Reading for Children. 67 18 •py 1 \ HISTORY. JOHN WINTHROP. %^-, .«V^ -i \ * I OF «fiN'G< >>«i ^ O A i^^ O/^ASHlH* / » J < 1 I CAMBRIDGE : JOHN WILSON AND SON.- 2Eniljn:sitg ^rcss. i886. "^1 Copyright, 1886, by N. Moore. C| w « • JOHN WINTHROP. 1630. I. On a day in March, in the year 1630, a good ship rode at anchor off the EngHsh shore. She bore a company of EngHsh Puritans who were bidding good-by to old England and turning their faces toward a new country far beyond sight in the west. Puritans fared badly in England in those days. Their church services and church beliefs were not quite like those of the king and bishops, and this so displeased the king and bishops that Puritan meetings were forbid- den, and Puritan preachers driven from their pulpits. For the sake of being free to worship God in the way they thought right, these Puritans were setting forth to plant their church over seas, in America. Their chief man was John Winthrop ; he was to be their governor. The ship lay near Cowes, waiting for the wind to veer. Day after day she rocked there, while gusts swept down upon her from the west or southwest, and rain fell upon her deck. Stormy March would not let her go. Some of the people on board of her came from the English town of Boston, among them Mr. Isaac Johnson and his wife, the lady Arbella. Lady Arbella was an earl's daughter, and one who had never suffered hardship. She found herself now, not in a fine, roomy steamer like that in which we would cross the Atlantic, but crowded into close quarters on a little pitching vessel, with poor food and stifling air. She must have grown very tired of the ship even before it put out to sea. We are glad to read in Governor Winthrop's journal, begun at Cowes, that " the lady Arbella and the gen- tlewomen and Mr. Johnson and some others went on shore to refresh themselves." 3 Lady Arbella's name came first in whatever Governor Winthrop wrote about the women of the company, and her comfort was the first to be cared for whenever comfort could be thought of at all. Every one must have wished to serve the gentle and delicate lady; the ship itself took on a new name for her. It became the " Ar- bella " in her honor. Three other ships were ready to sail with Governor Winthrop's vessel ; seven more were to follow. Governor Winthrop had with him on board the "Arbella"two young sons, — Stephen Winthrop, a boy twelve years old, and Adam, who was only ten. An older son, Henry, followed in one of the other ships. Governor Winthrops wife and the rest of his family did not leave England until nearly a year later. For a whole week the "Arbella" waited at Cowes ; for another week she was anchored near Yarmouth, then, on Thursday, the 8th of April, " about six in the morning, the wind 4 being E. and N., and fair weather," she " weiofhed anchor and set sail." The captain of the "Arbella" had been told at Yarmouth that some Spanish vessels were lying in wait for his fleet England and Spain were at war then, and English vessels were very likely to meet with trouble from Span- iards upon the sea. On the morning of their second day from Yarmouth eight vessels were seen astern of them. The captain feared that they might be enemies. To put the " Arbella " in fighting order he " caused the gun-room and gun-deck to be cleared," all the hammocks to be taken down, the guns to be loaded, and powder-chests and fireworks to be made ready. " After noon," the journal goes on to say, " we still saw those eight ships to stand towards us. Having more wind than we, they came up apace . . . wl>ereupon we all prepared to fight with them, and took down some cabins which were in the way of our ordnance, and out of every ship were thrown such bed matters as were subject to take fire, . . . and drew forth our men and armed them with muskets and other weapons and instruments for fireworks, and for an experiment our captain shot a ball of wildfire fastened to an arrow, out of a cross- bow, which burnt in the water a good time. The lady Arbella and the other women and children were removed into the lower deck that they might be out of danger. All things being thus fitted, we went to prayer upon the upper deck. It was much to see how cheerful and comfortable all the company appeared ; not a woman or child that shewed fear. . . . " It was now about one of the clock, and the fleet seemed to be within a league of us ; there- fore our captain, because he would shew he was not afraid of them, and that he might see the issue before night should overtake us, tacked about and stood to meet them, and when we came near we perceived them to be our friends. ... So when we drew near, every ship (as they met) saluted each other and the mus- keteers discharged their small shot ; and so 6 God be praised, our fear and danger was turned into mirth and friendly entertainment. "Our danger being thus over, we espied two boats on fishing in the channel ; so every of our four ships manned out a skiff, and we bought of them great store of excellent fresh fish of divers sorts." The children of the ship, and a