ra^ui HI ii NATHAN M9RTIMER HAWKES LiBttfcYl -, HEARTHS AND HOMES OF OLD LYNN This Edition is strictly limited to Five Hundred copies. This Copy is 251 O ffi HEARTHS AND HOMES OF OLD LYNN WITH STUDIES IN LOCAL HISTORY BY NATHAN MORTIMER HAWKES AUTHOR OF "IN LYNN WOODS WITH PEN AND CAMERA." EDITOR OF " COMMONPLACE BOOK OF RICHARD PRATT," ETC., ETC. LYNN, MASS. THOS. P. NICHOLS & SONS, PUBLISHERS 1907 COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY NATHAN MORTIMER HAWKES. INSCRIBED AND DEDICATED TO MY DAUGHTER WHO HAS BEEN MY CONSTANT COMPANION, MY AMANUENSIS, THE COPYIST OF EVERY LINE OF .MY PEN OR PENCIL, MY CRITIC, COMMENTATOR, AND SPUR TO EFFORT IN SUNSHINE AND SHADOW The hills are dearest, which our childish feet Have climbed the earliest ; and the streams most sweet Are ever those at which our young lips drank, Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank." WHITTIER PREFACE rplHIS book is an ingathering of sketches, ad- _L dresses, and local historic studies, most of which have been printed in some form, from time to time, of late years. The present publication is due to the advice of, perhaps too zealous, friends, who have urged the compilation. In a prefatory note to some of these sketches, written in 1888, this language was used : - There is not a nook-shotten locality in Old Essex which has changed less in a hundred years than this charming river-valley, where these sedate places complacently hold their own, heedless of innovations about them. The writer loves every tree, rocky hillside, brook, woodland path and recollection associated with them. The writing of these slight hints concerning them has been a pleasure, which will be heightened if the reading shall interest others. Changes were then apprehended. Some have hap- pened, and many more are impending. Some elderly people were named in the text. Of course these have mainly passed away in the inter- vening years. In a few instances note has been made of the decease of a person named or described. PREFACE The author is not vain enough to think that these rambles in the olden time could not be re-touched and improved, but as they were written and given out they must remain. One motive in the local studies in this book is to recall some of the scenes, incidents, happenings and worthies of the old town, not perhaps overlooked by other writers, but having to the author a deeper interest, which he trusts may be shared by other descendants of the lovers of the people of the planting days. The storehouse of Lynn's historic treasures is so well filled, and the explorers in the hidden lore are so few, that I am confident that no one's preserves will be trenched upon in these slenderly connected gleanings. A few instances of double dating will be noticed. The chronology followed is that of the records, which is old style to September 13, 1752, inclusive. The change from old style to new style is so generally known that no further explanation is required. This is only a slight fragment of the work prom- ised, a part of which I trust yet to execute, but it has seemed expedient to put this much in con- venient type. N. M. H. LYNN, MASSACHUSETTS, November 1, 1906. FOREWORD I GLADLY accept the responsibility of having urged the bringing of these papers and addresses into a volume by themselves. They well deserve this en- during form, and will win their place both as history and literature. In them has been garnered the fruit of years of intelligent and sympathetic study. Their style is as delightful as it is characteristic of their author. But to every lover of old Lynn these sketches and addresses will have a charm and value distinctly their own. For, more than history or literature, they are the offspring of the author's pious affection for the place of his birth, for its fathers and founders, and for those days when the men of Lynn were men of Massachusetts Bay. Nor has this affection blinded him. On the contrary it has inspired and led him to a deeper knowledge of earlier New England, and to a clearer insight into its character, its standards of con- duct and endeavor. Through that intuition which is born only of the truest sympathy, our author so well understands the men of by-gone genera- tions, that they have moulded his inmost thought, and the reader will sometimes feel that they are themselves addressing him. But our author not only comprehends these men ; he knows where they lived FOREWORD and how. He traces their family relations and makes us feel that "there is love and courtship and eager life and high devotion up and down all the lines of every genealogy." He helps us connect the simple annals of early Lynn with the wider interests first of the colonies and at length of the nation. President Woodrow Wilson has well said: "A spot of local history is like an inn upon a highway; it is a stage upon a far journey; it is a place the national history has passed through. There mankind has stopped and lodged by the way." This figurative description expresses with singular and literal aptness one of the notable relations of earliest Lynn to the life of the Colony. Here ran the country highway connecting the more important commercial towns, and here for more than one hundred and sixty years in the old Tavern by Saugus River the men of New England stopped and lodged by the way. But in that old Lynn where so many thus lodged, the author of this volume has spent a lifetime. Where others tarried he has been constant. He loves the olden time and its people. They have been his fa- vorite theme for thought and study, and he has the passionate longing to make others see and know them even as they are seen and known by him. And so it is that when we go with him to the neglected site of some old homestead wholly forgotten by the Lynn of to-day we shall see him stand with uplifted eyes, as he recounts its life drama long ago enacted, in which, however simple, there were all the romance, the joy, and the tragedy of human experience. FOREWORD It is this more vital and intimate knowledge of the earlier days which commands our attention, notwith- standing all that may be said by those who believe that nothing of value about the past can be gleaned except from its written records. It is this sort of local history which, by making days that are gone more sacred, enables us to divine something of what the future should be. It will be seen from his Preface that the author of this volume is very modest in estimating the value of his work, but it is safe to venture the prophecy that the reader will often be impressed by a firm grasp of historic facts and of their wider relations, and will find genuine pleasure in the quaint originality of the author's point of view. It will not be too much to say of him, as was said of another : " Everything he touched he brightened, as after a month of dry weather the shower brightens the dusty shrubbery of a sub- urban villa." BENJAMIN N. JOHNSON. LYNN, MASSACHUSETTS, December 18, 1906. A PIONEER SCENE (WOLF PIT) CONTENTS PART I. Hearths and Homes of Old Lynn. PAGE LYNN 1 LYNN HOTEL . 9 THE ABIJAH BOARDMAN HOUSE 13 OAKLANDVALE 23 A HOMESTEAD BY GRACE OP THE INDIANS .... 33 AN ANCIENT HOUSE IN NORTH SAUGUS .... 45 NOTED NAMES UPON A REVOLUTIONARY COMMISSION . . 53 THE TARBELL PLACE 57 A QUAKER HOME ON THE DOWNING ROAD .... 61 NOTES ON AND ABOUT A SAUGUS POND .... 73 THE IRON WORKS MANSION 79 THE VINEGAR HILL CIRCUIT . 91 REV. JOSEPH ROBY AND His TIMES . 101 THE FLAGG-GRAY HOUSE 109 THE MEETING-HOUSE OF THE SECOND CHURCH IN LYNN . Ill THE MEETING-HOUSE OF THE THIRD PARISH IN LYNN . 115 THE PURITAN BIRTHRIGHT 119 xiii CONTENTS PART II. Studies in Local History. PAGE A CHAPTER IN THE STORY OF THE IRON WORKS . . 129 CAPTAIN ROBERT BRIDGES, FOUNDER OF THE FIRST IRON WORKS IN AMERICA 149 EVOLUTION OF THE TOWN FROM THE PARISH . . . 159 COLONIAL LAND TITLES 179 THE CYCLE DAYS OF NEW ENGLAND 195 ESSEX FARMS THE CRADLES OF AMERICAN HOMES . . 219 LYNNFIELD IN THE REVOLUTION 245 WHY THE OLD TOWN HOUSE WAS BUILT .... 263 JOHN ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS ENSIGN . . . 281 HIGH ROCK 293 PART III. Individual Sketches. JAMES ROBINSON NEWHALL 301 CYRUS MASON TRACY 325 SAMUEL HAWKES 333 INDEX . 339 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Elkanah Hawkes House Frontispiece A Pioneer Scene (Wolf Pit) xii Initial Fire-place 1 Western Entrance of the Central Part of Lynn (from old print) 10 The Abijah Boardman House opp. 13 The Elkanah Hawkes House (late view) . . . opp. 31 The Hitchings-Draper-Hawkes Place . . . opp. 33 Fishing Rock .......... 44 Indian Rock 46 Ezra's Rock 52 Revolutionary Commission (reproduced from original) . opp. 55 Hawkes Pond from Fuller Hill 56 The Tarbell House opp. 59 Hawkes Pond opp. 61 Hannibal, Sexton of the Old Tunnel Meeting-House . 65 Cranberry Meadow opp. 69 Wayside Rest 72 Appleton's Pulpit opp. 75 The Iron Works Mansion opp. 79 Breed's Pond 90 Ye Glen Pirates See ye Frigate 92 Garrison House (restored) 99 The Roby Elm opp. 101 Lynn from Pine Hill 108 The Meeting-House of the Second Church in Lynn (Lynnfield) opp. Ill The Meeting-House of the Third Parish in Lynn (Saugus) opp. 115 Glen Lewis Pond from Mt. Hermon 118 Cinder Banks, Saugus River opp. 129 Hewlett's Mill (site of Gifford's Iron Works) . . opp. 147 The Flagg-Gray House (rear view Marion Street) opp. 149 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Old Tunnel Meeting-House opp. 159 The Lantern Path 178 Castle Hill from Walden Pond opp. 195 Hart's, in Lynn 197 The Triple Ways 218 Sunset on Walden Pond opp. 229 The Flagg-Gray House opp. 237 Walden Pond Road . . . . \ 244 Penny Brook Road 280 Oceanfront from Highlands 292 High Rock, 1628 294 High Rock Tower (1905) opp. 297 James Robinson Newhall opp. 301 Cyrus Mason Tracy opp. 325 Samuel Hawkes opp. 333 Samuel Hawkes' House 334 Overlook Crag .338 xvi PART I Hearths and Homes of Old Lynn LYNN, ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS : PURITAN settlement - made less than ten years after the Pilgrims land- ed on Plymouth Rock. Its sea front, upon which beats the cease- less ebb and flow of the Atlantic, is included in the magnificent Massa- chusetts Bay, one of the out-posts of which Prince Charles, at Captain John Smith's request, named "Cape Ann," and the other was named by Gosnold "Cape Cod." Within the Bay it lies between Salem, the first seat of Puritan occupation in Massachusetts, and Boston, the perma- nent capital. High Rock stands like a citadel of feudal Europe, around the base of which the town has grown from the sea on the south to the woods on the north. A gleaming girdle of hard sand separates the har- bor from the beach, reaches out to the twin Nahants Hearths and Homes - a little terrestrial paradise while the bright light upon Egg Rock warns the mariner that ours is a rock- ribbed coast. The first white men known to have trod the soil of Lynn were Edmund Ingalls, Francis Ingalls, William Dixey, John Wood and William Wood. These men were of Captain John Endicott's Colony, who, as the advance guard of the great Puritan exodus from England, landed in Salem, in 1628. These five, and perhaps others, strayed over to Lynn, five miles away, in the early summer of 1629. The organized settle- ment of Lynn took place a year later. In June, 1630, John Winthrop, the Governor, bearing the Charter granted by Charles the First, with eleven vessels and over a thousand immigrants, arrived in Salem Harbor. After a few days' tarry at Salem, Winthrop sailed to what was soon to be named Boston Harbor, at the mouth of Charles River, and established the first seat of government and the first church at Charlestown. On account of lack of good water, Winthrop, with a majority, soon removed across the harbor to Shaw- mut, which they called Boston in honor of the old English town of that name. When Winthrop landed, it was the intention to re- main together and begin a single settlement. This purpose they were soon compelled to abandon. Thomas Dudley, the Deputy Governor, who had been a soldier in the Low Countries and was con- nected with the family of the Puritan Nobleman, the Earl of Lincoln, two of whose daughters were with the Colonists, wrote a letter, dated March 28, of Old Lynn 1631, to the Countess of Lincoln, relating to the settlement. In it he says : " We were forced to change counsel, and for our present shelter to plant dispersedly - some at Charlestown, which standeth on the north side of the mouth of Charles River ; some on the south side thereof, which place we named Boston (as we intended to have done the place we first resolved on); some of us upon Mistick, which we named Med- f ord ; some of us westward on Charles River, four miles from Charlestown, which place we called Water- town ; others of us two miles from Boston, in a place we named Roxbury ; others upon the river of Saugus, between Salem and Charlestown ; and the Western men four miles south from Boston, at a place we named Dorchester." Dudley speaks of the "River of Saugus," which is an Indian name and signifies "extended," suggested, it is said, by the broad, salt marshes that spread over a wide territory upon its banks. The Indians applied the name to the region lying between Boston and Salem ; the river itself they called " Abousett." The English settlers applied it to the beautiful river, and for a few years the settle- ment itself was called "Saugus." The Town of Lynn never had a formal incorpora- tion. Its settlers were members and grantees of the Corporation known as the "Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." This Corporation, transplanted from London to Massachusetts, assumed all powers of government, 3 Hearths and Homes and the participation of the freemen of Lynn, or Saugus as it was then called, in the First General Court of the Colony in 1630, was a recognition of the plantation, and gave it equal standing with Boston, Salem and the other participants in that first Great Court of Massachusetts. In 1634, the number of freemen had so increased that it became expedient to send Deputies in place of the whole number. In that first House of Representatives, eight towns, including Lynn or Saugus, were represented. The Lynn members were Nathaniel Turner, Edward Tom- lins and Thomas Willis. In 1637, the Indian name of Saugus was changed to Lynn, in honor of Rev. Samuel Whiting, the Pastor who had formerly officiated at St. Margaret's Church in Lynn Regis, England. Colonial Lynn had its centre of interest and busi- ness activity, in 1643, on the banks of the Saugus River, at the head of tide water, or about where Scott's Mills in Saugus now stand. On the eastern side of the river at this point, owing to the public spirit of the late Andrew A. Scott, there is to be seen a grove of white pines, which have had no equals since the pioneer axe began its havoc. Near by is the great bank of scoria, upon which the snows of two hundred and fifty bleak winters have fallen, which marks the spot where the settlers of Massachusetts made their first essay in manufac- turing the spot where the die for the " pine tree of Old Lynn shilling " was cast the spot where Jenks made the first fire engine ever seen in America. In 1639, the General Court allowed Lynn fifty pounds towards defraying the cost of building a bridge over Saugus River. This was the first bridge built in Lynn over tide water, and was on the site of the one which now marks the dividing line be- tween Lynn and Saugus. Its construction materially shortened the distance between Boston and the towns to the east, and soon diverted the travel to the Colonial highway, now known as Boston Street, our most famous historic road. Over this road, from Cambridge to Newburyport, on the llth of September, 1775, Benedict Arnold led the army which General Washington dispatched for the conquest of Quebec. This expedition, through the unbroken wilds of Maine and Canada, was the most wonderful, chivalric and quixotic event of the Revolutionary War. Had it been a success, what a change would have been made in our history. North America would have been wholly American instead of one-half remaining English. Arnold might have been the pivotal hero of our race, instead of the world's champion traitor. Over this road, President George Washington traveled in his memorable journey from New York to Portsmouth, in 1789 ; and over this road, Washing- ton's friend, the gallant Frenchman, La Fayette, was escorted beneath floral arches in 1824. By this road, the Essex Minute Men marched at the Lexington alarm, April 19, 1775, to death and to undying fame. Hearths and Homes The beginning of the present century was a time of turnpike building in Massachusetts. These turn- pike roads changed the centres of business activity in towns. Thus the opening of the Salem Turnpike through Lynn, September 22, 1803, made Market Square, and Lynn Hotel, with its great stage coach- ing business, the scene of travel, in place of the old Boston road. The first postmasters had been located on Boston Street. In 1808, Jonathan Bacheller became post- master, and kept the office in his building, still stand- ing 1 west of the old burying ground, opposite the Lynn Hotel. For twenty years, he distributed the mails from this location. On the 28th of August, 1838, the Eastern Railroad was opened for public travel through Lynn. Imme- diately the stage-coaching days were ended, and post- office and business moved east towards the railroad. The moving of the post-office used to be an index to the fluctuations of business. It will be so no longer, as what President Cleveland called a " Federal decoration " has become an accomplished fact, and all branches of the public service now are conducted under the roof of the United States building. This leads to a word upon our architecture. Prior to the war of 1861, women's shoes the staple industry of Lynn had been made by hand, in little shops, about twelve feet square, scattered over the town in the yards connected with the dwellings. 1 Since pulled down to make room for modern flats. 6 of Old Lynn From 1861 to 1867, the business was revolutionized by machinery. This assembled workmen in fac- tories, and with the passing away of the little shoe shops and the incoming of great factory buildings, came more ornate public and private structures. The municipality set the example. The City Hall was dedicated November 30, 1867, and the people quickly responded in the erection of numerous costly and ornamental structures, the latest of which is the long-needed Public Library building. Lynn has lost much of its early acreage by the process of setting off new towns. It is to be borne in mind that the Puritan age was an age of Parishes ; that is, the Parish made the Town, and not the Town the Parish. The first offspring of the parent town was Reading, where a parish had been gathered in 1644. Another parish completed its organization in 1720, and, exist- ing as the District of Lynnfield for nearly a century, became the Town of Lynnfield in 1814. The West, or Saugus Parish, became an Ecclesiastical District in 1738, and the Town of Saugus in 1815, thus pre- serving the original name. Though the age of parishes had given way to the age of politics when Swampscott was set off, yet the establishment of the Swampscott Parish in 1846, was followed by the Charter of the Town of Swampscott in 1852, and the next year, 1853, Nahant, without ecclesiastical or any other adequate excuse, became by fiat of the Great and General Court a town. While we have lost territory, these towns have Hearths and Homes prospered under the good, old-fashioned Town Meet- ings, which are in closer touch with the tax payers than it is possible for City Governments to be, and we have had the benefit of their beaches, roads, views and suburban restfulness, which are a relief from urban noise and utilitarian push. Lynn has done its full share in all the crises of our history. Its minister, Jeremiah Shepard, led the people who deposed Sir Edmund Andros, in 1689. Rev. John Treadwell was of the Committee of Safety after the Lexington Alarm in 1775. In the Indian Wars, at Louisburg, Lexington, Bunker Hill, and in the War of the Rebellion, Lynn men were at the front. At the start an agricultural community, Lynn early became and easily held the leading place as a shoe manufacturing centre ; of late it has become a hive of the General Electric Company's industry. Its material progress has been steady, and it has long held the position of the largest city in the United States, east of Boston. LYNN HOTEL. N THE year 1839, John Warner Barber, the author of many similar works, published at Worcester a volume, the title of which in brief was : HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS, BEING A GENERAL COLLECTION OF INTERESTING FACTS, TRADITIONS, BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, ANECDOTES, ETC., RELATING TO THE HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF EVERY TOWN IN MASSACHUSETTS, WITH . GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTIONS. Illustrated by 200 Engravings. One of the illustrations was a Lynn view. It was a rude wood cut. Under it was the legend, Western Entrance of the Central Part of Lynn. On the following page we have reproduced this sketch in half-tone. It is a striking reminder of the shifting scenes of Lynn's activities. The central building is the famous old coaching station, and Inn of the Salem Turnpike Corporation, at West Lynn. At the left side of the sketch, in the foreground, may be seen hitching-posts for the use of the patrons Hearths and Homes of the noted "West India Goods" store of Caleb Wiley, at the south-westerly corner of Federal Street and the Salem Turnpike, now Western Avenue. Across Federal Street, where now stands the brick factory building occupied by Weber Leather Com- pany, appears a corner of the old Tufts house, owned by David Tufts, a soldier of the Revolution, later oc- cupied by Deacon Richard Tufts, and the house where his son, Col. Gardiner Tufts, was born. Deacon Tufts and Mr. Wiley, with only a pump and a street between them, on the " Medford rum " question were as far apart as the north and south poles. The dark three-story brick building, in the left dis- tance, was called the Josiah Clough building, which outlived its usefulness years ago, when it was demol- ished at the widening of Centre Street. Upon its 10 of Old Lynn diminished site, after its travels, the Old Lynn Acad- emy now stands, and shelters Ex-Mayor Baird's painting materials. The year before Barber's Book was published, the Eastern Railroad was opened for travel through Lynn (August 28, 1838). Hence the bustling stage coaches, which had heretofore been the bright feature of the scene, had gone to return no more forever. The vehicle in the right foreground is of the kind known soon after as " prairie schooners," which, with the family and household goods, ploughed their way across the continent to conquer and populate the Empire of the West and the Pacific Coast. Beyond the canvas-covered travelling home is caught a glimpse of the inclosure of the early bury- ing-ground of the Parish of Whiting, Gobbet and Shepard. The brick buildings on the right are those of David Taylor and Chase & Huse, then recently erected. Still further, over the Common, appears the tower of the First Church, over which Rev. Dr. Parsons Cooke had been settled for three years. At the extreme end of the Common the steeple of the Methodist Church, which Dr. Cooke did not love very much, appears. The marvels, the glories, the charms, the guests and the legends of the old Tavern of the last century have captivated the pens and imaginations of our Press and History writers. We will not enter at this time the portals of the 11 Hearths and Homes old hostelry, but simply save the exterior for pos- terity. The view was taken at the period of greatest depression the West End has ever known. Its Bank the Nahant located in what is now " The Home for Aged Women," had failed in 1836. Henry A. Breed, the versatile but unfortunate developing genius of the section, had succumbed to the panic. The railroad had banished the stage coach. It really looked as if the Tavern and the Burying-ground would peacefully abide by each other. Later came banks and business back to the Market Place of the Fathers, and now the busy hive of the General Electric Company makes it the centre of a new and great community. 12 THE ABIJAH BOARDMAN HOUSE. THE very western confines of Saugus, al- most upon the Melrose border, stands the best preserved specimen of the projecting upper story, Colonial house yet in existence in the old town. Its location and its peculiar features are known, not only to the traveler but to the reader, by the photo- graphic studies that have been made of it under the name given to this sketch. The place, however, has an interest extending far back of the Boardman occupa- tion, long continuing and interesting as that has been. Counties and towns long played the old-time game of battledoor and shuttlecock with this quiet manor house. It has been in two counties, Suffolk and Essex, and in at least four towns, Boston, Lynn, Chelsea and Saugus. It was built when the boundary lines of the new towns were a trifle uncertain. Then it was determined that it was partly in Boston, which ran a long arm out into the country, as far as Read- ing and partly in Lynn. Perhaps the house itself made a good point to call a bound mark. It certainly has survived the heap of stones and white and black oak trees so freely used as bounds. The occasion of its getting out of the Capital was in this wise : The inhabitants of that part of Boston, in the district called Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh and 13 Hearths and Homes Pullin Point, represented to the General Court that " they laboured under great difficulties by reason of their remoteness from the body of said town, and separated by the river, that renders their attendance upon town meetings very difficult ; and have a long time since erected a meeting-house for the publick worship of God, in that district," and prayed to be set off as a separate town reasons patriotic and religious, and more reasonable than the modern tax dodgers' arguments for dismembering ancient towns. The General Court responded favorably, and the Act, incorporating Chelsea, passed January 10, 1738-9. A part of the bound lines given in the Act may be of interest in this connection. . . . from thence to a crotched tree, marked B. L., in the wall between Cheever's and Boardman's land, and so the line runs across a small rivulet, and to the door of the house of the said Boardman's, which is marked B. L., and so through the stack of chimn [ie] [ey] s in said house, from thence, across a small brook, to a stump of a walnut tree, with a heap of stones in said Boardman's field ; from thence to a walnut tree marked B. L., on the south side of an hill near Felt's house ; from thence to a rock, with a heap of stones in land, called the six-hundred-acre right. This imaginary line ran through the front door and through the chimney till early in the present century. To a debtor who sought to avoid service of writs, or to a criminal who would escape arrest, it might have been convenient for its owner to have 14 of Old Lynn been able to elect his domicile in either county with- out going out of doors. But the forehanded tenants of the Boardman house were not in such a category. They found disadvantages in the doubled civil duties and responsibilities. Abijah Boardman experienced the inconvenience of being spread out over two counties, so he petitioned the General Court, that the line dividing the towns of Lynn, in the County of Essex, and Chelsea, in the County of Suffolk, might be so altered as to include his dwelling-house and the land under the same wholly in the Town of Chelsea. A special Act, grant- ing the prayer, became law June 21, 1803. And thereafter, in the language of the Statute, said house possessed all the privileges and rights which the other houses in said Chelsea possessed. Probably the most prized privilege was an exemption from the an- nual visit of the Lynn assessors. But in spite of all Mr. Boardman's efforts, the old house was not to remain attached to the ancient Rumney Marsh town, for February 22, 1841, the General Court passed another special Act to set off a part of Chelsea to Saugus. The West Parish of Lynn had in the meantime become a Town under the original name of Saugus. The part thus set off was a narrow wedge that lay between the western line of Saugus and the eastern line of Maiden, now Melrose. It included the Boardman farm. So back into Essex and Saugus came the Boardman homestead and its belongings, there to remain till some new legislative whim gives it another toss. 15 Hearths and Homes In organizing the Puritan Colony of Massachusetts Bay, its wise founders sent out with the planters the requisite proportion of tradesmen and artisans, such as blacksmiths, weavers, masons and carpenters. Among these was Samuel Bennet, carpenter. On the original grant of lands in Lynn he received a share and located on this spot. With the shrewdness, which was characteristic among the first settlers, he selected for the site of his house a moderate eleva- tion, just west of a running rivulet, which came down from Castle Hill to water his " horned cattle," and to meet at the declivity, south of the house, an- other little stream that kept green and fertile his meadows. That he was energetic and driving, the yellow records of the courts reveal. Bennet was a man of the mould required in the planting of a Colony in the wilderness. He was full of resources, thrifty, adventurous and sharp. In 1639, he was en- rolled in the ranks of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He made numerous conveyances to men of mark in the new plantation. One of these parties was Thomas Marshall, who, after serving the English Commonwealth as a Captain in Oliver's Army, returned to Saugus, and became landlord of the famous old Anchor Tavern, where for more than forty years he entertained the traveling public with the lavish hospitality of " a fine old English gentle- man." He had intimate business and social relations with Joseph Jenks, never to be forgotten as the first founder " who worked in brass and iron " on the Western Continent. 16 of Old Lynn Mr. Bennet had one grievous fault for that age, which we in these degenerate days would deem a venial sin. In 1644, the Grand Jury found a true bill against him as a "common sleeper in time of exercise," for which he was fined 2s. 6d. The more active a man's brain and body had been through the week, the more surely would both relax and yield to the drowsy god during the long drawn out and monotonous exercises of the Puritan Sunday. What was a rank offence with the elders then seems to us rather an evidence of the man's activity in the six days of labor, an attempted compliance with pre- scribed forms, while Nature unconsciously obeyed the Higher Law that commanded rest on the Seventh day. As an indication of Mr. Bennet's secular activity, a deposition, taken in a suit which he had brought against the Iron Works Company for 400 for labor, is given from the Salem Quarterly Court files (June 27, 1671). "John Paule, aged about forty-five years, sworne, saith that living with Mr. Samuel Bennett, upon or about the time that the Iron Works were seized by Capt. Savage, in the year 53 as I take it, for I lived ther, several years, and my constant imployment was to repaire carts, coale carts, mine carts, and other working materials for his teenies, for he keept 4 or 5 teenies, and sometimes 6 teenies, and he had the most teenies the last yeare of the Iron Works, when they were seased, and my master Bennett did yearly yearme a vast sum from said Iron Works, for he 17 Hearths and Homes commonly yearmed forty or fifty shillings a daye for the former time, and the year 53 as aforesaid, for he had five or six teenies goeing generally every faire day." Bennet describes himself in his later conveyances as of "Romney Marsh, within the bounds of the Town of Boston." The Boardman who lived in the house when the line ran through it, in 1738-39, was William. Its next owner was his son, Aaron, to whom he conveyed it January 9, 1753. In this deed, which was drawn by the noted magis- trate of that time, Daniel Mansfield, Esquire, was included along with the farm something which is not now called real estate. After the description of the land follow these words, " together with a negro man named Mark." In 1762, Thomas Cheever, next neighbor of Board- man, made a mortgage of his farm to secure John and Aaron Boardman, who had become his sureties upon a bond, a condition of which was that he was to pay a party in Salem "four hundred good Spanish milled dollars of full weight." Spanish dollars be- fore the Revolution were a legal tender and in great demand in the Colonies. Spain enslaved the natives of Mexico and Peru and compelled them to extract the silver ore from their mines for the enrichment of the mother country. Then the bold and gallant English adventurers made an easy pretext for war when a rich treasure fleet was on its way across the 18 of Old Lynn Atlantic and captured the great galleons, and the intercepted treasure found its way into the coffers of English merchants. They in turn exchanged it with the New England Colonists for masts for the royal navy, and for cod-fish for their own tables. The coin was pure and so popular, and the less said about the method of obtaining it the better. Hence the yeo- man of Saugus made his trade with the effigy of the King of Spain stamped upon metal wrought by slaves, and bravely converted by English rovers into honest money. Aaron occupied it when the Minute Men of Massa- chusetts withstood the veteran regulars on Bunker Hill ; when Benedict Arnold marched through Sau- gus, in that picturesque, daring and tragical expedi- tion which General Washington ordered for the capture of Quebec while the weary years of despondency were passing till the glad news reached even this secluded nook, that Cornwallis had sur- rendered at Yorktown, and all men saw clearly that the political ties which had galled the settlers were severed, and that a new Transatlantic England, which the fathers had dreamed of, had become a reality. Then came Aaron's son, Abijah. The occupants of the house even now are of the Boardman stock, as Mrs. Howard and Miss Sarah Boardman, 1 daughters of Abijah, are there, passing lives characteristic of and befitting a homestead that is not vexed with alien tenants which has only to welcome the young since deceased. The house is now in the possession of their nephew, Elmer Boardman Newhall. 19 Hearths and Homes and mourn the departure of the aged of a familiar family. So far as it is possible for the blending of landscape and human habitation to stand for a mental condition, this place has all the cool, calm attributes of serenity. It looks as if the world and its passing show had never been heeded by it. It just stands there with never a thought of time, never a fear for the future. Yet there lies danger in its path, for the house- wrights of bustling Melrose are already crowding along Howard Street, towards these careless fields of daisies and clover that fringe and beautify the old landmark. Some houses, like some people, boast of beauty and strength by outside boldness. This one is built massively, but its impressive sturdiness is only seen in the interior, whose chamfered American oak timbers put to the blush the skill of modern artifi- cers in wood. No drill holes are seen in the rocks that constitute its cellar walls. These stones are in the shape in which they were drawn from the farm by the plodding oxen, guided by the dexterous hand that long ago lost its cunning. Time, that treats mortals so harshly, often has a tender touch and a shielding care for the abodes hallowed by recollec- tions of the swift coming and going generations of men. How impassive this house seemed a moment since now the smoke curls upward in dusky puffs towards the blue sky, and instantly the good old pas- toral life comes before the eye. The housewife is busy within, preparing the stated mid-day meal. The yeoman, in response to the signal, draws near the 20 of Old Lynn spacious barn, with his load of sweet-smelling tim- othy and red-top grass. The rest of the picture will be readily sketched by those whose happy fortune it was to be in touch with rural scenes in the plastic days of youth. So uncorrupted by the fever of modern ways is this place that the dear old clumsy oaken bucket, familiar in song, is still splashed into the planter's well, and hoisted by the creaking well-sweep supported by the long pole. Can anything else ever taste and re- fresh like that nectar, greedily drunk, poised on the curb, from "The old oaken bucket, the iron bound bucket, The moss covered bucket that hung in the well " ? The question is often asked whether the peculiar shape of those rare and historic Colonial houses in- dicates that they were built for defensive purposes against the Indians. They were certainly not in- tended as garrison houses. They were erected along the earlier settled coast line, from Newport, Rhode Island, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The Indian trails of attack were always from the inland woods and were warded off before they reached the locali- ties where these houses were planted. The project- ing upper story indicates that it was built by a well- to-do Englishman, in the second half of the seven- teenth century, from architectural designs which were familiar to him at home. It was simply a loyal imitation of wonted forms by the commercial Puritan when he set up his tabernacle in the newer, freer England which he was founding. 21 Hearths and Homes American demagogues, in the demand for newly- made Irish votes, pretend to dislike England, but underlying this the true American has all along imitated and reverenced his Mother England, and though, like all Youth, he thinks he has outstripped her in many lines of progress, he still has love and deference for English ideas and habits. Hence the traveler, passing the parvenue villas of Melrose, is rested and impressed with a sense of homelikeness when he reaches this gateway, which bears so many reminders of leafy, rural England. Anglophobists sneer at such things, but these feel- ings are evidences of the existence in men of the better and purer instincts. The hungry child yearns for its mother's breast. The boy unconsciously walks in his father's ways. The man, when he gets over the rough hill of life's voyage, and is upon the shores of the unseen future, looks back with glistening eyes upon rude, but loved scenes, unheeded when he was toiling upward, but now so full of reminiscences of life's morning. Perhaps, and indeed often, the old homestead is looked upon with tenderer feelings in the afterglow of life's sunset than when the eastern sun gilds the distant hill tops. These longings for the old home grow with years, and the roots reach out, not only towards one's own birthplace, but far away to the cradle of his race, the land of his stock. The poet Campbell voices what many feel without comprehending : " 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before. ' ' 22 OAKLANDVALE. " Here are trees, and bright green grass, and orchards full of contentment ; and a man may scarce espy the brook, although he hears it everywhere." Jan Ridd. HE schoolhouse may be taken as a point of departure. It is certainly American to be- lieve that no better place can be found to start from than the public school. The Oaklandvale schoolhouse stands upon the south side of Main Street. Running northerly from it is Forest Street, laid out by the town of Lynn, June 21, 1763. Main Street, or the old way from Lynn to Reading, runs westerly. The two form the eastern and southern lines of the estate, which gave the name Oaklandvale to the western ward, or school district, of Saugus. In fact, the school and the name were concurrent. And each came about by a change of land title, in 1848. When the proposition to build this schoolhouse was before the town meeting, a sort of omnibus bill or, as they call it in Congress, a log-rolling scheme, to secure support all around by giving each section something was under discussion. Ben Parker, of the Centre, believing that it would kill the appropriation, of which he did not approve, moved to increase the amount for the Oaklandvale building from fifteen hundred dollars to twenty-two 23 Hearths and Homes hundred. The people happened to be feeling good, and the amendment prevailed. Then the neighbors turned out and put in the foundation walls free. So that the whole appropriation was devoted to the building proper, and the result was that the smallest school in town had the largest schoolhouse. The arable land hereabouts is largely an intervale which forks where the two branches of Crystal Brook meet, just south of the Abijah Boardman House an old Colonial mansion, well known from its project- ing upper story upon the front part of the house. One branch of this stream creeps down from Wake- field on the north, on a general line with the road. The other fork of Crystal Brook comes down from the highlands of Melrose on the west. About where the Wakefield and Melrose roads unite, the two pebbly- bottomed brooklets blend into one, to flow leisurely through the ancient farm, which was one of the earliest spied-out farming valleys of old Lynn. Man subdues and, by diligence, restrains the face of Nature. When the first settlers discovered this strath, encircled by rocky hills, a dense forest of pine covered its surface. The brook meandered through meadows carpeted with the uncounted pine needles, over which the simple red man noiselessly glided in pursuit of game. His wigwam was ever near a run- ning stream not always a water-way that would float his birch bark canoe, but such a stream as fish could swim in, that he could lose his foot-prints in, if haply hostile intruders threatened. The white man wanted the land for corn ; he cut 24 of Old Lynn away the forest that the sun's rays might kiss the earth that he might not be taken unawares by the same hostiles. The Puritan was no worshipper of the woods. They were too dense, too oppressive, too full of shapes of skulking red men, too full of shades and phantoms of the new mysterious world, which made life grim and solemn to him. He had no mercy for the trees. They were his slaves. They ministered to his wants. They gave him shelter and they furnished him with fuel for the long winter. Hence the trees were swept away, and till about forty years ago there was an open plain from the point where the Melrose and Wakefield roads meet, in a northeastern trend, to the Saugus River at the Newburyport turnpike. Within that time, by man's design, a great change has been wrought in the face of Nature. Agriculture has ceased to be a control- ling motive in the use of the land. The tilling of the soil has taken on the character of a recreation in the hands of men, who, with love of rural life, have found their principal vocation in other pursuits. They have made farming subsidiary, and have added an element of aesthetics to its development. The residence of Joseph Haven, his childless uncle, drew Elkanah Hawkes to this locality. Mr. Haven made his will March 7, 1748-9, in which he named his kinsmen, Elkanah and Jonathan Hawkes, as his executors and residuary legatees. Jonathan subse- quently conveyed his portion of the estate to Elkanah. Elkanah died in 1777, and his will was proved Janu- ary 16, 1778. The will of Elkanah, who is described 25 Hearths and Homes "gentleman," shows what were the principal products of those times in the items of the careful provision made for his widow while she should remain his widow. Besides the furniture and a portion of the house, she was to have annually "two hundred pounds of pork, one hundred pounds of beef, eight bushels of Indian corn, four bushels of rye, eight cords of wood, twelve pounds of sheep's wool, twenty pounds of dressed flax and twelve bushels of the same." Thomas, the eldest son and executor, had the custom- ary double portion of the real estate, or in this case, two-ninth parts. Elkanah and Ezra each had three- eighteenths. Two married daughters, Eunice Hitch- ings and Sarah Marret, had each one-eighteenth part. The three unmarried daughters, Elizabeth, Love and Grace, each were to have one-ninth part. The farm, after the settlement of his estate, passed into the hands of his daughter, Grace Hawkes, "spinster," who, on August 9, 1797, conveyed it to Nathan Hawkes, of the west parish, and his son Nathan, Jr. Nathan, Jr., occupied the house, and his children were born in the old house, and here on May 4, 1811, his only son, Nathan D., was born, and lived until his marriage, when he took possession of the Tarbell place, which had been the home of his mother. Nathan Hawkes owned and tilled the farm until May 5, 1848, when he conveyed the whole estate of one hundred and thirty odd acres to Joseph Masury, Edward W. Saunders and Marshall S. Brooks. Mr. Masury had a half interest, Messrs. Brooks and Saunders, who were partners in business, the former 26 of Old Lynn being a resident of Memphis, Tennessee, having the other half. The estate which Messrs. Masury, Brooks and Saunders bought in 1848 was substantially the same as that which Elkanah Hawkes had consolidated by various purchases from his relatives early in the eighteenth century. The only slice that had been subtracted was the fourteen acres which his son Thomas conveyed to Samuel Boardman, November 1, 1780. This was in a sense not an alienation, for the wife of Samuel was a descendant of the original grantee of the whole tract. Mr. Sewall Boardman, 1 who now lives in a house upon the Samuel Boardman purchase, is, through the maternal line, a lineal descendant of the soldier of King Philip's war, who, in addition to his title by possession, fortified himself by an Indian release. Mr. Saunders took the southern part of the estate, the street lines of which are well known by the massive wall laid in cement, that bids fair to rival in endurance the rude walls of the fathers, which have withstood the rigors of more than two hundred years. It is said that he who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before is a public bene- factor. Mr. Saunders has devoted a fortune and forty years of intelligent human activity to the growth of a park and an avenue of magnificent ever- green trees that rival the matured beauty of an English estate. Once in a while Dame Rumor asserts 1 Since deceased. 27 Hearths and Homes that the granite rocks which fringe this strath have yielded grains of gold, but the real golden metal found here these many years has been the transmu- tation of the elements of nature into a rich soil and fair climate fit for man's use and growth. West of Forest Street, on the northern boundary of the Saunders place, is a curious mound an ele- vation which Nature does not account for. Mr. Saunders, 1 the present owner, once attempted to solve its mystery by digging into it, but the task proved too exacting, and the queer, oval-shaped mound still remains. It is probably an ancient burial place of the Indians, as this locality was one of their favorite hunting-grounds. It is within a rod or two of the babbling Crystal Brook, in the midst of a plain level far from the haunts of man even to this day. Mr. Masury divided his portion into three parts. Upon a knoll west of Forest Street he built the modern house, now better known as the Phillips place, which was the house of an accomplished scholar and valued counselor, George W. Phillips, of the Suffolk Bar. Mr. Phillips took an active part in the social and religious life of Saugus. He was long a leading member of the Parish Committee of the Congregational Church. He died here, July 30, 1880. His widow presented to the town a painting of his brother Wendell, the silver-tongued orator. By the 1 Mr. Saunders, at an advanced age, retired to Maiden after dis- posing of the place to Mr. Frank P. Bennett, who also acquired the Phillips estate. 28 of Old Lynn way, that picture looks lonesome on the otherwise bare, white walls of the Saugus Town Hall. Beyond the Phillips house is a slight elevation, covered by a growth of native wood, where the oaks, ashes, maples, birches, and all other trees indigenous to the climate grow in absolute freedom, and where robin red-breast heralds the coming of Spring as surely as the provident squirrel, running along yon- der gray wall, intent upon his store of nuts, presages the advent of Winter. At the northern end of this little gently-swelling knoll a shaded lane turns to the west, a rustic bridge spans the brook, and a smooth ascent of a few rods brings the traveler to the center of interest and to the crest of Oaklandvale Plain, or the " plough plain " of Colonial days. Here stands the venerable mansion built by El- kanah Hawkes in 1743. In the farming days its windows commanded a sweep of the whole domain. To-day, stately trees cut off the view and give per- fect seclusion to the occupants. The solid oak summer-beam of this house, cut upon the hill near by, was elaborately carved. The improvers of the house, however, have concealed it by plastering below it. The same iconoclasts removed from the front door a massive iron latch surmounted by an arch, which bore the inscription, "Com- pleted Nov. 17, 1743." This latch was the handiwork of the builder of the house, who was a keen sports- man and cunning artificer in iron. His grandson, Thomas Hawkes, of Boston, secured the relic of his 29 Hearths and Homes ancestor's skill, and it may yet be among his family heirlooms. In the light of all history, 1743 is not long ago. Several important things were going on in the world while this secluded country house was being built. Richardson, the father of the modern novel, was writing "Clarissa." His friend Hogarth was making his terrible, realistic pictures for all time, and the third friend, the literary colossus of the English tongue, Doctor Sam Johnson, was arrested for debt. Mr. William Pepperell, of Newburyport, was selling fish, unconscious of the destiny that awaited him - conqueror of Louisburg, Sir Willian Pepperell, first Baronet of Britain born on American soil. Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, was plotting the inva- sion of England, which two years later culminated in the last grand dash of Scottish chivalry and the final crushing of the Stuart cause. Great and little events transpire side by side, and after a few years the actors in each lie upon one plane, so far as things earthly are concerned. One figure is emblazoned on the page of history as the central point of a dis- credited cause, the other leaves the memory of a worthy husbandman, who simply did his part in the planting of the wilderness. To some the latter is fully as deserving of a place in our hearts as the former. Elkanah was the second son of Dr. Thomas Hawkes. His mother was Sarah Haven. His father, Dr. Thomas, was the son of John, called, in the old records, John Senior, who was the son of the pro- genitor of the Hawkes family in America. Jonathan 30 H > W D o X ffi a < z < g a of Old Lynn Hawkes, the first clerk of the third parish under the charter, was the elder brother of Elkanah. On May 14, 1742, Elkanah was married to Eunice Newhall by Rev. Edward Cheever, the first minister of the then newly organized Saugus Church, which was the third parish of Lynn. The wild territory alternating between craggy ledges and sunny dells, where golden-rod and asters bloom unseen of men, east of Forest Street, and north of Main Street, extending across the Newbury- port turnpike to the banks of Pranker's Pond, was, till within the memory of people now living, known as " Mr. Taylor's farm." The name was a vestige and reminder of the first manufacturing industry of the town. James Taylor was the last proprietor of the Iron Works, and these rough, yet beautiful, lands were an annex of the once flourishing enterprise, which boasted many acres of the " Iron Mill lands." The old conveyances all call Forest Street " the way by Mr. Taylor's farm," while Main Street is "the road from Lynn to Reading." The northern line will be forever designated as the common lands, locally known as " the six hundred acres " - the undisputed hunting ground of sportsmen and naturalists. 1 The uses of an old house vary from generation to 1 It must be borne in mind that this was written before this sec- tion of the common lands of prosaic Lynn was touched by magic hands, and the visions of the Arabian Nights of the far East were made realities, and the ring and the lamp of our Modern Aladdins created marvels of sparkling ponds, high up on the craggy hills of " the six hundred acres." Hearths and Homes generation, according to the moods or tastes of the tenants for the time being. From the time of its erection, in 1743, till 1848, this Elkanah Hawkes house was the hub around which revolved the indus- tries of a New England farm. From 1848 down to 1899 it was a home about which many ornamental (imported and native) trees grew into park and wood- land. Since 1899 the park and woodland have been removed, and the farming interest has again taken possession of the old mansion. As a matter of interest to a few at least, two views of the house are given one during its rest period, the other since it has resumed its bucolic environment. The incident of taking the first picture is related by the artist in a letter to the writer : - " In driving on the afternoon of July 9, 1891, from my seaside home, it was my good fortune to pass an avenue of beautiful pines ; attracted by their quiet loveliness, and curious to penetrate still further into the forest depths, to which I imagined they would lead me, I turned my horse and entered their refresh- ing shadows. " While photographing the brook I was accosted by an elderly gentleman, 1 who told me the path led but to his house, and asked me if I would photograph the same. " To the photographs you are entirely welcome. I well know the pleasure they will afford you." The later view was taken after the patriarchal trees had been sacrificed, at the demand of the market gardener, for sun and light. 1 Mr. E. Warner Bostwick, its late owner, since deceased. 32 A HOMESTEAD BY GRACE OF THE INDIANS. |N THE thirteenth of November, 1675, by order of the General Court, fifteen men were drawn from Lynn for service in the cele- brated King Philip's War, in addition to those previously detached. Among these was Daniel Hitchings. This is the first time his name appears in the printed Annals of Lynn. That he lived through the struggle and came home a thrifty planter, as cunning as the wily savages he had fought, is manifest by the fact that before the town had secured a release of the Indian titles, it is recorded that on the twenty-eighth of July, 1686, "James Quanapohit and David Kunkshamooshaw, descendants of Nanapashemet, sold a lot of land on the west side of the Iron Works pond to Daniel Hitchings." The Indians, who gave this deed, were the last of the race of the Sagamores, who had ruled over the land before the pale-face came. They had retreated before the invasion as far inland as Mistick and Chelmsford. They still had a shadowy claim upon the soil. Their pedigrees and their autographs may be seen in the elaborate account in the History of Lynn. Sir Edmund Andros came over as the Royal Governor in the year these deeds were given, and it is not strange that when he saw these signa- Hearths and Homes tures he said they reminded him of the scratches of a bear's claw. Later in the same year, the au- thorities of Lynn secured from these same Indians a sort of blanket release of all the lands of Lynn and Reading. The present sketch does not reach to generals, but only has to do with the land of Daniel Hitchings. He was nearer the Indians than most of his neigh- bors in Lynn, and consequently more anxious to be at peace with the redskins than they. It is to be borne in mind that in the time of the Iron Works the dam was several feet higher than it is at present. The late Lott Edmands, who was an authority upon the subject, used to say that in those days the water must have flowed as high as the sill of his, then, residence. This would have carried the water up the valley of Crystal Brook for perhaps a quarter of a mile. The boundaries and descriptions of those days were ofttime vague, but this one admits of no doubt. East of the " Iron Works pond " was an un- broken wilderness, untouched to-day. North of it was the domain of Adam Hawkes, or of his son John. At the west was an arable tract of land, which, from generation to generation through the ups and downs of life we find in the possession of the suc- cessors of Daniel Hutchins, or Hitchins, or Hitchings. In this Indian deed it is called the Plough Plain, and it embraced all that sweep of intervale from the Saugus River, where the Newburyport turnpike now bounds it on the east, through to the present Melrose. The deed may be seen in the Essex Registry of Deeds : 34 of Old Lynn B. 7. L. ! JAMES RUMNEY MARSH, &c., TO HUTCHINS. OCTOBR. 