
 mained in possession of. Cape Anne. There was more 
 
 Hubbard, 110-11. Cf. Bradford, 196. i Hubbard, 110. 
 
 u In the latter part of the above year the Plymouth people sent a boat-load of 
 Indian corn up the Kennebec river, and brought home 700 lbs. of beaver skins, be- 
 sides other peltry. Bradford, 204. 
 
 In the year 1627, Plymouth colony sent Mr. Allerton to England with "what 
 beaver they could spare to pay some of their ingagements, & to defray his chargs ; 
 for those deepe interests still keptethem loto. Also he had order to procure apatente 
 for a fltt trading place in ye river of Kenebeck; for being emulated both by the 
 planters at Piscataway & other places to ye eastward of them, and allso by ye 
 fishing ships, which used to draw much proflte from ye Indeans of those parts, 
 they [the Plymouth people] threatened to procure a grante, <f shutte them out from 
 thence . espetially after they saw them so well furnished with commodities, as to 
 carie the trade from them [Plymouth]. They thought it but needful to prevent 
 such a thing, at least that they might not be excluded from free trade ther, wher 
 them selves had first begune and discovered the same, and brought it to so good 
 effecte." We perceive by this extract from Bradford's History (221-2) that the 
 Pilgrim Fathers were wise in their own generation. With the Kennebec trading- 
 post in mind, Messrs. Bradford, Standish, Allerton, Winslow, Brewster, Howland, 
 Alden, and Prince hired the trade of Plymouth colony for a term of six years, 
 assumed all the debts of the corporation, bought off the Merchant Adventurers 
 (retaining the aid of a few of the more honorable capitalists), and thus placed the 
 affairs of New Plymouth upon a good business foundation. Bradford, 226-32. 
 
method in the above seizure of the Plymouth staging than 
 would appear from Hubbard's account. It seems from 
 Bradford's version of the affair that certain of the mer- 
 chant adventurers, who had fitted out the Plymouth col- 
 ony, were now trying to dislodge them from their fishing 
 station. Already factions had arisen among the English 
 company, and " some of Ly fords & Oldoms friends, and 
 their adherents, set out a shipe on fishing, on their owne 
 accounte, and getting ye starte of ye ships [of Plymouth] 
 that came to the plantation, they tooke away their stage, 
 & other necessary provisions that they had made for fish- 
 ing at Cap-Anne ye year before, at their great charge, 
 and would not restore ye same, exccpte they would fight 
 for it." 12 
 
 The first foundation of Massachusetts was for the same 
 end as the first occupation of the islands of Venice, namely, 
 for fishery. There is a more general truth than is usual- 
 ly imagined in the story told in Cotton Mather's Mag- 
 nalia of the Puritan minister who once ventured to address 
 a congregation of fishermen at Marblehead. He was ex- 
 horting them to be a religious people, otherwise, he said, 
 you will contradict the main end of planting this wilder- 
 ness. "Sir," said one of the fishermen, ''you are mis- 
 taken. You think you are preaching to the people at 
 the Bay. Our main end was to catch fish" ! u Without 
 doubt, both Pilgrims and Puritans had religious motives 
 in coming to America, but they had also secular motives. 
 As English colonists under English law, they came to plant 
 civil as well as religious society, and they distinguished 
 more sharply between things civil and ecclesiastical than 
 is commonly supposed. Moreover, the investment of 
 English capital in the colonial enterprise of both Pil- 
 
 " Itrailford, li. Cf. 169, note. 
 13 Young, Chronicles of Mass., 6. 
 
10 
 
 grims and Puritans cannot be explained upon religious 
 grounds. The prospective fur-trade and fisheries procured 
 financial support for Plymouth and Massachusetts. When 
 Pilgrim agents were soliciting King James for a colonial pa- 
 tent, he inquired what profits might arise. "Fishing," they 
 replied laconically. "So God have my soul," said the King, 
 "'tis an honest trade ; 'twas the Apostles' own calling." 14 
 But fishing never proved very profitable to Plymouth in 
 early times. The Pilgrims had such constant bad luck 
 that it became proverbial, "a thing fatal." 15 Bradford 
 said they "had allway lost by fishing." 16 Their chief bus- 
 iness success lay in trading wampum and Indian corn for 
 beaver-skins and other peltry. On the other hand, not 
 merely the material support but the original motive for 
 the Cape Anne Colony, which was the first foundation of 
 Massachusetts, lay chiefly in the fisheries. "During the 
 whole lustre of years, from 1625", says Hubbard, "there 
 was little matter of moment acted in the Massachusetts, 
 till the year 1629, after the obtaining the Patent; the 
 former years being spent in fishing and trading by the 
 agents of the Dorchester merchants, and some others of 
 West Country." 17 Long previous to 1625 "the foresaid 
 merchants . . . yearly sent their ships thither" 18 to Cape 
 Anne for purposes of fishing. The idea of a permanent 
 plantation there was suggested by the prosperity of Ply- 
 mouth, but the plantation was to be mainly in aid 19 of the 
 fisheries. Fishing continued to be and has always been 
 the chief interest at Cape Anne. It was for the possession 
 of this vantage ground that the Pilgrims and Dorchester 
 employes were rivals. 
 
 The planters of Cape Anne, who professed themselves 
 
 14 Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, 383. " Bradford, 168, 16 Ibid, 262. 
 
 " Hubbard, 110. Ibid, 106. 
 
 l * White, Planter's Plea, in Young's Chron. of Mass., 6-6. 
 
11 
 
 "servants of the Dorchester Company" 20 were by no means 
 irreligious men. They leaned, however, more towards 
 the Church of England than toward the Separatism of 
 Plymouth. Hubbard says "the Adventurers, hearing of 
 some religious and well-affected persons, that were lately 
 removed out of New Plymouth, out of dislike of their 
 principles of rigid Separation (of which number Mr. 
 Roger Conant was one, a religious, sober, and prudent 
 gentleman . . .) they pitched upon him for the managing 
 and government of all their affairs at Cape Anne. . . . 
 Together with him, likewise, they invited Mr. Lyford, 
 lately dismissed from Plymouth, to be the minister of the 
 place ; and Mr. Oldham, also discharged on the like account 
 from Plymouth, was invited to trade for them with the 
 Indians. All these three at that time had their dwelling at 
 Nantasket. Mr. Lyford accepted, and came along with 
 Mr. Conant. Mr. Oldham liked better to stay where he 
 was for awhile, and trade for himself, and not become liable 
 to give an account of his gain or loss. But after a year's 
 experience, the Adventurers, perceiving their design not 
 like to answer their expectation, at least as to any present 
 advantage, threw all up ; yet were so civil to those that 
 were employed under them, as to pay them all their 
 ivages, and proffered to transport them back whence they 
 came, if so they desired." 21 
 
 The Cape Anne experiment thus proved a failure for 
 the Dorchester merchants, as it had done for the Pilgrim 
 fathers. It would obviously be quite as unfair to ascribe 
 to base and material motives the failure of the merchants 
 in planting a sterile shore as it would to ascribe to spirit- 
 ual considerations the failure of the Pilgrims in fishing a 
 barren sea. The Dorchester merchants appear to have 
 
 ,0 Thornton, Landing at Cape Anne, 58, 59; see depositions of Woodbury ami 
 Brackenbury. " Hubbard. 10U-7. 
 
12 
 
 been very honorable and generous men. The Reverend 
 John White, whom Hubbard calls "one of the chief foun- 
 ders of the Massachusetts Colony," 22 was associated with 
 them as a stock-owner (as he probably had been with the 
 capitalists who fitted out the Plymouth colony 23 ) although, 
 as Wood tells us, he "conformed to the ceremonies of the 
 Church of England." 24 The explanation of the failure of 
 the Cape Anne enterprise is not to be sought in the char- 
 acter of the men, for a better set of colonists never trod 
 the shores of the New World than the Old Planters 25 who 
 left the unproductive Cape and founded the town of Sa- 
 lem. The plain fact is that the spot originally chosen 
 was a poor one for a new plantation. Roger Conant never 
 liked the place, and soon began to make inquiries for one 
 more commodious, which he found a little southwest- 
 ward from Cape Anne, upon the further side of a creek 
 called Naumkeag. Cape Anne was consequently aban- 
 doned, but it was the stepping-stone to Salem. 
 
 Ibid, 107. 
 
 s Bradford's Letter-Book, Collections of Mass. Hist. Soc, 1st series, iii, 48, for 
 list of Plymouth adventurers. Cf. Bradford's History, note by the editor, 213. 
 
 34 Young's Chronicles of Mass., 26, note. 
 
 6 The best account of the antecedents and belongings of the Old Planters of 
 Salem may be found in George D. Phippen's article upon this subject in the Hist. 
 Coll. of the Essex Institute, i, 97 et seq. Thornton's Landing at Cape Anne is 
 also a pioneer effort in this interesting Held of Massachusetts beginnings. The stu- 
 dent of Hubbard would naturally infer that only four or five men removed with 
 Roger Conant from Cape Anne to Naumkeag, but Mr. Phippen shows that there 
 were more than a dozen emigrants. He gives the following list; Roger Conant, 
 (governor), John Lyford (minister), John Woodbury (who became the first con- 
 stable of Salem), Humphrey Woodbury, John Balch (ancestor of the Beverly 
 Balches), Peter Palfrey (progenitor of the historian of New England), Capt. Traske 
 (ancestor of W. B. Traske of Dorchester, who lately transcribed the Suffolk Deeds), 
 William Jeffrey, John Tylly, Thomas Gardner, William Allen, Thomas Gray, Wal- 
 ter Knight, Richard Norman and his son of the same name, which clings yet to 
 the reef of Norman's Woe, where one of the family was lost. Compare Thorn- 
 ton's list (Landing at Cape Anne, 63). Mr. Phippen thinks that, including men, 
 women and children, there must have been, at least, thirty people in the little mi- 
 gration which colonized Salem. The colony at Cape Anne, he conjectures, num- 
 bered not far from fifty persons. White, in his Planter's Plea, says, "In building 
 bouses the first stones of the foundation are buried underground and are not seen." 
 We shall find the Old Planters very lively stones in the upbuilding of Salem. 
 
ORIGIN 
 
 SALEM PLANTATION 
 
 Br Herbert B. Adams. 
 
 One of the proximate causes for the removal of Roger 
 Conant and his associates to the green, inviting meadows 
 of Naumkeag was undoubtedly the desire of obtaining 
 better accommodations for the pasturing of cattle. Some 
 of the colonists had now gone home to England or had re- 
 sumed their seafaring life; "but a few of the most hon- 
 est and industrious," as the Reverend John White tells us 
 in his Planters' Plea, "resolved to stay behind and take 
 charge of the cattle sent over the year before." 1 Not lik- 
 ing the pastoral facilities of Cape Anne, which White 
 says had been chosen rather on account of its advantages 
 for fishing, the little company of a do/en or more men, 
 
 White, Planters' Plea, In Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, 12. 
 This l'lea was obviously written In the interests of the colonization as a business. 
 The work is lull of llnancial data, matters of profit anil loss in the llshcries and fur- 
 trade, and throws more li^'lit upon "the causes moving such a- have lately vndcr- 
 taken a plantation in New England" than any existing documentary evidence, 
 apart from the original records of the Massachusetts Company. 
 
 (13) 
 
14 
 
 who now remained, transported themselves witli their fam- 
 ilies and cattle, to Naumkeag, where they found fresh 
 fields and pastures new. A common for pasture was Sa- 
 lem, therefore, in its historic origin, and a common for 
 historical browsing does Salem yet remain. 
 
 Another occasion for the original occupation of Naum- 
 keag was the excellent opportunity here presented for 
 raising Indian corn. We are told by an almost contem- 
 porary historian, who probably obtained his information 
 from Roger Conant himself, that Naumkeag "afforded a 
 
 considerable quantity of planting land, 
 
 Here," continues Hubbard in his narrative, "they took up 
 their station upon a pleasant and fruitful neck of land, en- 
 vironed with an arm of the sea on each side". 2 It ap- 
 pears that the place was to a considerable extent, an open 
 tract of country. It was certainly the inviting meadow 
 and the "quantity of planting land" which attracted the 
 attention of the first explorers. Here they found, already 
 cleared for their use, what the ancient Germans would 
 have termed a Mark. Here lay the camporum spatia? the 
 wide-extending open spaces, in which, according to Tacitus, 
 the Germans found division of land an easy matter. There 
 can be little doubt that the first settlers of Naumkeag: found 
 here as good an opening as did many German villages in 
 the Black Forest or the Odenwald. The Reverend Fran- 
 cis Higginson, in his New England's Plantation, says, 
 "Though all the country be, as it were, a thick wood for 
 the general, yet in divers places, there is much ground 
 cleared by the Indians, and especially about the Planta- 
 tion [Naumkeag] ; and I am told that about three miles 
 from us a man may stand on a little hilly place and see di- 
 
 8 Young's Chron. of Mass., 21. 
 * Tacitus, Germania, Cap. 26. 
 
15 
 
 vers thousands of acres of ground as good as need to be, 
 and not a tree in the same." 4 
 
 It is one of the most interesting facts connected with 
 the plantation of many New England towns that they 
 were built upon open spaces formerly cultivated by the In- 
 dians. Plymouth was planted, not under "the rocking 
 pines of the forest" but in an old Indian corn-field, prob- 
 ably near the site of some ancient Indian village, which 
 had been devastated by the pestilence that swept off so 
 many Indian tribes before the English came over. The 
 Pilgrim record says, "we came to a conclusion by most 
 voices, to set on the main land, . . upon a high 
 ground, where there is a great deal of land cleared, and 
 hath been planted with corn three or fouryears ago." 5 Al- 
 though there is no such original record of the planters of 
 Naumkeag, yet doubtless it was by some such informal 
 vote, by the agreement of the greatest number, that 
 Roger Conant and his little company determined to occupy 
 this "pleasant and fruitful neck of land." So pleasant, in 
 fact, and at the same time so ancient did the Puritan clergy 
 afterward consider this old Indian locality, that some of 
 
 * Francis Eligginson, New England's Plantation (Young, 244.) 
 Thomas Graves, also, a professional engineer and surveyor, who came over with 
 Hlgginson, to lay out towns and investigate the resources of the country, its mines, 
 minerals, salt springs, etc., con linns the above testimony. Graves had been a great 
 "traveller in diver-- foreign parts," but says, ''Thus much 1 can a 111 nil in general, that 
 I never came in a more goodly country in all my life, all things considered. If it 
 hath not at any time been manured and husbanded, yet it is very beautiful in open 
 lands mixed with goodly woods, and again open plains, in some places live hun- 
 dred acres, some places more, some less, not much troublesome for to clear for 
 the plough to go in; no place barren but on the tops of the bills. The grass and 
 weeds grow up to a man's face in the lowlands, and by fresh rivers abundance of 
 grass and large meadows, without any tree or shrub to hinder the bcj the." Graves 
 says that, for cattle, corn, and grapes, he never saw any such land, except in Ger- 
 many and Hungary, to which latter country he is always inclined to liken New 
 England. See Young, 364. For an interesting note on Thomas Graves, see Young, 
 152. 
 
 n Mourt's Relation, or the Journal of liradford and Winslow, in Young's Chron- 
 icles of the Pilgrims, 124, 107,200, 829; Young's tin on. id Mass. 244. 
 
16 
 
 the more learned divines were disposed to identify Naum- 
 keag with the Hebrew Nahumkeike, signifying by inter- 
 pretation, the "bosom of consolation," or, as Cotton 
 Mather said, a "haven of comfort." 6 And Francis Hig- 
 ginson, who, with "a company of honest planters," joined 
 the original settlers, called the place Salem from the Peace, 7 
 which they found here ; although, according to another 
 account, there arose some little jealousy between the old 
 and new comers, which was finally allayed, the new He- 
 brew name then replacing the old by common consent to 
 commemorate the establishment of an era of good feeling 
 among neighbors. 8 But without laying stress upon pious 
 etymologies, or upon the theory that Salem was once the 
 abode of the lost tribes of Israel, we may safely say that 
 the discouraged fishermen from Cape Anne found here a 
 tolerably attractive opening in what has been called "an 
 immeasurable expanse of lofty forests shrouded in the sable 
 gloom of ages." 9 We may also rest assured that the Puri- 
 tans, wandering away from their mother country and mother 
 church, sought and found here upon this beautiful neck of 
 Indian land, within the arms of the sea, that peace which 
 the exiled Dante 10 found only in his grave. 
 
 The forest clearing originally occupied by the planters 
 
 Mather, Magnalia, i, 328. 
 
 T Higginson's Journal in Young's Chron. of Mass., 21. 
 
 8 Young, Chron. of Mass., 12, 21, 31, 145. The name of Concord, N. H., was 
 thus chosen to commemorate the establishment of peace between two rival juris- 
 dictions. 
 
 8 Drake, History and Antiquities of Boston, 56 (a passage concerning the condi- 
 tion of the country about Conant's plantation). 
 
 10 Dante's Divine Comedy, Inferno. Longfellow's Illustrations, Letter of Frate 
 Ilario: "Hither he came, passing through the diocese of Luni, moved either by 
 the religion of the place, or by some other feeling. And seeing him, as yet un- 
 known to me and to all my brethren, I questioned him of his wishings and his 
 seekings there. He moved not ; but stood silently contemplating the columns and 
 arches of the cloister. And again I asked him what he wished, and whom he 
 sought. Then, slowly turning his head, and looking at the friars and at me, he 
 answered: "Peace." 
 
17 
 
 of Naumkcag was held by them in virtual commonage. 
 They were acting as representatives of the Dorchester 
 Company, which had sent over the very cattle that the 
 colonists were now trying to preserve in the interest of 
 their patrons. For the encouragement of these faithful 
 men and as an earnest of future aid towards the establish- 
 ment of a permanent plantation, the Dorchester merchants 
 who had now combined with some London capitalists, sent 
 over in 162(! twenty-four additional kinc. 11 These also 
 must have been pastured as a common herd together with 
 the creatures sent over in 1625. A common of pasturage, 
 therefore, was the open country about Salem from the very 
 beginning. There is some reason for believing that plant- 
 ing ground was taken up by the white settlers in common 
 with the Indians. In the deposition made by William Dixy, 
 of Beverly, in 1G80, to confirm Salem's Indian land titles, 
 occurs the following interesting testimony: "I came to 
 New England and ariued in June 1029 at cape an, where 
 wee found the signes of buildings and plantation work, 
 and saw noe English people, soe we sailed to the place now 
 caled Salem, where we found Mr. John Endecott, Gouer- 
 nor and sundry inhabitants besides : sonic of whom s d 
 they had beene seruants to the Dorchester company : iSc had 
 built at eape an sundry yeares before wee came oner, when 
 we came to dwell heare the Indians bid vs welcome and 
 shewed themselues very glad that we came to dwell among 
 them, and I vnderstood they had kindly entertained the 
 English y* came bother before wee came, and the English 
 and the Indians had a feild in comon fenced in together. nx * 
 There is sutlicient evidence of the friendly relations exist- 
 
 11 White, Planter's l'lea, in Young's Chron. of Mass.. 12. 
 
 " Thornton, Landing at Cape Anne, 81. Compare the depositions of oilier old 
 settlers, given in Thornton's appendix, in regard to the title from the Indians, also 
 the Indian deed of lands. 
 
18 
 
 ing between the early settlers and the natives, and of the 
 fact that both planted side by side. Nowhere else in Mas- 
 sachusetts, save in the town of Stockbridge, have we as 
 yet found more delightful tokens of a recognized commu- 
 nity of village interests between the white and red men 
 than in the peaceful town of Salem, the Indian Naumkeag. 
 
 In Stockbridge, Indians not only owned lands 13 in com- 
 mon with the whites, but shared in the town offices, voted 
 in town meeting, and communed with their pale faced 
 brethren in the church. The Naumkeag Indians were 
 also kindly treated by the white settlers and frequently 
 paid them friendly visits, as did the Stockbridge Indians 14 
 to their friends after withdrawing from their old village- 
 home. 
 
 The Reverend John White had promised Roger Conant 
 by letter that, if he and a few other faithful men would 
 hold fast and not desert the business of the plantation, a 
 regular patent should be procured and "whatever they 
 should write for, either men, or provision, or goods where- 
 with to trade with the Indians" 15 should be sent over. 
 Hubbard says Mr. White was prompted to make this offer 
 because some intimation had come from Roger Conant 
 that the region of Salem "might prove a receptacle for such 
 as upon the account of religion would be willing to begin 
 a foreign Plantation in this part of the world." 16 This 
 
 "The-Anglo Indian land community at Montauk, Easthampton, Long Island 
 is perhaps the most remarkable case that has survived until a recent date. The 
 subject has been investigated by Mr. J. F. Jameson, a Fellow of the Johns Hop- 
 kins University. 
 
 "The history of the Stockbridge Indians is under investigation by the writer in 
 connection with the Evolution of Village Improvement in the mission town of Stock- 
 bridge. 
 
 16 Hubbard, 108. A fur-trade with the natives wa one of the economic foun- 
 dations of Massachusetts as well as of Plymouth, see Hubbard, 110, and Higgin- 
 son, in Young's Chron. of Mass. Roger Conant was an especially enterprising 
 fur-trader. In 1631, he and Peter Palfrey, and others, formed a Company "for traf- 
 fic in furs, with a truck house at the eastward,*' or as we should now say, "down 
 in Maine," see Hist. Coll. Essex Inst., i, 102. 
 
 18 Ibid, 107. 
 
19 
 
 may have been Roger Conant's thought, but it is more 
 likely that it was good Mr. Hubbard's pious reflection, for, 
 at the time of the alleged communication, Roger Conant 
 was a Church of England man ; Lyford, the minister of 
 Naumkeag, was warmly devoted to the interests of the 
 established church, as his Plymouth career would show; 
 the Reverend John White himself was at no time in his 
 life more than a very moderate Puritan, for he is said to 
 have conformed to the ceremonies of the established 
 Church and he held church livings in England until the 
 end of his days. Mr. White was a very philanthropic, 
 learned, and orthodox divine. He was one of the As- 
 sembly which framed the Westminster catechism and 
 was highly respected by the Puritan party, but he was 
 no extremist or Puritan propagandist. 17 In his Planter's 
 Plea, he tells the plain, unvarnished truth about the 
 colonial establishment of Massachusetts. He says some 
 of the adventurers desired to continue their attempt 
 at a plantation ; that they sent over more cattle to en- 
 courage the old planters and to attract others ; they 
 conferred with some gentlemen of London and per- 
 suaded them to take stock in the enterprise. "The bus- 
 iness came to agitation afresh." Some approved it and 
 others dissuaded. The matter was common talk in Lon- 
 don and was soon noised abroad. Some men became so 
 much interested in the project that they promised "the help 
 of their purses if tit men might be procured to go over." 
 Upon inquiry, John Endicott and other good men were 
 found, who were willing to go to New England and carry 
 on the work of "erecting a new Colony upon the old foun- 
 dation." Money was subscribed ; a patent was secured ; 
 and Endicott, with a few men, was sent over to Naum- 
 keag, where he arrived in September, 1628, "and uniting 
 
 17 Voting's Cliron. of Mass., 2C. 
 
20 
 
 his own men with those which were formerly planted in 
 the country into one body, they made up in all not much 
 above fifty or sixty persons." From another source of in- 
 formation, it appears that, later in the year, a small band 
 of servants was sent over by the Massachusetts Company, 
 which was now forming. 
 
 The Planter's Plea gives us the raison d'etre of this 
 enterprising and excellent Company. The safe arrival of 
 Endicott's party and the favorable reports he sent back to 
 England encouraged other capitalists to join the enter- 
 prise, and, "all engaging themselves more deeply," the 
 next year about three hundred more colonists, "most ser- 
 vants," were sent over with some horses and sixty or sev- 
 enty "rother-beasts" 18 (. e., cows and oxen, from Saxon 
 hrudher, Old German hrind) . The widening fame of En- 
 dicott's good government and of the success of the col- 
 ony "began to awaken the spirits of some persons of com- 
 petent estates, not formerly engaged." Being "without 
 any useful employment at home" and thinking to be ser- 
 viceable in planting a colony in New England, such men, 
 of whom doubtless John Winthrop, Matthew Cradock, Sir 
 Richard Saltonstall, Isaac Johnson, and Thomas Dudley 
 are good types, joined the Massachusetts Company, prob- 
 ably with some remote intention of going out to America,- 
 just as Englishmen now go out to India or Australia. We 
 may add in passing that Matthew Cradock, the first gov- 
 ernor of the Company and the predecessor of Winthrop, 
 never came to America at all, but he sent out many ser- 
 vants who started for him a plantation of 2500 acres 
 on the Mystick River (Medford) and impaled for him a 
 deer-park : he had his own business-agent in Massachu- 
 setts and invested capital in ship-building, in the fisher- 
 
 18 In the Statutes of the Realm, 3 and 4 Edw. vi., we have found "An Act for 
 thebuyinge of Rother Beasts and Cattell". 
 
21 
 
 ies, and in the fur-trade. 19 Mr. White says that other 
 people, "seeing such men of good estates" engaged in the 
 enterprise, some out of attachment to these parties and 
 "others upon other respects" (presumably religious 
 grounds), united with them. Thus the Company was 
 formed and a competent number of persons were secured 
 to embark for New England. 
 
 Ministers were provided by the Company as a matter 
 of course. Even the Dorchester merchants hired a minis- 
 ter. Messrs. Bright (who was devoted to the established 
 church), Iligginson, and Skelton (who were Puritans still 
 in the Church) went out to New England, not :is voluntary 
 missionaries, but upon very good contracts for those 
 times, before men were passing rich, on 40 a year. 
 Iligginson was to have 30 for his outfit, 10 for books, 
 free transport to New England, a house, glebe-lands and 
 fire-wood, the milk of two cows, and 30 a year for three 
 years, at the end of which time "if he shall not like to 
 continue," he was to have free passage home. Provision 
 was made for his wife and children, in case he should die. 
 It is very curious to note in the records of the Massachu- 
 setts Company, the items there entered for the outfit of the 
 colony : Ministers, men skilful in making pitch and salt, 
 vine planters, w patent under seal, wheat, rye, barley, 
 oats, stones of all sorts of fruit, potatoes, hop-roots, hemp, 
 ilax, tame turkeys, linen and woollen cloth, pewter bottles, 
 pint and quart measures, brass ladles, spoons, kettles, 
 
 Young's (Jliron. of Mass., 137. 
 
 30 Endicott wanted "Frenchmen experienced in planting vines." The Com- 
 pany, in a letter to the Governor, said they had made diligent inquiry, but could 
 not get hold of any of that nation. "Nevertheless", they say. "God hath not left 
 us altogether unprovided of a man [Mr. Graves] able to undertake that work," i. e. 
 labor in the vineyards of the Mass. Co. Governor Endicott planted a vineyard 
 of his own in Salem. Governor Winthrop agreed to plant a vineyard upon so- 
 called Conant's Island, afterwards the Governor's Garden or Governor's Island, 
 the yearly rent of which was to he a hogshead of the best wyne that shall grow 
 there," payment to begin after the death of the Governor I (Mass. Col. Hcc, i.'.tj, 
 13H; cf. Young's Chron. of Mass., 152.) 
 
22 
 
 arms and apparel for 100 men, 45 tun of beer, and six 
 tuns of water, 20 gallons of Spanish wine, 20 gallons of 
 aqua vitae and 20 gallons of oil 21 this for one ship with 
 a hundred passengers ! 
 
 When Higginson and three ship loads of emigrants 
 reached Naumkeag in June, 1629, there were found living 
 under Endicott's government about one hundred planters. 
 "We brought with us," says Higginson, who does not 
 count servants, 22 "about two hundred passengers and plant- 
 ers more, which, by common consent of the old planters, 
 were all combined together into one body politic, under the 
 same Governor. There are in all of us, both old and new 
 planters, about three hundred, whereof two hundred of 
 them are settled at Nehum-kek now called Salem, and 
 the rest have planted themselves at Masathulets Bay, be- 
 ginning to build a town there, which we do call Cherton 
 or Charles town. We that are settled at Salem make 
 what haste we can to build houses, so that within a short 
 time we shall have a fair town." 23 This account was writ- 
 ten before the end of September, 1629, so that it appears 
 the town-life of the Massachusetts colony was already be- 
 ginning to bud and blossom in the wilderness. 
 
 The appearance of Salem at the time of Higginson's 
 arrival is pleasantly described by that entertaining divine, 
 
 "Mass. Col. Records, i,23-7. 
 
 " Barry, History of Mass., i, 165. Barry thinks there were one hundred and 
 eighty servants sent over to Salem. 
 
 "New England's Plantation, Or a Short and Trve Description of the Com- 
 modities and Discommodities of that Countrey, Written by Mr. Higgeson, a reu- 
 erend Diuine there resident. Whereunto is added a Letter, sent by Mr. Graues, 
 an Enginere, out of New-England. The third Edition, enlarged!" (See Young's 
 Chron. of Mass., 258-9). The publisher, in a prefatory note, says the work was 
 "not intended for the press." "It was written by a reverend divine now there living, 
 who only sent it to some friends here which were desirous of his Relations." 
 Possibly the letter of Mr. Graves, the professional engineer, who was employed 
 by the Company, was also not intended for publicatipn, but his brief report and 
 Higginson's long and highly interesting account of the plantation quickly found 
 their way into print. Higginson's glowing sketch wept through three editions 
 in a single year, showing a marked public iutares); iu the fortunes of the Massachu- 
 setts colony. 
 
23 
 
 who though perhaps a triilc inclined to view the colonial 
 fields of Massachusetts through benignant glasses, can be 
 safely followed in local matters which he must have regarded 
 with tolerably clear vision. " When we came first to Xe- 
 hum-kek," he says very simply, "we found about half a 
 score houses, and a fair house newly built for the Governor." 
 The Governor had a garden with lot of green pease grow- 
 ing in it, as good as were ever seen in England. There 
 were also in the plantation plenty of turnips, parsnips, 
 carrots, pumpkins, and cucumbers. The Governor had 
 planted a vineyard with great hope of increase. An 
 abundance of corn was growing. The planters hoped 
 that year to harvest more than a hundred fold. Higginson 
 says it is almost incredible what great crops of Indian 
 corn the planters have raised. One man told him that 
 from the setting of thirteen gallons of corn he had had an 
 increase of fifty-two hogsheads, every hogshead holding 
 seven bushels, London measure, and every bushel had 
 been sold to the Indians for an amount of beaver skins 
 equivalent to eighteen shillings. Thus, from thirteen 
 gallons of corn, worth six shillings, eight pence, reckons 
 the good minister, a single farmer made in one year about 
 327, or over $1,500. We must make allowance for 
 good-natured ministerial arithmetic and for the use of a 
 very large sized fish as fertilizer in every hill of the old 
 planters' corn, but we may, with probable truth, picture 
 to ourselves a tolerably flourishing plantation made up of 
 individual gardens and home-lots. We know that the 
 old planters took up lands for themselves from the fact 
 that Governor Endicott was instructed by the Massachu- 
 setts Company in the spring of 1(529, to allow the first 
 comers to keep "those lands w ch formerly they have 
 manured j" 24 and the above account of the success of one 
 planter would indicate that at least the arable lands were 
 
 "Muss. Col. Uec, i,3^. 
 