number of the grown people too, were seasick for a time. They lay in the close cabin in a very unhappy state. One day, when they had begun to feel better, Governor Winthrop sent for them to come on deck. They dragged themselves up, though some of them were hardly able to crawl. A rope was then stretched along the deck, and they were made to stand, " some of one side, and some of the other, and sway it up and dow^n till they were warm, and by this means they soon grew well and merry." Upon the next rough day some were sick, as before ; but Governor Winthrop wrote : " Such as came up upon the deck, and stirred them- selves, were presently well again. Therefore 7 our captain set our children and young men to some harmless exercises, which the seamen were very active in, and did our people much good, though they would sometimes play the wags with them." Too much playing the wag would have been quickly checked. Puritan children were taught that they should be seen, not heard. Puritan young folks were led in staid and serious ways. Puritan men and women were grave, even stern. They had seen a great deal of folly and sin among a light-hearted set of people in England. They were so bent on keeping their children from folly and sin that they sometimes kept them from light-heartedness as well. We cross the ocean now in nine, eight, seven days. Governor Winthrop was seventy-six days in crossing.^ He was at sea through all of April, through all of May; and not until the 6th of June did he come in sight of land. On the 8th, these land-hungry voyagers caught a glimpse of the beautiful hills of Mount Desert, blue, serene, stately, in the distance. 1 Leaving Cowes March 29, anchoring at Salem June 12. 8 The journey had been most wearisome. Storm after storm had beaten upon the vessel ; the people, cramped in narrow space, had suf- fered for want of exercise. Their diet of salted meats had caused an illness among them. They longed for the wide green reaches of the solid earth. Rejoice with them, for here Governor Win- throp could write : " We had now fair sunshine weather, and so pleasant a sweet air as did much refresh us, and there came a smell off the shore like the smell of a garden. There came a wdld pigeon into our ship, and another small land bird." Four days after that the " Arbella " came to anchor in Salem Harbor. Salem was a half-starved little settlement, held to its high courage by a few brave men. Its people looked eagerly for the coming of the ships, and, though food for their own daily needs was far from plentiful, they had tasked their larders to the uttermost to provide good cheer for their guests. A supper was prepared 9 on shore, — "a good supper," writes Governor Winthrop, " of venison pasty." The pasty was not for the whole ship's company; but those who were not asked to the supper found another feast spread for them in the kindly fields. Ripe and red it glowed under its cool, dark leaves. What a sight for sea-parched men ! Governor Winthrop, after telling us of the pasty, writes: "In the mean time most of our people went on shore upon the land of Cape Ann, which lay very near us, and gathered store of fine strawberries." That same day Stephen and Adam W^inthrop had their first sight of a red man ; for an Indian paddled his canoe to the ship's side, and, com- ing aboard, slept there all night. All this fell on a Saturday. The passengers remained upon the " Arbella " until Monday. Then, leaving the ship, while its guns bade them a loud farewell, they took up their abode for a while in Salem. lO II. " Salem, where wee landed, pleased us not," wrote Mr. Dudley to the Countess of Lincoln, Lady Arbella's mother. Since they did not care to remain in Salem Governor Winthrop and others set about find- ing a better site for the town they wished to build. The journal says, " We went to Mat- tachusetts to find out a place for our sitting down." Mattachusetts, Masachulets, Messatsoosec, Massachusetts,^ — the word was spelled in many ways, — meant then only the land near Boston Harbor. Salem and Plymouth were quite outside of the Massachusetts of those days. 1 Messatsoosec or Massachusetts, it is thought, was the Indian name given to a hillock on the shore of Quincy Bay. We know that it was also given to the hilly land near the mouth of Charles River, and to the Indian tribe dwelling in this part of the country. Part of Quincy was known as the Massachusetts Fields, and Blue Hill once was called Massachusetts Mount. II Governor Winthrop visited Charlestown and Noddle's Island,^ and went six miles up the Mys- tic River. He also found his way to the small settlement at Nantasket. Returning, he advised the company to remove to Charlestown. Trouble was beginning to press heavily upon them. The sick did not revive, grumblers made bitter complaints, the weak-hearted would gladly have gone back to England. Governor Winthrop's hope and cheer did not forsake him, though these murmurings came to his ears at a time when he had his special grief to bear. This special grief was the death of his son Henry. Henry Winthrop arrived in Salem soon after his father's return from Massachusetts. On the very day of landing he started, with two or three of the ship's ofHcers, to see some Indian wigwams not far away. " They saw, on the other side of the river, a small canoe. He would have had one of the company swim over and fetch it, rather than walk several miles on foot, 1 East Boston. 