9, 1686. To all Christian people to whom this present deed of sale shall cone, James Rumney Marsh of Natick and David Son & Right heir of Sagamore Sam, an Indian belonging to Wamesick, in New Eng- land Send Greeting, Know ye that ye said James Rumney Marsh and David Indians, for a valuable consideration to them in hand att & before ye ensealing and delivery of these presents by Daniel Hutchins of Linn in New England aforesaid well & truly paid, ye receipt whereof they do hereby acknowledge and themselves there- with fully satisfied and contented and thereof & of every part thereof do acquit, exonerate and discharge ye said Daniel Hutchin Senr. his hiers, executors, administrators and assignes forever by these presents, have given granted bargained sold aliened enfeoffed and confirmed and by these psents, Do fully freely clearly & absolutely give grant bargain sell alien, enfeoff and confirm unto him ye said Daniel Hutchin Senr. his hiers and assignes forever all that their tract or parcell of land, lying & being partly within ye township of Linn and partly within ye Township of Boston being butted and bounded on west westerly by ye land of ye late Capt. Thomas Brattle deceased north with ye Hills bounding yt. part Commonly caled & knowne by ye name of ye Plough plain running up to a marked tree att ye corner on ye north or northeast side and by ye high ledg of rocks whereon severall pitch pine trees do stand & from thence to Sawgust River formerly caled Iron Works pond and on ye easterly end by ye land now in ye tenure and occupation of Samuel Aplton and so ranging from Sawgust River to a tree marked with ye letter L. and from thence bounded by said Samuel Appltons land according as ye old fence runns to ye logg bridge & by ye land of John White from ye said Logg bridge to ye land of said Brattle or howsoever the same be butted & bounded or reputed to be bounded together with all rights, profits, privileges, commod- ityes, hereditaments & appurtenances whatsoever to ye same belonging or in wayes appertaining. To have & to hold ye said tract or parcell of land with all other ye above-granted premises, 35 Hearths and Homes being butted and bounded as aforesaid unto ye said Daniel Hutchin his hiers executors admins. . . . and assignes and to ye only proper use benefit and behoof of ye said Daniel Hutchin his hiers and assignes forever and ye said James Rumney Marsh and David, Indians do hereby covenant promis and grant to & with ye said Daniel Hutchin his hiers and assignes yt they have in themselves full power, good right & lawfull authority to grant, sell, convey and assure ye same unto ye said Daniel Hutchin his hiers and assignes as a full firm perfect & absolute estate of inheritance in fee-simple without any manner of condicon, reversion or limitation on whatsoever so as to alter change, defeat or make void ye same and that ye said Daniel Hutchin his hiers and assignes shall & may by force & virtue of these presents from time to time and att all times forever hereafter lawfully peaceably & quietly have hold use occupie possess & enjoy ye same and every part thereof free and clear and clearly discharged of and from all & all manner of former and other gifts, grants bargains sales leases mortgages joyntures Dowres judgments executions entails forfietures and of and from all other titles troubles charges & encumbrances what- soever had made committed done or suffered to be done by you ye said James Rumney Marsh & David Indians or either of them thier or either of thier hiers or assigns att any time or times befor ye ensealing hereof and further yt ye said James Rumney Marsh & David Indians thier hiers & assignes shall & will from time to time and att all times forever hereafter warrant and defend ye above granted pemises with their appurtenances & every part thereof unto ye said Daniell Hutchin his hiers and assignes against all & every person and psons whatsoever any wayes lawfully claiming or demanding ye same or any part thereof in wittness whereof ye said James Rumney Marsh & David Indians have hereunto set thier hands and sealls the twenty eights day of July anno. Dom. one thousand six hundred eighty and six Annoq. Jacobi Secundi, Anglice &c., Secundo. Signed, sealed & delivered \ James iam s es Rumney Marsh & Seall in ye presence of us, marke \ his John Hayward Not. Pub. ( David 9 Indian & Seall . I marke Zachariah Shute Servt. / James R umney Marsh alias Quan- upcowit and David Kunkskawmusliat acknowledged the within of Old Lynn written instr. to be thier act & deed, Daniel Hutchin being also present averred that he was in ye actuall possession of the within mentioned parcell of land July 28th, 1686. Pme Peter Bulkeley one of his Majesties Councill. ESSEX REGISTRY DEEDS, So. DIST. ") SALEM, OCT. 25, 1888. j The foregoing is a true copy of record in this office. Attest, CHAS. S. OSGOOD, Reg. Where naturally would have been planted the home buildings of such an estate stand to-day ven- erable farm buildings. The dwelling house upon the "plough plain" must have stood just where is the house now owned and occupied by Elizabeth and Hannah Hawkes, whose grandmother was Sarah (Hitchings) Hawkes, the daughter of Daniel Hitchings. This Daniel Hitchings, who, during the Revolu- tionary War lived in the house next east of this one, since known as the Lott Edmands place, was the descendant of the first Daniel Hitchings ; so that this old house is still in the possession of the lineal descendants of the white settler who first took it - Englishman like by squatter sovereignty, and then quieted title by buying off the poor Indian. Only a fragment of the original grant attaches to the house under consideration. The boundaries of the thirty acres about this place are the same they were many more than a hundred years ago. The outlying wood lots, and salt marsh, too, have followed the ownership 37 Hearths and Homes of the house the characteristic stone wall of the fathers still marks it from the common lands on the north, and the town way runs around it south and east, and the only names mentioned in the deeds as abutters on the west in this period are the two successive owners, Elkanah and Nathan Hawkes. This house has the antique cased beams of oak, showing in the ceiling of the lower rooms, and brac- ing the upper floors. There was a time when it was the ambition of the writer to grow tall enough to grasp these beams. Now when he enters the low, sunny rooms he takes his hat off lest it hit the beam. It still retains the peculiar, long, sloping back roof, once so common, which is the only roof ever devised to get the best of Boreas in these northern climes. The writer has been informed by the press that there has been a revival of the andiron and beaufet period. He is aware of a bastard imitation of the old. He is cognizant of the craze to frequent auction rooms, where old clocks made to order, at a week's notice, are to be had. He is familiar with the fashion of placing the chimney on the outside of the house, in imitation of negro quarters in the South, and call- ing it a Queen Anne cottage, but all sensible persons know that the fathers were wise when they put their chimneys in the centre of the house in this bleak climate. Under these sloping roofs, opening from the second story, lighted by little windows on the east and west, is a queer recess, accessible only to the high priestess of the household. It is triangular, in mathematical parlance. The floor is the base, the 38 of Old Lynn partition of the rooms in front is the perpendicular, and the roof is the hypothenuse. The garret is free to favored children, but this inner temple contains sacred emblems, which only the most exalted degrees entitle one to look upon. Can these things be dupli- cated in the house built to-day by contract ? No. In spite of the profane sneer, there is some sentiment in most men stronger than even the glitter of gold in their eyes. There was no lapse in the Hitchings name and occupation till May 6, 1765, when Joseph Hitchings conveyed to young Adam Hawkes, then just of age and married to Hannah Newhall. Adam was the son of John and the grandson of Moses. When Adam took possession, besides the house now stand- ing, there was an old house upon the premises which has since disappeared. Adam 1 died while still a young man. His kinsman, Thomas Hawkes, admin- istered upon the estate, and after its sale his widow and children removed to Boston. Among his descend- ants of the present time is Adam Augustus Hawkes, of Wakefield, a frequent visitor at the old place. Joseph Hitchings, the grantor, was the son of Elkanah, who was the son of Daniel. In 1785, the buildings upon this place were iden- ir This Adam Hawkes was in Captain David Parker's Company at the Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775. The pathetic story of this patriot of the Revolution, who left a widow and a family of small children, is briefly related in a family record made before 1800, and is as follows : "Adam Hawkes entered on board the privateer ' Graybow ' under command of Captain Hammon (probably Capt. Edward 39 Hearths and Homes tical in form and fact as they are seen to-day. Fortunately, the frenzy for modernizing, or so-called improving, has not affected the various tenants. The books teach the law of holding lands in fee simple, but no individual has yet been able to secure more than a life tenancy in any real estate, save his little plot in the churchyard. June 5, 1785, Thomas Hawkes, administrator of the estate of Adam Hawkes, conveyed the estate to Samuel Sweitser, Jr. This was not an alienation, for the wife of Samuel was Lydia, daughter of John Hawkes. Samuel kept the place till March 26, 1807, when, having in the meanwhile adopted the present spelling of the name Sweetser, he gave it back to the original owner's name in the person of Daniel Hitchings. It happened in this case that the grantee's wife was Eunice, the daughter of Elkanah Hawkes. The next change passed it into the pos- session of Ebenezer Hawkes, whose wife was the daughter of Daniel Hitchings. Then came Cornelius C. Felton and Caroline Plummer, of Salem, and James Draper. The Draper family owned and occupied this house from 1827 till its conveyance to Nathan Hawkes in 1848. Here lived and died Deacon Ira Draper, an Hammond, who was sent back to Boston Oct. 8, 1778, to be ex- changed for British prisoners, Vol. VII, p. 182, Muster Rolls) May 9, 1778, and was taken by the enemy and carried to Halifax to prison, where he remained till the last of Sept., when he was exchanged and on the 16th of October he arrived at Boston and got home on Friday the 19th of Oct., sick with the yellow fever, which continued till the 20th and then he dyed." 40 of Old Lynn ingenious mechanic, from whom his sons Eben and George inherited the inventive talent that created the lively town of Hopedale. Forty years ago, Nathan Hawkes, son of Nathan Hawkes of the Third Parish, retired to this little farm to spend the declining years of a serene old age. Here he died in 1862 at the age of eighty-seven years. His boy companion in many delightful rural drives through the by-ways of the border-land of Essex and Middlesex unconsciously absorbed the impressions that seek expression in these papers. Dr. Edward A. Kittredge, the eccentric physician and humorous writer, who ought to be remembered as " Noggs," lived for a time in a cottage under the pines west of this place. In a lecture at Wakefield he said that it was a truism that there were excep- tions to all general laws, but that the only exception to the rule that water would not run up hill had been illustrated by his neighbor, Nathan Hawkes. In one of his experiments for draining his low lands he had turned the water, so that it apparently ran up hill. The doctor and the veteran guider of the rill of water died many years since, but the water still runs in the channel cut for it, and, if the doctor was right, it still runs up hill. It yet travels the same way, for the boy who saw the channel dug has watched it every season since when the buds were swelling, when the snow was blowing, when the crows were feasting upon the young corn, and when the pump- kins were ripening in the autumn sun. The northern line abuts upon the common woods - 41 Hearths and Homes The Six Hundred Acres. Through its centre from Oaklandvale and Melrose flows the calm and even- tempered Crystal Brook, till within sight of the house on the east, beyond the turnpike, it joins the Saugus, under the shadow of a hillside colored with foliage that no painter dare imitate. The road to this place, zigzagging in a generally northern course from the Oaklandvale schoolhouse, is arched by the interlacing tree-tops, and is styled in the ancient records, " the way by Mr. Taylor's farm." Since it ceased to be a town-way of Lynn, to become one in Saugus, it has been left to work out its own salvation, which is the usual course in a country town when its road survey- ors or commissioners do not chance to live in the vicinity. It must be remembered that town officials are apt to slight such matters, because they are not taught nor paid for aesthetics. The way by the house to the north looks like a no- thoroughfare. Many a traveler as he scans the dis- used road repents and turns about, yet there is an old road that leads out by Hewlett's mill, a mile beyond. It is a picturesque scene that meets the eye of the bold stroller who ventures up this region, which may be haunted by the shade of "old Bill Edmands." There are rocks and rills well worth see- ing. There are abandoned apple orchards, vainly struggling with native trees for possession. Not a vestige of the buildings where the pugnacious Mr. Edmands lived can be seen. The cellar where he stored his potatoes and horsed his barrels of cider, the New England farmer's beverage, can scarcely be 42 of Old Lynn distinguished from a last year's woodchuck's hole. There is a grim record on the books of the town of Saugus relative to this road. It was not meant as satire, but it sounds like it. Mr. Edmands had a petition before the town meeting for some improve- ment. The clerk gravely records that the vote was against the prayer, "William Edmands only voting yes." Like his brother Lott, William loved a lawsuit better than his dinner. He won and lost, and at the end was like Esop's litigant he had the shell of the oyster only. But this is a digression, simply intro- duced to show the wayfarer that he is not obliged to turn around and retrace his steps when he reaches this vale of serenity this restful abode bounded by mossy walls of past ages. 43 AN ANCIENT HOUSE IN NORTH SAUGUS. "0 home, so desolate and lorn! Did all thy memories die with thee? Were any wed, were any born, Beneath this low roof -tree?" ;LD houses and old homesteads have always had a fascination for a certain intelligent class in every community. The attraction is not due to the elegance of the place, nor to the great- ness or wealth of the founder. With our English- descended race it is an ingrained reverence for our fathers and a continuing hunger to know something of our kin. The individual man passes on, but often leaves behind him some material objects which seem to defy time and endure for after generations, some members of which are intuitively made to feel the touch of the prior user, or builder, or enjoyer. For example, the writer has an old oaken arm-chair which has been in daily use for at least five genera- tions. It is one of his most valued possessions, not on account of its having any money value, but simply because it brings him very near to a man who sat in it to a good, old age. This man died more than sixty years ago. His chair is more than a hundred years old, and his house is much older. His sword for his Revolutionary title, as appears by the parish rec- 45 Hearths and Homes ords, was Lieutenant happily unstained by blood, is in the same room, and is now only a terror to children and old people. Having been frequently asked if there were any ancient houses in the old Lynn which is now Saugus, the writer presumes to recall this one, partly because of his connection with it, and also by virtue of the fact that the water sys- tem of Lynn bids fair to largely change the old landmarks of our rural retreat. One mile south- east, as the bee flies, from the Tarbell place, over the line into Sau- gus by way of an an- cient native American trail, almost under the shadow of Indian Rock, which was a guide and trysting-place for the red man, stands a vener- able house. It closely hugs the earth, as though its builder foresaw the centuries during which bitter winds and pitiless storms would blow over it, and so rooted it down to the soil. As if to still further anchor it to the spot, it had a great chimney, which, when removed forty years ago, gave space for a fair- sized sleeping-room. The house was built about 1725 by Moses Hawkes, 46 INDIAN ROCK. of Old Lynn son of Moses, to whom the land came under the will of the first settler. In 1708, the first Moses, a young man with a family of minor children, found it expedient to call upon his neighbor, the celebrated speaker, John Burrill, to write his will. He gave one-half of his farm to his eldest son Moses, with the option of taking either the home part or what was called the Neck, and then he died. When the son Moses reached his majority, in 1725, he put on record in the Registry of Deeds, at Salem, his election to take the Neck, and commended his " Honored Mother, Margaret " (Cogswell) and his " Honored uncle Eben- ezer," the executors of his father's will, for their management of the estate during his minority. Then he married Susannah Hitchings, kinswoman of Daniel Townsend, who was immortalized by heroic death in the next generation at Lexington. The house stands on the north side of the road from North Saugus to Wakefield, a few rods west of the schoolhouse, which is upon land taken from the farm. Of course it faces due south. No true Yankee farmer ever violated this rule of common sense. The( custom was to select the most eligible spot on th( farm, with the tillage and grazing land in front let' the roads conform to the house, not the other way. To Moses and his wife, Susannah, was born a large family. Moses was active in forming the Third or West Parish (Saugus). Upon his son Nathan, born in this house in 1745, fell his mantle in church and civil affairs. Nathan was united in marriage with Sarah Hitch- 47 Hearths and Homes ings, September 3, 1769, by the noted Parson Roby. He was parish clerk during a period of Mr. Roby's pastorate. The friendship of pastor and clerk was very close. The son of one married the granddaugh- ter of the other. In death they were not separated, as their graves are side by side in the old Saugus church-yard. This man who was born, who lived and died, in the same house, has the distinction of being the last, if not the only, selectman that Saugus fur- nished Lynn before the separation. He was one of the Board in 1805, 1806, 1807. During his service the final divorcement of town and church took place in Lynn. The contention between the first church and town was solved by the town meeting, being held in 1806 in the Methodist Church. In 1811, James Gardiner and Nathan Hawkes were a committee of the town to build the road so long known as the Downing Road. It was so named because the con- tractor, whom the committee employed, was Caleb Downing. Recently the fields back of the house have been disfigured by the abortive ditch to Hewlett's Pond, which the future will style " Lynn's water folly." To the east, the natural union of the Hawkes and Penny Brooks has been stimulated by the same municipal authority. On the south, beyond the green meadows and beyond the plain at the point of the Neck, the two brooks mingle with the waters of Saugus River and swell the power that works the looms below. In the little square house, with the four-sided roof meeting at a point, east of the brook and south of 48 of Old Lynn the present schoolhouse, the Rev. Edward T. Taylor, afterwards founder of the Seamen's Bethel in Boston, first shouted Methodism. In this house he received the rudiments of education, and under its roof he was entertained during his itinerancy. Before the building of the first schoolhouse, the first detached school of the Third Parish was estab- lished in an apartment of this house. In David N. Johnson's "Sketches of Lynn" is found the first school report made to the Town of Lynn. The out- lying districts were Nahant, North Saugus, and Swampscott, thus mentioned : " Your committee also visited Nahant ; found nine present. Also the school at Nathan Hawkes' ; present twelve. Also John Phillips ; number fifteen subjects. All the schools visited were in good order." This school report is dated April 14, 1812. Although Nathan continued his interest in school matters through life, his crowning and important achievement was the establishment by the Legisla- ture of the Town of Saugus. He was the principal petitioner for this act, and for the contest, his ripe experience in town affairs, and the recognition by the people of both parts of the town of his ability and fairness, amply qualified him to win the Legis- lative battle which added Saugus to the list of Massachusetts towns in 1815. Allusion has been made to a way of the by-gone days, which few living now recall, though easily tracked. The two houses are connected by an inci- dent which the young, at least, can appreciate. The 49 Hearths and Homes red men silently trod this trail in what savants call the "Stone Age," traces of which are found on all the brooksides in this region. In youth, the writer wondered who had enjoyed these secluded paths since that time. He now knows that one man, who was born a subject of King George, in 1775, and lived on to the midst of our War of the Rebellion, in 1862, enjoyed the tramp through these solitudes, by way of Indian Rock, from North Saugus to Lynn field. He hunted different game, however, in the glen. His hunt was crowned with success. He did not live in the Stone Age, for the Lynnfield Parish records relate the marriage by good Parson Joseph Mottey, of Nathan Hawkes, son of Nathan of the West Parish, to Elizabeth Tarbell, January 22, 1805. This place illustrates the difference our flexible land laws make between us and our old home. The first white man in North Saugus was Adam Hawkes. Like a true Englishman, he loved the soil he tilled. He brought with him English notions of primogeni- ture. When he began to set his house in order for the great change, he attempted to provide for his eldest grandchild by a clause of his will, which is copied in the spelling of 1671 : - " John Hawks is to deliver and sett out unto Moses Hawks, his sonn, which he had by rebeckah Hawks, daughter of Mr. Moses Mavericke and his heirs for ever one haulf of that fearme which the said Hawks lived and died upon, boath upland and medow and houseing being in Lyn, only for the houseing the said Hawks is to paye the value thereof if he please, 50 of Old Lynn all of which is to be don when the aforesaid Moses corns to twenty and one years of age and if it please god the said Moses dye before the age of one and twenty years, the said estate is to goe unto his father John Hawks, and his children forever, this aforesaid guift is the legacy of Mr. Adam Hawks to his grand- child Moses Hawks." The scheme was not a perfect success, for little more than two hundred years have elapsed and this old house and the close about it only remain to the kin of Moses, while the patrimony of his younger brethren is still held by their descendants in un- broken line. The cause is not hard to find. The boys to till the soil were too few, or they took to themselves wives and went their way. In earlier years the apple trees bloomed about this hospitable mansion. The garden was fragrant with the scent of old-time shrubs and flowers. Alas ! landlord absenteeism is as blighting in New England as in old Ireland, and the place is not as it was when some of its builders' kin occupied it. 51 NOTED NAMES UPON A REVOLUTIONARY COMMISSION. Colony of the Maffachufetts-Bay J. Bowdoin James Otis W. Spooner Caleb Gushing J. Winthrop B. Chadbourn T. Gushing John Whetcomb James Prefcott Eldad Taylor J. Palmer S. Holten Moses Gill Michael Farley Jed'h Foster The Major Part of the COUNCIL of the MafTachufetts-Bay, in New-England, To Nathan Hawkes, Gentleman, Greeting. YOU being appointed first Lieutenant of the Second Company whereof John Pool is Cap- tain of the first Regiment of Militia in the County of Efsex whereof Timothy Pickering Jr. Esq. is Colonel By Virtue of the Power vefted in us, WE do by thefe Prefents, (repofmg fpecial Truft and Con- fidence in your Loyalty, Courage, and good Con- duct, ) Commiffion you accordingly. You are therefore carefully and diligently to difcharge the Duty of a first Lieut, in leading, ordering, and exercifmg faid Company in Arms, both In- ferior Officers and Soldiers ; and to keep them in good Order and Difcipline : And they are hereby commanded to obey you as their first Lieut, and you are yourfelf, to obferve and fol- low fuch Orders and Inftructions as you fhall from Time to Time receive from the major part of the Council or your superior Officers. GIVEN under our Hands and the Seal of the faid Colony, at Watertown the Twenty Sixth Day of April xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx In the year of our Lord, One Thoufand Seven hundred and Seventy Six. By the Command of the Major Part of the Council PEREZ MORTON D Secry. 53 Hearths and Homes The student of American History will pardon the introduction of a time-stained, yet well-preserved, document, which bears the autographs of a noted band of leaders of Massachusetts thought. The first on the list is James Bowdoin, member of the first Continental Congress and second Governor under the Constitution. The last, Jedediah Foster, was a Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature. Thomas Gushing was eight years Lieutenant-Governor under Hancock and Bowdoin, and, as Mr. Drake says, "friend and co-worker in the patriot cause with Adams, Otis and Warren." Moses Gill was six years Lieutenant and Acting Governor. He was also a member of the two Electoral Colleges, which elected George Washington President. John Winthrop and Caleb Gushing were the Rev- olutionary representatives of names pre-eminent in our early and late history. The modest name, S. Holten, stands for Dr. Samuel Holten, an Essex County man, a sketch of whose active and versatile life is given in Mr. White's charming history of Danvers. He is there described as, " all things considered, the most remarkable man the town has ever produced." Michael Farley, of Ipswich, was another Essex man. His native town gladly bestowed all its offices upon him, and he was also a member of the Provincial Congress, High Sheriff and Major-General of Militia. The historian of Ipswich says that "he excelled in State-craft." Every name of the fifteen was the signature of a patriot and man of mark. James Otis, however, 54 ** Pv? 'V^. v r ' Bv, o ^ ure*i2-i Her ; - u^ -> r^-SH^-Si^ ^^'11 j > ^^i^4^'< ' ' ^ .f vi| v 1 ^1 M *> ; '*V ; \N* 'x M 85 -I ^ i> K| MS ; of Old Lynn towers above all as one of the most brilliant lumin- aries that any revolutionary epoch of the human race ever produced. He dedicated Faneuil Hall as the "Cradle of Liberty," and it was he "whose electric eloquence was like the ethereal flash that quenched its fire." These men were denounced by King George as traitors. His army of occupation drove them from Boston. They took the blank papers of the Royal Governor and went out to Watertown, where they set up a rebel government. They carefully erased all reference to " His Majesty, George the Third, by the Grace of God," etc., and then, upon forms which plainly show in the water-mark the Crown, the Brit- ish Arms and G. R., they boldly issued commissions to their fellow-subjects to make war upon the stuffy old king to defend American liberties and to main- tain the priceless heritage of freedom, which their fathers had left home for, a hundred and fifty years before. This commission was one of those issued by " The Major Part of the Council," upon its own responsi- bility, before the General Court passed the Act of May 1, 1776, abolishing the regal style. This famous " Major Part of the Council " continued to be the Executive Authority in the Massachusetts Bay Colony till the adoption of the Constitution in 1780. 55 HAWKES POND FROM FULLER HILL. THE TARBELL PLACE. T IS well to gather up and preserve bits of local history before they become dim traditions by oral transmission. There is an old homestead and farm in the southwestern corner of Lynnfield which deserves a passing glance from its associations. Upon its eastern boundary flows the placid Hawkes Brook ; * its southern line is on the border between Saugus and Lynnfield ; its western boundary is the Saugus River, which is also the line between two towns, Lynnfield and Wakefield, and between two counties, Middlesex and Essex ; its northern bound- ary was the farm of George L. Hawkes, which came to him through a long line of worthy ancestors. It is now absorbed in his great estate. The union of these two places, after a separation for several generations, returns the Tarbell homestead to the descendant of the first planter. When the estate of John Hawkes, son of Adam (the pioneer), was settled in 1695, eight score of acres, on the eastern bank of Saugus River, running up to the point where Daniel Eaton had established his mill on the stream in Lynnfield at the same privilege used by Adam 1 This brook is now a part of Lynn's water system, under the name of Hawkes Pond. 57 Hearths and Homes Hawkes for his fulling mill in the opening years of this century, and later for an organ factory, a sash and blind factory and other purposes, were by John Hawkes and Thomas Hawkes and Francis Hutchin- son, guardian of Ebenezer Hawkes, set off to John, the young son of John Senior's deceased son Adam. From him have descended those of the Hawkes family who have since lived on the Wakefield and Lynnfield boundary. As he has no use for the buildings, it may be that ere another generation they will be no more. 1 Indeed, the barns and the connect- ing lean-to have already disappeared in smoke and fire. Few, save old natives, could find this place. The big, homely old house is in a secluded, yet sunny spot, far from the road. Back of it towers a great boulder by which timid strangers were afraid to drive. Wooded hills on the north and east keep off the chill east winds of our rugged climate. From its southern windows the eye looks upon as pretty an intervale, bordered by as sparkling a river and framed by as verdant hills, as old Essex can show. This for a century has been known as the Tarbell Place. Here after the Revolutionary War came Jonathan Tarbell from the South Parish of Danvers, now Peabody; with him came his wife, Elizabeth (Cook) Tarbell. His father, Jonathan Tarbell, came 1 Since this was written, George L. Hawkes died without issue, and the estate, except the inclosure containing the Tarbell Tomb, has passed into the ownership of strangers. Mr. Hawkes will be remembered for his bequests to the Wakefield Historical Society and to the Lynnfield Public Library. 58 B 02 & o X 5 pa 3 H H EH of Old Lynn here and died in this house. Jonathan Tarbell, Sr., was the grandson of John Tarbell of Salem Village, whose name will be ever noted as the master spirit in the ecclesiastical contest with that arch-conspirator of the witchcraft delusion, Rev. Samuel Parris, which finally ejected Mr. Parris in disgrace from the county, and vindicated the Christian name of Mr. Tarbell's wife's mother, Rebecca Nurse, the victim of supersti- tion in 1692. After these two there likewise lived and died in this house and was buried in the family tomb, upon the estate, a third Jonathan Tarbell. Of what interest is it at this time when the name is extinct in this locality? This is the story in brief : On the nineteenth of April, 1775, some two hundred brave young men marched from the village green in the South Parish of Danvers to Lexington, twenty miles away. A tragedy there took place. Every schoolboy the world over feels his pulse beat more quickly as he reads the tale of the first blood shed in the war of American Independence. Seven Danvers men gave their lives, that liberty might live. The Lexington monument in Peabody, fittingly standing on the spot whence the start was made on the fateful morning, commemorates the names of the heroes who fell. The first on the list is " Samuel Cook, aet. 33." By his side, when the British bullet struck his heart, stood his brother-in-law, Jonathan Tarbell. On the twentieth he tenderly carried his dead home to Danvers. Both were members of the company commanded by their relative, Capt. Samuel Epps. 59 Hearths and Homes Service at Lexington was a patent of American nobility. These men of Danvers were the farthest from the scene of action of any who reached the battlefield. Let it be remembered that the fatalities of Danvers were larger than any other town, save only Lexington itself. The name Tarbell as a sur- name is lost in this locality. To be exact, the conveyance was from Joseph Jeffery and his wife Priscilla to the senior Jonathan Tarbell. The consideration was five hundred and thirty-three pounds, six shillings and eight pence. The acres numbered one hundred and sixty. The witnesses were Jonathan Tarbell, Jr., the militiaman, Nathaniel Peaslee Sargent, and Asa Newhall. The latter married the sister of the grantee, and his family has kept the name in prominence in state affairs to this day. The deed is dated April 12, 1775, a few days before the Lexington alarm, and was recorded April 21, 1775, a few days after the battle. The magistrate was Timothy Pickering, Jr. Save for the new road from North Saugus to the Andrew Mansfield place, not a line nor a wall has been changed from that day to this. The white oak tree mentioned in the incorporation of the district of Lynnfield, July 3, 1782, as follows, "Beginning at Saugus River near a white oak tree in Jonathan Tarbell's lower field," may have gone with the family. Everything else remains unchanged. The excuse of the writer for this little sketch is the fact that, by one of his genealogical lines, he is descended from Jonathan Tarbell, the soldier of Lexington, and was born in the old house. 60 A QUAKER HOME ON THE DOWNING ROAD. :HEN an old house has been dormant for a generation or two and has awakened to the tread of young feet of the same race, is it well to depict the past for the use of the future? Why not? Long holding seems to be evidence of something worth holding something capable of enduring beyond one simple life. Be that as it may, there is an ancient mansion in North Saugus, the soil about which has never known a change from the direct line of family ownership since the first Englishman paddled his canoe up the Saugus River, and spied out the possibilities of husbandry. And there are three other houses within sight of the smoke of each other's chimneys of which the same tale can be told in this dear old Sleepy Hollow hamlet. The house, never imposing, but always re- spectable, is on the east side of Walnut Street, just before that street crosses the Newburyport Turnpike. It is within a stone's throw of the spot where the Puritan pioneer, Adam Hawkes, built his cabin in the wilderness. Between it and the road stood a line of sturdy buttonwood trees, and, clearer descrip- tion still, there is planted forever the "corn-barn rock," upon which, not many years since, the deserted corn-barn stood betwixt the trees and the house. 61 Hearths and Homes Query ! How many people about here know what a corn-barn was ? The corn-barn set high on posts, with abundant ventilation, filled, heaped up with golden Indian corn? How it delighted the thrifty farmers' eyes ! What suggestions of huskings and pudding and milk ! Even a look at it made the young blood tingle, and the memory almost brings up the vanished past. There are still living a few good souls who will smile and pleasantly recall this old house when we call it by its then designation, "the home of the Quaker old maids." It was a praiseworthy custom with Friends when a strange minister came to Lynn to spread, among the scattered members, notice of the arrival. Eben Stocker, 1 still living at an advanced age, as a boy lived with the Breed family at Breed's End. When the warning reached Breed's it was their duty to pass the word to the Hawkes family the remote outpost of the Friends at North Saugus. It was Eben's delight to be ordered to mount the old horse and post up the Downing Road. The ride was in itself pleasant, and at the end of it were interesting old ladies, berries, shagbark nuts and doughnuts. What more could youth and health ask for? The old ladies have gone to their reward, the berries have been crowded out by trees and cows. The 1 Ebenezer Stocker died at Lynn, October 19, 1888, aged eighty- seven years and eight months. His father was an officer in the Revolutionary War from Lynn. The son is believed to have been the last survivor of the sons of Revolutionary soldiers resident in Lynn. 62 of Old Lynn rough exterior that hides the good heart of the shagbark draws boys yet, and here, still good for the future as in the past, is the old house. In his early days the writer was a frequent visitor, but our people in New England country towns have such a habit of using the side door that he did not know till a generation had gone that the house had the orthodox front door on the south. What a place that open attic, stored with trophies of the chase, with disused implements of olden in- dustries, such as spinning wheels, was for boys to sleep in ! What matter was it that two boys awoke one morning and found that through some crevice the fleecy snow had blown in upon their bed ? Life was young then, and they were all the warmer. And one of those boys was the most loyal and affec- tionate brother a boy ever had and lost. The very boards in the floor of the best room show the trees our virgin forests grew. There have not been sawed within this century boards so wide, so clear as these that have been trod by the feet of prattling children, of sturdy manhood, and of old age, as is the law of Nature, whereby children are born, reach maturity, decay, pass away, and then are re-created to travel over the same old course. Our race ought to improve if each generation saves some- thing from the one which goes before. This room boasted a rarity for a little country hamlet. It was the pride of a thrifty housekeeper's heart a beaufet. It must have been jolly to have sat about the fireplace of a winter's evening and to 63 Hearths and Homes have watched the lights and shades play through the room and among the shining treasures displayed on the beaufet. The demands of modern luxury and labor-saving civilization have hidden our fires in the walls, have banished the reverie-provoking back-log, the bright andirons, and buried the china and silver Penates behind dark and locked doors. Is there not in all this some loss, some sacrifice, of the old Saxon idea of home? In this home was born a child, who in manhood be- came an active agent in the separation of Lynn and Saugus. Ahijah Hawkes was chairman of the Board of Selectmen of Saugus for the first three years of its corporate existence, from 1815 to 1818. His colleagues were Jonathan Makepeace and Richard Mansfield. And this house saw the last of the mild black slavery that lingered in Massachusetts till the adop- tion of the Constitution, in 1780, before which time the boon of freedom came to Ebenezer Hawkes' Phebe by purchase from her master by her husband, Hannibal, 1 the sexton of the Old Tunnel Meeting 1 The cut pictures a familiar scene in the Old Tunnel Meeting on the Common. The bell-ringer, the faithful sexton, who exercised his modest functions for so many years, is Hannibal, of whom Alonzo Lewis, the historian of Lynn, writes : " Hannibal, a slave of John Lewis, was an example of the good effects which education and good treatment may produce in the colored people. He was brought from Africa when a boy, and was treated rather as a servant than a slave. He married Phebe, a slave of Ebenezer Hawkes. By the indulgence of his master, and by working extra hours, he earned enough to purchase the freedom 64 of Old Lynn House. The house was built by Ebenezer Hawkes in 1765, on land which he purchased of his father, Samuel Hawkes, and erected coincident with a cere- of three children at forty dollars each ; but Phebe being a faithful/ slave, her master would not part with her short of forty pounds, V yet, with a motive of hope before him, Hannibal was not to be] discouraged, and in a few years her purchase was accomplished, 05 Hearths and Homes mony, the record of which is copied from the original in the manner and spelling of the Colonial days : "Whereas Ebenezer Hawkes, of Lynn in the county of Essex, in the province of the Massachu- setts Bay, in New England, Black Smith, Son of Samuel Hawkes, of Lynn, aforesaid, AND Rebecca Alley, Daughter of Samuel Alley, of said Lynn, House Right, HAVING Declared their Intentions of taking each other in marriage before several public meetings of the people called Quakers at Lynn and Salem according to the Good Order used among them, whose proceedings therein after deliberate considera- tion thereof with regard unto the Righteous Law of God and Example of his people Recorded in the Scriptures of truth in that case and having consent of parents and others concerned they appearing clear of all others were approved by said meetings NOW these are to certifie, all whome it may concern, that for the full accomplishing of their said Intentions this Seventeenth Day of the Fourth Month, called and his own freedom was given to him. He married in 1762, and had three sons and six daughters. I have seldom known a more worthy family." Judge James R. Newhall in "Lynn: Her First 250 Years," wrote : "Nearly opposite the Carnes house was the habitation of the negro Hannibal, who, though once an untutored slave, rose to be highly regarded for manliness of character and useful industry. He was brought from Africa while a small boy, and became the property of John Lewis, who owned the Carnes house. Hannibal's master generously gave him his freedom, and the town gave him the little lot on which his modest habitation was placed. He was sexton of the Old Tunnel Meeting-House for many years, and ever prompt in warning the people of their Sunday and lecture-day duties. And, as he tolled the bell for the funerals of departed 66 of Old Lynn April, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred sixty-five, the said Ebenezer Hawkes and Rebecca Alley appeared in a public assembly of the afore-Said people and others met together in their public meeting place, in Lynn, and in a solemn man- ner, he the said Ebenezer Hawkes, taking the said Rebecca Alley by the hand, Did openly declare that he took her to be his wife, promising through the Lord's assistance to be unto her a loving and faith- full Husband untill Death should them separate AND Then AND There in the said assembly, the said Rebecca Alley, did in like manner declare that she took the said Ebenezer Hawkes to be her husband, in like manner promising to be unto him a faithful and loving wife till death should separate them And MOREOVER, the said Ebenezer Hawkes and Rebecca Alley, she according to the custom of marriage as- suming the name of her husband as a further con- firmation thereof, Did then and there to these presents set their hands, and we whose names are hereunto Subscribed being present among others at neighbors, by his solemn countenance and measured movements showed his tender sympathy. In after days, with his wife Phebe, who had been a slave to Ebenezer Hawkes, but whom he had redeemed by forty hard-earned pounds, he retired to the northern side of Walnut Street, nearly opposite the head of Robinson, and there lived, encircled by a large and affectionate family, till the services of another were required to toll the bell for him. Phebe collected herbs and distilled rose and mint waters. And the ladies of the parish used occasionally, of a pleasant afternoon, to visit her, and take a cup of tea. A worthy son succeeded to the little estate, and the humble traffic still went on. Your informant well remembers having gone there, when a little lad, with the basket of wild rose leaves, gathered from the roadside, seeing them deposited in the huge iron pot with its long tin nozzle, and returning after a few days for the promised bottle of rose-water." 67 Hearths and Homes the solemnizing of their said marriage and subscrip- tion in manner aforesaid as WITNESSES hereunto have subscribed our names the Day and Year above WRITTEN Nathan Breed Ebenezer Hawkes John Basset Rebeckah Hawkes Ruth Estes Anna Eftes Samuel Alley Desire Breed Hugh Alley Elizabeth Graves Nehemiah Breed Martha Estes Matthew Hawkes Lois Collins Sarah Alley Sarah Alley Philadelphia Hawkes Elizabeth Collins jr. Sarah Hawkes Lydia Breed Hannah Estes Enoch Collins Deborah Alley Daniel Newhall Samuel Collins James Purinton Ebenezer Breed Jabez Breed Isac Basset Isaiah Breed Joseph Striker Abijah Newhall Benjamin B. Burchsted Hannah Breed Zaccheus Collins In the certificate of marriage which is given in this paper the groom is described as a blacksmith. This was a peculiarly appropriate designation, as the iron ore used in the first iron works in America was taken from this farm. And there were iron workers in each generation to his time. When they outgrew the old homestead they went to Salem and Marble- head, and became makers of anchors and chains and whatever in that line appertained to the fitting of the growing industry of the maritime towns. Zaccheus Collins, the last signer, was the noted penman of Lynn in his time, and the diarist for forty-four years, who is much quoted by Lewis in his "History of Lynn." Being a Quaker, his diary is not as piquant as that of his English (nearly) 68 CRANBERRY MEADOW of Old Lynn contemporary, Samuel Pepys, but perhaps fully as reliable. Many of the other signers of this instrument will be remembered by their descendants. Capt. Hugh Alley, who ran the first packet from Lynn to Boston, was among them. Nehemiah Breed, who signed early, as an elder or relative, was the son of Samuel Breed, who Nahant being then without an inhabitant bought the land and built the house, in 1717, where Whitney's Hotel now stands. There, when he signed this paper, Nehemiah lived, and he and Ebenezer were the north and south poles of Lynn Quakerism the extreme points of Nahant and Saugus. The English turnstile guarded the little by-path that led to the house through the avenue of nut- trees. On the north was the village smithy, and beyond it was the close. To the east, where myriads of wild pigeons flew, were the great meadows, through which flowed from the dark forests of Lynn the limpid waters of the stream now called Penny Brook. The only apparent occupation the babbling stream has had to perform for many years has been to shield from frost the red acres of bright cranberries that Mr. Samuel Hawkes has so zealously cultivated. Few of the world's people have seen this hidden intervale, with its border of pines and willows, and great boulders that might have been thrown into the meadow in some monster upheaval of Nature. But now all is to be changed. The stream, which since creation has meandered on till it mingled with Hearths and Homes old ocean in common with the other feeders of the Saugus, is to be diverted into the omnivorous throat of the City of Lynn. And then, farewell ! glen of quiet welcome, pond of sweet water ! May the people of Lynn who shall enjoy the blessings of its store not forget those who guarded it for many generations, till the law of eminent domain claimed it at their hands for the public good. Above all other races of men, our English stock, emerging from the forests of Germany, leaping the North Sea into Britain, worshiped Nature, and, like Robin Hood's outlaws, executed justice in her tem- ples. One more giant stride planted the virile seed in the wilderness of New England. The denizens of the hot-house life of cities know not how men grow and broaden as they watch noble trees stretch out their protecting arms as they did over their fathers, and as they will over their children after them. Such training may not fit men for the fopperies of life, but it makes reflective, reasoning human beings, who see something beyond the polish on a man's boots or the style of his hat. There is a vigorous oak tree 1 upon one of the farms of this ancient estate, under which some years since several persons 1 Some years ago this veteran of the hillside was blown down in a wintry gale. Mr. Henry F. Tapley as a child had, with his parents, rested under the shade of this giant tree. Out of tender remembrance of the past, he caused a portion of its sturdy trunk to be fashioned into a frame for a map of Lynn Woods, which hangs upon the walls of the Lynn Historical Society's Rooms, where it may endure as many years as the tree was growing. 70 of Old Lynn stood. One queried, " How old is this tree ? " The answer told the story of reverence and attachment that was an augury of future as well as an assertion of past possession " It is two hundred and fifty years old." 71 NOTES ON AND ABOUT A SAUGUS POND. ' ' Come back to bay-berry scented slopes, And fragrant fern and ground mat vine ; Breathe airs blown over holt and copse Sweet with black birch and pine." ]HE olden-time oracles the autocrats of our ubiquitous shoemakers' shops are vanish- ing figures, soon to be seen no more. The noise and confusion of modern machinery has robbed us of the picturesque and contemplative figures of other days. A few of these unique philosophers still linger upon our borders beyond the smoke of city factories. One such, an old Lynner, the bearer of one of our oldest names, to which he does no dis- credit, has much interested the writer. He is not a hermit, nor a recluse, though he lives alone. He weekly comes to Lynn to bring in his set of hand- made shoes. His abode is one of the ancient shops, somewhat larger than the common type. It serves him for a dormitory, dining-hall, work-room, museum of curiosities and reception-room. Under his white hair is a wealth of knowledge of past and present. He is specially strong on Lynn pedigrees. His abode is pleasantly situated upon the headwaters of Prank- er's Pond, and is reached by as romantic a walk from Saugus Centre as youthful lovers or plodding 73 Hearths and Homes seniors can find in a day's journey. Up this pine- embowered, rock-shadowed, water-bounded path many a town father and village worthy wend their way as far as this wayside reminder of other days. Though scarcely a house is in the range of vision, save the dwelling on the same place, where some of his kin reside, at no season can this be a lonesome place, for in summer the disciples of Izaak Walton resort to the lily-padded pond in the vain search for the venerable pickerel that tradition says is to be found in some deep recess. In winter the same persevering anglers cast their lines through the ice, and occasionally a snow trotting-park is to be seen. Nature in summer is full of sound of bird, of bee, of insect, of soughing pines, of murmuring brooks and of voices innumerable. In winter there is oft- times an almost uncanny stillness. Yet upon this pond in this deathly silence, on the glassy track, under the winter's dull sky, there will come a crash -not the down-pouring of heaven's artillery, not like the rattle of musketry, but rather the sullen opening of a cannonade. The hills on the east catch the sound, and the echo rebounds against the rocky wall across the pond. The Saugus River is raising the ice, air-holes are formed, and the north wind, aided by water, ice, air and sound, is playing its tricks with Nature, hitherto so pale and motionless. This devious path, entered by way of Appleton Street and Appleton's pulpit, is well worth the atten- tion of the few who are not the slaves of fashion and vanity. Why is it that a vast majority of our people 74 of Old Lynn can see nothing in life, save a sordid grasping for dollars and a silly display of the fact that they have succeeded in the scramble? What do they enjoy? A pair of docked-tail horses, a lolling woman clad in purple and fine linen, a pug dog and a funeral pro- cession round the stereotyped, society-dictated drive through Swampscott. Yonder is a beetled cliff, upon which Helen MacGregor might have appeared and checked our advance with, " Stand and tell me what ye seek in MacGregor's country." Down these glades to the music of the bagpipes the plaided followers of Rob Roy might have marched. The scenery at your very doors, good people of Lynn, is as romantic and attractive as that of bonnie Scotland. It only needs the touch of some Wizard of the North some Walter Scott to people it with creations that will live forever. The people who first used this way after the white settlement were utilitarians, however. To them the woods were full of demons rather than fairies. Hard-headed, practical yeomen, they builded better than they knew, for they unwittingly, as early as 1706, created parks for the benefit of the people forever. It was in this wise : The town divided the common lands in "Seven Divisions." The first division began on the west side of Saugus River, including what was then and is now called the "Six Hundred Acres," which were then in Lynn. This tract of land has exactly the same appearance it had when the old Puritan first looked upon it. Once in a generation the woodman's ax despoils it 75 Hearths and Homes and lays bare the masses of primeval porphyry. But in a few brief years Nature hides the rude scars and the hills are covered with hardy New England trees. This is the vote of that remote day which kept the forest intact and unvexed by walls or enclosures : " The towne considering the great diffi- culty of laying out highways on the common lands, by reason of the swamps, hills, and rockenes of the land, theirfore voated, that after said common lands shall be divided, every person interested therein, shall have free liberty at all times, to pass and repass over each others' lotts of lands, to fetch their wood and such other things as shall be upon their lands, in any place or places, and for no other ends, provided they do not downe any sort of tree or trees in their so passing over." Lott Edmands, through his wife, the daughter of one John Burrill, was the owner for the larger part of the present century of this estate, which was known as the Burrill Place. Mr. Edmands was one of the characters of Saugus of the past, and it was the ambition of the late celebrated Joseph Ames, the artist, to paint his typical Yankee head. The old man, however, was fonder of relating his prowess in litigation than in posing for posterity, and so the picture was lost. Something stronger than accident must have drawn Mr. Edmands to this locality. The very air hereabout is redolent of disputations. This apparently calm and innocent pond has been the promoter of lawsuits innumerable from the earliest days. 76 of Old Lynn Adam Hawkes, the first settler, harried the Iron Works' proprietors, for flowing his lands in North Saugus, down to his death, in 1671. Then the Iron Works were worked out, and a hundred years later, in 1770, just above the old site, Joseph Hawkes, the descendant of the former flooded land owner, became himself the flower by building a dam and a grist- mill and saw-mill where the present Pranker's dam stands. Down from generation to generation the lawsuits and contentions went on, till in the fulness of time Lott Edmands came upon the scene to revel through life with the mill owners in a series of forensic sparring matches. Here to a green old age he lived, and his greatest pleasure was to fight his battles over again as he looked out upon his land which he had contested with the water from below. This was not the residence of the law-loving Mr. Edmands. His home was the house occupied by Daniel Hitchings in the Revolutionary period, a quarter of a mile to the north, still on the west bank of the serpentine Saugus. The old house upon this place is an oddity in the country. In the seaport towns it was common to build houses three stories in height, or rather two stories with a demi-story above. Salem, Newburyport and Portsmouth are full of such. This one is sui generis. There is nothing like it in prosaic life. In romance it may remind the admirers of Miss Woolson's "Anne" of Jeanne Armande's half -house. Its secluded location and concurring circumstances gave occasion for the 77 Hearths and Homes suspicion not so many years ago that it was occupied by tenants, who in the unfrequented wilds of the South are called "Moonshiners." To-day, however, the honest yeoman's waving corn is in no danger of passing through the illicit still. The half-house obstructs somewhat the northern view from our point of vantage. Still we can see beyond the Newburyport Turnpike beyond the pleasant western intervale of Oaklandvale, with its perennial silver stream, Crystal Brook up into this grand old forest, behind which the sun sets, up to Breakheart Hill, beyond which stands that impos- ing promontory, Castle Hill, which marks the line between Middlesex and Essex, and is the highest landmark in Southern Essex. 