24 
 
 occupied in severalty. Higginson gives us to understand 
 that even servants were to enjoy each the use of fifty 
 acres. Some intimation, thereupon, of the plan proposed 
 by the Massachusetts Company, May 19, 1629 (whereby 
 each adventurer in the common stock was to have fifty 
 acres for every member of his family and for every servant 
 transported) 25 appears already to have reached the planta- 
 tion. There was land enough for all. "Great pity it is," 
 says Higginson, "to see so much good ground for corn 
 and for grass as any is under the heavens, to lie alto- 
 gether unoccupied, when so many honest men and their 
 families in Old England, through the populousness there- 
 of, do make very hard shift to live one by the other." 
 The Indians do not object to the coming and planting of 
 the English here, because there is an abundance of 
 ground which the Indians can neither use nor possess. 
 This land, he asserts, is fitted "for pasture or for plough 
 or meadow ground." As for wood, a poor servant may 
 have more timber and fuel than could many a nobleman 
 in England. Nay, all Europe could not afford to make 
 so great fires as New England. And as for fresh water, 
 he continues, the country is full of dainty springs, and 
 some great rivers, and some lesser brooks. Near Salem 
 we have as fine clear water as we could desire, and we 
 can dig wells and find water wherever we please. 26 
 
 Higginson's account of the attractions of Salem is to 
 some extent confirmed by William Wood, who came 
 over to this country with Higginson, for a tour of obser- 
 vation, and wrote a very good description of the Massa- 
 chusetts towns that were planted before his return to 
 England in August, 1633. Wood's account of Salem is 
 not quite so flattering to local pride, but it enables the 
 reader to obtain a very matter-of-fact picture, entirely 
 
 " Ibid, 43. 
 
 Higginson, New England's Plantation (In Young's Chron. of Mass., 242-64). 
 
25 
 
 free from any suspicion of couleur de rose. " Four miles 
 north-east from Saugus," says Wood, "lieth Salem, which 
 stands on the middle of a neck of land very pleasantly, 
 having a South river on the one side, and a North river 
 on the other side. Upon this neck, where the most of 
 the houses stand, is very bad and sandy ground. Yet, 
 for seven years together, it hath brought forth exceeding 
 good corn, by being fished but every third year. In 
 some places is very good ground, and very good timber, 
 and divers springs hard by the sea-side. Here, likewise, 
 is store of fish, as basses, eels, lobsters, clams, &c. 
 Although their land be none of the best, yet beyond those 
 rivers is a very good soil, where they have taken farms, 
 and get their hay, and plant their corn. There they 
 cross these rivers with small canoes, which are made of 
 whole pine trees, being about two foot and a half over, 
 and twenty foot long. In these likewise they go a fowl- 
 ing, sometimes two leagues to sea. There be more ca- 
 noes 27 in this town, than in all the whole Patent ; every 
 household having a water-horse or two. The town wants 
 an alewife river, which is a great inconvenience. It hath 
 two good harbours, the one being called Winter, and the 
 other Summer harbour, which lieth within Derby's fort; 
 which place, if it were well fortified, might keep ships 
 from landing of forces in any of these two places." 28 
 
 In this sketch of primitive Salem we see foreshadowed 
 a rising city by the sea. These rude gondolas plying 
 across the rivers and up and down the harbor represent 
 for a simple agrarian folk that same in-dwelling maritime 
 spirit which gradually transformed the rude fisherman of 
 the Adriatic lagoons into merchant princes, trading with 
 the Kasfcrn Umpire as the merchants of Salem were des- 
 tined to trade with the farthest Orient. The beginning 
 
 37 In 1G3G, UogerConniit w.ic on the committee lor inspecting the rnnoesof Salem. 
 '-"William Wood. New England's Prospect, in Young's t'hron. of Mas*., 4WM0. 
 
26 
 
 of Salem's foreign trade was precisely like that of Venice, 
 
 namely, furnishing salt fish to Catholic countries, a trade 
 
 which developed into the import of silks and spices of 
 
 the Orieut. In a recent poem by a son of Salem, who 
 
 looks back upon the first settlement of this place through 
 
 the field-glass of History, the bard exclaims 
 
 Yonder we see from the North Kiver shore 
 The farmers of the region paddling o'er ! * 9 
 
 And the poet-sculptor Story, living under dreamy 
 
 Italian skies, has suug of Salem his native town. 
 
 Ah me, how many an autumn day 
 
 We watched with palpitating breast 
 
 Some stately ship, from India or Cathay, 
 Laden with spicy odours from the East, 
 Come sailing up the bay ! 30 
 
 From a poem by the Rev. Charles T. Brooks, at the Celebration of the Two 
 Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Landing of Endicott, Historical Collec- 
 tions of the Essex Institute, xv,212. 
 
 80 From an ode by William W. Story, on the above occasion, ibid, 236. 
 The Visitor's Guide to Salem (H. P. Ives, 1880) says, page 6, "Salem has had a 
 most remarkable commercial record. In 1825 there were one hundred and ninety- 
 eight vessels owned in Salem. In 1833 there were one hundred and eleven engaged 
 in foreign trade. Salem 'led the way from New England round the Cape of Good 
 Hope to the Isle of France, and India and China. Her vessels were the first from 
 this country to display the American Hag and open trade with St. Petersburg, and 
 Zanzibar, and Sumatra; with Calcutta and Bombay; with Batavia and Arabia; 
 with Madagascar and Australia.'" 
 
 The Rev. Charles T. Brooks has put into verse a story familiar to Salem people 
 of the grandeur of this city as viewed in the imagination of the Orient. 
 
 Some native merchant of the East, they say, 
 
 (Whether Canton, Calcutta or Bombay), 
 
 Had in his counting-room a map, whereon 
 
 Across the field in capitals was drawn 
 
 The name of Salem, meant to represent 
 
 That Salem was the Western Continent, 
 
 While in an upper corner was put down 
 
 A dot named Boston, SALEM'S leading town. Ibid, 213. 
 On the subject of Salem's oriental trade, see article by Robert S. Rantoul, on 
 "Old Channels of Trade," in the Bulletin of the Essex Inst., ii, 145-154; and "The 
 port of Salem," by the same writer, Hist. Coll. Essex Inst., x, pp. 52-72, and G. F. 
 Cheever's "Remarks on the Commerce of Salem, 1626-1740," in the Hist. Coll. of 
 Essex Inst., i, 67, 77, 117; also, see "Life of Elias Hasket Derby," Freeman Hunt's 
 "Lives of American merchants, New York, 1858" vol. ii, pp. 17-100, and "Historical 
 Sketch of Salem," by Osgood and Batchelder, Institute Press, 1879, chap, viii, p. 
 126-227, and a Letter of Robert S. Rantonl to the National Board of Health, Salem, 
 March, 1882, on the "Early Quarantine Arrangements of Salem," Essex Inst. Bul- 
 letin, vol. xiv, pp. 1-56. 
 
ALLOTMENTS OF LAND IN SALEM TO MEN, 
 WOMEN, AND MAIDS. 
 
 By Herbert B. Adams. 
 
 The situation of the original houselots of the Old Plant- 
 ers of Salem has been the subject of careful investigation 
 and some friendly controversy among local antiquaries 
 and historians. It is interesting to trace the development 
 of correct views from earlier but erroneous opinions. 
 The Reverend William Bentley, in his Description and 
 History of Salem, published by the Massachusetts Histor- 
 ical Society in LXOO, says, "when Francis Higginson ar- 
 rived in 1(>2!>, there were only six houses, besides that of 
 Governor Endicott, and these were not on the land now 
 called Salem" 1 What authority Mr. Bentley had for this 
 latter statement does not appear in his monograph. Prob- 
 ably he had in mind some local tradition connected with the 
 locality of the Old Planters' Common Meadow, which of 
 course lay without the village. Following upon Mr. Bent- 
 ley's track, in 1<X3">, came Robert Rantoul, si-., with his 
 Memoranda of Beverly, published by the Massachusetts 
 Historical Society, wherein he states very positively, "Ro- 
 ger Consult, John Woodberry and Peter Paltry first settled 
 in 1B2G, on the neck of land between Collin's Cove on 
 the south, and the North river on the north, in Salem. 
 Bridge Street, leading from the compact part of Salem to 
 Essex (Beverly) Bridge, runs over this neck of land. 
 Their first houses were near to the margin of the river, and 
 their lots running from the river across the neck to Col- 
 lin's Cove." - This firmly planted opinion seems to have 
 
 1 Collections of tlao Ma.-s. Hist. Soc 1st Scries, vi, 231. 
 
 I in, i, 3d scries, vii, 254. Also Hist. Coll. Essex Inst., xviii, 307-8. 
 
 :$ i 27 1 
 
28 
 
 held its ground in Salem until a very recent date. Even 
 Mr. Phippen, in his admirable sketch of the Old Planters, 
 accepted the traditional notion, with certain modifications, 
 suggestive of the real truth. He says, "The Old Planters 
 appear to have occupied the larger part of the peninsula 
 lying between the North River and Collin's Cove; and 
 they may not have been strangers to that larger peninsula 
 beyond, which aftenvards became the centre of the town." z 
 In 1859 came the full development and substantiation 
 of this latter view by Mr. William P. Upham, who made 
 a most thorough examination of old deeds and land titles 
 and established the position, now cordially accepted by 
 Mr. Phippen, 4 that "the old Planters occupied that portion 
 of our territory which has ever remained the nucleus and 
 central body of the town." 5 Mr. Upham, in a series of 
 articles on the First Houses in Salem, published in the 
 Bulletin of the Essex Institute, gives most conclusive 
 proof 6 of this assertion. His results maybe summed up 
 in the following statement: "The manner in which the 
 house lots in the central part of the town were* originally 
 laid out, seems to indicate that the earliest settlement was 
 made in the vicinity of Elm street and Washington street 
 upon the South river. Between these streets the lots 
 were small, irregular, and not in conformity with the plan 
 upon which the rest of the town was laid out. East of 
 there, all along the South river to the Neck, house-lots 
 were laid out running back from the river ; and along the 
 North river, west of North street were larger house-lots, 
 also running back from that river. Essex street was pro- 
 bably a way that came gradually into use along the ends 
 of these lots ; and as they were all of the same depth from 
 
 3 Hist. Coll. of the Essex Institute, i, 103. 
 
 4 Bulletin of the Essex Institute, i, 51. 6 Ibid, i, 51. 
 
 See especially ii, 33-36, 49-52. These articles extend through two volumes of 
 the Bulletin, i, 37,53, 73, 129 and 145, et seq. ii, 35, 49. 
 
29 
 
 the river this street acquired, and has retained the same 
 curves that the rivers originally had." 7 Mr. Uphara is in- 
 clined to believe that the Old Planters did not all live 
 closely together, but were somewhat scattered, each man 
 having his separate house-lot and lands. Mr. Upham has 
 completely overthrown the ancient tradition that the Old 
 Planters "settled upon the comparatively small peninsula 
 lying between Naumkeag, now North River, and Shallop 
 or Collin's Cove," where Mr. Phippen supposed "Conant 
 and some of his followers built their first small and unsub- 
 stantial cottages." 8 This latter view probably arose from 
 the popular misconception that the Old Planters' houses 
 must necessarily have been upon their Common Meadow. 
 Mr. Upham thinks the land in that vicinity was not occu- 
 pied for building purposes until nearly ten years after the 
 original settlement of Naumkeag, that is, until after Bev- 
 erly and Ipswich were planted. 
 
 The historical reconstruction of the ground plan of 
 New England Village Communities is one of the most im- 
 portant subjects which can occupy the local antiquary. 
 The situation of the original houselots, the first laving out 
 
 o Jo 
 
 of streets and lanes, the names of village localities, the 
 transfers of real estate, the perpetuation of ancient land- 
 marks which our fathers have set, the first site of churches 
 and burying grounds, the lines of old forts and of village 
 stockades (from which historical idea of a place hedged-in, 
 the Town itself from Tun, Zun, Zaun or hedge aetu- 
 
 1 Ibid, ii,. r >2. 
 
 "Hist. Coll. of the Essex Inst., i, 107. It is an interesting fact that the frame- 
 work of the "fair house newly built for the Governor" is .still standing in Salem, 
 north corner of Washington ami Church streets, but it is still more interesting 
 that this structure, though not the first in Salem, was the original "great Frame 
 House " orectetl In 11 VU at Cape Ann by the Old Planters, but pulled down, brought 
 to Salem, and reconstructed for Mr. Endecotl's u-c" pee ('. M. Kndicott in Hist. 
 Coll. Essex ln-t.. ii,:ii>; cf. i, KYI, 1*>U. This is probably the oldest material struc- 
 ture in New England, and it is for Salem what '-the Common House," if yet stand- 
 'ng, would be for Plymouth. 
 
30 
 
 ally sprang), these things are all important in the study 
 of town origins. They are the material foundations upon 
 which the town rests as an abiding institution. Genera- 
 tions of men pass away, but old landmarks remain. It 
 is worth while to clear away the accumulated rubbish of 
 years and to discover the sub-structure of every New 
 England village, just as modern antiquaries have un- 
 earthed the oldest walls of Rome. From an original di- 
 agram, preserved in the colonial records of Plymouth, 
 we are able to determine with positive certainty the di- 
 rection of the first street and the exact situation of the 
 first house-lots in the oldest village of New England. 
 Mr. William T. Davis, a noted antiquary of Plymouth, 
 has during the past few years been examining old deeds 
 and local records with a view to writing the history of 
 the real estate of that ancient town. He published some 
 of his materials in the Plymouth Free Press, under the title 
 of "Ancient Landmarks." 9 The city of Boston has pub- 
 lished a similar series of monumental studies called the 
 Gleaner Articles, first contributed more than twenty-five 
 years ago to the Boston Daily Transcript by a learned 
 conveyancer, Nathaniel Bowditch. 10 The studies of Mr. 
 Phippen and Mr. Upham stand in the same fundamental 
 relation to the beginnings of Salem and of the Massachu- 
 setts Colony as do the studies of Mr. Davis and Mr. 
 Bowditch to the beginnings of Plymouth and Boston. 
 Such good works ought to grow from more to more. 
 The territorial history of every town should be not 
 merely written, but pictorially described by means of 
 maps, showing early topography and ancient landmarks. 
 
 In a circular issued Feb. 15, 1882, Mr. Davis proposes to publish his researches 
 in an octavo volume of 600 pages, entitled "Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth." 
 
 10 Fifth Report of the Record Commissioners. Materials for the continuation of 
 such studies are now easily accessible in the volume of Suffolk deeds, transcribed 
 by that eminent antiquary, William B. Trask, a descendant of Capt. Wm. Trask, one 
 of the old Planters of Salem. 
 
31 
 
 The house-lots of ancient Salem, as in all village commu- 
 nities, were quite small, considering the amount of avail- 
 able land in the plantation. In 1637, nearly two years 
 after Mr. Conant had received his grant of two hundred 
 acres in Beverly, it was ordered by the town of Salem, 
 that Mr. Conant's house, with half 11 an acre of ground and 
 the corn standing upon the same, should be bought at the 
 town's expense for the use of old Mr. Plase and wife, who 
 should occupy the premises for the rest of their lives. 
 The place was then to revert to the town, which agreed 
 to settle with the executors or assigns of Mr. Plase for 
 whatever improvements he had made upon the ground. 
 Now if Mr. Conant, the leading man of old Naumkeag, 
 had only half an acre for his home-lot, it is fair to presume 
 that his associates possessed at most only half acre home- 
 steads. The idea of a home-lot was a plot of ground suf- 
 ficient for a dwelling-house and out-buildings, for a door- 
 yard and garden, with perhaps a small inclosure for feeding 
 cattle or raising corn. When Higginson arrived in Salem, 
 he noticed at once the Governor's garden, with its growing 
 pease, and other gardens full of vegetables. This type 
 of a house- or home-lot is familiar enough to New Eng- 
 land people. We see it everywhere in our country towns 
 and villages, where the houses are built together with any 
 considerable degree of compactness. Tacitus might say of 
 the early settlers of New England as he said of the ancient 
 Germans, " Vicos locant non in nostrum morem conexis et 
 cohaerentibus cvdijiciis: suam quisque domum spatio cir- 
 cumdat. 12 At no time in the early history of Salem were 
 town-lots large. They were usually about an acre in ex- 
 tent. In the so-called Book of Grants, which are the 
 oldest records of this town, we read in one place of two 
 acre house-lots, but a page or two later, it appears that 
 
 11 Town Records of Salem, i, M. Cf. 121. Tacitus Ucruiauiu, cap. 10, 
 
32 
 
 "the two acre lots were limited to one acre. 13 Even 
 smaller house-lots than a half acre were sometimes granted ; 
 for example, "Augustin Kellham is admitted for inhabi- 
 tant & is to haue a quarter of an acre before Esties house." 14 
 Half acre lots were very frequently granted to fishermen at 
 Winter Harbor and to poor people upon the Town Neck. 
 Many of these small grants were to be held only during the 
 town's pleasure, and were therefore, strictly of the nature 
 of "cottage rights" upon the wasteland of an English manor. 
 So-called cottage rights, as we shall further see, became 
 an important criterion in Salem 15 at the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, for the division of common land. The 
 inhabitants of Marblehead, which formerly belonged to 
 Salem territory, were granted house-lots and nothing more, 
 it being ordered by the town of Salem that " none inhab- 
 iting at Marble Head shall haue any other accommodation 
 of land, other than such as is vsually giuen by the Towne 
 to fishermen viz. a howse lott & a garden lott or ground 
 for the placing of their flakes ; according to the company 
 belonging to their families, to the greatest family not aboue 
 2 acres : & the common of the woods neere adioyning for 
 their goates & their cattle." 16 Cottage rights appear to 
 have been granted to the men engaged in the Glass Works, 
 with common in the Glass House Fields. 17 
 
 But other lands than house-lots were speedily occupied 
 in the settlement of the town of Salem. Indeed, it is 
 very certain that the Old Planters owned more land than 
 their homesteads. Governor Endicott, as we have seen, 
 was instructed by the Massachusetts Company to confirm 
 Mr. Conant and his men in the possession of lands which 
 they had already improved and to grant them such other 
 
 "Town Records of Salem, i 9, 11. Ibid, 53. 
 
 "Ibid, 17, 33, 53, 62, 63. Cf. Report of the City Solicitor on the Sale of the Neck 
 Lands, 11. 
 
 "Town Records of Salem, i, 27-2S. The town of Gloucester is built upon the 
 "fisherman's field." See Thorntons Lauding at Cape Ann, 83-4. 1T Ibid, 94, 225. 
 
33 
 
 lands as might seem fitting. 18 And yet we are inclined to 
 think that the Old Planters' farms were very limited in 
 extent until after the grants in Beverly, of which we 
 shall elsewhere speak. In spite of the large stories told to 
 good Mr. Higginson about the enormous crops raised by 
 the Old Planters, we believe that their corn fields were 
 not very different from the type represented by Roger Co- 
 nant's half acre in 1037. Probably the enterprising Mr. 
 Conant had as much land as any of his associates, yet all 
 that he possessed in the vicinity of the town, in 1637, 
 was something less than forty- four acres, of which pre- 
 sumably a very small proportion was actually under culti- 
 vation. At Plymouth an acre of planting ground sufficed 
 for an individual from 1623, when the first distribution of 
 arable land occurred, down to 1627, when the partnership 
 with the London merchants was dissolved and twenty 
 more acres were allotted to each person. The normal 
 amount of planting ground allowed to an individual du- 
 ring the early years of Salem history was ten acres. Al- 
 most the first entry in the Book of Grants is in regard to 
 the division of ten acre lots. It was ordered that the 
 least family should have ten acres, but greater families 
 should have more, according to the number of persons in 
 the household. 19 A "10 acre lott and a howse lott" 20 were 
 regarded as a proper allowance for the head of a family. 
 Mr. Plase, the blacksmith, who was established in Mr. 
 Conant's old house, with a shop and forge at town ex- 
 pense, petitioned for a "tenne acre lott" 21 and obtained it. 
 Lieutenant Davenport likewise received a ten acre lot. 23 
 Ten acres were enough for good fanning in those days as 
 now. To be sure, many attempts were made to inclose 
 more, but the town authorities resolutely punished :ill such 
 incroaehments. John Pickering, Edmund Giles, Abra- 
 
 '- M;i-s. Col. lice. i. SW. "Salem Town Records of Salom. 8. -" Ibid, II. 
 -' Mil. BO, 1*21. I bill. 27. 
 
34 
 
 ham Warren, Major Hathorne, and many others were 
 fined for "taking in of towne common" 23 or incroaching 
 upon the highways. Offenders were obliged to tear down 
 their fences and open again to commons the land which 
 they had inclosed. John Gatshell was fined ten shillings 
 for building upon town land without leave, but the fine 
 was abated to five shillings on condition that he should 
 cut his long hair ! 24 
 
 It is very pleasant to find that women, who were heads 
 of families, received in early Salem their proportion of 
 planting land. 25 Wallace, in his interesting work on Rus- 
 sia, has shown how in the town meeting or village Mir 
 of that country, the women have their voice in the matter 
 of distributing communal land, and a very high-keyed 
 voice it is said to be. In Russia the women have not such 
 a delicate consideration for the feelings of the other sex, 
 as used to be shown by Mary Starbuck in the Island of 
 Nantucket, who often addressed town meetings in her 
 husband's name (for he was a bashful man), and always 
 prefaced her remarks by these gracious and winning words : 
 "Mr. Moderator and Fellow townsmen 1 My husband 
 thinks", so and so. To be sure, Russian widows have 
 no husbands, but a tender allusion to the dear departed 
 would certainly be more likely to influence a jury of fel- 
 low townsmen than angry vituperation. It is, however, 
 very curious that in Russia the object of feminine anxiety 
 is to have as small an amount of land as possible, for land 
 signifies taxes. Land is actually imposed upon Russian 
 widows if they have sons old enough to engage in farming. 
 In Salem and Plymouth and the towns along Cape Cod, 
 women could not get enough land. Still, in Salem, Tom 
 More's widow drew her ten acres. Mistress Felton, 
 "vidua," and her son Nathaniel received twenty acres. A 
 
 " Ibid, 46, 101, 105, 164, 190, 216. * Ibid, 55. Town Records of Salem, i, 21-27. 
 
35 
 
 very large grant of one hundred and tifty acres was prom- 
 ised Mrs. Higginson, if she should come, but this liberality 
 was because of a special contract made with her late hus- 
 band by the Massachusetts Company. Widow Mason 
 received twenty acres and Widow Scarlet, thirty. Evi- 
 dently, the amount of land in both cases was determined 
 by the size of the family. 
 
 It is, on the whole, rather disappointing to find that 
 maidens or spinsters did not fare quite so well in the dis- 
 tribution of land as the numerical claims of that class in 
 society would seem to justify. The town fathers of Salem 
 began well by granting so-called "maids lotts," but very 
 soon this course began to be looked upon as highly indis- 
 creet, for, in the records, we find a note in Governor En- 
 dicott's own handwriting, to the effect, that, in future, the 
 town desired to avoid "all presedents &, evil events of 
 graunting lotts vnto single maidens not disposed of!" 
 Hereafter, "it is ordered that noe single maiden not 
 disposed of in marriage," and then follows in the rec- 
 ord a painful blank. At this point in his writing the Gov- 
 ernor evidently came to a realizing sense of the odious Act 
 he was about to inscribe in the local statutes, and he at 
 once ran his pen through the entire passage. But he did 
 not improve very much upon the phraseology of the law 
 against single maidens by resorting to this expression, 
 "for the avoiding of absurdities !" M The Governor at- 
 tempted to refine his language, but he persisted in his 
 cruel purpose. Deborah Holmes was refused land "being 
 a maid," but the Governor endeavored to be kind, for he 
 gave her a bushel of Indian corn ! This maiden was evi- 
 dently of mature years and well content to take care of 
 herself, but the Governor and the Selectmen assured her 
 that it "would be a bad president to keep hous alone." 
 
 "Town Kecorils of Salem, i, 2$, JJ 
 
[From Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, Vol. XIX, 
 
 pp. 241--25.-5.] 
 
 COMMON FIELDS 
 
 IN 
 
 SALEM 
 
 IJY HERBERT B. ADAMS. 
 
 The reproduction of the old English system of Com- 
 mon Fields, or associate ownership of land for tillage and 
 pasture, is a curious chapter in the agrarian history of early 
 New England towns. Nearly all of them had the system 
 to a greater or less extent. The writer has discovered 
 evidence of its general prevalence throughout the Plan- 
 tations of Plymouth Colony, where to this day there are 
 many remarkable cases of survival, especially upon Cape 
 Cod. P>ut evidence is not lacking of the long continuance 
 of this ancient system upon a large scale in Salem, the 
 oldest of towns in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. In 
 the year 1640, there were in Salem no less than ten Com- 
 mon Fields of associated proprietors, who fenced more 
 or less in common, under the supervision of fence viewers 
 or surveyors of fences, who were appointed in Town 
 Meeting. There was a special committee for each tield. 
 In the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 
 
 (37) 
 
38 
 
 most of these old communal proprietorships were broken 
 up into individual and separate holdings, but the North 
 Fields and the South Fields, which are spoken of as early 
 as 1642-3, continued as Common Fields down to about the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, and are still frequently 
 referred to by citizens of Salem who are conversant 
 with the traditions of the Fathers. The Rev. Charles T. 
 Brooks, in his poem delivered September 18, 1878, at the 
 commemoration of the fifth half century of the landing of 
 Endicott, refers to the ancient Common Fields, so familiar 
 to the early settlers : 
 
 " North Fields and South Fields little dreamed that day 
 Of horse-cars running on an iron way." 
 
 In the Rev. William Beutley's "Description of Salem," * 
 published in the year 1800, the old North Fields are spo- 
 ken of as " the lands lying north of North river" and as 
 containing "four hundred and ninety acres." He speaks 
 of "an hill called Paradise, from the delightful view of 
 the western part of the town." He says that South Fields 
 "are the lands included between Forest and South rivers, 
 and are divided from the great pasture by the Forest-river 
 road. These lands are in good cultivation. Near the 
 town are some settlements ; the rest remain in farms and 
 
 lots, possessed by the inhabitants of the town 
 
 The South Fields contain six hundred acres." 2 Certain 
 parcels of ungranted or unoccupied land in the old North 
 Fields remain common to this day, for example the tract 
 of four or five acres known as "Liberty Hill, " now used 
 as a public pleasure ground. A few years ago there was 
 considerable discussion in Salem as to the ownership of 
 such tracts. It was the opinion of a prominent legislator, 
 
 Collections of the Massachusetts Hist. Soc. 1st Series, vi, 218. 
 2 Ibid, 217. 
 
39 
 
 Hon. Charles "W. Uphara, then Mayor, in a Report on the 
 Common Lands of the City of Salem in 1852, 3 that 
 " Liberty Hill or any other unappropriated lands, if any 
 there be in North Fields, belong to the proprietors of that 
 district by a sort of special commonage, but cannot be 
 disposed of, or appropriated by them, without the consent 
 of the town first had and obtained. This seems to have 
 been the principle upon which the North Field common 
 lands were administered." 
 
 This opinion is sustained by the fact that at a Salem 
 town meeting, March 8, 1684, it was voted that the pro- 
 prietors of North Fields, or the major part of them, should 
 have liberty to make such orders, from time to time as they 
 should find necessary for the sufficient fencing and well 
 improving of the said fields, and all such orders made by 
 them, relating to the premises, being presented to the 
 Selectmen and approved of by them were to hold good. 
 But the Selectmen had the right of veto, showing that the 
 authority over common fields which were owned by an 
 individual proprietary was still vested in the town. 
 
 A local incident in American Revolutionary history, 
 related by Mr. Felt in his Annals of Salem, well illustrates 
 the independent spirit which characterized the ancient 
 proprietors of North Fields, an agrarian commonwealth 
 within the larger self-governed community of Salem. 
 When Colonel Leslie, commander of a detachment of 
 British forces, was directing his ma'rch towards the " hill 
 called Paradise " in order to seize the artillery which had 
 been hidden there, he found the road through North Fields 
 blocked at a certain bridge, which still belonged to the 
 old proprietors, although the Common Field had been 
 
 Salem City Documents, for year 1852, )>.:!0. The writer'- attention was cnlleil to 
 tills opinion of the late Hon. Chuiles W.Upham byMr. KobeitS. Rautoul of Salem. 
 
40 
 
 broken up for more than a quarter of a century. The 
 Colonel remonstrated with the farmers for obstructing the 
 King's highway. " This is not the King's highway," said 
 one of those sturdy yeomen. "This is a private way be- 
 longing to the proprietors of North Fields." Graphic 
 accounts of the memorable scene at North Bridge are to 
 be found in the printed speeches of Henry L. Williams, 
 George B. Loring, and Edmund B. Willson, on the occasion 
 of the Centennial Anniversary of Leslie's expedition to 
 Salem, which invasion of local rights occurred February 
 26, 1775. "This deliberate, open resistance," said Mayor 
 Williams, "by our townsmen to the decrees of the crown 
 took place about seven weeks before the resistance at 
 Lexington and Concord." There is not the shadow of a 
 doubt, if Colonel Leslie, the officer sent from Boston by 
 General Gage to take away the Salem guns, had offered 
 violence to the North Field farmers, that the American 
 Revolution would have flamed out then and there, for the 
 yeomen were armed for battle ; the local militia men were 
 prepared, if necessary, to defend the Bridge. "You had 
 better not fire," said John Felt, a plain-spoken townsman 
 who had been remonstrating with Leslie ; "you have no 
 right to fire without further orders, and if you do fire you 
 are all dead men. For there," said Felt, pointing to the 
 assembled townsmen, " is a multitude, every man of whom 
 is ready to die in this strife." And Leslie did not fire. 
 Another leading man came forward and expostulated fur- 
 ther with Leslie. "And who are you, sir?" demanded the 
 British Colonel. The man replied, " I am Thomas Barnard, 
 a minister of the gospel, and my mission is peace." 
 He had come with his congregation from the old North 
 Church, when the alarm arose that Sunday morning, "The 
 regulars are coming !" The whole town poured out, and 
 nothing but the entreaties of the minister induced them to 
 
41 
 
 lower the draw-bridge and allow Leslie to march over a 
 few rods on condition that he should march straight back 
 again without any further aggressions on proprietary rights. 
 This withdrawal without seizing the guns cost Leslie his 
 commission, but it prevented Salem Common Fields from 
 becoming the first battle ground of the American Revolu- 
 tion. 4 
 
 One summer, a few years ago, in the Bodleian Library 
 of the Essex Institute, at Salem, through the kind offices 
 of Dr. Henry Wheatland and Mr. William P. Uphain, 
 there came into the hands of the writer a rare old 
 manuscript. It was not one of the lost books of Livy, 
 neither was it Cicero's missing treatise De Gloria, which 
 was lost by Petrarch's poverty-stricken old schoolmaster 
 who was forced to pawn it for bread. The Salem manuscript 
 was no scholar's work. No monk had illuminated its pages ; 
 no humanist had revised its text. The Salem manuscript 
 was characterized chiefly by bad writing, bad spelling, 
 and by its general resemblance to the most primitive town 
 records in New England, records kept oftentimes upon old 
 account-books. There was nothing externally attractive 
 about this dingy old manuscript, but it had for the student 
 of New England local history more interest than a beautiful 
 church missal or a classic palimpsest would have afforded, 
 if found in that library of the Essex Institute. For this 
 manuscript was the original record of the Proprietary of 
 
 Kelt. Anna]- of Siilom, i. IS.'). See nl-o a Salem City I>ocumeiil (1S7.1 entitled 
 " Memorial Service* nt the Centennial Anniversary of Leslie'.- K \|ii'iliiioii to Snleui, 
 Sundin . t'elininrj - ,; , I77. r >." See al.-o " Leslie's Ketreat" l>> C. M. Kmlit-oit, in Pro- 
 ceed. Kssex Inst., i. v.i. Also, Kssc.x Inst. Hit Coll. Vol. w ii, |>|>. hw it;, 
 
 No special men! ion was* made in these Memorial Services held in the North Church, 
 of the proprietors of North fields nnd of their I leclaration of Independence; and 
 yel this is one ol the most remarkable assertions of the local -pirn which kindled 
 the American ({evolution. Il was the surviving spirit of an old Kuglish agrarian 
 community, an institution older than the Cn>WMi of England, a* selling its sotureign, 
 immemorial right to ils own properly. 
 