12 it being very hot weather, but none of the party could swim but himself; and so he plunged in, and, as he was swimming over, was taken with the cramp a few roods from shore, and drowned."-^ " My son Henry ! my son Henry ! " wrote Governor Winthrop to his wife. " Ah, poor child ! Yet it grieves me much more for my dear daughter.^ . . . Yet for all these things (I praise my God) I am not discouraged." He was not discouraged. There was dis- couragement enough among his people. They looked to him for strength. He laid his bur- den aside, that he might help them in bearing theirs. The company left Salem for Charlestown,. but their suffering did not cease. Charlestown had not shelter for so many homeless folk. Governor Winthrop and others of the foremost men used the " Great House," which had been put up the year before ; and " the mmltitude set up cottages, tents and ^ Family Records. ^ Henry's wife in England. 13 booths about the Town HIll."-^ Samuel Green, the printer, who came from England in the ship with Mr. Dudley, was one of those who had not even a tent to sleep in. Long afterward, when he had a very good roof, not only for himself but for his family, he used to tell his children that when he first came ashore he and several others were glad to lodge at night in an empty cask ! It was a life that none but the strongest could endure. The sick sank under it ; num- bers of them died. Read this, wTitten by one who saw it all himself : " Almost in every fam- ily .. . mourning and woe was heard, and no fresh food to be had to cherish them. . . . ,And that which added to their present distress was the want of fresh water ; for although the place did afford plenty, yet for the present they could find but one spring and that not to be come at but when the tide was downe."^ Lady Arbella was not even well enough to get to Charlestown. She lingered in Salem, 1 Town Records. 2 Edward Johnson. 14 and before long "left that wilderness for the heavenly paradise."^ "She took New England in her way to heaven." ^ Looking south across the river, Governor Winthrop and his people could see a three- peaked hill rising from a peninsula upon the further shore. The Indian name for the peninsula was Shawmut, but the Charlestown folk called it Tri-mountain, for its triple hill. Tri-mountain had upon it one small cottage, in which lived Mr. William Blackstone, — a man who seemed to care for books and solitude more than for anything else in the world. He owned about one fifteenth of Tri-mountain, or Shawmut, and had there a garden, a spring, and an orchard. His spring was not the only one upon the place ; Tri-mountain abounded in springs ; one of the best was upon the eastern shore. " Mr. Blackstone," say the Charlestown Rec- ords, "dwelling on the other side Charles River, alone, at a place by the Indians called Shaw- 1 Cotton Mather. 15 mut, where he only had a cottage, at or not far off the place called Blackstone's Point, he came and acquaint the governor of an excellent spring there, withal inviting and soliciting him thither." Governor Winthrop thought well of Mr. Blackstone's invitation ; he decided to take up his abode near the " Great Spring," which was where our post-office now stands. Through the summer, some at one time some at another, most of the company crossed to Tri-mountain and settled themselves in their new homes. One of the first boats touching at the Shawmut side of the river carried a lively young woman named Anne, who, " being at that time but a romping girl," sprang from the boat declaring that she would be the first to land. She was not only first among her companions in stepping ashore, but first among all white women in treading Boston soil; no wom.an of her race had set foot here before. Anne Pollard s life was a very long one ; she lived to be one hundred and five years old. i6 Her account of certain matters which no one else was old enough or clear-headed enough to remember is of service still. She has said that our hills were covered with blueberry and other bushes, and that the whole place was very uneven, abounding in swamps and hollows. Governor Winthrop did not leave Charles- tow^n until the middle or latter part of the au- tumn ; then his house, the frame of which was already begun, was carried across the river. The Old South Church, on Washington Street, stands upon what was once Governor Win- throp's garden. Mr. Isaac Johnson's land w^as where King's Chapel is now. Mr. John- son did not live to build upon his land: he died in Charlestown, and the lot became his burial-place ; it is the oldest burial-ground in Boston. " About two in the morning Mr. Isaac John- son died ; his wife, the lady Arbella, of the house of Lincoln, being dead about one month before. He was a holy man and wise, and died 17 in sweet peace, leaving some part of his sub- stance to the colony." ^ The Charlestown Records go on to tell us that " After the death of Mr. Johnson and divers others, the Governor, with Mr. Wilson, and the greater part of the church removed thither : whither also the frame of the Gover- nor's house in preparation at this time was . . . carried ; when people began to build their houses against winter; and this place was called Boston.