78 THE IRON WORKS MANSION. PERSON interested in the lives, manners and habits of the earlier days the tenants, the houses and the land around them is often amazed at the utter callousness with which men walk about in dead men's shoes and sleep in dead men's beds. Men seem to wholly ignore the history of domestic surroundings. They ask not what other eyes have looked upon scenes familiar to themselves. Every roof -tree that has weathered the changing seasons of centuries of life has overlooked all the varied phases of human existence. There is a house in Saugus that the tyro in the study of Colonial architecture detects at a glance as a specimen of the early, better-class houses. Its antiquity and its quality are not disguised by the fact that its present owner, Mr. A. A. Scott, and the town assessors, distinguish it only by the com- monplace name of "the Tim Davis house." The massive, many-angled chimney, the projection of the upper story over the lower (not hidden by the modern piazza) infallibly point to the fact that its builder was familiar with such houses in England in the seventeenth century. The house of Governor Coddington, at Newport, R. I., believed to have been 79 Hearths and Homes built in 1650, identical in the shape of the stack of chimneys, and even in the number of windows in the front, was standing until crowded out by the growth of the town. Buildings of this description still remain in Holborn and other parts of London. Fortunately for the lovers of Puritan days, this one has been allowed to remain, albeit its master no longer occupies it, and it has been stripped of much of its fair environment ; and its once aristocratic front door, from which such old-time worthies as Simon Bradstreet looked upon smiling fields, now opens upon the back yards of baser buildings. We should know the period of its construction and the kind of men who erected it even if we knew nothing of its history and nothing of the tragedies and come- dies of real life that have been acted within its walls. However, we do know something of its happenings. The archives of the early courts indicate that it was " the last and usual place of abode " where legal processes innumerable were served, so that the horse of the marshal of Essex County knew the way to it as well as to his master's barn. This house is on the western side of Central Street, opposite the " Cinder Banks." It is about fifty feet from the present street, which it wholly ignores as it stands in due and regular form facing the south. Its east- ern side outlook commanded the " Iron Works," the primeval forest, the winding river of Saugus, and the bay beyond. It is probably the oldest surviving specimen of a Colonial house within the territory of the original Town of Lynn. It is a good example 80 of Old Lynn of the better class house of the first settlers. Read- ers who revere the fathers of Massachusetts as the wisest and best men of the good old English stock know what such a house was. Others can see it for themselves. The plateau upon which stands this spared monu- ment of Colonial days was as fair a spot, in its primitive aspect, as Puritan eyes looked upon in the whole sweep of Massachusetts Bay. The sharp but uneasy Thomas Dexter the same who bought Nahant of Black Will for a suit of clothes ; the same choleric person who was so little a respecter of dig- nitaries as to assault Governor Endicott ; the same roving spirit who was a leader among the " ten men of Saugus," who founded Sandwich in 1637 was the first owner of the soil hereabout, as civilized states occupy the land as opposed to Nomads and Nationalists. The very first paper recorded in the Registry of Deeds at Salem has an interest from its quaintness, from its connection with this place, from the parties to it, the one, notorious Dexter, the other, noted Bradstreet, of whom we shall hear more. THE RECORDS OF SALEM 1640. Book 1, Page 1. Thomas Dexter of Lyn, yeoman, by his deed dated [22d of Octr] 1639, hath morgaged his fearme in Lyn conteyning about [ ] acres with all his howses, meadows and broken [ ] grounds thereon for two oxen & 2 bulls upon condition of payment to Symon 81 Hearths and Homes Broadstreet of Ipswich [ ] 90 the first day of August then next following with a reservation upon the sale of the said fearme to give the said Dexter the overplus above the debt and damages of the said 90. We copy the paper as it is in the Registry ; it is not the mortgage itself, but a sort of caveat or notice, to whomever it might concern, that such a claim was in existence. It was made two years before any law required such instruments to be recorded, before the adoption by the General Court of the Body of Liberties of 1641. It was fifty years after Farmer Dexter bought his two oxen and two bulls with Mr. Bradstreet's money upon the security of the land when the Governor finally released his claim upon the Iron Works farm. Well might he write his release " from the beginning of the world." The claim was from the beginning of the new world - the Puritan world. Then the village of Hammersmith, with its forge and foundry, with its noise and smoke and brawny men and men of brain, came from Old England to work the bog ore of the neighborhood into the precious metal, iron. Then came Richard Leader Gent, Agent of "ye company of undertakers of ye Iron Works," and built his house so well and strong and sound that in spite of neglect and ill-usage it has survived the fortunes and families of many generations of tenants. It has stood so long that the industry which caused its erection has left behind it only dim tradition of its existence and a 82 of Old Lynn pile of scoria upon the river's bank, which, to the stranger, appears as much the work of Nature as yonder jasper-bedded Round Hill. In the conveyance to Leader the figures indicate the date when he, fresh from London, began to improve the Works and to build his house in Farmer Dexter's corn field. Here is the record : - THE RECORDS OF SALEM 1640. Book 1, Page 4 25, 1, 1646. Thomas Dexter of Lyn in the County of Essex ye[oman] for the sum of 40 st[erling] hath sowld unto Richard Leder for ye use of the Iron works all that land, wch by reason of [a] damme now agreed to be made, shall overflow and all sufficient ground for a water course from the damme, to the works to be erected, and alsoe all [the] land betwene the an[cient] water course and the new extended flume or water course togeather with five acres and an halfe of land lying in the corn field most conven- ient for the Iron Works and also tooe convenient cartwayes that is to one on each side of the prem- ises as by a deed indented bearing date the twentie seaventh of January, 1645, more at lardge apth. The very names of some of its owners have been almost forgotten, but Samuel Hayman was a Coun- cilor in 1692 in the first year under the Provincial Charter of William and Mary. Later he held the same office under the able, adroit, scheming Governor Joseph Dudley. In 1686 Samuel and Nathan Hay- man owned "the Mansion House and Iron Works farm." Then other names of more than ordinary, 83 Hearths and Homes more than Colonial, fame are connected with the place. The venerable Simon Bradstreet, Governor of the Colony (before and after the Andros usurpa- tion) held the same under a mortgage, which on February 15, 1688, he released "with all claims from the beginning of the world," to Samuel Appleton, Sen. and Jr. The magistrate before whom the release was made was Waitt Winthrop. Let it be remembered that at this period or from the day of the deposition of Andros, April 19, 1689, till the arrival of Sir William Phips, May 14, 1692 Massachusetts enjoyed its only three years prior to the American Revolution of pure and abso- lute freedom, independent alike of Crown or Parlia- ment. It was a government deriving all its powers from the people. When men talk of the sturdy qualities of races let them recall the fact that the Puritan, Simon Bradstreet of Salem, the Nicias of New England, who was called by universal approval to be Governor, was eighty-seven years of age when he took the office. The witchcraft historians agree that if he had not been superseded by the arrival of the Royal Charter, in 1692, the witchcraft prose- cutions would have failed. The veneration of the people and his own mental powers at ninety years, save for foreign interference, would have spared our people that dark horror. Samuel Appleton, the elder grantee, was the Indian fighter and, a few years later, Witchcraft Judge. The younger Appleton occupied the house. Then James Taylor, an opulent merchant of Boston, 84 of Old Lynn by numerous conveyances and releases, obtained title and possession of "that farm and tract of land, anciently purchased of Thomas Dexter and others." Here James Taylor lived in Colonial grandeur and died when his time came. It almost seems as if there was such a quality as transmitted proneness to litigation in certain localities. Farmer Dexter's fondness for strife left behind him as an inheritance for the Iron Works unceasing legal dispute with the settlers and with creditors. Major Thomas Savage, of Boston, the famous Indian fighter, was familiar with this house, and when Mr. John Gifford was agent of the com- pany, in 1653, he attached its property, including the Mansion House, and obtained a large judgment against it. After the decease of Mr. James Taylor the demon of Dexter's unrest still lurked about the scene, and not content with the ordinary forms of litigation, it raised a storm over the will of Mr. Taylor, and caused the General Court to pass, in 1719 and 1721, several Special Acts authorizing his widow, Rebecca, and after her decease, her son, William, to keep up a legal warfare with one Chris- topher Taylor of Boston, who was Mr. Taylor's elder son, presumably by another wife. William prevailed and remained here, though he parted with the Man- sion House to Daniel Mansfield, of Boston Street, Lynn, and his grandson, Thomas Mansfield. Judge Samuel Sewall's Diary, published by the Massachu- setts Historical Society [vol. 3, p. 94], under date, 1716, July 29, relates : - 85 Hearths and Homes " Last night Mr. Treasurer Taylor died at his house in Lin. The corps was brought in a Horse-Litter to the Ferry. From the Ferry to his House in Town." " Augt. 2. To Cambridge again by reason of the Admiralty ; so lost Dr. C. Mather's Lecture. Came home time enough to the Funeral of Mr. Treasurer Taylor. Bearers, Lt. Govr. Mr. Winthrop ; Sewall, Mr. Eliakim Hutchinson ; Mr. John Burrill, Speaker, Mr. Treasurer Allen. Skarfs and Gloves. No Rings nor Escutcheons. I saw no Ministers at the house but Mr. Shepard and Mr. Wadsworth : They had Scarvs." James Taylor was Treasurer of the Province from June 17, 1693, to June 25, 1714. From 1693 to the Revolution only four persons held the office ; viz., Taylor, Allen, William Foye and Harrison Gray. On Taylor's retirement the fol- lowing vote was passed : - COUNCIL RECORDS. Dec. 24, 1715. To Mr. James Taylor, the sum of Ninety pounds in consideration of his good and faithfull service for many years as Treasurer of this Province, and his frequently advancing his own money in the publick affairs and the considerable loss he has sustained in the execution of that Office. Two sons, Christopher and William, and six daugh- ters survived their father, James. Of the sons, Christopher seems never to have married ; at least his will leaves all his property to his natural son, Charles Taylor, son of his servant, Anne Bell. of Old Lynn William Taylor, of Lynn, married Sarah, daughter of Samuel Burrill. He had two daughters only ; viz., Rebecca, who married her second cousin, Timothy Orne, and Anne, who married Benjamin Parker, of Lynn. James Taylor's will was proved August 21, 1716. The inventory of his estate has in the list of personal property some curious items : - " A man servt. 10 a boy 10 A maid 5 An old infirm negro man 6 = 31 " Also 219 ounces of sterling silver plate at 8 shillings = 83 12s. William Taylor's inventory, made in 1769, among the live stock appraises a "negro man Ben 10." Slaves in Massachusetts were not rated as very valuable. William Taylor was blessed with daughters, but no son, so the surname was lost, and a considerable portion of the lands descended to the name of Parker, through the marriage of Anna Taylor. The spirit of contention appears to have been exorcised upon the advent of Thomas Mansfield, though his family be- came mourners by his untimely death, caused by a fall from his horse. The widow, however, became somewhat reconciled, for she had changed her name to Cheever before his estate was settled. In the time of the first Thomas Mansfield this was the centre of life in the old town, for he had 87 Hearths and Homes a clothier's shop, a fulling-mill, a dye-house, an " arch house or vault," a grist-mill, "and the conveniency of the stream," as well as a cider-mill. At the time his inventory was filed, October 27, 1758, the value of slaves seems to have increased, as his negro woman and child are appraised at forty pounds. Under the will of his father, who died the same year, Thomas, or his estate, came into possession of the " negro boy CaBsar." By the same will the " negro man servant Pompey" became a freedman. Pompey was the most noted slave in Lynn, reputed to have been a prince in Africa. He made his home under the pro- tection of the Mansfield family in a sunny glade across the river. Besides his lands, mills and slaves, Thomas Mansfield received under the will of his father, Daniel Mansfield, Esq., the treasured cane of his great-grandfather, Andrew Mansfield, the first Town Clerk of Lynn, as well as the first and last person here, designated Sergeant, as the English call pleaders at the bar. Its modern name results from the fact that Sally, daughter of the third Thomas Mansfield, happened to marry Capt. Timothy Davis, from whom its title passed to Mr. Scott, 1 who has so many houses that he allows the name to remain when the substance has vanished. The building of the bridge at East Saugus very soon diverted the course of colonial travel between 1 Mr. Andrew A. Scott, long an active factor in the business, social and religious life of Saugus, has deceased since this was written. He carried on the woolen manufacturing business at Scott's mills under the name of F. Scott & Son. of Old Lynn Ipswich and Salem and Boston from the way by this house, but a large sum of the world's history has been discussed upon the high-backed settle by its huge fire-place as the events transpired. The prin- cipal promoter of the Iron Works, the worshipful Capt. Robert Bridges, speaker of the House of Depu- ties of the Colony, lived near by, and came often to discuss with its master the progress of the won- derful career of Oliver Cromwell. The occupants of this house were parishioners of Rev. Jeremiah Shepard, and rejoiced when the coun- try rose and imprisoned and sent back to England Sir Edmund Andros, after the deposition of the last of the Stuarts. The house was almost a century old when the Massachusetts provincial troops electrified England by the capture of the French Gibraltar, Louisburg, in 1745. It was venerable when the men of Essex and Middlesex met the Briton on Lexington Green, April 19, 1775, and Thomas Mansfield went forth from its shelter to do a patriot's part in the War of the Revolution. It was bearing up bravely under a century and three-quarters of life when the Corsican Bandit lost the Battle of Waterloo, and Capt. Richard Mansfield became first clerk of the newly-incorporated Town of Saugus in 1815. THE VINEGAR HILL CIRCUIT. "To one who has been long in city pent, "Pis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven. ' ' Keats. |N the vicinity of Saugus River, in a circle of which Vinegar Hill is the centre, cluster spots which history, legend and romance associate with the early days. The Pirates' Glen, weird and grewsome by reason of its association with the secrets of lawless men, and dark, hidden and damp even when the mid- summer sun is in the zenith, lies towards East Saugus from the summit of the hill. The Pirates' Lookout is a spur of the same range of felsite rocks, from the summit of which the free- booters scanned the sea beyond the Point of Pines and Nahant for the sails of the black-hulled craft that was expected to bear them away from the restraints of the land to the freedom and license of life on the ocean wave. Instead of which appeared the proud ensign the Union Jack of the mistress of the seas and bore the doomed men away to the condign punishment of English justice. The men have been in their unknown graves for centuries, but sentimental feet yet tread the beaten track that 91 Hearths and Homes leads" down into the gloomy retreat, shut in by the everlasting walls of porphyry. As the point of the compass moves round westerly from the Glen, it intercepts a sunny glade between the gleaming river and the forest-covered hill. Here lived and died the freedman, Pompey, said to have been a king in Africa. He was freed by the will 92 of Old Lynn of Daniel Mansfield in 1757. The little nook of land conveyed to him under the name of Pompey Mans- field contains two acres, and the stone walls around it and the little gambrel-roofed house are still there. Mr. Lewis says : - " Every year, during his life, the slaves, not only of Lynn, but of Boston, Salem and the neighboring towns, obtained leave of their masters, for one day to visit King Pompey. This to them was a day of real happiness. Far from the eye of their masters, they collected on a little glade by the river side, and fancied themselves for a few short hours, on the banks of the Gambia. Each youth on his way gath- ered wreaths, and each maiden, flowers, of which they formed a crown to place on the head of their acknowledged prince. The old men talked of the happy days they had seen in their native land and called to mind the wives and children of their earlier years ; while the youths and the maidens wandered along the river side, or strayed through the forest, and exchanged smiles and formed dreams of happi- ness which the future did not fulfil." Beyond the Pompey place is a magnificent tract of white pine, the like of which an old woodsman said he had not looked upon this side of New Hampshire. This same spot is understood to have given title to one of the Lynn bard's most ambitious poems. He prefaced it with this glowing tribute to the locality that inspired it : - "Thou must know, gentle reader, that the name of Shady Grove is not an invention of the poet's 93 Hearths and Homes fancy, but the appellation of a place as fertile as the valley of Agra, beneath whose embowering trees glides a rivulet delightful as Yarrow ; a scene that need only have echoed to the harp of Hafiz or of Burns to become associated with the dearest ideas of memory and love." The stately proportions of Round Hill, over the river, are mirrored in the placid water as twilight comes on. This hill, so fair to look upon, captivated that scientific dissector of earth's properties, Prof. Edward Hitchcock. He had it engraved for his great work, "The Geology of Massachusetts." He thus speaks of its hidden treasures : - " JASPER. This mineral, reckoned among the pre- cious stones by the ancients, is not uncommon with the porphyry of the eastern part of the State. Saugus has long been known as its principal locality. Specimens from that place, are indeed, more beauti- ful than any which I have met with from other parts of the State, though, were I writing the scientific history of the mineral, I might be permitted to doubt whether it is the genuine jasper of mineralogists. But as it greatly resembles true jasper, it may, with- out practical error be considered such. Its color is red and sometimes it is traversed by a white vein, which makes it resemble the striped jasper of Egypt." Again the moving point of the divider sweeps around the circle, and now it strikes, still on the west bank of the river, the bed of scoria, so inter- esting to students of the earlier days, known to the 94 of Old Lynn villagers as the "Cinder Banks." It crosses the river to the east bank, over the fording place of the fathers, and pushing on to the north rests upon Choose Hill and on its abandoned road, traversed two centuries ago by the farmers of Lynnfield on their pious way to and from the old church on Lynn Common. The name is a reminder of a controversy which was the beginning of the end of the old Town of Lynn the first step which led up in later years to the creation, first of the Town of Lynnfield, and second of the Town of Saugus. For seventy years all the people had worshiped as one parish. The hardship of the long miles from Lynnfield to Lynn bore upon the out-dwellers. A committee represent- ing the three sections which we know as Lynn, Saugus and Lynnfield attempted to choose a site for the meeting-house which should be reasonably convenient for all. They selected this now wooded hill as about equally distant from each locality. Lynn objected. Lynnfield was set off as a parish or district, November 17, 1712, and its inhabitants were to be freed from parish taxes as soon as a meeting-house should be built and a minister settled. This was accomplished in 1715, and the Second Parish of Lynn was duly organized. Saugus later, in 1738, became the Third or West Parish. The natural result was that later the two parishes became towns Lynnfield in 1814, and Saugus in 1815. All these things happened because the people of the low lands of Lynn would not go up to this hill country of Saugus to listen to the preaching 95 Hearths and Homes of the gospel according to Puritanism. The name " Choose " or " Chosen " has remained. In those days there were several houses upon this hill. The last of the old places disappeared in the opening years of the present century. It stood upon the eastern declivity of the hill, not far from where the house of Harrison Wilson is now situated. Its eastern outlook was down the valley which now is filled with the sparkling waters of Birch Pond. Its owner was John Knights, who was a gardener in the service of Landlord Jacob Newhall, of the Anchor Tavern. Mr. B. F. Newhall, the grandson of Land- lord Newhall, in his interesting sketches of Saugus, written thirty years ago, says that the old house was standing within his remembrance. Mr. Newhall had lived to see the extinction of the Knights family and to see the once rural and happy home lapse into the wilderness. It is hard for the casual observer to realize that these oak-covered hillsides once were dotted with the abodes of men. It must be remembered that in the early days of the settlement the Iron Works was the centre of the life of the town. And even after that ceased operations its water privilege - the best in Lynn was utilized for grist-mills and fulling-mills down to the present day, when it is used by the woolen mills of Pranker and Scott. The early settlers came out of the fen counties of England. They were tired of flat lands. They passed by the low plains of Lynn and built upon sightly hills. Later the gregarious habits, sedentary 96 of Old Lynn pursuits, such as shoemaking, the difficulty of reap- ing adequate returns from hard soil, and the aban- donment of the Iron Works, gradually depopulated this territory. Now the moving point passes through the western end of Birch Pond, over the site of Capt. Caleb Downing's house, into and through the Vinegar Hill Road that runs over the highlands from Walnut Street to Hesper Street. Here the evidences of abandonment are plainer and more recent. Along this road are many acres of land, where the aggres- sive pitch pine has usurped the place of the apple orchards of the past. Possibly this may be because our people, under the stress of legislation, have become so temperate as to abjure the use of the product of the cider-mill, which in the olden time was a necessary part of a well-regulated farm. A more probable reason is that people, on account of the flocking-together habit before alluded to, have forgotten their love for pure air and noble views of land and sea, and prefer to jostle each other in crowded streets and stifling tenements in smoky cities. Almost round the circle, of which the Glen was the initial point, the divider strikes a giant boulder, perched on top of a rocky knoll. This is the Boar's Head. Of this marvel of the forces of Nature in the glacial period a story is told which may illustrate the survival in a poor, wrecked intellect of that love of Nature and freedom which had characterized his family. This boulder is so steep and high that 97 Hearths and Homes it can only be ascended by a nimble young man with a printer's stick. On the level top a noble prospect, embracing ocean, forest, city and hamlet, rewards the toil. The rock once had a strange climber. The older people about Boston Street will remember Oliver Fuller Mansfield with his harmless, partly demented, wandering ways. Oliver was, of course, a shoemaker. One day he was missed from shop and house. After more than the ordinary length of wonted disappearances had passed, the neighborhood say Federal Square of to-day be- came alarmed. The country around about was searched, and after a weary tramp through swamps and over hills tangled with underbrush, Oliver was espied, or rather heard, by the sound of his hammer ringing upon the lapstone, on top of Boar's Head, with seat and kit, serenely at work ; fairer outlook no shoemaker's shop ever had. Having traveled superficially round the circle now wild and natural as when the red man trod the same single-file foot-paths we tread to-day, we may seek the central fixed point. We find it mid-way between Vinegar Hill and Choose Hill. The only heathen man who now violates the sanctity of the place is the mercenary employer of the rude wood chopper. In the annals of Lynn, under date 1642, Alonzo Lewis thus writes : - " A great alarm was occasioned through the colony by a report that the Indians intended to exterminate the English. The people were ordered to keep a watch from sunset to sunrise, and blacksmiths were 98 of Old Lynn directed to suspend all other business till the arms of the colony were repaired. A house was built for the soldiers, and another, about forty feet long, for a safe retreat for the women and children of the town in case of an attack from the Indians. These houses were within the limits of Saugus, about M VUf <. f ~l _3 Z SC OJ u Q O O Q DO THE MEETING-HOUSE OF THE SECOND CHURCH IN LYNN. ; NE of the resulting events from the building of the Old Tunnel Meeting-House upon the Common, instead of the compromise location - Choose Hill proposed by the settlers at Saugus and Lynnfield, was the establishment of the North Precinct of Lynn upon substantially the lines of the present town of Lynnfield. The initial move for the setting off of a new Precinct was on January 16, 1711-12, in a petition of the Inhabitants of Lynn Farms. The distance to travel for worship to the First Parish meeting-house was the grievance. Reading (Wakefield) was nearer, but another town, the Parish meeting-house of which was already crowded, and which they had no right to attend, though they contributed to it as well as to their own Parish. On November 17, 1712, Lynn voted, at the request of our neighbors, the farmers, so-called, "That all the part of the town that lies upon the northerly side of that highway that leads from Salem to Reading be set off for a Precinct, and when they shall have a meeting-house and a minister, quali- fied according to law, settled to preach the Word of God amongst them, they shall be wholly freed in Hearths and Homes from paying to the ministry of the town, and not before." The inhabitants of the new Precinct bought a parcel of land, which is now a part of " The Green " at Lynnfield Centre. The deed is dated "This seventh day of December, 1714, and in the first year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, George, King of Great Britain," etc. In the description are these words, "And the said parcel of land is butted and bounded as followeth, viz. : all that land where on ye sd Precinct Meeting House now standeth." So that the meeting-house was erected prior to December 7, 1714, though the first pastor, Rev. Nathaniel Sparhawk, was not installed over the Second Church in Lynn till August 17, 1720. The house was originally nearly square, or to be exact, it was about thirty-seven and a half feet long, and about thirty feet wide ; height of " post " about eighteen feet. In 1782 it was enlarged by cutting it open and inserting a new portion, making the building fourteen feet longer. No alteration has ever been made in the height. There were originally doors on three sides, like the other Puritan meeting- houses. The pulpit and the pulpit window were on the north side. There were galleries upon three sides. For one hundred and ten years no fire was built in the house, and the upper part of the building was used for the storage of the powder of the Precinct, which was considered almost as essential as preaching. Our 112 of Old Lynn fathers believed in the Cromwellian maxim, "Put your trust in God ; but mind to keep your powder dry." It has twenty-six deep windows, which have been renewed several times. Its frame is of massive oak construction. Its interior has been changed by removing the galleries, and by putting in a floor, making two stories. Only two other church edifices in the State can vie with it in point of age and use. One of these is " The Old Ship," so-called, at Hingham. The other is St. Michael's (Episcopalian) of Marblehead. The latter was built in the same year as our North Precinct meeting-house. This building has a unique interest to the people of Lynn. It not only has been a church edifice for all these years, but it is the building wherein the civil affairs of the district, precinct and Town of Lynnfield were transacted down to 1892, when the new Town Hall was dedicated. It is without question the most historic building within the limits of the original Town of Lynn. It is older than the Old South meeting-house, Faneuil Hall, or King's Chapel, of Boston. From roof to foundation stones it is sound, and can be maintained for many coming generations as a cherished memento of the strong race which in travail brought forth a great nation. The illustration is from a photograph taken in August, 1898. For further description of this building reference 113 Hearths and Homes may be had to "Wellman's History of Lynnfield," to a paper read by Mrs. Mary A. Parsons before the Lynn Historical Society, May 11, 1899, entitled "A Trip to Lynn Farms," and an address entitled "Why the Old Town House Was Built," prepared by the writer for the Dedicatory Exercises of the New Town Hall, January 28, 1892, and reprinted in this book. 114 THE MEETING-HOUSE OF THE THIRD PARISH IN LYNN. i HAT is now the Town of Lynnfi eld constituted the North or Second Parish of Lynn up to 1782. In that year Lynnfield was set off from the town as a district. Subsequently the Saugus Parish was known as the Second Parish of Lynn instead of the Third. " The Society of Proprietors of the new Meeting- house in the Western end of the Town of Lynn " was the name of what later became the Meeting-house of the Third Parish of Lynn. It was built by the people of the west end of the town as proprietors, because the First Parish suc- cessfully opposed the setting up of a new parish. The same arguments were used as in the case of the North or Lynnfield Parish, namely, distance and inconvenience of traveling down to worship in the old Parish meeting-house on the Common. The movement to secure a separate place of wor- ship took definite form when William Taylor, on July 1, 1736, conveyed to Thomas Cheever, Jonathan Waite and John Waite a parcel of land " for divers good causes and considerations, but more especially to encourage the building of a meeting-house for the public worship of God," which includes what is now 115 Hearths and Homes the public square whereon stands the Soldiers' Monu- ment in Saugus Centre and the old burying-ground lying to the west. William Taylor was a prominent citizen of the place, the son of James Taylor, who for many years was the Treasurer of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Through the marriage of William Taylor's daugh- ter, Anna, to Benjamin Parker, his blood and his influence has ever since been potent in the affairs of the Parish and Town of Saugus. The building, which still stands, though degraded in use and removed across the road to the north, stood upon what was then a little knoll. It was forty-five feet six inches in length by thirty-five feet eight inches in width with posts twenty feet in height. It had three doors, two of which opened directly into the room of worship, while on the south side was the main door with a large porch, into which were three entrances. When finally abandoned as a church edifice there was a single entrance at the west end. It had galleries and sounding board, but never had a steeple or cupola, and was as plain and austere and homely as all the Puritan meeting-houses 'were. The building was completed in 1737. The proprietors organized under a general law of the Province, authorizing the owners of lands held in common to form themselves into an association. By so associating they could govern themselves sub- stantially in the same manner as a parish. The General Court gave them a share of the income of the First Parish "to maintain preaching among 116 of Old Lynn themselves during the more difficult seasons of the year." In 1738, Edward Cheever, a graduate of Harvard of 1737, then twenty-one years of age, a resident of the West End, became the first minister of the con- gregation and the only minister of the proprietors as distinct from the later organized parish. After a struggle of twelve years, on January 27, 1749-50, a joint committee of the General Court reported in favor of the new Parish. At the first meeting of the Parish, February 2, 1750, it was voted " That the Parish did concur with the church and made choice of Mr. Joseph Roby to be settled in the work of the ministry in said Parish." Thereafter, for the period of fifty-two years, Par- son Roby faithfully and efficiently served the Parish and church as minister and friend. He died January 31, 1803, and his name and quaint-marked tombstone may be seen in the old burying-ground across the way. Like so many of the old Puritan churches, this one was a storm centre of the ecclesiastical duels of the first half of the nineteenth century. The Universal- ists won in the end, and occupied it until 1860, when it was sold and removed to its present site. Whoever seeks to know more of the house may be referred to the exhaustive and sympathetic " Histor- ical Address upon the Third Church in Lynn," deliv- ered by Benjamin N. Johnson at its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, October 13, 1887. 117 THE PURITAN BIRTHRIGHT. i HE Puritans of the seventeenth century were the most earnest and intelligently devout people the world had then or has since known. Their study of the Mosaic law was more profound and obedience to the inspiration from Mount Sinai more literal than that of the Israelites themselves. One of the most graphic pictures in the account of the patriarchs is the story of the sale of Esau's birthright to his younger brother Jacob. The Puritan first-born also had a birthright, but, unlike the son of Isaac, he clung to it tenaciously. The Puritans took the Bible for their law and their gospel, but they had in them all the Saxon's love for land and the Norman's passion for mastership. They rejected the feudal custom which the Norman conquest of England brought into vogue, whereby the first-born male of a family inherited lands under what we know as primogeniture. But they did not go back to the old Saxon Gavelkind which prevailed before the Conquest, under which all children shared alike. They made a compromise. They provided for all their children, but strove to maintain head- ship in the family to keep the fire burning upon the family altar by a curious contrivance. They adopted a scheme of property succession which 119 Hearths and Homes seemed to have something of the Saxon, all children sharing alike, and something of the Norman feudal, which gave all to the eldest son. The Puritans fol- lowed neither one nor the other. Upon the plains of Judea, among that peculiar people in whose behalf the Deity was believed to have special interest, they found their exemplar. In the plan of Moses the tribal or clan relation was paramount. The family and not the individual was the unit. Hence, while each child had his portion, as is shown in the parable of the Prodigal Son, yet the eldest son had his birthright. In the same parable, when the elder son murmured at the rejoicings over the return of the Prodigal, the father wisely replied, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all I have is thine." So the Puri- tans gave the eldest son a birthright, that is, a double portion. Like the children of Israel, the English Puritans in their exodus took with them to Massa- chusetts Bay wives and children, flocks and herds. Heedless of the clash of arms in the mother-country, they went to work to formulate laws for the new world, in which work their successors have been fruitful even to this day. The laws, just one hun- dred in number, bear in their margin, in many cases, reference to Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, upon which they were based. They are entitled "The Body of Liberties of 1641." By the eighty-first paragraph of the Body of Liberties of 1641, it was provided that " when parents dye intestate, the Elder sonne shall have a doble portion of his whole estate, reall and personall, 120 of Old Lynn unlesse the Generall Court upon just reason shall Judge otherwise." The Code of 1660 re-enacted this provision in somewhat modernized spelling : " Pro- vided, the eldest sonn shall have a Double Portion, and where there are no sonns, the daughters shall inherit as Copartners, unless the Court upon just Cause alledged, shall otherwise Determine." Under the provincial charter of William and Mary, the General Court by an act passed November 1, 1692, entitled " An act for the settling and distribu- tion of the estates of intestates," reaffirms this prin- ciple in these words : "... the estate of all to be equal, except the eldest son then surviving (where there is no issue of the first born or of any other elder son), who shall have two shares, or a double portion of the whole : and where there are no sons, the daughters shall inherit as copartners. ..." How like the last clause is the command of Israel's inspired lawgiver upon the same subject (Numbers xxvii : 8) : "And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die and have no son then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter." The preamble to Chapter 14 of the Province Laws, 1692-93, reveals something of the hardships of pioneer life and tender solicitude for the welfare of children : "Whereas, estates in these plantations do consist chiefly of lands which have been subdued and brought to improvement by the industry and labour of the proprietors, with the assistance of their children, the younger children generally having been longest and most serviceable unto their parents in that behalf, 121 Hearths and Homes who have not personal estates to give out unto them in portions, or otherwise to recompense their labour." The eldest son's family did not lose his double portion or birthright, even if he died before his father. His issue inherited his share, but in the event of the estate being incapable of division, as was often the case, the next eldest son took the homestead, paying to the other heirs such an amount in cash, " corn," or " cattle " as a committee of neigh- bors, "three sufficient householders," should deter- mine to be equitable. The principle seems to have been to keep the homestead in the possession of the oldest living male of the family name, he being pre- sumably the best able to maintain the family stand- ing and traditions. Not even the American Revolution, when the glit- tering French catchwords, "liberty, equality, and fraternity," were so popular, sufficed to effect a change immediately. After the war with England was over, and three years after the adoption of the State Constitution, the Legislature of Massachusetts enacted by Statute of 1783, chapter 36, paragraph 1, "that land should descend equally among children, and such as legally represent them, except that the eldest son should have two shares." So that the Puritan birthright was re-enacted by the Common- wealth of Massachusetts. This exception was abro- gated by Statute of 1789, chapter 2, which went into operation on the first of January, 1790 ; and from and after that time all children took in equal shares without regard to sex or primogeniture. 122 of Old Lynn In the vacation months of each year numerous family reunions take place throughout New England. They are occasions of much enjoyment. People from far and near flock to the old homestead, and they talk genealogy, even as the Israelites did of old. It is rank heresy to so much as question the declaration that all men are born free and equal, but God's chosen people of the Scriptures and our Puritan ancestors did not believe in it at all. May we not ask if, in spite of all the vast benefits that have come to our race by the American Revolution, we did not lose something of the sacredness of home and family ties when we abandoned the patriarchal headship and adopted the Procrustean scheme for making all men equal? Would not more of these old homesteads have been retained, would not more ancestral hearth- fires have been kept burning, had the Puritan idea been allowed to prevail instead of the carving and leveling-down scheme? The decadence of the hill towns and the abandon- ment of the old homesteads that were their crowning glory afford themes for much discussion. Not until after the abrogation of the Puritan family headship did attachment to the soil fail or the number of children in native families begin to grow less. So long as the family looked forward to a chosen one as the presumptive care-taker of the old home, all went well. The one whom nature and custom had selected to maintain the family honor and guard the accumulating heirlooms had an incentive to make the place really a family centre, an attractive object 123 Hearths and Homes for an annual pilgrimage. The younger brethren were taught early the necessity for learning useful trades, and as the country grew they went into busi- ness. They were imbued with reverence for the old home, and all knew that its best chamber, the fattest turkey, the choicest products of the yeoman master, were reserved for those who wandered into town life, but whose feet homeward turned for the annual Thanksgiving, the New England family festival. It is just one hundred years 1 since the Puritan first- born lost (by statute) his birthright his first claim upon the home of his fathers. At about the same time he took to trade and commerce and then to manufactures. His children are now the merchant princes of the land. With all the material success which has attended the diversion from the patri- archal system there is a shadow. Where are the homely homes of the fathers? Why are strangers sitting in their gates, who know not the children of the men who built them on the verdant hillsides and gave the healthful impetus which sent forth into the world so many with strong brains to win in every field of endeavor? With wealth and refinement the longings to tread in the footprints of the fathers are not lost. There is much lamentation over the abandoned farms of New England, but there will be found sentiment enough in the men in whose veins runs the blood of the pioneers to restore to them their ancient home- 1 This was written in 1890. 124 of Old Lynn likeness without calling upon aliens to come and possess. We cannot in this radical age re-enact the Puritan birthright. We may be permitted to allude to it as a system under which the race thrived. Under the apparent materialism of the well-to-do descendants of the Puritans there is an ingrained attachment to the soil and to family, which will yet recover every one of those dear old homesteads. There may not be in the future a legal birthright, yet the birthright of memory, tradition and reverence will not be sold like Esau's, but tenderly guarded with the fathers' blessing. 125 PART II Hearths and Homes of Old Lynn STUDIES IN LOCAL HISTORY A CHAPTER IN THE STORY OF THE IRON WORKS. 1 ifPJIDWAY between Salem and Boston, the first and second capitals of Massachusetts, there flows a serpentine little stream, called the Abousett by the Indians and the Saugus by their English successors. From an elevation it resembles a string of "upper-case" letter S's. Tide water meets the down-flowing fresh water two miles from the bay, between Round Hill on the west and the dark forest on the east. Just where the currents lap each other, on the bank of the stream, is a long sloping mound like a sea-serpent's back, which to the passer-by seems but a freak of nature. The hand of man, however, wrought that earth-work. At this point was the fording place crossed in the early days by Endicott and Winthrop, and all the Puritan worthies in the infancy of New England. The mound which lies at this point upon the river bank, and is known to the natives as "the Cinder Banks," is the heaped-up scoria the refuse, the remainder the sweepings of an iron foundry, which was in full blast before the red man had cast his last lingering look upon his beloved river and upon 1 Lynn Historical Society, February 7, 1902. 129 Hearths and Homes the blue waters of the Atlantic beyond. The fleecy snows have mantled it, the sun has scorched it for two centuries, and only an occasional curious observer has disturbed its scanty covering of vegetation for some relic of the first manufacturing industry of the continent. A surpassingly beautiful picture rewards the lover of Nature who ascends the "pirates' look- out " on the opposite side of the stream. Glancing down the lazy waters, in the foreground lie the Nahants and Egg Rock, like fair nymphs arising from the sea ; near at hand are green forests and nestling hamlets ; to the right the eye catches the glittering dome of the State House ; beyond it the famed Blue Hills of Milton ; and far away on the left, almost mingling with the horizon, are the cliffs of Cape Ann. Verily, there is nothing new under the sun in the laws of Nature or of trade. The present large im- petus of English capital into this country only marks afresh the movement that has existed since the very beginnings of the western continent. There is some- thing stimulating in the contact of an old race with a new soil. English capital was seeking investments when the Puritans took possession of Massachusetts Bay. In this marvelous age of iron it will be inter- esting to note a few incidents in the history of the first iron works in America. In the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for October, 1892, a diary of John Winthrop, Jr., with four other papers, bearing upon the estab- lishment of the Iron Works and edited by Robert C. Winthrop, Jr., are printed. 130 of Old Lynn The diary covers parts of November and December, 1645, and relates a trip through Massachusetts south from Boston through Braintree among other places - Rhode Island and Connecticut. R. C. Winthrop, Jr., says of the first of the manu- scripts which follow the diary : - " The first of them is a rough draft (without date, but probably written in the spring of 1644), in which John Winthrop, Jr., narrates his search through Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts for the fittest place in which to establish the iron industry, and he gives at length his reasons for preferring Braintree." Of the third paper he says : - " The third is a letter to Winthrop, from his asso- ciates in London, in June, 1645, introducing Richard Leader, whom they were sending out to superintend the works." In the notes upon this diary the learned editor says : - " Early in 1644 the Massachusetts General Court had granted 3,000 acres of common land at Braintree to John Winthrop, Jr., and others, for the encourage- ment of an iron work to be set up about Monatocot River." By the Records the only grants made to John Winthrop, Jr., during 1644 were, first: "Upon the petition of Mr. John Winthrop, Jr., exhibited to this Court, for leave to make a planta- 131 Hearths and Homes tion at or near Pequott, it is ordered, that the said petition is granted, & that the petitioner shall have liberty to make a plantation in the said Pequott coun- try, with such others as shall present themselves to join in the said plantation, & they shall enjoy such liberties as are necessary, & other far remote planta- tions do enjoy, and also to lay out a convenient place for iron works, provided, that a convenient number of fit persons to carry on the said plantation do appear to prosecute the same within three years. Dated the 28th of the 4th mo., 1644." The second grant was under date November 13, 1644 : - "Mr. John Winthrop, Jr., is granted the hill at Tautousq, about 60 miles westward, in which the black lead is, and liberty to purchase some land there of the Indians." The only other grant to John Winthrop, Jr., near this time was dated May 10, 1648, and relates to him as a prospector of salt mines, instead of iron works, and the land was in the territory conquered from the Indians far from Braintree : " The Court hath agreed that 3,000 acres of land shall be granted to John Winthrop, Junior, of the Pequot land, at Paquatuck, near to the Narraganset country ; provided, that if he set not up a consider- able salt work we mean to make one hundred ton per annum of salt, between the two capes of Massachusetts Bay within three years now next coming, then this grant to be void ; provided, also, that the said land fall within the division of the part of the Pequod 132 of Old Lynn country belonging to this jurisdiction, provided the 3,000 acres be laid out together in one place, & the former agreement with him in the country's behalf is hereby repealed." Early and late writers upon the first Iron Works in America discuss the matter as if there was a dispute as to the priority between Lynn and Brain- tree. It may be worth while to give some chrono- logical and other data. A memorandum made in "The Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," under date of March 2, 1628-29, while preparations were making in England for the planting of the colony, is indicative of a purpose and is the first mention of the iron works question. It is as follows : - "Also for Mr. Malbon, it was propounded, he having skyll in iron works and willing to put in 25 in stock, it should be accepted as 50 and his charges to be borne out and home for New England ; and upon his return and report what may be done about iron works, consideration to be had of proceeding therein accordingly, and further recompense if there be cause to entertain him." John Malbon's name appears a few days later on the records, when he desired to be present for a conference with regard to his proposition, and we hear no more from him. Evidently he failed to agree with the company and did not adventure with the Colonists. 133 Hearths and Homes There is no occasion to get into a controversy as to which was first, the egg or the hen Lynn or Braintree. The historical writers were not careful enough in reading the recorded facts relating to the under- taking hence a seeming not real question as to the priority between the two places. James Savage, the erudite editor of Governor Winthrop's history, says in a note, Vol. 2, page 214 : - " Johnson Lib. III., C. 6, takes notice of the invest- ment by the English undertakers in the work at Braintree, but though more full, he is little more satisfactory than Mr. Hubbard. Neither of these writers mentions but one place, so that from Hubbard we should learn nothing of Braintree forge, nor from Johnson of Lynn. From some powers of attorney given in by the London undertakers, preserved in the Suffolk Registry, Vol. 3, 155, I find the interest was the same in both places." This note of Mr. Savage gives a key to the mystery. So far as the records and the evidence go the scheme to make iron in the Colony remained quies- cent till 1642. From that time there was a lively agitation. Readers of the Colonial Records and of the Suffolk Deeds will readily ascertain that there was only one company of undertakers for the Iron Works and that was the London Company interested by the efforts of Capt. Robert Bridges of Lynn and John Winthrop, Jr. In a note, Vol. 2, page 237, Winthrop's History, Savage says of Capt. Robert Bridges : - 134 of Old Lynn "Johnson lib. Ill c. 26 speaks of his ability and good disposition to serve the public. He was a free- man 2 June 1641, went home next year but came again I find in 1643, with J. Winthrop, Jr., and in the three following years was a deputy for Lynn. Having served in 1646 as Speaker, he was elevated to the rank of Assistant next year, and continued in the office till his death in 1656. Probably the inter- est in the iron works, with which he was inspired by Winthrop, was the cause of his coming to our country." The General Court of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay in New England on March 7, 1643-44, pursuant to its liberal policy in aiding schemes for the growth of new industries answered certain questions of the Iron Works Company. To the first proposition of the company the Court responded by granting a Monopoly of Manufacture for twenty-one years. To the fifth proposition, which was if waste places would be granted, the Court replied : "It is granted, provided they take not above six places, and do within ten years set up an iron fur- nace forge in each of the places and not a bloomery only, provided the Court may grant a plantation in any place where the Court thinketh meet, which may not hinder their present proceeding. Capt. Edward Johnson, of Woburn, wrote a book which purported to be " A History of New England, from the English Planting in the yeare 1628 until the yeare 1652." It was first published anonymously 135 Hearths and Homes in London in 1654. It is better known to bibliograph- ers under the title, " Wonder- Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New England." Johnson's book was the result of journeys through the Colony and consists largely of the planting of the churches with descriptions of the industries and ways of living of the people. In his account of Lynn he says : - " There is also an Iron Mill in constant use, but as for Lead they have tried but little yet." So that Mr. Savage was in error, and Johnson had discovered the doings at Lynn. Goodwin in "The Pilgrim Republic," page 527, says : - "In 1645 Iron Works were set up at Lynn, but were soon closed through the reasonable fear of the people that the demand for charcoal would consume the scanty supply of wood." Another trial was made at Braintree, and in 1646 Dr. Child there produced some tons of cast-iron "pots, mortars, stoves and skillets." The latest writer of the story of the planting, Daniel Wait How r e, in his book, "The Puritan Republic," in the chapter on Industrial and Commercial Life, page 133, says : - " A pottery was established at Salem in 1641 and iron works at Lynn in 1643, but the latter were abandoned." Dr. W. S. Pattee, in his history of Braintree, in the chapter on Iron Works, page 460, says : - 136 of Old Lynn "The greater part of the capital and principal business was at Lynn, as at the time of the failure of the iron company the apprizements of their estate at Lynn amounted to 3,295 2s. 6d. and at Braintree 666 3s. 3d." We may add that it appears by Suffolk Deeds Liber II., pages 265 to 272, that the judgment cred- itors, they being Robert Burgis, Nicholas Potter, John Tarbox, Joseph Mansfield, John Hawthorne, Edward Baker, Daniel Salmon, Thomas Wiggins, William Tingle, John Hill, and Joseph Armitage were all of Lynn. All the judgments were had at the Salem Court. Under the executions there issued the defendants are named as " Mr. John Bee & Company, under- takers of the Iron Workes at Lynne." One parcel levied upon is described "by grant from the Towne of Boston was seized of Two thousand eight hundred & Sixty acres of land at Braintry." Other property of the company was levied upon in Boston and in Lynn, but the citations given above plainly show that though the company had lands in different localities as allowed by the General Court, the seat, the centre, of the Works was at Lynn. Dr. Pattee, page 457, says : - " It is useless for us to go over the extensive field of controversy in reference to whether Lynn or Braintree erected the first iron forge in America. It is of little moment to us whether Lynn or Braintree began their works one or six months previous to the other, as they were one and the same company, and 137 Hearths and Homes most probably their works established as near together as the nature of the circumstances would admit. We are, however, of an opinion that the evidence pre- dominates to Lynn. Still, it is an open question, and we think will ever remain as such." Dr. Pattee goes on to say : - " The first branch forge and furnace, for the manu- facture of iron ware in America (as it was one branch, the other having been built at Lynn by the same company), was constructed in that part of Braintree which is now called Quincy, on what has ever been known as Furnace brook." And ever since, the Braintree writers have disputed as to where their forge was. That is their contro- versy, not ours. We know where our pond, canal, works and forge were. The grant of nearly 3,000 acres in Braintree was made by the Town of Boston of its common lands to the Iron Works Company, and was recorded in Suffolk Deeds, Liber I, page 73. This conveyance was con- firmed by the Selectmen of Boston on the 23d of 9 month, 1647. One conveyance to the Company of Undertakers of the Iron Works, or to Richard Leader, agent, of land in Braintree, was the first recorded transaction, as appears in Suffolk Deeds, Liber I, page 62. This was the George Ruggles land, and the conveyance was dated September 29, 1645. It may be of interest to copy another instrument which antedates the others and gives a description of the land where the great iron works experiment 138 of Old Lynn was substantially tried by Leader and Bridges, and later by John Gifford : - " Thomas Dexter, of Linne, granted unto Richard Leader of Boston, Mercht. Agent for a certaine Com- pany of Undertakers for an Iron works & in their behalf (in consideration of XXXX sterl. in hand payd.) All that parcell of land neere adjacent to the Grantors house, wch shall necessarily be over- flowed by reason of a pond of water there intended to be stopped unto the height agreed on betwixt them, and also convenient land & sufficient for a water course intended to be erected together with the land lyeing betweene the ould water course & the new one. As also fyve Acres & halfe in the Cornefield next the Grantors house & most convenient for the uses intended, & twoe convenient Cart wayes, one on the one syde of the bargained premises, & another on the other syde thereof. And this was an absolute deed of sale with clause of warranty ; And the said Rich. Leader, in behalfe of his principalls, did grant that all the purchased premises in conven- ient season be fenced from the Grantors lands with a sufficient fence to be made & maintained for ever at the charge of the said Company of Undertakers, as also to make & maintaine towards Capt. Bridges house, & one at the out bounds of Tho. Dexters land goeing to the Towne Comon, & to make & maintaine a sufficient Cart bridge over the said water course out of the lands of the Grantor through some part of the purchased premisses unto the other part of his [71.] Lands to his use & benefit ; & yearely for- ever, throughout the second & third months to allow sufficient water in the ould River for the Alewives to come to the wyres before the Grantors house. And what soever trespass shallbe done by any beast 139 Hearths and Homes estrayeing through the said Gates or fences, in the Grantors Corne fields, the said Grantee for himself & principalls doth covenant to make good unto the Grantor uppon Just Demand." And this was by Indenture of sale, dated XXVII of the Xlth month, 1645. And acknowledged before Mr. Endicot VJth 1, 1645. [Suffolk Liber 1, 70, 71]. Wherever the Iron Works are mentioned, as for example, in a conveyance from Joseph Armitage, of Lynn, to Captain Thomas Savage, Suffolk Deeds, Liber 3, page 3, they are described as "ye Iron Workes at Lynne and Braintry." In the same vol- ume, pages 137 and 138, is a release from William Payne to Henry Webb, of interest in the Iron Works in New England, in which the property is described as at Lynn and Braintree in New England, showing that though the company had liberty to take land in other places these two were the only ones taken. At the time of Paine's death he was owner of three-fourths of the title in common with others, the whole being under the supervision of Oliver Purchess. By his will he gave this interest to his son John, adding the following clause : " And I do hereby earnestly request Mr. Oliver Purchis to be helpful to my son John concerning the Iron Works and the accounts thereof, whose abilities and faith- fulness I have had experience of, into whose care I do commit the said accounts." The title subse- quently passed from John to Mr. Appleton, though not till after a long lawsuit. 