42 
 
 the South Fields in Salem, an old agrarian community, 
 the survival of an institution which was old when the 
 Christian Church and the Roman Empire were young. 
 The system of land community and Common Fields, with 
 small individual allotments held under joint control, as 
 instituted at Salem and Plymouth, reminds us of those old 
 Roman days described by Bradford, the historian of Ply- 
 mouth Plantation, in the words of Pliny (lib. 18, cap. 2) : 
 " How every man contented himselfe with 2 acres of land, 
 and had no more assigned them." And chap. 3. "It was 
 thought a great reward, to receive at ye hands of ye peo- 
 ple of Rome a pinte of corne. And long after, the greatest 
 presente given to a Captaine y* had gotte a victory over 
 their enemise, was as much ground as they could till in 
 one day. And he was not counted a good, but a dangerous 
 man, that would not contente himselfe with 7 Acres ot 
 land. As also how they did pound their corne in morters, 
 as these people were forcte to doe many years before they 
 could get a mille." 5 
 
 The records of the South Field Proprietary are incom- 
 plete. They do not open until the year 1680. Originally 
 they covered a period from at least 1672 to 1742. But 
 what was true of later times was probably also true of the 
 earlier. There is but little change in agrarian customs. 
 
 6 Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, Collections of the Massachusetts 
 Hist. Soc, 4th Series, vol. 3, 168. For an interesting account of this original source 
 of New England history, and how it was stolen from the tower of the old South 
 Church in Boston, during the American Revolution, when that church was used for 
 a riding school and stable by British soldiery, see the Editorial Preface by Mr. 
 Charles Deane; see also an interesting paper on " Governor Bradford's Manuscript 
 History of Plymouth Plantation and its Transmission to our Times," by Professor 
 Justin Winsor, of Harvard College, a paper read before the Mass. Historical So- 
 ciety, Nov. 10, 1881. The existence of this priceless manuscript in the library of 
 the Bishop of London, at Putnam on the Thames, was accidentally discovered 
 years ago by members of the Massachusetts Historical Society, which had a copy 
 made from the original, and this copy was published by the Society in 1856. It is 
 one of the surviving shames that the original manuscript, stolen probably by some 
 British soldier, has never yet been restored by England to New England. 
 
43 
 
 In an old town on Cape Cod we have examined a continuous 
 series of Commoners' Records from the latter part of the 
 seventeenth century down to 1880, and have found scarcely 
 any change in the character of votes or the modes of 
 business procedure. In order, however, that there may 
 be no question as to the nature of these old Common Fields 
 at the time when there were ten of them in the one town 
 of Salem, letuseitea few extracts from the Massachusetts 
 Colony Records, which supply most admirably all missing 
 evidence concerning the period before 1(580. In the spring 
 of 1643, the year the Massachusetts colony was divided 
 into four shires, with Salem heading the list of Essex 
 towns, it was ordered by the General Court, " For 
 preventing disorder in come feilds w ch are inclosed in 
 common, .... that those who have the greater quantity 
 in such feilds shall have power to order the whole, 
 notwithstanding any former order to the contrary, & that 
 every one who hath any part in such common feild shall 
 make and maiutaiue the fences according to their severall 
 quantities." 6 
 
 In the fall of the same year was passed an Act which 
 leaves no doubt as to what was meant by the ordering of 
 afield. " Whereas it is found by experience that there 
 hath bene much trouble & difference in severall townes about 
 the manner of planting, sowing, & feeding of common 
 conic feilds, & that upon serious consideration wee tinde 
 no generall order can provide for the best improvement of 
 every such common lleild, by reason that some consists 
 onehj of plowing ground, some haveing a great part /it 
 onehj J 'or planting, some of meadowe and feeding ground; 
 also, so that such an order as may be very wholesome & 
 good for one feild ma}' bee exceeding preiudiciall & 
 inconvenient for another, it is therefore ordered, that 
 
 Mas-. Col. ttee. ii, :S!I, l!Ci 
 
44 
 
 where the commoners cannot agree about the manner of 
 improvement of their feild, either concerning the kind of 
 graine that shalbee somen or set therein, or concerning the 
 time or manner of feeding the herbage thereof, that then 
 such persons in the severall tovvnes that are deputed to 
 order the prudenciall affaires thereof, shall order the same, 
 or in case where no such are, then the maior part of the 
 freemen, who are hereby enioyned w th what convenient 
 speed they may to determine any such difference as may 
 arise upon any information given them by the said common- 
 ers ; & so much of any former order as concerns the 
 improvement of common feilds, & that is hearby provided 
 for, is hearby repealed." 7 But four years later, the Court 
 went back to the old system, leaving the regulation of 
 Common Fields entirely in the hands of the majority of 
 interested proprietors. 8 The above order is significant 
 of the actual survival in New England of old English 
 agrarian customs. 
 
 The practice of allowing the selectmen, in so-called 
 private Town Meeting, to regulate the management of 
 Common Fields seems, from the town records of Salem, to 
 have been already in vogue in this place before the passage 
 of the above Act, at least as regards the control of common 
 fences and the regulation of pasturage upon the stubble 
 lands. In the spring of 1638, it was ordered by Mr. 
 Endicott, John Woodbury, aud the rest of the Town 
 Fathers, "fforasmuch as divers of our towne are resolued 
 to sowe English graine this spring . . . that all common 
 & particular home ffences about the towne shall be suffi- 
 cientlie made vp before the twentieth of the ffirst moneth 
 next [April] vppon the payne or penaltie of 5 s. euerie 
 day after that any one is defectiue therein." 9 
 
 One of the most extraordinary features of this old 
 
 Mass. Col. Rec, ii 49. Ibid, 195. Town Records of Salem, i,84. 
 
45 
 
 system of common husbandry, as practised in early 
 Massachusetts, was the impressment of artisans by the 
 town constable to aid farmers in harvest time. This 
 undoubted power of the community over the time and 
 labor of its individual members, a power seen in very 
 recent times when constables impressed labor for mending 
 the town roads, is a connecting link between New England 
 towns and old English parishes. The following is the 
 exact text of a colony law (1646), upon this matter of 
 impressing labor in harvest time : " Because y e harvest of 
 hay, corne, flax, & hemp comes usually so neare together y* 
 much losse can hardly be avoyded, it is ordered & decreed 
 by y 8 Courte, y l y e cunstable of every towne, upon request 
 made to y w , shall require artificers or handicrafts men, 
 meete to labour, to worke by y e day for their neighbours 
 needing y m , in mowing, reaping, & inning thereof, and y l 
 those whom they help shall duely pay y m for their worke, 
 & if any person so required shall refuse, or y e cunstable 
 neglect his office herein, they shall each of y m pay to y e 
 use of y e pore of y e towne double so much as such a 
 dayes worke comes unto : provided no artificer &e, shalbe 
 compeled to worke for others whiles he is necessarily 
 attending on like busines of his ownc." 10 This impress- 
 ment of laborers for harvest was only the revival of old 
 English parish law, n and is precisely the same in principle 
 
 Jo Mass. Col. Bee., ii, 180-1. 
 
 "In I.ambard's "Constable, Horsholder, and Tythingman," acurious ohl vol- 
 ume, published in the year 1610, we And the following law : "In the time of Hay. or 
 Cornharvest, the Constable, or any such other Officer, vpon request made, and for 
 avoiding the losse of any corne, gralne. or hay, may cause all such Artificers and 
 persons (as may be meete to labour) by his discretion to serve by the day, for the 
 mowing, reaping, shearing, getting, or inning of corne, graine, or hay. according to 
 the skill and qualitie of the person; and if any such person shall refuse .-> to doe, 
 then ought such Officer (vnder the pain of fortie shillings) to imprison such refuser 
 in the Stockes, by the space of two daies and one night." See also :> Eli/., cap. 4. 
 This law appears to have been in operation in England down to very recent times, 
 sec J. W. Willcock, The Office of Constable (England, 1J.!7; Philadelphia, KMO, 
 p. 3b). 
 
 2 
 
46 
 
 as the requirement of local militia by the Selectmen to 
 perform escort duty in the transportation of grain from 
 the frontier towns to places of greater security. n The 
 case of Captain Lathrop of Beverly, and his company, 
 "the very flower of the county of Essex," as Hubbard 
 calls them, will naturally recur to the Salem mind. These 
 men were sent as a guard to some planters who were 
 coming: down the shore of the Connecticut river from 
 Deerfield to Hadley with wagon-loads of grain and house- 
 hold goods. In crossing Muddy Brook, now called Bloody 
 Brook, the company which was marching carelessly (some 
 of the soldiers having put their guns in the carts, in order 
 to be free to gather grapes) were suddenly attacked by 
 Indians from the adjoining swamps, and nearly the whole 
 band of soldiers and planters were cut off. n 
 
 Returning now to the old records of the South Field 
 Proprietary, let us examine a few illustrative extracts, 
 which, to the outside world, will doubtless be more 
 interesting in their original form than they would in 
 any modern paraphrase : "It is ordered & voated by the 
 proprietors of the Southfield that the proprietors shall 
 meet on the last Tuesday in ffebruary, every year for the 
 making such orders as may be needfull for the Good of 
 the Southfield, & it is left to the moderator & the Clarke u 
 to appoint the place where they shall meet & this shall be 
 accounted sufficient warning without any further notice 
 Given of the tyme when to meet, & it is farther agreed 
 that such as doe meet shall pay Sixpence each person to be 
 spent at the house where they meet [at a tavern?] and 
 such as doe not meet on that day shall pay eighteen pence 
 
 " Mass. Col. Bee, v, 66. 
 
 " Judd's History of Hadley, 147-9. Edward Everett's Oration at Bloody Brook. 
 Washington Gladden, From the Hub to the Hudson. Several grandchildren of 
 the old planters of Salem and Beverly perished in that terrible massacre at Bloody 
 Brook, Sept. 18,1675. See Essex Inst. Hist. Collections, Vol. xix, pp. 137-142. 
 
 14 In this mode of spelling "clerk," we have a suggestion of Its original 
 pronunciation. Compare also the family name, 'Clark.' 
 
47 
 
 Each person for non appearance and this to stand as a 
 Constant order Continually, the tyrae of the day is to be 
 at one of the Clock." The proprietors sometimes met at 
 a private house, and perhaps occasionally in the open fields. 
 The proceedings at a proprietors' meeting were always 
 conducted according to rules of parliamentary procedure. 
 A New England man, in reading the old Commoners' 
 records of Salem, would be chiefly impressed by the fact 
 that here is described a miniature Town Meeting. A 
 moderator is always chosen ; a clerk records the proceed- 
 ings ; surveyors (not of highways) but of fences are 
 appointed ; field drivers are chosen ; and taxes levied. 
 
 Among the officers chosen at a Commoners' meeting was 
 the Hay ward, or, as he is sometimes called in the later 
 town records, "the watchman upon the walls of the 
 pasture." Old Homer's ancient men, watching from the 
 walls of Troy the conflict of human cattle, were hardly 
 more ancient than this time-honored agrarian office. The 
 swine-herd of Odysseus was a near kinsman of the Saxon 
 Hay ward. The office had nothing whatever to do with 
 haying, or with grass-lots, as the name might at first seem 
 to imply. It is derived from the Saxon liege (German 
 Hag, English hedge) and means the warden of the hedges 
 or fences. Many German places derive their names from 
 the hedge with which they were originally surrounded (e. g. 
 "VVendhagen, Grubenhagcn, the Hague). In fact the word 
 town means only a place that is hedged in, from the old 
 German Zan or Tun, modern German Zaun, meaning a 
 hedge. The office of hay ward was originally constabulary 
 in character. He was appointed in feudal times in the 
 Court Lcet (German Leute), or popular court of the Nor- 
 man manor and English parish, thus coming down into the 
 parish life of New England. 
 
 Let us now glance at the duties of the ancient watchman 
 of the old South Field. "Voted, That the Gates att both 
 
48 
 
 Ends of the field be made good & well repaired. And that 
 the Little Gates Especially be Made and Hung so as to be 
 easy for Travellers to pass at the Charge of the proprietary, 
 and that the Haywards accordingly are Desired & Impow- 
 ered to do it & to Render an Account of the Charge 
 
 the next proprietors meeting" "Voated that the 
 
 Haywards . . or any of the proprietors of the Southfield 
 shall have power to take up & Impound any horse kind or 
 any other cattle w ch shall be found loose upon his own 
 ground or the grounds of any other proprietor of the 
 Southfield feedings unless they be tyed & that none shall 
 tether in the night time vpon the penalty of what the law 
 doth determine in case of Damage fleazant [faisant] . And 
 this to be from the tenth of April [more usually 25 of March] 
 to the 14th of October . . & that the ffield be drove 
 by the Hay ward the 10th of Aprill & not to be broken 
 open till 14th October next." M This custom of clearing 
 the Common Field of all creatures in the spring and of 
 breaking down the barriers again in the fall, so that the cat- 
 tle of the whole village may pasture upon the stubble is quite 
 parallel to the old English 16 Lammas lands, which belong 
 to individuals but are subject to certain rights of common- 
 age. Lammas day, when the fences of the Common Fields 
 were thrown down, was the occasion of a village festival 
 in old England. 
 
 It will be remembered that in old England there were 
 two sorts of pasturage in Common Fields, whence crops 
 had been gathered, (1) stinted, (2) unstinted. The latter 
 
 15 A similar order, taken from the latter part of the South Field Records (1741) is 
 even more striking than the above which bears the date of 1695 : Voted, That no 
 Person shall Teder any Hor6e Kind Cattle &c in said field, in the Night time, Nor 
 in the Day time, Neither shall any Persons Bait their Creatures on their own Land 
 on Penalty of forfeiting their Herbage, save only while they are at work there . . . 
 the Haywards to Judge of the Same and to Debar them of their Herbage in the 
 fall according to their Discretion or Have Power to take their Creatures from their 
 Tedering Ropes & Impound them which they shall think most proper." 
 
 "Laveleye, Primitive Property, 114, 241. 
 
49 
 
 must have been customary at Salem during the early part 
 of the seventeenth century, but at the time the records of 
 the South Field begin, 1680, stinted pasturage was the 
 rule. In that year it was voted " That on ye 14 of October 
 next ye Proprietors have Liberty to put in Catle For 
 Herbige . . y l is to say 6 Cows 4 Oxen 3 Horses or 12 
 Yearlings or 24 Calves to 10 Acors of Land and so in 
 proportion to Greater or Lesser Quantities of Land 
 According as they Have & no person shall Cutt or Stripe 
 their Indian Come Stalkes after they have gathered their 
 Come on penalty of forriting Herbidge." At first sight, 
 such a law might seem merely the resultant of local 
 conditions, and of the somewhat commonplace discovery 
 that Indian corn-stalks were good for foddering cattle. 
 But there were similar laws in the agrarian communities 
 of old England at this period. Gleaners had definite 
 rights, and it was required that grain-stalks should be left 
 at a certain height for the benefit of the village cattle. 
 It appears from the South Field records that rights to 
 rt herbage" could be leased and transferred : " When the 
 proprietors Shall put in their Creatures for Herbage they 
 Shall Give an Account to the Haywards of the Number 
 of the same And Whosoever shall Hire Herbage of any 
 person Shall bring from Under the Hand of the Leasor 
 for so much as he Hires to the Haywards by the 14 of 
 October Next." Two other points are especially worthy 
 of attention. First, many of the lots in the South Field 
 appear to have been very small, a half acre, three quarters 
 of an acre, an acre, and so on in such small proportions. 
 Second, bits of common land lying in the great field were 
 granted out by the Proprietary to individuals for a term 
 of seven years. 
 
SALEM 
 MEADOWS, WOODLAND, AND TOWN NECK, 
 
 BY HERBERT B. ADAMS. 
 
 We have examined the subject of common fields, where 
 planting lands were associated together under certain com- 
 munal laws as regards the choice of crops, the regulation of 
 fences, the reservation of herbage, and the employment of 
 the lands of individuals for a common pasture in the fall 
 of the year. We have seen that the old English system 
 of land community was reproduced at Salem in some of its 
 most striking features. Let us now briefly consider 
 the topics of common meadow, common woodland, and 
 common pasture, in the full sense of that term. In these 
 matters we shall find that the old English customs were 
 still more minutely followed. The first item of interest, 
 in connection with the subject of common meadow, is the 
 fact that the Old Planters 1 enjoyed such a common all for 
 themselves. It was known as "the Old Planters medow 
 ncere Wenham 2 common." And yet even this meadow 
 
 'Town Records of Salem, i, 7<i, 138. 
 
 ' Wenham Common is mentioned only onee in the town records of Salem, but 
 Wenham Swamps are frequently noticed. These great swamps are interesting 
 because they continued for many years common to both Ipswich and Wenham, ns 
 were certain swamps to Plymouth and Plympton. By an Act of the Province 
 legislature in 17.V>, the proprietors of Ipswich and Wenham were authorized to 
 meet and prohibit the general use of Wenham Great Swamp as a common pasture, 
 in order that the growth of w<*>d and timber might not be hindered. (Province 
 Laws, iii, 790). 
 
 Wen'iam is a curious case of one town budding from another. It appears from 
 the Massachusetts Colony Records (i,'279) that the inhabitants of Salem agreed to 
 plant a village near Ipswich River and the Court thereupon ordered, in 1(>3U, that 
 all lands lying between Salem and said river, not belonging by grant to any other 
 town or person, should belong to said village. In KU3, it was ordered by the Court 
 that " Knon" lie called " Wcnnan" and constitute a town, with power to send one 
 deputy to the General Court (li, 4-4). Johnson, in his Wonderworking Providence 
 (W. F. Poole's ed 189), calls Wenham Salem's " littlo sister." lie says Salem 
 
 (51) 
 
52 OLD planters' meadows. 
 
 was under the authority of the town, for it was ordered 
 in 1638 "that the meadow that is in common amongst 
 some of our Brethren Mr. Conant & others shall be fenced 
 in the ffirst day of April & left common again the last of 
 September euery yeare." This signifies that a piece of 
 grass-land common to a little group of men for mowing 
 was also common to the whole town for pasture in the 
 fall. 8 
 
 The whole town of Salem once had its common meadows, 
 just as did the town of Plymouth, 4 where the practice 
 continued long after the partnership with the London 
 merchants was dissolved. In both places, it was long 
 customary in town meeting to assign lots where men should 
 mow for one year, or for a longer period. The word " lot" 
 as applied to land carries a history in itself. In 1637, it 
 was ordered by the selectmen of Salem "that all the marsh 
 ground that hath formerlie beene Laid out for hay grass 
 shall be measured." 5 This was the first step towards the 
 allotment of the Salem meadoAvs. Before this time they 
 had been absolutely common, as is clear from a vote like 
 the following, passed in 1686, by the Selectmen : "Wm. 
 Knight Rec d for an inhabitant, but noe Lands to appropriat 
 vnto him but a 10 acre lott, & common for his cattle grasse 
 
 nourished her up in her own bosom till she became of age, and gave her a goodly 
 portion of land. " Wenham is very well-watered, as most inland Towns are, the 
 people live altogether upon husbandry, New England having trained up great 
 store to this occupation, they are increased in cattle, and most of them live very 
 well, yet are they no great company; they were some good space of time there 
 before they gathered into a Church-body" [1044]. 
 
 Mr. William P. Upham, in the bulletin of the Essex Institute, ii, 51, says, in 
 1053 the town granted to George Emery the herbage of that parcel of land which 
 was John Woodbury's in the old planters' marsh and all right of commonage the town 
 might have claimed to him and bis heirs forever, and in 1058, to Wm. Hathorne the 
 town's right and privileges in the planters' marsh. Mr. Upham thinks the marsh 
 was common to the old planters before Endicott's arrival, ii, 52. 
 
 * Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 2}0^7, Plymouth Col. Rec, i, 14, 
 40,50. 
 
 'Town Records qf Sajem, i, 44. 
 
DIVISION AMONG FAMILIES. 53 
 
 & hay" 6 Eight months after the above order in reference 
 to the measurement of the meadows, it was "agreed that 
 the marsh meadow Lands that haue formerly layed in 
 common to this Towne shall now be appropriated to the 
 Inhabitants of Salem, proportioned out vnto them according 
 to the heads of their families. To those that haue the 
 greatest number an acre thereof & to those that haue least 
 not aboue haue an acre, & to those that are betweene both 
 3 quarters of an acre, alwaies provided & it is so agreed 
 that none shall sell away theire proportions of meadow, 
 more or lesse, nor lease them out to any aboue 3 yeares, 
 vnlesse they sell or lease out their howsesw tll their meadow." 7 
 This restriction upon the alienation of allotted land is 
 repeatedly paralleled in the records of Plymouth Planta- 
 tion, where grants were made to lie to so and so's house-lot 
 in Plymouth and not to be sold from it. 8 
 
 The above division 9 of Salem meadows among the fami- 
 lies of the town was managed by the "ffive Layers out," 
 Captain Trask, Mr. Conant, John Woodbury, John Balch, 
 and Jeffrey Massey. In the town records, there is to be 
 seen in the handwriting of Mr. Conant, a list of the heads 
 of families, and before each name stands the number of 
 persons thereby represented. Roger Conant headed a 
 family of nine persons ; John Woodbury, six ; John Balch, 
 six; Captain Trask, seven; and Mr. Endicott, nine. 
 These heads of households received each an acre, for, by 
 
 Ibid, 28. 'Ibid, 61, 101-4. 
 
 Restrictions upon the alienation of land were very frequent at Plymouth and 
 elsewhere. See Ply. Col. i, 46 (eight cafes), 82. Cf. Laveleye, Primitive Property, 
 118. 121, 162. Mass. Bee., 1,201; Conn, liec, i, 351; Allen, Wenham, 20; Freeman, 
 Cape Coil, ii, 254; Lambert, New Haven, 163; Bond. Watertown, 996. 
 
 The granting of hay-lots by t he year to old and new comers went on to some 
 extent after the above division of the common meadow, which doubtless remained 
 common, like the Old Planters' meadow, alter the hay had been gathered. The 
 following is a specimen of an annual hay-grant: "Graunted for the yeare to mr. 
 flit>k & Mr. flbgge the hay grasse of the salt marsh medow. at the side of the old 
 Planters fields" Town Krc. of Salem, i. 8*. 
 
54 WOOD-COMMONAGE. 
 
 the town vote, the greatest families could not have more 
 than that amount of meadow. It gratifies one's sense of 
 justice to be assured that Goodwife Scarlet, Mistress 
 Robinson, the Widow More, Widow Mason, Widow Fel- 
 ton, Widow Greene, and "Vincent's mother" received 
 each their proper allowance. 
 
 Common of wood, as well as of meadow, was long 
 practised at Salem. It was ordered in 1636, that all the 
 land along the shores on Darby's Fort Side, up to the 
 Hogsties and thence towards Marblehead, 10 along the shore 
 and for twenty rods inland, should be "reserued for the 
 Commons of the towne to serue it for wood & timber." 11 
 But the privilege of wood commonage was not to beabused. 
 Whatever a townsman needed for fuel, fencing, or building 
 purposes, he could freely have, but it was strictly ordered 
 that "noe sawen boards, clap boards or other Timber or 
 wood be sold or transported" out of town by any inhabi- 
 tant unless the above be first offered for sale " to the 
 thirteene men." 12 Similar restrictions in regard to the 
 export of timber prevailed in Plymouth Colony. 13 In the 
 early history of Massachusetts, the colonial government, 
 at one time, undertook to regulate the cutting of timber, 
 
 10 Marblehead is an interesting case of a town voluntarily created by another 
 town. Usually legislative action came first and towns were forced to allow the 
 secession of precincts. In 1648, it was declared at a general town meeting in 
 Salem that " Marble Head, with the allowance of the general Court, shal be a towne, 
 and the bounds to be the vtmost extent of that land which was mr. Humphries 
 fa i*m e and sould to Marble Head, and soe all the neck to the Sea, reserving the 
 disposing of the fferry and the appoynting of the fferry man to Salem." (Town 
 Kec, i, 156-7). Cf. Mass. Col. Rec, i, 165. "It was proued this Court that Marble 
 Necke belongs to Salem." Cf. Ibid, 226. In 1649, May 2, " Upon the petition of the 
 inhabitants of Marble Head, for them to be a towne of themselues; Salem haveing 
 granted them to be a towne of themselues, & appointed them the bounds of their 
 towne, w h the Courte doth graunt." Mass. Col. Rec, ii, 266. 
 
 11 Town Records of Salem, i, 17, 34, 112, 196, 219. 
 
 "Ibid 30-1. An Act for the Preservation of Timber may be found in the Statutes 
 of the Realm, 27 Eliz. An Act concerning " clap boards" occurs in the 35 Eliz. 
 u Plymouth Col. Rec, Book of Deeds, 8. 
 
COMMON PASTURE. 55 
 
 by requiring permission therefor from the nearest assistant 14 
 or his deputy, but this regulation seems to have been of no 
 practical consequence. The matter was tacitly relegated 
 to the towns, and the}' delegated the execution of their 
 forestry laws to their own selectmen. 
 
 We have considered the topics of House Lots, Plant- 
 ing Lands, Meadow Lands and Wood Lands. The first 
 two groups were lands held in severalty, although Plant- 
 ing Lands were common for a part of the year. The 
 three chief categories of strictly Common Land are Wood, 
 Pasture, and Meadow, corresponding to the old German 
 terms, Wcdd, Weide, und Wie.se. The reappearance of 
 Common Wood and Common Meadow in the land system 
 of Salem we have already seen. We come now to the 
 last, and, in some respects, the most interesting division 
 of our subject, namely, Common Pasture. This should 
 not be confounded with the temporary pasturing of 
 stubble lands or hay meadows after harvest. Heal Com- 
 mon Pasture is always common, and there are usually no 
 allotments of land in severalty. 
 
 A recent number of the Contemporary Rev ieiv contains 
 an interesting sketch of customs of common pasturage 
 that still survive in Germany. The article is entitled 
 " Notes from a German Village," and was written by an 
 English professor 15 who spent a summer vacation in the 
 little town of Gross Tabarz, on the northern slope of the 
 Thnringian mountains. "Early every line morning," ho 
 says, "we were awaked by the blowing of the Kuh-hirCs 
 horn as he passed through the village, and any one watch- 
 ing his progress would see a cow turned out from one 
 
 14 Mans. Col. Roc, i, 101. Cf. JiiiIkc Kndicotl's Urief, I. vim v. Naliiint, li. 
 "Contemporary Review, July, IWI. Article l>y Prufe.tMir Alilif. 
 
56 NEAT-HERD8, 8WINE-HERD8, GOAT-HERDS. 
 
 outhouse, two more out of a second, and soon, the proces- 
 sion gradually increasing until, on leaving the village, 
 the Hirt and his assistant would have from eighty 
 to a hundred and twenty cows and bulls under the 
 charge of themselves and their two dogs. In wander- 
 ing in the daytime through the forests we often heard 
 from a distance the tinkling of the large bells which 
 the cows carry, and in a few minutes would meet the 
 whole procession coming gently along the high road or 
 narrow lane, somewhat to the alarm of the more timid 
 members of our party, but by no means to the dimi- 
 nution of the picturesqueness of the scene. By six 
 o'clock in the evening the Hirt had gathered his flock 
 together, and driven them back to the village, where the 
 ox knows its owner, and, unbidden, each turns into its 
 own stable." 
 
 When we read the above description, we were tempted 
 to believe that the English professor had written his story 
 of summer experience upon the basis of old records in 
 Salem. Like the villages of the Thuringian Forest, 
 Salem once had its cowherds, swineherds, and goatherds. 
 They too, of old time, came through the streets of the 
 village blowing their horns, and creatures were turned 
 out to their pastoral care. In the spring of 1641, 
 it was agreed in Salem town meeting that "Laurance 
 Southweeke & William Woodbury shall keepe the milch 
 cattell & heifers . . this summer . . . They are to be- 
 gin to keepe them, the 6th day of the 2d moneth. And 
 their lyme of keeping of them to end, the 15th day of 
 the 9th moneth. They are to driue out the Cattell 
 when the Sun is halfe an hower high, & bring them 
 in when the sun is halfe an hower high. The cattle 
 are to be brought out in the morning into the pen neere 
 
CATTLE PENS. . . . BRANDING CATTLE. 57 
 
 to Mr. Downings pale. And the keepers are to drive 
 them & bring such cattle into the Pen as they doe receaue 
 from thence." 18 
 
 The duty of village swineherds was similar. Early in 
 the morning they were " to blow their home" as they went 
 along the street past the houses, and the townsmen brought 
 out their swine to the keeper, who took charge of the 
 drove until sunset, when all returned to town and every 
 townsman received his swine again, which he kept over 
 night in a pen upon his own premises. 17 The cattle were 
 also kept over night by each owner, either in private yards 
 or in the common cow houses. 18 In the morning the 
 creatures were driven to the great Cattle Pen, 19 at the gate 
 of which the herdsman stood waiting, and, at a certain 
 hour, drove all afield. If a townsman arrived late with 
 his cows, there was no help for it, but to follow after and 
 catch up with the herd, or else to be his own herdsman 
 that day and run the risk of his cows breaking into in- 
 closures upon the plantation. 20 The herdsman was origi- 
 nally paid for his services by the town, but afterwards by 
 individuals, at a rate fixed upon in town meeting, usually 
 about four shillings sixpence per season, for the charge of 
 every cow, the settlement being made in butter, wheat, 
 and Indian corn. 21 The cattle of every town were marked 
 with the first letter of the town's name, roughly painted 
 with pitch. Towns whose names began with the same let- 
 ter, for example, Salem, Salisbury, Sudbury, Strawberry 
 Bank (Portsmouth) were obliged to agree upon differ- 
 ently shaped letters. Salem had a plain capital S ; Salis- 
 
 '"Tiiwn accords of Salem, i, 99. For other illustrations of the duties of the 
 Town's Herdsmen, see Kelt's Annals, i. 277-80. Herdsmen were employed in the 
 Great Pastures of Salem down to a very recent date. Kelt, i, '11*2. 
 
 " Hist. (oil. Essex Inst. xl, 3*3. Town Records of Salem, i, 10*). 
 