^ ^ Governor W'inthrop's Journal. 2 The name " Boston " was given to the town on the 17th of Sep- tember, 1630. The Colony Records say: "It is ordered that Tri- mountain shall be called Boston." i8 III. Governor Winthrop, when settled in his Boston home, wrote: "My dear wife, we are here in a paradise. Though we have not beef and mutton, &c., yet (God be praised) we want them not; our Indian corn answers for all." Their Indian corn, alas, soon became scarce ; in place of meal the women learned to make a poor kind of flour from acorns, and the chil- dren were glad to dig clams and mussels to eke out their scanty dinners. The ship " Lyon " had long ago been sent to England for fresh supplies; but week after week, month after month went by, and still she did not return. Winter soon closed in upon them ; winter, fiercer, drearier than our winters usually are, — colder far than any they had known in England. Snow covered the ground-nuts and acorns, ice held fast the clams ; the corn was nearly gone. " People were very much tired and discouraged," 19 say the Charlestown Records, " especially when they heard that the Governor himself had the last batch of bread in the oven." We read that at the very time when that last batch of bread was in the oven a man came to Governor Winthrop to beg some meal. The little that was left was promptly given, and — wonderful ! — that same day the ship arrived. Cotton Mather tells the story : " On February 5th, . . . when he was distributing the last handful of meal in the barrel unto a poor man distressed by the ' wolf at the door,' at that in- stant they spied a ship arrived at the harbour's mouth, laden with provisions for them all." The ship at the harbor's mouth was the " Lyon ; " hunger was past, and a Thanksgiving Day was kept with rejoicing by all plantations. " We held a day of thanksgiving, for this ship's arrival," says the journal, and gives the date, — the 22d of February, 1631.^ This was Boston's first Thanksgiving Day. Salem had had one in July, after the safe arrival of the 1 On the 22d of February, 1732, George W^ashington was born. 20 ships. Plymouth had had a famous one ten years before, in November, after the gathering-in of her first harvest; and this Plymouth Thanks- giving Day we celebrate yearly. In the spring the settlers planted many an acre of pease, beans, and corn. No other win- ter should find them waiting for ships to bring them food. The cornfields on the slope of the southernmost hill gave the hill a short-lived name, — the " Corn-hill," people called it. A fort soon took the place of the corn, and the hill became Fort Hill instead. The fort has gone, the hill has been cut away ; and where they once were we have only Fort Square. The country at the south of Boston was given the name " Rocksbury," for its pudding- stone ledges. Wolves prowled there, and In- dians were not far away. To keep out wolves and Indians the Boston folk built a wall on the narrow neck between their town and Rox- bury; and an officer and six men lived by the wall as a constant guard. It was quite near the place where Dover Street is now. 21 A sentry was posted on the Treamount's highest peak ; later, a beacon was raised there, — a tall, stout mast with an arm atop, and a great kettle of tar at the end of the arm. This hill had two names, — Sentry Hill in the sentry's time, and Beacon Hill since. The Indians, after all, gave the town no trouble ; they were always friendly to Governor Winthrop. Manv of the Indians who had lived near the coast had been killed by a great plague which had swept through their country some years before ; those who were spared by the plague had been weakened by wars. The Massa- chusetts tribe, once large and powerful, was now made up of a very few families, led by a chief called Chick-a-tau-bot, " House-a-fire," who was himself ruled by a greater chief named Massasoit. Chickataubot had seen the " white birds " of the pale-faces come flying across the water to his shore, had watched the building of the white men's wigwams, had touched the soft. 22 warm garments of the strangers, and listened to the thunder which they carried in their hands. He wished to make them his allies. Leaving his home in Neponset, he went, with a band of his people, both men and women, to Governor Winthrops house in Boston, and there, with his politest words and gestures, offered a gift, — a hogshead of corn. Read the journal : " Chickatabot came with his sannops and squaws, and presented the governour with a hosfshead of Indian corn." The Governor took