140 of Old Lynn Under date of 1678, Mr. Lewis writes : - "This year, Samuel Appleton, Jr., took possession of the Iron Works by a grant in the will of William Payne, of Boston." Mr. Lewis and the author of the Paine Genealogy do not agree, and these differing statements are a fair sample of the difficulties that beset those who in local history look for accuracy. In 1651, Richard Leader, agent of the Iron Works Company, had proved himself persona non grata to Governor Endicott, the General Court and the church at Lynn. He went home, and John Giff ord succeeded him as agent for the undertakers. From thence, on, the Colony Records teem with what the side notes call "Iron Works disputes." In 1654, Mr. Gifford appears to have been at odds with the company. Noted names appear in the pro- ceedings. On September 20 of that year, " Captain Keane (Robert Keayne) and Mr. Edward Hutchinson, attorney for Mr. Josiah Winslow, deputies and attor- neys for the undertakers of the iron works, plaintiff, and Mr. John Gifford, late agent to the undertakers of the iron works, defendant," appear before the General Court, which undertakes to solve many ques- tions, such as whether Gifford was agent of the company his liability to the company. Richard Bellingham was Governor of the Colony. Increase Nowell was the first assistant, and the Court had to pass upon their right to vote in the 141 Hearths and Homes case, showing an opinion on the part of the members that they were not disinterested. John Gifford, on the whole, was the Englishman most closely connected with the Iron Works, who lived and died in Lynn. As agent of the London Company he had a checkered career, and after the stress of iron works troubles was over, he bought a farm and water privilege higher up Saugus River and continued the Iron Works on his own account at what is now Hewlett's Mill Pond in North Saugus. His house was where the Butterfield house is to-day, under the shadow (unless the railroad people have destroyed them) of the great trees on the way to Wakefield. Gifford's life deserves more notice from local his- torians than can be given here. He cast his lot with us, and his descendants are numerous in Lynn and Essex County. Among the papers recorded in Suffolk Deeds, Liber 3, page 155, is a power of attorney, ac- knowledged before "Sir Robert Tichborne, Knight, Lord Mayor of the Cittie of London & the Aldermen or Senators of said Cittie," in which he is described as John Gifford, of the Parish of Allhallowes Barking, London, merchant, aged thirty-four years or there- abouts. This paper was executed at the Guild Hall, of London, on the first day of September, 1657. On November 28, 1654, the creditors named else- where obtained judgment against the Iron Works Company, and levied upon all the property of the concern. Curiously enough, these judgments were had before Capt. Robert Bridges, whose close con- 142 of Old Lynn nection with the affairs of the company would in modern days have debarred him from sitting in the cases. Within a year, or about January, 1655, all the cred- itors had sold their interest in the seized property to Capt. Thomas Savage, of Boston, a Colonial dignitary and a member of the General Court. (See Suffolk Deeds, Liber 2, pages 265 to 272.) In 1657 the adventurers were plainly of opinion that they had been deluded by the people of the Colony as to the doings of Mr. Gifford. The other adventurers made a power of attorney to one of their number, John Becx. An indenture was signed August 25, 1657, to which the parties were John Becx, representing the London Company, and John Gifford. We may make extracts from this old-time paper to show how fully Gifford had regained the confidence of the company. At this time, owing to mismanagement, or misfortune, the property or its title had passed into the hands of Captain Savage : - " Whereas, the actings and proceedings of the said John Gifford, who was formerly employed and auth- orized by the said John Becx and divers other, the said adventurers and co-partners touching and con- cerning the said Iron Works in New England afore- said, were by certain persons there then inhabiting misrepresented unto the said John Becx and them the said adventurers who giving credit there unto were seduced and thereby induced to countermand his further agency in and concerning the premises, and thereupon to impower, intrust and imploy cer- tain persons of New England, namely, Capt. Robert 143 Hearths and Homes Bridges, of Lynn, Capt. William Ting, of Boston, Henry Webb and Joshua Foote, of the same, and afterwards Capt. Robert Keayne, and Josias Winslow, of Boston, aforesaid in New England deputies and attorneys for and on the behalf of the said John Becx and other the said adventurers and copartners touch- ing the premises, who did not pursue the directions to them the said deputies and attorneys in and by ye several writings or letters of attorney to them in yt behalf given and granted, which tended to the great prejudice and damage of the said adventurers, and copartners in their interests and estates, in and to the premises. Now this indenture witnesseth that the said John Becx as well by force and virtue, of the said recited writing and letter of attorney, and the power therein to him in that behalf granted as aforesaid, or other wise upon his own interest doth by these presents for and on the behalf of himself, and the said other adventurers and copartners utterly revoke make null and void the said writing or letter or letters of attorney, formerly made or granted touching or concerning the said Iron Works to them the said Capt. Robert Bridges, Capt. Robert Ting, Henry Webb, Joshua Foote, Capt. Robert Keayne, and Josias Winslow or any of them or to any other person or persons other than to the said John Gifford, and thereupon the said John Becx, by virtue of the said power and authority to him granted as afore- said, hath again intrusted, constituted, authorized, deputed, and made, and by these presents doth in- trust, constitute, authorize, depute and make the said John Gifford, his lawful agent factor attorney and assignee as well for him the said John Becx, as for and on the behalf of other ye adventurers and copartners, aforesaid by all due and legal ways and means to enter into and upon the said Iron Works, iron mines, lands, woods, houses, edifices, and build- 144 of Old Lynn ings with the appurtenances thereunto belonging, and to question, examine and to call to account all and all manner of person and persons whatsoever, who now are or have been any wayes heretofore employed, intrusted, interested or related, in unto or concerning ye premises or had or have the custody or possession of any the iron, iron ore, money, debts, stock or store of cattle, coal, wood, lands, houses, buildings, and other ye good instruments, commodi- ties, materials or things whatsoever, of or belonging to the same or any part thereof, and the same prem- ises and every or any part thereof ; to receive and take into his hands government regulation and dis- posals, for and unto the proper use, benefit and behoof of the said John Becx, and others the said adventurers and copartners, and further to audite, rectify, settle, conclude, and finish all reckonings accounts, and dealings depending or pretended to be between the said John Becx and other the said adventurers and co-partners on the one part and such other person or persons in New England afore- said or elsewhere, on the other part, as are in any wise concerned in the premises. And further the said John Becx doth by these presents, for himself and the said other adventurers and copartners, give and grant to the said John Gifford full power and authority all and every ye person and persons, with- olding or detaining of the said goods and premises, and denying upon demand, to make delivery thereof or any part thereof, unto the said John Gifford, for him the said John Becx, and in his name and in ye name or names of all or any, or as many of the said adventurers and copartners as shall be thought fit, to arrest, attach, sue, impead, imprison, condemn, and out of prison to deliver, release, acquaint, and discharge by writing or otherwise/' [See Suffolk Deeds, Liber 3, pages 159 and 160.] 145 10 Hearths and Homes As if it were not enough for Gifford himself to be in hot water all the time, his wife Margaret, an estimable woman, was complained of by Dr. Philip Read, of Lynn, as being a witch. The complainant said, " he verily believed that she was a witch, for there were some things which could not be accounted for by natural causes." Mrs. Gif- ford gave no regard to her summons, and the Court very prudently suspended their inquiries. The time had not come for the madness of 1692, which was prolific of individual misery. Yet to the credit of Massachusetts let it be said that here was broken the spell of demonology which had up to that time held in chains the whole Christian world. Gifford seems to have been a scapegoat for the sins of people whom the authorities of the Colony could not reach, even beyond the biblical account (Leviticus 16 : 10), for after he had escaped to the wilderness of the upper Saugus he was persecuted and prosecuted and imprisoned for the obligations of the company. He was released from imprison- ment by the General Court in May, 1656, at the request of the London undertakers. Many years later, October 15, 1684, he presented to the Court a petition relating that " he hath now been a prisoner upon execution fower yeares and seven months " in a matter in which the principals were dead and the attorney declined further interference, whereupon "The court, having weighed the necessitous and perishing condition of the prisoner, with other con- siderations, doe hereby, and declare, that, unless 1-J6 of Old Lynn sayd Walters, or some other in behalfe of sayd prin- cipall, doe, within ten dayes, appear and give caution to the keeper for the discharge of the prisoners, and other necessaries for the relieif e of the sayd prisoner, the secretary shall grant his warrant to the keeper for his release, he, sd Gifford paying prison ffees and charges then due." Then the name of Gifford disappears from the Col- ony records. Let us trust that his later years were serenely passed in the vale of Saugus, where he could watch the morning sun gild Castle Hill, while its evening rays were reflected in the glistening waters of the pond with which his life's labors were associated. May 25, 1700. John Cogswell, of Chebacco Parish, Ipswich, and his wife, Margaret (Gifford) Cogswell, conveyed to Timothy Wiley and Thomas Hawkes, that part of the farm " Lying where my honored father, John Gifford's iron works, stood/' This conveyance of seventy-three acres embraced the Howlett's Mill property and the land which a generation ago was the William Edmands farm. March 3, 1702-3. John Cogswell and his wife, Margaret, conveyed the remainder of "Gifford's farm " to John Brintnall. This covered one hundred and seventy-seven acres, and was what, of late years, is known as the Butterfield farm, and ran up to w r hat is now the boundary line of Saugus and Lynn field. The witnesses to the last conveyance were Moses Hawkes, Thomas Hawkes and Thomas Cheever. The deeds may be found in Essex Deeds, Book 14, page 54, and Book 15, page 124. 147 Hearths and Homes Various reasons are given to account for the failure of the enterprise, such as hostility of land owners, fear of using up the forests for charcoal, inadequate capital. But there was something else. There was a constant friction between the foreign and home management. The people of the Colony thought they ought to regulate affairs, and the people who furnished the capital inclined to think that they could direct the expenditure of their own money. Another stumbling block was the distressing fact that some of the agents and employees of the com- pany slighted their privilege of going to meeting. 148 REAR VIEW OF HOUSE (MARION STREET) ON WHICH THE LYNN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PLACED THE TABLET INSCRIBED : "BILLY GRAY HOUSE." THE BIRTH-PLACE OF LIEUT. GOV. WILLIAM GRAY, GRANDFATHER OF JUDGE HORACE GRAY OF THE U. S. SUPREME COURT. ALSO, THE RESI- DENCE OF DR. JOHN FLAGG, AN ARDENT REVOLUTIONARY PATRIOT. CHOSEN A MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE OF SAFETY IN 1775, AND RECEIVED A COMMISSION AS COLONEL. CAPTAIN ROBERT BRIDGES, FOUNDER OF THE FIRST IRON WORKS IN AMERICA. iMONG the Puritan worthies who planted the Colony of Massachusetts Bay and was first as to public service in the settlement of Lynn was a man known to his contemporaries, in the stately language of the times, as the Worshipful Captain Robert Bridges. His home was on the west bank of Saugus River, upon what is now Central Street in Saugus Centre, southwest from " the Cinder Banks." His years in Lynn were not many in num- ber, but crowded with activities public and private. He took the freeman's oath June 2, 1641, the form of which, as prescribed by the General Court as early as 1634, is significant of the intentions of the settlers from the absence of any reference to the government of the King. It reads as follows : - "I, A. B., being by God's providence an inhabitant and freeman within the jurisdiction of this common- wealth, do freely acknowledge myself to be subject to the government thereof, and therefore do swear by the great and dreadful name of the ever-living God that I will be true and faithful to the same, and will accordingly yield assistance and support there- unto, with my person and estate, as in equity I am bound, and will also truly endeavor to maintain and 149 Hearths and Homes preserve all the liberties and privileges thereof, sub- mitting myself to the wholesome laws and orders made and established by the same ; and further, that I will not plot nor practice any evil against it, nor consent to any that shall do so, but will timely dis- cover and reveal the same to lawful authority now here established, for the speedy preventing thereof. Moreover, I do solemnly bind myself, in the sight of God, that when I shall be called to give my voice touching any such matter of this state, wherein free- men are to deal, I will give my vote and suffrage as I shall judge in mine own conscience may best conduce and tend to the public weal of the body, without respect of persons or favor of any man. So help me God, in the Lord Jesus Christ." In the same year that Mr. Bridges took the oath he became a member of the "Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company," and also was made Captain of the Lynn Militia Company. In 1642 he went to London and formed the Iron Works Company, as related elsewhere. He returned with the younger Winthrop, whom he had interested in the cause. In 1644 he became a member of the Quarterly Court at Salem, and was elected a Deputy to the General Court from Lynn also in 1645 and 1646, in which latter year he was made Speaker. Under the Colonial Charter a very large portion of the governing power of the Colony was vested in a select and limited body of influential men, known as the Governor and Assistants. During the whole of what is called the Colonial period, from 1630 to 1692, Lynn was only represented in this Board by two per- 150 of Old Lynn sons. The first was John Humfrey, one of the men to whom the Charter was granted, who had come over with his wife the daughter of the great Puri- tan nobleman, Earl of Lincoln as a promoter of the Colony rather than as a permanent settler. After the success of the movement was assured he returned to England. Captain Bridges was chosen an Assist- ant in 1646, and remained in the office till his death in 1656. He went to the Board of Assistants directly from the speakership of the House of Deputies or Representatives. As Speaker he stands alone as the only Lynn man who was advanced to that honorable post during the Colonial period. John Burrill, "the beloved speaker," subsequently held similar positions, but his service was after the Puritan experiment of a free commonwealth had been suspended by the Charter of William and Mary, and Massachusetts was ruled by Governors appointed by the King instead of chosen by the people. Speaker Burrill's house, on the southern slope of Tower Hill, also looked out upon the river where the tides covered the great marshes upon its banks. A paper somewhat noted in our local annals, bear- ing the autographs of many of the first settlers, called the "Armitage petition," appears in Mr. Bridges' handwriting, and shows him to have been an elegant penman. The document is a prayer of the leading citizens : - " That Jane Armitage may be licensed to keep the ordinary, instead of her husband Joseph, whose ' la- 151 Hearths and Homes bours & indeauors have beene blasted, and his aims & ends frustrated by a just hand, beinge also made incapable of such other ymploym 1 as hee is personally fitted for by reason of the sensure vnder w ch for the p r sent he lyeth & alsoe being outed of such trade & comerce as might have afforded supportacon to his familie consistinge of Diuers p r sons & small Chil- dren in comiseracon of whom, togither with yo r peticonesse, the inhabitants of o r town were pleased (as farr as in them lay) to continue yo r poore peti- conesse in the Custodie of the said Ordinary, & that benefitt w ch might accrew from the same to take towards makeinge of theire Hues the more comfort- able ; wherevpon & by reason whereof yo r peticonesse said husband procured the most convenient howse in Lynn for the purpose albeit itt was very ruinous & much cost bestowed respectinge his p r sent condicon in repaireinge & fittinge vp of the same accordingly/ ' The first signers were Samuel Whiting, pastor, and Thomas Cobbett, teacher, of the Church of Lynn ; then, at a respectful distance, follow the names of the laymen, led by the clear signature of Robert Bridges. It would make a modern Board of Alder- men or Selectmen amazed to receive a petition for a tavern license signed by the clergymen of the place. The tavern was the old "Anchor," a noted hostelry for many generations down to the time when Landlord Jacob Newhall kept it, and occupied the best pew in the Third Parish Meeting-house by virtue of paying the largest Parish tax. If the saintly Whiting and the astute Bridges had lived in these days the whole pack of wiseacre agitators would have been barking at their heels. They were ac- 152 of Old Lynn counted godly and wise men in their day and genera- tion. Is it not possible that their conservatism and regulation were the fruit of deep observation of human nature which human nature is about the same now as then? We know less of the manner of life of Mr. Bridges than of many of his contemporaries who were not half as influential, because he lacked certain angular points that marked them. We hear much about his neighbor, Farmer Dexter, because his temper brought him into trouble as a reviler of dignitaries. We are familiar with Bennet, because he was a common sleeper in meeting, and by reason of his litigation with the Iron Works Company. We get an idea of what manner of man Captain Marshall was from the yarns he spun about his service with Cromwell - which stories his guests recorded in their note-books and then printed. Others are pictured to us through family tradition. Yet we can without any of these aids form a fair estimate of the daily life of this Puritan pioneer. That he walked in straitest Puri- tan ways his constant service in the Board of Assist- ants testifies. Historians are fond of enlarging upon the power of the Puritan clergy. In one very important matter they had absolutely no authority. John Winthrop and his followers regarded marriage as a purely civil contract. Speaking of them Governor Hutchin- son says : " I suppose there had been no instance of a marriage lawfully celebrated by a layman in England when they left it. I believe there was 153 Hearths and Homes no instance of marriage by a clergyman after they arrived during their Charter, but the service was always performed by a magistrate, or by persons specially appointed in particular towns or districts." The magistrates were the Governor, the Deputy Governor and the Assistants. For ten years, from 1646 to 1656, one of the functions of Mr. Bridges was the legalizing the union of the young people of Lynn in the state of matrimony. The Colonial statute regarding the ceremony of marriage was passed in the year that Captain Bridges became a member of the Court of Assistants. As an illustration of Puritan views the following is copied from " The Book of the General Laws and Liberty es concerning the Inhabitants of the Massachusets, col- lected out of the Records of the General Court, for the years wherein they were made and established," and printed in Cambridge in 1660 : - "As the Ordinance of Marriage is honourable amongst all, so should it be accordingly solemnized. It is therefore Ordered by this Court and Authority thereof. That no person whatsoever in this jurisdic- tion, shall joyne any persons together in Marriage, but the magistrate, or such other as the General Court, or Court of Assistants shal Authorize in such place, where no Magistrate is near. Nor shal any joyne themselves in marriage, but before some mag- istrate or person authorized as aforesaid. Nor shal any magistrate, or other person authorized as afore- said, joyne any persons together in marriage, or suffer them to joyne together in marriage in their presence, before the parties to be marryed have been published according to Law." 154 of Old Lynn After the death of Captain Bridges Lynn was one of the places described as "where no magistrate is near." It may seem strange to those who have been taught that our fathers were a stern race to learn that the man selected to succeed Mr. Bridges in tying the nuptial knot was the redoubtable Thomas Mar- shall, formerly parliamentary soldier, transformed into the jolly Boniface of the Blew Anchor. Yet he was thus empowered by the General Court on the eighteenth of October, 1659. The Records of the Quarterly Court also state that during the next month, November, " Thomas Marshall, of Lynn, is alowed by this Court, to sell strong water to trav- ellers, and also other meet provisions." Thus all the inhabitants of Lynn who dared the perils of either matrimony or of "strong water" thereafter applied at the door of the old tavern which has been so lovingly immortalized by our local historians. With his other accomplishments Captain Bridges was a skillful diplomat. From 1632 to 1654, the famed land of Acadia, extending from Nova Scotia to the cloud-covered domes of the isle of the desert mountains, was in possession of France. Two rival French governors, D'Aulnay and La Tour, fought for supremacy. La Tour sought aid from Massachu- setts. It required shrewd management to avoid entanglement with the crafty Frenchmen, and con- sequent war with the offended party. Finally in 1645 a treaty was signed, pledging the Colonists to neutrality. Captain Bridges was the Massachusetts Commissioner. He was accompanied by Richard 155 Hearths and Homes Walker and Thomas Marshall, both valiant soldiers, whose homes were upon the shores of Saugus River. Pecuniary compensation was then exceedingly mod- est ; for " good services in this mission Captain Bridges was allowed ten pounds, Lieutenant Walker four pounds and Sergeant Marshall forty shillings. In the young Puritan Commonwealth public service was a duty to be freely rendered. Even in the present age, when the shrill whistle of the mammoth steamer echoes against the rock- ribbed headlands of Maine, and the muffled response of distant lighthouse bells peals mournfully across the sullen waters from Boone Island or Monhegan or Owlshead, the voyage to the Acadia of song and history is weird and exciting. When Robert Bridges and his companions skirted the grim coast in clumsy sailing-vessels, the only sounds that broke upon the ear were the flapping sails, the splash of waters cut by the sharp prow, or the sombre waves beating upon some dangerous reef. The land to which they jour- neyed was filled with their hereditary enemies the murderous Indian and the Jesuit Frenchman. Al- though nearly two and a half centuries ago, and the actors all gone, the scenes remain almost as they were then the uneasy, ever-moving sea, Mount Agamenticus against the sky, the blue hills of Cam- den, and above all that calm, steady guide of marin- ers, the North Star, still and forever pointing onward. Bridges and his colleagues diplomatically steered their bark between Scylla and Charybdis. The con- federacy of New England held aloof from the 156 of Old Lynn contestants ; D'Aulnay captured La Tour's fort at St. Johns, and the fortune of war went against La Tour, who was apparently ruined. D'Aulnay, however, opportunely died, whereupon La Tour married his widow and recovered his lost posses- sions. As a fit sequel to this episode, Cromwell, who was ever watchful of the Colonies, sent secret instructions to Boston, which resulted in the subjugation of the whole of Acadia by Massachusetts in 1654. It remained in possession of the English while Crom- well lived ; then by the treaty of Breda, in 1667, Charles II ceded Acadia with its vast and undefined limits to France, to become a football of European intrigues for a century. Mr. Newhall in his history of Lynn, while giving Mr. Bridges full credit for his talents and strong character, seems to think he was hard and masterful in his relations with inferiors. It is to be remem- bered that he was a magistrate in a new country where it was considered necessary to hold a tight rein over the conduct of adventurers who disturbed the well-ordered plan of the Puritan theocracy. Violators of established rules naturally complained of those who restrained them. His associates found nothing in him to condemn. Robert Keayne, the eminent merchant of Boston, the first commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, unconsciously put on record testimony of his domestic life when he wrote in his will these words : " I have forgott one Loveing Couple more that came not to 157 Hearths and Homes my minde till I was shutting vp ; that is Cap 1 Bridges & wife to whom I give forty shillings." No man who lacked suavity and winning social manners could have persuaded calculating London merchants to have ventured their dearly loved funds in an iron works experiment across the Atlantic, in a savage and unknown land. To negotiate a success- ful treaty with subtle Frenchmen required all the powers of a keen and polished man of affairs. The uniform success of Mr. Bridges in everything he undertook, his continued advancement in places of trust and power, are better witnesses for our judg- ment of his character than the whine of those who felt his righteous discipline. Edward Johnson in his " Wonder- Working Provi- dence" thus tersely sums up the character of Mr. Bridges : " He was endued with able parts, and for- ward to improve them to the Glory of God and his people's good." 158 T7 ! -;' ; -:wv. _'.. - __" Rincln T.bnr. l,n LOin'ril Jo 1 ni Voll Coht. No "JO 7 v. Woji CnVftu^ \V Omen's Jitcllf ,u\ Ma< J. .Tu. No) T h rl. $fe/fCT 1) niil- KUi->> Thn V THE OLD TUNNEL MEETING-HOUSE EVOLUTION OF THE TOWN FROM THE PARISH. 1 N the first edition of " Lewis' History of Lynn" in the annals under date 1805, Mr. Lewis wrote : - " For one hundred and seventy-three years, from the building of the first parish meeting-house, the people had annually assembled in it for the transac- tion of their municipal concerns. But this year, the members of that parish observing the damage which such meetings occasioned to the house, and believing that, since the incorporation of other parishes, the town had no title in it, refused to have it occupied as a town-house. This refusal occasioned much con- troversy between the town and parish, and committees were appointed by both parties to accomplish an adjustment. An engagement was partially made for the occupation of the house, on the payment of twenty-eight dollars annually ; but the town refused to sanction the agreement, and the meetings were removed to the Methodist meeting-house, on the eastern part of the common." This statement unabridged and unenlarged upon stands in each subsequent edition of Lewis and of Newhall. 1 Lynn Historical Society, December 14, 1898. Hearths and Homes If the records of the Parish and Town had been written out fully, there would have been much of historical interest in what might have been the dramatic ending of the Puritan problem of a union of Church and State, Parish and Town, in Lynn. To attempt to relate the story of how the modern Lynn with its plethora of religious sects was evolved from a Puritan parish would be too much of a tax upon your patience for an evening's talk. One of the peculiarities of Lynn is the fact that two men, Mr. Lewis and Mr. Newhall, who have done so much to elucidate our history, were not in touch with that amazing religious reformation which created the short-lived Commonwealth of England and the enduring Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While each was loyal to his native town, each was proud of his connection with the Church, the protesting against conformity with which was the moving cause of the settling of Massachusetts. If our historian had been a Congregationalist, either Unitarian or Trinitarian, he would have found a theme of interest in tracing the sequence of events which led to this controversy. The theory of the Puritan planters was that the fee of all lands was in the Company, and that grants for plantations were made for the settlement of a Parish, and incidentally for the civil concerns of such Parish. A prime concern of the Parish and its crea- ture the Town was the support of the ministry. Hence the Town in granting to individuals made it a condition that all the land should bear its share in 160 of Old Lynn the common burdens of the Town, an important item of which was the ministry. Rev. Dr. Parsons Cooke, Lynn's most profound student of and brilliant writer upon the early days, says : " This was the obligation which lay upon the land, a reserve tacitly made in the original grant, and which could not be nullified in passing from one owner to another. It was a condition in the deed which bound and attached it to the titles of all future owners." The Puritan plan of carrying on all affairs eccle- siastical and civic in the Parish seems to have worked without friction in Lynn until the Colonial Charter was abrogated and the usurpation of Sir Edmund Andros had been ended and the Provincial Charter was in full force. For nearly a hundred years the Puritan Theocracy had dominated New England. Great changes took place in the era of the Provincial Charter and of the Royal Governors. The Tunnel Meeting-house 1 had been built by assessment upon all the acres of the whole Town in 1682. In spite of the locating of new parishes and the setting up of rival denominations, the meeting-house a The illustration of The Old Tunnel Meeting-House not the first meeting-house, but the first erected on the Common accom- panying this is a fac simile of a pen sketch made by Alonzo Lewis, the historian and bard of Lynn, found among his papers, and now, by the kindness of Mr. Charles Henry Newhall, in the possession of the Lynn Historical Society. 161 Hearths and Homes of the First Parish was the place of meeting for all purposes of the Town for one hundred and seventy- three years, as Mr. Lewis recorded. The first break in the Parish was a legitimate one even from the Puritan standpoint. It was a long distance for the farmers of Lynn End or Lynnfield to travel to worship on Lynn Common in the short winter days when they frequently had more severe snow-storms than we had upon the last night of January of the present year. Recognizing this stumbling block in the way of proper observance of the Lord's Day, the Town voted, November 17, 1712 : - "In answer to the petition of our neighbors, the farmers, so called, dated Feb. 13, 1711, desiring to be a precinct, that all the part of the town that lies on the northerly side of that highway that leads from Salem to Reading be set off for a precinct, and when they shall have a meeting-house and a minister, qualified according to law, settled to preach the word of God amongst them, then they shall be wholly freed from paying to the ministry of the Town and not before. And if afterwards they shall cease to maintain a minister amongst them then to pay to the minister of the Town as heretofore." The conditions of the above vote were complied with, and in 1720 Lynnfield became a Precinct and the Second Parish of Lynn, and exempt from paying to the ministry of the Town. The first alien denomination to set up a meeting was in the troubled time of Andros. On the 18th of of Old Lynn 5th month, 1689, the Friends held their first monthly meeting at Lynn. They had previously, in 1678, erected a meeting-house on Wolf Hill, on what is now Broad Street, upon the land still owned by the Society. The incursion of the Quakers was the first serious menace of the Puritan domination and the most serious till the advent of Methodism a century later. Of the good sense of the Parish in this matter Dr. Cooke says : " The friction engendered by the re- quirement that all the Colonists should be taxed to support the ministry was one of the greatest sources of disaster to the Puritan cause. But the Parish in Lynn took early measures to mitigate the evils of this law, and so far to relax its force as to main- tain good neighborhood with the Quakers. In the year 1722 they voted : - " ' The Parish considering that sundry of our neigh- bors called Quakers, who have in times past re- quested to be dismissed from paying taxes to our minister, Rev. Nathaniel Henchman, which in some respects hath been granted, but now our Parish observing said Quakers frequently purchasing lands, that have usually paid to the support of our minister in times past, and under like obligation with our other lands to pay to the maintenance of our minis- ter, wherefore, voted, that all the lands belonging to said Parish, purchased by said Quakers (not mean- ing one of another) since the settlement of our present minister, as also all other ratable lands, in whose hands soever, shall for the future pay to said Parish, excepting only such lands and estates of the 163 Hearths and Homes several Quakers hereafter named, now freed from paying to the Parish the present year, and the same to be at the discretion of the Parish, from year to year, whether to pay or not.' ' Then follows a list of fifteen persons that were exempt. Similar votes, exempting individuals in about the same number, were passed from year to year for several years. From this it seems that it had been the custom before this to exempt individu- als to some extent. The Society of Friends, considering its antagonistic origin, has little to complain of Puritan intolerance in Lynn. The Friends were thrifty and were adroit manipulators of men. They not only secured an exemption of their lands from contribution towards support of the ministry, but they exhibited a juggling feat with the schools such as no other society here ever approached. Wherever in this country the Roman Catholics have asked for a division of school funds, the Prot- estants have with one accord sounded the tocsin of alarm. The early Friends in the reign of Charles the Second, through the friendship between James, Duke of York, and William Penn, had a suspiciously close bond of union with the Catholics in their common dislike of Puritanism. Both Friends and Roman Catholics have always professed a strong desire for a guarded religious training for the young of their sects. Later developments reveal how in the fulness of time this scheme worked in Lynn. 164 of Old Lynn In a paper on the " Origin of Quakerism," prepared by Samuel Boyce, it is related : - "In 1784, application was made to the selectmen of Lynn for the proportion of the money which Friends were annually paying for the support of the public schools to be refunded to them, in order that it might be used towards defraying the expenses of their own school. Objections were at first made to this request, but after some time had elapsed Friends were allowed to draw back annually a portion of this money for that purpose. The school was continued about forty years, and this privilege was granted them most of the time." Not only were the Friends allowed their propor- tion of the school fund, but they were (as a Society) permitted to choose members of the School Commit- tee, and were wherever they lived a Ward of the Town. Thus was established a full-fledged and original parochial school on the soil of Puritan Lynn. The Methodists attempted the same project, but in Town Meeting, February 23, 1792, it was voted " That the Methodists do not draw their part of the school money back." In 1821 the Friends' parochial school was done away with by a vote " That the Town be redistricted anew, as it respects the several schools without any regard to any particular religious society." It was not till the close of Rev. Jeremiah Shepard's happy and united pastorate of forty-one years that the First Parish and the people of Lynn realized 165 Hearths and Homes that the golden age of the Puritan Theocracy had passed that the ecclesiastical and civil concerns of the whole people were not within the scope of the First Parish. Lynnfield had become an independent parish, and the Friends within the territory of the First Parish had become landowners exempt from Parish taxes and voters in Town meetings. The most laconic and yet comprehensive statement of the actual divorce of Parish and Town is to be found in Dr. Cooke's "Centuries" (page 196) : - "Several noteworthy events affecting the Parish took place during Mr. Henchman's ministry. The next year after his settlement, that is, 1721, the Parish ceased to have its business done in town meet- ing. The separation was effected on this wise : At a town meeting there was an adjournment of Town business for half an hour to give the members of the Parish time for preliminary action. Then in a meeting ordered by those of the selectmen belonging to the Parish, a vote of members of the Parish was passed, ordering Richard Johnson and Theophilus Burrill to call a Parish meeting for organizing. The meeting was called, and a hundred voters attended and unanimously concurred in the proceedings." Dr. Cooke is so confident in his facts that he does not trouble himself with giving authorities that might lighten the labors of later gleaners in the local historical field, hence it was a pleasing surprise to find that his statement was an almost exact tran- script of the record of the Town Meeting held 166 of Old Lynn March 5, 1721-22. That event, so tersely recorded, was one of the milestones in our history. It marked the close of a century of homogeneous Colonial life under the teachings of pure Calvinism expounded by three saintly Puritan men, Whiting, Cobbet and Shepard. The Town record was made as if an ordinary event was chronicled. Very few, if any, more striking and pregnant happenings ever took place within the walls of the Old Tunnel Meeting-house. The record was coolly made. The actors so far as we know were as " impassive as the marble in the quarry," utterly un- conscious of the passing of the Puritan idea and the incoming of the modern Town Meeting, divested of all ecclesiastical, and clothed with only civic powers. On the surface it would appear that this separation should include a discontinuance of the use of the meeting-house for the transaction of Town business. On the contrary, the Town used the building in all its official affairs for more than three-quarters of a century after this time. Within its homely walls men of the First Parish, Friends, the voters of Lynn- field and of Saugus debated and made appropriations for Town purposes while much history was making itself. The great Provincial feat of arms the capture of Louisburg (the French Gibraltar in America) by Massachusetts soldiers and sailors in 1745, happened while the Old Tunnel remained the Council House of the Town. Lexington, Concord Bunker Hill, the War of the 167 Hearths and Homes Revolution, the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the Presidency of Washington and of the elder Adams and other marvelous events occurred while the vil- lage Solons continued there to discuss problems of social life. Three generations walked up and down the sombre aisles ere the friction between Parish and Town became apparent, which resulted in 1806, in the abandonment by or the expulsion of the Town from the meeting-house. In order to show the tense relations of the people the conservative clinging of the townspeople to the old house even after they had forsaken the faith therein preached some reports and votes have been culled from the records. Only a small fraction of the voluminous records is copied, and that not con- secutively, but barely enough to give a hint of the importance of the issue in the minds of the fathers. First we copy from the Parish Records. By the Parish Records it will be seen that the Parish in the beginning of the contention did not absolutely bar the Town from its house, but simply insisted that it should only be used in rotation with the other meet- ing-houses in Town that is, that the hitherto un- divided burden of the Parish in providing shelter for the Town should be divided and borne in part by the other societies. March 20, 1805, the Parish " Voted that the Town shall not in the future hold their Town Meetings in the First Parish meeting- 168 of Old Lynn house only in rotation, and the April meeting to be considered as one. "Voted that the Parish committee be directed to notify the selectmen of this vote." January 9, 1806 : - " Voted to accept of the report of their committee, which is as follows, viz. : The Parish, at their meet- ing in March last, voted that it was not their choice that the Town should hold any Town Meeting in future in the said Parish meeting-house unless by rotation in the several meeting-houses in Town, and that the meeting in April then next ensuing might be holden in said house as the first in rotation, the meeting was accordingly held in said house, and in May following, the Town voted that their meeting should be holden in rotation in the several meeting- houses in Town. " The selectmen of the Town now ask leave of the First Parish to hold their next Town Meeting in their meeting-house as the first meeting in the rota- tion. Although the Parish conceive that they have already taken their turn yet they are willing to sacrifice their own private interest and feelings, and submit to a partial evil for the general good, it is therefore voted that the Town be permitted to hold their next meeting in the said house as the first in the rotation. Provided that the next meeting be holden and finished previously to the first day of March next. Signed by the committee, JAMES GARDNER. WM. MANSFIELD. FRED BREED. THOMAS RHODES. CHARLES NEWHALL." Jan. 16, 1806. 169 Hearths and Homes January 30, 1806 : - " Voted that the Parish committee be a committee to appear at the adjournment of the Town Meeting and forbid the Town in the name and behalf of the First Parish, of ever holding any Town Meeting in said Parish meeting-house in future unless by the consent of the said Parish. " Voted that the Clerk serve the Town with a copy of the above vote." FROM THE TOWN RECORDS. "The undersigned, a committee chosen by the Town to treat with a committee from the First Parish in Lynn in order to effect a settlement of a dispute that has arisen relative to the right claimed by the Town to transact their public business in the old meeting-house so called, report that they have the mortification to learn that the Parish has declined to unite with the Town in this pacific measure. But although the conduct of the Parish in this respect may appear to close the door against all further attempts of the Town towards a compromise, never- theless, when we recollect that some of the proceed- ings of our last meeting however well intended or proper in themselves, give umbrage to many of our brethren of the parish as being in their opinion cal- culated to prevent a reconciliation, and although we are compelled in justice to the Town to declare that we view the measures as respects their appointment of a committee as sufficient evidence of the Town's accommodating disposition, and that the omission of the Town through mistake to invest them with power to treat, etc., does not in the least weaken or impair that evidence, nevertheless, we, the Town, in the spirit of charity and candor will give the complaints of the Parish before hinted all that weight they may 170 of Old Lynn desire, that we take leave further to recommend that in order to evidence beyond a doubt that the Town are still desirous to promote concord and harmony between them and their brethren of the Parish, and to avoid the manifold evils of a contest in law, where the interest of the parties are so connected and blended that however decided in law will, in addition to an enormous expense, be attended with far more pernicious consequences, when fellow citizens of the same town, the same neighborhood, family connec- tions, near relatives, etc., will be enclosed in an un- happy quarrel which in the nature of things will give strength to those discordant passions which are the baneful source of human misery. " As a means to avoid these accumulated evils and to establish tranquility among all classes of our fel- low townsmen, your committee respectfully submit for your consideration, whether it would not be best for the Town by Resolve by vote, that we are still ready to listen to any proposals from the Parish that may tend towards an amicable settlement of this unhappy dispute. JOSEPH FULLER. HENRY BURCHSTEAD. NATHAN HAWKES. RICH'D SHUTE. TIMOTHY MUNROE. MICA'H NEWHALL. Committee. ' ' LYNN, Feb. 9, 1806. The warrant for Town Meeting, dated March 7, 1806, contained this article : - "Also to determine what further measures are neces- sary for the Town to adopt to support and establish a privilege of meeting in the old meeting-house, which they and their fathers have ever heretofore 171 Hearths and Homes enjoyed and to determine where the next meeting shall be called." Town Meeting, March 17, 1806 : - "Voted to refer the determination of the matter of right of meeting in the old meeting-house to the adjournment of this meeting, and the Town are ready to meet the Parish by their committee to compromise the business." Under same date the next action was : - " Voted the Selectmen apply to the Methodist So- ciety for their house to hold the April meeting in. " Voted to adjourn this meeting to the place where the April meeting shall be held." The warrant for the Annual Meeting for the choice of State Officers for 1806 began as follows : - "The freeholders and other inhabitants of the Town of Lynn qualified as the law requires, are hereby notified to attend a Town Meeting to be holden at the Methodist meeting-house in said Town on Monday the 7th day of April next at 1 o'clock P.M. HENRY HALLOWELL. HENRY OLIVER, dated NATHAN HAWKES. LYNN, March 28, 1806. Selectmen. ' ' Lynn, April 7, 1806 : - "Town met agreeable to notification. At this meeting it was voted to choose a committee for the purpose of filling up the blanks for a compromise with the old Parish, relative to the Town's using the old meeting-house, and to report at May meeting. 172 of Old Lynn "Voted, Zachariah Attwill, Samuel Collins, Abner Cheever and Thomas Mansfield be said committee. "Voted the Selectmen provide a house for May meeting at the Town's expense." May 1, 1806 : - " The Selectmen issue the warrant for Town Meet- ing for choice of representatives to General Court to be held in the old meeting-house, May 12, 1806." This report was made at the meeting : - " As it appears to be the wish of both Town and Parish to have the unhappy dispute between the Town and First Parish respecting the old meeting- house amicably adjusted the following is submitted to the Town for their consideration ; it is thought it will meet the views of both parties. " The Town cannot comply with the proposition of the Parish as offered to the Town's committee. " But the Town are willing to relinquish all their right in the said house on the following considera- tions viz. : "1. The Town shall have leave to transact all municipal business in the said house as usual. " 2. The Town shall sweep said house and if neces- sary wash it as soon as may be after each meeting. " 3. The Town shall make good all damages which the house shall sustain by such meeting as soon as may be after each meeting, and in case of any dis- pute the Town shall choose one man and the Parish one, who shall be arbitrators to fix sd damage. "4. The Town shall pay the Parish Treasurer annually the sum of dollars as the Town's proportion of the general repairs in and on the house. "5. This stipulation shall continue in force for the term of years. 173 Hearths and Homes " The committee appointed on the part of the Town at their meeting on the 7th of April, have met with the committee on the part of the First Parish and have agreed to fill up the blanks left within the proposals as follows, viz. : the blank for compensation to be filled with twenty-eight dollars per annum and the blank for the number of years filled at twenty years. "And the same is submitted to the Town and Parish. LYNN, April 28, 1806. ZAC'H ATTWILL. FRED'K BREED. SAM'L COLLINS. THOMAS RHODES. ABNER CHEEVER. WILL'M MANSFIELD. THOMAS MANSFIELD. EPH'M BREED. on the part of the Town. on the part of the Parish." " Voted by the Town on the 12 of this instant May to reject the above report." The next warrant for Town Meeting was issued January 10, 1807, and the place of meeting was the Methodist Meeting-house. At the April meeting, 1807, there was allowed : " For the use and repairs of the Methodist meeting- house $42.25. "N.B. The above sum included nineteen dollars paid to Col. Breed and Harris Chadwell for the use and repairs of the old meeting-house." In 1806, as well as in 1721, the irritating element which caused the First Parish to close its doors upon the Town may be traced to ecclesiastic origin. The Quakers and the several parishes could legis- late in peace with the Parish in the old house. 174 of Old Lynn A more aggressive sect had come to Town and pitched its tent within sight of the Old Tunnel. Benjamin Johnson, a prominent man a leader in the development of the shoe business and a member of the First Church had heard and been impressed with Methodist preaching in the South. Mr. Johnson invited Jesse Lee, the eloquent Meth- odist preacher, to come here. Lee arrived on the fourteenth of December, 1790. Since that day Meth- odism has been a particularly active and vital power in Lynn. Mr. Lee set up his church militant in the houses of Mr. Johnson and of Mr. Enoch Mudge, the one at the north end of Market Street, the other at the corner of South Common and Vine Streets. One was east and the other was west of the old meeting-house, so that he flanked the Parish. Some- times he was permitted to occupy the meeting-house for evening meetings, and when this was refused, the Methodists, on the fourteenth day of June, 1791, began to build the first meeting-house of their society just in front of what is now Lee Hall. In twelve days from the time the timber was cut, we are told, the house was ready for occupancy. It was a plain, unfinished building, 34 by 44 feet. It suited the plain, earnest Methodists of those days. It stood out in full view of the First Parish Meeting-house, and a few years later it became a convenient shelter for Town Meetings, when the First Parish ejected the Town from the Old Tunnel. Thereafter, with occa- sional meetings at the hall of Paul and Ellis Newhall, at the corner of Market and Essex Streets, it was 175 Hearths and Homes occupied by the grace of the Methodist Society for Town purposes, till the erection of the Town House on the Common in 1814. There are two sides to every shield. The freemen of the Town claimed that they and their fathers had always used the meeting-house, that a tax upon the whole property had erected the building and had maintained it, and that consequently they and their successors had a prescriptive right to enjoy the same privileges. At the time of the controversy the First Parish was in a dire plight. Its pastor, Rev. Thomas Gushing Thacher, lacked the power of his predecessors ; he had not the gifts of solidity and earnestness, his intellectual parts were not equal to that of the family to which he belonged. The functions of his sacred office were not appre- ciated by him, and secular affairs engrossed his mind. Mr. Thacher's ministry extended from 1794 to 1813. His immediate predecessor, Rev. Obediah Parsons, had faults even more inconsistent with his profession than those of Mr. Thacher. With such guides it is not strange that Jesse Lee's intense earnestness and his fiery preaching made the new sect popular. A large portion of the First Parish went over to the Methodists. Even the dea- cons of the Parish, William Farrington and The- ophilus Hallowell, joined the new movement and carried away the communion plate of the Parish, probably under the impression that where the deacons were there was the Church. Over the carrying away of the communion service a long contention was had, 176 of Old Lynn which resulted in its return ; with it Deacon Farring- ton came back. But seeds of bitterness remained. The positive, pushing men of the community were in the new Church. According to the opinion of those who remained in the Parish, they had abandoned the faith taught by the founders, and in forming an alien Church they had forfeited their rights in the old meeting- house. To the Parish it seemed unfair that men who worshiped elsewhere should seek to retain a secular control over the meeting-house. Hence the denial of its use by the Parish the appointment of a joint committee the compromise agreed to by the com- mittee recognizing the right of the Parish to receive compensation for its use and the refusal of the Town to accept the compromise. The Parish was weak in numbers, but by the vote of its enemies its contention was maintained that secular as well as ecclesiastical use of its property was in the Parish, and that the title to the Old Tunnel was in those who maintained the faith of the fathers in years of disaster as well as of prosperity. 177 COLONIAL LAND TITLES. 1 iHOEVER is interested in the soil of the locali- ty in which his lot in life has placed him may be interested to know how title in it was acquired and maintained by his ancestors. When the colonizing Englishman turned his atten- tion to this land that we now possess, there were two parties who had some sort of title to the soil. Rem- nants of the North American Indians partially occu- pied the land, more as hunters and fishers than as tillers of the soil, in a loose tribal authority. This prior claim by quasi-occupation our fathers pushed aside till they were menaced, in later years, by the feudal pretentions of Sir Edmund Andros and his followers when they reinforced their Colonial Court titles by releases from such scattered Indians as they could find and bribe. The other claimant was that "wisest fool in Christendom," the Scot James, the first King of England of that name who claimed by right of the discovery by brighter men than himself all the Continent of North America. This King, on the third of November, 1620, made a grant to the Council established at Plymouth, in the 1 Lynn Historical Society, May 4, 1897. 