 " Ibid, I>4. " Ibid, 10, 39, 40, 86. Ibid, 41. " Ibid, 207. 
 
58 TOWN FLOCKS, HERDS AND HOUNDS. 
 
 bury, the sign of the dollar, $ ; Sudbury added an up- 
 right dash to the top of its initial S ; Strawberry Bank 
 added a straight stroke downward from the tail end of its 
 S. 22 
 
 It is perhaps not generally known that Salem had not 
 only town herdsmen, but actually town cows, town sheep, 23 
 town dogs, 24 and a town horse. 25 In the town records we 
 read of a " townes cowe " killed by the butcher, and the 
 Selectmen are ordered to sell the beef and hide for the 
 town's benefit. Both cows and sheep came into the pos- 
 session of the town in settlement for debts or taxes. 
 But a most singular order was that which was passed in 
 Salem in 1645, whereby half a dozen brace of hounds were 
 to be brought out of England, the charges to be borne by the 
 town. These town dogs were probably used for herding 
 cattle or hunting wolves. Perhaps Salem's order was the 
 first suggestion for the Act passed by the colonial legisla- 
 ture of Massachusetts three years later, whereby the Select- 
 men of every town were authorized to purchase, at the 
 town's expense, as many hounds as should be thought best 
 for the destruction of wolves, and to allow no other dogs 
 to be kept in town, except by magistrates, or by special 
 permit. 26 
 
 Town flocks and herds, and town herdsmen imply the 
 existence of town pastures. The first mention of this 
 subject in the town records of Salem was in 1634, shortly 
 alter the division of the ten acre lots. It was then agreed 
 that the Town Neck should be preserved for the feeding of 
 
 " Mass. Col. Rec, ii, 190, 225. Town Records of Salem, i, 185, 189, 195. 
 
 Ibid, 139. Felt, Salem, i, 281. 
 
 3 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 252-3, ibid for law relating to Sheep Commons. The keep- 
 ing of greyhounds for coursing deer or hare, and of setters for hunting, was for- 
 bidden in the parishes of Old England. See Lambard's Constable (1610) 81, and 
 the statute I Jac, Cap. 27. 
 
STINTING THE NECK LANDS. 59 
 
 cattle on the Sabbath. Individuals were forbidden to feed 
 their goats there on week-days, but were required to drive 
 them to one of the larger Commons, so that the grass upon 
 the Neck land might have a chance to grow for pasture on 
 the Lord's day. 7 For Salem, the Town Neck was a kind 
 of home-lot for baiting the town's cattle. In old Eng- 
 land such a pasture would have been termed a Ham. Wil- 
 liam Marshall, an English writer of the last century, in 
 describing the agrarian customs of his country, says : 
 " On the outskirts of the arable lands, where the soil is 
 adapted to the pasturage of cattle . . one or more stinted 
 pastures, or hams, were laid out for milking cows, work- 
 ing cattle, or other stock which required superior pastur- 
 age in summer." 28 The practice of stinting the Neck land 
 for pasture must have begun at a very early date, but not 
 much is said about the matter in the published volume of 
 the town records (1634-1659). However, the following 
 vote of .the old Commoners, in the year 1714, will serve 
 to illustrate the principle as applied to a permanent town 
 pasture : " Voted, that y e neck of land to y c Eastward 
 of the Block house be granted and reserved for y e use of 
 y e town of Salem, for a pasture for milch cows and rid- 
 ing horses, to be fenced at y e town's charge, and let to y e 
 inhabitants of y e town by y e selectmen and no one person 
 to be admitted to put into said pasture in a summer more 
 than one milch cow or one riding horse, and y e whole 
 number not to exceed two and a half acres to a cow and 
 
 "Town Records of Salem, i, 9. 
 
 * Laveleye, Primitive Property, 245, cf. 69. Nasso, in his Agricultural Com- 
 munity of the Middle Ages, p. 10. quoting Marshall, observes : " Every village . . 
 in the immediate vicinity of the dwelling-houses and farm-buildings, had some 
 few inclosed grass lands for the rearing of calves, or for other cattle which it 
 might be thought necessary to keep near the village (the common farmstead or 
 homestall)." 
 
60 TOWN FARM AND POOR HOUSE. 
 
 four acres to a horse ; y e rent to be paid into y e town 
 treasurer for y e time being for y e use of the town of 
 Salem." 29 Authority to stint common pasturage was 
 given by the colonial legislature to the selectmen of every 
 town in the year 1673. 30 
 
 It is noteworthy that a part of the Neck lands con- 
 tinued to be used, and was specially known as a Town 
 Pasture until long after the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. According to a survey made in the year 1728, 
 there were at that time about one hundred and three acres 
 of land in the Town Neck, a part of it having been 
 planted by poor people holding cottage rights during the 
 town's pleasure. In 1735, that part of Winter Island 
 which was not needed for drying fish was let out with the 
 Neck as a common "town pasture," and so both Neck and 
 Island continued to be used together with a common 
 stint, e. g., "2 acres to a cow & 4 to a horse," but with 
 special preference allowed to inhabitants dwelling nearest 
 the Neck. In 1765 the town authorized its treasurer to 
 let the Island and the Neck together for the pasturage of 
 seventy-two milch cows at 10s. 8d. In 1824 Winter Isl- 
 and was annexed to the so-called Alms House Farm, 
 which, by this time had enclosed about ninety acres of the 
 old Neck lands. Instead of the town's cattle, the town's 
 poor were now fed in commons upon the Town's Neck. 
 It is a curious and instructive commentary upon the trans- 
 formation of communal institutions, that an old Town 
 Pasture should become the material basis for a Town 
 
 Report of the City Solicitor on the sale of the Neck Lands, communicated to 
 the City Council, Dec. 27, 1858. To Judge Endicott's valuable report we have been 
 greatly indebted for facts in the paragraphs concerning Winter Island and the 
 Town Neck. Cf. Felt's Annals of Salem, i, 191-2. 
 
 Mass. Col. Rec, iv, Part 2, 563. 
 
NECK GATE DISAPPEARS. 61 
 
 Farm and a Hospital. 31 The twenty-three acres remaining 
 from the Neck land passed under the control of the Over- 
 seers of the Poor, who annually appointed a Hay ward and 
 voted when the town or city of Salem (city since 183fi) 
 might drive its cows afield. Of course a fixed rate was 
 now demanded for every creature and accommodations 
 were strictly limited. There used to be gates leading 
 into the Town Pasture upon the Neck. They seem to 
 have lasted until a comparatively recent period, for a 
 Salem poet of our time has sung their praises. 
 
 What rapturous joy 
 Kindles the heart of an old Salem boy, 
 As he returns, though but iu thought, to take 
 That old familiar walk " down to the Neck ! " 
 The old " Neck Gate " swings open to his view. 
 At morn and eve, to let the cows pass through. 38 
 
 11 " In 1747, a committee having been appointed to select a site for a pest house, 
 reported Roadie's Point on the Neck (where the work house now stands), and rec- 
 ommended one to be built there. The Town accepted the report, and voted a siun 
 to build it, "and that Roadie's Point be the place for erecting said house "(see 
 above Report, 13). " It also appears from the records that the town exchanged 
 certain portions of the land received from the commoners, about live acres, for 
 land belonging to Allen's farm at Roache's Point and at Pigeon Cove. And in 
 1799, a hospital was built for small pox patients, which was standing within the 
 last twenty years " {ibid, 14). 
 
 We note that a Work House was ordered by the town of Salem, March lfi, 1770, 
 to be placed on the northeast part of the present Town Common or Training 
 Field. Some very interesting rules for the management of a parish Work House, 
 whicli is an Old English institution, may be found in the MS. Town Records of 
 Salem under the dato of March, 1772. 
 
 3a From Mr. ISrooks* poem, previously mentioned. 
 
[Fkom Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, Vol. XX, 
 pp. 101-17!).] 
 
 THE 
 
 GREAT PASTURES OF SALEM. 
 
 BY HERBERT B. ADAMS. 
 
 Originally there were still larger Town Pastures in 
 Salem than the Town Neck. These were known as Cow 
 Pastures or the Cattle Range. In 1640 it was resolved 
 by the Town that none of the Commons within the Cattle 1 
 Range should henceforth be granted to any individual use. 
 The boundaries of this great tract, known as the Cattle 
 Range, are described in the original records as beginning 
 at the head of Forest river, where fresh and salt water 
 meet, and as extending thence southward, and up to Mr. 
 Humphrey's farm," thence to the pond, "and so about to 
 Brooksby," or to the present town of Peabody. The area 
 of this great Common Pasture once embraced about four 
 thousand acres, and what remains of it is known to this 
 
 1 Town Records of Snlcm. i. 108, 109. Felt. Annals of Salem, i, 199. 
 Q " It i-- agreed, that Mr. Ilumfrey his ground shall begin al the dill, in the way 
 to Marble Head, well is the hound betwixt Salem A: I. inn .V so along the line be- 
 tween the said townes to the rocks, one mile by estimation. lo the great red oako 
 marked," ete. See Mass. Col. Hecords. i, -2fi. Mr. lliiuilrcy's Farm was the his- 
 toric germ of Swamnscott. He was one of the six original patentee- ol the Massa- 
 chusetts Colony. 
 
 (63) 
 
64 
 
 day as the Great Pastures of Salem. They now embrace 
 about three hundred acres and are a familiar land-mark to 
 every native of the region. A local bard has not forgot- 
 ten them in his enumeration of the attractive features of 
 this ancient town : 
 
 " The old town-pastures have not passed from sight, 
 ' Delectable Mountains ' of his childhood there 
 They stretch away into the summer air. 
 Still the bare rocks in golden lustre shine, 
 Still bloom the barberry and the columbine, 
 As when, of old, on many a "Lecture day," 
 Through bush and swamp he took his winding way, 
 Toiled the long afternoon, then homeward steered, 
 With weary feet and visage berry-smeared." 3 
 
 The division of the original Cattle Kange or Town Pas- 
 tures among the various parishes and dependents of Salem 
 is one of the most important chapters in her local history, 
 although it has received little attention. The witch trials, 
 which occurred only a few years before the passage of 
 Salem's agrarian laws, have quite eclipsed them in the 
 popular mind, which always dwells upon the phenomenal 
 element in human history rather than upon natural and 
 underlying laws. The communal spirit, implanted and 
 fostered in the parishes of Salem by the acquisition and ad- 
 ministration of common land, was of more vital and 
 enduring consequence in the history of that town than 
 any temporary obscuration of the common sense, chron- 
 icled as one "dark day." Agrarian laws, or the admin- 
 istration of the ager publicus, acquired by conquest, 
 constitute the real economic history of Old Rome, and we 
 may well believe that the long conflict between the Old 
 Commoners, or Patricians, with the Cottagers, or Plebe- 
 ians, of Salem was of great moment in the upbuilding of 
 this village commonwealth. The grounds of the conflict 
 
 1 From the Rev. Charles T. Brooks' poem, previously mentioned. 
 
65 
 
 were as deep-seated as the aristocratic class-distinctions 
 of Old England, which are felt in New England to this 
 day ; and the results of the conflict are as lasting and 
 potent for good as the freehold land tenure, which in 
 Salem, as elsewhere, evolved for many poor cottagers, or 
 landless inhabitants, out of the ancient Town Domain. 
 
 In a former chapter it has been shown that many poor 
 people, workingmen, servants, and fishermen, were re- 
 ceived into the town of Salem simply as inhabitants, 
 oftentimes with the right of building a cottage upon some 
 bit of waste land, but without any recognition as landed 
 proprietors. Some of these poor people were granted 
 house-lots, to be held during the town's pleasure. These 
 so-called "cottage-rights" were akin to the shanty-rights 
 that are sometimes temporarily allowed to Irish squatters 
 along the lines of our American railways, or upon the 
 waste and unoccupied land of our towns and cities. Such 
 privileges, when accorded by any real authority, were 
 like the Old English cottage-rights, whereby poor peasants 
 were allowed to build a hut or cottage upon the lord's 
 waste land, the common land of the manor. Upon this 
 waste, the peasants usually enjoyed certain rights of com- 
 monage ; for example, to wood, turf, and pasturage; and 
 they often cultivated in common certain portions of arable 
 land and gathered the hay from certain common meadows, 
 paying their lord in produce or in base services for the 
 privilege of retaining these immemorial customs. In the 
 Middle Ages, such tenants were variously known in man- 
 orial records as Coltagii, Coterelli, Cotlandarii, Colerii, 
 Bordarii, Cotmanni, any one of which terms signifies 
 much the same as Cottagers. 4 
 
 For the best discussion of the Knglish Cottagers, sec Professor William F. 
 Allen's paper on "The Rural Classes of England," 1,5, 8, 10, 11. Cf. Laveleye, 
 "Primitive Property," 22, '217. 
 
66 
 
 Many of the first settlers of New England were, in 
 economic respects, akin to this class of Cottagers. More 
 of our New England colonists than is commonly supposed 
 belonged in Old England to the landless class, and, like 
 all emigrants since the world began, most of them left 
 their native country in order to improve their economic 
 condition. Many of these English emigrants were so 
 poor that they came out to America as indented servants, 
 virtual serfs, until they could work out their freedom. 
 By an express order of the General Court of Massachu- 
 setts, no servant could have any land allotted him until 
 he had faithfully completed his term of service ; & and, in 
 Salem, men who had yet to serve were absolutely refused 
 recognition as inhabitants of the town. 6 Of this class of 
 men, who were the slaves of English capital, Salem un- 
 doubtedly had its share. The Reverend John White, in 
 his " Planter's Plea," speaks of three hundred colonists, 
 "most servants," who were sent over to Salem by the 
 Massachusetts Company ; and Barry, the historian of 
 Massachusetts, admits that there were originally one hun- 
 dred and eighty servants sent to that town. 7 
 
 In Massachusetts, stock companies, in which, by the 
 way, the governments of both town and colony originated, 
 took the place of what, in Old England, had been a feu- 
 dal or manorial regime. English capital, and the spirit 
 of corporate association for economic purposes, were fun- 
 damental facts in the colonization and local upbuilding 
 of Massachusetts. Although landless men acquired free- 
 holds by patient industry in the older towns, or by adoption 
 into westward moving companies, yet, in the beginning, 
 these men had a struggle for existence almost as hard as 
 
 6 Mass. Col. Records, i, 127. Town Records of Salem, i, 47. 
 
 7 For references, see chapter on the " Origin of Salem Plantation." 
 
67 
 
 that of poor men in Ireland to-day. Undeniably there 
 was an aristocratic aversion on the part of our thrifty 
 Puritan forefathers against granting land to new comers, 
 unless they were men of some property. This feeling 
 was entirely natural. Our forefathers were brought up 
 in the English parishes, and they regarded with contempt 
 all paupers and vagabonds. 8 To this day the old feeling 
 survives in New England, and a poor man who gets any- 
 thing out of one of our towns gets it by the hardest. In 
 Salem and in the first Plantations of Massachusetts, the 
 poor white trash of the period had greater difficulties to 
 contend with than it did originally in Virginia, for the 
 communal spirit, intensified by the Puritan idea, not only 
 forbade dispersion and squatter sovereignty, but wisely 
 kept the control of the commune in the hands of good, 
 substantial citizens, who were able to pay taxes and help 
 support preaching. 
 
 In the year 1GG0, it was enacted by the General Court 
 of Massachusetts that, after that date, no cottage or mere 
 dwelling house, except such as were already in existence' 
 or should thereafter be erected by town consent, should 
 be admitted to the; right of commonage, which, in those 
 times, meant chiefly the right of pasturing town-land. 
 This Act, 9 although indicating a continuity of the ancienl 
 communal spirit, marks nevertheless the lir.-t important 
 concession to the plebeian element in our Massachusetts 
 low ns. The concession was as necessary as it was impor- 
 tant for the economic evolution of the original narrow 
 communes. The ranks of the cottagers, originally land- 
 less men, but now in many eases possessed of small hold- 
 ings by thrift and purchase, had been greatly strengthened 
 
 " I'm' an curly I iv, - again > l VagalM-nd* and Trumps, m c M;;.* .Col. Kcrord.-, iv, 
 Tail .'. 13. 
 
 " Mass. Col. Uncords, iv. l'uit I, 117. 
 
68 
 
 by the so-called " New Comers," a wealthier class who had 
 pressed into the village communities of Massachusetts 
 and who, by reason of their wealth, had obtained lands, 
 although like the Cottagers they were kept out of any 
 dividend of the Commons. Towards the close of the 
 seventeenth century these New Comers and the Cottagers, 
 or the Nbvi Homines and the Plebs of our New England 
 towns, became a very strong party, so strong, indeed, in 
 some communities, that they overthrew the patrician ele- 
 ment, or the descendants of the Old Comers, and carried 
 town meetings by revolutionary storm. 10 
 
 In the year 1692, the General Court, still under the 
 influence of the patrician party in the towns, determined 
 to allow a division of the Common Lands " by the major 
 part of the interested" proprietors, but it was carefully 
 enjoined, as in 1660, that "no cottage or dwelling-place 
 in any town shall be admitted to the privilege of common- 
 age of wood, timber and herbage, or any other privileges 
 which lie in common in any town or peculiar, other than 
 such as were erected or privileged by grant before the 
 year one thousand six hundred sixty-one, or that have 
 since, or shall be hereafter granted." This Act 11 of 1692 
 is the real point of departure for the division of the Salem 
 Pastures and of all other Common Lands in Massachusetts. 
 The local authorities in Salem were evidently familiar 
 enough with the text of this law, for it is frequently 
 quoted in the town records, and the town clerk speaks of 
 the original as in "Folio 23, Province Law Book." The 
 Salem town records which cover this period of agrarian 
 
 "The histories of old towns like Haverhill and Newbury afford a striking 
 commentary on that agrarian revolution by which the common people of Massa- 
 chusetts declared their independence of lordly townsmen in the commune long be- 
 fore the English Colonies in America threw.off the tyranny of a privileged class of 
 rulers. 
 
 11 Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, i, 65. 
 
69 
 
 agitation have not yet been printed, but even a cursory 
 examination of the manuscript volumes, now preserved in 
 the oflice of the city clerk of Salem, will convince the 
 student that the Land Question occupied public attention 
 far more steadily than did the contemporary question of 
 Witchcraft. For agrarian communities, the chief interests 
 are always connected with the use of the soil, just as for 
 tisher-folk the chief thought is always concerning the 
 spoil of the sea. In reading the town records of Plym- 
 outh or of Salem, one cannot fail to perceive that the 
 undercurrent of New England town-life, however broken 
 the surface, is one steady and unceasing drift of hard 
 common sense, driven on by the resistless pressure of 
 cumulating majorities, and by the grinding force of public 
 necessity. 
 
 The pressure upon the Old Commoners of Salem be- 
 came so strong in 1702 that they voted, agreeably to the 
 colonial law of ten years before, that all persons who had 
 cottage right previous to 1661 should be classed among 
 the " proprietors" of Common Lands. It was also voted, 
 in the above year, for the benefit of the New Coiners, or 
 " For ye Incouragement & Growth of this Town : That 
 all Free-holders of this Towne vizt : Every one yt hath 
 a Dwelling house & Land of his own proper Estate in Fee 
 Simple Shall h:ive & is hereby Admitted unto ye privi- 
 ledge of Commonage." At the same time it was care- 
 fully provided that nothing should be done in reference 
 to the division, stinting, fencing, or disposal of the Com- 
 mons, unless the matter be brought before town meeting 
 " in an orderly way by ye Selectmen of ye Towne, & there 
 Debated & Voted, as hath been usual 1." It is important 
 to state that the Old Commoners in Salem seem to have 
 always constituted the sovereign element in town meeting 
 and to have controlled the machinery of local govern- 
 
70 
 
 mcnt. The Novi Homines and the Plebs never really 
 obtained the upper hand in this aristocratic old village 
 republic. All agrarian reforms in Salem were brought 
 about by concession on the part of the patrician element, 
 and not through popular revolution. The town fathers, 
 or the heirs of Old Comers, slowly yielded to the wishes 
 of the New Comers, and thus the agrarian commune was 
 gradually widened without losing its aristocratic and sov- 
 ereign character ; for newly admitted members immedi- 
 ately became as conservative of communal rights as had 
 been their more favored predecessors. 
 
 In 1713, a meeting of Commoners was called under 
 warrant from a justice of the peace, issued in due form 
 to one of the Proprietors. This meeting, after it had 
 been duly organized, encountered from some quarter an 
 obstructive line of policy. Complaint was made because 
 the meeting was held in too small a place and without 
 sufficient warning. After much debate, it was agreed to 
 make present proceedings null and void and to summon a 
 new meeting. A fresh warrant was issued by a different 
 justice and the people gathered together in the chief meet- 
 ing house of Salem. A moderator and a clerk were 
 appointed as in ordinary town meetings (of which agra- 
 rian meetings were probably the prototype), and a com- 
 mittee of nine was chosen to receive claims to the Common 
 Lands of Salem. This committee was instructed to re- 
 ceive such claims as were authorized by the town vote 
 of 1702 and by the Province law of 1660. The com- 
 mittee had also to consider what should be done for those 
 who paid heavy taxes (that is, for the patrician element) 
 and what for those who had no claims at all. 
 
 The committee posted apublic notice upon the door of 
 the Meeting House, warning inhabitants to bring in their 
 claims to shares in the Common Lands. According to 
 
71 
 
 previous instructions, the committee proceeded to record 
 applications in two distinct columns, one for cottages 
 erected before the year 1061, and the other for all free- 
 holders privileged by the town vote of 1702. Any one 
 studying these parallel lists will notice that many free- 
 holders represent also certain cottage rights established 
 upon their own farms (as upon Old English manors), and 
 also upon the Town waste, and even upon the Village 
 Green. For example, Colonel John Hathorne, a well-to- 
 do man (whose name represents the famous Hawthorne 
 family) claims a house or freehold in the village, also a 
 house upon his farm, and two cottage rights there. Mr. 
 Gedney's name stands for three freeholds and for six cot- 
 tage rights, four of them being in his great pasture and 
 one upon Antrum's farm. John Pickering (the ancestor 
 of Washington's Secretary of War) represents three free- 
 holds and six cottage rights, one of the hitter bein at 
 
 Co 7 O 
 
 Glass House Fields, and another in South Field Point. 
 Some of the cottage rights were in North Fields and some 
 in South Fields. One cottage right was in the " Horse 
 Pasture ;" another on "the Towne Common." 1 '-' One man, 
 who is spoken of rather disrespectfully as "Old Nichols," 
 had a cottage near the Pound, in North Fields. The 
 cottage rights are usually specified by the name of some 
 owner, past or present; and, in some instances, a consid- 
 erable number of rights appear to have been massed in 
 
 13 In early times, the present Town Common (Washington Square] of Salem ap- 
 pcars to have been a kind of Town Waste. People wore sometimes allowed to 
 build shanties upon it, possibly for the purpose of serving refreshments on 
 Training Days. Portions of the Common were leased for public purposes down to 
 the year 1T7!< (Felt, ii, 15)7) and possibly until u much later period, for the custom 
 continues to this day in many old communities, where the Selectmen arc empow- 
 ered to lease Town Land. At one time, theie were public buildings upon the 
 Common, e. g., a school-house, a liie-ongine-hou.-e, an alms-house, a cuimon-homo, 
 etc. Churches were sometimes built upon the Town Common in the older villages 
 of New England. 
 
 2 
 
72 
 
 one man's hands, indicating possibly that cottage rights, 
 after they were recognized as valuable, were bought up 
 by rich men, as were Revolutionary and Pension Claims 
 in after times. 
 
 In 1713, the same year in which the town of Salem 
 first recognized the claims of her Cottagers and all Free- 
 holders to share in the division of her common and un- 
 divided lands, was passed that vote which secured forever 
 for public use the old Town Common or Training Field, 
 the beautiful Washington Square of to-day. The origin 
 of this Common is coeval with the origin of the town, for 
 this tract was part of the oldest Town Land. The first 
 distinct reservation of Salem Town Common was in 1685, 
 when it was appointed by the town as a place where peo- 
 ple might shoot at a mark. 13 In the year 1713, it was 
 voted, " That the common lands where trainings are gen- 
 erally kept, before Nathaniel Higginson's house, be and 
 remain as it now lays to continue forever as a Training 
 Field for the use of the said town of Salem." 14 Origi- 
 nally Salem Common was a marshy tract, full of sedge 
 and brush. "We have seen the men who have cut the 
 flags and hoops on the Common and had rights to it, till 
 the final settlement between the Cottagers and Common- 
 ers in 1713, " 15 says an old resident writing in 1819. The 
 
 15 Felt, Annals of Salem, ii, 495. 
 
 "MS. Town Records of Salem, vol. iii. The first volume of the Town Records 
 of Salem, 1634-59, has been published by the Essex Institute, in a form and with a 
 literal exactness that are worthy of wide imitation. The other volumes, which 
 must also be published and utilized before early Salem History can appear to the 
 world as something besides Salem Witchcraft, are preserved in the vault at the 
 office of the City Clerk. The second volume covers the period from 1659 to 1680; 
 the third, from 1680 to 1748; and the fourth from 1748 to 1775; etc. Little concep- 
 tion of the richness of these unpublished Town Records can be had from the brief 
 use made of them by the writer of this monograph, or by other investigators with 
 only special points of interest in view. 
 
 16 Quoted from Essex Register, of August 4, 1819, by B. F. Browne, Hist. Coll. 
 of Essex Inst., iv, 2. 
 
73 
 
 surface of the now level Common was for a longtime very 
 uneven, with numerous hills and marshy hollows, and 
 pools of standing water. The tract was levelled about 
 the beginning of the present century, at an expense of 
 twenty-tive hundred dollars ; and, in honor of this public 
 improvement, the Selectmen, in 1802, ordered the Com- 
 mon to be called " Washington Square," but the old name 
 of "The Common" is still retained in popular use, like 
 the name of "Boston Common," 16 and it is to be hoped 
 that it will survive forever, as an open record of the orig- 
 inal land community from which the modern city has 
 evolved. 
 
 At the same time the Town Common was reserved, it 
 was also voted that all highways, burying places, and 
 other common lands lying between the Town Bridge and 
 the Block House, should remain common forever for the 
 use of the town. Thus were secured to Salem those nec- 
 essary communal foundations for the living and for the 
 dead, for the present and the future. The reservation 
 of land for cemeteries, for streets and sidewalks, and for 
 all public open spaces, is not ordinarily thought of as a 
 survival of the principle of agrarian community in the 
 midst of individual landed property which now seems to 
 prevail almost everywhere, but this survival is none the 
 less real because it is common and unnoticed. 
 
 Before proceeding to a division of the Common Lands, 
 the Proprietors made still further reservations for the ben- 
 efit of the community. From that magnificent town pat- 
 rimony of four thousand acres of Commons, sixty acres 
 were now granted for the use of the poor "and such oth- 
 ers as are Livers in the Town but not Privileged to a Right 
 
 18 An nt tempt was once made t<> change the name of " Boston Common" into 
 Washington Park." 
 
74 
 
 in the Common Lands." These were they who had no 
 claims. It is interesting to observe how this reservation 
 for the poor was administered. The sixty acres were ap- 
 pointed for a cow pasture, three acres to a cow right ; and 
 the Selectmen were from year to year to nominate such 
 poor people as deserved the right of commonage. Thus, 
 it should be observed, there was no premium placed on 
 poverty, for only " such as have a cow of their own to 
 keep " could secure the right of common pasture. A cot- 
 tager who owned only a goat or a pig was ruled out from 
 town bounty, for he could not be classed with his betters 
 who owned a cow. An end, however, was made to all 
 possible jealousy of Salem's aristocratic poor, when, in 
 in 1834, the town sold the pasture for six hundred dol- 
 lars, and thus re-asserted its right of communal domain. 
 But, by this time, the town was providing for its poor in 
 a more excellent way. The Town Farm had now taken 
 the place of the old Town Pasture, and Winter Island was 
 reserved for the benefit of poor fishermen, who could there 
 find a place to dry their fish. But a rent of five shillings 
 per annum had to be paid to the town for the use of Win- 
 ter Island, 17 thus indicating that the title to this tract, like 
 the right to the reservation for the poor, was still vested 
 in the town. 
 
 Besides the reservations for the poor, for the Town 
 Common, and for other public purposes, small lots were 
 assigned for the benefit of the clergy of Salem. In Old 
 England, and in Southern Colonies like Maryland and Vir- 
 
 During the late civil war, Winter Island was given over to the United States 
 Government, for the purpose of harbor-defence, but since the return of peace Con- 
 gress has granted the use of the Island to Plummer Farm School, so that the old 
 locality is still a kind of public agrarian interest. The Neck lands, once a kind of 
 Home Pasture for " Riding Horses," Milch Cows, etc., have now been converted 
 into a pleasure-ground called "The Willows," where cook-shops, booths, and 
 merry-go-rounds preserve for " the dear old Neck" its primitive character of a 
 Home Pasture, or out-door nursery, for Salem children. 
 
75 
 
 ginia, such reservations would have been called Glebe 
 Lands. Ten acres were granted to the ministry of the 
 First Parish of Salem ; but for the clergy of the Second 
 Parish five acres were considered enough. Five acres 
 were also allotted to the pastor of the Village Precinct, 
 afterwards known as Dan vers, and five to the Middle Pre- 
 cinct, later called South Dan vers, now Peabody. "The 
 East Parish lot," says Felt, "was sold in 1832 for $146. 
 That of the First Parish was disposed of in 1819 for $565. 
 This sum was added to the fund for supporting their 
 ministry, except enough of its income to purchase twenty 
 bushels of potatoes annually for the clergyman then their 
 pastor, which had been the amount of the rent." 18 
 
 Including these Glebe Lands and four hundred acres 
 which were reserved to satisfy incidental claims, for ex- 
 ample those of the town of Lynn in the boundary dis- 
 putes then pending, there were altogether at the disposal 
 of the Proprietors something over four thousand acres, 
 not reckoning abatements made on account of the quality 
 of the land. Upon adding up the claims, there were 
 found to be 1,132 rights to commonage. Of these, 138 
 rights or the equivalent of 460 acres, belonged to the in- 
 habitants of Salem Village and "Ry all's Side," or the 
 North Precinct; 204 rights or 680 acres belonged to the 
 dwellers in the Middle Precinct; and 75)0 rights, or 2,(530 
 acres, to the Proprietors of the body of the town, or of 
 the two lower parishes of Salem proper. 
 
 In the year 1722-3, the Commons of Salem were di- 
 vided between the claimants, according as they happened 
 to be grouped in the above named local precincts. To 
 Salem Village and Myall's Side" was granted all the Coni- 
 
 'Felt, Annuls of Salem, i, 100. 
 
 'The Records of Ihc Proprietors of Salem Village and Uyall's Side from lTiiU-UO 
 arc ftill in existence. 
 
76 
 
 mon Land beyond Ipswich River. The Middle Precinct 
 received the Commons lying in that neighborhood. The 
 body of the town of Salem retained the Common Lands 
 lying on the south side of a line drawn from the north- 
 east end of Spring Pond, beginning at a run of water 
 there, thence easterly to so-called Tylly's Corner, then 
 back of the Glass House Fields and down the plains to 
 the house formerly owned by Humphrey Case, and so on 
 to Norton's house and the Town Bridge, which entire cir- 
 cuit embraced the greater part of the Commons, or over 
 2,500 acres, besides the so-called "Flint's Pasture." 
 