the corn, thanked Chick- ataubot, and invited him and all who were with him to sit and eat. They did so, and then began to think of going home. By this time great clouds had rolled over the sky, and a thunder-storm had begun. Governor Winthrop asked his guests to remain ; but Chickataubot knew that his people could not long be pleasant inmates of an English house, and wisely sent them off in the midst of the storm, though he himself and one brave and a squaw did stay all night. " The next day after dinner he re- o • « 23 turned home, the governour giving him cheese and peas and a mug and some other small things." — Journal. About three weeks after this, the journal tells us, " Chickatabot came to the governour and desired to buy some English clothes for him- self. The governour told him, that English sagamores did not use to truck ; but he called his tailor and gave him order to make him a suit of clothes ; whereupon he gave the govern- our two large skins of coat beaver, and, after he and his men had dined, they departed, and said he would come again three days after for his suit." He did not fail to come. " Chickatabot came to the governour again, and he put him into a very good new suit from head to foot, and after he set meat before them ; but he 'would not eat till the governour had given thanks, and after meat he desired him to do the like, and so departed." Wolves were nearly as plenty as Indians, and could not so easily be turned into friends. Gov- 24 ernor WInthrop's farm^ on the Mystic suffered from them. One evening, "The governour, be- ing at his farm-house at Mistick, walked out after supper and took a piece in his hand, sup- posing he might see a wolf (for they came daily about the house, and killed swine and calves, &c.); and, being about half a mile off, it grew suddenly dark, so as in coming home, he mis- took his path, and went till he came to a little house of Sagamore John,^ w^hich stood empty. There he stayed, and having a piece of match in his pocket (for he always carried about him match and a compass, and in summer time snake- weed) he made a good fire near the house, and lay down upon some old mats, which he found there, and so spent the night, sometimes walk- ing by the fire, sometimes singing psalms, and sometimes getting wood, but could not sleep. It w^as (through God's mercy) a warm night ; 1 Called " Ten Hills Farm " because ten hills could be counted around it. It was nearly opposite the entrance to Maiden River. 2 Sagamore John was an Indian. Indians often had several lodges in different parts of the forest, and slept in the nearest when out hunting. 25 but a little before day it began to rain, and, having no cloak, he made shift by a long pole to climb up into the house. In the morning, there came thither an Indian squaw, but per- ceiving her before she had opened the door, he barred her out ; yet she stayed there a great while essaying to get in, and at last she went away, and he returned safe home, his servants having been much perplexed for him, and hav- ing walked about and shot off pieces and hal- looed in the night, but he heard them not." ^ 1 Journal, History of New England. 26 IV. The ship " Lyon " came again in the following November, bringing from England Governor Winthrop's wife and the rest of the family, as well as John Eliot, and many others. Every ship brought more people : Boston grew. Life in such a new country could give the colonists little leisure ; artisans of all kinds were in great demand. Builders, masons, car- penters, stone-cutters, joiners, cobblers, had more than they could do. Men who were not skilled in any such craft became hewers of wood and drawers of water, or busied themselves with hunting, fishing, digging, planting, reaping, to keep the colony from starving. Upon the women fell the care of the households, and the spinning, weaving, and fashioning of garments. Governor Winthrop himself, for example's sake and because he wished to bear his share of the labor, worked heartily with his own hands whenever he saw need. 27 A great happiness and hope carried the Puri- tans through the trials of these first hard years. The freedom which they had come so far to seek was found. They now ordered their lives as they thought God willed that they should order them, and in this they were not hindered by any man. Looking forward to the future, they could see that their children and their children's children might do the same. Though they were still subjects of King Charles, they were more loyal to their church than to any king. They cared more for its welfare than for England. The church ruled the town. Its meetings called together old and young. The first meeting-house stood on King Street, — State Street, now ; Brazier's Building covers its site. Three times on Sunday, and several times through the week besides, the people gathered to listen to their minister, their church " teacher," their elders, or their deacons. Church was rest and healing to the weary in spirit, courage and fresh strength to the strong. 