179 Hearths and Homes County of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing of New England in America, of all that part of America " lying and being in bredth from forty degrees to forty-eight degrees of north latitude and in length of and within all the bredth aforesaid through the mainland from sea to sea." This was a broad belt of territory and covered not only the whole of New England and New York, but also Canada and the Maritime Provinces of Great Britain. The consideration for this great grant was the payment to the King and his heirs and successors of one-fifth part of all the gold and silver ores found in the territory. The consideration exacted by the covetous Scot failed, for gold and silver ores have not yet materialized in our rock-ribbed soil. Something of more importance than gold or silver came out of the Plymouth Council. This was the sale by the Council March 19, 1627-8, to Sir Henry Rosewell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcott, John Humphrey, John Endicott and Symon Whetcombe, their heirs and associates forever, of a tract of land which was described as being three miles north of any and every part of the Merrimac River, and three miles south of any or every part of the Charles River and extending westward to the Pacific Ocean. On the fourth of March, 1628-9, in the fourth year of the reign of Charles I., " The Charter of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England " passed the seals. This instrument the political guide of our fathers recites : - 180 of Old Lynn "And for us, our heirs and successors, we will and ordain that the said Sir Henry Rosewell, Sir John Yong, Sir Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Southcott, John Humfrey, John Endicott, Symon Whetcombe, Isaack Johnson, Samuell Aldersey, John Ven, Mathewe Cradock, George Harwood, Increase Noell, Richard Pery, Richard Bellingham, Nathaniell Wright, Samuell Vassall, Theophilus Eaton, Thomas Goffe, Thomas Adams, John Browne, Samuell Browne, Thomas Hutchins, William Vassall, William Pinchion, and George Foxcroft, and all such others as shall here- after be admitted and made free of the Company and Society hereafter mentioned, shall, from time to time, and at all times forever hereafter be, by virtue of these presents, one body corporate and politic in fact and name, by the name of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England : And them by the name of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, one body politic and corporate in deed, fact, and name : we do for us, our heirs and successors, make, ordain, constitute, and confirm by these presents, and that by that name they shall have perpetual succession : And that by the same name they and their successors shall, and may be capable and enabled, as well to implead and to be impleaded, and to prosecute, demand and answer, and be answered unto, in all and singular suits, causes, quarrels, and actions of what kind or nature soever. And also to have, take, possess, acquire, and purchase any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or any goods or chattels, And the same to lease, grant, demise, alien, bargain, sell and dispose of as other leige people of this our realm of England, or any other corporation or body politic of the same may lawfully do : And, further, that the said Governor and Company and their successors may have forever 181 Hearths and Homes one common seal to be used in all causes and occasions of the said Company and the same seal may alter, change, break, and new make, from time to time, at their pleasures. And our will and pleasure is. And we do hereby for us, our heirs and successors, ordain and grant, That, from henceforth forever, there shall be one Governor, one Deputy Governor, and eighteen assistants of the same Company, to be from time to time constituted, elected and chosen out of the free- men of the said Company, for the time being, in such manner and form as hereafter in these presents is expressed. Which said officers shall apply themselves to take care for the best disposing and ordering of the general business and affairs of, for and concerning the said lands and premises hereby mentioned to be granted, and the plantation thereof, and the govern- ment of the people there." The King, when this charter was granted, was too busy with the gathering storm at home, out of which was to be evolved his own death on the scaffold, and the illustrious rule of Cromwell and the short-lived Commonwealth of England, to see the far-reaching consequences of this act. He retained no jurisdiction, as his advisers saw in the matter only the incorporation of a trading estab- lishment, rather than what it was destined to be, - the planting of a greater England, an enduring Commonwealth in the new world. In the autumn of 1629, after protracted and prayerful consideration of the legality of the scheme, the Company voted to transfer its patent and govern- ment from London to New England. Having taken the momentous world-influencing step of removing of Old Lynn the charter and government across the trackless seas, it became necessary to choose a new Gov- ernor, as Matthew Craddock was not to join the emigrants. The election of the new Governor is related in simple but impressive language in the " Records of the General Court of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," under date of October 20, 1629 : - " And now the Court, proceeding to the election of a new Governor, Deputy, and Assistants, which, upon serious deliberation, hath been and is conceived to be for the especial good & advancement of their affairs, and having received extraordinary great commenda- tions of Mr. John Winthrop, both for his integrity and sufficiency as being one very well fitted and accomplished for the place of Governor, did put in nomination for that place the said Mr. John Winthrop, Sr., R: Saltonstall, Mr. Is. Johnson, and Mr. John Humf ry ; and the said Mr. Winthrop was, with a general vote and full consent of this Court, by erec- tion of hands, chosen to be Governor for the ensuing year, to begin on this present day ; who was pleased to accept thereof, and thereupon took the oath to that place appertaine. In like manner & with like free and full consent, Mr. John Humf ry was chosen Deputy Governor." The last Court of the Governor and Company on the other side was held in the cabin of the "Arbella," the famed vessel which was to bear Winthrop to his life of high achievement, while at anchor before the departure. The brief record explains the occasion : - 183 Hearths and Homes "At a Court of Assistants aboard the "Arbella" March 23, 1629. Present, Mr. John Winthrop, Gover- nor, Sir Rich. Saltonstall, Mr. Isaack Johnson, Mr. Thomas Dudley, Mr. William Coddington, Mr. Tho: Sharpe, Mr. William Vassall, Mr. Simon Bradstreete. Mr. John Humfrey (in regard he was to stay behind in England) was discharged of his Deputyshipp, & Mr. Thomas Dudley chosen Deputy in his place." Mr. John Humfrey, the Deputy, one of the pa- tentees, had his grant in Lynn, and lived here for some time. Humphrey's Pond, in Lynnfield, and Humphrey Street, in Swampscott, perpetuate the memory of John Humphrey and of his wife, Lady Susan, the daughter of the Puritan nobleman, the Earl of Lincoln. On the eighteenth of May, 1631, the seat of gov- ernment having been firmly fixed at Boston, it was determined that a General Court should be held at least once a year at which all the freemen were to assemble and choose the Assistants. Prior to this all the functions of government had been in the hands of the select and always influential " Court of Assistants." Critics of the Puritans have attributed the re- striction of the privileges of freemen to church mem- bers as religious bigotry. There was, however, even in those days an imperative necessity for the restric- tion of suffrage. Large numbers of unknown people were flocking to the new country. Our fathers saw perils threatening their projected institutions from the votes of new comers of loose life and conversation. 184 of Old Lynn Church members were presumably persons attached to the existing order of correct and moral habits. Hence for the well-being of the whole community the authorities made membership in the church a pre- requisite to the freeman's oath. The colony was to be a democracy but it was to be a democracy of the best elements and not of the worst. On the ninth of May, 1632, a democratic advance was had, as appears by the General Court records of that day. " It was generally agreed upon, by erection of hands, that the Governor, Deputy Governor, & Assistants should be chosen by the whole Court of Governor, Deputy Governor, Assistants, and freemen, and that the Governor shall always be chosen out of the Assistants." The first time that our Plantation is named in the Colony Records is, as is apt to be the case in mundane affairs, in a tax rate of A Court of Assistants holden at Boston, July 5, 1631 : - "It is ordered, there shall be levyed out of the several plantations the sum of thirty pounds for the making of the creek at the new town (Cambridge) viz : Winisemet (Chelsea) 15 s. Wessaguscus (Wey- mouth) 40 s.; Saugus 20 s.; Natascett (Nantasket) 10 s: Waterton (Watertown) V L. Boston V L. Dorchester 4 L 10 s: Rocksbury (Roxbury) 3 L: Salem 3L. 5 s." The freemen of our plantation helped make the levy, and the capacity to be taxed and to pay the tax was an ample act of incorporation, and the only one the early towns had. 185 Hearths and Homes May 9, 1632, the autocratic Court of Assistants passed a vote which, as a seed dropped in fertile soil, grew into that wondrous American product Repre- sentative Government : - " It was ordered that there should be two of every plantation appointed to confer with the Court about raising of a public stock." Capt. Richard Wright and another, whose name cannot be deciphered on the Colonial Records, \vere appointed from Saugus. Two years later the people were ready to assume other functions of government than merely advising as to taxing themselves. At an Assistants' Court, held April 1, 1634, was passed the last vote wherein that body took action in regard to assurance of lands. Up to this time all grants of land and they were many and large - had been made by the Court of Assistants : - " It was further ordered that the constable and four or more of the chief inhabitants of every town (to be chosen by all the freemen there, at some meeting there) with the advice of some one or more of the next assistants, shall make a ' surveying of the houses backeside, corne fieldes, moweing ground & other lands,' improved or inclosed, or granted by special order of the Court, of every free inhabitant there, and shall enter the same in a book (fairly written in words at length and not in figures) with the several bounds and quantities, by the nearest estima- tion, and shall deliver a transcript thereof into the Court, within six months now next ensuing, and the same so entered and recorded shall be a sufficient 186 of Old Lynn assurance to every such free inhabitant, his and their heirs and assigns, of such estate of inheritance or as they shall have in any such houses, lands or frank tenements. " The like course shall be taken for assurance of all houses and town lots of all such as shall be hereafter enfranchised, and every sale or grant of such houses or lots as shall be from time to time entered into the said book by the said constable and four inhabitants or their successors, (who shall be still supplied upon death or removal) for which entry the purchaser shall pay six pence, and the like sum for a copy thereof, under the hands of the said surveyors, or three of them." This vote was the germ from which has been evolved our cumbrous system of Registry of Deeds. The increased number of freemen, added to the cost of time lost in a journey to and from Boston, the danger of having the whole number of adult males absent from the scattered plantations, induced the creation of a representative body. The General Court which assembled on the four- teenth of May, 1634, consisted of the Governor, Deputy Governor, Secretary, Treasurer, the Assistants, with three representatives from each of eight towns. Lynn, then called Saugus, sent as its members three noted citizens, Capt. Nathaniel Turner, Edward Tom- lins and Thomas Willis. The eight towns represented were Newtown (Cambridge), Watertown, Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Saugus (Lynn) and Salem. Thus quietly was ushered into being The Great and General Court of Massachusetts which 187 Hearths and Homes annually since has gathered to make laws wise and unwise for us. This first General Court took upon itself at once large powers. It agreed that " none but the General Court hath power to choose and admit freemen." That none but the General Court hath power to make and establish laws, nor to elect and appoint officers - as Governor, Deputy Governor, Assistants, Treasurer, Secretary, Captains, Lieutenants, Ensigns, or any of like moment, or to remove such upon misdemeanor, as also to set out the duties and powers of the said officers. And lastly the matter which bears directly upon the subject " That none but the General Court hath power to raise moneys and Taxes and to dispose of lands viz. to give and confirm property es." Grants of lands, from which grew many of the early New England towns, were made to a number of individuals, who became a sort of corporation and were called Commoners. They had a Moderator, Clerk, record book and committee. These proprieta- ries parceled out and conveyed the territory to in- dividuals. Other lands they retained in common. In modern times suits have grown out of contention between individuals, towns, and the inheritors of these ancient commoners. All Lynn conveyances seem to be based upon a different method. From the beginning here the Court recognized the inhabitants, that is, the Planta- tion, as the grantees. The list of the grants of land transcribed from the Records of Lynn by the worthy Andrew Mansfield, 188 of Old Lynn Town Recorder, is prefaced with these words : " These lands were given to the inhabitants of the Town of Lynn, Anno Domini 1638." This record was a confirmation of title by the Town to settlers, most of whom were already located on the lands preempted, as the modern American would say. The Court recognized the Plantation as de facto organized, and in 1638 the Town entered upon its book a list of its grants. In the allotment of land wide difference may be seen in the grants, ranging, in the case of Lynn, from eight hundred acres to Lord Brook, down to ten acres. This was done, however, upon an equi- table plan arranged in England before Winthrop sailed with the Charter. Each adventurer, or, as we now should say, stockholder, had two hundred acres of land for each fifty pounds adventured, and after that rate for more or less. At the same meet- ing, May 19, 1629, it was ordered : - "That all such persons as go over at their own charge and are adventurers in the common stock, shall have lands allotted to them for themselves and their families forthwith, 50 acres of land for each person ; but being no adventurers in the common stock shall have 50 acres of land for the master of the family, and such a proportion of land more if there be cause as according to their charge & qualitie the Governor and Council of New England shall think necessary for them, whereby their charge may be fully and amply supported ; unless it be to any with whom the company in London shall make any 189 Hearths and Homes particular agreement, to which relation is to be had in such case. " And for such as transport servants, land shall be allotted for each servant, 50 acres to the master ; which land the master is to dispose of at his discre- tion. In regard the servants transportation, wages & sc is at the master's charge." The smaller lots of land were given to the different handicraftsmen, such as carpenters, thatchers, weav- ers, millers, miners, and masons, who were solicited to join the great exodus. These men furnished brawn instead of cash and were provided with home lots, while the larger areas were given to the yeomen who were to try the ex- periment of raising English grains in Indian land. Our fathers were a land-hungry people. They came from a country where land was costly, entailed and difficult to transfer title. Here was abundance of land, cheap, and to be had in fee for the asking. The General Court paid for services of all kinds in land. In Lynn the people had scarcely occupied the oceanside at Sagamore and Wolf Hills and Swamp- scott and the water ways of Saugus River and Straw- berry Brook when they prospected the interior. As a first result the General Court records, March 13, 1638-9, relate : - "Linn was granted 6 miles into the countrey & Mr. Hawthorne & Lieut. Davenport to view and in- form how the land beyond lyeth, whether it may be fit for another plantation or no." 190 of Old Lynn The new grant became Lynn End or Lynnfield, later, our Second Parish, and then an independent town. More land still was craved by the farmers for their flocks and herds. Hence on the ninth of Sep- tember, 1639, the General Court granted more terri- tory to Lynn in the following language : - "The petition of the Inhabitants of Lynn, for a place for an inland plantation at the head of their bounds is granted them 4 miles square, as the place will afford : upon condition that the petitioner shall, within two years, make some good proceeding in planting, so as it may be a village, fit to contain a convenient number of inhabitants, which may in dew time have a church there ; and so as such as shall remove to inhabit there, shall not with all keepe their accomodations in Linn above 2 years after their re- moval to the said village, upon pain to forfeit their interest in one of them at their election : except this court shall see fit cause to dispence further with them." This " inland plantation," however, was not intended for a permanent addition to Lynn. It would have made too large a town for convenience of worship. It was, as the language of the grant shows, intended for such Lynn planters as should desire broader acres. They were to be under the care of Lynn till they had gathered a church. This last named grant was known as Lynn Village, and its church being organized, Lynn's parental au- thority was ended by the incorporation, May 29, 1644, of Lynn Village as the Town of Reading. So ended our control of the fair town by " the great pond " at 191 Hearths and Homes the head of Saugus River, though forty-two years later the two towns were united as grantees in a noted blanket release from David Kunkshamooshaw and Abagail, his squaw, and other Indians reputed to be heirs-at-law of old Sagamore George No-Nose, alias Wenepawweekin. Mr. Lewis has copied from the Massachusetts Ar- chives and printed in his History the principal papers concerning Randolph's proceedings relative to grab- bing our sheep pasture, Nahant. From that time our common lands were undisturbed until 1706, when the Anglo Saxon passion for holding land in severalty proved too strong for the Mosaic community notions with which the first comers had been steeped. In the latter year " The six hundred acres," Nahant and the Great Lynn Woods, by order of the Town were allotted to individual owners. But that is another story and I have told it elsewhere. Upon the deposition of James II and the accession of William and Mary, the agents of our Colony peti- tioned to be reincorporated as formerly. A new charter, which is known in our history as the Prov- ince Charter, was granted in 1691. This Charter recites the provisions of the former one and the fact of its vacation by a judgment in Chancery, March 4, 1684, and grants and ordains : - "That all and every such lands, tenements and Hereditaments and all other estates which any per- son or persons or Bodyes Politique or Corporate Townes, Villages, Colledges or Schooles doe hold and enjoy or ought to hold and enjoy within the bounds 192 of Old Lynn aforesaid by or under any Grant or estate duly made or granted by any General Court formerly held or by virtue of the Letters Patent herein before recited or by any other lawful right or title whatsoever shall be by such person and persons Bodyes Politique and Corporate Townes, Villages and Colledges or Schooles, their respective heirs, successors and Assigns forever hereafter held and enjoyed according to the purport and intent of such respective Grant." This new grant was subject of course to the original reservation of one-fifth part of the gold and silver found. There was also an added assurance : - "It being our further Will and Pleasure that no Grants or Conveyances of any Lands, Tenements or Hereditaments to any Townes, Colledges, Schooles of Learning or to any private person or persons shall be judged or taken to be avoided or prejudiced for or by reason of any want or defect of Form but that the same stand and remain in force and be maintained ad- judged and have effect in the same manner as the same should or ought before the time of the said recited Judgment according to the Laws and Rules then and there usually practiced and allowed." Under this charter with a succession of Royal Governors appointed by the Crown our fathers lived till the Revolution having pretty much their own way, though not quite as free as they had been under the Colonial Charter. I have named two claims to the soil of Massachu- setts and of Lynn sometimes conjoined sometimes in opposition under which our fathers assumed to 193 13 Hearths and Homes hold. Neither of them, however, was the vital ele- ment, which is to be found in the virile, overmaster- ing will of the great colonizing Puritan English race to have and to hold a new home by the strength of its own keen brains and hardy muscles under the guidance of the God of Moses. 194 ^ ' CASTLE HILL FROM WALDEN POND THE CYCLE DAYS OF NEW ENGLAND. 1 LOYAL son of Lynn can refuse to respond upon such a day and for such a cause as this. There are many reasons why it is agreeable to me that my mite should be contributed to this school. The Principal of the school is not only a descendant of Thomas Newhall, the first white child born in Lynn, but also of John Adam Dagyr, the " celebrated shoemaker of Essex," who revolutionized the staple industry of Lynn. She was reared in that part of the old Town which has the strongest hold upon my affections. The school stands upon the breezy hill which was the fairest and most attractive spot in the whole Plantation in the eyes of the planters of Lynn. Upon and about this hill five of the leading emigrants from the old world received their grants of land ; Thomas Willis, for whom the hill was originally called, received 500 acres ; Edward Holyoke, whose name is perpetu- ated in a street and a spring, received 500 acres ; 1 An address delivered as a part of the exercises celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the City of Lynn, in the Burrill Grammar School, Tower Hill, Lynn, Monday Morning, May 14, 1900. 195 Hearths and Homes George Burrill received 200 acres ; Nicholas Brown received 200 acres ; Richard Sadler, the first Clerk of the Writs, received 200 acres and the rock by his house. The old Boston road, which passes the school, and is not so steep as it formerly was, is the historic road of Lynn. Wherever the post-office was, used to be the centre of the Town ; the first three postmasters of Lynn, James Robinson, Ezra Hitchings and Samuel Mulliken, lived upon Boston Street, and had their offices there. The early settlers of Lynn came out of the fen country of England a region reclaimed from the water, and formerly dyked even as Holland is to-day. They were tired of the dull, flat expanse upon which they were reared. Their eyes eagerly scanned the magnificent prospect of sea and marsh and river and woods seen from this gracefully rounded hilltop. Here they found it good to live, and when they died they left behind them the memory of right living, and descendants who have blessed their sires for seeking a freer life in the new world in so comfort- able a location. Notable happenings has this old street seen. Sam- uel Sewall, the witchcraft judge and Puritan diarist, records that he dined at Hart's in Lynn the old house behind the big buttonwood at the corner of Federal and Boston Streets, not yet forgotten by the elders. John Adams frequently rode circuit to the East : he, too, dined at Hart's. Benedict Arnold passed by this spot on the llth of September. 1775, 196 of Old Lynn upon his famous and quixotic campaign against Que- bec. President Washington went over this route on the 29th of October, 1789, in his own chariot, drawn by four horses, with Tobias Lear and Major Jackson as outriders on horseback. Of Lynn, Washington wrote in his diary : " It is said 175,000 pair of shoes HART'S, IN LYNN. (women's chiefly) have been made in a year by about 400 workmen. There is only a row of houses, and not very thick on each side of the road." The turnpike and the railroad drew pageant travel away from the hill, and left the Burrill School free to go on its studious ways unvexed by bustle and noise. 197 I have had sufficient warning to refrain from talk- ing local history here, for I know that the Principal of this school has a great scrapbook into which has been diligently pasted all that has been written of this locality. I may say something of the family from which the name of the school is derived, and then pass on to safer ground. The advent of the Burrill family into Lynn is co- eval with its settlement. George Burrill, the pioneer, came from England, and located on the western side of Tower Hill, upon a grant which indicates him as a principal planter. Of him it is sufficient commenda- tion to say that he was the progenitor of a family whose several generations made a large part of the annals of Lynn for a hundred years. His son John, called in the records John senior, for many years a " prudential " or selectman, as such was a party in 1686 to the famous Indian deed of Lynn. John senior was the colleague of fighting Parson Jeremiah Shepard in the troubles which grew out of Sir Edmund Andros' and Edward Randolph's attempt to steal Nahant from the inhabitants. The broader political activity of the Burrill family dates from 1691, the last year of the inter-charter period, or the time between the Colonial and the Pro- vincial charters. It was the last year that the people of Massachusetts chose their own Governor, down to the time when the State, under its free Constitution, elected John Hancock. The venerable Simon Bradstreet, styled the Nicias of New England, was Governor. John Burrill, Sr., was 198 of Old Lynn Representative to the Great and General Court. John Burrill, Jr., became Town Clerk of Lynn, which office he occupied until his death, thirty years later. The Town electing but one Representative at a time for several years, father and son alternated in represent- ing it. John Burrill, Jr., was a Representative twenty- four years, ten of which he served as Speaker. From the Speakership he went into the Council of the royal Governor. The year 1721 was an exciting one. Very little legislation was effected. Governor Samuel Shute and the General Court were fighting one of the hottest of the forensic battles which for many years the people waged with the royal prerogative. Worse than that, small-pox raged in Boston through the year. The Court was adjourned to the George Tavern on Boston Neck, then to Harvard College, then to the "Swan Tavern, because of the small-box near the College." All was in vain, so far as the Honorable John Burrill was concerned. The Boston News-Letter of Monday, December 18, 1721, contained the following notice under date, Lynn, December 11 : "The last night the Honorable John Burrill, Esq., one of His Majesty's Council, and one of the Judges of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas for the County of Essex, died of small-pox, in the sixty-second year of his age. He had been for many years Speaker of the House of Representatives, and behaved himself in that chair with great integrity, modesty and skill ; having a just and equal regard to the honor of the 199 Hearths and Homes government and the liberty of the people ; so that he was highly esteemed and beloved by both. He was a man of true and exemplary piety and virtue, endowed with a very clear understanding, solid judgment, and sound discretion. And God made him a great bless- ing, not only to his town and county, but to the whole province. Isaiah iii, 1 : ' For behold, the Lord God of hosts doth take away from Judah the stay and staff - the Judge and the prudent the honorable and the counsellor.' ' Governor Thomas Hutchinson, the historian of the period, likens Mr. Burrill to "the right honourable person, who for so many years filled the chair of the House of Commons with such applause." The Speaker of the Commons referred to was Sir Arthur Onslow, reputed the most accomplished parliamentarian who ever presided in the English House. The Governor says that the House " were as fond of Mr. Burrill as of their eyes " ; and he further records, " I have often heard his contemporaries applaud him for his great integrity, his acquaintance with parliamentary forms, the dignity and authority with which he filled the chair, the order and decorum he maintained in the debates of the House, his self-denial in remaining in the House, from year to year, when he might have been chosen into the Council, and saw others who called him their father, sent there before him." Alonzo Lewis writes : " He gained a reputation which few men who have since filled his stations have surpassed. The purity of his character and the integrity of his life secured to him the warmest friendship of his acquaintance, 200 of Old Lynn and the unlimited confidence of his native town. He was affable in his manners, and uniformly prudent in his conduct. His disposition was of the most chari- table kind, and his spirit regulated by the most guarded temperance. He willingly continued in the House many years, when he might have been raised to a more elevated office, and his thorough acquaint- ance with the forms of legislation, the dignity of his deportment, and the order which he maintained in debate, gave to him a respect and an influence which probably no other Speaker of the House ever ob- tained." Ebenezer Burrill, the younger brother of "the beloved Speaker," was also a man of mark in Town and Colony. He was a Representative six times, and a member of the royal Governor's Council from 1731 to 1746. These brothers were the only Lynn men who ever served at the Council board of the royal Governor. From this fact, probably, came the designation which long attached to the Burrills as " the royal family of Lynn." The brothers were astute politicians, for they had long public careers in conspicuous station, and pleased both crown and people. After them came two other Burrills, sons of Ebenezer. Their names were Ebenezer and Samuel. Ebenezer was Town Clerk seventeen years, and Rep- resentative twelve. He was one of "Sam Adams' rebels." His services in the General Court were during the momentous years from 1764 to 1775, to the very time that saw the first armed resistance to the royal authority. Samuel Burrill had the felicity 201 Hearths and Homes to be the Lynn member of the venerated convention of 1779, which framed the State Constitution, under which we live to-day. He served as Representative down to 1783, and thus rounded out a full century of eminent public service by one family. The perspective of fifty years is not long enough to treat of local history. The actors upon the stage are too near for us to critically compare the then and now. For example, the two opposing forces in the year 1850 were perhaps George Hood and Daniel C. Baker. They have passed on, but their children are our associates of to-day. One member of the first City Council is still a vigorous writer for the press. 1 John L. Shorey, then a teacher, is to address one of the schools to-day. Master King died long ago, but he left a very active set of schoolboys behind him. The Principal of this school fifty years ago, now the accomplished Librarian of our noble Public Library, John C. Houghton, 2 sits beside me to-day. I cannot comment upon 1850, so I have deemed it wiser to devote my time mainly to a study of some curious figures in New England history. We do not study the stars from the housetops as did the wise men of the East, nor do events out of the common seem to us as special providences given for our reproof or guidance, as they appeared to our ancestors of Governor Winthrop's time. Joseph M. Rowell. ' 2 John Clarkson Houghton was born in Lynn, July 1, 1823. He died in Lynn, July 26, 1905. For forty-two years he was connected with the Lynn Public Library as Trustee and Librarian. 202 of Old Lynn The 19th day of April, which Massachusetts has decreed a public holiday, is, beyond all other days in the calendar, the anniversary of the mysterious cycle days of New England. It is the day upon which at periods eighty-six years apart have happened mo- mentous and portending events relating to our history. Whether mathematics have anything to do with the sequence of human events, Omnipotence only knows, but figures show a remarkable coincidence at least. To April 19, 1603, add 86 years. The result is April 19, 1689. Add another 86 years. The result is April 19, 1775. Add yet another 86 years, and we have April 19, 1861. I cannot claim any patent upon this cycle day of New England. John Gorham Palfrey, in his erudite and from the Puritan standpoint most satisfac- tory history of New England, brought out its peculiar recurrence. The volume in which it was mentioned was published in 1864, shortly after the latest repe- tition of the day. From time to time since then I have thought that the theme might be amplified. The invitation for to-day gave me the opportunity to indulge in some thoughts upon the matter. Dr. Palfrey is an eminent witness to call he is an authority upon our history and after I had prepared the substance of what I am to say to you, I hunted up his book, which I had not seen since my first reading at the time of its pub- lication. I was curious to know how closely I had carried his theory in my mind in the intervening years. Let me give Dr. Palfrey's own words, only 203 Hearths and Homes prefacing by saying, that I did not remember that he extended the parallel across the water. It seems that he did carry it back to 1603, but did not fix the exact month and day. " In the history of New England there are chrono- logical parallelisms not unworthy of remark. Some critical events in it were just a century apart. In 1665 the courtiers tried her temper with Lord Claren- don's Commission ; in 1765 they tried it with Lord George Grenville's Stamp Act. In 1675 began the attack on her freedom which I have recorded in this volume ; in 1775 began the invasion which led to her independence of Great Britain. But the cycle of New England is eighty-six years. In the spring of 1603, the family of Stuart ascended the throne of England. At the end of eighty-six years, Massachusetts having been betrayed to her enemies by her most eminent and trusted citizen, Joseph Dudley, the people, on the 19th day of April, 1689, committed their prisoner, the deputy of the Stuart King, to the fort in Boston which he had built to overawe them. Another eighty-six years passed, and Massachusetts had been betrayed to her enemies by her most eminent and trusted citi- zen, Thomas Hutchinson, when, at Lexington and Concord, on the 19th of April, 1775, her farmers struck the first blow in the war of American inde- pendence. Another eighty-six years ensued, and a domination of slaveholders, more odious than that of Stuarts or of Guelphs, had been fastened upon her, when, on the 19th of April, 1861, the streets of Balti- more were stained by the blood of her soldiers on their way to uphold liberty and law by the rescue of the national Capital." 204 of Old Lynn We may add another and an earlier cycle day to to those named by Dr. Palfrey. It occurred while our fathers were yet in the old home. We go back to old England eighty-six years, to dwell for a mo- ment upon the cause of our being here to-day in this fair New England city, instead of in an obscure old England parish. The year 1603 was pregnant with happenings which influenced the planting of New England. On the 24th of March of that year died Elizabeth, the great Queen of England. On the 3d of April, James, her successor, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots martyr or monster, as you read partisan history attended service at the High Church of St. Giles at Edinburgh, and delivered a farewell harangue to the congrega- tion. His journey to London took thirty-two days. So that, upon our fateful day, the 19th of April, 1603, this man, whose mental make-up had so much to do with the growth of the Puritan idea, was just half way from the old to the new from Edinburgh to London. Of the King's first meeting with the Puritan ministers Charles Knight writes : - " When the Puritan ministers presented their peti- tion to James on his journey to London they asked for a conference. On the 14th, 15th and 16th of January, 1604, the King summoned to Hampton Court the Archbishop of Canterbury, eight bishops, five deans, and two doctors, who were to sustain the ceremonies and practises of the church and to oppose all innovation. To meet them four members of the 205 Hearths and Homes reforming party were summoned, including Dr. Rey- nolds, a divine of acknowledged learning and ability. Royalty never displayed itself in a more undignified manner. Episcopacy never degraded itself more by a servile flattery of royalty. James, in his insolent demeanour to the representatives of a growing party in the English church, thought to avenge himself for the humiliation he had been occasionally compelled to endure from ministers of the Scottish kirk. He was the chief talker in these conferences. Harring- ton, who was present, says, ' The King talked much Latin, and disputed with Dr. Reynolds ; but he rather used upbraidings than argument, and told the peti- tioners that they wanted to strip Christ again, and bid them away with their snivelling. . . . The bishops seemed much pleased, and said His Majesty spoke by the power of inspiration. I wist not what they mean, but the spirit was rather foul-mouthed.' A few alterations were made in the Common Prayer Book, and a new version of the Holy Scriptures was ordered to be undertaken. James had taken his side ; but his pedantic vanity, though suited to the taste of Bishop Bancroft who fell upon his knees and thanked God for giving them such a king, was not quite fitted for the government of the English nation." At the time the iconoclastic achievements of Henry VIII and the reign of Elizabeth and Cecil and Shakespeare and Bacon and the defeat of the Spanish Armada had broken the shackles and opened the eyes of all Englishmen to a broader life, this man, whom Macaulay thus describes, came upon the scene : - "It was no light thing that, on the very eve of the decisive struggle between our Kings and their Parliaments, royalty should be exhibited to the world 206 of Old Lynn stammering, slobbering, shedding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn sword, and talking in the style alternately of a buffoon and of a pedagogue." This is a pen drawing by the great historian of the King, whose name is prefixed to our version of the Bible as King James, Defender of the Faith, because the translation of the prelates was made during the reign of this man, whom Sully aptly styled "the wisest fool in Christendom." The straightness of the Scottish Protestantism was galling to the son of Catholic Mary. It was an easy step for this self-indulgent man to fall under the influence of the Anglican prelates. A bundle of contradictions, James madly asserted the divine right of kings, which had its legitimate result in the disgraceful death of his son on the scaffold and the ignominious flight of his grandson before the victorious approach of William of Orange. The Stuart doctrine of the divine right of kings made Parliament and country Puritan for the time being. Anglican prelacy had driven men of tender con- sciences, like Robinson, Carver, Brewster and Win- slow, to Leyden, in Holland, from whence, desiring to rear their children in English habits and English tongue, they had fled to the bleak shores of New Plymouth. This New Plymouth was, however, in the divine plan, the fertile seed-ground for the planting of the world-compelling religious and political freedom for- mulated in the immortal compact signed in the cabin of the May/flower in Cape Cod Harbor, on the lid of 207 Hearths and Homes a chest, November 11, 1620 (0. S.). There the Pil- grims from Scrooby and Auster field, upon the sure foundation of Plymouth Rock, anchored the ark of the world's progress. . After the death of James, in 1625, and the acces- sion of his abler but more stiff-necked son, the ill- fated Charles, the persecution of the Puritans by Archbishop Laud and the prelacy redoubled its energy. Then began the great exodus of the Puri- tans to New England. First came Conant and the old planters to Gloucester, then to Salem. Next came Captain Endicott with the advance guard of "The Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." In June, 1630, Winthrop arrived, bearing the charter which our fathers guarded so carefully as the Magna Charta of their liberties. From 1630 to 1640 the immigration of Puritans continued to these shores. Then the current ceased to flow, for the success of the Parliament in the struggle with the Crown brightened the prospects of the good men at home, and some, like Hugh Peters of Salem, returned for service under Cromwell and for martyrdom under the Restoration. Of that amazing religious movement, which had its freest scope and fullest development among our own people of Massachusetts, an immense and ever- increasing literature has been created. The pens of men and women of all shades of view, narrow and broad, have found increasing fascination in the story of the initiation, struggles, development and consequences of Puritanism. 208 of Old Lynn The founders of Massachusetts were the most profoundly steeped in religion of any people in the world ; they were the most humble in sight of God, but they were exceedingly proud before man hence they conquered themselves first and the world later. Our people were closely allied, by blood, political creed and religious belief, with the Puritans of Eng- land, who were discontented under the restoration of Charles II. Charles and his ministers early dis- covered that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was a thorn in his side. He was in a wrangle with the Colony all through his reign. The Charter was finally vacated October 23, 1684. Charles died Feb- ruary 15, 1685. James II was proclaimed in Boston April 20, 1685. The Colony was without a charter. The disposition of the new king was unknown, but feared. The gifted, but much disliked, Edward Randolph, the evil genius of the Colony, who had been an important factor in the overthrow of our Charter, was here. There was an interregnum, a troubled season of waiting. On September 29, 1686, James, under the 'great seal, cast the thunderbolt by making the astute Sir Edmund Andros Governor-General of New England. December 20th he landed in Boston and published his commission. Edward Randolph was Secretary. These men were hated more than any other two men who ever came to these shores. The attempt of Randolph, whose covetous eyes had looked upon the beauties of Nahant, to steal it from the inhabitants of Lynn, had excited intense indignation and was 209 14 Hearths and Homes the main public topic of discussion in Lynn for years. Many were the devices which our long-headed fathers adopted to foil Andros and Randolph. One, and an ingenious one it was, set up the Indians as owners of the soil against the prerogative of the King of England. Then they persuaded the Indians to con- vey their supposed titles to the planters, generally in their collective capacity. The Salem deed conveys to the Selectmen and Trustees for the Town of Salem "for the sole use, benefit and behoof of the Proprietors in and pur- chasers of y e township of Salem." The Lynn deed runs " to the Trustees and Prudentials in behalf of the Proprietors." Each of the town deeds was for a consideration of twenty pounds. The date of the Salem deed was October 11, 1686, and the acknowl- edgment was of the same day. The Lynn deed bears date September 4, 1686, but does not appear to have been acknowledged until May 31, 1687. The deeds were executed before a noted settler, Bartholomew Gedney of the King's Council. Felt, in his " Annals of Salem," notes a fact which is apparent to other observers, namely, that there is a lack of uniformity in the orthography of the original deeds, particularly as to the Indian names. The motive in procuring these releases is seen in a conversation in March, 1689. Andros and some of his friends called upon the Rev. Mr. Higginson, the Minister of Salem. Andros asks the latter whether the territory of New England does not belong to the King. The reply is in the negative, because the 210 of Old Lynn Colonists own it by right of just occupation and by purchase from the Indians. In the course of debate Andros says, with warmth, "Either you are his subjects or you are rebels," intimating that if the people did not yield their lands to His Majesty, take new grants and pay rents for them, they should be treated as rebels. Andros claimed that on the forfeiture of the Charter all lands reverted to the Crown, and that the owners, to hold them legally, must take out patents of confirmation from the new government. A schedule of forms and fees was arranged by which his friends were to be enriched. The commons of several of the towns were seized and given to his followers, notably the Ten Hill Farm of nine hundred acres in Charlestown, given to Lieut.-Col. Lidgett, to be held under the Crown at a nominal rent, the details of which are fully set forth by Frothingham in his recital of the petty tyranny of Andros. While Andros was thus scheming for the overthrow of the rights of the Colonists, events in the mother country were changing the destinies of the English race. William of Orange, of blessed memory, landed in England. William and Mary became King and Queen. News of the deposition of James reached Boston April 18, 1689. The hour of vengeance had come at last. The Colony rose in arms, imprisoned Andros and Randolph, and the usurpation of New England was at an end. The sturdy planters of Essex County had an important share in that drama of freedom. It was the most eventful epoch of the Colony down 211 Hearths and Homes to the American Revolution. There is in the Lam- beth Palace, at London, among the papers of the Archbishop of Canterbury, a manuscript account of the uprising, said to be in the handwriting of Randolph himself. The writer says : - "April 19th, about 11 o'clock, the country came in, headed by one Shepard, teacher, of Lynn, who were like so many wild bears, and the leader, mad with passion, more savage than any of his followers. All the cry was for the Governor and Mr. Randolph." July 24, 1689, Randolph wrote from jail to the Lords of Trade, "All things are carried on by a furi- ous rabble animated by y e crafty ministers." Those old Puritan pastors, in spite of their brim- stone preaching, were men raised up to lead in the wilderness. They were the apostles of the modern civilization. This Jeremiah Shepard had a stormy and turbulent career in his earlier years as a minister at Rowley and Ipswich. That training stood him in good stead in later years in the Andros crisis. In that year of grace he was not only the spiritual guide, but also Lynn's member of the General Court and leader of its physical force. He was Pastor, Legislator and Captain. That his muscular and men- tal fibre were adapted to the locality is manifest from the fact that he died here with the harness on in 1720, forty years after his settlement. April 17, 1629, a letter, dated at Gravesend, was written by the Governor and Deputy of the Company 212 of Old Lynn in England to Mr. Endicott. In it was the following advice : - " If any of the Saluages pretend right of inherit- ance to all or any part of the lands, graunted in our Pattent, we pray you endeavour to purchase their tytle, that we may avoid the least scruple of intrusion." It is true there were frequent troubles with the Indians, but this deed was given ten years after Governor Josiah Winslow had sent Charles II the " best of our spoyles of the Sachem Phillip, taken by Capt. Benjamin Church when he was slayne by him, being his crowne, his gorge, and two belts of their own making of their gould and silver." King Philip and his warriors were far from our vicinity, away off on the borders of Rhode Island. The next Indian outbreak was as far away as Wells in Maine. This happened in the spring of 1690. So that the tardy compliance with the Governor's advice to Mr. Endi- cott was not dictated by any nearby danger from the Indians, who, so far as any tribal power went, were remote. It is also hardly reasonable that the Colon- ists, after sixty years of undisturbed possession of the soil, had awakened to consciousness of the prior rights of a savage race whom they had learned to despise hereabouts from their scant numbers, but were alert to send their fighting men hundreds of miles into the wilderness to hunt down and exter- minate as they did wolves and other marauders. The second generation the sons of the compan- ions of Winthrop and Endicott, the first generation Hearths and Homes of American-born Englishmen, the sons who had helped their fathers clear the wilderness and estab- lish homes in the new world had come into pos- session of their heritage. After the struggle with Nature, after the fathers had yielded the burdens of pioneer life to the stalwart sons, and the mortal part of many had been tenderly laid away in God's Acre in each little hamlet, no sentimental considera- tion of justice, no fear of personal danger from the scattered aborigines, moved these hardy first-born sons of English- Americans to carry out the injunction given their fathers by the company in England. It was rather one of the early lessons in the school of independence which culminated in the clash of arms in the next century at Lexington and Bunker Hill. It was one in an unbroken series of happenings from their first arrival, which demonstrate the purpose of our ancestors to found a Puritan Commonwealth, independent alike of the English Church and the English Crown. Were they seers who could pene- trate the veil of futurity and witness the marvelous growth of the greater England which they planted ? This cycle of eighty-six years from the accession of James I to the deposition and flight of his grand- son and namesake, of whom it can be truthfully said that there is hardly a sovereign mentioned in history of whom one can find less good to say, embraces the whole period of Stuart rule in England. In the language of royalty the reigns of these four Stuarts, James I, Charles I, Charles II and James II had been continuous. 214 of Old Lynn In fact, there had been an important interregnum, when England was ruled by Oliver Cromwell, the greatest all-round man whom the English race has produced. During the struggles at home between King and Parliament, befriended by Cromwell and the Commonwealth of England, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had waxed strong. Then came eighty-six years under the Hanoverian dynasty and a government at home of Ministers and here of a Council and General Court, comparatively free, but nominally under a series of royal Governors who did not find their positions sinecures. The igno- rance of the Ministers of George of the temper of the people of the Colonies, the Stamp Act, and taxa- tion without representation, brought about that other mysterious cycle day, the 19th of April, 1775, when armed resistance the ordeal of battle enforced what Winthrop and the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England meant when they landed in Salem in June, 1630 absolute freedom from old world rule. The fourth great cycle day of New England was the 19th of April, 1861, when the men of the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment were fired upon in the streets of Baltimore. The blood shed on that day was the opening of the most gigantic contest of arms of the modern world. No man at its beginning was wise enough to see that out of the sacrifices of that war was to come the abolition of chattel slavery of human beings on the western continent and in the world among white men, save in South Africa; and even 215 Hearths and Homes there British guns are to-day sounding its death- knell. War is a stern teacher, but civilization and human progress will follow Lord Roberts' triumph as surely in South Africa as they did after Sherman's march to the sea and Grant's crowning victory at Appomattox. In conclusion, I may sum up the turning events of these four striking periods, upon the first and second of which I have more fully touched, as they are more remote and less apt to be enlarged upon : - March 24, 1603, the great Queen died. On the 19th of April her crooked successor, James Stuart, was just half way from Scotland to London on his journey to assume the crown. The Stuart applica- tion of the doctrine of the divine right of kings to absolute rule filled the sails of the Mayflower till she landed the immortal band of Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, and directed the course of the Puritans to Massachusetts Bay. Eighty-six years from that day, on April 19, 1689, news having arrived in Boston of the deposition of the last of Stuart Kings, the men of Massachusetts arose in righteous indignation and imprisoned his Governor and tool New England's tyrant Sir Edmond Andros. Eighty-six years again passed, and on the historic 19th of April, 1775, " the em- battled farmers fired the shot heard round the world," on Lexington Green, and the first blood was shed in the War of the Revolution. Again eighty-six years revolve, and another portent is seen on the same remarkable date, April 19, 1861, when the first blood is shed in the streets of Baltimore the blood of 216 of Old Lynn Massachusetts men the opening of the gigantic slaveholders' Rebellion. Here are four cycles of eighty-six years, each with its initial and dramatic movement upon the 19th of April. There is no day in the calendar of Massachu- setts that can be compared with this great cycle day. These four events are the very hinges of the crises of our existence as a civilized community. The first is the compelling influence in the planting of the Colony ; the second is the overthrow of prelacy and despotism ; the third is the resort to arms against the Crown ; and the last is the purification by offer- ing upon the altar of sacrifice its heroic sons that the nation might live. This is a most curious historic cycle. Surely every loyal son of Massachusetts has an equal right to be proud of the 19th of April, and to make his gladness known of all men upon that day. 217 ESSEX FARMS: 1 THE CRADLES OF AMERICAN HOMES. HOREAU, the keen observer, the philosopher of Nature, walking along the southern expo- sure of his neighbor's hill-top on a first day of March, noted in his journal : " It is spring there, and Minot is puttering outside in the sun. How wise in his grandfather to select such a site for his house." The Essex Agricultural Society, the honored guild of the farmers of Essex, has had a corporate exist- ence of seventy-five years, having been incorporated in 1818. To-day occurs the seventieth annual address. The psalmist says that " three score years and ten are the length of man's days." The unbounded vitality of our Society after seventy-five years of usefulness is a striking reversal of Shakespeare's aphorism, " The evil that men do lives after them." We can say - the good that men do lives after them. At such a milestone perhaps we may rest for one 1 Essex Agricultural Society, at Haverhill, Mass., Thursday, September 21, 1893. 219 Hearths and Homes day from learned discussions and philosophical essays and glance back over the way we have traveled and then forward to see what lies before us. There is a fraternity of race blood in this Society which may not be apparent to outsiders. Strangers may query why so many names appear as the authors of annual addresses who are not practical farmers. The point cannot be better illustrated than here in this ancient and historic Haverhill. A few years since, an instructive address was delivered by your brilliant young District Attorney. 1 Readers of the wonderful self-revealing " Diary " of Chief Justice Samuel Sewall the brave Witchcraft Judge, who publicly acknowledged his error him- self an Essex man, will appreciate the interest which the sons take in the affairs of the old County. Sew- all's " Diary " abounds in references to Brother Moody, and whoever bears in his veins the Colonial blood of the Sewalls and Moodys must respond to the call for service from his kin. SewalPs " Diary " also lovingly dwells upon many cherished visits at Brother Northend's. Hence a descendant of Brother Northend of the old stock, going out to Nature for strength for forensic toils, came to the Society with words of experience. 2 Another man of our own time, whose family lines run back to the planting of the Colony, whose genial 1 William H. Moody, now Attorney General of the United States. - The late Hon. William Dummer Northend, author of ' ' The Bay Colony. ' ' 220 of Old Lynn presence has been a benison to our annual gatherings - the beloved Sheriff has been a welcome speaker. 1 Timothy Pickering, who delivered the first address and was the organizer and first President of this Society, may not be called a practical farmer, but every fibre of his being was in close touch with the men of the soil who made Essex County historic ground. Before the tragic scenes at Lexington and Concord had startled the world, Col. Timothy Pickering and the men of Salem had made (February 28, 1775) the first armed resistance to British aggression at the old North Bridge. In February, the men of Salem and Marblehead struck the key-note, which, in April, resounded from Middlesex. Colonel Pickering was Postmaster General, Secre- tary of War and Secretary of State in the cabinets of Washington and Adams. Later, he was Chief Justice of the Essex County Court of Common Pleas, United States Senator and Representative in Congress from the Essex District. He rounded out a long and useful career by pro- moting and organizing the Society under whose aus- pices we are assembled to-day. Under his call the first meeting was held at Cyrus Cummings' tavern, at Topsfield, on the 16th day of February, 1818. Ichabod Tucker was chosen Moderator, and David Cummings, Secretary ; these, with John Adams, Paul Kent and 1 The late Hon. Horatio G. Herrick, for many years Sheriff of Essex. 