 After this grand division of communal property, a new 
 board of Commoners was instituted for each precinct, and 
 the same old system of corporate administration of com- 
 mon property went on unchecked, and with the old spirit 
 of aristocratic exclusiveness as regards all New Comers. 
 The above division not only gave greater strength to all 
 freeholders and cottagers in the community, but it fur- 
 nished an economic basis for two new towns, besides va- 
 rious parishes. The old system of agrarian community 
 has died out in the younger towns which branched off 
 from Salem, but in the mother- town it has been perpetu- 
 ated down to the present day. 
 
 The history of the gradual curtailment of the Great 
 Pastures of Salem, from their original extent of 2,500 
 acres, at the time of the above distribution, to their pres- 
 ent comparatively narrow limits of 300 acres, does not 
 fall within the scope of this monograph, which is less con- 
 cerned with purely topographical details than with the 
 origin and continuity in Salem of an archaic system of 
 which the Great Pastures are a curious survival. Every 
 year since the above division, the Proprietors of the 
 Great Pastures have met, elected a moderator, listened to 
 the report of the clerk, and have passed their customary 
 
77 
 
 orders concerning the " stinting" of pasturage. The com- 
 mon domain, like the board of Commoners, has been 
 gradually shrinking up, as did the Roman Senate and the 
 dominions of Rome. The heirs of the original Proprie- 
 tors, the decuriones of Salem, have been gradually dying 
 oil' or selling out their rights to others. Farm after farm 
 has been set off by vote of the Commoners to those who 
 desired individual possession of their rights. Piece by 
 piece the old Commons have been parcelled out into indi- 
 vidual holdings ; but still, down to the very present, a 
 remnant of the once Great Pastures has been preserved. 
 The actual quantity of land is of little significance com- 
 pared with the fact that for nearly three centuries this old 
 system of commonage has remained practically the same 
 in the town of Salem. The writer has examined, at the 
 house of Dr. Henry Wheatland, the present Commoner's 
 clerk, the original records, which are remarkably com- 
 plete, and he finds that a vote recorded in the last 
 quarter of the nineteenth century differs very slightly 
 in substance from votes passed throughout the seven- 
 teenth century. The charm of novelty should not be 
 expected in a system which has its chief interest in the 
 fact of endurance without a change tor more than a 
 thousand years in Old England before the English thought 
 of conquering for themselves a New England. 
 
 And here, in passing, let us notice one illustration of 
 the survival of archaic custom in the method of conveying 
 land in early Salem "by turtle and twigg," which is men- 
 tioned by Palgrave as a Saxon form, to which later deeds 
 and records were only collateral. This singular custom, 
 not unknown among ruder peoples than the Saxons, was 
 kept up in the rural parishes of old England and was 
 thence directly transmitted by the Puritan Fathers to 
 
78 
 
 these New England shores, where it long survived in the 
 towns of Essex county, which after all was but a colony 
 of modern East Saxons, with a North-folk and a South- 
 folk, for county neighbors, though without a Wessex. 
 What links in history are these old county names and 
 local customs ! What an iron grip upon early English 
 precedent was that in 1695 when John Rusk of Salem, in 
 the presence of two witnesses, took a twig from a growing 
 tree and a piece of green turf,, both upon his own land, 
 and said, " Here, son Thomas, I do, before these two men, 
 give you possession of this land by turffe and tvvigg !" 
 
 The right of alienating shares in the Great Pastures 
 by deed was very early provided for by the old commoners 
 of Salem. In 1732 a committee of nine men was appoint- 
 ed to measure, lay out, and convey lots from the common 
 domain. Lots large enough for building purposes were 
 thus frequently sold off by vote of the majority of com- 
 moners, who divided the proceeds. Individual rights 
 were conveyed by deed, signed by the Committee in the 
 name of the Proprietary. There are several such deeds 
 in the town records, e. g., vol. iii, under the dates, 
 December 25, 1732 ; June 26, 1733 ; September 19, 1738. 
 The above committee also compounded with persons who 
 had encroached upon the Commons ; for example, a man 
 who had built a shop upon common land, was allowed to 
 remain by paying thirty-five shillings per rod for the 
 ground occupied. 
 
 From the open air meetings of Saxon townsmen delib- 
 erating as to when and how they should plant, harvest 
 and pasture their Common Fields, it is but a single step 
 in history to the Court Leet, or popular assembly of 
 tenants, upon the manorial estate of an English lord, or 
 of a Maryland proprietor. It is but another step in his- 
 
79 
 
 tory from these popular assemblies to the modern lawn 
 meeting in Sir Walter's Park, whither Hocked 
 
 " His tenants, wife and child, and half 
 
 The neighboring borough with the Institute 
 
 Of which he was the patron " Tennyson's " Princess." 
 
 From the Field Meetings of English Institutes, the tran- 
 sition is easy to a Field Meeting 20 of the Essex Institute. 
 Here, as the English poet sings, all the sloping pasture 
 seems to murmur, sown with happy faces and with holiday, 
 and here, too, as in Sir Walter's Park, sport goes hand 
 in hand with science. 
 
 ADDENDUM. 
 
 The following communication, made to the Salem 
 Gazette, August 16, 1881, by Mr. II. F. Waters, a well 
 known antiquary of Salem, is valuable for its items of 
 historical interest and for its exact transcription of votes 
 from the original Town Records : 
 
 Messrs. Editors: In connection with the paper of Mr. 
 Adams, at the Institute meeting, the following "votes" 
 from our old town records may not be uninteresting. 
 Additional information is given in the Report, prepared 
 some years ago by Judge Endicott, then City Solicitor, 
 upon the Neck lands. The "Blockhouse" stood about on 
 the site of the late pound at the head of the Neck, and 
 the land shore was known as the " Blockhouse Field " 
 
 10 So-called ''Field Meetings" for the regulation of Common Lands, used to be 
 held in Connecticut, see Lambert, New Haven, 96-7, and of necessity must have 
 existed in the " Perambulation" and "Division" of Salem Commons, to .-ay noth- 
 ing of the associate planting and harvesting of Common Fields. Hut the Field 
 Meetings of the Essex Institute are not the direct continuation of the earlier 
 Salem institution, although they are, perhaps, the outgrowth of the same original 
 idea; for the Field Meetings of English scientific societies, which suggested the 
 Field Meetings of the Essex Institute (see Bulletin of the latter, i 89), are them- 
 selves the cultivated product of the old English instinct for open air assemblies. 
 The name Field Meeting, actually surviving in its original sense in this country, 
 If not also in England, is sufficient proof of this view. 
 
80 
 
 into this century. It belonged to the heirs of Benjamin 
 Ives, who sold it to their kinsman Richard Derby. 
 
 As to the acres " sett a Part " for the use of the ministry 
 . . . for pasturage,, this privilege seems to have been 
 commuted later for a money payment, as Dr. Bentley 
 records being waited upon by a farmer from Danvers, who 
 brought him rent for the use of the "Minister's Field," 
 much to the good divine's surprise, as he had previously 
 known of no such perquisite. 
 
 " Att a Meeting of the Proprietors of the Lands lying in Comon In 
 the Town of Salem, held at the Meeting-house in the first Parrish In 
 Salem November the Twenty-Second Day one Thousand Seaven Hun- 
 dred and Fouerteen being Legally warned 
 
 Voated That Coll'o Samuell Browne Esq'r is Chosen Moderator for 
 the Meeting. 
 
 Voated That the Returne of the Committe who were Appointed to 
 Receive the Claims to the Comon Lands In Salem as Itt is entred on 
 the other Leafe Backward is Received allowed and approved. 
 
 Voated That whereas there are Severall Claims nott yett ffully made 
 out to thee Committee, and others who have Neglected to bring in 
 their Claimes : Therefor for Compleating the same That the Proprietors 
 doe grant further Liberty to the Committee for fouer or five months 
 next Comeing to Receive & Enter all such further Rights and Claimes 
 as any person may have to make that none may be excluded that have 
 Right and that Notifications be by them Accordingly Posted up in the 
 most Publick Places in the three several Parrishes of the time and 
 place of the Committee's Meetings. 
 
 Voated That there be sixty Acres Granted for the use of the Poor 
 of this Town and such others as are Livers, in the Town but not 
 Privileged to A Right in the Comon Lands and the same to be for a 
 Cow Pasture : To be allowed Three Acres to A Cow the selectmen 
 from year to year to Propose and allow the persons so to be Priviledged 
 and they are to be such as have a cow of their own to keep. 
 
 Voated That Winter Island be wholly Reserved and Granted for the 
 Use of the Fishery, and such shoremen as Dry fish there who live in 
 the Town that pay an acknowledgment or Rent of five shillings per 
 annum for a Room to dry ffish for a fflshing vessell and such as live in 
 other Towns who come and dry ffish there shall pay an acknowledg- 
 ment or Rent of Twenty Shillings per annum for a fish room for each 
 vessell : To be lett by the Selectmen of the Town of Salem yearly and 
 
81 
 
 and the rents to be pd into the Town Treasurer for the use of the 
 Town : the Hirers to fence in the same att their own charge. 
 
 Voated That the Neck of Land to the Eastward Part of the Block- 
 houses be Granted and Reserved for the use of the Town of Salem for 
 a Pasture for Milch Cows and Rideing Horses, to be fenced at the 
 Townes charge and lett out yearly to the Inhabitants of the Town by 
 the Selectmen, and no one Person be admitted to put into said Pasture 
 in a stfrner more than one milch Cow or one Rideing Horse, and the 
 whole number not to exceed Two Acres and a half to a Cow and fouer 
 Acres to a Hors, the Rent to be paid into the Town Treasurer for the 
 Time being for the use of thee Town of Salem. 
 
 Voated That there be Tenn acres of the Comon Lands sett a Part 
 and Reserved for the use of the Ministry in the body of the Town for 
 Pasturage, and five Acres more for the Village Precinct Ministry and 
 five acres more for the Middle Precinct Ministry in suiteable and con- 
 venient places for them. 
 
 Voated That there be about Fouer Hundred Acres on the moste 
 remote part of the Town towards or on the west end of Dogg Pond 
 Rocks and Hills adjoining to Linn Line where there may be Last 
 Damage to the known Proprietors to be Reserved for any such as may 
 come and make out any Right or Claime after the first day of June 
 next ensuing. 
 
 Voated That all Dwelling Houses built in thee Town of Salem since 
 the year one Thousand Seaven Hundred and Two to this day being 
 the L'2d day of November 1714 Bee and hereby are admitted to and 
 allowed a Right in the Comon Lands in Salem. 
 
 Voated That all the Comon Lands in Salem not otherwise disposed 
 off bee measured by an Artist and Returned to the Committee who 
 are desired to gett the same done. 
 
 Voated That the said Comon Lands be ffenced, ami stinted or 
 divided to and amongst the Proprietors of said Comon Lands in Pro- 
 portion to their Rights and According to Quality as neer as may bee 
 that have or shall make out their Rights before the first day of June 
 Next ensuing as hereafter may be agreed on by the major part of the 
 Propriety. 
 
 Voated That the Committee who were Chozen to Receive the 
 Claimes to the Comon Lands or the major part of them are ordered 
 and Iinpowercd to Sell and dispose of some small Pieces and Stripe 
 of the Comon Lands in this Town of Salem as may be suffltient to 
 defray the Necessary Kxpences of the Committees and the charge of 
 measuring the saide Comon Lands." 
 
XI 
 
 THE 
 
 GENESIS 
 
 NEW ENGLAND STATE 
 
 CONNECTICUT) 
 
"There was only one thing dearer to him [the New Englander] than his township 
 his hearth. The 'town' was as ancient as the neighborhood, and older than the 
 county; his great-grandson knows that it is much older than the State, or the Union 
 of the States. E. G. Scotl. 
 
 "In this part of the Union [New England] the impulsion of political activity was 
 given in the townships; and it may almost be said that each of them originally formed 
 an independent nation. It is important to remember that they have not been invested 
 with privileges, but that they seem, on the contrary, to have surrendered a portion of 
 their independence to the State." De Tocquevilte, (Reeve's Trans.). 
 
 "Each New England State may be described as a confederacy of minor republics 
 called towns." Palfrey. 
 
 " The inhabited part of Massachusetts was recognized as divided into little territo- 
 ries, each of which, for its internal purposes, constituted a separate integral govern- 
 ment, free from supervision." Bancroft. 
 
 inatrt pnlrfcra filia pnlcfcriorl 
 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 I N 
 
 Historical and Political Science 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History i.i past Politics untl Politics present History. Freeman 
 
 XI 
 
 T II E 
 
 GENESIS 
 
 OF A 
 
 NEW ENGLAND STATE 
 
 (CONNECTICUT) 
 
 Head before the Historical and Political Science Association, April 13, ISS3 
 
 BY ALEXANDER JOHNSTON, A. M. 
 
 k a i. i I m o it i: 
 
 I'Ciii.Isiikd nv TlIK .! iin- Hopkins I'nivkksit* 
 SKI'TKM III; It, 1883. 
 
JOHN MURPHY A CO., PRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
THE 
 
 GENESIS OF A NEW ENGLAND STATE 
 
 ICONNKCTICUTi 
 
 In the new interest which has sprung up of late years in 
 the institutional history of the United States, it is a little 
 strange that the territorial forms and features, the bodies, of 
 the States themselves are usually left so far out of account. 
 It may be that this neglect has come from their comparative 
 constancy of outline. It is easy to trace most of the internal 
 workings of the State to the town system or its equivalents, 
 and to accept them as a purely natural outgrowth. But it is 
 just as easy to see that the external outline of New York, 
 Illinois, or Texas has, from a very early period, been much 
 the same as at present, and to accept it as artificial, as imposed 
 on the State spirit by some superior power. 
 
 And it must be confessed that this distinction holds good 
 as a general rule. Each of our States has had, throughout 
 its history, a remarkable uniformity of feature. There is 
 comparatively little of that breaking up and reuniting, that 
 shooting out of a crystal here, or disappearance of a limb 
 there, which gives the idea of natural growth in a French 
 kingdom, while it makes it difficult to say just where the 
 growth took permanent shape. Our States, we might almost 
 say, came into the world full grown, like Minerva. Even 
 the Massachusetts towns, the accepted exemplars of their class, 
 found their Commonwealth boundaries waiting lor them when 
 they came into existence, and conformed to them. In the 
 original States there is usuallv a certain sequence of events: 
 
 6 
 
6 The Genesis of a 
 
 a grant of territory by the King to a great mercantile com- 
 pany or court favorite; a subsidiary, or an entirely new, grant 
 to actual colonizers; and the location of the colony with fairly, 
 if clumsily, defined boundaries, which have continued sub- 
 stantially the same down to our own day. In the States 
 subsequently formed there is a quite parallel sequence of 
 events: the acquisition of jurisdiction by the nation; the 
 establishment of territorial boundaries by Congress; and the 
 erection of a State within the external limitations already 
 imposed. Of course, the general idea will not bear minute 
 examination : all the States have had their variations of 
 outline, some of them pregnant with significance; and the 
 historical geography of the United States is a field where 
 some worker will yet find a rich and virgin soil. Neverthe- 
 less it remains true that the individuality of the future State 
 is sufficiently constant from its first connection with human 
 interest, history and government to give good reason for con- 
 sidering it in the beginning as a human creation rather than 
 a natural growth. 
 
 We look, then, as a general rule, to the will of the gov- 
 erning power- of a colony for the body, the territorial form, 
 of a township, while we look to the Germanic heredity of the 
 people for its spirit; we look to the town spirit for the spirit 
 of the future State, and to the will of a King or of a Congress 
 for its body, its territorial form and boundaries. It is the 
 purpose of this article to direct attention to one of the few 
 exceptions to this general rule, the present State of Connec- 
 ticut,* a State which was born, not made, which grew by 
 natural accretion of townships, which formed its own govern- 
 ment, made its own laws, engaged in its own alliances, fought 
 
 * Rhode Island and Vermont are the other exceptions, and as well 
 deserve examination. "We can hardly include Plymouth among the 
 exceptions, for that colony only claimed individuality by charter pur- 
 chase ; nor Texas, whose admission to the Union was a flagrant violation 
 of every precedent of State origin. 
 
New England State [Connecticut.) 7 
 
 its own wars, and built up its own body, without the will of 
 King, Kaiser, or Congress, and which, even at the last, only 
 made use of the royal authority to complete the symmetry of 
 the boundaries it had fairly won for itself.* 
 
 Territorial Claims. 
 
 The accepted story of the transmission of the title to the 
 jurisdiction of Connecticut is very simple. The soil was a 
 part of James I.'s grant to the Council of Plymouth; a part 
 of the smaller grant to the Karl of Warwick in lrj.'iO by the 
 Council of Plymouth ; a part of the still smaller grant to 
 Viscount Say and Sele, Lord Brooke, and others in 1631 by 
 Warwick ; and the territory, as it now stands, was confirmed 
 to the colony of Connecticut by Charles II. 's charter of 1602, 
 with the consent of the survivors of the last named grantees. 
 Minor difficulties, such as Fenwick's troublesome claim under 
 the Say grant, were bought off by the colony; the Indian 
 possessory title was extinguished by purchase and conquest, 
 and the colony's chain of title to its own territory seemed to 
 be without a weak link. In that case, there Mould have been 
 nothing out of the ordinary in the Connecticut colony, and 
 
 * Authorities in Gknkral: Trumbull's Colo/iial Records of Connec- 
 ticut; Houd ley's Colonial Records of New Haven; IJowen's Boundary 
 Disputes of Connecticut; Trumbull's History of Connecticut ; Hollister's 
 History of Connecticut; Dwight's History of Connecticut : Peters' General 
 History of Connecticut (MeCormick's reprint of 1877); At water'- Colo- 
 nial History of New Haven; Bacon's Ecclesiastical History of Connecticut ; 
 Fowler's Local Law in Massachusetts and Connecticut ; Savage's Winthrop's 
 New England; Brotlbeiid's History of New York; OVallnghtm's History 
 of New Netherland; Thompson's History of Long Island; Wood's First 
 Towns of Long Island; Holland's History of Western Massachusetts; 
 Hartley's Hartford in the Olden Time; Stiles's History of Ancient Wind- 
 sor; Hull's History of Norwalk ; Huntington's History of Stamford: 
 Cnulkins's History of New London: Mead's History of Greenwich; 
 Howell's Early History of Southampton, I,. I.: H<md'> History of Water- 
 town, Mass. Kefcrcnccs are made tu the author's name, except in the 
 ease of records. 
 
8 The Genesis of a 
 
 the formation of its territorial body would have followed the 
 general rule. 
 
 But there was a weak link, or rather a non-existent link, 
 the grant to "Warwick : he who looks for it will look in vain. 
 Trumbull and D wight* assume that the Say and Sele grant 
 was really from the Council of Plymouth, of which Warwick 
 was the President; but the Say and Sele grantf is, by its 
 terms, from Warwick personally, and the Council of Plymouth 
 is not even named in it. Hollister| takes a much more ten- 
 able ground : he admits that no trace can be found of a grant 
 to Warwick, but assumes that such a grant must have been 
 made, since Warwick would not otherwise have ventured to 
 make the Say and Sele grant. Peters scouts the notion of 
 a grant to Warwick, and taunts the colonial government with 
 its inability to show any original title. Bancroft || and other 
 general authorities state the grant to Warwick without noting 
 any doubt as to its validity, and it is generally accepted 
 without question as the basis of Connecticut's territorial 
 claims, subsequently confirmed by the charter. 
 
 On the other hand, not only is it evident that the original 
 settlement of Connecticut was legally a sheer intrusion, in 
 absolute disregard of the paper title on which it afterwards 
 professed to rely, but the Plymouth Council itself did not 
 recognize the Warwick grant, or the claims of the Say and 
 Sele associates under it. On the contrary, when it divided 
 
 *1 Trumbull, 27; Dwight, cap. 1. 
 
 fit is given in 1 Trumbull, 495. 
 
 % 1 Hollister, 20. 
 
 \ Peters, 11. "The Governor and Company of Connecticut gave a 
 formal answer, setting up a title under the Earl of "Warwick, who, they 
 said, disposed of the land to Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brooke, and 
 the Lords Say and Brooke sold the same to Fenwick, Peters, and others. 
 The Earl of Arran answered that, when they produced a grant from the 
 Plymouth Company of those lands to the Earl of Warwick, it should have 
 an answer. But the colony was silent." 
 
 J) 1 Bancroft's United States, 395. 
 
New England Slate (Connecticut.) 9 
 
 the remaining property in the soil among its members in 
 1035, before surrendering the jurisdiction to the King, it 
 granted the territory between the Narragansett and Connec- 
 ticut rivers to the royalist Marquis of Hamilton, and recorded 
 the grant. This was the only Connecticut grant, up to the 
 charter, which came from a source having an ostensible power 
 to grant, and it became obsolete by non-user, since the royalist 
 patentee was unable to make any attempt to colonize under it 
 until colonization was completed without his assistance.* On 
 the other side of Long Island Sound lay the fine' territory of 
 Long Island. This was covered by a royal grant to the Earl 
 of Stirling in 1635; but the grantee made no attempt to 
 assert any rights of jurisdiction, and his grantees had at first 
 as open opportunity as the settlers on the mainland to erect 
 independent town republics. f 
 
 The nearest approach to the truth seems to be that an 
 informal, and consequently invalid, grant of some kind was 
 made to Warwick, and that the original colonists, in their 
 subsequent search for a paper title, took this as the best one 
 available to them, though they had never respected it in 
 practice. They were in no position to feel or assert any pride 
 in that which makes their colonization noteworthy, the absence 
 of an original patent. They would have asserted the Ham- 
 ilton patent with equal warmth, if it had offered superior 
 advantages; they chose the Warwick title because Say in 
 10(52, while he was a republican, was yet a man of influence 
 with the King, because he was a friend to New Englanders 
 and disposed to assist any New England colony, and because 
 lie, the only surviving patentee, was too rich to care for (put 
 rente and too old to be a dangerous ally. The truth is, that 
 
 * Tin' Hamilton heirs, in 1683 and subsequent years, sued for a recovery 
 of their alleged rights in the soil, l>ut their suit was denied for the reason 
 that it would he unjust to disturb lont; -'tiled titles, in id to give the heirs 
 tin' benefit of the colonists' improvements. See I TrumhnU t .'JOU. 
 
 j- T/ujmjiton, 117; 1 Q'CaUaghan y 210, U15; Wood, 0, 20. 
 o 
 
] The Genesis of a 
 
 the colonization and organization of Connecticut took place 
 without the remotest connection with any paper title what- 
 ever, and that the Warwick title was purely an after thought 
 to bolster up, by the forms of English law, the really better 
 title of the colonists, acquired by their own purchases, con- 
 quests, and colonization. For the purposes of this article the 
 Warwick and Say titles may be dismissed as practically both 
 non-existent. 
 
 In 1634, then, the territory now occupied by Connecticut 
 was a veritable No-Man's-Land. It had been granted, indeed, 
 to the Plymouth Council, but the grant stood much on a par 
 with a presentation of a bear skin whose natural owner was 
 still at large in the forest. On the north, the Massachusetts 
 boundary line had been defined by charter, though its exact 
 location, in its whole length, was still in the air; on the east, 
 the Plymouth purchase boundary was in the same condition ; 
 on the west, the asserted Dutch boundary of New Netherlands 
 was in the same condition. The debatable ground between 
 these unsettled boundaries offered one of the few opportuni- 
 ties which the town system has had to show how it can build 
 up the body, as well as provide the spirit, for a State. A 
 brief sketch of the manner in which the work was done will 
 show that the towns, the natural outgrowth of the colonists' 
 natures, formed their own colonial governments, pushed back 
 the asserted boundaries of their neighbors, and obtained for 
 themselves a local habitation and a name among common- 
 wealths long before the King added the sanction of his royal 
 assent to a work which had already been accomplished with- 
 out it. 
 
 Colonization. 
 
 Movement toward the vacant territory fairly began in 1633. 
 In that year the Dutch established a trading house where 
 Hartford now stands; William Holmes, a Plymouth skipper, 
 sailed up the Connecticut river, passed the Dutch station, and 
 established a trading house where Windsor now stands; and 
 
New England Slate (Conneclicul.) 11 
 
 a few Massachusetts traders and explorers had made their way 
 through the wilderness to the same point. In the following 
 year the first real settlements took place. In 1630 and 1632 
 the towns and congregations of Dorchester, Watertown and 
 Newtown, in Massachusetts, had been founded, each by a 
 distinct body of immigrants from England.* For various 
 reasons they became dissatisfied with their location, and de- 
 sired a removal further west. After a year's persistent appli- 
 cation they wrung from the General Court a reluctant consent, 
 conditioned on their remaining within the jurisdiction of 
 Massachusetts. f In 1634, before the consent was given, a 
 few persons from Watertown settled at Wethersfield. In 
 1635 the main Watertown body followed to Wethersfield, 
 and the Dorchester body to Windsor; and in 1636 the main 
 Newtown body removed to Hartford. At the end of the 
 year 1636, these three townships, the nucleus of the Connec- 
 ticut colony, contained about 160 families and 800 persons. 
 In the following year they contained a sufficient number of 
 fighting men to declare war against the Pequots, and almost 
 annihilated that tribe. X 
 
 In 1635, the Say and Selc associates built a fort at the 
 mouth of the Connecticut river. In 1639, Colonel George 
 Fenwick, the only one of the associates who showed any dis- 
 position to urge the claim, brought colonists to Saybrook, or 
 Seabrook, as the fort was often called, and it kept up an inde- 
 pendent existence for some years. Fenwick was treated by 
 the Connecticut colonists with the deference due to a possibly 
 formidable rival. In 164 4 various reasons recalled him to 
 England, and he sold Saybrook to the Connecticut colony. 
 The equivalent was to be certain tolls upon vessels passing 
 the fort, Mid they netted Fenwick about 1,600. In return 
 he transferred the fort and promised, "if it came into his 
 
 * 1 Mather's Mogilalia, 75. 
 t 1 Suvuge'a Winthrop, 1(17. 
 I See the Connecticut authorities. 
 
12 The Genesis of a 
 
 power," to transfer all the land from Saybrook to the Narra- 
 gansett river. This agreement was never executed, but it 
 quieted the only one of the Say and Sele associates who had 
 shown any disposition to interfere with the pushing and 
 ambitious Connecticut colony. Saybrook now became a Con- 
 necticut town.* 
 
 In 1637 the wealthiest body of immigrants that had yet 
 come from England arrived at Boston."}" They resisted all 
 inducements to settle in Massachusetts, and in 1638 founded 
 a colony of their own at what is now New Haven. Their 
 title rested entirely on purchase from the Indians, as did all 
 their subsequent extensions. When their stronger neighbor, 
 the Connecticut colony, by its Fenwick purchase, acquired a 
 pseudo title under the Say and Sele grant, the New Haven 
 colony at first showed signs of a disposition to assert the 
 Stirling grant as perhaps giving it some kind of a paper 
 title beyond its mere purchases on Long Island; J but it soon 
 settled back, for its right to existence, upon its Indian pur- 
 chases and its recognition as a member of the New England 
 Union in 1643. 
 
 There were thus, in 1638, three independent colonies 
 within the present limits of Connecticut. One of them, the 
 Saybrook colony, rested on a paper title, which rested on 
 nothing and was never perfected. The other two, the sur- 
 vivors after 1644, had not even a baseless paper title to rest 
 upon. Both were as perfect examples of "Squatter sover- 
 eignty " as Douglas could have asked for. Without a shadow 
 of reliance upon authority, they formed their own govern- 
 ments, proprio vigore, made war, peace and alliances, levied 
 taxes, and collected customs. In 1643 they united with 
 
 * Dwight, cap. 12. The agreement is in 1 Conn. Rec, 266, 
 fAtwater, 80. 
 
 %2 New Haven Rec, 300. "Our title to those lands from the Lord 
 Starling." 
 
 \ See New Haven authorities. 
 
New England State (Connecticut.) 13 
 
 Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay in the New England Union. 
 In 1G50 they joined in the treaty at Hartford with Governor 
 Stuyvesant, which put the boundary between New York and 
 Connecticut* very much as at present, except that it was a 
 straight line throughout, and continued across Long Island 
 from Oyster Bay to the Ocean. Before the charter was 
 granted, Massachusetts f had agreed to a boundary line not 
 very far from that which was ultimately settled ; and as Mas- 
 sachusetts claimed the territory on the east, the modern State 
 of Rhode Island, the limits of the commonwealths were fairly 
 settled. Let us see how their towns developed them, and 
 how they treated their towns. 
 
 The Connecticut Colony. 
 
 It must be noted that these Newtown, Watertown, and 
 Dorchester migrations had not been altogether a simple 
 transfer of individual settlers from one colony to another. 
 In each of these migrations a part of the people was left 
 behind, so that the Massachusetts towns did not cease to 
 exist. And yet each of them brought its Massachusetts 
 magistrates, its ministers (except Watertown), and all the 
 political and ecclesiastical machinery of the town ; and at 
 least one of them (Dorchester) had hardly changed its struc- 
 ture since its members first organized in l(i30 at Dorchester 
 in England. The first settlement of Connecticut was thus 
 the migration of three distinct and individual town organiza- 
 tions out of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts and into abso- 
 lute freedom. It was the Massachusetts town system set 
 loose in the wilderness. 
 
 At first the three towns retained even their Massachusetts 
 names; and it was not until the eighth court meeting, Feb- 
 
 * 1 hrvdhtad, 510. 
 
 t Rowen, 17, (map). 
 
 % 1 Bond, '.ISO; Hartley, '.; Stiles, 25 (note). 
 
14 The Genesis of a 
 
 ruary 21, 1636(7),* that it was decided that "the plantacon 
 nowe called Newtowne shalbe called & named by the name 
 of Harteforde Towne, likewise the plantacon now called 
 Watertowne shalbe called & named Wythersfeild," and "the 
 plantacon called Dorchester shalbe called Windsor." On the 
 same day the boundaries between the three towns were 
 "agreed" upon, and thus the germ of the future State was 
 the agreement and union of the three towns. Accordingly, 
 the subsequent court meeting at Hartford, May 1, 1637,f for 
 the first time took the name of the "Genrall Corte," and was 
 composed, in addition to the town magistrates who had pre- 
 viously held it, of "comittees" of three from each town. 
 So simply and naturally did the migrated town system 
 evolve, in this binal assembly, the seminal principle of the 
 Senate and House of Representatives of the future State of 
 Connecticut. The Assembly further showed its consciousness 
 of separate existence by declaring "an offensive warr ag' the 
 Pequoitt," assigning the proportions of its miniature army 
 and supplies to each town, and appointing a commander. In 
 June it even ordered a settlement to "sett downe in the 
 Pequoitt Countrey % & River in place convenient to mayn- 
 teine o r right y 1 God by Conquest hath given to us." So 
 complete are the features of State-hood, that we may fairly 
 assign May 1, 1637, as the proper birthday of Connecticut. 
 No King, no Congress presided over the birth : its seed was 
 in the towns. 
 