28 No time had these earnest folk for trifling. A dance was held to be a sinful waste of hours; theatres were left behind, it was hoped, forever. Yet the boys and girls were not wholly without play; out-door sports were in favor, and in-door games by no means despised. Adam Win- throp's days were surely far from dull ; his father wTote : " The governour and some com- pany with him went up by Charles River about eight miles above Watertown, and named the first brook on the north side of the river (being a fair stream, and coming from a pond a mile from the river) Beaver Brook, because the beavers had shorn down divers great trees there, and made divers dams across the brook. Thence they went to a great rock, upon which stood a high stone cleft in sunder, that four men might go through, which they called Ad- am's Chair, because the youngest of their com- pany was Adam Winthrop." And again, — " The governour, Mr. Nowell, Mr. Eliot, and others, went over Mistick River at Medford, and going N. and by E. among the rocks 29 about two or three miles, they came to a very great pond, having in the midst an island of about one acre, and very thick with trees of pine and beech ; and the pond had divers small rocks, standing up here and there in it, which they therefore called Spot Pond. They went all about it upon the ice. From thence (towards the N. W. about half a mile) they came to the top of a very high rock, beneath which (towards the N.) lies a goodly plain, part open land and part woody, from whence there is a fair prospect; but it being then close and rainy, they could see but a small distance. This place they called Cheese Rock, because, when they went to eat somewhat, they had only cheese (the governour's man forgetting, for haste, to put up some bread.)" Vanity of dress was frowned down. Young girls might not flaunt gay ribbons, nor must the gowns of their mothers be too rich or fine. Sober tints, quiet manners, were the rule. The Governor went plainly clad. Late hours were forbidden ; at nine o'clock out went the lights. Nine was the curfew hour, 30 the '' couvre-feu'' time. In the villages of old England a bell tolled the day to rest. Here in New England no bell had been heard as yet : a drum sounded the curfew here, and beat to church on Sundays. Nightly, when its roll was heard, embers were raked together and covered with ashes, that they might live to kindle the morrow's flame. Flint and tinder-box were at hand, to be used in case the coals should die ; but with proper care the coals did not die, and a glow was ready each morning to warm the stiffened fingers that searched for its welcome heat. Our way of flashing fire from a phos- phorus-tipped wand would have seemed like magic to Governor Winthrop's boys. A watch walked the streets throughout the night, shouting the hour with an " All 's well ! " Lamps for the street or light-houses for the shore there were none. Darkness settled over land and sea when the sun was gone. Wood was always a great lack in Boston. In 1637 Governor Winthrop wrote to his son, 31 *' We at Boston were almost ready to brake up for want of wood." The hill-sides did not bear enough to supply the towns-people with fuel ; logs had to be brought from the mainland or the islands. Governor Winthrop's own wood-pile was never low, for he had forest-trees upon his farm on the Mystic ; but some of his poorer neis^hbors were in sore need. This is what he did for one of them : "... In an hard and long winter, when wood was very scarce at Boston, a man gave him [Governor Win- throp] a private information that a needy person in the neighborhood stole wood some- times from his pile ; whereupon the governour in a seeming anger did reply, ' Does he so ? I '11 take a course with him ; go, call that man to me ; 1 11 warrant you I '11 cure him of steal- ing.' When the man came, the governour, considering that if he had stolen, it was more out of necessity than disposition, said unto him, ' Friend, it is a severe winter, and I doubt you are but meanly provided for wood ; wherefore I 32 would have you supply yourself at my wood-pile till this cold season be over.' And then he mer- rily asked his friends ' Whether he had not effec- tually cured this man of stealing his wood?'"-^ Years came and went. Boston prospered. Twelve times was John Winthrop chosen gov- ernor of the colony. In 1649 he died. The good he did lives still. Listen again to Mather's praise of him : " Yea, the governour sometimes made his own private purse to be the publick ; not by sucking into it, but by squeezing out of it." " 'T was his custom also to send some of his family upon errands unto the houses of the poor, about their meal time, on purpose to spy whether they wanted ; and if it were found that they wanted, he would make that the opportunity of sending supplies unto them!" He was " The terror oi the wicked, and the de- light of the sober, the envy of the many, but the hope of those who had any hopeful design in hand for the common good of the nation. 1 Cotton Mather, Magnalia. J) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 012 731