221 Hearths and Homes Elisha Mack, were appointed a committee to re- port a plan of organization. Timothy Pickering was chosen President ; and William Bartlett, Dr. Thomas Kittredge, John Heard and Ichabod Tucker, Vice-Presidents ; Leverett Saltonstall, Secretary ; and Dr. Nehemiah Cleaveland, Treasurer. Timothy Pick- ering was annually chosen President for ten years, to 1829, when he again delivered the annual address. Colonel Pickering was followed by Andrew Nichols, the botanist, the beloved physician of Danvers. Then came that liberal preacher, the Rev. Abiel Abbott, of Beverly, of whom President Monroe said that he was the best talker he ever knew. From that day on the clergymen have done their share of the talking, as was eminently fit in a society of Puritan descent. I shall not presume to speak of the living, so I pass by the present pastor of the First Church (the Village Church) of Danvers, and mention his predecessor, the sturdy leader of Ortho- dox thought, the preacher of the faith of the fathers, the Rev. Milton P. Braman. And there is also re- called that pious scholar, wit and humorist, the Rev. Dr. Leonard Withington, of Newbury, who described himself as " a modified Calvinist." The Bar has been drawn upon for its leaders from "the silver-tongued" James H. Duncan, and his cousin, the courtly Leverett Saltonstall, to the time of Judge Otis P. Lord and Gen. Benjamin F. Butler. Caleb Gushing obeyed your call, he, of whom Isaac 0. Barnes wittily and truthfully said : " There is a living self-moving cyclopedia, from whom you can obtain 222 of Old Lynn information upon every question that has interested any people in any age of the world." Gen. Henry K. Oliver, the versatile, the teacher, the sweet singer, the mayor of two cities, made his contribution, and the fluent, ever-ready Dr. George B. Loring was here, as everywhere among farmers, the popular favorite, for he delivered the annual address on three occasions. This is not a catalogue of names of those who have addressed the Society, but I cannot refrain from naming two who were zealous in the cause of intelli- gent forestry. Ben : Perley Poore made Indian Hill a magnet that drew wits, savants, and practical men of affairs from the world over. Richard S. Fay made Lynnmere an earthly paradise. He created a forest which has become a profitable woodland. It is a stately memorial of the taste and genius of a man who was devoted to the development of agriculture. The actual farmers who have followed the calling nearest to Nature as a vocation, to which other mat- ters were mere avocations, have been prominent. Although honors came to such men as Hon. Daniel P. King, Gen. Josiah Newhall and Hon. Asa Tarbell Newhall, enthusiastic devotion to and skilled direction of the farm were paramount and sufficient. Hon. Asa T. Newhall is recorded as delivering the address in 1849, and again in 1884 ; but of course you know as well as I that it was not the old Squire who addressed you in the latter year, but his grandson of the same name and inherited talents, who now makes hay while the sun shines on the home farm. Verily, 223 Hearths and Homes the sons find it pleasant to tread the paths of labor and of honor in the footsteps of respected sires. These are but representative names in the galaxy of Essex men who have addressed this Society. Every address has been carefully prepared, and a vast variety of interesting topics have been discussed. A collection of the whole would make a valuable library for an intelligent household. I should shrink from being added to this list if I did not feel that the honor came to me, not as a personal one, but as a recognition of a family whose successive generations have tilled the soil on the intervales of Saugus River from the planting of the Colony to the present day. Members of this family are active in the councils of the Society, and I am grateful to be allowed to link my name with those who have gone before me as an active member of the Essex Agricultural Society. This Society is old enough to have made for itself an enviable history, but Essex agriculture had a world-renowned origin long before the days of Colonel Pickering and his worthy associates. The first page of the first volume of " The Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England " bears a memorandum supposed to be in the handwriting of Mr. Washborne, the first Secre- tary of the Company, which is pregnant with and significant of a great event in the world's history. Its date is March 16 (the year unknown), probably 1628. If so, Endicott had not sailed. Winthrop would not depart for two years. 224 of Old Lynn Without any verbiage or sentimentality in a matter- of-fact paper, it reveals without the need of comment or concordance what the company thought were prime objects and necessities in the great scheme of emi- gration. I quote from the memorandum : - To provide to send for Newe England : Ministers ; Pattent vnder seale ; A seale ; Wheate, rye, barly, oates, a hhed. of ech in the eare ; benes, pease ; Stones of all sorts of fruites, as peaches, plums, fil- berts, cherries ; Peare, aple, quince kernells, pomegranats ; Saffron heads ; Liquorice seed, rootes sent ; & Madder rootes ; Potatoes ; Hoprootes ; Hempseede ; Flaxe seede, agenst wynter ; Connys ; Currant plants ; Tame Turkeys ; In that London chamber, with all the signs ominous of the Puritan revolt, Mathew Cradock, Thomas Goffe, Isaac Johnson, Sir Richard Saltonstall, John Humfrey, John Winthrop and their associates, with amazing shrewdness, yet in Christian humility, planned one of the epochs in the world's history. First, of course, they selected ministers the spirit- ual guides and comforters of the flock. Secondly, they agreed to send over the Charter - the patent under seal. This instrument they regarded 225 15 Hearths and Homes as their "Magna Charta," something which was to give them powers of government which Charles and his advisers never dreamed of when it was granted. Having provided for the religious and civil govern- ment, the next consideration was to stock the intend- ing colony with choice seeds for planting in the new soil. The list was comprehensive it embraced every- thing which was thought of value. From it one fact stands out boldly, namely, that the founders con- templated an agricultural and not a commercial community. The renown and wealth which came later from the fisheries, from commerce and then from manufactures, were not foreseen. The farmers have maintained the Canaan of the fathers, and, looking upon the exhibit of this fair, may we query if it is not about time for Essex farmers to bury the silly question, Does farming pay? and to ask instead, How many things besides the glitter of gold make it profitable? It is time to cease to bewail the hard lot of the tillers of the soil. It is in order to tell the world that our fathers did not find here a bleak and barren land. There is not a farmer in Essex County who deserves success who does not achieve it. Conditions change and our farmers adapt themselves to the new demands. It may be that the great West can pro- duce our well-beloved Indian corn cheaper than we can upon our smaller areas, but the compensation is sure to be found in less work and more profit in our milk, butter and cheese and nearness to markets. 226 of Old Lynn 'The free air of farm life does not alone fill the lungs with life-giving oxygen, and harden the mus- cles ; it makes and develops the brain that is to guide the affairs of men. Some time ago it was the fashion to apologize for Abraham Lincoln's lack of training. Short-sighted mortals. All the colleges in the world could not have so equipped him for the peculiar work he was raised up to accomplish as the out-of-doors frontier life, which, under the Divine plan, was appointed him. Rufus Choate, whom, Peleg W. Chandler in a memorial address before the Massachusetts Histori- cal Society styled "a glorified Yankee," was born on Hog Island in our good town of Essex. The name, Hog Island, is not particularly attrac- tive, but the spot itself is a singularly beautiful one. The swift in-pouring tides of the ocean rush by it up the Essex River. Long reaches of gleaming sand bars lie at its feet. The blue Atlantic beats ever- lastingly against its rocky headlands. A plain old homestead with its broad inherited acres on the bluff was an ideal home for a contem- plative man, as the farmer, watching the procession of the seasons, is apt to be. The sense of environ- ment entered the brain of the possessor of that old farm as he held the plough or swung the scythe. With such surroundings, with temperate life, with the serenity that goes with the ownership of the soil, man raises better crops than grass or vegetables, better stock than Holsteins or Jerseys ; he begets children of brains. Of such Rufus Choate was a type. Hearths and Homes And the annals of the County are resplendent with like examples of boys and girls born in the low-studded comfortable houses that antedated those monstrosities in a northern climate the so-called Queen Anne houses who have gone forth to charm the world and tell whether or not farming pays. The Puritan exodus from England to Massachu- setts Bay was the most wisely conceived and the most grandly executed scheme of colonization that the annals of the human race relate. The van-guard of the peaceful army of occupation, which Endicott and Winthrop and Saltonstall and Dudley and Dum- mer led into Essex County, was carefully made up of the flower of the "country party" of England. Men did not come alone. They brought their wives and children with them. They were a select class of God-fearing, thinking men, who made the parish meeting-house the center of temporal as well as of spiritual affairs, from which everything radiated. No drones and no paupers were allowed to come. The wise heads who directed the movement sent out the exact proportion of blacksmiths, weavers, tanners, millers and husbandmen needed to develop the country. There was no crowding, no reckless strife to reach the goal of wealth at the expense of one's fellows. When the coast line became dotted with parishes, a minister of the Gospel led a little flock inland and obtained a grant for a new plantation. Where else could this sturdy stock have found elements so adapted to founding a new civilization and a better home ? 828 of Old Lynn The people who pity us say that our soil is rocky with swamps and forests that our climate is bleak. They forget that Christ was born in a cave in rocky Judea that the crags of bonny Scotland gave voice to the genius of Robert Burns and Walter Scott that romance, chivalry and prowess in all eras have come down out of the hill countries. What would have become of the song of our Whittier if he had been shut up inside city walls or on a dull, endless flat land? The fathers appreciated the woods, even if the age did people them with demons. With the town lot and the tillage land each householder had set apart to him a wood lot. This wood lot furnished materials to build the house that has sheltered the planter's children even to this day. And it, by the kindness of Nature, renews itself every generation, so that the same wood keeps his children's children warm and happy, which sparkled and blazed in the original fire-place. The great salt marshes were awaiting the English- man's scythe and his cattle, as they have every fall from that day to this. Frost and snow mantled the earth in winter, but both, as we know, are agencies under a benign Providence working for the tiller of the soil. The snow has as necessary a place in the economy of Nature in the night of the year, as the sun, in the day of the year. Even the loose stones in the earth, that others would have considered a curse, were to our foreseeing fathers a blessing in disguise. For in the very first generation the 229 Hearths and Homes yeoman and his boys constructed many miles of the ugly, yet enduring, stone walls that still stand - monuments alike of the thrift and grit of the founders and the loyalty of the sons of the soil. Facilities for education are important factors in deciding whether the calling that is followed is profitable. The mind must be fed as well as the body, else one is poor indeed, though with unlimited gold. The founders of Essex County brought with the pastor, his colleague, the teacher. Amidst the broadening influences of this virgin soil, the Puritan evolved the highest instrumentality in the growth of man the common school. It was not possible under the old world forms of government and thought. The mediaeval ecclesiastic fears it more than all the potentates of earth combined, and a threat against it sounds the alarm which unites all loyal Americans. The common school had its birth here, and here it has flourished and is to-day the model for all enlightened states. In the south gallery of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building at the World's Columbian Exposition hangs a map, which is attracting as much if not more attention than any other exhibit in the building. It is a map of immense proportions and shows the number of schools that each city and town in Massachusetts has established and is support- ing. People from all parts of the United States have seen it and pronounced it the most wonderful exhibit yet produced. No other state in fact, no other country can produce anything equal to it. of Old Lynn As early as 1635, our towns established schools, supporting them in various ways, by subscriptions, by endowments, by grants of income from the com- mon stock lands, by fishing privileges, by tuition fees, by direct taxation, and they have been steadily climbing to the top. At no time has the work been relaxed. And now, Massachusetts leads the world in educational privileges. Of this map the director of education of the State of New York is reported to have said to E. C. Hovey, Chairman of the Massachusetts World's Fair Com- mission : " If New York State could show a map such as that I would be willing to throw our entire exhibit into Lake Michigan. There is nothing which equals it." George H. Martin's descriptive account of our schools accompanying the map shows that from its beginning the State has had a complete system of public elementary schools, secondary schools, and the college. The second century of the educational his- tory of the State is marked by an effort to adapt the school system to the needs of a widely scattered agri- cultural population. On this map our County stands second to none among the Counties of the State. When you think of the great farms of the northwest and are inclined to repine because you cannot make such haste to get rich, look upon the other side of the shield. Set your schools against the hordes of foreign immigrants, who, in some of the farming states are controlling legislation against teaching English and against the existence of the common school itself. 231 Hearths and Homes Your children's priceless privileges weigh down the scale of advantages solidly upon your side. Of the foundation of these schools, Lord Macaulay once said in parliament : "Illustrious forever in history were the founders of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ; though their love of freedom of conscience was illimitable and indestructible, they could see nothing servile or degrading in the principle that the State should take upon itself the charge of the education of the people. In the year 1642, they passed their first legislative enactment on this subject, in the preamble of which they distinctly pledged them- selves to this principle, that education was a matter of the deepest possible importance and the greatest possible interest to all nations and to all communi- ties, and that as such it was, in an eminent degree, deserving of the peculiar attention of the State." The matter of race has much to do with success in farming. Down to the Revolution, the people of New England were, almost without exception, of pure English blood. The same statement is nearly as true to-day of the farmers of Essex County. As distinctive as the worship of the crocodile by the dwellers on the Nile, or the adoration of the god of war by the Romans, has ever been the Anglo- Saxon reverence for land. With love of the land there is also associated regard and veneration for trees. It is true that the fathers waged war upon the forests, but that was a necessity of their situation. They wanted the sunshine to warm their virgin soil. They needed 232 of Old Lynn the wood for fuel, for rafters, sills and boards. Besides the requirement of cleared lands for culti- vation, there was ever the thought that the clearings made so many less lurking places for the skulking red Indian, who was always a peril in the shadows of the forest. So far as we may properly go without being charged with the sin of idolatry, we Americans are tree worshipers. It is perfectly natural for us to be so. It is bred in our bone. It is an inheritance from our English ancestors. The Romans, who made a strong impression on the native tribes of England, venerated trees, erected temples in their groves and ordained sacrifices in their honor. The Druids lived in them, as it was thought more sacred to dwell under trees and about their rock altars than in the open plains. Trees are our most striking evidence in material things of our immortal life. We plant them and they live on far beyond our lives. In planting them we think not so much of ourselves as of the future generations. The myriad voices of the trees speak to us in the same tones that they did to our fathers in the past and as they will to our children in future ages. The magnificent Waverly oaks were mature trees when the keel of the Mayflower touched the gleam- ing sands of Plymouth Harbor. The south wind played the same soothing melodies through their branches then as now, though the Indian, whose moccasins noiselessly trod the sward at their feet, 233 Hearths and Homes has vanished from the face of the earth and the humble Pilgrim from Leyden has inspired and created the greatest nation of the civilized world. The old trees saw the red man and the Englishman play their parts and are still sturdy as well they need be while they listen to the polyglot tongues that now babble around them. Seasons come and go, leaves ripen and fall, buds unfold into leaf and blossom, but the tree grows on and on and recks not that the white-headed old man who thoughtfully reposes in its shade is the same person who sported beneath its limbs in childhood's merry hours. In the good work of quickening an interest in forestry, this Society has held an advanced position, and among individuals interested, its present Presi- dent l is easily leader. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the greatest story teller of New England lore, tenderly related his journey ings in "Our Old Home." Do we realize that while old England is the old home to those of the stock who have remained hereabouts, there is a vastly greater company of the descendants of people of New England birth who have found new homes in the great West, even to the Golden Gate on the Pacific ? To all these millions, Massachusetts and Essex County are the old home. The standard elms and the south-facing, long, sloping, back-roofed houses with the great stack of chimneys in the centre, to all these people are home and history and the starting point of family lines. 1 General Francis H. Appleton. 234 of Old Lynn Over in Quincy, in such houses as are identical in form and construction and surroundings with hun- dreds in Essex County, the two Presidents of the United States, of Massachusetts birth, were born. In Danvers, the room in which Israel Putnam was born is kept just as it was when the tough old ranger first saw the light. The whole County is dotted with these old earth-hugging houses upon which the storms of bleak winters have beaten, in vain, for centuries. To-day at Chicago nothing wins more praise and admiration than the John Hancock house, and it is said that the Colonial exhibit in the Massachusetts department exceeds in interest anything of the kind in the Fair, and that the old bureaus, the old bed- steads, and the models of the old houses to be found there have a grace and beauty in point of size, and model, and execution, that is not reached in the greater part of our modern furniture or our modern dwellings. These houses are to be found along the New Eng- land coast from Portsmouth, Rhode Island, to Wells, in Maine. But there are more of them in Essex County than anywhere else, more even than in Ply- mouth or Middlesex. They are historic houses of America, and, as a well-known writer says, they express both the English freedom of the seventeenth century and the regard for comfort and security and strength which our New England fathers were obliged to consider when they built homes of their own. 235 They were wisely built by men who knew the cli- mate and by men who were founding families. They overlooked the broad acres which their builders had redeemed from the wilderness. Square, prim and strong, admirably adapted to the age in which they were built, time has mellowed their surroundings and made them one and all picturesque and important adjuncts in every hamlet in the County. Every one is full of the traditions and history of its long departed occupants and of the people. From the windows of that house a child saw the gray-stockinged young farmers from Danvers tarry for a drink from the bucket in the well on the fateful morning of the 19th of April, 1775. The child look- ing from the windows saw upon the return from Lexington a sad sight for youthful eyes and for the mourners, though Liberty on that day was born. The child saw the gray-stockinged forms cold in death as the rumbling wagons bore their sacred burdens back to wailing families. That child never forgot the scene, and in old age used to tell the story to younger people, and he 1 who heard it from her lips was him- self an old man when he related it to me. Scenes a hundred years prior to Lexington have these old houses seen. Upon the bank of the North River, in the midst of the sloping fields, where to-day the September sun is ripening farmer Jacobs' crops, stands the substantial house with the surroundings practically as they were when its master, George 1 Hon. Samuel M. Bubier. 236 THE FLAGG-GRAY HOUSE, Marion Street, south of Boston Street, birthplace of Lieutenant-Governor William Gray, about to be torn down by a syndicate of Hebrews, who have purchased it, to be replaced by tenement houses. of Old Lynn Jacobs Saint George of old Northfields as we call him now was led away for shameful death in the dark days of the witchcraft troubles in 1692. Here in Haverhill your late public-spirited fellow- citizen, James H. Carleton, did a characteristic and noble deed, when, in his life-time not making it an after-death benefaction he secured the preserva- tion of the birth-place of the sweet poet whose rhymed lines are in closest touch with the finest expression of New England life. Whittier is the immortal flower of rural New England. Mr. Carleton has made this plain farm-house the Mecca towards which throngs of lovers of the poet will be drawn and say with him : "Nor farm-house with its maple shade, Or rigid poplar colonnade, But lies distinct and full in sight, Beneath this gush of sunset light." The builders of these houses were brothers to the regicides across the sea. They were Commonwealth men. They were the advanced liberals of the age. They, at home, had dreamed of establishing beyond the ocean a greater England, freed from feudalism, prelacy and kingcraft. While they were setting up their Puritan theocracy, growing attached to the new homes, the experiment of the Commonwealth was tried in England and w r as lost when the great Cromwell died. The profligate reign of Charles the Second and the bigoted reign of James the Second, were followed by 237 Hearths and Homes the great Revolution of 1689, which brought in the Dutch William. And then came the day of the intriguing and venal place hunters of the reign of Anne. The Protestant Revolution of 1689, did well enough for conservative England, but the more radical Bay Colony had learned to walk alone. It wanted no Queen Anne houses with chimneys on the outside. These were adapted to negro quarters in the sunny South, but not for our north country. An American architecture had been evolved. American thought had been created, and from then on, our fathers planned for emancipation from the political yoke. Let us not learn from strangers to appreciate the historic value nor the substantial use of the stout houses that are gems set in the grassy lanes of old Essex, but let us so care for them as to make them still more attractive to the wanderer who returns to the home of his people. It is almost striking to observe the traits and features of one generation repeated in its successors in a locality where the people have become fixed in their habits and are acclimated to their surroundings. Such resemblances are striking in English counties, in France, and in other localities where man and the climate and the soil harmonize. These conditions seem to be fast attached to our County. If the art of photography had existed in the seventeenth cen- tury, the portrait of the first settler of what is now Middleton would have been a good likeness of the thrifty farmer of Middleton who took prizes for his of Old Lynn stock at recent cattle shows. The same rule holds throughout the County. The same names prosper upon the same acres. They are still the deacons and selectmen and possessors of fat pocket-books, filled by working brains into the ancestral rough it may be but loved acres. The Charter granted the land to the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England in fee. The Colony gave the same kind of title to towns, com- moners and individuals, free from Old World services and limitations. Out of this absolute holding of land grew an independent yeomanry, which in the fulness of time stormed Louisburg, the Gibraltar of France in America, and a generation later defied England's power on Bunker Hill. Such men the men of the town meeting the men who made America the shining example of human development came from the stock of owners and tillers of the soil. A peasantry never accomplished such results. A peasantry may tear down, but never build up. Wher- ever man owns his farm, his garden, or his house, it is safe to say that modern Nationalism the scheme of having a paternal government own everything and regulate every man's labor, will not be popular. Such doctrines will scarcely take root in Essex County. The general holding of farms in this County for two hundred and fifty years in family line, in fee simple, without any laws against alienation, is some- thing without parallel in human history. Six cities 239 Hearths and Homes have grown up (with a seventh about to assume the civic gown) without materially taking from our arable territory. No land titles in the world stand upon so just a base. We care nothing for the original grant from the King of England. The settlement was made at just that period, when under the plan of the Creator, this portion of the earth was appointed for the occupation of a new race. Pestilence and war had swept away the once numerous tribes of red men, so that only a scattered remnant remained. Whatever rights they had in the earth, sky and water, in the prolix phraseology of the period, they willingly conveyed to our shrewd ancestors. Thus all the lands are held by a triple title first, the royal grant, second, the town grant, and third, the Indian release. Since that time neither pestilence, earthquake, cyclone, famine, nor war, has devastated our domain. To-day the only danger that threatens the stone- fenced ancient farms is found in the incursion of cultured, but jaded city men, who have discovered the charms of rural life and seek to dispossess after the manner of Alexander of Macedon, who said, "I despair of taking no city into which I can introduce a mule laden with gold." Such taking may not be unwelcome to some, but it will be in the far future when the Yankee farmer yields up his supremacy amidst the hills, dales and intervales of old Essex. Washington Irving has painted with loving minute- ness the master of Bracebridge Hall : - 240 of Old Lynn His certain life, that never can deceive him, Is full of thousand sweets, and rich content ; The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him With coolest shade, till noontide's heat be spent. His life is neither tost in boisterous seas Or the vexatious world ; or lost in slothful ease. Pleased and full blessed he lives, when he his God can please." The genial squire lives in real life in every hamlet in this picturesque region of ours, from the serpen- tine Saugus to the majestic Merrimac. The farmers of Essex are not forced to lead isolated lives, as is the case in most rural districts. The steam railroad penetrates every town in the County, save Nahant, and the people there much prefer to be without the luxury. In the near future the electric car, both for freight and passengers, will stop at every farm-house. This is not a Utopian dream, but a practical scheme, which the " Engineering Magazine " is strongly urg- ing and which is already, so far as passengers are concerned, in actual operation in many towns ; and on one line, at least, freight cars run. The constant passing of cars over city pavements between brick walls is not an unmixed blessing, but stated trips of such cars will be a great benefit to the farmer and his family, especially in those seasons of the year when country roads even the best are liable to be muddy and not comfortable for ordinary locomotion. Besides the economical uses of these cars, they will facilitate the enjoyment of another institution 241 16 Hearths and Homes in which Massachusetts stands in the van the public library system. " Of making many books there is no end," but the public library is one of the marvels of the nineteenth century. Public schools and newspapers have made readers of all, but no individual can expect to own, or if he did own, could furnish shelf-room for all the books he may desire to read. The public library selects, houses, cares for and distributes the printed treasures of the thought of the world in every town to every family. As many books are accessible to the village maiden to-day as the scholars of the universities had at their command a few years ago. Yes ! Thoreau was right. It was fortunate for us that our fathers made their landfall upon this coast of sandbars and rocky headlands upon this land of marsh and wooded hillside this region with frost enough in the atmosphere to make man work for his bread with muscle and brain this land now teeming with folk-lore of a plain, God-fearing yeo- manry this favored home of the free common school and the free public library. They found here a soil that with industry would reward labor they found a land full of noble trees and charming wild flowers they built homely houses, which they have bequeathed to us with their records of well-spent and often heroic lives. While there is a pride that dwells too much upon the past, yet there is much that has come down with the heirlooms that is worthy of our emulation. While of Old Lynn we employ all new inventions that lessen labor in our chosen callings, we may ponder with profit upon the lives of our ancestors, who, with lesser means and with ruder implements made their lives successful and their influence salutary upon those who followed them. These thoughts are trite, but when we observe the mad rush of life in cities, hearts broken and lives wrecked in the constant reverses of business, it is meet for the farmer to reflect upon his life so near to nature, so near to the things which were dear to his kin, so free from the corrosion of all other pur- suits. LYNNFIELD IN THE REVOLUTION. ESPITE of the libraries of argument and un- ceasing floods of rhetoric which the events of April 19, 1775, have produced or perhaps rather by virtue of the same, the immediate wrongs of which our fathers complained were not in them- selves adequate to explain the great uprising which was coolly planned and to which the match was applied by the march of the British regulars to Con- cord. The initial grievance was far back of the vexatious taxing of the Colonists by the English Ministry and Parliament. The roots of the tree of freedom were planted in New England when Win- throp brought the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the new world. The tree was tended and nourished in hardship and blood. Judge Mellen Chamberlain once told of an inter- view with a veteran of the Lexington fight, which I have long thought a significant utterance of a plain man of the people, Capt. Levi Preston, of Danvers. Judge Chamberlain said : - " When I was about twenty-one, and Captain Pres- ton about ninety-one, I interviewed him in his own home as to what he did and thought sixty-seven years before, on the 19th of April, 1775, and now 1 An address delivered in Lynnfield Town Hall, June 17, 1905. 245 Hearths and Homes fifty-two years later, I make my report, a little belated, perhaps, but I trust not too late for the morning papers. With an assurance passing even that of the modern interviewer, I began : - " ' Captain Preston, what made you go to the Con- cord fight?' "The old man, bowed with the weight of fourscore years and ten, raised himself upright, and turning to me said : ' What did I go for ? ' " ' Yes/ I replied. ' My histories all tell me you men of the Revolution took up arms against intol- erable oppression. What was it ? ' " ' Oppression ? I did n't feel any that I know of.' " ' Were you not oppressed by the Stamp Act ? ' " ' I never saw any stamps, and I always understood that none were ever sold.' " ' Well, what about the tea tax ? ' "'Tea tax? I never drank a drop of the stuff; the boys threw it all overboard.' " ' But I suppose you had been reading Harrington, Sidney and Locke about the eternal principles of liberty?' " ' I never heard of those men. The only books we had were the Bible, the catechism, Watts' psalms and hymns, and the almanac.' " ' Well, then, what was the matter ? ' " ' Young man, what we meant in fighting the British was this : We always had been free and we meant to be free always.' ' It is safe to say that when the storm of the Revo- lution burst upon this rural hamlet, every roof -tree 240 of Old Lynn that sheltered the fathers and sons was their own, earned by brawn and brain. Perhaps they could not scan and measure the full scope of their deeds, nor the wonderful results that were to come from their actions, but like Levi Preston, they always had been free and they dared all to maintain that free- dom. Prior to armed resistance to the day when Major John Buttrick " fired the shot heard around the world," the Provincial Congress had been making ready for the impending conflict. Among other duties it had seen to it that Tories were weeded out of the militia. After the purging process you may find upon your records this signifi- cant entry : - "Agreeably to the advice of the respectable Pro- vincial Congress, the training band company of Lynn, North Parish, being a part of the first regiment in the County of Essex, formerly commanded by Wil- liam Brown, politically deceased by a pestilential and mortal disorder, and now buried in the ignominious ruins at Boston, met on Monday, November 15, and after choosing Deacon Nathaniel Bancroft as their Chairman, elected Joseph Gowing, Captain ; Nathaniel Sherman, First Lieutenant, and John Perkins, Ensign." When the War of the Revolution came the war for the independence of America from Kingcraft as well as priestcraft for which the fathers had looked, worked and prayed Lynnfield had long been for all practical purposes a separate town. When the 19th of April, 1775, dawned, it was known in the old North Parish, in the district 247 Hearths and Homes of Lynnfield, as well as elsewhere in Essex and Middlesex. The mortal remains of a night rider, who aided Paul Revere in spreading the alarm that Lord Percy was to march, rest in your God's acre. Dr. Martin Herrick, though he lived in the little villages of Reading and Lynnfield, was a noted man, and a participant in stirring times. Captain Bancroft's Company was ready to march when Herrick's panting steed clattered up to Gow- ing's Tavern. Later, the doctor became a surgeon in the Continental service. In the momentous happenings of one of the myste- rious cycle days of New England, the sons of Lynnfield took sturdy and gallant part, and the blood of its slain sons reddening the sod of Menotomy made the Concord and Lexington country classic and hallowed ground for patriotic Americans forever. Right here it may be said that Daniel Townsend was the only one of the sons of ancient Lynn slain on that day, who found a burial place among his kin. The others who fell were placed in the burial ground at Menotomy as unknown dead. Among those humble martyrs were William Flint and Thomas Hadley. These two men lived in the southern part of Lynnfield, and were enrolled and served with Captain David Parker's Saugus company upon the great day in which they laid down their lives. The discovery of the grave of a Revolutionary soldier gave to Howard K. Sanderson a pleasure that of Old Lynn rivaled the intense satisfaction which rewarded the great botanist when his quest chanced upon a new orchid. The many hours and days that he toiled in the moss-grown burial grounds of Lynnfield, Saugus and Lynn, and in the old homes of the people are unknown to but few. That he is not here to-day with his rich stories of Revolutionary history is your misfortune and mine - that the inspiring eloquence of that enthusiastic stu- dent of the history-making epoch is lacking on this occasion is one of the inscrutable ways of an over- ruling Providence. There is an old English word that applies to the labor of Howard K. Sanderson in the search for materials bearing upon our Revolutionary life. It is "prodigious." So far as Lynnfield is concerned, all that is known of individuals is typewritten and ready for the printer. I have only presumed to use one sketch, and that because he had such a loving tenderness for the memory of the man whose name at his suggestion was given to our junior chapter of the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution : - Daniel Townsend, Private, son of Deacon Daniel and Mary (Hutchinson) Townsend, was born on the so-called "Needham Place" in Lynnfield Centre, October 16, 1738. In many respects his name is probably the best known of any connected with Lynn during the Revolutionary War. His biography is one of the very few published ; his services have been the subject of many patriotic allusions, and his grave 249 Hearths and Homes has been pointed out for one hundred and thirty years as that of a martyr in the cause of liberty. He was one of a large family of children, among whom was his brother Thomas, with whom he was closely associated. He was married in Reading, January 24, 1764, to Zerviah Upton, of Reading, born 1744, daughter of John Upton. They began life in the house which stood at the junction of the roads below Filling's Pond, about one mile south of Lynnfield Centre. It was owned at the time by Samuel Orne, and was struck by lightning and burned in 1899. June 30, 1771, he and his wife, Zerviah, owned the covenant and joined the Second Parish Church. July 7, his children, John and Daniel, were baptized ; August 4, Jacob ; August 29, 1773, Zerviah, and January 15, 1775, Lydia. Mr. Townsend took but little part in town affairs, serving only as Warden in 1771 and Assessor in 1775. He early joined the Minute Men of the Parish, and with his brother Thomas, who was a Lieutenant, marched to Menotomy, where they met the British on the retreat to Boston, April 19, 1775. The story of his tragic death on that day is as follows : At five o'clock in the afternoon he found himself between the flank guard and main line of the British army, at the house of Jason Russell, at Menotomy. He made a brave eifort to escape, but fell riddled with bullets. From the best information obtainable, it appears that his neighbors carried his body home that night, arriv- ing during the small hours of the morning. The unusual commotion in the road, the confused voices 250 of Old Lynn of men, and the moving about of lanterns in the yard, betokened to Mrs. Townsend that something unusual had taken place. When the news was broken to her, she was overwhelmed and never recovered, she being left helpless with five small children, the youngest but six months old. Mr. Townsend's remains were tenderly laid in the best room of the old house and a portion of his neighbors remained as a sort of yeoman guard of honor. It is supposed that the funeral was held in the Second Parish Church, and that Rev. Benjamin Adams preached the funeral sermon. His remains were borne just across the way where they were interred in the village cemetery, the entire town attending the funeral. The church records bear this simple and quaint entry: "Ap. 19, 1775, died Dan'l Townsend in a battle with the Regulars : He was shot down dead in a moment, in ye 36th year of his age." The Essex Gazette of May 2, 1775, says : " He was a constant and ready friend to the poor and afflicted ; a good adviser in cases of difficulty ; a mild and sin- cere reprover. In short, he was a friend to his country, a blessing to society and an ornament to the church of which he was a member." Mrs. Townsend soon followed him to the grave, dying October 19, aged thirty-one. The only allusion to him in the precinct records is on November 22, when William Richardson was chosen Assessor in his stead. The grave of Mr. Townsend is appro- priately marked by a black slate stone, which faces the highway and the old church on the green. The 251 Hearths and Homes inscription is : " Sacred to the memory of Mr. Daniel Townsend, who was slain at the Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775, aged 36. " Lie, valient Townsend, in the peaceful shades; we trust, Immortal honors mingle with thy dust. What though thy body struggled in thy gore ? So did thy Saviour's body, long before; And as He raised His own, by power divine, So the same power shall also quicken thine, And in eternal glory mayst thou shine." Mrs. Townsend's gravestone bears this inscription : " Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Zerviah Townsend, relict of Mr. Daniel Townsend, who died Oct. 19, 1775, aged 31. " Death has my life swept away, To follow my companion dear; But Christ can bear my soul away, And land it on the heavenly shore. ' ' Mr. Townsend died intestate, his brother Thomas being appointed administrator, while Capt. Nathaniel Bancroft was one of the appraisers. John Berry and Jesse Wellman were probably in his employ at the time of his death. Tradition has always connected the name of the former with the bringing home of Mr. Townsend's body. The Legislature later granted to his heirs the sum 2 14s. for losses sustained by him in the battle. Before the war, Mr. Townsend had loaned the town money, but his heirs received pay only in depreciated Continental currency. There are many of his descend- ants still living in Lynn, among them being three of Old Lynn grandchildren, Mrs. Henry H. Breed, Mrs. William P. Conway and Mrs. Eliza M. Atkinson. The musket which he carried on the 19th of April, is still in the possession of William H. Townsend, of this city. A bronze marker of the Sons of the American Revolution has been placed at Daniel Townsend's grave, and the American flag, fashioned and woven since his death, now floats over the hero's grave, in the quiet little town in which he was born and where his life was spent. Another individual sketch will be given, since the person was responsible as my great-grandfather for my privilege to appear here as a native of this town. Another great-grandfather of mine, Nathan Hawkes, who was in the Lexington fight, as Ensign of Capt. David Parker's Saugus company, had a son born in the great year, (1775) who, when he came to man's estate, found out that across the woods by the way of Indian Rock was a daughter of the house of Tar- bell. He married her. In the course of time, the race of Tarbell being childless in the male line, their son, Nathan D. Hawkes, took to himself a wife and went to live in the old Tarbell house. And there I was born. Jonathan Tarbell, Jr., should have a place in Lynn- field's roll of honor. Although Sergt. Jonathan Tar- bell, Jr., appears upon the Lexington alarm roll of Capt. Samuel Epes' company, Colonel Pickering's regiment, Danvers, he and his family were closely connected with Lynnfield. He was the son of Jona- than and Mary (Felton) Tarbell. The senior Jonathan purchased the secluded vale 253 Hearths and Homes which for a century and a quarter has been known as the Tarbell place, in Lynnfield, April 12, 1775, a few days before Lexington, and the deed was recorded April 21, 1775, two days after the battle. Previous to this time it had been in the possession of Joseph Jeffrey and from the place on the fateful day, marched Joseph Jeffrey, Jr., with Capt. Nathaniel Bancroft's company. Jonathan Tarbell, Sr., the father of Sergt. Jonathan Tarbell, was the son of Deacon Cornelius Tarbell and Mary (Sharp) Tarbell, of Danvers. Cornelius was the son of John Tarbell of Salem Village, whose name will ever be noted as the master spirit in the ecclesiastical contest with that arch- conspirator of the witchcraft delusion, Rev. Samuel Parris, which finally ejected Mr. Parris in disgrace from the country and vindicated the Christian name of Mr. Tarbell 's wife's mother, Rebecca Nourse, a victim of the madness of 1692. Upon the Lexington monument in Peabody, the first name on the list of dead heroes is " Samuel Cook, aet. 33." By his side, when the British bullet struck his heart, stood his brother-in-law, Sergt. Jona- than Tarbell, whose wife was Elizabeth Cook. His home was near those of Timothy Munroe, John Hawkes and Andrew Mansfield, and a portion of the large farm which he and his family occupied is now on the extreme eastern verge, covered by the waters of Hawkes' Pond. Thence it extended over the hill westerly into the valley to Saugus River, and the line of Wakefield. 854 of Old Lynn His sister, Sarah, married Asa Newhall, also a soldier of the Revolution. His children were Mary, who married Samuel Put- nam ; Jonathan, who died without issue ; Nathaniel, baptized October 2, 1781 ; Elizabeth, baptized June 8, 1783, who married Nathan Hawkes, Jr., January 22, 1805, and Sarah, baptized May 14, 1786, who died without issue. He died November 3, 1795, aged fifty-three years, and his mortal remains are in the family tomb upon the estate in Lynnfield, as are also the remains of his parents, who each lived to the age of ninety- seven years and died in 1816 and 1817 respectively. LYNN MUSTER ROLL OF CAPT. NATHL. BANCROFT'S COMPY, IN DEFENCE OF THIS COLONY, UPON APRIL 19TH, 1775. Rank. Men's Names. Miles ! Id. pel- Mile, days pay for . ye days. sum total. s. (1. s. d. s. d. Capt. Nathl. Bancroft . . 30 2 6 2 8 6 11 Lt. Jos. Gowing . . . . 30 2 6 2 5 8 8 2 Lt. Nathl. Sherman . . 30 2 6 2 5 7 6 Sergt. Thos. Townsend . . 30 2 6 2 3 5 5 11 Sergt. = Timo. Munroe . . . 30 2 6 2 3 5 5 11 Drummer Benj. Adams . . . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 2 10 Private James Bancroft . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 2 10 Timo. Wolton . . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 * Jas. Gowing . . . . 67 5 7 3 4 3 9 10 John Berry . . . . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Jesse Wellman . . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Ezekiel Newhall . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Jona. Wellman . . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Brown, Josua . . - 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 = Wounded at Jason Russell's house at Menotomy. *By order went to Ipswich gaol with a number of prisoners. Hearths and Homes Rank. Men's Names. Miles a Id. per pay for Mile. days, ye days. sum total. s. d. s. d. B d. Private Wm. Mansfield . . - 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Andrew Mansfield . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 t * John Swone .... 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Jos. Jeffrey, Jr. . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Nathan Wolton . . - - 2 2 10 2 10 Onesimus Newhall . iik. - - 2 2 10 2 10 David Norwood . . . - - 2 2 10 2 10 Wm. Norwood . . . - - 2 2 10 2 10 Saml. Mansfield . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 **Danl. Townsend . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 John Upton .... 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 John Harte 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 1 1 Drubbabel Hart . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Thaddeus Perry . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Ephraim Sheldon, Jr. 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Josiah Brage .... 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 John Pelsue .... 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Jas Brown 24 2 1 o 1 5 o 3 5 Abra. Upton .... 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Aaron Aborn .... 24 2 1 1 5 3 5 Thos. Wellman . . . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Andrew Foster . 30 2 6 2 2 10 5 4 Francis Sheldon . . - - 2 2 10 2 10 Amos Smith .... - - 2 2 10 2 10 t*John Swain. ** Killed at Jason Russell's house at Menotomy, at 5.30 P.M. 1 1 Zerubbabel . Josiah Bragg. Essex ss. Jany 5, 1776. Then the above nameil Nathl. Bancroft was sworn to ye truth of ye above roll or list. Before me, ABXER CHEEVER, Justice Peace. The Lexington alarm was responded to by almost every male inhabitant of Lynnfield capable of bearing arms. Here were no peace men, no Quakers, no royal sympathizers, but the community was a unit in the 256 of Old Lynn patriotic cause. Thirty-eight men marched with Captain Bancroft. Eighty-four men served to the credit of Lynn field during the war. The whole pop- ulation at that period could not have exceeded four hundred souls. Every home must have sent one inmate at least, and many, more than one. The list of soldiers shows this. Thus there were four Aborns, six Bancrofts, four Browns, four Gowings, four Harts, six Mansfields, twelve Newhalls, three Uptons, three Waltons and three Wellmans. Six other families, Burnham, Mead, Norwood, Nourse, Sheldon and Townsend, each sent two of the name. Brothers and fathers and sons vied with each other in the holy crusade. To-day, in this wonderfully homogeneous vale of plenty and beauty, which we call Lynnfield, tilling the ancestral acres are to be found bearers of the surnames and Christian names of the builders of the nation for such were the men and boys who bore the musket at Lexington, at Saratoga, at the crossing of the Delaware, at the storming of Stony Point, on the bleak plain of Valley Forge, and at the capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown. On the 23d of April, 1775, Lynn appointed a Com- mittee of Safety, consisting of Rev. John Treadwell,, of the First Parish, Deacon Daniel Mansfield, of the North, or Lynnfield, Parish, and Rev. Joseph Roby, of the Third, or Saugus, Parish. On the succeeding Sabbath, Mr. Treadwell went into his pulpit with his musket in one hand and Bible in the other. No doubt Deacon Mansfield and Rev. Mr. Roby were 257 17 Hearths and Homes equally vigilant. The church of our fathers of the Puritan stock, like that of the chosen people of God - the children of Israel upon whose precepts and from whose teachings as revealed in the Bible they formulated their laws, was a church militant. Lynnfield affords a striking example of the enduring- vitality of the Mosaic dispensation in the great crisis. Deacon Daniel Mansfield, whose house still stands in South Lynnfield, facing south over the fertile fields, was the member of the Committee of Safety. Deacon Nathaniel Bancroft, of Lynnfield Centre fifty years old was the captain of the devoted band which aided to rout the veteran troops of King George upon that bright April morning so many years ago. Special stress is laid upon the doings of Captain Bancroft and his company, because his company was organized and acted its chivalric part in the first clash of arms as a solid parish unit. After the 19th of April and the appointment of the Committee of Safety, the Provincial Congress and the Continental Congress and the selection of General Washington to the command of the rebel forces investing Boston, individuals were fused into regiments of the Continental Army. The muster roll of the company shows a change in the officers later than the list appointed at a meeting at which Deacon Bancroft presided, when Joseph Gowing was elected Captain. I have found no record of the change whereby Bancroft became Captain and Gowing First Lieutenant. It is not difficult to read between the lines. Although 258 of Old Lynn Captain Bancroft was not a young man, he drew to the patriots' side the potential agency of the church. Mr. Gowing also had reached the exempt age for active service, but he, too, represented a powerful factor in the Puritan polity. He kept the tavern hard by the meeting-house, on the green. His house was the rallying place of the gathering before the formal start from the village green by the Parish Meeting- house. The organization is a fair showing of the Yankee shrewdness. The deacon became Captain and the inn-keeper became his right-hand man, and the controlling forces of the community were combined. The march was west from the green until upon the shore of Lake Quannapowit, the old Charlestown Road was taken through the present towns of Wake- field, Melrose and Maiden, south, till it intersected the old Salem Road. Over this last-named road the other companies had marched from Lynn, and some- where at about Medford Square west the whole contingent came together and marched over to Jason Russell's in Menotomy, now Arlington. Here they met Percy's flying red coats, and here Townsend, Flint, Hadley and Ramsdell were killed, and Sergt Timothy Munroe was wounded and had his clothes riddled with bullets, and all because our men were so largely used to individual gunning that they forgot that the regulars always threw out flanking parties, which could turn even stone-wall defences. On a similar occasion to this, a year ago, Henry Cabot Lodge, President of the Old Essex Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, said : - 259 Hearths and Homes "There is no more patriotic duty than to keep fresh in remembrance the deeds of the men who defended the country which we call ours to-day. None of these deeds or performances should go uncommemorated. There is no grave of a man who served his country in those early days of stress, whether he was an obscure private in the ranks or a leader in the government of the nation, that should remain unmarked or unrecognized by those bronze markers, for all their lives teach the same great lesson. It is not merely that we should show in this way our gratitude for what those men did for us, but we should endeavor to learn what those men were and what they did for us." We are not assembled here on this fair June day for an outing, for a gala day, but mainly to illustrate a cardinal virtue of the Sons of the American Revo- lution ; that of reverence for the hallowed memories of the fathers. The sons and daughters are joined in this solemn duty by the members of the junior order, whose chapter bears the honored name of Daniel Town- send. As the years roll by, this junior order will take the place of their elders as historians and care-takers at the shrines of these devoted men, whom we to-day, with uncovered heads and heart- felt thoughts, recall. It matters not that the story I have so falteringly and imperfectly related is a twice-told tale. The spirit of the old man and the boy in the famous patriotic painting, "The Spirit of 76," "Yankee Doodle," which hangs in Abbott Hall, Marblehead, 200 of Old Lynn typifies the stamina of the men of the times, whose magnetic power has drawn to us the best elements of the old world. The last annual parade of the Grand Army of the Republic, while it revealed depletion of membership and halting steps of the survivors, while it showed the devotion of the members, and of the sons, should also be a reminder that the Sons of the American Revolution will never allow the memory of the heroic sires who made the nation, to fade from the faithful hearts of the sons to whom they gave our glorious heritage. America, Massachusetts and Lynnfield will bind the laurel around the brows of the patriots in what- ever war or cause they strove for the common weal. And each oncoming generation will reverently care for the graves and the memories of those who rose from self to noble daring. REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS BURIED IN THE OLD GROUND, LYNNFIELD CENTRE. Date of Style of Death. Age. Stone. Aborn, Ebenezer March 8, 1792 68 Gov't Adams, Benjamin Jan. 16, 1811 52 Grave Bancroft, James, Lieut Aug. 22, 1814 82 Grave Bancroft, Nathaniel, Capt. . . . June 26, 1810 84 Grave Berry, John Gov't Brown, James Jan. 5, 1815 72 Grave Danforth, John Aug. 16, 1796 40 Grave Gowing, Daniel Oct. 17, 1782 Gov't Gowing, Joseph, Lieut Oct. 30, 1811 81 Gov't Hart, John April 11, 1811 78 Gov't Hart, Zerubbabel Feb. 14, 1797 59 Gov't 261 Hearths and Homes Date of Death. Style of Stone. Hawkes, John May 3, 1811 57 Grave Herrick, Martin July 10, 1820 74 Gov't Mead, John May 2, 1817 73 Gov't Nourse, Aaron July 18, 1818 65 Gov't Perkins, John Sept. 4, 1823 83 Grave Perry, Thaddeus Feb. 5, 1806 76 Gov't Sherman, Nathaniel Sept. 27, 1809 79 Gov't Townsend, Daniel April 19, 1775 36 Grave Upton, John April 30, 1838 92 Grave Wellman, Jesse . April 18, 1830 87 Gov't Wellman, Jonathan Feb. 6, 1822 79 Gov't Wellman, Thomas Dec. 25, 1818 76 Gov't NEW GROUND, LYNNFIELD CENTRE. Hart, Ebenezer March 26, 1840 77 Grave Needham, Daniel Feb. 16, 1844 83 Grave Parsons, Ebenezer April 17, 1843 83 Grave OLD GROUND, SOUTH LYNNFIELD. Mansfield, Andrew May 19, 1831 Grave Mansfield, Andrew July 26, 1788 31 Grave Mansfield, Daniel April 2, 1797 80 Grave Mansfield, William Sept. 28, 1809 60 Grave Newhall, Asa May 1, 1814 81 Monm't Newhall, Ezekiel Dec. 12, 1821 78 Grave Newhall, Jacob Nov. 7, 1825 67 Grave Newhall, William June 5, 1823 73 Grave Walton, Nathan July 23, 1818 65 202 WHY THE OLD TOWN HOUSE WAS BUILT. 1 offering I bring you to-day is not history, but simply the miner's rude ore, in which, when your historian comes, he may find some facts which may be welded into the annals of a quiet town, whose sons are proud to trace their kinship to its Puritan founders. The planters of Massachusetts were the most earnest, devout and intelligent people of their age. While they were largely influenced by considera- tions of religious freedom, they were also profoundly impressed with the idea of founding an ideal com- monwealth, a greater England, freed from feudalism and fashioned on the Mosaic code. They had to create a church and a state. They made the town the unit of the civil power, and the parish the unit of ecclesiastical authority. In the growth of the Puritan theocracy, parish and town were practically one. The parish chose the repre- sentatives to the General Court, and the town chose the minister. All town affairs were determined in the parish meeting-house. 