 January 14, 1638(9), the little Commonwealth formed the 
 first American Constitution^ at Hartford. So far as its pro- 
 
 * 1 Conn. Rec, 7. 
 
 f 1 Conn. Rec, 9. 
 
 X The Pequot Country was, in general terras, the south-eastern part of 
 the State, east of the Connecticut river. Massachusetts claimed a share 
 in the rights of conquest, but Connecticut never relaxed her hold upon 
 it, and the charter gave her a formal approval of her claim. Bowen, 26 
 (map). 
 
 \ 1 Conn. Rec, 20. 
 
New England Slate (Connecticut.) 15 
 
 visions arc concerned, the King, the Parliament, the Plymouth 
 Council, the Warwick grant, the Say and Sele grant, might 
 as well have been non-existent: not one of them is mentioned. 
 It is made, according to the preamble, on the authority of the 
 people dwelling on "the River of Conncctecotte and the 
 Lands thereunto adioyneing; " its objects are to establish 
 "an orderly and decent Gouerment," which should "order 
 and dispose of the affayres of the people," and to maintain 
 "the liberty and purity of the gospel 1" and "the diseiplyne 
 of the churches;" and for these purposes its authors "doe 
 therefore assotiate and conjoyne our seines to be as one Publike 
 State or Comonwealth." The only sovereignty recognized in 
 the constitution or the oaths of office prescribed by it, is that 
 of the people. It cannot, therefore, be said that the govern- 
 ment of Connecticut was formed by the three towns, though 
 it undeniably grew out of them and was conditioned on every 
 side by their precedent existence. Its establishment has some 
 parallels to that of the Federal Constitution one hundred and 
 fifty years afterward. In both cases the constituent units, 
 towns and States, never independent in fact before or after, 
 were nominally independent before but not after. In both 
 cases, while the units remained the same as before, the con- 
 stitution was not framed by General Court or by Congress, 
 but by an unprecedented body, a popular convention in the 
 one case, a Federal Convention in the other. In both cases 
 the new political creation succeeded to a part of the powers 
 which the constituent units had before exercised. Here the 
 parallel ceases: there was no occasion for any ratification by 
 the towns, since their inhabitants had united in framing: the 
 constitution itself. 
 
 There were to be two "General Assemblies or Courts" 
 yearly, in April and September: the former for the election 
 of a Governor and other magistrates for one year; the latter 
 "for makeing of lawes." A General Court was to consist of 
 a Governor, Magistrates, and Deputies. Each town was to 
 
16 The Genesis of a 
 
 nominate two persons as Magistrates; * and out of the whole 
 mini her nominated the General Court was to choose by ballot 
 not less than six for the next year, but might " ad so many 
 more as they judge requisitt." The three towns were each 
 to send four Deputies " to agitate the affayres of the Comon- 
 wealth;" new towns were to send Deputies according to 
 their population. If the Governor and Magistrates at any 
 time refused to summon a General Court upon petition of the 
 freemen, the towns, through their constables, were to issue 
 the summons, and in such case the Governor and Magistrates 
 were to be excluded from the General Court. The election 
 of local officers and the management of local affairs were left 
 entirely to the towns, with an indefinite power of supervision 
 in the General Court. " In w oh said Generall Courts shall 
 consist the supreme power of the Comonwealth, and they only 
 shall haue power to make lawes or repeal the, to graunt leuyes, 
 to ad mitt of Freemen,f dispose of lands vndisposed of to 
 seuerall Townes or p r sons, and also shall haue power to call 
 ether Courte or Magestrate or any other p r son whatsoeuer into 
 question for any misdemeanour, and may for just causes dis- 
 place or deale otherwise according to the nature of the offence, 
 and also may deale in any other matter that concerns the good 
 of this coitionwelth, excepte election of Magestrats, w oh shall 
 be done by the whole boddy of Freemen." This constitution 
 was not only the earliest but the longest in continuance of 
 American documents of the kind, unless we except the Rhode 
 Island charter. X It was not essentially altered by the charter 
 of 1662, which was practically a royal confirmation of it; 
 and it was not until 1818 that the charter, that is, the con- 
 
 * These officers, the germ of the future Senate, exercised judicial powers 
 in their towns ; and, as the General Court grew stronger, it also appointed 
 commissioners " with magestraticall powers " for the towns. 
 
 f In 1*543 the General Court left the admission of freemen to a major 
 vote of each town, retaining only a formal right of confirmation. 
 
 + Connecticut, 1639-1818; Rhode Island, 1663-1842. 
 
New England Stale {Connecticut.) 17 
 
 stitution of 1G39, was superseded by the present constitution. 
 Connecticut was as absolutely a State in 1G39 as in 1776. 
 
 In both the Connecticut and the New Haven colonies the 
 General Courts not only made laws and pardoned offences 
 against them, but exercised the judicial power on appeal from 
 the Particular Courts, the magistrates of the towns. The 
 records of both are cumbered with tedious civil and criminal 
 suits, in which Connecticut provided for, and New leaven 
 denied, trial by jury. But the essential difference between 
 the two was, that Connecticut left to the towns a control over 
 their civil and religious affairs which the more somber tone 
 of New Haven denied. The early Connecticut town and its 
 church were identical ; * the officers and affairs of both were 
 settled to the people's liking at one meeting; and the General 
 Court interfered only to apportion taxes and decide differences. 
 From the first appearance of a New Haven town, the General 
 Court was always meddling". Connecticut gave the town sys- 
 tem full and t'v^e play: New Haven aimed to be a central ized 
 theocracy, responsible for the moral well being of its depend- 
 ent towns. The consequence was that Connecticut rapidly 
 outstripped her rival in the race for the formation of new 
 towns and the appropriation of the No-man's-land around 
 them. Her early Indian wars gave her extensive rights of 
 conquest, which her restless citizens were not slow to perfect 
 by settlement. Even the unchecked religious dissensions in 
 her churches hastened the process of town formation by scat- 
 tering new settlements governed by Connecticut notions, f 
 Thus, long before the grant of a charter, Connecticut had 
 
 *In 17'J'S, members <>f other sects than the Congregational having 
 become numerous, the General Court allowed the formation of other 
 churches. When this was done, the Congregational church took the legal 
 name of "The Prime Ancient Society,'' and the town meetings were 
 separated from it. 
 
 f A Wethersileld offshoot left the Connecticut colony, colonized Stam- 
 ford, and very naturally became the most unmanageable of the New 
 Haven towns. 
 
18 The Genesis of a 
 
 hemmed her rival in by towns of her own, confined her to 
 the territory around the original settlement, and left her no 
 room for expansion. 
 
 Connecticut histories state that the towns were " incorpor- 
 ated" in 1639 by the General Court. The only incorporation 
 was a series of general acts, passed October 10, 1639, the first 
 after the adoption of the constitution ; but these were only a 
 formal legislative confirmation of recognized town privileges. 
 They enacted * that " the Townes of Hartford, Windsore, and 
 Wethersfield, or any other of the Townes within this juris- 
 diction," should have power to dispose of vacant lands, choose 
 their own officers and courts, and control their local affairs; 
 and they confirmed to the towns the probate jurisdiction and 
 control over the records of real estate transfers which they 
 still retain. They speak also of the towns' "lymitts bounded 
 out by this court." In the case of neighboring towns, par- 
 ticularly where there were any differences of opinion, the 
 court always exercised this power of settling town boundaries, 
 beginning in the next year, 1640.f The boundaries of the 
 new towns of Farmington and New London were laid out by 
 the court in 1645 and 1649,J and this method of locating a 
 new town was thereafter increasingly more frequent until 
 1662. After that year the General Court's authority in the 
 matter became exclusive. 
 
 But, as a general rule, before the charter was received, the 
 town boundaries were fixed by agreement of the inhabitants 
 or by Indian purchase, and the tacit recognition of the Gene- 
 ral Court and its agents. The "incorporation" of a new 
 town usually consisted in such fatherly advice as was given 
 in 1650 to the persons intending to settle Norwalk : they are 
 directed to make all preparations for self-defence, to divide 
 
 *1 Conn. Jtec, 36. 
 f 1 Conn. Rec, 47. 
 
 J] Conn. Rec, 133, 185. But in New London local government had 
 already been begun by the people. Caulkins, 56. 
 
New England Stale (Connecticut.) 19 
 
 up the land subject to the rectification of "aberrations" by 
 the General Court, and to "attend a due payment of theire 
 proportions in all publique charges." * The organization of 
 a primitive Connecticut town was thus altogether popular, 
 sometimes with, sometimes without, the General Court's 
 express control. 
 
 As soon as the population of any defined purchase or grant 
 became numerous enough to demand local government, a gen- 
 eral meeting elected a constable and two or more townsmen, 
 ordered the erection of a pound and (generally) of a minister's 
 house, and took charge of allotments of land. As soon as the 
 little town gained some consistence, the General Court's agents 
 appeared with a demand for the town's "rate" or statement 
 of persons and property, for purposes of taxation. For these 
 purposes the constable was a Commonwealth's officer as well 
 as a local officer, and through him and the magistrates or 
 commissioners the town was attached to the Commonwealth. f 
 
 As soon as the rate showed a sufficient number of freemen, 
 the town might send a Deputy to the General Court; but this 
 troublesome privilege was at first unused. Until 1647 the 
 twelve Deputies from the three original towns sufficed to 
 make laws and lay taxes for all the towns.^ Even when the 
 number of Deputies begins to increase, the towns which they 
 severally represent are not named. But the growth of the 
 Connecticut town system may be seen by this steady increase 
 in the number of Deputies after 10544, when Southampton, 
 L. I., was admitted as a town. In May, 1647, the number 
 of Deputies rose from 12 to IS; in May, 10)49, to 20; in 
 May, 1651, to 22; in May, 1654, to 24; in May, 1655, to 
 25; and in February, 1656(7), to 26. At first only the three 
 
 *In 16.">1 the General Court formally voted that Mattabezeck (Middle- 
 town), and Norwalk should be towns, and choose eonsUibles. 
 
 fThe process may be followed in detail in the local h i ^t< >r t > among the 
 authorities. 
 
 JOnee, in 1645, thirteen were present. 
 
20 The Genesis of a 
 
 original towns appear in the "rates." In 1645, Stratford, 
 Fairfield, Southampton, L. L, Saybrook, and Farmington 
 appear in the rates. In 1653, Norwalk, Middletovvn, and 
 New London close the list of formal additions to the rate list 
 of towns, until the advent of the charter. The other smaller 
 towns, whose independent existence is constantly recognized 
 in the General Court proceedings, were rated as parts of these 
 principal towns. 
 
 The natural expansiveness of the free Connecticut town 
 system was exemplified on Long Island.* After 1662 the 
 colony's claim to that island rested on the charter's grant of 
 the "island's adjoining" its coast: before that date, its claim 
 was exactly on a par with its claim to the mainland, the vol- 
 untary action of the towns. In 1635 the King had granted 
 Long Island to the Earl of Stirling. He seemed to care 
 nothing for its jurisdiction ; and, as purchases were made, 
 the settlers formed towns and applied for admission to Con- 
 necticut! Southampton was admitted in 1644, Easthamp- 
 ton in 1649, Setauket in 1658, Huntington in 1660, and 
 Southold and the other English towns in 1662, after the 
 grant of the charter. In 1664 the Duke of York, having 
 bought the Stirling patent, extended the jurisdiction of New 
 York over Long Island, and Connecticut was unable to resist 
 him. J In 1673, when the Dutch recaptured New York, the 
 English towns on Long Island again took shelter with Con- 
 necticut; but in the following year the Duke was again put 
 into possession of his province, and Connecticut finally lost 
 Long Island. 
 
 During its period of independent existence, the Connecticut 
 commonwealth, as has been said, gave the town system full 
 
 * Springfield, Mass., was also for a time claimed as a Connecticut town, 
 1 Holland, 30-33. More than a century afterward, Connecticut's claim to 
 a part of Pennsylvania was only asserted by means of the continued vital- 
 ity of her town system, and its extension to Wyoming. 
 
 f Southold entered the New Haven colony, by purchase. 
 
 X 1 Brodhead, 726. 
 
 I Wood, 24-28. 
 
New England State (Connecticut.) 21 
 
 and free piny. The instances of interference with local gov- 
 emment are very few. In October, 1656, the towns were 
 forbidden to entertain "Quakers, Ranters, Adamites, or such 
 like notorious heretiques," under penalty of o per week. 
 In February, 1656(7), the General Court limited the right of 
 suffrage by declaring that the phrase "admitted inhabitants" 
 in the constitution meant only "householders that are one & 
 twenty yeares of age, or have bore office, or have 30 estate."* 
 This was reaffirmed in 1658. In March, 1657(8), it was 
 ordered that no persons should " imbody themselves into 
 church estate" without consent of the General Court and 
 approbation of their neighbor churches. With these excep- 
 tions, Connecticut towns did very much as they pleased in 
 civil and religious affairs, provided they paid their rates 
 promptly. 
 
 New Haven Colony. 
 
 June 4, 1639, the planters at Quinnipiack (New Haven) 
 met and framed a civil government which was at least closely 
 bound up with the ecclesiastical government. f They agreed 
 that the Scriptures should be the law of the town ; that only 
 church members should be burgesses and choose magistrates 
 from their own number; that twelve burgesses should now 
 be chosen by general vote; and that these should choose seven 
 of their number to be the seven pillars of the church and the 
 first General Court. In the following year the name of the 
 town was changed to New Haven. The management of 
 public; affairs by the General Court was of the most austere 
 character. Sumptuary laws and acts to regulate prices and 
 wages were immediately passed ; and the authority of the 
 church was upheld by punishing criminally such as did 
 "expressly crosse y 8 rule" by venturing to " eate, drinke, & 
 
 * 1 Conn. lire, 29:?. 
 
 11 Xew Haven Rec, 11. liacoi, lit, argues t" the contrary; but sec 
 
 .1 twdtcr, 91. 
 
22 The Genesis of a 
 
 to shew respect unto exeomraunjcate persons." This system 
 did not at first provoke any resistance in the original off- 
 shoots* from New Haven, the towns of Milford, Guilford, 
 and Branford, whose people were wholly at one with those 
 of New Haven. But it was a constant source of heart- 
 burning in the more distant acquisitions of Stamford and 
 Southold ; f it checked any extension of the New Haven 
 jurisdiction outside of these six towns; and in the final 
 struggle between Connecticut and New Haven, it proved 
 to be the latter's vulnerable point. 
 
 New Haven extension was altogether by purchase ; and, 
 when the union of the towns was consummated, the General 
 Court controlled the town organizations much more minutely 
 than Connecticut attempted to do. Constables and magis- 
 trates for the new towns were appointed at first by the 
 General Court, and the right of confirmation at least was 
 always insisted upon, even when the towns began to assert 
 their own right of choice. Some symptoms of weakening 
 were shown as internal dissensions grew warmer. In J 656 
 two constables were appointed for Stamford, but one of them 
 was not to serve if the freemen of that town were not willing, 
 " though the court be of another minde." J But, as a general 
 rule, all the towns were to follow implicitly the civil and 
 ecclesiastical methods of the parent town ; even the officers 
 of their " trayned bandes" were to be church members, 
 approved by the magistrates whom the General Court had 
 appointed or confirmed. 
 
 In this manner five dependent or co-ordinate towns were 
 formed. The neighboring towns of Milford and Guilford, 
 bought in 1639, were independent at first, but were admitted 
 to the General Court in 1643. Stamford, bought in 1610, 
 
 * Fowler, 68. 
 
 f Huntington, 73 ; Atwater, 387. 
 
 X 2 New Haven Rec, 173. 
 
 I Unsuccessful efforts were also made to colonize in Delaware Bay. 
 
New England State (Connecticut.) 23 
 
 was admitted in 1641. Southold, L. I., bought in 1640, was 
 admitted in 1649. Greenwich was also bought in 1640, but 
 the Dutch seduced the purchasing agents into making it a 
 Dutch town.* In 1650, by the treaty of Hartford, it was 
 restored to New Haven and became a part of Stamford. The 
 last of the towns, Branford, granted to a new colony in 1640, 
 was also independent at first: it was admitted in 1651. In 
 1656 and 1659 Huntington, L. I., applied to be admitted, 
 but was refused because it insisted on the right of trying all 
 its civil cases, and all its criminal cases not capital. "f* All 
 the New Haven towns were thus restricted to the same mould. 
 One trivial exception was made in the ense of Milford, which 
 had made voters of six persons, not church members, before 
 its admission. This was allowed to stand, after much nego- 
 tiation, on condition that it should never be repeated, and 
 that the six interlopers should never hold ofiiee. 
 
 October 27, 1643, the General Court, which was now com- 
 posed of the Governor and the Magistrates and Deputies of 
 New Haven, Stamford, Milford, and Guilford, adopted a 
 series of " foundamentall orders" as a constitution. J All 
 persons were to have the rights of "inheritance and com- 
 merce," but only church members were to l>e burgesses, 
 vote, or hold oilice. The towns were to choose their own 
 courts, but these were only to try civil cases under 20, or 
 inflict punishment of "stocking and whipping," or a fine of 
 50. All higher cases, and appeals in the lower cases, were 
 reserved to the General Court. The free burgesses were to 
 choose the Governor and other commonwealth officers, those 
 at a distance voting by proxy. The Governor, the Magis- 
 trates of each town, and two Deputies from each town, were 
 to meet at New Haven in General Court annually in April 
 and October. The General Court was to maintain the purity 
 
 * Mead, 28. 
 
 + 2 New Harm Rec, 237, 209. 
 
 \ \ New Haven Rec, 112; Fowler, 71. 
 
24 The Genesis of a 
 
 of religion and "suppress the contrary," make and repeal 
 laws, require their execution by the towns, impose an oath of 
 fidelity upon the people, levy rates upon the towns, and try 
 causes according to the Scriptures. In April, 1644, " the laws 
 of God, as they were delivered by Moses," were adopted as 
 the criminal code of the Commonwealth.* 
 
 The records of the General Court from 1644 until 1653 
 have disappeared, but it is evident that internal difficulties 
 had taken shape during the period covered by the break. In 
 1653 the General Court remarked with asperity that it had 
 " heard sundrie reports of an vnsatisfying offensive way of 
 cariag in some at Southold, as those w ch grow weary of that 
 way of civill gouerment w ch they haue for diuers yeares (and 
 w th much comfort and safty) lined vnder," and warned the 
 offenders to abate the scandal.f Soon afterward the Gov- 
 ernor called attention to a public appeal to the people "to 
 stand for their libberties, that they may all haue their votes 
 and shake of the yoake of gouermt they haue bine vnder in 
 this jurisdiction." In the next year there were incipient 
 rebellions in Southold and Stamford, and it was ordered that 
 "a serious view be made" in each town, and the oath of 
 fidelity be administered to all the inhabitants. Several of 
 the Southold people were haled before the Court for sedi- 
 tiously declaring that this was " a tyrannicall gouerm'." Two 
 years afterward the Court complained that men not church 
 members had been allowed to vote in some of the towns, 
 contrary to the "foundamentall orders," and directed that 
 " these orders be exactly attended." The Southold consta- 
 bles were specially instructed to make a "reformation" in 
 that town. 
 
 This persistent attempt to keep the towns in pupilage, and 
 the political power in the hands of church members, con- 
 trasted very unfavorably' with the policy of Connecticut, 
 
 *1 New Haven Rec, 130. 
 f 2 New Haven Rec, 17. 
 
New England Slate (Connecticut.) 25 
 
 where, after 1643, the General Court admitted as voters all 
 who were approved by a major vote of any town, with a 
 general property qualification. The struggle was between a 
 free town system and a system of shackled towns; and the 
 latter was at a disadvantage. A strong Connecticut party had 
 grown up before the charter was granted, not only in Stam- 
 ford and Southold, but in Guilford and Milford. In 1661 
 several of the magistrates refused to take the oath of fidelity; 
 and the spirit of disaffection had eaten so deep that, if we 
 may accept the unchallenged assertion of the Connecticut 
 General Court, the annihilation of the New Haven jurisdic- 
 tion, and the absorption of its territory into Connecticut, were 
 urged by the "cheife in gouerment" at New Haven in letters 
 to Governor Winthrop.* This result, as accomplished by the 
 charter in 1662, seems to have been only a hurrying of an 
 inevitable catastrophe. 
 
 The Union. 
 
 The Restoration in England left the New Haven colony 
 under a cloud in the favor of the new government : it had 
 been tardy and ungracious in its proclamation of Charles II.; 
 it had been especially remiss in searching for the regicide 
 colonels, Goffe and Whalley;f and any application for a 
 charter would have come from New Haven with a very ill 
 grace. Connecticut was under no such disabilities; and it 
 had in its Governor, John Winthrop, a man well calculated 
 to win favor with the new King. \ The General Court had 
 a clear perception of its proper line of action, and followed 
 up its advantages with promptitude, energy, and success. Its 
 objects W2re to obtain from the King, in the first Hush of the 
 Restoration, a confirmation of the privileges which it had 
 
 *'_> A T eio Haven lire, 536; 1 Mathor's Magnalia, 7* 
 
 f See Secretary Ruwson's letter to Gov. Lecte in *J .Veto Haven Itec, -119. 
 
 + 1 Hollister, 20T. 
 
26 The Genesis of a 
 
 evolved out of a free town system, and to remove peaceably 
 the obstacle to complete State-hood which was imposed by the 
 independent position of New Haven. In March, 1660, the 
 General Court solemnly declared its loyalty to Charles II., 
 sent the Governor to England to offer a loyal address to the 
 King and ask him for a charter, and laid aside .500 for his 
 expenses. Winthrop was successful, and the charter was 
 granted April 20, 1662. 
 
 The acquisition of the charter raised the Connecticut leaders 
 to the seventh heaven of satisfaction. And well it might, for 
 it was a grant of privileges with hardly a limitation. Prac- 
 tically the King had given Winthrop carte blanche, and 
 allowed him to frame the charter to suit himself. It incor- 
 porated the freemen of Connecticut as a " body corporate and 
 pollitique," by the name of "The Governor and Company of 
 the English Collony of Conecticut in New England in Amer- 
 ica." There were to be a Governor, a Deputy Governor, and 
 twelve Assistants (hitherto called Magistrates). The Gov- 
 ernor, Assistants, and two Deputies from each town were to 
 meet twice a year in General Assembly, to make laws, elect 
 and remove Governors, Assistants and Magistrates. The 
 people were to have all the liberties and immunities of free 
 and natural subjects of the King, as if born within the realm. 
 It granted to the Governor and Company all that part of New 
 England south of the Massachusetts line and west of the 
 "Norroganatt River, commonly called Norroganatt Bay" to 
 the South Sea, with the " Islands thereunto adioyneinge." 
 These were the essential points of the charter,* and it is diffi- 
 cult to see more than two points in which it altered the con- 
 stitution adopted by the towns in 1639. There were now to 
 be two deputies from each town ; and the boundaries of the 
 Commonwealth now embraced the rival colony of New Haven. 
 The former change had already been recommended without 
 
 *See the charter in 2 Conn. Rec, 3 ; and the process of obtaining it in 
 1 Trumbull, 239, and 1 Eollister, 202. 
 
New England Slate (Connecticut.) 27 
 
 result by the General Court ; and the latter was longed for 
 by all the leaders of the colony, and was the objective point 
 of the move for a charter. The fundamental point of the 
 constitution, the supreme power of the General Court, was 
 unchanged. Both Connecticut and New Haven had fixed 
 their boundaries of their own will, or by agreement with 
 their neighbors. But the separate existence of the smaller 
 Commonwealth marred the fair proportions of the Common- 
 wealth, in its natural outline, and Connecticut threw the 
 King's sovereignty into her own scale in order to effect a 
 peaceable removal of an obstacle to her complete State-hood. 
 The town spirit built the Slate, and the King added his bene- 
 diction to the structure. 
 
 New Haven did not submit without a struggle, for not 
 only her pride of separate existence but the supremacy of her 
 ecclesiastical system was at stake. For three years a succes- 
 sion of diplomatic notes passed between the General Court of 
 Connecticut and "our honored friends of New Haven, Mil- 
 ford, Branford, and Guilford." Southold had promptly 
 accepted the charter, and there was a strong party in Stam- 
 ford and Guilford which desired to take the same course. 
 To strengthen this party, Connecticut appointed or confirmed 
 constables and magistrates in the towns named, and a war of 
 annoyances was kept up on both sides. In October, 1664, 
 the Connecticut General Court appointed the New Haven 
 magistrates commissioners for their towns, " with magistra- 
 ticall powers," established the New Haven local officers in 
 their places for the time, and declared oblivion for any past 
 resistance to the laws.* In December, Mil ford having 
 already submitted, the remnant of the New Haven General 
 Court, representing New Haven, Guilford, and Branford, held 
 its last meeting and voted to submit, f " with a salvo jure of 
 our former rights and claims, as a people who have not yet 
 
 *1 Conn. Rfc, \M . 
 
 f'J N. II. lire, 04'J; Atwatrr, 610. 
 
28 The Genesis of a 
 
 been heard in point of plea." The next year the laws of 
 New Haven were laid aside forever, and her towns sent depu- 
 ties to the General Court at Hartford. 
 
 One of the propositions made by Connecticut in 1663* was 
 that the New Haven towns should be formed into a distinct 
 county, with its own court. New Haven's refusal to unite 
 on any terms caused this and the other propositions to fall 
 through, and the union was finally perfected without any 
 conditions. But the new General Court, in May, 1666, con- 
 stituted and bounded the four counties of Hartford, New 
 London, New Haven and Fairfield, and gave them separate 
 courts "f* and, in the next year, grand juries. The county 
 system of Connecticut is thus only an outgrowth of the 
 union. In 1701 the General Court further voted that its 
 annual October session should thereafter be held at New 
 Haven. This provision of a double capital was incorpor- 
 ated into the constitution of 1818, and continued until in 
 1873 Hartford was made sole capital by constitutional 
 amendment. 
 
 The General Court, in its new form, at once took on all 
 the features of a power superior to the towns, and resting 
 no longer on the towns' authority. The settlement of the 
 boundaries of new and old towns at once became a peculiar 
 field of the General Court ; and, until the number of towns 
 increased so far as to form a safeguard, regulation of, and 
 interference in, the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of the. towns 
 was far more common and minute than before. In 1685-6 
 all the towns whose title rested on Indian purchase received 
 patents therefor from the General Court. This step was, for 
 many of the towns, the first real " incorporation : " it may be 
 compared, mutatis mutandis, to the conversion of an allod into 
 a feud. 
 
 It must, of course, be granted that the state of affairs in 
 Great Britain during the years 1634-60 had very much to do 
 
 * 2 New Haven Rec, 493. 
 f2 Conn. Rec, 34, 61. 
 
Niw England State (Connecticut.) 29 
 
 with this opportunity of the town spirit to build up the form 
 and fashion of a state in Connecticut. Chalmers * sneeringly 
 says of the " little colony of New Haven " that it "enjoyed 
 the gratifications of sovereign insignificance" until Charles II 
 annexed it, without its consent, to Connecticut. On the con- 
 trary, the position of Connecticut was significant in the high- 
 est degree. With its neighbor commonwealth of Rhode Island, 
 it held for over a century the extreme advanced ground to 
 which all the other Commonwealths came up in 1775.f 
 King and Parliament sustained the royal veto power over 
 the enactments of other colonies; even Massachusetts lost the 
 power to elect her own Governor; but Connecticut's posi- 
 tion still kept alive the general sense of the inherent colonial 
 rights which only waited for assertion upon the inevitable 
 growth of colonial power. The charter of Connecticut was 
 the key-note of the Revolution ; and the terms of that charter 
 are due, under God, to the free action of the town system 
 transplanted into the perfect liberty of the wilderness. 
 
 * 1 ftevolt of the Colonies, 53. 
 | Fowler, 101. 
 
XII 
 
 LOCAL GOVERNMENT 
 
 FREE SCHOOLS 
 
 SOUTH CAROLINA 
 
"Every parish is the image and reflection of the State." Thomas Erskine May. 
 
 "The township appears in its ecclesiastical form as the parish or portion of a parish." 
 Canon Slubbs. 
 
 "The institutions of any community in the thirteen colonies .... are more than a 
 mere object of local interest and curiosity. They show us the institutions of the elder 
 England, neither slavishly carried on nor scornfully cast aside, but reproduced with such 
 changes as changed circumstances called for, and those for the most part changes in the 
 direction of earlier times." Freeman. 
 
 "It is the prerogative of self-government that it adapts itself to every circumstance 
 which can arise. Its institutions, if often defective, are always appropriate; for they are 
 the exact representation of the condition of a people, and can be evil only because there 
 are evils in society, exactly as a coat may fit an ill-shaped person. Habits of thought and 
 action fix their stamp on the public code; the faith, the prejudices, the hopes of a people, 
 may be read there; and, as knowledge advances, each erroneous judgment, each perverse 
 enactment, yields to the embodied force of the common will." Bancroft. 
 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
 
 I N 
 
 Historical and Political Science 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 
 
 History is past Politics and Politics present History. Freeman 
 
 XII 
 
 LOCAL GOVERNMENT 
 
 A N D 
 
 FREE SCHOOLS 
 
 I N 
 
 SOUTH CAROLINA 
 
 First Pari read More the Historical Society of South Carolina, December 15, 1882. 
 
 By B. JAMES RAMAGE, A. B. 
 
 It A LT I M (> It K 
 
 Published by tiik Johns Hoi-kin." L'nivkrsitt 
 
 OCTUliKK, ihh:. 
 
JOHN MURPHY A CO., PRINTERS, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 (The Parish, the District, and the County). 
 
 The history of the growth of local government in the 
 Southern States presents characteristics which at once dis- 
 tinguish our local unit from that of the Eastern and Western 
 States. In the South the county is the centre of political life. 
 The schools, the roads, the poor, and other local matters are 
 regulated by county officers. In the Eastern States and in 
 many of the States of the Northwest, all such local questions 
 are controlled by the towns* or townships. The political activ- 
 ity of Southern communities is, therefore, less minutely sub- 
 divided than elsewhere in the United States; and, as a con- 
 sequence, there is more centralization in the management of 
 local matters. 
 
 This great difference between the local machinery of the 
 two sections of our country is, at first, very strange to the 
 student of American institutions. And when he recalls the 
 fact that the early settlers of Virginia and the Carol inas came 
 from tiie same land as did the early settlers of Massachusetts 
 and Rhode Island, he is, perhaps, even more impressed with 
 the opposing characteristics of the local institutions of the 
 South and those of the North. The causes of these pecu- 
 liarities are many. There were the differences between the 
 first settlements of the North and those of the South, and 
 
 * Tin' term "town " is liable to mislead those who are only acquainted 
 with the use of the word to express th>' idea of n larger collection of houses 
 and inhabitants than a village. In the North the term is synonymous 
 with township. 
 
 
 
6 Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 the differences between the settlers themselves. The colonists 
 of the North, notably those of New England, were composed 
 principally of religious refugees, united by the bonds of a 
 common moral idea. Most of the colonists of the South came 
 over simply as Englishmen who wished to better their con- 
 dition. They were recruited from no particular rank in 
 society. Churchman and dissenter, cavalier and roundhead 
 sat about the same camp fire. Massachusetts was a colony ; 
 South Carolina, a province. Compact settlements were neces- 
 sary on the one hand for the purpose -of protection against 
 foreign and domestic enemies; for the purpose of maintaining 
 public worship; and for organizing the government of the 
 infant State. The partial absence of any of these causes left 
 it wholly to the choice of the Southern colonists whether they 
 should found cities or settle in agricultural communities. Their 
 patrons shielded them from the incursions of the red men ; 
 although deeply religious, like most genuine Englishmen, they 
 lacked the zeal of fresh converts to a new creed ; and their 
 government was in a large measure provided for them. Dif- 
 ference of climate tended to increase the difference produced 
 by these social and moral causes. The rigors of the Northern 
 winters enforced the growth of cities and thickly settled com- 
 munities. The mild climate of the South favored the culti- 
 vation of the soil and the isolation of estates. 
 
 There are, however, more points of resemblance between 
 the beginnings of the colonies than are usually supposed. 
 There are similarities of political structure which characterize 
 not only all English settlements of this country, but which 
 reach far back in the past history of our Teutonic race. By 
 a kind of political atavism, old institutions re-appear in 
 our history, now clearly and definitely outlined, now only 
 faintly resembling their Germanic prototypes, but everywhere 
 possessing those qualities which distinguish the polity of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race wherever it finds a home. 
 
 Nowhere can this divergence from an original identity of 
 political structure be better illustrated than in the develop- 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 7 
 
 merit of local government in South Carolina. The economic 
 and social peculiarities of this State; its influence on other 
 Southern States; and the successive changes which its consti- 
 tution has undergone, make it, in many respects, a typical 
 Southern commonwealth. It happens, that, though claimed 
 by the Spaniards, named by the French, and settled by the 
 English, South Carolina is an English colony in the fullest 
 sense of that term ; for, from England South Carolina received 
 her people, her customs, her laws, and that ancient religious 
 system which wove itself so thoroughly into her political 
 texture during the early years of her provincial life. 
 
 .By their charter, the proprietors of South Carolina were 
 vested with great powers and privileges. These noblemen 
 seemed to have cherished the idea that they were founding a 
 mighty empire. The great philosopher, John Locke, who 
 was a personal friend of one of the proprietors, the Earl of 
 Shaftesbury, previously known as Anthony Ashley Cooper, 
 was employed to frame a constitution for the government of 
 the future province. Locke finished his labors in 1669, and 
 presented his "Fundamental Constitutions." The form of 
 government was amended by Shaftesbury. These funda- 
 mental constitutions had for their object the better govern- 
 ment of the province, and were adopted in order "to avoid 
 erecting a numerous democracy."* The province was erected 
 into a county palatine, like that of Durham. The eldest of 
 the Lord Proprietors was to be Palatine, and, at his death, 
 the eldest of the seven surviving proprietors was to be his 
 successor. The other officers were admirals, chamberlains, 
 chancellors, constables, chief justices, high stewards, and 
 treasurers. The whole province was divided into counties. 
 Each county consisted of eight signiories, eight baronies, and 
 four precincts, each precinct consisting of four colonics. The 
 eight signiories were the share of the eight proprietors, and 
 consisted of twelve thousand acres each. The baronies Ix'longed 
 
 * Pn'iimMr of tho Fiinilamrntul Constitution*. 
 
8 Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 to the nobility of the province, and also consisted of twelve 
 thousand acres each. The nobility of the province were the 
 "landgraves" and ^cassiques." There was a landgrave for 
 each county, and twice as many cassiques as landgraves. In 
 every signiory, barony, and manor, its respective lord had 
 power to hold a court leet for the trial of civil and criminal 
 cases. Every manor consisted of not less than three thousand 
 acres. Every lord of a manor enjoyed the same powers, 
 jurisdictions and privileges which appertained to a landgrave 
 or cassique in his baronies. County courts were erected in 
 each county. These courts were composed of a sheriff and 
 four justices, one from each precinct. There were also pre- 
 cinct-courts, each of which consisted of a steward and four 
 justices of the precinct. Every jury consisted of twelve 
 land owners, and a verdict was rendered according to the 
 consent of the majority.* 
 
 Such in brief is the substance of this remarkable frame of 
 government. It never went wholly into operation and was 
 abrogated by the proprietors in 1693. It is chiefly inter- 
 esting as showing the first attempt to provide a system of 
 local government for the province. But time and experience 
 illustrated that this could be successfully provided for only 
 by the people themselves. The early methods of local admin- 
 istration in the province are wrapt in obscurity. The, early 
 acts of the provincial parliament f relative to the manage- 
 ment of highways, the organization of the militia, the raising 
 of revenues, and the punishment of various offenses against 
 law and morality, are not now to be found. Only their titles 
 have been preserved. 
 
 One of these old laws, the title of which is frequently 
 encountered, reads as follows: "At a Parliament held at 
 Charlestowne, at the house of Mr. Anthony Lawson, the 
 
 * Charters and Constitutions of the United States, part 2, pp. 1397-1408. 
 fThe iirst assembly in the province was for several years known as the 
 Parliament. 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 9 
 
 eighth day of December, 1691, Annoque Regni Regis et 
 Reginae . . . tertio. An Act for the Better Observance of 
 the Lord's Day, commonly called Sunday. Forasmuch as 
 there is nothing more acceptable to Almighty God than the 
 true sincere performance of and obedience to the most divine 
 service and worship, which although at all times, yet chiefly 
 upon the Lord's Day, commonly called Sunday, ought soe to 
 be done, but instead thereof many idle, loose, and disorderly 
 people doe wilfully profane the same in tipling, shooteing, 
 gatneing, and many other vicious exercises, pastimes and 
 meetings, whereby ignorance prevails and the just judgment 
 of Almighty God may reasonably be expected to fall upon 
 this land if the same by some good orders be not prevented ; 
 Be it therefore enacted by the Pallatine and the rest of the 
 Lords and absolute Proprietors of this Province, by and with 
 the consent of the Commons in this present Parliament assem- 
 bled, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, 
 that from and after the ratification hereof, all and every person 
 and persons whatsoever shall on every Lord's Day apply 
 themselves to the observation of the same,"* etc. This 
 would seem to argue that the Puritans were not the only 
 colonists who enforced the local observance of the Sabbath 
 and church attendance. 
 
 The nearest approach to any system of local government 
 beyond the limits of municipalities is found in the creation 
 of the parishes. The parish was, of course, introduced alter 
 the establishment of the Episcopal church. But the estab- 
 lishment of the Episcopal church in the province was only 
 brought about by stealthy innovations and in the face of 
 much opposition. In 1698 a maintenance was settled by law 
 on a minister of the Church of England at Charlestown.f 
 This Act, however, did not encounter serious hostility owing 
 to the popularity of the minister and the small sum voted 
 
 Statutes at Large of South Carolina, Vol. II, pp. f)H ami 69. 
 + Statutes at Large of Soutli Carolina, Vol. II, p. l."."i. 
 
10 Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 him.* A few years later, in 1704, through the influence of 
 the proprietors and civil officers, the Church of England 
 secured a legal establishment, notwithstanding the fact that 
 the Episcopalians had only one church in the entire province 
 while the Dissenters had four. In this year a majority of 
 representatives were sent to parliament who were members of 
 the Church of England. 
 
 Soon after the organization of the provincial parliament 
 the new members succeeded in passing a bill which virtually 
 excluded all Dissenters from that assembly. But this oppres- 
 sive measure was soon afterwards repealed. The Episcopa- 
 lians, nevertheless, continued to rule the province. Laws 
 were passed for the maintenance of ministers, the erection of 
 churches and chapels, arid the division of the counties into 
 parishes. f The parishes were of various sizes and in 1706 
 their bounds were definitely set by law. 
 
 The principal officers of the parish were the rector, the 
 vestrymen, the churchwardens, the overseers of the poor, 
 the sexton, the clerk, the register, and the commissioners of 
 roads. At the head of the spiritual welfare of the parish was 
 the rector. During his ministration he could enjoy the use 
 of the glebe-lands, the buildings of the parish (except one 
 room in the rector's house at Charlestown, which was reserved 
 for a parochial library), all the negroes that belonged to the 
 parish with their increase, and the parish cattle with their 
 increase. He also received a salary from the province vary- 
 ing in amount according to the church. The rector was 
 chosen by the parishioners, but a vacancy was filled by 
 the vestry which proceeded to an immediate election. No 
 rector was allowed to marry parties contrary to the table 
 
 * Kamsay, Vol. IT, pp. 2-10. Also for a very excellent history of the 
 church in South Carolina, see Dalcho's Church History. 
 
 f Statutes at Large of South Carolina, Vol. II, pp. 232-246. Also 
 Grinike'8 Collection of the Public Laws of South Carolina, pp. 11-12. 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 1 1 
 
 of marriages. He could not hold a seat in either branch of 
 the legislative assembly.* 
 
 The duties of the vestrymen were both civil and ecclesias- 
 tical and were copied from the duties of the corresponding 
 office in England. In the words of the law describing their 
 qualifications and powers, the vestrymen were elected for the 
 " promotion of the good laws of the Province and the easy 
 despatch of parish business."! They were, moreover, to be 
 "sober and discreet men." Their number, besides the rector, 
 was at first nine and later seven, all residents of the parish. 
 They were chosen yearly by the freeholders and taxpayers of 
 the parish. The election was held on Easter Monday at the 
 parish church. The parish church seems to have been both 
 the civil and religious centre for transacting local affairs. On 
 the doors of the church were posted all important public 
 notices. After his election each vestryman was required to 
 take the oath of office. 
 
 -The next officer in the parish was the churchwarden. There 
 were two of these in each parish. They assisted the vestry- 
 men in keeping the parish buildings in order. In conjunc- 
 tion with the overseers of the poor, they had a general super- 
 vision of the pauper class of the parish. They also managed 
 the parochial elections. The overseers of the poor were yearly 
 nominated by the vestry. Rich people having poor relatives 
 were compelled to assist them. The poor were relieved from 
 various public monies and fines. A person who, in moving 
 from one parish to another, might become a pauper, could be 
 
 *"Tlie ministers of the gospel lire by their profession dedicated t<> the 
 service of ( Jod and the car-' of souls, and ought not to be diverted from tin- 
 great duties of tlieir function, therefore no minister of the gospel or public 
 preacher of any kind . . . Bhall be eligible either as governor, lieutenant 
 governor, ; member of the senate, house of representatives <>r privy coun- 
 cil in this State." Constitution of South Carolina of 177s, section XXI. 
 This disqualification no longer exists. 
 
 + Statutes at Large of South Carolina, Vol. II, p. '-"JO, sections XXV 111, 
 XXIX, XXX, XXXI, and XXX11. 
 
12 Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 returned to the parish whence he came.* Poor children were 
 hound out by the churchwardens and the overseers of the 
 poor. A register was kept of the names of persons receiving 
 aid. The churchwardens and overseers of the poor were to 
 account yearly before the vestry for all money spent, f Neglect 
 of duty was punished by a fine. 
 
 The sexton, the clerk, and the register of births were ap- 
 pointed by the vestry. They received a small perquisite 
 attached to their office. Parishioners had a right to inspect 
 the records of the parish at any time and to take exceptions 
 to them, if they thought proper. In the parish register were 
 contained all the deaths and christenings of parishioners, 
 except those of negroes, mulattoes, and slaves. 
 
 The commissioners of the roads were elected by the free- 
 holders of their respective parishes. In 1719, the parishes 
 were made election districts and each parish sent representa- 
 tives to the commons' house of Assembly. In some cases two 
 
 * Public Laws of South Carolina, p. 105, Section V. 
 
 f A few of the old Kecords and Kegisters of the parishes are still in 
 existence. Through the kindness of the Rev. John Johnson of Charles- 
 ton, the writer was permitted to have access to some of the Records of 
 the old parishes of Prince Frederick's and St. Thomas. Some of these 
 still exist in a remarkable state of preservation, while others are fast going 
 to decay. It is to be hoped that efforts will soon be made to have these 
 important historical materials rescued from destruction. It may not be 
 uninteresting to subjoin one or two extracts from these Records, kindly 
 furnished by the Rev. Mr. Johnson. 
 
 " Complaint made that the widow Hughes a poor woman living near 
 the church was a starving she and children/ agreed this day that the 
 Wardens take the Two Bjgest Children and Put them out apprentices in 
 creditable houses and that the Widow go to work to maintain herself and 
 youDg child as she is very able & a Great deal of spinning offered her." 
 27 Sep 1777. 
 
 " Agreed that Margaret Marten shd. be allowed 10 pounds pr week 
 for her maintenance and cloathing at the expense of John McNight her 
 son." 20 May 1779." 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 13 
 
 parishes united in sending delegates.* It must not be pre- 
 sumed that the parishes, when first created, were complete 
 political divisions of the province. Far from it. Their 
 importance and status in this regard were acquired years after 
 their erection. Their growth from ecclesiastical to political 
 divisions was, however, gradual and sure. From a territorial 
 division for church purposes, they slowly passed into a politi- 
 cal division possessing many of the attributes of a self-gov- 
 erning community. 
 
 The early legislators of the colony were deeply impressed 
 with the importance of local education. f So dominant was 
 this idea that it had much to do with the establishment 
 of the Church of England in the province, and the division 
 of the counties into parishes in order to obtain aid from the 
 society for propagating the Gospel in foreign parts. This 
 society, which was established in the mother country, only 
 lent its aid to those colonies in which flourished the Episcopal 
 church. The society soon seconded the efforts of the colonial 
 educators, and lent its aid in supplying parish ministers and 
 teachers. Parochial libraries were founded and parish schools 
 were established, at first under the immediate control of the 
 vestrymen. 
 
 The history of popular education in South Carolina dates 
 from these beginnings. As far back as 1712, a free school 
 
 Statutes at Large of South Carolina, Vol. Ill, pp. o0-56. 
 
 By the provision of this act, the parish of St. Philip's, Charlestown, 
 sent five members ; Christ Church, two ; St. John's, three ; St. Andrew's, 
 three ; St. George's, two ; St. James', Goose Creek, four ; the parishes of 
 St. Thomas' and St. Dennis', three; the parish of St. Paul's, four; St. 
 Bartholomew, four; St. Helena, four; and St. James', San tee, with Win- 
 yaw, two. 
 
 f No view is more erroneous than that which represents the lack of 
 educational facilities in South Carolina during colonial days. Mr. 
 McMaster, in his recent work on the History of the People of tho 
 United States, says that in no colony was so little attention paid to edu- 
 cation as in South Carolina. It is pleasant to note the letter of Colonel 
 Edward McCrady, Jr., of the South Carolina Historical Society, in the 
 yation, July ~>, 18H3, disproving Mr. McMaster s statement. 
 
14 Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 was established in Charleston. Similar institutions were 
 planted at Dorchester, Childsbury, Beaufort, Ninety-Six, St. 
 Thomas' Parish, St. James (Santee) and elsewhere. Many of 
 these schools owe their origin to legacies bequeathed them by 
 generous parishioners, like Beresford, Ludlam, Childs, and 
 others. With the growth of primary education, the demand 
 for the higher education increased, resulting in the establish- 
 ment of several academies and no less than five colleges before 
 the expiration of the eighteenth century. Many charitable 
 societies also maintained schools, usually for the education of 
 the poor. Constant public encouragement was given to edu- 
 cation by donations, immunities, and by vesting, in school 
 boards, escheated property in villages or parishes. In some 
 cases, especially during early times, even slaves were taught 
 to read.* The parishes were confined to that portion of the 
 State which was first settled the region near the coast 
 but they gradually increased in number. 
 
 In some instances plans for settling new parishes were based 
 on the hundred. The method is thus described by Ramsay :f 
 "According to a new plan, adopted in England, for the more 
 speedy population and settlement of the province, the gov- 
 ernor had instructions to mark out eleven townships in square 
 plats on the sides of rivers, consisting each of twenty thousand 
 acres; and to divide the land within them into shares of fifty 
 acres for each man, woman, and child that should come to 
 occupy and improve them. Each township was to form a 
 parish, and all the inhabitants were to have an equal right to 
 the river. So soon as the parish should increase to the number 
 of an hundred families they were to have a right to send two 
 members, of their own election, to the assembly, and to enjoy 
 the same privileges as the other parishes, already established. 
 Each settler was to pay four shillings a year for every hun- 
 
 * Carroll's Historical Collections of South Carolina, Vol. II, pp. 538- 
 568. 
 
 f History of South Carolina, Vol. 1, pp. 108-109. 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 15 
 
 dred acres of land, except the first ten years, during; which 
 term they were to he rent free. Accordingly ten townships 
 were marked out, two on river Altamaha, two on Savannah, 
 two on Santee, one on Pedee, one on Wacamaw, one on 
 Wateree, and one on Black river." 
 
 Contemporary with the adoption of the parish system was 
 the creation of the patrol.* It was a sort of police of the 
 parishes. Its objects and functions are best set forth in the 
 preamble to the Act establishing it, passed November 4, 17<)J. 
 The Act is entitled "An Act to settle a Patrol." f It tlm * 
 states the object of the patrol : " Whereas on the sight or 
 advice of an enemy it will be necessary for the safety and 
 defence of the inhabitants of this Collony to draw together 
 to the sea coast, or such other place as the General 1 shall 
 direct, all the forces thereof; to prevent such insurrections 
 and mischiefs as from the great number of slaves we have 
 reason to suspect may happen when the greater part of the 
 inhabitants are drawn together," etc. In the early days of* 
 the province, constant petty expeditions were fitted out by the 
 Spaniards from Saint Augustine against Charleston, and, in 
 retaliation, by Charleston against Saint Augustine. Soldiers 
 were therefore kept constantly employed in defending the 
 coast. The large number of slaves in the province made it 
 extremely dangerous to leave the wives and children of the 
 soldiers unprotected from servile insurrection. The patrol 
 was therefore, in its inception, a homeguard. Its organiza- 
 tion, with some modifications, lasted through the lights and 
 shadows of almost two centuries of slavery. The patrol pro- 
 vided themselves with horses, pistols, and guns, and were 
 ready to appear on duty at any alarm. Under the direction 
 
 According to Skcat, the word pntrol is from the old French verb 
 patrouiller, to puddle. There is no connection, however, between the 
 word and the peculiar method of corporal punishment which it suggest.*. 
 The verb is formed from the noun patte, the pnw or foot of a beast, :ucl 
 hence it came to mean a g<nng of the rounds. 
 
 f Statutes at Large of South Carolina, Vol. II, pp. '_'M *_''. V 
 
16 Local Government in South Carolina.. 
 
 of their captain, they rode from plantation to plantation and 
 arrested all slaves on the road who were found without a pass 
 from their owner. The student of English constitutional 
 history will not be slow to recognize in the patrol the straet- 
 warden of the king's highway. Like its old English proto- 
 type, the patrol could not maltreat a prisoner, and was, 
 moreover, answerable before the law for good behavior. 
 
 From what has previously been said it will be inferred that 
 the parish of South Carolina is of English and not of French 
 origin, as is often stated. The parish of South Carolina and 
 the parish of Louisiana are radically different. The Louisiana 
 parish corresponds to the county in other States. The South 
 Carolina parish was a subdivision of the county, and in char- 
 acter more nearly approached the Northern and Western 
 township. It is true that, after the revocation of the Edict 
 of Nantes, large numbers of Huguenot refugees came over to 
 the province. A majority of the inhabitants of the parishes 
 of St. Dennis, in the Orange quarter, and St. James, on the 
 Santee, was composed of French settlers. But they did not 
 arrive until the English were firmly established elsewhere in 
 the Carolinas. Besides, the English were too jealous of the 
 French to allow them any influence at all, and for a while 
 excluded them from the legislature. This spirit of intoler- 
 ance in time passed away. The proprietary government, 
 having become burdensome to the people, was overthrown in 
 1719, and the people put themselves under the direct control 
 of the King. The parishes continued to extend their organ- 
 ization. Charleston remained the centre of political power. 
 Here was the provost marshal, or sheriff of all the province, 
 and here also, for a long time, was held the only court. But 
 a change was destined to ensue. Already the division between 
 North and South Carolina had taken place.* The colony 
 was soon to become the seat of a struggle between two oppos- 
 
 *The division was formally made about 1729, but it had practically 
 existed many years before. 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 17 
 
 ing systems of local government. One of these systems rep- 
 resented the old Teutonic idea of the township as it was 
 afterwards merged into the parish ; the other was the later 
 county system. It is noteworthy that the two systems of 
 local government which have struggled for the mastery in 
 this country, should have so early encountered each other 
 in South Carolina. 
 
 The District. 
 
 Until near the middle of the last century the inhabited 
 portion of South Carolina was confined to the parishes which 
 fringed the coast. After the overthrow of the proprietary 
 government and under the more immediate management of 
 the Crown, a steady stream of immigration poured in from 
 the old country. The new comers were principally composed 
 of English, French, and Irish, with a few Scotch, all of whom 
 settled in the parishes. At the same time, the northern portion 
 of the colony was rapidly settled by an entirely different class 
 of people, colonists from the present Middle States, from 
 Virginia and North Carolina. The settlements of these 
 sturdy pioneers were confined to the mountain regions and 
 to the fertile valleys of the interior. A wide space of inter- 
 vening territory separated them from the inhabitants of the 
 parishes. The sections of the colony became, to all practical 
 purposes, two distinct colonies. This was most unfortunate 
 and became the seed of much discontent in after years.* The 
 lower section was rich, strong, and powerful. It possessed 
 some good schools, many intelligent men, and an attempt at 
 local government. In its constitution and character it ap- 
 proached the colonics of New England and Virginia. The 
 upper section more nearly resembled a Western territory of the 
 
 Indeed tho local disputes between the " up country " and the "low 
 country " still survive in many instances, though not with the patno degree 
 
 of animosity as in former time-. 
 
 a " 
 
18 Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 present time. It was largely composed of rough pioneers, 
 who, dissatisfied with their condition in the older colonies, 
 had removed to this unexplored portion of South Carolina. 
 
 Some effort was made as early as 1725 to establish county 
 and precinct courts, but the general court in Charleston soon 
 absorbed all judiciary proceedings.* For many years there 
 was but one sheriff for the whole colony, and he held his 
 office by patent from the Crown. He was subjected to the 
 same penalties as a sheriff in England. At this time all civil 
 and criminal cases were tried in Charleston by the general 
 court. The justices of the peace could have no jurisdiction 
 in any cause which involved more than twenty pounds. A 
 court of chancery, consisting of the governor and a majority 
 of the council, had been established in 1721. f There were 
 also two other courts: a court of the King's bench and 
 common pleas, and a court of vice admiralty. But the gen- 
 eral court at Charleston was the most powerful judicial assem- 
 bly of the colony. All criminal, as well as all civil cases, 
 were tried in this court, a fact which necessarily, produced 
 much inconvenience and disorder. To punish a horse-thief 
 or prosecute a debtor one was sometimes compelled to travel 
 a distance of several hundred miles, and be subjected to all of 
 the dangers and delays incident to a wild country. For the 
 purpose of expediting the administration of justice and of 
 summarily punishing criminals, the settlers began to organize 
 themselves into bands and, under the name of "regulators," 
 endeavored to control local affairs. Alarmed at these pro- 
 ceedings, the colonial government manifested some disposi- 
 tion to improve the condition of the colonists of the upper 
 section. 
 
 In the preamble to an Act entitled "an Act for establish- 
 ing Courts, building Gaols and appointing Sheriffs and other 
 officers for the more "convenient administration of justice in 
 
 * Brevard's Digest, Vol. I, pp. v-xx. Ramsay, Vol. II, pp. 125-159. 
 f Statutes at Large, Vol. Ill, p. 284. 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 19 
 
 this Province,"* passed in 1768, the Assembly th us organ- 
 izes the defective system of government for the up-country: 
 "whereas, the establishing courts, building gaols, and appoint- 
 ing sheriffs in different parts of this Province, under proper 
 regulations, will tend to promote the interests of our most 
 glorious Sovereign and his good subjects therein, also to pre- 
 serve their just rights, liberties and properties and the public 
 peace, inasmuch as the distance from Charleston of many 
 persons who, however remote from thence, are often obliged, 
 either as parties, jurors or witnesses, to attend the courts at 
 present held there for trial of all criminal causes and of all 
 civil actions exceeding the value of twenty pounds current 
 money . . . which hardships deter numbers of people from 
 becoming inhabitants of this Province, etc." The Assembly 
 then proceeded to create new district courts at Beaufort, 
 Georgetown, Cheraws, Camden, Orangeburgh and Ninety-Six. 
 The title of provost marshal was purchased from its holder 
 for the sum of <5,000 sterling, and seven new sheriffs were 
 appointed, one for each new district and one for Charleston."}" 
 
 The courts held in Charleston were not Circuit Courts. 
 Brevard regards them in the same light as "the Courts of 
 Westminster Hall in England." In the new Circuit Courts 
 the judges could render a decision, in some small oases, with- 
 out a jury, provided both litigants agreed to this summary 
 method of settling their dispute. The right to a trial by 
 jury, however, was not denied. The creation of the district 
 courts and of tin; district was the historic origin of local gov- 
 ernment in the up-country, although the inhabitants of the 
 district did not even possess the right of electing their own 
 sheriff. 
 
 Owing to the vast size of the district, the same evils that 
 had been experienced under the old judicial system began 
 to make themselves felt with the increase of population. 
 
 * Statutes of South Carolina, Vol. VII , M)7-20. r >. 
 f Ha in say. 
 
20 Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 Accordingly, steps were soon taken to improve further the 
 administration of the judiciary by decreasing the size of the 
 districts. It was now that the constitutions of the older 
 colonies began to exert their influence on South Carolina. 
 The General Assembly, at its session in 1783, considered the 
 propriety of dividing the districts "into counties of con- 
 venient size, of not more than forty miles square, unless 
 where the number of inhabitants and situation of the lands 
 require some deviation."* Commissioners were appointed for 
 each district, whose duty it was to "fix and ascertain" the 
 boundary lines of each district and county. Two years later, 
 in 1785, the districts were divided into thirty-four counties, 
 as follows : Ninety-Six into the counties of Abbeville, 
 Edgefield, Newberry, Laurens, Union and Spartanburgh ; 
 Camden district into the counties of Clarendon, Richland, 
 Fairfield, Clareraont, Lancaster, York, (new acquisition) and 
 Chester ;f Cheraws into Marlborough, Chesterfield and 
 Darlington ; Georgetown into Winyaw, Williamsburgh, 
 Kingston and Liberty; Charleston into Charleston, Wash- 
 ington, Marion, Berkeley, Bartholomew and Colleton ; Beau- 
 fort into Hilton, Lincoln, Granville and Shrewsberry ; and 
 finally Orangeburgh district was divided into Lewisburgh, 
 Orange, Lexington and Winton counties. J 
 
 The county system was introduced through the influence 
 of Henry Pendleton, a settler from Virginia, and was closely 
 modeled after the county system of that colony. || Seven 
 Justices of the Peace were elected for each county by the 
 General Assembly, and court was held by them every three 
 months. They held their office during good behavior, and 
 filled all vacancies in their number by co-optation. Three 
 
 Statutes at Large, Vol. IV., p. 561. 
 
 fThe influence of Pennsylvania is seen in the names of the counties. 
 
 J Vol. IV., pp. G61-664. 
 
 || Ramsay. 
 
 gO'Neall's Annals of Newberry District, pp. 12-22. 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 21 
 
 of the justices constituted a quorum. The county courts 
 never extended to the parishes. The Episcopal Church ceased 
 to be the established church of South Carolina when the 
 British government in America was overthrown by the 
 war for independence. The parish system, however, was 
 still retained by the inhabitants of the low-country. All the 
 political power and patronage were still wielded by the inhabi- 
 tants of the parishes, and the up-country possessed no influence 
 whatever. By the constitution of 1776, the low-country was 
 allowed twice the number of representatives enjoyed by the 
 up-country, though the latter was perhaps the more populous. 
 This privilege produced much dissatisfaction. 
 
 After an experiment of a few years, the county system and 
 the county courts were abolished. The name of "district" 
 was substituted for that of "county," and this form was 
 preserved until after the close of the civil war. With the 
 increase of population and education, the districts gained the 
 privilege of electing some of their own local officers, such as 
 sheriffs and clerks of courts. The general economy of the 
 district differed little from that of the county in other States, 
 with the exception of the absence of a district court. The 
 districts were grouped into judicial circuits, and the circuit 
 judge traveled from one court of his circuit to another. 
 
 The manifest injustice in the distribution of the power and 
 representation of the State continued to produce much dis- 
 satisfaction in the up-country. By the constitution of I7i)0 
 the cause of contention was in a measure adjusted. Each 
 district was allowed one senator and two or three representa- 
 tives. But even this concession on the part of the low-coun- 
 try was far from being entirely satisfactory to the inhabitants 
 of the districts, for it still left them with a minority represen- 
 tation, though possessing a much larger population. Each 
 parish was allowed to send a senator to the assembly, and 
 Charleston was allowed to send two, one for each of the 
 parishes of Saint Philip and Saint Michael. Kaeh parish also 
 
22 Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 sent two or more representatives to the assembly.* The 
 parishes steadily opposed any increase of power on the part 
 of the districts. The districts were equally determined to 
 secure a more equitable apportionment of representation and 
 a more equal share in the government. Again and again 
 unsuccessful attempts were made to effect a harmonious set- 
 tlement of the dispute. The capital was in time moved from 
 Charleston to the new town of Columbia in the interior, f 
 By an amendment to the constitution, in 1808, the house of 
 representatives was made to consist of one hundred and 
 twenty-four members, half of whom represented the white 
 population and half the taxables.| The constitution of the 
 senate remained unchanged. The senate was therefore con- 
 trolled by the low-country and the house of representatives 
 by the up-country. As the governor, the judges, and all other 
 important officers were appointed by the assembly, the pro- 
 visions of this amendment were readily accepted by both 
 sections of the State. A sort of double government was 
 instituted. Part of the public officers resided in Charleston 
 and part in Columbia. There was a treasurer for the low- 
 country and one also for the up-country, and, with very few 
 modications, this system was preserved until after the close of 
 the civil war. The organization of the district was preserved 
 in the up-country and that of the parish in the low-country. 
 After the close of the civil war, in obedience to the procla- 
 mation of President Johnson and the orders of Provisional 
 Governor Perry, a convention of the people of South Carolina 
 assembled in Columbia September 13, 1865, to re-organize 
 the State government. The ordinance of secession was re- 
 pealed and a new constitution adopted. Many of the changes 
 in the constitution and improvements in the methods of 
 
 Constitution of 1790. Article I., sections 3-8. 
 
 fThe act for laying off the town of Columbia and erecting the new 
 State buildings therein was passed by the assembly March 22, 1786. See 
 Statutes of South Carolina, Vol. IV., pp. 751-7G2. 
 