1 An address delivered at the dedication of the new Town Hall, Lynnfield, January 28, 1892. 263 Hearths and Homes When the people multiplied and it became expe- dient to form new parishes, it was accomplished in several ways and under several names, all subordi- nating other motives to that of the religious welfare of the inhabitants. Two examples of parishes and towns formed from the parent town and parish are at hand. Lynn was a town, self incorporated by a community sending its freemen to the general meeting place of the Colony and then sending dep- uties to the first General Court. It is to be borne in mind that the great Puritan exodus from England, the organized transplanting of a whole people, was almost wholly between 1630 and 1640. At the latter date, the prospects of religious liberty at home had so brightened with the successes of Parliament, that emigration stopped and some of the more enthusiastic spirits, like Hugh Peters of Salem and Thomas Marshall of Lynn, returned to serve under the banners of Fairfax and Cromwell, as chaplain and captain. The frequent arrival of planters during those years created pressing demands for more lands. The fer- tile uplands in the interior invited the agricultural settlers with their flocks and herds away from the sea coast. The normal line of expansion from Lynn was up the valley of " the great river at Saugus " to its source in "the great pond," which is now known as Lake Quannapowitt in the present town of Wake- field. Hence, on the ninth of September, 1639, the General Court granted more territory to Lynn in the following language : - 264 of Old Lynn " The petition of the Inhabitants of Lynn, for a place for an inland plantation at the head of their bounds is granted them 4 miles square, as the place will afford : upon condition that the petitioner shall, within two years, make some good proceeding in planting, so as it may be a village, fit to contain a convenient number of inhabitants, which may in dew time have a church there ; and so as such as shall remove to inhabit there, shall not with all keepe their accommodations in Linn above 2 years after their removal to the said village, upon pain to forfeit their interest in one of them at their election : except this court shall see fit cause to dispence further with them." This " inland plantation" had its extreme northern line upon the Ipswich River, and included the mod- ern towns of Reading and Wakefield. The language of the act shows the constant, careful provision made for the religious welfare of the people. It was made incumbent upon the grantees to send into the new territory enough settlers to form a church. They were not to straggle up into the wilderness, but were to go in sufficient numbers to warrant the settlement and maintenance of a pastor. Another point aimed to prevent one who had already received a grant in Lynn from absorbing another in Lynn Village. If he took a new grant and residence in the village, he abandoned his " accommodations " in the town. The purpose of the settlers and of the General Court was, not to make unwieldy towns where attend- ance at worship would be inconvenient, but, as in 265 Hearths and Homes this case, to put the settlers of the new territory under the care of Lynn till such time as they were strong enough to support a church of their own. Church and town were so nearly identical that when its church had been gathered, the General Court, May 29, 1644, incorporated Lynn Village as the Town of Reading. Thus early the added portion of Lynn secured an independent church and township. Lynn End, or Lynnfield, even earlier than Lynn Village or Reading, became a part of Lynn. On the 13th of March, 1638-39, the General Court records relate that " Linn was granted 6 miles into the countrey, & Mr. Haw- thorne & Leif F. Davenport to view & inform how the land beyond lyeth whether it may bee fit for another plantation or no." This was a mere territorial extension of Lynn bounds for the convenience of the settlers of the then existing parish. It was not granted with the intention of establishing a separate parish and town. The settlers upon the fair, upland plains of Lynnfield remained attached to the first parish for many a long year, and were bound to travel nine good miles to worship in the meeting-house by the sea. Our fathers desired exceedingly the consolations of reli- gious ministrations, but the long, rough roads through the sombre Lynn Woods were stumbling blocks in their way. At the time Lynn was about to build a new meeting-house (1682) much discussion was had in regard to choosing a site near the geographical 2(56 of Old Lynn centre of the town. A now-wooded hill at the west of Birch Pond, within the limits of the present Town of Saugus, was favored by the inhabitants of the west and north parts of the town. The dwellers of the eastern end by the sea objected to going to the breezy uplands. The project failed. The " Old Tunnel " Meeting-house was built on Lynn Common. Out of the failure to agree upon the western location grew, not in contention, but in Christian spirit, the Second, or North Parish, and the Third, or West Parish. These by natural laws of evolution became later on the Towns of Lynnfield and Saugus. Mean- time the little band kept the faith ; some went to the Lynn church, others became connected with the Reading church, so much more convenient, but all were required to contribute to the support of the ministry of the First Parish. Then, still recognizing the paramount duty of maintenance of the ministry and of convenience of attending service, the Town of Lynn, November 17, 1712, voted : - " In answer to that petition of our neighbors, the farmers, so called, dated Feb. 13, 1711, desiring to be a precinct, that all the part of the town that lies on the northerly side of that highway that leads from Salem to Reading, be set off for a precinct, and when they shall have a meeting-house and a minister, qualified according to law, settled to preach the Word of God amongst them, then they shall be wholly freed from paying to the ministry of the town and not before. And if afterwards they shall cease to maintain a minister amongst them then to pay to the minister of the town as heretofore." 267 Hearths and Homes As early as 1678, as appeared by a petition to the General Court in that year, the " Adjacent Farmers'' of Lynnfield and Stoneham were crowding the Read- ing church so that it was necessary to enlarge the building, not for their own accommodation, but for that of those who worshiped there from this side of Saugus River and yet were obliged " to pay their hole rates to their own towns." In their perplexity they go to the General Court to see if there is any way out of the difficulty. " The humble petision of the towne of Redding Humbly Showeth That whereas our case, being as your petissiners humbly conseive, soe sircumstanced as we Know not the like in all Respects and not Knowing which waye to helpe ourselves. But By humbly acquainting yor honners with our state, your honners beeing the Fathers of the Common- wealth to which wee doe belonge ; and yor petis- siners humbly hoping that yor honners will helpe soe far as may bee to the Relieving of us in our case : It being soe with us that wee are butt a poore place, very few above sixty families Abell to pay the Ministry, and severall of them have more need to Receive than to paye. If wee were a place of ability as many others bee ; and to us there is Adjacent farmers, which bee constant hearers of the word, with us, which goes not at all to their owne towne, But Transiently as others doe ; Neither came they one the Sabbath days butt bee breakers of the Lawe of God and of this commonwealth as we conseive. And to many of them itt would be soe intolerable a burthen, then many of them must necessarily refraine from the public worship of god, established amongst us, for prevention of which they doe heare of Old Lynn with us, which seems to be very hard for us to maintayne Ministry and meeting-house conveniently for them, and others to force them to paye their hole Rates to their one townes, as others do ; or if some of them bee Betterminded, the bisenes lyeth so at the present, that wee have nothing from them all or next to nothing. " Another thing that your humble petisioners desire to declare to your honners is thatt wee have now not roume enough in our Meeting house for ourselves, but the Adjasent farmers being one third or very neare one third as much as wee, wee muste build anew before itt bee Louge for the house will be too littell for them and us, which wee hope your honners will consider how the case is like to bee with us, if nothing be considered. Butt as wee hope itt is the waye, that god would have us to take to leave the case to your honners, we desire humbly soe to doe, and quiettly to reste to this honoured Courte's good pleasure as to what hath been declared. " And shall ever pray In the name & by the con- sent of the Reste of the inhabitants of the Town. Wm. Cowdrey, Robert Burnap, Jona. Poole, Thomas Parker, Jeremy Swaine." In 1688, Reading set about building a new meeting- house. Among the subscribing for liberal amounts were the men of Lynnfield, such as John Pearson, John Bancroft, Hananiah Hutchinson, Edward Hutch- inson, Isaac Hart, Capt. Thomas Bancroft, John Poole, Timothy Hartshorne and John Townsend. Most of them are the names of the planters of the sturdy stock whose good qualities are perpetuated by their descend- ants in the ancestral homesteads even to this day. 269 Hearths and Homes In Eaton's " History of Reading " is given " a cata- logue of the brethren and sisters in full communion in the first church in Reading, Jan. 3, 1720-1." Among them are twenty "members of this church belonging to Lynn End (Lynnfield) not yet dis- missed." Later in the same year (1720) the Reading church records show dismissals to join Lynn End church. From 1712 to 1720, the pious work of building a meeting-house and preparing to maintain a ministry went on. In the latter year the conditions of sep- aration from the First Parish were all fulfilled, and Lynnfield became a Precinct and Second Parish of Lynn. The division line of 1712 "all that part of the town that lies on the northerly side of that highway that leads from Salem to Reading " was an ecclesi- astical line. The houses of the settlers on that road were built upon the northern side facing due south. They looked out upon their broad acres on the other side of the road. When the formal sanction of the General Court was had to the recognition of the District of Lynnfield in 1782, a territorial line was run taking in the farm and timber lands as will be seen by the description. " Beginning at Saugus river, near a white oak tree in Jonathan Tarbell's lower field, near the cant of the river which is in the line between Jefferd's and Brinton's farms and running eastwardly to lands of Benjamin Riddon ; thence turning by John Pool's land, as the wall runs, to a great rock by the side of Old Lynn of the hill ; thence southeasterly to Josiah Newhall's southwest corner bound, adjoining to the town wall, so-called ; thence running south-easterly to Andrew Mansfield's south-west corner bound, at the wall ; thence running as the wall runs, to the southeast corner of John Lindsey's orchard ; thence northerly as the wall runs to the road that leads from Reading to Salem ; thence easterly, as the road runs to Danvers line." This line included all the farms on the Reading Road, except those of Asa Newhall and John Lindsey, who cast their lots with the parent town. Under the precinct line of 1712, I could not have had the right to address you to-day as a native. By the district line of 1782, unchanged when the town was established, that privilege is mine. In provincial times the words " district," " precinct " and " peculiar" were practically synonymous. On the 9th of November, the General Court based, and on the 21st of November, 1702, the Royal Gov- ernor, Joseph Dudley, signed an act which defines the powers of Districts, and indicates their eccle- siastical origin. " That the inhabitants of each district or precinct, respectively, regularly set off from any town, shall be and are hereby empowered to name and appoint a clerk, as of right towns by law have ; as also assessors for the assessing and raising a mainte- nance and support for the minister of such district or precinct, and to make out a warrant, in form as by the law prescribed for town rates or assessments, directed to the constable of the town or district, for 271 Hearths and Homes the collecting and levying of the same, who is required to execute such warrant accordingly. And in case the assessors so appointed shall refuse or neglect that service, the selectmen of the town from whence such district or precinct was set off, shall and are hereby required to assess the inhabitants of the same the sum agreed upon or set for mainte- nance of the minister thereof." June 19, 1782, the town (Lynn) met agreeable to adjournment and the committee made the following report, viz. : - " We the committee of the town of Lynn and the committee of the North Parish in sd Town chosen by sd Town & Parish to agree on some terms to set off sd Parish from sd Town as a separate District, have met and do agree to set off sd Parish in the following manner, viz : they the sd Parish to pay all their proportion of the Town's debt due a this time & all town charges till they the sd Parish are set off by the General Court as a separate district from sd Town also that sd Parish pay their propor- tionate part to support the poor of sd Town till the close of the war & at the end of the war the poor shall be divided & sd North Parish shall take their proportionate part of sd Poor agreeable to their Taxes & that the sd Poor to be proportionable by a committee chosen by sd Town & Parish viz : sd Town to choose two men to be sd committee & sd Parish, one, & if they cannot agree on sd proportion to have power to submit it to disinterested men mutually chosen and that the poor be under the care of the above sd committee during the war and 272 of Old Lynn if sd North Parish request it they to take their proportion of sd Poor and support them in sd parish. LYNN June 19, 1782. JOHN MANSFIELD, WILLIAM COLLINS, JAMES NEWHALL, SAMUEL SWEETSER, ABNER HOOD, Town] Committee. DANIEL MANSFIELD, ) JONATHAN TARBELL, ( ^ JOSEPH GOWING, ) Committee - On the 14th of June, 1813, the District of Lynnfield chose a committee consisting of Daniel Needham, Andrew Mansfield, and John Upton, Jr., to petition the General Courts to be admitted as a town. The petition was referred to the Committee on Towns, January 13, 1814. The reasons for this step were given as follows, viz. : - " That the distance from Lynnfield Meeting-house to the place where the election of Representatives is generally held is nine miles that even that distance it is conceived is not so great as an accurate average to the whole inhabitants would be. That the great distance renders it inconvenient for the inhabitants to attend the election. We would observe that the district of Lynnfield has no connection with the Town of Lynn, excepting in the choice of Repre- sentatives, all of which most respectfully submitted and as in duty bound shall ever pray." A remonstrance was presented February 1, 1814, signed by twenty-three tax payers, beginning with Jacob Newhall and closing with Asa Tarbell Newhall, 273 18 Hearths and Homes representing that the ratable polls were not more than about one hundred and thirty - " . . . . with which numbers your honor will per- ceive we shall not have a constitutional right to be represented in the Honorable Legislature, that the inconvenience of a few miles' travel at the annual meetings in May would be inconsiderable ; that to deprive your petitioner of the privilege of repre- sentation in the Legislature of this Commonwealth would be an event much to be deplored, that many of the evils and inconveniences which would result to your petitioners from a deprivation of that right cannot be concealed from them. " Therefore pray not to be set off. Feb. 1st, 1814." Extracts from the warrant and records of Lynn show that the three parts of the town, even in the midst of the ill-starred last war with England, were more exercised over domestic than foreign affairs. Saugus is there styled the Second Parish, as Lynn- field Parish had long been treated as a practical^ independent place, entirely so as far as its parish was concerned. Saugus had to wait another year before its desire for local government was gratified. The age of parishes has been succeeded by the era of steam and electricity, and the Saugus people of to-day begin to realize that their boundary line with Lynn is a purely arbitrary one and perhaps it would be as well if it did not exist at all. "Warrant, Lynn Town Meeting, Jan. 22, 1814.- Meet at Hall of Paul & Ellis Newhall. 1st, choose 274 of Old Lynn moderator. 2nd, To see if the town will express their assent to a certain petition of the inhabitants of the District of Lynnfield to our General Court to be incorporated into a town or otherwise to choose a committee to remonstrate in the General Court in behalf of the Town against the said petition of the inhabitants of the said district of Lynnfield, or other- wise to see what other order the town will take respecting said petition. 3rd, To see if the town will express their assent to a certain petition of Nathan Hawkes and others to our General Court to have the Second Parish in Lynn set off from the town of Lynn and established as a separate district, and if so to choose a committee in behalf of the town to make arrangements and settle all concerns with sd Second Parish. Otherwise to see if the town will choose a committee to remonstrate in our General Court in behalf of the Town against the sd petition of Nathan Hawkes and others or otherwise to see what other order the town will take respecting the petition. HENRY HALLO WELL, > NEHEMIAH SILSBEE, \ Sel " Jan. 31, 1814. Oliver Fuller, Moderator. " Voted, to choose the Selectmen a committee in order to make as good a bargain as they can with the inhabitants of Lynnfield and if not to the com- mittee's satisfaction then to remonstrate against the District being set off as a town and report at the adjournment of this meeting." This committee made a report which shows that the parent town virtually left the matter in the hands of the people of the District, and it forcibly 275 Hearths and Homes points out the simplicity and public virtues of those days. The committee actually refused to put the town to the expense for a junket. " Report of Selectmen. To the Inhabitants of the Town of Lynn in Town Meeting Assembled : Your committee chosen by the town for the purpose of making as good a bargain with the inhabitants of the District of Lynnfield as they can, and if not to their satisfaction there to remonstrate against said District being set off as a town, thought expedient to request the Committee on Corporations to give your committee one week longer to settle with said District, which time your committee understood was granted and soon after have been informed that a remonstrance from the Inhabitants of said District has been handed into the Court against the District being set off as a Town. Under these considerations your committee thought best not to put the town to the expense of a journey to Lynnfield on said busi- ness, but to await some further direction. HENRY HALLOWELL." "Lynn, Feb. 7, 1814. " Voted, to accept the Selectmen's report respect- ing the business with Lynnfield, and dismiss them from that business. " Voted, that Henry Oliver, James Gardner, Micajah Newhall, John Pratt, Aaron Breed, Elija Downing, Richard Breed and John Alley, Jr., be directed to meet with the 2d Parish in order to form a bill for an incorporation, if the prayer of Nathan Hawkes and others be granted." The Lynnfield remonstrants had logic and facts on their sid e, for under the Constitution of the Common- 276 of Old Lynn wealth only "every corporate town containing one hundred and fifty ratable polls may elect one repre- sentative." Lynnfield district had only one hundred and thirty polls. As a part of Lynn its freeholders had the privilege of voting for representatives ; as a town they would be disfranchised. The petitioners prevailed, however, and Lynnfield became a town on the 28th of February, 1814. When at last Lynnfield became entitled to send a representative to the General Court, neither John Upton, Jr., who had favored the setting off the new town, nor Asa Tarbell Newhall, who had opposed, became the first representative, but the choice fell upon Gen. Josiah Newhall, who was elected for the political year beginning on the last Wednesday in May, 1826, and again in 1827. Asa T. Newhall succeeded General Newhall and he in turn was followed by John Upton, Jr. I am aware that these are dry, disjointed gleanings from a local history which is rich in interest to students of New England life. The dedication of your fair new town building marks an era in your existence. It is the final divorce of church and town. The holding of the town meetings in the house erected on the Green by the Old North Parish was a reminder of Puritan ways that at this day is almost unique. The old house was plain, but it was in keeping with the plain God-fearing yeomanry who there legislated and worshiped. There the precinct, district and town of Lynnfield were formed. After the massive oak timbers of that 277 Hearths and Homes edifice were hewn from the primeval forest, two generations of men had wrought their appointed tasks ere the solemn rumble of creaking wagons passed on to the Col. Cox Tavern with precious freight of dead and wounded. That wondrous day, the 19th of April, 1775, had occurred, and hard by in yonder church-yard repose the mortal remains of Lynnfield's hero and martyr of that day. The manner of his death is related in the " History of Lynn" as told by Timothy Munroe, also of Lynn- field. " He (Munroe) was standing behind a house, with Daniel Townsend, firing at the British troops, as they were coming down the road, in their retreat towards Boston. Townsend had just fired, and exclaimed, ' There is another redcoat down,' when Munroe, look- ing round, saw to his astonishment, that they were completely hemmed in by the flank guard of the British army, who were coming down through the fields behind them. They immediately ran into the house and sought for the cellar, but no cellar was there. They looked for a closet but there was none. All this time, which was indeed but a moment, the balls were pouring through the back windows, mak- ing havoc of the glass. Townsend leaped through the end window carrying the sash and all with him, and instantly fell dead. Munroe followed, and ran for his life. He passed for a long distance between both parties, many of whom discharged their guns at him. As he passed the last soldier, who stopped to fire, he heard the redcoat exclaim, 'Damn the yankee, he is bullet proof let him go ! ' " Mr. Munroe had one ball through his leg, and thirty-two bullet holes through his clothes and hat. 278 of Old Lynn Even the metal buttons of his waistcoat were shot off. He kept his clothes until he was tired of show- ing them, and died in 1808, aged 72 years." The house of the survivor, Munroe, where he used to tell the tale of the great fight, but little changed in itself or in its surroundings, still stands by the road that "leads from Salem to Reading," next west of the mansion of George L. Hawkes. Across the field from Munroe's house to the south near the Saugus River, there is an old house which was the home of another Minute Man of that day, Jonathan Tarbell, who stood by the side of his brother- in-law, Samuel Cook, of the Danvers Company, whose name heads the list of these Danvers martyrs upon the Lexington Monument in Peabody. Sturdy artisans were raising the frame of that edifice a century before the star of Napoleon Bona- parte set in final darkness upon the field of Waterloo. The snows of a hundred and fifty bleak winters had blown upon it when Grant and Lee met at Appo- mattox. And Appomattox to those living to-day seems like history. As a church edifice it has only two rivals in the State in point of age. The stout old building ought to stand for many generations. It has been the Council Chamber of a homogenous people. Other elements will naturally mingle in the assemblies in the new Town House. May those who dwell here hereafter, be as pure-minded and as happy as our fathers were ! 279 JOHN ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS ENSIGN. N THE histories of New England, the incident of cutting the cross from the English ensign by John Endicott, is a dramatic feature. The scene and its meaning have, however, been somewhat distorted by the poetic imagination or the local draw- ings of the story-tellers. In that interesting book, "The Old Landmarks of Boston," by implication, if not by direct assertion, Mr. Drake locates the act in Boston. The same inference is drawn from many other works relating to our Colonial history. In each, it is the stern Governor who mutilates the royal banner of England. As a matter of fact, the affair did not happen in Boston, and Endicott was not Governor. As near as we can now glean from the past and the record is clearer than that of any other people of the seven- teenth century, for there yet exist the journal, can- did and conscientious, of John Winthrop, and a cloud of contemporaneous black-letter witnesses, friendly and hostile there was a deep, prophetic motive underlying this seemingly impetuous act of a hot- headed Puritan. The scene was the training-field at Salem ; the perpetrator of the sacrilegious act was the Puritan 281 Hearths and Homes captain, John Endicott ; the instigator was the pastor of Salem church, Roger Williams ; the attendants were Endicott's train band ; the most reliable relator was John Winthrop ; the time was early autumn, 1634, a year earlier than the date of any extant writing of Oliver Cromwell. As near as Boston and Salem are to-day, the hap- penings of one day at Salem in Colonial times were not reported in Boston till several days had passed. An extract from Governor Winthrop's journal will best describe the remoteness of the two settlements : - "October 25, 1631. The governour with Capt. Underhill and others of the officers went on foot to Saugus, and next day to Salem, where they were bountifully entertained by Capt. Endicott, etc., and the 28th they returned to Boston by the ford at Saugus River and so over at Mistick." The earliest dated manuscript bearing upon this matter, which has escaped moths and paper mills, is a letter written November 6, 1634, by John Winthrop, to his son John, " at Mr. Downing, his chamber in the Inner Temple Lane, London," in which he writes : " At the court it was informed that some of Salem had taken out a piece of the cross in their ensign ; whereupon we sent forth an attachment to bring in the parties at the next court, where they are like to be punished for their indiscreet zeal, for the people are generally offended with it." Mr. Winthrop's words were to be read in England. He does not say that the people are generally offended 282 of Old Lynn with the act in consequence of which " some of Salem are like to be punished," but they are offended at the " indiscreet zeal," which is quite another matter. Under date November 27, 1634, Dudley being Gov- ernor, Winthrop wrote in his journal : " The assistants met at the governour's to advise about the defacing of the cross in the ensign at Salem, where (taking advice of some of the min- isters) we agreed to write to Mr. Downing in Eng- land of the truth of the matter, under all our hands, that, if occasion were, he might show it in our excuse ; for therein we expressed our dislike of the thing, and our purpose to punish the offenders, yet with as much wariness as we might, being doubtful of the lawful use of the cross in an ensign though we were clear that fact as concerning the matter, was very unlawful." The Mr. Downing referred to, was Emanuel Down- ing, a London barrister, the brother-in-law of Win- throp. He seems to have been the counsel for the colony at home, who was to smooth the troubled waters if complaint was made to the king. He afterwards came over and lived for several years in Salem, where he was held in great esteem, and was often in the General Court. He was the father of the celebrated Sir George Downing, ambassador of both Cromwell and Charles II, in Holland. If we accept the adage, " like father, like son," the historical reader will believe that the Colony chose a wily agent to represent it in England with as much " wariness " as might be, we " being doubtful of the lawful use of the cross," though clear as to the "unlawful" cutting. 283 Hearths and Homes It is the fashion to say that there were no lawyers here in the early days. Winthrop and Downing were bred in the legal profession, and we judge, apt scholars in the legal science. The ancient historian, Prince, says of John Winthrop : " He had an agree- able education, but the accomplishments of a lawyer were those wherewith heaven made his chief oppor- tunities to be serviceable." The lawyers played an important part in the founding of the Colony, and in framing the code of laws founded on the laws of Moses, rather than on those of England. The learn- ing of William H. Whitmore, record commissioner of the City of Boston, has so swept away the cobwebs of ages, that we can see clearly that the evolution of our laws, contrary to the common belief, is due to men trained to the law, rather than in the pulpit. Rev. Nathaniel Ward, of Ipswich, the now r recognized author of the " Body of Liberties," was graduated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, A.M., in 1603. He studied and practised law, and Candler says he was an " utter barrister." Governor Richard Belling- ham, of the magistrates, who, after Ward, had the greatest share in the work, was bred a lawyer, and was recorder of Boston in England, from 1625 to 1633 ; hence his fit and natural connection with the first compilation of our laws. It will do no harm for the student of our early days to investigate, with the understanding that all virtue and all knowledge are not to be found in the musty tomes and often pedantic long-windedness of the divines who did most of the writing and talking. 884 of Old Lynn The lawyers were employed to throw dust in the eyes of prerogative and shield the Colony, while the ministers fought the devil and Christianized the Indian in the new journey to the promised land. Then, on December 12, 1634, Winthrop writes to his son John, another lawyer, at the house of his uncle Downing, in Lincoln Fields, near the Golden Lion Tavern, London, to apprise him of the action of the magistrates. "We met last week to consider the business of the ensign at Salem, and have written a letter to my brother Downing, wherein under our hands, we signify our dislike to the action and our purpose to punish the offenders." Next, under date M. 1, 4, 1634, Winthrop's journal says : - "Mr. Endicott was called to answer for defacing the cross in the ensign, but because the court could not agree about the thing, whether the ensign should be laid by, in regard that many refused to follow them, the whole cause was deferred to the next general court ; and commissioners for military affairs gave order, in the meantime, that all the ensigns should be laid aside," etc. Downing, in England, was cannily representing the devotion of the Colony, while the council, here, was deferring to the next General Court, and in the meantime, ordering all the ensigns to be laid aside ! Surely, our fathers did not love that red cross ensign even then. 285 Hearths and Homes Next, came the General Court at Newtown, Mo. 3, 6, 1635. Mr. Haynes was chosen Governor, and Mr. Bell- ingham, Deputy, and Winthrop relates the trial and punishment of Endicott. " Mr. Endicott was left out of the board of assis- tants, and called into question about the defacing of the cross in the ensign : and a committee was chosen viz. : every town chose one (which yet were voted by all the people,) and the magistrates chose four, who, taking the charge to consider of the offence, and the censure due to it, and to certify the court, after one or two hours time, made report to the court, that they found his offence to be great, viz., rash and without discretion, taking upon him more author- ity than he had, and not seeking advice of the court, etc. uncharitable in that he, judging the cross, etc., to be a sin, did content himself to have reformed it at Salem, not taking care that others might be brought out of it also : laying a blemish upon the rest of the magistrates, as if they would suffer idolatry etc., and giving occasion to the state of England to think ill of us : for which they adjudged him worthy of admonition, and to be disabled for one year from bearing any public office : declining any heavier sentence because they were persuaded he did it out of tenderness of conscience and not of any evil intent" The reasons given for condemning Endicott give many hints as to the workings of the Puritan intel- lect. The grave magistrates were much of the same mind as he in regard to the " sin " of the cross, but they deemed him " uncharitable," in that he attempted to make the reform on his own account and laid a of Old Lynn blemish upon his associates, " as if they would suffer idolatry," etc. How much their own pricked con- sciences were offended by Endicott's forwardness we can only surmise from the nature of their censure. Endicott was nominally disgraced as a sop to the dragon beyond the ocean. As soon as the king was muzzled so that he could do no harm to the Colony, Endicott, in 1641, became Deputy Governor and then Governor. Endicott died March 15, 1665, in office, having served longer than any other Colonial Governor before or after him, and with the single exception of 1635, the year after the flag episode, having been a magistrate since he landed at Salem, in 1628, as Governor of the Salem Plantation. Endicott shares with Winthrop and Dudley the unique distinction of having been a member of the standing council, the only executive office for life ever created in the Colony. Winthrop and Dudley were so chosen May 25, 1636, Endicott, May 17, 1637, "but none others were ever added." John Endicott was as distinctively the captain of Massachusetts as Miles Standish was of Plymouth. John Endicott, at Salem, was as truly the militant head of the Colony as was John Winthrop its civic ruler, as long as the latter lived ; then Endicott assumed both functions. Endicott was bold, impet- uous, a scorner of subterfuges. Winthrop was cool, politic, with an eye across the water, alert to guard the infant Colony from arousing the wrath of the king. If Endicott had waited nine years, his " rash " act would have been approved by every man in the 287 Hearths and Homes Colony, including the prudent Winthrop and his legal correspondent, Brother Downing, formerly of the Inner Temple, but now of Salem. Roger Williams and John Endicott were in the advance guard of Puritan thinkers, who, in England, would have been chaplain and captain among the invincible Ironsides. Within a few years their brethren at home the most devout generation of Englishmen the world ever saw under the leadership of the greatest all- around man that the English-speaking race ever pro- duced Oliver Cromwell were tearing down every cross in the mother country. On the 4th of May, 1643, as Carlyle says : " Cheapside Cross, Charing Cross, and other monuments of popish idolatry were torn down by authority, troops of soldiers sounding their trumpets and all the people shouting." Endicott simply did an act which all earnest men approved in their hearts, and antedated like scenes in England. Endicott's soldiers were godly men, saturated with the Puritan dread of Rome. Under the Stuart they had felt the deadly night-shade. They had braved the perils of the trackless ocean to avoid its contact. They were fighting novel dangers in a new world with savage foes and mys- terious forces all about them. They thought it an ill omen to go forth to battle under the blood-stained emblem of popery. It has been one of the mysteries how Endicott, the straightest Puritan of all the Puritans, and Roger Williams, the kindly founder of Rhode Island, should have been one in their feeling in this matter, and 288 of Old Lynn both under the ban together for the same offence. This little incident furnished the first opportunity that the authorities had to get a civil grip upon Williams. The other troubles were ecclesiastical. To put it in the words of Hutchinson : " But what gave just occasion to the civil power to interpose was his (Roger Williams) influencing Mr. Endicott, one of the magistrates and a member of his church, to cut the cross out of the king's colors, as being a relic of anti-Christian superstition." Williams had advised Endicott to outrage the ensign of royalty. That was verging upon high treason, if there had been any such crime as high treason known to our fathers. But there was no such crime in the laws of Moses, and consequently such an offence is not mentioned in the "Body of Liberties," which was formulated a few years later, in 1641. There was also a subtler reason why treason did not appear in their code of laws, which soon found ample expression in regicide across the water. The divine rights of kings were not to be bolstered up by maintaining a favorite crime in the statutes of the free commonwealth. Hutchinson says in his history that high treason is not mentioned. Before the colonists had agreed upon the body of laws, the king's author- ity in England was at an end ; conspiracy to invade their own commonwealth, or any treacherous, per- fidious attempt to alter and subvert fundamentally the frame of their polity and government was made a capital offence. 289 19 Hearths and Homes Again the not too friendly Hutchinson relates : - " Many of the proposals were such as to imply that they thought themselves at free liberty, without any charter from the crown, to establish such sort of government as they thought proper, and to form a new state as fully to all intents and purposes as if they had been in a state of nature, and were making their first entrance into civil society." The Archbishop of Canterbury (Laud) kept a jealous eye over New England. One Burdett, of Piscataqua, was a correspondent of his. A copy of a letter to the archbishop written by Burdett was found in his study, and is to this effect, viz. : - " That he delayed going to England that he might fully inform himself of the state of the place as to allegiance, for it was not new discipline which was aimed at, but sovereignty, and that it was accounted perjury and treason in their general court to speak of appeals to the king." Laud thanked him for his care, and promised to redress the disorder. But before long the arch- bishop's own disorders and those of his royal master were redressed. In all the records that come down to us from the early days, there is manifest, in spite of all masks, a purpose to create a free Puritan commonwealth in New England. The unlooked-for triumph of Par- liament and Cromwell over king-craft and priest- craft in England removed the pressing dangers to tender consciences and delayed absolute freedom here 290 of Old Lynn for later generations. Another century was to see independence accomplished, not on account of king or church, but upon the question equally vital of taxation without representation. Endicott's bold act, from the earnest Puritan standpoint, was a blazing torch, which pointed the way in the heroic age when, under the God of Moses, England's best and bravest tore away forever the illusions from pinchbeck roy- alty and formalist prelacy. 291 -A. HIGH ROCK TOWER. JHREE years ago, during Mayor Shepherd's administration, I expected to be called upon to take part in the dedication of High Rock to the people. The then Mayor, the City Council and the Park Commissioners, were content with what had then been accomplished. The present City Council has completed the title and crowned the spot with an edifice of interest to student and sightseer. As people of my time of life are not apt to improve in expression, perhaps I cannot do better than to give the substance of my deferred talk upon this auspicious day. I should then have said - All that is essential of the High Rock property, with suitable approaches (save a little slice of the face of the rock), is now in the keeping of the present and future Lynn. It has been reserved for you, sir, to still forever the controversies of the past as to range lines, and to round out the people's domain. Napoleon said that England was a nation of shop- keepers. The phrase became an aphorism, though 1 Dedication of High Rock Tower, December 16, 1905. Accept- ance on behalf of the Park Commissioners. 293 Hearths and Homes the statement was as false and mendacious as was the life of the sayer. Foreign writers flippantly say that Americans worship the dollar in place of God. Let the action that we note refute that lie so far as Lynn is concerned. Much is said of the strenuous life, of the utilitarian age, and of the 294 of Old Lynn crowding unrest of our people, as if nothing else was sought for save commercial or material triumphs over the rest of our fellows. Our fathers were of a strenuous race and habit, as they needed to be to keep the wolf (either as a metaphor or a fact) from the door, in this bleak climate of ours. They tilled the not too rich soil in the proper seasons. They fished upon the deep in storm and sunshine, and they made shoes when out-of-door life was impossible. Lynn was the scene of the first iron-works estab- lished on the soil of America. It has long been noted as the seat of the largest ladies' shoe manu- facturing output in the world. Its name on elec- trical appliances has gone around the globe. But it was reserved for something else to raise it from the plane of a prosperous manufacturing centre to that of an aesthetic community, appreciating nature and planning wisely for the future. Lynn was the pioneer in the establishment of a great communal forest, where, within sight of the landing place of Endicott and Winthrop and of all the devoted Puritans who planted New England, a promising attempt is being made to restore a wild woodland of pine, hemlock, oak, hickory, beech, horn- beam and all the other native trees that have their habitat upon our hillsides and valleys. We have prospered and waxed strong in the hand- ling of leather, but in response to the sneers of the people who say we talk leather, smell leather and know nothing but leather, we point to the Great Woods, to Oceanside, and then, perhaps best of all, 295 Hearths and Homes to old High Rock, once the people's forum by suf- ferance, now of right. As compared with our early Colonial neighbors, Boston and Salem, we have no occasion to blush for the loss of our outlooks. The Beacon Hill of Boston has been shoveled down, and though a superb State House stands upon the diminished site, even its gilded dome scarcely affords an outlook on account of the sky- scraping modern buildings about it ; while Salem's proud Castle Hill is being blasted away by a stone- crushing company. Those who have ties of birthright or citizenship in Lynn can truly claim to be associated with no mean city. An extensive European traveler once observed to a man whose memory Lynn cherishes as one of her historians, that, with the single exception of Vesuvius, the view from High Rock excelled that at the Bay of Naples. If this traveler had been privi- leged to stand on Black Rock, Nahant, on a summer evening and watch the gorgeous westering sun red- dening the placid water of Lynn harbor, gilding the spires of the old town, and, before it set behind the hills of Saugus, bathing in oriental color and glori- fying the crown of High Rock, he might in truth have withdrawn his exception and pronounced our picture as peerless, as have many other world-wide observers. Not grudgingly, not moved by partisan clamor, not stirred by sectional pride, but actuated and inspired by love of home and of the eternal fitness of things, looking upon the past and into the future, the city dedicates three acres of this adamantine hill this 296 HIGH ROCK TOWER (1905) of Old Lynn keystone of the grand arch of Lynn's sentiment and reverence to the use of the people for all coming time. Mr. Drake makes a query and a reply, "Will it pay?" And I say it will pay in solid nuggets of healthful enjoyment, even if no higher aspirations are developed, in standing, where, at every instant, man and his works diminish, while those of the Creator expand before you. Other headlands there are along our picturesque New England coast. Wherever a rocky barrier resists old ocean, from Bald Head Cliff, in York, to Bailey's Hill, Nahant, the angry waves battle with each tide. Agamenticus rears its lofty head as a guide for mariners approaching the coast. Town Hill, Ipswich, reveals a charming landscape, and in a long reach the warning lights from Boone to Squam. The Blue Hills of Milton look down upon the Neponset, and the land the Indian loved so well, and upon innumerable thriving communities. All these the eye grasps by long sweeps. High Rock is a part of us, is in touch with every pulsation of the people. It dominates Lynn as the famed castle of Auld Scotia's capital, Edinburgh, the home of Burns and of Scott. We may describe our heritage with our own Whittier as "the land of the forest and the rock." Upon this spot have stood all men who desired to see Lynn, from that June day in 1629, when Edmund and Francis Ingalls, William Dixey, and William and John Wood wandered around the coast from Endi- cott's colony, seeking land for a home. From that 297 Hearths and Homes day to this it has been a Mecca to which the return- ing native and the stranger within our gates have climbed with uncovered heads. Mr. Mayor, on behalf of the Park Commissioners, I accept the future care of the High Rock Observatory. 298 PART III Hearths and Homes of Old Lynn INDIVIDUAL SKETCHES Three men of Lynn, of the generation which has passed away, have been of help to the author. Of each an imperfect tribute may be pardoned. They were all diligent and competent delvers in the history of the old Town : JAMES ROBINSON NEWHALL CYRUS MASON TRACY SAMUEL HAWKES JAMES ROBINSON NEWHALL JAMES ROBINSON NEWHALL. IHE kind invitation to join you at your annual gathering upon Franklin's birthday gives me the fittest occasion that could occur to pay a tribute to the memory of your first President. I use the word " fittest" deliberately, and if you have patience to bear with me, and if I make myself intelligible, you will appreciate why I consider this the place to speak of your and my life-long friend. James Robinson Newhall, who died at his home in Lynn, October 24, 1893, needs no eulogium from those who survive him. He has left behind him a record that will shine when we and our words, even though they should be strikingly brilliant, shall be utterly forgotten. This will happen, not because he was a great man in any common acceptation of the term, but mainly by virtue of the fact of his making a more diligent use of the talent intrusted to him than most men. A study of such a life, so well rounded out and accomplished, if even imperfectly traced, cannot but be an incentive to emulation by others. To say that he was born of "poor but honest" 1 A memorial address delivered before the Lynn Press Associa- tion at Lynn, Mass., upon the anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's birthday, January 17, 1894. 301 Hearths and Homes parents would be but to utter a truism which might as well be uttered of any boy born in Lynn on Christ- mas day, 1809. Everybody in Lynn then was poor, if by poor we mean the reverse of the modern sense of rich that is, being the holder of stocks, bonds or bank accounts. Everybody was poor in those days. The States had scarcely rallied from the drain of men and means that was occasioned by the War of the Revolution, when the gigantic struggle between England and the Corsican marvel of war convulsed the whole civilized world. Between the upper and nether millstones the common prey of France and England the growing commerce of the infant repub- lic was swept from the seas and the whole country was impoverished. Two years before, Congress had closed the ports of the United States against the clearance of all vessels. In the year of his birth, Congress repealed the " embargo law " and substituted an act of non-intercourse with France and England. The population of Lynn and Lynn then included Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscott and Nahant at the time of his birth was only about four thousand. The people were farmers in summer and shoemakers in winter. The shoes made here in 1810 numbered one million pairs and were of the value of $800,000. By the United States census of 1890, it appears that the aggregate value of goods, shoes and allied industries, amounted to over thirty-one millions. This takes no account of the new industry, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, which in 1892 produced a value 302 of Old Lynn of over twelve millions of dollars and employed, as its average number of hands for the year, four thou- sand people, a number equal to the whole population of the town in 1810. In another and better sense than the possession of mere dollars by his parents, the future writer of the "Annals of Lynn " was fortunate in his birth. With a modest pride in the stock from which he sprang - without which he would have been unfitted for what was destined to be his magnum opus he said, in an autobiographical sketch, his father's name was Ben- jamin and he was a direct descendant from Thomas, the first white person born here. His mother was a daughter of Joseph Hart, who descended from Samuel, one of the first engaged at the ancient Iron Works. Both of his grandmothers were granddaughters of Hon. Ebenezer Burrill, a man conspicuous in Colo- nial times and brother of the beloved speaker. In the old Hart house, as in many another on the old Colonial highway between Salem and Boston, was an open attic, with boxes and barrels filled with quaint and curious manuscripts that the previous generations of occupants had left behind them. They were apparently of no value, yet they might be title deeds, or plans, or diaries, or papers that some time might be called for. So they were bundled away into the unused lumber room nesting places or food for mice till some charmingly loquacious Old- buck of Monkbarns or an inquisitive boy should disturb their dusty recess. Reminiscences of the earlier days lingered about 303 Hearths and Homes this old house when the Judge came upon the scene. Travelers belated or hungry on the way from Boston to the East often found shelter and food beneath its roof. The epicurean Judge, Samuel Sewall of the witchcraft time, has recorded in his diary his enter- tainment here on several occasions. Other guests of eminence lingered under the branches of the great buttonwood in the yard, partook of the good cheer within the house and discussed current topics. Some of the accumulating paper litter that probably troubled the careful housewife, though she did not venture to burn anything of writing, may have been left by guests, and thus have had a wider than mere local interest. How much the subject of our sketch found in the attic he never told anyone, but was apparently willing through his life for the matter to remain an open question to mystify his readers. I have, however, more than a strong suspicion that he derived nothing from the dead written hand. At the age of eleven, as he wrote, he left the parental roof with his worldly possessions in a bundle- handkerchief to make his way in the wide world, his mother having died a year or two before, and his father having a large family to provide for. Before he was fifteen years old he had made his way into the office of the Salem Gazette the leading newspaper establishment in the County and was diligently learning the art and mystery of printing. Seventy years later he was true to his first love and it was still his work and recreation to set type. 304 of Old Lynn We talk about trades nowadays ; but the old phrase " art and mystery " is vastly more appropriate, when we allude to the assembling of little pieces of lead in such a manner that the result is the expression of the best thought of the brain of man on the fair-printed page. Where else are the brain-work and the hand- work so blended in such close touch, as when deft fingers transform bits of dull lead into golden thoughts that may be immortal ? From the Gazette office, seeking a wider knowledge of book printing than our County then afforded, he went to Boston, where, before he had reached his majority, he became foreman of one of the principal book establishments. One of his duties in this office was that of proof-reader an important step in the practical training which was to fit him for authorship. A proof-reader holds a delicate and responsible position. Upon his shoulders the public pile errors of omission and commission, of compositor and author, bad spelling, bad grammar, bad rhetoric, bad punctua- tion, bad spacing and the myriad flaws that creep into printed matter unless the proof-reader is Argus-eyed. In the latest batch of published letters of Horace Greeley, there is one addressed to a young man who aspired to the position of a proof-reader on the Tribune. Here is Mr. Greeley's appreciative tribute to the occupation of a proof-reader, in reply to the application : - "As to proof-reading, I think a first-rate proof- reader could always find a place in our concern within 305 Hearths and Homes a month. But the place requires far more than you can learn ; it requires an universal knowledge of facts, names and spelling. Do you happen to know off-hand that Stephens of Georgia spells his name with a 'ph' and Stevens of Michigan with a *v' in the middle? Do you know that Eliot of Massachusetts has but one '!' in his name, while Elliot in Kentucky has two ? Do you know the poli- tics and prejudices of Oliver of Missouri, and Oliver of New York, respectively, so well that when your proof says ' Mr. Oliver ' said so and so in the House, you know whether to insert 'of Mo.' or 'of N.Y.' after his name? Would you choose to strike out 'of Mo/ and put in 'of N.Y./ if you perceive the speech taking a particular direction respecting slav- ery, which shows that it must be wrongly attributed in the telegraphic dispatch? My friend, if you are indeed qualified for a first-rate proof-reader, or can easily make yourself so, you need never fear. But do n't fancy the talent and knowledge required for a mere secretary of state, president, or any such trust, will be sufficient." In the Boston office, the young Newhall was in touch and familiar with such men as Dr. Channing, Dr. Bowditch, Francis J. Grund, the Cambridge pro- fessors, N. P. Willis, Samuel S. Goodrich and other literary celebrities of the time, of whom he treasured many pleasant reminiscences which he had in manu- script and was preparing to publish at the time of his death. Like other young printers of the earlier days, he was somewhat of a rover. From Boston he went to New York. In the Conference office of that city, 306 of Old Lynn then the largest in the country, he had the reputation of being the fastest compositor in the office. In New York he did editorial work, and in that city he learned much from the advice and friendly counsels of Major M. M. Noah, long known as the Nestor of the American Press. Those of the present generation who have seen the Judge on the Bench of the Police Court, or assisting in the offices of his beloved church, or in social gath- erings, or walking about our streets, can scarcely realize the Bohemian life with which it was his for- tune to mingle in his early manhood. Bearing in mind that he was free from the venial faults of youth, that all his life he was pure in thought and act, it sounds like romance to relate that one of his companions in midnight strolls in New York was the " Good Gray Poet," he who wrote " My Captain," that eloquent lament that marks the martyrdom of Lincoln, in which were these lines : "Exult, shores! and ring, bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck; my captain lies Fallen, cold and dead." and the same who wrote of himself : ' ' Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking, and breeding, No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women, or apart from them, No more modest than immodest." Like that other printer, " Poor Richard," the world- known philosopher, whose birthday you proudly 807 Hearths and Homes remember to-day, and like him, a tramping printer in search of a job, Mr. Newhall wandered as far as Philadelphia. He gathered knowledge of men and affairs where- ever he went. He lectured. He came back to Lynn and bought the Mirror of his friend, Charles F. Lummus, the first Lynn printer, whose handsome face is placed beside the author, facing the title page of the last edition of the "History of Lynn." It was in 1832 that Mr. Newhall bought the Mirror, the first paper printed in Lynn. It may be interesting to those whose daily labor is about the great presses and establishments of to-day, to relate that he paid two hundred dollars for the whole establishment, which, as he has recorded, was quite as much as it was worth. When we say that the subscription list of the Mirror amounted to about four hundred, which number the new Item press throws off in a minute, and that all the work in the office, jobs, newspaper and all, could be done by the publisher and one hand, it is easy to see that in those days there was not a mine of gold or even of silver, in a Lynn newspaper. Not the least of the debts Lynn owes to Mr. New- hall, is the kindly discriminating sketch which he has given us of Charles F. Lummus, the first publisher and editor of Lynn. The profession of the law, in which he settled down at last, shows something of the growth and broadening of Lynn during the lifetime of one indi- vidual. In 1808, the year before his birth, Lynn's first lawyer came to town. This was Benjamin Merrill. 308 of Old Lynn He remained here, however, only a few months, when he removed to Salem, where he became an eminent and respected practitioner. In 1845, Harvard con- ferred upon him the degree of LL.D. Of his leaving Lynn, Mr. Newhall has recorded : " The occasion of his removal from Lynn, as he informed me, a few years before his death, was somewhat singular. A deputation of the citizens called on him with the request that he would leave the place, it being apprehended that evil and strife would abound wherever a lawyer's tent was pitched. He took the matter in good part and soon departed. The people of Lynn afterward made some amends for their uncivil proceeding, by entrusting a large share of their best legal business to his hands. He served them faithfully, and never seemed to enter- tain the least ill feeling towards any here. He died lamented by a large circle who had received benefits at his hand, and left a considerable estate. He was never married, w r hich seemed the more singular, as he was eminently social in his habits." In May, 1847, thirty-eight years later, when Mr. Newhall was admitted to the Bar at an age when most lawyers are at the period of greatest activity, there were only three lawyers in practice here. They were Jeremiah C. Stickney, Benjamin F. Mudge and Thomas B. Newhall. Though few in number they were each able in their special lines of work. Mr. Mudge, who was the second Mayor of Lynn, had an extensive practice, but his love for science was greater than that for the law, and he went West and became Professor of Geology 309 Hearths and Homes and Associated Sciences, in the State Agricultural College of Kansas. Hon. Thomas B. Newhall, the last of the three, became Judge of the Lynn Police Court upon its creation in 1849. At the same time, Benjamin F. Mudge and James R. Newhall were commissioned as special justices. Mr. T. B. Newhall, through a long life, adorned other positions of trust, such as the presidency of the Lynn Mutual Fire Insurance Com- pany and the Lynn Five Cents Savings Bank. He has the unique position of being the only man ever elected Mayor of Lynn, who declined the office. This happened in 1854. He was then in the office of Judge of the Police Court, and rightly conceiving the two positions to be incompatible, he declined the political office. Almost the last appearance in public of James R. Newhall, certainly the last when the members of the Bar were with him, was at the funeral of his prede- cessor as Judge the Hon. Thomas B. Newhall - a few weeks before his own death. Mr. Stickney was, however, Mr. NewhalPs particular friend. In his office he entered upon the study of law in 1844. For him he had a strong admiration which almost had the character of the awe with which Mr. Stickney impressed younger people and indeed most people with whom he came in contact. Mr. Stickney was a graduate of Harvard. He spent forty years in Lynn, in active and successful practice of law. He was devoted to his profession. He might have been a Judge ; he declined to accept 310 of Old Lynn the office of U. S. District Attorney for Massachu- setts tendered him by President Jackson. He only accepted such positions as would not interfere with his home work. He served in the General Court - that excellent training school for lawyers two terms. He was our postmaster for fifteen years, then a position which added to the income without filching much time from business. He was the adviser of Mayor Hood and the authorities when we took on the forms of city government ; and, when the office was created in 1853, he was chosen as City Solicitor. The lives of Mr. Newhall and Mr. Stickney afford a striking example of the utter transitoriness of the lawyer's fame. Men, even now scarcely past middle life, can recall the adroit, persuasive, thoroughly equipped, eminently courteous and courtly Stickney. It is far within the line of truth to say that he was as able an all-round lawyer as ever practised in Lynn. Mr. Newhall, himself, would unquestionably have placed Mr. Stickney as the brightest legal luminary of Lynn, and have put a very deprecatory estimate upon his own rank. Yet such is the irony of fate that the student, who evolved quaint stories of the early days from his brain and put them into type, will, by virtue of such writing, ever be known as a lawyer, while the man who led the Bar will not leave even a tradition after another generation has passed away. Law was not Mr. Newhall's first love nor his last. Several reasons induced him to essay the profession. He was a first-class printer, he was a trained editorial writer ; he was desirous of writing the Annals of 311 Lynn ; he had a mission to preserve the traditions of his native town ; there was no money in journalism in the Lynn of his day and capital was lacking to accomplish his projected work. Law, at least in those days, was an eminently respectable calling, an occupation for gentlemen, and the successful career of his friend Stickney was an incentive for him to try it. He established a good practice and was enabled to publish " Lin, or Jewels of the Third Plan- tation " in 1862, and the " History of Lynn," embody- ing and continuing the work of Alonzo Lewis, in 1865. In 1866, Thomas B. Newhall resigned his commission as Justice of the Lynn Police Court, and Governor Bullock appointed James R. Newhall to the position. The Bar of Lynn, when Mr. Newhall became Justice of the Police Court, was represented by .the witty but erratic Isaac Brown, who had an office on Chestnut Street ; William Rowland, the careful conveyancer, at the corner of Munroe and Market Streets ; Judge Thomas B. Newhall, who, upon resigning the judge- ship, established an office in the Ashcroft Building, at the corner of Market and Tremont Streets ; Dean Peabody, now Clerk of the Courts, located in Frazier's Building, corner of Market and Summer Streets ; Jeremiah C. Stickney and Minot Tirrell, Jr., in Central Square ; Eben Parsons, returned from meritorious service in the army, also located about that time on Union Street ; as well as your humble servant in Hill's Building. What proportion of influence in attaining this position was derived from his gentle and eminently 312 of Old Lynn respectable life, his attainments as a lawyer, or the reputation acquired from his books, it is useless to speculate. The office, which was for life unless sooner resigned, gave to him, freed from the uncertainties of the practice of the law, a respectable income and allowed sufficient leisure to prosecute and accomplish his literary work. In 1879, he was seventy years old and resigned his commission. Quiet, sedate old Lynn had vanished. A modern, hustling city with its ruder manners and babel of tongues had taken its place. The mild, scholarly, white-haired Judge found the atmosphere and concomitants of the new-style police court to be distasteful and discordant to a man of refined tastes and gentle ways. He retired with the respect of all the good people of Lynn. Thence on, for thirteen years, he lived till the great change came a serene yet busy life. His working hours were devoted to fresh literary compo- sition and in bringing out new editions of his " History" and " Lin." In 1883, being then seventy-three years old, he made the grand tour abroad, visiting the famous cities and renowned places in Europe, and extending his trip to interesting levantine points ; to Algiers and Malta on the Mediterranean ; and to Alexandria, Cairo and the Pyramids in Egypt. It was an eminently satisfactory episode in his life. Concerning it he wrote : " Though the tour was undertaken alone for if alone one can, without let or hinderance, go how, when and where he pleases - 313 Hearths and Homes he everywhere received such gratifying civilities as could only lead to regrets that he had not earlier in life thus experimentally learned that, after all, men everywhere will, on the whole, rather contribute to make others happy than miserable. Such experience increases faith in human nature, and ought to diminish self-conceit." Fittingly, many years ago (1854), the Judge selected an historic spot for his home. Sadler's Rock perpet- uates the name of the first settler in the locality, and of Lynn's first Clerk of the Writs. Upon the south- western slope of this spur of porphyry, out of the adamantine material of the hill itself, Mr. Newhall erected the conspicuous mansion which overhangs the old town, as picturesque as a Norman keep of feudal England. Environment counts for something. Mr. Newhall was not exempt from the rule that they who love most suif er most. He lost, by early death, a promising boy, his only child. Thence on, his ambition was to leave to posterity a worthy portrayal of the ancient town. Fortunately for us, he did not have to hurry his work. Years of peace and comfort were granted him to dwell in that lofty aerie to watch the sun rise over old High Rock and set beyond the Saugus hills, and observe the growth of Lynn, while he stood at the case in his cosy work-room and set his own type, from which more than two thousand stereo- typed pages remain to attest the character of the recreations of his leisure hours. How much of our civic life one long life covers ! 314 of Old Lynn Lynn is one of the oldest of the Bay towns, yet this life shows how much of our growth has been in the present century. We have shown our friend to have been the co-worker and associate with the first lawyer who put out his shingle here and with the first printer who set up his venerable Ramage press, which, the Judge said, looked as if Franklin might have worked at it. The book which has inseparably linked together the names of Alonzo Lewis and James R. Newhall, and has become a standard household necessity with our people, is called the " History of Lynn." It is a work that bears testimony to laborious research on the part of its compilers, especially of Mr. Lewis, who, in addition to antiquarian tastes, had a quality which is not usually allied with delving into the past. Mr. Lewis had the imaginative organ largely developed, as the phrenologist would say. If he had written much history he might have indulged in what is called in rhyme, poetic license, and is there allow- able, but which in prose, and particularly in historic composition, is not permitted. Except the introductory descriptive chapters, this work is not history in its broad sense, that is, a state- ment of the birth, growth and progress of the place, with philosophical inquiries respecting causes and effects, but just what it claims to be, the annals, which are simply the facts and events of each year, in strict chronological order, without observations by the annalist. The historic part of this work, whatever its value, is to be credited to Mr. Lewis. Mr. Newhall took the Hearths and Homes " Annals " up where Mr. Lewis left them, that is, at the close of 1843. Thence on, the work is wholly by Mr. Newhall. Critics may say that the " Annals " do not give a true perspective of historic events or that things trivial occupy as much space as happenings that tend to color and affect the future. But that is not the fault of our annalist or any annalist ; it is inherent in this style of writing. The little events occur as well as the great acts, and it is the province of the annalist to be the recorder rather than the inter- preter or the prophet. For this kind of composition Mr. Newhall was peculiarly well adapted. Always a lover of the lore of the ancient town, his training had made him a swift typesetter, an accurate proof-reader, and a discriminating editor. These were the very acquire- ments that are essential to him who would patiently, from day to day, and from year to year, select and jot down the occurrences of the locality, and sift and cull those things which somebody, by and by, may want to know about. Steady as a clock from his very youth, methodical and painstaking even in the smallest details, he not only scissored and scrap- booked everything which his sharp eyes saw, but he made an exhaustive index, without which such a book, however well written, is almost wholly value- less ; but with which even the dullest narration of town life becomes of value to the student. In addition to the "Annals," in the 1865 edition, and more extensively in the 1883 and 1890 volumes, 316 of Old Lynn he gave many slight biographical sketches. The habits and ways of those who walked the boards of the stage before we came upon the scenes have a peculiar fascination for us. What he has done in this line has been well done, and much that he has recorded in this vein would have been lost if it had not been for his pen ; that is, the personal incidents concerning many old worthies could not now be gathered by any living person. His own life covered a large part of this century, and his retentive memory seized upon all that men, old when the century began, had to relate. In the History there are few sins of commission. Of course, there are some sins of omission ; for instance, one which was called to my attention by the librarian of our public library, who had occasion to look for something relating to one of the foremost men of Lynn of his time, one whom people not yet old can remember, a man who held for twenty odd years what was then the most conspicuous public office that of postmaster, Of Deacon Jonathan Bacheller not a word appears, save as one in the list of officers, in either edition. 1 Exceptions, however, only prove the rule. Mr. Newhall's execution of his task is a creditable per- formance, but it is not a remarkable one. Somebody else might have had the plodding industry and liter- ary taste and have done as well. 1 A satisfactory explanation of this apparent injustice has recently been given me by Mr. Newhall's literary executor. 317 Hearths and Homes Upon the writing of that book, Mr. Newhall could not have obtained the pedestal which he will in future occupy with students and scholars. Mr. Newhall's literary fame will be always secure. He wrote one book which will forever be a classic in New England bibliography. " Lin, or Jewels of the Third Plantation," by Obadiah Oldpath, is a book, which, as we get away from the ways, habits and speech of the period which it depicts, will steadily gain in value. In the second edition, the author acknowledges his appreciation of the manner in which the first was received, and states that one of the most flattering expressions concerning it came from the lips of an aged Quaker preacher, who, taking him by the hand, exclaimed, " I must tell thee that I Ve both laughed and cried over thy book." And then he naively adds that he was, nevertheless, led to fear that the scope and purpose were not in all cases fully understood. That scope and purpose he throws light upon in these words : - " By a strict adherence to barren facts in the his- tory of a people, much of the true spirit may remain undeveloped. Traditions and inferential elucidations often form a most valuable backing for the mirror that is to reflect a given period ; and those may not find place in a stately history. While it is not claimed that direct authority can be referred to for every statement it is confidently claimed that the whole is as truly illustrative of the people and their doings in those good old times, of their walks and their ways, as if every page were disfigured by reference 318 of Old Lynn to authorities. And by the same token, while the scenes are laid in a somewhat circumscribed vicinage, though one of the most picturesque and diversified in all New England, it is yet true that most extensive fields of historic interest are held in survey." As to the contemporary standing of this book, I desire to call a witness, first qualifying him as an expert : Name, William Whiting ; A.B., Harvard, 1833 ; admitted to the Bar of Massachusetts and of U.S. Courts, 1838 ; Presidential Elector, 1868 ; LL.D., 1872 ; Representative of Third Massachusetts District in Forty-third Congress ; Honorary Member of His- torical Societies of New York, Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin ; Corresponding Member of the Phila- delphia Numismatic and Antiquarian Society, etc. ; President of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society ; Solicitor of the War Department at Wash- ington during the War of the Rebellion, and author of an important work, called "The War Powers of the President." Mr. Whiting was a lineal descendant of Samuel Whiting, the first minister of Lynn. As a labor of love he wrote and printed, not published, an elaborate and exhaustive " Memoir of Rev. Samuel Whiting, D.D., and of his Wife, Elizabeth St. John, with References to some of their English Ancestors and American Descendants." Mr. Whiting fortified his statements, like careful historians and pleaders, by numerous citations from competent authorities, such as the Massachusetts Records, the Histories of Hutchinson, Minot, Bancroft, 319 Hearths and Homes Drake, Thompson, Palfrey, Barry and Hubbard, Lewis's " Lynn," Winthrop's " Journal," Edward John- son's " Wonder- Working Providence," Savage's "Gen- ealogical Dictionary," De Tocqueville's " Democracy in America,'' Cotton Mather's " Magnalia," Upham's " Witchcraft," and all the standard writers upon New England life ; but his favorite and most quoted illus- trations are from the " Journal of Obadiah Turner." This famous Journal is a part of the contents of " Lin." It is such a vivid picture, so mirror-like in its representation of early Colonial life, so true in its terse, idiomatic, provincial English, that it is no wonder that it impressed the profound lawyer and his- toric-genealogical scholar with its power and reliability. Mr. Whiting also gives entries from the Journal of Thomas Newhall. This Journal, like the other, sin- gularly realistic and fascinating to students of the olden days, is a part of " Lin." Mr. Whiting quotes entire several pages from what he truly styles " the invaluable Journal" of Mr. Turner, his ancestor's parishioner. Mr. Whiting is not the only witness who has uncon- sciously testified to the exquisite literary art, this per- fect reproduction of the thought of the old planters. Many learned men have asked where Mr. Newhall found these yellow, time-stained life stories of the olden time. In the England of George the Third, there lived a boy named Thomas Chatterton, who devoted all his time to acquiring a knowledge of English antiquities and obsolete language. He produced some wonderful 320 of Old Lynn fabrications which purported to be transcripts of ancient manuscripts, written by Thomas Rowley, a priest of the fifteenth century. The Rowleian poetry of this prodigy of letters, deceived men of literary pretensions, such as the virtuoso, Horace Walpole. Like Chatterton, Mr. Newhall made a fac-simile repro- duction of an earlier day, and the learned were in each case deceived as to the origin. There the resemblance ceases, for Chatterton studied to deceive, while Mr. Newhall simply desired a medium through which to represent the age which he essayed to reproduce. It is said that some men only become eloquent when the pen comes in contact with the white paper. Of Mr. Newhall, we should say that his genius found fullest play when he stood, stick in hand, before his case and, to the music of the clicking types, without the intervention of pen or paper, composed, in a double sense ; that is, a large portion of his work was never written, but was transferred from his brain through his nervous fingers and the type to the printer's form. Thus, it happened that these famous journals never existed on mouldy paper, nor even on the paper of his time, but were simply figments of his intellect. The alleged journals were only the key with which he introduced his readers to the society of the elders. The journals, bright and captivating as they are, form but a part of this work, which appears to me to stand the best chance of any literary production of Lynn authors to endure the test of time. 321 21 Hearths and Homes The sketches, besides their pithy style, have a quaint flavor of the soil. The rout of Hector Mclntyre in his battle with the phoca, was not better depicted by the Wizard of the North than the inglorious discom- fiture of Parson Shepard's eeling expedition on the Saugus River. The Judge was an Episcopalian, but he has other- wise spoken fair words of our Puritan divines, so we pardon him for inserting the incident that insinuates that our fighting parson was only human after all. " And the Dame will likewise make ready for us a bite of something whereby to stay our stomachs. And if you have a mind, Samuel, you may bring along your little red keg, for mine hath sacrament wine in it, and I will put a little something in ye same to warm our stomachs withal. For it is best, Samuel, sayd he, giving his eye a little turn, 'to go prepared to meet mishaps.' ' The veracious chronicles of "the late Diedrich Knickerbocker" have charmed generations of readers, but as life-like as his Dutch farmers or as grotesque as his Connecticut pedagogue, Ichabod Crane, are Obadiah Oldpath's scenes of the scalping of Mr. Laigh- ton in Lynn Woods or the wonderful cure of Aaron Rhodes by the mysterious explosion of Dr. Tyndale's cue. There is a vein, too, of pathos in the touching story of Verna Humphrey that is none the less pure because it lacks the weirdness of Hawthorne's Hester .Prynne, to which it is a kindred spirit from shadeland. In claiming for this work the prospect of a longer 322 of Old Lynn hold upon the memory of men than any other, I do not forget that Lynn never had a paucity of writers. Of the men who have passed on within our own time, we recall the Whig pen and the graceful verse of Josiah F. Kimball ; the trenchant force of the schol- arly Lewis Josselyn ; the caustic and diversified man- ner of the late Cyrus M. Tracy. Nor do I forget one yet living, though not now with us, that ready writer w r ho was ever a leader in Lynn's progress Peter L. Cox a and many others whom I may not name. These men, however, wrote for bread and butter their themes were of to-day. Their work was bright 1 Peter L. Cox died in New York, October, 25, 1905. He began the publication of the Lynn Reporter in 1854, a semi-weekly paper that became famous in New England and favorably known through- out the country. In the columns of the Reporter, Mr. Cox advocated many public benefits, and in an article published in 1875 he said that he was the first to start a power press in Lynn ; first to publicly advocate the substitution of steam fire engines for the hand tubs ; the first to advocate the introduction of a city water supply ; the first to advocate the construction of a street railway for the city. The advocacy of the foregoing public utilities, all afterward secured for the city, is sufficient to link the name of Mr. Cox forever with that of the city. In 1854 he was Clerk of the Lynn Common Council, and in 1855, 1856, and 1857 he was Clerk of the Massachusetts Senate. He and his brother conducted the Lynn Reporter about twenty-five years, and in that long period of success taught the printing trade to many of Lynn's noted printers, and the fact that a man learned the trade under Peter L. Cox was a guarantee that he was a thorough workman. Prior to starting the Reporter, Mr. Cox worked on the Bay State, some time as foreman. The Bay State antedated the Reporter several years. He lived ten years beyond the Psalmist's term of human life. Though not a native of Lynn, he will be remembered as a builder of the city. 323 Hearths and Homes and readable when published, but the most sparkling leading editorials find the common fate of newspaper work the cold tomb of the public library. The author of " Lin " wrote at his leisure in the seclusion of his closet, from the past, over the present, for the future. To have held honorable positions with credit to the people and to himself in his native town is much, but to have written books that will entertain and instruct our children's children will give him more enduring fame than the loudest plaudits that contemporaries could shower upon him, or any man, for any achieve- ments that are of to-day only. He wrought well what he undertook. To him we may well apply Lowell's lines of the poise of the modest man : - ' ' Ah ! men do not know how much strength is in poise, That he goes the farthest who goes far enough, And that all beyond that is just bother and stuff. No vain man matures, he makes too much new wood ; His blooms are too thick for the fruit to be good ; 'T is the modest man ripens, 't is he that achieves, Just what 's needed of sunshine and shade he receives ; Grapes, to mellow, require the cool dark of their leaves." 324 CYRUS MASON TRACY CYRUS MASON TRACY. 1 |YNN does well to inscribe upon its temples of learning, the names of men and women whose lives have counted in the growth of the ancient town. Last, but not least, upon the roll of honor, has been written in enduring marble the name of Tracy. The happy thought of an appreciative mind suggested its application to this building so near to Mr. Tracy's home, and so near to the woods which he loved so well. Whiting, Shepard and Cobbet were early pastors. Ingalls, Burrill and Newhall were of our early and continuing families. Pickering and Lewis commem- orate women who were illustrators of our public school system. Gilbert White's " Natural History of Selborne " and Thoreau's " Walden Pond " have made classic ground of two little dots on the earth's surface ; and Tracy's " Essex Flora" and his mystic woodland rites have made Lynn Woods the mecca of reverent footsteps. The words of Mr. Tracy, speaking of another, seem to be singularly appropriate to apply to himself : - "It is not fitting that our ideas of respect for the dead should be ill-chosen or marked by any excess an address delivered at the dedication of the Tracy School, May 17, 1899. 325 Hearths and Homes either way. To limit all our praises to the departed who have happened to die wealthy, would be to depress all our respect to a mere gold worship ; to see no virtue in any but popular favorites, often rude and mean as they are, is to burn incense to ignorance and make an idol of vice." To most of the people here it is needless to say that Mr. Tracy was not at any time in his life over- burdened with this world's goods. A quotation from his "Flora" will reveal why, though vulgar pecuniary rewards did not come to Tracy, the life work of this true child of nature was crowned with the success that ennobles man and his achievements. Speaking of one of his botanical quests he writes : - " Tired and thirsty, I was inwardly complaining of the toilsome and profitless route, when leaping down from a rough pole fence, I stood face to face with the most magnificent oak-leaved Gerardia I ever saw. Had the wealth of its yellow bells been coined to very gold in my hand, I could have felt no higher satisfaction than I had in seeing its four-footed stem, crowded with brilliant flowers, swaying to and fro in the warm westerly wind, the magic wand to charm away for the time every thought of fatigue. In a certain summer I had a kind of botanical vow, which I kept long inviolate, to let no day pass without the determination of at least one new species. I was fresh in the study then, and such an idea was nowise absurd. But one day had waned until the sun had actually gone down on my errantry which threatened to become night errantry, sure enough. A boggy meadow, often visited before, seemed the 326 of Old Lynn only available spot, and to it I turned with the reso- lution of forlorn hope. Fifteen minutes later, had my feet responded to my feelings, I should have been dancing among the hassocks for the discovery of the charming Cymbidium, which I had not seen before since I gathered its blushing beauties when a boy, in the meadows of Connecticut." Cyrus Mason Tracy was born in Norwich, Conn., May 7, 1824. In the year 1838 or 1839, for a single term, he attended the grammar school of Ward Six, having come to Lynn with his father's family. This is understood to be the only public-school training he ever had. When he was seven years old he had a severe sickness, which left him with a disability which death only could remove. He was apt in mechanical pursuits, but frail physically. His first employment was in the rope walk at West Lynn ; then with his father he entered the employ of Theo- philus N. Breed, first on South Common Street and later in the shoe kit factory at Breed's Pond, the value of which as a mill privilege was discovered by the elder Tracy. For a time he was in the Registry of Deeds at Salem ; then in the City Clerk's office in Lynn, under William Bassett and Charles Merritt. Thence on he had various callings, such as civil engineer, surveyor, conveyancer, notary, florist and principal of a music school. From 1867, the time of the establishment of the Lynn Transcript, for ten years he was its editor. For six years he was Pro- fessor of Botany and Materia Medica in the Massa- chusetts College of Pharmacy. He was also a Lecturer 327 Hearths and Homes upon Botany and kindred subjects before the Essex Institute. For twenty years he was a member of the Pine Grove Cemetery Commissioners, and for fifteen years the Secretary of the Board. From 1856 to 1869 he was Clerk of the Common Council. Upon two historic occasions Mr. Tracy was the central figure. He delivered the poem at the dedication of the City Hall, on November 30, 1867, and the oration at the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the settlement of the town, June 17, 1879. He wrote the Lynn matter for Jewett's "Standard History of Essex County," which is considered by scholars as the best short history of Lynn ever written. His unexpected death prevented the carrying out of a plan to enlarge and extend that work. He twice codified the ordinances of the city and he compiled and edited for the City Council a history of the events leading up to the erection of the City Hall. It must be noted that he was one of the founders and life-long promoters of a society close to the hearts of our people the Houghton Horticultural Society. After the death of Mr. Tracy, which occurred Sep- tember 28, 1891, his seatmate in the old Grammar School, his close friend for more than fifty years, wrote a sketch of Tracy, which, after these years, seems so fair, just and discriminating that I adopt it. Col. Gardiner Tufts, who within two short months followed him to the unseen world, wrote : - "Mr. Tracy, in many phases of character, was a unique personality. He was not a scholar from the schools. He was not brought up at the feet of 328 of Old Lynn Gamaliel He did not acquire knowledge by study, as most people acquire it ; yet he was learned above his fellows. He knew by intuition. In many par- ticulars of ability he was the foremost man of Lynn. He could do many things with ease that were hard for most people to do at all. He could do difficult things with wonderful ease and affluence. His speech was felicitous. His thoughts and words came at first bidding so correctly that his composition rarely needed revision. No one in Lynn has excelled him in poetic writing. He knew more of local history than any other person of our city." This characterization by Colonel Tufts is the defi- nition of a man of genius rather than a man of talent or ability. Mr. Tracy was a man of genius. Realizing this, we can understand how without the discipline of the schools he assimilated and digested omnivorous reading how he became a walking encyclopedia, full and fluent, upon all subjects. With the virtue of genius he had its vice inertia. The closing para- graph of the preface to the edition of the " Flora," issued after his death by his children, contained a hint and a half promise : " This explanation will make plain our reason in bringing out first a book requiring re-writing rather than one of the many already prepared. It was the first in his thought and plan, therefore first in our execution." The " Flora " appeals to a limited class of students. The exquisite prose-poetry and the melodious verse of these unpublished volumes would be welcome in all the homes of Lynn. If he had possessed the Hearths and Homes business alertness of Whittier, to whom he is closely akin as the Poet of Nature of New England, dainty editions of his prose and verse would have been treasured among our favorite books. As a poet I have mentioned his name in company with Whittier. As a writer of pure, pellucid Saxon English in prose form he was unequaled. Dean Swift long ago laid down that "proper words in proper places made the true definition of a style." Which, however, is not the definition, but the character of a good style. Tracy used proper words in proper places. His prose was Addisonian, and if he had been merely a talented man we might have suspected that he had acquired it by following Dr. Johnson's advice, that "whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar, but not coarse, and elegant, but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." Death is often the beginning of fame for great men. Little men are buried and forgotten. After a while familiar remembrance of the earthly part of man fades away, and then, with ever-increasing brightness, the intellectual force of his life remains to aid and instruct the community. So may it be with Tracy. Mr. Tracy was a diamond in the rough. The points of the diamond will cut. His pen was sharp and controversial when he dealt with current matters. He entered the lists with all comers and his pen pricked many a sham. His ideals were high he lived a life without reproach and with an enfeebled 3=30 of Old Lynn frame accomplished so much as to render him worthy of emulation to those who follow him. Mr. Tracy was a versatile, many-sided man. The people have called him the " Father of the Lynn Public Forest." The title is appropriate. His inner inspiration was to teach the people of Lynn that they had in the woods an "asylum of inexhaustible pleasure." Of all the work he accomplished in his useful life he would undoubtedly desire to be remembered for this. He formed the Exploring Circle many years since. Parenthetically I may say that in the secret archives of this Exploring Circle there is a mine of local history which ought some time to be opened up for posterity by this devoted band of scholars. He led parties of enthusiastic naturalists to scenes of beauty and grandeur hitherto unseen, save by his eyes. He dedicated hilltops and glens with mystic rites. He organized the Trustees of the Free Public Forest. He solicited funds and lands for the use of the people forever. Under the trust of the Free Public Forest, Penny Brook Glen, Dungeon Rock, and the two hundred acres of picturesque wildness became the heritage of Lynn. If the conditions surrounding the woods had not changed, the voluntary plan of Mr. Tracy would have accomplished nearly all that lovers of the woods desired, independent of legis- lation. The Water Board's ponds and girdling roads punctured the woods and exposed them to undesirable occupation. Here I may be allowed to say that in his last years he was troubled by what seemed to him a dangerous 331 Hearths and Homes diversion of the control of the woods from his Forest Trust to the Park Commissioners. From an intimate knowledge of his scheme and of the work done since, I think he was unduly alarmed. So far the Park Commissioners have proceeded on lines laid down by Mr. Tracy in his " Circular Statement " issued by the Forest Trustees, January 12, 1882. As long as the purpose of the contributors of land and money to keep the woods in local Lynn authority is observed, the simple, natural development outlined by him will be maintained. Mr. Tracy's zeal, loyalty and spirit pointed the way for his successors. That to-day the whole magnificent domain is the people's is due to the momentum which he gave. The children of Lynn, in all generations will cherish and revere the memory of Cyrus M. Tracy, for the marvelous gift to which his seer's vision guided him. 332 SAMUEL HAWKES SAMUEL HAWKES. ] fgHJAMUEL HAWKES, who was born in Saugus, ! December 4, 1816, died there March 24, 1903. He was the son of Ahijah and Theodate (Pratt) Hawkes. His paternal line of ancestry was from Adam 1 (the immigrant), John, 2 Ebenezer, 3 Samuel, 4 Ebenezer, 5 Ahi- jah, 6 Samuel. 7 His mother descended from Richard Pratt (the immigrant) of Charlestown, who came from Maldon, Co. Essex, England. The succeeding generations of the Pratt family lived in Maiden and Lynn. Adam Hawkes also came to Lynn through Charles- town, where he sold his property in 1634, and he is found in Lynn in the original division of the land in 1638 with a grant of one hundred acres. This grant was in that part of the town now well known as Hawkes' Corner, North Saugus, and the site of Adam Hawkes' first home, Close Hill, has been in the unbroken holding of his descendants since, and was a treasured possession of Samuel Hawkes, through life. The place of his death was the house of Richard Hawkes, which is upon the site of the second house 1 From Register of the Lynn Historical Society, 1903. 333 built by Adam Hawkes. Most of his life was spent in the near-by house, also upon the original grant, which was the home of his father, Ahijah Hawkes, who the year before Samuel's birth, became Chair- man of the first Board of Selectmen of the newly detached town, to which was given the ancient name of the original plantation, "Saugus." Mr. Hawkes cast his first Presidential vote for Martin Van Buren. He was a Democratic member SAMUEL HAWKES' HOUSE of the General Court in 1854, the last year that the Commonwealth had a Whig Governor. This Governor was Emory Washburn. One of the pleasant memories of his life, to which he frequently referred, was his appointment by Governor William E. Russell as a delegate to the National Farmers' Congress held at Sedalia, Missouri, Nov- ember 10-11-12, 1891. He attended the Congress. 884 of Old Lynn His associates from Massachusetts were Ex-Governor George S. Boutwell and Philander Williams of Taunton. He rendered efficient service as Chairman of the Boards of Selectmen and Overseers of the Poor and as Moderator of Town Meetings. By general consent his suggestions as to the amount of the annual appro- priations of the town were adopted. He was deeply interested in the Essex Agricultural Society of which he for many years was the Saugus Trustee. He was a frequent and effective speaker at the Farmers' Institutes throughout the County. Although reared on the farm he never followed general farming, but was known as a successful cranberry grower. He was also a large land owner, and from him the City of Lynn acquired the title to the greater portion of what is now Walden Pond. Mr. Hawkes was never married. He was a birth- right member of the Society of Friends and through life was a frequent attendant at its meetings. A portion of his school training was obtained at the well-known denominational institution of the Society, the New England Yearly Meeting Boarding School at Providence, Rhode Island, of which he was a benefactor in his old age. From its establishment in 1888, he had been a member of the Sinking Fund Commission of Saugus, to which he was re-elected at the March meeting, though known to be seriously ill. In his death the town lost its best equipped and most thoroughly trustworthy public man. 335 Hearths and Homes He was the President of the Hawkes Family Asso- ciation, and delivered an able genealogical address at the great family gathering at the old homestead at its two hundred and fiftieth Anniversary in 1880. Of late years his favorite place of resort was the Registry of Deeds at Salem, where he became the recognized authority upon land titles. He was like- wise a close student of New England life and of genealogical lore. He was a member of the Lynn Historical Society and an interested attendant and participant at its meetings. 336 22 'r/^\^^^-^ r " NDEX PAGE Abbott, Abiel (Rev.) . . . 222 Aborn, Aaron 256 Ebenezer 261 Abousett (Rivei) 3 Acadia 157 Adams, Benjamin (Rev.) 251,255 John (Pres.) . . . 196, 221 Thomas 181 Adventurers, The 189 Aldersey, Samuell .... 181 Alley, Deborah ...... 68 Hugh (Capt.) .... 68, (59 John, Jr 276 Rebecca 66, 67 Samuel 66, 68 Sarah 58, 68 Anchor Tavern 16 Andros, Edmund (Sir) . . . 33, 161, 179, 198 209,210,211,216 Aplton, Samuel 35 Appleton, Samuel, Jr., 140, 141 Appomattox 279 Arbella, The 183, 184 Armitage, Jane ..... 151 Joseph 137 Arnold, Benedict . . 5, 19, 196 Atkinson, Eliza M. (Mrs.) . 253 Attwill, Zachariah . . 173, 174 Bacheller, Jonathan . . 6, 317 PAGE Baird, William L 11 Baker, Daniel C 202 Edward 137 Bancroft, James . . . 255, 261 John 269 Nathaniel (Capt.) 247, 252 255, 256, -257 258, 259, 261 Thomas (Capt.) . . . . 269 Barber's Historical Collec- tions 9 Barnes, Isaac 222 Bartlett, William 222 Basset, Isac 68 John 68 Bassett, William ..... 327 Bay State, The 323 Bee, John & Co 137 Becx, John ... 143, 144, 145 Bellingham, Richard (Gov.) 141, 181, 284, 286 Bennett, Frank P 28 Samuel 16, 17 Berry, John . . . 252, 255, 261 Black Will (Indian) .... 81 Boardman, Aaron 18 Abijah 15, 19 Samuel 27 Sarah (Miss) ..... 19 Sewall 27 William 18 339 INDEX PAGE Body of Liberties of 1641,120,122 Boston 2, 3, 129 Boston Harbor 2 Boston Street 5, 196 Bostwick, E. Warner ... 32 Boundary Line 14 Bowdoin, J 53, 54 Boyce, Samuel 165 Bracebridge Hall (Irving) 240 Bradstreet, Simon (Gov.) 184,198 Brage, Josiah 256 Bragg, Josiah 256 Braman, Milton P. (Rev.) . 222 Braintree (Iron Works) . . 138 Brattle, Thomas 35 Breakheart Hill 78 Breed, Aaron 276 (Col.) 174 Desire 68 Ebenezer 68, 69 Ephraim 174 Frederick . . . 169, 174 Hannah 68 Henry A 12 Henry H. (Mrs.) ... 253 Isaiah 68 Jabez 68 Lydia 68 Nathan 68 Nehemiah 68, 69 Richard 276 Samuel 69 Theophilus N 327 Breed's End 62 Bridge over Saugus River . 5 Bridges, Robert (Capt.) . . 134 142,143, 144,149 150,151,152,153 154,155, 156,157 PAGE Brintnall, John 147 Brooks, Marshall S. . . 26, 27 Brown, Isaac 312 James 256, 261 Josua 255 Nicholas 196 Samuell 181 William 247 Browne, John 181 Bulkeley, Peter 37 Burchsted, Benjamin B. . 68 Burchstead, Henry .... 171 Burgis, Robert 137 Burnap, Robert 2i;<> Burrill, Ebenezer . .201, 303 George 196, 19S John 47, 76, 151 John, Jr. (Speaker) . . 86, 199, 200, 201 John, Sr. 198 Samuel 201 Theophilus ic.u Butler, Benjamin F. (Gen.), 222 Buttrick, John (Maj.) ... 247 Cape Cod Harbor 207 Carleton, James H 237 Carver, John(Gov.Plymouth),207 Castle Hill 78 Chadbourn, B 53 Chadwell, Harris 174 Chamberlain, Mellen(Judge),'245 Chandler, Peleg W 2 27 Charles River 2 Charlestown 3 Charlestown Road .... 259 Charter of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay . liil, 180, 181. !-_> 340 INDEX Chase & Huse 1 1 Chatterton, Thomas ... 320 Cheever, Abner . 173, 174, 256 Edward 31, 117 Thomas ... 18, 115, 147 Chelsea 14, 15 Child, (Dr.) 136 Choate, Rufus 227 Choose Hill 98, 100 Church, Benjamin (Capt.) . 213 Church Members . . . .185 Cinder Banks, The .... 129 Cleaveland, Nehemiah (Dr.) 222 Close Hill 333 Clough, Josiah ...... 10 Coates, Ezra (Pai-ish Clerk) 104 Cobbet, Thomas (Rev. ) . .152 Coddington, William . . . 184 Cogswell, John 147 Margaret (Gifford) . . 147 Collins, Elizabeth Jr. ... 68 Enoch 68 Lois 68 Samuel . . . . 68, 173, 174 William 273 Zaccheus 68 Colonial Charter . 150, 209, 239 Colonial Houses 21 Colonial Records . . 134, 141 Committee of Safety . . . 257 Common Prayer Book . . . 206 Commoners 188 Conway, William P. (Mrs.), 253 Cook, Samuel .... 254, 279 Cooke, Parsons (Rev. Dr.) . 11, 161, 163, 166 Court of Assistants . . 185, 186 PAGE Cowdrey, William ... 269 Cox Tavern 278 Cox, Peter L 323 Craddock, Matthew, 181,183,225 Crane, Ichabod 322 Cromwell, Oliver, 89, 157,208,215 237, 282, 288, 290 Crystal Brook (Oaklandvale) 24, 28, 34 Cummings, Cyrus 221 David 221 Cushing, Caleb . . 53, 54, 222 Thomas 53, 54 Dagyr, John Adam . . . .195 Danforth, John 261 Danvers 236 Davenport, (Lieut.) . . . . 190 Leif F 266 D'Aulnay, (French Gov ). . 155, 157 Dexter, Thomas .... 81, 82, 83, 139, 153 Dixey, William 2, 297 Downing, Caleb 48 Elija 276 Emanuel - 282, 283, 285, 288 George (Sir) 283 Downing Road 48 Draper, Eben 41 George . ... 41 Ira (Deacon) .... 40 Dudley, Joseph (Gov.) - 83, 271 Joseph (Pres.) .... 204 Thomas (Gov.) 2, 184, 283,287 Duncan, James H. . 222 Earl of Lincoln 184 Eastern Railroad . . 6, 11 341 INDEX PAGE Eaton, Theophilus ... 181 Daniel ... ... 57 Edmands, Lott . . . 37, 76, 77 William 42, 43 Endicott (Capt.) . . . 208, 213 (Gov.) 141 John . . 180, 181, 281, 285 286, 287, 289, 295 Epps, Samuel (Capt. ) ... 59 Essex Agricultural Society, 219 Essex County Founders . - 230 Essex Deeds 147 Essex Flora . . . 325, 326, 329 Essex Minute Men .... 5 Estes, Anna 68 Hannah 68 Martha 68 Ruth 68 Exploring Circle 331 Farley, Michael ... 53, 54 Farrington, William . . 176 Fay, Richard S 223 Federal Street 10 Felton, Cornelius C. ... 40 First Bridge 5 First Fire Engine 5 First Parish Meeting House, 159 Flagg, Ebenezer (Rev.) . . 109 John (Dr.) .... 109, 110 Flint, William 248 Foote, Joshua 144 Forest Street (Oaklandvale), 23 Foster, Andrew ...... 256 Jed'h 53, 54 Fowle, Susanna 110 Foxcroft, George 181 Freeman's Oath . . .149, 150 Friends, Society of . . 163, 164 PACK Fuller, Joseph 171 Oliver 275 Gardiner, Jas. (Dr.) . . 48, 110 169, 276 Garrison House 99 General Court, The, 185, 187,188 263, 264, 265, 270 General Electric Co. . . . 8, 12 Gifford, John, 141,142,143,145,146 Margaret 146 Gill, Moses (Lieut. Gov.) 53, 54 God of Moses 291 Goffe, Thomas . . . .181, 225 Gowing, Daniel 261 James 255 Joseph (Capt.) (Lieut.) 247, 255, 258, 259, 261, 273 Grand Army of the Re- public 261 Graves, Elizabeth .... 68 Gray, Abraham 110 Horace (Justice) . . 110 Lucia 110 William 110 Greeley, Horace 305 Hadley, Thomas 248 Hall of Paul and Ellis New- hall 175 Hallowell, Henry . 172, 274, 275 Theophilus 176 Hammersmith (Village) . . 82 Hammond, Edward (Capt.) . 39 Hancock, John (Gov.) . 198, 235 Hannibal (slave) ... 64, 65, 66 Hart, Ebenezer 262 Isaac 269 John 256, 261, 303 342 INDEX PAGE Hart, Joseph 303 Samuel 303 Zerubbabel 261 Hart's Inn 196, 197 Hartshorne, Timothy ... 269 Harwood, George 181 Haven, Joseph 25 Haverhill 237 Hawkes, Adam . 34, 39, 40, 50 51, 57, 61, 77, 333, 334 Adam Augustus ... 39 Ahijah .... 64, 333, 334 Daniel 39 Ebenezer,40,47, 58,62,64,65 66, 67, 68, 333 Elizabeth 26, 37 Elkanah . 25, 26, 27, 29, 30 31,32,38,39,40 Eunice 40 Ezra 26 George L. . . - 57, 58, 279 Grace 26 Hannah 37 John ... 34, 40, 50, 57, 58 254, 262, 333 John, Sr 30 Jonathan 25, 30 Joseph 77 Love 26 Lydia 40 Margaret (Cogswell) . 47 Matthew 68 Moses . 46, 47, 50, 51, 147 Nathan . 26, 38, 40, 41, 47 48, 49, 50, 53, 171 172, 253, 275, 276 Nathan D 26, 253 Nathan, Jr 26, 255 Philadelphia 68 PAGE Hawkes, Rebeckah .... 68 Samuel ... 65, 66, 69, 299 333-336 Sarah 47, 68 Sarah (Haven) .... 30 Sarah (Hitchings) ... 37 Theodate (Pratt) ... 333 Thomas . . . 25, 29, 30, 39 40, 58, 147 Hawkes' Brook .... 48, 57 Hawkes' Corner 333 Hawkes' Pond .... 57, 254 Hawthorne 234, 266 John 137 (Mr.) 190 Hay man, Nathan 83 Samuel 83 Haynes (Gov.) 286 Hayward, John (Notary Public) 36 Heard, John 222 Henchman, Nathaniel (Rev.) 163, 166 Herrick, Horatio G 221 Martin (Dr.) . . . 248, 262 Higginson, (Rev. Mr.) . .210 Hill, John 137 Hitchcock, Edward (Prof.) 94 Hitchings, Daniel . . 33, 34, 35 36, 37, 40, 77 Eunice 26 Ezra 196 Joseph 39 Susannah 47 Holten, Samuel (Dr.) . . 53, 54 Holyoke, Edward 195 Holy Scriptures 206 Hood, Abner 273 George 202,311 343 INDEX PAGE Hough ton, John C 202 Houghton Horticultural So- ciety 328 House of Representatives . 4 Howard, Mrs.(rz/e Boardman) 19 Howland, William . . . . 312 Hewlett's Pond . . . . 48, 132 Hewlett's Mill 147 Humfrey, John, 151, 183, 184,225 Humphrey, John . 180, 181, 184 Susan (Lady) 184 Verna (Lin) 322 Humphrey Street 184 Humphrey's Pond . . . .184 Hutchins, Thomas . . . . 181 Hutchinson, Francis . . 58 Thomas (Gov.), 153, 200, 204 264, 289 Indian Alarm 98 Indian Rock 46, 50 Ingalls, Edmund .... 2, 297 Francis 2, 297 Ipswich (Chebacco Parish) . 147 Ipswich (Town Hill) . . 297 Iron Works Disputes . . .141 IronWorks,MonatocotRiver,131 Iron Works, 4, 17, 31, 35, 77, 80 82, 83, 130, 133, 134, 135 136,137,138,139,140,141 142, 143, 144, 147, 153, 157 158, 303 Irving, Washington .... 240 Item, Lynn 308 Jackson (Major) ... . 197 Jacobs, George 237 Jasper 94 Jeffrey, Joseph . . . . 60, 254 Joseph, Jr 254, 256 PAGE Jeffrey, Priscilla 60 Jenks, Joseph 16 Johnson, Benjamin . . . .175 Benjamin N 117 David N. 49 Edward (Capt.) . . 135, 158 Isaac . . 181, 183, 184, 22.-> Richard 166 Sam (Dr.) .... 30, 330 Keayne, Robert (Capt.) . . 141, 144, 157 Kent, Paul 221 Kimball, Josiah F. . . . 323 King, Daniel P 223 (Master) 202 King Charles II, 157, 209, 214, 237 King George III 215 King Henry VIII 206 King James I (Defender of the Faith), - 179, 205, 207 214. 216 King James II .... 192, 209 King Philip's War .... 33 King's Chapel 113 Kittredge, Edward A. (Dr.), 41 Thomas I'l'i' Knight, Charles (Historian), 205 Kunkshamooshaw, Abagail, 192 David 192 LaFayette (Gen.) 5 Lake Quannapowit . . 100, 264 La Tour, (French Gov.), 155, l.~>7 Laud (Archbishop of Canter- bury) . . . 205, 208, 290 Laws of Moses 289 Leader, Richard 82, 83, 131, 138, 141 344 INDEX PAGE Lear, Tobias 197 Lee Hall 175 Lee, Jesse 175, 176 Lewis, Alonzo, 64, 159, 160, 162 192, 200, 312, 315 John . 64, 66 Lexington Alarm 256 Lexington Green, April 19, 1775 216, 221 Leyden (Holland) Pilgrims 207 Lidgett, (Lt. Col.) . . . .211 Lincoln, Earl of 2 Lindsey, John 271 Lodge, Henry Cabot ... 259 Lord, Otis P. (Judge) ... 222 Loring, George B. (Dr.) . . 223 Louisburg (French Gibral- tar) 167 Lowell, James R 324 Lummus, Charles F. . . 308 Lynn 210 Lynn Academy ... 11 Lynn Bard 93 Lynn Great Woods .... 192 Lynn Militia Company . .150 Lynn Regis, England . . 4 Lynn Woods 266, 322 Lynnfield . 7, 95, 115, 247, 249 Lynnfield Muster Roll . . . 255, 261, 262 Macaulay, Thomas B. (His- torian) 206 Mack, Elisha 222 Main Street (Saugus) ... 23 Makepeace, Jonathan ... 64 Malbon, John 133 Mansfield, Andrew, 188, 254, 256 262,271,273 PAGE Mansfield, Daniel . 18, 257, 258 262, 273 John 273 Joseph 137 Oliver Fuller 98 Richard 64 Samuel 256 Thomas 173, 174 William . 169, 174, 256, 262 Marblehead (Abbot Hall) . 260 Marret, Sarah 26 Marriage, Colonial Statute of 154 Marsh, James Rumney (In- dian Deed to Hitch- ings) 35, 36 Marshall, Thomas .... 16, 153, 156, 264 Martin, George H 231 Mary Queen of Scots . . . 20"> Massachusetts Bay Colony, 215 Massachusetts Historical So- ciety .85 Massachusetts, Sixth Regi- ment, Baltimore, April 19, 1861 .... 215, 216 Masury, Joseph . . .26, 27 Mavericke, Moses .... 50 Mayflower (Cape Cod Har- bor) 207 Mclntyre, Hector ( Scott), 322 Mead, John 262 Melrose 25 Menotomy 248 Merrill, Benjamin ... 308 Merrimack River 241 Merritt, Charles 327 Methodist Meeting House, (First) 159 345 INDEX PAGE Milton (Blue Hills) ... 297 Minute Men 5 Mirror, The Lynn .... 308 Mistick 282 Moody, William H 220 Morton, Perez 53 Mottey, Joseph (Parson) . . 50 Mount Agamenticus . . .156 Mudge, Benjamin F. . . . 309 Enoch 175 Mulliken, Samuel Munroe, Timothy, 171, 254, 255 259, 277, 278, 279 Nahant 7, 81 Nahant Bank 12 Needham, Daniel . . 262, 273 Newburyport Turnpike . . 61 Newhall, Abijah 68 Asa ... 60, 255, 262, 271 Asa Tarbell . 223, 273, 277 Benjamin 303 B. F 96 Charles 169 Charles Henry . . . .161 Daniel 68 Elizabeth 255 Ellis 175, 274 Elmer Boardman ... 19 Ezekiel 255, 262 Hannah 39 Jacob (Landlord) . 104, 152 262, 273 James 273 James Robinson . . 66, 157 160, 299, 301-324 Jonathan 255 Josiah 223, 277 Mary 255 PAGE Newhall, Micajah . - . 171, 276 Nathaniel 255 Onesimus 256 Paul 175, 274 Sarah 255 Sarah (Tarbell) .... 255 Thomas . . . 195, 303, 320 Thomas B. . . 309, 310, 312 William 262 Nichols, Andrew 222 Noell, Increase 181 Norman Conquest 119 Northend, William D. . . 220 Norwood, David 256 William 256 Nourse, Aaron 262 Rebecca 254 Nowell, Increase 141 Nurse, Rebecca 58 Oaklandvale 78 Old Essex Chapter, S.A.R., 259 ' ' Old Tunnel ' ' Meeting House 64, 66, 161, 167, 175, 266, 267 Oldpath, Obadiah (Lin), 318, 322 Oliver, Henry .... 172, 276 Henry K 223 Onslow, Arthur (Sir) ... 200 Ordinance of Marriage . .154 Orne, Samuel 250 Otis, James 53, 54 Palfray, John Gorham (Dr.) 203, 20& Palmer, J 53 Park Commissioners . . . 332 Parker, Benjamin . . . 23, 116 David (Major) (Capt.) 104, 248 346 INDEX PAGE Parker, Thomas 269 Parris, Samuel (Rev.) . 59, 254 Parsons, Ebenezer . . 262, 312 Mary A. (Mrs.) . . . .114 Obediah (Rev, ) . . . . 176 Pattee, W. S. (Dr.), 136, 137, 138 Paule, John 17 Payne, William 140 Peabody, Dean 312 Peabody (Lexington Monu- ment) 279 Pearson, John 269 Pelsue, John 256 Penn, William 164 Penny Brook 48, 69 Pepperell, William (Sir) . . 30 Pepys, Samuel (Diary) . . 69 Perkins, John .... 247, 262 Perry, Thaddeus . . . 256, 262 Pery, Richard 181 Peters, Hugh 208, 264 Phebe (slave) . . . . 64, 65, 66 Phillips, George W 28 John 49 Pickering, Timothy, 221, 222, 224 Timothy, Jr 53, 60 Pilgrims, The .... 208, 216 Pinchion, William .... 181 Pine Tree Shilling .... 4 Pirates' Lookout 91 Plantation, The .... 185, 189 Plough Plain 34 Plummer, Caroline .... 40 Plymouth Rock .... 106,208 Pompey (slave) 88, 93 Pool, John (Capt.) .... 53 Poole, Jona 269, 270 Poore, Ben : Perley . . . . 223 Potter, Nicholas 137 PAGE Pottery at Salem .... 136 Franker 's Pond 73 Pratt, John 276 Richard 333 Prescott, James 53 Preston, Levi (Capt.) 245,246,247 Province Laws 121 Provincial Charter . .161,192 Prynne, Hester(Hawthorne),322 Purchess (Purchis), John . 140 Oliver 140 Purinton, James 68 Puritan Commonwealth in New England .... 290 Puritan Exodus 2 Puritan Sabbath, The ... 103 Puritan Theocracy . . 16, 161 237, 263 Puritanism 106 Puritans 184, 208, 209 Putnam, Samuell .... 255 Quakers 163, 165 Queen Elizabeth . . . 205, 206 Randolph, Edward .... 198, 209, 211, 212 Read, Philip (Dr.) ... 146 Reading 7 Reading (Lynn Village) . . 266 Records of Lynn, The ... 188 Registry of Deeds . . . . 187 Reporter, Lynn 323 Rhodes, Aaron 322 Thomas 169, 174 Richardson, William ... 251 Riddon (Raddin), Benjamin 270 Robinson, James 196 John (Rev.) 207 347 INDEX PAGE Roby, Joseph (Rev.) 48, 117, 257 Rachel (Proctor) . .101 Rosewell, Henry (Sir) . 180, 181 Rowell, Joseph M. . . 202 Rowley, Thomas 321 Ruggles, George 138 Russell, Jason .... 250, 255 Sadler, Richard (First Clerk of the Writs) . . .196 Salem 129, 210 Salem Gazette .... 304, 305 Salem, North Bridge, Feb- ruary 28, 1775 . . . .221 Salem Pottery 136 Salem Quarterly Court . 17 Salem Turnpike .... 6, 9 Salmon, Daniel 187 Salt Work 182 Saltonstall, Leverett ... 222 Richard (Sir)181,183, 184,225 Sanderson, Howard K. , 248, 249 Sargent, Nathaniel Peaslee, (50 Saugus . . 7, 15, 49, 81, 95, 101 Saugus, River of 3 Saugus River, . . 48, 57, 91, 101 254, 282 Saunders, Edward W.,26, 27, 28 Savage, James .... 134, 136 Thomas 17, 143 Saxon Gavelkind 119 Scott, Andrew A 4, 79 Scott's Mills 4 Second Parish (Lynnfield) . 162 Second Parish (Saugus) 274, 275 Sewall, Samuel (Chief Justice) 196, 220, 304 Sewall's (Samuel) Diary . . 85 Shakespeare 206 PAGE Sharpe, Tho 184 Shawmut 2 Sheldon, Ephraim, Jr. . . i'56 Francis 256 Shepard, Jeremiah (Rev.) . 8, 165, 198, 212, 322 Shepherd, William . . . . 293 Sherman, Nathaniel . . . 247, 255, 261 Shorey, John L 202 Shute, Richard 171 Samuel (Gov.) 10'. Silsbee, Nehemiah .... 275 "Six Hundred Acres, The " 31. 42 Smith, Amos 256 Southcott, Thomas . . 180, 181 Sparhawk, Nathaniel (Rev.) 112 Spooner, W 53 Stamp Act 204 Standard History of Essex County (Jewett) . . 328 State Constitution (Mass.), 122 Stickney, Jeremiah C. . . 309, 310, 311, 312 Stocker, Eben 62 Strawberry Brook . . . 190 Striker, Joseph 6^ Stuart Kings 214 Suffolk Deeds .... 134, 137 13S. 142, 145 Swone, John 256 Swain, John 256 Swaine, Jeremy 269 Swampscott 7 Sweetser, Samuel 27:! Samuel, Jr 40 Swett, Samuel 110 William Gray (Rev.) . 110 348 INDEX PAGE Swift (Dean) 330 Tapley, Henry F. 70 Tarbell, Cornelius . . . . 254 Elizabeth 50, 58 Elizabeth Cook . . . . 254 John 59, 254 Jonathan .... 58, 59, 60 253, 254, 255, 270, 273, 279 Jonathan, Jr. . . 253, 254 Mary (Felton) . . . . 253 Mary (Sharpe) .... 254 Sarah 255 Tarbox, John 137 Taylor, Anna 87, 116 Christopher 86 David 11 Edward T 49 Eldad 53 James . . . 31, 85, 86, 116 William 115, 116 Thacher, Thomas Gushing (Rev.) 176 Third or West Parish (Saugus) 47,49 Thomson-Houston Electric Co. 302 Thoreau's "Walden Pond," 325 Tichborne, 'Robert (Sir) . . 142 Ting, William 144 Tingle, William 137 Tirrell, Minot, Jr 312 Tomlins, Edward . . . . 4, 187 Townsend, Daniel, 248, 249, 250 251, 252, 253 256, 260, 262, 278 Jacob 250 John 250, 269 Mary (Hutchinson) . . 249 PAGE Townsend, Thomas, 250,252,255 William H 253 Zerviah 250 Zerviah, Mrs. (Upton) . 250, 252 Tracy, Cyrus Mason . 299, 323 325-332 Transcript, Lynn 327 Treadwell, John (Rev.) . 8, 257 Tucker, Ichabod . . . 221, 222 Tufts, David 7 Gardiner (Col.) . . 328, 329 Richard 7 Turner, Nathaniel . . - 4, 187 Tyndale (Dr.) 322 Underbill (Capt.) 282 Upton, Abra 256 John .... 250, 256, 262 John, Jr 273, 277 Zerviah 250 Vassall, Samuel 181 William 181, 184 Ven, John 181 Waite, Jonathan 115 John 115 Walker, Richard 156 Walnut Street . . . . 61, 7 Walpole, Horace 321 Walton, Izaak 74 Nathan 262 Ward, Nathaniel (Rev.) . . 284 Washbourne, Mr 224 Washington, George (Presi- dent) 5, 54, 197 Waverly Oaks 233 Webb, Henry ... 140, 144 349 INDEX PAGE Wellman, Jesse . . 252, 255, 262 Jonathan 255, 262 Thomas 256, 262 Whetcombe, Symon . 180, 187 Whitcomb, John 53 Whitman, Walt 307 White, Gilbert, ' 'Natural His- tory of Selborne" . . 325 John 35 Whiting, Elizabeth St. John, 319 Samuel (Rev.) . 4, 152, 319 William 319 Whitmore, William H. . . 284 Whittier, John G. . . 297, 330 Wiggins, Thomas 137 Wiley, Thomas 147 Caleb 10 William and Mary . . . .121 William of Orange, 207, 211, 238 Williams, Roger . 282, 288, 289 Willis, Thomas . . 4, 187, 195 Winslow, Josiah . . . 141, 144 Josiah (Gov.) 213 PAGE Winthrop, John (Gov.) . 53, 54 153, 225, 281, 282, 283 284, 285, 287, 288, 295 John, Jr. (Gov. Conn.) . 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 150 John, Sr 183, Is4 Robert, Jr. ... 130, 131 Withington, Leonard (Rev. Dr.) 222 Wizard of the North ... 322 Wolf Hill 163 Wolton (Walton) Nathaniel, 256 Timo 255 " Wonder -Working Provi- dence of Sion's Saviour in New England" . .136 Wood, John .... 2, 297 William 297 Wright, Nathaniel . . . .181 Richard 186 Young, John (Sir) . . . 180, 181 350 16315 A 000 677 062 2