 X Amendment of 1808. Also Calhoun, Vol. I., pp. 402-406. 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 23 
 
 local government were suggested by Governor Perry in his 
 message to the convention.* " The great political convulsions 
 which have taken place in the Southern States," said he in 
 his message to the convention, "and the terrific war which 
 has swept over South Carolina, devastating her territory and 
 depriving her citizens of all civil government, are too well 
 known to you, and too painful in their detail, for me to bring 
 them unnecessarily in review before you. Instead of dwelling 
 on the past, and grieving over its errors and misfortunes, let 
 us, with manly fortitude, look to the future, and accommodate 
 ourselves to the circumstances which surround us, and which 
 cannot be changed or avoided. The President of the United 
 States has manifested a generous and patriotic solicitude for 
 the restoration of the Southern States to all their civil and 
 political rights, under the Constitution and laws of the United 
 States. He desires to see the Federal Union reconstructed as 
 it was before the secession of those States; and he will oppose 
 the centralization of power in Congress, and the infringement 
 of the constitutional rights of the States, with the same zeal, 
 energy and power with which lie resisted the assumed right 
 of secession on the part of the States. In order to accomplish 
 this re-union of the States, the President desires that South 
 Carolina, as well as all the other States in rebellion, should 
 accept as inevitable and unavoidable the great final results of 
 the war." 
 
 The parishes were abolished and the district system was 
 extended to the low country. The triumph of the district 
 over the parish was complete when Charleston district, instead 
 of the parish's of Charleston, sent its delegation to the assem- 
 bly. Boundaries of the judicial and election districts remained 
 unchanged. The semi-duplicate form of State government 
 was abolished and provision was made for only one treasurer 
 with his office at Columbia. Slavery was forever prohibited 
 in the State; the "freedmen," however, were not enfranchised. 
 
 * Message Nu. I, Journal of the Convention, pp. 11-19. 
 
24 Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 Governor Perry thus speaks of the aristocratic character of 
 the government of South Carolina: "The general assembly 
 of South Carolina is an electoral college for the State as well 
 as a legislative body.' They have the election of Governor, 
 electors of President and Vice-President, Lieutenant Gov- 
 ernor, United States Senators, Judges and Chancellors, all 
 State officers, Magistrates, Commissioners of Roads and 
 Bridges, Poor and Free Schools, Commissioners and Masters 
 in equity, and various other officers. This embarrasses legis- 
 lation, occupies a great deal of the time of members, and is 
 productive of evil consequences. The most of these elections 
 and appointments should be taken from the legislature." * 
 
 Acting upon this wise suggestion, the power of the legisla- 
 ture was greatly diminished. Many of the officers who had 
 formerly been appointed by the legislature were made elective. 
 Local government was also greatly increased. The period 
 embraced by the operation of this constitution is, however, so 
 short and so full of the anarchy and disorders engendered by 
 the great civil conflict as to be almost devoid of any local 
 government. 
 
 The County. 
 
 The county system is the present system of local govern- 
 ment for the whole State of South Carolina. By the consti- 
 tution of 1868, commonly known as the reconstruction con- 
 stitution, the district was abolished and the county erected in 
 its stead.f Various amendments have been made to the con- 
 
 Journal of Convention of 1865, page 15. 
 
 fThis constitution was framed by a convention (called under the 
 reconstruction acts of Congress by Major-General Canby). It assembled 
 at Charleston, January 14, 1868, and completed its labor March 17, 1868. 
 The constitution was submitted to the people April 14 and 16, 1868, and was 
 ratified by 70,000 against 27,288 votes. It may further be added that the 
 " freedmen," who voted at the election, were unanimously in favor of the 
 constitute. See Charters and Constitutions, Part II., p. 1646. 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 25 
 
 stitution since that time, especially since the overthrow of 
 the reconstruction government, but the main features of the 
 county system remain the same now as when first adopted. 
 Without commenting on the particulars of these changes, it 
 may be best .to give some account of the operations of the 
 county system in the State; to enumerate the officers and 
 their respective duties, and briefly to describe the other char- 
 acteristics of local government as it exists in South Carolina 
 at the present day. 
 
 The entire State is divided into thirty-four counties, which 
 are bodies politic and corporate, and can sue and be sued.* 
 They also possess many other rights which are usually 
 enjoyed by corporate bodies. Each county, with the excep- 
 tion of Charleston, sends one senator to the State Senate. In 
 Charleston there still remains a faint survival more tradi- 
 tional than real of the old parish system. That county 
 is, therefore, entitled to two senators, one for each of the old 
 parishes of St. Philip's and St. Michael's. The present house 
 of representatives consists of one hundred and twenty-four 
 members, who are apportioned among the several counties 
 according to the population in each. Some counties send 
 to the house of representatives two, others five, and Charles- 
 ton as many as eighteen members. Both senators and 
 representatives are elected by the qualified voters of the 
 county, and each receives a salary of five dollars per diem 
 during a session of the assembly. They are also entitled 
 to mileage at the rate of ten cents a mile for the distance 
 travelled in going to and from the meetings of the assembly. 
 A senator serves for four years and a representative two years. 
 The following officers are also elected by the people : a 
 sheriff, a clerk of the Court of Common Pleas and General 
 Sessions, a judge of probate, a school commissioner, three 
 countv commissioners and a coroner. 
 
 General Statutes of South Carolina, 1882, pp. 18l-82(5 
 4 
 
26 Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 Except the municipalities, there is no political division of 
 the State beyond the county. The towqahip exists barely in 
 name. There is no assembly of the inhabitants of the county 
 for the discussion of local business. The county commis- 
 sioners have jurisdiction over all roads, ferries and bridges. 
 These commissioners also control all matters relating to taxes, 
 disbursements of money for county purposes, and all other 
 business pertaining to the internal improvement and local 
 concerns of the county. Each township constitutes a highway 
 district, the superintendent of which is appointed by the 
 county commissioners. Each highway district is expected by 
 law to be divided into sections of from two to five miles, and 
 in each section an overseer of roads is required to be appointed 
 by the superintendent of highways. All able bodied men 
 between the ages of sixteen and fifty years are liable to road 
 duty. They must work on the roads not more than twelve 
 nor less than three days yearly, or instead pay one dollar a 
 day for each day required. In every county there is provided 
 a poor house, with a farm, for the accommodation of the 
 pauper class. The county commissioners are the overseers of 
 the poor, and provide employment and comfort for the inmates 
 of the poor house. The commissioners bind out poor chil- 
 dren, and may also send all pauper lunatics, idiots, and 
 epileptics to the State lunatic asylum. 
 
 The school commissioner has a general oversight of the 
 free schools in his county. The city of Charleston constitutes 
 an exception, having her own superintendent of schools. The 
 school commissioner and two other persons appointed by the 
 State board of examiners constituted county board of exami- 
 nation, and examine all applicants for teachers' positions. 
 In each school-district three men are appointed by the county 
 board of examiners, who constitute the trustees of the district. 
 An annual tax of two mills is levied by the county commis- 
 sioners for the support of free schools. The money raised by 
 the tax is distributed among the school districts in proportion 
 to the number of pupils attending the free schools. 
 
Local Government in South Carolina. 27 
 
 The county in South Carolina differs from the county in 
 many other States from the fact that it possesses no judicial 
 organization of its own. We have already seen that two 
 unsuccessful attempts were made to introduce the county 
 courts into the State in early times. But the system failed 
 from various causes. The counties, like their institutional 
 predecessor, the district, are grouped into judicial circuits, 
 and a judge is elected by the legislature for each circuit. In 
 each circuit there is also a solicitor, who is elected by the 
 qualified voters of the circuit. The governor, with the advice 
 of the senate, appoints a number of trial justices for each 
 county. Their number depends entirely upon the demands 
 of the county. The justices hold their office for two years 
 and have jurisdiction over offenses in which fine or forfeiture 
 is under one hundred dollars and imprisonment is less than 
 thirty days. Trial justices appoint their own constables. 
 
 The jurisdiction of the court of the probate judge is very 
 limited in character. It only extends to those matters testa- 
 mentary and administrative which cannot be conveniently 
 decided in the other courts. It also has jurisdiction over all 
 business pertaining to minors and the allotment of dower, 
 and in cases of larceny. The following county officers are 
 appointed by the governor : the auditor, the treasurer and the 
 master in equity. The present system of local government is 
 far from being a satisfactory one to the inhabitants of the 
 State. Many of the counties are very large, which makes it 
 exceedingly inconvenient to those who live at a great distance 
 from the county seat. The results are bad roads, worse bridges, 
 and an imperfect system of free schools a system which 
 lacks the stimulating support of local taxation. 
 
 There is a growing demand for an improved system of 
 local administration. This desire manifests itself in various 
 ways, although a constitutional amendment looking towards 
 the reduction of the size of the counties was lately de- 
 feated. A step in the ri<j;lit direction was taken by Governor 
 Thompson, in his inaugural address, where he strongly advo- 
 
28 Local Government in South Carolina. 
 
 cates local taxation for the support of the free school system.* 
 A bill looking to that end was rejected in the senate in 1882. 
 No better comment upon the rejection of this measure can be 
 made than that already expressed by the Charleston News 
 and Courier: "It was a mistake, we think, to reject the 
 senate bill permitting the levying of local taxes for educa- 
 tional purposes to supplement the proceeds of the State tax. 
 The general tax cannot be increased. It is as high as the 
 people can bear, but each locality, knowing its own needs 
 and its own ability, should be free to raise an additional fund 
 under authority of law if it desired to do so." f 
 
 The future development of local government in the State 
 will be in the direction of local support of the free schools. 
 Local control will follow close upon local support. In other 
 words, the school house will be for the new South Carolina 
 what the church was for old South Carolina and for New 
 England, namely, the parent of local self-government. When 
 once the advantages of local support for schools are seen in 
 the greatly improved condition of southern education, the 
 system will extend to the local control of the poor, the roads, 
 the bridges, and all other common affairs now under the con- 
 trol of the townships throughout the West. 
 
 Such is the outlook for local government in South Caro- 
 lina. Historically, the parish, the district and the county are 
 inseparably connected. They approach, meet, and overlap 
 each other in the two centuries of South Carolina history. 
 Everywhere they identify themselves with those principles of 
 self-government, the continuation of which has made the 
 English race what it is in the Old World and in the New. 
 
 Those who have read Governor Thompson's reports on free schools 
 while he was Superintendent of Education, will know that this idea of 
 local taxation for free schools is strongly urged. 
 
 f Charleston News and Courier, December, 1882. 
 
Free Schools in South Carolina.* 
 
 It is often urged as a matter of reproach that the more 
 Southern colonies of our Union failed to establish common 
 schools, while their sister colonies were earnestly striving to pro- 
 vide for the general enlightenment of the population ; that 
 the Southern States continually discouraged school-establish- 
 ment, and that, on the whole, the Southern people are opposed 
 to the entire system of common school education. Now this 
 is a grave charge. If it can be supported by sufficient evi- 
 dence, one might almost call it a crime on the part of the 
 Southern people. Indeed, it would be something extraordi- 
 nary and almost paradoxical, i/, in an English colony and 
 among English parishes, men could be found opposing the 
 education of their fellows of the same race and blood. It 
 would be something anomalous in the annals of the English 
 people. A recently deceased Baltimore newspaper once pub- 
 lished the astounding fact that " no such thing as free schools 
 were known in the South before the late war, and that the 
 oldest of them have only been in existence for a lew years ! " 
 As a matter of fact, schools for the education of the people 
 were among the earliest institutional germs in the Southern 
 States. To discover these germs, we have only to look into 
 the early legislation of South Carolina. This particular State 
 
 * Authorities. Statutes at Large <>f South Carolina. Acta of the (im- 
 eral Assembly. Kamsay's History of South Carolina. Simin's ili.-tory of 
 South Carolina. Dalcho, Episcopal Church in Smith Carolina. Reports 
 of the Superintendent of Education. Mayor Courtnay, Education in 
 
 South Carolina. Carroll's Collections. 
 
 29 
 
30 Free Schools in South Carolina. 
 
 is taken as an example, not because common schools have no 
 history in other Southern States, or because the State of South 
 Carolina has done any more in this direction than any of her 
 neighbors. ^Perhaps other States have furnished as good a 
 record, and some may have done even more for popular edu- 
 cation. But inasmuch as the old institutions and customs of 
 the mother country were so perfectly reproduced in South 
 Carolina ; and, further, because from South Carolina so many 
 other Southern communities have gone forth ; and, lastly, 
 because her public policy and history have so often been the 
 public policy and history of the whole South, a sketch of 
 free-school legislation in South Carolina may serve as a 
 typical sketch of the beginnings of Southern education. 
 
 Of course, certain peculiar circumstances and local condi- 
 tions must be taken into account in such a study as is 
 proposed. The effect of climate upon the habits, customs and 
 industries of communities should be remembered. The state 
 of society must be examined. And especially should be 
 noted the nature of the chief occupation of the inhabitants. 
 Indeed, these things must be* investigated in the study of any 
 social question, and it is highly necessary in considering the 
 question of free schools. 
 
 The climatic influences on the early settlers of South Caro- 
 lina are at once seen by the tendency of the people to engage 
 in rural pursuits. From the earliest times, the principal 
 occupation of the people was agriculture. Experience has 
 abundantly shown that the exclusive pursuit of this industry 
 is unfavorable to the general diffusion of knowledge. Pagan 
 and heathen still suggest by their etymology the characteristic 
 ignorance of the rural population in classic Italy and in mediae- 
 val Europe. Even in our own time and generation, we look 
 to the great centres of population and of wealth for the higher 
 development of systems of education. In such communities 
 the people are collected together and their children can be 
 conveniently educated. Moreover, there is the additional ad- 
 vantage, in such communities, of obtaining that superior train- 
 
Free Schools in South Carolina. 31 
 
 ing which only the friction of ideas can give. Until very 
 recently, little attention has been devoted in South Carolina 
 to manufacturing interests. In almost all Southern commu- 
 nities, manufactures, as such, from the very nature of English 
 colonization in that section, were almost totally neglected, and 
 it may be seriously questioned whether they will ever be exten- 
 sive in the South. From the pursuit of agriculture to the almost 
 total exclusion of any other occupation, the growth of munici- 
 palities was slow. One should not expect, therefore, to find 
 that the development of the common school system in South 
 Carolina was as rapid as in other colonies where the industries 
 of the people were more varied. It goes without saying that 
 it would be absurd to compare the growth of free schools in 
 the manufacturing communities of ?sew England with the free 
 schools of the agricultural communities of the South, and 
 thereupon urge that the one section upheld the system, while 
 the other opposed it. Rather let the comparison be made, if 
 made at all, between the free school system of the South at 
 one period of history, and the free school system of the South 
 at another period. 
 
 As to the social aspect of our study, it may be said that 
 slavery existed in South Carolina from very early times. 
 This fact prevented the growth of a strong middle class out 
 of whose ranks the patrons of common schools are so strongly 
 recruited. The common people which was generated in 
 South Carolina was that hybrid of slavery and freedom, 
 known in provincial language as the " poor white trash." 
 This class was perfectly contented so long as it maintained 
 a questionable superiority over the negro, and so long as 
 nature afforded it a means of" subsistence without toil, without 
 money, and without price. The semi-tropical climate of the 
 South afforded ample means for satisfying human wants by 
 hunting and fishing. Poaching prevailed on the remote 
 lands of the planters, and thus the "poor white trash " eked 
 out an existence as precarious as that of the Indian, and cared 
 as little as the savage for education and restraint. Little 
 
32 Free Schools in South Carolina. 
 
 could be done, therefore, in this direction by common schools. 
 Of course, little effort was made to educate the slaves, though, 
 as we shall presently see, the attempt was successfully made 
 in the early days of the colony. 
 
 But if the agricultural pursuits and social condition of 
 South Carolina had such an influence upon its educational 
 economy, the very nature of the agricultural pursuits contribu- 
 ted largely to render the school system different from other 
 systems. It is easy to conceive of the evolution of an almost 
 perfect system of free schools in those communities where 
 only a small farm is amply sufficient to support an entire 
 family. In such communities of small farms, with dwellings 
 in sight of each other, the children can conveniently and 
 safely attend school. The case was entirely different in South 
 Carolina. From the very first settlement of the colony, there 
 was a constant tendency on the part of the settlers to occupy 
 large plantations. After the introduction of great staples, 
 such as cotton and rice, this tendency increased. 
 
 The growth of towns, with all their good effects upon free 
 schools, was a small factor in the educational history of South 
 Carolina. Indeed, there was scarcely any town worthy of the 
 name outside of Charleston. All lite was spent on the plan- 
 tations, and education was carried on to a great degree by the 
 employment of tutors. Having thus described the early 
 social and industrial condition of the State, we are better pre- 
 pared to investigate the origin and growth of the free school 
 system in South Carolina. 
 
 The history of free school legislation in South Carolina 
 naturally divides itself into four periods, embracing nearly 
 two centuries. Each period, while greatly differing from the 
 others in length and characteristics, is closely connected with 
 all the rest. (1). The first is the colonial period, and repre- 
 sents the first efforts of the early settlers to provide for the 
 education of the masses. (2). The second period extends 
 from 1811, when the benefits of free schools were extended to 
 the districts, and a more general system was established, to the 
 
Free Schools in South Carolina. 33 
 
 close of the civil war in 1865. (3). The third period covers 
 that dark chapter in the history of the State commonly called 
 the reconstruction period. (4). To the fourth and last divi- 
 sion belongs the growth of the free school system in the 
 State since the downfall of the carpet-baggers' regime, in 1876. 
 As it is our purpose to consider more especially the germs of 
 free schools in South Carolina, more attention will be paid to 
 the first of these periods than to any other. 
 
 It was but natural that in Charleston free schools should 
 first take root and flourish. It was at first the only town in 
 the colony. It was here that the poorer classes were found 
 in larger numbers than in the rural localities. About the 
 beginning of the last century a society was formed in London 
 for the purpose of propagating the gospel in foreign parts. It 
 lent its support principally to those colonies where the Epis- 
 copal church was the established order. From the fact 
 that the Church of England was the established church of 
 South Carolina, it received liberal aid from this charitable 
 society. It is interesting to observe, in contemporary writings, 
 the interest which the early parishes manifested in local edu- 
 cation, and also the encouragement which they gave to it. 
 
 In 1705, the Reverend Samuel Thomas, a missionary of the 
 above society, speaks of Goose creek parish in South Carolina : 
 " The number of heathen slaves in this parish I suppose to be 
 about 200; twenty of which I observe to come constantly to 
 church, and these and several others of them well understand- 
 ing the English tongue and can read." Of another parish he 
 remarks: " I have here presumed to give an account of one 
 thousand slaves belonging to our English in Carolina, so far 
 as they know of it, and are desirous of Christian knowledge, 
 and seem willing to prepare themselves for it, in learning to 
 read, for which they redeem time from their labour. Many 
 of them can read in the 15ible distinctly, and great numbers 
 of them were learning when 1 left the Province." Further, 
 in the same memorial, Mr. Thomas says, "South Carolina is 
 but auinlant colony, and their treasury at best but small, out 
 5 
 
34 Free Schools in South Carolina. 
 
 of which they have, at present, appropriated 2,000 pounds to 
 the service of the church, for the building six churches and as 
 many parsonage houses, and buying glebe land ; so that for 
 every particular parish the publick disburse three hundred 
 and thirty-three pounds, and 50 annually for all the six 
 parishes ; which, considering their present circumstances, is 
 very extraordinary, and perhaps such instances of zeal can 
 hardly be paralleled in these parts of the world." 
 
 The seeds of free schools planted by the charitable society 
 of London, and nurtured by the people of the colony were not 
 slow in maturing. In 1712, a free school was established in 
 Charleston, through private donations, and the legislature 
 was its especial guardian. It appears that it was the object 
 of this school, not only to furnish its pupils with a classical 
 education, but to teach writing, arithmetic and merchant 
 accounts. In order to encourage private donations, it was 
 enacted that any person giving 20 could nominate a scholar 
 to be taught free for five years. The master, in addition to 
 enjoying the use of the lands, houses, and other property of 
 the school, received a salary of 100 per annum. He was 
 required to teach, without charge, twelve scholars, who were 
 appointed by the commissioners of the school. The same act 
 went further in establishing schools. It fixed a donation of 10 
 annually on each parish schoolmaster, and empowered the 
 vestry of each parish to draw upon the public receiver for 12 
 in order to defray the expenses of building the parish school. 
 The first royal governor, after the revolution from proprie- 
 tary misrule, was an earnest advocate of popular education, 
 and did much to foster the growth of free schools. Many 
 parishioners caught the growing enthusiasm and made dona- 
 tions for the encouragement of education. Especial mention 
 should be made of the gift made by the Reverend Mr. Lud- 
 lara, of Goose Creek. He left his entire estate, valued at 
 2,000, for the foundation of a free school. 
 
 About the beginning of the last century a colony of Con- 
 gregational ists, from Dorchester, Massachusetts, under the 
 
Free Schools in South Carolina. 35 
 
 guidance and direction of the Reverend Joseph Lord, settled 
 in South Carolina at a place to which they gave the name of 
 their old home in New England. With other institutions, 
 these excellent puritans brought with them their system of 
 free schools. An act was soon passed by the colonial legisla- 
 ture for founding and erecting a free school at Dorchester, in 
 St. George's parish. The free school idea of the town of Dor- 
 chester, Massachusetts, was thus transplanted to the free school 
 of Dorchester town, South Carolina, where town and parish 
 were reunited. 
 
 In 1735, Richard Beresford bequeathed a large sum of 
 money towards erecting a free school in St. Thomas' parish. 
 Shortly afterwards, free schools were erected at Ninety-Six, 
 Beaufort, and in St. Thomas' parish. Many other societies 
 were chartered, having for their object the erection of free 
 schools. Colleges were founded at Charleston, Beaufort, 
 Cambridge, and Pinckneysville. In many instances the State 
 vested all the escheated property of a parish or a village in 
 the trustees of schools and academies. 
 
 It is not maintained that the State, as yet, had established 
 any extensive system of free schools, yet it is clear that great 
 encouragement was given to all educational efforts. The 
 matter of regulating the schools, however, was left to the 
 parishioners themselves. This is seen in the case of St. 
 Thomas' parish, where at Childsbury, James Childs bequeathed 
 X600 towards erecting a free school, and the parishioners, by 
 local subscription, increased the amount to .2,800. These 
 parish free schools continued to flourish by local support, 
 and their influence was potent for the intellectual good of 
 South Carolina. 
 
 We now come to the second period in the history of free 
 schools in this State. This period began in 1811, when the 
 State assumed control of the schools, and extended until 1865. 
 The act which established this system was entitled "an Act 
 to establish Free schools throughout the State," and provides 
 that "there shall be established in each election district 
 
36 Free Schools in South Carolina. 
 
 within this State, a number of free schools equal to the num- 
 ber of members which such district is entitled to send to the 
 house of representatives in the legislature of this State. In 
 each of these schools the primary elements of learning, read- 
 ing, writing and arithmetic, should always be taught, and 
 such other branches of education as the commissioners, to be 
 hereinafter appointed, may from time to time direct." 
 
 Every citizen of the State was allowed to send his children 
 or wards to the free school in his district free of charge. 
 Where more children applied for admission to a school than 
 the same could conveniently accommodate, preference was 
 always given to the poor children. Three hundred dollars 
 per annum was the amount appropriated for the support of 
 each school. The schools were controlled by commissioners 
 appointed by the legislature. The commissioners had a 
 general oversight of the schools in their district, determining 
 their situation, appointing the teachers, deciding on the admis- 
 sion of the scholars, and drawing on the comptroller for the 
 school money. The act recognizes the existence of other free 
 schools at that time in the following manner: "In all dis- 
 tricts where a school or schools are already, or may hereafter 
 be established by private funds or individual subscription, it 
 shall be lawful for the commissioners of the free schools, at 
 their discretion, to unite such part or parts of the fund pro- 
 vided by this act for such district with such school or schools, 
 in such manner as may appear to them best calculated to 
 promote the objects of this act." 
 
 Free schools were thus legally established throughout the 
 State. But in point of fact they did not exist long before an 
 effort was made by the members of the legislature from the 
 sparsely settled districts to abolish the whole system. This 
 was in 1813, two years after their general adoption. The 
 objection was that they were too inconvenient and too expen- 
 sive. This argument called forth an eloquent plea for free 
 schools by a representative from Charleston. The speech is 
 quoted at length in Mayor Courtenay's little monograph, 
 
Free Schools in South Carolina. 37 
 
 entitled "Education in South Carolina." A few words will, 
 however, illustrate the spirit of the address. Speaking of the 
 objection to the whole free school system on account of the 
 scattered population in one or two districts, Mr. Crofts, the 
 representative from Charleston, thus appealed to his oppo- 
 nent: "Let him look back and rejoice that this institution so 
 flourishes in the bud. Let him look forward, and anticipating 
 the fruit which it will bear, and the bounties which it will 
 dispense, let him recoil from the meditated blow, and throw 
 away the axe with which he assails its roots. What will be 
 his feelings when it is prostrate, leafless and desolate? It is 
 urged that owing to the sparse population of one or two dis- 
 tricts the free schools there are comparatively useless, and 
 therefore the whole system ought to be abolished. This evil 
 time will, of itself, remove; and what kind of influence is 
 that which would abolish a general good in order to get rid 
 of a partial evil? There is a cloud, Mr. Speaker, which the 
 sun cannot penetrate why does he shine at all ? There are 
 rocks impenetrable to the dews of heaven why are not 
 showers withheld altogether? There are barren places that 
 produce nothing why is not agriculture abandoned ? No, 
 sir, let us rejoice in the good we have done, and regret not 
 that we cannot do everything at once." 
 
 Free schools were not abolished in South Carolina. They 
 continued to receive the support of the State, and were man- 
 aged on the same plan as when first established, only increas- 
 ing in number. 
 
 In 1828, seventeen years after their general establishment, 
 there were eight hundred and forty schools in the State 
 and nine thousand and thirty-six pupils. Twelve years later, 
 in 1840, there were five hundred and sixty-six free schools, 
 with twelve thousand five hundred and twenty pupils. In 
 1850 there were seven hundred and twenty-tour tree schools in 
 the State with seventeen thousand eight hundred and thirty- 
 eight children attending them. The support of these schools 
 for the same year was two hundred thousand and six hundred 
 
38 Free Schools in South Carolina. 
 
 dollars. At the outbreak of the civil war, in 1861, free schools 
 had grown so rapidly that twenty thousand children attended 
 them, and they had an annual support of more than two hun- 
 dred thousand dollars. 
 
 When the men who had been engaged in the great war of 
 secession returned to their homes in South Carolina, poverty 
 stared them in the face. The homes of many had been 
 destroyed by the ravages of war. The freedom of the blacks 
 had also been proclaimed. Before their emancipation the 
 negroes represented the wealth of the State. After the eman- 
 cipation of the negroes, the embarrassing question arose how 
 it was possible to educate three times the number of children 
 on one-third of the money. The reconstruction undertook to 
 answer this question. Many earnest and zealous teachers 
 came from the North to engage in the great work. But with 
 them came political demagogues and over-zealous reformers. 
 They exercised little judgment. Instead of trying to secure 
 the co-operation of the native teachers, they ignored them. 
 The social sentiments of the people were utterly disregarded. 
 Instead, therefore, of securing the sympathy, good-will, and 
 encouragement of the white population, these intruders 
 incurred righteous indignation. The corrupt administration 
 of the "carpet-bagger" and of the negro seriously interfered 
 with the free schools. The whole system had well nigh 
 collapsed when the radical ring was overthrown in 1876. 
 
 As an illustration of the reckless expenditure of the school 
 money by negro officials during the carpet-bag regime, the 
 following example will suffice. The amount of the past school 
 indebtedness of Barnwell county, taken from the report of 
 the Superintendent of Education of South Carolina was: 
 
 From November 1, 1872, to November 7, 1876 $3,648.13 
 
 From November 1, 1876, to November 1, 1878 890.88 
 
 $4,539.01 
 
 When the people of South Carolina resumed control of 
 their local affairs in 1876-77, the outlook of the free schools 
 
Free Schools in South Carolina. 39 
 
 was perhaps even gloomier than at the close of the war. At 
 that time the State was a battle-field covered, as it were, with 
 blasted homes, smoking ruins, with the dead and wounded. 
 But in 1877 that battle-field presented the appearance of 
 having suffered pillageatthe hands of camp followers. Much 
 of the school fund had been squandered; the teachers were 
 badly paid ; the pupils poorly taught; the school buildings 
 in many places were badly out of repair. More than this, a 
 school debt of more than $200,000 was left for the white 
 population to pay. But the people did not despair. Earnest 
 and energetic souls inspired them, and, with the determination 
 characteristic of their race, the people of South Carolina 
 slowly began the great work that lay before them. The 
 schools were organized on a more equitable basis; the teach- 
 ers were selected with more care ; attention was paid to the 
 pupils. Provision was made for the liquidation of the enor- 
 mous school debt of 1877. The legislature provided that the 
 poll tax of most of the counties should be used to extinguish 
 the debt. Free school resources were subjected to a very 
 severe strain, but the teachers were convinced of the honesty 
 of the administration, and confidence was soon restored. 
 
 During the year 1880-1 there were 3,057 public schools in 
 the State of South Carolina, an increase of 84 over the pre- 
 ceding year. The school population, white and colored, was 
 133,458 out of a total population of 995,577. The total 
 number of teachers was 3,249, the average wages being 
 $25.45 per month lor males, and $24.48 for females. The 
 entire amount of salaries paid to teachers during the year 
 was $309,855.10, and the total available school fund was 
 $415,108,943. These facts present a most hopeful picture 
 l'or the free schools of South Carolina. This cheering out- 
 look is largely due to the heroic efforts of the last Superin- 
 tendent of Education of the State, Col. Hugh S. Thompson, 
 now Governor of the State, who held the above educational 
 position from the time of the overthrow of the carpet-bag 
 government. With indefatigable zeal he revived the free 
 
40 Free Schools in South Carolina. 
 
 school system and gave it an impetus which, if sustained by 
 the co-operation of the people, will be of lasting good to the 
 State. 
 
 One of Colonel Thompson's special schemes was the organ- 
 ization of two Normal schools, one for white and one for 
 colored teachers. These schools, which meet every summer, 
 are largely attended, being free of charge. iThey are con- 
 ducted by the best teachers and lecturers in the South and 
 West. The expenses incurred are defrayed by the State. 
 The good done by these Normal schools cannot be over-esti- 
 mated. While quickening the teachers, they also influence 
 the pupils and interest the whole public in the great cause in 
 which they are engaged. In the words of the official report 
 on these institutions: "The importance of the work will, 
 perhaps, be better understood by all when it is known that 
 the students of the Institute, taking the actual number as 
 stated by them, had charge of the education of an aggregate 
 of about 15,000 children, or, of nearly one-fourth of the white 
 children of the State who are attending school. It cannot be 
 too strongly emphasized that normal institutes are maintained 
 for the benefit of the children of the State, not for the per- 
 sonal benefit of the teachers who attend them." 
 
 The growth of municipalities will have a powerful influence 
 upon the growth of the free schools, and free schools will react 
 upon the municipalities aud quicken local life. A demand 
 for the right of local taxation for he support of schools is 
 already growing in South Carolina. This, however, is but 
 a return to old colonial principles. When everywhere 
 adopted, local taxation will be found to be of great practical 
 benefit, not only in increasing the influence and efficiency of 
 the free schools, but also in demonstrating to the people the 
 great advantage of controlling all their local affairs. Cheer- 
 ing signs for the future of free schools in South Carolina 
 must be welcomed, not only by the citizens of the State, but 
 by good citizens everywhere, and by all who prefer enlighten- 
 ment to ignorance, morality to vice, happiness to misery, 
 and who honor an intelligent, upright, law-abiding people. 
 

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